Three guesses where this is from (identifying words or phrases redacted):
"I cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at BLEEP must take to ensure that we remain safe. The BLEEP BLEEP fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must guard scrupulously against carelessness in the part of any BLEEP or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your BLEEP might impose upon you, however irksome you might find them... I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the BLEEP, to report it to a member of staff immediately. I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and others’ safety."
Could it be the head of Scotland Yard in response to the recent Tube bombings? Could it be the mayor of New York, explaining why cops are searching backpacks entering the city’s subway system? Could it be the general in charge of the Pentagon describing some new bomb-sniffing method put in place there? No?
Fill in the missing words, in this order:
Hogwarts, castle’s magical, student, teachers, castle (the speaker is Dumbledore, welcoming students back for another school year)
Is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince dark? You better believe it. J.K. Rowling, Generation Xer (she was born in 1965), has written a children’s book in which magical warfare is a metaphor for terrorism, public paranoia, and national security as a lifestyle. Is it time to admit that yes, the terrorists have already won?
And I’m only a third of a way through the book. I’m sure it only gets darker from here.
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