General The Gryffindor Table 2019-2020

Christine sulked down from the podium. She had wanted to be in Ravenclaw, but here she was, a reluctant Gryffindor. She looked around. Most of her fellow first-years seemed excited to be in Gryffindor, but not Christine. Yet, she knew she'd have to get used to it eventually. After all, house changes weren't allowed. 

Christine took a seat next to a few first-years. She piled some food onto her plate. Food had always been her biggest coping mechanism. She ate and ate until she could eat no more. "Wow," she thought aloud. "I haven't eaten that much in who knows how long." She laughed. 

Christine, after filling up on teh best food she'd ever eaten, pulled out her sketchpad from her robe pocket and began to sketch the person sitting across from her. "Gah!" she cried. She had screwed up her drawing. She pulled the paper off the pad and crumpled it up. Then, she tossed it on the floor. She went back and started over. She messed up again. This cycle repeated several times. Draw. Mess up. Draw. Mess up. Draw. Mess up. By the end of a couple minutes, there was a decent sized pile of balled up sketch papers at her feet. Christine gave up and placed her head in her hands on the tabletop.

Open to interactions from whoever wants to be "the person across the table."

Ida's interest suddenly piqued at the offer Bex presented. Then she considered - what if she did something incorrectly and accidentally damaged her hair? There might be magic to sort that out, but what are the chances that Ida messes that up, as well?

She assessed Bex's questions about travelling towards Hogwarts and answered honestly. 'I suppose running into a pillar and not getting a concussion was very magical,' she said. 'To be fair, long train journeys tend to make me really sleepy - I might've missed a whole lot,'

She glanced briefly around the rest of the Great Hall. 'Do you think...' she paused to find the right words. 'Do you think it would be illegal to mingle with the other houses? Or does that wait until after the feast?'

It wasn't as if she was going to introduce herself to the entirety of the first year - she wouldn't want to fall in with the "wrong crowd", so to speak. It would, however, be nice to know some of the other students and potential classmates. An entire class full of only Gryffindors would just be the slightest bit silly. Much like only being friends with the members of your house. Silly.

Bex laughed at Ida's answer about running into a pillar, she too had a few run-ins with walls and pillars that suddenly jumped out in front of her. Then she thought the other girl was lucky that she had been asleep for most of the journey. Bex couldn't relax the entire time thinking out her parents lack of a goodbye. She felt the sharp stab of hurt throughout her body at the thought of her parents and looked away quickly before Ida saw her face and thought it was about her. 

She then heard Ida's question and glanced around the Great Hall. Everybody seemed to be laughing and talking amongst the people at their table. She couldn't tell if any of them were from a different house sitting with their other friends. 

I don't really know. I doubt it's illegal, and if it's against the rules I'm sure someone would just tell you kindly instead of yelling at you. But maybe ask a prefect to make sure there's still time before the feast ends, and so you don't get any "points" taken away before class starts. 

Bex would be extremely surprised if they took away points for something as silly as talking to a different house, but she still wasn't entirely sure the do's and don'ts of the wizarding world or Hogwarts. From what she could gather, it seemed like these prefects were the ones who helped the new guys understand the rules. 

“GRYFFINDOR”, the sorting hat bellowed on Rosalyn’s head. She sat there in shock for a second or two before walking to the Gryffindor table. Rosalyn couldn’t hear the clapping and whistling of the students, because she was thinking too hard, wondering how she got into Gryffindor. She thought she would get in to Hufflepuff with the traits she had. Rosalyn wasn’t brave or daring, and she almost never took any risks. Most of her days were spent studying or looking at nature.

Rosalyn knew that the sorting hat placed everyone in a house for a reason, she just couldn’t figure out what that reason was. Maybe she was placed in Gryffindor to open up and become more social. It may change her attitude and outcome completely, which was something that needed to be done if the sorting hat said so.

Rosalyn walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat next to some students her age. She hoped that the next 7 years would be filled with new friends and memories. After the headmaster gave a speech, everyone started eating. Rosalyn placed some roast beef and boiled potatoes on her plate before looking around at the large room. There were so many students, but she hoped to make at least one friend out of the large bunch.

The apex of Fiona's anxiety had hit when she finally went up to discover her Hogwarts house in front of the entire school. When she turned around to face the students all sitting at their house table, she noticed her siblings sitting at the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. She crossed her fingers in the pocket of her robes and prayed that she would soon be seated with one of them. The large sorting hat was placed on her head, so large that it covered her view of the great hall. There was a long silence throughout the great hall until the sorting hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR." She felt the hat being lifted off her head, and she quickly ran towards the table of clapping and cheering students dressed in red. Fiona felt so alone not knowing anyone in her house for the first time in a while she was scared. She laughed and thought to herself, "Wow, I just sat down at the Gryffindor table and I'm scared." As the feast started and tables became occupied with dish upon dish of food, Fiona began to talk to her other first-year Gryffindors. Despite not knowing anything about the Gryffindor house, she managed to make herself at home with the other students at her table, and quickly she didn't feel so scared. "I don't know what I was so worried about," she thought as she poured a generous amount of food onto her plate, "I'm a Gryffindor."

@Felicity Wang

As the sorting hat called out another Gryffindor right after him, Ben's olive eyes, cast through the panes of his glasses, turned up towards where the young woman stood, catching a bit of surprise in her expression. Did she expect to be somewhere else? Maybe the sorting hat was having some sort of stroke... As the cheers of his fellow Gryffindor table members hollered for her, his shock wouldn't allow it yet. Following her with his eyes as she came to sit by him, he scooted slightly to make more room.

"I'm Ben." He leaned against the table, propping his elbow on its wood as he gave a casual wave to her. through his glasses, he glanced upwards at the next contestant to the sorting hat, wondering if it would yet again call out a Gryffindor. However, as it called Slytherin instead, he shook his head and looked back towards the young girl who had joined him, "Felicity, was it?" He spoke in a thick cockney accent, such as one from the lower classes of Bristol would.

Ben was an odd character and he often described himself as an antisocial extrovert. He would often keep to himself, but the idea of people viewing him as odd, or unfriendly was distasteful, to say the least. He wanted to be popular, though he wasn't sure how well that would work in a school of witches and wizards. This life of magic was still very new to him. His parents were muggles and what he knew about the wizarding world had only been gained by the massive readings he had done in preparation for this great adventure.

@Benjamin Cranford

Although she'd willingly sat down next to the boy and turned to him, she was still taken aback when he spoke to her. He hadn't been part of the cheering crowd when her placement had been announced so she'd initially been on edge. But his words seemed non-threatening and Felicity felt relieved that someone was being friendly so she adjusted her position to face him.  She relaxed, face softening into a friendly smile, and gave him a returning wave. 

"Hi Ben," she said cheerily. Her voice was soft but steady even in the din of the hall's chatter. "Yes, I'm Felicity. How was the sorting for you? Did the hat say anything interesting?"

As she spoke, more people were sorted. While most people stayed quiet to listen to the sorting hat's decrees, the tables were filled with the buzz of conversation. Around them, their seatmates seemed occupied with their own devices. The curiosity to know what other people had heard from the hat was eating at her after the comments she had received herself from the sorting hat. It was perhaps a rather invasive question to ask if one considered the sorting hat's intimate position with one's secrets. But she hoped her friendly intentions came across to him and nothing bad did instead. As she waited for an answer, she paid closer attention to him.

It was purely assumption based on his minute reactions to their surroundings, but Felicity was fairly certain he had not been raised around magic. There was no judgment in her conclusion, she couldn't claim to be an expert in magic either.  She would wait a little while and ask him later.

@Felicity Wang

The rusty haired boy nodded his head in a greeting she she spoke back to him, his lips curling up in a cocky smirk. He was in on that persona that he often portrayed. Only those who were close to him knew his true personality. "How was my sortin'? " A confident chuckle rang out as he leaned back, rolling his shoulders to give into that arrogant aura he was giving to the room, "It was bloody accurate. Gryffindor's are courageous and that's all I am." Though, surrounded by a variety of his 'courageous' counterparts, the lad's words held a thick layer of sarcasm to them.

Placing his elbows on the table ahead of them, he leaned in closer to the dark-haired girl, a grin on his lips as he whispered, "I was goin' to jump from one cart top to the other on the express, buta old prude stopped me. " He snorted at his own words. These were so far from the truth that it hurt his own soul to tell such lies. Hw only hoped that the girl would call him on his bull. There was no way she'd believe him... right?

After his whisper, he leaned back and away from her, his grin crooking playfully as he then spoke in a tone of arrogance and maybe even flirtatiousness, "How about you? Did the hat see the golden lion in yah'?"

[font=times new roman]

"GRYFFINDOR" exclaimed the talking hat.

Mark didn't even have time to close his eyes to listen to the hat's usual unknowns.

To Mark's amazement, he made his way over to the red table to greet those who had already taken their seats.

Meanwhile other students were being placed in their respective houses as Mark began to observe what would be his mentors, professors friends and other acquaintances, but the most interesting thing Mark observed for so long was the ceiling, the glow of those dangling candles that gently lit that clear sky full of stars.
The boy remembers the magic of the sky where he came from, he remembers that when he was a child he stayed for hours watching the southern sky, and now the same magic returns to the greatest school of magic and witchcraft, wrapped in smells and voices of background laughter, for the boy was all so new confused but extraordinarily magic.

Mark lay watching for more than 5 minutes and wondered how a child "who thinks in the clouds" can be a gryffindor.

One thing was certain, he had just realized his dream, to be a student of Hogwarts, while the second dream was imminent, the long and fat banquet that soon would come...