By The Editors
It’s been three months (almost… okay three full rotations of the moon) since werewolf hunters descended on Hogwarts. The doors of this esteemed castle, that have been a welcoming home for many years to students of all bloodlines, were opened by Acting-Headmistress Dorchester following an attack on a fellow student.
It would be understandable for our Acting-Headmistress to wish to keep our fellow students safe especially following the apparent disappearance of one known werewolf but the question I am asking is why haven’t they caught these werewolves yet?
One theory would be inside protection. It’s commonly known that professors who were teaching before the occurrences at the Hearty Party still maintain loyalty and their affinity to protect their students. Let us not forget the wonderful moment that a certain Care of Magical Creatures professor took it upon themselves to lob pumpkins at the werewolf hunters when questioning was attempted. This led to an addition to a “list”. Well, what sort of list? Werewolf sympathisers? Anti-werewolf legislation was repealed during the reform of the Ministry of Magic, for those who haven’t bothered to read up on modern magical history, and yet it seems forgotten. The second wizarding war was over in 1998 and yet, prejudices are still being dragged up out of the gutter.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
A Muggle’s quote, I believe by a George Santayana, but apt none-the-less.
Last night apparently, a hoard of wolves or werewolves got into the castle, students filled the beds at the hospital wing with bites that I can only assume the wing staff cured. But this begs the question, how on earth did wolves (which aren’t even native to Scotland) or werewolves get into our castle? A castle that is, historically, so well protected and, a castle whose doors should be locked at 5pm was infiltrated by creatures that should not have been able to enter. Why? Was the door left unlocked? And if so, for what reason? Have the magical protections of the castle not been renewed? If either of these reasons are the case then how is it acceptable? And if the doors were unlocked and wolves got in then what, or who, could have gotten in also?
On a different note, these werewolf hunters have been within our castle for the last three full moons and have yet to capture a werewolf. Word is that they were overheard asking professors for help in locating any werewolves that attend the school, which brings into question if they are actually able or competent to catch them? Personally, I wonder if they’re here for the werewolves or for some other reason. Is it wolves they hunt or something else? Something within Hogwarts itself, or are they here to distract us from something else that could be going on?
Finally, are there any werewolves in Hogwarts? Certainly there is one fewer in recent months but it was never known of any others. The students that have gone missing from our halls may have been removed by concerned parents in advance and there are none left, or indeed they may be walking alongside us and we would never know. Even if there were others amongst us, until these guests had arrived, we’d never once had any threat or issue with any attacks from those with lycanthropy. The timing is far too convenient for one not to make a few assumptions as to why now there are werewolves attacking students.
Needless to say the werewolf hunter’s presence in Hogwarts serves to act as positive publicity external to Hogwarts, making our school look like it requires the services of our benefactors, but in all honesty, does it?
The wolfsbane potion has been around for almost 50 years and renders any sufferer of lycanthropy as harmless as the common wolf. All students with the affliction – along with other students requiring the input of potions to maintain their day-to-day life – have taken the potion to evident good effects. The only werewolf attack in recent history at the school was in March. Despite The Daily Prophet’s coverage of regular scuffles, dating and gossip within Hogwarts, there was never much more harm than that. Students were equals and safe.
Covering each student with the same uniform day in, day out makes us equals but to what measure? And does it hides the wolves within each of us, howling to be free?