The eldest first-year. on Aladren Commons

Professor Fawcett

March 31, 2012 1:03 AM

Welcome to Aladren! (Continued from Cascade Hall) by Professor Fawcett

John led his first years through the hallways of Sonora, pointing out landmarks he thought might be helpful to them in finding their way around the school here and there, and finally up to a wide pair of double doors. “This, students, is the entrance to the library,” he informed them, looking for any reactions of pleasure or excitement. Those were normal enough for Aladrens when they were first introduced to the pleasures of the Sonora library. “The most common way for you to reach the Aladren common room is to come through here.” His expression became stern as he looked around at them all again. “However, that does not mean you do not have to be respectful to both our librarian, Miss Diaz, and the other patrons of the library. I will not tolerate incidents of Aladren students behaving improperly in the library.

“Now. Let’s move along.”

He led them through the shelves, pointing out sections now, and finally they reached a distant wall. He put his hand on a worn book entitled Birds of Prey. “Our House emblem, as some of you may know, is a hawk,” he said. “This is why we use this book to open the common room. Watch me.” He had to reach down a little to get his hand on the book, but it was at just the right height for most students. He pulled it from its shelf and part of the wall receded, revealing an entrance a bit wider than it was high. “Go through this entrance, and you will be in the common room,” he informed them.

Inside was a long, rectangular room decorated predominantly in dark blue and black. A good color scheme, John thought, if perhaps possibly a bit dark for winter or night. The furniture, including sofas and chairs set up in study areas and more open arrangements, was comfortable, though, even the pieces in less than prime positions, and there were bookshelves around the room so no one would have to walk too far to avail themselves of them. To the right of the door there was a large bulletin board, which currently had very little on it other than a message welcoming students back to school and a map of the school with the common room highlighted in blue and various other important landmarks – the Cascade Hall, the infirmary, the Quidditch Pitch, the Gardens, and of course the classrooms – in other colors. He had thought of that as a possible help for the first years, and perhaps some second years for whom muscle memory had yet to completely kick in, over the summer. Further right still was a narrow door which led to his office. Left of the door was a flight of stairs which divided at the landing into two long hallways, one with seven rooms for girls and one with seven rooms for boys.

“Welcome to Sonora,” he told the group warmly, once he had them gathered around the hawk-emblazoned hearth rug which formed the center of the largest group of seats in the room, in front of the now empty fireplace. “And to Aladren. As I told you in the Hall, I am Professor Fawcett, your Head of House. I will also instruct you in your Potions classes.

“This is our common room, which you may use for studying or time with friends when you do not have a class or any other obligations. You may also visit the library, the Labyrinth Gardens, the Quidditch Pitch if a team is not using it, or the Hall during those times, but you may not tell any students from the other three Houses where the Aladren common room is, nor may you bring them here.” An archaic rule, he could only assume Hogwarts had originally come up with it as a means of promoting in-House unity during the period when its founders could have used small private armies and Hogwarts’ American counterparts had then copied it from sheer force of habit, but it stood nevertheless. “Only Aladrens may be here,” he repeated for emphasis. “Study with your friends from Crotalus and Pecari and Teppenpaw all you like, but do so in the public areas of the school.

“We have an excellent House Quidditch team, which you are free to join. Captain Wilkes should post the sign-ups soon, and he and his assistant captain, Mr. – Arnold Carey,” he corrected himself just in time, since even Edmond’s departure from Sonora had not made it possible to simply say the words ‘Mr. Carey’ in Aladren House, “will, I’m sure, be happy to answer any questions you may have. Our prefects, Miss Veronica Kerrigan and Miss Samantha Hamilton and Mr. James Owen, can also help you in many ways if I am not in my office.” His office was, he supposed, safe enough for students except for the minor risk of being crushed beneath a toppling stack of books and papers, and it was too early in the year for that. He had reorganized for the new year, and the spells holding what stacks there were upright were still fresh. “This will be your home for the next seven years, and Aladren something like your family at Sonora. We are happy to assist you as you settle in at Sonora.”

“The dormitories are up those stairs – girls along the hallway to the right, boys on the hallway to the left. You are not permitted on each others’ hallways, and will find yourselves falling on those bits of floor there – “ he pointed to two noticeably rugless patches – “if you make the attempt. You will find rooms with your year number on the door when you go up and your luggage already delivered.”

He paused to make sure there was nothing he had left out. “Curfew is at ten. You will want to get to bed tonight, so you can settle in and be well rested for your first day tomorrow, but does anyone have any questions about Aladren or Sonora or what I’ve told you tonight?” Mr. Melcher was, he believed, beginning to have less of an influence over his speech, but old habits could die very hard at times.

OOC: Welcome to Sonora! You can now post anywhere on the site (except, of course, other House common rooms). Be sure to follow the site rules in all posts and to have fun!

Subthreads:

The eldest first-year. by Maximilian McLachlan with Arthur Carey, Josh McLachlan

So, this is home. by Lucian D'Alesandro with Jay Carey, Lucian

0 Professor Fawcett Welcome to Aladren! (Continued from Cascade Hall) 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

Maximilian McLachlan

March 31, 2012 1:32 AM

The eldest first-year. by Maximilian McLachlan

It was strange being directed along with students three years younger than he, but Josh was just as new to this school as the others. He had no doubt, however, that he would adapt faster to this situation than his, well, younger housemates. He had gone to school before in Australia, but had been forced to transfer. To the atmosphere he had suffered in Australia, coming and starting fresh in a new school was nice. Though many Americans knew of the name McLachlan, the branches of his family resided mostly in New York, California, and Pennsylvania. He was grateful, at least, for that distance from his relatives. Especially from those in Pennsylvania.

His family was practiced in the dark arts, a practice Josh was not fond of after all he had seen done. He thought about the classes he would be taking as his head of house led them through the library. It was like the school library back in Australia, though perhaps better kept. He glanced at the librarian's desk lazily, his intense grey eyes and unfriendly mouth making it look like he was appraising it.

Though Josh had a handsome face, his blank face looked intimidating and made him look unapproachable. It wasn't a surprise that he hadn't had loads of friends back in Australia. Only...only a select few good ones.

But they were there and he was here. Josh had to stop being so sentimental. He dutifully listened to Professor Fawcett, assuming that he would be staying with the other fourth-years. To know that his head of house was the potions professor as well was comforting; it was Josh's favorite subject, one that he excelled at. It was the only thing that he could really control his talents with, his meticulousness coming in handy then.

Josh stared blankly at the professor until they were dismissed, and then went to explore the common room a bit. It was dark blue and black. Navy blue was his favorite color, adding yet another attribute to this new place. He sat down in an arm chair that was a part of a half-circle of other chairs for conversation. Josh was pathetic at conversation, adept more at eavesdropping and listening.

He did this now, allowing the words and voices of others drown out his sentimental thoughts, to keep his chest from aching, to allow him to drift into this new country and this new school with his mind, body, and heart. Josh watched the students mull about, appraising each and every one of them with his piercing grey eyes, lips pressed together, silent as a stone.

0 Maximilian McLachlan The eldest first-year. 0 Maximilian McLachlan 0 5

Lucian D'Alesandro

March 31, 2012 2:50 PM

So, this is home. by Lucian D'Alesandro

Lucian followed Professor Fawcett to the Aladren common room and listened to the rules and expectations. He smiled when he learned that this was the Potions Professor, for it was a class he would surely do well in. Lucian’s parents had been using potions around him for years and had made it an encouraged subject of study. Someday he knew he would be expected to carry on his family’s business, but that was not something he wanted to think about now.

After looking around the common room, Lucian proceeded up the stairs and walked down the left hallway to the boy’s first year dorm. He put his luggage on the bed towards the back of the room and looked around. This would be his new home.

Lucian focused his attention on his owl, Ludwig. The owl’s large eyes were scanning his new surroundings as he rested upon a large perch near the bed. Ludwig had not been found of the trip to Sonora, and was most likely looking forward to resting. Lucian had named the owl after one of his favorite classical composers: Beethoven. His mother would often sit at the grand piano in their elegant living room on Sunday mornings and play concert pieces. Lucian would lay across his bed listening to the music that climbed up the stairs and filled his bedroom. His interest in music was probably a result of his mother’s playing, but Lucian dare not touch the piano that his mother loved so dearly. Instead, he found that the beats of a drum better encompassed his personality.

Shuffling in the doorway behind him interrupted Lucian’s daydreams about home. He expected it was another first year and turned around to greet him.
“I hope you don’t mind that I picked this bed. It’s in the same spot as mine back home.”

0 Lucian D'Alesandro So, this is home. 223 Lucian D'Alesandro 0 5

Jay Carey

March 31, 2012 8:47 PM

I think so by Jay Carey

There was, Jay decided, definitely something a little surreal about following the head of his new House through the halls of Sonora and already feeling like he knew the man fairly well even though they had never laid eyes on each other before this evening. Between his sister often mentioning her classes and their professors in her letters last year and her conversations this summer and two of his first cousins actually being Aladrens, Jay thought he might have easily been the best-informed first year in the group about what it was he was faced with at this moment.

He decided to keep it to himself, at least for the moment. After all, Arnold had probably not meant to tell him that the common room was in the library before they knew Jay was going to join him in Aladren when he defended his study habits that one time, and he did not want to stand out just yet. He was still taking the measure of this place as well as figuring out what exactly to do about being in the same House as Arnold and Arthur, particularly when the elder twin had just become the captain-in-waiting of the House’s infamous Quidditch team. All he’d heard about it pointed toward Aladren being a place with many personalities more forceful than his, somewhere he would need to figure out before he carved out a comfortable niche for himself here.

Besides, it wasn’t like there weren’t some surprises. Arnold, Arthur, and Theresa had all spoken about the Sonora library, one more lovingly than the other two, but Jay’s face still lit up when he saw the real thing. He had seen many books in his life, they were one of the main links in the bond between him and his brother Henry, but never so many as this at all, never mind so many in one place. His head happily spun a little just imagining how much information was here. Some of them would be dull, he knew, maybe even a lot of them, but there were bound to be many that he would enjoy, that he could retreat completely into for whole hours, especially since he wasn’t going to have Brandon to help and Brandon and Diana both to help entertain here at school, at least for a few years. This, at least, was far better than he’d expected.

Once they reached the common room, though, he reluctantly quashed the impulse to look around at the bookshelves here and just at the room in general and paid attention to what Professor Fawcett had to say about himself and their new home. As the speech wound down, nervousness about meeting his roommates kicked in again as it had when he sat down for the Feast, and he then let himself look around at the room for a few minutes, finding a seat he thought he would like to sit in often in one area of the room and wondering if anyone had already claimed it and if something could be worked out for them to have it at different times the way they had to work that kind of thing out between his siblings at home, and then finally went up the stairs to the dorms.

Turning down his hallway after a glance down the forbidden girls’ one just to see if it looked very different from what he could see of the boys’ and to wonder if it really looked that way or it was an illusion of some kind, he looked carefully at doors, found the one marked for the first years, and entered, taking in the multiple beds and the room in general before one of the new roommates turned to him. Jay listened to his request, then shook his head.

“Not at all,” he said, finding his trunk at the next bed anyway. It didn’t matter much to him. He was used to having his room to himself, so this was going to be an adjustment either way. He wondered if his curly brown hair was doing anything weird and hoped very much, in another strange feeling for the night since he normally didn’t worry too much about that kind of thing, that it was not as he introduced himself. “I’m James Carey, of the South Carolina Careys. You can call me Jay, though, everyone does.” There were too many Jameses in the family; he wasn’t sure why it was such a popular name, but there had been at least one in every branch of the family. He was, though, pretty sure that none of them had been named after the same person, as all the Thomases were. The first James Carey he could remember on all the family trees had, after all, been the North Carolina founder.

0 Jay Carey I think so 0 Jay Carey 0 5

Lucian

April 01, 2012 12:30 AM

Watch out for falling books. by Lucian

Lucian watched as his new roommate placed his belongings by the bed near his and nodded at his introduction. “Nice to meet you Jay. I am Lucian D’Alesandro, from Boston. My mother’s maiden name is more well known than my father’s in the states though. She is a Cheval and still has ties with her side of the family in France.” Why had he just mentioned that? It wasn’t necessary to try to impress his new roommate. Lucian did not want to seem like the snobbish types that throw their name around to demand respect, so he quickly added “Not that it’s important or anything” and turned back to his open backpack with a sigh. He was not used to talking with people his age, and perhaps this sparked his urge to make himself sound important. The adults he met at the gatherings his parents attended always used their last names and family lines to establish where they were on the social hierarchy. While Lucian did not want to stand out in his new school, he also did not want to fade out in the background.

While he was fumbling around in his backpack, a few books fell out and onto the floor. His notes and music sheets flew out everywhere. Great. Not only did he probably sound like a snob, now he was a clumsy snob. “Sorry”, Lucian said rushing to pick the scattered papers up. He hoped his new roommate didn’t think too poorly of him.

0 Lucian Watch out for falling books. 0 Lucian 0 5

Jay

April 01, 2012 10:42 PM

That sounds like a good idea in this whole House by Jay

Jay blinked at Lucian’s decision to dump so much information about his family at his feet in one sitting, but raised one shoulder slightly and decided not to be bothered by this. Perhaps it was some point of protocol he’d missed out on or forgotten from etiquette lessons, or something more specific to where Lucian D’Alessandro was from. In the South, Jay’s family spread across five states even before places were daughters had married were considered, so the most important thing about an introduction was to distinguish your branch from the other four, but maybe it was different other places. Jay had family in such places, but he didn’t spend enough time there to know for sure.

“My grandmother is from Massachusetts,” he offered, pleasantly if a little uncertainly, after Lucian abruptly said that the pedigree he’d just taken such care to list didn’t really matter. “I don’t think I have any relatives in France, though.”

Technically, he probably did, since Anthony I had married a French witch who had presumably had relatives of some kind somewhere in the entire country who’d never decided to go live in some other country, but though the South Carolina patriarch, Jay’s great-great-grandfather Anthony Carey IV, insisted they should all learn French because it had been his grandfather Anthony II’s first language because of that witch who’d been his mother, Jay didn’t think they really had any connections to France today. Anthony II had gotten on the ship that brought the family to America there, it was true, but that had been after fleeing France to Scotland some years before and then having to flee Scotland, too. Anthony II had not been the most...steady…of wizards.

The exact details of bloodlines didn’t interest Jay very much, but history did. The grand stories of it all appealed to him very much. Unfortunately, though, the family thought he needed to know a lot more family trees than he did stories; aside from things like when the branches had been founded and the old stories about Anthony I and Anthony II in France and Scotland, most of what he learned was just who’d married who, had which kids, and who those kids had married in their turn. It was mostly names, without many hints about how they had gotten along, or what they had done except in the most basic sense of ‘it caused this connection for us.’ It was disappointing, but it was what it was. Another thing Jay had been taught for as long as he could remember was that one just did not really question the family very much. It wasn’t seemly.

Lucian dropped some books, scattering Jay’s thoughts, and papers went all over the floor. He immediately stood up to help pick things up. “It’s all right,” he said, glancing at what was in his hand. “Here’s some of your music,” he added, holding it out. “Are you going to study it while we’re here? I’ve never been much good at it, but my sister says there’s a room just for practicing music here.” Theresa, as a proper young lady, was supposed to know the piano and the harp and how to sing a little, and she claimed she practiced some while she was at school. It helped him believe her, at least a little, to know that she really did enjoy it sometimes. The discipline of it frustrated her sometimes, but she did enjoy the end product, when she could play or sing a piece properly and have it sound good for her.

0 Jay That sounds like a good idea in this whole House 0 Jay 0 5

Arthur Carey

April 02, 2012 12:20 AM

Welcome to the jungle by Arthur Carey

As soon as he walked into his dorm room, exhausted by the long wagon ride from South Carolina and then the Opening Feast and wanting more than anything to simply take his sleeping potion and collapse until much later in the morning than he would really be able to, Arthur knew there was something not quite right about it, but it took him several looks around before he could figure out what it was.

Until he did, the feeling of something being off was like a pillow-feather beneath his collar, sharply poking him without him being able to exactly pinpoint the cause, but when he finally saw it, his eyes widened and he almost forgot about being tired. There was his bed, there was Arnold’s next to it, there were Preston and Russell’s beds, and he didn’t know who the other one in the room was supposed to be for. Regardless of how he went over it, he was quite sure that last year, there had only been four of them in this room, and therefore no fifth bed and trunk present in it. Now there was, which, since he had never noticed that the school seemed to endorse wastefulness with furniture, meant they could most likely expect someone new in the fourth year boys’ dorm by the end of the night.

He rubbed his right temple, then pressed his fingers hard against his eyes, drawing himself back together again to go back in public. Going to bed, clearly, was going to have to wait a little longer. The idea of not trying to find out what was going on and just letting things happen the way they were going to happen seemed unnatural to him. Sometimes knowledge was painful, or caused him internal or external conflict, or was simply useless to him, but Arthur always, always preferred to know rather than not to know, and since this involved the comparatively small space he had to live in for the next year, he could not see a way in which it was not purely better to know, and know as soon as possible.

Going back downstairs, he looked around the common room, taking in with pleasure the familiar furniture and shelves, spotting Professor Fawcett, spotting first years – he raised his hand slightly when he noticed his cousin Jay among them, but didn’t otherwise single him out now, despite having been very pleased to see another South Carolina Carey join the House – and, then, as he had half-expected to do, spotting someone finally who didn’t fit. Arthur was one of only three children, and two of them, Arnold and Arthur himself, were twins, but he had six first cousins whose house was within eyeshot of his and he was a Carey in general, so he thought he was qualified to tell the difference between an eleven-year-old and a fourteen-year-old, and this fellow definitely looked closer to the latter.

Among other things. He studied the other boy for a moment, taking the measure of him, checked his own posture and the neatness of his green uniform robes and dark suit after the evening he’d had, and then approached, carefully keeping his own face and dark eyes nearly blank for now in contrast to the new boy’s apparent attempt to stare through the wall, or possibly just all the room’s other residents, first years though most of them were. New people made Arthur slightly uncomfortable, as did change of any kind, but most especially that which he did not initiate, so he was less inclined even than usual to show much genuine emotion first, and he was just not very emotionally expressive at all anyway. That made him as uncomfortable as any two other things put together, most of the time. It was far better, in his book anyway, to be in complete command of himself around other people.

“Are you a new fourth year?” he asked once he was in front of the chair selected by the unfamiliar student, taking care to keep his tone pleasantly inquisitive but still going straight to the point. There was relatively little point in engaging in a prolonged conversation, particularly when he was tired and beginning to feel the beginnings of the general feeling of unwellness that came over him in the first few days of each school year, if this was somehow not the person intruding on his dormitory and he was going to need to speak with Professor Fawcett to discover what was going on. He didn’t think two transfers into their small House, especially two male transfers, were very likely, but it was always possible.

0 Arthur Carey Welcome to the jungle 182 Arthur Carey 0 5

Lucian

April 02, 2012 1:51 AM

Hopefully the bookshelves are sturdy by Lucian

After Lucian’s books fell and papers scattered everywhere he thanked Jay for helping him to pick them up. At the mention of a music room at Sonora Lucian’s green eyes lit up with excitement. “That is awesome” he said, barely able to contain himself. “I was hoping I would have a space to study. My parents aren’t very fond of my drumming,” he added while casually twirling a drumstick he retrieved from his backpack with his fingers as he sat down on the edge of his bed.

Jay’s somewhat upbeat reply previously about having a grandmother in Massachusetts helped Lucian to feel more at ease. If his new roommate thought he was a snob, or somewhat eccentric, he wasn’t showing it at least. “So, which city does your grandmother live in?” he asked continuing the conversation. “Most of my mother’s side of the family is still in France. My father’s side is mostly in Italy. I love visiting both places. My parents moved to the east coast because of their business ties, but we do have some cousins scattered about in the states. My sister stayed with some of them during the summer. Having a diverse family makes for interesting family reunions” he said with a smirk. He felt more relaxed talking to his new roommate and thought perhaps there was a possibility they may become friends in the future. “Do you have a big family?” Lucian asked, hoping he wasn’t prying too much.

All of this talk about his family made Lucian a bit homesick. He reached across his bed and began dumping everything out of his backpack that he had not yet unpacked. “There you are,” he said to a beaten up leather journal with torn pages. He opened the book carefully, making sure to not break the binding further. Inside were pages of drawings, mostly of his city and places he had been. He had never thought of himself as an artist, but Lucian loved creativity. His curiosity about the way things work often led him to books, but his imagination led him to paintbrushes and charcoal pencils. It was another talent he also kept from his parents. In their world he had to be smart, obedient, and charming, which often made him feel as though he was suffocating. Music and art allowed him to feel free to be himself.

0 Lucian Hopefully the bookshelves are sturdy 0 Lucian 0 5

Josh McLachlan

April 02, 2012 11:13 AM

Thank you, I suppose. by Josh McLachlan

It was surprising that someone had decided to approach him, but seeing as this was an older boy, one who looked his age. A quick decision had to be made. Was he going to brush this wizard off or attempt to make an acquaintance? At this point, it would be better to make an acquaintance than make an enemy. Who knew what kind of family he came from? He was well-dressed, neat, and had a blank face. Obviously a pureblood. If he was from one of the families Josh knew about, then his best decision would be to stay on his good side. Being the black sheep of his family gave several options, none of them resulting in anything that he wanted.

Though the American McLachlans only lived in California, Pennsylvania, and New York, their dark magic was well-known throughout most of the Western world. He was quite sure that everyone knew of the tragedy that had struck his family, and he didn't want any pity or recognition of any sort. The last thing Josh wanted was to be associated with the American McLachlans, much less be known as the wizard whose parents were killed in Colorado, unluckily missing him, the unlucky one.

So instead of saying his given name, he decided to begin with his middle name, the name he felt most comfortable with anyway. He was certain that this boy would find out who he was if not by name, then through others, or even in classes. He was sure, if they called attendance, they would call him by name. He nodded at his peer. "Spot on." He stuck out a hand. "Joshua McLachlan," he said, thankful that his accent made his origin fuzzy. It was dominantly Scottish, but had a hint of Australian, making it sound strangely unique. He was grateful that his person did not give away any unwanted information.

Once his hand had been shook, he retracted it quickly. He wanted this meeting to be short and to the point. Though he was tired, he did not want to go up to his room that he would be sharing with several other boys, perhaps this boy included. He had shared a dorm room back at his former school in New Zealand, but that had been as a first-year, not knowing what he knew now.

0 Josh McLachlan Thank you, I suppose. 0 Josh McLachlan 0 5

Jay

April 02, 2012 1:52 PM

They look okay to me by Jay

At Lucian’s excitement about the music room, Jay felt a great sense of relief. His try at breaking the awkward tension of being people who’d just met and yet were expected to live together had worked. He had hoped so, but growing up just in his house had taught him that there were all sorts of people in the world, and then they had introduced him to his extended family. Things weren’t always going to work out when he was dealing with new people, or even really just people in general, since even ones he knew could decide to be different some days.

“My parents never liked the time for music lessons, either,” he admitted when Lucian said that his parents didn’t like his drumming. “Though I guess it didn’t help that none of us are very good at anything.” He decided not to mention how it drove Mother to distraction when Brandon and Diana started banging on any hollow surfaces they could find and singing off-key duets. They really enjoyed it, but it was really annoying for everyone else, so Jay needed to figure out how to put a Silencing Charm around a room so the sound couldn’t get out. He’d suggested it once to Mother, but she’d said that wasn’t the point, she was trying to teach Brandon and Diana to behave like civilized beings.

Besides, she’d add, with a slight lift of her chin. Those two spend too much time together. It’s not natural for a brother and a sister to do everything together that way, especially not when they’ve got age between them.

“Well, Grandmother lives in South Carolina now, with the rest of the family,” he said when she came up again. “Her family had an estate outside Boston. She was a McFarland before she married Grandfather.”

He laughed when interesting family reunions came up. “That’s true,” he said, then settled, when asked, into explaining his family. “Yes. I’ve got three sisters and two brothers and a bunch of first cousins, and there’s five branches of Careys.” He held up a hand to tick them off. “There’s us, in South Carolina, our closest relatives outside the branch are in Virginia, since they’re descended from my great-great-grandfather’s twin, he and Thomas are identical, and then there’s branches in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia. We have the reunions every five years, in the summer so it doesn’t interfere with school.” He thought for a moment, then added, “We originally came from sort of all over the place. There was a lot of moving back and forth between England and France, and then Anthony II’s wife was Scottish and everyone came to America.”

He thought about that for a moment, trying to remember exactly where his memory of relatives from Ireland and Wales, too, had happened in the story, then decided to just ask Henry or Arthur sometime and moved on. “Lucille Carey, in our year, she’s from the North Carolina branch – she’s their heir’s sister.” Technically, Lucille’s brother had already inherited, but a nine-year-old could not really run a branch, so things were being run for him by Georgia for now. “She’s nice. We met at the last Reunion. I think she went into Teppenpaw.”

Seeing his roommate beginning to unpack, Jay did so, too, though he felt a little awkward about it. Mother went to great lengths to see them all dressed well, to keep up appearances, but with six of them, there was never much money around, and he didn’t have a lot of things. Most of the books at home were property-in-common among them all, so all he really had, besides school essentials like clothes and textbooks and such, were his photography things and his sketchbook, and he was expected to start making his own potions for his pictures now that he was in school.

He heard Lucian speaking to something about where it was and he looked up. “What did you find?” he asked, neatly arranging his textbooks in the cabinet beneath the nightstand. He liked for things to be organized, so he could reach for what he needed and have it. That would, he was guessing, be much easier now that Brandon and Diana weren’t here to get into his things and mix them up.

0 Jay They look okay to me 0 Jay 0 5

Arthur

April 02, 2012 1:56 PM

I'm not quite sure you should thank me yet... by Arthur

Arthur nodded once at the confirmation of the stranger’s age and academic standing. “I am Arthur Carey,” he said after his new roommate introduced himself as Joshua McLachlan. The name rang a bell, but not as one of the families of the East Coast his education had focused on; he would have to write Father and ask, just as he had back in first year. The other fourth year’s accent made Arthur think he was foreign, but the surname still sounded familiar. “Of the South Carolina Careys,” he added by sheer force of habit as they shook hands. He had always faintly admired Edmond’s habit of introducing himself simply as Edmond Carey, as though he were important enough in himself that his branch affiliation was either obvious or unnecessary, but he seldom tried to imitate it.

Hopefully, if his name was recognized, it would be in a positive way. The South Carolina Careys were a cultured, polite family, patrons of the arts and of intellectual endeavors, and not people who flirted often with scandal. It was, he knew, more likely that simply the name ‘Carey’ would be recognized, and it, due to the actions of some of the other four branches, had a certain dark character in some people’s minds, or at least a scandalous one.

The family’s reputation for producing dark wizards was, in Arthur’s mind, over-inflated, but there were cases. Alasdair Carey was supposedly still on the run after his career as the most prominent dark wizard in recent family history had culminated in him forcing his supposedly dead daughter Gwenhwyfar to resurface so he could try to kill her and her Muggleborn husband himself, and he had been the Georgia patriarch. His close cousin Andrew, the North Carolina patriarch, had sired and then publicly acknowledged a half-blood daughter before killing himself in a messy, public manner seven months before the birth of his second pureblood son. And then there was Morgaine Carey, Alasdair’s other daughter and nearly the other victim of Andrew’s final act, the acting matriarch for Georgia and North Carolina while their actual patriarchs got their educations, who was an unmarried Healer with the uneasy legacy of having been her dark wizard of a father’s favorite child….

To Arthur, the obvious solution was simply to not have the North Carolina and Georgia branches, since Louisiana was merely a little peculiar sometimes and slightly enjoyed capitalizing on the family’s notoriety, but everyone seemed to be clinging to the hope that Edmond and the North Carolina boy, Malcolm, would make a better show of themselves than their fathers – and, in Edmond’s case, grandfather and great-grandfather – had. Arthur just thought it sounded risky. Virginia had the occasional dark wizard, too, and Arthur’s own grandfather had some very interesting books in his private library, but they were at least discreet about it usually, and not prominent members of the family if they were not. Georgia and North Carolina seemed to find those ideas of how to handle their less seemly interests foreign, strange and dangerous, and because of that they made the whole family look worse.

“A pleasure to meet you, I’m sure,” he said as Joshua McLachlan pulled his hand away. “I am also a fourth year, and I noticed an extra bed when I went upstairs. You’ll share a dormitory with me, my brother Arnold, and our good friends Mr. Stratford and Mr. Layne.”

Not for the first time, Arthur thanked all goodness that he and Arnold were not identical twins. It would have been a minor thing, going through roommates not being able to tell them apart in first year and then having it come up again now, but it would have been irritating. Instead, though, Arnold was several inches shorter and a good bit slighter than Arthur was, with hair which was a lighter shade of brown, and though there was a stronger fraternal resemblance between them than there was between either of them and their younger brother Anthony, he didn’t think it would be easy for anyone with any eyesight at all to mistake one of them for the other even just from a picture.

As for Mr. Stratford and Mr. Layne, Arthur was always mildly surprised to realize that though they were his rivals in some respects, he did have some warm feelings toward them. They had lived together and played Quidditch together and stayed polite with each other for three years, after all, and he supposed that was enough for him to feel somewhat attached to them. He was curious, really, to see how a new person affected the status of things between the four of them who’d started out together.

0 Arthur I'm not quite sure you should thank me yet... 0 Arthur 0 5

Josh McLachlan

April 02, 2012 6:19 PM

Tell me when I should, then. by Josh McLachlan

Josh had definitely heard of the Careys before. He remembered reading the letter his grandmother had handed to him when he was six or seven years old, telling him to write it down and remember the list. He had done as he was told and had kept it in his pocket for a long time afterwards, after she died and he was moved once again. Sometimes he would look at the list, wondering how life would've been like if he had been born as one of the purebloods on the scrap.

However, it had been a childish notion and the scrap of parchment had long been discarded. He hadn't heard many scandals from the Careys, but then again he hadn't been in America for very long. He looked over Arthur Carey's shoulder at the dorm rooms when his companion mentioned the room. He'd be sharing it with four other boys. The most he'd ever had to room with had been around two or three at a time, but four wasn't a big difference. He, however, bet these boys had been rooming together since first-year. Josh would be the intruder. He wasn't exactly a stranger to being the intruder, but he turned away from that train of thought nevertheless.

Josh nodded at Carey again. "I suppose I'll meet you in our room then," he said. "Do you want me to go up and unpack before you all sleep?" Josh himself had a strange sleeping schedule. He didn't enjoy sleeping and caught, if he had to, at least 4 or 5 hours of sleep each night. As a child, his grandmother had scared him into thinking that he would be a dwarf all his life if he didn't sleep properly. He didn't believe that now; it was genetic, and his parents had been tall according to his uncle.

He was used to being so polite, but had never really initiated his politeness. People had usually given him orders and he would follow them. Now, he supposed, it would only be courteous to unpack so he wouldn't disturb them in the middle of the night doing so. If he was to be a phantom during the next few years at school, he would have to stay out of everyone's way, Quidditch included. He was much more interested in being a scholar, not an athlete or a "well-rounded student". It wasn't exactly like he had anyone to impress or any family name to uphold. His name had been tainted at birth.

0 Josh McLachlan Tell me when I should, then. 0 Josh McLachlan 0 5

Arthur

April 02, 2012 10:54 PM

Probably midterm at the earliest by Arthur

Arthur caught the implied statement that Mr. McLachlan would not be sleeping when the rest of them were, and was curious about it, but dismissed it. He slept especially poorly the first few days of school, while he was adjusting to a different bed and knowing there were so many other people in the room with him, so if he didn’t take his potion, he would be able to figure out what it was his new roommate was doing in the night easily enough. He was, he thought, bone-tired enough that he would sleep some on his own tonight, after three years of first days to get him marginally used to the transition, but still, he could get a general idea if he decided it was worth investigation – and there was little that wasn’t in the small hours of the night, when the alternative was lying very still and watching bizarre half-dreams play out against the canopy of his bed without him being able to get any rest from it. He had really been looking forward to his potion, though.

He put that thought aside. It would still be good tomorrow night, and nothing terribly important was going to happen on the first day of classes, anyway.

“I suppose so,” he said, relaxing his posture a hair, though he was also not quite sure what to make of the implication that Mr. McLachlan wanted him to make the call about that. It was, to him, strange to think of an Aladren simply bowing to the structure as he saw it just like that, without even meeting the others. “We’ll all have to get out at least what we’ll need for tomorrow. And of course you’ll want to meet the others.”

That was when things would, he supposed, get interesting. Arnold hardly acted like a pureblood and was not at all bothered, that Arthur could tell, by that, it would not take anyone with eyes very long to realize that Russell, sterling character though he was and promise though he had and not least because of his association with them if he played it right, was not of the same social class as the rest of them, and Preston, though he could seem quite normal at the first, at least by Arthur’s standards, and was a good fellow to debate with, was intense enough about Beating for it to seem evident at times that there might be unresolved issues there. This was all before it being their fourth year, when the pressure to compete for points with the staff toward being the new prefect was beginning to bother them all and was indeed part of why he’d made a show of being helpful toward the transfer where Professor Fawcett could hopefully see. It was, he thought, very likely to be a year like he had never seen before.

That didn’t bother him. Arthur secretly liked the thought, really, in a way. Sometimes, it grew a bit tiresome, always being just the observer; he’d like a chance to actually be involved in something, just to see what it was like, and school was a safe place to do that, before he was out in the real world and things mattered. All around, it was an excellent arrangement for him, he thought, especially since he had finally found something to interest him over the summer. He couldn’t quite understand how he’d gotten through all the days of his existence before he struck on it by chance, in the seemingly flat, dreary world that he remembered so clearly as his life and all of his life. There was tinkering yet to be done, but still....

0 Arthur Probably midterm at the earliest 0 Arthur 0 5

Josh McLachlan

April 03, 2012 11:35 AM

At the latest, three years? by Josh McLachlan

Josh was getting a little tired of sitting here and talking. He wanted to sit on his bed in silence, draw the curtains, and think for a little while. Nights were the only times he could lower his guard, though it was difficult to even when he was alone. Burying his feelings and disciplining his emotions was an age-old habit. It was almost second-nature for him.

He wasn't exactly keen on meeting the "others." He knew they'd probably be good folk, at least in the relative sense, but he just wanted to get away from the world for awhile. Maybe he'd sneak back down to the common room when everyone else was asleep, light the fire, and sit here. It would be nice to be alone. Josh nodded at Carey and got out of his chair. He smoothed down his black robes and put his hands into his robe pockets. "Shall we, then?" He would know which bed was his by his suitcase, he was sure. After all, the rest of the wizards had been able to choose their beds four years ago.

He climbed the stairs, not bothering to see if Carey was following him, and entered the dorm room. As he had assumed, his suitcase was standing next to a comfortable-looking fourposter. He picked up his suitcase with ease and placed it onto his bed and unlocked it. This suitcase had an extension charm in place and had served him for years and years. If Josh was sentimental at all, he would have allowed memories to flood his brain of all the places he'd traveled with it, but he wasn't.

Instead, he pulled out a candle and placed it on his night table, pajamas, clothes that he would most likely wear tomorrow, and a few books. His book bag was pulled out as well and he set up his things for tomorrow. There. Now he wouldn't have to make a racket in the middle of the night. He fingered one of the pockets of his trousers in his suitcase and found a leather pocket-sized photo album. Josh didn't dare open it. Instead, he placed it into his current robe pocket, chest tightening. He looked for Carey and, on seeing him, nodded at him. "Goodnight," he said, fingering the leather wallet in his pocket the whole time.

0 Josh McLachlan At the latest, three years? 0 Josh McLachlan 0 5

Arthur

April 04, 2012 7:51 PM

Something like that by Arthur

So far, Arthur was finding the new fellow very…strange, and that was not something he said about others very often since he’d come to the conclusion that what he thought of as odd was really, for most people, closer to normal. He kept waiting for Joshua to begin to act more like what Arthur thought of as normal, or even more like Arthur himself did when he was not concentrating on being a polite pureblooded boy, but he did not. The closest he got was to go up the stairs after Arthur’s response to his ‘shall we’ was a nod without waiting for further permission or indeed for Arthur to lead him around by the hand, and really, that was not saying very much.

Interesting, very interesting, but also disconcerting. Arthur kept also expecting it to somehow turn into some way Joshua was mocking him, or perhaps the situation overall with Arthur as the immediate representation of it. If that was the case, then Arthur was going to be very cross, and he did not think that would be a good thing for Mr. McLachlan. He was hoping they were not going to have that problem.

He followed McLachlan up the stairs and to the door marked for fourth years, where he had been so shortly before, but he did not relax, glancing occasionally at Joshua to see what he was doing and whether it was relevant as he got out the things he would need for the next day. He had thought ahead and put those things at the very top of the trunk, so he did not have to rummage for them and unpack everything all at once on the first night, after the wagon ride and the Feast and having to deal with everyone else again after a summer of only having to deal with his family, and not even them at night.

Because of this, he saw when his roommate took what looked like a wallet and put it into his pocket, but he thought nothing much of it except to wonder what he needed with it at night, at school. “Good night,” he said, still feeling vaguely as though he were not following this conversation somehow, and he headed back for the stairs to go and look for his brother and Preston and Russell to discuss all this with them. For one thing, he thought they just needed to be prepared for there being a new face in the familiar room. He thought that might be part of what was unsettling him, after all, and while he had no interest in giving them an advantage, he did think it would work better for them all to be united where they could be, and this would be a gesture of trust. The books he had read about such things indicated that the secrets of success were really somewhere in loyalty and mutual aid.

0 Arthur Something like that 0 Arthur 0 5

Lucian

April 09, 2012 1:16 AM

I'll just cross my fingers that there isn't an earthquake by Lucian

“Not good at anything at all?” Lucian asked curiously after hearing Jay’s comment. “I don’t know, I’ve always thought that music is everywhere. Everyone just hears and plays it differently, you know?” he added smiling, though his philosophy may have seemed a bit cheesy. “Maybe you just haven’t found an instrument you enjoy enough.”

Lucian couldn’t imagine his life without music. Even his strict mother loosened up enough to play piano, though she did play it exactly as it was written. He had a tendency to add his own flair and experiment with different notes and beats per measure. Once when his mother heard him playing the drums along with her while she practiced she stormed up the stairs, flung open his half-closed bedroom door, and proceeded to lecture him on the value of tradition. “Do not insult someone else by adding your noise to their music!” was all she could manage to yell at him as she left his room in a huff. Needless to say he did not practice drums very often after that incident, especially when she practiced. He did not let her insult of calling his music noise stifle his creativity though. The music rooms at Sonora would bring a pleasant change.

“Five branches? Sheesh.” Lucian said after he listened to Jay explain his large sounding family. “I have been to North Carolina once,” he stated at the mention of where Lucille Carey lived. “I liked it there a lot.” He paused for a moment and reflected once more on his own family. “I don’t really see much of my family outside of the United States. There was a…disagreement between a lot of the members of my father’s and mother’s families.” He said, his expression changing to one of deep thought. He quickly brushed aside these thoughts and continued his unpacking.

Shortly after he found his sketchbook, Lucian heard Jay ask him what he had found. He hesitated a little in showing his roommate, for he wasn’t too confident in his artistic abilities since he had only received scorn when he showed his mother his drawings. “My journal,” Lucian said after a few moments. “I draw all of the places I visit and write down things that interest me.” He held out his journal after some consideration. “You can take a look if you would like.” He then turned his attention to the neatly arranged books Jay had placed at the bottom of his cabinet and smiled, nodding his head towards them. “If I tried that at home my sister would have taken it as an invitation to mess them all up.”

0 Lucian I'll just cross my fingers that there isn't an earthquake 0 Lucian 0 5

Jay

April 19, 2012 7:14 PM

I'll join you in that by Jay

Jay shrugged, finding nothing particularly objectionable about Lucian’s philosophy of music. “Maybe,” he said, wondering what instrument he might be suited to that he didn’t know about. "You never know, do you?" He and his brothers, he knew, had primarily been given music lessons to keep them occupied, since producing music was usually left to the girls while they were just supposed to be able to talk about it, and there hadn’t been that much of a selection of instruments involved. He wasn’t going to say anything about music for sure, except that he enjoyed listening to some of it more than he did others.

“They say it’s a nice place,” he offered about North Carolina when Lucian said he had been there and liked it. “I’ve never been there, though. I just met Lucille at the last family reunion, we all go to Virginia.”

And that was a feat as impressive from a logistical point of view as it was from a political one, in Jay’s point of view. Maybe more. It had to be even harder, considering the conflicts between people and all the status issues, to arrange activities to keep everyone busy and in groups that were acceptable and also keep them all fed than it was to do those things in a school. Jay didn’t even really know who did it all; Thomas’s latest wife, Eliza, was officially the hostess, but she was not thought highly of in the family, so it probably wasn’t her.

Jay nodded as Lucian described his own family’s divisions, which seemed to work differently from the Carey way. “I’ve never met any relatives overseas,” he said, “but my maternal grandfather doesn’t like my father very much.” Actually neither of his grandfathers liked his father very much, but it felt disloyal to say it. Dad couldn’t help being…himself, really, or at least that was Jay’s theory. And Grandfather Macomber did dislike him even more than Grandfather Carey did, anyway. Grandfather Carey, the Sixth, just found Donald Carey irritating and a bit embarrassing; for Grandfather Macomber, Mother had once explained, it was meddling with the Macomber reputation for being an Auror family to have Mother married to a Carey. Your father’s family has not always been known for its good behavior, she had said, slicing ham with maybe a little more energy than she really needed to.

He saw Lucian hesitate when he asked about the book, but glanced through it when it was offered to him. “That’s neat,” he said. “I usually draw from photographs. I like doing things that way.” That way, he had the original image, and then he could do interesting things with it to see what would happen, or else remember things about it that weren’t in the picture – how he’d felt at the time, how the air had felt, that kind of thing. You could do that with paints, if you were good; he was mediocre at best, but he enjoyed it.

The comment about a sister made him laugh. “Oh, yes,” he said, looking at his books, too. “At home, Brandon or Diana – one of my brothers and one of my sisters – would have already thrown one of those at something,” he said. Then Henry would try to hit that one with another one, and by then Cecilia, the baby, would have tried to rip a page out of something else. It was always annoying when someone was at a destructive stage, but after it had been all but proven, to Jay’s mind, that Brandon would never live outside of one, it had become especially frustrating when it was someone who didn’t even realize they were being destructive. At least he knew he could yell at Brandon, even if he tried hard not to because everyone else did so much; what was the point of yelling at Cecilia? She couldn’t even say all their names yet.

He gave his roommate a look of pretend dubiousness. “You’re not going to think it’s an invitation to mess them all up, are you?” he asked, looking again at the neat arrangement of books. He was joking, but doubted he’d mind too much if Lucian did get into his books; he knew that outside the immediate family, it was impolite to treat someone else’s possessions as yours without their permission, but he was too used to having only the kind of privacy that sometimes came from being the least dramatic child, the one who didn’t go out of his way to draw attention to himself from their parents, other adults in the family, and even his fellow siblings, to think it would really bother him.

OOC: Sorry for the wait!

0 Jay I'll join you in that 0 Jay 0 5