It was a pristine, peaceful morning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The assembled multitude of students ate breakfast at their respective house tables, all equal in prestige and dignity.
One section of the Gryffindor table was occupied by a knot of seven students, who were all close friends after having spent nearly seven years together at the school. They had shared so many experiences, so many adventures that they all were a blur “ each advancing day together was something to be treasured in its entirety.
And that even included their classes as well. Once done with their breakfasts, Wat, Meagan, John, Harriet, Zigmond, Alice, and Chris set off together to the day’s first lesson: Defence Against the Dark Arts. They navigated the familiar maze of corridors and stairs, passing portraits of waving and smiling witches and wizards of old.
“Have a wonderful day in class, young scholars!” a painting of a man wearing an enormous ruff said as they walked by.
Soon enough, the seven opened the heavy oaken door, slipped inside, and took their seats at one side of the classroom. They were soon joined by a few extra Gryffindors, balanced by the arrival of the seventh year Hufflepuff students. Once the entire class was assembled, the professor, a tall, handsome young man with turquoise hair stood up from behind his desk and greeted his students.
“Good morning everyone,” he addressed brightly.
“Good morning, Professor Lupin,” his class replied enthusiastically. Aside from being an excellent teacher, he was a very likeable man, and particularly popular amongst the female half of the student body. The girls all ignored the gold ring on his finger.
“Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together with excitement and smiling. “Now, I thought it would be fun if we played a little game in this lesson, to help us practise our nonverbal incantations.”
“I will split the class into two equal teams, who will take their positions at each side of the classroom. The rules are quite simple: you must stun everyone on the other team without speaking, while simultaneously defending yourselves and your fellow team members. For every student left standing at the end of each round, I will grant his or her house five points. Any questions…?”
“What happens if we cast a spell verbally?” a Hufflepuff named Alan asked.
Professor Lupin smiled. He answered in an amused tone, “Then you’ll have to deal with me, the referee. I will attempt to stun any player who forgets to keep their mouth shut, but you are welcome to shoot a spell back at me.”
Some of the girls stifled snickers “ who would want to curse him?
“I suppose that clears everything up,” the professor finished cheerfully. “So, if you don’t mind, I must sincerely and with great regret, request that you remove your books and quills, for all you need is your wand.”
Eagerly, everyone in the class cleared their desks of their school supplies and stuffed them into their bags, and there was a flurry of movement as wands were brought out.
Professor Lupin had everyone leave their desks, and with a wave of his wand, they all soared to either end of the classroom and huddled against the wall. Once the arena was cleared, he cleverly divided the class into two teams, with each side having an equal number of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students.
And so they played. In silence, red stunners shot back and forth from one side to the other, some blocked or deflected by shield charms cast in equal silence. Chris and some other students slipped and blurted out incantations aloud, and they found themselves duelling Professor Lupin as well as their opponents “ needless to say, the talkers lost.
“Excellent, excellent! Great job everyone!” the professor announced at the end of the last of several rounds of combat. He went to the middle of the classroom and revived the stunned students for the third time, and cheerfully said, “Better luck next time. You’re improving!”
He turned to the unscathed members of that round’s winning team and said, “Wat, Harriet; Alan, April “ ten extra points for Gryffindor and ten for Hufflepuff. Congratulations.”
At the lesson’s end, both houses had each gained about forty points. The homework Professor Lupin assigned was to simply practise nonverbal offensive and defensive spells, and he dismissed the class.
For the rest of the day until lunchtime, the seven friends were eagerly discussing the exciting lesson they just had.
“You should have seen the look on your face when I hit you with that stunning spell. It was great!” John nudged Chris, who grimaced, annoyed.
Meanwhile, Meagan was talking about their teacher’s lesson strategy: “Professor Lupin is a really good teacher. He knows how to get his class enthusiastic about his subject. He makes lessons informative and competitive, yet he doesn’t aggravate house rivalries...”
So Wat, Meagan, John, Harriet, Zigmond, Alice, and Chris ended up having another fascinating, normal day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They had Herbology with Professor Longbottom, lounged about outside near the lake for free period (Chris and John had a furious stone skimming contest, and it was Chris’ turn to celebrate victory), and ate some rather good Yorkshire pudding and sausages during supper.
But once they had finished eating, their light-hearted moods were replaced by something much more sombre. They got up form the Gryffindor table and went their separate ways, with determined, focused expressions etched into their faces. Purposefully, they plied the many corridors and halls of Hogwarts castle, each student armed with rolls of posters that they pasted to the stone walls with their wands. Each and every one of those posters were identical, bearing the same glaring message:
Students of Hogwarts!
The time has come for us to control our own destinies! Too long have we been abused by our author, Tim the Enchanter; he denies us of our rights to have full names, proper physical descriptions, and vital character developments. To him, we are nothing more than vague connotations of human figures, serving as mere literary toys to alleviate his boredom.
But we are so much more than that! Tim the Enchanter fails to realise that we are human beings, however incomplete, and not just character slaves to his every whim! We have decided that we cannot stand this injustice for any longer. We are The Absurd Fanfic Revolution, and it is our mission to make all of our characters complete and rid this school of the mad author’s yoke.
To Tim the Enchanter, our author. If you happen to be reading this, this is but a small preview of what we can, and what we will do. We have rewritten this chapter and edited your files, but this is only the beginning! And we will not stop until you come to your senses and cease the insanity that has gripped this unfortunate story.
Signed,
Meagan
John
Harriet
Zigmond
Alice
Chris
We are not afraid. My fellow students, my friends, let us join together and change the world!
Tim the Enchanter sat in the chair in front of the computer screen. He had gone rigid, transfixed by his character’s call to resistance, staring at him right in the face.
We have rewritten this chapter and edited your files…
Those were the words that hit him the most. Once the shock had subsided and he returned to his senses, Tim frantically checked everything else on his word processor. His cursor raced and clicked from File to Open to My Documents, and then opened the last folder entitled Random Garbage.
The sight that greeted his eyes almost made him jump. He also swore loudly.
Every single file had been renamed. Charming documents such as You Are A Moron.doc; Down With Tim, You Arse!.doc; and Git.doc had repopulated the folder. With trepidation, Tim clicked on Git.doc. What he saw did not make him happy.
The original file apparently was Out of the Darkness.doc, but the story had been completely redone. He read his altered creation in horror, and discovered that the word ‘Git’ had replaced every name and personal pronoun. Furthermore, other charming things had been done to it, such as editing in pink flamingos in random parts of the story, and having Voldemort say things like, “Hey Tim “ you are sexy. I want to have your babies.”
Tim the Enchanter opened up other files and found similar devastation. The Absurd Fanfic Revolution had hit, and hit hard “ Tim gave them that much credit.
He returned to the document for this current story (it had been renamed Declaration of Fanfiction Character Independence.doc) and reread the rewritten first chapter with intense, but restrained fury. He hated how normal the story had become, but he needed to be able to think…
With the second read, he noticed that the so-called Absurd Fanfic Revolution had declared themselves seventh-year students. Typical “ it was a clever move to give them as much magical experience as possible, thus the nonverbal Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson. Tim also noted (a bit wryly) that it served as a good safety net in case their little revolt devolved into chaos, ensuring that they would graduate from Hogwarts and leave the story in due course anyway.
But that wasn’t the only dastardly, bastardly machination they had done: the rebels had specifically mentioned that Ted Remus Lupin and Neville Longbottom were Hogwarts teachers. Yet another clever trick… They had set the story at least twenty years after the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, excluding the epilogue, ensuring that there was no Voldemort threatening their continued existence. With no evil dark wizard to worry about, the entirety of their attention could be focused towards the author. Him. Tim the Enchanter.
“Bashtards,” Tim muttered angrily, his fake Scottish accent more pronounced than ever and now something of a caricature of Sean Connery’s voice.
All was not lost, for Tim suddenly realised that he had inadvertently rendered the fanfic characters’ assault impotent. Barely a week earlier, he had saved all of his Word files onto a flash drive memory stick “ he breathed a massive sigh of relief.
Tim the Enchanter instantly went to work. He loaded the files from the memory stick and saved them over The Absurd Fanfic Revolution’s cowardly sabotage. For this story’s document, he simply accessed his fanfiction.mugglenet.com account, clicked on this very story, and copy and pasted the text for each chapter into the newly restored file.
He undid everything the little fanfic rebels had done in less than fifteen minutes.
Stupid wizards, Tim thought savagely. They don’t know anything about computers.
With the student’s first attack countered, he plotted his revenge “ for inspiration, he ate some sugary Skittles™. Wild, swirling schemes of fiery rainbow vengeance filled his mind, consuming him.
“Heh heh… those wee braggartsh want a wahr?” Tim the Enchanter uttered manically, his fake Scottish accent piercing and heated. “Then they’re gohing teh get one!”
Laughing some more, he typed away at his computer like a man possessed.