Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Fluff Forevermore ❯ Introductions ( Chapter 3 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

DISCLAIMER: If I was rich enough to buy the characters of Yu Yu, do you really think my top priority would be posting fanfics? Then again…that's entirely possible…

Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei and Kurama woke up at dawn, when Tom the innkeeper came into each of their rooms and told them that Dumbledore was waiting for them in the dining room.

Hiei left the room before Kurama even got out of bed, without looking once at the kitsune or saying a word. Kurama sighed as he got up. Hiei was angry with him, then. Well, the hiyoukai had all the right to be. Kurama had come down far too hard on him the night before, and he knew it. He had berated himself over it for the better part of the sleepless night. He had said the one thing he knew had been tormenting Hiei for weeks. And the worst part was that he'd wanted to hurt his koi. Wanted him to feel the shame and self-disgust that he himself felt whenever he thought back to that night, the feelings that had been haunting him.

But Hiei didn't deserve those feelings any more that he did! And it hadn't been his fault—none of it had! Hiei deserved happiness!

And Kurama had yanked any hope of that away with a simple sentence.

He was such an idiot.

Kurama sighed heavily as he pulled his shoes on. “This sucks.”

“This sucks,” Hiei muttered, looking gloomily out of the dining room window.

“What sucks?” Yusuke managed to mumble around a mouthful of food as he walked up behind the Jaganshi.

“Nothing,” Hiei snapped. Yusuke shrugged and moved away, leaving Hiei to brood.

He hadn't thought Kurama felt that way about things. He knew he was to blame, but Kurama had spent over three weeks telling him it wasn't his fault. So why the change?

He just couldn't forget how harsh Kurama's voice had been.

He didn't understand it.

And how am I ever supposed to even lookat him again, when he's so miserable and it's myfault? He wondered.

Hiei's thoughts were interrupted when Kurama himself came into the room. He didn't turn as he listened to chairs scraping across the floor, and he continued to stare out the window until Dumbledore's voice said, “Hiei, would you care to join us for breakfast?”

Hiei didn't look at Kurama as he took a seat at the table. No one else seemed to notice, except for Dumbledore, who glanced at him, looking faintly puzzled, before he seemed to decide to leave the matter alone.

“So, we're leaving today?” Yusuke asked as he swallowed half a piece of toast.

“Yes, yes, we are,” Dumbledore said.

“How are we getting there?” Kuwabara wanted to know.

“We're going to take a Portkey,” Dumbledore informed him.

“A what?” Kurama asked.

“A Portkey,” Dumbledore repeated. “A teleportation device.”

“Cool!” Yusuke said. “I wanna go!”

Dumbledore smiled. “Well, you need to finish breakfast first…”

“I'm done,” Yusuke said quickly, pushing his plate away.

“Then go pack up everything you brought yesterday. There are trunks in your rooms.” Dumbledore shook his head, smiling, as Yusuke bolted from the table.

Hiei, who had just been picking at his food, muttered, “I'm finished, too,” and escaped the table, not noticing the upset look Kurama gave him.

Kurama found Hiei in their room when he finally left the table almost half an hour later. He was blurring around the room, gathering things up and throwing them into the open trunk at the end of the bed.

“Hiei?” Kurama asked tentatively.

He was answered by the slamming of a trunk lid. “Don't worry, I'm leaving,” Hiei said, lifting the trunk with a grunt. He carried it past Kurama without meeting his eyes.

“Hiei…”

“It's all right, Kurama. I know how you feel now, so please, don't try to apologize and say you didn't mean it.” He didn't sound angry, merely resigned.

As Hiei left the room, Kurama said in a small, pained voice, “But I am, and I didn't…”

Out in the hall, Hiei paused, then walked on as if he hadn't heard anything at all.

“What's that?” Yusuke asked, looking at the old, dirty, misshapen shoe that Dumbledore held in his hand.

“Our teleporter,” Dumbledore answered simply. “Come, you four, bring your trunks and gather `round.”

“How is that thing gonna take us to…wherever we're going?” Kuwabara asked. “Isn't is better to just open a portal?”

“Scotland.”

“What?”

“Scotland. We're going to Scotland.” (AN: I think that's where Hogwarts is…) “And wizards can't operate portals. Now, all of you have to touch both the shoe and tour trunks for all of it to go, so grab one of the handles and touch the shoe—just a finger is fine—come, come, we have to go—make a little bit more room—good, good, that's fine—Kurama, where are your things? Ah, yes, Kuwabara's got them—three, two, one…”

Suddenly, all of them felt a strange jerk, and then the world blurred. Hiei gave a yelp that no one heard, trying to remove his finger from the old shoe, but it was stuck. He held fast to his trunk handle, as Dumbledore had said to.

Then they all hit the ground with a jarring impact, though, surprisingly, none of them fell.

Hiei was the first to gather his wits to look around, and he barely managed to keep his mouth from dropping open.

They were standing in a large, foyer-type place. The ceiling was too high to make out. Directly in front of them, a huge staircase led up to the other floors. To the left was a set of tall, golden double doors, and on the right, a flight of stone steps led deep down into darkness.

“What the hel is this?” Hiei muttered. He had uttered that phrase or one like it far too much lately, but it was the only question that came to mind.

“It was in February of that year that a wizard named…” The transparent man speaking looked up when the door to the room creaked open.

“Professor Binns, I need Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Potter, if you please?” a stern-looking woman said.

The three she had named glanced at each other in barely-contained excitement, and gathered up their books, quills, ink, and parchment papers, while their History of Magic teacher watched over the pages of the book he had been reading aloud to the class.

As soon as the door closed behind the second boy, he said, “They're here?”

The woman nodded. “Outside the Great Hall. Come.”

“It's quite overwhelming, isn't it?” Dumbledore said, smiling.

“Not overwhelming, exactly,” Hiei said. “Just…big.”

Dumbledore nodded. “It is that. But you'll be surprised at how quickly everything becomes familiar.”

“You sure about that?” Yusuke asked faintly, craning his neck to try and glimpse the ceiling.

“Absolutely. Ah, here they are!” Dumbledore said, looking up their stairs. Everyone else looked, too, and saw four figures making their way down the huge staircase.

The middle figure was a very severe-looking woman with her hair held up tightly in a bun. She had precious few laugh lines on her face, and she had that “Break my rules and suffer the consequences” air about her.

The three people around her were two boys and a girl. The girl had very thick, rather bushy brown hair and bright brown eyes. The boy next to her was very tall and lanky, with fiery red hair, and the other boy was a bit shorter, and skinny, with messy black hair and bright green eyes. All of them were dressed in long black robes and carried bags on their shoulders.

The woman looked critically at Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei. “They don't look like much…” Her voice was sharp and unexpected, and it echoed in the silence. Everyone but Hiei started.

“Hey, watch your tone, lady,” he snapped at her in Japanese, fingering his hidden sword hilt. For once, Kurama didn't scold him. Hiei noticed the tallest boy staring at him, and he glared. He felt uncomfortable in this place, and it was making him as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Dumbledore placed a calming hand on his shoulder and said, “Professor, Minerva McGonagall, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, meet Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara—”

“Just Kuwabara,” Kuwabara, who also spoke English well, interrupted.

“Right—and the redhead is Yoko Kurama—Kurama. The smaller one is Hiei Jaganshi.”

“Why do you say our named backward, and call us by our first names when we hardly know you?” Hiei asked.

“That's how it's done here,” Dumbledore said simply. Then he turned to the other group and said in English, “Thank you, professor McGonagall.” This seemed to be a sort of dismissal, because she nodded and left the go back up the stairs—to her own class, maybe. “Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, you are excused from your classes for the rest of the day to help our visitors get settled. Take them wherever they wish to go first, after they drop their things off in the dormitory. If you'll excuse me…”

As Dumbledore, too, disappeared, the red-haired boy, Ron, said, “So, you four are demons. You look human enough…”

“Ron!” The girl—Hermione—said. “Don't be rude!” She smiled at the four foreigners. “Sorry about him. He hasno tact.”

“No problem,” Yusuke said, smiling. “Technically, Hiei there is the only demon among us. Kurama there—that is what was call him, not Yoko—that hasn't been his name in years—is human in this form, and Kuwabara and I are full-blood humans—well, mostly anyway. But that's allway too much to explain now, so…”

“Right. To the dormitory,” black-haired Harry said.

“Why are there only three extra beds?” Ron asked, as they walked into the dormitory that had been rearranged only that morning to fit eight of the four-poster beds instead of only five.

Yusuke snickered. “That's because…”

“Hiei doesn't like to sleep in beds,” Kurama cut him off. Yusuke glanced at him in surprise, but no one else seemed to notice.

“Then where do you sleep?” Ron asked.

Hiei said nothing. He simply dragged his trunk to the large windowsill and set it there.

“Doesn't he talk?” Ron asked uneasily.

Yusuke nodded. “Oh, yeah. Hiei has a very sharp tongue, when he cares to use it. But he doesn't speak English. He'll learn fast, though.”

“Oh,” Ron said.

“But what you need to understand is that even when Hiei does learn English, he may not talk to you much. He's had a hard life, and he doesn't give trust freely.”

“What do you mean, he's had a bad life? How hard could it possibly have been? He looks too young to have any huge problems.”

Yusuke shook his head and said, “You don't understand, and it's not my place to try to explain it. Let's just say that Hiei grew up in the demon world, and it didn't treat him well.”

“In other words, Ron, shut up,” Hermione said.

Ron's face reddened, and he opened his mouth to speak. Harry, who obviously scented danger, said, “I can have Dumbledore try to find a way for us to be able to understand Hiei, and vice versa, if it would help.”

“Really? That would be great!” Kuwabara said.

“I'll ask McGonagall to—” Harry began, but his attention was diverted by the loud bang of Kurama's trunk as he tried to juggle it and Sora's cage at the same time, with one arm. Sora screeched in protest and beat her wings against the bars of her cage.

“Here, let us help,” Ron said quickly, grabbing one end of Kurama's trunk. Hermione grabbed the other, and together, the two of them heaved the trunk onto Kurama's bed, while Harry went to help Kurama calm Sora.

“That's a beautiful owl,” Hermione commented, opening the trunk and starting to unload it. “Harry has the same kind. What's her name?”

“Sora,” Kurama replied.

“Sora…that's a funny name,” Harry said.

“No, it isn't. It means `sky' in Japanese,” Kurama said. “I love the night sky…it brings me peace. So I named her after it.” He smiled and stoked the owl through the bars of the cage. “But what should I do with her now? I don't have food or anything…”

“That's easy. Just toss her out the window,” Harry said easily. He grinned at their incredulous looks. “She'll fly straight to the owlery and then go rustle up some food.”

“But how do you know she won't just fly away?” Kurama asked doubtfully.

“She won't, I promise,” Harry said. “I'll take you to the owlery later and show you.”

“Well…all right,” Kurama said, unlatching the cage. Sora gave a glad hoot and spread her wings to fly to freedom. Kurama, watching her go, gave a small yelp as a different owl flew straight over his head, dropped a small package on Harry's bed, and glided silently back around and out the window.

“Cool!” Yusuke said. “What'd it bring?”

“I dunno…” Harry said, ripping open the package. A note fell out of it, and when Harry picked it up and read it, he began to laugh. “It's from Dumbledore,” he explained. “Always one step ahead of us, that man.”

“What're you talking about?” Kuwabara asked.

In answer, Harry reached into the box and pulled out four little devices. “Translators,” he said, grinning.

“But how did he get those?” Kurama asked. “We only just left him!”

“Well, that guy basically has the planet at his disposal twenty-four hours a day,” Hermione said. “Trust me, it isn't surprising that he could whip these up so quickly.”

“Dumbledore says we should pin them to the inside of each of our robes—me, Ron, Hermione, and Hiei—and then it will seem to each of us that we're speaking each other's languages.” He tossed one to Hiei, who caught it and stared at it, confused.

“Hiei, it's a translator,” Yusuke explained. “Put it on the inside of your clothes so you can understand everyone.”

Hiei rolled his eyes and pinned on the translator. “Happy now, detective?”

“Very,” Harry answered for Yusuke. “We can understand you now.”

Hiei shrugged and turned back to the window. Harry, not to be put off by Hiei's attitude, pressed on. “So, tell us about yourselves. Where did you come from? How do demons stay hidden from us?”

Hiei snorted. “We hide in Makai like cowering dogs, that's how.”

“What's Makai?” Hermione, ever the scholar, asked with interest.

“Demon world.”

“Oooh!” Hermione said excitedly, momentarily forgetting politeness. “What's it like there? And I want the truth!” Then she seemed to remember something. “If…if you don't mind telling me, that is,” she faltered.

Hiei seemed to be seriously thinking about his answer this time. He turned to look out the window, studying the grounds of the school intently. “It's like Hell,” he said finally. His voice was quiet. “You are afraid of this Voldemort character, because of how many people he's killed, but the truth is, in Makai, he would be just a common being. Because killing and being killed is an ordinary, everyday event. And if your life is taken quickly, you are lucky. Friendship is extremely rare, and love is pretty much never seen. The only reason demons even bed each other is because our race would die out if we don't make children; it is not for love. Humans say that they hate their lives, but you are incredibly lucky. Here, everyone is able to relax, and be happy. Here, you can have fun without having to watch your back every moment. Here…here you can love without fear. You can be in love and happy without fearing for the life of your lover every waking moment, and most of the sleeping ones, as well.” Here, he glanced briefly at Kurama, then looked away. At least…I thought you could.

Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei didn't end up getting a tour of the school that day. They sat and talked to Harry, Ron and Hermione all day. And the strange thing about that was that, in all those hours, they never got into personal histories. Harry, Ron and Hermione told them all about the school, the teachers, the classes, the students, Voldemort, and the entire Wizarding world.

As the day went on, it became clearer and clearer to everyone that something was going on between Hiei and Kurama. Even the wizards and witch, who knew nothing about their real relationship, felt the tension between the two, and noticed how they carefully spoke around each other and even more carefully kept their eyes averted from each other. As was customary, though, no one commented. Yusuke and Kuwabara didn't because that had slightly more tact than a goldfish, and Harry, Ron and Hermione kept quiet because they didn't understand what could be going on, and they didn't want to ask and cause whatever problem their was to worsen in some way.

As the sun started to move to the western horizon, Harry checked his watch and said, “Almost time for dinner. Do you guys want to come down and face the mob now, or tomorrow during classes? If you want, we can bring some food back for you.”

“Thank you,” Kurama said. “I think I'll stay up here.”

“Me, too,” Hiei said to the window.

“So will we,” Yusuke added, while Kuwabara nodded.

“All right,” Ron said. “See you later, then.”

“Uh…do you think you could bring back something with sugar in it?” Hiei asked awkwardly.

“Sure,” Hermione answered, hiding a smile. “I think we can find some kind of that…”

“I didn't know we had foreigners here!” A voice outside the dormitory door said excitedly.

Hermione's exasperated voice echoed through. “I told you, Neville! They're visiting!”

“Why?” Another new voice asked.

“To learn about foreign Wizarding schools,” Harry answered smoothly.

“I want to meet them!”

The third stranger finished his sentence just as the whole party crashed into the room…to find the four new “students” staring blankly at them.

The new voices belonged to a round-faced, wide-eyed boy, a tall black boy, and a sandy-haired boy.

“Er…sorry, guys,” Harry said quickly. “These are the other boys in our dorm. Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Neville Longbottom. Guys, this is Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei.”

“Hi!” Neville said brightly. “Nice to meet you! How do you like it here so far?”

“It's…nice,” Kurama said. “We really haven't seen too much of it yet, though.”

“I think it's awesome!” Kuwabara said.

“Ditto,” Yusuke added.

“What about you, Hiei?” Seamus asked.

Hiei started when his name was said, and turned to see who had spoken. When he saw that it wasn't someone who understood him, he simply said, “Hn,” and turned back to the window.

“He doesn't speak English,” Harry explained. “He'll learn quickly enough, though.”

“Is he mad about something?” Dean asked. “He doesn't look happy.”

“He's just not the `happy' type,” Ron said.

“How would you know?” Seamus asked.

“We've been talking all afternoon.”

“I thought he didn't speak English,” Neville said. “How can you understand him?”

“Oh…er…um…” Ron said uncomfortably.

Hermione saved the day by saying impatiently, “That doesn't matter. These are guests, and we should show them some respect. We brought them dinner, so let them eat in peace, and don't keep them up all night badgering them about their home and their histories and such. I'm going to bed. Good night. And welcome to Hogwarts,” she finished. She smiled at each of the Japanese boys, glared warningly at the rest of the boys, and turned to go.

“What'sher problem?” Ron asked, not noticing the grateful smile Kurama gave Hermione's disappearing back.

Okay, so maybe the characters are a little OOC, but like I tell people, they never stay the way I want them anyway, so why bother? Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review!

Reviewers' comments:

MikaSamu: Thanks for the review! huggles I'm flattered that even the people who don't like YYH-HP crossovers would read this story anyway. Thank you so much!

Jessica: Thanks for the review!

YokoYoukai: I promise, I wasn't offended! You're supposed to tell me your opinion and I'm glad you're honest! And the meeting wasn't all that interesting, I didn't want either side to show too much awe, because that bugs me. But don't worry, when the Tentei are found out…trails off meaningfully And by the way, don't threaten my dog! runs away again to avoid being eaten

StormAZ: I know let's all feel sorry for Hiei! And it does seem rather like Yoko, ne? shudders I feel so evil…and I will only feel worse before the story's over…ah, well, life goes on, I guess…thanks for the review, by the way!

“If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?” -Gloria Steinem