#then getting subdued and hung from the castle walls and stuff

[diabolikpersonals]

But like so do we even know what Yuri looks like? So far I have not really seen his face of much description of what he look like

no, actually, like- I have to get mad about this for a second

yuri plays an EXTREMELY important role in lost eden; I would argue that it is AT LEAST EQUAL to the role that richter has played in other games, probably way more important! he appears and does plenty of important stuff in multiple routes, but in kino's route he is CRITICALLY important. and in addition, he has tons of speaking lines, during which there is just....nothing on the screen. in what world does he not deserve art? a sprite?? even a description? doesnt this seem wrong???

this is something that bugs me about these visual novel otome games (like yes it's a dialovers problem but also the whole genre tends to have this problem). theyre supposed to be VISUAL novels, but so many important things just arent represented visually, including entire characters like yuri (who I would absolutely consider a MAJOR character in some routes). characters will fight, die, whatever......and we just can't see it. I think it's silly!! is there really such a small budget for otome games? these games cost like $60 to buy, you know????? I can buy other $60 games with SO much art and animation. I bought fucking breath of the wild with $60. but u buy a $60 otome game like dialovers and theyre like "you get character sprites and like, idk, 10 pictures per route. go crazy." I don't like it; I wish I could have higher standards!

I JUST!!!! think it's pure nonsense. it's like my biggest otome game pet peeve when they dont give us art for things that certainly should have art. yuri included :(

[astaroth1357]

Demon Brothers React to MC Getting Kidnapped by Lesser Demons.

Watch out for minor first half spoilers!!

Lucifer

Kicking himself because he has to find out through Mammon that the MC is missing and he didn’t notice their absence himself.

The second the alarm gets raised he gets into a state somewhere between coldly rational and extraordinarily furious. 

Definitely still level-headed enough to rally and organize his brothers for a search party but there's nothing but seething rage just rolling off of him the entire time. Probably-could-have-made-another-Satan type rage.

How well he keeps his composure will be based entirely on how long the MC is MIA. The first hour or so will be mostly put together but past that he'll start to slowly unravel as the panic takes hold.

At one point he even gets snippy with Diavolo over the phone and that's when you KNOW that he's reaching meltdown mode.

If he's the first to find the MC, his #1 priority is to get them away from whatever scum grabbed them and take them to the closest safe place he can find. He'd scoop them up so fast they won't even know where he came from, just whoosh! How'd I get on this roof??

Only once they're out of harm’s way will he circle back and deal with their kidnappers personally. You better be sure any damage done to his human will be reflected a thousandfold back onto their attackers. Probably coming back to the MC with some blood on him and is not going to care.

Relieved to have the MC back but restricts them from going out alone after a certain time now for their own good. If they need something that badly, they can come to him.

Also strings Mammon up by his toes that night for losing them in the first place.

"By the time Cerberus gets to you, I'll be sure you're only my table scraps…"

Mammon

The first to notice that the MC was being oddly quiet (thank their father for his text spamming habit) then found their stuff scattered and abandoned at RAD.

Told Lucifer right away and, oh boy, he is a mess: talking a mile a minute, punctuating his sentences with expletives, on the verge of tears, whole nine yards.

He left his human alone for what?? Like five minutes, if even, to go to the library and get themselves kidnapped?! What kind of guardian is he?!?

Already searching the place top-to-bottom without being told where to go or what to do.

He actually ends up a strange inverse of Lucifer. While Lucifer will start panicking more over time, Mammon will start panicking less as his fear escalates to all out anger. Give it a few hours and he’s not even going to be able to keep his demon form under control anymore.

You know this boy is legging it across the entire Devildom himself waving around some kind of hand-drawn "Have You Seen This Human?" flyer looking for any leads at all.

If he were to find the MC first, his first action would probably be to plant his foot right in the face of whoever took them. Hard. Then repeat until their skull’s a caved-in mess on floor. No mercy this time, just pure protective rage.

Following the fight, you'd think he was just reunited with his lost puppy. Lots of crying, hugging, and blubbering out apologies even when the rest of his brothers show up.

Would pretty much be glued to the MC's hip for at least a week afterward and makes more of a point to hang off of them in public now. They're his human after all, can't have anyone else getting the idea of pulling a stunt like that again.

"MC!! What'd ya go runnin' off for?? We're goin' home after I take out this trash, got it!!"

Leviathan 

Wouldn't really want to believe it at first because it just feels too unreal, like, the same thing happened to Henry in Episode 86 of TSL when he was kidnapped by enemies of the Lord of Fools and it was up to his true friend to track him down…

Suddenly remembers that Henry was also tortured while he was taken and that really sets in the panic.

Unsure of how to help at first because he knows he's just a useless shut-in but Belphie of all people is the one to remind him that he does have one big advantage over his brothers: a fucking navy.

In an act of surprising backbone, he more or less demands a full fleet of ships from Diavolo and (honestly to his shock) he gets exactly that to comb the Devil’s Sea while looking for MC. Lotan even helps out!

If he were to be the first to find the MC (presuming they are indeed on a boat or something cause 🤷‍♀️) those kidnappers really shouldn't have challenged the third strongest brother in his natural element, eh? Those who aren't automatically lashed in the face or flung overboard by his tail get hung by the leg over the edge of the ship for Lotan to pick off one by one.

Sails back to shore with MC booming with pride that he of all people finally got to be their hero! Will literally be so happy if MC ever brings it up again, doesn't matter how much time has passed.

Things would settle back to normal pretty quickly after that, but he now checks up on the MC a lot more often and will even leave his room for them if they need to go somewhere and don't want to go alone. Can't have this turning into a rerun, you know?

"You hurt my only friend… So drown."

Satan

One guess how the Avatar of Wrath took the news. It's not swimmingly.

Unless your definition of "swimmingly" is a murderous rampage of toppling furniture, breaking windows, and swearing to curse right about anything that moves, in which case aptly put. 

He gets stuck in an anger-induced tantrum for a bit before finally getting snapped back into coherent thought by Belphie and putting those mystery novels of his to good use. Smart boi takes second to Lucifer himself in the search, suggesting good locations for his brothers scout based on what clues they have to go on.

Of course, he's not content to just to call orders from the sidelines and is out searching himself like he's on the goddamn warpath. Doors? Who needs doors? If anything the hole I made in your wall is more efficient.

Should he be the first to find the MC he would coolly and methodically subdue any kidnapper he can get his hands on, release his human, and bring them home as soon as possible. They've been through quite enough today and don't need to see anything he's got planned for the bastards later.

But the second that Diavolo puts them in the castle dungeon, you best bet that Henry 1.0 is going to the LEAST of their worries. Who's ever wanted to play a life or death game of hide and seek with a giant snake and the incarnation of Wrath itself? First one caught gets the "quick" death! Any volunteers?

Might give the MC a mild scolding for going out when they shouldn't have but otherwise is just happy to see them back and safe. May act extra soft towards them for a couple days, just until the nerves of the situation finally wear off.

"Don't mistake this for mercy. I assure you, I don't know the meaning of the word."

Asmodeus

Highkey freaking out, like, almost as hysterical as Mammon when he hears the news. 

Being the Avatar of Lust, he of course knows there's a whole lot of creeps out there in the world and he is utterly terrified that his poor MC has fallen victim to one at that moment.

For once, all thoughts of himself and his looks are out the window. What? It's past 2am and MC is still gone? I can stay up another hour! Dry shampoo and a washcloth counts as a shower, right? Who the fuck cares, where's MC?? Somebody find them already!!

Pools his contact list with Satan's and starts reaching out across the whole Devildom asking for people to be on the lookout and offer tips. Also begs Solomon to use his magic to help in the search (which he's more than happy to do anyway because he cares about the MC too)

If he were to find MC first it'd be one of those rare cases where he'd be seen really truly enraged. No cute banter, no playful flirting, just telling those worthless scum-vats exactly where they belong and exactly how he's going to put them there. Is it any surprise that he's also madsick with a whip?

Crazy relieved that MC is free, but now it's on them to help him clean up and get back to his prettiest self. I mean, he worried himself half to death while they were gone! All this dirt and sweat going to take three, no four, bathes to fully clean off!! Best hop to it~♡

"Touch them one more time and I'm going to set fire to whatever landfill trash like you crawls out of!!"

Beelzebub

It can't be happening. It honestly can't be happening. First he loses Lilith and now MC?? He can't lose two. He. Can't. Lose. Two.

Pretty much the mantra going through his head as he tears the Devildom apart with his bare hands. 

It's 1000x worse than how he gets when he's hungry because at least then he might stop when he finally gets fed. Now it's either find MC or wait until he collapses from exhaustion and hope he doesn’t leave the whole realm a smoldering crater before he gets that far.

There's no reasoning with him either, the best the brothers can do is steer him in a direction and let him loose.

If he found MC first he probably wouldn't even realize it for a bit, he'd just keep attacking whatever or whoever is in front of him on his path of blind destruction. It'd take the MC literally flinging themselves at him or throwing their arms around him to snap him out of it but then it's back to sweetheart Beel.

Hugs ensue. Really tight hugs. Probably a few tears and apologies too (even if it’s not really his fault at all). 

Woe to anyone who tries going for the MC once he’s sure he has them because they WILL be broken then eaten. He’ll encourage his human not to look, but some things just have to be done.

Would absolutely carry MC back home and refuse to put them down until the others force him to. The floor may as well be lava planning on taking them away from him too.

Wouldn't care as much about personal vengeance as his brothers as long as MC is safe. He'll trust that his family will more than punish the kidnappers (though chances are he already took a chunk or two out of a few of them during his rampage anyway).

Protective instincts up by 100 after this, though Belphie usually steps in and eases him back a bit when he's about to get suffocating. MC never travels without a buddy now, ever. He just can't risk it.

"MC, I-I'm sorry… I just couldn’t lose you too…"

Belphegor

Keeps the coolest head of all the brothers on the outside, but there's a cold fury building up in those eyes.

Pretty much takes charge of whipping everyone back into gear with a combination stinging remarks and heavy duty guilt tripping. May not be the nicest method, but it's effective. 

"Asmo, grow a freaking spine and do something useful for a change! Mammon, this your fault to start with so you ought to be breaking your ass to find them! Satan, watching you is getting embarrassing, pull yourself together and think like you're good at it!"

His harshest criticisms get saved for Lucifer (big shock) but he only dishes them out when he sees his older brother really losing his grip or teetering on losing hope. If the “mighty firstborn” can’t keep it together then why should they even listen to him in the first place?

When he's not administering "motivation," he's keeping tabs on Beel's progression through the Devildom and trying to minimize the damage there. He's the only one that can get through to him long enough to change his course if necessary.

If he were to find the MC first, well, unlike Satan he doesn't have the forethought to save the torture for later. It's happening right here, right now, and you better bet that being the last born doesn't stop him from being a force to be reckoned with.

Waits with the MC for his brothers to catch up to them and deal with any stragglers. May cuddle with them and look like he's trying to take a nap in the meantime, but in truth he's still very alert, on edge, and ready to absolutely wreck shit if anything gets too close to them.

Though it doesn't look like his lazy ass goes through the same protective streak as his brothers, he's a lot quicker to try and convince the MC to stay home now. No out and about=less chance of getting nabbed. Plus he keeps his favorite pillow, win-win. 😏

"What about your worthless lives makes you think you deserve my mercy??"

[lo-55]

Here There Be Dragons Ch. 1

The people of Hanamura knew better than to step foot in the old castle. The foreign criminals did not. Neither did the man tracking them.

McHanzo AU

                 Notes:    

This is loosely based on the Jackie Chan Adventures episode ‘The Lotus Temple’ .  It’s also my first time writing for McCree and Hanzo, so please be gentle with me ^^

Scales and Tales                 

 The people of Hanamura knew better than to step foot in the old castle. They had been born to the whispers of curses, to the dark clouds the circled over it for all but one day in the year. Their children played games, dared each other to touch the gate, to look upon the stone dragon that wrapped itself around the gates and glared down with eyes that warned of a storm. None of them were foolish enough to cross over the wall. None of them were foolish enough to dismiss generations of promises to never enter.

 To forsake their lives just for a glimpse inside.

 None of them were international weapons smuggler sprinting through the city with a target on their back. None of them were strangers jaded to the world and it’s supposed curses.

 None of them could recognize something ancient and powerful for what it was. And so they scrambled over walls, throwing backpacks and bodies over into a pile of weapons and limbs.

 One boy dropped down, landing on his ankle wrong. It was visible even from the vantage point Jesse McCree had taken up residence in. He leaned on the tree trunk, watching the kid scramble to pick up a bag when the one in charge, a nasty piece of work that called himself Glitch.

 The Blackwatch operative narrowed his eyes. If they got into the castle proper and fortified it, he’d have to cave and call for some back up, or say fuck it and just destroy half of the building in a firefight. If he took them out now, he’d be making a mess of a courtyard, but it would be quicker and over faster.

 Too bad Reyes wanted him to bring in Glitch alive. Too bad some of them were kids.

     You were a kid too, in Deadlock,    he reminded himself. He hadn’t been doing kid stuff then and these kids weren’t doing kid stuff now. If they’d come all this way from Germany, they knew what they were getting themselves in. No one worked for Glitch for long without knowing what it was going  to cost them.

 Jesse idly wondered if they knew that Glitch’s real name was Iverson Bemesderfer.

 Probably not.  

 Jesse breathed in deeply, mourning that he couldn't smoke on the clock, and drew his piece. He was readying himself to jump from tree to wall when a sound invaded his ears. It was almost too low for him to notice, at first.

 His implants picked it up before he really did. Typically they dulled the blast from gunfire so it didn’t blow his eardrums out, but they also caught and amplified certain things. Things that might register as a threat.

 Things like the low roll of thunder that beat inside the castle walls. The sky was clear, the castle was empty, save the invaders.

 Jesse blinked.

 Something moved. A flash of lightning through the courtyard, an explosion of action that cut through the crooks, leaving blood and guts in its wake. Blue caught the light, thunder grew louder, echoing in tandem with screaming. A gun went off, then another, a flurry of bullets flying at the flash of light that tore through the crowd.

 To the side a grenade went off, tearing through five men and throwing the blue back into a wall hard enough to crack it.

 For just an instant the carnage stilled. Jesse knew moments like these, when the fight went from hot to cold, bodies frozen in motion where the only things he could hear was the pounding of his heart and the world zeroed in to the sight at the end of Peacekeeper.

 This was different.

 The sound he heard drowned out his heart, the beat of thunder on the horizon. Peacekeeper stayed down, at his hip. That didn’t stop the ice in his veins. That didn’t stop the way the world darkened until there was only black and white and red and for the first time in his life blue.

 Blue. Brilliant, glowing, blinding      blue    burst through the Deadeye he didn’t call upon, burning itself into his memory. Scales shimmered in his vision where they fell to the ground, blue warring with red. The serpentine body curled in against the wall, stone collapse frozen around it.

 One of the kids had turned a machine gun on the creature when it impacted.

 Jesse blinked and the world returned. Peacekeeper smoked faintly in his hand and six bodies hit the ground. A girl who had hefted another grenade, the boy with the machine gun and the four people closest to Glitch. For an instant his eyes locked with the creature’s.

 His heart beat once and the beast erupted once more, red and blue lashing across the ground, cutting through bodies. It felt familiar, the death, the massacre, watching his targets fall. Not at his hand, true, but he knew folks that favored the blade over gun smoke or bare fists. It felt like that.

 Glitch had sense enough to turn tail and run, for the wall. Jesse couldn’t bear to tear his eyes away from the scene but he forced himself, vaulting to the ground to intercept, jogging to where Glitch would end up over the side. The shadow of his head fell over Jesse’s shoulders and he stepped back so he could be ready to subdue him. The target managed to get almost all the way over the wall before he screamed.

 Jesse met him beneath the red shingled, catching the part of his body that came down. Most of him, at least. His legs had been sheared off.

 Jesse touched his comm and called for a medic, focusing on what he knew. He coudln’t think about what he’d seen, what he’d learned was real. He had to keep his mind on the job, or he didn’t think he could keep from trying to catch one last glimpse of the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

 The Dragon inside Hanamura Castle.

~

 What Jesse saw never made it into his official report, the one that went into the files that Blackwatch sent to Morrison. Jesse had almost withheld it from even Reyes, but in the end he told him the full truth, if for no other reason than he couldn't think up another way to explain that he’d only shot six people and when extraction had been completed there was no sign of anyone having been inside of Hanamura Castle at all.

 Jesse had no idea why Reyes believed him. As long as he didn’t send him to Mercy for a head check it was just fine by him. .

 After Glitch he had stuck mostly to the America’s, north and south. Hunting down other rogue agents, taking down gangs one at a time. Usually he was partnered up with someone, Genji preferably, or even Reyes on a couple of memorable,      explosive    , occasions.

 The next time he went to Hanamura it was on his own terms.

 Jesse passed the castle three times the first day. He knew that going the same place on repeat was a messy mistake, it made it easy to track him. Easy to make a target out of him. Jesse just couldn't help it. He was drawn to the building and the being inside of it.

 He wanted to know more.

 He asked around, but his Japanese was terrible and the english explanations he got were mostly centered around staying the hell away.

 The second day he climbed the tree he had been in two years before to look inside. There was no sign of the carnage, no sign of dragon. Nothing at all.

 Jesse left with a stone in his guts.

 He hung around his hotel room for the next few days, checking out where he was going next and berating himself for not just hopping the fence and going in.

 He cleaned his six shooter about a dozen times, polished his boots, mended his serape and anything else he could do to keep his mind occupied and off the castle. He wanted to go in. He wanted to see the dragon again.

 He did not want to die.

 Every time he almost got up the courage to poke his head into the dragons den he remembered Glitch’s legs. A single snap of massive jaws and they were both gone. Jesse was already missing one arm, he wasn’t sure he wanted to lose any more parts.

 He was putting Peacekeeper back together after her fourth cleaning of the day when a knock sounded on the door.

 “Housekeeping!” was announced. In a voice that didn’t match the one that had come every day before. Jesse had time enough to grab his hat before the door came off its hinges and he was shoved out the window from the power of the explosion.

 He hit the ground running.

~

 Jesse McCree was not known for his brilliant ideas. Genji thought he was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag and had delusions of immortality. Reyes thought he was a punk with a penchant for ignoring common sense. Morrison… Jesse didn’t even want to know what he thought.

 Maybe Genji was right. Maybe, Jesse was just totally insane and had diluted himself into thinking he could make plans that wouldn’t end up in his death. Jesse had always been a few steps ahead of the reaper, kept there by the bodies he dropped behind him. He’d only ever been good for talking shit and shootin folks, which probably explained how he’d gotten this hair brained scheme in his head in the first place.

 His boots beat against the back alley, splashing though he-didn’t-want-to-know-what. Footsteps followed him second behind, just far enough that he didn’t have to start dodging bullets yet. Peacekeeper rested heavy in his fingers, hammer pulled back, waiting to be released.

 He bolted around a corner, his aim coming into sight. The rooftops rose high in the setting sun. Jesse took a deep breath and poured on more speed so when he threw himself at the wall it was the momentum carried him halfway up. His free hand caught the top, metal clanging audibly and he swung himself up, over the top. A gun raport broke through the sounds of the city around just before Jesse rolled over the roof and dropped to the ground below.

 He crushed some poor, unsuspecting bush under his weight before he pulled himself out of the clawing foliage. Blood ran down his arm from the new hole in his shoulder, slicking his grip on his piece. Heat burned through his shoulder and along his ribs.

 He touched his side with his metal hand, hissing. Damn. He hadn’t been counting on being hit.

 Voices crowded around the wall he’d just dropped over, accompanied by the clinking of metal and the clicks of weaponry.

 At least that was going according to plan.

 Jesse wiped his bloody palm on his pants before he went back to running, steadying his grip on the pistol. Behind him, pursuers had started to climb the wall.

 “Sorry about all this, darlin,” he told the castle. “ Ah, wasn’t expectin’ all this trouble.”

 Which was ridiculous. He should have. Trouble followed him in a shadow of misfortune.

 More bodies dropped down behind him. He picked up his heels and ran. The front gate was in sight when he turned the corner. Blood trailed behind him. For a long minute he wondered if he really had lost his marbles those years before. If he had imagined the blue dragon.

 Then the thunder beat through the earth. Someone screamed behind him. Jesse threw himself forwards, against the gate, managing to scramble up. From the high ground he turned his sight back, to the dragon that tore through the pursuers like they were nothing more than paper.  It was incredible, awe inspiring.

 Jesse lifted his hand, pulled back the hammer and shot. One by one his targets fell, crumpling to the ground. Never once did he strike the dragon that coiled through the intruders. Jesse had seen rattlesnakes slower than this.

 The last of his pursuers crumpled to the ground, a bullet in their head. Wind blew through his hair, tugging at his hat. The thunder beat harder in his heart.

 Jesse opened his mouth to say something, anything. All that came out was a shout when the gate beneath his feet cracked and fell, collapsing backwards, sending the cowboy down with it. The air rushed from his lungs, leaving him choking desperately.

 He barely got his breath back when something cast a long shadow over him. Jesse brought his shooting hand up on instinct, levelled in between two gold eyes. The dragon loomed over him, baring its teeth. Thunder rumbled around him, growled from between the dragons fangs.

 “Well, don’t that beat all,” Jesse breathed. He sat up, slowly, letting the weapon drop. He could shoot from the hip just fine. The man drew his legs away from the creature’s fierce claws. His heavy boot knocked some stone, sending it clattering off the door and into the street. Tight muscles tensed under thick hide and the dragon moved a threatening inch closer. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so pretty in his life.

 Pretty like a rattler with it’s scales shining in the sun. Pretty like the barrel of Peacekeeper after he’d just polished her. Pretty like Ana Amari.

 Pretty and perfectly capable of killing him.

 Up close he could see it’s eyes in the burning light, golden, flecked with brown. Surrounding that was pale scales, practically white, beneath a slim patch of fur that could have been spun from his mama’s wedding band. Whiskers of the same color flicked in front of him, floating in the air with a serenity that was sharply opposed by the massive, pointed teeth being shown to him. Under the drawn lips was a beard that chased backwards, edging jaw that could have taken Jesse in whole. It edged up along with sharp point, horns maybe, that crowned the dragon’s head till the point of a blade of fur that drew from the tip of the head to the end of a long, long tail.

 “Ain’t you somethin’?” Jesse slowly moved, so as not to startle the creature, pushing himself into a stand. The dragon made no move to stop him. “Thank ya’ kindly for the help,” he nodded to the bloody mess behind the dragon and took a respectful step back, his heart beating hard.

 It released a growl that shook him to the core, one that rolled through the scales that flashed beautifully. Jesse realized that where the scales faded from the near-white around the eyes and lips into a deep, ocean shade they were tipped with the same gold he could see in the dragon’s eyes.

 Jesse took another step away, watching the dragon the whole time. As soon as his boots were off the door it jerked, twisting, and disappeared. Doors that been broken repaired themselves and lifted back into place. It shut hard.

 Jesse was left with a bullet in his shoulder, a graze in his side, and a pair of shaking knees.

 Something caught in the light, the stone he’d kicked earlier. It sang blue in the dimming light. Jesse did a recount.

 He also had a scale.

[overfedvenison]

Alright, we've played three dnd sessions in my campaign now so I should actually write stuff down now....

Alright! Pathfinder Session 2.

The years since the War of the Horsemen have not been kind to the lands. At the old location of the enchanted woods, in the elven lands, where Plague fell, a terrible curse has been spreading and towns along the border have been disappearing one-by-one. We began as a group of recruits thrown together in a hurry to aid a town militia, sent to these cursed lands for our own reasons.

I was playing Charn. I am a student and a fighter - Fairly low-ranked - of the Storm Petrel Military Academy... It was founded by the fighter Cinna after she defeated the goblin lord in the War of the Horsemen, and was made to prevent another apocaypse. It is said the War was started, and our plane almost ended, due to the meddling of the gods. And so, in addition to combat training, military strategy, and knowledge of planes and demon-fighting, they teach a humanist philosophy that is largely anti-thiest.

My close ally is Pavia, a gunslinger of the region of Galt. A quiet sort that speaks French, she joined the Black Ravens at an early age. The Ravens are a close ally of the Storm Petrels, but more focused in their mission - They are dedicated primarily to firearms, and strength through superior technology. Essentially, they are a free army that assists the Petrels whenever possible and focus more on combat ability than the diverse subjects of the Petels.

The other notable characters this session were an Aasimar Cleric, and a Lizardfolk Bloodrager named Arka who had been send out by his tribe leaders to investigate the plagued lands...

----

The area was misty, and the air heavy and toxic, as we approached the town. We required special breathing apparatuses consisting of a Bottle of Air and a tube to survive. Our goal was simply to assist the civilians in their escape of the land; in particular an Alchemist who could help us fight in this war through his research. The town was suitably barricaded, and armed commoners stood at the ready - The civilian militia.

The town was a small hamlet, centered around a church with a great tower one of the militia were using as a sniper's perch. Pavia joined him, as they watched the area. Before we could leave, it was called out that the Plagued were approaching - Common enemies in these lands that consisted of shambling corpses animated by some form of fungus.

The town militia shot as best they could, and took down their numbers. They swarmed, and choked up the gate inside. Arka, I, and a few others formed a wall to hold off the tide while the commoners blasted in. We stood there and endured many waves of these creatures, each of us getting battered and struck (Except the cleric and I, who found ourselves in... Better positions than others. I credited a proper education.)

Our defense here taught us a few things... First, the Plagued are indeed undead - The cleric blasted them with a Channel Energy which damaged them. However, they also grow resistant to any damage they take so it only worked once. We each have our own abilities... I tossed Acid Flasks at them while throwing a bit of shade at the cleric, one of our allies used Stomp, etc. By the end, we were simply linearly attacking as they were crawling over the bodies of their fallen comrades to get past.

Meanwhile, Pavia saw a group of the Plagued behaving differently and approaching from a flank. She shot one, and decided to abandon her sniper perch and so descended the ladder to try and cut the flank off from the town... But quickly found herself surrounded, tripped, and soon to be implanted with a seed by the unexpectedly strong enemies. In a moment of desperation, she scattered a cloud of Black Powder for her gun and ignited it with an Alchemist Fire - Killing all her enemies, and leaving her damaged on the ground.

Finally, we spotted one especially strange Plagued - One we eventually termed a Granfalloon. Latched on the back of a Plagued was a large, tentacled plant-beast puppeteering the creatures. We eventually learned that this as an intelligent "Leader" of sorts, and the rest are simply his minions in a hive mentality. We managed to subdue this one, and after the battle lock it in a chest, alive, for further study.

It was a valiant attempt, but one of the flanking group got past us and then exploded into a swarm of spores. This drove our horses mad, and brought swift death to a huge chunk of the town. The Alchemist escaped down the path, albeit without his lab...

We sat in the town church as we caught our breath after this battle. We took guns from the armoury, locked our specimen in a metal chest, and Pavia found a group of civilians still hiding underground (and was almost shot dead - A small misunderstanding.) It was not a great success, but about as good as we could hope for fighting an unknown enemy this early.

I recorded the Plagued, their Tactics, and the Granfalloon in my Spellbook - My notes may eventually form a bestiary for dealing with the Plagued Lands.

----

We caught our breath as best we could, and departed to a nearby town. On our way out, we saw a spirit of some kind raising the dead... We eventually discovered this was an Avatar of Hel, a goddess of plague possibly corrupting the forest. I recorded it in my spellbook.

Along the way, we spotted the Alchemist... The alchemist is an older, portly man not particularly fit and definitely not a warrior, but noble and helps however he is able.

Nonetheless, one of our members went up and slapped him for fleeing. I began to argue that, given the circumstances, that was the best decision he could have made and that a misplaced honor would simply get a lot of people killed. The lizardfolk, Arka, was having none of it though - He declared her a deserter and a coward, and in the tradition of his tribe, drew a weapon to execute him.

I tried to reason with Arka as well, but the lizardman was headstrong and stalwardt.

"Alright..." I said "In that case, in the tradition of the king's lands, I here-by act as his lawyer in a trial by combat" I drew my sword and stuck him, which caused the bloodrager to collapse immediately. "Ah... Perhaps I went a bit too strong" I mused.

The Alchemist altered his memory and kept him from dying, and we later played it off as if it were a side effect of the forest. I introduced myself to the alchemist, and commended him on escaping - Unlike the more traditional warriors of the group, I don't believe much in honor. We gave him the notes and the Granfalloon, and he said he could research these back in town.

However, the Militia leaders called us out quite succinctly on a lack of teamwork, and so split off from us. From here on to town, we were basically on our own.

----

We arrived in town, fatiguing ourself to flee with the civilians from the toxic lands. We had worn ourselves down, and in the small castle-town spent some time to rest and relax. Everyone did their own thing... I helped the Alchemist as best I could, Pavia learned a bit of the local tongue and hung out with a small group from Galt, the Cleric mostly stayed at the inn, and Arka mostly hung out in the Moat doing Lizard Things.

One day, we all got together for a beach day. We bought some alcohol from the tavern, and played a game of Darts, among other things. Pavia suggested that the loser of the game kiss the Lizardman, who was mystified at the concept. We thought it was funny, and all tried... It ended up being the Aasimar. Arka recorded this in her journal, to investigate more about this "Kiss"

We discussed some theology as well... The Aasimars themselves are the product of divine beings interfering in mortal affairs, and Pavia and I choose to try and avoid that in lue to humanity taking destiny into it's own hands. In this respect, we've been resisting her healing. We questioned her, and noted that she is throwing away her own fate to serve the whims of some greater diety... She responded by saying that she chose to serve, and that it is her own will to do so and not a destiny thrust upon her. We were doubtful, but it was overall a good character building moment - And one important if we want to start accepting her cure spells, meta-narratively.

---

A few days into our rest, and shortly before we were called to the Capitol of Angelpoint for further study and quests, we enjoyed a day off... Only to be invaded by elves.

These Elves are the former residents of the now-corrupted forest, and wore the symbol of Hel on their armor. They were clearly still intelligent, but corrupt and evil beings now... Formerly, they were sort of capricious and violent nature spirits, but overall good and trustworthy and were a helpful asset in the War.

They snuck in by pretending to be a caravan of travellers, painting their ironwood armor with a metal coating. As we learned, this armor was cursed in and of itself and part of their symptoms.... They unleashed a caravan of the Plagued to assault the town, shooting down the gate guards with pistols (likely scavenged - Only two had them.)

The elves were strong, slicing down the guards with a single hit. I, unarmored, trusted them to last a turn and so holed up in a very defensible position where I could shoot at them while prone. I got a solid shot in, but was then immediately cornered and cut down when the guards immediately died.

Fighting off the elves was rough for all of us, but Pavia and some guards were able to shoot down from a higher stairwell to strike down the intruders, leaving only a few to deal with in melee.

The Plagued were taken down by Arka, who was hanging out in the moat and so allowed us a "scissor attack" formation where he approached from behind. He, being a Lizardfolk Bloodrager, is very powerful when unarmored... Unlike the rest of us, who were severely outmatched.

Thanks to Arka's strength, we managed to press through and save the town. We autopsied these elves, and I recorded them in my Bestiary. By now, I think we have a firm idea of the events of the forest....

Basically, the Goddess Hel is utilizing the remnants of the Plague Horseman to corrupt the forest and expand, bringing danger to us all. Her avatars are raising undead for these nefarious, and expansionist, purposes, she's making new and terrible species, and the Elven Druids are similarly warped and recruited into an army. For what reason, we don't know... Regardless, it's another case of a God interfering in our plane for their own purposes. Which is something the Storm Petrels will want to know.

I've learned enough, and we were called back to Angelpoint... The leader of the Silver Brotherhood, High Commander Adrian, wanted to speak to us. Apparently the animals of the city have been acting violently, and disappeared into the town aqueduct. The path inside was ripped open by great vines - A sure sign of Druidcraft. It seems here, too, the fingers of Hel have been manipulating. We asked about possible spread of disease, explained what we think is happening, and getting the go-ahead, went inside to slay the animals within...

[musicprincess655]

Chapters: 6/20 Fandom: Haikyuu!! Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei, Kindaichi Yuutarou/Kunimi Akira, Kyoutani Kentarou - Relationship Additional Tags: Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru - Freeform, they dont officially get together by the end so they dont go in the ship tags, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, War, Blood Series: Part 4 of Royalty AU

“Do you really think we can make a difference here?”

Yuutarou ducked the particularly vicious swing Akira aimed at him for that question. Even practicing by using the flats of their blades, a strike like that would leave a nasty bruise.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could do something,” Akira said sharply. “You know me better than that by now. If I don’t think I can come out of a situation with a net gain, I cut my losses and run.”

“That’s what makes you scary,” Yuutarou told him.

“Shut up and fight me, Yuu.”

It was nice, to have this rhythm to fall back on. They’d been sparring practically since they’d met as little kids, when they’d still been “Yuu-chan” and “Aki-chan” to each other. Granted, Yuutarou was still “Yuu” sometimes, when Akira was feeling particularly affectionate or particularly sarcastic.

He knew better than to try and call his best friend “Aki”.

Truthfully, he would have been fine with making a run for the north. Even though he’d argued for staying to find as many survivors as they could, his end goal had always been getting them to safety, and right now, Shiratorizawa looked like the safest place.

He’d expected Akira to vote for going north. Akira had never been one for suicide missions, no matter how much he might believe in the cause. Just like leaving Kageyama, just like leaving anyone who’d been left in the castle when they ran, Akira would have cut his ties to Seijoh and run like the wind if he really thought there was no hope.

Not that Yuutarou knew exactly why Akira had a reason to hope. He’d never had the mind for planning that Akira always had, though they’d both been at the top of their class growing up. Akira had a talent for playing the long game that Yuutarou never would.

But if Akira was here now, preparing for the fight of their lives, it was because he had at least the idea for a plan. Yuutarou already knew he would follow Akira blindfolded into a battle, because everything would be planned so meticulously that no one would touch him.

Akira sidestepped, trying to avoid Yuutarou’s much longer reach, but they’d been sparring partners for a long time, and Yuutarou was ready for him. Stepping forward, sliding their blades together until he could trap them against Akira’s chest, and slipping a foot behind his friend’s ankle to pull as he pushed until Akira was flat on his back.

“You’ve always been smarter than me,” Yuutarou told him, grinning at the scowl Akira threw his way. “But I’m still faster and stronger than you.”

“Even idiots can learn,” Akira grumbled, but he accepted Yuutarou’s offer of a hand up. “Ah, shit.”

“What?”

“Something in my eye.”

Akira lifted his hand, already forming a fist to rub at his eye. Yuutarou caught it before he could.

“You’ll just make it worse that way,” he said, lifting his other hand to Akira’s face. “Let me.”

Akira stood still, left eye twitching at whatever was irritating it, while Yuutarou leaned in to get a closer look.

A piece of hair had somehow gotten into Akira’s eye, stuck from the corner and across the iris. Yuutarou swiped his thumb to the corner of Akira’s eye, pinching gently to lift the hair away. Akira blinked rapidly as the irritant was removed and his sight went back to normal.

“Your hair is getting really long,” Yuutarou told him. Akira made some soft noise of annoyance.

“I know,” he replied. “I was meaning to cut it when we were still back in Seijoh, and I just haven’t had time to deal with it.”

“It looks good,” Yuutarou said honestly. “You should leave it like this. Just pull the top part into a ponytail, and that should keep the bangs out of your eyes.”

“Because I’m definitely in a hurry to take advice about my hair from the guy who just has to keep it short and it dries in this ridiculous radish shape,” Akira shot back, but not in a mean way. That was just Akira having a bit of fun, and Yuutarou had long since learned to tell when his best friend was showing affection and when he was trying to cause harm.

“Here, look, it’ll be good,” Yuutarou assured him, reaching to his bag for a leather tie. He walked around Akira to gather half of his hair into a ponytail, tying the leather around it and fixing it in place. He stepped back around to get a good look at his handiwork.

The result was a success. Any hair that might get in his eyes was pulled up and away from his face, but the hair that was still too short to fit in a ponytail hung halfway down Akira’s neck. The look pulled the sides of Akira’s face up and wide, making fine bones and high cheeks that could be pinched look elegant.

Akira looked beautiful.

Yuutarou realized only now how close they were standing, how his hand was still in Akira’s hair, and how Akira really wasn’t that much shorter than him, despite the almost feminine face that usually belonged to male omegas.

“Akira,” he said softly, sliding his hand deeper into Akira’s hair.

Akira abruptly stepped back, shaking Yuutarou’s hands off himself. Yuutarou was just quick enough to catch the look that was equal parts anger and sadness on Akira’s face.

Not that Yuutarou understood why Akira always looked like that whenever Yuutarou stepped in close. He didn’t understand why his best friend always had a look like regret on his face when he stepped away.

His feelings for Akira weren’t exactly news to him. He’d long since gotten past the confusion of Akira coming out of puberty looking almost too pretty to be a boy, but still distinctively masculine in a way that was equal parts comforting and thrilling. Even with the increase in height and the refinement of his features, though, Akira had still been the same boy Yuutarou had met when they were five, still the same boy he’d called “Aki-chan” and chased bugs with and fallen in creeks and come home to a scolding about getting covered in mud when they were meant to be in their lessons.

And Yuutarou had always loved Akira, but somehow that had shifted to in love when they were fifteen. Yuutarou had never been able to figure out where their friendship ended and his feelings began, or if they were all the same feelings – the longer he had them, the more he thought it was the latter. He loved Akira because they were the closest of friends, and he loved Akira because they were still growing into their friendship.

There was also the physical attraction, which had been quite the rude awakening at age sixteen, when Akira’s voice had finally stopped cracking and settled into a low register that could make Yuutarou shiver. His beautiful face, his lithe, elegantly muscled body…

It was no wonder that Yuutarou had fallen for him, even ignoring their long friendship. If he’d met Akira as an adult, he was sure the other would still have him wrapped around a finger.

What was a more recent discovery was Akira’s feelings for him. Yuutarou had taken a long time to come to this decision, but he was certain. Akira had romantic feelings of some kind for him. It was all in the way he acted around Yuutarou, softer than he was with other people without the fear of the world keeping up his walls. It was in the way he would leave a hand just a little too long on Yuutarou’s shoulder, the way his teasing had become almost exclusively friendly and almost never cutting.

What Yuutarou couldn’t understand was why Akira insisted on pulling away. Those looks of regret, the way Akira always seemed a little sad after he forced himself to pull away – and he did force himself, Yuutarou could see his reluctance – were confusing. It wasn’t like they were of wildly different social classes, and it wasn’t as if their parents hadn’t become at least resigned to their closeness.

Besides, what place did class and standing have now that Seijoh was gone? The reason had to be something that Yuutarou just couldn’t see, not sharing Akira’s skill for thinking. Yuutarou just wished Akira would tell him what that reason was. Every time he tried to ask, though, Akira deflected the questions with a conversational skill Yuutarou hadn’t realized he’d had. It hurt to imagine that he might have learned it just for this situation.

“We should go see Matsukawa,” Akira said, voice subdued. “He might have important stuff to tell us.”

Yuutarou nodded, following Akira’s retreating back, as Akira must have known he would. Yuutarou would never fail to follow him.

The rest of the group was assembled, and Yuutarou could feel tension pulling at the edges. They weren’t a cohesive unit by any stretch of the imagination. Maiya was always looking north, her son close to her side, and Matsukawa wasn’t much better. Yahaba and Kyoutani stood as far away from each other as they could get while still listening to Matsukawa, with Watari as some kind of mediator between them, though it was clear which would have his loyalty if push came to shove.

One or both of them was going to leave if they didn’t resolve things.

Kyoutani would be a blow to lose – despite his shitty teamwork skills, he was a valuable fighter – but Yuutarou really worried about Yahaba. He didn’t really want that blood on his conscience, and there was no way Yahaba would survive on his own. The one thing that soothed him was Yahaba’s obvious bloodlust every time he worked through the footwork that Yuutarou had learned as a child, a kind of savage gleam in his eyes every time he got it right.

Yuutarou didn’t really want to know what he was imagining.

Matsukawa once again told them that there was nothing new. They were still moving, but they hadn’t found anything or anyone. Yuutarou grimaced. This suspended state of limbo was doing no one any favors. If they didn’t pick a direction soon, this group was going to crumble.

When Matsukawa finished, Yuutarou watched Akira walk away before he could say anything about the talk. He really wanted to know why Akira hadn’t cut his losses with this group yet, but Akira would probably be distant for a while until the memory of them so close their bodies were nearly pressed together faded.

Yuutarou just wanted to feel less lost.

[mrtuckerlane]

2017 Denver Open: Let’s Play Some Chess

As I walked into the ballroom of the Ramada Englewood, I wondered what the other players thought of me. Was I really that guy, the guy that people saw walk through the door and immediately say to themselves, “Man, I hope I play him first round?” I had to look awkward with my chess board. It had been years since I last carried it in public and any swagger I once possessed was sure to have dissipated under time’s corrosive force. And my attire? Well, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be wearing, so I tried to look classy in my favorite black button-down (see my profile pic). As I approached the registration table, any doubt that I was a complete mark was completely erased. 

“I’m here for the chess tournament,” I stammered, unsure if I was in the right place, doing the right thing.

“Okay, what’s your name?” the lady at the computer asked.

“Tucker Lane,” I responded. Having given my first and last thousands of times at the scorer’s table of wrestling tournaments, I sounded like an impostor, an identity thief using my name in a foreign arena. I haven’t checked my statement yet, but my credit card may have gotten flagged for suspicious activity, even though I never swiped it at the venue.

“Hmm, you’re not in the system,” the lady answered in confusion.

“Yeah, I’ve never played in a chess tournament before,” I rejoined immediately, “but my chess teacher from long ago convinced me to come play, so I thought I would check it out.”

“Who was your teacher?” she asked, genuinely interested from behind her dark-rimmed glasses. I think she was excited that chess was being extolled to people outside of the small circle that comprised the community.

“Damian Nash.”

“Oh, that’s great!” she said enthusiastically. “Damian is actually already here.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s part of the reason I came down. It will be good to see him again. It’s been 15 years since he was my chess teacher.”

“Well, let’s get you registered,” she said, turning her attention back to the computer. “You’re going to need a U.S. Chess Federation membership, which is $40; a Colorado association membership, which is 15; and the entry fee, which is $65 for non-Denver Chess Club members. Which division do you want to enter?”

I missed her question as I did the math in my head. One-hundred twenty dollars?!  The figure was disarming to a guy who had been teetering back-and-forth on whether or not to play. I thought about turning and cutting out, but the registrar’s persistence kept me on the hook.

“Sir, which division do you want to enter?” she repeated.

“I don’t know,” I answered, still slightly dazed by the steep cost of the entry fee, “but for $120, put me in the division that gives me a chance to get a win.”

“What’s your rating?” she asked, trying to garner some information as to where I might best fit.

“I don’t have a rating, but I’m sure that if I did, it would not be very high.”

“Okay,” she added pensively, “so you’re entering as an unrated player. I’m going to go ahead and put you in the Under 1400 division.” As I soon discovered, there were three different divisions within the tournament. There was the Open division, which was comprised of the studs. This is where the Grandmasters, the Masters, the Experts–and the few eccentric people who wanted to be beaten by these royalty of chess–met to compete. There was the Under 1800 division, which consisted of really good chess players who weren’t quite ready to play with the big boys and girls. Then there was the Under 1400 division, which was full of little kids, has-been’s, and never-will-be’s. This was where I found myself. I handed the lady a crisp Benjamin, a crumpled Andrew, and went into the lobby to wait for the first round.

I found a sofa in the corner and sat down by myself. I hadn’t seen Damian anywhere, and I literally knew nobody else. With no one to talk to, I whiled away the minutes observing the bustle of the hotel. There were kids sitting on the carpet, playing games of quick chess. Every table in every conference room was occupied by checkered boards as players recapitulated and re-imagined what had transpired in their favorite games. Old men paced hallways, engrossed in chess literature, trying desperately to find that one clue that might give them the edge in their upcoming games.     

As the round approached, the officials posted the pairings on the wall. I stood up and went to look at the U1400 sheet. There were 50 tables set up in the ballroom and from what I could tell, the highest-rated players sat at table one, a beautiful marble surface flanked by two thrones of velvet, located at the front of the room. To give you an idea of where I stood in the hierarchy, in my first-round match, I was placed at table 50, a teetering plastic counter-top accompanied by two fold-up chairs, tucked away in the back corner of the ballroom.

My first round opponent was a lady named Kathy. She appeared to be between 60 and 70 years of age, and her countenance reminded me of the weird sisters from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Her mouth was crooked, her left eye was squinted, and she had a long, gray braid that hung down the middle of her back. Her rating was 1016, which suggested that while she was not very good, she was at least experienced enough to get a tournament rating. She hobbled up to table 50 and gave me the stare-down.

“You Tucker?”

“Yeah,” I answered affirmatively. “You must be Kathy.”

“We’re using your board,” she directed, cutting past any pleasantries. “Do you have a clock?”

“No,” I said. “I thought clocks would be provided. I apologize–this is my first tournament.”

She dug into her chess bag and produced her clock, setting it next to my board. It had been 15 years since I had last played a timed game, and I tried my hardest to remember how it functioned without having to ask and draw further attention to my novice status.

“Be gentle with it,” Kathy commanded. “I’ve gone through dozens of clocks over the years and don’t want to buy another one.” Just as she was explaining her chess-clock woes, a young kid approached us, in need of a clock for his game.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Do either of you have a clock we could borrow?”

“No,” Kathy snapped back,” and even if I did, I wouldn’t let you use it.” The kid moved on down the line, unabashed by Kathy’s stern denial, and Kathy turned her attention back to me.

“Never let anybody borrow your clock,” she coached me. “People don’t respect other people’s stuff. And move the board closer to the middle of the table. It’s not fair that it’s closer to your side than mine.” 

With the tournament director explaining the rules of the first round to the crowd of roughly 100 players, I stood up and situated the board closer to Kathy’s side. Even though I had slept soundly the night before, had not been at all nervous about the outcome of the tournament, there was something in Kathy’s brusque, abrasive manner that made me want to beat her. An old familiar feeling of butterflies in my stomach, heart fluttering in my chest returned to me as the director signaled the beginning of the first round.

As the white player, I had the built-in advantage of getting to move first. Damian always said that in high-level chess, white wins 50 percent, black wins 25 percent, and 25 percent end in a draw. With the odds in my favor, there was no way I would let Kathy put me in a 0-1 hole to begin my chess career. 

I started strong, calculating my moves based on the numerous chess principles I had committed to rote memory over the years. Control the center. Develop all pieces. Castle the king to safety. As we moved into the middle game, I had a convincing lead, all of my pieces well-aligned to attack, ready to unleash chaos on Kathy’s cramped, backward defense. Tournament chess was not so hard, and I envisioned texting my mom in a few minutes to let her know that I had won my first official chess game.

And then my plans of that celebratory message were crushed by a single blunder.

Over-anxious to bring the death knell upon Kathy, I moved my rook into her back rank one move too soon, putting her king in check, but leaving my powerful piece vulnerable to attack by her hidden knight. The exchange of my rook for her knight was too significant a disparity for me to overcome, and Kathy systematically used her advantage in material to decimate me. My most far-fetched tricks exhausted, all hopes of Kathy making a blunder of her own vanquished, and my defeat was sealed in checkmate.

I breathed slowly, calmly in an attempt to subdue the rage that was heavy in my chest. How could I have lost a game I was so clearly winning? Why did I always make such stupid mistakes? If I couldn’t beat Kathy, who was I going to beat? AHHHH! Blunders! Blunders! Blunders!  

Kathy extended her arm across the table, the fat from the back of her elbow hanging low, and offered me her hand in acknowledgment of a game completed. She also gave me some words of advice. “Make sure you count all of your pieces. It’s easy to get them confused with the player sitting next to you. I would hate for you to be down a piece before your next game.” I gave my pieces a cursory one-over. At this point, I was too frustrated with my performance to care about losing a piece, and I forcefully stuffed them all into my bag.

“Can you please sign my scorecard?” Kathy asked, pushing the small piece of paper toward me.

“Where do I sign?” I asked lugubriously.  

“Down there at the bottom.” She pointed with her stubby little sausage finger. “You sign mine, I sign yours, then we take them over to the head table so they can enter the results. Here, let me show you.” She picked up our scorecards, took me by the hand, and led me where I was supposed to go. We dropped the cards in a little basket and then walked across the room and recorded the result on the wall chart. My loss was official. 

As I stood nearly a foot taller than Kathy, she had to tilt her head back and look up to make eye contact with me (well, with her one good eye). “Tucker, that was a good game for your first time. You are a handsome, polite gentleman, and I hope you win the rest of your games.” We shook hands once more, and she shuffled out of the ballroom. Her magnanimity made me feel bad for the less-than-flattering opinions I had initially formed of her, made me feel petulant for the string of obscenities that littered my mind in the aftermath of my defeat. Still, I wondered if she would have found me so handsome had the final result turned out the other way.

Chess has an interesting custom in which the players get together immediately following their games to go over what the other player was thinking, how he or she would have moved in a certain scenario. While I was seething, looking for furniture to move, searching for the proverbial wall to punch, the Masters of the game were learning from each other, taking the opportunity to improve their craft. It’s pretty impressive to watch, as they are able to remember exactly what they played 20 moves prior and all of the different scenarios that would have arisen had they chosen a different alternative. It was in this exercise that I reunited with Damian. 

He didn’t recognize me immediately. After all, it had been 15 years. A few seconds later, however, a knowing smile emerged on his face, and he stood up to shake my hand.

“Tucker Lane,” he exclaimed. “How excellent to see you. Are you here playing? Here watching?”

“I’m here playing,” I answered. “I saw what you posted on Facebook, and I made up my mind, after 15 years, that I was finally going to enter a tournament. Unfortunately, I lost my first game, a game I was well-positioned to win. Knights continue to give me trouble, and I ended up dropping a rook as a result. It was all downhill from there.”

“That’s okay!” he said, beckoning me to follow him. “Let’s go over some knight concepts I think you will find useful.” He led me to a meeting room in the back of the hotel, where he had a chess board setup, and proceeded to instruct me on the various strengths, weaknesses, and tactics of knight play. He was such a good teacher, and I readily absorbed everything with which he presented me. After a few minutes, our study was interrupted by a swashbuckling youth who entered the room to say hello to Damian.    

“UTAH IN THE HOUSE!” the boisterous young man cheered, opening his arms in offer of a hug. Damian chatted with him briefly before introducing me to his acquaintance.

“Alexander, this is one of my old students, Tucker Lane. Tucker is playing in his first-ever chess tournament.” Alexander turned his attention to me.

“TUCK!” he exclaimed, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You look like you workout, Tuck! Can I see a little flex, Tuck?” he flashed his skinny biceps in imitation of what he wanted to see from me before moving behind me and squeezing my traps and shoulders. “Oh yeah: Tuck’s a strong one!” 

“Tucker was a world-class wrestler in his prime, having won many state and national championships before advancing on as an Olympic alternate,” Damian explained to the exuberant youth. I didn’t interject to correct Damian as he embellished my career accomplishments, and Alexander offered me a high-five in congratulations of all I had accomplished.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Tuck! Nobody around here wants to mess with Tuck! Well, I’d mess with Tuck on the chess board, but you know what I’m talking about,” he chided before turning and bidding us adieu.

“Who was that?” I asked in amusement.

“That’s Alexander. Alexander is undoubtedly one of the top two or three best players in the state of Utah, but he has a reputation as being a very cocky young man. In fact, he’s offered a $500 reward to anyone in Utah who can beat him. He thinks he’s the next Bobby Fischer, but he’s getting ahead of himself.” 

I understood what Damian meant about Alexander being a very cocky young man. As if our first exchange weren’t enough of an indicator, for the rest of the weekend, whenever I would pass Alexander in the hallway, he would run up to me, give me a playful right-left, right-left to the midsection, and exclaim, “Tuck-Tuck-Tuckety-Tuck! Ouch! Are those abs made of steel?”

My next game pitted me against a young man named Braden. He was afflicted with some sort of palsy and although it seemed like he was only 10 or 11 years old, I was probably underestimating because of his condition and diminutive stature. His rating of 687 suggested that if I were to have any hope of winning a game, it would be against this young man. A much more inviting target for conversation than Kathy, Braden asked me numerous questions about my background in chess as we waited for the second round to commence. 

“I always wanted to play physical sports,” he explained, “but my disability never allowed for it. I decided to start playing chess as a way to be competitive in something. I’ve been going to tournaments for several years now. I know my rating suggests that I’m not very good, but the only reason it’s so low is because I’ve played in so many kids’ tournaments. In reality, my rating should probably be somewhere between 900 and 1000.”

Great. I thought I was getting a guaranteed win, but my hopes appeared to be prematurely wrought. I was in for yet another battle. No win would come easily for me on my maiden voyage in competitive chess.

In stark contrast to my previous game, I played exceptionally poor chess from the beginning. Despite starting out as white yet again, I quickly found myself in a material and positional hole to my young adversary. Just when I resigned myself to the inevitably that a win would not be possible from my current position and turned my attention to coming up with a strategy to coax a draw, Braden was the one to make a blunder. He left his rook unprotected from the attack of my stealthy knight (how ironic!), a mistake he recognized the instant he removed his fingers, leaving his piece in harm’s way. The grimace on his face when he realized the magnitude of his error would have stirred the most granite of hearts, but I was in no position to feel sympathy for other people’s colossal mistakes–I still felt the stab of my own too deeply. I quickly scooped up the hapless rook, regaining a lead I would never relinquish. I had won my first game as a real chess player.

“Oh, man, I had you,” Braden lamented as he shook my hand in conclusion. “I had you, and I blew it. I absolutely blew it.” I could not disagree with him–he was right. Had it not been for his mistake, there is little doubt he would have won the game. But the mistake he made, and I was happy to take any win I could get.

The third round saw me paired against a young girl named Lauren, rating 1075. On paper, my strongest opponent thus far. For the sake of this story, and my ego, let’s just say she was in middle school. A cute little blonde, she had the disposition of a pit bull. I approached our table and asked if she was Lauren.

“Yes,” she shot back curtly. 

The forceful nature of her affirmation gave me pause, and I asked, gently, if she would like to use my board.

“That’s fine.”

Conversation over.

Unlike my first two contests, there was no clear advantage gained in the early and middle portions of the game. We jockeyed for position, back-and-forth, each of us deftly thwarting the other’s attempts to gain control. Lauren had an odd habit of turning her head and looking at the wall, ignoring the board in front of her, as she considered her next move. As we entered the end game, Lauren forked my two rooks with her bishop, a potentially debilitating attack, and for the first time in our battle of more than two hours, she made eye contact with me and smiled faintly.

I’m not a chess Master who can think 10 moves ahead, but I do have the ability to think two. Seeing that Lauren was likely to jump on the opportunity to fork my rooks with her inferior piece, I had myself in position to neuter her attack by putting her king in check with my queen. What’s more, in doing so, I connected my queen with my rook stationed on the seventh rank, confining her king to the back of the board, a prison from which he would never be able to escape. The game lasted several more moves as Lauren tried to trade pieces and wait for me to make a blunder, but I avoided one of my customary pitfalls and eventually checkmated my young adversary. Turning her head away from me, Lauren tried to squeeze my fingers off in the post-match handshake, rose, and exited the building.  

I ended the first day of my first chess tournament with two points. In tournament play, a win counts as one, a loss counts as zero, and a draw is worth half a point. My two points put me in 8th place in my pool of 22 competitors. Nothing to brag about, but I was happy to have gotten a couple of wins and have myself within striking distance of the top spot with two games remaining. When Kathy saw that I had ended the day with two points, she congratulated me and drew attention to the fact that I had surpassed her, as she would be going into day two with only a point and a half.

My first game the next morning came against a Turkish gentleman named Sulleiman. Although he was probably my age or younger, his thick black beard, heavily receding hairline, and hairy chest and back gave him the appearance of a man in his 40′s. While his rating coming into the tournament was only 967, he sat in 6th place in our pool, having beaten a pair of competitors with ratings over 1200. I knew I was in for a tough game but if I were to win, I would have three points and be a strong candidate for the U1400 title.

We battled evenly through the first dozen moves of the game, each of us knowing how important this contest was for our final standing. Sulleiman eventually got my black bishop into some trouble, and he started chasing it with a couple of measly pawns. After several moves, he decisively threatened my piece and appeared to have it trapped with no means of escape. However, I saw that my queen had his defending pawn pinned to his own black bishop, and I could feel the oxygen sucked from his chest as I took his lead pawn with my bishop. Thoroughly exasperated at not seeing the pin he created on himself, he rose from his seat and went outside to smoke a Marlboro Red while he considered his next move, his clock running all the while. After a lapse of nearly 10 minutes, Sulleiman came back into the ballroom. He took my bishop with his defending pawn, giving my queen an open lane to take his black bishop and leaving me a pawn up for the game.

When reviewing the game later in the day, Damian lauded me for the daring attack I launched. “Tucker, that is absolutely sweet. That is just a sweet, sweet move. That’s where chess becomes an art form and why I always thought you had such promise as a player. It’s not conventional, but the execution is nonetheless effective. You’ve given yourself the lead and find yourself in strong position to win the game against an outstanding opponent.”

Alas, I was not able to convert my material advantage into a win. As per usual, I found myself haunted by a pesky knight and in my knee-jerk reaction to extricate myself from the pestilence, I foolishly traded off more powerful pieces and squandered the lead I had so creatively built. Sulleiman eventually sentenced me to checkmate, my hopes of winning the tournament officially over. Still, I had been within an eyelash of the top in my very-first competition and if I could find a way to win my final contest, I could leave Denver with a winning record, feeling good about my prospects as a chess competitor. 

My fifth-round match-up was against a guy named Kirk. Kirk was one of the highest-rated players in the U1400 division, coming into the tournament with a mark of 1267, but, somehow, he had lost to a couple of players rated significantly below him, leaving him tied with me at two points apiece. It wasn’t the most ideal of match-ups for me on paper, but it appeared that Kirk was not playing his best chess and if I performed at the top of my game, perhaps I could hand him yet another loss.

However, when the round started, Kirk was nowhere to be seen. As players all around me built their fortresses and smacked their clocks, I stared around the room in perplexity, wondering where on Earth Kirk could be. After several minutes, I got up, went to the tournament director, and asked him what I was supposed to do in the given situation.

“You start his clock,” the man instructed. “If he’s not here within an hour, you win the game by forfeit.” I went over, did as I was instructed, and found a sofa as I waited for the hour to elapse. Although I wanted to play, a win is still a win, even if it comes via forfeit, and finishing with three points would leave me within the top-ten of my pool–not bad for a first-timer.

About 45 minutes into my wait, the tournament director came out into the hallway and beckoned me. “I think your opponent is here.” I went back into the room and saw a man sitting on the opposite side of my table and steeled myself for the reality that my third point would have to be earned the hard way. 

Instead of playing chess, he looked like he should have been working behind the counter of Joe’s Garage. His short-sleeved, baby blue button-down was tucked into his Wranglers, his protuberant belly creating quite the strain at the midsection. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead from beneath his grease-stained Ford baseball cap, and his neatly-trimmed gray mustache was getting perilously close to Hitler territory. 

He made his moves quickly and decisively in order to make up for time lost. I tried my best to match his pace, not letting him use any of my clock to consider his next move. I wanted to keep my advantage in time. I did some good things throughout the game. I made him move his king early, eliminating any opportunity he had to castle to safety. While he had his entire queen side confined to his back rank, I got all of my pieces active and into play in the opening. 

But for all the good I did, my weakness against the knight was once again my undoing. Kirk found a hole deep in my position. methodically worked his knight across the board, and put me in check, creating a fork on my king and queen. Deflated by the loss of my queen and livid at my inability to foresee knight attacks, I elbowed the top of my king’s head, tipping him over and ending the game in resignation. I angrily scribbled my name across Kirk’s scorecard, thrust my chess set back in its case, and stormed out of the hotel. 

I stewed the entire drive home. I absolutely hated losing at chess. It was probably some kind of narcissistic, deep-rooted machismo in which I liked to think I was smarter than everyone, and losing at chess dispelled this lofty opinion I held of my own intelligence. I could write off the loss to Kathy as the first-time jitters, the loss to Sulleiman as a game well-played against the eventual runner-up. But the loss to Kirk in which I had a 45-minute head start? That one stung. After starting the day in 8th place in my pool, I finished in 17th, leaving me as essentially the sixth-worst player in a tournament of over 100 people. 

By the time my fury subsided, I reflected on the weekend and came to some more rational conclusions from the experience:

Knights, knights, knights! I’ve got to practice more with knights, and any time I have the chance to get my opponent’s knights off the board in a fair exchange, I need to gladly accept

Don’t get flustered after making a blunder! Rather than feel like all is lost after making a critical error, I’ve got to rebound, think rationally, and try to find a way to play through the game rather than resign

Improved sportsmanship! It’s okay to be upset at defeat, but I’ve got to be more cordial with my opponents and be willing to review my games with my adversaries like the Masters do

Despite the disappointing end to the competition, it really was an enjoyable experience. It was really cool to be a part of such a diverse group of people competing for a common goal. I’ve never been part of a competition in which such equality existed among participants, as old and young, male and female, black and white, decrepit and virile, English-speaking and foreign-tongued, all entered on an even playing field. Chess is truly a universal language, one that I clearly don’t speak as well as many.

The next tournament is in Colorado Springs in mid-August. Will I be back for Round 2, or will I do like Iron Mike and fade into bolivion? 

Only time will tell. 

[vileart]

A Perfect Dramaturgy: Pelleas and Melisande (Scottish Opera)

...in which the critic explains his failure and introduces a notion of dramaturgy... While other critics are sensibly engaging with serious issues or trying to provide support for important theatre that sits outside the mainstream, I have increasingly retreated into recondite and abstract discussions of Enlightenment Dramaturgy. It's a bit like that time the guitarist from REM decided to replace stadium rock riffs with mandolin and minor chords - just before the band broke up, as I remember. Instead of relating theatrical events to the turmoil of political activism, I've gone obscure and cod-academic.  My obsession with dramaturgy as a product of eighteenth century thinking is either a cowardly response to a world that doesn't share my values, or a by-product of access to a University library. And by dramaturgy, I am not exploring the strategies used by theatre-makers to get the show on the road, and I haven't reached the bit about Brecht and its revival in 1950s Berlin. I'm fooling about with fragments of Diderot and Lessing, and collating their opinions into a system. It's like an Ur-dramaturgy, a foundation for critical analysis. 

Diderot and Lessing did not show much interest in opera: for Diderot, it was probably an Italian upstart of a medium, a distraction from the proper business of plays about middle-class merchants; Lessing was too busy trying to beat off the neo-classical fanatics who'd been shaping German theatre into a pale imitation of the French. As it goes, the Enlightenment dramaturgy disappeared pretty quickly - I think the French Revolution and the Romantic did for it around the turn of the century - before coming back a century later, through naturalism. However, they did sketch out some key areas of concern: time/space, the tableau, narrative content, script and emotional content. There are plenty of other areas, but I'll stick to these five today. Lessing, in particular, saw dramaturgy as a way to account for quality: he published The Hamburg Dramaturgy as a kind of educational handbook for audiences. And Scottish Opera's production of Pelleas and Melisande is ripe for some dramaturgical analysis. ...in which the critic excuses his decision to critique Pelleas and Melisande through the filter of eighteenth century dramaturgy... Maurice Maeterlinck's script of Pelleas and Melisande was written well after Lessing and Diderot departed this veil of tears that is best understood through reason and not faith: Debussy's operatic adaptation arrived in 1902. Besides, the Diderot-Lessing dramaturgy itself is a compilation of their thoughts that I've been collating in my ivory tower. It's a safe bet that nobody, from playwright to director, was sitting about with open copies of the Hamburg Dramaturgy when the show was being developed. However, the innovation of Enlightenment Dramaturgy was to focus on the production of a performance rather than the script. As far as I'm concerned: if it happens live, it's fair game. Using those five areas, I'm going to work out whether Diderot and Lessing would have enjoyed Scottish Opera's Pelleas and Melisande. It's like reviewing a performance without taking responsibility for my opinions. Maybe now my obtuse approach become clearer... ...the importance of time and place is revealed... One of Diderot's biggest bug-bears was the dominance of neo-classical rules, especially the Aristotelian unities of time and place. Lessing went further, I suppose, when he wrote his classic Nathan the Wise, having a plot that played out over several days and happening in different locations around Jerusalem during the Crusades. Pelleas and Melisande wins big in this round. Maeterlinck's source script is a bit mysterious in the first place: Melisande meets her husband in a big forest, then they wander about in a big castle, with extra scenes at a magic well, the vaults beneath the castle and a cave.  As for time... Debussy's melancholic and allusive score reinforces the passage of time, enveloping the action in a dreamy, surreal haze so that when, in the last scene, it turns out that Melisande has been in (what might have been) a coma for nine months, it's hardly jarring. While it might not be the word Diderot would use, Rae Smith's design is really cool: the forest is represented by branch-less trees, and these sometimes turn up inside the castle: other times, the furniture of the castle ends up in the forest. Apart from the dream-like atmosphere, this dislocates the action, making each scene reflect the others. And time, rather than be lineal (as per Aristotle and his 'make it all happen in a single day') flows and deceives. And the overlap between forest and bedroom enables one of the most striking aspects of the production... ...in which the virtue of getting people to stand about like paintings is revealed... I know that Diderot would love the start and end of Sir David McVicar's direction. They are the same visual aim: the husband with his back to the audience and his wife on a bed, probably snoozing. He's in the woods, and he's lost (both times). It's like a painting, representing the dynamic tension between the pair that drives the plot and... it's like a painting. Diderot called out for tableau as a regular feature of a play. It's partially because he liked visiting the gallery, but also because he thought it was a sweet way to express the relationship between the characters on stage. And McVicar uses this technique time and time again. Sometimes it is just the husband by himself, looking all uncomfortable (his brother's been boffing his missus). Then there are family scenes, with the generations arrayed around in symbolic positions. Or that one where the naughty brother is playing with Melisande's hair, which she dangles out of the window. Check it out, seriously... I think we get the idea of what is going through their minds at that moment. If I could pan out from the photograph, the sense of scale adds to its visual qualities. There are dwarfed by the castle wall, there's a forest on one side (which by this point is becoming a symbol of the wild passions erupting out the window). The use of tableau is what makes this production 'full of dramaturgy'. Although Debussy's score does have shades of Wagner, it doesn't tend to get too over-excited: it is subdued. The sexual sublimation of the hair-stroking session (before it descends into a representation of Pelleas' fetish) suits the muted tones of the orchestra. So far, that's two thumbs up from the Lessing-Diderot dramaturgy. ...lest we spend all day here, the cut to the chase: emotional and narrative content, with the script, in one go... I actually don't think Diderot and Lessing would like the plot, though. It all hinges on the mysterious power of sexual desire. Basically, Golaud picks up Melisande in a forest, marries her, brings her home, and she decides she likes his brother Pelleas better. Diderot reckoned that scripts ought to be about the conditions of the characters, not the characters themselves. Maybe Pelleas and Melisande could pass as an exploration of the role of the husband, but it's really about the problems of adultery. Maeterlinck's script never seems to condemn Pelleas, so it's not that kind of moral tragedy, but sex causes all sorts of problems for the characters. Now, I'm guessing, but Diderot seemed the type not to get hung up about this stuff. He wrote a naughty book as a youngster - so naughty that Lessing references it while refusing to mention its main conceit. I'm just going to say that the closest thing I've seen to this conceit was performed by Betty Grumble at the Edinburgh Fringe 2016. Meanwhile, in Nathan the Wise, the young crusader thinks he fancies a girl, but it turns out he's her sister so gets over it quicker than Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strike Back. The kind of intense passion that the romantics love, and that ruined my twenties, is not part of the dramaturgical plan.

Add into this that the opera is a bit of a fairy-tale... kinda. It's all kings and castles and mysterious maidens but then again, the magic well doesn't work anymore and the analysis of Goulard's jealousy is pretty naturalistic... maybe it subverts the fairy-tale setting... actually... totally. from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2n1AspW

[readbookywooks]

The First Task

Harry got up on Sunday morning and dressed so inattentively that it was a while before he realized he was trying to pull his hat onto his foot instead of his sock. When he'd finally got all his clothes on the right parts of his body, he hurried off to find Hermione, locating her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where she was eating breakfast with Ginny. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harry waited until Hermione had swallowed her last spoonful of porridge, then dragged her out onto the grounds. There, he told her all about the dragons, and about everything Sirius had said, while they took another long walk around the lake. Alarmed as she was by Sirius's warnings about Karkaroff, Hermione still thought that the dragons were the more pressing problem. "Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening," she said desperately, "and then we can worry about Karkaroff." They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple spell that would subdue a dragon. Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they retired to the library instead. Here, Harry pulled down every book he could find on dragons, and both of them set to work searching through the large pile. "Talon-clipping by charms...treating scale-rot...' This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy..." "Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate...' But Sirius said a simple one would do it..." "Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Harry, throwing aside Men Who Love Dragons Too Much. He returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop at his elbow. "Well, there are Switching Spells...but what's the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous....The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon's hide....I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall...unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers...." "Hermione," Harry said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I m trying to concentrate." But all that happened, when Hermione fell silent, was that Harry's brain filled with a sort of blank buzzing, which didn't seem to allow room for concentration. He stared hopelessly down the index of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed. Instant scalping...but dragons had no hair...pepper breath...that would probably increase a dragon's firepower...horn tongue...just what he needed, to give it an extra weapon... "Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Hermione irritably as Viktor Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books. "Come on, Harry, we'll go back to the common room...his fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering away...." And sure enough, as they left the library, a gang of girls tiptoed past them, one of them wearing a Bulgaria scarf tied around her waist. Harry barely slept that night. When he awoke on Monday morning, he seriously considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as he looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the castle would mean, he knew he couldn't do it. It was the only place he had ever been happy...well, he supposed he must have been happy with his parents too, but he couldn't remember that. Somehow, the knowledge that he would rather be here and facing a dragon than back on Privet Drive with Dudley was good to know; it made him feel slightly calmer. He finished his bacon with difficulty (his throat wasn't working too well), and as he and Hermione got up, he saw Cedric Diggory leaving the Hufflepuff table. Cedric still didn't know about the dragons...the only champion who didn't, if Harry was right in thinking that Maxime and Karkaroff would have told Fleur and Krum.... "Hermione, I'll see you in the greenhouses," Harry said, coming to his decision as he watched Cedric leaving the Hall. "Go on, I'll catch you up." "Harry, you'll be late, the bell's about to ring -" "I'll catch you up, okay?" By the time Harry reached the bottom of the marble staircase, Cedric was at the top. He was with a load of sixth-year friends. Harry didn't want to talk to Cedric in front of them; they were among those who had been quoting Rita Skeeter's article at him every time he went near them. He followed Cedric at a distance and saw that he was heading toward the Charms corridor. This gave Harry an idea. Pausing at a distance from them, he pulled out his wand, and took careful aim. "Diffindo!" Cedric's bag split. Parchment, quills, and books spilled out of it onto the floor. Several bottles of ink smashed. "Don't bother," said Cedric in an exasperated voice as his friends bent down to help him. "Tell Flitwick I'm coming, go on..." This was exactly what Harry had been hoping for. He slipped his wand back into his robes, waited until Cedric's friends had disappeared into their classroom, and hurried up the corridor, which was now empty of everyone but himself and Cedric. "Hi," said Cedric, picking up a copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration that was now splattered with ink. "My bag just split...brand-new and all..." "Cedric," said Harry, "the first task is dragons." "What?" said Cedric, looking up. "Dragons," said Harry, speaking quickly, in case Professor Flitwick came out to see where Cedric had got to. "They've got four, one for each of us, and we've got to get past them." Cedric stared at him. Harry saw some of the panic he'd been feeling since Saturday night flickering in Cedric's gray eyes. "Are you sure?" Cedric said in a hushed voice. "Dead sure," said Harry. "I've seen them." "But how did you find out? We're not supposed to know...." "Never mind," said Harry quickly - he knew Hagrid would be in trouble if he told the truth. "But I'm not the only one who knows. Fleur and Krum will know by now - Maxime and Karkaroff both saw the dragons too." Cedric straightened up, his arms full of inky quills, parchment, and books, his ripped bag dangling off one shoulder. He stared at Harry, and there was a puzzled, almost suspicious look in his eyes. "Why are you telling me?" he asked. Harry looked at him in disbelief. He was sure Cedric wouldn't have asked that if he had seen the dragons himself. Harry wouldn't have let his worst enemy face those monsters unprepared - well, perhaps Malfoy or Snape.... "It's just...fair, isn't it?" he said to Cedric. "We all know now...we're on an even footing, aren't we?" Cedric was still hooking at him in a slightly suspicious way when Harry heard a familiar clunking noise behind him. He turned around and saw Mad-Eye Moody emerging from a nearby classroom. "Come with me, Potter," he growled. "Diggory, off you go." Harry stared apprehensively at Moody. Had he overheard them? "Er - Professor, I'm supposed to be in Herbology -" "Never mind that, Potter. In my office, please..." Harry followed him, wondering what was going to happen to him now. What if Moody wanted to know how he'd found out about the dragons? Would Moody go to Dumbledore and tell on Hagrid, or just turn Harry into a ferret? Well, it might be easier to get past a dragon if he were a ferret, Harry thought dully, he'd be smaller, much less easy to see from a height of fifty feet.... He followed Moody into his office. Moody closed the door behind them and turned to look at Harry, his magical eye fixed upon him as well as the normal one. "That was a very decent thing you just did, Potter," Moody said quietly. Harry didn't know what to say; this wasn't the reaction he had expected at all. "Sit down," said Moody, and Harry sat, looking around. He had visited this office under two of its previous occupants. In Professor Lockhart's day, the walls had been plastered with beaming, winking pictures of Professor Lockhart himself. When Lupin had lived here, you were more likely to come across a specimen of some fascinating new Dark creature he had procured for them to study in class. Now, however, the office was full of a number of exceptionally odd objects that Harry supposed Moody had used in the days when he had been an Auror. On his desk stood what looked hike a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Harry recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because he owned one himself, though it was much smaller than Moody's. In the corner on a small table stood an object that looked something like an extra-squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite Harry on the wall, but it was not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures were moving around inside it, none of them clearly in focus. "Like my Dark Detectors, do you?" said Moody, who was watching Harry closely. "What's that?" Harry asked, pointing at the squiggly golden aerial. "Secrecy Sensor. Vibrates when it detects concealment and lies...no use here, of course, too much interference - students in every direction lying about why they haven't done their homework. Been humming ever since I got here. I had to disable my Sneakoscope because it wouldn't stop whistling. It's extra-sensitive, picks up stuff about a mile around. Of course, it could be picking up more than kid stuff," he added in a growl. "And what's the mirror for?" "Oh that's my Foe-Glass. See them out there, skulking around? I'm not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes. That's when I open my trunk." He let out a short, harsh laugh, and pointed to the large trunk under the window. It had seven keyholes in a row. Harry wondered what was in there, until Moody's next question brought him sharply back to earth. "So...found out about the dragons, have you?" Harry hesitated. He'd been afraid of this - but he hadn't told Cedric, and he certainly wasn't going to tell Moody, that Hagrid had broken the rules. "It's all right," said Moody, sitting down and stretching out his wooden leg with a groan. "Cheating's a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and always has been." "I didn't cheat," said Harry sharply. "It was - a sort of accident that I found out." Moody grinned. "I wasn't accusing you, laddie. I've been telling Dumbledore from the start, he can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won't be. They'll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They'd like to prove he's only human." Moody gave another harsh laugh, and his magical eye swiveled around so fast it made Harry feel queasy to watch it. "So...got any ideas how you're going to get past your dragon yet?" said Moody. "No," said Harry. "Well, I'm not going to tell you," said Moody gruffly. "I don't show favoritism, me. I'm just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is - play to your strengths." "I haven't got any," said Harry, before he could stop himself. "Excuse me," growled Moody, "you've got strengths if I say you've got them. Think now. What are you best at?" Harry tried to concentrate. What was he best at? Well, that was easy, really - "Quidditch," he said dully, "and a fat lot of help -" "That's right," said Moody, staring at him very hard, his magical eye barely moving at all. "You're a damn good flier from what I've heard." "Yeah, but..." Harry stared at him. "I'm not allowed a broom, I've only got my wand..." "My second piece of general advice," said Moody loudly, interrupting him, "is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need." Harry looked at him blankly. What did he need? "Come on, boy..." whispered Moody. "Put them together...it's not that difficult..." And it clicked. He was best at flying. He needed to pass the dragon in the air. For that, he needed his Firebolt. And for his Fire-bolt, he needed - "Hermione," Harry whispered, when he had sped into greenhouse three minutes later, uttering a hurried apology to Professor Sprout as he passed her. "Hermione - I need you to help me." "What d'you think I've been trying to do, Harry?" she whispered back, her eyes round with anxiety over the top of the quivering Flutterby Bush she was pruning. "Hermione, I need to learn how to do a Summoning Charm properly by tomorrow afternoon." And so they practiced. They didn't have lunch, but headed for a free classroom, where Harry tried with all his might to make various objects fly across the room toward him. He was still having problems. The books and quills kept losing heart halfway across the room and dropping hike stones to the floor. "Concentrate, Harry, concentrate...." "What d'you think I'm trying to do?" said Harry angrily. "A great big dragon keeps popping up in my head for some reason...Okay, try again..." He wanted to skip Divination to keep practicing, but Hermione refused point-blank to skive off Arithmancy, and there was no point in staying without her. He therefore had to endure over an hour of Professor Trelawney, who spent half the lesson telling everyone that the position of Mars with relation to Saturn at that moment meant that people born in July were in great danger of sudden, violent deaths. "Well, that's good," said Harry loudly, his temper getting the better of him, "just as long as it's not drawn-out. I don't want to suffer." Ron looked for a moment as though he was going to laugh; he certainly caught Harry's eye for the first time in days, but Harry was still feeling too resentful toward Ron to care. He spent the rest of the lesson trying to attract small objects toward him under the table with his wand. He managed to make a fly zoom straight into his hand, though he wasn't entirely sure that was his prowess at Summoning Charms - perhaps the fly was just stupid. He forced down some dinner after Divination, then returned to the empty classroom with Hermione, using the Invisibility Cloak to avoid the teachers. They kept practicing until past midnight. They would have stayed longer, but Peeves turned up and, pretending to think that Harry wanted things thrown at him, started chucking chairs across the room. Harry and Hermione left in a hurry before the noise attracted Filch, and went back to the Gryffindor common room, which was now mercifully empty. At two o'clock in the morning, Harry stood near the fireplace, surrounded by heaps of objects: books, quills, several upturned chairs, an old set of Gobstones, and Neville's toad, Trevor. Only in the last hour had Harry really got the hang of the Summoning Charm. "That's better, Harry, that's loads better," Hermione said, looking exhausted but very pleased. "Well, now we know what to do next time I can't manage a spell," Harry said, throwing a rune dictionary back to Hermione, so he could try again, "threaten me with a dragon. Right..." He raised his wand once more. "Accio Dictionary!" The heavy book soared out of Hermione's hand, flew across the room, and Harry caught it. "Harry, I really think you've got it!" said Hermione delightedly. "Just as long as it works tomorrow," Harry said. "The Firebolt's going to be much farther away than the stuff in here, it's going to be in the castle, and I'm going to be out there on the grounds..." "That doesn't matter," said Hermione firmly." Just as long as you're concentrating really, really hard on it, it'll come. Harry, we'd better get some sleep...you're going to need it." Harry had been focusing so hard on learning the Summoning Charm that evening that some of his blind panic had heft him. It returned in full measure, however, on the following morning. The atmosphere in the school was one of great tension and excitement. Lessons were to stop at midday, giving all the students time to get down to the dragons' enclosure - though of course, they didn't yet know what they would find there. Harry felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing "We'll have a box of tissues ready, Potter" as he passed. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn't just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment he seemed to be sitting down in his first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch...and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to him in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching. "Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now....You have to get ready for your first task." "Okay," said Harry, standing up, his fork falling onto his plate with a clatter. "Good luck, Harry," Hermione whispered. "You'll be fine!" "Yeah," said Harry in a voice that was most unlike his own. He heft the Great Hall with Professor McGonagall. She didn't seem herself either; in fact, she looked nearly as anxious as Hermione. As she walked him down the stone steps and out into the cold November afternoon, she put her hand on his shoulder. "Now, don't panic," she said, "just keep a cool head....We've got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand....The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you....Are you all right?" "Yes," Harry heard himself say. "Yes, I'm fine." She was leading him toward the place where the dragons were, around the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of trees behind which the enclosure would be clearly visible, Harry saw that a tent had been erected, its entrance facing them, screening the dragons from view. "You're to go in here with the other champions," said Professor McGonagall, in a rather shaky sort of voice, "and wait for your turn, Potter. Mr. Bagman is in there...he'll be telling you the - the procedure.... Good luck." "Thanks," said Harry, in a flat, distant voice. She left him at the entrance of the tent. Harry went inside. Fleur Delacour was sitting in a corner on a how wooden stool. She didn't look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktor Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Harry supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down. When Harry entered, Cedric gave him a small smile, which Harry returned, feeling the muscles in his face working rather hard, as though they had forgotten how to do it. "Harry! Good-o!" said Bagman happily, looking around at him. "Come in, come in, make yourself at home!" Bagman looked somehow like a slightly overblown cartoon figure, standing amid all the pale-faced champions. He was wearing his old Wasp robes again. "Well, now we're all here - time to fill you in!" said Bagman brightly. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag" - he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them - "from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different - er - varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too...ah, yes...your task is to collect the golden egg!" Harry glanced around. Cedric had nodded once, to show that he understood Bagman's words, and then started pacing around the tent again; he looked slightly green. Fleur Delacour and Krum hadn't reacted at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths; that was certainly how Harry felt. But they, at least, had volunteered for this... And in no time at all, hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet could be heard passing the tent, their owners talking excitedly, laughing, joking....Harry felt as separate from the crowd as though they were a different species. And then - it seemed like about a second later to Harry - Bagman was opening the neck of the purple silk sack. "Ladies first," he said, offering it to Fleur Delacour. She put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon - a Welsh Green. It had the number two around its neck And Harry knew, by the fact that Fleur showed no sign of surprise, but rather a determined resignation, that he had been right: Madame Maxime had told her what was coming. The same held true for Krum. He pulled out the scarlet Chinese Fireball. It had a number three around its neck. He didn't even blink, just sat back down and stared at the ground. Cedric put his hand into the bag, and out came the blueish-gray Swedish Short-Snout, the number one tied around its neck. Knowing what was left, Harry put his hand into the silk bag and pulled out the Hungarian Horntail, and the number four. It stretched its wings as he looked down at it, and bared its minuscule fangs. "Well, there you are!" said Bagman. "You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I'm going to have to leave you in a moment, because I'm commentating. Mr. Diggory, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now...Harry...could I have a quick word? Outside?" "Er...yes," said Harry blankly, and he got up and went out of the tent with Bagman, who walked him a short distance away, into the trees, and then turned to him with a fatherly expression on his face. "Feeling all right, Harry? Anything I can get you?" "What?" said Harry. "I - no, nothing." "Got a plan?" said Bagman, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Because I don't mind sharing a few pointers, if you'd like them, you know. I mean," Bagman continued, lowering his voice still further, "you're the underdog here, Harry....Anything I can do to help..." "No," said Harry so quickly he knew he had sounded rude, "no - I - I know what I'm going to do, thanks." "Nobody would know, Harry," said Bagman, winking at him. "No, I'm fine," said Harry, wondering why he kept telling people this, and wondering whether he had ever been less fine. "I've got a plan worked out, I -" A whistle had blown somewhere. "Good lord, I've got to run!" said Bagman in alarm, and he hurried off. Harry walked back to the tent and saw Cedric emerging from it, greener than ever. Harry tried to wish him luck as he walked past, but all that came out of his mouth was a sort of hoarse grunt. Harry went back inside to Fleur and Krum. Seconds hater, they heard the roar of the crowd, which meant Cedric had entered the enclosure and was now face-to-face with the living counterpart of his model.... It was worse than Harry could ever have imagined, sitting there and listening. The crowd screamed...yelled...gasped like a single many-headed entity, as Cedric did whatever he was doing to get past the Swedish Short-Snout. Krum was still staring at the ground. Fleur had now taken to retracing Cedric's steps, around and around the tent. And Bagman's commentary made everything much, much worse....Horrible pictures formed in Harry's mind as he heard: "Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow"... "He's taking risks, this one!"..."Clever move - pity it didn't work!" And then, after about fifteen minutes, Harry heard the deafening roar that could mean only one thing: Cedric had gotten past his dragon and captured the golden egg. "Very good indeed!" Bagman was shouting. "And now the marks from the judges!" But he didn't shout out the marks; Harry supposed the judges were holding them up and showing them to the crowd. "One down, three to go!" Bagman yelled as the whistle blew again. "Miss Delacour, if you please!" Fleur was trembling from head to foot; Harry felt more warmly toward her than he had done so far as she heft the tent with her head held high and her hand clutching her wand. He and Krum were left alone, at opposite sides of the tent, avoiding each other's gaze. The same process started again...."Oh I'm not sure that was wise!" they could hear Bagman shouting gleefully. "Oh...nearly! Careful now...good lord, I thought she'd had it then!" Ten minutes later, Harry heard the crowd erupt into applause once more....Fleur must have been successful too. A pause, while Fleur's marks were being shown...more clapping...then, for the third time, the whistle. "And here comes Mr. Krum!" cried Bagman, and Krum slouched out, leaving Harry quite alone. He felt much more aware of his body than usual; very aware of the way his heart was pumping fast, and his fingers tingling with fear...yet at the same time, he seemed to be outside himself, seeing the walls of the tent, and hearing the crowd, as though from far away. "Very daring!" Bagman was yelling, and Harry heard the Chinese Fireball emit a horrible, roaring shriek, while the crowd drew its collective breath. "That's some nerve he's showing - and - yes, he's got the egg!" Applause shattered the wintery air like breaking glass; Krum had finished - it would be Harry's turn any moment. He stood up, noticing dimly that his legs seemed to be made of marshmallow. He waited. And then he heard the whistle blow. He walked out through the entrance of the tent, the panic rising into a crescendo inside him. And now he was walking past the trees, through a gap in the enclosure fence. He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, heaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but whether friendly or not, Harry didn't know or care. It was time to do what he had to do...to focus his mind, entirely and absolutely, upon the thing that was his only chance. He raised his wand. "Accio Firebolt!" he shouted. Harry waited, every fiber of him hoping, praying....If it hadn't worked...if it wasn't coming...He seemed to be looking at everything around him through some sort of shimmering, transparent barrier, like a heat haze, which made the enclosure and the hundreds of faces around him swim strangely.... And then he heard it, speeding through the air behind him; he turned and saw his Firebolt hurtling toward him around the edge of the woods, soaring into the enclosure, and stopping dead in midair beside him, waiting for him to mount. The crowd was making even more noise....Bagman was shouting something...but Harry's ears were not working properly anymore...listening wasn't important.... He swung his leg over the broom and kicked off from the ground. And a second later, something miraculous happened.... As he soared upward, as the wind rushed through his hair, as the crowd's faces became mere flesh-colored pinpnicks below, and the Horntail shrank to the size of a dog, he realized that he had left not only the ground behind, but also his fear....He was back where he belonged.... This was just another Quidditch match, that was all...just another Quidditch match, and that Horntail was just another ugly opposing team.... He looked down at the clutch of eggs and spotted the gold one, gleaming against its cement-colored fellows, residing safely between the dragon's front legs. "Okay," Harry told himself, "diversionary tactics...let's go..." He dived. The Horntail's head followed him; he knew what it was going to do and pulled out of the dive just in time; a jet of fire had been released exactly where he would have been had he not swerved away...but Harry didn't care...that was no more than dodging a Bludger.... "Great Scott, he can fly!" yelled Bagman as the crowd shrieked and gasped. "Are you watching this, Mr. Krum?" Harry soared higher in a circle; the Horntail was still following his progress; its head revolving on its long neck - if he kept this up, it would be nicely dizzy - but better not push it too long, or it would be breathing fire again - Harry plummeted just as the Horntail opened its mouth, but this time he was less lucky - he missed the flames, but the tail came whipping up to meet him instead, and as he swerved to the left, one of the long spikes grazed his shoulder, ripping his robes - He could feel it stinging, he could hear screaming and groans from the crowd, but the cut didn't seem to be deep....Now he zoomed around the back of the Horntail, and a possibility occurred to him.... The Horntail didn't seem to want to take off, she was too protective of her eggs. Though she writhed and twisted, furling and unfurling her wings and keeping those fearsome yellow eyes on Harry, she was afraid to move too far from them...but he had to persuade her to do it, or he'd never get near them....The trick was to do it carefully, gradually.... He began to fly, first this way, then the other, not near enough to make her breathe fire to stave him off, but still posing a sufficient threat to ensure she kept her eyes on him. Her head swayed this way and that, watching him out of those vertical pupils, her fangs bared.... He flew higher. The Horntail's head rose with him, her neck now stretched to its fullest extent, still swaying, hike a snake before its charmer.... Harry rose a few more feet, and she let out a roar of exasperation. He was like a fly to her, a fly she was longing to swat; her tail thrashed again, but he was too high to reach now....She shot fire into the air, which he dodged....Her jaws opened wide.... "Come on," Harry hissed, swerving tantalizingly above her, "come on, come and get me...up you get now..." And then she reared, spreading her great, black, leathery wings at last, as wide as those of a small airplane - and Harry dived. Before the dragon knew what he had done, or where he had disappeared to, he was speeding toward the ground as fast as he could go, toward the eggs now unprotected by her clawed front legs - he had taken his hands off his Firebolt - he had seized the golden egg - And with a huge spurt of speed, he was off, he was soaring out over the stands, the heavy egg safely under his uninjured arm, and it was as though somebody had just turned the volume back up - for the first time, he became properly aware of the noise of the crowd, which was screaming and applauding as loudly as the Irish supporters at the World Cup - "Look at that!" Bagman was yelling. "Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!" Harry saw the dragon keepers rushing forward to subdue the Horntail, and, over at the entrance to the enclosure, Professor McGonagall, Professor Moody, and Hagrid hurrying to meet him, all of them waving him toward them, their smiles evident even from this distance. He flew back over the stands, the noise of the crowd pounding his eardrums, and came in smoothly to land, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks....He had got through the first task, he had survived.... "That was excellent, Potter!" cried Professor McGonagall as he got off the Firebolt - which from her was extravagant praise. He noticed that her hand shook as she pointed at his shoulder. "You'll need to see Madam Pomfrey before the judges give out your score....Over there, she's had to mop up Diggory already...." "Yeh did it, Harry!" said Hagrid hoarsely. "Yeh did it! An' agains' the Horntail an' all, an' yeh know Charlie said that was the wors' -" "Thanks, Hagrid," said Harry loudly, so that Hagrid wouldn't blunder on and reveal that he had shown Harry the dragons beforehand. Professor Moody looked very pleased too; his magical eye was dancing in its socket. "Nice and easy does the trick, Potter," he growled. "Right then, Potter, the first aid tent, please..." said Professor McGonagall. Harry walked out of the enclosure, still panting, and saw Madam Pomfrey standing at the mouth of a second tent, looking worried. "Dragons!" she said, in a disgusted tone, pulling Harry inside. The tent was divided into cubicles; he could make out Cedric's shadow through the canvas, but Cedric didn't seem to be badly injured; he was sitting up, at least. Madam Pomfrey examined Harry's shoulder, talking furiously all the while. "Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next? You're very lucky...this is quite shallow...it'll need cleaning before I heal it up, though...." She cleaned the cut with a dab of some purple liquid that smoked and stung, but then poked his shoulder with her wand, and he felt it heal instantly. "Now, just sit quietly for a minute - sit! And then you can go and get your score." She bustled out of the tent and he heard her go next door and say, "How does it feel now, Diggory?" Harry didn't want to sit still. He was too full of adrenaline. He got to his feet, wanting to see what was going on outside, but before he'd reached the mouth of the tent, two people had come darting inside - Hermione, followed closely by Ron. "Harry, you were brilliant!" Hermione said squeakily. There were fingernail marks on her face where she had been clutching it in fear. "You were amazing! You really were!" But Harry was looking at Ron, who was very white and staring at Harry as though he were a ghost. "Harry," he said, very seriously, "whoever put your name in that goblet - I - I reckon they're trying to do you in!" It was as though the last few weeks had never happened - as though Harry were meeting Ron for the first time, right after he'd been made champion. "Caught on, have you?" said Harry coldly. "Took you long enough." Hermione stood nervously between them, looking from one to the other. Ron opened his mouth uncertainly. Harry knew Ron was about to apologize and suddenly he found he didn't need to hear it. "It's okay," he said, before Ron could get the words out. "Forget it." "No," said Ron, "I shouldn't've -" "Forget it, "Harry said. Ron grinned nervously at him, and Harry grinned back. Hermione burst into tears. "There's nothing to cry about!" Harry told her, bewildered. "You two are so stupid!" she shouted, stamping her foot on the ground, tears splashing down her front. Then, before either of them could stop her, she had given both of them a hug and dashed away, now positively howling. "Barking mad," said Ron, shaking his head. "Harry, c'mon, they'll be putting up your scores...." Picking up the golden egg and his Firebolt, feeling more elated than he would have believed possible an hour ago, Harry ducked out of the tent, Ron by his side, talking fast. "You were the best, you know, no competition. Cedric did this weird thing where he Transfigured a rock on the ground...turned it into a dog...he was trying to make the dragon go for the dog instead of him. Well, it was a pretty cool bit of Transfiguration, and it sort of worked, because he did get the egg, but he got burned as well - the dragon changed its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have him than the Labrador; he only just got away. And that Fleur girl tried this sort of charm, I think she was trying to put it into a trance - well, that kind of worked too, it went all sleepy, but then it snored, and this great jet of flame shot out, and her skirt caught fire - she put it out with a bit of water out of her wand. And Krum - you won't believe this, but he didn't even think of flying! He was probably the best after you, though. Hit it with some sort of spell right in the eye. Only thing is, it went trampling around in agony and squashed half the real eggs - they took marks off for that, he wasn't supposed to do any damage to them." Ron drew breath as he and Harry reached the edge of the enclosure. Now that the Horntail had been taken away, Harry could see where the five judges were sitting - right at the other end, in raised seats draped in gold. "It's marks out of ten from each one," Ron said, and Harry squinting up the field, saw the first judge - Madame Maxime - raise her wand in the air. What hooked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure eight. "Not bad!" said Ron as the crowd applauded. "I suppose she took marks off for your shoulder..." Mr. Crouch came next. He shot a number nine into the air. "Looking good!" Ron yelled, thumping Harry on the back. Next, Dumbledore. He too put up a nine. The crowd was cheering harder than ever. Ludo Bagman - ten. "Ten?" said Harry in disbelief. "But...I got hurt....What's he playing at?" "Harry, don't complain!" Ron yelled excitedly. And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too - four. "What?" Ron bellowed furiously. "Four? You lousy, biased scum-bag, you gave Krum ten!" But Harry didn't care, he wouldn't have cared if Karkaroff had given him zero; Ron's indignation on his behalf was worth about a hundred points to him. He didn't tell Ron this, of course, but his heart felt lighter than air as he turned to leave the enclosure. And it wasn't just Ron...those weren't only Gryffindors cheering in the crowd. When it had come to it, when they had seen what he was facing, most of the school had been on his side as well as Cedric's....He didn't care about the Slytherins, he could stand whatever they threw at him now. "You're tied in first place, Harry! You and Krum!" said Charlie Weasley, hurrying to meet them as they set off back toward the school. "Listen, I've got to run, I've got to go and send Mum an owl, I swore I'd tell her what happened - but that was unbelievable! Oh yeah - and they told me to tell you you've got to hang around for a few more minutes....Bagman wants a word, back in the champions' tent." Ron said he would wait, so Harry reentered the tent, which somehow looked quite different now: friendly and welcoming. He thought back to how he'd felt while dodging the Horntail, and compared it to the long wait before he'd walked out to face it....There was no comparison; the wait had been immeasurably worse. Fleur, Cedric, and Krum all came in together. One side of Cedric's face was covered in a thick orange paste, which was presumably mending his burn. He grinned at Harry when he saw him. "Good one, Harry." "And you," said Harry, grinning back. "Well done, all of you!" said Ludo Bagman, bouncing into the tent and looking as pleased as though he personally had just got past a dragon. "Now, just a quick few words. You've got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth - but we're giving you something to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those golden eggs you're all holding, you will see that they open...see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg - because it will tell you what the second task is, and enable you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!" Harry left the tent, rejoined Ron, and they started to walk back around the edge of the forest, talking hard; Harry wanted to hear what the other champions had done in more detail. Then, as they rounded the clump of trees behind which Harry had first heard the dragons roar, a witch leapt out from behind them. It was Rita Skeeter. She was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in her hand blended perfectly against them. "Congratulations, Harry!" she said, beaming at him. "I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?" "Yeah, you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye." And he set off back to the castle with Ron.

[readbookywooks]

Aragog

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers large as cabbages burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn't look right to Harry; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong. Harry and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing. "We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off..." With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn't look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled. Harry constantly repeated Dumbledore's final words to himself "I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me... Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." But what good were these words? Who exactly were they supposed to ask for help, when everyone was just as confused and scared as they were? Hagrid's hint about the spiders was far easier to understand. The trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. Harry looked everywhere he went, helped (rather reluctantly) by Ron. They were hampered, of course, by the fact that they weren't allowed to wander off on their own but had to move around the castle in a pack with the other Gryffindors. Most of their fellow students seemed glad that they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers, but Harry found it very irksome. One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Harry didn't realize what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, when, sitting right behind Malfoy, Harry overheard him gloating to Crabbe and Goyle. "I always thought Father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore," he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. "I told you he thinks Dumbledore's the worst headmaster the school's ever had. Maybe we'll get a decent headmaster now. Someone who won't want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won't last long, she's only filling in..." Snape swept past Harry, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron. "Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?" "Now, now, Malfoy," said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough." "Yeah, right," said Malfoy, smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job - I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir--" Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who was pretending to vomit into his cauldron. "I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger--" The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Malfoy's last words, Ron had leapt off his stool, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Malfoy went unnoticed. "Let me at him," Ron growled as Harry and Dean hung onto his arms. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands--" "Hurry up, I've got to take you all to Herbology," barked Snape over the class's heads, and off they marched, with Harry, Ron, and Dean bringing up the rear, Ron still trying to get loose. It was only safe to let go of him when Snape had seen them out of the castle and they were making their way across the vegetable patch toward the greenhouses. The Herbology class was very subdued; there were now two missing from their number, Justin and Hermione. Professor Sprout set them all to work pruning the Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. Harry went to tip an armful of withered stalks onto the compost heap and found himself face-to-face with Ernie Macmillan. Ernie took a deep breath and said, very formally, "I just want to say, Harry, that I'm sorry I ever suspected you. I know you'd never attack Hermione Granger, and I apologize for all the stuff I said. We're all in the same boat now, and, well--" He held out a pudgy hand, and Harry shook it. Ernie and his friend Hannah came to work at the same Shrivelfig as Harry and Ron. "That Draco Malfoy character," said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, "he seems very pleased about all this, doesn't he? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir." "That's clever of you," said Ron, who didn't seem to have forgiven Ernie as readily as Harry. "Do you think it's Malfoy, Harry?" Ernie asked. "No," said Harry, so firmly that Ernie and Hannah stared. A second later, Harry spotted something. Several large spiders were scuttling over the ground on the other side of the glass, moving in an unnaturally straight line as though taking the shortest route to a prearranged meeting. Harry hit Ron over the hand with his pruning shears. "Ouch! What're you--" Harry pointed out the spiders, following their progress with his eyes screwed up against the sun. "Oh, yeah," said Ron, trying, and failing, to look pleased. "But we can't follow them now--" Ernie and Hannah were listening curiously. Harry's eyes narrowed as he focused on the spiders. If they pursued their fixed course, there could be no doubt about where they would end up. "Looks like they're heading for the Forbidden Forest..." And Ron looked even unhappier about that. At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Harry and Ron lagged behind the others so they could talk out of earshot. "We'll have to use the Invisibility Cloak again," Harry told Ron. "We can take Fang with us. He's used to going into the forest with Hagrid, he might be some help." "Right," said Ron, who was twirling his wand nervously in his fingers. "Er - aren't there - aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the forest?" he added as they took their usual places at the back of Lockhart's classroom. Preferring not to answer that question, Harry said, "There are good things in there, too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns..." Ron had never been into the Forbidden Forest before. Harry had entered it only once and had hoped never to do so again. Lockhart bounded into the room and the class stared at him. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant. "Come now," he cried, beaming around him. "Why all these long faces?" People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered. "Don't you people realize," said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, "the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away--" "Says who?" said Dean Thomas loudly. "My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty," said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two. "Oh, yes he would," said Ron, even more loudly than Dean. "I flatter myself I know a touch more about Hagrid's arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley," said Lockhart in a self-satisfied tone. Ron started to say that he didn't think so, somehow, but stopped in midsentence when Harry kicked him hard under the desk. "We weren't there, remember?" Harry muttered. But Lockhart's disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Harry so much that he yearned to throw Gadding with Ghouls right in Lockhart's stupid face. Instead he contented himself with scrawling a note to Ron: Let's do it tonight. Ron read the message, swallowed hard, and looked sideways at the empty seat usually filled by Hermione. The sight seemed to stiffen his resolve, and he nodded. The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o'clock onward the Gryffindors had nowhere else to go. They also had plenty to talk about, with the result that the common room often didn't empty until past midnight. Harry went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk right after dinner, and spent the evening sitting on it, waiting for the room to clear. Fred and George challenged Harry and Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching them, very subdued in Hermione's usual chair. Harry and Ron kept losing on purpose, trying to finish the games quickly, but even so, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and Ginny finally went to bed. Harry and Ron waited for the distant sounds of two dormitory doors closing before seizing the cloak, throwing it over themselves, and climbing through the portrait hole. It was another difficult journey through the castle, dodging all the teachers. At last they reached the entrance hall, slid back the lock on the oak front doors, squeezed between them, trying to stop any creaking, and stepped out into the moonlit grounds. "Course," said Ron abruptly as they strode across the black grass, "we might get to the forest and find there's nothing to follow. Those spiders might not've been going there at all. I know it looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but..." His voice trailed away hopefully. They reached Hagrid's house, sad and sorry-looking with its blank windows. When Harry pushed the door open, Fang went mad with joy at the sight of them. Worried he might wake everyone at the castle with his deep, booming barks, they hastily fed him treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together. Harry left the Invisibility Cloak on Hagrid's table. There would be no need for it in the pitch-dark forest. "C'mon, Fang, we're going for a walk," said Harry, patting his leg, and Fang bounded happily out of the house behind them, dashed to the edge of the forest, and lifted his leg against a large sycamore tree. Harry took out his wand, murmured, "Lumos!" and a tiny light appeared at the end of it, just enough to let them watch the path for signs of spiders. "Good thinking," said Ron. "I'd light mine, too, but you know - it'd probably blow up or something..." Harry tapped Ron on the shoulder, pointing at the grass. Two solitary spiders were hurrying away from the wandlight into the shade of the trees. "Okay," Ron sighed as though resigned to the worst, "I'm ready. Let's go." So, with Fang scampering around them, sniffing tree roots and leaves, they entered the forest. By the glow of Harry's wand, they followed the steady trickle of spiders moving along the path. They walked behind them for about twenty minutes, not speaking, listening hard for noises other than breaking twigs and rustling leaves. Then, when the trees had become thicker than ever, so that the stars overhead were no longer visible, and Harry's wand shone alone in the sea of dark, they saw their spider guides leaving the path. Harry paused, trying to see where the spiders were going, but everything outside his little sphere of light was pitch-black. He had never been this deep into the forest before. He could vividly remember Hagrid advising him not to leave the forest path last time he'd been in here. But Hagrid was miles away now, probably sitting in a cell in Azkaban, and he had also said to follow the spiders. Something wet touched Harry's hand and he jumped backward, crushing Ron's foot, but it was only Fang's nose. "What d'you reckon?" Harry said to Ron, whose eyes he could just make out, reflecting the light from his wand. "We've come this far," said Ron. So they followed the darting shadows of the spiders into the trees. They couldn't move very quickly now; there were tree roots and stumps in their way, barely visible in the near blackness. Harry could feel Fang's hot breath on his hand. More than once, they had to stop, so that Harry could crouch down and find the spiders in the wandlight. They walked for what seemed like at least half an hour, their robes snagging on low-slung branches and brambles. After a while, they noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downward, though the trees were as thick as ever. Then Fang suddenly let loose a great, echoing bark, making both Harry and Ron jump out of their skins. "What?" said Ron loudly, looking around into the pitch-dark, and gripping Harry's elbow very hard. "There's something moving over there," Harry breathed. "Listen... sounds like something big..." They listened. Some distance to their right, the something big was snapping branches as it carved a path through the trees. "Oh, no," said Ron. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh--" "Shut up," said Harry frantically. "It'll hear you." "Hear me?" said Ron in an unnaturally high voice. "It's already heard Fang!" The darkness seemed to be pressing on their eyeballs as they stood, terrified, waiting. There was a strange rumbling noise and then silence. "What d'you think it's doing?" said Harry. "Probably getting ready to pounce," said Ron. They waited, shivering, hardly daring to move. "D'you think it's gone?" Harry whispered. "Dunno--" Then, to their right, came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that both of them flung up their hands to shield their eyes. Fang yelped and tried to run, but got lodged in a tangle of thorns and yelped even louder. "Harry!" Ron shouted, his voice breaking with relief "Harry, it's our car!" "What?" "Come on!" Harry blundered after Ron toward the light, stumbling and tripping, and a moment later they had emerged into a clearing. Mr. Weasley's car was standing, empty, in the middle of a circle of thick trees under a roof of dense branches, its headlights ablaze. As Ron walked, open-mouthed, toward it, it moved slowly toward him, exactly like a large, turquoise dog greeting its owner. "It's been here all the time!" said Ron delightedly, walking around the car. "Look at it. The forest's turned it wild..." The sides of the car were scratched and smeared with mud. Apparently it had taken to trundling around the forest on its own. Fang didn't seem at all keen on it; he kept close to Harry, who could feel him quivering. His breathing slowing down again, Harry stuffed his wand back into his robes. "And we thought it was going to attack us!" said Ron, leaning against the car and patting it. "I wondered where it had gone!" Harry squinted around on the floodlit ground for signs of more spiders, but they had all scuttled away from the glare of the headlights. "We've lost the trail," he said. "C'mon, let's go and find them." Ron didn't speak. He didn't move. His eyes were fixed on a point some ten feet above the forest floor, right behind Harry. His face was livid with terror. Harry didn't even have time to turn around. There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly he felt something long and hairy seize him around the middle and lift him off the ground, so that he was hanging facedown. Struggling, terrified, he heard more clicking, and saw Ron's legs leave the ground, too, heard Fang whimpering and howling - next moment, he was being swept away into the dark trees. Head hanging, Harry saw that what had hold of him was marching on six immensely long, hairy legs, the front two clutching him tightly below a pair of shining black pincers. Behind him, he could hear another of the creatures, no doubt carrying Ron. They were moving into the very heart of the forest. Harry could hear Fang fighting to free himself from a third monster, whining loudly, but Harry couldn't have yelled even if he had wanted to; he seemed to have left his voice back with the car in the clearing. He never knew how long he was in the creature's clutches; he only knew that the darkness suddenly lifted enough for him to see that the leaf-strewn ground was now swarming with spiders. Craning his neck sideways, he realized that they had reached the ridge of a vast hollow, a hollow that had been cleared of trees, so that the stars shone brightly onto the worst scene he had ever laid eyes on. Spiders. Not tiny spiders like those surging over the leaves below. Spiders the size of carthorses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic. The massive specimen that was carrying Harry made its way down the steep slope toward a misty, domed web in the very center of the hollow, while its fellows closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load. Harry fell to the ground on all fours as the spider released him. Ron and Fang thudded down next to him. Fang wasn't howling anymore, but cowering silently on the spot. Ron looked exactly like Harry felt. His mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream and his eyes were popping. Harry suddenly realized that the spider that had dropped him was saying something. It had been hard to tell, because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke. "Aragog!" it called. "Aragog!" And from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was gray in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind. "What is it?" he said, clicking his pincers rapidly. "Men," clicked the spider who had caught Harry. "Is it Hagrid?" said Aragog, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely. "Strangers," clicked the spider who had brought Ron. "Kill them," clicked Aragog fretfully. "I was sleeping..." "We're friends of Hagrid's," Harry shouted. His heart seemed to have left his chest to pound in his throat. Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow. Aragog paused. "Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before," he said slowly. "Hagrid's in trouble," said Harry, breathing very fast. "That's why we've come." "In trouble?" said the aged spider, and Harry thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. "But why has he sent you?" Harry thought of getting to his feet but decided against it; he didn't think his legs would support him. So he spoke from the ground, as calmly as he could. "They think, up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a - a - something on students. They've taken him to Azkaban." Aragog clicked his pincers furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn't usually make Harry feel sick with fear. "But that was years ago," said Aragog fretfully. "Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free." "And you... you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" said Harry, who could feel cold sweat on his forehead. "I!" said Aragog, clicking angrily. "I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid's goodness..." Harry summoned what remained of his courage. "So you never - never attacked anyone?" "Never," croaked the old spider. "It would have been my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet..." "But then... Do you know what did kill that girl?" said Harry. "Because whatever it is, it's back and attacking people again--" His words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily; large black shapes shifted all around him. "The thing that lives in the castle," said Aragog, "is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school." "What is it?" said Harry urgently. More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in. "We do not speak of it!" said Aragog fiercely. "We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times." Harry didn't want to press the subject, not with the spiders pressing closer on all sides. Aragog seemed to be tired of talking. He was backing slowly into his domed web, but his fellow spiders continued to inch slowly toward Harry and Ron. "We'll just go, then," Harry called desperately to Aragog, hearing leaves rustling behind him. "Go?" said Aragog slowly. "I think not..." "But - but--" "My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat, when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Good-bye, friend of Hagrid." Harry spun around. Feet away, towering above him, was a solid wall of spiders, clicking, their many eyes gleaming in their ugly black heads. Even as he reached for his wand, Harry knew it was no good, there were too many of them, but as he tried to stand, ready to die fighting, a loud, long note sounded, and a blaze of light flamed through the hollow. Mr. Weasley's car was thundering down the slope, headlights glaring, its horn screeching, knocking spiders aside; several were thrown onto their backs, their endless legs waving in the air. The car screeched to a halt in front of Harry and Ron and the doors flew open. "Get Fang!" Harry yelled, diving into the front seat; Ron seized the boarhound around the middle and threw him, yelping, into the back of the car - the doors slammed shut - Ron didn't touch the accelerator but the car didn't need him; the engine roared and they were off, hitting more spiders. They sped up the slope, out of the hollow, and they were soon crashing through the forest, branches whipping the windows as the car wound its way cleverly through the widest gaps, following a path it obviously knew. Harry looked sideways at Ron. His mouth was still open in the silent scream, but his eyes weren't popping anymore. "Are you okay?" Ron stared straight ahead, unable to speak. They smashed their way through the undergrowth, Fang howling loudly in the back seat, and Harry saw the side mirror snap off as they squeezed past a large oak. After ten noisy, rocky minutes, the trees thinned, and Harry could again see patches of sky. The car stopped so suddenly that they were nearly thrown into the windshield. They had reached the edge of the forest. Fang flung himself at the window in his anxiety to get out, and when Harry opened the door, he shot off through the trees to Hagrid's house, tail between his legs. Harry got out too, and after a minute or so, Ron seemed to regain the feeling in his limbs and followed, still stiff-necked and staring. Harry gave the car a grateful pat as it reversed back into the forest and disappeared from view. Harry went back into Hagrid's cabin to get the Invisibility Cloak. Fang was trembling under a blanket in his basket. When Harry got outside again, he found Ron being violent sick in the pumpkin patch. "Follow the spiders," said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'll never forgive Hagrid. We're lucky to be alive." "I bet he thought Aragog wouldn't hurt friends of his," said Harry. "That's exactly Hagrid's problem!" said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. "He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as they're made out, and look where it's got him! A cell in Azkaban!" He was shivering uncontrollably now. "What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I'd like to know?" "That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry, throwing the cloak over Ron and prodding him in the arm to make him walk. "He was innocent." Ron gave a loud snort. Evidently, hatching Aragog in a cupboard wasn't his idea of being innocent. As the castle loomed nearer Harry twitched the cloak to make sure their feet were hidden, then pushed the creaking front doors ajar. They walked carefully back across the entrance hall and up the marble staircase, holding their breath as they passed corridors where watchful sentries were walking. At last they reached the safety of the Gryffindor common room, where the fire had burned itself into glowing ash. They took off the cloak and climbed the winding stair to their dormitory. Ron fell onto his bed without bothering to get undressed. Harry, however, didn't feel very sleepy. He sat on the edge of his fourposter, thinking hard about everything Aragog had said. The creature that was lurking somewhere in the castle, he thought, sounded like a sort of monster Voldemort -even other monsters didn't want to name it. But he and Ron were no closer to finding out what it was, or how it petrified its victims. Even Hagrid had never known what was in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry swung his legs up onto his bed and leaned back against his pillows, watching the moon glinting at him through the tower window. He couldn't see what else they could do. They had hit dead ends everywhere. Riddle had caught the wrong person, the Heir of Slytherin had got off, and no one could tell whether it was the same person, or a different one, who had opened the Chamber this time. There was nobody else to ask. Harry lay down, still thinking about what Aragog had said. He was becoming drowsy when what seemed like their very last hope occurred to him, and he suddenly sat bolt upright. "Ron," he hissed through the dark, "Ron--" Ron woke with a yelp like Fang's, stared wildly around, and saw Harry. "Ron - that girl who died. Aragog said she was found in a bathroom," said Harry, ignoring Neville's snuffling snores from the corner. "What if she never left the bathroom? What if she's still there?" Ron rubbed his eyes, frowning through the moonlight. And then he understood, too. "You don't think - not Moaning Myrtle?"