The Fandom Games

Hermione

The kart crawls down the driveway, wobbling from side to side.  Smoke of dubious origin trickles out the exhaust pipe. The stench is so vile it almost makes Hermione nostalgic for broomstick riding.  Maybe Fangirl is driving slowly out of fear of crashing into Steven Spielberg’s patio, or maybe she’s finally pushed the kart to breaking point.  Peter perches on the boot, picking apart an orange which Hermione is pretending to herself that he didn’t steal from a tree.

Steven Spielberg’s garden is like a movie set – the paving stones are too clean, the olive trees too spherical, the flowers too fluorescent.  The humming of cicadas mingles with the hissing of sprinklers, which shower the lawn enough to keep it an almost neon green.  Hermione’s parents’ garden could have fit into this one a thousand times.  She watches the pool nervously, half-expecting another shark to pop out the water.  Snow White looks at home among the greenery.  She runs her hand through the bushes, singing to a pigeon, ‘at last we’ve had some luck / Maybe we don’t all suck.’

Beneath a canopy of eucalyptus leaves, a dozen or so people flit between a cluster of tents made from comic book pages instead of canvas.  Hermione peers over Snow White’s shoulder to get a better look.  With their dorky blonde hair cuts and silly clothes – seriously, one wears a spandex shirt, one a velour onesie – they look about as fashionable as Ron did at the Yule Ball.  What’s strangest about them isn’t how they look to Hermione, but how they look at the world around them.  Their feet are nearly translucent, passing straight through the grass like ghosts’, yet unlike the spirits at Hogwarts, these people seem… unstable.  Broken.  Hermione squints, but some of their forms still appear blurred or pixelated.  An old-fashioned navy officer’s whole body flickers like a poorly-cast patronus.  He stares motionless at the air in front of him, then blinks and resumes marching up and down a flowerbed.

As the kart stumbles past the tents, the people drop their maps and pistols and fedoras and rush towards the kart.  They jump and shout and wave, shoving each other out the way.  A superhero twirls his goggles like a flag, chanting, ‘death to spies in America!  Death to spies in America!’  A blonde man in a 60s blue shirt leaps in front of the kart and shouts, ‘Uh-oh… Chongo!’

Leia reaches for her blaster, but Hermione pushes it aside.  ‘They’re not fighting us,’ she realises, ‘they’re fighting for our attention.’

The navy officer is pacing alongside the kart.  He salutes Hermione, then recites ‘Don Winslow at your service, sir!  Don Winslow at your service, sir!’ over and over like a buffering video.

‘Mr Winslow, sir?  Do you need help?’ Hermione asks.

Don Winslow meets her gaze, but just repeats, ‘Don Winslow at your service, sir!’

The action man in the 60s shirt jogs up to them and batts Don Winslow out the way.  ‘Hey hey, pretty ladies, don’t you mind my old pal Don there, he always did have his head stuck in his sailor’s hat.  The name’s Link Simmons, and I’m the greatest adventurer-archaeologist-slash-admin-administrator that this goddamn archipelago has ever goddamn seen.’

Snow White flutters her eyelids at him and shakes his hand.  Hermione leans over her.  ‘Link, who are you all?  Do you work for Steven Spielberg?’

Link jumps back in fright, wailing, ‘uh oh… Chongo!’ and is swallowed by the crowd.

The strangers flock around the kart like wasps swarming over ice cream, buzzing and flapping their arms.  An explorer runs his fingers through Arya’s hair.  She reacts appropriately by biting his arm.  Peter kicks back a velvet superhero, shouting, ‘Sorry, I can’t introduce you to Flash Gordon.  I don’t think there’s even a Flash Gordon on the Avengers WhatsApp group!’

‘Drive faster,’ Legolas orders.

‘Did you think I was trying to drive slower?’ Fangirl hisses.

Between the eucalyptus trees, a white house glitters in the sunlight like a marble Greek temple – if a building that size can be considered a ‘house’.  As soon as the mansion comes into view, the strangers all shriek and scatter, tripping over each other in their eagerness to rush back to the tents. 

Hermione rummages through her memories for any knowledge of what they just saw.  The rats in her parents’ compost heap used to unsettle her enough.  What sort of person is Steven Spielberg if these are the pests in his garden?

Fangirl pulls up in front of the house.  The engine coughs and splutters, then dies altogether.  Hermione isn’t surprised.  After five worlds in fifteen minutes, her energy levels are lower than the kart’s.

A man is waiting for them in the doorway – not Steven Spielberg, unless the film director found the fountain of youth and received an invite to a five-year-old’s dress-up birthday party.  This man wears a battered fedora, a shirt unbuttoned beyond all practicality, and a whip curled up  like a snake by his side.  His eyes are glazed over with boredom.  He can’t be a real human like Fangirl – nobody would wear that outfit casually, even in Los Angeles – but his form is more solid and stable than the people in the garden.  So, he’s a fictional character like them.  He wrinkles his nose as he watches them clamber out the kart, all drenched in sea water and broken glass and Hermione’s vomit (she doubts Arya will speak to her ever again, and honestly, she doesn’t blame her).  Hermione picks a curl of seaweed out her metal bikini top.  She could’ve sworn the man smiled a little as Leia stepped onto the driveway.

‘Indiana Jones,’ Fangirl gushes, ‘you know, my friend’s dad made her watch all your movies like ten times a year when she was little and, like, didn’t register all the sexism and racism and stuff.’  Indiana furrows his eyebrows, so Fangirl hastily adds, ‘but I liked the bit with the big boulder.’

‘It’s not the years, honey, it’s the milage,’ Indiana mutters.

Leia’s eyes drift from Indiana’s chiselled jawline to his exposed chest and the twinkle in his eye.  ‘I know you.’

Fangirl giggles.  ‘I’m sure you do.’  Peter elbows her.

Indiana Jones clears his throat.  ‘Mr Spielberg is expecting you.  Brunch will be served at exactly midday.  If you would like to freshen up at all’ – he glares at them in a way that makes it clear that’s an order not an invitation – ‘you can use the bathrooms by the fourth, fifth and seventh bedrooms on the second corridor on your left on the third floor.’

Leia points her blaster at him, which would have been more intimidating if her hair buns hadn’t slipped out of place so much that they look like a dragon pooed on her head.  ‘Look here, Mr Fedora.  I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but I know when I meet a man if he’s trouble.  Quit fooling around and take us to Mr Spielberg.  We don’t have much time, and I sure as hell don’t want to waste it conversing with you.’

If Indiana is fazed by her ferocity, he doesn’t show it.  He flicks the gun down.  ‘No, you look here, your royal mightiness.  You don’t come barging in here demanding to see Mr Spielberg whenever you like.  He will see you whenever he likes.  Be grateful you’re invited for brunch and not high tea or late-night tapas.  The last time the Office characters were here, he made them wait three months ‘till Thanksgiving dinner.’  He and Leia lock eyes like wolves, each refusing to blink or back down. Hermione reckons she could light a candle from the spark between them.

Tree branches crack.  Hermione spins round.  The ghostly strangers have climbed a eucalyptus tree and are waving flags made from comics.

Indiana sighs, ‘I see you’ve met my parents.  They’re mostly harmless now.  You’ll be fine if you don’t speak to them.  Or like directly at them.  Or breathe in their general area.’

Hermione averts her gaze.  ‘I don’t understand.  Your parents?’

‘You get that we’re all made up of the hopes and perceptions and fantasies and willpower of people like her’ – Indiana jabs a thumb towards Fangirl – ‘right?’ Hermione nods.  ‘Well, they’re what happens when her kind stop hoping and perceiving and fantasising and willpower-ing so much.  When Mr Spielberg and George Lucas created me, they ripped off a whole load of comics and TV serials and adventure B-movies from their childhoods.  Time passed, and people’s love for them fizzled out.  Now there’s not enough interest or care for them to sustain their storyworlds anymore.  Their homes got so incomplete and unstable that they had to leave.  This is one of the only places where there’s enough memory of them to keep their consciousness going, ‘cause Mr Spielberg can’t forget the characters who taught him how to tell stories, even if the rest of the world has.  I dunno how much they’re aware of what’s happened to them, though.  They mostly just draw pictures by the pool house.’

Hermione remembers the way they floated through the gardens as if they were only half-there, and competed for attention like their lives depended on it.  She supposes their lives really did depend on it.  She glances across the group: Snow White is hugging a pigeon.  Peter and Fangirl are staring at the fading characters despite Indiana’s instructions.  Even Legolas looks fazed, and grips his bow so tightly that his arm trembles.

‘But hey, we don’t need to worry about that right now,’ Indiana Jones adds, ‘you lot are basically the dream team of popular fandom characters.  You’ll all be sticking around until the sun explodes or the world runs out of money.  And I’ve got a fifth movie coming out in a few days with Phoebe Waller-Bridge in, that might not be a complete let-down and trash up my legacy for future generations!’  He forces a smile.  ‘Mr Spielberg is very excited to meet you all.  Brunch will be served at exactly midday.’

‘If I stab you, might brunch be rescheduled?’ Arya offers.

Indiana sighs.  ‘Mr Spielberg is expecting you.  Brunch will be served at exactly midday.  If you would like to freshen up, you can use the bathrooms by the fourth, fifth and seventh bedrooms on the second corridor on… please don’t make me say it again.  I’ve had to work since 4 in the morning, and E.T. drank all the coffee.’

Legolas leads the way inside the house.  The others file in after him.  Hermione catches Leia whisper in Indiana’s ear, ‘sorry you’re too tired.  I suppose I won’t see you upstairs, then.’  Indiana acts annoyed, but is grinning beneath the rim of his fedora.  Hermione takes one last look at Link Simmons and Don Winslow shouting at her from a tree, then heads inside.

Steven Spielberg’s house smells of money – of excessive cleanliness and of fancy reed diffusors and of monstrous houseplants in gilded containers.  The fabric train from her stupid metal bikini drips with sand and seawater and sick, leaving a snail trail of grime behind her on the marble stairs.

‘Remain on your guard,’ Legolas warns, ‘elves like myself are not lightly deceived, and something strange is hanging in the air.’

‘I think that’s the smell from the potpourri,’ Arya notes.

Legolas guides them down a white corridor.  Peter bounds after him.  ‘I get it.  Something feels off.  Nobody’s house is this clean without good reason, plus how does he know so much about us and about… ooh!  New clothes!’  He rushes into a bedroom.  Seven sets of clothes and shoes are waiting for them on the bed, each clearly planned for a different person.  Hermione spots a freshly ironed Hogwarts uniform.  Everyone grabs their outfits and disperses to use the other showers. Only Hermione and Fangirl remain in the room.

Fangirl examines her clothes –a t-shirt printed with the poster for a musical on and a baseball cap marked ‘Ready Player One’ – and sighs.  ‘He wants me to be a walking advert for his recent films.’

‘At least you don’t have to wear a fedora,’ Hermione points out, ‘even Dumbledore wouldn’t have stooped as low as to wear that.’  Fangirl giggles.  She reminds Hermione of her friend Luna – both are so unapologetically who they are, that they lull you into reciprocating their openness and show your unfiltered self, instead of shutting it away out of fear of judgement or rejection or whatever has been going on between her and Draco for the last six years.  So Hermione bypasses all tact and politeness and asks, ‘how are you here?’

‘Your friends all suck at lying,’ Fangirl replies, ‘like, really suck.  They said they were rehearsing for a musical called the Fandom Games, but I’m not stupid.  There’s no way that’s legal with US copyright laws!  So I went home and packed some stuff I figured might be helpful and went back to find the potkey-teleporty thing they used.’ Fangirl reaches into her rucksack and offers Hermione a pringle.  She didn’t realise how famished she was until the crisp fizzles into saltiness on her tongue.  ‘Honestly, I’m amazed I’m the only person there who put two and two together and there aren’t more random strangers gatecrashing your quest.  Most people are kind of stupid.’  Hermione doesn’t disagree.  ‘You can go in that shower first.  You don’t have to be all noble and Gryffindor-y about it,’ Fangirl offers, ‘embrace your inner Slytherin.’

Hermione fishes another pringle out the can.  ‘No, I owe you one.  You saved me from unscheduled social interaction and wearing a bikini in public.’

‘Believe me, Hermione Jean Granger, I owe you far more.’  Before Hermione can protest, Fangirl ushers her through the door.

Steven Spielberg’s fourth second-corridor third-floor guest ensuite bathroom is certainly an upgrade to the facilities at Hogwarts.  White marble, rose-gold taps and luxury bath products are far preferable to pervy ghosts, medieval plumbing, the significant risks of being killed by a massive snake or a paedophilic troll (or having to explain that yes, Professor Snape, she knows students aren’t allowed out to roam the castle after hours, but that rule was clearly made-up by a man a thousand years ago because she got her period at 1 AM and the girls’ bathroom is about four moving staircases, three towers, two courtyards and an atmospheric yet inconvenient bridge away from her room.  Happy memories).

She peels off the metal bikini, and throws it against the wall.  While the shower washes her clean, she pictures that she’s purging herself of each horrible memory of the last few days.  She scrubs Ron and Harry’s fight out from underneath her fingernails.  She massages her still-swollen ankle, and releases the panic from that pyramid in Jurassic World.  She wipes traces from her imprisonment from her wrists.  She rinses the world-hopping kart chase out her hair.  When Hermione emerges from the shower, she feels freshly born, like a butterfly from a cocoon, or a phoenix from ash, or a past Hermione from a gruelling sixth-year potions examination.

Hermione wraps herself in a towel with a $200 label still attached, and edges out the door.  Fangirl has vanished, but Arya is perched on the bed.  Arya stares at her, and Hermione’s mind blanks on what to say or do next, so she just stands there letting water drip onto the carpet.

After a small eternity, Arya clears her throat and says, ‘shampoo?’

Hermione blinks.  ‘What?’

‘I need shampoo,’ Arya repeats, ‘Legolas took it from everywhere else.’

Hermione mumbles something extremely sophisticated like, ‘sure,’ and shows Arya into the bathroom.  She pulls on the Hogwarts uniform in the exact way she used to every single morning – itchy knee-high socks, a skirt with a length that was clearly designed for someone other than the girls who had to wear it in the Scottish winter, a Gryffindor tie and robe.  She glimpses her reflection and can’t help but laugh at the girl in the mirror.  This seventeen-year-old, who has witnessed so much horror and battle and death and even inflicted those things back at people, looks ridiculous crammed into an eleven-year-old’s clothes again.  Even Britney Spears in the Baby One More Time video was less daft.  The face in the mirror is wet with tears.  Hermione didn’t notice she was crying.  Wouldn’t it be nice to do something as simple as getting dressed without spiralling into self-doubt and worry and despair?  Hogwarts students should learn spells for that, instead of faffing around on broomsticks so much.  Just imagine: melancholiam reparo! – instant serotonin boost.  Curocuras! – your anxiety disappears into a puff of smoke.

There’s a knock and the door, and Peter calls, ‘can I annoy you for a bit?’

Hermione tries to make her voice sound upbeat.  ‘Of course!’

Peter bounces into the room and flops onto the bed.  He’s scrubbed his own Spider-Man suit clean instead of wearing the red and blue version that was laid out for him (very sensible).  The mask lies beside him, and his damp hair sticks out at bizarre angles.  ‘Legolas is still conditioning his hair and I don’t know where else to loiter.’

Hermione flicks the tears from her face, hoping Peter has the averagely low emotional intelligence of a teenage boy and will assume her face is just wet from the shower.  She forces a smile.  ‘Thank you for coming back for Arya and me.  I don’t know many heroes who would have done that.’

Peter starfishes across the blankets.  Hermione pictures Indiana Jones grumbling at the extra laundry.  ‘No worries.  I couldn’t abandon you two at a party of noisy strangers.  Few things are more grim in my experience.’  He hesitates, then adds, ‘there was something else, too.  Maybe you’ll understand because you know lots about magic because you’re so good at all the stick-waving stuff.  I just had, like, a deep instinct that it was the necessary to do.  Way stronger than just a gut feeling, or doing something because it’s right.  It was like someone put the thought into my head, you will rescue Hermione and Arya next.  They are an important part of this journeyand you will fail massively without them.’  He fingers the edge of his mask.  ‘I don’t know, does that sound dumb?’

A memory rises to the surface of Hermione’s mind – Harry tearing across the bridge, Ron and their friends trailing behind him, Hermione demanding why they can’t tell a teacher or contact the Order of the Phoenix or fly the thestrals to Grimmauld Place, Harry interrupting her and explaining that he just knew somehow that he was supposed to do this.  And as Hermione chased him up the stairs to Umbridge’s office, she realised that she always had been chasing after him and always would be, because Harry’s importance transcended her own for reasons she could never understand.

Hermione replies, ‘not at all.  Because my friend Harry told me the same thing in our fifth year.  And at the end of our sixth.’  She remembers his decision to leave Hogwarts and hunt horcruxes.  ‘And first, actually.  And part-way through our fourth.  And two days ago.’  Now Hermione thinks of it, Harry Potter really is quite set on his own essentialness to their universe.  ‘Sometimes when he’s about to fling himself head-first into danger, and I’ll tell him that he can’t possibly do that because we’re children and there are about ten responsible adults we could call instead, he’ll insist that’s not an option because he just knows deep down that this adventure was made for him.’

‘So I’m the same level of madness as Harry Potter,’ Peter concludes, ‘cool.’

She smiles without even faking it.  ‘You’d like Harry.  You’re a lot like him.  You’re both resourceful and somewhat intellectually competent occasionally.  You’ve both had to cope with far too much far too young, and now you’re trapped in a state of depending on the validation of success too much to not keep trying, but fearing the consequences of failure so much that you can’t try without suffering for it.  And you both shield all that darkness by making silly little jokes the whole time.’

Peter scooches along the bed.  ‘I’m sure you’re right but I’m not gonna lie, the only deep-diving I have it in me to do right now is to deep-dive into that pringles can.’  Hermione decides not to point out that he just exemplified her argument by cracking a silly little joke to deflect from his inner turmoil.  She offers him the pringles.  Peter asks through a mouthful of crisps, ‘so, if I’m like Harry, and you’re obviously you, does that make Arya your other friend… er… Ralph Wallenby?’

Hermione crunches down on another pringle.  ‘Ron Weasley.  And Arya’s nothing like Ron.  Even Ron has a greater emotional range than a gateaux fork.’

Peter laughs.  ‘You’ve gotta give her a bit more credit than that.  You know the way she observes people sometimes, like a cat watches a toy mouse, as if she’s trying to read the thoughts in your head?’  Hermione remembers the moments of stillness during their conversation in the dungeon, the way Arya paused before each question.  ‘I reckon she’s got the emotional range of a whole cutlery drawer.  She just keeps all her emotiony things inside her head, while you keep it more outside your head, and I keep it so outside my head that I spray it around the whole room as a can of whipped cream in everyone’s faces like I’m doing now with you.’

Hermione is about to disagree with him, when she notices Arya standing in the bathroom doorway.  She and Peter fall silent.  Arya says, ‘please, don’t stop talking about me just because I’m here.’

Peter mumbles something about Legolas and leave-in conditioner, then skedaddles out the room.  Arya gathers her new clothes – a fluffy cape and a black leather catsuit embroidered with silver wolves – and asks, ‘do you mind if I just get dressed in here?’

‘It’s fine.  I went to boarding school for six years,’ Hermione replies.  She turns around and ostensibly studies the modern art on the wall.  A woman is reduced to just two curving brushstrokes and plump pink lips.  A four-year-old could have painted something more abstract and less objectifying, yet Steven Spielberg no doubt paid thousands for it.  She tilts her head to look out the window instead, but accidently glimpses Arya’s arched back slipping into the catsuit.  Hermione’s cheeks burn.

‘I’m ready,’ Arya calls, ‘so, have you given any more thought to…’

Not wanting to say anything else to her, Hermione flicks her wand and blows open the bedroom door.  Fangirl is twirling down the corridor in a ballgown straight out a fairy tale book, assuming that the fairy tale was set in a dark academia brothel and the protagonist had some kind of chiffon and sequin fetish.  ‘Look what I found in a wardrobe!  I feel like I’m in a Sarah J Maas book and I’m about to be rescued by five fairy princes who will each declare their undying love for me and whisk me away to a palace with soup.’

‘Which book is that?’ Peter asks.

‘All of them,’ Fangirl replies.  She tries to pirouette, but trips on the edge of the skirt.

Arya scowls at her.  ‘Is that the most practical outfit for saving the world in?’

‘Duh.  You’re all fictitious.  Don’t you always wear your best outfits for your most important moments?’

‘Absolutely we do,’ Legolas agrees.  Brown leather trousers cling to his leg muscles, and a forest-green shirt has been left unfastened to expose his smooth chest.  Clearly, Legolas would gladly hire Steven Spielberg as his personal shopper again.

Leia and Indiana Jones stumble out a bedroom with their arms around each other’s waists, giggling at a shared joke.  As soon as Leia realises everyone is staring at them, Leia she away from Indiana and slaps his cheek.  ‘Stay away from what you can’t afford, scoundrel.  I bet your ass that my legs are insured for more than your whole hometown.’

Indiana smiles wryly.  ‘You’ll have to loan me the cash for the legal fees.’

Legolas clears his throat.  Indiana stands straight and readjusts his fedora.  ‘Brunch will be served in two minutes and forty-five seconds.  I hope you can eat waffles with a knife and fork.  Mr Spielberg hates bad table manners almost as much as he hates child labour legislation.’