The Tough Guide to Harry Potter

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Nagini is Voldemort’s serpentine sidekick. She helps establish a suitably hopeless mood for kidnapped enemies who have been dragged to confront the Dark Lord. Nagini has a hankering for human flesh, which Voldemort will malevolently threaten to appease with the bodies of hapless tourists or Potterians. Do not allow yourself to be overly disconcerted by this dastardly discourse. Nagini rarely gets to devour anyone but disloyal or disgraced deatheaters. Exactly how she survives when Voldemort’s minions have managed to maintain a state of fidelity, we have no notion. Perhaps she subsists on rats? See Peter Pettigrew

Names or lack thereof are a good indication of an acquaintance’s life expectancy. The number of names known to you is directly proportional to a person’s future presence in HPFH. Nameless innocents,murdered to appease the appetites of the iniquitous followers of You-Know-Who, will be piling up appallingly around you, much to your sorrow and general discomfort. But only SeverusSnape will be excessively discomfited because he will be having nightmaresfilled with the nameless dead. However, Potterians whose first names are known to you are unfortunately doomed as well. Your distress will be heightened by your brief but meaningful or meaningfully meaningless acquaintance with them. You may even shed a tear or two. (Note: Potterians with only their last names extant are slightly safer). Evidently when a given and surname are in concert with each other in the mind of a tourist, the Potterian in question is given a certain amount of protection by the tour guides. They will be subject, of course, to the physical and mental suffering that composes character development, but they will somehow manage to survive it. On the rare occasions when they do die, this will provide tragedy of so grave a nature as to require oceans of tears as well as guilty outrage on the part of survivors. Having three names is probably the best protection against all of the dangers HPFH has to offer. When people with middle names die the tragedy is of such high an order as to be considered the climax and/or end to a tour. Given these facts we do not know why wary Potterians jeopardize their well-being by withholding their full names. See Harry James Potter

Narcissa Malfoy comes in two forms. Neither of which bring her much joy. Her physical OFTs can somewhat contradictory since they are graceful, genteel, careworn, snobbish, pretentious, and gold-digging.

TROPHY WIFE Narcissa is wellborn and pureblooded. She is highly decorative, which makes up for her decided lack of mental faculties. If you have been unfortunate enough to book a tour with a cruel Trophy Narcissa expect her viciousness to express itself in a fluffy feminine kind of way. Think lacy curtains in a verbal torture chamber. She is either an affectionate but completely oblivious mother, or just a completely oblivious mother. She plays the hostess at her husband’s respectable soirees but will be ostentatiously absent from his dark revels. Spying tourists must remember to remark upon it. See Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, childhoods, and death eaters

THE BATTERED BRIDE has bowed to the wishes of her father or succumbed to Lucius’s false and temporary charms. This Narcissa was a gentle and affectionate girl, was friends with LilyEvans and often possesses a “history” with SiriusBlack or SeverusSnape. She is now the cowed and miserably wretched spouse of LuciusMalfoy. Because of the demands of her husband, she is the perfect society wife, keeping her tears and flinching to her private chambers. Her hostessing skills are equal to even the most unusual situations. Kidnapped victims in Malfoy Manor may expect a warm welcome, a sympathetic ear/eye, but absolutely no assistance. However, she is a good mother and can be credited with all of her son’s more redeeming qualities. See Sort of Good Draco, Hermione Granger, rape, death eaters, and childhood.

Neville Longbottom gets to date Ginny and spill potions in class so Snape can give Hermionedetentions. He is also allowed to make friends with new female teachers, much to the further annoyance of SeverusSnape, who they will tax as to his foul treatment of Neville. See Defense Against Dark Arts, and Female Characters Lack of

NEWTs are the oft referred to but rarely actually happening tests. As the apocalyptic events scheduled at the terminus of your tour will inevitably be happening prior to these exhaustive examinations, we advise our tourists to ignore them, practice Defense Against Dark Arts, and spend time with the people who really matter to them. You might also help Harry and Ron drag Hermione away from her revision texts as well. She will glad you have done this after one or both of them has died. See Voldemort, Percy Weasley, Tragedy, library, and danger

Nicknames: Due to the complex and multisyllabic nature of many on the names in HPFH, your tour guides have seen fit to hack off bits of Potterian’snames to lend a sense of camaraderie. Thus you get such abominations as, Sev, Sevy, Mione, Hermie, Mya, Lils, and Remmie. However this obsession with saving breath does not apply in the case of people with names of pleasing brevity. Thus Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs are the monikers of choice for all the Marauders. See Ickle Ronniekins

Nightmares provide the punishments and warnings that the Ministry so rarely manages to distribute satisfactorily. This is not really an excuse for the government’s neglect however, because truly evil people always sleep soundly or not at all. Nightmares are fraught with danger as Voldemort and even more minor villains will use them to attack you. They would also be a truly effective way of spying on the enemy if only they did not happen concurrently with the actual event. Since you will be experiencing things first hand, they will be harrowing as well. Nightmares do provide the only variety of truthful, if slightly grim, prophecy, but are so annoyingly vague in this case that you will only be left with further nightmares. Nobody has visions of future happiness. And if your tour guides have decided that you are guilt ridden don’t expect to sleep peacefully until you have found a lover to purge you of your sins. See Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, and dreams

Noise: All of the magic in the air of HPFH must affect the acoustics of Hogwarts in unpredictable and counterintuitive ways. Whispered conversation and discussions conducted in a secretive manner will be overheard by exactly the people whose existence caused the necessity of whispers in the first place. We advise our tourists to conduct all of their plotting in the bathroom in stentorian tones. We figure that, as your screams for aid are always in vain, your hollering about deatheaters and pranks, yes, even your screams of passion, will probably be similarly disregarded. See Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, privacy, secrets, and sex

Norris, Mrs. is a good excuse for running willy-nilly down a corridor into a deserted classroom with an inappropriate person. See Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, and Argus Filch