hh_mirror | The Hat marries people, yo. (Open to those who signed up)

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The Hat marries people, yo. (Open to those who signed up)

One bright Hogwarts morning, fliers with small, numbered Hat-shaped plastic tokens are sent out to a select group of students via house elf. “Your presence is required at an Awards Ceremony in the Great Hall tonight,” the flier states. “Attendance is mandatory. Formal dress is required. Prizes will be given.”

And so, at the appointed time, the students are ushered into the Great Hall. It has been lavishly decorated for the occasion: streamers, flowers, a champagne fountain, the works. At the front of the hall sits the Sorting Hat, likewise decorated in a wreath of flowers and lots of bling. It sits imperiously and waits until everyone has taken a seat and the beautifully decorated doors have been closed and barred.

“My dear students,” it begins, “we are gathered here today for a wonderful ceremony. A ceremony of magic and beauty, and it is my privilege to be here with you. Now, before you can get your wonderful awards--” here one of the Hat's folds dips in what might have been a wink on something with a face--”are you all carrying your special prize tokens?” It waits for a little longer while the attending house elves (all carrying bouquets of multicolored flowers) check to ensure that yes, everyone in the room has one on their person. “Wonderful! By the power vested in me by the Board of Education, I now pronounce you married!”

Before the shock and outrage can set in, the Hat rushes into the next part of its speech. “No use getting upset, it's legal now! This place has become a haven for loose morals, and you're helping to fix that! Don't worry about your belongings, you won't have to spend a second sweating and becoming undesirable for your new spouses! While you've been here, the house elves have moved your sundries out to your new homes for you, isn't that nice of them? They've even been allowed to charm your new homes so that you can't remove your objects from them! Let's hear it for the house elves!” It doesn't pause for applause. “Now, I'll let you happy newlyweds get to the business of consummating your new relationships in the name of ~~duck waffles~~ procreation. Your tokens are numbered with your new addresses, and a map has been provided at the door. Don't try to run, the ushers have been provided with cattle prods and given the permission to use them.” The Hat waves a strap at one terrified-looking bouquet-holding elf near the front, who pulls a cattle prod out of the flowers and waves it around. “And now, onward! Onward to happy families! Onward to El Mundo Del Sombrero!”

The doors open. The armed house elves swarm, herding the students to a tent village on Hogwarts grounds. Resistance is futile.

Once arriving at the tent whose number matches the number on their token, each student will meet his or her new spouse(s) ...

((The tents in El Mundo Del Sombrero are wizarding tents that appear to be one-bedroom houses complete with bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, etc. inside. Rearranging and addition of objects is allowed, removal of objects for the purposes of moving elsewhere or returning to the castle is not due to the charm on the tents. Players are allowed to NPC the house elves shocking their own characters if an escape attempt is made. Note that characters will not be barred from returning to the castle later to do other things, e.g., use the library; they just can't move back into the castle. Congratulations on your nuptials.

Feel free to RP in this post, or to post your own separate posts that take place within the dubious sanctuary of your brand-new tent!))

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There was already hell to pay. Dog started scratching at the invisible barrier, howling for all she was worth.

Billy looked indignant. "Look, I'm sure with the ladykiller skills you claim to have, sex probably isn't your problem. I don't care if you bring somebody home. I already know that I'm not your type."

He looked pained at the sound the cat was making. "Is it going to keep doing that? Which one is it?"

"That's not the point," he muttered, and knelt to pet Dog.

"You can't tell? They do have different markings, you know, and different voices. This one's Grant's cat."

Hmph. Sarah Harding wouldn't've mixed them up. Or called them 'it.' Of course, Sarah was in Africa, not in Ian's tent.

"They're cats," Billy said, as if that explained everything. "Why did you guys end up with pets that look so similar, anyway?"

"There are cats, and there are cats," he replied. "They're littermates. Some woman was giving them out as Sorting bribes."

"And you just took a free kitten? What kind of woman has cats with her for a bribe?" And what kind of person takes cats as payment?

"The kind with a very large purse, apparently." Ian raised an eyebrow. "Frankly, given how, ahh, scatterbrained this woman seemed, I doubt the kittens could've done much worse for caretakers."

He shrugged. "Maybe you just had to be there..."

"Maybe."

The tent had a small kitchen in it, and Billy began to root through the refrigerator to see what was inside. "Can you believe this?" he said, his voice muffled by the door. "They've got white bread, sandwich meat, processed cheese in here." He pulled a jug out of the fridge and shut the door. "But at least they've got pumpkin juice."

Smooth topic change, that.

"Oh, at least," Ian replied weakly. "I should tell you now that nitrites and phosphates were just about all that kept me going during a long, painful convalescence after the Park. Well, that and the love of a good woman, whose cooking skills were pretty much limited to sandwich-making."

"So if I make us sandwiches, then is it going to bring back horrible memories?" Billy teased. "I can try and dig up some tofu, if you'd like. We can purge all of those chemicals out of you, and you'd feel brand new."

"That won't be the only thing that gets purged," he said drily, and took out his flask. "I'd rather stay well-preserved, thank you."

"Suit yourself," Billy said with a shrug, and started making himself a sandwich. "Who knows. You might find out that you like it."

"I eat other things too," he said defensively. "I even cook, modified French provencale style - I've just gotten out of practice, what with the elves providing everything here. I do draw the line at soy byproducts, though."

"So you don't like soy sauce, then?" Billy asked. He was missing the point, and he knew it. "It looks like we're going to get practice cooking, unless you want to hike all the way back to the Hall. Do you think they've got enough elves off of cattle prod duty to cook?"

"Ha. Ha. A for effort there, sport."

But he relaxed slightly, despite the sarcasm.

"Well, they seem to have an infinite supply of elves. And while it was a pretty packed house in the Great Hall for our little surprise party, I don't believe the Hat managed to marry everyone here. So there's got to be some meals happening in the castle. Care to go find out? We might have better luck evading the cattle prods if we're together."

He peered out the window of the tent. Confused couples were still milling about, and the house elves waved their prods threateningly. "Maybe after all of the fuss has died down," he said. "I think they still expect everyone to try to escape."

The absurdity of the situation struck him, and he chuckled. "We're at a magical school that sucks people in, and turns people to popcorn. We've just been married by a psycho Hat, and imprisoned in a love camp. And, yet, I don't find this particularly strange. I think it's gotten to me."

He smiled wryly. "Congratulations. You've drunk the Kool-Aid. And please don't tell me you're too young to get the reference. Any pastrami in there, by any chance?"

Billy ducked his head back into the refrigerator. "I think it helps if you've already accepted one really fucked-up thing already, like dinosaurs. 'Dinosaurs are alive!' and you're stunned. 'Magic is real!' and you're less stunned, but still kind of 'O RLY?'. Then by the time you get to things like gender-switching chocolates and mass marriages via clothing, it's all kind of 'eh.'"

He pulled a package of lunch meat out of the fridge and tossed it to Ian. "Or do you still get surprised every now and then?"

He caught the package in one hand and reached across to snag the loaf of bread. "Ahaa. Mustard or mayo in there?"

"See, that's part of what my whole field of study is about - shaking people out of preconceived notions long enough for a really objective look at data. Dinosaurs are containable - well, no, living things don't generally function that way. Magic isn't real - well, you've just landed in a castle several continents away from where you just were." He shrugged. "Let's put it this way: Circumstances almost never surprise me. People frequently do, at first anyway."

"Amen to that." He pulled out the requested condiments. "Take your pick. There's also ketchup, relish, and something I think is steak sauce in there."

"Lord knows there aren't enough oddballs here to keep you on your toes."

"These will do nicely, but a knife would be nice. How are we fixed for cutlery? Is there anything other than pumpkin juice to drink, aside from my flask? And, most importantly, did they think to bring the cats' kibble and food bowls down here too?"

Ian laughed. "Yes. It's getting harder and harder to establish a baseline for 'normal' around here. If it was ever possible in the first place."

"I was going to ask if they packed any beer from Ravenclaw in with your stuff, but it looks like all we've got is pumpkin juice and water, for right now."

At the mention of food, the cats redoubled their efforts on the invisible barrier. "If you feed them, will they stop?" Billy asked.

He started to search for the cat food. "Have you met many normal people who come here?" It was obvious from the way he asked that present company and close associates were excluded from that statement.

"Possibly, between feeding them and some serious petting, which I will provide after I turn in, they'll stop that." He came around the counter to peer in the refrigerator for himself. "Maybe we can try a supply raid on the castle in the morning..."

Ian considered the question seriously. "Not really. Some are stabler than others, maybe even enough to pass for normal. But it seems that even the most average-seeming of people who I've met here have had at least one brush with some kind of strangeness. Something that would prime them for life at Hogwarts. Like us, with the dinosaurs turning otherwise perfectly straightforward lives upside down."

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The Hat marries people, yo. (Open to those who signed up)

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