Grounds: The Boathouse

[Wilber Winterbottom]

Image Credit: Felixir

Every 1st September, new first years arrive at Hogwarts via boat, traveling from the outskirts of Hogsmeade, across the lake, and into the boathouse. This structure stands, logically enough, at the edge of the lake, and can be reached via a pathway from the courtyard, consisting of a long and winding stairway down the cliff face. A hidden passageway accessible from the inside of the boathouse leads up through the cliff itself, and emerges onto a patch of lawn which lies in the shadow of the castle.

All of the Hogwarts boats are stored here when not in use. You are free to take them out onto the lake, as long as you have permission from the groundskeeper to do so. Everything you might need for a trip out in the boats is hanging up around the walls, including oars and life jackets. Be sure to put everything back where you found it once you're done with it. Including - and especially - the boats themselves.

[AlwaysSnapesGirl]

Since their visit down by the boathouse last term hadn't resulted in anyone taking a dive in the lake, it now seemed like a good spot for his and Anna's cloud watching time. Or at least Ezra thought so, which was why he'd suggested it for their hangout. It had a great view of the lake and the sky in his opinion. Not that there wasn't a good view elsewhere on the grounds, but there was something about being out on the lake, even if only by sitting on the dock, that was really nice.

He kicked his shoes off and set them aside where the dock met the shore. Then he walked out onto the dock and took a seat on the end, letting his feet dip beneath the cool water, his eyes scanning the sky while he waited.

That cloud over there looked like...a bear? Or maybe a wolf? Hmm...

[sweetpinkpixie]

Anna had been rummaging through her trunk looking for something that she had really wanted to bring down with her but somewhere along the way she had stumbled upon her collection of painted rocks that had never been handed out and then all bets were off with regards to her search for whatever it was she had been looking for. Thus she had made her way from the Hufflepuffle common room with a small pouch containing the rocks and her runes that she had also found somewhere and held onto in spite of never taking Ancient Runes. She wasn't sure what to do with these today, though she supposed Ezra and her could hide some of these rocks around the boathouse since that was the intention of their creation in the first place and the wooden runes, well, maybe Ezra knew what they were and how to use them.

Anna pulled open the door to the boathouse with a gentle creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak and was relieved to hear no haunted noises today either. Incredibly easy to spot, Anna made her way over and maneuvered around the robes and oars that presented little obstacle for her to trip over and in a worst case scenario fall into the lake. A weird and confusingly not entirely unwanted twist occured in her stomach just moments before she called out his name which silenced her entirely with her mouth agape. Rubbing her cheeks briefly, she pulled herself together and flopped down right beside him. "Hey you," she smiled. "Come here often?"

[AlwaysSnapesGirl]

Lost in thought while examining the features of the clouds, Ezra didn’t notice the soft creaking noise that would’ve alerted him to Anna’s arrival. He had decided that the cloud he had been looking at was definitely more wolf-like. And that one over there looked like a stag, or perhaps a moose. Aaaand that other one there was sort of…bird-like? It wasn’t clear what kind of bird though, more of a generic bird-shape without any real identifying features. And…

He wasn’t sure how long he had been waiting, but it didn’t seem like very long when his curly-haired friend appeared beside him.

Ezra chuckled. "Oh yeah, all the time. Just call me Ezra the Boathouse Visitor." He grinned. "How're you?"

[sweetpinkpixie]

Anna sat wiggled a little closer to the edge after slipping her shoes off, her feet dangling above the surface of the lake below them tracing ripples with the tips of her toes as the sun hung in just the right spot in the afternoon sky. She could hear the gentle lapping of the water and the distant chirping of birds, but all she could focus on was the knot that insisted on forming in her stomach. His response, his seemingly easy confidence made her both drawn to him while also acutely aware of her own insecurities that seemed to snowball too easily these days. Maybe that was why her palms were always so unnecessarily sweaty.

"Ezra the Boathouse Visitor," she laughed, her voice steady, though inside she was a whirlwind of emotions, with a gentle shake of her head that tossed her curls every which way and caught the rays of the sun leaking through the boathouse's stained glass windows in a cascade of rainbow. "Not an objectionable moniker, but the one I frequently addressed you by in my thoughts was rather different altogether." Come to think of it, she was referring to people less and less by their whimsical nicknames these days.

Before they could completely slip her mind, the seventh year brought the bag of painted stones to her lap and opened them for Ezra to see. "I must admit, I had entirely overlooked this art project from last term," she explained while picking up a couple in her hand. "I strategically left at least fifty around the school and its grounds... yet now, I find myself unable to locate a single one. But that, of course, was the whole premise behind distributing them in the first place."