Note: We are both big fans of Hufflepuffs. ;)
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Chess
Chapter 7: Merchandisers
Harry was not in the best of moods. It might have had something to do with the fact that his best friends were arguing once again, or his best friends had left without him and rarely seemed to notice him at all these days, or that even Ginny had left for the game with a couple of girls in her year, never once sending him a questioning glance, even though he had been in full view, trying to catch her attention.
It might have been the fact that even though Harry did not like all the attention he had got in the past, he didn't like being completely ignored by people either, especially by those who called themselves his friends.
But as it was, Harry was upset for a completely different reason. A reason named Dennis Creevey. His brother Colin had probably been the first to enter the Ravenclaw common room after the contestants and teachers – so excited had he been about the game. Dennis, who hadn't been the avid photographer before, had taken notice of how beneficial Colin's business was – people did pay him for good pictures, and with years he had grown experienced enough to take them of the most scandalous situations and escape with his camera intact – and bought himself a camera as well.
And thus it happened that as Harry stepped round the corner, he was suddenly blinded by a flash, yelled the apology of "You are not Ron!", and knocked over by the boy rushing past him.
His vision took a good ten minutes to return, and his mood did not improve while he was waiting.
His mood did not improve on his way to the Ravenclaw Tower either, nor upon reaching the window with drawn curtains and a sign announcing that the room was full, and no more people were allowed inside.
In fact, instead of improving, Harry's mood did the exact opposite, and now in front of the curtained window, he snapped.
"You listen to me, window, and you listen to me good! I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Saviour of Wizardkind, the Destroyer of Voldemort, et cetera, et cetera. I demand you let me in this very moment!"
The curtains fluttered in the nonexistent breeze, and a gentle whisper spoke out.
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Saviour of Wizardkind, the Destroyer of Voldemort, et cetera, et cetera, the Ravenclaw Tower accepts you not. Turn back while you still can."
"Listen to me, you stupid window..." Harry seethed.
"Hear my warning, Harry Potter. Or you will feel the wrath of the window."
Harry stared at the window, contemplating which spell to use to blast it into tiny pieces, when a timid voice spoke out from behind him.
"I'm late, aren't I?" Neville said wistfully, eyeing the sign. "I had to feed Veronica at the last moment, but I still thought I could make it. Well, I suppose the game is a lot more popular that we had guessed."
Harry sighed, and turned to face his friend and fellow Gryffindor. He had really wanted to blow something up. But perhaps blasting a hole into a room full of teachers, students, and if the rumours were right, the Bloody Baron and Moody, wasn't quite that great of an idea. Plus, it might ruin Ron's concentration, and he did not want Slytherin's victory on his conscience.
"Veronica?" he asked in confusion, once Neville's words had finally sunk in.
"Oh, that's my Venomous Tentacula. Professor Sprout allows me to keep her in the greenhouse so that she would not endanger anyone, but after graduation she's going straight to my back yard. Do you want to meet her - she's quite harmless, actually."
That statement sounded so much like Hagrid talking about one ferocious beast or another that Harry had to suppress a shudder.
"Perhaps some other time," he answered diplomatically. "Right now I'm really interested in the game."
They both threw another look at the curtained window and let out a sigh.
"Oh, well, I guess it's the Great Hall for us then," Neville said at last. "They are going to project the game there from those little hovering contraptions... Hannah told me she got a glimpse of it when they were testing it, and the view was pretty good."
"Yeah, let's go," Harry nodded and followed Neville away from the window, but not before sending it one last murderous glance.
---
They hadn't even reached the Entrance Hall yet, when Harry suddenly stopped.
Neville, who had been walking at his side, halted in his steps as well, and gave him a questioning look.
"Listen. Can't you hear it?" Harry inquired.
Neville listened. A chorus of voices came from somewhere downstairs.
"They are singing again," he shrugged, and picked up the pace. "Let's go, the game should start any minute now."
The closer they came to the Great Hall, the clearer the voices became, and once reaching the ground level, the words were easily recognizable.
Whether
you are snake or lion
Or
could not care less
We
are here to tell you
We
are here to sell you chess
Not
a chance of you escaping from our wiles
We've
charmed the doors, we've charmed the aisles
We've
a franchise worth exploiting
And
we will - yes we will!
When
it comes to merchandising
We could kill
"Who's killing who?" Neville wondered, not sounding one bit worried. If anything good had come out of the war, besides Voldemort's destruction, imprisonment of many Death Eaters, and Ron finally admitting he liked Hermione (although there were days, like today, when Harry doubted this being a good thing), it was the boost of confidence it had given to Neville.
"Let's go and find out," Harry suggested, thinking that if he could not blast a wall, then at least he could beat up a few Slytherins.
---
The doors to the Great Hall were shut, but once Harry and Neville reached them, they opened up and an invisible force pulled them into the room.
The doors closed silently behind them, but even if they had done it with a bang, no one would have heard it with the deafening noise inside the hall.
The four house tables were in their place, much to the surprise of Harry who had imagined a different arrangement, and people were swarming around them, pushing their way through the crowds, and yelling to hear each other in the noise. At the Hufflepuff table, the chatter and clatter was accompanied with constant music and singing.
Harry wished nothing more than to turn around and run away, but the same mysterious force that had pulled him into the room, now dragged him to the nearest table, which happened to be the Hufflepuff one.
"When
you get up -
When
you get up in the morning
Till
you crash at night
You
will have to live your life
With
bishop, rook and knight,"
Ernie announced, indicating towards the small space of free floor where three younger students where jumping up and down, each a perfect life-size model of those three named chess pieces, nothing other than their colourful eyes indicating their being real persons.
"COME AROUND, PEOPLE, COME AROUND!!! Play life-size chess with your friends. Be any piece you want to. The charm lasts minimum three hours. Comes in different colours and sizes!!!"
Someone pushed Harry and he staggered a few steps further, coming to stand before Susan Bones.
"Clean your teeth with chequered toothpaste," she chanted, and smiled a very black and yellow smile.
"Black and white! Black and yellow! Black and red! White and blue! White and green! Red and green!" she held up six tubes in her hand. "Choose your favourite!"
Before Harry was given any time to react, a girl he didn't recognize jumped to the table, wearing nothing but a tiny vest and the shortest skirt he had ever seen, both black and white chequered, with the embroidered pieces of chess jumping from one square to another, from her shoulders to her stomach to her breasts.
"Wear
our vests
Our
kings and queens on bouncing breasts!"
She claimed happily, jumping up and down to show how they bounced.
Harry blushed and looked quickly away, trying and failing to escape the table.
Being pushed and pulled along the rest of the crowd, he was offered a great variety of other charms and potions ("Support your house! Grow yourself red mane and tail, or green scales and forked tongue!"), several soft stuffed dolls of either Ron or Malfoy, all kinds of chequered clothing, necklaces of red or green that sang in a horribly high voice We are the winners! We are! We are! We are the winners! We are! We are!, odd looking devices that Harry didn't know and didn't want to know, and basically everything dyed green, red, white, and black.
Reaching the end of the table, Harry was finally able to step away, but his relief didn't last much longer than a couple of seconds – then he was suddenly pulled towards another table.
While the Hufflepuff table had been one great splash of colour and shouting, the situation at the Ravenclaw table was much clearer. Instead of black and yellow checkers, the table-cloth was dark blue and wonderfully calming to Harry's painful eyes. Upon the cloth, several boards of chess had been placed – the usual set of black and white, then those in the colours of each house, those of all the houses paired up with other houses, boards with chess pieces carved to look like Ron and Malfoy, boards with king Ron and queen Hermione against king Malfoy and queen Parkinson (or in some cases, queen Bloody Baron).
"You
could even buy a set
And
learn to play
We
don't mind we'll sell you something
Anyway,"
Someone told him, and looking up from a particularly fancy board of gold and silver, a yellow and black chequered grin greeted him once again. He couldn't recognize the boy, but it was quite obvious he was Hufflepuff.
Even at the green and silver Slytherin table, all the salespeople seemed to be Hufflepuffs.
"We've
done all our market research
And
our findings show
That
this game of chess could be around
A
month or so,"
A blonde girl told him, offering him a lollipop knight for only 10 Knuts.
"Maybe
it's a bit confusing
For
a game,"
A small boy with bright blue eyes muttered a bit timidly, nodding towards the tiny moving figures of either Malfoys, or snakes, or half-Malfoys half-snakes.
"But
Wiz' Decahedrons were much the same
In
the end the whole world bought one
All
were gone
By
which time we merchandisers
Had
moved on!"
Harry was getting dizzy from all the noise and all the people and all the pushing and pulling and screaming and singing.
The battle against Voldemort seemed to be a piece of cherry pie compared to what he had to go through to reach the Gryffindor table, and even there the situation wasn't much better.
"By which time we had moved on!" someone yelled into his ear.
Harry had no idea what he would have done, though it probably wouldn't have been pretty, if at that moment an arm hadn't grabbed hold of his leg, pulled him down to the floor and under the table.
"You all right, Harry?" Neville asked in a concerned tone.
"Only if I never have to go out to that again," Harry shuddered.
The other boy chuckled.
"Thank goodness for Silencing Charms," he said, and Harry nodded in total agreement, letting the sweet silence heal his hurting ears and frazzled nerves.
"So much for watching the game," Harry said after a few moments of heavenly silence.
"Oh!" Neville gasped and handed him what looked like normal sunglasses.
"Put them on," he instructed. "Tap them with your wand and say Video."
Harry did exactly that, and immediately the image of the Ravenclaw common room appeared before his eyes, so real as if he was there himself.
Excited, his turned his full attention to the scene now playing before his eyes.
---
"Whether
you are snake or lion
Or
could not care less
We
are here to tell you
We
are here to sell you chess
Not
a chance of you escaping from our wiles
We've
charmed the doors, we've charmed the aisles
We've
a franchise worth exploiting
And
we will - yes we will!
When
it comes to merchandising
We
could kill," the Hufflepuffs sang.
"Take that, Ravenclaw wenches!" Ernie cried.
---
"Thank you for the tea and company," Albus bowed. "But now, my fair Lady, I should go and supervise the students in the Great Hall."
"Nonsense, Albus," Lady Rowena waved her hand. "They are responsible children, I'm sure they manage on their own. Now sit down with me and let's watch the game."
"You are probably right, my fair Lady," Albus smiled and sat down again.
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Disclaimer: The "we are the winners" part was borrowed from Lithuania's Eurovision Song 2006.
Ahh, aren't Hufflepuffs simply fantastic. :D
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