Author’s Notes: Just so you all know, I have received a lot of enrollments. I will try to put you all into the story, don’t worry, but also don’t be disappointed if you don’t make it in until a couple chapters in the future. I generally prefer to write the fanwriters in with speaking parts, not a five-second mention, so be patient.

That said, I apologize for the delay. School’s a beast.

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The train was full of the most hormonal people a person could ever hope to encounter. Every so often it would bump slightly, and another person would appear in a compartment. The normal process of events after that usually involved screaming, gibbering, denial, and squealing, not necessarily in that order.

Fender Blackorn’s arrival, however, went something like this:

“Whaa?”

“Welcome to HFA, fanwriter,” said a passing canon character sarcastically, leaning into the compartment. “Please try to stay seated; we will be reaching Hogsmeade shortly. If you need anything, there are others up front who will put you out of your misery.”

“You’re, you’re—”

“Blaise Zabini, yes, I know.”

Fender tilted his head slightly, screwing up his eyes. “Are you male or female?”

Blaise shook his (her?) head sadly. “Alas, many have guessed, and now it is not rightly known. Even though my name is masculine, so many of your kind think I’m female that I’m... rather neutral.”

At this point, Fender started gibbering. Blaise didn’t seem to have noticed.

“It’s kind of sad, really. I wish I knew. It would be a lot easier than having... both bits.”

“Ewww...” said a girl who had just arrived at the door. “That’s disgusting, Zabini, sir... ma’am... sir.” She turned her attention to Fender, who was smacking himself repeatedly with a copy of AUs and You, one of many textbooks that was piled up on the seat beside him.

“You all right?” asked the girl.

“Dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream,” chanted Fender, bashing his head into the thick book.

“It’s not a dream, eh, whoever you are,” said the girl awkwardly. “Thought so too myself, but, well, it’s real enough. Who are you, anyway?”

Fender tossed the text aside, fuming and avoiding eye-contact. “Fender, Fender Blackorn.”

“Wo—err, nice to meet you, Fender,” said the girl, extending a hand. She stumbled into the compartment just as Zabini slipped away, heading for an explosion that seemed to have occurred up in box two. “Name’s Phayn. Phayn Knarm-Doots, if you must know, but Phayn’s fine with me.”

“That’s a weird name,” said Fender sullenly.

“’Least I’m not named after part of a car,” said Phayn.

“’Least I’m not some lusting fangirl.”

“’Least I’m not some snarky fanwriter.”

This went on for several minutes, until the two were disrupted by a voice over the loud-speaker. “And here we’ve finally arrived at scenic Hogwarts,” said a voice that Fender immediately recognized as belonging to one of the Weasley twins.

“Home of HFA,” added in Lee Jordan.

“And by that, your home for the next nine months as well,” said the Weasley twin.

“Fred, should we not show our dear friends off of the train?” asked a Weasley twin, who was, by default, George.

“Quite,” agreed Fred.

There was a cackle of malicious laughter, and Fender flew through the air and straight through the side of the train. He landed in a heap atop a pile of people, most of which were female. Phayn was probably the first to get up, with the eagerness of a demented squirrel.

“Oo, oo, I’m back!” squealed Mystikalolo. “I’ve missed you so!” she cried, kissing the ground excitedly. “Canon characters! Love you!” She ran over to a nearby wizard with his back to the group and hugged him around the middle. Mystikalolo yelped and fell over, her hair having been transfigured into live, pink caterpillars. “Missed that, too!” squealed the second-year student as Mad-Eye Moody stalked off irritably.

“What is this place?” asked Fender dumbly, brushing dust off of his black shirt.

“This is HFA,” said Venya Smith helpfully. “You’re a first-year, huh?” she prodded. “Never been to classes before? Oh, you’re going to like this,” said she with the air of a knowledgeable veteran.

This irked Fender. He always wanted to be the superior one, and never liked when others were ranked above him. That was one of the reasons that he had dropped out of the Boy Scouts so early; he just couldn’t take people the same age as he having more badges than he did. Yet upon reflection, Fender realized that that was just stupid. Boy Scouts was a terrible way to showcase his excessive talent, and being forced to earn badges was pointless when you could be writing dark angst.

“First-years vith me, please,” said a man with a thick Bulgarian accent. Fender left off glowering at Venya Smith and did an excellent double-take. That was Viktor Krum? It had to be; he was round-shouldered and duck-footed. But, was it really him?

His question was answered when a girl with thick brown hair came up beside him. “All right, pen-friend Viktor?” asked the girl awkwardly. It was unmistakably Hermione Granger.

“Of course, pen-friend Hermione,” said Krum, somewhat forced.

“Returning students will come with me,” said Hermione severely, ignoring a couple of confused fanwriters. “The rest of you are going to be Sorted, so board the boats and don’t give Mr. Bagman and Mr. Lockhart any problems.”

A few minutes later, Fender found himself sitting on a small wooden boat with Elizabeth, Jedipati, and Phayn, trying to ignore the sloshing sound of the water as it steadily crept into the vessel. Fender didn’t like boats. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, because Fender didn’t really like anything, but he absolutely detested boats.

At the head of the flotilla, a miniature yacht was leading the way steadily across the lake. Ludo Bagman and Gilderoy Lockhart lounged at the keel drinking banana cocktails as Mini-Aragogs propelled the vessel skillfully. They were drunkenly singing something that Fender recognized as the Oompa Loompa song, which drifted back to the fanwriters over the water.

... What do you get with an ignorant prat,
thinks ’e can write, we’ll see about that;
ship ’em off to H an’ F an’ A,
after that I doubt ’e’ll have much to say...

“I think they’re singing about you, Fender,” said Phayn, smirking at him. Fender glowered and tried to lean back nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t heard her, but unfortunately found himself overbalancing, and sliding out of the boat into the water.

He hit the frigid lake with a smack, and started flailing about as his senses tried to react and grab the boat. Off in the distance, the theme from Jaws started to play, most likely coming from the Death Eater picnic on the lake’s left shore. Several of the fanwriters swiveled around in their boats to see what had happened, including Morgan Sapire, who tried to sidle her boat up next to Fender in order to haul him out. Or perhaps hit him with her paddle. One never could tell at HFA.

The theme reached an ominous crescendo, and Fender suddenly flew out of the water, a large black tentacle wrapped around his waist, heaving him above the heads of the fanwriters. Fender retched as the giant squid began to wave him back and forth like a child’s rattle. He slapped the squid’s appendage, trying to make it let go, when the creature began speeding through the water in a circle around the lake (“Oh look, Ludo! A ride! I want a ride, too!” “I as well, Gilderoy! Can we afford one? I only have”—he burped, checking his pockets—“two sickles! I wonder if we could use leprechaun gold?”). A little while later, Professor McGonagall ran out of the castle and levitated Fender out of the squid’s clutches. This was by no means an act of kindness, as once the squid had let go, she allowed Fender to plummet headfirst into the water before bringing him to the dock.

The fanwriter lay gasping in a wet heap, coughing up bile. Kaitlyn Jackson and Lavender DuBois-Black gave him a wide berth as they entered the castle, following Hermione. Fender tried to crawl over the side when a large hand grabbed him by the shoulder and heaved him into a standing position.

“At least yer not belchin’ up slugs, though? Tha’s the good part, eh, boy?” asked Hagrid, trying to slap the water off of Fender’s clothes and incidentally causing some bruising that wouldn’t fade until the second semester.

“Good part? This is hor-hor-horrible!” coughed Fender, wrenching himself out of the half-giant’s grip. An authority figure: this was what he was looking for. Now he could go home. To his miserable existence of a life, he thought mournfully. “Who told you you could take me here?” he shouted indignantly.

“You signed th’ papers,” shrugged Hagrid. “Come on up ’ere, th’ Sortin’s already started.”

Fender had to walk quickly to slip through the great doors to the castle just after *Katrina*, whose name was already giving her friends trouble as they tried to pronounce the asterisks. His feet slapped like wet haddocks on the flagstones, drawing even more attention to himself. Fender stuck his chin out proudly and put his nose in the air. He was the Deep Master of Fanfiction, and it was merely the unluckiness of his dark and tormented soul that had caused him to become the giant squid’s play toy.

The fanwriters came to a bottleneck at the top of the stairs, where they bunched together. Fender sighed and bobbed up and down, trying to see what the fuss was about.

“Welcome to HFA, fanfiction writers,” said a woman’s voice suddenly. Fender elbowed past LeoD and Mina Pizzini to the front of the crowd, where stood a tall dark-haired woman. At last, someone else he could complain to, thought Fender.

“My name is Meir Brin,” said the woman, looking at the assembled masses appraisingly. “Owing to our new curriculum, however, you shall call me Miss Brin and nothing else. I am the HFA coordinator, and will be handling most of your complaints throughout the year. Those of you who actually read the forms will know that you are here to learn the art of writing good fanfiction. Those of you who didn’t bother to read will be discovering that shortly when Argus Filch and Mad-Eye Moody set you to running the gauntlet of personal pronouns.

“We have two rules at HFA. One, thou shalt not glomp—”

“What’s ‘glomp’?” asked Zahri Seb Melitor from the back of the crowd.

Sirius Black chose that unfortunate moment to dash through the corridor, straightening his collar (“... no peace for the dead”), as he rushed to the Great Hall. Hel Whistlebane screeched and launched herself at him like an arrow from a bow. She latched onto his ankle, clawing at his pant leg like an overexcited puppy, except that puppies usually aren’t trying to disrobe their masters when they do such things.

In a few seconds, that was not the only “clawing” that was going on.

Four-foot tall spiders descended from the ceiling as if they were on a mission to infiltrate the building. In an instant they had removed Hel Whistlebane from Sirius, rolled her up in glossy spider thread, and dragged her into the Great Hall, chanting something that sounded suspiciously like “yo-yos, yo-yos, yo-yos...”

“That is what we at HFA term ‘glomping’. The Mini-Aragogs do not like it, as you can well see,” said Miss Brin, smiling amusedly. Fender decided instantly that he did not like this person one iota. “Our other rule is that you report any original characters that you see lurking about. We don’t like those here either, as most of the second-year students will attest to.”

Phayn bounced up and down excitedly, grinning like an idiot. “I like original characters!” she exclaimed, tripping on her own shoelace.

Miss Brin smiled in a way that suggested that she would rather not go there. “If that’s how your muse bites you. In any case, you are here now, and you are going to be Sorted. We have four houses here: Wantingmor, Lusterbuff, Canonlaw, and Slashering. Come with me, and don’t touch the canon characters under pain of, well, to be quite frank, pain.”

The HFA coordinator turned and lead the group into the Great Hall. Fender was annoyed. He was going to be Sorted? To have to put on that old hat in front of all these, these, fangirls? At least it was just a hat. He could suffer to let the hat descend upon his brow, to tell him of his might as a writer, to inform the crowd that he, Fender, was above schooling, that his skills were already perfectly honed...

“This should be fun!” said Lavender DuBois-Black. “Just putting the hat on, just like Harry... I wonder where my Sirius is?”

“I wonder if it’ll sing for us?” asked Suzine, patting her hair nervously. “Note to self... Must find Tom Riddle, whipped cream... and handcuffs, yes, handcuffs...”

“You’re mental,” said Cassie-Romie. She then perked up, as if something inside her head had addressed her. “That’s right, Sirius, I can’t wait to see this either. I doubt it will be that difficult, right? We all know Potterverse, don’t we?” She threw a skeptical look at the ceiling, where Hel Whistlebane had become the spiders’ piñata. “And we won’t be, you know, ‘wrestling trolls’ or anything...”

Fender snorted superiorly. Wrestling trolls... At least he wasn’t juvenile enough to quote the books like that. Wrestling trolls, indeed...

Up above him, the Ironic Over-power was taking notes.

“Wonder what house I’ll be in?” asked Erin Mirestone, changing the subject. “I’ve never heard of Lusterbuff before; do you suppose they polish the floors here?”

“Winky is doing that, Miss,” said a squeaky voice beside her, and the girl jumped as Winky the house-elf darted past her and into the Great Hall.

Even Fender lifted his head from sulking to look around at the place. It was a lot bigger that what he had imagined in the books, with nine tables instead of the customary five. Four in the back were filled with canon characters, while the professors and some people Fender didn’t recognize had the staff table. Four tables placed between them seemed to have been set aside for the fanwriters, as they were quite charred, and one of the benches was rocking back and forth all by itself. There were already people sitting there, wearing cloaks in the pastel shades of the Hogwarts house colors. Up ahead would be the hat, that would tell him he was wonderful...

There was not a stool with a tattered old hat. Instead there was a chain. And attached to the chain was a large, drooling mountain troll.

“Well, here you are,” said Miss Brin cheerfully. “First one to get him pinned goes to Wantingmor...”