Picking up the thread, A Dare Options

[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...