He found her at the crumbling edges of a dying civilization.
She looked up at him and held her hands out, the implicit trust and innocence of children still not lost in her eyes, despite what it was she must have seen.
"What is your name, young princess?" he asked her.
She blinked large blue eyes the color of the summer sky at him. "Kaguya," she said. "Kaguya Ootsuki."
He nodded and took her hands, raising her to his eyesight as he stood up properly. "Kaguya. You shall walk with me. Will that bother you?"
She giggled, a cheery happy sound that felt out of place amongst the ruins. Laughter did not seem to belong there.
"No," she said. "What is your name?"
He smiled as sincerely as he could manage. "You can call me Harry."
.
.
They walked.
Sometimes through battlefields, with Kaguya clinging to his clothes, burying her face into the folds of his yukata so as not to smell the stench, and mostly because he pressed her face there because of the charms woven into the garment.
Sometimes, they walked through countries. Countries with famine, places with plague. Scarce was it to find a properly happy village. No matter how peaceful it seemed, something foul and slimy always registered to Harry's senses, prompting him to move on.
"Where do we go?" Kaguya eventually asked, after it had already been a year and it was clear Harry would not stop.
Harry shrugged. "I am searching for a place to plant a seed," he whispered. It sounded like a secret and Kaguya obligingly kept silent.
.
.
Harry taught Kaguya as they went.
It was slow going and if it were another student, things would have gone badly. But there was a ferocity in Kaguya to learn. To learn and absorb, to take everything because she wanted to know.
Harry loved to teach her and he told her little secrets that should not have been told. Things, that should have been forgotten and left buried, he whispered into her ear.
Lifetimes ago, centuries ago, he would have paused or hesitated at least. What he was doing was not meant to happen. But it did and Harry shared secrets that ought to have died ages ago.
Kaguya soaked it all in. She had no morals, no other person to guide her than the man who sometimes carried her, sometimes walked beside her. Any vague notion of conscience was a fleeting thing. He taught her very few rules and she took to them as her own personal guidelines.
It was strange, but Harry did not care. Kaguya was an experiment and he wanted to see how she would fare.
.
.
They eventually found a place where a small village lived.
It was a rare thing, what with the Gelel Empire that spanned across the continent being so powerful. Small, civilian and completely without military power, but they were a village without any ties.
Harry found out why they were free of harassment when he saw a woman with a smile like razor blades, watching over the village like a hawk.
"What is it?" Kaguya asked him. "What is she?"
Harry smiled, eyes crinkling closed. "She is an assassin. In my old world, we called her a ninja."
She cocked her pretty head to the side. "Why is she here?" she prodded. Kaguya was smart.
There were wrinkles in the woman's face, but he understood completely when she moved and he saw the stumped arm.
"She is retired," he murmured. "And I suppose she is staying here for the peace."
That's what he would do, if he could. If he could stop his journey for longer than a week, he would do that.
"Here feels good," Kaguya decided.
Harry agreed with her and went to parlay with the woman. The seed he would plant, after all, would either bloom into a magnificent flower or become a terrible monster, depending on the environment.
.
.
"A seed?" the retired assassin murmured, covering the lower half of her face with a scarf. "Whatever for?"
Harry leaned indolently on her bar. "I am, for all intents and purposes, cursed," he answered her. "I cannot leave a place until my purpose has been fulfilled. When I arrived in this world, I found I could not rest easy. When I looked in my belongings, I found a seed that needed to be planted."
She looked like she didn't believe him, not that he blamed her. He was spouting something strange and she just met him. The assassin did the smart thing and asked the right question.
"What does this seed do, once planted?" she asked.
Harry smiled. "It does not do anything until it sprouts. It must be surrounded by love, not hatred. It absorbs feelings, you see. It doesn't harm anyone and it doesn't need watering. What blooms from it would either give you complete happiness or devastating sadness."
Her eyes showed her comprehension. "It gives back what it was given?" she murmured. "What a strange plant."
She consented to take care of it for him, planting it on a lush field not far from her house, where a dozen children played and exuded happiness and cheer.
.
.
Kaguya watched as it was carefully lowered to the earth. Her not-so small hands still fitted into his and she held on.
"What happens now?" she asked him. She was terrified of him leaving her.
Harry looked to the skies, which remained barren.
"It seems that I still have something left to do," he told her. "Since I am not yet taken. Still, my dear, do not fret. I will make sure you are well-cared for."
She did not look reassured.
.
.
Harry wandering feet eventually took them to one of the nice kingdoms, the ones that opposed the Empire of Gelel. Harry's restlessness only abated once he stepped foot in the palace and he realized what the curse wanted.
It wanted Harry to save their prince from the murderous attentions of a woman.
Harry set to work slowly, thoughts slow but sure as he gathered information.
Kaguya helpfully chatted up the maids, her large blue eyes useful in making grown women cave and coo. Her not-really childlike questions weren't noticed.
"She's an assassin," Kaguya supplied cheerfully. "She keeps a lot of knives."
Harry hummed. "Thanks, princess. Will you stay here while I deal with her?"
Kaguya would have wanted to see it happen, but Harry's stern look made her wilt a little. "Alright. But I wanna know what happened. Tell me later?"
He agreed and readied his magic.
.
.
The assassin wasn't easy to deal with.
If it had been Harry fresh from Hogwarts, he would have been impaled and dead, nine times over. Fortunately, he managed it thanks to one world that consisted completely of pirates. (Walking with just a stick and not a knife attracted more attention, somehow.)
The prince burst in with his guards dramatically near the end of it and Harry wanted to laugh. His entire life really was like a show, or a book.
"Thank you for saving my life," the prince told him, bowing really politely. "What can I do to repay you?"
Harry smirked inwardly. There went his dilemma.
"I have a ward," he murmured. "She is in my rooms in the servant's quarters now. I need to leave and I cannot bring her with me. Will you take care of her, your highness?"
The prince had the maids bring Kaguya, took one look at her elfin, delicate features and her pretty blue eyes and went beyond that.
"Even better," the prince announced. "She will be, henceforth, my ward. I name thee, Princess Kaguya."
Kaguya sniffled unhappily.
.
.
Harry left her to the care of the prince and knew she would be well-cared for.
As soon as he left the palace grounds, the sky darkened and a vortex of clouds descended on him, swallowing him up.
Harry was used to this mode of transport between worlds and didn't protest, nor struggle. This was his curse and he would bear with it.
Someday, he knew, he would come back to Kaguya. She had the mark of destiny about her and he would see what fruit the seed bore.
His handlers knew that for sure.
.
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"I am Hagoromo, the Sage of the Six Paths."
"…so you do know of me? Very well, let us start with my mother."
"My Mother, Ootsutsuki Kaguya, came to your land from a far away place. She had come to pluck the fruit of the Sacred Tree. The very same Sacred Tree that you've seen in this war. She had come for its fruit of Chakra. With Power gained from eating that fruit, she was able to rule over this land."
"…where she came from is of no importance. Only that my mother was powerful, more powerful than anyone."
Harry smiled as he listened, fondly reminiscing the days when Kaguya's eyes had been blue instead of blind-white. The seed had borne fruit and no matter what the ninja woman's efforts had been, there would always be hatred near the tree and it had borne complete devastation.
He patted Kaguya's sleeping face and left with a twist of chakra and a displacement of air.
Slowly, the woman's sleeping face changed. The horns left, the third eye vanished and her claws retracted. When she finally opened her eyes, it was blue and she spoke one word. "Harry," she murmured, before crumbling to ash.
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Harry here is cursed to wander and fix plotholes in other stories. He has "handlers" that watch over his progress and take him to and fro when he's finished.
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