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!
That had been all in the note Lars had slipped Mia-Rose during class several days ago. For months they had been hatching a plan to sneak into the Restricted Section of the library to find out what secrets it held. Lars was more concerned with finding books on the Dark Arts, perhaps even the ones listed in his sister's graduation year notes, though he had a feeling these Brits were too cowardly to even have something of the sort in the castle. He didn't know what Mia-Rose wished to find there but it didn't matter to the boy. All he knew was that she could be trusted and that she wouldn't chicken out.
He was hiding behind a statue by the entry to the library, dressed all in black, a scarf tied around the hood of his jacket to obscure his face -- lest someone tried to catch a glimpse of their faces when chasing after the two 5th years. He was twirling his wand in his fingers as he waited for his partner in crime to arrive.
Once he heard steps in the distance, his whole body tensed up and he tried to hide behind the statue until the flickering lights of torches would ensure him the approaching was someone who he could trust. He held his wand at the ready -- if it would be another student or even a prefect, he wouldn't hesitate to petrify them. No one was going to ruin this for him.
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Dec 9, 2019 0:23:17 GMT
Sneaking around the castle was nothing new to Mia-Rose. Over the years she had mastered the secrets of quiet steps and how to whisper alohomora with barely a sound. So when the idea of sneaking into the Restricted Section was floated to her, her next question was how? As a naturally curious soul, one who the Sorting Hat had told her would fit into Ravenclaw or Gryffindor nearly as easily as the Slytherin it had chosen, the knowledge contained behind the red rope seemed important to learn.
Besides, there was another piece of motivation for her, the idea that maybe she would find information on werewolves beyond what the textbooks told them. She hadn't forgotten the words from her uncle that had echoed what everyone always said, that she was a little girl who couldn't handle herself out in the wilderness. As if she didn't grow up in the very same harsh environment that all the Linwoods did. If she could know, if she could prove herself to be as good as an Auror already...
But letting the frustration get to her right now, she reminded herself, was only going to make her too loud. She needed to calm her breathing, and so she did, walking up to the statue near the library with only the slight swish of her cloak making a noise. The hood was pulled up over her bright, curly hair just in case, but her green eyes still glittered in the faint light of the torches.
"I'm ready," she mouthed, the quietest of whispers, at exactly half past midnight.
As the other figure approached the statue he was hiding behind, Lars stopped breathing for a moment, trying to hide any signs of life. He was gripping his wand firmly, ready to attack. But thankfully, it was a false alarm. It was none other than Mia-Rose herself, face obscured by a hood, mimicking Lars' own get-up.
"Okay," he pulled on her shoulder, making her lean as close to him as possible, "the plan, once more. You watch my back. Petrify on sight. Stay away from the walls," Lars didn't know if there were any portraits in the Restricted section, but if they would wake up, the duo would land in a heap of trouble. "Torches go blue -- means a ghost is nearby. We don't take anything from here, only copy. If too much to copy, memorize the title, get a permit later."
"And if either of us gets caught... You acted alone. So did I. But...Don't get caught."
He released Mia-Rose's shoulder and peeked from behind the statue once more. The hallway was empty on both sides, and there was no movement besides the flickering of flames and the shadows they cast. It was time.
Lars was trying to walk at a fast pace, which wasn't exactly easy when you were trying to keep the noise down. Heel first, toe last, heel first, toe last. They made their way through the library, all the way into the back, where a simple red rope was separating the two kids from the Restricted Section. It felt too simple. Did adults really think that a simple line could deter them? There had to be some kind of catch, but Lars didn't have time to stand there and ponder. He unhooked the rope and watched it fall to the ground with a silent thud.
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Dec 26, 2019 0:04:16 GMT
Mia-Rose was pretty sure she knew the plan backward and forward, because this was far from the first time she'd snuck into somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, but she humored her friend by letting him whisper it again anyway. Neither of them wanted anything to go wrong, anyway. "I won't get caught. You know me well enough," she whispered back, a tiny proud smirk on her face, before poking her hooded head out to observe the dimly lit hallway down the other direction. "Coast looks clear to me."
While she would normally wear boots, tonight she had put on only soft wool slippers, the kind that muffled the sound of steps on stone to nearly nothing. They were going to get dirty, she knew, but once they were too rough for cleaning spells, she could easily make more. From home she could get as much wool as she wanted.
But from home she couldn't get all the interesting books that she wanted--she'd already found as much as she was sure she was ever going to get there. And that was why she was here, following Lars into the library. She watched him unhook the rope from its pole, and with a glance over at him to make sure he would follow after her this time, she stepped delicately over the red velvet. "Let's do it systematically," she mouthed, making sure to catch his eyes so that he might be able to read her lips. "What subject first?"
The Restricted section was dimly lit, so when Mia-Rose stepped in front of him and faced the boy, he had to put all his focus into trying to figure out what she was saying. Lucky for them, it wasn't pitch dark, so the meaning reached the boy.
"Charms," he hissed and took out his wand, casting Lumos to light up the space. Rows upon rows of old, tattered books lined the shelves, the golden lettering on some reflecting in the white light of Lars' wand. "You take the left, I'll take the right. Meet in the middle." With that, he turned on his heel and walked to the further end of the Charms section.
Most of the books didn't even have names on their sides, which frustrated Lars. He didn't have the time to pull all of them out and flip through the pages, no matter how strong the desire might have been. No, only books with names on the spines would do.
After a solid five minutes of dragging his finger over the dusty spines, his hand stopped on a rather small tome. Cyprianus...Doesn't O'Keeffe have one of these laying around? I'd rather ask him his copy, but...Perhaps it's worth a glance.
Holding his wand between his teeth, Lars wiggled the small book out of its resting place and laid it down on the nearest table. The pages were made of parchment, and the book smelled mildly of...
"Blood." A whisper left his mouth as he flipped to the second page. The writing wasn't legible on account for a large, red stain in the middle. Not brown, like dried blood, but vivid red like someone had wiped their wound on it minutes before.
"Mia-Rose, come here!" another hiss echoed through the section as Lars glided his fingers over the stain, wondering if the blood would transfer onto his hands, or was this just a magical hoax.
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Jan 9, 2020 4:23:37 GMT
Charms, Mia-Rose had to admit, didn't sound like the most daring of topics to search through the Restricted Section for, but she supposed that if they were dark charms there might be something interesting there. She let the light of her own wand skim over the titles, waiting to see if anything caught her eye. Not this one, not that one either...
A sharp hiss from the other end of the shelf almost made her stumble back, ready to run away, but it was just her partner in crime. "Don't startle me," she breathed back, but she tiptoed over, peering at the book Lars was holding. That was blood if she'd ever seen it, and considering her outdoor-dwelling tendencies, she had definitely seen plenty of it in her lifetime. "It's not letting you read it." The realization made her scowl, wondering just how many of these books would have some extra charm on them to prevent being read. What was the point of a book if you couldn't know what was inside?
Frustrated, she turned her wand back to the shelf, starting the search once more. What she wanted was information on magic for fighting--whether it be human or creature--because just because she wasn't a N.E.W.T. student yet didn't mean she didn't need to know. Not if she was going to prove her abilities to anyone. Reaching up, she pulled down a heavy book bound in dark blue and silver, flipping it open to look at the table of contents. "This one's what I want. It's got stuff on all kinds of curses, see?"
He ignored Mia-Rose's offended comment -- the blood on the old pages enticed Lars far too much to care about such trivialities, and if Mia-Rose was so easily startled in the first place, why the hell did she come here? And her utterly shrewd observation about the book? Thank you, Captain Obvious.
"This is bullshit," Lars hissed, "At Durmstrang all the books are available, you don't need no permissions, they're there for the taking." He slid his fingers over the page, trying to brush the blood away, but it only smeared over his hands. Giving up, he closed the book and put it back in the shelf, and started looking around once more.
He didn't get far, though, as Mia-Rose caught his attention by mentioning curses. Lars hurried over to her, shining the light from his wand into the pages, skimming over the archaic English text. There were incantations for trapping people with ropes that would dig into their skin every time they moved, and diagrams of torture devices. "Now we're talking. Flip over to the first page, we need to remember what it's called. Can't just ask to be let in and point out a book, that would be suspicious." Suddenly the boy wished he'd taken a notebook and a pencil with him so he could scribble down the incantations right then and there. Only who would he try them out on?
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Jan 15, 2020 3:44:23 GMT
"Wait." Mia-Rose placed her hand on Lars's arm as he reached for the book in her hands, pushing him away. "Don't lose the page. I want to read it, while we're still in here." She needed to look at that spell with the ropes and commit it to memory for practice later, because she needed to have some better way to capture someone than the Full Body-Bind Curse. Petrificus Totalus was something for inexperienced duelers who didn't know any better spells to use; there was no way real Aurors used that out in the field. She pushed from her mind any consideration that Aurors probably didn't use dark magic.
Besides, Defense Against the Dark Arts students came in here when they were N.E.W.T. level anyway, which meant it was probably just as good a defense as offense. It was frustrating that the two of them were probably better than half of those in that class, and they were still never given any permission slips for any of these books. Hell, Isobel had made it into there, although Mia-Rose was sure her sister didn't bother to learn useful things in that class. She couldn't picture her facing down any Dark wizards--or dragons. It was only a matter of time until Mia-Rose would be able to prove that ability.
"Hey, don't push me," he hissed, gently nudging her with his elbow. He wanted to read, too, but it wasn't smart to do it here. "Make a copy of the page, you can study it later, where it is safe." It was clear he wasn't going to get Mia-Rose to give him the book all that easily, so he retreated. They had a full library at their disposal, he'd find something else. Something better.
He started walking through the rows, looking at the labels on the side of the bookcases. Herbology, Potions...Pah, he didn't have time for such things. Suddenly, the light from his wand reflected from a row of golden letters, and Lars had to stifle a yell of victory.
"Secrets of the Darkest Art by Owle Bullock," he muttered under his breath, placing his wand down so that he could use both of his hands to pull out the large tome, bound in black leather. With a quiet thud he placed it down and started flipping through it.
It was full of illustrations that would make even the most iron-willed man squeamish, and Lars wasn't an exception. He tried to ignore the images, reading the lines as fast as he could, drinking in the knowledge like he'd die without it. He needed this book. Nothing else in this library would do, and it was hard to resist just grabbing it right then and there.
"Mia-Rose, come here!" he called out, a little bit louder than he should have, excitedly waving to show his whereabouts. "Look at this one!"
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Jan 29, 2020 5:27:44 GMT
"I don't own a camera, I have to read it to know," Mia-Rose whispered harshly, her nose still in the book. It would probably have been a good idea to have something to copy with, but it wasn't as if they could have any clicks and flashes here anyway. She traced her finger down the page, mouthing the incantation and the instructions for the wand movements, committing them to memory as best she could.
Sometime in her absorption with the book in her hands, Lars had made it nearly to the other side of the Restricted Section, pulling down a book of his own. The heavy tome made a thump as he set it on a table, making Mia-Rose look up, but hopefully it hadn't been loud enough to disturb anyone who might be listening for students out of bed. She tried to return to her reading, but an excited hiss from Lars startled her out of it.
"Don't be so loud!" she whispered, perhaps too loud herself as well, but she needed him to listen! Setting down her book and running over on tiptoes, she peered over Lars's shoulder, wanting to see just what was so important. "That looks awful," she added, wrinkling her nose at the illustration on the page he was looking at. "I wouldn't want to screw up that curse. Imagine if it backfired."
"A camera?" he hissed, his tone annoyed. "Are you a witch or not?" She had a bloody wand at her disposal, and the Doubling Charm wasn't that hard. But if she wasn't bright enough to figure that out for herself, then what the hell was she doing in the Restricted section, looking for far more advanced stuff? It didn't matter that they were friends -- he was growing annoyed with her.
He left Mia-Rose to her own devices, wandering off in search of more worthy literature. In a few minutes, the duo were scuffling around the large, black tome with the grotesque imagery, shushing each other and arguing about the spells presented.
"What makes you think I would ever screw it up? Do you think me as dumb as the rest of Hogwarts? I'm sure they teach this to third years at Durmstrang, as it should be." He muttered, casting the Doubling Charm on the pages that he wanted to study more closely. "It's stupid that Hogwarts fears this magic -- if we are never aware of our true power, we can never use our full potential...That's something they told me in Durmstrang."
After a few more minutes of gut-wrenching illustrations, Lars tucked the book back into its place, folding the duplicated pages in half and stuffing them into the pockets of his pants and his jacket. He was ready to leave, but...There was still so much to discover!
"Let's poke around some more, I think I saw some stacks of papers on a table a few rows back, but I didn't check what they were."
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Feb 4, 2020 2:58:57 GMT
"Yes, a camera," Mia-Rose said, irritation rising in her whisper. "Where do you think the Prophet gets their pictures from? They make the prisoners sit down for a couple hours to get their mugshots painted?" She would have rolled her eyes, but Lars was already talking about the book again, ignoring her. With a small huff, she turned around, letting her eyes graze over the shelves and tables. There was so much they wouldn't be able to get to tonight, and it would still be months before they even had the chance to get permission to come here during daylight hours.
"I'm going to look at those papers, then," she decided, adjusting her hood to hide her hair better before tiptoeing over to the table in question. The familiar logo of the Daily Prophet stared up at her, and her brows furrowed as she tried to figure out why a pile of newspapers would be in here. It was what every wizarding family read at breakfast, even her own, who somehow got it halfway across the world despite the impossibility of the usual delivery owls reaching them. Reaching for the top one in the stack, she flipped it open, holding her wand light over it and squinting at the headlines. Ah, murder--perhaps that was it?
The duo was now seperated by several rows of books, each left to their own devices. Lars was feeling a strange mix of emotions -- he was elated that he'd managed to get his hands on such valuable information, and yet the sheer stupidity that Mia-Rose was displaying -- that put a damper on things. Nevertheless, he continued looking through the shelves, hoping to find something just as great as the "Secrets of the Darkest Art".
Sliding his fingers over the neat row of book spines, he took out one at random. It was bound in simple, brown leather, and there was no title on the side, so it was a gamble. He opened the first page...
His blood froze in his veins.
Molleri manuale præparationis ad mortem, bound in the skin of one Moritz Fischer in Bremen, ANNO 1708.
He ignored the fact that by all accounts he shouldn't be able to understand German -- the book must have had a charm on it to translate it into English for the reader. No, he was more preoccupied with the fact it had revealed.
Slowly, with his hands trembling, he turned the book around and looked at the back cover.
It was...Strange. There were peculiar holes in the binding, five in total. He slid his fingers over one of them, feeling the wooden board that the leather was pulled over...
And the book screamed. Lars screamed in response, tossing the book down and bolting for the exit, not giving a rat's ass about Mia-Rose or being too loud. He just ran, his sneakers squeaking against the stone floors as he took sharp turns, trying to get back to his common room before someone (the book) caught him.
maybe it is all a test/'cause i feel like i'm the worst, so i always act like i'm the best
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Post by MIA-ROSE LINWOOD on Feb 9, 2020 16:53:01 GMT
With careful movements, Mia-Rose picked up the newspaper on top of the stack, laying it out on the table as quietly as she could. Whatever reason there could be for someone to have brought the Prophet into the Restricted Section, it couldn't be good, and she wanted to figure out why. Which student or which professor had needed these copies here? Not for the first time, she wished there was some way to have skipped years of school, to let her into the secrets of knowledge sooner.
Well, she was here now. As Lars pulled yet another book down from a shelf, she scanned the newspaper with narrowed eyes, looking for anything that might give her clues to its reason for being here. It wasn't even that old of a paper--she'd expected something from the war, maybe, when there would be articles about the Dark Arts splashed everywhere, or from when the Death Eaters had gotten control of the Ministry. But no, this was recent, and there were articles about...
...werewolves. Of course, werewolves, and, she realized, looking at the front page of the next paper in the stack, that was from the date of an attack, too. Someone had figured out which issues had articles on werewolf attacks and put them here, and while she didn't know who, maybe it would help her out. Maybe it would give her clues on where to look.
Or, she thought, as an unfortunately familiar name caught her eye--Kallenbach--there would be other intrigue here as well. She started to read the headline, but before she could get into the article, a loud scream echoed through the room. Eyes flashing with anger, she looked up to see Lars throwing down a book and bolting for the library door. There was no point in staying just to get her own self detention, no matter how much she wanted to know just what it was that her sister's boyfriend's family had done, and, leaving the newspaper open where it was, she sprinted out of the library as well, heading down the stairs back toward her dungeon dormitory.
