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!
A cold winter morning in the Scottish highlands, a frozen lake, an ancient castle and even a witch out on that ungodly hour. Not that it was too strange for that place, but it was a rather fairy tale setting if Estelle admitted to herself. Walking over the frozen lake she wished she knew how to skate, it was one of the things she had never learned how to do, yet. Then again experimenting by putting charms on your clothes to keep you warm, while a featherlight charm was cast on herself wasn’t exactly new. However it was new to her, as it allowed her to go to the center of the lake. Which was where the ice would be the thinnest, even though she had no idea how thick the ice really was at every point.
There were a lot of experiments she wanted to do, but for that she needed people and people weren’t always Estellise’s strong suit. As a matter of fact she was rather terrible with them most of the time. The reason for that was that they didn’t like being spoken to as if they’re either inanimate test subjects, too dumb to not walk into a brick wall or her getting lost in her own train of thought. She guessed that she should engage more in what the others in her dorm called ‘’girl talk’’, or as the redhead called it ‘’gossip’’. She’d admit to noticing both guys and girls more these days and not just as a means of test subjects, but there was no way in the seven rings of hell that Estellise Baker would participate in the gossip network of Hogwarts. Walking back towards the shore she started to undo the featherlight charm on herself and the warming charm too. Finally when she thought she was back she used a charm that would blow hot air and melt her a path back. If only she’d have checked, if only she hadn’t been so confident in knowing where the shore started.
Meaning the redhead got a very, very, very cold bath and was pushed out of the same hole she made by what she thought was a tentacle of the giant squid. Only for her to grab her knees and rub herself warm as her wand was somewhere in the snow surrounding her. Estelle was good in a lot of magic, but wandless that wasn’t something she had ever tried before. Cursing to herself she looked around for help.
The cold never bothered Scorpius though he was much more into spring and the blooming flowers, winter had its own magical purposes. They would make sure the flowers magic would return even stronger every single year. Scorpius was talking a walk in the dark, he wasn't often out this late but he had a hard time sleeping and his mother often would take him out to the backyard and they would walk, tire him out a little.
Scorpius mindlessly headed for the lake and heard some noise which wasn't really something he often heard at the time of night. The boy headed over to the area the sound came from, armed with his wand firmly in his hand right now making his knuckles white. Scorpius looked around cautiously and frowned he found a girl curled up in the snow.
"Oh gosh you will get super cold this way!" he said not even caring for a second that she was a girl or notice she was pretty. Scorpius was often nervous around girls but this is the second girl he had to help because of health issues they would suffer if he didn't. "Do you have your wand? What are you even doing here?"
Ready to call him out on being sarcastic she tried to answer the blonde. ’’N..N..No…No sh-shi-shit. TH-th this isn’t Hyhyhypothermimimia. I I I’m toassssty warm.’’ Her teeth chattering as she tried to muster heat through annoyance. Her hands clenched tight and the snow ploughed through in search for her wand. Shaking her head when he asked for it. ’’Reseeaaarch…’’ Why couldn’t he understand that she needed help and needed it very soon as she had been there for she couldn’t even tell how long anymore. She knew it was over an hour and that only her being a witch had kept her from freezing so far.
A very tiny voice, pleading, almost begging she spoke up again. ’’..helpp…pl please.’’ More couldn’t really come out of her mouth. She did notice the boy was rather handsome, even though he was very blonde. Not that old, but it didn’t really click in her mind. The only thing that clicked in her opinion were her teeth. Her teeth and the cold. Slowly fading in and out of being conscious by that point she knew she needed heat. Not too much as she didn’t know where her wand was and didn’t want to turn it to ashes.
Why was it always him in situations like these? First a girl bleeding to death and now a girl freezing to death. THIS SCHOOL HAD TOO MANY GIRLS GETTING THEIR ASSES IN TROUBLE. Scorpius was getting a headache just thinking about it and reached for his own wand. He knew the hot air spell, he used it on his teddy bears during the winter, they weren't allowed to be cold either! The blonde boy let out a sigh and used the spell on the girl.
"I'm Scorpius.." he said as he watched the spell. Hopefully it worked. "I'm sorry, I'm not good with these things." he said and sighed a bit as he shook his wand and tried again. "M-my mom is a professor... she can do this better than I can." he said still trying to get the spell going. Why wasn't he doing good now? she wasn't a bear but she was someone who needed his help.
The feeling of warm arm was the first thing that registered with Estelle, sweet, sweet warmth. Even though it hurt a tiny bit from how cold she was and the warmth coming over the air she didn’t mind. The thing was that she was able to think more clearly and some feeling returned to her. Very vaguely she could hear the boy who was still there, lucky her. She thought she heard him introduce himself as Scorpius and she didn’t really know if she should giggle or kiss his socks off for not letting her die. Settling for the option of none of the above she kept her teeth together, noticing she could.
Feeling the warmth stop for a second and the cold returning nearly had her clinging to him in the hope for heat. She could hear him try again and something about his mom and being a professor. Seeing a waving wand and no relief of warm air, feeling the cold creep back. Seeing his wand move again and finally, even if it had only been seconds she felt the heat again. The first words passing her still slightly blue ish lips came out solid enough. ’’Thank you, Scorpius was it?’’
Almost letting herself fall over to the front she dove for where she knew she had dropped her wand from the failed warming charm attempts. Feeling the wood in her hand again and the almost feeling of heat when it connected to her magic had her feeling relieved. ’’Please a few seconds more. Whispering the incantation for the warming charm over and over again, applying it to both her shoes, her pants, not her panties as that would be awkward, her shirt and sweater and even her cloak finally had her return to somewhat normal. ’’I could kiss you for saving me, but I don’t know if you’re into that sort of thing?’’ She tried with a half smile and a weak attempt to make him laugh.
Why did he have to be the one responsible of helping someone? Scorpius had no idea what he was doing and whatever he was doing didn't really seem to do the trick. The boy didn't know the older girl, she seemed quite older than him and though he didn't judge her on it, he didn't really have many friends or knowledge of people around him. Scorpius quite kept to himself. The white haired male let out a small sigh, watching the spell do its magic on the cold girl. He didn't want to seem useless and he was quite glad that what he did helped.
"I-I don't.. does it help at all?" he asked and eyed the girl who was mumbling and he didn't understand much of what she was saying. "Please don't.." when she said she would like to kiss him he just backed off, not comfortable with such an offer. "No. You may not even touch me." he said, his posture a bit more firm and collected. A girl was stupid enough to get on the ice and now she had to suffer the consequences, the boy did enough.
Lowering her eyes from what he was saying at her weak attempt of humour she was a bit flustered. ’’I’m sorry for saying so, I tried for a bit of humour, but it seems I messed up more than just my calculations this morning. Please don’t go though. I really do want to thank you, but to be fair I don’t know what you’d appreciate. I promise I won’t touch you, or be in need of your help again right away.’’ It was the least she could do, wasn’t it? Showing her gratitude in some way other than just simple words. She knew she hadn’t been smart that morning, but that wasn’t the usual for her.
Speaking of the usual for her she thought about the results she had gotten from her spells. She knew her charms had worked, but why hadn’t she just simple followed her own footsteps back to the shore? The ravenclaw didn’t know why and that was what bothered her. Normally she was very much into deliberate movement, even though she often forgot things that she had to do. That usually came from thinking about the next experiment, but she did finish all of them, even though she had sometimes breaks of a few weeks in between before looking at the data again.
’’Hell I don’t think I ever offered my name, mum would fry me for bad manners..name’s Estellise Baker, normally smarter, but I seem to have missed a few cards for a full deck today. I guess I should go before I make more of a dummy of myself?’’
