The body of a girl was discovered on Wednesday afternoon in the Forbidden Forest. Local broommaker Elias Grimstone sighted it from a low-skimming broom flight on the edge of the forest bordering Hogsmeade, and landed to investigate. It has now been confirmed as a vampire attack.

Once moved from the forest, the body was identified by Hogsmeade healers as one Silence Daisy, a child of about ten years of age who had been associated with the Summer Solstice Festival during the period the carnival remained in quarantine upon their arrival to Hogsmeade this summer. Whilst little is known of the victim's life, the facts of her death have proven incontrovertible. The child was first bitten and drained entirely of blood, following which her neck was broken by force. Although no effort was made to disguise the vampire bite - nor, it seems, to properly dispose of the body - the corpse did remain largely undisturbed in the autumn undergrowth and winter snowfall until spotted accidentally this week. According to the coroner's report, the corpse is roughly four months old, marking the killing to the end of summer.

This vampire attack may not have taken place in the middle of Padmore Park, nor have been targeting so high-profile a victim as the murder of Mr. Conri Power earlier this year. However, that this attack occurred long after the fog had been dispelled from Hogsmeade may be a worrying sign of a growing assertiveness in the mentality of local vampires. After all, how many more undiscovered bodies might still be littering the forest around Hogsmeade? With the vampire caverns so close on our doorstep and its inhabitants given free rein of the area, it is impossible to say.