Poor Mary Sue!

Dumbledore stood up after the remnants of the evening feast had cleared away. He beamed at everyone, piercing blue eyes passing over the various occupants of the Great Hall. Gradually, the students (and staff) stopped talking and belching, focusing their attention on the headmaster. When the hall was silent, Dumbledore cleared his throat and spoke.

"Well, students, it is my pleasure to introduce yet another student to Hogwarts." He paused and glanced at the notes scribbled on his napkin, then continued. "Please note that she is not an exchange student from America, Germany, France, Canada, or any other country." Harry and Ron glanced at each other, puzzled as to where this speech was leading.

"Where do you suppose she's from, then?" Harry whispered, earning a glare and a hissed "Shh!" from Hermione. He sank back in his chair and turned his gaze back to Dumbledore guiltily, catching the old man's next words.

"In fact, she has been living in Hogwarts for several years now, albeit hidden under the floorboards of the Charms classroom."

"So that's why Flitwick's floor sounds funny!" said Lavender, nudging Parvati (Hermione, who was sitting next to them, stared at them disapprovingly).

Dumbledore waited until the whispers and snickers had died down before concluding, "Please welcome our non-exchange, not-so-new student, Mary Sue!"

"Mary Sue!" exclaimed Seamus. "Isn't she supposed to be really pretty and talented?"

"Yeah, I heard Mary Sue is, like, the perfect girl!" added Dean.

Amidst the murmur of excitement, the doors to the Great Hall swung open in a disappointingly ordinary way, without any dramatic creaking. Nevertheless, Harry and Ron both turned to look eagerly (along with many of the males in the hall), anxious to catch a glimpse of the legendary Mary Sue beauty. The sight that met their eyes horrified them.

A girl stood in the doorway, looking back at them out of dull, glazed eyes. Her face was a ghastly mask of pimples and folds of fat, glistening with an oily sheen. A horizontal gash above the many chins served as a mouth; there were no visible lips. In contrast to her face, her body was impossibly scrawny, bones jutting out at awkward angles. Her Hogwarts uniform hung limply on her frame, and Harry noticed, through the fog of terror that had gripped his mind, that her knees were even knobbier than his own.

The students stared at her as she stood motionless in the doorway. Cursed with a car-crash mentality, Harry found himself watching with a morbid fascination, unable to tear his eyes away from the stomach-churning scene. Next to him, Ron was making faint retching noises. The entire Great Hall sat frozen in horrified silence (a silence broken only by Ron's gags).

Mary Sue looked at them looking at her and burst into tears. "Don't look at me!" she sobbed shrilly. "I'm not a Mary-Sue, I tried so hard to make sure I wasn't one...You're not supposed to act like this!" Crying, she turned and ran back out of the Great Hall. There was a collective sigh of relief.

"And I heard that!" she shouted, putting her head back in briefly to glare at them, tear-reddened eyes making her face even more frightening than before. Ron dove under the table, Neville covered his eyes, and Seamus appeared to be trying to stab his eyes out with a fork. Her reappearance threw the Hall into pandemonium; girls screamed, and some of the first years fainted in fear. In his panic, Dennis Creevey had wet his pants and the stink of urine filled the air.

Dumbledore looked around at the students, many of whom were trying to render themselves blind, then turned to the staff. McGonagall seemed ill, though that might have just been because Snape had his face buried in the front of her robes and was sobbing hysterically. His eyes traveled over Flitwick, Sprout, Vector, and the other professors, all of whom had expressions of trauma or intense agony. Then, he saw Filch sitting in the corner, a look of simpering adoration on his face that was almost more nauseating than Mary Sue had been (Almost. But not quite, as nothing could surpass Mary Sue in all her stomach-turning glory).

"Merlin's beard," he rasped. "She's so beautiful!"

At this, Snape sobbed even harder; McGonagall patted his head gingerly, looking shell-shocked. Most of the teachers were gagging, and Dumbledore himself felt slightly unwell. Deciding that what they all needed was a good nights sleep to recover, he cleared his throat tentatively.

"Er...that's all for now. Please go to your dormitories now. Prefects, show the first years where to go. Sweet dreams!" he added with a forced heartiness.

" 'Sweet dreams?!' " Ron repeated incredulously. "I'll be lucky if I can sleep, with that face still in my memory!"

Harry shared this sentiment, feeling that he would take nightmares about Voldemort over the terrifying visage of Mary Sue any day. He looked around. None of the students wanted to be the first out of the Great Hall, for fear of running into Mary Sue. Hermione turned to Harry.

"Harry, do something!" she urged.

"Who, me?" gasped Harry, blood draining from his face.

"Yes, you!" Hermione snapped. "You're the Boy Who Lived, remember? You confront evil and save the world from destruction!"

"But-" Harry gulped. Fighting Death eaters was one thing; facing Mary Sue was something else altogether. At least the Death eaters wore masks.

"Harry, just go!" Hermione shoved him towards the doors.

Feeling a lot like the sacrificial lamb, Harry walked up to the double doors, each step becoming progressively slower than the last. Around him, the hall fell silent. Standing in front of the doors, Harry took a deep breath and pushed them open cautiously. The students held their breaths as Harry slowly, carefully, poked his head out and looked. Neville was white; he gave a terrified squeak and hid his face in the tablecloth. Seamus, whose fork had been confiscated by Dean Thomas, held a spoon ready to gouge out his eyes if necessary. Even Hermione seemed worried. Then...

"All clear!" Harry shouted, turning back from the door triumphantly. The Great Hall burst into applause, students and staff alike giddy with relief. Hermione, still looking slightly shaken, was trying to regain her composure.

"Well, of course I knew he'd be ok--"

"Neville!" Ron tugged at the tablecloth. "Neville, he's ok, you can look now!"

The students started flooding out of the Hall, heading to their dorms and discussing the not-so-new student in hushed tones. Harry had almost reached Ron and Hermione when an awful thought occurred to him. He whirled around, grabbing Dumbledore's sleeve as the headmaster walked by him.

"Professor Dumbledore! What House is she in?!" he blurted loudly. The students gasped as the implications of Harry's question sank in.

"I'm not sleeping in the same room as her!"

"She better not be in our house!"

"Or ours!"

"No way is she in Slytherin."

"Not Gryffindor either."

"She can't be in Ravenclaw!"

The Hufflepuffs, whose house had traditionally been the catchall category, blanched as a whole.

"She is not going in Hufflepuff!" Professor Sprout wailed, losing control.

"She can't! Please, Headmaster, have mercy!" cried Hannah Abbott.

Professor Dumbledore surveyed the distraught faces around him, then looked at Harry.

"Under these circumstances, Harry, I'm afraid she is not in a house. The Sorting Hat refused to Sort her--"

"I don't blame it!" interrupted Fred; George nodded fervently in agreement.

"As I was saying, the Sorting Hat wouldn't Sort her," Dumbledore said, raising his voice. "Given the...ah, reluctance to have her share a dorm"-- the students backed up this statement loudly - "She will be taking up residence in a separate location!" Dumbledore finished, shouting.

"Where?" asked Harry, also shouting to be heard over the cheering students. Dumbledore's shoulders slumped.

"Ah...Under Professor Flitwick's floorboards, I believe," he said wearily. He looked over the professors, all of whom were studiously avoiding his gaze, having guessed his intention. His eye fell on Filch, who was still staring off into space dreamily. "Argus, would you mind finding Miss Mary Sue" - everyone around Dumbledore flinched at the name -"er, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and escorting her to her quarters?" Filch beamed.

"Sure, Headmaster!" He started off, wading through the students, when Dumbledore called him.

"Argus?" Filch turned.

"Yes, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "You're a very strange man, Filch. Please take her through the secret passageways and avoid running into anyone."

"Yes, sir." Filch left, humming Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" under his breath. Dumbledore watched him go, sagging slightly.

"So that's why they keep her under there," he mused. He looked around at the professors and students of Hogwarts, all in varying states of hysteria and shock. It was going to be a long, hard road to recovery.