FESTUS FATUORUM

In which the Hogwart’s Potions Master reflects on April 1st.

The Ides of March dismay me not: race memories of treason
And ancient, superstitious rot should not usurp all reason.
But past the Solstice March grows late
And then I dread the turn of fate
To that infernal, vernal date.

Here comes the silly season.

They call it Taily Day, up here. It seems no-one’s above it.
The dies irae of my year, when Dark Arts most I covet.
(It shouldn’t, Merlin knows, amaze
That Scots – renowned for stingy ways -
Should make the damn thing last two days.)

The bloody students love it.

Atypically they scour the texts, with (novel) zeal ferocious
In search of potion, charm, or hex that’s suitably precocious
And when a thousand little twits
Thus exercise their feeble wits
Cry Havoc; chaos umpire sits.

The upshot is atrocious.

For all the house ambition and its cunning well-rehearsed
It is not, in fact, the Slytherins whose tricks rank most accursed:
(Scatch Hufflepuff, those decent bores,
And smugly anal Ravenclaws)
Oh no. Minerva’s Gryffindors

are (tediously) worst.

Their champions those red-haired twins, that Weasley pair nefarious
(It’s thanks to their and Potter’s sins her house points are precarious):
Chairs that shriek, and brooms that shake.
Sweets, faint canaries. Wands are fake*.
The Loch Ness Monster’s in the lake.

To Albus it’s hilarious.

Deflating draughts and mandrake juice to set the nonsense back to right,
Bezoars in buffer brews, and counter-sera recondite:
To Madame Pomfrey victims go
For Pepper-up and Skele-Gro
The potions stores get very low

by close of gaudy night.

The madness takes the faculty: McGonagall gets frisky
And reading mail in company becomes a pastime risky.
(Bad porn "from Sibyl T"! As if.
I’d rather do a Hippogriff
Or jump, sans broom, a handy cliff.)

Must buy more bloody whiskey.

It looks like Black has sent me flowers. (Someone’s used Imperious …
But Sprout’s been gone for hours, now; so’s Hooch. Not so mysterious ...)
When Filch is urging charity,
A Malfoy praises parity,
(And Fudge evinces clarity)

the world’s gone mad, delirious.

Since none of us have leisure or excuses to escape it
My only source of pleasure’s to condemn, despise, berate it.
As puerile pranks pervade the school
And custom licences misrule,
Two words all measure: April fool.

I absolutely HATE it.

-- Warrego

* Editor’s note: Fred and George’s best-selling spring model assumes piscine form when brandished in a threatening manner.

 


Last updated: 2 April 2003 by Hecate
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