"How are you going to send the letter straight to Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked curiously as he carefully folded the letter and put it into an envelope.
"Do you know where Professor Dumbledore is now?"
"No." Su Er shook his head. "But I know someone-no, a phoenix-who does."
"Professor Dumbledore's phoenix?" Harry blinked in surprise.
"Correct, Harry." Su Er reached into his little pocket and took out a feather. "But there's no prize."
"Don't forget, we can't use magic in the Muggle world," Harry hurriedly reminded him when he saw that Su Er looked ready to cast a spell. "You'll be expelled from Hogwarts if you get two warnings."
"There's no need for magic." Su Er shook his head. "You just have to hold the feather and pray sincerely, and it'll light up."
"Like this." Su Er held the phoenix feather between his palms, then half closed his eyes and muttered under his breath.
As Harry watched, the feather lit up little by little.
"That's amazing... Is this the ritual magic mentioned in books?"
Actually, Su Er was just messing around. There was no ritual involved; all he had to do was feed a little magic into it, and Fawkes would come once he sensed it.
Joking aside, Su Er still kept up his mysterious act, waving the glowing phoenix feather through the air. The trail of colored light it left was rather pretty, actually. When it came to magnificent feathers, a phoenix was a phoenix, after all.
Dumbledore had given him this feather before and had never taken it back, so Su Er had happily kept it.
Poof! Fawkes was very quick. With the feather to guide him, he soon spread his wings amid a burst of flame that appeared out of thin air and hovered elegantly in midair,