Can't I ignore ugly? on Crotalus Commons

Deputy Headmistress Amelia Pierce

August 23, 2012 8:55 PM

Head of House Speech by Deputy Headmistress Amelia Pierce

She led the way from Cascade Hall to the corridor containing the portrait of Gunther the Zombie, keeping a steady pace that would not be too difficult for eleven year olds to maintain, but also did not allow for much dawdling. She pointed out key landmarks they could use to find their way back in the morning for breakfast, and also indicated which routes would lead to the library and their core classrooms.

For those purebloods who were up on the Who Not to Talk To List (most of the group, she thought, this year), they could also use the time to deliberate how they were going to handle having their Head of House be a disowned liberal muggle-loving Quidditch-playing unmarried thirty-eight (not thirty nine yet!) year old woman who ran a branch of DISCUSS - the non-profit organization created to help bring wizardkind into the modern era, where blood type and personal lifestyles did not bar a person from advancement, marriages were arranged by the happy couple rather than their parents, and other such things that traditional purebloods did not approve of - out of her own house. Her adopted daughter Belinda was perhaps slightly more notorious, having been a co-founder of DISCUSS and widely believed to be a lesbian, but Amelia was certainly not well loved in Society circles herself.

It was a lot to think about but they'd run out of time. She indicated the large painting beside which she had come to stop. Its less than handsome subject was nearly the same size she was. "I would like to introduce you all to Gunther the Zombie," she introduced him. "Gunther guards the entrance to our Commons. To enter, you will need the password. Give this to our guardian and he will allow you inside. Please note that only Crotalus House members are allowed to enter the commonroom. Do not share the password with students of other Houses." She briefly considered making a joke that it was for their own safety because Gunther was entitled to eat the brains of non-Crotalus students seeking entry, but decided the crowd she had tonight wouldn't get it. Worse, they might believe her and later try to use Gunther as part of a strategy to get rid of someone they didn't like.

Instead, she looked around to make sure they were all paying attention. This was one of the more important pieces of information she'd be giving them tonight. "The password is Nettlewood." As she said the word, she turned to look at Gunther, and his portrait swung open on hinges as she finished saying it. "Follow me inside, please," she instructed and stepped over the couple of inches of wall that stood below the portrait, and into the room beyond. Older students would probably have to duck if they got taller than about five and a half feet tall, but the eleven year old first years would be able to walk right in. (Though her own head would fit under the top of the opening without ducking, it was a near enough thing that she ducked anyway as she stepped through; she was 5'5".)

There were a half dozen matching armchairs and couches, with maroon upholstery and silver trim. The carpet was gray and the walls were a tasteful shade of red that Amelia, for one, had been relieved to find was not as vibrant a hue as she might have feared when she first heard the House colors were red and silver.

Once everyone had filed in and the portrait closed behind them, she tapped the bulletin board that stood beside the room's entrance. "The password changes weekly. The current one will be posted here. I suggest checking it before you leave in the morning to make sure it hasn't changed." She pointed out the relevant spot where Nettlewood was currently being displayed. "If you forget the password, my office is down the hall. Keep walking past Gunther and you'll see a door with my name on it. If I'm around, I'll let you in. If I'm not, my wards will let me know you're there, and I'll get to you as soon as I can."

The rest of the bulletin board was fairly empty aside from the password, but that didn't mean what wasn't there yet was any less important. "The board is also used for announcements and sign-up sheets, like the Quidditch one that our new Head Boy, Sam Bauer should be putting up soon. I encourage any and all of you to try out." She doubted the recruitment would work on anyone who wasn't already planning to sign up, but she was the Coach and a promoter of Unifying Sporting Societies, so the attempt had to be made. "There are no prerequisites for joining the team. The Captain is Samuel Bauer, and his assistant is Renee Errant. Your prefects are Sam Bauer, Eliza Bennett, and Topher Calhoun. Any of them or I will be available to respond to any questions you need answered."

Moving away from the wall and bulletin board, Amelia took place in the middle of the room and stood up straighter, as befitted a more formal lecture. "Crotalus is the House for strategic planners. You turned red today because you match our qualities of being sensible, respectable, down-to-earth, cautious, and rule driven. That is fortunate for you all because Crotalus has rules and I expect you all to follow them."

"First, curfew is at ten. You are not required to be in bed at that hour, but the lights will dim, Gunther will not allow anyone back inside, and anyone caught outside of Crotalus or making too much noise will receive a detention. Second, you will show respect to each other and to all staff. You need to live with each other for seven years. Do not make it unnecessarily difficult for yourselves." This was a remark she regretted not making six years ago, when Eliza and Renee were standing before her. "Also, rudeness will win you no points with anybody. It will, in fact, lose them from our House point total, and earn you a detention. If there is someone who is being unpleasant to you, please consider it an exercise in refinement not to stoop to their level."

"That said, Crotalus will be your home for the next seven years. As long as you follow simple courtesies, we should have no problems. As I mentioned earlier, my office can be reached from the hall outside or from that door right there," she pointed it out. "Anyone is welcome to stop by at any time to discuss any subject. I'll do my best to resolve any issues or problems you may have, be it that you wish the Prairie Elves would make your favorite dish once in a while, or something much more significant. If you just want to talk to somebody about something, I can do that, too. Also, I encourage you to talk to your prefects, if you would rather talk to another student. That's why they were given badges."

She paused for another moment, then pointed toward the leftmost of the two staircases leading out of the room. "Boys, your dorms are up there. Girls, you have the stairs to the right. Look for the door with your year number on it. Boys are not permitted up the girls stairs, and neither are the girls allowed in the boys corridor. Any attempt to ignore this rule will be met with forceful and magical eviction." This was her favorite part of the speech, so she had kept it intact. "As you have been duly warned, I will not accompany any student attempting such to the Hospital Wing. They will need to get there on their own." In all truth, they probably wouldn't need the Hospital Wing at all (she'd even heard stories that the Pecaris used to call that particular effect the 'corridor ride') but she saw more harm than good in sharing that information. Implying it would result in serious personal injury was far more effective.

"Does anyone have any questions?"

OOC: You are now allowed to post anywhere on the site, though obviously, your character doesn't have access to the other common rooms. Please keep to the standard posting rules and minimum posting length (two paragraphs, each paragraph averaging around five sentences). Have fun and welcome to Sonora!

Subthreads:

See no evil, hear no evil, speak to no evil by Effie Arbon

Can't I ignore ugly? by McKinley Andrews with Coach Amelia Pierce, McKinley

1 Deputy Headmistress Amelia Pierce Head of House Speech 20 Deputy Headmistress Amelia Pierce 1 5

Effie Arbon

August 25, 2012 1:16 PM

See no evil, hear no evil, speak to no evil by Effie Arbon

Just before school began, Effie's mother had taken her aside.

”There's something important that I need to explain to you,” she had told her. Her mother had sounded serious and Effie had wondered what on earth it could be. She had been cautioned about a great many unpleasant things that she might find at her new school already and her mother's tone sounded even more serious than when they had discussed any of those.

“On family trees when it says someone is deceased... Well, sometimes it means that. But sometimes it's a euphemism – it's a word people use instead of saying something much more unpleasant. The.... the Other D Word.”

Effie's eyes had widened slightly. She had heard about the Other D Word. She knew what it meant and that those who suffered it became persona non grata. It was as if they had never existed. But she had never made the connection between that and people marked down as deceased. Having processed this, she returned her attention to her mother, wondering why she was breaking this traumatising news to her now.

“The reason I'm telling you this,” her mother said slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable, “is that some of the Pierces, specifically Amelia Pierce, are...are not dead. She is the other D word.”

Effie blanched.

“We thought you'd never need to know,” she explained, “In all the correct circles, we simply call them dead. It's the politest thing to do. But Sonora is not exclusively a proper circle of people. And...,” she hesitated again. Effie had seemed so shocked at her revelations thus far. “The late Amelia Pierce is a member of school staff. She... she was even permitted to keep her name,” her mother uttered in hushed tones that suggested this was a more shocking fate than if Amelia Pierce had been deliberately and brutally murdered. “You are not to speak to her, nor afford her any of the respect her name would usually deserve,” her mother cautioned, “She still counts, for all intents and purposes, as a dead woman.”

Effie followed her recently undeceased Head of House, doing her level best to pretend that no such person existed. She kept her eyes focussed on the person in front of her, following them instead. She barely even noticed the hideous portrait guarding their house. She continued to follow the other students as they walked into the Common Room, whereupon her task of pretending Amelia Pierce to be dead became exponentially more difficult, as they were required to sit around whilst she addressed them, informing them of important information about the school. Effie fixed her eyes above the coach's head, doing her best to look like she was staring at a blank wall whilst she listened out for any useful information. There was barely any of that, anyway. Proper young ladies did not play Quidditch, nor did they attempt to sneak into bedrooms of men. Only harlots did such things. She appreciated the caution to the Muggleborns and Halfbloods that they were to respect the better members of the house and, had it been Amelia Pierce saying so, she might have pondered the option that the lady had not lost all her breeding. However, it was difficult not to lose one's manners when one was dead, and so she dismissed the thought before it had even fully formed. The animated-corpse of Amelia Pierce then invited them to ask questions. Even if there had been a life or death piece of information that Effie required she would not have moved a muscle. Her arms remained on the rests of the chair and her eyes stayed fixed on the wall. She had nothing to ask and no-one to ask it to. She had no Head of House.

13 Effie Arbon See no evil, hear no evil, speak to no evil 238 Effie Arbon 0 5

McKinley Andrews

September 20, 2012 2:17 AM

Can't I ignore ugly? by McKinley Andrews

McKinley Elisabeth Andrews was not entirely happy about much at the present time. Firstly, her nice new dress was all dusty and dirty, and that was so far from okay for the eleven year old Pureblood girl it wasn’t even funny. THEN she had to sit in a wagon being drawn by filthy animals, which wasn’t okay either. NOW she’d had to drink something other people had near their mouths that could be dirty and changed colors doing it?

She shivered, very unhappy with the state of things that she was tempted to tell whatever adult she saw next to call her grandfather to remove her at once. The only things that stopped her was the fact that she was no longer red and that the woman who collected them was a woman in charge. There was something that felt odd to the girl and she glanced around looking for Carter.

Spotting her cousin, finally, she tried to wave him over to her, but he’d walked away following his new head of house and she was once again, alone. Seriously? A woman is in charge? she thought. And not even only of my house, but of the school itself? What was grandfather thinking? she wondered as the woman called her house’s first years again. Kinley was the last one to walk over to the odd woman in charge and the Head of House was talking as she reached them.

"I am Coach and Deputy Headmistress Amelia Pierce, of the Boston Pierces. I am your Head of House, Sonora's Deputy Headmistress, and the Quidditch Coach. Please follow me and I'll show you the way to our common room."

Kinley looked at her oddly for a moment, but not having any other option, she followed the others out the door and into a corridor with a superiorly ugly portrait of a zombie which made her shudder. When Deputy Headmistress Pierce told them this was the guardian to the entrance of their common room, she looked at her like someone had cut her own head off and raised her hand daintily in the air. “Miss Pierce, are you telling me that I have to look at this thing every day to get into my rooms?” she asked, air of greatness holding her closer than a blanket on a newborn baby. “And I have to tell an ugly portrait a password for it to let me in?” she asked again, without waiting for any answers for the first one before shooting out the second.

The woman walked in the now open doorway and told them to follow her in. She waited for the others to go in first, but rushed inside before she could be the only thing it saw, and the door slammed shut behind her. “Eeww…” she said in a whispered tone. Shivering, she followed the other first years towards armchairs and couches, but she didn’t sit. There’s no plastic! It could be dirty! she thought as they were told about the password changing and where her office was.

If I want or need something, I expect it now! This place is ridiculous! she thought as she made a note to tell her grandfather of this rotten place as soon as she could as the woman kept on talking. This woman is all talk… That’s all there is to it! she thought as Deputy Head Pierce took a spot in the middle of the room and went on talking, again. McKinley almost ignored the woman until she heard the words, ‘prairie elves’.

Those sound dirty… Why is there dirty things in this house? I’m here! Dirty had better go away! she thought as she shivered.

“So, I must look at such an ugly dirty thing to walk in, and TALK to it for it, which isn’t alive, to let me in?” she asked a second time.

It was going to be awful here! Absolutely filthy and awful!

0 McKinley Andrews Can't I ignore ugly? 0 McKinley Andrews 0 5

Coach Amelia Pierce

September 22, 2012 10:05 AM

You can <i>try</i> to pretend Gunther is pretty by Coach Amelia Pierce

Amelia was a little surprised when she was interrupted just after her introduction to Gunther. The zombie was hardly the prettiest portrait in Sonora, but not even Miss O'Malley had objected to his guardianship of Crotalus, at least out loud and right there where Gunther could hear, so far as she knew. He wasn't the most intelligent portrait, either, but Amelia would not be overly surprised if the zombie refused to let the girl in every now and then, even if she had the password, after this.

"Yes," Amelia confirmed, "You do have to see him and give him the password every day. And he can hear you now, so be polite, or he might decide not to like you."

They moved inside, and when she finished her speech, the same girl was on about Gunther, though at least now he was on the other side of the wall and not likely to hear her. "Yes," she repeated, trying not to sound impatient. "Gunther is a good guardian for our house. You will give him the password everyday to get inside, regardless of what you think of his appearance or state of unlife. He has served Crotalus faithfully for hundreds of years and he will continue to do so long after you have graduated."

"Also," she added, because something about the way she said 'dirty' seemed more literal than a further condemnation of the guardian's appearance, "Gunther, and all Sonora portraits for that matter, are kept dust free by a diligent group of prairie elves whose sole job is to keep everything in the school in excellent condition. Any dirt you see on Gunther is paint, meant to look like dirt."

1 Coach Amelia Pierce You can <i>try</i> to pretend Gunther is pretty 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 0 5

McKinley

September 24, 2012 1:01 PM

No... I can't... by McKinley

McKinley looked at the woman in surprise when their Head of House told her that yes, she did have to see him and give the nasty thing the password for him to let her in. Shivering in disgust, she listened to the rest of the words that were said to her.

“And he can hear you now, so be polite, or he might decide not to like you."

“He can hear me? I should be polite or he might decide not to like me?” she said softly. “He’s not alive, how can he decide anything?” Kinley wasn’t sure if anyone had heard her, but it hadn’t mattered to her if anyone did. She didn’t like it there, and she was sure she wouldn’t ever like it there.

Deputy Headmistress Pierce brought them inside and did her speech in there before McKinley repeated her questions she’d asked out in the hall, hoping this time to get different results from the woman. Unfortunately, her desired answer was not given to her and she wasn’t thrilled. This ugly thing… eew… she thought to herself as the woman added,

"Gunther, and all Sonora portraits for that matter, are kept dust free by a diligent group of prairie elves whose sole job is to keep everything in the school in excellent condition. Any dirt you see on Gunther is paint, meant to look like dirt."

“Wait… Prairie elves dust the portraits? That’s dirty too! All that dust going all over the place!” she said, halfway going crazy with the mention of more dirt going all over the place.

This is foul, filthy, icky and just plain EEEWW she thought to herself as she penned a letter in her mind to send to her grandfather in object disgust over the whole thing.

0 McKinley No... I can't... 0 McKinley 0 5