Double Dog Dare! -- Episode 32
Catherine, 15 February 2003

Sirius Black stared at Sirius Black. Or rather, the Polyjuiced Severus Snape stared at Sirius Black.

"What are you doing now, you oaf?" he asked waspishly. "We don't have much time to waste before the potion wears off!"

But Sirius wasn't allowing himself to be distracted. "Listen... listen to Fidelis..."

The Siriused Snape looked at his little dog, who was now ensconced in a pocket of Black's robes, being somewhat safer for him, albeit slightly more odiferous, than Snape's currently-Polyjuiced ones. His eyes narrowed.

For Fidelis was making odd little sounds, gruff and rhythmic, over and over again: AaaRrrruuuff, AaaRrrrrr! AaaRrrruuuff, AaaRrrrrr! Riiifff, Riiifff, Riiifff, Riiifff....

"He's chanting something, is he? Can you make it out?"

Sirius took a minute to answer. "It sounds like he's trying out a Summoning spell for dogs," he finally said, wonderingly.

Snape shook his head sadly. "Poor pup. It won't work, but let him keep chanting; at least it should keep his mind off his legs awhile." He turned towards the door. "Now let's get Ms. Tewksberry's attention."

---oo000oo---

Jason was running blindly down the passages of Knockturn Alley, too scared to look where he was going, much less look behind him.

If I can only just make it around this corner --

Suddenly everything went blip! He sank to the filthy cobblestones, vaguely wondering if he'd ever wake up again... or if he'd want to...

The next thing he knew, he was awake.

Awake, alive, in pain, and chained to a wall in a well-lit room.

The rough iron cut into his wrists and ankles, his own weight making the pain worse. Ultimate Evil was standing right in front of him, smiling thinly. The Dark Lord held what looked like a baseball bat in his thin, scaly hands.

I wonder why I haven't shit my pants yet, thought Jason as he looked into the glowing eye-slits of Lord Voldemort. Must be because my bowels are empty.

Lord Voldemort was running his fingers up and down the wood of the bat, looking rather abstractedly at his prize. "So," he said, in a loud, deep bass that made Jason flinch, "...an American, I see."

The Dark Lord made a pass with his hand, and suddenly the chains holding Jason vanished. The boy fell to the floor, landing stumblingly on his feet.

"Take this in your right hand," Voldemort said, holding out the baseball bat. Jason, shaking ever-so-slightly, didn't much feel like disobeying him; the boy's right hand found the handle and held it in a white-knuckle grip. The bat suddenly hummed, a low bass hum, lower than Voldemort's own voice. Jason, novice wizard that he was, could feel the power coursing through it.

"I thought so," smiled the Dark Lord. He then pulled from his robes a piece of cloth and held it in front of Jason. It was an old flag of the US; Jason knew it was old because it didn't seem to have the right number of stars on it.

And then Voldemort did something totally unexpected.

"Recite the Pledge of Allegiance," Voldemort commanded.

Jason swallowed, blinking sweat from his eyes. He was having a hard time trying to remember the words.

"Need a little memory jog, boy?" mocked the Dark Lord, levelling his wand at Jason. "Crucio!"

Jason saw the flash erupt from Voldemort's wand -- and then...

...and then fell to the floor in agony, howling at the top of his lungs, clutching the bat in both hands. He was dimly aware, through the haze of pain, of Voldemort laughing. It sounded like boulders tumbling down a hillside.

I'm going to die here, Jason thought, as he writhed and rolled, drooling at the Dark Lord's booted feet.

But somehow....

Somehow, though, the harder he held the bat, the less it hurt. He gripped the bat even harder, hoping the Dark Lord wouldn't notice, or realize what was happening.

Within thirty seconds, the pain had almost totally vanished. But he wasn't about to let Voldemort know that. He lay on the floor, panting, for a moment; then he slowly rose to his unsteady feet.

Holding the bat in both hands, looking at the flag, and only at the flag, Jason began to recite in a trembling voice:

"I pledge allegiance... to the Flag... of the United States of America... and to the Republic... for which it stands.... one nation... under God... indivisible... with liberty and justice for all."

And nothing happened. The bat stopped humming.

The ensuing silence built and grew, feeding on the anger and surprise writ onto the Dark Lord's reptilian mask of a face. Jason tried to suppress a whimper, but couldn't.

"Worthless American artifacts!" roared Voldemort in a voice that rattled the chains on the wall, sending them clanking. He threw the old flag down in disgust. He then looked up at Jason, and smiled again.

"Worthless American mudbloods," he whispered, his wand out. "Crucio!"

He was gone from the locked room by the time Jason had recovered.

--oo000oo--

I am so dead, thought Jason McCarthy numbly.

He sat in a corner of the otherwise-empty room, staring at the flag in his one bruised hand, and the bat, which he held in the other bruised hand.

Except it really wasn't a baseball bat. In fact, it really didn't look it was a single piece of wood: it looked more like several different woods, of different colors, shapes and sizes, all bound together somehow to form one... object.

I'm forgetting something... but what?

It must have been the shock of the Crucios that jarred it loose.

Suddenly, it came to him: A memory of a civics class many years ago. Taught by a teacher who didn't last very long before the Pat Robertson types on the school board got rid of him.

And then, as if he were there again in that tight, too-small wooden desk, instead of sitting bruised and battered on a stone floor, Jason could once again hear old Mr. Blankenship speaking, in low, clear tones, as his arthritic hands grasped the lectern: "The words 'under God' aren't part of the original Pledge, you know. Francis Bellamy, the Pledge's author, was a Socialist, and very much in favor of separation of Church and State. The words were added during the Red Scare years of the early 1950s..."

Jason shot to his feet. He held the flag in his left hand, the bat in his right.

And he began to recite the Pledge again -- correctly, this time:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag, of the United States of America..."

The bat tingled in his right hand. Keep going, keep going, he thought he heard a voice say.

"...and to the Republic for which it stands..."

The bat grew warmer, and started humming again.

"...one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all..."

A white light spiraled out from the bat's core, winding around Jason. The bat glowed and hummed and sparkled. Jason gasped.

And slowly, from the white light, a ghostly form coalesced to stand in front of him. Tall and thin, with a growing impression of force, restraint and immense powers under iron control.

Its features were resolving and sharpening as Jason watched. First, into something obviously human; then, into that of a man wearing clothes Jason knew had to be at least a hundred years out of date. Finally, the form's features were as sharp, and as seemingly solid, as Jason's own.

It -- or rather, he -- was also possessed of a high, yet resonant tenor voice, as Jason soon discovered: "A Boston boy, eh? And a Muggle-born one, too! Excellent, excellent!"

Jason's legs were shaking so much he could barely stand. "W-who are y-you, sir?" he croaked out haltingly.

The ghostly figure's face was that of an elderly, dignified turn-of-the-century American black man. "Benjamin Banneker Hooks, young man," he said smilingly, executing a courtly bow. "And you're holding in your hand my greatest invention: the United Staves of America."