136. Fistley Confunded

Contest winner: Dragonic

Titus Fistley lay giggling on the floor of his cubicle, surrounded by laughodil bushes. As his mirth subsided, he lifted a leaf on a nearby plant and read aloud from its underside: "Question: How many Dark Lords does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Three - one to try and do it with his best curse, and be stopped by an infant; one to try and do it by possessing a willing minion, and be stopped by an adolescent; and a third to take matters into his own hands and screw in the lightbulb . . . which then falls out and steals his wand! Ah, ha ha ha ha ha!" Tears ran down his face.

By this time of night, faces had stopped appearing in the doorway, looking in on his breathless laughter with a mixture of concern and revulsion. The wall torches had dimmed, and the hovering light-bulb plants had drifted off to some shady corner to rest. There was barely enough light left for him to read by. So when an owl flew into the cubicle and perched on the corner of his desk, Fistley did not see it. And since, at that moment, he was laughing at a series of uproarious knock-knock jokes about the Hogwarts Houses, he did not hear its wings flapping either. So he was quite startled - in truth, he screamed a bit - when the bird pecked his elbow.

Fistley took the letter proffered by the owl and squinted at the elaborate wafer seal on it. It seemed a pity to break it, but as he was too tired to charm it off, Fistley bit through it and spat out the wax over his shoulder. The moment he opened the letter, however, his moist, puffy eyes went blank. He read aloud his instructions from Lee Shore, esq., in a voice as glazed as his eyes. Then, after murmuring "We hear and obey," he chewed up the letter and swallowed it.

He moved like a sleepwalker through the vast labyrinth of the Abraculture Office, gliding effortlessly around obstructions while staring straight ahead. The olives on a seeing-eye olive tree turned to follow him as he passed. An elephant ear plant (which remembered every word ever spoken to it) perked up at the sound of his footsteps. Orchids sniffed at the hem of his robe, and some Mexican jumping beans went very still as he passed the bush on which they lived. Triffids, Devil's Snare, and Malagasy man-eating trees jerked against the stakes that held them firmly in their soil. Cattails hissed, dogwood blossoms whimpered, and a horse-chestnut tree whinnied softly.

Titus Fistley floated deeper and deeper into the maze of planters, terraria, digging tools, and sacks of fertilizer until he came to a region of barrels, hogsheads, butts, and firkins, stacked in long shelves. These contained spirits and extract distilled from the myriad herbs and fruits catalogued by the office. Here casks of cow-parsley cordial ruminated contentedly; essence of milkweed curdled as it aged; jars of buttercup ghee glowed with purity; a barrel of mead, inadvertently left open, provided the ministry's bee population (which worked to keep the plants pollinated) with an opportunity for a loud, drunken party; and in one grossly ill-judged experiment, a cask of guevara - a blend of Cuban rum and guava brandy - bubbled quietly, fermenting rebellion.

Still deeper Fistley drifted, his feet barely touching the ground. He passed, without hesitation, through the illusion of a solid, stone wall that had been charmed to feel solid to all visitors but those with a high security rating. With a single touch, he opened the door of a vault that was only supposed to admit people of Deputy Minister rank or higher. He passed numerous top-secret liquors, and vials containing the last residue of priceless and irreplaceable potions, heading directly for a dank and gloomy stairway - which he began to descend, unconcerned by the fact that it was booby-trapped to drop anyone without a special warrant from the Queen directly into a deep, dark dungeon. He flicked aside spectral signs (modeled after will-o-the-wisps) that warned about the approaching danger of hazardous substances.

In some corner of his mind he knew what was down here. Here were acids that could eat through any substance known to man; since only a substance unknown to man could hold them, it was imperative that no one ever visit them and find out what it was. There were sneezing powders that could make a man's head explode; lotions that could make a woman so repulsive that the sight of her was fatal; a salve that, if poured into one's eyes, would result in maddening visions; a flatulence cure that had been recalled after turning several users into human weather balloons; and a vaccine against deception, which had the side effect of destroying a person's imagination. There was even a balm for unhappiness there, but no one remembered what disastrous results it caused; it had always been considered too horrible to discuss. But at the very back of the cellar were a number of bricked-in vaults. The next-to-last one - beside a vault filled with clumsy masonry and decorated with the graffito "Fortunato wuz heer" - was guarded by a last will-o-the-wisp warning sign: "DANGER: NAPPLE CIDER - HIGHLY TOXIC."

Fistley touched the brick wall with one finger, and it collapsed in a pile of dust around his feet. Within the vault was a stack of firkins - 70 imperial gallons, each - covered in a coating of dust. He coughed slightly, and for a moment almost emerged from his trance, if the brief look of confusion in his eyes could be taken so far. But his eyes glazed over again, and he pointed an ink-stained finger at the nearest barrel. It lifted itself off its shelf and levitated out of the vault, following its mesmerized master up out of the cellar and back through all the stacks and storehouses of the Abraculture office.

All was still and dim when he arrived in the hooper's shop. The jumping juniper cask was easy to discover by the way it incessantly rolled from side to side. Fistley gave a flick of his wrist, and the bung flew out of the napple cider barrel. A funnel levitated over the hole in the waiting juniper cask, which trembled but otherwise held still while it was being filled. The latter was only a hogshead, somewhat over fifty gallons' capacity; so not all of the contents of the firkin went into it. When the hogshead was full, Fistley stoppered it, and vanished the firkin with its remaining contents.

The jumping juniper barrel was soon rocking back and forth on the bed of a levitating, zero-wheeled cart, which he effortlessly towed to an enormous, freight-sized fireplace. A fistful of Floo Powder ignited green flames in the hearth, and Fistley guided the cart and the hogshead into them . . . and then out of a similar fireplace in a cavern bustling with heavily laden goblins.

"State your business, please," growled a particularly hideous specimen with a squashed nose.

"Take this to Vault 1036," Fistley said blankly.

"Very well," said the goblin, after consulting a clipboard. "Have a pleasant day. Now shove off."

As soon as Fistley had shoved off (taking the cart with him), the squashed-nose goblin screeched at a goblin with cauliflower ears. Cauliflower Ears rolled the hogshead barrel to a nearby rail platform and, with the help of two other goblins and an enormous prybar, managed to wedge it into a large ore cart. The three goblins - Cauliflower Ears, Wrong-Way Elbows, and Braided Eyebrows - steered the cart to Vault 1036, where they deposited the barrel.

As soon as the vault door slammed, a sack of money in the corner lifted, then fell aside, proving not to be a sack at all, but an artfully designed wizard's robe. A wizard stood up in it, looking so like Thierry Henry that it could have been no one but Joe Albuquerque. From the shadow behind him emerged a stiff and groaning Sadie, still in her veil and black leotard.

"There's the delivery we expected," Joe said grimly, pacing around the enormous barrel, which even now was rocking from side to side, stirring its contents.

"I wonder what's in it," Sadie yawned.

"Whatever it is," said Joe, "she won't be long in coming to get it. Then, perhaps, I will believe" - his voice faltered - "believe Bette Noir is alive."

Sadie touched Joe's arm gently. "You never expected that you would see her again," she whispered.

Joe's face, or rather Thierry's, darkened. "Neither," he murmured, "does she."

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++

Help decide the shape of The Magic Quill's plot line! All you have to do is visit the forum and leave a brief comment with your answers to this week's survey and challenge. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: From page 2 of the record-shattering discussion on TMQ #133, which of the following idea(s) would you like to see in Chapter 138? (Please, vote for only 2 or 3 ideas at most!).

• A: Harvey meets Yevrah, his evil double from a backwards, bizarro-universe.
• B: Yldemhs (Bizarro-Shmedly) visits our universe.
• C: Gratefruits are used to counteract napple toxin. (Note: Someone please remind me what previous chapter they were in!).
• D: Rashrooms (mushrooms that make you feel reckless).
• E: Beet-ems (vegetables that beat anyone who trys to eat/touch them).
• F: Leekys (Leeks that give the eater an irresitable urge to go to The Leaky Cauldron).
• G: Feral Root/Kennel Root (Fenel roots that make the eater wild).
• H: Slow-Dates (Dates that when consumed, make everything seem slower).
• I: We meet the original Merlin as a child, only beginning his long career of living backward through time.
  J: Shout-kraut (a screaming cabbage).
• K: Wrestle Sprouts / Rassle Sprouts (help me with this one).
• L: Self-pitting olives.
• M: Self-spitting (self-seeding) watermelons.
• N: Collared greens (veggies that help you arrest someone).
• O: Plants growing out of control due to an out-of-control acceleration spell.

CONTEST: Name a well-known figure that you would enjoy seeing a disguised wizard impersonate. Again, if you can't stop at just one, please limit yourself to 2 or 3 suggestions!

[Originally posted 5/4/08]

135. The Spy Who Jinxed Me

Concepts contributed by Dragonic, greyniffler and Linda Carrig

The house-elf looked in at the bathroom door and uttered the filthiest oath it knew - which translates into English as "Socks!" The steady drip of water from the pipe that ran along the ceiling was falling on the floor that the elf had mopped not half an hour ago, while the bucket that he had placed under the drip stood bone-dry, eight inches away from where the drops were falling. The creature grumbled as he mopped up the puddle and repositioned the bucket so that each drop fell in its center: TINK . . . TINK . . . TINK. Then it went about its previous errand of picking bits of ash and dust off the priceless Persian rug in Master's study, which had to be done by hand, speck by speck.

The house-elf grumbled about this, too. He liked to grumble, actually. He grumbled about the absurdity of Master's explanation of why Carpet had to be picked rather than swept - something about the sweeper causing wear and tear on the rug's ancient, delicate fibers - when it was manifestly obvious that Carpet was of the flying variety. Anyone could tell this by the way it kept wrinkling in the middle or curling on the edge, at just the right time and place to trip a body up. And the way Master anchored it down with heavy objects, like the ornate marble lampstand, and the enormous alabaster vase - formerly a spittoon, now home to a flourishing umbrella tree that already sported an unripe crop of walking sticks. And yet, these things often moved from one place to another when no one was in the room; and on one memorable occasion, the wing chair on the corner of the rug nearest the window had fallen into the hearth and started to burn, all by itself. The elf nodded and grumbled with satisfaction as it crawled around, picking barely visible specks out of the rug. Carpet was alive enough - and Master's spell barely kept it asleep. Running a sweeper over it would probably tickle it awake. Then, no doubt, one would see more exciting disturbances than a singed chair or a crop of walking sticks rattling in the tree where there was no wind whatsoever.

When the rug was finished, and all the fibers had been smoothed down from north to south, the house-elf walked out of the study in search of its next job: straining fish droppings out of the aquarium, which were then to be spread with exquisite care over the . . . "Braces and garters!" cursed the house-elf, spotting the puddle on the bathroom floor as it hurried past. Once again, the bucket was nearly dry, this time over a foot away from where the water was falling. Why would someone move it? The house-elf's grumble turned into a snarl as it scrubbed the tile dry and put the bucket where it belonged.

This done, the snarling house-elf cleaned the fish tank and spread its dreck in a thin, consistent layer over the roots of Mistress's favorite plants in the garden. Nearest the house was the barnacle tree, whose barnacle-like fruit opened in late summer to reveal a newly hatched gosling. Below that, along the gazebo path, was Mistress's raskovnik patch, a type of grass whose blades could open anything closed or locked, and which treasure-hunters had all but picked to extinction. Close to the wall at the bottom of the garden lived a flowering fern whose blossom opened one night each year and brought good luck to whoever picked it. And finally, wiping the fish dreck off his hands, the house-elf passed through the postern gate and spent a good hour combing the fleeces of a grove of borometz plants as they baaed and grazed and swayed on their stems.

His snarling subsided to a grumbling as the house-elf circled round the side wall of the garden to the kennel, where it let out the simurgh for its three-times-a-day exercise. The creature barked and chased its tail gaily, getting the lead tangled up with the elf's legs, before launching itself into the air on powerful wings and flying up and down the length of the garden, snapping at birds in flight and marking each chimney it passed. The house-elf sighed at this, but as this was rather an improvement on grumbling, one might suppose the simurgh's behavior cheered him up. Fortunately, he had a very long lead on the beast, so he was eventually able to reel it in and take it indoors for its bath.

He rolled his eyes as they entered the bathroom. Once again, the leaky pipe was dripping on the floor. This time, however, there was no need to wonder who would move the bucket out from under the leak. It was the leak that had moved, half a yard closer to the toilet since the elf had last gone by.

There was no point in clearing it up now. With strength belying his small size, the house-elf engaged the simurgh in a heroic struggle and, at last, succeeded in wrestling the great winged dog into the bath. The simurgh dripped miserably, its rejoicing considerably dampened, as the elf shampooed it, combed it for fleas, toweled it dry, and brushed it all over. Then, with a furtive look over his shoulder, the house-elf banished the simurgh to its kennel with a snap of his fingers, a loud POP, and an abruptly silenced yelp of surprise. This left another mess for the house-elf to clean, and for once he forgot to mutter as he mopped up spilled bubble-bath, feathers, and dog hair.

An hour later, the house-elf lay face-up along the top rung of a tall stepladder, trying to find the leak in the ceiling pipe and fix it. He loosened connections - got squirted in the face - tightened connections - hammered - screwed and unscrewed the brackets that held the pipe up - caulked - tried everything he knew how. The leak only seemed to drip when he wasn't looking for it. He gave up, lined the floor with buckets from one end to the other, and went off to cook supper.

As soon as the house-elf left the bathroom, a tiny voice said something like, "Whew! I thought we'd had it back there!" It was very muffled, so one can't be quite sure. The pipe on the ceiling began to rattle, shake, and bang around in its brackets. Condensation flew in all directions. Water squirted out of every joint. Something inside the pipe made a slow, laborious progress toward the ell above the toilet tank. Then it rattled around the ell with even more violence. Finally the water in the toilet tank gave a "plop" - something in the water gave a fishy cough - someone in the tank said, "Thanks for the ride" - and the porcelain lid over the tank began to lift slowly off.

A pair of eyes peered out through the gap under the lid. No one was around. The lid rose higher, and beneath it rose the head and torso of a young woman wearing a wetsuit. A demure veil covered her entire face below her eyes. Her eyes, however, were anything but demure.

Slowly and silently, the catfish burglar climbed out of the toilet tank, unconcerned by the fact that she couldn't possibly fit inside it. She unzipped her sweatsuit, tossed it back into the toilet tank, and replaced the lid over it. Under the wet suit, she had worn a black, form-hugging leotard that looked virtually identical to the wetsuit. The form it hugged was firm yet feminine. She moved gracefully, silently, with an alert, listening look in her eyes. Before she reached the door, she knew there was no one in the corridor outside; so she darted directly into the nearby study and began a methodical search of the desk.

Her ears perked up: voices approaching. Seconds later, a barrel-chested man with a bushy beard swept in with a younger, leaner woman on his arm. From her perch in the walking-stick tree, concealed by her leotard that had taken on the same pattern of colors and shadows as the branches around her, the burglar recognized the woman and almost gasped.

"But my dear niece," said Bushy Beard, "I still do not understand - why the urgency? You were going to inherit it from me by and by. Rather soon, I should think."

"You know I would never ask this but in the direst emergency," the woman replied. "Please, Uncle Radu, do not ask me to explain what need this is. All you must know is that it exists."

Radu shook his head. "But you, Ilona? Even you would use this?"

"It will work if you give it to me freely," said Ilona. "I do not need to wait for the inheritance."

"That is not what I mean. Can anything be so urgent? I ask you. You, who entrusted it to me with the strongest warning that it was never to be used!"

The younger woman started to reply, hesitated, and cast her eyes downward in shame.

For some reason, this was all the persuasion Uncle Radu needed. He opened the humidor on the bookcase behind his desk and pulled out a slender cigar. Peeling the label off, he revealed a silver ring that he now removed and handed to Ilona. Then he bit the end off the cigar, snapped his fingers, and used the flame on the tip of his thumb to light the cigar, puffing firmly.

"It is yours from now on," the old man said. "I am too old and weak to shoulder such a responsibility. I hope - I hope you will consider any other way to do the thing that you must do. This artifact tries you, tests you always. Once it finds your weakness, it will push there, harder and harder. I fear that once you start using it . . . "

"Everything will be fine," said Ilona. She kissed her uncle three times. "Thank you, Uncle."

Sadie waited until they had left, then had a fit of coughing that rattled the walking sticks in her tree. Before the house-elf could come in and investigate the disturbance, she had climbed out the window above the desk. Climbing down the smooth wall of the house, swimming across the inky, icy moat, and scaling the slimy wall that surrounded the moat were no problem for the catfish burglar; but after jogging four kilometres over uneven terrain in the darkness of an overcast night, she had a twisted ankle and a stitch in her side, and she almost missed the camp. Spanky caught her just in time to keep her from plunging off a cliff into the swift river.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

"I got there too late," Sadie reported miserably.

Spanky looked stunned. "What happened?"

She was about to tell him when Ilona came out of the tent, carrying a cup of chocolate and a plate of biscuits. Ilona faltered at the sight of the hatred in Sadie's eyes.

"Well?" cried Spanky.

"She got out of there fast, didn't she?" Sadie said acidly.

"Who got out of where?" Spanky said, looking from one woman to the other in befuddlement. "What are you talking about? Ilona and I have been right here ever since you left."

"Then there must be two of her," Sadie said, plunging through the tent door and jogging Ilona's elbow into the bargain. "And the other her has the ring," her receding voice added, before a slamming door (in the two-bedrom bungalow inside the tent) cut off any further conversation.

Ilona gave a cry of dismay and spilled the chocolate on the ground. "What can she mean? How would I...? I mean, even if I could, why would I...?"

Spanky gathered his wife under his arm and ushered her inside. "Nevermind," he said. "It's all coming together now. We know only one person who could pull off a caper like this: Joe Albuquerque. Only, he wouldn't. But I would be surprised if dear Joe didn't know someone else who could. Where did you stow that floo powder, dear?"

Meanwhile, camped just across the river and a few dozen yards upstream, another Ilona Spankison relaxed into a chair and began to peel her face off. A new face emerged from beneath the old one - a face whose owner Joe Albuquerque didn't know existed. Which was too bad, really, considering that they had more than talent in common. The slender, smooth-faced young man admired the signet ring on his finger with a bitter smile. He didn't spend much time admiring it, though. He had work to do.

Dear Mr. Fistley, he wrote, Please have a barrell of suiCider transferred into jumping juniper casks, to ensure the potion is continuously stirred, and delivered to Gringotts Vault 1036. Mention my name at the front door, and the goblins will take the casks from there. Then forget all about this matter. Destroy this letter immediately. Cordially, Lee Shore, esq.

The young man grinned as he dripped a wafer of sealing wax on the letter and embossed with the signet ring, knowing that even if the letter went astray, he could not be touched. His real name, after all, was not Lee Shore.

It was Chat Noir.

+++ A NOTE FROM ROBBIE +++

Perplexed? All right. Go back and look at The Magic Quill chapters titled "Titus Fistley," "Madrigal Unchained," "The Catfish Burglar," and even farther back to "The Bette Noir Affair" and "Meet Joe Albuquerque." Don't despair at not remembering all this. I wouldn't remember it either, if greyniffler and Linda hadn't brought it all up in the discussion on TMQ #133. It took me a while - yes, me! - to track down the details of the chapters they were referring to. So if I can do it, so can you!

In the meantime, enjoy this DOUBLE CHALLENGE, by which you can help determine the shape of TMQ Chapter 137...

SURVEY: Which previous Magic Quill villain is Chat Noir working for? (A) Minimillian. (B) Il Comte di Bestemmia. (C) Avarice Exion. (D) Bette Noir. (E) Uncle or Auntie Leslie. HINT: Don't worry if they're supposed to be dead.

CONTEST: Supposing that some wizards share the same religious practices as many Muggles, name and describe a particular sin, saint, miracle, or shrine that is especially significant to churchgoing wizards.

[Originally posted 4/20/08]

133. Titus Fistley

Contest winner: Dragonic
Runner-up: greyniffler

Miles O'Roughage sat with the briefcase on his knees on an incredibly hard chair, jammed into a corner between a potted palm-oil palm and a frosted glass door with the words DEPARTMENT OF ABRACULTURE: PATENT OFFICE stenciled on the other side of the glass. Every time someone opened the door, the glass banged Miles' knee painfully, without being damaged itself. The palm-oil palm kept nudging his arm until he dug a sickle and a few knuts out of his pocket and dropped them on its roots; afterward the sound of the palm's roots counting and burying its hoard was enough to drown out the coughing of a sickly, yodeling flytrap in a hanging planter on the other side of the door.

The herbologist sighed, reflecting that magic could sometimes be tiresome. Here he sat in the most uncomfortable chair in a waiting room where he had spent a net two years of his life (though not all at once), steadfastly ignoring a dispute between two other wizards who were both trying to patent the same herb -- either as wurtha-mint (sachets of whose leaves were meant to lend a wizarding home the smell of fresh money) or as catburglarnip (guaranteed to keep thieves docile until help arrived). Not for the first time, he wondered whether he might not have been happier tending an apple orchard or a rose garden, instead of advancing the world's knowledge of magical plants.

Finally the door at the far end of the office opened by itself, and the flytrap yodeled: "NEXT!" before subsiding into another fit of coughing. Dr. O'Roughage plunged through the dark doorway before the arguing wizards could settle on which of them should go first.

As he crossed the threshold, he immediately found himself well inside an enormous, open-plan office. The central area was crammed with cubicles separated by vine-choked trellises; potted trees moved up and down the aisles, pushed by trainer-wearing roots that arched over the rims of their pots, and gathering in rustling groups around watercoolers filled with Miracle-Gro (the wizard recipe, not the Muggle kind whose name is but wishful thinking). Surrounding this area, shelves loaded with seedling trays, glass planters filled with transparent soil, and preserv-o-vac specimen jars marched off into the gray distance in every direction.

The air above the cubicles was filled with one of Miles O'Roughage's proudest inventions: a cross between a paper-waterbomb bush and a hydrolysis hydrangea, which bore dirigiblefruit year round -- hollow sacs filled with lighter-than-air hydrogen so that the plants hovered over everyone's heads. Treated with puncture-proof and fireproof spells, the dirigiblefruit plants also had incandescent tulip bulbs attached to the bottom of their planters by permanent sticking charms, providing ample light for all, and (Miles shivered with pride) all of it through the arts of thaumatobotany.

A throat cleared itself nearby. Miles looked round and found that, as usual, he had been transported instantly to the first available cubicle...and, as too often in the past, that cubicle belonged to a thin-lipped, baggy eyed, pockmarked wizard of middle years, an ample middle, a less than ample comb-over, and a chatwood-veneer name tag that, both in writing and aloud, proclaimed the unwelcome tidings: "Hello! My mame is TITUS FISTLEY, your friendly abracultural patent counselor."

"You again, is it?" Fistley sneered, echoing Dr. O'Roughage's thoughts word-for-word. "Didn't I reject your last application?"

"I still don't understand that," O'Roughage said bitterly as he moved into the cubicle. "I had filled out all the forms correctly, and tied the bundle in the exact shade of red-tape you have always required in the past."

"To be sure," Fistley said with a look of nostalgic satisfaction. "But the knot had twelve corners, whereas I require no more or less than eleven. Also, one end of the tape was one-tenth of a millimeter longer than the other. With the volume of work that goes through this office each day, we have no time to waste on people who aren't sufficiently motivated to observe the forms and conventions. Well? Have you anything new to show me, or is this a social visit?"

While Dr. O'Roughage counted backwards from twenty to settle his temper, someone in a nearby cubicle had a sudden fit of laughter. Fistley looked irritated. His visitor, however, took courage from this sign -- particularly when several other voices joined in the laughter from several directions and distances.

"I was requested," O'Roughage said calmly, "to bring another specimen of my Laughodil, to allow for further study of its interesting properties."

Fistley's face darkened. "I should have known you were behind this," he growled, as another voice nearby gave way to laughter like a pig's snorting. Even a passing tree rustled its branches as if chuckling.

"I take it you haven't examined the plant yourself," O'Roughage said, unlocking the clasps on his briefcase with a wave of his hand. He pulled the lid up, reached down into it until his elbow appeared to be passing through the top of Fistley's desk, and emerged again with a small shrub in a cube-shaped stone pot. The leaves were a glossy, dark green on top, but had a parchmentlike texture beneath. "All you have to do is lift one of the branches," the inventor proudly explained, "and read the words that appear on the underside of the leaf. Every leaf has a different joke."

"Sophomoric humor," Fistley said sourly, "to judge by the sort of punchlines I hear repeated around the coffeepot. Hardly the sort of joke I find funny, usually."

O'Roughage shrugged. "And yet everyone who reads one appreciates the joke, somehow."

"That's a concern," said Fistley, looking suddenly happier in a way that made Miles uneasy. "They go on laughing about the joke all day, too. It's like some sort of intoxication. Suppose there is an oil-soluble toxin in the leaves, something that rubs off on your fingers when you handle the plant, and makes you susceptible to..."

"I have ruled that out," snapped O'Roughage. "It's all in the paperwork. The plant simply knows how to tell a good joke."

"That's preposterous."

"That," O'Roughage said smugly, "is magic."

Disgruntled, Fistley reached toward one of the branches of the Laughodil...but before his fingers touched a leaf, the trellised walls of the cubicle shook with the report of a sudden Apparition. Both men gaped up at the wizard who now stood at the end of the desk, wand drawn. Dr. O'Roughage thought he looked vaguely familiar.

"You must come," said the wizard, beckoning toward Dr. O'Roughage.

"Come where?" said O'Roughage. "What is going on?"

"The Drains. Harvey's flat. You are needed at once." "To do what?" O'Roughage squinted at the intruder, trying to place the slight accent in his speech. "Do I know you?"

"I am Slavik," said Slavik. "Friend of Merlin, friend of Sadie, friend of yours."

"Ah," said Miles O'Roughage. "That makes us friends, three times removed."

Slavik raised one finger, as he often did when motioning Durmstrang students to be quiet and listen. "We are all friends of Harvey. And you are needed to help prevent the end of the world."

"Pish," Fistley said, in a remarkable show of courage for a man so seized by shock that he had lost control of his bladder. Taking a deep breath, he added: "You do not have an appointment. Please remove yourself."

"All right, I'll go," said O'Roughage. Leaving his plant and his briefcase, he stood up and grabbed Slavik's elbow. When the two of them Disapparated, the report caused Fistley to let go of his bowel as well.

Wiping his shiny face with a shaking hand, Titus Fistley took a moment to catch his breath. Since Dr. O'Roughage hadn't walked out of the cubicle, the office door didn't immediately summon another applicant; so Fistley took advantage of his first moment of leisure in a long, stressful day, to reflect on his shortcomings as a coward, a Squib, and a bureaucrat of phenomenal pettiness. He seldom allowed himself the luxury of despising himself, so he wasn't much used to it; therefore, naturally, he didn't like it. So, tentatively, Fistley reached again toward the Laughodil...read the bottom of a leaf...giggled softly...and then burst into tears.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE! +++

SURVEY and CONTEST rolled into one: Who will they find in control of Harvey's flat? (A) A completely new villain: _____ (name and describe). (B) A previously seen villain from The Magic Quill: _____. (C) Someone we thought was a good guy, but who has crossed over to the dark side: ______. [EDIT: This discussion is closed.]

[Originally posted 2/17/08]