Daisuke tossed and turned. There was a feeling that kept bothering him, and he just couldn't sleep. He jolted out of bed.

What was this feeling?

Daisuke silently thought about what he had to do today, and realized there was a reasonable explanation. Today his cousin was going to show him how to fly a broom. He had convinced Oliver Wood to lend him a broom so they could fly after practice.

He realized what the feeling was.

He was eager to fly! The sky would always call to him, and it showed in his paintings.

Harry was grinning as he helped Daisuke on the broom. It wasn't long before Daisuke was flying around just as well as his cousin. It seemed they were meant for the air.

Apparently Wood had been watching, because he offered to show Daisuke how to be a Keeper. It was soon clear that Daisuke was a natural at the game. He was grinning from ear to ear.


"I'm bored," announced Harry.

Daisuke looked up from his book.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do about it?" he asked back.

Harry put his head in his hands and looked at Daisuke from across the table.

"I was hoping you had an idea we could try."

"Pranks?"

"Nah...Snape threatened me with two months detention if we did any more for at least three months."

Daisuke closed his book and thought for a moment.

"We could always play the Kagome song. But we would need more players."

Harry cocked his head.

"Kagome song?"

"It's an old game that children play. Kids would circle around one person who is blindfolded and when the song ends, the one in the middle has to guess who is behind them. If they are right, they switch out."

Harry grinned.

"That sounds like fun! How many would we need?"

"Maybe about five or six people."

Harry went off to recruit some more players.


Half an hour later, Daisuke was teaching everyone how to play the game. Harry had managed to get Neville, Hermione, a first year Ravenclaw named Luna, and surprisingly, Draco Malfoy.

Daisuke was showing them how the song went, while Harry translated the instructions. It was a fairly simply enough game. The only bump seemed to be the song.

Daisuke patiently repeated the song, and when he was fairly sure they had it down, they tried it.

"Kagome, Kagome...

The bird in the cage...

When will you come out?

In the evening of the dawn...

The crane and the turtle slipped...

Who is behind you now?"

It was simple enough that even Draco Malfoy got the hang of it by the second try. It turned out to be rather fun.

Once dinner began, they had manage to get more players. Out of all of those, only four people successfully managed to name the person behind them accurately.

Harry, Daisuke, Luna and Neville. Draco managed to get it right most of the time, whereas Hermione only managed to get it right once, and that was by simple deduction.

Things happened peacefully for a change. Aside from the times that the first and second years sang the 'Kagome' song and tried to guess who was behind them.


During the first game of the year, Daisuke watched with rapt attention. Oliver had suggested the Japanese boy pay attention to how the game was played.

But something was wrong. One of the small baseball sized balls kept homing in on Harry. The twins had to leave the others unprotected while the bludger attacked Harry.

Finally Oliver called a time out.

When they went back into the air again, Harry was all alone. Daisuke was definitely worried.

Suddenly the ball aimed right for Harry. He couldn't react fast enough. So he did the only thing he could.

He lunged forward, and grabbed the small gold ball that had been hovering by Draco's ear. It was then that the ball hit him full force. Harry couldn't hold onto the broom handle. He began to fall.

"Itoko!" cried Daisuke in shock.

Something red began to glow on Harry. It was centered around his back.

That was when the rain of feathers appeared. Everyone was silent as they sound of large wings reverberated throughout the stadium.

Harry skidded on the loose earth of the pitch. He held up the Snitch proudly, and everyone went nuts. But the bludger wasn't finished with him yet. It began to strike the ground near Harry. It came perilously close to his head!

Daisuke drew something from his pocket, and threw it at the ball. Harry was the only one who saw what it was.

A black feather.


"What was with that rain of feathers?" asked Ron at the party. The Gryffindor students had once again thrown a wild bash to celebrate their victory.

Daisuke was the only one who knew where the feathers came from.

Emiko Niwa read the letter her son and nephew sent, and her heart soared. Harry was definitely going to inherit the Niwa magic with Daisuke! She handed the letters to her father, who looked just as happy as she did.

They had worried that Harry wouldn't inherit the Niwa clan tradition, but now their worries were over. Harry would get Dark along with his cousin.

Which meant they would have to move their training schedule up a bit, since Harry had some things he needed to catch up on.


"Dear Harry and Daisuke,

We are so proud of you two! Harry, congratulations on awakening part of the Niwa clan magic. Those wings that grew out of your back are normal sweetie. We've had those for four hundreds years now. There's nothing to be afraid of.

On a happier note, when you two get home we'll start teaching you the sealing magic that we specialize in.

Love Emiko and Daichi."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. So he wasn't cursed like he thought. He had been a little freaked out when he realized that he had grown large wings out of his back.

Since they were normal for his family, that meant he should be able to bring them out whenever he wanted.

Which gave him an idea.

Daisuke and Harry were once again jumping from platform to platform. The last time they did it, McGonagall nearly had a heart attack!

They had gotten a week's detention for that. Unfortunately for the poor Transfiguration mistress, the boys made it very clear that they would continue to do it.

Finally, when she couldn't take it any more, McGonagall did the smart thing and asked them why they insisted on jumping from level to level.

"We don't want to get out of practice when we get home."

"What?"

"Aunt Emiko sets traps for us every morning, and she gets annoyed if we mess up," explained Harry.

"I thought your Aunt was Petunia Dursley?"

"Um...yes and no. My mother has another sister who lives in Japan. Petunia decided she had enough and asked her to take me in," said Harry sheepishly.

"Hari is itoko," said Daisuke.

McGonagall raised her eyebrow in question.

"Itoko means cousin," explained Harry.

"So Mr. Niwa is in fact your cousin. And when were you planning on telling me this?"

"Um, now? It's bad enough people stare and harass me because I'm the boy-who-lived, I didn't want my cousin to be pulled into the madness," said Harry.

"You do realize I will have to tell the headmaster about this," said McGonagall.

"Please don't. If he knew I had another aunt, then he might still send me back to the Dursleys. The last thing I want is for Dumbledore to bother Daisuke because he's my cousin."

"Very well. Just please, try not to kill yourself while jumping, will you?"

"When do the teachers go to sleep around here?" asked Harry.

McGonagall thought long and hard about what she did next. If she revealed the truth to the boys, it would cut down on the point reduction for their jumping...but it would also give the twins more ways to prank the school.

"The teachers...are usually on break between five and six. We switch shifts until breakfast begins. Snape patrols the stairways on Wednesdays, while I patrol on Fridays."

Harry nodded. He turned to Daisuke and spoke to him in Japanese. When the boy nodded, Harry looked at her.

"We'll get up earlier then. And we'll try to cut down on the number of levels we jump when you're on patrol," said Harry.

McGonagall knew a losing situation when she saw one, and accepted defeat gracefully.


Dumbledore had the weekly staff meeting, and as usual, half listened to the teachers. It was usually the same complaints over again.

Severus was being too harsh on anyone not a Slytherin. The Twins had pranked again. The plants in the greenhouses were growing mold and needed more students to tend to them. The centaurs were restless. Madam Pince had discovered something unsavory in the books. Someone had broken into the Restricted section and almost made off with a book. The students were fornicating in the towers after lights out.

The usual fare.

He honestly had no idea why he forgot to cast a silencing charm on his ears before these things.

Then Filch reported something he hadn't heard a thousand times before.

"Potter and that foreigner have been getting up very early every morning and jogging on the grounds."

"How early?" asked Dumbledore. This was new.

"Around five thirty or so. And they have been doing this for the past month at least," said Filch.

He was somewhat annoyed that he couldn't reduce points or hand out detention simply for waking up early. As McGonagall pointed out, they weren't actually breaking rules. There was nothing in the books about waking up before breakfast to exercise.

Of course it made him curious as to what prompted the sudden change in his pawn's behavior, but he chalked it up to the foreign child encouraging him to do it.

He still wondered why Daisuke Niwa looked so damn familiar to him though.


Harry jumped off the fourth floor balcony and waited patiently for his new trick to unfurl itself. It was roughly a three hundred foot drop. Not enough to kill him...but enough to end up in the hospital wing if he landed wrong.

He felt for the tug in his magical core, and before he was a hundred feet down, he felt a snap.

He opened his eyes. Below him was the ground...but he wasn't getting any closer to it. He looked behind him. On his back were a pair of large blood red wings, flapping silently as an owl. He whooped, and flew up to the balcony he jumped off.

Daisuke looked at the wings in disbelief.

"Mom said that was NORMAL?"

"Daisuke, nothing about me is normal. At least now I won't have to worry about falling to my death during Quidditch."

"True. So now what?"

"Should we see if you have wings too?"

Daisuke looked at his watch and yelped.

"Didn't Hermione-chan say if we were late for her study session again she would hex us to Sunday?"

Harry looked at his watch and paled. He landed quickly and concentrated on his wings vanishing. By the time they made it to the library, there wasn't a feather left.


Daisuke concentrated on his magical core. Fortunately, the lesson he took at the temple near his hometown included meditation techniques. Something he had been showing his cousin to calm the boy down.

Harry had taken to those lessons like a duck to water.

Once he was in synch with his core, he felt around for anything odd. He was about to give up with he found a strange feather, hidden deep inside him.

After receiving the letter from his mother, he was quite eager to learn how to bring out his wings. According to his grandfather, he would be learning how to do it much earlier than normal. It would be fine if he couldn't do it just yet.

Daisuke hoped to gain his wings and use them often enough that bringing them out became second nature.

Harry was walking by the unused classroom when he heard a whoosh. He popped his head in and gaped. Daisuke had found his wings!

"Want to go flying cousin?"

Daisuke grinned. He loved flying as much as Harry, and to be able to fly without a broom sounded wonderful.


Halloween.

Instead of heading to the feast like he would normally, Harry had been invited to Nick's death day party. Hermione had been eager to hear of it, and was more than happy to join him. Daisuke went as well, if only to see if any Japanese ghosts.

Fortunately, Harry had thought ahead and asked Nick to have food for the living and the dead.

So here they were, heading to a small dungeon that would be filled with ghosts.

Daisuke got along better with ghosts than most second years. His culture was filled with tales of ghosts coming back to warn the living.

Much to Harry's surprise, it turned out that the Hogwarts ghosts knew Japanese.

Apparently, once you're dead you have a lot of time on your hands. So most went out to learn a new language or something new to occupy their time.

Now that Daisuke knew that, he wouldn't feel so alone.

Harry never saw Hermione talking to Nick, asking him something that would change his hopes of keeping Daisuke relatively safe from the madness that always followed him.

"Hello Nick," said Hermione.

"Hello Hermione! How do you like my party?" replied Nick cheerfully.

"It's fascinating. Nick, I was wondering if you spoke Japanese?"

"Indeed! I spent a good fifty years haunting Japan before I decided that Hogwarts was my home."

"I was hoping you could translate a word for me."

Nick looked interested, and Hermione repeated the word that Daisuke had yelled during the Quidditch match when red feathers filled the air.

"Why 'itoko' means cousin."

"Thank you Nick!" beamed Hermione.

Hermione stalked over to Harry, and the look on her face made him gulp.

"I know what you've been hiding. Why didn't you tell us?" she hissed.

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry nervously.

"Daisuke is your cousin!"

"How...?"

"He yelled out itoko when you were about to fall from your broom during the match," Hermione informed him primly.

"I only found out during the summer. My other aunt picked me up from the station. I'll be living with her from now on. Please don't tell anyone, especially Ron."

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Ron would never have been able to keep this a secret, and I wanted to spare my cousin from the stigma that follows me around."

Hermione conceded to his point. Daisuke was already an outcast for being a foreigner and starting in his second year. If it became well known that he was directly related to Harry through his mother, then it would only be worse.

As it was, Daisuke had the respect of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff simply by trying hard. Slytherin tolerated his presence because he was a Japanese Pure Blood who respected their position on bloodlines. Gryffindor accepted him simply because he was Wood's replacement.

Still, Daisuke fit into their little group better than she would have suspected.

"So which side of the family is he from?"

"Mother's. Apparently my Grandmother on my mother's side had an affair while in Japan and had twin girls. The man in question happened to be from a long line of mages."

"Wait, you mean you're really a pure blood like Ron?"

"Really 'Mione, do you think I care about that? I finally have a family I can be proud to claim to be related to, and all you care is about my stupid blood status? We really don't need to give Malfoy any more ammo," said Harry with a look.

Hermione winced at the thought. Malfoy was a nightmare enough with his blood status. If he knew Harry was a pure blood and not a half blood, he would be incorrigible.

Right as Nick was about to give his speech, several spectral horsemen arrived through the wall. Harry suspected that they had deliberately shown up at to ruins Nick's moment.

The leader of this group decided to bully Nick for not being able to join their club when Harry had enough. He hated bullies.

"Excuse me, but what exactly does Nick need to qualify?" he asked politely, but firmly.

"He needs to be able to remove his head completely," said the ghost.

"I thought all he needed was to die by decapitation. It's not his fault that the guy couldn't do it right. The fact that it too 45 strikes to properly kill him only means that he was a man worth noting," said Harry calmly.

The ghost was taken aback by the thought. Harry noted the grateful look that Nick shot him.

Apparently Harry's words had a bigger impact than he thought. Several of the other headless ghosts were shooting speculative looks at Nick, as they hadn't thought of that before. The ghost looked nervous, and rightly so.

He had two choices. Either come up with a legitimate reason why Nick couldn't join, or allow him in as an auxiliary member.

As it was, the ghost would still lose face because of Harry's intervention.

"I suppose he could join...as a back up member you understand!" said the ghost finally.

The headless ghosts left promptly after. Nick beamed at the boy, joy clear in his face.

"Thank you Harry! I doubt Patrick would have changed his mind if you hadn't said anything!"

Harry gave the ghost a grin.

"Consider that your Death Day present Nick," replied Harry.

Nick laughed, and the students left, relieved to be out of that cold dungeon. Hermione and Daisuke beamed at him for his small kindness to the Gryffindor ghost.

That was when their good mood was ruined.

There hanging on the wall was the form of the cat hated by everyone, Mrs. Norris.

Daisuke gasped in shock. He liked animals. Instead of leaving the cat hanging, Daisuke went to take it down. It was then that the students left the feast.

"Daisuke, we have to leave."

"I'm not leaving that cat up there!" retorted Daisuke.

By the time they managed to return to the common room, the rumor mill was going full force.