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!
It had been months since the confrontation with Verandi had happened and for the most part, Teresa had kept to herself, hidden away in a tent at the Cotswolds camp, trying her very best to heal the multitude of scars Verandi had left in her wake.
But... it felt like an impossible task because every damn time she caught a glimpse of her stomach and saw the thick white lines that marred her skin, the memories of that night came flooding back. She couldn't just forget the way Verandi's bone-like claws viciously dug into her stomach and ripped her open left to right, or the way the woman had snarled so close to her face, 'You like babies that much, Teresa? Now you'll never have any,' and unless someone took mercy by obliviating the memories from her mind... she doubted she ever would.
Squaring her shoulders, Teresa took in her surroundings as she walked the cobbled ground of Hogsmeade. It was the first time she'd dared to leave the camp, but it was time. She needed to make sure that she didn't lose any of her skills - the ones that had helped her survive thus far in life - and extra galleons to warm her pocket didn't hurt either.
Coming to a stop at the Hogs Head Inn which looked remarkably less dingy than the last time she'd dropped by, Teresa pushed open the door and walked inside, eyes scanning the very few patrons that sat around the room. It was slim pickings but after a moment of assessment, Teresa flung her braids over her shoulder and strutted towards a well-dressed woman who looked to be in her 40's. The way she'd been eyeing Teresa ever since she'd walked in with an air of appreciation... well, it made her an easy target, one that Teresa fully intended to exploit as she sidled onto her lap and started up a conversation full of flirtation. It only took five minutes before the woman's guard started to drop, and that's when Teresa struck, murmuring in low tones into the woman's ear to distract her whilst simultaneously worming a hand into her coat pocket.
we got no money, but we got heart/we're gonna rattle this ghost town
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Post by DAMIAN BELANGER on May 10, 2020 3:07:37 GMT
we rattle this town
Working at the Hog's Head was a much slower pace of life than Damian's Gringotts job had been. He knew, in his heart, that it was the right choice. There had been no way to go on at the bank, with the goblins angry at the breakdown he'd had after hearing the news about his brother. But not having too many customers to deal with meant that he was left alone with his thoughts more often than not. It was easy to get angry at the world then, the only thing that let him not feel despair, but still nothing like his normal self.
Then again, he hadn't really been his normal self since Hogwarts. And after what happened to Vaughn--would he ever be his normal self again?
Sighing, he took a rag and began to wipe down tables, just to occupy himself with something, even though he'd cleaned not even one hour ago. He passed by a couple of women who were getting very close to each other, a level of flirtation that Damian had yet to see from the average patron of the Hog's Head. It wasn't a pub anymore, what were they--
"What the fuck are you doing, Teresa?" Damian hissed, dropping his rag on an empty table. He'd looked closely enough to see both the face of his old classmate and the wallet she was trying to tuck into her own pocket, and the realization of it all was like a kick to the gut. Teresa had been in Vaughn's pack--probably had helped the madwoman steal the baby, probably had watched Vaughn die. And she was definitely a thief, if Damian's eyes weren't deceiving him.
He wasn't sure if, after only a week of working there, Askold would let him kick patrons out of the bakery, but the emotions were too raw. "I can't believe I'm seeing your face. Alive. After you and your--and your cronies got him killed."
All of a sudden, there was an angry voice hissing at her like a rattlesnake and she found herself promptly shoved off the woman's lap. It was only with a glare and a sense of balance that Teresa managed not to topple onto the floor, but onto her feet instead as the woman all but hightailed it out of there, leaving her wallet still hot in Teresa's hands.
Now that she was steady on her feet, Teresa turned to the voice only to see that it was Damian of all people, and apparently he was absolutely pissed that she'd... what, been sitting on some woman's lap? Had stolen a wallet? "What the fuck are you doing?" she bit straight back at him, narrowing her eyes. "Why would you just out me by my real name in front of a stranger? Do you want me to get caught?" If the woman had heard it properly and realised that she'd been pickpocketed, then there was every chance that she'd attempt to file a report to the Auror Department. It might take some luck and time but they could feasibly track Teresa down off a first name alone.
It seemed Damian's anger with her only grew as he started spouting bullshit, saying that he couldn't believe he saw her alive and they she got someone killed and... "What are you talking about? I - I almost died, Damian, I escaped by the skin of my teeth. I'm lucky I'm still alive. I wouldn't be if Verandi had gotten her way," she said, shaking her head. Hadn't Vaughn told him? Verandi surely would have boasted about how she'd left her baron, how she didn't get her this time but she'd hunt her down eventually. "I don't know what cronies I have, but I haven't killed anyone."
we got no money, but we got heart/we're gonna rattle this ghost town
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Post by DAMIAN BELANGER on May 15, 2020 18:31:51 GMT
we rattle this town
"I'll call you who you are." Damian's voice was strained, speaking lower than normal. "Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. Who I'm talking about." Teresa knew him and she knew exactly who his brother was--she'd been living next to him, last he'd heard. There was no way she hadn't been there for the raid. Even if it had been chaotic, which it must have been, it was impossible to ignore the death of an entire person. Wouldn't that leave an emptiness in a pack just like it left an awful void in the Belanger family?
The mention of one of the Trossachs' mad leaders twisted Damian's face into a stormy expression, and without thinking, he moved to the side, blocking Teresa's view of the door. The grief in him wanted confrontation, now that he'd finally encountered someone who was to blame. It wasn't as if he could yell at the woman in Azkaban--but his old classmate was right in front of his face, reminding him of how the pack had led his brother straight to his death.
"Yeah, if she got her way, most of us would be dead, wouldn't we?" He crossed his arms, looking down on the woman. "But no, it had to be Vaughn, didn't it?"
By calling her by her name in public, Damian was threatening her livelihood, and Teresa's eyes narrowed into slits. "Then I'll tell your boss that this is the way you treat customers - I mean, given by the rag in your hand, it's a fair guess that you work here, isn't it?" she spat back, before her head shook adamantly. She didn't know what or who he was talking about. Had he drank a Babbling Beverage today? He was making zero sense.
If Damian outing her to the woman she had stolen from wasn't bad enough, his next move was to block her from reaching the only exit. Fists curling by her side, Teresa took a defiant step forward into his personal space, her lips pulling into a snarl and her chin tilting upwards. "I don't know what you think you're playing at, Damian, but if you think standing in front of me is going to stop me from leaving, you've got another thing coming." A man standing in her way was something she'd dealt with before, in her line of work, and all it took was a distraction, followed by a swift kick between the legs to make an escape.
But before things could get that far, Damian said something that had the fire in Teresa's stomach snuffed out in an instant, quickly replaced by shock. Stumbling backwards, lips parted, Teresa breathed, "He's... Vaughn's dead?" The knowledge quickly had things slotting into place - suddenly, everything Damian said was making sense, and... he blamed her. He thought she was responsible for... for Vaughn dying, and now she was faced with the task of convincing him she had zero involvement whatsoever.
"I... I haven't been with them in months, Damian. Not since the start of July," she insisted. "I didn't know." But how could she make him believe her? "I found out... that they were the ones that were responsible for me being bitten in the first place, and I... I helped get the Lupin baby back. Verandi found out and she tried to kill me, Damian. She - I've spent the last few months at another camp, trying to recover, since St. Mungo's won't even touch me."
we got no money, but we got heart/we're gonna rattle this ghost town
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Post by DAMIAN BELANGER on May 18, 2020 3:21:42 GMT
we rattle this town
"He is." The fire in Damian's voice was interrupted by a choked noise, one that he swallowed down, not wanting to burst into tears right where he stood. "In the ground, in my backyard." It was a reminder every single day, that in the very yard where he'd played childhood games with his older brother, that there was now a patch of dirt that barely had grass growing over it. And it hurt. To know that he'd finally made contact with Vaughn after so many years of not seeing him, only to lose him forever in a matter of months.
"And you--you didn't know." Of course, nobody had splashed the name of a penniless werewolf across the front page of the Prophet. It was no justice for Vaughn, but of course it meant that if Teresa hadn't been there, she wouldn't know. Damian had to reach out, to clutch at a chair, his body not knowing what to do with the mix of relief and pity and anger that flowed through him all at once. He wasn't sure, at first, if he should believe Teresa--he had just seen her steal from someone presumably innocent. And no matter if he'd thought about stealing plenty of times in his life, he'd never done it. But stealing didn't have anything to do with murder. And the pain in Teresa's eyes--that was real. He could recognize that anywhere, now.
"She's evil." It was the understatement of the century, Damian thought. He could never forgive Verandi for her actions, for putting his brother at risk. "I hope she never gets out." Brown eyes looked into Teresa's, pleading. "Forgive me. I blame the pack--I didn't know you'd left."
No, she hadn't known. Teresa hadn't spoken to a single soul since being kicked out of the Trossachs, since becoming a traitor. Nobody had reached out either because talking to her? When she was ex-pack? It was asking to be killed. "I - how? Do you know why?" There had to be a reason. Verandi and the pack may have been off-their-heads insane at times, but they didn't kill members without some twisted sort of 'reason.' "I swear, I didn't know."
She's evil. Yes, she was. She was a monster, she was the devil incarnate. "I hope she rots in there," Teresa said scornfully, not an ounce of sorrow or regret behind her words. Verandi had wronged her in so many ways but... "She was behind that attack, you know? The one that... that made me like this." The attack she still had nightmares about, years later. The memories of her peers getting ripped apart by werewolves; herself crawling, desperately praying for a place to hide, before getting a chunk torn out of her leg... they were burned into her brain. "She's the reason behind everything that I've had to endure the last three years. Why I got kicked out, why I've had to live on the streets, why -" I've had to do the most unimaginable things to survive. Things worse than stealing a simple wallet.
Damian's apology had Teresa shaking her head, relaxing her stance a little. "You didn't know. It's fine." When he'd been throwing out baseless accusations, talking in riddles? That had been not fine. That had pissed her off. But now she knew the reasons behind his behaviour... she got where he was coming from.
we got no money, but we got heart/we're gonna rattle this ghost town
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Post by DAMIAN BELANGER on Jun 5, 2020 15:41:08 GMT
we rattle this town
The specific details of his brother's death still eluded Damian. There had been a battle--nobody had been able to tell him for certain if it was the Trossachs or the Aurors that had struck the final blow. Damian would have to blame the whole situation, the way Vaughn had been forced into a pack to survive, getting caught up in the violence instead of the bright future he should always have had. All he knew was that Vaughn hadn't deserved it, not after he'd helped the Ministry find Verandi.
Just like--just like Teresa must have, too.
"It was when they raided the camp. There was a fight, he was in it--" The rest was obvious. "He was trying to help the Ministry out, in the end, too." Damian's voice had gotten far softer, sadness replacing anger. "I keep asking myself, why? Why did he have to die, when people like Greyback get to live?" He felt so powerless, knowing that there was probably nothing he could have done to change the outcome of the raid, yet knowing that the world had done a grave injustice to his family.
"And they were behind Hogwarts, too? Of course they were." Damian's teeth were gritted as he spoke the words. "It doesn't surprise me. All they want is to cause destruction." What kind of person tried to spread a debilitating disease on purpose, one that would ruin the future of anyone who got it, for people like Teresa, who were clever and driven?Damian was, if currently an amateur, still a historian, and he knew the damage that could be done by spreading a plague. And the thing was, werewolves had a choice--the infection could only come through a bite. When the Trossachs hurt people, they meant it.
