Author’s notes: When I first read this fic back in 2009, I had already known about the PPC for some years. However, it was this fic, that convinced me to sign up. So I you’ve ever wondered what kind of fic it takes, to make a usually mild-mannered Dane scream bloody murder, then look no further for the answer. It is a coincidence, but one I find very amusing, that a lot of the details in the fic are also extremely annoying to my agents personally.
Since the context might lead to confusion, I want to clarify that ‘Lex’ is not a misspelling of ‘Lux’ so no mini-Agent, at least not there. He is a character written by a friend of mine, and an acquaintance of my agents. The same goes for everyone else I mention, who is not recognisable as someone affiliated with the PPC; I am mostly likely name-dropping my friends’ characters.
<Serious business>The homophobic remarks. I was disgusted and angered and I really, really wanted to rip this fic a new one over those. I still am and I still do. However, I recognise that explosive caps-lock rage topped with way too many exclamation marks is neither in the spirit of the PPC nor fun for other people to read, so I toned it down. A lot. If you think I let the fic off too easily, then you are right; but I did so for the sake of the PPC, not the fic nor the author.</Serious business>
Disclaimer: The PPC belongs to their epicnesses, Jay and Acacia; I’m only playing in it. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling. The Labyrinth belongs to George Lucas and the estate of Jim Henson. The fic being sporked, The Making of a Queen, belongs to Artemis Samhain and I do not want. Mittens and the Radioactive Moss Creature are mine.
They heard the shrill beeping sound while they were still in the corridors on their way back to Response Centre #170.
”It sounds like a console,” Mittens said with a frown. ”But why isn’t it turned off … Oh no!” He started to run. The Radioactive Moss Creature checked to make sure that Aniseed would not fall off and then started to run as well. As they neared the door of their RC, it became clear that this was indeed where the shrill beeping was coming from.
“Who knows how long it has been beeping,” Mittens said. “The poor minis.”
“I’ll take care of the console,” the RMC said. “You calm down the minis.”
Mittens pushed open the door and they entered the response centre, which was one big chaos with mini-Reapers flying about and mini-Darkspawn and a mini-Aragog scurrying about, trying to find a place where the noise was less nerve wrecking. Some of the minis had managed to wrap pillows around their heads and others had gotten into fights over the rest of the pillows. The RMC slammed its front paw down on the red button, stopping the noise, and started to read the Intelligence Report. Meanwhile, Mittens, making soothing noises, gently pulled Lylium and Hightever out from under the bookshelf where they had gotten themselves stuck.
When the RMC was done reading, it turned around and looked at Mittens. “How are you coming along with the Labyrinth canon?” it asked.
Mittens stiffened, then answered: “I’ve seen the movie eight times, I think, maybe nine. I’ve read the novelization and the companion book about the Goblins and watched the documentaries on the DVD. I’ve read some of the goodfics …” A bit late he remembered, that although the RMC was currently the closest thing he had to a superior officer in Hell’s army, it was not actually a superior officer in Hell’s army and he didn’t have to be so nervous. He finished in a more normal tone of voice: “And I’ve seen the review that Nostalgia Chick did.” He didn’t mention how many times he had seen the review, since that probably wouldn’t interest the RMC.
“This mission is a Harry Potter/Labyrinth-crossover Sue-fic and since it sounds like you’re well prepared, I’ll let you handle the Labyrinth charges and I’ll do the ones for Harry Potter.”
Mittens nodded, feeling nervous again. “What should I pack?” he asked.
“Apparently we will have to change disguises a lot, so bring the D.O.R.K.S. Also an extra notebook and all the bleeprin you can find.”
“Oh. It’s one of those?”
“According to the Intelligence Report, yes. You can’t bring the Five-seven so we’ll use the weapons from the Dragon Age continuum. Swords and knifes are canon in both continua.”
“What about the crossbow?”
“Can’t remember one ever being used in either canon, so we better not bring it.”
Mittens finished packing and then hoisted the backpack. “What do we start out as?” he asked, leaning over the console.
“Ordinary Gryffindor students,” the RMC replied.
Mittens programmed the disguises, making very sure that the RMC ended up as human this time and opened the portal. They jumped through and the portal closed behind them. Back in RC #170, Aniseed curled up and feel asleep on the beanbag chair and Lylium and Hightever soon snuggled up next to her.
There wasn’t an author’s note or even a disclaimer. The fic started, not in prefic darkness, but in the bedroom of Sarah Williams. Thankfully, the agents had appeared out on the staircase, from where they could peek in at Sarah.
She absentmindedly pressed a hand against her chest, feeling that… that thing moving inside her, that surge of power, of life… of warmth that had settled within her at the Escher Room, after having appeared and disappeared inside her a couple of times inside the Labyrinth. It was as if her blood was buzzing with something that tickled the tips of her left hand and went up her arm, straight into her head and heart. It felt odd, but strangely right, as if it was how she had been supposed to feel all of her life. As if something inside her, which had formed part of her had been awakened at last. But there was also another little feeling, one of emptiness, as if she was missing something, something that had much to do with what she had gained…
“Not only is the grammar awful, she’s also long-winded,” the RMC said. “It looks like the Intelligence Report wasn’t exaggerating.”
Exasperated with herself for all that rubbish roaming inside her head she changed her dirty, grimy clothes for her nightgown and then snuggled under the sheets, not realizing that if she had just stared at her vanity mirror she would have noticed that the colour of her eyes had changed from a pale green to a misty silver, the colour of liquid mercury.
“And we have our first charge,” Mittens said, “for having eyes of an unnatural colour.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Dream Sequence *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The agents had to shield themselves from the rain of punctuation marks, which was followed by a dream sequence in italics, that made the Word World seem tilted.
She was bathed in silvery light, as if she shone from within, and everything around her was obscured by a veil of darkness that was soothing, as if the veil enveloped her in a protective way, making her feel relaxed and at ease.
“Why do I sometimes get the feeling, that Personnel is planning to transfer us to the Department of Redundancy Department?” Mittens asked.
But she knew she was not along, she could sense a presence, a kindred spirit looming in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to come out and reveal itself to her. She knew that spirit, she knew that essence. She had fought against it and she had won, fair and square.
“Labyrinth?” she asked tentatively, kindly even, as she motioned it to approach “I know you are there. Come out, please”
A silvery orb of liquid light appeared before her then, shinning exactly the way she was, floating gently in front of Sarah. It gave away a feeling of ancestry, of long-ago born power, of old magic…
“The Labyrinth is an orb?” the RMC asked, looking at Sarah and the orb, who were both shinning; apparently that meant that they were trying to kick each other with their shins, but since the orb didn’t have any legs, it was just bobbing around.
“There is no basis in canon for the Labyrinth being an living entity,” Mittens said. “Let alone something old and powerful.”
The agents listened as the Labyrinth told Sarah, that it had been looking for someone to bond with and be its Keeper and that she, with her ‘serenity hidden beneath her stubbornness and temper’, was the right one.
Mittens opened the notebook. “Charging for the thing with the eyes, awful grammar, being long-winded, making the Labyrinth a powerful living entity without any basis in canon and claiming that Sarah has a serene temper, again without basis in canon.”
“Do what you must. I accept you” she said simply, extending her arms with confidence towards the power. The sphere dissolved itself into a river of silver and sparks, wrapping itself around her right arm, bringing a scorching every time the magic touched her skin. Sarah hissed in pain and bit her lower lip till it bled, but dared not complain. The blazing sensation in her arm, after a couple of minutes, reduced itself to a warm tingly feeling and it was then when the girl opened her eyes, realizing she had closed them, and peered at her right arm with curiosity. It was encased in a black glove that went past her elbow a few inches. It was made out of silk, soft and cool to the touch, and it ended in the tip of her middle finger, forming a ring around it, like a sort of fingerless glove that didn’t cover her palm either. In the palm of her hand something stood out, however: it was half a crystal sphere, one she had seen the Goblin King twirl in his hands one-too-many-times, incrusted in her hand, and visible only because there was a hole in the glove. At first she though the crystal was actually part of the glove, but after tugging at it she realized painfully that it was attached to her skin, flesh, veins and bones.
Mittens and the RMC looked at each other.
“I don’t think she has thought about how big those crystals are,” Mittens said. The crystal half-sphere covered the whole of Sarah’s palm and it was obvious that it would severely impact her ability to use her right hand. He wrote down a charge for having an improbably large crystal stuck in her hand.
A new punctuation rain followed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Ed of Dream Sequence *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Amidst the punctuation marks, a man dressed in pyjamas and nightcap landed with a loud thud. The agents first thought he was knocked unconscious, but when they heard him snoring, they realised he was simply sleeping so hard that even the fall hadn’t woken him up.
“Must be Ed of Dream Sequence,” Mittens said. “What should we do with him?”
“A typo who sleeps like a log?” the RMC said. “Maybe Medical would like him.”
Mittens tore a page out of the notebook and wrote a short explanation on it, then pinned it under Ed’s nightcap and the RMC opened a portal back to HQ and let Ed of Dream Sequence fall through into the Medical Department.
With this out of the way, they could once again turn their attention to the fic, in which Sarah’s stepmother was banging on her door and ordering her to start cleaning.
“I’ve got an important lunch with some friends from High School, Sarah” she informed her teenage slave with an unfriendly voice “So I expect you to clean the house, feed Toby and keep an eye on things while I am not here. Get dressed; fix yourself some breakfast and get over with your chores”
“This is non-canonical,” Mittens said. “Sarah was not a slave; she didn’t even think so herself, she was just being a drama-queen about it.”
“I’ll get a reading,” the RMC said and, after checking that the Canon Analysis Device was muted, pointed it at Karen Williams. [Karen Williams. Human female. Canon. Christ Church (Boston, Massachusetts). Out of Character 27.87%. Gumbo.] “Looks like we have our first charge for an OOC canon.”
Mittens wrote down the charge, along with the creation of the Ed of Dream Sequence.
In the fic, an owl arrived with a letter to Sarah. It was a Hogwarts acceptance letter, with the canonical wording, but a non-canonical postscript.
Unfortunately for some unknown reason your name didn’t come up in the admission books till last night, and you have already passed the age of first years students, which is eleven years old. That can be arranged with a spell or a potion, but it would require your and your parent’s full consent, so a representative of the school will visit you tonight to discuss that possibility and, if you agree, to perform the necessary magic to solve this inconvenience. We hope everything will work out for the best in the end…
Sarah’s mouth didn’t fall open. She didn’t gasp or shake or wondered, she was way past that with magic. It all made freaking sense after all: her own magic had awoken after her adventure in the Underground so of course someone had sensed it. She hadn’t been aware that other wizards and witches existed, but it seemed obvious that she would be called if there were.
The RMC raised its eyebrows. “Now that something of a non sequitur,” it said. “Charge her for not being surprised about the letter from Hogwarts and finding it all totally natural.”
Toby started crying from somewhere in the room and Sarah dropped the parchment to go to him, humming softly in a soothing way in an effort to calm the infant.
The doorbell rung in the William’s home. Robert Williams was too much wrapped up in some article of the newspaper to hear it, and Sarah had her hands busy changing Toby’s diaper, so she asked Karen, who was talking to someone over the phone downstairs to go see who it was.
The sudden, unmarked time shift made everything lurch forward and the agents both stumbled, but managed not to fall. Karen and Robert Williams appeared downstairs. The agents noted a charge for not marking scene changes with a new paragraph.
The person at the door turned out to be Minerva McGonagall. The agents hid in a room as Sarah passed them to go downstairs, then crept out and watched the action from the top of the stairs.
“My name is Minerva McGonagall and I am Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am here to discuss the possible admission of your oldest daughter, Sarah Aithne Rhiannon Williams” she informed him simply
“Sarah Aithne Rhiannon Williams?” the RMC asked. “I’m guessing that’s not canon.”
“No. Charging for having two non-canonical middle names.”
“Also charge for making them improbable. She is called Sarah and her brother is called Toby. Those middle-names don’t fit the naming convention. Anyway, I think we are long overdue for a reading on her.” It pointed the CAD at Sarah. [Sarah Aithne Rhiannon Williams. Canon/uncanon/canon. The Eternal Conflict. Mary Sue. Fast Bowling.] “She’s a Sue. Hardly surprising,” it said. “Charge her with it.”
Mittens nodded and scribbled in the notebook.
In the fic, Minerva McGonagall took out a copy of Hogwarts: A History.
“The book explains all there is to know about Hogwarts, but I suppose that, being a Williams, she should know about it. After all, though it has been lacking wizards and witches for a very long time, more than a century if I recall correctly, the Williams family is quite respected in the wizardry circle” Minerva said slowly, glancing at Robert, clearly expecting him to say something. He blushed a little actually and looked a little sheepish.
The RMC scoffed. “Magical heredity does not work that way,” it said. “Squibs are born into wizard families every once in a while, but a wizard family does not suddenly produce nothing but Squibs for several generations. And if they did, the family would most certainly not remain respected in the wizarding world. Charge for misrepresenting magical heredity.”
McGonagall proceeded to explain, that since the Headmaster wanted Sarah to start her training from the basics, she could be given a potion, called Reincarna, that would turn her into an eleven-year-old.
“Charge for inventing an non-canonical potion,” the RMC said.
“The issue here is if you are all willing to take that course of action. This side of the Williams’s wizardry name ends here, if I’m not mistaken, and the thing is that the Williams seem to be able to breed witches, but not wizards. They pass their magic to the females of the family, and the last two centuries were plagued with males of the family, so that is one more reason for which we decided to offer this opportunity. Are you willing, Mr. Williams, to let you daughter go through this? Take your time; consult it with your wife and with your daughter if you want. In a week’s time an owl will arrive and all you have to do is attach your answer to its leg. If you decide to go through this the potion will be send, together with the things Miss Williams would need for her first year and a ticket for the Hogwarts Express”
“Again, heredity does not work that way, and since when do you need tickets for the Hogwarts Express?” the RMC asked.
“… tickets for the Hogwarts Express,” Mittens repeated as he wrote the charges. He looked up. “I was just thinking, that the way commas and full stops are consistently left out before quotation marks, it looks like she actually thinks that it is the correct way.”
“Good point. Charge for that. Now, Karen and Robert Williams will not be appearing any more in person in this fic, so I suggest we wrap them up and then jump into the next chapter, skipping the author’s note.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
So after neuralyzing the two adults and sending them back to their canon along with the baby, they portalled to the next chapter which started with Sarah sitting in a compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express. The agents hid outside the compartment and peeked in.
She was curled up in her seat, which she occupied fully since no one had dared sit next to Ice-Queen Williams, as they all called her on Hogwarts. Because, if you were even a little bit odd at Hogwarts- odd for a wizard, that is- you got stuck with a nickname, most of then lately courtesy of Fred and George Weasley. They were in seventh years just as she was, and she was surprised they had managed to respect authority long enough to make it to their NEWTs, though, she reminded herself, they still had lots of time to flunk, should they wish it.
“Way to skip over seven years at Hogwarts,” the RMC said, “Why did she even need to be eleven years old, if the next time we see her, she is seventeen?”
“’They always make me this cold hearted bitch with all these super powers that the Labyrinth supposedly gave me after I defeated it. Not to mention it is so weird running into a bunch of people who look exactly like me, only with funky colored eyes or something’,” Mittens quoted.
“Huh?”
“It’s from the Labyrinth Academy; Sarah Williams complaining about the Sue-versions of her.”
The RMC tilted its head to the side. “So you’re saying, that not only is she a Sue, she’s also a very unoriginal one for this canon?”
“Apparently so. Charge for it?”
“Charge for it. When is the movie Labyrinth from?”
“1986.”
“So the movie takes place in 1986 or perhaps even 1985, but Fred and George would have been in their seventh year in 1996, so that leaves us with a time distortion of about three years. It’s minor, but I’m not exactly feeling generous, so just charge for that as well.”
She shook her head and resumed her staring at the window, her long, silky, dark chestnut hair twisted into a long braid that almost reached her hips and resting over her left shoulder, trailing down her muggle clothes. She hadn’t dressed in her black robes yet, but she wore dark clothes anyway: a pair of black breeches and a matching black shirt with silver strings embroiled into the collar, the hem and the cuffs.
Mittens frowned. “In the movie Sarah’s hair was very pretty, but it only reached past her shoulder-blades; then again, it did look like it might have been cut recently.”
“A haircut couldn’t account for that difference in length. They take a couple of inches at most.”
“Charging for Sue-length hair and too much description of clothes.”
In the fic, Sarah was reminiscing, resulting in a sepia toned flashback.
She was a loner; she had been since the first day she stepped into Hogwarts. She remembered vaguely that very day. The excitement, the nervousness and the sense of finally being home. She had felt restless till she had caught sight of Professor McGonagall, the only familiar face in miles, and sensed the girl’s inner distress.
McGonagall turned into a young girl and looked fittingly distressed.
“Turning McGonagall a little girl by shifting POW mid-sentence,” Mittens said, while writing the charge.
However, there were things that she couldn’t control, no matter how hard she tried. The dreams at night were an example. Flashes of images, like the ones of dancing in the arms of an immortal, plagued her sleeping moments, feeling her with some strange kind of long. And every night the ballroom was the same, though the style of the dress she wore had been changing as she had grown up. Now, at seventeen, she found herself wearing a spaghetti-strapped, deep black dress with- and she didn’t miss the irony of it- tiny crystal shards all over the bodice and along the skirt. The bodice was like a normal dress, tight and form-fitting and the skirt fell to the floor freely, though there were no petticoats that gave it that bell-like shape, so it just trailed behind her in a small train. Her glove in the dream had a companion on her other arm and a heavy necklace made out of something that seemed like white gold twisted to form Celtic patterns along her neck, just like the bracelets that adorned her forearms and wrists.
“That’s a lot of details from what she claims are flashes of images,” Mittens said. “I’m upping the charge for to much description of clothes.”
“Are you still amongst us, Miss Williams?” a very British and low voice asked rather snidely as she snapped back to reality. Her silver eyes focused on the tall and brooding figure of Professor Snape and she ducked her head so as not to encounter his unpardonable black eyes.
Professor Snape appeared in the compartment next to Sarah.
“I’m sorry, professor. I was waiting for my Dominus potion to settle and I got lost in my thoughts” she replied politely, pointing at the emerald liquid inside the potion that was slowly turning into a colour that resembled liquid gold.
It finally dawned on the Word World that there had been another unmarked shift in time and space and the compartment was yanked out to the right, like a set piece being pulled out, and the Potions Classroom came in from the left.
The agents managed to stay on their feet through the change, but were knocked over when a table crashed into them.
Mittens retrieved the notebook, which he had dropped in the fall, and wrote ‘attacking agents of the PPC with scene changes’, then got to his feet.
“Good work there, Williams” he said with an ironic smile. Sarah, knowing the resentful looks she was getting from her fellow Gryffindors and the snide Slytherins fought the urge to roll her eyes heavenwards. She thanked the professor for his unfortunate comment and sat back to wait for her potion to finish the colour-changing, knowing the hateful stares she was receiving and hating the smirk that they brought to the Potions Master’s face.
The RMC facepalmed. “Why is it so hard to get right?” it asked. “Snape is not nice, but he knows what it is like to be both gifted and bullied. He would not enjoy knowing that an intelligent student was being bullied or do something to add to it.” It took out the CAD and got a reading. [Severus Snape. Human male. Canon. KGFK (AM) Out of Character 57.87%. Longnose stingray.] It sighed. “It’s high, which means we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. And since when did both Gryffindor and Slytherin become such total jerks?”
“Since the arrival of the Emo!Sue who needs them all to hate her in order to feel speshul?”
“Oh, right. Charge for it.”
The class ended and Sarah walked through a mirror and out of another mirror and the agents had to hurry and portal after her.
“Mirror magic… How would I ever be able to make it to class in time without it?”
Mittens looked around. “Try walking,” he said, “like everyone else seem to be doing.”
The agents followed Sarah into the classroom and sat down a couple of seats further down, where they could watch her. Sarah was, of course, just as good at Transfiguration as she had been at Potions.
Everyone’s eyes turned to the odd of the class and no one noticed what was plain to see: Sarah Williams had grown (twice in a lifetime) to become a thin, ethereal creature with long, chestnut hair that had the colour of the richest chocolate and deep eyes that had once been green but were now grey, almost liquid silver with long, thick eyelashes framing them. Her skin was pale always, for she never blushed, and her lips stood in direct contrast, a deep red colour. She had a kind of silent grace that tried to go through the world unnoticed, for she tried hard to keep a low profile. Sarah Williams, no matter how much she tried to deny it, was a natural. And she was damn good at hiding it. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and her figure covered by the large robes she wore. Most girls tried hard to arrange their robes so they would be more form-fitting and ergo more flattering but Sarah liked her flowing, oversized robes just as well.
“Bleargh,” the RMC said. “Want to bet, that there will be a scene later, where she lets her hair down and everyone just marvels at how beautiful she is?”
“No thanks.”
“Charge for being Sueshly beautiful and trying to hide it.”
In the fic, McGonagall asked Sarah where she was planning to spend Christmas.
“It will have to be here” she said without making eye-contact “Karen still thinks me a very bad influence for my brother Toby and little Cathy. She says that, since either of them have developed so far no magical talent there is no need to put strange ideas into their heads. And besides, I could use the time to work the last kinks in my animagus transformation”
There was no feeling in her voice, just acceptance and… nothing. Her voice was always full of nothing. It worried some people to hear her, so flat and dispassionate, so damnable calm and collected. So serene… So lifeless.
“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘dull’ and ‘boring’,” Mittens said.
She never got angry, with all the teasing and the pranks that sometimes bordered the cruel or the dangerous. But it seemed also that those who dared go against the black-haired girl got hurt in some way or the other. In the dark of the night they would suffer accidents, they would be assaulted by horrible nightmares that caused insomnia or appear beaten and weary, swearing someone had tried to rip their heads off while sleeping or glasses or mirrors would explode in front of them, whenever they passed, never harming them but making other people stay as far away from them as possible for some time. Once one had dared call Sarah Williams a mudblood, even if it wasn’t entirely true, and the kid had disappeared for an entire week. But there was no trace of magic in those incidents, so Sarah had never been blamed. And the kid had said nothing, as though too scared to accuse anyone or even speak about the place he had been for the past week.
The RMC shook its head. ”After a couple such incidences, the parents of the students would demand Sarah expelled, regardless of whether or not it could actually be proved that it was her doing. It might not be particularly fair, but Hagrid was imprisoned in Azkaban on far shakier grounds.”
“Also, while this would explain why the students are afraid of her, it makes no sense that they continue to show open hatred and bully her.” Mittens didn’t know a lot about human interactions, but he knew how you acted around someone you were afraid of, and this wasn’t it. “There’s also the hair. It’s not black, it’s dark brown, and she can’t even claim that she made a mistake for it was described as chocolate-coloured earlier.”
“Charge for all three.”
Both women smiled, aware of the rather close bond there was between them. Like a mother and a daughter, thing Sarah had never had before. A person who cared, who gave a damn, so to speak. She thought of Linda Williams, away in her ninth cloud of stardom and of Karen, scowling at her all the time and too preoccupied being a modern executive woman to pay attention to her stepdaughter.
“Oh please,” the RMC said. “Minerva wasn’t even that motherly with Harry, who was a real orphan. No way she would be a surrogate mother to an annoying teenager, who argues with her parents.” It took out the CAD and pointed it at McGonagall. It showed her to be 49,21 % OOC. “It sighed and put the CAD away again. “We haven’t seen the worst with her either.”
McGonagall and Sarah went to Great Hall to have lunch and Sarah sat down between Fred and George Weasley.
Sarah felt sorry for the boys, but soon enough Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson appeared to cheer them up, kissing their cheeks and ruffling their hair in unison and dragging along a sour-looking Katie Bell, who obviously missed their former Quidditch captain a tad too much.
“One non-canonical romance and hints of another one,” the RMC said. “Depending on how it is done, it can be everything from no charge to a major charge. Want to bet that this will have absolutely no impact on the main plot, but is only there for the sake of shipping?”
“No.”
“You never want to bet.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that you keep suggesting bets where the chance of me winning is non-existent.”
“You may have a point. Anyway, to be on the safe side, charge her with pointlessly shipping people. We can always go back and erase it, if it turns out that there’s a point with it.”
Soon the conversation was diverted to the subject of Quidditch, a sport that Sarah enjoyed and took part in. She was one of Gryffindor’s substitutes in the team, being a chaser and a beater, good, a little perhaps above the average, her agility making her stand out.
“That’s … modest,” the RMC said.
She would have probably made it to the team had the Weasley brothers not been such a strong duo or if she hadn’t been the main duellist of the Duellist Club, of course.
“Oh, right,” it said. “Although for a Sue, that is still pretty modest.”
Her Head Girl badge shone pinned in her black robes and she briefly recalled the hurtful remarks and new gossip that it had originated.
“Yes, it is so hard to be better than everyone else and have what everybody else wants,” Mittens said, annoyed.
“Charge for making her Head Girl. I find it highly unlikely for a student with her sinister reputation. How would she make the other students keep calm and follow her lead in an emergency?”
She encountered Hermione Granger in the hall and the girl smiled brightly at her and waved, just as Ron and Harry did. The later seemed out of spirits, but she understood him.
“For all that’s worth, Harry” she said as she passed the trio that she had watched over since they had set foot in Hogwarts years ago “I believe you. I’ve always have. I’ve seen enough to know you tell the truth” she grimaced then “Though I doubt that me believing your story is going to add any credibility to it, sorry”
The Boy Who Lived raised his green eyes at her and actually smiled a little bit, the action brightening his face completely.
“Thanks, Sarah. It means a lot”
The girl looked puzzled and touched at that. She hadn’t realized how much those three had grown to care for her, just as the twins had.
Mittens and the RMC looked at each other.
“I think,” the RMC said with a solemn expression, “that it is time to bring out the bleeprin, because this fic has just gone from bad to insane. How would Harry, Ron and Hermione grow to care for her, when she never speaks to them or anyone else and generally just goes around, keeping to herself and being creepy?” While talking, it dug out the bleeprin, swallowed a couple and gave some to Mittens.
McGonagall appeared and walked up to the Headmaster’s office.
“Next scene is with her and Dumbledore. We better follow,” the RMC said and the agents ducked into the office after her.
“Oh, Albus” she murmured, hating herself for once, when she had been young, letting a crush she had had on her once Transfiguration teacher develop into true love for a person that was her dearest friend and most respected co-worker. She reached for his hand and squeezed it reassuringly; smiling that special smile she reserved only for him, and then moved boldly to stroke one of his cheeks.
“Charge for pointlessly shipping McGonagall and Dumbledore,” the RMC said.
Dumbledore and McGonagall talked at bit more about Sarah, who was the most talented Animagus-student McGonagall had ever taught.
“What’s an Animagus?” Mittens asked.
“It’s a wizard or witch who can turn into an animal at will,” the RMC replied. “They are supposed to be very rare.”
“Isn’t that a charge, then?”
The RMC shrugged. “The thing is, three out of the four Marauders were Animagi so I can’t really bring myself to charge for it. Besides, we can cover it with a general charge for being good at far too many things.” I took a look at the Words. “Author’s note coming up. And, oh, there’s a Helping Hand.”
The agents both covered their ears as the voice boomed.
But I thought that sarahm being the one more fuzzily descrived and developed throughout the movie neede more background and it was also necessary to understand how she fitted in the Harry Potter universe before tossing Jareth into the mix.
The mini, sarahm, floated over to the agents and enthusiastically grabbed first Mittens’ hand and shook it, and then the RMC’s’.
“I think it’s happy that we’re taking it out of here,” the RMC said.
“No wonder. I know I would be happy, if someone came to take me out of this fic.”
Enjoy and as always, review if you can and want. Any kind of comment is welcome. As for the person who told me about Sarah being a tad too perfect, I am trying to show her defects, and being stoic and unaproachable is certainly one of them. Thank you for the comment, though, I don’t want Sarah to pass from being am original charachter to becoming some sort of Mary Sue.
Mittens and the RMC looked at each other and started giggling.
“Seriously, though” Mittens said, when he was done laughing. “Being stoic and unapproachable is not a defect. Now, if the note had said ‘dull’ or ‘boring’ that would have been different.”
See you in a week or two,
Artemis Samhain
Hell’s Librarian.
Mittens stopped smiling. “Hell don’t have librarians,” he said. “Or libraries. It has archives. Big nasty archives filled with things that want to kill you. I was in one of them once and I nearly got eaten by a book.”
“Yes, that’s right, but we cant charge her with breaking our canon.”
“How about with claiming that she is not a Sue?”
“Go right ahead.”
Mittens scribbled the charge as the next chapter started – with a new punctuation-rain.
******************************** Past ********************************
The agents shielded themselves from the rain as best they could. At least, since the timeshift was described this time, they were not knocked over, but only felt a slight lurch, as they were dragged back through an undefined length of time, and back to the Williams’ house. They peeked through the door at Sarah, who was alone in the house, doing homework.
The wind roared outside, waking her up from her daydreams and making her focus on her almost-but-not-quite-finished essay and sighed, going back to the subject of the Magical Wars and muggles and wondering whether Professor Binns would in fact be surprised when he found out that someone had actually been awake during his last lesson of the year to write down the homework and truly do it.
“Charging for run-on sentences,” Mittens said.
The sound of crystal smashing reached her ears from the ground floor and was followed by the unmistakable sounds of struggle. She recognized the squeaks of Oaklyn, whom she had seen fly downstairs a couple of minutes ago, probably bored of Sarah’s tiny and stuffed bedroom.
“Sarah’s bedroom was not tiny,” Mittens muttered.
The RMC nodded. “Charge for ripping off Harry,” it said.
They followed behind Sarah as she went downstairs to examine where the noise was coming from.
But what made her gasp in horror was not the current state of her dinning-room or the thoughts of the time that would take her to turn the room back to normal without magic. It was the sight of her pet animal, her rather big owl being “embraced” by a large green diamond serpent. But it was no ordinary animal, that one. When it moved it seemed to shimmer and change colours from green to silver and back to green again. That, as professor Lupin had once taught her was the unmistakable characteristic of a death-strike snake, a symbol of the Dark Arts.
“Inventing an non-canonical name and description for a species of snake,” the RMC said.
Fae magic was more slippery, more flowing than Wizardry magic, as well as colder to the blood. She felt it as it flowed through her veins in fluent waves of ice.
“Fluent waves of ice?” Mittens said. “I think the words you’re looking for are ‘ice water’.”
Sarah pried her eyes away from the hypnotic golden pools of the animal long enough to search for a pointy object but to her dismay the kitchen was still baby-proof and all sharp things were kept secured and locked. And the key, of course, was no where to be seen. Toby was seven by now, but Karen, nor really being a housewife, hadn’t had time to turn her house back to normal. And then Catherine, sweet, little, horribly-spoiled and heavenly normal Cathy had come along, and Karen had been so afraid she could get hurt that had left the house as it was, even though Catherine was by now two years of age.
“Ew!” Mittens exclaimed as pools of suspicious looking golden liquid showed up on the floor.
“Charge for whining about baby-proofing, in a home with a two-year old,” the RMC said.
“Oh, Gods” she whispered to herself, looking at her reflection in the mirror near the hallway to find her image reflected there:
“Well, who else would she expect to see in a mirror?” the RMC said.
Sarah defeated the snake by using her magic to break a mirror and impale it on the shards. Then, for no stated reason, she decided to pack her things and leave the house.
Closing her eyes she rested her whole right palm on the mirror and concentrated in Europe, Great Britain, England and finally a little area called Grimmauld Place.
Sarah walked through the mirror and the agents portalled after her, to a short while after her arrival. Sarah was explaining – or rather, lying about – how she knew about the Order and its headquarters.
“And keeping my senses attuned to my surroundings and… well, and being a quiet person one can be informed of many things in Hogwarts”
“No, don’t tell them about your mirror magic and let them decide if maybe it is something they could use against Voldemort,” Mittens said.
“Charge for it.”
“We know, Miss Williams, we all know. And we all agreed that our secret would be safe with you, but what I wanted to discuss with you is your real reason to be here. All other explanations you can keep to yourself, you won’t be judged inside this room. It was decided unanimously” the Headmaster said pleasantly, though he threw a look at Sirius and Snape before adding “Though some of us needed a little more convincing than others”
She either didn’t notice or choose to ignore the young woman wearing a Hogwarts uniform, who was sniffling quietly in a corner, fighting bravely to hold back her tears, and the young man also in uniform, who was awkwardly patting her arm, trying to console her.
Sarah also told about the attack by the snake and that this had somehow fuelled her desire to help defeat Voldemort.
“So I want to join the only force I know of that is truly capable of defeating him, though I know I can’t be an official member till I am of age, so I want to be sort of unofficial, like the Twins or Harry, Ron and Hermione. And that is why I’m here now”
Too stunned to speak, or now knowing exactly what the heck to say, everyone remained silent for a while, silently assessing the courage and the spirited will of the quiet, soft-spoken but firm and stubborn young woman in front of them.
The RMC sighed and dried its eyes on the paper handkerchief Mittens had given it. It looked at the Words. “Now that I’ve finished mourning the death of natural suspicion and common sense in this fic, let’s skip some paragraphs – except that this fic doesn’t have those.” It frowned at what it read. “Charge her with giving us a whole chapter about how she is all alone and everybody hates her and nobody talks to her, when she apparently had made a bunch of friends and acquaintances here. Either she has made the members of the Order huge jerks to treat her this way, when they get back to Hogwarts, or she has already forgotten what happened in the first chapter.”
Mittens noted the charge and the RMC punched the buttons on the RA and sent them forward to where Harry arrived at the Order’s headquarters.
“What is she doing here?” Harry said out of the blue, a little bit more forcefully than he had intended, totally confused and angrier, because people seemed to be keeping more and more things from him. Everyone remained quiet as they moved towards the dinning room to sit on the table while Molly Weasley whiskered the kids away except for Harry.
“That’s a good question” Sirius muttered under his breath. Snape, for once, agreed with him.
“Good old Harry. Sirius and Snape too,” the RMC said.
“Giving Molly Weasley whiskers,” Mittens said and noted the charge.
In the fic, Snape spoke up.
“For heaven’s sake, even Black TRIES to make himself useful tough all that he does is scowl and walk around the house. But Miss Williams… what has she done to deserve her status of unofficial member of the Order of the Phoenix?”
The agents silently cheered on Snape.
“I believe I can answer” she said boldly, sitting down gingerly and never breaking eye contact. Her eyes changed from silver to green and back to silver, never settling for one colour
“Colour-changing eyes,” Mittens said, “and by now, I think we can charge for an overuse of adjectives and adverbs.”
Sarah explained how she had secretly helped Harry, Ron and Hermione, by dropping clues for them to find and later by distracting Mrs. Norris and Filch, protecting them in the Forbidden Forest and making her own owl keep Hedwig safe. She finished by explaining how Harry had gotten stuck in the maze because of some rare Fae magic, but that she had a talent for labyrinths and therefore had been able to find him.
“Taking credit for far to many canon events,” the RMC said. “Also, while the Harry Potter series does have a long and proud tradition for people eavesdropping, what she is talking about is pure stalking and should be charged as such.”
“Can you back up her testimony, Albus?” Mad-Eye Moody said suddenly “I think that would be the only proof anyone here should need”
The Headmaster nodded solemnly at once, giving the unquestionable proof everyone wanted. Ron had his jaw hanging open, Harry’s eyes rivalled the size of saucers and Hermione contented herself with impersonating a Goldfish by opening and closing her mouth in utter shock. Suddenly every single unexplainable thing or aid they had gotten, like Firenze conveniently finding and befriending them, had acquired an explanation and they hadn’t realized before the extra hand that had always been there.
The RMC sighed. “Making everybody incredible gullible. I’ll get a count on exactly how gullible.” It took out the CAD and started getting readings on everyone, who it hadn’t already checked. Sirius Black and Molly Weasley were the lowest with around 15% each; they were in fic very little and acted as two-dimensional, but not incorrect versions of themselves. Dumbledore was the worst with 59%. “Sirius, Molly and Remus aren’t in the rest of this fic,” the RMC said. “We’ll neuralyze them when Sarah leaves.”
After the neuralyzing of the canon characters, the RMC looked at the Words to see how far they needed to go. “There’s the start of a new school year. Dolores Umbridge arrives. Sarah is apparently infamous among the new students. Fred and George have an actual funny moment. The Dueling Club. A scene with McGonagall and tolerable dialogue. Bashing Umbridge is not much of a charge . Actually, I think we can skip all of the third chapter and go straight to the fourth. It picks up where the first chapter ended, with Dumbledore and McGonagall being romantic. We’ll skip that part too.” It punched a couple of buttons on the RA and the agents jumped through the portal.
They arrived in a scene at a nondescript location – the only description being, that there was a throne and Voldemort was sitting on it – and watched from a corner as a Death Eater named Finian Bloodstone talked to the Dark Lord and tried to get permission to go after Sarah Williams and kill her, before she became stronger.
“I’ll not grant you permission for this… personal quest of yours, the risk of being discovered for such a petty motive as personal revenge is too high” Tom Riddle said finally “And if you disobey me, you better not come back… Or you’ll wish you would have died in the process”
“Is that canon?” Mittens whispered.
The RMC shook its head. “No,” it said. Finian Bloodstone is an OC. And Voldemort would never tell someone that if he disobeyed him, he shouldn’t come back; he would warn him, that he would find him and kill him.” The CAD confirmed both statements; Finian Bloodstone was a bit and Voldemort was 30% OOC. “Voldemort only appears this one time, so we can just neuralyze him and the other Death Eaters, and move on.”
Those were not empty threats and everyone knew that, but the blood of Finian demanded the shedding of the Williams’ blood, and he could do nothing more than to try and carry out the vendetta of his family as quietly and secretly as possible. The Death-strike snake had failed, so he would have to get things done personally.
“It’s a family-feud,” the RMC said, then shrugged. “Not very original, but I suppose many great villains have had the same motive, so it’ll do.”
There was another unmarked shift in time and space and once again the scenery changed like a set piece being pulled out and another being shoved in. The agents crashed into a wall and landed in a small heap.
“I am getting really, really sick of these scene shifts,” Mittens said. The RMC who had landed on top of him, got to its feet and helped him get up as well. They looked around. They were in a room in the Goblin Castle and Jareth was there. Fortunately, everybody was far too concentrated on other things to notice their arrival.
The powerful Jareth, King of the Goblins and High Lord and Leader of the Daoine and Leanan Sidhe had been reduced to a brooding shadow of himself by some teenage mortal, a flash of a majestic being he had once been.
Mittens blinked. “That’s not right,” he said. “That’s not right at all.”
He was a warrior, the best of the Sidhe kin, Master of TirnanOg, the so-called Land of the Ever-Young, were the trio of Fairy Realms or Courts (Annwyn, Avalon and Albion) resided. He was above said Courts, being the ultimate representative of the three main kin of the Sidhe: The Warrior Kin (Daoine Sidhe), the Dark, Seducing Kin (Leanan Sidhe) and the long-gone but never-forgotten Aes Sidhe, the Godly Kin.
“That’s not canon!” Mittens exclaimed. “None of this has any basis whatsoever in canon.” The RMC wordlessly handed him some bleeprin and he swallowed them. It felt for him; Mittens had been on missions before, but this was the first time he saw a canon he actually knew and cared about being broken.
“Inventing multiple non-canonical races and lands.” Mittens wrote down the charge.
“By now, I also think we can charge for consistently confusing were and where,” the RMC said.
The agents watched it was revealed that Sarah’s dreams about Jareth was in fact his doing. Then he apparently had an idea to get back into her life; and then he went to sleep. Yet another punctuation rain marked the start of a new dream sequence, which took place in a ballroom.
His cat-like, mismatched eyes surrounded by oddly-shaped eyebrows and the dark shadow between characteristic of all Sidhe (proving that he does not, under any kind of circumstances, wear eye-shadow) scanned the room quickly and thoroughly.
“In-text author’s notes,” the RMC said.
Mittens nodded. “Also charging for claiming that Jareth does not wear eye-shadow, when clearly he does. It even changes colour between the scenes, so is the fic trying to claim that he has colour changing eyelids?”
“I wouldn’t put it past it.” It checked the words and frowned. “There’s some more description of clothes, but we’ve already upped the charge. They talk a bit and dance and nothing else happens. It’s just like the dreams she has already described, which makes this whole scene rather pointless,” the RMC said. “Charge for that and let’s move on.”
‘I need a life. One that does not revolve around him’ Sarah Williams thought during Herbology, were she had had a hard time trying to control herself when she discovered that, while absentmindedly sketching what had started as a mandragora, she had drawn the face of a certain well-known Fae.
Alicia, Angelina and Katie snatched her notebook and looked at the picture.
The RMC checked the Words and frowned. “She’s best friend with these three, in addition to being friends with Harry, Hermione and Ron. There’s the thing with being an Animagus, which might not be too bad on its own, but then she’s also a member of the Order. You would think she was working her way through a Harry Potter Sue check listing. Charge for being a cliché in this continuum as well.”
Sarah nodded gravely and retrieved her sketchbook, but not before both Gryffindors saw the picture of the man with long, wispy hair and unsettling mismatched eyes that looked slightly saddened. His sharp features, high cheekbones and queer eyebrows were all perfectly sketched in black charcoal and seemed both strong and delicate.
“She started sketching an mandragora and ended up with that?” the RMC said. “That’s goes way beyond being good at everything, that’s just ridiculous.”
“Charging for being ridiculously good at doodling.”
Of all the three Katie was the one closer to her and had convinced her to try Quidditch, for which she was forever grateful. She was a dueller at heart, but she loved the team and each of the members and it gave her an opportunity to socialize during practises, in which she helped even though she rarely played in any of the matches.
The RMC blinked. “Wait a tick. She has friends and people to talk with? Even though this chapter is set in the same present as the first chapter, where she is all alone and everyone is afraid of her and nobody talks to her, except sometimes Fred and George, despite of the fact that she is a member of the Order of the Phoenix and made friends during the summer and …” It stopped talking and grabbed the bleeprin instead. “Stupid fic,” it muttered as it shook out a couple of pills. “Can’t keep a time line with one measly flashback straight.” It checked the words and frowned. “Well, hello Plot,” it said. “I was beginning to suspect, that you were never going to show up.” It looked back at Mittens. “The clock strikes thirteen, Sarah runs to the Great Hall, while shouting that the Headmaster should be warned of dangers inside Hogwarts and the chapter ends with something with glowing, green eyes waiting for her in the Hall. Let’s skip to the next chapter.”
Next chapter opened with Jareth.
He was dressed in common Sidhe clothes. The tights, flourish shirts and eccentric capes he reserved for when he had to play Goblin King, but in reality he dressed as one would have expected a magical being: a black tunic made out of airy fabric that reached to his knees and had silver strings embroiled in the hemline, neckline and cuffs, a leather vest and a pair of trousers made out of some black animal skin that appeared apt for hunting. Over the tunic he had a long coat made of some soft, yet strong black fabric with silver buttons with engravings in some unknown language and showered with the glittered that accompanied any Sidhe. What remained the same was the spiky hair and the long boots but his head was now adorned with what appeared to be a platinum circlet consisting of a single string of metal circling his head till his forehead were the string became Celtic knots symbolizing his status and hierarchy.
Mittens blinked. “He’s a character replacement,” he said.
The RMC raised its eyebrows. “I’ll just confirm that,” it said. “We’re long overdue for a reading anyway.” It pointed the CAD at the Goblin King. [Jareth. Canon/uncanon/canon … Kel-Lite. Gary Stu. Son Records] It looked at Mittens. “Nice. How could you tell?”
Mittens face was all seriousness, but a slight tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him, when he answered: “Well, there’s all the non-canonical stuff and the glitter was also a give-away. But what really tipped me off was all that description of clothes and not one mentioning of too tight pants. He couldn’t be the real Jareth.”
The RMC grinned, then said: “That means we’ll have to keep a separate chargelist for him.”
Mittens nodded. “Good thing we brought that extra notebook. I’ll rewrite the charges that belong with him and add his very own for over-description of clothes.”
In the fic, the Labyrinth spoke to Jareth, warning him that Sarah was in danger and they had a brief argument, since Jareth wasn’t allowed to come near Sarah.
“This may have to be sped up, but I think I can enthral her into doing it” he said absentmindedly as he peered into the crystal, were the image of a frightened girl running down a hallway with along with an older-looking girl and some boys could be seen “It would be the only way”
“You want the girl to wish our Keeper away?” the Labyrinth asked carefully, assessing the pros and cons of the idea. But the King had a gleam in his eye and an almost sadistic smile graced his features. No, he was definitely having a better idea.
“As tempting as that might sound… No” he said slowly, his eyes hardening “The girl is scared. She fears for Sarah, I can tell. Someone is trying to hurt my Sarah, right? Well, then I’ll get this pretty little girl to wish the foolish bastard away”
There was a sentence indicating a change of scene and the agents found themselves back at Hogwarts without being thrown about.
Virginia, Ronald, Fred and George Weasley were gasping for air along with a panting Hermione Granger (Professor McGonagall arched an eyebrow at that particular sight) and a out of breath Harry Potter.
“Wait, who’s that?” Mittens asked and pointed at a mini-Aragog with a very confused expression.
The RMC looked at it for a moment, then facepalmed. “Ginny’s real name is Ginevra, not Virginia.” It sighed. “I suppose we should be thankful that it only spawned a mini. As battered as the canon already is, it could just as well have dragged in someone from a third continuum.”
Mittens picked up the mini and placed it in the backpack, then charged for its creation.
The RMC sighed and swallowed a couple of bleeprin, also handing some to Mittens. It looked at the Words. “We’ve fallen behind. We’ll portal to the Great Hall.”
Sarah Williams ranted to herself, furious at her own impetuousness. She was such a calm, collected girl all the time, why one Earth had she chosen that particular moment to be reckless and hot-headed, not to mention rash?
“So,” Mittens said. “Would you say that she has made herself act out of character?”
“I would. Incidentally, that is one of my favourite charges.”
“What is it that attracts them all to me?” she wondered silently as she stood, her wand tightly held in one of her hands, the other one ready to step into action as well
Sarah’s one hand detached itself from her arm and hung in the air a few meters from her, ready to help out if needed.
“Creating horrifying anatomy,” the RMC said, reaching once again for the bleeprin.
Sarah sensed that a magical barrier now surrounded the Great Hall to stop Dumbledore from coming to her aid.
It was a truly impressive work of art, and surely the job of a professional barrier-maker, and she thought for a moment which wizardry families focused on practising that particular branch of magic, so as to get a clue at who her attacker was.
“Charge her with having wizarding families specialise in very specific types of magic,” the RMC said.
She remembered something about a pureblood wizardry family whose coat of arms had two Deathstrike snakes entwined… Belladonna had told her about them, saying something also about a family feud…
“Oh my God, the Bloodstones” she gasped suddenly “Finian Bloodstone was accused of being a Death Eater back when Voldemort weakened after his encounter with Harry as a baby… He was absolved but it was obvious, the Great Bella always said it… He was guilty. He killed most of the Williams'”
“So her family has a mortal enemy and yet she has to guess the identity of her killer by connecting the method of attack to a family?” Mittens said.
“Apparently she wanted to show how clever and knowledgeable she is and completely forgot about common sense. Charge her with being clever in a stupid way.”
Flashbacks of the matron of the Family’s funeral flashed across her mind, angering her. The Great Bella had been old and yes, cranky and authoritative but also kind of heart and wise beyond even her years. She had taught Sarah the secret duellist strategies of the Williams, a family well-know for producing wonderful Aurors and professional duellers. She had grown to care for that witch.
“You are an omen of things to come, child. I’m sure the Williams family will rise from its ashes, and we’ll have witches again. You are the first of a new generation, I can feel it” she had told her once.
The RMC pinched the bridge of its nose. “It was very clearly stated in the first chapter, that the Williams family hadn’t produced a witch or wizard for something like one or two centuries, yet she keeps contradicting this. If she’s going make ridiculous claims, she should at least stand by them.” It shook its head. “The whole thing would have made much more sense, if she had simply made her father a Squib, who had broken off contact with the wizarding world. That would also have spared us the absurd idea, that her family only produce witches. Charge her with having a background that is non-canonical, inconsistent and, well, pointless, since having a speshul background does not count as a point.”
Mittens wrote down the charges, then tapped his pen on the notebook. “The old lady,” he said.
“What about her?”
“I was just thinking … She is described as being powerful because of age and experience, kind and wise, but also with a couple of bad traits.”
“You’re right, she sounds like a well-rounded character.” The RMC frowned. “Knowing that this fic is capable of balanced characters actually makes Sarah seem worse.”
A particular big and menacing snake advanced towards her and, when it was about ten feet away from her transformed into a dark-hooded wizard. His eyes, as gold as the eyes of the snakes around him, glittered from the depths of his hood and his thin, white hands were holding a simple, long wand. He was, from every single angle, a Death Eater. Simple, accurate, lethal.
“If only the latter was true,” Mittens said. “The she would die and the fic would be over and we could neuralyze everyone and go home.”
In the fic, Sarah talked to the Death Eater.
“An unregistered animagus, I suppose. Shame on you. Though a very clever trick to get past the school barriers, I must admit.
There was a wheezing sound from the RMC, as if it had choked on its own breathing. “Has this fic gone completely insane!?” it asked. “If being an animagus or an animal or whatever it is she’s implying, was enough to get into the school, doesn’t she think that Voldemort would have sent Nagini or one of his own Animagi to kill Harry Potter? If someone in animal form could get into Hogwarts, then the Harry Potter series would have ended shortly after the fourth book! How stupid does this fic think Voldemort is? How stupid does it think its readers are?” It took a deep breath to calm itself. “Okay, maybe not the fourth book, but the point still stands. Charge for making the exceptionally stupid claim that an animagus can pass the school’s barriers.”
She calmly looked at him in the eyes and drew her wand, standing in a dueller posse.
Sarah was suddenly wearing a cowboy hat and had her wand hanging from a leather belt. She held her hand over it, ready to draw.
The duel started and the agents watched, gloomy. The spells used were canonical, but the fight itself was severely lacking in pacing and the combatants, especially Sarah, wouldn’t shut up. Then Winky, the House-elf showed up in the middle of the fight.
And those two in front of her were miserable, Winky trying to drown the memories of her betrayal and Dobby trying to make her see life as it should be for them.
Dobby appeared, but he was shimmering, as if the Word World wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be there or not.
“I would have said that this looks like a leftover from a previous draft, except that I refuse to believe that this fic has had more than one draft,” the RMC said. “Charge for forgetting about Dobby.”
She picked her up without paying attention to the sudden fireball at her back, and the snakes digging their fangs into the skin of her neck and arms instead of the creature. She forced herself to stand up even as the spell hit her in the shoulder, sending her staggering back.
Both agents had a soft spot for the small and helpless and the scene might have been touching, if not for the way Finian Bloodstone first cast a fireball from behind Sarah and then was jerked through the room like a puppet on invisible strings to cast another, undefined spell, this time standing in front of her.
Sarah summoned a crystal barrier around Winky. Dobby disappeared as the Words decided, that he wouldn’t be needed after all.
“Why didn’t she summon that crystal barrier around herself?” Mittens asked. “Seriously, she keeps going on about how she only has to stay alive until Dumbledore arrives and helps her, so why didn’t she do the obvious and summon a crystal ball to protect herself?”
“Because she’s stupid, that’s why. Or to be more specific, she’s too stupid to realize that she can’t have both the scene with the crystal barrier and the fight scene.”
“Frons morsus!”
“What?” Mittens asked.
The spell, Sarah had just used, seemed to cause the Death Eater a great deal of pain and made him loose concentration.
“Charge her with inventing a incantation, that is non-canonical, breaks the naming-convention by sounding more French than Latin and is redundant,” the RMC said. “If you want to cause people pain with a spell, you use the Cruciatus Curse; you don’t come up with something new.”
Sarah was by then so weakened by the snake venom that she dropped her wand and fell to the floor.
“The end of the Williams family has come at last. The family feud will conclude with our victory”
“Either not too bright or badly informed,” the RMC said. “Sarah has a younger sister who, being a girl, will no doubt inherit the Williams magic.”
But as the Death Eater uttered those words another voice, a childish voice said clearly and firmly, with a hint of hope: “I wish the goblins would come and take him away…”
“Avada Kedavra”
“Right now!
Mittens crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Not buying it,” he said.
“Not buying what?”
“According to hints in this fic, Ginny has gotten hold of Sarah’s book or play or whatever, ‘The Labyrinth’, and has learned about summoning the Goblins. Okay, fair enough.”
“Dumber plots have been seen.”
“Probably. But how would she know what words to use? The book probably contains the verse that Sarah said the first time, which doesn’t summon anything; it most certainly does not have the right words. So how does she know what to say? I suppose she could try a couple of times, but it sounds like she got it right on her first attempt. How?”
“Good point. Charge for putting the wrong words in the book. Or the right words. Or … This is giving me a headache.” It swallowed a couple of bleeprin and handed some to Mittens.
In the fic, the teachers broke through the barrier, but was too late to stop Sarah getting hit by the Killing Curse.
“No!” Minerva shouted, disbelief written plainly across her features. He couldn’t believe what she had just seen.
Once again, the scene might have been touching, but was ruined; this time by Minerva McGonagall undergoing a spontaneous sex change. The RMC pinched the bridge of its nose while Mittens wrote the charge.
In the fic, the green mist was clearing.
Soon the figure of a man could be made out, tall and thin, dressed in black from the tips of his gloves to the tips of his boots, one of his palms stretched and holding a hovering green ball of energy… The Avada Kedavra.
The Jareth-imposter had made his appearance.
“Charge him with being able to Apparate into Hogwarts,” the RMC said.
Near him the twins, Hermione, Ron, Harry, Ginny and strangely Professor Snape gaped at him, while the Deputy Headmistress and the Headmaster looked at themselves and then at the stranger, trying to understand the situation.
Dumbledore and McGonagall both looked down at themselves, as if to see if their clothes were in order, then looked at Jareth.
The stranger smiled wolfishly then, taking a lazy yet graceful step forward, the heel of his boots clicking on the hard stone floor.
The heel on his boots grew together and the step looked more like a waddling than anything graceful. Finian Bloodstone tried to use the Cruciatus Curse on Jareth, but he caught the spell in mid-air and threw it back.
There was also a light in his eye, and Jareth recognized it almost instantly… Insanity. The man was on the verge of it. How quaint.
Mittens looked at Finian with renewed interest.
After those words escaped his lips he made a precise, quick gesture with his hands and slammed the Death Eater against a wall with another scream of pain, followed by very colourful obscenities that even surprised George and Fred, who in spite of the situation did take mental notes.
Jareth slammed Finian against a wall, then began to scream and swear.
Mittens shook his head. “Charging for a serious case of pronoun confusion.”
He contemplated briefly the broken, wounded man in front of him and all he could see was greed and hatred, and the horrible primal desire to kill.
Mittens looked at Finian with even more interest.
In the fic, Sarah was thinking, that maybe Jareth was a hallucination.
‘Only one way to find out’ her mind calmly stated before Sarah’s right hand, the gloved one, with the crystal, rose and gently, and slowly, brushed the left side of the Fae’s forehead, and she gasped silently. As if entranced she continued moving her fingers against his skin, travelling with feather-light touches his eyebrows, his sharp cheekbones and his jaw line, her eyes caught in his heated gaze. He was cool against her touch, almost too cold to her fingertips and her hand tingled at the mere feel of him against her skin. Suddenly he closed his eyes and moved his face so he could nuzzle against her hand, his expression briefly one of confused bliss.
“Couldn’t she just have touched his hand or something?” the RMC asked. “Mittens, charge for too much touching.”
Sarah asked Jareth not to kill Finian, then fainted.
“You are one lucky fool” he stated calmly while he produced a crystal ball out of thin air and grabbed the collar of Finian’s robes with his other hand. He threw the crystal to a wall and an opening appeared, along with a set of grey hands and a whole in the floor that seemed to go way down.
Since he had thrown the crystal at the wall and the opening had appeared there, there was now a shaft in the wall, not going sideways, but down. It hurt to look at. There was also a ‘whole’ in the floor, which was equally head-ache inducing and called for another round of bleeprin. The Death Eater disappeared into the shaft in the wall, which then vanished.
Jareth turned his attention to the unconscious Sarah. He tore open her robes and started to suck the venom from the snake-bites.
The RMC gritted its teeth. “That is a completely ineffective method for getting rid of snake venom and it is nothing more than a extremely poor excuse to get Sarah and Jareth intimate. However, it is kind of a trope, so we can’t even charge for it.”
“Most of the bites were on Sarah’s back and he haven’t turned her over to look at them. We could charge for that.”
“Good catch. Charge for giving ineffective treatment and drooling all over her instead.”
It averted its eyes as Jareth sucked on a bite on Sarah’s neck. Mittens winced, but managed to get the charges down.
The RMC watched the Words. “Oh, no. He is going to kiss Sarah while she is unconscious and we have to watch if we want to … No, wait. Dumbledore interrupted him.”
Mittens took a deep breath. “Finian,” he begun.
“What about him?”
“I … Maybe it’s just because he tried to kill Sarah, which is something I can really get behind, but I kind of liked him. I thought that maybe he would make a good agent. After all, the fic did describe him as being on the brink of insanity and with a penchant for killing and isn’t that more or less what the PPC looks for in agents?”
“Well, not just that. But you’re right. He did a couple of stupid things, but not too many, and they could have been due to the Suefluence. Let’s give recruiting a shot.”
“But not now. We’ll leave him in the Oubliette for a day or two; that should make him easier to persuade.”
“You’re the expert.”
In the fic, Jareth had now picked up Sarah and was asking where her should take her.
He seemed imposing even as he asked for help, the soaking girl tucked within his arms safely.
“Soaking?” the RMC asked. “When did she get wet?”
“He must have drooled on her some more, while we had our backs turned,” Mittens said.
“Charge for making herself soaking, thereby creation horrible implications.”
“She should be taken to the Hospital Wing” Minerva McGonagall said with her usual no-nonsense tone of voice “Madam Promfrey will most likely be awake, don’t you think Albus?”
The mini-Aragog, Promfrey, popped into existence. Mittens picked it up and placed in the backpack, then added its creation to the charge list.
The empty darkness of an author’s note enveloped the agents. The note consisted of two lines, that maybe were intended as footnotes. The first one was:
Just think Lord of the Rings and Elrond of Riverdendell here, people.
The second line was completely drowned out as there was a scream. A long, drawn-out AAAARRGGHHH! Mittens grabbed the newly spawned mini-Balrog, Riverdendell, and hugged it tightly, not caring that it burned his hands. The mini-Balrog whimpered and tried to hide in the folds of his robe, which started smouldering.
Finally the scream subsided and there was the sound of something drawing breath. “I hate this fic!” a voice yelled and Mittens sighed in relief as he recognised the voice of the RMC. He opened a portal back to their RC and gently pushed Riverdendell through; he hadn’t expected a mini-Balrog on this mission and the backpack wasn’t fireproof. In the blue light from the portal, he wrote down the charge for creating a mini-Balrog and another for doing it in the wrong continuum. He then looked at the RMC who was angrily crunching bleeprin and added ‘severely annoying PPC Agents’ to the list.
“Charge her with comparing one of her stupid OCs with Lord Elrond,” the RMC said. It had finally calmed down. “Anyway, nothing much happens in the beginning of chapter six, so let’s skip to where she finally explains what is going on. That should be interesting.”
“Well, I have indeed met him before. As for knowing him, I do hope our acquaintance isn’t that deep; though, Merlin aid me, I do think that in some level that statement is true” someone said softly, voice flat and melodic. Sarah Williams stood in the threshold of the Great Hall, her expression one of guiltiness and reluctance.
“While I remember it, charge for giving people far too many and sometimes conflicting expressions of voices and faces,” the RMC said.
Gathered in the Great Hall along with Sarah were Hermione, Ron, Harry and Ginny, also the Weasley twins and Sue!Sarah’s three best friends, Katie, Angelina and Alicia. Snape, Dumbledore and McGonagall were also present.
Jareth appeared, furious because Sarah had gotten out of bed. They had an argument and Sarah let slip how strongly Jareth made her feel. The agents noted a charge for using far too many direct quotes from the movie. The two Stues then sat down with the teachers and students. Sarah told the story of how she had wished her baby-brother away and solved the Labyrinth to get him back. Jareth conjured up a crystal ball, the size of a beach ball and placed it on the table.
“Is he doing, what I think he is doing?” Mittens asked.
With those words the Sidhe brushed his fingertips across the smooth, cool surface, leaving a trail of glimmering glitter behind. Inside the crystal a thick, silvery mist begun to form and take over, growing white in colour and shining till it showed an image inside. The image of a fifteen-year-old girl with flowing chocolate-brown hair, a poet’s shirt, a vest and a pair of jeans yelling to a tall, blond woman dressed fashionably and apparently ready to go out.
“Oh, they can’t be serious,” the RMC said. “He is showing them the movie?”
Still, the two agents moved closer to the table. After having spend hours looking at Stu!Jareth and Sue!Sarah, it was far too tempting to see the real movie. The two character replacements had their backs to the agents, so they could sneak up behind them, and the Harry Potter canons couldn’t see them, so they got very close. Close enough to hear the words.
“It doesn’t look that far” the girl in the crystal whispered hopefully, looking at the farfetched castle at the end of the maze with a thoughtful expression on her face. Suddenly there was warm breath on her neck and a voice close to her ear and she half-turned towards the face of the Goblin King, feeling self-conscious at his proximity.
“It’s further than you think” he taunted with a half smile “And time’s short”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Mittens, who then hissed: “Wrong!” which was quite a feat, since there are no ‘s’-sounds in the word. “It should be ‘Time is short,’” he continued, careful to to also get the rhythm of the sentence right. “All those quotes from the movie and they can’t even get them right, when it really counts.” He scribbled the charge.
“Hoggle” Sarah half laughed, half sobbed. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, since he had gotten married two months ago.
Interestingly enough, ‘half laughed and half sobbed’ would also have been an accurate description of the sound Mittens made. “Hoggle? Married off in an offhand comment? That’s just …” He had already placed the pen on the notebook, but the RMC grabbed his hand.
“We can’t charge for it,” it said.
Mittens looked at it. He didn’t argue – Mittens almost never argued with the RMC – but he looked confused and genuinely hurting.
The RMC closed its eyes for a moment. Canon love was a great and beautiful thing, but it did have some nasty drawbacks at times. “I’ve seen the movies,” it said. “I know Hoggle didn’t exactly seem like the marrying kind, but you have to remember, that this fic takes place seven year after the movie and a lot of things can happen in seven years. It’s unlikely, but not totally impossible.”
“It’s not fair,” Mittens said, too upset to notice that now he was quoting the movie as well. “They married him of, so they could claim that he’s on a honeymoon; they might as well just have stuffed him in a plothole. It’s all because he’s not glittery enough, so they can’t be bothered with including him.”
“I do not doubt for one second that you are right, but it’s one thing what we know and another thing what we can prove. And we need to be able to make the charges stick, otherwise we are really no better than the badficcers.”
Mittens nodded slowly and the agents turned their attention back to the fic.
In the crystal, the action had been speeded up and images was flashing by, until they got to the part where Sarah ate the peach.
The silver mist inside the bubble started taking the form of the glittering, crowded ballroom with the colourful images of the dancers draped in damask, silk and satin and twirling following the commands of the music, their Machiavellian smiles and sharp eyes hid behind the demonic masks they wore. The faint sound of chattering and laughter mingled with the hypnotic music playing on the background, and, with the glittering adornments of the room, made it all look like some sort of hazy, confusing dream.
Something was off; the music sounded slow and dragged out, like a vinyl record being played at too low speed.
“It’s the description,” Mittens whispered to the RMC. “It just goes on and on. The scene in the ballroom is actually only a couple of minutes long, but the way they describe it, they make it sound like it takes much longer.”
In the crystal, the slow moving actors were grimacing, as their subtle expressions were replaced by the many and sometimes contrasting emotions described by the words. Mittens looked away, unable to stand the sight.
“Charge for creating a time stretch by over-describing a scene and the actors in it,” the RMC said.
Mittens took a deep breath, nodded and wrote it down.
The Junkyard passed quickly, as well as the fight in the Goblin City, with Ludo calling for the rocks and Hoggle bravely coming to the rescue.
“Oh no she …” Mittens began, forgetting to whisper, but the RMC quickly placed a hand over his mouth and nodded towards the two Stues. They stirred at the sound, but both were too focused on the crystal to really notice Mittens’ outburst. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But she just skipped over the scene with the Junk Lady as if it meant nothing. That is one of the most important scenes in the whole movie. At least as important as the ballroom-scene. And she switched two scenes.”
The RMC nodded. “Just charge for it,” it said.
“Beware Sarah”
“’Sarah, beware’,” Mittens muttered. “Would it have killed you to watch the movie just one more time, while you wrote down the lines?”
The RMC who had been watching the Words, suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side so that they were now behind the teachers’ chairs. Not a moment too soon.
Jareth stood up abruptly from the chair and stalked off, away from the bubble, as if trying in vain to escape what was sure to come.
As the last words of the scene, ‘You have no power over me’, was uttered, Jareth fell to the floor, howling in pain. Apparently it had this effect on him, when Sarah said those words. The two Stues had another pointless argument, again with far too many direct quotes from the movie, but neither agent were paying much attention.
“So,” the RMC said. “This chapter ends and chapter seven begins with … Oh, dear.” Its face darkened.
“What?” Mittens asked.
“Non-canonical … Well, non-canonical everything, in fact. Let’s portal ahead.”
They arrived just as Sarah was beginning her discourse on the Underground.
“The Underground is the realm of the Fae, a set of magic races that live in harmony while we humans live in what they call Aboveground. The two realms were once united, but for reasons to do with the weakening of magic in this realm they decided to break the connection centuries ago. Few Fae possess the gift of travelling in-between worlds and practically no human can do that unaided by Fae magic…” she paused to notice no one had noticed her use of ‘practically no human’ as a way to exclude herself and mentally sighed in relief “The Underground is mostly occupied by TirnanOg, the so called land of the forever young, the Fae. TirnanOg is divided in three Fairy courts, Anwyn, Albion and Avalon. In each there are four ruling Fae races that each have a piece of land and a place in the Great council. And the rest of the underground, quite a large portion of land, is the territory of the Wild Magic which is just that, raw, untamed magic. The Labyrinth is the personification of the Wild Magic, a creature in its own and Jareth is the King of the Goblins and the Labyrinth’s master”
“Completely without any kind of basis in canon,” Mittens said.
“Canons, plural. This goes against the Harry Potter canon as well. Charge for making up an non-canonical Underground and referring to an non-canonical weakening of magic.” It paused for a moment. “Do you want to bet, that all of this will end up being completely pointless and have no relevance to the plot? No wait, even I think it would be a idiotic bet to make. Never mind.”
“So he is a bloody King?” Ron interrupted with his jaw on the floor, looking totally bewildered.
“At this point I would like to charge for Ron-bashing,” the RMC said, “since he has done nothing in this fic, except going around looking slack jawed and saying ‘bloody’.”
“Some say he is a God” she replied “For he is not only the Ruler of the Wild Magic, but also the Master of TirnanOg, given that he is not only part Daoine Sidhe and Leanan Sidhe, but also the direct son of an Aes Sidhe, the Godly Sidhe, the founders of the Underground and the Fairy Races, the Gods of the Underground” she paused to gesture at Jareth “You are seeing the Supreme Authority of the Under Realm, a Fae some have called almighty, of limitless power”
“Okay, we can now officially charge for info-dumping,” the RMC said.
“Also charging Jareth with being a super-overpowered Stu.”
“Almost forgot something. Charge for completely ignoring the fact that the Harry Potter canon already have Goblins, who are very different from the Goblins of the Labyrinth.”
Sarah then told the others how the Labyrinth had given her the crystal in her palm.
“That is how I became the Keeper of the Labyrinth, as I am known in the Underground, keeping peace and harmony inside the Labyrinth. It became my second home. When Karen locked me up in my room over the summer for petty little things I used to sneak out using the mirror and go spend weeks in the Labyrinth, visiting my friends and keeping an eye on the creatures that live there and are under my care. As long as I was inside the Labyrinth Jareth was unable to sense me, so I was safe”
“Charge for having a fancy title, which doesn’t mean anything specific,” the RMC said. “If it turns out that she actually does something, we can always strike it from the list.”
Sarah was very angsty, thinking that everyone would shun her, now that they knew she was a half-Fae, but the Weasley twins found this revelation extremely cool.
Fred shrugged and George mimicked “You are officially a Weasley, mom adopted you on your second year, remember it? And when you are a Weasley I guess there is nothing you can do to change it”
The RMC sighed and reached for the bleeprin. “And we have officially reached the point where the fic can’t keep even the simplest details straight. Sarah was lonely and friendless up until that summer between her sixth and seventh year. Mrs. Weasley hadn’t even met her before that.”
“Charging for a ridiculous amount of inconsistencies.”
In the fic, the disembodied voice of the Labyrinth suggested that Jareth stayed a while at Hogwarts to teach Sarah to use her magic and everyone ended up agreeing on the idea, even Sarah.
It was too much of a risk placing Jareth among mortals, however magical they were. But the options were scarce, and the future of her friends was at stake there. Ludo, sir Didymus, Hoggle who was newly-married… they all deserved peace. They deserved stability. They deserved happiness.
“So now suddenly her friends are in danger? When did that happen?” Mittens asked. “The only danger to her has been from that Bloodstone character and he wouldn’t even have posed a threat to to begin with, if not for a big plot hole.”
“So true. Charge for making a plot hole filled excuse for Jareth to stay in Hogwarts, and for making herself look all noble and sacrificial in the process.”
Then Sarah claimed that Jareth would need a makeover, but Jareth wanted to know what was wrong with what he was wearing now.
“For the Labyrinth I had to dress in tights and flowing shirts, and don’t think that for a moment I liked it. Few of those clothes were actually part of my official wardrobe and you have to admit” he pointed at his fine, medieval and mystical-looking clothes that fit him elegantly “That I have quite a good taste”
“I hate this fic” Mittens said. “I hate it so much.” He gratefully took the bleeprin the RMC offered him. “Charging for bashing the costume design of the movie, and for claiming that he had to wear clothes that he didn’t like in the Labyrinth. Is he trying to say that those were the ceremonial baby-snatching robes?”
Sarah also demanded that Jareth wore glasses made of silverine and explained:
Leanan Sidhe can overwhelm the senses of a mortal with lust and love with a simple look, and they cannot control that power with mortals, as we are over-sensitive to it. There is only one type of crystal, of a see-through grey colour, that can act as a barrier to block that power. If he does not use it, then we would have ever female at Hogwarts swooning over him, basically. And, before you ask, there is a good reason why that didn’t happen with everyone in this room. The only ways in which the charm won’t work is if the subject is currently in love or has experienced true love in his or her life. Ginny, Alicia and Angelina all have boyfriends, so they are not susceptible to the charm. Professor Snape, Headmaster Dumbledore, Fred, George, Ron and Harry
are all straight men, so there is the explanation for them.
The RMC sniggered evilly. “All straight men, indeed,” it said. “This fic was written before The Powers That Be said otherwise, so there’s no way we can charge for it, but we can still laugh about it.” It checked the words. “Anyway, the chapter is coming to an end. Let’s skip to chapter eight.”
“Great,” Mittens said. “My legs are starting to hurt from sitting crouched for so long.”
Chapter eight started with Alicia rummaging through Jareth’s luggage to find something for him to wear, and Sarah looking on.
“Charge for …” the RMC began at the same time Mittens said: “Charging for …” They both stopped and looked at each other. “Jareth not being able to dress himself?” Mittens finished.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Also,” the RMC raised its eyes and addressed the ceiling, “look, fic, we get that this is supposed to be one of those romances, where the main characters are in denial about the fact that they are in love, but having Sarah hang out in Jareth’s room when they are supposed to be mortal enemies, is just way too transparent.”
Sarah ended up picking out clothes for Jareth and even helped him adjust his collar.
“Well, you certainly did not have any trouble selecting his clothes. Think about them often, don’t ya?” Alicia said in a singsong-y voice while fluttering her eyelids in an innocent gesture. Sarah threw her an indifferent look and tried to retreat to her usual countenance, knowing it was no good to feed her friend’s imagination with detail. Alicia was a terrible romantic at heart and saw love everywhere, in everyone.
The RMC pulled put the CAD and pointed it at Alicia. “Nope,” it said after a moment. “Not a character replacement, just terribly out of whack. It’s one thing to be a romantic, it quite another thing to be a romantic about a man who is dangerous, murderous even. Add to that the whole business with Alicia wanting to pick out clothes for Jareth and we have ourselves a charge for serious character defamation of Alicia Spinnet, by turning her into a fluff-headed bubble-brain.”
In the fic, Dumbledore had some sort of plan, which Sarah refused to go along with. Jareth dared her, but she still refused, until he laid out his irresistibly persuasive argument.
“I double dare you”
“What it this?” the RMC asked, disgusted. “Kindergarten?”
The scene changed to dinner in the Great Hall. Jareth entered, along with a long description of his clothes.
The sleeves were broad and reached up to his knees when he folded his arms.
Jareth was turned upside-down and gained a local gravitational field just so the sleeves could properly fall up to his knees.
Sarah made an exclamation of joy and ran to meet him as part of her role in the deception.
“My dearest Sarah” the very British voice said aloud, the words echoing in the hall several times “My precious little one”
“Oh, I just realised,” the RMC said, “charge for consistently making references to British accents in a fic, that takes place in England.”
Ginny and Hermione had a dreamy, faraway look in their eyes and were looking at the scene as if taken out of a romantic movie.
“Oh no, not them as well,” the RMC said. “Add them to the list of characters being defamed.”
“I am Jareth Sidhe, Sarah William’s magic tutor, his guardian till she reaches the age of eighteen.”
Sarah underwent a brief sex change, which fortunately didn’t last more than two words.
“That’s…” a blond-haired, sky-eyed Ravenclaw witch stuttered “That’s not fair!”
Raised eyebrows and fits of incontrollable laughter met that statement. Gwendolyn McGregor, the popular witch of seventh year who had the men of Hogwarts wrapped around her little finger blushed and promptly shut up, staring still at the amazing sight of that man who called himself the Ice-Queen’s tutor. That Williams’ girl, the bloody Gryffindor, did not deserve it! She had gotten, after all, most things that should have belonged to her. Prestige, the Head Girl title, the link with the teachers, all of it. And the friendship of the Boy-Who-Lived, above all things, and of the rest of the Gang.
“Charge for trying to make this a high school teen drama,” the RMC said and pulled out the bleeprins. “We’ll also have to watch that bit. Right now she can probably be assimilated back into canon after a neuralyzation, but if she’s mentioned again, she might need to be removed entirely.” It looked ahead in the text, looking annoyed. “Anyway, Jareth persuades Umbridge to let him stay at Hogwarts. Nothing else of interests happens. There’s an non-canonical House-elf and a ditto portrait and room, which we’ll also have to keep an eye on.” Its face grew even more annoyed. “Let’s skip to chapter nine. There’s a potions class and Jareth is present.” It pressed the buttons and they jumped through the portal.
Jareth remained half-hidden in the shadows, amusingly watching the scene, long legs casually sprawled at each side of Sarah’s chair, carefully trapping her and at the same time serving as a kind of mark. No one could mistake meaning of those eyes as they gazed at her, nor the outstretched arm silently playing with the ends of the girl’s black hair, that had been kept in a simple and flattering ponytail- as opposed to her constricting bun- ever since he had shown up and at his express request.
“No, that’s just it,” the RMC snapped from the back of the classroom. “No one could mistake it. Sarah is supposed to be undercover as a seventeen-year-old and Jareth is supposed to be her tutor, yet none of them bothers to act the part. They are both acting in a way, that is totally inappropriate, is sure to creep all the other students and teachers out and in the Real World would have people calling the child protective services. Charge for it.”
“You know” Jareth couldn’t resist to at least inflict a flicker of trepidation in the tall, proud man who had insisted on verbally abusing his charge throughout the lesson “You remind me of Lucifer”
Mittens jumped as if someone had just shocked him with a jolt of electricity. “He didn’t …” he gasped. “He didn’t …”
“Calm down,” the RMC said. “This isn’t our continuum and nothing bad is going to happen here.”
Mittens nodded slowly. “I’m okay,” he said.
“Anyway, there’s a meeting being held in the Room of Requirement and we should go.” It got up and pulled Mittens with it, then pressed the buttons on the RA.
They portalled to the Room of Requirement, where they found two big comfortable chairs, placed behind a shelf stuffed with enough objects to keep the two agents hidden, but with enough holes to let them watch the characters.
The RMC sat down in one of the chairs. “We did Require a good lookout,” it said, “but it would be a stretch to say that we actually needed two comfortable chairs. This must be the Room of Requirement and Canon in general being nice to us.”
In the fic, Jareth was explaining about the inhabitants of the Underground.
“But that is enough of the Labyrinth. TirnanOg is far more complicated. The twelve Main Kingdoms are divided into two groups of six, one leaded by the Kingdom of the Leanan Sidhe and its King and Queen, and the other one, the light one, leaded by the Doine Sidhe. This dark/light division has always existed, and it is important in the Underground. Halflings of hybrids are feared and/or scorned. I, myself, am feared. Light and dark do not mesh well, I had the help of Godly blood to survive but in general, black does not mingle with white, at least not in marriage or conception. The two sides work together, though, and are in good terms generally. The main Light races are the Doine Sidhe, the Fairies, the Elves, the Seraphim, the Undines and the Unicorns. The main dark Races are the Leanan Sidhe, the Vampires, the Incubus, the Demons, the Djinn and the Dragons. Dark and light, though, do not mean evil and good, so do not make that mistake” Jareth paused as the images of the races appeared on the crystal ball “Whereas it is true that light races are do-gooders and dark races are malicious by nature, the world is made out of shades of grey. Total obscurity and total illumination do not exist. Besides the Twelve main kingdoms there are other twenty-four races that are either inferior or are not established in kingdoms, such as the werewolves that have packs and clans and therefore are too divided to form part of the main dark races. Other races include Magical creatures such as the phoenixes and the Pegasi, the centaurs, the mermen, the leprechauns, etc.
“This is just ridiculous,” Mittens said. “In the movie he was called Jareth, King of the Goblins, not Jareth, Fae of the Godly Kind, King of a bunch of races he just made up.”
“I agree, especially with the last part. It looks like he used a random supernatural creature generator to get those races. And Seraphim and Incubus – which should be Incubi or at least Incubuses – should not be separated from their background like that.”
“I thought we couldn’t charge for this fic going against our canon?”
“We can’t, but this is not just our canon. In the Real World, Seraphim and Incubi are also established as angels and demons respectively. He can’t just use the names for random people is his made-up lands.”
Mittens looked a bit puzzled at this, but also very pleased as he wrote down the charge.
“If I didn’t know how much trouble it would get us into,” the RMC said, “I’d say we hand both of them over to the Discworld Elves and show them what the real Faes were like.”
“Now, power is measured in the form of circlets. The members of the council wear white gold circlets, a sign of great power only topped by me, and my platinum circlet. Next are the rulers of the Twelve Second Races, with yellow-gold circlets and then the members of the Twelve Third Races, with silver circlets. Other circlets such as copper and bronze are measures of power within a kingdom, for example a scribe would wear a copper circlet to indicate his position or an advisor of a powerful race would wear silver of yellow-gold, placing him in the same position of kings and queens of inferior races. The other people apart from the twelve main races who have white-gold status are my highest servants, all members of the Labyrinthine court, my personal group of magical creatures. Some of them, for their unique abilities or services are granted according to their power gold circlets, and a few of them, three in total, have white-gold circlets”
“In other words,” Mittens said, “they have a completely useless system for showing rank.”
“Pretty much, yes. Feel free to charge for it.”
Jareth droned on, explaining about his Librarian and Mage, who’s title was Lord Lucifer, but who was known as Sin among friends and was apparently all-knowing. Mittens jumped every time the name ‘Lucifer’ was mentioned, which was lot, since it was a rather long explanation.
“Because general opinion down under has it that Sin is a creature, not a being. The thing is that… Lucifer is an abomination. A hybrid, a scorned spawn of good and evil, a Fallen Angel. Fathered by an Incubus and mothered by a Seraph, Sin is known as ‘nature’s worst mistake’. Its body… It’s appearance… It’s seen as a cruel trick of nature, what was never meant to happen. Sin’s grasp in magic is unbelievable, but its body is weak. Its essence is always in constant debate between dark and light, so the body, suffering from holding such power in conflict, is frail. That is why Sin was wished away… And has become one of the Unwanted”
“Firstly,” the RMC said, “I distinctly remember it being said, that the division between light and dark did not equal good and evil. Secondly, you can’t be a fallen angel, if you weren’t even an angel to begin with.”
“Charging,” Mittens said.
In the next scene, Sarah was having trouble falling asleep and Angelina teased her about it.
“Maybe you are missing a pair of strong, manly arms around you” Alicia, with a hint of malice, continued the game.
“Or perhaps she misses the hand caressing her hair” Katie joined, much to the shock of everyone. Katie was, after all, the peacekeeper and always had been.
The RMC facepalmed and reached for the bleeprin. “Add Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell to the list of characters being defamed by being turned into fluff-brains. Honestly, they know next to nothing about Jareth and none of what they do know is good, and yet they insist that he would be a good match for their friend.”
“Do you think that they’re subconsciously trying to get rid of the Sue!Sarah by marrying her of to Jareth, in the hope that he’ll murder her?”
“Hm. That would be a good plan, but on the other hand it wouldn’t be very much in character for them.”
Jareth showed up, lying on Sarah’s bed, and made suggestive comments, after which she threw him out. The agents noted a charge for sexual harassment.
“Let’s move on to the next scene, the RMC said. “We have a mini to pick up.”
“Sara, must you always be such a spoilsport?”
The Helping Hand scurried across the floor towards the agents and Mittens picked it up and stuffed it in the backpack.
“There are plenty of chargeable offences in the rest of the chapter, but nothing new, so let’s skip to chapter ten.”
“What happens in chapter ten?”
“For starters, Jareth fails at maths.”
He did, however, explain how the Fairy-kin and the humans had fought over a thousand years ago (it was closer to seven hundred and fifty years, but a thousand was as good as any other number to round it up).
“I see what you mean,” Mittens said as he noted the charge. “You can round up to a thousand from seven hundred and fifty, if you really feel you must, but there is no way get over a thousand.”
“Now the Daoine Sidhe are a peaceful race, but they also like to help those in need of aid and for that they are trained as skilful and deadly warriors. They are, after all, the Warrior Kin, the Knights of the Underground. Though the Elves do have an extraordinary army, many of the warriors are healers and also the Elves prefer to defend than to attack. The Daoine Sidhe, for all of their so called goodness, love to be always on the offensive and care not for healing, nor possess any kind of power of that area. They often mix magic with fighting, but are also skilled in magic-less fighting and usually despise the use of too much magic. The Leanan Sidhe, on the contrary, love to use magic when fighting. That is why indeed you’ll see me often use a mix of the two, but I often prefer magic as well. Must be my Godly blood”
“So in other words, the Daoine Sidhe are not really peaceful at all,” Mittens said.
“Doesn’t sound much like it, no. Add ‘that are inconsistent’ to the charge for inventing non-canonical races.”
The fic shifted to Sarah and Jareth’s first day with weapons training. This apparently called for new clothes, which Jareth gave to her. A detailed description followed, to the surprise of neither agent, then some more arguing and then Jareth threw something to Sarah.
“Today we will cover swords. This is a longsword” Jareth started, his hand holding a similar weapon “It is the simplest and yet deadliest of swords when it comes to ‘hands-on’ combat. It is usually used by Elves as their sword of choice. It is called an honest sword, as it is simple and visible, and has no ‘tricks’ in its shape or design. Daoine Sidhe also favour this sword, even though they prefer the Falchion, a single-edge, heavily-bladed sword, usually widening noticeably towards the tip with a curved edge and most of the weight put into the tip” the monarch paused to point at a sword on the wall, to Sarah’s left
“The point is to do research so you know what you’re talking about,” the RMC said, “not talking about something because you have researched it, and the line is clearly crossed, when you are describing a sword, that is not even being used in this round. Info dumping made-up stuff is bad, but at least it makes sense because you are telling things that people can’t find out elsewhere, but if anyone are dying to know what a Falchion is, they can look it up themselves.”
Without further ado Jareth lounged at the unsuspecting girl, who shrieked before coming to her senses and holding the sword tightly and sprinting forwards to meet him halfway.
Suddenly Jareth was sitting in a sofa, leaned back and with a drink in his hand. Soft music started playing in the background.
“Charge for lounging at inappropriate moments,” the RMC said.
The first twenty minutes were hell, as she chocked up screams and tried to trust her sword against his.
Mittens groaned. “You don’t learn sword fighting like that. You start out by learning basics thrusts and parries, which you practice for hours before you even try them out on another person. Even my instructor didn’t start by just attacking us and he was a devil. How is she supposed to learn from this? He doesn’t even give her any instructions.” He looked at the RMC. “I’ll shut up now.”
The RMC smiled. “And we have a charge for not doing the research on how sword fighting is taught.”
The training was exhausting enough that the next scene started with Jareth carrying an unconscious Sarah into the Gryffindor common room, where Angelina, Alicia and Katie took care of her.
“Who… where… what…?” she said groggily, rubbing her eyes.
“Colonel Mustard in the living room with the candlestick” Katie said in jest before smiling “In a scale from one to ten just how sore are you?” she asked gently.
“This is beginning to remind me of that MST by Worthington, where almost every single line is followed by a description like ‘said Garfield with serious tone’,” the RMC said. “Does she really think, that people need to be told, that the part about Colonel Mustard is a joke?”
“I didn’t get it.”
“There’s this game … Actually, when we get back, remind me to get in touch with Chrome. He knows someone who has a Harry Potter Cluedo; maybe we can borrow it.”
After a week or so of near-death experiences Sarah was almost ready to call the whole thing off. She had been nearly stabbed, actually stabbed, scraped, bruised, kicked, humiliated (that was most of it, actually) and all around ill-treated, and she didn’t think that she could take it any more, though at least she had finished perusing all the swords.
Both agents sniggered. Although they had preferred to be able to watch this, hearing it described wasn’t half-bad either.
The RMC looked through the Words again. “There’s a bit of dialogue explaining that Jareth can’t help against Voldemort because the two worlds are not allowed to mix. The explanation is a bit shabby, but at least it is there. And there’s a conversation between Jareth and Dumbledore, where Jareth points out, that if Voldemort got help from the Underground, then he would be able to help them fight back. Oh my, could that be the plot rearing its head once again? Then Jareth offers to take them to the Underground and show them the duels in the Labyrinthine Arena and everyone agrees more or less at once, that this is a great idea. Also, an author’s note.”
The agents clasped their hands over their ears as the voice boomed.
This short chapter is more of a Prelude of something I have always wanted to do: Take the Harry Potter characters into the Underground and create my version of the Underground and its characters (which are mine). Oh, and I owe the story a disclaimer, which is just below. Thank you for your patience, the second part will be here really soon (a week or two). If you reviewed, however, you could make me write quicker (nudge, nudge, wink, wink!). No, seriously, I would like 50 reviews for the chapter.
The RMC took out the bleeprin once again. “Charge for creating her own version of the Underground, in what claims to be a fanfic of the movie.”
“Is it a charge to beg for reviews?”
“It ought to be, but I don’t think that it actually is. People are allowed to hold their own work hostage for reviews; after all, we can always hope that they don’t get the desired amount.”
Chapter eleven started with a disclaimer. Sort of.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned The Labyrinth there would be most certainly a sequel so not, sadly I do not possess Jareth though believe me in my most wicked dreams it doesn’t seem that way! ; )
“Urgh!” the RMC said, swallowed some bleeprin and handed some to Mittens. “Charge for having a disclaimer which is more ‘I want to own these persons’ than it is ‘I do not own these persons’. Maybe we can’t charge for lack of disclaimer, but we can charge for a disclaimer, that doesn’t do what it is supposed to.”
There was yet another scene describing the intense attraction between Sarah and Jareth, this time brought on by Jareth oversleeping and Sarah having to go wake him up. Apparently the Fae King slept in leather pants. And predictably, halfway between asleep and awake he grabbed Sarah and mumbled platitudes.
“Why did we even bother charging for sexual harassment, when she refuses to act as if she’s being harassed?” Mittens asked.
The RMC nodded slowly. “I hate to be blaming the victim, but she keeps describing herself as strong and able to stand up to Jareth, but she won’t put her foot down and either make him stop or at least avoid walking alone into his bedroom. Charge her with trivializing sexual harassment.”
Jareth opened a mirror portal to the Underground. The RMC activated the RA and they portalled there, ahead of the Harry Potter characters.
Instead the mirror displayed a dusty alleyway of a small peasant town in the wee hours of the morning, a crystal moon disappearing just as the orange sun of the morning made its way across the sky. Every know and then a dwarf dragging a cart full of vegetables or broken pieces of armour would pass by, or a lovely elf-girl carrying a basket with flowers she carefully entwined to form little crowns would skip her way into her house, or some leprechauns would try to walk by, slurring Irish drinking songs and swishing back and forth tankards full of amber liquid. It was a peaceful little scene in the morning for the village that was commonly referred to as the City beyond the Labyrinth.
“Wow,” the RMC said. “This really is their own version of the Underground.”
Mittens looked around, confused. “Can I have the CAD, please?” The RMC handed it to him and Mittens pointed it at the ground and pressed the button. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, then the CAD started shaking violently and letters appeared and started to glow in the display. [Underground. Canon/uncanon/canon… UNCANON. Original Location.] The CAD got painfully warm and Mittens dropped it. It exploded in a cloud of dirty smoke, leaving a small crater in the ground filled with melted plastic.
The agents both blinked to clear the after-image of the brightly glowing letters.
“This isn’t the Underground,” Mittens said.
“Good catch. Now it makes a lot more sense,” the RMC said. “This is why the CAD called both Sarah and Jareth Stues, rather than character replacements. This isn’t a Labyrinth crossover, it’s a Harry Potter fanfic with original Stues, who rips off Labyrinth characters.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Well, the good news is, that we wont have to track down Sarah and Jareth in a plothole. They are safe in their own continuum, since they never left. The bad news is, that we have to torch this whole place and everything in it.”
“I don’t get it,” Mittens said after a pause. “Won’t people be disappointed and stop reading, when they realize that this fic has nothing to do with the real Labyrinth?”
“You’d be surprised at how many people either can’t tell the difference or don’t care.” The RMC thought for a moment. “Since everyone here is original characters, they will be able to see us. Let’s bring out the D.O.R.K.S.”
Mittens nodded and opened the backpack. “Could we have the D.O.R.K.S., please?” he said. There was the sound of shuffling from inside the backpack and the D.O.R.K.S. appeared.
A couple of minutes later, two short, ugly goblins were grinning merrily at each other. Mittens was especially intrigued, since this was the first time he had tried to change his body.
“We should bring the remains of the CAD with us,” the RMC said. “I doubt if they will be able to repair it, but I suppose it will make us look more responsible.”
The rest of the characters arrived.
“It feels as if I had never left this place ever” Sarah said with a smile, closing her eyes, spreading her arms wide and taking a deep breath and then twirling a bit “Even if it has been weeks since I came here last”
“Yes, and they have most certainly missed you” Jareth said softly “Ever since you came less leprechauns have been seen in the taverns drunk as sailors and less hobgoblins have been caught in some mischief or the other by the Royal Guards. When you left and didn’t return for the longest time I had to tell them I was training you. They expect you to demonstrate something today, you know?”
“Look how speshul she is. Loved by everyone and can even cure leprechauns of drinking,” the RMC said.
After those very words were spoken, there was a growl in the distance and a clear and distinct growl pierced the tranquillity of the morning, followed by a rough, gruff almost animal-like voice Sarah knew and loved.
“Sawah… friend!”
The RMC got their reserve CAD from the backpack and pointed it at Ludo, ready to turn it off before it could burn out, but the display showed that this was the real Ludo and that he was a measly 10% OOC. “Probably due to being reduced to a bit,” it said and pointed the CAD at Sir Didymus, who came right behind Ludo. [Sir Didymus. Anthropomorphic Fox. Original Character. Bit.]
“He doesn’t seem that out of character,” Mittens said. “Certainly not much more than Ludo.”
“Yes, but this is Ludo’s only appearance, while Sir Didymus shows up again, so I’m guessing that worse is yet to come. With the connection to the Labyrinth canon being as tentative as it is, this fic is having a hard time dragging in canon characters. If they are more than just a little bit different from their canon selves, it can’t get to them and have to replace them with its own creations instead.”
“We missed you too, my most beautiful lady” the Fox creature said in a candid voice “The brave sir Hoggle wrote to us last week and enquired about you. Methinks he is not going to like the news that you are now training with his High Majesty, even if his Grace has been most kind with us”
“Charging for not using Olde English,” Mittens said.
The RMC giggled. “That’s one of those charges, I newer thought we would be making. Oh, mini coming up.”
The agents listened as Sir Didymus told Sarah how everything had been fine, with ‘fine whether’ and a good harvest.
Mittens scoffed. “So much for all the nonsense about ‘my friends deserve peace and stability’. They have had nothing but.”
“You owe me nothing, you know?” she said gently, stroking Ambrosias’ fur gently
The Helping Hand scurried over to the agents and Mittens picked it up and placed it in the backpack where the other minis seemed to being having a jolly time and was happy to see the newcomer.
“Sorry, luv, but it seems you are going to have to get some good ol’ means of transport”
“Calling Sarah, ‘luv’,” Mittens said. “Let me just charge for that.” Then the rest of the paragraph came.
he answered cheekily, his ever-present smirk taunting her. But nothing could dampen Sarah’s moods that day and she delivered a smirk of her own before she turned, raised her hands to her face to amplify her voice and shouted:
“Nazgul!”
The agents looked around for yet another mini-Balrog, but there was none. Instead this happened:
Suspended in midair was a beautiful and large creature, a dragon. Its scales, long and gleaming under the morning sun were blood red, almost burgundy and its eyes were golden, as well as the spade tip of its long tail, its short horns and its long whiskers that, like the whiskers of an old Chinese fireball, were long and fell to the neck. The wings were also lined in gold and the claws seemed to be made out of onyx, long and menacing. Long also, were his fangs and teeth, and gold were the puffs of smoke that it released when breathing. The creature was spectacular if not a bit old, holding some kind of wisdom that gave it the more power.
Mittens whistled. “Ripping off a name from Lord of the Rings,” he said. “I hardly dare to think about what some of the die-hard Rings-fans in the PPC would do to her, if they had been here.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” the RMC said. “I’m sure, that if you put your mind to it, you could come up with something equally horrible.”
Mittens smiled happily.
“I am Nazgul, the last of the Ancient ones, the first breed of Dragons, the Guardian and Protector of the Labyrinth and of the Royal Family of the Godly Kin, namely High King Jareth and his family, if he ever manages to form one, that is”
“You are disposable,” the RMC said. “You have one scene and are never mentioned again.”
“And he’s only there because Sarah wanted a not-so-cute animal friend and Ludo wasn’t impressive enough.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. Charge her with downright snubbing the original characters. The original characters from the movie, I mean. Not her original characters.”
The agents followed the story by portalling ahead to Jareth’s throne room, where they had to use the D.O.R.K.S. again to change disguises to generic Daoine Sidhe guards, since the Words specified that there were no Goblins in the throne room.
They were not in the castle however and Jareth informed the disappointed teens that they were confined to another part of the castle most of the day, except when someone was wished away and he needed to play the villainous role.
“That has got to be one of the stupidest things uttered in this fic,” Mittens muttered to the RMC. “Is he really claiming that every time he needs to look evil, he calls on the small, clumsy goblins, rather than his Fae guards? Why not just give the guards black uniforms for those occasions?”
“Stu-logic,” the RMC replied.
The Throne Room was goblin-free then and spotless, gleaming in the early morning light as if it was alive, the stone walls shimmering and the tapestries, of deep reds, greens, shooting silvers and vivid blues lined with golden thread and decorated with tassels decorated the rock surface, and a deep black and gold rug, looking rather heavy and reaching from the front doors to the throne up the few steps, made the room a little bit cosier than other wise would have been, adding a touch of the royalty and nobleness of the old age of Kings and Queens. It was like King Arthur Pendragon all over again, an air of sobriety and grandeur that bordered the otherworldly, not as Hogwarts that looked eccentric and crooked and quite homely rather than imposing and majestic.
It was a palace fit for the King of Kings. And said man, or Fae, was currently lounging on his own throne, not the curved thing he had used for the baby-stealing times but a gigantic structure made out of a dark metal, darker than iron, with dark gold decorations such as the spikes and the claw-like feet and ancient elfish scriptures. Silvery tattoo-like engravings were also present. The whole room had some kind of majestic, gothic air about it with the high ceilings and the stained-glass windows, softened by the pale rays of the morning.
Mittens looked around. “Remember the last time we saw the throne room?” he asked. “It had goblins and chickens and looked,” he paused, thinking, “as it was supposed to, really. Why get it right the first time, if they were just going to change it anyway?”
“It is not uncommon in fanfics, especially if a long time passes between each update, that the focus of the fic changes. In godfics, the earlier chapters are revised to fit with the new parts, but in badfics …” It shrugged.
A woman named Aracne, who had been mentioned a few times in the fic, came in. She was wearing a dress, which apparently was hideous enough to make the students comment loudly and have giggle-fits. Since it was only described as ‘a long flowing black dress […] with intricate designs and full of lace and beads’ this meant that the dress was actually pretty generic; certainly not bad enough to warrant the rude behaviour.
“Charge for having everyone behave like small and extremely rude children, on a sugar-high” the RMC said.
“Someone brought a camera? Where is that snoopy Colin Creevy when one needs him?”
Mittens took care of the mini-Aragog and, after some more bickering between Sarah and Jareth, the chapter ended with an author’s note. The familiar darkness enveloped them, as the voice boomed.
Author’s Note: Well, this chapter came out nicely, in spite of all my doubts. The Underground begins to take shape and I’m proud of the universe I’m creating (as we don’t know much of the Underground I have to invent most of it).
“You mean, you choose to ignore what is known, and invent most of it,” Mittens said, covering his ears.
Oh, and please all of you applaud my new Beta Reader. Yes, after your constant whining (I do not write THAT badly!) I got myself a Beta Reader, a fantastic girl you know as Angeloneous that will bring correct grammar to the chapter and freshness to the plot!
This was received by the agents with a stunned silence. Finally, the RMC said: “Well, I supposed there haven’t been any spontaneous sex changes in this chapter.”
“So, um, should I charge for using a beta who did awful an awful job?”
“Yeah, that should cover it, without getting into beta-bashing.”
On the other side in my hemisphere we are in summer (believe me, I’m suffering here!) so I’m going on a two-week vacation to Brazil, my neighbouring country so I won’t be able to write for two weeks and post for like a month, depending on how fast can my plot bunnies jump. Sorry, I really don’t want to go (I happen to HATE the beach, really) but I have to, I’m eighteen, there is no way my folks will let me stay all by myself!
“Isn’t eighteen the legal age in most of the Real World?” Mittens asked. “Why can’t she decide for herself? And for that matter, why won’t her parents let her stay at home alone?”
“Very good points, but we’re not allowed to charge for plot holes in the author’s life, only in their fic.”
“Charge for stupid author’s note then?”
“We don’t have that already?”
“No, we skipped most of them.”
“Well, charge away then.”
The RMC looked ahead in the text and frowned. “They all have to wear new clothes for the Labyrinth so there’s a scene coming up with a lot of descriptions of clothes.” It closed its eyes for a moment. “There are a couple of charges; McGonagall and Dumbledore are being sappy and the students are making loud, rude comments about it, also the basic in every Sue’s wardrobe, the lowcut, yet modest dress makes an appearance, but honestly, I can feel my IQ dropping just by looking at the Words, so let’s find Ludo instead and get him sent home and then portal ahead to the matches.”
After neuralyzing Ludo and sending him on his way, the two agents portalled to the arena, where they managed to find seats close enough to the characters to hear their conversation. They soon wished they hadn’t. Jareth was telling the story of King Oberon and Queen Titania, who was deeply in love with each other, but too proud to admit it.
“Is it me, or did this just get kind of meta?” Mittens asked.
“In another fic, I would probably have agreed with you, but this fic is simply not clever enough to do meta. This looks more like an attempt to shoehorn in another romance.”
Titania appeared; she was a perfect beauty with blond hair and blue eyes, and wore a dress which was described in great detail. The RMC got out the CAD and took a reading of her and then of King Oberon. It shook its head. “It’s pretty bad when even the bit characters are given the full Stue description,” it said. “Charge for stuffing extra bit-Stues into the story.”
“Why must I always find you brooding, my Lord?” she asked in a neutral tone of voice as she sat in a throne-like chair decorated with figures of mischievous Fairies, placed right besides the plain-looking, no-nonsense throne of the ruler of the Elves.
King Oberon of the Elves snapped out of his reverie to look into the deep, ice-blue eyes of the Queen of the Fairies, and his breath hitched. Otherwise he didn’t respond physically to her presence, but quietly continued looking at the warm-ups and the last-moment deals in the arena.
“What is it, My Lady Titania? Got tired of that Fairy Knight that worshipped you as a goddess a fortnight ago?”
“Boring!” the RMC yelled. A couple of the people around them turned to look at it, but most of them just continued to stare in adoration at Sarah and Jareth, this being the only purpose with their whole existence.
Then Jareth started to tell another story, this time of King Ferdiad and Queen Persephone and their forbidden love.
“More boring!” Mittens yelled, but this didn’t stop Jareth from talking and showing pictures in a crystal ball. The RMC got a reading of Ferdiad and Persephone, who were also bit-Stues.
Jareth had reached the point in the story, where Ferdiad climbed over a wall into Persephone’s garden and saw her for the first time.
He would have usually scoffed at such innocent and childish images, but seated in the bower was the most entrancing creature he had ever beheld, with long raven-black hair and huge lapis lazuli eyes. The woman-child was startled from her piano practice by his unflinching stare and turned to face him, horror and mistrust written over her features.
“Wait, what?” the RMC asked. “Piano practice? We didn’t bring the crossbow, because we weren’t sure it would be canon and now he introduces a piano in a mythological Greek setting? Charge for not being able to create and sustain a setting.”
In the story, Persephone’s brother threatened with war if Ferdiad didn’t return her, so Ferdiad talked to Persephone.
He then presented her with a basket full of black pomegranates and told her that eating a dozen seeds would enable her to stay forever in his kingdom. When he returned to her chambers days later she was nowhere to be seen, but also a pomegranate was missing nine of its seeds (AN: I know that in the real Greek myth Persephone eats six seeds but I thought six months weren’t enough for Ferdiad, so I decided that some creative license was in order). He then went into his garden, saw her and fell to his knees”
“Will you stay with me nine months each year? Will you be my Queen for two thirds of each year?”
There was the sound of four palms hitting two faces, as both agents double facepalmed. “Mittens,” the RMC said. “Will you please go back to where we charge Jareth with failing at maths and up the charge to cruelty towards mathematics?”
“Sure.”
“Another author’s note coming up.”
ACTORS
I am going to start putting up the names of actors who I think best represent my characters or have inspired them and therefore look like them. I need a fairy-like little girl to play Orion, which is the only character I haven’t decided on yet.
I plan on eventually building a site with pictures of the actors as well as little biographies of the characters to make it easier for everyone. Meanwhile I am building those biographies and e-mailing them to whoever needs them along with the pictures. Just Ask on a review. Of course for some of the characters the biographies are going to get bigger once certain things are discovered about them. If you need the info, just review and leave your e-mail… Oh, it’s the perfect plan for my ratings to go up! (Insert mad laughter here please).
Lord Chancellor Gailbraith: Alexis Denisoff (Weasley from Angel, the TV Series, the character inspired my own character).
King Oberon of the Elves : Hugo Weaving (He is hot, he is serious, he is manly… and he played Elrond in Lord of the Rings. Any questions?).
The voice ranted on for quite some time, naming all the actors who looked like the characters, including some who hadn’t appeared yet.
“So,” the RMC said, rubbing its ears, when the note was finally done, “with that over with, let’s see what chapter thirteen has to offer.”
“How far are we in this fic?”
“A little over halfway.”
Mittens groaned.
“Yes, you’re right,” the RMC said. “It’s time for bleeprin.”
“When will the bloody thing begin?” Ron was in a foul mood. Too much “chick flick” kind of nonsense happening and he didn’t much care for it.
“This is supposed to be more Ron-bashing, but actually it’s the most sensible thing said in this fic,” the RMC said and added: “Oh, the irony.”
A man stepped out into the middle of the arena.
“Good afternoon ladies and Gentlemen” he said, smirking and bowing, accepting the cheers from the crowd “Will the people in the cheaper seats please clap you hands? All the rest of you… If you’ll just rattle your jewellery” (John Lennon’s quote)
The RMC winced. “Charge for abusing a John Lennon quote.”
The first champion introduced was the Grey Knight, Lord Vulpes.
There was a great round of applause as an aged, by the way he moved, and yet strong knight stepped into the arena, ridding a white and grey stallion that looked fierce and brave, the mane of thick white hair curled at the ends, and golden eyes that shone in the light of the day, though age had already begun showing around its eyes and body. The Knight was wearing dark grey armour, including his helmet so his face was covered and hidden from view. His banner was a grey, fierce fox against a dark red background and his pageboy was a leprechaun with long hair tied with a ribbon and shabby clothing. It was quite laughable, really, to see such an odd competitor.
The agents leaned forward and looked at the knight, puzzled.
“Huh,” Mittens said. “He’s old and un-glittery.”
In spite of his appearance, the Grey Knight and his old horse won each joust. Then he asked for the stoppers on the spears to be removed. Katie was shocked but Jareth explained.
“Sorry to disappoint you, mortal, but we play it rough when need be. And this is, after all, a final. Risking one’s life is almost a requirement in here. Though we are immortals, the points of the spears are laced with steel that, as you know well, contains a significant amount of iron”
Both agents’ ears perked up. “It sounds like steel might be their weakness, a per tradition,” the RMC said. “Now that’s interesting.”
Mittens frowned. “Now they are referring to him as Graysville. Everyone, no, everything in this fic has far too many names; the lands, the races, the persons.”
“You’re right. Charge for an overuse of aliases and nicknames.”
In the fic, Sarah sprang up.
“Oh no!” she tried to get into the Arena, but suddenly two strong pairs of arms held her back “No, get off! I have to stop Sir Didymus!”
“That is Sir Didymus?” Mittens asked. “Well, I suppose that explains, why he was so far from his real self as to be an original character.”
“Charge Jareth with having four arms. Wait, is he trying to cop a feel?” the RMC asked. It looked at Mittens, who was looking slightly green, and added: “The formal term is sexual assault; charge for it.”
Mittens nodded and wrote down the charge, carefully avoiding looking at Jareth and Sarah.
Knowing he wouldn’t lose his control any time soon he continued a more fervent exploration of her neck with his lips, using his tongue to trail wet Celtic patterns he knew from memory over her skin: Love, Lust, Life…
The RMC decided that Mittens’ course of action was the sensible one and also turned away. Fortunately, the scene was cut short, when Sir Didymus won the joust.
“Things are never what they seem here, little Lady, remember? I know I may not seem a valiant knight most of the time, but there is still enough magic in these old bones to bring back the old glory of my jousting days for one day each year. I knew you would be here this day, so I wanted to surprise you. And Ambrosias wanted that to, didn’t you old friend?”
The Helping Hand, Ambrosias, scratched on the inside of the backpack at the mentioning of its name.
“Sarah doesn’t seem the least bit upset with Jareth,” Mittens said.
“No, she hasn’t even mentioned it. Charge for trivializing sexual assault.” It looked at Mittens and suddenly it felt itself worrying about what all this exposure to twisted, unhealthy relationships and rapey-fun-times would do to him. Perhaps it should sit down with him at some point and tell him, that this was not how it was supposed to be. Or maybe it should try to get a hold of Grae; he would be great at explaining these things.
Just then a figure appeared among the mortals. It was a man, with straight, black hair up to the chin, slanted red eyes with practically no pupil and a set of Chinese robes. He had two long, demonic wings of onyx black, like the wings of gargoyles and looked… sleazy.
The figures hair reached down to his shoulders, then turned back up so it reached his chin.
The temperature seemed to rise whenever he was around and the girls fidgeted, not liking him. After all, he was a Sex demon…
“Cheap knock off,” Mittens said. The RMC simply scoffed.
“Oh, yes. My angel, my love, my darling is next. Sin will be magnificent”
All of the people present suddenly gasped and the twins actually “EWW-ed” loud enough for everyone to hear. Albus Dumbledore had the decency to blush and cough, Minerva blushed even more, Snape raised both his eyebrows till they were covered by his jet-black hair and Ron covered Ginny’s ears seconds too late.
“You mean you are in love with… Lord Lucifer?” Hermione squeaked, trying to sound polite.
“Desperately” the creature sighed “But it denies me every time. We made a bet, though. If I ever catch it, then it will have to kiss me… and then… My Original Sin will finally be mine…” (AN: No, this fanfic will never contain slash. Rest assured! All will be explained in the next chapter, when you’ll find out something odd).
There were several shudders from the teenagers and a contained chuckle from Jareth, who shook his head.
The agents sat in stunned silence. Finally, Mittens got his voice back.
“What the …” he began, but the RMC interrupted him.
“Don’t,” it said. “Whatever else can be said about this fic – and believe me, we are going to say all of it – it is rated T and we shouldn’t swear while we’re here.”
“Oh,” Mittens was silent for a moment, then said: “You know, if we are not allowed to use expletives, I’m kind of at a loss for words.”
“Well, I’m not. All are these are separate charges.” Mittens positioned the pen and the RMC started to reel off the charges. “Making the Harry Potter characters homophobic without any basis in canon. Making them express this homophobia openly. Making several off them be extremely, unforgivably rude and immature about it. And finally, making them be loud and rude while within earshot of the person they are attacking. Charge Jareth with aiding and abetting, since it is his so called Lust Demon who sets it up.” It fell silent and just sat, looking crestfallen.
Mittens looked at the two Stues. “We’re going to kill them,” he said, “and we’re not going to be quick about it.”
The RMC smiled. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up.” It looked ahead in the words. “There’s another scene with changing of clothes coming up. Let’s skip to the masquerade.” It sounded weary.
The agents found themselves in a ballroom, surrounded by people wearing clothes in clashing colours and tasteless cuts. They used the D.O.R.K.S. to charge their own appearance, dreading the result, but not daring to go without disguise in a room filled with original characters.
“This could have been worse,” Mittens said, looking at his new clothes in black silk, that weren’t too far from his PPC uniform.
The RMC was now wearing a black dress, with a high, close-fitting collar that wrapped around its neck. “Thankfully. If the D.O.R.K.S had given me something low-cut, I might have been tempted to chuck it out the window.”
Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade . . .
Masquerade!
Hide your face,
so the world will
never find you!
The music blared through the room and the agents grimaced and covered their ears.
“Charge for using modern-day music in a fantasy setting.” The RMC had to almost yell at Mittens in order to be heard. It checked the words. The entire song had been written into the fic and the lines of dialogue that went with it, had been altered to fit the characters. “And for ripping of Phantom of the Opera,” it continued. It felt anger start to bubble inside it, which was good. For a short while, it had been tempted to just drop a canonbomb on this whole place just to be over with it, and face the wrath of the Flowers, but now it once again felt like doing the mission right.
The music finally stopped. Jareth had somehow brainwashed Sarah into forgetting who she was and was now dancing with her and getting her to swear that she would never leave him.
“He’s just getting more and more unappealing,” the RMC said.
“Seal the promise the way we do in the Underground, with what we consider the most sacred and precious thing” he pleaded, but there was shameless flirting behind his voice, in the husky quality of it “Seal it with a maiden’s first true kiss”
She didn’t have time to tell him that she had been kissed before, even if not truly. Sloppily, unpleasantly, unwillingly, yes, but irrevocably kissed.
The RMC reached for the bleeprin. “So now the fic is making the implication, that Sarah has a history of being assaulted.”
“Not necessarily,” Mittens said. “I mean, we’ve seen her particular brand of ‘unwillingness’.”
“You… you tricked me?” she asked in disbelief, flinching away from his arms, almost stumbling backwards “You placed a charm on me… to forget?” she suddenly looked down at herself and recognized at last the dress she was wearing as the one from her dreams “And the dreams! You have been messing with my dreams for seven years! You bastard!”
“Isn’t she kind of dumb?” Mittens asked. “Even I know, that it is not normal for humans to have the same dream every night for seven years in a row. She should have known, that there was something weird about the dreams, and it should have been obvious that Jareth was involved.”
“You’re right. Charge for plot-convenient stupidity. Also, since she finally has gotten properly upset, we should also charge Jareth with brainwashing and stalking.”
Sarah and Jareth got into a fight, which consisted of them throwing crystal-balls.
“Popcorn?” the RMC asked and passed the bag to Mittens.
“Thanks. Where did you get popcorn?”
“The Weasley twins had some earlier.”
“Oh, where did they get them?”
“The popcorns apparently showed up, because it seemed like it was time for them,” the RMC replied. “Actually one of the few really funny moments.”
“We should save some for analysis. Insta-popcorn would make a nice addition to the basic equipment.”
The duel ended with something of a draw. Sarah and the Harry Potter canons returned to Hogwarts.
Author’s Note:
“Not again,” the RMC said.
Don’t kill me. I tried really hard with this chapter, it is the longest and it was the hardest. Everything happens, and in the next chapter everything will change. This chapter is an introductory chapter for the next, which will be a blast. Something huge will happen, a many of you will get your wish for a pairing!
Next, I have nothing against slash. Really. Just not in my fanfic. Oh, and I am a Phantom of the Opera Phan (The musical, the movie was OK) so several songs will weasel their way into this story. I hope you like the idea!
“I don’t like slash,” Mittens said. “In fact, I don’t like any kind of sex scenes; but I don’t go around hijacking canon characters and force them to agree with me.”
“And why is the author’s note only concerned with insulting slash-fans? I don’t know whether I should be relived, that the homophobia is apparently unintended or saddened by the sheer cluelessness.”
PS: This chapter is officially Beta proved. My Beta Reader is an Angel, with quite an appropriate name and nick! Thanks Angie, you deserve a special mention!
“She is right,” Mittens said. “We should mention the beta. What is she betaing, again?”
“I’m beginning to doubt that she even exists.” The RMC studied the Words for a moment. “So in chaper fourteen, Sarah is back to being cold and aloof. Jareth is depressed and has started to drink – his good qualities just keep piling up, don’t they? Oh, hey, I think the plot might be making a comeback. Let’s skip ahead.”
“What have you done to me, love? Such a pathetic state I’m in. I can… barely stand up” he laughed then, and it was a sad, angst-laden laugh. He never noticed the group of men that approached him from the shadows, nor the dull iron sword as it was raised into the air. By the time he had become aware of the danger he had been to slow on his movements to escape being pierced in the chest.
“Go, unknown assailants!” Mittens exclaimed.
Unfortunately, Jareth managed to turn himself into an owl and fly through a mirror to Hogwarts. He was taken to the hospital wing, but since he had been wounded by iron, there was not much hope for him. Sarah decided to call the Lord Mage, Lucifer, and went to the Great Hall.
The light of the Hall suddenly dimmed and was engulfed by complete blackness, as if shadows had suddenly eaten it completely. There was a loud, sibilant noise as the light suddenly disappeared completely and the darkness was all it left, defying even the flickering illumination of the levitating candles and torches of the Great Hall.
“And yet another triple redundancy, this time to let us know, that the lights went out,” Mittens said.
The Lord Mage showed up, wrapped in a cloak, which it then removed.
Long fingers clad in fishnet, fingerless black gloves briefly emerged from the sleeves to pull the cloak by the shoulders into the floor in one swift movement that left everyone unprepared for the view: slim and pale as white marble with a very slight greyish and bluish tint, pointed ears and blue-black lips were not the things that shocked the people present in the room, but rather the rest of the body: long flowing hair that was black as night but seemed to reflect diverse colours, much like black opals tended to do, was carefully arranged in a series of complicated knots and braids at the back of the head leaving a large part to flow down past the waist and a few bangs to frame the front of the face, clear crystalline eyes, like transparent quartz glowed with an unearthly light that gave them a gem-like, eerie quality, as if they were glittering.
“And it goes on and on,” the RMC said.
Mittens just stared. “But … but I only brought two notebooks,” he said at last.
“Take the one with the least charges, turn it around and write from the back.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Start by charging this ‘Sin’ with having more than 500 words of description. And with being a Stue of some sort.”
“And with using a triple redundancy to describe its eye as gems.”
“Also, with over-accessorizing. You could start a whole jewellery store with the stuff it has on.”
Heavy black-leather bracelets, the piercing, the tattoos and the smoky-black eye shadow and heavy eyeliner coupled with the black leather boots with platform and the black nails made the creature look like a mix between a punk, a Celtic priestess and a Goth.
“I know punks and Goths who would beg to differ,” the RMC said. “And if I knew any Celtic priestesses, I’m sure they would to.”
He was not a he. He was a she.
“Hey, how does that follow?” Mittens asked. “It could be a male who looks like a female, or it could be neither gender.”
The RMC shook its head. “This fic had the cast of Harry Potter act shocked and rude at the mere mentioning of homosexuality. The kind of gender-flexibility, you’re talking about, is way beyond it.”
“Oh, right.”
After getting past the initial shock Sarah could see what she had first omitted: two large bird-like wings, black and yet transparent as if made out of onyx and torn in many places, appearing as rags hanging from a wire more than true useful wings, battered and scarred.
“I hate it when they do that,” the RMC said. “When they describe all the small details and then end with this huge thing, that would have been the first that anyone noticed. Charge for getting her wings described last.”
The girl introduced herself.
“Alassin Natashia Raziel Zane, Lord Lucifer”
Both agents sniggered.
“And we have another charge for a stupid name,” the RMC said.
“Should I charge her with having too many aliases? I can’t even remember all the names and nicknames she has been called up until now.”
“No, that is covered by the general charge for the whole fic.”
“Iron” the voice whispering in almost a hiss as the being stepped away from the closest source of it “Who?”
“Isn’t she supposed to be all-knowing?” Mittens asked. “How come she knows what happened, but not who did it?”
“Sue-logic,” the RMC said.
Mittens noted a charge for being all-knowing, without actually knowing all.
The single word was all the warning the creature gave before extending the ragged wings and flapping soundlessly, her sandal-clad feet leaving the floor as she elevated, flying speedily towards Sarah.
The leather boots on the girls feet obediently changed into sandals. Mittens noted a charge for forgetting what she was wearing.
Sin said she would be able to help Jareth and gave Snape a list of ingredients she needed to make a potion.
“Here” the list floated away from her fingers and Professor Snape snatched it from thin air before disappearing down the hall, whistling low as he regarded the illegal and sometimes impossible-to-get ingredients. Difficult? The being had been right, they weren’t difficult to obtain… They couldn’t be obtained at all.
“Does that mean, she won’t be able to save Jareth?” Mittens asked.
“It would seem so, but she probably comes up with some implausible way of getting the ingredients anyway.”
The students chose this exiting moment to discuss the gender of Sin.
“Well, Jareth never did say Lord Lucifer was a male” Hermione reasoned for the first time, also knowing the twins were trying to change the subject “And he did call it ‘Lucy’ more than once. And… Oh, Merlin! Harlequin! He did profess to be in love wit the Librarian, and he is an Incubus. Being gay would be against his nature, right?”
The agents looked at each other for moment. Then they both started laughing.
“Oh, this is … this is hilarious!” Mittens gasped.
“We’ve got to tell Lex about this! This is too funny!”
“That would explain all the easiness about the subject” Fred quipped, understanding dawning “I mean, all that open-mindedness was downright unhealthy”
George could only nod vigorously and shudder, remembering that awkward time when everyone had thought that the incubus was blatantly showing off rather peculiar sexual preferences.
“Okay, Forge, block all those memories away and go to the happy place” he muttered aloud as he pretended to hyperventilate. That did it for Sarah, who started laughing despite herself.
“And we’re back to this,” Mittens said.
The RMC just nodded, all the good mood, from a moment before, completely evaporated.
But soon the atmosphere grew silent again as Professor Snape rushed in with arms full of ingredients, suspicious bottles and so on.
“Seems we gave her too much credit,” the RMC said. “She didn’t come up with an implausible explanation for how they got the ingredients; she didn’t give one at all.”
Sarah told the others about Sin.
“He… I mean, she does not talk because in its voice resides its… I mean her magic. Her voice is magical, because both seraphs and succubi use their voices to project their magic, but unlike them she has no control over it since her magic is always in conflict and when she controls one side the other goes berserk so whenever she speaks she triggers her magic. She communicated through telepathy because of that, and sings whenever she casts as spell. She is the last remaining magician of the Underground, and the Librarian… She leaves in a huge library called The Source, and rules over creatures that are considered damned, abominations. For some reason it is widely known that she hates humans or holds them in contempt. She is one of the most loyal persons when it comes to Jareth and the Unwanted but… For everyone else she is a stain that should be cleaned. They call her the Devil Child, and believe her truly to be… the daughter of the Devil. Her name, I know what it means… Night’s Child. And her title, given to her by Jareth means Child of the Light…”
“Charge for being over-powered and wangsty?” Mittens asked.
“Charge ahead. Oh, and for getting the meaning of her name wrong. It means light-bearer or possibly light-bringer, not child of the light. All those boring details, researched and dumped on us, and then the fic gets this one wrong.”
Sin realized that she couldn’t do her magic in time if she worked alone.
She crossed the barrier and, much to everyone’s surprise, took both of Snape’s hands in hers. The professor almost jumped at the contact, feeling the dormant power in the little girl.
“She looks to be seventeen, she not a little girl,” the RMC muttered.
“Please help me” she said then, lips parting. She was speaking with her own voice, and pleading with her eyes, her face just inches away from his “I cannot do it by myself. Please… I need you”
And Severus Snape found it impossible to say “no”. He just stood there, dumbstruck, knowing that her magic was now in his body, feeling it coursing through his veins. The little chit had put a spell on him of some kind, with those huge eyes and that… that voice…
The RMC pinched the bridge of its nose and reached for the bleeprin. “Charge her with starting up a romance with Snape.” It gave Mittens some bleeprin. “And with having no sense of personal space. Standing this close to someone is not endearing, it’s just creepy.”
Very dramatically, the potion Sin was making blew up while it and she was inside a protective shield. The agents portalled to the Hospital Wing, where Sin gave the potion to Jareth and then simply disappeared.
Madam Promfrey was there two, trying to explain the situation. Alassin Zane, the Librarian, was nowhere to be found.
The was a surprised hiss from inside the backpack as the mini-Aragog Promfrey, suddenly became two minis. Mittens gloomily noted a charge for multiplying minis.
The chapter ended with yet another new author’s note.
And as you saw it is a pretty important chapter. I had you all fooled… I never said Lord Lucifer was a male! And I guess the eventual pairing is more than clear, right? All will be explained in the next chapter: why Lucifer is a “Lord”, its powers, its interactions with the characters, etc. I can already tell you that she is going to be very close with three main characters, and no, one of them is not Sarah. Oh, and I am planning to make Lucifer a new member of the gang that always appears on each chapter, mainly because I like her as a character… Now, I have had a horrible time trying to se who she could look like. Her appearance makes me think of Avril Lavigne (I am not a fan of her, but I like the way she looks, she is both a little girl and a woman, so it kind of works…). But I need more ideas, and then I’ll leave the people to vote.
So if you leave a review could you please answer who do you think of when you imagine Sin? It would be really helpful.
The agents looked at each other. “Did the note just say,” Mittens asked, “that even though there was more than 500 words of description of Sin, it is not exactly clear what she looks like.”
The agents looked at each other for a moment longer, the shouted in unison: “Charge!”
In the start of chapter fifteen Hermione and Harry were sneaking around in the middle of the night, under the invisibility cloak, on their way to the Hospital Wing to watch over Jareth for no good reason at all.
Hermione and Harry were almost caught by Filch and ran up the Eastern Tower, where they discovered Sin lying in a corner.
The agents found a dark corner to hide in and observed them.
At last they were able to get close enough to see the sleeping face, marked with tattoos and heavy makeup, and observed in detail that the make-up was such that it created the effect of having run due to water.
“That is so incredibly stupid,” the RMC said. “Who puts on make-up made to look runny? And who would look at it and think that is was made to be that way, rather than having run by accident?” It looked thoughtful. “Agent Suicide said something about how it is the little things, that really makes it unbearable. Perhaps he meant something like this, though I wish I could remember the actual quote. Anyway, charge for the stupid make-up.”
The combat boots and the heavy leather and metal bracelets contradicted that slightly, taking some of that angelic appeal.
The sandals, formerly known as ‘leather boots with platform’, turned into combat boots.
Harry got the idea to get Dobby to bring a lot of cakes and candy, reasoning that the Faes seemed to like sweets and that Sin seemed more weak, than actually hurt. They placed the food for her and left.
“She’s lying on the floor in a freezing cold room in the middle of the winter,” the RMC muttered. “How about getting them to bring her some blankets? Charge for making Harry and Hermione incompetent.”
Harry and Hermione started to come every day and hang out in the tower, reading and playing chess.
What did not remain untouched, however, was the food, which disappeared in the morning, leaving empty plates and cups in its place, though they had had to feed her manually when she was too weak to move, or when it came to handling large amounts of food.
“She never talks to them,” Mittens said. “How do they know, when she is so weak that she needs help to eat?”
“Sue-logic.”
She never looked at them in the eyes, but rather stared off into space, like an autistic.
“I’m no expert,” the RMC said, “but I’m pretty sure that there’s more to autism, than just sitting around with a vacant expression. Charge for misrepresenting autism.”
Then, on one of their nightly excursions, Harry and Hermione was almost caught by Snape and, in a fit of plot-induced stupidity, they ran to the tower.
“Do you think we lost him?” she said with a worried look on her face. She was scared of losing points or being stripped off her Prefect Badger.
With a plop, the Prefect Badger appeared. The agents stared at it and it very calmly stared back. It was a real badger, wearing a Hogwarts uniform with the yellow and black colours of Hufflepuff, and with a prefect badge.
“So, um,” Mittens said finally, “you can come to HQ, if you want to.”
The Prefect Badger seemed to think about this for a moment, the nodded. Since it was too big to go in the backpack – or maybe it wasn’t, but Mittens didn’t feel like trying – the RMC opened a portal to their RC and sent it through. It scanned the Words. “Snape follows them and finds Sin. He decides to bring potions to help her. Nothing much of interest, so let’s skip to … Oh, wait. We have to pick up a mini.” It fiddled with the RA and they jumped a couple of scenes.
Besides, they always were up for a round of ‘teasing the little sibling’ whether it was Ginny or little Ronikuns.
The mini-Aragog, Ronikuns, did not look happy. It was probably upset because it wasn’t even a misspelling of a proper name. Mittens petted it a bit to cheer it up, before placing it in the backpack with the others.
The RMC scanned the words. “The next scenes are just Snape caring for Sin and playing chess with her. We can skip those, even though it means we won’t get to see how it looks when she ‘ titled her head’.” It started pressing buttons on the RA. “Let’s go to where something comes through from the Underground.”
And suddenly she felt something else. Something that felt like… A Fae… An intruder.
She could feel it somewhere inside the castle, coming towards the Great Hall, hidden, elusive. But she had to be imagining things, since no Fae could open a portal to come to the Underground except…
Oh, damn. It finally dawned on Sarah what had been bothering her so much over the last week or so. All the times when Jareth had been awake and talking he mentioned opening a portal and rushing to the Great Hall as an owl, but… he never mentioned closing the portal at all. That was because he hadn’t, and somewhere in Hogwarts a portal was still open and a leech had detected it.
“So you remembered that there’s an open portal into Hogwarts in the very same moment something comes through,” the RMC said. “Congratulations, you’re an idiot.”
A figure stepped away from the shadows formed near one of the many entrances of the Hall, revealing a man attired in black and deep green, black hair slicked back showing off pointy ears, stark white skin and gleaming pale green eyes. His clothes were half-hidden by an open cloak that, though black and of a fine quality, looked worn out and dusty from travelling. A glint of metal was the only telltale sign of a weapon, a sword of some kind though the sheath looked suspiciously thick. When he smiled two sharp, gleaming fangs could be seen. The style of dressing and that last bit of evidence indicated that he was a vampire, but also by the shabbiness of his appearance, he was also a drifter… a paid mercenary.
“Unlike those mercenaries who work for free,” Mittens said with a smirk.
The vampire was planning to attack the all the humans in Hogwarts and drink their blood.
“He vanths to sahkh their blaadh,” the RMC said, which earned it a puzzled look from Mittens.
“But there is no law protecting Aboveground Humans” he added, his lips partying into a chilling smile.
His lips started dancing on his face, doing the Batusi.
“Could I have some bleeprin, please?” Mittens said.
“I doubt they will do you any good,” the RMC replied, but took some itself anyway. “I, for one, am going to experiment with neuralyzing myself, once we’re done here. Charge for horrible anatomy and for forgetting that there’s a law prohibiting mingling between the Underground and the Aboveground. Its one thing for the bad guy to break laws, it quite a different thing to forget about them.”
The vampire attacked and bit both Hermione and Harry. Then Sin appeared and intervened by singing.
And the next second the sounds of fighting were covered by the echo of the Choir organ as an overture blasted through the room (Note 2), powerful and unstoppable. Deft fingers made their way across the keyboard as the notes soared powerfully, almost drowning out all other sounds. The screechers halted in the middle of the air, their skulls conveying agony as they fell to the floor, writhing and screaming their pain. There was a voice, a heavenly feminine voice like that of an angel, singing wordlessly along the powerful tune the organ was playing, echoing in everyone’s ears.
“Charge for placing a choir organ – whatever that is – in the Great Hall,” the RMC said. “It really is marvellous how hard this new Sue is working to catch up with the other two, even though she’ been here much shorter time.”
“Also charging for Sue-singing.”
Hermione gasped aloud and Harry cursed under his breath as shadows converged in front of them to form first a pair of tattered black wings about seven feet tall and then the body of a young girl, some of her straight long hair piled up at top of her head a tiny braid crowning her head.
“Oh, bother,” the RMC said. “About 250 more words of description and there is apparently a footnote, elaborating on one of the details.” It frowned. “What was it Agent Nathan called it? Costume porn, I think. Up the charge to that.”
“Kill everyone else in this damned castle” Sin thundered in return, her mental voice strong and full of hidden threats, her eyes sharp and icy, yet calm “But not these three. Never these three”
“Kill anyone else. If you want my particular recommendation I would start with the simpering little red-head over there” she meant Ron and everyone caught that “His ignorance annoys me”
“So she’s not a total git, she’s just a git,” the RMC said. “And since she’s trying so hard, she should get her very own charge for Ron-bashing.”
“So tell me, Oh Great Lord Lucifer, little Devil’s Child… I know you are ready to kill for them but… Just how far would you go? Would you die for them?”
The black-haired girl didn’t even stop to think as she replied, calmly but articulately:
“Yes” she paused for a moment “I would die for them”
“Please do,” Mittens said.
The vampire declared that this was a duel challenge and since she had issued it, he got to decide the first condition, which was that they would use no magic. Since Sin was an incredibly strong mage, but very weak physically, this would make it impossible for her to win.
“I get to place another condition, then” the mage added calmly “The participants can use magic after the first draw of blood. Do you accept or do you believe me good enough to cut through that perfect skin of yours?”
“We should get the popcorns out,” the RMC said.
“Alright… But then I get to choose the weapon for the physical combat. I’ll be generous and allow you to use any kind of weapon you might be carrying” he eyed her up and down and then heaved a fake sigh “What has been King Jareth teaching you to let you walk around unarmed anyway?”
“Do not speak ill of my Lord and Master” the creature warned, fingers flexing before she resumed the conditions of the duel “It is to be a duel starting with physical combat with weapons or anything we might be carrying and magic will be allowed after the participants’ first draw of blood. Do we have a deal?”
Sin’s magic was blocked and it turned out that without it, she was almost too weak to even stand up.
She looked at him and slowly took out her Celtic cross out of the array of crosses she had around the neck, sliding a thumb over the jewel in the centre, a black Opal. The gem pulsated once and violet light started flowing through the cross, the bottom of it began to elongate into a staff decorated in Celtic knots, while the cross itself grew in size till it looked like something the Pope might be carrying on a trip to Ireland. The silver gleamed in the faint torchlight and candlelight of the room as the girl set the staff, which was as long as her wings, and supported her weight with it.
“Ooohhh, she has a magical staff-necklace,” Mittens said.
“You want it? It’s pretty tasteless, but it would make a fun souvenir.”
“Do you know why the myth of vampires fearing crosses was created?” The students shook their heads and Professor Snape raised a lazy eyebrow she continued “It was because in the Middle Ages most crosses were made out of gold, and vampires are allergic to gold, just as werewolves are allergic to silver and just as all Fae are allergic to iron”
“Now, she gets her very own charge for info dumping,” Mittens said.
“Make that nonsense dumping. The myths say that vampires are afraid of all holy symbols, not just crosses.”
Sin’s staff turned out to be made, at least partially, of white gold and she managed to burn the vampire with it. He then attacked her and kicked her around. The agents ate popcorns and enjoyed the show.
It was then when she noticed two important things: one was that the Professor was unknowingly in the path of the Vampire Lord and another that a trail of black blood was making its way down her stomach…
She felt wonderful all of a sudden. Filled with electricity and with the notion… nay, the conviction, that she could do anything in the world and beyond.
“I think the fun part is over for now,” the RMC said and Mittens nodded.
Sin used magic to stop Snape from being attacked by the vampire, which made the vampire furious.
“You cheated! You lied!”
And as the words poured out of his mouth everyone, including him, knew instinctively that they were the wrong words to say. Outwardly the creature showed no sign of offence but everyone could tell that the stakes had been upped by the last remark, so to speak.
“You know I cannot lie” she said calmly, yet she seemed to be enjoying what she was about to disclose “Yet you also know that my handicap has made me the only Fae capable of handling double meanings and half-truths to make lies actually become truths. I didn’t lie when I said that my powers would be restored with a draw of blood. You drew mine” she gestured towards her midriff where a black stain could be seen against the white of her shirt.
“But” the drifter was now sputtering “You were supposed to draw blood from me to get your powers”
“Learn your grammar” Alassin chided softly, picking up her staff from a corner and dusting it off “Magic will be allowed after the participants’ first draw of blood. That means the first draw of blood from the participants, doesn’t matter if it’s one or both or who. Phonetically it’s the same as ‘the participant’s’ as I assumed you took it but, then again, you never asked for the specifics of the duel to be written down, did you? Didn’t anyone ever warn you about making a deal with the Devil?”
“I don’t believe this,” Mittens said. “I simply don’t believe this. I have finally gone mad and I’m now imagining things.”
“I that case I have gone mad as well,” the RMC said. “Oh, how I hope that is the case and this isn’t true. She did not, after dragging us through some of the consistently worst grammar I have ever seen, let the outcome of a duel depend on the difference between a possessive s and a plural possessive s.”
The agents looked at each other, darkly.
“We haven’t gone made, have me?” Mittens asked. “She really did say it? Even the part with ‘learn your grammar’?”
“You know what we should do? One of us should go back to the RC and get ‘The Elements of Style’ and ‘Eats, Shoots & Leaves’ and then, when it is time to kill her, we should beat her to death with them.”
Mittens thought about this. “I’m not saying it can’t be done, but from what I know about anatomy and blunt force trauma, it will be hard and take a long time, even with someone as physically weak as her.”
“We’ll have to think of something different then.”
Sin disposed of the vampire using her song-magic once again.
Then there was a voice, and it took some time for everyone to understand it was hers (Note 4 – Important)
“If it’s so important, then maybe you should consider weaving it into the text somehow?” Mittens said.
“As if the text isn’t long enough,” the RMC said. “But yes, charge for placing important info in a footnote.”
The creature titled her head to a side and looked as if it was trying to think of a nice way to put it.
“Hey, we actually go to see how it looks when someone titles their head,” Mittens said, then frowned. “And it is not pretty. Necks are not supposed to do that.”
“Bleargh. Give her an individual charge for impossible anatomy.”
“Of course…” there was a pause before she titled her head to a side again and adopted a rather puzzled face “Why not?”
“Eek, stop it!” Mittens exclaimed. “It’s creepy.”
The chapter finally ended with a set of footnotes, the last of which caught the attention of the agents.
Note 4: The song she is supposed to sing is Imaginary by Evanescence. Due to a change in policies I deemed it best to remove the lyrics.
“And Sin gets a charge for singing an Evanescence song, and for having a footnote about how it is important info, when it most certainly is not,” the RMC said.
“Wasn’t there a song a while back?”
The RMC frowned. “You’re right, at the Masquerade. Normally we don’t charge for breaking the terms of service on a site, since they are fluent and something that is illegal, might not have been so when the fic was posted, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception. Charge, um, Jareth I suppose, since it was his ball, with using a whole copyrighted song.”
Author’s Note: Y’all want to kill me, right? Come on, I can see it in your faces! You don’t have to pretend. Does it help my cause if I tell you this chapter is 25 pages long? Or that I’ve been waiting for my beta reader to beta proof the other chapter, the one before this, and she never answered me? I honestly don’t want to publish two chapters in a row without Beta-proving, but I guess I need a new beta, and I didn’t want to keep you waiting while I tried to chase down one. So if anyone offers, I will be forever grateful. Really.
“I don’t see why she tried so hard to get a hold on her beta. There’s no difference between the chapters that have been betaed and those that have not,” Mittens said.
Those who said I was straying from the main line of the fanfic, you are right. I was ashamed when I finished this chapter and realized it was too long (meaning it had lots of descriptive stuff that could have been eliminated) and it missed the main focus of the Story completely.
“I don’t understand what she means,” the RMC said. “This chapter had way too much description and wasn’t going anywhere. It fit right in with the rest of the fic.”
26
A random 26 drifted past at the end of the note. The RMC grabbed it and started chewing on the 2; it placed the 6 in its pocket for later.
“We were promised an explanation in this chapter as to why Sin was called a lord,” it said. “We didn’t get it and I doubt it will be coming, so we’ll might as well make a charge for being refereed to as Lord, thereby creating confusion as to her gender, thus setting up and being an accomplice in the homophobia.
It the next chapter Sarah visited Jareth in the Hospital Wing and they started the same argument, they had already had too many times before.
There was the sound of several feet and voices before Sarah saw, to her horror, the faces of three professors staring into the room, their expressions varying.
“By now I think we can charge for having the professors running around like some kind of odd triumvirate, where you never find one without the other.” The RMC looked at the words. “Okay, nothing much happens … Oh, not again.” It shook its head. “We have to wait for a mini.”
Jareth wanted to know about Sin and summoned a mirror, which showed her in the company of Harry and Hermione, who were playing chess.
“I’ve finally got you, Harold James Potter!” Hermione Granger cheered, moving her rook and taking poor Harry Potter’s queen to the young boy’s dismay
The mini-Aragog, Harold, leapt through the mirror and landed in the Hospital Wing, where it scurried up to the agents. Mittens picked it up and placed it in the backpack, while the RMC scowled at Sarah and Jareth.
Jareth talked about Sin.
“Sin is autistic, sometimes it closes up in a world of its own. Mostly is unnoticeable, but sometimes it does get in one of those moods…”
“Charge him with also misrepresenting autism,” the RMC said. “First of all, there is still more to it, that being moody and anti-social and secondly, even if the characteristics had matched, autism is a real diagnosis, which she simply does not have. They’ve already explained what is wrong with her; it’s because she is a hybrid and it has nothing to do with autism.”
“It’s a she.” Snape had opened his mouth for the first time and everyone turned to face him “It’s a person, a girl, not some creature.”
The RMC just rolled its eyes, then checked the words. It was silent for quite a long time, before it said: “I see that there is one more cliché, that this fic feels the need to get into.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s go to where they are holding a meeting.”
The usual suspects and Sin were all in the North Tower. Jareth asked Sin what she thought of Sarah’s education so far. Sin replied that she thought it a disgrace that Sarah knew almost nothing about the Underground. Jareth then ordered her to start in Hogwarts …
“… as a transfer-student,” the RMC groaned. “The latest Sue is now a transfer-student at Hogwarts. Can this fic get anymore …” It stopped and both agents looked around nervously. “Better not finish that sentence,” it said. “We don’t want to catch the attention of the Ironic Overpower.”
Sarah argued with Jareth about this and then ran from the room in anger and straight into a guy.
She glanced up from the floor to meet the eyes of fellow seventh year Aidan Moor, Ravenclaw beater. She had seen him around a lot as a prefect as well as a Quidditch player and she knew him to be Gwendolyn McGregor’s former boyfriend.
The RMC checked the CAD. “Another bit,” it said. “Hopefully he can be assimilated back into canon.”
Aidan asked Sarah out and she accepted, more because she wanted to get Jareth out of her head, than because of Aidan himself.
“A rebound, in other words,” the RMC said. “Poor guy. He seems nice and actually not too badly written. He deserves more, than to be a disposable love interest to get back at Jareth and this Gwendolyn.”
The chapter ended with an author’s note.
I promise to try and update faster, but it’s up to you to believe me or not (I’m not sure about that myself) but I can promise this one thing:
THIS FANFIC WILL BE FINISHED. I WILL NEVER LOSE INTEREST IN IT.
No matter how long it takes me I will finish. I love this fanfic, and I’m thinking of a sequel already!
The agents listened to the voice, feeling a bit sad. Not snarky or spiteful, just sad. By they time they had gotten the mission, the fanfic was still incomplete and the last update had been more than two years ago.
P.S: This is the version not approved by my beta. The beta-proofed version will be posted as soon as my beta finished with it!
25
This lifted their moods a bit. Mittens smiled and the RMC grabbed the 25 and put it away to snack on later.
In chapter seventeen, Jareth was talking to Umbridge at the dinner table in the Great Hall. The agents were sitting among the students, but close enough to listen in on the conversation.
“Well, you see, I have another ward apart from Miss Williams, a girl who truly has no one in the world but me, an orphan with no family to speak of… Quite tragic, really” he paused for dramatic effect and, sure enough, Dolores Umbridge was trying to look compassionate, which really didn’t work “I lived with her in Ireland, where she studied with the best tutors I could get her, till my involvement with the Williams’ family made it imperative that I came here to train Sarah, planning on making my other ward transfer here as soon as possible. I thought it would be good to spend part of her senior year interacting with people her age and experiencing the boarding school life, and Headmaster Dumbledore was kind enough to agree and handle the paperwork, which I know will meet your approval as she is the most gifted of students. But I forgot to run the whole affair past you and now I’m afraid it’s too late, since she is due to arrive tonight”
“Wait a minute,” the RMC whispered. “We’ve already seen this. Sin is meant to live at Hogwarts and pose as a student to help Sarah learn about the Underground, just like Jareth stayed, posing as her tutor to teach her to fight. And now Jareth is charming Umbridge into letting Sin stay, just like he charmed her into letting him do the same. This fic is ripping itself off.”
Mittens noted the charge.
Sin showed up in the Great Hall. She had toned down her appearance to look more like a human girl, but the Words assured everyone that she still looked unmistakably Goth. She was sorted into Slytherin, where everyone promptly ignored her.
The was a scene change.
Severus Snape allowed himself a moment as he breathed in the night air. Few people knew about his habit of going atop the castle out into the roof in chilly nights to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet and tss that sometimes became stiffling in the Dungeons. After a particular vicious marathon of grading, for which he had used some of his finest verbal put-downs he felt particularly well-rested, even though he sore bones were protesting from the latest Death Eater meeting several days ago. He had forgotten, over the years, how used to the chronic pain of serving the Dark Lord he had become once upon a time and the new stiffness in his joints and lingering traces of ache were still a little froeing to him. Sadly, they wouldn’t be for long.
“The writing seems to be deteriorating,” Mittens said. “I mean, it wasn’t much to begin with, but at least it seemed to have been through an automatic spell-checker.”
“The is the second to last chapter, so it is possible that the fic is being rushed, in an effort to get it completed. But whatever the reason, deteriorating writing is a charge.” The RMC scanned the words. “Sarah goes on her date. Jareth goes to see the three Fates, who are actually a rip-off of the three Norns, which gives a charge for mixing Norse and Celtic mythology.” It paused for a moment, then said: “The scene is actually quite good. The premise is interesting, the Fates are kind of fun and refreshingly un-glittery and there’s only a single quote from the movie. It almost looks like the beginning of something,” it hesitated, searching for the right words, “not horrible. Let’s take a closer look at those three bits.”
The agents arrived at the cave, just as Jareth had stormed out. The three women looked up at them and smiled.
“Come to take us home, have you?” the one in the middle, Verdandi, asked.
“Um,” the RMC replied. “I suppose we have.”
“That’s nice,” the oldest woman, Urd, said. “These excursions are fun and all, but I do prefer my home. And how kind of you to take us. We can get home on our own of course, but with your modern equipment, it will be a lot easier.”
“How do you know about all that,” Mittens asked.
“I think,” the RMC said slowly, “that they may be the real deal.”
Verdandi laughed. “How clever!” she said.
“I suppose you’ll forgive us, if we take a reading of you, just to be sure?” the RMC said.
The three women all nodded, smiling, and the RMC slowly got the CAD out and pointed it at Skuld.
[Skuld. Norn. Canon/uncanon/canon. Out of Character 0.0%.] It frowned. “But it says 0%. How does that work? The real Skuld is not …” It stopped itself. “Not as you was described in the fic.”
The young girl, Skuld, laughed. “We play along with what the story wants us to do. Otherwise, there would just be made three character replacements of us and we would never get to see anywhere new.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Although I wasn’t exactly happy with the writing in this one.”
“This was actually the best chapter,” the RMC said. “You should have seen the rest of the story.”
“Poor things,” Urd said. “Must be hard, doing what you do.”
“How come you know so much about it? I know that it is not uncommon for deities to have some sort of knowledge of the canon and some OOC resistance, but not like this.”
“Oh, but our stories are old, child,” Verdandi said. “And they have been retold and reshaped so many times, that even we can have a hard time keeping track of them.”
The RMC nodded slowly. “But now you would like to go home?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Urd said. “We are able to get home on our own, after all.”
“No, it’s no trouble at all,” the RMC said, then added: “Would you mind a lot if we, um, neuralyzed you?”
“I won’t work, you know,” Skuld said.
“Oh, I know,” the RMC replied, “but I would like to be able to tell the Flowers that I tried.”
After a neuralyzing, which had absolutely no effect, the agents opened a portal back to the Norse mythology and sent the Norns through. The three women waved and asked them to please come and visit some day, as the portal closed behind them.
The RMC looked at the words ahead of them. “The weapons training has been picked up again, which means that the weapons are back in the tower, so we will have to clear out the room. But other than that, nothing else happens. Both in terms of no new charges, but also in the sense that the final chapter seems to be treading water; there’s even an author’s note acknowledging as much. That means it is time for us to get down to business. It’s rather complicated with three chargelists; do you need time to get them in order?”
“I think it’s okay. Everyone get their own charges. Sarah gets everything having to do with the Harry Potter canon, Jareth gets everything from the Underground and Sin gets the charges we collected in her chapter. All general charges we pin on Sarah. Right?”
“Right. Now we need some sort of strategy.” It looked at Mittens.
He thought for a moment. “They have all three demonstrated that they are very powerful, but at least Jareth and Sin have a very useful allergy to iron and steel.” He reached down to touch the hilt of one of the knives and the RMC did the same with its sword. “But Sarah doesn’t have that.”
“She must have some kind of weakness we can exploit.”
They both thought a bit longer, then Mittens said: “They did mention that she was a very heavy sleeper.”
The RMC grinned. It was quite a disconcerting sight. “Did you bring any duck tape?”
Mittens actually looked mildly affronted at the question. “I brought two rolls.” Then he also grinned.
Sarah woke up slowly, sensing that something was awfully wrong. She heard an unfamiliar voice saying: “… decribed as a ‘fine, and rather strong twelve-and-a-half inches item made of ebony and with a phoenix feather as a magical core’.”
She opened her eyes. Above her was a red sky; the leafless branches of a dead tree crisscrossed her vision.
“It will make a fine souvenir,” another voice said, and she turned her head in that direction. A young man in a Hogwarts uniform with Gryffindor’s colours was holding her wand, turning it over as if examining it. He looked at her and said: “Oh, you’re awake.”
She wanted to yell at him to put down her wand, but only managed to make a muffled sound and she realised that she had something over her mouth.
“No good,” the young man said and sniffed. “Can’t hear ya.” He looked away from Sarah and said: “Maybe we should relent a little on the charge for quoting the movie. It actually is kind of funny.”
“I disagree,” the first voice said and Sarah turned to look. It was a woman, also wearing a Hogwarts uniform and looking enough like the young man to be his sister. They both looked boring and unglamorous and the woman’s voice was flat and boring as she continued: “You’ve done it perhaps two times on this whole mission, that’s why it’s still funny. She,” she gestured towards Sarah, “and that other one has been quoting the movie in every single chapter, rehashing the same quotes over and over.”
Sarah tried to move her hands, bur realised she couldn’t; they were also tied together. She tried to call out in her mind for the Labyrinth, Jareth, anyone, but no-one responded.
As if he had guessed what she was thinking, the young man bent over her and said: “Don’t bother. They can’t hear you. This is the real Labyrinth – the canon, that is, not that weird, glittery, living entity you tried to pass of as the real thing – so help is literally a world away.”
Sarah had no idea what he was talking about, but she had no problems understanding the look in his eyes; it was murder.
“But first,” he said and straightened up, “it is time for the charge list, which will be read by my esteemed colleague here.”
The RMC stepped closer to Sarah, opened the notebook and began reading: “Sarah Aithne Rhiannon Williams, you are charged with crimes against canon, that are many in number and heinous in nature, among these being, but not limited to: having eyes of an unnatural colour; serious crimes against the English language, among these: thinking that you don’t need commas and full stops before quotation marks, consistently confusing ‘were’ and ‘where’; not marking new scenes with a new paragraph; having run-on sentences and serious pronoun confusion; being long-winded; making the Labyrinth a living entity without any basis in canon; claiming that you have a serene temper, when nothing in the movie supports this; having an improbably large crystal sphere stuck in your hand and, might I add, never mentioning anything about it being in the way; creating Ed of Dream Sequence; throwing canons OOC;” it looked up from the notebook, “mostly by turning people into cardboard cut-out bits. There is more to Sarah’s stepmother than just being bossy, just like there is more to Mrs. Weasley than cooking.”
It looked back into the notebook. “You are also charged with not being surprised when you learned about Hogwarts and the wizarding world; having two non-canonical and improbable middle names; misrepresenting magical heredity, by claiming that a wizarding family can suddenly produce nothing but Squibs and that the family’s magic can only be passed on to the girls; inventing an non-canonical potion; inventing tickets for the Hogwarts Express; creating a minor time distortion; having Sue-length hair; way too much description of clothes, to the point where it becomes costume porn; turning McGonagall into a little girl; attacking agents of the PPC with scene changes; making the Gryffindor and Slytherin students total jerks; being Sueshly beautiful and trying to hide it; not being expelled from the school in spite of them having every reason to do so; having the students be both openly cruel to you and afraid of you; giving yourself black hair, thereby contradicting not just canon, but also your own fic; making three romances, which in addition to being non-canonical were also entirely pointless; being spectacularly good at far too many things; being made Head Girl, when you are actually completely unsuited for the position; creating Helping Hands, to wit: sarahm and Ambrosias; creating mini-Aragogs, to wit: Virginia, Promfrey and Creevy; creating a mini-Balrog, Riverdendell in the wrong continuum,” the RMC stopped to glare at the Sue for a very long time without saying a word, before it finally resumed its reading.
“Claiming that you are not a Sue, when in fact you are and mentioning ‘defects’ that are actually positive traits; claiming you have a small bedroom, thereby trying to rip off Harry Potter; inventing an non-canonical name and description for a species of snakes; creating pools of suspicious golden liquid; whining about baby-proofing in a home with a two-year old; having multiple instances of triple redundancies; keeping your special magic a secret, rather than using it against Voldemort; being a Member of the Order of the Phoenix. “It once again lowered the notebook and looked at the Sue, this time with a thoughtful expression. “Since your fic was never finished, I can’t exactly charge for it being pointless. After all, there is the possibility, that there was going to be a grand finale, where the Order and your membership played a vital role. It sure doesn’t look that way, though. Again, I can’t prove it, but it looks as if you, throughout this story, simply do whatever you think is cool and then drop the plot thread again, when you think of something new. However, regardless of whether or not you were planning to use one or all of your subplots in the story, I can say with absolute certainty, that this story had too many subplots and far too little actual plot, and that is a charge.”
It looked back into the notebook. “You are also charged with making a lot of friends while you are with the Order and yet claiming to be lonely, when you get back to Hogwarts; giving Molly Weasley whiskers; having colour-changing eyes; overusing adjectives and adverbs; taking credit for far too many canon events; stalking canon characters and not having anybody mind; making everyone incredible gullible; in-text author’s notes; being ridiculously good at doodling; making even yourself act out of character; horrifying anatomy; having wizarding families specialise in different types of magic; being clever in a stupid way; having a background that is non-canonical, inconsistent and pointless; making the exceptionally stupid claim that an Animagus can enter Hogwarts; forgetting about Dobby; inventing an spell, that is non-canonical, breaks naming conventions and is redundant; having Ginny get the words right the first time; spontaneous sex changes; too much touching; making yourself soaking, thereby creating horrible implications; severely annoying PPC-agents; comparing one of your bit characters to Lord Elrond; giving everybody far too many and sometimes conflicting expressions; using far too many quotes from the movie; getting the actual quotes from the movie wrong.”
The RMC gave her another long hard glare, before continuing the charging. “Creating a time stretch with over-description; skipping over the scene with the Junk Lady; switching two scenes; making up an non-canonical Underground and referring to an non-canonical weakening of magic; bashing Ron; info-dumping; ignoring that fact that the Harry Potter canon already have Goblins; having a fancy title without any content; having a ridiculous amount of inconsistencies; making a plot-hole filled excuse for Jareth to stay in Hogwarts, while trying to make yourself look noble; serious character defamation of Alicia Spinnet, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell by turning them into fluff-headed bubble-brains; making several references to someone’s British accent in a fic, that takes place in England; trying to make this a high school teen drama; acting inappropriately around your so-called tutor; creating your own version of the Underground; whining in the disclaimer about not owning Jareth; trivializing sexual harassment; having Sir Didymus not speak in Olde English; snubbing the original characters; having everyone behave like small and extremely rude children; using a beta who did an awful job; having a stupid author’s note; having extra bit-Stues; overuse of aliases and nicknames; making the Harry Potter characters homophobic without any basis in canon; making them express this homophobia openly; making several of them be extremely, unforgivably rude and immature about it and finally, making them be loud and rude while within earshot of the person they are attacking.” It lowered the notebook once again. “Your fic takes place in or around 1996!” it yelled. “Not in 1896!”
Sarah blinked a couple of times, but couldn’t say anything because of the duck tape, which was probably just as well. The RMC was by now angry enough, that one wrong word or probably any word from the Sue could have led it to perform a summary execution. It didn’t really think it would get into trouble with the Flowers over it – after all, the part of the chargelist it had already read, was long enough to condemn any Sue to death – but it would have ended up being annoyed with itself, for not doing things the proper way.
It took a deep breath to calm itself, then continued. “You are also charged with plot-induced stupidity; multiple instances of Sue-logic; horrible anatomy; forgetting that there is a law prohibiting mingling between the Above- and Underground; having the professors running around like some kind of odd triumvirate; deteriorating writing; mixing Norse and Celtic mythology; and finally you are charged with impersonating the real Sarah Williams and with being not just a Sue, but an extremely clichéd Sue, in not just one, but two different canons. For that, your sentence is death. Any last words?” The RMC reached over and yanked the duck tape from Sarah’s mouth. She screamed in pain.
“That’s what I thought,” the RMC said and slapped the tape back on, then smoothed it to make it fit tightly once again. “Usually we try to find some appropriate way to dispose of Stues, but you have being going out of your way, through this whole story, to be speshul, so we simply wont bother coming up with anything creative. We’ll just drown you in the Bog of Eternal Stench.”
The RMC fiddled with the RA and opened a portal. Mittens lifted up the Sue, who tried unsuccessfully to worm her way out of his grip, and carried her through.
The stench that assaulted them made their eyes water and their heads hurt. It was like every bad smell on Earth mixed up and concentrated. Mittens threw Sarah Aithne Rhiannon Williams in and the agents watched her sink. They watched the surface until the waves had stopped and there were no more bubbles coming up. Then they watched a little longer, just to be sure, even though they wanted nothing more than to get away from the Bog. Finally the RMC said: “One down, two to go.” It looked at the words. “There’s a conversation between Sin and Jareth, right at the end of the chapter. She leaves and goes to the roof. That means, they are both alone.” The agents agreed on a simple strategy and the RMC pressed the buttons on the RA.
The attack took Jareth completely by surprise. He was stabbed from behind with two knives, before he had even registered that there was anyone behind him. The iron in the steel burned worse than fire. He turned around, tried to summon a crystal, but the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he fell.
He found himself lying on the reddish sand right outside the Labyrinth, too weak to get up. He tried to transform into an owl, summon a crystal, anything, but before he could do any of that, a sword was plunged into his stomach, effectively nailing him to the ground.
“Jareth, Fae king of a lot of races you pulled out of your,” there was a brief pause, “hat,” the voice continued, “as representatives of the PPC we hereby …” There was another pause. “Actually, I think you should do the charge list. After all, most of his crimes are against the Labyrinth canon.”
Jareth looked around and finally got a look at his attackers. It was a young man and a woman, dressed as students. The young man came over to him with a notebook in his hands and started reading aloud from it.
“Besides being guilty of a lot of the same charges as Sarah, which I will not repeat here, because I don’t want this to last all day, you are charged with the following: Inventing multiple non-canonical races and lands, that are also inconsistent; claiming that you do not wear eye shadow; having a pointless scene; being able to Apparate into Hogwarts; giving ineffective treatment and drooling all over Sarah instead; being totally overpowered; bashing the costume design of Labyrinth and claiming that you had to wear the clothes; not being able to dress yourself.” Mittens lowered the notebook and glared at Jareth. “You set yourself up as an ancient High King of divine blood and you can’t even pick your own clothes, and then you whine about the clothes that get picked out for you.”
He looked down at the notebook again and continued his reading. “Acting inappropriately around your so-called pupil; using random names of supernatural beings for your made-up races, including Saraphim and Incubi and getting the plural of Incubus wrong; having a useless system for showing rank; being inconsistent about what the difference between light and dark actually entails; calling someone a fallen angel, who wasn’t an angel to begin with; sexual harassment; creating a Helping Hand, Sara; cruelty towards mathematics; info dumping research; lounging at inappropriate moments; not doing the research on how sword fighting is taught; using the word ‘luv’; being unable to create and sustain a setting; abusing a John Lennon quote; having four arms; sexual assault; helping to set up homophobic remarks.” Mittens carefully closed the notebook and then whacked Jareth over the head with it. “You fail!” he yelled, then opened the notebook and continued in a more normal tone of voice.
“You are also charged with using modern day music in your fantasy setting; ripping off Phantom of the Opera; stalking; brainwashing; using a whole copyrighted song; misrepresenting autism; ripping off yourself; creating a version of the Underground, which completely removes everything interesting, quirky and lovable and replaces it with boring glitter; and finally with impersonating Jareth, King of the Goblins and with being a Gary Stu, for which you are sentenced to death.”
Once again, the earth disappeared under Jareth and he fell. Then he was overwhelmed by the stench of the Bog. He heard the two attackers land next to him and the man picked him up and held him over the murky waters. “Any last words?” he asked.
“Don’t,” Jareth said. “If I touch it, I’ll smell bad for the rest of my life.”
The young man smiled. “Don’t worry. It wont be long.” And then he let go.
The agents watched as the waves on the surfaced subsided. “Poetic and fitting as this might be, this wasn’t a very good idea,” Mittens said. He was holding his nose as if he was afraid it might try to make a run for it – and considering the circumstances, he wouldn’t rule out the possibility – but it was making absolutely no difference.
The RMC shook its head. “No.” It was trying to talk as little as possible. Not talking used less air than talking, which meant that you didn’t have to breathe as much in.
“We should already have realised that the first time we stood here.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s think of something else to kill off the third with.”
“Already thinking. I’ve got an idea.”
It was usually Mittens who came up with ideas for killing off Stues, but he managed not to look too surprised. The RMC told him its idea. He frowned. “Are we allowed to do that?” he asked.
“Yes. Taking Stues to another continuum to dispose of them is allowed as long as it serves a purpose and is not done too often.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the flowers,” Mittens said.
“You were thinking about her?”
“Yes. Are you sure she won’t mind?”
“Absolutely,” the RMC replied. “She dislikes bad writing as much as anyone. She would love it.” It looked out at the Bog, where there were no more bubbles on the surface. They could leave in a minute.
“Okay. We’ll do it.” Mittens thought for a moment. “Alassin uses her voice to do magic, although she has been given an iron necklace which blocks much of her powers. When I attack, I should go for the throat, try to damage her windpipe and then stab her.”
“Mittens, I want you to be careful.”
“I know. The throat is a difficult target and I don’t want to kill her before we have read her charges.”
“Well, that too, but that’s not what I was talking about. Alassin is supposed to be all-knowing. Granted, she hasn’t exactly proven this claim, but she might still sense you coming and then you could get badly hurt. If you think anything is not going as it is supposed to, I want you to abort the attack and jump right back through the portal. Are we clear?”
“Oh. I mean, yes. Of course.”
The RMC looked again at the still waters of the Bog and said: “Then let’s do it.”
Alassin Natashia Raziel Zane was sitting on one of the roofs above the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, staring out into the night, when a blue light appeared right in front of her. I haven’t foreseen this, she thought, right before her omniscience told her, that what was coming through the blue light was dangerous. But by then it was too late. A young man dressed as a student stepped out of the light, grabbed her throat with both hands and squeezed. She tried to sing or to just utter a single magical word, but found herself unable to. Between the cutting off of her air and the iron necklace, she simply had no voice. Before she could melt into the shadows, her attacker had let go with one hand and plunged a steel dagger into her stomach and all her strength left her. She felt herself falling and it took a moment for her to realise, that she wasn’t falling from the roof.
She found herself lying on a windswept hilltop, withered plants prickling her back.
Her attacker was joined by a woman, holding a small notebook. She opened the notebook and looked in it, then turned it upside down and started reading from it.
“Alassin Natashia Raziel Zane, as representatives of the PPC we are here to charge you with crimes against canon. Besides being guilty of many of the same crimes as your two accomplishes, you are also charged with having more than 500 words of description of your clothes and accessories and later 250 more; over accessorizing; getting your wings described last; having a stupid name; being all-knowing, without actually knowing all; forgetting what you are wearing; being overpowered and wangsty; getting the meaning of your name wrong; romancing Snape; having no sense of personal space; multiplying minis; not being clear on how you look, in spite of the absurd amount of description of you; having stupid make-up; making Harry and Hermione incompetent; misrepresenting autism; creating the Prefect Badger.” It lowered the notebook to look at the Sue. “One of the finest examples ever seen, of how much difference a single letter can make.”
It continued reading. “Creating mini-Aragogs, to wit: Ronikuns and Harold; placing a choir organ in the Great Hall; Sue-singing; bashing Ron; nonsense dumping; placing important info in a footnote; impossible anatomy; singing an Evanescence song; having a really dumb idea about what constitutes important info; being refereed to as Lord, thereby creating confusion as to your gender, thus setting up and being an accomplice in the homophobia; and finally with being a insufferable Sue.”
As the RMC read the last charge it closed the notebook and put it away. “For these crimes, you are sentenced to die.” It opened a portal, as Mittens lifted up Sin. With a reassuring nod to Mittens, it stepped though the portal.
They were standing in a narrow corridor, between two large shelves filled with books and scrolls. The portal only created a small pool of light around them and it was impossible to see how high the selves were or how far they went on. A low rustling sound could be heard, as something moved behind the books and Mittens stiffened, but then the sound died down and he relaxed a bit. The creatures in the Archive were always looking for easy prey, and he had been that the last time he was here, but this time he made sure to stay close to the RMC and they dared not attack. The thought, that maybe he simply wasn’t easy prey any more, didn’t occur to him.
“This,” the RMC said to the Sue, “is Hell and it is where we are from. So we were quite annoyed with the many references to Hell and angels and demons, especially in your backstory, but we couldn’t charge you for breaking our canon. We could however, take it into consideration when we decided on how to execute you. So we decided to show you one of Hell’s archives, since here aren’t any libraries.”
Sin looked as if she wanted to scream, but she was still unable to get a word out.
Mittens found the magical necklace and got if off her neck. Then he put her down. “Now,” he said. “Run along.” With these words he gave her a small push.
Sin stumbled back two steps and was already on the edge of the light. Two more steps and the agents couldn’t see her any more. Again there was a rustling sound behind the books, but this time it didn’t stop. From the darkness they heard the noise of books and scrolls hitting the floor as something pushed out from behind them. There was the sound of bones breaking and a wet tearing sound.
“That’s taken care of then,” Mittens said.
The RMC nodded. “Now we just have to clean this mess up. Let’s start with the neuralyzing.”
“Hey, Harry!” The RMC yelled. The SEP field fell away and Harry looked in its direction. The RMC closed its eyes and pressed the button on the neuralyzer. As soon as it opened its eyes again, it knew something was wrong. Harry wasn’t looking at it with the vacant eyes of someone just neuralyed, he was looking curious and a bit impatient.
“Are you trying to take a picture?” Harry asked. “You know cameras don’t work in Hogwarts.”
“I completely forgot,” The RMC said. “How silly. Sorry.” And it turned and walked away, leaving a slightly puzzled Harry Potter.
“It didn’t work,” the RMC said to Mittens, who had been keeping in the background. “Electrical equipment doesn’t work at Hogwarts, I should have thought of it.”
“But the RA and the CAD worked just fine.”
“The neuralyzer originally came from the Men in Black continuum, so it is much closer to ordinary technology. The RA and CAD were invented by Makes-Things and work by … I have no idea. Anyway, don’t think about it or maybe the RA will stop working too.” It sighed. “This is all my fault.”
“It’s just as much my fault. I’m the one responsible for packing the backpack.”
The RMC smiled a little. “But you didn’t know about Hogwarts and technology.”
“Then it’s still partly my fault,” Mittens said. “I ought to know a major canon like Harry Potter, so I should have known.”
“That is very kind of you, but no. This is only my fault. And I don’t know what to do. We could go back and get a Muggle-use wand, but that takes time and we risk the fic restarting and all our work being undone.” It hid its head in its hands for a moment. “Oh, how could I forget …” It lifted its head. “Forget,” it whispered. “Yes, that might just work.”
“You have an idea?”
“Yes and it has better work. We have to go to the oubliette, where Jareth placed Finian.”
“… to get the stories back in order, and you want me to join you? Did I get it all right?”
“That’s pretty much it, yes,” the RMC said.
Finian looked around in the small oubliette, his gaze lingering at the skull on the floor. “I suppose it’s better than staying here.”
“Great,” Mittens said. “Then you just have to do something for us.”
“What would that be?”
“How are you with Memory Charms?”
There was a brief silence, then Finian said: “Excuse me?”
They were back at Hogwarts and Harry Potter was standing about twenty meters away. Finian had been dressed as a student with the help of the D.O.R.K.S. and was holding his wand ready. Perhaps a little too ready.
“Listen and listen carefully,” the RMC said. “Don’t even think about trying to double-cross us. If what comes out of your mouth next is anything other than Obliviate, then my colleague will make sure you are dead before you get to the second syllable in whatever you are trying to say.”
Finian tensed a moment, then nodded and stepped towards Harry Potter.
An inordinate amount of memory erasing and telling false memories later, the agents and Finian were standing in the South Tower, in the room with all the weapons.
The RMC looked around, then shrugged. “Let’s get to it,” it said. “We have to clean them out, they are not canon.”
“What should we do with them?” Mittens asked.
“Thrown them into our RC. We can sort through them later, and whatever we don’t want, we can trade for something else. Maybe Agents Gillies and Briggs would like some loot in return for the pillows and the lantern.”
The agents both turned to Finian Bloodstone, who looked ready to faint.
“You did a very good job with those Memory Charms,” the RMC said “Give us a hand with this also, and we’ll send you to the Department of Personnel as soon as we are done.”
Next stop was the fake Underground. “How do you intend to go about burning this place?” the RMC asked.
“Well, I have a box of matches. I suppose I can just light a few torches. There’s a castle, a small city and an arena. Nothing compared to what DOGA has to deal with sometimes.” He looked thoughtful.
“Why do I get the feeling, that you have a much better idea?”
“I don’t know if it is a better idea. I just suddenly thought, that it has been an awfully long time since we last took all the minis outside.”
The RMC grinned.
Mittens was overseeing the destruction of the fake Underground. Since it, or at least the Labyrinth, might technically be considered a living entity, he and the RMC had charged it with being a location replacement and a horrible one at that. Then the RMC had left and sent out the minis. The minis were as happy as pigs in mud. Most of them were mini-Darkspawn, who loved nothing better than to destroy things, but the other minis were also holding their own. Mittens was simply walking around, checking if any of the bits showed sign of sentience by trying to either defend themselves or run away. So far he had seen neither.
“Scoundrel! Blackguard! Fiend!” Mittens turned around. The character-replacement of Sir Didymus, now back in its fox-shape, was mounted on its dog and yelling insults at him. “I will fight you to the death!” it yelled and waved its small baton.
“Sounds reasonable enough,” Mittens replied and drew his own knifes. The dog whimpered. “Sir Didymus, as a representative of the PPC, I hereby charge you with being a character replacement, being able to turn into a human once a year, winning all the jousts, not speaking in Olde English and having two aliases, that we know of.” He paused. “Actually, could you hang on for a moment? There’s someone I have to talk to.”
“Well, I …”
“Great. Just a minute.” Mittens opened a portal and stuck his head through.
The RMC back in RC #170 looked up at him. “Already done?” it asked. “Or is there a problem?”
“No, the minis are exceptionally good at tearing through things and setting them on fire. But I found the Sir Didymus-replacement and he’s sentient. So I charged him with all the stuff he has done wrong and then I thought, that it actually wasn’t a lot, so …” Mittens trailed off and the RMC got the distinct impression, even though it could only see his head, that he was stepping on his own feet.
“So you thought, you’d try to recruit him?” it finished.
“Yes. Do you think it’s a bad idea?”
“Not at all. I dislike unnecessary killings of sentient bits, so if you can recruit him, that would be fine. Remember to do a reading on the dog. If it is the real one, you have to send it home.”
“Okay, thanks.” Mittens pulled his head back out of the portal.
He turned back to Sir Didymus. “So you want to kill me for attacking the Underground?”
“Yes!”
Mittens tried to summon up all he knew about Sir Didymus, both in canon and in this fic. “But surely someone as perceptive as you, would have noticed that this is not, in fact, the real Underground?”
Sir Didymus looked at him, confused. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I have had the suspicion that …”
“That the Fae King and the Lady Keeper of the Labyrinth are not the real Jareth and Sarah?”
Sir Didymus’ face got a pained expression. Finally he said: “Yes. Exactly.”
“I’m from something called the PPC,” Mittens began and proceeded to tell all about it to an increasingly eager Sir Didymus.
“You mean, you actually go on quests and defeat monsters and rescue damsels in distress like Lady Sarah?” he asked at last. “Can I join?”
Mittens smiled. “Sure,” he said. “But you’ll have to get a new name.”
“My name?” Sir Didymus looked crestfallen. “But it is what I am known by.”
“You are joining the PPC and that means laying off your old life and beginning a new. You’ll make a new name for yourself.” He thought for a moment. “In honour of the late and wonderful Jim Henson, creator of the Labyrinth, how about we name you James? James Vulpes?”
“James Vulpes. Not bad. But no ‘sir’?”
“No, sorry.” Mittens discretely pointed the CAD at the dog and gave a small sigh of relief after seeing the readout. “Your dog needs a new name too,” he said. “I suggest, um, Cabal. That’s the name of King Arthur’s dog.” The dog tilted its head as if it had to think about this, but neither it, nor the newly named James Vulpes had any objections to the name.
Mittens opened a portal. “If you’ll just step through here, the Department of Personnel will take care of all the details.”
After about an hour of destruction, the Underground couldn’t take any more beating and started to simply dissolve. Mittens rounded up the minis, got them to stand in two long rows and counted them carefully twice, before opening a portal back to the RC and taking them back. Behind them the fake Underground melted into nothing.
Mittens sat down in one of the beanbags with a sigh. The Prefect Badger, which seemed to have taken a liking to the place and had decided to stay, curled up next to his feet.
“Feeling down?” the RMC asked.
Mittens started slowly emptying the backpack for souvenirs. “Yeah,” he said. Then he shrugged. “I shouldn’t let it get me down. You don’t.”
“It’s probably worse, because the Labyrinth is the first canon you ever learned to love.”
“Not to mention the only. I should expand my repertoire.”
“It might help. That way you can think of one canon while you’re watching another being defiled.” The RMC got an idea. It sent the console a look that promised it would take a flame thrower to it, if it started beeping now, and said: “You need to unwind. Let’s go watch the Lion King in 3D.”
“I thought the movie theatre here only showed badfics?”
“I’m talking about the real Lion King in real 3D. I suggest we go as birds. They can go almost anywhere and won’t be noticed.” It looked at Mittens. “There are perks in this job,” it said. “And sometimes we even get to enjoy them.”
Read Full Post »
RC#170 