For centuries, along the wall
we occupy the entrance hall
like crystal glass and silver towers.
What we measure is not hours,
time elapsed, nor minutes flown.
Our makers gone, their names unknown,
their craft endures, though they be dead.
Our sands are jewels, ruby red,
and emerald green, and sapphire blue,
and topaz yellow, each a hue
to sign a House, to tell its deeds,
a measure of how it succeeds
or fails in daily duties faced
with points awarded, points erased.
A jewel that lightly falls below
records a win, confounds a foe.
With sloth, misdeeds, there is a cost:
the jewels will rise and points are lost.
Your sense of pride and honor asks
you to excel, so in the tasks
of childhood is engagement made,
school lessons learned, rules disobeyed.

By daily contest you oppose
your fellow students, not real foes,
in imitation of the strife
that you will meet in larger life.
Now fierce-competing, unallied,
but in the end, on the same side,
like wolf pups tussling round their den
with tiny, nipping teeth, and then,
exhausted, in a furry heap
they snuggle close and fall asleep.

Each year it all begins again,
the count reset to zero then,
a new chance, hard upon the old,
to see what gains the year will hold.

If your House won, you cannot crow.
Your victory lies behind you now.
The cup rests in the trophy room;
none visit, no eyes pierce the gloom.
A moment celebrates your win,
then back into the fray again,
to prove anew your House's worth.
No glory lasts upon the earth.

If your House faltered, do not mind,
for were you ne'er so far behind,
you have another chance to grow.
Learn from the past, then let it go.
To win involves a certain stroke
of fortune. For some lucky folk
the stars align, the new day brings
rewards for efforts made, and things
that could go either way, go well.
Hope for that outcome. Time will tell.

Recall a time there was before,
when red jewels spilled across the floor
like blood, when glass in fragments lay
on paving stones. Alas the day!
Remember, too, subsequent acts
of valiant hearts. We artifacts
were broken once, and then restored,
were shattered, but a single word,
Reparo, and our shards aligned
precise and seamless, well-defined
to serve the Hogwarts students still,
indestructible, hard to kill.

A goal for many, goad for some,
and as you grow, the day will come
when jewels are no more needed to
inspire you to follow through,
when Good and Right and Virtue take
precedence for their own sake.
You leave your hourglass behind
and venture forth, a world to find.