Me

...and this, dear classmates, is why we told you weeks ago that you needed to CHANGE YOUR BLOODY PASSWORDS.

As a result of this hacking attack, which we believe may have been a Durmstrang prank, we've instituted several changes, all effective immediately.

Password changes
We know many of you think it doesn't matter if a Dark Wizard or prankster breaks into your account, but we think it's quite serious. They could edit your user info, or change your icons, or post a silly rant under your name to that wanky community of those who wish to forever remain wizardling-free. The internets are serious business! Most of you are using very easy to divine passwords, and an evil user can use dark magic to try the same password on multiple accounts. The idiocity of the past several days would have been averted if a single one of you had used a strong password. Of the compromised accounts, nineteen of them used the word "password" as their password. One of you used "Potter is a Git." One of you used "Draco is a Git." (Just do it already, you two) Other passwords included "remmikins," sevi3p00," and "fawkes."

Seriously.

Our new password guidelines are as follows:

• Must be no less than seventeen characters


• Must contain at least one letter, one numeral, one special character, and one Elvish Rune. Sindarin runes, people, NOT Quenyan ones!


• Must not be the same as your user name, your birthday, your pet's name, your partner's name or nickname, the word "password," or any of your previous six hundred passwords

Cookie expirations
You'll need to log back into your journal, as we've eaten all your cookies. We'll continue to eat your cookies at random intervals throughout the next two weeks. We'll generally notify you of having eaten your cookies several days after having done so. This has nothing to do with security, actually: we just don't care for your attitudes.

Magical Subdomains For Everyone!
We've also gone ahead and given everyone access to the magical subdomains that were previously available only to those with paid accounts. This is a required security change, and will make all of your lives infinitely better, even though none of you are likely to believe this. We're aware that some paid users will be annoyed that the people who were too cheap to pay a measly three sickles now have access to a feature you've all paid for. Cope.

Upgrades for Paid Users
Fine. We've decided to give the following upgrades to paid users, so that they aren't too upset about the magical subdomains.
We're doubling the amount of space you get for Sonorus posts...AND, we wanted to one other special thing for you, so, here it is: we were talking to the guys who run WizSpace, and they had the best idea for us: we're going to let you buy each other witch hat pictures, which you can give as gifts! They'll appear right in your user information page, and everyone will know how many friends you have and how much they love you. See my info page as an example.

That's all. We're confident you'll love these new features and appreciate our hard work to keep your journals secure.

After wallowing in misery for an indeterminate amount of time, I have come to the conclusion that expressing one's pain and misery through a despairing silence only leads to people IGNORING you, as this is a selfish and uncaring race we are a part of. I even tried cutting myself with the nib of my quill to express physically my emotional and mental toil and agony, in the middle of one of our summer school classes (History of the Magic Word - did we really need to know that much about the history and origins of the word 'please'? In fact all of summer school seemed utterly pointless. An apt reflection of my life.)! And NO-ONE blinked an EYE!

Admittedly the nib was rather blunt and all I ended up with were a few light scratches but it still actually really hurt and I could've done myself DAMAGE! and no-one gave a toss about my ANGUISH!

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE, DEATH EATERS KILLED MY MOTHER. (In the middle of June; it was all so sudden and unexpected!) I have NO-ONE left! NO-ONE! And I thought my life sucked before.

It's VOLDEMORT, you know, and his Death Eaters, cruel and heartless and destroyers of my world! I'm, in fact, sure it was the growing tension in our society that lead to my family being ripped apart when my father left, too. And NOTHING is being done about them! But I will not let this lie; you will see, oh yes, you will see...and PAY...




Oh, by the way, everyone should look at this little comic I found when I was looking around on the internets! (I was researching torture methods; I'm not sure how I found this.) It's so cute, look at the little people! It's about people's lives in Hogwarts, I wonder who in particular here it's based on. I made a picture from it! Go look, it's here: hogwartslives!

I'm getting so tired of Hufflepuff. It's all so hard-working and loyal and cheerful and yellow.

o god I mean merlin whtever I HAVE SO MUCH HOMEWORK!!1 I just want 2 die, I swer, its ridiculous! THIS IS ALL SUM MAN’S FAULT yeh somehow I HATE MEN ARGH etc etc

I h ve such huge masive piles f parchment! Towerinf over me! nnd a pile of thick HEAVY DEADLY textbooks the other side oh no if that falls on me I’d b so de d! Oh no the window’s open n the textbooks r wobblin in the wind aaaa hhhhhhfjdghjoafkmg;kd *THUNK*owwwagjdh

...

I do not like my green cat here, I do not like him there,
I do not like him anywhere.

( I do not like green cats for Han. )


I do not like green cats for Han
I do not; I’m not a fan.

Would I like my kitten BLACK? Would I like him in a sack?
I WOULD like my kitten black; GREEN, I'd rather he's in a sack.

Someone will pay.

...mark what I say.

( I thought Balls were supposed to be FUN. And yet, we have HOMEWORK about it. Some people just like to suck the fun out of EVERYTHING. Pointless questionnaire. )

Is this done now? Right. I have a Charms essay to do. I also need to investigate dyeing charms and cats and the combination thereof. Right.

BLACK! Blimming FINALLY. The pain in my eyes each time I open my lap top is diminished. Though not the pain in my life, in my heart.

Oh gosh, it’s the Ball tonight. A chance for everyone to parade around showing me how much better their lives are than mine. For the men to let loose their disgusting base instincts and paw greedily at innocent (or, I suppose in some cases, not-so-innocent, but still undeserving of such mauling) girls. I’m practically ECSTATIC.

Of course, if anyone feels the need to paw at ME, I need just to Accio a broomstick – or something else hard and blunt – and I am sure I can change your mind.

Loathe as I am to put any effort into this BALL malarkey, I am not going in uniform – why go in anything with vile yellow stripes when I can go in all black?

Susan, I assume we are meeting in the common room before this thing starts. Oh, and Cedric. Whatever. If the Wizard Living Prof doesn’t pass us for going as a three, I’ll give her something to think about.

This journal is obscenely yellow. It really has to go. Of course, it’s not like that’s EASY – I’ve tried clicking all over the place, and asking this lap top as nicely as I can manage, but NO, the yellow remains, mocking me with its cheeriness. I really do not know what I was THINKING making it this colour in the first place.

My excuse for a father E-mailed me yesterday. He complained about not being able to simply owl, the whiny git. Oh yes, because CLEARLY the nefarious plans of You-Know-Who are ALL my fault!! As if learning to use a computer is that hard anyway – oh, but yes, for someone with as few brain cells as daddy, it probably is. Idiot.

Asking me if I want to keep the box of toys he found in the attic while clearing out the remainder of his stuff as he’s moving in with that BINT Auntie Jo, indeed. Er, no, father. I’d rather NOT have any reminder of any part of my life that YOU were in, thankyouverymuch. He can act as hurt as he wants and ask why I do not call him ‘Daddy’ anymore, but I’m afraid that’s what you get when you GET CAUGHT CHEATING ON YOUR WIFE ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND TEAR YOUR FAMILY APART.

He called me his yellow-haired SUNSHINE, the crawling whining creep. So I’ve decided to dye my hair black; I’m not being ANYONE’S sunshine, least of all HIS. I would ask how it looks, but I don’t really care – as long as it’s not yellow, I’m happy. Well. Happy is somewhat of an overstatement, as always nowadays. Grim satisfaction with a side order of constant bitterness, maybe.

I must admit to being glad it’s February – we are finally far enough from Christmas that no-one’s going to ask me ‘oh, Hannah, how was your Christmas?’ FECKING AWFUL, THANKS. The usual, you know, having your father turn out to be cheating scum, being dumped by the boy next door for the ‘girl he met at school’ with bigger knockers and less intelligence, OH YES AND my rabbit died after getting into the Floo pot – no matter how many times I tell my family it’s toxic to Scamp, someone still leaves it on the table instead of the mantelpiece. And by someone I mean MY DARN FATHER.

Of course, there’ll never be a good answer to ‘so, how are you?’ but such is life. People only ever ask to see how much better than yours their life is, anyway, so suppose I can be the one everyone talks to to feel better about themselves. GREAT.

So clearly nothing in my life is going to ever go right again – I can’t even get the younger years to stop pulling Whiskers’ tail. I HATE that name. It’s too happy. It reminds me of times when I thought life was FAIR. I want to rename him; I’m not so sure how well kittens take to renaming. Though it’s not like he obeys ‘Whiskers’ anyway. I can’t even get my CAT to do what I want. He’s like a small furry metaphor for the black cloud of gloom that is my life. Gloom. That’s a good name.

So yes. DON’T PULL GLOOM’S TAIL.

Oh, and now we have to go to a YULE BALL. IN FEBRUARY. Right. Merlin’s BEARD I’m going to a darn BALL – with a DATE! I’m not doing ANYTHING with a boy – it’s all MALES that make my life so hard, you’ve got another think coming if you think I’m going to a BALL, to watch everyone have FUN, rubbing it in that their lives are just so much BETTER than mine, and have to hang out with one of the GITS at this school? I’m having words with someone. This is not on.

I'm rather looking forward to going back, actually. I always miss everyone terribly during the holidays, but especially my dearest friends and Puffs. Even though I've seen you all lots, it's not the same as sharing a common room, is it?

So, of course, we went to Diagon Alley recently! After we picked up our books, bumped into Justin for a while at Flourish and Blotts, and stopped at Fortescue's for a lovely sundae (strawberry, with little nutty multi-coloured sprinkles, yum!), we bought some wool to make a cosy for my laptop. Did you know that you can't buy one ready-made? I think that's truly awful. You can buy one for teapots, so why not laptops! I'm not terribly good at knitting though, so I asked Mum to do it for me. She's almost finished, she says, and it's looking rather darling if you ask me!

And I also got my new robes. Apparently, I haven't grown any since last year, which isn't wholly unexpected but I do live in hope of suddenly shooting up a few inches. Much more importantly, I bought Whiskers some clothes too, from the Menagerie's Autumn/Winter collection!



Isn't he precious, the little boo? He has a top hat as well, and a frog scarf, and some other bits and pieces. He'll be the coolest cat in school! He can't wait to show them off to the other kitties. They'll look like little furry paupers next to my fluffy prince!

Oh dear. It seems I'm addicted to this Solitaire Comeputer thingy. Four days straight, and not once have I beaten the little bugger. It would probably help if I knew the rules, but Muggles make things awfully difficult on themselves, don't they? It's not at all like Exploding Snap, but I needed something to do while waiting for the cat to come out of the toilet.

Oh. And speaking of which! I just want to point out that, yet again, Hogwarts has traumatised my cat. My little Whiskers has only just recovered from 10 months of tail pulling at the hands of hard-hearted non-Hufflepuff sorts, but do you know what he's doing right now? He's hiding behind the toilet sphinx in the downstairs loo, and has been ever since that cat-parchment arrived, claws making dents in the tiles, only sneaking out to eat. He thinks he's next in line for skinning and ink, the poor boo! All of which is understandable - what would you do if you came down to breakfast one morning to find the skin of an Englishman lying between the teapot and the marmalade? It's cruelty to felines! Besides, I think I should've gotten giraffe-parchment or something instead, because I'm just so much looking forward to lugging half a dead cat around Diagon Alley next month.

Anyway, getting to the point, I hope everyone's having a lovely summer so far!