FACT: Hogwarts newest Headmaster, Hershey Reed, is lifting Headmistress Snark’s controversial ban on werewolf cubs attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. (Recall that Headmistress Snark was eaten by an acromantula while on holiday; refer to Vol. 20-9, Issue 7, WHEN MUMMIFIED SPIDER-BEASTS AWAKEN!) Hershey Reed is a former professor, Hogwarts governor and manager of a chocolate empire that threatens to drive Honeydukes out of business (see BURNT TREACLE AND LICORICE SNAPS, HOW ONE MAN STRIVES TO BE NEXT SUGAR DUKE, page 10). When Reed is not plotting to buy out the most popular student destination on days off, he strives to assure that Hogwarts will be safe with werewolves in attendance through a system of wolfsbane, off-site lunar housing and flea killing shampoo. Few could say that Reed would overlook any student, human or creature related, that would pose a possible threat to the school in his efforts to keep Hogwarts secure.

BUT DOES HE?

Evidence has come to light of a cover-up during the ’08-’09 school year that rivals the censorship and subsequent disappearance of the late-Headmistress Snark’s collection of authentic Troll produced paintings, from her Department of Mysteries days, that prove Trolls are capable of higher intelligence and artistic expression. While Reed intends to downplay the severity of werewolf attendance to distract from his chocolatier escapades, your students could be in danger of a more veiled threat, the unknown: a half-mermish student attending the school! One Hufflepuff by the land dweller name “Heliotrope LeJean” although her given name in Mermish, incompatible to the textual format of this article, is confirmed to translate into “Frog Legs,” which will be her moniker. Records say she is the daughter of a witch living in Loch Lomond who is married to a merman.

Which, the Quibbler’s own in-law, the naturalist Rolf Scamander, suggests that the birthing of such a creature is “Fundamentally Impossible.”[1] Scamander’s argument is that humans have internal gestation and merpeople tend spawned eggs in small caverns. How does Scamander account for the student’s existence, then, if not by the parents listed in the school’s records?

“It’s important to look not only at the biology of Frog Legs,” Scamander said in an interview, “but her entire environment as presented at Hogwarts. The most telling evidence is the reaction of the late Headmistress Snark. Why would Miss Snark pull the political ploy of banning werewolf students from attending last year yet not feel it impudent to inform everyone that a one of a kind, never before conceived creature was attending the school? That is the biggest point. The whole werewolf ban was a distraction to edge Frog Legs into the school, the last of Miss Snark’s projects from her former occupation.”

Yes, dear readers! Troll produced paintings are not the only thing Hershey Reed will be inheriting from the previous head! Scamander continues. “It is obvious Frog Legs is a Homunculus specially engineered to possess human and mer characteristics. She is a cauldron baby, brought to life from a solution of polyjuice and stewed gillyweed.”

Long time readers of The Quibbler will recall that we have highlighted the projects Snark commissioned during her days as the Head of the Department of Mysteries. Her personal interest in Frog Legs and work to get her an education is rather remarkable, given that this was a woman who “locked her capacity for love behind a door and banished away the key.” However, these signs of compassion may not have been there, as shortly after her ‘birth’ Frog Legs was dumped into a loch to be trained by merpeople.

Rolf Scamander’s wife, Luna (nee Lovegood) gives her own opinions on what it must mean for Frog Legs to be raised by merpeople. “They usually keep to themselves but they can be brutal creatures. They catch Plimpies and bind up their legs for fun. Whenever I go fishing for Plimpies half the time I find a poor defenseless Plimpy strung up like a ball of yarn.” Luna concludes that if Frog Legs is treated well, perhaps Plimpy wrangling will be the only violent thing out of her.

All of this begs the question of why Frog Legs was created. What possible intent would there be to a half-mer life-form? Coded memos from the Auror office found and decoded by Quibbler staff have brought to light that Cameron “Weasel Hunter” Roiser, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was interested in the position a full decade before he ever took office. Roiser brought up the idea of Frog Legs to Snark, and for all intentions he seems to want to use the little pseudo-mermaid as an operative to bring the Rotfang Conspiracy[2] back into the light after many years of secrecy. Using Dark Magic (from Roiser’s family) and gum disease, the Rotfang conspirators inside the MLE seek to usurp the ministry. In purloined donated copies of recent Auror case files, maps[3] labeled from a file aptly named “The Hunt for Cináed Tawse” to avoid suspicion, show that Frog Leg’s eventual purpose is to poison the water supply by planting capsules releasing the ‘Gingivitis’ gum disease in strategic water mains, wells, and reservoirs.

This could go off without a hitch, as Frog Legs lived up to expectations in her first training mission during the previous spring term,[4] where she defeated a Kelpie colt smuggled in and out of Hogwarts so easily, again covered up by the former Headmistress. Of the students present at the battle, one Tynan MacFusty and one Dilly Morris, they have been sworn to secrecy on the matter (follow their stories on SCHOOL’S OUT! ONE EYED SON OF A DRAGON HANDLER APPARATES TO LAS VEGAS FOR SUMMER VACATION!, page 8, and TEST SUBJECT FOR REVERSE AGING POTION ABLE TO ATTEND HOGWARTS AGAIN, YET OLD ENOUGH TO BUY RUMBALLS AT SUGARPLUM’S!, page 11).

The Scamanders, like many on the Quibbler staff, can only wish that Frog Legs would be freed from being a ministry pawn and may have the best life possible available to someone with her mutant abilities. Her ‘mother’ Danielle LeJean, a witch placed in Loch Lomond to monitor the upbringing of Frog Legs, does seem to honestly care for the half-breed creature more than the ministry food stamps she is paid with. Rolf warns, however, that the most inherent danger of Frog Legs may not be from her potentially aggressive mermish demeanor or secret ministry training, and in a way no one behind her creation saw coming.

“As an artificial life-form, Frog Legs is starting to show signs of degeneration and if she begins to age rapidly, may not live past 16. More importantly, her degeneration has brought about a brand new magical disease that I call ‘Filamentous Chlorophyllisitus.’ This disease is spread by close, prolonged contact with Frog Legs. Already another Hufflepuff student, a friend and roommate to Frog Legs, has been seen exhibiting the symptoms of Filamentous Chlorophyllisitus, where the infected parts of her hair turn green before all her hair falls out.”

Scamander says that to prevent the spread of Filamentous Chlorophyllisitus, students attending Hogwarts this year should rinse their hair twice daily with a solution of mooncalf milk and squid ink, and to wear dragon hide gloves before touching Frog Legs.

NEXT ISSUE: SPONTANEOUS DUPLICATION DISEASE REVISITED! ARMY OF FAYETTE CLONES JOINS THE AUROR RANKS!

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“Tracking the Truth, One Wrong Turn at a Time”

1.	link
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3.	Never Wake a Sleeping Rattler
4.	Muckracking