Hi! I'm back with this new chapter and I'm trying really hard to make the chapters longer for you guys to read. But alas, I can't make them godly long like my idols do... Also, sorry for the long wait, I would'a posted the chapter up sooner but my editor wouldn't respond so it took me a while to finally convince myself that it was almost perfect. (Well...to my anyways) So if there are any misspellings or grammatical errors, they are entirely all my fault. =P



Disclaimer: Yeah yeah, Harry Potter to J.K. Rowling and Card Captor Sakura to CLAMP. Because I am untalented! Oh yeah!

Dark Magic

By xbakazarux

Chapter 2: Shinseina No Wa Toshi Totta

In the new morning Harry woke up early due to his previous experiences with the Dursleys. He groggily woke up and went to take a shower. Hermione was still sleeping and was bound to wake up soon to do some more research on Japan. Ron on the other hand was...well he was snoring loudly for all the world to hear. By the time Ron got out of bed Hermione already finished taking a shower and Harry was almost done making breakfast for everybody.

"Merlin, Harry," Ron spoke while rubbing his eyes, "What'cha doing waking up so early? It's vacation! You're like Mum, making breakfast for everybody at God knows what time it is...just so that we'd all get out of bed faster to degnome the gardens afterwards..."

Harry glared darkly at Ron for a moment about being compared to Mrs. Weasley, not that it's a horrible thing or anything.

"I can't help it. The Dursley's forced me to make breakfast for them everyday when I was at their torture house." Harry stated. He then finished cooking and placed all of the eggs and bacon onto the table, careful not to break the yolks. As soon as the food was on the table Ron instantly woke up at the first glimpse of breakfast. He quickly sat down and almost vacuumed in his breakfast. Hermione was a bit disgusted and turned away while Harry just stared.

"Honestly Ron! Eat any faster and you wouldn't be breathing!" Hermione scolded. "But I'm hungry Hermione!" Ron whined as he stopped for a bit of breathing, then he went back to his food. Hermione sighed. After seven years of knowing Harry and Ron, as well as all the other guys in Gryffindor, she still was astounded at the male population's eating pace. It was like...the food disappeared inside their empty stomach pits of doom...

"Anyways," Hermione started as she ignored Ron, "Dumbledore said that we could get to know Japan better and learn more about the people before school starts. Also, since both of you don't know much Japanese you're going to study at the same time." Harry and Ron nodded, half listening and half focusing on their breakfast. "So," Hermione continued ignoring their lack of concentration, "I've already planned out what to do today. I read about an end-of-the-summer festival on the other side of town and I was hoping to start investigating there. We could also mingle with the different people nearby." The boys just nodded again.

After everybody ate Hermione, Harry, and Ron quickly got ready and left for the festival. It was near the edge of Tokyo in the more peaceful area [1].

(Outside...on the sidewalk...next to the street...somewhere)

"Hey Hermione, how exactly are we going to pay for the tickets? I mean...I don't know a thing about muggles money, especially Japanese muggles money. And how are we going to change our money to Japanese money?" Ron asked while jingling his wizard gold in his pocket. They were walking down the street next to all of the big business buildings with hundreds of Japanese people busily walking around them.

"Well, Dumbledore said that there was only one wizarding town in Tokyo. He also said that it was a lot smaller compared to Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade since there aren't a lot of wizards and witches in Japan. Mostly sorcerers and sorceresses but they are always alone to themselves. They don't like to group up together much." Hermione said shrugging. "Anyways, he told me that the town was called 'Shineina No Wa Toshi Totta', Scared Cited of The Old [2]. It seems like an extremely long time ago there where a bit more wizards and witches here in Japan and they had a nice community there together." Hermione paused and looked at Harry and Ron, who were trying hard to look interested, but failing rather steeply. Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "ANY-ways, the entrance is at the oldest library in Japan, it's somewhere near the center of Tokyo so I guess we'll have to stop by there first..."

They quickly walked towards the library with Hermione's muggle map and they went inside. It was well preserved and had the strong smell of old books and papers, which was most likely Hermione's most favorite smell. She quickly led them through the library looking at all of the books around her. In the end they stopped at the most deserted part of the library in a corner where all of the dust seemed to favor. She soon ran her eyes over all of the books on the nearby shelf and plucked out the one she wanted. Ron looked bewildered.

"Since when could you read Japanese, Hermione?"

"Since I got bored after I finished my homework faster then you and Harry at Hogwarts." Hermione said pointedly. "I wanted to learn another language before I left Hogwarts so I did. Now hurry up and do as I say."

She opened up the book to the first page where it looked like it had the title and the author's name, as well as a small illustration. It was a picture of a wizard's hat with stars on it, overlapping a strange circular sign of a moon and sun with Chinese symbols. "To get to Shinseina No Wa Toshi Totta, you just need to put your palm of your right hand over the picture and say the name of the city." Hermione did that and got sucked into the pages of the book. Harry and Ron looked in amazement and followed Hermione into the book. But of course, with bad pronunciation skills...it took them a while to finally get accepted.

"Shin-sane-a No Waa Toshie Tot-ta!"

"Shins-I-na No Wa Too-shi Toe-ta!"

"Arg!!! How come it won't work!?!"

"Do it again Ron, Hermione's probably waiting for us."

"How'd she say it?!"

"Umm...."

"UAAHHH!!!! SHIN-SAY-I-NA NO WA TOE-SHI TOE-TA!!!!"

"Let me try, Shinseina no Wa Toshi Totta!" And Harry got sucked into the book.

"Harry! What took you so long? Where's Ron?"

"Huh? Oh he's just being stupid...you should have told us how to say the name of the city...you know that we don't know any Japanese...There's Ron!"

Ron materialized in front of them looking really grumpy..."Stupid book, wouldn't let me in until I finally said the closest pronunciation..."

"You idiot."

"Humph."

They all turned around and looked at the city. It was an extremely small town, formed all together in a valley. Small shops where sitting next to each other or stacked on top of each other with big signs of Japanese writing. In the middle of the city was a big temple that smelled of incense. The city wasn't as crowded or busy as Diagon Alley but due to the low population the city turned into one of the tight communities where everybody is nice to each other and knows everybody inside and out. There were some children running around in the streets playing tag in what looked to be a cross between Japanese kimonos and wizard robes. It was a kimono jacket part wrapped around them but just one layer instead of all of the thick layers like you see on the adults. It was just at knee level so that the kids could still run around and had a wizard rope around the waist. There was another layer of cloth hanging from the kid's waists and it looked like you could pull it up and it would make a hood like a cloak [3]. All of the kids already had their wands and they were tucked inside their belt securely as they ran around trying not to get 'it'. Some of the elderly folk were outside sweeping the patio or reading on a rocking chair and you could see most of the adults inside the shops bargaining. Overall, this city was a lot more comforting and homely compared to Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Hermione quickly walked towards a woman and asked in clear Japanese where the local bank was. The boys listened in amazement on how precise Hermione's Japanese was, to what they had tried before. The woman kindly smiled at Hermione and the boys and answered pointing to a good-sized stone building at the end of the street. Hermione bowed in thanks and motioned for Harry and Ron to follow.

The bank was rectangular and had three stories. There were many windows of different shapes and sizes looking into rooms of various styles and people at desks. It was more uniform then compared to Gringotts's construction.

This time Harry and Ron lead they way as they opened up the door for Hermione to walk in, 'ladies first'. Inside they met a scene familiar to Gringotts, except instead of goblins sitting in high desks, the desks were full of stout rounded creatures. [4] They were all wrinkly with big beady eyes and had small pointy noses over a long pointed beard. Most of them were considerably balding and wore old kimonos. They were only about the size of 3 feet and looked old enough to know more than just how to torture and strangle you without any effort [5].

"You know what these creatures are, Hermione?" Ron asked looking at one of them with curiosity.

"I read about them before, I think they're called Ibomprotives. And they're really dangerous from what I've read. They're like distant cousins of goblins, and old ancestors of house elves." said Hermione. She's gotten over S.P.E.W. after talking with Dobby and Winky a lot but still tell the house-elves that they don't have to work so hard all the time.

Harry looked around the room quickly and walked over to what seemed to be one of the guides.

"Um, excuse me, sir." Harry politely asked. The Ibomprotive turned around and stared blankly at Harry.

"What do you want? You look foreign. The transformer is in the corner, you dolt. Look first next time you ask." He said quickly and turned away back into his own work.

Harry bent his eyebrows together and was thinking of a hex to use...

"Come on Harry, I see it! It's right next to the door. Blimey, wonder how we didn't see it, it's huge!" Ron said and jogged over towards the machine. Hermione soon followed Ron and then Harry after he finished glaring at the back of the Ibomprotive.

"Hmmm..." Ron held his chin up in concentration, "I think we just dump coins in this basket thing and then...press the country of the money we want..." he said pointing to the lit-up globe with a small pointer attached to it. He tested this out and tossed his one galleon, 11 sickles, and six knuts into the basket. He held the pointer and stabbed at the blue picture of Japan on the globe and out came 874.92 yen. Harry and Hermione followed suit and they took a few minutes to examine their new money.

"Lookit Harry! These tiny things are their money!!!" Ron yelled excitedly, "Wait until Dad sees this..." Hermione rolled her eyes and picket up a small pamphlet that was nearby that showed you how the Japanese currency worked. Just as they were all putting their new money into their pouches, they saw the door open and a strange man walked in.

He was around the same height they were, maybe between what Harry and Ron where now, and looked like he was exactly the same age as them. He had dark black hair with a shine of blue in it, and round circular glasses on his face. He was a bit pale, but still natural looking, besides the fact that he had a scary grin. His robes were made of what looked like very expensive midnight blue material and were decorated very elegantly. As soon as he walked in about five Ibomprotives popped in front of him bowing asking if he needed their services for anything. He politely shook his head and the Ibomprotives bowed again and disappeared. What happened next was what threw Harry, Ron, and Hermione off. The strange man turned his head and smiled at them and started walking towards them.

"Hello Mr. Potter. We've been looking for you." The man said slyly as he approached them.

Ron interrupted before Harry could answer the man. "What do you mean 'we'? You're the only one here!"

"What? Oh! It seems like my companion walked a bit slower then me..." As if magic, there was a small 'click' from the door and another man walked in, a man that Ron, Hermione, and Harry would have least expected to see.

"Ah! There you are! I was wondering where you ran off too. Good Afternoon Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley. And a 'Good Afternoon' to you too, Ms. Granger. I've been looking for you."

"Professor Dumbledore!" Hermione exclaimed, "What are you doing in Japan?!"

"Looking for you, of course." He said with his eyes twinkling," I just wanted to check on you to see if everything was going smoothly. Since I missed you at your apartment I thought that you might want to change your money to yen. The only place left to look was here. Luckily, I bumped into my old friend on the way! Meet Eriol Hiiragizawa!"

One thing was going through their three minds, "Eriol What? 'Old friend'? Who in Atlas is he?!"



[1] Ok, so I'm not pro at the geography and cultures of Japan, but go with the flow K? Plus, I'm bad at searching on the internet for this kind'a stuff because of all of the tourist websites, so if you think you can help with ANYTHING related to Japan, please do.

[2] I asked somebody on the internet about the translation. So I'm not completely sure if that's the correct interpretation of 'Sacred City of The Old'. I went to my dictionary and I got 'shinsei na shi no toshiyori' but I'm not sure. All of the other translators on google don't work for me because my compy doesn't show the Japanese kanji and I can't find one that will go to romaji. So once again, if you can, help in anyways possible, because I am el stupido. You might as well know now, I don't know any other language besides English. Be Dan khong biet tieng Nhat. ( Anybody who knows what that means, I praise you a thousand times.

[3] Hmm...imagine it as best as you can. =P

[4] So...I guess these creatures are like a larger form of Myoga The Flea from Inu-Yasha. But a bit tweaked.

[5] Nice thought isn't it, eh?

OK!! I would now like you thank my WONDERFUL FOUR reviewers because you just made my day happy reading 'em. FOUR!! I never would have thought that I would get FOUR reviews, this shows how happy I can be with your reviews, so please do so now with this chapter if you haven't the last. It was like...'People really DO like what I wrote!!!" Kekeke, anyways, I just wanted to tell you that you made me happy. So, I would like to thank the following:

violet angel007- Why thank you! If I asked one of my friends they would just say my brain is strange...=) Thank you for being first to review!

Wallpaper- Arigato for the complement. You have a nice screen name, I promise to read your fics to when I get the chance.

pirate-gurl115- Kekeke, You're very nice!

#1FAN- --; You my friend, are strange. Sinh Loi Chi Sa. (bows) Thanks anyways for the cool review. Yeah yeah, I already told you, I write slow, and of course, you should know by now that I am crazy lazy. =P Ok, have a nice summer too, talk to you later.