Terry Boot and the Masochist's Boulder

It was the Mirror of Erised.

"The Pool of Turbulence?" Terry questioned aloud, drawing everyone's attention to him. There was a collective sigh throughout the room as everyone groaned inwardly, even the mystery guest. It had always been professor first, really crazy evil person second for the mystery evil guy, who will be revealed in the next paragraph, and he hated to see his students so stupid.

"Professor Quirrell!" Harry exclaimed stupidly. "Where's Snape! We have to stop him from stealing the stone!"

The three Ravenclaws groaned at Harry's ignorance. For once Terry was in on the loop of things, though that Pool of Turbulence was really giving him a hard time.

Suddenly, an icy chill cut through the air like a bad simile. Professor Quirrell shook, but whether it was with fear or with the cold no one knew or really cared. Walking onto the scene, like he owned the place, was Lord Pullapart, the craziest evil polar bear this side of the Arctic Circle. He was freaking huge, a real monster of a specimen.

"Rwarmargraawr," said he, smiling his many toothed smile. Magical saliva dripped onto the floor, and Professor Quirrell edged backward just a little bit farther toward the Mirror of Erised. The floor was eaten away in an acidic affect wherever his drool migrated. His saliva seemed to have a mind of its own, and began eating away at what little diginity the story had left.

"What did he say?" asked Harry, scratching his head in confusion, attempting to look devishly sexy, but only ending up looking quite unclean, as he shed small white flecks all over Terry's shoulder.

"Wait a moment," Lisa said, coming forth, "I speak Polar Mouth! He said, 'So we meet again, Terry.'...at least, that's what I think he said. He has a really strong accent."

"Nevermind, you ignorant Ravenclaw," Pullapart said in perfect English, sneering at Lisa, a mean, Arctic glare in his beady black eyes. "I can speak many languages. They're all the languages of my victims, you know, but it doesn't matter how I got them or where. What does matter is you, Terry. You and that stump of yours."

"What?" Terry asked, confused. How could he matter?

"How could he matter?" Harry asked aloud, sounding a tad indignant, taking the words right out of Terry's head. Terry often felt like Harry took things from him, like his right to live and other superfluous things.

Lord Pullapart pushed Harry aside with his meaty right claw, and crept up close to Terry, salivia burning Harry's shoelaces off. "Terry, I've been waiting years to get over this digestive problem that your leg caused me," spoke he, in a low, raspy voice that demanded attention. "I mean, what do you do when you have diarrhea and you're vomiting? Lay out in the snow and hope for the best is what I say, and I always follow my own advice, Terry. And talk about acid reflux, Terry." Just then more acidic saliva spewed forth from his gigantic set of choppers, and burned off a coarse whisker. "But anyway, now that I've regained some of my strength, I've come to eat the rest of you. I've had a hankering for some blonde haired, blue eyed eleven year old boy since I first tasted human flesh, and now you're ripe for the picking, Terry, ripe for the picking."

Pullapart crept closer, sniffing Terry's leg, and drooling a hole in the floor.

"Wait!" called an annoying voice that so much resembled Harry Potter's that it was, in fact, Harry Potter's. "Don't you want to eat me?" Lord Pullapart turned away from Terry to inspect the Boy Who Had An Annoyingly Long Nickname. "I mean, why eat Jerry over here? He's a nobody! If you're going to eat anyone, it ought to be me. It just isn't fair!"

For a moment everyone thought that Harry was attempting to be courageous, but soon realized that his need to be number one in every aspect of everything stretched farther than they knew and way farther than Dumbledore ever wished to admit. At this point, everyone was so wrapped up in the scene, that no one seemed to notice Quirrell skulking around in the shadows, digging through old boxes and forgotten recycling.

"I am sick and tired of your fame mongering!" Mandy burst out, pointing a finger at Harry. "You can't always one up Terry! I mean, you can, but I won't let you this time. If Pullapart here is eating anyone, it's Terry. I mean Zeus, you have your own arch nemesis! You don't see Terry trying to weasel in on your Voldemort time!"

Harry attempted to look outraged, but stepped in a puddle of acidic drool and screamed like a nancy girl instead.

"Here, here!" Lord Pullapart bellowed, stomping his massive paws on the ground so hard that the room shook. "I am eating Terry, and that's all there is to it!"

"That doesn't make sense. Won't the rest of Terry give you indigestion, too?" Lisa said aloud, clearly not afraid of the two ton polar bear, and rather confused about his ramblings.

"Shut up!" Lord Pullapart said, again advancing on Terry in a lumbering, "I'm-a-bear" type of way. "But, before I eat you, I'm going to take over the world...okay? So just wait here while I do the conquering with this Masochist's Boulder, and...oh yeah, smite my enemies. Don't move, Terry. It should only take a second. Whenever evil villains procrastinate so close to succeeding at their final goal, it always works out, and I plan on drawing this out as long as possible."

The entire room looked confused, as well as some of the people inside it.

"Your enemies?" Mandy asked, trying to draw Lord Pullapart's attention away from the fact that his theory was terribly, terribly flawed, as any avid Harry Potter reader will tell you about anything relating to Harry Potter and or plots.

"Smiting?" Harry asked excitedly, eager to get in on this taking-over-the-world action.

Pullapart glared at Harry, but was so proud of his schemes that he let himself be easily distracted. Gloating and polar bears go hand in hand. "Yes. You see, Quirrell and Voldemort were supposed to be working for me. I have more power than both of those hosers combined, what with this acidic indigestion. I've really mastered the art of projectile vomiting. I practiced it on a small third world country... what was it called? Oh yeah, Canada. But when news leaked out about that trashy Sorcerer's Stone, they went mad, crazy I tell you, and betrayed me. Little did they realize that since the Sorcerer's Stone was something Dumbledore and Flamel had created on one of their 'boozing' nights, it was worthless. Utterly, totally, and not to mention, completely worthless. In fact, I heard Dumbledore mumbling about how he got it out of a cracker jack box, an American brand cracker jack box."

There was silence for a moment, as everyone seemed to digest the information, and much like Pullapart and Terry's leg, they had a hard time doing it.

Quirrell, who was knee deep in a compost heap, suddenly fell forward, screaming out in pain. "Mphwrphbrph," came a disembodied voice from the back of Quirrell's head. With each muffled syllable, Quirrell's head shot crazily in random directions.

Slowly, with trembling hands, Quirrell finally undid the turban from his skull. On the back of his head was none other than Lord Voldemort, eager to begin smiting, and really pissed off that a dirty turban was over his face for the entire book.

"You lying bastard!" Voldemort shrieked, in a much too high voice. "The Sorcerer's Stone does work! It'll bring me back to power! I swear it! Now where is this glorious creation of Dumbledore's?"

"In my underwear," Harry said, from out of nowhere, smiling mysteriously and jiggling his goods. "Where you'll never get it."

An utter look of revulsion quickly crept across Voldemort's face, as Pullapart tossed his cookies repeatedly. "Damn straight I won't," Voldemort said, suddenly looking wary. "Keep your pants on, you liability, you. I'm out of here," he cawed, quickly killing Quirrell in his attempt to escape from a way too eager Harry. He flew out of the cavern, but before he disappeared from sight, turned around and threw a rock at the boy wonder, who promptly collapsed in a heap on the stone floor, his pants halfway down his legs.

"Score!" Mandy shouted. "That Voldemort isn't too bad."

"Could someone put a bag over Harry's lower body?" Lisa asked, averting her eyes, and trying to swallow the vomit that was creeping slowly up into her oral cavity. Terry kicked Quirrell's corpse across Harry's lower half and Lisa gave him the thumbs up.

"Now!" Lord Pullapart said, rubbing two of his enormous paws together. "I see you've smote my enemies for me, as it were."

"And it was a job of work, let me tell you," Terry added, nodding smartly.

"Way to sound pretentious," Lisa said under her breath.

"Shut up!" Lord Pullapart growled in her direction. Terry just ignored her, as he didn't understand the meaning of "pretentious". "All that's left," he continued, gnawing on Quirrell's dead body, "is to conquer the world, and then eat you, Terry, of course."

Terry, thinking he had a plan, but realizing he didn't, now realized that he had a job of work to do and fast.

"Don't even think about getting the Masochist's Boulder from me, Terry," Pullapart said through a mouthful of greasy, dirty professor. "I have it right here, under my paw. The same paw that got your nature photographing parents. Thought they could snap a photo of me, eh! I sure showed them." Sure enough, the Masochist's Boulder appeared out of nowhere under Pullapart's paw. "The Boulder appears to the one who most wishes the pain of others," Pullapart added, grinning like a two bit-gerbil on wheels.

Terry immediately wondered why Pullapart had received the Boulder instead of Nonny. Forgetting about his enraged relative, Terry's fists clenched and unclenched. He wished he could punch Harry Potter.

Lisa nudged Terry, and the three Ravenclaw's watched in wonder as the Masochist's Boulder began to grow right under Lord Pullapart's meaty paw.

"Oh yeah. I had a job of work digesting those hippy parent's of yours, but what a bowel movement," he droned on, as the Masochist's Boulder grew bigger and bigger. "I mean, there wasn't another mammal that would get near me within a hundred mile radius. Those were the days."

"That is really gross," Lisa mumbled, thinking that she wanted to be out of the area when Professor Quirrell made his triumphant comeback, via bowel movement.

"Ah ha!" Lord Pullapart said, finally noticing the growth of the Masochist's Boulder, and ignoring Lisa completely. "It's preparing to conquer the world! I wonder why it's a masochist's boulder?" he pondered aloud, chewing on Quirrell's femur. "This guy's stringy. It must be from all the evil."

The boulder began to steadily grow and grow. Soon it was bigger than Lord Pullapart, who had stopped eating to watch the massive rock expand in size.

"It's like some freak show!" he exclaimed in his moment of would be triumph. "Yes! Yes, that's it!" he crowed. "Grow big and strong, and...Blarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" he shouted, slipping back into Polar Mouth as the Masochist's Boulder slowly rolled over on top of him, and then began to roll back and forth over his body, crushing him to death. The pain was starting to grow on him, like a loveable fungus. He had the strength to push it off, but he couldn't bear its loss. He needed that boulder to be crushing him, and that boulder needed this magical polar bear's stupidity.

"What the hell did "Blarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh" mean?" Mandy asked, as the trio watched the scene unfold before their eyes, like a really bad drapery on Trading Spaces.

Lisa said, "Translated, that was, 'Oh, woe is me, how could I have come to such an end. My mother had such hopes for me, and now here I am. I'm a washed up polar bear, out of my territory and out of my league. Oh, if only I had eaten that small boy first, then I could have died satisfied, but no. Alas, and woe for me, I ate that evil, stringy man first, and lo, my flatulence is mighty,' at least I think that's what it was," Lisa finished.

Then Lord Pullapart realized he wasn't dying quite yet. "Terry!" he called. "Help me out of here, so I can eat you!"

"Okay!" Terry said, starting to walk toward him.

"Terry!" Lisa and Mandy exclaimed, grabbing him.

"How do you stay alive?!" Mandy shouted at him, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Quick, Terry, cast a spell on him," Lisa told him. "Be a hero, Terry, like you deserve to be!"

A gleam of something resembling pride mixed with vengeance lit up Terry's big blue eyes, and he pulled his wand quickly from his knitted leg warmer. Pullapart seemed to know that something vile was about to occur, and he closed his eyes as the small, crippled boy hobbled closer to him and the boulder that was slowly crushing the life out of him.

"This is for eating my parents! Wingardium Leviosa!" Terry screamed at the top of his lungs in the direction of Lord Pullapart.

"Oh no," Lisa moaned, upon hearing the words 'Wingardium Leviosa'. "What was I thinking?"

But with a crack and a pop, Lord Pullapart suddenly disappeared.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Lisa groused.

"Where'd he go, Terry?" Mandy asked, as the Masochist's Boulder began to shrink back down to pebble size.

"Italy," Terry said proudly, blowing smoke away from the tip of his wand. "But I don't think he'll be mauling any Italians."

"That's a shame," said Mandy. "But I'm just racist."

Somewhere in Italy, in a small zoo, sat Lord Pullapart on a spray painted, fake looking ice-burg.

"Blaaaaaaaaaargh!" he shouted at the children.

"He's saying 'hello', Antonio," a mother said to her son in Italian.

"I'm saying 'PERISH'!" he blasted, but no one could hear him. For alas, Terry's spell also worked the wonder of taking away his ability to communicate with humans. At least temporarily. "Damn you, Terry!" he cursed to himself. "Damn you to straight to Dumbledore."

And that's exactly what happened. Dumbledore came rushing into the room, eyes only for Harry.

"What a hero!" he exclaimed, pocketing the Masochist's Boulder and the Sorcerer's Stone, which had somehow worked it's way, thankfully, out of Harry's pants. But that's another story for another, darker, day.

Completely ignoring the Ravenclaws, who followed him out of the maze of traps, he started a running commentary of the situation.

"Took on Voldemort all by yourself, didn't you, Harry?" he whispered lovingly to the unconscious boy. "Way to go, my little hero. Couldn't touch you, could he? That's the love, Harry, the love in your veins." Dumbledore pushed away Quirrell's bubbling corpse, and picked up Harry in his arms.

Mandy had to pause to vomit. Dumbledore pushed past the Ravenclaw's and began walking back through the dismantled traps. The trio followed, grinning at each other.

"And of course, Ron and Hermione helped you, didn't they? Best friends stick together. You didn't leave anyone behind. Hermione with her smarts, and Ron with his...red hair. You Gryffindors make me proud. Way to slay them with your uncommon good looks, my boy. You'll be a lady killer, I promise you that. In my day...," Dumbledore went on with his stories of the days of yore, but the Ravenclaws, recognizing a drunken stupor for what it was, completely ignored him, and, finally free of the maze of traps, headed back for their common room.

Once inside their house's common room the trio collapsed into the fluffy armchairs. It was late, and everyone else had gone up to bed.

"Wow," Lisa breathed, trying to take in all that had happened in the past few hours. "We just saved the world... you just saved the world, Terry!" Terry went a bright red, smiled a toothy grin, and hugged his two best friends.

"I couldn't have done it without you two!" Terry exclaimed, feeling the platonic love rush over him like racism all over Mandy every time Cho entered the room. The three smiled, for they had a real friendship, and knew it.

The next few days went by all too quickly. Before they knew it, they were standing on the platform at Hogsmeade, waiting for the Hogwart's Express to steam into the station.

"Sorry you didn't win the house cup," Harry said, coming up to them with a smug look on his good looking face.

"We were cheering for Slytherin," Mandy told him, sidling up to Terry. Lisa joined them on Terry's other side. "And the 'I'm just racist' comment won't even work this time."

"Yeah, well, maybe you'll win next year," Harry said, hoping against hope that something of that nature would never come to pass.

"Maybe I'll beat you in Quidditch next year," Terry said, not realizing that the cards were already stacked against him for his entire Hogwart's career.

"Yeah, maybe," Harry said, and then walked away.

"Well, it's only a couple of months until we're back again," Lisa told a forlorn Terry. "I'll call you as much as possible. Do you think your grandparents would mind if I came to visit you sometimes?"

"Yes," Terry told her.

"Oh, well...I guess I'll see you at Platform Nine and Three Quarters next."

"Yes," Terry told her. A small tear trickled down his freckled cheek.

"Don't worry, Terry," Mandy tried to reassure him. "The way those non-school related chapters go, you'll be back here before you know it."

At that, Terry cheered up. The Hogwarts Express pulled into the station, and they clambered aboard. They spent the entire trip snacking on junk food, and playing wizard chess. Well, maybe not Terry, but he watched, always ready to point out who had passed Go.

When the train pulled into King's Cross Station, Terry disembarked, grabbed his things, and went to collect his luggage. Sitting on his luggage was his cat, Gouger.

"Oh! There you are," Terry said happily. "Well, I suppose every book needs a forgotten character. And this time it's not me."

Gouger actually purred in contentment, and followed Terry out of the station to the waiting cab Diddle and Nonny had sent for him. Inside was a note.

"Terry-

Don't even THINK about coming home.

Sincerely,

Your unfortunate grandparents"

"Time to go home," Terry told Gouger. "5 Privet Drive, please," Terry told the cab driver, who sped off wildly into rush hour traffic. It was good to be home...in that unpleasant, not good way.