Roaming the Castle Pt 3.

Hey Mauri!

Thanks ever so much for taking some time to show me round the Gryffindor Common Room! I’m super excited!

Now can you explain to me a little bit about how Gryffindor works? In Ravenclaw we have Big Eagles, Slytherin have Nests and Hufflepuff their Badger cetes. How does it work here?

In Gryffindor we have our Lion Prides - students volunteer to be Pride Leaders and two each are put in charge of a small, mixed group of other students. There’s also a Pride of Pride Leaders that my fellow prefect, NaturallyKnitty, and I look in on - Pride Puking Pastilles.

What does the common room look like, any fun features? We have a lab, Slytherin has a bar….

Well, no lab or bar here. Most of us just enjoy the armchairs in front of the fire (especially during the winter terms!) and there’s a steady supply of lion cookies and birthday cake. Butterbeer, fire whiskey, and bottled water (for those who are concerned that the common room water might have baby-encouraging properties) is also available.

And are you part of the house staff at all?

Yep! I’m prefect and Chocolate Frog Cards Mistress. Thankfully, that just means deciding what goes where, not actually making them. PennyIA handles that beautifully.

Now a long time ago, when you were a NQFY, what made Gryffindor so appealing to you?

Well, back in the old days we had to walk upstairs both ways to get to class and there were no NQFYs. Actually, there probably were, but I found the Cup in January 2009, having missed the Sorting for the second term. I noted that the next Sorting was in April, marked it on my calendar, and forgot about it until then. Good thing they didn’t have priority levels like back then!

Do you remember your first term at all?

I remember Quidditch really well, since we had to make all those wristbands. I was a bit of a ghost in the common room back then. I read everything, but couldn’t bring myself to comment much. I was mostly concerned with getting all six classes done and finishing my Transfiguration OWL.

And have you always been a Gryffindor?

Yep! A friend and I signed up at the same time, we were going to be in Ravenclaw together but I changed my mind at the last minute. I’ve looked back at Ravenclaw a few times with regret (you guys have some shiny toys!) and even considered Hufflepuff a couple of terms ago, but I couldn’t face playing against my Gryffies.

I may switch it up a bit after my seventh term, but who knows?

You’ve already completed a NEWT! What projects did you do and how did you find it?

I knit seven pairs of colorwork mittens for my NEWT. I had a whole whack of patterns in my queue and when the NEWT possibility came up, I knew I needed to be one of the first people to complete one.



It was fairly strenuous - I chose those particular patterns because I was only moderately comfortable with my colorwork and wanted to improve. Getting them done on time meant committing to ten rows a day (twenty in August, before term started), which meant about 1-2 hours of work. Plus, I really hate doing mitten thumbs and have a hard time making them look good. Now ten rows takes me about 40 minutes and, while I still hate them, mitten thumbs no longer mean instant project abandonment.

And are you taking any OWL’s or NEWT’s this term? You got any pictures! We Ravenclaw’s love pictures! :)

I’m doing two OWLs this term, Muggle Studies and Ancient Runes. I shouldn’t have left Muggle Studies so late - I knit long-sleeved, hooded adult sweater last September, which meant proposing two adult sweaters for the OWL. I finished the February Lady Sweater in January, but I left the Yosemite sweater until this month and have been putting the burn on it this week. I’ll be a lot happier when I’ve divided for the armholes.



Thankfully they’ve been pretty easygoing projects, because my Ancient Runes OWL almost became a bite too big to chew. I’ve been knitting a shawl for each of my female friends as they get engaged and this one was the first I’ve done for a knitter so 1) she had some good input and 2) it needed to be pretty cool.

Cool meant a stockinette body Aeolian, i.e. a month of stockinette in laceweight on size zeros. Slow and steady wins the race in this case though and I’ve timed it to be finished in the third week of this month. My only concern now is that I now own the longest size 0 circular Knit Picks makes and I might still run out of space!



Here I am at the middle of the first part of the edge.

How have your Gryffindor 1st years settled in this term?

I think they’ve been keeping up pretty well - we had some sort of crazy low Vanishing Cabinet statistic for January, which was really encouraging. A couple of them are super enthusiastic and I look forward to their work in future terms.

In between terms I know that we all like to get up to lots of fun and games. Can you remember anything particularly exciting happening in-between term times in the Gryffindor common rooms?

Well, the last few off-months we’ve made Frog Cards available for those who participate in off-month activities, including a special card that’s usually pretty silly. Last August was Peeves, and December’s was Snape in a dress from the third movie.

There’s usually at least one Gryffindor specific activity as well - we had a Yule Ball in December and our own Triwizard Tournament back in August. The off-month is also usually a big time for figuring out OWL proposals and LupinGirl usually offers a prize drawing for posted test-proposals.

What do you like most about being a Gryffindor?

I like that there’s always a conversation going at top speed in the common room, seeing what my fellow crazies have come up with to top themselves, and that you can go at a relaxed pace if you want.

And the House Cup itself, has it helped you to develop your skills in anyway? Encouraged you to try new things?

Well, it’s certainly encouraged me to increase the amount of knitting I do! My finishing skills have improved, because if you’re knitting five sweaters a year you don’t want to waste all the knitting time to end up with a sloppy sweater because you fail seaming.

As for new things, that’s a little more difficult. I had knitting ADD before the House Cup and had tried almost everything. The Cup made me improve through the volume of knitting I have done - if you’re knitting a pair of socks a month, you can’t help but eventually realize that there has to be a better way to pick up stitches from the heel flap.

However, the House Cup is directly responsible for my learning crochet, intarsia in the round, toe-up sock construction, and double-knitting. I’m still holding out on steeks and enterlac however!

Which project are you most proud of completing, since joining the HPKCHC?

The Exhibition Socks I knit for the Quidditch Sock Challenge Winter 2010. It was a huge physical and emotional challenge to keep knitting, especially after I realized that I was being trailed very closely. I still go back to that thread sometimes to read through it, it was so much fun.



Any advice for NQFY’s?

Use your NQFY time to determine what your level of involvement will be. How much time are you comfortable spending on the House Cup? Use that to help figure what House will jive best with your activity level and interests. If you go in with a plan, you feel better about having a path to guide you.

And how about us novice knitters? (I can’t knit to save my life!)

Keep trying new stuff and come back to stuff that you didn’t like because the projects didn’t turn out well. My first pair of socks are wretchedly uncomfortable because I knit them with 100% cotton because I thought wool was too itchy for my feet. The first fair isle mitten I knit has no mate because I never blocked the colorwork and thought it was awful (plus I messed up the thumb). Practice means improvement and while the first few terrible projects will seem discouraging, stick with it!

Any secrets about what you Gryffindor’s get up to in quidditch that you’d like to share? You always seem to do amazingly in the challenges!

My lips are sealed.

As for the challenges, I’m pretty sure what happened is that we did super well in the first few challenges, which set up a sort of ‘Challenge Culture’. We do well in challenges, so we will do well in challenges. Challenge participants know what they have to live up to and they prepare accordingly, which means we do even better. It’s a vicious cycle with a great outcome. XD

If you had to describe Gryffindor House in 20 words or less, what would you say?

The House Cup Gryffindors live up to the hype - we’re fiercely loyal and aren’t afraid to show it!

And lastly! 5 Fun things about being a Gryffindor! :)

1 - Chocolate Frog Cards (I might be biased)
2 - LupinGirl as our Head of House
3 - Always someone to talk to in the common room or in chat
4 - Challenge excitement, be it Headmistress or Quidditch
5 - Gryffies have your back!


You heard it here first guys! GO GO GRYFFINDOR!

Huge Thanks to Mauri for inviting me into the common room and letting me have a look around! :)




This concludes the Roaming the Castle series, and I really hope you've all enjoyed it! Hugs, love and thanks to everyone whose participated, I couldn't have done it without you all! :)

This is Ali123 reporting Mischief Managed! :)