Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales
30 July, 1992

Dear Minerva,

          I have just received your notice to the staff pertaining to the classes timetable and the list of books for this year. I see my request for having potions scheduled earlier in the week than Divination has not been heard again. I shall insist, however, that the art of potion-brewing requires extreme alertness and a seriously focused mind, and one will get neither from the students after Trelawney has befuddled their minds with the fumes of her inebriating incenses and her dramatic sobs as she announces the name of the victim of the year.

          But you have heard my arguments before, and if you chose to ignore them up to now I’m sure you can ignore them once more. No, the reason I’m owling you is because you have sent me the wrong book list. This one includes no less than 7 titles signed by Gilderoy Lockhart for all the students, from first to seventh-years. I’m sure you’ll agree that the youngest aren’t ready to "wander with werewolves", while those about to graduate will be wasting their skill and time if challenged to "gad with ghouls". Besides, out of the classics we ask for every year, only Madam Goshawk’s handbooks of spells have survived the assault of the "funky" double initials. You don’t expect me to do without Jigger’s Drafts and Potions or Gullstein’s Life and Death Elixirs, do you? Certainly not more than I expect you to teach your classes without the aid of Emeric Switch’s tomes on Transfiguration.

          Therefore I ask you to send me the real list as soon as possible, for I need to prepare my classes in reasonable accord with the other teachers’ schedules—imagine trying to train the students on freezing potions before they’re introduced to the properties of Leontopodium Terminum in Herbology. I have enough accidents with melting cauldrons in my dungeons as it is.

           (Speaking of which, I would appreciate if first-years were warned that their cauldrons must INDEED be made of pewter. Every new term one of the urchins will try to impress his classmates by showing off a gold or copper cauldron that will leak itself away at the first attempt at boiling troll’s bile. For Merlin’s sake, can’t they read?!)

          As for the choice of which of Lockhart’s books should be listed, I’d recommend a title more connected to the author’s true area of expertise. Hasn’t he published anything called "Frolicking with Frippery" or "Smothering with Smiles" yet?

          Unless of course we decide to offer a serious course of Defence Against Dark Arts for a change...

          Cordially yours,

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Written by Morgan D.
December 26th, 2002

The Harry Potter series and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros and Merlin-knows-whom-else. Gullstein, his book and the Leontopodium Terminum are inventions of mine.