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Valentine's Day (Harriet Snider)
Author: Harry Potter
Date: 01-21-08 07:58
Harriet strides into the Great Hall, unaware that to everyone else that her stride looks distinctly like a rolling waddle. Although she's already eaten breakfast Harriet wants to make an announcement. The same announcement was made at dinner yesterday but best to give it again for those who might have eaten at a different time or skipped dinner in the Great Hall altogether.
Harriet taps a silver spoon on a cut crystal glass, the action sending clear, ringing, bell like tones through the large room. As expected the students instantly quiet down. Harriet smiles benevolently at the Pures then gives a forced smile, coming across more as a grimace, to the Nons.
"Good morning! Happy Valentine's Day! For those who missed last night's announcement, today is very special."
Harriet is looking only at the Pures' tables as she speaks and continues to look only at those four sections.
"Classes for Pures are cancelled today. There is an all day party in the Pures Only Common Room with live entertainment. Tonight, for those wishing for fancy dress, a Valentine's banquet will be served here in the Great Hall. Sixth and seventh year Pures may sign out to go into Hogsmeade though do keep in mind you are expected back by 8 pm this evening. Additionally, throughout the day and evening, and throughout the castle, Valentine's surprises will appear so be on the lookout."
Looking now to the Nons, Harriet says, "Nons will attend classes as usual; however, Valentine's may be exchanged and if professors allow it, Valentine's candy may be eaten in class. If any of you come across a Valentine surprise," Harriet gives an exaggerated sigh before making a grand gesture with one arm, "you may keep it."
Harriet does the smile-grimace thing at the Nons again, beams at the Pures, while thinking that as far as children go the Pure students are an all right lot, then takes her exit to have nice cuppa in the privacy and quiet of her office. Or as quiet as she can get it since those ridiculous portraits of previous headmasters tend to yammer at her far too much.
Students Against the Minister
Author: Anthony Beck
Date: 01-21-08 08:27
Ever since Tobias Beck had finally given into the fact that his grandchildren were all (with the exception of Alanna) adults and were capable of making their own decisions, especially when it came to standing up to what they thought was right, Katherine had taken her silent protesting to a whole new level. She continued to write for the Daily Riot, which she published whenever she had something to say––which became more frequent with new rules and regulations against those not fortunate to be born pureblooded coming into effect almost everyday. She even started a group, Students Against the Minister, which never met in the same place twice and which also met irregularly to keep officials from finding it easily. Not many attended in the beginning, but word of mouth brought in a few new individuals from time to time. Plenty of wizards were upset over the discrimination against "Nons" and were worried about the new rumors that spread like wildfire each and everyday.
Katherine, known as the mysterious Spin Girl to her readers and those she'd drawn into her meetings, had made a splash at St. Emrys in recent weeks since becoming more vocal. She'd heard a rumor that administrators were trying to find out who she was to put a stop to the "traitorous" behavior and, presumably, to see her put behind bars. Katherine certainly didn't want to get caught because she wanted to get enough people behind her so that if she were taken, they would continue to fight for equal rights without her leading them. But even an arrest wouldn't stop her from voicing her opinions. She'd find a way to get the word out, even from Azkaban.
She spun out of one of the fireplaces at St. Emrys and hastily moved aside because Anthony was right behind her. When he fell into step beside her she said, "You know you don't have to do all of this if you'd rather not. You're life is set. You're a pureblood––"
"For now," Anthony replied quietly. "At some point the definition of what a pureblood is will change again and then I won't make the cut. And besides, you're my sister, pureblood or not. You deserve a good life every bit as I do."
Katherine smiled softly. Not too long ago, all she had was a mother. Now she had a whole family behind her. "Well, I need to get to class. I'll see you later."
She peeled off in another direction, leaving Anthony to continue on his projected path. Today was Valentine's Day, and he wanted to see Plum first and foremost before he had to drag his feet to Government class. He normally liked learning about the law and the Ministry of Magic's organization, but these days he could only think of how poisoned the British magical government was. He'd long wanted to follow in his parents' footsteps and become a auror for the Ministry. Anthony was no longer sure if he wanted to work for such a terrible place, particularly when known criminals were getting released from prison on Ministry orders everyday.
There was a strong possibility of himself winding up in Azkaban in their place. He was what supporters of the Minister of Magic's prejudicial beliefs called a "blood traitor." Anthony didn't want to go to prison, but he did want to stand up for the rights of his friends and family. If he went to prison because of his beliefs, then so be it. Maybe he'd wind up Siegfried Dewhurst's cellmate...
"Plum!"
He spotted her ahead of him in the crowd. She turned at the sound of her name and smiled at Anthony, moving against the flow of traffic to greet him with a kiss.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he said, embracing her. They got jostled from the people moving by, so Anthony took her by the hand and led her to an out-of-the-way alcove. They sat down on an empty bench there.
Anthony fished a slender box from his coat pocket. "For you," he murmured.
Plum smiled and accepted the box. She opened the clasp and lifted the lid and gasped. Nestled in the black velvet bed was a silver necklace with a sapphire pendant in the shape of a heart.
Marguerite
Author: Bill Weasley
Date: 01-21-08 12:03
Bill rolled over in bed and looked at Fleur while she slept. Both had agreed to take the day off from work so that they could spend every waking moment of Valentine's Day together. Although their marriage wasn't recognized in Great Britain anymore, because they had obtained their marriage license in France and had married in Paris, they were, at least, legally considered husband and wife somewhere in the world. Because of this, they considered today their second Valentine's Day as a married couple, even though the British Ministry of Magic would think otherwise.
Fleur slept soundly. She worked hard during the week and often had extra work to do on the weekends. The additional assignments had piled up during the past few weeks, when purebloods at Gringotts in Diagon Alley were given less and easier tasks to complete during their workday, while every one else, and especially the goblins, were handed more to do in less time. Every evening, Fleur came home exhausted. Bill felt extremely sorry for her and wanted to intervene, but Fleur insisted that he stay out of it. She didn't want him losing his position over her.
Bill sighed quietly and climbed out of bed, careful not to wake his sleeping Fleur. He pulled on some clothing and tiptoed from the house, hurrying in the cold for High Street. He took a left at the intersection and swiftly walked to MacFusty's Pets, which was mercifully open. Bill stepped inside to the tinkering of an overhead bell and went straight for the feline cages. He'd stopped by the pet store just the other day to pick up fish food for Rémy, when an idea had sprouted in his mind for a Valentine's gift for Fleur. He'd found the perfect gift: a young, Turkish angora cat with soft white fur and clear blue eyes. Bill had considered asking the store owner to hold it for him, but then had decided to press his luck. If the cat was still there on Valentine's morning, he'd buy it. Otherwise he'd buy something more traditional for Fleur, like jewelry, flowers, chocolate, or all of the above.
The cat was still there. It lay on its side on a soft pallet and blinked its mesmerizing blue eyes at him.
He bought it, along with a carrier, bed, bowls for food and water and a sack of dry food. Once home again, he took the cat from the carrier and carried it into the master bedroom, where Fleur still slept. He set the cat on the bed beside her and let its soft fur tickle her bare arm and shoulder. Fleur stirred, rolled over and opened her eyes. She saw a beautiful cat face staring at her and squeled with delight.
"Oh, Bill! What iz zis?"
"Your Valentine's Day present," he replied, grinning. "Do you like her?"
"I do! I do!" She sat up and cuddled the soft cat, who started to purr affectionately. Fleur lifted the cat so that she could stare into its eyes and declared, "I shall name you Marguerite." Then Fleur cuddled the cat some more.
Bill laughed. "How would you and Marguerite like some breakfast?"
"We would like zat vairy much, wouldn't we, Marguerite?"
Fleur climbed out of bed, carrying Marguerite in her arms, and followed Bill into the kitchen. While he fixed pancakes, she set up a bowl of food and water for the cat and spoke to it affectionately in English and French. Bill grinned. It seemed he'd made an excellent choice. He hadn't seen Fleur so happy in a long, long time.
(Kate) An Understanding
Author: Bronwyn Dewhurst
Date: 01-21-08 13:18
After listening to Snider's announcement in the Great Hall, Kate quietly slipped out of the dining chamber and went to the Hufflepuff common room to collect her Herbology class supplies and winter clothes. She wasn't very surprised that the nons were once again underprivileged when it came to something special happening at Hogwarts. Kate tried not to feel down, knowing such feelings were exactly what Snider wanted from the nons. At least she had some comfort in knowing that most of the school wouldn't benefit from the Valentine's Day festivities. Most of the students in the school weren't purebloods, after all.
The change in definition of what it meant to be a pureblood affected Kate, even though she'd been designated a non from the very start. As more students became nons, there was a jostling of room assignments. Kate no longer found herself rooming with Sophia Hall, who as a fourth year had long-resented having a first year student for a roommate. Kate now shared a room with one other first year, Wilhelmina Kluck, who'd gone from pureblood to non in a heartbeat. Not surprisingly, Wilhelmina was quite distressed by the changes in her life, but she found comfort in having Kate as a friend and roommate.
After getting her things and fastening a cloak around her neck, Kate hurriedly left the Hufflepuff common room and navigated the underground corridors for the stairs that led to the ground floor. She climbed them quickly and nearly bumped into a large figure standing at the top of the stairs. Gus van Tassel turned abruptly and glowered at her.
"What do you want?" he asked gruffly. He was securing a scarf around his neck and then slipped leather gloves onto his beefy hands.
"Nothing," Kate replied, sidestepping Gus easily. She was partway to the front doors when Gus called out, "Wait."
Kate turned slowly but didn't say anything. She could see the pain that etched its way across Gus' face. He found himself in Kate's shoes now, no longer a pure but a non like the ones he'd terrorized since the start of term. Kate didn't want to feel sorry for him but she couldn't keep out the compassion she felt in her heart.
He donned a cap over his head and then came up beside her, reaching for the door handle first. He opened the door, letting in a blast of wintry wind. His bulk kept him on his feet, though. He stepped outside and waited for Kate to join him. She fell into step beside him, her feet leaving light footprints in the snow they trudged through to get to the greenhouses. They didn't speak the entire time they walked, but they didn't have to.
Kate well-imagined what Gus was going through, since she'd gone through it herself since she started at Hogwarts. His friends had probably all alienated him by now. She thought of Mark, who was probably off to the pureblood only common room right now to partake in the Valentine's Day festivities. She pretended that she and Gus were better off not enjoying the fun. Although difficult to imagine, somehow it made her feel slightly better.
They reached the greenhouse and stepped inside, immediately basking in the warmth the densely arranged plants offered them. After hanging up their cloaks, they peeled off in opposite directions to take their seats at the long table in the middle of the room. They weren't friends and probably never would be, but it seemed as if they understood each other better now.
Bakery Encounter
Author: Bailey
Date: 01-21-08 13:22
Pulling his coat more tightly around him, Bailey tries to decide where to go next. He'd already been in Hogsmeade once this week, thanks to Snider's edict that allows the older students - Pures only though - into the village once per week as long as a student has no marks off or detention. On that trip Bailey had gotten a few Valentine's for Jewel. He gave her one this morning, an inscribed locket, just before breakfast.
Bailey hadn't planned on coming to Hogsmeade again today but with his classes cancelled and Jewel having two morning classes he decided to take advantage of Hairy the Snide's letting sixth and seventh year Pures in to the town today. Jewel's done at noon then had class again at 2 and another at 3:30. Bailey will get back in time to meet in the common commons. They were going to have sandwiches there so they could eat together but Bailey put an order in at Imperial Crown & Cauldron for a special boxed lunch. With it being such short notice on Valentine's Day, he hadn't been sure he'd be able to get the order but Phin's mother assured him it was no problem. She even refused to take Bailey's money and asked him to take one of the box lunches to Phin for him to share with Emerald. Ms. Hodfuffer's making it more special by adding a rose with each of the lunches.
When in Hogsmeade earlier this week, Bailey had double checked on an order he'd made at the bakery for individual sized heart shaped cakes. They arrived by owl this morning but Bailey, standing just across from Briar's, thinks he'll pop in and look at what's available. If he can make it to the display counter that is. From what Bailey can tell, most of the people in the crowded bakery are picking up previously placed orders but a few have that frantic, last minute look about them. Bailey scans the faces, doing a double take when one of them is his father's.
Bailey starts to leave - he can come back later afterall - when his father spots him. "Bailey! What are you doing in the village?"
Approaching where his father stands in line, Bailey replies, "My classes were cancelled for today and as a seventh year I was allowed to come to Hogsmeade if I wanted. Why are you here?"
"Entirely forgot what day it is. When I remembered I came straight to Briar's. Your mother's always prattling on about the fairy cakes. Thought I'd pick up a few then dash off to that Amber's jewelry shoppe in Diagon Alley," Ian Gray tells his son. "What's that you've got?"
"A book."
"Wrapped nicely. Present is it?"
"Yes, for Jewel."
"Still seeing that chit are you? You know your mother and I don't approve."
"Because she's not a pureblood, I know."
"That and her family was never well placed. Look, between us men, it's fine, as the saying goes, to sow some oats. That's all it is though, understand?"
"Yes, Mother and you have made your positions perfectly clear. What you aren't grasping though is that Jewel is not some oat to be sown."
Ian's face darkens. "If I didn't have so much to do today and your mother to please with Valentine's gifts, I'd march up to that school and have a talk with the headmistress about Pures with excellent backgrounds mixing with Nons of no import."
Bailey takes a step back from Ian. "I'm an adult now so be as angry as you like. Neither you nor Mother have much say so in this."
Ian smiles nastily. "The school and the Ministry has some say so and don't you forget how easy it is to change who inherits what."
Bailey takes another step back. "I think we're done talking for now. You and Mother have a nice Valentine's."
Bailey exits the bakery, no longer caring about doing anything else while in town. He goes and picks up the box lunches from the restaurant then walks back to Hogwarts, more eager than ever to spend part of the day with Jewel.
Legally Not a Mum
Author: Carys
Date: 01-21-08 13:57
Carys sat in her Remedial Transfiguration class at St. Emrys University and tried to focus on her professor's lecture. Her class was very small and made up of all sorts of witches and wizards. Some were quite old. Others middle-age. She was probably the youngest in the bunch. Carys wasn't entirely sure, but for some reason she thought they all had one commonality: they were probably all of mixed blood.
After all, what sort of pureblood would take remedial magic classes? Squibs, maybe, but they couldn't really attempt magic at all so taking classes to learn it was more or less a moot point. Anyway, none of her classmates wore the trademark purple that branded one superior over the other. Then again, it wasn't required for purebloods to denote themselves as such in the dress code... not yet, anyway.
In the last two weeks, Carys had legally lost the right to custody of her son. However, Tristan remained in her care for the moment. Griffin hadn't wanted to take him away from Carys, and for that she was thankful. She'd been quite horrible to him in the past and had wondered whether he would seize Tristan from her arms, but she'd also known better. Despite the fact that he hadn't always been straight with her, Griff was a good man. If she had to give up her baby, she would be comforted to know that he was being raised by his father.
Carys had heard from her old friends at Hogwarts that there was a Hogsmeade trip scheduled for this weekend. Elizabeth, Mindy and Juliet had begged Carys to meet them. She promised she would and looked forward to the reunion. Maybe she would tell them the truth about who Tristan's father really was. She knew they all suspected one guy, when it was really another. What would they think to learn that Carys had had a secret relationship with Griffin Price right under their noses?
Class ended. Carys, in the middle of practicing how transfiguring a needle into a match and back, collected her things and left the classroom for the nearest floo conduit. She had a shift at McMerlin's next, which would keep her occupied until the evening. Not that it mattered how late she worked. It wasn't like she had a date for Valentine's Day.
Who would want to date a seventeen-year-old mother who didn't graduate from school and who worked at a fast food restaurant for a living?
Perseverance
Author: Ethan Somerset
Date: 01-21-08 15:41
More often the not, Ethan found himself stuck in his tiny cubicle at the Ministry of Magic than out doing fieldwork. The few times he actually got assigned a case, he was either bored to tears by the ridiculousness of it or fearing for his life. He brushed his fingers over a partly healed scar that ran over the back of his other hand, thinking about his last venture into the great outdoors. He'd only gotten injured, and slightly at that. Some of his colleagues hadn't been so lucky.
Sometimes Ethan wondered why he still came to work, day in, day out. He supposed it had something to do with his perseverance. Ethan had been through so much during his lifetime that dealing with a little prejudice (okay, a lot of prejudice) just didn't concern him as much as, say, dealing with the Dark Lord. Little did he know that the person pulling the puppet strings these days might be far worse than the wizard who'd inspired so much fear into people for three decades and who'd been dead for nearly two years now.
Because he had a lot of downtime (much of his work concerned paperwork that never took him ages to do), Ethan concerned himself with much of his old interests, such as the remaining unanswered questions dealing with Project 25 and the fact that many of those convicted for their parts in Project 25 were free agents again. Every set of adoptive parents except for Enoch and Leona Pilot had been released. Those few wizards identified as the kidnappers of the Muggle-born children like Hattie Harsnip and Baldwin Pilot were free as well.
Ethan doubted very much that every single person involved with Project 25 was considered a pureblood. Perhaps simply because of their loyalty to one of the greatest, most evil wizards of all time bought them their freedom. After all, they were willing to help him achieve greatness. Ethan was brainwashed into serving him and couldn't be considered a loyal follower––not that he'd ever wanted to be called one. At any rate, he felt that the reason the others like him, Rosamond Boggs, Maverick Pilot et al, were still in prison because they hadn't acted on free will.
He stood over his desk, on which he'd spread out a large piece of parchment. On it were names, dates, and lines drawn from one name to another. Two questions were posted at the very top of the page: How did Voldemort know the children he was kidnapping were wizards? and Who kidnapped them? The second question had been partially answered, though barely. The first one not at all.
Ethan was so busy pouring over his notes that he didn't notice the entourage approaching his cubicle. He looked up when a shadow fell over his desk.
The three aurors standing in front of him were all purebloods. The leader wore a grim face and dropped a document over Ethan's notes. A warrant of arrest.
"What's this?" Ethan asked, a bit surprised by the warrant even though he'd expected it would one day be handed to him.
"A warrant for your arrest, Somerset. Come quietly, or we'll use force."
"There's nothing I can do," Ethan replied, raising his hands in compliance. "My wand has already been taken from me. I'll come with you without a fight."
He held his wrists together, allowing the lead auror to bind them with magic. Then he allowed the men to escort him from Auror HQ for a temporary holding cell.