House Points

The house points competition is, inevitably, one of the aspects of University life that many students most fixate upon, despite the best efforts of the faculty to engage them with their subjects. Lecturers often resort to handing out points for especially impressive essays or good work in tutorials, and such prizes are viciously fought over.

Points are also rewarded for acts that are judged to help the University. Engaging in extra-curricular activities of worth, helping out the faculty and even looking after bewildered first years can accrue points for ones house. Gaining points gains additional privileges (and responsibilities) for a house's second and third years, and it is well known that the house currently in the lead gains access to the smoking lounge, a plush locale just off the great hall containing ready supplies of fine port and comfy chairs. Unfortunately, last year was a rather low scoring one, and members of your year have only rumours of the rewards given to especially high scoring houses.

Of course, what can be gained can also be lost. Bad behaviour in public parts of the university will lead to a points deduction. While gains in points are normally handled by the faculty, deductions are normally resolved by the house points faeries. These are intelligent creatures summoned up by the faculty to help enforce the points system, in exchange for a steady supply juicy secrets about the outside world (faeries being suckers for gossip), which they can take back to the faerie realms when their tenure (normally a year) ends. Unlike many of their smaller kin, these faeries are about the same size as a human, their fae descent given away by a slight tendency to sparkle.

The faeries have a list of rules that they are supposed to enforce, such as no fighting, no unnecessary aggressive magic and even, technically, no swearing. How well they do this varies from faerie to faerie, some being more easily deceived, cajoled or bribed than others. Woe betide anyone who annoys one of them though – they may find themselves followed around, with their every move analysed for potential rule breaking. The Faeries also enjoy a good duel, especially when there's a bitter rivalry or juicy slight as its root, and often put award points to the winner.

What follows is a non-exhaustive list of some things that have lead to point loss or gain in your past experience:

• Saving a first year from a rampaging Giant Sand Scorpion, escaped from the department of Cryptozoology - ten points.
• Using quick thinking, levitation and a jug of water to extinguish a lecturer after an accident during demonstration of the uses of the Elixir of Incandescence – five points.
• Finding Professor MacMillan's cat after it decided to go for a tour of the roof of the tallest tower – twenty points.
• Winning a duel in the great hall over a stolen essay – ten points.

• Throwing a fireball at a rival in the great hall – ten points, reduced to eight after it was pointed out that the victim “had it coming” by many present.
• Releasing the cryptzoology department's Sphinx – fifteen points, and a two hour session spent trying to solve the riddle it had come up with while blocking the way to the first floor bathrooms.
• Egregiously violating the laws of causality in a way likely to put reality in peril during a practical divination tutorial – twenty points.
• Swearing in the great hall – five points, though it should be noted that the incident in question was referring to one of the faeries as a “glittery bastard”.

Sometimes, a house will find itself saddled with a member who just…doesn't quite get it. While students are encouraged to police their own, sometimes that will simply not suffice, and a member will continue breaking the rules in a point-deductive fashion despite the censure of their peers. In this case, a group of three students of the house may submit a petition to the headmaster's office for said individual to be excluded from the house points tally (both for good and bad) until such a time as they have reformed their behaviour.