The Whisperers of the Meow

With the start of February, the sun began to shine weakly upon Hogwarts as the days passed. The mood inside the castle had been dramatically cheered by the celebration of the Lunar New Year. Many of the students were looking forward to this year's Valentine's celebration. There would be a large feast in the representation of Lupercalia, (a day of love or even lust), an ancient Roman pagan festival. There would be a scry table, where students would peer into water bowls in hopes of seeing symbols representing their future lover. For example, if a bluebird was seen, it would mean a marriage to a happy man (or woman). A golden finch, a wealthy partner. A sparrow, an artist, etc.

There would also be a dueling tournament permitted for 5th years and older to duel classmates of their same year. They would be permitted to weak tokens of their beloved affections as they dueled. Madam Pomfrey was already fuming about the event, but rules were being set down of what spells could be cast and where. But even with rules in place accidents always tend to happen.

Personally, Rowan thought that this Valentine's Day wasn't as bad as it could have been. At least there would be food so that at least was a good thing. Still, she was at least a Prefect this time around, so she'd be able to dock points and assign detentions, which may or may not make her kick her heels in glee.

Glancing down at the letter that had been drying before her, Rowan gave the letter for Petunia a quick last look over. She had responded to Petunia's letter regarding the terrible atrocities committed by Colonel Toney Callan and 12 mercenary soldiers in the Angolan Civil War, who had executed 100 fellow Britons upon orders of Colonel Callan. The citizens of the nation were aghast even more, so the House of Commons as the Prime Minister spoke in dismay about the atrocities committed. She had shared similar sentiments of horror in full agreement with Petunia on the subject.

On the other hand, the Winter Olympics had commenced in Innsbruck, Austria. Apparently, Petunia was a great fan of Dorthy Hamill, an American figure skater who had won a gold medal. But Petunia like many girls of her time had fallen in love with the wedge haircut of the figure skater and had immediately gone out to get a similar haircut.

Personally, Rowan didn't know what to make of Petunia's haircut and had merely murmured words of assurance. What else was she supposed to say?! Still, there was plenty of thing going on in Petunia's life. With her growing love of cooking, Petunia had gotten a job after school in the next town over in a pastry shop. The pastry shop was down on its luck and had hired Petunia despite her age and experience.

With Petunia's job in the next town over and her mother being reluctant to drive her and her dad working as a foreman, she began to study for a driving exam. Now that Petunia is 16 years of age, she could apply for a provisional driving license (and would get her official driver's license at 17). She had been practicing in the old family Ford Capri around Cokesworth with her mum being her unwilling passenger.

However, Petunia was confident that she would pass, but more importantly had saved up enough from her former local part-time job to buy a small moped, a Yamaha FS1E to be precise in a lovely shade of red. And having seen the actual vehicle, Rowan had to agree that the small motorbike was rather cute in its own way.

Glancing down at the letter again, Rowan sees that the ink on the parchment is dry. She carefully slips the letter inside a ready envelope and seals it shut with a bit of enchanted red wax that melts on its own, before stamping the wax with her personal seal (of the Prince household of a wyvern coiled around a dagger).

With a nod of satisfaction, Rowan gathers the rest of her belongings from the common room. Sylvia, Tiffany, and Bethanie don't even bother to glance up from their schoolwork nor does Severus except for Terry, who sighs and slouches into his chair bemoaning his fate. Most of the older students are all studying while the younger students finished their homework either play quietly or retreat with the board games to play in their dorms.

Although Rowan did momentarily pause at seeing the cult of Slytherins carefully placing catnip on the bowl of the true rulers of the Slytherin common room, Alchemy, and Brahms. Naturally, there were more cat subjects, who sat on cushions on the floor to also be worshipped but they were lower on the totem ranking pole.

The sight never ceased to disturb Rowan no matter how many times she saw it. She was frankly certain that there was a cult of cat worshippers that would continue to exist even after their graduation. She was certain it would be called something equally ridiculous like the Whisperers of the Meow or the People of the Meow….

Deciding that it was time to retreat before she lost her last trace of sanity, Rowan fled from the Slytherin common room into the frigid dungeon. Feeling the need to exercise, she climbed all the way up the winding stairs to the owlery. There wasn't anyone up there, especially with the cold. And Owny was rather unhappy at being roused from his warm nest, but at least it was already dark. With an unhappy hoot, the large, brown Great Horned Owl spread its wings, before leaping out of the tower and being carried away by an air current towards the sky,

Rowan only paused to gently give Nibby a scratch, before closing her eyes to teleport away. She was originally going to head back to study except she happened to notice a strange cluster of figures in an empty classroom. Normally, she would have paid no attention to them except that the names were Sirius and Regulus Black, Barty Crouch, and Lorcan D'Eath.

Much like the rest of the Prefects, Rowan had kept an eye out for signs of depression, especially those that had lost loved ones in the giant attacks. It was difficult to keep track of, but the Head of Houses were doing a good job of pulling the students aside to have a private word with them and more so the older student mentors that had been assigned to the younger students.

For better or for worse the issue did not lie in the alliance of the goblins, hags, and Aurors since the alliance had worked miracles in limiting the extent of the giant attacks. However, the alliance could not be in all places at once. The giant Gurg was clever and rather than aiming for large attacks as before had switched to small surprise skirmishes of one or two giants. This would spread out the goblins, hags, and Aurors to cover sufficient ground resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians who could not be reached to in time.

The public was fearful of more deadly attacks. Many of the ministry officials believed that another attack on the Ministry of Magic was imminent while the Auror department believed that the skirmishes were merely decoys testing the waters. However, no one could predict when the next deadly attack would be or where.