Once she saw that most people had arrived to breakfast, she stood up and conjured her Lectern, once there was silence she spoke to the students, "Good morning everybody, I know it's a Sunday, but it's also the Halloween feast tonight. Unfortunately, as it's a full moon Professor Lupin won't be joining us. That also means that the armoury is strictly out of bounds. I know that you already know this, but it's especially important today. Even for those who we understand can normally take care of themselves. The only other staff absences will be from Auror Tonks, who will be ensuring that the school is safe, and possibly Clan Leader Azaria if she decides to join Tonks on her rounds. We will also be closing the Great Hall and the hallway directly outside of it directly after lunch today. That means that unless you want to become part of the decorations for the evening, you will stay well clear. I hope everyone understands this, and realises that as the theme of the evening is ghost stories, it's unlikely that you'd enjoy being part of the decorations.
"If you're bored, I suggest that you try and join the first and second years in structured play outside for the afternoon."
The announcement was met with kissing noises from some of the students who were old enough to understand why Azaria might accompany.
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Azaria made her way up from the gate house, her first session hadn't gone how she expected it in any way shape or form. Not that she really knew how it was going to go, but she knew it wasn't what she expected. Seeing the first years playing outside, she decides to join them rather than face the adults inside while she was still more than a little raw from talking about why she was seeking help.
She was playing simon says with the children, by unspoken agreement they didn't include notes too low for her and she didn't include notes too high for them. As such she was aware of when Karen came out and unobtrusively joined the games. None of them batted an eyelid as it wasn't unusual for the supervising teacher to join in the games. Unless of course it was Rolland, then he'd just sit to one side reading peevishly before shouting at someone that came too close. It was because of this that she was looking right at Karen as the first shout of "Mummy!" came from one of the first years. The smile that graced her face turned her attractive fact divine.
Moving over to Karen she murmured, "Is there something you forgot to tell the students?"
"Not at all. I wanted it to be a surprise. We sold tickets to parents for tonight so that they could have fun too. It's helped pay for some of the things the school needs that we can't just make." Karen replied in an equally low voice.
Slowly over the rest of the afternoon parents came to watch their children playing in the courtyard or went in to spend time with them in the library or common rooms.
It was about mid-afternoon when an irate Molly Weasley brandishing a sword. Calmly Azaria disarmed her and held the sword in her off hand pointing to the floor by her leg.
In the same voice that she used to use when addressing the Obereon of the Winter Court, Azaria confronted Mrs Weasley, "Madam, may I ask why you are running around with the sword belonging to one of the first-year students?"
"How could you let poor little children run around with such a dangerous object?"
Karen looks around, "I'm sorry Mrs Weasley, but all of our first years seem to have left their wands inside."
"I'm not talking about their wands! I'm talking about those weapons!"
Azaria frowned and inspected the sword, "I'm sorry, this is a focus. Saul Mitchell's focus to be precise, unless I'm mistaken."
"How can a sword be a focus?"
"Madam, just because you don't know how to do something doesn't make it untrue. Saul, come and get your sword and show this lady what you can cast with it."
Saul takes the sword respectfully as he's been taught and finding a place that's facing away from anyone else, peppers the wall with coloured balls from his sword. He then casts a simple shield using the sword before turning back to Azaria.
"Well done." Azaria praises.
Turning back to Mrs Weasley, "As you can see, that is a focus for spells."
"Well I never!"
Karen dons her Headmistress hat to give the final response to this, "Mrs Weasley, I trust that we will never have a repeat performance of this? Or do I need to eject you from the school and ban you from the grounds?"
"You shouldn't be…"
"Mrs Weasley! We are a school for magic, not a school for wands. We teach our students how to wield magic, we also teach them to use as many focus' as we can. At the moment that is wand, staff, and sword. We don't teach more because we don't have people skilled in the use of other focus'. So I repeat. Do I need to eject you from the grounds, or will you refrain from passing judgement on the students' choices in focus?"
"They shouldn't…"
"Last chance Mrs Weasley, either you stay and accept what I said, or I remove you from the grounds. There is no arguing this."
Molly looks Karen in the eyes and sees that there's no give there, she either acquiesces or she's banned from the grounds effective immediately.
Swallowing, she takes a couple of attempts to reply, "I… I will stay."
Unfortunately for Karen, it's not the only confrontation about the swords she has that afternoon.
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Eventually the time came to open the feast. Standing before both the great hall and the entertainment that Hogwarts provided, Karen looks at the parents and students present.
"Good evening everyone. Welcome to our annual Halloween festival. Traditionally this time of year has been about two things. The first is remembering those that we've lost over the year. The second is to try to ward off the demons that early humans believed hunted them. The latter is where the modern version of Halloween came from, originating from the masks and costumes that people wore, and the begging for reward for chasing the demons away from someone's house. The second is now usually relegated to religious celebrations or services. In the Great Hall we have enlisted the help of the castle ghosts and each one has a place that is representative of somewhere they once lived or visited. Take a pew and listen to their stories, their music and their history. In the centre is a buffet table for the food and blocks of wood to turn into your own utensils. First years, this is your chance to show off to your parents just what you've learnt to do.
"Through this door is a memory, a true memory. It is the aftermath of a terrible event, and will be distressing. Students below OWL year must have their parents or guardian's permission to go in. If you're parents aren't here, that means your head of house, or their assistant. Everyone else, enter at your own risk, and only give permission to your children after you've been in there yourselves. If you follow the path, you'll find a column dolmen in a henge. The food and storyteller can be found in the centre of it. I have been told that the first story she will be telling is about the scene that you'll be walking through. Due to the nature of the scene, some of the staff will be refilling the platters as the House elves have refused to go in while the scene is present.
"Harry, Hermione, and Dudley, as your current guardian, I am refusing permission to go into the scene. I'm sure that you'll have your own share of memories like this in the future, but there's no need to start now. That goes for anyone else in the Hogwarts house who's parent's aren't here.
"Oh, while I remember. One last thing before the doors open, in order to ensure that all of our students are completely comfortable with basic transfiguration, we no longer provide plates, goblets and cutlery. Instead, we provide a single block of wood for 2nd year students and above. Transfiguration students don't even get that once they've learnt conjuration. If you have trouble with transfiguration yourself, please feel free to ask a nearby student to make your utensils for you. With that, I bid you all an enjoyable evening, and watch out for Peeves. He's the trick in the treat."
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Celia stepped through the door to the memory with Duncan. She knew it was going to be bad as Hogwarts had practiced telling the story with her as the audience. Immediately she was hit with the chill of a deep winter. Reflexively she puts a warming charm on herself, not even thinking to draw her wand as she does so. Taking a step forward, she hears the crisp crunch as her foot breaks through the delicate inch thick frost on the ground. Pausing for a moment to look around, she realises that they're in a winter covered forest. Thick mist clings to the ground and makes seeing ahead more than 10 paces virtually impossible. The same mist doesn't reach that high, so the veins of magic running through the sky are clearly visible, and provide an eerie illumination to the mist. Three faint crescent moons hang in the air, proclaiming louder than the magical veins that this isn't anywhere on earth.
She hears Duncan casting a warming charm on himself before he steps up next to her. Together they both follow the path, which is only visible due to the fact the tree branches don't hang completely over it, thus providing a clear path of sky. As they walk forward, Celia's eyes catch up with what she already knew. Every tree along the path is adorned with a body nailed to the branches. At the foot of each tree is a ghost lamenting up at the body. It takes her mind another few minutes to realise that the lumps in the frost near each tree are actually bodies. It's when Duncan scourgifies one of them clear of frost that she almost loses her lunch, the body under the ice belongs to the ghost at the base of the tree. Taking a moment to swallow her gorge while Duncan curiously inspects the body, Celia carries on down the path. The whole scene taking on a far more sinister tone in her mind than it had done. As they're almost out of earshot of the body, she hears someone retch and throw up at the body as they come to the same realisation she did. She starts to cry silently when Duncan shoots a light slowly off into the forest and those suspiciously long lumps that could just be logs, but she knows aren't.
As they round another bend they can see the faint reflection of torchlight on hills up ahead. Steeling herself as she knows that in the story there was worse to come, she forges on ahead. Glad that the light isn't good enough to make out what the darker colours over the edge of the henge are, and praying to any goddess that will listen that Duncan holds his curiosity rather than illuminate one of them while she can still see them. As they enter they can see a multitude of black sheets covering lumps dotted around the inside of the henge. A wooden table is set out to one side with a cornucopia of delicacies, a pile of wooden bricks laid out to either side. In the centre, sitting by a defiled altar, she sees Hogwarts in blood splattered robes looking around mournfully.
Walking over to Hogwarts, Celia needlessly introduces herself, "Good evening, I'm Celia Greengrass. Are you our hostess for the evening?"
"Well met Celia, I am Hogwarts. Though for tonight I am the Bloody Rose, and this is the reason why I went on to gain that title."
"Thank you for covering the bodies here."
"That was Karen, as she thought they would spoil the appetites of our guests. The victims from the ritual are in the graves over there if you want to pay your respects though."
Moving over to the graves she indicated, only visible because of the headstones with a stylised helmet engraved on them. As she gets closer, she can see that each headstone has two drachma on them. Conjuring a kneeling cushion with her wand, she also conjures a candle on a headstone and lights it before kneeling to pay her respects.
Slowly other people join her, and more candles appear on the headstones. Sometimes a flower, wreath, or trinket as well, as each person that came paid their respects in their own way. When she's finished she walks back to Hogwarts who is in conversation with some of the other parents. Winking at her, she waves her wand with a flourish and summons a wooden block, before transfiguring it into a comfortable looking love seat with a cushioning charm on her side. She deliberately leaves it with the underlying wooden feeling because she hasn't forgiven Duncan for uncovering that body yet. Another few flicks, and a block of wood turns into a plate and a couple of goblets, which get filled with wine. Levitating one of the goblets over to Hogwarts, she conjures an arm-tray to put her plate and goblet on, before filling up the plate with some food.
Hogwarts sends her a nod of thanks as she takes a sip of wine, her actions prompting the other parents to start doing the same thing. Duncan sits down next to her, before standing and casting his own cushioning charm. Vindictively she wandlessly counters it and casts a vastly less effective one in it's place as he's sitting down.
Leaning over he softly speaks to her, "I notice that you're doing a lot better with your magic, what happened?"
She replies in an equal tone, "You saw what Daph could do when she came home over summer. There was no way I was going to let Astoria show me up too, so I asked for some advice and started practicing the basics. You can't imagine how therapeutic stabbing something with a needle can be."
"Where were you the other day, as I came home and you were out."
"I found the most wonderful library in the muggle world over the Summer. It's called the British Library, and they have been receiving a copy of every single book every published in the muggle UK since 1753, although it was part of the British Museum till 1973. They've also got some texts that are over 2,000 years old. You know the Headmistress used to be a Librarian? Well she helped me to get a membership there, and I'm working on getting permission to read some of the oldest tomes."
Celia watched her husbands interest wander as she was prepared to wax lyrical about the books 'she had seen' there. She needed to make a note to arrange for a membership just in case he called her out on it in the future. Though she did see Hogwarts nod approvingly out of the corner of her eye, so maybe she'd have some help in that matter.
Changing the subject, Duncan decided to complain instead, "I'm glad you've found something that interests you. How comes you only got yourself food and drink? I saw you even provided one for our hostess."
Celia's comeback was quick and scathing, "I showed you just as much consideration with the food and drink as you showed me when you indulged your curiosity on the way here. I've just thought of something, I'll be back in a few minutes I just need to let the children know they're not allowed in here."
As she gets up to head back to the main school, Duncan has an expression of confusion on his face, which she knows is genuine as it's one of the few that she's seen him make when he thinks he's unobserved at home. As she's leaving the circle she sees Lucius Malfoy sit on the chair, stand and cast a cushioning charm before sitting again. She smiles faintly to herself as she makes her way back to the main school, she should have time to drop a note on Karen's desk before she finds Daphne and Astoria.
As she's leaving she sees Arthur and his three eldest still at the school, stopping briefly she gives them a warning, "If you follow the path quickly and don't pay too much attention to the trees you'll be fine."
Arthur goes white, "I know, Molly came in with me earlier and was too curious. I've been trying to persuade these three not to come in, but they're old enough to ignore me."
One of the twins says in their most reasonable tone of voice, "Dad, I know we want to over a joke shop, but sometimes the most important thing to know is why you need to make people laugh. And that's what this is."
She left them to the conversation by ducking out of the room. As she did so she almost bumped into Daphne as she was sat beside the door.
"Sorry Daphne, I didn't realise that someone would be there."
"It's ok Mum, what are you doing here?"
"I came to let both you and your sister know you're not allowed in there. While I'm sure it would be educational, you can probably learn just as much with just listening to the story later. I also want to leave a note on Karen's desk."
"What note?" Karen says from behind her, making her jump.
"I told my husband that I've been going to the British Library to read. So I was hoping that you'd help me get a membership so that I can familiarise myself with where it is and visit a few times, just in case he calls me on it."
"I can do that. Thank you for watching the door Daphne, go and have some fun and I'll take over for an hour."
"Thanks!" Daphne replies before hugging Celia and running off who knows where.
While Karen's writing herself a note she remarks, "It's one of the downsides of being a student Magi, they get saddled with extra responsibilities."
Making her way back to the dolmen with her plate she sees that Narcissa is standing around while the men natter on the chair she transfigured. Remembering to draw her wand again, she summons a block of wood as she walks over to Narcissa.
"Care to join me on a seat?"
"A seat like that one?" Narcissa asks suspiciously.
"Oh no, one that's actually comfortable, not just looks comfortable."
"Then I would be delighted to join you."
Celia transfigures a new seat, this one as comfortable as she can make it. Summoning another brick she transfigures a raised comfortable seat for Hogwarts, and also brings over three goblets of wine.
Taking this as a cue to start her story, she swirls her drink as she stands up and makes her way in front of everyone. She then weaves a tale of investigating the disappearance of whole villages in the British isles around 400 A.D. Finding faint traces of magic at each one she raced from village to village trying to catch up with the raiders. It was at the 6th village that she found a fresh enough trace that she could follow it. When she arrived she realised it was already too late for the other villages, as those that were still alive were decorating the trees in the surrounding forest. Grimly following the same path they just did, she made her way into the Henge to find a ritual in the closing phases. Interrupting the ritual by ensuring that the accrued magic flared off safely, the ritualists and guards had time to draw their weapons and focus'. After a brief and bloody battle she had a single captive, as the lead ritualists escaped in the fight. She found out where they came from and what they were trying to achieve. She then waged a one woman war against the Court of the Rose.
The story took the best part of the evening to tell, and the audience was spellbound the entire time. As the setting added meaning to the story that they couldn't possibly have understood without it.
