Ally stumbled off of the Quidditch pitch, feeling as if she had been pressed between a stone slab and the Dursely Jelly-monster. In actuality, the event that she had just come from had involved the Dursely Jelly-monster. For Ally had just finished with the substitute MAPLE game known as “Anything You Might Do I Can Make Bigger” between Draco Malfoy... and Lord Voldemort.

The Canonlaw fanwriter tried to pull the berry-flavored jam out of her hair. Malfoy and Voldemort had each chosen their creature; Malfoy had taken the Dursely Jelly-monster (claiming that anything mistakenly named after a Harry-hating creature would be the thing for him) and Lord Voldemort had taken the Weasely Jelly-monster (claiming that apricot jam was his favorite flavor besides marmalade). And thus the contest had begun.

Ally winced as she felt the bruises on the back of her neck. In response to a horrible piece of fanfiction asserting that Ron Weasley’s family was rich, Meir Brin had given the Canonlaw students “buffer duty” lining the Quidditch field during the match. And Voldemort and Draco had made the Jelly-monsters bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

And then finally they had reached critical mass. The Canonlaws could not contain the vast spreads known as Jelly-monsters. So with fifty-foot high blobs of jam on the verge of overwhelming the stadium, Madam Hooch had given victory to Lord Voldemort, as no one in their right mind would argue with a Dark Lord so secure in his evilness to admit that he “really sympathized with the character of Uncle Wiggly in that delightful board game.”

Ally was just dragging herself up the stairs when something strange happened. A silver cloud appeared.

“Oh no, not this again...” she said, backing away into Mystikalolo, who was frantically trying to disentangle herself from Onyx (they had both fallen into a rogue patch of blackberry jam that appeared to have the consistency of super-glue, and were now literally inseparable).

The eerie silver cloud drifted closer. Ally tripped backwards down the steps, muttering a stream of curses that could be censored into “Spit! Sucky plotholes take me to ducky island with evil Cod-drained gritty monsters!” Ally had never been known for having a foul mouth, but certain exceptions must be made, such as when our heroine believes that she is going to be dragged off to the Isle of Drear.

Then the cloud stopped. It was growing larger (in direct proportion to the diameter of Ally’s pupils) and more solid. Suddenly, a figure became visible in the plothole. A very short, wrinkled figure with big ears. It stepped out.

Ally pinched herself. This was so not happening.

“Yoda, my name is. Help me, will you? What is this place?”

Ally scrambled awkwardly to her feet. A group of Wantingmors were congregating around the Star Wars character, whispering excitedly. “Erm... this is HFA, for Harry Potter... How did you get here?”

The small green Jedi walked down the stairs with minor difficulty. “Know that, I do not. Most perplexing, it is.”

Ally bit her lip in frustration. Knowing the consistent mood of “burn the fanwriter” permeating HFA these days, she would be blamed for this.

“What’s going on over here?” asked a voice, and Ron Weasley elbowed his way through the crowd, avoiding the Ron-lusters with practiced ease. He hadn’t been “caught” this year, and was considered by many to be the most deft at avoiding his lusters. This could be attributed to several reasons, the foremost being that he had magicked his hair into a shade of dark brown in order to be less conspicuous. The day that the youngest Weasley brother had shown up with non-red hair had been a sad one for the Ron-lusting community of HFA. (“How do we know if it will ever turn back?” Smego Baggins had wailed.)

“In charge, are you? Yes?” asked Yoda, looking up at the tall boy.

Ron’s ears turned pink, and he muttered something under his breath. Pulling out his wand, the Gryffindor shot a volley of red sparks into the air. Ally took a step back. She did not like the look of this one bit.

In less than a nanosecond (a very short time indeed, considering that one cannot Apparate at Hogwarts), Klose and Sirius Black were on the scene, moving traffic along as if there had been a murder of some sort (“Nothing to see here, people!”).

Then Ally was pushed into the castle with the rest of the fanwriters, still striving to see or hear what was going on. But just as she was beginning to fight the crowd, the heavy doors slammed shut, and Ally saw no more.

*********

Completely unaware of the anomaly that was taking place near the front doors, Meir Brin supervised the loading of five tons of beverages into the Chamber of Secrets Bunker. Actually, it was Albus Dumbledore who was directing the barrels down the wide pipe with his wand; Meir Brin was simply watching to make sure that no one was flattened by the heavy vessels.

“That will be the last one,” said Professor Dumbledore as the casks disappeared down into the Chamber. “There are ten minutes until the next group of provisions arrives.” The aged wizard sat down on the waiting chairs that had been placed around the girls’ lavatory. “How goes the treatment of James Potter?”

Meir Brin sighed and scratched her head as Harry Potter ran past, chasing Peter Pettigrew (in rat form) with a rather large non-flying broom. “The PPC agents say that he is coming along, but will still have to stay in the Department of Fictional Psychology for the next couple weeks. Apparently, James is quite worried about what Lily will say. He has no recollection of his time... under the influence.”

“Under the influence of what?” asked the Hogwarts Headmaster reasonably, ignoring the sounds of drunken merry-making coming from the Chamber of Secrets. It sounded as if the Death Eaters had found the wine barrels.

“A malevolent Slash Spirit,” said Meir Brin, stamping on the floor to quiet Voldemort’s Minions of Evil. “The Slashers managed to extract one from his system using pliers, a bottle of dish-washing detergent, and some of those little umbrellas that you put in drinks.”

“How did they manage that?”

“Don’t know.”

“Excuse me,” said a level voice, and the two turned to see Cedric Diggory waiting politely by the door. “There is a problem in the Entrance Hall. Klose and Sirius need some assistance.”

Albus Dumbledore got to his feet slowly. “What is the trouble?”

“Something called a Yo-Dah has shown up. Klose mentioned the stars, and something about a great war. Is this the apocalypse?” asked Diggory, concern flashing across his handsome face.

Meir Brin raised an eyebrow. “It very well may be. Come, let us find out.”

The three denizens of HFA hurried out of the girls’ bathroom, past Argus Filch’s memorial to the Mini-Aragogs (“Lost! Preciouses are lost!”), and down to the Entrance Hall to where Sirius Black was trying to prevent Yoda from wandering unchecked about the castle.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Ron Weasley. “At first I thought it was a grindylow, or maybe one of the Misspelled Marauders. But it’s not, and it does magic.”

“Yoda...” muttered Meir Brin. “Why in the name of pickled popsicle sticks is this happening to us?” With a sigh, she walked over to Yoda, trying to figure out if he was Canon!Yoda or a Fanfiction!Yoda who was simply lost on the Internet.

“Work here, do you?” asked the Jedi Master.

“Yes, you could say that. Look, what world are you from?”

“From Detroit, am I,” replied Yoda.

“Okay...” said Meir Brin. “Then you must be a Fanfiction!Yoda, who is obviously lost, confused, and looking for a way home to his Parent Continuum.”

“Have any mustard, do you?”

Meir Brin felt a migraine coming on. “Why in the name of fanfiction do they find us so appealing?! I wouldn’t mind a few visitors from time to time, but this is getting ridiculous! Why isn’t the Canon keeping stuff like this out of our fanverse?”

Diggory shrugged. “Perhaps we are too popular with the other fandoms.”

Klose laughed shortly, walking over to the group. “You’ve hit the Sue on the head with the Bat of Whackiness on that one, Cedric.”