Chapter 1

"You stupid, stupid Muggle."

Vivian Jones had not been expecting to hear these words. Her day had started normally enough. She'd gotten up very early as usual, and headed out to work: a 40-minute commute on the 401 into Toronto. Almost always the first to arrive at work and the last to leave, the morning had been normal enough: she'd come in around seven a.m., and started right to work reviewing a request for a bid that had come in, a new condo to be built in the downtown core. She sent an email to one of her associates, telling him to get to work on a proposal. Then on to more routine matters, barely noticing the staff coming in around nine. At nine-thirty her secretary buzzed her.

"Yes?"

"There's someone here to see you."

"But I don't have anyone booked. Who is it?"

A pause while her secretary investigated.

"The receptionist says it's some lady named J.K. Rowling."

Vivian Jones laughed.

"Tell her I'm busy with Jane Austen right now, but I might be able to squeeze her in before I see Margaret Atwood."

She hung up the phone. The receptionist buzzed her directly.

"Your secretary says you think it's a joke. It's not. This lady says she's J.K. Rowling and she wants to see you."

"Fine. Put her in the boardroom. I'll be right there."

Jones was very busy, and didn't have time to waste. She wanted to get this joker out of her office as quickly as possible. As an architect of some prominence, Jones was frequently interviewed by reporters, approached by students seeking advice, quoted by critics and so on. It didn't surprise Jones that someone eager to see her would use a silly ploy to get past her receptionist and secretary. Jones walked down the hall and opened the door to the boardroom, ready to order the time-waster out of the office. But waiting for her in the boardroom was - J.K. Rowling.

"Good morning, Miss Jones," said the writer, "we have some business to discuss."

Jones struggled to control her facial expression. She did not need to be told why Rowling was in her office. For the last two years, Jones had used her precious spare time to indulge in her hobby of writing fan fiction. More specifically, Harry Potter fan fiction. She had felt quite safe doing so; the web was filled with such stuff, and her contributions to the genre were just a drop in the bucket. Impossible to think that it would come to the attention of J.K. Rowling.

Your fan fiction writing has come to my attention," said Rowling, not rising from her chair to shake Jones' outstretched hand. "Of course, you knew as soon as you heard my name why I was here, didn't you?"

Jones screamed inside. She had felt safe in authoring what she knew perfectly well to be copyright violations. It seemed she'd always had a literary bent, but it had not expressed itself until she'd read the first few books in the series. It was so much easier to use the work of a real writer who had created her own universe of three-dimensional characters; Jones would never have been able to come up with stories on her own. But in the Harry Potter books was a unique fictional world, filled with depictions of real depth, covering a wide range of emotions, actions and motives. Jones didn't need to create a Hermione or a Ron or a Harry or a Hagrid; they were all there, waiting for her to use. And use them she had, writing hundreds of thousands of words, much of it filled with sex and violence, but interspersed with what she believed were some scenes of real literary merit. Except now, in the presence of Rowling herself, it didn't seem quite like that. Instead, it occurred to Jones that her efforts were nothing other than an act of deliberate debasement, hardly any different than if she had visited an art gallery and doodled over the paintings.

But it was impossible that Jo Rowling could actually 'know' that Jones had posted any of her fan fiction to a popular website she'd created for the purpose, garnering not inconsiderable internet traffic (and advertising revenue) in the process. No, it was out of the question. Very knowledgeable about computers, Jones had never posted any of her fan fiction from a computer traceable to her. She'd always followed the same procedure, carefully posting the story from a library not near her home. There was not the slightest chance that anyone could possibly prove that she, Vivian Jones, leading architect, had written an alternate version of the Harry Potter novels, in blatent disregard of the author's rights. The website was owned by a business name registered to a numbered company whose directors were ficticious. As long as Vivian Jones didn't admit to anything, she was safe. Rowling had no evidence against her and could never prove copyright infringement.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're getting at, Ms. - what did you say your name was?" asked Jones, as she took a seat at the boardroom table.

Rowling stared at her, Jones quailing under the writer's severe gaze. Jones started to say, "what is this all about?" But she didn't, for she found that she could not speak. She couldn't move, either, and she watched as Rowling got up from her seat and moved around the large boardroom table, closing the door along the way. The door latched with an unusually firm sound, and somehow Jones knew that the door would not open again, not unless Rowling allowed it to open. Rowling sat next to the paralyzed Jones, her mouth close to her ear.

"You stupid, stupid Muggle," she said in a soft voice, words which would have caused Jones to lose bladder control, had the necessary muscles been capable of relaxing. "Would you be mendacious with me? Do you really think I came here to complain about copyright infringement? If that were the only issue, I would have had one of my numerous, highly paid solicitors send you one of the standard cease-and-desist letters, and you would have promptly ceased-and-desisted like most everyone does. Either that, or I would have sued you, and stripped you of every asset you possessed. No, Miss Jones, I am not here over legal matters. It is far more serious than that." Rowling took hold of Jones' head, and forcibly turned it to face her. Now they were looking directly into each other's eyes. Jones saw only anger in Rowling's eyes; Rowling saw fear in those of Vivian Jones, and much, much more.

"Yes, my Muggle friend. You were very careful to cover your tracks. I could never prove in a court of law that you used my creations. That you took the stories I wrote, and changed them. I cannot prove that your website really is yours or that you're making money from something that I created. Nor can I prove that you wrote 'Hagrid's Hufflepuff Hijinks' or any of the other allertively-titled nonsense that's now all over the web. But I know what you did. I'm going to lift the Petrificus Totalus spell, so that I can hear you admit what I already know. And you will admit it, or it will be the worse for you."

Jones felt the rigidity which possessed her disappear, and she almost fell out of her chair. She righted herself, pushing her chair away from Rowling, staring at her wildly.

"Well?" Rowling demanded. There was a long pause. Too long, for Rowling began to pull her hand from her coat pocket, a long piece of wood beginning to emerge with it.

"Yes - Yes!" gasped Jones. "I wrote those stories. Oh God I wrote all of them. I thought I was so clever too! The stories were downloaded so many times I felt like a real writer like you. And I did make money off my website. Not that much, just enough to cover the cost of the server and -"