Alan isn't winning this week, but then again, that isn't a surprise, given who he's up against. Nonetheless, he's tired of hearing their mushrooms sound (Snape's gives off the noise of a cauldron boiling, McGonagall's is a cat's meow, and Dumbledore's is not a mushroom at all, but a horklump that does a jig whenever it's poked; Alan thinks it must be getting quite tired).

"What is the longest animal?" Stephen asks. "Or 'which is the longest animal?' if you prefer," he says with a nod to McGonagall.

Alan taps his wand on his own mushroom, sending out yellow sparks and causing it to sound out two bars of "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love." He knows better than to say "the blue whale" (three sirens for it in the past two series) so instead he says "Ukranian Ironbelly?" It is the largest of the dragons, Alan knows, and it's pretty darn big.

Snape's snort of derision carries all the way to the back of the audience (probably would have done even without the sound enhancement spells, Alan figures) and they all laugh nervously. Even though Alan knows he's here to entertain, not win points, he still has to keep himself from saying something rude. Snape's such a bastard, especially to Gryffindors.

"No, dear," says Stephen. "Anyone else?"

"Most likely a sea creature," says Dumbledore. He's surprisingly competitive, Alan has found, but also cautious.

"Mmm, yes," says Stephen. "You'll need to be a little more specific, though."

Alan loses his patience. "All right, blue whale. Is it a blue whale?" (It'll be the right answer one of these times, he swears.)

The siren going off sounds like a half-strangled augurey and Alan huffs out a sigh as he sits back in his chair.

"You never learn, do you, my boy?" says Stephen. "No, it's not the blue whale." He looks around, but McGonagall lifts a hand to indicate that she doesn't know, and Dumbledore also declines to venture a guess. Snape just glowers. It's weird - Snape isn't particularly funny or interesting, and Alan occasionally wonders why they have him on the show at all. Then again, he knows that Stephen's always admired Snape, as Ravenclaws tend to do, so he chalks it up to masochism.

"It's actually the Icelandic Jörmungandr, otherwise known as the World Serpent," says Stephen. "Only two have ever been known to exist, but the larger was measured at 56 meters long, quite a bit longer than the blue whale, which has been measured at only 32.9 meters."

This gets a murmur of surprise out of the audience.

"Oh, yes. I believe the Hogwarts Gamekeeper had one of them healing in the lake for a while," says McGonagall, eliciting a round of laughter. "He called it Princess." Alan has to laugh, and even Snape's mouth turns up a little at the corners.

"Surprisingly imaginative, that man," says Stephen. "Princess, and Fluffy, and Norbert – you'd expect him to name a blast-ended skrewt Rover or some such."

"Flipper," Alan suggests, getting a laugh from the audience, and that's enough to make him forget his irritation. Comedy is a Gryffindor trait, he's found (unless you're Stephen), and most of the people who come on the show are his friends (Bill Bailey), or names he's seen carved into bedposts in his dormitory (Sean Lock, Jimmy Carr) or on the unofficial "Most Points Lost Per House" list they keep in the teacher's lounge (Alan found it one night while sneaking around trying to one-up Sirius Black, and much later when he meets Jo Brand he's not at all surprised to remember her name being on it). Comedy means being brave, Alan has found; maybe not brave in the "I might get killed" way, but brave in the "I might get humiliated" way, which frankly Alan thinks is just as important.

"Next question," says Stephen, and Alan shakes off his musings to dive back into the game.

"What kind of gift frees a house elf?"

Alan knows this one, but Snape gets in before him. "Clothes," he bites out, rolling his eyes.

They are both surprised when the siren sounds, and Snape's face takes on an outraged expression as Dumbledore begins to chuckle.

"I'm afraid that's wrong," says Stephen. "Often the object may be clothing, but clothing is not the defining quality, if you see what I mean."

Alan realizes his pleasure at Snape's anger is probably a little too obvious when Stephen turns to him with a disapproving look. Alan raises his shoulders in a gesture that signifies both apology and not knowing the answer, though the apology isn't particularly sincere since he's still grinning.

"Is it the cloth itself?" asks McGonagall.

"Weeeeell," says Stephen, "you're along the right lines; the cloth is related."

"Madam Malkin employs a house-elf, though," says Dumbledore, "so it can't be just any cloth. She'd be setting it free constantly."

"That's right," says Stephen. "Actually, according to the terms of the enchantment, it must be a natural fiber, it must be woven, it must be worn, it must be given by the head of household, and the item must belong to someone living in the household."

Snape scoffs. "But only clothing would fit such a description. 'It must be worn.'"

Stephen shakes his head. "Not necessarily. It could be a woven piece of jewelry, for example."

McGonagall makes a noise that Alan knows means she's impressed, though he heard it few enough times when he was her student.

"That is actually quite interesting," says Dumbledore.

"Yes, isn't it?" says Stephen, looking very self-satisfied. "The original idea was that one ought to be able to free one's house elf with very basic materials, so that if one were destitute, for example, and unable to care for the elf, one could set it free. Balancing that, it ought not to be too easy to free the elf accidentally. And in those days, women were always responsible for clothing and were never head of household, so handing over the wash wouldn't free the elf."

Dumbledore and McGonagall are listening intently, but Alan has drifted off into boredom. Sometimes Stephen's definition of 'interesting' doesn't quite match up with his own. Still, he enjoys doing the show; most weeks have better guests than this, and he does occasionally learn something. Besides, Fred and George are going to be on next week, and then it'll be Stephen's turn to be frustrated beyond belief. Alan grins again, just imagining it.