House Domina itself is a large stone structure,
possibly a thousand years old or more. No one knows who built it,
but there are gremlins and willowisps and goblins which seem to
keep the grounds as healthy as they can be kept.
In climate, the area around House Domina is
chilly but in Spring and Summer warms up enough that everyone has
both warm and cold weather clothing. Autumns are brisk and usually
everyone's favorite time of year - not just because it's harvest
or Samhain, but because school is back in session and this school
at least is worth attending. Winter brings a thick coating of snow
over everything.
The structure is apparently bigger inside than
outside, due to whatever magics have been wrought upon it. Externally
it appears to be a stout two or three story castle, while inside
there are corridors and stairwells which seem to go on almost infinitely.
It is not nearly as confusing as Hogwarts, however, and there are
maps of the layout.
Most of the offices are on the first story.
Meeting halls, a huge dining room and kitchen, staff and servants
quarters, and a mundane library all are on this story. Nestled among
those are a nurses office and infirmary, apothecary and herbalist
rooms, and a television-entertainment room which has been recently
installed.
The second story has mostly larger rooms which
are used for classes. Art and history are taught side by side with
wand use and dimensional travel. There are a few dorms on this story
as well.
Inside, there are three more stories, but they
are often called Towers because they are not particularly reachable
between one another. One houses the resident Instructors (when there
are more than one or two), the others have room enough for dozens
of students. Only a few of these are used at any given time, because
Domina is a very new, rather unconventional House.
In the rear of the building there are a number
of smaller and more conventional structures. One houses the sports
and Quidditch equipment, another is a carriage house, and there
is talk of adding an indoor pool in the large disused 'summer dance
hall' - the ghosts in that hall would far rather see this happen
than continue to waste away without being appreciated.
Any number of features can be found in the interior
of House Domina. Most walls on the inside have been plastered over
or walled with brick, wood or other such building materials, to
support or cover up the somewhat boring stone walls. Several floors
are entirely one slab of marble - though no one knows where it came
from or how they got it in the castle. Most doors are of the huge
wooden variety, framed in thick metal.
Some of the students dorms have windows, which
thankfully look out over the pleasant countryside and not out onto
their own dimension's strange landscape. One cannot expect every
window to actually lead outside, however. There are inner chambers
and rooms which have windows that for all intents and purposes should
not be there at all. Let alone shouldn't have sunlight coming through
them at 2 in the morning...
The House is rather ill heated. Certain chambers
are quite warm all year round, but others are deathly chill in exactly
the same manner. Often times, students or staff attempt to use these
chilly areas as refrigerators but their food stuffs are usually
stolen by the local imp population before it can be used.
Humans or demi-humans on staff include a trio
of cooks and servants for the dining hall, four male manservant-butler
types who usually aren't in the mood to do much other than be snooty
at one another, five cleaning maids, and a host of small goblins,
gremlins, glowing lights and ghosts which sit in on classes and
keep the students up at night with their antics.
Thank you for taking this tour of House Domina!
House Domina and all graphics other
than those found on publically available tubes (such as those used
FOR the graphics sets) are ©2003 Lethe / Dropin the Fork productions.
Harry Potter is not my invention nor do I claim any part of it as
my own.