First Year Entrance Open

WC: 213
Mentions: @Xio Arcana, @Mercedes Rubio
OPEN TO INTERACTIONS

Bella turned to look at her friend, who she could tell was nervous despite her positive attitude. They were all trying their best to stay in a good mood. "Fake it till you make it", Bella's childhood friend Jessie used to say.

"Well, let's try our best to not fall into the water, yes? The Giant Squid should rescue us, if it is actually in this lake right now. Really, I'm surprised I haven't seen any animals yet. Quite unusual, I feel like. And yeah, I can swim pretty well, but I'm not confident enough to swim in THIS lake, you know?" Bella shook her head, rocking the boat with the movement of her body. "Oh, sorry! Didn't mean to shake the boat! I'll be more careful, promise."

She clapped her hands, deciding that they might as well do something to pass the time. After all, they might be stuck together on this tiny boat in the middle of the lake, for a loong, looooonggg time, after all!

"Hey, would any of you like to talk or play something? We can try to solve this problem ourselves! Just to stay alert and entertained until the fog to clear up?" Bella asked, then, adding under her breath. "If it's not magical fog, that is."

@Mahdi Hassan & all the new first-years
September 1st, 2026

Professor Ruckus Weems had been preparing for the night’s welcoming feast and sorting ceremony, as he imagined all the professors were doing at this time. However, the first night of school did not bring him joy. It reminded him of his first welcoming, when he was the caretaker, bringing in the new first years by boat. The Great Lake contained many great and terrible creatures, but that night he could have sworn he saw one that should not be there.

He then was promoted to Flying Professor and no longer had to worry about ferrying small children across the dark waters. But he still did his morning run around the lake every day, monitoring it, seeing if he could catch a glimpse of—

Ruckus shook his head, throwing away the concern. He had not seen it since; it must have been a figment of his own imagination. A sea monster could not have made it to this landlocked lake in the middle of Scotland; no, it probably still haunted the oceans where he left it. He carefully put on his cloak and exited his office toward the flying grounds. Before he started toward the castle, he noticed a thick fog had rolled in. It had the exact same quality to it as the one that had covered the choppy water of the Bermuda Triangle all those years ago—

He couldn’t stop himself; the flying professor dashed back into his office and grabbed his Oakshaft. He flung into the air, noting the fog didn’t seem to end vertically either. But he knew the grounds well, and he pointed his broom toward the Great Lake. It was about this time that the current caretaker, Mahdi Hassan, would be starting his voyage across the waters. Ruckus had barely spoken to the man, and he wasn’t sure if he would know what to do if—no, it wouldn’t come to that.

Ruckus could make out the lamplights of the boats through the fog. He swooped down to the boat in the lead. When he could just make out the form of the caretaker, he yelled, “Hassan! The fog is too thick. I’ve come to warn ye, and offer a hand if”—Ruckus knew that his idea of exactly what danger was lurking in these waters sounded ludicrous to anyone else but him—“anything goes awry. I daresay we may even need to turn the boats around.”

open to interactions to all the first-years who can hear but probably can’t see him

Word Count:245

| Date: September 1st, 2026 | Time: Evening | Location: Great Lake, Hogwarts [Boat 2] |
| Mentions: @Ruckus Wems - because the song is dedicated to you XD @Bella Light & @Mercedes Rubio
| Song: Holding Out For A Hero - Bonnie Tyler ˜”*°•x•°*”˜ | Outfit: ˜”*°•x•°*”˜ |

Then Xio heard it—a voice, faint and distant, seeming to drift through the air itself. It was too far away to make out clearly, but unmistakably a man’s voice, calling from somewhere beyond the thickening fog. Her head jerked up at once, eyes narrowing as she tried to peer into the gloom. The mist swallowed everything, turning the world into a blurred, shifting veil.

“Did you hear that?”

She asked softly because she didn’t really expect Bella or Mercedes to answer. Her gaze stayed fixed on the direction the sound had come from, searching the darkness above the water for any sign of movement. But the fog kept growing denser, and the more she strained to see, the less she could make out. When she shifted her weight to look higher, the small movement sent the boat rocking beneath her.

Xio froze immediately, hands tightening against the side of the boat until it steadied again.

“Sorry,” she murmured, almost to herself. Then, trying to put a brave edge on her unease, she added, “To be honest, Bella, I don’t think I’d want to be rescued by a Giant Squid.”

A nervous, breathless laugh escaped her, but it faded quickly. She glanced around at the water, the fog, the endless dark.

“There isn’t much we can do to solve this right now,” she said more defeatedly. “I just… I’d feel a lot better if I could see anyone. Another boat would be nice. It’s terribly dark out here.”

OOC Notes: A DOUBLE FACULTY EPISODE ON THE FIRST DAY?! What a delightful treat!

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.|Stamina ★ 5 | Evasion ★ 6 | Strength ★ 3 | Wisdom ★ 8 | ArcPower ★ 7 | Accuracy ★ 6 |. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

─────By the time Lucian got to the great lake many of the boats had been filled. He was getting scared that his journey to Hogwarts would not even start if he didn't get into one of the empty or partially full boat. He sighed in relief when he saw some boats were partially full and he had some scope of joining them. He had just travelled alone for the first time in the Hogwarts Express from a weird station called 9^3/4. The train ride had been good for Lucian as he made a friend on the ride here. He was happy that he would adjust to this life better than he had thought. He got into one of the Boats that was partially full. Ready for his journey to Hogwarts to take it's next steps.

Lucian got into Boat #2 which seemed to have only two passengers so far. He was happy that this meant he will get to Hogwarts for his sorting on time. Otherwise he was scared how he would even get there. He was excited about the magical journey that lay ahead of him. He had been looking forward to this for a long time now, well ever since his first instance of magic to be precise.

Word Count: 265

| Date: September 1st, 2026 | Time: Evening | Location: Great Lake, Hogwarts [Boat 2] FULL |
| Mentions: @Bella Light & @Mercedes Rubio & @Lucian Wright | Song: ˜”*°•x•°*”˜ | Outfit: ˜”*°•x•°*”˜ |

Had Xio eaten something bad on the Hogwarts Express? Or maybe she simply hadn’t slept enough the night before?

Both seemed entirely possible, considering she had, in fact, gotten no sleep at all and had been running on little more than adrenaline and first-year excitement for the past eight hours.

So when the fog shifted and Xio suddenly noticed ANOTHER person in the boat, she blinked hard and rubbed at her eyes with both fists. Then she stared.

There, across from her, sat a boy she somehow hadn’t really noticed before—Lucian, tucked beside Mercedes as if he had been there the entire time. Xio’s brow furrowed in confusion for just a second before her expression brightened with awkward, breathless friendliness.

“Oh—well, you’ve been so quiet,” she said, leaning forward a little. “You may have overheard, but I’m Xio, the girl next to me is Bella, and the fella next to you is Merc—”

She cut herself off, realizing she had just introduced everyone in the boat except him.

“Who are you?” she asked, quickly recovering with an apologetic little smile. “Are you excited about Hogwarts?”

Even now, her nerves bubbled beneath the surface, making her words come a little too fast. She tried to sound casual, but the dark water beneath them kept drawing her attention back again and again.

“We’re just trying to distract ourselves from what may be impending dooooommm,”

she added, dragging out the last word with a weak, half-serious chuckle.

Her eyes flicked toward the water again, then back to him, as if talking might keep the fear from sinking in.

OOC Notes: Welcome to the boat bud!

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.|Stamina ★ 5 | Evasion ★ 6 | Strength ★ 3 | Wisdom ★ 8 | ArcPower ★ 7 | Accuracy ★ 6 |. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Boat 3 with @Elara Whitlock

Elara asked about Maya's own dad after talking about hers, but before Maya could gather his thoughts and answer she noticed all the boats started to move. "He's nice" She answered quickly, feeling more interested with the boats moving. "We are going!" she said smiling back in excitement to Elara. "I am so excited"

Not too long after, she noticed a sudden pale light flashing around their boat. "Did you see that?" she asked Elara. She didn't know what the light meant, could it be that some creature under the sea had caused this reaction? Were they in danger? Maya shook her head to get the worry out of her mind. They couldn't be in danger, this place was safe...right? The light started to appear in other boats too. "Whats going on?" she thought out loud, narrowing her eyes with suspicion. Her heart started to beat faster. The thick fog didn't help her sudden anxiety to calm down in any way.

Then she heard some man yelling at the Caretaker. He mentioned if anything gone awry, they'd need to turn the boats around. Maya shaked in horror, she couldn't pretent she wasn't nervous anymore. She looked around the other boats to see how others were doing, as much as she can see with all the fog.
If it was true that there were in danger, would they be safe enough to turn back? How would they go to Hogwarts then?

She truly didn't expect a sudden 'adventure' like this so soon.

WC: 368
Mentions: @Xio Arcana, @Mercedes Rubio, @Lucian Wright

Bella heard a voice yelling, but she wasn't really sure if it was her imagination or not. She knew that sometimes, when you wish for something really hard, you think it might come true, but it doesn't, like a mirage. However, when Xio asked if they heard anything, Bella knew that it probably wasn't her imagination anymore.

"Yes, I heard that too!" she excitedly said to Xio, before loudly yelling, "Hi! Whoever's out there, do you mind telling us what's going on and what we should do, please? Thank you!"

There was no response. The fog was unrelenting, and through it, Bella couldn't see a single thing.

Xio rocked the boat once in her attempt to see higher, and immediately apologized, before commenting on the Giant Squid.

"No, it's fine. Let's just all be careful, but I'm pretty sure rocking is unavoidable," Bella admitted. "And to be honest, if I needed to be rescued by a Giant Squid, that would require me almost drowning first. So I really wouldn't want to be rescued by the squid, either, no matter how...interesting the experience would be. Enough adventures today, thank you."

That was when Bella noticed the quiet boy who sat beside Mercedes. He had been really quiet this whole boat ride, even with all the discussions going on. She hoped he didn't feel unwelcomed!

Xio introduced them, before launching off into her questions, as always. It was one of the things she liked about Xio, how Xio could make everything seem more optimistic with her questions.

"Yeah, as my friend Xio here said, my name is Bella Light. And the boy besides you is Mercedes, or Merc for short. I hope you don't mind me adding questions on top of Xio's pile, but what do you think about our situation so far? What do you all think the sorting ceremony and Hogwarts and the classes and all will be like? Okay, at this point, I'm trying not to think about our impending doom, so I'm also asking a bunch of questions, too. Talking is my nervous system mechanism, hope you don't mind!"

OOC Notes: Hi, Lucian! Welcome to Boat #2!

Alfie looked up (because of course he'd been in Boat #3 all this time just quietly eavesdropping on the conversation of @Elara Whitlock and @Maya Maxwell). He’d been too impressed by his first glimpse of the castle towering above them and illuminated with tiny lights to have noticed the more subtle light under the water. He had noticed the boats slowing to a stop though and the simultaneous rise of fog struck him as oddly timed to say the least. It was the disembodied voice though that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It took him a moment to remember that people flying through the air was a relatively normal occurrence here, and that the disembodied voice was more likely to be just another wizard rather than some sort of deus ex machina.

“It’s just a fog warning,” he said. “We get worse fog than this where I live.” Though Holyhead had a light house, and foghorns, and historically a bell. Any one of those things seemed more efficient than sending a man out on a broom to warn them. Surely there would be far more danger to a man flying blind than any danger the boats might be in on a calm lake. “I mean, it is just a lake, isn’t it? It’s not like we’re on the open sea.”

His words felt a bit hollow though, especially as he realized that the fog had thickened and thickened unnaturally quickly.

Athena would barely contain her enthusiasm. A smile has taken permanent resident on her face. The train ride to Hogwarts was such a cool experience and was barely coming down from the high of it. Even though everything in her body was sore from the long ride and mind tired from finishing three books.

When she arrived at the Black Lake and saw the boats she was so excited. Her older brothers and mother had told her stories over the summer about the boat ride and how special it is. How it was a time honored tradition and makes you a little less terrified of a gigantic lake that you overlook every single day.

Even though in retrospect the boat ride looks completely terrifying for a first year. Athena has been fascinated with merpeople since she got her Hogwarts letter. She follows instructions, leaves her trunk behind (hopefully her books don't get wet) and hops onto Boat 5, the boat creaks beneath her feet. She feels the cold air of the night and wraps her jacket around herself tighter. Although she hasn't made any friends yet, she can't help but look around at her fellow first years hoping to get to know all of them very soon. She takes a seat on the boat waiting patiently for it to start moving.