A/N: This is sort of a companion-piece to the idea of the "Harry Potter and Co. write fanfiction" stories, but it's not a sequel. Still, you can feel free to read those, especially the first, as I actually completed that one.
Chapter 1:
A Vacation
Deep in the Department of Mysteries, three people burst abruptly out of the veiled archway that habitually provided only one-way travel from the earthly realm to the great beyond. Normally, no one could come back from the dead, given that this was one of the strict foundational rules that J.K. Rowling had set when she created the magical world of which the veiled archway was such a fundamental part. But these three people were special, so the rules about death didn't apply to them.
That's because these three people were Sirius Black and Lily and James Potter. The main reason that they were coming out of the veil was that this story will not be nearly as much fun to write (or read) if they're dead. So, they're not.
Don't worry, the three had been having a splendid time in the after-life. A jolly-good time, even. But talk of the recent phenomenon of heroes in the Harry Potter books writing fan-fiction about themselves had caused a bit of a stir even in the afterlife, and so the three dead friends were taking a short outing from heaven to try their hand at the past-time.
"I suppose Wormtail won't be joining us, then?" Sirius asked the other two conversationally.
"No, Hell doesn't give outings. From what I hear, he's currently been stuck in his rat form and forced to act as a play-thing for Satan's cat," explained James.
"Too bad, really. I had a few hundred choice words for him, explaining just how much of a... well... rat... he was," said Lily.
"You could always write him a letter," James reminded her. "Remember, there's that mail-truck that makes heaven-to-hell deliveries twice weekly?"
"Oh, yeah. Perhaps I shall, then. Do you think they'll let him transform back to human for long enough for him to read it?" Lily wondered.
"If it's particularly scathing, I'm sure they would," said Sirius.
"Anyway, let's go get Lupin, then see if we can borrow Hermione's magical computer," said James. They knew all about Hermione and her magical computer because James and Lily had, of course, spent much of their free-time in the after-life watching their son grow up. Yes, they realize that this sounds terribly corny, but they're his parents and therefore really couldn't help themselves.
"Right then... I wonder if I still remember how to apparate," Lily registered.
It turned out that they all apparated just fine, directly into the living room of Lupin and his recently-married wife, Nymphadora.
Nymphadora and Lupin were sitting on the couch. Both came within about half a point of blood-pressure to a heart-attack before Sirius told them, "Don't worry, it's just us!"
Lupin blinked slowly. "I hadn't been worried because I didn't recognize you... I was just shocked because you guys are... well..."
"Dead," said Tonks (who the author will still refer to by this name in spite of the fact that she would probably have changed in when she got married). Tonks was much less worried about being politically-correct than her husband.
"Oh, yes. We know," said Lily. "It's ok, though. We're on break."
"From death?" asked Lupin, confused.
"Yeah," answered James.
"So, what's the afterlife like, anyway?" asked Lupin.
"Splendid!" confided Sirius enthusiastically.
"Care to elaborate?" wondered Tonks.
"Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," said James with a grin.
"Of course not," said Lupin. "So, basically, you've decided to spend your break from the afterlife engaged in taunting my wife and I with the fact that you won't tell us what awaits us on the other side?"
"Of course not," answered Lily.
"Yeah, that would've been stupid," said Sirius.
"We came to write fanfiction!" explained James.
"Oh, of course," said Lupin. Lupin, of course, knew exactly what fanfiction was. He read it all the time, borrowing Hermione's magical computer to do so.
"So, I hear Hermione has a magical computer," said Sirius. "Why don't we go hit that up."
"Hit that up?" asked Lupin. "Do British people even say that?"
"I spend Friday afternoons in the afterlife taking American slang lessons," said Sirius.
"Oh," said Lupin with a nod. "Go figure."
Moments later, the four friends had apparated to Godric's Hollow, where Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron were all living. The Golden-Trio had recently finished up their seventh year of Hogwarts, and, simultaneously, their struggle against Lord Voldemort. Overall, they were having a good summer, but none of them were quite prepared to have three dead people apparate into their living room.
"Mom, Dad," said Harry in a breathless voice.
The family had a very touchingly emotional reunion during which they all said a number of very emotional things which the author refuses to recount on the grounds that this is a parody which the author is writing precisely because he does not care to put the effort into writing an emotional scene at the moment. The author is terribly lazy.
Therefore, the author will conveniently skip ahead to the part of the story where the three non-sleazy Marauders and Lily ask Hermione permission to hijack her magical computer.
"Hermione, do you mind if we borrow your computer in order to write a parody-style fanfiction about ourselves?" asked Remus.
"Oh, of course not, go right ahead," Hermione invited them generously. "Would you like any fanfiction-pointers? The four of us sometimes write fanfiction, too, although we've followed the trend of all other fanfiction writers at some point in their careers and are now taking a frustratingly long and seemingly unprovoked hiatus."
"That's ok, said Lupin. "I've read a fair bit of Marauder-era fanfiction myself, and I think it'd be more fun to learn by trial and error, anyway."
"Fair enough," said Hermione.
"Anyway, we'll leave you lot alone for a bit then so you can get a chapter written. How long is your break from the afterlife? Maybe we can play Quidditch later?" suggested Harry, whom you would in no way suspect to leave any room in which his long-dead parents were inexplicably reanimated in front of his eyes. But apparently whatever their conversation was that the present author skipped over, it was enough to tide him over for awhile.
"We can stay out as long as we want, so long as we update the fanfiction at a reasonable pace. So we should have time for a number of Quidditch-games," James assured him.
"Excellent," said Harry, and left the room with his three friends.
"So, how do we want to go about this?" asked Sirius.
"Well, basically, we want to make this story funny, so we're going to use as many bad-fanfiction stereotypes as possible. There are so many stereotypes about our characters, though, that it might be tough to work a substantial number all into one story. I think our best bet is to write our characters as if they're all suffering from severe cases of Multiple-Personality-Disorder. That way one character can display completely contradictory clichés from chapter to chapter. This is actually rather fitting, as one of the main trademarks of bad fanfiction seems to be that the authors have a hard time keeping any of their characters in character. Even when the characters concerned are characters they themselves made up," said Lupin.
"Sounds good so far," said Lily. "But wait, I thought this fanfiction was supposed to be about us. Why would we have to make any characters up ourselves?"
"Well, your friends pose a bit of a problem, since, as far as canon is concerned, there's really no concrete evidence that you even had any female friends, let alone any clues as to what they were like," Lupin reminded her.
"Ah yes, I remember now. In spite of how popular I actually was in school, there's hardly any reference in the books to my social life prior to dating James at all," said Lily. She knew this because she had, of course, read the books. That's right, the Harry Potter books are available in heaven. They're free there, too, actually.
"So, in other words, any friends and prior boyfriends of yours will have to be made up entirely on the spot, and any character-traits that we give these characters must be habitually contradicted beginning basically from the paragraph when they are first introduced," said Lupin.
"Just so we know when we're introducing them, will any of these made-up characters end up being romantic interests for you and me?" asked Sirius.
"Some of the time," Lupin answered. "But a lot of the time, you and I are primarily romantically interested in each other. For the purposes of the story and including as many stereotypes in it as possible, I think we're going to have to write ourselves bisexual."
"Goodness gracious," said Sirius in scandalized tones.
"Did you just say 'goodness gracious'?" asked James with another grin.
"Yes... Sorry, Remus but I just don't have those kinds of feelings for you," said Sirius.
"Nor I for you, of course," registered Lupin. "But we're still going to have to write those parts in if we want this story to reach its full potential."
"Well then I'm not sure I want that after all," said Sirius uncomfortably.
"Oh well, you're going to have to get over your homophobia eventually, but for now, you can just close your eyes, cover your ears, and hum whenever we're writing a part like that. None will come this chapter, though, so we're safe for now," said Lupin.
"And what will come this chapter?" asked James.
"Well... it might be most fun to start it during our sixth year, so we can include a bit of the time when you were still being an insufferable prat as far as Lily was concerned, and then progress toward when you were going out with each other. If we end up getting inspired for anything that happened before then, we can always use unwarranted flashbacks to squeeze in whatever comedic situations strike our fancy," advised Lupin.
"Fair enough. So this first chapter should start off with James being an insufferable prat?" asked Lily.
"Sure. Why not during the summer before Sixth year? Why don't you start? This chapter can be Lily-centric, and you can introduce your best friends. For this chapter, why don't we have them be ridiculously clichéd Valley-girls who act like they're 12 even though they should be over sixteen? Their names should also be ridiculous, because most fanfiction writers have a really hard time coming up with names. Other than that, in order to properly mirror normal fanfiction style, just make sure to have bad grammar, plenty of typos, and as little internal logic within the story as possible."
"Sounds good!" said Lily cheerfully, as she sat down in the author's chair and prepared to type. She had learned how to type during celestial typing classes which take place every Monday afternoon at five in heaven.
"Oh wait!" said Lupin. "You've got to write a disclaimer, too."
"Oh, right," said Lily, who then typed the following.
Disclaimer: We are not J.K. Rowling. She merely profits off of our story. However, we do get to read what she writes about us, so we suppose we're even. I am a bit sour about how she makes it seem like I had no friends, though. Oh well. Perhaps I'll pay her a visit while I'm on my little break from the afterlife. But, more on that later. Now: Onto the story.
Lily Evans was a beautiful young girl. Modest, too. Really. And she was currently on a shopping trip in Diagon Alley with two other very beautiful girls who, for some reason, attended Hogwarts with her in spite of the fact that they were in fact from California.
"Hey Lily," said one of the girls, who had been named Flowerlove Marie Jones by parents who were obviously insane, high as a snitch, and not nearly as funny as they thought they were, when they thought up the name. "I just saw James in the window of 'Quality Quidditch Supplies' and he was totally checking you out!"
"But he's such a git! He's always pinching me and pulling my pig-tails," said Lily Evans, who had not yet progressed beyond the mental age of twelve.
"That's because he, like, likes, you. Duh!" said Lily's other best friend, whose name was Bubblegum Josephson. Her parents hadn't been high, they just really liked bubblegum.
"Americans are annoying when they talk," muttered Lily. Neither Flowerlove nor Bubblegum seemed to catch on that she was talking about them.
"I think you shud, like, totally go over and talk to him," suggested Flowerluv.
"Why in the world would I do that?" asked Lily.
"Because, his friends are hawt. And totally ossam!" supplied Bubblegum.
"And bodacious! And tubular!" continued Flowerlove.
"I think you've kind of progressed from 'Valley-girl' to 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,'" commented an annoyed Lily. The present author, of course, knows what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are because episodes of their old Saturday morning cartoon are playing all the time in the afterlife. The present author is not entirely sure why.
"Oh, sorry. We'll stop if you go over and talk to him so that we have a chance to better ogle Remus and Sirius. We'll look away from Peter, though. He's neither bodacious nor tubular," said Bubblegum.
"I thought we weren't going to use words like that anymore," Lily reminded her best friend patiently.
"Are you going to talk to James?" asked Flowerlove excitedly.
Lily sighed heavily. "I suppose so."
"Cowabunga!!" said Bubblegum.
The three girls walked over to Quality Qwitch Supplies.
"Come to talk to me, Evans?" asked James, immediately invading her personal space quite thoroughly.
"No, I came to give my friends a chance to talk to your friends," Lily said in venomous tones.
"What friends?" asked James curiously.
Lily looked around and noticed that her friends had already made there way over to another part of the store to talk to Remus and Sirius. "Nevermind," she said. "I'm out of here."
"No, wait!" said James urgently as she turned to go, grabbing onto her hand. "I haven't gotten my once daily 'pledge eternal love to Lily Evans' quota out of the way yet. I love you forever, Lily Evans!"
Lily pulled her hand out of James' hand and walked back to the bookstore, leaving her Valley-Girl/Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtle friends back at the Quality Quidditch Supplies store.
When they caught up with her, Lily told them what had happened.
"Ew, he touched your hand?!" asked Bubblegum, appalled.
"Now you've got cooties!" Flowerlove exclaimed.
Lily sighed. Her sixth year was shaping up to be a long one.
"Nice work," congratulated Remus when Lily indicated that she was done.
"Why'd you write me as so desperate?" asked James, somewhat annoyed.
"Well, you were kind of desperate in the summer before sixth year, and I figured that fanfiction stereotypes would only exaggerate this fact. Besides, I didn't write myself in a terribly favorable light either," said Lily, apologetically.
"Does someone want to write the ending author's note?" asked Remus.
"I will," said Sirius. After giving him some brief tips about how to construct an ending author's note, Remus set him to work.
A/N: We apologize for the short length of our first chapter. We promise that the next chapter will be longer, even if we have to start taking pills for natural-chapter-enhancement. I have been informed that it is standard procedure for authors to threaten not to write a second chapter unless their first one gets a good number of reviews. However, as most of the authors of this story are currently under contract with the Keeper of the Veil to write chapters at a reasonable pace, we are unable to use this bargaining chip. We will therefore bribe our readers. Any and all reviewers will get imaginary cookies baked by Lily Potter. That's right! Imaginary cookies! We know you want some, so write us a review.
Actual author's note: Well, in spite of the kind-of-short length of the character's chapter, I feel mine was relatively respectable, especially for a parody. I was actually considering breaking it into two chapters, but I felt that I needed to have some of the characters' writing in the first chapter. Anyway... Please review to let me know whether you think this parody is worth continuing. Also, please note, in case you're not a fan of slash (I myself am not, either), that any and all parodied bisexuality of Remus/Sirius/any of the other characters, will in no way be graphic. I anticipate keeping this work rated "T" all the way throughout. Thanks for reading, everyone!