Disclaimer: Anything you recognize – be it character, location, idea or line – belongs to others; I may be playing with them but I make no profit from this.


Last time on Let the Games Begin:

"All right," said Neville suddenly. "I'm going to try again, ok? Here we go..."


It was a fascinating thing, watching the expressions chasing each other on Neville's face as he went about his mental conversation with the missing member of their group.

Annoyance made a lot of appearances, as did shame and irritation, and to Terry's slight surprise, amusement.

"That's so completely amazing," commented Hermione conversationally. "This Rod of his essentially makes him a mind reader. It's... mind-boggling!"

"N-no, it's not... I don't think that's it," replied Neville, momentarily distracted by his inner dialogue with Malfoy. "I can't 'read thoughts', or even emotions. I mean, I can get that he's angry, for example, but I get it from his choice of words and the 'tone' – it's really just like hearing a voice. And when he's not thinking directly at me, even if I concentrate, it's all just a kind of... I don't know... like wind rubbing on bark and with a lot of whooshes." He shrugged rather helplessly.

"White noise," muttered Hermione narrowing her eyes.

"So it's basically a magical handheld transceiver inside your mind?" asked Terry eagerly.

"A... what?" asked Neville and Potter together.

"A walkie-talkie," he explained with a small sigh.

"Oh!" nodded Potter, mock-knowledgeably.

"Err... yes, I suppose," admitted Neville.

Terry nodded thoughtfully: "The Rod probably activates some sort of channel, only on 'mind-waves' rather than radio-waves and you don't need a portable device – well, other than the Rod itself... it's quite amazing that anyone can receive your transmission, though, and that you can hear from anyone."

"Maybe he can't," suggested Hermione pensively. "Maybe it will only work with people he knows personally."

"Since he needs to 'address' the communication through use of a name, that's quite likely. However I wonder if someone he doesn't know but who knows him could send a message. Or if he could contact someone that he only knows by name..."

"I'm curious about the possibility of a half-duplex channel of sorts – you know, only him transmitting, but with any number of listeners..."

"I wonder if the effect could be recreated..." wondered Terry, more and more intrigued. "If we could put together a set of spells that allowed us to simulate this outcome..."

"Oooh... imagine..." said Hermione excitedly. " We could perhaps enchant, I don't know... headphones..."

"...and distribute them to groups that need to keep in contact, just like walkie-talkies, only they wouldn't need to worry about speaking aloud... I bet Aurors and Hit-wizards would love it..."

"That would be amazing!" enthused Hermione. "Maybe if we take apart some-"

"Ah-ehm!" Neville cleared his throat loudly, making the two of them jump. "Not that this isn't fascinating..."

Potter snorted.

"...but shouldn't we, like... go on?" He gestured to the far end of the hallway.

"Come on!" Potter grabbed both Terry and Hermione by an arm and dragged them forward. "You'll have time to plot the revolution of magical means of personal communication later!"

"Malfoy says this is probably the last trait of the Corridor, from what he remembers, and to hurry up," Neville reported in a dutiful tone when they reached the next door.

"I bet he said more than that," grumbled Potter.

Neville gazed at him blandly.

"Last part, huh?" asked Hermione with forced lightness. "I don't suppose he'd make himself useful to the point of telling us what to expect?"

"Ah, well, you know him," chuckled Neville. "But, he did say that he's taken care of the stupid fireflies as well as the thrice-damned swans – actually, he went and really cursed them with three different epithets – so 'even we' should be able to get by, in his oh-so-mighty opinion."

"Typical..." grimaced Potter.

"But what does it mean?" asked Hermione, bewildered.

Potter was already swinging the small door open and peering inside. A cacophony of cries and calls and thumping noises blasted out of the opening with almost physical force.

"What's in there?" asked Terry, unable to stifle his curiosity.

"Frogs," was the very dry answer. "And snails and birds and quite a lot of fish..."

"Excuse me?" Terry bumped the Gryffindor's shoulder to have a peek himself.

The scene in the narrow passage beyond was about as serene and orderly as a three-rings circus in the grand finale and confusedly colourful enough to resemble a kaleidoscope.

A bunch of animals were running around in patterns of any shape, starting and leaving off completely at random, generating enough noise and confusion to give Terry a mild headache.

He bemusedly made out some apes that were throwing apples at each other, at least one goose honking and waddling in circles, fluttering bats attacking self-moving bicycles, a few frogs whose calls were so loud they reverberated over the cacophony at random intervals, some plump, soft-plumaged birds he couldn't name, and, indeed, quite a lot of fish that somehow didn't seem to need any water and were, instead, swimming in mid-air.

A toad suddenly croaked right at his feet, making him jump a foot in the air with a very undignified squawk.

Nothing in the passageway appeared to be still for more than two seconds at a time and absolutely nothing kept quiet.

"Whoever designed this was certifiable," muttered Terry in vaguely horrified fascination. "Or very fond of magic mushrooms."

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Hermione, who seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding anything written within a five miles radium.

She was pointing to a stone slab just inside the door, where ten lines were inscribed, all of them but two glowing pulsatingly.

She rapped smartly the lower of the dulled lines: "I think this is what Malfoy meant."

Squinting, Terry managed to read: Six sleek swans silently swimming swiftly. It was just above Seven slick slimy snails sliding slowly, which in turn glowed softly above a line about Eight apes that ate eight apples.

He groaned.

"What on Earth are thrushes?" wondered Potter, bewildered.

"A very common group of passerine birds," was Hermione's prompt reply.

"Oh," said Terry. Well, now he had a name for the plumpy birds, as well as the purple flowers with sharp prickles they were whacking around: Three thriving thrushes thumping thirty thistles was inscribed right above Four flimsy fireflies fluttering fearfully over fields.

"All right," said Potter decisively. "No point in dwindling about. I'll take this one!"

He tapped the fifth line with his knuckles and then took a deep breath: "Five fat frogs fleeing frantically from fifty fierce fish," he said all in one go.

The mad circus stopped abruptly, stilled in a general, unnatural pose. Frogs and fish all disappeared from the scene with a light 'pop'. While they gaped, Potter launched himself through the suddenly statuary animals and made it to the other end of the passageways with nothing worse happening than a rather spectacular stumble over a frozen goose drawing a very heartfelt curse as he got up rubbing his bruised shoulder.

The moment he cleared the furthest bat, noise exploded again and everything was moving even faster than before.

"So..." sighed Hermione, resigned. "Do you want the apes, the toads or the bats?"

Terry shrugged and went with the Nine nice night-bats biting bikes. Better than two-toed toads any day.

Leaving behind a considerably less crowded but still very noisy carnival, they emerged in a small area before a closed set of double doors, in front of which Malfoy was glowering, arms crossed and impatiently rapping a foot.