Greer had taken a seat for her final start of term feast. It was so surreal that she was entereing her 7th year at Hogwarts. She felt ready to take on the world - or at least most of it. The magical creatures were a solid no and she was so glad she was able to drop that class the second she could.

Taking out of her new text books she hoped to the chapter she had left off on and began to read. She was sure that the table would fill in around her. She was more than willing to chat with anyone if they so chose - may she could find a first year to take under her wing? You know show them them the ropes? But who knows! All Greer knew is she was ready for whatever adventures this term was to bring.

Harvey was here, present and accounted for, and quite ready to take on the challenge of his second year. Not that he anticipated much of a challenge, except if something absolutely unhinged decided to happen at Hogwarts. His first year had been a breeze; Harv knew that it had everything to do with his nonchalant mannerisms. Life was so much easier when one rarely stressed about anything. Even now, sitting at the Ravenclaw table, he was lazily clapping along with his House as fresh faces joined them.

Hi, hello, everyone! Welcome!

There was no need to hop down the rabbit hole that was reading textbooks just yet like Greer was. Chatting was an option too!



By the time she made it to the Ravenclaw Table, Saina’s round face was light pink. She blamed the applause and all the spotlight that came with being newly Sorted. She disliked being in the spotlight so Sai hurriedly took a seat, hoping that that would be of some help. Still, she couldn’t exactly escape it all just yet. How rude it would be if she didn’t at least greet her Housemates.

“Hi, everyone,’’ came her greeting, albeit a tad breathlessly. “My name is Saina. It’s wonderful to be here!” To ground herself and not be too caught up in the excitement, Sai lightly tapped the wand stowed safely in its holster. The object brought her some level of comfort as she felt quite connected to it. That was when she spotted an older girl {Greer} reading a textbook. “Should I also have started reading my textbooks?” she blurted out.

Third year. New classes. New ideas. After planning all summer, Cat felt ready. So, she was exuding about as much confidence as a thirteen-year-old girl could as she approached her table.

There were only a few other people already there. Cat recognized one of the boys from the blue-hair fiasco that occurred at the last start-of-term feast, but the others were either new or new to her. She sat near the group, not wanting to appear rude, and gave them all a smile and a wave.

She arrived just in time to hear the newly-sorted girl ask a question and even though it definitely wasn’t directed toward her, Cat answered anyway. “It’s okay that you haven’t started. But I’d get going as quickly as you can. You’ll get a lot of information from your classes right off the bat, so it’ll probably feel better for you if you have some knowledge of what you’re getting into.” She was speaking from experience here. Although in her case, she’d absolutely devoured her texts and anything else she could get her hands on before starting school. She was planning on chilling out only slightly this year - other things to worry about, you know. But she’d still gotten through most of her third year texts by this point.

The journey back to Hogwarts had passed quietly, but because of an absence of noise. Iris had occupied a compartment with her dormmates who, having apparently forfeited sleep entirely the night before, had collapsed almost immediately, leaving her with uninterrupted hours and a floor scattered with parchment, notes, and a text far too delicate to risk mishandling.

It had been… productive.

The first hour alone had yielded a partial translation she had been circling for weeks — something rooted in grief, in guilt, in the way certain emotional states could anchor themselves to residual magic and distort it into something sentient, something volatile. Not quite possession. Not quite transformation. But adjacent to both in ways that felt uncomfortably reminiscent of documented obscurial instability. A fragile theory but still promising.

By the time the train had slowed into Hogsmeade, her notes had been carefully packed away and left behind with the rest of her things. Not the sort of material one brought into the Great Hall. Which left her, somewhat uncharacteristically, without a book since she had forgotten to retrieve it from her trunk during her haste to tidy up.

Still, she had entered the Great Hall with a lightness to her step that had not been there at the end of last term. Time, distance, and a particular afternoon had shifted something ― not resolved, but enough. The rotation between her aunts and uncle had also been a surprising breath of fresh air, but it had been absolutely incredible laying her head on her own pillow the last week of summer.

Her gaze drifted, just briefly, toward the Slytherin table — the smallest hint of a smile touching her expression before she looked away again. Instead, she moved toward her own table, slipping into a seat beside Cat and set neatly wrapped parcel set down in front of the younger Ravenclaw.

"Hi," she greeted softly, smoothing a hand over the paper unnecessarily. "One of my aunts took us to this massive outdoor music concert over the summer... and these made me think of you. Might help you stay out of trouble?"

Doubtful, but for a certain grump of a man's sanity, Iris could hope.

Her attention shifted again, softening as it landed on Harvey as she offered a polite and composed smile. One that was a hair warmer than her usual formalities, but didn't linger before her piercing blue eyes shifted to the newly Sorted first year.

"Welcome to Ravenclaw, Saina. I'm Iris." Her gaze flicked, almost wistfully, toward Greer's open textbook and the quiet envy of someone abruptly deprived of her usual shield settling in her chest and pout of her lips. "I've always been of the mind that it is never the wrong time to start reading, so long as one does it."

Beginning as a suggestion of silver blue drifting into form at the far end of the Ravenclaw House Table, Helena's presence unfolded like mist. The air thinned around her, and from that hush she unfurled — soft as breath on glass, luminous as moonlight caught in water. For a moment, she simply lingered there, gaze passing over the gathered students with an ethereal distant knowing, as though she were reading not their faces, but the thoughts tucked quietly behind them.

"Another term begins," she said at last, her voice scarcely louder than a whisper, yet it carried with perfect clarity, like ripples traveling across still water. "And with it… the same question, asked in countless forms." She tilted her head slightly as she glided forward, the hem of her translucent skirt just grazing the top of the table. "What will you choose to understand… and what will you be content merely to know?"

She grew still once more, her drifting quieting into a poised, weightless calm.

"Welcome, then… to Ravenclaw," she murmured, a warmth beneath the distance of her tone, faint as light through frost. "Where curiosity is both compass and companion… and where the pursuit of understanding is never quite finished. May you learn not only what is written,” she continued, her voice thinning into something more ephemeral still, "but what lingers between the lines… and within yourselves."

Her attention drifted along the table, pausing here and there without settling, her form wavering faintly as she did with her edges dissolving and reforming in a quiet rhythm before she continued with a delicate smile curling the corners of her lips.

"And so," she breathed, "let us begin… not with answers, but with a question.
I am not the words, yet I give them breath.
I am not the mind, yet I wander its depths.
I bridge what is written and what is understood—
What am I?"
Her form stirred with delicate intent, a faint ripple passing through her as though some unseen current had shifted. One pale, translucent hand rose, the motion unhurried and fluid, tracing a soft arc through the air. As it did, the candlelight bent subtly around her fingers, refracting in quiet shimmers.

"Do not be shy,” she encouraged. "Thought, after all, is meant to be shared… when one dares to give it form. This is but a warm up for what the Bronze Knocker has in store for you this term."

"Are you a piece of parchment?" Mira offered up as an answer to the Grey Lady's riddle. She had quietly slipped into a seat near the middle of the eagle table as their house ghost had made her translucent appearance. "Hello everyone," Mira now greeted with warm smiles all around to her fellow peers. "Did everyone hear? We are getting three new professors this year in Herbology, Flying and Transfiguration." Mira wondered curiously as she let her eyes trail up and down her house table and landing on the newly sorted first year [Saina]. "Welcome to Ravenclaw Saina, I'm Mirabelle."

Iris sitting next to her was a pleasant surprise, but Cat was even more surprised when the older girl placed a gift in front of her. Cat smiled, holding back her greeting and all the questions that popped up in her brain until Iris was done speaking.

“I need all the help I can get with that,” she said, only half-joking. She didn’t try to get into trouble, it’s just that things usually happened in her general vicinity and she was nothing if not nosy full of curiosity. Speaking of which- “Can I open it now?”

Though, it was at that point that Helena appeared. Cat’s eyes nearly sparkled in awe at the woman. Any chance to speak with her was a special one in Cat’s book. She stayed quiet, eyes locked on the ghost as she came closer, focusing on her words hard enough for a line to appear in the center of her forehead. When Helena had finished the riddle, Cat finally looked away, eyes landing on her friend and dormmate. She gave Mira a smile and a small wave before turning back to Helena.

“Are you intuition?” she guessed, head tilting slightly to one side.