The Golden Trio is celebrating Summer in a very Muggle Fashion: a no magic bash on the beach! Join the Welcome Center Mods for butterbeer and good times in A Summer Without Magic - and who knows? You're bound to have a lot of fun and you may even win some awesome prizes to top off your start of summer bash. Grab your towel and help the Trio learn to enjoy their Summer Without Magic!

June 28, 2012

Top Student Prizes

June 24, 2012

The Daily Prophet: June 2012

June 19, 2012

Revised Donation Program & Item Rarities

Donation Program

As many of you know, the donation program has only been changed once, and that was in April 2009. In the last three years, feedback has consistently been taken about ways to improve and change it. User ideas and suggestions to make it better are now being implemented to give the program a fresh facelift. Many of you have come to me in the past few months expressing concerns about the decreasing values of the two monthly items and wanted more options. The new program addresses this.

Starting today, there are now packages and upgrades that anyone may purchase. There are six packages, with packages one and two being the ones from before. Each package includes additional features. There are also individual upgrades that include things like: change house, change blood type, move up a year, featured ad space in advertisements, and many more. Packages have the option of monthly subscription or one time purchase (this applies to some upgrades as well). With upgrades, none of the items are tradeable. The only ones that are tradeable are the existing two monthly rares.

We have always wanted to find a way to provide users a way to do things like change their house, but were never sure how to fully go about it, as we did not want anyone thinking they could change their house whenever it was decided. Individual upgrades allow a user to demonstrate that they are truly dedicated and committed for the long term in making such a significant change to happen, whether it be a house change, blood type change, year move up, etc.

Having this new donation program will help us move into the future as a site, while also offering everyone additional options if they desire. It also allows us to continue to only rely on Google for advertisements, so that we do not have to bombard users with ads and popups everywhere like other sites.

Anyone currently already subscribed to $20 subscription will default to package two. If you would like to switch to package three or four, please owl me and I will switch you. Also, it will take a little while to fully automate the new system with PayPal, as PayPal makes testing extremely difficult on the developer end.

View all of the donation information and options here!

Item Rarities

With the change of the donation program also comes the change of item rarities. The new system is as follows:

June 14, 2012

Project Ink: Round 1

The results are in from our first round of Project Ink. Contestants were tasked with writing a story inspired by a song that spoke to them. The round's winner was kinley_copperton, earning herself a copy of Gideon Crumb's Bagpipes.

Leaving us this round are Deidra, Zavaron, and HeathertheWitch. Each has earned their house 1,000 points and will walk away with a copy of their house founder's quill.

Head to the Role-Play Central to read the entries from the previous round and to watch as our remaining twelve competitors role-play an untold story from the Harry Potter canon. Congratulations to our winner and those moving on, and well done to the three writers leaving us for beating out nearly one hundred other writers in order to make it this far.

June 10, 2012

Calling all writers!

The Fan Fiction Section is holding its grand re-opening! Don't be misled by its name, though; you're free to publish original works, poetry, or whatever else you can think of.

With the Fan Fiction Watch Thread, you can make sure you don't miss anything! Keep an eye out for our Monthly Writing Prompts, where you can win fabulous prizes. Also, our new Writing Circle can help authors struggling with writer's block or who want a critique of their work.

So stop on by, and we hope to see you soon!

June 6, 2012

A Grim Encounter

"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself...soul-less and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life."

An eerie darkness has descended over Hogsmeade. The criminal Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban, but you try not to think about that. It frightens you. No, but this fear is different. You cannot seem to escape the cold feeling, the feeling that you are doomed, that there is no hope left. You're in for a chilling experience and possibly A Grim Encounter!

June 5, 2012

Inter-House Debates

June 3, 2012

It Has Started

June 1, 2012

The Quibbler: June 2012

If you thought the dark ages of Dark Marks and Death Eaters were over - think again, dear readers. I'd say we're stuck in the charcoal gray ages now, thanks to the Wizarding world's new big bads - Wizard Terrorists. This month, one of my valiant reporters risked his very life to get the inside scoop for you all, and share some key advice in protecting yourselves from these new foes. Trust me, you won't want to miss this issue!

If you have any questions or concerns about the Quibbler or its content, please owl Marluxia or one of the other publications staff members, Tori Tendleswift or MuggleBornMegan07. Thanks!