I came across this fanfiction quite recently, and as I read it, I couldn't help but think just how much you'd appreciate my sharing it. It features a gleefully munchkiny PC Wizard. Not a HP wizard, a Wizard, capital W, whose viewpoint is frankly hilarious given the difference between the RPG world and Young Adult lit. Below is an exerpt, no spoilers:
"Why in the Hells is there a Half-Fiend Horse strapped to that carriage?!"
Silence.
"Does it think it can fool us? Is it simply pretending to be a regular horse?"
Silence.
"Maybe it's trying to lure us in, and then... neigh at us. Evilly."
Silence.
"Foolish evil extraplanar equine Erinyes-extraction! For I can see your true form! Fear my arcane miÔÇö"
"Er," Ron interrupted, "Before you get all worked up and turn that carriage into a smoking crater, mate... what horse are we talking about?"
"The one pulling the carriage," Milo said, gesturing at the bony, black, batwing-sporting horselike-creature. "I mean, just look at it. It has fangs, for gods' sakes! That thing is evil incarnate."
"Yeah... about that," Harry said. "There's nothing there."
"Except for the carriage, which, by the way, is horseless," Hermione added helpfully.
Milo gave Harry, Ron, and Hermione a skeptical look that was only matched by the skeptical look that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were giving him.
"You mean you can't see it?" he said. They gave their murmured assents, still giving him the look people reserved for situations like these. "So, the question is: is it a phantasm, or is it selectively invisible?"
"A phantasm?" Ron asked.
"An illusion," Hermione responded.
"More specifically," Milo clarified, "An illusion that only certain individuals can perceive. There's only one way to find out..."
Hermione gave a look of sudden, horrified clarity and whipped her face around to look Milo dead in the eye.
"No!" she cried.
"ÔÇöGlitterdust!"
oÔÇöoÔÇöoÔÇöo
Dumbledore paused as he heard the characteristic grinding sound of stone-on-stone that signalled the arrival of a visitor. For all the inconvenience of having a secret, password-protected office, it did provide enough warning to fix one's hair and tuck in one's shirt.
The door slammed open, revealing a beleaguered Professor McGonagall.
"Albus," she gasped. "Come quickly!"
"What's happened, Minerva?" Dumbledore said, leaping to his feet. "Have Death Eaters attacked? Is it another goblin uprising? Have the Cannons won a match?"
"No," she said. "It's much worse than that."
"Allow me to hazard a guess," Snape said. "Milo?"
"Milo."
oÔÇöoÔÇöoÔÇöo
"You know, it really could have been worse," Ron said.
"Can't see how," said Harry.
"Well," Ron said, "at least the bloodshed was kept to a minimum."
The wreckage of dozens of carriages lay scattered across the path. One was on fire; Harry couldn't imagine how it had been lit on fire, but it had. A lone wheel rolled past him, down the shallow slope, and into the lake. A pair of colossal tentacles lashed out of the water, and seized it, never to be seen again. Hogwarts students, second-through seventh year, were standing around, shocked. Some were nursing minor injuries.
"Honestly, Milo, I'd thought you'd have remembered what happened at the Potions Incident!" Hermione said testily. "Someone could have been killed! You could still be expelled!"
"I think we're missing the key point," Milo said defensively. "The point is that we all learned a valuable lesson, didn't we?"
"I should hope so," Hermione said.
"It's that when someone claims to see something that nobody else can, you take them seriously. There really was a Half-Fiend Horse."
