Harry Potter, Demon Magnet

Chapter 2:

It was just before Halloween when Harry met the King of All Scrumptious Demons. Harry was minding his own business at Quidditch practice when he noticed what seemed to be a giant flaming Bludger flying towards him. Instincts overrode any sense of curiosity and he dodged out of the way as it rocketed past him.

Harry blinked.

Was it his imagination or had that Bludger muttered, "Bugger, missed him," as it had whistled by? He definitely didn't remember Hooch mentioning anything about any of the new equipment talking. For that matter, he didn't remember anything about flaming equipment either. Unless you counted Malfoy, but that was a different matter entirely.

"Aiiieeeeeee, die Potter, die!" the thing screeched as it flew past him again. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Honestly, if you're going to attack me, at least try saying something original," he informed the flaming blob. "I hear that phrase a good 2 or 3 times a day, it's starting to get really old." The blob paused in the air in front of Harry for a moment, surprised.

"Oh, I see," it said. The flames died down a little bit revealing the flying mass of flame to in fact be a large Jack-o-Lantern. It chuckled uncertainly. "Well then. Got any suggestions for creative ways to attack you? I'm all out I'm afraid."

Harry just looked at the thing.

"Right. I'll just be going then, shall I?" the thing started to float off, looking rather lost. It came zooming back a moment later when it realized something. "Wait a second, I don't care if you hear 'die Potter, die' a million times a day! You will listen and tremble in fear before the awesome power of The Great and Powerful Pumpkinhead!" It paused dramatically, waiting for a reaction from Harry. When he just rolled his eyes again and started flying back towards the pitch the Great Pumpkinhead floated hurriedly after him, "Hey, wait up! Don't fly away when I'm talking to you!"

The thing floated hurriedly in front of Harry, forcing him to halt in mid air. "Where are you going? I wasn't done talking to you!" Harry smirked.

"To get a fork and knife. Pumpkin for desert sounds awfully tempting."

The Great Pumpkin blanched and the flames around it almost sputtered out entirely. "Now look here, that's just what I've come to talk to you about. You can't go around eating demons!"

"Why not? They're awfully yummy." Harry grinned unrepentantly as the demon pumpkin shuddered.

"Well, I'm sort of the defacto King of Demons around here and I say..." The Great Pumpkinhead trailed off at the look on Harry's face, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Why are you the defacto Demon King?"

"Because you ate the last 3 Kings. Which is why you can't just go around eating demons as you please!" the demon answered hotly.

"Then stop appearing! And definitely stop jumping in my mouth, that's just asking for it!"

"Keep your mouth shut like a good little straight boy then!"

"What makes you think straight boys keys their mouths shut?" Harry demanded, and then added after a moment's thought, "And what makes you think I'm not one of them?"

"Right and I'm Mary bloody Poppins."

Harry looked shocked for a moment, "You are? Woah! Nice disguise, I mean, I had no idea!"

The Great Pumpkinhead just sighed to itself.

"What? Was it something I said?" Harry looked adorably confused.

"Just keep telling yourself that, kid."

Afterwards Harry decided that The Great Pumpkinhead, defacto King of All Scrumptious Demons, was in fact one of the tastiest he'd ever eaten.

If Hermione Granger had been asked for one of the possible signs of the apocalypse, she might have muttered something about Malfoy exhibiting decent human qualities or Ron studying of his own volition. Doing research in the library with Professor Snape, voluntarily, while not an idea she would have come up with on her own, was definitely another one. It had all started when Snape had cornered her after a particularly demon filled lesson of Potions.

"What do you mean you don't know why he's suddenly started finding and eating demons?" Snape demanded, "Don't you do anything productive with all that time you spend in the library?"

"I would think that studying and homework could be considered productive, Professor," Granger bristled visibly as she continued to pick at her hair. One of the last demons, upon spotting Harry had screamed shrilly, wet itself and exploded all over Hermione, Snape and Ron. Bits of demon were worse than Muggle bubblegum to get out of one's hair.

"It obviously isn't helping with your potions work," Snape sneered before he managed to restrain himself. After a moment to calm back down, he asked his original question again, "Am I the only person who considers it odd that Potter has suddenly started consuming demons from where there were none before? For no apparent reason other than he can?"

Granger didn't say anything but gave Snape a surprised look. He rolled his eyes.

"I should have realized such observations would be lost on a Gryffindor," Snape snorted and turned to walk back to his desk.

"Well, if you must know, I was looking through Hogwarts, A History and noticed something odd," Granger said slowly, angry that she was telling Snape of all people what she'd discovered.

"Well? What is it?" he demanded when the girl paused for a moment.

"The book doesn't mention demons once." Granger looked up at Snape expectantly, like this was some world-shaking news.

"I fail to see how that helps, Granger. Unless you're making a list of useless books that have nothing to do with what I'm looking for, then by all means, expound to me about the lack of demons in the book."

Hermione glared.

"Look, the book goes on in detail about all the charms and protections of the castle. What creatures can and can't get into certain areas. It even mentions what subspecies of ghoul are allowed in certain dungeons and the reason one of them was banned from the prefect bathrooms back in 1873 because of a hexing..."

"Get to the point, Granger," Snape interrupted before the girl could launch into a full explanation. He could feel a headache hovering on the horizon like the impending doom of a class full of Gryffindors.

"Well, just that, if it's that specific, isn't it a bit odd that demons aren't mentioned once? In the entire book? Forget subspecies, the word 'demon' isn't even mentioned anywhere in the book. It's almost like it's been..." Hermione stopped abruptly as the realization dawned on her, she looked around quickly trying to spot either of her two friends.

Snape fought with and lost to the urge to roll his eyes for the second time in less than five minutes. If he hadn't been such a bitter and petty man, he might have smiled. "Five points from Gryffindor for taking so damn long to get the point."

Fawkes was not an overly patient phoenix as far as phoenixes went. On a ranking of the most impatient phoenix's since the dawn of time Fawkes was quite possibly 3^rd, but most likely 4^th on the list. The most impatient phoenix of course had been Bennu back in the old days of Egypt (this was before Egypt was Egypt and only a collection of a bunch of villages along the Nile). She'd been so impatient for morning she'd rise early each day (it caused all the rage among the other phoenixes who couldn't be bothered to get up until noon or later) and accidentally created a following of Muggles who'd believed she was the chosen bird of their silly sun god. Of course, when the crops had failed they'd thought it might be a good idea to sacrifice her to their god and that was the end of her early morning rising habits. The second of course had been Agenor, who'd been a bit of a king during his time (this was after Kings, but before it was passé to usurp them). He'd been so busy running around and being impatient he'd not even noticed when one of hi eggs had been stolen by a local Animagus. One day he'd been caught by a poacher and the term "cocktail" had taken on wholly new sinister meanings. The third had been Feng-huang, who'd gotten drunk one night with a dragon, lost a bet and nearly become the cosmos' bitch. Which left Fawkes with a pretty solid hold on the 4^th slot.

The fact that Fawkes wasn't originally a phoenix, of course, did hurt his reputation amongst the other birds some, but these days, who wasn't? If you weren't some poor fool who'd been tricked by an evil witch, you were suffering from a family curse or paying for grievous sins. And of course there was always that poor bugger of a phoenix that got trapped in a magical book. The only real phoenix he knew of that was still around was off in Russia consorting with some Muggle.

It had been almost 6 months since Harry had discovered his demon attracting powers and he still hadn't realized their full meaning or potential. Fawkes was starting to get really annoyed. If the silly boy didn't hurry up (Fawkes was slowly closing in on the 3^rd position in the list) and bother to find out why he had this newfound power Fawkes might have to intervene again (the first time, during Harry's second year, had solidified Fawkes' position in 4^th).

One of Dumbledore's infernal cleaning demons skittered across the table in front of the phoenix, distracting him from his impatient train of thought. Fawkes clicked his beak disapprovingly and stomped on the ugly thing. The damn demons were everywhere these days. Fawkes really was going to have to do something. Finally giving up all pretenses of patience (and thus passing Feng-huang for 3^rd), Fawkes shook himself a little and took off in search of the Boy Who Needed a Clue. The phoenix paused slightly as he caught a glimpse of a crane and wires above him as he started to fly out of Dumbledore's office. He blinked and the image was gone. They always said the vision was the first thing to go (this was after They had started making such claims, but before anyone had figured out just who They were).

Fawkes found Harry shortly after, just as he was packing up his things from Divination with Ron. The rest of the class stopped and gawked as the majestic bird landed on Harry's desk and pecked at his hair.

"What's wrong, Fawkes?" Harry asked, looking up at the bird with concern, "Did something happen?" The other students whispered amongst themselves at Harry's completely unfazed attitude towards Fawkes.

Fawkes nodded and stared at Harry with its beady eyes. Harry blinked slightly then seemed to lose himself in the phoenix's eyes. They continued to stare at each other for several minutes, oblivious to the rest of the world.

The rest of the class fell into a mostly uncomfortable silence as they watched Harry and Fawkes continue to stare into each other's eyes. Professor Trelawney looked up at the sudden silence and let out a soft gasp at the sight of the phoenix. After several minutes Ron cleared this throat. The boy and the bird continued to stare. Occasionally Fawkes would shift slightly, obviously trying to convey something to Harry. Finally, Ron edged over and nudged Harry in the ribs softly.

Harry jumped and looked around, his eyes coming back into focus. Fawkes nodded to himself and started to take off.

"What was that all about, Harry?"

"What was what about?" Harry asked, looking confused and slightly dazed. Fawkes paused and waited to see if Harry had understood what he'd been trying to say.

"The staring contest you just got into with Fawkes," Ron prompted.

"Oh, I have no idea, Fawkes just has really interesting looking eyes. They're rather distracting," Harry said in a perfectly calm voice, indicating he wasn't trying to be funny. Fawkes clicked his beak in annoyance, this wasn't going well at all.

Parvati rushed forward, "It's a sign, Harry! The Headmaster's phoenix has come down to give you a sign about the future!"

"No, not really," Harry said, uncertainly, "It probably just means Dumbledore wants to see me or that Fawkes was really bored. Right, Fawkes?" Harry turned towards the phoenix and looked at him expectantly. Fawkes shook his head vigorously to the negative, going to Dumbledore was the last thing he wanted.

"See! See!" Parvati exclaimed breathlessly, "It's come to give you a sign about the future, right Professor?"

Professor Trelawney smiled benevolently down at the Patil twin, "Of course, my dear, you are right. A phoenix is the bird of prophecy, visions that come from phoenixes are especially potent."

Ron snickered slightly when he noticed Fawkes rolling his eyes. Trelawney's glare snapped towards him at the sound and he fell silent quickly.

"Maybe we can guess what he's trying to tell us?" Ron suggested and was almost immediately mauled by the overly enthusiastic bird. Fawkes fluttered back across the desk and looked around. Once Fawkes was sure he had everyone's attention he did his best to act out what he was trying to convey. After a good minute of watching the bird gyrate about, Harry hazarded a guess.

"Dumbledore's fallen down a well and you need us to come rescue him?" Harry asked. Both Ron and Fawkes gave him funny looks. Obviously the Boy Who Lived had been eating too many demons for his own good.

"Something's happened and you don't want Dumbledore to know?" Neville's timid voice suggested from the back of the lump of students.

Fawkes nodded vigorously and started trying to pantomime out squashing little demons.

"Uh...square dancing?" Harry suggested; trying to figure out exactly the phoenix was doing by hoping about like it was.

"Bizarre mating rituals of demons?" Harry turned to look at Ron, his eyebrows raised. Ron shrugged defensively, "It was the first thing that came to mind." Fawkes waved his wings frantically at the mention of demons, which Ron misinterpreted. "See! I was right! Blimey. But what do a demon's mating rituals have to do with Dumbledore not knowing about something? Gross, are the demons mating now? I could see how Dumbledore'd not want to know, if that's the case. Come to think of it, I don't want to know either. Think Hermione'd Memory Charm me if I asked her, Harry?"

The remaining members of the class discussed it for a moment as Fawkes became even more agitated. This was not going well at all. If Dumbledore found out he had been trying to get Harry onto the right track he was going to be in a world of hurt very soon, but if he didn't the boy wouldn't have a chance.

Fawkes pecked at Harry's hair to return his attention to the subject at hand but Neville interjected again before he could say anything, "Maybe it's got something to do with Snape?"

Everyone turned to Neville in surprise, Fawkes included. He flushed. "Well, Snape does seem like the demon type? And I..." He trailed off and flushed further. "I don't think he," Neville's voice dropped to a whisper, "would ever have sex with a woman."

Harry pictured Snape in the Boggart's dress with the vulture hat and found himself shaking his head. "Well, as much as I agree with the sex part, he's not a demon."

"You've checked, have you?" Harry frowned at Ron's question.

"That's really disgusting, Ron."

"And demon mating rituals aren't?"

Fawkes pecked at Harry's ear again, this time a little more viciously. The longer he stayed here the more likely someone, namely Dumbledore, would notice that he'd left his perch in the office.

"Professor," Lavender began in a slightly breathless tone as Parvati nudged her silently, "perhaps you could try and divine what cosmic message the phoenix is trying to tell us." Fawkes snorted but was completely ignored as Trelawney smiled and whipped out a crystal ball from somewhere inside her desk. Ron and Harry groaned in unison.

The Divinations Professor stared deeply into her crystal ball for several seconds before flinging herself back into her chair dramatically. The first words out of Trelawney's mouth as she straightened back up were, "Death! There is death coming!" She pointed her finger at Harry almost accusingly. Fawkes flew over to the next desk and landed between Harry and Trelawney. He was really starting to get annoyed. Was no one paying attention to anything he was trying to tell them?

Harry rolled his eyes, "Have you not noticed the large number of demons I've been eating recently? Unless they suddenly stop appearing then of course there's death coming." Fawkes hobbled over towards Harry and moved about in a very agitated manner trying to indicate Harry was almost on the right track.

"Wow," Dean marvelled. "He sort of looks like he's doing a partnerless lambada."

"No," Seamus broke in, "It's the electric slide!" If Fawkes had still had hands he would have been pulling out his hair by that point, instead he burst into flame and incinerated into a little pile of ashes. With one great gush of flame Fawkes firmly cemented his spot as the most impatient phoenix of all time.

The last thing he heard before the flames engulfed him was the voice of one of the girls saying, "You were right, Professor, death was coming!"

To Be Continued.