From the Ashes

Who: Bob and whoever (open post!)
What: Bob hates Brian. And Ross. And runes in general.
Where: Staff lounge
When: Monday, January 18th, evening

One of these days Bob really needed to figure out why the hell he put up with Schechter as a friend. Here Bob had already agreed to pack up his life and move to the middle of nowhere (though, okay, he'd kind of been unemployed at the time, so it was a mutually beneficial arrangement, but still), but that still wasn't enough, no. Now Bob had to take time out of his busy day ("You hide out all day on the off-chance some kid has a skinned knee, Bob. It's not like you're doing anything important," Brian had insisted, because he was a jerk and possibly more evil than You-Know-Who) to babysit a bunch of kids just because Ross decided to run off on sabbatical.

It didn't make any sense. Bob knew absolutely zip about runes, ancient or otherwise, and yet here he was trying to correct a stack of tests that had been left behind. He was starting to really doubt that the copy of Ancient Runes for Dummies that Brian had given to him would be of any use here. Ugh.

Who: Anyone and everyone!
When: Sunday morning, December 20th
Where: The staff lounge
What: Weekly staff meeting. Let's get this holiday party started!

"So Professor Saporta will be in charge of decorations," Brian concluded, still without any idea of how that had come about, and hoping it hadn't actually been his decision, as he feared it might have been. "Professor Smith can handle the trees, and that should put us in good stead for the end of the week. Hogwarts has a seasonal decoration charm, which I can put into effect now, that should save us all a great deal of trouble."

He cast the charm, the castle recognizing his authority as headmaster and bending neatly to his will. Garlands sprung up around the sideboard, crystal icicles glistened overhead, and a sprig of holly landed neatly on the tea tray. Excellent. "Professor Urie will be accompanying the carolers to..."

Snow began falling lightly in the staff lounge. One the sideboard, a festive wooden reindeer ornament leapt to the floor, charged beneath the table, and dashed through the door with a squeal, singing "FA LA LA LA LA," in a high-pitched festive wooden reindeer voice. As Brian opened his mouth to speak, a shower of miniature candy canes fell out of the air to rain down on everyone's heads.

"For fuck's sake," Brian said. Overhead, a candy cane wobbled loose from its perch on a twinkling icicle and smacked him on the nose. "Keep going," he ordered, pointing back at his staff, and went off down the hallway in a swirl of headmasterly robes, following the singing reindeer.

Who: Jon, Gerard, William
When: Last Wednesday, following this and this
Where: Inside questionably fine art
What: A magical menagerie

William wasn't sure what had happened. One minute he'd been with Pete, and the next he...hadn't. He'd fallen, his legs getting tangled up in something as he passed through the door of the temple ruins they'd discovered, and he'd registered grass and nearby running water before he hit the ground hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs. It could have been worse, he thought, pushing himself up on slightly shaky hands. He could have fallen headfirst into a rock and split his skull open, or into the water itself and drowned.

There was no temple in sight, and no curious rabbit-eared equine, and no Pete. There was, however, a garden gnome, sitting on a nearby rock sunning itself without apparent alarm at his abrupt arrival. And a gargoyle carved out of the rock, William noticed a second later. A bat-winged gargoyle funneling water from the stream, upon whose bank William appeared to be resting. A low growl caused him to spin around, flailing for balance on the ground, where he saw a griffin lounging on the grass between two towering trees, its beak stretched wide in a gaping yawn and leonine tail lashing lazily behind it. There was a pegasus not far from it, and a winged creature the size of a cockatrice that William almost mistook for a dragon until it stretched its wings and he recognized it as a wyvern. A wyvern, so close to a pegasus? With a gnome undistressed by the proximity of a griffin?

He tried to stand up, only to find that his legs weren't cooperating. More than not cooperating; bound and weighted. He struggled in blind panic for a second before looking down to try to free himself from whatever was holding him prisoner, and registered with shock the presence of gleaming green scales and delicate webbed fins.

"Oh bollocks," he said faintly in surprise.

Who: Gerard & Jon
When: Wednesday afternoon
Where: Some random countryside?
What: Now there's a question that needs answering...


It took Jon about twenty minutes to realize that he wasn't supposed to be on this particular road. Actually, he wasn't supposed to be anywhere near a road at all. It's a little fuzzy, but he recalled being a bit worried that he hadn't seen hide nor hair (ha!) of his damned dog all day. When he'd gotten around to seeing if anyone had, most of the adults had been notoriously unavailable.

That, Jon realized, should have been his first clue.

He winced as a rock dug into the bottom of his flip-flop. The road, unpaved, was deeply rutted and definitely not conducive to his chosen footwear. Digging the offensive item out, Jon nearly tipped over when a sudden burst of muted music sounded from up ahead. A second later, he noticed a small cave buried into the hillside. Already wary, Jon crept closer until he was standing right at its mouth.

Silence.

He was about to turn away when the noise came again. Definitely music. Cautiously, Jon stuck his head into the cave a little.

"Hello?"

Jon,

You wouldn't happen to have a pair of dragonhide gloves lying around, would you?

Thanks,
Bill

WHO: Adam and Jon
WHERE: Jon's place
WHAT: Adam requires assistance; has awkward sneaky issues.
WHEN: Sunday afternoon (11/1)

In retrospect, the amount of alcohol Adam had consumed before and during the party the evening before might have been a bit much, if the hangover was any indication. He'd woken up sometime around noon, pulled his blanket over his head to shut out the light filtering through the curtains, and gone back to sleep. Now it was rapidly approaching evening and he had Things To Do.

Namely, he needed to figure out a way to make it look like he was totally a werewolf for Professor Saporta's benefit, and the full moon was nigh. Oh, he'd done well enough covering for Gerard when it had come up last time, due to having been struck down by the evil magic-sucking illness, but he wasn't so unlucky now. Although with the way he felt... but that wasn't something coffee and a shower couldn't cure.

Once he was clean and fortified with coffee (and, he wouldn't lie, a small additive that made the idea of schlepping out into the cold slightly less unappealing), he made his way down to the hut that served as Jon Walker's office-slash-quarters and knocked brusquely on the door.

Who: Everyone!
When: Sunday, midnight
Where: Ground floor
What: The last stand

Anyone who looked out the windows toward the Forbidden Forest at midnight would have seen, curiously, flickers of torchlight moving out of the forest in a wide arc. If this held their attention, they'd have seen the lights coming closer until they eventually resolved themselves into flaming arrows nocked onto the bows of centaurs, driving the remaining horde of House-elves out of the forest.

With the portcullis still raised, the House-elves made for the shelter of the castle courtyard, flinging themselves against the doors to the entrance hall to batter them down. Some of the centaurs' arrows thunked into the doors rather than finding their smaller moving targets, and the flames quickly spread from the arrow shafts into the old, heavy wood of the doors.

The final battle for Hogwarts was about to begin.


(OOC: Treat this like a party post; join in whenever your character is ready and move between groups and locations as needed, link between threads to let us all know where you're going and coming from. The courtyard is surrounded by stone walls and overlooked by the towers and gatehouse. If the main doors are breached and the entrance hall is flooded with House-elves, the immediate threat will be to the Great Hall, the classrooms on the ground floor which have presumably been cleared, and the two staircases that lead to the rest of the castle - primarily to Hufflepuff and Slytherin.)

Who: Jon and William
When: Late Saturday night, probably well into Sunday
Where: Shortly, Gabe's workroom
What: Things that go BOOM

After dispatching Andrew - he owed his past roommate a bottle of whatever it was that ghosts drank - with a message for Gerard, William made it as far as the hallway outside the drawing room before he heard the sound of low, guttural groans echoing off the walls and turned right back around. He took a handful of steps, reaching for the heavy door, and then something flickered in front of him in a weird, not-right way, and he froze barely five feet away from a dazed-looking, newly-Apparated House-elf.

The House-elf got its head on straight and its eye on food rather quickly. William turned back around and started running.

He got to a hall with heavy double doors and slammed them shut, dropping a heavy wooden bar into place just before the sound of scrabbling fingers whispered against the other side of the doors. Panting, he faced off against the door, and then remembered that the House-elf a moment ago could Apparate. Any of them could Apparate. Anywhere. He whirled in a circle, panicked, afraid to be anywhere without his back against a solid wall.

He couldn't stay here. There was another door at the other end of the hall, tucked into one corner; it was an old dueling hall, he saw, the one that led down to the dungeons. Wand at the ready, he opened the door and started down the stairs.

Who: Gerard and Jon (and whoever else is wandering the grounds)
When: Friday before dinner
Where: the Grounds
What: patrolling and eluding certain death, etc etc

It was a gorgeous fall afternoon, which meant a good portion of the student population was out wandering around, basking in the crisp air and kicking through leaf litter. Gerard couldn’t blame them for wanting to get out – weather like this wasn’t going to last much longer, and once it ended they’d be stuffed indoors with hundreds of other teenagers. Poor bastards.

Normally he didn’t mind having the kids milling around outside, even if it did mean extra work for him. They were sort of hilarious with all their teenaged drama and posturing – like a live action soap opera. But for some reason, right now it was making Gerard uneasy. Probably just all the weirdness lately – another Venemous tentacula was probably going to spring up any moment now. At least it’d be dark soon and they’d all be heading inside for dinner.

Although if those Ravenclaw and Slytherin fourth years didn’t stop poking at the grindylows under the docks, Gerard was just going to feed them to the fucking squid and be done with it. He felt a little bad for being short with them, but at least they retreated sulkily to the shore, where they’d be safe. Safer, anyway.

He went back to flying his circuit and scanning the grounds for anything out of the ordinary -- oh, look, Gryffindors shouting at each other. Not what he was exactly call unusual. Gerard made a mental note to check back later and make sure it didn’t devolve from shouting to wandwork.

Something still felt off, though. His instincts were something he’d learned to trust during the war, but he was starting to doubt himself a bit now. He was just wondering if maybe he had time to go get a cup of coffee or something, calm himself down, when he saw something odd by the South Wall. He circled down cautiously for a closer look.

Holy fuck, a house elf! Gerard had never actually seen one out and about on the grounds before, so that was odd enough, and then he spotted another three of them. And – Gerard flared his nostrils, frowning. And they smelled – odd. Like old meat. Gerard called down to them, wary, and they looked up at him with blank, filmy eyes. One snapped its little brown teeth at him, reaching upward. The others started up a low, unintelligible moan.

And that’s when he heard the screaming start.

Who: Jon and Shane
When: Dusk on Wednesday
Where: Courtyard
What: a cupcake, a house elf, and the beginning of the end


Jon crossed the courtyard, head down as he searched his bag. He was pretty sure that the house elves had wrapped the fresh (or as fresh as two day old Grommice could be) securely, but he didn't really need it leaking everywhere, just in case. It was almost too late to avoid a collision by the time he noticed the black tennis shoes out of the corner of his eye.

"Whoa, shit. Sorr-oh hey, is that the new Pudwallace 3200?"

Who: All, sundry and their furry soulmates
When: Dinner on Wednesday
Where: Great Hall, whether the teachers' high table or elsewhere as needed
What: Soul manifestation mayhem, duh

The Great Hall was barely half-full for dinner when Gabe stalked in, his feline companion almost matching his gait half a step behind him. And she was gorgeous, ok? She was the most beautiful Iberian Lynx he'd ever seen, possibly because she was the first one who'd ever been inclined to sit still to be admired.

So hanging out with her all day had not precisely been hard. Sure, classes had been a little more full of distraction than usual, and his lynx seemed to spent half of every class padding quietly between the benches and cuffing other tumbling animals, but whatever, it wasn't like a little light relief wasn't totally welcome this week.

Threading his way up to the end of the hall, Gabe climbed up to the high table - from where the Hall really did look like a menagerie gone beserk. He paused for a moment just to admire it before his lynx butted at his thigh and he moved on to find his seat.

Who: Gabe and Jon
Where: Gabe's office
When: Saturday morning
What: double, double toil and trouble?


It was really kind of dark down in the basement and there's a moment when Jon's decided that wandering down in the bowels of the castle maybe wasn't such a good idea, even it it was for a good cause (hopefully). That thought's confirmed half a second later, when something brushed against his leg. Half a second later after that, Tom's wet nose made a smear across Jon's palm and had him shouting, "Jesus, Tom, warn a guy!"

Once his heartbeat had settled down, Jon glared down at the dog and said, "Just for that you should tell me where Saporta's office is." Tom huffed and sat down instead. Pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation, Jon tried again, "Tom, come on." The dog settled onto his belly and then flopped over onto his side. Maybe Jon shouldn't have stopped drinking, at least then he'd have a real reason for his headache. A minute later, he finally muttered, "Please." Tom was up and off like a shot before Jon had finished.

He was more than a little out of breath when he rounded the last corner to see Tom sitting in front of a nondescript door. "This is it?" he weezed. Tom yipped and settled back down onto the floor, resting his head on crossed paws. All right then.

Jon raised a hand and knocked on the door. A minute later, when no one answered, he tried again, louder this time. "Saporta? You here?"

(mid-morning, Thursday (10/8))


bills-

no go on the jarvey. we made it about halfway up the hill and no matter how much i tried, he refused to come any closer to the castle.

sorry i couldn't be more help will try to come up with something else


jjw

WHO: Jon and Adam
WHERE: random hallway
WHAT: um, lunch? also puffs. again.
WHEN: Thursday, lunchtime (10/8)

Although he'd been lucky so far, Jon had just gotten his first real taste of a student unable to do any magic - Janie Sayersaw, sixth year Hufflepuff (and oh man, the Hufflepuffs just looked so horribly sad when they thought they were disappointing him, he could barely stand it) - and he was looking forward to sitting back and relaxing for a few minutes.

Rounding a corner, Jon saw Adam and was about to call out a greeting when he realized the DADA professor was engrossed in cooing at a small ball of fluff curled into his palm. Grinning, Jon said, "They really seem to like baby talk, just, you know, for future reference."

Who: Jon & Spencer
Where: The grounds, down to Hogsmeade
When: Friday night
What: Conversations & such.

Spencer left the greenhouses around seven, wandering across the grounds. It was a cool night, but there was no wind and he didn't feel so bad in his lighter robes -- the cold air on his face woke him up, rather, and that was always good. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and pressed the tip to his temple anyway, murmuring a quiet charm, breathing in sharply with the rush of adrenaline and alertness. It wasn't a good way to keep awake, he knew, and he tried to avoid it, but it was the best thing he had.

Jon's hut was darker than usual, nobody moving inside, and even the Jarvey seemed to be elsewhere. Spencer blinked, shoving his hands in his pockets and considering it in a perplexed sort of way for a little while. He realised after a moment, though, that he had been standing still for too long, mind drifting off quickly like it tended to do.

"Jon?" he called. "You there? Um, somewhere?"

Hey Jon,

I haven't spoken to you in a while, heard some weird stuff from some of my students -- is everything alright? Maybe we could meet up sometime, go get a drink. I'm here if you need.

-- S.S.

(Pinned to the staff noticeboard around Thursday lunchtime)

COMRADES!

1) I need a guinea-pig. Cute and furry not necessary (but always charming). MUST have first-hand experience with Bathory's Curse - don't know if you call it that in this country, but if you've swallowed it, you'll know about it.
1a) Failing that, I need someone willing to observe, adjust and possibly respond while I guinea-pig myself.
2) I need an assistant who still has the ability to cast--
No item 2! Pretend nothing happened! Move along!

- GS

Who: Jon and William
When: Wednesday after dinner
Where: Jon's rooms
What: Discussion of Puffskeins

William had been walking down the hall, mind on something else completely, when a flutter of colour and movement had caught his eye. Wary observation, slow steps and liberal application of magic had revealed it to be a puffskein, undoubtedly escaped from one of Jon's classes. Or released by his students in the absence of their teacher, if the gossip of last week was to be believed. Continued observation showed that the reason the furry fiend had been so difficult to spot in the first place was because it had been hit with a chameleon charm. William undid the spell, shaking his head internally over students who practiced magic on animals, and then went chill when it had no effect. The puffskein continued to cheerfully change colours, and no amount of finite incantem would get it to stop.

He started to head out onto the grounds; then realised how late it was and turned back towards the tower where Jon resided instead. If he wasn't in his rooms, then William could start checking the grounds, but the tower was closer. He marched up to the door, puffskein in hand, and banged solidly on the wooden frame. Jon had requested information about puffskeins only last week. He ought to have an explanation for this. At the very least, he was undoubtedly aware of the issue.

(posted Tuesday - backdated)

Jon,

Been playing around with the colour-changing puffskeins you gave me and reading up on creatures that adapt to fit their enviroments. There are these Muggle reptiles called chameleons that do just that, but so far knowing that isn't helping at all. I'm finding it difficult trying to diagnose why they've changed like this without having a specific event that may have affected them to work from.

Somebody said, though, that the reason you had so many was the result of some kind of multiply spell from one of your class. I'm starting to wonder if maybe there was something about the spell that brought this on. Perhaps it was only intended for a single subject but was used on a group, or perhaps it wasn't cast 100% correctly? In some cases with copy-type spells the duplicates are minorly faulty in some way if the caster is not suitably proficient. Do you think it's possible that certain duplicate puffs were not copied 100% correctly resulting in missing genes or some such? A genetic mutation seems like the only thing that could bring about such a substantial change in their make-up. It might help to know the exact spell used. I'm not an expert on copying or multiplying charms, but there might also be some branches that aren't intended for use on living things.

The only other theory that I can think of is that they may have wandered into a spelled area of your classroom, or an area with heavy magical residue, and been altered by that. The leftovers of a transfigure-type spell web designed to change the captured person into something else, perhaps. That being said, there's also the possibility that we have a group of renegade puff-experimenting students on our hands. I'd dismiss the idea entirely, but sometimes it's the weird outliers that come through in the end. Anyway, have attached some notes, run them over and let me know what you think. Meant to catch you at breakfast so we could talk it over, but must've missed you.

Mikey

(sent Monday, late lunchtime)

Professor,

I think Professor Walker might be missing

He didn't show up for class, he never does that

I am concerned about Professor Walker as the third years said that he did not show up for their class and he was absent for ours as well. I went to check the classroom before lunch as he's usually there chasing puffs but he wasn't there. I asked the nurse and he hasn't been to the infirmary either.

Can you please, please check on him? He's such an awesome teacher and we all want him to be okay, especially with all the students getting sick.


Sincerely,

Gracie Sablerhorn
Hufflepuff, 4th year