Some of you may have noticed that a new competition had begun on HarryPotterfanfiction.com. This contest is sort of similar to the scavenger hunts we’ve hosted on the site in the past, but with a new twist.

Instead of the clues being hidden within individual stories, they are hidden inside the Oracle. The Oracle is a special program that requires the precise riddle answer and story URL. Once you have the correct answer you will be able to decode the next Henchmen using the FIRST LETTER in the answer to each riddle.

The answers are scrambled, but should be easy enough to figure out. Once you have uncovered all the Henchmen you will find the location where Sybill Trelawney is being held against her will.

Your challenge does not end at this point. You must figure out the key of freeing the desperate professor. There are separate rules posted for precise answer submission instructions that will be revealed when you reach the end of the competition.

OFFICIAL RULES:

1: DO NOT REVEAL ANY OF THE HENCHMEN OR ANSWER RIDDLES IN ANY PUBLIC AREA! Doing so is instant grounds for disqualification.

2: DO NOT REVIEW ANY OF THE RIDDLES! The review section is not the area to discuss clues.

3: DO NOT try to bride the staff or the house elf with any doughnuts, butterbeer or cookies.

I've already posted the things I learned from fanfiction but I also wanted to take the opportunity to share the lessons imparted by staff members gone by and current staff-non-bloggus.

1. Draco is also a sensitive poet who wants nothing more than to thwart his father and all the Death Eaters.
   
   
2. Ginny is..... "a hormone-filled, Hogwarts A-level snogger"
   
   
3. The Marauders were fond of the drink.
   
   
4. James and Lily "came back through time" to kill Harry.
   
   
5. Dumbledore "always" makes "misturieus exits."
   
   
6. Krum sent Hermione his underwear.
   
   
7. “WA-blub TH-blub RU-blub,” is frequently yelled by Ron when he jumps out of bed.
   
   
8. "BLACKMAIL AND REVENGE!!! THAT IS SA-WEET!!!"
   
   
9. Duh duh duhhhhhhhh: Remus is Harry's father!!
   
   
10. Hamsters can KILL!!!!!
    
    
11. Girls can just Apparate into Harry's bedroom at the Duresleys whereas Voldemort and his followers can't.
    
    
12. 'Hope' is a common name in the wizarding world
    
    
13. Everyone is a seer.
    
    
14. No matter what pairing it is, if it is in the Others category, you may want to sheild the children's eyes.
    
    
15. Despite it being a very rare achievement, both Hermione and Ginny are elemental witches in love with Draco Malfoy who is a vampire by choice.
    
    
16. A "death stair" is far more effective than the more traditional "death stare"
    
    
17. There are special, little known spells in the wizarding world that will make the undergarments of passers by visible to certain parties if you are able to pull them off. (The spells...not the undergarments.)
    
    
18. After the defeat of Voldemort, Ron finds himself distraught that he was not recognized for his role in Voldemort's downfall and, instead of dealing with it like a rational person, becomes Harry's new arch nemisis: King of Darkness
    
    
19. Voldemort says things in a 'mean sinister voice' like 'I'VE KILLED YOU!'
    
    
20. Draco often cradles Ginny in his arms like an infant
    
    
21. Harry has 17 children.
    
    
22. You would be amazed at the feats that can be accomplished aboard a broom.
    

I’d like to burst the myth of the secret, mysterious, real-time HPFF staff room.

Contrary to popular opinion, the other staff members and I are not chained to desks or penned into cubicles in a large, tastefully decorated office in Jay's basement.

I often wish we were, though. (Okay, maybe not the part about Jay's basement.) Instead, when I’m on the site, I’m typically one of the following places:

• Stretched out on my bed, in my pajamas, with the cats.

• Sitting cross-legged at my desk. (Often, there will be a tiara perched on my head. I wear one while I write. It helps, I swear.)
  

• Catching some rays on my deck (I love wireless internet!)

• Down the street, at my favorite neighborhood bakery/café. They have 30 flavors of gelato, and free Wi-Fi. (Have I mentioned how much I love wireless internet?)

Sometimes, the Queue can be a frightening place, and there are times when I run across a cutting-fic that borders on being too graphic, and I often wish that I could poke my head out of my office door, and yell for Kay or Timeturner, to get a second opinion. AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! messenger are godsends for moments like that. . . but how much more fun would it be, if I could flick rubber bands over my cubicle wall at Cor Leonis, or stand on my chair and scream that I can’t face possibly face another Dramione songfic without a piece of chocolate. Britannia would rush to the rescue with dark chocolate truffles, I’m sure, and shade would probably suggest that I needed another cappuccino and that I’d doubtlessly feel better if I wore my tiara.

*smods* Tiaras make everything better.

Later, LogicalRaven might pop her head over the cubicle wall and ask RavenGryffendor if she felt up to brainstorming some evil ideas for future competitions. They’d send out for pizza and develop migraine headaches from writing too many riddles in one sitting. The rest of the staff would probably give them a wide berth, lest the two Raven's corner them and insist that they try and test-solve one of their latest riddle creations.

Someone would start a fresh batch of coffee and we’d compare notes, trading the most original OC names and descriptions of Hermione post-makeover the way other people trade baseball cards. Several cups of coffee later, I might realize I’ve been validating for four hours straight, and haven’t eaten or visited the bathroom. No wonder my eyes are blurry and crossed. Time for more coffee? Or to blow off some steam, IMing with Kay to tell her about the cute new purse that I just bought, on clearance? (A metallic bronze hobo bag, 75% off. How could I resist?)

Across the room, Violet Gryffindor might be strangling Mary Sue while Siren cheered and offered the use of her mighty rock. JaxGranger and Scarhead would be giggling about something in the corner, and then suddenly, without warning, someone might scream, "Salazar’s Socks, since when does Hermione wear a bikini made out of duct tape and dental floss?!?!" and we’d all collapse from giddy, yet disturbed laughter.

Instead, we have to rely on email, PMs, and IMs to accomplish these sorts of things, and unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t yet invented a way to send chocolate truffles through the chat box. But, despite the fact that the HPFF staff is spread over a huge geographical area, spanning several countries and multiple time zones, I think it’s absolutely phenomenal how close we have grown and how well we are able to work together - complementing each other’s strengths and instinctively knowing when one of us needs a laugh or a smile. In a way, we have a virtual staff room, even if there isn’t a cappuccino machine or leather office chairs that wheel, spin around, and make you dizzy.

So, please have some patience with us. When we need that all-important second opinion on a questionable chapter, or are having difficulty troubleshooting precisely why a member is having difficulty logging in, since we can’t just pop our heads over the cubicle wall, sometimes we do need a bit of time before we can get back to you with an answer. Those time zones are a bit of a nuisance.

>

Now . . . should I have the orange-chocolate-chip gelato, or the amaretto fudge ripple?

This summer HPFF is outdoing all summers that have come before it and the festivities have begun on the forums already.

If you haven't registered, do so quickly, join a house and gain access to your common room!

I know, I know!

Who really wants another post from BitterEpiphany swooning over a piece of software that the site is running? Well, you probably don't, but I promise it will save you time (as well as me) and it's worth a read through.

A few days ago, my good friend MadameSnape and I borrowed Rita's Quick Quotes Quill and spent several hours penning the most relevant and detailed explainations we could think of for each and every rejection reason and we're hoping it helps.

If you are so inclined to take a quick visit to the sites Troubleshooter, you will find a new one called My Chapter Was Rejected. Clicking through will take you to a page asking you if you have read your validator note or not - now you may think it's not necessary but, trust me, it is. From there, you get a list of all of the possible rejection reasons and, match the validator note to the one on the list.

If, for example, your chapter was rejected for a formatting issue, you'll find this:

The big one :)

This violation plaugues nearly 50% of the chapters submitted on any given day and, odds are, one of your chapters has probably been rejected for a formatting issue before.

The first, and most common formatting issue is not abiding by proper spacing. If you are looking for a reference of what a properly formatted story looks like, you will find several chapters posted by the staff in an effort to explain various aspects of the Terms of Service under the penname "Staff." These stories are all spaced and separated in a TOS compliant manner.

As a general rule, paragraphs and character speech should be separated by two strokes of the Enter key and, if you wish to create a page break, instead of using symbols like this:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

...use a handy bit of HTML called a "horizontal rule" - a straight horizontal line that stretches fully across a page and adjusts to templates, screen resolutions, and other viewing settings to ensure that your page break will not stretch the page out in the way a character string (shown above) would be inclined to do. The horizontal rule is shown below and you can call it up simply by entering the following in your chapter:

<hr>

---

Lastly, the less common formatting issues. Some authors, particularly those using programs like WordPad, may find that their text is compressed to a thin column with unusually large returns between these short lines of text - almost as though the entry were double spaced.

Now, I know, this wasn't quite as fun or embarassing as nightmares about validating, but nevertheless, it's important :)

Ay yi yi, poor Star Bucky, he is having a bad day!

First, the Snape Lady, she yells at Star Bucky for spilling hot coffee on her shoes. I is not knowing why she is mad, they was ugly shoes anyways!

The Staff-Family, they is all quiet and mysterious, I is knowing something is wrong. They keeps sending Star Bucky for the coffee and donuts.

The nice Raven lady, she been sobbing and crying and poor Star Bucky cannot make her stop.

Then, Mistress Logical, she be ordering me to put up this poster:


I is not knowing what be going on, I is just the House Elf.

*shrug*

Do you remember not being able to read? I’ve thought about this and tried in vain to remember a time in my life when I didn’t understand words or before I was able to melt away hours in some imaginary world created by an author. I just can’t remember that time in my life. What I do know is that my world wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without the ability to pick up a good book. If we couldn’t read, HPFF wouldn’t even exist.

Seems no matter which side of the pond you happen to be on, the statistics are the same. A quick study reveals that in both the UK and USA 20% of the population have 'low literacy' levels. Well, that seems pretty good, doesn’t it? Only 20%. It seems we are doing something right. But before we pat ourselves on the back…what does that number really mean?

One in five people you meet have trouble reading and writing. One in five…that’s what 20% means. If you are in school, you probably have 20+ people in your class. Did you realize that on average at least one of them may be functionally illiterate? Maybe it still seems like a vague concept so let’s bring it down to HPFF level.

You know how we often hear about "reads vs reviews". Times, of course, when we have a great number of “reads” but no reviews. Have you ever considered how many people could be wanting to read your story but just don’t have the ability to do so? I hadn’t. It never occurred to me but someone could be sitting there at a school computer, see a flashy banner and think oh, that looks great! They open the chapter and look on, wishing desperately they could decipher the words on the screen and enter the world you’ve created.

Have you even pondered that some children don`t have the ready access to books and literature that you have and need a little more help than an average child with their reading and writing?

If you`re like me, you may realize how tragically sad this is and you may want to do something to help but have no idea how to start. If that’s you and you are willing to help but unsure of what to do, stay tuned…HPFF has something planned to not only unite the UK and US but to give all our members a chance to do whatever little bit we can to help turn the tables on illiteracy.

For those of you who know an HPFF staffer personally, you are probably already aware that more than one of us carry the title "Chronic Insomniac" and I am among them but, for those of you who didn't know that already - now you do.

Last night, during a fleeting few hours of restful sleep, I was awoken by the sound of a nearby rail line being torn apart. They're doing something horrible that seems to involve two large, orange cranes banging rail line together in mid-air for several hours in a game of surreal chicken. It's annoying. Especially at 4AM.

What's worse about this story is that, as I opened my eyes and glared at the worlds most battered and bruised alarm clock, I was stricken with an odd sense that I had, only moments ago, run into something horrible in the queue...Draco and Hermione with the Squid and Filch and a secrecy sensor? But wait, I haven't validated yet today and something that unnerving I surely would have logged....

Puzzled, I rolled out of bed, slipped into pig slippers and toted my teddy bear to my desk to check and see if i'd made any odd posts while sleep walking.

Ladies and Wizards, I had a dream about validating.

Can someone pass the espresso?

My head hurts. I’ve been beating it against my desk for the past hour and a half. Why am I banging my head you ask? Because of the formatting issues we’ve encountered lately. I don’t blame you guys for my pounding headache; I realize that this issue is difficult to understand so I’ve created LogicalRaven’s Story Formatting 101.

First I should define what block formatting is. I promise I am not trying to plug my story, but I didn’t want to offend anybody by using their story as a negative example.

Below is part of the first chapter of my story, Harry Potter and the Secret Horcrux..

The dark night sky seemed to show the fact that something horrible had happened. Yet, it could never truly tell the atrocities laid forth on that sinister night. Two figures tore along the forgotten roads that lead to the deepest fears of most mortals. No words were exchanged, for there were no words that could explain what had just occurred. The most callous act of betrayal was nothing compared to what Professor Snape had just done.Draco Malfoy felt Severus Snape’s hand tighten around his arm as the two rounded another shadowy corner. There was no time to pause. Draco made a motion to speak, but Snape quickly silenced him with a single glance. The Unbreakable Vow had been forged and completed. The impossible had been accomplished and nothing would ever be the same again. Albus Dumbledore was dead. Draco felt his body shudder. The Dark Lord would not be pleased with the course of action he had failed to take. His mouth grew dry as he recalled the last words Dumbledore had spoken to him. Even in his gravest hour, he had offered him solace and protection.
“This way,” Snape hissed as he started towards another direction.
Draco glared at him; “Where are we going?”
Snape didn’t answer. The further they traveled the more winding the road became. This was a place Draco had never seen before. Was Snape taking them into hiding? Didn’t he realize that nobody could hide from the Dark Lord?

Notice there are NO SPACES between the lines of text. Now imagine being a fun loving, kind, and helpful staff validator. You start a happy shift of story validation and you’re forced to read thousands upon thousands of words with NO SPACES. It would make anybody go blind. Remember, many of us are old and have the stresses of the real world to give us headaches; we don’t want to go cross-eyed trying to validate.

If you simply add a space between each paragraph it would be greatly appreciated. If you don’t, well we’re going to reject your chapter. Now, the second question in this lesson is what is a paragraph.

A paragraph is defined as one of several distinct subdivisions of a text intended to separate ideas; a new indented line usually marks the beginning. You may notice on the site we don’t have indentions. That means it is imperative (important) that you leave a space between all paragraphs! EACH LINE OF DIALOG IS CONSIDERED A PARAGRAPH! I swear I didn’t make that rule up, the grammar gods did. Also, a paragraph tends to be about 4 to 8 sentences. If it looks like a big block try to break it up.

I implore (beg), for the sake of the staffs’ sanity, everybody who submits a chapter to learn to use the space bar. Here is the above example formatted correctly.

The dark night sky seemed to show the fact that something horrible had happened. Yet, it could never truly tell the atrocities laid forth on that sinister night. Two figures tore along the forgotten roads that lead to the deepest fears of most mortals. No words were exchanged, for there were no words that could explain what had just occurred. The most callous act of betrayal was nothing compared to what Professor Snape had just done.

Draco Malfoy felt Severus Snape’s hand tighten around his arm as the two rounded another shadowy corner. There was no time to pause. Draco made a motion to speak, but Snape quickly silenced him with a single glance. The Unbreakable Vow had been forged and completed. The impossible had been accomplished and nothing would ever be the same again. Albus Dumbledore was dead.

Draco felt his body shudder. The Dark Lord would not be pleased with the course of action he had failed to take. His mouth grew dry as he recalled the last words Dumbledore had spoken to him. Even in his gravest hour, he had offered him solace and protection.

“This way,” Snape hissed as he started towards another direction.

Draco glared at him; “Where are we going?”

Snape didn’t answer. The further they traveled the more winding the road became. This was a place Draco had never seen before. Was Snape taking them into hiding? Didn’t he realize that nobody could hide from the Dark Lord?

HPFF boasts what is, quite possibly, the largest and most complete list of Mary Sue names in our behind-the-scenes hidey-hole. Today, I thought I would share a few of the "Character Name Hall of Shame" entries I have made over the years. If I have learned one thing about the Wizarding World from the queue it would be that parents of Original Characters are mean.

• Maxi (I read this whole story thinking of feminine hygiene products...)
  
• Jayden
• M&M (no, I'm not kidding)
• Sin (has subtlety gone the way of political ethics?)
• Mephesto
• Dandelion (because if being named after a flower wasn't enough, you had to make it a weed)

Now, this is just my list. The actual thread is 13 pages long (and some of the posts contain more than one name) so keep your eyes peeled for additions from other staffers.

I know, I know…I just posted!

But this has to be said. The prefects, our elite bunch of HPFF’ers over at the forum have bestowed upon us staff a wonderful gift. Not their normal gift – which is their knack for helping out around the site, answering user questions and reporting ToS violations – but an extra special gift.

In an effort to “thank the staff” (although many of us staff were surprised they wanted to thank us rather than stone us) the prefects collaborated on a project to write a single story for each staff member. They asked us to give a brief idea of what our favorite story would be like and then they ran with the plot bunny from there.

The stories are now being posted at the archive and you can view them on the archive here

*hugs* Aren’t they just all wonderful, fantastical, amazing people?

I will not get into a deep discussion about SPEW or house elf rights but when we inherited the wondrous Star Bucky, the life of many a staffer changed dramatically and I think its perhaps time you got an inside look at living with a house elf. I know Jay thought he was helping by bringing Star Bucky to us staffers but, well…I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Day One – He appears out of nowhere, sneaks in the room when you least expect it (potty break, anyone?) and then lays out the most horrid, mis-matched outfit you can ever imagine. Red and gold, I ask? Do I look like a Christmas tree?

Day Two – No breakfast. What do we have him for anyway? It seems Star Bucky was late to StarBucks today and they were out of my favorite mocha. Note to self: facing a house elf with a severe lack of caffeine is not wise.

Day Three – After yesterday’s breakfast fiasco, Star Bucky spent the entire night crying over his failure. To keep the peace I offered to make she/he/it (you never can tell with house elves) breakfast. My thanks? Star Bucky fell into a hysterical crying fit in thanks for my treatment of him. If you thought dogs that lick your face were annoying, you’ve not experienced anything until you felt the *cough* loyalty of a house elf

Day Four – The archive is dirty. The queue is backed up. What has that house elf been doing all night anyway? I hope Star Bucky wasn’t playing with my bunny slippers again (I do think he has a crush on them). No, turns out another house elf had messed with the archive coding and Star Bucky couldn’t get his password. Likely excuse.

Day Five – The work week is ending and I can think only about the weekend. Hours upon hours locked away…..with Star Bucky??? I think it may be time to find a part time job. Either that or join SPEW as quickly as possible.

Cheers until the next round!

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Just a little pre-warning for you all. July will be a busy month on the archive. There is a new competition on the horizon and the HPFF Summer Campaign for 2006 will be kicking of on July 4th.

More information will be posted here shortly. Or you could go to the forums where a thread has already sprung up about the new competition.

Everybody is a winner when it comes to the HPFF Writer`s Duels. If you haven`t had the opportunity to visit our Duel Archive, feel free to read a collection of the finalists on our main archive under our Duel Account.





Happy Reading!

Yesterday, while a taking a stroll through the archive, I found a list of the most unloved stories housed on Harrypotterfanfiction.com. You might ask yourself how could an author abandon their story and deject it to live in the Hades of the archive? The only signs that the story(s) once thrived and/or existed for a brief moment in time are small notes that say, “I’m not working on this story, but I can’t delete it,” “waiting to be deleted” or “how do I delete this crappy story.”

It simply broke my heart to find all those misfit tales but I did the humane thing. I put the poor fics out of their misery and deleted them from the archive forever. **Wipes away tear.**

Many of you have obviously noticed that authors can no longer delete stories from their account menu. This feature was removed when the archive went through it’s extreme makeover. The only way to have a story removed is to nicely ask a staffer to do it for you.

There are several ways you can request a story removal. The one I recommend is to visit the ‘ask the staff’ section in the forum. There is a wonderful pinned topic titled, Story Deletion Request. You may post in this topic after you register an account, but it's still a simple hassle free way of letting us know you have a story that needs to be taken out of its misery.

Now some of you just aren’t ‘forum’ people so there is another option for you. We strive to make HPFF the most easy to use and helpful Harry Potter place on the web. This is why the staffers work diligently to answer each and every trouble ticket that comes across our Help Desk. If you’ve never used our trouble ticket system before then you’re in luck. Our trouble ticket area has also recently undergone a make over making it even more simple and easy to use.

Still, if you’re intimidated by all this technology and jargon you can do it the old fashion way. You can e-mail any staff member and we can remove your story.

I implore you to not leave your story lying around the archive with these hurtful “delete me” notes. At one time they were your plot bunnies and they deserve the dignity of a respectful removal. Also, it’s really annoying if you’re a staff member who is constantly stumbling across them while looking for place to plant hints for an upcoming competition…. Did I just say that?

Oh boy do we have a treat in store for you!

I’m the rational one on the staff… meaning I’m the Potions Master so I don’t look at the sky for ridiculous signs. However, I cannot even deny that the fates are at work. As my good friend, RavenGryffendor, would say, “I hope you are in tune with your inner-eye.”

I can’t give anything away just yet, but if I were you I’d be brushing up on my Harry Potter trivia skills. While you`re at it, you might also want to touch up on your history. Remember that our favorite author J.K. Rowling, is often inspired by the past.

We’ve consulted the Oracle and let me assure you that this will be something that has never been attempted or seen at HPFF. It could possibly be the most challenging event ever on the site. Since I know you’re all dying to know what I’m teasing you about, I’ve decided to let you guys have a little practice.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, there is going to be a competition very very soon. Below is a clue that will lead you to knowing what the prize is going to be this time. The Grand Prize is awesome, and we'd like to thank Alivan's again for sponsoring our competition. I can promise you that you don’t have to search any stories or authors. I haven’t hidden anything on the archive. This riddle is just to help you warm up.


Oh magical wands,
sticks of delight.
Often needed in
a Death Eater’s fight.
Still a greater tool
one sees the light.
Oh ball of wonder
give me the sight.