ONE DISASTER
AT A TIME...
A Study In Pink
by Crystalink
Dear Readers,
As we go through the year with a terrible pink presence looming over our heads at every turn, it is crucial to keep in mind all of the deplorable things Umbridge has done to The Quibbler and the students and professors of Hogwarts in the past. She has committed crimes against journalism as a form of free speech that can never be forgiven. Here, at The Quibbler, we do not censor. Rather, we censure, and today, it is Umbridge that will be on the receiving end. To do so, we must go back in time, all the way back to Year 33, when Umbridge made her first unwelcome appearance in Hogwarts’ halls.
Umbridge’s first action upon arrival in Year 33, aside from setting up a saccharine pink office, was to enact several ridiculous “educational” decrees. Many of her decrees, which included nonsensical rules such as “Boys and girls are not permitted to post within 8 minutes of each other” and “First and second years should not visit Hogsmeade or Stoatshead unaccompanied,” did not even impact the actual Hogwarts education in any way, only managing to inconvenience students. We, The Quibbler, criticised her decrees back in the day as well, pointing out their many flaws and loopholes. Her eighth decree—“It is forbidden to distribute, read, or discuss ‘The Quibbler’ at Hogwarts”—was far out of her jurisdiction, which was only over Hogwarts’ education. Any mention of The Quibbler or even the editor’s (fairly common) surname were censored by the board. It was at this point that many students and alumni alike put their foot down and rose to rebellion. Not only did she have no place in banning The Quibbler, but she had no reason to, given that The Quibbler had (mostly) refrained from criticising Umbridge before her censorship of it. The purpose of journalism is to use free speech to report the truth and nothing less, and, as we well know from Harry Potter and his seventeen-year-old misadventures, controlling the media is controlling the world. The Quibbler is not the only example of times Umbridge has exercised her power in order to censor student speech—students had house points deducted and detentions awarded for including anti-Umbridge protests in their signatures or speaking out against her. By banning The Quibbler and punishing petitioning students, Umbridge essentially stripped the castle of free speech, despite it being a human right under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998. In the words of the US Supreme Court, students do not “shed their [right to free speech] at the schoolhouse gate,” and I see no difference when it comes to the gates of Hogwarts.
Issue Index:
A Study In Pink.......................................... Page 1
Letter from the Editor.............................. Page 1
DIMC Mystery Update.............................. Page 1
The Beast Brief: Fwoopers, Controversy,
and Petting Zoos........................................ Page 2
Word Search: New Beginnings............. Page 2
Forbidden Forest or
Forbidden Farm?....................................... Page 2
Umbridge Strikes Again.......................... Page 3
Riddle Cup Update..................................... Page 3
Umbridge Unabridged: An Interview.. Page 3
Quibbler Quest: Writers & Pigeons..... Page 4
Unnecessary Advice with Kath............. Page 4
Houses & Horoscopes: Gemini and
Cancer........................................................... Page 5
Interactive Horoscope............................. Page 5
NEW! Chocolate Frog Card.................... Page 5
MoM Open Day Crossword..................... Page 5
Furthermore, Umbridge made several comments with anti-Muggle sentiments during her reign at Hogwarts. She described a Muggle television programme as a “Muggle vulgarity,” and requested for Magical Healing Professor JakeHP7 to remove methods of Muggle healing commonly used in the Wizarding World from his curriculum. In her evaluation with Magical Healing Professor Gemini, she asserted that victims of werewolf bites should be left to “pass on from the bite rather than [living] as a terrible and dangerous beast.” As much as Umbridge will try, her use of a euphemism does not hide the nasty ideas underneath. Umbridge also tried to remove duelling from the castle, endangering the ability of students to defend themselves in the future, although Head Referee Nicole and former Head Referee Merlin managed to dissuade her from her attempts. However, it was not Jake, Mini, or Nicole who received the brunt of Umbridge’s attempt to exercise her power over the professors of Hogwarts, but Linda. In Week 7 of Year 33, Umbridge suspended Potions Professor SusanHP from the castle after an incident involving a small explosion in her first year class and the theft of some Polyjuice Potion and Veritaserum from her office.
Inevitably, there was outrage over one of Hogwarts’ most experienced professors being removed for two incidents that were not her fault, and after a ridiculous number of protests and petitions, chants and signs, slogans and hashtags, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (MLE) was able to take action and arrest Umbridge for harassment, abuse of power, mass surveillance, and discrimination. In her attempt to resist arrest, she attacked our dear then headmaster, one Professor Tom (now William) Riddle. Yes, Umbridge attacked Liam, something that is completely unacceptable for any member of the site, regardless of position. The MLE was able to take her down and remove her from Hogwarts for once and for all—or so we had thought, but in light of current events, well…
Umbridge’s crimes did not end there—in the summer of Year 34, the Sorting Hat was kidnapped. Eventually, it was exposed that Filch helped Umbridge perpetrate the crime from Azkaban, of which she was the mastermind. Afterwards, she spent thirteen more years of silence in Azkaban, being carefully monitored by Dementors...
…… until now. At the start of Year 48, Jess ordered the release of Dolores Umbridge from Azkaban because of her intel on the murder of ministry officials and our now deceased headmaster, Liam. Even fifteen years from her first appearance at Hogwarts, she is still stepping out of her jurisdiction and enacting even more useless, poorly worded decrees, even though she is nothing more than a mere Ministry Informant. The Ministry has investigated her claim to her intel and deemed it to be valid, but even so, she can’t help but come off as suspicious. Why would she know something about the murder of Ministry officials when she’s been in jail for the past fifteen years? What are her motives for exchanging information, other than her release? The circumstances surrounding Umbridge’s release are so odd that they make me wonder if Umbridge herself had a hand in the murders of the Ministry officials.
In any case, do not let the fact that Umbridge is helping the Ministry of Magic hinder you from seeing her past crimes and true nature, and keep in mind all of the above when interacting with her. Intel does not erase the past. Intel does not make someone any less of a bad person, because ultimately,
Dolores Umbridge is a criminal, and she cannot be trusted.
Letter from the Editor
HELLO, dear readers!
Welcome to our newest feature, Letter from the Editor! This is my space to rant at, *ahem* I meant, to entertain my captive audience, you, my dear readers!
Number One! Did you know that C is actively recruiting for her very on Christiana's Army? Oh yes, you may have noticed quite a few inactive of-age's returning from their hidey-holes and C is behind it all! C, our lovable deputy Headmistress, must be getting bored playing with her very lovable dangerous creatures and decided to recruit her old friends into staging a coup (more on my personal coup of The Quibbler on page 4).
Number Two! If you've glanced over to the right of this article, you may notice that one of the articles included in this issue concerns an interview with a certain Pink Menace, Umbridge. I personally find it quite amusing that Umbridge has consented to an interview with our humble publication after having banned it from mH last time around. Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures so we all know exactly how lonesome our dear Ministry Informant is.
Number Three! If you're like me and just a tad addicted to mH, you may have a slight tendency to obsessively check mH every hour or so. I mean, it's not quite every hour on the hour but it's close enough. *ahem* Back on track, this little segment is about the site outages that we've had in the past week or so which just so happen to coincide with Umbridge's little spout of inactivity recently. This must be because Umbridge has been learning muggle internet technology and is sabotaging the site! Apparently, it's not enough for her to be messing with mH with her petty decrees but now she has to totally cut off mH members for hours at a time!
Anyways, I have more nasty conspiracies to uncover, so until next time, folks!
Ooh, but if you see suspicious behaviour around the site, do NOT hesitate to send me a PM so I can investigate!
Toodle-oo!
Kath
DIMC Mystery Update
The newest development of the DIMC murder investigation has Umbridge releasing decrees left and right for no rhyme or reason. Well, Umbridge's decrees have nothing to do with the investigation which is rather suspicious considering she's supposedly a Ministry Informant... but it does have participants trooping through the Forbidden Forest cracking ciphers, riddles, and other puzzles. As of this issue, the puzzles in the forest are now open for all members, not only challenge participants, to solve.
It is noteworthy that the murder investigators have been keeping more civilian participants than they originally planned. In Task 1, there were 21 members moving on to the second task instead of the originally announced 16. Either the investigators realized they needed more blood for their investigation or they've come to realize that solving a murder... is a lot harder than they thought.
Another curious something is that the second task took place in the Forbidden Forest. While forests do symbolize the unconscious and its mysteries, Hogwarts' Forbidden Forest was thus named for a reason! There are countless dangerous creatures roaming the forest just looking for an innocent victim to snack on. The only comforting thought that I have is that all three coordinators are professors and Memrah is a CoMC professor so she would be able to keep the dangerous creatures in the forest away from the students... if she so chose. Read more about this on page XX.
It is interesting how Disa and Anne both are once again running a murder investigation together. It appears that our former Head Girls have more enthusiastic about sleuthing than anyone knew! It can't hurt to open an inquiry as to why Disa and Anne always receive notice of these murders than anyone else... is there something fishy going on here???
That's all for this update! Next issue, we'll see what's in store for the participants in Task 3 of this challenge!
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