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This year there will be an inaugural Cauldron Cup Championship, with international participants and an audience, held on a bob run in the South of the Sylvensteinsee in South Germany specifically designed for the event. Competitors have to be of age but other than that there are no real restrictions as to who can participate.
To get the audience invested in the competition, tickets are only sold to those spectators willing to bet on an athlete or a nation. To make the decision easier and keep the spectators warm, there'll be mulled wine as well as various beers available. The prize for the athlete winning the competition is 100 galleons and a feature in a sports magazine. Favourites among the competitors are the Germans Marie-Louise Heimbach and Hannes P_tz as well as the Austrian Leopold Stauss and the Italian Massimo Cappellini.
Monsieur Dutour proves to be a kind host but sometimes he disappears from view for hours and some students wonder why he is taking a special interest in a few of them.
Although the location of the school does not offer the same opportunities as the Beauxbatons castle, the arts initiative is still going on. This month it's all about sculpting and pottery. Professeur Courtois is available to help with any issues. Since the mansion's rooms are limited, students are welcome to take their projects to their common rooms.
Additionally, this month continues the Kalidy tradition from December to early January, complete with a secondary night of frolic around Dottrar Vik where students are welcome to perform harmless pranks against the residents who fail to provide them with treats. After this past Halloween, many Dottrar Vik natives are stocking up on sweets to avoid further pranks.
Finally, Student's Day, Tatyana's Day, will be celebrated January 25, will be a day of fun off of classes. With the first semester at its end, the mandatory morning training has disbanded, though some students have elected to maintain the routine regardless, meeting up for exercise in the mornings. No word yet on if Headmaster Yeshevsky will budge on the year's Quidditch ban, though students are continuously pressing for practices to resume and games to be placed on the roster.
What the prankster or pranksters unknown did appear to instigate, however, was bewitch snowballs to pepper students (and, occasionally, staff). The most frequent occurrences happened whenever an unsuspecting soul tried to cross any of the courtyards, but some snowballs were known to find their way through open windows and into corridors and classrooms.
The show was spectacular, some might even say it was over the top. A Russian orchestra was hired to perform live in the show. Enchantments such as special light effects and magnified projections of the athletes were well done but some spectators claimed that the multitude of effects distracted from the actual performances.
Although there were many different athletes from various countries, the organisators made sure to demonstrate who they deemed the real stars of the show - giving their own athletes more room than most others. The reigning senior world champions, Aglaya Antonovna Tikhomirova and Anatoliy Vsevolodovich Tikhomirov got to perform three times and, although they undeniably showed dazzling programs, it might have been a little much even for such well trained athletes. Anatoliy Vsevolodovich had some fun programs that showed his extroverted style very well but was rather slow in his third performance and Aglaya Antonovna surprised with a routine to Russian wrock music for her second program but her third performance lacked technical highlights. While the top athletes all delivered well, the grand final with the synchro performance of all participating athletes was the highlight of a long show. The choreography was exceptional and despite the little training together all participants did really well.
In interviews all athletes present claimed that they were preparing for the next season which means that, despite other rumours, none of the top artistic flyers are retiring yet.
The match was intense and exhilarating, to say the least. Between the constant Bludger action with plenty of close-calls both ways, an abundance of shots-on-goal from both teams, and spectacular saves from both Keepers, tracking the blue-and-bronze and yellow-and-black blurs on the pitch was no small feat. De Havilland relentlessly brought the heat in a bold strategy, almost exclusively targeting Hufflepuff Captain and Seeker Aase Trickett-Cassoway - sometimes, controversially, at the expense of some of her teammates. After many close-calls, the Beater's efforts paid off: Trickett-Cassoway was knocked out of the game. After an additional struggle - including a miscommunication regarding timing of Snitch-catching, Hufflepuff doing well to close the gap in the wake of losing their Seeker, and one of the Ravenclaw Chasers leaving the match due to injury - Ravenclaw was able to take away a victory with a final tally of 210 to Hufflepuff's 110: much lower-scoring overall than the constant action suggested. Notably, Trickett-Cassoway spent the night in the Hospital Wing for post-concussion monitoring, though was released in the morning with strict instructions to "take it easy for a few weeks".
This month, the eagles are gearing up to face the serpents. Emboldened by their success against Hufflepuff, the eagles are looking to continue their streak - but they would do well not to underestimate the serpents who, after narrowly losing their first match of term to Gryffindor, are on the hunt for redemption.
The highest scoring match yet this season, however, went to the Gravesend Griffins, who scored a tremendous forty-five goals before Seeker Alannah Dupont ended the game, and the Holyhead Harpies, though they lost the match, were surely able to celebrate that, by keeping up goal-by-goal through a four-hour game, they still wound up topping the league.
Another draw took place between the Caerphilly Catapults and Kenmare Kestrels, after Caerphilly's now-notorious Beaters wreaked such havoc on Kenmare's team that Seeker Aidan Lynch attempted three times to end the game even when his team would have lost the match as a result, in a callback to Bulgaria's infamous loss in the 1994 World Cup. He finally caught the Golden Snitch just seconds after the final goal was scored, and referee Mandeep Wadhawan spent several minutes reviewing Omniocular replays with the match commentator before ruling that the goal was admissible, to uproar in the stands.
Ranking at the bottom of the league, the Pride of Portree suffered a humiliating defeat from the Montrose Magpies, in a match much too one-sided and uninteresting to report here.
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We are certain that it's all connected to the ominous move of Beauxbatons to Manoir Vertneuf. The Ministry set spiders free at the castle of Beauxbatons. This really is a ploy to remove the half-giantess Olympe Maxime from her position as a headmistress. Witches and wizards have often criticised that a "half-breed" was in charge of the prestigious school so a scheme to remove Madame Maxime was only a matter of time.
Gustave Gaultier was just an unfortunate witness who overheard a secret conversation and had to be silenced so the plan wouldn't get spoiled.
