Rita Skeeter's Revenge
by Natalie
Dear Hermione:
Hi!
Sorry I haven’t written in a while.
I’ve been busy (with schoolwork, for once!)
Also, Hedwig has been gone most of the time on her way to or from
Snuffles. How is your summer
going? Are you still visiting the
Burrow later? Hope so.
I’m looking forward to having you check my homework!
But I have a particular
reason for writing, and it concerns you (and a certain other person who we both
know and loathe).
Listen, you’re going to
think this is a weird question, but have you ever played video games?
Or more importantly, have you ever spoken to anyone who has had anything
to do with Muggle video or arcade games? Told them anything about your magical
life, or Hogwarts?
Because … this is gonna
sound really weird. I’ve been
watching Dudley play video games on the Internet since I got home, and last week
a friend of his brought over a new game that he’d pirated from somewhere –
Hong Kong or Thailand, or something – and they installed it on Dudley’s
computer.
OK, so not weird so far.
But check this out:
The game is called
‘DemonQuest IX – The Potions Master’.
I am not joking.
When I saw the opening
credits, I almost choked.
Of course I couldn’t
just stand there and watch Dudley play, if he caught me he’d sit on me and
crush me to death – so I had to watch him on the sneak until I could figure
out how the game worked.
So, hope you’re sitting
down.
Here’s the point of the
game. You are a magician in a
fictional magical realm, given a series of tasks to perform. There are dozens of them, they’re given to you at random.
They’re things like, heal an injured Unicorn, or defend the virtue of a
Mermaid, or capture an escaped convict. All
the while, you are being pursued by the agents of evil in the form of: Viper,
the Evil Potions Master, who is always trying to poison you or turn people
against you; Hermi the Succubus, who tries to seduce your henchmen; and a weird
little monkey-boy pet of theirs, named … get this … Hairy.
These three have the help
of the Demons of Arauncule, who are some beings, we never got to see them
properly because Dudley isn’t a good-enough player yet.
Supposedly, at some point, if you get far enough along they change sides
and help you. I don’t know.
Anyways, I guess you’re
already chewing away on this, but it gets worse. This Viper dude, he isn’t ugly, or hook-nosed, or
sour-faced like our Dear Professor, but he is tall, thin, pale, with long
black hair. He dresses in black,
and he’s a real wise-ass. The
things the game has him say are exactly the kind of thing Professor Snape
would say! It’s positively eerie.
‘Stop what you are
doing right now or you will not live to regret it.’
‘Well well well, what
have we here? A little magician on
his little mission.’
‘I knew that you were
behind this the moment I saw the mess. You
are consigned to the depths of the Dungeons of Black Opals.
You may buy your freedom with 15 hours of labour in my demonic stables,
or by drinking this weakening potion.’
‘So you thought that
you, Pussylikr, are above the normal laws of the Magical Kingdom?
I think you will find that you have been mistaken.
Your friends will no doubt abandon you once they discover your
incompetence and weakness of will.’ [Sorry
about the word above – it’s stupid Dudley’s stupid online name.]
Oh, AND… he has a pair
of green sunglasses!
But this Hermi chick,
whoa, she’s something else!! She
carries around a bunch of shrunken spellbooks in her hair, she’s always
bossing Hairy around, telling him what to do, and she, well … she’s really
hot, actually. She doesn’t really
wear clothes… Anyways, she always goes in and bollocks things up for you when
the Viper fails – she specialises in seduction and kidnapping.
And she has horns.
Hairy isn’t much of
anything – he’s just a lackey. He
doesn’t talk much, and he mostly just does what Hermi tells him to.
So, I just thought –
this can’t be a coincidence. Someone
must, like - have a Muggle friend in the video game industry or something.
It’s just too weird.
Anyways, I’m going to
keep watching Dudley – it’ll be interesting to find out what happens when he
gets good enough to work with the Demons of whatever – and maybe you could
wrack your brains and try to figure out how you and Professor Snape ended up on
Dudley’s TV screen?
I really hope that you
have an answer to this mystery, it’s been bugging me like nobody’s business.
~sigh~ Enough about
stupid Dudley’s stupid mind-numbing game.
Please write back soon and tell me all about your summer!
Love,
Harry.
Fin
SilentG gnat67@telus.net
825
GRRR...I
don't know why the picture isn't showing, so here's the link to the wonderful
inspiration:
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/whenikissedtheteacher/vwp?.dir=/PictureTheStory+Challenge&.src=gr&.dnm=cause+i+said+i%27d+put+it+here..jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/whenikissedtheteacher/lst%3f%26.dir=/PictureTheStory%2bChallenge%26.src=gr%26.view=t
