The Wizarding Times
Reflections on Seven Years of HOL
Well, maybe not all seven years. You see, I think Jossi hit me with one too many spells when she attended school here and my memory hasn't been the same since.
But I do remember that fateful summer, over seven years ago, waiting for my letter to come my way saying that I was enrolled in HOL. After signing up in June, I didn't think I could wait those two months before the doors actually opened. But when they did, I was ready. For what, back then I had no idea, and honestly none of the First Years really did. Can we say winging it? That's about what I did. I remember getting my owl mail and finding out I was in Hufflepuff. Now I had heard later on in the term that most everyone wanted to be in Gryffindor or Slytherin, Now remember this was in the height of the books, so everyone wanted to be in Harry's house or in Snape's. But I didn't mind being put in Hufflepuff; one was as good as the others as far as I was concerned.
It was exciting to find my way to the Sett and meet a few people, though I did tend to keep to myself back then; you see I was kind of on the shy side. That's right, me! Felicia Hartwick! Shy! Who would have thought that! This is where the memory loss comes in. I remember a Dutch, a Sara, a Pat.. or was it Pam...? Oh well, her name started with a P anyway. I do remember seeing Anne around, but like she said, she was shy, too. Don't ask me who the HoH was back then, I don't have a clue. Though I do remember Prof. Opal's Symbolism class and meeting on some Yahoo chat thingy and discussing the names of the characters in HP.
The Quidditch games caught everyone's attention that year, and I have to say we had a fabulous team. Ody Zeus, Mercury McKinnon, Persus Arenas and Kelsey Willow were just a few of the players. They did try to get me to play... once... and I was horrible. It wasn't that I didn't know the answers, which most of the time I didn't, but I couldn't help to type the first thing that usually came to the top of my head, which mainly was never the correct answers. For example, anytime we were suppose to type "dodge," I kept typing other car names, such as Ford, Chevy, and so forth. So sooner or later they decided I was a better Mistress of the Robes than a player. In this position I got to boss them... I mean help them get their uniforms cleaned for the next game. Now that I could do; I mean, how hard was it to tell the House Elves what to do?
We also had a wonderful scavenger hunt, The Great Broom Race, I believe it was called. Working with partners, mine were Anne and Belle. Yes, by that time we were a team... and shy no longer. I don't know what place we came in, but we sure had fun submitting our locations to Dear... I mean Dom aka Seeker Dude, though he didn't go by that then. Oh, the HOL Challenges began, the dreaded OWLs in our Fifth Year, lots of RP stories and hiding the Precious from the HoH.
Somewhere along the way, Stirry (one of the HoH's) or Fumbly (another HoH) saw fit to make me a Prefect. I'm guessing they had a little too much butterbeer that day. But they gave my a shiny badge, which I guess I have to turn in, but I'll have to find it first. I did enjoy my years as a Prefect and did try to do as much as I could for the House as long as it didn't involve any computerish type work, because by then we all knew... computers and Felicia do not mix.
There are so many things that I remember. The house kingdoms (I think at some point I was in every single one of them, but I did enjoy the cabana boys of the Kumquats the best). We collected socks instead of Citrines; whoever decided on the change... THANK YOU! Someone had dubbed Anne, Belle and myself the Huffie's Angels; our motto was "Solving one crime or one bad hair day one day at a time."
The classes I took here were wonderful. There were so many great classes it was difficult to decide on just 5 per term. I would like to thank each of the Professors and students teachers for all of your hard work that you put into making our classes fun and informative at the same time. And thank you for putting up with the assignments I would hand in. I was only trying to lighten up your nights and give you a good laugh.
But mostly I remember the people here. They were and still are the friendliest people you can ever meet... well sort of meet. And even if I haven't officially "met" them, they are still a big part of my life and I'm glad they are... and I'm sure you all know who you are. The hours of silliness in the Hufflepuff chat room on IRC, or on MSN, YIM, they were always there for me and got me through some rough spots.
So was I glad to come across HOL seven years ago. You bloody well know I am. And Anne... the edible confetti will never stop falling.