Three of Hearts - You're a Witch, Mary

You were whisked off to a secret magical academy, Castle Boarfall which is hidden in Scotland, where it sits on a mountain side in a valley which rises from a fjord with a hidden port, Hog's Cape. About two miles up the Boarfall River is Loch Boarfall, which is full of magical fish and is the actual home of Nessie, who only has a summer home in Loch Ness. The far side of the river is covered with the Forbidden Forest, full of magical creatures and students who like to break the rules, which is most of them. Once you give someone a wand, it's hard to say no to them.

Castle Boarfall is next to a huge waterfall; once a year, due to some magical disaster of the founders, boars fall down the cliff into the pool at the base and die, leading to the Annual Pork Festival every July 8th. A stream with no name flows down into the Boarfall River from the falls. The near side of the river is dotted with farms which grow various rare magical plants. Hog's Cape is the largest town of wizards and witches in the United Kingdom and one of the biggest in Europe, which is to say it's home to a few hundred people, but has shops catering to the needs of wizards and sometimes bloats much larger during festivals; there are magical inns which are bigger on the inside than the outside, a witch trick so common that many witches are surprised by any container which is *not* bigger on the inside. Halfway between Hog's Cape and Castle Boarfall, you will find the Boarfall Sporting Arena, used both for school Athletics and for the fine sport of Air Hockey, the favored sport of Witches everywhere, despite the high injury rate, or probably because of it, to be honest.

Witching Society does its best to prevent non-Witches from finding out magic is real. They do this because of the current truce with the Mundanity Cabal, in which the Cabal leaves Witches alone who don't rock the boat of normal society and the Witches do not go down in a blaze of glory, wrecking everything the Mundanity Cabal wants. The leaders of Witching Society try to play it off, but if push came to shove, the Mundanity Cabal could beat them. However, they have forseen it is eventually going to go down in flames, so for now, they restrain the young, many of whom want to end what is sometimes called Kayfabe or the Mundanity Ruse. This is getting harder because of the increasing number of Muggletonian-born witches. (Witches refer to all non-Witches as Muggletonians ever since the Muggletonians drove them into hiding in the 17th century.)

Castle Boarfall is a 7 year school whose students board at the school during six Sextons, each six weeks long. Three Sextons form a Semester and there is a month long break between the Fall and Spring Semesters; there is a three month break during the Summer. Each student takes six classes per Semester; as they grow older, they have more freedom to pick and choose their classes, especially in their last two years. Thanks to the No Witch Left Behind Initiative, standardized tests administered by golems mark the end of each semester. Witches who fail a test spend the Summer or Christmas break taking special courses to make it up, then take the test again. On a second failure, time travel magic is used to keep sending them back to take the class until they can pass it. (Special Geases ensure they don't go around changing history, and this *never* goes wrong, ever.)

At the end of your fifth year, you take the Special Pattern Establishing Witch exams, or SPEW. These establish what careers you are best suited for, to help you design your curriculum for your last two years. This may include special studies with individual teachers or very small classes.

Many Muggletonian-Born students are frustrated by the lack of classes on modern subjects, but the staff reminds them this is a school of Magic. You can study science on your own time if you want. Well, you can try; anything which relies on electricity doesn't work here and chemistry is... wonky... and magical animals have things like moebius strip DNA.

Students attend six hour long classes with ten minutes between each of them and an hour long lunch period after the third class and before the fourth. Classes start at 8:30 AM and end at 4:20. Dinner is served from five to six. First through third years are expected in bed by 11, fourth through eighth years can stay up to midnight if they wish.

A typical first year student takes Runes I, Basics of Spellcraft I, Magical Fauna and Flora I, Introduction to Alchemy I, Basics of Magical Combat I, and Magical Athletics I in the first semester, then the matching II in the second semester. A student planning to become a Witch-Warrior might take Dragon-Punching, Advanced Counter-Spelling III, Advanced Abjuration I, Broom-Chasing I, Alchemy XI, and Report Composition I in her first semester of her sixth year.

Peculiarity

Choose Your Witching Fellowship

Every student is inducted into a Witching Fellowship upon their first arrival at Boarfell, where they gaze into the Membership Mirror and see themselves clad in the formal colors of the Fellowship into which they are now inducted. Membership is for life; post-graduation, members stay in touch, forming a web of old girls' networks in Witching Society. Whether chosing something like this for life at age 11 is a good idea is something that remains debated but persists.

All Witches get a zero-level Wand as one of their items of Stuff.