The Game - Round Three - Pure Nerve and Outstanding Courage, Mission and Submissions Options

[Department_of_My...]

Welcome to round three of The Game!
Pure Nerve and Outstanding Courage!



Stoats: The first one of you to solve the riddle below wins a $20 gift card from Whimsic Alley!

Ferrets: Solve the riddle below to receive your writing mission for this round.




Think you know the answer?
Then send a PM to Department_of_Mysteries
If you answer wrong, you may try again.
Good Luck!
(And keep out of that corridor on the fourth floor!)

[zymurgy]

A Few Rather Useless Bits of Derringdo

Filch glowered at the lichen growing between the flagstones, feeling a prickle of anger creep down his neck. It didn’t matter how often he had dowsed the stuff with Madam Scower’s Magical Plant Remover, it always grew back, stubborn, harder, and dirty. He had even once resorted to using a pin to pick it out of the stones by hand to no avail.


Professor Quirrell stepped timidly onto the scene, picking his way carefully, looking for all the world as though he were certain something were about to eat his ankles. Because he was paying so careful attention to the ground, he missed Filch altogether and ran into him, knocking him over. Mrs. Norris hissed angrily at the professor’s robes.


“Oh!” Quirrell stammered in panic, jumping a step backwards. “I – I – I didn’t see you there! P-p-p-please forgive. I was j-j-just on my way down to see Professor Snape, you know a-a-about –”


Filch picked himself off the floor, and glowered at the other man. “If you’re going to see him anyway,” he growled, “then you can tell him from me that I’ve a need for some of his death fizz.”


“D-d-death?” asked Quirrell, skirting about Filch and beginning to back away, darting nervous glances towards the cat. “B-b-but my dear Filch, there surely isn’t a n-n-n-eed for that is there?”

Filch shot the skittish Professor a dirty look. “None of your nevermind,” he said, as Quirrell finally turned his back and scurried off.


“Someday he’ll shiver so hard he loses his teeth,” Filch muttered under his breath. “Stupid cowardly wizard.”


Mrs. Norris purred in agreement. Gathering her in his arms and stomping a little louder than strictly necessary, Filch went on to the next corridor, shooting a last glare at the lichen. He stopped at the gargantuan statue of Gordon the Grief-stricken Goblin, which portrayed a Goblin much larger than life, sitting with his head in his hands. As usual, Filch noted with a grimace, the lap of the statue was brimming with scraps of parchment and discarded sweet wrappers.


“Hooligans,” he muttered to Mrs. Norris. “I’ll string them up by their thumbs some day.”


He placed his cat on the floor and continued to mutter curses and threats under his breath as he gathered the items up and fed them to dustbin, which gave a metallic sounding sigh as though the meal were rather good.


Suddenly, he was knocked to the floor for the second time of the day, this time by a large group of stampeding students, apparently quite frightened and high on adrenaline. He picked himself up just in time to see the last billowing cloak flutter around the corner.


“Detention!” he shrieked after them, knowing even as he did so that it was useless. “I’ll find out who you were! You’ll be in detention for the rest of the term – I’ll make you scrub cauldrons or – ”


“Calm yourself, Filch,” snapped an imperious voice, behind him suddenly. “They are, for once, doing as they’ve been told. There’s been a troll sighted.”


“Stars above,” Filch swore, “have a heart, Snape. Come up behind a man and tell him to calm down – and then tell him there’s a great hulking Troll lumbering about?”


Snape silenced him with an urgent gesture, breaking into a run towards the stairs. “No time, man. Quick, come along! Quirrel came by here, didn’t he? Did you see him?”


“He said he was looking for you,” said Filch. “Come to think of it, though, he went towards staircase six and –”


“It doesn’t go to my floor,” Snape finished for him. “Come along, I might need to send somebody back for help if I don’t catch him in time.”


Not explaining further, Snape ran at breakneck pace for the stairs and drawing his wand. “Quator!” he commanded, tapping the railing and jumping on.


Filch joined him just before the stairs changed rapidly on Snape’s command, and narrowly missed dropping Mrs. Norris into the disappearing step.


The stairs carried them swiftly to the fourth floor and slid into place with a clang.


“If I’m not back with him in fifteen minutes, send for Dumbledore and Pomfrey,” commanded Snape, grabbing hold of the handle of the forbidden door.


“You can’t go in there!” protested Filch, pulling him back. “There’s a great slobbering monster! He’ll tear you to pieces!”


“I know that,” snarled Snape, pushing him aside, “but I’m not here on a capricious whim! Remember, fifteen minutes before you send for help.”


With that, the Professor pushed the door open and flung himself into the room, wand drawn. Filch drew his watch and then froze as a horrible growling and barking arose from the room, accompanied by several shouted spells he did not recognize.


Mrs. Norris looked from the door to her master and gave him a significant look. “Now, my sweet, he said fifteen minutes,” he chided, although he had his own doubts whether the professor would last that long. “We’re not to jump in.”


A sudden agonized shriek changed Filch’s mind and he wrenched the door open. The first thing he saw was the monster – an enormous dog with three heads. The second was that the middle head had a firm and bloody grip on Snape’s leg.


Mrs. Norris gave an enraged hiss and launched herself at the leftmost head of the beast, while Filch landed a swift blow to the middle head, which gave a yelp and released Snape’s leg.


The cat then leapt onto the middle head, and set her claws into its fur. All three heads growled and barked as the dog tried to dislodge her with furious swipes of its paws, but it couldn’t reach.


Snape scrabbled away from the dog, his jaw set in determination. “Get back!” he shouted, “it’ll pull you to pieces!”


Filch grabbed the other mans arm and pulled him upright. “It’s a wee bit preoccupied,” he shouted back. “Can you stand?”


Snape gritted his teeth and shook his head, no, but pointed towards the far corner of the room. Filch saw immediately was he wanted – the wizard had dropped his wand.
Filch threw a glance at his cat, who rode the third head with seeming contentment as the others growled at her and the paws kept up their futile grabbing. In a split second he made his decision. “Watch my cat,” he whispered fiercly, before making a dive for the other side of the room.


Distracted, for the moment, from the cat on its head, the dog turned towards Filch and growled menacingly. Filch grabbed the wand and tossed it over the dog’s head towards Snape, who caught it.


The second head, followed the path of the stick with eager eyes and made as though to go after it, but the third head was intent on attacking Filch and the middle head was shaking madly to and fro, still trying to dislodge the cat.


Snape opened the door, and signaled Filch to make a dash for it. Filch ran across the room again, reaching out to grab his cat on his way out.


Both men fell to the corridor floor in a tumble of limbs, and scrambled to slam the door shut before the dog could escape. Once it was secure, Snape cast a quick locking charm, followed by one to disinfect his wound and stop the bleeding.


Mrs. Norris jumped from her master’s arms and stalked down the corridor, tail waiving jauntily in the air. Filch leaned against the door, breathing hard, looking after his cat with a bemused air. “Always wins, Mrs. Norris,” he said proudly, a slow grin forming on his face. “Dogs don’t stand a chance with her.”


Snape leaned back and banged his head against the door sharply. “He’d already gone,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I was too late – listen, Filch, not a word to a soul. I’ve no proof to accuse him with now and …”


Filch nodded once. “Right you are, Professor,” he agreed. “Knew there was something off about him, never trust a twitchy fellow… We’ll get you to the hospital wing…”


But Snape was already limping back the way they had come. “No,” said Snape, “it’s better nobody knows.”


“It’ll open up again if you keep running about,” protested Filch.


“Then I’ll just have to bandage it,” returned Snape. “The troll may still be loose and –”


Filch watched Snape hobble down the stairs, wand out, face fierce and determined. “Snape!” he called out.


The Professor glanced back over his shoulder. “Yes?”


“You owe me a pint of death fizz.”


A day later, while Filch was picking a few stray beetles from a portrait of Roderick the Rebellious when Snape limped up behind him.


“I’ve got your fizz ready,” he said, offering the bottle. He hesitated slightly before adding, “There’s a bit of cleaning to be done in my store cupboard.”


Filch took the fizz, which was making a low, angry bubbling noise, and pocketed it. “Somebody spill ingredients every which way again?” he asked, leading the way to the store cupboard. “Ought to be strung up by their toes, every one of them.”


Once in the cupboard, Snape sank onto the nearest trunk and allowed his pain to show on his face, pulling up his robe to show that the wounds on his leg had reopened. “I could use a third hand,” he said, handing Filch a roll of bandages, while he rolled his sock away from the gashes.


“Told you not to walk right after healing it,” said Filch. “Oh it did chew you up nasty, didn’t it?”


Snape sighed exasperatedly, using his wand in one hand to fix the bandages in place while using the other to help Filch wrap them properly.


“I don’t know which one of you was the bigger idiot,” Filch went on. “You, or my cat. You going in there with your bloomin’ ‘get help in fifteen minutes,’ or her jumping on the things head like she did. You’ve both more spunk than brains.”


Snape looked up to give a twisted smile. “Your cat did seem to enjoy herself.”


“Aye, she did,” agreed Filch. “And you should see her carry on. Acts as though she hung the ceiling in the Great Hall, and enchanted it too. Expect her to require me to bow, every minute.”


“Your fortunate you’re not bowing to her already,” said Snape wryly. “I’ve known people to get rather stupid about their pets.”



“Stupid as in keeping a three-headed dog in a school?” Filch shot back.


“Blasted thing,” said Snape, “How’re you supposed to keep track of all its head’s at once?”


Filch shrugged. “Grow a few extra yourself, perhaps.”


Snape hissed in pain as Filch tugged a bandage into place with rather more force than necessary. “ ‘Extremely painful death,’ Dumbledore says,” muttered Snape. “‘Extremely’ is a bit of a euphemism.”


“Bit of a falsehood,” said a portrait of Calder the Cauldron-Headed, looking up from feeding its owl a strangley viscous potion. “Fluffy wouldn’t hurt a fly.”


“Fluffy?” repeated Filch incredulously. “Why does that man always name them the most ridiculous things?”


The portrait gave an offended sort of sniff and left its frame, as the owl began to flutter about, hooting pink bubbles.


Bandaging finished, Snape reached behind a mortar and pestle pulled out a bundle of herbs and handed them to Filch. “Set some of that out for Mrs. Norris,” he said. “She deserves it.”


Filch gave the sludge a distrustful sniff. “What is it?”


Snape smiled. “Catnip.”