Harry Potter, Demon Magnet

When Harry Potter turned 17, he discovered he had a special power he'd much rather do without. Harry Potter was, to put it simply, a demon magnet. Of all the magnet properties he could have chosen for himself, demon was most definitely not one of them. Candy magnet, sure. Snitch magnet, oh hell yes. Chick magnet, definite yes. Even perhaps overly-feminine boy magnet he could handle. But demon magnet? That was almost as bad as being a Malfoy magnet. Though, given the way Malfoy stared at him some days, Harry wondered if he didn't have that power as well.

They weren't even nifty demons like succubae either. They were all ugly and nasty and definitely not amused at meeting The Boy Who Now Attracts Demons. Harry did have to admit the demons didn't taste all that bad. Kind of peppery with a slight hint of what Harry hoped was garlic. It was entirely possible that extra seasoning was brimstone. He hadn't meant to start eating them. Honestly. He'd been in Professor Vector's room trying to track down a protractor demon when the damn thing had jumped into his mouth. It was natural instinct to swallow.

When Hermione found out that he was the equivalent of Demon Monthly's newest cover boy she thought it was the most amazing thing ever. The possibilities for research on banishing charms and repellents were endless. She had all but dragged Harry to the library to do research with her. Then one of the book demons had gnawed a rather large section of her hair off. After that it was, "We must go straight to the Headmaster! Who knows what kind of danger you could get into?" Her indignant rage somewhat marred by the fact that she had a large bite shaped chunk of hair missing on her right side.

Ron, on the other hand was completely put off by the idea. How was Harry supposed to devote all his time to Quidditch and Wizard Chess with demons popping in all over the place? His opinion of the situation suddenly reversed one evening when a variety of goo demon exploded all over his most recent Christmas jumper, utterly ruining the thing. Ron could barely hold back his tears when he wrote home to tell his mother of its demise. His sorrow was almost palatable. Mrs. Weasley of course could never deny her son and much to Ron's dismay a new even more horrid jumper showed up in the mail by the end of the next week. Ron could be heard muttering about mocking fate for several days afterwards until Hermione finally told him to shut up or she was going to make him write his History essay with no help at all.

Ron tried to shut up. Succeeded for the most part, except for the occasional comment or quip. He ended up doing his essay alone with a rather sore bump on his head.

But both Hermione and Ron were equally horrified when they discovered that Harry had started eating the demons. It was one thing to fight demons in your spare time between classes and Quidditch practice, but who knew they'd taste good char broiled? The trio spent long hours in the Gryffindor common room discussing the whole issue. One night Dean happened to join the conversation and wondered if perhaps Snape himself wasn't a demon, which would go miles to explain why the teacher seemed to hate Harry.

"Well, if Snape's a demon, then maybe you can eat him too! Then I wouldn't have to finish this stupid potions essay!" Ron muttered with a fair dose of annoyance. Harry and Dean just stared at Ron for a moment. Ron grinned uncertainly, "...okay, maybe not. It was just a suggestion." A moment later he was buried under pillows as the other two boys attacked.

Several days later after Potions class, Harry spotted a demon trying to set fire to Malfoy's homework. Harry smirked and waited to see what it would do, no point in rushing his work. After all, Malfoy should be more aware of demons dancing about on his desk. Yes, that was it. The demon cackled and not only set fire to the homework but the entire desk as well.

Harry meeped, he hadn't expected that. Rushing forward he snatched up the demon and shoved it into his mouth, glad that all the other students had already left.

Draco stared.

Harry burped.

Malfoy continued to stare in something bordering on horror as the other boy smacked his lips. "Did you...err...." Draco seemed at a loss for words.

"Did I just eat that nasty little blue flaming demon that was dancing on the ashes of your desk? Yes." Harry patted his stomach and walked out of the room.

Draco gave some serious thought to calling St. Mungos and arranging a pick-up for one Harry Potter, who appeared to have gone stark raving mad.

He went screaming for his dad instead.

That night at dinner Harry noticed that Draco seemed to be staring at him. More than normal anyway. Which is to say, Draco was pretty much just sitting there and staring at Harry and not doing a whole lot else. Harry was convinced that it had to be that Malfoy magnet power. He conjured up a mental image of a giant switch with the words "Malfoy Magnet" written on it. Harry switched it off.

The majority of the Gryffindor table exchanged nervous looks when Harry Potter started tittering madly. The boy had been acting Weird lately. When Ron finally asked Harry what was so amusing, he wasn't sure what to make of the answer of, "Oh, nothing, I was just wondering if I could reverse the polarity on this magnet."

When they were done with dinner Harry sauntered over past the Slytherin table where Draco was still staring at him. "Don't worry, you'll be fine, Malfoy," Harry informed him. He leaned over and smiled like he was imparting important information, "I've turned it off, so no need to continue staring," Harry grinned and walked off.

Malfoy continued to watch Potter as we walked off, unblinking, positive that if he blinked he'd miss the moment when Potter imploded. Sadly, nothing happened before he disappeared out of view.

The next morning Harry was called to Snape's office after breakfast to meet with him and Lucius Malfoy. Lucius smirked as Potter walked into the small office. From what Draco has said the boy had gone completely loony.

Harry noticed Lucius's cane move out the corner of his eye. Ah-ha! He'd always suspected that freakish cane was weird. He froze.

He stared at the cane for a moment, daring it to move again. The cane stared back. Lucius looked down at Potter warily, unsure why the boy had taken a sudden interest in his walking stick. Snape looked back and worth between the two of them, not having the foggiest clue what was going on. Except that Potter seemed to be having some kind of staring contest with the elder Malfoy's cane.

Harry lunged forward suddenly grappling at Lucius's cane and tried to gnaw off the head.

"Ow, my foof!" Harry clutched at his mouth as he leapt back and stared wildly at the cane.

"What the hell?" Snape managed to utter.

"I faid, OW. MY FOOF," Harry mumbled before removing his hands, "I mean, I said, Ow, my tooth!"

Lucius and Snape just stared at Harry for a long moment. Lucius started to edge behind Snape's desk slowly.

"I think I might have chipped a tooth on your damn cane."

Lucius bristled, "Serves you right, you loopy freak! This cane wasn't made to be chewed on!" He paused for a moment and looked at Potter suspiciously, "Out of curiosity, why were you trying to bite my cane anyway? Ignoring for a moment that you've obviously lost whatever sanity you had."

Harry blinked at him, "I thought there was a demon in your cane."

"Er...you what?"

"Your cane winked at me," Harry punctuated the remark with another intense glare at said cane.

Lucius hastily shoved the cane under Snape's desk lest Potter got any ideas and try to gnaw on it some more, "Of course it winked at you! It's an enchanted cane, you loon!"

"Oh..." Harry seemed at a loss for a moment. "Are you sure it's not really a demon masquerading as a cane?" he asked hopefully. Lucius jumped behind Snape in response and shoved the teacher in Harry's direction.

"Of course it's not!" Lucius said frantically, saying the first thing that came to mind, "but Severus has a demon hiding under his robes!"

Harry looked revolted for a moment, "Eww. What is it with people and trying to get me to eat Snape?" Harry paused for a moment then brightened, "Well, if there's no demon here I suppose I should hurry up and get over to Mandy Brocklehurst's room, she's got a demon trying to freeze her clothes." With that Harry ran out of the room.

Lucius sat down in Snape's chair and wondered if a stiff drink wouldn't be such a bad idea. Snape turned and stalked over, glaring.

"Sacrifice me to the stark raving lunatic to save yourself, was that the plan?"

Lucius looked around the room for anything resembling a liquor cabinet while refusing to meet Snape's glare. "Effectively."

Snape felt decidedly hung over as he practically crawled into class the next morning. Lucius hadn't taken well to having his stick gummed by a crazy Harry Potter and had been determined to drink as much alcohol as possible. The bottom of a particularly strong bottle of fire whiskey had reduced him to possessively polishing his cane and muttering about teaching Potter to know better than to bite other people's sticks. It had almost reminded Snape of his days at school.

"You look particularly chipper this morning, Professor," an obscenely cheerful voice chirped as Snape slunk over to his desk. He looked up. Snape blinked several times, rubbed his eyes and looked at Draco again.

The boy was wearing a hot pink miniskirt and a gray-green waist coast. His rather shapely pale legs emerging out of the tight skirt to stretch down towards the floor. Not that Snape was noticing his student's firm attractive legs. Not in the slightest.

Yet again Snape wondered if drinking that entire bottle of Visions Tequila had been the best of ideas. He'd never heard of people continuing to hallucinate after the alcohol wore off though. Snape came to the conclusion that he must still be drunk then. Deciding to go along with his little hallucinations, Snape smiled wanly at Malfoy.

"Care to explain the choice of," Snape paused and tried to think of an appropriate word, "attire, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Today is a practical exam in Muggle studies. We're being forced to dress like them," Draco managed to imbue just enough scorn and condescension into his words that they very nearly dripped all over the room.

Snape continued to stare at him for a moment. Finally he looked around the room and noticed that many of the other members of the class were attired in weird looking clothes. None of them seemed as scantily clad as Draco though.

"Did you perhaps forget the lower half of your costume?" Snape was positive at this point that he must still be very very drunk and passed out in his private quarters. This was just some bad trip. Snape had a brief traitorous thought that this couldn't be worse than the one he'd had about Lockhart and whipped cream.

"No, see, this is a mini-skirt," Malfoy gestured at the pink thing clinging to his hips and not a whole lot else.

"That's not your belt?" Giggles spread quietly through the class at Snape's obvious discomfort.

Draco pouted, "Honestly, Professor. It's a skirt." Snape could have sworn he heard Granger mutter something about hookers and Malfoy's mother during the 80s but he wasn't sure, since his vision had been blurring quite nicely when she said it. And he really wasn't trusting his ears anymore.

"I was under the impression that most Muggle men wore pants."

"Well, those are a little too constricting for my taste." Again Snape could have sworn

he heard Granger mutter something about miniskirts being even more constrictive. Malfoy grinned maliciously and very nearly leered.

"Well, if you must know, it's..."

"Actually, no, I must not. In fact, it's quite imperative that you don't tell me," Snape managed to cut in before Draco could go into graphic details. He continued to mutter to himself, ignoring the hallucination of his class, "The entire school has gone stark raving mad. First Potter. Now Malfoy. Thank god this is an hallucination."

"Honestly, Professor Snape, Potter's loonier than Wendelin the Weird, I don't see why I can't be a tad bit crazy too."

Snape scowled as the comment brought back memories of the day before, "20 points from Gryffindor for letting Potter go crazy. Oh, and detention too."

When Snape had finally realized that he was actually sober again and that Malfoy and Potter weren't bad hallucinations they'd both been sent up to see Dumbledore. Not that they'd seen the Headmaster in the hour they'd been sitting there. Harry fidgeted uncomfortably in one of the chairs.

"Stop fidgeting, Potter. It's annoying," Draco said with a glare before reaching down to adjust himself.

"Would you kindly not touch yourself when I'm in the same room?" Harry said, ripping his eyes away from the sight.

"Can't help it, this damn skirt is bloody uncomfortable," Malfoy said with a sigh and sank back into the chair, his legs splayed out in front of him. Harry decided to stare fervently at a corner of wall that was located on the opposite side of the room from Draco.

"Well, if you'd wear normal Muggle clothes that weren't designed to be worn during se...." Harry trailed off suddenly as he noticed a little demon creeping out of one of the cabinets. It was an interesting shade of gray. Looked tasty. He grinned suddenly and pounced.

"Worn during what?" Malfoy asked with exasperation before freezing as Potter pounced. Thankfully not on him.

The demon was halfway to Harry's mouth when a voice interrupted them, "I really do hope you're not eating my dust demons, Harry. They're a rather nasty chalky taste." Dumbledore smiled with amusement when Harry dropped the demon with disgust. He made his way over to his desk and sat down, sighing as he relaxed into the chair. "So, my dear boys, what brings you both to my office today?"

"He's gone loony," both boys said and pointed at each other.

"No I haven't."

"Yes, you have!" They glared at each other.

"I see. It all becomes clear to me now," Dumbledore smiled again as they both looked at him in surprise.

"It does?"

"Of course, and there's only one thing to do," Dumbledore opened a drawer in his desk and rummaged around for a second. "Lemon drops anyone?"

"What are you talking about? That doesn't help at all!" Draco demanded as Harry simultaneously asked, "No thank you, but got any scrumptious demons?"

Draco turned and stared at Harry, "You. Are. Not. Helping."

Harry shrugged, "It didn't hurt to ask." He pouted.

End chapter 1.