Summer storms that hit Orkney Isles wizard-made?
11-09-2021
Oliver Lesgringer
Dangerous Beasts and Muggle Affairs reporter
Some weeks back, storms and fierce gusts of wind battered much of Britain during the height of summer. The unseasonal weather was thought to be the work of a group of Lesser Snowback dragons recently awoken from sleep.
Although dragons do not hibernate annually over the winter months, they can like other reptiles sleep for long periods, years or even decades in the case of many larger dragons.
On occasion dragons wake up together, causing a mass whirring with their wings as they dry out in the sun. These dragon displays can cause changes to the local wind conditions and even affect moving weather fronts in the region.
The unusual July weather around the British Isles, especially Orkney, with heavy and persistant rain as well as repeated strong storms during what was expected to be a hot and sunny summer season, due to a mass of warm air in Europe moving up, which saw record temperatures of 48°C in some parts of the continent, had led to suggestions that the Snowback dragons were responsible.
However this idea, put forward by many dragon enthusiasts including researchers at the Twygthain Dragon Observation Unit, has been undermined by claims from a wizarding hamlet in Scotland.
Ruth Shevier, a witch who has lived in Beremont for over 45 years, insists the weather effects were being created by a moody child whose parents have refused to send him to Hogwarts.
"Ay, that's the situation, a'right. The poor dear, I know the lad well, righ' upset he was. When parents say they won't send the child to school, his name isn't on the Hogwarts list and no letter from the school comes, well, you know how it is, a child can get vary miserable, and bring all sorts of dark clouds on an area. Responsible parents in my view should send their kids to a good school."
The Meteolojinx Removal Office said it had been contacted and was looking into the matter. However if a child wizard was responsible, there is likely little the Ministry can do, as weather changes can be produced without a wand and the meteolojinx recanto charm does not work where the caster is unaware of what they did.
If the allegations prove to be correct, they will embarrass the Ministry after it intervened in a similar international case last year, accusing the Sudanese Ministry of Magic of doing little to rein in young wizards breaking the Statute of Secrecy. According to reports from Khartoum, a wizard apparently placed an imperius charm on an Australian radio reporter for 'fun.' The reporter's odd behaviour in reciting the wrong news about bat flu and swearing at invisible tormentors was picked up even by the Muggle news media.