HCC Collaboration [Mega]thread

Being the most powerful dark wizard in the world can be tough, and just a little bit tedious when you’re waiting for your arch nemesis to go on summer holiday so you can finally try to fight him again. Luckily, there’s a place you can go to keep your mind active. A place that will accept you just as you are, mostly because of its open admissions policy. (You might be wise to wear a disguise, though.) That place is known as

Hogsmeade Community College

This is the central place to discuss HCC, the wacky, adorkable collaboration of The Lost Diadem.

I still don't know what the heck this is.
Welcome to the club. Basically, we decided that the reason Voldemort waits to attack Harry until the end of year is because he attends community college the rest of the year. Naturally, he joins a study group and goes on wacky sitcom-y misadventures throughout the year, and we are here to document them. We assigned the duties of developing the seven members of the study group to individuals. Progress has been centralized in the above link and its contained links. Beyond that, we're kind of in the dark, and that's what we're here to discuss.

I completely missed out on this in the chat. Is there anything I can do to participate?
At this point, we are still in the "character development" stage, where each person assigned a character must write a short vignette developing him or her, though we're tragically behind on that, and I have developed increasingly convoluted rules as a result which I would be more than happy to restate if prompted. Once we complete this stage, we'll open it up to pass-around stories or RP or some sort of collaboration to create the adventures themselves. When you familiarize yourself with the introduction and the links therein, you will be full prepared to contribute! We'll be starting with Orientation, our first experimental collaboration. Instructions are contained within, but I'm trying to hold off for now until we have at least one story for each major character. However, if you feel compelled, you should dive in and contribute yourself.

So this is like that NBC sitcom Community? I've never seen that! Does that mean I'm out of the loop?
You do not need to have seen Community to understand or contribute to the HCC canon. (Though on a completely unrelated note, you really should be watching Community anyway) It was just a starting point and a thematic anchor. Also, we might refer to Community to illustrate a point, like "Just like that time in Community where..." but we'll probably do that for lots of pop culture series.

Stories are like laws and sausages. What can you give me that's actually finished?
So far, we have only been submitting vignettes for the characters. Here is the ever growing* list of completed stories:
A Little Story About Jules by RainJinx
Ichabod Peppercorn by RainJinx

I already know this stuff. I've been contributing to this thing since October!
Yeah, in all likelihood, if you're reading this you're already in it. So get to submitting your character's story already! And while you're at it check out the Facebook page.

I can't access some of the links to the documents in this post.
The author of the Google document has it on private. You will have to ask them to either add you or make it semi-public to access the link. Or you could ask, in this thread, what the link contains and I can probably just paste it.

Yay, HCC!

*Optimistic appraisal

EDIT: Updated OP with outside links.

let's list the characters!

Alright, then. Alphabetical order for the most part.

Amministra "Ammy" Pileum (Sandy) - A freed house elf with aspirations toward being wandmaker. She used to belong to Delores Umbridge, but, long story short, things didn't work out. She later caught wind of S.P.E.W. and started developing ideas and goals of her own. Like any disenfranchised individual with more ambition than is good for them, she went to community college.

"Bob" (J.K. Rowling) - Whatever you think, he is NOT He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I mean, I don't know why I would even bring that up because it's so decidedly not so. Sure, he looks a little funny, but it's probably the synthetic wig and beagle puss glasses that's throwing you off. He's just your average mature student at community college looking to broaden his horizons and fill his days, and you'd stop asking nosy questions if you value your puny life. (P.S. NOT VOLDEMORT.)

Dean Dean Steve (the dean) (Blueagle) - The Dean of Hogsmeade Community College who just happens to have the first name Dean. That may be due to the fact that his father was the previous Dean of the college. The ghost of Dean's father haunts HCC, following Dean around and yelling at him when he screws up, which is often. It makes for an interesting educational environment.

Ichabod Peppercorn (RainJinx) - A squib who lived and worked in the muggle world for much of his adolescence and his entire adult life. He decided he was not quite happy there and returned to the magical world in an effort to re-examine his life. What better way to do that then enrolling in community college?

Jane Smith (Floo) - After graduating near top of her class at Hogwarts, Jane's aspirations knew no bounds. Unfortunately reality did, and Jane ended up succeeding at none of the post-graduate options she thought herself worthy to pursue. She turned to the only logical answer: More education. Since those options are limited in the magical world, community college it would be.

Jules Ziegler (Hex) - Jules is not your ordinary vampire. He is a vegetarian and a pacifist. It does not damper his spirits that his appearance is so frightening it will drive a typical human to tears by merely looking at him. He left his home to set out for a new life in the area of childcare, aided by a degree from pretty much the only community college that would have him.

Relina "Rei" Reajin (Mara) - A noble mermaid from the Black Lake. She thirsted for more than her life underwater, and for some reason determined that the local community college was the best way to explore the land-dwellers' domain. In order to access the place, she must travel around in a giant clunky wheelie tank.

Zane Spirks (Sparks) - A drug addict who went to a posh foreign school, but fell onto the wrong side of the tracks and dropped out. He is a genius with potions and Herbology, but only really cares to apply his skills to new and exciting ways to get high. The dilemma is that in order to buy supplies, one must have money, so he enrolled in community college to try to cultivate a more legitimate marketable skill.

Magical Ethics Teacher (AurorGalleon) - A centaur who teaches the class that is the focus of our study group.

This is only a cursory overview of our esteemed cast of the Hogsmeade Community College universe. Every one of these characters has an interesting backstory which can be provided upon further inquiry.

dean dean steve!