127. Oldmanson and Son

Contest winner: zanaboo

The old man attracted remarkably few stares as he pedaled his bicycle around three sides of the village green, up the high street and out among the fields at the edge of town. Perhaps the reason for this apparent lack of interest was embarrassment. No one likes to be caught gaping, even at a man who chooses to ride a stationary exercise bike down the street.

Puffing only slightly (since the rear legs of the exercise machine were supported by a levitation spell), the old man turned directly into a seemingly solid hedge...and drove through it as if it wasn't there. On the other side he halted in a cobble-stoned courtyard half-filled with an assortment of hovering brooms, flying carpets, Abraxan horses, and jalopies fitted with holes in the roofs to accommodate pointy hats. The old man rolled his eyes at the sight of the sprawling building ahead. In meter-high letters of Gubraithian fire it heralded itself as VOLDMART. Beneath this, a free-swearing sign painter dangled from a rope that ended in thin air ten feet above his head. He seemed to be trying to replace the slogan "WE SPELL FOR LESLIE" with one that read: "FEWER CURSES. MORE DAMAGE." By the sound of banging paint pots, splattering liquid, and yells of dismay, the old man deduced the original sign was resisting being replaced. He sighed.

Orion Oldmanson found his son Rigel in the pet department, arguing with a hooded, cloaked sales associate who gave off an aggressively rancid odor.

"What is this all about?" he asked wearily as Rigel stamped his foot. The boy whirled to face him, causing his father to wince. His latest phase was one of the most difficult for his father to cope with: his face was painted like that of a clown, one of the Italian clown wizards, in fact. The tall purple wig made it so much worse.

"I'm not clowning around," Rigel said fiercely. "I want a refund for this cauldron scraper. This git sold it to me under false pretenses!"

The boy held up a charcoal-gray rat with oddly stiff-looking fur.

"Ah! The grimp," said the old man. "Surely, if you meant to buy a cauldron scraper, you could..."

"I meant to buy a beast that spits jewels," Rigel raged. "But this swindler got to me before the newest edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Look what it says here!"

Rigel pulled a large book out of his pocket locker and shoved it into his father's hands. Then he waved his hand and the book opened to a page with a picture of a rat nearly identical to the one in Rigel's other hand. The text below the picture said:

GRIMP
M.O.M. Classification XX

The Grimp looks remarkably like a common rat, except that instead of having fur, its skin is thickly covered in small, grayish-brown diamond crystals. These crystals form a highly protective shield for frightened grimps, which curl up in a ball like hedgehogs and armadillos when threatened. Although the diamonds that make up their coats are far from gem quality, some wizards keep grimps because they're quite useful as knife sharpeners, sandpaper, scrub brushes, etc.

The only food grimps are known to eat is coal, which they magically transform into their diamond coat. They are found wherever coal deposits naturally occur, and also wherever humans store coal for heat or electricity generation. Since grimps are nocturnal and quite dark in color, Muggles always mistake them either for lumps of coal or for common rats.

Over the past several centuries, a handful of wizards have claimed their pet grimp coughed up a large gem-quality diamond with various magical properties. None of these claims has ever been verified, and, although many have tried, no wizard has ever succeeded in charming a grimp into producing such a gem.

"Sounds like an open question to me," said the boy's father. "It might spit jewels, and again it might not."

"I made no guarantees," the saleswizard said with a puff of rotten-smelling air.

Rigel fumed as his father marched him out of the store. "What's the big hurry?" he demanded. "Another minute and I would have had a refund."

"Why would you want to get rid of a cauldron scraper?" said Orion. "Your potions cupboard is a mess. Cauldron gets any filthier and there's no telling what you'll cook up."

"You used to say the same thing whether my cauldron was clean or not," Rigel pouted as he hopped onto the handlebars of his father's non-stationary bicycle. "And you haven't answered my question."

"You ran out this morning without reading the owl post," said the old man. "We're to have a caller in a few minutes. Someone you would hate to miss."

"My Dad, is it?" said Rigel.

Orion didn't dignify that cut with a response. Tight-lipped, breathing loudly through flared nostrils, he pedaled his one-wheeled, one-legged contraption back across the village and down the road toward the manor.

As soon as the front door closed behind them, a squad of goblins armed with barbed clubs surrounded him. They seemed to have been waiting behind every tapestry in the entry hall. Man and boy stood still, hands raised, as long-clawed fingers dug their wands out of their pockets.

"Well done, Mashsqueak!" cried the goblin with the sharpest nose, addressing Orion Oldmanson.

Rigel turned his head slowly to glare at his father. "What did he..."

The words died on his lips when the old man popped like a balloon. Exactly like a balloon, in fact, right down to the tattered pieces of elastic cloth that littered the ground. Rigel staggered backward, gaping.

"That was a close one," said the goblin who emerged from the tatters, pulling thin ribbons off his hands and face. "I thought he had made me on the ride home, when he said I wasn't his Dad. If he had tried to get away then, I wouldn't have been able to catch him without shedding blood." The goblin leered, flexing his fingers with their unusually long claws.

"What was that?" Rigel gasped, nudging one of the shreds of the burst gasbag that had convincingly impersonated his father. "And where do you get things like it?"

"Comes out of shock quickly, that one," remarked the head goblin (or rather the nose one).

"He has profit on the brain," said a squat goblin with the biggest ears Rigel had ever seen. "Clearly the one we're looking for."

Rigel inched toward a concealed door in the nearby, paneled wall. "Why were you looking for me?" he asked innocently.

"To correct a fault in our security arrangements," said the nose goblin. It was the last thing Rigel heard before someone tripped him from behind, pulled a sack over his head, and hit him on the head. The last thing he felt was a twinge of pain as the frightened grimp in his pocket tried to dig its claws into his skin. The last of his senses to let go was smell...the same rotten smell he had recently whiffed off someone's breath...but before he could remember whose, Rigel blacked out.

+++ DOUBLE CHALLENGE +++

To help choose the direction of the next few chapters of The Magic Quill, visit the Discussion Forum, or send Robbie feedback. The survey answer with the most votes, and the contest entry (or entries) Robbie likes best, will be featured in the chapter after next. [EDIT: This discussion is now closed.]

SURVEY: Do the goblins take Rigel back to Gringotts?

CONTEST: Name and describe a spell that can easily backfire on the wizard or witch who casts it.

[Originally posted 12/4/07]

101. Eulogy for a Dark Wizard

Concept contributed by: Kat

All of us at Vold-Mart are devastated by the tragic loss of our Co-founder, Chief Operational Witch (or Wizard) and Sorcerer (or Sorceress) of Opportunity Development, Leslie Marion McInermaphrodite -- affectionately known to many as Uncle or Auntie Leslie. Driven by a disturbingly pure spirit of entrepreneurship, ruthless to the last, uncompromising in his or her love of blood purity and commitment to offering the tools of Dark wizardry at unbeatably low prices, Uncle or Auntie Leslie more than any other individual was responsible for the early success of Vold-Mart.

For these contributions, he or she was awarded the Order of the Green Serpent by the Dark Lord soon after his return. Leslie was also active in a variety of volunteer organizations, including (but not limited to) the Exterminate the Hungry Foundation, the Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to Magical Creatures, Spellbondage International, Fiends Helping Fiends, the Acid Rainbow Coaltion, the Down With People Exchange Programs for Overprivileged Brats, Cannibals for Understanding, Siblings of the Parents of Obnoxious Offspring in Favor of Underage Drunken Broom Flying, the Fund for the Furtherance of Government Corruption and the World Domination Stamp Club.

As busy as Uncle or Auntie Leslie was with all of these duties, he or she did not have time to develop many close relationships. Or at least, if he or she did have such relationships, the other people involved have vanished. After so many disappearances in Leslie’s inner circle, it may not be surprising that I am the only surviving person for whom the phrase “Uncle or Auntie Leslie” was more than a nickname. You see, Leslie was actually my uncle or aunt. In fact, I was the inspiration behind the founding of Siblings of the Parents of Obnoxious Offspring. And although my Aunt or Uncle tried to do me in several times, in what I like to think of as an affectionate way, it is to Leslie that I owe my success today.

When my dear, dyslexic mother mentioned that she thought Elocution Lessons would be good for me, it was Uncle or Auntie Leslie who made sure that my mother saw an advert for Electrocution Lessons. She signed me up at once, thereby starting my career in torture and interrogation at a receptive, young age. The following summer, when Poise was on my mother’s mind, Leslie managed me into a course on Poison. When Mum thought I was learning to arrange a table setting, I was actually practicing Vivisection. And no school of ballet could ever have taught me to be as agile as Madame Bastinado’s Bullet Academy, where we learned to evade moving projectiles such as poisoned darts, harpoons and cannon fire. I remember the exams -- diplomas were awarded to the survivors.

By the time I reached adulthood, I had acquired a world of culture -- and the ability to instantly locate the crucial nerve-ending in a person’s body and exploit it to its maximum potential. Uncle or Auntie Leslie helped me to achieve that, and in return, I helped him or her to become rich and powerful. I was even able to contribute to Leslie’s proudest achievement: the Unforgivable Curse Howlers, delivering death, torment and enslavement by owl post. He or she did not live to see the release of the completed product line, but I can now positively say that the new Howlers will be on the shelves at Vold-Mart by the dark of the moon.

As a person, Uncle or Auntie Leslie was full of enigmas and contradictions. Many people thought that Leslie hated beautiful flowers, but I found that he or she loved the feel of flowers being crushed underfoot. Leslie was also rumored to hate children, but in fact he or she loved them -- primarily as food. For this reason, another rumor had it that he or she was a vampire, but Uncle or Auntie Leslie despised vampires. In fact, he or she deliberately put itching powder in the sunblock lotion that Vold-Mart manufactured for the vampires -- in spite of which, that sunblock remains one of our best selling items.

Leslie loved music and had a beautiful Countertenor (or perhaps Contralto) voice. He or she even took part in the Hogsmeade Oratorio Society at one time, but was asked to leave after repeatedly having laughing fits at the climax of John Dee’s The Damnation of Slytherin. Most surprising of all, Uncle or Auntie Leslie made frequent donations to a variety of religious organizations; generally with the words “for armament and defense” written in the Memo line.

The shock of Uncle or Auntie Leslie’s passing is made more profound by the knowledge that his or her death could have been prevented. As we now know, it was the Reversus spell that did him or her in. Some fool in Research and Development convinced Leslie that Reversus would cause his or her opponents’ spells to backfire on them. Duels with uppity subordinates, such as my late, unlamented siblings and cousins, were a regular part of Leslie’s trademark management style. When the charwitch provoked Leslie by vanishing his or her pet black widow, Leslie tried the Reversus spell and did not realize that it would in fact cause his or her own spells to rebound. Sadly, though this effect could have been reversed by casting another Reversus spell, Leslie moved directly to the Killing Curse without testing the first spell’s results.

And the rest is history. Or rather, Leslie was history, and he or she is now at rest in this Plus-Sized Funeral Urn. With that, let us observe a moment of silence.... All right, that’s long enough. By the way, I ought to mention that this memorial service shall be stopped out of your pay. So get back to work, the lot of you!

Submitted to The Quibbler by an anonymous source at Vold-Mart.

+++ 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: True or False: Today’s witches and wizards are all descended from an all-magical civilization that existed long ago, before they spread out and got mixed up with Muggles.

CONTEST: Describe a joke item that might be found at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (not including items that have been mentioned in JKR’s books).

The Survey answer that gets the most votes, and the Contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #103. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread -- and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!

[Originally posted 9/7/06]

85. Head Quidditch

Contest Winner: voldymortus

The waiting room at St. Mungo’s allowed coffee, and a bottle concealed in the vicar’s cassock made the coffee Irish, and so a convivial atmosphere prevailed while Spanky and Harvey delivered the somber news about Merlin’s condition. When the speakers reached the point in their tale where Rigel arrived at the patient’s bedside, they faltered with a nervous look toward Orion Oldmanson, who was the first to finish his coffee.

Vicar Joe Albuquerque poured him another and said, in the benignly knowing way suited to his appearance, “I would guess that raising Rigel for the second time must be easier than the first time. To be sure, he knows all your tricks; but so do you know his.”

Orion chuckled affectionately, yet not altogether happily. “The day that I know all of that lad’s tricks will be the day muggles learn to do magic. And it isn’t as if he has to learn them all over again. He has better than thirty-five years of experience at making mischief and avoiding the consequences, all packed into that eleven-year-old brain. He could be more dangerous now than ever before, because no one would suspect a child his age of having the skills and ideas he has.”

“I’ve only looked at him that once,” Sadie shuddered, “and I wouldn’t put anything beyond him.”

“The only help, this time around, is the fact that all his old cronies got captured or killed while he was in Gringotts, and they wouldn’t care for him if they knew he was alive and free. Which, until the lad’s book came out, they didn’t know. None of them could have suspected that the young man who had vanished from their midst, all those years ago, is now a little boy.”

“So the book puts Rigel in danger,” Harvey observed, with a shrewd look.

“It advertises his presence,” old man Oldmanson agreed. “Which could endanger his life, yes. Or it could endanger him in another way.”

“It could get him back in with those Vold-Mart people,” Endora whispered. “He could join the Dark side again.”

“My guess is that he never left the Dark side,” Spanky said grimly.

“You must undertand,” said Oldmanson. “Rigel isn’t really wicked. But he craves adventure, and danger, and thrills. He likes loud noises and fast brooms, and he enjoys shocking people. But above all, he likes to possess things – precious things, powerful things, important things. Even to hold them for a moment, even merely to scheme to get them, is enough to make him happy...”

Joe topped off Oldmanson’s mug once again, with an understanding look.

Endora sighed and shook her head. “But certainly,” she said, “you must have had some good times with your son.”

“No doubt,” said Oldmanson, between steaming sips. “But the best fun we had together was when he didn’t realize that I was there. Perhaps I should begin by saying that, every year that I was married to Rigel’s mother, the quality of my Disillusionment Charm grew. Then she...er...left us, when Rigel was very little; but every year with him improved my Disillusionment skills even more. So by the time, say, when Rigel invented Head Quidditch –"

“Hang on!” Sadie cried. “He never invented that! Only, I’ve had a flutter on every World Cup game for the last...”

“Twenty years,” Oldmanson agreed. “They don’t go back farther than that. And though you probably lost money on some of those games, Rigel earns a fortune at every one – royalties. And I’m not just talking about ghost money; some of those ghosts still have vaults at Gringotts, and they have very little trouble persuading their heirs or trustees to transfer a few galleons into Rigel’s vault whenever they play Head Quidditch. The boy doesn’t know it, but he’s worth more than I am.”

Joe blinked, amazed. “And to think he gets all that for saying, ‘Wait, I have an idea. Why don’t ghosts play Quidditch?’”

Orion grinned sheepishly. “But, you see, ghosts have never been particularly good at sports. All right, there is the Headless Hunt, but many ghosts aren’t headless. More importantly, very little athletic equipment crosses over into the spirit world. It makes you wonder why a sporting wizard or witch would bother becoming a ghost, when they have so little to do except glide around and ooze ectoplasm. In fact, the first haunting I ever witnessed was when a dead cricketer moved into the scullery and drove all the servants to desperation, moaning about not being able to hold a bat.

“The cricketer was still there when Rigel came along, and he started scheming up a sport that ghosts could play. Naturally, the sport he considered most suitable was Quidditch. So at age ten, Rigel began collecting ghost twigs and sticks – mainly from wand trees that had been killed by lightning or floods. In a year’s time he had found enough bits of ghost wood to assemble fourteen ghost brooms. Then, when he was eleven years old – the first time, I mean – he started hunting for some Ghost Snidges, to take the place of a Golden Snitch. The birds were very rare to begin with, and it was very hard for him to find a single one that had become a ghost. I think he was planning to assassinate one of the mating pair that lives in the Really Unplottable Bird Sanctuary, but on his twelfth birthday a pair of ghost snidges flew out of his Godfather Clock, so that was all right.

“During the next year, Rigel combed the countryside for ghost owls. He found quite a few of them, and managed to train several to act as ghost bludgers. I didn’t know what he was about at the time, but now I see what a clever idea that was; for nothing but a formerly living thing could possibly effect a ghost Quidditch player the way a bludger effects a live player. The quaffle remained a problem for him, until he decided to allow a headless ghost to furnish the quaffle – essentially creating a fifteenth player who would only be involved from the neck up.

“After that, it was only a matter of deciding on the rules, and testing them out. I enjoyed watching this part, from under my really quite admirable Disillusionment Charm. Rigel was very determined, and creative, and such a natural leader. At different stages in the process, the quaffle was supposed to be a neutral combatant who merely suffered his or her head to be chucked to and fro, and carried about under some other ghost’s elbow. Later, it grew evident that the quaffle had either to be an independent force that could act equally against both sides, or a supporter of one side contributing to what the muggles call a ‘home field advantage.’ Finally, Rigel decided to let the quaffle serve in a perpetually defensive character, trying to wriggle out of the grasp of whoever held it, and biting them when necessary.

“Being dead, of course, the players were able to put up with a great deal more brutality than regular Quidditch players could, so the number of possible fouls was reduced to only seventeen – and twelve of those had to do with name-calling. Any authority in ghost athletics will tell you – and really, there weren’t any authorities in ghost athletics until twenty years ago, so they owe Rigel too – will tell you that when sticks and stones can no longer break your bones, words can REALLY hurt you. So, although the players can fly right through each other, and commit any atrocity on each other’s ectoplasm they see fit, they are required to restrict their vocalizations to, ‘Well played,’ ‘I’m wide open over here,’ and, ‘I say, old fellow, that’s my spleen you’ve got there.’”

“I could swear I heard references to a pancreas at the last World Cup,” Sadie mused.

“Or words to that effect,” Orion corrected himself. “So at age fourteen, Rigel began recruiting teams, starting at the Tower of London near our home, and also searching abroad during our holiday trips together in France, Uganda, Austria, Serbia, and other such places where there were high ghost populations. Most of the really good quaffles come from France. After teaching each group the basic rules, and having some demonstration games, Rigel registered a patent on the game and began organizing the first world cup...”

“What did they do for beaters’ bats?” Endora asked, risking a scornful glance from those around her who now knew she had never seen a game of Head Quidditch.

“Carved out of more pieces of undeadwood,” Sadie said, adding, “Hush.”

“The rest is history,” said Orion. “It was a revolution in ghostly entertainment. Now headless ghosts aren’t the only ones who can have fun; though, of course, the number of teams that can play at any time is limited by the number of trained owl ghosts, Ghost Snidges, and properly constructed undeadwood brooms and bats. Spectators, living and dead, have flocked to the games in ever larger numbers, and ghosts have become an increasingly significant group of consumers in today’s wizarding economy. Plus, others have followed similar procedures to invent ghost versions of their sports – severed football, severed handball, basketcaseball, and ouija hockey being only a few of the more popular examples – and every one of them has to pay a small share of their royalties to Rigel, who pioneered the process. It really will be interesting to see what he does with all that...”

Orion trailed off as the assistant healer ran into the waiting room, wild-eyed and red in the face. “Merlin and the boy,” he panted, before having to bend over to catch his breath.

Endora surged to her feet, clutching the collar of her robes. “What’s happened?” she demanded.

+++

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].

The SURVEY: How rapidly should we wrap up the storyline about the Gringotts break-in that Harvey is planning? (A) Before episode 100. (B) As soon as possible after episode 100. (C) Eventually, but there’s no big hurry. (D) Who cares?

The CONTEST: Describe a powerful or important illusion, deception, glamor, or disguise.

The survey answer that gets the most votes, and the contest entry that Robbie likes the most, will be featured in Magic Quill #87. So be sure to visit our Discussion Thread – and if you aren’t a member of COS Forums, join today!

[Originally posted 3/26/06]

32. Uncle or Aunt Leslie

Concepts contributed by: Jade & Angelbot

Merlin's story continued:

"Rigel was handed from one hooded, masked figure to another. They were so heavily cloaked that I couldn't tell witch from wizard. I followed as nimbly as I could, dodging through the bustle of the castle corridors, past doorways marked with signs like 'Curse R & D,' 'Store-Brand Poisons,' and 'Glamours, Illusions & Hypnopropaganda.' Through some of those doorways I could hear chains rattling, winches straining, and far-off moans or screams. It was difficult to keep Rigel in sight, but I just managed it.

"Finally, he was shown into the presence of an extremely obese wizard or witch--who did not bother to mask his or her face--but sat with its hood thrown back on an enormous, sagging chair in the middle of a firelit room. All around him or her were tables loaded with pies and pasties, and his or her fingers and jowls were stained with juices of many colors. The walls were covered, not with family portraits, but with sentimental photos and paintings of food: bowls of fruit, baskets of fried chicken, loaves peeping out of linen napkins, mounds of sweets. I suppressed a shudder as I faced the gigantic glutton who seemed to be in charge of Vold-Mart.

"The wizard who had led Rigel into the room bowed low and addressed the seated witch or wizard, who went on eating as if no one was there. 'Hail, Uncle or Auntie Leslie,' said the wizard, sounding amazingly unembarrassed by the fact that even he did not know whether that mountain of fat was male or female. And in a voice thick with half-eaten food, yet neither particularly high-pitched nor particularly deep, the butterball replied: 'Well met, Number Seventy-Three. What morsel have you brought me today?' I must say, it pleased me to see the breath catch in Rigel's throat.

"Number Seventy-Three explained that Rigel had responded to the call for volunteers for a very sensitive project. Uncle or Auntie Leslie smacked his or her lips and said, 'Very good. Have you explained to it what we shall require it to do?'

"'No, Uncle or Auntie,' said Wizard Seventy-Three, graciously.

"'Every morsel that is brought to me,' the monstrous creature said to Wizard Seventy-Three between mouthfuls of pudding, 'is given one opportunity to prove that it is a person, worthy of being addressed as a person, and entrusted with duties and invited to feast with us. Those who fail to prove their worthiness may still prove useful, either as test subjects in one of the product-development areas, or as food for the hungry things that live in our dungeons. Though, heaven knows, we try to keep them hungry, we must feed them from time to time or they will become useless to us. Now let us see. Shall we ask it to remove one of its own kidneys with a grapefruit spoon, and then eat it raw?'

"Wizard Number Seventy-Three watched Rigel closely, as did I. Rigel trembled, his eyes darting here or there, like the eyes of a trapped animal that knows it cannot escape, yet seeks an escape route all the same. Otherwise he remained still.

"'No, I believe that was how Number Fifty-Eight proved herself to me.' Uncle or Auntie Leslie began to gnaw on the roasted leg of some enormous bird which, I felt certain, was not a turkey. 'I do find repetition tiresome. But that is neither here nor there. I have a truly inspired idea. It shall break into a vault at Gringotts for me. Vault 1,066 to be precise. A vault that contains potions preserved since the time of Yves the Leper, who was William the Conqueror's magical adviser.

"'Yves is said to have made potions that were essential to the conquest of this island but too dangerous to remain in use, too alluring to be entrusted to the care of Muggles and mortals and corruptible wizards. Some say there was a potion that made the drinker immune to criticism; or that a certain cream, when rubbed on the tips of Norman spears, made them speed toward the hearts of the Saxon enemy. But the most charming anecdotes concern a Draught of Amorality, which, when taken before doing anything messy or morally complicated, could quiet the drinker's conscience and make him get on with it. I daresay that would be an invaluable asset in our efforts to raise an army for--ahem. I seem to have gone off topic.

"'The greatest potion-master since the Norman invasion, as I was saying, took great pride in his work, and so he could not bear to dispose of what was left over when its purpose was fulfilled. Yet, strange as it may sound, he scrupled against allowing it to be kept in continual use, or selling his brewings to some other likely fellow. As soon as William had conquered, his wizard seems to have lost his kidney--to turn a phrase--for the finer things in life, like inflicting fear and pain, becoming rich and powerful, and getting untold thousands to do his will unquestioningly. The poor man lost his nerve and decided that, dear as his potions were to him, he did not want anyone to use them. Anyone!

"'So Yves locked his treasures in one of the deepest vaults in Gringotts Bank and threw away the keys. Even the goblins cannot open the vault, because it is buried under the hoard of an ancient dragon, who in turn is buried under the rubble of a collapsed tunnel, a close-woven network of befuddling charms, and a lake of acid that would reduce a man's body to a quivering blob of jelly as soon as look at him. However, I am interested in what may be in that vault. The morsel will get it for me in six weeks or less, or die trying. If it does either thing, I will honor it as a colleague. If neither, I will tear it limb from limb. Now send it away, Number Seventy-Three, there's a dove.'

"Number Seventy-Three marched Rigel out of the room. The poor lad looked as if his life had already been forfeit, walking with heavy limbs and bowed head. Down several flights of stairs to a large hall in which fires burned in a dozen hearths the masked wizard led him. Someone tossed a fistful of Floo Powder into one enormous fireplace and shouted, '____ Manor,' the name of the place where Rigel lived. I hopped into the swirling green flames beside the boy as the masked wizard pushed him in. I knew it would be hard to find another way out of the castle. And besides, it was imperative that I see Rigel's father instantly and offer him my resignation. For if I was to follow Rigel to the depths of Gringotts Bank, it wasn't only his life that was forfeit..."

[Originally posted 12/10/04]

31. Vold-Mart

Concepts contributed by: Angelbot

The invisible wizard called Merlin shifted audibly in his seat, then began his tale...

"It all started back in the days when You-Know-Who was on the rise. The Hogsmeade Owlympics had just ended, and a dueling craze took hold of the wizarding public. A lot of the shops in Knockturn Alley broke sales records in those days. And Knockturn Alley is where I found myself on an ill-starred, August day.

"I had been hired by a certain party to keep tabs on his younger son, who could be charitably described as a 'problem child.' He kept lousy company, had rotten habits, and spent untold galleons in ways that tended to bring shame to his parents. Well, the old wizard paid me handsomely to see just what his whipper-snapper was up to, and to see whether I could stave him off from real trouble--Death Eater stuff.

"So I was trailing the lad--let's call him Rigel--and that day, as on several earlier occasions, he joined up with friends and took Floo powder to Knockturn Alley. I followed discreetly, taking care to come out in the hearth next after the one where Rigel got off. I excused myself hastily from the Hag Hairdresser's shop I turned up in and spent a few minutes tracking down Rigel and his mates. When I found them, they had just been approached by a stooped, greasy-looking peddler who was handing Rigel a tattered slip of parchment. I listened from a distance, using a handy eavesdropping spell. The old man was telling Rigel to memorize the address on the parchment, then destroy it.

"Rigel pocketed the parchment and began pushing his way through the crowd outside the Jinx Emporium, followed by a couple of his mates. He appeared to be looking for a private spot, but Knockturn Alley was crowded that day. I pushed after him, trying to keep a low profile, but somehow in the scrum I caught up with the lad unexpectedly. He looked straight at me for a moment--my heart almost stood still, I thought he had twigged to my tailing job--but he kept looking around, as if trying to find a particular person. While he was looking away, I did a quiet summoning charm and found myself clutching the slip of parchment the old peddler had given him. While Rigel was still looking around for who-knows-what, I flash-memorized the slip and banished it back into the lad's pocket.

"Later, when I had put in a long day of watching Rigel and his mates at play, I retired to my garret and thought over the instructions on that little slip of parchment. 'Between sunset and moonrise of the first Tuesday after the full moon, go to the second stile past the churchyard on the road that goes southeastward out of Little Hangleton,' they said. 'Follow the black ewe with the white streak on her head. Remember the way she shows you, because she will not appear another time, and the way can neither be described nor charted. Fidelius and Unplottable Charms, dontcha know.'

"Well, I didn't know what all this was about, but I intended to find out. It sounded like serious trouble to me. Death-Eater stuff. And if Rigel was going there, I certainly must follow.

"I stood at that stile, on the night in question, covered in my trusty invisibility cloak. A short time after sunset, Rigel appeared alone, looking scared and excited. A black ewe with a white streak on its head ambled out of the shadows of the nearby woods, and Rigel followed it over a hill, under the deep shadows of the wood, through twisting and forked paths, across a chuckling stream, around the base of another hill, and into a hidden valley where the air bristled with anti-Muggle spells, anti-apparition enchantments, and concealment charms. And at the very end of the valley, sheltered under an overhang of rock so that it almost became a cave, stood a huge structure of earth-colored brick. It was covered in moss with windows few and tiny and a vast wooden door behind an iron portcullis, a drawbridge and a moat. From within, or from the ground beneath my feet, came eerie sounds or vibrations: deep humming, a muffled throb, what might have been the shrieks of animals or humans or mechanical things.

"At the end of the path before the moat stood a squat tower with a bell in it, and a long rope dangling down. The ewe went up to the tower, nudged it with her nose, then wandered off along the edge of the moat, nibbling on the grass. Rigel looked around anxiously before pulling the rope. The sound of the bell ringing split the silence of the valley, and almost at once, things started to happen. Lights flared in the slit windows, a trumpet blared, and the drawbridge thunderously lowered itself toward us over the moat. As it did so, I stepped up close to the tower and read an inscription fixed to it at eye level. It said:

VOLD-MART
Dark Arts Discount Stores
'We Terrorize, Kill, and Dominate For Less'

Corporate Headquarters, Distribution Warehouse & Product Development

Prague, Kiev, Abidjan, Baghdad, Tashkent, Samarkand, Katmandu, Osaka, Port-au-Prince, Milwaukee

Opening soon in London, Hogsmeade, Paris, and New York

Positions open, Death Eaters preferred

"As I took in the end of the inscription, the drawbridge went bump against the curb before us, and the massive portcullis began to rise amid the clanking of chains and the scrape of machinery. With a shiver, as if mastering himself to do something terrible but necessary, Rigel stepped forward.

"I should have run the other way, and I knew it. But I had to stop Rigel from doing something he would never be able to undo. I could have grabbed him right there and set a portkey back to his father's mansion, and perhaps it would have been better to have done so. But I also had to find out what Rigel was getting up to and what could be done to make him leave under his own power. Otherwise, he would just come back another time, when no one was following him. There was nothing for it but to follow Rigel across that drawbridge, into what looked like the most sinister fortress this side of Azkaban..."

[Originally posted 12/3/04]