Still in her bright pink staff quidditch robes, the Headmistress marched straight up to the Great Hall and tried, unsuccessfully, to enter the room. She tried again and then a third time and finally realized that she needed to INSERT COINS into this silly Muggle invention she had supported.

"Whatever it takes," she murmured as she dropped in a whole galleon. What, she had nothing smaller on her.

Christopher ran up to the Great Hall from the pitch and almost ran into the turnstiles that had appeared in front of him. While he had no problem with spending the money, they were definitely getting in his way. What if he were starving and forgot to take his money or something?

He grumbled to himself, took out his coin pouch, and dropped in ten knuts. "There," he said, though he knew he was talking to himself. Now, to find Elise and Mo.

YES! PARTY!! She had been right when she suggested to Aidan that they might very well throw a party after the match was done. Whoop! She rushed to the Great Hall as fast as the sugar would carry her but stopped at the turnstiles.

Right...

She'd forgotten about those. Mmm...but she'd just spent 5 galleons. What more did they want from her???

OH but what's thiiiiiis, the Headmistress had just gone in...she wasn't sure but...wasn't that a galleon...and the woman walked in...um...was she paying for everyone then...? "Wait! Headmistress!! You only need 10 knuts!! Er...okay! I'll just...use your galleon too!" She called after her before turning to everyone else at the turnstile.

"HEY GUYS! THE HEADMISTRESS PAID A GALLEON, WE CAN JUST WALK IN!

Then she skipped in quite merrily. So nice of the Headmistress. So VERY nice. Heh.

Food. Food. Food. Ella was starved. There'd be ice cream here, yeah? And boyfriend too? And celebrating, obviously. This was going to be really fun.

And then Lex was yelling.

The headmistress was paying for them to come in? Blink. That was quite nice of her, actually! Ella grinned, still wearing her robes, and headed straight through the turnstile.

You know what is more startling than Lex’s blaring voice?

Lex’s blaring voice echoing against the STONE walls

Aquila gave a bit of a start, and turned her head towards the doors of the Great Hall. She saw students just breezing through the turnstiles. Momentarily she thought they were broken, but then seeing Lex skipping merrily after that large pink drapery that was the Headmistress prompted this little one to follow suit. Hopefully there was food, this was quite the detour from the student gardens where she could’ve gone fruit picking...

You may think you can just breeze on through without paying your ten knuts but that isn't the case. As you attempt to pass through without dropping in your payment you run right into a wall that stops you.

Headmistress Truebridge may have paid one galleon, but that is for her entrance, not yours. Every person that attempts to pass through to the Great Hall MUST pay their own fee.

"OUCH."

Heyyyyyy, who put an invisible wall here? Ella frowned slightly and took a step back, observing the turnstiles curiously. Well that was unexpected. Hadn't Oakey said that he'd heard when one puts a galleon in the turnstile it permits 493 entries? Hm. Perhaps he'd left out that only the person putting in the galleon could benefit from the payment. Or maybe he just genuinely didn't know. Shrug. "I think you were wrong about that, Lex." Said Captain obvious. Heh. The blonde then grumbled and fished around in her pocket, pulling out one of the galleons she'd earned over the summer. At least she wouldn't have to pay again for a very long time after this, yeah? Yeah.

In went the galleon and in went the blonde.

Ice cream nowwwwww please?

One minute she was just gliding through theose metal bars and the next....

invisible!BAM!

Yeah she felt that. THAT hurt. Like that dreaded wall at the train platform she was so scared about and wouldn’t go through until dragged along—that imaginary pain now realized in its full eye-watering pain several months later.

The young Claw stood up and brushed herself off, blonde curls tossled this way and that all over her head. Well it seemed that they needed to pay. BUT she didn’t bring enough on her—a mere silver thing she was thinking of using to get back into the Common Room.

She tried to peer into the Hall. “Is there really food there?” If not she was so heading back to the gardens to get something to eat, like she should’ve done in the first place

Wall. Right. Owwww.

Just how many things would she get herself hurt with at the school? First the toppling over in DADA then the slipping in Charms and now a wall.. SERIOUSLY??? Who kept a WALL right at the entrance to the Great Hall??? Owww! It didn't help that she skipped right into it and could now feel her head throbbing.

Note to self, look before skipping in future.

Glancing around, she realized that Ella and Aquila had also been stopped. So the Headmistress wasn't paying for everyone.

She was still on the skipping into a wall and instant headache bit. "Uuuugh..." Was all she managed to get out. Lex reached into her pocket and stuck the first coin she could find (which happened to be a sickle) into the turnstile and got back to rubbing her head. Headaaache. She needed candy. Candy and LOTS of ice-cream.

Then there was Aquila.

She wasn't sure whether or not the girl was going to in but after that wall hit she didn't know much of anything else either. Again. OWWW. She didn't even know she'd been skipping that hard in the first place. Anyway, back to the Ravenclaw that seemed bent on just staring.

"Look alive Aquila or the wall will think it won." She said, grinning through her headache. "Here, I've got this for you because there's probably ice-cream in there." And that was meant to answer her question, no the food wouldn't be good but at least there was ice-cream. She dropped another sickle into the girl's hand and waited for her to pay then she pulled her through as well.

NOW they could have ice-cream and forget her headache.

Now that wasn't so hard was it.

With the payment of your precious one galleon you now have 48 more entrances to the Great Hall left.

Of course there's food in there. Food you won't be eating if you don't pay the required ten knuts to enter.

Well look at that. You had money on you after all. Shame on you for trying to sneak your way in at the cost of the Headmistress and her hard earned money.

With the payment of that one little sickle you now have one entrance to the Great Hall left. You will need to come up with one more knut to earn your way in that third time.

She was wincing, rubbing that sore spot in her face that smacked against the invisible barrier. Technically the wall did win but then she wasn’t much of an arguer, semantics or otherwise.

“Thank you Lex!” the young Claw smiled through the pain as another one of those silver things touches her hand. She drops the coin into the slot and waaaaaited for the click, then caaaaaaarefully pushed her way past the bars. “Gosh I really do hope there is ice-cream... I think I need something cold against this spot.” She mumbles as she joins the Gryffindor lass into the Hall.

Lucky for you to have a friend who is willing to part with their money. With the payment of that one sickle you have earned your way into the Great Hall not only this time, but one more time too. Like your friend, you will have to find one more knut to be granted a third entrance to the Great Hall.

Now go, enjoy the wonderful food ice cream that awaits just beyond those doors.

Nigel really needed some chocolate and ice cream. He came up to the payment center and saw three people hit a invisible wall. It looked like it was Ella, Aquila, and Lex. Well Nigel guessed that is what happens when you don't pay to enter. It did look painful though and Nigel flinched thinking about it.

Nigel put in a galleon into the slot just for safe measure. Maybe he would come back later. He was thinking about some scary species lately and chocolate always helped his anxiety.

Jory knew it was morning. But since it was the weekend, he figured he would have lots of ice cream! He had slept late due to finishing up some home work as well as studying the previous nights.

Right now, he didn't mind though. He was in a good mood. The Puffer needed to get to the Great Hall to collect some tea also so he could start his Divination homework. But first things first. Ice cream! He wasn't even annoyed about paying the usual 10 knuts to get in when the turnstile appeared. He just dipped into his pocket, pulled out the coins, inserted them into the turnstile which let him pass and headed straight for the Huffie table.

So no offense to Elise, who was all things lovely in the world for sure, but she was heavy. Or at least, she was getting to be pretty heavy now that Mo had carried her all the way from the pitch. It hadn't been too bad on the field and through the grounds toward the castle, but as Mo struggled up the stairs from the Entrance Hall and was now stopped at the turnstiles... well...

This was a really dumb idea.

"Your legs aren't hurt, are they? Are you feeling dizzy or anything?" Not that he didn't think she deserved carrying if she wanted it, but his shoulders... y'know? He glanced past the turnstiles toward the tables and then set Elise's feet down as gently as possible. In other words, he dropped them. "Oops... you okay?"

Now that his arms were free (and pins-and-needling), Mo attempted to extract money from his pockets. His fingers barely worked, but he somehow managed to pull a sickle from his pocket, part of the cold coinage earned last Hogsmeade visit. And because he was a gentleman, Mo put the sickle in the slot for himself AND Elise.

"That's you paid for as well, okay?"

Given what he'd learned about turnstiles, West put in one sickle. That would do it for now. And... he went inside. Foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfooodfoodfoodfood.

Standing in front of the dining payment center in the early morning, the Slytherin took out his money from his pocket and with a yawn he counted until he had ten knuts. He placed the rest back and entered the Great Hall.

We're getting ripped off by this whole turnstile system. Natalie thought as she fished out her 10 Knuts. Automatically, she puts in the money inside the whole and slid the turnstile to enter the Great Hall.

Sleepy!blinkblink.

It was early. Way too early. The walk up to the Great Hall that should have lasted a couple of minutes ended up lasting almost ten minutes because Alec was dragging his feet all the way up there. And to think this wasn't even a morning class he was going to. Just... to drink some tea and do some Divination reading.

... Turnstiles? Oh. Right. Yeah. They had to pay to enter the Great Hall.

The boy let out a wide yawn before reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet. Money... money... he picked out a largeish looking coin and blinked at it a couple of times. Gold... Galleon... that was more than enough, yeah? The money was inserted and the turnstile turned and... the boy walked through.

Tea time! ... In the morning.

Yawn. Yawn. Yawn.

T'was a good yawning day. Saturday. No classes. Homeworks can be done later. Maybe there would be a Quidditch practice later. Maybe. Later. If not, then she was going to sleep in the whole day since she'd been nursing a terrible headache since her eyes fluttered open that morning.

But.....not before she eat something. Perhaps food could even help lessen the headaches. Hopefully.

Suppressing another yawn with the back of her hand, Beezus Castell squinted her eyes at the turnstiles which came to block her way. "Ugh. Fine, fine, fine." And there went that ONE SICKLE.

Now can she pass?

.....Thank you.

And of course, here, like everywhere else in the castle this year - Eliza reached into her pockets to produce ten knuts for the dining hall turnstiles. She'd pay more next time so she could get more turns in and out, but for now, that was all she had.

She wasn't the payment plan's biggest fan, but she knew once she got inside she could have some ice cream - since everything else this year had been pretty shoddy cooking - she'd just stick with the sweet deliciousness of the ice cream.

She slipped her ten knuts into the machines and walked through to the Great Hall.

As Asher approached the Great Hall he mumbled, "I'm fairly sure they will soon install those muggle taxi meters on us to charge for the steps we take down the halls." Reluctantly, he fished the coins out of his pocket and inserted them into the slot. With a rumbling stomach, he headed into the room.

FOOD TIME!!! James ran down the stairs to the great hall and sighed as he came across another one of those blasted bar things. Reaching in his pocket he pulled out a coin and sighed as he placed it in the machine. Highway robbery. He should tell his dad what was going on here maybe he'd do something about it.

Shaking his head he went through the machine into the hall.

Sighing she took her solo cup and spork and headed back into the great hall, they were looking absolutely disgusting even with magic it just wasn't cleaning it as well as it needed. She couldn't wait til she got home. Maybe her mum would let her go to Beauxbatons next year...doubtful not with auntie here.

Taking her money purse from her robes pocket that auntie had made sure stayed filled and she took out 10 knuts and slipped them each into the slot and walked through the turnstile.

HOPEFULLY, she'll find moooore ice cream here, because that's all she wanted to get. And a green outline peep for Vinteren's assignment.

Seriously, it had been exhaustiiiiing, and she deserved ice cream, yo!

Lottie hadn't enough knuts, but she had a sickle! So, that went through the turnstiles before she could be granted access and stepped inside the Great Hall for food and homework.