An active, character-driven Hogwarts experience set in the early 2000s. Unique items, plots, and features. Non-canon; this isn't Harry Potter's story, it's ours.
A new day at Hogwarts arrived with a cloudy yet warm morning, casting a mix of shineshine and shadow over the castle and its grounds. There was a freshness in the air, similar to the bloom of a new season. Despite how last year ended, this new term began with a sense of purpose and renewal. Something just felt different, but in a good way. The thrill of a new adventure, waiting to start.
The staff table was full, as Professors new and returning chatted away with each other -- while the Headmaster fussed with short notices and reminders, which kept appearing out of thin air over his morning tea.
Professors Traddles and Shaydwin were the last to arrive, looking as if they'd walked quite a distance to get there. They settled a mild squabble, then headed off to different areas of the head table. Traddles yawned widely, while casually removing a handful of tissues from his robes pocket -- passing them along the table to a perplexed Professor Snape, who cast him a highly suspicious look. Unsure what to do, Snape sat holding them awkwardly for a moment, then decided to just pocket the tissues.
Students gradually filled the hall, with 1st years sticking to the spot where they'd sat the night before -- a looking overwhelmed and a bit pale with nerves. 7th years were the exact opposite; many struggled to find someone in particular from that class group, with how mingled the 7th years were among all the other houses.
The 6th years were the quietest; either anxious about facing N.E.W.T year or simply having overslept. Many rested their heads on the tables or their arms, to catch a few extra minutes of sleep. Nearby pranksters had a fantastic time with that, until one nearly got their eyebrows singed off for waking a Gryffindor student, Duncan Babble.
Student schedules were magically assigned to everyone who sat at their house table -- and even those had to track down some stray 7th years. The prospect of Quidditch Tryouts woke a few sleepy students, either in their own excitement or simply because those around them could not shut up about it. And as per annual tradition for the first day of classes, everyone cast the 1st years silent pity or sympathy that their first class at Hogwarts was Potions with Professor Snape.
2nd and 4th years were a bit confused by their schedules though, as they came with a note of directions to their History of Magic classroom -- which was certainly not in the same place as it was in the past. Others were also quite curious; no one could remember ever having one of their usual classrooms moved like that. It did help spread word to the 6th years though, that apparently starting N.E.W.T year meant they now got to use the "advanced" classrooms... whatever that meant?
Morning Classes 2nd years -- Transfiguration 4th years -- History of Magic 5th years -- COMC 5th years -- Divination 6th years -- Apparate Lesson (Training Grounds)
Afternoon Classes 2nd years -- History of Magic 4th years -- COMC 4th years -- Divination 5th years -- Charms 6th years -- Transfiguration 6th years -- Herbology
Night Event Quidditch Tryouts
Owl Post will arrive soon with the Daily Prophet. Morning class threads will be available for posting in once breakfast ends, and afternoon ones when time changes. If there aren't students in a particular year, that class won't occur; 1st, 3rd, and 7th year classes aren't listed on the schedule. 6th years COMC also won't be listed this RPG year, due to not enough students taking it.
Quidditch Tryouts are open to all houses and years, once dinner ends. Unlike practices, other students are welcome to watch Tryouts from the stands if they wish -- so long as they behave and keep noise / distractions to a minimum.
6th years: the first apparition lesson is mandatory (and costs a one-time fee of 12 Galleons), after which lessons are optional for the remainder of the year.
Post by MJ Birdwhistle on Mar 12, 2023 3:39:33 GMT 10
With a yawn, MJ arrived at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast. While she had slept pretty soundly during the night, the midnight chat with Charlotte still had her feeling sleepy that morning.
She was confident it would be fixed with a heart breakfast.
MJ looked to the teacher's table, watching them for a moment in a half-daze as she decided what to eat. She wasn't paying attention to them, per se, but staring in their general location while she made up her mind.
Scrambled eggs, toast and some orange juice seemed like the way to go.
Nothing too heavy but enough to fill her up for her classes.
Speaking of, MJ picked up the schedule that was dropped at her place. She scanned it and smiled. Transfiguration and History of Magic! While neither were her top classes, she still enjoyed them. She especially liked the challenge that Transfiguration presented to her.
And, of course, she was excited for Quidditch try-outs later.
Post by Martha Twiggs on Mar 12, 2023 3:49:19 GMT 10
Martha sat near the first years again, ready to help out with any questions but letting the fifth year prefects mostly take charge -- like they had the night before. She picked up an orange to peel while waiting for her porridge to cool a bit, glancing over the schedule that had been left next to her bowl.
She was nervous when she saw the very first lesson they had was for apparition. Martha bit her bottom lip, unable to help her worried frown. She didn't know if she was mentally prepared to deal with the idea of moving through space and potentially losing an ear.
Or worse.
Taking a moment, Martha looked around the room. She tried to see if she could spot Jaxen at the Ravenclaw table or Amelia at the Gryffindor one. No such luck yet. Maybe talking to one of them would help her feel better about their morning class...
The sinking feeling in her stomach didn't stop nor did it help with the idea of eating breakfast so she simply pushed her bowl away from her a bit. Maybe she'd feel up to eating once the persistent knotting sensation stopped.
Instead, Martha focused on finishing up peeling the orange and contemplating what her Transfiguration class could be about later. It was a class she was quite good at and learning new, advanced magic for their NEWT levels was exciting.
Felix dragged his feet into the Great Hall this morning. He had definitely stayed up too late last night. He had never been a morning person in general, but pulling himself out of bed had been almost impossible. Letting out a loud yawn he slipped into a random seat and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.
It didn't take him long to notice the schedule near him and he scooped it up, scanning it quickly with curiosity. Transfiguration! He found that class fascinating -- well he found all of them fascinating -- but changing one thing into another was so cool. History of Magic wasn't as exciting but being Muggleborn it was nice learning about the history of this world he was so new to.
The sleepiness nearly vanished as his eyes locked on to the bottom of the page. Quidditch Tryouts! In his dazed state he had almost forgotten. Both excitement and nerves flipped his stomach a bit and he tried to calm the feeling so he could eat.
Grabbing some sausages and toast he began munching away, eyes still flitting over the schedule with a smile on his face. Today was going to be so fun! He couldn't wait!
Post by Thorne Perry on Mar 12, 2023 5:12:16 GMT 10
Thorne filed into the dining hall, yawning fit to dislocate his jaw, but the moment the smell of breakfast hit his nose he perked up, eyes brightening. This was something he had very much missed at home over the summer! He quickly found a seat at Hufflepuff's table, giving Martha a wave - just like last night - and a smile.
"Good morning!" He said, before reaching to collect crumpets and jam and a couple slices of nice, crisp bacon, piling them all on his plate. He'd woken up ravenous - time to take care of that! - and also so horribly curious. What was this year's schedule like?
As he shoved bacon in his mouth, his eyes lit on the conveniently appearing schedule - and he brightened even further. Transfiguration! He really enjoyed that class. He straightened up while chewing, looking around until he saw MJ at her table, giving her an enthusiastic good morning wave as well.
He'd have to catch up at classes - or at least between.
Post by Amber Lloyd on Mar 12, 2023 6:01:19 GMT 10
Entering the Great Hall, Amber took a short look around to see, if she saw anyone she knew of. She didn’t, so she sat down at the Ravenclaw table with a yawn. She did sleep well yesterday, but stilled seemed a little bit tired. Maybe she just needed a little bit time to adjust sleeping away from home.
For breakfast, Amber chose a bowl of cereal. As she ate a spoonful, the class schedule arrived next to her and she took a look.
As soon as she saw her first class, her tiredness was gone. COMC! Amber smiled brightly and she got filled with excitement. She was really looking forward to this class and was thinking about which creature they would learn today about.
Imagining this got her more enthused. She really would have liked to run to class right now. But then she would be there way too early. So, Amber tried to distract her thoughts with her bowl by eating it slowly. She failed. The bowl was empty before she knew it.
Amber sighted and studied the rest of the timetable, fidgeting a little bit with her foot and trying not to stare at COMC (because that wouldn’t move time forward at all).
Charms in the afternoon also sounded quite nice. For Quidditch Tryouts, Joshua came to her mind. He would definitely do the tryout, so she thought about going to watch him later. If he was ok with it, of course.
Post by Jonathan King on Mar 12, 2023 7:17:55 GMT 10
Stifling a yawn, Joe entered the Great Hall. It was a miracle he was still tired after walking down all those stairs from Ravenclaw tower - a fact he had almost forgotten about over summer.
But they would help him keep his endurance up for this year’s Quidditch season. He looked back over his shoulder to see whether Ryan was behind him before he headed towards the Ravenclaw table and sat down next to MJ.
“Mornin‘“, he said as he poured himself a goblet of milk.
Checking the schedule, he felt more awake already.
“You‘re gonna try out for the team again, MJ?“, he asked.
Joe reached for some scrambled eggs to put on his toast, briefly frowning at the directions to the History classroom.
Why would that change with the new school year?
Hold on!
New school year! He turned around to cast a hopeful glance towards the Gryffindor table.
New school year meant that Toby was allowed to sit with them again, right!?
Post by Joshua Twiggs on Mar 12, 2023 7:45:20 GMT 10
Spotting his sister Martha at their house table, Joshua gave her a friendly wave as greeting but sat down somewhere further back. He was no prefect, so no real reason to sit near the first years for him.
It had been fun to introduce them to beans last night though.
Joshua was already filling up his plate with toast, sausage and bacon when he glanced at the schedule that appeared next to him.
Perfect.
He cast a glance towards the Ravenclaw table, certain that Amber would also be pleased to see Care of Magical Creatures as their first lesson this year.
As he continued to read his schedule however, he almost spit out his sausage.
Quidditch Try-Outs were tonight already.
His stomach felt a little queasy with nerves at that thought, but thankfully his stomach troubles from their shopping day made no return.
Joshua nibbled on his toast as he tried to catch sight of Hufflepuff‘s team captain.
Post by Lindsey Bryce on Mar 12, 2023 11:15:49 GMT 10
Lindsey had slept in fits the night before and the lack of sleep showed as she pulled herself from her bed and stretched her arms up. The nightmare hadn't caused any sounds from her in the night, but she had woken in cold sweats and chills. It resulted in her staying awake several times and finally passing out again before dawn.
The return to the castle had caused Lindsey to expect the nightmares to continue or even increase. The one last night had been the worst since the first one... No... It had been worse than the first one indeed. New things had come into the dream, including the winged-horse that had once been unseen by her. Why had it been there?
Her arrival to breakfast had been quiet and she walked past the tables with a sense of belonging and confidence. Though tired, she still smiled and dodged a few young first years who had rushed to meet a new friend. It was quite fun to watch the younger kids make friends. She shook her head in amusement and found her place at the Slytherin Table and gathered some food upon her plate. Taking a copy of her schedule, she was glad to see that her day would quite interesting.
Divination & Charms?
Well, how exciting? She was interested to see how Divination was and was quite happy to see the Charm Classroom once more.
The late night had certainly caught up to her, but she was happy when she walked into the Great Hall. Jade was likely going to be mad that she had stayed up a little later than she should have. But, conversation about summer had been ripe with gossip and laughter. It was hard to sleep when they were having so much fun the night before. Amelia had managed to prier herself away from the giggles to enjoy a good sleep.
But, it hadn't been nearly enough and as she walked to her normal place, she was running fingers through her hair to tame a few wayward strands of hair. Finding her place at the Gryffindor table was easy and she greeted a few new by students. Noticing one of the younger students from the night prior, she gave him a smile and a nod.
A possible future team mate.
It would be fun to see how he faired this evening. Taking her schedule, she smiled when she saw the Apparate Lesson and Transfiguration Class. It would be nice to see their head of house. After a few moments, she had loaded her plate up with random food and was enjoying her time with those around her.
Exhaustion... It was written all on her face as she came into the Great Hall. Though MJ had returned to her bed and gone to sleep, Charlotte hadn't been able to return to sleep quickly and had found herself using the Wand-Lighting Charm to read some of her new Charms Book. It was quite fascinating, but she had fallen asleep on the book...
The yawn that had woken her had also caused her to drop her wand on the floor and she jumped at the sound it made on the hard wood. She had gathered her things quickly, brushed through her hair after taking a very quick shower and made her way to breakfast following a group of first years. They were still amazed by the castle and Charlotte found herself smiling as she held her bag to her chest as they walked.
When she arrived in the Great Hall, she yawned and made her way to the Ravenclaw table and joined MJ without question.
Post by Oscar Tinkle on Mar 12, 2023 12:02:23 GMT 10
Even though he had gone to bed a bit later than he’d planned, Oscar had had a good night of sleep. Which was always a nice thing for the first night back at school.
He wondered if he could go as far as to hope that it meant the rest of the year would hold up as a good one. But that seemed a bit too much like wishful thinking and he did not want to tempt the fates so early.
So instead, as he finally made his way into the Great Hall for breakfast, Oscar decided to just be content with having had a good sleep. He could see how the day went from there.
First he had to get through breakfast though. Breakfast with the lower years too, if he was a good prefect.
A part of him muttered about him having done his part - he’d waited in the common room after all, to direct any first years that were not confident on finding their own way back to the hall. So surely he could leave breakfast itself to the other Hufflepuff prefects and take the meal with his friends?
Oscar found his feet had led him down towards the end of the table anyway. The traitors.
He sat himself down near the first years, offering a small wave to any that happened to be looking up.
A single grape tossed in his mouth was about as far as he got on fixing up his breakfast before he was distracted by his timetables appearance.
"Ohh, nice," he whispered to himself as he read it.
He had CoMC first! That was great news to him. His favourite class was his first one of the year!
Oscar could not help but smile at his timetable, even as he moved on to actually putting together his breakfast for the day. Fruit, yoghurt, nuts.. His usual fare for a school day was automatic enough that he could fix his bowl without really thinking about it.
So busy mentally celebrating his good fortune over the morning class, he barely remembered to check for an afternoon class.
Post by Ezra Ashworth on Mar 12, 2023 12:19:18 GMT 10
Ezra yawned as he entered the Great Hall. Maybe he had stayed up later than he should have.
To be fair to the twelve year old though, he had been a bit too wary of nightmares to go straight to sleep. Nightmares at home were one thing, he could roll over and at least see Jaxen’s bed there. But at Hogwarts… it was not that simple.
So instead, even after he had tucked himself away behind his bed curtains, he had put off the actual bit of going to sleep.
He had the bright idea of trying to make shadow puppets against his headboard instead, using his wand as his source of light.
He had wasted away more of the night than he should have on that little challenge, even though it had not been the most successful. It had been kind of fun though, especially when he tried to make up stories about what the shadow puppets were doing.
And at least when he had finally passed out - on top of the covers and his head pointing the wrong direction - he had not been troubled by any bad dreams for once. Probably because he had just been that tired when he finally had given in to closing his eyes.
His little trick to avoid bad dreams did come with a bad side though. It made waking up in the morning hard.
Hard enough that he had only just managed it, and even that had doubt on if he was actually completely awake as he slumped into a seat at his house table. His head dropped down to rest on its surface as soon as he sat.
Ezra rested it there for a moment before he yawned and rolled it to the side to see who he had sat himself with.
Oh! MJ, Joe, and Charlotte. That seemed fortunate.
Sinead sleepily made her way down the the Great Hall for breakfast. She was exhausted as she had spent most of the night awake, due to various factors. Having spent virtually her entire summer with Lindsey, the girl had gotten to know her friend rather well and had ended up being pretty good at recognising her habits and quirks which helped her to know when something bothered the girl.
During the night Sinead had woken up and noticed Lindsey had been having a nightmare, thus she spent the rest of the night attempting to soothe her friend whenever she woke up. In addition she was still trying to sort out her feelings in regards to what had happened back at her own home during the summer. Her sister had explained everything during a lengthy conversation in the common room earlier in the evening which had left Sinead bewildered and unsure of how to deal with her emotions towards the rest of her family.
The brunette entered the hall and headed over to the Slytherin table. She glanced down the table and spotted Lindsey as well as her sister who had a weary look on her face as she sat with friends. Sinead slid into an empty seat next to Lindsey with a yawn. The girl put some food on her plate and ate slowly as she studied her schedule. The brunette gave a faint smile when she noted that she had COMC first, a subject that she had enjoyed in the end, last year which was why she had chosen to continue it. It had become another source of interest for her.
Post by Grace Babineaux on Mar 12, 2023 14:45:35 GMT 10
Grace found that she had trouble getting used to her school bed after sleeping in her home bed all summer. It had been nice to see her dormmates again, but it was certainly a different experience to sleeping at home.
"Morning, Felix." Grace greeted when she sat down, looking at the schedule. She barely thought about Transfiguration or History of Magic, even though History of Magic was one of her favorite classes, once she saw the notice at the bottom about Quidditch tryouts.
"Wow, tryouts already?" Grace said, feeling a bit nervous. She'd barely unpacked her trunk, let alone considered the tryouts. "Here's hoping we both do well."
Grace grabbed some toast and took a bite out of it as she looked back at the schedule. She frowned, "I wonder why History of Magic is in a different spot. Maybe Professor Archerose wanted a new style?"
She hoped it wasn't a signal that the professor for her favourite class was planning on leaving anytime soon. Grace had heard from some older students that the old History of Magic professor was terribly boring.