Discovering Fan Fiction
Aurora de la Noche
A/N: I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck! Sorry!!! When I begin to receive threatening e-mails for not getting the next part out sooner, I know it's been too long. Gosh, I'm really sorry!! I've been really busy, though, so I do have an excuse. Many, in fact. After the last chapter, I went to Michigan for a week, England for a month and a week (it was fabulous!!! I love it there, and I think I'm going back next summer, too, and to Scotland!), New York for a week, and then there was that whole pesky school starting thing. I'm sure you'll be proud to know I'm in my junior year now! (-: Um, I got an A on my first English essay test. (Honours class; I'm so proud). I'm also taking creative writing this year, so hopefully subsequent chapters won't suck as much. Again, I'm really sorry that this has taken so long. I shouldn't really be writing now; I've so much to do today!
Ok, I also realise that the timeline is totally weird; it should be 1995, but just having them read fanfic makes it at least, what, 1998. I've only partly moved them, so it's sort of set now. Forgive me, don't flame it, no one's even noticed before.
I'm also disappointed that no one even noticed the name of the library founder. Tsk, you! Tsk, and shame! Vector! Professor Vector of Hogwarts!
Disclaimer: Still not mine. If I really thought that was going to change any time soon….
Dedicated to those who need the humour in their lives now, to anyone who needs a smile on their face after this week. May whatever God/dess/es/s you have bless you and keep America and the rest of the world safe.
Chapter 10
Rita's Gone, Fan Fiction Tries to Return, the Movie's Found Out
"Do you think she's really gone, then?" Ginny asked somewhat timidly.
"Of course, you ninny!" George smiled, reaching down to tug at the hem of the dress he was no longer wearing; his jeans slid down a few inches.
"Anyway, we can just ignore that all for now. I don't want to think about Rita Skeeter right now. Not while we still have one left," Hermione said, looking at the fourth book sitting innocently on her bed.
"Hey, how come you guys never told us about Black?" Fred asked, suddenly looking wronged.
"G—Fred, you heard what happened! Would you've believed us anyway?" Ron looked scandalized.
"No, and I'm Fred, thanks, not Gfred."
"Would that make him Fgeorge then?" Harry asked with a grin.
"It must," Ginny answered.
Twin tongues stuck out at them, bringing to mind images of Dudley's tongue, horribly blown up by some toffee of the twins' last summer.
"Hey, I just noticed something," Ron said, holding Prisoner of Azkaban open at a random point.
"What?" Hermione looked to see, one hand on his shoulder to get a better perspective.
Ron blushed and said, "well, um, they misspelled so many
things and used weird words for things, too. Look, they talk about trunks of
cars; don't elephants have trunks?"
"They mean the boot, Ron. Really. If you'd take Muggle Studies, you'd know
that, for one thing, Americans say and spell things differently." Hermione tossed
her hair haughtily over her shoulder, ready to begin another lecture.
"So why are the books American in the middle of England, then?" Ginny and Harry asked at the same time, both having scented the danger of the lecture. Ginny flushed scarlet, and Harry's cheeks were tinged the same, but no one really noticed that now.
"Er-" That had left Hermione uncharacteristically speechless.
"Say, that is weird," Fred (or George) said, picking up the first book and vaguely flipping through.
"I remember distinctly Mum talking about our jumpers; she never says sweater," George (or Fred) said, looking at the second book.
"Weird."
"Well, M. F. Vector, the patron of the library, had an affinity to all things American, much like your dad to all things Muggle," Hermione said, sounding as though she had, instead of swallowing a textbook, missed and swallowed the plaque on the bust of the aforementioned patron.
"Vector… Say, Hermione-" Harry was cut off by Hermione.
"Yes, M. F. Vector is my Arithmancy professor."
"Ah, well. That explains a lot."
"It doesn't explain though, why, if Vector has a Muggle
library, nothing's ever been said about Rowling before. Especially to you,
Hermione; everyone knows you're Vector's pet in that class."
"George!"
"Fred."
"Fred!"
"What?"
"Argh!" Nothing else
could describe the noise she made as she reached unceremoniously for his
throat.
"Hey, calm down, 'Mione," Ron said,
somewhat in fear for his brother's well-being.
"What did you call me, Ron?"
"Er, Hermione."
"Good."
"Quite."
~*~
Back at Hogwarts, the Headmaster was having another debate
with the Sorting Hat.
"Listen, Albi-Albus, I've told you
before, there was no other option."
"Still, hat, I feel bad about how it
all happened."
"Listen, if Fawkes hadn't been out
scouting a new mate, Skeeter would still be spreading that ridiculous story
about the Potter boy and that Muggle writer."
"Still, it was meant
to be a calculated, neat, painless hit."
"Phoenixes eat beetles every day!"
"Not Animagi, though!"
"Granted, but-"
"Listen, it was
still probably quite painless."
"I hope so."
"Anyway, Albus, it does leave another
problem."
"What's that?"
"Too many wizards heard her story about
that writer. Someone's bound to look into it. You know that until the last,
some have still believed her word."
"Yes, I know," Albus thought heavily.
"And you are aware that—"
"What?"
"Well, Albus, you are aware that it was
the one time she was telling the truth."
"WHAT?"
"You heard me."
"I… Muggles know? Skeeter knew? But if
it is true, then…"
"Then her story about Harry Potter's
friends having told her about the books is true."
"I like to think my students would have
told me."
"Albus, I don't think they're ready to,
yet. Anyway, term will be starting soon enough; call them all to your office
and talk with them. Just not during the Sorting, this time. I've a really good
song this year, I'd like them to hear it."
"Very well."
~*~
"So we have American
books?"
"I guess so."
"And at least one of the professors at
school knows about them."
"Yes."
"And Rita Skeeter was yelling something
about them."
"Yes."
"Fawkes ate her."
"And the author is English?"
"Yes."
"So we've got a trans-continental
conspiracy?"
"Ye—Conspiracy?"
"You heard me."
"Unfortunately."
Somehow, Hermione and George were managing to 'host' a somewhat painless meeting with the other four. They'd been talking in circles for the last half hour, since the Evening Prophet had come in (Hermione'd kept her subscription to both the Daily and Evening Prophet).
"I still can't
believe Fawkes at her."
"Yeah… Sort of weird, huh?"
"What I can't believe," Ron said,
amazed, "is that she got out of the Hit Wizards' reach. That's got to be the
first time their subject's got away."
"Third," Hermione said distractedly,
again skimming the article.
Harry and Ginny were huddled over the first page, where a massive photo (credit: Colin Creevy, who'd been in Diagon Alley that day to get his school supplies, and had naturally had his camera with him) showed Fawkes swooping over a scuttling beetle, snapping it into its beak as it showed signs of wanting to change back into a human. Ginny giggled occasionally, while Harry was torn between amusement and disgust.
"Anyway… I don't really want to think about Skeeter now. Do we… want to read the fourth yet?" Hermione asked in a much less bossy tone than the one she'd been using all day. She looked at Harry, who had a carefully closed expression.
"Not yet. I—I can't." Surprisingly, the argument came from Ginny.
"Gin?"
"I don't, I mean, I don't think I can
handle it right now. How about something light-hearted?"
There could be no disagreements with this, so the book was, momentarily,
forgotten.
"What do we want to do, then?" Harry asked.
"Er- We could… We could go back online."
"There's always the homework we have."
It would be difficult to say whose suggestion was met with more disgust.
"Water balloons!" Shouted Fred and George.
"We could always, um, well, not water balloons," Hermione said, decidedly sick of the sploshy things, yet unable to come up with anything better.
"Should we just go online?" Ginny asked.
"I… Well, I'd like to know what's out there," Harry replied.
"I don't!" Came four other voices.
"Hermione, show me how to turn it on; Harry and I'll go on.
You four can, um, do… something else."
And so it was decided that Harry and Ginny would go online, Ron and Hermione would watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail (there was much debate, but Ron was insistent that they watch something mindless and amusing), and the twins were locked in the guest room before anyone could ask what they were doing.
"What was the address again, Gin?"
"Um.. fanfiction dot something or
other."
"It would be co.uk, com, or net, probably."
"Net, then?"
"Works for me."
"Right, then."
Within minutes, they were logged onto fanfiction.net again, but were dismayed (in a manner of speaking, you understand) to find that it was down. There was a message that it would be back up as quickly as possible.
Harry and Ginny had no idea what to do. Harry had only ever been able to be online freely that one time earlier, and whenever he could sneak a go at Dudley's computer. Ginny had far less experience, despite having taken Muggle Studies.
Thus it was that they amused themselves by typing random things into the bar, with a .com after them. Imagine their horror at some of the things they found (Harry covered Ginny's eyes on several, despite her protests. When she did protest too much, eventually it turned around so she covered Harry's eyes and got them to another website.). After about fifteen minutes of random typing, they came across another fan fiction site.
"Warning: Spoilers for all four books," Harry read. He then clicked half-heartedly on the first author's name on the page.
"Hey… Who's Daniel Radcliff?" Ginny asked, seeing his name mentioned in the Disclaimer they'd got used to seeing.
"No idea," Harry replied, equally miffed. Mutually ignoring the story now before them, they clicked out of there and found a search engine. Typing in Daniel Radcliff, they clicked on the first page it gave them.
"A movie!? There's going to be a movie about us?" Ginny asked, stunned.
"That Daniel Ratcrag is supposed to be me!"
"His hair's not messy enough to be
you!"
"Look
at this girl; she's Hermione! She looks almost nothing like her! Least of all
her hair; Hermione has a lot more."
"This…kid's…Ron!" Ginny giggled out.
"Better likeness than the other two, anyway."
"Hey, c'mon, let's go to the bookstore. I want to see something!" Ginny grabbed Harry's hand, and without any ado whatsoever, pulled him away, leaving him one second to get it offline, and yanked him to the front door.
"We're going to the bookshop, we'll be back soon!" Ginny yelled to Ron and Hermione, who leapt apart at the sudden noise (Hermione's head seemed to have found its way onto Ron's shoulder, and his hand around hers, much to their total amazement; they didn't remember moving!). Hermione squeaked out something passing for an "ok, be back soon," while Ron just squeaked (well, he squeaked out something I can't say here for anything with a G even appearing in the rating).
Once outside Hermione's house, they could see a thin plume of smoke out the window of the guest room. Shrugging at each other, they started off towards town. At the first sight of a W. H. Smith, they stopped and looked at each other. With determined nods, they set off, walking unconsciously in-step, and entered the store.
"Oh… my." Harry said, stepping towards the large display of paperback Goblet of Fire books right inside the door.
"C'mon!" Ginny hissed, pulling him towards the magazines a few steps away, and in a little alcove.
"What?" Harry rubbed his arm where her vice-like fingers had been.
"Harry, if the books are that famous, imagine what that'd make you! And maybe even me! Together, especially! We can't just waltz around, staring open mouthed at our likenesses! It would get the word out faster than Rita Skeeter!"
"Oh," he suddenly saw the logic in that.
"Shall we then, Lexi?"
"Of course, Vincent," she replied, catching on immediately to the obvious need of a new name. She took his proffered arm with minimal blushes from both parties, and they walked in farther. Looking around, Ginny/Lexi quickly found what they sought.
"Here!" She thrust a movie poster book and an American magazine at Harry, and began to steer him towards the till, reminding him of Parvati steering him around at the Yule Ball last Christmas.
"Um, Lexi, I haven't got any, you
know, money."
"Really,
Vincent, I should hope you'd remember these things," Ginny replied, voicing his
new name louder than she normally would have, due to the puzzled stares of a
few customers, while pulling out her own change purse.
Luckily Hermione did live within a few miles of the city centre, so they were back soon, as promised. The whole walk back, though, they were so engrossed in the poster book that they didn't notice they were holding hands (they each had one hand on the book, the other entwined with its counterpart). The W.H. Smith bag swung unnoticed on Ginny's arm, containing an issue of Vanity Fair.
Once back at Hermione's house, they quickly rounded up Hermione and Ron (now watching the end credits of the movie) and Fred and George (smelling of a sweet smoke, and each with faintly smoldering eyebrows), taking them without any explanation into Hermione's room. Ginny locked the door.
"We went to the bookshop."
"We know that much, Harry."
"We found these. There's to be a movie." He thrust the magazine at the twins, and the poster book at Hermione and Ron. Ginny grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him to a corner, talking to him in a hurried, whispered conference.
"And, some Muggles in the store looked at us strangely, especially because we had these things."
"What did they do to our Quidditch uniforms?" George howled, outraged. Fred had one hand over his heart, the other over his eyes, and what could be seen of his face had a very pained expression indeed.
"And even our school uniforms!" Ron looked away from the poster book.
"Really, this is preposterous!" Hermione said. "Look at what they have us wearing! It's ridiculous! Muggle clothing underneath! You lot look like you should be at Eton in the winter!"
Harry agreed with her, yet both ignored the question of, "What's Eton?" from the Weasleys.
"A movie…. A movie! We're going to be famous!" George yelled.
"No, Daniel, Emma, and Rupert are going to be famous. As well as these lot," Fred said, for once disagreeing with his twin as he motioned to the open page.
"The Quaffle! What've they done to it? It looks all dented, and… And the brooms! Medieval! Can't they even tell when they read about how fine they are. These are archaic! To say the least!" George would not be distracted from his Quidditch woes. No one thought to, either.
"The wands, they're terrible!"
"Huge, and ugly!"
"Look
what they did to Fang!"
"And, oh, poor Professor Flitwick! They say the actor's playing him and a goblin; I don't reckon they changed his costume!"
"What about these ghosts? The Bloody Baron looks almost friendly! And poor Nick, look what they did to him!"
Unable to take any more of the monstrous wrongs, the six got up as one body and left the room. It was just in time, too, because at that moment,
"Kids! Dinner!"
"Good," Fred whispered to his twin, who nodded heartily, though with a long-suffering expression.
~*~
Somewhere else entirely…
"Master, we have just received intelligence of-"
"You worry me, Wormtail. Lucius informed me hours ago of these things, these ramblings of that reporter," a voice cold, sharp, and hissing broke through the incompetent ramblings of the one with the silver fist.
"Master, if the Muggles know-"
"Silence! Or should I say, crucio!"
As the screams began, so did a monstrous headache hundreds of miles away…
~*~
"Harry! What's wrong?"
A/N: I don't know. Thanks for reading, though. Sorry sorry sorry, a thousand apologies! This was only seven pages, probably about six actual story, and you have my deepest apologies. And why is it that Fawkes gets Harry out of everything? Chamber of Secrets, duelling with You Know Who, Rita Skeeter….
Anyway, I shall try to have the next out either Tuesday or the weekend after next (29 September; it would be next weekend, but it's my birthday weekend, so yay! Happy birthday to meeeeee!)
Thank you some more, and sorry some more!
Remember what has happened; let us never forget.