Back to Missions?
Agent Rowan was awoken by a far-too-chipper baritone voice and a violent shake. "Up and at 'em, rookie!" The voice sang out. "Breakfast in the Great Hall! We get to enjoy the legendary Hogwarts cuisine . . . oh, and watch everybody stare in total jealousy at Mary and Malfoy. Duty calls!"
"Aaaggha? Oh, right. I'll be right here." Rowan rubbed her eyes blurrily as she mumbled, and went about looking for the tie for her disguise in the bathroom.
Rowan re-entered the room when she felt presentable, which is pretty subjective-considering the fact that she had the equivalent of a noose tied around her neck. "So, I bet Skippy and and that poor boy are all mushy and such all meal long, amIright?"
"Well, let's see. . . actually, I think we've got HotHotLover!Draco instead of Romantic!Draco. Oh, and Tatiana's going to shout at everybody in the Great Hall for staring at her." Suicide grimaced, distractedly tugging at his dark green teacher's robes. "Don't want to miss that."
Rowan rolled her eyes. "Oh no, not for the world. I would stare at her. The little freak that she is."
When the agents walked into the hall, they were just in time to watch the grand entrance of the Sue and Malfoy, all arm in arm. Accordingly, everybody turned and began to stare at them, the boys open mouthed at the sight of Sue-hawtness and the girls dying of jealousy. Suicide had picked up a plate of omelet from a confused-looking Hufflepuff first-year, and now began flicking mushroom bits at Tatiana.
"'practically all of them had been with Draco at least once' What, even the Gryffindors? I doubt it. Rookie, charge for making Malfoy a slut."
"Will do." She said, scribbling down the charge. "Would that also apply for undermining the morals of Hogwarts students?"
"Yep. Conservative British institution, where males can't even get into the girls' dorms and the students are watched like daytime TV? I somehow doubt there's that much canoodling going on behind Dumbledore's back . . . even if he is pushing up daisies." A small chunk of onion bounced off Malfoy's head. "Charge."
"Done, and done." Rowan paused to wave her fork at the impending confrontation between the golden trio and Malfoy. "Oh look. She tries to be all . . . Switzerland. Or was it Sweden?"
"Huh?"
"She's trying to be all 'I have nothing to do with this'. Sure, it's noble. But all of the Sues do it. Or they magically make everyone get along." A flying piece of food hit an unfortunate, and very confused, Ravenclaw across the room.
"Whoopsie." Suicide squinted at the scene, where a triumphant Tatiana and a worshipfully lustful Draco were marching out of the Great Hall. "So . . . shall we portal to the 'Dracona'-" he snickered "-common room and watch the mechanical love scene?"
He paused. "Or, to save our sanity, we could eat breakfast here and catch up with them in Potions instead."
"We might get to miss all of the horribly sugary sweet nonsense, if we're lucky."
"I wouldn't call it sugary, even." Suicide squinted at the Words. "More like . . . NutraSweet. Supposed to be the same, but somehow lacking in flavor and leaving one with a faintly metallic tang in their mouth. Hey- cinnamon toast!"
Rowan drummed her fingers on the table as she ate breakfast. The Great Hall, with the absence of the 'Sue, was oddly unsteady. There were more than a few confused students who had seemed to have imagined a loud teacher nicking various breakfast foods from their table; but when questioned, they could never be sure that they knew who the teacher was . . . or whether he had once glanced up at the ceiling, tapped an Asian student on the shoulder, and said "Having a fridge in Hogwarts- she has got to die." But the few who remembered this incident shook their heads and turned away, positive that it was just their imaginations. Maybe a hallucination caused by lack of food . . . now where did my toast go?
Said Asian student munched on the remains of a strip of bacon, looking at The Words. "You know, it's probably a good thing that we're over here. I'm just wondering if we'll still be affected by the authors notes and-" The agent never got time to finish her sentence. Hogwarts gave a great lurch and seemed to spin as the story changed from third person to Draco's point of view.
The horrendous POV shift sent both agents flying out of their chairs and crashing to the stone floor of the Great Hall. As they lay there, panting, the world jerked horribly again and they were back in third person.
"Hate- this- Sue-" Suicide panted, raising a heavily bruised face from the stone. "I-"
The world lashed back like a whip as it shifted to Tatiana's point of view, and then settled back into Third. Rowan groaned and muttered incomprehensibly into the floor, before pulling herself into a sitting position. Both agents were thrown across the hall twice more as the world switched once again to Draco's point of View and then back to third.
"I- think she's just- met our 'Stu-" Suicide groaned. "Heard Malfoy's voice calling her- a slut- truer word never spoken. Ow."
"Does that mean that he hasn't been completely replaced? We don't have to go looking for the real one, then."
"Just . . just possessed, I guess," the Greek managed, finally hauling himself to his feet. A plate of scrambled eggs and ketchup had had a very unfortunate collision with the front of his robes. "We'll need to exorcise him . . . ow . . . after we immobilize Her Sueness."
Rowan wearily stood up, glaring at the rest of the hall. "It's so out of canon around here that they didn't even notice. We'll have to go back to the Room of Requirement to get the exorcism supplies."
"Not necessarily . . . " Suicide rummaged in his pack. "I was reading last night, remember? And if the army teaches you one thing- it's to never turn down something you don't have to pay for." He rummaged in his pack, and produced a copy of The Half-Blood Prince, handing it to Rowan. Maybe it was just the agents' imagination; but when the Asian girl held the heavy book, the room around her seemed to grow a little more solid, a little more- real. Suicide winked and flipped out a cigarette lighter. "Book and candle. Voila."
Rowan tapped the hard backing of the book. Yes, it would do very nicely. "Very nice," she commented, turning the book over in her hands. For a piece of bound literature, it felt at least a little . . . enraged. "Do you suppose that we could knock the 'Sue out with the canon? It could neutralize her apparition powers." The book practically roared for revenge.
"I think that would be very doable." For what felt like the thousandth time, Suicide scanned the shadowy writing on the walls and ceiling. "We need to follow them into the Dracona dorm- there's an OOC Malfoy snogging a bit character we need to get."
"Shall we portal?"
"Sounds good to me." Rowan gripped the book.
Suicide opened the portal, and the two agents crept through. They landed in a shadowy corner of the blue-and-green Dracona common room, where an open-mouthed Tatiana was observing something very . . . un-Malfoyish.
As Jacob moved into the common room and the door closed behind him, he ran into Tatiana. �Hey Tats what ya doing?� Tatiana was standing there staring over at the couch.
Jacob looked over her shoulder to see Malfoy and the huffelpuff, Lucy, snogging with their shirts off. Tatiana turned away, �my god Malfoy! Why can�t you do that in your own room! Or at least warn me!�
It was rather sloppy, and wet sounding, but most definitely undignified and pretty gross.
�By Drakie! Meet me you back here later!� called the bit-character Hufflepuff as she ran past them and out through the door, pursued by the mini-Aragog huffelpuff. Draco turned to Tatiana in high dudgeon and demanded to know what Tatiana's problem was. The Sue responded with nothing much, although she did manage to drop a parenthetical author's note into the middle of her statement.
Tatiana then proceeded to apparate the bit Jacob and herself out of the room.
"Should they be able to do that?" Suicide whispered to Rowan.
Rowan's grip on the book was tight enough that her knuckles were showing white. "No, Suicide. They. Should. Not." The beginnings of a twitch were present under her left eye.
Suicide laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. "Calm down, rookie. You know what they're doing now?"
She scanned the words, then Grinned. "They're going to have a Romantic little tete-a-tete, far away from everyone else."
"Anybody else who might . . . notice things?"
"That's right. There isn't another soul about the grounds, according to the author that is."
"Well," Suicide said mock-gallantly, offering her his arm, "We must trust the Author on these things, mustn't we?"
"That we shall!" She answered, taking his arm. "Mustn't let such a grand opportunity pass us by."
Suicide glanced over his shoulder at Draco, who hadn't moved since Tatiana disappeared. "The Words don't tell us that Malfoy moves . . . which means that as long as he's here, the common room won't disappear. We can come back and get him after we kill the 'Sue. Ready?" And he opened a portal to the edge of the lake, right near where the romantic tryst was to take place. "Now for wrath, now for ruin- and the Red Pen!"
Both agents ran through the portal, landing not three yards from where the Sue and Stu were running. The two uncanons were a good several feet from each other.
Rowan sprinted, closing the distance between herself and the supposed heir to the 'fifth house'. When she was close enough, she hurled Half-Blood Prince like a thunderbolt and nailed 'Tati' in the torso. She then proceeded to tackle the Sue to the ground in a manner that would not have looked out of place in a rugby match.
Jacob, running ahead, screeched to a halt and turned around. "What are you-" he began, but soon found himself unable to speak. This is mostly because of shock, although the short spear sticking through his left shoulder may have had something to do with it.
After a brief hair-pulling, fingernail-scratching scuffle, Rowan managed to get the Punjab lasso around the Sue's neck, with one knee jabbed into where one of the Sue's kidneys might have been. In the brief tussle, the hardbound copy of Half-Blood Prince had landed under the Sue. "Tatiana Jocelyn Malika, or whoever the hell you are-" the agent began.
"One second," Suicide interjected. He pulled the book out from under Tatiana and slammed her upside the head with it several times. "Make- me- get- banged- up- with- your- gods- damned- view- shifts- you- little- kariola-" he snapped, punctuating each word with a further impact of the book. When Tatiana was looking thoroughly stunned (oddly enough, the book itself wasn't harmed in the least), he put it down and stepped back. "Sorry. Go ahead, rookie."
�Thank you Suicide. She�s not squirming as much now.� Rowan cleared her throat. �Tatiana Jocelyn Malika. You are hereby charged by the Protectors of the Plot Continuum with: messing up time-space by having the first years being led across the lake when the train hadn�t pulled in yet, making the Sorting Hat wait hundreds of centuries, unnecessary scene changes, causing Dumbledore to come back from the dead, messing with said �should be dead� character, preventing the dead from getting their well-deserved rest, gratuitous shape shifting, causing incongruent behavior between girls, creation of the mini Aragogs �Goderic Gryffindor�, �quiditch�, 'huffelpuff,' and �Salazar Slytherine�, making the Sorting Hat spew bad grammar, creation of a new headmaster, mistreatment of nice clothing, uber-abilities, uncommon knowledge of anatomy, upstaging Hermione, character assassination, redundancy, somehow being kind, helpful, AND evil at the same time- I�m pretty sure that you can�t do that- making Draco Malfoy's eyes change color numerous times, creating a new house (namely Dracona- what kind of stupid name is that?), gratuitous use of in-text author's notes, making Draco Malfoy a slut, undermining the morals of Hogwarts students, possession of Muggle technology (a refrigerator) in Hogwarts, apostrophe abuse, neglect of the common comma, not wearing a uniform in Hogwarts, changing the prefect system, teeny-bopper prose, creating co-ed dorms, creating gratuitous bit characters, telepathy, Reality Disruption- I.E., mucking up the characters of just about everyone you came into contact with, messing with the history of Hogwarts by adding a FIFTH founder, turning all male students into hormonal twits, making Draco prefer one �paring� to another; �paring" is a method of cutting things up- and even though I�m sure that Draco would prefer to cut you up than to cut up Hermione- it doesn�t make any sense! Double character corruption in the form of making Draco both nice and sex obsessed, messing with the abilities of Metamorphmagi, causing horrible changes in Point of View, really pissing off PPC agents, being a right horrible little slut, having a really stupid name, and being a nasty, irritating Mary Sue, you are hereby sentenced to death. You do not get a trial. You do not pass Go. You do not collect one hundred dollars! And as you are, I don�t think you�re going to get out any last words.� Rowan twisted the lasso tighter. Eventually, the Sue stopped squirming altogether.
Suicide applauded. "Nice going, rookie! Now then . . . " He produced the Remote Activator with a certain amount of flourish, and pressed several keys. A portal opened beneath the quivering Jacob, and he disappeared with a trailing scream.
"Dropped him into the Horntail's nest," he explained to nobody. "As for you, Little Miss Shape Shifter, we have something a little more- original planned for you. You can thank Agent Rowan for your upcoming painful demise. Buh-bye!" And a second portal opened in the air.
They emerged into a hideous wasteland. The sky was dark with smoke, tinged red where the light of hundreds of fires colored the atmosphere. Mutilated corpses were piled left and right, some torn in two; it was as if something had come at them, something so angry that it couldn't have been bothered to walk around them. Instead, it had walked through them. The rumbles of battle and distant screams could be heard on the horizon, and the entire place stunk of death.
Rowan let out a low whistle. "Cheerio, beautiful." Both agents tossed the Sue onto the ground with ease, as the Sue was but ninety pounds. Rowan removed the choking lasso and slapped the Sue across the face a few times, trying to wake her.
"Hnaah . . . " Tatiana groaned. " . . . leav me aloen you stupid freak . . . "
Rowan smiled. "Oh I will, I will. Don't worry, you'll find yourself in much better company in a few seconds."
The Greek agent was staring intensely at the horizon. The rumbling seemed to be getting closer. "It's coming back this way!" he said urgently. "Quick, tie her up!"
"Awdamnit!" Rowan began hastily tying up Tatiana with the urgency that only comes from knowing that every second takes you further away from a messy, messy death. "Andsoweleaveyoutoyourmostcertaindemise, tata!" She said, before both agents made a hasty retreat through the portal.
Tatiana shivered and looked up. A cloud of smoke was coming closer, whirling like a tornado. Within the smoke she could hear shrieking, and far above her head, a distant suggestion of arms . . . and a flash of steel-
Let the record show that a certain deity now has one more skull to add to her belt.
* * *
"That was . . . interesting," Suicide observed as the two agents tumbled through the portal back into a deserted corridor of Hogwarts. "Now we have to get rid of that bit and exorcise Malfoy- shit!" He stopped. "Forgot to charge the 'Stu!"
After a moment's consideration, he opened a small portal in the floor. A distant roaring could be heard, and jets of searing-hot air shot up through the small gateway. "Jacob Fairwen!" He shouted down. "You are hereby charged with being a Gary Stu, an obnoxious plot device, and for convenient stupidity- to whit, not seeing that Tatiana was looser than a flag in a thunderstorm. Your punishment was death. Ta!" With a grin, Suicide closed the portal. "Now then. Exorcism?"
"We have to get that last Hufflepuff bit first, don't we?"
Suicide groaned. "I guess. Where d'you suppose she is?"
"Well, she was only designated running out of the dorm. She might be just outside of it."
"Let's go find out, then," he sighed. "The dorm's back that way . . . 'a brightly lit hall at the south end of the castle' . . . whatever happened to description?" He muttered. "We're looking for the painting of the dragon wrapped up in snakes."
Rowan winced. "Sounds painful."
"Bets it's supposed to symbolize inter-house unity or some such."
The junior agent nearly gagged. "I wouldn't put it past this fic . . . " After much ambling about the castle, the offending picture was eventually located, with a shirtless bit standing almost right outside the door. The lost-looking huffelpuff was standing right next to her, looking cutely (and evilly) lost.
"Charge 'er, rookie," Suicide said, turning away. "I'm not looking at that."
Rowan coughed into her hand. "Right." She stepped in front of the bit character and pulled out the knife she had received earlier in the mission. "Lucy no family name. You are hereby charged with being a bit character, a plot device, and contributing to the character rupture of one Draco Malfoy. You are sentenced to death by the PPC." The bit blinked once or twice before the knife came across her throat.
"Wash the uniform in cold water," Suicide advised, opening another portal beneath the dead bit. As the heat wafted up again, there was a wet squelch noise, and a roar of delight. "Otherwise, the stains'll never come out. And yes, black fabric does stain, trust me on this one. Otherwise-" he hesitated a little, as if not sure how to phrase the next sentence. "Um- good job- Rowan."
Rowan looked down at the knife. "I know that black stains and that you wash with cold water. I'm female, remember?" She paused a moment before speaking again. "But thanks, Suicide."
"Oh- right." Suicide thought back on that statement and had decided Not To Think About It. There were some questions that even a career soldier didn't ask. "Anyway, nice killing. You're good for a rookie. Now then-" he gestured to the door. "Let's beat the 'Sue out of Malfoy and go home. This has been way too weird for me."
When they entered the common room, Draco was right where they had left him. He was dazed, with a clouded look in his eye that came from Sue corruption. Suicide tossed Rowan the cigarette lighter and a pack of pink birthday candles.
"Light them in a ring around him. I'll handle the 'Sue."
"Sure thing." Rowan crept around the possessed canon, leaving a circle of pink candles all around him. She cursed once or twice when a candle refused to stand up; the agent ended up sticking them to the floor with melted wax. When they were all lit, she stood back. "It's all yours."
"Right." Suicide took a firm stance, clutching the thick copy of Half-Blood Prince like a shield. Advancing on the stunned Malfoy like the wrath of a god (a minor one, anyway) he slammed the book into the character's uncanonically muscular chest. "Vade retro, Suetana! Get thee behind me, Author! The power of ROWLING compels thee! In the name of ROWLING I cast thee out! Get thee behind me, foul spirit! OUT!"
"Avaunt! Avaunt! And other such phrases! Get thee behind me, Sue!"
Malfoy slumped forward, and a thick fog poured off of him. A female figure coalesced in the smoke, wailing piteously. "Nooooo! I am the chosen one of the five founders! I must have every boy in Hogwarts fall for me-"
Then the spirit of the author was forced from the story by the waving of sharp and pointy implements. Draco Malfoy fell to the ground groaning as the Authoress was dispelled. As the last shreds of smoke faded away, the room around them began to rumble. Hogwarts was deciding that where they were, shouldn't exist.
"SHIT!" Suicide yelled, fumbling with the remote activator. When the portal fizzled into existence, he practically hurled the canon character through the portal before he and Rowan followed behind. They landed on the grass, close to the lake.
�You've still got- the neuralyzer," Suicide panted. A small part of his brain observed critically that he was doing that a lot these days, and was promptly kicked into silence by the rest of him. He fumbled in his robes, and produced two pairs of mirrored shades, tossing one to Rowan and donning the other himself.
"That I do." She said, pushing the sunglasses onto her nose. She set the neuralyzer for approximately the day before yesterday. When she pressed the button, a blinding flash was emitted from the top of the device. Draco Malfoy looked blankly ahead, slightly slackjawed, but very relaxed.
"All right," Rowan said to the brainwashed canon, "You haven't finished your Defense against the Dark Arts homework, but that's all right because Professor Snape will give you an O whatever you do. You fell asleep by the lake and had a nasty dream, but you can't remember it now. You're going to go inside and get back to work on your plan for killing Dumbledore. 'kay?"
Draco nodded pleasantly and strolled off towards castle. Suicide looked at Rowan sideways.
"Plan for killing-"
"The seventh year hasn't happened yet, right?" She explained. "With all these people alive, it'll automatically revert to sixth year. No muss, no fuss. Right?"
"Hopefully. I was sick of Undead!Dumbledore anyway."
"Well, at least it was a change from Senile!Dumbledore."
"Or, gods help us . . . Rapist!Dumbledore." Suicide shuddered. "I heard a rumor that they're going to send a team into a fic like that- something about Snape and a sex change. Gods help us all." He paused. "They wouldn't do that, would they?"
Rowan winced. "Well . . . I don't know. I heard about that one time when they sent a team into you know . . . 'Celebrian'."
"Hey, my previous partner was recruited in that 'fic. Night before last, he was napping on the rug and woke up screaming about lavender body parts."
Rowan made a sympathetic hissing noise. "Poor thing. I hope he doesn't get flashbacks. Does he?"
"All the time. Usually during meals." Suicide shrugged. "I probably live in the only response center with a mini-Balrog trained in the Heimlich maneuver."
"Ah . . . well, that's good to know. At least I'll be in the right place if I ever decide to choke on my food."
"If you could call what we get in Headquarters 'food.'" Suicide crossed his arms, staring across the scene towards the lake. In the shallows, the giant squid was being fed kippered herrings by a couple of daring seventh-years. "Zeus, I wish we could stay . . . it's great when it's not being mucked up by a 'Sue."
Rowan shuffled her feet. "It really is, isn't it? I'll never get why people could read the books and then mess it all up." She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Damn, her leg hurt from all of the times she had jabbed it with The Pen that day.
The Greek looked over at her. And to her surprise, he winked. "Don't think I don't appreciate it, kid."
She smiled weakly and shrugged. "I do what I can."
"A damned lot, from what I've seen. Raging hormones aren't exactly a walk in the park." He produced the remote activator and began pressing a few buttons. The charred response center, although with ash now almost entirely obscured by heaps of silver clothing, fizzled into view. "Ladies first- again."
"I thank you, kind sir." She said, jumping through the portal, then tossing her bag into a corner. For a first mission, Rowan stopped herself from continuing on that line of thought. Never ever give the Laws of Narrative Comedy any more ammunition than necessary.
And for once, the ironic deities that govern the fate of all Canon Protectors had absolutely nothing to work with.
* * *
EPILOGUE
Agent Rowan settled into the PPC with minimal hassle. She's still waiting to be assigned a permanent partner and response center, but with the badfic crush these days, it won't be long before she gets either. Salazar Slytherine, huffelpuff and quid itch were dispatched to OFUHP with a minimum of fuss, but Goderic Gryffindor clung to Agent Rowan's leg and absolutely refused to let go. He is now living in her backpack. His silk goes for a very good price, which enables Rowan to stock up on Bleepka when she needs it.
Agent Suicide sold the suit of silver-embossed chain mail to a Dungeons & Dragons fan for a hefty profit. He bought a whole new supply of alcohol, fireproof sleeping baskets for Thiranduil and Narnia No-Longerfled, and a supply of concentrated Anti-Lustin ProMax in pill form for Agent Rowan. He continues to deedle-deedle-dum his hours away, unaware of the fate that looms over his head . . .
They both made some very valuable trades with the silver wear.
Kali, Goddess of Death, barely noticed one more body underfoot. And, just as it had been predicted, the pink clothing was unrecognizable by the time all was said and done.
Nobody ever asked what happened to Jacob.
The Universal Laws of Comedy continue to stalk Headquarters, smiting agents with beeping consoles and occasionally laughing maniacally, usually whenever they spot Agent Suicide. They are close now. So close to achieving their goal . . .