“All students of fanfiction please report to the Quidditch pitch at this time. If you think you can skip out on this ‘demonstration’, by all means, don’t attend. I wouldn’t want to deprive the M-Squad of their fun.” Chuckling gleefully, Meir Brin put the magical megaphone back in its place and shouldered a haversack full of Tantaflaf.

Oh yes, this was going to be good...

*********

Ouch. Someone was roughly shaking Ally awake. The fanwriter grumbled and sat up, noticing that she had a monumental bruise on her forehead.

“What—?”

“Come on, we have to leave! Didn’t you hear what Brin said? The M-Squad!”

“M-Squad?”

“I don’t know! I don’t want to find out either!”

Ally’s vision finally came into focus. “Molly W?”

“Yeah. Come on!” Molly W grabbed Ally by her shirt collar and dragged her into the hallway. “We’ve got to get to the Quidditch pitch.”

They joined the throng of students moving toward the front lawn. Ally winced as she bumped down the stairs. (Molly W was still dragging her.) The feeling was oddly familiar... “Peeves!”

“Where?!” cried Penelope Ross, ducking behind Molly W and Ally and holding up a rolled newspaper. Ally had heard just that morning that Penelope’s toaster had been carried off by several Mini-Aragogs, who were now using it as a curling iron for their long shaggy black hair. Apparently, Peeves had abetted the incident, and then had proceeded to tape fliers for “Coifs for Crawlies” all over Penelope’s book bag.

“Uh... never mind,” said Ally, who had become quite unsettled by the odd qualities possessed by many of her fellow students. She managed to get shakily to her feet as Molly W approached the Entrance Hall stairs. There were too many jolts on that staircase for her liking.

The Quidditch pitch was packed to full capacity. Ally located Redfire and Riona in a corner of the stands. Redfire was nursing a huge green welt on her forearm, and started to wail just as Ally took her seat.

“It’s never gonna go awaaaaaaaaaayyyyy...” Redfire moaned, poking at the boil.

“What happened?” asked Ally.

Riona looked up and grimaced. “She—ah—made a pun. In Fun with Puns. Redfire was telling Mirild Sket this joke—”

“It was really funny too! Where does Professor Snape do his shopping?”

“Uh—”

“At Sev’s-R-Us! Isn’t it funny! See, Ally’s laughing! I told you it was funny!”

Redfire seemed to have mistaken Ally’s gagging noises and face-fault as a bout of uncontrollable laughter. In actuality, Ally could see the reason why Professor Snape had been so inclined to hurt her.

Then Dimond Giesbrecht came up behind them and took a seat. Dimond Giesbrecht had not properly specified on her enrollment form what her name was, and was now being called by both. Ally had been calling her Dimond, mostly she wasn’t quite sure of the proper pronunciation of her other name. “Do you know what’s going on?” the fanwriter asked.

“No,” said Riona, pulling Redfire’s sleeve down over the boil. “It’ll be gone before you know it. Remember? Vethil’s hands are now completely normal; it’ll wear off.”

“Bloody Hell! Where did that come from?!” said Dimond Giesbrecht, who had just noticed Redfire’s welt.

This provoked another wail from the afflicted fangirl. “But what if it never goes awaaaaaa—”

“Attention, ladies, gentlemen, and fanwriters!” The students were suddenly jerked to attention as Lee Jordan’s voice boomed across the field. “Welcome to the First Weekly Mini-Aragog Paintball Association Competition! We apologize for such short notice, but because of certain circumstances the match has been pushed forward to this time! And now, a quick word from Meir Brin...”

“Okay, fanwriters,” came the growling voice of Meir Brin. “Apparently, there was a little Incident this morning concerning one Remus Lupin and a certain House. IT SEEMS THAT SOME OF YOU ARE HAVING A HARD TIME REMEMBERING THE RULES AROUND HERE. Can any of you figure out which House is missing from this little sortie?”

“I’m a Wantingmor,” said Dimond Giesbrecht, looking perplexed. “You two are Canonlaws...”

“And I’m in Slashering,” finished Riona.

They all gulped. Lusterbuff.

Meir Brin seemed to have noticed the uneasy glances. She continued. “It is therefore my great PLEASURE to direct your attention to the SIDELINES which have been equipped with Luster-Buffers.”

Heads snapped downward. Sure enough, tied to the sidelines were the Lusterbuffs. They had been magicked into a human chain, and were forming a tidy ring around the entire pitch.

“Enjoy the match...” commented Meir Brin. Then Lee Jordan had control of the stadium once again.

“Playing today is the Voldemort squad! Voldermort, Volemort, Voldemord, and Vuldimort! Versus... The McGonagall squad! Mcgonagall, McGonigal, McGonagal, and McGonnogal!”

“Oh no...” moaned Ally, as eight muscular Mini-Aragogs dropped onto the field. The Voldemort squad had dyed their fur a nice shade of green, while the McGonagalls had turned their fur red. Small cannons (not to be confused with “Canon”) were strapped to all of the spiders’ backs. In addition, two Mini-Balrogs were airborne, circling the field, as well. One was probably Elessor, and the other was...

“Leoglas!” Riona stood up in her seat and watched as her Mini-Balrog pulled on a black and white pinny in midair.

“That’s yours?” said Dimond Giesbrecht, looking amused. “It looks like they’re playing referee...”

“I was wondering where he had gotten to! Leoglas!” called Riona, waving furiously. The Mini-Balrog turned and barked in her direction, then winked and sped off over the pitch.

The match had begun. Great globs of Tantaflaf went zooming from the Mini-Aragog cannons. The spiders were none too accurate, often missing and hitting the Luster-Buffers. The Canon crowd seemed to cheer especially loud when this occurred.

The Mini-Aragogs took several hits from each other as well. Lord Voldemort was on his sideline, egging on his name-mistakes, and jumping up and down excitedly whenever a point was awarded to his side. Leoglas awarded a penalty once (for grabbing pincers), but Elessor seemed to just like diving onto the field and forcing the Mini-Aragogs to jump to the side, often making them smash into the Luster-Buffers. Ally thought that perhaps Meir Brin had asked her Mini-Balrog to do just that.

The match lasted for quite some time. The McGonagall squad took a quick lead when McGonigal and McGonnogal combined forces to pin Vuldimort to the Luster-Buffer (The Shroom didn’t look to happy over this one), giving Mcgonagall a chance to use her cannon and nail him. Then the Voldemort side retaliated, somewhat sneakily, by jumping on top of the Luster-Buffer (again, Stephanie Brown didn’t appear too pleased) and dive-tackling their foes.

The game ended at four o’clock in the afternoon. Voldemort’s side had won, 48 hits to 26. The Dark Lord was doing a victory dance over on his sideline, watched by a disgruntled Tom Riddle who appeared to be saying “Filth. You’re so immature. I wish you’d grow up. Filth.”

Professor McGonagall, on her sideline, was consoling McGonagal, who seemed to have broken into little Mini-Aragog tears at not winning the match (which was soon ended when the spider saw Vethil and proceeded to tackle).

The Lusterbuffs were released from their spell, and walked off the field, wincing.

Ally and her friends were rooted to their seats in horror. Each fanwriters’ eyes were wide open, their backbones straight as a rod. Ally leaned over and voiced the question they were all wondering. “Do you think we’ll be next?”