AUTHOR'S NOTE: Still typing away. It's been written for awhile, I never have time to type it, but on my day off, I have made the vow that I will finish typing this and post it, too! I've even gone so far as not allowing myself to do the dishes until it's done. Think that's not an inducement to type fast? You have obviously never made suspiro and papos de anjo then left the dishes in the sink for a week; things have smelt better, to say the least.

Chapter 8: Chapter the Third to Last

"You couldn't think of a more snappy title than that?" Bet commented as the three of them appeared in the Slytherin common room. She frowned. "And why the hell am I here? I'm not important to the plot!"

Ancalimë snorted. "There's a plot?" she countered. "And as for the chapter title, it stays because it's the closest thing to a Dickens reference I'm going to work into this story. Which reminds me," she added, "we still have to watch the last three hours of Our Mutual Friend sometime."

"Thanks for telling everyone at ff.n," Bet muttered.

It was only then that they noticed that approximately two hundred fifty pairs of eyes (by Ancalimë's calculation; seventy by Bet's) were staring at them. By some strange chance—or narrative preference—Ancalimë had dropped them smack-dab in the middle of a SPWEB meeting.

"Oh, how embarrassing," she muttered. "Do I have cilantro in my teeth?"

"Shut up," Mortimer growled, then turned to Snape. "Sir, I'd like to present to you Ancalimë Erendis and her beta-reader Bet…er…?" He glanced questioningly at her.

"Cha," she supplied.

"Bet Cha," Mortimer dutifully repeated, then frowned. "Er—"

"Betcha thought she was serious," Ancalimë snickered.

Bet hauled off and whacked her in the shoulder. "That's the worst pun since the Scottish accent wall!" she fumed. "I can't believe you had me utter such an awful, horrible pun!"

"I'm the writer," her roommate reminded her with a smirk.

"Why don't we just leave it at Bet?" Snape said hastily. "I take it, then, that your mission was successful?"

"Quite," Mortimer replied. "And aside from a red herring attack from a house elf ninja named Fuji—"

"It wasn't a red herring," Ancalimë told him composedly. "It was a narrative device—"

"Aren," Bet interrupted, "I don't think they care right now."

Ancalimë shrugged. "Aight."

Mortimer glared at them. "In any case, sir," he continued, "I have her full assurance that Slytherin will triumph over Hufflepuff." He thought for a minute. "Oh, and I found a great Mexican fast food joint."

"I do think the half-masticated burrito was going a bit far," Bet murmured, and Mortimer whirled to find the two Americans reading through Ancalimë's drowned notebook.

"Ahem!"

Instantly they snapped to attention, Bet whipping the notebook behind her back as she did.

"What?!" Ancalimë demanded.

Snape sighed and rolled his eyes, then turned back to the assembled Slytherins. "Are there any other reports?" he asked.

Goyle raised his hand and stood, looking morose. "The Devil's Snare clipping was successfully intercepted and destroyed, sir," he said somberly. "We replaced it with a plastic orchid, and Longbottom was none the wiser.

"That's great news," Snape replied. "Why the long face?"

Goyle shook his head sadly. "It was a particularly touchy type, sir," he answered. "It attacked, and…John Camisaroja-Doe is—is dead, sir! It—it was horrible!"

Bet gave Ancalimë a pained look. "Camisaroja?" she repeated. "Red shirt?! That's awful!"

"Only if you watch Star Trek," Ancalimë pointed out.

Snape called for a moment of silence before resuming the meeting again, and everyone, with the exception of the cricket that had not been caught since its cameo in Chapter 2, complied.

"So what's the plan, Dad?" Harry asked at the end of the moment.

Snape sighed. "Well, according to the intelligence provided by Alfred, and a bit of unintelligence provided by Reginald, Operation: Mighty, Mighty Hufflepuff launches tomorrow," he said. "Are we ready to counteroffend?"

"Is that a word?" Bet whispered.

"Shut up," Mortimer hissed, though he, too, had wondered.

There were several nods and murmurs of assent (in response to Snape's question, not to Mortimer's order).

"Then everyone get some sleep," Snape told them, "because tomorrow we're gonna kick some Badger butt!"

Ancalimë looked at what she'd just written, then glanced up at Bet. "Would Snape say 'butt'?"

Bet shrugged. "It's a parody," she reminded her. "Who cares?"

The meeting disbanded amid cheers and other excited utterings, as well as a shower of sparks from the ceiling as Crabbe fired off a shot from his Fecolator 3000. Mortimer disappeared to go to the hospital wing, and Snape rounded on his two American guests.

"And now, Miss Erendis," he said silkily, "there is the matter of 'A Dream Within a Dream'."

"Which won't be posted 'til Christmas, so don't you dare go dropping spoilers!" she snapped.

He narrowed his eyes. "Is it really necessary to flay your characters alive?" he demanded.

Ancalimë held up a hand. "Strictly speaking, neither of them is my character. One is Snarky's, and the other is the property of J.K. Rowling—even though I don't think she properly appreciates him. And the flaying itself is all Snarky, not me. The holy water's my idea, but the flaying came straight from her imagination."

Snape frowned. "I didn't think I was a vampire in that story," he said.

"You're not," she replied patiently. "At least, not exactly."

"But—"

Ancalimë sighed, put her pen to the page, and wrote herself and Bet out of the scene.

"Bollocks," Snape muttered to the suddenly empty room.

FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: I did it! I can go do dishes now! Yipeeee! Also, some of the lines in here were not made up by me; they actually came from the mouth of my beta-reader Bet (whose last name in no way resembles the word Cha) as she read or heard read to her Chapters 7 and 8.