HPfGU Contest

[hpsmarty]

No: HPFGUIDX 44444

The September contest is still going on!  For those of you who missed 
it, there are two contests -- a puzzle contest and a creative 
contest -- running concurrently.  You have until the end of the month 
(and maybe a few days after that) to send in your entry.

Remember, don't post solutions, comments or questions to the list.  
Send them to me at hpsmarty at aol.com.  Puzzle contest details are 
repeated below:


Here's this month's puzzle contest.  This contest is one of my 
favorite games, which is known by several different names including 
CATEGORIES.

In this game, you have a several words and five different categories 
and you have to find a words or phrases which begin with each letter 
of each word.  The categories are People, Places, Things, Beings and 
Terms, and you have three words to work with – LUPIN, BLACK, and 
HAGRID. 

To play the game first pick one of the three words – LUPIN, BLACK, or 
HAGRID.  Then find something from the Harry Potter books (including 
FB and QTTA) which corresponds to each category.  For example, if you 
pick LUPIN, you must find a person, place, thing, being and term 
which starts with each of the letters L, U, P, I and N, for a total 
of 25 words or phrases.

The definitions of the five categories are as follows:

"People" is the first OR last name of a HUMAN (includes those who are 
only part human) character in any of the HP books (including QTTA and 
FB) .  Only humans, so "Harry" or "Potter" is acceptable but "Binns" 
and "Dobby" are not.

"Places" is the name of any place mentioned, in any capacity, in the 
HP books, for example "Japan" (mentioned in QTTA) or "Dumbledore's 
Office."  It must be a specific place, not a generic term like "room" 
or "station."

"Things" is any magical object mentioned in the HP books, including 
titles of books, and names of specific magical items such as potions 
or plants.  It must be something that you can touch, and it must be 
MAGICAL.

"Beings" includes both names and types of any non-human beings or 
creatures mentioned in the HP books.  "Peruvian 
Vipertooth",  "Vipertooth",  "Norbert", and "dragon" are all 
acceptable.

"Terms" includes anything MAGICAL that doesn't fit into the above 4 
categories, including spells, MoM departments and jobs, Hogwarts 
classes, and languages.

Scoring is as follows:  You get 2 points for each category in which 
you are the ONLY one to have that word or phrase.  One point is 
subtracted from your score for any categories you leave blank.  Here 
is an example:

Here's an example, using the word SNAPE.  Suppose there were only two 
entries, from two smart listmembers, Smellydog11 and Harrysbimbo, as 
shown below.  Smellydog11 left 3 categories blank and Harrysbimbo 
left 5 categories blank, so they receive minus 3 and minus 5 points, 
respectively.  Neither one gets credit for Scabbers, Nimbus, Norbert, 
NEWT, Azkaban, Ernie, Eeylops, or Elves because these words were on 
both lists.  Smellydog11 gets 28 points for her remaining categories, 
minus 3 for the blanks, for a total of 25 points.  Harrysbimbo gets 
24 points minus 5 points for a total of 19 points.


Entry 1 – Smellydog11

	Person	Place	Things	Beings	Terms

S	Snape	Shrieking	Sorting	Scabbers	Seeker
		Shack	Hat

N	Neville	?	Nimbus	Norbert	NEWT

A	Albus	Azkaban	Armadillo	?	Astronomy
			Bile

P	Peter	?	Prefects	Puffskein	Parselmouth
			Who Gained
			Power

E	Ernie	Eeylops	Every	Elves	Erised
		Owl	Flavor
		Emporium	Beans


Entry 2 – Harrysbimbo

	Person	Place	Things	Beings	Terms

S	Slytherin	Slytherin	Standard	Scabbers
	Squib
		Common	Book of
		Room	Spells

N	Newt	?	Nimbus	Norbert	NEWT

A	Aberforth	Azkaban	?	?	Accio

P	Pettigrew	?	Polyjuice	Peeves	Parseltongue
			Potion

E	Ernie	Eeylops	?	Elves	Exploding Snap
		Owl
		Emporium


A few notes:

1.  You can enter up to THREE times, with each of the three words 
(Lupin, Black and Hagrid) but only one entry per name is allowed.

2.  You only get points if you are the only one to come up with a 
particular word or phrase, so the more obscure the better.  On the 
other hand, maybe no one will choose words like "Harry" or "Hermione" 
because they are so obvious.  Hmmmm.

3.  I can assure you that there are at least 2 possible entries for 
each of the 80 possible combinations, and many, many more for most of 
them.

4.  Don't post your answers to the list!  Email them to me at 
hpsmarty at aol.com.  That's hpsmarty AT aol DOT com.

–Joywitch M. Curmudgeon