Chapter 2: Vocalisation.

"Hello, bishonen-kun!" the woman shouted. "What are you doing in a place like this?"

"Uh, I live here, miss," Sora uneasily replied.

"All by yourself?"

"I live with my two sisters. They're out at the moment."

"So… it's just you? How lonely. I'll be inside in a second."

"Miss, I'm afraid I can't open the door for you. Misaki-nee-chan's orders."

"Who said anything about the door?" she declared as her body sank into the bushes. The next thing Sora knew was that eight fingers with long, sharp black nails grabbed onto his windowsill, and the woman's form rose up until she could look him closely in the eyes. "Besides, I couldn't care less about orders to keep me out." She pulled herself into the room; first her upper body, and then her long, seaweed-green, yellow-patterned, serpentine tail.

"You… you're related to my onii-san?"

"What?!" the snake-woman demanded, seemingly extremely offended at Sora.

"I… I spoke with an onii-san who had your lower body, except he was much smaller and didn't have arms or skin."

"You… you forced me to use your pathetic, scrambled, inconsistent, vain and exclusionary excuse for a language when you speak like us this whole time?!"

"W-what do you mean, onee-san? We're still talking the same words."

"You mean…" her hand grabbed the top of Sora's head and began squeezing. "…you don't even know when you speak another language?!" She then pulled his right sleeve down, exposing his shoulder. "You need punishment!"

"What are you going to do to me?!"

"The same thing I do to everyone who addresses me in a filthy language!" Her mouth opened to reveal two large fangs, after which her tail wrapped around his eyes and he felt a large stabbing pain in his skin. The pain quickly subsided, and her tail unfurled. "Magic blood."

"W…what do you mean?" Sora hissed, still feeling the sting of the bite.

"You know very well what I mean, regarding stupid International Wizard Confederation policy as it relates to my species."

"I… I don't actually."

"Wha-"

"Please don't get mad again!"

"So, what you are saying is that you have no idea who I am or why I find the law so tiresome?! And here I thought you were a wizard. You certainly taste like one."

"Misaki-nee-chan keeps calling me a Kakushigo."

"Illegitimate? Don't make me laugh. I assure you, Japanese Kakushigo blood, British Squib blood, Spanish Fracaso blood, French Importun blood, whatever you want to call it, doesn't have that refined, sweet taste that wizard blood does. You're most definitely a wizard." She released her grip on Sora's skull, and instead scooped him up in her arms. "And besides, those non-magical sources of starch can't speak our language."

"But who are you?"

"Ah, so because your sister thought you were defective, she didn't bother telling you about her world. Fine. I'm a lamia, born in a brood that migrated here from Greece a long time ago. We're like vampires in that we love blood, but unlike them, we see that blood is not like wine; it does NOT get better with age. In fact, it is instead better the younger the prey, and you exemplify the perfect age group for us to eat, complete with magical ability that so enhances the taste. Many Ministries of Magic have passed laws, however, that make feeding on witches and wizards a crime. In terms of something you'll understand, they like to eat ripe fruit, ambrosia, and leave us to scrape by on rotting remains and peeled skins."

"But what is your name?"

"I myself go by many names. I think, at present, you can call me… let's see… Shakarri."

"You were… born with that name?"

"No. I just heard it a while back and thought it sounded fitting. Besides, I don't use my birth name. I'm not even supposed to be here in the first place."

"Then why come out here?"

"First, that is exactly what makes it exciting. Secondly, I thought I smelled something I could really savor. All the people in the legal predation zones are really stale. Their blood tastes like mud."

"Predation zones?"

"In short, we can hunt as many humans as we damn well please in those zones and nobody in the Ministries will even bat an eye."

"Can't we be friends though? I know I'm human, but-"

"Ssth, I'm smelling fresh blood appearing in the structure. Fine, since you actually seem to have the ability and courtesy to address me in my language. Don't mention that you're a wizard though," she now frantically whispered.

"Why not, Shakarri-nee-san? My sisters will finally be happy!"

"But how will you have suddenly known? I don't want anyone else picking up my scent! Besides, it'll be far better seeing the priceless look on their faces when you get a Mahoutokoro acceptance letter!"

With that, the seaweed-haired lamia quickly slithered out the window and back into the woods, leaving Sora to hear the whispers of his sisters in the floor below.

"…could have sworn I heard something, Misa-chan," Rin was saying.

"It probably isn't anything to concern ourselves over," Misaki stated. "Homenum revelio. See, only Sora here."

Knowing he couldn't hide any longer, Sora started walking down to meet his sisters below. As he took step after step, he couldn't help but feel excited, and he entered the downstairs dining room, he saw Misaki and Rin with a large number of shopping bags. It hit him right then: one thing he was supposed to do was make their beds. He ran back up the stairs to Misaki's room and began fumbling with the stark blue sheets, hoping to get them in some kind of order before he was needed downstairs. As he brought the sheets back down onto the bed, he saw one thing that always seemed to be at odds with the rest of the blue-decorated room: a large, vertical rectangular, sashimono-style banner, yellow in colour with small blotches darkening it in certain areas, with a silver silhouette of a human, probably in armor, raising a sword to the sky.

He proceeded to hastily straighten out Misaki's pillows and then leave to deal with Rin's room, but then with a sudden shout of "GET OVER HERE!" from Misaki, Sora jerked backwards, flew down the stairs and right into her outstretched arm. "Took you long enough. Why did you retreat?!"

"I just remembered I needed to straighten something out in your room, Misaki-nee-chan!" said Sora

"What?"

"I was trying to fix up the bed, but you pulled me away before I could finish."

"Give the kid a break, Misa-chan," Rin spoke.

"Rin-nee-chan?"

"Yeah, Sora-kun?"

"What is that yellow picture in Misaki-nee-chan's room?"

"Don't ask que-" Misaki began before Rin waved her down.

"Well," Rin started, "...that banner is the banner of Misa-chan's clan during her school days."

"He will never even see the place, so why bother?!"

"My Mahoutokoro book list should be arriving tomorrow, and they'll probably attach an acceptance letter for Sora. Until my letter comes, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Anyway, we are divided into eight clans at Mahoutokoro School of Magic. Misa-chan's clan was the Steeled Soul, which has that banner. I'm Roaring Flame."

"Is it a good place?" asked Sora

"Yeah. Really fun. Hopefully, you'll get to see it soon. Failing that, we need to take you sightseeing."

"Yes, Rin-nee-chan, I'd really like to see the world." As he said this, Sora thought he saw Misaki's face briefly curl into an angry frown

"Well, if you fail to get into Mahoutokoro, I promise to take you with me when I graduate."

"You will do no such thing, Rin!" Misaki finally declared. Sora felt something rise up within him… a longing… to teach her that she doesn't have authority over him.

"He needs to get out of the house! Being cooped up here all the time isn't good for him!"

"Besides," Sora hissed, "...you don't have the right to imprison me the way you do!"

"What… was… that…?" Misaki was shaking with rage now. "Know your place, Kakushigo! Rin, teach him some respect!"

"Absolutely not!" Rin shouted, shocked at her sister's tone. "Non-magical or otherwise, he is my brother!"

"So it comes to this…" Misaki brandished her wand, pointing it at Rin. "Imperio!"

Rin suddenly turned towards Sora, slowly inserting her hand beneath her robes and withdrawing her own wand, pointing it at him and declaring "Crucio."

Instantly, Sora collapsed onto the ground, writhing with the feelings of hot knives piercing his skin, electrical cables shocking him, his body being crushed by stone blocks and slashed by scythe blades. At the same time, it felt like his skin was freezing so much that it burned. Yet shortly after that, all of it stopped.

"No!" Rin was screaming. "I won't!"

Sora looked up from where he lay on the floor, seeing his older sister's wand on the floor and her hands clutching her head, her eyes closed. Looking then at Misaki, she still had her wand pointed at her. In a flash, Sora leapt up from the ground and ran straight towards her, his fists at the ready… and Misaki turned her wand to face him, whereupon he found himself flying backwards, falling straight towards the front door on the opposite side of the house.

"You will learn respect, you pathetic excuse for a relative," Misaki declared, walking slowly towards him with her wand aimed in his direction.

"Petrificus Totalus!" cried Rin, causing Misaki's body to freeze up and topple onto the floor. Quickly running to her downed brother, the younger sister's ruby-red eyes met his glowing emeralds, yet what she could see wasn't gratitude for stopping the one-sided fight, or even happiness to see her come back to her senses. The only thing she saw in his pupils was raw hatred; it was as if a Dementor, instead of draining all happy memories, drained all calming emotions from him, leaving him nothing but a walking husk of pure unbridled rage. Rin couldn't blame him; Misaki's outburst was completely unwarranted, but at the same time, looking into those green eyes so full of poisonous fury felt… suffocating.

Sora's eyes were looking back into hers, but all he saw was a mass of flesh who tortured him upon command. That same mass quickly scooped up the stiff mass on the ground and took it upstairs, presumably to its abode. She quickly came down, scooped Sora up and took him up those same stairs back to his room. "Anything you need, Sora?"

Only two words escaped from his mouth, in little more than a low, menacing hiss. "Get out."

"Wha-" Rin's shock renewed. There was a lot of venom in those words, such that if it physically manifested, it could be fatal

"Getout…"

"You… you don't mean that…"

"Torturer."

"I was under Imperius Control! It's hard to fight that!"

"OUT!"

Rin slammed his door shut, and Sora heard another door slam, and he could swear that he started hearing sobs. Whenever Sora cried, Misaki tried to silence him, and even punished him sometimes for that weak act. Her message was clear: nobody worth anything in the world would ever cry. Only cowards cried, only worthless people cried, and only weaklings cried. Was Rin really that weak, or was she just trying to blackmail him? Whatever the case, he knew he was a wizard, and he was never going to be weak again.

He found himself jerking upwards off the floor, and the next thing he knew was that he was surrounded by trees with green leaves, and he was in the arms of the lamia from earlier. "Shakarri-nee-san?"

"In future, you'll want to save fighting for when you actually have a wand. I applaud your spirit, but you were in over your head."

"You knew?"

"I was close enough to the building to hear what was going on. I also got a peek in through the keyhole."

"So you were there and you did nothing?!" Sora felt even angrier now.

"You have good eyes."

"What do you mean?!"

"Your eyes. I see in them a lot of deserved hatred for those who call themselves wizards. I said before though; I need to keep a low profile. Besides, it is highly unlikely that I would have fared much better, and the Unforgivable Curses are no laughing matter."

"What do you mean 'Unforgivable Curses'?"

"You saw two of them. The Cruciatus Curse you've experienced first hand: torture. Then there is also the Imperius Curse."

"Rin-nee-san tried to use that to excuse her act of torturing me. It's strange, but today I feel I can recognize her words for the lies they are."

"I'd normally be inclined to agree with you, but she may have had a point. The Imperius Curse takes control of your mind, and you are forced to answer to your overseer's every whim. She didn't want to torture you, but the older human took over her mind and made her."

"You're taking her side?!"

"I'm saying you need to know what the curses do, so you can fight them! Your eyes need to see below the skin, right into the brains, veins and bones of the people you are looking at."

"I take it there are more curses?"

"Just one, the most powerful of them all: the Avada Kedavra. Most countries have laws heavily punishing practitioners of these curses, which is why you need to be careful if ever you try to use them."

"What now then?"

"I'll take you back inside, but for today just let things proceed as normal. Wait for the Mahoutokoro letter tomorrow, and wait until you have a wand. Then, I can properly train you…"