The Wardrobe

Where to Find It

The Wardrobe lives inside the Prefect's Lounge, under "Use Points", alongside the other places that exist primarily to relieve you of Donator Points. Look for "The Wardrobe".

How Dressing Works

Your avatar is a body you configure and a small number of accessories you add to it. The body comes as one cohesive piece; the accessories layer on, back to front, the way a sensible person dresses and an unsupervised one does not.

Part	What goes there	Drawn
Body	The figure itself, chosen as two decisions taken together: your form (witch, wizard, or wix) and your robes (charcoal or sapphire to start; humble homespun, plain linen, or a traveling cloak earned with gold; the four House robes (black with your House's trim, or, the school having no rule against it, anyone else's), priced in gold below even the homespun, on the theory that House pride should be the cheapest thing in the shop; scarlet or emerald in gems; gilded for those who insist on being noticed). Skin and eye color are set separately, as colors.	the foundation
Hair	A range of styles in any color on the chart, offered to suit your form: witches see the longer cuts (long-and-waved, loose, twin-tailed, shoulder-length, a tail); wizards see the shorter ones (a short crop, a side part, an undercut, plus the unisex cuts); the wix, declining to choose, are shown the lot. Going bald is also, perfectly legitimately, a look.	over the head
Hat	A pointed one, or one that is suspiciously old, but only over hair that actually shows beneath a brim (long-and-waved, loose, twin-tailed, shoulder-length, a tail, the wizard's two longer cuts, or a tousled "I just got off a broomstick" look). The hat is drawn to match your hair's own color, so putting one on never changes how your hair looks underneath. Shorter cuts and bald heads, having nothing for a hat to sit on convincingly, decline the option entirely; the clerk will say as much and point you toward a style that takes one.	over the hair
Familiar	An owl, a cat, or a toad: a small creature that stands faithfully behind you and takes no part in events.	behind everything
Wand	Held at your side, doing nothing in particular but doing it confidently.	in front

A handful of pieces (your body in plain charcoal or sapphire robes, a starter hairstyle, a plain wand, and every natural color) are free, and yours from the start. Everything else is earned or bought (see below).

Building Your Look

Your gender (witch, wizard, or wix) is the body you choose. Everything else about your appearance below is a matter of color, set separately, changed as often as your conscience allows, for nothing:

• Skin tone: porcelain through ebony, a full range, applied to whichever body you chose. Gender and skin tone are entirely separate decisions; the clerk is keen that this be understood.
• Hair color: pick a style and a color independently. The naturals (black, brown, auburn, blonde, red, silver, white) are free for everyone; the frankly unnatural shades (pink, green, blue, purple, teal) are a small Donator-Point indulgence, unlocked once and yours thereafter. Changing the style keeps the color; changing the color keeps the style.
• Eye color: the plausible ones (brown, blue, green, hazel, gray, amber) are free; the theatrical ones (violet, red, pink, gold) unlock for a few Donator Points, the castle reasoning that drama should cost something.

A natural color is applied the instant you pick it, on you, for nothing. The unusual ones unlock once and are then yours to wear, take off, and wear again forever: you pay to own the shade, never to apply it.

Buying Things

Cosmetic pieces are bought outright at fixed prices printed on small cards. No wheel, no raffle, no "maybe." What you pay with depends on the piece:

• Gold buys the plain and everyday: simpler hairstyles, an honest pointed hat, a rack of deliberately humble robes (homespun, plain linen, a worn traveling cloak), and the four House robes, which cost less than any of them. The school considers loyalty a virtue and prices it accordingly. Bought with the gold you already trip over, so that playing the game is itself a way to dress better.
• Gems buy a step up: the colored robes. Gems are scarcer than gold and therefore more flattering to be seen owning.
• Donator Points buy the finest and the fancifully unusual: gilded robes, the older sort of hat, familiars, premium wands, and the theatrical eye and hair colors.

A purchased piece is permanently yours, account-bound, and cannot be sold, traded, or talked back out of you. Once owned, it may be worn, taken off, and worn again as often as you like, at no further cost. The clerk does not charge for indecision. (Gifts, being a kindness sent to another witch or wizard, are the one thing settled in Donator Points alone.)

Your Look, Everywhere

Whatever you assemble is rendered into a single portrait and shown on your public profile and your in-game file, for anyone who visits. The fitting-room mirror updates instantly as you try things on: hover or tab onto a piece and it appears on you before you have committed to anything.

The fitting room and your profile's edit page are, in fact, the same place: clicking "The Wardrobe" in the Prefect's Lounge sends you straight to the "Dress Up Your Avatar" panel there, and you may return to it any time by editing your profile directly. Everything you already own is laid out as a row of choices: click a robe, a hat, a hair color, and the portrait re-draws on the spot. Pieces you don't yet own are not hidden either; pick one and a card pops up offering to sell it to you, on the spot, for the same fixed price you'd pay anywhere. The clerk has simply stopped making you walk back to ask.

For the benefit of owls, screen readers, search engines, and the truly ancient browser, your look also exists as a plain stack of images and, failing even that, as a tidy written description of exactly what you are wearing. The mirror is a courtesy; the record is the point.

The fitting room also carries a small chip, "Who can see this on your profile", for those who'd rather admire the mirror alone: Everyone (the default), Friends Only (where the Friend List is in service), or Just Me. It changes nothing about the fitting room itself (you keep dressing, undressing, and recoloring exactly as before), only who else's file it turns up on.

One class of piece behaves differently on the racks: the rotation-only robes, which are sold for one week at a time and are simply not for sale on any other. Try to buy one out of season, whether from the fitting room or as a gift, and the clerk declines with the observation that the piece only leaves the shop during its own week. This is not a queue, a lottery, or a sale you have missed; the week comes back around. Which family is currently up is posted at Madam Malkin's Boutique, along with the words "next rotation: Monday," so nobody has to guess. Once bought, a rotation piece is yours permanently and behaves like anything else in your wardrobe, in season or out.

Gifts

You may also buy a piece for someone else. Visit another witch or wizard's profile and choose "Gift an Avatar Item", or, if you don't have their profile handy, use "Send a Gift" in the Prefect's Lounge (also posted at Madam Malkin's Boutique in Diagon Alley) and search for them by name; a partial name works, and any student may receive one, no friend list required. Either route lands you at the same fitting-room rack, except that an owl carries the purchase to them instead of to you. The Donator Points come out of your account; the item goes into theirs.

Before you send, you may dress the gift up: pick a wrap (plain brown paper, free; a wax-sealed parchment or your House's colors, both a few Donator Points) and, if you like, tuck in a short note (140 characters, read on arrival). A paid wrap is charged in Donator Points on top of the item, even when the item itself is free: the clerk's wax does not come free of the item's own price tag.

The gift is not instantaneous. The owl is dispatched at once but, in the manner of owls, arrives on the recipient's next login, where it is deposited directly into their wardrobe, unwrapped according to whatever paper you chose, with your note (if you left one) read aloud in the delivery notice. From that moment it is theirs to keep: permanently, account-bound, and as un-returnable as anything else the clerk sells.

A few conditions, posted on a small card by the owl perch: you cannot gift to yourself (the clerk will simply point at the price); you cannot gift a piece the recipient already owns (a duplicate owl is humiliating for all parties); and paid charges, whether for the item, the wrap, or both, are settled in purchased Donator Points, the kind you paid for, not points earned in play, which decline to leave your account.

A handful of small, common pieces (a friendly toad, a holly wand, a sensible haircut) send for free, no Donator Points at all, on the theory that a little kindness should not be paywalled. You may send only so many free gifts a day before the owls, citing exhaustion, decline further errands; the allowance resets at dawn, and a paid wrap on a free gift still counts against it the same as any other.

Best Dressed

Once a day, three students who have bothered to dress at all are put on display in the Hogwarts common area: a small card, their portraits, their names, linking straight through to their public file. The selection is not a vote, a contest, or a judgment of taste (the castle has opinions, but keeps them to itself); it simply rotates through everyone who has customized a look, kept their dorm's Visitors setting on Open, and been seen in the last fortnight. Flip that toggle to Private on your own profile and you are quietly excluded from consideration, which the clerk regards as a perfectly reasonable way to live.

Notes

• The body slot cannot be emptied. Everything else can be taken off.
• You may own more than you wear; the unworn pieces wait in your wardrobe.
• If you have never dressed up, your file shows your ordinary avatar, as before. Nothing is taken from you.