[1]
((OOC: First meeting/auditions of the Hogwarts Players for the 2009 year! Any welcome, PM Ligeia for questions, plot ideas and exercise suggestions))

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It had been said that no one, not even Dumbledore himself, had learned all of the castle's secrets.

Which made the re-discovery of ones all the more interesting.

At least, that's what Ligeia thought she had stumbled upon.

Which was something Ligeia had found in her non-necromantic efforts to revive the Hogwarts Players. Though she had not continued in History of Magic she had spent a few nights with Professor Jowd looking over old records of the castle (as he muttered something about 'Terror Dungeons' over his own research). Within there she had found some of the last surviving director notes from the infamous Christmas pantomime[2] that sparked former Headmaster Dippet's ban on pantomimes.

Beneath the soil spoiled scraps of parchment she was able to piece together:

"...and as we practiced for the Christmas Pantomime thrice weeks prior we discovered a large theatre tucked away...in grand baroque style...top of the castle...a charming place to practice but young Patrick/Old Wizard #3 begged us not to raise the ninth curtain and he never spoke about what he saw back there...but sadly, we were not able to perform on the stage as the Christmas feast did not fall on a Sunday that year, the only day we could access the room...Albus will have to keep his sinking hillock to the Great Hall...

- Herbert Beery[3]

3.

HP Wiki

And how could Ligeia let such a place simply gather dust? So directions to the room were added to the flyers posted in halls and common room bulletin boards about the open auditions for today.

She sat in a director's chair not on stage but beneath it atop the precarious trapdoor to the orchestra pit. Her parasol was open and balanced off the back end, resting askew with the magic that kept it from falling. Above that the stage and it's cutouts stretched backwards an impossible distance. From here she could watch people enter and take seats before the meeting began.

1.	Image credit is the Castle Theatre from the State Castle at Český Krumlov, a highlight from my Czech Republic vacation last summer!
2.	The infamous pantomime mentioned in the Fountain of Fair Fortune page

Ted wound up as the first to arrive, perhaps because he'd spent the Christmas holidays pestering Harry into letting him study the Maurader's Map in the search of an explanation for last semester's twisting hidden dungeon maze. He hadn't found it, of course, but he'd managed to memorize the castle's secret passageways until he knew them forward and back, which made it much easier to get around even if this hidden theater hadn't been on it. Maybe it would appear if he read the map on Sunday. He didn't know.

Whatever the reason, he poked his head into the theater to find it empty, save for the slim, pale figure of Ligeia Canterbury perched on her director's chair. At least he'd found the right place. He paused just inside the door to check his reflection in an ornate mirror and add a light dusting of silvery frost over the turquoise in his hair. Then he hopped down the stairs and snagged a seat in the second row, giving the older year a grin and a wave.

The huge, empty room was eerie in its silence. He almost wanted to strike up a conversation, but didn't know Canterbury well enough to guess what she might take to. So instead, he leaned back in his chair and craned his head to peer at the theater's intricate decor, pondering how many other secrets the castle was hiding just waiting for someone to stumble in.

Acting, ha, well, Obderedria wasn't really sure if that was for her or not--but so many things weren't--and her mum was still encouraging her to try more things at the school then just her classes. Extracurricular clubs could be fun. But Obderedria hadn't been staying up on the clubs at all, until the talk of clubs was fresh in her mind with the return to school and she noticed the new advert for the Hogwarts Players.

And now she was walking into a room she'd never been in before--commonplace in the castle, in Obderedria's viewpoint, as she what once stumbled into a closet filled with suspicions things in jars--the nightmares from that time she and others had been trapped in the basement dungeons with--she didn't want to remember--why was the Ravenclaw prefect in charge smiling at them funny?

Them? Oh yes, she had found herself sitting next to Ted Lupin, who was a grade younger and in another house, but sometimes she had run into him--like the terror in the dungeons bellow--so Obderedria wasn't as shy in saying hello to him.

"Hello," she said. "So you must be here for the Players? Which--oh, that's right, doesn't your hair do that thing?"