I know it's been ages since I updated I was feeling uninspired and didn't want to post anything crappy but I have good news! I actually have A PLOT! And an (extremely rough) OUTLINE! FOR THIS FIC! (bounces) Do you realize how rare it is for me to actually PLAN OUT a fic and not just BS my way through it until it's time for it to end?? So, although it took me a bit to actually get to writing this chapter, I HAVE been doing a good deal of work on this fic as a whole over the last few weeks. I've even decided who the new DADA teacher is going to be! But you aren't going to meet him or her until either chapter eight (if I'm feeling friendly) or chapter nine (if I'm feeling eeeevil). Anyway, I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to that. I own Ethan, and I own Ruhún. ;-) Some of Fawkes's dialogue has been edited to preserve the PG-13 rating. Just know that anything in brackets like [this] isn't quite what he said.

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Fawkes was actually nicer to Ruhún than Ethan could have hoped or even really thought possible. Clearly, the phoenix was on his best behavior.

Midway through a conversation on what their next move would be, Fawkes stiffened on his perch and hissed something rude under his breath.

"What is it?" Ethan asked, frowning at the bird.

"Dumblebum wants something back in a tick." With a whoosh and a burst of flame, the phoenix disappeared.

"What just happened?" Ruhún stared wide-eyed at the now slightly scorched back of the bench Fawkes had been perched on.

"No idea though he did say he'd be back soon." Ethan looked with increased nervousness at the still-thinning crowd of shoppers. With Fawkes gone, he had no real way to defend himself or even know what was really going on. Sure, he was technically a part of this world, but that didn't mean he was familiar with it. He felt very trapped, despite the open air and pleasant atmosphere.

Before Ethan could worry any more, Fawkes reappeared, looking irritated. "Looks like we're not done shopping after all," the bird grumbled. "We have to get you a trunk for all of your things and a broom."

"A broom?" Ethan's eyes widened. "You mean, like the riding kind?"

"Of course the riding kind! You're the main character, not a bloody janitor!" The bird hacked a few times, making Ruhún flinch. Ethan was used to it by now.

"But I've never flown before you might as well buy me a car, for all the use it'll be!"

"Oh, you'll be a natural," Fawkes snapped impatiently. "Anyway, you need a way to get to the train station."

"The train station?"

"Did I stutter?" The phoenix produced yet another cigarette from somewhere and promptly lit up. Ruhún was swiveling his head back and forth to watch the argument, having little idea what was going on.

"Why would I need to go to the train station? I thought we were just going to go back to Hogwarts."

"You're the main character, and you're going to ride the bloody train like everyone else. It's how you make friends a bonding sort of thing." The phoenix exhaled a thin stream of smoke in the general direction of a baby, and Ethan sat on his hands to keep from smacking the bird's beak.

"So let me get this straight," Ethan said slowly, "I buy a trunk and a broom, put my things in the trunk and lash it all to the broom or something, somehow manage to fly the broom to the train station without either being seen by muggles or plummeting to my death, and then ride the train back to Hogwarts?"

"That's about it." Fawkes flicked the cigarette at a passing wizard, missed, and swore loudly.

"When I could, you know, theoretically just hop on the broom and go straight back to Hogwarts."

"Preeeeecisely." Fawkes coughed.

"That seems stupid." Ethan said flatly.

"Welcome to the world of magic, kid."

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Twenty minutes later, Ethan had procured a medium-sized black trunk just large enough to hold his things and a broom Fawkes had insisted was state-of-the-art. It had been in its own window display, on sale for 45% off, and covered in a generous layer of dust. Ethan had found the look of it slightly disconcerting he couldn't quite say why, but something about the broom made him nervous.

"I'm serious, kid this baby is one-of-a-kind!" Fawkes nodded at the broom, which was leaning against the fully-packed trunk.

"Why was the shopkeeper so eager to get rid of it, then?" Ethan asked, looking dubiously at the broom. It was gray with a stick that looked a bit too gnarled to be comfortable, and the twigs were cruelly thin frankly, Ethan though it looked like a broom you would beat someone with, not something you would ride around for fun.

"Well, it's unique you know, most wizards couldn't handle a broom like this. But I have faith in you, kid. You'll make me proud."

Ethan stared at Fawkes for a long moment. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing's wrong with it! It's a bloody good broom!"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Eh, fine." Fawkes ruffled his feathers. "It was made from a branch off the Whomping Willow."

"What?!?!" Ethan hissed, taking a step backwards. "Fawkes, it'll kill me!"

"Will not!" Fawkes said indignantly. "Firstly, you're the main character! Wouldn't be much of a bloody story if you died six chapters in, would it?! And secondly, it isn't you who'll have to worry, it's anyone else who gets within ten feet of you while you're in the air. It'll make a great Quidditch broom any player gets too close, and BAM! Heh heh heh" Fawkes's snickering degenerated into a nasty coughing fit.

"Who says I'm even going to play Quidditch?" Ethan shook his head. "I'm taking it back."

"Shopkeeper wouldn't have it back for anything, kid. You're stuck with it," Fawkes said with a shrug after he had finished hacking. "Might as well get used to it. Climb on, give it a try!"

"I've never flown before, and now you want me to hop up on the equivalent of a a bucking bronco?!" Ethan shook his head furiously. "I can't believe you, Fawkes!"

"Oh, quit whining and get on the damn broom," Fawkes said, grabbing the trunk in his talons. "We're going to be late for the train!"

"I thought it left in the early morning," Ethan said, looking pointedly at a clock tower that read half past eleven.

"Well, they leave later now so the trains and passengers can all be thoroughly checked for bombs," Fawkes said, lifting the trunk into the air. "Now just throw your leg over that puppy and kick off so we can go, eh?"

"Right," Ethan said, looking nervously at the broom. He held a hand over it like he had seen them do in the first movie and said, "UP!" Only he was nervous and not too eager to fly, so it came out more like, " up?"

Despite his less-than-eager command, the broom snapped up into his hand with startling alacrity, giving the boy several splinters. Ethan winced, then threw a leg over the broom. To his surprise, it didn't feel like he was balancing precariously on a thin and rather knobby shaft of wood, it felt as if he were settling onto a flat cushion. Well, that was a relief, at least. It was bad enough that he had splinters in his hand.

"Erm good luck, then," Ruhún said, hurriedly leaving his perch on Ethan's shoulder and circling a safe distance away.

"Thanks," Ethan said weakly, then shut his eyes and kicked off.

The broom had been sitting on the shelf for a good long while, and was more than eager to get into the air. Ethan found himself hurling upward at what must have been at least 60 miles per hour, clinging desperately to the broomstick and screaming bloody murder.

"See, kid?" Fawkes shouted from a good distance below the young wizard. "Isn't it great?"

"I HATE YOU FAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHHH!!!" Ethan was forced to wrap his legs around the broom as it did several gleeful barrel rolls. For what was probably only a minute but felt like longer, the broom swooped in crazy arcs through the air with Ethan clinging to it for dear life, Diagon Alley a shrinking, whirling blur beneath them. Finally, after a particularly enthusiastic loop-the-loop, the broom settled into a more or less horizontal position, with Ethan perched, trembling, on the top.

"Are you all right?" Ruhún flapped up, huffing slightly at the vertical climb.

"Never been better," Ethan squeaked in a voice several octaves higher than normal. He gingerly pried one hand off of the broomstick, shook it out, and then repeated the process with the other hand.

"You see? I told you you'd be a natural! Didn't I tell you?" Fawkes hovered a healthy distance away, still clutching the trunk.

"A natural?!" Ethan glared at the bird. "All I did was hold on!"

"And that's all there is to it," Fawkes said evenly. "Now come on, the station's this way don't follow too close, now, I don't fancy a tail-full of twigs"

Ethan leaned forward slightly, and the broom carried him forward at a surprisingly decent pace. The boy silently marveled at its cooperative tendencies all the way to the station, the only mishap occurring when a duck flew too close and the broom swished at it violently, forcing Ethan to hold on tight to keep from being unseated. Ruhún and Fawkes wisely stayed at least twenty feet away from it at all times.

They reached the station fairly quickly, especially considering the fact that Ethan was a far cry from a confident flyer and tended to poke along, much to Fawke's frustration ("That broom can go from zero to sixty in nothing flat, and you're going what, fifteen, tops?! Why didn't you just buy a bicycle?! I've seen a bloody dirigible go ten times faster than this!"). The (by that time) very irritable phoenix directed Ethan to land in a dark alleyway near the station. Ethan managed to land without too much difficulty, and tumbled gratefully off of the Whomping Broomstick. A short trot down a sidewalk later and they were amongst the crowds in King's Cross station.

Ethan was profoundly grateful for the movies at this point. He managed to find the barrier between platforms nine and ten fairly quickly, which was a very good thing. He had been getting lots of strange looks from the muggles, which wasn't really surprising. He had Ruhún on one shoulder, the bird's beak buried bashfully under Ethan's ear; Fawkes was perched on the other with a freshly lit cigarette in his beak, unconcerned with the suspicious murmurs of passerby. In one hand, Ethan carried the trunk, and in the other was the nasty-looking broom. The trunk was considerably heavier than the broom as well, causing the boy to walk with a jolting, lop-sided gait. To top it all off, he had the broom tightly tucked under his arm in an attempt to prevent it from whacking muggles who got too close, and wasn't entirely successful. Several people had had their legs whomped smartly, and one businessman had his briefcase swiped from his grasp and sent skittering along the concrete. A uniformed man was heading purposefully in the boy's direction before he passed through the barrier to relative safety.

On the other side of the barrier was a chatting crowd of witches and wizards of all ages. For a moment it looked like an unorganized mob, but after a second glance Ethan realized that they were really in a long, winding, roped-off line; the kind you would see in front of a particularly popular ride at a theme park. The line zig-zagged its way to the Hogwarts Express, where an elderly wizard was standing, flanked by two large thugs in robes.

"See what I mean?" Fawkes said, taking a leisurely drag as the elderly wizard waved his wand and turned a young girl's suitcase transparent, revealing an issue of Cosmo. The young witch's mother lightly whacked her sulking daughter's arm, and the magazine was removed and incinerated. No one got past without having their bags checked. Checking the people themselves was much simpler; all the old wizard had to do was point his wand at the passenger, say, "Accio, bomb!" and wait to see if anything happened. Several boys wound up groaning in dismay as their dungbombs were confiscated.

"You wouldn't think the magical world would be worried about terrorists," Ethan remarked quietly as one of the thugs cracked his knuckles. Ethan silently prayed that his broom would behave itself in line.

"Terrorists?!" Fawkes laughed raspily. "We call them Death Eaters, kid. Security's been upped since Voldemort came back."

"But would Death Eaters use bombs? I mean, they have magic," Ethan said.

"Exactly. So bombs would be the last thing you'd expect. Plus, it's something they can actually search for, so they feel like they're accomplishing something." Fawkes tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette idly.

The line moved sluggishly along, and Ethan found himself standing across the rope from a boy who looked to be about his age, with light chestnut hair and hazel eyes that stared through the crowds in a bored but not unfriendly way. Figuring that it was about time he talked to someone who wasn't covered in feathers, Ethan cleared his throat. "Um, hey."

The boy blinked his eyes back into focus and smiled at Ethan. "Well, hello. Are you a first-year, too?"

"Yeah," Ethan smiled back. "My name's Ethan Williams."

"I'm Nicholas Timbrell, and" the boy trailed off as he looked at Fawkes, his eyes widening in awe, "is that a phoenix?" Fawkes halted his cigarette halfway through it's journey to his beak and looked over at the word "phoenix," but decided rather quickly that nothing of importance had been said and went back to smoking pensively.

"Uh, yeah. This is Fawkes, actually." Ethan jiggled his shoulder for emphasis, causing Fawkes to drop his cigarette.

"Damn it, kid!" Fawkes glared at Ethan. "What the bloody hell was that for?! That cigarette had two good puffs left, and now it's on the bleedin' ground! Thanks a whole [fork]ing lot for that!"

"You weren't setting a good example," Ethan hissed back. Nicholas's eyes just about bulged out of his head.

"You're a parrotmouth?"

"Oh!" Ethan turned back to the boy, looking a bit ashamed. "Yeah. You wouldn't believe the mouth this one's got." Ethan nodded at Fawkes, and Nicholas let out a short "huh!" that seemed a combination of amusement and wonder.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Fawkes said bitterly. "Lord knows I was put here to amuse you God, I hate my life, and I don't even get to look forward to it ending"

Before the boys could continue their conversation, the line moved again, sending them off in opposite directions. Five minutes later, they were across from one another again.

"So what's that like for you, being able to understand birds and all?" Nicholas asked curiously, frowning slightly as Fawkes let out a string of nasty coughs.

"It's not too bad, usually," Ethan said, stopping himself from shrugging and unseating his two passengers at the last minute. "But I've found out some things I'd rather not know."

"Like what?"

"Well, like that phoenix song has the nastiest lyrics in the world, for one," Ethan said. Fawkes cackled unpleasantly.

"Get out!" Nicholas's eyes widened. "But phoenix song is famous!"

"I know that's what makes it so wrong."

Ethan meandered his way down the line for about half an hour, talking with Nicholas on and off, before he finally reached the old wizard and his bodyguards. The wizard's very bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise when he looked at Ethan, and his wrinkles rearranged themselves into an apologetic smile.

"Sorry to trouble you, young man, but I have my orders to search absolutely everyone."

"It's no trouble," Ethan assured him, gratefully setting down the trunk. He could feel his broom trembling slightly, and clamped it tightly to his side to stop it from whacking anyone. A quick search and no bombs later, he was allowed to enter the train. He was staring down the corridor in something like despair when Nicholas poked his head out of a compartment and waved at him.

"No bombs then, Ethan?" the boy grinned.

"They're in my shoes; don't tell anyone," Ethan said, rolling his eyes and lugging his trunk and broom over while Nicholas laughed. He tucked the broom up in an overhead storage compartment before it could get any good swipes in and jammed his trunk under the seat. Fawkes looked around at the absence of decent perches, informed Ethan that he would see him at the castle, and disappeared in another burst of flame. Ethan had to spend a solid minute assuring Nicholas that it was perfectly normal.

It took another fifteen minutes for everyone to board. Ethan sat across from Nicholas, next to the window, and looked out at the crowded platform. Soon he would be on his way to Hogwarts well, on his way back to Hogwarts, he thought with an excited little thrill. And he had a friend who wasn't a bird! Things were definitely looking up.

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There! Whew! Sorry again about the huge delay, everyone I'll try to get back on track.

Satara: Hahaha every story needs an Ed. ;-)

Lady LifeCharm: Yay, glad I brightened your day! Hope you liked this chapter!

Meee: Well, it's going to be more of him being special solely because he's the main character, if you follow me.

Anamaria Elentari: Hehe, don't beat yourself up I hardly ever sign in unless I'm updating something and I have to. Glad you didn't mind the slight mushiness.

HPLadyBelle: Welcome to the fic! There's a sequel to Barry Trotter?!?! (fangirl squeal) And if there is a similarity between the chapter titles and the song titles, it isn't on purpose. I only own the POA soundtrack, actually well, I also have the SS one, but it's a burned copy so I dunno any of the titles. :-P

QuiryWriter: Why, thank you! (blushes) If he starts going one way or the other, let me know.

Tazzmania Tygar: I think the Mockfest is going to go down in history as the high point of my fanfiction career, hehehe. Give Ethan a chance, he's cool, too.

Scap: It's okay, I totally understand.

Witch of Darkness: (salutes back) Thankee kindly! :-P So many compliments packed into a little review I'm both honored and impressed!

Skimbleshanks, the Railway CAT: Glad you liked the little details. And since I have a Mac, to make that accent mark I first hold down the option key and press e, and then release both and hit u. Hehehe not hit you, though. (begins giggling uncontrollably) Wheeee it's way too late for me to be up.

Alassea2: Plastic, 15 inches, battery! (cracks up) Excellent! And HP and the gang are in their sixth year.

The Weaseling Dragon: And now I've gone and updated again! I'm a wild thing! Maybe after this one I'll write a ficlet for Fawkes.

morph: Wow, thanks!! By recommending, do you mean clicking that little "recommend this story to others" button below your review? What does that button do, exactly? Anyway, thanks; I'm really flattered. :D Yes, he will meet Harry and you will see who the DADA teacher is, hehehe.

Phaidra: Glad you'll enjoy the Harry bashing. He's going to be quite the snot in this fic should be interesting. ;-) And I'm doing reviewer responses because the number of reviews for this one hasn't been as overwhelming as it has for the Sequel. If this becomes outrageously popular and I start getting more responses than I can handle, I may stop but I'll try to keep responding!

Aindel S. Druida: Yeah, you haven't to be careful with mersheep they'll eat anything.

Spoofmaster: Why, thanks! It means a lot coming from a comedic genius. ;-)

TheSiriusSparrow: Thanks! Hehehe, Fawkes is going to have his own little fanclub by the time this is over! :-P

szhismine: Oh, he'll meet Harry, all right. ;-)

Pointy Ears Are My Thing: I know how that is.

Kathryn Bushore: Yay! Hehe, thanks!

Batgirl Beyond: It's okay, nothing wrong with being excited. Glad you're enjoying it!

Syth Colbalt: Thanks! What happened to your spin-offs? :-(

Fuji the Hobbit: I think I'm going to try and keep Ruhún pure. If there were more than one bird acting like Fawkes, you wouldn't appreciate Fawkes's nastiness as much. ;-) Yay, cookie!!! Thanks!

Rachel the Insane Unicorn: You come up with the best names, man Edmund (giggles). I don't know why, but you saying FRIEND in a creepy monster voice made me laugh REALLY hard. Hope you enjoyed the site!

awkward: I had altogether too much fun writing the wand sceneI think it's bad when I cackle aloud as I type.

Ember the angry Firedrake: Yeah, that wouldn't be a good wand for classes, especially Charms.

FrighteninglyObsessed: MERSHEEP! Hehehehehe!

Katie115: Well I don't want to say anything about the DADA teacher, or I'll give it away. ;-)

Hirilnara: (patiently awaits a new Academy chapter) Anyway, thanks! Yeah, Fawkes is starting to calm down a bit he had a lot of pent-up anger. Good luck job hunting!

Vanyaria Darkshadow: Firstly, sorry about the monster delay. It shouldn't be this bad again! Secondly, thanks so much for the huge and luverly review! Yours always make me smile and improve my day! I don't think this is one of my best chapters, but I hope it'll suffice and do try to read Barry Trotter get it from the library if you must. It's a SCREAM. You think I corrupt the wizarding world anyway, thanks again!

Laire: Hahaha it does, doesn't it? Oh well. :-P Gandalf's line cracked me up; thanks for that! ;-) Hehehehe and I have no clue when Nigel will be updated. Wish I did, man, I wish I did

Thanks for all of the reviews!! You all get the dungbombs that the old wizard confiscated! Use them well!

-Platy