Meir Brin surveyed the spot, then happily unfolded her plastic lawn chair. A couple meters in front of her, Lord Voldemort (Senior) was putting the final touches on his Selaria siege engine, while Tom Riddle happily penned his newest diary entry.

“Dearest Diary,” began Riddle, flourishing a raven’s quill. “Today Big Me decided that myself and LVJ should do something as a person. We decided that the best way to bond would be to create a weapon of confined destruction, so I came up with the idea of building a treb-treb—Big V! How do you spell ‘trebuchet’?”

“T-R-E-B-U-C-H-E-T,” babbled the smallest Voldemort.

“Thank you, LVJ!” called Tom Riddle, bending over his diary once again.

Meir Brin leaned back in her lawn chair and watched He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-In-Parenthesis-Senior load the medieval siege engine with what looked like a “tonite” from Professor Trelawney’s rock garden. High above them Gryffindor Tower loomed, full of unsuspecting Wantingmors. There was the sound of clacking pincers, and Dobbie the Mini-Aragog wandered over with Hedwit, balancing a tray of drinks on his back.

“You orderedses theses?” hissed Dobbie.

Meir Brin checked the beverages. Four pints of Bleepto-Dismal, and a cask of Bleepka for the Voldemorts. The Mini-Aragogs had certainly gone overboard in their creation of the medication. All derived from Bleeprin, the preferred medication of PPC agents, the slightly less corrosive Bleepto- Dismal was guaranteed to alleviate headaches brought on by Badfic. And with the Badfic cluttering the Net, every ounce was needed.

“Whee-hee!” cried Lord Voldemort Senior suddenly. Meir Brin’s attention snapped back to the trebuchet, just in time to see the huge “tonite” catapult through the air. Unfortunately, it did not quite reach its intended target.

*********

Ally White’s fifth class of “Quidditch Is Not For Everyone” had started out better than most of her lessons. First off, Ludo Bagman was instructing, and had attempted to teach the fanwriters how to use a Beater’s bat. This did not go so well, as Skye had confiscated all of the Slashering and Lusterbuff Beaters’ bats, mostly because the two houses seemed to never be able to hit a Bludger and always managed to smack each other instead.

Nonetheless, this was the first time that Ally had ever managed to stay on a broomstick without it either insulting her or deciding to break off its cushioning charm so that she would slip off. It was rather fun, actually, once you got the hang of having only a slender piece of wood between the ground and yourself. As Bagman was somewhat occupied with the Slashering-Lusterbuff Feud of Hate, Ally decided that this might be the best time to skive off and explore Hogwarts when she had the best view.

Passing the Greenhouse complex, Ally meandered her broomstick around the high towers of Hogwarts, wondering which one was Gryffindor’s. Perhaps one of these windows had belonged to Harry Potter! Ally flew a little lower, trying to peek into one of the darkened openings.

It came out of nowhere, a loud “whoosh!” that ricocheted across Ally’s eardrums. Turning too late, Ally’s eyes widened in shock as a great “tonite” grew steadily larger and larger in her field of vision. Then the rock slammed into her, splintering the Shooting Star that she was ridding into several million little pieces. Ally had the distinct impression of a giant fly-swatter, before blacking out completely.

When Ally woke up, she had about three other distinct impressions. One, it was dark; two, about half of her skeleton was broken; and three, there was a tall, hooded figure standing over her exuding darkness and sorrow. Ally screamed.

The figure didn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed by this. It drew a slimy, rotten hand out from underneath its robe, and moved down to clasp Ally’s neck in its fetid hand. Ally tried to move away, tried to scramble back... She couldn’t, that bone was broken, too.

“Dementor, stay back!” screamed Ally, terror unlike anything she had ever felt rising in her voice. This was worse than the Gringotts vaults, twenty times worse; she would die, her soul would be stolen, and no one would know; no one would find her shell; she would—

“All right, you. Pipe down, I’m not going to steal your soul,” said the hooded figure. Slowly the lights came back on, and Ally realized that she was in the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey drew back the hood, and with a wave of her wand her hand became whole and totally un-Dementor-like. “A good bit of shock always teaches them best, I say. You shouldn’t have wandered away from your class, especially while Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named are testing out their siege engine. I expect you’ve learned your lesson?”

If Madam Pomfrey had expected a coherent response, she would have been disappointed by the Canonical “mimblewimble” that Ally produced. The young fanwriter had no color in her face, and her blue eyes were as wide as the Textitus rock that she had collided with.

Shrugging her shoulders, Madam Pomfrey shoved a funnel into Ally’s mouth and dumped about five liquid tons of potion into her system. At last Ally started sputtering, and felt her bones realign themselves painfully. “Can I stay here?” asked Ally shyly as Madam Pomfrey removed the funnel.

Madam Pomfrey looked at the terrified former fangirl. “You have an hour.”

Ally sighed. At least it was better than returning to QUINFE (the preferred acronym for “Quidditch Is Not For Everyone”) and explaining to Ludo Bagman why she wasn’t in class. Settling into her sheets, Ally tried to look as inconspicuous as possible in case the Mini-Aragogs came in looking for “playmates.” And though that did not refer to the Playboy type of playmates (which would have been a mental image too strong for even Bleeprin to handle), it was still a pretty bad thing.

“... Not sure what happened, but one second he was fine, and the next he was trying to feel up Sirius,” said an unhappy voice from down the passage. Ally’s ears perked up, and she wondered what was going on.

Muffled sobs could be heard, and Ally then realized that Lily Potter was crying. The Canonlaw peeked over her bed sheets, looking to see where the noise was coming from. “My husband, my wonderful husband...”

A high falsetto giggle echoed down the corridor, followed by a loud smack.

“That wasn’t funny, James!” shouted Sirius Black angrily. “Should I just knock him out? He’s a danger to himself, and to us,” said the convicted criminal.

There was another smack, then Remus Lupin seemed to say, “Please do,” though gritted teeth.

Looking out the entrance way of the hospital wing, Ally saw a couple of red stunners shoot across the hall, and realized that one of the Marauders must have rendered James unconscious. All of this seemed to make very little sense to Ally, but then again she had just been smashed into a large rock tower seven stories in the air.

“Do you think it might have been a Slashering?” asked Lily, her voice overflowing with sadness. “I will have them running the gauntlet if this is irreparable!”

“They don’t have wands, Lily,” said Remus’ reasonable voice.

“I don’t care how they did it! It was a Slash-minded person! Or one of those ‘Snape Is Harry’s Father’ people! What did they do to him? What did they do to James?” she cried, and the meaning of what all had been said finally sunk into Ally’s medium-sized brain. Oh. So someone had made James Potter homosexual. That would explain it.

A modicum of fear curled around Ally’s heart. Would the same fate await Harry Potter?

---

Author’s Note: Yay, another chapter! Sorry it took so long, folks. And Happy Easter/Passover/Spring-type Holiday of your choice to everyone!

-Meir Brin