I see a few small problems on the horizon. on Labyrinth Gardens

Professor Nathan Xavier

January 04, 2019 1:42 PM

First Year Orientation by Professor Nathan Xavier

Nathan was up far too early this morning, and it had nothing to do with his duties as Head of House or even orienting the first years. Students weren't arriving until afternoon, after all. No, his lack of sleep, and the resultant bags under his eyes were caused by have an almost three month old living in his family's quarters, which had seemed quite spacious when they set them up last midterm but seemed less so when trying to walk a squalling infant to sleep at 2am.

He probably should have let Gray do the Orientation again, but Nathan considered it his job; he'd done it most of the years since Orientation had been implemented, and he'd promised Selina keeping a baby on premises wouldn't interfere with his or Isis' work. Besides, he'd missed doing it last year due to wedding preparations, and he didn't want to miss it two years in a row.

So he tried to be mostly cheerful and welcoming rather than exhausted looking as each new batch of students got off the flying covered wagons that had brought them to Sonora from all over the country. He directed the first years off into the garden to where the Orientation was set up with tables of snacks, plenty of room to mingle with each other, and a stack of folders with important information about the school, including a map. Everyone else was welcome to head on into the school, where the library, Cascade Hall, and the common rooms were all available for them to use to entertain themselves until the Opening Feast that evening.

Soon all the wagons were accounted for, and the school's prairie elves had dealt with the luggage and putting the flying wagons away in their shed. He followed the last group of first years into the orientation area, and gave them a few minutes to pick up food and a folder.

Soon enough, though, he cleared his throat to gain their attention.

"Hello, students. Welcome to your first year at Sonora Academy. My name is Professor Xavier." He was trying to keep his sentences short and simple; partly because he was tired and they could easily drift into long rambling things that even he couldn't follow if they went on too long, and partly because they had a few foreign students for whom English was not their first language. "I am the Herbology teacher here. In a little while, I'll give you a tour of your new school, but first, a few words about it."

"Sonora Academy of Magic is a seven year secondary school. We teach Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Defense against the Dark Arts as our core classes. You'll be taking each of those for five years. You will begin with beginner level classes. Beginner classes continue into second year. This allows you to get to know and work with people who were in your place last year. As first years only, you’ll also take Flying Lessons. In third year, you will move up to intermediate classes. At that point, you can add elective classes and independent studies to your course load, if you want. The core classes continue to be required. Intermediate classes continue through fifth year. Your first major exam, called the CATS - the Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills, is at the end of fifth year. After the CATS, you may drop some of your courses so you may better focus on the ones you decide to pursue at an Advanced level. Your last major exam, the RATS - the Ridiculously Anal Testing of Skills, is at the end of your seventh year. You need to pass two RATS to graduate, and most colleges require a minimum of three. Obviously, that's still a long way off, but that's the overview of academics here at Sonora. You should have your schedule for beginner lessons in the green folders. If you didn't get one, they are over there," he pointed to the appropriate table. "If you need help with English or math, please tell your Head of House. Sonora offers an academic assistance program for anyone who needs it for any reason." Reasons could and have included anything from growing up in a circus with little formal education to being a non-native speaker of English. "Also, each professor will offer office hours if you need help in a specific subject."

"For extracurricular activities, Sonora has a number of student led clubs, including a Dueling club, an Orchestra, a Gardening club, an Art club, and a school newspaper called the Aronos. If you don't like those, you can always make your own. We also have a school wide Quidditch team that competes with other schools. First years are welcome to try-out, but you'll likely be on the reserve team. For those who don't know, Quidditch is a wizarding sport played on broomsticks." He realized his sentences were getting longer, but he couldn't figure out how to get them any shorter, now that they were past basic introductions. He compensated by trying to talk slower.

"After the tour, you will be sorted into Houses. You will receive a badge, which you will dip into a potion, and it will come out one of four colors. Blue means Aladren. Aladrens tend to value learning and problem-solving. Yellow means Teppenpaw. Teppenpaws are our diplomats, valuing friendship and personal development. Red means Crotalus. They believe in respectability, responsibility, and strategic planning. Brown means Pecari. Those students are often adventurous and adaptable. Not everyone fits neatly into one House or another, so try not to put too much stock into House stereotypes. There are smart Crotali and adventurous Teppenpaws. There are adaptable Pecaris who aren't adventurous. But everybody will be sorted into one of them. This is a boarding school, so you'll have a Head of House who you will look out for you and serve as your adult guardian while you're here. We're a small school, so you may need to share a room with anyone else in your year matching your House and gender. Each House also has three prefects who are appointed to help you with any trouble you may have. Your House can earn points for your good deeds and exemplary class work. Likewise getting in trouble can lose your House points. The House with the most points at the end of the year wins the House Cup to display in their Commons the following year, and may earn extra perks at the end-of-year midsummer event. Pecari will be hosting it this year."

He mentally ran through the important topics one more time and thought he'd hit most of them - it was his eighth time doing this, and he was proving he could just about do it in his sleep. "That's about it. Wear school robes with your House badge to class. The Cascade Hall serves breakfast from 6:30 to 8:30, lunch from eleven to one, and dinner from five to seven. Those times should also be on your schedules. Between those times, you can get smaller things like sandwiches and snacks. It opens at six and closes at ten. Ten PM to six AM is curfew; you should be in your House areas during that time. Unless there are any questions, you are free to chat and get to know each other until the tour, which kicks off at 5:30."

OOC (Out of Character):
Welcome first years to Sonora! You can post a reply here to ask staff questions or meet your new classmates. This thread is intended for first year students to have a chance to try out posting and get acclimated to the site before we throw you into the big Opening Feast, which is open to the entire school population and can be a bit overwhelming.

Please remember that anything that happened in the Sandbox was just practice and did not actually occur. (You are welcome, of course, to use any background information you generated about your character during these exercises such as pets, accidental magic, etc, but they have not yet spent any time at Sonora, or interacted with any classmates.)

Also of note, entering your email address when you reply will mean you get notified when someone responds. This is optional but can be useful for helping to keep track of posts. Please do NOT check the box that says 'show email address,' as this will make it public and may result in spam. Please note, that lately some reply notifications have been ending up in spam folders of email accounts. Please check your spam folders and the boards if you think you are not receiving replies

Now, go forth, new first years of Sonora! Post, enjoy, have fun! Everyone here is happy to help out, so if you've got a question, put it on the OOC board or try to catch somebody in the Chatzy and we'll try to get you an answer as quick as we can. Have fun and we’re glad you could join us!

Subthreads:

I don't speak English by Hilda Hexenmeister with Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen

This all sounds very adequate. by Felipe De Matteo with Jeremy Mordue

Be yourself - everyone else is already taken by Zara Jackson with Beatriz Couthon

I see a few small problems on the horizon. by Jessica Hayles with Jake "JD" Daniels

Do I spy a familiar face? [Tag Isabella Harrington] by Theodore Flores with Isabella Harrington

1 Professor Nathan Xavier First Year Orientation 28 Professor Nathan Xavier 1 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

January 04, 2019 2:21 PM

I don't speak English by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda had a problem. Well, she had a number of different problems, but the biggest one concerning her right this moment was the one called English. She hated English. She really really hated it with a burning passion that sizzled with heat from the fiery pits themselves. She wanted nothing at all to do with English.

America itself, she didn't mind so much. She just wished the Americans living there spoke a language that actually made sense and had rules that were actually followed more often than not rather than just sometimes when the mood struck, when there were rules at all.

The tired looking guy who pointed out where to go blabbered on and on using the thrice blasted language. Hilda didn't catch a single word. Except 'English'. The language was actively taunting her, she was sure of it. When he stopped talking, she wasn't really certain what exactly she was supposed to be doing now. She opted for taking a bite out of her cookie.

Americans did good cookies, she'd give them that, if any of them could understand a compliment offered in German.

The people around her seemed to be talking amongst themselves, and one in particular looked suspiciously like they intended to try doing that with her. But she was ready for that. Her brother Heinrich had recommended flash cards to help her with the language, and she had initially been doubtful, but then she made some, and . . . realized they would actually be very helpful after all.

She flipped through the pile she had picked out as the most useful phrases, located the one that said 'ich spreche kein Englisch' and held it up so the side that said "I do not speak English" was pointing toward the approaching figure.

Between that and the blond girl's heavy-set build and closed off stance, she hoped to avoid needing to interact with the hated language anymore than she absolutely had to.

1 Hilda Hexenmeister I don't speak English 1433 Hilda Hexenmeister 0 5

Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen

January 04, 2019 8:38 PM

Same though by Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen

The man with the funny name was tired, right? That's why his words seemed sort of slurred together and like the whole speech was just one big word? She knew German tended to smush words together to make new words, but English wasn't supposed to do that. Everyone she'd met at home that spoke English, and the people she'd learned her little bits of English from, all spoke so differently than this man (that she was pretty sure said had a head in his house, maybe that's why he was talking funny).

When the speech was done and Johanna Leonie settled into the sinking feeling of uncertainty that she was pretty sure was going to become familiar at Sonora, she looked around. Everyone seemed so neat and orderly here. There was no display of the sort of colors or elaboration that was so much more familiar to her at home, and the sea of green robes was a bit overwhelming. It was nothing to remind her of the foresty green she was so used to, and the fact that everyone just seemed so clean made it all feel sterile. More than anything, she wanted to kick her shoes off and scamper through the Gardens. That would be much better than listening to a speech she only half understood.

Eyeing the foods that were spread out for the first years with some amount of skepticism, unconvinced that anything she didn't know the English word for would probably taste like anything she was familiar with, she resigned to wait for dinner and turned to the nearest person. Johanna Leonie's own hair was red and wavy, but she wasn't the only person she'd ever seen and the girl's blonde hair reminded her of her mother and brother. She was broader than her brother though, and Johanna's own tall frame was thin.

As she opened her mouth to greet her classmate, she realized she didn't have any words to say. More than that though, the girl was holding a sign that said she didn't speak English. Her eyes narrowed. Was it too much to hope it was because they shared a Muttersprache?

"Hallo," she tried hesitantly. "Ich spreche kein Englisch auch." Holding up her index finger and thumb close together, she tried in the less comfortable and heavily accented language: "I speak small English."

22 Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen Same though 1432 Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

January 04, 2019 8:48 PM

This all sounds very adequate. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe was pleased to find that Sonora was an organized institution. He had suspected it would be -- it wouldn't be a world-renowned educational facility if it hadn't earned a fair reputation for success -- but it was nice to have confirmation. He nodded along with Professor Xavier's speech as various points were made and he found them agreeable. His belly was full of nerves, of course, but there was a certain weight on his shoulders: he wasn't just coming to school for the first time, he was also taking careful note of whether it would be a good fit for his sister in coming years. It wasn't the nicest, most well designed school, but he appreciated the stucco and clay aesthetic as it was familiar to him. Los Jardines de Plata was much more elegant than Sonora but the similarities were striking and Felipe was satisfied. The likelihood of finding someplace as nice as his family's estate was slim, so he saw little need to be uppity about the whole thing.

When the speech was finished and students began mulling about, making introductions, and taking snacks, Felipe was tense. Social niceties were trained into him, but hardly something he enjoyed, and he was far more entertained by the structure of the gardens and the school than he was by his peers. They would probably need something and he hardly had anything to give at this stage except his own company, which was hardly a gift. He was happy to realize that he wasn't the only person who spoke another language though. German drifted past his ears, and he caught bits and pieces of other conversations. He was pleased that his English accent was perfect, though, and his fluency nearly the same. He wouldn't need to get by on his Spanish and hope to find someone that could engage equally (which was unlikely anyway).

Occupying himself by examining the plants that made up the Labyrinth, Felipe looked up only upon the sound of footsteps approaching. It was, as was expected, a first year, and he greeted them with a stiff nod, his bearing otherwise remaining upright and proud.

"Good evening," he said politely. "My name is Felipe."

22 Felipe De Matteo This all sounds very adequate. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Hilda

January 05, 2019 9:42 AM

Gott sie Dank by Hilda

OOC: It is safe to assume everything Hilda says is in German unless stated otherwise. BIC:

Hilda’s eyes widened in shock as the approaching red haired girl spoke German to her. Her stance loosened, the flashcard lowered, and her mouth fell open, and while she was still large for her age and built like a shotputter, she looked far too flabbergasted to be remotely intimidating at the moment.

Heinrich had said the only person here who spoke any German was a Russian girl in the year below his. Hilda had planned to plague this now second year girl in all her classes so the Russian could tell her what was going on. However bad her German was, it had to be better than Hilda’s English. She had not expected to hear her own language spoken fluently by anyone here other than Heinrich.

Judging by the German words - and the English she could mostly follow (the hand gesture clarified the one word she had completely forgotten and the rest were on the flashcard she had just looked at) - however, she thought the Russian girl might get two hangers-on instead of just one.

But it was good, so good, to know she wasn’t alone in this, that she had a classmate who was going through a similar struggle, who she could talk with. “Gott sie Dank,” she breathed out in prayer. “You are my new best friend,” she said in German to the girl whose name she didn’t even know.

“I’m Hilda,” she introduced herself in an effort to fix that small oversight. No need to drag her last name into this before Red Haired Girl had gotten to know her better. “You’re from Germany, too?” There was no small about of relief and disbelief in the question. And perhaps just a dash of anxiety, too.

OOC: Gott sie Dank: Thank God.

1 Hilda Gott sie Dank 1433 Hilda 0 5

Johanna Leonie

January 05, 2019 10:16 AM

Freunden! by Johanna Leonie

OOC: I'll do the same.

IC:

Johanna Leonie could've cried. "You're German," she practically shouted in their shared language. The foreign school suddenly seemed much less foreign. Between shared languages and home countries, and an instant reason to be friends, Johanna Leonie was much less lonely with Hilda around. Even the name 'Hilda' was comforting. "I'm Johanna Leonie," she added, using her full first name and shrugging lightly. People usually shortened it when they wanted to, and kept it when they thought it was nice sounding all together, so she didn't care too much what people did with her name at this point.

"I'm so glad we're in this together. Did you get what the man was saying at all?" Normally Johanna Leonie wouldn't be so fast to admit to a failing in this way, particularly when it was one she was supposed to have ironed out before coming here. In this case, her new friend was quite literally holding up a sign that said she didn't know English hardly anyway, so she was pretty sure there would be no judgment. "I caught...some of it. Just a little bit of it." She grimaced. How in the world were they going to get through classes this way? "Usually I love adventure, but this all feels like a bit much right now."

22 Johanna Leonie Freunden! 1432 Johanna Leonie 0 5

Hilda

January 05, 2019 3:40 PM

Jippeh! by Hilda

Johanna Leonie. That was her best friend’s name. Very nice. Hilda liked it. Hilda liked her. She could only hope that lasted through the awkward phase of actually getting to know a person.

She grimaced and shook her head when asked how much if the guy’s speech she understood. At least she didn’t seem to be alone in finding it incomprehensible. “A few words,” she admitted. “Not much.”

“My brother Heinrich is a third year,” she told her new friend by way of encouragement, “and he managed his first year without anybody around who spoke German.” It gave her hope, not because she thought she stood a chance of learning the language anywhere near as good as he had, but because she had someone to turn to for help where he hadn’t. “But he’s an Aladren,” she added, because it was a pertinent point. “They’re the brainy ones.” Hilda stood very little chance of being sorted there. Not that she was dumb. She just got frustrated and gave up too easily. It was a common complaint on her academic progress reports: Needs to put in more effort.

“If we get really stuck, we can ask him for help.” She could guess by Heinrich’s not knowing of any other Germans that Johanna Leonie had no older siblings at the school, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have any at all. “I have two brothers,” she continued. “One older, one younger. Do you have any siblings?”

1 Hilda Jippeh! 1433 Hilda 0 5

Johann Leonie

January 05, 2019 4:03 PM

Du bist meine neue Familie. by Johann Leonie

Johanna Leonie sighed a breath of relief to hear she was not alone. Not alone! That was so exciting. Hilda's brother sounded wonderful, simply because he was also German and there were few things in the world as exciting as this happy coincidence right now.

"That's wonderful!" she insisted, excited to meet the older student. She didn't say so, but she wondered whether he'd kept his notes from first year by chance. Might be helpful. When Hilda said he was in Aladren, it clicked that the man probably did not have heads in his house, but was a Head of House for one of the four Sonoran houses. "There's no way I'll be in Aladren. I'd rather do almost anything than read or something like that."

She wasn't quite ready to admit that she was also entirely ill-suited for academia. Oh, she could do magic. All the magical Zauberhexens were skilled magicians, and that was of little concern to Johanna Leonie who had demonstrated profound magical ability in the home grown magic of her family, but anything outside the small town she'd grown up in was much less comfortable.

When Hilda asked about siblings, Johanna Leonie felt the familiar pangs of homesickness. They'd started the moment she'd embarked on her trip to Sonora in the first place and they felt much less painful now. Homesickness would be her friend here too, but it wasn't so bad when it was the reminiscing kind.

"I have one brother," she said excitedly, glad to have found more in common than language. "His name is Friederike
Albert. He'll be here next year," she added, not pointing out that that was only the case if she didn't flunk out before then. At least it would be a fun adventure in the meantime. "He has hair a little bit like yours."

22 Johann Leonie Du bist meine neue Familie. 1432 Johann Leonie 0 5

Hilda

January 05, 2019 7:30 PM

Und du bist meine by Hilda

Friederike Albert. Obviously Johanna Leonie's parents liked double names as much as her own liked the letter H. "Hansel is younger than that," she told her new friend. "He won't be here for a while. He's still only six." She kind of envied Hans. He was young enough that by the time he started, he would have learned English almost as naturally as he had German. They'd been living in America for two years already. He'd started getting exposed to the language when he was only four.

On the other hand, she kind of pitied him, too. He wasn't going to remember Germany hardly at all. Uncle Karl would be far more his Dad than Dad ever could be now.

"Do you still live in Germany?" she asked. "We live in Utah now, but we've only been there about two years." Since her parents got arrested and custody of them went to their Uncle who had moved to America years ago. But that was best not to bring up yet. Or ever, if possible, but that was unlikely. The Hexenmeister trial had only ended a year ago, and had been big news all over Europe for the whole year before that, especially in Germany.

"I've been trying to learn English ever since, but it doesn't make any sense at all to me, and until now I didn't really need it for day-to-day life."

1 Hilda Und du bist meine 1433 Hilda 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 05, 2019 10:16 PM

We'll see by Jeremy Mordue

The wagon ride seemed calculated to annoy. The journey itself was unnecessary slow and dull but the worst part was Nathaniel sitting opposite him, constantly looking like he was on the verge of saying something more significant than small talk about the passing scenery. Nathaniel kept looking like he wanted to remind Jeremy how to behave, and was only thinking better of it because there were other people around. This was met with a steady gaze of steel. Not glaring. Jeremy would not glare in public, even at his brother, and even when said brother was being provoking. But it was a look that said Nathaniel’s desire to correct him was a bad idea. He didn’t need Nathaniel’s help. He knew what he was doing. Had he not had all the same etiquette classes? Was he not the same age as Nathaniel had been when he got shipped off to school? He didn’t know why his brother had to treat him like such a baby all the time. It wasn’t fair.

As the four Mordues disembarked the wagons, his cousin Simon wished him luck. This remark was echoed by Nathaniel along with ‘have fun.’ Jeremy’s instinctive reactions to whether comments were irritating or not had far more to do with who was saying them to him than what was said. Had Nathaniel alone wished him luck, he would have found it an irritating and patronising comment, an implication of Nathaniel’s lack of trust in him to be able to do this. But Simon had said it. Simon and he weren’t close, but his oldest cousin was broadly decent to him. He didn’t constantly treat Jeremy like a problem, the way Nathaniel did, and so this remark was taken as being a sign of warmth, a friendly wish from his cousin, and thus passed without irritation when Nathaniel said it too. From Sylvia, he got ‘see you later,’ which he took to mean his cousin expected him to get sorted into Crotalus, and which bolstered his spirits immensely. Of course, his cousins would all see him regardless of his house placement, as the first years would be paraded in front of the whole school, but Jeremy was adept at reading what he wanted into the remarks of others - approving from Simon and Sylvia, whose good favour he craved, and irritating and sanctimonious from Nathaniel, who had a lifetime of casually one-upping him, being the better, older, favourite child without even really trying, and who felt the constant need to try to make Jeremy into himself. Like being Nathaniel was so great. He was a Teppenpaw.

Jeremy set off down the path marked for first years with his held high and his shoulders squared. He felt bolstered by having had three older students to see him off (even one who was irritating and a Teppenpaw) because that helped to show he was someone. All the important families had a large presence in the school, and it did well for his reputation that he was already well connected. It was a shame that Simon hadn’t got prefect. If the silly school hadn’t collapsed on Quidditch, he would have had a different badge to make up for it. Still, Jeremy had connections and was clearly Someone, and that was the main thing.

He listened to the speech from the tired and disheveled professor (Nathaniel’s head of house) with internal impatience but with a carefully schooled look of neutrality. The man was going over a range of things that Jeremy, of course, already knew. He allowed a slight smirk to cross his features as the man bothered to explain Quidditch, one that said that clearly Jeremy knew what that was, and thought it rather laughable that anyone might not. Oh, he knew there were Muggleborns and other trash. And that some of them probably didn’t know, because for all that they had been gifted, somehow, with magic, some of them barely bothered to crack a book before coming to school, or to learn the important things about the world into which they were going to enter. That was the trouble with those types of people - they didn’t always make the effort to assimilate.

When they were dismissed to talk to others, Jeremy looked around carefully. He only wanted to talk to people worth talking to. Noticing a boy who held himself well - good posture, neat appearance, not desperately cramming cookies into his face in an ungainly manner - Jeremy decided he had found an acceptable start. Jeremy made his way over and was given the name Felipe. Just that. No family name. This was not enough evidence on which to assume that the boy wasn’t Pureblood though. He had heard that people at school sometimes got a bit casual, though he hadn’t expected it to happen quite so quickly. From his name, the boy was also clearly somewhat foreign, although he didn’t sound it. He had also been prepared for this, and that the majority of the foreigners came from decent families who were seeking wider connections. Maybe they didn’t do things the same way wherever this boy was from, though as he was in America now, he would need to learn to do things their way.

“I’m Jeremy Mordue of the Oregon Mordues,” Jeremy replied, showing him how it was to be done. He refrained from saying that it was nice to meet the other boy because he couldn’t yet be sure that it was.

13 Jeremy Mordue We'll see 1443 Jeremy Mordue 0 5

Johanna Leonie

January 05, 2019 10:24 PM

Jetzt haben wir Schwestern. [Now we have sisters.] by Johanna Leonie

"Awe, he must still be cute then!" Johanna Leonie laughed. "Friederike Albert is not cute anymore, he's a tornado. Maybe less of a tornado than I am but a tornado none the less." Johanna Leonie smiled, proud of her reputation as the rough and tumble girl where she grew up. However much her skills pushed her towards healing, and indeed so did her interests, she would still rather have dirt on her hands than a life on them.

She was surprised to find out that Hilda did not still live in Germany. She couldn't imagine being away from home for the entire school year, let alone her whole life everyday now. "Yes," she said in response. "It's a very small village though. I haven't seen much of the rest of the country. If you miss it, you should come stay with us some time." She smiled widely, and the sweet, puckered face revealed her mischievous side.

Hilda's struggle with English was more familiar and Johanna Leonie nodded understandingly. "Mama and papa are healers, and they're good at what they do. Sometimes people come to us from all over the world because they want to find some hope in the forests that they can't find in the big cities." Johanna Leonie shrugged. She was well aware of the superstitious history of her family's brand of magic, and couldn't exactly hide that. "They aren't very good with the sort of magic we'll learn here, but they can heal lots of things. We've had a lot of people stay with us that speak English, so I picked it up some that way but apparently not very much. I can ask if someone wants more soup and whether their stomachache has gone away though pretty well!" She laughed at some of the more colorful terms she'd learned from patients, like raging headache and exploding out both ends at once. She didn't have to be fluent in English to know those were hilarious.

"What does your family do?" she asked, turning the conversation when she realized that she'd been talking so much about herself.

22 Johanna Leonie Jetzt haben wir Schwestern. [Now we have sisters.] 1432 Johanna Leonie 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

January 05, 2019 10:45 PM

We certainly will. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe found this boy utterly fascinating. He was, from first impression, exactly who Felipe's own father was trying to make sure Felipe never became. Although the heir to the De Matteo fortune was admittedly more prone to boasting of his family name than his father would have liked, he could see the good in what was being done now. Whether he particularly liked to keep company with muggleborns and poor wizards was an entirely separate issue from whether it was respectable -- and also probably decent or something -- for the wealthier family to help them. His father had often commented that the De Matteo family was as close to royalty as was possible among their people and their kind, and Felipe had never seen a king offer his full name just to satisfy his interlocutor that he was indeed a king. A crown was meant to be seen, not displayed. He wondered whether this boy was an heir.

If he was going to insist on being so formal, Felipe would adjust. He still had little interest in providing more information just yet, as there may be some strategic advantage to refraining from that, but he had the etiquette lessons to match the higher register conversation.

Like turning a dial somewhere inside his chest, Felipe gave up on the study of architecture that was undoubtedly more interesting and began the study of Jeremy Mordue.

"You'll have to forgive my oversight. I have not yet learned all of the family names of influential families in the United States," Felipe offered, making it into a compliment. Felipe had no idea who the Oregon Mordues were, but it would take a blind man not to see that they were important, at least to themselves. Recognizing that in Jeremy's posture was a greater treat than to see it in his name, and he wanted to make that clear to the boy. "Felipe De Matteo De Los Jardines De Plata," he said, offering his full name and estate in Spanish.

"I saw your family has a history at Sonora," he asked neatly in English, interested to learn more about Jeremy's family while also seeing how far his ego would take him in the conversation. He'd either be flattered that he was noticed among so many older students and his head would swell, or he would dismiss it causally, offering an explanation and something friendly. Whatever their approaches, it was clear they were both playing the game of strategy.

22 Felipe De Matteo We certainly will. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Hilda

January 05, 2019 11:19 PM

Das ist gut by Hilda

Hilda laughed and agreed, "Yes, Hans is very cute. If we get to be roommates, I will show you a picture." She supposed she could still show Johanna Leonie a picture even if they weren't roommates, but it would be easier and much more wonderful if they were.

Her good mood - and her expression - froze, however, when Johanna Leonie asked what it was her family did. Not only was the answer terrible - oh, they are in jail for dark magic and being professional assassins for twenty years - but they were being compared to healers, even if it was the hedge witch variety, if she was understanding the subtext correctly, which made it somehow even worse.

"Um," she said, stalling, not wanting to lie to her new friend but also not wanting the third thing Johanna Leonie learned about her to be that her parents were Those Hexenmeisters. She'd mostly come to grips with the idea that the charges against them might really be true, but the last thing she really wanted was to admit that out loud. "Well. I, ah, I live with my Uncle Karl. He's our legal guardian. He raises snakes and sells the scales and venom and stuff as potion ingredients." Even that sounded kind of almost shady, though she was pretty sure Uncle Karl was on the up and up. But then, she'd thought that about Mom and Dad, too, and their 'trouble-shooting consulting firm'.

1 Hilda Das ist gut 1433 Hilda 0 5

Johanna Leonie

January 05, 2019 11:34 PM

Du bist sehr coole! by Johanna Leonie

Johanna Leonie was pretty sure Uncle Karl sounded like a badass. "It sounds like they'd get on great!" she said said, thinking how excited her parents would be to find a good source of venom and things.

It didn't go over her head that Hilda didn't mention her own parents but the odds of that being for a happy reason were slim and Johanna Leonie didn't want to push. What if they had died or something? She didn't want to bring that up. "Do all your siblings live with your uncle?" she asked instead, hoping it would answer some of her curiosities in a round about way.

"Guess you'll be good in potions then?" she added, laughing. "At least if we cover some classes with background knowledge, it won't be so tough to do them in English." She spent a moment thinking as hard as she could over whether she had any similar skills to bring to their partnership, but she doubted that running really fast or using slugs to heal burns would come up very often. "Honestly, I don't know if I'll be any good at anything when there's so much to catch up on. I'm a bit worried." She frowned briefly. "It should be fun though." And just like that, a smile replaced her expression.

22 Johanna Leonie Du bist sehr coole! 1432 Johanna Leonie 0 5

Zara Jackson

January 05, 2019 11:40 PM

Be yourself - everyone else is already taken by Zara Jackson

Zara stepped off the wagon and followed the signs for first year orientation, telling herself firmly that she could do this. She was sure it was perfectly normal to feel a little nervous on your first day of school. It didn’t mean that this whole thing - coming to boarding school instead of being homeschooled like her cousins and her sister - had been a really bad idea. It was going to be fun. It was going to be an adventure. She was going to learn a bunch.

She listened to the orientation speech carefully. It felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. She had read up on the school, on the courses offered, and the houses, and the curriculum and the exam structure… She knew it. But it was sort of different being told it. These were no longer printed words in a glossy pamphlet. They were no longer one of the options on the table. They were her life. Ok, if she hated it, she could go home, but she wanted to be able to do this. And it was now seeming startlingly real that she was about to have to. But there plus sides too. The gardens so far looked great, and there had been the ride on the wagons, and the school building itself looked cool, and she was wearing her uniform - it was all so schooly, and it was finally real in an exciting way as well as a scary one.

Once Professor Xavier finished talking, she made her way over to the refreshments table, grabbing some juice and a brownie, and pondering how to go about the next step: making friends. There were a few different things that made people like another person. Sadly, the first was pretty shallow and it was be beautiful. Faces were the first thing other people saw, and they liked pretty ones, sometimes to the extent of not caring about what was underneath. Zara was beautiful. Her hair stood out from her head in magnificent defiance of gravity and there was a little gap between her front teeth in her very toothy smile. She was aware that other people might therefore disagree with her self-assessment on the beauty front, but it was what she thought that counted. True, it might not help her in the making friends stakes, where other people were going to wield their own opinions against her, but it was still what counted. She liked her natural hair, and her auntie had helped her give it a deep condition and extra moisturising over the weekend, so it was, for a given value on her own personal scale, somewhat behaving itself, displaying its best ability to do curls rather than just frizz. She even liked the gap in her teeth, which her dad said was lucky - a fact which was born out by the fact that he had one too and was having the best time. She wasn’t sure if this was official folk wisdom anywhere, or just something her dad had come up with but it meant she had always liked her own smile. If other people weren’t going to like it, she supposed she could keep her mouth more closed so it didn’t show.

Another reason people liked another person was if they were good at something. Zara was good at a great many things. She could ride a bicycle, rewire a plug, and operate a microwave (basic functions). She had been the under 10s champion of the Boston Muggle Cultural Center’s ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ competition when she had been nine. The fact that there had only been a handful of entrants did nothing to undermine this achievement, as she had had the indisputably awesome score of ninety-five percent perfect with a streak of twenty-one correct moves. She was acutely aware that these achievements would be meaningless to almost all of her peers. Some, because they were Purebloods who thought all Muggle technology beneath their notice and attention, and others because they had just as much or more exposure to the Muggle world as she did, and could also do at least two of these. There were maybe a few people like dad, who had previously had limited exposure to the Muggle world but found it fascinating, though her best hope was to find someone who knew enough about video games to actually got her ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ achievement but wasn’t super into them because that was all she had. Or find someone who thought plugs were cool. From what she had gathered, most Muggleborn children did learn to ride bikes and use a microwave but rewiring a plug was a skill not widely possessed by most children, or even some adults. However, it also appeared to not be regarded as particularly interesting, on the whole. She supposed she could not mention it.

She could. But she wasn’t going to. That was the thing. There were lots of ways you could get people to like someone. But there was only one way to get people to like you and that was to be yourself. And Zara had never seen any reason to be anyone other than her big haired, gap toothed, plug rewiring self, because who she was awesome. She didn’t need anyone in her life who thought otherwise. So, that was the plan. She was quite sure that not everyone was going to like her, but she was going to find the ones who did, and not give a damn about the rest. As there was no time like the present, she made her way over to a nearby classmate, giving them a broad smile.

“Hi,” she grinned. “I’m Zara and I’m from Boston. It’s so cool to finally be here!”

13 Zara Jackson Be yourself - everyone else is already taken 1444 Zara Jackson 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 06, 2019 12:06 AM

I think I'm coming round to it by Jeremy Mordue

“That’s alright,” Jeremy replied, with what was probably far too much graciousness, one that betrayed that he thought rather a lot of his own good will and where it was bestowed. Honestly, what kind of person started school without knowing who was who? Jeremy more or less missed the subtextual compliment, or rather it registered less than the fact that Felipe didn’t seem to know who he was, and hadn’t come to school properly prepared. Still, the second attempt at an introduction was better. Jeremy had no idea about foreigners and which ones were important but Felipe certainly had the bearing of someone decent, and the odds were also in his favour based on the information Jeremy had about other foreigners.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he replied to the more formal greeting, deciding now that it was safe to assert this.

“Yes,” he confirmed, swelling with pride when his family was commented on, “My cousins and brother already attend the school.” He thought about bringing up how big Simon was on the Quidditch team, or how Sylvia was… whatever she was, with her girls club. However, the Quidditch team was complicated because of it not being proper teams and Simon not having an official status as a captain any more, and he also didn’t think he could properly explain what Sylvia did without going into a lot explanation about her little group, and it was girly and not the sort of thing that boys talked about. Besides this, the subject of other people’s achievements was rather boring to him. He would use their reflected glory if he could, but he found himself a much more interesting subject. But they had already talked about him, and it was only fair that they talked about Felipe too.

“Where does your family traditionally go?” he asked. He knew from his relatives that there weren’t any De Matteos at Sonora. He thought this a rather good way of establishing where Felipe was actually from, and also allowing him to talk a little bit about his own family in spite of their absence from Sonora’s hallowed hallways - and it was polite to allow both parties equal input on the topic at hand.

13 Jeremy Mordue I think I'm coming round to it 1443 Jeremy Mordue 0 5

Hilda

January 06, 2019 1:57 PM

Du bist großartig by Hilda

It didn't seem like Johanna Leonie thought snake raising and venom selling sounded suspicious, so that was a good turn of events. Still she wasn't going to hold her breath on any adult Hexenmeister 'getting on great' with a family of German healers. Especially one that specialized in venomous snakes. Most of the assassinations attributed to mom and dad were poisonings. Though admittedly, most of those had used plant based poisons from flowers grown in their garden ("Do NOT put any of the plants out here in your mouth, sweetie" had been one of the very first rules she had learned as a toddler), rather than snake venom, but still.

Hilda laughed a little bit at the idea that she'd be any good at potions based on the fact that Uncle Karl sold snake based ingredients. Which wasn't to say she hadn't picked up some brewing skills, but they hadn't come from Karl. "Not really. Some crushed scales might come up in first year, but snake parts aren't really the most common ingredients, and even if they were, Uncle Karl sells them, he doesn't brew them. I'm better set for Care of Magical Creatures than potions."

She gave Johanna Leonie an encouraging smile, "But don't worry too much, there's a second year named, um, Katerina Vor-something-that-sounds-very-Russian who speaks a little bit of German, and she's a Teppenpaw, so she'll probably be able and willing to help us out when we have trouble." That was definitely going to be a when, not an if, in Hilda's case. "And my textbook is in German, so that'll help a lot. And Heinrich says the potions mistress here labels her ingredients in like a million different languages." Technically, Heinrich had told her the specific languages that they were labelled, in but Hilda couldn't remember them all, and there had been a lot. A million was close enough.

1 Hilda Du bist großartig 1433 Hilda 0 5

Beatriz Couthon

January 06, 2019 4:07 PM

Sound advice. by Beatriz Couthon

Beatriz Couthon grinned as she stepped off the flying wagon. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time and now that it was finally here, she couldn’t hide her excitement. It was accompanied by another feeling, one of nervousness, and for a moment she wished her twin brother Felix was with her. Beatriz quickly shoved the thought to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to think about her family today - there was no point spoiling such an important day by feeling homesick.

The first year paid close attention as Professor Xavier introduced them to the school, although she already knew a lot of the information he shared. She felt another flutter of excitement at mention of sorting - Beatriz had an inkling of which house she would be sorted into but her mother had told her that she could be surprised. It was somewhat disappointing that there was no mention of having house Quidditch teams, only a school wide team, but as long as she got to play her beloved sport one way or another Beatriz would be happy. The duelling club also sounded fun, if she would have enough time in between all the training she would be doing.

Beatriz helped herself to some pumpkin juice when the professor finished speaking, allowing herself time to casually assess her peers before conversing with any of them. She didn’t want to get stuck talking to someone boring. She wondered if any of them loved Quidditch as much as she did. That would be nice, although admittedly if there was only going to be one school team she could do without too much competition. Beatriz was confident in her abilities - she already played at a high competitive level, but she was a little concerned she might be overlooked on the basis of being a first year.

Before Beatriz had much chance to decide who she wanted to talk to, a girl approached. She had big crazy hair and Beatriz’s instant judgement was that the girl’s personality would match this. Whether that was a good or bad thing, she was yet to find out. The girl, whose name was Zara, did not introduce herself formally. Beatriz didn’t really care much for formalities herself but nonetheless assumed from this that Zara was not from a significant background. She could well be one of those Muggleborn people, although Beatriz was not going to go that far with her judgements and assumptions until she knew more about the girl.

“Nice to meet you, Zara.” Beatriz smiled in a friendly manner. “I’m Beatriz Couthon… I’m from Texas and Québec.” She never felt she could say one or the other as she spent almost equal amounts of time in her homes in both places, which her parents kept for business and family reasons.

“It’s pretty cool,” Beatriz agreed with a nod, not wanting to sound quite as enthusiastic as the other girl. Not everyone needed to know just how excited about she really was about this new adventure. “Do you have any family here?” Beatriz thought the remark about “finally” being at Sonora suggested Zara had been waiting quite some time, or the question might at least lead to a surname being revealed.

8 Beatriz Couthon Sound advice. 1437 Beatriz Couthon 0 5

Johanna Leonie

January 06, 2019 7:05 PM

Oh, hör auf! erröten by Johanna Leonie

"I guess that's true," Johanna Leonie laughed, glad that Hilda seemed so easygoing. "Care of Magical Creatures is one of the ones I'm looking forward to the most!" she said, excited that she'd definitely have a friend there. She hadn't said anything but the idea of being roommates with Hilda was this weird mix of a total relief and a total thrill. She had a friend! And even if their friendship didn't work out long term, Johanna Leonie was sure that they'd at least have a solid acquaintanceship. This was going to be a good year and the next seven years didn't seem so daunting now.

"That and Herbology," she continued. "Although I don't think I'll know any of the English words for anything. I'm glad you have a German textbook, that sounds really helpful!" Her own books were well worn and had layers of notes in the margins, as they'd mostly come from her parents library of resources. She had more extra books than textbooks, despite her clear dislike of reading; her parents believed that having more resources available would make studying at an English speaking school easier and they were probably right. "The potions professor might save my hide," she laughed. "Does that mean there are lots of students who speak different languages here?"

22 Johanna Leonie Oh, hör auf! *erröten* 1432 Johanna Leonie 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

January 06, 2019 7:25 PM

No, no, you'll have to do a lot more to come around. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe had dark eyebrows, like his deep, almost black hair. One of them, his right eyebrow, wanted nothing more than to arch in amusement and satisfaction. Jeremy seemed to be exactly the sort of person Felipe had suspected, and there was nothing more fun than being right about somebody else's flaws. Well, there wasn't much that was more fun than that. He decided right then and there that he wanted to spend more time around Jeremy as the term began, sure as he was that the boy would provide some solid entertainment. Beyond that, there were certainly social advantages to be had. All around, it seemed like a perfect friendship. He extended his hand to shake when Jeremy finally admitted to his pleasure in their meeting.

Felipe nodded along, listening as Jeremy confirmed that he was not the heir, as he had suspected. "There are many people eager to meet you then, I'm sure," he suggested, happier with the game he was playing than with the conversation. He waited to see how Jeremy would react to the idea.

When the conversation turned towards himself, Felipe wondered whether it was a move of etiquette, strategy, or both. It was the first time in the conversation he realized he would need to be friends with more than just Jeremy if he was ever going to relax. Or, even better, to only be friends with Jeremy and spend the reset of his time alone. At least, alone when he wasn't managing important social connections or finding ways to be philanthropic. He had high hopes that if he was nice enough to people, word of his deeds would get back to his parents without him having to explain them himself; bragging about altruism was hardly altruistic.

"I'm the heir," Felipe responded simply. "There are no older De Matteos in our generation, so my attendance here is revolutionary." Yes, his father would approve of a word like revolutionary. It implied all the progressive moves forward the family hoped to make, and pointed to their long history of standing up for the important things. It was also better than "unusual" or "Surprising," which were also true.

"Many of my ancestors attended Castelobruxo. It's why they were able to do so much for the people in Mexico when they moved there, as they were well-equipped to handle the creatures there," he explained. Castelobruxo had a reputation for Magizoology, which was hardly a claim to status in modern magic communities but had been important generations ago. The Brazilian school boasted a global name and had a strong presence on the international student exchange circle. "Later, they made a point to travel more broadly. Hogwarts, L'Istitut Quebecois, et cetera. They brought back everything they could and most of the most recent generations have traveled abroad with private tutors for education. There were no limits," he finished, proud of his family's diverse educational background. It had allowed them time to get to know the people of the world and their own people, very important traits for any powerful family. "It is why we speak so many languages."

22 Felipe De Matteo No, no, you'll have to do a lot more to come around. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Zara

January 07, 2019 12:16 AM

I can teach you many things by Zara

"That's cool," Zara said when Beatriz described herself as from Texas and Quebec. Her tone was genuinely interested and it was clear she was happy to hear more on that subject if Beatriz cared to venture it. There were a few ways someone could be from more than one place - a parent from each, parents from one but being born or growing up in the other, a historical connection like the way in which her mother was Irish, in spite of no member of the family having been there for generations ... She wasn't going to take a stab at which it was. She also didn't want to demand that Beatriz explain further because she knew how exhausting it could be to raft a host of questions from strangers about your heritage. Where are you from? No, but where are you actually from? Is that really your mom? Beatriz identified as both, and that was the important bit - more so than how that came to be.

"No," Zara answered when Beatriz asked about having relatives in the school. She didn't over-analyse Beatriz' question, and whether it was polite interest or a dig for information. Sure, there was the little nag at back of her mind which wondered what this person thought of her, and which hoped she was doing ok. But, if she wasn't, she wasn't about to change course as a result just to try to please Beatriz. She therefore didn't give too much energy to analysing the question because it wasn't going to affect her answer that much.

"My family tends to home school. They were worried that there'd be a lot of racism in a school like this." Given the tone of her skin, this did little to answer the unspoken question of blood status, as Zara could easily have been talking about either type of racism. In fact, it was both. Technically her cousins were Pureblood, ish. But given that her family ran the Muggle Cultural Center, and didn't care who they married, she didn't exactly think the Tates were going to be considered dinner party people, and her own branch of the family was mixed race, in every sense. With her cousin James, there was also homophobic bullying to worry about. People were such a fun panorama of random and irritational hatred. "But I was always curious about school, and we have some family friends here who said it's ok," the tone she put onto this last word implied that Sonora had not been deemed completely free of troubling views but had been deemed safe enough.

"How about you?" she asked.

13 Zara I can teach you many things 1444 Zara 0 5

Hilda

January 07, 2019 11:45 AM

ich mag dich by Hilda

Hilda nodded in agreement that Care of Magical Creatures was one of the more interesting classes she was looking forward to. Less so herbology, but she nodded anyway in support of Johanna Leonie's enthusiasm. She figured she'd probably do very well in Defense Against the Dark Arts, too, but wasn't sure that was something to brag about, all things considered.

"Heinrich made it sound like it, though he only mentioned the Russian girl specifically. I think the rest are older than us. But I'm pretty sure he mentioned at least French and some kind of Asian language were also on the potion ingredients. In addition to the English, German, and Russian, I mean."

"So um," she began, deciding she should maybe start moving in the direction of a confession, because she wasn't sure how long she had before her last name was announced loudly in front of the whole class, or worse, the whole school, and she didn't want Johanna Leonie to think she was intentionally hiding things (even if she was) or lying to her (which she definitely wasn't). "Have you ever been to Zauberstadt?" she asked cautiously. It was probably the largest purely magical town in Germany, so asking about it wasn't entirely suspicious, but it was also probably common knowledge that had been where the Hexenmeisters had lived and been arrested two years ago. "That's where we used to live."

1 Hilda ich mag dich 1433 Hilda 0 5

Jessica Hayles

January 07, 2019 3:47 PM

I see a few small problems on the horizon. by Jessica Hayles

Today was not the first time Jessica had ever been in the air. With Daddy, she flew to New York to visit family on a semi-regular basis, and on special occasions he let her travel with him other places – she went on Latin American business trips sometimes to practice her Spanish, or to fashion weeks in Europe as rewards for excellence or her birthdays. Even with Mommy, who did not like to go far from home, she had taken short plane rides to south Georgia to visit her Groves relatives, Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma, who had been governor and first lady of the state, and all her aunts and uncles and cousins who lived down there around them. Flying, then, was something she was accustomed to, and so the journey to Arizona had been the one part of this going-to-wizard-school she had not been terrified of from the start. She had thought she had known what to expect.

She had thought an incorrect thought.

Her already pale skin was almost white as she staggered, weak-kneed and half-sick, off the wagon, blinking away green and black stars until her brown eyes fixed on the bizarre-looking man who seemed to be giving directions. She stared blankly at him for a long moment, then blinked a few more times, rapidly, before reaching into the pale pink bag hanging from one of her wrists and emerging with a gilt compact and a matching thin tube, which looked very like a pen until she removed the cap and revealed instead the extremely slim bullet of a light pink gloss. Half as if in a trance, she opened the mirror and reapplied the gloss, her hands moving with the ease of something very close to muscle memory.

She closed the compact as automatically as she had opened it, but the click brought her back to earth, back to a higher-than-baseline-functioning awareness of her surroundings. With this awareness came a swell of fear. She was among barbarians. They travelled like that, and they had compelled her to buy a bunch of dead bug parts for a class, and their books indicated they were acutely superstitious to a man, and she was trapped here among them, at least until she could convince them she wasn’t a danger to herself and others with these abilities they claimed she had – but she had on her lip gloss. Jessica Rose was the name of the shade; Daddy had had the color she wore on her lips and nails, along with the eau de toilette she wore, blended in honor of her birth eleven years ago. Daddy always said that there wasn’t much to do about feeling bad, but that was why it was lucky it mattered less how you felt than how you looked. And compared to the guy talking, anyway, she looked really, really good. Tentatively, she took a few steps forward in the direction all the other sixth graders seemed to be heading.

The folders looked like the most important things, so she made a beeline for those and opened up one, looking for some signs of hope. She found none. When the man – Professor Xavier; oh great, it was X-Men – who had been giving directions came and started speaking, she listened closely, waiting for what she wanted to know, but she found nothing – well, almost nothing. At least it sounded like they did have some extracurricular programs, but where was Spanish Honors, or Junior Beta, and all the other sports besides the weird one that came up occasionally in the magic books? And more importantly, where the heck were the rest of their classes? She had assumed that the magic stuff was just an add-on, electives replacing her art and music and Spanish immersion classes at her old school, and that they would be given textbooks for normal subjects once they got here. That was, after all, the only logical explanation – normal classes were regulated, with standards, so of course they would use the same books she would have back at her old school, or similar. It could not really be that they expected her to study nothing but this for two years. It couldn’t be. She would get so far behind!

Her chest began to feel as though it were going to close up again. She pressed her lips together firmly. When something went wrong, one got a drink, put on a lipstick, and got the heck on with it. That was what Elizabeth Taylor had said, and while Jessica would generally not take Elizabeth Taylor as a guide for how to live her life, that statement made sense. So now she was going to go get something to drink, and then she would figure out who this adult guardian of hers was supposed to be, and she would get her schedule sorted out. They had to have her test scores and grades from her old school in Atlanta; they would have to understand that she was on an IB track and had her high school and university shortlists in development, and that as intelligent as she was, missing two years of everything she had studied up to this point would be a disaster. It would be easy to get it sorted. If she didn’t have a panic attack right now and make a spectacle of herself.

She pushed her copper-colored hair back behind her ears and walked toward to a table with what looked like fruit punch, only to have someone else get to the ladle just ahead of her. She smiled automatically. It didn’t matter how she felt, only how she looked. “Hi,” she said, with a slight southern accent. “I’m Jessica. Nice to meet you.”

16 Jessica Hayles I see a few small problems on the horizon. 1442 Jessica Hayles 0 5

Beatriz

January 07, 2019 6:46 PM

So could I. by Beatriz

Beatriz didn’t know much about Muggleborns but she knew enough to conclude that Zara - whose surname she still hadn’t learnt - wasn’t one of them. It remained unlikely that she was from a good family but at least she wasn’t an alien.

She nodded as Zara talked, assuming without question that by racism she was referring to the colour of her skin. Homeschooling wasn’t an unusual concept to her and she knew quite a few other kids who were homeschooled. She could see the perks but the idea of being away from home at a boarding school seemed so much more fun.

“I have a second cousin here - Luke Powell, he’s a sixth year,” Beatriz replied. She didn’t see Luke that much, since he lived in California, but she knew him well enough from family gatherings and events. Despite not being very close, it was still nice to know she’d have a familiar face around school and her mother had said Luke would look out for her. Beatriz didn’t think she needed looking out for. Part of the reason she had opted to go to a different school to her brother was to be more independent, but she did feel cool knowing one of the older kids, even if he wasn’t quite like the rest of her family.

“But some of my family have attended in the past,” she added. “I have a twin brother Felix but he’s gone to L’Institut Quebecois.”

It suddenly occurred to her that she should divulge some more information about herself before people got the wrong end of the stick and thought her parents were separated or something. “My mother’s from Texas and my father’s from Québec so we’ve got family in both places - that’s why I have two homes. We often travel between the two for their work…” Beatriz trailed off. Business was boring. She wasn’t about to become one of those kids who seemed to think they were older than they were and had a place talking business - they just looked silly.

“So, do you think you’ll join any of the clubs?” Beatriz changed the subject, flicking her long red hair over her shoulder. Now that she had established the important stuff, or as much as she could be bothered with, she was far more interested in finding out if Zara had anything in common with herself.

8 Beatriz So could I. 1437 Beatriz 0 5

Johanna Leonie

January 07, 2019 9:45 PM

Ich mag dich auch! by Johanna Leonie

Johanna Leonie's eyes widened at the mention of so many other languages. Even if it was only a few students at the school who spoke these other languages, it felt good to know that there were others that were at least a little bit like her. All the weight of traveling and starting at Sonora had been melting off her shoulders since she'd began chatting with Hilda, and she suddenly realized how tired she was. She stifled a yawn, but allowed a bit of contented droop to relax her back.

When the conversation shifted to Zauberstadt, Johanna Leonie smiled and shook her head. "No, I've always wanted to go though," she said. "My last name is Zauberhexen," she laughed. "My mom always said the city was named after us, but I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. It's not that surprising that 'zauber' would keep showing up," she laughed. When Hilda said she used to live there, Johanna Leonie's eyes grew wide. "That's amazing," she said. "Did you like it there? I'm from Flussfelsen," she said, referring to the tiny hamlet village she'd been born and raised in. "We never got any news of anything that happened around Germany except what people told us when they were sick and came to see us, and they always said Zauberstadt is beautiful."

22 Johanna Leonie Ich mag dich auch! 1432 Johanna Leonie 0 5

Zara

January 08, 2019 3:43 AM

Yay, learning exchange by Zara

"That's nice. It's good to have a familiar face," Zara smiled when Beatriz mentioned her cousin.

"Oh," she said, surprised when Beatriz said her twin brother was going to a different school. Ok, she was away from her siblings but that was because she wanted to be on an adventure. And they were only siblings, not twins. "Is that weird for you?" she asked, "Like, twins are usually really close, right?"

On the plus side, she'd got a little more insight into Beatriz' life. It sounded like a pretty cool way to live.

"That's exciting," she commented, about life between two cities, "And Quebec is really nice. My family takes a lot of vacations in Vermont, so we've driven into Quebec a couple of times, just because we can. Or waved to it.

"I'm not sure," she mused, when the other girl asked about joining clubs, "They all sound kind of fun but I'm not sure I'd want to do any of them every week." Zara very much enjoyed trying new things. This was a great mindset for joining clubs but less good for sticking at them. "If it's a nice group of people, maybe." She would rather do things with friends. If they were all in a club, she could go along with it, but if they had a different random adventure every week, or just time hanging out then that sounded cool too. "How about you?" she asked.

13 Zara Yay, learning exchange 1444 Zara 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

January 10, 2019 8:05 AM

Yeah, well... so will you. by Jeremy Mordue

Jeremy shook the hand that Felipe extended, feeling like this was all going really very well, and wishing Nathaniel could see this. Nathaniel thought he was so freaking great. So perfect, Mr. Teppenpaw with all his diplomacy and etiquette skills. Well, Jeremy was doing fine. Better than fine. He could be gracious as heck and if Nathaniel was here he’d make him eat humble pie so fast he damn well choked on it and who’d be King of Diplomacy then, huh? Felipe thought there were people here who were keen to meet him.

He had no idea how to play that because he doubted it was true. But obviously he couldn’t admit that.

Crap.

This was harder than he’d thought.

“Well. Uh. Yeah. Probably,” he agreed. It was polite to agree, right? He hated how uncertain he sounded.

And then Felipe moved on to talking about himself. And it got better. And worse. It got better because it meant Jeremy no longer had to think of what to say. Anyone who knew him in the slightest would have been very surprised to find how quickly he found himself not wanting to be the main subject of the conversation. Normally, if there was one thing Jeremy liked to talk about, it was Jeremy. Also on the getting better side, Felipe was an heir. Which was like… bonus points for how well he was doing at making friends, and how well he’d read the room (well… garden clearing) and picked out the right person to talk to. The getting worse part was also that Felipe was an heir. Jeremy wasn’t. That made Felipe better than him. He also managed to casually drop in speaking multiple languages like it was no big deal (and, Jeremy supposed, it wasn’t really because if Felipe had grown up being foreign well… then of course he spoke foreign languages. It wasn’t learning something. It was sort of cheating to try to count it as an accomplishment). Still, Felipe had managed to drop something impressive (sort of - it didn’t really count) into the conversation and Jeremy knew that he had to match that but without seeming like he was matching it. It wasn’t like he wasn’t good at things. He was really excellent at Quidditch. But whenever he brought it up, Nathaniel told him off for bragging, even if he was just saying what was true. And now he saw the effortless way that Felipe had managed to drop his skills into conversation, Jeremy kind of got it. And had no idea how to do it too.

“That’s cool,” he said, trying for casual. And succeeding. He definitely sounded casual. Not intimidated. “Languages are pretty useful. What do you speak?” he asked. Maybe Felipe only spoke Spanish, which he had to because he was Mexican, and English, which he had to because of going to school here. If that was the case, it definitely didn’t count.

13 Jeremy Mordue Yeah, well... so will you. 1443 Jeremy Mordue 0 5

Hilda

January 11, 2019 3:31 PM

Mir viel Glück by Hilda

Hilda was tempted - sorely tempted - to not say anything now that she knew Johana Leonie was from a remote enough town that she may - possibly - not have heard about the trial after all. But somebody might have said something. Hilda wasn’t certain anywhere in Germany was remote enough that not even a rumor of what happened got through.

It was best really to come clean before Johana Leonie found out some other way. Especially since she’d given an wide open opportunity to share Hilda’s own surname.

“Zauberhexen?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow and trying to stay casual and calm and even mildly amused about it all, like she wasn’t deeply horrified by her connection to her own last name. Pity really, that Uncle Karl was Dad’s brother instead of Mom’s. Maybe then they could have adopted his last name when he adopted them. “Combine my hometown and surname, and we get yours. I’m a Hexenmeister.”

She flinched just a little in saying it, but then plowed on, hoping to push it back into something of little consequence, like it it was just Schmidt or something. “Zauberstadt is very beautiful. We lived on the outskirts of it, on the edge of the surrounding forest. We had a nice duck pond. I named all the ducks, but they couldn’t come with us when we went to live with Uncle Karl. But he bought me new ones. Their pond isn’t as nice though. Utah isn’t very green.”

1 Hilda Mir viel Glück 1433 Hilda 0 5

Johana Leonie

January 11, 2019 3:46 PM

Mit einem Freund im Dunkeln zu gehen ist besser als alleine by Johana Leonie

Johana Leonie had distinct memories of being ushered out of the family home and told to play outside when people said Hexenmeister. It was a name brushed on sickly lips with broken breath. She was not allowed to see what they had done or learn who they were, but it was a healer's job to know. She and Friederike Albert had spent a lot of time peering through windows and listening at doors, which made Johana Leonie think her parents weren't so keen on keeping them out as they pretended. Surely a pair of magical people could keep their activities more secretive than that, if they wanted to? Then, around a year ago, the name had gone. A newspaper sent by owl by a former patient told them why.

There was nothing of that cursed name in Hilda's wide face though, only hesitation. Johana Leonie's mother had often reminded her children that a healer's job was as often to care for the heart of their wards as for their physical symptoms, and it was clear that that was precisely what was needed now.

"I'm glad you're here," Johana Leonie said sincerely, smiling at her new friend. "Today is the first day of the rest of our lives," she added encouragingly. She was very excited that it was no longer just the first day of the rest of her life, but of their lives as friends. It was the start of something special.

"I haven't been around the United States much," she admitted, "but ducks are good pets. Friederike Albert thought he'd trained one to bring him tools when he was trying to build a bird house outside one day because the duck kept walking back and forth with hammers and screwdrivers and things. I don't think we ever told him that the duck just wanted to get the juices off the handles. Friederike Albert had just eaten sauerkraut and got it all over the tools." She laughed fondly at the memory. "I can't imagine living somewhere that isn't very green, though. I live in the forest too. Do you and your uncle get along?"

22 Johana Leonie Mit einem Freund im Dunkeln zu gehen ist besser als alleine 1432 Johana Leonie 0 5

Theodore Flores

January 12, 2019 5:19 PM

Do I spy a familiar face? [Tag Isabella Harrington] by Theodore Flores

All it took was one step, and Theodore Flores was off the wagon and had arrived at Sonora. It wasn’t an obviously special step – no need to consider rise and fall, or quick versus slow, or any form of syncopated rhythm – but, in that instant, Theodore’s life had changed forever. He wasn’t just one of the Latino kids running loose in the outskirts of Atlanta anymore, but had started on a journey to take up his wizarding heritage and embrace the world of academia. One could say it was but a small step for a boy, but a giant leap for the life of Theodore Flores.

All this, however, passed Theodore by as he casually stepped off the wagon, taking in everything around him with an ease that didn’t really reflect how momentous the occasion was. Today was just another day, and Sonora was just another cool place to discover.

He followed where directed, ending up in the Labyrinth Gardens. Snacks were laid out, and he grabbed a cookie before his attention was diverted to the professor’s speech. Mentioned of exams were boring, but his ears perked up at the mention of extracurricular activities. Maybe there would be a dance club, or even lessons? He could but hope.

Theodore (known to his family and friends as Teo) had one big passion in life: dancing. The son of a pureblood government employee and a halfblood Venezuelan immigrant, Teo had grown up near Atlanta, Georgia, living with his mother and several half-siblings. In a manner similar to that described by the popular muggle pop group ABBA, Teo had been dancing since before he could walk. As a baby he always enjoyed a good boogie, and this continued as he got older until, aged 6, his mother threw up her hands and packed him off to a dance lesson. This had been the start of a love affair with ballroom and Latin dancing, something Teo was determined to continue whilst at Sonora.

As the professor’s speech moved away from dance possibilities, Teo’s mind drifted away from it, and he was fairly sure he was imagining things when he thought he spotted a familiar face in the group of first years around him. Bringing his attention away from dance possibilities, Teo blinked and refocussed. Yes, he definitely did recognise the rather serious-looking and well put together girl standing nearby! Racking his brains, he couldn’t quite manage to place her, leading to a mystery that he had to solve. As soon as the professor finished his speech, Teo made his way over to the mystery girl.

“Hi, I’m Teo,” he introduced himself, with a friendly smile. “Have we already met? I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before!”

9 Theodore Flores Do I spy a familiar face? [Tag Isabella Harrington] 1441 Theodore Flores 0 5

Isabella Harrington

January 13, 2019 7:35 AM

You do indeed. by Isabella Harrington

Isabella Harrington was not happy to be at Sonora. As far as she was concerned, the school was responsible for the current problems in her life. The fact that her parents had chosen to send her to the school had resulted in her loss of both a dance partner and loss of daily dance lessons. Didn't they understand how important those lessons were? If she was going to be a champion like her grandmother, she needed those lessons? Who else was going to tell her how to improve? Also, why didn't they realise that packing her off to some school in the middle of some desert was going to upset Alex? It had been terribly challenging getting him to dance with her in the first place, given how little they had in common (a fact made even more poignant by Isabella being magical and Alex being a muggle). Now, it would be impossible to get her second cousin to dance with her ever again.

So, Isabella - or, Bella, as she preferred to be called - stepped off the wagon with a frown and directed it straight at the school building. She doubted that she was likely to find anybody worth dancing with here.

Keeping an irritated sigh bottled inside, she made her way to the Gardens. Once she'd found a folder, she made her way over to the other side of the Gardens, deciding to forgo the food. Her grandmother had given her a lecture about diet and nutrition before her departure and Bella planned on following it to the letter. She had eaten a packed lunch on the wagon and, given that today was not a training day, she wouldn't need to eat again until dinner.

The teacher, Professor Xavier, wasn't interesting and neither was his speech. Instead, she looked at her feet which, to Bella, were far more interesting than listening to the tired-looking man and there was a far more pressing matter to deal with. Prior to departing for Sonora, she had been trying to improve her salsa dancing, which proved difficult without a partner - yet another thing to blame Sonora, her parents and Alex for, they were hindering her dancing ability - and it was why, instead of learning about the school she was to be attending for the next seven years, she started to go over the basic steps.

Dance on the first three beats, pause, then dance for the next three... 1-2-3... 5-6-7...

She managed to tune out the professor and the murmurs of her peers, her features pulled together in a frown as she tried to concentrate. She didn't notice the speech ending or the other first years beginning to find and make friends. She didn't even notice the boy approaching her, otherwise she might have been prepared for the shock of seeing a familiar face. She looked up sharply at his introduction and couldn't hide the surprise on her face as she faced 'Teo' - or, to Bella, one of her biggest rivals in the dancing world.

"We have met," she confirmed, nodding. Her practice of salsa dance steps forgotten as she folded her arms. She didn't smile back at Teo, her competitive nature forcing her to see him as a rival, rather than a friend. Also, he'd interrupted her practice. "I'm Isabella Harrington. We've competed in Ballroom and Latin Dancing competitions many times."

20 Isabella Harrington You do indeed. 1435 Isabella Harrington 0 5

Jake "JD" Daniels

March 08, 2019 4:51 AM

Ahoy, matey! by Jake "JD" Daniels

Even though it totally sucked that JD wasn’t going to be able to see all his friends at this new school he was being sent to, he was excited for the adventure! It had been hard saying goodbye to his parents and his sisters, but the moment the bumpy wagon appeared in site he had been scrambling away for this new excitement, blowing his mother a kiss from the space between the flaps. It was definitely a lot rougher than a plane, or so he imagined (aside from the occasional road trip out to Boston to watch a baseball game, JD had never really left his town, much less Maine), but he didn’t really care. JD liked roller coasters, this was sort of like a roller coaster, ie: FUN.

His suitcase, packed with all the essentials he thought he needed - of course he brought his prize baseball, bat, and mitt, did they think he wouldn’t? - was stuffed under his seat and he laughed the whole way there. Arizona, how exciting!

When JD finally tumbled off the wagon, he was ushered towards a large garden with, who he assumed, were the other sixth graders. Wow, so cool. He looked around - the bushes were tall. They reminded him of the corn maze at the state fair. JD loved a good corn maze. He wondered if there was a prize for whoever completed this one. But the teacher-person who was addressing them now seemed to want his attention so he refocused to the front. There would be plenty of time to figure the corn maze out later.

He didn’t even notice the table of folders until after he noticed everyone else already had one but he figured that there would be enough for everyone so he could just grab it on the way out. Besides, Professor Xavier (how cool was that name?!) was giving them the low down. JD was sure that all the information he’d need to know would be in that talk. Why bother reading something if someone with the coolest name ever could just tell him? After the talk finished, with JD conveniently tuning out at the mention of school uniforms, he headed to the refreshments table. Neat.

There were so many options to choose from, he had no idea where to start, but after looking at all the delicious food items available, JD realized his throat was absolutely parched. Probably a good idea to get something to drink then. He reached out for the ladle to the fruit punch, only to knock a young lady out of the way. How rude of him. JD dropped the ladle and stepped back. “Jake Daniels,” he replied, flashing his dimples. His mother had told him it was appropriate to introduce himself with his full name and not his nickname and so he was doing that. For his mother. “Ladies first. Would you like me to pour you a glass?”

JD had been taught growing up that manners were important, especially when dealing with girls. He couldn’t be rough with them, not how he was with his friends. Growing up with a bunch of sisters made him question that, sometimes, since girls could be mean, but then again it did sort of make sense. His sisters never went out wrestling on the sand dunes or fighting with clamming shovels like they were swords.

26 Jake "JD" Daniels Ahoy, matey! 1449 Jake "JD" Daniels 0 5

Jessica

March 13, 2019 2:26 PM

I'm supposed to be in training to become a captain. by Jessica

A gentleman. Jessica’s smile grew slightly warmer at the display of courtesy. She was used to adult men waiting on her (both because they were employees and because Mommy said this was how gentlemen behaved toward girls who conducted themselves like ladies), but boys at school, not so much. She was accustomed to opening her own doors and pulling out her own chairs at school, so this was a pleasant change.

“That would be nice,” she said. “Thank you.”

Maybe everyone here wouldn’t be too bad. Nothing she had seen indicated that here was a remotely appropriate place to stay after she got better, but maybe at least the other student-patients would be tolerable company until she was well enough to go home.

“So, how long have you known you’d have to come here?” she asked Jake, figuring that their condition was the one thing they almost certainly had in common. Why would anyone get on that wagon if they were not under compulsion to do so? Daddy had been cursing like a sailor under his breath when he saw the thing; she had to assume that the awful little man who had ruined their whole summer had threatened him and Mommy in some way, because otherwise, she couldn’t imagine they would have ever allowed her on such a rickety piece of junk at all, never mind for purposes of flying.

16 Jessica I'm supposed to be in training to become a captain. 1442 Jessica 0 5

JD

March 20, 2019 5:11 AM

Well then, let me salute you. by JD

The girl whose hand he had pushed out of the way acquiesced to his suggestion and JD felt proud of himself for making her smile. He loved making girls smile. He loved making anyone smile, really, but found that girls in particular had very charming smiles. He dipped the ladle in the punch bowl, carefully pouring one glass for his new classmate and handed it to her before pouring himself one. The juice splashed slightly over his hand so, perhaps in not his most distinguished move, JD lifted his hand to his mouth to lick off the extra juice. Courteous he may have been, but an 11-year-old boy he was also.

He shrugged in response to her question. “Seems like my whole life,” he said, glad he finally had someone outside of his family to talk about it. “They assigned a nanny to watch over me since I was two ‘cause I’m the only one in my family like this and my magic was just…” JD’s hands mimed an explosion. “They were worried I’d expose everything, I guess.”

He shrugged. It really hadn’t been that bad, and Rose had become part of the family. He smiled softly thinking of the mild-mannered nanny who had so lovingly taken care of him. Aside from not being able to talk to his friends about his powers, JD had never felt like he was on the outside of anything. Rose had always told him that he was like one of those superheroes in the comics he liked to read so much. Special, but couldn’t tell anyone why. JD liked thinking of himself like a boy Superman.

“What about you?”

26 JD Well then, let me salute you. 1449 JD 0 5

Jessica

March 20, 2019 11:50 AM

I like you. by Jessica

His whole life. Jessica knew her eyes widened slightly, though that could be excused too by JD’s description of why he had required a keeper for as long as he could remember.

“Oh wow,” she said, her soft accent making the phrase sound slightly breathless.

She wondered how that must feel. Carmela was an employee, technically, but - well, it was complicated, but for various reasons, including but not limited to Carmela taking care of her all her life, Jessica essentially regarded her nanny as a second mother. It had been Carmela she had felt it was all right to go to on the occasions over the past two months when she hadn’t been able to stop crying - or, indeed, occasions before she had found out about all this, less serious things in retrospect, but still things where Mommy and Daddy would have told her to pull herself together instead of singing to her and stroking her hair until she was all cried out. She couldn’t imagine a life where Carmela was part of the problem….

“Two months,” she said when asked how long she had known. “It was all so awful - we already had all my classes and clubs for this year picked out, and we were just coming back from vacation when...this happened.” For a moment, she stared straight ahead, disbelieving still, but she brought her eyes back into focus quickly. “But, the greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it, right?” This was said with a cheerful smile. “That’s what Daddy always says, anyway.”

16 Jessica I like you. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Professor Nathan Xavier

First Year Orientation by Professor Nathan Xavier

Hilda Hexenmeister

I don't speak English by Hilda Hexenmeister

Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen

Same though by Johanna Leonie Zauberhexen

Felipe De Matteo

This all sounds very adequate. by Felipe De Matteo

Hilda

Gott sie Dank by Hilda

Johanna Leonie

Freunden! by Johanna Leonie

Hilda

Jippeh! by Hilda

Johann Leonie

Du bist meine neue Familie. by Johann Leonie

Hilda

Und du bist meine by Hilda

Jeremy Mordue

We'll see by Jeremy Mordue

Johanna Leonie

Jetzt haben wir Schwestern. [Now we have sisters.] by Johanna Leonie

Felipe De Matteo

We certainly will. by Felipe De Matteo

Hilda

Das ist gut by Hilda

Johanna Leonie

Du bist sehr coole! by Johanna Leonie

Zara Jackson

Be yourself - everyone else is already taken by Zara Jackson

Jeremy Mordue

I think I'm coming round to it by Jeremy Mordue

Hilda

Du bist großartig by Hilda

Beatriz Couthon

Sound advice. by Beatriz Couthon

Johanna Leonie

Oh, hör auf! *erröten* by Johanna Leonie

Felipe De Matteo

No, no, you'll have to do a lot more to come around. by Felipe De Matteo

Zara

I can teach you many things by Zara

Hilda

ich mag dich by Hilda

Jessica Hayles

I see a few small problems on the horizon. by Jessica Hayles

Beatriz

So could I. by Beatriz

Johanna Leonie

Ich mag dich auch! by Johanna Leonie

Zara

Yay, learning exchange by Zara

Jeremy Mordue

Yeah, well... so will you. by Jeremy Mordue

Hilda

Mir viel Glück by Hilda

Johana Leonie

Mit einem Freund im Dunkeln zu gehen ist besser als alleine by Johana Leonie

Theodore Flores

Do I spy a familiar face? [Tag Isabella Harrington] by Theodore Flores

Isabella Harrington

You do indeed. by Isabella Harrington

Jake "JD" Daniels

Ahoy, matey! by Jake "JD" Daniels

Jessica

I'm supposed to be in training to become a captain. by Jessica

JD

Well then, let me salute you. by JD

Jessica

I like you. by Jessica

Oh, hör auf! erröten by Johanna Leonie