Chapter Three
The First Assault

According to the records of those times, compiled by two generations of Potts’ and kept in a red loose-leaf folder, it’s pages stained with the butter drips from crumpets, and tears from many days both bitter and sweet of tireless study, analysis, debate, anger, more crumpets, poetry, ‘pipe-weed’, and alcohol, Rowling’s quest for domination had begun many years before, at a time when he was accused of trying to gain influence over the University senate by devious means.

Initially, he had found things going well. The tactic of being a friendly and helpful mentor figure to other members of the Brethren provided access to many people of potentially useful standing, and many good minds. Rowling became adept at using people to do his bidding, usually with them remaining completely unaware of their folly. Secretly, Rowling garnered the accumulated knowledge of the Brethren, distilled at least the gist of the wisdom passed down, and had optimised the efficiency of his beginner’s level osmium-taegidium torus by incorporating an atomising spray from a Body Shop deodorant pump-action bottle connected to a small electric motor and battery, so that it’s spread was wide and generous yet silent and unobtrusive. In this way, he found that whole rooms full of people could be controlled. He tested and perfected the device by using it in his lectures and analysing recordings of the sessions, until at last the mind control could be made almost total by use of commonly-employed phrases (clichés). Indeed on one early winter’s evening, he took a Level One ‘History of anatomical drawing’ class and marched them up and down for twenty minutes in a unused courtyard behind the University kitchens, without a single student being aware of the trial. He found, though, that this high level of control was not practicable because movements were too jerky. A video recording of this particular trial was stolen from Rowling’s briefcase, later to re-emerge on MTV as part of the video for Thriller.

The problem of hiding the emitter device itself was overcome by mimicking a vol-au-vent pastry case. Rowling previously had earned a reputation as the Vol-au-vent Kid, or Professor Vol-au-vent, owing to his habit of heading immediately to the vol-au-vents at University and other functions. He overcame his intense dislike of this ridicule in order to put it to his advantage, and before long a bag of vol-au-vents sat permanently on his desk, and was with him at meetings and conferences. His forays into the bag for his ‘favourite vittle’ enabled him to adjust the settings on the torus. He still hated the name though, insisting that none of his people used it, and those who feared or respected him never did. Such was his reputation, that the name Vol-au-vent was rarely heard in his presence, except from the growing number of his enemies.

No, it was the limited range of the device that led to his undoing. He noticed it first at conferences. There, he would get enthusiastic applause, but it was always louder near the lectern. On the few occasions that critical voices were heard, they came from the back of the room. He did not really mind this, especially as the front rows were vocal in their contempt for any critical voices, but he nevertheless began to work on a new torus, of increased range. It was at this time that the Brethren began to take more of an interest in Rowling. They had been aware of Geber’s work for more than three hundred years, and knew well that a working torus was capable of giving the wielder dominance over large groups of people at one time, but they did not then know that Rowling had constructed one. He, however, regarded the Brethren, now he had learnt their secrets, as irrelevant fools, and continued to work in earnest on a bigger torus, of far greater range and power. The finished emitter was considerably bigger than the last so, after carefully considering the range of alternatives open to him, he decided that he would disguise it as a doughnut, so began eating these at conferences in preference to vol-au-vents. His weight doubled, but his thralls hardly noticed, and his rivals hardly cared. Only Dumbledalf kept a watchful eye on Vol-au-vent’s affairs, though he had not yet worked out why he was suspicious of him; he only knew that he was. Rowling’s new found passion for doughnuts meant that he remained known as Vol-au-vent only to his dedicated opponents. His increasing bulk only served to enhance his superior stature. The new torus worked extremely well, and Vol-au-vent’s power grew in parallel with his waistline. So did his confidence.

The first great conflict was staged at a major seminar when Rowling suddenly stood up, called the meeting to order, declared his superiority to all other lecturers, and started ordering people around. The pronouncement was met with general amazement, and from Dumbledalf’s viewpoint from the back of the room, a surprising number of people appeared to think it was an acceptable thing to say. Two fellow academics, Drs Gill Star and Alan Dell, thought it absurdly funny, however, and danced around Rowling, jeering insults until, incandescent with rage, Rowling tried to barge them out of his way. The two tripped him up, knocking his bag of doughnuts out of his hand and onto the floor. As the assailants were led away (mysteriously to be later blamed for the whole fracas and forced to resign), Dumbledalf bent down to pick up the bag, which he thought felt rather heavy, and discovered that one of the doughnuts was some sort of mechanism. He placed the bag on the table in front of him ready to examine it, but before much else happened, there was a kerfuffle, and Dell’s dimwit son, only present at all to ‘borrow’ some money from his father, after having gone on holiday by mistake, made off with the bag of doughnuts, torus and all. The Brethren, had they been given the chance to see it, would have known the full power of that thing, but the silly durr took it for himself because it was ‘cool looking’. His ownership was brief, however, because on his way home with his prize he was waylaid by a hen party of chavettes, who mugged him. The torus was lost, apparently forever, and most of those who ever knew it existed, forgot all about it.