DiScLaImEr: lalaland is me and I am it! And no, I do not claim to own ne of these characters! Did you think I would randomly steal Rowling's fine-ass work?! No no no no, though I might attempt some other deadly endeavor as such if she does not publish #5 netime soon! Enjoy the story, u cretons.





"Drip drip drip goes the nip nip nip after the zip zip zip because of the kwip kwip kwip and I lip lip lip to the sip sip sip when they tip tip tip to the drip drip drip. And the drip drip drip goes the nip nip nip after the zip zip zip because of the kwip kwip kwip and I lip lip lip to the sip sip sip when they tip tip tip to the drip drip drip. An the drip drip–"

"FASTEN YOUR MOUTH YOU MEASELY WORM!!"

"Sso-orry boss, I didn't mean to, um, interrupt your–"

"QUIET! NOW!!"

Dolby nodded mutely and returned to his mopping.

*Why does he have to be so mean? I wash his robes, mop his floors to a glossy black, fold his laundry, even clean his plate! I'm starting to think this bloody deal is no longer worth it! What does he want with Hermione anyway? She doesn't seem special, at least compared to good ol' Harry Potter. Of course, she's brilliant and resourceful, but how will she ever help our dilemma? O goodness, I must keep this to myself. Keep your face straight. If he can't see, he won't know. Or will he? Does wizardry include reading mind's? But if these ridiculously rebellious thoughts of mine were ever unleashed, I would not live through the night… O rubbish! There's another spot!*

He bowed to the floorboards, scouring the wood grains until the floor's filth became his own. A tiny sigh escaped his lips, embodying his anxiety.

"WHAT WAS THAT? Dolby, Dolby, Dolby, do you not take pleasure at your post in my lOvely domain? Can you not cleanse a solitary floor without expressing your "grief" in a spineless moan?! Come here. I need you to send this to our subject's room. Just set it beneath the door and then scamper back to your chores like the good little house elf I hired. Run along now. Go!"

Dolby scampered up to the haunting figure behind the towering, mahogany desk. He clasped the note carefully, making sure not to crease or damage it.

"Run with the wind, small one, run, run before I lose my patience!" groaned Voldemort.

Dolby scuttered down the landing and out the door.

"Just imagine: an army! An army of dexterity..." He chortled gleefully, swiveling his chair back to face the telescreen.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



Hermione ran the last few paces, not allowing herself a single breath until she was there.

"Holly-dolly-oxy-polly!" Naturally, this was the new-fangled password of the week.

"Welcome dear, you look the slightest bit pale…"

She disregarded the friendly painting and hurried on. Some unmentionable force was pushing her on, bubbling in her blood, plucking her muscles into position to pounce.

"Herm! Jolly good. I've been having terrific problems with the corroboration of these astrological charts. Do you–"

She breezed past Harry before he could manage to engage her interest, galloping up the staircase to the girls' wing, two, three, two steps at a time. She slowly peeped through her door hole, straining to detect two- legged bodies, or maybe even three-legged bodies for that matter!

"O thank the Dark! No one's here," she heaved as the oxygen came rushing back to quench her emaciated lungs.

The Dark? Why did I thank the Dark. Bloody strange. *Hahaha ~ not so strange young grasshopper.*

She secured the door behind her, and flopped down on her mat. Recently, she'd taken an interest in Eastern culture, adopting a bamboo mat instead of the customary goose down mattress of the West. She lay down on her back and gazed at the ceiling, making patterns out of the paint textures.

Abruptly, she lurched on her side, craving the touch of leather. Her hand flared out beyond her control to grasp The History of Wizardry in Middle Earth. She stared at the cover, salivating in unexplainable desire. She opened it to an arbitrary page, page number twenty-seven and read:

'Then the outer clouds turned into rain and poured in upon themselves until they were rained out, and all that was left was spinning balls of water. Inside that water swam a great fish of fire, which ate every impurity in the water and then defecated it all in great gouts of flame, which spouted up from the sea and fell back down as hot ash and poured back down as rivers of burning rock. From these turds of the firefish grew the islands of the sea, and out of the turds there crawled worms, which squirmed and slithered through the rock until the gods touched them and some became human beings and others became other animals.'

The story of creation! But this is a most unusual rendering. *Read on, my love. Engrave this story in the root of your soul; it is after all the basis of your life forever more.*

'Every one of the other animals was tied to the earth by strong vines that grew up to embrace them. No one saw these vines because they were godvines.'

Ah, this must speak of those philotes in the universe. I recall Professor Dumbledore discussing this unique philosophy yesterday. What was it? All living things have philotic threads that link them to… to the center of the Earth, and then the Earth to the center of the universe? Yes, now I remember, "The life in dust that gathers all together into one". *Yes, go on, Hermione, understand and embrace who you are in my worldly motif.*

'Only humans were not tied to the earth. It was not vines that bound them down, it was a web of light woven by no god that connected them upward to the sun. So all the other animals bowed down before the humans, for the vines dragged them down, while the lightweb lifted up the human eyes and heart.'

Yes, the supremacy of humans to all other organic species. But it does not mention the supremacy of wizards to humans! The mind capacity and strength of will of the souls practicing the art of wizardry has been proven to be above and beyond that of normal humans. *Well done, well done. Continue.*

'All these centuries and generations, these hoping men and women looked with their half-blind eyes, staring into the sun and sky, staring into the stars and shadows, knowing that there were invisible things beyond those walls but not guessing what they were.'

'Then in a time of war and terror–'

War? I wonder what war this refers to. You would think a history book would fully explain itself. But anyway, this war would be a war of humans, nimble and strong they may be, but it could not lead to total war. On the other hand, a war of wizard, one side led by dear Harry, and the other by…

A shiver shimmied up her spine, causing her to quake hysterically. *Yes, yes, but who else shall stand at my side? What number of recreations shall surround and worship me? Read, child, read and learn!*

'When all hope seemed lost, weavers on a far distant world, who were not gods but who knew the gods and each one of the weavers was itself a web with hundreds of strands reaching out to their hands and feet, their eyes and mouths and ears, these weavers created a web so strong and large and fine and far-reaching that they meant to catch up all human beings in that web and hold them to be devoured. But instead the web caught a distant god, a god so powerful that no other god had dared to know his name, a god so quick that no other god had been able to see his face; this god was stuck to the web they caught. Only he was too quick to be held in one place to be devoured. He raced and danced up and down the strands, all the strands, any strands that twine from man to man, from man to star, from weaver to weaver, from light to light, he dances along the strands. He cannot escape but he does not want to, for now all the gods see him and all gods know his name, and he knows all things that are known and hears all words that are spoken and by his breath he blows men and women beyond the reach of light of any star, and then he sucks inward and the men and women come back; and because he never holds still along the web, he is everywhere and anywhere. This entity has the power to love, to hate, to glorify, to condemn, but most of all, to welcome all virtuous into his light.'

*O yes, I am He and He is me! Sleep, one, sleep–sweet dreams.*

On that final note, Hermione slipped into a violent REM slumber, still clutching the leather volume to her chest.

A small scratching noise ensued as a yellow slip of paper crept in due time under the door. After a trifling giggle, naught else was heard.