THIS SUCKS

Chapter One

It was a dark and stormy night.

This was not a good time to be on the computer reading overly-long pottersues-featured badfics that drove one to sleep.

A loud clap of thunder shook the sky.

Ash jolted awake on her seat, her hand knocking a cup of coffee over onto the laptop's keys.

She swore as the laptop emanated an interesting fizzling sound. She panicked as the screen went blank. She reached violently for the fire extinguisher as the fizzling got louder and held its nozzle threateningly at the laptop, waiting for the sparks that never came; and it was then that Dem found her.

"Hello," he said.

Ash fell backwards and crashed into her bookshelf, sending a bunch of books flying painfully onto her feet. "Where did you come from?!" she yelled.

"Oh, another universe," Dem said casually. His eyes roved over the fire extinguisher in her hand. "Is that a fire extinguisher?" he asked.

"How did you get in here?" she yelled, pointing the nozzle threateningly in his direction.

"Same way I get anywhere else. Ashleigh Lily Lee, is it?"

"How did you know my name?"

"Look, you've really got to stop yelling so much. It's not very good for your health. It can result in high blood pressure and/or hypertension in certain individuals and-"

Ash extricated her left foot from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and strode towards Dem. "Get out," she said. "I don't know how you got in here, but I have a fire extinguisher and I'm not afraid to use it."

"As I was going to say," Dem continued, unperturbed, "I have a little gift for you. I've heard that you're a Harry Potter fan."

"I don't know who you think you are or-"

"How would you like to enter that world for a while?" he said with a generous smile that was a little bit off. "Be accepted as an exchange student at Hogwarts, do a little magic, mix around with those characters you love so much... Oh, and you won't even need to worry about your family missing you. Time is a malleable thing. No one will ever notice you're gone, and-"

Ash lowered the fire extinguisher just a bit, curiosity getting the best of her. "Who are you?"

"Me? I'm just a mysterious old man who could grant you that wish. Free of charge. You will have all your dreams come true."

"You know, I think I should start calling the cops-"

"You know you don't want to do that," Dem said calmly.

She hesitated. There was something about Dem's twinkling brown eyes that suggested something otherworldly; magical, almost, someone with the power to do just what he had said, reality be screwed, and perhaps, just perhaps...

"Who are you," she asked again.

"I told you. I'm a mysterious old man. My name is Dem, if you're really that curious."

"You're joking, right?"

"No, my name really is Dem."

"Not that. The Hogwarts thing. I mean-"

"Yes?"

Ash swallowed. She wanted this. She wanted this so much, ever since the first time she had cracked open her first Harry Potter novel and been introduced to the wonderful world that lay within; and then, when the novels ran out, there were the fan fiction stories she had searched out on the Internet, trying to escape further into that world, finding stories that fantasised about real people entering that universe from her own; being angered by the frequency of Mary Sues in those fics, sullying the good name of her fandom, turning the characters she loved so much into poor, unrecognisable parodies of their original selves; and the vow that she had made to herself that if ever she got the privilege - however impossible she knew it was - to enter the world of Harry and friends, she would do her best to blend into the crowd and let the story and the characters be who they truly were. No secret threesome rendezvous with Draco and Harry in the Slytherin common room, no introducing Hogwarts to the horrors of Muggle emo music, no deleterious modifications to the Hogwarts school uniform, no saving the world, no inventing of revolutionary new spells, no creations of new speshul houses just for her to be in. But she had accepted that it would never happen. That was just the stuff of dreams. Of bad Mary Sue fics. It had no place in the real world-

The fire extinguisher vanished from her hands.

Ash gave a start. Wide-eyed, she looked up at Dem. "What... how..."

Dem held up the small cigarette-lighter contraption he was suddenly holding in his hand. "Fire extinguisher extinguisher," he explained. "I didn't feel safe with you waving that thing around. Ready to go?"

She just stared dumbly at the fire extinguisher extinguisher.

"I take your non-answer as compliance," Dem said brightly. "Right then; Hogwarts, here we come!"

With a brilliant smile, Dem flicked a button on the fire extinguisher extinguisher. The fire extinguisher reappeared in his hands.

"Hey what-" Ash started, when Dem conked her over the head with it and everything went black.

xx

Gentle morning sunlight shone in from a gap in the curtains and played softly on the face of the sleeping girl.

The bedroom door creaked open. She stirred.

Someone cleared his throat.

Ash opened an eye and saw a pillow. It was pink and lacy. She opened her other eye.

"Princess Ashleigh Lily Lee Moonshine Aurora Jennifer Elizabeth Aubergine Yvonne Anastasia Morel Riddle?" a voice asked in an impressive single breath.

Ash slowly turned her head towards the voice. It belonged to some blond guy who looked suspiciously like Tom Felton.

"My name is Draco Malfoy," he continued breathlessly. "And I, um, stalked you to your hotel 'cause I think you're really beautiful, and I heard that you're coming to Hogwarts tomorrow and I thought we should... get a little... acquainted, first..."

Ash sat up slowly in bed. Hair far longer and more purple than she had remembered it being landed in locks around her shoulders.

"...So, uh, yeah... I was wondering..." Draco said, randomly pulling off his shirt in a manly sort of way. "Are you up for some-" He winked sexily. "Pound pound thrust thrust?"

There was a mirror on the cupboard opposite her bed.

Staring out of it back at Ash was an unrecognisable human, the fairest in the land, dressed rebelliously in scanty Muggle clothing with suddenly-red hair...

"No," she said, remembering the conversation with Dem.

He'd been for real. She was going to Hogwarts. And he'd turned her into a freakin' Mary Sue.

"No," she gasped, and her melodic gasp was unwanted music to her ears. "No. No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Draco winced. "All right, all right, I get it," he said in a hurt voice, putting his shirt back on. "There's no need to shout."

xx

to be continued.