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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Jan 31, 2011 18:27:06 GMT -5
If there was one thing that Jadeian had learned in her years since her Hogwarts graduation, it was to enjoy reading. If not for this, she probably would not have taken on the huge task of reteaching all the lessons she had skipped or forgotten. IT had taken her many long years but the success of being self taught gave her the confidence to overcome any obstacle in her path, particularly knowledge based. She entered the dark library and flicked her wand; the candles in the room suddenly became lit and the library filled with light. The amount of cobwebs and dust build up was horrendous. The sight particularly disgusted her due to the fact that she had once been a librarian, and spent much of her time reorganizing and dusting the old shelves in this vast space. She continued wondering through the many tall shelves until she reached the section where the book she wanted was stored.
"Ah ha," Jadeian mumbled, prying the book from the over stuffed shelf and carrying over to one of the many empty tables. Looking around, she envisioned the many students studying and carrying on hushed conversations that had once been. Sighing slightly, she shook her head and opened her book to a specific page, marked with a dried flower. This is where she had left off the last time she had ventured into the library to study her spells. Her hunger had become insatiable, but even her need to learn was interrupted by her thoughts of the school. Jadeian attempted to concentrate, but there was no use. Something about the strange death of the school left her with a indescribable feeling. As if, dark magic had been behind it..
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 1, 2011 3:18:10 GMT -5
Brian sat slumped against a wall on the fourth floor, half-awake and half-asleep. Which end of reality would gain the advantage in the next few moments, he didn't know. He had been conducting his weekly check of the school. There wasn't anyone around, really, but he felt like he should stick around and make sure that the portraits didn't get too bored or that the the walls didn't rot away. He was sure that the school had experienced something like this in its long history. But leaving the place to fate wasn't what he was wired to do. He had to act; to do something, anything. Walking the halls every now and again just to check on the state of the school made him feel as if he was making some kind of difference.
Just as his eyelids began to close, and his conscience began to wave the white flag to it's evil twin sub-conscience, he heard a noise just down the hall. This was the kind of thing that stirred him awake with a jolt. He had been walking these halls every week for a very long time and he had never heard anything concrete. Every once in awhile a ghost would float by, but that was about it. Brian felt the adrenaline in his veins as he rose to his feet. His hair was a mess and he was still groggy, but he had definitely heard movement near the library. He shuffled his feet and slowly made his way across the dusty hall.
When he reached the library he found that the candles, stagnant for years, had been lit. The bookshelves were quite dusty and smelled badly of aging books, but the general character of the room had been maintained. There in the center, at a table, he saw a figure. She was sitting alone with a book in hand. He made his way toward the table, and his heartbeat slowly returned to its regular tick. "You know, midnight trips to the school are normally more my thing" Brian said, sliding onto the bench next to her. As he was able to look into her face, he saw a seriousness that he hadn't seen in awhile. It was at that moment that he knew she had been really thinking about something. Jadeian had grown more serious with age, as had he, but tonight there was something different in her eyes.
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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Feb 1, 2011 11:16:11 GMT -5
Was the idea that far off? Jadeian had been absent from the school for years at a time. A lot could have gone on in the area while she had been off else where. Then again, was the possibility that something had been building up all along? Even when she was "studying" here, had she ever really paid much attention to everything going on around her? She had been way too busy goofing around with friends to ever have taken anything much too serious. In the past couple of weeks that she had returned to Hogwarts, she felt a strange omnipresence, more than she had ever noticed before. Jadeian looked up from the page she was reading and looked around. This place does feel different. Is it just the absence of all the students? Could there really be something else going on here? Hogwarts castle was just about the safest place to be in the magical world, what with all the knowledgeable professors, and the Headmaster. Well, it used to be then, huh?
Jadeian looked up from her reading when Brian spoke. Her heart started racing for a split second then returned to normal which left her with a weird feeling in her chest. "When classes were in session," she responded. "Now that everyone is gone, well this place is kind of intriguing." There was a hint of sarcasm in what she said, of course she had reasons for coming to the school. She could not deny her troubling new thoughts of the castle, however. Closing the book and pushing it away from her, she brushed her hair away from her face and behind her ear. There was no way that she could continue her studying now that Brian was here. "Brain?" she questioned, looking over at him. "I don't want to come off as insane or anything. But, do you feel as if something weird is going on here? Like, other than the students being gone, as if, something is behind it? Something bad?" A look of concern creeped its way onto her face. The last thing she wanted to do was bring something up like this. Maybe it wasn't anything at all, maybe she was worried for no reason.
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 1, 2011 14:47:08 GMT -5
Brian wasn't one to point first to conspiracy theories, but no one could admit that the school hadn't change. He was now beginning to think that the two of them had come to the same conclusion. It looked the same to an untrained eye, but to Jadeian and Brian, who had been around for a good 15 years, the school had always had a presence about it. It just felt safe and bright. He hadn't been sure if it had felt that way because he was only a kid, or if the feeling really had been something...almost tangible. But now that Jadeian brought it up, he knew that he wasn't crazy. "I don't know" he told her simply. "But it's anything but an insane proposition."
Brian knew the power that dark magic concealed. Bad would always be more powerful than good. Because while proper magic always played by the rules, dark magic broke them. Hogwarts had been a safe haven for good wizards, inasmuch as a school can be, and the dark wizards knew it. Slytherin sometimes housed wizards that fooled around with the dark arts, but it didn't create the atmosphere that other schools did. It was entirely possible that evil had besieged this school far before either of them had even realized a change.
Was it possible that while he and the rest of the Aurors had been worried about dark magic from the outside, it had penetrated the inside? After all, Hogwarts had always been an afterthought. No one expected that the well-protected school could ever be taken over, and so quietly. "What do you think happened to this place?" he asked her quietly, as if someone was listening to their conversation. As he spoke, his words seemed almost hollow. They seemed to bounce off the walls as if they were in a dungeon. The library seemed colder. Could this just be a change in perception due to a sudden realization? Or was the school really changing before their eyes, in a matter of seconds?
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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Feb 1, 2011 19:11:41 GMT -5
Jadeian felt as if she were dipping into conspiracy theories, however. What could cause such a massive dismissal of all the students? It was not a rapid happening either, momentum built up over time. "I know it's not insane, but you can understand my hesitation, right? I mean, the thought is kind of scary," she spoke quietly to Brian, she felt as though if she spoke too loudly she would cause something to be aware of them." She was unsure if she should worry Brian with her nonsense. While Brian was an auror, she was aware of the fact that he would take her and her concerns quite seriously. It was foolish to think that Brian hadn't considered it as well though. Someone with half a brain would be able conclude that a change had occurred. The next step in that process of thinking would surely be answering the questions of why?
When Brain asked Jadeian what she thought might have happened at Hogwarts she weighed her options and made a decision. "Well, something must have happened to cause a school that has been up and running for centuries to turn into a ghost town." Suddenly it hit her. Would not Hogsmeade realize this change? Wouldn't they have heard about this from other wizards on their worldly travels? Perhaps not, maybe it was common knowledge what had happened and all they needed to do was ask someone. Whether or not the common knowledge was accurate, who knows. "I don't want to jump to conclusions Brian, I mean, what do you think happened? Knowing you, you probably have a guess, huh?"
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 1, 2011 20:16:38 GMT -5
Brian sat quietly, in thought, as Jadeian told him her thoughts. "I understand your hesitation. The relatively rapid degradation of a school that hadn't hit so much as a hiccup in thousands of years. But what if we're asking the wrong questions? When you really think about it, the real question isn't why this happened. The much more relevant question is...why didn't this happen sooner?" The more he thought about it the more it made sense. "This school has always been considered one of the safest places in the world. Dark wizards were afraid to come near here because the spells and enchantments surrounding it were unknown. Not even Voldemort would have dared to come near a place like Hogwarts.
"The real question is...what changed? I think we're both in agreement that a place like Hogwarts could not have been brought to its knees without some outside force. The history of the school would have held it together on its own. The Headmaster and the professors here held positions that were held in high honor by the wizarding community. They would have never left their posts just out of boredom. Every Hogwarts professor and student...just gets up and leaves within a matter of years. That just doesn't happen, Jadeian." He continued to pound this fact in the ground even though he knew that she had come to this same conclusion and didn't need to be told more than once.
"What do I think? I think something very strange happened to this school. I'm not the most talented Auror to ever hold a position with the Ministry, but I know when something is coincidental. I know that this kind of thing isn't. Something has been happening here at Hogwarts for many years, undetected. Whether from outside or within, I don't know." Brian hung his head and sat there, in thought. He didn't know what to do. In every sense of the words, Hogwarts was probably doomed. But to sit here and sorrowfully think about its doom would only solidify that resolution. Something had to be done. But what? "What do you think we should do, Jadeian?"
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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Feb 3, 2011 10:11:41 GMT -5
Jadeian came to a decision in her mind. When it came down to it, whether there was a question of dark magic making it's way into the school or not, what in essence could they really do about it? "Brian, I think we should continue on with our daily lives here for as long as we decide to stick around. However, we should be aware." Jadeian smiled at Brian, trying to show him some confidence in what she was saying. "For all we know, we could be completely over reacting." With that Jadeian stood up, picked up her book and nodded to Brian. "We should keep are ears open and our chins up, Brian. We should be asking questions rather than developing conspiracy theories." She said this as she started walking back through the shelves to place the book she had taken back in it's spot. There was no way she was going to get any reading done now, her brain was on over drive and quite focused on other things.
(blechhh, no musee sorryyy)
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 3, 2011 14:41:23 GMT -5
Brian knew that Jadeian was right. They had gone from sitting in a library to coming up with a story of overwhelming dark arts and wizards in less than half an hour. Their story was, at best, a conspiracy theory. After all, what had they to prove that it was the work of dark magic? And even if they could prove that evil was afoot, how would they stop it? They were just two ordinary wizards trying to protect a forgotten school against something no one could see. They would acquire no allies. "Maybe you're right" he said, standing up and wiping dust off of his butt. The place really had turned into a trash dump over the past few years. It isn't like they could just go to the Ministry or anything. The Minister of Magic would probably put them in the nuthouse and carry on with his daily activities. "Conspiracy theories never did solve anything" he shrugged, following her to the bookshelves. "So, what are your plans for the next couple of days?" he asked.
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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Feb 3, 2011 18:45:43 GMT -5
Jadeian smiled at Brian. "Well, the plans are to possibly clean up and reorganize this library a little. This place is a mess. Otherwise, I free to do whatever. I'm vacationing here in a way." Looking around she realized that she had a lot to do around this place. Could you even imagine an entire clean up of the school. At this rate she might be spending her entire "vacation" in here. "I see others wondering around every once in a while. Maybe we should find them and see what they think of all this." She knew the chances of actually getting a hold of one of the very few visitors might be a long shot, but at least they were doing something to help settle their questions rather than jumping to conclusions. "What are you up to Brian? What are your plans for the next couple of days?"
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 3, 2011 19:34:12 GMT -5
"You've got quite a little project on your hands then" he laughed. Looking around the library, there was more than a little mess to clean up. Everywhere he looked there were piles of dust and mold. Bugs were crawling and the air smelled extremely stale. It would take a lot more than magic to clean this place. There was no way she would be able to do it on her own. "And I doubt you'll be able to catch one. They're so rare. You'll see more than a few ghosts around, though. They might be willing to tell you something. And, who knows, they may know better than anyone else. They've been shacked up here for decades, some for centuries" he shrugged. Many of the visitors he had seen around the grounds didn't even know the state of the school. They were surprised to hear that the place wasn't still up and running. "My plans? Well, I guess I'm cleaning up a library" he smiled.
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Post by Jadeian DuPree on Feb 9, 2011 0:41:51 GMT -5
Jadeian looked around the library once more and sighed slightly. Brian was right, magic could only do so much to a library in this state. "Well I'm going to be around the grounds here for a while, we'll take this all a day at a time. There's no need for a rush." Cleaning and questioning the ghosts of the castle could take some time. "You know, that's a great idea Brian. Who would know better about what happened here?" For a split second Jadeian felt the urge to just run off and start asking questions to satisfy her urgent need to know, but then she settled herself and realized that there was no evidence for her to even be as worried as she was. "We have to schedule in some fun too, Brian. We can't just go around worrying about the school and be all work and no play." Jadeian smiled slightly. "What to do in a place that everyone abandoned..."
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Post by Brian Garrett on Feb 9, 2011 0:52:17 GMT -5
"When have we not scheduled in time for fun, Jadie?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow. It was true that they had been pretty serious and down to earth lately, but maybe it was time to let loose a little bit. Brian was sure that he still had some of that kindred spirit left in him from his younger days. He had just been so depressed lately to have the ability to call it up. "And since when have I NOT had great ideas?" Brian laughed and rolled his eyes. "You've just never listened to them before." Brian was already thinking of fun activities they could do. Paint pictures? Wave to clouds? Jump rope? Smell flowers? Smell flour? Climb a rope? Make a first-year trap? Eat snowballs? The possibilities were endless.
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