All of it owned by JK Rowling except Phoenix and the new kids
6
It was the third week of October when Phoenix did something drastic.
For a few weeks Liz had been coming into the tower dishiveled and with a tearstreaked face after dinner, and after everyone else had come up. Phoenix decided to find out what was going on to make her friend so upset.
Phoenix sat next to Liz at dinner, chatting amiably with the Muggle-born girl. And when Liz slipped off after dessert, Phoenix waited a moment before following her outside.
Liz walked slowly to a small room. Inside was Draco Malfoy, flanked by two thugs of his Phoenix noticed he dragged around the school with him.
"You're late, Mudblood," Draco drawled.
Phoenix bristled from outside the door.
"I-I'm sorry," Liz stuttered.
"Immobilius!" the blonde boy laughed.
Withou looking, Phoenix knew Liz was frozen into a statue.
"Chicaposi!"
The Itching Curse? Phoenix puzzled. The she got it. The Itching Curse made the victim want to scratch desprately, and the Immobilization Jinx would stop Liz from being able to scratch. She always had thought of Draco as something of a bugger.
Phoenix slipped into the doorframe, unnoticed. Then she pointed her wand at Liz and said "Finite Incantem!"
Liz fell onto the floor.
"Don't do that again," Phoenix said quietly, eyes scarlet. "I'll find out."
"And do what?" Draco sneered.
"You know perfectly well what I'll do to you. But just as a little sampler…gelligusia! Thoribrias! Exnayius!" She jinxed Draco and the flanking boys each in turn.
Draco shouted something Phoenix couldn't quite understand. But then again, she had never learned pig-Latin.
"Let's go Liz," she laughed.
***
She heard more reports from Chris about Voldemort, more people dying. She began to wonder how she would stand against the evil wizard. She knew she was powerful, but with tales of Voldemort's power, she began to panic slightly.
Phoenix's biggest shock came on the last day of the term, right before most students were going home,
although Phoenix was staying. Professor McGonagall was watching them turn ear muffs into fuzz balls, and Phoenix, already
done, was dozing quietly as the rest of the class struggled with their muffs.
"Miss Argent!" McGonagall barked in her ear. Phoenix jumped, and the rest of the class turned to look. Liz giggled.
"Step outside, please." The please sounded like an after-thought.
McGonagall shut the door quietly behind them. "Phoenix Argent, I have noticed you seem to be finding this all rather
simple. Do you find your Transfiguration assignments easy?"
"Well, yes, a little," Phoenix had been dreading something like this since the first day of school.
"Show me what you can do, please. I would like to know the full extent of your talents."
Phoenix figured that she might as well show what she could do. She waved her wand and pointed at the clips holding
up the teacher's hair. Each one turned into a small, crimson dragonfly. McGonagall looked shocked.
"Is there anything else, Miss Argent?"
"Well, yes, I suppose." She pointed her wand again, this time right at McGonagall. She waved it, and the Professor
became an owl, flapping among the still hovering group of dragonflies.
It took a moment for the owl to turn back. "My! I haven't had anyone do that to me since I was a seventh year!"
McGonagall told her, looking shocked. "How on earth do you manage to do that?"
"Well…I just kind of want something to be something, focus what I want to change, and it just, well, does." That was
actually precisely true—It was what she told Riddle and how she changed things.
"Miss Argent, you have an extraordanary talent. I don't think anything I could give you would be much of a challenge
to you." Then her eyes lit up, "Unless…Miss Argent, how would you like me to teach you to become an Animagus?"
"What's that?" Phoenix asked, looking nervously at her teacher.
"A witch or wizard who can turn into an animal at will. If you want to, come back tommorow around nine and I'll tell
you a bit more."
"Yeah, I'd love to try it, sure."
"Wonderful. Now go back to your seat, Miss Argent, and don't tell anyone about this."
Phoenix sat down, elated. Chris bent over and asked her, "What was that about?"
"Nothing, I'm not in trouble."
Chris smiled. "Cool," she said, "But can you help me with these ear muffs?"
****
Phoenix slid into Professor McGonagall's room precisely on time. She had been waving goodbye to her friends as
they boarded the Hogwarts Express home for Christmas. Only Tam and the Avin twins had stayed out of the first years.
Panting, she skidded to a halt in front of McGonagall's desk, and looked around for the teacher but saw only a tabby cat and
an enormous black dog, both looking at her.
"Professor McGonagall?" She asked the cat tenatively, "Is that you?"
Both animals transformed into humans. The cat was McGonagall, the dog was Professor Black.
"Hello, Phoenix," Black greeted, "I'll be helping McGonagall teach you about Animagi and becoming an Animagi."
"Well, let's get started. Becoming an Animagi requires getting a few things that aren't normally on hand, but we have
them. The law says we should report you doing this to the Ministry of Magic, but as we are engaged in a minor dispute with
major factions of the ministry, we think it would be best to not register you."
"It'll do that pompous windbag Fudge good not to get everything handed to him, too," Black added.
"The first thing you need to do is complete the potion Professor Black and I have brewed. A phoenix feather, a
dragon's scale, and a unicorn tail hair. These ingredients have been added to a potion with cat and dog hairs, and a bird's
feather. You need to put in three of you own hairs, and stir it thirteen times, counterclockwise."
"Then," Black said, "You draw a pentagram, we studied those already, and put yourself inside. Then you say the
spells, and we'll see what you become. The first few minutes are hard, when you bind with the animal minds around you."
Phoenix turned to the potion she had just noticed in the corner. It was blindingly white. She pulled three hairs and put
them in under the teacher's watchful eyes. Then she stirred, and the potion became pure gold.
When the pentagram was complete, and she was inside, she looked to the teachers. McGonagall handed her a slip of
paper, and Phoenix read,
"Animals magic,
Witches magic,
Phoenix, dragon,
Unicorn magic.
Animal sides to my heart,
Witches sides to my heart,
The phoenix and dragon,
And unicorn sides to my heart—
Let them come toghether."
Then she was shrinking, growing smaller and smaller. She looked at herself, and saw downy, feathery masses,
indicating she was a bird. In the mirror Professor Black had picked up, she saw she was a brown merlin with lighter golden
streaks.
With a wave of sensation, she became aware of the network of birds everywhere. Hundreds of owls, starlings and
sparrows on the grounds, and the mind of a bird-lord in the very castle. The animal part of her heard a whole web of
birds—all the avians in the castle and on the grounds. She felt most acutely the bird-lord, a phoenix, which was coming out of
a window and gliding—it was coming to her!
Phoenix checked in with her human part. She hadn't known there was a phoenix in the castle. She felt it coming, and
saw it glide in the open window. It came and sat in the pentagram with her, and the phoenix stared at her.
"That's Fawkes," McGonagall cried, "What's he doing here? He normally stays in Dumbledore's office."
Fawkes, if that was the phoenix's name, stared at the merlin as though confused by this creature that was a bird, but
different from his other subjects.
"Fawkes must be confused by Phoenix, look. He can't understand how she seems to be a bird, but has a human
mind. Turn back, Phoenix, let Fawkes know what you really are."
She popped back into her human body, and Fawkes gave a trill of understanding. Phoenix stared at Fawkes, it was
the first phoenix she had ever seen. It had crimson wings, with gold tip feathers and a gold tail. Fawkes was the size of a
large and beautiful swan, its crest brushed below her hips and the tail curled in a radient plume.
"So, am I an Animagus now?" Phoenix asked the teachers.
"Yes, everything seems to have gone right. What type of bird were you, by the way?"
"A merlin, Professor," she told McGonagall, "A hunting bird."
"Ah, well, see if you can do that again, just to make sure."
Fawkes took a step back when Phoenix turned into a merlin. She looked back at him, and noticed he was very big
from a merlin's point of view.
"Wonderful, Phoenix. You've done something very few people ever try in their lives. Oh, by the way, don't tell
anyone about this. It might come in handy to keep it a secret." Black beamed at her, "And if you want to take a test flight out
of here, go ahead. I think there's always a window open in Gryffindor Tower, and Fawkes will be your escort."
Phoenix chirped and sailed out the window. She flapped pathetically, flying was harder than she'd thought. And so
tiring, to keep flapping. She looked at Fawkes, who wasn't having any trouble. Can you help me, Fawkes? she asked in
her head. Somehow she felt so connected to birds as a merlin that she thought she could probably talk to them.
Fawkes trilled behind her. In her head she was suddenly shown an easier way. The crimson bird told her to glide,
and catch currents of air instead of battling with
them. She got the hang of it quickly,
gave an appriciatve cry, and set off for the Tower.