#8 | Key to my Heart

Harris loved to climb. He liked being high up, being close to the clouds. He could still think back and remember how the impression he'd first received of Hogwarts, with its high spiraling towards that scraped the clouds. Five years later and it still inspired a sense of awe in him, the way a person feels awe when they stare at a mountain or take in the vastness of the sea. 

He wandered with no particular destination in mind. His only general sense was to go up, to follow the spiral staircases as high as they would go. Maybe he would find a roof access or something equally as cool. He loved being a Hufflepuff and knew he didn't have the right academic inclinations to be a Ravenclaw, but he majorly envied the location of their common room. 

His legs carried him ever upward, the dull ache beginning to grow in his calves reminding him of countless hiking trips with his father. What were his parents doing now, he wondered? Maybe he would write them a letter at lunch to say hello. He tried to keep up with them as best he could, but Harris struggled with being present. He day dreamed often and that's usually where his letters stayed.

Having reached somewhat of a dead end, Harris ended up in an area with a few doors, all of which were locked. Was one of them a roof access? He certainly hoped so. He tried to jimmy the handles of the doors and force them open, but no luck. He didn't bother with magic on the locks- he knew better than that. The defenses at Hogwarts wouldn't be outsmarted by a 15 year old's magic.

Almost as an afterthought, he remembered a key shoved deep into one of the pockets of his robe. Where had it come from? He couldn't quite remember. Things just worked like that here... items appeared in your possession without much explanation. Harris had learned to accept it and not think about it too hard. He reached in and pulled out the bronze key, tracing his fingers along its divots. 

Would this unidentified key work on any of these doors? Stranger things had certainly happened. On a wing and on a prayer, Harris shoved the key into a door slot and was pleased to hear it clink into place, fitting snuggly with the locking mechanisms within the door. He opened the door with a push, hoping to find another set of stairs to the roof, but interested to see what lied behind the door regardless.