Sorry about the delay – this chapter wouldn't cooperate. It's not a riotously funny one, either, but a new character is introduced, so that's good. There will be several examples of classic Mary Sues/Gary Stus (though there are fewer boy versions, as is the way in actual fanfiction) throughout the story, and I accept suggestions. I'll try to use most of the ideas, but if they don't work, please don't be offended.

Xock: Thanks for the idea – I've already figured out how I can work her in. She might not show up much, being in a different house than Zoe and all, but I'll try to mention her here and there. Cookies…gimme! (That wasn't very dignified, but…)

Lady Pyrefly: Heh, we've all been there…(thinks back to Inuyasha with a certain amount of guilt). Hmm. I have to avoid fandoms that have characters I'm obsessed with, otherwise who knows what crap I could upload. (winces)

King Harold: Ha, when I read that you thought I was Zoe I winced. I've read the books so many times my copies are worn down. I'm not offended or anything – don't get me wrong – but it was funny. Glad you like it, though, thanks!

Certifiably Frightening

The Princess of Pranks

"Ugh."

Zoe stumbled out of the Charms classroom, holding a pack of ice over one eye. Someone should have warned her that it was possible to put too much force into a spell – the plastic ball she had been attempting to summon had shot towards her too quickly for her to duck and had smacked her right in the eye. Professor Flitwick had been kind enough to conjure up some ice for her, but she was all too aware that she'd have a black eye the next day.

Bella walked beside her, wringing her hands and obviously trying to decide whether or not Zoe wanted reassurance.

"Well…at least that was the last class," she offered at length, and Zoe grunted in a very un-Zephyra-like fashion. Already she had realized that she was in no way like her character. She wasn't graceful, as made evident by the way she had gotten stuck in the trick stair after lunch. She wasn't a great athlete – she couldn't see how she'd continue going up these endless stairs for another week, much less the rest of the year. And she certainly wasn't ultra-gifted, since she couldn't even transfigure a porcupine into a pincushion.

It had been a most unsatisfactory day, very possibly the worst one of her life. And here she was in Hogwarts, of all places, where she would have expected life to be the best it could possibly be.

She shook her head – her curls were limp and coarse-looking by now, what with everything she'd been through so far – and followed Bella down a long corridor with several mirrors lining the walls.

"This is one of the routes to the North Tower, where we'll be taking Divination," Bella told her. "That'll come in handy tomorrow, won't it? We have that class together."

"Good," Zoe said with sincere relief. She would already be separated from Bella, her lone friend, when she went to Care of Magical Creatures (Bella had opted for the Study of Ancient Runes instead) and she wasn't looking forward to facing the canon characters alone.

"What's with the mirrors, anyway?" Zoe asked, a bit sick of seeing her reflection every other half-second, especially since several of the mirrors seemed to be like the ones she would find in a funhouse, distorting her likeness.

All of a sudden, she saw a flicker of movement in the corner of one of the mirrors. She blinked and looked up the corridor and turned around to look back in the way she came, Bella watching her in some confusion.

"Did you see something?" Zoe asked, and Bella shook her head, white hair swinging around in a wide arc. She looked a little concerned for Zoe's sanity, no doubt wondering if the trials of the day had succeeded in snapping her mind already. Zoe frowned and looked at the mirrors again…

There it was – the faintest flicker of silver in the corners of the triangular panels of the mirror to Zoe's right.

"Hello?" she called, her voice pathetically timid. "Who's there?"

Great – was this castle haunted on top of everything else? Granted, there were ghosts around, but they weren't the typical horror-movie types…excluding the Bloody Baron, that is. All she needed was to run into some malevolent spirit when all she wanted was some dinner before she crawled into a hole.

A soft giggle answered her tentative call, and Zoe blinked. Bella looked a bit frightened, and was backing away from the mirror nervously.

"Come out, already!" Zoe said, sounding braver than she actually felt. As it was, there was a faint tremor in her voice.

The mirror split into sections of triangles suddenly opened, the panels folding up from the center outwards, revealing the yawning opening of a tunnel. The giggles were suddenly louder, echoing a bit. Whoever was in there was obviously farther back.

But how much farther back…?

"That's it," Zoe growled, drawing her wand. It probably wouldn't do much, since she was proving to be rather inept when it came to spells, but she felt better having it out. Maybe she'd get lucky if she had to defend herself. At the moment, she didn't care all that much – she was sick of being laughed at, no matter who was doing the laughing.

As if reading her thoughts, the mysterious person – thing – laughed again, and Zoe hoisted herself up into the tunnel. The entrance was fairly spacious, but was only wide enough for one person once you ventured in a little farther.

"Zoe," Bella called, her voice high-pitched from her anxiety, "Don't do that – you don't know what it is!"

"Do you remember anything dangerous lurking behind a mirror in the fifth book?" Zoe asked.

"Well, no, but…"

"Well, then. Lumos!'

Predictably, the spell proved ineffective. Zoe growled loudly in frustration, and the giggles started up again, higher-pitched and more mocking now. They were assaulting both Zoe's ears and sanity, and she charged forward into the darkness, letting the sound of laughter guide her.

It wasn't, admittedly, the smartest thing to do, but there you go.

"Zoe!"

She chose to ignore Bella's stricken cry and kept pressing onward through the narrow passageway, holding a hand out in front of her in case there was a corner or dead end up ahead. Her breathing echoed loudly in the tunnel, and it took her a minute to realize that she could only hear it so clearly because the laughing had stopped.

"D'Arvit!" she swore, pleased despite her frustration that she had managed to remember the curse from the Artemis Fowl books. Then it registered how stupid she was to have plunged blindly into the tunnel after a stupid voice. Especially as stupid voice that could very well be disembodied. Anything was possible in this place. What if Bella had forgotten about a disembodied voice behind a mirror? It might have been mentioned in passing. If only she had read the books!

She shook her head and decided that she might as well follow the tunnel until she came to a corner, just to see how far back it went. It would give her time to prepare for when she had to go back out to Bella looking like the idiot she was.

She pressed onward, going slower now that her fury-induced adrenaline had faded. She kept a hand out in front of her still, not about to crash into a wall on top of everything else.

Minutes passed, and still the tunnel seemed to have no intention of ending. She could hear her breathing, but it sounded different than it had before, somehow…

Her shoulders suddenly brushed against something hard and rough. She shrieked loudly, the sound filling her ears and making her head pound. She clamped her eyes shut, waiting for whatever it was to clamp down on her.

And waited.

She cracked one eye open – not that it did much, since it was as black as sin in the stupid tunnel – and experimentally swung one arm out to the side. It hit the side of the passage, and Zoe sighed, feeling both relieved and dumber than ever at the same time. The tunnel must have been narrowing out as she went back, and now it was skinny enough so that her shoulders touched the sides.

It must end in a point, Zoe decided. She should probably turn and go back now – there was nothing else to be found here.

Or…

Or she could see how far back she could go. What if it widened out again?

This was probably even more ridiculous than charging into the dark tunnel in the first place, but the smarter voice in her head was still comatose, as it had been for the majority of her existence. So, without a more intelligent entity to steer her away, she turned sideways and began inching her way back into the ever-narrowing space.

Soon she could feel the stone walls against both her chest and her back, and she stretched an arm out to see if she could feel the end of the passage. She couldn't, so she squeezed in a little farther, hand scraping against the walls, which were mere inches apart. Eventually she couldn't even move her hand, so she withdrew it and prepared to edge out of the tunnel.

Wishful thinking, for all at once she felt herself being shoved roughly forwards, and to her horror she found herself firmly wedged in between the walls. She cried out and struggled, but she couldn't wiggle out of the space.

This was just bloody perfect.

The infuriating voice had started laughing again in earnest, and Zoe lashed out with her free arm furiously. To her surprise – she hadn't expected anything to go right – she made forceful contact with a face that felt very human. They immediately stopped laughing and a young girl's voice whined, "Hey, that hurt! You meanie."

"Why'd you push me?" Zoe snapped, groping blindly and managing to grasp the girl's hair and thus keeping her from running away.

"Leggo!" the girl squealed, and tried unsuccessfully to loosen Zoe's grip.

"Help get me out, first," Zoe growled, and the girl sighed in disappointment.

"Fine, fine." Her voice was sulky.

With a sharp jerk and a slightly painful scrape against the walls, Zoe was free. For such a young-sounding girl, she was pretty strong. Zoe massaged her side with her free hand, transferring her grip from the girl's hair to her arm.

"Let's go," she said gruffly, and awkwardly pushed the protesting girl in front of her towards the entrance of the tunnel. Once she could see thanks to the light pouring in from the corridor, Zoe released the girl, who jumped down from the tunnel entrance easily. Zoe followed swiftly and took hold of the girl, who was preparing to bolt – again.

"Hang on," she said with a frown, and studied her captive.

The first thing that jumped out at her was the kid's startling resemblance to Ginny. Her hair was a fiery red and hung in tangly waves down her back, and her face was freckled. The only difference was that the girl's eyes were an electric blue rather than brown. Right now she was visibly pouting, disappointed in the failure of her trick.

"Was she the one laughing?" Bella asked, looking relieved at Zoe's return. "What happened in there? You've been gone for almost ten minutes, and I heard you scream twice."

Zoe decided against mentioning that Bella could have always come in after her, if she was worried. She didn't feel like insulting the only friend she had.

"Who are you, anyway?" Zoe asked the girl. The kid stood up straighter and planted her free hand on her hip.

"My name's Tansy Weasley," she announced, self-importance pouring off her in waves. "But people call me the Princess of Pranks. I'm pretty much famous around here."

She looked up at the two older girls smugly, and Bella shrugged.

"Never heard of you."

Tansy looked annoyed.

"You're another insert, right?" Zoe asked to break the sudden tension.

"What? No way. My author just put the story on hiatus, so I'm stuck here."

"Oh," Bella said, her tone one of dawning comprehension. "I get it. You're a Mary Sue, just not an insert. You don't see many of those."

"What am I, a type of car?" Tansy asked irritably.

"Wait," Zoe said with a frown. "If she's not an actual person, like from the real world…does she have all her powers?"

"Darn right I do," Tansy said proudly. "I can do all kinds of things. Watch – this is how I got behind you even though the tunnel was so skinny."

She turned so that Bella and Zoe could only see her from the side, and screwed up her face. Quite suddenly, Zoe couldn't see her anymore.

"What!"

"No, look," Bella said, and pointed at the mirrors on the walls. Tansy was still there, looking oddly…

"Flat?"

"Yep," Tansy said cheerfully, and sprung back to her natural shape. "Unless you look really hard, you can't see me from certain angles when I do that."

"It's like Elastigirl from The Incredibles," Zoe said, impressed in spite of herself.

"I'm also a Metamorphmagus," Tansy piped up, obviously enjoying being the center of attention. She screwed up her face again and suddenly her hair was blonde and curly and her eyes were a deep blue like Zoe's. She looked like a miniature Zephyra.

"Man," Zoe said enviously as Tansy switched back to her regular features. "I wish I had all the powers I gave my character."

"I don't know about that," Bella said. "Then we'd just be even more annoying to the canon characters. I'm glad I'm not in her position."

Tansy blew a raspberry in Bella's direction.

"You're just jealous," she said scornfully. "I'm having a lot more fun than you are because of my gifts. Who cares if people think I'm annoying? I can do whatever I want. I don't even have to go to classes, because once my story gets picked up again I'll be right back on track."

Zoe was still extremely confused as to how all of that worked. Bella said that characters sometimes came close to messing up the plot, so wouldn't Tansy's mayhem change the books?

She asked Bella the question, and the white-haired girl shrugged.

"That's only if the author was attempting to rewrite the books," she explained, as if it made perfect sense. Zoe shook her head, as confused as ever.

"Whatever," she said at length. "I'm starving and we're late to dinner. Let's go."

She turned to Tansy. "You coming?"

"Duh. I'm hungry too – if you hadn't come along and provided some fun I would've gone down by now."

Bella looked unhappy at the prospect of having Tansy accompany them to the Great Hall. The younger girl skipped a few feet ahead of them, and turned a cartwheel once or twice.

"She's such a showoff," Bella said, her tone colder than Zoe had ever heard it. Her amber eyes were shooting daggers at the younger girl, who was blithely ignoring her perfectly audible comments.

"I don't know," Zoe said lightly, not wanting to offend either of them. "She's friendlier than that stupid 'Lena Potter', at least."

"You dare defile my name with you Mudblood tongue?"

Zoe groaned loudly at the all-too-familiar voice and insults. She, Bella, and Tansy turned around to face the crazed insert, who had her wand out and was scowling fiercely at the group.

"So!" she screeched at Zoe. "I see you've managed to find some comrades. No matter – it should be fairly easily to kill you all. Stupid scum."

"Oh, please," Tansy said and rolled her eyes dramatically. "You probably can't even shoot sparks out of that wand."

She hopped in front of Zoe and Bella and planted her hands on her hips, proceeding to make several irritating faces at 'Lena'. "Try me, why don't you?"

"Filth!" the insert howled, and jabbed her wand at Tansy. There was a small flash of light, and a few flowers dropped to the ground a few feet in front of Lena, who looked livid.

"Whoo – scary," Tansy taunted. "I think I almost felt a breeze."

"Never mind that," Lena snapped, stowing her wand away in her robes. "I'll throttle you with my bare hands!"

Zoe sighed as the dark-haired girl lunged forward, fingers curled so that they resembled claws. Zoe didn't expect Tansy to flatten herself out as she had done earlier, and so was thoroughly unprepared when Lena shot past the younger girl and collided with her instead.

Both girls were sent sprawling onto the ground, Zoe's already sore body complaining at the unwanted contact with the stone floor. Her irritation at the impact was soon replaced with concern at her suddenly depleting supply of oxygen: Lena apparently didn't care which one of them she strangled, and so had her hands wrapped around Zoe's neck.

"Let go of me!" Zoe yelled. Actually, it came out as a faint wheeze thanks to the pressure on her air pipe, but hopefully Lena got the gist of it.

If she did, it didn't make much of a difference, as she continued to strangle Zoe. Zoe was vaguely aware of Bella and Tansy shouting things and attempting to pull Lena off, but it wasn't until she discerned McGonagall's angry voice cutting through the confusion that the pressure on her throat was lifted and air shot back into her lungs. Spots swam in front of her eyes as she rolled onto her side, taking in huge gulps of air.

"What did you think you were doing?' the professor's irate voice penetrated the fog that hung over her mind. Once she could see and breathe properly she sat up and found a livid McGonagall glaring daggers at Lena, who looked a little nervous under the insanity. Still, the glint that meant she was about to fly into a rant about Mudbloods, scum, and her own history entered her eyes, and her mouth opened. Apparently McGonagall was acquainted with this particular eye-glint, because she waved a hand to cut the girl off before she could speak.

"Never mind. Detention, Ms. Smithe, to take place tomorrow in my classroom immediately after dinner."

The professor cast a glance at the rest of them. Tansy, who had used her Metamorphmagus skills to become a mini-Lena and was making lunatic faces, immediately snapped back to her normal features and folded her hands behind her back. McGonagall sent her a warning look but didn't comment, and after determining that Zoe had suffered no lasting damage she swept off down the corridor.

After a moment, the dark-haired insert recovered enough to scream after the professor, "My name is LENA POTTER!"

"Oh, stuff it already," Zoe said irritably, and 'Lena' stomped away, muttering Unforgivable Curses under her breath. This resulted in her pocket catching on fire once she was halfway down the hallway, and her incensed shouts followed Zoe, Bella, and Tansy all the way down to the Great Hall.