A/N: None here.
Disclaimer: Harry doesn't belong to me, blah, blah, blah. I only own Amelia, Ebony-Crested Dragon snakes, Silecia, Mithra, and any and all Dark Woods harps, along with anything else you don't recognize from the books. Oh, and I do use some of the same techniques Rowling uses with some fun lines I always enjoyed, so please don't sue me! I need all the money I can get for my student ambassador trip!
Parseltongue will be "~...~"
Chapter 24: Advantages of Occlumency
------------------------------------------------
"What did you just say?" asked Harry, in pure astonishment. His companion just turned her head away from him, almost like she was ashamed.
"~I... I said it would be alright. You just looked so lost.~"
She turned her head back towards him, pale skin bright in the moonlight. Blaise looked quite out of place for some reason, eyes silently brimming with tears.
"~Have you told anyone, Blaise?~" asked Harry, and Blaise looked at Harry, rather startled.
"~I- I told Hermione. She's been trying to help me find a solution to the problem.~"
Harry watched his friend wringing her hands together in her lap and in a sudden thought process, hit his head with a fist. Of course! How could he be so stupid? It had happened to him, too!
"~What's so funny, Harry?~" asked Blaise, for somewhere along his train of thought he had begun laughing.
"~Sorry, Blaise. I was just thinking I had been stupid! What's happened is perfectly normal!~"
"~I don't think not being able to switch back to English from Parseltongue is amusing, Harry,~" she growled.
"~It is, and if I had been smart, I would have put it together! The sickness you had over the summer- the sore throat and the bloody cough- that was the modification of your voicebox taking place in order to speak the snake language.
"~Then how come I was able to speak English for a while after the symptoms disappeared?~"
"~That was the recovery stage from the modification. Right now, it's just a matter of your voicebox getting used to Parseltongue, and the more you talk, the faster the you can speak English again,~" said the dark haired companion.
"~You're the only one that can understand me, though, Harry,~" hissed Blaise, looking over to the school.
Harry shrugged and said, "~Easy solution. We'll just do what Tom did for me when I went through this.~"
"~You went through this?~"
"~Yeah, everyone who can speak Parseltongue goes through it, though usually it occurs much earlier than in your case. Anyway, when Tom had to leave and I was left with the Deatheaters, I wore a translator. Come on, we'll go up to school and make one.~"
"~Thank you, Harry.~"
The two Slytherins had just stepped inside the entryway though when Draco had just come running up to them.
"Have you two been outside since you left the hall, Harry?" gasped Draco, catching his breath. It seemed he must have been running around trying to find him.
"Yeah, we were just talking. What's wrong?"
"I knew it! Come with me!" He grabbed his friend's hand, who in turn grabbed Blaise's hand, and they were rocketing off in the direction of the headmaster's office. Draco shouted the password to the gargoyle at a distance, and the three ran through as it moved just in time. Draco pulled them up the stairs and paused to catch his breath just outside the headmaster's office where many raised voices were being tossed around. Harry just put on an indifferent face and walked in on his own.
Snape quickly turned to him and snapped, "Where have you been?"
"I was talking with Blaise outside on the grounds. Why?" replied Harry, and he noticed Hermione and Ron sitting in chairs, his Gryffindor friend giving him a surprised look at the mention of talking with Blaise while the redhead just looked smug about something.
"There has been an incident involving an attack," said Hermione before anyone else could speak. "Ron and I were at the head of the group that found the scene, so they brought us up here for questioning."
Harry turned a confused and unamused face on Dumbledore and murmured, "And what would this have to do with me? I've been outside the entire time since the attack in the hall." He looked Dumbledore straight in the eye and smirked.
Tom had prepared Harry before coming to school for Dumbledore. The old man sitting in front of him was just as gifted as Tom in the area of Legilimency, or the ability to extract feelings and memories from a mind by making direct eye contact with that person. Harry himself had barely started learning it himself. However, between Severus and Tom's teachings, he was on par with them in the blocking of Legilimency, Occlumency. Dumbledore gave up trying to find the truth in Harry's mind and sat back in his high-backed chair.
"Well, gathering Harry's story and the fact that no one saw the culprit, he is innocent until proven guilty. However, Harry, you also need to keep your familiars in check. They could have easily killed those boys without your knowing."
Harry chuckled and said, "Surely not, Professor. Surely any of the students watching and not bothering to help could have told you that I can speak Parseltongue fluently."
The headmaster's eyebrows rose ever so slightly and muttered, "Oh, really?" while Draco grumbled somewhere, "I told them..."
"Yes, so if I am to watch them as you have told me to do so, then I better be getting back off to my dormitory, now shouldn't I?" said Harry and with a dramatic sweep of his robes, he grabbed Blaise by the arm and led her out of the headmaster's office and down the stairs, quickly followed by Draco.
"Well, Severus,if you would kindly escort these two students back to Gryffindor Tower, please?" said the headmaster. Snape growled and with the same sweeping movement they had seen just seconds before, he began leading Ron and Hermione back towards their common room.
After a few minutes of silence, Hermion turned and asked, "Professor Snape, did you teach Harry how-"
"No, I didn't, Miss Granger. He taught himself how to do that after our first meeting. It's not like he had much else to do in the chateau," replied Snape, not pausing but continuing to walk up the current flight of stairs.
"What do you mean, Professor?"
"Do not expect me to reveal his secrets so easily. He may count you as a friend, but I do not. I do not trust you with secrets as I do Draco, so do not act like it!" he spat and left the two of them alone at the Fat Lady's portrait, who looked just as dumbfounded as the two Gryffindors.
-----------------------------------------------------
Unaware of anything that had just happened with their favourite teacher, three friends sat in the second year boys' dormitory with the door locked and filling everyone in on what had happened tonight. Harry just sat thinking after Draco's information.
"So the writing on the wall said that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened? Enemies of the heir, beware? And someone was petrified?" queried Harry, sitting back against the pillows on his bed. Mithra and Amelia perked their heads up in interest from where they laid on Harry's trunk. Draco nodded.
"Yeah, that's what it said. What do you think on this?"
"I remember Tom saying something about a secret chamber at Hogwarts, but I always thought it was just a bedtime story," mused Harry, glancing over at where Mithra had apparently pissed Amelia off, though they seemed to speaking some sort of other language he could not understand. Odd it was to see a normally placid snake beating the little dragon over the head with her tail. Mithra looked very abashed.
"~What are we going to do about me, Harry?~ asked Blaise. Here, Harry grinned and turned to her.
"Now, do you have some sort of item that you always carry with you?"
"~I never carry anything on me full time,~" said the pale one. Harry dug into his trunk, moving the writhing mass that was the two familiars fighting, and pulling out a tiny necklace. A simple silver chain with a deep emerald stone at the end.
"This was my necklace when I went through the change, and it's still charmed. If you wear it, you will still speak Parseltongue, but to others, it will sound like English." He then tossed it to Blaise, who put it around her neck and tucked it down her robes.
"Thank you, Harry," she tested tentatively and smiled when she realized that Draco could understand her. She then continued, quite a bit encouraged.
"So, have either of you gotten your Patronus to take on corporeal form yet?"
"I've almost got mine, but Harry can't get past the mist stage," said Draco, and Harry blushed, embarassed. "Have you got yours?"
"Yeah, look! Expecto patronum!" And out the end of her wand came a large eagle, which perched on the top of the front bed post, the silvery radiance of it brightening the room before it faded. Blaise was grinnning from ear to ear.
"And I've already found my Animagus form from Harry's book. I'm a king cobra! I haven't attempted the initial change, however. I want to wait a little bit, just until school lets off a tad. How about over the Christmas holidays?"
"We can try to get our Patroni by Yules, yeah," nodded Draco and yawned widely. Looking at the clock on the wall, it was quite late and the other boys must be wanting to get to sleep.
"I think we should turn in for tonight," added Harry, and Blaise nodded and left. Draco and Harry both crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep.
-
The two figures were back now, and the lady was currently glaring at her companion, red eyes boring into his violet ones. He was grinning embarassingly.
"I can't believe it! You actually went through with that silly chamber idea! I can't believe you! You're twenty for crying out loud!" she said in a silky and consequently deadly voice. The young man just cowered a bit more.
"Well, I never told you I _wasn't_ going to, you know. I mean, you never forbade me from doing it. Besides, it's not like you were at this castle running it, anyways," he mumbled, fiddling with a strand of hair and glancing around anxiously. The lady just tossed her floor length hair back.
"This isn't why we're here, anyway, Salazar. We need to find out who has opened it and stop them. Then again, perhaps you don't want to, or have you gotten over your little muggleborn issue? Is that wretched pet of yours still alive?"
"You know, since this castle has evolved to meet the times, I don't even know where the entrance is."
"What?!"
He decided to ignore her outburst and added, "And in regards to my dear pet,she has to still be alive. The fact that someone was petrified is proof enough." He started to say more, but paused as they heard someone coming down the hall.
"Quick, hide!" whispered the lady, and she pulled the young man into the shadows near the girls' toilet. They both watched as Severus passed by, apparently on patrol duty tonight, and when he was safely gone, they both faded into a passage to continue this conversation somewhere else.
------------------------------------------------------
A/N: You know what to do, people. Blaise's new ability; the first attack; Patroni; Salazar being degraded by his lady companion who doesn't seem to be a house founder; Salazar's predicament of the unknown entrance.
ATTENTION!!!!!!! PLEASE READ AND ANSWER ME!!!!! I have a really fun idea for a spin-off on this story. Harry and all his friends are just out of school, Tom is ruling Europe with Harry as his second, and their base of operations is at Hogwarts. However, when they were walking through the doors of the Great Hall, they're swept up in a lightning storm and transported to the dimension of the sixth year Harry Potter from the books! I'm asking whether you want me to start writing this now and risk maybe some spoilers for this story (which could even change in the future) or write it and wait until I get done with this story. Your call. Just imagine....
-
Harry was speaking frantically with his friends. What the hell had happened?! He looked around the hall again and was startled into questioins.
"Where the hell are we, why am I sitting at the Gryffindor table with _Weasley_ of all people, and haven't I killed Dumbledore already?!"
-
Oooh! One more thing! Does anyone here read Demon Diaries manga? Why do I picture Eclipse as a sexy Severus?! (I think Severus wears a Glamour Charm. It could be why he gets so pissed at any mention of his appearance, if he's vain and damn good-looking!)
Review responses:
hermionegreen- Haha! It was Blaise, not Ginny! Don't worry, though. Everyone thought it was Ginny.
saman007uk0- Hopefully, Harry will never lose his familiars.
jbfritz- I always thought it would be interesting to have Harry as Tom's heir.
SilverKnight7- see hermionegreen.
Maxx77- Damn straight!
tia- Aaah, the issue of romance... I'm going to try to stay away from that for as long as I can. I myself love slash more than "normal" romance, but more than half my reviewers would get pissed at me for having them read so far into a story and there be slash. Then again, I hate boy/girl pairings in Harry Potter universe. It's way too easy for Harry or Draco to get girls in either dimension; one has fame and the other has wealth. Too easy, I guess. Like I said, I'm going to try to avoid romance as much as possible.
Iced Flame- I think everyone enjoyed the hall scene.
wanderingwolf- Perhaps.. then again, perhaps not.
bitchkitten- For some reason, I seem to be on a cliffie streak, though I didn't do it this chapter.
starwinder- Thanks for being nice enough to review my story!
Bosson12787- see bitchkitten.
Falafal- Even if Harry is vulnerable because some jerks snuck up behind him, his familiars can protect him.
Zhan Black- You should check out "Blackened Sunrise" by The Itch. Great Dark Harry story.
HecateDeMort- Thank you.
sadisticfreak527- Why, thank you. I like your name!
Sea-Turtles- see hermionegreen
lady leah- I give Falafal credit for giving me the idea of the Sorting Hat.
simpleinsanity- see hermionegreen
insanechildfanfic- Sank yo, insane one.
Nicoletta- Now you know what's up with Blaise!
Finite Amore- Why do you want love to end?
girlknight- I love it when people get offtopic for some reason... Yeah, my friends make fun of me when I go happy psychotic, but then I go mad psychotic on them, and I strangle them to the point where they get lightheaded or bite them. The voices made me do it!
HAZZAGRIFF- Thank you!
chozen1- Sorry, but I can't tell you everything in advance because I don't know myself.
Girl- Now you know who it is!
Rogue1615- Harry was just caught off his guard, but vengeance will be unleashed. *throws back head and laughs psychotically*
Shorty- You like torture now because of me? I am so flattered!
Raclswt- Cliffies are fun for the author and maddening for reviews!
(January 16-17, 2004)
Disclaimer: Harry doesn't belong to me, blah, blah, blah. I only own Amelia, Ebony-Crested Dragon snakes, Silecia, Mithra, and any and all Dark Woods harps, along with anything else you don't recognize from the books. Oh, and I do use some of the same techniques Rowling uses with some fun lines I always enjoyed, so please don't sue me! I need all the money I can get for my student ambassador trip!
Parseltongue will be "~...~"
Chapter 24: Advantages of Occlumency
------------------------------------------------
"What did you just say?" asked Harry, in pure astonishment. His companion just turned her head away from him, almost like she was ashamed.
"~I... I said it would be alright. You just looked so lost.~"
She turned her head back towards him, pale skin bright in the moonlight. Blaise looked quite out of place for some reason, eyes silently brimming with tears.
"~Have you told anyone, Blaise?~" asked Harry, and Blaise looked at Harry, rather startled.
"~I- I told Hermione. She's been trying to help me find a solution to the problem.~"
Harry watched his friend wringing her hands together in her lap and in a sudden thought process, hit his head with a fist. Of course! How could he be so stupid? It had happened to him, too!
"~What's so funny, Harry?~" asked Blaise, for somewhere along his train of thought he had begun laughing.
"~Sorry, Blaise. I was just thinking I had been stupid! What's happened is perfectly normal!~"
"~I don't think not being able to switch back to English from Parseltongue is amusing, Harry,~" she growled.
"~It is, and if I had been smart, I would have put it together! The sickness you had over the summer- the sore throat and the bloody cough- that was the modification of your voicebox taking place in order to speak the snake language.
"~Then how come I was able to speak English for a while after the symptoms disappeared?~"
"~That was the recovery stage from the modification. Right now, it's just a matter of your voicebox getting used to Parseltongue, and the more you talk, the faster the you can speak English again,~" said the dark haired companion.
"~You're the only one that can understand me, though, Harry,~" hissed Blaise, looking over to the school.
Harry shrugged and said, "~Easy solution. We'll just do what Tom did for me when I went through this.~"
"~You went through this?~"
"~Yeah, everyone who can speak Parseltongue goes through it, though usually it occurs much earlier than in your case. Anyway, when Tom had to leave and I was left with the Deatheaters, I wore a translator. Come on, we'll go up to school and make one.~"
"~Thank you, Harry.~"
The two Slytherins had just stepped inside the entryway though when Draco had just come running up to them.
"Have you two been outside since you left the hall, Harry?" gasped Draco, catching his breath. It seemed he must have been running around trying to find him.
"Yeah, we were just talking. What's wrong?"
"I knew it! Come with me!" He grabbed his friend's hand, who in turn grabbed Blaise's hand, and they were rocketing off in the direction of the headmaster's office. Draco shouted the password to the gargoyle at a distance, and the three ran through as it moved just in time. Draco pulled them up the stairs and paused to catch his breath just outside the headmaster's office where many raised voices were being tossed around. Harry just put on an indifferent face and walked in on his own.
Snape quickly turned to him and snapped, "Where have you been?"
"I was talking with Blaise outside on the grounds. Why?" replied Harry, and he noticed Hermione and Ron sitting in chairs, his Gryffindor friend giving him a surprised look at the mention of talking with Blaise while the redhead just looked smug about something.
"There has been an incident involving an attack," said Hermione before anyone else could speak. "Ron and I were at the head of the group that found the scene, so they brought us up here for questioning."
Harry turned a confused and unamused face on Dumbledore and murmured, "And what would this have to do with me? I've been outside the entire time since the attack in the hall." He looked Dumbledore straight in the eye and smirked.
Tom had prepared Harry before coming to school for Dumbledore. The old man sitting in front of him was just as gifted as Tom in the area of Legilimency, or the ability to extract feelings and memories from a mind by making direct eye contact with that person. Harry himself had barely started learning it himself. However, between Severus and Tom's teachings, he was on par with them in the blocking of Legilimency, Occlumency. Dumbledore gave up trying to find the truth in Harry's mind and sat back in his high-backed chair.
"Well, gathering Harry's story and the fact that no one saw the culprit, he is innocent until proven guilty. However, Harry, you also need to keep your familiars in check. They could have easily killed those boys without your knowing."
Harry chuckled and said, "Surely not, Professor. Surely any of the students watching and not bothering to help could have told you that I can speak Parseltongue fluently."
The headmaster's eyebrows rose ever so slightly and muttered, "Oh, really?" while Draco grumbled somewhere, "I told them..."
"Yes, so if I am to watch them as you have told me to do so, then I better be getting back off to my dormitory, now shouldn't I?" said Harry and with a dramatic sweep of his robes, he grabbed Blaise by the arm and led her out of the headmaster's office and down the stairs, quickly followed by Draco.
"Well, Severus,if you would kindly escort these two students back to Gryffindor Tower, please?" said the headmaster. Snape growled and with the same sweeping movement they had seen just seconds before, he began leading Ron and Hermione back towards their common room.
After a few minutes of silence, Hermion turned and asked, "Professor Snape, did you teach Harry how-"
"No, I didn't, Miss Granger. He taught himself how to do that after our first meeting. It's not like he had much else to do in the chateau," replied Snape, not pausing but continuing to walk up the current flight of stairs.
"What do you mean, Professor?"
"Do not expect me to reveal his secrets so easily. He may count you as a friend, but I do not. I do not trust you with secrets as I do Draco, so do not act like it!" he spat and left the two of them alone at the Fat Lady's portrait, who looked just as dumbfounded as the two Gryffindors.
-----------------------------------------------------
Unaware of anything that had just happened with their favourite teacher, three friends sat in the second year boys' dormitory with the door locked and filling everyone in on what had happened tonight. Harry just sat thinking after Draco's information.
"So the writing on the wall said that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened? Enemies of the heir, beware? And someone was petrified?" queried Harry, sitting back against the pillows on his bed. Mithra and Amelia perked their heads up in interest from where they laid on Harry's trunk. Draco nodded.
"Yeah, that's what it said. What do you think on this?"
"I remember Tom saying something about a secret chamber at Hogwarts, but I always thought it was just a bedtime story," mused Harry, glancing over at where Mithra had apparently pissed Amelia off, though they seemed to speaking some sort of other language he could not understand. Odd it was to see a normally placid snake beating the little dragon over the head with her tail. Mithra looked very abashed.
"~What are we going to do about me, Harry?~ asked Blaise. Here, Harry grinned and turned to her.
"Now, do you have some sort of item that you always carry with you?"
"~I never carry anything on me full time,~" said the pale one. Harry dug into his trunk, moving the writhing mass that was the two familiars fighting, and pulling out a tiny necklace. A simple silver chain with a deep emerald stone at the end.
"This was my necklace when I went through the change, and it's still charmed. If you wear it, you will still speak Parseltongue, but to others, it will sound like English." He then tossed it to Blaise, who put it around her neck and tucked it down her robes.
"Thank you, Harry," she tested tentatively and smiled when she realized that Draco could understand her. She then continued, quite a bit encouraged.
"So, have either of you gotten your Patronus to take on corporeal form yet?"
"I've almost got mine, but Harry can't get past the mist stage," said Draco, and Harry blushed, embarassed. "Have you got yours?"
"Yeah, look! Expecto patronum!" And out the end of her wand came a large eagle, which perched on the top of the front bed post, the silvery radiance of it brightening the room before it faded. Blaise was grinnning from ear to ear.
"And I've already found my Animagus form from Harry's book. I'm a king cobra! I haven't attempted the initial change, however. I want to wait a little bit, just until school lets off a tad. How about over the Christmas holidays?"
"We can try to get our Patroni by Yules, yeah," nodded Draco and yawned widely. Looking at the clock on the wall, it was quite late and the other boys must be wanting to get to sleep.
"I think we should turn in for tonight," added Harry, and Blaise nodded and left. Draco and Harry both crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep.
-
The two figures were back now, and the lady was currently glaring at her companion, red eyes boring into his violet ones. He was grinning embarassingly.
"I can't believe it! You actually went through with that silly chamber idea! I can't believe you! You're twenty for crying out loud!" she said in a silky and consequently deadly voice. The young man just cowered a bit more.
"Well, I never told you I _wasn't_ going to, you know. I mean, you never forbade me from doing it. Besides, it's not like you were at this castle running it, anyways," he mumbled, fiddling with a strand of hair and glancing around anxiously. The lady just tossed her floor length hair back.
"This isn't why we're here, anyway, Salazar. We need to find out who has opened it and stop them. Then again, perhaps you don't want to, or have you gotten over your little muggleborn issue? Is that wretched pet of yours still alive?"
"You know, since this castle has evolved to meet the times, I don't even know where the entrance is."
"What?!"
He decided to ignore her outburst and added, "And in regards to my dear pet,she has to still be alive. The fact that someone was petrified is proof enough." He started to say more, but paused as they heard someone coming down the hall.
"Quick, hide!" whispered the lady, and she pulled the young man into the shadows near the girls' toilet. They both watched as Severus passed by, apparently on patrol duty tonight, and when he was safely gone, they both faded into a passage to continue this conversation somewhere else.
------------------------------------------------------
A/N: You know what to do, people. Blaise's new ability; the first attack; Patroni; Salazar being degraded by his lady companion who doesn't seem to be a house founder; Salazar's predicament of the unknown entrance.
ATTENTION!!!!!!! PLEASE READ AND ANSWER ME!!!!! I have a really fun idea for a spin-off on this story. Harry and all his friends are just out of school, Tom is ruling Europe with Harry as his second, and their base of operations is at Hogwarts. However, when they were walking through the doors of the Great Hall, they're swept up in a lightning storm and transported to the dimension of the sixth year Harry Potter from the books! I'm asking whether you want me to start writing this now and risk maybe some spoilers for this story (which could even change in the future) or write it and wait until I get done with this story. Your call. Just imagine....
-
Harry was speaking frantically with his friends. What the hell had happened?! He looked around the hall again and was startled into questioins.
"Where the hell are we, why am I sitting at the Gryffindor table with _Weasley_ of all people, and haven't I killed Dumbledore already?!"
-
Oooh! One more thing! Does anyone here read Demon Diaries manga? Why do I picture Eclipse as a sexy Severus?! (I think Severus wears a Glamour Charm. It could be why he gets so pissed at any mention of his appearance, if he's vain and damn good-looking!)
Review responses:
hermionegreen- Haha! It was Blaise, not Ginny! Don't worry, though. Everyone thought it was Ginny.
saman007uk0- Hopefully, Harry will never lose his familiars.
jbfritz- I always thought it would be interesting to have Harry as Tom's heir.
SilverKnight7- see hermionegreen.
Maxx77- Damn straight!
tia- Aaah, the issue of romance... I'm going to try to stay away from that for as long as I can. I myself love slash more than "normal" romance, but more than half my reviewers would get pissed at me for having them read so far into a story and there be slash. Then again, I hate boy/girl pairings in Harry Potter universe. It's way too easy for Harry or Draco to get girls in either dimension; one has fame and the other has wealth. Too easy, I guess. Like I said, I'm going to try to avoid romance as much as possible.
Iced Flame- I think everyone enjoyed the hall scene.
wanderingwolf- Perhaps.. then again, perhaps not.
bitchkitten- For some reason, I seem to be on a cliffie streak, though I didn't do it this chapter.
starwinder- Thanks for being nice enough to review my story!
Bosson12787- see bitchkitten.
Falafal- Even if Harry is vulnerable because some jerks snuck up behind him, his familiars can protect him.
Zhan Black- You should check out "Blackened Sunrise" by The Itch. Great Dark Harry story.
HecateDeMort- Thank you.
sadisticfreak527- Why, thank you. I like your name!
Sea-Turtles- see hermionegreen
lady leah- I give Falafal credit for giving me the idea of the Sorting Hat.
simpleinsanity- see hermionegreen
insanechildfanfic- Sank yo, insane one.
Nicoletta- Now you know what's up with Blaise!
Finite Amore- Why do you want love to end?
girlknight- I love it when people get offtopic for some reason... Yeah, my friends make fun of me when I go happy psychotic, but then I go mad psychotic on them, and I strangle them to the point where they get lightheaded or bite them. The voices made me do it!
HAZZAGRIFF- Thank you!
chozen1- Sorry, but I can't tell you everything in advance because I don't know myself.
Girl- Now you know who it is!
Rogue1615- Harry was just caught off his guard, but vengeance will be unleashed. *throws back head and laughs psychotically*
Shorty- You like torture now because of me? I am so flattered!
Raclswt- Cliffies are fun for the author and maddening for reviews!
(January 16-17, 2004)