Contest winner: greyniffler
Runners-up: Joe & TWZRD
Inside one of the crude huts in the island compound was a large, comfortably decorated room. It had wainscoted walls, a flagstoned hearth, and windows filled with diamond-shaped panes that seemed to admit more light than the conditions warranted. Still more light was provided by flames in hurricane lamps mounted on the walls, lamps that gave off a warm glow even though their crystal oil reservoirs were empty. Bookcases, chairs, a rolltop desk, and a teatable were all cluttered with rolls of parchment and dirty cups.
Harvey sighed when he saw it. He shook his three heads, and one of them said: "This place needs a house-elf's touch."
A noise like a pistol-shot rang off the walls and windows. Several of Harvey's prisoners flinched. But it was, after all, only Dinty the house-elf, appearing with a blue-and-white striped handkerchief tied somewhat in the manner of a sumo wrestler's mawashi. He made three bows, one to each of his master.
"What's this you're wearing?" Harvey 2 demanded. "You're not thrashing that elf from flat 3-E again?"
"Only keeping in condition, sir," piped the elf. "Shall I tidy up, sir?"
"Yes, please, Dinty." Harvey strolled to three of the windows and looked out of them pensively. All three of him raised the same eyebrow in an identical manner. "Interesting," he said in unison. Then he looked around at each other and asked, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
"Hippogriff foals frolicking in the grassy downs," Harvey 1 volunteered.
"A family of faeries checking out a nest box in the woods," said Harvey 3.
"This window overlooks a scrubby rock in the middle of the sea," Harvey 2 contended.
"Scenery spells," said Harvey 1 and 3.
"No doubt," agreed Harvey 2.
During this exchange, Dinty had turned into a veritable whirlwind of grabbing hands, wiping rags, and swishing feather-dusters. Minimilian winced at the sound of breaking crockery. By the time Harvey agreed among himself that the window spells were well done, all that remained of the room's clutter was a sudden, blazing fire on the hearth.
"I say," Minimilian complained. "Those papers were extremely..."
"Yes, yes," said Harvey 3. "I'm sure they were. But look! Chairs for everybody! Do have a seat, won't you? Dinty will have tea up in a jiffy."
Meanwhile, Harvey 2 spread a piece of parchment over the desk, weighting its corners with an inkwell, the iron head of a golf club, a a dragon's fang, and a bottle clearly labeled "Preparation W," the sight of which made Minimilian turn red and look as though he wanted to sink into the ground. Then Harvey 1 reached under his cloak and pulled out a small contraption, somewhat like a saucepan on wheels, covered with a glass lid. As Harvey's guests, or prisoners, settled in chairs around the desk, he placed it on the parchment. They all leaned toward it, gazing through the transparent top at the brass frame, silvery cogs and wheels, and delicate springs and coils that worked inside it. At the center was an egg-shaped, crystal reservoir full of liquid that changed constantly from one bright color to another.
"Coo," said Sadie. "I had one of those when I was a chicken."
"You?" Harvey 3 asked, distracted from his purpose for the first moment so far.
"You know," Sadie insisted. "A cub? A pup? A kid?"
Harvey 3 shook his head. "I mean, I find it hard to believe you..."
"Well, it didn't work," said Sadie. "Not like the advertising jingle. Mum had to take it back to the toy shop."
All three of Harvey stared at her. "Toy shop?" Breathed Harvey 2, gobsmacked.
"Well, you see," said Sadie, like one talking to an idiot, "it was supposed to zip when it moved, pop when it stopped, and whirr when it was standing still. But our one popped when it moved, whirred when it stopped, and zipped when it stood still. So the ditty was complete b-"
"Look here," said Harvey 1. "This isn't a toy. There have been no commercial ditties about it. While it should be celebrated in song and legend..."
"It has been," Harvey 2 argued.
"No," said Harvey 3, "but it will be."
"Don't let's start this again," cried Harvey 1, waving both hands above his head. "The important thing is..."
"It's a Cart-o-Matic," said Sir Lionel Niblet.
Harvey 1 glared at Sir Lionel in irritation. "That's hardly the way one should talk about a device some say was invented by Prester John, others by Daedalus himself..."
"It was patented in 1936," Sir Lionel went on ruthlessly, "by a wizard named Mark Grey from Piscataway, New Jersey..."
"You'll find," said Harvey 2, "that Grey only registered the self-refilling ink reservoir..."
"...based on an earlier device invented by Alvin Snook-Peebles of Drizzling Duffham, Beds, for creating engravings for the wizarding press."
All three of Harvey looked beaten, deflated. "Have it your way, then," said Harvey 3. "But it most certanly does not pop when it stops."
"What does it do?" Ilona asked, directing her question at the room in general.
All six of Harvey's eyes rested coldly on Sir Lionel, so he answered: "It draws very beautiful and detailed maps, with copperplate writing, decorative borders, and watercolor shading. The longer you let it run, the finer the detail - though it tends to overlook things that it considers insignificant, such as expressways and rail depots, and embellishes the landscape with such features as 'Here there be Crumple-Horned Snorkacks' and 'Wreck of the Pirate Ship Irving.'"
"Does it really?" Sadie said eagerly. "Could you get it to draw that one?"
"I didn't bring this device for your amusement," Harvey 1 said sourly. "I am only showing it to you so that you understand why I need the ring of Count Matthias. I think it may solve a little problem. You see, there are some places that cannot be plotted on a map. Even such a magical device as the Cart-o-Matic cannot break through their enchantment. But if one were to instruct the Cart-o-Matic, under the seal of Count Matthias..."
"I see," said Spanky. "There's some place you want to find, someone or something whose location is only known to a few..."
"Or perhaps no one," Sir Lionel offered. "No one still living, that is."
"Like a secret protected by a Fidelius Charm," Endora added.
"Something you want to steal," Sadie suggested.
"Someone you want to kill," said Allie O'Modo.
"Perhaps it is a lost art or buried knowledge that he seeks," said Sir Lionel, always willing to see people in a better light than most.
"A magical object," suggested Minimilian.
"A weapon," Spanky speculated.
"A document of some kind," said Sir Lionel.
"This had better not be about some bric-a-brac to decorate your flat," Ilona muttered.
Harvey waited for the chatter to stop, all three of him looking down at his hands folded in his lap. Into the pause that followed Ilona's remark, Dinty squeaked, "Tea!"
No one objected to taking refreshments, even under such strained circumstances. The fact that even such savage enemies could share a quiet fellowship over the munching of cakes and the sipping of tea, lent a reassuring sense of civilization and civility. Spanky felt himself beginning to relax - which, owing to the habits of a lifetime, immediately put him on edge.
"Well, you have the ring," he said, setting his cup down. "What do you want with us, then?"
"I need eyes," said Harvey 1.
"Ears," said Harvey 2.
"Hands and feet," said Harvey 3.
"In plain language," Harvey 1 said, "I need someone to follow where this map will lead."
"Someone who isn't - how shall I put this? - enmeshed in a temporal paradox," Harvey 3 added.
"Mmm," said Harvey 2. "Enmeshed. I like it."
"I would have said embarrassed," said Harvey 1.
"That would have been good too," said Harvey 2.
"Balked," suggested Harvey 3.
"Constrained," Harvey 1 countered.
"Encumbered," said Harvey 3.
"Hampered," said Harvey 1.
"Crippled?" Harvey 2 tried.
Harveys 1 and 3 gave Harvey 2 a pitying look.
"I applaud your wide-ranging vocabulary," Minimilian said testily, "but could you please come to the point?"
"If I go where I'm hoping this map will lead us," said Harvey 1, "there is no telling what might happen. I might cause the (cough) prize to move backward in time..."
"...and so become the cause of its being lost, rather than being found," Harvey 3 clarified.
"Or I might uncreate it," said Harvey 1.
"Or cause it to multiply," suggested Sir Lionel. "Which, for all we know, could be as great a disaster..."
He fell silent as he noticed the blank look the Harveys were giving him.
"You know," said Sir Lionel, grinning. "Like yourselves."
Harvey 1, 2, and 3, each shook his head, perplexed.
"You're getting nowhere with that one," Endora told Sir Lionel out of the corner of her mouth.
Harvey put down his teacups in perfect, threefold synchronicity, stretched his arms, clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and said (in Harvey 3's voice), "Now then, let's give this a try. Quill and ink, Dinty. Dear Mr. Cart-o-Matic... Or should that be Monsieur?"
"Why not Madam?" Endora suggested pugnaciously.
"How about To whom it may concern?" Allie O'Modo said over a stifled yawn.
"Never mind," said Harvey 3, crossing out the Mr. "Dear Cart-o-Matic. Feel free to disregard any and all magical barriers in drawing a map showing the location and route to the..."
Whatever he said next was drowned out by a deafening stroke of thunder. The entire hut shook with it, and a sudden heavy fall of rain roared upon the corrugated steel roof.
"Dash it all," Harvey 1 swore. "This is going to be harder than I thought."
Endora perked up. "That's just like what happened when..."
Ilona elbowed Endora hard in the ribs.
"...wh-when it wouldn't stop raining in the great hall at Hogwarts," Endora covered feebly.
"It's not necessary to dissemble," said Harvey 2. "I was there when Spanky told that story, wasn't I? When that djinn arranged for him, and only him, to know where Ilona was, and every time he mentioned her, there was a deafening noise."
"And look," said Harvey 1. "The ink blotted all over the paragraph."
"Even if we use a roundabout way of describing the prize," said Harvey 2, "the map will most likely come out blotted just as badly as that letter."
"It's no use," Harvey 3 said, throwing down his quill. "We're going to have to find a djinn before we can do anything else."
"We nothing," said Allie O'Modo. "If you have no further use for us, at this time, may we please have our wands back? We were just about to slaughter each other, and I would like to get on with it."
"That's not quite true," Endora said hotly. "You'd already been knocked into a cocked hat. We were just about to..."
"The point," Allie interrupted, "is that he can't keep us all locked up until he finds a djinn to lift the taboo on whatever he is trying to find."
"He doesn't have to," said Ilona, talking through clenched jaws. "With that ring, he holds the free will of every one of us in his hand. He can bring us back here, or whever he wants us to go, simply by dashing off a note and sending it under seal."
"I reckon I'll be moving houses, then," retorted Allie O'Modo. "And leaving no forwarding address."
"Oh, no," said Harvey 1, suddenly brightening. "You'll be fetching me a djinn. And with my little friend here" - he patted the Cart-o-Matic - "we will soon have some ideas of where to start looking."
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #168 +++
You can help decide what happens next in The Magic Quill! Simply leave a brief comment (up to 150 words) answering the following Survey and Contest. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest answer that Robbie likes best, will turn up in the chapter after next.
SURVEY: What area of magic do you think was most neglected in Harry Potter's education?
CONTEST: If there was ever a wizard's revolution, and the months of the year were renamed along magical lines, what would they be called?
Showing posts with label Dinty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dinty. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, December 27, 2008
131. Scratching Post
Contest winner: h_morgan
The stone door slid open with hardly a sound. Rigel and his companion stepped out into the starry night, led by the light at the tip of Rigel's wand. As they emerged from the shelter of the cliffside, seven goblin faces turned toward them from around a folding table where they were playing exploding snap, close to the edge of the still, misty lake.
"At last," said the goblin with the longest nose, rising from his seat. Quickly the creatures closed in on the man and boy, surrounding them tightly.
"I don't care what you want!" Rigel yelled. "I'm not going back in there!"
"We already have what we want," said the lead goblin.
Long-fingered hands brushed Rigel's face. Sharp-toothed grins leered at him. Tough little arms held him and the man in an all-but-suffocating embrace. But there was no move toward the entrance to the crystal cave, where all manner of goblin-desired treasures must lie.
"I don't understand," Rigel gasped. "What is this all about? Does this man owe you money?"
"Money!" snarled a particularly ugly goblin. "We would never take money from master!"
As one, the goblins stepped back from the two wizards. Each extended a long, sharp claw and poked it into the top of his own head. The night was filled with the sounds of air hissing out of punctured, inflatable goblin disguises. The goblin bodies collapsed, and out of them came seven beaming house-elves, nearly as ugly but infinitely friendlier.
"Master has returned," said the house-elf with the biggest nose, and he ran to embrace the grown-up wizard's legs.
"There, there," said his master. "It is good to see you too, Dinty. I have missed all of you."
Lifting up his head, Harvey breathed the night air deeply and added, "It is good to see the sky as well."
Rigel clutched his head, bemused. "They were your house-elves all along! I thought they had come from Gringotts to ent-t-tomb me for my sins!"
"Yes, their disguises were rather clever," Harvey said proudly, failing to notice the boy's traumatized stammer. "I expect they've been following Joe Albuquerque since I went away. I shall give each of them a tin star to pin to his pillowcase" - for the house-elves all wore pillowcases with the seams ripped for their heads and arms to poke through - "and free reign to prepare a feast to celebrate my return."
"Master is too good to us," Dinty fawned. Rigel silently agreed.
Harvey rubbed his palms together. "Now, let's go home. Shall we Apparate together? To The Drains, then, on three. One, two, three..."
Rigel, though currently too young for an Apparition license, still knew how since his previous adulthood. Nevertheless, he winced as he felt the constricting, smothering sensation of Apparition. It lasted only a fraction of a second, before an even stranger and more unpleasant sensation took its place. Feeling like a cork shooting out of the neck of a champagne bottle, Rigel fell back onto the lakeshore under the starlight. All around him, bodies popped out of nowhere and slammed into the ground with cries of surprise and dismay.
"That's never happened before," Harvey said, picking himself up. "Someone must have set an anti-Apparition spell around The Drains. I shall have a word with the caretaker as soon as we get home. Meanwhile, there must be a wizard-dwelling within a few miles of here. From there we can use the Floo Network, perhaps."
Man, boy, and house-elves began to march back along the cliffside, retracing the route by which the supposed goblins had carried Rigel the day before. The house-elves whispered among themselves, pointing out signs along the path that no wizard could see, until they came to a cottage in a clearing in a wood.
The ground around the cottage was planted with herbs, turnips, pumpkins, and marrows, guarded by not one scarecrow, but a dozen. The scarecrows were ghastly, huge, animated things with fur and fangs, claws dripping with blood, and slavering mouths from which mangled feathers occasionally dropped: clearly the work of a wizard or witch. Rigel had never seen anything like them. Even the house-elves seemed subdued as they approached the cottage door. The woods around the clearing were strangely silent; perhaps owing to the effectiveness of the scarecrows, not one bird's song could be heard.
Harvey knocked on the front door. Whoever lived there must have sensed their approach, because the door immediately opened. Rigel was astonished as, quite unconcerned, Harvey walked into the dimness beyond the door. Hesitantly, the boy followed - but the house-elves stayed outside in a nervous cluster.
The owner of the house may have been male or female; it was hard to tell. He or she stood tall and bone-thin, wrapped in patched and threadbare robes, with long, dirty, white hair hanging in tangled profusion over his or her face. The strangest aspect of the cottager's appearance was the steel mesh-reinforced birdcage over its head - or perhaps it was the swim goggles it wore over its eyes, overhanging hair and all.
The cottage itself was equally strange. Strange skins dangled from the ceiling, along with nets full of small skulls. The tables, shelves, walls, and mantel were crammed full of unusual items: pixie-sized weapons, fragments of an enormous eggshell, a string full of deadly looking talons, a feathered wing mounted by itself, bird skeletons held together by wire, a large number of pipes and whistles in all sizes, runes written in blood on bamboo blocks strung on leather thongs, and stones with holes through them.
Rigel made up his mind to stay close to the door.
"I'm terribly sorry to intrude," Harvey said, taking in the cottage, its owner, and its bizarre contents as if none of it surprised him. "I've had a minor travel mishap, and I would be very grateful if you could assist me in sending for help. Is your fire hooked up to the Floo Network?"
The cottager pointed to a velvet bag dangling by a string next to the hearth. It was embroidered with the symbol of two crossed wands. Harvey took the bag off its hook, found that it was empty, and put it back.
"Well, you seem to have run out of Floo powder," he said cheerfully. "I will gladly see that you get a supply of it, if I could only borrow your owl."
The silent cottager flinched, and spoke at last in a nasal voice that confirmed, at least to Rigel's ears, that its owner was a woman. "I won't have an owl in this house," she said.
"Then," Harvey went on, not sounding at all discouraged, "is there any way you can help us send a message?"
The crazy old witch pointed to a cupboard door. Hesitantly, Rigel opened it. Then he jumped backward and nearly upset a table full of wooden figurines, as a plump beagle popped out of the cupboard with a gray and white cat on its back.
Immediately the dog began to bark - but not in the pointlessly disruptive way Rigel normally associated with dogs. Within a few woofs, Rigel recognized the tune of a song Celestina Warbeck had sung on the Wizarding Wireless the previous evening. The cat hopped onto the kitchen table and began to dance, its rear legs cleverly matching the steps of its front legs.
Rigel swallowed. "I never..."
"Tie your note to Puss's tail," the witch rasped. "He won't like it, but he'll know what to do."
Harvey pulled a small roll of parchment out of his hat and wrote quickly with a pen the witch proffered him: "To Agent S. Spankison, RMB - I have returned, but suspect that trouble awaits in my flat. Please gather the usual forces and meet me at The Drains at your earliest convenience. Your humble etc., M. Harvey, esq." This he rolled up as tightly as possible and tied firmly to the cat's tale while Rigel held it.
The cat yowled and scratched Rigel up and down both arms, then darted out the door in a furious gray-white streak.
"Thanks for the help," Harvey said smoothly, while Rigel clutched his bleeding arms. "We'll just be off to the train station, then. I will have that Floo powder delivered by...er, courier, I suppose. And if you ever need anything, please contact me." He handed the witch his card.
The witch shook her head. "Never go to London these days," she said. "Have a horror of pigeons. Birds of all kinds, really."
Rigel wondered that birds didn't have a horror of this witch, thinking of the wing trophy, the string of talons, and the horrible scarecrows outside.
"Be that as it may," Harvey shrugged.
"My parents were eaten by a roc," the witch explained. "Saw it happen when I was very young."
"I quite understand," said Harvey, bowing his way backward out the cottage door. "Pay a call by Floo, anytime. Cheers, then."
He waited until he and Rigel were well away from the cottage, following the house-elves and their invisible signs, before giving a low whistle. "I've seen too many witches or wizards end up like that," he said. "Filthy rocs."
+++ QUADRUPLE CHALLENGE! +++
Contact Robbie through the Discussion Forum or by feedback to share your ideas about how the Magic Quill should continue. Survey answers that get the most votes, and contest answers that Robbie chooses, will be in the next two chapters! [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
Survey for TMQ #132: How can Harvey be in St. Mungo's and with Rigel at the same time? (A) It's just one of those odd things that happens when you mess around with time travel. (B) The one with Rigel is an impostor. (C) The one with Rigel is someone else who has been made to look like Harvey, and who actually thinks he is Harvey. (D) Two words: magical cloning.
Contest for TMQ #132: Describe a potion that a witch or wizard could find habit-forming.
Survey for TMQ #133: Which of Rigel's old Gringotts-escape mates should come back next? (A) Karl, the survival expert. (B) Jaan, the wandsmith. (C) Anatoly, the animated tattoo artist. (D) Slavik, the DADA teacher at Durmstrang. (E) Boccachiusa, the mime wizard. (F) Subito, the vertically challenged clown wizard. (G) Pagliai, the leader of the clown wizards.
Contest for TMQ #133: Describe a magical plant and its properties, including both advantages and disadvantages over a similar, non-magical plant.
[Originally posted 1/20/08]
The stone door slid open with hardly a sound. Rigel and his companion stepped out into the starry night, led by the light at the tip of Rigel's wand. As they emerged from the shelter of the cliffside, seven goblin faces turned toward them from around a folding table where they were playing exploding snap, close to the edge of the still, misty lake.
"At last," said the goblin with the longest nose, rising from his seat. Quickly the creatures closed in on the man and boy, surrounding them tightly.
"I don't care what you want!" Rigel yelled. "I'm not going back in there!"
"We already have what we want," said the lead goblin.
Long-fingered hands brushed Rigel's face. Sharp-toothed grins leered at him. Tough little arms held him and the man in an all-but-suffocating embrace. But there was no move toward the entrance to the crystal cave, where all manner of goblin-desired treasures must lie.
"I don't understand," Rigel gasped. "What is this all about? Does this man owe you money?"
"Money!" snarled a particularly ugly goblin. "We would never take money from master!"
As one, the goblins stepped back from the two wizards. Each extended a long, sharp claw and poked it into the top of his own head. The night was filled with the sounds of air hissing out of punctured, inflatable goblin disguises. The goblin bodies collapsed, and out of them came seven beaming house-elves, nearly as ugly but infinitely friendlier.
"Master has returned," said the house-elf with the biggest nose, and he ran to embrace the grown-up wizard's legs.
"There, there," said his master. "It is good to see you too, Dinty. I have missed all of you."
Lifting up his head, Harvey breathed the night air deeply and added, "It is good to see the sky as well."
Rigel clutched his head, bemused. "They were your house-elves all along! I thought they had come from Gringotts to ent-t-tomb me for my sins!"
"Yes, their disguises were rather clever," Harvey said proudly, failing to notice the boy's traumatized stammer. "I expect they've been following Joe Albuquerque since I went away. I shall give each of them a tin star to pin to his pillowcase" - for the house-elves all wore pillowcases with the seams ripped for their heads and arms to poke through - "and free reign to prepare a feast to celebrate my return."
"Master is too good to us," Dinty fawned. Rigel silently agreed.
Harvey rubbed his palms together. "Now, let's go home. Shall we Apparate together? To The Drains, then, on three. One, two, three..."
Rigel, though currently too young for an Apparition license, still knew how since his previous adulthood. Nevertheless, he winced as he felt the constricting, smothering sensation of Apparition. It lasted only a fraction of a second, before an even stranger and more unpleasant sensation took its place. Feeling like a cork shooting out of the neck of a champagne bottle, Rigel fell back onto the lakeshore under the starlight. All around him, bodies popped out of nowhere and slammed into the ground with cries of surprise and dismay.
"That's never happened before," Harvey said, picking himself up. "Someone must have set an anti-Apparition spell around The Drains. I shall have a word with the caretaker as soon as we get home. Meanwhile, there must be a wizard-dwelling within a few miles of here. From there we can use the Floo Network, perhaps."
Man, boy, and house-elves began to march back along the cliffside, retracing the route by which the supposed goblins had carried Rigel the day before. The house-elves whispered among themselves, pointing out signs along the path that no wizard could see, until they came to a cottage in a clearing in a wood.
The ground around the cottage was planted with herbs, turnips, pumpkins, and marrows, guarded by not one scarecrow, but a dozen. The scarecrows were ghastly, huge, animated things with fur and fangs, claws dripping with blood, and slavering mouths from which mangled feathers occasionally dropped: clearly the work of a wizard or witch. Rigel had never seen anything like them. Even the house-elves seemed subdued as they approached the cottage door. The woods around the clearing were strangely silent; perhaps owing to the effectiveness of the scarecrows, not one bird's song could be heard.
Harvey knocked on the front door. Whoever lived there must have sensed their approach, because the door immediately opened. Rigel was astonished as, quite unconcerned, Harvey walked into the dimness beyond the door. Hesitantly, the boy followed - but the house-elves stayed outside in a nervous cluster.
The owner of the house may have been male or female; it was hard to tell. He or she stood tall and bone-thin, wrapped in patched and threadbare robes, with long, dirty, white hair hanging in tangled profusion over his or her face. The strangest aspect of the cottager's appearance was the steel mesh-reinforced birdcage over its head - or perhaps it was the swim goggles it wore over its eyes, overhanging hair and all.
The cottage itself was equally strange. Strange skins dangled from the ceiling, along with nets full of small skulls. The tables, shelves, walls, and mantel were crammed full of unusual items: pixie-sized weapons, fragments of an enormous eggshell, a string full of deadly looking talons, a feathered wing mounted by itself, bird skeletons held together by wire, a large number of pipes and whistles in all sizes, runes written in blood on bamboo blocks strung on leather thongs, and stones with holes through them.
Rigel made up his mind to stay close to the door.
"I'm terribly sorry to intrude," Harvey said, taking in the cottage, its owner, and its bizarre contents as if none of it surprised him. "I've had a minor travel mishap, and I would be very grateful if you could assist me in sending for help. Is your fire hooked up to the Floo Network?"
The cottager pointed to a velvet bag dangling by a string next to the hearth. It was embroidered with the symbol of two crossed wands. Harvey took the bag off its hook, found that it was empty, and put it back.
"Well, you seem to have run out of Floo powder," he said cheerfully. "I will gladly see that you get a supply of it, if I could only borrow your owl."
The silent cottager flinched, and spoke at last in a nasal voice that confirmed, at least to Rigel's ears, that its owner was a woman. "I won't have an owl in this house," she said.
"Then," Harvey went on, not sounding at all discouraged, "is there any way you can help us send a message?"
The crazy old witch pointed to a cupboard door. Hesitantly, Rigel opened it. Then he jumped backward and nearly upset a table full of wooden figurines, as a plump beagle popped out of the cupboard with a gray and white cat on its back.
Immediately the dog began to bark - but not in the pointlessly disruptive way Rigel normally associated with dogs. Within a few woofs, Rigel recognized the tune of a song Celestina Warbeck had sung on the Wizarding Wireless the previous evening. The cat hopped onto the kitchen table and began to dance, its rear legs cleverly matching the steps of its front legs.
Rigel swallowed. "I never..."
"Tie your note to Puss's tail," the witch rasped. "He won't like it, but he'll know what to do."
Harvey pulled a small roll of parchment out of his hat and wrote quickly with a pen the witch proffered him: "To Agent S. Spankison, RMB - I have returned, but suspect that trouble awaits in my flat. Please gather the usual forces and meet me at The Drains at your earliest convenience. Your humble etc., M. Harvey, esq." This he rolled up as tightly as possible and tied firmly to the cat's tale while Rigel held it.
The cat yowled and scratched Rigel up and down both arms, then darted out the door in a furious gray-white streak.
"Thanks for the help," Harvey said smoothly, while Rigel clutched his bleeding arms. "We'll just be off to the train station, then. I will have that Floo powder delivered by...er, courier, I suppose. And if you ever need anything, please contact me." He handed the witch his card.
The witch shook her head. "Never go to London these days," she said. "Have a horror of pigeons. Birds of all kinds, really."
Rigel wondered that birds didn't have a horror of this witch, thinking of the wing trophy, the string of talons, and the horrible scarecrows outside.
"Be that as it may," Harvey shrugged.
"My parents were eaten by a roc," the witch explained. "Saw it happen when I was very young."
"I quite understand," said Harvey, bowing his way backward out the cottage door. "Pay a call by Floo, anytime. Cheers, then."
He waited until he and Rigel were well away from the cottage, following the house-elves and their invisible signs, before giving a low whistle. "I've seen too many witches or wizards end up like that," he said. "Filthy rocs."
+++ QUADRUPLE CHALLENGE! +++
Contact Robbie through the Discussion Forum or by feedback to share your ideas about how the Magic Quill should continue. Survey answers that get the most votes, and contest answers that Robbie chooses, will be in the next two chapters! [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]
Survey for TMQ #132: How can Harvey be in St. Mungo's and with Rigel at the same time? (A) It's just one of those odd things that happens when you mess around with time travel. (B) The one with Rigel is an impostor. (C) The one with Rigel is someone else who has been made to look like Harvey, and who actually thinks he is Harvey. (D) Two words: magical cloning.
Contest for TMQ #132: Describe a potion that a witch or wizard could find habit-forming.
Survey for TMQ #133: Which of Rigel's old Gringotts-escape mates should come back next? (A) Karl, the survival expert. (B) Jaan, the wandsmith. (C) Anatoly, the animated tattoo artist. (D) Slavik, the DADA teacher at Durmstrang. (E) Boccachiusa, the mime wizard. (F) Subito, the vertically challenged clown wizard. (G) Pagliai, the leader of the clown wizards.
Contest for TMQ #133: Describe a magical plant and its properties, including both advantages and disadvantages over a similar, non-magical plant.
[Originally posted 1/20/08]
Friday, December 26, 2008
106. Tea with Il Comte
Contest winners: TWZRD, Linda Carrig and rory86
Harvey was lifting the steaming beaker of Essence of Merlin to his lips when the doorbell rang, playing the chorus of Hebrew slaves from Nabucco in full harmony.
“Blast,” Harvey muttered. “Who could be calling at this hour? From Italy, no less?”
He set the beaker down and went out of his study, crossed the enormous front hall of his penthouse apartment, and opened the door. The carillon music stopped instantly.
“May I help you?” Harvey asked the well-dressed, shiny-haired man standing outside. He took care to seem polite but cold.
“I should like to speak with the gentleman of the house,” said the visitor, with a faint trace of an accent.
“I am he,” said Harvey. “But I regret that this is not a convenient time for me to entertain guests.”
“Oh, it won’t take long,” said the visitor, marveling slightly that a man of Harvey’s position would answer his own door. “I only wish to pull your nose; then I shall inconvenience you no further.”
Harvey stifled a sigh. “If an affair of honor is what you’re after, I beg you to come in, Signore...”
“Maledicto,” said Il Comte, handing his cape to a house-elf who trailed him into the apartment. He looked around at the entrance hall with one eyebrow cocked in a jaded fashion. “Ombra here is my second. And yours?”
Harvey snapped his fingers and Dinty crept out from behind a cockatrice-foot umbrella stand.
“The Hildebrand rules?” Harvey asked mildly.
“If you please,” said Il Comte. “Our seconds will negotiate the time and place of our engagement.”
“Actually, if it’s all right with you,” said Harvey, “perhaps we could have the duel here and now. I was just on the point of setting out on a long trip, and I fear that if we wait, you may never be satisfied.”
Il Comte cast another chilly gaze around the hall, then nodded.
“Wands at twenty paces, then,” said Harvey.
The two wizards stood back to back at the center of the hall, then walked in opposite directions, ten paces each. There was little more than an armspan to spare at each end.
“On three,” said Dinty, fidgeting slightly.
“Three!” screamed Ombra, following it up with a fiendish snicker while the two wizards cast simultaneous disarming spells. Both wands jerked out of their owners’ hands and ended up jammed into a crystal chandelier that hovered, unsupported, above the center of the hall.
“How annoying,” said Il Comte.
“Not very sporting, that elf of yours,” Harvey grumbled.
“I find that you weren’t unprepared for it,” Il Comte returned. “What shall we do now?”
“I suppose we should have tea while our seconds get on with the duel,” said Harvey.
Ombra blanched. Dinty grinned, rubbing his knuckles.
“All right, then,” said Il Comte. “Though I should prefer an espresso.”
“Done. Let’s just duck into the library and let the elves carry on,” Harvey suggested, and Il Comte followed him through a doorway into a very cluttered and lived-in room full of books and magical paraphernalia. It also had a table where a tea tray was already sitting, with cups and saucers, spoons, milk jug, sugar bowl, and steaming pot of tea, a plate of sandwiches, a plate of cakes, and a tiny cup of espresso so strong that the flowers in the nearby glass flute were leaning emphatically in the other direction. The two men sat down amiably and began to eat and drink as greedily as good breeding permitted.
“Excellent,” said Il Comte, not only because the espresso tasted good, but also because the cup always seemed to be as full and as hot as when he first picked it up.
“I do my best to please,” said Harvey, as the two house-elves danced past the open door, pulling savagely on each other’s ears. “By the way, I am dying of curiosity. How did I offend you?”
“By meddling in my private affairs,” said Il Comte lightly. “You know, that business with the clowns and their accomplices.”
“Ah, well. I imagine that men in our position have so many affairs, as you say, that it would be remarkable if they never crossed each other.”
“Just so,” said Il Comte, hardly reacting at the series of crashes that accompanied the whoosh of large pieces of furniture flying past the hall door.
“So how goes the evil-doing business?” Harvey asked courteously.
“It grows boring, frankly,” said Il Comte. “After so many years of crushing the same people underfoot, I begin to feel as though nothing I do, however monstrous, even gets their attention. I begin to feel as one who needs new victims.”
“There, there,” said Harvey, mentally filing this information under Il Comte’s constant need to be noticed and admired – or at least, feared. “Have you ever considered moving?”
“To another city or country?” Il Comte came as close to snorting as gentility allowed. “In today’s world, one finds that things are the same everywhere. Now if only one could move to another era...I say, are you all right?”
Harvey patted his chin with a silk napkin, coughed wetly, and said “All right” in a hoarse voice. Meanwhile, Ombra scuttled past the door, ducking under the blows of a wooden spoon that hovered about his head and shoulders, attacking him of its own accord. The next moment a crock smashed somewhere out of sight, and Dinty uttered a dismayed cry.
Fortunately, the combined distractions were enough to move Il Comte off the subject of time control. “And how is your business?” he asked with perfect solicitude.
“Quite absorbing,” said Harvey. “If I had any more to do, I would be meeting myself coming and going.”
At the picture this created in his mind, Il Comte’s eyes took on a dreamly look. “I should like that, I think.”
They paused to sip their drinks, contemplating a little dance that Dinty was doing in the hall outside, while a coarse brush scrubbed him into a prodigious lather of deep-cleansing suds.
“I can’t help but admire your house-elf’s cleaning spells,” Harvey remarked.
“Yes, he’s very efficient,” Il Comte replied immodestly. “But you see, he has such a large house to manage....”
“I perfectly understand,” said Harvey.
Over the next few moments, the hall was filled with a bewildering series of popping sounds as the two house-elves vanished and reappeared again and again, trying to outmaneuver each other. With a triumphant cry, Dinty yanked Ombra’s tea-towel off and ran for it, waving the tea-towel like a triumphal banner while his outraged foe pursued him, using a calling-card tray as temporary cover.
“That’ll be for the laundry,” Harvey observed.
“Then it seems the affair is concluded,” said Il Comte, “in your favor. In which case, I will bid you good day. Do not show me out, I beg you.”
Il Comte took one last fortifying sip of espresso, then stood calmly, brushed some invisible crumbs off his robe, and then whipped out his concealed wand and pointed it at Harvey.
“I can’t begin to express how disappointed this makes me,” Harvey said reproachfully.
Il Comte answered with a hollow laugh. “You yourself called me an evil-doer. Evil is as evil does. I can’t go around playing fair. No one would know whether or when to fear me.”
“I don’t fear you in the slightest,” said Harvey, folding his hands in his lap and sitting back comfortably in his leather armchair.
“The more fool thou,” Il Comte returned.
“On the contrary,” said the other Harvey from over Il Comte’s shoulder. Then, as Il Comte began to turn toward him, he hit him over the head with a round of cheese.
“I say,” said the first Harvey, dismayed to see the cheese broken in pieces and slimed with Il Comte’s hair oil. “I was going to take that cheese on my trip. Couldn’t you have used something less useful, like this bronze thing that Sadie gave us for our last birthday?”
“Daumier’s Le Confident?” said the other Harvey. “We will have returned it to its rightful owner by the time we take the Essence. Unless you change your mind – it’s really up to you from here. I’ll be getting on now—oh, and by the way, don’t drink the Essence until Christmas. Take care of ourself now.” And with that, the second Harvey disapparated.
The seated Harvey sighed, nudged Il Comte with his toe, and waited while the sounds of struggle in the hall died down, confident that Dinty would bring in a very subdued Ombra before long.
“Delays, delays,” he muttered peevishly, and picked up a thin sandwich.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Out of Merlin’s companions during his escape from Gringotts – the clowns, the Durmstrang lads, and Rigel – which character should get a “starring role” in the next episode of Merlin’s memories?
CONTEST: Describe an ancient curse and the magic-related object it protects from being stolen.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #108. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 11/1/06]
Harvey was lifting the steaming beaker of Essence of Merlin to his lips when the doorbell rang, playing the chorus of Hebrew slaves from Nabucco in full harmony.
“Blast,” Harvey muttered. “Who could be calling at this hour? From Italy, no less?”
He set the beaker down and went out of his study, crossed the enormous front hall of his penthouse apartment, and opened the door. The carillon music stopped instantly.
“May I help you?” Harvey asked the well-dressed, shiny-haired man standing outside. He took care to seem polite but cold.
“I should like to speak with the gentleman of the house,” said the visitor, with a faint trace of an accent.
“I am he,” said Harvey. “But I regret that this is not a convenient time for me to entertain guests.”
“Oh, it won’t take long,” said the visitor, marveling slightly that a man of Harvey’s position would answer his own door. “I only wish to pull your nose; then I shall inconvenience you no further.”
Harvey stifled a sigh. “If an affair of honor is what you’re after, I beg you to come in, Signore...”
“Maledicto,” said Il Comte, handing his cape to a house-elf who trailed him into the apartment. He looked around at the entrance hall with one eyebrow cocked in a jaded fashion. “Ombra here is my second. And yours?”
Harvey snapped his fingers and Dinty crept out from behind a cockatrice-foot umbrella stand.
“The Hildebrand rules?” Harvey asked mildly.
“If you please,” said Il Comte. “Our seconds will negotiate the time and place of our engagement.”
“Actually, if it’s all right with you,” said Harvey, “perhaps we could have the duel here and now. I was just on the point of setting out on a long trip, and I fear that if we wait, you may never be satisfied.”
Il Comte cast another chilly gaze around the hall, then nodded.
“Wands at twenty paces, then,” said Harvey.
The two wizards stood back to back at the center of the hall, then walked in opposite directions, ten paces each. There was little more than an armspan to spare at each end.
“On three,” said Dinty, fidgeting slightly.
“Three!” screamed Ombra, following it up with a fiendish snicker while the two wizards cast simultaneous disarming spells. Both wands jerked out of their owners’ hands and ended up jammed into a crystal chandelier that hovered, unsupported, above the center of the hall.
“How annoying,” said Il Comte.
“Not very sporting, that elf of yours,” Harvey grumbled.
“I find that you weren’t unprepared for it,” Il Comte returned. “What shall we do now?”
“I suppose we should have tea while our seconds get on with the duel,” said Harvey.
Ombra blanched. Dinty grinned, rubbing his knuckles.
“All right, then,” said Il Comte. “Though I should prefer an espresso.”
“Done. Let’s just duck into the library and let the elves carry on,” Harvey suggested, and Il Comte followed him through a doorway into a very cluttered and lived-in room full of books and magical paraphernalia. It also had a table where a tea tray was already sitting, with cups and saucers, spoons, milk jug, sugar bowl, and steaming pot of tea, a plate of sandwiches, a plate of cakes, and a tiny cup of espresso so strong that the flowers in the nearby glass flute were leaning emphatically in the other direction. The two men sat down amiably and began to eat and drink as greedily as good breeding permitted.
“Excellent,” said Il Comte, not only because the espresso tasted good, but also because the cup always seemed to be as full and as hot as when he first picked it up.
“I do my best to please,” said Harvey, as the two house-elves danced past the open door, pulling savagely on each other’s ears. “By the way, I am dying of curiosity. How did I offend you?”
“By meddling in my private affairs,” said Il Comte lightly. “You know, that business with the clowns and their accomplices.”
“Ah, well. I imagine that men in our position have so many affairs, as you say, that it would be remarkable if they never crossed each other.”
“Just so,” said Il Comte, hardly reacting at the series of crashes that accompanied the whoosh of large pieces of furniture flying past the hall door.
“So how goes the evil-doing business?” Harvey asked courteously.
“It grows boring, frankly,” said Il Comte. “After so many years of crushing the same people underfoot, I begin to feel as though nothing I do, however monstrous, even gets their attention. I begin to feel as one who needs new victims.”
“There, there,” said Harvey, mentally filing this information under Il Comte’s constant need to be noticed and admired – or at least, feared. “Have you ever considered moving?”
“To another city or country?” Il Comte came as close to snorting as gentility allowed. “In today’s world, one finds that things are the same everywhere. Now if only one could move to another era...I say, are you all right?”
Harvey patted his chin with a silk napkin, coughed wetly, and said “All right” in a hoarse voice. Meanwhile, Ombra scuttled past the door, ducking under the blows of a wooden spoon that hovered about his head and shoulders, attacking him of its own accord. The next moment a crock smashed somewhere out of sight, and Dinty uttered a dismayed cry.
Fortunately, the combined distractions were enough to move Il Comte off the subject of time control. “And how is your business?” he asked with perfect solicitude.
“Quite absorbing,” said Harvey. “If I had any more to do, I would be meeting myself coming and going.”
At the picture this created in his mind, Il Comte’s eyes took on a dreamly look. “I should like that, I think.”
They paused to sip their drinks, contemplating a little dance that Dinty was doing in the hall outside, while a coarse brush scrubbed him into a prodigious lather of deep-cleansing suds.
“I can’t help but admire your house-elf’s cleaning spells,” Harvey remarked.
“Yes, he’s very efficient,” Il Comte replied immodestly. “But you see, he has such a large house to manage....”
“I perfectly understand,” said Harvey.
Over the next few moments, the hall was filled with a bewildering series of popping sounds as the two house-elves vanished and reappeared again and again, trying to outmaneuver each other. With a triumphant cry, Dinty yanked Ombra’s tea-towel off and ran for it, waving the tea-towel like a triumphal banner while his outraged foe pursued him, using a calling-card tray as temporary cover.
“That’ll be for the laundry,” Harvey observed.
“Then it seems the affair is concluded,” said Il Comte, “in your favor. In which case, I will bid you good day. Do not show me out, I beg you.”
Il Comte took one last fortifying sip of espresso, then stood calmly, brushed some invisible crumbs off his robe, and then whipped out his concealed wand and pointed it at Harvey.
“I can’t begin to express how disappointed this makes me,” Harvey said reproachfully.
Il Comte answered with a hollow laugh. “You yourself called me an evil-doer. Evil is as evil does. I can’t go around playing fair. No one would know whether or when to fear me.”
“I don’t fear you in the slightest,” said Harvey, folding his hands in his lap and sitting back comfortably in his leather armchair.
“The more fool thou,” Il Comte returned.
“On the contrary,” said the other Harvey from over Il Comte’s shoulder. Then, as Il Comte began to turn toward him, he hit him over the head with a round of cheese.
“I say,” said the first Harvey, dismayed to see the cheese broken in pieces and slimed with Il Comte’s hair oil. “I was going to take that cheese on my trip. Couldn’t you have used something less useful, like this bronze thing that Sadie gave us for our last birthday?”
“Daumier’s Le Confident?” said the other Harvey. “We will have returned it to its rightful owner by the time we take the Essence. Unless you change your mind – it’s really up to you from here. I’ll be getting on now—oh, and by the way, don’t drink the Essence until Christmas. Take care of ourself now.” And with that, the second Harvey disapparated.
The seated Harvey sighed, nudged Il Comte with his toe, and waited while the sounds of struggle in the hall died down, confident that Dinty would bring in a very subdued Ombra before long.
“Delays, delays,” he muttered peevishly, and picked up a thin sandwich.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Out of Merlin’s companions during his escape from Gringotts – the clowns, the Durmstrang lads, and Rigel – which character should get a “starring role” in the next episode of Merlin’s memories?
CONTEST: Describe an ancient curse and the magic-related object it protects from being stolen.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #108. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 11/1/06]
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
104. Vitis Leprosa
Contest winners: PotterPig and _houdini
When Harvey arrived at his greenhouse, Dr. Miles O’Roughage clasped his hand in both of his own, beaming with pleasure. Harvey noted that O’Roughage was wearing filthy, floral-patterned gardening gloves, as he waved round at his vast kingdom of shrub, tree, and vine.
“Welcome to my garden,” he cried.
“I never knew there would be so much of it,” said Harvey, impressed in spite of himself.
“I did all this with one hand tied behind my back. Literally.” He pulled off his gloves and showed Harvey his digits – the right thumb stained green, the left thumb brown. “I don’t dare touch any of my children with my left hand,” he explained, wiggling both thumbs. “I call it ‘demmed if I do,’ and the other one ‘demmed if I don’t.’ What, what?”
Harvey smiled politely. “I can see why Sadie likes this place. Clearly, she does more around here than deliver dodgy dragon dung.”
“Good job she does,” O’Roughage agreed. “Without her pair of ordinary thumbs to help with repotting and pruning, I wouldn’t have accomplished half so much. For instance, take this Obstinut seedling...”
“I’m very grateful to you for agreeing to my little experiment,” Harvey interrupted. “In return, of course, I have something that should interest you endlessly. Where is the tree in question?”
O’Roughage hesitated, looking briefly sad. Then, stifling a sigh, he led Harvey over to an alder tree that sprang up through a hole in the brick-paved floor. It had peeling bark, droopy branches, and sparse, ragged, blighted-looking leaves. “I’m afraid Cecil isn’t long for this world,” he said, patting the tree’s trunk with a brave attempt at cheerfulness. “But if he must go, it might as well be for the furtherance of herbological knowledge. So do whatever you wish. I shall assist you in any way that you need.”
“Excellent,” said Harvey, a bit too excited to empathize with O’Roughage’s troubled feelings. “What time is it?”
O’Roughage glanced at a nearby sundial and said, “About two o’clock.”
“Splendid. Now, keep your right hand on Cecil’s trunk until I say otherwise. All right, here goes.” Harvey unstoppered a tiny beaker of some murky, oily liquid. Pressing his left hand to the trunk of the tree, he emptied the beaker over the tree’s roots.
Both men stood there, each with a hand pressed to the tree’s trunk, saying nothing for a while. O’Roughage grew increasingly fidgety. Finally he said, “Nothing seems to be happening.”
“Just wait a bit,” said Harvey. “The difference may not become apparent for a few minutes.”
O’Roughage squirmed, scraping his feet against the cobbles. Harvey hummed to himself absently.
“I say,” O’Roughage burst out. “Didn’t you come here quite a few years ago, when I had the walls redone? I remember it quite clearly. Those young hooligans kept shooting the windows out, so I had them replaced with magical walls – solid brick on one side, clear glass on the other. You helped install them, didn’t you?”
“You have quite a memory,” said Harvey.
Another seeming age passed, during which O’Roughage repeatedly squinted in the direction of the sundial, then rubbed his eyes with his brown thumb. By and by he burst out again: “I must have mistaken you for a common delivery man, all those years back. I take it you were the heir to the company.”
“I’m merely carrying on a long family tradition,” Harvey said modestly. Then he clammed up again.
After singing all the songs he knew under his breath, O’Roughage overcame his natural shyness and said, “It must have been grand, growing up in one of the old magical families, eh? I sometimes wonder what it would be like. My parents were Muggles, you know. Father was an aerospace engineer. All my brothers dreamed of becoming spacemen, but here I turned out to be a wizard. Isn’t life something?”
Harvey found himself intrigued, against his will, by the wistfulness in O’Roughage’s manner. The man almost seemed to regret being the only magical member of his family.
“I’m not familiar with spacemen,” Harvey said, pitying his host just enough to feign interest. “Are they a kind of estate agent?”
“No, I mean astronauts,” said O’Roughage. Noting Harvey’s blank expression, he added, “Like the men who flew up to the moon, don’t you know.”
“They really did that?” said Harvey. “I always supposed that was just another one of their fanciful wireless plays.”
“Oh, no,” said O’Roughage. “Men actually landed on the moon and walked around, and looked up at the Earth in the sky.”
Harvey shook his head, bemused. “I don’t see any sense in it,” he said. “I mean, it’s amazing what Muggles can do, even without magic. But what was the use of it?”
“Proving that it could be done, I suppose,” said O’Roughage. “Being able to point up at the night sky and say, ‘I wiped my feet on that.’”
“I’ll never understand Muggles,” said Harvey. “So much magic comes from moonlight, or happens in connection with its tides and phases. If I had tracked my muddy boots all over the moon, my mother, of witchy memory, would have taken her broomstick to my backside.”
“That’s the difference in how we were raised,” said O’Roughage. “I suppose I learned my scientific ways from my parents. And they didn’t get punished or scolded for what they did. In fact, my father was given the key to Birmingham.”
“The key to Birmingham what?” said Harvey. “You don’t mean the city? Why would Birmingham give anyone the key to itself?”
“I suppose they meant it as a gesture of respect,” said O’Roughage, looking mildly irritated.
“It isn’t as though one couldn’t get into the city without a key, though,” Harvey argued. “That is, unless the key was meant to open every door in town.”
“It wasn’t,” said O’Roughage, rubbing his eyes again. “It was symbolic only.”
“That’s the trouble with Muggles,” said Harvey. “They’re always waving symbols about, without any regard for their power.”
“Well, as to that,” O’Roughage said rather sharply, “I believe the Muggles left some of their symbols permanently fixed on the moon. How’s that for power? You could try to fetch them down, out of respect for your late mother’s feelings, but I wonder whether your broom would take you so far. Then there’s the small matter of air, heat, and radiation shielding...we wizards would have to work a long time to accomplish what the Muggles managed with a bit of duct tape, some gold foil, and a few canisters of liquid hydrogen.”
Harvey realized that he was on shaky ground, so he kept his peace again.
After a long pause, O’Roughage sighed. “That’s an argument I’ve had with my brothers countless times. I never expected to be on their side of it, until now.”
“What do they do?” asked Harvey. He was really curious, for once, about what happens to the family of a Muggleborn wizard.
“One designs clocks that keep metric time. Another crashes experimental aircraft to test their pilot-ejection systems. And the youngest is a full-time obituary writer for In Memoriam magazine. Really, they all play golf a lot, and live off the earnings from my patents.”
“Really? Do you earn that much, then?”
“Well, I get a subsidy from the Office of Abraculture at the Ministry, as long as I don’t sell or plant certain breeds of magical plants. For example, just last month I patented a recreational fruit called Tomacco – I got the idea from a television program that my brother Rivers showed me – and the Ministry offered me the cash value of the Bailiwick of Jersey to destroy all the plants, and never to allow it to be grown again. I would have turned down their offer, on principle, if they hadn’t added an ‘or else’ clause that mentioned a gryphon, twelve yards of Acromantula silk, a Time Turner, and a round of mooncalf cheese.” Miles O’Roughage shuddered. “Those Abraculture blokes can be demmed persuasive.”
Harvey tried in vain to imagine what kind of penalty the Office of Abraculture had threatened O’Roughage with.
“Still, it always makes me sad, knowing that none of my brothers will ever appreciate the thrill of a good game of Quidditch, a sparring match with a young whomping-willow sapling, or a display of Abraxan horses flying in formation...” O’Roughage sighed again. Then he did a double take at the sundial. “Isn’t that odd,” he said. “I could have sworn it was two o’clock before, but now it seems to be a quarter of one.”
“That will do,” said Harvey, taking his hand off the tree trunk.
O’Roughage stepped away from the tree, stumbling slightly. “And there’s another odd thing. While I could swear that I planted this tree myself, I now suddenly recall that it was standing here since before Hogsmeade was settled. In fact, there’s a plaque among the roots, designating it as the Hogsmeade Grandfather Tree. How silly of me, not to point that out to you before...” He scratched his head. “I wonder why I still recall it growing, twig and bough. I must have dreamed it.”
“Success!” Harvey exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “This proves that casual contact with a retrotemporal being can induce a non-permanent, parallel state of retrotemporality. What a chapter this will make in the guide-book that I shall write at some future point in the past!”
“Er...I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind,” said Harvey, suddenly overflowing with good humor. He squeezed the old herbologist’s shoulders and said, “A reward is in store for you. My house-elf Dinty is waiting outside with some well-preserved grape-pips, the likes of which have not been planted in a thousand years. It’s an unusual type of grape, which I like to call Vitis leprosa. There’s a special project in it for you. But it all depends on whether you can grow a new vine out of very, very old pips. Believe me, it’s an exciting project for which I will reward you beyond anything that the Office of Abraculture can offer.”
“Will you really?” said O’Roughage, his gloomy face brightening for the first time all day. He patted Cecil’s trunk. “And do you know, the old stick doesn’t seem quite done for, after all. All right, let’s see these pips of yours!”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Which of the following describes the relationship between wizardry and religion in the world of Harry Potter? (A) Wizardry or witchcraft is a religion unto itself. (B) Wizards and witches, in general, have no religion. (C) Witches and wizards can belong to any religion, but they hide their magical background from their fellow worshippers. (D) Witches and wizards can belong to any religion, but they generally limit themselves to all-magical congregations.
CONTEST: Describe something that might happen in a duel between two house-elves.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #106. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 10/8/06]
When Harvey arrived at his greenhouse, Dr. Miles O’Roughage clasped his hand in both of his own, beaming with pleasure. Harvey noted that O’Roughage was wearing filthy, floral-patterned gardening gloves, as he waved round at his vast kingdom of shrub, tree, and vine.
“Welcome to my garden,” he cried.
“I never knew there would be so much of it,” said Harvey, impressed in spite of himself.
“I did all this with one hand tied behind my back. Literally.” He pulled off his gloves and showed Harvey his digits – the right thumb stained green, the left thumb brown. “I don’t dare touch any of my children with my left hand,” he explained, wiggling both thumbs. “I call it ‘demmed if I do,’ and the other one ‘demmed if I don’t.’ What, what?”
Harvey smiled politely. “I can see why Sadie likes this place. Clearly, she does more around here than deliver dodgy dragon dung.”
“Good job she does,” O’Roughage agreed. “Without her pair of ordinary thumbs to help with repotting and pruning, I wouldn’t have accomplished half so much. For instance, take this Obstinut seedling...”
“I’m very grateful to you for agreeing to my little experiment,” Harvey interrupted. “In return, of course, I have something that should interest you endlessly. Where is the tree in question?”
O’Roughage hesitated, looking briefly sad. Then, stifling a sigh, he led Harvey over to an alder tree that sprang up through a hole in the brick-paved floor. It had peeling bark, droopy branches, and sparse, ragged, blighted-looking leaves. “I’m afraid Cecil isn’t long for this world,” he said, patting the tree’s trunk with a brave attempt at cheerfulness. “But if he must go, it might as well be for the furtherance of herbological knowledge. So do whatever you wish. I shall assist you in any way that you need.”
“Excellent,” said Harvey, a bit too excited to empathize with O’Roughage’s troubled feelings. “What time is it?”
O’Roughage glanced at a nearby sundial and said, “About two o’clock.”
“Splendid. Now, keep your right hand on Cecil’s trunk until I say otherwise. All right, here goes.” Harvey unstoppered a tiny beaker of some murky, oily liquid. Pressing his left hand to the trunk of the tree, he emptied the beaker over the tree’s roots.
Both men stood there, each with a hand pressed to the tree’s trunk, saying nothing for a while. O’Roughage grew increasingly fidgety. Finally he said, “Nothing seems to be happening.”
“Just wait a bit,” said Harvey. “The difference may not become apparent for a few minutes.”
O’Roughage squirmed, scraping his feet against the cobbles. Harvey hummed to himself absently.
“I say,” O’Roughage burst out. “Didn’t you come here quite a few years ago, when I had the walls redone? I remember it quite clearly. Those young hooligans kept shooting the windows out, so I had them replaced with magical walls – solid brick on one side, clear glass on the other. You helped install them, didn’t you?”
“You have quite a memory,” said Harvey.
Another seeming age passed, during which O’Roughage repeatedly squinted in the direction of the sundial, then rubbed his eyes with his brown thumb. By and by he burst out again: “I must have mistaken you for a common delivery man, all those years back. I take it you were the heir to the company.”
“I’m merely carrying on a long family tradition,” Harvey said modestly. Then he clammed up again.
After singing all the songs he knew under his breath, O’Roughage overcame his natural shyness and said, “It must have been grand, growing up in one of the old magical families, eh? I sometimes wonder what it would be like. My parents were Muggles, you know. Father was an aerospace engineer. All my brothers dreamed of becoming spacemen, but here I turned out to be a wizard. Isn’t life something?”
Harvey found himself intrigued, against his will, by the wistfulness in O’Roughage’s manner. The man almost seemed to regret being the only magical member of his family.
“I’m not familiar with spacemen,” Harvey said, pitying his host just enough to feign interest. “Are they a kind of estate agent?”
“No, I mean astronauts,” said O’Roughage. Noting Harvey’s blank expression, he added, “Like the men who flew up to the moon, don’t you know.”
“They really did that?” said Harvey. “I always supposed that was just another one of their fanciful wireless plays.”
“Oh, no,” said O’Roughage. “Men actually landed on the moon and walked around, and looked up at the Earth in the sky.”
Harvey shook his head, bemused. “I don’t see any sense in it,” he said. “I mean, it’s amazing what Muggles can do, even without magic. But what was the use of it?”
“Proving that it could be done, I suppose,” said O’Roughage. “Being able to point up at the night sky and say, ‘I wiped my feet on that.’”
“I’ll never understand Muggles,” said Harvey. “So much magic comes from moonlight, or happens in connection with its tides and phases. If I had tracked my muddy boots all over the moon, my mother, of witchy memory, would have taken her broomstick to my backside.”
“That’s the difference in how we were raised,” said O’Roughage. “I suppose I learned my scientific ways from my parents. And they didn’t get punished or scolded for what they did. In fact, my father was given the key to Birmingham.”
“The key to Birmingham what?” said Harvey. “You don’t mean the city? Why would Birmingham give anyone the key to itself?”
“I suppose they meant it as a gesture of respect,” said O’Roughage, looking mildly irritated.
“It isn’t as though one couldn’t get into the city without a key, though,” Harvey argued. “That is, unless the key was meant to open every door in town.”
“It wasn’t,” said O’Roughage, rubbing his eyes again. “It was symbolic only.”
“That’s the trouble with Muggles,” said Harvey. “They’re always waving symbols about, without any regard for their power.”
“Well, as to that,” O’Roughage said rather sharply, “I believe the Muggles left some of their symbols permanently fixed on the moon. How’s that for power? You could try to fetch them down, out of respect for your late mother’s feelings, but I wonder whether your broom would take you so far. Then there’s the small matter of air, heat, and radiation shielding...we wizards would have to work a long time to accomplish what the Muggles managed with a bit of duct tape, some gold foil, and a few canisters of liquid hydrogen.”
Harvey realized that he was on shaky ground, so he kept his peace again.
After a long pause, O’Roughage sighed. “That’s an argument I’ve had with my brothers countless times. I never expected to be on their side of it, until now.”
“What do they do?” asked Harvey. He was really curious, for once, about what happens to the family of a Muggleborn wizard.
“One designs clocks that keep metric time. Another crashes experimental aircraft to test their pilot-ejection systems. And the youngest is a full-time obituary writer for In Memoriam magazine. Really, they all play golf a lot, and live off the earnings from my patents.”
“Really? Do you earn that much, then?”
“Well, I get a subsidy from the Office of Abraculture at the Ministry, as long as I don’t sell or plant certain breeds of magical plants. For example, just last month I patented a recreational fruit called Tomacco – I got the idea from a television program that my brother Rivers showed me – and the Ministry offered me the cash value of the Bailiwick of Jersey to destroy all the plants, and never to allow it to be grown again. I would have turned down their offer, on principle, if they hadn’t added an ‘or else’ clause that mentioned a gryphon, twelve yards of Acromantula silk, a Time Turner, and a round of mooncalf cheese.” Miles O’Roughage shuddered. “Those Abraculture blokes can be demmed persuasive.”
Harvey tried in vain to imagine what kind of penalty the Office of Abraculture had threatened O’Roughage with.
“Still, it always makes me sad, knowing that none of my brothers will ever appreciate the thrill of a good game of Quidditch, a sparring match with a young whomping-willow sapling, or a display of Abraxan horses flying in formation...” O’Roughage sighed again. Then he did a double take at the sundial. “Isn’t that odd,” he said. “I could have sworn it was two o’clock before, but now it seems to be a quarter of one.”
“That will do,” said Harvey, taking his hand off the tree trunk.
O’Roughage stepped away from the tree, stumbling slightly. “And there’s another odd thing. While I could swear that I planted this tree myself, I now suddenly recall that it was standing here since before Hogsmeade was settled. In fact, there’s a plaque among the roots, designating it as the Hogsmeade Grandfather Tree. How silly of me, not to point that out to you before...” He scratched his head. “I wonder why I still recall it growing, twig and bough. I must have dreamed it.”
“Success!” Harvey exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “This proves that casual contact with a retrotemporal being can induce a non-permanent, parallel state of retrotemporality. What a chapter this will make in the guide-book that I shall write at some future point in the past!”
“Er...I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind,” said Harvey, suddenly overflowing with good humor. He squeezed the old herbologist’s shoulders and said, “A reward is in store for you. My house-elf Dinty is waiting outside with some well-preserved grape-pips, the likes of which have not been planted in a thousand years. It’s an unusual type of grape, which I like to call Vitis leprosa. There’s a special project in it for you. But it all depends on whether you can grow a new vine out of very, very old pips. Believe me, it’s an exciting project for which I will reward you beyond anything that the Office of Abraculture can offer.”
“Will you really?” said O’Roughage, his gloomy face brightening for the first time all day. He patted Cecil’s trunk. “And do you know, the old stick doesn’t seem quite done for, after all. All right, let’s see these pips of yours!”
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Which of the following describes the relationship between wizardry and religion in the world of Harry Potter? (A) Wizardry or witchcraft is a religion unto itself. (B) Wizards and witches, in general, have no religion. (C) Witches and wizards can belong to any religion, but they hide their magical background from their fellow worshippers. (D) Witches and wizards can belong to any religion, but they generally limit themselves to all-magical congregations.
CONTEST: Describe something that might happen in a duel between two house-elves.
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #106. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 10/8/06]
103. From the Weasley-Wheeze Press
Contest winners: Celairiel, stwonks, voldymortus, TWZRD, _houdini and charlottexgf
A house-elf wearing a blue linen place-mat, kilt-fashion, crept into the library carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper and string. “This was just delivered, master,” said the house-elf, straining to lift the package onto the library table.
Harvey took the package and severed the strings with a wave of his wand. “You may retire for the night, Dinty,” he said. “I will be up all night, and if I need anything I’ll get it myself.”
“Master is too kind,” said Dinty, backing out of the library.
Under the brown wrapping paper was a heavy book, bound in mooncalf skin, with the title embossed in gold: HOW TO DO IT BACKWARDS. The book smelled new, and the title page stated that the book was a Weasley-Wheeze Press Limited Edition. Harvey turned the page and found himself looking at an advertisement:
“Weasley & Weasley present: THE ULTIMATE T.P. KIT! Disguised as a travel kit filled with plastic wrap and hygiene necessities, a simple activation spell is all it needs to redecorate your victim’s home or office. Adapts to the structure targeted for maximum annoyance...”
Harvey snorted in disgust and turned another page.
“FOREWORD: The manuscript of this book was handed down through several generations of our family. We the publishers inherited it from our Uncle Fabian, along with instructions to print it on a given date. Only a few copies were to be made, and each to be sent to a recipient whose name has been down since before they were born. We have followed these instructions, printing the book at our own expense. The fact that you are reading this indicates either that your name was on the list, or that the original recipient willingly gave the book to you. Anyone else will find this book to be a catalogue of Wizard Wheezes available at bargain prices, only in Diagon Alley. See Appendix G for the full instructions that were enclosed with the manuscript. Do enjoy this book, and please show your appreciation for our part in bringing it to you by patronizing our establishment.”
On the next page was another advert, decorated with dancing stars and shining colors: “Weasley & Weasley present: TOOTHPAINT! Stun your friends and family with a smile in brilliant color! Or, dupe your unsuspecting mates into using a toothpaste that makes their teeth flash through all the colors of the rainbow...”
Another snort, another page.
“CONTENTS: Chapter 1, How to Walk Forward While Living Backwards. Chapter 2, Problems with Remembering the Future but Not the Past. Chapter 3, Strategies for Leaving Informative Messages for Yourself to Receive in the Future. Chapter 4, Strategies for Communicating with Those Left Behind in the Future. Chapter 5, What Items You Should and Shouldn’t Carry on a Journey Through Time. Chapter 6, A Primer of Verb Tenses for Living Backwards in Time. Chapter 7, Strategies for Introducing Yourself to People Who May or May Not Have Met You Before, While You Can Only Remember Your Future Dealings with Them. Chapter 8, Why History Doesn’t Change Just Because You’re Going the Wrong Way Through It. Chapter 9, Strategies for Handling Encounters with Other Time Travelers. Chapter 10, Historical Dangers to Avoid. Chapter 11, Challenges and Solutions in Eleventh-Century Viniculture. Chapter 12, Strategies for Pretending to Know What Is Going On. Chapter 14, What to Do in the Event that Any Part of This Book Gets Accidentally Erased. Chapter 15, Handy Places to Hide Things That You Will Need Later. Chapter 16, Handy Places to Hide Things that You Will Have Needed Earlier. Chapter 17, People You Should Not Cross, and How to Hide from Them When You Do. Chapter 18, Facts about the All-Magical Civilization from Which All Wizardkind Descends. Chapter 19, Why the Contents of Chapter 18 Should Remain Forgotten. Chapter 20, Why History Doesn’t Change Just Because You’re Going the Wrong Way Through It. Chapter 21, What to Do in the Event that Things, Including Parts of this Book, Begin to Repeat Themselves. Chapter 22, How to Revise Your Memoirs Retroactively Without Violating the Laws of Time. Chapter 23, How to Get Away with Violating the Laws of Time. Chapter 24, How to Petition for an Amendment to the Laws of Time. Chapter 25, Where to Find the Last Eight Chapters in the Event that this Book Ends After Chapter 17.”
Harvey flipped to the end of the book and saw that the last chapter was Chapter 43, titled “Which Chapters to Skip in the Event that the Table of Contents Gets Completely Messed Up.” He sighed and flipped back to the Table of Contents, then turned another page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: VANISHING CLOTHES! Great as a joke gift for siblings, romantic rivals, people you admire, and the prat of your year. After three hours of wear, items become transparent. Available in wizard robes and women’s skirts. Coming soon in men’s trousers. Sorry, no knickers...”
With a groan, Harvey turned the next page.
“Chapter 1, How to Walk Forward While Living Backwards.
“Really, there is more to this than just appearing to walk forward, when in fact you are moving backward in time. The backward life would not be worth living if you could not carry on a conversation, enjoy a piece of music, or properly digest a meal. The trick, which does not occur to one naturally and therefore requires a good deal of practice, is to move backward in time by small jumps, rather than continuous steps. This way you can experience moments that move “forward” in the normal manner, only with the moments occurring in reverse order. With care, study, and diligent application, these leaps and forward-moving bits can be increased from mere moments to minutes, hours, days, even weeks. But there are some dangers to be aware of.”
Harvey turned a page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: BACKFIRE JUICE! Slip it into your friend’s drink, and enjoy an embarrassing noise every time he raises and extends his arm. Particularly hilarious when administered to a young man on a date. Discount for fathers of teenage daughters...”
Sigh, flip.
“Here are some simple practice exercises, to help you survive the early stages of “moment by moment” backstepping. First, swallow firmly. Then, chew whatever is in your mouth. Finally, put a forkful of food in your mouth. Spit quickly so that you do not choke when repeating these three steps. It is important to remember NOT to carry the spitting bit over into your backward eating routine. Try it again: swallow, chew, then put food in your mouth. It is best, perhaps, to practice this with imaginary food for a few hours a day, before beginning to live backwards in time. Then you will be prepared to receive nourishment while skipping backward a moment at a time.
“Exercise 2. This is to help you negotiate a conversation in short, backward jumps. Bearing in mind that the beginning of the conversation, for you, is the end of the conversation for everyone else involved – and vice versa. It takes skill and alertness to avoid the appearance of knowing too much at the beginning of a conversation, and forgetting what everyone is talking about by the end. It is also important not to appear to be agreeing or disagreeing before you know what the conversation is about. So, it helps to practice the following noncommittal responses, while cultivating an air of enigmatic coolness. Memorize each of the following, and try repeating them in random order as responses at the beginning of conversations: ‘This is some weather, isn’t it?’ ‘To be sure.’ ‘I will need to give this a good deal of thought.’ ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ ‘Good heavens.’ ‘Why don’t you recap what we’ve just discussed, to make sure we’re on the same page.’ ‘Is that right? (Secretive chuckle.)’ ‘Well, that’s certainly a point of view.’ ‘Oh, dear! My watch can’t be right. What time do you have?’ (See Chapter 36 for Reasons Never to Carry a Working Timepiece While Living Backwards in Time.) ‘Interesting Times.’ ‘I suppose it goes to show what the old proverb says – you know the one I mean.’ ‘(Sudden laugh) – Merlin’s beard, but that creates a picture in one’s mind!’
“Then try to be careful only to GRADUALLY make remarks pertinent to the topic of the conversation, as you begin to understand it. Also, see Chapter 43 for a transcript of some important conversations that you will need to be prepared for as you begin to move backward in time.”
Harvey turned the page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: the ODOURIZER! Looks like perfume, smells like perfume – to the person who opens the bottle. But to everyone else, it pongs of...”
Muttered curse. Flip.
“Exercise 3. This exercise will help you train your memory to piece together a piece of music, a conversation, or the route of a journey experienced while moving backward in short time-jumps. This will help you to understand what is going on, and where you are going, without constantly being lost during the critical early days of your time-reversed lifestyle. Open the top drawer of the desk to your left, and you will find a handheld slide-viewer and a box of slides. These materials were (or will be) provided in accordance with Chapter 3’s instructions; you will understand later how they came to be there. Now, starting with the slide marked #1, view the first ten slides. Then, write a description of what you have seen and the route taken, in reverse order with respect to the sequence of slides. Then, compare your notes to the correct answer, which is written on a scroll tucked in the pigeon-hole above your desk, top row, second from the left. Repeat these steps for each set of ten slides until the box is exhausted.”
Fascinated, Harvey slid the first slide in the view-finder, looked through, and saw:
“Weasley & Weasley present: the ALL-DAY PROGRESSIVE WEDGIE KIT!”
“Confound those jokesters!” Harvey screamed, yanking the slide out of the view-finder.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Which of the following concepts would you prefer to see in a Magic Quill chapter: (A) Due to a Charms lesson gone awry, everyone in Tip’s year at Hogwarts ended up with the name Edward Smith. (B) Marmaduke Spankison gets in unprecedented amounts of trouble because he keeps forgetting that he can’t become invisible at will anymore. (C) Bo Dwyer interviews ghost members of the England Head Quidditch team. (D) Spanky and Joe investigate the disappearance of an entire cellarful of casks of thousand-year-old, Britannin-aged Chateau Harvey wine.
CONTEST: What does a young wizard-witch couple do on a date? (Keep it “fun for all ages,” please.)
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #105. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 9/30/06]
A house-elf wearing a blue linen place-mat, kilt-fashion, crept into the library carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper and string. “This was just delivered, master,” said the house-elf, straining to lift the package onto the library table.
Harvey took the package and severed the strings with a wave of his wand. “You may retire for the night, Dinty,” he said. “I will be up all night, and if I need anything I’ll get it myself.”
“Master is too kind,” said Dinty, backing out of the library.
Under the brown wrapping paper was a heavy book, bound in mooncalf skin, with the title embossed in gold: HOW TO DO IT BACKWARDS. The book smelled new, and the title page stated that the book was a Weasley-Wheeze Press Limited Edition. Harvey turned the page and found himself looking at an advertisement:
“Weasley & Weasley present: THE ULTIMATE T.P. KIT! Disguised as a travel kit filled with plastic wrap and hygiene necessities, a simple activation spell is all it needs to redecorate your victim’s home or office. Adapts to the structure targeted for maximum annoyance...”
Harvey snorted in disgust and turned another page.
“FOREWORD: The manuscript of this book was handed down through several generations of our family. We the publishers inherited it from our Uncle Fabian, along with instructions to print it on a given date. Only a few copies were to be made, and each to be sent to a recipient whose name has been down since before they were born. We have followed these instructions, printing the book at our own expense. The fact that you are reading this indicates either that your name was on the list, or that the original recipient willingly gave the book to you. Anyone else will find this book to be a catalogue of Wizard Wheezes available at bargain prices, only in Diagon Alley. See Appendix G for the full instructions that were enclosed with the manuscript. Do enjoy this book, and please show your appreciation for our part in bringing it to you by patronizing our establishment.”
On the next page was another advert, decorated with dancing stars and shining colors: “Weasley & Weasley present: TOOTHPAINT! Stun your friends and family with a smile in brilliant color! Or, dupe your unsuspecting mates into using a toothpaste that makes their teeth flash through all the colors of the rainbow...”
Another snort, another page.
“CONTENTS: Chapter 1, How to Walk Forward While Living Backwards. Chapter 2, Problems with Remembering the Future but Not the Past. Chapter 3, Strategies for Leaving Informative Messages for Yourself to Receive in the Future. Chapter 4, Strategies for Communicating with Those Left Behind in the Future. Chapter 5, What Items You Should and Shouldn’t Carry on a Journey Through Time. Chapter 6, A Primer of Verb Tenses for Living Backwards in Time. Chapter 7, Strategies for Introducing Yourself to People Who May or May Not Have Met You Before, While You Can Only Remember Your Future Dealings with Them. Chapter 8, Why History Doesn’t Change Just Because You’re Going the Wrong Way Through It. Chapter 9, Strategies for Handling Encounters with Other Time Travelers. Chapter 10, Historical Dangers to Avoid. Chapter 11, Challenges and Solutions in Eleventh-Century Viniculture. Chapter 12, Strategies for Pretending to Know What Is Going On. Chapter 14, What to Do in the Event that Any Part of This Book Gets Accidentally Erased. Chapter 15, Handy Places to Hide Things That You Will Need Later. Chapter 16, Handy Places to Hide Things that You Will Have Needed Earlier. Chapter 17, People You Should Not Cross, and How to Hide from Them When You Do. Chapter 18, Facts about the All-Magical Civilization from Which All Wizardkind Descends. Chapter 19, Why the Contents of Chapter 18 Should Remain Forgotten. Chapter 20, Why History Doesn’t Change Just Because You’re Going the Wrong Way Through It. Chapter 21, What to Do in the Event that Things, Including Parts of this Book, Begin to Repeat Themselves. Chapter 22, How to Revise Your Memoirs Retroactively Without Violating the Laws of Time. Chapter 23, How to Get Away with Violating the Laws of Time. Chapter 24, How to Petition for an Amendment to the Laws of Time. Chapter 25, Where to Find the Last Eight Chapters in the Event that this Book Ends After Chapter 17.”
Harvey flipped to the end of the book and saw that the last chapter was Chapter 43, titled “Which Chapters to Skip in the Event that the Table of Contents Gets Completely Messed Up.” He sighed and flipped back to the Table of Contents, then turned another page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: VANISHING CLOTHES! Great as a joke gift for siblings, romantic rivals, people you admire, and the prat of your year. After three hours of wear, items become transparent. Available in wizard robes and women’s skirts. Coming soon in men’s trousers. Sorry, no knickers...”
With a groan, Harvey turned the next page.
“Chapter 1, How to Walk Forward While Living Backwards.
“Really, there is more to this than just appearing to walk forward, when in fact you are moving backward in time. The backward life would not be worth living if you could not carry on a conversation, enjoy a piece of music, or properly digest a meal. The trick, which does not occur to one naturally and therefore requires a good deal of practice, is to move backward in time by small jumps, rather than continuous steps. This way you can experience moments that move “forward” in the normal manner, only with the moments occurring in reverse order. With care, study, and diligent application, these leaps and forward-moving bits can be increased from mere moments to minutes, hours, days, even weeks. But there are some dangers to be aware of.”
Harvey turned a page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: BACKFIRE JUICE! Slip it into your friend’s drink, and enjoy an embarrassing noise every time he raises and extends his arm. Particularly hilarious when administered to a young man on a date. Discount for fathers of teenage daughters...”
Sigh, flip.
“Here are some simple practice exercises, to help you survive the early stages of “moment by moment” backstepping. First, swallow firmly. Then, chew whatever is in your mouth. Finally, put a forkful of food in your mouth. Spit quickly so that you do not choke when repeating these three steps. It is important to remember NOT to carry the spitting bit over into your backward eating routine. Try it again: swallow, chew, then put food in your mouth. It is best, perhaps, to practice this with imaginary food for a few hours a day, before beginning to live backwards in time. Then you will be prepared to receive nourishment while skipping backward a moment at a time.
“Exercise 2. This is to help you negotiate a conversation in short, backward jumps. Bearing in mind that the beginning of the conversation, for you, is the end of the conversation for everyone else involved – and vice versa. It takes skill and alertness to avoid the appearance of knowing too much at the beginning of a conversation, and forgetting what everyone is talking about by the end. It is also important not to appear to be agreeing or disagreeing before you know what the conversation is about. So, it helps to practice the following noncommittal responses, while cultivating an air of enigmatic coolness. Memorize each of the following, and try repeating them in random order as responses at the beginning of conversations: ‘This is some weather, isn’t it?’ ‘To be sure.’ ‘I will need to give this a good deal of thought.’ ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ ‘Good heavens.’ ‘Why don’t you recap what we’ve just discussed, to make sure we’re on the same page.’ ‘Is that right? (Secretive chuckle.)’ ‘Well, that’s certainly a point of view.’ ‘Oh, dear! My watch can’t be right. What time do you have?’ (See Chapter 36 for Reasons Never to Carry a Working Timepiece While Living Backwards in Time.) ‘Interesting Times.’ ‘I suppose it goes to show what the old proverb says – you know the one I mean.’ ‘(Sudden laugh) – Merlin’s beard, but that creates a picture in one’s mind!’
“Then try to be careful only to GRADUALLY make remarks pertinent to the topic of the conversation, as you begin to understand it. Also, see Chapter 43 for a transcript of some important conversations that you will need to be prepared for as you begin to move backward in time.”
Harvey turned the page.
“Weasley & Weasley present: the ODOURIZER! Looks like perfume, smells like perfume – to the person who opens the bottle. But to everyone else, it pongs of...”
Muttered curse. Flip.
“Exercise 3. This exercise will help you train your memory to piece together a piece of music, a conversation, or the route of a journey experienced while moving backward in short time-jumps. This will help you to understand what is going on, and where you are going, without constantly being lost during the critical early days of your time-reversed lifestyle. Open the top drawer of the desk to your left, and you will find a handheld slide-viewer and a box of slides. These materials were (or will be) provided in accordance with Chapter 3’s instructions; you will understand later how they came to be there. Now, starting with the slide marked #1, view the first ten slides. Then, write a description of what you have seen and the route taken, in reverse order with respect to the sequence of slides. Then, compare your notes to the correct answer, which is written on a scroll tucked in the pigeon-hole above your desk, top row, second from the left. Repeat these steps for each set of ten slides until the box is exhausted.”
Fascinated, Harvey slid the first slide in the view-finder, looked through, and saw:
“Weasley & Weasley present: the ALL-DAY PROGRESSIVE WEDGIE KIT!”
“Confound those jokesters!” Harvey screamed, yanking the slide out of the view-finder.
+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++
To send Robbie your personal feedback or original ideas, visit the Feedback Form [EDIT: Rather, leave a Comment]. To vote in the Survey and Contest to determine what happens in the Chapter-After-Next, visit the Discussion Forum [EDIT: This discussion is closed].
SURVEY: Which of the following concepts would you prefer to see in a Magic Quill chapter: (A) Due to a Charms lesson gone awry, everyone in Tip’s year at Hogwarts ended up with the name Edward Smith. (B) Marmaduke Spankison gets in unprecedented amounts of trouble because he keeps forgetting that he can’t become invisible at will anymore. (C) Bo Dwyer interviews ghost members of the England Head Quidditch team. (D) Spanky and Joe investigate the disappearance of an entire cellarful of casks of thousand-year-old, Britannin-aged Chateau Harvey wine.
CONTEST: What does a young wizard-witch couple do on a date? (Keep it “fun for all ages,” please.)
The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #105. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!
[Originally posted 9/30/06]
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