Author’s Notes: I would like to warn everyone who has not yet read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that there may be some minor spoilers in the following chapters. Please read at your own discretion if you do not want to know what happens.

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Another impeccably smooth earthquake shook the castle. A chorus of “Whoa!” echoed around the Great Hall as everyone was thrown to their knees. Still, Meir Brin had to admit that this was not as bad as the Canonquakes they had been having in the past couple weeks. These seemed more controlled, and less malevolent in nature.

“Get down, everyone!” shouted Klose. “Don’t bother standing, we don’t know how long this will last!”

Meir Brin, Klose, Dark One Shadowphyre, and Salsa braced against the doorway as the students rushed to avoid the tables, which had now slid feet away from their usual places. The grating squawk of wood on stone rang through the hallway, causing some with more delicate ears to groan.

“I hope—that the Canon Characters—will be—all right,” said Salsa between the great spasms running through Hogwarts castle.

“They—should be,” replied Shadowphyre. “We did—put enough cushioning—on the place.”

“Still, do you know—how long this—will take?” asked Klose, bracing herself in the doorjamb with her Selaria cricket bat. “Not a whole—year?”

“It can’t take—”

“Ooommigoooodd!” screamed Pandora suddenly. The four snapped around to look at what had caused the exclamation.

“Oh, dear Eru...” said Meir Brin softly.

It was as if someone was plucking apart every atom in the castle one by one. The floating candles were unraveling into small blurry ghosts, and the ceiling (a star-speckled black) had shredded into a great haze. Klose thumped to the ground as the doorway she was leaning against flew apart.

Meir Brin looked down at her hands, and much to her relief found that she too was not unraveling into small particles. Looking around the room, it appeared as if all of the fanwriters were intact. The tables suddenly became grid-like and burst apart in a storm of minute wood chips.

The earthquakes tapered off into a small knot of tension underneath the school. If anyone had bothered to sit still for a second they would have realized that the ground was humming, as if holding in nervous energy. Meir Brin and the rest of the uncanon staff struggled to get up.

“What’s going on?” asked Salsa, gazing at the maelstrom of particles circling around the ceiling. The Great Hall had vanished, and the fanwriters seemed to be standing in the middle of a black void. Little bits of wall and table circled lazily above them.

“I don’t know,” said Dark One Shadowphyre uneasily. “It doesn’t look good, in any case.”

*********

The blackness swirled around Ally menacingly. Before she could stop herself she was screaming, her hands shaking as she pounded angrily on the colorless floor. Shadows flickered all around her, and her heart beat faster with fear-induced adrenaline.

Ally covered her eyes blindly, trying to shut out the dark with closed eyes, which Ally would have realized was rather futile if she were to think about it. Someone was shaking her shoulder hurriedly, and Ally recognized Redfire’s anxious voice.

“Are you okay, Ally? Come on, get up!”

Ally opened her eyes, and found herself looking down at the floor. It was jet black, the same as the rest of the place, except that it was solid. She looked up, her fingers knotted into her blue robes.

“Ally, get up! It’s okay!” said Redfire, but Ally knew inherently that it wasn’t.

“I can’t!” she wailed.

Hands gripped her jaw and pushed her head to look straight ahead at Redfire. “Look, we’re all in here,” said Redfire, and her voice was shaking yet calm. “See?”

“It’s okay, Ally, really,” said Molly W, and Ally realized that it was she who had made her look up. “Come on, stand up.”

Blinking away tears, Ally found that there was a soft glow about the place, that the dark was not complete. The fanwriters’ cloaks were illuminating the void around them, and the mass of particles hovering near what had been the ceiling were now reflecting that light like a river of luminous diamonds. Redfire was holding Ally up, still watching her with concern.

“Not so bad?” asked Redfire.

Ally’s eyes widened as she realized what she was seeing. “What do you mean it’s ‘not so bad’?! It’s terrible! What’s going to happen to us now? Are we going to vanish like the rest of HFA? How can things be all right?!”

Molly W shook her head sagely. “At least you’re on the same page as the rest of us now,” she said in a placating manner. “It’s not that bad, once you get used to it.”

“Yeah, it is kind of pretty,” said Riona, looking up at the diamond lights.

“Pretty?!” squawked Ally. “Pretty?!”

“Look at that!” screamed Terra-incognito. “What’s it doing?”

Eyes shifted quickly to a point high above them, higher even than the mesh of glowing particles. A glittering stream was flowing from the mass of light to an apex in the dark vault. Like a ribbon the thin line cascaded around the fanwriters, forming a sort of luminous cage. Ribs branched out into glowing outlines of windows, doors, and tiles.

Right in front of Ally’s eyes the particles aligned themselves into an exact replica of the HFA Great Hall. The particles that were left descended into clumps that straightened themselves out into tables, chairs, benches, and candles. Ally stepped forward to a line of white fragments that were moving back and forth within its boundary. Outside, the darkness waned, and the Great Hall was cast of diamond.

“Isn’t it pretty?” whispered the Nemesister Raptor.

“I wonder if we can keep it like this,” said Onyx.

“Wow...”

At once the moving particles stiffened. The ground shifted violently, and out from the lines sprang the pieces, locking together like a braided rope. First from the pinnacle at the ceiling, then down from the walls; it was like watching a plant’s stem shoot out thorns that interlocked with those of the plants next to it. Ally gasped as a wall solidified right in front of her nose, and there was a series of clunks that signaled the reformation of the tables.

She looked up, and witnessed a candle braid itself together piece by piece, every particle in its place. Then with a gentle puff, a flame appeared at its tip.

The Great Hall was silent. The fanwriters stared at each other dazedly, wondering if they had in fact seen what had happened. Redfire’s mouth was hanging open, and Molly W appeared to be having trouble with the concept of reality latching itself together as well.

Last to return was the enchanted ceiling. A great black cloud seemed to descend from above, and with a series of popping sounds the stars were alight.

“Is it... over?” asked Ally. She looked down the length of the hall to where the uncanon staff were staring around confusedly. Ally squirmed with a snippet of smug knowledge: they hadn’t known what was happening, either.

“I think it is...” said Riona. “It wasn’t... too bad...”

Ally thought about this. “You know... it wasn’t.”

“Everyone, please return to your dormitories,” said Meir Brin weakly. “Watch your step; we have yet to figure out if any locations have changed, and the Canon is nearly defenseless right now.”

This information caught Ally off guard, and she puzzled this. Why on earth would the Canon be defenseless? Hadn’t it just become all new and shiny?

“Why’s that?” asked Rex Natos loudly, voicing Ally’s (and probably most of the fanwriters’) question.

Meir Brin ran a hand through her dark hair wearily. “Think of a bird that is just hatched from its egg. It has yet to become a grown creature, and is at the mercy of the elements. That’s why I wanted the PPC here,” she added in an undertone to Shadowphyre and Klose. “Give it time to solidify properly, and for heaven’s sake don’t write anything.

“Now, we’ll be getting a shipment of the books tomorrow morning, and you can all—”

What they could all do was not found out until much later. For the great Ironic Over-power had been roused. It is one of the characteristics of a tragedy that it will come right after it has been warned of, and that feature had just been activated.

Then reality was slit from crown to toe. As weak as a newly hatched sparrow, the Canon could not prevent their coming.

Slice.

Crack.

Giggle.