Chapter 2
"REDUCIO!"
All seven Gryffindors shrank in size dramatically. Oliver, who was the tallest, was only the size of a human palm. A giant Slytherin hand reached down, scooped them up, and dropped them into a box. The lid followed soon after, and they were left in complete darkness. They could still hear voices, however, as the Slytherins spoke in harsh whispers. The box began jolting violently as the Slytherins began to run, and the sound of feet pounding against the floor seemed deafening to the Gryffindors.
Suddenly, the biggest jolt of all left the box shuddering to a sudden stop, as if the one who held it had frozen in his tracks.
"Er... Professor Snape!"
"What, may I ask, would cause the entire Slytherin Quidditch team to storm through the halls while others are in their dorms?"
"We just-"
"And what, pray tell, is in that box?" Before anyone could answer, the box shook violently again, as if Snape had snatched it. The lid opened; candlelight from the sconces in the walls flooded into the previously pitch-black interior. "Well isn't this interesting..." Harry would have cursed if he could; Snape had picked him up (rather roughly, too) and was inspecting him closely, a strange gleam in his eyes.
"We were uh... going to do voodoo, sir," said Bole uncertainly. "We read about it and wanted to try it for ourselves."
"Voodoo?" Snape's eyes shifted to Bole, before turning back to Harry's miniature form. He smirked, then dropped Harry back into the box. "I won't bother asking where you got such realistic models. But I daresay the results of your experiment will be rather... interesting. Good night."
As he heard Snape's footsteps fading away, Harry seethed inwardly, burning with anger. He'd seen that gleam in Snape's eyes. He'd seen that Snape knew he was holding the real Harry Potter in his fist. But Snape hadn't done anything at all...
"Voodoo." Flint's voice was scornful.
"It was better than nothing, wasn't it?" Bole snarled.
"Evanesco," said Malfoy, interrupting them in order to give the password to the Slytherin common room. As they followed him inside, he said, "I have everything set up in my room."
Shortly after, the lid lifted, and seven Slytherins peered eagerly into the box. Flint released the full-body bind, knowing the prisoners couldn't go anywhere because of the box's high walls. As soon as he did, the Gryffindors shouted up at him.
"What's going on, and why are you doing this?" Oliver shouted.
"You bloody wankers, I'll kill you!" Fred growled, growing purple in the face. "Just you wait until I'm normal again..."
The Slytherins barked with laughter. "You're not going anywhere for a while, little one," smirked Flint. "We've an experiment to do."
"What? Voodoo?" Katie spat contemptuously. "That's the most pathetic lie I've ever heard, and I've heard many from the lot of you."
An angry Bole reached down and flicked her on the cheek, sending her tumbling. Katie sat up slowly, putting a hand to the side of her face, which had become bright red.
"You'll be sorry for that!" Oliver, enraged, grabbed his wand and shot a hex at Bole. Miniature slashes appeared on his face; it seemed the effect of the spell had shrunk, just as Oliver had.
"Ow!" Bole whined. "Make him stop!"
Flint pointed his wand at Oliver. "He may have deserved it, but I wouldn't do that again if I were you." There was a long pause, which was interrupted by the sound of a foot tapping.
It was Malfoy, who had his arms crossed impatiently. "Can we just start already?" he snapped.
A chorus of cheers and whoops from the Slytherins ensued, and the box was upended, sending the Gryffindors tumbling onto a table. Before them stood The Game of Life in all its glory.
"What is this?" Alicia gasped.
"Our 'experiment'," said Malfoy with a satisfied smirk. "We're putting you in this game."
"This is impossible! You're insane!" shrieked Angelina, who looked about to have a seizure.
"It is possible. But yes, perhaps we are a tad bit insane." Flint grinned.
"Shall we assign them?" Derrick asked.
"We're being assigned?" Angelina asked, bewildered.
"Yes, you're acting as our gamepieces," Malfoy explained in a bored tone.
"I call Wood, naturally," said Flint immediately, eagerly anticipating his long-awaited revenge upon one of his most hated rivals.
"I call Katie," Montague said quickly, much to Katie's horror. It was well-known that he had fancied her for ages.
Beaters Derrick and Bole, who had long had a grudge against Fred and George, chose the twins, while Bletchley and Warrington took Angelina and Alicia.
"So the only one left is..."
Malfoy stepped forward with a half-smile on his lips. "Potter. I'd be delighted to have him." The two enemies stared hatefully at each other, though no one could miss the comical effect of Harry's tiny stature.
Flint smiled. "Now, we have all chosen our players, who will represent us on the gameboard... As everyone should know by now, before the game starts, each player is given a randomly-chosen weapon, which he or she can use during the game. Shall we pick?" He shuffled a deck of cards and spread them out in a fan, presenting them face-down to his teammates.
Bletchley chose first. "You got the multi-purpose glove," he said, presenting the card to Angelina. "When you get it, you can pull out the claws, or use the sticky pads, or-"
"Yes, yes," she said, waving his hand away impatiently. "I'll figure it out myself."
Derrick chose next, and let out a bark of laughter at what he saw. "A bubble wand and a bottle of soap to go with it," he said to George, who grimaced.
"I've never seen a bloody bubble wand when I played before," George grumbled. "How can it help me, anyway?"
Warrington, who had Alicia, picked the cooking pan and spatula card.
"Are you kidding?" Alicia shrieked. "I thought we were supposed to get weapons, not bubble wands and cooking pans!"
Malfoy smirked. "The deck includes lots of other things that you wouldn't consider to be a weapon," he said smugly. "It's up to you to decide how to use them as one."
"I hate you," Alicia muttered resentfully.
Fred, on the other hand, was rather delighted to see the card Bole had chosen for him, which depicted a flame-thrower. "Ahh, a real weapon for once!" he said, satisfied, and earned a kick from the still-upset Alicia.
"You're just jealous 'cause you've got a girly cooking pan," Fred said, sticking his tongue out at her.
Katie looked rather bewildered to be presented with the card for a bow and a quiver of arrows by Montague. "How am I supposed to use this?" she whispered to Oliver, who could only shrug helplessly.
"Bloody hell." Malfoy seemed rather disappointed to see that he'd chosen a coil of rope, with a hook attached to the end, for Harry. "I was hoping for something more dramatic."
"My cousin got a hot pink bra once," Derrick grinned. "He complained about it the whole time but he ended up using it as a slingshot and funnily enough, he won the game later on."
Flint took a card for Oliver and smiled broadly at what he saw.
"Let me guess, a hot pink bra?" Oliver commented dryly.
"No, a rubber ducky!" The Slytherins roared with laughter, while Alicia muttered, "Wanna trade for a cooking pan?"
"Let us begin!" Flint crowed, and his teammates cheered. "First, I'll shrink them a bit more, as they're still too big for the board..." He muttered an incantation and one by one, the Gryffindors shrunk to half their former size. "Now, place your 'gamepieces' on the board."
"Ow, she bit me!" Montague cried, dropping Katie, who smiled smugly. Her smile disappeared when he wrapped a handkerchief around her and lifted her toward the gameboard in that fashion.
"Where should we put them?" Bletchley asked. "There's a starting place on each of the four sides, but there are seven players."
"Put two on each side," Malfoy commanded.
"One person will have to be alone."
"Precisely." Malfoy sneered. "Potter can start off by himself."
"But the board is so big, and he'll be alone-"
"Precisely."
"I like the way you think, Malfoy," Flint said approvingly. "Okay, put one Weasley and Johnson to the north, the other Weasley and Spinnet to the south, Potter to the west, and Wood and Bell to the east."
Oliver was placed beside Katie. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"No!" Montague protested at once. "Don't put them together."
"All right, O jealous one," Flint said dryly. "Put Wood with Johnson to the north, Bell and Spinnet to the east... and oh, what the heck, put the twins together to the south. Oh, and Potter to the west. Everyone happy now?"
"We're not," Angelina said angrily. "Let us go. Why are you doing this to us?"
"Because it's fun, and we Slytherins like to have fun." Flint smiled. "And no more questions, Johnson, you're being very annoying." Then to all, he said, "Shall we begin?"
"Wait!" Katie cried from the east side of the board, where she stood beside Alicia. "I've never played this before, and I don't know the rules."
"Good point. The goal is to get to the middle, where there'll be a castle. At the topmost tower, you'll see a golden stone sitting on a table, and whoever touches that first, wins. Obviously, there will be plenty of obstacles along the way. We've tweaked it a bit, however. In the original game, the player himself has to work out the conflicts, such as battling a fire demon, using various combinations of cards, and mind power. But we've done away with that. You, as game pieces, will have to work out the conflicts yourselves, while we sit back and watch as you entertain us.
"We have to fight fire demons?" Alicia whispered fearfully. "By ourselves?"
Flint, ignoring her, said, "Now, let us finally start this gam-"
"Wait!" Katie cried. "Will we be able to communicate? For example, is there a way Alicia and I can contact Harry somehow?"
"No," Malfoy answered briskly. "You're on your own."
"Can we actually get hurt?" Angelina asked."Or maybe even... die?"
"We don't know. That's why it's called an experiment, see?"
"You're crazy! You're bonkers, the lot of you!" George yelled. "You'll get in so much trouble for this, I-"
"It'll only last for a day or so, relax," drawled Malfoy.
"All right, that's enough," said Flint. "Those are all the rules and technical stuff, okay? Now let's start alread-"
"No!" Katie cried, one last time. "I've seen people play this and I know it's a lot more complicated than that! There are more rules and tricks and complications involved, and you're not taking the time to explain them all-"
"That's your problem, isn't it?" Malfoy said coldly. "You'll figure it out as you go... hopefully."
"Yes, yes," said Flint impatiently. "We're starting now whether you want to or not." He pressed a button and the words The Game of Life along the edge of the board lit up, shining an eerie blue light upon the so-called "game pieces." In the corner, the box marked "Length of Game Time," lit up as well, and the numbers 00:00:00 became 00:00:01, then 00:00:02, and so on as the timer began ticking. As soon as the Gryffindors were pushed onto the board, they found that they couldn't escape, as if invisible bonds had trapped them.
And so the game began.
