"Hey guys! Look at this."
It was the afternoon, classes had just finished and Basil, Colin, Ginny, and Luna were walking along the lake.
Colin just returned from the common room holding a thick book in his hands. Opening it revealed pictures of Hogwarts and people flying on broomsticks.
"Look that's you Ginny. And there's Basil."
Colin pointed to a couple photos.
"Let's take a picture here."
They lined up in front of the great lake and took a photo using colins camera.
"Hey, I know some interesting places, wanna come?"
As someone who has visited many times, Basil naturally knew a lot about the castle.
Of course the others didnt know that.
So Basil led them towards the castle, telling tales of some of the paintings hanging in the castle.
"Hey, how do you know so much about the castle?" Asked Ginny. "Whenever I ask my brothers about Hogwarts they don't tell me anything."
"Didn't he say he came here before?" Luna chimed in.
"Yeah, I had a lot of time so I frequently wandered around."
"Look! That's the enterance to the kitchen." Basil pointed at a painting of a fruit bowl. "Just tickle the pear and it will open up."
"Wow!" The rest were surprised when the pear wiggled and turned into a green door.
Opening the door they saw a room similar in size to the great hall. In it there were four long tables with the high table at the end, just like the room above.
But thats not all, the room was filled with small creatures with bat-like ears wearing clean tea towels with a Hogwarts crest stamped on.
"What are they?" Colin was surprised and felt somewhat weird looking at those creatures.
"They are house elves. They make the food for meals and clean the castle." Ginny answered as Basil was distracted by a cake on a counter.
"Really? I thought the food was made with magic."
"Technically they used magic to prepare it. It's just that food cant be made just with magic." Luna chimed in.
"Cool!" Informed with new knowledge, Colin began taking photos of the house elves.
"Messers, Misses, how may us house elves help you." A squeaky voice drew their attention. Multiple house elves were surrounding them, each of them presenting a delicious dish.
"I'll take this." Basil took the cake he was staring at.
The house elves immediately brought out more cakes, shoving it into his arms excitedly.
Luma and Ginny also ordered some pudding and pies respectively.
"Come on, what do you want?" Ginny pushed Colin forward towards the buzzing house elves.
"Umm, sausages?" Panicking, Colin threw out the first thing that came to mind. And immediately a plate of sausages were thrust into his hands.
"Let's go now, there's a lot to explore." Basil pushed the rest out and led them to the upper floors.
Eventually they made it to the seventh floor. Plates empty they turned into a long corridor, a lonely tapestry of a brown haired man attempting to teach a bunch of trolls how to do ballet.
"That's Barnabas known for what you see." Basil twirled his lollipop in the general direction.
"What is he doing exactly?" Colin took a picture curiously.
"Oh! I know this one. That's Barnabas the Barmy, he tried to teach trolls ballet." Luna helpfully answered.
"What are you doing?" Ginny looked away from the tapestry only to find Basil walking in circles.
But as Colin and Luna looked back the wall opposite of the tapestry suddenly changed.
Lines apeared slithering across the wall slowly making out the outline of a door.
"This, my friends is the Room of Requirement. Otherwise known as the Come and Go Room, or the Room of Hidden Things."
The doors swung open revealing a massive room filled with mountains of broken furniture, dusty books, and cracked gems.
"Woah!"
"Cool!"
"Wow!"
Colin, Ginny, and Luna exclaimed in unison awed by the transformation and reveal.
Colin immediately began taking photos as Ginny and Luna went in looking at the countless gems and statues.
"How did you do that?" Luna asked Basil while picking up a cut gemstone.
"Just go past here three times while thinking of what you want. Then poof. It appears."
"Just like that?" Colin asked, still taking photos.
"Yes. Magic"
"Oh... I sort of forgot about that." Colin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Really? How do you do that?" Ginny was a little surprised when they were at Hogwarts, the most magical place in the world.
"I think he got lost in taking pictures. I get it, if you do what you like everything else gets tossed into the background. I do it a lot when looking for nargles." Luna turned around.
"Yeah, like that. What are nargles though?"
"They are little mischievous thieves that like to steal stuff. Have you seen one?" Luna answered enthusiastically, none of Ravenclaws believed her. It felt good that someone was curious.
"Dont listen to her. It's all made up, there is no evidence that it exists at all." Ginny inturupted them.
"Theres no evidence that it doesn't exist." Luna countered.
Just as Ginny was about to retort again, Basil inturupted them. "Relax, the world is big place. Look at the forbidden forest, most of it is uncharted and that's just a forest, what about the tall mountains, or the deep seas. You know less than one percent of the seas has been explored in all of history. Anything could be in there."
"Well.."
Ginny hesitated.what Basil said made sense. Mabye she was too narrow minded. "Sorry Luna. I was too rash."
"I don't mind." Luna smiled. "Why dont we explore the forbidden forest?"
"I don't think that's a good idea. Maybe when we graduate."
"Why dont we explore elsewhere, there's still a lot to see." Basil suggested. Everyone agreed, so they left the room and continued their journey.
...
"That was fun. Let's do it again some time."
They were sitting by the lake watching the evening sky, Colin was laying out the photos he took, as the others leaned in.
Tapestries and paintings, joyful house-elves, a tarnished silver diadem, broken furniture, dusty suits of armour, cracked mirrors, and delicious food. The photos were full of the stuff they saw earlier.
"What should we do now?" Ginny asked
"Isn't it dinner? Lets eat I'm hungry." Colin began collecting his photos and put all of them into his album.
"Im gonna put this back see you at dinner."
Colin began running back to the castle eager to eat.
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Luna has some screen time. :)