Sleep hardly came to Fender at all in the week following the brutal PALM game. Dreams of a crystal ball and Pensieve, and of two men always watching and waiting, woke him instantly whenever he tried to settle down to bed. This irritated Fender, because sheer physical exhaustion coupled with a lack of sleep had begun to wear on his body, and he found himself slipping further and further into sullenness. Not that he minded the sullenness, of course. If sullenness ever got on the endangered species list, it would be because Fender had been poaching it.

In other news, the initial excitement of HFA winning its first PALM game against the Star Wars Fan Fiction Academies had all but completely evaporated. At first, the Wantingmors had rejoiced at the cleverness of the Potterverse’s Minis. Then S. C. Hardy pointed out that the PALM game merely confirmed said Minis’ ruthlessness. And the whole of the fanwriter population despaired.

However, wherever there are hormones and lust-objects together in the same vicinity, hope is not long absent. The Fluff Enthusiasts’ Halloween Ball was fast approaching, and Lusterbuff House was vibrating with excitement.

“Maybe Harry will dance with me!” said Erin Mirestone hopefully.

“No, me!” said Haley Plotkin.

“I hope Peter Pettigrew picks me,” said Sparky dreamily, causing Rosemary the Rubix Cube and Rhianna Dark to inch quietly away from her. A few days later, the Association of Marauders’ Lusters fractured over whether or not to invite Sparky to join their ranks or take out a contract on her.

The Goblet of Fire, set up in the rear of the Great Hall, had even started to overflow its magical boundaries and spew the small cards on which a fanwriter might vote for his or her favorite pairing. In a landmark yet tentative agreement with the faculty, the Fluff Enthusiasts had been able to draw up a contract with the canon characters that said that the winning pairing would have the first dance at the upcoming Ball. At the best of times, the Goblet was merely roasting the noncanonical pairings such as Oliver Wood/plumjam. At the worst of times, it was being fought over by Lusters United and the Slash Crusaders to see whether Harry Potter would be sharing his dance with Hermione or with Draco.

Those with the gall to write down any ship involving Mary Sue had been hunted down by Dark One Shadowphyre and strung up in the dungeons to listen to Igor Karkaroff’s one-man show.

As Halloween drew closer and closer, Fender was very pleased to say that he was not at all looking forward to the juvenile, disgusting event that was the Fluff Enthusiasts’ Ball. Though the school teemed with girls, there was only one whom he considered worthy of him, though he would undergo several hours of thumbscrews before admitting that there was even one. But he didn’t think that Fleur would go to the Ball with him. Especially after he had beaten up Bill Weasley, her pansy boyfriend. (Fender had a bit of selective memory when it came to things like public humiliation.)

And then it was the night of the Ball, and Fender, sitting stubbornly in the Slytherin common room with an absurdly obscure tome that he could not even understand, relished the sneer that he presented to the dressed-up Slasherings on their way up to the party. Silly, foolish girls, he thought. Do they really think their stupid fantasies will ever come true?

“Ehem!”

Fender didn’t bother to look up. Only one person in his House could manage to exclaim the clearing of her throat. “What do you want, Phayn? Why aren’t you up there drooling over Snape?”

“It doesn’t start for another hour, silly!” said Phayn, plopping down in his armchair and managing to toss his book across the room at the same time. “Whatchadoin’?”

“I’m not going to that stupid Ball, if that’s what you mean,” said Fender, scowling as he bent to retrieve the book. It was only when he straightened up that he caught sight of Phayn. “Leave me—”

“Isn’t there even a ‘You look nice, Phayn’, or even a ‘You look better than normal, Phayn’ for me?” she said, jutting out her chin.

It took Fender a moment to compose himself. How did she do that? he wondered. A girl looks frumpy and wears excessive glittery eye make-up for two months, then suddenly shows up for a dance looking like a young model? How did she do that? For indeed, Phayn’s appearance was, in her own words, much “better than normal.”

“What are you—Going to snare Snape?” he said, snapping back into auto-cynicism.

“I am, as a matter of fact,” she said, her nose in the air. “I only came to ask you to come because you’re my friend, and I don’t think you should be alone in the common room while everyone else is having a good time upstairs.”

“Define ‘good time’,” said Fender, glowering.

“Well, it doesn’t involve The Elucidated Secrets of the Middle Dynasty Species of Thatcher’s Moths and Their Impact on Modern Quantum Arithmancy,” said Phayn, glancing at Fender’s choice of reading material.

“I happen to like—”

“No, you don’t! I know you don’t, because you hate Professor Vector for agreeing with Professor Trelawney about your future as read by bird entrails!” It was true. Fender had not been able to eat chicken again for two weeks after Professor Trelawney cut one open at dinner and read its insides to him, thus validating her prediction that he “would not consume the meat of any domestic-born poultry of the species ‘chicken’ in the coming fortnight.”

“Go away,” said Fender quietly. “I’m not going to ask again.”

“Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud, spoiled, faking, sissy—”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” asked Fender, raising an eyebrow.

“Oooh,” said Phayn, gritting her teeth. “I’m going to be late if you keep this up, and I am not going to miss my chance at Snape!” She strode forward and grabbed Fender by the ear, pulling him from his chair and causing The Elucidated Secrets of the Middle Dynasty Species of Thatcher’s Moths and Their Impact on Modern Quantum Arithmancy to fall to the floor once again.

“Aaow! Let go, you stupid fangirl! What do you think you’re doing? You’re not taking me up there, I don’t want to and you’re such a—”

But Phayn would not be dissuaded. “Shut up, Bumper, and maybe I’ll let you have a dance.”

*********

It was a mockery of the word “ball,” unless one were speaking of the spiky kind that goes on the end of a mace. Members of the Order of the Sphinx patrolled the area armed with tasers, wands, and luster-repellent (said to drop even the most rabid of Draco fangirls at a distance of twenty feet). Some of the less... sought-after... canon characters were mingling happily, Argus Filch and Mr. Lestrange confident in the knowledge that someone would have to be criminally insane to glomp them. While this was always a possibility at HFA, even deranged fangirls have eyes, as well as the gut instinct that anyone married to Bellatrix Lestrange is entirely off limits.

Fender sulked in the corner, ignoring the house-elf prodding his shin and making incessant offerings of chilled Tantaflaf done up in the shape of cocktail sausages. Across the room from him, the ghost orchestra started to warm up their musical saws (figuratively speaking). Phayn seemed to have disappeared, as was her wont, and Fender wondered when it would be a good time to begin counting the seconds until Snape appeared, trying to shake her off.

“Sir would like a Tanta-weenie? Winky is making them special for fanwriters,” chirped the Elf. Fender kicked her aside, spilling the plate of sausages and pushing his way angrily through the mixed company (which was a lot more mixed than usual company, at any rate. Company that includes ghosts, Animagi, magical beasts, and budgies water-skiing in the punch bowl is not only mixed, it’s puréed).

There was nothing interesting here, and no one was watching him brood. Fender felt cheated. He was leaving, and no one could stop him.

Except, of course, the Ironic Over-power.

“Attention, attention!” said a voice that practically shone. You could picture his teeth in that voice. Gilderoy Lockhart, unofficial liaison between the Fluff Enthusiasts, Lusters United, and the faculty, detached himself from the crowd right next to Fender. To the Slashering’s immense disbelief, Lockhart handed him a ruby-red wine glass (with paper umbrella, orange slice and, because this was Potterverse, a newt on a stick. The glass, however, was not full of wine, but, because this was Gilderoy Lockhart, strawberry jello). The former Defense professor tossed his cloak over Fender’s shoulder as if he were a hat rack or manservant. Possibly a little of both. The fangirls giggled, and Fender turned an angry shade of crimson to match the wine glass.

“Yes, I know you’re all excited to see which of your ships have come in, as they say,” said Lockhart, giggling. “Very disappointed, I was, too, to find that I barely ranked in the top five, but, well, we all know how hard it is to write a plausible me/anyone, these days.” He grinned in an infuriating manner that made Fender want to hit him. He did not know that that precise emotion was the same feeling that most people felt around Fender all the time.

“Anyway,” continued Lockhart, “we did have a good number of requests, and I am pleased to present the most beloved ship of all, as requested by you of HFA.” He clapped wildly, bobbing on the balls of his feet. Fender tried to remove Lockhart’s cloak from his arm as if it might infect him.

“May I present Lily and James Potter!”

“Aww, that’s nice,” said Talifiney, restraining one of her fellow Slash Crusaders.

“To think, they’re really the favorite pair in Potterverse,” sighed Neophyte of Ever-Shifting Dreams.

A little removed from the action, Harry Potter shrugged a bit uncomfortably. They were his parents, after all, and most of the time he had avoided seeing them in a romantic light.

In a far corner of the Hall, a group of “Snape Is Harry’s Father” mafiosos were speaking in low voices that did not bode well.

Nevertheless, Lily and James took the dance floor as the ghostly saws struck up a passable “As Time Goes By.” It was a nice scene, a picture of calm that rarely happened at HFA. McGonagall and the Order of the Sphinx Head, Ally White, seemed surprisingly at ease, through they both made sweeps of the crowd.

Away from the spotlight, Sirius Black and a horde of Mini-Aragogs closed in on the “Snape Is Harry’s Father” bunch, and there was only a slight urk that accompanied the disbanding of the group.

There was a lull in fanwriter activity. Genevieve Chaos Campbell momentarily gave up her explicit Sue tirade and settled into a subtle frenzy, the green glow around her head quivering slightly. The greenish haze served as a way for the staff to identify the Metamorphmagus, lest she attempt to imitate a canon character and enter Aerobics Lair. Lavender DuBois-Black and Sam Malfoy, notorious lusters even by HFA’s standards, seemed to have even put their hunts aside to watch the two dancers, lit by the glow of jack o’ lanterns and candles.

“Stop that thing!” screamed Pineapple Queen.

Heads turned. The musical saws ceased their grating. Lily and James stopped their dance to stare at the member of the Order of the Sphinx.

“Stop what?” said Miss Brin, stepping forward from her lurking spot beneath a candelabra.

There was the pitter-patter of many, many little feet. Then something flat, box-like, and rectangular crashed into Fender, Gilderoy Lockhart, and two Death Eaters that had stood behind them. It didn’t stop there, but rammed forward like a juggernaut, crashing through the refreshments table (and subsequently upsetting the budgies), then going for a group of petrified Canonlaws.

“It’s got the metal; stop that thing!” yelled Jocelyn, coming up behind Pineapple Queen with the remains of a very heavy chemistry volume.

From his position on the ground, Fender saw Ally White lunge forward in a very glomp-like maneuver and hang onto the box’s lid. The box opened, and the latch came down on her left hand. She screamed, and Em ran forward, yanking the fiendish lid back before it could sever Ally’s hand.

“Don’t touch it,” said Miss Brin suddenly. “Containment spells, quickly.”

A hail of wandwork made Fender go dizzy, and when his vision cleared he saw that the wooden box with the multitude of little legs had been impounded in five different bubble-domes, a shield of thorns, and a ring-like chasm from whence issued the distinct odor of brimstone.

“Inter-continuum portal, I’m guessing?” said Miss Brin, approaching the chasm carefully, as if expecting Mary Sues to issue forth from it.

“Something of the sort, I believe,” said Jocelyn. “Now, we just have to get the metal back from it. They were almost done deciphering it, down in Oedipus Inferno.”

“It’s an interesting choice of theft, though, said Miss Brin, pacing the rim. “And, in whatever fanfiction they snagged this Luggage from, it isn’t easy to control...”

“It is doubtless a random occurrence,” said Fudge, stepping out of the huddled crowd and holding up his arms to block the captive Luggage from view. “In light of events, I think this Ball shall be considered canceled—”

The roar of protest would have made Frankenstein’s monster reconsider fighting mobs.

But before the fanwriter collective of HFA could stone Fudge, there was a gasp from Artema. “Look! Look at that! Inside—With that!”

A milk-colored cloud appeared inside the bubble-spell nearest the wooden box. The Luggage stamped its feet impatiently as the cloud grew bigger and bigger, until it filled the whole confined space. “Shut them down! Finite!” yelled Pineapple Queen. “It’s escaping!”

The plothole finished coalescing. The Luggage jumped through. And all evidence that someone had once sheared through HFA’s guarded gates was lost.

---

Author’s Note:

For those of you wondering, I tallied up the preferred ships of all fanwriters with processed applications, and here are the top ten ships at HFA.

1. Lily/James
2. Ron/Hermione
3. Harry/Ginny
4. The Giant Squid/Anyone
5. Sirius/Remus
6. Draco/Ginny
7. Harry/Hermione
8. Draco/Harry
9. Dumbledore/McGonagall
10. Snape/Remus

Lily/James and Ron/Hermione were nearly tied, but L/J won out by a few points. I don’t know whether this is because you all really like L/J and R/Hr, or because you are not offended by them because of Canon.

I was rather surprised that Harry/Hermione didn’t rank higher than it did (especially below the Giant Squid?). Interestingly enough, the majority of the people who favored H/Hr were in Slashering. Draw what conclusions you will.