Miss Sue
Disclaimer: If I need to explain to you that I'm not the author of the Harry Potter series, you probably shouldn't be reading Harry Potter fanfiction parodies.
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McGonagall, to date, had never spewed her welcoming feast pumpkin juice quite this far. Or for that matter, at all.
"WHAT!" she said, rereading the note, not able to believe what it said, completely oblivious to the fact that there was now a third year Ravenclaw dripping wet and glaring at her.
Headmistress McGonagall,
If you have received this note, it is because I have passed on and am unable to carry this burden any longer. I have finally located the prophecy detailing the actual downfall of Voldemort. Unfortunately, it mentions the 'Greatest Sue' several times, leaving you with the rather lamentable task of finding just that - the Greatest Mary-Sue. I have the utmost faith in you, and I know the forces of good will triumph in the end.
- Albus Dumbledore
"Look at this!" Minerva spat, thrusting the note between Flitwick and Trelawney.
"Ouch," Flitwick said, wincing.
"I," Trelawney said mistily, "see a dire attempt to give a hastily concocted plot reason..."
"Oh, shut up," McGonagall said irritated. "Well, bring on the Sues..."
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"Why do you reckon we were chosen to be the announcers?" Ron asked Luna as they walked out to the quidditch pitch. The school had originally planned on using the Great Hall, but found there wasn't quite enough room. Not because a large part of the school wanted to watch, but because there simply too many sue applicants to fit within the Great Hall. Fortunately, McGonagall had gone through the harrowing task of filtering out all but the most potent entries before they actually got to the main competition. "For that matter, why did the welcoming feast have a sorting song?"
Luna merely shrugged, but the more Ron thought about it, the more he realized that... any time Mary Sue paid a visit in a story, all the little creative details like the sorting song went suspiciously absent. As impossible as it sounded, it was almost as if the presence of a Mary-Sue character degraded the importance of all the things that made their universe unique. But that was utterly ridiculous. Sue writers must have good reasons not to include the sorting song or writing for any canon character in the Hufflepuff house, right?
The Ravenclaws were conspicuously absent from the stands, probably because their practice for the match against Slytherin two weeks later was cancelled to make room for this event. There were a smattering of Slytherins and a decent amount of miscellaneous and unnamed Hufflepuffs (either showing up out of politeness or to try to make a point that they actually did exist) - but about half of the attendees were older Gryffindor guys obviously hoping for at least a bit of an eyeful. Harry and Draco weren't in attendance.
"Whoa..." Ron said, his eyes widening a bit as he smiled, walking towards the field.
"Hello," a beautiful golden blond haired girl said in a cheerful voice, walking up to him wearing customized quidditch robes that displayed a modest amount of skin.
"Ron!" another voice, from an equally stunning teen with auburn hair and a bubbling voice. "It's been so long!" She had custom robes herself, making one wonder when quidditch robes suddenly turned into outfits to flaunt the female body.
Ron, for his part, couldn't remember ever seeing or hearing about these girls before (so why were they acting so familiar around him?) - but wasn't inclined to say anything of the sort when they were being so open and friendly! While Ron's eyes were darting back and forth between the two girls' faces (and fighting not to inch downward) Luna noticed McGonagall with a distasteful look on her face waving them over.
"Come on, Ron. I think McGonagall wants us to go up to the announcer's booth."
The girls immediately grew disappointed faces, clearing wishing to bask in Ron's presence awhile longer (something, frankly, that Ron was quite unused to.) In the end, the thing that did the trick was someone nearby saying something that by pure coincidence sounded a bit like 'Hermione'.
"Quiet a turnout!" Ron said, taking his seat at the announcer's booth.
"It is," Luna agreed. Several seconds of silence followed.
Ron rolled his eyes at Luna's adept and profuse commentary. "Now, everyone... just so we're all on the same page, there are going to be four competitions today in order to judge the beautiful and captivating... I mean... to judge the Mary Sues. And what better way to start out than by... The Flying Competition!"
Ten girls walked out onto the field, all of which were holding an exotic broom. Four of them only had a Firebolt, until this moment widely believed to be the best broom in the world - which singled them out for elimination. No, a true Mary-Sue would never have something quite so barely-normal; the great hopes were on the other six, which had brooms named 'Zenith 3027', 'Murikos Revenge', 'Phoenix Flame', 'Firebolt v2.1', 'Thundercall', and 'The Blazing Smiting Stick of Zeus Almighty'. In the case of the last broom, a small banner was required to trail from the end to hold the last half of the name, as the shaft of the broomstick wasn't long enough to hold the lettering.
"Those are odd brooms," Luna said, peering at them as she leaned forward in her seat. "Non regulation, which is good."
"Hm?" Ron asked, enraptured by both the brooms and the women holding them - all of which were wearing noticably less than full quidditch robes. "Why is that?"
"Because most broom makers these days put compulsion spells that work through imperceptable vibration. Never ride a normal broom without at least two pairs of robes."
Ron grunted as he continued oggling, and only after a dirty look from McGonagall did he shout, "So! Let's get started! The first contestant is... Temperance Kay Mathesius!"
A young woman with a petite but perfectly sculpted form of carmel skin stepped forward onto the pitch, blond hair catching the sunlight in a bit of a glimmer. She flashed a subtle but winning smile at the audience and Ron, before mounting her broom, her decidedly immodest robes swirling a bit around her.
"Ron, are you drooling?" Luna asked over the loudspeaker. "Did a Berethian Beetle bite you?"
"Mmephpnh..." Ron protested. "I'm not drooling!"
Temperance kicked off from the ground, showing off her flying skills. Despite all the descriptions of Harry Potter being the best flyer most people had ever seen, it was clear now that the Boy-Who-Lived was not even close to the level of Miss Mathesius. Every move she executed with startling precision and perfection, elevating the flying to something approaching artwork.
"That was pretty good," Luna said blandly.
Ron blinked. "That was bloody brilliant!" he argued.
Temperance shot a wink at Ron before disembarking and leaving the stands.
Luna shrugged, and said, "The next contestant is Somntoe Anaya Namagirm. Odd name."
McGonagall muttered under her breath, "Stupid authors thinking they're being creative by using an anagram. Usually they come up with better names than this, though. Somntoe? What kind of girl is named Somntoe?"
Somntoe, for her part, looked quite unlike the first flyer. Hair that was darker than black swirled around her, and her eyes were an intense and piercing ice-blue. Her flying as well held a different tone; while Temperance's perfection had a natural flowing feel, Somntoe's had a terrible imperiousness to it as if it was a contest of her will against the world. She triumphed easily, though, an eerie sense of doom pervading through the entire affair.
"Great..." McGonagall muttered. "An evil sue, just what we need."
The next contestant walked out onto the field, a sleek and shimmering veil of luxurious brunette hair cascading over her shoulders as she held her 'Firebolt v2.1'
"Who is that?" Luna asked.
Ron looked at the parchment. And gaped.
"That's... that's Hermione," he said, and stared down at the field below. Sure enough, faint traces of the bookish tangled-hair afraid-of-flying Gryffindor were just barely visible in the girl now taking off from the pitch.
What happened next was debatable. Some generous readers would content that Hermione falling off the broom within a minute was a sign that perhaps the author knew that a Flying-Queen Hermione wasn't in character by any stretch of the imagination. Most others, however, would take the fact that she fell squarely onto Ron Weasley's lap as an unbelievable act of pure concoction. Either way, she quickly oriented herself and placed a full-fledged un-Hermionelike open mouthed kiss upon the 7th year Weasley. Ron, for his part, didn't look like he minded too much.
Luna seemed to take this in stride and announced the next contestant. "Obsidian Von Blackhart!" she said loudly over the speaker.
A purplish-black haired teen stalked onto the grounds towards the corner, obviously brooding. Even though nobody in the entire place had seen her before, they knew she must have had a dark and mysterious past that spanned several chapters dedicated to a violent alcoholic relative beating them senseless for leaving the lid off the mayonnaise jar.
It was soon clear, though, that this contest wasn't quite for her. Whether it was due to the frequent R-rated abuse they received for eleven miserable years or simply a plot device to insure the character underwent even more disappointment, Obsidian wasn't able to perform quite up to standards.
By now Hermione and Ron had finished snogging senseless and Hermione had excused herself to do some studying. "Ok..." Ron said, a bit out of breath, "The next entry is Ebony Lightning!"
Ebony was clearly cut from the same cloth as Obsidian. This certainly made sense considering both had the same color of hair, same fair skin bordering on white, same brooding despairing aura about them, and even relatively identical names. Apparently their moody existence was so pronounced that even as new babies their parents could sense a name like 'Rainbow' would be quite misplaced and gave their new children names of intense moodiness.
However, Ebony had watched her soul-sister's performance and realized that, somehow, she most overcome the myriad of obstacles of her past and the darkening of her soul if she wanted to emerge triumphant in this contest. She was a bit worried though; even though she always seemed to do this in every story she was in, it was always in the climax. If she transcended her past now and grew beyond the unimaginable horrors of her mysterious history, what could she possibly do later in the competition?
Needless to say, it was a powerful weapon she wielded, and flying under the 'Triumphantly Overcoming Adversity' category, she did possibly even better than the perfection of the first two flyers.
"Wow," McGonagall muttered. "She didn't die. Maybe she's saving that for a later round?"
"Next up," Luna said, "Is Peach Sunshine!"
Peach walked out onto the field, and Ron instantly recognized her as the girl that said hello to him earlier on the pitch. "Hi Peach!" he called out, and the blond haired girl waved back, a warm and sweet smile on her face.
"Hi, Ron!" she yelled back in a confident yet gentle voice.
"Awww..." the crowd murmured. They had, somehow, all fallen in snuggly-platonic love with Peach.
Peach, quite honestly, didn't do that well. She was a decent flyer, but she actually flew almost like a real person. Fortunately for her, it didn't matter, because it was quite clear that nobody within 500 miles was going to tell her she didn't deserve to continue on in the competition.
"Two hundred points to... to... which house is she in?" McGonagall said, quite uncharacteristically.
"Gryffindor," Ron whispered, knowing full well Peach Sunshine didn't even go to the school. But it wasn't much of a lie; even though Peach obviously had the friendly temperament to be lodged squarely in Hufflepuff; that house was almost a swear-word to a Sue, and unless you were going for full-fledged-brooding-Slytherin you would automatically be sorted into Gryffindor regardless of personal traits.
"Two hundred points to Gryffindor," McGonagall said in a kind voice, obviously losing her senses due to the cloying cuteness of Peach. It was quite lucky that Snape had killed the headmaster the year before and was thus gone from the school, because if he was around to witness this he'd never let McGonagall hear the end of her behavior.
"Ok, the next flyer is Liola Strapford Periwinkle the Third," Ron said, as an auburn-haired young lady stepped onto the pitch. It was the other girl that Ron saw before the contest, who despite having never been mentioned even offhandedly before, was a close and personal friend of Ron Weasley. And given the bit of a look she was tossing him, was hoping for a bit more.
"Quite a name," Luna remarked. "Do you think there was a Liola Strapford Periwinkle the second?"
Ron watched her fly and said despite himself, "Periwinkle is such a beautiful color... and such a beautiful name."
"Should we, er Professor, are you sure Ron should be doing the announcing?" Luna asked the professor sitting near them.
"We only have two untraceable rooms within the castle, Miss Lovegood," McGonagall explained, "So we could only hide Harry and Draco away. Ron wouldn't be any better off in the audience."
Luna was about to ask why Ron, as a major male character, wasn't worthy of being hidden from the Sue's affections and attentions. It was clear, though, at the mention of Harry's name. Liola got a wistful and longing look in her eyes, and didn't quite seem to notice Ron anymore. After all, what Sue that wasn't somehow a misplaced and unmentioned relative of Potter would pass on the Boy-Who-Lived to be close to Ron?
Ron grumbled and moodily sat back in his chair. This was patently unfair.
"She's a good flyer," Luna remarked to the off put Weasley.
"Honestly, who has a last name that's a bloody color!" he asked, somehow not seeing the radiant beauty in the name 'Periwinkle' anymore. His face scrunched up, and said, "Now that I think of it, a lot of the girls so far have been colors - Obsidian, Blackhart, Ebony, Peach, Periwinkle... and weather, too! Lightning... sunshine? Who names these freaks? Are their parents hippies?"
"The next girl," Luna announced, obviously not paying any attention to Ron's colored-weather rant, "Is Whitewind Graye McStormcloud."
"What? You're joking!" Ron exclaimed, and yanked the parchment over to look at it. "Ha-ha, her name is Whitewind Graye McStormcloud! What kind of stupid name is that?" At that, Ron began laughing and didn't even watch the next Sue's flying.
Needless to say, the utter rejection and apathy of a major canon character dealt a grievous blow to Whitewind's heart. It was almost, as impossible as it sounded, that her entire existence was defined by important characters thinking of her and pining after her. But, of course, that was ridiculous, so she blamed the bad flying on her skimpy robes.
"Our ninth flyer," Ron said, finally regaining control of himself, "Is Tilly Nordstrom. Hey, I think that's the closest thing to a normal name so far!" Tilly walked out onto the field, waving exuberantly with a mischievous grin, her purple and blue hair looking quite unnatural.
"I think she was named after a clothing store," Luna added offhandedly.
Tilly flew quite well, but it was clear she wasn't about to follow the rules. Instead of doing a double Sloth Grip Role like was asked, she instead dangled from the broom by her ankles upside down as she skimmed the Slytherin section, peppering them with open palmed swats.
"Hey, I like her!" Ron exclaimed. And, surprisingly, McGonagall had the smallest hint of a smile on her face; she too clearly didn't mind the 'House of Sin' getting what they so sorely deserved (after all, cunning is simply a synonym of Evil and Hogwarts was built expecting a quarter of the students accepted to be rotten to the core.)
However, quite unexpected to Tilly, one of the Sytherins knew some form of magic and objected to a total stranger smacking around their peers. The entire fall to the ground from her broom, she wondered how a Slytherin could possibly learn a stunning spell, let alone use it in a noble defense of their friend.
When the spell wore off, Tilly knew that she had to do a massive retaliatory prank. In the past, she'd done things like turning Snape's clothes pink. But that wouldn't do, not after Snape had left and the Weasley Twins had performed all those creative displays two years ago that far outstripped clothing-coloring. No, she had to do something far more dramatic than anything Fred or George had ever done. She stalked off, thinking furiously.
"And," Ron started, "the final flyer is Mee... my... myuh... meeuhsha... Eye... Eeeou..."
Luna pulled out an edition of the Quibbler and started reading, completely forgetting that she was also an announcer of everything going on.
"Miasha Iuzami," Ron finally managed to make out, still butchering the name. A girl walked out onto the pitch, quite unlike the rest of the contestants. Whereas all but one of the previous 9 sues were the same shade of ΓΌber-fair-skinned with hints of blush, Miasha had an asian complexion and simple black hair tied in a knot behind her. And, unlike the previous 9 sues, she mounted her broom quite differently.
Miasha stood behind the broom at an angle, carefully balancing herself on one leg. Then, with a giant push off from the ground, she did a half cartwheel, half backflip, her legs curling around the broomstick and taking off quickly with the momentum her body carried forward from the maneuver. It soon seemed that the broom was doing very little of the work, and an odd form of martial arts and acrobatics were moving the broom where she wanted it. The final display came when she stood upon on the shaft, kicked down with her front foot to send the broom into a dive, and leapt forward off of it. She ducked her head, freefalling from the sky. After doing three backflips, her dive caught up with the broom and she remounted it by standing on it once again, pushing down with her back foot to level once again.
"Hello," Snape said, walking onto the pitch. "Listen, I need to explain about Dumbledore. It had to do with the Unbreakable Vow I took earlier in the summ..."
He didn't get any further. Miasha dove once again from the broom to do a summersault on the ground. Her aptly named 'Muriko's Revenge', however, continued to fly at top speed a few feet above the ground - and impaled the ex-potions and ex-defense instructor through the abdomen.
"Holy..." Ron started, but was cut off.
"We will meet back here in two hours," McGonagall said. "Prefects, lead your houses to their dormatories."
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Alright! I was originally planning on this to be a single chapter parody from start to finish, but it's turning out quite long. So, instead, I want to do this a bit differently.
If you're reading this before chapter 2 is out, Review! And tell me a sue you want to stay in the contest, and another you want out.
If you're reading this after chapter 2 comes out, Review! And tell me your predictions as to who goes on and who gets chucked :-)
Anyway, I hate putting up the 'I must have xxx number of reviews before I'll continue' - but I do need at least 4-6 votes before I can start writing who continues on