Canon breaks like egg,
Full of un-Potterverse things
Stupid Fanwriters.

Wantingmors the first
Love books to death and beyond
Leeches glomp canon.

Lusterbuff Fangirls
Romance forever! they say
Stampeders are warned

Canonlaw’s less strict
Crossovers, AUs, humor
Pigeons on blue field

Slashering so dark
Angsty, dark, bloody—slash, too
Just don’t tell Lucius.

See the Sorting Hat
Think you are great, fanwriter?
I laugh evilly.

The Sorting Hat inclined its point in each direction, bowing at the applause of the few canon characters lounging around the hospital wing. After a thousand years of rhyming poetry, the Sorting Hat had decided to try something new. Something new involved reading large amounts of international poesy and finally deciding that haiku were the way to go.

“A good start, indeed,” said Miss Brin, pacing down the hospital wing’s center aisle. The entire class of first-year students were there, most of them concussed. Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout were making their way around to each of the beds, slipping the Sorting Hat over each unconscious brow. The Hat would then announce which house the lucky (or unlucky) fanwriter was assigned to, usually putting an end to the fanwriter’s coma.

“Reporting, Miss Brin,” said a voice behind her, and the HFA coordinator turned to see Ally White striding forward, smiling when she caught the looks of the new students. “I’m really glad I’m not there,” she said sheepishly.

“WANTINGMOR!” shouted the Sorting Hat, and Pentunia the Mini-Aragog scuttled up to grab Rachel’s arm and drag her off to Gryffindor tower.

“Yes, especially once the classes start,” said Miss Brin, pulling out a packet of papers that appeared to have been written in purple crayon. “Not again! He keeps giving me copies of this even though we specifically told LVJ that he was not going to be to teaching that ‘Joys of Explicit, Explicit Violence’ class!”

“CANONLAW!” yelled the Sorting Hat as Fawkes was toted away by a couple spiders.

“I think they’re up to something,” said Ally. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Laughed-At has been holed up in his den ever since you caught him trying on the Darth Vader helmet, and that was weeks ago.”

“LUSTERBUFF!” screeched the Hat.

“...Snape? But I brought the toothpaste like you asked...” mumbled Akki Aino incoherently as she was bound with spider thread.

“I think Tom Riddle’s finally given up on him,” said Miss Brin. “I can’t really blame him, but I think I will be pitying the students before long if His Evilness is running unchecked among them.”

“Speaking of ‘unchecked among them’, has Tonks reported back yet?”

“No word,” replied Miss Brin. “How is Umbridge doing?”

“Speak of devil,” said Ally, and in rushed Dolores Umbridge, eyes wide, breath quick, fingers wringing a neon orange handkerchief to threads. She had finally settled into a state of nervous pomposity, as one of the most despised Potterverse characters.

“Where are the little devils?” sputtered Umbridge. “Writing stories about myself and Professor Snape! Discipline! They must have discipline! And, and...”

“They are still fairly comatose at the moment,” remarked Ally as Tisea Spirits and Lantarmiel were bundled off to Slashering. “I would look in on the second-years, if you are really worried. I feel like such a traitor,” she added, blushing.

Umbridge drew herself up to her meager height and addressed the fanwriters, who were unsurprisingly unresponsive. “Hem, hem. I, Professor Dolores Umbridge, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, do hereafter make it illegal to write subversive articles about my said person, whether they discuss my, ehem, love life, previous occupations, or predicted violent death.”

Miss Brin tried to placate her gently. “Now, we really can’t impose such a ban on the students, only give them consequences—” The HFA coordinator broke off suddenly, listening. “What is that?”

There was a steady clip-clop, clip-clop coming down the passage, the sound of hoofbeats. Umbridge paled almost immediately, then dove under Loopily’s cot.

The clip-clops drew closer and closer, and Ally expected the head and shoulders of Firenze or Bane to round the corner. But instead, there came Em and Newmoon, holding two coconut halves maliciously. Ally covered her mouth to hold back giggles, and even Miss Brin looked to be on the verge of laughter.

“Where did you get those?” mouthed Ally to the two members of the Order. “This is a temperate zone.”

“A little bird brought them,” whispered Newmoon.

“African swallow?” asked Ally.

“Buckbeak,” mouthed Em. The two stifled laughter as Umbridge began to quake under the bed.

“Go away before she comes to,” mouthed Ally to the two. Newmoon grinned and gave a loud neigh before she and Em trotted back to the staff section, known to most as Aerobics Lair.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen this year,” said Miss Brin, trying to contain her amusement. “The reports from the Real World are already coming in about Movie the Third, and Sirius is feeling the swell of character sympathy—”

“—often confused with character lust,” interjected Ally. Anne, Jay Sea, and Tiger Lily Hamilton shifted in their sleep, muttering various things along the lines of “It’s not really a fixation... I mean, I wouldn’t die for him... So maybe I would, that doesn’t mean...” and “Me want Lupin! Back, fangirl! Back, get back!”

“—here in the fanficto-reality,” finished Miss Brin as Mini-Aragogs hauled off the three students. “And then there are the other, erm, reports.”

Ally shook her head. “You mean those stupid campaigns? I can’t see that lot getting any further than maybe a couple of independent archives that keep actor-fics. They won’t reach HFA. Ironic Over-power willing, of course,” she added hurriedly.

Just then, Fred and George Weasley sauntered into the infirmary, brushing dust off of their dragonhide jackets. “Who do they think they are?” asked Fred, assuming an affronted expression.

“Fangirls,” they said together. “Never learn, never will.”

“Another attempted ambush?” asked Ally.

“Dee Sarrachi and Vemi cut off some of the Mini-Aragog webbing and tried to make a net. A net! They think we’re amateurs, George!” Fred grinned. “I think they’re experiencing the world from a spider-thread yo-yo. I never knew Flinch and Flich were so vindictive.”

“They were going to enter that web in the weekly Charlotte’s Web contest. No small matter fitting four sonnets onto a three-by-three-foot web. If I could spin a web, I would be angry, too.”

“And then there was what He-Who-Must-Giggle did to Kestin Stewart when he found her walking in front of bare wall patches, concentrating enough to make orange juice. He picked her mind bare, and found she was looking for the Room of Requirement, trying create a ‘Private Snape Hot Tub Room’. Snape should be finishing up with her any time now.”

Ally winced. Snape was very creative when it came to punishing his lusters. And the Ironic Over-power knew he had many of them. His tally in the staff wing was getting up there to rival Remus’ and Sirius’.

“I wonder if the victims have received our gift baskets yet,” asked George rhetorically. They had been plotting for a couple of months on how to give a proper welcome to the fanwriters, and had finally settled on providing them with large amounts of sugar.

“Hard to miss; I think we put them far enough in the open. Even if they don’t see them, they’ll still trip over them.” The plan had been a good one. In fact, Luinramwen was finding out just how good in the Lusterbuff common room at that very moment.

“Seems such a waste, though,” commented George. “All of those Canary Creams.”

“And Nosebleed Nougats.”

“And Ton-Tongue Toffees.”

“I think a Ten-Tongue Taffy might have slipped in as well,” said Fred.

George shrugged. “It’ll be their own fault if they eat that.”

“It’s their own fault such a thing exists,” amended Fred.

The two grinned. Identical, evil grins that would have sent any sane person to shivering. And probably any insane person, too, as Loopily’s bed was shaking again (due to Professor Umbridge’s choice of hiding spot).

“Fanwriters,” they said, chuckling insidiously, exiting the infirmary.

“Do these sorts of things ever change?” wondered Miss Brin. She turned to Ally as a sudden thought hit her. “Oh, before my memory deserts me, Peeves and the Weasleys are holding a prank-athon next week, and I have received a gracious tip-off about performing some anti-toilet-papering charms on Aerobics Lair and Oedipus Inferno before it commences. That should hopefully limit their targets to the fanwriters’ locales.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

“Sirius and Remus have both demanded a full contingent of Mini-Aragogs for their upcoming class. Plus guards from the Order.”

“How many?” asked Ally.

“Six.”

“That’s not too—”

“Apiece.”

Ally rolled her eyes. “I’ll... ah... see what can be done,” she said delicately. “Haldir Syndrome,” she muttered. “Who would have thought that dying makes one so popular?”

“He did die single,” offered Miss Brin.

“That’s what you think!” said Mercuria, popping up suddenly. “Sirius and Remus! Sirius and Snape! Lovers, all! Lovers, I tell you, they were all madly in love!” she cried deliriously.

“Would you care to repeat that?” said a soft, dangerous voice behind the second-year student.

Mercuria froze. In the depths of her being, she knew that she was completely and utterly screwed. The Ironic Over-power congratulated itself on a job well done.

“Professor Snape, wonderful to see you,” said Miss Brin. “Finished the Contrapasso Potion so soon?”

“Yes,” said Snape coldly. “After Ms. Kestin Stewart sprouted the singing antlers, I was forced to make a few alterations. I was just looking for volunteers for the second batch...” Mercuria wailed as he dragged her off to the dungeon (but still managed to ogle him as they went). Some things never change.

There was a clipped sort of pause, in which Miss Brin started to speak several times, but fell silent. “... The you-know-what has been hidden?” she asked at last.

Ally got the impression that Miss Brin was trying not to accuse her of not doing her job correctly. “As best as it can be,” she said tentatively. “Even if they find the room, I doubt they will be able to enter, at least without tripping all of the fangirl sensors.”

“It’s not the fangirls I’m worried about,” muttered Miss Brin, brushing clipped hair out of her eyes. She looked up quickly to make sure that statement hadn’t been taken the wrong way, but Ally didn’t appear to have noticed.

There was a great pause as the HFA coordinator and the head of the Order of the Sphinx watched Padama and Parfait the Mini-Aragogs escort Briana Marie off to Wantingmor (amid unconscious protests of “Not the slash! Anything but the slash!”). Then there was a wrenching feeling as the conversation changed track.

“So...” started Ally. “Heard the joke about Professor Umbridge and the werewolf?”