Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

Instantly, the temperature dropped in the Hall. ‘It’s working, it’s working!’ Bently thought in excitement. The breath mist from everyone in the Hall started swirling around Bently, just as King had written.

“Edger Allen Poe! Show yourself!” Bently called out, trying to mask his enthusiasm with maturity.

And in moments, the ghost of Edger Allen Poe appeared.

His ghost was nothing more than a head, shoulders, and an arm. He was blue-grey, with a bald head and long beard, and he had a black ghost raven perched on his arm. Both his and the raven’s eyes were a glowing red.

“Who are you, boy, to have called upon me?” Poe asked, looking down at Bently with disapproval.

“I’m the new master writer, Bently McQuinn,” said Bently, keeping eye contact with Poe. “Your apprentice, Stephen King, summoned you, actually.”

“Stephen?” asked Poe, looking around to see King smiling mysteriously.

“Hello, Edger,” greeted King. “We need your help.”

“So you bring back my ghost?” asked Poe, irritated. He shook his head and sighed. “What do you need this time?”

“There’s a character we need, but she’s trapped in the Blank World,” Bently explained. “King said you’ve written characters out of the Blank World and restored them to their last stories. How did you do that?”

“It was no easy task, McQuinn,” said Poe, floating down to Bently’s level. “I had to restore Hamlet back to his story.”

“Yes, but how did you do it?”

“Be patient. You see, first we needed to go into his world. Once there, I had to write about Hamlet like he was a new character, but gave him all the same characteristics as the old Hamlet. And a little while after my reader, Charlotte, read him back in, he appeared, like he hadn’t been gone at all. But be warned; if you don’t write them precisely correct, the character will come back incomplete.”

“Thanks, Poe,” said Bently. “I’ll do my best now.”

“I would say good luck, but I have a feeling you’ll fail,” said Poe, and he started to dissipate.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bently asked angrily, but Poe was already gone.

-

Pansy walked around the Blank World with Darth Vader. He was the only person she had talked to here, and he was very interesting to talk to. He told her stories about fighting strange aliens and flying space ships, and she told him about all the crazy things that happened at Hogwarts and what she could remember of her journey with Bently.

“The last thing I remember before waking up here was Jacob grabbing me in Narnia and dragging me through some portal thing,” Pansy concluded. “I think something else happened, but I don’t remember it.” She rubbed her arm where the wolf had bitten her. All the rot was gone and her arm was completely healed; there wasn’t even a scar. But Pansy could still feel it deep inside her. Whether it was indeed still there or it was just her mind playing tricks on her, she had no idea. But she didn’t want her arm to look like an Inferi’s again.

“Interesting,” said Darth. Pansy was getting used to his mechanical voice.

“Do you know what happens when you leave here?” Pansy asked.

“I don’t know,” Darth replied. “I believe you go to a new story, though.”

“Cool. I can’t wait to get back to fighting fairies.”

-

“Bently, how are you doing?”

Bently gave a start and messed up the “s” he was currently penning. He looked up to see Meggie standing there in the doorway to Dumbledore’s office.

“Fine,” Bently muttered.

It had been exactly three days since King had summoned Poe’s ghost. Bently had spent those three days writing, and he had made hardly any progress. Every time he finished a passage, he re-read it, balled it up, and threw it somewhere in the office. He had promised the portraits on the walls that he would clean up the headmaster’s office once he was done.

But no matter what he did, the words just wouldn’t come. He emptied his mind and wrote, but despite the fact that every time he got a little further, he felt like he was still missing something. He didn’t know what that missing piece was, and it was driving him crazy. He could describe Pansy in every way from the shape of her nose to the way she walked to the way she frowned a little when she did magic, but something was still missing.

“Bently, you can hardly see the floor you’ve got so many balls of paper scattered around.”

Bently sighed and put down the pen. “I just… I’m missing something. Every time I write about Pansy, it just doesn’t seem quite right. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

He handed her the latest version which was still intact in his notebook and she scanned over it. “I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. Maybe you just need a new approach.”

“New approach?” Bently asked blankly.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what that might be, but maybe you should try writing it a different way. You’ve got everything you need there, you just need to get it to flow together better.”

Bently took the dangerously thin notebook and looked at it again. He tore out the current page and threw it somewhere by the Pensive. If they ever got there, he had better take the second notebook into Oz.

“Alright, thanks Meggie.”

-

Bently wrote all night. It was a long and slow process, and his eyes ached with exhaustion by the time he had finished. He fell asleep in Dumbledore’s chair with his head resting on the desk. He slept soundly until he felt someone shaking him.

“Uh… eh?” Bently asked wearily as he looked up with slightly blurry vision. Neville had been the one shaking him.

“How goes it?” Neville asked, a kind smile on his face.

“Oh, good! I think I finished it!” said Bently with slurred enthusiasm, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“You sure?” Neville asked with caution. “We don’t want a fluffy-loving Pansy back with us.”

“No, I’m sure this’ll work, I finally found the right words,” said Bently, getting up and snatching up the notebook. He set it inside the hidden pocket along with the pen and spare notebook.

“Alright, I’ll gather everyone in the Great Hall. Fifteen minutes, alright?”

“Right, that’ll work.”

Bently pulled the notebook back out after Neville left and read it over once more. It just had to be the right words. If not, they were all doomed.

-

“Ready Meggie?”

The four companions and Neville stood up on the Staff Table, facing lots of characters. Most were from Hogwarts, but some were from other books that they had already saved.

Meggie nodded at Bently. “I am if this is right.”

“It is,” Bently assured her. Even though King had read through it and approved it, on the inside, Bently panicked slightly. What if it didn’t work? What then? Would they still be able to get in to Oz? And for some strange reason, he thought… what would everyone think if he failed? Would they lose faith in him? Or would they understand that this was difficult, so difficult that not even Stephen King himself had been able to do it?

“Alright, here goes,” said Meggie. Bently fought the urge to clench his eyes shut.

“A storm raged outside the Great Hall. The lightning lit the sky and thunder claps shook the entire castle moments afterwards. The rain pelted the windows, and if the drops were any stronger, they might have broken some windows. The wind was blowing impossibly fast, whipping trees around in the Forbidden Forest. Hogwarts hadn’t seen a storm like this in years.

But through the storm, someone appeared and started walking towards the castle. They had a long, dark green cloak, black jeans, a long sleeve green shirt, and black boots. They carried a long wooden wand in their hands, and the storm was pelting them with all it had. The figure walked up to the oak front doors and opened them, stepped inside, and shut out the storm behind them.

They took off their sopping hood and shook out their long brown hair. They tightened the pony tail their hair was in and waved their wand, drawing all the water out of their cloths and into a large puddle on the floor.

This figure, a female one, had blue-grey eyes that flashed with sarcasm and distrust. Their walk was almost a swagger, and they carried themselves with pride. Their boots clunked in the empty Entrance Hall as they walked over to the closed doors of the Great Hall.

With a grunt, they pushed the doors opened and entered. Everyone in the hall turned around to see Pansy Parkinson walk into the Great Hall, back from the Blank World. She stood there, smirking up at Bently. “Missed me?” she asked with that familiar bite to her voice.

The hall burst into cheers. Bently McQuinn had risen someone from the Blank World.”

Presently, they heard a huge boom of thunder above their heads. Everyone flinched as it started raining. The rain got steadily stronger and stronger until it was pelting against the castle.

‘Well, at least that part worked,’ Bently thought nervously. He wasn’t sure if it was going to work at all, but so far, it seemed to be.

The storm raged and raged overhead. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. Bently grew steadily more nervous as the hall got more restless. Finally, at twenty minutes past…

“Way to go, Bently.”

It was Ernie. He was standing, looking up at Bently with disgust. “She’s not coming. Glad to know you can fail.”

“Hey, give him some credit!” snapped Meggie. “At least he tried. You all heard Poe, it’s really hard to do!”

“Yeah, and Poe was right,” Ernie sneered. “He said McQuinn would fail, and it happened.”

“Well, he certainly did a lot more than you did,” Lucy retorted, but the hall started murmuring with agreements to Ernie.

“Whatever, I’m outta here,” said Ernie, and he started for the door.

“Fine, just leave,” Meggie called after him. Bently felt numb. He was so sure it would work when he wrote it, so sure…

Just as Ernie reached for the door, it swung open on its own.

“Missed me?”

Pansy stood in the doorway, her hair wet, smirking up at Bently. Ernie stopped in his tracks, stunned. And the hall burst into cheers.

“Pansy? Is that you?” Ernie asked, incredulous.

“Yes, Ernie, do I look that different?” she asked, pushing past him.

Bently’s heart rose. He had done it. He had done it.

Bently jumped off the Staff Table and pushed past people, running to Pansy. He caught her up in a tight hug.

“Jeeze Bently, did Meggie make you go soft?” she asked sarcastically.

“No, you’re just back!” Bently yelled, excited. “You still have that elf light, right?”

Pansy pulled it out of her cloak. “Right here. Why?”

“Good, ‘cuz we’re gonna need it. Meggie!”

“Yeah Bently?” she asked, herself, Lucy, and King all joining them.

“Let’s get out of here and go fight the Fairy Mistress,” Bently cheered. Smiling, Meggie pulled out Wicked from her bag and lead everyone out into the Entrance Hall.

“We’ll be back after we’ve won!” King yelled over his shoulder. Even he was grinning. “I knew you could do it, Bently,” he said, ruffling Bently’s hair.

“Thanks King, I didn’t know if I could or not,” Bently said truthfully. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”

Meggie promptly opened up the book and started reading.

"Shiz! She tried not to gawp. Everyone hustling on business, laughing and hurrying and kissing, dodging carriages, while the buildings of Railway Square, brownstone and bluestone and covered with vine and moss, steamed softly in the sunlight. The animals—and the Animals! She had scarcely ever come across even the odd chicken squawking philosophically in Frottica—but here was a quartet of tsebras at an outdoor café, dressed flashily in black-and-white satin stripes on the bias to their inborn design; and an elephant on its hind legs directing traffic; and a tiger dressed up in some sort of exotic religious garb, a kind of monk or maunt or nun or something. Yes, yes, it was Tsebras, and Elephant, and Tiger, and she supposed Goat. She would have to get used to enunciating the capital letters or else she would show off her country origins.”