Hogwarts Adventures RPG (Part 1)

Description

We asked on Twitter and you voted and to be honest, it could have been worse. For our last pre-Season 5 One Shot we're using Hogwarts Adventures, a one-page RPG by Litza and Thor. This episode features cello accompaniment by Ange Lavoipierre as well as special guest Will Erimya and Emma Balfour. Please enjoy this EXTREMELY CANONICAL offering.

## Synopsis

The Friends return as three first year girls, all sorted into Slytherin house by the sorting hat. As they arrive in the Slytherin common room, Snape gives them a firm address; and the resident popular girl, Millicent Bulstrode, demands they fetch her a vial of "dire frog scum" from the Forbidden Forest in order to be allowed to join her clique. Melody experimentally tries casting *Finestra* and burns her own eyebrows off, while Duran Duran casts *Confringo* on the (unlocked) Slytherin common room door, blowing it to bits.

Sneaking out into the corridors on Tabitha's Nimbus 2000 broom, they spot Argus Filch walking his cat in the corridor. Melody uses her deluminator to remove the light from Argus's lantern in order to sneak by, and then experimentally uses it again to remove the light from his heart, making him bitter and resentful of his cat. Tabitha tries to fly the broom carefully down the hall in the dark, but accidentally crashes into Filch, who lights a match and sees them sneaking out. Filch drags Tabitha off the broomstick, which collapses to the floor, but Duran Duran then casts *Confringo* on Filch and he sheds a single tear before exploding all over the walls.

Outside Hogwarts, the Friends are passing into the wilds past the Whomping Willow, just as a Ford Anglia crashes into the top of the tree (per the events in *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*). Tabitha flies up to meet Harry and Ron inside and flies them out of the car on her broom. Melody then encourages the three Friends to mug Harry and Ron for his money, his Phoenix Core wand, and Ron's pet rat Scabbers. Melody throws him her Ash and Kelpie Mane core wand as a final insult, forgetting that as a pureblood mage the wand is a 300 year old family heirloom.

Detecting something rustling in the forest, Duran Duran attempts to call to it in Parseltongue, and the snake reveals itself and offers to help them; they give him Scabbers in exchange for his help, although the snake claims to be going to keep it as a friend rather than eating it. The snake leads them to the swamp where a number of dire frogs are sleeping, and Melody is able to collect some of their scum and return it to Hogwarts - where they are informed that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, and presumably whatever was inside it has killed Argus Filch.

## People

### Dragon Friends

* Michael Hing as Melody Lemonthyme, pureblood 1st year Slytherin
* Simon Greiner as Tabitha Newsome, mudblood 1st year Slytherin
* Will Erimya as Duran Duran Porterhouse, mudblood 1st year Slytherin

### Guest PCs

* Emma Balfour as the Harry Potter Fact Checker
* Edan Lacey as Millicent Bulstrode, mudblood 2nd year Slytherin

### NPCs

* Severus Snape, housemaster of Slytherin
* Harry Potter, mudblood 2nd year Gryffindor
* Ron Weasley, pureblood 2nd year Gryffindor
* Argus Filch, Squib caretaker

### Bestiary

* Erasmus the Mottled Owl
* Scabbers
* A Snake
* A Dire Frog
* The Whomping Willow

### Places

* Hogwarts
* The Forbidden Forest

## Themes, tropes and running jokes

* The episode is based on the second book, *Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets.*
* This is the only episode so far where main PCs have been played by players of the opposite gender.
* The players were each given a list of canonical Harry Potter spells, but no indication of what they do. *Confringo* does indeed cause an object to explode, although it is not normally fatal unless used with malicious intent. *Finestra* is used once to break glass, although its exact effect is never made clear.
* Baffling Reference for our International Listeners: the suggestion that Millicent is playing a prank and she will insist that the Friends put the dire frog scum "on a SAO" and eat it; a reference to an Australian brand of cream cracker.
* Hing is canonically correct that a phoenix feather core wand is more powerful than a kelpie mane core wand, however it is also highly selective and Melody would likely be unable to use it. Harry Potter canon suggests that weak wand cores were common before Garrick Ollivander discovered that only three "supreme cores" - phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, and unicorn tail hair - are required; one will be suitable for any wizard or witch and provide the most powerful wand available for them.

## Quotes

* "I need a vial of dire frog scum." "Dire.. what?" "Dire frog scum." "Are you saying dire frog scum, or dire frog's cum?" "Oh my god, you are disgusting." "I write these ingredients, and I don't know how you always do it, Hing.."
* "Ok. Filch is grabbing at you, Tabitha, and then Duran Duran stands up and yells out *Confringo* and taps him once lightly on the shoulder. And he looks at you, a single tear falls down his eye, and then Mr Filch explodes." "Whaaa? I thought he was going to get pushed back like in.." "We are 7 minutes into the adventure and the canon is gone. You have killed a beloved children's character."

## Table Talk

* "No one likes a nerd!" "You asked me to be here!"
* "Slytherin's the least Woke of the houses."
* "Harry's in the second year. And he's being mugged by a group of first year girls."
* "In the fourth book with the wand cores, this means that Harry Potter's going to fucking die." (This refers to the scene in the fourth book in which Voldemort attempts to use his Phoenix Feather Wand to cast Avada Kevadra on Harry, at the same time as Harry casts Expelliamus on Voldemort. Because their wands have cores of the same material and from the same Phoenix, a rare phenomenon called Priori Incantatem occurs allowing Harry to participate in a duel of wills to avoid being killed by Voldemort's spell. Since Melody stole his wand and give him hers, he would no longer have a matching core.)