Title: On The Road

Characters: Ichigo, Ishida, Orihime, Tatsuki, Grimmjaw, Ulquiorra, Yammy, Ichigo's father

Pairings: slight hints of Ishida/Orihime

Summary: Ichigo is on the way to his first school day in the most famous wizarding academy, and he meets some interesting people on the train. Bleach characters in Harry Potter universe.

Diclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Bleach and make no money from writing this.

'All right already, Dad!', said Ichigo, embarrassed almost beyond words. His sisters managed to get away in time, and were probably already in their carriage, talking to their old friends and whatnot, and he was stuck here on the railroad platform with his father, who was screaming at the top of his lungs: 'My dear son Ichigo finally going to the famous Hogwarts Academy! If your mum could see you, she'd be so proud! My Ichigo in the best wizarding school!'

Ichigo rolled his eyes, their family had always attended Hogwarts Academy, but the way his father was going on about it, it was almost like he had had doubts that Ichigo would manage to get into that school...

'Dad, I'm going now, the train is about to leave!' Ichigo said, and without waiting for a reply boarded the train.

Ichigo found an empty compartment, put his bag away, sat down and sighed in contentment – finally some peace and quiet. The peace and quiet lasted about 30 seconds – Ichigo looked out of the window and saw his father again. This time the man was not yelling, he was singing and doing some sort of weird dance, which apparently had to ensure that his boy does well at studies.

'Ignore him, ignore him,' murmured Ichigo, and wished there was a curtain on the window. Suddenly the train whistled, which was a sign of the departure. It slowly started movement, and Ichigo heard his father's scream over the noise of the engine and the wheels: 'Ichigoooooo! Goooood luuuuuuuck!'

Ichigo couldn't help but cringe – knowing his father's enthusiasm, the man could easily run after the train, waiving a white handkerchief and shouting encouragements. That would totally embarrass Ichigo in front of his new schoolmates. Luckily that did not happen.

The train was gaining speed, and Ichigo's thoughts turned to Hogwarts Academy. What would that be like? Of course, his sisters had told him stuff, mostly about all the pranks Karin played on other students, and Yuzu talked about the studies, but still he felt rather apprehensive about it. Suddenly there was a knock on the compartment door.

'Yeah?' asked Ichigo uncertainly. Was somebody going to check whether he had a ticket or something? The door opened and a boy came in.

'May I join you? Everywhere else was occupied...' he explained.

'Sure thing, no problem,' answered Ichigo, thinking that the guy talked in a weird way. Ichigo looked at the other kid with curiosity. He looked about Ichigo's age, was wearing glasses and a suit, a really neat and clean one, too. Ichigo looked and his own jeans and T-shirt and thought that the newcomer was a total weirdo – who, in their sane mind, would even want to wear a suit?

The kid seemed to be comfortable sitting in silence, but Ichigo was still feeling nervous about the new school, so he figured that talking might take his thoughts off the Hogwarts Academy.

'Hey, my name's Ichigo. Ichigo Kurosaki. What's yours?' he asked the guy.

For a moment it seemed that he would not answer, but then he said: 'I'm Uryuu Ishida. Pleased to meet you.'

Ichigo frowned – that Ishida was kind of haughty, and his voice did not suggest he was pleased at all. Ichigo was about to tell Ishida that he would not get any friends with that attitude, but then Ishida pushed his glasses up and Ichigo noticed a cross on a chain around Ishida's wrist. Could it be..? Quincy, the legendary users of the Calamus magic – they did not use wands, they just channelled their magic into the cross... They used to be Dragon Slayers, but nowadays there were few dragons, and even fewer Quincy. And, as it happened, the Quincy were Ichigo's favourite historical heroes, after all, what could be nobler than saving people from evil dragons?

'Are you a Quincy?' Ichigo felt the need to whisper, such a question could not be said out loud.

'So what if I am?' answered Ishida, once again arranging his glasses so that they could catch the light from the window. Ichigo was getting sick of that attitude. He was trying to be friendly and all, but this guy was just getting on his nerves.

'Quincy or not, you are not allowed to be rude!' Ichigo said.

Ishida raised an eyebrow: 'I was not being rude, you were being nosy.' Ichigo was about to tell the prissy Quincy something he would never dare to repeat to his father, when the compartment door opened noisily and two people burst in.

'You guys haven't seen Hime's toad, have you?' asked one of them. Only the voice gave away that it was a girl – the short hair and the clothes made her look like a boy.

'Him as toad?' stupidly repeated Ichigo.

The short- haired girl rolled her eyes: 'Orihime here,' she nodded at the other girl, 'lost her pet toad. Have you seen it?'

Orihime smiled embarrassedly, and Ichigo thought she was kind of cute. He looked at Ishida to see his reaction to the girl, and could not believe his eyes – Ishida was all blushing and smiling, and Ichigo could have sworn there were sparkles flying around him.

'Orihime, what a charming name! Why would a girl like you have a toad as a pet?' Ishida said, while Ichigo looked at him with disbelief – it was like Ishida's personality had completely changed.

'I-I need them for my magic,' shyly answered Orihime.

'Hmm, for potions?' asked Ishida with interest.

'No, how horrible!' Orihime exclaimed.

'She needs her toads for magic, dumbo!' explained the short-haired girl. 'She has six toads, only one of them got lost.' Ishida nodded, and Ichigo almost snorted – it looked like Ishida was now afraid to say anything not to offend Orihime again.

'Right then, we'll go and search for the toad, see you later, I guess...'the short-haired girl said, and added: 'I'm Tatsuki, by the way.' She headed for the door, and Orihime trailed behind her.

She stopped at the door and said: 'Let me know, if you find my Lily!' and then left.

'What kind of magic uses toads anyway?' asked Ichigo, without really hoping to get any answer.

'The application of living toads in magic can be various, for instance, they can serve as transmitters of their owner's magic powers...' began Ishida as if reciting from a book. Ichigo resisted the urge to groan – why did he even have to ask, it all sounded incredibly boring. But he didn't stop Ishida – at least he was saying something, that seemed already friendlier than before.

Suddenly the door was opened again, and this time three boys came in. 'Learn to knock, will you?' thought Ichigo with annoyance.

The newcomers didn't look too nice. One of them was short, dressed all in black and with a very sad expression, another was the precise opposite – big and obviously dumb, the word 'bully' was pretty much written on his forehead. And the third, as Ichigo guessed, was the leader of the gang – a guy with an evil smirk, who had a somewhat bluish hair colour.

Ishida looked at them with annoyance at having his lecture interrupted, and asked rather impatiently; 'Can we help you, gentlemen?'

The bully type snorted: 'Hey Grim, you are a gentleman, you hear?'

The sad shorty sighed: 'Yammy, keep quiet, will you?'

And the one Yammy had called Grim gave Ichigo and Ishida a calculating look, stuffed his hands in his pockets and asked: 'Which one of you losers is the Quincy?'

Ichigo and Ishida exchanged a look. Whatever it was Grim wanted, it was not good.

Yammy could not keep quiet again: 'Well, the Carrot Top can't be the Quincy, just look at his dumb face!'

Ichigo felt angry immediately: 'Who's the Carrot Top, you brick face?'

Before Ichigo managed to get up and show Yammy why exactly the words 'Carrot Top' should not be used, Grim gave Yammy a punch: 'Batman told you to shut it, so shut it!' Then he looked at Ishida: 'So you are the Quincy, yeah? We heard rumours that there is a Quincy on board.'

Ishida nodded, and said: 'Yes, I am a Quincy. What did you want with me?'

Grim smiled a really unpleasant smile and said: 'I want you to join my gang. My bros and me will rule the school this year, and with you we will be the coolest. You don't need to hand around with losers like him.' He pointed at Ichigo to show whom he considered a loser. Ichigo jumped to his feet and was about to go up to Grim and gave him a punch, but Ishida waved his hand to stop him.

Ishida said: 'I am not interesting in joining a gang- such actions do not become a Quincy. And if I was looking for comrades, I definitely would not look in the direction of such distasteful individuals like you.'

Ichigo had to roll his eyes – the guy could not even say a proper insult. Obviously Yammy did not understand the whole sentence either: 'Hey Grim, did that guy just insulted us?' Grim and 'Batman' did understand, and Grim said: 'Oh well, let's do it the hard way then.' He pulled his hands out of his pockets and this time he was holding a wand.

He smirked nastily and said: 'You afraid yet, Quincy boy?' Ichigo was worried – this might turn really bad. Grim looked like he was a first year student, just like them, so he probably couldn't know all that many spells, Ichigo himself knew only one or two he had heard his father use. But even a couple of spells could be dangerous in the hands of that sort of person like Grim.

Ichigo quickly tried to remember the spells he knew – the one for washing dishes would not do any good, the headache relieving one would not either... What else could he do? He looked at Ishida, hoping the guy would have some ideas. And Ishida did.

He said: 'The Quincy fear nothing! And certainly not you with your inadequate wand!' Ishida held out his arm, said 'Calamus Livens!' and suddenly a blue glow of magic surrounded it.

That's how the Quincy cross worked, then – wondered Ichigo. And then the blue cloud of magic almost solidified into arrows and shot in the direction of the three intruders. Yammy screamed and ran to the door, but still managed to get hit by an arrow and fell, 'Batman' and Grim tried to use some reflecting spells, but they did not work, and both were soon twitching on the floor.

'These particular arrows give you cramps, and they can't be stopped by the usual reflecting spells,' smugly said Ishida. 'I invented them,' he added even more smugly. Ichigo huffed – for a moment he thought that the Quincy is a great wizard, but all that insufferable attitude really made him want to smack the guy on the head.

'And now get out of here, and don't bother me again!' added Ishida, and the three gang members half-staggered, half-crawled out of their compartment.

'It was a pretty good spell you used,' said Ichigo. Of course the spell was more than good, but the Quincy had enough arrogance without Ichigo telling him how good he was.

'Of course...'started Ishida, but suddenly went quiet.

'What is it?' asked Ichigo. The Quincy had turned quite pale.

'Th-th-there! Don't you see it?' Ishida pointed with a trembling finger into the corner of the compartment.

'What is it?' asked Ichigo. As far as he could see, the corner was perfectly empty. But then he noticed some movement.

'Hey, it looks like a toad!' Ichigo said happily. A squeal made him look back to Ishida – the guy had climbed on the seat with his feet, and looked as pale as a sheet.

'Kurosaki, I loathe toads! Get rid of it!' Ishida said. Ichigo had to smile – so the mighty Quincy had a weakness?

'This must be the toad Orihime was looking for. Lily, wasn't it? You think I should bring it back to her?' Ichigo asked with deliberate slowness.

'Yes, yes, for the love of archery, take the creature to her, and tell her to keep their cage locked!' begged the Quincy.

'All right then,' Ichigo said amiably, caught the toad and went to look for Orihime.

The girl was really happy to see her toad back, she promised to show Ichigo a really amazing magic spell with the toads as soon as they all get to Hogwarts Academy. Ichigo thanked her, and thought he would definitely ask Ishida to come look at those toads – his reactions would probably even funnier than any spell. Ichigo got back to their compartment, and looked at the Quincy.

Ishida seemed to have recovered, he took a look at Ichigo and said: 'Hey, Kurosaki, you are actually not too bad.' Ichigo rolled his eyes – coming from such an arrogant guy, it was almost like a praise.

'Yes, well, I try,' he answered with mock modesty. Ishida gave him a little smile, and after that they were best friends.

The End.