Nigeria vs. Scotland

2008-06-04T11:39:00.000+01:00

“You think you’re mucking around with a Nigerian whom you can twist around your little fingers!”

As he spoke, or rather, raged, his normal Caucasian skin acquired a tine of red, which spread all over his face and then deepened, till there were blotches of purple at different parts of his face. He was spitting all the time.

“In my first year, eleven did not graduate. In my second year, two did not graduate.” He went on to recount how he had caused calamity to various numbers of students. Apparently, he was deriving joy from it; his purple acquired a tint.

The other man, of average height, standing in front of his office, spoke for the first time: “who are the main culprits?”

“The members of room 5,” came a voice, whose owner was beyond my field of vision. I did not bother to turn to look at him; I would probably have puked if I did.

“Room 5 members, into my office,” said the man of average height. I got up from my kneeling position, not bothering to beat the dust off my black trousers. I would do it all together. As I walked past him, I caught a whiff of his fragrance. Acrid stench, I meant to say. It was a strong mixture of alcohol, sweat, and cheap, dilute perfume. It reminded me of a burning heap of junk. Only yesterday, this man made me kneel and then crawl on concrete under the sweltering heat of the sun. Worst of all, we partially shared a name. I wished I would have the pleasure of attending his funeral. Then I would spit on his grave, and a great sense of achievement and fulfillment would wash over me. I hate as well as I love, and I think I hated this man as well as I loved myself.

Recounting the harbingers of the fact that we would be flogged will only create excess undue displeasure with this man, whom I have already labeled an extortionist, thanks to a totally different incident. To cut the long story short, all eight inhabitants of room 5 were given five lashes of a cane. A cane I threw away much later, after failing in my attempts to both break it and treat it with concentrated acid. We went back to kneeling outside.

My super-duper Caucasian man appeared again, and as always, his belly preceded him. The buttons on his shirt threatened to fly off, but I bet they kept still because of the waves of anger that he was exuding. He started saying something in that British accent that I hate so much. I managed to catch the words “suspend” and “expel”, but his first words rang in my head.

You think you’re mucking with a Nigerian whom you can twist around your little fingers.

What did he think Nigerians were? I remember him saying once, in his uncontrollable fury, that he didn’t want the place looking like the rest of Nigeria, when he was talking about litter. He was probably labouring under the delusion that Nigeria was a dunghill.

If I had the means, he would have been long dead.

Nigeria – 0, Scotland - 1

Bellatrix Lestrange vs. Severus Snape

2008-06-03T19:45:00.000+01:00

She sat in an armchair, facing the grate. The room was getting dark. It was sunset, and she didn’t even bother to light the grate.

She leaned back in the chair, her wand twirling in her hand, releasing red sparks every now and then. She was angry. And she was deep in thought. Had she lost everything? Her heavily lidded eyes opened and closed in frustration, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. What was next?

Behind her, a figure appeared out of nothingness. It was cloaked heavily, even hooded, but not masked. But the twelve and three-quarters of unyielding walnut in her hand had cast all the charms around the house, and she knew when they had been defiled by Apparition. However, she wasn’t scared; there wasn’t anyone on the face of the earth that could scare her at this moment. Raising her wand with a surprisingly steady hand, she traced out a rectangle above her in thin air. The rectangle glowed for the tiniest space of time, and then the air inside it began to solidify into a mirror. But before it was fully formed, she saw the reflected image of a wand flick, and the half-formed mirror returned to nothingness. In its place was a fiery rope, which twisted itself into the words:

Turn to face me, won’t you?

Finally, she got up, and turned around gravely. When he saw her full frame he was taken, in fact moved to pity. She was thinner than normal, and her thinness only accentuated the tendency she had to carry her lean frame easily, and thus duel ferociously. Her eyelids and hair were a no longer had the old rich black hue that screamed I-am-from-a-rich-pureblood-family. She had had it quite rough recently. She looked unhealthy, even malnourished.

“You!” she shrieked. “Crucio!”

As skilled in Legillimency as he was, he didn’t expect her to attack so quickly. Just as she pronounced the curse, he waved his wand over himself. No, he would neither shriek nor moan in pain. He would not submit himself totally to her curse.

“Silenced yourself, have you?” she yelled at him. “You will scream, Severus, I will make you SCREAM!” She waved her wand at him, undoing his Silencing Charm, then screamed again, “Cru-“

“RRReddeliso!” Snape exclaimed, slashing his wand through the air. A jet of white light erupted from the point of his wand, and when it hit her, she froze, her lips in the middle of the Cruciatus curse, her wand pointing straight at him. Her eyes were wide open, and her hair and robes and left hand were caught in mid swing.

“You infuriate me, Bella,” said Snape, walking in circles around her. “When last did you hear me speak an incantation?” he asked, his lips barely moving. “Oh, I forgot, Madam Bellatrix Lestrange is now a statue.” Coming around to face her, he touched his wand to her lips, and they unfroze, allowing her to speak. The rest of her body was still bound by his jinx.

“So, how do you feel, Bella?” asked Snape, looking her straight in the eyes. “Do you not remember that it was I who taught you to work the Cruciatus curse properly, after you foolishly failed and gave away our position when we first attacked the McKinnons so many years ago? Talk about biting the fingers that fed you.” He spoke as he always did barely moving his lips, his voice devoid of emotion, stressing his words. A draught blew into the room, raising his sallow hair as one, as greasy as ever.

“Let me go, now!” shrieked Bellatrix.

“Make me,” said Snape, snorting, teasing. He moved to face her wand, also frozen in her hand. Your wand is pointing straight at me. Try the Imperius curse, won’t you?

“And,” he said, looking straight into her eyes once more, “get the Avada Kedavra out of your mind. I taught you that also, remember, with the engorged spiders in that filthy little house of yours in Grimmauld Place. You would be unwise to try it against me. Proud and haughty as you are, your Occlumency is the definition of mediocrity. Poor Draco.

“And now, with the manners you were unfortunately not taught by your pure blood mania parents, we duel,” he said, bowing.

With a tiny flick of his wand, he unfroze her. Without forethought, as her deliriousness had obviously gotten to her, she yelled again, “Cruc-“

“Traneto!” exclaimed Snape forcibly. Bellatrix’s wand spun in her hand, refusing to cast the Cruciatus curse that she had commanded, and then it shot out and sped to the ceiling. Snape moved it across the ceiling with his wand, taunting her, provoking her, enraging her.”

“What have you done? Let me have my wand, you blithering idiot! Complete coward! You know fully well that if I had my wand in my hand, you would be gone before you knew it!” She didn’t dare move too close to him.

“Too bad you don’t have your wand, Bella. Winners, keepers, right?”

Flourishing his wand in a superior way, he flicked it at her – she shot towards the nearest pillar – and then he yelled triumphantly, “Incarcerous!” and she was bound to the pillar, hair disheveled, wand doing cartwheels across the ceiling, blood trickling from her mouth.

“Thank you for having me to stay for these past minutes, Madam Lestrange.”
Snape bowed, and, turning, he silently faded into nothingness, unaccompanied by the loud crack of ineptitude.

me, myself and I

Nigeria vs. Scotland

Bellatrix Lestrange vs. Severus Snape