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**Wilber Winterbottom** · #1 (**permalink**) 12-27-2022, 12:45 AM

Graphic credit: Felixir

The large freshwater lake of Hogwarts is located just south of the castle. About half a mile wide in diameter, the lake dominates much of the school's landscape, a steely and ominous mass of icy water in the winter, yet an inviting and refreshing sight once the weather starts to heat up. On one of its banks, a towering beech tree stands sentinel, and is a popular location to meet and relax. Castle-side of the lake stands the boathouse.

You may swim in the lake, but be careful, and also mindful of the creatures that reside here. Merpeople, grindylows, and the Great Squid, to name but a few, call these watery depths their home. You would do well to leave them in peace. If they feel like it, they'll come to you; the Giant Squid, who goes by the name of Bartholomew Henry, has been known to bask in the shallows on sunny days.

OOC: Please do not RP for the Giant Squid.

sweetpinkpixie · 06-04-2026, 07:45 AM

The frozen lake stretched out before her like a sheet of polished silver, reflecting the pale winter sky overhead. Every now and then a breeze skimmed across its surface, carrying with it a bite sharp enough to redden cheeks and sting fingertips. Bundled in a dark burgundy coat that was just one shade away from black with a green-and-silver scarf looped loosely around her neck and hair flowing freely beneath her cream colored beanie, she stood near the edge of the lake with her hands tucked into her pockets. Beside her rested two pairs of ice skates, their blades gleaming faintly where she'd taken the time to sharpen them earlier in the week.

Not that she'd gone through any special effort.

Or planned this particularly far in advance.
Or spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering whether
Ariel would actually say yes when she'd invited her to hang out.
Or whether Ariel actually knew how to ice skate.

In hindsight, that probably would have been a useful question to ask before making plans around a frozen lake and two pairs of skates. Not that it particularly mattered. If Ariel could skate, great. Calliope would finally have someone worth racing across the ice.

And if she couldn't? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell...

She could teach her.

Calliope's gaze drifted briefly toward the spare pair resting beside her before she looked away again, lips threatening the faintest hint of a smirk.

It wasn't exactly difficult once you got the hang of it. Balance, confidence, momentum. Not all that different from flying, really. Besides, she'd spent enough years on skates and brooms to know how to break things down into manageable pieces. Where to place your weight. How to stop. How to fall without embarrassing yourself too badly.

And if teaching happened to require demonstrating things up close, steadying someone or catching them when they inevitably wobbled...

Well, that was simply part of the learning process now, wasn't it?

Calliope ignored the way that thought made her adjust the position of the second pair of skates for a second time and instead fixed her attention back on the path leading down from the castle... for nooooooo particular reason.

Obviously.

The brunette shifted her weight from one foot to the other and glanced across the frozen expanse again, determined NOT to look back in the direction of the castle for the fourth time in five minutes.

Zoe · 06-04-2026, 10:40 PM

Ariel approached with the same easy confidence she brought to most things, bundled in a thick maroon coat with a knitted scarf wrapped twice around her neck. A few curls had escaped her hat and danced in the breeze, and there was a pleasant flush to her cheeks from the walk down from the castle.

The sight that greeted her caused her pace to slow slightly.

Calliope was already waiting beside the lake, framed against the vast silver expanse of ice and winter sky. For a moment, Ariel simply admired the scene. The frozen lake glittered beneath weak sunlight, the surrounding trees standing silent along the shoreline, their snow-laden branches forming a distinctly sylvan border around the water's edge.

Then she noticed the pairs of skates and Ariel realized that she had, in fact, never ice skated before. Nevertheless, she wasn't particularly worried.

"Oh." A grin spread immediately across her face. "You came prepared."

Her gaze flicked from the skates to Calliope before she stopped beside her, hands tucked into her coat pockets.

"I should probably confess something before we get any farther..."

Ariel nudged one of the skate blades gently with the toe of her boot. "I've never actually done this before." There was absolutely no shame in the redhead's expression. If anything, she looked amused by the admission.

"I've flown brooms, ridden hippogriffs, spent an afternoon at my dad's zoo on the back of a graphorn once." A brief pause. "Well. More accurately, I spent several seconds on the back of a graphorn before it objected."

Her smile widened as she crouched to pick up the spare skates.

"But ice skating? Completely new. Which means one of two things is about to occur: either I'll discover a hidden talent—" She straightened and tilted her head. "—or you'll get the opportunity to watch me fall over repeatedly."

sweetpinkpixie · 06-06-2026, 04:34 AM

Calliope conveniently, selectively, forgot often how enthralled Ariel was with creatures ― which meant she performed a lot of mental gymnastics considering the Gryffindor's middle name demanded the reminder.

"A graphorn?" she repeated, eyebrows climbing and face really working hard to not look like she wanted to gag. "Why...would you do that?"

Calliope couldn't imagine voluntarily climbing onto a graphorn any more than she could imagine volunteering to wrestle a troll or take a leisurely swim with grindylows. She could think of at least 100 other things she'd rather do than even get within five feet of one of those beasts. Add another 300 other things and then, maybe, you might find riding a graphorn on the list of things she would want to do. 'Eat mystery Hog's Head stew for every meal' and 'let Professor Cloggs teach a six hour lecture on proper stretching technique' were several hundred slots above.

Her gaze dropped to the skates in Ariel's hands before she crouched to retrieve her own pair.

"If you've survived being launched off one of those things, your chances of surviving a little ice are probably excellent."

Settling onto a nearby bench, Calliope propped one skate against her knee and began loosening the laces with practiced fingers. The movement was easy, automatic, years of repetition leaving her hands to work while her attention wandered elsewhere. That elsewhere being the redhead, obviously.

"Come on. Sit." She pat the space beside her. "First lesson is getting these on without somehow managing to break an ankle before we even make it onto the ice." The corners of her mouth tugged upward as she tightened the first skate. "As fun as it would be to watch you struggle and gloat... I'm not going to just shove you out there and hope for the best. We'll start near the edge until you get your balance...then I'll shove you out there."

Her attention flicked briefly toward the frozen lake stretching out beyond them, silver and smooth beneath the winter light. A few firm pull later and the laces were secured. Calliope planted the blade against the ground before reaching for the second skate and slipped her other boot off.

"I've been skating since I was little." she continued with a casual shrug. "Not because we're some sort of winter sports family. We're really not."

If anything, the Barringtons belonged near beaches. Sunshine. Warm weather. Surfboards. Ocean.

"Most holidays and vacations involve sand, waves, and mamma and dad being absolutely shredding it on their surfboards." She pulled the laces on her second skate tight. "But every few years my parents get bored and decide we need culture or scenery or whatever excuse they're using that season."

The brunette finished lacing her second skate and planted both blades carefully against the frozen ground. She gave each foot an experimental tap, testing the fit, before rising smoothly to her feet.

"Which means you're in very capable hands. But I'm also going to enjoy being better at something for at least the next hour... so don't improve too quickly and ruin the fun. I don't get nearly enough opportunities to feel smug these days."

A bold face lie, and they both knew it.

She took a couple careful steps away from the bench before pivoting elegantly around and holding both hands out towards ~~her~~ the Gryffindor.

"Ready? I promise not to let you fall on purpose."

Zoe · 06-07-2026, 05:29 PM

Ariel's grin only widened at Calliope's horrified reaction.

"Because why not?" she answered as though that explained everything. Which, in Ariel's opinion, it did. "But, if I must be honest, it was only a juvenile graphorn. I thought Puck and I were cool like that, but clearly there is still some ground to make."

She dropped onto the bench beside Calliope, perhaps a bit too close, and immediately set about wrestling with the unfamiliar skates, turning one over in her hands with the sort of curiosity most people reserved for strange magical artefacts.

"They seem significantly less dangerous than graphorns," she observed. "Although I appreciate the warning about the ankle-breaking potential."

Ariel glanced sideways as Calliope worked through the laces with obvious experience. There was something almost fascinating about watching someone perform a skill they'd repeated so often it had become second nature. The movements were confident, effortless, familiar. An incalescent spark of admiration stirred somewhere in the back of her mind. It was rather like watching a skilled flyer mount a broom.

"Culture or scenery?" Ariel echoed with amusement as she managed to get one skate secured and lifted her foot experimentally. "That sounds suspiciously like parent code for 'we saw a brochure and got carried away.'"

Her own family holidays rarely involved brochures. They typically involved creatures. Occasionally creatures that should not have been approached. Frequently creatures that had approached them anyway.

The second skate took less time, succeeding with not tangling herself in the laces, which felt like an accomplishment worth celebrating.

By the time she stood, however, she immediately understood why Calliope had insisted on the lesson when she started wabbling. The hands that were held out to her had been latched onto immediately.

Though there was no concern or fear painted across the redhead's face. She was laughing.

"I feel like a newborn re'em discovering its legs for the first time."

sweetpinkpixie · 06-10-2026, 12:12 AM

Why not?

Calliope's eyebrows climbed. Her nose wrinkled. Her mouth flattened into such a thin line that it practically disappeared.

Did Ariel want an annotated list? Or was the way her face continued to contort as subtly as a bludger to the head provide enough context?

Horns, hooves (did they have hooves?), fangs, fur... those were just the tip of the iceberg.

"Oh no, yeah. For sure. Can't think of a single solid reason why..."

And they could just bypass the rest of the conversation about how indulgent her parents were, yeah?

The moment Ariel's hands latched onto hers, Calliope felt her full weight shift slightly forward enough to remind her that she was now directly responsible for preventing the Gryffindor from introducing herself to the ice face first.

A terrifying amount of responsibility, honestly.

But also...

Not entirely unlike zipping across the pitch towards the hoops with the quaffle tucked beneath her arm and three defenders bearing down on her. Or stepping onto a stage before a crowd with twirling her drumsticks in her fingers.

There was always that split second where things could go brilliantly or spectacularly wrong. Where a mistake would hurt. Where success felt earned. That little spike of risk was half the reason she enjoyed any of it in the first place ― not quite the thrill seeker in the way that was associated with Gryffindors, but not not like it either.

The same giddy rush fluttered briefly through her chest now as Ariel wobbled dangerously and entrusted the fifth year with not letting gravity win.

"That's because you basically are," she informed her dryly, fingers automatically tightening around Ariel's hands to steady her wobble. The words lost some of their bite when the corners of her mouth betrayed her with the beginning of a smile. She couldn't tell you what a re'em was, but if Ariel was saying that was what she felt like, then who was she to argue?

Especially when Ariel was laughing.

The ice gave a faint crunch beneath her skates as she eased them farther from shore.

"Right. First thing." she instructed while slowly skating backwards. Her grip remained steady around Ariel's hands as she gently drew the Gryffindor along behind her, matching every wobble and uncertain shift of balance with effortless corrections of her own. "Bend your knees a little... just enough that your legs stop locking up on you. Weight over the middle of your feet. If you start leaning backward, the ice is going to win that argument every single time."

Zoe · Today, 04:37 PM

Ariel laughed outright at the expression on Calliope's face. "See, that's exactly what Puck looked like before he threw me off."

The memory surfaced with perfect clarity: one deeply offended juvenile graphorn, one overly confident twelve-year-old Ariel, and approximately three seconds of cooperation before the situation had deteriorated spectacularly.

"Right. Knees bent. Don't argue with the ice." She nodded with exaggerated seriousness. "Got it." Whether she actually got it remained questionable.

The moment she attempted to adjust her stance, her skates slid in two slightly different directions. Ariel made a noise somewhere between a startled yelp and a laugh before managing to catch herself again, aided considerably by the fact that Calliope still had hold of both hands.

"Definitely a newborn re'em," she declared as the lake emitted a soft crack and groan.

The Gryffindor focused on her footing for several careful seconds while Calliope guided her across the ice. She bent her knees slightly and shifted her weight forward. It felt unnatural at first, but she discovered she was wobbling marginally less than before after several uncertain glides.

"Hey," she said, sounding genuinely surprised. "I think that actually helped." Her grin returned immediately.

Ariel glanced up from her feet to Calliope instead. The sight of the Slytherin skating backwards with such effortless confidence was distracting enough that she nearly forgot she was balancing on narrow blades over a frozen lake. Nearly.

"You make this look far too easy, you know."

Suddenly, a particularly ambitious wobble threatened to send her tumbling. Her hands tightened reflexively around Calliope's. For one alarming second, she tilted forward, then sideways, somehow corrected the wrong way entirely, and afterward...

Ariel stumbled directly into Calliope, laughter escaping her before she'd even come to a stop. For a moment she remained there, balanced mostly through luck and the fact that she'd accidentally ended up far closer to the other girl than she'd intended.

"Well," she said after a beat, looking at her with entirely unapologetic amusement dancing in her eyes, "good news." The smile that followed was bright enough to rival the snow. "The ice didn't win."

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