Chapter #6 Inconceivable!

Part IV – Iocane Idiot

While Hagrid and the man in orange had been fighting, Percy had set up a meal for three – cheese, unleavened bread (just in case the man in orange won and happened to be Jewish) and Firewhiskey.

As yet, glass was not being used to hold liquid, so the goblets holding the containing the drinks were roughly-hewn wooden ones, not fine-stemmed glass or, depending on the pay-packet, crystal. Then again, glass and crystal are not the hardiest of materials. Even today they are apt to shatter instead of bounce.

The cheese and bread were laid on three small wooden plates, which themselves lay on a large, flat boulder with a perfect view of the scene below. Hermione sat on a small boulder to Percy's right, her head held high as befitted a princess-to-be.

"Inconceivable!" Percy said again. Hermione took that to mean that Hagrid had been overcome.

"I think Potter was right," she commented. "That word mustn't mean what you think it means."

"If I want your opinion, highness, I'll ask for it," Percy snarled, and gagged her. "Oh, here he comes now." He held a knife – a very sharp one, at that – to Hermione's neck.

The man in orange had not even broken a sweat as he jogged up the hill. (For even a man as fit as he would not run up a mountain so steep.) At the sight of the 'table' before him, however, the man in orange stopped dead.

"So it is down to you, and it is down to me," Percy called loudly. "If you wish her dead, by all means, keep moving forward."

"Let me explain," the man in orange began.

"There's nothing to explain," Percy interrupted him. "You're trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen."

Hermione frowned. Was Percy being funny on purpose?

"Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?" the man in orange queried. Hermione rather fancied she had heard his voice before … but where?

"There will be no arrangement," Percy said coolly, and pressed the dagger closer to Hermione's skin. "And you're killing her," he added as a reminder as the man in orange stepped forwards.

"Well, if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse," remarked the man in orange. Hermione knew his voice, she was sure of it!

"I'm afraid so," agreed Percy. "I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains."

'You're that smart?" said the stranger, and he sounded surprised. Hermione couldn't blame him; how many criminals were intelligent?

"Let me put it this way," Percy sneered. "Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?"

"I know their work intimately," the man in orange replied, effectively ruling out Prince Viktor as his identity.

"They are morons," Percy declared.

"Really," said the man in orange, and paused. "In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits," he announced.

"For the princess?"

The man in orange nodded.

"To the death?"

The man in orange nodded again.

"I accept," Percy declared.

"Good," said the man in orange, spreading his arms wide. "Then pour the wine."

Percy indicated the already-filled goblets. The man in orange seated himself on the grass in front of the 'table' and pulled a small vial from a pouch next to his scabbard.

He uncorked the vial and held it out to Percy. "Inhale this," he said ,and held up a cautionary finger, "but do not touch."

Percy sniffed. "I smell nothing," he told the stranger.

"What you do not smell is called Iocane powder," the man in orange told him. "It is odourless, colourless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man."

Hermione resisted the urge to twitch away. The man in orange picked up his and Percy's goblets, turned away, and appeared to pour the poison in one of them. Then he replaced the goblets exactly as they had been.

"All right. Where is the poison? The Battle of Wits has begun," he said briskly. "It ends when you decide, and we both drink, and find out who is right," here the man in orange paused for dramatic effect, "and who is dead."

"But it's so simple!" Percy scoffed. "All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's?"

It was a very good question, Hermione thought. If only she wasn't gagged, she could join in as she longed to do. It was merely practical Arithmancy.

"Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given," Percy mused. "I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

All right, all right, drink already, Hermione thought irritably.

"But you must have known that I was not a great fool," Percy continued. Hermione resisted the urge to groan. "So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."

"You've made your choice then?" the man in orange asked.

"Not remotely!" Percy exclaimed. "Because Iocane comes from Australian, as everyone knows, and Australia is people entirely with criminals, and criminals are used to having people distrust them, as you are clearly distrusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect," remarked the man in orange.

Just get on with it, thought Hermione irritably.

"Wait 'til I get going!" Percy exclaimed. "Where was I?"

"Australia," the man in orange supplied.

"Yes, Australia," Percy said. "And you must have suspected that I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."

"You're just stalling now," the man in orange said accusingly.

(Clearly, Hermione thought.)

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" Percy growled. "You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison into your own goblet, trusting to your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

Oh, hurry up, Hermione thought.

"But you've also bested my fencer, which means that you must have studied," Percy went on. Hermione rolled her eyes. "And in studying, you must have learnt that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far away from you as possible. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."

If Hermione wasn't so good at Arithmancy, she would have been quite confused by his logic.

"You're trying to trick me into giving something away," said the man in orange flatly. "It won't work."

"It has worked!" Percy yelled. "You've given everything away! I know where you're the poison is!"

"Then make your choice," commanded the man in orange. His sentiment was shared by Hermione.

"I will, and I choose –" Percy broke off. "What in the world can that be?" He flapped his hands at something behind the man in orange.

The man in orange looked behind him. "What? I don't see anything," he said as he faced Percy again.

"Well, I – I could have sworn I saw something," Percy said. He smirked.

"What's so funny?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," Percy promised him. "First, let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours."

They drank. "You guessed wrong," the man in orange said brightly.

"You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny!" Percy cackled. "I switched the glasses when your back was turned! Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is to never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly lesser-known is this: never go in against a red-head when death is on the line!" He continued to cackle maniacally again, but he would have done better to heed his own advice as the man in orange was a redhead as well. The poison took effect quite soon, at which crucial juncture, Percy choked out one last 'Inconceivable!' and collapsed, dead, to his right.

The man in orange removed Hermione's blindfold and gag. "Eat up," he commanded.

"Who are you?" Hermione demanded, once she'd gotten over the shock of seeing a man garbed almost entirely in Ron's favourite colour.

"I'm no one to be trifled with," the man in orange replied. "And that is all you ever need to know. I'm brave enough to wear bright orange when I have red hair, aren't I?"

"And to think," Hermione mused, as she broke a piece of bread, "all that time it was your cup that was poisoned." It would never do to let this oh-so-manly man to realise that his hostage could think for herself. She ate the bread.

"They were both poisoned," the man in orange told her. "I spent the last few years building up an immunity to Iocane powder."

Now, that made more sense. No matter how long Percy dithered, whichever goblet of Firewhiskey he chose, he would have been poisoned, and the man in orange would still be sitting there alive.

This time, Hermione had no choice but to go with the devil she didn't know.

A.N: Dialogue lifted almost directly from the script of the movie. I think it's one of the funniest scenes in the movie, which is almost always giggle-worthy anyway, but as it's so confusing I had to download a script to base this off. Hermione's thought mirror my own throughout the scene in the movie. I know that as she was blind-folded and so couldn't have seen what Percy and Ro – erm, the man in orange were doing, but the anonymous narrator could. Damn you, Vizzini, Australia is not a penal colony anymore ... As always, reviews are always appreciated.