In a sense, this had become one of the more exciting days in the year that Philo got to be looking forward to. Club Day, where all of the school's clubs all set out to make booths and advertise their plans for the new school year. Merely looking at the different club booths would have been one thing, though since last year Philo had found himself in the lead of one.

That actually had gotten some recognition from dad, mentioning how Philo had started (truthfully, jointly started) a school club before third year. However, it wasn't the same as being in Quidditch. Each of the elder Falkin's had at some point been on their house team (Hufflepuff). Small victories, that's how Philo considered it.

And gaming club itself was something of a chain of small victories. It hadn't exactly become the most popular thing since pumpkin juice overnight but every couple of weeks if there were newcomers beyond the core group of friends that showed up more oftn than not, Philo considered the meet a success.

Plus, there were tons of new games out. Philo sat at the booth with stacks of fan favorite and new game boxes on either side of the table's sign up sheet. Currently he was sorting through a smorgasbord of cards, dozens of stacks of brown and copper backed cards. Though the name of the game was nigh unprouncable, even if like Philo you tried looking up words in gobbledegook. Supposedly the game authentically recreated the goblin bank experience of investing into a local economy.

Ok, maybe this 'Gargle' mouthed game wouldn't be a big seller point. Philo was hooked, as the game was about generating funds to buy better cards and actions for your deck, the whole selection being available to all the players starting with equal hands. There were many different ways to play it and each player could come up with their own strategy.

Philo looked about the bustling hall, as the day's events had just started. There was also supposed to be some contingency from the Ministry visiting and making a presentation later today. He looked back at the stacks of Knut, Sickle and Galleon cards he had been sorting out, the main source of funds in Gargle though there were richer currencies like precious stones.

Course, for a mix of stragey and gruesome delight there was always Terr-Oh! the unexpected hit from last year. Aim of the game was to build massive combos and counters to steal the points or otherwise make the opponent loose points. Points, as Philo liked to think about it, because it was actually about collecting the pool of 'souls' the game started with. Technically the club's first set had been donated by Ligeia Canterbury. Philo could see that she was also manning (womanizing?) a booth across the way. He had forgotten she was the president of any clubs until he had seen the Hogwarts Players banner.

"A little higher, straighten out the lefthand side. There you go Mark." After the other club member finished fixing the banner Ligeia looked to make sure the colors were flashing in the right order. 'Hogwarts Players; Let's Reinstate the Christmas Pantomime Tradition!!' Ligeia was not one to ad multiple marks of punctuation to the end of written word but other regulars had said this would prove to be exciting.

After all, after becoming a director of ethos of sorts, Ligeia had determined to avoid any future theatrical productions becoming disasters, you just had to avoid a few key things. Don't grow ashwinders for monstrous white wyrms, make sure all cast members resolved jealous disputes in rehearsal and not onstage. And don't allow bloody murders to happen during the opera if they weren't part of the story. Wait, that had been the Wizard's opera last New Year's.

Otherwise the Players booth looked to be up to her tastes. It was like a taste of halloween early, with returning members in costume and the multitude of props they had arranged in their space. Not only the banner changed image, their backcloth too would alter to different secret copied from some paintings very few minutes.

Probably the hardest thing was encouraging Buzzard to stay put on the candelabra with his blackened feathers making the vulture look something like a crow in a tuxedo. A very long necked crow but that was the 'magic' of performance in Ligeia's humble opinion: an actor convincing an audience that they looked like someone else even if they didn't look the part.

Though dressing up was hardly something different than the extensive wardrobe Ligeia typically wore. Though this was probably the most red she had ever worn at once, unlike her black or white or Ravenclaw colours. According to Mark, who had suggested this character and script, the muggle character was named Scarlet. Ligeia was more intrigued with the time she made a dress out of the curtains.

Sneaking Buzzard another morsel, Ligeia looked over the packets of mock scripts they had for upcoming auditions. Probably the hardest thing was selecting one script for each performance, though they would do a better job of narrowing ideas once the club membership stabilized. Ligeia had many favorites from the club's library of works. The Tale of the Three Brothers was one of her favorites, there was also one about a barber out for vengeance and his landlady cooking victims into meat pies.