Meir Brin cheerfully made her way down the Quidditch pitch on a clear Tuesday afternoon. A certain field trip was going to come to pass. Mmm, field trips... Also, the MAPLE (Mini-Aragog Paintball League—Extreme) was holding its second match of the season, and the line-up promised to be good.

“Ah, the happiness of not being contagious,” Meir Brin sighed, striding over to the first bench. Hermione Granger was reading a large textbook about the effects of Westerlies on paintball precision to her team of Mini-Aragogs.

“And if the breeze has wind speed of over twenty—” Hermione dived under the team bench. “Don’t infect me!”

“Whoa, hold the bus. I’m not contagious anymore,” Meir Brin said hurriedly, backing away.

Hermione crawled out from under her safe-spot. “Sorry. I have a very low tolerance for the Vambiolaria, and I wouldn’t want to catch it now. And I really don’t like when those people come and put me through an exorcism.” Hermione shuddered.

“Of course. Well, ah, I’ll be off then.” Meir Brin smiled and walked of toward the other bench. Poor Hermione. She was often the target for Internal Sues, who preyed on Canon Characters and turned them into Sues from the inside out. This of course led to the PPC coming and performing an exorcism. Such were Hermione’s problems with being a strong female Canon Character. No one ever gave her a break.

“Now, what are we going to do?” said a loud voice, interrupting Meir Brin’s concentration.

“Winnings!” cried the whispery voices of the Mini-Aragogs.

Draco Malfoy smiled devilishly and fastened the last strap of Draoc’s harness. “Show the Mudblood who’s Name-mistakes are boss!” In the crowd, Mudblooed the Mini-Aragog perked up its ears, then sat back down dejectedly. It is not fun to be named after an insult.

“And if you win, I promise I’ll take you to the Blocktiria for rat sundaes afterward!”

Darco, Drac, Drcao, and Draycoo clicked their pincers together appreciatively. The Blocktiria had recently appeared at HFA as a cafeteria composed entirely of Lego’s. The food was reasonable, but it was more for the show that people attended. To watch the confused Lego people try and act as bouncer when faced with an inebriated Nearly-Headless Nick... Fun.

“We will fightses!” shrieked Darco. “Chargingses!”

*********

Ally sighed and took her seat in the stands. At least Meir Brin hadn’t decided to equip buffers to the sidelines for this match. Canonlaw-buffers... Very scary thought.

Of course, attending these matches wasn’t mandatory anymore, but one didn’t like to be in the castle alone. Recently the Weasley Twins had stumbled upon something called “Ten-Tongue Taffy,” and had taken to slipping it into people’s “secret-food-stash-that-I’m-sure-no-one-knows-about-’cause-I’m-ever-so-careful-all-the-time-and-have-applied-touch-recognition-sensors-to-my-secret-treasure-trove” food supply. And one didn’t want to be alone when they discover that they have several tiny tongues sprouting from their eyebrows, as was the effect of “Ten-Tongue Taffy.” And more importantly, the Mini-Aragog matches were a good time to play “spot that lust-object.”

Ally looked around her to see if she knew any of the students sitting near her. Redfire had received detainment for stalking Draco, so she was not present. Rumor had it that she had been forced to pin sequins on Rosmerta’s new shoes in order to help the waitress win this year’s “Shinier than Oz” shoe competition, and was now in the hospital wing. Apparently, Redfire had left her punishment seeing refracted light everywhere and had walked into a wall. This, of course, resulted in self-inflicted concussion.

“Ally!”

The girl in question looked up to see Antigra jump over the rows to sit next to her. “Hey...”

“Look, Ally, I know I haven’t been too nice so far, but... please hide me!” Antigra looked about in a panicky manner and ducked behind Ally.

Ally wasn’t too sure what this was about. The last time she had seen Antigra, the girl had been talking about how, and I quote, “Lovey characters are such dweeb-heads; if these writers want to write fluff, then they should be dropped in a pit of stuffing and never be allowed out.” Ally conveyed this thought to Antigra.

“Well, yeah, I know, but, err, I sorta let some of that slip to the Lusterbuffs and the Slasherings, and you know, they *cough*kindawannakillme*cough*.”

Ally was impressed. She didn’t know how Antigra could use asterisk-gestures in conversation so well that it didn’t even prompt Poltegiest the Mini-Aragog to come and lecture her with the “no internet lingo in fanfictions” tirade.

“Hey, look, there she is!” said a voice most likely belonging to a Random Slashering Number One. Ally looked back and saw Vee wading through the crowd with a pitchfork in hand.

“Hide me!” Antigra groaned. Ally placed a hand on top of the Canonlaw’s head and forced her under the seats. The two girls were holding their breaths and waiting for the vigilante “Romance forever” group to pass when Lee Jordan’s voice boomed across the pitch.

“Welcome to the second Mini-Aragog Paintball League—Extreme paintball game!” The Canon Characters clapped, but the fanwriter side of the stadium was silent. “Today, we have Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger’s name-mistakes facing off in a duel of fiendish glory! Paintball, the sport of psycho-maniacs! And the match begins... now!”

Ally watched as the Mini-Aragogs took their positions on the Quidditch field. The Mini-Balrog referees were once again circling the pitch, this time aided by Borimir the Mini-Baragog, a confused product of a Crossover mistake. In this case, HFA now had a demonic fiery spider to guard the staff section. Voldeymort, the other Crossover mistake, was currently in therapy learning how to control his Pokémonic qualities and to refrain from screeching “Pika-Voldey!” whenever mentioned.

The match didn’t go in Hermione’s favor at the start. Harmony, her starter, began to wail hippie peace chants such as “stoppings the warses” as soon as she stepped onto the field, and had to be pulled after lighting incense candles in the grass. Replacing her was Hearmen, who was a slight improvement (knocking Drcao out of bounds several times). Then Hermoine took a brief lead, her having the benefit of being the strongest (or most currently misspelled) player on the field, and thoroughly pummeled Drac with Tantaflaf.

But Draco Malfoy’s Mini-Aragog name-mistakes would not tolerate this. Draycoo threw Hermoine out of the pitch, and Darco fired at Hormone with his Tantaflaf blaster. In a spectacular display of hardcore marksmanship they managed to dispatch the whole Granger-squad just before the time ran out. Draco’s preparation paid off. He won the match thirty to twenty-three.

Ally grumbled as she went back into the castle. It was pure intimidation, that’s what it was! They were just trying to scare her out of her mind!

(Author’s Note: For the most part, Ally is completely correct.)

But Ally’s mood was not to be improved upon her reaching the Hogwarts castle. A large banner had been spread across the entrance-way, clearly reading “WELCOME OFUM STUDENTS” in large orange letters. Meir Brin was sitting on a ladder wiping paint off of her hands.

“What? What’s ‘Oof-umm’?” blurted Ally before she could stop herself.

Meir Brin grinned evilly from her perch, giving the HFA coordinator a very vulture-like appearance. “Don’t let Miss Cam catch you calling her school ‘Oof-umm’,” she said. Many of the fanwriters were gathering below the sign to gawk at it, so Meir Brin must have thought this a “teaching moment” (Yeah, right, thought Ally), so she continued.

“Many fanwriters have felt that certain fanverses have too few characters. Thus they bring characters from other fanverses to their own fanverse. In fangirl slop, err, speech, you call it a ‘Crossover’.”

There was a general murmur of assent among the fanwriters.

“Crossovers are not good. Thou shalt not screw with the minds of the Canon Characters by placing them elsewhere! Is this world not—”

“What’s ‘Oof-um’?!” interrupted a fangirl.

Meir Brin didn’t like being interrupted. Pavarotti the Mini-Aragog descended upon the offending fangirl and scuttled off with her. “Comings, ’ittle fanwriteresss... We goingses to listening to ‘Madame Butterflyerssss’...”

The fangirl screamed. Fangirls didn’t like being subjected to Mini-Aragog opera.

“The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth. Call it ‘Oof-umm’ or ‘Urf-emm’ and Miss Cam will gut you. The works of Tolkien are not to be mixed with the works of Rowling. In a few days, or weeks, the OFUM students will be visiting our school. And after that, we will be taking a trip to OFUM to see why it is not right to swap things between continuums.”

There was dead silence.

Then Mirild Sket piped up in a line from the continuum in question. “Hooray! We’re going to see the Elves!”

---

Author’s Note: Yes, that’s right. Miss Cam and I are doing a little something called “Crossover Class” or “Class for those with FRDD (Fanficto-Reality Deficiency Disease).” Those of you enrolled in HFA who would like to go ought to say as much in your review.