Arrival Thread - Magical Schools - May 2021 Arrival

Mentioning/Interacting: Charles Alluring @Henry Knight, Cassie Heather @Lucia Fox, Lucietta Mahler @Everly Charlton

#78b1c9

Nikita smiled as the girl introduced herself, with slightly choppy english, but Nikita didn't mind as she could still understand her. Nikita thought about this question. She wasn't to give too much information about her school, unless, of course, she trusted her. "It's... very hard. You have to be tough, I suppose. I mean, we have to exercise early in the morning and all. Durmstrang likes to prepare us for our future." She smiled. She tilted her head. "And you? I haven't heard much of your school. Is it old?" She asked, curious.

When the girl made a comment on her hair Nikita's first reaction was to be defensive. She thought she was being made fun of. But a millisecond of that and she realized what the girl meant, a smile instantly spreading across her face. " I could say the same about your hair too, simply remarkable. " She followed the girl's gaze to a group of students, recognizing some, one of which she in particular did not like, and the rest she had seen somewhere.

She turned back to the girl. "So, have you seen the posters for the ball?" Nikita asked. She had seen the latest one in the halls and it gave her chills. "It givs off... some... interesting vibes." Would anything go wrong? She spoke again, joking. "If I die I'm never visiting Hogwarts again" She laughed.

It seemed more and more kids were coming in, and the room seemed to be getting louder and louder. Nikita simply looked around.

action: talking and observing

Englisch: 349293 | Russian 800020

Interacting with: Irina @Lavinia Cloven
Mentioning: All Students

Open to interactions

Even though Nate wasn't the type to show excitement, he had been looking forward to this day for weeks. To most, he was more of the introverted type, but with his friends, he was outgoing, laughed a lot, and always had some nonsense on his mind. For weeks he had been bugging them about how excited he was to see Hogwarts and all the other students from all over the world. But most of all, he was also excited to see the students from Ilvermorny and hoped to see some familiar faces since he was originally from America.

He never liked traveling with a portkey and held his stomach when it was finally over. He looked around him and it wasn't just him, he's sure some were traveling this way for the first time but were taking it pretty well. The small group was greeted by a man who turned out to be Caradoc Browne and Head of Hufflepuff. Nate already knew about the different houses, but couldn't quite place it at first hearing, but didn't give it a second thought.

As they were shown around, the man kept chatting away and Nate couldn't help but silently laugh. Somebody likes to gossip, he thought to himself and shook his head, barely recognizable. Someone used to be a famous opera singer from Austria, then there was someone who ran a biker gang. If he had understood correctly it was the head of Gryffindor. Something about a spy and some other member. Nate had really tried to pay attention and not be rude, but his eyes kept wandering to the impressive castle and its grounds.

Time flew by and soon everyone found themselves back in a huge hall. Four long tables stretched out in the middle and at the very front was another long table, which it seemed was for the professors. The ceiling looked like the starry sky, candles flew above their heads and the conversations of the other students quietly filtered through to them. Satisfied, Nate grinned to himself without even noticing.

The students from the other schools began to spread out around the four tables and Nate stumbled toward one of the middle ones. He could see the light hair of a friend from a distance and made his way to her. To his relief, there was an empty seat next to her and he sat down. He greeted the students around him with a short "Hey." and thanked the student who gave him some more room on the bench. The students at this table were wearing yellow and he was sure that was the color of Hufflepuff, but didn't want to ask about it to avoid embarrassing himself in case it wasn't true after all.

He turned his attention to Irina now and poked her lightly in the side with his elbow. "It's magical here, isn't it?" he whispered in russian to her, looking up at the ceiling. He found his statement almost silly, after all they were wizards and witches, of course it was magical but he was also sure Irina would understand him.

Rping as approved Ilvermorny iNPC Melody Westmoore Outfit: Uniform

Hex: English - #7C0E0E Mentioning: @Calypso Starling, @Rhea Miller, @Marcus Iwasaki

"She's mad but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire."
~Charles Bukowski

As a muggleborn, it had only been that past summer that Mel had learned of the existence of the wizarding world -and her place in it, and she could still hardly believe any of it. The wands and magic and Quidditch and Ilvermorny, with its high ceilings and long hallways. And now, less than a year after learning that she was a frigging witch and moving across the country to attend boarding school in Massachusetts, she was being whisked off to some whole other magical realm entirely. It was a lot. But she was managing. It was her belief that she could handle anything.
Plus, the whole trip could be viewed as a marvelous adventure. Mel liked those. And she had heard so much about the Scottish school from her classmates in America who had relatives and friends who attended, that she would be kidding herself if she said she wasn't just a little curious.

The portkey was the worst of all the magic Mel had come into contact with thus far. You'd think that a group of people so ancient and so powerful would have been able to come up with a mode of transportation less stomach-wrenching by now. Well, there was apparition, but that was for of-age wizards only and from what Mel could tell, not much better. And she supposed you couldn't transport a whole school of kids through a fireplace with floo powder. Why couldn't they have all flown on broomsticks? In contrast with portkeys, Quidditch may have been the young Thunderbird's favorite discovery since coming to Ilvermorny. Other than just finding a place she felt like she belonged, but of course she'd never say something that sappy and pathetic out loud. She loved how free and in-control she felt up there in the sky, how all her problems became so small and insignificant when she flew.

When the portkey landed and she stopped feeling as if every atom in her body was being ripped apart, turned inside-out, and fused together in quick succession, Mel nearly keeled over. She had to take slow, deep breaths and repeat to herself, I will not barf in front of all these people, I will not barf in front of all these people... until she got her bearings.

Hogwarts was massive.
She'd thought Ilvermorny was big, but Hogwarts? This school was in a whole other league. It was constructed from large grey blocks of stone, sturdy and medieval-looking. There were turrets and towers and gates, it was hard to take it all in at once. The whole castle, even from here, exuded an ancient, wise, and magical vibe. It seemed almost to have a life of its own.

A tall man with amber eyes and dark skin came to greet the group of jostling, giggling Ilvermornians. He introduced himself as Professor Iwasaki, the Head of Ravenclaw. Mel was pretty sure that was one of the houses.
Once inside the castle, the girl was almost overwhelmed. The noise surrounded her, as all around her kids spoke in a myriad of languages, talking rapidly in French and Russian and Mandarin and Swedish and Norwegian and German and many more, switching seamlessly back and forth between languages. Mel felt mildly embarrassed, because of course her boring self spoke only English and a few meager words of Spanish picked up in school. There were shouts of joy as old friends were reunited, as well as some kids making noise seemingly just because they could get away with it in the crowded, chaotic setting. As she walked through the hall, Mel thought she heard something about ABBA, that old Swedish band her mom liked. That confused her.

She would have rather sat alone, but with five schools packed into one room, that was not going to be an option. Mel figured she had better sit with Hogwarts students, as they were sure to speak her tongue, and so with them she was less likely to make an idiot of herself. Chin held stubbornly high, -she would not let this situation intimidate her; she would not- she made her way to one of the long banquet tables, set in red and gold. Gryffin-something. Mel took a seat next to two brunette girls conversing in English accents. One had warm brown eyes and was laughing at something her friend was saying. The other's hair was short and choppy, and she had a sharp look to her face. She appeared less welcoming than the first girl, but not altogether unfriendly. Mel knew that interaction was not avoidable at this point. As she sat down, she introduced herself, noting in her head how different her accent sounded from theirs.

"Um, hey. I'm Mel. From Ilvermorny."

Reducio

1. Permission granted by @Rhea Miller to place her character here, at this event, in this situation, interacting with these people.

2. I am assuming the Ilvermornians arrived by portkey. Because Beauxbatons came by carriage, Durmstrang by ship, and Koldovstoretz portkey. They didn't say how the Ilvermorny students got there, so I figured it was a safe bet. Plus, I'm pretty sure another Ilvermorny student mentioned a portkey in their post.

Post Tracker: [1]

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Outfit: uniform OPEN TO INTERACTIONS

Interacting: @Calypso Starling and her iNPC Mel Mentioning: everyone

Not to be the epitome of the obnoxiously angsty, antisocial teenage girl cliche, but bloody hell, the last thing Hogwarts needed was more people.

Rhea had not moved from her seat at the Gryffindor banquet table once; in fact, she had barely moved at all, albeit to scan the consistently expanding swarm of students. A thousand conversations echoed through the Great Hall, Russian mixing with French and English and all the other languages in between. Some were smaller: a catch-up between two friends, or a person alone, distractedly greeting passers-by. Others had assembled together in groups of five or six and were talking loudly and emphatically, burrowing into Rhea's brain. The torturous cacophony of laughter made her want to tear out her hair in agony. Instead, she remained completely still, every muscle in her body tensed up.

Movement behind her made her swivel around so quickly her neck cricked. She glared at her friend Calypso, who sat frozen behind her, a Berty Bott's bean in her hand and raised halfway to her mouth. Cal's eyes widened. "Hello," she said.

Rhea glared at her friend in silence for a moment before muttering "hmmph," and turning back to look at the student body. Behind her, Cal shrugged, and popped the bean into her mouth. She grimaced and spat it back out.

"This is miserable," Rhea groaned. "Why has everyone gathered in this one room? There was barely enough space for the Hogwarts students. I swear, I'm going to punch the next person that comes to approach me." That made Cal laugh, even though it wasn't supposed to. Rhea clenched her fist around her Gryffindor robe, still tense, still angry. Still fiercely unmoving.

That was when they were approached by a tough-looking girl in Ilvermorny robes who sat down at their table and introduced herself. She could not have come at a worse time. Weren't there other places she could go? People she could sit with? But nooo, out of everyone, this girl had come to join Rhea, who would rather stab her own eyes out with a fork than strike up another conversation right now. Rhea brought her fist down on the table, drawing several pairs of eyes to her, and glared directly at the American student.

"Congratulations. We don't want you here." Yes. Begone, fiend.

She could hear Cal protesting, chastising her and apologizing to Mel, probably, but blocked it out. The Ilvermorny girl could find somewhere else to sit.

Reducio

Permission to godmod Cal granted (and post reviewed) by the writer

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English = 5D4A64 | Russian = 4E7A27

Interacting with Nate Smirnow - @Haley Rose
Open to interactions

Irina had realized she might have been a bit early to the dinner as more and more people started to come in. She knew that there was a decent amount of people from the other schools here but, there were a whole lot more than she thought there would be. The worst part was that everyone seemed to know one another. Irina had never had the chance of coming to Hogwarts before today yet members of other schools were reuniting.

Maybe she could make some new friends here, find someone to owl, and perhaps find out about the other wizarding schools. Even if she did none of that the experience was what was worth it the most. This was her chance to go to a new school and she was going to make sure to make the most of it.

Irina noticed someone sliding in next to her and turned to see her friend Nate sitting to her. They were decently close friends at Koldovstoretz but when they both realized the other was going on the trip to Hogwarts they became closer. She was glad that he had found his way to her table because she did not want to through this dinner alone. Lost in thought, it took her an extra second to process that Nate had nudged her in the side.

He whispered to her in Russian about how it was magical here and Irina couldn’t agree more. Whispering back in Russian she turned to him and responded in an awed voice, ”It is magical, more magical then I’d ever thought possible.” She had been and still was awe struck by the whole thing and was so glad that Nate understood the feeling.

Irina took a look around the entire room taking in the beauty of it before turning back to Nate. Her voice had raised a little more than a whisper but still was quiet in comparison to some of the other conversations going on. She looked at Nate and said still in Russian, ”Now that we’re here what are you most excited to do here, or what do you want to do after this dinner? Should we go exploring tonight or just wait for tomorrow?”

Englisch: 349293 | Russian 800020

Interacting with: Irina @Lavinia Cloven
Mentioning: @Anja Murtaja

Open to interactions

Nate was reassured that he was not alone in being so overwhelmed by all these impressions and could not help smiling. Irina, like himself, was lost in her thoughts. As she began to talk, his gaze continued to glide through the hall. He lingered on various faces, but did not recognize any of them. Startled, he widened his eyes as a ghost suddenly flew past them, and with a quick movement of his eyes and a twitch of his head, he alerted Irina. Rarely could excitement or enthusiasm be seen on Nate's face, but at that moment it was on his as well. Less than others, maybe not necessarily visible to some, but it was there.

His gaze wandered some more, wondering if Anja would be here too. He knew she was in Slytherin and looked around for a table with green paint. Turning around he saw some students who had the color in their uniforms and he was sure she would be sitting there too. But how would he have spotted her among the crowd of students and furthermore the two had never met in person. He turned his gaze back to Irina, who was again speaking to him in Russian.

For a brief moment he waited for a reaction from the students next to the two who would tell them not to walk around the castle at night but none did. And at that moment he realized that they couldn't understand the two at all because they were speaking in Russian. He got a little angry with hisselfe, he didn't want to be rude and from now on tried to speak only English while he was at Hogwarts, at least when students from the other schools were present. "Uh, I don't know." He smiled faintly and considered for a moment, "I'm curious about the Quidditch pitch." He finally said and shrugged his shoulders, speaking with an American but not Russian accent. Not many knew that he was originally from America and his family still lived there.

Not knowing what was and wasn't forbidden here, however, he decided to say the next sentence in Russian, just to be on the safe side. "The night is still young, let's do it tonight." The left corner of his mouth pulled up and even though he hadn't known Irina too well for too long, he was sure she would be in. "A little adventure never hurt anyone." He spoke in English again now and winked at her.

Rping as PC Calypso Starling Outfit: Gryffindor uniform

Hex: English - AE1919 Mentioning: Melody Westmoore [my iNPC], @Rhea Miller

"I swear that girl was born with a pen in her hand, the moon in her hair, and stars in her soul."
~Melody Lee

Calypso was beyond excited.
This was the first time she would meet people from the other magical schools, excepting her friend from home, Marie Olson, who was an exchange student to Beauxbatons. But Marie didn't really count, as she was British and Calypso had known her since they were seven. Just thinking of all of the cultures and languages and different ways of life Cal would get to become privy to, all the people to meet and new things to learn, made her practically giddy.
That being said, she was also anxious.
Large crowds had always been overwhelming to the girl, and five schools in one room, even the Great Hall, was no picnic. Plus, what if she did something wrong, or horribly offended someone? She didn't speak that many languages. Other than English, she knew enough French to get by in a conversation, and her Spanish, as well as her Latin were passable, but she'd been known to make linguistic mistakes in all of those languages. What if she said something insulting or indecent by accident? Goodness, that would be so embarrassing, and she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Should she just try to stick to English? No, if you never practiced you never got better. Everyone knew that. Plus, she knew if she were going somewhere new and different she would feel more at home if people spoke her own language with her.

When Calypso descended the many staircases to the Great Hall for supper, there was a buzz of excitement hanging over the students like a blanket. They whispered and tittered in anticipation of the arrival of their foreign counterparts. Coming to the Gryffindor table, she sat down next to an amusingly irritated-looking Rhea. Her friend was always a bit on the surly side, but today she looked positively explosive. Apparently the influx of new people, noise, and crowds were not agreeing with her. As soon as she took her seat, sampling a Bertie Bott's as she did so, Rhea whipped around and glared at her. Cal startled. "Hello." An incoherent grumble was all she got in response. Rhea went on to gripe about all the extra students. A choice comment made Cal burst out laughing. Even at eleven, Rhea was already such a curmudgeon.

A few moments later, a girl clad in the robes of the North American school with somewhat wild brown-blonde hair approached their section of the table and sat down. She looked irritable and closed-off, like she didn't particularly want to be there, but introduced herself anyway, in a funny American accent. Mel. Like a volcano, the already-moody Rhea exploded. "Congratulations." she said, getting partway to her feet and slamming her fist onto the table like an unhappy businessperson. "We don't want you here."

See, this was the downside of being friends with someone like Rhea. She just didn't seem to have a filter sometimes. Or didn't care.
"Rhea!" Cal exclaimed. She turned to Mel, an apology already forming on her lips. But one look at the furious fire that had sparked in the girl's eyes made her freeze. She hesitated, then all she managed was "Mel, I'm so-" but the newcomer interrupted her. It seemed she, too, was a volcano. "What place do you think you have, telling me that?" She focused her eagle-like gaze on Rhea, brushing Calypso off. "You think that because this is your school, your house table, you get to decide who sits here? Well, news-flash, you do not own this table. This is an inter-school event, and last I heard we were all welcome here. You think it's not my place to audaciously try and sit here? Well, it's not your place to turn up your abnormally pointed nose at any 'peasant' who comes within a twenty-foot radius of your highness. And you're probably a blood-purist, too. Look pal, just because I'm muggleborn doesn't mean I don't have every right to be here that you do, you got that?"

Whoah. That girl had a set of lungs on her. The groups of people nearest them had gone silent and were now staring at the spectacle. Oh Merlin, Cal had just wanted to have a nice, peaceful old time getting to know students from the other schools. She had not signed up for this. Rhea's face was still livid, but perhaps more uncertain than she had been a moment before. Not one to be intimidated, however, she stood up taller and her mask settled back onto her face, all traces of hesitancy erased.

With all her worrying about offending someone, Cal had somehow never imagined this. This was going to be an interesting night. Calypso just hoped no one got expelled, for goodness sake.

Reducio

Permission granted by @Rhea Miller to god-mod. Also we went over the post together. I mean, technically there wasn't much god-modding in this post, but we did.

Post Tracker: [1]

English = 5D4A64 | Russian = 4E7A27

Interacting with Nate Smirnow - @Haley Rose
Open to interactions

Irina loved everything about Hogwarts so far and was just trying to take it all in at the moment. They didn’t have anything like this at Koldovstoretz and it had already made a huge impact on Irina. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nate’s head move and turned to see him staring at a ghost. She could sense a bit of excitement on his face, it was small but Irina knew Nate enough to see it. The ghost was magical as was everything in this school and Irina found herself watching and analyzing it for a little bit too long.

When Nate answered her question he had done it in English rather than how she asked it in Russian. Somehow she rarely even noticed the difference, since she was a child she had learned both languages simultaneously because of how important English would be to her in the future. She happened to have a slight Russian accent just due to the fact that she grew up there.

The quidditch pitch, of course he would be interested in it. To be honest, Irina was highly looking forward to seeing it as well. They had both been flying trees at Koldovstoretz and would sometimes have practices together because their sports were closely related. Nate had switched languages again to tell her that they should do it tonight and Irina was starting to understand what his use of the different languages was for. Russian was for if they didn’t want people to understand them and English was going to be for everything else because they were at an English speaking school.

Irina decided to respond to Nate’s Russian comment in Russian but would try and make an effort not to do it much more while she stayed at Hogwarts. ”Sounds good, I say after this dinner we go try and find it” She was actually quite excited to explore because she didn’t know that much about this school and already wanted to find out everything about it.

Nate had switched back to English and Irina totally agreed with what he was saying, a little adventure never hurt. She let abut a little laugh and nodded her head. Then Irina responded, in English this time, ”I mean we live for adventure right? That’s why we came here.” She had a bigger smile on her face now was glad that Nate had decided to sit next to her.

Open to all interactions, though Phaedra would be most interested in talking to a Durmstrang student about their school and seeing their ship.

Striding through the entrance doors, Phaedra was presented with a significantly more crowded Great Hall that made her feel stuffy. Strangers of all ages seemed joyous to be here, chatting excitedly and gazing at the starry skies above just as she once had as a first year. Despite the occasion, she pitied them; Hogwarts' architectural beauty was merely a farce. Whether they knew it or not, receiving an invitation here was not all the lucky opportunity it seemed.

A ball was coming up and that meant trouble. It wasn't like the flyers were hard to miss or anything, with how much they'd been scattered around the castle. Still, for once in her life, Phaedra found herself torn. Normally she avoided these events—how stupid would one have to be to keep going despite their notoriety? But this year's ball actually looked interesting, and no, she wasn't at all biased because of the chosen theme. And also no, she certainly wasn't feeling left out while everyone else went out and did things, dangerous and very stupid as said things may be, nor was she getting bored of reading the same chapters of study material over and over.

...Oh, who was she kidding? She badly needed a change of pace and faces for that matter.

While the blend of languages in the Great Hall may have been overwhelming to others, it only pleased someone as well traveled as Phaedra. Raised with two spoken tongues, her ears were finely tuned to picking out Greek where English was standard. As she pushed her way through stalling students looking for a place to sit, polite murmurs of “Excuse me,” serving as their only warning to her presence, she made her way to the Ravenclaw table that had been extended like the others to take a seat and mingle. Her dark Hogwarts robes stuck out among those of the foreigners.

Among Beauxbatons, perhaps? The French school had the largest population of any present and took in some Mediterranean countries. If any group today would have even one Greek speaker, that'd be the one. But her snooping on a nearby conversation proved futile—only snippets of French and Spanish grazed by her, and Merlin, was she rusty at those. This type of environment would be nothing for her mother. A Beauxbatons alumna herself, Chrysanthi could switch seamlessly between at least seven languages. But alas, Phaedra was not her mother.

After the Headmaster took to the podium to address the room with his typical greetings, Phaedra spread the house-elf provided cloth napkin over her lap and began to fill her goblet with ice water. She looked focused as she started digging into her hearty bowl of stew, but not entirely uninviting to anyone willing to interact. While she was here, she might as well get to know some people.