“Mwahahahahaha ” cackled Oigroig evilly, just to reassure the readers that he was still, in fact, evil. His two goons, Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy, both laughed with him. When Oigroig stopped, they stopped. When Oigroig started again, they started again. Oigroig decided to have a bit of fun with his new minions, laughing at random intervals to force them to laugh. After a while, all of them tried to see who could cackle the most evilly. Magorian used this silly distraction to plan his escape method.
Let’s see… I could step over Dumbledore and use Sinistra to break my fall as I hurdle down from the North Tower… Nah, that would leave too much blood all over me. I could throw Dumbledore at the evil guy, jump over him and scream really loud for help, but Dumbledore’s so old he’d probably disintegrate before hitting Oigroig due to air resistance. Hmm… perhaps I could pick off those Gamesharks somehow…
Before Magorian could finish his train of thought and come up with the brilliant and practical plan that would’ve saved the day, Oigroig and company decided to end their foolishness and proceed with their malevolent agenda.
“Magorian ” yelled Oigroig, snapping the centaur out of his reverie. “Our game tonight will be rife with danger and panic. We will engage in something so insane, it has never before been attempted in the history of the universe. Something so madcap, so unthinkable, it will make the very world tremble in fear ” He visibly repressed another evil cackle with immense difficulty.
The silence that followed this statement was deafening, as if the Earth had stopped rotating and hushed to listen.
“We will play a three-match, seven-set game of TRIPLES TENNIS!!!”
Then the world’s silence resumed to the normal kind of undefeaning silence, as if the Earth was relieved that its fears were unfounded.
Sinistra was obviously skeptical. “On what court?” she asked cheekily.
“On this one ” replied the black-cloaked old sorcerer Trekkie geek with a flourish of his staff. Instantly, the ground around the foundation of the building uprooted and the soil began to rise up above them, swirling and forming a floating platform of sorts. The accretion disk of peat turned into an outsize tennis court, complete with earthen ladders to climb up to it. That shut Sinistra up, and Oigroig was happy.
“Pick two teammates and the games will begin. I choose Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom.”
“I pick Ganglia and Dumbledore,” said Magorian, choosing Ganglia because he was a very acrobatic bear that could run really fast, and Dumbledore because he thought he would enjoy watching him trying to reach far-out volleys. He had no idea how wise those choices really were.
“Very well. Ascend to the playing arena and let us commence OUR SHADOW GAME ” uttered Oigroig fanatically.
“Please don’t turn this into a Yu-Gi-Oh parody ” pleaded all the children to the author. (Never mind that they shouldn’t even have known what it was, let alone ever watched the show.) Oh, how they wished they had Toyotas to drive home with.
“Only on one condition ” negotiated Magorian. “Since you have been coded up to the point where taking off any of your Gamesharks would leave you on life support (HINT HINT), I think it’s only fair that I get an advantage too.”
“Fine What is it?” said an annoyed Oigroig, who had already started to climb one of the ladders of soil.
“I need four tires.”
“Four tires?”
“Four tires.”
“Why do you need four tires?”
“To play with maximum prowess.”
“Wait, we’re talking about car tires, right?”
“Ford Anglia tires, to be exact.”
“Whatever.” Oigroig had the author conjure four tires into the story. They all went up the ladder (Draco with his inherited haughtiness and Ganglia with a little difficulty) and stood on the court. It was truly huge- about five times bigger than a regular one. Magorian quickly attached the wheels to his hooves, and felt the power of old times coursing through him again.
“YES ” yelled Magorian, with overdramatic lightning in the background. “I am the Wheelmaster once more ”
Sinistra, who was down below with all the kids, rolled her eyes, knowing only too much about the fracture in time that resulted from his experimentation with wheels the last time. She gathered her wits about her and tried to think of ways of getting the children down from the tower. Unfortunately for her, the students all wanted to stay and cheer Oigroig’s team on, feeling that they should champion his noble cause.
Oigroig started off by explaining the rules. The serving rotation was the same as in a regular game, only now with three people on each side. During a serve, only if the player closest to the net on the other side receives it will it be a foul- the other two are both receivers. To shorten the game, two lets count as a fault. Whenever Magorian’s team won a match, half the castle would return to normal. Whenever Oigroig’s team won a match, the castle would revert to its backwards form.
“Get ready, men,” pep-talked Oigroig. “This one is going to be a cinch if we just work together as a cohesive unit. A little teamwork will go a very long way.” Neville and Draco were too busy staring at each other in contempt to listen; each thought the other was unworthy of Oigroig’s attention.
And with that, the game started. Oigroig threw the ball up and smacked it as hard as he could towards the grizzly, thinking it a great hairy beast with no sentience. Au contraire, the bear, racket in mouth, leapt up and returned the lob with a vicious one of its own, aimed at the far left end of their side of the court. Oigroig jumped after it, but it was much too far away to return the shot. The extremely competitive bear made a little victory dance (specifically one that Magorian had taught it). Oigroig cursed Longbottom for not trying to return the shot, and his eyes welled up a little. As the referees (the teachers) magicked the scoreboard into,
Magorian Oigroig
15 - Luv,
Oigroig began to think that his choice in partners wasn’t exactly the smartest.
Ganglia’s voracious tennis strikes helped land the first three sets of the match securely in the belt of Magorian’s team without the help either teammate, but they could see the poor bugger was really worn out now, so they decided to participate and let the bear sleep it off. Now it was Neville’s turn to serve. Needless to say, he got a double fault four times, and the third game of the fourth set was given to the good guy team. Oigroig was getting so angry he was bashing the floor with his racket, (which only angered the further, as the dust this kicked up on his robes would prove to be impossible for the washing machines at the local Laundromat to clean).
Next it was Dumbledore’s turn. Magorian was slightly surprised to see that the ancient, withered old man had actual talent. Nevertheless, they only got a shot in while Draco got in two, making the score for the game 15-30.
Then Dumbledore remembered that it was Chapter 9 again (the prospect of a brand new Toyota Corolla with a V-6 engine slipped it right out of his thoughts) and that he had his powers back. Grinning, Dumbledore began to transform into… the giant squid It happened in a really cool Digimon-esque evolution sequence that startled everyone.
“Oh my God,” said Draco, whose eyes were wide open in astonishment. “You mean you actually ARE the giant squid?”
“Do you honestly believe everything J.K. Rowling says? I suppose that you just gobbled up her bilge that Professor Snape isn’t a vampire, or that Crookshanks really isn’t the Unknown Soldier, or that Voldemort really isn’t Harry Potter’s nephew ” said the giant squid, now holding a racket in each of its ten tentacles.
“Why, next thing you know, she’ll be telling us all about how Madame Pomfrey really isn’t an alien, or she’ll be mouthing off about how Hagrid DOESN’T secretly worship his handkerchief. PREPOSTEROUS ”
“I am not a vampire ” Snape stood from the referee’s box, quivering with indignity and his fists clenched. “And just to set the record straight, I will never have sexual relations with any students, especially not male ones. I’ve never been nor will I ever be a ‘pale sex god.’ And I am not- I repeat- AM NOT having an affair with a goblin named Tendercheeks, no matter what that idiot Flitwick says.”
“Sure you aren’t, Severus.” said the squid in a condescending tone as it used a great ruddy tentacle to pat Snape on the back. “Sure you aren’t.”
Oigroig shook his head and regained his senses. “Enough of this nonsense If one of your teammates can hold ten rackets, then I demand that I be able to switch out one of my teammates for someone else ”
“Go right ahead,” said Magorian nonchalantly as Ganglia awakened, somewhat surprised to see the giant squid beside it. “You’ll never get passed a kraken, me, or my bear alone, let alone all of us together.”
Dumbledore could receive out of the way shots like nobody’s business because he was so huge, Magorian often used his tires to boomerang shots back to him, and Ganglia was simply a force of nature. The sound of half of Hogwarts returning to normal as stone shifted and marble moved drowned out the pathetic whining of Oigroig and his disgraced pureblood minions (Malfoy and now Snape, who agreed to replace Longbottom).
Match two started with Oigroig again. Not only was he seriously shaken over the humiliation his team had endured during the first set, he also had the tune out the jeers of children down below, who had once again defected to the other side. The pressure of the first serve of the second set was paralyzing.
Fortunately for him, when he finally mustered up the guts to serve, Magorian let out a massive sneeze, so, due to sheer luck, his shot turned out to be an ace, forcing the faculty to award fifteen points to the bad guy team.
“Mushrooms,” shrugged Magorian, answering his teammates’ unanswered question. They nodded in understanding.
Oigroig’s relieved team felt new hope; Snape especially started to sport a super-smug grin. Oigroig’s previously-clouded mind was now calculating and diabolical once more. (Well, that’s not all of what was in his brain, but I daresay it wouldn’t be too horrible to abstain from digging any deeper.) He still had quite a few tricks up his sleeve, like secretly fiddling with one of the Gamesharks under his coat.
Magorian parried his next serve, which got countered by Draco, which passed to Ganglia, whose shot was returned by Snape, who scored. Oigroig’s team seemed to be able to jump ten times higher.
“What’s going on?” said Magorian, noticing their amplified leaping abilities. “If this goes on we’re going to lose every shot ”
“Can’t handle a little moon physics, can you, Magorian?” bellowed the code-fiend.
“That’s cheating ” said Dumbledore, his tentacles slapping the field in indignation and his giant lidless pupils narrowed in hate.
“I’m done playing fair, Dumble-Bore, as you’ll all soon see It’s my serve again, and you’ll learn to regret ever arousing my ire ” He activated his maximum serve speed code, and his subsequent shot would have garnered a net had it not burned through it and struck Dumbledore, winning them a 40-Luv.
The second match was easily won by Oigroig’s team, who used codes such “no enemy AI” to make Magorian and company too retarded to play, and “no hit detection”, which made the ball phase right through their adversaries and hit the ground instantly. Their use of the “Net being too high to shoot over” code was none too unreliable either. Now it was the centaur’s team’s turn to feel hopeless. The half of the castle that had been saved became backwards again. Was there no way to defeat him?
“There is no way to defeat me ” howled Oigroig triumphantly.
Then, rather unexpectedly, a meteorite hurtled from space and hit Oigroig square in the noggin.
“Wow,” said Harry. “I thought he was going to die by getting those Gamesharks ripped off him.”
“That’s what the author would’ve led us to believe. But the readers were too smart for that,” spoke Hermione. She was rather enjoying reading her favorite Arithmancy book under the shade of the tree by the lake, conversing with her two best friends about what had happened on the North Tower the day before.
“Wait, they’re too smart for the clean and practical way, but not for the random meteor from space?” said Ron.
“That wasn’t just any meteor, Ron. The old guy”“
“What old guy?”
“The old guy from Chapter Seven, Ron, who else could I be talking about?”
“You could be talking about Dumbledore, or the old guy from Chapter Three. All the Amish people were old. There have been a lot of old people in this fic, Hermione.”
“First of all, I refer to Dumbledore by name. Second of all, Motm is dead, so I can’t possibly be talking about him either. Third of all,--“
“Shut it, the two of you ” interrupted Harry. The sound of their bickering made him very frustrated. “Go on about the old guy from Chapter Seven, Hermione, please,” he said to break the awkward silence that had followed his previous outburst.
“Well, remember how he went off to pawn the shell they had gotten from the cave he was guarding? Apparently, it was an extremely valuable shell, and he traded it in for a satellite that could fire space junk at people whenever he felt like it. Then he started pressing buttons like a maniac, and next thing you know, Oigroig was one of his victims.”
“Have there been any other casualties?” asked Ron.
“Only some guy in Las Vegas, but he was homeless anyway.”
“I don’t get it. A state-of-the-art government satellite is sold to a desert bumpkin, and no one wants to inquire about it? And how can a cave shell be that valuable?” said Harry.
“It was a state-of-the-art government microchip, that’s how. It contained millions of layers of vital information to maintain and regulate Social Security for hundreds of countries.”
“I’m starting to think the author bloke is making this stuff up as he goes along,” replied Ron, stating the obvious and yawning under the bright light of day. “Man, this chapter is long. If The Savant doesn’t finish soon, I’ll be late for all the other fics I’m scheduled for today.”
Harry wasn’t ready to end this segment just yet. “There’s one thing I still don’t get. Exactly how did you become jinxed by the Imperius curse and started hitting me with a baseball bat again?”
“I told you, Oigroig put it on me,” said Hermione a bit nervously.
“Oigroig was a Squib,” said Ron.
“I’m really hungry, let’s go into the kitchens to get a bite to eat ” said Hermione, quickly changing the subject. Ron was all for the idea, so off they went towards the boar gargoyles and through the front gates, still somewhat in shock that the castle was now half-normal and half-backwards.
It was hard for Magorian to leave the place now that he had gotten accustomed to it. Nearly all the students had greeted him into the castle with open arms, and it was nice talking to Firenze, a fellow centaur, again. Firenze accepted Magorian’s humble apology for kicking him out of the forest after he recounted to him the story of how he got ousted out of their tribe by Bane for “his lack of obeying the way of the centaur and letting his mind decay to nothingness.” But he still thirsted for adventure, and was ready to explore amazing new places and be in exciting new storylines.
At last, Magorian reached Dumbledore’s office on the second floor. It was time to give him a final farewell.
“Ton-Tongue Toffee.” The statue dodged towards the side and the spiral escalator started to move up.
“Hello, Magorian,” greeted the jolly old headmaster at the door. “Come to say your final farewells?”
“How did you know?”
“I read the sentence before ‘Ton-Tongue Toffee,’” said Dumbledore, “but that’s beside the point. I understand that you need to get out of the castle and go explore the world. Don’t worry- we’ll certainly miss you, but we’ll carry on as we always have.”
“You’re right. Maybe this isn’t goodbye,” said Magorian. “Perhaps we’ll meet again some day.”
“God willing, we’ll all meet again in Magorian 2: The Search for More Reviews. So long now, and take care
“Wait,” said Dumbledore, as Magorian started to descend the stone staircase. “I forgot to provide you something for your travels.” With that, he stole back into his office, got something from one of his black cabinets, and rushed back out the door to give it to him.
“It’s a magic flute. I could tell you what it does when you play it, but that would ruin the surprise. Besides, The Savant still has to come up with a use for it.”
Magorian took the flute gratefully and dropped it into his saddlebag, sure that it would salvage him from harm sometime in the near future. After goodbying Sinistra in the Astronomy Office, he ran out the door, nearly trampling over three sixth-years in his haste.