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SIYE Time:6:13 on 29th March 2024
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A Slow Boat to Shippers’ Hell
By Rhetor

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Category: Post-Hogwarts
Characters:All
Genres: Comedy, Fluff
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 121
Summary: What would Harry and Ginny think of being shipped – especially if they were on a ship? A satire of everything and everyone we hold dear.
Hitcount: Story Total: 27213; Chapter Total: 4455





Author's Notes:
With the posting of this Guide, the story is now complete. In a sense this whole chapter is an Author's Note, but there's a wrap-up note at the end.




ChapterPrinter
StoryPrinter


A Guide to
Tributes, Thefts and Oblique References
Contained in the Text

Here they are: Every reference I used in A Slow Boat to Shippers’ Hell. Keep score: How many did you catch the first time ‘round?

Chapter One

A Slow Boat to Shippers’ Hell

In September of 2006 I was reading Chapter Three of Antosha’s The Wisest Course, and I mistakenly interpreted him to have suggested shipping two very unlikely and nauseating characters. I asked him, “have you been on the long boat to Shippers’ Hell or something?” It then occurred to me, “What if there is a boat to Shippers’ Hell?” Hence this story.

The Primary Couple

The SIYE Submission Rules state: “Stories submitted for posting on SIYE must have Harry and Ginny as the primary couple.” So they are.

See-Ya Cruise Lines

If you were to pronounce the acronym SIYE out loud, I think it would sound like “See-Ya.”

M.V. Orange Crush

Orange Crush is the name of a well-known H/G shipper site.

Ginny-Anne

An astonishing number of pen-names on SIYE include some variation of the word “ginny.”

“It’s more than that, Mr. Potter; it’s a Ship”

This is just a pun on the words “ship” and “shipper.” Of course H & G wouldn’t understand what we mean by a “ship.”

H&H Vacations

All the cruise lines are character ships. “H&H” stands for “Harry and Hermione.”

M.V. Harmony

Harmony is a well-known H/Hr shipper site.

‘You don’t have to rub it in.’

After the publication of HBP, many H/Hr shippers had some rather hard feelings about the fact that H/G was now undeniably canon — and I must say that some H/G shippers, crowing about it and using words like “delusional”, didn’t help much. Whatever happened to being magnanimous in victory?

Lunar Luxury Lines

An imaginary cruise line for Harry-Luna shippers.

Sino- Scottish Voyages

An imaginary cruise line for Harry-Cho shippers. “Sino” means “Chinese,” and Katie Leung portrays Cho with a Scottish burr.

Honky-Tonk Cruises

An imaginary cruise line for Harry-Tonks shippers.

Dragon Worldwide Shipping

An imaginary cruise line for fans who ship Draco with various women. “Draco” means “Dragon.”

Deck G, Deck P, Deck 13, Deck R

These are references to the different “ratings” on movies and stories — G, PG, PG-13 and R. Harry & Ginny are on Deck G, the least expensive, which turns out to have other consequences…

“ Besides, once you’ve started out on Deck G, you rather have to stay there for the entire voyage.”

The SIYE Submission Rules state: “The rating of the first chapter MUST match the highest rating of any following chapter. Example: If every chapter but R-rated number eight is PG, chapter one must be rated R.” Consquently, if the first Chapter (Harry & Ginny’s original cabin) is rated G (Deck G) then they can’t move to another deck (a higher rating) for the entire voyage (the remainder of the story).

“My wife wants me to learn to be frugal.”

A very common motif in H/G fan fiction is that Ginny, who has grown up frugal out of necessity, is shocked by the cavalier attitude Harry has about his money (which isn’t real to him).

Some had strange names such as “Humour Deck,”…

The decks on this ship are of three types: Decks you’d see on any cruise ship (dining, spa, shopping, etc.); decks for cabins (G, R, 13, etc.); and decks named for various genres of fan fiction (fluff, action, angst, etc.). Here are the deck-levels of the M.V. Orange Crush, from highest to lowest:
  • 14. Beta cabins
  • 13. Command Deck
  • 12. Deck R
  • 11. Fluff Deck
  • 10. Action Deck
  • 9. Humour Deck
  • 8. Angst Deck
  • 7. Deck 13
  • 6. Dining Deck
  • 5. Deck P
  • 4. Drama Deck
  • 3. Deck G
  • 2. Shopping Deck
  • 1. Indulgence Deck

D ECK P -- Only passengers with cabins on Decks R, 13 or P may enter. Passengers from Deck G are forbidden.

Someone who’s allowed to read PG-13 or R-rated stories would also be allowed to read PG-rated stories and G-rated stories. But someone allowed to read G-rated stories would not necessarily be allowed to read PG-rated stories.

There is no Deck 17

SIYE does not accept NC-17 stories.

red-and-black uniform

The red-and-black décor on the Ship is simply a reference to Harry & Ginny’s hair colors.

“They have classes on Pair Bonding, on Increasing Your Intimacy – ”

Many H/G stories concern “bonding” of various kinds. A smaller number are about the meaning of intimacy.

“Oh. And a round-table discussion called – wait a minute – it’s called Variations on the Bat Bogey Hex.”

Every fan fiction author appears to have a different idea of what, exactly, the bat-bogey hex is. You’d need a round-table discussion just to sort them a all out.

The Fluff Deck … initially appeared to be filled with twisty passageways and many nooks containing just one or two very comfortable armchairs or other soft furniture.

Romance stories frequently involve little nooks or hideaways where lovers can fool around.

Ginny lost count of how many broom closets there appeared to be on the Fluff Deck

Really I should have said “broom cupboards”, but I’m a Yank and I blew it. A lot of fluff stories seem to involve snogging in a broom cupboard, although I can’t imagine a less comfortable place to do it.

The Fluff Deck also included rooms that seemed to be strange parodies of her own room at the Burrow, the room she used at Grimmauld Place, Harry’s dormitory room at Hogwarts, outdoor camp sites, the interior of a cave, extravagant and palatial bedrooms that looked like they were part of medieval manors, and one room she was sure was a cabin in an old-fashioned sailing ship.

This is a short-list of places in which Harry & Ginny engage in heavy physical intimacy in various stories. Ginny’s room at Gimmauld Place comes from Frelling’s Harry Potter and the Curse’s Legacy. The medieval manors are all “Potter Manor”, which seems to come up on lots of FF stories. The outdoor camp sites come from Melindaleo’s The Seventh Horcrux. The old-fashioned sailing ship comes from St. Margarets’s The New Zealand Chronicles

It was hard to decide whether it most resembled the Great Hall at Hogwarts or the kitchen at the Burrow

In fan fiction stories no one ever seems to eat except at the Great Hall or the Burrow.

He was a tall man wearing a goatee beard and a monocle, speaking in a passable Russian accent.

Antosha’s Author Page displays a photograph of the Russian author Anton Chekhov (whose nickname was Antosha). For a long time I thought this was a photo of Antosha himself. Antosha is a great admirer of Chekhov’s work.

“Natasha? Isn’t that a woman’s name?” … “Da,” he answered good-naturedly. “But it hardly matters; all the good men’s names sound like women’s names anyway.”

Actually, I originally (before I saw the photo) thought Antosha was female, because I thought the name was feminine and I didn’t know that “Antosha” is a diminutive for “Anton.” Now, “Natasha” is the diminutive form of Chekhov’s mistress’s name. Simple, right?

Eto dolzhno bit ochevidno.

This is Russian for, “That should be obvious.” I’m indebted to Alex Katkov for providing this translation.

”Perhaps there will be a helpful footnote at the end of the chapter to provide a translation. Or,” he added in a mysterious whisper. “Perhaps not.”

Antosha occasionally uses phrases, sentences, or even whole conversations in French (as in both Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Wisest Course), and he sometimes (but not always) provides translation footnotes at the end.

“Are you pleased with the Dining Room? Would you, perhaps, prefer a family picnic?”

One of Antosha’s naughtiest (and in some ways, most delightful) stories is The Weasley Family Picnic.

“Th e Dining Room is certainly a fine place to be; I do not spend as much time here as some others because my most important work is accomplished on Deck 17.” “Deck 17?” asked Harry. “I didn’t know there was a Deck 17.” “There is not.” Natasha winked with the eye that wasn’t behind the monocle.

A number of SIYE authors, including Antosha, write NC-17 stories on other sites. They don’t put those stories on SIYE, of course, but do provide hints on their Authors’ Pages or in their Authors’ Notes that allow the readers to find such stories if they want them. This has always seemed a bit coy to me, hence the wink.

“The necessity of pain and loss to appreciate love and happiness is a theme. The mind as an unrelenting logical engine is a theme. That those we love never leave us is a theme. But this? An amusing exploration of character, perhaps; a contrapuntal emotional development; some surreptitious erotica; unexpected depth of plot – but theme? Chepukha.”

“The necessity of pain and loss to appreciate love and happiness” is what I take to be the theme of Antosha’s Four Weddings and a Funeral. “The mind as an unrelenting logical engine” is what I took away from Chapter One of The Wisest Course. “Those we love never leave us” is the Summary of Passing. “Amusing exploration of character, contrapuntal emotional development, surreptitious erotica and unexpected depth of plot” are all things one can readily, and delightfully, find in Antosha’s work. He is the first fan fiction author I ever read, and still among those I admire most. “Chepukha” is Russian for “nonsense.”

“And you know, what happens in Minsk –”

Whatever Happens in Minsk, Stays in Minsk is an as-yet-unfinished multi-chapter fic by ChaliceInnana.

“It is absolutely guaranteed that none of this food will cause you to wake up with strange, hand-shaped marks on your back or chest.”

Hand-shaped marks on Ginny’s back, and on Harry’s chest, are prominent features of Antosha’s Monster, the first fan fiction story I ever read.

“You would prefer a meal that would protect you against sudden appearances of your deceased mother-in-law?”

The deceased Lily Potter appears to Ginny in Antosha’s Rusalka: Red Silk

”Late nineteenth century, post-romantic expressionism, perhaps. Tragedy mingled with realism, showing the banality of life; reflecting – ”

This is a not-completely-unreasonable distillation of Chekhov.

Ginny had never seen a black rose before.

The Black Rose is a 1950 Tyrone Power film.

When you get into bed, iron bars will lock you into place and a Plexiglas screen will provide enough oxygen for the night without letting anyone, especially Harry, touch you until morning. Have a wonderful honeymoon.

In a lot of fan fiction, Molly Weasley is a stubborn, unreasonable, often shrill barrier to any sort of physical intimacy between Harry and Ginny. (Given that the woman got pregnant six times in ten years — you do the math — I’ve often wondered whether this was a likely characterization.) Anyway, one of the most shocking (and even funny) examples is in Sovran’s Meaning of One, Part One, in which Molly & Arthur ask Ginny to wear pajamas that amount to a chastity belt. So I thought, if Molly’s really that way about it, then maybe even on a honeymoon…

Some where there’s a part of me that has the vague sense that I ought to feel insulted, humiliated, betrayed, angry, nearly furious and some other emotion I can’t quite place. But somehow all I can feel is – mildly annoyed

“Insulted, humiliated, betrayed, angry, nearly furious” is how Ginny typically does react to Molly’s restrictions on her sexuality in a lot of fan fiction. The “other emotion I can’t quite place,” of course, is lust. She can’t place it because she’s on Deck G. “Mildly annoyed” is how I think a mature Ginny might actually react. …

“I notice that you’re blushing furiously and giving a sheepish grin. I also notice that I’m blushing to the roots of my hair and looking at the floor. Doesn’t this strike you as a bit of a cliché?”

It sure does, but Harry, Ginny, and practically everyone else is “blushing to the roots of his/her hair” or “blushing furiously” all the time in fan fiction. …

“Are we that vapid and unoriginal all the time? … all we seem to be able to do is to mouth lukewarm platitudes about romance.”

In a lot of fan fiction, sadly, lukewarm platitudes about romance pass for serious dialogue between lovers.

“I can’t picture what further is.”

They don’t know what comes after kissing because they’re on Deck G — or rather, in a G-rated story. This scene is actually a piece of a longer meditation on the role of sexually explicit writing in love stories, which you can find on my Live Journal page. I think that you simply can’t write a story about a wedding night or a honeymoon that doesn’t talk about sex and still have it be realistic in any way. Newlyweds on their honeymoon would be appalled to find themselves in the middle of a G-rated story, as Harry and Ginny are appalled here.

Chap ter Two

“Enjoying your honeymoon,” replied Hermione, eyes twinkling. Then she growled again happily as Ron reached the little finger of her right hand.

Although a lot of H/G shippers also believe in the R/Hr ship, many people who have an OTP don’t care how they ship other characters, and don’t even care whether those other characters are consistent with canon. Thus Hermione behaves completely out-of-character throughout this chapter, and appears paired to as many different males as I could think of, the pairings getting progressively less likely as the chapter wears on…

She was dressed, not in the standard See-Ya Cruise Lines uniform, but in what looked like a pirate’s costume. She was wearing a very puffy shirt, and peeking out of the neckline Ginny was sure she could see a bit of champagne-colored lace and satin.

In St Margarets’ story Harry’s Patented Daydream Charm, Harry dreams of being a pirate in a puffy shirt. In her story The New Zealand Chronicles, Ginny on her wedding night wears a sexy garment of champagne-colored lace and satin.

There were soft black boots, a wide belt, and a sword that looked like it had never been used in its life, as well as a flintlock pistol that seemed to be encased in shrink wrap. She wore a tri-cornered hat, from under which masses of tightly-curled hair spilled merrily. She had large, laughing eyes and was wearing red lipstick that matched the carpet. She smelled good too, as if she had just stepped out of a bath laced with something flowery. She was carrying a pot of coffee.

St Margarets, as she’ll happily tell you, is a dyed-in-the-wool fluff writer. If she uses action or adventure, it’s simply a device to enhance the love story she really wants to tell. Hence the weaponry and other pirate paraphernalia are unused. Scented baths, laughing eyes and color-coordinated lipstick would fit right in with her stories. And she loves coffee.

”My many friends call me St. Sabrina.”

A recurring device in St Margarets’s stories is Sabrina’s Secret, a wizarding retailer that seems to be a cross between Victoria’s Secret and Frederick’s of Hollywood.

“What happened to Natasha?” asked Harry. “Verily, Milord, he hath been called away on other duties; belike he works on the mysterious Deck 17.” “Is there a Deck 17?” asked Ginny. “Nay, Milady, there be no such thing – though I think I saw him there once,” St. Sabrina chuckled and winked.

Although obviously neither of them posts NC-17 stories on SIYE, both Antosha and St Margarets have been known to do so elsewhere (St Margarets only twice, so far as I know), and they admire one anothers’ work.

“We’ve all gone a bit mad today.”

We’ve All Gone a Bit Mad is the title of St Margarets’s “Muggle picnic” story, and a repeated refrain throughout it.

Placing her hand on Ginny’s arm, she looked into her eyes and said softly, “Wouldst thou like a drink of water?” “No, I’d like – ” But the words that were about to come out of Ginny’s mouth made no sense to her at all, so she shut it again.

“Do you want a drink of water?” is a refrain that occurs in The New Zealand Chronicles during a tender love scene between Harry and Ginny. The response is, “No, I want to kiss you”– which is why Ginny doesn’t want to finish the sentence in the Dining Room.

“As the cords of love of which thy life is woven – love of thy parents, of thy friends, of thy pleasures, of truth, of justice, of the American Way – shall slowly untwine, then twine again with cords of his, until thy love and his are but a single knit. Probably a jumper.”

St Margarets calls herself a “fluff” writer, and her writing is, indeed, about love, but it’s not “fluffy” in the slightest. To her, love is a serious business, full of complexities and nuances and contradictions; it’s real. “Truth, justice and the American Way” were the things for which Superman battled in the 1950s television program. I have no idea why I said it would be a jumper.

“Hast brought thy broomstick with thee?” “Er, no, I don’t think we brought our broomsticks,” said Harry. “A pity, that. There’s much that can be done on a broomstick, eh, Milady?” She smiled toothily and winked again.

“Did you bring your broomstick with you?” is what Glinda asks Dorothy when she gets to Oz. As to “there’s much that can be done on a broomstick,” well, Harry & Ginny find out just how much one can do on a broomstick in The New Zealand Chronicles. Further sayeth this deponent not, but it’s in Chapter 8.

“We’re going to New Zealand? From Minsk? But isn’t that on the other side of the world? Won’t it take forever?” “At least ten or twelve chapters, I fear,” sighed St. Sabrina.

Actually St Margarets didn’t get Harry & Ginny to New Zealand until Chapter Fourteen.

“’Tis best we get to the breakfast menu,” St. Sabrina continued, “lest ye miss today’s episode of Days of Destiny. This morn,” she said with a broad smile, “have we an especially apt selection of dishes to offer.”

Days of Destiny is a wizarding soap opera that Ginny likes to follow in St Margarets’s stories. As to the food on offer, St Sabrina mentions oysters, asparagus (with hollandaise), pesto from pine nuts, figs in syrup, whole bananas, wine, and strawberries dipped in chocolate — all of which are reputed aphrodisiacs. They’d appeal to a romance writer, I think.

“Scarlet woman?” asked Ginny incredulously. “Where’d you get that from?” “Isn’t that what your mother calls them?” “What? Harry, that’s an expression Mum used exactly once in an awkward conversation she had with Ron when he was twelve! I’ve never heard her use it before or since. What are you on about?”

Fan fiction authors have a tendency to take the smallest detail in canon and re-use, over-use, and abuse it far beyond its value. My pet complaint is the term “scarlet woman.” There’s one scene — one — in GoF in which Ron says that his mother refers to some variety of woman (and he really doesn’t make clear which variety it is) as a “scarlet woman.” But dozens of FF writers have Molly calling Ginny a “scarlet woman” whenever she does more than hold hands with Harry. So I decided that Ginny would set Harry straight, and tell him that it’s a term Molly only ever used once. So there.

Ginny had had enough of this; she took Harry’s arm, smiled at Ginny-Winston in a way that probably wasn’t very sweet, and steered her husband in another direction. Behind her she was sure she heard the man say, “Picky, picky, picky…”

“Picky, picky, picky” refers to Brit-picking. Ginny-Winston is supposedly English, but practically every word out of his mouth is an Americanism. Many American FF writers don’t bother with Britpickers, and consequently have howling errors like these. He’s called Ginny-Winston because he’s supposed to be definitively English, and the name Winston makes me think of Churchill.

Abou t halfway up they had to stop by the landing of Deck 13 because they were both out of breath. “What – ” gasped Harry, “what about all those Quidditch-trained muscles we’re supposed to have?” “Apparently – they’re somewhat – overrated,” wheezed Ginny.

Fan fiction stories frequently comment admiringly on Harry’s (and sometimes Ginny’s) “Quidditch-toned muscles.” But the Hogwarts players apparently train only once a week, and they play only three matches a season; how “toned” can they be?

“I’m still speaking in my Bulgarian accent, old chap; it just isn’t being represented by silly misspellings of English words.”

I nefer liked it zat Frau Rowlink sought it vos funny to use misshpellinks of vords to indicate a forrreign axent. But it drifes me kookoo zat fan fiction awterrs sink dey haf to do it too. All ze time.

She hurried through the open doorway – and found herself back on the landing, facing away from the doorway. “Neat trick, that,” observed Harry. “I wonder whether it works if you tell it your name.” But this was just the latest in a long list of things that made no sense to Ginny; she ignored it.

In Ursula LeGuin’s sublime The Wizard of Earthsea, the young wizard Ged is unable to enter the door of the School at Roke; he always winds up facing out again. Only when he tells the Master Doorkeeper his true name — which gives the Doorkeeper great power over him — is he able to enter.

A large, unusually sturdy and thickly-built table stood next to the left wall of the room; a large banner hung above it, saying, Be the First In More Than Two Centuries; another banner, on the opposite wall, read, Be the First Ever.

In Intromit’s Harry Potter and Fate’s Debt, Harry and Ginny share a “soul bond,” something that is very rare and has not been seen in more than two hundred years. In Sovran’s Meaning of One series, Harry and Ginny share a connection which superficially resembles Intromit’s soul bond, but is more like being two parts of the same person (I think) — it’s a metaphysically unique situation that has never happened before.

“I’m one? Is Ginny another one?” “No, you’re both One.” “Are we the same one or different ones?” “You’re the same One.”

This is a tribute to Abbot & Costello’s “Who’s On First” routine. In Sovran’s Meaning of One, Harry & Ginny are “one”, in some fundamental, metaphysical, and perpetually unexplained way, but they are also visibly separate. Hence the riff on the word “one.”

“Bonding. Bonding is proof of marriage.” “You can’t bond unless you’re married?” “Bonding marries you.” “Harry married me.”

In Intromit’s Fate’s Debt, the “soul bond” Harry & Ginny share is, by ancient law, a form of marriage.

“If this Bonding is successful,” he said, “you will be able to hear one another’s thoughts.”

In both Fate’s Debt and Meaning of One (as well as several other stories), Harry and Ginny can “hear” one another’s thoughts.

“That is, if you can’t do that already,” put in Sargon.

In Meaning of One (so far as I can tell), the connection between Harry & Ginny is complete the moment they meet, whereas in Fate’s Debt is more rudimentary at the beginning and becomes more intense as various things happen to them.

“Increases your magical power level, too,” put in Sargon. “Indubitably,” said Grommit. “Your level would grow to at least 36D,” said Sargon

In both Meaning of One and Fate’s Debt, Ginny & Harry are more powerful (either together or separately) as a result of their connection. In some fan fiction stories (not these two), Ginny is self-conscious about her bust size.

It works better when the floor is wet and slimy with snake blood, but this will do.” They sat down facing each other. “Good. Now hold hands.” They held hands. “Both hands.” They held both hands. Grommit continued, “Harry, look into Ginny’s eyes and call her, ‘My Ginny.’”

In Fate’s Debt, the bond between Harry & Ginny undergoes a leap in intensity on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets, when Harry holds Ginny and they “claim” each other by calling each other “My Ginny” and “My Harry.”

“Ginny, tell Harry, ‘We are one.’” “We are one,” said Ginny. “Oh please,” scoffed Sargon. “If they really were One, they wouldn’t need to say it.”

In Meaning of One the connection between Harry & Ginny (that they are “One”) is something pre-existing that was true when they were born, which they only realized when they met. In Fate’s Debt, the belief that “We are one” increases their bond.

“Oo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much!” Grommit taunted. “Tell me, O Expert on Bonding, what exactly do you mean by ‘One?’” “I’m not telling,” said Sargon. “You’re not telling because you don’t know, ” Grommit said.

In The Princess Bride, Miracle Max taunts Inigo by saying “Oo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much!” when Inigo makes the quite reasonable assertion that people who are dead cannot be helped. Sovran has been rather coy about what exactly is meant by the “One” in the title of his story.

“What are you doing?” asked Ginny. “Protecting my nose,” said Sargon. “From what?” “Well, you’re angry, and you were touching him.”

In Meaning of One, Ginny’s bat-bogey hex is much more powerful because of her connection with Harry (they’re both able to perform it), and sometimes rips the target’s nose right off his/her face. They’re more powerful when they’re in physical contact with each other.

What happens to a nose behexed?
Does it stuff up
Like a dumpling or a bun?
Or drip and snort
And then run?
Maybe it’s red
Like a code in the node.
Or does it explode?

Sovran wrote a romantic story called A Dream Deferred, the title of which is taken from Langston Hughes’s classic poem of the same name. The Hughes poem reads:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
The exploding nose reference comes from the same intensification of the bat-bogey hex mentioned above.

Why are our words in italics? asked Harry. It’s because we’re thinking instead of speaking, answered Ginny. Does everyone think in italics? It’s a convention, silly. I didn’t know they were having a convention on this Ship, Harry puzzled.

Thoughts always seem to be represented in italics in fan fiction. (And in some original fiction too…)

…eBay was up one-and-a-half points on heavy morning trading… …cloudy with a chance of heavy showers in the afternoon, followed by gradual clearing and low temperatures…

…So I was thinking, if you can hear thoughts, like radio waves, then mightn’t you accidentally pick up thoughts other than the ones you wanted, like random signals on a badly-tuned radio? The first two messages that intrude on Harry & Ginny are from a newscast — a stock market report and a weather report.

…pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels – bring home for Emma…

This is from Walter Miller’s astonishing novel A Canticle for Liebowitz. Monks looking for the relics of a saint find this note in the saint’s handwriting.

…nice, quiet, delicious mouse, don’t move, mouse, tasty mouse, stay there, mouse, good mouse, stay right there, don’t move…

The idea here is taken from Ursula LeGuin’s story, “Social Dreaming of the Frin.” A character who shares dreams with others abruptly shares the dream of a cat, which is (naturally) dreaming of catching and eating a mouse.

…Oh yes, Draco, yes, oh my goodness, yes, yes, yes, right there, right there…

More thoughts intrude on Harry & Ginny, apparently including a moment of, um, physical intimacy between Hermione and Draco Malfoy. As I say, Hermione behaves completely out of character throughout this chapter.

…A Elbereth, Gilthoniel!...

This is the Eldar’s hymn to Varda (Elbereth) in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

…a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune…

The first sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice reads, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

…Her gynecologist recommended him to me…

This is the first sentence of John Irving’s delightful, under-appreciated second novel, The Water-Method Man. The sentence contains only six words, but mentions four characters.

…I can’t change the laws of physics, Captain…

Chief Engineer Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise says this to Captain Kirk in a crucial moment in the TOS episode, “The Naked Time.”

“Well,” Grommit said. You could learn how to turn into phoenixes – ” “Or you could have difficulty flying because you get confused about who’s seeing what –” put in Sargon.

The next several lines contain events that occur in either Fate’s Debt or Meaning of One

“What is it?” she asked. “What are we hiding from?” “Plot bunnies!” screamed Grommit and Sargon, in obvious terror.

Fan fiction authors refer to story ideas as “plot bunnies” (a phrase I first learned from Sovran). They’re called “bunnies” because they multiply.

…rabbits wearing glasses, rabbits with stars where their ears should have been, five-foot white rabbits wearing a vests and carrying a pocket watches, six-foot rabbits wearing business suits and occasionally becoming invisible, large grey rabbits walking on their hind legs and wearing gloves and eating carrots, rabbits banging bass drums, large, pink rabbits that gave every impression of having been transfigured out of towels

  • The rabbit wearing glasses is Bunny Rabbit, a character in Captain Kangaroo.
  • The rabbit with stars in its ears is El-ahrairah, the trickster-ancestor figure of the rabbits in Watership Down.
  • The five-foot white rabbit wearing a vest and carrying a pocket watch is from Alice in Wonderland.
  • The six-foot rabbit in the business suit is Harvey.
  • The rabbit with the white gloves and eating a carrot is Bugs Bunny.
  • The rabbit banging the bass drum is the Eveready Bunny.
  • The pink rabbit transfigured out of a towel is Bun-Bun, Ginny’s sleep-toy in Meaning of One.

“O embleer Frith!”

This is a lapine curse from Watership Down. It literally means “O stinking sun!” but would colloquially be translated as “God sucks!”

“Oh, sure,” retorted Sargon sourly, “they look just like harmless little bunnies, don’t they? But let me tell you, those are the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodents you ever set eyes on! They have a vicious streak a mile wide; they’re killers!”

This is a very close paraphrase of the Enchanter Tim’s warning about the vicious rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" muttered one of the rabbits.

This is what the White Rabbit says at the start of Alice in Wonderland.

“Of course you know this means war,” one of the rabbits commented. “Let’s rock, nerd-boy,” added another.

“Of course you know this means war,” is Bugs Bunny’s call to action. “Let’s rock” and the insult “nerd boy” are (so Sovran tells me) typical phrases of Bun-Bun’s in Sluggy Freelance.

Chapter Three

…a low, female voice behind them said, “Excellent selection of herring; perfect contrasts of flavors, setting up a harmonic relationship with lunch. This is evidence of fine composition; the chef should be encouraged.” The voice, which spoke in the sugary vowels of the American Deep South, belonged to a pretty woman they hadn’t seen before, carrying a notepad and pencil and apparently reading from her notes. She seemed to be a tourist, wearing sandals, shorts, a tee-shirt that said My Marine Is Hotter than Yours, and pigtails under a sky-blue canvas hat. She had an infectious grin and an expression that seemed to encourage them to do whatever it was they were already doing.

ChreeChree is a champion reviewer, whose reviews are always detailed and intelligent while also being upbeat and encouraging. She’s also southern (originally), married to a Marine and exceptionally well-read.

“Tha t is a superb question,” answered the woman, making some additional notes, “demonstrating intelligence, curiosity and strength of character. Hopefully these trends will be continued in future conversations. I’m called SqueeSquee, since you ask. I came from right here.”

A “squee,” so far as I have been able to determine, is a spontaneous expression of glee. ChreeChree squees frequently.

There was a uniformed attendant in front of the gate, who (when asked) introduced himself as Ginny-Beckett.

The name Ginny-Beckett is a reference to the writer Samuel Beckett; in particular I was thinking of his play Waiting for Godot, in which ultimate questions never get answered.

“Then why can’t we go to Minsk?” “Because it’s on Deck R.”

This whole dialogue is another tribute to “Who’s on First?” Deck R is both a location on the Ship and a designation for an R-rated story. So ChaliceInnana’s Whatever Happens in Minsk, Stays in Minsk is “on” Deck R because it’s R-rated, so naturally passengers from Deck G can’t go there. But it’s not physically on the ship, so they can’t understand why it would be on Deck R.

“Foreshadowing ,” nodded SqueeSquee. “An excellent device for projecting future themes or events in a story. Gives the reader a real sense of atmosphere.”

JKR engages in a lot of foreshadowing, but one of the joys of fan fiction is that you can write a story that’s nothing but foreshadowing. Since your readers have all read the underlying canon text, you can write a prequel that never says explicitly what you’re leading up to, but everyone will know anyway. It allows for marvelous economies of language.

Once inside it, however, they noticed that there were a number of extra buttons on the panel that didn’t seem to correspond to the decks they knew about. One button said, Parties Beyond the Veil; another said, Missing Moments; a third said Songs and a fourth said Challenges.

This is a little nod to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. “Parties Beyond the Veil” are an oft-repeated wish-fulfillment theme in fan fiction, in which (1) life after death for the virtuous is affirmed, and (2) Harry gets to be reunited with his parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, etc., if only briefly. “Missing Moments,” “Songs” and “Challenges” are three frequent varieties of fan fiction.

a group of three, dressed in what appeared to be Greek party clothes but carrying silk top hats and Muggle-style magic wands (black with white tips), collectively said “Efkharisto” and waltzed over to the screen that previously had been occupied by the suit of armor.

“Efhakristo” is modern Greek for “thank you.”

Closest to Harry and Ginny, looking fixedly out the windscreen, she saw a rugged-looking man dressed completely in black, including black combat boots and black gloves. He was covered in black body armor and had on a black, military-style helmet; his face was covered in black goggles and a black gas mask. At his side was a large black Muggle weapon of some kind, which had the word Mattel stamped on it The man appeared to be staring forward, although of course it was hard to tell through the goggles; through the gas mask she could hear him muttering, “Bugger it; millennium hand and shrimp.”

The photo on Torak’s Author Page shows someone (him, I think) dressed in garb for playing “Airsoft,” which is his hobby. When I first saw the photo, though, I thought it was a photo of an actual military or paramilitary operative, and that the weapon was real. Torak is also a great fan of the Disc World novels of Terry Pratchett; a recurring character in those novels is Foul Ole Ron, whose incomprehensible refrain is “Bugger it; millennium hand and shrimp.”

“I’m Tie Rack, but you can call me Terry.” “Is Terry your name?” asked Harry. “No, but I’d really, really like it if you called me Terry….”

Torak, as mentioned above, loves Terry Pratchett’s work.

“…Say, where’s your mustache?” “My mustache?” asked Harry in perplexity. … “Yes,” continued Tie Rack. “It’s dead useful for exercising the little grey cells. Did you remember Valentine’s Day this time?”

In Torak’s story Murder on the Hogwarts Express, Harry behaves like Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s brilliant Belgian detective who was very proud of his mustache and always spoke of his “little grey cells.” In his story As Mad as Ajax, Harry forgets Valentine’s Day.

”…The good fellow steering now is Sir Olive Pit.” The suit of armor turned slightly towards them and saluted with its free hand, striking its helmet and emitting a resonant gong.

Sir Ollivander is the SIYE Admin of Member Relations.

“Now this,” indicated Tie Rack, pointing to the drafting table at which the large, snouted animal was working, “is where we design and redesign our presentations and our awards and everything else, as often as we can. That’s Professor Mole.” The mole waived a forefoot at them.

There are often proposals to change the Trinket Awards process at SIYE, some of which are implemented. Professor Scroll is SIYE’s Head Administrator.

“We’re all so busy all the time that we can’t focus on one task at a time; so we switch off whenever possible. Now over here,” he pointed to the bagpipes-abacus contraption. “We have our protection against attacks and denials of service.” The four people in front of the device, who were still standing single-file, simultaneously turned their heads toward Ginny and nodded….“That’s the Admin Queue,” Tie Rack answered.

There are a lot of attacks, and there have been one or two chronic server problems at SIYE. I figured that the mechanism for dealing with them would be pretty complicated. AdminQ, at the time Chapter Three was posted, was the SIYE Technical Admin. “Queue,” of course, is just a hideous pun; there’s no one to blame for it but me.

“Oh, I see,” said Ginny, who didn’t.

The original line, in A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, is:
"How did they come here?" Christopher Robin said, "In the Usual Way, if you know what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh, who didn't, said "Oh!"

“That one,” said Harry, pointing to the screen in front of which the three Hellenes were waving their faux-wands over their top hats and muttering words in some Peloponnesian dialect. “Oh, that’s where we monitor Challenges,” said Tie Rack carelessly. “Those are the Magic Greeks.” “Yassass,” said the three costumed figures together, waiving merrily

The Magic Geeks (who are now the Former Magic Geeks, I guess?) are (I think) technical wizards at SIYE. “Yassass” is modern Greek for “Welcome.”

Excuse me,” she asked Tie Rack, “but what is that thing up ahead?” “Oh, that’s just the Canon,” he answered offhandedly. “But why is it in front of us?” she asked. “We’re following it!” he answered, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Fan fiction usually tries to follow the HP canon, except in Alternative Universe stories. I kept thinking that it might be a cannon instead of a canon we’re following.

“Um, where’s it headed?” she asked. “Not sure,” he answered. “Probably to the Deathly Hallows.” “That doesn’t sound promising,” she said. “What are ‘hallows?’” “Nobody knows,” he said fearfully.

By the time Chapter Three came out, we all knew that HP book seven was going to be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but nobody really knew what “deathly hallows” are. There was a great deal of chatter about it.

All at once a small brown mouse Ginny hadn’t noticed before ran up Tie Rack’s leg, settled on his shoulder, and appeared to whisper something in his ear. “Yes, dear?” he said to the mouse. “Really? Can’t use the same joke this many times in the same story? All right; I’ll knock it off.”

In Stan Freeberg’s hilarious audio recording, Stan Freeberg Modestly Presents the United States of America, Part One: The Early Years, a character, having uttered two sentences that both come from popular songs, gets a phone call. We hear only his end of the conversation, but it goes like this: “Yeah, Dick? Okay. We use any more, we’ll have to pay a royalty, eh? Okay, we’ll knock it off.” More about the mouse later.

“Don’t worry about too many inconsistencies; the whole place has been flooded with narrativium. It’ll take a while to clear up.”

Narrativium is an element in Pratchett’s Discworld novels. In Torak’s Murder on the Hogwarts Express, Luna explains that narrativium allows to happen whatever actually needs to happen in the story. My use of the term here shows that I didn’t understand the point at all.

Well, I wish,” Ginny retorted, “you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” “All right,” said SqueeSquee, who this time vanished quite slowly, beginning with the sandals and ending with the pigtails.

This is actually the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice and Wonderland.

“None shall pass,” said the armor in a deep voice. “Sir Olive Pit?” asked Harry hesitantly. “None shall pass,” repeated the knight.

This is the beginning of Arthur’s conversation with The Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“Ver y well,” said the armor, apparently unfazed. “Here is your Second Challenge. Go on a quest that is designed to accelerate the reunification of Germany. Ginny, during the quest you must find an excuse to kiss Seamus Finnegan on the lips. Harry, at some point you must enter into a business partnership with Dudley Dursley. Before the end of the term, challenge Slytherin to a football tournament at the Quidditch pitch at midnight. Ginny has to play forward. Harry has to play fullback. Include at least two conversations about German football, with specific references to the East German style of play. Make sure you say ‘Bavaria was never like this;’ ‘At least in Quidditch nobody kicks you;’ and ‘Say that in Gaelic.’”

Sir Ollivander runs the SIYE Challenges, which frequently list a great many specific, detailed elements a story must have to qualify. Bonus points are given for including specified sentences.

Harry said, “We’ve left school.” “Then make it an AU.” “An aw?” “Not an aw; an AU.”

Any time a fan fiction author wants to do something that contradicts canon, s/he simply makes it an Alternative Universe story.

Hm.” He thought for a minute. “My best guess is that this is a recurring, repetitious joke by someone who hasn’t the imagination to think up anything more original.”

O f course there are several books and stories in which the characters argue with or criticize the author. My personal favorite is Howard Schoenfeld’s “Built Up Logically” [“The Universal Panacea”], in which a character literally takes over the narrative and the first-person voice shifts from one character to another as they struggle for control. My contribution here is that the author hasn’t lost control, and I simply strikeout anything Harry says that I don’t like.

Harry and Ginny ate very little of it, but did feed several pieces to Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris, who unaccountably appeared at the table leg, affectionately nuzzling each other and meowing loudly for a share of the bounty. “This is some Ship,” commented Harry, seemingly at random.

I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has shipped Crookshanks with Mrs. Norris — but please don’t tell me about it. I rather like sushi, myself.

The Drama Deck’s layout appeared to be deliberately confusing. Every corridor branched into two or more separate corridors, and these were marked with the oddest and least informative signs Ginny had ever seen. At one such intersection, for example, there was a sign pointing toward the left fork, saying Easier, and another pointing toward the right fork, saying Truer, and yet a third pointing toward the middle fork, saying Kinder. They took the “Truer” branch, figuring that this had something to do with intimacy, and immediately came to another crossroads where the signs said, Loves Me, Loves Me Not, and Someone New; here they took the “Loves Me” road. …but the weather seemed to have changed abruptly and there were now storm clouds on the horizon, lightning in the distance, and a wind that whipped their hair in a Gothic fashion.

The essence of drama is choice. In a dramatic story, the protagonist has one or more difficult decisions to make that will fundamentally alter the outcome of the plot and the fate of the characters. In HP stories, one is supposed to do “what is right,” rather than “what is easy,” and one is always supposed to choose love. Stormy weather seemed more appropriate for drama, to me, than sunny weather.

As SqueeSquee stood there smiling, a small bird alighted on her shoulder and began to sing. She turned her head affectionately towards the bird, stroking its feathers and making soft noises. The bird was tiny, but had the loudest singing voice (with the widest range of pitch) that Ginny had ever heard. Its song was somehow both romantic and funny, as if it were in love with someone or something it could never take seriously, but loved that too. It had red-and-black feathers on its wings, but red-and-gold plumage on its head, which looked unaccountably leonine; its right eye was emerald green while its left eye was chocolate brown.

Cwarbeck writes romantic, funny stories about Harry and Ginny. She and and ChreeChree are good friends. The black-and-red feathers signify Harry and Ginny’s hair; “emerald green” is the way fan fiction authors are always describing Harry’s eyes, while “chocolate brown” is the way they’re always describing Ginny’s. The head is “leonine” to suggest Gryffindor.

“Lu na’s loose loom!” it chirped. “It’s the Primary Couple!”

In cwarbeck’s story Getting Over Harry Potter, Ginny utters numerous expostulations that consist of a set of words having the same initial letter, usually beginning with a name in the possessive form.

“The most wonderful thing about Sea Warblers is, I’m the only one!”

In the Disney film version of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Tigger sings, “The most wonderful thing about tiggers is, I’m the only one!” (That’s not quite the way he puts it in the book, though…)

“Aw, Josh’s jocular jots,” warbled the bird, rubbing her head against SqueeSquee’s cheek, “I love you too, honey.”

Josh (a.k.a. Moshpit) is a friend and collaborator of both cwarbeck and ChreeChree.

“Yes; he was in the captain’s cabin. He escaped – that cat, that is, not the captain – and he’s been looking for me – the Sea Warbler, that is – ever since we left port – in England, that is. And you know,” the bird continued, “a friend of mine died that way.”

In cwarbeck’s Excess Baggage, there is some confusion when Ginny is trying discuss Crookshanks at the same time she’s discussing Dean and Seamus. She keeps having to say “Crookshanks, I mean” to clarify that she’s not talking about Dean. The “friend of mine” who “died that way” was Peter Pettigrew (in his Scabbers incarnation), who was eaten by Crookshanks in the same story.

“I won’t name him,” said the bird, “you’re supposed to be able to figure out who it is from the context and his favorite flower.”

In cwarbeck’s It Could Be Tonight, Harry and friends attend Neville’s funeral, and the reader isn’t actually told whose funeral it is until the third-to-last line in the story, although we are told that the daffodil is one of the deceased’s favorite flowers.

“You looked at me again,” she chirped. “What?” said Harry. “Three times. In less than five minutes.” “So?” he asked. “You’re mine! ”

In cwarbeck’s The Five-Minute Test, Sirius Black advances the theory that being looked at by any member of the opposite sex three times in five minutes is proof that that person is romantically interested in you. Cwarbeck herself is what I would call “dangerously possessive” of Harry, and would certainly claim him as hers, given any encouragement.

“Creevy’s creeping creed, that’s only in the text itself. In the Missing Moments, I’ll bet you’re doing all sorts of things that are entirely contradicted by what appears in print.”

I sometimes think that “Missing Moments” stories are really AUs that are trying to sound respectable. I really enjoyed cwarbeck’s Two-a-Side Quidditch, but its premise is that Ginny was obsessed with Harry during the late summer before Year 6. I don’t think this is supported by the canon text.

The wall near the desk had several framed images of cartoon characters with unnaturally large eyes and unnaturally small mouths, a photograph of a collie, and two Muggle-style pictures of a beautiful brunette.

Viridian collects Anime art, owns a collie, and is married to a beautiful brunette.

Standing at the desk with his back to them was a very tall, graceful-looking man in his late thirties, wearing what looked like bright green pajamas with the words Property of L.S.U. Athletic Department stenciled across the back. He appeared to be concentrating hard on some sort of complicated game or puzzle that was spread out on the desk

Viridian, who is very tall, took his pen name from a character who wears a green costume in one of his own original novels. He’s a graduate of Louisiana State University and a skilled player of Dungeons & Dragons. Incidentally, I know nothing at all about D&D, and had to get the visual details and terminology from Moshpit and Sovran.

“Great,” Harry whispered into Ginny’s ear, after looking at the furniture on the near side of the room. “He’s a shrink.”

Among his other accomplishments, Viridian has an advanced degree in psychology; psychological principles and research often find their way into his fiction.

He was murmuring something to himself about “paltry strength score”, “encumbrances” and “chaotic good”…

These are all D&D concepts; don’t ask me to explain them. Moshpit and Sovran told me, but I didn’t retain the information longer than it took to write the chapter.

But then Harry bumped into one of the armchairs and the tall man instantly pivoted, facing them in a pose that reminded Ginny distressingly of Aurors she had seen readying themselves for combat.

Viridian is also a serious and skilled student of Karate; in his story Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past, Harry is also skilled in various forms of combat.

“I was going to greet you, but beginnings are such delicate things.”

The sentiment “Beginnings are such delicate things” appears more than once in Nightmares of Futures Past.

“…You could wind up hating me for deceiving you; or you could eventually take a course of action that would prevent your preparing yourself for the trials you must face. If I made a spectacularly bad choice, we could all wind up being killed in a terrible war.”

These are all possibilities over which Harry agonizes in Nightmares of Futures Past.

She pointed to the small figure, who then settled down on Verdigris’s shoulder and began painting her toenails.

The image of a muse painting her toenails comes from Megan Lindholm’s charming story, “Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man.”

“Her? Oh, never mind her. Bloody muse won’t leave me alone.”

“Bloody muse won’t leave me alone” appears repeatedly in the Disclaimers for Viridian’s HP fan fiction.

"She is not very polite,” replied Verdigris. “She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my muse.”

This is what Peter Pan reports to Wendy of Tinkerbell’s sentiments.

“I’m having bad dreams of bad memories that haven’t happened yet?” asked Harry. “Exactly,” said Verdigris. “But they make you so mature for your age.”

In Nightmares of Futures Past this is exactly what’s happening to Harry; he’s “mature for his age” because he’s got a battle-scarred 30-year-old’s mind and soul in an 11-year-old’s body.

“Unless you count being utterly misled by this young man for as long as you’ve known him.”… “Highly unethical,” Verdigris continued. “Possibly amounts to child abuse, or at least stalking. I’m astonished you put up with it.”

In Nightmares of Futures Past Harry torments himself with a similar interpretation of his relationship with Ginny.

“Excuse me, I meant, ‘AU?’” “Of course,” said Verdigris

Nightmar es is an AU if there ever was one.

“Elementary, my dear Weasley,” he replied.

The sentence “Elementary, my dear Watson” is frequently (and erroneously) attributed to Sherlock Holmes. Holmes certainly told Watson that various things were “elementary,” and frequently called him “My dear Watson,” but never the two together in that particular phrasing.

”But trust, a deep knowing of each other’s fears and weaknesses, the willingness to be there for each other even in moments of great strain and pain, this lasts forever.”

At a fundamental level, the first 30 chapters or so of Nightmares of Futures Past are concerned with the quest for genuine intimacy. The plot scenario at that stage virtually guarantees that Harry desperately needs intimacy but cannot have it.

“Why, you could have started baring your deepest fears and your most horrible memories to each other at eleven years old if you wanted.”

Which is what Harry eventually does (well, at twelve years old) in Nightmares.

“No, no, no!” said Verdigris impatiently. “This is drama, not fluff!”

Nightmares is surely drama, not fluff.

Chapter Four

I looked back at our footprints in the sand,
His large, mine smaller, always side-by-side,
And to that place almost lost to sight
Where smaller toes between the larger feet,
And sand was carved by my impatient instep,
Wanting more than I could have today.

There’s nothing secret or special about this; I just wanted to write a love poem.

“I’m a girl mouse, if it matters,” said the mouse with dignity. “My name is Something Furry

Something Flowery is the Administrator of Content and Beta Relations for SIYE, and the first Admin with whom I ever had any extended conversation. She’s helped me with several stories, including this one. But she’s also rather self-effacing, and hides or denies her considerable talents and skills. Once, when she’d said she was “just a mouse,” it occurred to me that the mice must have all the brains in this outfit. Hence, this scene.

“Primary,” growled Something Furry. “The Primary Couple.”

The Admins and Archivists have the job of maintaining the editorial standards of SIYE — among which is that Harry and Ginny must always be the primary couple.

“And if Ginny died,” the stranger said quickly, “why then you’d be free to pursue your true – ”

At one time, H/Hr shippers would write stories for H/G archives in which Ginny died, and Harry turned in his grief to Hermione. For this reason, the SIYE Submission Rules forbid any one-shot story in which either Harry or Ginny dies.

“Stowaway! Spy! Saboteur!” hissed Something Furry, actually using the letter “s” so that hissing was possible.

Stephen Fry, the actor (and comedian, and novelist) who reads the audio book of the UK version of the HP novels, has pointed out to JKR that it’s difficult to have a character “hiss” a sentence that has no Ss in it. Many fan fiction authors still miss this point.

“Oh, rubbish,” said the mouse, beginning to clean her face with her paws. “He has no power here. If he hadn’t gone, someone would have dropped a house on him, too.”

This is what Glinda tells the Wicked Witch of the West in the film version of The Wizard of Oz.

Her face was marked with several obvious battle scars, and it looked like a patch of her hair had been burned away and was now just growing back in a different color, but on her all these markings looked unaccountably lovely. In her belt she carried a brace of pistols and a long dagger. All of these weapons had clearly had a lot of use; the pistols were stained with smoke, the dagger had old, dried blood on the dudgeon, and the rapier she was holding in her right hand had notches from heavy fighting. She smelled like gunpowder.

Melindaleo writes action-filled stories in which people are always getting killed or badly injured. In The Seventh Horcrux, a lot of Hermione’s hair is burned away, and she takes to wearing a wig made of hair donated by Ginny. There’s a scene near the end of that story in which practically everyone is showing off scars they’ve acquired during the war. The only place I’ve ever seen the word “dudgeon” is in Macbeth’s hallucination scene: “I see thee still; / And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, / Which was not so before. There’s no such thing…”

“…Ye can look inter each other’s pretty green ‘n brown eyes fer all eternity, and it’ll be a bore. But action! Adventure! The thrill of fightin’ the enemy, savin’ the world from evil, sacrificin’ yerself fer yer mates, stoppin’ yer mates from sacrificin’ themselves fer you, worryin’ about whether yer sweetheart will survive the day! Of course you’d need t’ fall inter each other’s arms once in a while, t’ prove yer still normal, hormonal teenagers ‘n still in love – with restraint, always with self-control. But why waste all the time in the world repeatin’ the same silly exercises when there’s a world t’ conquer?”

Most of these things actually happen in The Seventh Horcrux: Harry tries to sacrifice himself for his friends, and tries to prevent them from sacrificing themselves for him. There’s lots of thrilling action and adventure. Harry & Ginny reliably fall into one another’s arms, but never go too far until the war is won. “Repeating the same silly exercises” is a line from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land; it’s how Jubal Harshaw describes a life devoted to sex.

Fitting it is that the sea is their chaperone, that we few, we happy few, we band of sisters, can witness their love and devotion – or at least, that public part of their love and devotion we are allowed to see – on their way to the first of many new beginnings!”

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” is from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

“Me name’s Melodia, not ‘Jo,’” the growled the pirate.

Last Spring, a book began appearing in some countries that was supposedly a pirated copy of DH. It turned out to be, instead, a pirated copy of The Seventh Horcrux. Melindaleo was mortified. Many of us said that, if any fan fiction story deserved to be mistaken for the work of JKR, that one did.

She brandished her sword at them. “Back, ye lobster-bellies!”

“Lo bster-belly” is one of the ways colonial rebels referred to British soldiers in the 18th century; in this case I was thinking of the sunburns. Also, there’s an old McDonald’s television advertisement in which a pirate is fighting off little critters that are trying to steal his French fries; he cries, “Back, ye mop-heads!”

other instructor was a dark, serious-looking young man wearing some sort of complicated black costume Harry didn’t recognize; his belt seemed to include a scabbard for some sort of Asian sword.

Moshpit, who is also very well-versed in the martial arts, has written a story (Echoes of Power) in which Harry is a “War Mage.” The code of conduct to which the War Mages subscribe in this story reminds me of Samurai or Ninjas. So I decided to dress Mushroom as a Ninja.

“There are lots of things I teach here,” replied Verdigris promptly. “Materials Science, Problems in Counter-Transference, Gaming Strategy & Technique, Card Collection for Fun & Profit, Appropriate Uses of a Gantt Chart…”

Viridian has a degree in Mechanical Engineering (which includes Materials Science), and also does project management (in which Gantt charts are employed). The other things I already explained.

Ginny wondered why, if he was called Mushroom, the faded lettering across the back of his outfit clearly said Donatello.

Donatello is one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The ways that can be named are not the unvarying ways,” said Mushroom

This is the opening line of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight,” commented Mushroom. “If your enemy has superior strength, evade him.”

Both of these lines are from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

“That which will be weakened must first be strengthened,” said Mushroom.

This is also from The Art of War.

“Heave n and Earth are not humane, and regard the people as straw dogs,” said Mushroom sadly.

This is from the Tao Te Ching.

“Jus t an hour running and swimming,” Verdigris assured them. “Then you can come back.” “How much can an hour possibly accomplish?” demanded Harry. “You’d be surprised,” said Verdigris.

In some fan fiction stories (neither Nightmares of Futures Past nor Echoes of Power, I hasten to add) Harry gets built up physically very quickly by just doing a little bit of exercise.

“Nothing in the world is softer than water,” observed Mushroom. “Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.”

This is also from the Tao Te Ching.

“Tha t’s it!” Harry said suddenly. “That’s what?” Ginny asked, confused. “The point of view!”

Many fan fiction authors fail to pay proper attention to POV, and it shifts back and forth, seemingly at random, between different characters in the same scene. Viridian, by contrast, deliberately shifts POV for entire chapters or half-chapters, to make a point about plot and character development. Here, the POV shifted from Ginny to Harry when Ginny left to go to the Spa, which is forgivable if the reader needs to see what Harry does next.

Ginny looked exasperated. “Your chest, your arms, your shoulders! I left you only about an hour ago, yet all of your upper body muscles have expanded like balloons. What happened?”

As happens in some fan fiction stories.

“Harry, running around the deck and a little swimming won't make a man look as if he had been sweating over bar bells for years, will it?”

In Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, Dr. Harshaw explains the sudden development of musculature in his patient by saying the patient has done a little swimming. Dr. Nelson responds in exasperation, “A little swimming won’t make a man look as if he had been sweating over bar bells for years!”

“…The masseuse was a sweet teenage girl named Lorelei Lee – ”

Laura Laurent, who was a teenager when she posted her first story, writes sweet stories that employ gorgeous poetic language. The name Lorelei Lee, however, comes from Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love.

“…Any way, Lorelei Lee congratulated us on our marriage, and said some things I didn’t understand about being kissed and stroked and loved – which sounded pretty good, actually.

In the last chapter of Laura Laurent’s In the House of the Quick and the Hungry, we are told that “the speechless bride and the reverent groom were mutually felt and touched and explored and adored and loved and finally settled into that first rest of thousands yet to come,…” a line that I literally could not read aloud for the lump in my throat and the tears in my eyes.

“She also had some rather personal things to say about each of my brothers – all six of them, and she even differentiated sharply between Fred and George, which practically nobody outside the family ever does – although she can’t have met them all, can she?”

The first six chapters of In the House of the Quick and the Hungry are about Ginny’s relationship with each of her six brothers. Fred and George are markedly different from one another in those chapters.

“She spoke to your – breasts?” “Yes – she looked at them, and said, ‘Hello girls, how nice to see you again.’ ”

In In the House of the Quick and the Hungry there is a scene in which Ginny, alone (she thinks) in the girl’s loo after being teased by Fred for having an underdeveloped chest, speaks to her own breasts, saying, “It’s all right, girls. I don’t care if you’re small, I love you anyways.”

“TBA? How can a bra size be TBA? That’s ridiculous!”

Because JKR often doesn’t detail the specific physical characteristics of her characters, fan fiction authors sometimes have to make them up. Ginny’s specific height, her figure and the exact shade and length of her hair are not known. Consequently fan fiction authors might have her somewhat taller or shorter, her hair more auburn or copper, longer or shorter, her figure more curvy or straight, depending on the needs of the story. (Laura Laurent needed Ginny to have a small bust for the scene she was writing.) It would seem odd to Ginny, though, that all of these things kept changing all the time.

“It happened again,” said Harry promptly. “What happened again?” She looked fearfully down at her chest. “The point of view switched. We’re in your point of view now.”

This is the sort of POV shift that’s usually just the result of inattention or sloppiness. We were in Harry’s head, then suddenly we were in Ginny’s, and for no apparent reason.

Ginny recognized several of the people they’d seen before. Sargon, Mushroom, SqueeSquee and the Sea Warbler appeared to be playing cards at one table

Sovran, Moshpit, ChreeChree and cwarbeck (along with Jonathan Avery and Fake_a_Smile) form a nice little collaborative team that’s full of mutual affection and support. I can easily imagine them whiling away the evening playing cards together.

Natasha and St. Sabrina were sitting at another table, whispering into each others’ ears and exploding into gales of laughter (it looked like they were both a bit drunk, although St. Sabrina was clearly drinking coffee).

If anyone could get drunk on coffee, St Margarets could.

For some reason the only drinks on the menu were pumpkin juice, butterbeer, aged mead and firewhiskey; apparently the lounge didn’t even have water.

Fan fiction stories only ever seem to mention these beverages, as if wizards don’t drink anything else.

Then Natasha broke the ice by singing something that appeared to be in French with a Belgian accent (Ginny had no idea how she knew what a Belgian accent sounded like in French, but there it was). Ginny’s French wasn’t good enough for her to follow it, but it seemed to have the same four words repeated over and over again.

Antosha admires the songs of the Belgian singer and composer Jacques Brel, including his haunting Ne me quitte pas (“Don’t leave me”).

“And now,” announced Professor Mole, coming back on stage and beaming, “we will award our trinkets.”

Every month, SIYE holds the Dumbledore Silver Trinket Awards (DSTA), in which members vote among nominated stories for Best Angst, Best Romance, Best Drama, Best Comedy, Best Action/Adventure, Best One-Shot, Best Overall and Best Author.

“Baaaaaaaaa!” “Updaaaaaate soooooon!” “Baaaaaaaa!” “Duuuuuuuude!” “Soooooooon!”

I love all my reviewers, as do all the fan fiction authors I know. But some reviews are more enjoyable than others. A review by someone like ChreeChree, who grapples with what the author is trying to do, is simply more fun to read than one which says, “Great, man; update before I get angry.”

“And how about the trinket for Best Lullaby?” Asked Professor Mole. SqueeSquee looked up expectantly. Hers had been the only lullaby. “Saaaaaaargon!”

There is a pronounced “halo effect” in the voting for the DSTAs. Stories that are well-loved tend to receive votes in all categories, whether applicable or not. A popular action/adventure story might receive many votes for Best Comedy, even though there’s not a comic moment in it. Stories that have become popular over a long period and built up a readership tend to receive more votes than newer stories. I’m picking on Sovran only because he and Moshpit helped me think up this scene, and I wanted the “winner in all categories” to be a willing participant.

They came to a spot where a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a prematurely grey beard was leaning over the railing, gazing at the approach of sunset and looking devastated. It looked to Ginny as if the man had lost his best friend.

Most of the stories I write are pretty sad (although I maintain that they all contain “spiritual uplift and redemption” as well).

“Oh, my,” said Ginny. “You think we’re going to die?” “Inevitably,” he answered.

Harry and/or Ginny die prematurely in three of the stories I’ve posted so far, and in two others we learn about the natural deaths they had after long, happy lives. Not all of these stories appear on SIYE, however.

“Death the outcome of all our ventures; death the conclusion of all our dreams. Nothing but memory left, and memory will fade; all will be forgotten. Memento mori. Life sucks, and then you die. There’s nothing left but the bleached puppy bones of his former friend who used to run and play so happily…”

  • A number of my stories (especially On the Headmaster’s Wall, The 312th Edition and Report on the Excavations…) are concerned with the issue of memory — of what is remembered about us after we are gone.
  • Memento Mori is a Latin aphorism meaning, “Remember you will die.”
  • “Life sucks, and then you die” was a common saying when I was in college.
  • “Nothing left but the bleached puppy bones of his former friend who used to run and play so happily…” is Snoopy, ruminating on his untimely demise in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

“He’ll be fine; there’s nothing he likes better than a good cry. Give him ten or fifteen minutes and he’ll be up and about, demanding Armenian food and a nice Chianti.”

Actually I really do like a good cry once in a while. I’m very fond of Armenian food (having married an Armenian). “A nice Chianti” is the beverage with which Hannibal Lecter consumed the survey-taker’s liver in The Silence of the Lambs.

They are valiant geniuses,” added Mushroom, who was now jogging by in battle fatigues with a 50-pound pack on his back while carrying a submachine gun. “They are invaluable,” commented Sargon, who was strolling by arm-in-arm with Grommit. “They are darlings,” sighed St. Sabrina, swinging by on a rope. “Delightful,” chuckled Melodia, swinging by on another rope. “Witty, diligent and very personable,” continued Verdigris. “Often comely; occasionally brilliant and twisted.”

We all adore our betas. They labor over awkward sentences, canon errors and other problems, all for the benefit of stories posted under the names of others. They bloody well deserve the best staterooms on the Ship. Each of these things is something one of these authors has said about his or her betas:
  • Moshpit has called his betas “valiant” and “genius”.
  • Sovran has called his betas “invaluable.”
  • St Margarets has referred to her “darling beta”.
  • Melindaleo has referred to her “delightful beta.”
  • Viridian has used the phrases “Witty, diligent and very personable” to refer to various of his betas, “comely” (referring specifically to Runsamok) and “brilliant, if twisted” (referring specifically to Kokopelli).

“Eto ochevidno,” rumbled Natasha, whom Ginny hadn’t noticed before.

Eto ochevidno is Russian for “that’s obvious.”

Tonks was dancing with Charlie Weasley. Fleur was dancing with Viktor Krum. Professor McGonegall was dancing Professor Dumbledore (who was apparently alive and well). Ron was dancing with Pansy Parkinson. Roger Davies was dancing with Lisa Turpin. Neville Longbottom was dancing with Hannah Abbott – then with Susan Bones.

These are all pairings that appear in various fan fiction stories, although not all of them are on SIYE.
  • Tonks is paired with Charlie in Antosha’s Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Weasley Family Picnic.
  • McGonagall is paired with Dumbledore in Antosha’s Monster.
  • Roger Davies is paired with Lisa Turpin in St Margarets’s Roger and Lisa, a non-SIYE story.
  • Ron is paired (sort of) with Pansy in Antosha’s The Wisest Course.
  • Neville is paired with Hannah in Dogstar’s Asking for Roses, a non-SIYE story.
  • He’s paired with Susan in The Wisest Course.
  • I haven’t actually seen Fleur paired with Viktor, but I’m sure somebody’s done it somewhere.

At this moment Natasha stormed out of nowhere onto the dance floor, heading directly for Petunia and Slughorn. “Nyet, nyet, nyet! ” He roared. “Bozhe moi, can’t they read? Are they utter fools? What do they take me for?”

Back when I made that mistake about shipping while reading Antosha’s The Wisest Course, the error I made was to think he’d shipped Petunia with Slughorn. He responded, “No, no, no! Yuck!”

Chap ter Five

In a deck chair directly in front of them, a slim woman in her mid-forties, with shoulder-length yellow hair under a large floppy hat, contentedly sipped at a tall glass of iced tea while watching a teenage girl and two small children play near the water’s edge.

Joanne Rowling, O.B.E., almost forty-two at the time of this writing, is a slim woman with yellow hair. As of this writing she has three children: Jessica, now fourteen; David, now four, and Mackenzie, now two.

“I like to lurk about here now and again,” she continued. “It’s fun and relaxing. My doctor says I shouldn’t do it too often, though, because of the exposure.” She gestured at the sun. “My solicitor says the same thing,” she sighed.

Rowling is known to “lurk” on various fan web sites, although I have never heard of her lurking on a fan fiction archive. Excessive exposure to the sun is bad for the skin. Being known to read fan fiction could, potentially, create legal problems for the canon author, as in the case of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

“We no sooner understand how one person wants us to behave when we meet someone else who wants entirely different behavior. And each of them seems to see us through his or her own tinted glasses; it’s like we’re what they imagine us to be, and not ourselves.”

The canon characters change radically in the hands of fan fiction authors. Of course character “consistency,” in this context, is a nearly meaningless concept, but I think Ginny is right to be distressed at the way she’s morphed from one thing to another in various fan fiction stories.

“Married, are you?” she mused with a smile. “I suppose that sort of thing might happen.”

This is why I needed to finish the story before the release of DH. After July 21st we will know for sure whether Harry & Ginny are to be married, and if not, why not. Only in the days before its publication could the woman on the beach be so vague about it.

“You know, we’ve been through a lot, even before this trip,” said Harry with a touch of bitterness. The woman looked him in the eyes. “I’m really very sorry,” she said quietly.

Rowling has said, more than once, that if she had a chance to talk to Harry face-to-face, the first thing she would do would be to apologize for everything she’s put him through.

“Thank you; you’re very kind.” Now it was the woman’s turn to look uncomfortable. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

Rowling has also said that she feels bad about the suffering her characters go through, and which her readers suffer vicariously. She felt especially bad about the deaths of Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore.

“…I think all the people on the Ship probably mean well; I think they’re trying to do what they think will make you happy. People often behave that way towards the people they love, and sometimes they blunder. Of course they can’t read your minds; how could they? So they get it wrong now and again. After all, they don’t really know you very well, do they, dear?”

We don’t really know Ginny, any of us. Rowling deliberately kept her in the background of Books 1, 3 and 4, and only at the end of OotP did she begin to have a prominent role. Many of her personality traits, loves, hates, fears and desires are not in canon at all. But H/G shippers have been writing detailed stories about Ginny since before OotP was published — how could we fail to get her “wrong now and again”? But our hearts are in the right places — we want Harry & Ginny to be happy together, even if we don’t really know how to make it happen.

The blonde woman snorted iced tea into her nose and coughed three times before collapsing into helpless laughter.

One can only imagine what Rowling would think of being compared with Molly Weasley. In some ways I’ll bet she’d be pleased.

But everyone there – and it included many of the staff members they had seen before – was certain that both Ginny and Harry were on the threshold of becoming animagi, and gave them plentiful and conflicting advice on the subject. They heard themselves advised to become panthers, tigers, wolves, stags (that one made Harry smile wistfully), weasels (that one got a laugh out of Ginny), lions, and even phoenixes or basilisks. But they escaped with no damage and chuckled over the event for the rest of the day, even as Natasha was trying to get them to try something called “Heart of Targ” at dinner.

Neither Harry nor Ginny has ever shown any sign of becoming an animagus in canon, but numerous fan fiction authors insist that they will. Not all the various animals suggested here actually appear as animagus forms, but at the very least it’s been suggested that Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Fred and/or George might be lions, weasels, panthers, stags or phoenixes.

It was obvious that none of them had ever seen a bat-bogey hex, nor heard one described accurately.

There are as many incantations for, and consequences of, the bat-bogey hex as there are fan fiction authors.

“But do you know where I want to go first?” Ginny asked, smiling hungrily at Harry. “Where?” He asked; but clearly he already knew. “Deck 17”

I’m sure that nobody needs me to translate that one.

*****

So there it is, a 13,500-word Author’s Note. Probably some sort of a record. Let me take this opportunity to thank all those who helped me with the story, including Something Flowery, cwarbeck, Moshpit and Sovran, and especially Frelling, who served as beta for the first three chapters. Let me also thank all of the authors and Admins who allowed me to steal their identities and defame them for purposes of this story — you’re great sports, and you made me feel completely supported. Finally, I want to thank all the readers who have given such kind reviews, and those who have nominated this story for the DSTAs since November — there’s not a sheep among you.

It should be utterly obvious that a story like this one can only be written out of great affection for the people involved. If you didn’t already know I love you, you know it now.

I’ll see you all on the other side of the Deathly Hallows.

~Ken

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