"Did you get that Gits essay done before detention tonight?" –Marioluver, "The Red Rose"

"Excellent work, Harry," said Professor Lupin, handing back his essay on "Gits: Some Effective Defensive Measures" with a large red "100" in the corner. "The best treatment of the subject I've seen all year."

Harry smiled broadly. "Well, the credit's not all mine, Professor," he said. "I couldn't have done it without all the field experience Malfoy's given me the past few years."

Draco, from his nearby desk, made an obscene gesture in response, and Lupin promptly deducted 10 points from Slytherin. Harry leaned back contentedly; life was good.


"I guess I never knew what lied beneath my skin. What lied beneath was the real Hermione Granger." –cute but kinda deadly, "What Lies Beneath"

The dermal layer beneath Hermione's feet suddenly opened up, and she tumbled out into the open air in a shower of blood and lymph. As she plummeted toward the (to her) enormous bathroom sink below, she looked up to see her own face looming enormously over her, and mouthing the words, "Godspeed, Cora Peterson."

A pang of conscience went through her; it seemed so wrong to deceive one's own phantom self in such a way. But what could she have said? "I am the true Hermione Granger; you are an illusory part of an illusory world, which was created last Monday by a disgruntled ex-Unspeakable, and which, if it isn't erased by midnight tonight, will destroy both itself and reality. Therefore I must escape from your bloodstream, in which the upheaval of space and time has trapped me, and…"

No, it wouldn't have done. Still, it was rather poignant to think that this phantom Hermione, in the few hours remaining to her, would never know what she had helped to do, or who had really been lying – in more than one sense – beneath her skin.


"Everyone who starts out in their [sic] seventh year at Hogwarts is immediately transferred to a Muggle-felled school." –Witches Rune, summary to "Wizards Go Muggles?"

"Why Salamanca?" Voldemort enquired.

"Surely that's obvious, My Lord," said Snape. "Salamanca College was burnt down by the local Muggles three separate times during the 17th Century, on account of the old slander about Satan being the headmaster. You will surely grant that Hogwarts's returning seventh years, who have spent nearly their whole school career listening to Dumbledore's fatuous idealism, badly need their eyes opened to the true nature of the Muggle vermin; what better way than by spending their final N.E.W.T. year at a Muggle-felled school?"

Voldemort spent a moment or two considering this, and then smiled darkly. "An excellent plan, Severus," he said. "See you to it."

Snape bowed and left the room, suppressing a sigh of relief. If Dumbledore was right in trusting Headmistress Gutiérrez, most of Potter's friends should now be safe from the Carrows – except for a few who were only sixth years, such as the Weasley girl. But he could work out a protection for her after he'd had a stiff drink.


"Altogether, the outfit looked impressive, all sleek black lines and not a wrinkle of fabric insight." –Glue Project, "Silent Butterfly"

"Tom," said Acte Posener, eyeing her friend quizzically, "where did you get that outfit?"

"Made it," said Tom Riddle proudly. "Over the summer holidays. Impressive, don't you think?"

Acte forced herself not to scream. "Tom," she said, "you can't do that sort of thing with gulon's-hair fustian. It's one of the most temperamental materials there is, and it naturally wants to billow outward; if you try to force it into sleek lines, you only make yourself look like a hare-brained bungler without a wrinkle of insight into your fabric."

"Well, who wants fabric insight?" Tom argued. "We're wizards! We don't need to understand and respect the nature of a thing before we impose our wills on it! Nos omnia paret! A sound magician is a mighty god! And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Halloween feast."

He turned and strode sleekly from the common room, his costume straining ever so faintly away from him as he went. With a sigh, Acte withdrew her wand and followed after him; when his new garb's quiddity avenged itself – as it would, sooner or later – it would be as well for him to have a friend with some common sense around.