Finally, an update!!! This chapter was actually written quite quickly (mainly by Pagan) but then Pagan's brother, who gets a cameo in this chapter, reformatted the pc and lost it...so after much struggling, tears and occasional violent fist fights, chapter 4 is here!

The Much Awaited and Random Fourth Chapter

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"Okay, Pagan, put the axe down and then we can talk."

Pagan glared at Rogue, holding the glinting red and white axe up menacingly. "No....it has to be done!" she panted. "I thought you'd understand...."

"I do understand Pagan," Rogue replied gently, taking a small step forwards and reaching for the weapon. "But this isn't the way. Think of the consequences – think of the fanfic!"

"No!" Pagan screamed. "Do not use that against me! Don't!"

"Woa!" The two girls looked around to see Pagan's brother, Dale, stood in the doorway. His eyes flicked from the axe in his sister's hand to the bottle of orange juice on the desk. "Okay you two are just weird..." he said. Then suddenly he noticed what the axe was above, not the orange juice, but the computer!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he screamed, diving across the room. Immediately the whole scene went into bullet time, with Dale flying towards his sister as she slowly swung the axe and random droplets of orange juice being thrown all over the pair, glinting artificially as they passed the camera. His hand closed on Pagan's wrist, and with an all mighty wrench shown by his strained facial expressions, he pulled the axe away – and smashed it straight into Mum's favourite mirror.

The three landed in a heap on the floor, even though Rogue hadn't in fact moved. Millions of pieces of glass fell on top of them, but amazingly no one was seriously hurt.

The trio looked up at the shattered mirror, and then at each other. The same, single thought flashed through each of their minds, to be voiced by Rogue. "Dale get the car keys – we'll meet you outside!"

As the other two ran for the door, stopping to grab a CD from the living room, Pagan discreetly kicked the tower of the PC. "That'll teach you to muck up my HTML!" she growled, before hurrying after the others.

"What the hell was that all about?" Harry demanded furiously. "I'm the protagonist here! This is my story! MINE!"

"Well actually, as this is a mixture of two books, Alanna could also be considered the protagonist," Hermione replied.

"What?" Harry yelled. "You can't have two protagonists!"

"Harry, a bunch of soldiers from an entirely different time period/world/book just invaded our castle and then made peace by saying they just wanted to look at out gift shop – which we don't have. Do you really think the small matter of having two heroes is going to cost the writers much sleep?"

Ron rubbed his knuckles gleefully, murmuring under his breath, "Just a little while longer and then there'll be three heroes...but I will be the best..."

"Y'what?" Harry asked, looking at his friend. Hermione's speech had been too complicated for him to understand.

"Oh nothing..." Ron said quickly, hiding his copy of How To Steal Best Friend's Limelight under a cushion.

"Hmm maybe I should get that," Pagan mused. She was promptly hit over the head with Rogue's copy of OOTP. Six weeks later the doctors managed to wake her up.

"So, how come Fred and George are back at Hogwarts then?" Hermione asked. "Didn't they leave last year?"

"Yeah well," Ron said with a laugh. "You know how it is..."

Silence descended upon the common room. Somewhere in the carpet a cricket cheeped.

"Erm, shouldn't we be investigating these suspicious new characters then?" Ron asked innocently. The other Gryffindors turned back to their business. None of them had of course noticed anything odd about the new characters and were content to go about their everyday boring lives.

"I dunno, that's getting a bit old now," Harry mused. "I'm trying to keep thousands of six to seventy year olds entertained here – maybe we should do something a bit different..."

"Well we could always kill off the only decent character around here," Ron suggested.

"Nah," Harry replied. "What kind of a book would this be without me?"

"I was thinking more of a side character," Ron said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "You know one of those whose hardly in it bit who everyone adores..."

"Been there, done that. Burned the damn T-shirt," Harry said with a wave of his hand.

Ron blinked. "Eh?"

"Remember last year?" Harry said. "My stupidity, Voldemort's trap, getting Sirius killed and all that angsty crap?"

Ron furrowed his eye brows – a regular thing in the fanfiction world – and said, "You mean there was actually a plot in Order of the Phoenix?"

"Nah just a little minor action at the end," Hermione replied. "And a lot of screaming on Harry's part."

Harry was silent. Memories of last years traumas flooded his head. Of course his head was so swollen it didn't make much of a difference, but still the memories brought a small tear to his eye. All those hints, those chances, the lessons he had only just learnt. If only he had known then what he knew now...

A razor toothed squirrel flew randomly across the Common Room, propelled by a strong gust of wind.

"You know I could always start dating Snape," Hermione said suddenly. "That might lighten things up a bit."

Ron's mouth fell open. His face turned red, steam gushed out of his ears. His eyes bulged with jealous anger. Yet still thousands of people insisted that Ron and Hermione had no future and that instead the bushy haired witch would marry Harry someday.

"Nah," Harry said, not noticing Ron's odd behaviour. "Snape is so obviously in love with Sirius and probably mourning him as we speak."

Ron furrowed his eye brows. "I thought Snape hated Sirius."

"He does," Harry replied. "But beneath all that surging loathing, there is a deep deep connection between them. A kind of kindred spirit of love and peace. Their tragic pasts unite them. Rather like Draco and I," he added dreamily.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other. Ron shrugged. "Well it explains why Sirius was always picking on him at school," he said.

Hermione frowned. "I dunno I always got the impression it was more James than Sirius..."

"Well obviously James was jealous of Snape's relationship with my mum," Harry said. "They had a fling back in their Death Eater days. After she dumped Remus. Then she married my dad and Remus started dating Sirius..."

"Okay I think we need to ban the word 'fanfiction' from the school internet too," Hermione decided wisely. Every kid under sixteen groaned.

At that moment a nameless Gryffindor burst into the Common Room, immediately securing the attention of every single student. "There's going to be another ball!" the pupil shrieked. The room erupted with cheers and applause.

"About damn time too," Ron said moodily. "I thought I was never going to get to wear my new dress robes..."

Hermione flicked her hair casually over her shoulder and batted her eye lashes. "I have new dress robes too Ron..." she said suggestively.

"So what's the occasion for this ball then?" Harry asked loudly. For even the crazy world of fanfiction could not hold a ball at Hogwarts for no reason.

"To welcome our guests!" the nameless kid squealed. "They're American you know!"

"Oh well that explains everything then," Ron said.

"RON!" Hermione huffed. "Don't be racist towards the Americans!"

"I wasn't being racist!" Ron replied, affronted. "I was just pointing out that American people are a bit...well, strange."

"That is not true!" Hermione snapped.

"Oh come on Hermione they can't even spell colour properly," Harry interrupted. "And they call football soccer, I mean, what's that all about? It's a ball, and you kick it with your foot, where the hell did they get the name soccer from?"

Hermione could think of no answer to this, so she instead lapsed into angry silence.

Meanwhile –

"Jon, are you listening to me?!"

Jonathan looked up at Alanna, who was glaring furiously down at him, having just broken off in a tirade about his leadership skills, common sense, and at one point his legitimacy.

"Alanna can't this wait?" he asked desperately. "Deirdre's about to be sentenced!"

Alanna nearly screamed in frustration. They had been given the entire third floor to live in during their stay at Hogwarts, and whilst exploring Jonathan had stumbled across an old television set. He had gotten it working, and now the whole army was sitting enthralled watching re-runs of the popular Muggle soap Coronation Street.

"Oh my God!" Gary squealed, slapping his hands over his eyes. "I can't watch!"

"Guilty!" the juror on the T.V said. The army gasped.

"No!" Jonathan breathed.

"I didn't do it!" Deirdre sobbed, before being led away. Half the army burst into tears.

Alanna raised her eyebrows. "I've been dragged away from my honeymoon," she muttered. "To invade a castle in Scotland, which is very cold, with an army of apparently gay men, who are now sitting around watching a soap instead of helping me find the way home. Could things get any worse?!"

Dumbledore suddenly walked into the room, smiling happily around at his guests who were all wiping their eyes and complaining about the British Justice System.

"It is my pleasure to announce!" Dumbledore cried, holding his arms out in welcome. "That the school has decided to hold a ball tomorrow, in order to welcome you! When you're teaching a bunch of angsty teenagers," he confided to a solider sat near him. "You look for any excuse to have a party."

Alanna groaned.