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!
The rain was pouring down from the black sky, descending against the Gryffindor common room windows with such force, that you'd think you were right underneath a waterfall, pulled into the white vortex of foam. Rodrik was staring out the window, unable to focus on the textbook in front of him, annoyed by the chattering of his housemates and wishing they would all just go away, that they'd just let him be alone so he could sit there and read. Or, more likely, so he could cry his heart out yet again. He didn't know how he still had any tears left to cry -- these days they came down just as hard the rain outside. And yet, there was still more, he still got upset and emotional, he still needed to hide in bathroom stalls, choking out a silencing charm on the dorm before he broke down once again.
He was tired. So, so tired, that by the end of the day, when Lyubov inevitably found him hunched over on the couch, trying to catch up with his studies, he was far too tired to talk. She didn't seem to mind, offering him gentle back rubs until he fell asleep right then and there, with the book still open. She was the only one who he didn't want to vanish without a trace.
But then there was Zoe.
Zoe, who had barely stepped into the common room when she was already loudly flirting with that bloody Durmstrang girl, not making even the slightest of efforts to conceal the innuendos in her words. It made Rodrik want to throw up a little.
Why?
Because he felt abandoned. For the first two weeks of the school year Zoe hadn't left his side after he'd expressed how he felt, and, while he had found it annoying because sometimes he couldn't even go take a leak without her following him, when she'd abruptly stopped following him around, he'd felt confused. And when he noticed her spending all her time ogling the Durmstrang girl, he got angry.
Some girl was more important to Zoe than her own best friend, who had just lost his eldest brother and had told her that he doesn't want to live? When she knew full well how terrible he felt? She was just a few steps away, making jokes as if Rodrik wasn't sat there, contemplating opening the window and leaping out of it?
Zoë had intended to go put her bag upstairs in her dorm, but the common room was full enough that she ran into several people to greet before she reached the stairs. One of the younger girls even wanted to give her a fist bump, which was sort of cool even though Zoë still hadn't figured out why anyone in the lower years would actually want to approach her. And then a wink at the Durmstrang girl who was occupying her thoughts so often lately--because the thing was, actually feeling wanted for once while everyone else was coupling up without her was really, really nice. Zoë knew that she shouldn't let herself get her hopes up, again, but it was hard. Really hard. And she wanted to be optimistic.
Then there was Rodrik, hunched over a table like had become usual over the past year, with his nose about to be firmly planted in the spine of a book. Zoë heaved herself up to sit on the table next to the thick book of--well, she didn't recognize it, so the book of some subject she wasn't taking.
"Hey, you." She put a hand next to the book, leaning closer to her best friend. "I think if you study any more they'll move you to the Ravenclaw dorms. You look like you'll start using the book as a pillow at any moment."
After finally being done with the flirting, Zoe planted her bottom right on the table right next to Rodrik's face -- and not on a chair like a normal person. She never sat like a normal person, except in classes -- and if anyone let her, she'd probably monkey her way up on top of a bookcase and perch there. It was yet another thing Rodrik found terribly annoying about his so called best friend -- why couldn't she just sit down on a chair instead of putting her ass where his book should go?
"At least I'm studying, unlike some," he responded, straightening his back and lifting the book up to hide his face, not wanting to look right at her. "It's our N.E.W.T. year, and it doesn't look like you're putting in even a little bit more effort than usual. Too busy pinning after the foreigners, are you?"
This all could be taken as a joke from Rodrik, if not for the fact that his voice was low and strained, and how he chewed on his lip, trying to hold back the bitterness that boiled in him, like a pot of a potion gone wrong, bubbling black and smelling like pitch.
"It's October, Rodrik. I've got time." It wasn't that Zoë didn't care about N.E.W.T.s, it was just that they were honestly still so far away. They had until June to study, and there were fewer subjects than for their O.W.L.s. "Besides, it's not your problem what grades I get." The irritation in Rodrik's voice didn't escape her, even if she couldn't quite understand why. Why did it matter to him if she liked Ileana? When he liked Lyuba she'd offered to help in any way she could. It hadn't exactly worked out, but wasn't that what friends were supposed to do?
"And what's wrong with the foreigners? Not like the locals really want me, you know that much." Mavican, Ryker, Grace--all coupled up with people who weren't Zoë. "You've liked girls. You know how it is." Zoë crossed her arms, slouching over a little bit. She knew Rodrik hadn't been handling everything with his brother very well--she'd known that since the train ride in September--but every time he spoke now, it seemed like he was upset about something. She didn't blame him for being upset, because who wouldn't be? But she hadn't done anything to him.
"Just like you had time for your O.W.L.'s, yeah? The night before the Charms exam, when you barged into my dorm at midnight, begging for my notes on the topic?" He recalled just one of the many similar episodes. She'd disturbed his sleep, and he'd screwed up in the exam because of it, when he yawned in the middle of an incantation, setting the desk on fire and causing the exam to be stopped for 5 minutes. Instead of studying ahead of time, Zoe always left everything to the last moment, be it homework or exams, always going to Rodrik for help, her nervous energy only riling the boy up more and more.
"Oh, foreigners are fine," he replied, flipping over a page, even though he had stopped paying attention to the diagrams and words on the paper, "If you can't figure out why the locals don't want you, though I doubt you've ever given that much thought, or anything else for that matter."
"No, no, foreigners are fine by me, not like I give a shit about how you spend your time, especially..." He bit his lip one more time, mulling over the words in his head, "Especially after you promised to look after your best friend, but you know, don't let little ol' me stop you from having fun."
"We passed! We both passed!" Zoë flung a hand out to the side, gesturing wildly. "I don't understand why you care when--"
Her voice stopped in the middle of the sentence as she processed what Rodrik was saying to her. That he knew why people didn't want her? How was that supposed to help? The nagging voice in the back of her mind, the one she always, always shoved down, was sounding more and more like Rodrik instead of her mother, and she curled her hands into fists, determined not to cry.
"Oh, so what is it? Am I ugly? Do I sound like a troll when I talk?" She had spent so much time erasing everything that might be an insecurity, changing her hair and her clothes and her mannerisms until she felt like herself, but it didn't completely erase how sometimes she felt very small and ignored, as if she was a small child at a dinner party once more.
And she couldn't stand it, couldn't stand that someone who was supposed to be her best friend actually thought so badly of her. "Am I not allowed to like a girl one time when you spent months and months pining over Kareva? Am I not allowed to talk to anyone except you? I'm not your mother! But you sure sound like mine, thinking that you get to pick who I talk to and what I do. I'm sure she'd be happy to know that you think you own me." Zoë's cheeks were flaming red, her fingers curled around the edge of the table.
Zoe was comparing Rodrik to her own mother, the woman that, by extension, was like a plague on Rodrik's future, with the stupid arranged marriage crap that she and his father had come up with a few years ago, when the Belangers had been in a worse spot financially than now.
"Oh, no, it's because you've never taken anything seriously for a day in your life, Zoe," he said, closing the book and tossing it on the table, staring right at her, "It's because you never commit to anything-- Anything meaningful, and no, trying to get into the Quidditch team when you're obviously hopeless doesn't say 'determined', it says 'bloody stupid' if anything."
His voice was growing louder, his hand movements more agitated, and he was sure their housemates were staring at them by now -- and if they haven't, they would soon. Let them stare. Maybe if everyone heard the truth about her, she'd finally turn her brain on rather than her bottom.
"And don't you bring Lyubov into this," he hissed, getting up from his seat, hands on the table, leaning his weight on it, back hunched over, "When I was pining over her, as you put it, you weren't a step away from killing yourself at any given moment, were you? No! You weren't! The one time I need you, when I need you for real, you don't take it seriously! As soon as that girl caught your attention it was as if I never existed anymore!"
His breathing was heavy now, face flushed red, and his voice was the loudest it had ever been -- almost as loud as when he was wailing over Vaughn's lifeless body -- and everything was pouring out, all the bitterness he'd acquired over the years.
"It's always like that with you, frolicking from one thing to the next as soon as you lose your interest. You never think more than five minutes ahead! You call that "living in the moment" or some other crap like that, but you know what that actually is?" He leaned closer to her, hissing out the following few sentences. "You're acting like a child at 17. This 'never settling down' thing you've got going on? You're refusing to grow up, you're childish and irresponsible and, and..."
"I detest the day we met, because if we hadn't, I wouldn't be stuck in this stupid arranged marriage, wouldn't have to go to your mother's house and suffer her blathering about whatever future she has imagined for us. It was never going to happen in the first place, but now I truly want nothing to do with you, I don't want to do anything with the money you have -- knowing you, you'll spend it all in a month after you get your hands on it, waste it on drinks and whatnot-- We're through here, Zoe! Done! Over! We aren't friends anymore! Leave me be!" He straightened up and grabbed his book, turning around and heading straight for the dorm rooms, his breathing heavy. He was going to pen a letter to his father and to Zoe's mother right this second, telling them for once and all that they can take their arranged marriage and shove it down a dragon's throat for all he cared. Hell, Zoe could go the same way with her Durmstrang girl, because the way she was acting now... She'd end up in ruins one way or another before Rodrik could pronounce his own full name.
As if she'd been slapped in the face, Zoë leaned back, stung, her mouth open. She'd never heard Rodrik speak like this, to anyone, especially not to his friends. But then again--it didn't seem like she was his friend anymore, or maybe ever, because if he'd been thinking she was bloody stupid the entire time, there wasn't much of a friendship to throw away.
"I have been caring!" she cried, jumping off the table and standing up in front of Rodrik. "I came to hang out with you literally just right now. And I sat with you in class today, and we had dinner together yesterday." She counted each of the times on her fingers. "I'm not some life advisor or something. I'm seventeen, just like you! I can't spend months and months watching you cry 24/7 without doing anything for my own life. I can't--I can't save you. Not by myself." How was she supposed to, all on her own, with no experience? With nobody else to help, and with Rodrik rejecting everything she was trying to do to help.
And there were the tears, sliding down her cheeks despite all her best efforts to stop them, making her voice all rough and hoarse.
"But if you never even liked me in the first place then it's no use." If he said he wanted nothing to do with her, then he wouldn't have to, ever again. "Forget me, forget I ever existed, just like you want. Don't talk to me, 'cause I won't talk to you. Then you'll know what it's like when I'm actually ignoring you." She wanted to scream, wanted to send a Howler to her mother just like she sent Howlers to Zoë far more often than was necessary. Everyone really did hate her, even Rodrik, and as she looked around at the shocked faces of those who had been listening to their fight, probably everyone in the whole school, too. "And we never were friends!" she called after him, as he stalked off toward the dormitories. "And we never will be!"
She could feel the eyes on her, on her red and sticky face, her uneven breathing, and for once in her life, for perhaps the first time ever, she wanted to be small, wanted nobody to see her like this. Practically sprinting up to her room, shoving past everyone, she flung herself onto her bed and shut the curtains so quickly she was certain something had ripped in her hands. If she was ever going to face the school again, it would take a miracle.
