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Daily Prophet News Clippings

Just some randomness I whipped up ages ago for A Friend’s Project. She is very welcome to tag herself, but as she’s active in other fandoms I didn’t want to accidentally tag the wrong handle!

All placenames are real, btw.

Longpost is long and therefore cutted.

Wizarding Police Promise Holiday Broombusting Patrols

FELIXSTOWE, SUFFOLK - Local Wizarding Police today announced they will be stepping up countermeasures against holiday DFF's (Drink Flying and Flue-ing). Wizards and Witches are reminded to be aware of their capacity for Firewhiskey while celebrating the season, and to plan ahead for the ride home.

"We do recommend broom-buddying, broom taxis and Bruber at this time of the year," said PC Hortense Turner of the Magical Constabulary, "It takes but a quick slur of the tongue to end up somewhere extremely nasty in the dark fringes of the Flue Network. And we have all heard those awful stories of those who stumbled into actual fireplaces, drawing unwanted Muggle attention."

Uniformed and plainclothed members of the Magical Constabulary will be monitoring the skies for erratic flyers, loop-de-loops and hollering within earshot of Muggles. Wizards and Witches are asked to send up an Owl or Pigeon immediately if they suspect a fellow Mage is endangering him or herself, to ensure the safety of the skies for all.

"The use of Boozy Chews and Sobrie-Teas will not defeat our handheld Intoximeters," warns PC Turner.

Proprietors of drinking establishments and restaurants in the Wizarding World are reminded that they may be legally responsible for overservice and for not withholding personal brooms or Flue access from the intoxicated.

"Don't count on your owl to guide you home," cautions PC Turner. "Fly with a Friend."

Ministry Scientists: Mobile Phones NOT Magic

UPTON SNODSBURY, WORCESTERSHIRE – Despite growing concern, mobile cellular devices are not proof that Muggles have developed Magical work-around technology, says a circular issued by the Ministry of Magic.

“Merely further proof Muggle ingenuity in a world without magic,” says senior official Mr. Arthur Weasley, newly named head of Muggle Artifact Research. “Our grandfathers were just as dismayed at Muggle telephones with wires. This is nothing to be alarmed at.”

Toadfeathers, says Mr. Heptimus Filbert, of Basket Lane. “Every day you see them Muggle kids casting spells right into their mobile phones. If they ain’t artificial wands then I don’t know what I’m seeing.” Mr. Filbert describes watching Muggle teenagers send Howlers around the world instantly, summon food, and activate memory-keeping utilities with sound and moving picture capture. “Like one of them fancy pensieve things you see in great Wizard houses, but right there in a little tricky gadget.”

What do you think? Are Muggle youths set to charm and hex their way into the next century? Owl our Public Affairs desk with your opinion.

Plant Tips with Primula Davenport

Dear Primula: Two years ago I purchased a Picture Plant, of the western type that is supposed to feed on old photographs. For the first year, it seemed happy enough, and projected pictures quite clearly, to a distance of four feet. This winter it has grown listless and will not even feed on quite a funny old advertisement from the 1970’s that I tore up specially. It used to love those but has barely flickered for five minutes this week. Should I remove the bits and let it rest? It is lonely, or has it just developed a different aesthetic sensibility?

--Worried in Pucklechurch

Dear Pucklechurch: Oh, those naughty Picture Plants! They do love to keep us on our toes. You are quite right that the western type should be given only photographs, and not moviegraphs, as they are an heirloom species, and moviegraphs are too rich for them. I suspect that the advertisements you mention are hard to for modern plants to digest. I would carefully remove any remnants, and let the fellow get entirely empty for a week. It will complain and crinkle, but do wait a full seven days before trying again with a wholesome family snap.

--Primula Davenport

Victoria Station Platform 11⅝ Closed For Upgrades

VICTORIA, LONDON – Magical commuters are reminded of ongoing detours around Victoria Station Platform 11⅝ during necessary upgrades. Ministry offices at Epsom Downs, Gatwick Airport and Clapham Junction will instead provide discount Flue Network powder portions according to staff needs.

Non-Ministry business and pleasure travellers may take advantage of the Station’s one-way drop-off broomshare service.

The upgrades are necessary to allow contact-free WandPass payments instead of requiring wands to be scanned by officials. The new platform will also include a secured commuter broom closet and two new Flues.

Affpuddle Hogwart’s Prefect Selected for School Exchange

AFFPUDDLE, DORSET – Miss Abigail Posset, a Fifth Year Ravenclaw prefect at Hogwart’s School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, will be spending the spring term on academic exchange in America. She will represent Hogwarts and young British mages at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in historic Boston, Massachusetts.

“I wrote in my essay that I wanted to study spell-casting with the Boston accent,” said Miss Posset, referring to the cross-cultural project that exchange students are expected to complete while abroad. “The New England accent is so particular. I hope to add my American findings to some conversations with Welsh and Northumbrian witches I’ve been owling with about regional pronunciation and wand recognition.”

Miss Posset won her place out of a field of twenty candidates, some of whom will be visiting other international schools of Witchcraft and Wizardry next spring. In the September term, their young hosts will visit Great Britain, becoming part of the Hogwart’s community before heading home over the New Year.

Magical Community Chorus Auditions

MUDFORD SOCK, SOMERSET – Come one, come all! And don’t forget your creatures! The Magical Community Choir of Mudford Sock is seeking singers, toads, flamingoes, and tuneful ravens to replenish those we lost in the last rehearsal.

The Mudford Magical Community Choir has been a highlight of local events and family concerts for at least twenty of the fifty-seven years since it was formed. Who can forget the exploding refrain of Choirmaster Maestro Berthold Gumming’s arrangement of “Second On The Left And Unto The Morn”, as performed at last summer’s Harvest Festival – or Miss Adelaide Galligaskin’s virtuosic high notes from her solo “O Do Look Behind You”?

Those interested should prepare a short (under 2 hour) performance piece showcasing your and your creature’s talent. Those with two ravens may of course bring both. Please register your time slot with Maestro Gumming by Wednesday, April 12.

New Wheezies To Open In Time For Holidays

MAMBLE, WORCESTERSHIRE – A fourth location of Weasley’s Wheezes, or Wheezie’s to the juniors, will open in Worcestershire this Hallowe’en.

“We picked Worcestershire because of Hyperb Alley, really,” said Mr. George Weasley, “It’s just the best ever magical marketplace. It’s a million times more happening than even Diagon Alley.” Asked whether the distance from a large city like London would make it hard to attract customers, Weasley replied, “It would be a mistake of cosmic proportions to think so. I mean, it’s an all-round insanely great location.”

Elder brother Bill Weasley point out that the chain’s third location, on Hypote News in Tadley, has prospered well on account of being conveniently situated on the shortest route home for local shoppers.

The Hallowe’en Night Opening Gala will start at twilight, with Bottomless Mugs of cocoa and a fireworks display by Mr. Seamus “Boomza” Finnegan. The first fifty customers to spend over a Galleon will receive a years’ subscription to Sneezie’s Joke Scroll and a temporary tickling tattoo.

St Mungo's Fundraiser: Providing Hope with Potions

LONDON - St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries kicks off its four hundred and tenth annual fundraising appeal this season with a special message: Werewolves Need Apply! Funds collected during the campaign will go to the establishment of a new Were-Ward at St Mungo’s, where the afflicted may purchase and consume warm Nixnox potions in friendly surroundings with secure overnight facilities should the need arise. In honour of the creator of the Nixnox potion, which temporarily reverses the effect of moonlight, the new ward will be called the Severus Snape Wing.

The plight of the werewolf, or were-beast in general, has only recently gained public sympathy, due to the heroic efforts and impeccable characters of lycan-afflicted mages such as the late Professor Remus Lupin, and author Georgina Huckle. Werewolves were long thought to have become infected through their own carelessness or bad social habits, and barred from employment or polite magical society for fear of attack or contagion.

Madame Huckle says that while there is always a risk of contagion, it can be managed safely, and that it is the chronic fear and loneliness that makes a werewolf into the feared creature of legend.

“Do you imagine that a man – yes, I mean a man – like Fenrir Greyback wanted to become such a terrible thing when he was a little boy?” says Madame Huckle. “Of course not. He wanted to have friends and grow up. But instead he was sent away at the age of fourteen, banished from everything and everyone he knew. Is it any wonder he was such an easy mark for the Dark Lord? All it took was a few kind words and someone to tell him he was worth something, and he was won over. And we can do that too. I’m living proof. I have never hurt a living soul or passed on my illness, and I never shall.”

St. Mungo’s has been a leading center for healing and teaching of Healers and Mediwizards for centuries, and is pleased to play a part in the new drive for acceptance and understanding of werewolves. Others are not convinced.

“We’ve had a perfectly good place for these people for three hundred years,” writes Pansy Parkinson by owl, from her family home in Somerset. “It’s called Azkaban.” Despite being a student of Professor Lupin during her time at Hogwarts, Miss Parkinson appears to have little sympathy for his condition, insisting, “He missed classes so often that he should have been let go the first full moon. Werewolves are animals, even if they can pass as people for a while.” When informed that her own housemaster, the late Professor Snape, developed the symptom-blocking Nixnox out of concern for his friend and colleague, Miss Parkinson ceased communication with this paper.

“A Necromancer For Every Graveyard” Ghost of King Richard III Demands

GREYFRIAR’S CHURCH, LEICESTER – “Full five centurys made Ich ygreat moan,” begins His Majesty King Richard III, settling himself across the table. He is gracious in person, even gregarious. He makes sure that our tea is to our liking and that we have ample cake before continuing. “Not a fort’night hadst Ich been slain but Ich besought to lefe the cold earthe and become as ein ghost,” he explains. “Yet full fast wast my foote within its boote. Ich couldst nat stir namore.”

After trying unsuccessfully to remove his ethereal foot from his corporeal war-boot, His Majesty continues, he began to call for assistance from any other ghosts who might hear him. Many attended him and tried to help, but without material form, none was able to help extract His Majesty and set him free from his mortal self.

He pauses, while Queen Anne pats his arm comfortingly, “Ich set up a grete crye, that all spirits, yea, and all men, might bifal to hear. Yet none didst ne come. Nat within five hundred and some score of years.”

“Really, it was just a total fluke that anyone did,” adds the Queen. “He was planted so far under the stone church floor, as was proper for you, my lord, that nobody could hear him. We looked so many sodding times…” here the young Queen breaks off, and holds a gauzy, immaterial handkerchief to her eyes. “We ghosts must have checked bloody Greyfriars a hundred times, my lord, and never heard a damn thing.”

Which is why, I prompt them after a moment, they have chosen to make their petition?

“Yea,” says the King, “Certain am Ich that in my sorwe Ich wast nat alone. Many there lie under stone and under sod, nat ne in peace but most verilye bestuck. Et Ich beseeche all Witches and Wizards with such skille to mak speeche with the dead to bestir them to tak up this crafte.”

One volunteer necromancer might patrol each cemetery in the United Kingdom once a month, his Majesty suggests, seeking out other deceased people whose ghostly forms are fastened to their bodily remains. They could then alert grounds staff to exhume those in need, and attend to any small details that would free their spirits, or at the very least, let their ghosts roam the earth a little longer in comfort.

One ghost who knows all about roaming is Queen Anne Neville, who sits across from me, eyeballing my iPad with envy. She has had five centuries of waiting for her royal husband before leaving the earthly plane for good. In that time, she tells me, she has kept up with the London gossip, the current Royal Matriarch (“Very kind, but useless in a night raid”), and even – just recently – settled old scores and made up with the ghost of Queen Margaret “Mad Maggie” d’Anjou. Now she plans to remain as a ghost a little longer, until King Richard’s plan comes to fruition. Then both will retire as ghosts and, finally, depart as spirits.

“Gud wyfe, my Queyne,” says King Richard, “Thou didst with grete patience wait all these many years. Stay awhile yet till thys work be done, et then Ich and thee shall mak our way henceforth to Heaven.”

Squib Support Group Switches to Tuesdays

GREAT SNORING, NORFOLK – Local Squibs are reminded that Community Dinner and Support Nights at St. Bart’s will switch to Tuesdays at 6pm as of New Year. It is hoped that this will accommodate those who have been absent from the usual Thursday night dinners which conflict with “Who Do You Think You Are” on Muggle TV.

Squib Night is open to all Squibs and magical partners of Squibs. Always potluck.

#Harry Potter #Daily Prophet #Fandom Random

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