Overly Excited Welcome Wizards

"Wake up! Wake up! You're late! You're late!" screeched Lily Evans' talking alarm clock, startling the seventeen-year-old witch into consciousness. She reached over and smacked the clock on the top of it. The piercing voice stopped ringing throughout the small bedroom. Lily groaned softly and rolled out of her bed in the Head Girl's room and stumbled across the chamber to her wardrobe. She was definitely not morning person.

Eventually, Lily stepped out of her room and into the common area, only to find James, the Head Boy, sitting on one of the sofas. He smiled when he saw her and then stood up.

"It's about time you showed up," he said. "We have to leave the school in about twenty minutes." Lily glanced down at her watch and saw that was indeed twenty to six.

"Oops, I didn't mean to be this late. I couldn't find my shirt." She had gone through all of her drawers and half of the room before she realized that it was hung over the back of her door. "It's good that Mr. Barry insisted that we send our trunks down last night."

"Sure is," said James. "Now, if you don't mind Miss Evans, we should go down to meet the others." He offered Lily his arm.

"We shall, Mister Potter, we shall." She placed he hand on his proffered arm, and laughing, they left the room through it's tapestry covered entrance and made their was down to the Great Hall where everyone was supposed to meet.

xoxox

Once all seven finalists and the two delegates, Mr. Barry, and Ms. Christie, had gathered in the Hall, they grabbed some coffee and set off for London and Heathrow airport on the Knight Bus.

Because not all of the finalists could apparate yet, and the distance between Hogwarts and Vancouver was too far to be safe anyway, they were flying to Vancouver via muggle means. Lily, Connor, and Lyndsay were all muggle born and had all flown at least once in their lives. The others were no where near as experienced with muggle methods of rapid transportation, and had to be dragged like children through the airport.

Upon reaching their gate, they found that they had about half-an-hour before their plane was due to be boarded, so Lily pulled out a pack of muggle playing cards. James and Sirius, who were sitting nearby, looked at them with trepidation as if they were about to explode.

"Lily," said Sirius, "you know we can't play Exploding Snap here, right?"

Lily laughed. "It's not Exploding Snap, you twit! It's just plain old Muggle Cards. Here, I'll show you how to play."

So Lily proceeded to show her two friends how to play blackjack and crazy eights, while Connor and Lyndsay played muggle chess, and Erica and Krysten read books.

James had just won a round of blackjack when the call came for them to board the plane. They all waited in line and then showed their tickets and I.D. to the man at the counter. Then they walked down the long walkway and onto the plane.

Getting to their seats was no easy ordeal, as the plane was crawling with people from all walks of life. Lily was stuck behind a short Indian woman who was taking her sweet time, inspecting all of the seat numbers as she went, and then took eons getting her bag stored overhead. At last Lily was able to get past the woman and found her seat.

She, James and Sirius had been assigned the middle three seats in their row, and once they had sorted out which of their carry-on bags went where, they sat down. Mr. Barry had insisted that everyone sit in their assigned seat, so Lily found herself smack dab in the middle of the two boys.

xoxox

The flight was relatively uneventful. Sirius spent a large amount of time flirting with one of the flight attendants, and convinced her into getting him a vodka cooler before Ms. Christie found out. Sirius insisted that it was only a joke, and he was only trying to find out if the flight attendant would actually give it to him. Ms. Christie seemed to believe him, and she turned back to her book, and the three friends cracked up silently.

The plane landed in Vancouver some hours later, to everyone's relief. Being stuck in an enclosed space for such a long amount of time was not Lily's idea of a fun time, and her first breath of non-pressurized air was savoured. A representative from the International Magic Fair met them and directed them toward the baggage carousel.

It took a good twenty minutes for all of them to find their bags. Krysten almost had a panic attack when her bag wasn't showing up. At last it came down the ramp, and they were all able to head out.

There was a short wait for the bus, and they busied themselves with reading the "Stellar's Call" newspaper that the Magic Fair representatives had given them, and exploring the airport's gift shops. Once on the bus, they were taken on a scenic tour of Vancouver before finally arriving at the University of Magic of British Columbia, or UMBC and it was generally called.

UMBC's campus was very large; it took five minuted for the bus to pull up outside a tall building. A grey haired man stepped onto the bus and quickly cast a sonorous charm on himself.

"Hello all, and welcome to Vancouver!" he energetically exclaimed. Lily rolled her eyes as a chorus of "hello" came back at him. "My name is Jason McKartwright, and I'm the co-chair of this year's International Magic Fair, here in beautiful British Columbia. We've worked long and hard to bring you a fair filled with exciting things for you to do and see. If you ever have any questions, drop by our office in the ground floor of this building. That's all for now, so go ahead and get your rooms! I'll see you all tonight!" He stepped off the bus, and everyone on it began to gather their stuff together.

Muttering to Sirius about overly excited welcome wizards, Lily stepped off the bus and out into the beautiful sunshine. They headed into the tall building and were herded into a large lounge by the delegates. They sat down on the couches while Mr. Barry and Ms. Christie went off to get them all signed in.

The delegates soon returned, armed with sheafs of paper and little black pouches that hung on strings. They began to pass out the pouches, and everyone found that their name and school was printed on the front in big letters, and had loads of little papers and booklets inside. The delegates then instructed the finalists that they would have to wear the pouches at all times, or they wouldn't be allowed into any of the buildings or events. They were then given their room allotments and keys.

Apparently the residence had been split into girl's floors and boy's floors. Sirius, James, Connor and Mr. Barry were on floor nine in section D, and the girls were in section B on the tenth floor. The delegates had a few other things to tell them but they were soon allowed to head upstairs to ther rooms.

The finalists' luggage had already been sent up to thier rooms upon their arrival, so it was an easy matter for all nine of them to fit into an elevator. The boys got off first and the doors slid shut as the elevator roso one more floor.

Section B turned out to be a five bedroom pod with a two shower bathroom, an ensuite kitchen and a livingroom with all of the necessities. Lily found her room to be quite cozy, with an amazing view of Grouse Mountain in the distance. There was a comfortable bed, a large desk, numerous shelves, an expansive closet with a full sized mirror on the door, and the wall had been painted a cheery yellow. Humming softly, she began to organize her things.

After about twently minutes, the boys came up to see if they were ready to go to dinner. Lily and Krysten shared a look about how boys had no concept of time. Because the boys seemed rather impatient, they hurried back into their rooms to get changed for the meal.

The building where the meal was to be held was just minutes away from the residence. Once inside, it took them all a few moments to find the room where the food was being served, but Connor spotted a group of people in matching jackets heading up the stairs. They all piled their plates high with foor from a long table and them went ontp another, larger room that was filled with people sitting at long tables, happily eating thier food and chatting amongst themselves.

Lily sat down between James and Sirius. The two boys were busy telling her about thier room, when singing broke out in the back of the room. Heads turned towards the sound. A group of people in dark blue uniforms were singing and chanting loudly as they entered the room: "Olay, Olay, Olay, Olay! Quebec, Quebec! Olay, Olay, Olay, Olay! Quebec, Quebec!" It went on and on, getting louder and faster each time, until the hall was filled with a blur of world and clapping. It ended almost as suddenly as it had begun with a loud cheer and the room slowly returned to it's previous state of chatter and eating.

"Wow," breathed Erica. "Who was that?"

Mr. Barry was the one to answer her. "That's the team from L'Ecole du Magique du Quebec. They sing that son every year, and you'll hear it almost constantly. Those Quebecers are a proud lot."

"I'll say," said Connor. "I was here last year and the people in charge had to ask them to tone it down a bit becuase they were always drowning out anything anyone was trying to say!"

"Wow," said Lyndsay, "that sounds so cool."

"Yeah... How many different magic schools are her?" sake James.

"I'm not exactly sure," answered Ms. Christie, "but after dinner they usually announce the names of all the schools that are here. We'll find out then."

Just then, the man who had greeted them on the bus walked onto the stage that was at the front of the room. He asked everyone to be quiet and then formally welcomed everyone to Vancouver and specifically to the University of Magic of British Columbia. He told them all that they were the future innovators and healers of the world; that they would advance technology far beyond its current limits. Lily snorted quietly to James, muttering that she wanted to be an auror, not a healer. He nodded his head, smiling slightly.

"Now," said the talkative man on the stage, "I think it's time to introduce all of you! I'm proud to say that we have over one hundred magical centers of learning from around the world in attendance at this competition, and here they are! The Arabian School of Magic! Argentina's Acadamy of Magical Learning! Beauxbatons Acadamy!" He went on and on, listing off the names of the various schools who all made a rukus when their names were called. He soon called out, "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!" and they all cheered loudly. Sirius even sent up sparks from his wand. The listing off of schools ended with "Zaire's School of Widardcraft" and everyone began to head back to their rooms.

Upon reaching the elevator to ro upstairs, they found a huge queue. Not wanting to wait, they took the stairs and promptly found that most of them were dreadfully out of shape. James and Sirius, however, were on the Quidditch team at school, and therefore here in excellent condition, and raced far ahead of everyone else.

Exhausted, Lily and the other girls stumbled into their pod and crashed onto the couch in the living room. They played exploding snap for a little while before turning in for the night.


Well, thats the latest installment of the saga. I have the next two or three chapters written, so they'll get up here eventually.

In the meantime, please review. Please.

Tidal Waves