[glow=red,2,300]YOU MUST DO THIS FIRST![/glow]

Originally the pointed wizard's hat of Godric Gryffindor, the Sorting Hat was bewitched by all four of the founders of Hogwarts with brains and some amount of personality. It's function is to determine which of the four houses each new student will enter. It does so at the beginning of the start-of-term feast, when it is placed on a three-legged (sometimes four-legged) stool in front of the Great Hall. It then sings a long, rambling song of introduction, a different one each year but with the same basic information in it: how it was bewitched to perform the sorting and what the criteria are for the various houses. The first year students one by one place the Sorting Hat on their head. Within a minute, it loudly proclaims the house for which they are best suited.

The hat is battered and old; it's patched, frayed, and extremely dirty. In order to speak and sing, a tear along the brim opens like a mouth. It speaks inside of the hat with a small, quiet voice to the wearer and it can read thoughts and respond to them. When not sorting students, the Sorting Hat rests on its stool in Dumbledore's office.

Moderator: Meg

Check here everyday for new announcements.

Moderator: Meg

[glow=green,2,300]Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.[/glow]

Moderator: Meg

Vast chamber with an enchanted ceiling that mirrors the sky outside. Four long tables for the four houses. Closest to the doors from the Entrance Hall is Slytherin, then Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and next to the far wall, Gryffindor (this order may possibly be reversed, depending on how you orient the room to the entrance hall). The teachers sit at the High Table, a table on a raised platform at the front of the room.

Moderator: Meg

Are you dying to have a club? If so, please post here!

Moderator: Meg

[glow=gold,2,300]These belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal.
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil.
[/glow]

Moderator: Meg

Here is where staff Wizards can post an award you have recieved. Check offten, you name is the thread name.

Hogwarts has a trophy room where all the old awards, trophies, statues, cups, plates, shields, and medals are kept in crystal display cases. There is also a list of all the head boys and girls. It's adjacent to a long gallery full of suits of armor.

Moderator: Meg

This is where you can come to study for a class. Material will be provided. Feel free to add information, i.e. Books, as you gather information!

The Hogwarts library contains tens of thousands of books on thousands of shelves. Included in its many sections is an Invisibility Section, a section with information about dragons, and a Restricted Section at the back, set off with a rope. A signed note from a teacher is required to peruse that section of the library; it contains books of Dark Magic only used by older students studying advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts. One of the books in this section screams when opened.

The library closes at 8 pm.

Moderator: Meg

[glow=red,2,300]You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivaly,
Set Gryffindors appart[/glow]

Moderator: Meg

[glow=blue,2,300]Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw
If you've a ready mind
Where those of wit and learning
Will always find their kind. [/glow]

Moderator: Meg

Come here to learn all about the exciting magical creatures that inhabit our world!

Moderators: Meg, tonks

"Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe -- 'cept maybe Hogwarts."
-- Rubeus Hagrid

Partway down Diagon Alley, near its intersection Knockturn Alley, stands an imposing snow-white marble building: Gringotts Wizarding Bank. "Towering over the other shops", it is the place where British witches and wizards store their money and other valuables, in vaults miles below ground. The vaults are heavily guarded.

Moderator: Meg

This is where you keep the things that you have boughten, won, or traded. This is your inventory! Please update!

Moderators: Meg, Ashley

The Apothecary is a fascinating shop crammed with all sorts of interesting things. There are barrels of slimy stuff lined up on the floor and jars of all sorts of powders, herbs, and the like along the walls. Bundles of feathers, fangs, and claws hang from the ceiling. The whole place smells very bad, a mixture of bad eggs and rotten cabbage.

Moderator: Meg

Located at Number 93, Diagon Alley, Fred and George Weasley own this shop where they sell all of their joke items.

Moderator: Meg