Magorian

Quite possibly the longest thing ever

Chapter 11: Of Lice and Fen

The dilapidated old building seemed to shun light, casting an eerie shadow on the substantially distant houses around it. Hardly anyone knew why or how the abandoned warehouse had evaded demolition for so long.

It certainly wasn't due to the lack of complaints to the sanitation department about how it was teeming with vermin, or how the air around the structure seemed to be contaminated. Yet there was one who was exceedingly glad that the warehouse hadn't been taken down.

There slept Lord Voldemort, in a secret compartment above the wooden-plank ceiling of the storage room. Pipes jutted out every three or so square inches on the wall, forming a labyrinthine entangling that left room for almost nothing else. There was no bed. Instead Nagini was his mattress, coiling around him and providing its soft underbelly as a suitable resting place and the presence of his most favorite creature as company. Wormtail snoozed fretfully and uncomfortably in one of the cracked jagged corners of the compartment.

The Dark Lord's eyelids began to stir, and the pace of his breath quickened. Suddenly, Voldemort sat up, screamed

"Lederhosen is my friend! I wish I had gavels instead of cochleae! Quentin Tarantino is really just a silverfish in a rhino costume! The circle of geriatrics is a coral number at heart! Let them eat STIGAMTIC ALMONDS and ENDOTHERMIC PIÑATAS!"

and fell right back to sleep again, nicely alleviating the dark tone of the chapter and selflessly providing readers with insight on his internal thought processes at the same time. Needless to say, this outburst awakened Nagini. Again. And of course, being the irritable diamondback it was, it spluttered its milk in hate.

Dammit! thought the ophidian groggily. If thhhhat issssn't thhhe thhhhhird time in a row thhhissss hasss happened, I'll ssssswallow a whole horsssse! Mmmm... horsssse... juiccccy hind legssss.... The monstrous adder shook its head.

I knew letting Masssster turn all my venom into Gatorade wasss a bad idea! But how can I ssssay no to thhhossse dreamy eyesss...

Silently, the giant asp uncoiled itself and slithered towards the refrigerator----

Wait a sec; this isn't the beginning of this chapter!

Somebody get us off the air!

[static]

*_*_* PLEASE WAIT WHILE WE SORT OUT THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

WE ARE VERY SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. BUT NOT REALLY. *_*_*

[pleasant music]

*************

[The camera pans to a palace inside a volcano on top of a cloud. There lies the headquarters of The Savant, omnipotent 16-year-old head author and alleged supreme ruler of everything. His bedroom, embellished with a tasteful "tundra wolves" theme, is right next to the Tailweaver's Domain, where he believes his trusty lackey, Racecar, is headed right now. (Every other room is a wildly imaginative torture chamber, and The Savant almost never has anything to do.)]

The Savant: Racecar! Racecar! Racecar!

[Racecar rushes in to the room, making sure to swerve around in figure-eights and say "vroom vroom!" several times before coming to attention. A gander at his face somehow always reminded the casual onlooker of a stunted parasauralophus. His cloak was the color the moon will be in Chapter 14.]

Racecar: What is it, sire?

The Savant: The reel for chapter eleven is completely wrong. Do you know what happened?

Racecar: Yes, sire. At first, there was an engulfing, chaotic emptiness called the Void. Then, without explanation, a significant time-space anomaly occurred, resulting in the Big Bang and--

The Savant: The reel, Racecar, what happened to the chapter?

Racecar: Oh, sorry sire. Well, the problem seems to be coming from Aesopbot.

The Savant: What's wrong with my fanfic-making android? I paid top dollar for it!

Racecar: Apparently, sire, it critically malfunctioned and exploded into microscopic bits of shrapnel. The Taleweaver's Domain is filthy now, what with all the metallic dust all over the place. Ugh... one more chore I have to do today.

The Savant: What!? Why didn't you tell me sooner!?

Racecar: I was busy watering the lava garden like you told me to sire.

The Savant: Oh yeah. Very well, I will spare you the traditional weeklong sentence to the Room with the Bunch of Unpleasant Things Most People Wouldn't Want Anywhere Near Their Bodies. But how did Aesopbot malfunction? It did such a great job with every other chapter.

Racecar: I looked into the log of the word processor it was using, sire, and discovered its hard drive combusted when it couldn't think of any names for the new OCs. You should have seen the explosion, sire. I caught a glimpse of it from where I was working on the Eruption Terrace- it was like the Hindenburg on steroids!

The Savant: That's the last thing I'll ever buy from Fate with a nuclear reactor in it! "It'll run faster," she said, "and you will no longer depend on me to clean up your little literary crises." Like she has anything better to do. I knew I should've gotten the insurance!

Racecar: I did tell you to, sire.

The Savant: But how can such advanced technology fall prey to a simple name-creating problem?

Racecar: Apparently, sire, there just aren't any cool RPG-sounding names left anymore. They've all been taken.

The Savant: That's absurd! There are billions of possible syllable combinations! I bet I can think of one right now. "Tet-ris"

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Alright, how about Rav-ni-ca?

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: You're kidding! How about Mah-Jongg?

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Maria.

Racecar: Did you honestly think "Maria" wasn't going to be taken?

The Savant: Tampax.

Racecar: Taken, and I don't think you'd want to give one of your characters that name anyway.

The Savant: Ys. Majora. Napishtim.

Racecar: Taken, taken, and taken.

The Savant: Apropos.

Racecar: Taken. And I think it's a word.

The Savant: Sharapova.

"Hermione?" whispered Harry tentatively as they crossed the Hallway to double Transfiguration.

"Yes?"

"Did you ever want to trade in your cochleae for gavels and you just don't know why?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

3 hours later...

The Savant: Voltron.

Racecar: Not taken!

The Savant: Really?

Racecar: No.

The Savant: Eowin.

Racecar: Sire, you must remember to replace 'i's with obligatory 'y's where possible!

The Savant: Alright then, Eowyn.

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Argh! What about Kinkos?

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Serris?

Racecar: Hold on, let me go check ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .....................taken.

The Savant: The Savant.

Racecar: [Sigh] that's your name, sire.

The Savant: Really? I thought it was Ondorbgo. I always thought Ondorbgo didn't roll off the tongue well.

Racecar: Don't worry sire. For the longest time I thought my name was Nancy!

The Savant: I'll try not to think about it. Excalibur.

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Ferrari.

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Sephiroth.

Racecar: Taken.

The Savant: Trogdor.

Racecar: Taken!

The Savant: Dodaru.

Racecar: Amazing! One that isn't taken! How did you do it sire?

The Savant: Elementary, my dear Racecar. I simply combined a "Do" with a "daru."

Racecar: You are a mastermind, sire.

The Savant: And don't you forget it. In fact, from now on, you will address me as "MASTERSIRE." Well, looks like we've gotten that problem out of the way!

Racecar: Not quite, sire. There are at least ten minor OCs in this chapter as well.

The Savant: Then what are we waiting for? Let's get cracking! "Bellerophon".

Racecar: [Sigh] taken...

The blast took Magorian completely by surprise. Immediately wrapping around the centaur on contact, the ball of shadow did its best to bring itself to the ground, as if it would like nothing more than to leave its ephemeral shape in the air and rejoin its place on the surface. It was more than enough force to crush and totally cripple any biped. Fortunately, the chieftain had more than enough legs to resist, and the shadow dissipated quickly, unable to keep its form for much longer.

For a brief moment Magorian could swear he saw the Gothmage have a pained expression of sorrow on her face. But just as quickly it returned to her normal expression of total, humorless indifference (indeed, one could mistake it for a look of defiance).

"Hey! Watch where you toss your balls of shadow. I could have lost an eye," called out Magorian, approaching her armchair slowly.

She flashed an odd, ambiguous grin. He couldn't tell if she was content or annoyed. "How would the world be better off had you kept your eye?" she asked unexpectedly. Her own, yellow eyes penetrated the hapless centaur.

Magorian grinned also, in his manic, insane sort of way. This was his kind of question. He paused to contemplate his answer.

Hmmm... the significance of my eyes on the world. What else has eyes? Gnats have lots of eyes. Gnats are cool. Especially when they come in swarms. Wouldn't it be really ironic if gnats turned out to have great attention spans? I heard attention span is linked to watching TV. I wonder if my show is going to get good ratings. I used to love watching Saturday morning cartoons. Wait, how could I have ever watched Saturday morning cartoons? I'm a centaur. Not a gnat. Some one ought to put the words "pig," "gnat" and "poignant" in the same sentence. Hey I just did! This is more exciting than that time I killed those chickens. I remember I named them before I ate them, just to add a personal sting to their brutal slaughter. Impulsively, he asked the Gothmage for her name.

"I have many names, none of which I will waste breath to divulge to anyone." She stood up and leered at him for some fifteen seconds or so, then sat down in her chair again. Even Magorian was beginning to find her a little strange.

"C'mon, I already know that it's Dodaru."

Instantly she became infuriated.

"Wendigo, how did it know? How can it have found out!? How does it know my secret name? Wendigo!"

Her stentorian words made the lounge quake and tremble in fear. The respectable-looking businessmen in the portraits around the ruined armchair called up their lawyers.

A miniscule white fox appeared floating above her left shoulder, seemingly trying to recover from the shock of such an abrupt summoning. It carried an herb in its mouth and holly bells tied to sashes around each of its two bushy tails. Magorian had heard of these creatures before- they came in many shapes and guises, but familiars were all alike in that they came to the aid of the wizard or witch they're bound to when summoned. According to legend, only the most devout mages could earn familiars. Investigation on the Catalysts of Magic had been rumored to have recently started inside the Ministry; Magorian could only suppose experiments on the matter were being carried out in the Department of Mysteries.

Wendigo had its tails wound up in fear and it began to falter in its floating. One of those anime sweat beads could be seen on its tiny head. Magorian felt sorry for Dodaru's guardian sprite, which had done nothing wrong. So he chose to intervene.

"I am sorry if knowing your name disturbs you, but it isn't--Wendigo, is it?--it isn't Wendigo's fault. I simply read your name on page 5."

Her eyes' fire left her and she calmed down, dismissing her familiar with a snap of her pale fingers (which was really quite impressive). She offered only the slightest hint of apology. "I come from a weary world."

"What do you mean?" he goaded.

"I'm a Gothmage," she said.

Magorian pretended to be surprised. "A Gothmage? What are you doing here in the Ministry of Magic?"

"Revenge," she said simply.

Magorian started to get scared. Did she mean she was going to attack everyone in the Ministry? Then he realized he was being silly; she wouldn't wait in a lounge and do nothing when there was a perfect opportunity to stealthily down every employee in the building. Magorian didn't know whether to inquire further or to just wait for 3:34. Luckily, the decision was wrested from him when Dodaru spoke again.

"Bright as the sea and twice as dark

Unlike the desert but just as stark

Voices and screams sound 'round the reeds

On Duirop their discourse is of terrible deeds

Hammer and axe they dared not forge

Yet all the same they fell in the gorge

Even if they'd made them, even if they did

Their strokes would not faze the Caivorid

For in the sludge it doth wait in and prey

Ever scouting for food astray

For centuries past did men try to slay't

But all they could muster was the will to obey't

And one by one did the swamp kings perish

But they did not die, instead they did relish

The Caivorid's enchantment that kept them alive

Its slaves were happy, and the great ghost did thrive

One day it departed in search of new fare

It traveled through oceans to the land of Aer

It pillaged and wrecked, imprisoned and vexed

The livestock murdered and cottages decked

With scores of zombies, new and old

So the tale of Andaeneth's told"

It took a while for the chieftain's mind to register what he'd heard, fearing to ask her to recite it again. Bits and pieces of the poem that Magorian remembered clicked, and he was able to understand the gist of it. "So you came to get revenge on the Caivorid." He stated.

Her yellow eyes glimmered, as if to show assent.

"What is it? And where? Is it the thing that keeps stealing socks?"

"A shapeshifting ghost that can kill, resurrect and enslave. It lives in the Duirop Marshes of America. No," she answered methodically.

"Duirop Marshes? Oh no... that's where I'm going..." Magorian looked at his official-looking paper with the seal, just to be sure. He was sure. "And this great ghost lives there? MV didn't say anything about any great ghosts!" He was unaware that it said so on the contract in microscopic print that read- (you weren't expecting to read microscopic writing, were you?)

"I've come to eradicate the Caivorid," she added with no hint of fear in her voice.

"I can see how powerful a witch you are. But how do you plan on killing a spirit? You must know that it's impossible to--"

"I was born in the Gothville of Andaeneth," she interrupted. She didn't need to be told that she couldn't do it for the seven hundredth time, and besides, now that the strange creature in front of her knew her name, she figured she could tell him about the rest of her life. It would be nice to let it all out, she surmised.

Severus Snape was in his study when he felt it. A great scorching in his left arm. Once it had been impulse to grasp the Mark and bitter luck to break out in a bit of hives each time it happened. Now he simply sighed in resignation, sorry that he had to leave his office to go out on yet another spying mission. Quickly he donned his Invisibility Cloak and Portkeyed away, glad he had already drank one of his Odorlessness Potions and cast a charm on himself to aid in his Occlumency that morning.

A quiet gasp of almost entirely suppressed surprise issued from Snape's lips when he found himself on the porch of a grey old Pennsylvanian house. When had Voldemort changed the Apparation point?

No time to wonder about it now. There he was, rocking on a grey old wicker chair (not a throne, but it would do) with his supplicants surrounding him, making a ring of Death Eaters. Snape was a little late; Voldemort had already begun speaking.

"...years making the film, spent months trying to get my movie on public broadcast, only to find it replaced with some stupid "fanfiction" made by some stupid Muggle child! How dare they think of mocking me so!? Even Nagini wept a little- he always dreamed of being a big movie star. And now that dream has been stripped away by some insolent magicless mortal! Well, I intend to preserve my reputation as a ruthless iron-fisted demagogue. There is only one course of action we can take. We must storm all the homes and dwellings in the world and have them watch Voldemort and the Great Refrigerator under duress! Leave no stone or shrubbery unturned! They'll be happy: I've just made twenty thousand copies of the special extended version DVD. Then, we'll annex MagiVision headquarters and coerce them to make three, no, eight channels that show nothing but my movie at all times, and make them have really terrible shows on all the other channels so that everyone that's anyone will be watching only Channels 1-7! It's totally foolproof! No one shall endure ME!"

e waved his wand and an animated GIF of him doing the Mexican hat dance around a crying and caged Dumbledore appeared in the air like a neon sign of smoke and vapor.

After a pregnant pause, Lucius was the first and bravest to speak. "My liege," he started, "your film is truly the greatest and most incorrigibly evil of all, and everyone would be privileged in the utmost way to even catch a glorious fleeting second of it. But we cannot yet risk open war!"

Snape used his Legilimency.

Silly Malfoy, thought Voldemort, doesn't he know by now that there is absolutely nothing he can say to change my mind?

"Besides, O Most Sinister of the Sixteen Scourges, we could always stop by Alfonso's for some of his special bacon donuts first," said Rodolphus, trying to buy time.

Snape did not fail to note the irony as Voldemort agreed to postpone his evil plot for a quick bite to eat. This reminded Severus of his own hunger. He decided to follow them before reporting to the Order. Just as he had with the gasp, he couldn't quite altogether suppress the idea of him dancing around Dumbledore.

"I am the daughter of Halcos and Polhir, greatest of all Healers at the time. You could say that from the moment I was born I had a lot to live up to. I never exactly liked my parents, but I did admire them. They truly were awesome Healers, and I desired to be at least better than them. To make a long, long story short, as soon as I became the indisputable master Healer of Andaeneth, I desired more power. I wanted to disregard edict and tap into the power of the other castes.

"I studied. And I studied. I studied both forbidden texts and the most common children's tales to the letter day and night. I put the written word before meals or rest. Then I practiced. And practiced. I soon became the master of every caste, and nobody knew what I was doing. I did all this in secret; I was a bit of a recluse. To practice the arts of castes other than your own is outlawed, so I was careful not to be found out- I always put aside everything to answer house calls for healing. And then I studied and practiced more, always in secret. Sometimes I held ancient rituals and offerings to the Trifecta that no one else knew about to increase my power by folds. I gained a familiar. I transcended any mortal achievement and became one with the elements and one with power. Soon I found it necessary to reveal my power, and to do something with it. I announced to the town I would go overseas and kill the Caivorid, the monstrous ghost that had once plagued Andaeneth. They scoffed and shunned. I showed them my power. They exiled me. I didn't care. I left my daughter Eluth with Wendigo and set off for the Western Lands, away from Aer.

"On my way to the piers to steal a boat, I was ambushed by a man with a contract. I listened to the man's babble, and found out for myself that outsiders really were evil and self-righteous. The spell I used to cast him away had the word 'yes' in it. He shielded the spell off with the contract. I was forced into the show. As luck would have it, the swamp the man was talking about was--"

"Duirop Marshes, where the Caivorid lies." Magorian ended her monologue with a pained groan. The young television station obviously thought this monster was going to boost their ratings. On the other hand, Magorian was glad this lengthy bit of plot was over. All that was left was for Magorian to tell her his name.

"Don't worry, I'll help you take down the swamp beast," assured Magorian as though she weren't impeccably confident she could do it herself. "My name is Magorian, of Styjikuhler Forest. My second name is Zhohio Korcellos, but that really doesn't matter." His entire life story was laid out to her, much like that section in chapter 2, except there was a lot more stuff at the end and it wasn't a flashback.

She was impressed. Could he be as powerful as I? This Magorian is a friend worth making. He isn't a wizard, he has an affinity for rulebreaking, and he knows my secret name anyway.

She held out her hand, a gesture she had never made before. Magorian grasped it and they shook hands. They were now officially friends. Dodaru couldn't hide her excitement- before now, she had always considered everyone around her to be the vilest of enemies. At that point the room lightened up significantly- Magorian hadn't noticed how dark it was.

It was a good thing too, for at that exact moment more people started coming in to the lounge, usually in twos and threes. Magorian could see that they came from all walks in life, and from many parts of the globe. In fact, the only thing he could find that the contestants had in common was that they could speak English, that they were breathing and that they were wearing clothes.

Some of them were extremely conspicuous- for example, the goblin with no less than four cigars in its mouth who was apparently named Obsidianlungs; the cool Aragornish falconer named Nast; the oddly beautiful hag named Hereklofkil; and the fake Irish lumberjack named Locky, who credited himself with the invention of the colors yellow, puce and plaid. Who knew where Jasper managed to find these freaks? Magorian supposed he had an inside source somewhere.

Magorian and Dodaru were easily the most conspicuous people in the room, so talk eventually degenerated from "what they would do with the ten million galleons" to "who are those two?" Apart from the occasional frightening glower Dodaru gave the contestants, though, the pair took no note of it, and they were only finishing their spirited discussion on the merits of natural selection when the minute hand of the pleasant clock above the lounge chairs finally struck 3:34.

The door opened. Out of the hall and into the lounge came three MV employees, two of them manning floating cameras. Dismay filled Magorian as he recognized the tallest one was Jasper Johns, and he quickly thought of running through them and getting the hell out of there. Jasper vainly struggled to make his posture even more uptight than usual as he started to speak.

"Welcome, friends, to the soon-to-be hit MV show, The Mire! You've all met me before. I'm the man who's brought all of you a step closer to wealth beyond comprehension."

Some people became even more excited. Others continued to show signs of hostility towards him (probably those who were there against their will).

"You all know the rules, so I'm not going to delay your experience by explaining them again! I've just come to ask you a very important question before we set off to Duirop. You can only bring one thing with you. What will it be?"

Magorian picked his tiny little saddlebag. No one realized that it was enchanted to hold much more than it looked like it could. The chieftain's entire inventory was stored inside the sack. Though Dodaru thought she was mountains above any Wizarding rules, the contract forced her to choose to keep her divining rod. (She figured clean water would become a precious commodity.) After everyone had chosen their items, Jasper told them all in an exceptionally fast radio-advertisement voice, "Wedon'tactuallyhavetenmilliongalleonstogivebutthat'sokaybecauseyou'reallprobablygoingtodieanywayanyanadallpropertydamageisn'tourresponsibilityandwehavemadeespeciallysuretosecurediplomaticimmunityandmanymanyfriendsinhighplacesbeforehandtomakeitsothatwe'renevereverliableforanythingillegalweeverdogoodbye." Jasper ran off to get the Portkey, which was a banner with the words "TEN MILLION GALLEONS!"

A pale, sickly sun illuminated the sky and made for a surreal glistening reflection over the shallow marsh water. The swaying of the markedly angular reeds, the cloudy wetland climate, and the background noise of scuttling insects all confirmed the setting as the Duirop Swamp, an isolated, flooded strand in Pennsylvania that had been made Unplottable and invisible to prying Muggle eyes. Residents around the area all had dark and fantastic stories to tell about their journeys into the heart of the swamp, which they called "the Black Turf." Though they probably elaborated the tale with each telling, and tried to make it especially exciting in front of the cameras, the group decided not to stray into the Turf if they could help it. Instead, they split up into groups to search for a food source other than the disgusting skeletal-looking fish they had been forced to eat. (Nast, Magorian and Dodaru made a helluva fishing team, and Obsid was much-needed comic relief during those seemingly endless stretches of fishing. Tree branches weren't the most refined rods, but they were pretty effective nonetheless.)

"This water reminds me of--oh, what does it remind me of? It reminds me of my mother's chicken soup! She used to give me some to have for dinner during the weekends. Sometimes we even got some on Fridays. They tasted like bowls of happiness!"

The hyper-perky girl, whose formerly pink dress was now utterly drenched, was splashing around in the muck, trying to find something to be happy about in the second week of the competition. Already four people had been booted, and methods of alleviating boredom were becoming more and more strained. Even the cameramen were bored, and they could go home, albeit they had to spend a lot of time editing the footage when they did.

The surly French spectator was starting to get annoyed. "This eezn't your muzzer's chickeen soup, idiote. It eez bracken. It has always been bracken. It weel always be bracken!"

"Don't be such a--" She stopped moving, a look of surprised terror filled her eyes. "Something's on me!!!" she told Michel in a sort of quiet urgency. "It's going up my back! Help!" she whispered.

Instantly he started to try to help, but it was no use: he couldn't see whatever it was that was causing her to shiver and shriek in terror.

"Be quiet, it eez probably just a louse in you 'air!"

Then he saw it in her pink hair, under the pink flowers on her ears: a big swamp bug, probably the infamous and elusive Duirop louse they'd heard about it. "Stop moving, let me try to get eet off of you!" he yelled to the panicking Fuchsia (such was her name), who was bucking her head and shaking side to side.

"Hold still, silly girl, I've got you!" Michel spotted the louse and swatted at it.

"Ow, ow, ow!" cried Fuchsia.

"What ze...?" Michel's fingers kept phasing through the louse each time he reached out to grasp it off her head. The intangible bug jumped off and scurried away, scampering through the tall concealing reeds. It had left as soon as it had come.

Fuchsia and Michel took a moment to pause and listen before asking each other the same question-- "Do you hear that?"

Magorian was tired of fishing. He craved new game. Nast had shown him the ropes to hunting things other than birds, which were a very scarce commodity, and he was itching to put his skills to good use. That was why he ordered everyone to go off to look for potential sources of food. (Off-camera, he told them to follow the MV men, who seemed well-fed and nourished enough.) There were three hunting couples; as the leader of the group, Magorian reserved three of the others for himself, making a party of four. It wasn't a terribly difficult choice, as Dodaru, Nast and Obsid were about the only ones with any real survival skills in the whole show. He hadn't lost a wink of sleep over his decision. Then again, Magorian slept standing up whereas the others had to find patches of solid ground fit to rest on. So that really wasn't saying much.

"Y'know, Obsid, I've just noticed something," said Magorian as they trotted off towards the outer edges of Duirop, Magorian literally and the others figuratively, "those cigars of yours never seem to be consumed. It's quite amazing."

"I never noticed that either," said Nast. "How do you do it?"

"My secret!" said Obsid, who had learned to talk with those things in his mouth. "I invented them when I was thirty-eight. It was sometime in the spring."

Obsidianlungs wasn't as money-grubbing as most other goblins, but even he couldn't overlook 10,000K pieces of gold. If one were to use five words to describe him, they would most likely be "fun-loving", "hunchback" and of course, "terrible smoker".

"As long as we are on the subject of things we haven't noticed before, I've got a good one," said Dodaru. Her time with the chieftain had mellowed her out a little, but she was still the formidable, slightly disquieting one. The floating cameras and viewers loved to hone in on her; most of the people watching at home had only ever heard of Gothmages, and even then only in passing. Her appeal was further accentuated by the fact that she was the only one who always refused to do those reality show close-up monologues they always have. (Magorian seemed to love those close-ups, however, as he was constantly trying to invade other peoples' close-ups by trotting in front of the camera and loudly spilling out his opinion whenever another contestant was asked something.)

"The expression 'to know something like the back of one's hand'. How well does one know the back of one's hand?"

"The back of my right hand has two stitches that have never been removed," said Nast. "Last time I go in a Muggle hospitable when Hawky slashes my hand."

The falcon on his shoulder, still feasting on the remains of the fish the rest couldn't bring themselves to eat, cawed and flapped its wings in consternation, its mouth still full. The ranger rolled his eyes and added, "Accidentally." Hawky dived for the bits of scraps that had dropped from its sharp lethal-looking beak, apparently content with its master's verbal concession. Nast didn't miss a beat.

"A bit off topic, I know, but I when I was a teenager I always thought that the wart on my left cheek kinda looked like a clown poisoning a well." They stared at him. "I had it removed," added Nast hastily.

"My hand has a vein that forms a parabola in the third quadrant and there's a blemish that looks remarkably like Donkey Kong's silhouette. Barrel, tie and all," said Magorian.

"That's no fair; you're looking at the back of your hand!" Obsid sloshed towards Magorian and jumped with surprising dexterity onto Magorian's back, pulling back his hands behind him.

"Get off me! I can't see!" The fumes coming from in back of him were both nauseating and blinding. "What does the back of your other hand look like?" insisted Obsid. Magorian, unable to balance his large frame without his arms as well as he used to and unable to see, could feel his knees buckle. Dodaru fashioned a cushion out of the shadow of nearby willows, breaking Magorian's fall just in time. Unfortunately, she could not save his saddlebag from falling into the muck.

Cumbersomely wringing his tail out, Magorian spied Nast as he knelt down and felt for the saddlebag in the aqueous filth. Nast dried his hands with his wand and handed the chieftain his saddlebag. Dumbledore's flute stuck out of the pouch.

"Hey, Mago, what's that?" asked Obsid.

"A flute Dumbledore gave me for saving Hogwarts."

"You mean the time when you fended off three rampaging elephants from attacking the cafeteria? Or the time you drove out a faction of terrorist ghouls from the dungeons using halitosis and a standard garden rake?"

"No, I think he's talking about that time when he used a mixture of generic dish soap and Vicks VapoRub to defeat a group of identical pirate twins that were raiding the dormitories," countered Nast.

"You're nuts, he must be talking about the time when he salvaged forty first-year girls from a blazing inferno that happened when a classroom spontaneously generated wood and lit matches. And I think he mentioned something about hairdryers and bathtubs."

"Uh, guys, not that I didn't do those things or anything, but you might not want to say them out in the open to the readers like this. They'll think I'm a lying glory hound." Magorian glimpsed anxiously at the computer screen

"Glory horse," corrected Dodaru. "So what does it do?"

"What?" said Magorian.

"The flute!"

"Good question. Never tried it."

"I guess the author is going to tell us now by having you demonstrate," said Dodaru, using the author's authority (haha, unintentional puns are funny) as an excuse for her curiosity.

Magorian took a deep breath and blew into the flute.

Chapter 12: The Climax

Poor old Lucius Malfoy was poring over indexes and glossaries, looking, searching for anything that might dissuade a Dark Lord from embarking on a suicide mission. He and his fellow Death Eaters had convinced Voldemort to "take a break from plotting" and had given him a pamphlet on the wonders of sap. They told him to take a relaxing stroll through the forest and collect some sap for the "missus," which Voldemort had yet to realize he didn't have.

But they knew that his thoughts would eventually return to the maniacal desire to destroy MagiVision and everyone who didn't watch his movie. They had to find some sort of spell or charm powerful enough to change their master's mind, and fast.

And they had to do it in a Muggle library.

I wish I were back in Azkaban, thought Malfoy ruefully. He hated all the stares they were getting. As if grown men in cloaks and masks sitting at one table rifling through copies of Sanctions of the Shifting Psyche and The Power of Influence wasn't something you saw everyday! Why, oh why, did they ever change Apparation points?

Lucius looked up from his copy of From Cave to Conclave: the Diabolical Mind in Anthropology and stared at Rookwood, despite the poor peripheral vision his mask provided.

Wasn't it his idea?

At that moment, Voldemort burst through the revolving doors and walked toward their table (but not before spinning around in the doors for a few minutes yelling, "Wheeeee!").

"Good news, my fellows!" he exclaimed cheerfully.

"Did you get a good amount of sap, Master?" asked Jugson, still reading. "We understood that it was very, very slow process and that it would take a very, very long time to fill the buckets."

"Well, I did," said Voldemort sheepishly, "but I exchanged them for information from those lovely people living by the swamp. Apparently, there are some MagiTech cameras floating around the place; they must be filming near here. If we get rid of the means to broadcast their highest rated show, we are sure to destroy MagiTech for not broadcasting my movie- FINANCIALLY!"

He then emitted the obligatory super villain evil laugh (which, in his case, sounded remarkably like a constipated Occamy), prompting the librarian to finally shoo them away out through the revolving doors, where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named spent another few moments of fun spinning around before exiting.

"Sir?" asked Mulciber, "Why didn't you just use the Imperius on them?

"On who?"

"The nice folk by the swamp."

"I left my wand at the cleaner's."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence. Lucius was the one who broke it after what seemed an age of pointlessly fidgeting and averting glances. "Sir, shouldn't we be amassing the hordes?"

Voldemort instantly reassumed his confident overlord mantle. "Yes! Death Eaters, assemble!" The Dark Lord was so fired up he was threatening to grow hair again.

"We're all right here," said Bellatrix, puzzled.

"Then what are you waiting for?" He looked at her with contempt. "AMASS THE HORDES!" Voldemort spoke with the power of about nine and a half megaphones, and the hordes started to amass.

"Blimey, look at all the frickin' hordes we've amassed!" praised Rabastan in amazement.

"That is one respectable mass of hordes," commented Voldemort, looking lovingly at each and every one. "I knew the alliance would pay off."

The Death Eaters all cheered and played Connect Four with floating Dark Marks before rushing off towards Duirop Swamp behind their leader, who was riding Nagini with the excellence of a thoroughbred racer. And of course, the hordes were in tow. But telling you what they were would just detract from the dramatic suspense.

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The Caivorid leapt on the pink girl's head in louse form. The French man's pathetic attempts to get rid of it did nothing as it pulled back its arachnid mandibles and prepared to give the girl her second life. And feed on some of that free will of hers. Hungrily, it plunged its fangs.

"Come... Come away... Come to me..."

The Caivorid stopped- something was calling to it. The sound was unique... alluring, even... he heard the power of life incarnate in a single voice.

"Come... Come to me... Come to the bringer of the verdant plane..."

It spoke again, this voice, so close yet so far away. It wasn't so much an earthly noise as lyrics in wind form, if that made any sense. The louse couldn't have resisted if it wanted to.

The Caivorid was unused to being the one that was enslaved. Quickly it scurried away towards Magorian and his flute, through marsh and briny water.

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The flute emitted more of a feeling than a sound; it whooshed around them in ripples and waves of wind. A sphere of speeding air dispersed from the mouth of the instrument.

"Whoa," said Magorian, taking the flute out of his mouth, "Have I had too many mushrooms again?" The flute's wind got thinner, but didn't subside, as it spread away from them.

As soon as almost no trace of the sound-wind could be felt anymore, Hawky the falcon began screeching incessantly, trying voraciously to escape Nast's shoulder strap. Tiny insects crawled out of the nearby trees in droves toward Magorian, and the skeleton fish below jumped out and glistened in the pale sun above their knees. Brown jellyfish floated to the surface of the mud, wishing to get as close to the flute as possible.

"What's going--heel, Hawky, heel!--what's going on?!" yelled Nast, covering his ears.

"SCREEEEEE! SCREEEEEEEE!" The bird redoubled its efforts to break off from its thick leather bonds and get to the hand holding the flute.

"I think it's the Call of the Wild!" Obsid tried to explain. "I've heard of it before! It beckons all nearby animals to wherever it was played last!"

Dodaru was animating the shadows of the willow branches into walls, but she could not hold the raging droves back for long. Now the Duirop lice hidden in the distant yellow blades were emerging at top speed, driven by an unknown force to their muddy strait, and all the insects were piling on top of each other to get over the walls.

"Make it stop!" she yelled.

"I can't, I don't know how!" Magorian tried to shake the flute, but the only thing that did was drive Hawky even more desire-mad. Then he thought of something that might save them.

"Leotards of Deflection!" He waved them in front of him. Nothing happened; the blunt earth colors of Duirop muted the color of the pants and disallowed the dimensional warp the contrasting hues created. He was disappointed- they had worked well for him in the past. Who could forget the time when he had stolen a bit of the Triforce and needed to ward off an angry Link? He would certainly never forget how they had helped him wander around Outworld unhindered and come off better in a duel with Raiden. Also, the time when he saved Mozambique from the reanimated remains of Pippi Longstocking and the motorcycle guy from Tron might've been a lot different if he didn't have his trusty leotards with him. The best instance, he reminisced, had to be the day when he used the pants to dig deep into the core of the Earth and uncovered the secrets of ancient Moletopia, city of mole men.

The bugs were crawling all over the other three, whose swatting only hurt themselves, in fervent desperation to get to the flute. There was nothing anyone could do; Nast's smoke bombs were only hurting the situation, and Obsid's stomping could not beat back the rush of nightcrawlers coming their way--they were overwhelmed, and there was no help in sight.

Then they felt a tremble and heard a large thud behind them, and the murky water splashed in every direction. The animals instantly ceased their cawing and skittering, turning instead to the source of the disturbance. Magorian's group did likewise. What they saw astounded them.

They were the abs of two towering, proud, red-blooded American sasquatches. Their presence struck the rabid animals with awe. The bog bugs about-faced and ran off, the skeleton fish scattered, and the jellyfish returned to their underwater nests. The hawk quieted and hid behind a wing. Both of them smiled.

The Caivorid stopped just as it began to see its quarry in the horizon. The voice that led him here diminished; a loud tremor had disrupted it. It dug-swam into the water, surveying with a mixture of alarm and relief.

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None of the contestants or their searching parties had had any success in finding alternate sources of food, coming back to the campsite empty-handed. There they met the two bigfoots, who had been bored in their travels through the swamp when the Call was sounded, and came to investigate the site where Magorian was playing the flute. He gratefully led them to the camp and told them to make themselves at home.

The camp was situated in middle of a sort of circular crater. The sasquatches were having a great time chatting with everybody by the enormous magical bonfire.

"So, how come Muggles don't notice you lot running all over the place?" asked Horace, a bespectacled old antique shop owner who had entered the show in hopes of buying the Mona Lisa.

"Sheer luck," Vance, the one on the right, told him, as he scratched his furry back with the bones of a dead swamp troll. "There are about 30,000 of us in Central Park alone."

"Wait," replied Horace. "Are you saying you don't get discovered because of pure coincidence?"

"Ever since we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker in Montreal and smuggled her through the border, we've been a bit lucky," said the sasquatch to his left, heartily feeding the flame with his rancid breath.

"Why's that?" cut in Magorian, whose speech was only slightly slurred by the great big piece of ostrich leg he was chewing. (Vance and Lance kept lots of exotic food in their enormous wicker baskets for such occasions, a strange yet effective choice of baggage. The grateful centaur made a mental note to put the remains of the gourmet ostrich leg into his saddlebag for safekeeping and preservation.)

"The chick we picked up was Fate," bellowed Lance's simian face from above, canines tearing off a large hunk of curassow. "Now she smiles on our kind." Magorian looked up at the starry night sky just in time to see the bigfoot's toothy grin appear.

"This was back when she didn't have those kickass gravity boots of hers, mind you." He too looked up, reminiscing. "She probably still has that loom she was toting around."

"When was this?" queried Horace, sitting in between the two and basking in the warm firelight. "How long ago?"

"Hmm... I don't really remember..." He belched, and the flames shot higher. A giant hairy hand smacked its owner's brother on the shoulder blade over the frightened old man's head. Vance spat out his draught of fine Cognac all over poor Michel at the impact.

"What!?" he roared, disgruntled.

"When did we hitch Fate a ride in our Viper?" he shouted over the Frenchman's cursing.

"I think it was 1962." He chugged down the rest of the bottle and added, "I wonder whether she remembers us pretending to be Canadians with gigantism."

"No, I don't think she does. She's had too much on her mind lately, what with this fic and whatnot." He sighed, and looked down at his hosts. "It was a disaster."

Vance let out a genial belly laugh. "We can't do Canadian accents for the world."

"That means it was only thirty-four years ago." Despite being desensitized to many things in life, such as jaywalking, holy matrimony, square-dancing bears, and modern art, Magorian was amazed. "How did you reproduce so quickly?"

"I'd rather not know, chieftain," Dodaru snarled next to him, continuing to devour her troll steak, which she used the fire to make extra-crispy. She was no lady when it came to dining, Magorian soon found out.

A look of confusion spread over the sasquatch's face, followed by one of sudden understanding. "Oh, we didn't reproduce quicker! We just moved. Life in the Rockies is a lot tougher than it looks. There's always the snowstorm or two, and keeping up good relations with the goats can become tiresome after a while."

"Yeah, and I hated having to eat those endangered eagles for sustenance. When we left the Rockies in favor of more suitable terrain for today's day and age, some people saw us. It was okay-- Fate made sure they were only people nobody would ever believe: mimes, pizza delivery men, the cops, busboys..." said Lance. Magorian was having a hard time pretending not to be visibly aroused by the prospect of eagle meat.

"But then one of those jokers got a tall friend to don a stupid-looking costume and pose for a picture in the woods while he fabricated some faux footprints," declared Vance. "Hey, I just alliterated! 'Fabricate faux footprints.' I love it when I do that! Save that one, would'ya, Lance?"

"I know what we could do!" said Lance a bit evasively. "Let's do a word game! Name weapons that start with the letter 'S'!"

"Other than sword, spear or spike," joined in his brother, excited. "We'll take it in turns. When we come to a person, and he or she can't think of a word, he or she is out of the game. The last person standing wins!"

"I'll start!" said hyper-perky Fuchsia. "Scimitar!"

"Sole of a shoe!" someone else shouted.

"Sombrero!"

----------------------------------------------

It watched.

"Serrated edge!"

"Sharp object!"

"Syringe!"

It waited.

"Shuriken!"

"Slingshot!"

"Slug!"

"Scythe!"

It gauged.

"Scud Missile!"

"Chakram!"

"Sorry, that starts with a C."

"SOCOM!"

"Shield!"

And mostly, it was disgusted.

"A shield's not a weapon."

"You can bash someone's head in real good with one."

"You can do that with a pineapple, too. I haven't seen anyone campaign for the right to bear pineapples."

"There are over two hundred and twenty nations on the Earth. There must be at least one country that outlaws the possession of pineapples."

"That's like saying there are lots of banjoes, so one of them must have been stuffed with marigolds and pushed to sea."

"The odds aren't too long on that."

"Oh please. You know a banjo is much more likely to be stuffed with poinsettias and get beaten in with a tungsten hammer."

Jesus. I'm not even sure I want to take their souls anymore.

The green, ghastly, grisly, gargantuan louse shifted to a more comfortable position: four legs splayed in front, two bent sideways in the middle and two placed in the water to steer. It had made a lily pad out of ectoplasm to survey its prey in style.

Maybe I should be happy with the slaves I already have, it thought. They're all waiting to serve me in the Black Turf. What did I ask them to do today? Ah yes, I told them to fix a nice, hot, relaxing bath for me by tonight. I don't know exactly how they do the things they do in the middle of an Unplottable wasteland. Or in Pennsylvania, for that matter! They just do it. Gee, this thought sounds like one an author would use to explain his or her story a bit more.

Or maybe I'm just overly self-aware. My psychiatrist always said that about me back in 'Nam. I wonder what he would say if I told him my favorite form was a louse? I digress. I should do something good for the slaves today. It's been so long since I was captured for secret experiments in some museum in the middle of the ocean. Those bastards magi wanted to see if they could combine a beast, being and spirit into one living, breathing entity, and created me. God I hate wizards. I should just steal their food and give it to the slaves. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

The bug evaporated into gaseous form, then coagulated into a dozen floating, clammy-looking green hands. They whizzed around the campsite and deftly nabbed everyone's food, disappearing with an odd ca-ching sound.

To say that the group around the fire was befuddled at the sudden disappearance of their food would be an understatement.

So would the sentence: "'Count Cornelio von der Schmütt II' is a slightly awesome name".

But that's really not important to the story.

"Well, that was... strange," huffed a sasquatch in disappointment. "And I was having such a well-cooked flank of quail, too."

Why do the old men always get the short end of the stick in this fic? thought Magorian angrily. But his anger dissipated at the mere mention of quail flank.

"Versailles time slip?" suggested Lance. "No, I guess we'd have to be in Versailles for that to work."

"Who'da thunk?" said Vance sarcastically, making a stupid face.

"That hurts!" exclaimed his seething brother.

"Where'd the food go?" said Locky the Patron of Plaid, standing up. "I was just scarfin' down some of me haggis and drinkin' some of me Dickens cider when some bloody ghost comes and ruffles me kilt into a whirl!

Locky's fake Irish accent was so hilarious that everyone temporarily forgot their troubles, doing everything they could to keep from laughing. They failed.

Dodaru was glad the cameras turned away from her to film the idiots guffawing like blasted banal banshees.

"Ugh. I alliterated."

Eluding the cameras, she stealthily stooped out of sight behind a dreary, drooping quagmire tree.

"Wendigo," she said lightly, her palm outstretched before her face. "Wendigo." It was as if she was blowing it softly into existence.

It materialized there and looked up, waiting for her command. "Our nemesis must be close at hand. Track the ghost. Follow the scent of a moving banquet. Once you find where it is, return to me and show the way." The small fox nodded and floated up from her palm.

"Good. Do not be seen. Do not be heard. Do not be felt. We cannot afford it the knowledge of our whereabouts."

Wendigo nodded again and jetted off.

"Wait..." Dodaru called after it weakly, not really trying to stop it.

Sorry, she thought mournfully to herself, as if hoping that her familiar could hear her.

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The Death Eaters advanced further and further into the swamp, making good time. By evening's light, they neared their destination.

"Follow your nose!" Voldemort kept reporting to his steed, patting it on the head as if to speed it up.

Nagini left a clear trail in the mud, blazing on through with its sensational serpentine celerity. Though it quite liked carelessly speeding away like this, it was very annoyed at the moment. Voldemort was issuing a stream of nonstop puns to remind everyone that it was his snake doing all the tracking, such as

"The nose knows!" or "I won't say no's' to using his nose!" or the especially dreaded limerick "He's using his nose! Where will he 'goes?' Nobody knows!"

Not only was it grating, it was erroneous. It used its tongue to smell, not its nostrils. Nagini killed the time by indulging its cynical side.

What if Sssmokey the Bear iss thhhe one who caussess the foressst firesss? Thhhere ssseem to be a lot of thhhem when he'sss around. It would give him a purpossse. What elssse would a talking bear have to do anyway? No cognitive powersss. Or maybe he jussst got up one morning after mauling a ranger for hisss hat and sssaid, "I feel bad, I'm going to channel his ssspirit."

*The snake's internal diatribe eventually led to several important revelations. Unfortunately, its thoughts were cut off in the editing process and we never got to figure out who R.A.B was, or why having Lily's eyes matters, or indeed, why everyone seems to name their children knowing what they're going to grow up to be.*

The Death Eaters flanking Voldie didn't have it any easier. Here they were, wading through endless water and wetting their favorite scrubs in the dead of darkness chasing after midges and buzzards, when there was important spywork to be done elsewhere! Why Macnair had bought a retractable, self-cleaning dagger just the other day at the Spy Emporium!

Lucius, especially, hated to soil his fine sixteenth century "evil Asian advisor" Wizard robes. Also, he had had a phobia of swamps ever since his third year at Hogwarts when a lesson in Potions class, then taught by Professor Connor, had gone awry and he'd been exposed to exploding sacks of ground Bubotuber powder.

Why this gave him a fear of wetlands instead of a fear of explosions or of powder, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that those creepy trees were really creepy, and that haunting laugh was awfully haunting...

A laugh? No, wait, there's more than one... It sounds like idiotic guffawing! We must be close!

Sure enough, seven more paces led them in clear sight of where the cameras were filming, off in a circular clearing in a shallow, flat valley, a half-hour's walk away. There was a large bonfire made... about a dozen people were sitting and eating by it.

Must be some nature show, thought Lucius. No matter. Once we exterminate this lot, we'll make Voldie satisfied. Until then, we cannot carry out any of our plans.

As the Death Eaters surrounded the clearing and began to form a ring around it, Lucius started to take heart. Not only would they rid the opposition of a formidable adversary (he could now see the silhouette of a centaur), they would get to show the entire Wizarding populace that they meant business once more.

Fear will consume the fools, and they will submit to our New Way. None shall endure us! Even the calculating and shrewd Malfoy patriarch was getting lost in the excitement. The thrill of the hunt. The intensity of the chase. The pleasure of the catch.

None shall endure us. None shall endure us. None shall endure me!

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Lovely, thought the Caivorid, rifling through its bounty on its way to the heart of swamp. Just excellent. Meat and more meat! Nothing but meat. The slaves are on their new low-protein diet, and I go off and steal meat.

It morphed into a wavering, transparent wolf with a sac in its muzzle to hold the food and a little surfboard to traverse a hard-to-find rivulet of brine, now minutes away from his home-base.

Wendigo had stopped dogging its trail when The Caivorid phased through an impenetrable wall of willows. Instead, it went back to Dodaru, knowing that the green wolf was headed for the gigantic clod of dirt that constituted an island in the deep trenches and rivulets of water. The Black Turf. It turned into a giant dragonfly with a smaller bag of food on each hooked leg.

It noticed an unusual lack of fleeing animals as it flew through the rocks and mounds of soil to where its home lay-- it supposed that the enchanting voice he'd heard earlier had driven them all away. Crude stone tents dotted a clearing in the reeds the Caivorid had flattened himself. It entered each one and left a drumstick over the wooly covers of the sleeping occupants' bunks. (Each of its slaves had a small sapling growing out of his or her forehead, which the Caivorid planted there to signify the end of his or her old life and the beginning of their second one.) It had forgotten how late it was. It took its bath and went turned into lime wisps of stagnant, ephemeral smoke, the ghost equivalent of sleep.

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Voldemort peered over his patch of tall-grass, practically out of his skull with anticipation. They were approaching their prey, ever so slowly to avoid detection... they were nearing the precipice that led to the valley...

Me and my hordes will eradicate those insolent vermin!!11!!!1! His thoughts at the moment were so hyper that they usually contained an average of nine and a half exclamation points and ones. So it came as a significant surprise when one of his loyal minions suggested they go to bed before plunging into the campsite and attacking.

"WATT!1!!1!!" he exclaimed.

"Actually, sir, that's 'what.' W-H-A-T."

"Oh, sorry. WHAT!1!!1!"

"Actually, sir, I was hoping you'd keep it down that second time. They might hear us."

"Okay, okay, I think I've got it now. What!11!!!"

"That's good, sir, now just replace the exclamation points and ones with a proper question mar--"

"Get on with it, Avery!" snapped Bellatrix. "Explain to your Dark Lord why you would have him change his brilliant plans!" She honestly didn't know if she was being sarcastic or not anymore, but she didn't let that show in her gaunt, Azkabanized face.

"Well, now, don't get me wrong sir, we would gladly fight to the death for you and enjoy every second of it. In fact, I loved that scene in the movie where the elephants were playing football with my head, and I couldn't get enough of the parts where you use my body to break all your death-defying, spine-breaking, exorbitantly painful falls. I seem to recall a scene that had it happen three times. In one minute."

"Avery!"

"Yes, yes, yes, alright, Bellatrix. The point is, we're all a good deal tired. I expect that if you order us to attack right now, we really will die for you. A bit of shuteye won't hurt us-- we've got them surrounded, remember."

"And there's no such thing as too much beauty sleep," butted in Rabastan, bags under his eyes. He prided himself on being a great Apparator, which made the trek through Duirop particularly wearisome for him. "By the way, have I ever told you how pretty your lips look in the moonlight?"

"Well, I have been applying some cream on my face." Voldemort batted his eyelashes. "Do you think it brings out the color in my eyes?"

The cream he was referring to was the gift Goyle had given him at one of the more memorable Christmas of Doom bashes back in '77, which was nail polish remover with the label torn off and a sticker attached reading in orange crayon, "Magic Moisturizer: Makes you gorgeous in minutes!" complete with a backwards Z.

"Oh, definitely. Your peepers have never looked more... er, more... ruggedly beautiful. I say hitting the sack is a splendid idea, if nothing other than to see you even more handsome tomorrow morning, you big sexy lug you!" yawned Dolohov, desperate for some rest. He swore his legs were swollen to nine and a half times their normal size.

It took lots more flattery and persuasion to get the Dark Lord to relent. "Alright, but we attack first thing tomorrow. And no talking! Malfoy, put the hordes to sleep."

'Twas a shame, in Lucius's not-so-humble opinion. He was raring for heads on platters and severed torsos, ruptured skulls and battered psyches; the more blood, the merrier. But there was no doubt he was exhausted.

"Oh, and I decided it on my own, not because you guys told me to or anything!" Voldemort told the rest before closing his eyes. He fell asleep trying to make the imprint of an angel on the ground, and listening to the soothing melody of the roaring flame in the distance.

At the bonfire, the laughter had soon subsided and they all agreed to search for the sasquatches' missing goods early the next morning, since it was nearing two o'clock at night, and everyone was tired from searching fruitlessly for food. They quickly fell asleep around the controlled Gubraithian flame. The cameras slowly veered away from the dreamers and dispersed of their own accord. It wasn't long until their lenses discovered the hidden fugitives, whose camouflage of tall grass and black cloaks was flimsy. Really only the distance and the elevated altitude had prevented the group they had been stalking from seeing them.

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Snape stopped in front of the gargoyle statue that led to Dumbledore's office. He found himself reluctant to utter the password needed to advance into the headmaster's chambers.

C'mon, just swallow your pride and do it, he found himself thinking. The faster we do this, the earlier we get to leave. Move your lips... that's it, now shake around your voice box a bit...Good, time to articulate the sentence- no mumblings! It's not that hard. Merciful Minerva, just bloody say it!

"Harry Potter is... he's a...ach! Harry Potter is a good person," he told the sidestepping gargoyle, immediately regretting it. He would have to slip in something about the password in today's early meeting. He was starting to suspect that Dumbledore had changed the password to his office just to spite him.

He walked up the spinning escalator and knocked on the headmaster's door with the griffon knocker.

"Yes, Severus, come in."

Snape strode to the trinket-desk and sulked into the seat next to him, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Some of the trinkets on Albus's desk had already begun to operate. The one invention that had always fascinated Snape was the Pensieve, but Dumbledore kept that inside a cabinet, and it was of no concern to him at the moment.

"Any news?" Dumbledore asked wearily. "What information have you gathered as of late that I don't yet know?" He poured some hot chocolate into the two mugs (one plain, the other with red and green diagonal stripes) and took a sip.

"Yes," he chose to reply, "I have obtained extremely valuable information indeed." No elaboration followed. He was feeling cheeky, and it had nothing to do with the fact that it was only six o'clock in the morning.

"Tell me about it," instructed Dumbledore, the sarcasm whizzing by his head as usual. "The rest aren't here yet." He took another sip.

Snape pursed his lips before taking in some delicious Swiss Miss, nutritious and delicious, hailing from the heartland of the Alps and delighting oodles of lovely people for generations.

"They've changed their Apparation point. They are now meeting regularly at Perrington Library, Pennsylvania. It seems the Dark Lord is in a rage because his so-called 'movie,' Voldemort and the Great Refrigerator, was canceled during its scheduled airtime. He will stop at nothing to destroy the MagiVision company that ruined his so-called 'greatest epic of our time.'"

"What!?" Dumbledore put his hands on his desk and sat up, his chair tipping backwards with a splintering crash on the floor.

"Yes, I know. Such trivial matters for the sixteenth Scourge," scoffed Snape.

"I had no idea! They're in a library now, you say?"

"No. They've ventured into nearby Duirop swamp. I would've followed them, but one cannot Apparate in or out of Unplottable areas like Hogwarts. And I knew it was Unplottable since the only thing the Muggles said they could see was an islet of mud in the middle of the swamp they called the Black Turf-- I guess no one bothered to Unplot the place, or maybe they couldn't. They weren't headed north, because they weren't going towards the islet."

"Did you say Duirop? Dear me!" Dumbledore's eyes sparkled so much behind his half-moon glasses that they turned into broken JPEGs. Sighing, he repaired them.

A flick of his wand had the cabinet on the far side of the wall adjacent unlock, the MV inside it flashing on.

Welcome to MagiVision.

Enjoy. ™

Snape rolled his eyes. Using voice commands, Dumbledore passed through various opening menus and flipped on channel 334, MagiTech. Sure enough, footage of the swamp was being broadcast live nationwide, and clearly visible was Voldemort's dozing face, to which the camera added nine and a half pounds.

"I knew reality MV was useful," Dumbledore assured Snape. "The show I have been watching was not an outlet for escapism; it was an essential strategy to get Voldemort out in the open," he said untruthfully.

"How do you know that it's really him? It could be a fake, a decoy to lure us away from his wheel-and-dealings in the Knockturn underworld. Order information is not to be so casually ignored, Albus."

"Wait for it..."

A high, cold voice entered the room from the box; Albus lowered it with his finger a few yards away, afraid it would wake the children.

"A CARRION FEEDER'S NARCOLEPSY CRACKS DOWN ON FEW POLYPS, AND MANY HOURGLASSES WERE DAMAGED IN THE AUTUMNS OF YALTA! RETRIEVE THE KEVLAR INNER TUBING AND GAS ALL THOSE THICK MATRONS, JUVENILE SOMERSAULTER! GOOD WILL HUNTING EQUALS AN EPITOME OF LASCHIEVOUS HANKERCHIEFS AND ITS AEROSOL BRETHREN! THE HAVE-NOTS CAN INGEST THE MORTAR AND SHRED THE FJORD INTO LITTLE SLICES OF PITHY ETYMOLOGICAL STETHOSCOPES!"

"Yep, that's him," admitted Snape.

"It's the perfect opportunity to strike!" replied Dumbledore.

"But I thought only Potter could kill him."

""Yes, but he doesn't know that, does he? Does he, Winifred?" He held up his grotesque sock puppet and mimicked through it, "No he doesn't, you innately lovable genius, you!" with a mock-girlie voice. "Your logic is infallible, Dumbledore!"

"I'm glad you think so, Winifred!"

"But of cour--"

"Where in the swamp are they, though?" interjected Snape; one more second, and he thought he just might have vomited into his mug, even though he hadn't had anything to eat since three nights ago. "How will we ever find them? Magic and mist fester about the place, making all who dwell grow more dependent on the swamp the longer they stay. I've heard many nasty rumors telling of monsters that have sought refuge in the thick obscuring crevices of the bog as well."

Dumbledore looked at the MV again; Voldemort had returned to sleep and his outburst had woken no one around him, not even the Eskimo hordes. Then he noticed a slight red tint on the lens of the camera--there had to be a roaring fire nearby, or at least a Gubraithian one in a two-acre radius.

Dumbledore shared his theory with the Potions Master, and he agreed he could hear a faint crackling. It was lucky that no one watched MV during the early morning hours; it was expensive to watch and there was simply a lack of good shows on other than cheesy infomercials. Snape especially hated the one with that stupid Channel 23 soap opera vixen (Angelica Beatrice on "Show and Spell") promoting a charity giving aid to a country she had probably never heard of before. "All we have to do is look for a fire, and we'll have spotted them."

They looked at each other for a split-second and dashed like lunatics out of the office towards Hagrid's stables, Albus hastily making an illegal Portkey out of his mug.

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Magorian awoke with a note wrapped around one of the arrows in his quiver. He was one of the first people to get up; only he and his fellow archer were awake.

"It's ten o'clock," Nast told him.

Magorian shrunk away from the sunlight and washed his face, allowing some of the water to drip down his beard. "Erg," he grunted. Everyone knew Magorian was not a morning person.

"Any eats?" he demanded gruffly. The bird perched on the falconer's arm looked particularly delectable today. He tried not to think about its thick, fibrous wings or how tasty its thighs would be if they were in his mouth. Nast grinned and showed the chieftain a large, green insect bleeding all over the wet twig it was impaled on.

"I caught a louse just before you woke up, but I don't suppose you'd want it."

"God, I'm starving. Hand it over."

"Merlin, Magorian, we had a banquet last night and now you want an insect on a stick?"

"You're right. Eating insects is just low." He eyed the falcon again.

Nast hastily changed the subject. "Er, ahem, do you think we should wake the others?"

He turned to look at all the other contestants, still lying down and dozing on the driest grass around the Gubraithian bonfire. Dodaru had sheathed all of them in shadow the night before so that the fire wouldn't disturb their sleep. "Nah, they all look so peaceful. A decent morning's sleep will do them good."

Nast agreed. "Besides, I don't want to search for food again just yet, let alone food that doesn't belongs to us."

"By the way, where are the sasquatches?" said Magorian. There was no sign of Vance or Lance anywhere.

On cue, two speedy Thestrals flew down, each with a human at its reins and a sasquatch holding on to big bags of food in back of them.

Nast covered his eyes from the glare of the sun and looked up at them. "Back so soon!?" he yelled over the swishing of leathery wings. They landed and as Dumbledore, Snape and the sasquatches dismounted, Nast offered a brief explanation. "The two of them Portkeyed to the edge of the swamp and used Thestrals to look for a fire and find Voldemort, who's, believe it or not, not terribly far away."

Magorian smiled. He loved crazy situations, and could guess what had happened next. The sasquatches had awoken just when they'd arrived. They conferred about what to do about Voldemort, and decided to wait until he woke up. All the Order knew that whenever Voldemort was given a rude awakening, his blow-up event would occur and he'd turn into an unstoppable juggernaut of infinite rage.

(Every person has a blow-up event-- a pet peeve or grudge so large, upon its presence the person instantly turns into a hulking mass of pure venom and carnage. Motm's blow-up event was rejection.)

The bags of food turned out to be bags of Portkeys, brought to carry all the contestants to safety. One by one, each one was discreetly sent back home, along with the item they had chosen to bring along. Only Magorian and Nast were left.

Magorian read the note on his arrow aloud, wondering in his semi-sleep if it was edible.

Magorian:

I've gone after the Caivorid. Wendigo and I have ascertained its location in the Black Turf and we plan to kill it while it's asleep.

Dodaru

Magorian would've kicked himself if he could. He had forgotten about her. Who knew what kind of peril lurked in the Black Turf?

On cue, the ground rumbled and Dumbledore stepped away just in time as a gigantic, coiling worm ruptured the surface and started writhing, Dodaru grasping desperately on the back of its head and hanging on for dear life. It was transparent and had a greenish tint and a wavering, wraith-like aura enveloped in wisps of smoke--the Caivorid wasn't a morning person either. The ghost decided to stop trying to buck her off and become intangible; she fell through its ectoplasm and was only saved by a lunging sasquatch.

The worm transformed into a toothy wyvern and beat its wings into a whirlwind gust to prevent her from getting up again, but she stood her ground and retaliated with a black ball of shadow aimed into the air; in response, the scaly drake morphed into multiple floating mirrors to reflect and rebound the attack to her. She canceled it before it could hit anyone with a wave of her divining rod. Meanwhile, Magorian was vainly trying to pick it down with his bow, the sasquatches were lifting giant boulders and trying to gravel it down, and the Hogw-stra emissaries were standing idle in shock, not knowing what had just happened or what to do. The Thestrals had already been timid due to the proximity of the fire, and the spectral shapeshifter's untimely arrival caused them to stretch their wings and take off in fright.

Needless to say, all the commotion woke up Voldemort and friends.

Crabbe stretched from off the floor. "I was having such a good dream," he mumbled to himself, "I was saving the world from alien rectangles with pair of headphones, a lock of hair, and a picture frame."

Another one of his minions had awoken quicker. "Look, something's happening in the clearing!" pointed Dolohov, who promptly got hit in the face by a stray Stunner and fainted, tripping over Jugson, who woke with a start and blasphemed shrilly, which woke everyone else. Luckily, Voldemort had just been waking up the moment Jugson's shriek filled the air.

Voldemort was quite incensed that he and his Badness Brigade (he tired of the term "Death Eaters") were getting no attention whatsoever, and his immense evil demanded that he eviscerate Dumbledore, the traitor and the impudent half-breeds anyway. So he changed his plans and chose to kill them instead of capturing them for ransom. (Even he realized that ten million Galleons was a hefty sum of cash, and he needed funds for a new, permanent headquarters.)

"I'm changing my plans," he shouted to the Legion of Loathing behind him, "We're gonna kill them instead! Fetch the secret weapon!"

The Eskimos lugged with them the secret weapon: A giant household appliance of some sort, standing eighty stories tall and three city blocks wide.

"BEHOLD!" screamed Voldemort triumphantly, and even the Caivorid stopped attacking Dodaru to listen. "I have made a pact with the Nihoth Inuits of Motm's Mountain, and TOGETHER we have made a weapon of such devastating power and awful potency that its mere presence turns chalk black and hearts to cinders! Its horrifying ambit reaches nimbus and deep roots alike, and nothing can withstand its mighty brink! The threshold of stars and sky will have absolutely nothing on the dominance my automation shall reap! The children of the future shall look back in wondrous, marveling terror at the--"

"You might be going off on a bit of a tangent, there, sir," said Avery.

"Ahem," he scowled at him.

"Go on," Avery conceded.

"Where was I? Ah yes! Behold... THE GREAT REFRIGERATOR!"

That doesn't start with an S, thought Magorian listlessly.

"Yes," he exulted, "Yes! My fiendish, frigid friends and I have created this devilishly malicious construct out of a mixture of snow, ice, and the serum of pure ill will seeping in my very veins! It really hurt, too! Seriously, look!" He showed them a practically microscopic paper cut on his ring finger, which was covered up with no less than nine and a half Band-Aids, expecting utmost sympathy. He sucked on the boo-boo and then ensued with the speech.

"Witness this grandeur now; else you shall never see it again. Tekkulat, open the Great Refrigerator and unleash the chaos!" His right hand Eskimo did as he was told, anxiously awaiting the decimation of the centaur that had destroyed the region he had presided over for over sixty-five years. It was their payment for having to build him the device. Nothing would have prepared Magorian for what he saw behind the enormous refrigerator's terrifying depths.

Hundreds of refrigerator shelves housed lines of one-seat buggies, each fashioned in the shape of a different kitchen utensil. Each buggy had an Inuit at its mantle and cannons attached to each side, capable of firing measured rounds of highly explosive cannonballs a distance of over thirty meters. The Eskimos bounded off the shelves with a multitude of big fetid splashes and wasted no time running amuck and shooting things in wild revenge. The spoon-trebuchets and fork tanks were the hardest units to destroy.

"Fire!" yelled Bellatrix. The fridge kept generating more and more assailants, and the stream of cannon-buggies coming out of the refrigerator seemed never to end.

"Wait wait wait! Hold on!" said Voldemort indignantly. "That's my line!"

Bellatrix sighed in submission. It had always been her dream to yell "Fire!"

"Fire!" yelled Voldie, scowling at his left hand woman.

Scores of Eskimos manned their utensil-cannons and had at it, pelting the morning sky with bombs. Others laid caltrops over and around Magorian, some of them floating. They weren't about to give their nemesis a chance to escape. Pacts with Dark Lords weren't made lightheartedly; they desired nothing but a sweet, prolonged payback for what Magorian had done to their ancestral home in Chapter 3.

The Caivorid morphed back into a wyvern and tried to beat the bombs back, but their momentum was too great, and it got hit several times. Lance, Vance, Dumbledore, Dodaru, Snape, Magorian and Nast all evaded the bombs by running around and screaming, and mostly succeeded, as they weren't being aimed too well. Then Magorian got a great idea. Taking out his flute, he played his favorite tune ("In the Garden of Eden") with sudden, unexplainable flute-playing skill. It seemed crisis really did bring out the best in him, and soon he was blowing out a perfectly in-tune neo-Fur Elise, perspiring profusely even in the cold daybreak at the exertion

With ridiculous, impossible speed, a legion of chickens started storming the battlefield, straight from the dark heart of Styjikuhler, shepherded by the centaur's favorite pet bear, Ganglia. Immediately, they lunged at the poor Eskimos' necks with frightening ferocity. Tooth and nail were keeping them in check.

What were the chances I got the right notes for 5,000 chickens and one bear? he mused.

"Haha!" encouraged Voldemort with a proud clenched fist, apparently unperturbed at the appearance of the new enemies. "Keep shooting! Keep firing! We'll have them before long!"

"Er, sir?" whispered a voice in his ear tentatively.

"What is it, Wormtail?"

"Er, actually, that's Avery, sir. A-V-E-R--"

"Yes, yes, what do you want!?" he dismissed, still looking forward at the wonderful carnage he was hewing. The centaur had already stepped on a number of caltrops.

"You..." He looked back and gulped. "You may want to look behind you."

"What..." He turned around. "Bloody hell."

Floating before him was destiny personified. Her face was long and ageless, with pert sallow bangs and long straight locks to match. She had a smooth, lithe frame, easily capable of the most daunting physical contortions, making her a skilled fighter. The clothes on her were a little androgynous; her short-sleeved green tunic fit loosely over her modest bust, and they came out in the back in two tails. She wore silken red pants, gilded gravity boots to help her fly, and a pair of goggles over her eyes. She carried a special loom that doubled as a bow. She is by far the most powerful character you'll see in this fic. Her eyes were fury and her breath magic. The ultimate Mary Sue.

"Fancy meeting you here, Fate."

"Shut up, Riddle," she retorted. "It's too late to reconcile what you've done, and you'll be staring down through my eyes the day of your reckoning in no time. Balancing the scales of the universe is an intensive task," she said, crossing her arms, "but one I am not unwilling to shirk to deal with you."

Voldemort feigned nonchalance and signaled the Eskimos manning the refrigerator cannons to stop their attack, which they did with reluctance. They had successfully knocked out Nast with a cannonball to the head and three of the Eskimos had cornered Magorian with their bloody fishing hooks before Dodaru had the sense to stop fighting the Caivorid and make a fleeting shield shadow, in classic Aerish style, to protect them. The Caivorid then turned into a giant battering ram and made the shield shatter, allowing the hordes to get in some hits again. Only to be called back by their idiot benefactor!

"So you're not here to kill me?" asked Voldemort.

"No."

"It's because you know I'm unkillable!" he cried ecstatically.

In response, she held up an antique box with Greek inscriptions lining its edges for him to see. "Even if you were, I'd be able to destroy you," she explained, "but one isn't to toy around with the threads of providence already sewn. Today is not the day."

Observing the battle, the child inside Fate lit up. There was a giant ghost-ocelot swiping its paws at a beleaguered party of seven. A new exotic monster to add to her collection! She was expecting business, and instead she got pleasure. Sans hesitation she whipped out her Pandora's Box again (not the actual box, mind you; it's the name given the apparatus) and opened it, making a larger creaking sound then one would expect. "The green spirit thing," she whispered to the box, and instantly the Caivorid started to degenerate and whirl in a rushing beam of wind into the box. The lid snapped shut, and it would lay trapped in the Box forever until she chose to let it out, in which case she would not be able to capture it again. Dodaru looked a bit angry, but the rest, including the Amerind hordes, sighed in relief that the monstrous specter had been taken down. (Meanwhile, in the Black Turf, the slaves withered away into ash, spiraling into the sky, and the zombies held up on Y-shaped stakes in Andaeneth met the same fate.)

Finally, the fight was fair for Magorian and his comrades, and even though the Eskimos had formed a blitzkrieg line and started plowing down some of his specially-bred super chickens, he was having fun leaping on to enemy tanks and trampling them underfoot while shooting down eggbeater-helicopters with his trusty bow. He leapt off and stopped another buggy by lodging his spear into its axles and yanking with a hearty heave. Finally, some action!

Dodaru had revived Nast with the help of the Wendigo's healing powers, and without the help of the sasquatches' advice ("Rub the holly over his left ventricle, Dodaru!" "Wait, isn't he supposed to ingest it?" "No idiot, that's pie. You're supposed to ingest pie. And watch out!"). Lance ducked to avoid a chicken that had been stuffed in Tekkulat's fork tank and fired, then spun around with a swing of his massive arm to deflect an oncoming cannonball right into another buggy, causing it to lose its front wheels and derail into the swamp water. Nast was now exercising his skill with the bow on the Great Refrgerator, trying to shut it down-- Their guile and valor would keep them alive for a while, but he realized that in the end, only sheer numbers would matter. It would be so easy to arrow the switch marked "SHUT OFF BUTTON- GOOD GUYS CLICK HERE" if there weren't so many cannonballs whizzing past his head, and he tried not to focus on the sound of chickens tearing out peoples' esophagi and dancing in their bowels. Briefly, he thought of getting out his wand and trying to Summon some diazepam, or have Hawky search some for him.

Meanwhile, away from the battle, the Death Eaters all looked up at Fate in amazement. She had gotten rid of a spirit with no effort at all! She looked at them with her disparaging gaze and asked them for the location of "Magorian, son of Deigorian of the Forbidden Forest."

Rookwood stepped on Dolohov's face and tried to answer her first, but Mulciber clapped a hand on his mouth, muffling him. "He's over there!" he shouted. Fate smiled, and he blushed. She rose higher and sped off into the battle taking place in the middle of the clearing. Rookwood pried Mulciber's arm off his mouth and glared at him scornfully. Then they rushed to the edge of the to see Fate flying off into the distance, letting out a droopy-eyed sigh.

"We don't have time for this!" cried Bellatrix, annoyed.

"There you go, taking my lines again," whined Voldie.

"Sorry." Bellatrix hung her head in shame.

Voldemort turned to his smitten minions. "We don't have time for this! Protect the Great Refrigerator!" He giddyapped Nagini and they followed him following her into the battle. As soon as they started to form ranks around the enormous fridge, barring any hope of flicking the fatal button, they began to systematically stun the torrent of chickens raining down on their Mt. Motm allies.

Fate, stationed above the wartorn swamp, started skimming for the lone centaur in the increasingly massive throng of chaotic warriors. Imagine Where's Waldo times ten. The MV cameras circled around her, adjusting their zoom against her radiance to keep her in focus. Narrowing her cruel eyes in disgust, she stretched back the nearest string in her lyre, fitted it with an arrow from the quiver attached to its prow, and let the shot ring with a sonorous twang. The dart took them both down, veering and swerving to reach its targets. In hardly the space of a picosecond, each camera plummeted down with a smoldering hole in its lens.

Loath to waste time, she nevertheless hesitated a moment before plucking out her right eyeball and holding it down to see the scene more accurately. When she saw what she was looking for, the iris she held aloft turned an iridescent violet and the pupil dilated. She put the eye back in its socket and lowered herself gently, entering the roaring skirmish taking place below.

Dodaru lifted a nearby log and threw it at an infantryman Inuit charging at her with abandon, effectively breaking his hook-wielding arm. A ball of shadow finished him off, and he flew into the rubble that was his spatula-ship. Magorian parried a carving knife soaring straight for the back of her head with his spear and swung it back at him with a virile "NEEUURGH," but the Eskimo dodged it by making a sharp turn. Another guy tried to hook Magorian's back, but a swift Mega Horsekick had him seeing stars, and an insane chicken devoured his limp form. Dodaru had his back covered by winnowing two buggies bound for him together and choking them in shadow. They made quite a fighting team, he the brawn and she... well, she was also the brawn.

But they still made a good team!

Indeed, it was only when the Fridge-Magnet Cars started emerging from the tops shelves of the Great Refrigerator that things started to take a turn for the worse. The mail under her billowing robes made her fly into a silly duck-shaped magnet, and her legs were about to be crushed under the tires of the car when Lance stopped it with a karate chop to the cockpit. Meanwhile, Nast was still trying to shoot the button at the top of the eighty-story "Icebox of Iniquity" (Voldemort had decided to change its name again. It had been just a minute ago, Nast could swear, that he had shouted out that he couldn't decide whether its new name was to be the Device of Devastation or the Reticule of Ruin.), but this time he was standing on the centaur's sturdy back, ducking and jumping to avoid the defenders' Unforgivables, Hawky all the while cawing its encouragement safely on his shoulder.

It was a bit of a stalemate, so, tiptoeing around some caltrops and removing the arrow lodged in a drifting corpse's 2nd vertebra to shoot down the engine of an eggbeater-helicopter already getting pecked out savagely by a trio of belligerent death-chickens, he thought of what to name the historic battle he was participating in.

The Battle of Duirop Swamp? Nah, too unoriginal... The Skirmish of the Sixteenth Scourge? Catchy, but overly vague. How about The Clash of the Inuit Hordes and Their Refrigerator of All-Encompassing Evil Versus The Fellowship of Magorian? Nah, some people might object that it's too long. He saw Dumbledore leap over a pile of corpses to Incendio a fork tank that had injured Snape. He was helped up and, taking back his wand, he joined Vance in pummeling a Toaster Truck with a few well-placed Reductor Curses. I've got it! "The Battle of Duirop Swamp!" It's perfect!

Grinning, he trotted ahead and landed a clean strike to an Eskimo's navel with a plunge of his spear, twisting and releasing. He let out a gnarly sylvan war cry and beat his chest like a gorilla on crack; Magorian's adrenaline was even higher than usual, and the level of endorphins in his blood stream hadn't stopped increasing. But not all was fine and dandy. Goyle struck Nast with a nasty Conjunctivitis Curse, and he spilled over Magorian's back into the water, clutching his eyes in agony. Dodaru had narrowly escaped a serious braining by Tekkulat, the Nihoth tribe elder and most fierce of his comrades, who was brandishing a lean-looking trident, but had not fled from the encounter entirely unscathed. And, most importantly, Fate descended in front of Magorian, stopped time, and asked if he was Magorian son of Deigorian.

"Well, see, which father would you be talking about?" asked Magorian. He looked around, and everything had stopped. Chickens, spears, and kitchen-themed vehicles were frozen in midair, and motion and sound ceased, giving all matter a fuzzy unreal feeling. Even the ankle-deep water had halted, effectively keeping Magorian's legs where they were.

"Never," answered Fate angrily, "speak down to me, for it would be the very last thing a lowly animal such as you would do!" She dropped all the way down, and walked on the water until she was a hairsbreadth away from the helpless centaur. "Fool! I can befoul you with but a thought, and you'd be gurgling and choking on a spurt of your own life force in the blink of an eye. My eye."

"What do you want with me?" said Magorian, staring into her eyes with a sort of enthralled terror.

"I offer an ultimatum. You must denounce your place in fanfiction forevermore. You are to step down from your post as main protagonist, and I want never to see you in any writing from here on out." She stepped back and aimed an arrow between his eyes. "Else you shall die."

"But what have I done? Why do you desire this?"

She sighed. "Ever since the fanfic-making robot I sold to The Savant blew up, he's been bombarding me with requests to help out his fic. He's flat-out broke and can't buy a new one, whereas I'm sold out anyway. So he won't stop calling me for advice. 'What color shoes should this character be wearing?' 'What should this character say?' or the oh-so-dreaded 'I've thought of a new character, I just need a new name!' So I've come to eliminate his favorite character."

"Why not just talk to The Savant and explain to him how much he's annoying you?"

"Because of this stupid indestructible contract he had me sign!" she yelled, gnawing at the paper in frustration. "I've tried everything! Laserbeams, Avada Kedavras, nuclear fission chambers, waiting out its eventual deterioration, giant hammers... But nothing works!" She dropped to her knees on the stationary slush and gnashed her teeth, pulling at her hair in irritation. "The contract says I can't do anything to harm and/or maim The Savant, regardless of what he does or where he goes. And plus I have to make him a chicken parmigiano sandwich for him everyday. He's got me doing his bidding! Every whim and frickin' fancy!"

Chicken-ptarmigan sandwich? thought Magorian, his mouth watering. No, Magorian, NO, you must stay focused! Your life is on the line here! Just think of the three people you would disappoint if this fic was discontinued! He smelled a familiar fragrance coming from out his saddlebag. Mmm... ostrich leg...No! He shook the thought out of his head. Then he thought of a good idea. "Why don't I take him down a peg or two for you?" He flexed his bicep and grinned.

At that, Fate fell face up on the floor and laughed her head off, banging on the time-stuck marsh water with her fists hysterically. "Granted, you're 110 and he's 16," she managed to say between throes of laughter, "but he practically controls you. Not only that, but he resides in an impregnable chamber inside a heavily fortified palace situated in an ACTIVE VOLCANO on top of a CLOUD." She succumbed to another fit of laughter before adding, "To the best of my knowledge, only one person ever reached his headquarters, and they only reached as far as the Taleweaver's Domain before disappearing, never to be seen again.

"Y'know, Magorian, I kind of like you," she said, finally standing up again and brushing herself off after what seemed like hours. "Nobody ever has the unbelievably huge balls it takes to negotiate with me. I give you the chance to say anything that might dissuade me from killing you, should you decline to abdicate this fic. You have five minutes. Go."

Magorian tried his damnedest, eyeing the warriors frozen in time and wondering if that would be his fate.

"Er... I make an awesome piña colada. I'll give you the secret recipe!"

"I make a better piña colada."

"How would you like to meet a square-dancing bear?

"I hate square-dancing."

"Let me live, and I'll wrangle exotic monsters all over the universe for you!"

"I don't need help to add to my monster collection."

"Erm... I could create a new robot for The Savant to work with!"

"Pshaw. If I can't make any more with a PepsiCo budget and my ageless wisdom, you definitely can't make one with your folk-astrology, mysticism, and Swiss Miss budget."

"Er, uh, hold on, I'll think of something!"

"Five seconds. Five, four..."

"Erm..."

"Three..."

"Um..."

"Two..."

"I'm friends with Vance and Lance, the sasquatches that hitched you a ride when you didn't have gravity boots!" he blurted out. He would've waited for the last second, but he figured that the whole last-second thing was much too cliché.

"You are?" she said in wonder. "Where are they now?"

"Down over there," said Magorian, pointing north-northeast.

She glided in the direction, unfroze them, and they agreed that they were friends of Magorian. "By the way, have you seen our food baskets?" asked Lance, whose legs were also stuck in the unmoving current. "They were made in the finest Dutch wicker, you know, about yea big, with big loopy ribbons on the handles?"

She smiled and returned. "You have earned my favor, Magorian son of Deigorian. A fraction of my essence shall be absorbed into you, and good luck shall be your grace wherever life may lead you." She opened her mouth unnaturally wide, her lips curling behind her teeth, and a beam of vitality shot through it straight into Magorian's mouth, reinvigorating his internal life force. He felt 23 again.

"So long, wayfarer." She winked, and time unfroze. The battle resumed as if nothing happened, and she spoke louder over the turmoil. "I pray we shall meet again some day, but for now I must depart! Farewell, and may your footsteps herald greatness for all to adore!"

"Wait!" gasped Magorian, after drinking his full of her greatness, ducking another tossed chicken, and looking up to her departing form in the sky. "Might you give me a monster so that I can win this thing!?" he yelled up at her, making sure even in his panic to remain formal.

"What?!" she shouted down.

"I said, 'might you give me a monster to win this thing?!'" he repeated, cupping his mouth.

She flew down to him again. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Might you give me a monster to win this thing?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Of course not."

Magorian deflected an airborne cannonball with one of his special rubber ducky hand grenades and asked "Why not!?"

Fate did a handstand whirlwind-kick, felling five feral fiends with one attack, and then shifted into a crouch stance, sweep-kicking one Eskimo and uppercutting another. She quickly followed up with a sideswipe chop to the face of a hook-soldier that had been trying to sneak up on her, and he flew over a hanging willow, his parka getting hooked onto a hanging branch. Nearby Dodaru tossed Tekkulat into the lynched Eskimo and chanted a little song of retribution in her breathy native tongue, Gothrefi. ("Ahdethi-Ios, chrat, dur hal chas-migdos ethose hra." or, very roughly translated, "Enemies of Ios, beware, for his sons' wrath shall be insurmountable.")

"You'd never be able to control it! It'd go amuck and kill everyone, not just your enemies!" She elbow-jabbed another Eskimo into the burning wreckage of his trebuchet. Dodaru barely dodged Voldemort's killing curse from up on top of the Great Refrigerator.

"Ah, you forget this!" Magorian held up his flute. "I am master of the Call of the Wild!" He played a jazz remix to "Strangers in the Night," and a three-toed sloth came out of nowhere onto his shoulder. "See?"

Fate smiled an appeasing sort of smile. "Alright then. I'll give you one of my most fearsome creatures." She held out a shining contract and a quill. "Just sign this to agree I am not liable for anything wrong that may happen as a result of this, yadda yadda yadda, et cetera et cetera." He did, and she took out her Pandora's Box, careful to be very specific when she whispered, "Feytred, Dragon of Vilhena Vale." The lid creaked open again, a huge dragon desperately clawing its way out.

"I'll have fun capturing that one again," she said coolly, "He's my favorite. Good luck searching for the correct tune. It shouldn't be too hard to come by." A stray Killing curse hit her back, but it just glanced off in the direction of Mulciber, who dove from the top of the Refrigerator into the little moat they had conjured themselves up-- an added defense measure-- to avoid it. Meanwhile, the Great Fridge was still generating more Eskimos nonstop, but most of them were infantry now.

As Fate left, Magorian looked up and examined the dragon. It looked like a Peruvian Vipertooth, except for some obvious enhancements-- whatever mad bio-alchemist created it seemed to have a penchant for bananas. Adorned on its back were ridges of bananas, and its wings were giant banana peels. A giant banana pierced the tip of its tail like some sort of fruity spike, and its upper canines were petrified bananas. He tried "Strangers in the Night" again, but that only brought a second sloth. (The two sloths saw each other, blushed, and ran away together. It was love at first sight.)

Feytred breathed a humongous gout of banana mush, smothering an oncoming phalanx of chickens (Ganglia had gone back to lead some more chickens into the battle; it was quickly becoming a war of attrition) and a good deal of Eskimos as well. Magorian tried the Ode to Joy... great flocks of crows showed up, looked at the great big banana-breathing dragon, and scattered away again. Next he tried "It Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. A plethora of eels and mudfish sprang from out of the depths of the swamp and wriggled around. Nope, not that. Perhaps "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen? Bloody hell, that just brought a couple of aardvarks into the mix! Uh-oh, the dragon was inhaling again... everyone else's breath was stolen in dread. Even the chickens were terrified. He had to get the right tune!

It took nine and a half more tries before he got the right one: apparently, it was the Windows start-up jingle that garnered him control of dragons. Feytred aimed his banana blast for the Refrigerator, and Voldemort's hopes for vengeance were dashed. The remnants of the once-numerous Nihoth tribe Eskimos headed for the hills, realizing their source of steady reinforcements was destroyed. The Death Eaters ran with them, lugging along Mulciber and Dolohov. They were defeated. Feytred took flight also, but for a different reason, and, pretty soon, Magorian was left with his comrades, alone in the clearing and flushed with victory.

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The American Ministry of Magic's Immediate Crisis Reconnaissance Team (the infamous ICRT, pronounced "ikrit," focus of countless conspiracy theories) worked tirelessly to remove any trace of evidence that any battle took place there, and the Obliviators were exercising their practice on the nice folk by the swamp. Some officials from the International Unplotting Administration even came to Unplot the Black Turf, now that there was no evil specter haunting the place and it was safe to do so. The only thing the Muggles would see was an empty, abyssal forest, not terribly unlike that of a few miles away; they would be bored into moving, and Duirop Swamp would never be tread on again.

Jasper Johns came over to grudgingly hand Magorian the cash, filmed live by two new cameras. MagiTech's excuse for the recent cancellation of their #1 show, "The Mire", was that everyone just decided that their stay in the swamp was too grueling and left for home. (The public didn't know that the contestants' contracts forbade them to do so.) Only Magorian, Nast, and the Gothmage were left, but Nast was found "incapacitated" and Dodaru turned down the ten million Galleons, so the centaur won by default. A veritable sea of reporters from both respectable and tabloid-like American and British Wizarding newspapers came to interview Magorian about his spectacular new wealth, contained in 3 sacks of money with the pound sign on them.

"So, Magorian, how does it feel to win big?" A camera flashed somewhere to Magorian's right.

"Right now? Grand, just grand." He gave all of them very vague answers, in hopes they would go away.

"What are you going to do with your newfound fame?" asked a woman to his left, three more cameras flashing in the distance. All of the reporters were wearing goulashes and raincoats in case any of them, God forbid, got their work clothes wet.

"Hide from it," he responded, and everyone forced a chuckle.

"What about your money, Magorian? Any chance you can give me some?" asked a fat balding sports commentator. The news of the centaur's sudden fortune was so colossal and unexpected that the major news stations had to send reporters that weren't quite qualified for the field.

"No. I've got something very special in mind for it."

"No doubt you do, chieftain!" This time it was Dumbledore's voice. The cameras turned to him as he whispered something in Magorian's ears.

"Splendid idea!" said Magorian upon hearing what the headmaster had to say.

"The first bag of money, containing 3,333,334 Galleons, shall be donated to Hogw-stra Sch-loo of Witch-tfarc and Wiza-yrdr to further finance the education of Great Britain and, er, refurbish Styjikuhler Forest.

"The second, containing 3,333,333 Galleons, shall be awarded to Vance and Lance, as penance for their stolen food and hospitality." The sasquatches whooped their approval.

"What about the third, umna?" inquired a microphone-wielding young man, shoving it into his face. "What will you do with the remaining money?"

Both he and Dumbledore grinned. "You will see."

Magorian and Dodaru lodged at the American ministry in Hartford that night, the centaur constantly assuring her that she would've killed the Caivorid if she had been given the chance. Nast was sent to the world-renowned New York Magical Infirmary for expert care, and he recovered in no time, his eyes bright as day once again. As soon as they got up the next day, the two Portkeyed to New York, saying goodbye to Nast and stopping by the East River. Just then, as they'd been hoping, another wave of reporters crowded the dock they were sitting on and bombarded him with questions about the third gigantic wad of cash.

Magorian trotted to the edge of the pier, turned the bag of money upside down and held it over the river, untying the string.

"Catch."

Dozens of reporters dove into the river without reservation, greedily grabbing any coin they could find. As the cameras filmed the spectacle, Magorian and Dodaru enjoyed some privacy.

"So, where are you planning on going now?" Magorian asked her.

"Definitely not back to Andaeneth."

"Didn't think so. Hey, look at that great sunset." He glanced at the reflection the sun made on the water, very different than the one in Duirop.

"Mmm," she agreed. "I'm going to travel across the world, and see all its wonders."

"I guess this is goodbye, then."

"Don't despair. You'll see me a lot in my upcoming fic, 'Dodaru's World.'"

"I hope so," said Magorian sadly, again looking at the sunset casting its glare on the swimming reporters.

And so the storyline ended.