Welcome to Ravenclaw!

Melinda stood at the centre of the Ravenclaw Common Room. It had been years since she'd been here, and frankly, no matter what anyone said about always feeling at home at Hogwarts, she didn't feel at home here. There was a distinct lack of shoe-polish smell and absolutely no barbed wire to be seen.

As the sleepy children began to bustle through the door of the common room (she'd set the riddle to easy after that huge feast they'd just endured) she caught their attention with a few sparks from her wand that set the streamers hung from the ceiling alight.

"All right! All right! I know you've had a big night but just a few words before you go off to your dorms!" she called for their attention.

"My name is Professor Thorburn and I am Ravenclaw's new Head of House. Apparently, you lot get one every couple of years, but I plan on staying here longer. I used to be Headmistress at the last place I taught, so no shenanigans. Boys, stay out of the girls' dorms and you girls, likewise. Everyone is to be in bed by ten pm. No running about after lights out.

Now, a word about houses. Every house likes to think they're the best. At this moment, Slytherins are being told how much their pedigree means for them. Gryffindors are being told how important bravery is, and the Hufflepuffs are being told how important hard work is. Ravenclaws are chosen for their intelligence, so I am not going to tell you anything.

Instead, I'm going to tell you that I've noticed a distinct lack of the House Cup in the Ravenclaw Trophy Case. And the Quidditch Cup, when was the last time we won that? Well, this year we're going to take both. Ravenclaw for the Cup!"

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Welcome to the Ravenclaw Welcoming Party. The Common Room is decked out in streamers and tables piled high with food and drink are within easy reach of the sofas and chairs. Sit down and have something to eat

...but watch out! Some of the food is from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes! If you pick up one of those, simply write a number between 0 and 9 at the bottom of your post and Melinda will reply telling you what you picked up.

Ellie stood between her two best friends, the boys looking thoroughly bored with the proceedings. Eyes were taking in the decorations and refreshments and half-listening to the woman. The older students knew the drill, but the young students drank the woman's words in eagerly.

Ellie tried a bit of both. She was only here because she had been too sick to take her examinations last year. She had no need to relearn everything, the way her friends might, but she planned on having fun. She was trying to feel out this Professor Thorburn, to see just what sort of year she would be having.

The woman concluded her speech and there was a brief pause- the Ravenclaws were a studious bunch, cheers were not there forte. Ellie blinked and threw her fist up into the air. "WOO HOO! RAVEN-CLAW! Class of 2026!" She turned and high-fived Judd, before flouncing off to the food. She grabbed herself some pumpkin juice and some sort of pastry.

Teddy always liked professors. They were so much better than the students she could never relate to. Most lunches were typically spent in professor's classrooms, simply chatting or discussing their subject. Some had even complained about students to her, which she always remembered. Teddy was a very open-looking girl, mature for her age. Professors never seemed to care if she tagged along.

The speech was done and Teddy wanted to hurry to speak with Professor Thorburn, but did not want to seem like a sycophant. The times professors thought she was just trying to get brownie points, she was usually blackballed from their offices. So Teddy picked up one of the small mini-plates of food and walked over to the Professor.

"Hello, Professor. My name is Theodora Crewe. I was curious - what subject do you teach? I must not have heard it at the feast."

Cecilia didn't really want to be in the Ravenclaw common room, but the only way to get to the dormitory was to go through the common room. She had gotten trapped by the people that crowed the small room in this thing that was supposed to be a party. So there she sat off in a corner reading a book with one hand resting on her stomach. She rolled her eyes at the people who thought this thing that was organized by a professor was fun. she sighed and went back to her book pulling her feet up in the seat with her literally curling up with a good book, one of her all time favorite pastimes, now that there was no point in pursuing her fashion career.

[center]7[/center[

So, he'd been sorted into Ravenclaw. Not like that had surprised anyone. He'd always loved learning about new things and seemed to be fairly intelligent, at least that's what other people said. Aidan was a bit more modest, though he wasn't completely oblivious to the fact that he could memorize things quite easily and such.

Aidan stood in the room, fairly close to Professor Thorburn, taking in everything she said. He hoped he could help Ravenclaw win the house cup, but he wasn't so sure about the Quidditch Department. His brother had always tried to get Aidan into flying, but he'd never been very good at it. He was more of a book person, or doing spells. He hoped he wouldn't be too bad at Potions too. But he didn't like flying. The height freaked him out a bit, and he'd never had any hand-eye co-ordination.

Aidan saw Wayne in the room too, and smiled at him. It was the boy he'd met on the Hogwarts Express. The nice one who liked Muggle cooking, not the horrible one who walked out and called them losers. He was glad to be in the same house as him, maybe they could be good friends or something. Aidan hadn't really had any close friends before, but Wayne seemed nice and was a Ravenclaw so would probably be clever too, so he assumed they'd get along alright.

Walking over to the buffet, Aidan picked up something, trying to identify it. Unsure, he nervously took a small bite of it.

Wayne had been looking forward to this, he might feel a bit better if he could cook, something to take his mind off of the aching feeling of loneliness for his parents and sister. He noticed a kid look across the room at him, he noticed that the person was Aidan. He had met him on the train but hadn't talked much. He walked over to him and grabbed something off the table, not ever looking at it and he popped it in his mouth after all, he ate it so it might as well be good.

"So how are you Aidan?" he said once he finished his treat, "Wonder if anyone is gonna break the rules tonight and try and pull a prank? probably not going to be from Ravenclaw. Maybe gonna be a Slytherin!" he laughed a little bit hoping this guy didn't have a sibling in Slytherin because if he did then that was not gonna be a good thing considering he laughed. He grabbed another one of the treats out of nervousness tasting them with his tongue, he couldn't describe the flavor or even if it tasted good or bad. "So anyways, what's up?"

Ellie was returning to her friends with confidence. After her little outburst, the room had dissolved into the proper chatter and activity that suited a House party, or what a House party looked like to Ellie. She felt very powerful right now, like she had announced her dominance. She was the oldest. She brought the party.

As she approached, she sent her friends a smug grin and popped the appetizer into her mouth. Another step and she suddenly lifted into the air. "Aw! HELL! Judd! Foster! GET ME DOWN."

[[OOC: Wayne, shall we try & tie up/finish the Hogwarts Express thread now then, since Hogwarts is open & such?]]

Aidan saw Wayne approach him. See, he could make friends. Aidan wanted to prove his brother wrong, who always teased him about being a loner and had no friends. The twins did get along most of the time, but sometimes Aidan thought Evan took things a bit far.

"Hi Wayne. I'm good, just trying to figure out what half of this stuff is." Aidan replied, looking at the food on the table. "Yeah, maybe. Someone from Gryffindor, perhaps, since they're all brave and such." he added, thinking of his brother who had been sorted into Gryffindor, knowing that he would be the sort of person to try and pull a prank. "If anyone from Ravenclaw did, I bet they'd be smart enough not to get caught though." Aidan thought aloud, wondering if a Ravenclaw could secretly pull pranks but be smart enough to avoid detection.

"I'm just looking around at Hogwarts and taking it all in really. My parents went here, and my sister's a third year, so I've heard loads about it and it's kind of strange to finally be here myself. In a good way, it's just weird seeing everything that I've heard people talk about for years now." Aidan tried to explain to Wayne. Aidan loved Hogwarts the instant he stepped inside. It was full of academia, something he loved. It felt magical and big but cosy. It felt homely. He knew he was going to like it here.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters here? My sister is a third year and she's in Hufflepuff. My brother, well my twin, he just got sorted into Gryffindor. It's weird how we're all in different houses. Though I guess we are quite different people."

Talon walked into the common room for the so called party. He was a little out of it in terms of wanting to be social, having learned some bad news after all, yet he was a little anxious to meet some fellow Ravenclaws. Yet it seemed like not as many people as he initially though had shown up here, only seeing a couple of people that really stood out from the crowd. Huh, that was a little curious. Talon himself walked around the others and made his way to the table and picked up a small cup, filling it with pumpkin juice. His intuition for some reason said to not pick up one of the food items, so he decided to just turn around and watch the others act.

Seemed to be a charming little group thing starting to happen, most of the others wanting to just stay by themselves. Seemed like a smart choice for the beginning of the year. Talon took a sip from his drink, mostly just standing there and not wanting to draw attention to himself.

Melinda looked down at the little girl trying to gain her good graces. An arselicker, or someone with genuine curiosity? It was so hard to tell with Ravenclaws.

"I will be teaching Care of Magical Creatures," she answered, picking a pastry from the plate and carefully avoiding anything that even looked like it could have come from the Weasley's shop.

"But don't worry if you don't take that subject," she added, knowing how Ravenclaws could get. "It never interested me until I was an adult, myself."

Truth be told, it had never interested Melinda until she applied for a job at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

However, at that moment, the sweets began to kick in, as one of the older girls was lifted into the air. That would be a fizzing whizzbee. Melinda held back a chuckle.

"Oh dear," she said, with the utmost seriousness. "If you'll excuse me, I have something to see to in my office."

She hurried off so that she could have a good cackle before she exploded.



[don't worry! I'm still watching the thread, and if you want to join in, or try another sweet, I'll still be PMing you the results!]