Harry-Sue, Chapter Two

After just over a month of Phoenix's company, one would think that things couldn't have gotten worse for Harry Potter -- Hermione wouldn't speak to him when Phoenix was around read: always, and for that matter, Ron wasn't able to form a coherent sentence within a fifty-foot radius of the girl. Phoenix's unrequited attention to Harry gained either lofty smirks or jealous glares in the halls, or sent Cho running to the bathrooms to cry; and for all this, she simply had to be incredibly annoying.

One would think, yes. But it gets worse than this...

Harry had noticed that lately, the very fundamentals that made his life at Hogwarts what it was seemed to be reshaping themselves to fit Phoenix. Peeves hid at the sight of her, she had turned McGonagall and Snape all simpering and soft, but for the homework they gave that she finished in an instant, defying all laws of nature, and -- horror of horrors -- she had an MP3 player on Hogwarts grounds that supposedly ran on magic. She used this weapon to force Harry to constantly listen to sappy emo love songs, during which she tried to gaze into his eyes and sigh deeply as they shared a pair of those annoying ear buds.

This last part confused Harry so much that he borrowed Hermione's copy of Hogwarts, A History just to check whether this was actually possible or not. After some searching through long chronicles of the lives of old Headmasters, he found the section dealing with Muggle devices. Sure enough, the passage read, Most modern Muggle devices will not work on or near school grounds, due to the high concentration of magic in the area. Items may be charmed to run off magic indefinitely, but only by a wizard or witch of great power.

It figures, Harry thought disgustedly. Even a moldy old book sings her praises. He continued flipping through the book. While large and unwieldy, parts of it were actually quite interesting. Harry was leafing through a part describing former famous and infamous Quidditch Cup matches, when he gasped.

Here the book was writing itself.

Wondering if this was actually another enchanted diary or some such thing, he gingerly dripped a bit of ink onto the page. It vanished, but then the unseen hand stopped writing about the many injuries incurred by the Wronski Feint and scolded, Please stop doing that. The words vanished after a few seconds, and it continued on with its former topic.

Ignoring the message, Harry scrawled hastily onto the adjacent blank page, Why are you writing? Wasn't this book finished ages ago?

The response came almost instantly. Hogwarts, A History is meant to update itself whenever events at Hogwarts change. There has been an extreme dimension shift on the school grounds recently.

A "dimension shift"? What do you mean? asked Harry, his penmanship becoming worse by the second.

+ MELON MELON MELON + Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot , came the reply.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Hermione from behind him. Harry jumped, immediately wishing he hadn't written in -- and, apparently, confused -- Hermione's book. However, instead of admonishing him, she took his quill and wrote neatly onto the page, Dried frog pills.

+ Hello, Thinks Mr. Purple Cat! Does your spoon worry you+

"What on Earth did you ask it, Harry?" said Hermione, exasperated. She re-inked the quill and tried again: Lots of dried frog pills.

After a moment, the ink vanished from her message and Hogwarts, A History resumed its work.

"Hermione," Harry managed eventually, "what's going on here, exactly? Not just the book, but everything?"

"I wish I knew. But we have to do something about it, before we wake up one day to find the castle has been repainted bright, happy pink."

Harry winced. "Definitely. And what was with the dried frog pills thing?"

"Amazing stuff, isn't it?"

Midnight struck again, quite dramatically. The mysterious cloaked figure from last chapter slipped back into the library, returned the slim volume that it had taken from the sometimes-existent bookshelf on its last visit, and pulled a new one off the shelf. Every move was perfectly calculated to be least noticeable in the shadows of the library, the few sounds made were perfectly masked by the occasional snores of a portrait's occupant or the quiet noises made as recently returned books sorted themselves onto shelves -- this was a magical library, after all -- and there was a perfect rhythm to the turning of the pages as the figure read through this new book.

By now, "perfect" should be a bit of a tip-off to you.

As the school clock struck quarter till one, Phoenix hurriedly replaced the book on the shelf -- she didn't want to have to keep one of those books with her unless something like last night happened again. She paused a moment to admire the, admittedly, perfect drape of her black cloak against her perfect figure...

And thought she heard, for a moment, a soft whirr as the clock finished chiming. She froze, barely breathing, and stood unmoving for a few minutes. When nothing happened, she relaxed slightly.

"Hogwarts has yet to be as perfect as me," Phoenix breathed, her voice barely audible to her own ears, "but soon, it will be." She paused, for the perfect tone of drama it added to her words, before adding, "Whether it wants to perfect itself or not." She swept silently from the library back to Gryffindor Tower, taking care to keep to shadows as she went.

Hermione, Harry, and a camera borrowed from Colin followed her under the Invisibility Cloak.

In response to your pleas well, singular plea, I've gotten off my lazy butt and written more for your enjoyment! Yaaay! Also, in case you didn't notice, the responses from Hogwarts, A History were blatant ripoffs of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. There, I've disclaimed. Don't sue me now.

I plan to end this next chapter, because of hated continuity. Thanks for reading!