Harry Potter and the Ring of Daemons Ô

By TOPGRRRL

Disclaimer: I am not or affiliated with J. K. Rowling, and am not being paid for this fic. Please do not sue me, for I have no money for you. I spent it all at the mall.

A/n: Okay, this is my second fic. I hope you like it. By the way, if you like this, and you want to see my other one (with 4 chapters) beware. I screwed up the chaptering thing pretty badly. The chapters are all out of order. If anyone comes up with a guide to chaptering in laywoman's terms, please send it to me! Okay, this is what happens in this fic. Harry wakes up one night to see these "shadow-creatures" outside his window. It looks to him like they are setting the school on fire, but they aren't. They are actually daemons who are working against Dumbledore for Lucius Malfoy, who is working for Cornelius Fudge, who refuses to believe that Voldemort, who is really in control of the daemons because Lucius is a Death Eater, has returned to power. Wow. That is the longest run-on sentence that I have ever written. My English teacher would be ashamed. But she's probably not reading this, so... On with the fic!

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Harry woke up on the first day of his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to the sound of crackling. He looked out his window, and saw three huge shadows, each wickedly bent out of shape, starting a fire! He couldn't make out the silhouettes, though, because it was so dark and he didn't have his glasses on. If only he had laser treatment! It would have been so easy to see. He woke up Ron, his snoring best friend to check if he could see what they were. Ron was so tired, that he didn't want to look and fell asleep again. After a while, Harry went back to sleep because the fire was put out. He wished he wasn't such a light sleeper. He wouldn't have to worry about the castle being put on fire.

The next day, Harry mentioned it to Hermione at breakfast. She hadn't seen it, although someone else in her dormroom had. She was very curious about it, and many others were, too. The other person who had seen the "fiery shadows" was Velda Winters, one who wasn't mentally stable, to put it lightly. When others heard she had seen them, they thought it was another one of her quirks. But when they heard that Harry had seen them, they were slightly worried. But then again, Harry had been wrong before in solving these "mysteries" before, he could have seen wrongly again. Especially without his glasses on. So they ignored it.

Harry knew that the shapes were real, and not a dream or a vision or something. He had felt the heat of the fire. He had chills down his back as he saw the creatures. He knew they were evil, almost as evil as Voldemort, for his scar burned slightly when he remembered them. Of course, when he told this to Ron and Hermione, they were worried about him. They thought he was crazy or sick, and Hermione suggested that he should see the school nurse.

Draco Malfoy and his two goons walked over to the Gryffindor table. "Oh boy. Here it comes," whispered Ron. Draco had a smirk on his face that Harry would just love to wipe off.

"So, Potter. Did the evil shadows scare you? No? Well, that's too bad. If they did, you could have run off to Dumbledore and asked for protection. Maybe they could stick you in a bubble and float you away. It would give all of us a great gift." Still smirking, Draco waited for Harry's retaliation.

Harry thought of a good one. "I wouldn't say that if I were you, because McGonagall is right behind you!" Malfoy turned to look, and was hit in the face with a chocolate cake! Fred and George had snuck into the kitchen to get the dessert for that night ahead of time, and were walking behind Malfoy. Harry hadn't timed it exactly, but the twins took the hint and were on cue. The result was that Malfoy was covered in sticky white frosting, and the whole of the Great Hall was laughing, even some of the teachers.

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Harry's first class was Defense Against the Dark Arts.

He was nervous about the new DADA teacher. She was supposedly an old Death Eater, according to the rumours and was still loyal to her old master. Harry knew this could be possible, because he had seen some women at his brief meeting with Voldemort the past year. He knew some of their names, but Voldemort did not address most of the women. He did not recognize the name on his schedule, but was still not relieved.

When he arrived at the classroom, the teacher did not look like a Death Eater. But he could never tell by outside appearance who was a Death Eater and who was not. Hermione and Ron soon followed him into the classroom, also worried about the teacher. She was pretty short, with long wavy blonde hair that sweeped the floor. She had bright blue eyes and full lips. She was very pretty, needless to say, and many boys in Harry's class were hanging on to her every word. Even Harry was sort of mesmerized by her. Hermione was starting to wonder if the teacher had veela blood in her, but she didn't think so. When she asked a question, every boy in the class raised their hand, even if they didn't understand what she had asked. At the end of the class all the girls were nearly in tears because their boyfriends or crushes had completely ignored them, and the boys had all decided to study DADA harder than usual.

At lunch, Harry, Ron and Hermione talked about their classes. Harry and Ron had Divination (UGG!) and Hermione had Arithmancy next period. Harry and Ron had an unspoken agreement to goof off as much as possible in Professor Trelawny's class. Just like always.

Harry hadn't gotten much sleep because of the shadow-creatures, and the foggy stuff in the Divination tower reminded him of his sleepiness. He almost fell asleep during History of Magic, but he did that all the time, so it wasn't very unusual.

Potions were like hell. Professor Snape was always tormenting Harry about how the snail eyes had to be crispy, not oily. Then Neville's cauldron blew up and slug juice blew everywhere. Snape took off 20 points from Gryffindor and made a special point at how Neville was Harry's friend. At least it was Harry's last class.

After Potions, Harry, Ron, and Hermione got washed up and had dinner. There was so much food, and Harry was starving from having to do so much work. After dinner, the trio finished their homework (a five-page essay on the importance of slug juice? Ugg!) and went to bed. Harry made sure he kept his glasses on in case the creatures showed up again.

After two hours, Harry woke up to the familiar crackling sound. He looked out the window and saw the creatures. He saw them with more detail and could tell just by appearance that they were evil. When he woke up the next morning, he looked in his DADA textbook and couldn't find their picture. When he asked Hermione about them, she didn't know what they were without a picture. She asked Harry to describe them, and he couldn't very well. Ron got Dean for them, and he drew a picture based on Harry's description.

"Well, they were red, and kinda hunched over, like...yeah, like that. And they had huge heads, like a caricature. And they had tails, too. No, skinnier tails, not like a dragon's. Yep, and there were three of them, in a circle around a fire, kinda like a meeting. That's them! Thanks, Dean." Dean turned his picture around to show it to Hermione. She gasped and mouthed the words, 'ring of daemons.'

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So, how did you like the first chapter? I hope so. This was just a tease, even though it was a long tease. We now know what the "shadow creatures" are really called, even though we have no clue what they are. Except for what I told you in my first A/n. This is also my first HTML version of a story. I like this way better. It gets out my creative side. If you have a Windows computer, you can write your fics in Microsoft Word (no plugs, just truth). Anyway, I hope you liked it. It took my about ten hours to type because I didn't save half of it and had to retype it. My advice? Press Ctrl S after each paragraph, or your computer kills your texts of art. Best wishes with your fics, and hopes that you liked my first chapter of about 3, TOPGRRRL