-Canada – Snowdoor School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-

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The words for Snowdoor are ‘Never forget to smile’

Snowdoor School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a Canadian Wizarding School located far north near the border of Alaska. It was created because Eaglesclaw Academy (see Chapter 6) was becoming to full and many Canadian Witches and Wizards could not be accepted. It is a centre for Muggle winter sports as well as Quidditch and attracts students not only from Canada but also Alaska, Iceland and France. Many American students also choose Snowdoor over Eaglesclaw as it has better approval from the ministry of magic, being rated ‘Outstanding’ for the past thirty years. It is noted for it’s remote, beautiful and secure location as well as its safe building and extra Muggle syllabus. The current headmaster is Quidditch and Ice Hockey enthusiast Leon Foyer.

Founding:

Snowdoor School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the second most recent main Wizarding School to be founded, opening to students in 1929. It was founded namely because of the huge amounts of students flooding in from Canada to Eaglesclaw and another institute was needed. The founder of Snowdoor, Norman Barnes, was a great friend of the headmasters of Eaglesclaw at the time, Darwin and Wallace Carrion, and also said to be a great organiser. Within months of having to idea of founding Snowdoor, he had bought the land and house off Muggles, made it unplottable and started repairing the original hall that later became the school. Just two years later, the school opened to students and was very soon listed as one of the leading wizarding schools of the world.

Though one of the few founders who created their school going solo, Barnes was rated top-notch by the Canadian Minister of Magic and ran the school very smoothly up until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1965 at the age of ninety-three. He taught at the school as well and there is a corridor in the school dedicated entirely to him; upon hanging paintings depicting him from his youngest to eldest years and his various certificates and newspaper articles. He did not return as a ghost but the one painting in the Head’s study still helps tremendously with the running of the school. The position of Headmaster, however, was handed over to his nephew Roderick Barnes upon the founder’s death.

Further History:

Since Snowdoor is quite a young school in Historical terms and has been very well run, there’s not much history to it. However, there are a few instances within the school and it is well know that Norman Barnes urged many wizards to participate in the Muggle Second World War and many did. There are memorials in the school for the brave wizards who died fighting.

Snowdoor did protect itself extensively during both of the European struggles against Lord Voldemort but refused to contribute, as the staff did not want students endangered.

Snowdoor, when handed over to Roderick Barnes in 1965, also purchased some Yetis that now roam the forest nearby, as it is well known that these monsters, though dangerous, are becoming rare and need suitably cold environments to survive. Talking of environments, Snowdoor is very involved with Muggle issues of global warming and do not use any electricity whatsoever because of this. Snowdoor, as well as yetis, harbours polar bears and other endangered artic creatures that are captive in various large compounds around the school grounds. Students are taught about these creatures and are encouraged to donate Muggle money to charities.

In 1979, the leadership of the school was handed over to Roderick Barnes’ daughter Clementine, who ran the school through most of the first wizarding war but was sadly killed when travelling in London in 1979. The school has become a family business and treasure, however, and went through two more Barnes’ before being given to Leon Foyer, the current headmaster and great, great nephew of Norman Barnes (the original founder) in 2001.

Education:

Like at Eaglesclaw Academy and Hogwarts, students of Snowdoor School o Witchcraft and Wizardry are sorted into four houses (named after good friends of Norman Barnes) depending on character traits:

House Fellini:

Qualities: Cunning, Ambitious, Persuasive, Clever, Resourceful, Shrewd, watchful.

Founder: Norman Barnes

Colours: Silver and Blue

Emblem: Black cat walking on a silver and blue quarter shield

Words: “Proove yourself before they laugh”

House Ortisclear:

Qualities: Kindness, Compassion, Loyalty, Honesty, Trust, Wit, Individuality.

Founder: Norman Barnes

Colours: Yellow and bronze

Emblem: Brown crowned stag on golden yellow field with bright sun behind.

Words: ‘Honour is duty and Trust divine’

House Merinfase:

Qualities: Creativity, Intelligence, Wit, Cunning, Ambition, Spontaneity, Idealism, Optimism, Shrewdness, Watchfulness.

Founder: Norman Barnes

Colours: Green and Black

Emblem:  Pale brown owl on green and black divided field.

Words: ‘Thoughts Provoke All’

House Lightenshaw:

Qualities: Bravery, Cordiality, Loyalty, Chivalry, Honour, Leadership, Optimism.

Founder: Norman Barnes

Colours: Red and Copper

Emblem: Chestnut Bear walking and facing front on red field.

Words: "To lead is to light"

Students of Snowdoor School of Witchcraft and Wizardry start education at the age of eleven and take O.W.L.s in their fifth year and N.E.W.Ts in their seventh, as in Hogwarts and Eaglesclaw. The school, as well as Quidditch and main core and elective classes, also offers a career path in Muggle science and hosts an Ice Hockey team that competes with Muggle schools under the alias it is also a Muggle school.

Setting:

Snowdoor School of Witchcraft and wizardry is located somewhere in the mountains that border Alaska and Canada. Apparently it is often very cold and snowy the winter months so it is though to be in the North top of the border.

The building itself is an old hall built in a gothic style but an overall enormous structure, with four miniature towers styled like church steeples only bigger. There is a tower for each house, with the floors for sleeping levels and common rooms as well as classrooms. Each tower is furnished inside with the house colours and a common room for each year, as well as paintings and a few old tapestries in places.

The great hall is situated after an entrance hall when you enter through the main doors. Apparently it is decorated lavishly inside in the old styles but with contempory themes such as bright, patterned curtains, colourful paintings and black and white clocks and their ornaments in the typical jazz style of the 1930s. There are also pianos in every common room and a good supply of music for the ‘comic songs’ of that era, including songs like ‘Forty-Seven Gingerheaded Sailors’ (a favourite with the students, apparently) and ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’.

In terms of paintings, not many portraits hang on the walls and instead abstract art that will sometimes talk gibberish to you or run off to another painting to create something even more nonsensical., In the head’s office, which is open to all students at any time, there are many paintings of past professors but also lots of abstract themes and an old Muggle Gramophone which never stops playing the classic comic songs (‘Down in Nagasaki where the fella’s chew tobacci and the women wikki wakki woo’ can be heard often). This Gramophone never tires of playing and cannot be stopped, also seeming to have a voice of its own, though no one is quite sure.

There are few ghosts at Snowdoor, not even protectors for each house but an overall two ghosts for the whole school. There are a few in the grounds, however, who lived in the hall before it became run-down and Norman Barnes bought it to turn it into a school. One of these older ghosts is Lady Teresa Trenagal, a muggle born, who died when ice-skating on the lake, or rather, attempting to. Apparently she had told her father, who wouldn’t let her marry this man she loved, who was a wizard, who, that she would not stop Ice Skating until he conceded. However, the ice was not thick enough and she went one glide before plunging into the water. She appears as a figure gilding along corridors in her ice skates and dress dripping with water, always asking ‘when will the ice come?’

No secret passages or rooms were initially added to the hall when Norman Barnes refurbished the place, but there are a few remaining from the previous families who lived there, most notably the Charcoal Passage, a slip of a gap between the old dining room and ladies tea-room where a previous occupier of the house was thought to have attempted to burn a pile of old letters in there, but stupidly killed himself as there was not enough oxygen. The notes were pathetic love letters from a barmaid and it seemed that a young lord wished to make sure his parents or otherwise did not find out. A favourite room for late nights of scaring is Werner’s Boudoir, belonging to an old lady who mysteriously disappeared when alone in the house one evening. It is thought she was murdered by her ladies maid, but she does not haunt, being a Muggle, and the only evidence the room gives is a basket of jewels that may have been stolen from her and a shotgun in the same basket. It is a rumour from the students that if anyone touches the jewels they will be cursed forever.

The grounds of Snowdoor are very extensive, with compounds for all sorts of endangered artic creatures (mentioned above), a yeti and non-yeti forest, special green houses, a Quidditch pitch, Ice hockey arena (just for practicing), and ice rink for the students. Students have often expressed their love for the wintry feel to the area and say that they could sit all day and watch the yetis and polar bears, which are apparently very entertaining.