Magnus Grex School of Witchcraft and Wizardry » Places

         

Harvey

When the first disk of the White Album finished Harvey found himself restless. He’d intended to say in his room a good while longer, but hunger and boredom drove him to his feet. Carefully, he put the disk back in its sleeve and stored it on the bookcase beside his bed.

He slipped his wand in his back pocket, where it usually rested, and headed out. The common room was empty of people. In their place the Arietem house pets had taken possession of the furniture and beams of sunlight. Harvey was quite used to seeing the common room this way, having spent a fair amount of time dozing along with the animals at midday rather than attending class.

There were many good ways to navigate through the castle without getting spotted by faculty and staff. In his nocturnal explorations with Ronnie they’d all but mastered moving through Grex as easily as the ghosts. Well, Ronnie had mastered it better than he had, often slipping just out of notice while Harvey blundered his way right into a teacher’s path.

He hurried down a back corridor where he knew house elves frequented. They greeted him warmly, knowing he was there to snag some food. They piled most of a roast chicken, a huge jug of orange juice, and a bag of fruit in his arms. One elf, slightly larger than the others, with a huge chunk missing out of one of her ears, was always especially nice to Harvey, and slipped a box of chocolates in with the food.

For a while he moseyed back to the common room, trying to pick out a few of the chocolates without upsetting the jumble in his arms, but he passed a window and caught a flash of sunlight off the ocean. It pulled at him like a physical force in his chest, a painful longing under his breastbone. He’d had fun last night, but there was nothing like being out in the water on your own, feeling like you had the ocean completely to yourself.

He turned around, heading back down a narrow, twisting staircase to the closest exit to the beach. Once outside he was tempted sit in view of the classrooms where his friends were surely engaged in dull spellwork, but knew that would put him in full view of the teachers as well. Instead he went to a familiar spot, where the forest ran up almost into the water. There he sat crosslegged and worked through his meal.

The chicken was good, if a little cold by now, and he made himself sick finishing off every single chocolate. He decided to lay down in the sand and close his eye, let his stomach settle before getting into the water.