Terry Boot and the Masochist's Boulder

It had already been November for far too long, when one sunny afternoon found Terry walking down the hallway by himself. As Terry liked to do from time to time, he was humming some made up melody in his head. The portraits on the walls were giving him odd glances. If you've never seen a one legged boy walk, well, then I guess you can't really know what those portraits were feeling.

Terry didn't like to use his crutch for walking. He realized somewhere around the age of five that he had better get used to being mobile without assistance, and ever since then he had basically been shuffling or hopping wherever he wanted to go. His thigh muscles were amazing.

At any rate, Terry was trying to come up with some sort of strategy for the upcoming Quidditch match. He'd need one if he was to prove himself to be the best crippled chaser of all time. Of course, it was easy to be the best when you were also the only one ever in the history books. Terry didn't let that thought bother him though. It was good to make a first impression, and he was paving the way for all the other crippled quidditch players that were to come, if any were coming at all. With Lord Pullapart still at large, though, Terry assumed that there would be at least one more child without a limb attending Hogwarts. Maybe then they'd be able to form a Handicapped Club like Terry had been thinking about. But of course, deep down, Terry knew that was a wishful type of thinking that would get him no where.

It was thoughts like these that plagued Terry's mind as he wandered aimlessly down the hallway. He had a break in classes, and was trying to relax his mind after all that studying Lisa had done for him. It wasn't that Terry didn't like to study on his own, or learn things, but sometimes his brain started to hurt. That's when Lisa stepped in for him, and helped him to remember things in a way that he found easy. Like writing test answers on his arm, or slipping a piece of paper with information on it into one of his pockets. He wasn't a cheater in life, like Harry Potter, he was just a cheater in school, where things don't really count.

It was right after he had thought this and turned a corner that he saw Professor Snape, angry and robes billowing in a non-existent breeze, limping down the hallway. There was a dark spot of blood on his pants leg, and it was mixing with the grease in a very unappealing way. Terry felt a pang of sympathy in his stump.

It was while he was thinking about what would happen if Snape had to have his leg amputated that he heard something off to his right.

"Psst," hissed a voice from around the corner that led to the opposite direction he had come from. "Terry, is he gone?"

"Yes," Terry told him, walking over by the Boy Who Lived. For indeed, there was Harry Potter, crouched and shaking slightly, his skin a paler tone than was usual for him.

"Great," Harry told Terry, the Boy Who Limped. "Boy, I wish I knew what that was all about."

"What happened?" Terry asked, attempting to crouch down by Harry, but just falling into a heap near him. "Why are you crouching here?"

"Well, I went to go get my book back from Snape, and...wait, why am I telling you this?" Harry finished, looking suspiciously at Terry. "Why do you want to know anyway? Who are you?"

"I'm Terry Boot," Terry introduced himself again. "I'm in Ravenclaw, and I saw that you might be in trouble, or thinking about amputating Snape's leg."

"What? Nevermind. Anyway, I guess I'll just tell you the rest of the story. I barged into the teachers lounge like I owned the place, and there was Snape with this huge gash in his leg, with Filch helping him to wrap a bandage around it. It was all really suspicious. Even more suspicious than you asking me what's wrong," Harry Potter finished, pushing his unfashionable glasses further up on his nose.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Harry," Terry told him, struggling to get to his feet. "Obviously, Snape tried to stop Quirrell from getting the Sorcerer's Stone last night. It was fairly predictable after that stunt Quirrell pulled in the Great Hall, don't you think? I mean, of course Snape would try to stop him, what with him protecting you and the stone from Voldemort all at the same time."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jerry," Harry spat out, turning on his heel and heading back for the Gryffindor Common room like a king in his castle.

Terry shrugged the whole incident off. Whatever it was, it was reassuring to know that in the end, it all wouldn't rest on Harry's shoulders.

The next day Terry woke up bright and early to tell Lisa and Mandy what he had deduced the night prior.

"You guys," Terry said, approaching them excitedly in the common room. "Do I ever have news for you!" Lisa and Mandy exchanged worried glances, wondering if they were about to get another lecture on the joys of waxing his crutch.

"Does this have something to do with your deformity...errr...I mean...yeah. I guess there's no way to twist that around so it sounds politically correct," Lisa said, frowning slightly.

"No, this has to do with the Philosopher's Stone, silly!" Terry yelled, getting his deformed...errr... spit all over Lisa's specs.

Mandy rolled her eyes and patted Terry on the back.

"What did we tell you about attempting to use British dialect that you can't possibly understand, what with your Canadian ancestry?"

"As it were," Terry added in.

"Anyways, what about the Sorcerer's Stone?" Lisa asked.

"I ran into Professor Snape last evening, and he was stopping Harry Potter from reneging on his....wait, I mean he was stopping Quirrell from pulling his, er...hamstring," Terry sputtered, falling helplessly into the plot hole of his own story. It seemed that Terry's obvious brilliance the night before was a fluke of nature.

"Okay Terry, okay," Mandy said, smiling and motioning for Lisa to get his meds, "Open up your mouth because here comes the medicated airplane..." All Terry heard before heavy doses of Vicadin were forced down his throat were the crazy airplane noises Mandy had been making.

The next thing Terry knew he was waking up in the stands during the Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch match.

"My stump is throbbing!" Terry moaned pitifully, wondering if it were some sort of sign and or foreshadowing.

"No Terry, it's just the after effects of the drugs we gave you," Mandy said smartly.

"Why did you do that to me?" Terry asked, utterly confused. "I just wanted to tell you all about how Quirrell is after the Sorcerer's Stone, and how Snape injured his leg on that giant dog that was guarding those...things," Terry said, finally realizing he was announcing his brilliance to the entire stadium.

"All right, all right," Lisa said. "Calm down, Terry. Let's think about this."

"I can't think! It's those drugs you gave me mixed with that butterbeer I swallowed. It's making my brain float."

"Are you paying attention, Terry?" Mandy suddenly interrupted. "Don't you have to do this tomorrow? You know, Quidditch match against Hufflepuff?"

"Oops," Terry mumbled, as Harry caught the snitch. "Oh well. I think I understand most of what happens. Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really. Quirrell was trying to jinx Harry, but Snape stopped him. I wonder why Dumbledore is still keeping him around. Do you think it's some sort of "keep your enemies closer" thing?"

"Maybe," Mandy said, a look of concentration upon her face. "The only thing we're certain about is that Dumbledore has everything under control. I mean, he is the greatest wizard of our time, isn't he?"

"Maybe I should talk to Professor Kettleburn," Terry said. "I think he might have some good advice to offer. Why don't we head down there?"

The stands were already mostly empty by the time the trio made their way to the grimy, old cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. When they had reached it, Mandy knocked three times, and finally the door was answered by a red-faced Professor Kettleburn.

"Come in, come in," he said, moving aside to let them in. "Good thing you didn't go to that other cabin. Hagrid lives there, and well, he's never been right in the head. Bought that stupid three headed dog and put it up in the school, don't ya know."

"No kidding," Lisa said, accepting a cup of tea from Professor Kettleburn. "Dumbledore let him?"

"Oh yeah," Professor Kettleburn said. "The thing about Dumbledore is that, yes, he's a great man, but he needs someone to *know* he's great. Take this new kid, Harry Potter. Lucky, smarmy lad, if you ask me, but Dumbledore thinks the sun shines out of his arse. Before Harry there was Hagrid, and Hagrid could do nothing wrong. Still can't, really. That's why that dangerous animal is lurking in the school. Hagrid thought it was a good idea, and lo and behold, it came to pass."

"Hagrid sounds rather dangerous," Mandy commented.

"He is, he is," Professor Kettleburn concurred. "He was always ready and quick with his fists to help Dumbledore, but not so much with his smarts, if you get my drift."

"Yes, I do," Terry said, surprising everyone into silence.

When they had finally managed to wrap their minds around the fact that Terry had understood something, Lisa asked Professor Kettleburn another pressing question.

"What is this Masochist's Boulder I'm hearing about?" she asked him, stirring her tea.

"Ah, that old thing," Professor Kettleburn said. He was patching up an old coat as he talked to the trio. "Well, it was created by a man called Richard Codpiece. This Codpiece fellow, he wasn't too pleased with his lot in life, so he created this rock, boulder if you will, that would take his frustration, bottle it up, and then unleash it upon his enemies. Of course, it all went rather wrong, because the rock, boulder, sorry, turned on him, and he ended up venting his own anger upon himself. The more time you spent with the boulder, you see, the more you like the pain it brings you. Turns out the chap rather liked it that way, and hence the name."

"But how did the boulder end up here?" Mandy pressed.

"Well, obviously no one would want to keep it for long, would they?" Professor Kettleburn pointed out. "It passed from owner to owner, never really finding a steady place to stay, until it came to Gringotts. Then, Hagrid thought it would help in the battle to fight against You-Know-Who. Naturally, what Hagrid says is always accepted, so here it is."

"Won't it hurt someone again?" Lisa asked, concerned. "Someone like Dumbledore?"

"Let's hope not, Lisa," Professor Kettleburn said. He looked at one of the clocks on his wall, and said, "I hate to do this to you kids, because I like ya so much, but I need to go to a staff meeting right about now."

"Thanks for your time," Terry said, beaming at Professor Kettleburn, and spilling tea over his pants, in true Terry fashion.

"No problem, Terry. Always happy to help another cripple," Professor Kettleburn said, rising from his chair. He showed the kids out of his decrepit hovel that he called a home, and busied himself preparing for another meeting in which he would be ignored.

As the trio walked back up to the castle, Mandy thought aloud, "We should get this boulder out of the castle. We don't know who it'll hurt, right you guys?"

But Lisa and Terry weren't listening. They were looking at some mighty suspicious footprints on the ground outside of Professor Kettleburn's cabin.

"Paw prints, Terry," Lisa breathed, hardly daring to move. Where each foot had fallen, the ground was frosted over. It was cool out, but definitely not that cold.

"It's an arctic cold," Terry murmured, and the trio felt significantly less safe than they had at the beginning of the chapter.