Authors' Notes:

Introduction

Astra here! I'd like to explain first and foremost that this story is crack. Neither Tei nor I deny it, so characters you see in this chapter- like Kurama and Haku for example- are from Yu Yu Hakusho and Naruto respectively. Primarily though, this crack fic is a Harry Potter/Fire Emblem crossover. This isn't just throwing a bunch of characters into a blender though and then flinging it into the Harry Potter world, we've got a pretty epic plot planned out, and a lot of thought was put into each character's back story- so it's not like they popped out of nowhere. We also, to the best of our extent, kept as many details about the characters the same- taking their actual stories/lives from their respective series and trying to incorporate that in a way that would fit in the HP world. We feel that it's fairly well written and has quite a bit of thought put into it.

On the note of details, we realize that Kurama's human name is Shuichi Minamino, but both of us are so used to calling him 'Kurama' that we decided to leave his name as 'Kurama Youko' instead. He's still his redheaded self and not his sexy foxy self until otherwise noted though. XD

Karla, introduced here, and her brother Karel, who will be introduced later, have the last name of Bulgar. This is not a reference to Bulgaria. In Fire Emblem, Bulgar is the capital city of the land of Sacae, where it's implied (if not stated) that the two of them are from. Since they didn't have a last name in the game(s), it seemed like a reasonable fit.

If you have something to say about our story- some sort of criticism or feedback or future ideas- we'd love to hear them. Please keep it constructive though- if you're so mad about our story that you're panting at your screen like a hippo with a hernia, tell us why. Please don't just comment something along the lines of 'Your crack fic is horrible it makes no sense'- we already blatantly explained in the introduction here that this is crack…. So really, if you read on and decide that you hate our fic because it's crack… Well, it's kinda your own fault. We love comments and reviews, but keep them friendly, and keep them making sense- we'd really appreciate it from you guys.

Tei now, who doesn't really have anything to add (she gave her input unasked throughout), but would like to say that all rights to their respective owners. J.K Rowling owns Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and all related; Intelligent Systems owns Fire Emblem; Yoshihiro Togashi owns Yu Yu Hakusho; and Kishimoto Masashi owns Naruto.

From both of us, enjoy!

Chapter One

The Hogwarts Express was the same magnificent scarlet steam engine it had been twenty-five years ago, when the famous Harry Potter had defeated the equally famous Voldemort. Though so much time had passed, the name still caused much of the wizarding community to flinch. But the events of the past were not on the minds of most of the young witches and wizards who boarded the school-bound train.

"Make sure you write home every two weeks, all right?"

"Do you have everything? Do you have your robes? Your wand? Your cat? Your—"

"Mum…stoppit...I look fine…"

"Stick close, I don't want to lose you here," one such young man muttered to his companion. He was a strongly-built fifteen-year-old, with flaming red hair and eyes to match. He held tightly to the arm of a slender blond with blue eyes of approximately the same age, who seemed much more at ease with the situation.

"You seem unhappy, Raymond," said companion observed. "What's bothering you?"

"You know that every spell within a mile radius will affect me," he grumbled. "And here we are going to magic school? I get why they accepted you, but me? Hell, I'm surprised this thing hasn't killed me yet!" He gestured vaguely at his wand. "And seriously, Lucius, call me Raven!"

The blond addressed as Lucius shrugged. "It's a different type of magic than we're used to, I'm sure—maybe it won't affect you as badly?"

"Right," the redhead scoffed. "So when every curse in the—"

A whistle sounded, and Lucius looked at the clock. "We'd better hurry. We've got about five minutes before the train is supposed to leave."

They joined the steady stream of students climbing aboard, and headed off to find a compartment before they were all filled. Neither Lucius nor Raven were terribly interested in being social quite so soon—Lucius being shy and Raven being generally antisocial—so moved from car to car searching for a quiet place to sit. They reached the end of the train, but the closest they could come to an empty cabin had one occupant—a young-looking boy with silky black hair and dark eyes. Lucius shrugged at Raven and hesitantly slid the door open.

"Um…d-do you mind? If we…?" he asked timidly. The other boy looked up, studying them with his dark eyes.

"No," he said softly after a moment. "Go ahead."

Lucius settled himself timidly on the opposite side of the compartment. Raven was not so shy, flopping into the seat beside his blond companion. Both realized from his far-off gaze that their cabin-mate wished to be left alone with his thoughts, so neither tried to make any small talk.

After a long, awkward silence, Lucius pulled out a book (One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi) and curled up to read. Raven took to staring out the window at the countryside flashing by. It was a beautiful day—it seemed like a shame to be indoors.

At length, their dark-eyed acquaintance spoke. "My name is Haku."

Lucius looked up from his book. "I'm Lucius. And this is Raven."

"I'm impressed, you got it right," Raven chuckled, getting up at the sound of the witch pushing the food trolley coming down the corridor. "Looks like food's coming, if you're hungry."

"I'm sure it has nothing on your cooking," Lucius said with a warm smile, reaching into his pocket and handing his redhead a small handful of coins. "But it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to eat. Haku, would you like anything?"

"No, thanks." The boy had curled up against the wall and was looking absently out the window, clearly still lost in thought. Raven shrugged and went to investigate wizard-world food.

After a long moment, Lucius asked softly, "Are you new here?"

Haku nodded slowly. "Yes…are you, too?"

Lucius nodded. "There were…complications…preventing us from coming when we were the proper age. We should be in our fifth year now, but…well… …we'll be taking extra classes to catch us up to our level. There's no doubt it'll be hard—O.W.L. level, right from the beginning—but I think we'll be able to do it…"

"My situation is similar," Haku said. "But I'm only a fourth-year."

Raven returned at moments later with an armful of sweets. "I dunno what half this stuff is—but the witch said it was good." He made a face as he dropped the snacks unceremoniously onto the seat beside Lucius. "I'll be the judge of that."

Lucius smiled and picked up a small blue and gold box, looking curiously at it. "Chocolate frog? …You don't suppose these are proper frogs, do you? …I don't have any idea what to expect."

Raven shrugged, examining a pumpkin pasty. "Dunno. I hope not." Warily, he took a small bite from the corner and blinked in surprise. "I know you're not the biggest fan of pumpkins, Lucius, but you might like these. They're like my pumpkin cheesecake."

"Trade you, then—I'm not feeling quite adventurous enough for this," Lucius said, handing Raven the little pentagonal box and snatching the pastry. "Mmm—it is like your cheesecake."

"Oy!" Raven yelped, snatching at the air. "Hey! You're not supposed to have to catch your food! Dammit, come back here! You're not even a real frog, why are you jumping?" The redhead heaved an exasperated sigh, watching the chocolate frog hop around the compartment. Haku smiled a little bit, then—almost faster than the other two could see—shot out a hand and snatched the frog from mid-air.

"I think this is yours?" he said, offering the squirming snack to Raven.

"Er—you can have it," Raven said. "I like my food better when it isn't running away."

Lucius had picked up the frog box and was looking at it. "There are cards in these, aren't there? With portraits of famous witches and wizards?" He extracted the card from the box. "Raymond! Raymond, I got Saint Elimine!" He held the little card eagerly in front of his friend.

Raven shrugged. "Huzzah?"

Lucius tucked the card into his pocket. "I shouldn't be surprised that that doesn't interest you."

"Are you sure you don't want this?" Haku asked, holding the frog up to Raven again. "I'm all right, really…"

"Keep it, I insist," he grumbled, tossing another frog box to Lucius. Haku looked at the frog with a somewhat squeamish look.

"It looks so froglike," he mumbled. "I don't think I can eat it." He looked sheepishly at Raven and Lucius. Lucius giggled a little.

"I'm not sure I could either."

Raven rolled his eyes. "You two are way too sensitive for your own good. It's a piece of chocolate with some hocus pocus on it."

"But it's cute, Raymond! …oh forget it…" He opened the next frog, clamping his hand around the feisty chocolate and looking at the wizard card beneath. "By the Goddess, these pictures move!"

"What?"

"Look, they move!" Lucius handed the new card to Haku and pulled the St. Elimine card from his pocket. Sure enough, Elimine was smiling and waving in the picture frame. Lucius smiled back. Raven shook his head.

"Bizarre," he said simply. "But I guess I should get used to it." Lucius smiled and nodded.

Some small talk ensued as both parties seemed to become more comfortable with each other. Haku eventually joined in on the sweets, and the train ride was quite enjoyable. After an hour or two of pleasant conversation and sharing of food, the sunny skies abruptly began to cloud over, and within minutes, the countryside was obscured behind a thick curtain of rain.

The rain had starting coming down suddenly, and had only gotten worse with time. Raven observed that the clouds had become forebodingly black as night, and the weather showed no signs of letting up. He'd heard while boarding an older student mention to a younger one that the lanterns wouldn't be lit until the evening—when they'd almost reached their destination—yet they'd already been lit and he was certain that it was early afternoon at best. It seemed abnormal. He tried passing it off as his paranoia of magic, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something very weird was at work. Something eerie.

The dark-eyed boy seemed to notice it too, whatever it was, for although he kept his face carefully controlled, there was a trace of wariness in his gaze that was once lost in thought.

"Raymond, this rain…" Lucius was the first to voice what all three of them were thinking; he seemed to have forgotten the book that lay in his lap as he stared at the window worriedly. "… It doesn't seem normal."

He'd hardly finished speaking when the lights flickered and went out. Lucius gasped in surprise when the darkness overcame them, and similar exclamations of surprise could be heard throughout the train. It wasn't long before the shadows were filled with the anxious chatter of students talking over the rain that pounded against the windows, though it was impossible to make anything out in all the chaos.

"What do you think's going on?" Raven asked when his eyes had finally adjusted. He noted that the rain was still coming down—possibly harder than before—and that the windows were rattling quite a bit in the wind.

"…I don't know," Lucius replied after a moment. "But I'm guessing from how startled everyone seems to be that this isn't supposed to happen."

"Even I figured that one out Lucius." Raven heaved an exasperated sigh. He found the whole situation more annoying than anything—having something go wrong even before his first day of school didn't help his opinion of magic in the least. It might have been a different kind of magic than what they'd been exposed to in the past, but if it didn't work right then it was just as bad.

"Oh Raymond, calm down. I'm sure they'll have it fixed soon." Lucius gave a reassuring smile, trying to calm the redhead's ever-growing paranoia. It wouldn't do to have him do something irrational before they'd even gotten to school, after all.

"What do you think?" This was directed at Haku, who was continuing to stare at the window with that carefully controlled wariness he'd had for a while now.

"…I don't know…" he replied slowly, not shifting his gaze in the slightest. His dark eyes squinted a bit at the rain before adding, "….But the train is slowing down."

"What, slowing down?" Raven peered out the window, then quirked an eyebrow in the boy's direction. "You've got to be kidding," he scoffed. "You can't see a damn thing out there."

"I'm not kidding." Haku replied simply. And sure enough, a moment or two after he spoke, the feeling of the train losing momentum became steadily apparent.

They were all still until they were certain that the train had stopped. Then, after a moment more of silence, Raven growled in frustration and slid open the door with more force than was necessary.

"Sitting here isn't doing us any good," he grumbled. "I'm going to go find some answers." Maybe someone else on the train would know something; he felt restless—being left in the dark (so to speak) on the situation was putting him on edge.

"R-Raymond!" Lucius stumbled out the door after him. "Wait a moment! You can't just go barging in on everyone on the train and expect—" His words were cut off when he walked directly into the redhead he'd been speaking to. Raven hadn't been able to get very far before he'd hit a wall of people- the corridor was crowded with what looked like every student on the train. Everyone was shouting over everyone else, so it was nearly impossible to make out who was saying what.

"What if we're stuck here forever?"

"But I don't want my final meal to have been a chocolate frog!"

"Wait till my father hears about this!"

Eventually a girl who was standing near Raven spoke up over the din. "My mother told me about something like this happening once when she was in school," she exclaimed fearfully. "She told me that dementors came on the train!"

The uproar increased in vigor at this concept, and any coherent phrases were lost in the chaos of petrified shouts. Raven blinked, clearly baffled.

"…Dementi-what-now?" He looked at Lucius expectantly, but the blond hesitated to answer.

"They're the guards of wizard prisons around the world." Haku had followed them out of the compartment and was surveying the situation with narrowed eyes—the mention of dementors seemed strike him in much the same manner as everyone else. "They're known to suck the happiness out of the very air itself….make people relive their worst memories… make them feel like they'll never be happy again," he explained slowly. "I suppose the ones in this area must guard Azkaban prison…"

"Okaaaay…." Raven crossed his arms, thinking carefully. "…So why would these dementiwhatsits want to come on the Hogwarts Express?"

"I don't know…" Haku shook his head. "But we'd certainly be able to feel them if they were here."

"Hmmm..." Lucius looked thoughtful. "Even without dementors, it still feels like something strange is going on…" Putting aside the superstitions of everyone on the train, there was an eerie tension in the air- the sort that makes the hair on one's neck stand on end.

But before anyone could dwell on it any further, a female voice cut through the hubbub and darkness.

"Oh, this is ridiculous! Lumos!" A bright light illuminated a tall girl with black hair. "Don't tell me you're all scared of the dark and a thunderstorm," she continued. "And there are certainly not any dementors on the train." Her robes were lined with what appeared in the dimness to be a rich shade of red, and a gold badge glinted on her chest in the wand-light.

"Thunderstorms tend to increase the strength of many types of magic. It's likely that it caused the enchantments on the train to short-circuit, so to speak, like a power outage in a Muggle home," added the boy beside her, equally tall and with long red hair and blue-trimmed robes. "I'm sure we'll be moving again momentarily. In the meantime, you should return to your compartments and put on your robes, if you haven't already done so. We're approximately an hour away, but you should be ready to disembark promptly when we arrive."

"Who are you to order us around?" demanded the same voice who had announced that his father would hear about this.

"Prefects," the girl snapped. "Karla Bulgar and Kurama Youko." The dark crowd before them began to jostle about. "And the charm to light up your wand is Lumos!" she added loudly. "Lumos, guys, let's have some light here! No need to trip all over everyone!"

A few wands were lit before the lights on the train flickered back to life. Lucius blinked against the sudden brightness, Raven cursed and shut his eyes, and Haku seemed largely undisturbed as they shuffled back to their compartment.

"What do you suppose?" Lucius asked as they pulled on their robes. "Do you think it's like that Kurama boy said? A magical short-circuit?"

Raven shrugged. "You're the mage here, Lucius—damned if I know what's going on." Raven looked in dismay at a piece of black silk. "We have to wear ties? Oh, this day just gets better and better…" he grumbled. Lucius smiled and took the tie from his companion, tying it deftly around his own neck and then slipping it over Raven's head. Haku looked in puzzlement at his.

"What is this for?" he asked.

"You put it around your neck, like so," Lucius said, gesturing to his own tie.

"Yeah," Raven muttered, loosening his and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. "Because everyone should wear a noose, for your lynching convenience."

"Oh hush," Lucius scolded, tying Haku's tie for him. "That ought to do it," he said, smiling gently. "You can just slide this knot to tighten or loosen it, and you can slip it off so you don't have to worry about tying it again."

"Thanks," Haku said, smiling shyly at Lucius. Lucius smiled back warmly.

The three discussed the afternoon's events and speculated on those the evening would hold for the rest of the train ride. In what seemed like very little time, the train was again slowing down—this time, however, a train station was coming into sight.

Lucius smiled at Raven and Haku as they prepared to disembark. Haku smiled back. Raven muttered something mostly incoherent, and took Lucius tightly by the arm as they stepped onto the platform.