Disclaimer: This information is provided as a guide so that you can further enjoy the SS School RPG. This information is subject to changes as more information about the characters is revealed in the story. Also, please remember that some of this information may not be known to your character "IC".
The marriage of Brennan Cooper, Minister of Magic to Clara Belle, editor of the Daily Prophet, was definitely the talk of the wizarding world. Soon after the marriage, though, the Minister began to act rather strangely, declaring that Hogwarts was unsafe and would be closed. In turn, he opened two new schools near Hogsmeade – Belle’s School of Magic for Young Witches and Cooper’s School of Magic for Young Wizards, with a boy and a girl prefect for each house.
Since a full curriculum of courses needed to be taught at both schools, new Ministry approved professors were brought in to ensure that each school had an adequate amount of staff. Cooper’s School saw five new professors – Chester Wesolowski to teach Arithmancy, Bob Thornton to teach Care of Magical Creatures, Darien Richardson to teach Transfiguration, Gavin Langston to teach Charms and last but certainly never least, Berty Borr to teach History of Magic. Belle’s School gained seven new professors – Brittany Breitbarth to teach Muggle Studies, Dr. Norma Shaw to teach Ancient Runes, Linnea West to teach Astronomy, Xylia Wystan to teach Flying, Sophie Melita to teach Potions, Terpsichore St. Touissant to teach Divination and Michelle Korvis to teach Herbology. In addition, Nurse Brekken Taylor and Librarian Mario Ingles were sent to Cooper’s, and Adrienne Dion became the Groundskeeper at Belle’s. Together with the regular Hogwarts staff, there were enough professors to staff both schools.
When the students first disembarked from the Hogwarts Express, they received the shock of their lives to find carriages waiting to carry them to their separate schools by gender. Protests and discord soon followed, a tone which carried over through much of the term. There were many rules, but the main rule was that boys and girls must not enter the other’s school or have any contact together. No communication was allowed between the two schools, not even by owl, and boys and girls had no way of reaching each other. The only time when male and female students were allowed to be together was during Hogwarts weekends or while playing quidditch, but so strict were the rules that boys and girls were not even allowed to sit together in the stands while watching the game.
The professors were nearly all either Slytherin or Ravenclaw, and it seemed to many students that Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were not treated as well and were regarded as inferior houses, even though they were assured that this was not so. The new professors certainly had their own unique style of teaching, focusing more on etiquette than curriculum. Very little of substance was actually taught by any of them, and many students felt their time was being wasted and they weren’t learning anything. There were even incidents of students being embarrassed in the classroom, one such notable lesson being one taught by Lord Barty Borr on the importance of washing one's hands. During that lesson, Lord Borr actually forced the boys to pretend they were babies and to sit in bowls of water.
The discord between the houses widened even more when a few Slytherin girls wrote to Minister Cooper asking for help in getting more points for their house and the Minister somewhat rashly deciding to award Slytherin a whopping 2,000 points, a huge lead which ultimately ended in Slytherin securing the house cup. At this point, house unity was almost completely destroyed.
The regular Hogwarts professors, of course, were very unhappy with the separation of the schools but were powerless to do anything about it at that point. Soon Headmistress Cassandra Rae at Belle’s and Headmaster Doyle Branxton at Cooper’s were forced to set an example by also teaching etiquette type courses such as those offered by the Ministry professors. Hogsmeade weekends grew less and less frequent. By this point many students were rebelling, and suspensions reigned supreme as students from both sides attempted to infiltrate the other school in order to visit their boyfriend or girlfriend on the other side. Many despaired that Hogwarts would never return and that things would always be this way.
Finally, just as all hope seemed lost, a mysterious owl appeared, delivering a cryptic message to one boy and one girl of each house. Each message was different, and contained a riddle which had to be solved in order to spell out a letter of the alphabet. All eight students had to work together in order to connect the eight letters and figure out what they spelled, which turned out to be H-O-G-W-A-R-T-S. With the aid of a helpful prefect, the eight students were able to meet in secrecy and discover that there once existed four secret orders which had disbanded to form one, the Order of the Seal. The students received these messages because the time had come for them to come together in unity, much as the Order of the Seal had done so long ago. There was also allusion to a treasure of some sort, but that part was very vague.
Together, the eight students drafted a letter to the Minister letting him know that there appeared to be some kind of treasure at Hogwarts, hoping to appeal to his baser instincts of greed. At last, the Minister responded that Hogwarts would return as normal next term, with the students being united again.
But what was the treasure? Was it material or simply the concept of unity? No one really knew.