The stories the walls could tell. Or for that matter, the courtyards scattered on the ground floor, in particular the central courtyard with the arched hallways on all four sides, a lawn, a few shrubs and benches and an ancient oak.
Locations can be their own characters, the foils to the occupants that use them, the settings that differ for one person from the next. There may be adventure, comfort, frustration, despair, or peace. Follow the perspective of this courtyard, in no particular sequence, of what it becomes for different people throughout the day and what they become for it.(middle image)
Leaves scattered from the branches of the tree. Something was up there. Somethings. In the dim of the shading canopy there was a faint red glow that flickered before the
clabbert[1] swung off to another branch.
Heliotrope's webbed hands clapped to the spot the clabbert had been a moment too late.
Clabberts are tricky things to catch. Frog-like imps that act like monkeys, their bulbous heads have a row of prickly teeth, two small horns and a red pustule that glows whenever the clabbert senses danger. You might have told Heliotrope that clabberts are rare in the UK. These creatures are more popular in southern America, their warning lights useful to witches and wizards keeping an eye out for muggles, until international efforts were needed to create procedures for handling clabberts in muggle areas. Having the non-magical neighbors think that your tree of clabberts was a set of christmas lights up in June would cause confusion.
You might further say, if you were Salem staff or student that had any particular knowledge of the dragodirigible that clabberts were housed in specially enchanted cages in the underbelly of the blimp, out of respect to warn off other muggle aircraft that used a similar system of electronic lights for identification. And now that the dragodirigible was tethered near Hogwarts, who could stop from the odd frog monkey or two from escaping from time to time.
Although even if you told this to Heliotrope in this moment she wasn't paying attention. Her singular focus was the pursuit of the odd creature before her. She had been sitting the the courtyard doing nothing in particular when the green impish figure emerged from a bush. At once she had to follow it and catch it. She wondered what its mottled green skin would feel like, maybe similar to the rubbery textures she knew of creatures from the deep of her home loch.
The clabbert was not about to be handled though it had a grin one might call cheeky as it bounded out of reach each time, long webbed hands that could reach an opposing branch before its feet left the last. Heliotrope, with her own webbed hands, climbed after it oblivious to how the bark or twigs scrapped at her clothes.
It was a strange creature to be sure. Arguably amphibious, just like her, though more of a scamp than Professor Sandusky's pet capuchin Howler. Her experiences with the teacher's pet aided Heliotrope in her hunt. Each time she got closer just before the clabbert's pustule would glow red and it would dodge to another tree limb.
They perched apart, staring at each other with animalistic gaze, that instinct of the natural world. Heliotrope shifted one way, a feint, just enough to trigger the clabbert's sense of self preservation to scamper in another direction. That was the direction she wanted to go. She pounced, she nearly had it...
...but that led to her hands being filled with nothing but air as the clabbert managed to leap to a higher branch and dangle there, always just in time. And in the brief confusion Heliotrope forgot to find another branch to cling to now that she was in midair.
The mermish Hufflepuff fell from the tree, all fours bracing for impact and then she rolled, shrugging off the momentum until she slammed into a courtyard wall. Her sores and pains were nothing that concerned her, impacts that could be shaken off with further mobility.
She climbed to her feet, looking up at the tree where a faint red winked away in the green leaves, with a ribbit that sounded like a jeer.
[Oct 24] One Day, One Courtyard