71

Harry is on the train heading for his first of three jobs. He decided to go with the easiest to hardest, but the last two are not very clear as to what is the harder one. He decided that the one that sends a chill down his spine with dread will be the last one he does.

He rolls up the last two jobs and places them in his bag; afterward, he looked down at the one he is going to now.

Please help break the curse on our town!
Reward: 8,000J and free ice cream

'Why ice cream?' Harry questioned confusedly.

{Maybe the curse has something to do with heat?} Fawkes suggested.

{You might be right about that.} Harry places the job down on his lap with his fingers still holding it, and then looks out the window. {We'll just find out when we get there.}

Harry's train reached the town within the next hour, finally allowing him off the mode of transportation. He asks someone where he can find the mayor of the town.

"Are you from Fairy Tail?" the man Harry spoke to asked.

"Yes…?" Harry said with a raised eyebrow.

The man's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Yes! Help is finally here! Please come with me. I'll take you to Mr. Owlish."

Harry's wrist is nabbed and tugged on by the man, who then proceeds to drag him to the mayor's office. Harry tried to stop him, but didn't want to use force since he didn't want to hurt the man who is clearly scared, but now hopeful that someone is there to help the town get rid of the curse. So in the end, Harry allows himself to be dragged around town.

It didn't take too long to reach the office. The man doesn't bother with knocking on the door; he just barges straight in with an off-balanced Harry.

"Mr. Owlish, I find the Fairy Tail mage that you told us to keep an eye out for," the man said.

"Oh, thank you god!" the mayor said relieved and with a dramatic sigh. "Please bring him here."

The man who has been dragging Harry all over the place set him down on a big, comfy chair. Harry was too stunned to say anything at first, but after a few moments of silence he found his voice. "So…I hear you have a curse on your town? Can you tell me about it?" the green-eyed wizard questioned.

"Yes, yes! The curse on my town was done to us by a child that the other children use to pick on. The child is poor, you see, so the other children made fun of him and some adults either looked at him with disgust or ignored him. I wasn't one of these people – not intentionally – but I am always so busy I can't do much for him. He is just one child. I don't even know what happened to his parents.

"However, one day, some of the high-class kids started throwing rocks at him. My assistant saw this and tried to stop them. One of the rocks hit the boy's head, and then something inside the child snapped. He shouted that he curses the town and everyone in it before running into the woods. The other didn't believe him, and nothing happened for the first week, but then…all that changed.

"Fire started to combust at random locations in the town, mostly at the houses of the child's bullies; however, I'm sure you noticed on your way here that the houses are close together. This allowed the fire to spread. The fire starts always at night, and takes about a half-hour to put it out," the mayor told his tale.

"Have you tried finding the kid?" Harry asked, not too happy with this town, but also disappointed in the child in the story.

"He comes and goes through town, but no one is brave enough to get close to him. He said that if we did, our home will be next."

Fawkes trilled in Harry's ear. "Are you sure it is a curse and not the child just using magic?" Harry said the question Fawkes wanted asked.

"At first we did, but he was always too far away for it to be him," Mr. Owlish said.

{It has to be though…} Fawkes said more to himself than Harry. {It is something alive that is causing these fires. I'm not sensing a curse.}

Harry is now thinking of what to do from here. {I guess we will wait till whoever is helping the kid – if it is not the kid himself – to come out tonight. We'll catch them then and we'll put a stop to all of this.} Harry repeated this, but with a twist to Mr. Owlish.

"Oh, thank you, kind sir! Please, though, don't hurt the child. I understand why he cursed us, but he has gone too far. So please help him too."

Harry nodded in understanding, before getting up and out of the office. "Let's hang around the forest, Fawkes. We might be able to catch whoever it is that way before they can set another house on fire," Harry said, getting a nod of approval from his familiar.

{Hey, Harry…What time is it?} Fawkes asked in a bored tone. {I feel we have been sitting here for hours!}

Harry looked down at his watch and saw the time. {Almost midnight,} he replied.

{ALMOST MIDNIGHT?! When is this brat going to show up? Christmas?!} Fawkes exclaimed.

Harry sighed, {Look, he might show up soon. If you were going to set something on fire without anyone noticing right away, when would you do it?} Fawkes stayed silent, not answering. {That is what I thought.}

Fawkes rolled his eyes. {Well excuse me… I'm bored and there is nothing to do but wait for something…} the phoenix trailed off.

{What's up?} Harry asked.

{Two life forces are heading this way from the forest. Finally…!}

{Where?}

{Toward our left.} Harry – under his cloak – stepped lightly over to his left. {One of them just stopped, but the other, smaller one is still moving on,} said Fawkes.

{Think it's the kid?} Harry asked.

Fawkes shook his head. {No, this one feels like an animal.} Sure enough, a small cat-like creature with a long tail, red fur, with gold around its underbelly and legs comes running pass the tree line, and heading for the nearest house.

{What kind of cat is that?} Harry questioned, never seeing something like it before.

{An evolved kneazle, I believe. After the dragons took over, some of the magical creatures from our time have evolved to match with the dragons' elements. Remember the giant spiders when we went to Diagon Alley for the first time? Well, they were once just giant spiders with venom, but you saw how they had fire to them now.}

{Are all the animals, like all kneazles are one element?} Harry asked.

{No, this is a fire kneazle. I have seen ice ones before,} Fawkes said. {By the way…we should probably put out that fire.}

Harry snapped his head around and saw that the house is now on fire. He has no idea what the cat did to set it ablaze, but that was irrelevant. He quickly ran over to the house, feeling his cloak roll off him, but he didn't care for that.

With his wand at the ready he cast Aguamenti. Fawkes helped out as best he could by landing on the house and absorbing the flames. With the two of them, they put the fire out in under ten seconds. A lot shorter of a time than what the mayor said. Maybe it has something do with the fact that they were using magic to put out a magical fire.

Once the fire was out, Harry and Fawkes are hissed at by the fire kneazle. It was about to attack them, but Fawkes dive bombed the creature and Harry quickly stunned it. Harry was about to pick the animal up, but before he could another animal – a big, black bird – tried to claw at his face, but Harry was able to back away from it.

"Don't touch Blaze, you jerk!" a young, male voice said from the direction of the forest. Harry turns to see a child by the age of 10 or 12 with milk chocolate brown hair and golden eyes that glow in the moonlight like a cat's would. His skin is ghost-like in the darkness surrounding them. At first, Harry feared that the child was dead and he was just seeing his spirit, but Fawkes cleared that up right away.

{He is alive, don't worry. I think his appearance has something to do with his magic. Don't forget you can sense the life-span of any living creature.}

Harry thanks Fawkes, and then returns his full attention onto the kid. "Look, I'm not here to hurt you or your feline friend," Harry said.

"Liar! That is what that other man said, yet he was really just helping the other brats hurt me!" the boy said furiously.

Harry is now confused. "What other man? Who is he?" he asked.

"Like you care! I bet he told more lies about me, or how he really did try to help me, but he may have well been just like the other kids throwing the rocks!"

'Wait…' Harry remembered something. "Are you talking about the mayor's assistant?"

"Oh, so you do know! Tell me what did he say to the old man?"

"The mayor told me that his assistant tried to help you by stopping the other kids from throwing rocks at you, but one of the rocks hit your head and something in you just made you snap. After that he said you placed the town under a curse," Harry told the child.

The boy started laughing madly. "He did lie! He didn't help me at all! Want me to tell you what he really did?" Harry remained quiet, wanting to hear this kid's side of the story. "He did stop the other kids from throwing rocks at me, and he said he wasn't going to hurt me, but then just as the other kids left he told me that he wish he could just kill me so the mayor could worry about other more important matters than a poor child with no home or parents. The only reason he didn't kill me that day is because we were too close to the mayor's building, and there were others that saw him with me last. The people of the town would have known he killed a kid for no reason.

"I ran away, saying I curse him and all those who hurt me. I ran right into the forest. All I wanted was to get back at them. That is when I learned of my power. I made friends with the animals in the forest, and had Blaze set the houses of all those who have hurt me on fire. What I really want to do though is kill that assistant for giving me hope that maybe someone cared about me only to then rip it away and say he would rather me dead. What did I ever do to that man?! Why does he want me to die?! I HATE HIM!" As the boy shouted in hatred, his magic burst out and more beast-like animals appeared from the forest.

Harry did not know what to do to calm the raging child down. Fawkes was of no real help either.

{Oh, the boy's a beast tamer,} Fawkes said.

"Fawkes, instead of stating what is clearly obvious, how about you help find a way to calm him down!" Harry demanded the fire bird.

"That may have been what I said, but even then I didn't say the real truth. Just a twisted version of it," an older male voice said, making Harry turn around to look behind him and the child to flick his glowing, enraged eyes onto the man he craves death upon. "I do want you died, but it isn't because you bother the mayor. No, it is because you didn't die when your parents did."

Harry felt a wash of horror spread through his whole body, and he's sure the kid felt it too; if not then it will happen soon. "What are you talking about?" Harry demanded, but he dreaded the answer.

The man sighed dramatically, "I don't see why I can't tell you. You'll die here anyway. The kid will get the blame." The mayor's assistant looks Harry in the eye after that. "That brat's father was the former mayor of this town, but he did something I could never forgive. He took the woman I loved away from me. He married her himself and she went willingly, leaving me alone."

{I know I'm about to hear something really stupid in a second,} said Fawkes, and Harry couldn't help but agree.

"I figured that if I can't have her then neither can he. So I burned their house down with them and that brat there along with it. Everyone thought it was an accident, which is just how I planned it."

{I was wrong, that is not stupid it is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.}

"Everything was going smoothly for a few years after that, but then I find out that this brat is still alive. I couldn't just kill him right away, so I had to plan it out just right. I made sure that no one helped the child while everyone else was bullying him. It is amazing how powerful the result of a small rumor is, don't you agree? Anyway, I waited till he snapped, and then wait for him to start causing problems in the town. It was too perfect. I wasn't expecting him to start burning the houses. So once I kill him, everyone will see me as a hero and not a monster. Everyone will believe that the brat is a demon disguised as a human. With that, there is nothing remaining of the man who stole the girl I wanted."

{Is he done yet?} Fawkes asked, and then waited a little along with Harry. {I say he's finally done.}

"You're the one who killed them?" Harry heard the child say from behind him in disbelief. "You killed my parents because you didn't get who you wanted? You wanted to kill me for simply existing?"

The man made a thoughtful expression, but it is a mockery. "I do believe that sums up what I said, yes. I want you dead because you remind me of what I lost. Now do me a favor…and…" Harry didn't allow the man to finish.

"Stupefy!" The spell shot out in a blink of an eye and hit its mark on the murderer's chest. He fell back unconscious, but Harry wasn't taking chances, so he added a restraint to his body. Harry has a glare aimed right at the assistant that may have even made Voldemort proud if he didn't hate Harry so much.

The boy comes up to Harry and asks, "Did you kill him?"

"No, he's knocked out, but he will be rotting behind bars. Fawkes, we're going to bring this one in and tell the sheriff what happened here and back then." Fawkes nodded before gliding over to the sleeping form and landing on him to wait for Harry to be done with the child. Harry returns his attention to the boy that is a victim of a psycho. "Are you okay?" Harry asked.

The boy nodded. "Yeah…I'll be fine, I think. What I'm I going to do? I don't want to stay in this town, and I doubt anything will change, and there might be someone that would still wish me dead for what I did. What I'm I going to do? Where could I go? I don't know anywhere, but this town," the boy rambled.

Harry places his hand on the child's shoulder to get his attention. When the boy looked up to meet his eyes, which are more level with him since Harry bent down, Harry begins talking, "You should join a guild. You have magic so it won't be hard. I think the closest guild to here is Lamia Scale. You can join them. They will be like a family to you when you join. That is if you want to join a guild. If you don't want to go there, you could come with me to Fairy Tail?" Harry said.

The boy looks thoughtful for a moment before saying, "Could you come with me to Lamia Scale? I would like to check it out with someone before making a decision."

Harry smiled, "Sure, I will go with you. We'll both head out tomorrow. It is getting late so let's take this guy to the authorities and then go back to my room that I have rented out for the night."

The boy gives a shy smile, and then nods his head. They take the murderer to the police and tell them everything. They were there for an hour and a half, but they got the former assistant behind bars. When they left, they went to Harry's room – Harry had to pay extra for the kid, but he had no problems with that. The next day, Harry had the child come with him to the mayor's office to tell Mr. Owlish what happened last night. The mayor gave Harry 2,000J more for what happened with the assistant, but when they left the building, Harry gave 3,000J to the child. "You need it more than I," he said. "It is so you have something to start off with."

The two hopped on a train to go to the town Lamia Scale is placed and then head to for the guild hall. Harry spoke to the master while the child got to know the people there. After 3 hours went by, the child agreed to stay in this guild. Harry is happy for him, and tells him so. Harry stayed to see the boy get his mark and for lunch. Once Harry said his goodbyes to everyone and the child he saved, he left to go to his next job.

TBC

I still need one more job idea. Someone helped with one, but it is for the last job Harry goes on. So, I need one for next week. Got any ideas? I was drawing blanks, but I think I do have an idea of what to do, but I want to see what you guys could come up with. If it is better than what I thought of then I'll use it, but if not then I'm going to use the idea that just popped into my head.

Natsu: What is your idea?

Enj/Dark: I'm not saying in case I don't get anything. I don't want to spoil it.

Harry: I see you're point, but do you think it will be just as dangerous as the job afterward?

Enj/Dark: The last job is going to be a curve ball. Looks like one thing, but is really another. From how it looks, I'd say it is just as dangerous.

Zeref: But it won't be as dangerous as the last one?

Enj/Dark: Bingo. :)

Voldy: I want to know what that idea is for the last job is going be. Does Harry die? :)

Enj/Dark: I already said too much. When we get to the chapter with that job in it, I'm saying the penname of the one who gave me this idea. Until then, everyone is waiting.

Natsu: That is 2 weeks from now. :(

Zeref: You'll live. *eye roll* Please review! :3