Memory Lane? It's more like Memory Highway when it comes to HNZ.
I found HNZ through MySpace, all because I was going to chew someone out on an HP fan page for dropping spoilers before the Deathly Hallows came out. Now I wonder how my life would've turned out if I hadn't clicked on the link in "Alicia Barker's" post that fateful day. I remember when I first joined, I had waited a few days to sign up. I poked around for a bit to check the place out. I'd never RPed before, so I decided I'd give it a try. There were only a handful of people on the site at this time.
Before I joined, I had to make a character. I named my character after a name I loved from Spanish (Estrella, which means star.) Estrella needed a surname. Deciding that I wanted Estrella to be part Norwegian, I took to an online translator. I put the word dragon into the translator and came up with Drage. It was good enough for me!
I didn't waste any time in getting Miss Estrella Drage sorted. I came up with the ingenious idea that her friends should call her DragonStar (it didn't stick, believe me.) Being the n00bie that I was, I based her sorting application mostly on me. While I waited to be sorted, I was actually afraid that Estrella would be placed in a house outside of Ravenclaw. Luckily, Ravenclaw was where she belonged, and it was Ravenclaw that she was sorted into.
During Estrella's first few years as a student, I was more concerned about having fun within my RPs than actual character development. Some of the things my characters did were very silly! Don't get me wrong, it was still a blast. I had some crazy RPs and plots going on with my characters and their friends! I made Estrella's father, Tristan, a month after I registered with her. I wanted him to be a bad guy of some sort, but I couldn't decide which kind or to what degree. Alicia suggested that I make him a DE, and thus, Tristan was born. At that time, I also played pretty much all six DEs that were on the site. They were crazy times. The plots that followed are perfect examples for newcomers on what NOT to do as a roleplayer, but they were fun back in their day. I'm absolutely horrified at just how bad these plots were. Even then, I have to laugh every time I read or remember Liz Malfoy telling stinky Vlad to take a shower or Nicolas King killing a tree because he was angry that a select number of DEs had infiltrated and escaped from the halls of Hogwarts New Zealand.
In her first year of school, Estrella chummed around with Rose Landers, her dorm mate and best buddy, came up against vampires and werewolves with Rose and Alex Mosier, got into a not-so-much-of-an-argument with Sophia Stark, and fell asleep face-first in a bowl of peanuts in the company of Gryffindors Drueyna Succulus and Bruin Dumbledez. She was absolutely distraught when Rose lost her life in the Borely Mansion. On another note, it was this year that she began her love-hate friendship with Bellatrix Green, the baddest Slytherin ever.
In her second year, she contributed to some DE ass-kicking, got her first boyfriend, Kale Thomas, and was suspended from Hogwarts New Zealand for an entire RL week for attempting to use some pretty nasty curses.
I was completely stoked during Y3 when I got the PM that Estrella was to be a prefect. My character took her job very seriously! She got into some nasty arguments with first-year Athene Perthro, scared/pissed off some little Ravenclaws that were duelling in the Common Room, and tried to help Katalina Vanderhol with the Summoning Charm. (Most students didn't know that she'd gotten a little tipsy in the Leaky Cauldron and wreaked havoc on the Silver Snake in the beginning of the year.) This was also the year that I took over the Charms department as Professor Gabriel Lloyd. I seriously had fun running classes, and was sad to let them go in Y10 or so.
In fourth year, Estrella went pretty funky. After breaking up with Kale and having some problems with her dorm mates, she was a pretty emotionally disturbed teenager. Morgase Prince, Sophia Stark's mother and a sweetheart of Tristan's with whom he'd been having a troubled relationship, was murdered by her ex-husband, Sammael Stark. Tristan was forced to take Erik back and raise him on his own. After this, he moved to the US and vowed to put his old ways behind him forever and always. Out of character, these moments with Tristan were pretty intense to RP. It was there I started really developing HNZ's honorary man-ho, Tristan.
Thankfully, fifth year brought an end to Estrella's long-lasting moodiness and the insane plots. From there on out, I focused on making her the character she is today. She started her long-term relationship with future husband Jaken Styx, kissed Bruin (who was wearing a yellow dress) for a stuffed bunny, watched Professor King get kissed by said Gryffindor in a dress, and aced her OWLs. The year after that, I was super excited to find out that she had become the Head Girl at school alongside her longtime friend and rival, Bruin, HNZ's first Head Boy.
Things went pretty quickly after sixth year started. I'm tired of detailing my character's school life, so I'll try to keep this short. I was in my junior year of high school during Estrella's last years at HNZ, so I didn't get to participate as much as I would've liked to. The nice thing about this period of time was that we actually had a computer in my house! I didn't have to go to the library or stay at school for hours after they'd rung the last bell.
HNZ has definitely been a journey for me. I started the site when I was 15, and now I'm 19. I'll have been here four years in July. It's crazy to see how the site, other members, and myself have developed all together. I've played a variety of characters, and even though I'm down to a few, I'm glad to have the memories I do have. This is a wonderful place, and I hope it stays around for another 60 years.
Some other things I remember (fondly, however outrageous they are)
[ul]
[li]The Vampire on the Sixth Floor</LI>
[li]Professor King saving Estrella, Rose, Alex, and Andy Darnall from a werewolf in the Forbidden Forest
[li]Bruin and Heath gifting a bundimun to King after their detention in the trophy room
[li]The Opaleye Assault
[li]Planting and dedicating the Rosebush to the fallen Rose Landers
[li]Malfoy & Stark Manors
[li]Using the Madame Malkin's Dolls and ourselves as playbys
[li]Estrella working at Flourish and Blotts
[li]King and Rambolt's relationship <3
[li]Estrella, Kale, and their winter and summer vacations together
[li]Andy getting turned into a werewolf- and all the awesome Rps that followed
[li]Estrella getting "drunk" at the Leaky Cauldron
[li]Tearing up the Silver Snake with Courtney Potter
[li]Estrella's competitions with Bruin Dumbledez
[li]Estrella and Cyndi taking Runes with Heimdall
[li]The Prefect's Play
[li]Playing Erik
[li]Thorine brainwashing Tristan to have him as all her own
[li]Estrella meeting Christian for the first time
[li]Estrella taking out Sumner with a beater's bat and getting whacked with a bludger later
[li]Kicking kitty, snake, and badger ass on the Quidditch Pitch in Y7! [All thanks to Lily (Potter) Drage and the rest of the Ravenclaw team]
[li]Manteia pwning some little Slytherin in the dungeons
[li]Estrella and Sumner finding out they're related
[li]Estrella & Jaken <3
[li]Estrella and Katerina getting into a fight with stupid Durmstrangers
[li]Getting almost all my characters tied up with Julie's
[li]Gossip magazine plot
[li]Estrella talking with Rose's ghost before graduation
[li]Hades @_@
[li]Estrella and Kale throwing water balloons
[li]Lily and Estrella being investigators in the library
[li]Lily & Blake </3
[li]Lily and Ford XD
[li]Lily & Sumner <3
[li]Estrella becoming a Styx and Lily a Drage <.<
[li]Nick King's cradle-robbing relationship with Sakura Gemini
[li]RPs with Kaela
[li]Chace & Sumner's relationship with all its sexual tension
(Kidding. Maybe.)
[li]Kat & Chace
[li]Beth's obsession with Valcan and Julian
<LI>[li]RPs with everyone I miss. [/li][/ul]
Which leads me to:
People I miss:
Emily (Elizabeth Malfoy)
Stormie Lew
Isobella (George Weasley)
River Tamn
Steel Johnson
Lucretia Moriarty
Kirsti (Athene Perthro, Thanatos Perthro)
Kristin (Alicia Barker, Rose Landers)
Romero Love
Kaela (Sophia Stark, Kaela McIlvoy, Morgase Prince, Sammael Stark)
Deb (Hilary Grace)
Oleg (Kale Thomas, Nancy Thomas)
Kim (Freya Heimdall, Njord Aesir)
Paul (Bruin Dumbledez, Arithmos Manteia, Groundskeeper Willie)
Steve
Courtney (Courtney Potter)
Alex (Bellatrix Green)
Zoey (Zoe-Hope Weasley)