-Canada – Snowdoor School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry-

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.