Guests at Hogsmeade's monthly public ball received a shocking end to their year as a man humans bludgeoned himself death against one of the assembly rooms' walls. Foul play is suspected in the unconventional passing of auror Washington St. Clair, 37, of Wellingtonshire.

Witnesses of the event report nothing amiss and no sign of "wand-wielding vagabonds" (as one attendee, Mrs. Millicent Broadmoor, put it) in advance of the incident. Instead, they describe Mr. St. Clair returning to the main ballroom from the corridor "entirely calm", proceed to the far end of the room, and begin to repeatedly dash his head against the wall. This proceeded until the man lost consciousness; tragically, he died of his seemingly self-inflicted injuries.

Given this out-of-character behaviour, the Auror's Office is treating the matter as "highly suspect", though stopped short of connecting the death to earlier mysterious passings of the summer and autumn.

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