gooseberryhigh | HOGWARTS VISIT

VISIT TO HOGWARTS

Hogwarts' reputation precedes it, so while Gooseberry may like to brag about being the best and brightest, Hogwarts is a true institution. It has history behind it that few other schools do.

Lachlan Galbraith shares a compartment on the Hogwarts Express with Ms. Vector, who reminisces briefly about her days as a Ravenclaw, and how she'd missed out on becoming Head Girl because she made too many people cry as a sixth year prefect.

The castle is imposing as the Gooseberry students arrive via boats. [Volunteer B] gets a special welcome when the tentacle of the giant squid brushes their hand, which was clutching the edge of their boat. The rest of the journey goes smoothly, and everyone is escorted into the Great Hall. The tables are lined with children ranging from eleven to eighteen, in red, yellow, blue and green. They watch the Americans enter one by one as the Sorting Ceremony begins.

It goes smoothly almost until the very end, when Basil Underhill is called to sit up. Seconds become minutes, and whispers start to spread across the Great Hall. After five minutes pass, it's recorded that Basil is a true Hatstall!

The next day, students can go to Hogsmeade and explore the castle. Cameron Carney is talking a walk through the old halls, and asks a group of preteens for directions. Soon it becomes clear the girls were messing with them, though, as they become horribly lost.

[Volunteer D] can't seem to figure out the moving staircases, and gets stranded on a balcony for an hour.

Hank Hilshire, a handsome Gryffindor, is apparently the heartthrob of the school. He takes a shine to Rosemary Stoker, and pursues their company all weekend, whether or not they're taken. This earns them the ire of more than a few rival girls who'd wanted to go to Hogsmeade with Hank. (Presume he's of an appropriate year, and if the object of his affection is a boy, it's not wholly clear if he's being platonic or not.)

HOW THIS WORKS

Although this post is going up on Jun 3, it actually takes place on Jun 8-11. This is to give you all time to write your scenes for what will probably be an exciting event.

On Fri, Jun 8, all students who plan on going to Hogwarts take a portkey to London's King's Cross Station. Upon arrival, they're brought to Platform 4 3/4, and the Hogwarts Express.

Students will leave Gooseberry at 8 AM, and due to the difference in time zones, will be boarding the Hogwarts Express at 5 PM local time. They'll arrive at Hogwarts just past 6 PM in time for their Sorting and dinner.

Visiting students are given the proper Hogwarts welcome, which means travelling on boats to the castle. Although Gooseberry is technically a rival, the general mood seems to be one of excitement, rather than competition.

The Sorting takes place in front of the existing Hogwarts students, who are arguing and betting on which Hogwarts house will get the most students. Ravenclaw wins by a narrow margin, but are crowing about it (haha) all night anyway.

Previous Hogwarts Students: Facing the Sorting Hat again is optional. If you don't want to wear it again, you can simply go sit with your old House. If you pursue a resorting, the Hat will stubbornly refuse to change its original decision, regardless of how much you ask it or how much you've changed. It's a stubborn thing, and never admits to being wrong.

After being sorted, students are shown to their dorms. Gooseberry students will room in either the boys or girls' dorms together, depending upon where they were sorted. There are 5 beds in every dorm.

CLICK HERE FOR ROOM ASSIGNMENTS

GRYFFINDOR BOYS #1	GRYFFINDOR BOYS #2	GRYFFINDOR GIRLS #1	GRYFFINDOR GIRLS #2
Casper Iliya Lucas	Noel Chad Quentin	Essie Clem Hazel Rosy	Dinah Eve London
HUFFLEPUFF BOYS #1	HUFFLEPUFF BOYS #2	HUFFLEPUFF GIRLS #1
Jeffy Spencer Sebastien Jaime Tobias	Phin Ennis Heathcliff Cameron Webster	January Tuesday Natalie Avery Gwen
RAVENCLAW BOYS #1	RAVENCLAW BOYS #2	RAVENCLAW GIRLS #1	RAVENCLAW GIRLS #2
Lachlan Danny Wilde Salem	Archie Cole Basil Ira Micah	Eileen Roxie Liberty	Nisha Paris Pandora
SLYTHERIN BOYS #1		SLYTHERIN GIRLS #1	SLYTHERIN GIRLS #2
Calvin Yancey Ramon Sylvester Ulysses		Jade Ari Madison Ruby Charlotte	Mackenzie Riley Sofia Lilika Fern

On Saturday, students will be allowed to go to Hogsmeade to shop and enjoy the little town.

On Sunday, the Quidditch match takes place in the morning. Make sure you adjust to the Portkey lag!

On Monday, everyone returns to Utah. They'll leave at 10 AM, and will get home in the wee hours of the morning due to the difference in time zones. Classes are still in session, so consider squeezing in some sleep.

» HOGWARTS EXPRESS: On board the large magical train, students file into their compartments and settle in for a long ride. The scenic Scottish countryside and the looming castle are foreign sights to most of Gooseberry's students.

» THE SORTING HAT: The Great Hall's ceiling sparkles with stars, and there are banners for Gooseberry's houses hung on the far wall along with Hogwarts' own. Line up alphabetically, it's time to find out where you'll be staying tonight.

» COMMON ROOMS AND DORMS: Each house has a common room and an assortment of rooms with 5 beds each. You're informed by a seventh year prefect which rooms you'll be in and with whom.

» gryffindor: Gryffindor's welcome is loud and rambunctious. They accept their new additions enthusiastically and call you all honorary Gryffindors, and immediately set to telling you to stay away from Slytherins.

» hufflepuff: The new Hufflepuffs are greeted warmly, and invited to socialize with the rest of the house. There may be a bit of an us and them divide, but they're not unfriendly.

» ravenclaw: Ravenclaw's still pleased they got the most Gooseberry students. They're very curious about Gooseberry, as well as the rest of you, and end up interrogating the new students.

» slytherin: To no one's great surprise, Slytherin's ready to eat its visitors alive if they take a wrong step. You get extra points for being pretty and pureblood (or at least close to it).

» AROUND HOGWARTS: While Gooseberry is sprawling, Hogwarts is dense. It's easy to get lost in the ancient corridors, and prefects warn the visitors not to wander far without someone to guide them. They're free to explore, though, and the Quidditch team can get in a bit of extra practice on the unfamiliar pitch.

» HOGSMEADE: Saturday is an opportunity to visit the traditional Wizarding town of Hogsmeade. Students can shop, eat, and take in the sights. The residents seem a alternatively baffled, mortified or amused by these loud foreign witches and wizards, taking selfies and dyeing their hair wild colors. One little old witch gives the teens her wifi password. "Poor dears, keeping you disconnected. I couldn't live without my soaps."

» OOC - Questions/Discussion

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You think Hank would write me poetry if I asked?" Rosy muses, turning a pack of absurdly overpriced note cards. With graduation coming up, Rosy's been trying to hoard her allowance so she doesn't end up living with Lavender fucking du Pont for a significant amount of time, but this is so tempting.

She hasn't even made it to the pens section.

"I've grown accustomed to a certain standard of wooing."

Danny huffs heavily through his nose. He's not scoffing - it's just dry in here. Stupid starry-eyed British hunks. What kind of name is Hank Hilshire, anyway? Sounds like the Hulk of Hobbiton or something. "You should ask him, anyway," he challenges with a raised brow. "I'd like to see it. We can see if his growing up in closer proximity to where The Bard, himself, was buried will make his sonnets better than Du Pont's."

Danny flips carefully through some handcrafted paper made with pressed flowers and sneers at it. Totally impractical. Danny knows all about being practical. "Want me to start writing you poetry? There once was a man from Nantucket..."

Rosy nearly stabs him with a handy pen, but it's a really nice looking pen and she wants to see how it writes both before and after being jammed in someone's thigh. "You have to be inspired," she interrupts him, because the last thing she needs is Danny feeling like it's his turn to speak. "Maybe he's not the poetry type. Maybe he'll serenade me in the Common Room instead."

From what she'd seen of Hank Hilshire so far, he seemed more likely to waggle his eyebrows and offer her a personalized tour of the castle, but she could still speculate.

Suddenly, these literal magic erasers are the most interesting thing in the world. Danny picks one up and squishes it between his fingers. He considers asking Rosy what sort of Charms she thinks are on these. Don't muggles already have no mess erasers? Are these even less mess? Do they go back in time and prevent the mistake from happening before it's even happened?

God. He really considers being that obnoxious.

But instead, he decides to go in a different direction of annoying. "If I give you my phone," he starts, tilting his head down so he can look at her over his glasses. Look at how super cool he is about this. "Will you record it? I want to have a keepsake."

If there's one thing Daniel Notoriano knows, it's how to be cool. These are facts.

"I don't know how to work those things," Rosy says, immediately dismissive, as if Chloe and Ursula haven't shown Rosy the simple mechanics of point and shoot on cell phones a million times already. "Maybe you can record it yourself, though. He's really trying to get me to come meet him by the, uh, Shrieking Shack?" She looks Danny right in the eye and raises one eyebrow, which is definitely not some sort of challenge to him, because she is also being very, very cool.

"I told him we'd have to see if anything caught my attention at the stationary store first."

"Shrieking shack?" Danny echoes back, scowling and affronted. A bit too loud, he goes on. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, these names. What's next, dinner at the Shaggin' Wagon?"

He snorts, ignoring the shop clerk staring at him, and puts the eraser back where he found it. Danny turns to face Rosy, leaning an elbow on the shelf. "Well, I'm sure we can find something more interesting than the 'Shrieking Shack' here for you." He pauses, almost pouting. "Plenty of nice pens."

Rosy smirks, because she's awful. As a Stoker, she's pretty much required to be a bully. And as a bully, she likes seeing her boyfriend mildly jealous over the British version of Agent Yeager.

Honestly, she probably should have gone into Slytherin.

"I guess I haven't checked out the highlighter selection yet," she says, head tilting to the side, as if trying to weigh her options here. She reaches past Danny to the shelf under his elbow, where a whole array of fountain pens were hiding. Rosy doesn't even use fountain pens, they smear too easily, but she's nudging him out of the way to peek at the collection anyway. "I wonder if they have different colors from us."

"Boring ones, Stoker, trust me," he says like he's an authority on the subject. He doesn't move to get out of her way. Letting her brush up against him. Working to stifle a smirk. "Real drab colors. Don't last at all. Bad for note taking."

He searches the shelf with his eyes briefly, gaze settling on a particularly ridiculous-looking quill - long plumed and colorful - that probably isn't meant to be picked up and played with. He picks it up, anyway, and waves it around in Rosy's general direction. "But worth looking at, I guess."

"That would imply I don't trust your opinion." Rosy bats at the quill, indignant at it being waved in her direction. Stop it, it's ugly and probably expensive too, and if he breaks it and has to buy it then Rosy will have to find a new corner to occupy in the library to avoid being seen in the same vicinity as that quill. Everything about this quill is offensive to her.

"I probably shouldn't, but," she catches the very end of the impractically large plume on Danny's new toy, "I do have a hot date I need to get to."

Danny grins once Rosy snatches the end of the quill. "I'm constantly trying to ruin you, Stoker, I'd be insulted if you did trust me."

A pause, then, and he shakes the quill at her one more time. For annoying effect. "Or you and I could blow off Bromeo, go to the tavern, get a bite, and make fun of all the weird shit Scottish wizards call fashion." How can you resist, Rosy?

"Well," she looks up in thought, weighing her options, looking away from the quill, "if I go meet my hunky hobbit boyfriend, I might get to fight some girls." This is, apparently, a point in the pros column. "So you'll have to be awful funny to lure me away from that." Rosy presses her lips together and looks back at Danny, head tilted and brow furrowed in very serious thought. "How wry are your observations?"

"My observations are so wry," Danny begins, pressing his glasses up on his nose. "I can be used as a substitute for silica packets." That's not actually a good thing, maybe? Jesus, Danny.

He stuffs the obnoxious quill back where he found it. "And, hell, you know I'll always cheer you on if you wanna go find some Hufflepuff to box," Danny glances at her as he delicately adjusts the barbs of the feather with his fingers, a grin creeping across his face. "We could just do that, instead. Start a tavern brawl? Seems like a pretty Gryffindor thing to do."

Rosy's face twists into an expression that suggests she just ate a silica packet herself. This is your boyfriend, Rosemary, he's your fault.

"God knows you're good at starting shit, for a nerd." She reaches out to pull his hand away from the quill, like she just knows he's going to break something if he keeps touching shit, and runs a thumb over his knuckles. God, they're so unscarred, she really needs to teach him to punch. "If we let your natural talents shine, we could make someone bleed before our food even got to the table."

HOGWARTS VISIT

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products

Rosy & Danny & Paper Products