The chill over the Quidditch pitch caused Fender’s breath to hang in the air before him. Because he was not going anywhere, he had amassed a small cloud of it. Not going anywhere. It didn’t appeal very much to Fender. Especially when he knew that any minute now, five Mini-Aragogs would swing onto the field, packing cannons full of hardened Tantaflaf and ready to do battle in the PALM game.

PALM. The Paintball All-fandom League for Minis. Fender had heard stories (or rather, overheard, as he considered himself above such trivial things as holding pleasant conversations with people as one might with a friend) and the stories had not boded well. WfR had said about the Mini-Aragogs’ deadly accuracy with the Tantaflaf-paintball blasters. Autumn Pico had remarked about their cunning and cruelty during the MAPLE games, concerning the sidelines (i.e. whichever unfortunate students Miss Brin had deemed fit to fasten to the field’s rim as a Buffer). When Yrael had been asked to comment about the Mini-Aragog games, she had merely whimpered and dived beneath a sofa, refusing to come out until Lucius Malfoy walked by and threatened to send his own Minis in after her.

But this was not a Mini-Aragog Paintball League—Extreme game, Fender noted. This was a Paintball All-fandom League for Minis game. Perhaps it would be different. Perhaps being a Buffer at this sort of game would be nicer—a front row seat, in fact, to what would assuredly be a good show...

Above him, a little to his left, the Ironic Over-power shook his head with distaste and wondered if these fanwriters would ever learn.

Fender, however, remained oblivious. There was obviously some higher purpose for his being on Buffer duty, he thought. Perhaps it was a test of some sort, a test to show his magnificence to the faculty and staff of HFA, who would then, assuredly, assign him a more lofty role at the school. It would all be a vehicle for his rise to fame and glory, of course. Of course, that was it, it wouldn’t be anything else, now, would it?

It wouldn’t have anything to do with the malignant inter-continuum portal opening up behind him, would it?

“So glad you could make it,” said the jubilant voice of Oliver Wood. Fender turned his head a bit to look over his shoulder, and saw the former Gryffindor Keeper bounce excitedly around what looked like a delegation of already-chewed chicken.

The already-chewed chicken shifted, and loped forward on long arms. The foremost one sniffed, and yawned, revealing a mouth full of large, dripping teeth. Fender tried to remember where he had seen something like this before. It all was vaguely familiar; perhaps it had been in a movie...?

“And we are especially glad that some of your canons could make it,” said the voice of Miss Brin.

“It will be a very good match,” said Viktor Krum in his thick accent, casing out the creatures (and in turn being cased out himself. Their eyes followed him like a menacing Mona Lisa).

“We look forward to it,” said an old, slightly cracked voice. “Any chance to improve the Mini-Rancors’ inherent abilities should not be thrown away, correct?”

Mini-Rancors! Fender jumped inadvertently, memories of Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi flashing through his brain. And the older voice—he knew that, too! But what would Emperor Palpatine be doing at HFA? The PALM game returned to him, and he flinched. Of course, it now made sense. The Mini-Aragogs were going to be playing against Minis from other fandoms...! He paused to consider a match against the little monsters from the Star Wars continuum.

Why couldn’t it have been something like Mini-Ewoks?

“... and of course,” Miss Brin was saying, “I see your university takes the same approach to the matter as our own. Feel free to make yourself at home; you are our guests, after all.”

“OOooo, this is going to be spooky, isn’t it?” whispered Phayn excitedly. She was holding on to his right hand, something that Fender would have been extremely disgusted by (she was a filthy Snape fangirl, for crying out loud!) had they not been bonded together by the magic of Madam Hooch. Still, he figured that it was at least better than Lexi, tied to his other arm for trying to strangle Colin Creevey. Her eyes had yet to return to normal from the camera flash.

“Brin! Miss Brin!”

A black-clad member of the Order of the Sphinx pounded across the path, gasping for breath as he ran toward Miss Brin, Oliver Wood, the Star Wars fandom’s evil overlord, and the hoard of Mini-Rancors. As he drew closer, Fender recognized him as Leo Haven, who had given him a kick once for sulking around the house-elves and putting Winky back onto Butterbeer by the sheer magnitude of his imparted depression.

“What’s on?” said Miss Brin, moving aside so that Leo could lean on the Buffer (and on Fender’s left arm, causing his muscles to pinch from the strain).

“Ally got back from the PPC a few minutes ago; said you wanted to know about that metal by the gates?”

“This is the one not of our fandom?” said Viktor Krum.

“Yes,” said the member of the Order of the Sphinx. “It’s not our fandom, all right. They’ve pinned it to somewhere in the graphic-novels area, but that means anywhere from comic books to manga, and that’s a pretty large area.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology can determine a metal by its atomic structure,” said the Emperor. “The PPC has obviously been working medieval fandoms so long that it has lost this ability.”

“No, no, you misunderstand,” said Leo Haven. He then took a step backward, because telling an evil overlord—no matter the fandom—that they have done something wrong is usually followed by torture and creative death.

“It’s a fan-creation, then,” said Miss Brin, choosing to ignore the building lightning around Palpatine’s palms. “They never bother to devise their creations based on chemistry. Still, I assume they’re narrowing down their list of possibilities as we speak?”

“Possibly before we’ve spoken,” said Leo Haven. “Time fluctuations, you know.”

“The crowd is coming,” said Viktor Krum, looking back at the party. “The game starts in ten minutes, and we are not yet set up?”

“Go to,” said Miss Brin, sighing. “I trust Lord Haven will be along shortly?” Leo looked up at the mention of his cousin.

“I have not foreseen it.”

Fender’s arm jerked as Leo moved away, and he glowered over at Phayn. She was, against all possible rhyme or reason, trying to open a bag of popcorn with her teeth.

“Happy about ticking off Umbridge now?” he said stonily.

“She ’eserves it,” said Phayn, the bag of popcorn falling to the ground the instant she opened her mouth. “She probably encourages all that fanfic about her and Snapie-wapie... It makes me cry! How could anyone do that to someone as tortured and beautiful as my little Snape’ums?” She nudged her ankle toward the popcorn, but gave up after it meant nearly twisting it.

“You’re really one to talk, you know,” said Fender, trying to inject a bit more haughtiness into his voice. He had come to get the sneaking feeling that he was going soft, and didn’t like it one bit.

“Oh? And what could I say about Fleur?” said Phayn, her eyes dancing with wickedness. “I bet you’ve got a whole collection of love poems about her in that notebook you keep!”

“I do not!” stammered Fender, caught off guard. “Just shut up, those damned spiders are coming out.”

The stands above them had filled to capacity in the short time, packed with canon characters, screaming—yet not screaming too loudly—fanwriters, members of the Order of the Sphinx, and even a few people who looked like they might be Protectors of the Plot Continuum. Fender scowled, keeping his face down. This was highly embarrassing for the Deep Master of Fanfiction. His ego shrank three sizes that day. Unfortunately, that was inversely proportional to the change in the size of his surly disposition, thus causing no one to notice any difference.

“Welcome to the first Paintball All-fandom League for Minis game of the season!” said Lee Jordan’s voice above the crowd’s chattering. “This is indeed a landmark event, as we welcome representatives from the Star Wars Fan Fiction Academies! Representing the good—and not so good, I saw that, Emperor—folks from SWFFA, here are the Mini-Rancors! Palatine, Pastaline, Palpatiny, Imperor Palpitine, and Palpantine! Don’t they look vicious!”

Fender, much closer to the action, felt his fight-or-flight mechanism straining at its ties. The creatures that he had once thought to resemble chewed chunks of chicken looked as if they would like to do some chewing of their own. Probably on him. Their predatory eyes swept the pitch, and the cannons hooked to their bowed shoulders had an aerodynamic look to them. Fender wondered just how technologically advanced the Star Wars universe was, and if this technology extended to the production of paintball cannons.

“Aaand from HFA! Our home team! Captained by last year’s MAPLE champion, the Mini-Aragog Voldermort! We have Hermoine! Sirus! Weasly! Aaand Lucious!”

Five large spiders dropped from the goal hoops to land right in front of Fender. Their fur, contrasting sharply with the green- and red-tinted hides of the Mini-Rancors, was deep purple laced with Wilver. The Wilver hurt to look at, and Fender tried to turn away. However, the Full Body-Binds that had been lax before the game were now at full strength, and Fender found that he could not even move his eyes, let alone his head.

Down the Buffer from him, Tessura Alrina, Kisa, and Raven Lennox were whimpering as the Mini-Aragogs tread on them purposefully, making a warm-up lap of the field. Azaelia Sapphire Took had already passed out.

“Now, remember the rules, Minis. First one to a hundred points or most points scored before time runs out wins the game. As far as conduct, there are no rules! Aaand, wait for the whistle...”

Oliver Wood’s piercing call rang through the chill October air. In the stands, Estella Tucker and Le BuzzinGnat swooned.

“It begins!” announced Lee Jordan. “There’s Pastaline with a nasty choke on Lucious, but here comes Hermoine! Barreling down the field, that cannon’s really working today! She’s really using the cannon’s kickback to her advantage, I’d say! Now, over near the far goal, it looks like Imperor Palpitine’s going after our own Voldermort! But Voldermort doesn’t look like he’s going to stand for this! Oh, no, here come the spinnerets! He’s got Imperor Palpitine on a line now! Speed may win this game for HFA! Now, now, Emperor, no help from the sidelines.”

The crackle of Force-fed lightning around Imperor Palpitine diminished, and the hooded figure of Emperor Palpatine projected a general wave of surliness over the crowd.

Down on the field, things were different. Pastaline had indeed had a choke on Lucious, but what Lee Jordan had neglected to mention was that the Mini-Rancor had been standing atop of Crystal in order to do it, and that Voldermort’s first three threads had neglected to hit Imperor Palpitine, and had torn sizable chunks of hair out of the heads of Emily Nielsen, Fate Rilley, and Leevee of Team Socket. Fender grit his teeth as Palpatiny flew through the air, Sirus’ Tantaflaf helping him backwards toward the Buffer.

“The SWFFA crew will have to get its act together if it’s going to win this one!” said Lee Jordan. “Score as of now... twenty-five to thirteen HFA! But we’re not coming out of this one unscathed!”

Fender tried to shrink back as Pastaline sank his teeth into Hermoine. The Mini-Aragog screamed, pincers clacking wildly as dark blood stained the field. Lucious, instinctively going to assist Voldermort, turned in his pursuit of Imperor Palpitine and shot a mess of web at Pastaline, blinding him and knocking him off Hermoine. Several chunks of dark, shaggy fur came off in his mouth, and Hermoine, ignoring the obvious pain, emptied both barrels of her cannon into the Mini-Rancor’s stomach (or rather, stomach region).

Voldermort closed in on Imperor Palpitine. The Mini-Rancor was bogged down with a load of webbing, and Voldermort was on him, as if the Star Wars Mini was a fly in his web. With a grunt of effort, Voldermort raised Imperor Palpitine onto his forelegs, and jetted him into the air. Before he reached the ground, eight gobs of Tantaflaf had pummeled the Mini-Rancor’s body, knocking him further and further toward the Buffer, growing larger and larger in Fender’s vision, blocking out the crowd, the sun, even Phayn’s hysterical screeches as all that filled his vision was the huge, hulking mass of Imperor Palpitine...

He woke sometime the next day, in the hospital wing, being treated by a disgruntled Madam Pomfrey, who told him to try to avoid getting squashed beneath web-covered Mini-Rancors in the near future.