What Halts My Hippogriff

The Halloween Harry Potter edition

1. Arrogant first year students walking around like they own the castle. You are sitting in the Great Hall having your morning pumpkin juice when a group of frankie first years comes walking in boldly, laughing and doing foolish wand-waving and silly incantations. They scream to each other across the hall, talking about their most recent late-night, managed mischief (like the “special” books they found in the Restricted Section), while you diligently attempt your impossible Herbology assignment. Then, at the end of a long day, as you are ready to curl up in front of a toasty fire, you find that those sons-of-witches have taken over your favorite common room. Who do they think they are, the Chosen Ones?

2. Turning to page 394.

3. The Great Hall does not offer the vast variety of food you desire. Sure, the desserts are good. You can never have too many pumpkin pasties, treacle tarts or chocolate gateau. But what about real food? Nothing says “Puking Pastille” like biting into a piece of raw troll bogey. Can’t the house elves in the kitchen conjure up something that we actually want to eat? If you are going to cook food for Hogwarts students, you might as well make it good food. After all, socks don’t grow on trees.

4. Headmaster Duffettdore invites you to his office. This can’t be good.

5. Your roommate is a werewolf. You wake up in the middle of the night to find him sitting in front of the window, staring ominously at the moon. Perhaps he has had too much butterbeer. Perhaps he is petrified. No, he is just a werewolf. Nevermind the scratches on the walls that you will inevitably be fined for at the end of the year. Nevermind him constantly muttering “I forgot to take my potion.” What bothers you is the hair. Every hair, everywhere. Your professors tell you that you need to clean up after your cat. What they don’t know is that your roommate sheds all over the place. Either he needs to find a cure or a bottle of industrial strength Nair.

6. S.P.E.W. trying to recruit everybody in the name of social justice. I am all for the freedom of house elves. But, when the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare walks around school grounds with recycled signs and a multitude of hats, socks and sandwiches for the house elves of Philadelphia, I get a little annoyed. I have basic creature needs too. I need adventure. I need a vault full of shiny galleons and the most recent Firebolt model. Why should I care about the oppressed when I cannot have everything I want? My father will hear about this!