"Guys! Guys!"
Ron and Harry looked up from their Potions essays to see Hermione bounding down the stairs from her dormitory.
"I found some information that might help us with Ebony and Willow!" she said breathlessly, holding up a large, red, leather-bound book. In faded silver lettering, the cover read, Vampires, Brownies, and Other Beings of Our World. "I was leafing through this to see if it covered succubi—it does, by the way—and I stumbled across THIS." She pointed to a paragraph about halfway down the page.
Mary Sue: Strange beings, these are. Created by beings of a universe outside our own, Mary Sues can be born at any given time, in any given universe. They can easily blend in with humans (or at least try to), but red flags include lack of flaws, being too beautiful to be human, overly long and fancy names, one or several unusual talents, ultra-high intelligence (or extreme lack of intelligence, in some cases), and wearing "trendy" clothing. Some particularly powerful Sues can bend the universe to their will, to fit their version of reality. Mary Sues are created by people in another universe, usually teenage girls, but not always. Perhaps the worst thing about Sues is that every time a Mary Sue dies, a new one is born in its place. Sues tend to be female, but male Sues (called Gary Stus or Marty Sams) do exist. Since Sues are basically flawless and unbeatable, the worst way to handle one is to just avoid contact with them whenever you possibly can, but stealing their mascara has also been found effective. The way to truly kill a Sue is for its creator to come to their senses and erase it.
"Ebony isn't human?" said Ron. "That… actually makes sense."
"She's not a vampire like she says she is, either," said Hermione. "She's a Mary Sue!"
"So what do we do?" Harry asked. "Just avoid her?"
"Unless we want to track down her creator, yes," Hermione shrugged.
"…tracking down her creator is an option, you know."
Hermione scoffed. "We'd have to travel to another universe. We can't do that."
There was a pause before Hermione frowned.
"Can we?"
OoOoO
Hermione was sitting next to Enoby in Charms the next day when Professor Flitwick told the class to write two paragraphs on Tracia Timon (creator of several charms) and her contributions to the wizarding world. Hermione was about to write "Tracia Thea Timon was born in winter 1785…" when she noticed that Ebony had topped her paper with "Tracia T. Timon by Evony Dark'ness Dementia TARA Way."
Even as she said, "I thought your last middle name was Raven," Hermione knew that she shouldn't ask. But she did anyway, in spite of herself.
Ebony shrugged. "Tera n Jeni hd a feight."
"Who are Tara and Jenny?"
"Jeny s Tar's bff, butt he goz be Ravn. The crated—" Ebony slapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish her sentence, then glared at Hermione. "Eye cant te u that, Maryy."
Normally, Hermione would've said, "Stop calling me 'Mary,'" but she was too lost in thought to notice.
OoOoO
"Jenny and Tara, huh?" said Ron, after Hermione told the boys what she learned.
"Those must be her creators," said Hermione.
"No wonder she's so messed up," said Harry, "with having two idiot teenage girls creating her instead of just one."
"So, how would we go about visiting their universe, anyway?" Ron asked.
Hermione tapped her chin, thinking hard. "I think there's a dimension-splitting spell. If it works, we can go to a different universe. If it doesn't… well, Ebory wouldn't matter to us anymore, anyway. It takes at least six skilled witches and wizards to work…"
"Well, that's easy," said Harry. "There's the three of us, Ginny, Luna, and… huh. Who else do we know who could do a spell like that?"
Hermione winced. "I can think of one, but you're not going to like it."
"Who?" Ron said eagerly.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Suddenly, a scream rang out across the Great Hall, and the Trio turned around to see that Ebony and Willow were suspending a first-year in mid-air.
"We want to know," the boys said in unison.
Hermione sighed. "Malfoy."