My dear readers, in my many years writing for you at The Daily Prophet, I have brought you many important biographies of leading personalities of our time, including “Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?,” “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore,” and “Snape: Scoundrel or Saint?”
My newest work, “Liz Braun: Ministress of Muggles” explores a whole new facet of our magical world. Most wizards are bewildered, amused, and generally dismissive of muggles. Not Liz Braun. She is the Dean of Students at Swarthmore College, a muggle institution of higher learning. She spends all of her time with muggles who remain totally unaware of the magical presence in their lives.
Braun is an alumna of Hogwarts school, and when I sat down with her for an exclusive interview, she wore her Gryffindor tie proudly. But it seems there is something of Salazar Slytherin in her, because the first thing Dean Braun confessed to me is that her favorite monster is the basilisk. Famed author and former Hogwarts professor Bathilda Bagshot, in the last interview before her tragic murder, hinted to me that Dean Braun is a Parselmouth. This skill might come in particularly handy, given that there is the Crum Wood on Swarthmore’s campus.
Braun seems to be a very likeable personage, although she has an unusual affection for frightening monsters. She described Hungarian Horntails, her favorite type of dragon, as “quite cuddly in their own way.”
Rumor suggests that Braun and several friends acquired a dragon egg while they were still in school. An anonymous source hinted that the damage in the Crum Woods, reported to be caused by a sewage pipeline, was actually the result of a dragon gone amuck. Of course, dragon breeding is an illegal practice.
Muggle studies is often criticized as an illegitimate field of study, but Braun describes how interesting muggles can be: “Their approach to things is just fascinating. They do things like put bread into a machine to make it brown, or they call it toast. They have so many gadgets, the way they live is just so interesting to me.”
Arthur Weasley, head of the Office for the Detection and the Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects, and self described muggle enthusiast, expresses admiration for Braun’s methods.
“Few witches have done as much to encourage magical and non-magical interaction so much as Liz Braun has. All enthusiasts look forward to when she publishes a book to teach us even more about how muggles live their lives. I am particularly intrigued to learn more about the purpose and functioning of ‘rubber duckies.’”
My book will reveal Ms. Braun’s historical friendship with Rubeus Hagrid, now Professor of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts, the things that Braun believes that wizards can learn from muggles, and the spells that help maintain Swarthmore’s campus.
