A long time ago, in a Skype conversation far far away Sennyo asked me what Hogwarts house I was in because there was discussion about it in the cbox. After providing an answer and revealing my Ilvermorny house I told her that there was a secret house. What followed was a peek into the absolute nonsense that is my brain. I later found out she thought it had come from tumblr or something.

Since then I have begun writing further musings on this house. It has even been brought into the MRO as official Perry Hotter canon (See MROisms). I have even been encouraged to write the Armadillo House novels as parodies of the Harry Potter novels. I might get around to that. Until then enjoy these collected works in "Armadillo House: A History"

Don't let the name fool you. While it is a history it is by no means told in chronological order.

You see there is a group of students who the other houses would have no idea what to do with. This group of students use to be their own thing and told the rest of the American wizarding world it could go to hell. Well these students and their children came back one day.

As I said the other houses had no idea what to do with them. So these students again told Ilvermorny they could go to hell.

They created a new house for themselves. They needed something to represent themselves, something strong. They needed something that showed they had durability. So...

Armadillo House was born. They live in a cabin outside of the school and only Texans are allowed. There is a sign outside someone brought one year that says "No Girls Rest of Yall Allowed"

Armadillo House has never won the house cup at Ilvermorny. They could have won it every year, but they didn't want everyone else jealous. Instead they would ride their horses up to the school at the end of the year and take all the blue topazes out of their hidden hourglass and replace them with .22 cartridges.

The headmasters have never caught them doing it. Though they have seen the topazes piled up in the cabin they use for a common room. When told to bring them back they rose a flag that read "Come and Take Them." The headmasters have never been brave enough. They've approached a couple times but someone always yells, "remember the alamo, remember Goliad," and then the rest of them all start yelling and talking about how their flag can fly at the same height as Ilvermorny's. Confused as to if the school even has a flag the headmasters always gave up and went back to the school.

One year, a student from Armadillo House became head boy. It was a disaster...I mean a great success. He wore the biggest hat to school and had the shiniest boots. His spurs kept damaging the floor but that was easy enough to buff out. The biggest issue was that he kept insisting Amradillo House would secede and be their own school again. That just wouldn't do in a head boy. So the headmaster went to the head of house and asked him to control his student and take that damn hat away. The head of house looked the headmaster in the eye and said, "Listen here friend; You'll ride a black tornado 'cross the western sky, Rope an ol blue norter and milk it till it's dry, Bulldog the Mississippi, pin it's ears down flat Long before you take that cowboys hat."

The headmaster decided it wasn't worth it and just went back to his office.

One year a senior at Ilvermorny brought a coyote to school. Yes, he was a member of Armadillo House. The coyote was kept secret for most of the year. While Armadillo House was always up to shenanigans, none of the administration could ever manage to enter to search the cabin that was where they located themselves (the administration even created a wonderful wing inside the school for them, but Armadillo House would not be moved). Every attempt was met with unparalleled skill in the doe-dee-doe. Not only did the administration not enter the cabin, but they agreed to concessions to Armadillo House like flying their homemade flag next to the school flag and allowing them to keep cattle and chickens on school property.



Near the end of the year the coyote got loose and, after terrorizing the chickens, made its way up to the school. The coyote was a little stir crazy from so long being cooped up and it managed to terrify a group of first years and pin them in a classroom. Eventually the coyote was wrangled and taken back to Armadillo House. Sometime later the headmaster, in a huff, wrapped on the cabin door. The student wearing the biggest hat was elected to answer. The headmaster demanded to see the coyote. The student protested, claiming there was no coyote. They went back and fourth until finally the student was passed the leash to a coyote dressed in an armadillo costume.



"This is Armi the armadillo. He's our new mascot." Said the student. "The name is a little plain but not everythin' works out like it does for ocelots... Beyoncelot."



The headmaster stared in disbelief at the student. How could one student have the gall to say that the coyote that had terrorized the first years was an armadillo just because it wore a costume.



"He even does tricks. Watch." The student turned to the coymadillo, "Stand there. Pant. Don't speak. Good Armi!"


Finally the headmaster had enough and demanded, "The coyote needs to be turned over to the groundskeeper by end of the evening! That is final." And with that he stormed off before his sanity was drained away and with him having no tinderboxes to show for it.



That evening when the groundskeeper approached a cry went out from the cabin and a flag was raised. A white flag with a black star, an image of a coyote wearing an armadillo costume, and the words, "Come and Take It" written across the bottom.



So followed the battle of Armadillo Cabin. A brief but heated exchange of heated words and fireworks (magical and muggle).

They did go to war with House Wampus once. Over a secret passage that some Wampus students knew about and tried to set up a toll for other students to use. The teachers didn't know about it and it could get them out of the school grounds for a fun evening being heathens. Well, Armadillo house wasn't having any of that! They got all dressed up in their work pants, work shirts, boots, and robes before donning their spurs so Wampus knew they meant business. They rode their horse up to the school and up the stairs, and then down more stairs before taking an upside down left at the M.C. Escher stairs and riding backwards down the next hall to meet the toll collectors Wampus had stationed.

The leader of the little band of rangers dismounted and strolled over to the students playing troll and demanded they reopen the passage to all the students. Wampus refused. The duly elected leader of the rangers punched the kid who denied him in the mouth before hexing the other. If the passage couldn't be used by everyone it couldn't be used by anyone.

And if Wampus couldn't use it that was even more better for everyone. Working together the students from Armadillo house enchanted the passageway. From that day on no Wampus students could use the passageway under pain of atomic wedgies. Literally. They would be removed from the passageway, by wedgie, and it would register similar sieverts to a dental x-ray.

~~ Armadillo House Lit a Goblet on Fire ~~

The Trans-Atlantic Tournament. A favorite among the faculty and students alike. It was the greatest of all international wizarding school tournaments. Unlike the old and busted Triwizard Tournament, the Trans-Atlantic Tournament included Ilvermorny and allowed for teams from all houses in all schools to be fielded.

The entire student bodies of Durmstrang, Hogwarts, and Beauxbatons arrived at Ilvermorny at the beginning of the school year. The usual traveling affair was where they stayed; a horse drawn carriage, a ship, and a police call box. That night all of the student bodies gathered in the Ilvermorny great hall to hear the announcement of the tournament. There would be four challenges that each team would need to complete. At each step a team could be eliminated. The tests could be deadly and entering a team was not to be taken lightly.

Armadillo House debated for seven days and nights before they had their team assembled. Two witches and two wizards were selected. The men were the ones with the shiniest boots and women had the most volume in their hair on the day of record. No other system could be more fair.

On the day of the first challenge the team assembled at the Quodpot pitch to find several giant sets of chess. The headmaster, Wumblebort announced that the first challenge was to win at a game of mega chess. It was like chess, but with larger pieces and player movement affected the outcome. Armadillo House was worried. They had been too busy playing Footquid to learn to play mega chess. The team leader had a plan. They took their places and played.

Not knowing how to play chess, the team summoned a boom box and hit the turbo bass. Copperhead Road blast across the pitch and the team danced. They danced their hearts out, giving their heart and soul to the music and the power of line dance! The stands shook as the test of Armadillo House joined in. Some feared for the structural integrity of the stands and fled. That gave more room for the Armadillos to spread out. The Slytherin team was too distracted by the display to really pay attention to the game.

In the end the king of Slytherin fell and all of Armadillo House erupted in whoops and yahoos! Hats were waved high above heads. Armi got loose from the cabin.

The next challenge was one the European schools felt they had in the bag. It was Quidditch. Single game, single elimination just as the last challenge was. The four members of the team would just need to quickly fill out a roster. Armadillo House was pitted against their rivals. The Thunderbirds from California. The Team was the worst of the worst. Top knots, flying brooms for Uber, avocado toast! Armadillo House couldn’t stand them. The best thing about Armadillo House was that it kept them all away from them as they invaded the other four houses. One wizard, in an abundance of caution, had even cast a protective dome over Armadillo House to keep the Californians out.

The Thunderbird-Armadillo match was the last match of the challenge on purpose. Wumblebort suspected shenanigans and didn’t want the Quidditch pitch destroyed with any matches left to play. To their credits, both teams played a fair game. Great sportsmanship, excellent use of bludgers, and spectacular banter thanks to the anti trash talk enchantment. Though, Armadillo House tried to give tax incentives to the bludgers to make them only go after the Thunderbird team.

Everyone expected Armadillo House to lose when the Thunderbird seeker was within a few yards of the golden snitch and the Armadillo House seeker was nowhere to be seen. But then… A shot rang out. Everyone went silent. The snitch, which was so close to Thunderbird seeker she could taste it, was not in the air anymore.

The crowd murmured to themselves for a few moments before it was announced, “Armadillo house has caught the snitch!”

In the center of the pitch stood the Armadillo House seeker, he was holding the golden snitch in his hand. It was pocked with little dents from the birdshot from the over-under shotgun that rested broken over the seekers shoulder. A doberman sat beside him, happy to have done his job as a retrieval dog. The seeker gave him his due pets. When interviewed about, “How could you do that!?” the student responded with, “Good squeeze after a slow exhale.”

The European schools were outraged. Wumblebort had to take flak from all the other headmasters. The head of Armadillo House was called in. When asked how he could let this happen, the Armadillo House head of house just shrugged and said, “Welcome t’ America.” Everyone was stunned, except Wumblebort who buried his head in his hands.

With most of the teams eliminated, the challenges became dangerous. From that point on you were eliminated if a team member died or gave up.

The third challenge was to retrieve an egg from a dragon. Armadillo House showed up on horseback. In the dragon pit they rode, changing directions quickly to distract the dragon. When she had moved herself off her egg, thinking she would have an Armadillo snack, one of them darted in and lassoed the egg. The crowd was stunned. Armadillo House had succeeded without using any magic. Except maybe some illusion charm to hide their massive testicles.

That night, in their cabin, Armadillo House celebrated. There were fireworks, gunfire, bonfires, and firewater. If it had fire in the name it was there. There were many noise complaints, but Armadillo House simply doe-dee-doed whoever came to tell them to turn down their music and madness.

During the party a group of students from Beauxbatons came over to demand they do something with their Armadillo suit wearing coyote. Or at least that’s what they later claimed to have said. Their accents made it hard for the girl who answered the door to understand them. She invited them in instead. And so it was that Armadillo House partied with students from the Second Flag of Texas and only a few comments of them being surrender monkeys were made.

The next challenge was the most dangerous yet. The few remaining teams were assembled at midnight in February. The snow covered the grounds and as usual, Armadillo House had been clamoring for the closing of the school. Any snow was too much snow for school to be had they said. They also claimed to have run out of salt deicing their horses. This was followed by debate about whether brooms were a viable alternative to horses and if brooms are so great why are carriages still pulled by winged horses?

With a great effort, Wumblebort silenced the debates so he could explain the challenge. Each team would take hold of a portkey which would take them to their challenge room. Once their they would have to solve a series of puzzles in an attempt to escape the room.

Wumblebort was not amused when someone shouted, “So it’s an escape room!”

“It is not an escape room. Now please quiet down while I finish and hand out the port keys” Wumblebort said.

When he brought out the box of portkeys it was clearly very heavy, one of the Armadillo House students asked, “Bro, do y’ even leviosa?”

Much to their pleasure, Armadillo House’s portkey was a well worn boot. They did have a moment of silence for the boots mate when they learned that Lefty was lost to a blast-ended skrewt. Wumblebort hurried them along and within moments the team was away.

The room seemed like a run of the mill empty stone chamber with lit braziers and stone tables on them. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. The team split up and each looked at a table. Each table had some puzzle on it. So they set to work, each attempting their own puzzles.

As the puzzles were worked, there were odd noises and the ceiling seemed to be getting closer. Then the first of them solved their puzzle. The ceiling moved faster. A second student solved a puzzle. The ceiling moved faster. The third student solved a puzzle. The ceiling moved faster. The fourth student pulled out his wand and blew up the table.

The ceiling stopped.

Because the puzzle was not solved, the exit did not open. The team worked together and through a combination of teamwork making the dream work, elbow grease, and firing for effect they were able to mix spells with gunpowder and lead to break down the wall thus creating an exit. In a world first, a 9mm was enlarged to a 90mm and fired at the wall. When asked later why they didn’t do that to stop the ceiling, one of the students claimed, “9 mil ain’t got any stoppin’ power.”

As Armadillo House escaped the room they technically beat the challenge. The Durmstrang team loudly opposed this decision but eventually were pacified when Armadillo House refitted their ship with all new cannon. The next week saw constant fire from their ship at the school. Wumblebort, rightfully upset by this, went down to Armadillo House to demand they take the cannons back.

“Have they damaged the school?” One boy asked

“No, but they are firing them endlessly. The noise is disrupting classes.” Wumblebort said.

“They have a God given right t’ fire those cannons.”

“They’re. Disrupting. Classes.”

“This sounds like a you problem, friend.”

“There will be 10 points from Armadillo for every time they fire the cannon.”

“Good, we like t’ play Ilvermorny golf. Lowest score wins.”

Wumblebort was given a complimentary hat and he went back up to the school.

The final challenge was the scholastic relay. One team member had to make a potion, another had to fight a dark creature, one had to complete an obstacle course, and one had to collect the ingredients. Not in that order.

When the starter pistol fired the teams all ran. The first member had to go through the greenhouses and the animal pens, braving all the perils therein to collect the necessary ingredients for the potions. Armadillo House, to save time, rode through the greenhouses on horseback.

The potion was a Scentless Serum. It was a very difficult potion to make. It did not take long to make but you must make it perfectly. When the Armadillo House student realized he had messed it up he improvised. He added gunpowder, leather, and the tooth of the Gryffindor next to him that he punched out. The potion was passed to the next student who entered a room with a deadly creature. The Scentless Serum would have allowed her to slip past the chupacabra unnoticed. Instead she had to fight it because instead of making her scentless the potion imbued in her the spirit of the coyote!

She yipped and growled and when the chupacabra charged at her she ducked, dodged, and weaved before taking off a boot and beating it with her spurs. The chupacabra unconscious, she walked to the other side of the room and tagged in the final member of the team.

The final leg of the course was run by a student in his final year. He had the biggest hat, the shiniest boots, the most badges, the meanest look, and only he could prevent forest fires! The student ran into the course. He had to use charms and transfiguration to change the flow of water, move companion cubes, and navigate a maze. At one point he was stuck and decided to just climb up onto the top of the walls so he could see the whole maze. He charmed himself with a bunnyfoot charm and hopped from wall to wall to reach the end. Final prize in sight, he jumped for it… and landed on the Durmstang student who was about to win.

The student recovered and grabbed the goblet that was the portkey that would take him to the winner’s circle. When he arrived he raised his arms in victory!

Later that night at the cabin the goblet was knocked off the table it was set on and fell in the fireplace. They pulled it out but it was too late. They had lit the goblet on fire. They quickly put it out and decided the burns made it look more rustic.