Hello magical friends and welcome to episode 137 of WZRD Radio! I’m your hostwitch Bess and I want to wish you all a happy sixth anniversary! Can you believe we’ve been running this show for that long? It’s all thanks to you; all your support, your listens, your messages and everything else you pour into this show to tell me it has a place in the community and is worth doing. Slytherspouse and I got a cake to celebrate and I hope you do too.
While you pop off to the bakery, let’s get this show rolling! First up are Harry & the Potters with “The Banality of Evil.”
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That was “The Banality of Evil” by Harry & the Potters [lyrics], Hawthorn & Holly with “At the End of the Night” [lyrics], and Nuclear Bubble Wrap’s “A Rowling in Time” [lyrics].
And now let’s hear from our favorite wandering wix, Special Correspondent in the Field ,DQ!
ScitF DQ: Hello, a marvelous March to all of my magnificent magical friends. This is Special Correspondent in the Field, DQ, with another Fanfic Fieldwork segment just for you. Fun fact: March just happens to be my birth month. And as such, your Hostwitch Bess has graciously agreed that for this month’s Fanfic Fieldwork I can offer up a selection written by yours truly. I actually haven’t written a fan fiction for quite a while but a few years ago, around the same time I started creating wizard rock as a matter of fact, I got on this huge kick of trying things that I had never done before, and writing fanfic was one of those things. So I do have a few offerings on ArchiveOfOurOwn.org, under the same name–Dream Quaffle–and each one has a fond memory and an interesting story about how it came to be created. As such, I don’t mind telling you that I agonized a bit over which one I should actually offer up for this month’s segment.
In the end, I settled on “Tina and the Pizza Wizard.” According to Archive of Our Own it was published on February 17th, 2023, but it was originally published, along with most of my other fanfictions, on HarryPotterFanFiction.com, which unfortunately no longer exists. I wrote this fan fiction as a kind of game/creative exercise between myself and my dear friend Sophie. We took turns writing it about a paragraph at a time, and then I neatened it up a little bit to make the narrative flow a little more smoothly. And before you know it, we had “Tina and the Pizza Wizard.” As an added bit of fun if you would like to experience a real-life reaction to this fanfic, you can still find it on episode 24 of PuffCast.
Here is the synopsis that I wrote: Dumbledore decides to perform a very Dumbledore-ish experiment with his soul (don’t worry, this one is just for funsies, no horcruxes here). After an incident with a slice of pizza, he ends up sharing soul space with a pigeon who is not all she appears to be, and it takes the help of a former pupil to put it right. And before we go, here is a passage from “Tina and the Pizza Wizard.”
Before he knew it, Dumbledore felt his soul merge with the cheesy triangle on the table. It was a much warmer sensation than he thought it would be, but that might have been because the slice had just come out of the oven. Under different circumstances, he might have actually enjoyed the feeling, but he knew that his plan had now gone terribly wrong. This slice was meant for Professor Flitwick. What if he ate it? What if he only ate part of it? What if he wasn’t hungry and the slice of pizza was thrown away? Little did Dumbledore know that, up on the ledge of the nearest window, there was a pigeon who was also more than they appeared. She was a frequent visitor to the Hogwarts grounds. She had heard about the place from her husband, a very distinguished alumnus, so many times that it made her curious. From her first visit, she had fallen in love with the place and loved to see it all the time when she was out and about in her animagus form. Besides, if a pigeon nipped down to the kitchens and helped themselves to a free lunch, who was going to object? The pigeon happened to show up in the kitchens just after Dumbledore’s cheesy mistake, so as far as she was concerned it was just a piece of pizza that was up for grabs. Naturally, she helped herself, savoring every bite of the delicious pizza. Just as the pigeon started to fly away back home, she knew that something inside her was wrong. It wasn’t indigestion. This was a new feeling. The feeling of sharing the space of her body with another. The feeling of being both herself and someone else as well. She heard a voice inside her mind, and not just her usual intuition, which should have kept her from eating someone else’s pizza, but did not.
Why did Dumbledore think any of this was a good idea in the first place? How are they going to get out of it? And does this fan fiction end with a pizza based pun? Spoiler alert, it does. If you would like to read the rest for yourself and see how it all comes out, you can check out “Tina and The Pizza Wizard” by Dream Quaffle on Archive of Our Own. And in the meantime, this is Special Correspondent in the Field DQ saying thank you for partaking of my fan fiction.
Happy birthday DQ! I hope you have a month of joy and being spoiled rotten. And many, many more years of wrock, fic, and field reports.
While you’re off looking up that link, here’s our next batch of songs. First up is “We Fight” from Shauna Carrick.
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That music break started with “We Fight” by Shauna Carrick, “Free Tuition” from the Bandon Banshees, and Seven Potters with their “The Value of a Hogwarts Education” [lyrics].
To celebrate our sixth anniversary, maybe check out one of these fandom events! Or host a living room wrock show, whatever floats your fandom boat.
The Historic Boxwood Inn in Newport News, VA is hosting two nights of Great Hall Feasts on March 13th & 14th, with dressing up highly encouraged. [link]
If you’re in Chicago, IL on March 20th, you can check out Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone Night at Beermiscuous. Apparently there will be trivia, chat, and a wizardy talent show! [link]
March 21st is Harry Potter Day at Fairhope Brewing in Mobile, AL with a fundraising “Dobby Sock Toss” for the Waterfront Rescue Mission. [link]
The 5th annual Harry Potter Experience will be back in Tell City, IN on March 22nd, it sounds like a lot of fun! [link]
March 27th is “The Astronomy of Harry Potter” at the San Juan College Planetarium in Farmington, NM. [link]
And Pottörhead is going on tour! Catch them all around Germany and playing all the hits. [link]
Don’t forget, WZRDFest 2: The Wreunion is coming up this spring! Check out the info at their event on Facebook. [link]
And the Celestial Warmbottom tribute album is still looking for submissions! If you want to contribute to celebrating our queen of jazz’s birthday celebration, the link is in the transcript. [link]
And I don’t think I missed any wrock releases last month, but let me know if I did!
All these events, and more, can be found on the Potterhead Calendar page of the WZRD website. While you pick one or two of those to check out, I’ll cue up the next song. It’s The Dead Ringers’ “Deathday Waltz.”
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That was “Deathday Waltz” by The Dead Ringers, The Arkadian and his “Dementor’s Kiss” [lyrics], and “Cast Aside” by Creevey Crisis [lyrics].
Shoutout to Lan for figuring out this year’s entire theme months before I thought anyone would: in addition to six years of WZRD, 2026 is the 10th anniversary of the Wizard Rock Sampler and we’re celebrating all year long. Impressive work!
If you heard your new favorite song, go to the transcript at WZRDRadioPod.com, follow the link, and buy yourself a copy. You’ll get a great new addition to your music collection and a wizard rocker will know they’ve got a fan. And you know what I always say: without our wizard rockers, we wouldn’t be here.
You can support WZRD and the Community Wrock Fund by joining the Patreon at Patreon.com/WZRDRadioPod. There are two, five, and ten dollar tiers that all get the same perks, including early episodes and bonus content, and support the Fund in helping our wizard rockers get their music out there.
You can still guess this episode’s theme on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok at WZRDRadioPod. You can also get in touch by commenting on the transcript or emailing me at WZRDRadioPod@gmail.com.
Until next time, magical friends: A very happy birthday to yeh!
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