Grayson Wright
December 16, 2022 7:20 PM
Welcome to Aladren (Head of House speech) by Grayson Wright
After the Feast, Professor Wright once again gathered up some first years, but this time, it was a much smaller group. This time, he only pulled those who had been Sorted into Aladren. From there, it was out of the Cascade Hall, through the corridors, and back to the library. The route was so familiar now, that Professor Wright would not have been surprised to discover he could walk it blindfolded. Nevertheless, as he guided the new members of his little flock along, he made sure to point out details, useful bits of knowledge someone less familiar with the school could use to help navigate, until they reached the doors of the library.“Most of your classmates,” he informed them, “will only hear that it's forbidden to tell outsiders about where the entrances to their dormitories are. You all, though, will need to keep two secrets – most importantly, where the actual entrance to Aladren is, but also that the entrance is hidden here, in the library.”
He led them into Tarquin’s domain. “Unfortunately, I have to remind you that the library itself is not part of your common room, and you should follow all the same rules as every other student when you are inside the library," he informed them. "But I'd expect no less from anyone Sorted into Aladren. Neither will our librarian, Mr. Fox-Reynolds. So, on we go."
Sonora was young, as far as wizarding schools went, and its location had been even more remote from society when it was built than it was now; a regrettable consequence of this was the absence of the sort of ancient grimoires and hand-illuminated bestiaries that one might find in the libraries of the ancient European schools of magic. It did, however, contain rather good copies of a fair few of them, plus a wealth of more recent material, and thus it was a bit of a walk to the back wall and the section dedicated to zoology and magizoology. Once they finally reached it, he scanned the shelves and found the book he was looking for.
“Remember this book,” he said, pointing to a very worn volume entitled Birds of Prey. “Should be easy enough, since our House mascot is a hawk. If you want to read about actual hawks - " something he'd remembered to include since Constance Melcher came along; she was good at reminding him to be precise - "you can find that information in other books around here, but this specific book is really the key to the door to our common room. To come in, you put your hand on the spine, like I’m doing now, and pull as though you were going to remove it from the shelf, like – “ he pulled on the book – “this.”
There was a sound of stone on stone and then the shelf began to move, first forward toward them and then outward, revealing an entrance. He gestured through it. “After you,” he invited the students.
The shelf slid back into place behind them as they entered a spacious room decorated primarily in blue and black. The room was dotted with sets of tables and chairs, a few sofas, and bookshelves on several walls. He had looked over the shelves when he took over as Head of House and had made a few additions, so the common room library covered a variety of interests students might have - subjects related to magic, but also other subjects, including history and literature and Muggle math and science. He had also decided to have several periodicals delivered to the common room for general use. The first issues of these, along with hodgepodges from earlier deliveries and his own, older collection of such things, were on a few stands around the room. He led the new kids to the rug in front of the hearth and waved for them to take seats in the immediate area. Since he was not exactly declaiming to a vast crowd here, he took an armchair himself so he was more or less on their level instead of looming over them from the rug.
"Once again, welcome to Aladren," he said. "As your Head of House, I hope you'll all come to see Aladren as a second home. This is our common room - where you can sit, meet with others in our House, do your homework, play some chess or other games - more or less anything you want, so long as it isn't so loud it disrupts everyone else, and if it's not anything that will end with me being forced to explain to the headmaster why unidentified substances appear to have permanently bonded with the ceiling here. You are allowed to spend time with friends or relatives in other Houses in school common areas, like the Gardens or the MARS facility, but make sure to check the bulletin board here regularly even if you don't spend a lot of time here. The bulletin board's useful if you want to find a study partner or start a group. You'll also see the sign-ups for clubs and teams and announcements about school events there. If you want to start a club or post anything else for other Houses to see, just let me know and I'll speak with the other Heads of Houses so they can post it on their bulletin boards too.
"My office is through that door over there," he said, pointing to a door set into one wall. "There's an outside entrance from the corridor around the bend, too, if you're with someone from another House or just already passing that way." By which he really meant: if you'd rather not advertise to everyone in the common room that you want a word with me; he assumed that would be obvious enough without an explicit statement even with first years. "If you have any questions about the school or any other concerns, you're welcome to come talk to me - as Head of House, my job is to act as your default contact on the staff, and to act as the middleman between you and the administration, when that's needed," he explained. "However, any professor would be happy to help you if you prefer, or if I'm not available, and our House prefects are also here to help you. You can recognize them by their badges. Their names are Bonabelle Row, Rosalynn Tellerman, and Constance Melcher."
"The dorms are through that door over there." He pointed. "When you get in, you'll see there's a hallway that goes two ways. Dorms for girls are down the hall to your right, and dorms for boys are down the hall to your left. You can only walk down the hallway that contains the room you've been assigned to. If you walk down the other one, you'll fall through the floor and end up back in the common room. They tell me it's not a very soft landing, so I'd recommend you don't do that," he said matter-of-factly. "On a similar note, beds are enchanted to be one-occupant-only and it's not an especially pleasant rule to break, either." Not that anyone had, yet - this rule was new. He'd decided that slipping it into the speech as unobtrusively as possible was his best bet (Merlin help him if any of them asked why....), along with all the upper year dorms having a 'welcome back' notice reminding them of the House rules, plus this new one. "Your room has your year number on it, so it should be easy to find. The second years will be in all your classes as well as being your neighbors, so I'd recommend being good neighbors," he added. "Curfew every night is at ten, breakfast becomes available at 6:30 in the morning. You'll need to be inside Aladren between those hours, though as long as you're reasonably quiet, it's up to you to decide when to sit in the common room and when to go to bed." This would be an early test in self-management for them; he expected a lot of droopy heads as students from all Houses experimented with the new freedom within the first month, but they'd probably learn soon enough...and then unlearn it, of course, as soon as they started approaching their CATS, but that was still four years in the future.
"That's a lot of information, I know, so you'll probably be glad to hear that's the end of this speech," he said. "If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them. If you don't have any questions, though, then this meeting is adjourned - you can look around the common room, or go see your dorms. Your trunks should be in your rooms by now."
OOC: Welcome to Aladren! You can now post your character on any of the boards, though they do not have access to other common rooms outside of HoH offices. You can also continue your conversations at the Feast and at Orientation thanks to the magic of what we call "fuzzy time" - as long as two threads are supposed to happen at different times in character, you can write them at the same time as an author. If you have any questions, just ask in Chatzy or on the OOC board. Have fun!
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Grayson Wright
Welcome to Aladren (Head of House speech)
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