It was the dead of night. Or morning, rather. At this point, after having just been rudely awoken as the fangirls were wont to be for no reason at all (or so it seemed), none of the staff could tell, and none of the staff could care. Tyrion, Sansa, Brienne, Catelyn, Jeyne Westerling, Robb, Jon, Ygritte, Sam, Daenerys, Ramsay, Davos, and Sandor were crowded around a table in the not-scummy-at-all-for-Harrenhal meeting room, all in various states of dress and undress. Sadly for fangirls and luckily for just about everyone else, Robb, Jon, and Ramsay were, it must be noted, fully clothed. They waited, mostly bleary-eyed, for all of thirty seconds, until there was a knock on the door and Miss Ellie spilled in, juggling a veritable tower of paperwork and an enormous plastic bag.
"For later," Miss Ellie stressed, eyeing the staff eyeing the bag. "I'm kind enough to spend my own British coin on feeding you if you're kind enough to listen for half an hour."
"That's about everyone, then," Tyrion muttered. "Of course my lord father is too busy to attend his own damn meeting."
"It is quite late, Tyrion, and much must be done before dawn," Miss Ellie yawned, setting her papers and what smelled like Chinese takeaway on a sideboard and slinking into an empty seat between Sam and Daenerys. "Even Manderly's in a rush, and you know how that goes."
"Have you wrangled all of them now?" Tyrion asked.
"Ilyn and I just got back from wrangling the last of the Britons about an hour ago. The last of them were all in the environs of London, conveniently for us. Ilyn and Oberyn should be returning from Australia with eleven charges first thing in the morning, and Jaime and Bronn should be back within the hour with two from Spain and one from Italy. That should be all of the pupils now."
"And how many would that be?"
"Three hundred and nineteen. There were five last-minute enrolments."
He sighed heavily. "Seventy more than last year."
"And three hundred and nineteen too many," Sandor grunted.
"Ours is a growing fandom, fortunately and unfortunately, thanks to the popularity of the show," Miss Ellie commented, "and for that, we must educate the brats as swiftly and efficiently as possible so that they may set a decent standard for future fan works to uphold, because the gods know we're desperate for good stories whilst we wait on GRRM to finish the books. Canon must be restored."
"There will always be The North Remembers."
"Yes, Jon, and very little else," Miss Ellie lamented. "For every fic that's halfway decent, there are fifty Mary Sues clamouring to fuck your brother, thirty to fuck you, and ten poorly-written lemons about you getting over your grief at everyone you love being dead by having a scat-filled threesome with Satin and Davos in the Castle Black larder."
Davos and Jon turned to look at each other very, very awkwardly, and simultaneously stifled a gag.
"My thoughts exactly," Ellie said. "The uncanonical plague of bad slash, bad fluff, Starkcest, and Gary Stus and Mary Sues must be stopped, and I alone cannot stop it. What good have my own canon-compliant fics done?"
"None," Sansa said, compelled to answer the obviously rhetorical question. "No one reads them."
Sam agreed. "They might if she threw in some naked Gendry."
"Thanks for the suggestion, Sam."
"Because good models of fanfiction are obviously ineffective, as of yet, anyways, the girls' attendance here is as necessary as our presence here this morning. Although," Tyrion said, mismatched eyes sweeping the room, "not everyone unexcused for reasons related to duty is in attendance tonight."
Davos was on his feet at once. "My apologies, Lord Tyrion, but the Mannis cannot be bothered with trifles as small as staff meetings. He has seven kingdoms to conquer."
"Last I checked, Stannis Baratheon was a lecturer at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros and a retired military leader not currently in combatance with the Crown. In future, the Mannis will bother with staff meetings if he wishes to keep his position here. His expertise in strategy is needed. Sit down, Davos, and make this clear to Stannis when he wakes."
Tyrion yawned, continuing. "Now, Lord Tywin has left me with several points to bring to your attention, briefly, before term begins. It will be a very long one, I'm sure. His first point: our expensive mini dragon issue."
"We would not have to spend so much on the dragons were they to eat the little darlings," Ramsay offered immediately, his pale eyes sparkling.
"Three hundred badfic writers will feed three full-size dragons and a hundred miniature ones for all of a couple days. We make money off the little darlings," Tyrion noted, "and the Iron Bank needs repaying."
"But if Daenerys," Ramsay turned to her with crazy, pleading eyes, "let the dragons loose more often, they could sate themselves on the smallfolk, and who cares about the smallfolk? Or open fighting pits— a new kind of tournament here at Harrenhal. Charge a small fee, pay some peasants a smaller wage, arm them with twigs when you'd promised them swords, and the dragons have a meal and you've coin in your coffers."
Daenerys huffed. "They'd develop a taste for human flesh. No, Ramsay."
"But that's the point!"
"No."
"More important," Tyrion coughed, "is teaching our charges how to spell, thus eliminating the spawning of more mini dragons. We have enough debts and security as it is."
"But they're incapable of spelling," Jeyne said, remembering Jane, Jayne, Jene, Jayn, and Jeyn the dragons. Catelyn and Daenerys nodded in assent. "Some of them have read the books, evidenced by their knowledge of my existence, and still cannot."
"For those of you who teach, it is my lord father's wish that you create and strongly enforce rules regarding asking how to spell names before writing them and using the books' appendices for reference. There are more than enough copies in the library. If your pupils do very little writing, Catelyn, Sansa, Jeyne, it is worth your time to recite characters' names whilst working, making sure to spell everything. He wishes especially to tell Brienne not to go soft on the darlings in this or any regard, for they have neither honour nor shame, and will exploit any weakness perceived in a first-year teacher."
"As commanded, my lord," Brienne said, nodding slightly.
"Are they even capable of reading, though?" Robb mused. "Didn't seem like any last year were literate. I got an essay on the regional wardens in the War of the Ninepenny Kings once that just said 'Rob iz hott' twenty times with hearts all over it."
"Never underestimate the reading skills of fangirls who will trudge through six thousand pages in search of fluff and detailed descriptions of naked arses, yours especially, Robb Stark," Miss Ellie warned. "They will not find it, but with find and latch onto the most inane shit possible, and post it all over the echo chamber that is Tumblr. Cases in point: Sansa and Sandor, Arya and Gendry, Theon being gay for all the Stark brothers, Theon being in love with Ramsay even after having his dick flayed and severed."
The collective look of revulsion on the faces of Sansa, Robb, Jon, and Sandor said enough. No matter how many times they had heard such disturbing nonsense, it was always, always disgusting.
Ramsay, unfazed, waved to get Miss Ellie's attention, cocking his head as he smiled just a tad evilly. "He's called Reek, Miss."
"Never mind what he's called, Ramsay. The brats will and do believe nonsense."
"So did our charges last year," Tyrion said, "and it is imperative that we shut it down as quickly as possible through both education and our own behaviour. Do not encourage any… alternative beliefs unless they appear in the writings of George RR Martin, himself. Davos, my father notes that it would be appreciated if you and Princess Shireen could stress critical thinking and close reading over the flood of 'OTP feels' in your reading circle, and report any particularly insistent and incorrect interpretations of canon to Eleanor."
"Of course, Lord Tyrion. At your service, Miss Ellie."
"My father also wishes to note that the death rate in the archery section of Slaying 101 is too damn high. Six percent last year for archery, and only one percent in Bronn and Oberyn's sections. That's fifteen young lives snuffed out, and fifteen payments not going towards our debt."
Sandor grunted. "A pity, certainly."
"A word," Jon interjected. "It's not Ygritte's fault that projectile weapons and idiots don't mix. Half the lot seem to think they're someone called Katniss Everdeen."
"Tha' or Princess Merida, whoever tha' is."
"Could we not start the pupils out with imported Nerf products from another dimension?" Brienne asked. "It would be a lot less dangerous. I mean, we've had spinny chairs and Cheez-Its imported. Why not non-deadly weapons?"
"Oh, sweet summer child," Miss Ellie whispered.
"No good t' teach wi'," Ygritte countered. "Can't eat 'em, neither."
"No fun," Ramsay pouted.
"And prohibitively expensive," Tyrion said with an air of finality, "even if Anguy hadn't blown the archery department's budget on whores."
"Why did gingers even get a budget?" Robb wondered aloud as Jeyne elbowed him, hissing something about him being a ginger in book canon.
"No matter. Anguy will not be returning this year. I know it is nigh on impossible to guarantee the safety of armed morons, particularly on your own this year, Ygritte, but if the death rate does not decrease, my lord father threatens to reassign you to the housekeeping staff."
Before she could even get in a word of protest, there was a furious banging on the door and an awful, horrendously loud smash as said door broke and crashed to the floor. Hodor, panting, was in the threshold, clad only in britches and slippers, leaning heavily on the doorframe as he hodored apologetically.
"Hooooodor. Hodor."
"Is it time, Hodor?" Miss Ellie asked.
"Hodor," Hodor hodored Hodorly. "Hodor hodor hodor, hodor hodor! Hodor hodor! Hoooooooodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor, hodor, hodor hodor hodor hodor!"
"It seems to be quarter past one," Catelyn translated and abridged from the Hodorese, "and we are late."
Tyrion was up at once. "Ramsay, your vuvuzela! Hodor, your megaphone! Davos, the coconut halves! Once more unto the dormitories! Once more to wake the fanbrats!"