broom Breaking News
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(The Wizarding World) In a rare state of awareness, Violet Vainglory
madly managed to find out about a new super-species sighted in Crocodile Crunch
Creek. Sporting fancy feathers and wonderful wings, the new, fiercely flying
airborne animal has attracted attention from serious scientists as well as
ludicrous laymen from all over the wizarding world. The new sweet species, as Violet reports, has not only wee | wings, but also ferocious fangs and cruel claws. It is therefore likely to be banned by the menacing Ministry, or at least cruelly classified as deadly dangerous. However, the new superb species is not at all likely to attract severe suspicions at all. It looks just like your or your new neighbour’s cute cat. The new name? Ah, well, you should be prepared for it. Ever seen miniature mice with wagging wings? What are they called? Right: bats. So, guess what the cuties are called: Bat Cats! (VV) |
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(London) In a surprise stroke, presumed pumpkins pivoted
out of a garish garden in Gracechurch Street. Unassuming underling Ulysses Ugit
reported riotous scenes. On the noticeable night of October 31, Ugit used to walk warily along the alleys leading to grave Gracechurch Street when a sound suddenly reached his ears. Assuming at once that Dark Magic was being done, Ugit uttered a quick safeguard spell and heroically headed for the pitch-dark pumpkin patch at Number Nine, Gracechurch Street (the quarters of one Preston-family, does that ring a bell, anyone?). There, he evidently |
encountered a brawling bunch of bad-behaved pumpkins.
Immediately intervening in a ferocious fight between two especially enraged
vegetables, Ugit promptly became the prime pumpkin target.
Only a little luck and sheer speed of leg saved Ulysses Ugit’s life. It was accordingly assumed that the presumed pumpkins were in fact deeply disguised Death Eaters waiting for a cunning chance to catch an Auror. However, the artful attack finally failed. We shall keep our eyes and ears open to render reports on further vicious vegetable warfare. |
| Travel broadens the mind, therefore
the travelling tales by broom mean to teach your brains. This is dedicated to
the taboo of taking traditions as not trustworthy. Today’s topical taboo takes
us to the trouble of demons. During our travels we managed to meet several
mystic malefactors. Giving the ghoul its correct ghost-name we’re gibbering about the grim. Anyone knows this nasty nutter, it’s a dark dog |
declaring doom to any Dick, Tom or
Harry. Superstition is the rule of life. However, having heard so many
hypotheses we will work our way to the non-verification of these. Over the next couple of copies you shall find yourself facing the failsafe phantom. Beware and please bring the bulletin of your burial to broom if you prepare for your bye-bye. |
| The momentary month makes malicious
midgets out of muggle maids and mini-men. Marauding from home to home they
make for marshmallows, money and more. The civilized community of the capable
counsels you to co-operate with these comrades – otherwise they won’t tarry to
threaten you with trick or treat. However, you’re welcome to wave your wand and wonder what their reaction will be. Why not wish them a week of Wednesdays or whatever you want – you’re the warlock. |
Pumpkin heads also have a high popularity among the
players of Halloween pranks. Friendly faces will forward fudge (the sweet not the former Minister), figs (the fruit not Arabella) and fern (stink- and not just the ordinary). Don’t dare to donate do-good food or dog biscuits during this day! The ritual requires a repertory of rarely recommended courses. Have a happy Halloween! Brian Cullen & Mike Flatley |
A Word on Vampires
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(The Wizarding World) Since Newt Scamander neglected
the topic of vampires in his book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
and, in fact so did David Colbert in his work Magical Worlds: A Treasury of
Myths, Legends and Fascinating Facts, the only sources for information
seem to be a doubtful book by the even more doubtful Gilderoy Lockhart and
another a little less doubtful one by Eldred Worple, we here at broom decided
to take things into our own hands as we so often do and provide the world with
another essay on yes, you’ve guessed it, vampires. Literature didn’t get us far and so we decided to make up our own facts instead of copying those of others. Similar to Gilderoy Lockhart and Eldred Worple we decided to first study the subject of our endeavour. Our vampire role model is professor Snape. He owes us one and absently decided to help us. The most outstanding fact about |
professor Snape is that he seems to hate other people – by the way, professor,
we didn’t have time to read through your owls yet – except Slytherins. However,
he less openly shows favours to them but prefers to punish anybody else.
Interestingly enough among his colleagues a certain Emerson Dicket seems to be
his favourite – person, not meal. Furthermore, he dresses completely in black and as our researches have shown even his underwear is assumed to be black. The only exception of this pattern is a certain grey nightgown. He seems to have a great liking of the colour black, however, distances himself from any persons called Black out of personal grudge. His favourite drink is – right after fresh blood and refrigerated blood conserve – black coffee. Additionally, the Dungeons are his favourite place. It is always dark and cold there and most of the time the professor is dark and cold there, too – isn’t he Patience? Neither his office nor his |
private rooms are lighter or warmer. And for a holiday he prefers the
damp cold of the north to any other place. We have even managed to find out
that he enjoys sleigh riding. In the end, let’s take a closer look at the man himself. His extreme paleness of the body indicates the lack of blood, which for this reason must be acquired elsewhere. For this reason it doesn’t surprise us to learn that the professor is seen a lot of times during the night outside of his private chambers walking the corridors of Hogwarts or strolling through the surroundings of it. To give a brief summary, the literature on vampires is either bad or non-existing, vampires hate other people, constantly wear black, live in dark and cold places, are pale and use the hours of the night to take walks. And if you still have doubts if professor Snape really is a vampire than try to make him smile. He won’t because he has to hide his vampire teeth. (BC&MF) |
broom proudly presents an article borrowed from The Quibbler, which unfortunately did not make it through the censorship in one piece.
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formerly not published under the heading: Vampire Achieved Highest
Office in the Magical World (The Quibbler, the Ministry and broom) We here at broom are very happy that our colleagues of the Quibbler allowed us to publish a copy of their article on vampires. We here at broom already had our share of vampire articles and therefore are not expected or rather suspected by the Ministry to publish a second one. Everybody will know the most famous of the vampires, namely Sanguini, Dracula and the one of Hyphenate Castle. Formerly the vampires used to be banished from out of our society only to return to it in the form of literature such as Voyages with Vampires or Blood brothers: My Life amongst the Vampires and countless good and bad fiction, although it is not quite clear where to draw the border between the two. |
However, now one of the vampires has managed to find his place in our society,
namely the one of Minister of Magic.
Rufus Scrimgeour, new Minister of
Magic, is
a vampire and has been so for the last two decades after he had been bitten by Cruentus. Cruentus used to be a well-known vampire around Dumfries. Later he
disappeared and reports on his current whereabouts vary particularly. Rufus Scrimgeour classified his obtained wound as a lovebite. However, the change of his appearance and behaviour indicated to the closest of his friends that something more severe than a love affair had happened to young Rufus. Of special proof seems to be the fact that the former vegetarian developed a special taste for black pudding. The extreme paleness of the current head of the magical world is hidden underneath a thick layer of make-up, which is magically attached to the skin of his face and any other parts of the body which |
stick out of his clothes. Some even say he uses permanent make-up – a muggle invention where the colour is
injected underneath the upper layers of skin. It is said to hurt extremely. A riddle – so far – has remained how Scrimgeour manages to walk about the town in broad daylight, however, even some other vampires have already been caught – if only by sight – walking around during the day. You might want to remember the vampire of Scarborough who has been witnessed very often by the visitors of the local pub. Vampires are not at all as dangerous as they are said to be. They can integrate themselves into our society, if we only let them. Our researches show that nobody has been bitten or threatened by Rufus Scrimgeour. Therefore we would like to congratulate our new Minister and remain in the hope that he will push forward the rights of the outsiders of our society such as vampires and werewolves. |
“A Vampire is Like a Lion…”
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(Hyphenate Castle) We here at broom did neither spare expenses nor nerves to bring to you an exclusive interview. Unable to find the great pumpkin and having tried in vain to lay our hands on professor Snape we had no other option but to ask the vampire of Hyphenate Castle for an interview. We here at broom must set out the scene for you: Hyphenate Castle is a very old castle (built in approx. 1680). It is made of grey and black stones. Moss is growing on it and lizards hide in the gaps between the stones. There’s not a single house in its surrounding and only the occasional tree gives the impression that something really can survive here. Oh, did you hear that? An owl just hooted. So, it seems to be sort of okay for trees, owls and lizards. |
It is the middle of the night though we would have
preferred to come here in broad daylight. Which, of course, would have caused
our host to turn into dust. Since we don’t want to ponder on out here we ring the bell. A church bell sounds and the whole castle shivers as do we. A lean and bony butler shows us the way into the living-hall – room is much too small a word for this. Our host stops playing the organ and steps up to greet us, but why don’t you listen for yourself? VoHC: Welcome to my modest home! broom: Mouldy is the word you wanted to use! But anyway, thanks for inviting us. There aren’t many guests coming to your place… VoHC: …not at all. I had guests for dinner tonight. |
broom: Really? And what were they like? VoHC: Tasty, very tasty! broom: Quite warm in here, isn’t it? VoHC: No, actually I try to keep it quite cold for social reasons if you know what I mean… broom: So would it be correct to say that you are sort of full? VoHC: You must know that a vampire is like a lion – though he prefers virgins – if there is something to feast he will feast on… Unfortunately, we here at broom were not able to ask any more questions as we were busy running for our lives since Mike has grabbed Brian’s hand on the word ‘virgin’ – whatever that means. As always our thanks go to our interviewee. (BC&MF) |
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Please note that the yellow fields will help you fill in the blank spots in
The Quibbler's article on vampires!
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Across
1 head of 7 3 charming or enchanting 4 the place all of us live in, even muggles 7 department of the government 11 first name of a headmaster of Hogwarts 12 person who doesn't eat meat 13 place of business 14 current 1 of 3 16 animal seen in many coats of arms |
Down
2 another word for purpose spelled backwards 4 the contrary of 'dry' 5 byname of many Eastern-European Quidditch teams 6 you shouldn't smoke this 7 almost the same as across 3 8 you used to do this with your potions' homework (especially if professor Snape was your teacher) 9 old spelling of a silver fish 10 quality of a prince 15 first name of 14 |
____ ____ ____ P ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ P ____ ____ ____! I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII
Cooking and Slicing
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In A Chilly Grave Our cooking expert, Harriet Kettle-Stove, browsed her mind and recipes for something fitting your Halloween party. She has come up with two delicious dishes whose names will send the shivers down your spine. Try your own abilities now! Happy Halloween, my dear cooks-to-be! As we all know that Halloween is the highest wizarding holiday (although Muggles seem to have taken up the challenge), it is pretty obvious, well, in fact a matter of honour to have some special Halloween recipes up your sleeve. As even Muggles these days choose to eat pumpkin-based sweets and dishes on Halloween, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the more refined Halloween cooking. Forget about Cut Fingers (sausages with almonds as ‘fingernails’ and ketchup as ‘blood’), forget about Horror jelly (jelly with jelly worms, jelly eyeballs and jelly spiders inside) – here’s your special Halloween meal! |
Chilled Cucumber Soup This one is very tasty and very refreshing – you’ll just love it! Announce to serve a chilling soup and the applause will be yours and yours alone. You need 2 large cucumbers, 2 oz butter, ½ teaspoon granulated sugar, salt and pepper, 10 fl oz milk, 1 small halved onion, 1 bay leaf, 1 oz flour, 15 fl oz vegetable or chicken stock and 5 fl oz single cream. And your wand, obviously. Use some of the usual peeling spells to rid the cucumbers from their skins, cut them up and scoop out the seeds. Once they’re chopped and blanched, melt butter in a pan and add the cucumber plus the spices. When the cucumber has been gently cooked for 15 minutes, heat the milk and the onions and bay and after reaching boiling point, leave it for some minutes. Then use the flour and some butter to enable the soup to curdle a bit. You’ve got to make a kind of cream out of all the stuff you’ve prepared and add the cream. And then, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to chill the soup! Be careful and don’t overdo the freezing charm! |
Bury Simnel Cake To make your meal end on a properly macabre tone, serve Bury Simnel Cake. Now, why poor Simnel has to be buried is a matter of your fantasy. Why don’t you invent a horror story involving werewolves, vampires and Professor Snape alike? For the cake, you need 3 oz softened butter, 3 oz lard, 1 lb self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 10 oz sugar, 1 lb currants, 4 oz candied peel, 4 oz ground almonds, 2 large eggs and a little milk. As we’ve done cakes before, you should know the proper procedure by now: Mix the ingredients gently, first the dry ones, then the wet ones. However, you’re not allowed to use a tin but you’re certainly allowed to use your wand to form the very stiff dough you’ve created into the shapes you want. Why not a large bat? Bake your bat cake for about an hour, let it cool a little while and serve it to your delighted guests. Bon appétit! Yours, Harriet Kettle-Stove. |
Horticultural Horrors
Due to an endless amount of fan mail we here at broom were able to persuade Leslie Pagana Greenacre to do another of her wonderful sequels on gardening.Pumpkin ProfilesHello my dearest garden addicts and decoration freaks! Isn't it wonderful to have another feast practically waiting on our doorstep? Yes, it is! if you say Hallo- | ween you must say pumpkin, too.
Now, the usual thing to do is to eat them, however, at this certain time of the year they are endowed with a  face by a carver with little or no skill at all.
You will agree that anyone can do that. However, something which will add new excitement to your halloween decoration routine is to steal your neighbour's pumpkin; thinking about it again if you intend to place the pumpkin outside you should get one from the other side of the town. |
The same rule as with Christmas trees applies here: make sure no one - apart from those who are stealing pumpkins, too - should be watching you. Don't feel bad about stealing a pumpkin what you will get is probably stolen from elsewhere as well.
If you insist on carving a grimace into the pumpkin yourself you are advised to steal a normal pumpkin and to get a good insurance. Anyway, a very happy Halloween! (LPG) |