Magorian

Action! Suspense! Drama!

CH. 9: Game, Set and Match

"Mwahahahahaha!" cackled Oigroig evilly, just to ensure the readers that he was still, in fact, evil. His two goons, Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy, both laughed with him. (Crabbe and Goyle were not to be seen, as they had been deported from the country by the Ministry for "undisclosed reasons"). When Oigroig stopped, they stopped. When Oigroig started again, they started again. Oigroig decided to have a bit of fun with his new minions, laughing at random intervals to force them to laugh. After a while, all of them tried to see who could cackle the most evilly. Magorian used this silly distraction to plan his escape method.

Let's see... I could step over Dumbledore and use Sinistra to break my fall as I hurdle down from the North Tower... Nah, that would leave too much blood all over me. I could throw Dumbledore at the evil guy, jump over him and scream really loud for help, but Dumbledore's so old he'd probably disintegrate before hitting Oigroig due to air resistance. Hmm... perhaps I could pick off those Gamesharks somehow...

Before Magorian could finish his train of thought and come up with the brilliant and practical plan that would've saved the day, Oigroig and company decided to end their foolishness and proceed with their malevolent agenda.

"Magorian!" yelled Oigroig, snapping the centaur out of his reverie. "Our game tonight will be rife with danger and panic. We will engage in something so insane, it has never before been attempted in the history of the universe. Something so madcap, so unthinkable, it will make the very world tremble in fear!" He visibly repressed another evil cackle with immense difficulty.

The silence that followed this statement was deafening, as if the Earth had stopped rotating and hushed to listen.

"We will play a three-match, seven-set game of TRIPLES TENNIS!!!"

Then the world's silence resumed to the normal kind of undefeaning silence, as if the Earth was relieved that its fears were unfounded.

Sinistra was obviously skeptical. "On what court?" she asked cheekily.

"On this one!" replied the black-cloaked old sorcerer Trekkie geek with a flourish of his staff. Instantly, the ground around the foundation of the building uprooted and the soil began to rise up above them, swirling and forming a floating platform of sorts. The accretion disk of peat turned into an outsize tennis court, complete with earthen ladders to climb up to it. That shut Sinistra up, and Oigroig was happy.

"Pick two teammates and the games will begin. I choose Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom."

"I pick Ganglia and Dumbledore," said Magorian, choosing Ganglia because he was a very acrobatic bear and could run really fast, and choosing Dumbledore because he thought he would enjoy watching him trying to reach far-out volleys. He had no idea how wise those choices really were.

"Very well. Ascend to the playing arena and let us commence OUR SHADOW GAME!!!!" uttered Oigroig fanatically.

"Please don't turn this into a Yu-Gi-Oh parody!" pleaded all the children to the author. (Never mind that they shouldn't even have known what it was, let alone ever watched the show.) Oh, how they wished they had Toyotas to drive home with.

"Only on one condition!" negotiated Magorian. "Since you have been coded up to the point where taking off any of your Gamesharks would leave you on life support (HINT HINT), I think it's only fair that I get an advantage too."

"Fine! What is it?" said an annoyed Oigroig, who had already started to climb one of the ladders of soil.

"I need four tires."

"Four tires?"

"Four tires."

"Why do you need four tires?"

"To play with maximum prowess."

"Wait, we're talking about car tires, right?"

"Ford Anglia tires, to be exact."

"Whatever." Oigroig had the author conjure four tires into the story. They all went up the ladder (Draco with his inherited haughtiness and Ganglia with a little difficulty) and stood on the court. It was truly huge- about five times bigger than a regular one. Magorian quickly attached the wheels to his hooves, and felt the power of old times coursing through him again.

"YES!" yelled Magorian, with overdramatic lightning in the background. "I am the Wheelmaster once more!"

Sinistra down below with all the kids rolled their eyes, knowing only too much about the fracture in time that resulted from his experimentation with wheels the last time. She gathered her wits about her and tried to think of ways of getting the children down from the tower. Unfortunately for her, the students all wanted to stay and cheer Oigroig's team on, feeling that they should champion his noble cause.

Oigroig started off by explaining the rules. The serving rotation was the same as in a regular game, only now with three people on each side. During a serve, only if the player closest to the net on the other side receives it will it be a foul- the other two are both receivers. To shorten the game, two lets count as a fault. Whenever Magorian's team won a match, half the castle would return to normal. Whenever Oigroig's team won a match, the castle would revert to its backwards form.

"Get ready, men," pep-talked Oigroig. "This one is going to be a cinch if we just work together as a cohesive unit. A little teamwork will go a very long way." Neville and Draco were too busy staring at each other in contempt to listen; each thought the other was unworthy of Oigroig's attention.

And with that, the game started. Oigroig threw the ball up and smacked it as hard as he could towards the grizzly, thinking it a great hairy beast with no sentience. Au contraire, the bear, racket in mouth, leapt up and returned the lob with a vicious one of its own, aimed at the far left end of their side of the court. Oigroig jumped after it, but it was much too far away to return the shot. The extremely competitive bear made a little victory dance; specifically one that Magorian had taught it. Oigroig cursed Longbottom for not trying to return the shot, and his eyes welled up a little. As the referees (the teachers) magicked the scoreboard into,

Magorian Oigroig

15 - Luv,

Oigroig began to think that his choice in partners wasn't exactly the smartest.

Ganglia's voracious tennis strikes helped to ensure the first three sets of the match securely in the belt of Magorian's team without the help either teammate, but they could see the poor bugger was really worn out now, so they decided to participate and let the bear sleep it off. Now it was Neville's turn to serve. Needless to say, he got a double fault four times, and the third game of the fourth set was given to the good guy team. Oigroig was getting so angry he was bashing the floor with his racket, (which only angered the further, as the dust this kicked up on his robes would prove to be impossible for the washing machines at the local Laundromat to clean).

Next it was Dumbledore's turn- Magorian was slightly surprised to see that the ancient, old, withered man was a pretty good player. Nevertheless, they only got a shot in while Draco got in two, making the score for the game 15-30.

Then Dumbledore remembered that it was Chapter 9 again (the prospect of a brand new Toyota Corolla with a V-6 engine slipped it right out of his thoughts) and that he had his powers back. Grinning, Dumbledore began to transform into... the giant squid! It happened in a really cool Digimon-esque evolution sequence that startled everyone.

"Oh my God," said Draco, whose eyes were wide open in astonishment. "You mean you actually ARE the giant squid?"

"Do you honestly believe everything J.K. Rowling says? I suppose that you just gobbled up her bilge that Professor Snape isn't a vampire, or that Crookshanks really isn't the Unknown Soldier, or that Voldemort really isn't Harry Potter's nephew!" said the giant squid, now holding a racket in each of its ten tentacles.

"Why, next thing you know, she'll be telling us all about how Madame Pomfrey really isn't an alien, or she'll be mouthing off about how Hagrid DOESN'T secretly worship his handkerchief. PREPOSTEROUS!"

"I am not a vampire!" Snape stood from the referee's box, quivering with indignity and his fists clenched. "And just to set the record straight, I will never have sexual relations with any students, especially not male ones. I've never been nor will I ever be a 'pale sex god.' And I am not- I repeat- AM NOT having an affair with a goblin named Tendercheeks, no matter what that idiot Flitwick says."

"Sure you aren't, Severus." said the squid in a condescending tone as it used a great ruddy tentacle to pat Snape on the back. "Sure you aren't."

Oigroig shook his head and regained his senses. "Enough of this nonsense! If one of your teammates can hold ten rackets, then I demand that I be able to switch out one of my teammates for someone else!"

"Go ahead." said Magorian nonchalantly as Ganglia awakened, somewhat surprised to see the giant squid beside it. "You'll never get passed a kraken, me, or my bear alone, let alone all of us together."

Dumbledore could receive out of the way shots like nobody's business because he was so huge, Magorian often used his tires to boomerang shots back to him, and Ganglia was simply a force of nature. The sound of half of Hogwarts returning to normal as stone shifted and marble moved drowned out the pathetic whining of Oigroig and his disgraced pureblood minions (Malfoy and now Snape, who agreed to replace Longbottom).

Match two started with Oigroig again. Not only was he seriously shaken over the humiliation his team had endured during the first set, he also had the tune out the jeers of children down below, who had once again defected to the other side. The pressure of the first serve of the second set was paralyzing.

Fortunately for him, when he finally mustered up the guts to serve, Magorian let out a massive sneeze, so, due to sheer luck, his shot turned out to be an ace, forcing the faculty to award fifteen points were awarded to the bad guy team.

"Mushrooms," shrugged Magorian, answering his teammates' unanswered question. They nodded in understanding.

Ogiroig's relieved team felt new hope; Snape especially started to sport a super-smug grin. Oigroig's previously-clouded mind was now calculating and diabolical once more. (Well, that's not all of what was in his brain, but I daresay it wouldn't be too horrible to abstain from digging any deeper.) He still had quite a few tricks up his sleeve, like secretly fiddling with one of the Gamesharks under his coat.

Magorian parried his next serve, which got countered by Draco, which passed to Ganglia, whose shot was returned by Snape, who scored. Oigroig's team seemed to be able to jump ten times higher.

"What's going on?" said Magorian, noticing their amplified leaping abilities. "If this goes on we're going to lose every shot!"

"Can't handle a little moon physics, can you, Magorian?" bellowed the code-fiend.

"That's cheating!" said Dumbledore, his tentacles slapping the field in indignation and his giant lidless pupils narrowed in hate.

"I'm done playing fair, Dumble-Bore, as you'll all soon see! It's my serve again, and you'll learn to regret ever arousing my ire!" He activated his maximum serve speed code, and his subsequent shot would have garnered a net had it not burned through it and struck Dumbledore, winning them a 40-Luv.

The second match was easily won by Oigroig's team, who used codes such "no enemy AI" to make Magorian and company too retarded to play, and "no hit detection", which made the ball phase right through their adversaries and hit the ground instantly. Their use of the "Net being too high to shoot over" code was none too unreliable either. Now it was the centaur's team's turn to feel hopeless. The half of the castle that had been saved became backwards again. Was there no way to defeat him?

"There is no way to defeat me!" howled Oigroig triumphantly.

Then, rather unexpectedly, a meteorite hurtled from space and hit Oigroig square in the noggin.

"Wow," said Harry. "I thought he was going to die by getting those Gamesharks ripped off him."

"That's what the author would've led us to believe. But the readers were too smart for that," spoke Hermione. She was rather enjoying reading her favorite Arithmancy book under the shade of the tree by the lake, conversing with her two best friends about what had happened on the North Tower the day before.

"Wait, they're too smart for the clean and practical way, but not for the random meteor from space?" said Ron.

"That wasn't just any meteor, Ron. The old guy--"

"What old guy?"

"The old guy from Chapter Seven, Ron, who else could I be talking about?"

"You could be talking about Dumbledore, or the old guy from Chapter Three. All the Amish people were old. There have been a lot of old people in this fic, Hermione."

"First of all, I refer to Dumbledore by name. Second of all, Motm is dead, so I can't possibly be talking about him either. Third of all,--"

"Shut it, the two of you!" interrupted Harry. The sound of their bickering made him very frustrated. "Go on about the old guy from Chapter Seven, Hermione, please," he said to break the awkward silence that had followed his previous outburst.

"Well, remember how he went off to pawn the shell they had gotten from the cave he was guarding? Apparently, it was an extremely valuable shell, and he traded it in for a satellite that could fire space junk at people whenever he wanted. Then he started pressing buttons like a maniac, and next thing you know, Oigroig was one of his victims."

"Have there been any other casualties?" asked Ron.

"Only a guy in Las Vegas, but he was homeless anyway."

"I don't get it. A state-of-the-art government satellite is sold to a desert bumpkin, and no one wants to inquire about it? And how can a cave shell be that valuable?" said Harry.

"It was a state-of-the-art government microchip, that's how. It contained millions of layers of vital information to maintain and regulate Social Security for hundreds of countries."

"I'm starting to think the author bloke is making this stuff up as he goes along," replied Ron, stating the obvious and yawning under the bright light of day. "Man, this chapter is long. If The Savant doesn't finish soon, I'll be late for all the other fics I'm scheduled for today."

Harry wasn't ready to end this segment just yet. "There's one thing I still don't get. Exactly how did you get under the Imperius curse and started hitting me with a baseball bat again?"

"I told you, Oigroig put it on me," said Hermione a bit nervously.

"Oigroig was a Squib," said Ron.

"I'm really hungry, let's go into the kitchens to get a bite to eat!" said Hermione, quickly changing the subject. Ron was all for the idea, and off they went towards the boar gargoyles and through the front gates, still somewhat in shock that the castle was now half-normal and half-backwards.

It was hard for Magorian to leave the place now that he had gotten accustomed to it. Nearly all the students had greeted him into the castle with open arms, and it was nice talking to Firenze, a fellow centaur, again. Firenze accepted Magorian's humble apology for kicking him out of the forest after he recounted to him the story of how he got ousted out of their tribe by Bane for "his lack of obeying the way of the centaur and letting his mind decay to nothingness." But he still thirsted for adventure, and was ready to explore amazing new places and be in exciting new storylines.

At last, Magorian reached Dumbledore's office on the second floor. It was time to give him a final farewell.

"Ton-Tongue Toffee." The statue dodged towards the side and the spiral escalator started to move up.

"Hello, Magorian," greeted the jolly old headmaster at the door. "Come to say your final farewells?"

"How did you know?"

"I read the sentence before 'Ton-Tongue Toffee,'" said Dumbledore, "but that's beside the point. I understand that you need to get out of the castle and go explore the world. Don't worry- we'll certainly miss you, but we'll carry on as we always have."

"You're right. Maybe this isn't goodbye." said Magorian. "Perhaps we'll meet again some day."

"God willing, we'll all meet again in Magorian 2: The Search for More Reviews. So long now, and take care!

"Wait," said Dumbledore, as Magorian started to descend the stone staircase. "I forgot to provide you something for your travels." With that, he stole back into his office, got something from one of his black cabinets, and rushed back out the door to give it to him.

"It's a magic flute. I could tell you what it does when you play it, but that would ruin the surprise. Besides, The Savant still has to come up with a use for it."

Magorian took the flute gratefully and dropped it into his saddlebag, sure that it would salvage him from harm sometime in the near future. After goodbying Sinistra in the Astronomy Office, he ran out the door, nearly trampling over three sixth-years in his haste.

CH. 10: O She of Shadows

Magorian knew he was the first centaur ever to do it. He took pride in it. He thought what he did this fine Thursday morning would set a precedent that he had no doubt future generations would look back to as a wellspring of inspiration. Those intellectuals who wished to bone up on forgotten lore and revive their muse could look no further than the page in every history book that would depict in vivid prose the groundbreaking action he would take today! The reader may be wondering, what astounding deed was Magorian planning to partake in? What feat could be so world-altering, so historically significant, it would make even him quake with anticipation? Well hold on. I'm getting there. Jeez, a guy isn't even allowed to add suspense to his fic anymore...

Magorian would be the first to enter the Centaur Liaison Office.

It was something he'd always wanted to do, but there were always things he had to do instead, and he never had enough time to include it in his busy schedule. (You can only be a fortuneteller, Elvis impersonator and Kool-Aid mascot for so long before your jobs started eating away at your personal life, after all, and there was that nasty stint in prison after that "defacing the major monuments of the world" phase he'd gone through. And the whole "saving Hogwarts" thing had certainly failed to allow him to free up any time on his rather long to-do list.)

It was hard to ignore all the looks he was getting as he clopped on through the varnished hallways to the office- most of the workers who didn't belong to this department had never seen a real-life centaur before. Nevertheless, he was determined to be the first to ever enter the office doors, which were much like those of the Leaky Cauldron in that one couldn't spot them unless they were looking for them expressly. Steadily the doors to the office became larger and larger as Magorian came closer and closer. Finally, after the admittedly arbitrary amount of words describing a seemingly unimportant period in the story, Magorian was still only halfway to the doors! Would he ever get there? The swerving of the multitude of employees in his way didn't help, and neither did the Centaur Slowing-Down Device that happened to be in close proximity to him, unbeknownst to the centaur. It was almost as if the author had made a bet with someone who said he couldn't make one of his chapters any longer than the last one! Really finally, he got to the doors and went through them...

Only to find another centaur in the room!

"Bane?" exclaimed a shocked Magorian. "What are you doing here?"

The equally shocked look on Bane's face that appeared for an instant when he heard the swoosh of the opening doors and saw the visage of one of his prime nemeses vanished as his normal stern expression replaced it. Bane turned around again to face a very young-looking worker. (The worker seemed to be the most astonished person in the room. It could be clearly discerned from the look on his face that the presence of any other organism, let alone two majestic-looking centaurs, was unheard of.)

"This is the centaur I am complaining about," Bane told the worker, as if Magorian wasn't in the room. "His disgraceful and abominable actions have totally violated our time-tested ways! Not once has any of our breed breached our ancient code so frequently and without remorse! I even have to stoop as low as asking a human that's at least four times younger than me for help!" he added as if the worker, whose nametag read My Name Is Clark Seamsly.

"I believe this warrants nothing less than public execution!"

Man, that's a lot of exclamation points, thought Magorian. I wonder what I'm going to have for dinner tonight. Maybe some warbler- I'm not in the mood for sparrow again. I haven't had finch since my last trip to Aspen. It couldn't hurt to have a little variety now and then. Ooo, some cardinal would REALLY hit the spot right now. With a dash of oregano and a bit of swallow on the side? Yummy. Wait, no, bloody hell, I'm on that new puffin-frigate diet they're always going on about.

Then he realized the severity of the situation. The man who had thrown him out of his ancestral home was now trying to have him offed! He kicked up his innermost thoughts a notch.

The man who threw me out of my ancestral home is now trying to get me offed! Whoa, déjà vu...

"I'm sorry, s-sir. Um, person. Er, thing?..." spoke up Clark timidly.

"The centaru word for sir is 'umna', stupid human." said Bane in disgust. "You work at the Centaur Offices, you should know already!"

Clark looked absolutely horrified. Magorian couldn't blame him- Bane was extremely intimidating. Yet he somehow found the courage to speak.

"I'm sorry, umna, but I've told you that although centaurs are classified as beasts and thus liable to executions by verdict of a set of beings," said Clark, amassing confidence, "there is a clause that excludes merfolk and centaurs from such treatment! Besides, you have no way to prove Magorian really did all those things."

"Way to go Clark," whispered Magorian quietly to himself. Bane had a different reaction.

"Is this how the Ministry of Magic handles affairs? By violently yelling to its clientele that things cannot be done? Interesting. I knew it to be true, but how true, I didn't know. Oh, this speaks volumes, it does. You know, I was going to keep refusing the Dark Lord's offers to join him. But now that I see what the Ministry really is what he said it would be like...Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

And with that, Bane exited the room, being sure to plaster a grin on his face.

"Don't mind him, Clarkleton, he's just bluffing." reassured Magorian. "Now, I understand that one can start a petition here?"

"Y-yes, umna, you can."

"Well, I'd like to start a new one. How many signatures do you reckon I would need to get the Ministry to consider renaming the forest around Hogwarts 'Styjikuhler?'"

"Hi there, centaur!" interrupted a big-name MV executive who just burst through the office doors. He seemed a little out of breath.

The author did a quick peek into his mind, because, hey, he can do those sorts of things, and found out that he had just learned from a coworker that there was a centaur as close as the Ministry of Magic.

"I tried talking to your friend over there, but he just shrugged me off and kept trotting along! Rude, huh?" said the executive. Magorian didn't think he was one to talk about rudeness, seeing as how he just interrupted his conversation.

"Oh, that's right, you probably don't know who I am. My name is Jasper Johns, and I work for the new company called MagiTech™. We've just invented a magical box called MagiVision™- It's like Muggle television, only interactive. Cool, huh? Anyway, one of the new reality shows we're recruiting for needs a centaur participant, and we think you're right up our alley!

"Here's the premise- we take a bunch of young witches and wizards and other assorted beings and put them in a swamp. They'll have to rely on each other to live through fourteen weeks. Each week, viewers get to decide which two people get booted off. The last player standing gets ten million Galleons. The working name for the show is 'The Swamp,' and it will be broadcast in between the syndications of 'Survivor: Hell' and 'Survivor: Idaho.' Are you interested?" He raised his eyebrows for effect.

Magorian weighed his options. Warbler had a sweet tangy sensation to it, but left a bitter aftertaste. Cardinal was a bit of an acquired taste, and he wasn't sure he had acquired it yet. And... wait a second, was that guy talking to him? Damn his natural look of rapt attention when daydreaming! Magorian mentally flipped a coin and decided to answer "yes" to whatever question he just asked him.

"Splendid," said Jasper with an unnecessary bow, as though that was what centaurs did. "See you in the morning!" Then he shoved a sheet of paper with an official-looking seal into Magorian's 110-year-old hands and pranced right out of the room. Magorian was forcibly reminded of Willy Wonka, even though he'd never heard of him. Damn his extensive and inexplicable knowledge of pop culture!

The document proved to be quite a doozy to read. There was lots of fine print that Jasper neglected to discuss, like the fact that Magorian couldn't quit halfway through or that the prize money would be subject to 90% tax deduction. But Magorian chose to look at the bright side- by the looks of things, he'd be able to spend some time in America!

Sherman: Didn't Magorian just say he went to Aspen? And I remember him saying he was in El Paso once...

Mr. Peabody: Quiet, you!

Damn that pop culture... thought Magorian.

The next day, Magorian awoke in his inn bed. He was thankful that he had kept a few shillings on him and that he blended in with all the ethnics in this part of London. Quickly Magorian went to the sink. He was quite keen to try brushing his teeth for the first time.

He spat it out. Ugh... tastes like seagull!

Then Magorian stealthily entered Platform 9 ¾ and took a train to the Ministry, making sure no Muggles saw his bottom half. Fortunately, those who did were too sleepy for it to register or were too busy reading their newspapers and only saw him peripherally.

The train was extremely cool. The ads on the roof all moved, and the lights above you shone in different colors, depending on your mood. The seats were spotless, and any litter that was sensed by the compartment's hygiene defenses were spotted by flocks of bored Aurors and ruthlessly eliminated. The voice of the conductor was always clear and his diction was perfect. Magorian could even use a special remote to change the voice's accent- he and his fellow straphangers had a lot of fun switching back and forth from Norwegian and Fijian. Magorian got to the secret underground station ("Secret Underground Station") in no time flat. He took an elevator up to the surface, along with a few other Ministry employees who presumably had to go into inner London on some business or other. The ground next to the dilapidated phone booth magically scurried away and the floating elevator connected to the phone booth. The touching walls of both fixtures disappeared and the elevator and booth merged to form one, bigger booth, which then expanded a bit to accommodate them all comfortably. A big, beefy Russian-looking man dialed a number into the phone following the request of a female voice projection, and the phone booth took them all down to the Atrium. Once there, the workers separated and went to their departments and the booth split into its two components again. The elevator went back underground and the phone booth went straight back up again.

Magorian checked the paper again. He had to be at the 4^th floor lounge room by 3:34. Sighing, Magorian diligently set off to the staircases, unaware that there were more elevators at either end of the Atrium. As soon as Magorian had said yes, his signature appeared on the dotted line of the contract, so, as much as he didn't want to be a part of some sordid reality show, he knew it bound him to his decision. He couldn't even rip up the paper- it was enchanted so that damaging it in any way was impossible. You think they'd use that stuff on airplanes or buildings...

When he got to the fourth floor lounge room, there was only one other person there. It made sense, since it was only 2:12. She had a pale complexion, and there were black streaks under her eyes- almost like war paint, only more elegant and thorn-like. She had long, sleek black hair, and was wearing pitch-black robes. Even her lips were black. Magorian knew instantly what she must be- a Gothmage.

She had been making a little yellow ball of energy in her hands in boredom, but upon seeing what just entered the lounge room, it disappeared in her surprise. Instinctively, she created another one and threw it at Magorian.