Contest winner: TWZRD
Merlin paused to drain a smoking goblet before continuing with his tale. The others in the small parlor waited restlessly: one wearing a veil, one a fake mustache and glasses, another’s face concealed by the hood of his cloak, still another’s by a handkerchief, and the last disguised as a shapely young woman, though a shadow of a beard was starting to show on his face. At last, Merlin resumed speaking...
“Naturally, we all followed Rigel down the stairs that were revealed under the tomb of the goblin twins. By the light from the cloak of visibility, which it was Signor Boccachiusa’s turn to wear, we saw that the stairs descended onto a wide, smooth, stone causeway. The walls curved over our heads, no more than six feet up from the floor, so we had to stay near the center of the causeway – and some of us had to stoop a bit.
“The causeway curved to the right, quite sharply at first, but less so as we moved along. Young Karl observed that we were moving along a spiral, and on a gradual upward slope. There wasn’t much else to be observed – no doors, no steps, no features on the walls. Not much, that is, for the first few miles. Then Don Pagliai pointed out something shiny on the edge of the causeway ahead of us. As Signor Subito hopped forward to fetch it, Slavik screamed at him to stop. It was Rigel who saved him, by tackling the little clown before he could reach the pile of coins that appeared to have been left carelessly on the ground.
“’Explain why you have done this,’ snarled Don Pagliai, as he inspected his friend’s scraped elbows and torn trousers.
“’I just saved Subito’s life,’ Rigel snarled right back, and he marched off into the darkness – not far, by the sound of his dragging feet, but far enough to be able to pout in privacy. Even having once been a grown-up didn’t change the fact that he was a small child, after all.
“’He’s right,’ said Slavik, as Subito filled his lungs for what looked like another tremendous display of swearing. The small clown bit his tongue while Slavik explained. ‘Rigel must have realized at the same time I did – and it just shows that it pays to listen in magical history class – what this place is, and knowing that, we also know that you must never touch anything in here that looks like treasure.
“’This,’ Slavik continued, ‘is almost certainly the Final Causeway.’
“He beamed round at the rest of us, no doubt expecting loud exclamations of wonder and incredulity. When he saw nothing but blank faces, he rolled his eyes at us and said, ‘Have none of you heard of the Four Causeways?’ None of us had. ‘Everyone knows there are Four Causeways at Gringotts — four pathways that run directly from the surface level to the deepest heart of the bank. No one but goblins are ever meant to see them and live. Each one is connected with a certain, secret goblin ritual.
“’First, there’s the Material Causeway, whose location is most coveted by would-be thieves. It is said to lead to a huge vault containing the richest treasures the goblins possess. Guarding it, and even visiting it, are very special privileges even for goblins. Next is the Formal Causeway, leading to the Chamber of Avarice where the goblins’ governing board meets. Disputes are settled there, sentences passed, treaties ratified. Then there is the Efficient Causeway, which connects the bank to a sort of goblin Hogwarts – a place where young goblins learn whatever the old goblins want them to know. Business practices, maybe. Or the arts of war, maybe.’
“’Don’t bother telling us where the Final Causeway leads,’ I said. ‘We’ve just come from there. So this is the path they use for their funeral processions, right?’
“’Right,’ said Slavik. ‘The goblins are very clever. They have to be, in order to loot ancient tombs and temples without having their pointy ears blasted off by the security curses. And being clever, the goblins have picked up a lot of ideas from the places they plundered. Ideas they then applied to their own security. So unless Rigel and I are both quite mistaken...’
“’The booty in the goblin place of the dead will be protected by some serious curses,’ I guessed.
“Subito shuddered as we walked past another glimmering pile of jewels and gold. Then he squeaked as we approached a pile of bones — human bones — mixed with a few other things like a knife and a silver ring.
“’That narrows down the type of curse we’re faced with,’ Slavik said. ‘I believe that all this treasure is protected by the Somnium Cogo curse. Pick up one coin, and you’ll fall into an everlasting sleep. Or at least, the sleep will last until you starve to death. The bones we see there — and look! There is another pile of bones — mean that occasionally, a foolish burglar is allowed to find his way in here.’
“’Allowed?’ Don Pagliai asked, looking nauseous.
“’Why not?’ said Slavik. ‘They never get away with anything, do they? In fact, by leaving behind whatever they brought with them, they rather increase the amount of treasure collected here.’
“By now, we were far past being shocked by any horrid thing the goblins might do. Nevertheless, looking round at the other Durmstrang lads, I saw faces white with anxiety.
“Rigel rejoined the circle of light around Signor Boccachiusa, though he hadn’t quite finished with pouting. Karl persuaded Rigel to dig into his pocket-universe storage unit, where he found a basket of fresh fruit and some hard-boiled eggs. We stopped to rest and eat, then continued walking up the gentle slope, round the gently spiraling curve of the goblins’ Final Causeway.
“After several more rest stops of increasing length, including a bit of sleep, Karl spoke up again. ‘I belieff ve are getting close to the surface. Ve need to plan vhat to do vhen ve get to the end of this Causevay. Once ve are out in the open, ve von’t have much time to escape from the bank.’
“’They will catch us again,’ Don Pagliai wailed. ‘I can’t stand it!’
“’Ve need a diversion,’ Karl declared.
“’What good is diversion unless we know layout of place where we come out?’ Anatoly countered.
“’They are too many for us,’ said Don Pagliai. ‘We are big, slow, and weak.’
“’We can take them by surprise,’ said Slavik.
“I said, ’Haven’t you learned by now that there is no way to surprise the goblins?’
“’Where does that leave us?’ said Slavik. ‘We have to escape. We have to at least try.’
“’They vill try to stop us,’ said Karl. ‘And they are qvite good at it.’
“’Let them try,’ Rigel said, determination ringing in his high childish voice. ‘Nothing is going to stop me now.’
“A second later, Rigel was stopped in mid-stride with a sudden smacking sound. He fell flat on his back, yelling, with a nick on his chin, a bruise on his forehead, and a bite-mark on his tongue.
“’Well, that’s that,’ Don Pagliai said bitterly as his hands felt around in what looked like empty air. ‘It’s as solid as stone. In fact, I would swear it was stone. Must be another of those invisible walls.’
“Karl came forward and made his own survey of the blockage ahead of us. ‘No, feel here,’ he said. ‘Here is a door. The knob turns...’
“A sliver of light flooded into the tunnel. Jaan threw himself against the concealed door and pressed it shut, hurling curses at Karl that I couldn’t pronounce if I tried.
“’Don’t be a fool,’ Slavik translated. ‘If you open that door, goblins might notice us before we have a chance to do anything. They could attack while our eyes are adjusting to the light.’
“’I have idea,’ said Anatoly, who by now was taking his turn at caressing the disguised wall. ‘This is ordinary wall, painted to look like corridor goes on. But is not ordinary paint. See — perspective holds even up close, from every angle. Is magical paint, camouflage.’
“’That really helpth a lot,’ Rigel sneered. He was understandably in a bad mood; his tongue was swollen where he had bitten it.
“’What if we disguised ourselves same way?’ Anatoly said, ignoring Rigel’s remark. He looked more eager each minute. ‘I used to draw and paint well. With wand, perhaps I can copy type of coloring spell used on this wall.’
“’That would be a good idea,’ said Slavik, ‘if only we had a wand.’”
“Jaan smacked himself on the forehead, then tried a few halting sentences in English, before giving up and pouring out a stream of rapid words in a language he shared with the others. By now I could actually understand about a tenth of what he said at his usual speed, but this time he was talking so fast that I couldn’t make out a word.
“’Of course!’ Slavik cried. ‘Rigel has the last wand in his pocket locker! It’s been there since he was — er...’
“’Reborn,’ Don Pagliai suggested.
“Rigel turned red and fumed, but his tongue was too swollen to say anything we could understand. All the same, he dug out the wand Jaan had made ages ago, and which had never been used before Rigel’s little mistake with the Yesterday Pills. The next part was a bit ticklish and embarrassing. Each of us took his robes off, one after another, so Anatoly could cover every inch of our bodies with a camouflage spell. It didn’t help that, after tinting Rigel and the clowns, the wand started shooting ice pellets at three-second intervals.
“’One more thing that comes of using an Augurey feather as a wand core,’ Jaan said ruefully, with Slavik translating.
“’At last we were all covered with animated tattoos that made us blend in with the walls and floor. The effect was less than invisibility but more than Disillusionment. If you looked directly at one of us, you could see his general shape because of the way his movements distorted the image on his skin. Our eyes, the insides of our mouths, and our hair were still visible. In addition, the Durmstrang lads and I were covered in welts from the ice pellets, and shivering from the cold as well. It felt insane; we were about to walk out into some unknown part of Gringotts, completely naked, and all we could discuss was whether or not to use the wand one more time to make our hair go away.
“Stay close to the walls until you see a door that leads outside,’ Karl instructed us. ‘Then run like your life depends on it.’
“’It does,’ said Don Pagliai.
“We were leaving everything behind now. Rigel’s robes with the pocket locker and all the handy things in it. The cloak of visibility. The silken ladder. The portable hole...all of it would be left behind in the Final Causeway, to tempt future treasure hunters to their doom. We all knew that if we were caught again, we would not survive long without these things. No one had to say anything about it as we looked at each other’s eyes, strangely floating along with disembodied heads of hair and an occasional glimpse of teeth and tongue.
“’Night of the flying hairpieces,’ Rigel joked. Some of us laughed nervously.
“Then Karl gave us a count of three, and threw open the concealed door...”
+++ A MESSAGE FROM ROBBIE +++
In the last few months, demands on my time have increased, while response from readers has dropped off. So the “Challenge” for this time is: Go to the Feedback Form and tell me if you think it is worth our while (yours AND mine) to continue “The Magic Quill.” Frankly, when I only hear from a handful of readers on a regular basis, I wonder whether anyone would notice if TMQ quietly went away. So, if you want this column to continue, please shoot me some feedback on it! [EDIT: Needless to say, these instructions are ancient history.]
Whatever happens, I plan to continue writing reviews for “The Book Trolley.” I don’t plan to end my involvement with MuggleNet. Plus, after nearly 110 chapters, I think everyone who has been involved in writing this column has plenty to be proud of. But the time I spend on “The Magic Quill” comes at a higher cost these days, so I would like to know if it’s still worth it. I hope to hear from you!
[Originally posted 12/17/06]
Showing posts with label riddles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label riddles. Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
48. More Thirsty Work
Concepts Contributed By: Jon and Lighthouse Junkie
Merlin’s story continued...
“And so a couple of months passed. Nine wizards, trapped in a Gringotts vault together, speaking three languages, and one of them not speaking at all. The vault was quite large, and it was full of wine—mostly in bottles packed in crates, but also a good number of casks and barrels. We drank through many of those bottles, in search of the elusive djinn that was supposed to be somewhere in the vault. We had plenty to eat, thanks to Don Pagliai’s enchanted handkerchief. And even Rigel’s spirits improved, as he learned bits of the Durmstrang lads’ language. They had a lot in common, evidently.
“It didn’t seem that anything was likely to change for a long time, but then we heard the locks being undone on the door of the vault. The clowns, swiftly and efficiently, stuffed the Durmstrang lads and Rigel and me into empty crates and arranged the lids to look as if they had never been opened—though we had discreet breathing holes, by which we could also hear what was going on. The vault was opened, and the voices of wizards and goblins approached.
“’I will never understand the tastes of the rich,’ said a human voice. ‘What Il Comte sees in Muggle-made wines, when he could easily conjure any kind of wine with his wand, I hardly know. But he absolutely insists on stocking the cellars in his alpine villa.'
“’Here you, clown,’ barked a savage goblin voice. ‘Come back here. I don’t see your name on this invoice. Until Il Comte signs for your withdrawal, here you stay!’
“Another goblin growled, ‘Well, here are your wines. I wish we had time to do an inventory to see how much wine the clowns have used. My overseer gives me no end of grief about this vault. We goblins like to keep strict accounts, but it is difficult to do when your hoard is being consumed from inside!’
“’All the more reason to keep the clowns from escaping,’ laughed the human voice. ‘So much has been invested in keeping them here!’
“Other voices, meanwhile, were grunting, and I could hear barrels and crates being dragged around. A trolley of some kind was being loaded, it seemed. A goblin voice remarked, ‘They don’t get any lighter with age,’ and another said, ‘This crate must be half-empty, thanks to those drunken clowns!’ A third goblin shouted, ‘That’s none of your concern! Move the crates that are listed on the invoice.’ A fourth goblin added, ‘This trolley’s full. We’ll have to come back for a second load.’
“’Very well,’ said the human voice. ‘While these fellows are at it, why don’t we go to see the other vault, with the Countess’s furs?’
“After a bit more banging and dragging, we heard the vault door closing again. Everyone had left. The clowns let us out of the crates.
“’That was close,’ said Rigel.
“’Close? Are you crazy?’ cried Don Pagliai. ‘That’s your ticket out of here! You all have to be in the crates that those goblins pick up on their second load!’
“’But how will we know which ones they are going to take?’ I asked.
“’Easily!’ said Don Pagliai. ‘The goblins already stacked them up, ready to go, in this pile near the door. Help me shift these bottles!’ The purple-haired clown began repeating this information in several languages, and the other clowns and the Durmstrang students and Rigel and I hastened to open the crates and transfer the bottles from them to the empty crates and barrels nearby.
“’It is a pity we clowns must stay behind,’ panted Don Pagliai, as we all worked. ‘We will miss the company. Besides, who knows if the djinn is in one of the crates the goblins already took?’
“’But why shouldn’t you come with us?’ I said, astonished.
“’Well, the goblins would miss us, for one,’ said Don Pagliai, sadly. ‘They would never close the vault door without being sure we were inside. And also, we do not want to be in the crates when Il Comte opens them. We would rather stay here than meet him again.’
“’To each his own,’ said Rigel, who was doing a good job of acting busy while doing less work than anybody else.
“’But that’s not right,’ I insisted. ‘You have been here longer than any of us. We can’t leave you behind to rot in this vault!’
“’Right or not,’ said Don Pagliai, pausing for breath, ‘there is no escaping the fact that the goblins will not leave the vault unless they see us in it.’
“’We could fight them,’ I suggested, but the fat clown laughed. I knew it was an absurd idea.
“’I am touched by your determination to help us,’ Don Pagliai said, and he squeezed my shoulder. ‘But what are we to do against goblin magic? Even Boccachiusa needs a wand to do his mime spells! But let us hope that once you are out in the world, you can find a way to come back and set us free. You have made it this far into Gringotts already, have you not?’
“'If you’re staying,’ I said firmly, ‘We’re staying.’
“’Speak for yourself!’ Rigel screamed, as I began to load wine back into one of the crates to be moved. ‘I’m getting out of here, whatever you do.’
“’Fine,’ I said, turning away from Don Pagliai before he could protest any further. ‘Then at least I will have seen the last of your useless, ungrateful, selfish, whinging face, and your father will be saved from eating his heart out about what happened to you.’
“This gave Rigel pause. He stared at me for a moment, then said, ‘You really wouldn’t try to stop me from going?’
“’Don’t make me laugh!’ I sneered. ‘Give me a hammer and I will pound the nails into your crate!’
“’But you wouldn’t come as well?’ Rigel asked, in a small voice.
“All the clowns and Durmstrang people were watching us in silence, as if they could understand every word—and perhaps, after all those months, they could. At last, Don Pagliai put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Don’t be a fool. You must go. Then you can come back, perhaps, with a portkey and get us out of here. And besides—the young one will need someone to keep him safe when Uncle or Aunt Leslie finds out that he did not complete his assignment.’
“’Oh, no!’ Rigel gasped. His face went pale. ‘That settles it. If you don’t go, I’m staying too!’
“’Someone has to get out!’ Don Pagliai exclaimed. ‘Only three of us are staying!’
“With that, he and the other clowns rushed me and stuffed me into an outbound crate, pounded the lid on, and put another crate over the top. I protested the whole time, but Don Pagliai reminded me, ‘If you make a sound, the crates will be searched, and everyone’s escape will be ruined. Tst! Farewell!’
“Moments later, the locks on the vault door began to come undone...and as I fumed and bit my tongue inside a wine crate bound for an evil wizard’s alpine villa, I hardly thought that I was about to taste freedom again...which is just as well, because if I had thought so, I would have been wrong...”
+++ And now, the very last RIDDLE TIME!!! +++
Answers to last week’s classic riddles:
D) Man (he crawls on all fours as a child, walks upright as a man, and uses a cane in old age).
E) Mountain.
F) River.
G) Secret.
H) Candle.
I) Moon.
J) Shoe.
K) Tongue.
L) School.
M) Vowels.
In Cheledine’s riddle, the judge is the boy’s mother. In Lighthouse Junkie’s riddle, the king’s friend is married to the king’s sister. Claire’s riddle is about a pair of dead goldfish, and Ethan would like to point out that roosters don’t lay eggs (except in Cornelia Funke’s Dragon Rider, when the resulting hatchling is a basilisk). Jade’s two answers are, respectively, “second place” and “the letter M.” Gotcha!
Amazingly, I seem to have used up all the good riddle ideas you all have sent me. Maybe it’s about time to lay this little “subcolumn” to rest. Let me cap off the riddles—many of them, poems—with a humorous little poem about a wizard, which I wrote back in college (President Clinton was in his first term then)...
As threads I weave with fingers quick
The elements untied,
Wind time about a borrowed stick
From planes of eye unspied.
Tied thus, what happens now would change
What happened long ago;
As such, the future would estrange
The present which we know;
And twisted so, our own locale
Would touch the far-away.
This way it makes, if aught at all,
A gift for St. Ann’s day.
So I unravel and crochet
The fabric of a dream,
Or spend in mending all the day
A fraying warpal seam.
They say the magic-spinner’s life
Is quite the feather tick;
I doubt there knows a darningwife
So well the needle-prick.
[Originally posted 4/16/05]
Merlin’s story continued...
“And so a couple of months passed. Nine wizards, trapped in a Gringotts vault together, speaking three languages, and one of them not speaking at all. The vault was quite large, and it was full of wine—mostly in bottles packed in crates, but also a good number of casks and barrels. We drank through many of those bottles, in search of the elusive djinn that was supposed to be somewhere in the vault. We had plenty to eat, thanks to Don Pagliai’s enchanted handkerchief. And even Rigel’s spirits improved, as he learned bits of the Durmstrang lads’ language. They had a lot in common, evidently.
“It didn’t seem that anything was likely to change for a long time, but then we heard the locks being undone on the door of the vault. The clowns, swiftly and efficiently, stuffed the Durmstrang lads and Rigel and me into empty crates and arranged the lids to look as if they had never been opened—though we had discreet breathing holes, by which we could also hear what was going on. The vault was opened, and the voices of wizards and goblins approached.
“’I will never understand the tastes of the rich,’ said a human voice. ‘What Il Comte sees in Muggle-made wines, when he could easily conjure any kind of wine with his wand, I hardly know. But he absolutely insists on stocking the cellars in his alpine villa.'
“’Here you, clown,’ barked a savage goblin voice. ‘Come back here. I don’t see your name on this invoice. Until Il Comte signs for your withdrawal, here you stay!’
“Another goblin growled, ‘Well, here are your wines. I wish we had time to do an inventory to see how much wine the clowns have used. My overseer gives me no end of grief about this vault. We goblins like to keep strict accounts, but it is difficult to do when your hoard is being consumed from inside!’
“’All the more reason to keep the clowns from escaping,’ laughed the human voice. ‘So much has been invested in keeping them here!’
“Other voices, meanwhile, were grunting, and I could hear barrels and crates being dragged around. A trolley of some kind was being loaded, it seemed. A goblin voice remarked, ‘They don’t get any lighter with age,’ and another said, ‘This crate must be half-empty, thanks to those drunken clowns!’ A third goblin shouted, ‘That’s none of your concern! Move the crates that are listed on the invoice.’ A fourth goblin added, ‘This trolley’s full. We’ll have to come back for a second load.’
“’Very well,’ said the human voice. ‘While these fellows are at it, why don’t we go to see the other vault, with the Countess’s furs?’
“After a bit more banging and dragging, we heard the vault door closing again. Everyone had left. The clowns let us out of the crates.
“’That was close,’ said Rigel.
“’Close? Are you crazy?’ cried Don Pagliai. ‘That’s your ticket out of here! You all have to be in the crates that those goblins pick up on their second load!’
“’But how will we know which ones they are going to take?’ I asked.
“’Easily!’ said Don Pagliai. ‘The goblins already stacked them up, ready to go, in this pile near the door. Help me shift these bottles!’ The purple-haired clown began repeating this information in several languages, and the other clowns and the Durmstrang students and Rigel and I hastened to open the crates and transfer the bottles from them to the empty crates and barrels nearby.
“’It is a pity we clowns must stay behind,’ panted Don Pagliai, as we all worked. ‘We will miss the company. Besides, who knows if the djinn is in one of the crates the goblins already took?’
“’But why shouldn’t you come with us?’ I said, astonished.
“’Well, the goblins would miss us, for one,’ said Don Pagliai, sadly. ‘They would never close the vault door without being sure we were inside. And also, we do not want to be in the crates when Il Comte opens them. We would rather stay here than meet him again.’
“’To each his own,’ said Rigel, who was doing a good job of acting busy while doing less work than anybody else.
“’But that’s not right,’ I insisted. ‘You have been here longer than any of us. We can’t leave you behind to rot in this vault!’
“’Right or not,’ said Don Pagliai, pausing for breath, ‘there is no escaping the fact that the goblins will not leave the vault unless they see us in it.’
“’We could fight them,’ I suggested, but the fat clown laughed. I knew it was an absurd idea.
“’I am touched by your determination to help us,’ Don Pagliai said, and he squeezed my shoulder. ‘But what are we to do against goblin magic? Even Boccachiusa needs a wand to do his mime spells! But let us hope that once you are out in the world, you can find a way to come back and set us free. You have made it this far into Gringotts already, have you not?’
“'If you’re staying,’ I said firmly, ‘We’re staying.’
“’Speak for yourself!’ Rigel screamed, as I began to load wine back into one of the crates to be moved. ‘I’m getting out of here, whatever you do.’
“’Fine,’ I said, turning away from Don Pagliai before he could protest any further. ‘Then at least I will have seen the last of your useless, ungrateful, selfish, whinging face, and your father will be saved from eating his heart out about what happened to you.’
“This gave Rigel pause. He stared at me for a moment, then said, ‘You really wouldn’t try to stop me from going?’
“’Don’t make me laugh!’ I sneered. ‘Give me a hammer and I will pound the nails into your crate!’
“’But you wouldn’t come as well?’ Rigel asked, in a small voice.
“All the clowns and Durmstrang people were watching us in silence, as if they could understand every word—and perhaps, after all those months, they could. At last, Don Pagliai put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Don’t be a fool. You must go. Then you can come back, perhaps, with a portkey and get us out of here. And besides—the young one will need someone to keep him safe when Uncle or Aunt Leslie finds out that he did not complete his assignment.’
“’Oh, no!’ Rigel gasped. His face went pale. ‘That settles it. If you don’t go, I’m staying too!’
“’Someone has to get out!’ Don Pagliai exclaimed. ‘Only three of us are staying!’
“With that, he and the other clowns rushed me and stuffed me into an outbound crate, pounded the lid on, and put another crate over the top. I protested the whole time, but Don Pagliai reminded me, ‘If you make a sound, the crates will be searched, and everyone’s escape will be ruined. Tst! Farewell!’
“Moments later, the locks on the vault door began to come undone...and as I fumed and bit my tongue inside a wine crate bound for an evil wizard’s alpine villa, I hardly thought that I was about to taste freedom again...which is just as well, because if I had thought so, I would have been wrong...”
+++ And now, the very last RIDDLE TIME!!! +++
Answers to last week’s classic riddles:
D) Man (he crawls on all fours as a child, walks upright as a man, and uses a cane in old age).
E) Mountain.
F) River.
G) Secret.
H) Candle.
I) Moon.
J) Shoe.
K) Tongue.
L) School.
M) Vowels.
In Cheledine’s riddle, the judge is the boy’s mother. In Lighthouse Junkie’s riddle, the king’s friend is married to the king’s sister. Claire’s riddle is about a pair of dead goldfish, and Ethan would like to point out that roosters don’t lay eggs (except in Cornelia Funke’s Dragon Rider, when the resulting hatchling is a basilisk). Jade’s two answers are, respectively, “second place” and “the letter M.” Gotcha!
Amazingly, I seem to have used up all the good riddle ideas you all have sent me. Maybe it’s about time to lay this little “subcolumn” to rest. Let me cap off the riddles—many of them, poems—with a humorous little poem about a wizard, which I wrote back in college (President Clinton was in his first term then)...
As threads I weave with fingers quick
The elements untied,
Wind time about a borrowed stick
From planes of eye unspied.
Tied thus, what happens now would change
What happened long ago;
As such, the future would estrange
The present which we know;
And twisted so, our own locale
Would touch the far-away.
This way it makes, if aught at all,
A gift for St. Ann’s day.
So I unravel and crochet
The fabric of a dream,
Or spend in mending all the day
A fraying warpal seam.
They say the magic-spinner’s life
Is quite the feather tick;
I doubt there knows a darningwife
So well the needle-prick.
[Originally posted 4/16/05]
47. Some Thirsty Work
Concepts Contributed By: Raluca, Jon, and Lighthouse Junkie
As Merlin’s story continues, he and “poor little rich wizard” Rigel are trapped together in a Gringotts vault, waiting for the next task the goblins have in store for them...
“’I should have known you would take his side,’ Rigel said, pacing the circumference of the vault, whilst I squatted in the middle upon an upturned bucket. ‘You’re just as self-righteous as he is. Well let me tell you--’
“’No, let me tell you,’ I shouted. I stood up and kicked the bucket for emphasis.”
“And then?” Endora urged. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” said Merlin. “I just stood there and stared at where the bucket had bounced off the wall.
“’Kneazle got your tongue?’ Rigel sneered. He had stopped pacing and was standing with his back to where the bucket had hit the wall, as far out of my reach as the small vault allowed. ‘Perhaps you don’t have anything to tell me, because for once, you realize the bankruptcy of the whole system. Wizards pandering to Muggles! Mudbloods running all our sacred traditions into the ground! Halfbreeds and Muggle-loving old buffoons...are you listening to me?’
“’No,’ I admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t be half chuffed if you would dry up and move out of my light.’
“’Out of what light?’ Rigel pouted. ‘The only light in here comes from under that door, and it’s just enough for me to tell that you’re as ugly as you are--’
“’Did you miss the part where I said to dry up and move?’ I barked, and shoved him out of the way, for the bucket had shifted a loose stone in the wall—knocked it a bit sideways, and halfway into the next chamber. As I put my eye to the chink, I could not only see a bit of dim light, but I thought I could hear a distant murmuring of voices.
“’What are you looking at?’ said Rigel. ‘Budge up, I want to see.’
“’Give me the bucket,’ I replied, and a moment later I repeated it louder. Sulkily, he gave it to me. After banging the bucket against the wall a few times, I managed to loosen the handle—which was little more than a piece of braided wire, anyway—and set to work digging at the spaces between the stones around the one that had come loose. I cleared out some of the smaller bits, and scraped away at what passed for mortar, where there was any. Then I took a turn with the bottom of the bucket, pounding it on the wall until it was badly dented. Then back to scraping with the handle again.
“At first Rigel stood around and complained, then he curled up near the door and took a nap. I woke him an hour or two later and forced him to spell me, in the Muggle sense of the word. He complained even more now, but I boxed his ears once or twice and he became a willing worker. ‘It’s urgent that we work quickly,’ I pointed out. ‘That Nailspike character could be back at any moment to set us another task. It wouldn’t do for him to catch us at this. I doubt he would put us back in this vault another time.’
“'You’re a clever one,’ was all Rigel said, and he ducked his head to be on the safe side.
“We each took several turns. Mine were always the longer, because Rigel’s hands were soft and he complained often of cramps. I’ll give him this: his fingers did bleed before mine. We each snatched naps while the other worked. Still, I was growing worried about how much time Nailspike was going to let us sleep when Rigel woke me and said, ‘Hey, flatfoot, wake up! There’s someone digging from the other side.’
“With the help of our neighbors in the next vault, we got through the hole and had it patched up in another hour or so—not a moment too soon. We could hear goblins crashing around and searching for us before we had a chance to introduce ourselves to our new friends. In fact, before we had even looked around, we were stuffed into dark barrels that smelled of stale wine, where we hid while goblin voices yelped and groveled all around us. Then a door slammed, bolts were shot, and after a minute of silence I was pulled out of my barrel and introduced to our rescuers.
“There were seven of them. The most striking one—my eyes were drawn to him first—was thin and spindly, with a chalk-white face done up with black lines around the eyes and flame-red lipstick. He was wearing tights. Two others also wore the remnants of clown costumes—a portly one with a purple wig that made him appear to be a head taller than he was, and a little fellow, about so high, with a cap and bells on his head. The other four had the look of dissipated scholars, with filthy spectacles, school ties worn round their heads as bandannas, out-at-the-elbows robes, and in one case, a matted fur coat.
“Only one of them spoke English: the big clown with the purple hair. While I told them who Rigel and I were, he explained everything I said to the other clowns in Italian, then started over again in some language for the four students. Finally, he introduced himself and the others.
“’I,’ said the fat clown, ‘am Don Pagliai, and these are my associates, Signor Subito and Signor Boccachiusa.’ Here he indicated first the small one, then the chalky-looking fellow. ‘We are masters of the Guild of Fools and Acrobats in Brescia, where, as I am sure you know, wizards of fashion from all over the world come to see Muggle-themed entertainments, and to play at games of chance that cannot be cheated by means magical or otherwise. We had the misfortune of falling asleep in the wine cellar of Il Comte di Bestemmia—long story, I will not bore you with it at this time—whose retainers woke us the next morning. Il Comte thought it would be very funny, and therefore a treat to men of our profession, to send us along with a shipment of his most valuable wines to this vault, where he keeps much of his stock. Our wands were taken away, but we were given a charmed tablecloth that provides us with enough food to live, and all the wine we could ask for, but we cannot leave—by the Blessed Lady, even your English goblins cannot be bribed like civilized creatures—and we cannot escape except by finding the bottle that contains a djinn. If indeed there is such a bottle!
“’So we have been here,’ said Don Pagliai, by now handing around bottles of wine that Signor Boccachiusa had opened uncorked, ‘for perhaps a year, perhaps five years. It is hard to say; we have been so drunk most of the time! It is not a bad way to live, but dear Boccachiusa, being a mime, is no great conversationalist, and poor Subito does not hold his wine well. We were not alone long, though. These fellows, who have neither Italian nor English, sad to say, became stranded here when the ship they had stolen from school brought them to the underground lake down in the lowest levels of the bank. They thought they would bring a trophy back, but instead, they became trophies when the ship went back to their school without them. So much for learning! They fortunately found us before the goblins found them, and we have been hiding them, feeding them, and benefiting from their virtually unquenchable thirst as we search for the one bottle that has been on all our minds.’
“’Karkaroff will be very hard on them, if they ever get back to the school,’ Rigel noted.
“When Don Pagliai translated this, the students laughed and said something in a language that seemed to require optional vocal equipment. Don Pagliai interpreted: ‘He says why should Karkaroff worry them? He merely licks the boots of their headmaster, Professor Vladika Lukavij.’
“It was Rigel’s turn to laugh. ‘Lukavij? Why, he’s been retired since a pensieve containing all of his research in the Dark Arts was broken in pieces by a clumsy house-elf and he was no longer able to lecture. You poor fools have been here at least seven years!’ After laughing for a minute more, Rigel paused, reflected, groaned, and sat down on the floor to have a good cry.
“’There, there,’ said Don Pagliai. ‘The lad’s worse than Subito. Let’s get that tablecloth out and give you two something decent to eat. Perhaps that will cheer him up!’ After a brief remark by Subito, the fat clown added, ‘Ah, yes. It should also help you to drink better. To your health, gentlemen!’
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
Here are some ancient riddles to start off with. Thanks to Greek Spider and Riddlemaker. The lettering starts at D to avoid confusion with the riddles previously designated as A, B, and C.
D) Do you know the original “Riddle of the Sphinx”? It comes from Homer’s Odyssey. The man of many sorrows (or wiles), Odysseus, was the one who answered it:
What is the animal that has one voice, and goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?
E) Another ancient Greek riddle:
What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
F) And another:
Has a mouth but never speaks,
Has a bed but never sleeps.
G) Here’s an Estonian one:
One keeps me forever; two share me; three give me away.
H) An Arabian riddle:
A lady sits weeping in the window, and her tears will finally destroy her
I) From India:
What has two horns when young, loses them in adulthood, and regains them in old age?
J) From Tibet:
If you tie him up he runs, but if you untie him and set him free he stands still.
K) From Cuba:
Locked in a narrow prison, guarded by ivory soldiers, there is a red snake who is the mother of lies.
L) This one reportedly came from 16th-century B.C. Sumerian tablets:
A house: one enters it blind, one leaves it seeing
M) And finally:
1 in me, 2 in you, 1 in him, 1 missing
And now the answers to last week’s riddles from our readers! The answer to Jess’s riddle is that the man lived in a lighthouse, and when he put the light out, a boat was lost with twelve hands on board. The next line of numbers in Jade’s first riddle is: 1113213211. Why? Because each line DESCRIBES the one before it. “One one, one three, two ones,” etc. Jade’s second riddle is “night and day.” And Jade’s third riddle is “a tree.”
Finally, here are a few fresh riddles from your fellow readers!
Cheledine writes: “The criminal is the father of the judge’s son. Explain the relation.”
Lighthouse Junkie chants:
Speaking of brain teasers, E. F. (all right, Ethan) strikes again: “If a rooster lays an egg at the peak of the barn's roof, which way will it roll?”
And here are two more brain teasers by Jade:
“If you are running a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you now?”
“What appears once in a minute, twice in a moment, yet never in a billion years?”
[Originally posted 4/11/05]
As Merlin’s story continues, he and “poor little rich wizard” Rigel are trapped together in a Gringotts vault, waiting for the next task the goblins have in store for them...
“’I should have known you would take his side,’ Rigel said, pacing the circumference of the vault, whilst I squatted in the middle upon an upturned bucket. ‘You’re just as self-righteous as he is. Well let me tell you--’
“’No, let me tell you,’ I shouted. I stood up and kicked the bucket for emphasis.”
“And then?” Endora urged. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” said Merlin. “I just stood there and stared at where the bucket had bounced off the wall.
“’Kneazle got your tongue?’ Rigel sneered. He had stopped pacing and was standing with his back to where the bucket had hit the wall, as far out of my reach as the small vault allowed. ‘Perhaps you don’t have anything to tell me, because for once, you realize the bankruptcy of the whole system. Wizards pandering to Muggles! Mudbloods running all our sacred traditions into the ground! Halfbreeds and Muggle-loving old buffoons...are you listening to me?’
“’No,’ I admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t be half chuffed if you would dry up and move out of my light.’
“’Out of what light?’ Rigel pouted. ‘The only light in here comes from under that door, and it’s just enough for me to tell that you’re as ugly as you are--’
“’Did you miss the part where I said to dry up and move?’ I barked, and shoved him out of the way, for the bucket had shifted a loose stone in the wall—knocked it a bit sideways, and halfway into the next chamber. As I put my eye to the chink, I could not only see a bit of dim light, but I thought I could hear a distant murmuring of voices.
“’What are you looking at?’ said Rigel. ‘Budge up, I want to see.’
“’Give me the bucket,’ I replied, and a moment later I repeated it louder. Sulkily, he gave it to me. After banging the bucket against the wall a few times, I managed to loosen the handle—which was little more than a piece of braided wire, anyway—and set to work digging at the spaces between the stones around the one that had come loose. I cleared out some of the smaller bits, and scraped away at what passed for mortar, where there was any. Then I took a turn with the bottom of the bucket, pounding it on the wall until it was badly dented. Then back to scraping with the handle again.
“At first Rigel stood around and complained, then he curled up near the door and took a nap. I woke him an hour or two later and forced him to spell me, in the Muggle sense of the word. He complained even more now, but I boxed his ears once or twice and he became a willing worker. ‘It’s urgent that we work quickly,’ I pointed out. ‘That Nailspike character could be back at any moment to set us another task. It wouldn’t do for him to catch us at this. I doubt he would put us back in this vault another time.’
“'You’re a clever one,’ was all Rigel said, and he ducked his head to be on the safe side.
“We each took several turns. Mine were always the longer, because Rigel’s hands were soft and he complained often of cramps. I’ll give him this: his fingers did bleed before mine. We each snatched naps while the other worked. Still, I was growing worried about how much time Nailspike was going to let us sleep when Rigel woke me and said, ‘Hey, flatfoot, wake up! There’s someone digging from the other side.’
“With the help of our neighbors in the next vault, we got through the hole and had it patched up in another hour or so—not a moment too soon. We could hear goblins crashing around and searching for us before we had a chance to introduce ourselves to our new friends. In fact, before we had even looked around, we were stuffed into dark barrels that smelled of stale wine, where we hid while goblin voices yelped and groveled all around us. Then a door slammed, bolts were shot, and after a minute of silence I was pulled out of my barrel and introduced to our rescuers.
“There were seven of them. The most striking one—my eyes were drawn to him first—was thin and spindly, with a chalk-white face done up with black lines around the eyes and flame-red lipstick. He was wearing tights. Two others also wore the remnants of clown costumes—a portly one with a purple wig that made him appear to be a head taller than he was, and a little fellow, about so high, with a cap and bells on his head. The other four had the look of dissipated scholars, with filthy spectacles, school ties worn round their heads as bandannas, out-at-the-elbows robes, and in one case, a matted fur coat.
“Only one of them spoke English: the big clown with the purple hair. While I told them who Rigel and I were, he explained everything I said to the other clowns in Italian, then started over again in some language for the four students. Finally, he introduced himself and the others.
“’I,’ said the fat clown, ‘am Don Pagliai, and these are my associates, Signor Subito and Signor Boccachiusa.’ Here he indicated first the small one, then the chalky-looking fellow. ‘We are masters of the Guild of Fools and Acrobats in Brescia, where, as I am sure you know, wizards of fashion from all over the world come to see Muggle-themed entertainments, and to play at games of chance that cannot be cheated by means magical or otherwise. We had the misfortune of falling asleep in the wine cellar of Il Comte di Bestemmia—long story, I will not bore you with it at this time—whose retainers woke us the next morning. Il Comte thought it would be very funny, and therefore a treat to men of our profession, to send us along with a shipment of his most valuable wines to this vault, where he keeps much of his stock. Our wands were taken away, but we were given a charmed tablecloth that provides us with enough food to live, and all the wine we could ask for, but we cannot leave—by the Blessed Lady, even your English goblins cannot be bribed like civilized creatures—and we cannot escape except by finding the bottle that contains a djinn. If indeed there is such a bottle!
“’So we have been here,’ said Don Pagliai, by now handing around bottles of wine that Signor Boccachiusa had opened uncorked, ‘for perhaps a year, perhaps five years. It is hard to say; we have been so drunk most of the time! It is not a bad way to live, but dear Boccachiusa, being a mime, is no great conversationalist, and poor Subito does not hold his wine well. We were not alone long, though. These fellows, who have neither Italian nor English, sad to say, became stranded here when the ship they had stolen from school brought them to the underground lake down in the lowest levels of the bank. They thought they would bring a trophy back, but instead, they became trophies when the ship went back to their school without them. So much for learning! They fortunately found us before the goblins found them, and we have been hiding them, feeding them, and benefiting from their virtually unquenchable thirst as we search for the one bottle that has been on all our minds.’
“’Karkaroff will be very hard on them, if they ever get back to the school,’ Rigel noted.
“When Don Pagliai translated this, the students laughed and said something in a language that seemed to require optional vocal equipment. Don Pagliai interpreted: ‘He says why should Karkaroff worry them? He merely licks the boots of their headmaster, Professor Vladika Lukavij.’
“It was Rigel’s turn to laugh. ‘Lukavij? Why, he’s been retired since a pensieve containing all of his research in the Dark Arts was broken in pieces by a clumsy house-elf and he was no longer able to lecture. You poor fools have been here at least seven years!’ After laughing for a minute more, Rigel paused, reflected, groaned, and sat down on the floor to have a good cry.
“’There, there,’ said Don Pagliai. ‘The lad’s worse than Subito. Let’s get that tablecloth out and give you two something decent to eat. Perhaps that will cheer him up!’ After a brief remark by Subito, the fat clown added, ‘Ah, yes. It should also help you to drink better. To your health, gentlemen!’
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
Here are some ancient riddles to start off with. Thanks to Greek Spider and Riddlemaker. The lettering starts at D to avoid confusion with the riddles previously designated as A, B, and C.
D) Do you know the original “Riddle of the Sphinx”? It comes from Homer’s Odyssey. The man of many sorrows (or wiles), Odysseus, was the one who answered it:
What is the animal that has one voice, and goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?
E) Another ancient Greek riddle:
What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
F) And another:
Has a mouth but never speaks,
Has a bed but never sleeps.
G) Here’s an Estonian one:
One keeps me forever; two share me; three give me away.
H) An Arabian riddle:
A lady sits weeping in the window, and her tears will finally destroy her
I) From India:
What has two horns when young, loses them in adulthood, and regains them in old age?
J) From Tibet:
If you tie him up he runs, but if you untie him and set him free he stands still.
K) From Cuba:
Locked in a narrow prison, guarded by ivory soldiers, there is a red snake who is the mother of lies.
L) This one reportedly came from 16th-century B.C. Sumerian tablets:
A house: one enters it blind, one leaves it seeing
M) And finally:
1 in me, 2 in you, 1 in him, 1 missing
And now the answers to last week’s riddles from our readers! The answer to Jess’s riddle is that the man lived in a lighthouse, and when he put the light out, a boat was lost with twelve hands on board. The next line of numbers in Jade’s first riddle is: 1113213211. Why? Because each line DESCRIBES the one before it. “One one, one three, two ones,” etc. Jade’s second riddle is “night and day.” And Jade’s third riddle is “a tree.”
Finally, here are a few fresh riddles from your fellow readers!
Cheledine writes: “The criminal is the father of the judge’s son. Explain the relation.”
Lighthouse Junkie chants:
A king dined with his sister,Claire offers this brain teaser: “Antony and Cleopatra are lying in the middle of the floor in an Egyptian villa, dead, with a broken bowl beside them. They were not poisoned, and there are no marks on their bodies. How did they die?”
his friend and his friend's wife.
All of them were greedy beasts
that loved food more than life.
At last three pies alone remained,
there wasn't any knife;
how'd they all have equal shares
and save them all from strife?
Speaking of brain teasers, E. F. (all right, Ethan) strikes again: “If a rooster lays an egg at the peak of the barn's roof, which way will it roll?”
And here are two more brain teasers by Jade:
“If you are running a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you now?”
“What appears once in a minute, twice in a moment, yet never in a billion years?”
[Originally posted 4/11/05]
46. More Unfinished Business
Concepts Contributed By: Vanessa, Jon, Kevin, and HPWestHam13
“Now that one has to use the loo,” Sadie grumbled, scouring the bowl of her pipe with a stream of white flames from her wand-tip. “Just as he was about to tell us what James Potter said when he saw Spanky tied up on the ground and Lupin and Black standing over him with their wands drawn.”
“He probably just turned around and went back up to the house to get another cigar,” Merlin speculated.
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Endora. “He was a wizard, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, very likely he said a charm to get another cigar from the house,” Joe Albuquerque said, conjuring a cigar of his own out of nowhere. “It wouldn’t do to leave anyone out of the festivities, when his firstborn had just come into the world.”
“I expected to hear,” said Endora, “that in another moment, a squad of Death Eaters appeared and started blasting away with their wands.”
“That wouldn’t shock me,” Sadie snorted.
“And I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Harvey drily, “if Spanky’s next adventure had something to do with finding his fiancee, Ilona, who no longer seemed to be in jeopardy after the Gringotts goblins let Spanky out of that deposit bag. My guess is, the curse they milked out of him was the one put on him by the genie at the Owlympics.”
“I suppose, with a little imagination, we could take any one of those ideas and make up a storyline to amuse ourselves,” said Endora. Then, noticing the embarrassed silence of those around the table, she added, “You know, just until Spanky gets back.”
In the moments after these words, more than one person in the little parlor noticed, for the first time, that a distant clock could be heard ticking from there.
“Well, it does gripe one to have to wait for the conclusion of the story,” said Merlin at last, adjusting his fake nose and mustache. “I do hate to be left waiting.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” spat Sadie. “It seems like a month since you left off with your story. What ever happened to you and Rigel after you got past the sphinx? You said you spent four years in Gringotts. What did you do for all that time?”
Merlin sniffed. “I don’t know,” he said. “You might not want me to continue after Spanky comes back...”
“I suggest we have a vote,” Endora chimed in.
“You can’t vote when there isn’t a motion on the floor,” Joe pointed out.
“Somebody just tell me what happened next!” Sadie screamed. “I don’t care which story, Spanky’s or Merlin’s or even how Endora managed to find a big enough invisibility cloak to cover that no-doubt-beaver-hat-sized nose of hers—begging your pardon, dear—but since it is your adventure in the cellars of Gringotts, Merlin, that we have all come to hear, I say you have the floor, you backward, krup-loving, broomstick-thrashing...”
“Yes, that is the very thing that has brought us all together tonight,” said Harvey, with decisive calmness. “And I think we can trust Mr. Spankison to be able to fill in the bits that he misses, with the resources of the Rogue Magic Bureau at his wand-tips. Therefore, Merlin, old man, do go on.”
The new narrator paused for a moment of reflection, then began anew:
“Well, as I was saying before, the goblin named Nailspike set us up for the night in a vault that was empty except for a tin bucket, a loaf of wormy bread, and a flask of pumpkin juice that was decidedly wanting in the nutmeg department. To be blunt, it tasted like a bit of potion that hadn’t come out as planned. But we were hungry and thirsty enough to eat every crumb and drink every drop, and when the stone floor proved too cold, hard, and bumpy to sleep upon, we took turns sitting on the upturned bucket while the other paced the length and width of the vault. It was seven paces by five, by the way. And, of course, we talked.
“'We haven’t been properly introduced,’ I opened, after I had picked the last weevil out of my teeth.
“'I know we haven’t,’ said Rigel, sulkily, as he paced. ‘But I reckon I know enough about you to get on with.’
“'Do you now?’ I said conversationally. ‘Then tell me, who am I?’
“'You’re the low-rent stooge my dear father has hired to shadow me,’ said Rigel, pacing. ‘Because he wants to know what I’m doing with all his money, and whether he should leave the whole lot of it to me when he hops it, or if he should put a so-many-galleons-per-annum trust spell on it, the stingy old git. And because stinginess is his chief character trait, your expert service is on a level somewhere between “security troll” and “tipping the pumpkin-juice delivery man to keep an ear peeled for gossip.” Do I mistake?’
“I spat on the floor.
“'Do I take that as a no?’ Rigel said, pacing.
“'I have only known your father for a few weeks,’ I replied. ‘But I think I know him better than you do.’
“'Spoken like a true patsy,’ Rigel sneered, pacing. ‘He wouldn’t be so rich and revered if he didn’t know how to put on a face people could trust. But I have seen the other side. The world sees a man who is prodigally generous, but I’ve seen a man who only spends just enough galleons, and for just the sort of causes, to get his name mentioned in the Daily Prophet. Meanwhile, he won’t spare a knut to make his own flesh and blood happy, unless it be to control every move that I make. And whenever I show a bit of imagination or independent thought, he threatens to make sure he can control how every knut is spent even after he dies.’
“'Let me guess,’ I said drily, interrupting what was starting to sound like an hours-long flow of invective. ‘If you didn’t have to worry about his will, you would kill the old man just to be rid of his self-righteous stubbornness.’
“'Someone should,’ Rigel blurted, ‘before he dumps the whole family fortune into some stupid do-gooder charity like The Fatherless House-Elf Vocational Training Fund or The Exterminate the Hungry Foundation....’”
At this point, Sadie went into a coughing fit and was obliged to step out of the parlor for a moment until she could recover herself.
“I guess this part is rather boring,” Merlin admitted sadly.
“Oh, no, I’m riveted,” yawned Endora. “Please, spare no tedious, insipid detail.”
“All right,” said Merlin, uncertainly, as Sadie came back to her seat and resumed filling her pipe. “What was I saying?”
“That Rigel would deserve it if his father cut him out of the will, after he had said such a thing,” Joe Albuquerque prompted.
“Oh, yes. I said, ‘You are so blind, Rigel. You would know your father better if you had ever once given a thought to anyone but yourself.’”
“Oooooh,” said Endora. “Now it’s getting good....”
+++ Another Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
OK, let’s see how mathematically challenged you are. Remember Corinne’s riddle about the road to St. Ives? Seven wives times seven are 49 sacks, times seven are 343 cats, times seven are 2,401 kits. But remember to add the kits, cats, sacks, and wives together: they come to 2,800. But wait—that STILL isn’t the answer. You have to add the husband of all those wives and the narrator too, which makes 2,802. Right?
Wrong. Only one was going to St. Ives. Remember? “While I was going to St. Ives, I met a man...” That is to say, the man and his wives, sacks, cats, and kits were coming from the other direction. So was all that math for nothing? By no means! Nine-tenths of any math challenge is understanding the problem!
Oh, wait. I just looked over my shoulder and saw, coming up behind me, 7 officers of the R.S.P.C.A. for every kitten in those sacks....
As for Lighthouse Junkie’s riddle, the answer is (don’t panic now): FIRE!
And now for some new riddles! First, Jess puts this one to you: “After living in a house and never leaving for 30 years, a man turned off the light and left the house. But by doing this he killed twelve. How?”
Jade sent me a TON of interesting riddles. Here are a few of them. First, “What row of numbers comes next?” (Hint: this isn’t a math problem either.)
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
Jade’s second riddle is a little less, er, numerical:
“What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls?”
Jade’s third:
“I live half my life, The other half is death. I dance without music, I breathe without breath What am I?”
Why is the Magic Quill wasting so much time on riddles that don’t have anything to do with Harry Potter? Well, I’ve been asking myself that question, actually. I think one reason is that 12 readers write in with a riddle for every 1 that sends a story idea. So, yet again, a plug for sending me storyline-related concepts! But another possible answer comes from a member of CoS Forums who was complaining about not liking riddles, because “they seem to involve secret knowledge.” And if that isn’t a definition of magic, I don’t know what is! Thanks for the tip, goldennib!
[Originally posted 4/5/05]
“Now that one has to use the loo,” Sadie grumbled, scouring the bowl of her pipe with a stream of white flames from her wand-tip. “Just as he was about to tell us what James Potter said when he saw Spanky tied up on the ground and Lupin and Black standing over him with their wands drawn.”
“He probably just turned around and went back up to the house to get another cigar,” Merlin speculated.
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Endora. “He was a wizard, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, very likely he said a charm to get another cigar from the house,” Joe Albuquerque said, conjuring a cigar of his own out of nowhere. “It wouldn’t do to leave anyone out of the festivities, when his firstborn had just come into the world.”
“I expected to hear,” said Endora, “that in another moment, a squad of Death Eaters appeared and started blasting away with their wands.”
“That wouldn’t shock me,” Sadie snorted.
“And I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Harvey drily, “if Spanky’s next adventure had something to do with finding his fiancee, Ilona, who no longer seemed to be in jeopardy after the Gringotts goblins let Spanky out of that deposit bag. My guess is, the curse they milked out of him was the one put on him by the genie at the Owlympics.”
“I suppose, with a little imagination, we could take any one of those ideas and make up a storyline to amuse ourselves,” said Endora. Then, noticing the embarrassed silence of those around the table, she added, “You know, just until Spanky gets back.”
In the moments after these words, more than one person in the little parlor noticed, for the first time, that a distant clock could be heard ticking from there.
“Well, it does gripe one to have to wait for the conclusion of the story,” said Merlin at last, adjusting his fake nose and mustache. “I do hate to be left waiting.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” spat Sadie. “It seems like a month since you left off with your story. What ever happened to you and Rigel after you got past the sphinx? You said you spent four years in Gringotts. What did you do for all that time?”
Merlin sniffed. “I don’t know,” he said. “You might not want me to continue after Spanky comes back...”
“I suggest we have a vote,” Endora chimed in.
“You can’t vote when there isn’t a motion on the floor,” Joe pointed out.
“Somebody just tell me what happened next!” Sadie screamed. “I don’t care which story, Spanky’s or Merlin’s or even how Endora managed to find a big enough invisibility cloak to cover that no-doubt-beaver-hat-sized nose of hers—begging your pardon, dear—but since it is your adventure in the cellars of Gringotts, Merlin, that we have all come to hear, I say you have the floor, you backward, krup-loving, broomstick-thrashing...”
“Yes, that is the very thing that has brought us all together tonight,” said Harvey, with decisive calmness. “And I think we can trust Mr. Spankison to be able to fill in the bits that he misses, with the resources of the Rogue Magic Bureau at his wand-tips. Therefore, Merlin, old man, do go on.”
The new narrator paused for a moment of reflection, then began anew:
“Well, as I was saying before, the goblin named Nailspike set us up for the night in a vault that was empty except for a tin bucket, a loaf of wormy bread, and a flask of pumpkin juice that was decidedly wanting in the nutmeg department. To be blunt, it tasted like a bit of potion that hadn’t come out as planned. But we were hungry and thirsty enough to eat every crumb and drink every drop, and when the stone floor proved too cold, hard, and bumpy to sleep upon, we took turns sitting on the upturned bucket while the other paced the length and width of the vault. It was seven paces by five, by the way. And, of course, we talked.
“'We haven’t been properly introduced,’ I opened, after I had picked the last weevil out of my teeth.
“'I know we haven’t,’ said Rigel, sulkily, as he paced. ‘But I reckon I know enough about you to get on with.’
“'Do you now?’ I said conversationally. ‘Then tell me, who am I?’
“'You’re the low-rent stooge my dear father has hired to shadow me,’ said Rigel, pacing. ‘Because he wants to know what I’m doing with all his money, and whether he should leave the whole lot of it to me when he hops it, or if he should put a so-many-galleons-per-annum trust spell on it, the stingy old git. And because stinginess is his chief character trait, your expert service is on a level somewhere between “security troll” and “tipping the pumpkin-juice delivery man to keep an ear peeled for gossip.” Do I mistake?’
“I spat on the floor.
“'Do I take that as a no?’ Rigel said, pacing.
“'I have only known your father for a few weeks,’ I replied. ‘But I think I know him better than you do.’
“'Spoken like a true patsy,’ Rigel sneered, pacing. ‘He wouldn’t be so rich and revered if he didn’t know how to put on a face people could trust. But I have seen the other side. The world sees a man who is prodigally generous, but I’ve seen a man who only spends just enough galleons, and for just the sort of causes, to get his name mentioned in the Daily Prophet. Meanwhile, he won’t spare a knut to make his own flesh and blood happy, unless it be to control every move that I make. And whenever I show a bit of imagination or independent thought, he threatens to make sure he can control how every knut is spent even after he dies.’
“'Let me guess,’ I said drily, interrupting what was starting to sound like an hours-long flow of invective. ‘If you didn’t have to worry about his will, you would kill the old man just to be rid of his self-righteous stubbornness.’
“'Someone should,’ Rigel blurted, ‘before he dumps the whole family fortune into some stupid do-gooder charity like The Fatherless House-Elf Vocational Training Fund or The Exterminate the Hungry Foundation....’”
At this point, Sadie went into a coughing fit and was obliged to step out of the parlor for a moment until she could recover herself.
“I guess this part is rather boring,” Merlin admitted sadly.
“Oh, no, I’m riveted,” yawned Endora. “Please, spare no tedious, insipid detail.”
“All right,” said Merlin, uncertainly, as Sadie came back to her seat and resumed filling her pipe. “What was I saying?”
“That Rigel would deserve it if his father cut him out of the will, after he had said such a thing,” Joe Albuquerque prompted.
“Oh, yes. I said, ‘You are so blind, Rigel. You would know your father better if you had ever once given a thought to anyone but yourself.’”
“Oooooh,” said Endora. “Now it’s getting good....”
+++ Another Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
OK, let’s see how mathematically challenged you are. Remember Corinne’s riddle about the road to St. Ives? Seven wives times seven are 49 sacks, times seven are 343 cats, times seven are 2,401 kits. But remember to add the kits, cats, sacks, and wives together: they come to 2,800. But wait—that STILL isn’t the answer. You have to add the husband of all those wives and the narrator too, which makes 2,802. Right?
Wrong. Only one was going to St. Ives. Remember? “While I was going to St. Ives, I met a man...” That is to say, the man and his wives, sacks, cats, and kits were coming from the other direction. So was all that math for nothing? By no means! Nine-tenths of any math challenge is understanding the problem!
Oh, wait. I just looked over my shoulder and saw, coming up behind me, 7 officers of the R.S.P.C.A. for every kitten in those sacks....
As for Lighthouse Junkie’s riddle, the answer is (don’t panic now): FIRE!
And now for some new riddles! First, Jess puts this one to you: “After living in a house and never leaving for 30 years, a man turned off the light and left the house. But by doing this he killed twelve. How?”
Jade sent me a TON of interesting riddles. Here are a few of them. First, “What row of numbers comes next?” (Hint: this isn’t a math problem either.)
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
Jade’s second riddle is a little less, er, numerical:
“What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls?”
Jade’s third:
“I live half my life, The other half is death. I dance without music, I breathe without breath What am I?”
Why is the Magic Quill wasting so much time on riddles that don’t have anything to do with Harry Potter? Well, I’ve been asking myself that question, actually. I think one reason is that 12 readers write in with a riddle for every 1 that sends a story idea. So, yet again, a plug for sending me storyline-related concepts! But another possible answer comes from a member of CoS Forums who was complaining about not liking riddles, because “they seem to involve secret knowledge.” And if that isn’t a definition of magic, I don’t know what is! Thanks for the tip, goldennib!
[Originally posted 4/5/05]
45. Musical Interlude
This week's Top 10 hits on the Wizarding Wireless Network...
In 10th place for the 3rd week in a row is this Romantic ballad by Clive Chive and His Playerless Orchestra:
...Robbie here, speaking for the Magic Quill. I would love to get more riddles from you guys, but be sure to send me the answers as well. And more important than the riddles--yes! I mean that--are the story ideas that HARDLY ANYONE IS SUBMITTING. If you like the Magic Quill, please do your part to keep it going. Please! Tell me what happens next! And now, back to WWN...
Finally, in the number one spot on the Wizarding Wireless Charts is this exciting, catchy new single from the Weird Sisters, entitled, "Picking Up the Pieces."
+++ It's RIDDLE TIME! +++
Remember way back to Riddle #2? Reader Anna has this brilliant theory that I never thought of before: "I did not attribute the 'electric shock' Vernon Dursley received while choking Harry to Harry. Rather, I thought he received this shock because he was seriously threatening Harry's life. That would make the protective charm which Dumbledore put on Harry (or the Dursley household) when Harry was a baby 'kick-in' and prevent Harry from being seriously harmed. I could be mistaken but the way I understand the charm is that as long as Harry is at the Dursley's he cannot be seriously harmed - and as long as he can still call it home - the charm holds." Wow! Who would have thought of that?
Here is a Mother Goose riddle that my father taught me when I was a child, and which Corrine also suggested. There are lots of riddles of this type, which some of us may object to calling "riddles." Still, it has puzzled many mathematically-challenged children over the years!
Oh, and if E. F.'s non-riddle stumped you, I hope I never survive a plane crash near where you live.
Were these puzzlers too easy for you? Give me something better to use next time!
[Originally posted 3/24/05]
In 10th place for the 3rd week in a row is this Romantic ballad by Clive Chive and His Playerless Orchestra:
I don't care, my darling, that you smell of clover,Moving up into 9th place out of 23rd is this political protest song from the up and coming "voice of the new wizarding generation," Ludwig van Bray. The track is titled, "Bitter Nothings."
Or that they hear your mooing from Sheffield to Dover,
Or even that you have brown splotches all over,
You're hardly a cow to me.
Though my love is as wide as the very wide ocean,
I can't help entertaining the suspicious notion
That somewhere, sometime, someone gave me a potion,
For I don't know why I love thee.
O dairy-maid, dairy-maid, dairy-maid fair!
I'm udderly captive to thee!
O dairy-maid, dairy-maid, dairy-maid fair!
Do you ruminate about me?
I don't care if You-Know-WhoDropping to 8th place after two weeks at Number 2 is the title track from the singing-book soundtrack of Martin Miggs! Here is Emiliana di Tessitura singing, "My feet feel like dancing."
Does you-know-what to you,
Or if X number of his followers do
Such and so to your mother too!
You can go a place one mustn't name,
Your silly taboos are all the same,
You make vulgarity seem really lame,
So may You-Know-Who
Do the same to you!
O, what a sensation!In 7th place is the reliable old money-maker, the Wizard of Pop, Elvis Jacksteen. This is his thirty-fourth top-ten hit since "I've got billywigs in my willybigs," back in 1976, and his current album, "I'm so old I had to dye my wig, but I'm still rockin'" went platinum before he even recorded it! To what does the greatest entertainer in wizarding memory attribute his success? "You will forget that I said this," says Jacksteen. "You will buy 14 of my records. At the count of three, wake up!" What a joker! Here is an excerpt from his number-seven hit, "So cool that you have to wear gloves to pick your nose."
Is it my imagination?
Or can it be that even though
My self-dancing shoes weren't lost in the snow
After all?
It's the feeling I get from seven-league boots,
Or sucking on candied eyes of newts;
My feet feel like dancing, they've cut their roots,
I'm going to the ball!
Oo, witch, you're so sultry, my bifocals steam up when I'm near you;Rising to 6th place after a series of magical mishaps destroyed the entire inventory of his nearest competitor (such as an entire warehouse in Cheapside falling into the Thames River), British hip-hop wizard Da Wiz not only sings and produces, but he also owns his own record company, UK Dukay. Here is a bit of his latest smash hit single, edited slightly for broadcast:
Your voice is so sweet, I stuff buns in my ears when I hear you.
Your clothes are so sharp, you need but cross the garden to mow it;
But I am too old,
For your heart is so cold
That it would take aeons of global warming for you to bestow it.
I say, I mean yo,Staying at 5th place for an amazing 45th consecutive week is Hamish McLethe's well-known humming song. One of the best-known singers on wizarding wireless, Hamish was laid low by a fly-by memory charm last April, and has never recovered his ability to remember the words to any song. Still, never one to give in to despair, Hamish has made a huge career comeback with his current album of hummed and mumbled classics, entitled "Something something something." Here's his rendition of "I haven't flown over Digby since then."
Dis Da Wiz, don't cha know,
Cruisin' your 'hood, as it were.
It's a happenin' scene,
Whatever that means,
So keep your ##### behind screens,
If you know what's good for her.
I'm Da Wiz on da prowl,
Hear me howl, hear me growl,
Aroooo! Or words to that effect;
So get hip to my jive,
I'm packin' wand and I'm live,
And if you think I won't drive
This low ridin' broomstick
All over your #####ing-### ####,
You're about to get wrecked,
Unless I'm quite incorrect.
Mmmm mmm hmmmm hmmm hmmm,Already dropping to third after hitting number one in its first week of release is the show-stopping finale from the "Reconciliation Tour" album of the loudest band in the wizarding world, Nasal Drip. As you know, the band broke up again on the second night of the tour, but since then they've recorded another album called "Songs from the Cancelled Second Reconciliation Tour," which is expected to be released as soon as a number of lawsuits are settled. Here is their song, "I couldn't stand you when we were best friends."
Mmm mmm hmmmm hmm mmm,
Ya da dum deee dummm de dummmmm,
Ahum dumm de doo,
De doo doooo de dummm,
Da dumm dumm, dummm dumm dumm de dummm....
Due to a judge's finding that the song was plagiarized from the works of Sigmund Zeitdieb, who recently also proved in court that he wrote Einstein's theory of Relativity, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, and all of the plays of Shakespeare except Henry VI Part II, the number two song by Celestina Warbeck cannot be played at this time. However, it continues to sell huge numbers of MP3 spells and singing pamphlets, since the Wizengamot noted that Zeitdieb's previous victories have not prevented anyone listening to records of Beethoven or going to see Shakespeare in the West End. It's ironic, considering that the number two song is entitled, "I couldn't have jinxed it better myself." Instead, here's a word from your sponsor...
If you wondered why I kept slipping toads into your bed,
Or why you kept finding your lunch alive and your familiar dead,
Look no further than the wizard who always had to eat
All your Bertie Botts beans that you didn't think were sweet.
I couldn't stand you when we were best friends;
I thought you were stuck-up and selfish even then.
I put up with your cheapness and whininess when
Your mother bought all my books five times in ten;
But now that we've left school, why put up with you?
This concert is over, I'm finished with you!
...Robbie here, speaking for the Magic Quill. I would love to get more riddles from you guys, but be sure to send me the answers as well. And more important than the riddles--yes! I mean that--are the story ideas that HARDLY ANYONE IS SUBMITTING. If you like the Magic Quill, please do your part to keep it going. Please! Tell me what happens next! And now, back to WWN...
Finally, in the number one spot on the Wizarding Wireless Charts is this exciting, catchy new single from the Weird Sisters, entitled, "Picking Up the Pieces."
If I play a sour note, baby, I hope I won't be pinched,Be sure to pick up your pieces, by all your favorite wizarding bands, at Fermata and Slur's in the Street That Goes Uphill Both Ways, Hogsmeade! Anyone attempting to transcribe this program onto Muggle media will be banished to the Really Rare Bird Sanctuary off the coast of Idaho. If you would like a recording of this program, send fourteen galleons by owl to the WWN and a self-winding musical snuffbox will be sent to you by return owl. This has been a Quibble and Squawk production of the Wizarding Wireless Network. All gripes deserved!
For I've only just started playing again since the last time I was splinched.
I'm not sure all the bits of me got put back the right way,
So bear with my bagpipes, baby, that's all I've got to say.
Oh, I'm picking up the pieces,
And paying heavy fines.
I didn't mean to apparate
To the Drumnadrochit mines.
Perhaps the dwarves had not seen men
In quite a length of time,
So they put my thumbs on backwards,
But otherwise I'm fine.
+++ It's RIDDLE TIME! +++
Remember way back to Riddle #2? Reader Anna has this brilliant theory that I never thought of before: "I did not attribute the 'electric shock' Vernon Dursley received while choking Harry to Harry. Rather, I thought he received this shock because he was seriously threatening Harry's life. That would make the protective charm which Dumbledore put on Harry (or the Dursley household) when Harry was a baby 'kick-in' and prevent Harry from being seriously harmed. I could be mistaken but the way I understand the charm is that as long as Harry is at the Dursley's he cannot be seriously harmed - and as long as he can still call it home - the charm holds." Wow! Who would have thought of that?
Here is a Mother Goose riddle that my father taught me when I was a child, and which Corrine also suggested. There are lots of riddles of this type, which some of us may object to calling "riddles." Still, it has puzzled many mathematically-challenged children over the years!
When I was going to St. Ives,Also, our sometime contributor Lighthouse Junkie kindly suggested this riddle:
I met a man with seven wives;
And every wife had seven sacks,
And every sack had seven cats,
And every cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, wives:
How many were going to St. Ives?
I am always hungry.Last week Annatar posed us a riddle. I don't know if it was better than the herring one, but the answer was: A hand writing! Also, props to all of you who figured out that Riddle "A" comes from the Bible, the book of Judges. Samson is the riddler, describing a honeycomb he found inside the carcass of a lion. Riddle "B" comes from Tolkien's famous chapter of "Riddles in the Dark" in The Hobbit, and the answer is "a fish." As for Riddle "C," Brian's guess (a clock striking 1:00) is brilliant, but wrong. It actually came from the fairy tale appropriately titled "The Riddle," found both in the Grimm Fairy Tales and in the Green Fairy Book. It describes a raven who died of poisoning. Its flesh was cooked in a stew and served to 12 people, who all died from eating it.
I must always be fed.
The finger that I lick
Will soon turn red.
Oh, and if E. F.'s non-riddle stumped you, I hope I never survive a plane crash near where you live.
Were these puzzlers too easy for you? Give me something better to use next time!
[Originally posted 3/24/05]
44. Orel Suggestion
Concepts contributed by: Jessica Parker
Spanky's tale continued....
"Obviously, if there was an unforgivable curse on me and I didn't realize it, it couldn't be a killing curse or a cruciatus curse. That left only one option. But the only thing that troubled my mind was the difficulty of getting out of Gringotts when someone had stuck a 'for desposit only' tag on me. But you already know how that worked out. So before the day was done, I was on broomstick, bound for Godric's Hollow.
"I didn't quite get there, though. At the bottom of the road that leads up to the Potters' place, I ran into a No Fowl Play charm and was forced to land. Someone had evidently picked up on the danger to Lily Potter, and had set up spells around the place to keep uninvited guests from flying in. As I was poking around the hedge, looking for a way through, who should I meet but James Potter's best mate, what's-his-name. Now, considering that a year later, he went to Azkaban for betraying the Potters to their doom-are you all right, Sadie? Did something go down the wrong pipe? Can you talk? There, now. Well, as I was saying, in looking back I find it a bit rich that Sirius Black refused to let me come any closer to Godric's Hollow. He downright accused me of being disloyal to James and Lily! Then his friends, Lupin and Pettigrew, got into the act. It seemed they were patrolling the perimeter.
"'No one gets through,' they explained to me. 'Lily's having the baby tonight.'
"'You make it sound like a big security problem,' I said innocently. 'What would make you think they needed protection like this?'
"'Protection?' Lupin said, just as innocently. 'Who's protecting anyone? We're just here to make sure they have the privacy, peace, and quiet they need and deserve. Now shove off.'
"'I would like to help you,' I volunteered. 'After all, I care about James and Lily too.' In the back of my mind, somewhere, I wondered why I was bothering to be so devious. These were people, after all, that I had been trying to protect already! But I supposed that I didn't want to make too much of myself, so I waited humbly while Black sniffed around me, and Pettigrew studied me with those little beady eyes of his. My flesh crawled.
"'What's that in your pocket?' Black finally demanded. Not waiting for me to pull it out, he thrust his wand at me and cried, 'Accio!' A crystal sphere, about the size of my fist, flew out of the pocket. It was full of swirling smoke that changed color, like an oil slick, through all different colors of the rainbow-yet it seemed mostly black. 'What the devil is this?' Sirius gasped.
"'I'm a hippogriff if I know,' I said truthfully. 'I've never seen that before. But I just bought these robes this afternoon, in a hurry too. Maybe Madam Malkin left it in there by mistake.'
"Lupin seized the object and held it up to the dying sunlight. 'I know what this is,' he growled. 'The like hasn't been seen, even in Knockturn Alley, since the Grindelwald days. Up until the 17th century they used to destroy wizards merely for knowing what these were and how to find and use them. Even if I have misjudged Madam Malkin, whom I doubt would touch this thing with dragon-hide gloves on-even if she would, I am sure she wouldn't have let it slip into someone's pocket by mistake. The only folks who own these are as evil as Voldemort, or more so. And they are very careful with what they own, as a rule.'
"'You're talking in riddles,' I said angrily. 'Speak plainly and tell me what I am accused of. But I swear that, whatever it is, I know nothing about it.'
"'Where did you get this?' Lupin asked, still in that growling kind of voice that made me feel like standing very, very still.
"'I don't know,' I insisted.
"'This will loosen your memory,' Sirius barked. He aimed his wand at me and shouted, 'Lubrilabia!'
"But they had forgotten to restrain my hands, and I had both wands out and a shield set up before the spell left Black's wand. It ricocheted and hit Pettigrew in the face. Instantly, he began to wheedle and snivel.
"'Mother,' he said pleadingly, 'don't, please don't be ill. I promise I'll stay in then, and I won't go out and play with the other children, and I'll take care of you...' Then, as the rest of us stood by in shocked silence, he added in a piercingly feminine voice: 'Oh, Peterkin! You ungrateful, two-faced fiend! I just know that what you really want to do is to run out as soon as I close my eyes. And then what if I should wake and need medicine, or an extra blanket? I could catch my death of a chill. You don't really care, do you?'...'Oh, Mother, don't say that! Here, I will lie down beside you, so if you so much as stir, I can...'
"'Shut up!' Sirius shouted with a wave of his wand, and Pettigrew did so, looking smaller and more awkward than ever. For a long time we all just stood about, clearing our throats, trying not to look at each other. Then...
"'Spankison,' Black said, rounding on me with rekindled fury, 'put your wands away this instant, unless you are proposing to duel with me. And you might as well know that in my family, dueling is not a sport.'
"I hesitated, still holding my wands in a defensive way. 'So I am to stand down and let you curse me with impunity?' I spat. 'I don't know about your family, but where I come from, no one can spare the time or money to be a damned fool.'
"'I ought to break your neck,' Black roared.
"'Gentlemen!' Lupin exclaimed, in his quiet but unmistakably firm way. 'Sirius, old friend, hadn't you better explain what you are going to do, and why, on the off chance that the suspect you are about to interrogate turns out to be innocent? That way, you can let him walk away from the encounter, and no blood need be shed.'
"'I still want to know what that thing is, and what I'm supposed to be doing with it,' I insisted.
"'That's what we're all trying to find out,' Lupin replied quickly, with a quelling look at Sirius, who had been about to answer me. 'Now, lower your wands, and I guarantee that no ill will come to you-for now. Sirius, you'll want to let me do this. Hem! Spanky, I apologize in advance for this, but this spell simply has to be done. You know what it does as well as any of us.'
"'Certainly,' I said. 'Since it was an RMB agent who invented it, to save the cost of having a scribe take down a written record of witness interviews. It's a word-by-word replay of...'
"'All right, so we all know,' Black grumbled. 'Get on with it, Remus.'
"'Do you consent to be interviewed, then?' Lupin asked me.
"'Certainly,' said I. 'I have nothing to hide. So long as...'
"'Yes, I know,' said Lupin. 'So long as I limit the spell to relevant conversations within a time frame of, say, three days. Agreed?'
"'Agreed.'
"'For now,' Sirius added.
"Pettigrew didn't say anything. He was still looking pale and pained.
"So I lowered my wands, and Lupin hit me with the curse. And then it all came out-all the stuff I had been ordered to forget about, until I was in the same room with Lily Potter. It was weird hearing Eustace and Orel saying things, out of my own mouth, that I could scarcely remember hearing them say in the first place. But they had said it, hadn't they? The crystal globe was a device that belonged to Eustace. It was called a Styxberry, and among the ingredients used in making it were essence of boggart, puffskein livers, erlking blood, and the hair of a boojum-which I didn't even think existed. When smashed, it is supposed to unleash some kind of power that transports everyone in a thirteen-cubit radius to a realm where dreams and nightmares are real. It is basically a reality grenade, and its use, production, and possession have been banned by every wizard and goblin convention since 1549. Oh yes, and I was supposed to walk up to Lily Potter and smash it at her feet. That's what Orel's imperius curse was for.
"'Well, it's not his fault, really,' said Lupin, ruefully, after the interrogation was completed.
"'No,' Sirius agreed. 'But he can't be allowed near the Potters as long as that curse is over him. And since he didn't know it was on him in the first place, he won't have begun to fight it off. As soon as he sees Lily, even without this Boojumberry thing, who knows what he'll do to her?'
"'So what shall we do with him?' Pettigrew piped in.
"'I am sick to DEATH of being talked about, when I'm right here,' I observed. 'I might as well have stayed in that sack in Gringotts!'
"'What would you suggest?' Lupin asked Pettigrew, ignoring every word that I said.
"'Killing him would be safest,' said Pettigrew.
"'I know,' said Sirius, 'but we've discussed this before, Peter. That option is not to be discussed until all other choices have been eliminated. You see, Remus, what a bad influence you've been?'
"I'm sure the blame is entirely mine,' said Lupin. 'But Sirius is right. We mustn't harm Spanky, since he hasn't shown any disloyalty to James and Lily.'
"'Thanks,' I muttered. 'Now that I get to live, what are you going to do to me?'
"'I happen to have a very amusing idea,' said Lupin. 'You see, the danger is over once the baby is delivered. The terms of your enslavement were very clear: you were to destroy Lily Potter before she gives birth to the child. Since she is probably doing that as we speak, we only need to keep you here until James comes down the lane with his box of cigars. Ferula. There. Stand still, now. Struggling against the ropes will only increase your discomfort.'
"But something had come over me as soon as the magical ropes from Lupin's wand wound themselves around me. I began to fight and snarl and foam at the mouth like a mad dog. I ended up rolling about on the ground, trying to get my hands free, and only hurting myself in more places than I care to name. All I wanted to do was break free and get around the Potters' friends, and be there before the baby was born. But the ropes held, and after a minute or two of struggling, a kind of clarity came over me. I thought to myself, 'What am I doing? This is ridiculous. There's no reason that I need to see the Potters now.' And I stopped struggling. At the same time, however, the pain from my bonds cutting into my arms and legs increased by about fivefold. 'Ow!' I yelled.
"'That's the ticket,' said Lupin. 'I daresay he's getting over the curse now. And look, no sooner than necessary! Here's James coming now!'"
+++ Another Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
If anyone is still dying to know, here are the answers to the riddles in #43. Barbara's question was "What am I?" The answer-the human brain. Anonymous asked, "What work do I do?" The answer-he drives a truck (or lorry, if he's British). If you still don't get it, please don't complain to me. That's what the forums are for!
Here's a new riddle from Annatar, who claims that it is "much better than the herring one." You be the judge:
And while the rest of you dig through your memories for the best riddles you know, here are a few from literature. Let's see if you can spot where I got them from; extra credit for knowing the correct answer:
A.
"Out of the eater came something to eat,
And out of the strong came something sweet."
B.
"Alive without breath,
As cold as death,
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail yet never clinking."
C.
"What is this? One slew none and yet killed twelve."
[Originally posted 3/18/05]
Spanky's tale continued....
"Obviously, if there was an unforgivable curse on me and I didn't realize it, it couldn't be a killing curse or a cruciatus curse. That left only one option. But the only thing that troubled my mind was the difficulty of getting out of Gringotts when someone had stuck a 'for desposit only' tag on me. But you already know how that worked out. So before the day was done, I was on broomstick, bound for Godric's Hollow.
"I didn't quite get there, though. At the bottom of the road that leads up to the Potters' place, I ran into a No Fowl Play charm and was forced to land. Someone had evidently picked up on the danger to Lily Potter, and had set up spells around the place to keep uninvited guests from flying in. As I was poking around the hedge, looking for a way through, who should I meet but James Potter's best mate, what's-his-name. Now, considering that a year later, he went to Azkaban for betraying the Potters to their doom-are you all right, Sadie? Did something go down the wrong pipe? Can you talk? There, now. Well, as I was saying, in looking back I find it a bit rich that Sirius Black refused to let me come any closer to Godric's Hollow. He downright accused me of being disloyal to James and Lily! Then his friends, Lupin and Pettigrew, got into the act. It seemed they were patrolling the perimeter.
"'No one gets through,' they explained to me. 'Lily's having the baby tonight.'
"'You make it sound like a big security problem,' I said innocently. 'What would make you think they needed protection like this?'
"'Protection?' Lupin said, just as innocently. 'Who's protecting anyone? We're just here to make sure they have the privacy, peace, and quiet they need and deserve. Now shove off.'
"'I would like to help you,' I volunteered. 'After all, I care about James and Lily too.' In the back of my mind, somewhere, I wondered why I was bothering to be so devious. These were people, after all, that I had been trying to protect already! But I supposed that I didn't want to make too much of myself, so I waited humbly while Black sniffed around me, and Pettigrew studied me with those little beady eyes of his. My flesh crawled.
"'What's that in your pocket?' Black finally demanded. Not waiting for me to pull it out, he thrust his wand at me and cried, 'Accio!' A crystal sphere, about the size of my fist, flew out of the pocket. It was full of swirling smoke that changed color, like an oil slick, through all different colors of the rainbow-yet it seemed mostly black. 'What the devil is this?' Sirius gasped.
"'I'm a hippogriff if I know,' I said truthfully. 'I've never seen that before. But I just bought these robes this afternoon, in a hurry too. Maybe Madam Malkin left it in there by mistake.'
"Lupin seized the object and held it up to the dying sunlight. 'I know what this is,' he growled. 'The like hasn't been seen, even in Knockturn Alley, since the Grindelwald days. Up until the 17th century they used to destroy wizards merely for knowing what these were and how to find and use them. Even if I have misjudged Madam Malkin, whom I doubt would touch this thing with dragon-hide gloves on-even if she would, I am sure she wouldn't have let it slip into someone's pocket by mistake. The only folks who own these are as evil as Voldemort, or more so. And they are very careful with what they own, as a rule.'
"'You're talking in riddles,' I said angrily. 'Speak plainly and tell me what I am accused of. But I swear that, whatever it is, I know nothing about it.'
"'Where did you get this?' Lupin asked, still in that growling kind of voice that made me feel like standing very, very still.
"'I don't know,' I insisted.
"'This will loosen your memory,' Sirius barked. He aimed his wand at me and shouted, 'Lubrilabia!'
"But they had forgotten to restrain my hands, and I had both wands out and a shield set up before the spell left Black's wand. It ricocheted and hit Pettigrew in the face. Instantly, he began to wheedle and snivel.
"'Mother,' he said pleadingly, 'don't, please don't be ill. I promise I'll stay in then, and I won't go out and play with the other children, and I'll take care of you...' Then, as the rest of us stood by in shocked silence, he added in a piercingly feminine voice: 'Oh, Peterkin! You ungrateful, two-faced fiend! I just know that what you really want to do is to run out as soon as I close my eyes. And then what if I should wake and need medicine, or an extra blanket? I could catch my death of a chill. You don't really care, do you?'...'Oh, Mother, don't say that! Here, I will lie down beside you, so if you so much as stir, I can...'
"'Shut up!' Sirius shouted with a wave of his wand, and Pettigrew did so, looking smaller and more awkward than ever. For a long time we all just stood about, clearing our throats, trying not to look at each other. Then...
"'Spankison,' Black said, rounding on me with rekindled fury, 'put your wands away this instant, unless you are proposing to duel with me. And you might as well know that in my family, dueling is not a sport.'
"I hesitated, still holding my wands in a defensive way. 'So I am to stand down and let you curse me with impunity?' I spat. 'I don't know about your family, but where I come from, no one can spare the time or money to be a damned fool.'
"'I ought to break your neck,' Black roared.
"'Gentlemen!' Lupin exclaimed, in his quiet but unmistakably firm way. 'Sirius, old friend, hadn't you better explain what you are going to do, and why, on the off chance that the suspect you are about to interrogate turns out to be innocent? That way, you can let him walk away from the encounter, and no blood need be shed.'
"'I still want to know what that thing is, and what I'm supposed to be doing with it,' I insisted.
"'That's what we're all trying to find out,' Lupin replied quickly, with a quelling look at Sirius, who had been about to answer me. 'Now, lower your wands, and I guarantee that no ill will come to you-for now. Sirius, you'll want to let me do this. Hem! Spanky, I apologize in advance for this, but this spell simply has to be done. You know what it does as well as any of us.'
"'Certainly,' I said. 'Since it was an RMB agent who invented it, to save the cost of having a scribe take down a written record of witness interviews. It's a word-by-word replay of...'
"'All right, so we all know,' Black grumbled. 'Get on with it, Remus.'
"'Do you consent to be interviewed, then?' Lupin asked me.
"'Certainly,' said I. 'I have nothing to hide. So long as...'
"'Yes, I know,' said Lupin. 'So long as I limit the spell to relevant conversations within a time frame of, say, three days. Agreed?'
"'Agreed.'
"'For now,' Sirius added.
"Pettigrew didn't say anything. He was still looking pale and pained.
"So I lowered my wands, and Lupin hit me with the curse. And then it all came out-all the stuff I had been ordered to forget about, until I was in the same room with Lily Potter. It was weird hearing Eustace and Orel saying things, out of my own mouth, that I could scarcely remember hearing them say in the first place. But they had said it, hadn't they? The crystal globe was a device that belonged to Eustace. It was called a Styxberry, and among the ingredients used in making it were essence of boggart, puffskein livers, erlking blood, and the hair of a boojum-which I didn't even think existed. When smashed, it is supposed to unleash some kind of power that transports everyone in a thirteen-cubit radius to a realm where dreams and nightmares are real. It is basically a reality grenade, and its use, production, and possession have been banned by every wizard and goblin convention since 1549. Oh yes, and I was supposed to walk up to Lily Potter and smash it at her feet. That's what Orel's imperius curse was for.
"'Well, it's not his fault, really,' said Lupin, ruefully, after the interrogation was completed.
"'No,' Sirius agreed. 'But he can't be allowed near the Potters as long as that curse is over him. And since he didn't know it was on him in the first place, he won't have begun to fight it off. As soon as he sees Lily, even without this Boojumberry thing, who knows what he'll do to her?'
"'So what shall we do with him?' Pettigrew piped in.
"'I am sick to DEATH of being talked about, when I'm right here,' I observed. 'I might as well have stayed in that sack in Gringotts!'
"'What would you suggest?' Lupin asked Pettigrew, ignoring every word that I said.
"'Killing him would be safest,' said Pettigrew.
"'I know,' said Sirius, 'but we've discussed this before, Peter. That option is not to be discussed until all other choices have been eliminated. You see, Remus, what a bad influence you've been?'
"I'm sure the blame is entirely mine,' said Lupin. 'But Sirius is right. We mustn't harm Spanky, since he hasn't shown any disloyalty to James and Lily.'
"'Thanks,' I muttered. 'Now that I get to live, what are you going to do to me?'
"'I happen to have a very amusing idea,' said Lupin. 'You see, the danger is over once the baby is delivered. The terms of your enslavement were very clear: you were to destroy Lily Potter before she gives birth to the child. Since she is probably doing that as we speak, we only need to keep you here until James comes down the lane with his box of cigars. Ferula. There. Stand still, now. Struggling against the ropes will only increase your discomfort.'
"But something had come over me as soon as the magical ropes from Lupin's wand wound themselves around me. I began to fight and snarl and foam at the mouth like a mad dog. I ended up rolling about on the ground, trying to get my hands free, and only hurting myself in more places than I care to name. All I wanted to do was break free and get around the Potters' friends, and be there before the baby was born. But the ropes held, and after a minute or two of struggling, a kind of clarity came over me. I thought to myself, 'What am I doing? This is ridiculous. There's no reason that I need to see the Potters now.' And I stopped struggling. At the same time, however, the pain from my bonds cutting into my arms and legs increased by about fivefold. 'Ow!' I yelled.
"'That's the ticket,' said Lupin. 'I daresay he's getting over the curse now. And look, no sooner than necessary! Here's James coming now!'"
+++ Another Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
If anyone is still dying to know, here are the answers to the riddles in #43. Barbara's question was "What am I?" The answer-the human brain. Anonymous asked, "What work do I do?" The answer-he drives a truck (or lorry, if he's British). If you still don't get it, please don't complain to me. That's what the forums are for!
Here's a new riddle from Annatar, who claims that it is "much better than the herring one." You be the judge:
I saw four fine creatures traveling in company;Here is another reader's contribution (let's call him E. F.): "If a plane crashes on the border of the U.S. and Canada, where do they bury the survivors?" Er...I don't know, does that count as a riddle? Is there any simple way to distinguish between a "true riddle" and this kind of brain puzzler or trick question? I welcome your input on this.
Their tracks were dark, their trails very black.
The bird that floats in the air swoops less swiftly than their leader;
He dived beneath the wave.
Drudgery was in for the fellow who taught all four of them their ways
On their ceaseless visits to the vessel of gold.
And while the rest of you dig through your memories for the best riddles you know, here are a few from literature. Let's see if you can spot where I got them from; extra credit for knowing the correct answer:
A.
"Out of the eater came something to eat,
And out of the strong came something sweet."
B.
"Alive without breath,
As cold as death,
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail yet never clinking."
C.
"What is this? One slew none and yet killed twelve."
[Originally posted 3/18/05]
43. Trussed, Mussed, and Imperiussed
Spanky's tale continued:
"After they extracted me from the Pensieve, Orel and Eustace roughed me up a good bit. I had been feeling almost sorry for them until then, especially as Orel was so sure that You-Know-Who was going to fry him. But they were, after all, a couple of pure-blood twerps--no offence, Harvey, old man--who enjoyed nothing better than stomping on a half-blood upstart who had, besides, made their bosom friend Shmedly look bad at the Owlympics. 'This one's for blowing it for England,' said Orel, as he did something that made me cough up blood. 'And this one's for carrying two wands, like a great show-off,' said Eustace, who was working me over with a sort of riding-crop that had a breathing-mask attachment, presumably for taking Abraxan horses to high altitudes. 'And this one,' cried Orel, 'is for being a filthy spy, saboteur, and mudblood,' after which I saw stars.
"I remember dreaming of Ilona then. I dreamed that I had found her and rescued her, and we were going to be together for the rest of our lives. I felt peace and happiness for the first time in months. It was cruel to awaken from that dream.
"When I woke, I found myself bound inside a dark, suffocating sack. I managed enough wandless magic to loosen my bonds, then wriggled and squirmed until the sack I was in rolled over. I felt myself falling, then I hit the floor hard and saw stars again.
"When my sight cleared, I felt cool air on my face and saw a bit of light--not much. It hurt to breathe, because I had evidently broken a rib or two. And my eyes weren't too pleased with the sight they beheld, either. For glaring down at me with a mixture of bloodcurdling savagery and bureaucratic disdain, were four of the ugliest goblins I had ever seen.
"'It's awake,' said one of them. 'It must be alive, then.'
"'That can be fixed,' said the second goblin.
"'So put it back in the sack and let's get on with it,' said the third. 'The tracks are blocked all the way back to the thirty-fourth switch, and there are loads of deposits to be interred before business closes.'
"'We can't deposit this in a vault now,' said the fourth goblin.
"'Alive, dead, no difference,' said the second goblin.
"'Make up your minds quickly,' urged the third.
"'I think it's trying to speak,' said the first goblin.
"I bubbled out a few phrases about needing medical attention and being an agent of the RMB. The goblins weren't much impressed.
"'Listen, wizard,' said the second goblin. 'We have a sevenfold auditing system here. We have to account for every half-knut piece, or equivalent value, that goes through our hands. If we let you go, we'll be short the amount of value that was claimed on this deposit bag. If someone put you in a deposit bag to get you out of the way, that's an awful shame, but it's not our concern once the deposit has been put on the books...'
"'How much did they claim on the deposit slip?' I asked, as clearly as I could while trying not to breathe. 'Perhaps I can pay you for my own ransom.'
"'What have you got that's worth anything?' the third goblin scoffed. 'Surely your captors picked your pockets. Put him in the vault!'
"I felt about in my robes. The first thing I found was a wad of pound-notes which I kept about me for emergencies--and any time I would need Muggle money would have to be an emergency. Apparently Eustace and Orel had ignored it because they didn't know what it was, or anything soiled by Muggles was not worth taking from me. After counting it, and figuring an exchange rate ridiculously in their favor, the goblins said I only needed to give up another fifty galleons' worth.
"Next, at considerable cost in pain, I retrieved not one but two backup wands which I kept hidden in the lining of my robes. It was a wrench giving them up, after Orel and Eustace had snapped my regular wands, but that brought me within fifteen galleons of buying my freedom. Finally, having given them all clothes off my back except a suit of thermal underwear, the fourth and quietest gnome made an observation.
"'This human has a curse on him,' he said. 'Indeed, he has two curses on him. One is fresh...' The goblin sniffed me cautiously. 'Yes, it was just put on him recently. It could be worth something.'
"The second goblin sniffed me too. 'Nah,' he said. 'That's an unforgivable curse. You remember how the wizard ministry came down on us last time we trafficked in that kind! Back in the sack with him, then.'
"'No, wait,' said the first goblin, whose nosehairs had been tickling the back of my neck since the fourth goblin spoke up. 'Smell this other curse. He's been soaking in that one for ages. Months, possibly even years. It's a very odd kind of curse. I don't think a wizard put it on him. This could be worth mi--er...'
"I looked round at the second goblin, who was glaring at the one who had almost said 'millions.' Finally it barked, 'You, Pikestaff, get the milker. There, now, wizard. Once we get this curse sucked out of you, we'll be all even, and you can go.'"
"The milker?" exclaimed the wizard Merlin, as he returned to his chair after a long trip to the lavatory. "What did I miss?"
"Shut up," said Sadie, Endora, and Joe Albuquerque in unison.
"Do go on," Harvey said, addressing Spanky.
"Well," said Spanky, "I don't want to go into vulgar details, but after they lifted the curse, and had it appraised, the goblins were in such a good mood that they even sent me to see a goblin healer, free of charge. Then I withdrew a few galleons from my own vault on the way out of Gringotts, visited Mr. Ollivander--who was severely miffed to see me buying two wands again--and Madam Malkin, who laughed when I showed up in thermal underwear. Robed, armed, and refreshed by a stiff drink at the Leaky Cauldron, I rented a fast broom and made my way to Godric's Hollow with all dispatch. I didn't know what Orel and Eustace had up their store for Lily Potter, but I meant to stop them if I could.
"Unfortunately, I hadn't given enough thought to what the fourth goblin had said. You know, about the recent unforgivable curse which was still on me..."
+++ Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
Thank you all for continuing to mull over my riddles, and submitting new ones:
Maria of Denmark has an interesting theory about Riddle #27, or "How did Snape and Harry meet inside Snape's memory in the Pensieve?" Her guess is that while Harry's head is in the Pensieve, he only imagines himself to be walking around inside the memory he finds there. So when Snape grabs his arm and pulls him out of the Pensieve, Harry perceives it as though Snape was there with him inside the memory. But in reality, "Harry's mind is still clouded by what he saw," and it takes a while for him to recognize that he is no longer in the Pensieve. What do you think?
Reader Kara is desperate to know the answer to Riddle #26. Really, I don't know the answer! It's open for discussion! If you see Kara on the Forums, please be nice enough to share your theories with her about what a boggart really looks like.
And now, I am pleased to share the first few riddles that have come to me in response to my call for new and old riddles (not necessarily about Harry Potter) for us to share and enjoy. If you get a riddle out of a book, though, please tell me the name of the book's author and title, so they can share credit with you!
Thanks to Barbara for this riddle:
[Originally posted 3/10/05]
"After they extracted me from the Pensieve, Orel and Eustace roughed me up a good bit. I had been feeling almost sorry for them until then, especially as Orel was so sure that You-Know-Who was going to fry him. But they were, after all, a couple of pure-blood twerps--no offence, Harvey, old man--who enjoyed nothing better than stomping on a half-blood upstart who had, besides, made their bosom friend Shmedly look bad at the Owlympics. 'This one's for blowing it for England,' said Orel, as he did something that made me cough up blood. 'And this one's for carrying two wands, like a great show-off,' said Eustace, who was working me over with a sort of riding-crop that had a breathing-mask attachment, presumably for taking Abraxan horses to high altitudes. 'And this one,' cried Orel, 'is for being a filthy spy, saboteur, and mudblood,' after which I saw stars.
"I remember dreaming of Ilona then. I dreamed that I had found her and rescued her, and we were going to be together for the rest of our lives. I felt peace and happiness for the first time in months. It was cruel to awaken from that dream.
"When I woke, I found myself bound inside a dark, suffocating sack. I managed enough wandless magic to loosen my bonds, then wriggled and squirmed until the sack I was in rolled over. I felt myself falling, then I hit the floor hard and saw stars again.
"When my sight cleared, I felt cool air on my face and saw a bit of light--not much. It hurt to breathe, because I had evidently broken a rib or two. And my eyes weren't too pleased with the sight they beheld, either. For glaring down at me with a mixture of bloodcurdling savagery and bureaucratic disdain, were four of the ugliest goblins I had ever seen.
"'It's awake,' said one of them. 'It must be alive, then.'
"'That can be fixed,' said the second goblin.
"'So put it back in the sack and let's get on with it,' said the third. 'The tracks are blocked all the way back to the thirty-fourth switch, and there are loads of deposits to be interred before business closes.'
"'We can't deposit this in a vault now,' said the fourth goblin.
"'Alive, dead, no difference,' said the second goblin.
"'Make up your minds quickly,' urged the third.
"'I think it's trying to speak,' said the first goblin.
"I bubbled out a few phrases about needing medical attention and being an agent of the RMB. The goblins weren't much impressed.
"'Listen, wizard,' said the second goblin. 'We have a sevenfold auditing system here. We have to account for every half-knut piece, or equivalent value, that goes through our hands. If we let you go, we'll be short the amount of value that was claimed on this deposit bag. If someone put you in a deposit bag to get you out of the way, that's an awful shame, but it's not our concern once the deposit has been put on the books...'
"'How much did they claim on the deposit slip?' I asked, as clearly as I could while trying not to breathe. 'Perhaps I can pay you for my own ransom.'
"'What have you got that's worth anything?' the third goblin scoffed. 'Surely your captors picked your pockets. Put him in the vault!'
"I felt about in my robes. The first thing I found was a wad of pound-notes which I kept about me for emergencies--and any time I would need Muggle money would have to be an emergency. Apparently Eustace and Orel had ignored it because they didn't know what it was, or anything soiled by Muggles was not worth taking from me. After counting it, and figuring an exchange rate ridiculously in their favor, the goblins said I only needed to give up another fifty galleons' worth.
"Next, at considerable cost in pain, I retrieved not one but two backup wands which I kept hidden in the lining of my robes. It was a wrench giving them up, after Orel and Eustace had snapped my regular wands, but that brought me within fifteen galleons of buying my freedom. Finally, having given them all clothes off my back except a suit of thermal underwear, the fourth and quietest gnome made an observation.
"'This human has a curse on him,' he said. 'Indeed, he has two curses on him. One is fresh...' The goblin sniffed me cautiously. 'Yes, it was just put on him recently. It could be worth something.'
"The second goblin sniffed me too. 'Nah,' he said. 'That's an unforgivable curse. You remember how the wizard ministry came down on us last time we trafficked in that kind! Back in the sack with him, then.'
"'No, wait,' said the first goblin, whose nosehairs had been tickling the back of my neck since the fourth goblin spoke up. 'Smell this other curse. He's been soaking in that one for ages. Months, possibly even years. It's a very odd kind of curse. I don't think a wizard put it on him. This could be worth mi--er...'
"I looked round at the second goblin, who was glaring at the one who had almost said 'millions.' Finally it barked, 'You, Pikestaff, get the milker. There, now, wizard. Once we get this curse sucked out of you, we'll be all even, and you can go.'"
"The milker?" exclaimed the wizard Merlin, as he returned to his chair after a long trip to the lavatory. "What did I miss?"
"Shut up," said Sadie, Endora, and Joe Albuquerque in unison.
"Do go on," Harvey said, addressing Spanky.
"Well," said Spanky, "I don't want to go into vulgar details, but after they lifted the curse, and had it appraised, the goblins were in such a good mood that they even sent me to see a goblin healer, free of charge. Then I withdrew a few galleons from my own vault on the way out of Gringotts, visited Mr. Ollivander--who was severely miffed to see me buying two wands again--and Madam Malkin, who laughed when I showed up in thermal underwear. Robed, armed, and refreshed by a stiff drink at the Leaky Cauldron, I rented a fast broom and made my way to Godric's Hollow with all dispatch. I didn't know what Orel and Eustace had up their store for Lily Potter, but I meant to stop them if I could.
"Unfortunately, I hadn't given enough thought to what the fourth goblin had said. You know, about the recent unforgivable curse which was still on me..."
+++ Pause for RIDDLE TIME! +++
Thank you all for continuing to mull over my riddles, and submitting new ones:
Maria of Denmark has an interesting theory about Riddle #27, or "How did Snape and Harry meet inside Snape's memory in the Pensieve?" Her guess is that while Harry's head is in the Pensieve, he only imagines himself to be walking around inside the memory he finds there. So when Snape grabs his arm and pulls him out of the Pensieve, Harry perceives it as though Snape was there with him inside the memory. But in reality, "Harry's mind is still clouded by what he saw," and it takes a while for him to recognize that he is no longer in the Pensieve. What do you think?
Reader Kara is desperate to know the answer to Riddle #26. Really, I don't know the answer! It's open for discussion! If you see Kara on the Forums, please be nice enough to share your theories with her about what a boggart really looks like.
And now, I am pleased to share the first few riddles that have come to me in response to my call for new and old riddles (not necessarily about Harry Potter) for us to share and enjoy. If you get a riddle out of a book, though, please tell me the name of the book's author and title, so they can share credit with you!
Thanks to Barbara for this riddle:
I have thousands of eyes, yet I live in darkness, I have thousands of ears, yet only two lobes, I have no muscles, yet I rule two hemispheres, What am I?And here's another riddle that an anonymous reader passed along:
I am the undisputed owner of a piece of ground, on which anyone trespasses at his own risk; I will not answer for the consequences. However, there are three strange things about the land I own. First, though it is always the same size and shape, its location is always changing; it is never in the same place from one moment to the next. Second, it only belongs to me while I am doing my job; the minute I stop working, my property is taken away. And third, I can never set eyes on the land I own; for as soon as I can see it, it is no longer mine. What work do I do?Come again next week for the answers--and hopefully more riddles!
[Originally posted 3/10/05]
42. Orel Prevention
Concepts contributed by: Leah & Heather
Spanky’s narrative continued:
“I trailed Orel back to his flat in London, which he had filled with a lot of rare and dangerous stuff. One of the things he had was a Pensieve. I was surprised to see it, having read that Dumbledore had rid England of the things, with a few closely guarded exceptions. I had always wanted to mess around with one, and I must admit that I had never understood what was so dangerous about them. I was about to learn a very hard lesson.
“Orel used the Pensieve a great deal during the next few days, while his deadline for dealing with Lily Potter drew near. Finally he seemed to have stirred enough thoughts around in it that a plan took shape. At any rate, there was a sudden change in his mood, from listless anxiety to exuberant energy. When he rushed out of the flat, taking a sack of galleons with him, I decided that he was not coming back very soon, so I broke cover and stole into his flat.
“I quickly found the Pensieve and was delighted to find that Orel had rushed off without removing his thoughts and plans from the bowl. So I plunged in and had a look around. What I found made my blood run cold.
“Evidently, Orel and his associates had gathered a lot of information about Lily Potter, her habits, and her tastes. Orel had pieced together several of her most charming traits and planned his attack through them. For instance, Lily had a weakness for chocolate, loved children, and was constantly throwing money into every charity that appealed to her soft heart. So it seemed that Orel was going to do something dastardly to her in the guise of a Merlin Scout going door to door selling chocolates to collect money so that underprivileged little wizards and witches could buy spellbooks and potion ingredients.
“I knew I had to warn Lily and James. But before I could get out of Orel’s memory, something truly apalling happened. The scoundrel came home, sooner than expected, and made haste to stuff the thoughts in his Pensieve back into his brain. He did not even take the trouble to look for anyone who did not belong in his thoughts. He didn’t seem to know I was there. But I knew what was happening the moment I started seeing the world through Orel’s eyes. He was going to try to murder Lily Potter, and I could do nothing to stop it.
“Words cannot describe how desperate I was. I knew I was doomed whether Orel killed Lily or not. If he succeeded, I would never be able to live with myself, seeing it all from behind the killer’s eyes while powerless to stop it. Plus, James would no doubt hunt Orel down and destroy him before long. And if Orel failed, he was going to get sizzled by You Know Who, probably before I would have a chance to get out of Orel’s brain. Now any of us can imagine how embarrassing it must be to get caught poking through someone else’s memories in a Pensieve. But to escape detection, and get stuck into a person’s brain without any hope of getting out, is a fate I had never dreamt of!
“Things did not look good. I raced around among Orel’s thoughts, unable to get his attention, scarcely daring to try, hoping to find some lever that I could push to move him off his dangerous course. Meanwhile, Orel put a slight shrinking charm on himself, vanished his goatee, conjured up a Merlin Scout’s uniform, and stirred together a potion that was meant to look and taste like chocolate but have the effect of the Draught of Living Death. By the time he had wrapped up the chocolates in pretty little papers, I had only managed to figure out how to make Orel sneeze.
“That night, Orel slept soundly for the first time since I had been following him. I, however, was tormented by all the weird things going on in his subconscious mind. I huddled terrified in a corner, wondering whether the horrid things passing on every side were the afflictions of a guilty conscience, the fantasies of a perverted mind, mere dreams, or even memories of things he had seen in You Know Who’s service. He awoke early, dressed himself in the Merlin Scout’s uniform, gathered up his collecting box and his chocolates, and apparated to a trail in the wood near Godric’s Hollow. In a matter of minutes, Orel was knocking on the Potters’ front door.
“Lily answered, looking radiant as always--no, strike that--more radiant than ever! She was looking very pregnant with little Harry, but she did not seem to be slowing down at all. Her fingers and the tip of her nose were stained with potion ingredients, her hair was loosely tied up, and she held her wand as if the caller had knocked when she was in the middle of doing something that she couldn’t wait to get on with. But when she saw Orel, disguised as a Merlin scout, she forgot about being in a hurry, and beamed at him the way Lily always beamed at children.
“'Is it already that time again?’ she asked. She rubbed her hands together, apparently wishing her fingers weren’t so dirty, because she clearly wanted to pat Orel’s head. Suddenly Orel stood beside me, in his own brain, looking on. ‘The lousy mudblood had better not touch me,’ he growled.
“'You watch your mouth,’ I retorted, and that’s when he noticed me.
“'Who the blazes are you?’ Orel’s hidden self demanded, goggling at me. ‘And what are you doing in my mind?’
“'Please, ma’am,’ said the counterfeit Merlin Scout. ‘Won’t you spare a few galleons for young witches and wizards less fortunate than yourself? In return, we would like you to have a box of these fine nougats as a gift.’
“Meanwhile, the Orel within was trying to bury me in jagged pieces of memories, broken plans, buried dreams, and various other kinds of gibberish. Every time I tried to run from him, I found him in front of me. He was walling me up in his mind.
“Still, I could see and hear what Lily Potter was doing. She bit her lip and twisted her hands, evidently considering a box of those tempting chocolates. Orel, in his youthful form, kept telling her about the lovely caramels and the hazelnut creams. Just when I was ready to give up and let him wall me in—when Lily began digging in her pockets for loose coins—the commotion stopped.
“'I beg your pardon, ma’am?’ Orel asked her, almost forgetting to sound like a polite Merlin Scout.
“'I said, I don’t mind making a donation, but I really must say no to the sweets. I don’t know what they would do to the baby, you know. Ah! Here you go! That should be enough for you to have a box or two for yourself, and some to spare. Good luck, and give my best to Mr. Ladderhold, if he’s still troop leader.’
“'But I really want you to take the sweets,’ Orel insisted, holding the box out to her.
“Lily grinned. ‘That’s very nice of you, but the answer is no. Here, take another galleon. It’s really about those poor children, after all, isn’t it?’
“Orel was growing desperate. In his mind, he was seething with fury. ‘Take the chocolate, you cursèd Muggle,’ his brain roared, forgetting all about me.
“'But ma’am,’ the boy-Orel squeaked, ‘what am I to do with these sweets? I can’t go around selling them twice. People will say I stole the money, or overcharged someone.’
“'Well, if you’re that concerned about it,’ said Lily, ‘I will buy a box then.’
“'Excellent!’ Orel said, a bit too eagerly perhaps.
“'I’ll send it to Mrs. Gwinn up at Golden Branch Farm, just over the hill past the village there. Perhaps you would be so kind as to deliver them with my compliments? I can’t spare the time to go myself, there’s a good boy. Here, have a box for yourself, too. Would you like a receipt?’ With a wave of her wand, she gave him one, and gave him another one of her delightful smiles. ‘You really are the sweetest one they’ve sent round since we’ve lived here. What’s your name again?’
“'Philip Smith,’ lied Orel. His fingers trembled as he took the receipt from Lily. ‘The children thank you,’ he added, almost tearfully. In his brain, he and I stood viewing one scene after another of his destruction by You Know Who. In each scene, a hideous dark figure sneered: ‘You mean to say, she gave you money?’
“'Goodness, you really do care about those children, don’t you?’ Lily exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so moved by a donation of three galleons. What year are you at Hogwarts, then?’
“'Won’t you even try one?’ Orel begged. On a sudden inspiration, he ripped open one of the packages. ‘Here, have a caramel from the box you bought for me. Just a taste.’
“'Oh, no, I’ve had too many of those before,’ said Lily. ‘And I have to think of the little one. He’ll have a weakness for sweets in his own time, if I have anything to say about it, but that time is not yet.’ And now she actually did pat the boy’s head, potion-stained fingers and all.
“'Well, have a nice day,’ said Orel miserably, and he turned away. As soon as he was out of sight of the Potters’ house, he apparated to a smoke-filled parlor that had a stuffed mermaid on one wall, and the head of a hippogriff on another. Eustace put down his hookah, brushed a bit of dust off his smoking jacket, and stood up out of a very soft-looking leather chair.
“'I say, Orel, is that you?’ he cried. ‘I never would have put you down for a Phoenix Scout. You don’t look as if it went well. Tell me all about it.’
“'Just a moment,’ said Orel, striding over to the bar below the stuffed mermaid, and pulling yet another unregistered Pensieve out of a hidden drawer. ‘First, I want to introduce you to somebody.’
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
The Pensieve scenario in this week’s Magic Quill was inspired by some readers’ feedback about last week’s Pensieve-related riddle. So think about it—could this happen? If it did, it would mean that when Harry (for instance) stuck his head in the Pensieve, he was physically transported into Dumbledore’s or Snape’s memory; he didn’t simply stand there with his head in the bowl, experiencing everything in his mind. So if Snape hadn’t known to look for Harry, or hadn’t chanced to see him before stuffing the memory back into his head, Harry could have been lost in Snape’s brain! This is a major problem with the “physically entering the Pensieve” scenario. However, the other scenario (head only, and the experience of being inside the memory is an illusion) has even more problems, such as: (1) How does Harry see Dumbledore and Snape when they come into their own memories to fetch him out? (2) How is it that he sees and feels Snape’s bruising grip on his arm? (3) How can more than one person’s head fit inside the bowl? Etc.
Do you know any really good riddles (not just Harry Potter-related ones)? I would like to see them. The Red Herring one that the sphinx asked Merlin is the best one I know. Send me a cool riddle and I’ll see if I can find room for it in the story!
Finally, a belated thank you to everyone who kindly wrote to tell me how desperately they missed The Magic Quill while I was moving. No one is happier than I to find myself back at work with my friends at MuggleNet!
[Originally posted 3/4/05]
Spanky’s narrative continued:
“I trailed Orel back to his flat in London, which he had filled with a lot of rare and dangerous stuff. One of the things he had was a Pensieve. I was surprised to see it, having read that Dumbledore had rid England of the things, with a few closely guarded exceptions. I had always wanted to mess around with one, and I must admit that I had never understood what was so dangerous about them. I was about to learn a very hard lesson.
“Orel used the Pensieve a great deal during the next few days, while his deadline for dealing with Lily Potter drew near. Finally he seemed to have stirred enough thoughts around in it that a plan took shape. At any rate, there was a sudden change in his mood, from listless anxiety to exuberant energy. When he rushed out of the flat, taking a sack of galleons with him, I decided that he was not coming back very soon, so I broke cover and stole into his flat.
“I quickly found the Pensieve and was delighted to find that Orel had rushed off without removing his thoughts and plans from the bowl. So I plunged in and had a look around. What I found made my blood run cold.
“Evidently, Orel and his associates had gathered a lot of information about Lily Potter, her habits, and her tastes. Orel had pieced together several of her most charming traits and planned his attack through them. For instance, Lily had a weakness for chocolate, loved children, and was constantly throwing money into every charity that appealed to her soft heart. So it seemed that Orel was going to do something dastardly to her in the guise of a Merlin Scout going door to door selling chocolates to collect money so that underprivileged little wizards and witches could buy spellbooks and potion ingredients.
“I knew I had to warn Lily and James. But before I could get out of Orel’s memory, something truly apalling happened. The scoundrel came home, sooner than expected, and made haste to stuff the thoughts in his Pensieve back into his brain. He did not even take the trouble to look for anyone who did not belong in his thoughts. He didn’t seem to know I was there. But I knew what was happening the moment I started seeing the world through Orel’s eyes. He was going to try to murder Lily Potter, and I could do nothing to stop it.
“Words cannot describe how desperate I was. I knew I was doomed whether Orel killed Lily or not. If he succeeded, I would never be able to live with myself, seeing it all from behind the killer’s eyes while powerless to stop it. Plus, James would no doubt hunt Orel down and destroy him before long. And if Orel failed, he was going to get sizzled by You Know Who, probably before I would have a chance to get out of Orel’s brain. Now any of us can imagine how embarrassing it must be to get caught poking through someone else’s memories in a Pensieve. But to escape detection, and get stuck into a person’s brain without any hope of getting out, is a fate I had never dreamt of!
“Things did not look good. I raced around among Orel’s thoughts, unable to get his attention, scarcely daring to try, hoping to find some lever that I could push to move him off his dangerous course. Meanwhile, Orel put a slight shrinking charm on himself, vanished his goatee, conjured up a Merlin Scout’s uniform, and stirred together a potion that was meant to look and taste like chocolate but have the effect of the Draught of Living Death. By the time he had wrapped up the chocolates in pretty little papers, I had only managed to figure out how to make Orel sneeze.
“That night, Orel slept soundly for the first time since I had been following him. I, however, was tormented by all the weird things going on in his subconscious mind. I huddled terrified in a corner, wondering whether the horrid things passing on every side were the afflictions of a guilty conscience, the fantasies of a perverted mind, mere dreams, or even memories of things he had seen in You Know Who’s service. He awoke early, dressed himself in the Merlin Scout’s uniform, gathered up his collecting box and his chocolates, and apparated to a trail in the wood near Godric’s Hollow. In a matter of minutes, Orel was knocking on the Potters’ front door.
“Lily answered, looking radiant as always--no, strike that--more radiant than ever! She was looking very pregnant with little Harry, but she did not seem to be slowing down at all. Her fingers and the tip of her nose were stained with potion ingredients, her hair was loosely tied up, and she held her wand as if the caller had knocked when she was in the middle of doing something that she couldn’t wait to get on with. But when she saw Orel, disguised as a Merlin scout, she forgot about being in a hurry, and beamed at him the way Lily always beamed at children.
“'Is it already that time again?’ she asked. She rubbed her hands together, apparently wishing her fingers weren’t so dirty, because she clearly wanted to pat Orel’s head. Suddenly Orel stood beside me, in his own brain, looking on. ‘The lousy mudblood had better not touch me,’ he growled.
“'You watch your mouth,’ I retorted, and that’s when he noticed me.
“'Who the blazes are you?’ Orel’s hidden self demanded, goggling at me. ‘And what are you doing in my mind?’
“'Please, ma’am,’ said the counterfeit Merlin Scout. ‘Won’t you spare a few galleons for young witches and wizards less fortunate than yourself? In return, we would like you to have a box of these fine nougats as a gift.’
“Meanwhile, the Orel within was trying to bury me in jagged pieces of memories, broken plans, buried dreams, and various other kinds of gibberish. Every time I tried to run from him, I found him in front of me. He was walling me up in his mind.
“Still, I could see and hear what Lily Potter was doing. She bit her lip and twisted her hands, evidently considering a box of those tempting chocolates. Orel, in his youthful form, kept telling her about the lovely caramels and the hazelnut creams. Just when I was ready to give up and let him wall me in—when Lily began digging in her pockets for loose coins—the commotion stopped.
“'I beg your pardon, ma’am?’ Orel asked her, almost forgetting to sound like a polite Merlin Scout.
“'I said, I don’t mind making a donation, but I really must say no to the sweets. I don’t know what they would do to the baby, you know. Ah! Here you go! That should be enough for you to have a box or two for yourself, and some to spare. Good luck, and give my best to Mr. Ladderhold, if he’s still troop leader.’
“'But I really want you to take the sweets,’ Orel insisted, holding the box out to her.
“Lily grinned. ‘That’s very nice of you, but the answer is no. Here, take another galleon. It’s really about those poor children, after all, isn’t it?’
“Orel was growing desperate. In his mind, he was seething with fury. ‘Take the chocolate, you cursèd Muggle,’ his brain roared, forgetting all about me.
“'But ma’am,’ the boy-Orel squeaked, ‘what am I to do with these sweets? I can’t go around selling them twice. People will say I stole the money, or overcharged someone.’
“'Well, if you’re that concerned about it,’ said Lily, ‘I will buy a box then.’
“'Excellent!’ Orel said, a bit too eagerly perhaps.
“'I’ll send it to Mrs. Gwinn up at Golden Branch Farm, just over the hill past the village there. Perhaps you would be so kind as to deliver them with my compliments? I can’t spare the time to go myself, there’s a good boy. Here, have a box for yourself, too. Would you like a receipt?’ With a wave of her wand, she gave him one, and gave him another one of her delightful smiles. ‘You really are the sweetest one they’ve sent round since we’ve lived here. What’s your name again?’
“'Philip Smith,’ lied Orel. His fingers trembled as he took the receipt from Lily. ‘The children thank you,’ he added, almost tearfully. In his brain, he and I stood viewing one scene after another of his destruction by You Know Who. In each scene, a hideous dark figure sneered: ‘You mean to say, she gave you money?’
“'Goodness, you really do care about those children, don’t you?’ Lily exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so moved by a donation of three galleons. What year are you at Hogwarts, then?’
“'Won’t you even try one?’ Orel begged. On a sudden inspiration, he ripped open one of the packages. ‘Here, have a caramel from the box you bought for me. Just a taste.’
“'Oh, no, I’ve had too many of those before,’ said Lily. ‘And I have to think of the little one. He’ll have a weakness for sweets in his own time, if I have anything to say about it, but that time is not yet.’ And now she actually did pat the boy’s head, potion-stained fingers and all.
“'Well, have a nice day,’ said Orel miserably, and he turned away. As soon as he was out of sight of the Potters’ house, he apparated to a smoke-filled parlor that had a stuffed mermaid on one wall, and the head of a hippogriff on another. Eustace put down his hookah, brushed a bit of dust off his smoking jacket, and stood up out of a very soft-looking leather chair.
“'I say, Orel, is that you?’ he cried. ‘I never would have put you down for a Phoenix Scout. You don’t look as if it went well. Tell me all about it.’
“'Just a moment,’ said Orel, striding over to the bar below the stuffed mermaid, and pulling yet another unregistered Pensieve out of a hidden drawer. ‘First, I want to introduce you to somebody.’
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
The Pensieve scenario in this week’s Magic Quill was inspired by some readers’ feedback about last week’s Pensieve-related riddle. So think about it—could this happen? If it did, it would mean that when Harry (for instance) stuck his head in the Pensieve, he was physically transported into Dumbledore’s or Snape’s memory; he didn’t simply stand there with his head in the bowl, experiencing everything in his mind. So if Snape hadn’t known to look for Harry, or hadn’t chanced to see him before stuffing the memory back into his head, Harry could have been lost in Snape’s brain! This is a major problem with the “physically entering the Pensieve” scenario. However, the other scenario (head only, and the experience of being inside the memory is an illusion) has even more problems, such as: (1) How does Harry see Dumbledore and Snape when they come into their own memories to fetch him out? (2) How is it that he sees and feels Snape’s bruising grip on his arm? (3) How can more than one person’s head fit inside the bowl? Etc.
Do you know any really good riddles (not just Harry Potter-related ones)? I would like to see them. The Red Herring one that the sphinx asked Merlin is the best one I know. Send me a cool riddle and I’ll see if I can find room for it in the story!
Finally, a belated thank you to everyone who kindly wrote to tell me how desperately they missed The Magic Quill while I was moving. No one is happier than I to find myself back at work with my friends at MuggleNet!
[Originally posted 3/4/05]
41. Unfinished Business, Part 2
Concepts contributed by: Ally
Spanky’s tale continued...
“'So it’s all up with me, it is,’ said the first Death Eater. ‘I’m done for.’
“'Aw, don’t put such a sour face on things,’ said the other. ‘That’ll only make sure the worst happens.’
“'A lot you know,’ said the first. ‘You weren’t there when the Dark Lord sizzled the ones that failed. I saw it, every time. He sent them out, one by one, to stop this Potter kid being born, and they came back, one by one, to face the consequences for not managing it. And now You-Know-Who wants me to go. I’ll be a fritter before the week is out. A fritter on a stick!’
"'Now, Orel, you know better than to give up before you’ve tried. You just think about what you have to do, what the others tried, and why they failed; and then you’re sure to come up with some plan that will work!’
“'I’m telling you, Eustace, there’s something funny about the Potters. Something protecting them—something big. I might as well pop myself on a spit right now.’
“'All right, Orel, if that’s what you want. But before you do, perhaps you might think back over what all the other witches and wizards did, and tell me what happened. At least I can try to give you a suggestion that will work.
“'Well, it can’t do me any more harm than is coming anyway, so why not? First there was Iphigenia Crowe, who worked with Lily Potter, though they were not really confidential friends. Iphigenia thought Lily would consider it a surprisingly friendly gesture if she put on a high tea for Lily and all of her witchfriends, making sure that each of them brought some kind of gift, like self-rocking cots, self-cleaning nappies, and a feeding bottle that is always blood-warm. Iffie’s gift was a rag doll, which had button eyes sewed on to it. But under the button eyes, Iffie had secretly painted a pair of evil eyes that were cursed to cause all growing things that they looked upon to wither and die. She expected that, if it didn’t stop the baby being born, it would at least get him soon afterward.
“'Unfortunately,’ Orel went on, ‘Edwina Bridlethwaite was also invited, who, ever since a bludger hit her on the head and ended her career with the Tornados, had been unable to do any magic except by accident. And even more unfortunately, it seemed that Edwina’s magical accidents tended to work in favor of mudbloods like Lily Potter. Edwina was reaching across the tea-table to grab up the last dragon-paté sandwich, when the sleeve of her robe caught on the teapot—the ever-full kind, wouldn’t you know—and it spilled gallons of scalding tea over Iphigenia’s gift. The paint washed off the doll’s face, not that the doll was worth keeping after that anyway. The whole plot was ruined. When Iffie told You-Know-Who what had happened, he turned her into a chickpea and closed her up inside a set of matrioskhi, since she liked dolls so much.’
“Eustace shuddered audibly. ‘And then?’
“'And then,’ said Orel, ‘he sent Sir Humphrey Twigg.’
“'Oooh! I wondered what happened to him,’ observed Eustace.
“'Shush! So he sent Sir Humphrey, who, as you may recall, had a game leg. Sir Humphrey contrived to have a broomstick breakdown within a mile of the Potters’ house, and as he expected, Lily came running to help him before he had hobbled twenty paces. She brought him to her home and was going to use a pinch of floo powder to call a broomstick repairman, but Sir Humphrey jinxed the stuff so that it wouldn’t light. So Lily tells Sir Humphrey to make himself comfortable and takes his broom and tries to disapparate, but that won’t work either. Finally, she was forced to run out on foot and try to catch the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade, while Sir Humphrey lay down for a nap in the parlor, complaining of a headache. As soon as she was gone, he pulled out a skull-shaped flask full of a potion so evil that even You-Know-Who stammers when he speaks its name: Essence of N-n-n-n-...erm. You know what I mean.'
“'Nundu Breath?’ Eustace whispered.
“Orel giggled nervously. ‘That’s the one. The slow-release stuff that may take weeks to reach lethal levels. So Sir Humphrey sprinkled it in the four corners of the house, across every doorsill and windowsill, and into the hearth. Afterward, he felt a real headache coming on, and decided to go outdoors for some fresh air and a constitutional. He pulled out his cognac flask, took a pull on it, and realized at once that he should have let his house-elf learn to read. Evidently the little treasure had mistaken Essence of N-n-n-n-...
“'Nundu Breath.’
“'Ha! Ha! Yes, it had mistaken that for the bottle of cognac, which apparently looked very similar, and had poured each one into the wrong pocket flask. The skull-shaped one, which Sir Humphrey saved for skulduggery such as his business with the Potters’ eaves and threshold and hearth, had contained nothing worse than the finest French brandy galleons can buy. The silver flask with the Twigg crest, on the other hand, was full of N-n-n-n-n-...’ Orel faltered.
“'I get it,’ said Eustace.
“'Good,’ said Orel. ‘Sir Humphrey hurried back to the Dark Lord to make his excuses and to demand, in the name of his family line of noblewizards going back to Yves the Leper, that our master give him the antidote before the poison kicked in. No such luck! As punishment for his failure, Sir Humphrey was left to stand outside His Dark Lordship’s potions cupboard, game leg and all, while his illiterate house-elf was locked inside, trying to decipher the labels on a thousand potions. Needless to say, the house-elf was still looking for the antidote—if it was even there—when death caught up with Sir Humphrey.’
“'That’s pretty nasty,’ Eustace admitted.
“'Who was next?’ Orel mused. ‘Ah! I remember! It was Octavius Pidgeon. You remember him; he did a stretch in Azkaban for werewolf baiting, back in the early days of His Dark Lordship’s rise to power. He rigged a Daily Prophet Galleon Draw so that the Potters would win a free cruise on the H.M.S. Necromancer. Having seen what happened to Iffie and Sir Humphrey, and being a great fixer of betting games, Pidgeon knew better than to put all his eggs in one basket. He made several unrelated arrangements to do the Potters in, so that if one plot failed, another would go on. First, he paid off some merpeople and a giant squid to try to scuttle the Necromancer. Next, he made an arrangement with a kraken to produce an enormous wave that would force the ship onto a shoal, just off a desert island. Then, he made sure that the ship was going to stop at Easter Island, and he turned one of those standing stones into a golem with the single purpose of bashing the Potters to smithereeens. And finally, he reverse-conjured an unplottable charm and placed it on the crew of the ship, so that they would wander forever without ever getting to where they intended to go. That was only supposed to go into effect after they reached Easter Island, though.’
“Eustace whistled. ‘Quadruple failsafes. Octavius was a sure bet if there ever was one. So what went wrong?’
“'What didn’t?’ said Orel. ‘As near as I can figure, the kraken misjudged the timing of her tidal wave, and ended up dashing the giant squid and the merpeople onto a desert island, where they perished. Then the reverse-unplottable spell somehow got transferred to the golem, who, unable to tell where he was going, walked off a cliff into the sea. The Potters didn’t even get seasick.’
“'So what did the Dark Lord do to Octavius?’
“'I seem to recall that he was turned into a carp and released into a tank full of barracuda.’
“'Lovely.’
“'And the last time, the unlucky party was Tatiana Snelling. She tried the most direct approach. Everyone knew, since Witch Weekly did that write-up on Lily Potter, that she and James took a walk in the wood near their house every day after dinner. Tatiana disillusioned herself, sneaked into the wood with plenty of time to spare, and took up station in a leafy oak tree overlooking the path that led down to the Potters’ house. Well, as soon as that pair of Muggle-loving upstarts strolled into view, Tatiana aimed her wand right at Lily Potter and screamed that death curse we all know so well. Unfortunately, she forgot that she was in a wand tree, surrounded by loads of limbs and twigs and, I hardly need mention, bowtruckles. Her curse wiped out a whole branch of the bowtruckle clan that lived on that tree, but it didn’t even faze the hundred or so other bowtruckles that instantly rushed at Tatiana. She barely managed to escape with her life, but that was more than she could manage after the Dark One caught up with her. He turned her into a wood louse and added her to a bucket of wood lice that was going to be fed to the guardians of the Dark Lord’s pet tree...’
“'The one that is trimmed to a perfect likeness of our Master himself?’ asked Eustace. ‘What do they call that tree again?’
“Well, when He Who Must Not Be Named isn’t around, they call it Yew-Know-Who...’
“Eustace snorted with laughter, then composed himself, apparently out of consideration for his friend’s anxiety. ‘All right, so he gave old Tatiana a sporting chance. She could have gotten away...one out of a million wood lice, after all...’
“Yes, well, that’s all there is. I’m the next lamb to be sent to slaughter, and I probably won’t be the last. If potions, curses, magical creatures, and jinxed artifacts can’t finish this Potter child, I can’t think what will.’
“'And who,’ Eustace said, with a sly smile in his voice, ‘said those things can’t do the job? It wasn’t the magic that failed, Orel old pudding, it was the fault of the people who planned and carried it out. They all hatched plans with too many variables, and the variables got in their way. Iphigenia ran a risk by involving a whole roomful of unwitting accomplices, so she had no one but herself to blame when that washed-up Quidditch maven spilt tea on her jinxed artifact. Octavius tried to hedge his bets by calling on more than one magical creature to do his dirty work, but he did not bother with choreographing the operation as a whole. So it was entirely his fault when they tripped over each other! Sir Humphrey blithely let his plan pivot on the menial actions of a witless body-servant, when he should have trusted no one with any part of his plan; and Tatiana failed to take careful note of the lay of the land, and plunged ahead without careful preparation.’
“'So what can I do that will avoid their mistakes?’ said Orel, sounding hopeful for the first time.
“'Why, that’s simple,’ said Eustace. ‘First, come up with a simple plan, or maybe two plans, in case you need a backup. Second, see to every detail of the preparations yourself. Third, examine every square inch of the place where you want to hit the Potters. And fourth, make sure there’s no one else around when you put your plan into action, except yourself and James and Lily Potter. Oh, and one more thing. Whatever happens, come to me before you report to the Dark Lord.’”
“'Why?’ asked Orel.
“'Well, mainly, so that if you fail,’ said Eustace, ‘I’ll know what mistake of yours to avoid, in case His Darkness passes the assignment on to me...’”
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
Some of you readers have been keeping busy with the “unanswerable” riddles!
WHO DOES THE LAUNDRY ANYWAY? Rhiannon observes that Ron once said his mother would like a house-elf to help with the ironing. Maybe this, along with Dobby’s availability to pick up robes for cleaning, suggests that you can give clothes to a house-elf for the express purpose of cleaning them, without setting them free. Maybe it’s a matter of attitude, though. It could be like how a genie or psammead can turn your most carefully-worded wish into a dreadful curse, by willfully twisting what you meant—because the genie wants to harm you, or the psammead wants to be left alone. If a house-elf wants to go free, you can ask him to iron a shirt and he may interpret it as a pink slip. But if he loves working for you, you can leave any number of socks lying around and he will merely tidy them up for you, because leaving the house doesn’t occur to him. What do you think of that theory?
WHAT ARE LITTLE BOGGARTS MADE OF? Nicole suggests an even trickier riddle, from the “How Many Angels Can Dance On the Head of a Pin” Dept. If a Boggart is your worst fear, what do you see when you meet one? Does the boggart switch to your second-worst fear?
WHAT’S SO FUNNY, SIRIUS? Clara thinks the reason Sirius was found laughing after Wormtail killed all those Muggles and got away was that Sirius thought Wormtail had killed himself with his own curse. Maybe I’m not putting this right, so I’ll leave it to Clara’s own words: “I mean, if you were trying to kill the man that killed your best friend and he ended up killing himself when his own curse backfired, I'm sure you'd find it very ironically funny. I believe that's why he was laughing, because Wormtail was so stupid.” I don’t know. Are you convinced?
CRUMB! A reader named Victor points out that, in the so-called wandless magic which I so cleverly pointed out in Riddle 2, Dumbledore was actually using his wand. Drat!
THE SPY WHO PUKED ON ME: Andrea has a mind-bender that isn’t so much a riddle as a new “clue” for inquiring minds to wrestle with. In her words: "Madam Marsh has been on the Knight Bus every time Harry has. She also leaves the bus clutching her handkerchief or something to show that she feels ill. What are the odds that someone who feels that nauseuated would be a regular on the Knight Bus? If she does not ride the bus on a day-to-day basis, then who puts her on the bus to watch over Harry?”
And finally:
RIDDLE #27, FROM THE “SOMEONE’S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE” DEPT: Caren gives us a brand new Riddle! How did Dumbledore and, later, Snape, know that Harry was visiting their memories in the Pensieve? If Harry was really, physically “sucked into” the Pensieve, would they be able to see him by looking into the bowl themselves? Or wouldn’t Snape have a hard time telling Harry apart from James from an overhead view? And, “If the person simply has his/her head in the Pensieve, then how are they pulled out? Does their brain play a trick on them and make them think a person they do not have their eyes on is in the memory?” etc. You go ahead and try to figure that one out!
[Originally posted 2/24/05]
Spanky’s tale continued...
“'So it’s all up with me, it is,’ said the first Death Eater. ‘I’m done for.’
“'Aw, don’t put such a sour face on things,’ said the other. ‘That’ll only make sure the worst happens.’
“'A lot you know,’ said the first. ‘You weren’t there when the Dark Lord sizzled the ones that failed. I saw it, every time. He sent them out, one by one, to stop this Potter kid being born, and they came back, one by one, to face the consequences for not managing it. And now You-Know-Who wants me to go. I’ll be a fritter before the week is out. A fritter on a stick!’
"'Now, Orel, you know better than to give up before you’ve tried. You just think about what you have to do, what the others tried, and why they failed; and then you’re sure to come up with some plan that will work!’
“'I’m telling you, Eustace, there’s something funny about the Potters. Something protecting them—something big. I might as well pop myself on a spit right now.’
“'All right, Orel, if that’s what you want. But before you do, perhaps you might think back over what all the other witches and wizards did, and tell me what happened. At least I can try to give you a suggestion that will work.
“'Well, it can’t do me any more harm than is coming anyway, so why not? First there was Iphigenia Crowe, who worked with Lily Potter, though they were not really confidential friends. Iphigenia thought Lily would consider it a surprisingly friendly gesture if she put on a high tea for Lily and all of her witchfriends, making sure that each of them brought some kind of gift, like self-rocking cots, self-cleaning nappies, and a feeding bottle that is always blood-warm. Iffie’s gift was a rag doll, which had button eyes sewed on to it. But under the button eyes, Iffie had secretly painted a pair of evil eyes that were cursed to cause all growing things that they looked upon to wither and die. She expected that, if it didn’t stop the baby being born, it would at least get him soon afterward.
“'Unfortunately,’ Orel went on, ‘Edwina Bridlethwaite was also invited, who, ever since a bludger hit her on the head and ended her career with the Tornados, had been unable to do any magic except by accident. And even more unfortunately, it seemed that Edwina’s magical accidents tended to work in favor of mudbloods like Lily Potter. Edwina was reaching across the tea-table to grab up the last dragon-paté sandwich, when the sleeve of her robe caught on the teapot—the ever-full kind, wouldn’t you know—and it spilled gallons of scalding tea over Iphigenia’s gift. The paint washed off the doll’s face, not that the doll was worth keeping after that anyway. The whole plot was ruined. When Iffie told You-Know-Who what had happened, he turned her into a chickpea and closed her up inside a set of matrioskhi, since she liked dolls so much.’
“Eustace shuddered audibly. ‘And then?’
“'And then,’ said Orel, ‘he sent Sir Humphrey Twigg.’
“'Oooh! I wondered what happened to him,’ observed Eustace.
“'Shush! So he sent Sir Humphrey, who, as you may recall, had a game leg. Sir Humphrey contrived to have a broomstick breakdown within a mile of the Potters’ house, and as he expected, Lily came running to help him before he had hobbled twenty paces. She brought him to her home and was going to use a pinch of floo powder to call a broomstick repairman, but Sir Humphrey jinxed the stuff so that it wouldn’t light. So Lily tells Sir Humphrey to make himself comfortable and takes his broom and tries to disapparate, but that won’t work either. Finally, she was forced to run out on foot and try to catch the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade, while Sir Humphrey lay down for a nap in the parlor, complaining of a headache. As soon as she was gone, he pulled out a skull-shaped flask full of a potion so evil that even You-Know-Who stammers when he speaks its name: Essence of N-n-n-n-...erm. You know what I mean.'
“'Nundu Breath?’ Eustace whispered.
“Orel giggled nervously. ‘That’s the one. The slow-release stuff that may take weeks to reach lethal levels. So Sir Humphrey sprinkled it in the four corners of the house, across every doorsill and windowsill, and into the hearth. Afterward, he felt a real headache coming on, and decided to go outdoors for some fresh air and a constitutional. He pulled out his cognac flask, took a pull on it, and realized at once that he should have let his house-elf learn to read. Evidently the little treasure had mistaken Essence of N-n-n-n-...
“'Nundu Breath.’
“'Ha! Ha! Yes, it had mistaken that for the bottle of cognac, which apparently looked very similar, and had poured each one into the wrong pocket flask. The skull-shaped one, which Sir Humphrey saved for skulduggery such as his business with the Potters’ eaves and threshold and hearth, had contained nothing worse than the finest French brandy galleons can buy. The silver flask with the Twigg crest, on the other hand, was full of N-n-n-n-n-...’ Orel faltered.
“'I get it,’ said Eustace.
“'Good,’ said Orel. ‘Sir Humphrey hurried back to the Dark Lord to make his excuses and to demand, in the name of his family line of noblewizards going back to Yves the Leper, that our master give him the antidote before the poison kicked in. No such luck! As punishment for his failure, Sir Humphrey was left to stand outside His Dark Lordship’s potions cupboard, game leg and all, while his illiterate house-elf was locked inside, trying to decipher the labels on a thousand potions. Needless to say, the house-elf was still looking for the antidote—if it was even there—when death caught up with Sir Humphrey.’
“'That’s pretty nasty,’ Eustace admitted.
“'Who was next?’ Orel mused. ‘Ah! I remember! It was Octavius Pidgeon. You remember him; he did a stretch in Azkaban for werewolf baiting, back in the early days of His Dark Lordship’s rise to power. He rigged a Daily Prophet Galleon Draw so that the Potters would win a free cruise on the H.M.S. Necromancer. Having seen what happened to Iffie and Sir Humphrey, and being a great fixer of betting games, Pidgeon knew better than to put all his eggs in one basket. He made several unrelated arrangements to do the Potters in, so that if one plot failed, another would go on. First, he paid off some merpeople and a giant squid to try to scuttle the Necromancer. Next, he made an arrangement with a kraken to produce an enormous wave that would force the ship onto a shoal, just off a desert island. Then, he made sure that the ship was going to stop at Easter Island, and he turned one of those standing stones into a golem with the single purpose of bashing the Potters to smithereeens. And finally, he reverse-conjured an unplottable charm and placed it on the crew of the ship, so that they would wander forever without ever getting to where they intended to go. That was only supposed to go into effect after they reached Easter Island, though.’
“Eustace whistled. ‘Quadruple failsafes. Octavius was a sure bet if there ever was one. So what went wrong?’
“'What didn’t?’ said Orel. ‘As near as I can figure, the kraken misjudged the timing of her tidal wave, and ended up dashing the giant squid and the merpeople onto a desert island, where they perished. Then the reverse-unplottable spell somehow got transferred to the golem, who, unable to tell where he was going, walked off a cliff into the sea. The Potters didn’t even get seasick.’
“'So what did the Dark Lord do to Octavius?’
“'I seem to recall that he was turned into a carp and released into a tank full of barracuda.’
“'Lovely.’
“'And the last time, the unlucky party was Tatiana Snelling. She tried the most direct approach. Everyone knew, since Witch Weekly did that write-up on Lily Potter, that she and James took a walk in the wood near their house every day after dinner. Tatiana disillusioned herself, sneaked into the wood with plenty of time to spare, and took up station in a leafy oak tree overlooking the path that led down to the Potters’ house. Well, as soon as that pair of Muggle-loving upstarts strolled into view, Tatiana aimed her wand right at Lily Potter and screamed that death curse we all know so well. Unfortunately, she forgot that she was in a wand tree, surrounded by loads of limbs and twigs and, I hardly need mention, bowtruckles. Her curse wiped out a whole branch of the bowtruckle clan that lived on that tree, but it didn’t even faze the hundred or so other bowtruckles that instantly rushed at Tatiana. She barely managed to escape with her life, but that was more than she could manage after the Dark One caught up with her. He turned her into a wood louse and added her to a bucket of wood lice that was going to be fed to the guardians of the Dark Lord’s pet tree...’
“'The one that is trimmed to a perfect likeness of our Master himself?’ asked Eustace. ‘What do they call that tree again?’
“Well, when He Who Must Not Be Named isn’t around, they call it Yew-Know-Who...’
“Eustace snorted with laughter, then composed himself, apparently out of consideration for his friend’s anxiety. ‘All right, so he gave old Tatiana a sporting chance. She could have gotten away...one out of a million wood lice, after all...’
“Yes, well, that’s all there is. I’m the next lamb to be sent to slaughter, and I probably won’t be the last. If potions, curses, magical creatures, and jinxed artifacts can’t finish this Potter child, I can’t think what will.’
“'And who,’ Eustace said, with a sly smile in his voice, ‘said those things can’t do the job? It wasn’t the magic that failed, Orel old pudding, it was the fault of the people who planned and carried it out. They all hatched plans with too many variables, and the variables got in their way. Iphigenia ran a risk by involving a whole roomful of unwitting accomplices, so she had no one but herself to blame when that washed-up Quidditch maven spilt tea on her jinxed artifact. Octavius tried to hedge his bets by calling on more than one magical creature to do his dirty work, but he did not bother with choreographing the operation as a whole. So it was entirely his fault when they tripped over each other! Sir Humphrey blithely let his plan pivot on the menial actions of a witless body-servant, when he should have trusted no one with any part of his plan; and Tatiana failed to take careful note of the lay of the land, and plunged ahead without careful preparation.’
“'So what can I do that will avoid their mistakes?’ said Orel, sounding hopeful for the first time.
“'Why, that’s simple,’ said Eustace. ‘First, come up with a simple plan, or maybe two plans, in case you need a backup. Second, see to every detail of the preparations yourself. Third, examine every square inch of the place where you want to hit the Potters. And fourth, make sure there’s no one else around when you put your plan into action, except yourself and James and Lily Potter. Oh, and one more thing. Whatever happens, come to me before you report to the Dark Lord.’”
“'Why?’ asked Orel.
“'Well, mainly, so that if you fail,’ said Eustace, ‘I’ll know what mistake of yours to avoid, in case His Darkness passes the assignment on to me...’”
+++ RIDDLE TIME! +++
Some of you readers have been keeping busy with the “unanswerable” riddles!
WHO DOES THE LAUNDRY ANYWAY? Rhiannon observes that Ron once said his mother would like a house-elf to help with the ironing. Maybe this, along with Dobby’s availability to pick up robes for cleaning, suggests that you can give clothes to a house-elf for the express purpose of cleaning them, without setting them free. Maybe it’s a matter of attitude, though. It could be like how a genie or psammead can turn your most carefully-worded wish into a dreadful curse, by willfully twisting what you meant—because the genie wants to harm you, or the psammead wants to be left alone. If a house-elf wants to go free, you can ask him to iron a shirt and he may interpret it as a pink slip. But if he loves working for you, you can leave any number of socks lying around and he will merely tidy them up for you, because leaving the house doesn’t occur to him. What do you think of that theory?
WHAT ARE LITTLE BOGGARTS MADE OF? Nicole suggests an even trickier riddle, from the “How Many Angels Can Dance On the Head of a Pin” Dept. If a Boggart is your worst fear, what do you see when you meet one? Does the boggart switch to your second-worst fear?
WHAT’S SO FUNNY, SIRIUS? Clara thinks the reason Sirius was found laughing after Wormtail killed all those Muggles and got away was that Sirius thought Wormtail had killed himself with his own curse. Maybe I’m not putting this right, so I’ll leave it to Clara’s own words: “I mean, if you were trying to kill the man that killed your best friend and he ended up killing himself when his own curse backfired, I'm sure you'd find it very ironically funny. I believe that's why he was laughing, because Wormtail was so stupid.” I don’t know. Are you convinced?
CRUMB! A reader named Victor points out that, in the so-called wandless magic which I so cleverly pointed out in Riddle 2, Dumbledore was actually using his wand. Drat!
THE SPY WHO PUKED ON ME: Andrea has a mind-bender that isn’t so much a riddle as a new “clue” for inquiring minds to wrestle with. In her words: "Madam Marsh has been on the Knight Bus every time Harry has. She also leaves the bus clutching her handkerchief or something to show that she feels ill. What are the odds that someone who feels that nauseuated would be a regular on the Knight Bus? If she does not ride the bus on a day-to-day basis, then who puts her on the bus to watch over Harry?”
And finally:
RIDDLE #27, FROM THE “SOMEONE’S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE” DEPT: Caren gives us a brand new Riddle! How did Dumbledore and, later, Snape, know that Harry was visiting their memories in the Pensieve? If Harry was really, physically “sucked into” the Pensieve, would they be able to see him by looking into the bowl themselves? Or wouldn’t Snape have a hard time telling Harry apart from James from an overhead view? And, “If the person simply has his/her head in the Pensieve, then how are they pulled out? Does their brain play a trick on them and make them think a person they do not have their eyes on is in the memory?” etc. You go ahead and try to figure that one out!
[Originally posted 2/24/05]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
