The Mattress

The Mattress - Recovered

Just another normal day in the Fan Fiction Factory. The early morning sunlight slanted down across the refectory illuminating the tables and chasing the last members of the night shift hissing into the shadows. People set about getting their breakfasts in their normal slightly dazed fashion, queuing up at the counter with their trays, some chatting idly with the next man in line, some poring over that day's schedule and some, having learned the worst, just staring into space. Another normal...boring morning...And so it was with great pleasure and interest that they all, man and youth, abandoned whatever it was they were doing and looked round when a snarling voice howled an accusation which echoed around the high ceilinged room.

"You have created a monster!"

Frankenstein flinched guiltily and his creation gave him a suspicious look.

"You haven't, have you?" the monster said accusingly. "Because you promised me that I was the only one for you. Oh, Frankie, how could you!!"

"I say," said Peter the Magnificent, High King of Narnia, straightening his school cap and hitching up his short trousers, "what's going on, Edmund, old chap. Can you see?"

"Looks like those Harry Potter people mixing it with another fandom again," Edmund the Just replied, mopping egg off his tie. "Honestly, you'd think they'd grow up."

Across the room Harry dithered frantically, and Draco dithered more decoratively, while Remus held up both hands and stepped forward in as unthreatening a manner as possible.

"Allright," he said soothingly. "We appreciate you have a genuine grievance and Sirius shouldn't have said what he did. Now...put him down, please."

But Lurtz, distraught, was in no mood to be reasoned with.

"A monster," he howled again, spit squirting past his fangs in a fetid spray and the obvious break in his voice made it pitiful to hear. His dreadlocks were unravelling, his face was drawn and he had lost weight, but this was of little comfort to Sirius who was dangling with his feet some inches from the ground. He locked his hands around Lurtz's massive forearm and tried to take his own weight. He tried to apologise but the taloned hand currently massaging his throat was cutting off his wind.

"Glurrk," he managed, turning purple, and another orc snorted angrily.

"Don't you fpeak to me," Glurrk lisped around his mouthful of discoloured ivory and shook his head 'til all his piercings rattled. "I'm juft af upset af he if. Go on, fcrag the baftard, Lurtf."

Lurtz gave an anguished bellow and drew back a fist at which point Sirius kicked him solidly in the place that all males hate to be kicked, even orcs because even orcs born from bags of goo have gonads in fan fiction. At the same moment Harry, who had been expecting something like that, hit Lurtz across the back of the head with a chair.

"Fight!" somebody on the Silmarillion table yelled and Turin Turambar punched the head of the nearest minion of Morgoth. Simultaneously, Morgoth himself hurled his muesli at the back of Sauron's head, hoping for some payback for Sauron being the better known Dark Lord. I mean, he'd changed his name and everything, Melkor wasn't nearly as cool sounding, yet Sauron was still the one most people thought of when contemplating the ultimate evil. It was a good throw but missed. The bowl, milk, muesli and all, soared across the aisle and got Duncan Macleod instead. The big Highlander scowled, milk and mixed fruit dripping through his long black hair and pooling in the lap of his kilt.

"Food fight!" Methos screamed and tossed his crumpet at Ensign Wesley Crusher and the air filled with flying comestibles.

"Aw, guys," Destiny protested then he and Dream disappeared behind a protective umbrella while their unruly cousin Loki deftly slid his eggy soldiers down the back of Desire's designer jacket.

With a snarl of fury, Macleod stood up, rounding the corner of his table and Morgoth cringed and turned to run. He might have made it to the stairs but was bowled over by Rincewind, less seen than heard as a Doppler scream, accelerating past, legs pumping furiously and one hand clamping his hat to his head as Cohen the Barbarian gave geriatric chase, more on principle than from any desire to do him harm. Morgoth landed hard with his head between Macleod's boots and rather stupidly opened his eyes and looked up. His scream was drowned by the roar as the orderly room dissolved in chaos.

Remus gave a deep sigh as he ducked a ballistic muffin. Life had been so peaceful, boring but peaceful. Now, filled with a new sense of purpose, everybody seemed to be just that little bit more prepared to assert their masculinity. This was the third time this week his breakfast had been disrupted. Evenings were quieter but they were usually all shagged out by then. A movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Glurrk eyeing him up with ill intent. Remus sighed again and nodded to his back up.

Glurrk gave an oddly shrill scream as Draco yanked the orc's unclean loincloth up around his misshapen shoulder blades in a wedgie of epic proportions.

"I'll do for you, arf-wipe," Glurrk shrilled.

"Hurry up, Remus," Draco said, dropping his usual drawl in sheer self preservation and yanking the loincloth an inch or two higher. "It's no picnic back here."

"Call him off," Glurrk squeaked, swinging his arms wildly and Draco dodged the clawing hands, shook his currently magenta streaked hair out of his eyes and grinned as Remus stepped in.

Mild mannered Remus was often viewed as a bit of a joke by the more aggressive denizens of the Fan Fiction Factory. They heard the quiet voice, saw the gentle smile and forgot that for one night out of every twenty-eight an early night with a cup of Horlicks was the last thing on his agenda. They also forgot that, if necessary, a werewolf can punch through a breeze-block wall.

Draco dived out of the way as Remus' fist began its arc. There was a click like two billiard balls connecting as Glurrk's fangs clashed together, then the orc's horny feet left the ground and he flew backwards. He landed upon the long table at which Remus had been breakfasting and slid along the polished surface sending plates and cups shooting into the laps of the diners. Severus snatched his salted porridge and prune juice up with an exclamation of annoyance as Glurrk whizzed past in a torrent of cornflakes and milk.

"Lupin," Snape snapped, "have a little consideration!" and he put his bowl and glass back down. He had just time for one more mouthful before he was flattened by a couple of Sindarin elves who were gleefully giving one of their snooty Noldorin cousins a shirtful. Heaving back up, snorting porridge and with prune juice running into his eyes, he hastily slid under the table to take refuge with Miles Vorkosigan, a few hobbits and Reepicheep, who had all learned the hard way that small people often get stepped on in a melee. Miles face stiffened but he generously didn't laugh. Instead he offered Snape a croissant.

Lucius Malfoy, just across the table from Snape, hadn't been so lucky as to escape Glurrk's slide unscathed. With his lap full of scalding tea and devilled kidneys he swore and sought to spread the misery. It was almost too easy. Ron Weasley was passing on his way from the counter, tray held high in a vain attempt to protect himself from a hail of Rice Crispies. Lucius grinned and slipped his cane between Ron's ankles.

"Whoops," Ron stumbled and went down, food and drink flying. He rolled over, scowling then froze as the tip of the cane came to rest against his Adam's apple. Lucius looked down at him and raised his eyebrows.

"Who's your Daddy?" he asked with a sneer of satisfaction, drawing back the cane for a blow.

"Errr...I am, actually," said Arthur Weasley and brought his laden tray down with a crash on Malfoy's aristocratic noggin.

Ron wriggled hurriedly out from between the two furiously scrapping wizards and, as he made his feet, met the sardonic gaze of Malfoy junior. There was one moment when both boys rolled their eyes in mutual embarrassment at the antics of their elders then Draco was jumped by a Moria goblin, Ron took a kipper to the ear and the battle swept them apart.

Elrond came pelting out of his office, clipboard in hand, and screamed an order to cease and desist but this had little effect. There was so much noise now that he might as well have been impersonating a goldfish for all the effect the opening and closing of his mouth had. Carrot, at his elbow, cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Gentlemen," he bellowed, "I'm surprised at you!" His voice made the rafters rattle and many of the combatants did stop fighting in order to watch - Carrot in action was poetry in motion. However there was a nasty knot of struggling wizards and orcs in the centre of the room where the Uruk Hai were getting stuck into anyone with a wand quite impartially and, as usual, there were a few other beasts, brutes and assorted ne'er-do-wells who were taking the opportunity for some exercise even though they had no real affiliation to either group.

"Oh really," Carrot said, his big honest face creased in a frown of mingled disappointment and exasperation, and waded into the fray.

"Excuse me...beg pardon...watch your backs...coming through," he murmured as his big fists swung and men and creatures of all fandoms ducked and scattered, clearing a path towards the heart of the battle.

Remus was moving economically, flanked by Harry and Draco and with Ron at his back. Moria goblins had pretty soon learned not to mess with them but the big Uruks were a pain. Additionally someone had upended a jug of pineapple juice over Remus' head and he could feel himself getting sticky. Harry's hair was spiked up with oatmeal and Draco had somebody's fried slice adhering to his chest like a medal.

"Look out," Ron yelled and they were mown flat by Gollum, travelling in a low trajectory and apparently thrown frisbee style by Faramir who had had it up to here with being the good one.

"Ouch, sssshit, presssscioussss," Gollum complained as he untangled himself from Remus but Remus was watching Harry whose face had gone white.

Remus heaved Gollum away and surged to his feet but he was too late. Sirius with a squeezy bottle of ketchup in one hand, had squirted a red stream into Lurtz's eye and was laughing like a lunatic. Lurtz swung a fist at random and Sirius weaved.

"Oh no, NO!" Harry whimpered. "He's going to say it!"

"Come on," Sirius laughed, "you can do better than that."

Remus, Harry, Draco and Ron closed their eyes and winced. Lurtz, until that moment a consistent south paw, brought a swingeing right uppercut out of nowhere, rocking Sirius back on his heels to fall in an arc that would have been far more graceful if he hadn't been dripping with Sugar-coated Frosties. He flew back several feet; they could clearly see his lips moving and he appeared to be saying "What the fuck?" as he crashed headfirst into a Nazgul who let out a wail like a banshee and slowly crumpled up, both hands clutching its insubstantial groin. Harry's wavering yell of distressed deja vu as his godfather's body was obscured by the veils of tatty black drapery was almost droned by Lurtz's roar of glee as he stepped forward to bring his steel toe-capped buskins into play. One mighty kick lifted the Nazgul back onto its feet and Lurtz drew back his boot intending to finish the job once and for all. Sirius, his eyes rolled back into his head with the shock of his sudden immersion in the wraithworld, was in no condition to defend himself and Remus, with a resigned gasp, hurled himself into the Uruk's gloating face. Fangs snapped inches from his throat, he heard someone, he thought it was Aragorn, say "Don't let him head butt you or your nose'll be in your ear," then crippling hands fastened on his shoulder and his left leg and he was hoisted high into the air, surely to be brought down across an upswinging knee...

"And what," said a cold and very clear voice, "do you think you are doing? Hmmm?"

Lurtz froze and Remus recognised a certain uneasy quality in the sudden silence.

"Put that werewolf down this minute...gently!"

Remus was carefully set back on his feet, Lurtz even helped him pull his robe straight, and he looked across to see Legolas standing, unsullied by anyone's breakfast, with his thumbs hooked into his belt and a very chilly look in his eye.

"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" he demanded and the assembled orcs shifted uneasily and gradually joined in a murmured chorus of "Very sorry, Mr Legolas, sir." Elrond was hastening forward now he was sure that his frock wouldn't get rumpled but even he halted as the Mirkwood elf glanced in his direction and raised one perfect eyebrow.

"Very well," Legolas snapped. "Clear this mess up and then get ready for work. As for you," he paused, looking Lurtz up and down with distaste, "I'll deal with you later!"

Lurtz cringed as the elf sauntered away towards the schedule racks and he turned an agonised gaze upon Remus.

"A monster!" Lurtz whimpered. "May God forgive you."

Remus watched the orcs slink away to fetch the cleaning trolley and then turned back to Harry who was anxiously levering his godfather into a sitting position. Sirius with milk and cereal veiling his face was rubbing his jaw.

"Ow, fuck," he said. "Where did that come from?"

"I have no sympathy," Remus growled. "You just had to have your one-liner didn't you and you know what always happens! Just because you're officially dead that's no excuse!"

"Sorry," Sirius sounded almost as shifty as Lurtz as Harry and Ron helped him to his feet. He had to admit, he supposed, that he had been on edge for a week or so. Being dead had come as a bit if a shock and he was still working his way through it. "Hey but Remus...did you see that Legolas? Talk about a change in attitude!"

They all turned and looked across to where a couple of goblins were clearing a space at the cleanest of the tables, two more were fetching a carefully arranged tray and another was slowly and laboriously searching the racks for Legolas's schedule. Lurtz, several of his biggest henchmen and Glurkk who was trying to get a sausage out of his nostril by the simple expedient of covering his other nostril and blowing, climbed the stairs with their arms full of tools on their way to their regular morning task of breaking down the door of which ever bathroom Boromir had barricaded himself into. Legolas had been their biggest success so far.

*

Half an hour later, washed, changed and shouted at by Elrond, they resumed their interrupted meal.

"Not a bad schedule today," Remus said with satisfaction. "Easy morning and the whole afternoon's het which makes a nice change."

"Het?" asked Iolaus from the other end of the table. "What's that?"

"I'll draw you a diagram later," his special friend Hercules promised.

Harry and Draco were groaning over a fic they were to appear in that morning and Sirius glanced over Draco's shoulder to see what the problem was. He winced. There were some things no fan fiction character should be called upon to do. He gave them a sympathetic grin then turned back to Remus.

"My schedule's very light," he commented with a frown. "I'm not on at all until ten and then it's mostly angsty one-shots with OFCs for the rest of the day."

"Give them time to recover," Remus advised. "They're still writing denial fics. It won't be long 'til they go back to their WIPs."

"Dead slow is it, Black?" Severus asked as he passed on the way to the portals.

Sirius didn't deign to reply but flicked a couple of baked beans into Severus' hair once his back was turned.

"I've got a lot of het, too," he said. "Hmmm, I wonder...."

"The ladies?" Remus followed his train of thought with no problem. "We'll have no opportunity to discuss it with them while we're ...um...on the job or so to speak."

"And we can't usually get up there to talk to them when we're off duty," Draco said, a little sadly. Harry and Ron and Neville... who was holding a schedule of his very own... all made 'ooooh' noises and Draco flushed and tugged nervously at his nose ring. They hadn't yet identified his latest object of desire but this time, they all knew, he had it bad.

"Look, this morning we're all in that long plotted fic," Harry reminded them. "I'll sound out Hermione. I'll be subtle about it. And if everyone else takes an opportunity as it is arises...?"

"That's a good idea," Sirius grinned. "But be careful, we don't want to give too much away." He sighed. "The poor little dears...eeewww, I've got Professor Sprout."

"I bet they're as sick of it all as we are," Remus added.

Later that evening:

"Harry was ...odd today," Hermione said with a frown as she settled more comfortably onto the couch. "He kept starting to say something then going all red and stopping. Then Professor Lupin did it this afternoon." The room was spacious with long picture windows leading out onto a balcony with a stunning view, currently of the wide sweep of the Cotswolds though it changed from time to time. Last week it had been a vista of the Austrian Alps and the week before that the outback with Ayers Rock glowing in all its majesty. Wind chimes tinkled, a fountain played and all around the room the Queens of Fan Fiction took their ease in whatever manner seemed best to them. Later they would be gently ushered into the dining room where they would be provided with food, exquisite in taste and low in calories and house elves, gnomes and pixies, hovered to fulfil every wish. Life, they all agreed, was incredibly civilised.

Pansy Parkinson giggled and set her embroidery aside. "Ron was funny too. My guess is that they're up to something,"

"Have you only just realised that?" Marie-Suzanne cooed with a gentle smile, her perfect teeth catching the light with their customary soft 'ting', then she turned back to Ginny, whose hair she was sculpting into an elaborate chignon.

Civilised life demanded civilised behaviour so Hermione bit her tongue. Anybody else would have had the rough side of it but to subject Marie-Suzanne, with her slender yet full-breasted figure, her delicate yet chiselled features, her limpid eyes, flowing tangle free locks and brilliantly incisive mind, to such pettiness would have been in the worst of taste. The exact details tended to change without much warning but currently Marie-Suzanne was the much loved, only daughter of a high ranking American diplomat stationed in London and his beautiful half-Veela wife, who had died in an inexplicable fall from the landing in their sumptuous home. Hermione knew when she was outclassed but couldn't help but feel that all the good looks and brains made Marie-Suzanne to good to be true and that perhaps, on the quiet, she was plotting to bring about Armageddon. Still that was no excuse for bad manners.

"How long have you known?" she asked meekly.

"Well," Marie-Suzanne paused to add a note or two to the concerto she was currently writing - for full orchestra, flugel horn and Albanian nose flute, "I wasn't absolutely sure until this morning. After all, as I am sure Harriet will agree, it is unwise to jump to hasty conclusions based upon incomplete evidence."

Harriet Vane glanced over the top of her book, met one of Marie-Suzanne's singularly sweet smiles and nodded, her knuckles only paling slightly.

"Oh, do go on, Marie-Suzanne," Ginny begged, gritting her teeth but unable to help her gushing tone.

"Well, today I was working on that Seventh Year fic..." Marie-Suzanne began.

"You mean the one where Harry and Draco are both wild with love for you?" Ginny asked.

"The one where Draco attempts to win you over by booking a box at Covent Garden and Harry crashes the party?" Lavender Brown added from her position on the tiger skin in front of the fire.

"Where the diva falls off the stage into the orchestra pit?" Parvati said smiling across from the balcony where she was doing her tai chi.

"And gets her head stuck in the euphonium halfway through the second act of La Boheme.." Ginny added.

"And the conductor asks if there's anyone in the audience who knows the part because the understudy has gone down with cystitis...." Hermione continued.

"Well I thought it was going to be La Boheme but somehow it turned out to be Tosca," Marie-Suzanne corrected them gently. "Luckily I am note and word perfect in both parts so it made little difference to me. Well, all through the first act of the opera when the boys should have been gazing in rapt adoration of my exquisite profile while I lost myself in the beauty of the music they - well, I am ashamed to say that they were so unprofessional as to play noughts and crosses all around the edges of the programme. Once I was on stage I dread to think what they were up to but during the pianissimo moments I'm sure I heard giggling. Then," she heaved a deep sigh at the frailty of men, "at the climax of the opera..."

"You mean where you take a swan dive off the battlements!" Hermione's smile was almost as sweet as Marie-Suzanne's.

"Er...yes. I thought everything was going as planned. They had moved to the front of the box, had got out their opera glasses and were watching attentively. Then I jumped and...oh dear," she blushed deliciously, the faintest peach bloom of pink staining her cheekbones, "for some reason somebody had replaced the crash mats with a trampoline and - and - I - I bounced! On the second time I cleared the top of the battlements I quite clearly heard Harry and Draco singing "hey ho and up she rises." She paused for a moment to regain her composure and Hermione saw Harriet Vane's book crumple in her hands as the lady sleuth closed her eyes to savour the mental image.

"Then," Marie-Suzanne continued sadly, "they didn't even come round to my dressing-room with flowers or wait for me to get my slap off or anything. I found them in the theatre bar nine sheets to the wind on crème de menthe frappes with Guinness chasers and, on the way back to my Mayfair apartment...sorry, flat...they insisted we stop for a kebab."

"So ... not quite what you had expected then?" Hermione said, sympathetically.

"Well, it certainly wasn't the plotline the author intended," Marie-Suzanne was far too well-bred to sound indignant, "and neither did I expect them to put me in a cab to go home while they swanned off to the Ministry of Sound to meet up with...you can probably guess who. I think Harry's godfather is a bad influence and will come to a bad end," Marie-Suzanne said portentously and was not surprised at the silence that met her words. When Marie-Suzanne spoke portentously, with her astonishing abilities at divination, dowsing and well-sinking, people tended to listen. However, since almost every woman in the room was thinking very hard about Harry's godfather - even Harriet Vane bit her lip and was misty-eyed - to whom death seemed to have made no discernale difference other than, perhaps, that he was even more determined to ensure that a good time was had by all, she had no real cause for self-congratulation. Luckily she was oblivious to this. After a moment or two of quietly enjoyable reflection, reminiscence in a number of cases, they stirred, smiling at each other, and Hermione decided to strike a blow in the cause of reality.

"Ummm...," Hermione raised a hand tentatively. "Hasn't he already done that?"

Marie-Suzanne gave her a reproachful look and didn't deign to reply. "There, Ginny, dear," she said, patting the youngest Weasley's soft cheek with even softer fingers. "That's you done. Now excuse me while I go to touch up Polgara's roots. The poor old dear looks so much better since we got rid of that awful white streak."

Ginny, in her white high waisted nightdress with her hair piled on her head like a little girl going to her first dance, waited until Marie-Suzanne had left the room. The vigorous raspberry that she blew cut sharply over the groans of the other girls and Harriet's well-bred "Well, really!"

"Did she put flowers in my hair?" Ginny demanded. "She did, didn't she!"

Hermione leaned forward and drew the delicate spray of marguerites and gypsophila from behind Ginny's ear. Ginny snatched them and sat whirling them between her fingers.

"I swear," she said, "I'll do for that woman on of these days. Daisies and dogsbreath, for crying out loud."

"I'll hold your coat," Elizabeth Bennett said wryly.

"And I," announced Harriet Vane, "will help you dispose of the remains. Don't worry dear, there isn't a jury that would convict."

There was a short but highly therapeutic discussion on means of said corpse disposal then they settled down and Hermione brought them all back to business.

"Well, what is wrong with the boys?" she asked. "Bouncing Marie-Suzanne apart, that is. That just sounds like a perfectly normal reaction to me."

"Has anyone else noticed," Ginny asked, staring pointedly at Hermione, "that the fics seem to be getting ...milder." The chorus of agreement was broken by Hermione.

"Ummmm....No," she said. "I spend just as much time being tied up and beaten by Professor Snape as I ever did. Why?"

"It was just something that occurred to me," Ginny said eyeing her thoughtfully. "Maybe ...well, maybe we should just ask them?"

"The problem is," Lavender pointed out, "that we never get a chance to talk to them - not a proper chance. It's so rarely that we are allowed to fraternise."

"Yes, we need permission before we can invite them up here and we never go down there unattended!" Parvati agreed, mopping her glowing face with a towel. "Not since that business with Eowyn."

Eowyn had eventually been discovered tied up in the wardrobe of the room shared by Rand al Thor, Mat and Perrin and was inclined to assume an insufferable air of superiority if anyone made even the most oblique mention of 'wheels' or 'time'.

"What we need," Hermione said decisively, "is someone who can come and go as they please."

"But we haven't got anyone like that," Parvati pointed out.

"No," said Hermione, "but the boys have...I just wonder how long it will take them to remember."

**

TBC - unless I decide to kill off someone important.

As ever, thanks must be extended to the following authors (or their executors) along with a reassurance that they are mentioned only in a spirit of fun and with sincere affection: Tolkein (LotR and Silmarillion), Dorothy L Sayers (the Wimsey novels), Lois McMasters Bujold (the Vorkosigan saga), Jane Austen (P&P etc), Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time), Stan Lee (X-Men) and Terry Pratchett (Discworld). Some TV shows are mentioned but since I have no idea who has the intellectual copyright just take it as read that I'm not making any money out of it, ok?

I should add JKR to the list so I am but, since OotP chapter 35, I'm doing it without the affection.