Disclaimer: I don't own much, especially Harry Potter or Ruroni Kenshin. If I did, I'd be rich. But I'm just a poor college student, that I am.

Author's Note: Okay, the whole animagus thing kinda came out of left field. I myself didn't even see it coming. But what's said is said, what's done is done. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to work that fact in now. On with chapter3

Chapter 3: The First Day

Ken walked to the Gryffindor table in a state of shock. "That hat, it knows I'm an animagus!" he thought. True, he was registered in America, but he hadn't exactly told anyone in England. He knew he should have registered upon arrival, but he had had other things on his mind. "Tomorrow, I'll go and tell the headmaster." He decided. He sat down at the table right next to Hermione.

Hermione had noticed Ken's shocked state, but didn't get a chance to ask him about it due to her housemates bombarding him with questions as soon as he sat down. He seemed to have shaken himself out of it as the food appeared. As they ate, the table's conversation turned to classes the next day. Ken turned to Hermione and said, "Hey Hermione."

She didn't realize that he was talking to her though; she was paying more attention to his eyes again. He tapped her shoulder and she napped out of her trance, and began to blush a little bit. 'This is stupid,' she thought, 'why is he affecting me like this? He's just a guy!' 'A very good looking guy.' A small voice in the back of her head said, which she immediately told to shut up.

"Hey Hermione, I was wondering something." Ken said. Hermione suddenly got a little nervous, wondering if he could read her thoughts about him. He continued "I was wondering if you knew anyone who could tutor me in Charms; it's the only subject I have a fair amount of trouble in."

Then Ron cut in on the conversation, "Hermione, you should tutor him. You're the best in the class at Charms. Actually, Ken, Hermione here's the top of the class overall. She'd be the best to help you." Hermione blushed slightly as Ken looked at her, obviously impressed.

Ken asked, "Hermione, do you think that you could tutor me in Charms?" Hermione simply nodded, and turned a brighter shade of red.

After the meal was over, the prefects led the new Gryffindors to the tower. After Harry and Ron showed Ken the sixth year dorm, he went out into the common room carrying his favorite book, The Great Gatsby. He had planned to read for a little while in front of the fire before going to bed. He flopped down on the chair closest to the fire and began to read, but then he heard someone clear their throat behind him. It was Hermione, and as she sat down she asked, "So what do you think of Hogwarts so far?"

Ken smiled and replied, "I like it. It's so different from Salem. It's so much bigger and roomier here, at Salem we had about half this space for my house's common room. And the grounds at Salem are nowhere near the size of the grounds here."

Hermione smiled, and then asked, "Do you miss Salem?"

"No, I never really was too fond of that school. I didn't have a lot of friends there, and quite frankly I learned more about magic from my parents than Salem. I don't think I'll ever go back there." He replied.

The two of them talked for close to two hours, almost forgetting that they were starting classes in the morning. They finally realized this, and were about to head to their respective dorms, when suddenly they heard a small voice behind them. It came from a scared looking first year girl. "I can't sleep, I'm too scared." She said.

Ken bent down to her and said "I understand, it can be scary sleeping in a strange place for the first time. Here, sit down on the couch." She sat down on the couch, and Ken sat down on the chair next to it. He began to sing, a slow, lullaby-like tune. Hermione didn't recognize the tune, and couldn't understand the song, because he was apparently singing in Japanese. It worked, the girl fell right asleep, and Ken conjured a blanket and covered her with it.

"That was nice of you." Hermione whispered to him, then asked, "Was that Japanese that you were singing in?"

"Yes it was. I'm completely fluent in Japanese; my mom started teaching me it when I was just learning to talk." He replied.

"Is it hard to learn?" she asked.

"Kinda, why, you want to learn?" he said.

"Yes." Hermione replied, blushing a little.

"Well, then consider it a trade for your tutoring me in Charms. But we can work that all out in the morning. Right now, I suggest that we both go get some sleep; we got a big day tomorrow. Goodnight Hermione." Ken whispered.

Hermione smiled and said, "Goodnight Ken." And they both headed up to their dorms.

Hermione got dressed for bed and thought about what had just happened. 'So why did you ask him about learning Japanese?' said a little voice in the back of her head. 'No reason.' She thought back. 'There is a reason; you want to spend more time with him. You like him.' The voice shot back. She wanted to tell the voice that it was wrong. She wanted to, but she realized she'd be lying to herself. Meanwhile, in the boy's dorm, Ken simply drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Hermione didn't see Ken anywhere. He wasn't in the common room, or the Great Hall eating. She decided to calm down and eat some breakfast while waiting for him, when the first year girl from the previous night walked up to her. "Hi, I wanted to thank you and your boyfriend for helping me last night." The girl said.

Hermione blushed and said, "Thanks, but it's really Ken that you should thank. And he's not my boyfriend, he's just a friend."

"You stupid girl, do you really think a filthy little mudblood like her could possibly have a boyfriend?" said a cold, drawling voice from behind Hermione. She turned around, ready to slap Malfoy, but she stopped herself when she saw Ken standing right behind him.

"You really don't learn, do you?" Ken said, and Malfoy became as white as one of the ghosts when he recognized the voice. Malfoy quickly excused himself and practically ran back to the Slytherin table. Ken smiled and turned to Hermione and the girl and said, "Well that takes care of him for the time being. So did you sleep well last night?"

The first year shyly spoke, "Yes, thank you. My names Claire."

"And my names Ken, and she's Hermione, it's nice to meet you Claire." Ken said with a smile.

Breakfast passed by without any more incidents, and everybody headed off to class. The morning started with Care of Magical Creatures, which the Gryffindors still had with the Slytherins. The all approached Hagrid's cabin but stopped when they heard loud growling coming from behind it. Hagrid walked up to them and said, "Morning, just been getting your lesson ready." Harry introduced Ken to Hagrid as he led the class to the paddock behind the cabin. When the class saw what was in the paddock, they froze, and a few of the girls screamed. The creatures appeared to be small dragons, but with elongated bodies. They were milling about in the paddock, almost oblivious to the stunned students. Hagrid's face was beaming as he addressed the class, "Oriental Mini Dragons! Well, what do yez think?" Nobody answered; most of the class was trying to edge themselves away from the mini dragons. But not Ken he walked right up to the fence and hopped over it, landing in a crouching position in front of one of the dragons. Hermione and some of the other girls gasped, Harry and Ron looked to Hagrid for what to do, and Malfoy's face broke into a malicious smile. Ken remained absolutely calm, and held out his right hand to the dragon that had been staring at him since he had entered the paddock. The dragon sniffed his hand twice, and then made direct eye contact with him. Then a long tongue shot out of the dragon's mouth and licked Ken in the face. Ken began to pet the dragon like it was a dog, and the dragon seamed to enjoy it greatly.

"Its okay everyone; mini dragons aren't as fierce as their larger counterparts. In fact, their temperament and behavior is very similar to that of some breeds of dogs." Ken said, as the dragon he was petting crawled onto him and perched itself on his shoulder. The rest of the class edged forward, still apprehensive despite Hagrid and Ken's assurances that it was safe. Hermione looked at Ken and the blue and gold scaled dragon on his shoulders, and decided if he could do it, so could she. She walked up to the paddock and climbed into it. A dragon with jade green scales locked eyes with her, so she bent down and held out her hand just like Ken had. The results were the same; the dragon licked her face and climbed up onto her shoulder. The rest of the class followed suit, and soon they all had miniature dragons perched on their shoulders. That's when Hagrid announced that as a yearlong project, the class was simply supposed to care for and nurture the dragons, with their final grade resting on how well they flourished. They were led to pens set up near the greenhouses, where they dropped off their dragons just as the bell rang.

While the Gryffindors headed up to Charms, Hermione caught up with Ken, and asked, "So where did you learn so much about oriental mini dragons?"

Ken replied, "My grandfather breeds them, and I used to visit him all the time. I learned quite a lot about them." They headed up to Charms, which was an unmitigated disaster. Professor Flitwick had them reviewing the charms they had learned over the years. Neville screwed up every charm he tried, but he wasn't the only one who was having trouble. Ken proved to Hermione that charms wasn't his best subject when, while trying to banish a pillow, he missed and ended up sending Professor Flitwick's coffee mug flying into the wall. Hermione repaired the mug, while Ken threw his wand into his bag in frustration. The bell rang and Ken stormed out of the room and kicked the nearest wall. "Damn it! Why can't I keep screwing up in Charms! Nobody in my family has ever had trouble in charms so why do I?" He half-yelled.

Hermione walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and said, "Don't worry, I'll help you. Besides, you probably just have a mental block about it or something. You just need some time and practice." Ken looked at her with a puzzled look on his face, which broke into a small smile as he said,

"Thanks Hermione. I needed that. Now let's get to lunch. At least we've got double Transfiguration this afternoon, finally a subject I'm good at!" And so they all went down to the Great Hall for lunch.

At Transfiguration, the Gryffindors got a big surprise. Ken was not joining their Transfiguration class as a student, but rather as a teacher's aid. Professor McGonagall explained that Ken had been trained in Transfiguration by his father, who was a noted expert in the field, and therefore had almost reached McGonagall's level of expertise in the subject. So he was made a student teacher for his fellow Gryffindor sixth years. After another class full of review, McGonagall released them, not looking at all disappointed by them for a change. This was mostly due to the fact that Ken had been able to help Neville understand a few of the spells that he had been having the most trouble with, so there had been no accidents. As they headed to Gryffindor tower to drop off their stuff before dinner, Hermione asked Ken, "So why didn't you tell us about your abilities in Transfiguration?"

Ken blushed a little, and said, "You never asked."

After dinner, the gang sat down in the common room and started complaining loudly about how rough the day had been. Well almost everybody, Hermione started tutoring Ken the second his butt hit the chair. After three hours straight of charms practice (and very little progress), they switched from charms to Japanese, which Hermione had some trouble grasping. After an hour or so, she threw her notebook on the table and said, "This makes no sense!" Ken looked at the page which she had been trying to translate while he had been lecturing her about the language, then looked at her and explained, "You're going to have to take this slow. Japanese isn't like French or English, It's not based in Latin. And you're trying to translate from the book while listening to me explain things to you isn't going to help. You can't multitask when learning this. However, I will say this; you've learned more than most people do in their first lesson. Now let's call it quits for tonight." Hermione agreed in a quite voice, and suddenly found herself looking straight into Ken's eyes. He whispered "I'm sorry if I was a little stern there, but you shouldn't push yourself too much. You'll learn it fast enough, but what you really need to learn to relax a bit, or else taking all this on at once will burn you out." If anybody else had said this to her, their would have been a blazing argument. But something about Ken stopped her from yelling at him. Something about his eyes stopped her from fighting with him. They bid each other good night, and Ken went up to his dorm room. Hermione picked up the book that Ken had told her to read for her Japanese lessons. She read it until she fell asleep in front of the warm fire.

Okay, that took a while. I've been real busy with school, which is finally over till August. So, the future chapters should come sooner, at least until next semester starts. Next chapter: Stabbing Pains