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Gilderoy Lockheart beamed at his wonderfully attentive students, who were obviously waiting for him (the most amazing wizard since, dare he say, Merlin himself!) to bestow the next great nugget of knowledge upon them! Of course, teaching was a bit below him, but one must make sacrifices to ensure one’s ever-fleeting fame was kept a bit longer. And of course, he’d done ever so much…why not share his infinite wisdom with the fresh, eager minds of tomorrow’s parents and grandparents who would tell their brethren of how they had studied under the one and only Gilderoy Lockheart himself!
“Today,” he began, letting his marvelous voice carry throughout the classroom. “We will be studying a most dangerous creature! A horrific beast capable of bringing ruin to any a great explorer and layman alike!” And with a grand flourish, he pulled away the heavy brocade covering a medium-sized birdcage.
He gestured. The students stared. There it was; a grapefruit-sized ball of glowing fluff, a pair of silver-tipped black fox ears twitching slightly, a matching tail curled lazily around itself. After a moment of silence, the ball shook itself, let out a confused “brrrrrt?” and then tested the bars of the cage.
“Excuse me, Professor,” Harry began uncertainly as the creature began to bang at its prison a little harder, growling under its breath. “But what is that thing?”
“I’m glad you asked, Harry,” the blonde man lectured with a nod. “This is a creature of unknown origin, known as a ‘kitsunehi’. It hides out in dark places, then uses it’s lights to lure travelers astray, leaving them hopelessly lost in dangerous situations.”
“You mean, it’s a foxfire,” Draco sniffed. “Those certainly aren’t hard to get rid of; you just ignore them or swat them with a broom and they go away.”
“Perhaps you would like to try your hand at dealing with it,” Gilderoy offered, motioning to the scowling teen. “It’s always nice to see you volunteering to demonstrate how to get rid of one of them.”
The young Malfoy snorted and stood up, motioning for Gregory to fetch him a broom. “Very well,” he acquiesced in a bored tone. “Let it out.”
Many of the students took cover, the memory of the Pixie Incident still fresh in their minds. Neville immediately made certain that he couldn’t be gotten at, since it was most likely the creature would make a direct beeline to him and do something that would merit getting a howler from his grandmother. Lockheart flung open the door and the ball merely zipped out, flying around the room, casually ignoring the armed boy, deciding in the end to pop under a table.
“Hey! Stop that!” Neville shrieked from his haven. “Don’t hurt me…”
“Brrrrrt?”
Hermione turned like the rest of the class, and finally unable to control her curiosity any longer, crept over to the desk and glanced underneath it, expecting the worst. And there was Neville Longbottom, eyes tightly shut, with a glowing fluffball perched happily on his head, making little noises of contentment. There were no explosions, no fires, no falling furniture…
“Are you sure that thing’s dangerous?” Ron asked, screwing up his face. “It looks like it’s just sitting there.”
“Well…of course it’s dangerous,” the older wizard stammered.
“Maybe it’s sick,” Pansy offered, joining Hermione to look under the table.
“Well, get it out here,” Draco sighed, bringing the broom over to poke at the happy little ball. It let out a protesting little noise and ignored the boy, it’s tail twitching slightly. Draco tried again and again, but the kitsunehi seemed happy to merely sleep on Neville’s head, and wasn’t about to be moved.
“Let me see that,” Lockheart ordered, taking the broom from the Slytherin student. He bent down and began to poke at the creature, much harder and more aggressively than Draco had, earning him a slight growl. “That’s it, come out…” A final swat with the broom dislodged the now-unhappy creature, whapping it’s hapless nest in the process.
Before everyone’s eyes, the kitsunehi flew out from under the desk, making hissing noises and circling tightly around Lockheart, who began frantically waving the broom in the air, narrowly missing several students in the process. Apparently this was the last straw for the day’s planned demonstration. The ball began to glow and a swirl of blue-black fire built around the diminutive orb. It chased the blonde man around until he was well out of the way of any students, then let loose with its primary weapon, bzorching[1] the screeching man into a greasy smear on the classroom floor.
“Bloody hell…” Ron breathed as the smoke slowly began to clear.
A maniacal giggle sounded from the front of the room and the students turned to see a small black-haired humanoid with silver-tipped fox ears and a tail perched on the edge of their former instructor’s desk, it’s bare feet merrily kicking as it tossed a ball of the same blue-clack fire as before around its claw-ended hands. A double set of black bat-like wings growing from it’s back curled slightly around its body. “And that, poppets, is how you deal with a magnificent pouf!”[2] Unable to hold in it’s laughter at the looks on everyone’s faces, it began to howl with laughter, displaying a small, sharp set of fangs before falling onto it’s back and rolling slightly from side to side.
“What in the name of Merlin is going on in here?” a stern voice demanded.
“That thing killed Gilderoy Lockheart!” Hermione cried, pointing at the hysterical creature.
“Really?” Severus raised an eyebrow and addressed it. “Well, do you have anything to say in your defense?”
“He was an idiot,” the creature insisted, mirth immediately forgotten. “He had to be dealt with.” It nodded, examining the tall man with fire-red flickers in it’s black eyes, body on guard.
Snape shrugged. “Good enough.”
“Wa~ai!” the kitsunehi chirped, and with a loud pop became the floating ball once again. It made a beeline to the Potions Master and like before with Neville, curled up on the top of the man’s head. Only this time, as it began to “brrrrt” happily, its tail began contentedly whapping the Slytherin house caretaker in the face.[3]
1. Yes, it’s a word. Particularly used by the GMs in our group. ^_~
2. Syx-san, I’m going to have to blame this one on you. I got reading “Wizards, Warlocks and Battle Mages” and figured I’d check out an episode of “Buffy” at work one morning on FX to see what the characters looked like…my husband would like to have a word with you on our addiction to the show…. ^_^
3. ‘Shadow-chan…Pern-chan…quit laughing. ;p
