"Bon sang ne saurait mentir. We lay down our lives, our wands, in the noble defence of our people, our folk, our blood - for the descendants of wizardry, the inheritors of magic, are under attack once more, and the loyal scions and valiant scionesses of our world will rise to its defence! Brothers and sisters, we shall not be erased and eradicated in silence!" - Unknown member of the Hermetic Order of the Acolytes of Gaunt at a rumoured (but unconfirmed) meeting
IC; Discord; Co-OP: Coraspia
The year is 2039, and the British wizarding world is in the middle of another great schism, torn asunder right down the middle, on the brink of yet another bloody civil war, and the great venerable institution of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry risks being dragged right back into that brewing conflict.
Much has changed in the British wizarding world since the conclusion of the Second Wizarding War of 1995-1998. Lord Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and the fearsome brutality of their crimes and terrorisation, are now a distant and faded memory, especially in the minds of a new generation of witches and wizards. And significant strides, progressive changes, and hard-won social gains have been accomplished in the wizarding society of Great Britain and Ireland since their absence. Under the careful and compassionate watch of a Minister for Magic sympathetic to their cause (Aubrey Archibald Douglas, a half-blood wizard with a Muggle mother elected for a 7-year term in the 2032 ministerial election), an activist and advocacy group known as the Wizarding Alliance for Equality and Diversity has made great strides since 2032 onwards, in promoting social equality throughout the British wizarding world, dutifully and resiliently advancing the rights of Muggle-born wizards and Wizard-borns ('squibs') alike, whilst increasing the legal and social protections for historically-maligned non-wizardkind species (goblins, centaurs, house-elves etc.), with the Ministry of Magic even going so far as to erect a new Department in 2036, the Department of Muggle-born Welfare, tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination protections for muggle-born wizards, and rolling out expansive new social programs and services intended to further the standing and success of muggle-borns within British wizarding society.
However, such rapid and sweeping social reforms have not come without a dreadful price. As the established pure-blood families saw their power and influence swiftly wane, and increasing numbers of half-blood wizards grew anxious and insecure about the erosion of their relative status and position in British wizarding society, these swift and drastic reforms for social equality sparked a bitter and equally drastic response, a brutal reactionary backlash from disgruntled pure-blood and half-blood wizards who have watched the reforms and changes of the past 7 years with a mixture of dread, horror, disgust, and most of all, fear and anxiety, many of whom began to vow to turn back the clock, and return all these muggle-born, squib, and non-wizardkind 'upstarts' back to their rightful and inferior place - by force, if necessary. There have even been rumours within the Ministry, the Alliance, and the wider British wizarding world, of the rise of a new secretive fraternal organisation of like-minded wizards and witches, with a single-minded fanatical dedication to restoring wizarding society back to its 'rightful' and 'proper' state of affairs. It is said, according to these unconfirmed whispers, that this new underground society, the Hermetic Order of the Acolytes of Gaunt, began as mere idle talk and gossip amongst the prestigious, old-money, pure-blood patriarchs, chatelaines, scions, socialites, philanthropists etc., at their highly-private, exclusive, and cloistered high-society dinners, balls, galas, and soireés, but as time went by that mere 'idea' quickly evolved into a brutal and fanatical terrorist organisation for zealous pure-blood and half-blood witches and wizards, consumed by an insatiable desire to see an old and fading world restored once more in glory, the 'good old days' of a wizarding world of decades past, a bygone quasi-aristocratic era where blood-status and blood-purity were truly prized and valued in wizarding society - much unlike these days. Not much is known about this organisation, its members, its precise demands - indeed, even if it truly exists beyond mere rumour - but soon, very soon, the Order will make its existence definitively known to all, in a fashionable debut into British wizarding society that promises to be bathed in blood.
As tensions rise and relations deteriorate between reactionary pure-blood supremacists and progressive muggle-born advocates for equality, day-by-day, the British wizarding world looms closer and closer to the brink of all-out civil war once more, and the faculty and student body of Hogwarts, unfortunately, has not been immune to the social divisions and cultural schisms of the day. When that fateful, inevitable day comes, when that first offensive spell is cast, or that prefatory hex or jinx is launched, and the British wizarding world is plunged once more into a brutal mayhem, chaos, and pandemonium from which it has been blissfully spared for the last four decades, the idyllic and picturesque premises of Hogwarts will become a critical front and battleground, as the internal divisions within the staff and students come to the fore expressed in violence, and the school is forcefully dragged into the fray that erupts around them. Wands are drawn in a school torn asunder, right down the middle, in a tragic and heartbreaking all-out war of student against student, professor against professor.
As for who will emerge victorious upon the ornate grounds of Hogwarts - or indeed, what that 'victory' even looks like - only time will tell. Until then, wizards and witches across Great Britain and Ireland dreadfully await the opening salvo of this bloodied and inevitable conflict, and in the hallways and dormitories of that ancient school in the Scottish Highlands, students and teachers alike sleep uneasily at night, with one eye open, wand at the ready.
Will you join them?