Right, folks. The factions have been dead for like a year now, and it's time to change that. Aye? Here's what's going on with the Order.
NOTE: Things listed below are
NOT public knowledge, meaning that only a few characters who have interacted with the ones mentioned below can possibly know about them IC. Or, they haven't happened IC yet. But I want people to have an idea of what's going on. It's hard to keep something a secret IC when people don't know it's a secret, y'know?
Firstly, Oliver is leading the Order again, but only the active members are aware of this. He won't be telling anyone he doesn't trust, and will let them know not to mention it. It's going to be in the Order members' best interest to earn his trust if they want to be heavily involved. He's pretty trusting, Hufflepuff to the max and whatnot, but some people do strike him as untrustworthy. Last time he was in charge, he made a lot of enemies, and has no intention of letting them know what he's up to. His girlfriend has gotten in too deep in the past and he won't let her get hurt because of him.
That said, he's going to hold a meeting for the Order, explaining the plans he's about to make IC with Declan Arryn and Dom Weasley. He's also going to make it clear to the members that he doesn't want anyone to know who's in charge or on the council he's building.
Re: The Council thing real quick - I would choose the most active members writing characters of the Order to include here, but we have so many new members that I'd rather Oliver bring on people that interact with him IC in a positive way regarding the Order. Ya dig? More fun for everybody. Plus, incentive to stay active.
Remember that members who don't post IC as that character for two months lose their job/leadership claims, including council spots. And, for those who don't know, the council is a new thing Oliver is bringing in where, although he's leading things, he's kind of like a tie-breaker among four council members (So, five total, including the leader) who all sort of discuss stuff before bringing it in front of the group. That's not to say that other members have zero say in what happens. If people reject the plan it obviously won't go through. But it does open up some plotting and that's the ideal.
Second, Those plans he's making with Dec and Dom (aka Domlan)? He's sending them to Ilvermorny because of the Hogwarts exchange students going last year but being missing now for so long. He's actually going to find out about the train disappearing once they meet with him since he wasn't at the scene or anything, but they won't be able to get a letter back to Oliver so he won't actually know that the train showed up at Ilvermorny.
Letters don't get through except under certain circumstances that, I assure you, will be made clear once the student thread at Ilvermorny gets finished and the folks on the UK side start their hunt. We want to give everyone time to play out those bits first, y'know? But there is one character at Ilvermorny that knows how to get letters in and out because she did it on accident. And she's not sharing that info right now. So plotting with them might help you.
#hint 
Aaaaand lastly, another thing known to absolutely no one IC (unless you count an NPC I have), is that Scarlett Duffy is the daughter of Augustus Rookwood. So if the Death EAters didn't care before, they might have a reason to if he gets upset about it.
@Elijah Krum (Eli) knows, obviously, as Augustus is her character, so that's sort of up to her. But if you want to get involved in the Order and what's going on there, let me know or suggest things and we'll see what we can do, yeah?
What I'd really like is for the Death Eaters and the Order to be forced to work together on this, and then perhaps at the end someone (or a whole faction) betrays the other in some way and starts a proper, full-on feud, if not a war. That's not something that's been decided, though, so if it doesn't work that's fine. But it would be nice to have a reason for them to exist again.
