A/N: I have made a startling discovery. “In” backwards, I realized after many serene months of clerical meditation, is “ni”. The breakthrough took so long to eke its way out of my mind I figured it must be the deepest thing anyone’s ever come up with in recorded history ever. To celebrate my utterly immense, and, if I do say so myself, captivating genius, I figured I’d treat you all to another chapter of my masterpiece fanfiction. Hey, don’t say I don’t spoil you all.
Magorian knew he was the first centaur ever to do it. He took pride in it. He thought what he did this fine Thursday morning would set a precedent that he had no doubt future generations would look back to as a wellspring of inspiration. Those intellectuals who wished to bone up on forgotten lore and revive their muse could look no further than the page in every history book that would depict in vivid prose the groundbreaking feat he would enact today The reader may be wondering, what astounding deed was Magorian planning to partake in? What could be so world-altering, so historically significant, it would make even him quake with anticipation? Well hold on. I’m getting there. Jeez, a guy isn’t even allowed to add a little suspense to his fic anymore…
Magorian would be the first to enter the Centaur Liaison Office.
It was something he’d always wanted to do, but he’d always been distracted by things on the side, and he never had enough time to include it in his busy schedule. (You can only be a fortuneteller, Elvis impersonator and Kool-Aid mascot for so long before your jobs started eating away at your personal life, after all, and there was that nasty stint in prison after that “defacing the major monuments of the world” phase he’d gone through. And the whole “saving Hogwarts” thing had certainly failed to allow him to free up any time on his rather long to-do list.)
It was hard to ignore all the looks he was getting as he clopped on through the varnished hallways to the office--most of the workers who didn’t belong to this department had never seen a real-life centaur before. Nevertheless, he was determined to be the first to ever enter the office doors, which were much like those of the Leaky Cauldron in that one couldn’t spot them unless they were looking for them expressly. Steadily the doors to the office became larger and larger as Magorian came closer and closer. Finally, after the admittedly arbitrary amount of words describing a seemingly unimportant period in the story, Magorian was still only halfway to the doors Would he ever get there? The swerving of the multitude of employees in his way didn’t help, and neither did the Centaur Slowing-Down Device that happened to be in close proximity to him, unbeknownst to the centaur. It was almost as if the author had made a bet with someone who said he couldn’t make one of his chapters any longer than the last one Really finally, he got to the doors and went through them…
Only to find another centaur in the room!
“Bane?” exclaimed a shocked Magorian. “What are you doing here?”
The equally shocked look on Bane’s face that appeared for an instant when he heard the swoosh of the opening doors and saw the visage of one of his prime nemeses vanished as his normal stern expression replaced it. Bane turned around again to face a very young-looking worker. (The worker seemed to be the most astonished person in the room. It could be clearly discerned from the look on his face that the presence of any other organism, let alone two majestic-looking centaurs, was unheard of.)
“This is the centaur I was complaining about,” Bane told the worker, as if Magorian wasn’t in the room. “His disgraceful and abominable actions have totally violated our time-tested ways Not once has any member of our tribe breached our ancient code so frequently and without remorse I even have to stoop as low as asking a human that’s at least four times younger than me for help ” he added as if the worker, whose nametag read My Name is [Clark Seamsly]
“I believe this warrants nothing less than public execution!”
Man, that’s a lot of exclamation points, thought Magorian. I wonder what I’m going to have for dinner tonight. Maybe some warbler- I’m not in the mood for sparrow again. I haven’t had finch since my last trip to Aspen. It couldn’t hurt to have a little variety now and then. Ooo, some cardinal would REALLY hit the spot right now. With a dash of oregano and a bit of swallow on the side? Yummy. Wait, no, bloody hell, I’m on that new puffin-frigate diet they’re always going on about.
Then he realized the severity of the situation. The man who had thrown him out of his ancestral home was now trying to have him offed He kicked up his innermost thoughts a notch.
The man who threw me out of my ancestral home is now trying to get me offed! Whoa, déjà vu…
“I’m sorry, s-sir. Um, person. Er, thing?…” spoke up Clark timidly.
“The centaru word for sir is ‘umna,’ stupid human,” said Bane in disgust. “You work at the Centaur Offices, you should know already.”
Clark looked absolutely horrified. Magorian couldn’t blame him--Bane was extremely intimidating. Yet he somehow found the courage to speak.
“I’m sorry, umna, but I’ve already told you that although centaurs are classified as beasts and thus liable to executions by verdict of a set of beings,” said Clark, amassing confidence, “there is a clause that excludes merfolk and centaurs from such treatment Besides, you have no way to prove Magorian really did all those things.”
“Way to go Clark,” whispered Magorian quietly to himself. Bane had a different reaction.
“Is this how the Ministry of Magic handles affairs? By violently yelling to its clientele that things cannot be done? Interesting. I knew it to be true, but how true, I didn’t know. Oh, this speaks volumes, it does. You know, I was going to keep refusing the Dark Lord’s offers to join him. But now that I see what the Ministry really is what he said it would be like…Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”
And with that, Bane exited the room, being sure to plaster a grin on his face.
“Don’t mind him, Clarkleton, he’s just bluffing.” reassured Magorian. “Now, I understand that one can start a petition here?”
“Y-yes, umna, you can.”
“Well, I’d like to start a new one. How many signatures do you reckon I would need to get the Ministry to consider renaming the forest around Hogwarts ‘Styjikuhler?’”
“Hi there, centaur ” interrupted a big-name MV executive who just burst through the office doors. He seemed a little out of breath.
The author did a quick peek into his mind, because, hey, he can do those sorts of things, and found out that he had just learned from a coworker that there was a centaur as close as the Ministry of Magic.
“I tried talking to your friend over there, but he just shrugged me off and kept trotting along Rude, huh?” said the executive. Magorian didn’t think he was one to talk about rudeness, seeing as how he just interrupted his conversation.
“Oh, that’s right, you probably don’t know who I am. My name is Jasper Johns, and I work for the new company called MagiTech™. We’ve just invented a magical box called MagiVision™- It’s like Muggle television, only interactive. Cool, huh? Anyway, one of the new reality shows we’re recruiting for needs a centaur participant, and we think you’re right up our alley
“Here’s the premise- we take a bunch of young witches and wizards and other assorted beings and put them in a swamp. They’ll have to rely on each other to live through fourteen weeks. Each week, viewers get to decide which two people get booted off. The last player standing gets ten million Galleons. The working name for the show is ‘The Swamp,’ and it will be broadcast in between the syndications of ‘Survivor: Hell’ and ‘Survivor: Idaho.’ Are you interested?” He raised his eyebrows for effect.
Magorian weighed his options. Warbler had a sweet tangy sensation to it, but left a bitter aftertaste. Cardinal was a bit of an acquired taste, and he wasn’t sure he had acquired it yet. And… wait a second, was that guy talking to him? Damn his natural look of rapt attention when daydreaming Magorian mentally flipped a coin and decided to answer “yes” to whatever question he just asked him.
“Splendid,” said Jasper with an unnecessary bow, as though that was what centaurs did. “See you in the morning ” Then he shoved a sheet of paper with an official-looking seal into Magorian’s aged hands and pranced right out of the room. Magorian was forcibly reminded of Willy Wonka, even though he’d never heard of him. Damn his extensive and inexplicable knowledge of pop culture
The document proved to be quite a doozy to read. There was lots of fine print that Jasper neglected to discuss, like the fact that Magorian couldn’t quit halfway through or that the prize money would be subject to 90% tax deduction. But Magorian chose to look at the bright side--by the looks of things, he’d be able to spend some time in America
Sherman: Didn’t Magorian just say he went to Aspen? And I remember him saying he was in El Paso once…
Mr. Peabody: Quiet, you!
Damn that pop culture… thought Magorian.
The next day, Magorian awoke in his inn bed. He was thankful that he had kept a few shillings on him and that he blended in with all the ethnics in this part of London. Quickly Magorian went to the sink. He was quite keen to try brushing his teeth for the first time.
He spat it out. Ugh… tastes like seagull!
Then Magorian stealthily entered Platform 9 ¾ and took a train to the Ministry, making sure no Muggles saw his bottom half. Fortunately, those who did were too sleepy for it to register or were too busy reading their newspapers and only saw him peripherally.
The train was extremely cool. The ads on the roof all moved, and the lights above you shone in different colors, depending on your mood. The seats were spotless, and any litter that was sensed by the compartment’s “hygiene defenses” were spotted by flocks of bored Aurors and ruthlessly eliminated. The voice of the conductor was always clear and his diction was perfect. Magorian could even use a special remote to change the voice’s accent- he and his fellow straphangers had a lot of fun switching back and forth from Norwegian and Fijian. Magorian got to the secret underground station (“Secret Underground Station”) in no time flat. He took an elevator up to the surface, along with a few other Ministry employees who presumably had to go into inner London on some business or other. The ground next to the dilapidated phone booth magically scurried away and the floating elevator connected to the phone booth. The touching walls of both fixtures disappeared and the elevator and booth merged to form one, bigger booth, which then expanded a bit to accommodate them all comfortably. A beefy Russian-looking man dialed a number into the phone following the request of a female voice projection, and the phone booth took them all down to the Atrium. Once there, the workers separated and went to their departments and the booth split into its two components again. The elevator went back underground and the phone booth went straight back up again.
Magorian checked the paper. He had to be at the 4th floor lounge room by 3:34. Sighing, Magorian diligently set off to the staircases, unaware that there were more elevators at either end of the Atrium. As soon as Magorian had said yes, his signature appeared on the dotted line of the contract, so, as much as he didn’t want to be a part of some sordid reality show, he knew it bound him to his decision. He couldn’t even rip up the paper- it was enchanted so that damaging it in any way was impossible. You think they’d use that stuff on airplanes or buildings…
When he got to the fourth floor lounge room, there was only one other person there. It made sense, since it was only 2:12. She had a pale complexion, and there were black streaks under her eyes- almost like war paint, only more elegant and thorn-like. She had long, sleek black hair, and was wearing pitch-black robes. Even her lips were black. Magorian knew instantly what she must be--a Gothmage.
She had been making a little yellow ball of energy in her hands in boredom, but upon seeing what just entered the lounge room, it disappeared in her surprise. Instinctively, she created another one and threw it at Magorian.
A/N: Cliffhanger!
Some information about Gothmages:
Like the Metamorphmagus and the Prophet, Gothmages are born, not made. That being said, Gothmagy is hereditary and any children a Gothmage will have will almost definitely be Gothmages. They have the innate magical ability to "wield the power of darkness" without wands and the ability to become nearly invisible in the shade (Luckily, they've learned to disassociate darkness with evil). They also seem to have an easier time with the so-called “pagan” ancient rituals than others, perhaps because of a direct link to their set of gods. They’re paranoid to a fault and not a little xenophobic, due to their intense persecution in ancient and even sometimes modern history. Gothmages are widely considered to be the black sheep of the Magical world, even more so than the Squib, partly because of their fierce and formidable appearance and partly because of their fierce and formidable power. In fact, they often form autonomous collectives outside of general Wizarding jurisdiction. Over their generations and generations of isolation from other wizards, they have garnered a unique culture and religion. Their pantheon consists of The Sibling, who symbolizes peace and brotherhood, The Scion, who embodies fear and death, and The Arbiter, who mediates between the previous two forces to create harmony. Gothmagy has a rigid caste system. The lowest caste is the Beggar, who doesn’t beg but doesn’t get any of the privileges the higher castes do either. The highest caste is the Clergy, who claim to have divine right. The Clergy is further subdivided into Anchorites, Wisewomen and Elders. The Gothmage in this fic is in one of the middle castes- Healer. The largest village of Gothmages has a population of about 4,000 and is somewhere in the Himalayas. Ministries all over the world basically just ignore their existence unless contact with them is unavoidable. This has got to be the longest paragraph I've ever written.