Warning: This newspaper article contains adult themes. Not recommended for children.

Silky, Dark, and Color Coordinated

By Roseanne Roseannadanna1

The Daily Prophet April 1, 2008

I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, your ever-popular journalist here at The Daily Prophet, where I have worked for ten years, thank you very much, at the recommendation of my dear cousin Rita Skeeter, am here yet again with my weekly advice column. Of course, I did not mention this before, when the pain of my network separation from NBC was fresh like a barely healing brand where the skin just peels off and your burnt flesh hangs on the end all crispy and real painful-like. But now let me say that, when I was fired, without cause, for that little indiscretion at the Columbia School of Journalism commencement, over the minor issue of my magically making that fat, ugly, flying baby pee onto the overly poufy hair of one of the faculty members, I mean this ain't Jersey and nobody is allowed to have bigger hair than me anyways, so my little teensy work of magic simply had to happen, though it did cause quite a nasty fuss ... but on to the letter.

Now, I received this pathetic letter from a reader just last week. How many times have I received letters of this type? Well, I only have this one, but where there is one sick, desperate, despairing, crazy person ’ like that old Archie fellow who's always writing in about liking a healthy breeze round his privates2 ’ there may be more. It could be just the tip of the crazy-people iceberg that sinks the Titanic of crazy-people. So I'm going to share it here today.

Hogwarts Student, Miss Hydrangea Wildgrass from Deptford, England writes:

***

Dear Roseanne Roseannadanna,

I know it isn't right for students to be romantically attracted to their teachers. Everyone says so. The trouble is, I just can't help it. My Hogwarts Potions professor is so smooth and silky, so color coordinated, so masochistic, so dark and troubled.¦ Well, my despair over his initial lack of interest and, later, my heartbreak over his untimely demise felt like being dashed into the deepest pit of darkness with only bats for company and no broomstick to ride to safety. I can only pray that I will one day get over my passion for him and find another dark knight with a heart in need of my healing love.

Sincerely,

Hydrangea Wildgrass

***

Well, Miss Wildgrass, you are a depraved and disturbed individual to hunger for such an unsatisfying prize as a school Potions Master. It reminds me of the time that I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, fell deeply in love with Tom the innkeeper of the Leaky Caudron3 ’ never caught his last name ’ he didn't look good in the daylight, or in the evening light, or in the dark, but for whatever reason, I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, craved him fortnightly like bacon sandwiches. He wasn't a good lover, or a good cook, or good at anything, really, but he did have nice big hands and his own room.

But, you know, dreaming of other teachers at your school might satisfy the fantasy relationship you were wishing for with your unnamed Professor of Darkness. A long tradition of hungering for one's teacher is part of an English boarding school education, so I hear from my two friends who read, and could be, you know, right for you, too. Take Professor Binns,4 for example. Sure, sure, he's dead and that is a big problem, but you can't get any darker than that. I mean dead is dead and that is like the essence of darkness, and the dead are often color coordinated and needing our healing love. So, it's possible, you know what I mean? Then there's that lemon sherbet of a woman, Professor McGonagall. She might look stiff and stern,5 but I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, know personally that it's always the strict old ladies giving the false impression that you should not cross them6 with their tight buttocks, like two firm potatoes peeled and squeezed hard together, and their little chicken arms with that flab that hangs down and wiggles and swings around when they move, that are the most wild, most insane, like bunnies on Easter Sunday. You might be thinking, "I don't like girls!" and that's okay ’ there's nothing wrong with that. We can't all be like a wild troop of lesbos7 running around willy-nilly for whomever we have a passing fancy. So, if you really need other suggestions there is always that stunning hunk of a man, Rubeus Hagrid. Not only a single, male professor in need of healing love, surely, but he also has the added benefit of still being alive, something that I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, knew he would be even if so many hopeless idiots thought he was a sure goner just because some people who think they speak Latin, excuse me very much to disappoint them, believed his first name meant "red" and not "of the bramble." 8 And you know, if you ever need help with Latin, the only person you can trust is a priest, especially a handsome one if you can find him.

My grandfather, Montana Roseannadanna, was 1/16th giant and had the feet to prove it ’ big, hairy, with the teeny tiny remains of slow running house elves jammed in tight between his fat toes ’ and he told me that there are only three ways to kill a giant or half giant (same thing really). The obvious Avada Kedavra is a bad idea. Sure we all know giants are quick to bash in the heads of family,9 but they will crush someone who kills a member of their family with a wizard's wand10 even faster than a smack from the Whomping Willow after soaking up too much fire whiskey through its roots on Christmas Eve.11 So  ¦ if you want to kill a giant, you really ought to stick to one of the other two ways. Shaving his or her beard off might seem pretty easy, and yes, the female giants got beards too, but it's not as easy as you might expect. I mean, even if a wizard were tall enough to reach a giant's face there is no way to hold it still long enough and using a wand would bring the whole happy giant family down on you, boom. I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, would rather face a pack of female dragons during mating season than a vengeance-seeking giant. So the last way is the easiest, and still it isn't easy like flicking the flies off thestral droppings. It's more like easy in an impossible, life-threatening way, like when your mother asks you to help her shop for a dress to wear to Aunt Anna Roseannadanna's wedding, to be held at Malfoy Manor and attended by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or like convincing merpeople to come horseback riding, or like the time I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, ran into a herd of centaurs who mistook me for Dolores Umbridge because they think all humans look alike.12 So anyways, all you do is just stick a sock, or a pair of socks if he's really big, in his belly button. Just jam it in there, you know, real hard and twist it around a bit and he'll just keel over dead right there, can't stand the feeling of it. And, I knew He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was way too high and mighty to do that to Bramble-Beard Hagrid, even if he knew how to do it, which he probably did not. So I knew Hagrid was safe all along despite the whole red or brambly Latin language mix-up.13

So the lesson is, go ahead and keep dreaming about your Masochistic Professor of Potions even though his skin is probably sallow14 like he's a corpse, and his hair's greasy15 like your hands when you've been making meatballs and you need to turn the water on but you don't want to touch the tap. And he probably has yellow teeth16 like he's been eating too much cheddar cheese and he never brushed ˜em ever and, well, he's probably just ugly. Because the truth is your disturbin' necrophilic obsession is good practice for life. Sure, we start out good looking enough, you know? But then, we get old, and ugly, and fat, and wrinkled, and little hairs are growing out of our face and nose, and we stink like vitamins and three day old corn beef and that weird smell that old peoples' refrigerators get, cause they never clean them ’ smells like something died in there ’ so having a thing for Professor Whoever of Dark Coordinatedness, well, it ain't any different than that.

Notes

1. Roseana Roseannadanna is a character from Saturday Night Live played by the actress Gilda Radner. You can see some of her clips here and here.

2. Rowling, Goblet of Fire, 77.

3. Ibid., Philosopher's Stone, 54; Prisoner of Azkaban, 39.

4. Ibid., Philosopher's Stone, 99.

5. Ibid., 85.

6. Ibid.

7. The term "lesbos" is referring to the island of Lesbos in Greece and should be taken as a reflection of the love poetry of Sappho, who lived there, and not as a derogatory term in any way.

8. Despite attempts to clarify the matter by our staff, it should be made clear that this issue of Latin language usage is unresolved. When asked Roseanne said, "Well, my priest said so! That should be good enough for all of you!"

9. Rowling, Order of the Phoenix, 373.

10. Ibid., 379, 381.

11. A reference to the song "Oh! Christmas Tree" by The Whomping Willows on the album Jingle Spells.

12. Rowling, Order of the Phoenix, 665-9.

13. Refer to note 8 and recall that Roseanne's priest did confirm this information.

14. Rowling, Philosopher's Stone, 94; Prisoner of Azkaban, 210.

15. Ibid., Philosopher's Stone, 94.

16. Ibid., Prisoner of Azkaban, 210.

Bibliography

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.

”””. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.

”””. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.

”””. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.

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