Hari Rabbit: A Potter's Tail.
Disclaimer: If you can recognise it as part of Harry Potter or any Looney Tunes or Disney movie, cartoon or comic, I don't own it. If you don't recognise it, but it bears a lot of similarities to some mix of the above, I don't own that either. The only things I could claim are the plot and two characters from the Toon-town side of things (Rocket & Roxy: Flying Foxes!) and I'm not getting anything for them (except the enjoyment of telling a story). Now that that's out of the way, please enjoy.
I also do not lay claim to the 'Laws of Toon Physics' herein. They are not comprehensive, but they do fit those 'Laws' that the toons of my story are likely to let the rest of the world know about...
Some speech conventions:
"Normal speech".
"SHOUTING!"
"Thinking..."
«French»
§Parseltongue§
Chapter 5: The Reasons for Flight.
Hari got the feeling she was being followed. Every time she turned around, there would be a red-haired boy ducking out of sight. Even Hermione had noticed. "It's that Ron Weasley boy," she said in exasperation as they were walking to their flying lesson that Saturday. "What does he want with you, anyway?"
"He probably wants to eat me," Hari answered, her matter-of-fact tone quite a surprise to her friend. Hermione's jaw dropped, and she spluttered for a moment.
"Hari! How can you be so calm? We're way too young for that sort of thing!" The bushy-haired brunette's shock had her face pale.
"Huh? What are you talking... Oh." Hari blushed. "No, no, I didn't mean it that way. You're right, and he's not my type anyway. No, no, no. Ew. How to say it? I meant 'eat me' as in pepper and salt, ketchup, knife and fork. You've got to admit, this has to be more rabbit meat than most people can dream of eating." Her waving her hand at herself emphasised her words, and it was Hermione's turn to blush.
"I'm sorry, I jumped to a conclusion. I should have asked what you meant first," she said sheepishly. A few minutes passed in silence before she spoke again. "What did you mean, not your type?"
"Hermione, we're not even teenagers yet, but I'm fairly sure I don't play for that team," Hari replied. Hermione thought about that for a few moments, blushing again, as Hari continued. "Besides, I'm still rated PG-13, and I don't want to be an M-15 until I'm older." Their other friends laughed as they emerged onto the Quidditch pitch.
Rolanda Hooch was an excellent teacher when it came to flying, the incident earlier that day with young Longbottom notwithstanding. Her instructions were simple and easy to understand if the students paid attention, and once she'd gotten back and dealt with Weasley and Malfoy arguing over the poor boy's Remembrall, the lesson had gone well. Now she had to teach the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, who didn't usually have anywhere near as strong a rivalry.
As the students lined up at the admittedly old and worn school brooms (where her requests for better equipment for the children's safety went, she had no idea), and called for their brooms with a simple "UP!", she counted those who managed it first try. Abbott, Bones and Finch-Fletchley managed it among the Badgers, and Li, Patil and Boot for the Eagles, but none of them quite possessed Rabbit-Potter's flair, as her broom literally leaped into the air like an over-eager puppy and circled her twice before she got a hold of it. No sooner had she laid her red-gloved hand on the shaft than the broom took off at high speed, a speed that these old brooms should not have been capable of.
All eyes went to Hari as she face-palmed with her left hand, her right arm stretching out like elastic. "Why didn't I see this comiiiiiiinnnnggggg?!" Her voice stretched out as her arm snapped back to its intended length, dragging her to the broom as it powered through the sky, finally responding as she hauled herself into its saddle. Once she was there, she found she could understand exactly why Rocket and Roxy loved their unique ability so much. If flying was this much fun on a broom, how much better would it be unencumbered?
This train of thought lasted exactly until her broom swooped through one of the Quidditch hoops, clotheslining the rabbit-girl on the top of said hoop. She spun around and around by her neck, pinwheeling as the broom continued to rocket along until she fell. Shortly afterwards, the other students were looking at a Hari Rabbit shaped hole in the Quidditch pitch. Hermione was the first to reach the toon's side, as she sat up, half out of the hole, with little brooms racing around her head, accompanied by tiny stars.
"Are you okay?" she asked, anxious for her friend. Of course as a toon, this sort of thing was meant to be Hari's basic daily grind, but she was allowed to worry. As Hari turned to her, swaying slightly and eyes unfocused, she knew it was unnecessary.
"Which of the four of you cuties is asking?" Hari said, and collapsed back into the hole.
By the time Hari had dragged herself from the hole, with Hermione assisting her and brushing away the little stars and broomsticks from around the toon-girl's head, it seemed her broom had realised it no longer had a rider, as it was hovering nearby, somehow managing to contrive a sheepish look to it. Madam Hooch glared at it. Brooms just didn't do that. Hari was pointedly ignoring the broom, which almost pouted, (no-one could guess how they knew it was pouting, just that the broom gave off a sulky air) and tried drifting around in front of her, to the students amusement.
"Alright," muttered Hari, as if the broom had won her over with its 'kicked puppy' attitude, to the amusement of the rest of the class. "I forgive you. But it better not happen again." The rest of the lesson was luckily less eventful.
From up in the castle, a bitter angry wraith watched the events on the Quidditch pitch. In taking this host, it had little time for the finesse it needed to maintain the host's soul and psyche, so it had simply overpowered the mind already in place, absorbing the child's very soul and magic into its own, burning out the very essence that had once been there. In truth there hadn't been much resistance, and the last thing the fragile soul of the weakling whose mind he'd destroyed in order to survive could only cry out as it disappeared forever. "When my father hears of this..."
Quirrel's replacement arrived a week before Halloween. He had all four classes in the same period, and the rumours that reached the first-years were that he was a much better teacher than Quirrel ever had been. It was two days before they got to learn why. As the first-years for all four Houses shuffled into the DADA classroom, to be greeted by a very odd image indeed.
The room was set up like an amphitheatre, with the professor's desk to one side of the stage at the base of the room. The door by which they entered was on the other side of that very stage, and the teacher's quarters were accessed by the door behind his desk. But the thing that attracted all attention was the chair. It was crafted of solid black oak, and possessed a high back that had a railing on top of it, gouged and scarred as though by talons. They knew those marks were made by talons, because said talons belonged to the deep brown, almost black, bird of prey that perched there. It was a good three feet tall, and they would have guessed its wingspan to be around six feet, and its tail had a wedge-like shape to it. As they entered, the eagle keened, a long high screech, that had Hari shaking with some deep-rooted urge to flee, fast, zig-zagging for all she was worth. Only the fact that everyone else froze kept her from bolting.
The door on the far side of the stage opened, and the teacher emerged. Their first thought was of relief, but the man's appearance halted that quickly. He was fairly tall, just shy of six feet, with broad shoulders and a warrior's build. He wore a odd garment similar to a greatcoat, although crafted from a black scaly leather, and a grey felt hat with a wide brim. As he removed the hat and laid it on the desk, they saw his face beneath the raven-black hair that he wore in a tight horse-tail. He was weather-beaten, that was the only word for it. His skin was tanned and almost leathery from working outdoors, and his eyes were like piercing sapphires. What really grabbed their attention was the scar. Hari unconsciously touched her own scar in sympathy as she followed the line of the teacher's old injury as it crossed his eye on its downward journey from his hairline to his jaw on the right side of the man's face. "How did that not take out his eye?" she wondered, along with every other child in the class by the murmuring that broke out around her.
As the eagle keened again, there was a sudden silence, which their new professor broke.
"G'day, class," he said in a broad Australian accent. "Don't mind Antilles there, he's just a big softy." As the eagle contrived to look affronted, they all heard the distinct tones of Ron Weasley.
"Soft? That thing's soft? Compared to what, solid steel?" Nervous laughter followed, and the teacher shook his head.
"Naah," he said. "Since he became my familiar, he's mellowed quite a bit. Just don't poke about him too close and you'll be right. Unless you're a rabbit." He paused as his eyes swept across the front line of students. "Oh, crud. You there, the rabbit-girl, what's your name? Come here, we'd better get this outta the way."
Hari approached nervously, mumbling her name without ever taking her eyes off the wicked beak and talons of the professor's familiar.
"That's a good start," the scar-faced teacher said. "You're showing respect to his weapons and pride as a hunter, but you're gunna need to stop shaking. Eagles can be really formal critters, and you'll need to bow, introduce yourself by your full name, and try not to be scared." As he stepped forwards to stand beside her he spoke to the massive bird. "Antilles, this person is a student, not prey, got it?"
As the toon-girl bowed, still not looking away from the eagle, she tried to control herself. That was hard work. "My name is Angharad Jennifer Rabbit-Potter, honoured to meet you."
"Very good, Miss Rabbit-Potter," the teacher said. "You may all take your seats now."
As the children found places to sit in the amphitheatre, their new teacher took what looked to be a strip of meat from a brown paper bag in his pocket and fed it to his familiar. He then took out his wand and waved it at a piece of chalk that began to write on the blackboard in large letters they could all make out quite easily.
"Okay, let's start at the top, right?" He again glanced over the class. "My name is Charles Daemon Vaughn, and this is your Defence Against the Dark Arts class. Either that or you are as lost as a polar bear in the Outback. To begin with we have to learn what constitutes the Dark Arts. Not the actual spells, just what classifies them as Dark. Anyone?"
Hermione of course had her hand up, as did a few others, and their teacher called on the bushy-haired witch. "Professor Vaughn, isn't the definition of Dark Arts up to the Ministry of Magic?"
The man smiled. "Good point, Miss..." here he glanced at a folder on his desk, "Granger, is it? Yes the Ministry defines what is Dark magic, but what I'm asking for is the criteria from which they do this."
"Isn't it magic that is intended solely to harm another?" Piped up an Asian-looking Ravenclaw.
"That's rather narrow, but close," Professor Vaughn answered. "The current definition is as follows, write this down." A few moments passed as the students all scrambled for quills and books. "The Dark Arts include magic and rituals that only cause the detriment of another as either the price of the magic or the end result. There are far more spells and rituals that are not Dark than are. The Ministry does have a list, but access to it requires Senior Auror status or higher. How does this affect you? Well it's difficult to learn to defend against these spells if you don't know what they're like, so I'll be teaching you all to treat any spell sent in your direction that you can't recognize as potentially Dark. You all know so few spells that you wouldn't know the difference between a Sealing Charm and a Defenestrating Curse." He looked around at them. He pointed to the Gryffindor seated next to Ron, one Seamus Finnegan, if Hari's memory served her.
"You there, you're attacked by an adult wizard you've never seen, what do you do?" he demanded.
Seamus blinked and thought. "First I shield, and then..."
He was cut off by Professor Vaughn's abrupt dimissal. "Wrong! You're dead! You!" His finger pointed directly at Hermione, who pondered. "Dodge him and..."
"Wrong! You're Dead! You!" The professor went through half the class like this. By the time he pointed at Neville Longbottom, the students were getting somewhat upset. "Well, Mr Longbottom? What do you do?"
Neville scrunched up his face. "I run away," he mumbled, and most of the class broke into laughter. The teacher's glare and Antilles' screech brought silence in short order.
"That's the right answer, Mr Longbottom. You get to live," Professor Vaughn said gently. "When you know nothing about who or what you're fighting, you're in the wrong fight. So you remove yourself from the fight. Only if you can't get away should you turn to the other tactics suggested. Alright, that's it for today, and fifteen points to Gryffindor, Mr Longbottom. Next class will meet on the Quidditch pitch, don't wear robes, you'll have your outfits by that class. Dismissed."