there may be some collateral damage 1 - part 2
Harry isn’t at all surprised to hear Ichigo sneaking out of the dorms in the middle of the night. He’d stayed awake waiting for it, in fact. He stays put until the Marauder’s Map shows Ichigo leaving the common room, then he grabs the Invisibility Cloak, wakes up Ron, and drags him downstairs. Ron’s not happy about it, but he’ll survive. Harry enchants a paper airplane note to fly up the girls’ stairs and wake Hermione, which gives Ron time to pull himself together.
“Where’s he gone, then?” Ron asks on a yawn, not exactly giving the impression of great interest.
“The Astronomy Tower,” Harry tells him, holding out the map. “Or I’m guessing that’s him, in that it’s the only name in a language I can’t read.”
“Huh. Maybe the map shows your name the way you’d normally write it yourself?”
“Looks like.”
At this point, Hermione storms down to the common room, tired and furious. “What in the world,” she hisses quietly. “It’s the middle of the night! What do you mean, ‘We have to see what he’s up to’? Who is he?”
“The transfer. Ichigo,” Ron explains. “Turns out he’s in Gryffindor after all. And he walked in our room tonight and right away said that You-Know-Who split his soul into pieces and hid them all over. He said it like he thought everybody already knew. And now he’s gone and snuck out of the dorm, so Harry’s convinced he’s a Death Eater.”
“I.” Harry stops. He supposes that does more or less sum it up. “It seems like a good idea to check, anyway.”
Hermione sighs and puts her face in her hands briefly, like she always does when she thinks Harry and Ron are being especially ridiculous. “Where is he now?” she mumbles, resigned.
“Astronomy Tower,” Ron tells her.
“And you have your cloak, Harry?”
“Right here.”
“Well then,” she drops her hands and straightens up. “I suppose we may as well get it over with.”
She’s come so far since first year.
From the look of the map, it seems Ichigo’s happy to stay in the Astronomy Tower now that he’s gotten there, so that makes things simpler.
“I can’t believe we’re sneaking around the school in the dead of night again,” Hermione complains in a whisper as they start up the Astronomy Tower stairs. “Well, yes I can, of course I can. But I can’t believe we’re doing it already.”
“We’ve a problem, too,” Ron mutters. “If he’s up there meeting people, they’ll all be talking Japanese, won’t they?”
“Not if they’re Death Eaters,” Harry argues.
“What if they’re Japanese Death Eaters?”
“There are no Japanese Death Eaters, Ronald,” Hermione says impatiently.
“How do you know that, then?”
“And I know a translating spell, in any case,” she carries on as if she wasn’t interrupted, just as they reach the entrance to the observation platform, which is where Ichigo is-pacing up and down. And still alone, so far.
“Really?” Harry asks. He hadn’t known there were translating spells, but of course Hermione would.
“I learned it in case I ever met any of Viktor’s friends who couldn’t speak English,” Hermione explains quickly, ignoring Ron’s sour expression. “It’s tricky to learn, but surprisingly easy to adapt for different languages once you have learned it. I checked on how to adapt it to Japanese as soon as we met Ichigo.”
“As you do,” Ron says, sounding fond despite himself.
“It only lasts for half an hour, but that should be plenty of time to get the idea if someone does come to meet him,” Hermione concludes. “Come on, then. He’s as far from the door as he can be-we should go now.”
They quickly slip through the door, closing it softly behind them.
And there’s Ichigo, still pacing, still alone. But he’s ranting (in Japanese) into a mobile phone, which is…it’s impossible, isn’t it? Hermione clearly thinks it’s impossible; she looks shocked. (Ron has no idea what a mobile is, so he just looks confused). Obviously they can’t understand a word, but Ichigo sounds seriously annoyed. It’s a lot more emotion than they’ve heard in his voice until now. Harry nods at Hermione, and she casts the translating spell in a whisper.
“お前らのせいだから you figure out who I’m supposed to be reporting to,” Ichigo snaps impatiently as the spell takes effect. “This Dumbledore guy is-yeah, a little of that, Renji had a point, but I don’t think he’s actually that far gone. No, he’s one of these old guys who’s seen a lot of shit and so he thinks he knows everything about everything-you know the type. Manipulative, too. Weird cross between Urahara-san and Yamamoto, basically. Yes, it’s unholy, and that’s why I’m asking, do I actually have to report to this guy? Besides, it won’t be subtle if I’m running up to the headmaster’s office all the time. Yeah, there are people watching. Seriously, this is a school with spies in it.”
“Report?” Hermione mouths silently, looking worried. Harry and Ron shrug. Harry’s not understanding most of this conversation, but if Ichigo’s wondering if he should report to Dumbledore-he can’t be all bad, can he? Even if it doesn’t sound like he especially likes Dumbledore?
“The stalking goat kid? As far as I can tell, they’re keeping him in the dark and feeding him bullshit, so-right? Picture what I’d be like under those circumstances. Except less violent. Okay, a lot less violent. I do not have rage issues, I just do what needs to be done.”
Harry scowls. He doesn’t like the sound of stalking goat one bit. Ichigo had better not be talking about him.
“You get to hear about it because you should be the one here and we both know it. For one thing, you can actually do kido. For another thing, I just finished high school-do you know how much I wanted to turn right around and do it again? This blows. Oh, don’t even. Wearing a gigai for a few months is not as bad as repeating high school.”
Apparently the spell doesn’t know a translation for kido or gigai. Harry sees Hermione writing the words down in a notebook. Is she actually keeping a notebook on Ichigo? …Actually he’d be more surprised if she wasn’t. Ichigo is more obviously full of lies with every word that comes out of his mouth, even if they don’t seem to be evil lies. That’s the kind of thing that sends Hermione right into a research frenzy.
“Toshiro, there’ll be homework. And they use quills to write with, apparently. Screw that, I’m having Yuzu send me a fountain pen or something. Yeah, I would ignore it, but in just one train ride I worked out that one of the kid’s best friends is seriously overinvested in everybody’s academic development, so I doubt she’ll let me. Fine, explain to me how I bodyguard somebody without talking to his best friends.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchange wide-eyed looks. Ichigo’s supposed to be Harry’s bodyguard?
“Yeah. No, I just-yes. Fine. But send me visitors other than Urahara-san and Yoruichi-san sometimes, because I’m gonna go out of my goddamn mind. I’d even take Kenpachi, that’s how desperate I am. Ha! No. Oh, and I meant to ask you…Wait. Gotta go, I’ve got eavesdroppers.”
Harry jumps, a little guilty, but mostly shocked. How could Ichigo know they’re here? Can he smell them or something?
“As far as I know, they don’t speak Japanese, but I wouldn’t put it past-well, it’ll be awkward as hell, but I think we’ll survive. I don’t get why every single thing about this is so top freaking secret anyway. Yeah, I get that, but-look, the kids didn’t even know about the soul-splitting thing. Exactly. No idea, it’s so fucked up. Sure, I’ll call next week. Tell Rangiku-san to beat up Ikkaku for me. Bye.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione start edging back toward the door as quickly and quietly as they can-only to be stopped by Ichigo, who’s somehow gotten between them and the door.
“How the bloody hell…” Ron gasps, and Harry elbows him silent.
Ichigo’s eyes narrow, and he stares right at them. But there’s no way he can see them, is there? No one can see them, except possibly Mrs. Norris. Mrs. Norris is a cat, though-it doesn’t count.
Ichigo reaches right out and touches them, then he grabs the cloak and pulls it off.
“How?!” It’s Hermione this time. Harry’d like to ask the same thing, actually, but he’s too busy silently gaping.
“Magic cape thing that makes people invisible,” Ichigo mutters, shaking his head and dropping the Invisibility Cloak at their feet. “Why not, I guess. So. Do you speak Japanese?”
After a pause, Hermione straightens up to her full height and lifts her chin. “There’s…there’s a spell.”
Ichigo sighs and scrubs his face. “Of course there is.”
“How did you know we were here?” Hermione carries on bravely for all of them.
“I can tell when people are around,” Ichigo says vaguely. “Why are you here, by the way?”
“We were following you. Why are you here?” Ron demands.
“I was calling my family.”
“This…Toshiro is your family?” Hermione asks doubtfully. “That didn’t sound like a conversation with family. And you can’t use electronics at Hogwarts, so what do you mean you called him?”
“He’s family now,” Ichigo says firmly. “He’s still getting used to the idea, but yeah. And the phone isn’t electronic. Tell you the truth, I have no idea how it works. Whatever acts as the battery never dies, and it gets reception everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. I’d show it to you, but I’m pretty sure it’s a secret, and all the inventors I know are terrifying and carry swords, so. Sorry, you can’t see it.”
“Swords?” Ron repeats dubiously.
“Swords,” Ichigo confirms. “Are we done?”
“No!” Harry snaps, indignant, shaking off his confusion. “What did you mean, about…being a bodyguard? Are you supposed to be my bodyguard?”
Ichigo shrugs, like he’s bored with the conversation. “Yeah.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Don’t look at me; wasn’t my idea.”
“But why would…” Hermione frowns up at Ichigo. “This makes no sense. Why would they send someone from Japan to be Harry’s bodyguard? And someone so young. Why not an Auror?”
“What they told me was that they needed somebody the right age to blend in, and I’m the only one near that age who has enough experience. In bodyguarding. Besides, nobody here recognizes me, which is a plus. And I hear my boss has local connections, so. Here we are.”
“You said that Toshiro bloke should be here instead of you, though,” Ron points out, intrigued. “Earlier, when you were talking.”
“He had the right of first refusal. Apparently.” Ichigo scowls resentfully.
“You said that’s what they told you,” Hermione puts in. “It doesn’t seem like you believe them.”
“Yeah.” Ichigo scratches the back of his head, suddenly awkward. “Truth is, I’m like eighty percent sure I’m here because somebody lost a bet. I just can’t tell if it was my side or your side.”
“What does that mean?” Ron demands.
“Just…well, I get things done, but I get them done my own way. And sometimes, it’s not a way that the people who gave the orders had in mind. Assuming I follow orders at all.”
Well, that’s ominous. “And…how do you feel about your orders to keep me alive?” Harry asks uneasily.
“Oh, I’m keeping you alive,” Ichigo says with determination, which is a relief. “But if people start telling me how I should go about it, I’m not gonna take that well.”
There’s a pause while everyone digests that.
“Not exactly popular back home, are you?” Ron murmurs eventually.
Ichigo seems pleased with himself. “Depends who you ask.”
“Only I really don’t need a bodyguard,” Harry says again.
“You sure?” Ichigo asks. “Way I hear it, you almost get yourself killed at least once a year. To say nothing of last year, when you tried to get killed like five times.”
“Four times,” says Ron cheerfully. “Be fair.” He’s actually enjoying this, the traitor.
“And I survived every time,” Harry insists, even though Ichigo’s estimate of his near-death experiences is fairly accurate.
“Whatever. It’s not like they’ll let me go home just because you don’t like the idea,” Ichigo says, rolling his eyes. “And if I’m here, I might as well be doing something with my day. What can it hurt?”
“He makes a fair point,” Hermione points out. “Always assuming he’s telling the truth.”
“Ask Dumbledore,” Ichigo suggests. “Some of this is definitely his fault.”
Harry scowls at the idea of asking Dumbledore anything. Surely Ichigo wouldn’t offer that option if he didn’t mean it, though. Would he? Does he know Dumbledore’s avoiding Harry?
“Or you could ask McGonagall,” Ichigo says, eyes narrowed, studying Harry’s face. “If that’s more your speed. She knows about me, too.”
“…I’ll do that,” Harry says reluctantly. Because he doesn’t need a bodyguard. But if he has to have one, he supposes he could do worse than Ichigo, who generally minds his own business and has never once called Harry a liar-not so far in their admittedly short acquaintance, anyway. In any case, Ichigo seems enough like the Weasley twins that it probably isn’t a good idea to allow him to get bored.
That said, Harry’s never had a long-term bodyguard. He’s not sure what to do with one on a day-to-day basis. “So are we supposed to…be friends with you now, or what?”
Ichigo looks surprised. “Not unless you’re feeling friendly. Just ignore me. I mean, tell me if you’re doing something dangerous so I can be there, but otherwise, don’t worry about it. I’ll be around, but pretend I’m furniture or something.”
Harry’s so uncomfortable with that idea he doesn’t even know where to begin. “…What would you do if we broke school rules? Would you tell, er, whoever you’re reporting to?”
“No,” Ichigo says, rolling his eyes. “They’re not paying me to police school rules, they’re paying me to keep you alive.” He pauses. “Actually, they’re not paying me at all-they’re bribing me. Still. Same idea.”
“Bribing you?” Hermione asks, interested. “With what?”
“My family’s safety,” Ichigo tells her shortly.
Everyone goes quiet. Harry feels a bit awful about all the things he’s been suspecting Ichigo of up until now, when it turns out he’s just keeping Harry safe so somebody else will keep his family safe.
Wait.
“Why can’t you just stay home and keep your own family safe?” Harry asks.
“I can’t protect my family on my own,” Ichigo explains. “You, I can protect on my own.”
Hermione stares. “You mean your family is in more danger than Harry?”
Ichigo waves a dismissive hand. “It’s a question of numbers. My family and friends-they’re scattered around. Potter’s just one person, and I can keep an eye on him pretty easily. When there are a bunch of people in different places, though, I need help. And I can have it, as long as I do things like agreeing to keep an eye on Potter.”
“But not if you don’t?” Hermione asks. She looks horrified, which is exactly how Harry feels.
“Not as much if I don’t.” Ichigo smiles at Hermione, and for the first time since they met him, he actually looks nice. “You don’t have to look like that. It’s only fair, when you think about it. Like an exchange.” He pauses, possibly to see if they have further questions. They don’t. Harry suspects they’re all far too blindsided for more questions at the moment. He knows he is.
“We’re done, then?” Ichigo asks. “Good. Now get lost. I still have to call my sisters before they leave for school. Try not to die on your way back to the common room, Potter. That would be embarrassing for both of us.”
And with that, he walks back out to the middle of the observation platform and pulls out his mobile again. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stare at each other in baffled silence, then duck back under the Invisibility Cloak and return to the common room, at a loss for anything better to do.
* * *
Ichigo’s first morning at Hogwarts continues socially uncomfortable, with the Finnegan kid making snide remarks and then bravely running away, Potter taking it out on everyone, and Granger yelling at Potter for taking it out on everyone. Ichigo tries to make himself as invisible as possible, but he’s a tall guy with orange hair, so there’s only so much he can do. And that’s only the start of the morning’s problems.
It develops that the dining hall ceiling imitates the sky, which seems a strange choice, in that this is Scotland, and Ichigo understands the weather is shitty more often than it isn’t. Also, owls carry the mail into the dining hall, which seems unsanitary. Finally, the kitchen staff tried to throw some Japanese food into the mix, which is…well-meant. Ichigo appreciates what they’re trying to do, he really does, but their take on Japanese food is…odd. It’s not exactly bad, but it’s not exactly Japanese food, either. The rice, in particular, has something off about it, when it seems like that should be the easiest thing to get right. And since they went to the trouble just for him, he has to eat some of it, though he’d really rather stick to the local food. At least he’s expecting that to taste unfamiliar.
There’s a lot of talk over breakfast about owls and newts, and everybody’s acting like they’re exams, but Ichigo was pretty confident they were animals-owls are definitely animals; they just delivered the mail. Which means there are exams named after animals. This is a weird freaking school.
Fortunately, there’s one bright spot to the morning, and that’s the discovery of Ron’s twin brothers. They’re a lot like the very wildest members of the Twelfth Division-the types who try to invent something fun and end up destroying half the compound instead. People like that are really useful, because you can talk them into any damn thing, and they’ll always assume it’s not as dangerous as it sounds.
Ichigo decides he should get to know the twins immediately.
It’s all downhill from the twins, though, because after breakfast come the classes, and they are-wow. Like, Ichigo gets that it’s a magic school, so classes were bound to be bizarre. He just hadn’t remotely guessed how bizarre.
History of Magic is taught by a ghost. Ichigo can’t believe they’re pulling this shit on him. A ghost teaching history. He may cry. But Urahara’s report was right-there’s a little bubble on the end of the ghost’s almost-invisible soul chain. Some kind of magic, apparently, that keeps the chains from eroding and the local ghosts from turning into hollows. Very cool, Ichigo has to admit.
The ghost is lecturing on giant wars, and Ichigo’s finding it interesting only because he had no idea giants were a thing. Knowing that they are, he has to wonder if Jidanbo was a giant when he was alive. Then, too, he has to wonder why they’re not common knowledge, being, obviously, giant, and also, from the sound of it, really violent. How do you hide an entire species of giant, violent, intelligent creatures?
Urahara probably knows. Ichigo takes a bunch of notes, not so much on the class as on things he’s discovering he needs to ask Urahara about at some point.
Things take a turn for the worse, though, when the ghost abruptly pauses mid-droning lecture and spins to face Ichigo. Not satisfied with that, it has to come float directly in front of him and stare into his eyes in apparent horror.
“Why?” the ghost demands.
“It’s not about you,” Ichigo tells him. “It’s not about any of you here. You don’t need to worry.”
“Ah. Good.” The ghost, satisfied and therefore losing interest, floats off and resumes the lecture. The living section of the classroom, meanwhile, dissolves into a hissing mess of whispers. Whoever thought Ichigo could handle any kind of undercover anything was clearly a moron.
After History of Magic is Potions, and Snape gets to join the ranks of all the teachers who don’t like Ichigo’s looks. On the plus side, Snape doesn’t seem to like anybody’s looks, so at least Ichigo doesn’t feel singled out. Nice change, there. In fact, if anyone gets special hatred, it’s Potter. That poor kid-he’s Soul Society’s stalking goat, but he’s his own government’s scapegoat, and apparently he’s Snape’s scapegoat, too. Just all around treated more like a goat than a human. Ichigo wouldn’t trade lives with the sorry bastard for anything.
As for Ichigo, he’s pretty sure he screwed up his potion, but since he didn’t actually blow it up, he’s calling it a success. (Snape calls it a lot of things, none of them even in the ballpark of success, but since Ichigo’s pretty sure Snape can’t be made happy, he’s not taking it personally.)
Ichigo has a free period after that, during which Potter goes to Divination and Ichigo just has to pray he doesn’t manage to trip over a crystal ball and die. As for Ichigo, he goes down to the library to sit very quietly for an hour and work on his suspension of disbelief.
Then there’s Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s taught by this…creature…wearing a whole lot of pink, and it’s just. Ichigo can practically hear Yuzu crying every time he looks at that sweater. He himself has no particular fondness for pink, but that’s a seriously unfair thing to do to any color.
Then the pink creature starts talking in a freaky small-child voice, and Ichigo cannot force his brain to parse her words. Not that he thinks she’s particularly worth listening to, but she’s the Ministry mole, so he should probably try to pay attention.
He can’t, though. He really can’t. He just stares in fascinated horror until she stops talking and everybody opens their books. He opens his book, too, since apparently that’s what they’re doing. The book quickly proves to be mind-numbingly boring, so he starts writing up his first report instead. It includes a lot of phrases like why would you, and wouldn’t it be faster to just blow up the school, and undue cruelty to substitute shinigami.
The teacher sidles up beside him and stares at his report. Great. The whole point of the exercise was to encourage her not to take an interest in him.
“Why don’t you take notes in English, dear?” she coos.
Ichigo frowns up at her. “My English bad. This way more fast.”
Everyone in class who’s heard him speak English before turns to stare at him. Most of them look like they’re about to start out laughing, so that’s good. Or bad, if they actually do start laughing. That would blow his cover. Granger is also staring at him in incredulous delight, but she, at least, has her hand clapped over her mouth. It’s good that someone understands the game.
“Oh.” The teacher blinks. “Well, I’m surprised people from your…country…would allow you to attend school here without being able to speak a proper-to properly speak the language. You must practice your English, dear. Practice! Do you understand?”
Wow, this lady is an all-around class act. But Ichigo just nods gamely, and she goes away before anybody does anything more than snort quietly. Win.
Neville Longbottom passes him a note that reads, “I want to be you when I grow up.” Ichigo smiles and shoves the note in his pocket to show Renji. This, my friend, this is how undercover is done.
Then the whole class abruptly gets into a screaming fight with the teacher and a riot almost breaks out, so that’s pretty entertaining. Shiro’s downright cheered by it, and Ichigo’s kind of impressed with the teacher’s cast-iron balls-because that’s what it takes to tell a bunch of kids who had a classmate murdered the year before that they live in a world of safety and sunshine. Like. Damn.
Anyway, Potter ultimately gets kicked out-kid really is everybody’s goat-and then, apparently in the spirit of the thing, Ichigo gets kicked out too. The teacher wants him to escort Potter to their Head of House and also get a translating charm for himself. Makes sense. How’s she supposed to spy on him if she can’t read what he’s writing?
By the time Ichigo makes it out the door, Potter’s already running down the hall and yelling at a poltergeist. It’s a pretty sorry day when Ichigo thinks somebody should learn to pick his battles. He trails after them, though, because he’s got no idea where McGonagall’s office is. Also because they’re funny to watch.
McGonagall must not agree, though, given the way she flings open her door and demands to know what the noise is. Which is exactly the moment Peeves notices Ichigo, freezes in panic, and then dives into the ceiling screaming about murderers and death dealers. McGonagall and Potter both turn to stare at Ichigo.
“Ghosts don’t like me,” he lies blandly.
“Yes,” McGonagall says faintly. “So I’d understood. Well, come inside, the two of you, and explain to me why you’re here when you should be in class.”
“I’ve been sent to see you,” Potter grumbles, holding out a note of offensive pinkness.
McGonagall takes the note, frowning, and reads it. By the time she’s finished, she looks about as happy as Potter. She sighs in exasperation and sets it aside. “And you, Mr. Kurosaki,” she demands. “What are you doing here?”
“That teacher thinks I can’t speak English,” Ichigo explains, and despite everything, Potter smirks. “She wants me to get a translating charm or something.”
McGonagall blinks slowly. “You seem to me to be quite proficient in English, Mr. Kurosaki.”
Ichigo shrugs, and Potter looks down and bites his lip against a grin.
“And I suppose you have no idea how this confusion came about,” McGonagall continues, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“No idea,” Ichigo says firmly, and then, pretty sure of his footing here, “but I wouldn’t mind if she stayed confused.”
McGonagall gives him a small smile (and Potter laughs outright). “Well. After all, if I gave you a translation charm, how would you ever learn…?”
“Good point,” Ichigo allows, impressed.
McGonagall sighs and replaces her glasses. “Mr. Kurosaki, if you get yourself expelled, that will be of no help to anyone, and I will be extremely annoyed.”
“Understood.”
“Please go back to class now, before you convince me to do anything else ill-advised. Mr. Potter, you stay.”
Ichigo leaves. He feels pretty good about today. So far, it’s only mostly been a disaster.
* * *
Fred and George are, if not connoisseurs of human nature, at least extremely astute when it comes to deducing what they can get away with in which company. And that’s why they’re so interested in the new boy. They have a feeling-and they are very rarely wrong-that Ichigo would let them get away with more than anyone they’ve ever met.
(Always excepting Lee, of course, who’s an honorary Weasley in any case. They’d swap him out with Percy any day of the week. They’d even swap him out with Ronniekins.)
The unsettling thing, though, about Ichigo Kurosaki, is that he watches them with…oh… calculation. They’re used to, say, amusement, fear, and exasperation being aimed their way. Calculation is a new one, and they’re not sure what to make of it.
And when you’re not sure of a thing, the logical response is to test it until you are.
“Say, Ichigo,” Fred begins, sidling up to him at dinner. “We have a business proposal for you.”
Ichigo frowns at them. Of course, Ichigo is in a constant state of frown-it doesn’t have to mean anything. “Business proposal?”
“That’s right,” says George. “You see, we’ve invented a few joke candies, and we need to give them a trial run before they’re ready for marketing. We need test subjects. No real danger, you understand!”
“Certainly not,” Fred agrees. “We would never.”
“And in any case, you’d be handsomely compensated. Double if you end up in the Hospital Wing.”
“And best of all, it would get you out of this dining hall sooner rather than later.”
As one, they turn to look at Harry, who is dealing with the stress of having his sanity publicly questioned with all the grace and subtlety of a rampaging hippogriff.
Ichigo pushes back his plate. “I won’t be your test subject,” he says, “but I am curious about what your candies do. Let’s go.”
Fred and George exchange a look. So he’s curious about their products. Which is curious. Is he a prankster himself? Is he a sadist? Is he-most alarming of all-competition?
They’ll just have to keep poking at him until they find out.
He’s not competition. They figure that out immediately, because he’s not interested in the process of making Fainting Fancies-he’s just interested in their effects. But he’s not a sadist, either, because he looks alarmed when the firsties faint, and manages, somehow, to catch three of them before they hit the ground. Then again, he’s not a prankster, because he’s interested in the results in entirely the wrong way. He doesn’t look like he’s having fun, he just looks…calculating. Still calculating.
He’s a true mystery, is Ichigo. They’d test him more, only Hermione has to ruin everything by storming over just then and threatening them with Mum-which is utterly uncalled for-and Ichigo wanders off to do homework.
(What is Hermione like, anyway? She’s not family. Not yet, at any rate. Ron wouldn’t really, though, would he? Not even Ron, not a rulebook-thumper. Except that yes. Yes, he would. That’s the tragedy of it.)
Oh, well. If they can’t continue their experiment now, they’ll continue it later. One way or another, they will figure out Ichigo Kurosaki.
* * *
Ichigo doesn’t go into day two with a lot of hope, and it turns out that’s wise. Breakfast sees Potter and Granger and Ron all fighting about elves and then sulking. (Because elves are a thing, too. What the hell.)
First class is Charms, and Flitwick talks a lot about the animal tests, and then tells them to go over summoning charms, which apparently everybody else already knows how to do. Ichigo tries to do one and blows up his desk. Rukia, at least, would be proud.
Transfiguration is next, and Ichigo’s simultaneously pleased and worried to see McGonagall teaching it. He likes her, but he also, oh, fears and respects her. She’s got kind of an Unohana vibe, and since there’s basically no chance of his being able to transfigure anything, he doesn’t see this ending well for him.
McGonagall also talks about the animal tests for a while and Ichigo tunes out, at least until she hands him a snail and tells him to make it disappear. He checks to see if she’s messing with him, but she looks really serious. Plus, she’s given everyone else the same instructions, and she doesn’t seem the type to troll her classes.
Ichigo raises his hand and McGonagall scowls at him, so they’re off to a great start. “Yes, Mr. Kurosaki?”
“Could I try this on something that’s…uh, not alive?”
The scowls deepens. “Why?”
“Because Professor Flitwick had us summoning things last class, and Ichigo blew up his desk instead,” Ron informs her gleefully, so at least Ichigo’s made someone happy today.
McGonagall has to turn away and take a moment. Ichigo darkly suspects she’s laughing at him. She does eventually give him a rock to practice on, though.
He doesn’t blow up his desk this time. There’s just a small, controlled fire, and Ichigo counts that as progress. McGonagall doesn’t seem to agree.
Next lesson is Care of Magical Creatures, which features little stick people. Ichigo just accepts this, possibly because his capacity for shock has shorted out. He partners up with the yelling guy-Finnegan-and Thomas, the last guy in their dorm. Thomas turns out to be just enough like Chad to be comforting-he’s quiet and calm, obviously not as badass as Chad, but still easygoing and undemanding and therefore reassuring to stand beside. It’s nice-the familiarity of it in the midst of all the weird that is this school.
Partnering up with them also means Ichigo doesn’t have to be a party to whatever the hell Potter’s up to-getting into sneering contests with the blond boy from the train, taking against the professor for no reason Ichigo can see, and so on. Potter’s blood pressure must be out of control. Ichigo’s getting tired just watching him.
But at least a few people march up to Potter and loudly believe in him on their way to gardening class. That seems to cheer him up. One of those people is Lovegood, though, and as much as Ichigo trusts that she’s got a firm grip on reality, he’s the only one. Anybody else would probably find it worrying to have Lovegood declaring them sane-especially as sane as she is.
She winks at Ichigo when she passes him. He wonders if that was a shinigami-related wink, or a did-you-see-me-mess-with-Potter’s-mind wink. He tries not to worry about it.
In gardening class, the plants only halfheartedly try to kill him and he doesn’t set anything on fire, so he chalks it up as uneventful. Dinner’s also uneventful, unless you count a girl swinging by to yell at Potter for a while, but since that seems to be like an hourly thing, Ichigo’s not sure he should. After dinner, Ichigo does exactly enough homework to keep himself from being expelled, then he goes up to the roof to call his sisters.
He doesn’t think to worry about Potter. Kid’s just in detention with the Ministry mole. How wrong could that go?
In retrospect, Ichigo will wonder how he’d managed to learn absolutely nothing from his first two days at Hogwarts.
* * *
Ichigo continues going to classes and keeping an eye on Potter, waiting for an evil, broken-souled wizard to come and try to murder the kid, but no joy. He also blows a lot of things up and sets a lot of other things on fire, and gets yelled at by every single professor except Binns. And that’s just because Binns is afraid of him.
This might be the most annoying mission Ichigo’s ever been on. Not even in the ballpark in terms of danger, obviously, but just for day-to-day, grinding irritation, he really thinks this has them all beat. He’s not usually a very communicative guy, but on this mission, he’s feeling the need for frequent sanity checks badly enough that he’s taken to calling everyone he knows who might be even vaguely sympathetic and whining at them. At least it’s making Karin and Yuzu happy.
That’s why he gets back to the common room so late on Thursday night-he was busy listening to Ishida expansively insult his intelligence and question the existence of his common sense. And he was enjoying it, so he knows he’s in bad shape.
It’s a surprise to run into Potter and Ron in front of the Gryffindor portrait this time of night. Ron’s hissing something at Potter-a worried, get-your-ass-to-the-Fourth kind of hissing. Ichigo recognizes the style, so he automatically checks Potter for injuries.
The kid’s hand is bleeding. Ichigo walks over and grabs it for inspection without thinking things through-he hardly knows Potter, so this is definitely weird behavior. Still, Potter’s bleeding, and Ichigo’s bodyguard gig may be a cover, but that doesn’t mean he’s not taking it seriously.
“What are you doing?!” Potter demands, tugging at his arm until Ichigo releases him.
“Who did this?” Ichigo asks in a quiet rage, because it’s not just blood. It’s words carved into Potter’s hand. I must not tell lies.
This is not happening to someone Ichigo’s responsible for.
“No one-” “Umbridge!” Harry and Ron say over each other.
That’s right. She’s had Potter in detention.
“She carved shit into your hand?” Ichigo hisses, horrified.
“No,” Harry insists, trying to hide the evidence. Classic.
“Right.” Ichigo turns to give the portrait the password and drags the other two inside. “How’s she doing it? Is she sitting there taking a knife to you or what?”
“No!” Harry says indignantly, like that’s just silly, when he is clearly still bleeding from the hand. “It’s just-it’s a quill. It doesn’t have any ink, it’s-when I put the words on paper, it writes them with my blood.”
“And carves them into the back of your hand.”
“…Yeah.”
Ichigo wonders why he has such a gift for finding the creatively evil sadists. “Where’d she put the quill?”
“You’re not thinking of stealing that quill,” Ron whispers, wide-eyed. “That’s…that’s mental. You’ll be expelled for sure-”
“We should be so lucky,” Ichigo mutters. “Potter. Where.”
“What do you care?” Potter asks sullenly.
“I’m supposed to be your bodyguard. It’s my job to keep you safe, and at the moment you’re freaking bleeding, so I’m going to do my job.”
“So I’m just a job to you.” Potter’s attempting to win the sulking Olympics, but given that people are carving shit into his hand, Ichigo can hardly blame him.
“You’re my duty,” Ichigo corrects. “You don’t understand how seriously I take my duties. Come on, cough it up. My motives shouldn’t matter-do you want that quill gone or don’t you?”
“It’s in her office,” Potter says. “I don’t know where-she always has it out when I get there. It’s a big, black quill. But you’ll only get into trouble-and who knows what’ll happen if you do get rid of it? What if she comes up with something worse?”
“Then I’ll get rid of that, too,” Ichigo says confidently, heading up the stairs to the dorm. “Come on. Sleep.”
Ron looks disappointed. “I thought you were stealing the…?”
“When they least expect it.”
“I really doubt she’s expecting it now.”
“Ron,” Harry cuts in, exhausted. “Let it go.” He seems to think Ichigo’s all talk and not actually planning to go through with it.
Ichigo is not all talk. Ichigo, in fact, is something of a king of understatement.
* * *
He’s tried to be good about staying inside his body while at Hogwarts for a number of reasons. Firstly, Urahara claims that wizards can’t see shinigami, but they can obviously see ghosts, and Ichigo finds that worrying. Secondly, it really alarms the Hogwarts ghosts when he runs around in shinigami form, and he’s trying not to upset them. He doesn’t have anything against them; they don’t deserve to be scared. And finally, he hasn’t wanted his dorm mates to discover his still, lifeless body and come to obvious, but incorrect, conclusions. Mainly because they would never shut up about it.
But this time, it’s important that he not get caught by Umbridge. So he ditches his body, heads for Umbridge’s office, and fervently hopes wizards really can’t see shinigami.
I’ve been so fucking bored I think parts of me have actually died, Shiro says in a flat monotone, which is practically polite, coming from him. Maybe the boredom is making him numb. Can a hollow die of boredom? Is that a thing that can happen? It feels like it might happen, partner. I’m feelin it.
I hear you, Ichigo answers with a mental sigh. I keep asking for permission to destroy stuff, and everybody keeps saying no. It sucks. And after this one fun thing, we’re going right back to boredom. Unless we get expelled.
Here’s hopin’, Shiro says-and he and Zangetsu turn obligingly into blades, though Zangetsu has nothing to say. He may actually be unconscious from boredom, and who can blame him?
The office door goes down easy as cardboard, and if there are any alarms on it, they’re silent ones.
Nope, Shiro sighs sadly. Still bored.
They try to take out their aggressions on the quill, but even that’s only minimally satisfying. So they end up trashing most of the room as well, which is, to be fair, a crime against taste surpassing even Kukaku’s wildest flights of architectural fancy. And it’s full of dangerous magical objects, besides. Ichigo tries to tell himself he’s destroying everything in order to limit Umbridge’s future creativity and also to hide the fact that the quill was the target, and that’s partially true. The rest of the truth, though, is that it’s been way too long since he went on a real destructive spree. He is part hollow.
Whatever. The only person who’s going to be sad about this is Umbridge, so there’s no downside.
Part 3
“Where’s he gone, then?” Ron asks on a yawn, not exactly giving the impression of great interest.
“The Astronomy Tower,” Harry tells him, holding out the map. “Or I’m guessing that’s him, in that it’s the only name in a language I can’t read.”
“Huh. Maybe the map shows your name the way you’d normally write it yourself?”
“Looks like.”
At this point, Hermione storms down to the common room, tired and furious. “What in the world,” she hisses quietly. “It’s the middle of the night! What do you mean, ‘We have to see what he’s up to’? Who is he?”
“The transfer. Ichigo,” Ron explains. “Turns out he’s in Gryffindor after all. And he walked in our room tonight and right away said that You-Know-Who split his soul into pieces and hid them all over. He said it like he thought everybody already knew. And now he’s gone and snuck out of the dorm, so Harry’s convinced he’s a Death Eater.”
“I.” Harry stops. He supposes that does more or less sum it up. “It seems like a good idea to check, anyway.”
Hermione sighs and puts her face in her hands briefly, like she always does when she thinks Harry and Ron are being especially ridiculous. “Where is he now?” she mumbles, resigned.
“Astronomy Tower,” Ron tells her.
“And you have your cloak, Harry?”
“Right here.”
“Well then,” she drops her hands and straightens up. “I suppose we may as well get it over with.”
She’s come so far since first year.
From the look of the map, it seems Ichigo’s happy to stay in the Astronomy Tower now that he’s gotten there, so that makes things simpler.
“I can’t believe we’re sneaking around the school in the dead of night again,” Hermione complains in a whisper as they start up the Astronomy Tower stairs. “Well, yes I can, of course I can. But I can’t believe we’re doing it already.”
“We’ve a problem, too,” Ron mutters. “If he’s up there meeting people, they’ll all be talking Japanese, won’t they?”
“Not if they’re Death Eaters,” Harry argues.
“What if they’re Japanese Death Eaters?”
“There are no Japanese Death Eaters, Ronald,” Hermione says impatiently.
“How do you know that, then?”
“And I know a translating spell, in any case,” she carries on as if she wasn’t interrupted, just as they reach the entrance to the observation platform, which is where Ichigo is-pacing up and down. And still alone, so far.
“Really?” Harry asks. He hadn’t known there were translating spells, but of course Hermione would.
“I learned it in case I ever met any of Viktor’s friends who couldn’t speak English,” Hermione explains quickly, ignoring Ron’s sour expression. “It’s tricky to learn, but surprisingly easy to adapt for different languages once you have learned it. I checked on how to adapt it to Japanese as soon as we met Ichigo.”
“As you do,” Ron says, sounding fond despite himself.
“It only lasts for half an hour, but that should be plenty of time to get the idea if someone does come to meet him,” Hermione concludes. “Come on, then. He’s as far from the door as he can be-we should go now.”
They quickly slip through the door, closing it softly behind them.
And there’s Ichigo, still pacing, still alone. But he’s ranting (in Japanese) into a mobile phone, which is…it’s impossible, isn’t it? Hermione clearly thinks it’s impossible; she looks shocked. (Ron has no idea what a mobile is, so he just looks confused). Obviously they can’t understand a word, but Ichigo sounds seriously annoyed. It’s a lot more emotion than they’ve heard in his voice until now. Harry nods at Hermione, and she casts the translating spell in a whisper.
“お前らのせいだから you figure out who I’m supposed to be reporting to,” Ichigo snaps impatiently as the spell takes effect. “This Dumbledore guy is-yeah, a little of that, Renji had a point, but I don’t think he’s actually that far gone. No, he’s one of these old guys who’s seen a lot of shit and so he thinks he knows everything about everything-you know the type. Manipulative, too. Weird cross between Urahara-san and Yamamoto, basically. Yes, it’s unholy, and that’s why I’m asking, do I actually have to report to this guy? Besides, it won’t be subtle if I’m running up to the headmaster’s office all the time. Yeah, there are people watching. Seriously, this is a school with spies in it.”
“Report?” Hermione mouths silently, looking worried. Harry and Ron shrug. Harry’s not understanding most of this conversation, but if Ichigo’s wondering if he should report to Dumbledore-he can’t be all bad, can he? Even if it doesn’t sound like he especially likes Dumbledore?
“The stalking goat kid? As far as I can tell, they’re keeping him in the dark and feeding him bullshit, so-right? Picture what I’d be like under those circumstances. Except less violent. Okay, a lot less violent. I do not have rage issues, I just do what needs to be done.”
Harry scowls. He doesn’t like the sound of stalking goat one bit. Ichigo had better not be talking about him.
“You get to hear about it because you should be the one here and we both know it. For one thing, you can actually do kido. For another thing, I just finished high school-do you know how much I wanted to turn right around and do it again? This blows. Oh, don’t even. Wearing a gigai for a few months is not as bad as repeating high school.”
Apparently the spell doesn’t know a translation for kido or gigai. Harry sees Hermione writing the words down in a notebook. Is she actually keeping a notebook on Ichigo? …Actually he’d be more surprised if she wasn’t. Ichigo is more obviously full of lies with every word that comes out of his mouth, even if they don’t seem to be evil lies. That’s the kind of thing that sends Hermione right into a research frenzy.
“Toshiro, there’ll be homework. And they use quills to write with, apparently. Screw that, I’m having Yuzu send me a fountain pen or something. Yeah, I would ignore it, but in just one train ride I worked out that one of the kid’s best friends is seriously overinvested in everybody’s academic development, so I doubt she’ll let me. Fine, explain to me how I bodyguard somebody without talking to his best friends.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchange wide-eyed looks. Ichigo’s supposed to be Harry’s bodyguard?
“Yeah. No, I just-yes. Fine. But send me visitors other than Urahara-san and Yoruichi-san sometimes, because I’m gonna go out of my goddamn mind. I’d even take Kenpachi, that’s how desperate I am. Ha! No. Oh, and I meant to ask you…Wait. Gotta go, I’ve got eavesdroppers.”
Harry jumps, a little guilty, but mostly shocked. How could Ichigo know they’re here? Can he smell them or something?
“As far as I know, they don’t speak Japanese, but I wouldn’t put it past-well, it’ll be awkward as hell, but I think we’ll survive. I don’t get why every single thing about this is so top freaking secret anyway. Yeah, I get that, but-look, the kids didn’t even know about the soul-splitting thing. Exactly. No idea, it’s so fucked up. Sure, I’ll call next week. Tell Rangiku-san to beat up Ikkaku for me. Bye.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione start edging back toward the door as quickly and quietly as they can-only to be stopped by Ichigo, who’s somehow gotten between them and the door.
“How the bloody hell…” Ron gasps, and Harry elbows him silent.
Ichigo’s eyes narrow, and he stares right at them. But there’s no way he can see them, is there? No one can see them, except possibly Mrs. Norris. Mrs. Norris is a cat, though-it doesn’t count.
Ichigo reaches right out and touches them, then he grabs the cloak and pulls it off.
“How?!” It’s Hermione this time. Harry’d like to ask the same thing, actually, but he’s too busy silently gaping.
“Magic cape thing that makes people invisible,” Ichigo mutters, shaking his head and dropping the Invisibility Cloak at their feet. “Why not, I guess. So. Do you speak Japanese?”
After a pause, Hermione straightens up to her full height and lifts her chin. “There’s…there’s a spell.”
Ichigo sighs and scrubs his face. “Of course there is.”
“How did you know we were here?” Hermione carries on bravely for all of them.
“I can tell when people are around,” Ichigo says vaguely. “Why are you here, by the way?”
“We were following you. Why are you here?” Ron demands.
“I was calling my family.”
“This…Toshiro is your family?” Hermione asks doubtfully. “That didn’t sound like a conversation with family. And you can’t use electronics at Hogwarts, so what do you mean you called him?”
“He’s family now,” Ichigo says firmly. “He’s still getting used to the idea, but yeah. And the phone isn’t electronic. Tell you the truth, I have no idea how it works. Whatever acts as the battery never dies, and it gets reception everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. I’d show it to you, but I’m pretty sure it’s a secret, and all the inventors I know are terrifying and carry swords, so. Sorry, you can’t see it.”
“Swords?” Ron repeats dubiously.
“Swords,” Ichigo confirms. “Are we done?”
“No!” Harry snaps, indignant, shaking off his confusion. “What did you mean, about…being a bodyguard? Are you supposed to be my bodyguard?”
Ichigo shrugs, like he’s bored with the conversation. “Yeah.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Don’t look at me; wasn’t my idea.”
“But why would…” Hermione frowns up at Ichigo. “This makes no sense. Why would they send someone from Japan to be Harry’s bodyguard? And someone so young. Why not an Auror?”
“What they told me was that they needed somebody the right age to blend in, and I’m the only one near that age who has enough experience. In bodyguarding. Besides, nobody here recognizes me, which is a plus. And I hear my boss has local connections, so. Here we are.”
“You said that Toshiro bloke should be here instead of you, though,” Ron points out, intrigued. “Earlier, when you were talking.”
“He had the right of first refusal. Apparently.” Ichigo scowls resentfully.
“You said that’s what they told you,” Hermione puts in. “It doesn’t seem like you believe them.”
“Yeah.” Ichigo scratches the back of his head, suddenly awkward. “Truth is, I’m like eighty percent sure I’m here because somebody lost a bet. I just can’t tell if it was my side or your side.”
“What does that mean?” Ron demands.
“Just…well, I get things done, but I get them done my own way. And sometimes, it’s not a way that the people who gave the orders had in mind. Assuming I follow orders at all.”
Well, that’s ominous. “And…how do you feel about your orders to keep me alive?” Harry asks uneasily.
“Oh, I’m keeping you alive,” Ichigo says with determination, which is a relief. “But if people start telling me how I should go about it, I’m not gonna take that well.”
There’s a pause while everyone digests that.
“Not exactly popular back home, are you?” Ron murmurs eventually.
Ichigo seems pleased with himself. “Depends who you ask.”
“Only I really don’t need a bodyguard,” Harry says again.
“You sure?” Ichigo asks. “Way I hear it, you almost get yourself killed at least once a year. To say nothing of last year, when you tried to get killed like five times.”
“Four times,” says Ron cheerfully. “Be fair.” He’s actually enjoying this, the traitor.
“And I survived every time,” Harry insists, even though Ichigo’s estimate of his near-death experiences is fairly accurate.
“Whatever. It’s not like they’ll let me go home just because you don’t like the idea,” Ichigo says, rolling his eyes. “And if I’m here, I might as well be doing something with my day. What can it hurt?”
“He makes a fair point,” Hermione points out. “Always assuming he’s telling the truth.”
“Ask Dumbledore,” Ichigo suggests. “Some of this is definitely his fault.”
Harry scowls at the idea of asking Dumbledore anything. Surely Ichigo wouldn’t offer that option if he didn’t mean it, though. Would he? Does he know Dumbledore’s avoiding Harry?
“Or you could ask McGonagall,” Ichigo says, eyes narrowed, studying Harry’s face. “If that’s more your speed. She knows about me, too.”
“…I’ll do that,” Harry says reluctantly. Because he doesn’t need a bodyguard. But if he has to have one, he supposes he could do worse than Ichigo, who generally minds his own business and has never once called Harry a liar-not so far in their admittedly short acquaintance, anyway. In any case, Ichigo seems enough like the Weasley twins that it probably isn’t a good idea to allow him to get bored.
That said, Harry’s never had a long-term bodyguard. He’s not sure what to do with one on a day-to-day basis. “So are we supposed to…be friends with you now, or what?”
Ichigo looks surprised. “Not unless you’re feeling friendly. Just ignore me. I mean, tell me if you’re doing something dangerous so I can be there, but otherwise, don’t worry about it. I’ll be around, but pretend I’m furniture or something.”
Harry’s so uncomfortable with that idea he doesn’t even know where to begin. “…What would you do if we broke school rules? Would you tell, er, whoever you’re reporting to?”
“No,” Ichigo says, rolling his eyes. “They’re not paying me to police school rules, they’re paying me to keep you alive.” He pauses. “Actually, they’re not paying me at all-they’re bribing me. Still. Same idea.”
“Bribing you?” Hermione asks, interested. “With what?”
“My family’s safety,” Ichigo tells her shortly.
Everyone goes quiet. Harry feels a bit awful about all the things he’s been suspecting Ichigo of up until now, when it turns out he’s just keeping Harry safe so somebody else will keep his family safe.
Wait.
“Why can’t you just stay home and keep your own family safe?” Harry asks.
“I can’t protect my family on my own,” Ichigo explains. “You, I can protect on my own.”
Hermione stares. “You mean your family is in more danger than Harry?”
Ichigo waves a dismissive hand. “It’s a question of numbers. My family and friends-they’re scattered around. Potter’s just one person, and I can keep an eye on him pretty easily. When there are a bunch of people in different places, though, I need help. And I can have it, as long as I do things like agreeing to keep an eye on Potter.”
“But not if you don’t?” Hermione asks. She looks horrified, which is exactly how Harry feels.
“Not as much if I don’t.” Ichigo smiles at Hermione, and for the first time since they met him, he actually looks nice. “You don’t have to look like that. It’s only fair, when you think about it. Like an exchange.” He pauses, possibly to see if they have further questions. They don’t. Harry suspects they’re all far too blindsided for more questions at the moment. He knows he is.
“We’re done, then?” Ichigo asks. “Good. Now get lost. I still have to call my sisters before they leave for school. Try not to die on your way back to the common room, Potter. That would be embarrassing for both of us.”
And with that, he walks back out to the middle of the observation platform and pulls out his mobile again. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stare at each other in baffled silence, then duck back under the Invisibility Cloak and return to the common room, at a loss for anything better to do.
* * *
Ichigo’s first morning at Hogwarts continues socially uncomfortable, with the Finnegan kid making snide remarks and then bravely running away, Potter taking it out on everyone, and Granger yelling at Potter for taking it out on everyone. Ichigo tries to make himself as invisible as possible, but he’s a tall guy with orange hair, so there’s only so much he can do. And that’s only the start of the morning’s problems.
It develops that the dining hall ceiling imitates the sky, which seems a strange choice, in that this is Scotland, and Ichigo understands the weather is shitty more often than it isn’t. Also, owls carry the mail into the dining hall, which seems unsanitary. Finally, the kitchen staff tried to throw some Japanese food into the mix, which is…well-meant. Ichigo appreciates what they’re trying to do, he really does, but their take on Japanese food is…odd. It’s not exactly bad, but it’s not exactly Japanese food, either. The rice, in particular, has something off about it, when it seems like that should be the easiest thing to get right. And since they went to the trouble just for him, he has to eat some of it, though he’d really rather stick to the local food. At least he’s expecting that to taste unfamiliar.
There’s a lot of talk over breakfast about owls and newts, and everybody’s acting like they’re exams, but Ichigo was pretty confident they were animals-owls are definitely animals; they just delivered the mail. Which means there are exams named after animals. This is a weird freaking school.
Fortunately, there’s one bright spot to the morning, and that’s the discovery of Ron’s twin brothers. They’re a lot like the very wildest members of the Twelfth Division-the types who try to invent something fun and end up destroying half the compound instead. People like that are really useful, because you can talk them into any damn thing, and they’ll always assume it’s not as dangerous as it sounds.
Ichigo decides he should get to know the twins immediately.
It’s all downhill from the twins, though, because after breakfast come the classes, and they are-wow. Like, Ichigo gets that it’s a magic school, so classes were bound to be bizarre. He just hadn’t remotely guessed how bizarre.
History of Magic is taught by a ghost. Ichigo can’t believe they’re pulling this shit on him. A ghost teaching history. He may cry. But Urahara’s report was right-there’s a little bubble on the end of the ghost’s almost-invisible soul chain. Some kind of magic, apparently, that keeps the chains from eroding and the local ghosts from turning into hollows. Very cool, Ichigo has to admit.
The ghost is lecturing on giant wars, and Ichigo’s finding it interesting only because he had no idea giants were a thing. Knowing that they are, he has to wonder if Jidanbo was a giant when he was alive. Then, too, he has to wonder why they’re not common knowledge, being, obviously, giant, and also, from the sound of it, really violent. How do you hide an entire species of giant, violent, intelligent creatures?
Urahara probably knows. Ichigo takes a bunch of notes, not so much on the class as on things he’s discovering he needs to ask Urahara about at some point.
Things take a turn for the worse, though, when the ghost abruptly pauses mid-droning lecture and spins to face Ichigo. Not satisfied with that, it has to come float directly in front of him and stare into his eyes in apparent horror.
“Why?” the ghost demands.
“It’s not about you,” Ichigo tells him. “It’s not about any of you here. You don’t need to worry.”
“Ah. Good.” The ghost, satisfied and therefore losing interest, floats off and resumes the lecture. The living section of the classroom, meanwhile, dissolves into a hissing mess of whispers. Whoever thought Ichigo could handle any kind of undercover anything was clearly a moron.
After History of Magic is Potions, and Snape gets to join the ranks of all the teachers who don’t like Ichigo’s looks. On the plus side, Snape doesn’t seem to like anybody’s looks, so at least Ichigo doesn’t feel singled out. Nice change, there. In fact, if anyone gets special hatred, it’s Potter. That poor kid-he’s Soul Society’s stalking goat, but he’s his own government’s scapegoat, and apparently he’s Snape’s scapegoat, too. Just all around treated more like a goat than a human. Ichigo wouldn’t trade lives with the sorry bastard for anything.
As for Ichigo, he’s pretty sure he screwed up his potion, but since he didn’t actually blow it up, he’s calling it a success. (Snape calls it a lot of things, none of them even in the ballpark of success, but since Ichigo’s pretty sure Snape can’t be made happy, he’s not taking it personally.)
Ichigo has a free period after that, during which Potter goes to Divination and Ichigo just has to pray he doesn’t manage to trip over a crystal ball and die. As for Ichigo, he goes down to the library to sit very quietly for an hour and work on his suspension of disbelief.
Then there’s Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s taught by this…creature…wearing a whole lot of pink, and it’s just. Ichigo can practically hear Yuzu crying every time he looks at that sweater. He himself has no particular fondness for pink, but that’s a seriously unfair thing to do to any color.
Then the pink creature starts talking in a freaky small-child voice, and Ichigo cannot force his brain to parse her words. Not that he thinks she’s particularly worth listening to, but she’s the Ministry mole, so he should probably try to pay attention.
He can’t, though. He really can’t. He just stares in fascinated horror until she stops talking and everybody opens their books. He opens his book, too, since apparently that’s what they’re doing. The book quickly proves to be mind-numbingly boring, so he starts writing up his first report instead. It includes a lot of phrases like why would you, and wouldn’t it be faster to just blow up the school, and undue cruelty to substitute shinigami.
The teacher sidles up beside him and stares at his report. Great. The whole point of the exercise was to encourage her not to take an interest in him.
“Why don’t you take notes in English, dear?” she coos.
Ichigo frowns up at her. “My English bad. This way more fast.”
Everyone in class who’s heard him speak English before turns to stare at him. Most of them look like they’re about to start out laughing, so that’s good. Or bad, if they actually do start laughing. That would blow his cover. Granger is also staring at him in incredulous delight, but she, at least, has her hand clapped over her mouth. It’s good that someone understands the game.
“Oh.” The teacher blinks. “Well, I’m surprised people from your…country…would allow you to attend school here without being able to speak a proper-to properly speak the language. You must practice your English, dear. Practice! Do you understand?”
Wow, this lady is an all-around class act. But Ichigo just nods gamely, and she goes away before anybody does anything more than snort quietly. Win.
Neville Longbottom passes him a note that reads, “I want to be you when I grow up.” Ichigo smiles and shoves the note in his pocket to show Renji. This, my friend, this is how undercover is done.
Then the whole class abruptly gets into a screaming fight with the teacher and a riot almost breaks out, so that’s pretty entertaining. Shiro’s downright cheered by it, and Ichigo’s kind of impressed with the teacher’s cast-iron balls-because that’s what it takes to tell a bunch of kids who had a classmate murdered the year before that they live in a world of safety and sunshine. Like. Damn.
Anyway, Potter ultimately gets kicked out-kid really is everybody’s goat-and then, apparently in the spirit of the thing, Ichigo gets kicked out too. The teacher wants him to escort Potter to their Head of House and also get a translating charm for himself. Makes sense. How’s she supposed to spy on him if she can’t read what he’s writing?
By the time Ichigo makes it out the door, Potter’s already running down the hall and yelling at a poltergeist. It’s a pretty sorry day when Ichigo thinks somebody should learn to pick his battles. He trails after them, though, because he’s got no idea where McGonagall’s office is. Also because they’re funny to watch.
McGonagall must not agree, though, given the way she flings open her door and demands to know what the noise is. Which is exactly the moment Peeves notices Ichigo, freezes in panic, and then dives into the ceiling screaming about murderers and death dealers. McGonagall and Potter both turn to stare at Ichigo.
“Ghosts don’t like me,” he lies blandly.
“Yes,” McGonagall says faintly. “So I’d understood. Well, come inside, the two of you, and explain to me why you’re here when you should be in class.”
“I’ve been sent to see you,” Potter grumbles, holding out a note of offensive pinkness.
McGonagall takes the note, frowning, and reads it. By the time she’s finished, she looks about as happy as Potter. She sighs in exasperation and sets it aside. “And you, Mr. Kurosaki,” she demands. “What are you doing here?”
“That teacher thinks I can’t speak English,” Ichigo explains, and despite everything, Potter smirks. “She wants me to get a translating charm or something.”
McGonagall blinks slowly. “You seem to me to be quite proficient in English, Mr. Kurosaki.”
Ichigo shrugs, and Potter looks down and bites his lip against a grin.
“And I suppose you have no idea how this confusion came about,” McGonagall continues, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“No idea,” Ichigo says firmly, and then, pretty sure of his footing here, “but I wouldn’t mind if she stayed confused.”
McGonagall gives him a small smile (and Potter laughs outright). “Well. After all, if I gave you a translation charm, how would you ever learn…?”
“Good point,” Ichigo allows, impressed.
McGonagall sighs and replaces her glasses. “Mr. Kurosaki, if you get yourself expelled, that will be of no help to anyone, and I will be extremely annoyed.”
“Understood.”
“Please go back to class now, before you convince me to do anything else ill-advised. Mr. Potter, you stay.”
Ichigo leaves. He feels pretty good about today. So far, it’s only mostly been a disaster.
* * *
Fred and George are, if not connoisseurs of human nature, at least extremely astute when it comes to deducing what they can get away with in which company. And that’s why they’re so interested in the new boy. They have a feeling-and they are very rarely wrong-that Ichigo would let them get away with more than anyone they’ve ever met.
(Always excepting Lee, of course, who’s an honorary Weasley in any case. They’d swap him out with Percy any day of the week. They’d even swap him out with Ronniekins.)
The unsettling thing, though, about Ichigo Kurosaki, is that he watches them with…oh… calculation. They’re used to, say, amusement, fear, and exasperation being aimed their way. Calculation is a new one, and they’re not sure what to make of it.
And when you’re not sure of a thing, the logical response is to test it until you are.
“Say, Ichigo,” Fred begins, sidling up to him at dinner. “We have a business proposal for you.”
Ichigo frowns at them. Of course, Ichigo is in a constant state of frown-it doesn’t have to mean anything. “Business proposal?”
“That’s right,” says George. “You see, we’ve invented a few joke candies, and we need to give them a trial run before they’re ready for marketing. We need test subjects. No real danger, you understand!”
“Certainly not,” Fred agrees. “We would never.”
“And in any case, you’d be handsomely compensated. Double if you end up in the Hospital Wing.”
“And best of all, it would get you out of this dining hall sooner rather than later.”
As one, they turn to look at Harry, who is dealing with the stress of having his sanity publicly questioned with all the grace and subtlety of a rampaging hippogriff.
Ichigo pushes back his plate. “I won’t be your test subject,” he says, “but I am curious about what your candies do. Let’s go.”
Fred and George exchange a look. So he’s curious about their products. Which is curious. Is he a prankster himself? Is he a sadist? Is he-most alarming of all-competition?
They’ll just have to keep poking at him until they find out.
He’s not competition. They figure that out immediately, because he’s not interested in the process of making Fainting Fancies-he’s just interested in their effects. But he’s not a sadist, either, because he looks alarmed when the firsties faint, and manages, somehow, to catch three of them before they hit the ground. Then again, he’s not a prankster, because he’s interested in the results in entirely the wrong way. He doesn’t look like he’s having fun, he just looks…calculating. Still calculating.
He’s a true mystery, is Ichigo. They’d test him more, only Hermione has to ruin everything by storming over just then and threatening them with Mum-which is utterly uncalled for-and Ichigo wanders off to do homework.
(What is Hermione like, anyway? She’s not family. Not yet, at any rate. Ron wouldn’t really, though, would he? Not even Ron, not a rulebook-thumper. Except that yes. Yes, he would. That’s the tragedy of it.)
Oh, well. If they can’t continue their experiment now, they’ll continue it later. One way or another, they will figure out Ichigo Kurosaki.
* * *
Ichigo doesn’t go into day two with a lot of hope, and it turns out that’s wise. Breakfast sees Potter and Granger and Ron all fighting about elves and then sulking. (Because elves are a thing, too. What the hell.)
First class is Charms, and Flitwick talks a lot about the animal tests, and then tells them to go over summoning charms, which apparently everybody else already knows how to do. Ichigo tries to do one and blows up his desk. Rukia, at least, would be proud.
Transfiguration is next, and Ichigo’s simultaneously pleased and worried to see McGonagall teaching it. He likes her, but he also, oh, fears and respects her. She’s got kind of an Unohana vibe, and since there’s basically no chance of his being able to transfigure anything, he doesn’t see this ending well for him.
McGonagall also talks about the animal tests for a while and Ichigo tunes out, at least until she hands him a snail and tells him to make it disappear. He checks to see if she’s messing with him, but she looks really serious. Plus, she’s given everyone else the same instructions, and she doesn’t seem the type to troll her classes.
Ichigo raises his hand and McGonagall scowls at him, so they’re off to a great start. “Yes, Mr. Kurosaki?”
“Could I try this on something that’s…uh, not alive?”
The scowls deepens. “Why?”
“Because Professor Flitwick had us summoning things last class, and Ichigo blew up his desk instead,” Ron informs her gleefully, so at least Ichigo’s made someone happy today.
McGonagall has to turn away and take a moment. Ichigo darkly suspects she’s laughing at him. She does eventually give him a rock to practice on, though.
He doesn’t blow up his desk this time. There’s just a small, controlled fire, and Ichigo counts that as progress. McGonagall doesn’t seem to agree.
Next lesson is Care of Magical Creatures, which features little stick people. Ichigo just accepts this, possibly because his capacity for shock has shorted out. He partners up with the yelling guy-Finnegan-and Thomas, the last guy in their dorm. Thomas turns out to be just enough like Chad to be comforting-he’s quiet and calm, obviously not as badass as Chad, but still easygoing and undemanding and therefore reassuring to stand beside. It’s nice-the familiarity of it in the midst of all the weird that is this school.
Partnering up with them also means Ichigo doesn’t have to be a party to whatever the hell Potter’s up to-getting into sneering contests with the blond boy from the train, taking against the professor for no reason Ichigo can see, and so on. Potter’s blood pressure must be out of control. Ichigo’s getting tired just watching him.
But at least a few people march up to Potter and loudly believe in him on their way to gardening class. That seems to cheer him up. One of those people is Lovegood, though, and as much as Ichigo trusts that she’s got a firm grip on reality, he’s the only one. Anybody else would probably find it worrying to have Lovegood declaring them sane-especially as sane as she is.
She winks at Ichigo when she passes him. He wonders if that was a shinigami-related wink, or a did-you-see-me-mess-with-Potter’s-mind wink. He tries not to worry about it.
In gardening class, the plants only halfheartedly try to kill him and he doesn’t set anything on fire, so he chalks it up as uneventful. Dinner’s also uneventful, unless you count a girl swinging by to yell at Potter for a while, but since that seems to be like an hourly thing, Ichigo’s not sure he should. After dinner, Ichigo does exactly enough homework to keep himself from being expelled, then he goes up to the roof to call his sisters.
He doesn’t think to worry about Potter. Kid’s just in detention with the Ministry mole. How wrong could that go?
In retrospect, Ichigo will wonder how he’d managed to learn absolutely nothing from his first two days at Hogwarts.
* * *
Ichigo continues going to classes and keeping an eye on Potter, waiting for an evil, broken-souled wizard to come and try to murder the kid, but no joy. He also blows a lot of things up and sets a lot of other things on fire, and gets yelled at by every single professor except Binns. And that’s just because Binns is afraid of him.
This might be the most annoying mission Ichigo’s ever been on. Not even in the ballpark in terms of danger, obviously, but just for day-to-day, grinding irritation, he really thinks this has them all beat. He’s not usually a very communicative guy, but on this mission, he’s feeling the need for frequent sanity checks badly enough that he’s taken to calling everyone he knows who might be even vaguely sympathetic and whining at them. At least it’s making Karin and Yuzu happy.
That’s why he gets back to the common room so late on Thursday night-he was busy listening to Ishida expansively insult his intelligence and question the existence of his common sense. And he was enjoying it, so he knows he’s in bad shape.
It’s a surprise to run into Potter and Ron in front of the Gryffindor portrait this time of night. Ron’s hissing something at Potter-a worried, get-your-ass-to-the-Fourth kind of hissing. Ichigo recognizes the style, so he automatically checks Potter for injuries.
The kid’s hand is bleeding. Ichigo walks over and grabs it for inspection without thinking things through-he hardly knows Potter, so this is definitely weird behavior. Still, Potter’s bleeding, and Ichigo’s bodyguard gig may be a cover, but that doesn’t mean he’s not taking it seriously.
“What are you doing?!” Potter demands, tugging at his arm until Ichigo releases him.
“Who did this?” Ichigo asks in a quiet rage, because it’s not just blood. It’s words carved into Potter’s hand. I must not tell lies.
This is not happening to someone Ichigo’s responsible for.
“No one-” “Umbridge!” Harry and Ron say over each other.
That’s right. She’s had Potter in detention.
“She carved shit into your hand?” Ichigo hisses, horrified.
“No,” Harry insists, trying to hide the evidence. Classic.
“Right.” Ichigo turns to give the portrait the password and drags the other two inside. “How’s she doing it? Is she sitting there taking a knife to you or what?”
“No!” Harry says indignantly, like that’s just silly, when he is clearly still bleeding from the hand. “It’s just-it’s a quill. It doesn’t have any ink, it’s-when I put the words on paper, it writes them with my blood.”
“And carves them into the back of your hand.”
“…Yeah.”
Ichigo wonders why he has such a gift for finding the creatively evil sadists. “Where’d she put the quill?”
“You’re not thinking of stealing that quill,” Ron whispers, wide-eyed. “That’s…that’s mental. You’ll be expelled for sure-”
“We should be so lucky,” Ichigo mutters. “Potter. Where.”
“What do you care?” Potter asks sullenly.
“I’m supposed to be your bodyguard. It’s my job to keep you safe, and at the moment you’re freaking bleeding, so I’m going to do my job.”
“So I’m just a job to you.” Potter’s attempting to win the sulking Olympics, but given that people are carving shit into his hand, Ichigo can hardly blame him.
“You’re my duty,” Ichigo corrects. “You don’t understand how seriously I take my duties. Come on, cough it up. My motives shouldn’t matter-do you want that quill gone or don’t you?”
“It’s in her office,” Potter says. “I don’t know where-she always has it out when I get there. It’s a big, black quill. But you’ll only get into trouble-and who knows what’ll happen if you do get rid of it? What if she comes up with something worse?”
“Then I’ll get rid of that, too,” Ichigo says confidently, heading up the stairs to the dorm. “Come on. Sleep.”
Ron looks disappointed. “I thought you were stealing the…?”
“When they least expect it.”
“I really doubt she’s expecting it now.”
“Ron,” Harry cuts in, exhausted. “Let it go.” He seems to think Ichigo’s all talk and not actually planning to go through with it.
Ichigo is not all talk. Ichigo, in fact, is something of a king of understatement.
* * *
He’s tried to be good about staying inside his body while at Hogwarts for a number of reasons. Firstly, Urahara claims that wizards can’t see shinigami, but they can obviously see ghosts, and Ichigo finds that worrying. Secondly, it really alarms the Hogwarts ghosts when he runs around in shinigami form, and he’s trying not to upset them. He doesn’t have anything against them; they don’t deserve to be scared. And finally, he hasn’t wanted his dorm mates to discover his still, lifeless body and come to obvious, but incorrect, conclusions. Mainly because they would never shut up about it.
But this time, it’s important that he not get caught by Umbridge. So he ditches his body, heads for Umbridge’s office, and fervently hopes wizards really can’t see shinigami.
I’ve been so fucking bored I think parts of me have actually died, Shiro says in a flat monotone, which is practically polite, coming from him. Maybe the boredom is making him numb. Can a hollow die of boredom? Is that a thing that can happen? It feels like it might happen, partner. I’m feelin it.
I hear you, Ichigo answers with a mental sigh. I keep asking for permission to destroy stuff, and everybody keeps saying no. It sucks. And after this one fun thing, we’re going right back to boredom. Unless we get expelled.
Here’s hopin’, Shiro says-and he and Zangetsu turn obligingly into blades, though Zangetsu has nothing to say. He may actually be unconscious from boredom, and who can blame him?
The office door goes down easy as cardboard, and if there are any alarms on it, they’re silent ones.
Nope, Shiro sighs sadly. Still bored.
They try to take out their aggressions on the quill, but even that’s only minimally satisfying. So they end up trashing most of the room as well, which is, to be fair, a crime against taste surpassing even Kukaku’s wildest flights of architectural fancy. And it’s full of dangerous magical objects, besides. Ichigo tries to tell himself he’s destroying everything in order to limit Umbridge’s future creativity and also to hide the fact that the quill was the target, and that’s partially true. The rest of the truth, though, is that it’s been way too long since he went on a real destructive spree. He is part hollow.
Whatever. The only person who’s going to be sad about this is Umbridge, so there’s no downside.
Part 3