Bob's Bad Day

Bob crept towards the chicken. It was squawking and fluttering its wings uselessly around the basement of Jackson Zeller's home. Jackson's wife had owled, complaining of strange sounds coming from the basement. Bob had hoped for something dramatic, but alas he had found himself faced off against a chicken rather than a troll.

Somedays, he thought he had the best job ever. He got to go out and retrieve interesting creatures and take reports on possible violations. There was little to no hassle, and he occasionally got to pet fluffy bunnies and poke at cornish pixies through the cage's bars.

He chased the chicken, hearing his partner laugh uproariously behind him.

He sometimes was even tipped for taking out an infestation of doxies or for banishing a particularly stubborn boggart. Pretty young witches would smile and thank him for being such a powerful, brave wizard, to which he would puff out his chest and say modestly, "It was nothing, ma'am."

"It's just a bog-standard chicken, Bob," his partner called. "Can't you catch the thing?"

"If it looks so easy, why don't I let you capture it?" Bob replied, eyeing the chicken mercilessly. It would be captured, oh yes, it would.

"That's alright, Bob, old pal. You're the muscle in this operation."

Bob scowled, and moved again towards the chicken. He lunged, and the chicken took off running. Bob chased it until finally, he had the foul poultry cornered.

"Ha!" he bellowed triumphantly. "Gotcha now, you undercooked little creature!"

The chicken clucked, and shifted its feet as though it were planning on charging him.

"Don't even think about it," Bob said, steadying his wand to Stun the chicken into submission. "You can't get past me..."

The chicken cocked back its head, opened its beak, and belched a steady stream of flames at Bob.

"Holy Medusa in a House of Mirrors!" Bob exclaimed, shocked. He frantically felt at his beard, trying to tell if it had been singed or not. "Is my beard okay?" he yelled at his partner.

His partner straightened up from the fit of laughter he had dissolved into when the chicken had belched fire, and said, "Your beard is fine."

"Did you see that chicken breathe fire like that?" Bob said. "I've never seen a chicken do that before, even bog standard ones, nasty as they are. How do you think they got it to do that?"

The chicken let loose with another stream of fire, this one hitting the wall near his partner. Bob suddenly realized why all the stone walls of the basement were blackened.

"We still have to capture it," his partner said, looking less amused and more wary.

"How the hell do you capture a fire-breathing chicken?" Bob replied, at a loss.

"Can't you still Stun it?"

"I probably could, if it didn't shoot flames at me every time I raised my wand."

"Well," said his partner. "We need to distract it somehow."

Bob grinned down at his partner, and said, "You do a mean chicken dance, you know."

"What?" sputtered his partner, backing up a step. "I didn't volunteer for distracting the thing!"

"I don't see anyone else here," replied Bob.

"Wait!" said his partner, twitching nervously. "Don't we need to have something to contain the chicken in?"

"You were supposed to bring a box," Bob replied immediately.

His partner held up a cardboard box, and said, "It'll burn right through this."

"Then why don't you just charm it against flames?" said Bob with a long-suffering sigh.

"Good idea," his partner replied, and charmed the box. "Okay. Get ready, I'll distract."

With that, he began to do a wild chicken dance that Bob hoped didn't translate to a mating ritual to the fire-breathing chicken.

The chicken looked at the dancing man, seeming discombobulated by the incongruous scene unfolding before it.

"Da, da, dum, da," muttered Bob's partner as he tried to keep beat. Bob realized that he should be capturing the chicken rather than watching his partner make a complete idiot of himself, and tried to sneak up on the chicken while watching his partner with one eye, planning on viewing this scene repeatedly with a Pensieve later on.

"Bwak," said the chicken as it kept its beady eyes glued on the dancing wizard.

"Aha!" said Bob as he slammed the box over the distracted chicken.

"Tada!" said his partner as he concluded his dance.

Bob carefully lifted the box, and made sure the chicken was secure. "You know, I never even had to Stun the damn thing."

The box rattled as the chicken discovered the flame repellent charms.

"Maybe you should Stun it so it doesn't fry itself," his partner suggested.

"Good idea," Bob agreed, and did just that. "I'll take it back to the office, see if they can figure out what to do with it."

"Have fun," snorted his partner. "I'll go tell Mrs. Zeller her basement is poultry-free."

And thus, Bob took the fire-breathing chicken to the Ministry.