Hah! I caught you, making a mess in the castle! Now where is that discipline form? Ah yes it is here! Do I get permission to whip you? No? Umbridge has gone? What a pity! That woman was the best thing to happen to Hogwarts in a long time.

Ah! Nice to see you Severus! I know how hard you work as a teacher. And I'll put in a good word for you if you ever want to become headmaster!

You've changed your tune a little Lucius. Yes I did work very hard as a teacher in this institution. I was Dumbledore's most trusted friend too. I think I'll stick with his recommendation over yours any day, Lucius.

Too bad that after all it was I who survived the Battle of Hogwarts, not you! Dumbledore was killed about a year earlier - by you, you know. I was never in the Dark Lord's good books after that event, even though he threatened Draco with my death. It doesn't matter whether you supported Dumbledore or the Dark Lord: neither is around any more.

Good point, Lucius. What matters in the end are those that are still left standing.. or slithering..

Shallow Slytherins! Snape is 20 x the wizard you will ever be!

As All Hallow's Eve approaches, it's time to once again attempt to carve the perfect jack-o-lantern. We crafty witches ponder this - what could be more perfect than a Potter-themed pumpkin?

We invited you to check out our Fabric Embellishments section here on Leaky Lounge, where you will find a veritable treasure trove of stencils - most of which would make truly wicked jack-o-lanterns.

As for the how-to of it, here you go!

• Print out the stencil of your choice.
• Attach it to the pumpkin in the place you want your design with masking tape or painter's tape.
• Make sure that, when beginning to mark your gourd for carving, that you will be cutting out the white areas of the stencil. Also, you'll just be cutting out the main stencil area, not the white that is outside of the design area.
• Mark your cutting lines my making a series of small holes around the edges. That way when you remove the stencil to cut the gourd you can still see the image to know where to cut.
• Carefully cut out the marked sections.

When you're done make sure to send your finished jack-o-lantern pictures to us at crafts@the-leaky-cauldron.org - we'll add them to the Crafts Gallery and send you a link to your picture!

Actually that might be an interesting thing to do. Scorpius is a clever boy and he likes to learn these Muggle tricks for entertainment. To keep ahead, you know.

Well, that is an interesting thing to know. I would think your family despised everything Muggle-related and then I hear a tidbit such as this. You do like to keep us guessing, don;t you?

Oh, well, maybe, maybe not. Even pure-blood wizards like myself can evolve you know. These days it isn't...ah...prudent to call Muggleborn wizards mudbloods. Draco tells me he used quite a few ideas dreamed up by that Granger girl before he succeeded in trapping Dumbledore on the Astronomy tower. You can discuss his adventures in the upcoming Half-blood Prince Book Club, which starts on November 1st. I'm sure Severus would be interested. Did anyone know that the Half-blood Prince was Severus Snape's nickname?