The Discovery
Disclaimer: You get it. Not mine.
A/N: And now, the part you've all been waiting for! THE DISCOVERY OF FANFICTION.NET!!! (glares at the less than enthusiastic huzzahs surrounding her, and they instantly turn into frighteningly enthusiastic huzzahs.)
Prepare yourself for far too much blushing. Hey, I think it's cute…
Maybe I should prolong this a bit more?
HUGE thanks to all my reviewers (could use more….looks around again…)
Still haven't decided on potential shippage yet, so keep the votes coming in!
Review, review, REVIEW! See, it inspires me! This is my second chapter posted TODAY!! Wow…
I have no idea how long this will turn out to be, I wasn't even expecting that second chapter at all, but I was eating Boston Market mashed potatoes and they were just screaming for a place in the story, so I gave it to them. Too bad they exploded…
Now, on with (drumroll please) the discovery!
"Wakey, wakey, honey buns!"
How horrible. What a nightmare… Harry had dreamed that he'd been sharing a bed with…
"FRED!?"
"Sugar, you're up!"
Hitting himself in the forehead, which still ached from when he'd run into the wall yesterday, Harry thumped back into bed from his recently acquired sitting position. Fred just leaned farther over him, leering unpleasantly with a grin on his freckled face.
"Muffin, they'll be disappointed if you don't show your pretty lil' mug around here sometime soon. Don't know why…. Anyway, our dear lil' 'Mione requests your presence downstairs. Come on, …"
While Fred thought of another horrible nickname for him, Harry jumped up (fastest I've ever gotten out of bed, he mused) and ran to the bathroom door. Reddening slightly, he knocked before going in, remembering the last night. And Hermione in a towel. Why was that grin appearing on his face now…?
When Harry went downstairs, he saw a less-than-gruntled (A/N: if people can be disgruntled, why not gruntled too?) Ron half-asleep in his oatmeal. Ginny came downstairs a moment later, and turned a charming pink as she realized that the only empty chair left was next to Harry. She turned even pinker when the two of them simultaneously reached for the same blueberry muffin. She turned the brightest pink that anyone present had ever seen her when George, from her other side, nudged her not-so-gently into Harry and she landed in his lap again.
Ever the gentleman, Harry put one arm under her waist and helped her back to her own chair as he turned a slight pink himself. And they thought they'd seen the pinkest that Ginny could go…
"So, Hermione," Ron said, eager to get the focus off of his sister and his best friend, "what are we doing today?"
"I figured we could have a computer powwow."
"A what
powwow?"
"Computer."
At the strange looks from Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Ron nodded pseudo-knowledgably before continuing, "Right. I thought you said, er, a flom-footer…" At the strange looks from everyone else, he quieted and decided to try a new tactic: switching topics. "So, how did everyone * sleep * ?"
"Very well, thank you," said George with a smirk.
"Pleasantly," said Mr. Granger.
"Nicely, thank you," said Mrs. Granger.
"Well," said Hermione.
"Like this," said Ginny, who proceeded to put her less-red face onto the pillow of her arms and mock-sleep.
Fred and Harry just glared at Ron, who grinned maliciously with an evilness that did not quite reach his laughing eyes.
"What kind of computer is it, Hermione?" asked Harry, still staring daggers at Ron.
"Um, I'll have to check."
"That's ok, it doesn't matter anyway." Said Harry, still staring daggers at Ron, and now imagining him being covered in mashed potatoes and strung up from a flagpole upside down with a sign that said "I'm a git" on it. He couldn't help himself from laughing aloud at that thought.
"Harry…?"
"Mashed potatoes…Flagpole…Ron…Git!" Harry tried to convey the humor that he found in this, but no one else seemed to share the sentiment, thought Ginny did laugh a bit at the flabbergasted explanation.
"Flag…Oh no! Kids! I've only just remembered! We have to go into the office today! The Flags called in, and their son needs an emergency root canal! You'll be home…alone." Mrs. Granger told the delighted teenagers with a quavering voice.
"I'll keep an eye on them, mum," Hermione said, sounding resigned.
"Lovely."
"Now, why don't I just take a moment to talk to the four boys…?" suggested Mr. Granger, with a smile that told them that they were going to get a lecture.
As the three women were left in the kitchen to clean up after themselves and the messy men (A/N- I love that phrase, messy men), those of the male persuasion were herded into the living room.
"If he tries to warn us away from Hermione again…" Ron whispered to Harry, half-exasperated. Harry responded with a chuckle.
"Boys, I know this is going to come across a bit overprotective of me, but I need to know that I can trust you here…alone…with my daughter. And Ginny," he shot at Harry, who felt himself flush again.
"I give you my word, sir," said Fred pompously, in a dead-on impression of Percy, while somehow managing to keep a straight face.
"As do I, Mr. Granger. And good luck on that difficult procedure," added George, trying to sound both pompous and knowledgeable at the same time.
"Don't worry sir, I'll keep these two away from her," Ron tried to sound confident, but quailed under the stares of his brothers.
"You've nothing to worry about, sir." Harry said.
"Excellent."
~*~
"No, Ron…You're staring at the printer…That won't do anything yet, as it's not even on…See the screen? That's what you look at…" Hermione tried for at least the fourth time to explain just how the computer worked.
Luckily, the Gateway had a screen large enough that the six of them could all see without too much difficulty. Harry, though, had a seat behind Ron, who was notably taller than him. As he couldn't see the screen very clearly (he suspected he might need a stronger glasses prescription), he looked out the window directly to his left and lost track of time for a little while, occasionally hearing snippets of conversation.
"What's it doing!?"
"Ron, that's the sound it makes when you turn it on."
"Now what's that? A…a cow?"
"Ron, that's the Gateway symbol. Oh, Harry, it's a Gateway."
"How is that picture there? Ahh! What's the arrow thingy?"
Here Hermione let out an exasperated sigh.
"Hey, cool, look, it's following that clicky thing you're moving…"
"Ron, shut it!" George smacked him upside the head.
Harry laughed to himself a bit.
A few minutes later,
"Ack! Where'd that come from?" A new window had opened on the screen.
"Ron, just don't look at it until she gets it online, will you?" Fred looked close to smacking him upside the head now, too, which may have just been because he looked just like George, and George had just smacked him.
Harry was, by this time, wholeheartedly watching a sparrow as it pecked about the ground, trying to find its next meal. He thought it funny how birds hopped on the ground, as though it wasn't nearly as stable as the sky…
"Harry?" Ginny.
"Hum?"
"You all right?" She was speaking softly.
"Look at the bird." She did.
"It's pretty."
"I rather thought so."
"Ron!"
The two were jerked away from
the awkward moment that had arisen after Harry had agreed about the bird's
being pretty.
"What'd he do now?" Harry asked with a grin.
"He's an idiot," George summed it up before Hermione could get her mouth open.
Ron looked over from where he was standing at a window on another wall.
"The screen said to, er, close the window…" he said.
Harry, Ginny, and Hermione laughed heartily while the twins mouthed something to Ron that Harry could not see, but that made Ron blush and look at Hermione.
"YOU'VE GOT MAIL."
"Ga!" Ron yelped and jumped almost a foot in the air, cracking his head loudly against the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
"What was –that?" Ron managed, massaging his head.
"Why don't you go check, Ronniekins? Mail chute's over there." Fred pointed toward the door while George covered Hermione's almost protesting mouth.
Ron went over, then came back a moment later, looking confused.
"Empty…"
"It means e-mail," Hermione said ever more exasperatedly, finally without George's hand over her mouth.
As she explained about electronic ("electronic, not eklectrinoc") mail, Harry and Ginny took to looking out the window again. The sparrow was nowhere in sight, but a robin was now hopping about the small garden.
"Oh….my…." Hermione gasped a few minutes later. "Harry…"
"Huh?" Pulled from his reverie, Harry turned his attention once again to the computer screen.
The main window on the screen had many small icons to the left, and fanfiction.net boldly written across the top. Under the heading "books" was Harry's name.
The formerly feuding six now leaned in as one to face the computer screen. With a trembling hand, Hermione clicked the books icon. On the next page, the words "Harry Potter (11943)" were printed. Hermione clicked that.
"Harry Potter and the…." "Harry Potter and…" "MWPP" "R/H" "H/H" "H/G" "G/D" "D/H" "H/D slash" "Slash" "Remus/Sirius" "the Burrow" "Vernon" "Dursley" "Muggle" "Hogwarts" "Krum" "Mary Sue" "Flame" "Review" were some of the phrases that jumped out at the six pairs of eyes gazing intently at the screen. They seemed to make no sense at all, but obviously had some meaning, as they included everyone present's names.
"What the!?"
"Click one, Hermione…" came the cautious command from Harry.
She began to read from the first story she saw. "'One stormy night, Fred and George Weasley had finally convinced their friend Lee Jordan to join their…' Oh…my…gosh….Fred! George! Lee!?!??"
Fred and George leaned in and read out at the same time, "TWINCEST!?"
"Get out of there, I don't want to think of my brothers like that!" Ron yelled.
"Let's try here…'Hermione Granger waited in the lonely corridor for her boyfriend…' Never mind!"
"Percy!" Yelled out Ginny, laughing wildly, managing to read it before Hermione clicked out of there.
"Harry Potter leaned in and….oh, my," Ginny went pinker than even that morning at breakfast at the beginning of the next story. At the beginning of the next sentence, she said softly, "I didn't know that the human body was capable of doing…that…"
"Ginny!" Ron read out loud several of Harry and Ginny's supposed exploits, as the two named in the story turned steadily pinker, climaxing at a color near the red of a Muggle stop light.
~*~
Several hours later…
"So, let's see then, I've been paired with Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, that covers all of us here, Sirius, Malfoy, all of them, yech, Professor Snape, wait, all of the professors, yech, even Dumbledore!, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Parvati, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Crabbe, Goyle, Fawkes, that's gross, wait, all of these are, Millicent Bull---, Bulstrode, sorry, Pansy Parkinson, Voldemort, sorry, Ron, You-Know-Who, Cho, Cedric, Krum, sorry, Hermione, Viktor, Oliver Wood, Alicia, Angelina, Katie, and, ah, heck, everyone we know…" Harry read off his list. Checking it again, he added, "and some I think people just made up…"
"Right. I've got Ron, Harry, Malfoy, Neville, Sirius, Fred, George, Colin Creevey, Professor Lockhart, Viktor, Cho, Ginny, Cedric, …" Hermione read part of hers; had she read the whole thing, she wouldn't have been able to stop from laughing aloud.
"Hermione, Harry, heck, everyone in this room, Bill, Charlie, Percy, yech, they're my brothers!, Krum, Snape, Malfoy, Padma, Parvati, Lavender, Norbert, yes, George, the dragon, …" Ron read the beginning of his.
"My list
and Fred's are the same. They don't even think of us as individuals. I'm hurt.
Let's see… We've got each other, everyone else with the last name Weasley,
Harry, Hermione, Mary Sue, don't know her, Cho, Lupin, Moody, all the
professors, really, Moaning Myrtle, that's gross, the giant squid, Hagrid, and,
…aw, what's the use? Ginny, who do you have?"
"Harry, Hermione, all my
brothers, Malfoy, Hagrid, a broomstick, …what's the use? Everyone." Ginny
sighed. "Well, we're all whores."
"Ginny!" Ron again. He didn't know that his younger, purer, innocent little sister could know such a vulgar word. It was worse that she would use it so nonchalantly.
"This is insane."
"Completely."
"How…how do they know all about us? And about… Hogwarts? These seem to be written by Muggles."
"No idea."
"Who is J.K. Rowling, anyway? Why is she…he? She…Why is she in all of these, er, disclaimers?"
"The library!"
"Hermione, is that your answer for everything?"
"You're right, Ron!"
"I am?" A gasp, and he fell out of his chair, not for the first time since the discovery of this…insane website.
"Yes!" She minimized the windows of fan fiction that they had open and typed in a search engine. "J.K. Rowling," she read as she put it into the input box as Ron looked on interestedly.
"The author of four Harry Potter novels," Hermione read off the screen, and then looked at Harry, who shrugged, "Joanne K. Rowling is regarded as the wizard behind the magic of the books. The four books so far in this seven-part series are Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," Ginny shuddered, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Here Harry shuddered. "all of which have been on many bestseller lists. …It goes on. Now, Ron, we do have to go to the library. We have to read these books!" Hermione had the familiar glint in her eye, which told Ron that this was going to happen, whether or not they wanted it to.
"First though…What about these stories?"
"Can we
complain?"
"Fan Fiction, Ron. They think
we're…they think we're * characters * in a made up story. They don't believe
any of this… And, they don't even have the story right, if what I've seen here
is any indication of these…books…"
"Well, I don't want these people getting the wrong idea about…. anything," here Ron reddened, as he was looking at Hermione.
"Don't worry," she was oblivious to the pink tinge that extended to his ears.
Harry caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror across the room from where he was sitting and burst into laughter. They all looked strangely at him, then laughed too. The spot on his forehead where he'd run into the wall the previous day was now a livid bruise that extended across his lightning-bolt shaped scar like a purple cloud, and was made all the more obvious because of the strange paleness that had crept into his normally darker complexion. His eyes were even open wider than normal (and seemed stuck that way), giving him the look of a very strange child with a purple face painting (that was the scar and the bruise) looking at himself in a funhouse mirror.
After thoroughly critiquing himself, he turned to look at everyone else in turn. Ginny's face seemed to be alternating between white-pale and bright scarlet, both of which made her freckles all the more obvious, yet looked somehow…cute…(Harry felt himself blush at thinking of his best friend's little sister as "cute"). Hermione was holding herself together very well, but her eyes seemed to have grown three sizes, and her skin was noticeably paler, though her expression didn't betray too much alarm…anymore. Ron was sheet-white. Fred and George's shock had long since worn off, and they were both wearing their customary grins. (Well, Harry thought, at least those…fanfic authors had gotten one thing right)
At that moment, when all six were studying one another, and looking in the mirror, they heard the front door open and Mrs. Granger's cheerful voice call out "We're home!"
Hermione logged off.
A/N: Sorry if that was anti-climactic for those of you who kept begging for this scene to take place. I'm not sure that I pulled it off that well. Hum. O well, it's late now, you'll have to forgive me. And of course, REVIEW!! And don't get too comfortable with my having posted three chapters in two days. The next (oh will there be a next, BWAHAHAHA) may or may not be up tomorrow. I don't know. Whenever I get time, I suppose. My family was giving me weird looks today for being on so long, typing these up and reading other works. If anyone has any other pairs they want mentioned in the story, I take requests! Let me know what you want in here, at all, and chances are, I'll put it in. I'm a big softie. But, here's the thing, I don't know how the story's coming along. It sorta sucks. My fault, but I don't particularly care. Live. Soooo, I need YOU (pointed look), yes, you, who was singing huzzah earlier (you were, weren't you!?) to REVIEW!
I've read most of the stories from the signed reviews, and generally I review, too, so there's an added bonus just for you!! Woo!!
Wow, methinks I'm slaphappy. Interesting.
REVIEW!!
(plz)
(-: