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!
Post by ARTHUR LONGBOTTOM on Jul 28, 2020 5:49:30 GMT
Whilst Arthur did not have the green thumb that his father was famous for, nor that which his sister had inherited, there was a serenity to be found in the greenhouses that simply wasn't there anywhere else on the Hogwarts grounds. If he listened carefully, Arthur was sure he could hear the snores of the immature mandrakes even through their potted earthenware. "... I swear I'm starting to see squiggles instead of letters, little dudes," Arthur grumbled as he ran his finger along the lines of his text book, hoping that it would make him follow the sentences better.
"How about you just come out here and tell me all your little wooden secrets? Hmmm?" See, Arthur was of the opinion that the young Wiggentree that was growing in the pot - one that had been quite ill until recently and was now picking up - had become inhabited by a shy little bowtruckle... or perhaps two. He was doing an essay on the little creatures and the research part of the assignment was making the young wizard slowly but surely fall asleep sitting on bag of soil, his head lolling onto his arm.
"... woodlice," Arthur murmured the last word his brain managed to read. Perhaps if he had brought a little sauce bowl from the kitchen filled with woodlice.... but where does one find woodlice? Arthur's dreaming mind trailed off into an adventure where the Whomping Willow had the scratchies from lice. His sleepy face had a smile forming as the Willow's moving limbs attempting to scratch itself and its leaves falling comedically to the ground. "Nom... nom... lice." Arthur tried to get a little more comfortable and it made the guitar beside him fall off the work bench with a rather loud, very unmusical clatter which made the eldest Longbottom almost jump out of his skin. "Ohhhhh so you little tricksters come out to play when the wizard closes his eyes for a mere moment?" Arthur gave an amiable laugh as he waggled a finger in the Wiggentree's direction. "No lice for you then," he said, then mumbled under his breath, "not that I know where to get any anyways."
It was only the second week into Lydia's sixth year at Hogwarts and as she escaped the two douchecanoes who thought it was a hoot and a half to tease her about liking nuts in her mouth - because they'd inherited their sense of humour from first years, apparently - she was already mighty grumbly. "This is what you get for eating a pack of cashews out in the open, you daft bint," she chided herself as she looked for a place nearby to escape, eyes searching far and wide before finally they landed on the greenhouses. They would do.
Winding down the track towards them, Lydia did a quick glance to her left, then her right, to make sure she wasn't being followed before enacting her plan of ultimate defiance to the douchecanoes who'd cornered her beforehand - it didn't matter that they weren't there to see it, all that mattered was she knew she was about to play rebel without a cause. Retrieving the bag of cashews she'd stowed away in her bag beforehand, Lydia took a great big handful and shoved them in her mouth, chewing them with vigor. "I hope you bloody well know I'm imagining these are your nuts," she declared, perhaps a bit too loudly to herself as she walked into the greenhouses only to come face to face with...
"Arthur?" who was apparently sleeping in the greenhouses, using a bag of soil as his pillow and all. For a moment, Lydia wondered if ought to be polite and just let him be but she scraped that thought after a moment... not just because she wanted to talk to him, but also because she could not, in good conscience, let him accidentally nap all through the night in a greenhouse. It got too cold in here, the temperature dropping so low that it would shrivel even her balls off. Clearing her throat, Lydia said loudly, "Arthur! It's time to wake up!" but... to no avail. Right. Uh. Maybe she'd spoken too softly? Crouching down a little, Lydia moved so her face was a few inches from his - and Merlin, didn't he look like the little angel when he slept? - before she took ahold of his shoulder, giving him a shake. "Arthur! I've got food! Do you want some nuts?"
Post by ARTHUR LONGBOTTOM on Jul 29, 2020 17:08:51 GMT
Totally consumed once more in his dreams of Whomping Willows and woodlice rather than the homework he was meant to be completing, Arthur snugged his cheek just that little bit more. Who cared if the position he was laying in was ridiculous or cause him to wake with a serious kink in his neck? There was this strange voice coming from that willow tree - as if it were Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas and it was yelling at him to wake up!"But I don't wanna," the boy returned in his dream, though nothing much happened in reality - perhaps a bit of lip smacking in reply to Lydia's first attempt to rouse the teenager. He was one of the fortunates that managed to sleep through most things, so it is of no surprise that it took his fellow Testicle of Merlin fan a firm shake of his shoulder to rouse him.
"Lyds... we've gotta work on your flirting skills," Arthur replied with a playful grin slowly spreading across his sleepy face. "Lesson #1 - don't insinuate the boy hasn't got any nuts," he said with as serious a tone as possible before he attempted to lift his hand up for some of her nuts. "..... ahhh shit, I've gone flop... don't you say anything," he groaned as his arm fell back down unceremoniously. "Looks like you're gonna have to put your nuts in my mouth for me, Lyds," the boy wriggled his brows and opened his mouth, ready to receive.
The first thing to escape Arthur's mouth was a ""witty"" remark (and yes, she said that with air quotes and all in her head) about nuts and flirting. "How am I to know whether you're sans nuts or not? I think it'd be rather presumptuous to just make an assumption that you do," Lydia said dryly, taking a step backwards from Arthur who was attempting to just snatch at her nuts like some twisted, hipster looking version of a caveman with no manners.
Lydia let out a snort moments later as Arthur all but demanded she feed him. "Looks like you're gonna have to give someone else the pleasure of putting nuts in your mouth, Arthur, because I'm certainly not doing it," she said, backing up to a cleared working table and attempting to hoist herself up onto it… and Merlin's saggy tits, didn't it seem so easy when other people did this? Why did the universe hate her in every regard?
"I know I don't exercise you enough, but give me a bloody break and co-operate," Lydia said, casting an almighty glare down at her own body before giving the whole hoisting business one more go and… success! Sliding her arse backwards, Lydia shot Arthur an innocent look and shook her bag of cashews towards him. "Guess you'll have to get your lazy behind up and come get some nuts yourself. Be productive and all that… since you're in dire need of flirting skills yourself, I heard girls like it when you show initiative." With that, Lydia scooped her hand into the bag and shoveled some more cashews into her mouth.
Post by ARTHUR LONGBOTTOM on Aug 3, 2020 12:01:24 GMT
When Lydia made a crack about Arthur being sackless, the blonde Gryffindor's usually quite slack jaw widened even further. Honestly, them Slytherins would be rather stoked with just how good an impression of unhinging one's jaw like a python Arthur was naturally performing right now. "You wound me deeply, Lyds," Arthur's hand that had been grasping for the nuts she was offering a moment beforehand and clutched at his chest. It was hard to do, of course, given that he was mostly still atop a bag of soil. He wanted to point out that after seven odd years of knowing Thomas, he was still gladly better endowed than her previous encounter, but after what she had gone through last term.. well Arthur shut his mouth firmly before the insensitive comeback left his gob. "You'll never know cuz I'm a good boy."
Golly gargoyles, that was weak, Arthur, he scolded himself as he closed his eyes for a moment - only to open them to see the girl struggling to heave herself up onto the bench. He snorted a laugh and sat up properly now. "Wow, I'm pretty sure you've got the grace of a newborn hippogryff," he laughed, then applauded her when her cheeks finally rested on the bench top. "C'mon Lyds, stop hoarding the nuts like a little squirrel and throw me a few. I'm starving all of a sudden."
When Lydia told him that he'd have to come and get them, his big goofy grin spread across his face and he leaped to his feet with all the grace of a newborn hippogryff. "Well, I must say Llewellyn, you've clearly already learned Lesson Number 2: play hard to get," he was standing before her within a second - it wasn't as if there was much ground to cover with his long legs anyway in the cramped and crowded greenhouse. "Now gimme the bag - I think I've earned them," he put his hand palm up on her knee expectantly.
Lydia's lips twitched at the expression she gained from joking about Arthur being sackless because seeing his jaw drop like that... well, it was amusing. "You look like one of those muggle clowns. All we need now is a ball to stuff in your gob," she remarked. Thank goodness though that Arthur looked a fair bit friendlier than they did. The one time Lydia had stumbled upon images of clowns at fairs had given her nightmares. She'd dreamed that for some bizarre reason, a clown with his mouth stuck in an O was chasing her down a corn field, begging her to put balls in his mouth or else he'd stab her. She'd woken up in a cold sweat, before realising that perhaps getting taken out by a clown at age nine wasn't the worst to go. Her little prepubescent brain had thought of much more horrible ways to die. "Hey Arthur, what do you think is the worst way to die? Like, in an not-so-ideal world, how would you like to go? In excrutiating pain, like being crushed by a hippogriff? By somehow managing to wander off a cliff?"
Lydia's twisted little thought pattern was soon interrupted by Arthur declaring with a straight face that he was a good boy. "Shall I go fetch you a bone then?" she asked, determined to keep the game going. "Perhaps rub your belly? Scritch your ears? Call you a good pupper?" Contemplatively, swinging her legs, a bright idea hit Lydia next. "Oh, I could get you a beautiful shiny wee collar that says 'please return to Lydia Llewellyn if lost.'" Finally cracking a grin, followed by an amused chuckle, she said, "Although, maybe you need that as a non-puppy dog for whenever you manage to get yourself lost around the castle instead. You could wear it under your school shirt and everything. Perhaps I could tug it when you're being a naughty boy."
After shooting Arthur a great big middle finger at his jab of being like a newborn hippogriff, Lydia uh-uh'ed as the blonde-haired boy came closer, declaring he'd earned her nuts. "For just getting out of your seat, you think you earned the whole bag?" she said, quickly stashing them behind her back so they were out of easy reach. "Perhaps you ought to learn Lesson Number 3: uhhhh, cashews are very expensive and therefore Arthur needs to impress Lydia in order to get his nuts.'" Yes, because that wasn't a stupidly elaborate rule or anything.
Distantly... okay, not distantly at all, Lydia registered the fact that Arthur's warm hand was literally on top of her knee. He was only fishing for food, of course, but as Lydia looked down at it, she couldn't help but think of how easy it would be to just... slide her own hand on top, lace her fingers through his... or even to just flip it over so he was cupping her knee in a comforting gesture. "Does this count as first base? Or... uh... what's the blasted Quidditch metaphor for first base?" Racking her brain, Lydia shook her head. "Oh, I don't know - bloody sports. Why can't people just use levels instead? Level 1, Level 2, Level 3... and, like, ding ding ding! for the final level."
