Professor Nathan Xavier
March 17, 2017 11:03 AM
Teppenpaw Head of House Speech by Professor Nathan Xavier
Nathan stood as the food began to disappear from the tables, and he looked to his compliment of new young Teppenpaws. All girls this time around and he had seen they had already started to get to know each other during the feast. That was the good news.The bad news was that he was going to need to have a word with one of his fourth years later, but that could wait.
Right now was for introducing the new Teppenpaws to their new home. "Hello, girls," he greeted them as a group. The nice thing about small class sizes was that sometimes he didn't need to yell to gather all his new students together. "Welcome to Teppenpaw. I'm your new Head of House. You may have noticed the dormitory locations were not on the tour earlier, so I'll show you the way now. Follow me please," he instructed. "It's right near the Hospital Wing," he added as they walked, "so you can use that as a landmark on your maps."
"I'm Professor Xavier," he reintroduced himself in case they had forgotten and missed it when he mentioned during orientation. "What are your names?" he asked, figuring that with such a close group that eliciting introductions from everyone would not be a terribly awkward conversation to have as they walked.
"Here's the Hospital Wing," he said when they reach it. "We're up this set of stairs here. Other things up this way include the elf quarters and some supply closet, so there generally isn't much traffic beyond people from our house. My external office door is the first one on the right, up at the top, but mostly you won't get that far." He came to a halt partway up the stairs. "Watch for this diamond shaped chip in the stair," he instructed, nudging the spot on the stair beneath him with his toe. "To get into our common room, you stand on this step a do a jig."
After this many years, his tone was more resigned than apologetic as he delivered this piece of bad news. "Fortunately, you don't need to do it with rhythm or grace. It's the steps that are important. It goes like this."
Nathan demonstrated. The Teppenpaw Head of House was a big man with too many pounds around his middle so it was by no means a graceful or even a dignified dance, but he no longer looked like he was suffering a seizure, so improvement was possible. More importantly, his steps followed the pattern he described out loud, "step, step, step, click your heels, tap, tap, shuffle," he paused briefly, looking at the students, "do it we me, we repeat that two more times, three in total. Step, step, step, click your heels, tap, tap, shuffle. Getting there, one more time. Step, step, step, click your heels, tap, tap, shuffle." On the completion of the third iteration, the wall beside him opened up, revealing the Teppenpaw Common Room, decorated in muted yellow and maroon tones. "Go on in," he invited, and followed after once they were all inside.
Nathan found the Teppenpaw Common Room a nice relaxing space and he often spent a couple hours each day sitting on one of the comfortable couches or chairs scattered about the room, in the hopes that familiarity bred trust and the students would voluntarily come to him if they had any issues with anything. He enjoyed engaging the students there in conversation and getting to know them. It made him feel like part of the House, not just its overseer, and he hoped the students likewise saw him as a favored uncle with whom they could be comfortable and joke, rather than being an imposing authority figure.
"As I mentioned earlier, your House is like your family here. I hope you will see me as something like an Uncle, but if there is trouble, I'm the one responsible for your safety and well being and I take that very seriously. I just ask you all respect one another and school property and we shouldn't have too many problems. Also, curfew begins at ten so please be in here or your room by that time and keep your noise level to minimum so your Housemates can sleep."
"Your rooms are up those stairs there. The right staircase leads to the girls rooms, the one on the left is for boys. Your year number is on your door. There are charms in place to physically expel those using the wrong staircase, so I recommend not getting them mixed up," he added dryly.
He pointed over to the wall beside where they had entered. "The bulletin board is there, keep an eye on it for school and club announcements. Teppenpaw is very proud that both Head Boy and Head Girl were given to members of our House tonight, so feel free to reach out to either Savannah Brockert or Aiden O'Neil if you need assistance. Aiden is also one of our prefects, along with Jemima Wolseithcrafte and Abigail De La Garza this year. Liac Reinhardt is our Quidditch Captain, with Ginger Pierce as his assistant. So any of those people, or myself, are good folks to go to if you have a question or problem or just want to talk to somebody. They all wear badges so you can easily identify them as House and School authorities."
He believed he had hit all the key points, so he wrapped up his speech there. "I think that's everything. Any questions, please ask, otherwise, converse amongst yourselves or head up to bed. Breakfast is at seven, and I have more maps in my office right over there if you misplaced yours and can't remember how to get there."
OOC: Welcome to Sonora and Teppenpaw House! You may reply here with questions or just chat with and get to know your Housemates. You are now welcome to post your new Teppenpaw on any board except the common rooms of other Houses or the Lounges, because first year Teppenpaw students aren't allowed there. You may continue your feast and orientation posts as long as you like thanks to fuzzy time, which lets you write multiple threads taking place at different times simultaneously. Have fun!
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