With the capture of Verandi Farley and several high-ranking Trossach members, the British wizarding world has finally caught a break. The rate of rogue werewolf attacks have started dropping at a steady rate and, hopefully, things will stay that way. The Ministry is starting to loosen some restrictions, like not arresting werewolves standing on the street for loitering, however there’s still an obvious power imbalance between wizardfolk and werewolves.
The Cotswolds pack are continuing to advocate for the rights of werewolves and petitioning to change the legislation that has been set in motion by the current Minister for Magic, whilst the remaining Trossachs members are trying to stay out of the spotlight and keep a low profile… for now.
Whilst the British wizarding world seems to have calmed down, the same cannot be said for over in Northern Europe where a rebellion of magical creatures has risen. The state of things has gotten so bad that the European Ministry has enacted protocols to protect those under eighteen whilst their adult witches and wizards fight to keep control of their countries.
Students from Durmstrang have been sent to Hogwarts to keep them safe and those not old enough to attend school have been sent to live with relatives or designated British Ministry officials outside of Europe for the time being.
Will the low rates of werewolf attacks in Britain continue? How long will Durmstrang students stay at Hogwarts? Will the creatures usurp the wizardfolk in Northern Europe? Only time will tell.
SEPTEMBER 2019 It's been a very long, eventful summer in the wizarding world. A baby was stolen, several high ranking Trossach members were imprisoned, and werewolf attacks have drastically dropped as a result. What will happen now school has returned?
MAY 2019 An attempt to capture the beta of the Trossachs has been launched. Were the Aurors successful in their mission? Go read more here!
all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Nov 28, 2019 16:17:56 GMT
Isobel had taken the time to get the empty classroom to herself so she could set everything up. Not that it was too difficult--it wasn't as if she was going to sew the whole thing today--but she'd ordered several different fabrics that had arrived in a big thump of a package at breakfast, and she wanted to test them all out against Wolfgang's coloring so she could pick the best one. (The rest, she'd find a use for, perhaps for herself.) So those were laid out on desks, as was some tissue paper that she could use to trace the pattern, a couple of books she was using to learn more about menswear, and of course, the all-important measuring tape.
All that was missing was Wolfgang.
She knew that the notes they had sent to each other were flirty enough that perhaps he was expecting something else to come of this date, but she was determined to finish this first. She'd been genuinely shocked that someone who loved to party as much as Wolfgang didn't want such a thing for his birthday--and for his seventeenth! The one that would make him a real adult in their world! It just wouldn't do, not when she could at least make him something. And so she'd been spending the last week in the library, looking up information on how to design a proper men's blazer. Although there wasn't too much in the Hogwarts library about it--wasn't like this was a design school, after all--she felt like she had enough to start with now. She poked her head out into the hallway, tapping her fingers against the doorframe as she waited for her boyfriend to appear.
The sounds of Wolfgang's monk strap shoe heels hitting against the stone floor were short and snappy -- not unlike the short signals of the Morse code. There was a spring in his step as he made his way down the 4th floor corridor for what seemed like the millionth time in his life. There was one unused classroom there that students seemed to flock to like moths.
Today it once again had become his destination. What he expected to see there? Isobel, in all her beauty, and whatever she had decided she needed a measuring tape for. Wolfgang couldn't deny that the thought of a certain part of his body being measured was one of the things that put him in such a good mood.
He was dressed in black dress pants, the collar of a white shirt was poking from under his black sweater, but that wasn't the important part in his attire for today. He'd let his hair grow out, leaving it in its natural state of a mess of curls. The young man wondered, what his girlfriend would say of the change. If she thought it was bad, his trusty tray of hair gel was nestled safely in the pocket of his pants, ready to save the day.
"Greetings, my Isobel," he said as a familiar face showed up behind the door. A few steps later his hand was already holding hers, his lips pressed against the back of it. Another few steps later the door was shut behind them, one hand on the back of her neck, the other on her hip, as Wolfgang kissed all over her jawline. Only after a few moments did he notice the fabrics strewn over the table.
"What's all this, then?" he asked, sliding his hands down her sides, still keeping her close, as his eyes wandered around the room.
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Nov 29, 2019 4:29:08 GMT
As the door shut behind them, Isobel smiled against Wolfgang's lips, giving him a sweet kiss back, but she put her hands on his arms and pulled back before long. "I appreciate the greeting, but we've got work to do before we can get to the fun part," she said, taking him by the hand and leading him over to where she had set up her materials on the desks. "I wish this could've been a surprise, but since I haven't made anything for you before, I need to measure you and test things out first." She gestured to the fabrics and other materials. "So that's what this is for. The finished thing will be a surprise, but I needed you here for this."
She reached out for the measuring tape, unrolling it and picking up her wand from the table next to it. "Stand up straight," she instructed, and with a quick spell, she stuck the bottom of the tape to the floor and pulled it up, pressing the other end against Wolfgang's back. "As I suspected, you're more than five feet tall," she said, amused. "Looks like--" she added, putting her wand at the top of the tape, "just a little more than my wand, so 5'10", yes?" Nine and a half inches, hornbeam, dragon heartstring. Isobel had never been quite sure why she'd been given such an aggressive wand, but it had always seemed to work well for her.
"And then I need your neck, shoulders, chest, waist, hips, back length, back width, arm length, bicep, and wrist," she said, writing down his height and looking down the rest of her checklist. "So don't worry, I'll be touching you plenty still."
His smile faltered as Isobel drew away from him and the heat of her hands on his was just a faint afterthought, but he didn't complain, rather turning around and listening to her words.
When she said that she intended to make something for him, Wolfgang felt uneasy. It was visible in his face -- a frown was tugging at his lips, and his words came out with a weary sigh.
"Isobel, you don't have to do this. It really isn't that big of a deal," he mumbled, his cheeks turning red. Nobody had gifted him anything in several years and the lack of interest his family had shown in him for the last decade had made his mind categorize birthdays as 'not worth the effort'.
All of the fabric laid out on the table did look rather luxurious, though, and a little part of him did want to see what she would make, so he stood still while she worked her way around him. Still, her quips about his height didn't elicit a smile out of him. It took him a few minutes, but he pinned down the emotion he was feeling.
He felt undeserving.
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Nov 30, 2019 16:58:58 GMT
When Wolfgang didn't answer to her teasing, Isobel could tell immediately that something was wrong. That wasn't like him. Wolfgang was always lively and flirtatious; it was just how he was--except, of course, that time after the Winter Ball when he'd been so down on himself. Then, and right now. His brown eyes were fixed on the floor, his face red--this was nothing like the Wolfgang she'd expected to turn up today.
"Hey, talk to me," she said, writing down the measurement of his shoulders but not picking the tape back up from the table. "I really want to make you something, but if you don't like it, or if--" She was nervous to say the next words. He had always said he was supportive of her dreams, had complimented many of the pieces she'd made for herself, but someone as fashionable as him--maybe he didn't want clothes that were handmade by a seventeen-year-old.
But making something, creating something with her own mind and her own hands, it felt like the best sort of present in the world to her. Like she was giving a little piece of herself and her dedication. And perhaps that was the whole problem. Maybe she was coming on too strong. Which was funny, really, considering how much she swore before Wolfgang that she hated the idea of boxing herself into a relationship...
"If you don't want me to do it, I won't--but I just want you to have something nice. It's an important birthday, and you're important to me." She bit her lip, hoping Wolfgang would have an answer and not just that awful silence he'd been doing back in December.
His eyes tried to stray away from Isobel's gaze, looking anywhere else than her face, as he avoided facing the disappointment he could hear in her voice.
'You're important to me.' One would think it would be absolutely delightful to hear that from the person that sends your heart doing somersaults and releases butterflies into your rib cage. You'd think that it would make Wolfgang feel elated and happy, and like he could just sweep his girlfriend off her feet and give her a kiss as sweet as honey.
But instead it just felt like a punch to the stomach. Ever since their vow of honesty, Wolfgang had been fighting with himself. How could he claim to be honest if he hid the worst thing he had in done his life? But then again, how do you drop 'Hey, so I kind of had my father killed by werewolves' into a casual conversation and not be locked up in Azkaban several hours later?
He slid a hand through his curly hair, looking out the window, past Isobel and finally spoke up.
"It's just that... It really, really isn't that big of a deal, Isobel. I don't care for my birthday, 17, or not. It's just another day of me getting older. It's enough to just..." he hesitated, "To just have you around. I don't think I'm worth all the effort that you put into your pieces, I mean, just... Just look at this fabric!"
He walked over to the table, sliding his hands over one of the blue fabrics, "This one looks just like the one your dress was made out of! Why don't you make yourself a new one, instead of spending that time on me?"
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Dec 1, 2019 4:37:39 GMT
Something was clearly very wrong, and Isobel wasn't sure she believed Wolfgang that it was just about his birthday. Sure, she didn't quite understand why he had such reservations about getting older. For her, turning seventeen had been the thing she'd looked forward to her whole life, the moment when the wizarding world would consider her an adult, able to choose her own destiny. She couldn't imagine that Wolfgang--who, she gathered, didn't have the best life at home, even she didn't know all the details--wouldn't want to celebrate the same thing.
If he didn't want it to be about his birthday in particular, though, she supposed she could live with that. But she wasn't going to not make him something. She wanted him to have something she'd made with her own hands.
"But you are worth it," she murmured, walking over to stand next to her boyfriend over the desk full of fabric. His hair was longer than usual, dark curls unburdened by gel that nearly fell into his eyes as he kept his head tilted down. She didn't think she'd seen it like that before--it looked soft, but she wanted to get the hard conversation over with before she started petting his head. "Do you think I'd have gone to all the trouble if you weren't?"
Brushing her hand against the same piece of fabric as Wolfgang had been touching, she let the texture of it slide through her fingers. It wasn't the same kind of fabric she had used for her dress at all--a similar color, yes, but this fabric was much heavier than that other blue had been. Not that she expected Wolfgang to know that--but she'd gotten these for him. Making another dress was secondary. "Whatever I don't use for you, I'll use for myself," she said. "I just wanted to make sure I got the perfect one for you--that's why I ordered so many. I know, maybe that was ridiculous." But it was all for you. She could tell she was blushing. "Can I keep measuring, or do you have another concern?"
His fingertips glided over the dark blue fabric. It was impeccably smooth -- not even once did any strains of fiber catch against the irregularities of his skin. It must have cost Isobel a fortune, he thought. Then again, from what he knew about her family, they'd barely even notice a dent in their wallets, which was a polar opposite of Wolfgang's situation.
Over the past two years he'd tried to craft an image of himself that suggested endless pocketfuls of money and shopping trips to Paris and Milan every fortnight during the summer. The truth was much more different. All the white shirts, all the blazers and the dress pants, they were the prizes of his hunt through muggle thrift shops. The only things he'd bought new were his dress shoes and the blue suit that had been soaked with his blood and everything else that had spilled on him at the Winter Ball.
This consciousness about the cost of things was one of the reasons why he didn't feel comfortable with Isobel spending all this money, time and effort on him. But if anyone were to find this out? He feared it would be the end of any prestige he had accumulated in the last year.
And then there were Isobel's words. He was worth it. The Wolfgang she knew, he'd just turn around and dazzle her with a crooked smile, pushing his chest out and being 'Of course I do.'
But this honest Wolfgang that they had decided to bring into existence? He didn't take his eyes off the blue fabric as he reached out and found Isobel's waist, wrapping his arm around and gently pulling her closer. He turned his head and placed a kiss on top of her head, and murmured a 'thank you' before letting her go and giving her the measuring tape.
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Dec 1, 2019 17:48:43 GMT
Wolfgang was just not himself, and this time, Isobel didn't know why. In December--yes, she'd known; she'd been there at the ball, had given him those scars that were covered up by the beard now. She had to admit that she liked the beard, but this was not the time for that. Now, she had to guess what the problem was. It must have something to do with his birthday, she figured, and something about not feeling worthy, which was absolutely ridiculous in her opinion, but it was there. She was a Slytherin, she was clever, she was sure she could figure this out.
He was ever so gentle as he wrapped an arm around her and kissed her head, and while half of her felt warm and fuzzy at the soft touch, the other half knew that wasn't how her boyfriend normally was, and that chilled her. The measuring tape was placed into her hand, and she squeezed Wolfgang back before stepping away, facing him and placing her hands on his shoulders. "You stand up straight, alright?" she said, trying to make her voice bright, and slipped her hands under his arms, wrapping the tape around his chest.
The silence and the sadness were still bothering her, though, and she felt like her tongue was still stuck on the question that had come to her mind earlier. She didn't want to hear the answer if it was bad, and yet she had to know: was he just trying to get out of having her make the blazer? Since he'd looked fine when he came in the room, and only gotten in his dark mood when she'd started measuring...
"Wolfgang," she started, taking her turn to look down at the floor, "be honest with me, do you--not want to wear something like this? I'm sure you're used to, well, real designers and stuff." And I'm only seventeen. Haven't done anything important yet.
After returning a short hug, Isobel continued her work in relative silence, except for a few remarks that sounded forcefully joyful. But it didn't take long for the feigned happiness to dissolve like a piece of tissue soaked in water.
There he was, standing with his arms raised up, watching Isobel step away from him with her head hanging down. And her words? Those sent chills down his spine and made his heart beat faster. Even a few words could make him sweat, especially now.
Because Isobel had the impression that Wolfgang didn't want to wear something that didn't have a fancy label on it; that he thought that her work had no value at this point in life. Designing was her thing, and you didn't need to be a genius to know that she must be feeling awful right about now.
"Isobel," he sighed, stepping forward and taking both of her hands in his, trying to gather the courage to admit the truth. She was the one who was filthy rich, and he... He was a pauper next to her.
"Isobel," he said again, his voice becoming a little shaky as a lump formed in his throat, "First of all, you are a real designer. Second of all, well..." he turned his head, not wanting to see whatever reaction she'd have -- disgust, pity or whatever else -- "I can't even afford to look at designer clothes. Everything I own, besides these shoes and the blue suit I had for Christmas, it's muggle thrift shop clothes. Any one of these fabric pieces alone costs more than my entire closet."
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Dec 1, 2019 19:03:43 GMT
Wait... what? Whatever answer Isobel had been expecting, it wasn't that. She'd been ready to hear a yes or a no, not a it's too expensive, I can't afford it. How had she, in all the time she had known Wolfgang, never known that? Sure, he wasn't from one of those long-established pureblood families whose money came from who knew where at this point. She'd always known that. It was no problem to her; she liked him for himself, not whatever family he might have (and, she had to admit, she had never met any of his relatives, so it really was only him). But he acted like he had everything, all the time, with the suave confidence she had admired from the start.
Was this what had been troubling him all this time? It must be. She had to do something, say something, to remind him that, as much as she loved clothes and wanted to dedicate her life to them, the clothes were just a decoration for the man. That he was still Wolfgang no matter what.
"It doesn't matter what you pay for them, really," she said, placing a soft hand on her boyfriend's shoulder. "Design is art, and if you think about it, art is the same no matter what it costs. It's what it looks like that matters to whether anyone likes it. And you--you make it look good. You always do."
She picked up the piece of fabric they had both been touching, placing it over Wolfgang's shoulder. "And I don't think this did cost as much as your whole wardrobe. No matter if all of it was from thrift shops. I buy nice fabric, but it's not some sort of rare magical type, or whatever you were thinking. Just fabric. If that helps at all." The blue really did look perfect against his skin, she thought. It was such a good color for both of them, even when his skin was warmer-colored and hers was cooler. "And it will look so good on you, see? Just like the blue suit did. I want you to have it."
He'd braced himself for impact, for some kind of remark about his status that would leave a bitter taste in his mouth, or a forced laugh and some kind of hint that it was due time he got the hell away from Isobel, that he wasn't worthy to even look at her anymore. He expected her words to be smooth as silk and yet doused with chloroform, to make him die a little on the inside.
But instead Isobel's words were like a soft woolen bandage tied over his wounded ego. Her hand had found its way to his shoulder, its weight grounding him before Wolfgang could freak himself once again. He listened to her words, eyes still averted until she draped the blue fabric over his shoulder.
Wolfgang's brown eyes skimmed over the fabric first, then over Isobel's fingers which were already skipping around the edges of the fabric, evening it out and arranging it over the shape of his shoulder, and then over to her face. She looked so focused that he barely even dared to breathe.
"Thank you." That was all he could respond to her at this moment. It would take some time for it to click that she didn't care if she wasn't loaded, but for now he decided to not dwell on it. She liked him, still, and that was a victory in his book.
After a few moments he spoke up again, his voice much lighter now.
"So, Isobel, what do you think of my hair?"
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all i really want is to be wonderful/people in this town, they can be so cruel
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Post by ISOBEL LINWOOD on Dec 4, 2019 4:23:33 GMT
Thank you. Isobel didn't think it was necessary to thank her, but she wasn't going to press Wolfgang on it. Merlin knew that she hated being pressured when she was in some situation she found uncomfortable--that was something she could relate to, all too well. So she let the moment slide past without fanfare, taking the fabric off of Wolfgang's shoulder and setting it aside. "I think," she said, her voice just as soft as his had been, "we'll go with that one. No need to test the others if that one works so well."
She had noticed the hair, of course she had, and the little touch of sparkle in his eyes as he mentioned it told her that perhaps she had said the right things after all. "I did. You should know I would always take notice of how you look. Did you know," she said, reaching a hand up to ruffle through the brown curls, "mine is curly too? Or at least it would be, but I've been using potions since--really, since I was eleven or so." Isobel had never liked the curls. They were hard to take care of--her mother had straighter hair and had always tried to brush them when she was little, and when she knew she was going to Hogwarts she had begged to get something done to them.
But Wolfgang's curls, they were nice, soft underneath her hands, and she was careful not to make them frizzy as she petted his head gently. "I do love the gel look, but this is much nicer to touch."
