broom Breaking News
| (Muggle World) It seems as if all lucid life leaped away.
Several sensible men murmured that many Muggles mistake the summer season
for a soccer season. This mad mistake was eagerly enhanced by the omnipotent organisers of this year’s Soccer World Championship in garish Germany. Frivolous fans with potent purses paid their way into |
stuffed stadiums, to see soccer stars shoot some great goals. Mean merchandise methods make Muggles buy burly plastic puppets, strange shirts, even bewildering bedclothes. Perhaps everything is possible, so should you carefully consider to go to gentle Germany, don’t do it in joyful July – unless you’re a soccer fan! (ALL) |
| Many Muggles and woeful wizards suffer severely from aggressive allergies. Though trees thriving in thousand beautiful blooms bestow beauty to the Wizarding World, the savage side-effects of such sophisticated natural decoration damage the pleasure poignantly. | There is no real remedy to the raucous sneezing and wheezing. Perhaps potions or pills provide restricted relief, but in fact few found this helpful. So broom wishes to commiserate with all the poor allergic victims and wish them a fast recovery from the polls and blooms. (ALL) |
Dazzled Dementors Damaged Durham Disco
| (Durham) The fierce fog persistently
penetrating the spring sky seems to originate originally in dreadful
dementors breeding. Scientists say some of the crazy creatures were
already so bemused by breeding constantly that they do not know any longer
where they were going. Accordingly, anonymous informers informed broom that dazzled dementors made a visit to the darling Durham. Muggles dancing in a disco to dreamy dance tunes were suddenly |
shocked out of their ferocious flirting when the roof was ripped off. Dazzled dementors damaged the disco in a wild wooing whirl. Fortunately few people were hurt, but many received a real shock. Magical Maintenance made up the dreadful damage, but the Ministry of Magic is wary and worried. Dazzled dementors might carelessly cause much more damage during the prolonged process of breeding. Everyone is required to warily watch out during the baleful breeding season. (ALL) |
| broom, sadly, has to announce the death of famous Bavarian bear Bruno. We reported on his bearish misdeeds, but apparently not everyone was willing to wait for Bruno to discover that the woods were safer for him than the villages. Bavarian hunters shot him on June 26th at 5 a.m. May Bruno the much-hunted bear rest in peace! |
Come on Baby Light my Fire
| (Wizarding World) Every little witch, wizard and Muggle
knows what to expect when they hear about burned woods and singed
skyscrapers, hollow mountains with secret chambers filled with treasures,
and traces of a huge slithering animal on wet ground. But do they – and we
– really understand what is behind the reputation of dragons? broom has
dared to venture to meet a renowned dragon expert, Goran Trcka, and some
of his charges. Follow us on a walk through the Dragon
Station! BC: Thank you, Goran, that we were allowed to come here. Reporters are not so well-liked here, I heard. GT: In general, reporters tend to be looking for spectacular incidents involving a fire-breathing, killing dragon that has just ripped the heart out of its opponents body. BC: I think I can safely assure you that we are not hunting for such stories. We would much rather get to know what it is like to work with dragons. Who is that, by the way? (points at a huge Chinese Fireball) GT: This is Ho-Chi-Minh, our old Chinese Fireball male. He came from China originally, and he’s the tamest dragon we have here. You can even ride on him. BC: Ride on him? You’re kidding. GT: No, I’m not. Most of our dragons are not like the wild specimen you can meet in their natural habitats, but they can still be dangerous when they’re angry. However, most stories about dragons are untrue. (caresses a huge Hungarian Horntail) BC: Yes, let’s discuss some |
misconceptions about dragons. Number one: Dragons like to
destroy and kill. GT: No. Dragons, as most animals, have no wish to destroy anything, unless they feel trapped and try to destroy their trap. As to killing, most dragons hunt for their food, but wouldn’t kill anything they don’t intend to eat. And they never, ever eat one of their own species. BC: What about the more intelligent breeds, those who can talk and think? GT: Firstly, all dragons can think. The gift of speech that is intelligible to humans is rare among them – or they are just too bored with the trouble of talking intelligibly to use it often. Their behaviour does not change. Perhaps a dragon you ask will tell you the same as I did, in exactly the same words. BC: Hm. Interesting. Misconception Number Two: Dragons keep treasures. GT: Dragons like beautiful things, but they don’t keep treasures like in fairy-tales. It’s not like a magpie that keeps stealing glittering things, you see. Dragons won’t nick your jewels or looking glasses. And it’s no use climbing into mountains to find dragon hoards. BC: Plus it’s dangerous, isn’t it? GT: Of course. You can be grilled if you really enter a dragon’s lair. And that’s no deliberate cruelty, that’s just protecting your privacy, such as Muggles keep barking dogs and wizards use protective spells. BC: Is it a good thing dragon eggs are banned trade goods? GT: Of course! There are any kind of weirdoes running around out there who want to keep a dragon as a pet. |
Only, a dragon has the tendency to fast grow out
of the cuddly baby age and become huge, hungry, and hard to handle. We’ve
had a case here of a man who tried to train dragons to be a hunting game.
And certainly some witless people want to build up an army of dragons for
their own purposes. BC: Could that work? GT: Unfortunately, yes. If a dragon is trained in the wrong way, it can be made into a dangerous fighter. The best way is to train nesting mothers, who would do anything for their eggs. However, most people are sensible enough to give away dragon eggs or baby dragons they found. And the Ministries for Magic everywhere are working relentlessly to uncover illegal dragon stations. BC: So basically dragons are only vicious when they are brought up to be vicious? GT: Yes. They possess a natural danger, as any animal with the ability to breathe fire and with such a huge body would. But if you treat a dragon with the proper respect, no harm will come to you. BC: Thank you for that enlightening interview, Goran. Let it be a warning to you. A dragon is no pet! You might mean well and inadvertently produce a killing machine. Only people trained to work with dragons are able to raise them, and it’s best to let dragons live freely in their natural habitats and only make sure Muggles never get wind of their existence. (BC) |
broom's Best Bad Boy Board
| Hunter Preston was deprived of the chance of ever becoming
an Auror in our last edition. Just imagine what damage he could have done
as an Auror! Luckily, he never went to work at the Ministry. Instead, he
began to work in the recruiting of new Death Eaters. Admittedly, Hunter might have lacked the intelligence for persuading people to follow Voldemort. But you must not forget that the man did have one asset: charisma. Hunter Preston looked quite well, fair of colour and with an open smile that made you feel like his special object. It was an ability that Voldemort valued little, but Lucius Malfoy always used openly. Charming people into service was in the end much more effective than pressing them by force and coercion. And it did work. Just think of Bellatrix Black, married Lestrange. She joined because she was persuaded, not because she was forced to, and to this day she has remained one of the most ardent Death Eaters alive. Hunter Preston however was a different matter. He was good at persuading people to join, but he himself was still not as ardent as his sister and brother would have liked him to be. Therefore, Hunter spoiled the second career he was supposed to begin. This time it had been the idea of Hunter’s brother-in-law, Augustus Rookwood. Persephone and Augustus had married half a year before, and Persephone, who liked her younger |
brother a lot better once she didn’t have to see his failures
at school each day, convinced her husband to offer a job to Hunter. The
job was to recruit new Death Eaters and train them in Defence Against the
Dark Arts. Yes, that does sound stupid. Why teach Death Eaters, who deal with the Dark Arts, Defence Against the Dark Arts? Well, quite obviously even that early in the reign of Voldemort the Dark Lord feared that the Aurors would stoop as low as to use Dark Arts themselves against the Death Eaters. Which was true. It was true for Mad-Eye Moody, it was true for various others including the late Barty Crouch Sr. So it was not quite as stupid as it sounds – except for the part of employing Hunter Preston for that job. He failed miserably when he tested a young woman and killed her by accident. Oh, the Dark Lord was furious! He had intended to use the young woman to lure information out of a weak member of the Order of the Phoenix. It seemed as if Hunter Preston was to be the eternal failure. In the logic of Voldemort, that would mean that he would have to be killed soon. To let him live would be to let him run around as a possible informant about the plans of the Death Eaters – well, part of them. Why then did Hunter Preston survive? How did he manage to escape his fate? These questions will be answered in the next editions! (BC&MF) |
And the Holy Spirit Came over Them...
| (Hogwarts) Lately there has been quite an uproar at the
castle because some people have begun talking in Tonks… sorry, tongues.
Alright, maybe ‘lately’ is quite the wrong word. It’s been five years
since that happened, but well, broom did not exist back then. And there
cannot be a time without broom, therefore we had to say ‘lately’. Anyway,
here the story goes: On a day in May, Harry Potter, also known as The Boy Who Lived and The Weirdo, encountered a Snape, sorry, snake and began to talk in Parseltongue. You think that’s strange enough? Yes, you are right. It is strange. Strange enough to send us, the team of your No. 1 investigative magazine, to investigate in the most determined manner. Why did Harry Potter start speaking Parseltongue |
that late in his life? Had there been any previous
incidents? Our Muggle expert, Dustin Dulles, went into the dangerous areas of Little Whinging to interview neighbours, friends and family. And guess what he came up with? Young Mr Potter had had an encounter with yet another serpent, at a Muggle zoo. Around May, as we were told. That set Dustin to frantic work and research. He found the following passage in the Bible: “The signs that shall come with those who believe are the following: in my name they will drive out evil spirits, talk in new tongues, rise serpents with their hands, and if they drink something deadly, they will not be harmed; they will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will get better.” |
Now we are not in the least thinking that Harry Potter is holy
or something. No, no, but that is what happened in May. At Pentecost, to
be precise. Now, isn’t it possible that some people feel strange, what
shall we say, vibrations in the air around Pentecost? What if there really
is some cosmic cataclysm that enables people to speak tongues by
then? We decided to ask Professor Dumbledore for his reverent opinion. His answer was: “You’re writing complete nonsense.” Deeply offended, we went back to our office and wrote this little article, which leaves you all with the following comforting thought: All you witches and wizards out there, learn foreign languages, potions, a little healing and Care of Magical Creatures, and you’ll be fine. (ALL) |
Crossword
We do hope you will enjoy this month's Sudoku. It is not too tough. Have fun, Severus!
Hit By A Bludger
| Actually, this should be re-named “Hit By A Ball” this
time, since the Weasleys did the unbelievable and dived deep into the
Muggle mystery of a sport called ‘soccer’. Learn more about Muggle men’s
favourite pastime. Howdy, dear sports fans, write Fred and George Weasley, we’re doing things the Muggle way this time. Nobody outside the Wizarding World can ignore that in this month a major sports event takes place in Germany. Somehow a Bavarian ex-soccer-star called Emperor Franz managed to get some queer Muggle organization to settle for Germany as the site for this year’s World |
Soccer Championship. It seems Muggles don’t have an equivalent
of our Department for Magical Games and Sports, but give the task to their
Home Secretary. Although some wizards and witches do have a notion of what soccer is about, the general rules of the sport should be given to those who don’t: Twenty men run around a pitch. The pitch is square, and there are two goals, one on each of the sides. The goals are square, too, and guarded by a keeper each. There is but one ball, and it rolls on the ground. The team that scores most goals wins, but there are three referees to judge that. So you see, it’s a highly simplified game, not |
half as exciting as Quidditch. The World Championship certainly attracts a lot of attention. And that is not unknown in our world, either! Just think of the Quidditch World Cup. And like in Quidditch, the best soccer teams in the world participate after having had to qualify. Whoever will be the new World Champion will be among their number. Everyone seems to be excited, and if we find out something more about this major sports event, we’ll report to broom. Now we’ve got to purchase a toy lion dressed in a shirt and shoes, some flags and some fan-shirts. See you soon and enjoy the Soccer Wold Cup! (FW&GW) |