The Stone of the Immortals by ashwindslave

Chapter 3

Disclaimer- The author does not own the rights to Harry Potter, Ranma ½, or D&D (which only has a slight influence on this story). The Plot and some of the Characters are my ideas, for all the good it does me.

AN: Some might wonder why nobody has connected Ranma with Happosai yet. The simple answer is that in their minds they are equating Black Sorcerer with Dark Wizard. Thus they expect a black robe wearing, sneering pureblood. In short they expect a Snape or Malfoy. Also, I havn't mentioned it but not only does Ranma have a fairly heavy accent but he also learned a lot of his English from U.S. soldiers.

Much of the next week was spent continuing the to get to know each other. They swapped adventure stories and Ranma told a little bit of his tour of the tournament circuit. With Remus' help they pieced together a portion of Harry's family tree on his mother's side and figured out how it corresponded to Ranma. What they found was this. Francis Arnold Evans was born in 1927 and died in 1978. Marigold Loretta (Smythe) Evans was born in 1934 and died in 1978. Nodaka (?) Saotome was born in 1955. Two and a half years later Petunia (Evans) Dursley was born 1957 and Lily followed in 1959, the same year as James Potter. Almost nothing was known about Nodaka's mother Mariko and when Ranma was asked about his father he had ignored the question and the other two didn't press for answers.

Sorting out the Potter family turned out to be a bit of a problem. Remus knew the family records were extensive; going back several hundred years, but that did little good when they were stored in the family vault. Remus did know that they were connected somehow to the Black, Longbottom and Bones families.

Shaking the family tree to see what nuts would fall out soon became boring once Harry was reassured it really was a tree and not a pole like the Malfoys. Ranma gave a demonstration of martial arts and Remus was skeptical that a muggle could take on a wizard with his bare hands and win until Ranma suggested a little match. After letting Remus try and hit him for five minutes and proving that invisibility had little effect on his ability to locate a wizard, Ranma mercifully ended the match with a light tap to the back of Remus' neck. After waking up on the floor Remus was forced to concede.

Being a scholar Remus was unable to let this pass. "Ranma, how can you move so fast? Being a werewolf I have better perception than most and better reflexes as well. I can barely see you move sometimes."

"Well, Pops started training me before I could even walk. As you know, my father took me away from home when I was six and martial arts became my sole reason for existing for the next ten years. If you totaled the amount of time I spent in school during that time I'd bet it would come out to be less than two school years. Most of that kind of education took place in various dojos when the masters realized I was too ignorant to even read some of the scrolls. Pops gave me a lot of crap over that. Whenever we went to a foreign country he made me learn some of the lingo, said if I was gunna be a pansy ---ed schoolboy I could do it. That's why I learned English by the way. Pops heard these guys called SEALs were good fighters and he wanted me to learn their tricks so we went over there. I don't want to know who he bribed with what, but I spent a month there. It was kind of fun. I learned a lot there. After you train for a while you start to learn how to use your ki consciously and you can enhance your speed and strength. The rest is simply a matter of mastering the process."

Remus frowned in puzzlement. "Whats this ki you refer to?"

Ranma sat for a moment trying to think of words in English to describe to concept. "I dunno, think of it as a energy that all living creatures have. When you don't have any it means your dead. It is also in the environment around you. Practice can get your body to generate more ki than a normal person. Once you learn to control it you can use it to do things like heal yourself quicker, move faster and protect yourself from damage. If you're really good, like me, you can even force it out of your body to attack people."

"Could you show us?"

Ranma held out his hand and a ball of white light grew in his hand. "This ball is composed of pure distilled ki. Normally it would have a color that reflects the emotion used to channel it. But that's a crutch, and a dangerous one at that. If you use single emotion to channel ki too much, that emotion begins to dominate you. I got a huge wakeup call three years ago. A friend of mine used to use his depression to fuel his ki. Three years ago after an incident, it became too much for Ryoga and he killed himself. After that I decided to stop using emotional ki as much and concentrate on neutral ki."

"I'm sorry to hear that Ranma."

"Yeah, me too." Ranma's eyes glazed over as he remembered when Nerima began to lose its innocence. After Akane died, the challengers seemed to get more brutal. People who had no grudge against Ranma came to fight him just to say they beat him. Some of them had been less than pleasant characters. The fiancés and their suitors became more desperate and less careful. It took Kasumi spending three days in the hospital to snap them out of their mania. It was then that Ryoga, the one to accidentally hit her, killed himself in shame. Ranma had been the one to find his body under the bridge.

The other two in the room were no strangers to the pain themselves. They quietly slipped out to leave Ranma alone with his thoughts.

The mood was somber in the house for most of the afternoon, until nearly suppertime.

"Honey, I'm ho-ome." The bright and cheerful voice cut through the gloom of the house like a knife. "Whats for dinner?"

A woman with bright pink hair bounced into the room, heading strait for Harry who was getting ready to cook. A slender arm snaked around his neck while he simply stared. She tightened her grip and firmly pulled him into a headlock and roughly rubbed her knuckles through his hair.

"Hey! Ack! Let me go! Watch the hair!" Harry struggled in vain as he tried to maintain his hold on the dishes he was carrying.

"It's not like it's going to make it worse." She released the red faced young man and Remus tried to hide his grin behind his ever-present teacup.

Tonks next bounced her way over to Ranma and stuck out her hand. "Hello, I'm Tonks. Nice to meet you."

Ranma returned the gesture. "Ranma Saotome, likewise."

Harry couldn't resist putting in his two bits. "Tonks, you didn't tell him your first name, Nymphadora." Before he could even blink Tonks drew her wand and vanished his mouth.

Quickly she turned around and glared at Ranma menacingly. "You'll call me Tonks if you know what's good for you."

Ranma held his hands up in surrender and Tonks got herself a glass of water. 'Gods, I've got another tomboy on my hands and she's got a wand instead of a mallet.'

Remus was outright laughing by now. "Whats got you in such a good mood?"

"Today was officially my last day of work." Her face momentarily darkened. "They searched me on the way out! Said they didn't me walking off with department property. Bastards!"

Ranma immediately noticed Tonks had a bad habit, she gestured while talking. What was worse is she forgot that she was holding a glass of cold water. Every time she emphasized a point a few more drops sloshed in his direction.

"Well, it could be worse, they could have insisted on a strip search."

His only response was crossed arms and a evil glare.

"Oh."

Ranma sighed in relief as the water moved further away and Tonks sat down. He should have known better. Like a bad "B" monster film, the beast made one more appearance.

"I'm not going to let that spoil my day. It can't compete with the fact I don't have to deal with those bureaucrats anymore. I'm FREE!" With that she threw her hands in the air, completely forgetting her glass of water. Inevitably it found its way onto Ranma's head.

"OH! I'm so sorry about that! I'm really clumsy sometimes. Here let me dry you off. Whoa! Nice rack… when did you grow breasts?"

Ranma sighed as he pulled the wet silk away from his skin. It never failed. He could dodge fireballs the size of a VW bus moving at race car speeds, but the water got him every time.

"it's a curse. Cold water changes me into my cursed form, hot water changes me back. Yes I'm a guy. No I don't think like a girl. I still like girls. No I won't go out with you.

About five years now. No there isn't a cure. Anything I missed?"

Remus blinked several times. "How?"

"Jusenkyo, valley of cursed springs. There're hundreds of pools there, each with its own tragic story of what drowned in the spring. Get splashed and you're cursed to turn into that. I look a lot like mom so we guess this is what I would have looked like if I had been born a girl. Satisfied?"

"Not quite, but it will do for now."

SPLASH! "OW HOT HOT HOT HOT! Whaja do that for?"

Tonks smiled apologetically and dried him with a swish of her wand. "Um… sorry."

"I needn't be quite that hot. And as for getting me to start with, don't sweat it. Part of the curse is that water finds me no matter where I am

"So, what's it like?"

"A pain in the ---."

"Is it so bad being a girl?"

Ranma sighed and looked down. "Once I would have said YES to that. I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'll have this curse my entire life. The major thing for me now is that I hate the looks I get when people find out about it. As part of the curse it usually reveals itself at rather inconvenient times."

"How do you keep the muggles from finding out?"

"That was never really a problem for me back in Nerima. People accepted it after awhile. I created, or at least got Nabiki to create a legal alternate identity for my other form. It can be rather fun sometimes to be someone else. The only problem is when you get a pervert who won't take no for an answer. And its good for scammin' free eats off vendors."

Tonks had to laugh at that. "I know what you mean about being another person. Watch this." With that she shifted into a fair approximation of Ranma's girl form. "See, I can do this for pretty much anybody I want. If I touch the person I can copy them exactly. Its rather fun for playing jokes."

"I can see how that would work. I remember this time…"

Ranma and Tonks spent the remainder of the evening swapping stories over tricks pulled using other faces. Neither noticed how late it was until a clock in the den struck midnight.

Harry was also up late that night. For the last several hours his thoughts had been going around and around over Sirus. It was now Friday night and the will reading was at 9 on Monday. From what Remus had said earlier it was likely to be a zoo.

The papers had gotten a hold of the news that the Black Family would have a new head and it would be likely that at least 20 or so reporters would camp outside Gringott's. The Malfoys and several other families would likely be there and Remus was positive they would file a complaint about the will. Ted Tonks was a lawyer and he felt that as long as Sirius followed protocols it would be likely that the will would be upheld. Unfortunately that wasn't given considering it would be the Wizengamot that would review the case. There would always be a chance for money and influence to sway a ruling in the Wizengamot. It would be well after midnight before Harry got to sleep.

The next two days passed slowly for the four inhabitants of Grimauld Place. Several members of the Order passed through, not that Ranma knew of the Order yet. Mad-Eye had been adamantly against that. The next scheduled meeting o the Order wasn't until Wednesday of the coming week. The only thing Harry and Remus had to amuse themselves with was Tonks. More specifically her vary obvious attraction to Ranma and his apparent ignorance of that fact. Tonks' clothes the last two days had been bordering on indecent. She seemed to constantly gab at him while he was working out, and he never seemed to mind. She had even taken to sitting on his back while he was doing pushups, which seemed to have no effect at all. She had also invited him to the will reading and he agreed to go, though the free meal she promised him may have had something to do with it.

Contrary to what others might think, Ranma was very aware of what Tonks was up to. Several years and some coaching from Nabiki and Kasumi had given him at least a clue about girls. His main problem was what to do about it. It had been four years since Akane's death, and while he could say he was almost in love with the tomboy, he hadn't been quite yet. When he was brutally honest with himself he had to admit that half the pain he felt from that was the fact that he had failed her. She had trusted him to save her and he was too slow. He had come to realize that the pain from that would never heal. Now he had a decision to make. On one hand he hadn't found what he was looking for when he left Nerima. On the other, he was tired of traveling and since he wanted to get to know his cousin the idea of staying for a while. It was late Sunday evening as he lay in bed that Ranma realized that he hadn't found what he was looking for because he was looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing. Besides, he had always had a thing for strong energetic women. As often as he insulted Akane by calling her tomboy, in his mind it had always been a bit of a complement. It was then he made a decision; he would stay and see what happened. He would open himself up again and dare to hope.

The decision finally made, Ranma rolled over and slept like a Saotome for the rest of the night.

AN: Sorry, I lied. No will reading here. Won't be in the next chapter either (which will be more of an interlude). My apologies for focusing on Ranma and making it a little dark there for a moment. I merely wanted to emphasize in this chapter how much Ranma had changed in the last four years and give a little background for those who don't know Ranma. By the way, did anybody get the oompa-loompa reference in ch 2? That's one of my favorite lines in the English dubbed Anime.