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

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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.

[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.