Hogwarts Start-Of-Term Feast

> The very best of evenings to you!... Now… to our new students, welcome, to our old students, welcome back! Another year full of magical education awaits you...
>
> 1996 Start-of-Term Feast announcements, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The **Start-of-Term Feast**, also known as the **Welcoming Feast** or the **Great Feast**, was the traditional feast of the first night at Hogwarts, welcoming the start of a new school year.
It was held in the Great Hall on the night of ***1 September*** following the arrival of the students on the Hogwarts Express. The feast was notable for including the Sorting of all new first-year students into their Houses.

### Location

Great Hall, Hogwarts castle, Highlands, Scotland, Great Britain

## History

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The Start-of-Term Feast was also used to introduce new members of the teaching staff to the student body, and to pass out important announcements and messages concerning the new school year. This was usually done in the form of a speech by the Headmaster or Headmistress. They might also choose to say a few words during this time, such as in 1991, when Albus Dumbledore told the students, "*Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!*", or in ***1994***, when he said *"Tuck in!"*

 File:B4C12M1 A Late Arrival.png
Depending on the mood of the Head, the School Song might be sung, to no particular melody other than the individual's choosing. Sometimes, there was a musical presentation by pupils during the feast, for example in 1993, the ***school choir*** led a presentation of ***Something Wicked This Way Comes*** before the announcements.
The ***Divination*** professor ***Sybill Trelawney*** usually chose not to attend such events.

 File:Start of term feast 1995.jpg   At the beginning of the ***1995–1996 school year***, the ***Ministry***-implanted teacher, ***Dolores Umbridge***, interrupted Dumbledore's welcoming speech at the end of the feast, which no other new teachers had ever done before, something the students found amusing, while the staff seemed offended.
Umbridge went on to insult the students by speaking down on them as though they were five-year old children, and then began a very dull speech that most students simply wandered off into chatter (some Prefects pretended to listen to live up to their duties), with Umbridge continuing ignorantly. The other teachers and Hermione Granger knew the very meaning of the speech: "*the Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts*".

## Description

The feast was held in the Great Hall just like all of the other meals at Hogwarts, and was traditionally attended by every student and teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, other than Sybill Trelawney. During the feast, hundreds of plates were set on each of the four House tables and were filled with food magically appearing on the empty plates, prepared by house-elves working in the ***kitchens*** below. Likewise, it was emptied by vanishing before their eyes when the feast was complete.

 File:Dean at feast.jpg  The types of food served were ***roast beef***, ***roast chicken***, pork chops, ***lamb chops***, sausages, ***bacon***, steak, joints, ***steak and kidney pie***, boiled ***potatoes***, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, ***chips***, Yorkshire pudding, ***peas***, ***carrots***, gravy, ketchup, and ***peppermint humbugs***. For dessert, there were blocks of assorted ice cream, apple pies, spotted dick, chocolate gateau, treacle tart, pumpkin tart, chocolate éclairs & jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, and rice pudding.

## Behind the scenes

* In Template:POA, the ***Hogwarts choir*** was seen singing the song ***Something Wicked This Way Comes*** conducted by Professor Flitwick, though it is not shown in the book itself.
* In Template:GOF, the candidates from ***Durmstrang*** and ***Beauxbatons*** are introduced during the Start-of-Term Feast. However, in the book they arrive prior to the Hallowe'en feast, and a separate feast is held to inaugurate the ***Triwizard Tournament***.
* In Template:OOTP, Professor Trelawney attended the Feast despite usually not doing so. In a deleted scene, where Umbridge was giving her speech, Trelawney was eating absentmindedly and accidentally spilling her drink all over herself as she listened.
* The feast in 1994 would have been cancelled had it not been for the ***Bloody Baron*** because ***Peeves*** was causing chaos in the kitchens, scaring the house-elves. This was also the first feast during which Hermione found out about the house-elves and presumably the night that ***S.P.E.W.*** was founded.
* Through various combinations of circumstances, Harry Potter missed or partially missed a number of these in his school years, fully attending only the ones for his first, ***fourth*** and ***fifth years*** (except in the film adaption of *Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban* where he fully attended the Start of Term Feast)
* ***Flaming kiwi cups*** were to be amongst the dishes served at this feast in 1993, but the line mentioning them was cut from the film adaptation after being written into the original script.

## Appearances

* Template:PS Template:1st
* Template:COS Template:C Template:C
* Template:GOF
* Template:OOTP
* Template:HBP
* Template:TCG
* Template:JKRS Template:Mention
* Template:PM
* Template:WW
* Template:HM
* Template:MA
* Template:WU Template:Mention

## Notes and references

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1. ↑ Template:HM
2. ↑ Template:WU "Registry: Exploration"
3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Template:PS
4. ↑ Have just heard that James S Potter has been Sorted (to nobody's surprise) into Gryffindor. Teddy Lupin (Head Boy, Hufflepuff) disappointed. posted by JKR on Twitter on 1 September 2015, at 7:18pm
5. ↑ Template:POA
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Template:GOF
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Template:OOTP
8. ↑ Template:HBP
9. ↑ Template:POA - Chapter 8 (*Warning and Welcome*)
10. ↑ Template:POA
11. ↑ *Prisoner of Azkaban* script on IMSDb