Attention everyone... Christmas is Cancelled on Cascade Hall

DH Skies

April 06, 2018 10:11 PM

Attention everyone... Christmas is Cancelled by DH Skies

The theory that the fever and the bursts of accidental magic were linked were proved a couple of days after the staff meeting, although it seemed that it wasn’t quite as they suggested - the accidental magic was itself a symptom, not merely a result of an incidence of illness. It was all over the papers. Because it wasn’t just them. There had been outbreaks across the whole country - adults losing control, obliviators working over time. Only recently had it been linked with the spike in fever cases. Whilst it was, in some senses, a good thing that they knew was going on, it was a previously unknown illness and that, apparently, meant they couldn’t do much in the way of stopping it. The only symptom they knew how to treat was the fever, and given that that cropped up after all the bursts of accidental magic, it looked like things might be exploding for a while.

That was the news she had broken to the staff yesterday. She had also Floo’d in a report to MACUSA to inform them that they had had several cases of the virus at the school. This morning, one week before the Midterm holiday, she had got a response. One that was not going to make many people very happy. She had sent out two notes. One to all bar one of the staff member, informing them that they had yet another meeting (she wondered how many terms beyond this one it would take for her staff to cease having a pavlovian reaction of their stomach clenching at the sight of her handwriting - although how often did she, as the deputy headmistress, send them good news?). She had sent a different note to Sophie… Telling the staff had not been a pleasant job. Tarquin, in particular, had not taken it well, and had stormed out of the meeting, under the grounds that he was pretty sure he was sick and he didn’t want to start throwing things at her or making them blow up. She’d later found out that he had fairly good reason to be especially upset by the situation. She felt awful but there was nothing she could do.

And now that she’d done it to the staff, it was time to ruin everyone else’s Christmas too.

“Attention please,” she called out at lunch, her voice magically amplified. The day before, the students had been informed that the accidental magic was a symptom of the illness going around, along with an apology to anyone who had been misjudged over their incidents. She was concerned that telling them gave a carte blanche to pranksters to try to get away with more, but she didn’t think they really had too many of those (which made her wonder why things hadn’t stood out to them sooner, but hindsight was twenty twenty), and it was cruel and unfair not to let them know what was happening to them. It was disturbing, losing control of one’s magic, and she was sure a few of them had already been freaked out by the incidents that had taken place. Plus it let them know to be on the lookout for developing fever symptoms, and going to the medic sooner rather than later. “As you know, there is an illness going around not just in school, but in the wider wizarding world. This is a previously unknown illness, and the magical authorities are still working out how to treat it,” this was all recap from yesterday. “One of the only measures they are able to take at present is to try to control the spread of the illness,” this was the new information. “As such, they have taken the decision to place the school under quarantine. That means no one coming in, and no one going out until we have a better idea of what’s going on. That’s unlikely to happen within a week.” She had thought for a long time about how to say this. What words to use. But there were no words that she could dress this up in that made it pleasant or palatable. Which meant it was probably better to be direct, and clear. “We will all be staying here for Midterm. Your parents will be sent letters by Floo this afternoon. I’m very sorry.”

OOC - this is set about a week before Midterm. You can assume your family gets a letter from the school explaining the situation, and reassuring them that their child is fine. Midterm will be posted at the end of the weekend in order to give reaction time for those who want it. If you have posts that occur pre-midterm and you don’t manage to get them up before the Midterm line is posted, you can always use that as the post that you respond to.

Subthreads:

Oh Merlin, I’m the Grinch who stole Christmas by Jozua Sparks with Georgia Kirkly

I'm the one infected, twisted animator by Cleo James

13 DH Skies Attention everyone... Christmas is Cancelled 26 DH Skies 1 5

Jozua Sparks

April 07, 2018 10:43 PM

Oh Merlin, I’m the Grinch who stole Christmas by Jozua Sparks

During Professor Skies’ first announcement to the school - the one where they all found out Jozua (and other people like Parker and Zevalyn, but really, mostly, Jozua, not that she’d mentioned him by name or anything but he was pretty sure he’d been the only one given detentions over it) were not useless horrible people with poor wand control but innocent victims of a new illness and should not be held at fault for what they couldn’t help and apologies were made for past blaming - Jozua had felt a bit relieved to know there had been a good reason for why his magic had gone haywire at the beginning of the school year. He felt vindicated from the ‘reputation that preceded him’ and glad that being ‘kinda scary’ around his classmates wasn’t something likely to reoccur any time he got too nervous and hadn’t recently been living in a dueling arena to keep on top of his magical control. He’d just been sick. It was a symptom of an illness. It wasn’t his fault.

Between that announcement and today’s, however, upon hearing the details a second time and understanding that the entire school was getting quarantined to prevent the spread of it, Jozua realized something terrible.

It was his fault.

That everyone at Sonora was getting sick, that they were trapped here over Christmas. . . . it was totally completely and entirely Jozua Maarten Sparks’ fault.

He’d been showing accidental magic signs in August, before coming back to school.

He’d been the first one to come down with a fever.

The next two people he knew of who did were Joe and Lily, two of his three closest friends.

It must be his fault. All of it. He had clearly been the one who brought this new plague here, he’d been the carrier who spread it from Oregon to Arizona.

Every explosion, every overheated greenhouse, every bit of weirdness going on, every person who fell victim to that terrible high fever, every person stuck here instead of going home to families and friends, it was because of him. He did this to Sonora.

He sat there in his seat at dinner that night looking far more stricken and horrified than even the prospect of Christmas at school ought to engender. Well after Professor Skies stopped talking, Jozua didn’t eat, didn’t talk, didn’t move.

1 Jozua Sparks Oh Merlin, I’m the Grinch who stole Christmas 348 Jozua Sparks 0 5

Georgia Kirkly

April 15, 2018 10:36 AM

That's my favourite Christmas film. Which I now don't get by Georgia Kirkly

So… on the plus side, she wasn’t being bullied or victimised. That was good. On the other hand, she had made a teacup tease her and turned herself invisible. What did that say about her as a person? Oh, and she had vanished all the quills to get out of math, but that last one was totally sane and reasonable, and not exactly a new experience. The rest though, had her seriously questioning her sanity and mental wellbeing. She had decided to try not to think about it too much. It was nearly Christmas. She would see her family, and hopefully get to go dress shopping with Zev. It was a time for fun, not self-reflection. For decorating the Christmas tree, and watching the Grinch (and all the other Christmas movies but that one was her favourite) and eating gingerbread and all kinds of other good things, and for hanging out her stocking and pretending she still believed it really was Santa who filled it because she’d gone through the phase of being all grown up and having ‘figured it out’ and it was more fun now to go back to pretending.

And then, just like that, those things were all gone. What the actual hell? Surely they couldn’t do this? Except obviously they could. And they just had.

“Well, this year can officially go die in a fire,” she complained. And then she glanced around and saw who she was sitting next to. Oops. Not that Jozua had killed anyone with his fires, and nor had anyone died in the house fire he’d had last year. But it was still a pretty tactless comment, probably. She wondered for about the millionth time in her life her school life how she’d got into the house that had ‘diplomacy’ as a trait given her almost supernatural ability to put her foot in her mouth. It was like her specialist skill. “Sorry… Bad choice of phrase,” she apologised, hoping Jozua was looking… however he was looking right now (not good) more because of the news than because of her words.

13 Georgia Kirkly That's my favourite Christmas film. Which I now don't get 346 Georgia Kirkly 0 5

Cleo James

April 16, 2018 9:28 AM

I'm the one infected, twisted animator by Cleo James

Accidental magic plague. When Cleo had heard that bit of news, it had definitely explained a few things. All of the weird things, in fact, that had seemed like they couldn’t really be to do with her being half veela, had seemed that way because they weren’t. Parker’s problems weren’t anything to do with her. Well, apart from the problem of her - the problem that his best friend was mental and a half man-bewitching fiend thing and still keeping that a secret from him. Which was a pretty big problem…

The fact that she was clearly sick concerned her - she wasn’t sure where the ball gown had come from (possibly Winston, seeing as she definitely had not been wanting to wear it) but bricking herself up in a tower… Well, that she was pretty certain counted as the symptoms described. She wasn’t sure accidental magic and half veela was a good combination. And the fever part didn’t sound fun either. But she only had one week to go to the holidays. She was looking forward to going home. She had been robbed of much of the summer by the revelations about her mother. She had spent a lot of time upset, and also rather mad at her daddy. Her feelings about the whole thing were still very complicated, but she didn’t want to be mad at him any more. She wanted to go home. To be looked after. To relax. She still felt like she had to be on her guard here all the time, and it was tiring. It would be nice not to feel that way, and to spend time actually having fun, with someone who cared about her and that she wasn’t a danger to or in danger from.

She didn’t think much of it when Professor Skies stood up to talk to them again. There was… a whole big thing going on, and there would probably be a lot of updates. She began talking about how they had to control the spread of the illness. Were they going to get a lecture on handwashing or something? She remembered a cheery nurse from her middle school reminding them that ‘coughs and sneezes spread diseases.’ She knew she was sick, so she would try extra hard not to breathe on people or whatever for the last week. It wasn’t like she saw many people anyway and-

What?! WHAT?! No!

She sat in shock for a moment, not quite believing the deputy head’s words. But then Professor Skies stopped talking. That was it… She didn’t want to stay here! She wanted to go home! She could feel the sting of tears in her eyes, and a hot, desperate pounding in her chest.

The entire of Crotalus table burst into flame.

Cleo leapt back, startled, shielding her face, and slightly panic-stricken. Before she could do much more than that, Professor Skies had put the flames out, although it took a few waves of her wand to do so, and then even more to set the things on the table back to rights. Cleo kept her head low, pretty sure the Professor knew who was to blame for that, but Professor Skies didn’t tell her off, merely going back to the staff table. Cleo glanced at the Crotalus table. It looked… fine. Back to normal. Like she hadn’t just done that. But she had. Even with the excuse of the accidental magical illness, that had been… extreme, and she wondered what her classmates thought. She didn’t want to be such a danger to people. She didn’t even want to be around people. She- She wished she could go home.

OOC - I also author Professor Skies, otherwise the above would not be allowed

13 Cleo James I'm the one infected, twisted animator 389 Cleo James 0 5