SPELLS BACKFIRE WITH ODD RESULTS

The magical population of Britain has been noticing some rather odd occurrences with their spells as of late. Rather than following the set paths in which charms, hexes and other spells usually follow, the end result seems to be a bit off. Take, for example, the story of Mrs Amelia Wilson of Tinworth, who had a spell misfire just a short two days ago: “Well you see, I have a curly head of hair, and it often gets in my way when I’m doing chores about the house! So that morning I got up and cast a straightening charm on it, like I often do. But instead of making my hair straight, it turned it bright orange!”

Mrs Wilson assures us that she’s cast this spell every day for years now, and that there is no possible way she could have cast it wrong. One might, of course, have found a way to doubt her word, had there not been numerous other similar incidences to back it up. A Mr Fergus O'Reilly of Kenmare said in an owl detailing his experience: “The other night I went out to the barn to check on the cows, and I cast Lumos to see in the dark, and found myself glowing instead! For the rest of the night as well! My wife didn’t appreciate it much at all.”

Since our first mention of this story several days ago, we have received numerous accounts both by Owl post and in person, which include: a wizard from Ottery St. Catchpole who cast Orchideous to conjure a bouquet of flowers for his wife and instead found himself sprouting flowers beneath his feet as he walked, and a pair of witches who were shopping in Diagon Alley, and cast spells to soothe their sore feet, but instead found themselves dancing in the middle of the street and unable to stop for several minutes.

As of this time, no one seems to know the cause of these odd magical disturbances. A spokesperson for the Minister of Magic confirmed just this morning that: “The Minister is doing his best to help uncover the source of these odd magical disturbances, and has set a task force of several Ministry employees from numerous departments to the job of uncovering the truth. Until then, he wishes to reassure the population that nothing harmful seems to be coming from these disturbances, and that the Ministry will do their best to put a stop to them.”

We can only assume, for now, that these occurrences are not dangerous, as no one seems to have been hurt by them so far. Until the time comes that we uncover the source of these odd reactions, our advice to you is such: Be careful how you cast you spells, you might not like what you end up with!