I was there - physically, at least - among lush Scottish fields. A huge black gate stood before us like an eagerly salivating maw, waiting to gobble us whole. Roj Fadera fastened his hachimaki headband around the circumference of his bulbous forehead, which tbh made him look like a poser. You know who else are posers? Those friffing Saxe Coburg preps. Ffs Scotland should be independent. Or even better, they should be subjects of the kingdom of Rohan, lol. Mario "Itsa me!" Incandenza, Kittenplan's hunchback red-cap-and-blue-overalls-wearing savant broski from Enfield, was taking cool scenic landscape establishing shots. I think his dad was a filmmaker too or something but thb I recallen't. Dumbledore sat up high in his Wheeled Siege Tower of Pacifism, his electronically-amplified and distorted voice (the mic was autotuned and vocodered, lol) patiently explaining the rules of the second challenge to the vast sea of heads and bodies that had gathered to see us off. I wondered if Legola was among them...

"On my signal," spake Dumbledore, sounding like 808's & Heartbreak-era Kanye West, "our brave and supple contestants will do an enter into this here enclosure. There, they will have twenty-four hours to find, capture and tame a wild tennis ball. These tennis balls will be used by our contestants in the final challenge, so the higher level the better!"

Misfit miscreant first year Colin Creepy ran up to us, we, the challengers (but not like the spaceship cos that's disrespectful) and handed us each a satchel of Gatorade bottles. "Throw these at the wild tennis balls," explained Colin, panting on account of him being quite out of breath. "It'll make them easier to placate."

It was around then that I was starting to wonder about the ethics of this here challenge.

I heard Hogwarts groundskeeper Augustus Filch fire an AK-47 into the sky (which caused Jon Snow to flinch for some reason) and Dumbledore sayeth "And...GO!" and the gate opened as if by magic and we all entered the magical world of...BALLMON.

Kittenplan, Fodrearer and I found ourselves beholding an implausibly vast and varied landscape.

"I don't think we're in Scotland anymore..." Kittenplan muttered between tired exhalations.

Then Ferderer brusquely pushed Kittenplan and I aside and proclaimed "For ze glory of Sturm und Drang school boku no will win this CHALLENGE! HIYA!" and then with uncharacteristic bravado he stole into the Ballmon world. I wondered if his hachimaki had taken over his mind or something but that's silly like who would even do that?

I noticing that my Melan-ki was getting awful low yessiry btu I kept truckin on liek a captain.

I nodded at Kittenplan as if liek to say "good luck babeo but I'm not a lesbian but i am bi but only for cite females celebs" and we headed in different directions and i was heading to a caynon as i was walking i saw all different kinds of balls jjust kind a boubncing around in the wilder ness and all the balls where living & had qt anime faces and I was looking for a weak ball bc if u recale I am trying t2o lose this whole friffing challenge which has tbh taken up way too many chapters of this story already but the n I saw a MAN.

And but so the man was strolling around the place and he had a sachet over his shoulders and he had a red bulbous nose and a purple top hat but thank fully NOT a fedora.

And I noticed that the ground arond me and like teh General canyon aria was checkquered liek a checkqurebored or something lol.

And but so like the man walked up to me and he sad; : "Spot the muffin! Spot the muffin! I'm the muffin man I am!"

And I noticed that there was a muffin in the muffin man's hand so I said "'Tis in yr outstretched hand m'lord."

And he said "whe'll are you not a sight for saw eyes. U are. Correckto. Hear is yr prise." And then he gave me the muffin witch was very nice off him. :3 And then the Muffin Man zoomed off on his roller skates.

And I sat down for a whil and aspected teh muffin and I then remember that I broke up with legola earlier sooo yrstruly was pretty sad about that and I had a headache again actually witch sucks. But may be the headache was helping to distract be form the break-up liek nothing felt real which was true most of the time so may be it was okay to let myself feel numb and confused until i culd deale with teh prob leem on an intellectual level first.

Then I went for a walk around and I was bored and I saw a tennis ball so then I swiched to the random encounter screen and I saw that the ball was about to attack and on the HUD screen is said that the ball was level five witch is weak as heck so I threw a bottle of gatorad the ball and it screamed in pane. Like it was literally the most horrible wail ever. And I was like "god ball I am sorry" and i felt awful that these peaceful creatures were being randomly attacked and captured like this en masse so humans could compete in dumb tournaments. Humans lately have been reaping too much and not sowing enough and it's really harming the environment and nature around us. Like life is beautiful and ecosystems are fragile and it's sad that we're exploiting our surroundings and creatures with whom we should be coexisting. just on a drunken whim like are we really that cruel? :c any way I got off the box of soap I was inexplicably standing on and the lil ball was still crying but it wiped its tears away (somehow) and sobbingly said "wow, you're...princess Melanie, aren't you!?" and I courteseyed and then said "yes that is me and flinging Gatorade at you was not very princessly of me and i would like to do an extend of what is being my royal apologies."

And the ball starts chanting "PRINCESS OF TENNIS PRINCESS OF TENNIS" like in the Mario Kart chapter And i was confused. But then I heard that it was harmonising with some thing but like what? It was coming from inside my ruck sack so I rummaged through it and I saw the muffin was chanting it too like what the actually heck? But then the muffin levitated out of my backpack and it turned itself inside out midair which sounds painful and I said "I say! Never in all my years have I witnessed a muffin doing that!"

But then the muffin said in a Ukrainian accent (btw FREE UKRAINE!) "I'm not a muffin! I'm a tennis ball I am!"

And I saw that it was true and the tennis ball was golden and shimmering which probably means it was a rare and/or high level ball.

And both my newly acquired balls were like "follow me, o princess of tennis" and they were bouncing toward a crystal staircase full of crystal stairs and I saw that it led up to one of the two moons in the sky. This moon was a pink moon, like that song by Drake lol.

So with a sigh I followed my two balls up the stairs. I suddenly felt real tired. And my mind was beginning to drift. I thought of the other contestants. I knew Faderror was meant to win as per Dobby's gambit, but I was secretly holding out for Kittenplan cos she was a cool cat. Then I thought about Legola and my heart went off like a semiautomatic. It felt strange to me that I felt more for Legola now after we'd broken up than I ever did while we were dating. The living in the moment thing that all those lame motivational memes keep mentioning is impossible, it seems to me. Mayhap it is easier to live in the past because it is set in stone and won't throw any curveballs at you, and so it's kind of comforting like. Even the future, while fluid, is better than the present because you get to explore fantasies and multiple avenues of possibility. The present is just kind of bleak. I kept climbing. I wanted to sleep. But I just kept following those balls, y'all.

But then I saw a shadowy figure on the stairs above me and it looked mysterious and kind of sinister and woah is that a machete it was carrying? Oh god RANDOM ENCOUNTER RANDOM ENCOUNTER!

So I stopped in my tracks but the figure was coming toward me and the balls hopped out of the way innocuously and I saw that there was a cheap theatrical floodlight lighting up the shadowy figure so I could see his face and...Oh my gee whiz! It was the man made of blood and flesh and veins and skin! And he was coming at me with a thunder machete which was forged by Zeus himself!

PREPARE FOR BATTLE Y'ALL!

Jenny Death and Dobby entered Dumbledore's tower, where he sat observing the challenge through a pair of extraordinary extending eyeglasses that looked like little telescopes protruding from his forehead. Jon Snow stood there, guarding him.

"Ah, Professor D'Morticia!" Dumbledore exclaimed with a jovial chuckle, noticing the newcomers. "Come to watch our brave competitors from this marvellous vantage point?"

"No," Jenny Death said shortly. She pulled out a glowing sword, seemingly from thin air like a JRPG character preparing for combat."Come to claim what is mine."

She now had Dumbledore's full attention. And Jon's, who was reaching for his Valyrian steel sword, preparing to strike.

Dumbledore was flustered. "D-do you mean to usurp my rightful position as Head Coach?"

Jenny Death chuckled icily. "More than that, you old fool. I aim to take it all!" Her armed arms made a sweeping gesture. "The Age of the Door of the Dumble is no more. Dumblenomore, they should call you! Haha!"

Dobby chortled rabidly. Then he lunged at Jon Snow, stabbing the young Nightswatchman through the heart with a house elf throwing knife thing.

Dumbledore gasped. Jon died.

Jenny Death inched toward the old man, her own blade shimmering a magicka-type violet.

"Looks deadly..." Dumbledore said weakly, the old age he had long concealed flushing through him like some acidic fluid. He cowered over in one of the room's corners.

"Oh, this?" Jenny stopped a few feet away from her prey, and held the point of her sword precariously close to Dumbledore's lined face. "This weapon is H*eckrender. Not only is it deadly sharp, it is also cursed with the Imperio spell. So whomever it strikes will sin against their will in their final moments, and thus be cast down into the deepest darkest pits of h*eck!

Dumbledore was sweating, fearful, but also visibly fascinated. "Oh my, that is ingeniously wicked. You wouldn't be Catholic by any chance, would you?"

Jenny Death smirked cooly, and then plunged the blade into Dumbledore's heart.

Dumbledore's heart was the exact shape and colour of a tennis ball.

Dumbledore said the "f" word (i.e. "friff"), and then did a few other unspeakable things which I won't mention because this is meant to be a family-friendly story, lol, and then he died. His last thoughts were of Grindelwald, of those endless summer evenings the two had spent playing tennis together and watching golden clouds between strokes; and those clandestine soujourns they'd take at night, lost in the rhythmic simplicity of bare footsteps in sync with the pummeling of their young hearts, both of them daring to wordlessly consider the sweet infinity that seemed laid out before them like a glittering prize, both of them knowing deep within their veiled souls that this joy would soon stumble and burn and turn to ashes in their trembling mouths and be cast down forever into the murky depths of a damned pit whose dimensions can never be known, only felt…