A/N: Okay, to preempt any confusion, basically what's going on here is that Harry Potter and his friends discover fanfiction dot net and decide to make their own contribution. To anybody wondering how the Harry Potter characters in the summer after the fifth book (which, I've heard, takes place sometime in the mid-nineties) have access to stories published on fanfiction dot net in 2005, my answer is simply: "It's magic." So, yeah. The story will chronicle Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny's efforts in creating the story, and also, of course, will include their story itself. And, of course, as this story is a parody, just know in advance that I did not mean to offend you, and that I'm almost definitely not making fun of your story in particular. Although I might be.

Disclaimer: Even though it goes without saying, I am forced to type the words "I am not J.K. Rowling" at the beginning of my story.

Chapter 1: Writing the First Chapter

It was now the fifth week of summer vacation. Harry and Hermione, of course, were at the Burrow, because this story will be infinitely easier to write if all the characters are in the same place. Harry had been allowed to leave the Dursleys' after only 3 weeks this summer because Dumbledore finally grew a heart and decided it really wasn't very nice to make Harry keep living with his wretched muggle relatives. In the two weeks that Harry had been there already, Ginny, Ron, and Harry had practiced Quidditch to the point where even Harry was willing to contemplate doing something else.

Then, one night, after dark, when they would have had trouble practicing Quidditch even if they wanted to, they were getting rather bored. "D'you guys want another round of exploding snap?" asked Ron unexcitedly.

"We've played that three times already today, and I don't want my eyebrows singed again," registered Ginny.

"What about a game of chess, Ron?" inquired Harry.

"What are Ginny and I going to do then, just watch?" asked Hermione.

"D'you have a better idea then?" challenged Ron.

"As a matter of fact, I do. I found this website on the internet that is designed specifically for people who are bored out of their minds and can't think of anything to do! It's called fanfiction dot net!" exclaimed Hermione.

"What's the internet?" Ron asked.

"It's a system muggles use to access information. I bought a special computer from Diagon Alley that is able to access internet sites from the future so that I can read stories on fanfiction dot net from the year 2005! It's magic," explained Hermione proudly. "And the really cool thing is that there are stories about us on there." Ron, Harry, and Ginny were not particularly surprised by this information, because, of course, they knew that their lives were the subjects of best-selling novels. The reason that they already knew this is that the author, after much consideration, determined that having the characters already have this knowledge would be much easier than having to explain how they found it out. So there.

"Are the stories about us any good?" Harry wondered.

"No, mostly they suck," announced Hermione. "But I think that's how they're supposed to be. I mean, there's thousands of stories up there, and at least 9 in 10 have major flaws, so apparently part of the rules of writing fanfiction are that there have to be certain glaring inadequacies. I've been trying to determine what the rules for writing a fanfiction are (I've been looking at the site a lot while you guys were off practicing Quidditch), and I think I've figured them out to the extent that we can try our hand at writing one."

"That could be kind of fun," stated Ginny.

"Yeah, let's try," agreed Harry.

Ron looked rather reluctant, but didn't say anything. They moved to the room where Hermione's computer was being kept.

"Okay, the first thing we've got to do is write an author's note," Hermione explained. "How about this?" She started typing, and read aloud as she did. "Hi, this is Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione. We are very bored, and have therefore decided that we will write a fan-fiction. We kind of hope that you like it, but we don't really care all that much, as the main point of writing it was to kill time anyway."

"Works for me," said Harry as Ginny nodded her agreement. Ron was still sitting there in a way that made it seem as if this whole thing was against his better judgment.

"Next, we need a disclaimer stating that we are not J.K. Rowling, and that we don't intend to make any profit by writing about her characters," continued Hermione.

"Who's J.K. Rowling?" asked Ron skeptically.

"She's the woman who wrote the books about us and is growing rich off of our story," Hermione reminded him.

"Oh, that's right," remembered Ron. "Well, shouldn't she be paying us then?"

"You'd think so," admitted Hermione.

"How about this for an author's note then?" asked Harry as he switched seats with Hermione and began to type. "We are not J.K. Rowling. However, if we find her, we will be sure to let you know."

"Er... doesn't completely fulfill the purpose of a disclaimer, but it makes about as much sense as some of the other ones on the site... I guess we'll take it," decided Hermione. "Now to begin the story. From what I can tell, if we want to write a story about the four of us, we should start out by describing the summer after 5th year. The stories usually start out with Harry at his aunt's house feeling depressed about Sirius' death."

Ron finally decided to speak up, "Look guys, I don't know if I want to do this. Writing's not my idea of a good time, there's so many grammatical rules to remember and everything. I don't even like to read when I don't have to."

"You don't have to know grammatical rules," explained Hermione patiently, "and you don't have to like to read. In fact, I'm not even sure you have to know how to read. Judging from the stuff on this site so far, it seems that some people writing fics are not literate. They probably just sit down at the computer and start typing randomly, hoping for the best."

"Oh, well, in that case, let me try," said Ron. He switched seats with Harry and began to type on the keyboard. The reader should keep in mind that Ron has never used a keyboard until this point in his life and therefore anything that is typed would be completely random.

Moments later, the screen read: "It was summer. Harry was very angst."

"That's good!" congratulated Hermione. "Especially for having no idea how to use a keyboard! It has the basic plot devices necessary for the opening of a first chapter, plus we have our first grammatical error. It seems that each chapter is required to have at least seven. Now, the author would usually explain why Harry was feeling so angsty, but this doesn't make much sense, as the target audience on fanfiction dot net has read each of the books at least once and therefore would just skip over the explanation anyway. So we'll just do this instead."

After Hermione finished typing something quickly, the screen read, "It was summer. Harry was very angst. We trust you know why."

"Well, there you go," said Hermione. "We got through about as much as most of the stories do in their first chapter, and we did it all in... 12 words. Of course, we didn't get in the seven requisite grammatical errors. But we can make sure to have more next chapter. Chapter 2, of course, must feature all of the following: A letter from each Ron, myself, and Ginny, and a romantic interest for Harry. Because, it seems, if there's one thing that fanfiction writers all agree upon, it's that Harry really ought to be getting some. Although there's some controversy over which gender he should be getting it from." At this, Harry blanched and Ginny giggled slightly. "Anyway, to finish up this chapter, all we have to do is write a second author's note that begs shamelessly for reviews as if each of them were able to be redeemed at Gringott's for 10 galleons." Ron perked up at the mention of galleons. "They're not really," clarified Hermione patiently. "We just have to act as though they are."

Between the four of them, they came up with the following author's note:

"A/N: We are pleased that you read our story to this point. We apologize for the short chapter length. But we're not going to update unless we get at least 3 reviews. Even though we have nothing better to do at the moment than write this fanfiction. If we need to, we'll just write the next chapter, and simply not upload it. Yes. That's what we'll do if we don't get enough reviews."

A/N (from the actual author): Um. Well. That was interesting from my perspective at least. Let me know whether or not you think this idea's worth continuing. I know that there's some other stories out there that have the gang making fun of fanfiction, but I thought this would still be worth putting out there. But it doesn't matter what I think, what I really want to know is what everybody else thinks.