Picking up the thread, A Dare Options

[McGonagall's Cat]

<title- Lavender First Picks Up The Thread>


As Lavender Brown walked down the steps to the Common Room from the Girls Dorm She noticed

(\__/)
(=’-‘=)
(“) (“)
Crookshanks

playing with a piece of thread. He seemed to have found the begining end of the thread on the steps and was rolling around, tangling it into a snarled up knot. With one swat it hurled into the Common Room, where he playfully attacked it again.

Lavender was going to breakfast and not particularly interested in the thread, until it wrapped around her ankle as she tried to walk over to her best friend Parvati Patil who was sitting near the fire waiting for her.

"What is that?" Parvati asked as Lavender untangled her foot.

"I don't know what's going on with it. I just noticed Hermione's cat playing with it on the steps over there." She answered pointing toward the stairs.

Parvati picked it up, noticing that it ran out of the room through the Portrait Hole. Since Crookshanks had lost interest and was now sitting on the rug near the fire licking his paw, she began to wrap the loose thread around and around the knot, forming a tiny ball.
She and Lavender followed the thread along, through the opening, down the hallway, wrapping the thread around the small ball as they went. They chattered on about having been invited to Trelawney's room for a private reading later that day.

"I can hardly wait!" giggled Lavender. "I just know she's going to tell me that cute Ravenclaw boy is destined to be in my future!"

"Well, I'm hoping to learn how many puppies my Mum's dog will have when she has her pups next week!" Parvati said enthusiastically.

As they turned the corner, still giggling and planning for their "private tea", the thread lead them to the top of one of the moving stairways. As they stepped onto it, it began to move. Parvati shreiked, almost losing her balance with the lurch, and the small ball of thread went flying through the air to






OK, here is the challenge: You have to pick up the thread, whoever you are, follow it a while through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hand it off to (another character)...

who then picks up the thread and continues to wind it around and around into a ball as they continue through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hands it off to (another character)...

who then picks up the thread and continues to wind it around and around into a ball as they continue through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hands it off to (another character)...


The same character can pick it up again later... They can do many amazing things while it is in their possession... we can each write as many scenes as we care to write...


Go ahead! I DARE YA!!!

Through January 18th, 2004. 
Vote for favourite scene Jan. 19, 20, & 21 - so be sure to TITLE your scene to make it easier for all of us to vote for the intended one!
edited 1/18/04   This is now on-going       No time limit.

[agrippa]

As they turned the corner, still giggling and planning for their "private tea", the thread lead them to the top of one of the moving stairways. As they stepped onto it, it began to move. Parvati shreiked, almost losing her balance with the lurch, and the small ball of thread went flying through the air to Vincent Crabbe.

Crabbe Suprised

The ball of string hit Crabbe square in the nose and dropped into his huge hands.

"Oh - hello, Vincent," said Lavendar, backing away. "We were just on our way up to north tower."

"Oh." Crabbe stared at them for a minute, as if he was about to say something.

"So we'll just be on our way," said Pavarti.

"Oh." Crabbe's expression changed abruptly. "You seen Gregory?"

"Goyle?" Lavendar looked suprised. "No."

Crabbe grunted. "Thanks."

"All right. See you, then." Pavarti and Lavendar turned and dashed down the corridor.

Crabbe looked down at the ball of string in his hand. Well, there's nothing else to do. He thought. He followed the string down the staircase mindlessly. I wonder where Greg's gotten to?

On the seventh floor, a suit of armor tried to trip him. Without thinking, he punched it hard in the face, and its head flew off.

"Eeeee!" cried Peeves as he flew out of the suit and hovered near the ceiling. "It's crabby Crabbe! But where's his little palsy? Where's git-wit Goyle?"

"Dunno," said Crabbe, wishing with all his might that ghosts were punchable. "I'm looking for him."

"Peevsey knows," cried the poltergeist. "Crabby Crabbe should go look for Barnabas the Barmy!" Peeves disappeared through the wall.

Crabbe didn't know who Barnabas the Barmy was, and he certainly wasn't going to think about it too hard. So he continued to follow the thread.

It led him around the corner. On the wall there was a large tapestry of a wizard trying to teach some trolls to dance. Barmy, thought Crabbe as he stared at the tapestry.

A noise behind him brought him back to the present. He turned around and noticed a door on the opposite wall. The noise must have come from in there.

He opened the door a bit and peeked through the gap. It was like no room he had ever seen. It seemed to contain a beautiful indoor garden. There were birds singing in perfectly manicured hedges. There was a fountain, flowing into a pool full of magical color-shifting fish. And on a bench in front of that pond he saw the backs of two heads, one of which he recognized immediately.

"Greg!" he shouted, throwing the door open and entering the room.

Goyle jumped like someone was trying to hex him. So did the girl he was sitting with. They lept to their feet and turned around to face Crabbe.

"Uh, hi, Vince," muttered Goyle. Suddenly he realized he was still holding the girl's hand, which he dropped immediately. "Um, you know Tracey Davis, right?"

It was not unusual for Crabbe to be at a loss for words, but this time he was really stunned. His brow wrinked as he tried to fit this new idea about his best friend into his brain.

"What's that in your hand?" Goyle asked, trying to change the subject.

"What?" Crabbe looked down at the ball of string in his hands. "Oh. Nothing."

He tossed the ball of string over his shoulder and back into the corridor, not for a minute taking his eyes off of Goyle and Tracey Davis. The ball bounced hit the wall beneath the tapestry and came to a stop.

"Vince," said Goyle. "Do you mind closing the door?"

"Right," said Crabbe.

The trolls in the tapestry continued to collide into each other, getting angrier and angrier with each attempt. They certainly didn't notice the figure coming around the corner and picking up the ball of string.

[zymurgy]

From Flich to Snape to...?

Filch picked up the thread and examined it quizically, trying to figure out whether or not the nasty students had enchanted it. "Oh blast it, my sweet," he said, to Mrs. Norris, "They've gone and flooded the hallways with this stuff."

Filch began the hopless task of trying to wind up the string. Of course, after all the action, it just got stuck on something. So, Filch started off, following the string, so that he could untangle it.

The sight that met his eyes caused him to give a startled yelp. It had gotten stuck on Severus Snapes cauldron, and had knocked it over. Snape was, understandably, not very happy about this. "Sorry, sir," stammered Filch, "But the students... this thread..."

Snape lost his temper. "Oh do get out of my office," he snapped, "If you can't make yourself usefull! I'll take care of the thread... just go!"

Flich lost no time in putting a good distance between himself and the irate Potions Master. Snape, on the other hand, had been trying to untangle the thread using all the power at his disposal, but it continued to stubernly stay knotted around one leg of the cauldron. The fact that the spilled potion had rather gunked everything up was not helping.

Snape decided to imitate Filch, and follow the string to it's begining. It probably wouldn't help unravle it, but maybe he could find out where it had come from, and he could punish the student who had been so careless...

He took out a handy pen knife he had, and cut off the thread at the cauldron. He wrapped the one end round the ball Filch had already tied up, and put it in his pocket. He took hold of the other end, and, rolling it up as he walked, he set off on his quest.

He followed the string. Up stairs, down stairs, until he finally arived, to his own amazement, at a statue of a humpbacked which. The string had, inexplicablydissapeared down into the hump. Severus was, to say the least, peeved.

He got out his wand, and gave the witch a sharp smack on the hump with it. The witch actually rolled her eyes at him. "Password?" she croaked, in a stony voice. Snape glowerd. "I don't need a bloody password," he growled, "I'm just picking up this string."

The witch sighed. "Very well," she said, "It's been chaffing me something dreadfull anyhow."

The witch's hump opened, and Severus Snape clambered inside. He began to slip and slide down the dark passagway. He lit his wand, and continued, down, down down, rolling up the ball as he want.

Unfortunatly, it's very hard to roll up a ball of yarn, and hold a lighted wand at the same time, so Severus ended up triping. He fell with a yelp, and hit his head on one of the stone steps. He passed out, and the ball of string rolled from his grasp into the darkness...

[bakbam]

Dobby


The tunnel echoed with the sound of tiny footsteps. A light appeared from the far end of the tunnel. It was growing closer to where Snape lay on the cold floor.

"How did he get in the servents tunnnel? Said the house elf as he bent over to examine the Professor.

I don't know, but we need to get him out of the way. We have much work to do before lunch. The other replied. "Come on Dobby give us some help here."

"OK OK!" Dobby bent over and picked up the wand. He noticed the ball of thread hanging out of Snapes pocket. He looked down and saw another smaller ball of thread intangled in Snapes hand. Dobby quickly grabbed both balls of thread. "I can't help you. I forgot I have to go help Winky." Dobby said a bit flustered and strode away.

Dobby follow the string down the tunnel for thinking to himself. "This would be great thread for socks. I bet I could make hundreds of socks with this."

Dobby was walking with his head up daydreaming of the wonderful socks he would have when suddenly Dobby could not wind anymore string. He looked at the ball with disappointment. He soon realized that the string was caught in a doorway.

Dobby opened the door and continued to wind the thread into a ball. Dobby never noticed that he walked into the transfiguration class. Mrs. McGonagall was very upset when she saw the house elf trapes trough the middle of her classroom without a care in the world.

" Just what do you think you are doing interupting my class like this?" Came rumbling out of her mouth like a train. "Did you hear me?"She asked as she stomped over to him. He was still not paying any attention to her.

Professor McGonagall reached out at Dobby. She grabbed one of his ears and pulled him to the doorway. "I will not tolerate such intrusions while I am in the middle of a lesson." She shut the door with Dobby now an the other side.

Dobby looked up from the ball of thread. "I am sorry ma,am" He went back to following the string. Dobby was walking down the middle of the hall when the lunch bell rang.

The classroom doors burst open and the students flocked to the halls. Dobby was just to small compared to all the others . He was immedietly knocked down. The ball of string fell from his hands. It rolled down the hall a bit. Astudnet came running down the hall and kicked the ball.

Dobby stood up just in time to see the ball of thread untangle itself as it fell to the bottom floor.

[evlpez]

Seamus

Suddenly realizing that he'd neglected to pay the proper respect owed a Professor of Hogwarts, Dobby left in a blink to prostrate and punish himself in an appropriate fashion.

Nearing the bottom stair of the grand staircase, Seamus Finnegan was having an animated conversation with Dean Thomas on their way from their last class of the day. Seamus was vehemently defending the merits of Quidditch over muggle football when he suddenly got an eyeful of fluffy thread.

"What the-!?" Seamus exclaimed, clutching his eye and batting away the hanging thread.

"All right, Seamus?" Dean asked, "Look- I have to go meet someone. See you later."

Seamus nodded, knowing that Dean was off to find Ginny Weasley, his current love interest. Seamus held the thread and his eyes followed it up the side of several staircases. Looking around to see that he was now alone, he pulled out his wand and aimed it at the thread. He thought a moment about what spell he wanted to cast when he noticed the thread moving. Entranced by its hypnotic swaying as the end floated into the air he pocketed his wand and ran up the stairs, careful to keep the thread in his sight.

As he reached the top floor breathless, he desperately grasped the end of the thread threatening to slip away. It stopped moving then. Seamus's face screwed up, puzzled, and he looked around to see if he was at the butt end of someone's joke. Seeing no one, he turned his thoughts back to Ginny and Dean as he began winding the thread around his left index finger, picking up the slack and following it down the empty hall. Ginny had grown into a fine lass. She was fiery and passionate, a trait - like her red hair- that Seamus was certain came from his own homeland. He couldn't deny the twinges of jealousy he felt when he saw Dean fawning over her. She deserved someone better, he thought. Better than Dean- even better than himself, he thought sadly. He smiled as his head filled with imaginings of her red hair flying, her face afire with fury as she battled Death Eaters with Harry, Ron and Neville in the Ministry last spring. He wished he could have been there to lend his wand, maybe even save her life.

As he turned the corner, he was brought out of his reverie. The thread was wound around a large, heavy clay vase underneath a portrait of Sir Cadogen.

"A-ha! A worthy foe! En Garde, you pimply.." the knight started, charging forth.

Seamus interrupted him. "Hello, Sir Cadogen. What are you doing way up here?"

"Oh, it's you, Sir Finnegan." Cadogen was crestfallen, his challenge unanswered. "The Great Dumbledore asked that I set my vigilance on this hall." His voice lowered, "Strange goings on, you know. His Highness depends on me to keep a watchful eye and report back to him."

This was a usual response, Seamus knew. Sir Cadogen was frequently moved throughout the castle at the request of whomever his loud, late night questing had disturbed most recently.

"Well don't let me keep you." Seamus muttered as he drew his wand, intent on freeing the thread from this vase. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he incanted, swishing and flicking. The vase stood unmoved, to his surprise and frustration.

Cadogen flinched at Seamus' wandwork and muttered something about seeing a man about a dragon before fleeing his frame for shelter.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Seamus shouted then as he pulled the thread with his other hand, freeing it. The vase flipped up and smashed on Sir Cadogen's painting, which was mercifully unharmed. Seamus looked in disappointment at the great clay chunks and shards on the marble floor.

"Mister Finnegan. As a sixth year, I'd have thought you'd mastered that charm by now. In fact, I recall passing you in your first year based on the level of improvement you showed in class." A small, cheery voice called.

Seamus turned to see Professor Flitwick marching soundlessly toward him. His head lowered and he dropped the thread.

"Please see me this Saturday morning for a tutorial, Mister Finnegan. In the meantime, you don't want to miss dinner."

Seamus nodded and ran off, red-faced. Flitwick surveyed the damage and repaired it swiftly with a few swishes of his little wand when he noticed a thread at his feet. He picked it up and chuckled at the new diversion, winding it and following it further down the hall.

[McGonagall's Cat]

The Charmed Thread

Professor Flitwick toddled along chuckling to himself as he followed the thread. He held out his tiny wand and with an odd rotating flick of his wrist incanted, “windan invillupare.” The thread began to wrap itself around the already balled core, as he merely guided the unwound part from behind obstacles.

Near the third level he was startled when several of the other teachers rushed past him, almost bumping him over.

“Oh good!” Professor Sprout said when she noticed Flitwick. “We could certainly use your assistance, Filius. It seems some studentss, well we don’t really KNOW who, but it certainly has all the right earmarks … have… well, you’ll see. Come along.” She rushed away somewhat out of breath.

Flitwick absentmindedly left the thread winding itself, hanging mid-air, as he caught up with the clutch of teachers heading down one of the side hallways (where a slight green fog or smoke was beginning to escape along the ceiling).

The ball of thread began to tighten, pulling itself along from where it had been hanging. It wound along crossing several doorways, over the plumes on the helmet of a suit of armour, around a potted palm, past a portrait Sir Cadogan had taken over from a sour-looking old woman (he jabbed his heavy sword at the passing ball, shouting, "Dare to advance on the King's Guard you scurvey dog!!!") As it moved farther from the spot where Flitwick had forgotten it, the charm weakened. Eventually the charm ceased to have any effect whatsoever, allowing the ball to drop onto

[zymurgy]

AN INSULT TO THE MALFOY HONOR!

... fell onto Draco's head.

"HEY!" yelled Draco, looking up to see who had so assaulted him, "Who did that?"

Nobody answered. Draco looked in suprize at the ball of string that had just bonked him on the head. "I wonder..." he muttered to himself, and picked up the ball of thread.

He twirled it in his hand for a bit, and then decided that he would not let this insult to the Malfoy honor go unrevenged. He dashed after the thread, doing it up on his way.

He ran up the stairs. He ran back down the stairs. He ran into the dungeons. He ran back out of the dungeons. He began to get short of breath. He began to sweat. Finally, he sank to the floor, clutching a stitch in his side.

The ball of thread dropped to the floor, forgotten, and rolled out of site.

[bakbam]

Hagrid

The thread rolled down the staircase. It hit the bottom floor then bounced a bit before it began to roll toward the front door.

The doors flew open. The thread almost magically bounced down the steps. Hagid was carrying a large box and didn't see the ball of thread roll under his foot.

There was a loud thud. The sound echoed through the castle. Hagrid was sprawled out in the floor. The contents of the box lay around him. He sat up and looked to his side,"blasted thread", the thread lay there begging to be picked up.

Hagrid crawled around the floor and gathered up his belongings. He picked up the ball of thread looked at it curiously then threw it into the box. Hagrid didn't notice the loose string hanging out of the box as he began his trip up the stairs. With every step Hagrid made the ball of thread unwound itself.

Hagrid got on the third set of stairs when the staircase started to shift to the other side of the corrider. "Bloody stairs, I bet'tr go this way ter Dumbledore's office," Hagrid said to himself as he stepped onto the landing. He turned the corner. The thread hanging from the box wedged itself under the corner trim in the hall.

Hagrid continued walking still unaware of the thread hanging out of the box. In front of Dumbledore's office Hagrid whispered, "or'nge gumballs." The door slide open. The ball of thread tightened as Hagrid turned up the spiral stairs. In the next turn the thread was jerked out of the box. It rolled down the stairs and out the opening of the office.

There was only a tiny ball of thread left. It was lying in the floor waiting to be wound again.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Fang


Fang came galumphing around the corner frantically searching for Hagrid. He dashed along the hallway in such a headlong rush that he skidded on the smooth surface. His big feet went out from under him sending him comically spiraling across the floor like a top.

The tiny ball of thread was caught by a spastic foot as he scrabbled past trying to regain some traction, and was flung down the hall. It banked off the far wall, bouncing along, until it landed at the feet of

[zymurgy]

And We Enter: The Lake

...feet of Hermione. She sighed and picked up the thread, and began winding it up as she walked down towards the lake. "I really wish Ron would either understand that he likes me, or let me be," she muttered to herself, "Or maybe Harry would get some sense and just TELL Ron what's wrong..."

She stopped and stood by the lake thinking, when all of a sudden a huge owl swooped down with an enourmace package addressed to "Hormone-ninny Granger" from "Your own Victor."

She shrieked, either in fear of beaing brained by the huge box, or in delighte. She dropped the thread, and siezed the box, running up to the common room so that she could open it in private.

On the bank, the thread lay, forgotten. Slowly, it began to unwind, and roll where gravity pulled it. With a splash it landed in the lake.

The Giant Squid did a mental double take. "WOW! String!" Finally, she could learn to knit. Think of it, four sweaters at a time, or four pairs of socks, and she could finally give Dumbledore a Christmas present!

She pulled the string towards her, and in a matter of minutes, got herself hopelessly tangled up in it, unable to move. The other end of the string floated to the top of the lake and bobbed there, marking the spot.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Hedwig

Hedwig was out exercizing. She somewhat casually looked for a tasty morsel, perhaps a vole or field mouse, or a yummy little garden snake. Soaring on a thermal updraft, floating in lazy circles, her sharp amber eyes took in every detail. She had already swooped across the castle grounds, and now was touring the area between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. The hills passed below her strong wings telling her a panoramic story. For Hedwig this was like reading the newspaper.

Off to the left, several students were walking back from the village happily chatting and joking. They threw something high in the air that blossomed into a delightful shower of multi-coloured sparks which then turned into butterflies and fluttered away like a rainbow cloud. Near the trees she could see Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle sitting, deeply engaged in discussion. Or rather Malfoy was speaking and the other two were sitting at his feet worshipfully. A flock of starlings squawked their cacophonous calls nearby. They were lined up on a fence rail like black clothespins. Gigglinng in the middle of a fairyring, Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones were making daisy chains.

Hedwig banked back around over the Lake. She spied an odd line descending into the dark waters and swooped to investigate. A soggy ball of thread barely floated on the surface of the Lake, trialing the line. It intrigued her. Gently clasping her talons around it, she lifted it from the surface. Soon she felt a resistance, a stout pull. She turned to face the water, back-peddaling with all her might, pulling the thread. Jerks and tugs made holding on difficult, but she persevered. Eventually the Giant Squid came to the surface, flipping her tentacles around, untangling herself from the thread. While squids don't actually smile, she waved at Hedwig once she was free of the thread indicating her appreciation of the assistance.

Hedwig carried the soggy ball a little way across the Hogwarts grounds where she dropped it square on the head of

[bakbam]

Impossible Distrations

Harry was sitting under the tree where he saw his father in Snape's pensive. He had a pile of books laid out on the ground in front of him. He was trying hard to concentrate on his Potions report that was due in half an hour, but he was having a hard time.

Harry kept getting distracted by the constant giggling of Hermone and Ron who where sitting on the other side of the tree. The worst part was that Ron insisted on doing the same replay of his winning block during the game the night before.

Harry finally got tired of all the distrations. He gathered up his books and threw them half-heartedly in his bag. He started back up the hill to the castle.

Ron yelled, "Harry! Where are you going mate?"

Harry turned to the couple, "I've got studying to do. I don't have time to watch you flirt with Hermione all day. Why don't you two just start dating and get it over with. You obviously like each other or am I the only one here who sees that.?" Harry walked off at a fast pace.

Ron's face turned beet red. He gave Hermione a very confused looked. Ron stood up to follow Harry.

"We need to talk. You can follow him later." Hermione told Ron as she pulled him back down beside her.

Harry got half way up the hill when Hedwig flew down toward him. Harry smiled thinking that Hedwig was going to land on his shoulder for a bit of affection. Instead Hedwig dropped a ball of thread directly on Harry's head.

Harry picked up the ball of thread up as he was rubbing his head. "Blasted owl," Harry mumbled as he looked around and saw thread scattered all over the courtyard.

Harry began to wind the thread tightly around the small ball that he picked up. He walked through the courtyard and then back down the hill again trying to get the thread cleaned up. Harry walked around Hagrid's hut and started toward the willlow tree. Harry found this to be very peaceful.

In the distance Harry heard the bell ring for the next class. "Oh no! I am late for potion." Harry dropped the ball of thread and ran toward the castle.

[Quantamus]

The Forbidden Forest and back again


Fortunately for Harry, he wouldn't be the only one late for Potions Class today. The Potions Master himself would not turn up for several hours....

After rousing some minutes later and groping for his wand (whose light long gone out), Snape, being closer to the bottom of the tunnel than to the top, made the rest of the way down, suspicious about where the tunnel led to. He had no doubt that Potter had been using this very tunnel to escape Hogwarts after hours.

So Snape, teeth gritted against the ear-splitting headache that now had made his brain its home, made his way down the tunnel, found himself in Honeydukes, clambered out with many sneering apologies to the owner (who was understandably most upset), and quickly made his way back to Hogwarts. It was there that he came across the very same offending ball of thread that had begun all this nonsense in the first place.

He stood staring at it for a moment, eyebrows twitching in anger, fangs bared as though to eat the water soaked ball.

"ARGGH!"

Despite his growing hatred for the ball of thread (that galling headache had spread to his teeth), Snape found his desire to punish (the responsible student) overwhelming. With a violent kick at the grass, he snatched up the ball and began to follow its path once again.

Around Hagrid's Hut he went, around the Whomping Willow (much to his chagrin), up and down several branches of the old oak tree (he had quite a task keeping his skirts together), and then towards the clump of trees that was the gateway to the Forbidden Forest.

Of course, being a Professor (and rather knowledgeable about the Dark Arts besides), he was not afraid and continued right through. In and out, between the trees, Snape went. He stumbled and fell several times, stubbing his nose on some very painfully hard rocks.

"Potter," Snape muttered, as he picked himself up for the twelfth time, "Potter did this."

Of course, Harry couldn't have done it. He was busy waiting with the other students in the Potions dungeon. But Snape had a headache and his nose was hurting tremendously, so I'm afraid we must forgive his bias-driven oversight this time.

Snape went on deeper and deeper, rolling up the ball of thread as he went along. He walked, it seemed, for several hours, when suddenly, the thread led him to a large, empty clearing. He paused at the edge of it. His nose jerked and flared a number of times; it was picking up a strange, beastly, stale smell. It was only a subtle smell, but as he stepped deeper into the clearing, it invaded his nose and mouth, filling his head and consuming him.

He dropped the ball of thread and grabbed his head instead, moaning in pain, and as he did so, several large dark creatures emerged from the trees, and it was only when he opened his watering eyes once more that he realized that the towering creatures were there. His heart froze: he, like Ron Weasley, was terrified of spiders, and these gigantic ones seemed happy to make a meal of him.

Snape screamed very loudly. He turned and ran back out of the Forest, across the Hogwarts grounds, and into the castle, screaming all the way. He ran screaming past Dumbledore, who looked at him from over his half-moon glasses in curiosity. He ran screeching past Sprout and Flitwick, not noticing their worried expressions. He screamed past McGonagall ("My, my, Severus!"), Moody ("Something in your underwear, Snape?"), and Trelawny ("I foresee certain death..."). He streaked through the Great Hall, blessing the students (it was about lunch time) with his dulcet tones. His hair whipped about behind him, grease splattering on the golden plates and goblets. His eyes were wide and white in fear. His robes had unbuttoned to reveal his pink underdress. He was foaming at the mouth. And still he continued to scream and run, until he had run through every hall and room in Hogwarts and finally, exhausted, he dropped to the floor (of unknown room) and fell asleep.


Meanwhile, in the Forbidden Forest, a ball of thread lay unattended. The spiders, recognizing it as a useless imitation of their own product, had abandoned it. And there it lay, until it was picked up by...

[zymurgy]

Firenze.

Firenze looked at the ball. "Ah." he said simply, "Venus was bright last night."

That cryptic announcement out of the way, he lowered his front legs until he could reach the ball with his arms. He took the ball of thread, and began to roll it up.

"I see," he said, "that this thread has been handled by manny men, and many creatures. It bodes ill, very ill."

He continued winding it, until he came to the edge of the forest. (Professor Snape had been going around in circles) He raised a spectacular blond eyebrow, and blinked his blue eyes at the light. He took in the trail of tangled thread that was going just about everywhere.

"Humans," he said to himself, "Have no sense of orginization."

He stood where was was, and wound up the thread. He wound, and he wound and he wound. That is, until it, invetibly, caught on something. Sighing, he began to follow it.

He followed it all the way to the castle, where it was caught on the highest turret of Hogwarts. He tried to pull it down, and failed, several times. He just couldn't get it to untie itself. He couldn't fly, and didn't think it worth his time to go into the castle and untangle it from the upstairs. After all, climbing stairs with four legs is no easy task.

So he sighed, and left the neet ball of thread at the bottom of the tower, and returned to the forest.

[Quantamus]

The Flight Instructor

Madam Hooch stepped out onto the Hogwarts grounds carrying her old but trusty broom, the Cleansweep 7. For the first time in several months, she had enough free time to take the careless flight over Hogwarts that she so loved.

As she neared her favorite take-off spot, she noticed Firenze the Centaur cantering off back towards the Forbidden Forest. Madam Hooch's curiosity was immediately aroused, and after checking that Firenze was safely back in Forest, she made her way back along the path on which Firenze had come. For several minutes she saw nothing unusual...nothing, at least, that would warrant the attention of a centaur. The only thing she saw that was of least bit interest was a muddy ball of thread that lay at the base of the North Tower. The centaur couldn't have come for this old thing, could he?

Madam Hooch took the ball of thread in her hands, wondering mildly what mischievous student had left it lying around, but when she pulled on it, she found that it was caught on the tower's turret.

"How's that, now?" wondered Madam Hooch, and since she had nothing else planned besides flying, she hopped onto her broom and, holding carefully onto the ball of thread, flew up to the turret and released the thread.

She would have left the thread there and then, but she noticed that the thread wound its way around several of the other towers before snaking suspiciously into the Divination tower. She followed the ball, winding up the thread as she went, and it wasn't long before she was hovering before the Divinations window.

The room was empty. Madam Hooch bent and twisted her way into the window, so desperate was she to get to the end of the thread (was it a magical thread?). She had managed to squeeze one leg in when a magnificent booming voice erupted around her.

"Death! DEATH!! Death shall come upon us all!!!"

Was it Trelawny? Madam Hooch could not tell, nor did she care at this point. In her fright, she had dropped the ball of thread (which was now rolling unassumingly across the lush carpet), and lost her balance. Her broom just out of reach and her wand lying useless on the ground far below, she hung precariously from the Divinations window with only one leg keeping her from falling to certain death. She didn't care that her face was growing a prune purple as the blood rushed to her head. She didn't care that her robes, normally slipping about her legs, were now billowing like sails in high wind. She didn't care that she was the most ridiculous thing Hogwarts had seen since Umbridge had declared her existence. She cared only that she would fall if she didn't hang on tightly enough.

For a silly ball of thread, Madam Hooch thought bitterly, I should lose my life. All for a silly ball of thread.

"Help!! Help me please! Somebody! Before I fall! PLEASE!"

[evlpez]

Trelawny

Professor Trelawny was rudely awakened from her trance. She looked around her dim room to see a broomstick laying on the floor in front of the window. Before getting up from her chair to investigate, she reached into her desk drawer and checked one of her many notebooks for the symbology of brooms. Finding nothing, she decided that a broom appearing on her carpet probably meant something very bad, and figured she should go and observe the broom. Its relation to the runic symbols and pictures on the carpet, as well as its position in relation to the sun outside would give her more to work with. Getting up from her chair, she heard a muffle cry coming from outside the window. She rushed over.

"Trelawny! Give me hand, would you? I'm going to fall!" Madam Hooch pleaded.

"Yes, of course. I knew something like this was going to happen today," Trelawny said darkly. "Why, just a moment ago I was given divine warning by the appearance of a broom on my carpet."

"That's my broom, you idiot. Just hand it to me before I lose my grip!" Madam Hooch had little patience for the old fraud, but regretted her insult immediately. She was suddenly struck with the fear that Trelawny might just watch her fall to her death to prove her point. "Please, Sybil. Save me."

Trelawny bent over to grab the broom, making mental note of its location and orientation before poking the handle out the window. Madam Hooch took one last look down before grabbing the broomstick handle with one hand. Her other hand slipped and she and her broom plummeted several feet before she expertly flipped it beneath her and levelled out. With a wave of thanks, she flew off over the grounds.

Professor Trelawny turned her attention back to the carpet. There sat a ball of thread. She pulled a pencil and pocket notebook out of her robes and drew a quick diagram of the carpet, noting where the broom had been and included the mysterious thread ball. She picked up the ball and noticed it wound its way through her room to the trap door entrance. She pocketed her notebook and followed the thread, winding it as she went until she reached the trap door. Opening it, she considered her 'inner eye' and the ramifications of leaving her tower to explore the path of the thread. A little unsettled about the thought of exposing herself to the energies of the rest of the castle, she dropped the ball of thread down the ladder to the floor below her.

Closing the trap door, she turned back to her carpet and decided that the broom had already revealed all it would, alerting her to Madam Hooch's peril at her window. She went back to her desk, intent on looking up the significance of thread. She hadn't paid enough attention to the thread, and didn't know if it was cotton or some other fibre. She sighed, pulled a small flask out of her drawer and sat down, where she sipped and pondered thread and broomsticks until she dozed off.

Below her classroom on the floor of an often deserted hallway sat the ball of thread, waiting until it was discovered by…

[zymurgy]

3D to 2D

... discovered by Albus Dumbledore, who had, inexplicably, gotten lost on his way down to the kitchens for some hot chocolate.

He looked down at the ball of thread, and smiled evilly to himself. "So," he muttered, "The Great and Terrible Ball of Thread has once again been unleashed on the school!"

Dumbledore shrugged and picked up the ball and began rolling it up, while still trying to figure out how to get into the kitchens.

Suddenly, he heard an annyed voice call out, "Halt! Thou mysterious bearded knave! Stand and fight!"

Dumbledore, ever one to humor his paintings, leapt to a kung fu fighting stance, thread still in hand. "AI YA!" screeched Dumbledore, and threw his weapon (ie: the ball of thread) straight at his oponent.

Somehow, the magic of Hogwarts made the 3D ball of thread, into a 2D ball of thread on contact, though a definatly 3D ball of thread lead up and into the painting.

Sir Codogan, (for it was, indeed, he) was knocked off his horse by the flying object. While he was trying to untangle himself, Dumbledore dropped his fighting stance, and stuck out his tounge, like a little kid on the playground.

"Nya!" sang Dumbledore in an awful singsong, "Gotchya!"

With that, Dumbledore sped off on his way to the kitchens, singing "It's a small world, after all," under his breath.

Sir Codogan surveyed the ball of string. "Ah," he said, "A quest!"

He leapt once more onto his trusty stead, and drew his sword, cradling the precious ball of string with his left hand. "GIDYAP!" he yelled, and his horse took off.

Sir Codagon racketet off with, rolling the ball of string up as he went, through the paintings of Hogwarts until....

[bakbam]

Angry Portraits

Sir Cadagon began to speed up. The witches and wizards who occupied the other paintings were getting very aggravated.

"How dare you. Just look at this this mess you have made," Screamed the young women on the third floor. She was covered in a knot of thread struggling to get loose.

The gentleman beside her stood laughing as he unwound the thread from his beard.

The portraits on the staircase were all in an uproar. " Just who does he think he is. My dress you have put a hole in my dress. You wait until Dumbledore hears about this, he will put you in the dungeons for good." Were just a few of the things that were being yelled across the castle.

Sir Cadagon wrecked havoc throughout Hogwarts. It seemed he was on every floor and rode through every portrait. He was most amused by his tiny ball of thread that he didn't notice that it was tangled around the horses hooves.

"ARRG," Sir Cadagon bellowed as he was thrown from his horse. He flew through five paintings until he finally landed on his bottom and slide into an angry mermaid who was trying to get the tangled thread away from her shell. The ball of thread in his hands flew straight out of the painting and into the bubbling tub of hot water.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Re-Annoyed Portraits

The male Prefects from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were enjoying chatting as they watched the pink, light green, and lavender bubbles floating along the surface in little clumps.

"That one looks like a bent Horklump..." said one, just as the ball of thread splashed directly into center of the configuration.

"What did you do?" the other asked wiping the pastel splash from his eye.

"Didn't. Really. Haven't a clue what that might be..." the other responded as he reached for the ball which was slowly sinking.

Sir Cadogan interupted, "I say Old Bean, could you pass that back here please."

The two prefects examined it closely, squeezed out most of the water, and shrugging, tossed it back to Sir Cadogan.

"You are gentlemen and scholars!" he shouted dashing back the direction he'd just come from, wrapping the thread into a ball as he clanked along. He wound it through the portrait of the ladies having a picnic on the lawn, tripped over the feet of a stern seated black witch from the 1700's, and made two circles untangling the thread from around a group of teachers. When he reached his fat pony, after a few moments of struggling to get on board without dropping the thread, he headed to where the thread had first fallen into Portrait World.

"Thou most foul object," he addressed the roll of string, "Be banished from this rhelm!"

And he threw it with all his might, back out into the kitchen. It bounced a couple times, coming to rest at the toe of......

[moonbeam3243]

On Top of Spaghetti

...at the furry toe of a very disgruntled cat who had been laying seige to the kitchens, waiting for the opportune moment to steal a meatball. Crookshanks eyed the ball of string carefully, tail twitching. With one very slender claw extended, Crookshanks poked the matted, wet, dirty mess of string. He sniffed it disdainfully. It was the same string he'd been playing with when that awful Lavendar girl had taken it earlier.

"Pft," Crookshanks spat out contemptuously. Playing with... Those silly humans wouldn't ever figure out his more devious plots with the string. He'd known what the string was the moment he saw it; he'd known how it could be used; he'd merely been playing with it, waiting for his mistress to figure out what the string really was. He would never have been so foolish as to ignore its more important magical properties. He--

--was scared witless when Winky, in her usual drunken state, skidded across the kitchen floor, through a pile of spilt flour, narrowly avoiding the largest fireplace, and right into Crookshanks face. The cat yowled in anger and surprise and in that yowl Winky got a very up-close look at Crookshank's long, sharp, deadly fangs. Winky screamed, stood up, fell over again, and ending up relieving herself of a rather large amount of butterbeer that she had ingested earlier. Crookshanks streaked out of the kitchen; no meatball was worth this sort of abuse.

Of course, in the confusion of a drunken elf's face off with an angry cat, none of the other house elves had noticed that the ball of string had gone flying into the air, over the table, and smack in the middle of a large bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. The the ball of string, which had seen its share of mud, dirt, and dank, slowly drifted into the warm spaghetti sauce. Excess water, whether from the prefect's bathroom, the Giant Squid's lake, or Sir Cadogen's notorious sweaty hands, mingled with the tomato sauce, seeping into the noodles. None of the house elves noticed how the warmth of the sauce set off an unusual, slightly disturbing smell.

The house elves started picking up the bowls and plates and arranging them on the magical lift that would transport the food from the kitchens to the tables in the great hall instantaneously. The string-ridden bowl of spaghetti was placed beside a platter of garlic bread, a large casserole dish filled with salmon, and giant bowl of green beans. With a swish of the house elves' hands and a whispered word, the dishes filled with food disappeared.

Harry, meanwhile, grabbed the bowl of green beans as soon as it popped up and started piling some on his plate.

"How can you like those?" Ron asked, disgusted.

Harry shrugged. "I just do."

"You should eat more vegetables, too, you know," Hermione commented, accepting the bowl of green beans from Harry, "What would your mother think if she found out how you ate?"

"She's not going to find out, is she?" It would have been a more threatening statement if Ron had not been trying to speak while eating two pieces of garlic bread simultaneously.

"Ooo, look, spaghetti!" Ginny said from across the table. She reached for it, but before she picked up the bowl, Dean had grabbed it.

"Allow me," he said graciously. He picked up the tongs in the bowl and pulled out a mound of spaghetti. He dropped the noodles on Ginny's plate, then plucked out a few meatballs on the side. Ginny smiled at him, a bit offset by Dean's chivalry. She picked up her fork and started twirling noodles onto it.

Seamus, who sat on the other side of Dean, stared at the two of with an open look of utter destitution Harry glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye, and if Hermione noticed that the glance was envious, she didn't say anything. Ron leapt over the table and grabbed the bowl from Dean. "Looks good," he said.

Ron started heaping spaghetti onto his own plate. He dug in, not noticing how silent the table suddenly got. Harry poked him in the side.

Ginny was turning purple.

"Something wrong?" Ron asked. A noodle snaked its way out of his mouth and landed on his robes.

"How. Dare. You." Ginny said quietly. "This is just gross! Now that Fred and George are gone, we don't need you to pick up their slack!" She was absolutely livid.

"That's a bit much, mate," Dean said, looking down at Ginny's plate, "I mean, ruining her whole supper and all."

"What'd I do?" Ron asked. He shot a glance at Hermione. Hermione just shook her head.

"Putting this nasty ball of string on my plate when you got the spaghetti from Dean! Ooo, I could just..." Ginny trailed off. Everyone soon found out what it was that she could just do, because she stood up without warning, smashed her hand down on the plate of spaghetti, picked up the ball of string (with a handful of noodles as well) and hurtled it right at Ron's face.

The ball of string bounced off Ron's nose and landed two seats down into Neville's bangers and mash. Neville squealed and flipped his plate into the air, bangers flying everywhere. The plate bounced so high up that it landed right on top of a Ravenclaw fifth year. Her boyfriend didn't take the attack too lightly. He picked up a pork chop from his plate and slung it at Neville.

"Hey, it was an accident!" Harry yelled, and before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed a handful of green beans from the air and threw them at the Ravenclaw's table. Several fifth years stood up at once, reaching for dishes. Seamus decided that now was as good a time as any to practice the spell Professor Flitwick had chastized him for.

"Wingardium leviosa!" he shouted at the casserole dish filled with salmon and to his--and several other Gryffindor's--very great surprise, the salmon flew up into the air and started racing around the room, dropping on various students from various houses.

At the head table, Minerva McGonagal was turning a shade darker that Ginny had been when she thought Ron had sabotaged her supper. "A food fight?" she hissed dangerously, "Started by my house?"

Beside her, Snape sniffed arrogantly.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, wondering if he could toss a biscuit at Filch without anyone noticing. Filch looked as if he would have an apoplexitic fit. "Well, it's been decades since the last one," Dumbledore said, "I guess we were due."

Spaghetti, fish, rolls, pork chops, bangers, liver, treacle, and a smelly ball of string all flew through the air as the Great Hogwarts Food Fight really started to pick up steam...

[Quantamus]

It's my turn


There I am, sitting quietly and innocently in my spot, minding my own soggy business, when I'm rudely picked up and shoved around by only Dumbledore-knows-who. I mean really - I don't think there is a single soul in this Great Hall that wouldn't agree I don't deserve this kind of foul treatment. I don't think even that Lady with the big old broom - Hooch, did she say her name was? - I don't think even Hooch would wish this kind of evil on me, even though I did seem to have caused her some distress.

Whoops! Before I know it, I'm parted from my Meaty Cousins - grabbed from behind and thrown like a shotput towards a boy whose hair is as red as the sauce I was happily wallowing in moments before. I wish I had Arms and Legs so I can protect myself, but as I don't happen to have an limbs at the moment, I smash quite painfully against the awful protrusion of a nose on the Boy's face and bounce off into a plate of Mash.

That pleasure doesn't last very long either. In fact, even before I've properly bathed in the delightful yellow smush, the whole she-bang jumps up and away from me. That acrobatic leap is soon followed by a shout from somewhere to my back left, but I don't have a chance to see, for I am rolling rolling rolling. In between those towering Goblets and reservoirs of steaming Soup (I'd learned a great deal of culinary terminology from the kind House Elves of the Kitchen), I weave in and out. I'm not quite sure where I'm going, but I'm definitely going. Maybe I'll be able to slide underneath the table where I can cause some damage.

The sounds around me are deafening. I can see Girls and Boys on their feet. A monumental chunk of Steak about an inch from me suddenly disappears. Behind me, I can hear the Lasagna screaming in agony - I can see what's happening in the reflection on the China Bowl: Someone's shoved their hand into the poor Mr. Lasagna and ripped out a whole fistful. Mr. Lasagna howls as a part of him ends up in another Girl's hair.

Suddenly I can't move. I look left and right, but...What? What?...and suddenly I'm in the air again. I watch in horror as my body unravels itself.

NOOOO!!

I tug desperately as I fly through the air, trying to get my other end out from under a lump of kidney pie, but I only succeeded in making it worse. Lengths of me stretch across the Hall as I land at another table. With a nervous gulp, I look up at the sneering Boys and Girls. At least they don't seem to have caught the crazy fever.

A Girl shrieks and points at me.

"Arooooooo!!!" she cries. (Luckily I don't have ears or I would have had to cover them.) "Arooooooo! How dare they!! I'll get them for this!"

She glares at me just a moment before her long fingers dig into my sides and lift me once again. In a single powerful thrust, I'm flying again.

I'm starting to enjoy this, I think. I might become a pilot in my next life. Or maybe just the clothes of a pilot. I remember my great great Aunt was a pilot's badge. She hated flying though. She was more of an undergrou---

---I land with a few damp bounces onto the hard floor. I've got my chance to roll under table at last, and I do so as quietly and surreptitiously as I can.

The sounds are softer under the table. The screams are subdued, and I can barely hear the death cries of Caesar Salad or Blackened Salmon, which is a good thing.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I may have to give up flying for now, but at least I don't have to--

--shadow looms over me. Great pudgy fingers pick me up and bring me out into the light. I find myself staring into the face of one ugly, humongous...Actually this puts me in mind of the troll I once saw when I was still fluff. This Boy isn't as ugly, but he sure comes close.

To my horror, the Boy starts moving me toward the big gaping hole in his face. I can see teeth of every kind. They're going to eat me! They're going to kill me!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

"That's string Crabbe, you brainless dunderhead," cuts a slick voice above me and Monster Mouth Boy.

I'm ungraciously dropped, to my immense relief, back onto the floor. I roll around to survey my savior - it's another Boy. He is tall and thin, and has very light blond hair, like the color of the mash I like so much. He's very handsome too, even for ball-of-thread standards. Of course, I'm considered a very good-looking ball of thread, so I guess it makes sense for handsome boys to rescue handsome threads.

Handsome Boy turns away, and almost immediately, I'm snatched up again. Oh no! It's Monster Mouth! What's he doing trying to eat me again?!

There's no pause this time, and I'm already halfway in those jaws when a booming voice (which only half of me can hear properly) rings across the Hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen! That's enough! There has been enough rubbish in the Hall today!"

Then the voice goes on and on. I think the voice is lecturing the students, because the hubbub dies down, so I tune out just like I used to when my mother used to tell me off for being coarse, not fine. She always used to weep to think I'd end up a potato sack instead of some Woman's satin sheets.

So I listen to Monster Mouth's interiors instead. They aren't too happy either, grumbling along about this and that. I can't quite catch everything - I haven't yet learned Intestine-speak, but I hear enough to make me want to empty my insides.

"Crabbe, get that disgusting thing out of your mouth at once! "

I whoop for joy as much as a ball of string can whoop at the sound of those blessed words. Within moments, I am back in the light, breathing the wonderful smell of Baked Chicken and Sheperd's Pie.

"Now hand it over!"

I change hands, and my new handler slips me into a smooth dark pocket. As I lay me down to sleep, I wonder tiredly who has me this time, and how long it will be until I get all of my self together again.

[zymurgy]

THE BALL OF STRING OF DOOM!

I patd my pocket, grimacing to myself. Now, I have revenge, for the previouse insult to Malfoy honour. Realy, what did that ball of string think it was anyway? A snowball? A tenisball? A tomato? Well, I, Draco, can tell you, that it's just a ball of stinky, ugly, dirty string.

Now that I've prevented my bodyguards from making stringeaters of themselves, and going the way of that Henry fellow, I'll think I'll steal the chance in all the confusion to bean my head of house with a crusty roll. It has been my lifes ambition to bean people with crusty rolls. Hm...

I take a fair sized roll, from the basket that's fallen to the floor. It whistles through the air, and bonks Severus Snape in the forhead. EEEEEEEAAAAAAARRR BONK!

Severus Snape looks annoyed. I had better leave before he notices I'm still here. After all, that would be blackmail material. We Malfoys may use unforgivables, and be nasty gits, but we would never stoop so low as to get involved in a food fight.

I arange my face into that lofty snear, which says all to well, "You low lives, fighting with food," and make my way out the door. Of course, I conveniantly forgot that Dumbledore was giving a lecture on the dangers of getting a herring bone in the eye.

"Mr. Malfoy," said my Head of House dangerously, still trying to get crumbs out of his hair, "Where do you think you're going before dinner is over? 10 points from Slytherin!"

I'd done it this time, I knew it. If he realized it was my roll, then... I probably wouldn't live this time. Little did I know that there were worse things than THAT for them to find out, and worse consequences too.

Suddenly, Flitwic, anoying subsized maniac that he is, spotted the end of the string hanging out of my pocket.

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" shrieked Flitwick, "DOWN! MALFOY'S GOT THE THREAD OF DOOM!"

Everybody fell silent, and looked at eachother. Only Flitwick himself, and a few first years fell to the floor. I felt my face turning red, as I tried to hide the ball of string deaper in my pocket, only to realized that the end was caught under a bowl of hamburgers at the Hufflepuff table.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, twinkling beind those ridiculously shaped glasses of his. "Flitiwick," he said, "You can get up."

Dumbledore turned to Moody and said, with another twinkle, "I believe the dark arts is your department..."

Moody harumphed, and tried to look as though he hadn't just cursed a bowl of speghetti into oblivion, and nearly blown up the school. "Give that here, ferret face."

My face burning with shame and wounded pride, I handed the string to my DADA professor. Dash it all, another insult to the Malfoy honour. There's just no money in revenge...

[McGonagall's Cat]

The Auror's Expertise

Moody stumped away from the chaos still occasionally erupting in the Great Hall.

"Is this the foul foul thread of hemp that has so plagued Hogwarts over the past century?” he mumbled to himself as he wound the soggy stained sisal with his wand, ever vigilant to have no direct contact with the substances (which soaked it through and could, no doubt, very easily poison half the student body.) His efficient auror’s powers had the slack pulled from the Great Hall and twisted around the ever-increasing sphere in moments.

Step, thunk, step, thunk. “You filament of doom…” he muttered, winding precise layers around the ball. Step, thunk, step, thunk. “You evil line that haunts these hallowed halls,” his magical eye surveying the string intently as he followed where it lead. Step, thunk, step, thunk. Winding, ever winding, looping the string around and around. Soon the offending coatings were themselves hidden within the ever-growing globe. Step, thunk, step, thunk.

He followed it to his very own office near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom! The dastardly string ran under his protection-charmed and multi-locked door . He fumbled with the locks, cautiously chanting the counter-charms to open the door. Once inside, he continued his task. The thread was wrapped around many of his vigilence devices. Even the shadows moving about in the Foe Glass backed away into the swirling fog when the thread was lifted from the floor nearby and wound onto the sphere.

As Mad-Eye neared his desk a sound caused him to slam the ball of thread onto the top of it and spin around to face whoever had snuck up on him. In doing so his wooden leg went out from under him and he was knocked out when he fell against a chair.

The intruder snatched the thread from the desk and ran off into the darkness, furiously winding the thread around the ball, following it, cackling insanely.

[moonbeam3243]

...or cackling as much as a cat can do.

"My precious," Crookshanks purred in cat language. "Precioussss..."

Crookshanks chased the thread down the hallway. Without warning, a door slung open. Crookshanks, whose eyes had been on the ball of thread, ran smack into the door at full speed. The cat fell on its back, dazed.

The thread continued to roll down the corridor, unnoticed by all except...

[zymurgy]

Peeves looked at the dazed cat, and cackled. "Hurray," he thought, "Not only have I just unleashed the terror of the fanged frisbees stolen from Filch's supply cupboard, but I have knocked out a mad cat, and set the Ball of String of Doom free!"

Peeves took off after the string and began to roll it up as he floated along. "Hehe," giggled Peeves wickedly, "Peeves can wreak havoc with this, he can. I'll tie up the professors something dreadful!"

Peeves continued until he found his first victim: McGonagall, who was busy trying to get rid of an enormous tomato sause stain on her robes caused by the furious food fight.

Peeves quickly made himself transparent, and floated over as quietly as possible. He tied one end of the string to her belt, and quickly disappeared with the rest. McGonagall was to busy trying to hex the stain into compliance to notice.

The poltergeist continued on his merry way, singing a nasty Irish drinking song to himself. Finally he reached his destination: the Forbidden forest. There, he quickly found a thestral. He could see them, having witnessed his own death, (an accident involving too many pipecleaners, some Elmer's glue, and a bottle of firewhiskey) in a mirror. He knew that McGonagall couldn't see them. He grinned wickedly.

"Here, Zotz!" he called, as his favorite Thestral came forward, "Peeves has something for you!"

Zotz dearly loved Peeves, for all the sugar cubes Peeves had brought him over the years. Of course, Peeves simply stole them from Hagrid's supply, but Zotz didn't know that. He trotted obediantly forward, and was the suprised recipient of a string tied to his mane.

Peeves sped off, leaving the annoyed thestral thrashing in the woods, trying to rid himself of the string.

McGonagall in the meantime, had discovered the string, and the fact that it was jerking like crazy. She sighed, "The ball of string of doom indeed," she muttered, and began to tug it, trying to roll it all up where she stood.

Zotz of course, didn't take kindly to being pulled bodily out of the forest, (McGonagall was a strong woman) and pulled back. Soon the two were involved in a mighty tug-of-war...

[McGonagall's Cat]

Spro-I-n-g!

The ternsion on the thread pulled it about three feet off of the ground (or floor, depending upon who was looking at it from where). Looking at it is a key concept, as the Slytherin Quidditch team was about to discover. Swooping low over the lawn on their way to the Pitch, the entire lot of them were knocked from their brooms as the thread caught them all about mid-chest. The brooms continued on without them, playing a rousing practice match before the players were able to catch up.

Meanwhile, back at the castle....

The jolt from having roughly a dozen athletes slam into the string, ripped it loose from McGonagall's attire (dropping her soundly on her derriere, but we will be too polite to expound further on this aspect). She shrieked in despair as a two foot length was left hanging from her belt. She knew that whenever the thread of doom is broken, much like a Planeria, it fills out and replaces the severed portion.... which means you now have two. Ripping the offending portion from her belt (which was do-able now that the Thestral wasn't pulling the knot tight), she cast a containment charm as quickly as she could. Then, suspending the sparkling orb that held the rapidly growing Thread of Doom II, she rushed to Dumbledore that he might dispose of it (or at least send it to the Ministry of Magic for safe keeping - if there was such a thing).

Out near the Forest edge, the rapid release of tension on the thread sent the Thestral rolling end-over-end backwards. Zotz was NOT happy! Stretching his great leathery wings he took to the air, circled the Astronomy tower turret, and then dove toward the ground with the most velocity he could muster. With a mighty jerk, the evil thread ripped out a handful of mane-hairs, but he was free! He made a mental note to get even with Peeves at the first possible moment.

The thread end, complete with mane-hairs, flew into the air whiplashing around. It untangled itself, sliding from the tower, and fell in great loops and snakes all over…

[zymurgy]

... until it landed in Hogsmead, right in Madamn Rosmereta's tea, as she sat on her front porch.

"Ah, string," she said. "I do so need something to tie up the drunks with on Fridays."

She picked it up, and began to wind it into a ball. Soon she realized that the thread was snaking all over Hogsmead. "Wonderful," she said to herself, "such a long string will last forever."

She continued to roll up the string, until a great horned owl zoomed out of the sky, and grabbed the ball of thread from her.

The owl zoomed through the air, and....

[hermione_dg]

...landed on the shoulder of a balding middle aged man as he stepped out of the Three Broomsticks. The great horned owl dropped the soggy little ball of string into his owner's hands and waited for praise.

The man looked down at the muddy ball of string, then he looked at his watch and jumped. The owl hooted indignantly and flew away as the man hurried down the street. He had just realized he had left the shop for nearly an hour, his wife would be furious. He was too distracted at the thought of his wife to pay much attention to it now, so he stuffed the ball of thread into his pocket.

As he entered the shop his wife demanded to know why he had been gone so long. He told her he had simply lost track of time, his wife dismissed the matter.

"Now, be a dear and go downstairs to the cellar and pick up a box of Chocoballs," she said to her husband.

As he hurried downstairs he thought about the string in his pocket. It was awfully dirty, his owl had probably just found it in the middle of the road and expected praise. He would probably just toss it away later, but not before having a look at it. There didn't seem to be anything special about the string, but it might be helpful in some way. He was thinking up uses he had for this extremely long piece of thread when he emerged from the cellar.

As he set down the Chocoballs and started to put them on the shelves he bumped into a barrel full of Fizzing Whizbees. While he hurried to clean up the sherbet balls that were now rolling across the floor, the ball of string slipped from his pocket. It rolled among the brightly colored sweets, catching no one's eye except...

[elf_girl_87]

...the eye of one mischievious cat. The cat began playing with the string all the way down the street. The string rolled away from the cat and...

[hermione_dg]

...and stopped at the toe of a young man with flecks of gray in his light brown hair. Remus Lupin was in Hogsmeade on business for the Order. He bent down to see what it was, then picked it up to get a closer look and realized it was a ball of string. It was a very muddy, soggy, and smelly ball of string.

"Well, I could use some more string, my robes are in need of mending," he said quietly to himself.

He took hold of the little ball of string in his wand hand and hurried towards the Hog's Head to meet a witch under a veil. As he was far to busy wishing Mundungus would choose a cleaner place to meet, Remus wasn't really paying attention to the road. He tripped over his own two feet as he turned the corner. He managed to catch himself before he hit the ground, but the thread had slipped from his grasp when he stumbled and...

[evlpez]

...rolled around the corner of the building.

Mundungus Fletcher had a bad habit of being out in the alley behind the Hog's Head at the most inopportune moments. At this particular moment, he was adjusting his long, red wig, hitching up the stockings under his witches robes and cursing the Barkeep for having such a long memory. As he stooped to flatten the hem of his robe, he noticed the tiny ball of thread laying in the dirt.

Never know when something like this might come in handy, he thought as he picked it up and began winding it and following the thread weaving along the ground toward the front of the pub.

"Oi Missus," came a lecherous growl from several feet behind him. Dung froze as he recognized the voice as that of a former business partner he'd rather not have recognize him.

"Hey, Lassie!" The voice neared. "I'm talking to yeh, Poppet. Yeh should be more polite ter friendly gentlemen when yer alone in a dark alley."

Dung chuckled a bit. The old con-man hadn't lost his way with the ladies, that's for sure. He idly continued winding the thread while he waited for the man to get close enough. Sure enough, he was suddenly grabbed in the behind and he jumped in mock surprise and whirled, his wand ready.

"Dung! You deadbeat, you owe me..."

What he owed, he never heard, though he remembered. The stunner was so swift that the old man fell back unconscious before he could finish. Time for that meeting now, Dung thought, estimating that he could meet Remus and be gone before his friend woke up. He tossed the ball of thread at the smelly man on the ground, turned on his heel and pulled down the black veil of his witches hat before stepping out into the brightly sunlit street.

The thread hit the old man on the nose and rolled off his face onto the ground where it...

[hermione_dg]

...kept on rolling and rolling and rolling. However, it soon rolled right under the boots of a rather large man on his way to the Three Broomsticks for a nice chat with Madame Rosmerta and a large Odgen's Old Firewhiskey. Hagrid fell rather unceremoniously to the groud for the second time that day.

Hagrid picked up the little ball of string, and then realzed that this was probably the Ball of String of Doom that all the professors were going on about. He decided to take it back to the school so that Professor Dumbledore could deal with it. He brought it back up to the castle and was near Dumbledore's office when he tripped over the thread that was dangling out of his pocket. Once again falling rather hard that day did not please Hagrid, but he was going to get this thread to Dumbledore.

However, at that precise second Hagrid noticed that one of his many pockets was empty. Then he saw them, six or seven dormice were scurrying across the hall. He jumped up and ran after them, forgetting the ball of string in his haste. The ball of thread sat there for quite sometime, until...

[elf_girl_87]

...Ron almost tripped over the ball of string. He glanced down and picked it up, "This must be what Harry and Hermione are going on about." He thought.

He stuffed the ball into his pocket and headed for their next class. It wasn't until he got to the dungeons for Potions class that he found out that the pocket that he put the ball of string of doom in had a hole. The string could be anywhere...

[zymurgy]

Snape grimmaced as he saw the string laying in the hallway. He remembered, angrilly, what had happened the last time he'd tried to pick it up. Nevertheless, Snape wasn't the sort of man to be cowed by a string of all things, so he gritted his teeth, and picked it up. He began to roll it as he went along, following it towards the entrance.

Suddenly, a dung bomb went off in the next corridor. "SNAPE!" yelled Filch's voice, "It's POTTER! He's getting away!"

Snape concidered quickly: Which was better, destroying the String of Doom! or getting a chance to murder Potter in the line of duty? Potter. Definitely.

He let the ball fall and sprinted off in the direction of Flich's voice. The ball of string began to unroll, sprawling out untill....

[hermione_dg]

...it came to a stop in the middle of te entrance hall. Luna Lovegood looked down and quickly picked it up.

"Oh, string, maybe this is the Ball of Thread of Doom that everyone's so worried about," she said. She shrugged and started to wind up the little ball of thread.

She was rather preoccupied with the string, and bumped rght into a group of girls huddled outside of a classroom. She dropped the thread in surprise.

"Why did you come and knock into us like that, Loony Lovegood?" one of the girls taunted angrily.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to," Luna said calmy, apparently the insults had no effect on her. She glanced at them, then went back to her daydreaming.

She forgot to pick up the string before she walked off, singing "Weasley is Our King" under her breath. It lay there for a short time, and then...

[McGonagall's Cat]

Pansy Parkinson hoped none of the others had noticed it. She surepticiously nudged it with her toe, guiding it away from the rest of the students until she felt it was safe to pick it up without anyone seeing. Quickly she stashed it in the inner-most pocket of her robe and continued on her way to the Slytherin Common Room.

Once inside she looked around slyly. Two of her fellows were skiving off class, playing an underhanded version of Exploding Snap in the corner, but otherwise the area was unpopulated. Still, she didn't feel this place was acceptable, too many prying eyes. Anyone could walk in. What she needed was a very private place... smiling coldly she calmly walked to her dorm.

Carefully checking under all the other beds, behind the doors, inside the wardrobes, and locking the door, she eventually permitted herself to settle in on her own bed. She pulled the rather ordinary-looking ball of thread from her pocket.

"What magic do you hold that the whole school is in an uproar trying to find you?" she addressed the thread. "And what is it worth to them that I now possess you?"

Being a true Slytherin, she plotted the most advantageous route of action. Deciding it prudent to check the lay of the land before putting this plan into action, she pulled her wand and began to cast an invisibility spell onto her prize to ensure that none of the others could steal it from her.

Unfortunately when the spell touched the ball, instead of disappearing as she expected (she was quite excellent at spells afterall) it exploded into a huge chaotic tangle larger than a basket. It flew up to the ceiling and unraveled itself in great looping swirls, then zigged and zagged all about the room. It swooped at her, entwining a bit of itself in her hair. She shrieked and swatted at it as though it was a bat, and ran around the room in a most un-Slytherin-like manner. The string re-grouped, twirling into a ball about the size of one used for tennis, whereupon the panicky Pansy swatted it into fireplace. The pot of Floo powder was knocked into the melee from the mantle. Green flames sprung up and the thread disappeared to...

[Riley]

Hermione Granger was working away, quite alone, when she heard something land in the Gryffindor common room fireplace. Annoyed as she was by this interruption she went to see who, or what, had entered via the fireplace. She was certain that whoever it was was certainly not allowed, and she was just going over pages of Hogwarts: A History in her mind when she found herself staring at a small ball. This small ball was made of string and was no bigger than a tennis ball. Curious, Hermione bent down and picked up this object, which to her looked unmagical and nothing out of the ordinary.

But if her years at Hogwarts had taught her anything it was to except nothing was ordinary until investigated fully. She sat down on one of the comfy chairs near the fireplace and started to examine every nook and cranny of the string ball. While doing this she started to wonder how this object found itself in the Gryffindor common room and what it actually does, if anything.

After about ten minutes of studying the ball she placed it onto the table, her mind wrapped in thought of what the mysterious object could be, and why she was so determined to find out its secrets. Eventually when she came to the conclusion that there was nothing special about this string ball and it just happened to find its way into the Gryffindor common room's fireplace wasn't anything to be bothered about.

So, she picked up the object and chucked it into the bin as she went back to her homework. But, when she started to read again, her mind wandered back to the strange string ball and its possible magical properties. She kept looking over at the bin.

"Stop it Hermione, pull yourself together," She told herself out loud as she let herself look over to the bin for the fifth time. Shaking her head and taking a deep breath she continued to read.

However, curiosity got at her again and again. Finally she shut her book and walked over to the bin. Pulling the small ball out she raced back to her pile of books until she found one called 'Mysterious Magical Objects.' Placing the ball onto the desk, she started to flip through the many pages, scanned the 'S' section, no 'string balls'. She went back to the 'B', maybe something about string balls there...

"Beach Balls, when your's blows you up instead of the ball...no...Bowling Balls, knocking everything over instead of the pins, no, no, no..." she continued to look through all the sections until she slammed the book onto the table in frustration.

She picked the string ball up from the desk and stared at it, as if willing it to do something, anything remotely magical.

After a while she snapped, "FINE! Fine! You...you stupid string ball you! If you want to play games and be an infuriating little ball then FINE! I've had it, you've distracted me from my work long enough!"

And with that Hermione rushed to one of the open windows and threw the string ball out of it with all her might, not noticing the few people in the common room staring at her as if she had gone mad.

[McGonagall's Cat]

The Thread flew through the air for a magically excessive distance, landing soundly in the Raven Nest. Young Ravens scrambled to look at it, but the two larger Ravens drew back for a moment in horror. They remembered hearing what devastation it had wrought at Hogwarts in the 1970's, what havoc they'd heard it was currently wreaking there again. Before any of the flegling Ravens could be corrupted by the foul influence, the two wise bigger Ravens kicked the ball of Thread out of their Nest, watching it fall, making certain it bounced far away, toward.....




for Riley and Gin

[Riley]

Fang was out with Hagrid as usual when something hit him on the head. He was dazed for a moment before he went to look what it was. He saw a small object and bent down for a sniff. But before his nose even touched the surface, Fang had backed away, as if alarmed by this small string ball. He eyed the ball carefully until he was at a safe distance. Hagrid called him, but Fang couldn't leave this object for anyone to find. So he dashed back to it, dug a hole and pushed it inside. But before Fang could fill the hole, Hagrid was by his side growling, "Come on Fang, what's this, digging here? Dumbledore won't like that! I haven't time for this Fang, you should know better! Come on, I'll have to fill it later...." So, Fang had to leave the open hole...

[timeturner]

LONGBOTTOM

Neville Longbottom wandered slowly back to the castle, alone as usual. He felt a certain contentment after finishing his favourite class- Herbology. Just as he was pondering the properties of the Puffpod, he stepped into a hole, tripping and falling flat on his face. Neville got shakily to his feet, brushing debris from his robe. Seeing the ball of string inside the hole caused him to laugh. Better to trip over a ball of string when no one is looking, than to trip over Malfoy's outstretched foot in the presence of his classmates like yesterday. Neville reached into the hole and pulled out the ball. He began winding the loose string around the ball, but stopped suddenly when he heard shrieks of terror coming from the castle. Neville clutched the ball of string and ran towards the horrible screaming. The shock of what greeted him at the castle caused him to drop the ball...

[McGonagall's Cat]

Fred


...Which rolled lazily under the feet of several fifth year Ravenclaw girls who were staring straight ahead at a flyer of The Weird Sisters that had just been posted.

It announced that the band would be playing at the upcoming Halloween Ball. In the picture, Kirley Duke would lean forward, winking at a different girl each time, as he belted out some raucous (though silent, in this case) song. Every time he did this another girl screamed as though she'd just won the Irish Sweepstakes.

"Disgusting isn't it?" Ron mumbled to Neville who stood there in open-mouthed shock.

More and more students flocked to the spectacle.

Fred, suddenly beside Ron and Neville, motioned with a quick nod that they should follow him. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, neither Ron nor Neville caught the hint. Fred shrugged after a second try and started off toward the stairs.

At that very moment one of the Ravenclaws obliviously kicked the string as the whole gaggle giggled at the reaction of a swooning friend.

The thread ricocheted over, low and fast. It wrapped around Fred's ankles like a rewinding bobbin and he fell with a resounding, entirely unnoticed thud. The girls squealed again, obliterating the colourful phrases flowing from Fred's mouth.

He reflexively drew his wand, pausing only long enough to not shoot himself in the foot, and cast a containment spell on the errant thread.

With sudden realization, Fred grinned wickedly. He raced off to the balcony on the fourth floor and waited. At the exact right moment he dropped the string squarely onto....

[zymurgy]

Professor Vectors head.

Professor Vector, however, was too busy wondering what effect, if any, wind resistance could have on Avada Kadavra, to notice that the ball of string had lodged itself onto her hat.

She continued merilly on her way, and had nearly reached her Quarters, when a bit of string intruded itself in her line of vision.

Reaching up, she gave it a slight tug. This dislodged the ball of string from her hat, and caused it roll away from her, unraveling completly.

With a cry of horror, Professor Vector realized that in her hand she held the end of the Ball of String of Doom.

"I must contain it!" she thought.

She began to roll it up, while mentally calculating how long the string was, using the area of the original ball for reference. She had nearly reached the end of it, when...

[McGonagall's Cat]

The Hufflepuff Quidditch team came barreling around the corner. Six athletic students mowed down the willowy Professor sending the thread flying into the air.

It careened off the nearby Portrait of dancing Mediaeval Courtiers, causing them to shout and shake their fists. Several were helping a rather dazed-looking Lady back to her feet.

The Thread banged into a suit of armor with a resounding gong-like "bong" that echoed longer than the abject apologies the Team was using in an attempt to mollify Professor Vectra.

It ricochetted across the hallway, skidded through a window and fell several stories onto....

[zymurgy]

... onto Mrs. Norris.

Mrs. Norris had no idea it was the dread Ball of String of Doom she was handling. To her, it was simply the best thing that had happened since Filch's left shoelace came undone during a staff meeting.

She batted the string to the left. She punted the string to the right. She rolled in it. She even tried to eat it.

Eventually, she had herself so tangled in it, that she was stuck. Frantically, she twitched. Pitifully, she howled and mewled for assitance.

Assitance did indeed come, in the form of ...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...one of the School's homely brown barnowls. This owl had been part of the School's cadre since the early 1960's and was becoming a bit feeble.

Hesperus thought he was dropping onto a tasty hare, but upon encountering the scrawny Mrs. Norris entangled in the string, he merely snapped ahold of a piece of the offending twine and flew up toward the Owlery. Unfortunately, this twirled the hapless cat like a top and threw her dizzily into the shrubs.

The Thread streamed out below the ancient owl, snagged on the Whomping Willow and was jerked from his grasp. It looped down over.....

[zymurgy]

... the thatched roof of Hagrid's hut. The owl felt the rope pull taught, and began to fly in circles around the hut, trying to get it loose again. Unfortunatly, that only made matters worse.

Hagrid was roused from a fine afternoon tea, when he watched a large section of his thatch dissapear into thin air. Astounded, he dashed outside, and caught sight of his roof dangling from a thread.

He grabbed hold of it and tugged.

The thread grew taught.

Hesperus gave up and let go of the thread. With a mighty crash, Hagrid fell backwards and the thread fell to the ground.

Hagrid, having hit his head, was in no condition to notice as the thread was picked up by...

[agrippa]

... a blast-ended skrewt.

The skrewt did nothing, not having a brain large enough to understand was string is.

With a puff of flame, it moved four inches forward, singeing the string just a bit. Since skrewts don't notice much of anything, this one didn't notice when the string was picked up by ...

[timeturner]

Madam Hooch. She was on her way to the Quidditch pitch when a piece of string caught on the end of her broom. Intent on a nice fly around the stadium, she didn't notice the thread attach itself. She twirled her broomstick in her hand, unknowingly entangling the Ball of String of Doom even further.

Hearing a strange noise, Madam Hooch spun around and saw one of Hagrid's dreadful blast-ended skrewts looking straight at her. She could smell something burning and realized with a scream of horror that it was her robes. Her arms flailed and her broom flew into the air as she dropped to the ground, rolling in the grass, desperate to put out the flames. As the broom launched into the air, the thread untangled itself.

Madam Hooch was giving her robes a final pat and didn't notice when the thread was picked up by....

[McGonagall's Cat]

One of the nameless faceless first-years who was wandering in the background, as they are wont to do. The black-robed student curiously carried the thread, wrapping it around and around its core, until one of the main characters showed up, entirely overshaddowing all the annonymous supportting players. The first-year obligingly stood dumbstruck as the thread rolled out of his/her hands to be picked up by....

[zymurgy]

... Loona Lovegood.

She looked sideways at the string in her hands for a moment, and began to wind it over her thumb and elbow. Humming under her breath, she started towards the forbidden forest.

When she reached the forest, she hung the loop of thread on a tree branch, and went onward to the clearing where her favorite thestrals liked to play. Getting a slab of uncooked steak out of her bookbag, she dropped it on the grass and waited.

Meanwhile, the thread had been spotted by...

[McGonagall's Cat]

... Professor Sprout, who had just dropped off a huge bunch of cabbages for Hagrid to feed to the mooncalf burrowed behind his hut. He was hoping to show it to the fourth-years during the next Full Moon.

She had been strolling leisurely along the boundary of the Forest on her way back to the greenhouses, commenting to herslf about the various useful plants that grew at its edge. "Yes, yes! Whortleberries will be pleniful next Spring. And look at the daisies! My, my yes."

Spotting the thread, she headed to where it hung. At the foot of the tree, however, was a delightfully frilly fern growing. As she bent to examine it more closely, the looped thread snagged on her hat. Tumbling down across her face, it snarled itself in the rough bark-like cloth of her robes.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed as all efforts to pull it from her shoulders were fruitless. "I must find assistance with this!"

She rushed off to the castle, the thread trailing out behind her on the breeze, eventually falling away from her clothing completely.

It only lay stretched across the lawn until...

[timeturner]

it was picked up by a portly little man known as Cornelius Fudge.

Fudge eyed the string with curiousity, wondering where it could have come from. Before spotting the thread nestled within the grass, he had been wandering the grounds of Hogwarts, moving from tree to tree, slowly hedging towards the castle. After consuming several large glasses of red currant rum back at the Ministry office, Fudge had realised that it was imperative that he travel to Hogwarts immediately.

Unfortunately, now that several hours had passed, his thought process faltered and the reason he had come to the school seemed most elusive. Try as he might, the only thing that he could truly focus on was the string as he wound it into the shape of a ball.

The lack of focus turned into a serious problem when Fudge suddenly realised he had accidentally joined a large group of students on their way to class. Being a sight taller than the class of second years that surrounded him, he was well aware that he was not blending in very well. Cornelius scowled at the curious looks that were being sent his way.

One student even had the audacity to mockingly comment on his hat. The comment wasn't very funny in Fudge's opinion, but the students made quite a show of pointing and laughing hysterically.

Fudge snorted with irritation, but was not surprised. A throng of twelve year olds couldn't be expected to have the good sense to appreciate such a fabulous hat. The lime green colour of the bowler was the perfect accompianment to the fashionable orange suit he had chosen to wear today.

Resisting the urge to strangle the students closet to him with the precious piece of thread, Fudge continued on, winding and winding. He was so focused, that he didn't see the student-conjured banana peel slide under his foot until it was too late.

Fudge slipped and fell to the tune of laughter. The ball of string flew from his hand and landed........

[evlpez]

The ball of string flew from his hand and landed squarely in the hand of Professor Severus Snape.

"Minister. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Severus asked as he held his other hand out to the prostrate politician on the dungeon hallway floor.

"Professor Snape. Thank you, sir. Actually, I was looking for Dumbledore, I think." Fudge looked around him groggily, suddenly aware that he had no explanation for being where he was. At least looking for Dumbledore was a fair enough excuse to be wandering the castle. The stench of currant and rum wafted and assaulted Severus' sharp nostrils.

"You might have better luck in his office, Minister," Severus droned as the last of the students trickled into the dungeon classroom. "Before you go Minister, one moment please."

Severus slipped into his office across the hall and back out again in a wink, the ball of thread in one hand and a small vial in the other.

"Take this, Minister. It will help revive you from your somewhat diminished condition." He handed the vial of sobering draught to the Minister and absently began winding the thread around the ball. "Now if you'll excuse me sir, I've a class to teach."

Fudge held the vial in his hand and turned towards the stairs. "Yes of course, thank you Professor. I shall check his office, then. And thank you... for this." He held up the vial before tipping it down his throat.

Severus watched his retreating form with a disgusted sneer. How such an inept and disgraceful wizard could have been made Minister of Magic, he'd never know. He sat pondering the way the Ministry was handling the return of the Dark Lord and how things might be different had there been a more competent person in the seat of power. All the while, he wound the thread round and around, lost in thought. He began to step down the hall as he fiddled, following the thread as it led.

Suddenly he heard a timid cough from behind him.

"Professor? Are we going to learn about shrinking potions today, sir?" asked a swotty little Ravenclaw girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to Hermione Granger. His lip curled as he realized he'd forgotten the students in his classroom.

"Five points from Ravenclaw for disturbing me, Miss Watson. Get back to your seat." He dropped the thread ball on the floor beside him, straightened the clasp at the throat of his robes and followed her into the classroom. The ball of thread rolled a few feet and came to a stop, where it waited until...

[zymurgy]

... the feet of Remus Lupin kicked into it.

"My, my," the Werewolf muttered, "must be the Ball of Thread of Doom Flitwick was so worried about."

Remus picked up the ball and began to slowly roll up the string.

"I'm not sure why he called me all the way from Minsk to take care of a ball of thread. It doesn't look all that dangerous- but then again there was that one time when I got stupified by an ingrained hex in a perfectly innocent looking toothbrush."

Just then, the worst thing that could have happened, in Remus' opinion anyhow, happened: Draco Malfoy came down the hall.

"AAAAHHH!" shrieked Malfoy, "WEREWOLF IN THE HALL!"

Immediatley total panic ensued.

Students came running to see what was the matter, and upon catching sight of Remus, began to panic, shriek, and run around in little circles.

Nonplussed, Remus dropped the thread. He barely had time to think that the new DADA Professor had done a rotten job of teaching them how to defend themselves against Werewolves, when he saw something that was, amazingly, even worse than Draco Malfoy- Cornelius Fudge, with a hangover.

"Dumbledore!" grated the Minister clutching his head, "How DARE you let this-"

"I assure you that Remus has his condition totally in control," placated Dumbledore.

"-this person of negligible backround- " continued Fudge.

"-I can personally vouch for Mr. Lupin's trustworthyness," interrupted Dumbledore, only to be cut off by Fudge yet again.

"- to start the students into a shouting screaming panic when your Potion's Master's sobriety Potion didn't include a Hanover Supressant?"

Remus didn't wait to hear more. He was also getting a big headache. The ball of string had rolled who knew where, and he really wasn't about to get indicted for causing a Ministerial Headache. He ran as fast as he could, away from Fudge and the students.

Meanwhile, the thread rolled on until...

[timeturner]

…it nearly flattened Trevor. The toad was hopping slowly down the hall looking for his owner, who had accidentally left him in the library. Trevor’s internal clock told him that it was nearly time for Transfiguration, which meant he would once again become a victim of his master’s wand. It wasn’t all that bad though. He had never been seriously injured and the boy always rewarded him with a slew of tasty flies.

Trevor’s protruding eyes protruded even further when he saw the ball of string rolling towards him at what seemed like an unbelievable speed. With no time to dive neither left nor right, Trevor jumped straight into the air and to his surprise, landed in Neville’s arms.

“Trevor! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Neville cried. “We need to get to class. If we’re late, Professor McGonagall will take points from Gryffindor for sure.”

Trevor was so happy to still be toad-shaped rather than pancake-shaped that he nuzzled deeper into the folds of Neville’s arms and never saw that the ball of string had rolled into…

[zymurgy]

...the south corridor.

Professor Sprout was just shuffling in from Greenhouse 7, when she saw the thread.

"Bother it all," she sniffled, "I don't have time for balls of string."

With a resounding sneeze, she raised her skirts and kicked the string. It flew off and hit a distant object with a loud fwump.

"That'll teach it to get in my way when I have a cold," she coughed, before making her way to her quarters to sleep off her chill.

She probably wouldn't have left the scene if she'd realized that the object the ball of string had hit was...

[McGonagall's Cat]

... the forehead of one of the Hogwarts House Elves.

Normally the little creatures tended to be fairly forgiving, however, this particular elf had been balancing a huge basket of apples on its head on the way to the kitchens. The impact caused the basket to tumble. An over-full bushel of many varieties of apples rolled across the floor like a red, yellow and green wave. They ricocheted off the bottoms of the walls, a large urn, and the foot of a dented rusting suit of armour. The floor looked like an odd billiard table with the balls going every direction unable to find pockets.

The furious elf began to jump up and down, shouting, “You is not good! You is bad apples!” while it rubbed the sore spot on its head.

It then glared and pointed a finger at the basket, which proceeded to swoop around the floor gathering the wayward apples back into itself.

The thread, tangled around a Granny Smith, was scooped up along with all the other rounded pieces and the grumbling elf continued on its way to the kitchens without noticing. Unfortunately this trip was doomed.
As the elf opened the portrait of the bowl of fruit someone from inside the kitchens came charging out. The resulting collision caused the basket to fly into the air, flipping end over end, spewing fruit in a magnificent arc and tossing the ball of string clear over to where it …

[Azgard]

... where it stopped.

Fred and George were coming up to the kitchen entrance when they noticed the house elf on the floor and decided to help him pick up all the apples

“Oh, yous is not having to help, these apples is baad apples!” but George had picked up a few apples anyway. It was Fred who noticed the thread lying on the ground.

“Hey, George, I do believe this is the Ball of Thread of Doom which has had everyone so worried…” An evil grin spread across his face, “ Do you know, I think I found this earlier and dropped it on Professor Vector’s head?” He looked at his twin as they started walking towards the Great Hall. Fred had started winding the thread without even thinking about it.

“Did you really? You threw away this valuable Ball of Thread of Doom?” George looked at Fred in astonishment.

“That was before I knew what it really was, I had no idea it was something more than just a ball of thread…. Imagine…” Fred’s face had a crafty expression on it.

“I know what you’re thinking! Whom should we set this lovely little ball of thread on?” George was playing innocence. “Maybe Filch?”

“Or Snape!” In their excited state they bumped into someone and dropped the ball thread, which rolled until….

[evlpez]

In their excited state they bumped into someone and dropped the ball thread, which rolled until it it was well behind their obstacle.

"Fred Weasley, where on earth have you been?" Angelina was nose to nose with him, and clearly not in a good mood.

"Eep." Fred squeaked.

"My fault, Angelina," George said as he pulled Fred away and behind him for protection. "Entirely my fault. Fred was just saying how it was so important that he be on time to meet you and I made him come with me to er.. do something."

"See?" Fred peeked over his twin's shoulder, smiling sweetly. "Not my fault. Couldn't be helped."

Lee Jordan came up behind Angelina and put his arm around her.

"Angelina, my darling! When are you going to give up on this delinquent and listen to me? I'm the man for you. I wouldn't stand you up, ever."

Angelina smirked as Fred made puppy dog eyes and pushed George aside.

"Never again, Fred," she warned as she walked past.

"Never again, 'Lina, I give you my word." Fred grinned at George and Lee and turned to follow her.

Lee sighed and shook his head.

"Sorry, mate. We're irresistible," George said, patting Lee's shoulder and heading into the Great Hall. Lee stood there, deflated and lovesick, watching the back of the woman he adored. Finally he turned and tripped over the ball of thread and landed on his face. He was knocked out and the ball of thread flew down the corridor, landing...

[Azgard]

The ball of thread flew down the corridor, landing...

In the hand of Professor McGonagall. Professor McGonagall stopped in surprise; she had been looking for this little ball of thread for half the morning and had been about to take a break when it landed in her hand.
'Ah, here is the ball of thread of doom... I am going to put an end to this once and for all!' She thought to herself. Instead of walking along winding the string she took out her wand.

"Accio thread of doom!" She had been hoping all the thread from the ball of thread of doom would come to her hand all nice and neat, she had done the same thing with her yarn several times before.

The result was disastrous! The thread was not acting the way it was supposed to, it was coming towards her, but it was also catching students, professors, and random objects and dragging them with it! It was pandemonium!

She dropped the ball. "Finite!" She shouted over all the voices in the halls, and the thread became limp once more. "Well, I don't think I will be trying that again any time soon!" She looked around at the mess and started helping people to there feet, temporarily forgetting about the ball which had rolled...

[McGonagall's Cat]

... away along the corridor. As other teachers and students rushed to help untangle those caught in the disaster that the thread had already caused, it picked up speed.

Before long the tangled sphere was merrily bouncing along, ricocheting of the walls like a billiard ball. As it bobbled onto the stairway that went to the fourth floor on Thursdays and the Third floor on Tuesdays, Harry Potter attempted to take the last two steps up in one stride.

The thread, seizing its chance, rolled directly where his foot would fall, successfully causing him to tumble head-over-heels back down the stairway while simultaneously catapulting the tread high into the air. Harry pointed his wand at the offending flying string and shouted “Imobilus!” - which unfortunately did nothing as it was made up for the movie - and the string fell onto…

[Azgard]

and the string fell onto… Hermione Granger as Harry fell onto Ron.

"Geroff me!" Came a muffled voice from beneath Harry who was struggling to untangle himself from his squished friend beneath him.

Hermione turned back to look at Harry and Ron. "Come on you two, we're going to be late for - Oh my!" Hermione had suddenly realized what she had in her hand. She was looking at the ball of thread with a mixture of horror and fascination on her face. "So this is the famous Ball of Thread of Doom..."

Ron and Harry had finally managed to straighten out which limb belonged to whom and were standing up again. "Hermione, we need to get to Transfiguration, if we're late again McGonagall will pitch us off the Quidditch team!" Harry said as he and Ron dashed past Hermione without even looking at what she had in her hands.

'Oh dear, he's right' Hermione thought to herself. 'I'll just wind the thread as we go and give it to Professor McGonagall when we get to class...' And so she began to wind the thread as the three of them walked to class.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked into class Professor McGonagall, who had only gotten to the class seconds before, immediately demanded explanations as to why they were late.

Hermione started to explain, "Well, Professor, it was the Ball of Thread of Doom that held us up. You see -"

"Do you know," Professor McGonagall interrupted, "how many students have tried to blame being late on that ball of thread? I'm getting sick of it! I'm afraid I'm going to have to take some points for this."

Hermione's mouth opened up, and then closed, and then opened up again. "Professor, it really was the Ball of Thread of Doom! Look!" She held out the partially wound ball in her right hand. "I have it right here! Harry was running up the stairs and tripped on the ball. The ball went flying through the air and landed in my hands. Of course I immediatly realized what it was and knew I had to give it to you as soon as we got to class."

Professor McGonagall looked at the ball and sighed. "Alright then, would you please take that to the headmaster, he's currently in the Great Hall dealing with two students. You two," she indicated Ron and Harry, "sit down. We need to..."

Hermione didn't hear the rest. Professor McGonagall trusted her to take the Ball of Thread of Doom to Professor Dumbledore! She continued to wind the thread as she walked down the stairs, being careful not to trip.

"Miss Granger." Said a cold voice from Hermione's left causing her to jump. "Fancy seeing you here when you should be in class." A thin smile played over Professor Snape's face. "Just what would you be doing that would allow you to skip class?"

"I was asked by Professor McGonagall to take the Ball of Thread of Doom that I had found to Professor Dumbledore. He's in the Great Hall." Hermione stated defiantly, knowing there was nothing he could do to get her in trouble. Especially seeing as she had the ball with her to prove her story. As she went to show the ball to the Professor she realized that she did not, in fact, have the ball anymore! 'Oh no! I must have dropped it when he startled me!'

"Is that so? Well then," Professor Snape challenged, "you will, no doubt, be able to show me this Ball of Thread of Doom you claim to have found?"

Hermione was looking around for the ball. "Umm, well, I dropped it when you startled me, you see, and -"

"A likely story. Come with me." As he led her away, the ball bounced away to...

[zymurgy]

... to the Hufflepuff common room, where Hanna Abbot saw it, and being a good Hufflepuff was true an unafraid of toil.

Seeing as she was on her way to visit Professor Hooch in the Hospital anyway, she figured there could be no harm in rolling the ball of string up on her way. The poor Flying Instructor had had a nervous breakdown resulting from her two narrow brushes with fate brought on by the String of Doom!

Hanna went on her way, rolling up the string as she went, when she reached the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomphrey smiled at her, and let her by, with a motherly, "Good to see you again, my Dear."

Hanna arrived at the sickbed of Madam Hooch and was just about to hand her the box of chocolate and the token speech of Hufflepuff Sympathy, when Hooch leapt out of bed with an awful screech.

"GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" she shrieked.

In the resulting confusion, as Hanna frantically tried to help Madam Pomphrey calm the patient, the ball of string fell to the infirmary floor, and rolled on ...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...its merry way until it fell through the shortcut hidden behind the statue of Wandering Wanda. It bounced down the twisting stairwell, gathering speed, and launched itself through the tapestry of The Lady of Devonshire with Whippets, landing squarely on...

[zymurgy]

the nose of a Basilisk, the Son of the Mediocre Basilisc that Harry Fought, son of the Slightly Spiffing Basilisk Who Never Fought Anybody, son of the Great High Basilisk Tommy Boy Created.

Fortunately, this being was asleep, and merely blinked a bleary eye as the ball bounced from his nose onto....

[pinkpanther]

. . . the floor, where it rolled along through the corridor unnoticed until it stopped with a little bump at the foot of a door. The door opened and Filch stormed through muttering oaths against Peeves under his breath. He stepped over the ball of string without seeing it, but Mrs. Norris, with her huge lamplike eyes, stared at it cuiously. She gave it a timid sniff, the grasped it in her mouth and trotted after her master.
She had barely held it for five minutes, though, when Crookshanks came bounding through another door and, seeing Mrs. Norris, swatted at her head. Ducking, she hissed and dropped the string, which rolled determinedly toward the Great Hall, where Dumbledore had just opened the door. . .

[zymurgy]

"My word," said Dumbledore with a twinkle, bending to pick up the ball of thread, "The Ball of Thread of Doom! I shall bring it over to the Ministry to have the curse broken."

Rolling it up as he walked the Supreme Mugwump had every intention of getting it out of Hogwarts, but it was not to be.

"HEADMASTER!" shrieked Poppy, running towards him, "Hooch is having a nervous breakdown! She's threatening to resign!"

"Oh dear," said Albus, dropping the thread in his haste. "I shall just have to talk her out of it...

The thread bounced to the floor and rolled on to...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...tangle itself around the feet of poor Sally-Ann Perks who was just coming into the Hall to eat.

She fell with a shreik, causing several students in front of her to turn around to see what all the commotion was about, and others behind her to trip over her prone form. Being a huge crowd intent on food, those in the back didn't stop. Soon great masses of students were collapsing and stumbling, completely blocking the main doors of the Great Hall.

Derek, who still hadn't gotten over the trauma of Dumbledore speaking directly to him at Christmas Dinner when Harry was 13 (though how and why Derek knew Harry had been 13 at the time was a mystery even to himself), began twitching as he lay sprawled on the floor. (This was the beginning of a food phobia which would plague him for the rest of his life.)

In the middle of the horrid mess, Eloise Midgen began grabbing handfuls of the foul string, wadding it into an unceremoniuous tangle. Eventually the pile of students sorted itself out and she was able to extricate herself. Stompping over to the nearest trash chute with the gob of thread, Eloise angrilly shoved it through the flappy door.

The Thread grinned evilly to itself as it swooshed through the chute and landed....

[pinkpanther]

with splash in the lake. On its way down the rubbish chute, it had spontaneously switched directions and slid down through the plumbing and out into the lake. It began to float along the glassy surface of the lake, seeking more mischief, when a large tenacle stretched out and caught the tangled mass. Lazily, the giant squid began to wind it up, when suddenly it was snatched out of the water by a low-flying . . .

[zymurgy]

...student on a Cleansweep five.

"Tada!" yelled the student. "I've the Ball of String of DOOM!"

But his joy was short lived, as he was distracted by the sight of Hooch, in ugly Hospital Wing Pajamas, running across the lawn chased by both Dumbledore and Pomphrey.

"Come back!" yelled Albus. "We've got a contract!"

"Come back!" yelled Pomphrey. "You might have contracted something!"

"Take it up with my lawyer!" shrieked Hooch. "I refuse to stay here!"

Nonplussed, the student let the ball drop, unheeded to...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...be swatted like a high fly ball by the Whomping Willow.

The thread flew through the air like a comet and careened off the nearest tower. With a thud and a sproing it arched even higher, bounced off the roof of one of the lower parapets and crashed through the top of Greenhouse Three directly onto...

[entr'acte]

... the Ghost of the Fat Friar who was spending some time with Professor Sprout's plants (to get the feel of life, you know). Of course being as insubstantial as a ghost he didn't feel anything as the thread entered the top of his head and landed on the ground by his feet. In fact, he didn't notice anything at all until he looked down.

"My," he chuckled, "What have we got here?" Being ghostly as he was, he couldn't pick the thread up. Instead, he sat down on the ground to examine the ball of thread. "Quite um... interesting."

"Well..." he attempted to pick it up, "I can't just leave it here, somebody might trip on it."

He grabbed hold of a random plant (plants in this story, of course, are special and allow ghosts to manipulate and touch them) and said to it, "Pick it up for me, will you, and throw it out of here ="

The plant rushed to obey, ignoring the Friar's last words which were...

"GENTLY!!"

The ball of thread sailed out of the green house to land ...

[McGonagall's Cat]

... square on the point of the Unicorn's horn that Hagrid was talking with near the edge of the forest. The fine specimen snorted! It reared high, pawing the air with its front feet, then wheeled on its heels and dashed deep into the woods.

"Wait!" Hagrid shouted and ran after the shining white beast.

Dashing between the increasingly dense trees, the unicorn shook its head violently and the thread flew from the end of its horn to fall onto...

[zymurgy]

... a spider's web. An especially ENORMOUS spider's web.

Aragog jabbed it with it's pincers, blindly thinking it was some fat tasty forest animal, and got a jaw full of wet contaminated disgustingly dirty string.

With a howl of pain, he let out a string of Arachnaic words which were so off-color and impolite that the other Acrumantulas blushed. Considering that spiders CAN'T blush, this was quite a feat..

Aragog rolled up the string in the webbing it had become entangled in, and shoved it mightily from his web. It bounced, a sticky mess, and landed...

[McGonagall's Cat]

... in the pine tree that Grawp was bending almost in two.
He happily let go of the bowed tree which recoiled and flung the sticky, dirty ball of thread high into the distant treetops.

There the string bounced and bumped through the branches until it fell upon ...

[zymurgy]

... Mr. Weasleys car. With a bit of complex manouvering involving the windshield wipers, the rear view mirrors, and the front door, the car managed to slam the ball of string into the front seat.

With a varoom the car roared through the forest path, destroying a web, annoying a centar, and confusing a bevy of fairies.

Finally, it reached it's destination - Hagrid's hut.

Throwing one of its doors open, it tipped, letting the ball of string roll out onto the ground.

It honked its horn to signal delievery, flashed its lights, then roared out of sight once more.

The ball rolled a short ways, as it was covered in rather sticky spider web that prevented it from getting very far. It did, however, manage to get far enough to ...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...stick to the sock of Cho Chang as she rushed from class to Quidditch practice.

It managed to hold without her notice until she reached the entrance to the Pitch. The rest of the Ravenclaw team was emerging from their locker room, already dressed, carrying their equiptment.

Roger Davies shouted, "Yo! Chang! What's that on yer foot?"

She glanced down, recognized the String of Doom and let out a shriek, kicking her leg as hard as she could to dislodge the offensive thread.

It flew high into the air, eventually falling....

[entr'acte]

...

into the Owlery. The owls (annoyed at being awakened so early in the day) hooted their annoyance and promptly went back to sleep. The ball of string lay on the floor until a gust of wind blew threw the windows and caused the ball to start on it's way...

down the stairs...

out the door...

and directly into the path of...

[zymurgy]

...Ernie McMillian

"I say," he said dramatically, gingerly tapping the disgusting thing with his foot, "'tis the Ball of String of Doom! Must be a tangled plot of the Dark Lord, or some new madness of Harry Potter - or even something the Professors thought up to test our minds ... Our obvious course, for the good of our house, is ... "

His house mates waited with baited breath for instructions involving gallantry, for words of great wisdom and profundity, for some amazing revelation.

"... to clean it," finished Ernie. "SCORGIFY!"

Of course, as we know, casting spells on the string of doom has rather nasty effects- to be sure, the string became clean. But it did so by flinging all the dirt it had accumulated into poor Erics face, propelling itself in the opposite direction.

"Ernie! Are you ok?" his housemates yelled, rushing up and trying a barrage of cleaning and healing spells, which eventually fixed the problem. Of course, before they managed to fix anything, they'd removed and reattached his eyebrows once, misplaced his nose on his foot and replaced it, and once even lost track of his left arm altogether and had to Accio it back. Even more oddly, the entire process was entirely bloodless.

In all the screaming and confusion, nobody noticed that the Ball of String of Doom had hit ....

[Azgard]

Professor Snape, who happened to be in a rare good mood after having caught that little Know-It-All-Granger attempting to skip class. He chuckled to himself as he thought 'Actually, it wasn't a lie, but no matter, she got what she's -'

"Whom ever is taping my shoulder had better have a very good reason..." he warned in a deadly whisper. The ball was somehow supporting itself on it's own string and randomly tapping Snape on the shoulder.

Snape turned around and attempted to curse the witless student he assumed was behind him, but the curse rebounded back on Snape knocking his wand out of his hand and he found himself tightly bound in string from his shoulders to his ankles. Caught unawares as he was at this development he toppled off his feet onto the floor.

All Snape could do was to watch the ball bounce away to...

[timeturner]

...Draco Malfoy, who picked it up to examine it closely.

"What do we have here?" Draco drawled.

Crabbe and Goyle exchanged a silent, but exasperated look. They knew what was coming next.

"Ah, the String of Doom. My father told me all about this," Malfoy bragged.

"Who cares," Crabbe mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say, Crabbe?" Malfoy snarled.

Crabbe started, "Uh...I said blue hairs."

"Blue hairs?" Malfoy questioned, a note of skeptisism in his voice.

"Er, that's right. Blue hairs."

Malfoy continued to look suspicious causing Crabbe to panic. He looked to Goyle for help, but found none as Goyle had been distracted by a shiny button that was glittering within the grass. Crabbe looked around, growing more desperate by the second. That's when he saw his out.

"Blue hairs. Right there!" Crabbe pointed excitedly into the distance.

Malfoy turned his head to follow Crabbe's thick finger and dropped the ball of string. It rolled directly under...

[Azgard]

It rolled directly underneath the invisibility cloak from under which Harry Potter was busy observing the Ravenclaw Quidditch practise.

All of a sudden the one bludger that was being used in practice came flying at Harry, causing him to try and dive to the side, away from the bludger. The Ball of String of Doom caught under his foot caused Harry to slip sideways instead and kick the ball way up in the air, where it...

[lupinsmyman]

…Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, Rodger Davies squarely in the head. It wound around his broom, trying to pull him down.

“It’s that bloody string of EVILNESS!” he yelled trying his best to keep his balance.

By now other members of the team were trying to help Rodger fight the string. A third year flew underneath him. When he tried to grab it, the ball unwound and fell to the earth right beside…

[timeturner]

...Hedwig, who had paused on the ground to readjust the letter that was tied around her leg. With a slight roll of the head, Hedwig investigated the ball of string. She hooted imperiously and decided the time had come to dispose of the infernal ball of doom. Stabbing it with her beak, she lifted the ball and herself into the air.

Unfortunately, the banishment of everlasting doom was not to be. Hedwig accidentally dropped the wad of string just as she was flying over the castle's courtyard. It sailed through the air and landed...

[entr'acte]

.. directly on top of Madam Pince's hat. This was one of the rare occasions when she actually stepped out of the stuffy confines of her library ("Stuffy! How dare you! Come back here you nitwit!" - Madam Pince)

She strolled across the courtyard, having not noticed anything. Many of the students were peering at her most curiously, but she attributed that to the fact that none of them had ever seen her step out of the castle. Well, obviously, they never really paid attention to the librarian.

"Er." Madam Pince spun around to see Professor McGonagall standing behind her with a curious look on her face. "Irma - ?"

"Well, out with it, Minerva," Madam Pince said. "Is my robe backward, my hat at an odd angle? Are my wretched dust bunnies following me again?" To herself she muttered, "Hmmph. I thought I'd taught them their lesson last time."

"No. No," said Professor McGonagall. She looked distracted and was staring into the space above Madam Pince's head. "It's nothing. It's just -"

"Good day, then." She tossed her head and continued to walk, her nose in the air. The String of Doom fell from her hat as she walked and bounced as it hit the ground. It then continued it's way, tripping a few unknowing students, one drunken house-elf, and nearly starting a fight between two unobservant first years. It then rolled into ...

[timeturner]

...Blaise Zabini's bookbag. Blaise had dropped the bag out of necessity just moments before. The red-headed Weasley girl, or BTW as he liked to call her, had lost her temper and jinxed him.

Blaise swore under his breath. He wasn't sure which hex she used, but his face felt very strange. Plunging his hand into his bookbag, Blaise felt around for his wand, hoping to perform a counter-curse before anyone spotted him.

Too late. Blaise heard someone screaming and recognized Pansy's voice.

"Aghhhh! Your face! Your face!" Pansy screamed.

"What's the matter with my face?" Blaise asked desperately, still scrambling to find his wand.

"It's...it's...inside out!" Pansy said, horrified.

Becoming more panicked by the second, Blaise dumped the contents of his bookbag onto the ground, not noticing that a ball of string had rolled out. The Ball of Doom rolled and rolled, finally coming to a stop in the middle of...

[McGonagall's Cat]

...the second year Herbology class as they raced back into the castle.

The Thread of Doom grinned malevolently. It wrapped around an ankle-sock clad leg and rode into the massive entryway, then spun off to wrap around yet three other passing feet and finally firmly attached itself to the nearest post of the House Points Hourglasses.

The string began to tighten. Shouts rang out as student after student tripped and fell. One landed against a suit of armour adding a resounding clanging to the chaos. Peeves came to assist, tossing water baloons at the already downed students. The Gryffindor Hourglass wobbled precariously as the Hufflepuffs tried to steady their own (since its crashing would be problematic due to us not knowing what sort of precious stones it holds).

Meanwhile the Ball gleefully untangled itself from the mess and rolled across the foyer into the Great hall where it......

[Amaranth]

...bumped gently against the highly polished shoes of Rufus Scrimgeour. The Minister's nose wrinkled as he detected a whiff of lake water and sweaty feet, causing him too look around for the cause of the horrid odour. He sniffed, his expression becoming more and more disgusted until he spotted the ugly ball of thread at his feet. He felt that he should really have a word with a headmaster about the state of cleanliness in the school, as it was clear to him that such an object as this ball of thread was most certainly a plague-spreading risk to health. Thoughts of gleaming environmental reports and disgraced headmasters began to swim through his mind as he pulled on a glove and reached down to pick up the offending object.

Sadly, it was at this moment that his assistant, Percy Weasley, came rushing into the Great Hall, bashing into the Minister and causing both of them to topple to the floor in a tangled mess of angry words and bruises. Sadly for the Minister, he was denied his environmental report, as his outstretched hand had knocked the ball of thread well out of reach and under one of the tables, where it...

[QuidditchChick]

...tangled around the shoes of a female ravenclaw student, who was previously enjoying her study of the phases of the moon.
"What in the world?" she exclaimed as she felt something tighten around her ankles. She set her book aside and looked under the wooden table. "EEEK!" she squeeled in shock at the sight of a dingy ball of string circling her feet. She kicked her feet in an attempt to get rid of the stringy pest. She grunted in frustration. Then she tapped the student next to her. "What do you think this is?" She tried to bring her feet around the bench to show her companion, but instead was tripped up by the naughty ball of string.
She picked herself off the floor, utterly embarrassed. She glared at the ball. It seemed to be staring at her, mocking her in silence. She shook with anger, and then, kicked the ball as hard as she could. It soared through the Great Hall until it landed...

[timeturner]

...on a robe. More specifically, a Slytherin robe which was being worn by one Pansy Parkinson.

Because she was so intent on getting to her next class, young Pansy Parkinson never noticed the ball of string that was attached to the back of her robes. She never noticed that it was covered in cobwebs and she especially did not notice that it had begun to unravel slightly.

It was unfortunate for Pansy that not all creatures were as oblivious as her. For someone had noticed the string. Noticed it, and coveted it. That someone was Mrs. Norris.

Mrs. Norris followed Pansy out of the great hall and up more than five flights of stairs. She waited for the girl to stop, but the girl never did. By the time they reached the sixth floor, Mrs. Norris realized that if she wanted the string, if she really wanted it, she would have to fight for it. And fight for it she did.

Young Pansy never knew what hit her. She was knocked to the ground, scratched, and bitten. It was mayhem at it’s finest.

Lost in the shuffle was the ball that had started it all. In her desperation, Mrs. Norris had inadvertently kicked it down the corridor. It rolled….

[the finicky lady]

…down the stairs. Down and down it went, bouncing gleefully on each step. It hadn’t had so much fun since the Marauders, scourge of the peace in the castle, had animated it! So much fun to trip up students and annoy teachers, such a wonderful joke!
The String of Doom was so absorbed in its malignant musings it barely notice the slight tug on the thread farther along. Startled, it bumped against a wall and came to a stop, just as someone began tugging in earnest at the thread from farther down the hall. Slowly, the ball began to unravel again as the person pulled, and pulled, and pulled.
Frantic not to be unwound, the ball curled itself up tight and waited out the ride. Shortly it found itself in the hands of a curious first year, who held it up to the light from a window for an examination of this unusual artifact.
“What a disgusting ball of thread!” one of her friends squealed. “Wherever did it come from do you think?”
The first year was just on the verge of answering when a disturbance down the hall caught her attention. Ms. Norris was scrambling down the hall towards them, yowling like a demon. The mere presence of the cat burdened both the girls with a guilty conscience, though neither had done anything to warrant it, and they turned and fled. In her panic to avoid the angry cat, the girl tossed the ball out the window. Far above the ground and trailing its tail from the hall, the Ball went sailing…

[moonyprof1]

straight into the branches of the Whomping Willow.

Whomp! Whomp! The hideously large arboreal plant tried to rid itself of the Thread Ball of Doom, but in vain. The ball merely unraveled further and wound itself in, around, and through its homidical branches. Thread against Willow struggled, locked in a battle to the death.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Luna Lovegood should choose this moment to wander by.

Luna, her vision a bit obscured by the Spectra-Scopes she was wearing, and distracted by the new edition of the Quibbler that her father had sent her ("Ancient Astronaut from Mars bears Severus Snape's Love Baby!"), walked directly into the path of a flying skein. She barely had time to think, "Hmm, that's interesting," before she found herself pulled into the maelstrom of flying branches and fibers.

Neville Longbottom, who had remained largely unaware of the bizarre turn of events at the school, and who was taking Trevor for a little constitutional in Greenhouse Five, watched in horror.

"Ak! Um! No! Bad idea!" Option one: watch the girl you quite possibly have a crush on and who is in any case a good friend get turned into willow whumpage. Option two: Try to do something about it that would no doubt be futile and become willow whumpage.

It was at times like this that Neville deeply, deeply regretted having been Sorted into Gryffindor.

What did he have? A Remembrall? No, he'd lost that ages ago. Trevor? Trevor had never done a helpful thing in the entire time he'd owned him. Wand? What spell would he use, anyway? Shears? No, those were in the greenhouses, unless. . .

Neville scrabbled frantically in his right pocket and came out with a handful of Mooncalf dung fertilizer. Ok, not optimal conditions, but the only thing he could think of. He hurled it deep into the foliage, aiming for the willow's root ball.

And just as he had hardly dared to hope, the massive plant began to droop and sag. "Over-feeding," Neville thought smugly. "Works every time." The branches wilted and the thread disentangled itself from the tree. Luna began placidly picking the thread out of her hair.

"Oh, hi," she said vaguely. "Did you see . . " she added, waving in the general direction of the Whomping Willow.

Neville hid his stained hands behind his back. "Err, sorry? No, er, I--must have missed that."

"Oh, well," said Luna, dropping the end of the thread onto the ground, "if you'd rather not admit to saving my life with a well-timed ball of poop, then no doubt you know what you're doing." She wandered off again in the direction from which she had come.

Neville stared after her, jaw dropping, then turned and gave the Thread Ball of Doom a vicious kick in the direction of the lake, and it rolled rapidly . . .