Hogpoeming
This annual Hogsmeade meeting is strictly
for poetry readings... well, ever since the
Dwarf-Tossing event was outlawed.
whose original hoggery society
raised hogpoeming to a proper art form
Winter had flown by so fast, and now it was a gloriously warm Spring at Hogwarts. It was time for our favourite Third Years to be initiated in a little-known side of weekend visits to Hogsmeade. And so, they gathered with older students in an upstairs hall at The Three Broomsticks for the annual meeting of the Hogpoeming Society.
The room was crowded and loud, the atmosphere was boisterous, and the butterbeer flowed like... well, like butterbeer. How else would it flow?
Gryffindor was the sponsoring house this time. Roderick Dimbleby, a Seventh Year, made the standard welcoming speech, bemoaning the fact that the town fathers of Hogsmeade still forbade the Dwarf-Tossing portion of the meeting.
(That was all because a cooperative dwarf had not been booked for the 1923 session, and the crowd had somehow substituted Merwin Creevey. As Creevey children tend to be a bit diminutive, you can understand that one toss might have been a perfectly natural error. However, when the local authorities found that the participants had taken turns tossing him all afternoon, it was a bit too much for them to overlook.)
Roderick then opened the 138th annual poetry reading session. "Each work has to be an original limerick about someone or something Hogwartian. Anyone may contribute a hogpoem, from any house or year, but Thirdsies are required to climb atop the table to recite their masterpieces, as their rite of passage.
"As always, there is one rule to ring them all." Some Tolkien fans booed. "The rule is: If the subject of the hogpoem is present, he or she is expected to be graceful about it, and not curse the poet into a pretzel... so, wands down, everyone. With that said, who's our first hogcaller?"
After bumping his head on a chandelier, Ron Weasley bravely led it off from his tabletop:
A wizard is Harry James Potter;
He zapped You-Know-Who, for a starter;
He'd zap him again,
Come sunshine or rain;
We hope he won't end up a martyr.
Such a cheerful child! From under his invisibility cloak, Harry retaliated with:
Ron Weasley, with moptop of carrot,
Fixates on one memory, I dare it.
He grins at the thought
Of when Malfoy was caught
And changed to a great bouncing ferret.
While the crowd bounced Harry from the table, Errol flew in, wheezing. The chairman read the timely contribution, from Ginny Weasley of Second Year:
His eyes always leave me agog;
They're green as a fresh-pickled frog!
He might make my day
If he'd just look my way,
Then give me a hug and a snog.
Ron led the loud hooting over that one, accompanied by a roomful of awful snogging noises. We can't say if Harry blushed; do you blush when you're invisible?
With much nervousness, Neville then stood and delivered:
McGonagall, wise for her years,
Transfigures stuff while her class cheers
And once she is through
It's literally true
That nothing is what it appears.
Cornish pixies carried Neville away while the chairman read two posts from the alumni pile, starting with one submitted by dear old Minerva herself, M.C. McGonagall:
As discovered by some old soothsayer,
The owl is a faithful team player
He'll gladly perform
In sunshine and storm
And arrive on a wing and a prayer.
Not a knee-slapper, that one, nevertheless the mob toasted the owls of the world while hearing the hogpoem of another absentee alumna, Molly Weasley:
Though I'm nothing special in looks,
My life has been one for the books;
I married so easily
Once dear Arthur Weasley
Had finally discovered, "She cooks!"
The rowdy Sixth-Years, nearest the butterbeer kegs, drank a toast to all mums; then, another to all red-haired girls; then, another to home cooking. There were several other mumbled topics. Fortunately, at a hogpoeming session, rounds are poured in tiny cups, not steins, or Madam Rosmerta would have to locomotor the unconscious lot of them back to Hogwarts after dark.
They returned to serious hogpoeming with Fred and George, who alternated at reading lines of their opus:
A good gift for all of your folk
Is a well-tested practical joke.
So why not buy some?
Send a dungbomb to Mum --
And another to Dad, the old soak!
The twins were pelted with Bertie Botts beans for that sneaky advertisement. Hermione saved them from an every-flavor doom by clambering to the nearest tabletop with this:
If a fool does some wand-waving harm
And dissolves all the bones in your arm,
Madam Pomfrey, y'know,
Will supply Skele-Gro
And her cures always work like a charm!
The crowd agreed there was nothing wrong with Hermione's poems that another round of butterbeer wouldn't improve; the only question was who should drink it, them or her.
At this point, the guest hogpoet of the year, the Sorting Hat, loudly sang:
I see quite a bevy of brains
When I peek at what each one contains;
While most brains are solid,
Some few are more stolid,
And some must get wet when it rains.
The gang was pleased that it was shorter than the hat's usual songs, applauded that fact, and tapped another butterbeer keg or two.
Noticing a few reporters in attendance, one seriously snozzled author shouted at them, "REVIEWS MUST BE IN LIMERICKS!" It was going to be a fun afternoon.