Muggle Family of 7 Found Dead Near Hogsmeade

In the early morning hours of January 27, a muggle family was found dead a kilometer west of Hogsmeade. "The nearest hamlet is 35 kilometers away, we have no idea how they got here," Miss Penelope Henry claimed. Authorities remain mum on the cause of death but the rumor swirling about Hogs Head Pub is that they were murdered. Identities unknown, at the present time we can only speculate the circumstances that led to their untimely demise.



Hogsmeade is a charming little village of cottages and shops primarily frequented by Hogwarts students on weekends. Due to the unlived terrain surrounding Hogsmeade, less wizarding students Hogsmeade does not get many visitors. None of the residents recall an unfamiliar family of seven, including two teens, two minors and a toddler. The Hogwarts Express had last landed in Hogwarts a few weeks earlier after the winter holiday, so it is doubtful that this family was somehow transported to the wizarding village.

Presently the incident is being investigated with great fervor by the Ministry of Magic. "whoever did this was not very smart," inspector Claussen claimed. "We will likely have our culprits by the end of the month."

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P U R E BLOODS Clamor For A Champion Tensions between varied factions of wizards has been ongoing for years, however at a recent rally in London Claude Avery made the audacious claim that a half-breed could best any pureblood given a fair battlefield. The concept has been mocked by a vocal group of wizards and the incident devolved into a scuffle where S.C.A.R. sympathizer Claude Avery and his allies Mathias Mulrain, a dangerous half-giant who was accused of bashing in a storefront which he claimed was self-inflicted by the shop owners, Gary Wright and Jolene Korzyk were also arrested for causing a disturbance.

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The plague of half-breed inclusion has unsettled the magical community as increased tolerance has only bred agitation and greater intolerance. Perhaps it was a misjudgment to trust half-breeds, while sentient beings, with a wand. It is conceivable that their brains are simply wired differently and the burden of magic is too much for them to handle. However, since the challenge was made, wizards have been clamoring to prove Claude Avery wrong. Eyes have been set towards Hogwarts, one of the few wizarding schools to take on an abundance of 'alternative' students including lycanthropes and dhampirs much to the public's dismay. We have been reminded of Hogwart's success in the interschool quidditch games, however that hardly demonstrates half-breed skill and promise. Perhaps a contest of some sort to remedy this insult will be in our future.

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R E C O R D S N O W F A L L

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A ferocious storm which rapidly intensified into a bomb cyclone slammed the quiet town of Banchory Friday into Saturday with heavy snow and hurricane-force winds, resulting in a blizzard that generated whiteout conditions and dropped visibility to near zero in many areas. Officials have blamed at least one fatality on conditions brought on by the storm. 91 centimeters of snow fell in Banchory overnight when a weather charm went wrong. The winter storm was unanticipated, muggle meteorologists has no warning that a storm was impending that could unleash a huge snowfall on coastal Aberdeenshire. Banchory as hit the hardest with snowfall, suffering from as much as 20 centimeters an hour during the snowy onslaught. Due to the Statute of Secrecy the Ministry is limited regarding what interventional services they can offer while muggles struggle to use their manual snow-removal devices and automobile-powered shovels to clear the roadways. Banchory is one of the many villages throughout Britain where witches and wizards settled in numbers after the International Statute of Secrecy to rely on each other for mutual support, living alongside a Muggle population. Their coexistence has been fraught with difficulties due to this reckless spell use that is presently being investigated. The source is presently unknown. Reckless shenanigans are not a foreign subject for Banchory however. Banchory was once the home of the Banchory Bangers, a Scottish Quidditch team, known for their terrible skills and reckless shenanigans that eventually led to the team's disbanding in 1814. Perhaps our culprit is a descendent of the infamous team.

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The New Philosopher's Stone

For centuries, alchemists all over the world have attempted to replicate the legendary Philosopher's Stone in search of the Elixir of Life. Tales of immortality, after all, is heavily sought after and the ability to transform any metal into pure gold grants the owner both long life, as well as a wealthy one. The original stone said to be created by the late Nicholas Flamel was never found and with his death, knowledge of how he created it has been lost to time.

An alchemist in the northern part of Sri Lanka has dedicated her entire life to discovering these secrets. According to leaked information from her laboratory, she has succeeded in replicating a very similar stone in the past few years and creating her own version of immortality. They called it the Youth Stone, said to be a royal blue colour.

Vaishnavi Aniruddha is said to be a centenarian according to sources close to her. However, she looks no older than fifty. As she ages, she appears to be getting more youthful and more beautiful and this Youth Stone appears to be the only explanation for it. It is believed that the prototype stone has extended her life, by de-ageing her body, making her more youthful. It is unclear if this stone grants immortality and there's been no evidence of it being able to turn metal into pure gold. However, rumours say that Alchemist Aniruddha is on the verge of creating an exact replica of the Philosopher's Stone and is very close to revealing this.

It has sparked debate all over the world, with scholars wondering which stone is more effective or more sought after. Unfortunately, neither of these stones or any physical evidence of these works have been seen. The laboratory, however, has plans to mass-produce and manufacture the Elixir of Youth, out on sale in the next few weeks and the Elixir of Life is rumoured to be on the verge of arriving in stores across the world in the coming year.

The Case for Flying Carpets for Modern Family Transportation

Flying carpets were once an accepted form of travel for Great Britain's magical community, but they are now banned due to being defined as a Muggle Artefact by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects. It is therefore now against wizarding law to charm carpets or fly them there, although they are still legal in other countries.

Over the years the few magic carpets that remain are left in tatters, traditional families refusing to be rid of their favored, aged methos of transportation. While throw rugs are not an exclusively muggle device, it was decreed in 1942 that carpets in the UK can no longer be charmed to fly due to several mishaps involving charmed rugs taking unexpected flight with muggles. The problem is two-fold, first and foremost the fact that magic carpets are indistinguishable from normal carpets in every manner unless the charm Revelio Charm is used on the carpet, in which case the enchanted carpet possesses a sparkling sheen. This can be problematic because if a flat, unrolled magic carpet is sat upon it will start to hover above the ground and if the edge is tugged upward once the carpet takes flight then the carpet will take flight. Steering is slightly more difficult, requiring a level of physical strength some wizards might lack, however it more than makes up for it in passenger space. The average flying carpet can hold eight comfortably but there have been reports of carpets carrying a dozen passengers at a time.

Parents have advocated for the removal of the status of Muggle Artefact because of the apparent ease and enhanced safety. "It is very hard to keep track of my children on a good day, keeping them from wiggling on the back of my broom is near impossible," one mother laments.