I would like to say thank you to LoversPastForgotten, CEED, oOforeverobsessedOo, Spellcaster Hikaru, and Makurayami Ookami. Thank you especially to Spellcaster Hikaru, who gave me his/her opinion on my question. Unfortunately, I cannot progress much further without the votes of others. IMPORTANT: Should I put Malfoy in here or not! THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN EDITED.
Disclaimer: I own not the series of Yu Yu Hakusho. Nor do I own the book of Harry Potter. I do not. Not do I.
Chapter 4: Strange People
Harry, Ron, and Hermione quickly gathered up there things and prepared to leave with Dumbledore and some aurors. The aurors coming with them were: Mad-Eye Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Everyone quickly dressed in muggle clothing.
All of them crowded around the bicycle handlebar and reached forward to touch it. They felt the sensation of being pulled through air very suddenly, then hit the ground. A few people stumbled slightly from the impact, but no one fell.
They stood in the middle of a small clearing, just as Dumbledore said they would. It seemed like it must have been somewhere close to dawn right now, which was strange to some of them, considering it had been near sunset back in England.
Harry heard Dumbledore say something about the time being perfect for traveling without suspicion. None of this mattered; the only thing that did matter was that Voldemort was far behind. He would be far away from the source of those haunting dreams for a little while at least. And this Genkai person's temple was supposed to be impenetrable. It just seemed a little too perfect, though.
All suspicions were thrown out the window as Hermione called for him to hurry up. He quickly ran to catch up with the rest of the group.
Soon, they came to a large muggle city. Mr. Weasley was looking at everything in awe. He couldn't seem to stick to looking at one thing for more than a second. There was just too much to see.
There weren't many people walking in the streets this early, so there was no worry about losing each other in crowds. They hurried towards their destination. Harry only stopped once to look at a particularly sinister looking shop that other people walking down the streets didn't seem to notice. It must be like the shops on Knockturn Alley. Only it's hidden like the Leaky Cauldron, Harry reasoned.
Just then, he saw someone walk out of the store. It was a man that could've been mistaken for a woman at first. He had piercing emerald eyes and bright, long crimson hair. It most certainly rivaled the Weasley's. He was tall and thin, a bit like Harry, wearing simple black jeans and a red t-shirt. The man quickly walked past with his shopping bag held tightly.
Dumbledore seemed to be heading in the same general direction as the red-haired man, whom Harry had decided must be evil since he was in the evil-looking shop.
They had reached the other side of the city and buildings were becoming scarcer as they walked on down a street. They were approaching a few mountains that were on the edge of the town.
The group saw the man approach a tall set of stairs that seemed to go on into eternity. He walked over to a tree at the side of the stairs and knocked on it twice, then snapped his fingers once. Before him flashed what appeared to be a barrier. The man then proceeded to walk through it and up the stairs. The barrier flashed once more after he went through, apparently being put back into its normal place.
To the surprise and confusion of everyone, Dumbledore began to ascend the stairs as well, though he did not perform the small ritual that the man before them had. As Harry approached the stairs, he looked at the long ascent up. There was no way anyone could possibly climb that without stopping for rest or breaking a sweat. And yet, there was the strange man from before, climbing the stairs at a normal pace, not even slowing down. Almost as if this was no challenge to him. Harry dreaded climbing those stairs, and he could tell the others did too.
About what seemed to be halfway up, everyone was breathing hard and demanding a break. Mrs. Weasley had conjured up a bottle of ice cold water that refilled itself automatically. Dumbledore had then decided to conjure up a bottle for everyone else as well.
They sat on the steps, taking deep gulps of the icy clear water. It was very refreshing. Ron even took the liberty of dumping the entirety of Niagara Falls onto himself. Which then created a very cold and wet Ron. With encouragement from Hermione, he began to continue the 'perilous' climb up the stairs. This, in turn, warmed him up a bit.
Everyone quickly caught up with Ron, who had the head start, and became determined to reach the top without stopping again, seeing as it was already noon now.
As they climbed the last step, they could hear yelling coming from ahead. On the stairs of an old temple was a small group. There was a short old lady, a short man with spiky black hair, an abnormally tall orange-haired man, a man with greased black hair, and the red-haired man from before.
Dumbledore quickly cast a non-verbal translating spell upon the group, since the other group was arguing in Japanese.
"What do you mean we're going to have guests! We can't have guests! Guests are bad! Very, very bad! All our secrets will be exposed! We'll be ridiculed as we walk down the streets! Besides, who the hell would you invite as guests?" the greasy-haired man asked the old pink-haired woman.
"I didn't invite them. The toddler brat did. If you're going to yell at someone, yell at him. Leave me out of this, dimwit. And your secrets will be fine; the pacifier-breath said they were very open-minded. They accepted a werewolf," the old woman stated.
"A werewolf! I have only met one werewolf before. He tried to bite me, but I beat him good. Oh yeah!" the greasy-haired boy said triumphantly, "Maybe psycho people are coming to stay with us! They might even hold a werewolf convention! Oh well, nothing we can't handle, right guys?"
"Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you say Urameshi," the orange-haired man said nervously. He began to fidget slightly.
"Hn. Whatever. Just keep them away from me and all will be…relatively…peaceful," the short, spiky-haired man said threateningly.
"So, fox-boy. What's in the bag?" the man with the greased hair asked, leaning over slightly as if to look into the bag.
"Oh, just some herbs. Nothing special," the red-haired man said, trying to divert attention away from himself.
"Yeah, sure it isn't. Open the bag Kurama," the old woman ordered. The red-haired man, now identified as Kurama, slowly and hesitantly opened the bag.
The old woman pulled a bottle out of the bag. It contained a frosty looking liquid that had silvery patterns swirling within it at their own accord. The old woman put that bottle back into the bag and pulled out another bottle. This one held a sapphire colored liquid. Inside the sapphire liquid were other shades of blue that swirled and clashed to form the appearance of ocean waves. The others could tell that there were other bottles in the bag, but saw it as unimportant to them. The old woman placed the second bottle in the bag as well and began to walk off.
"You will be welcoming to these guests, seeing as you may have to train them later," the old woman said as she approached the group of witches and wizards that had been watching the scene with interest.
"Train! I outta kill you, grandma!" the greasy haired man yelled angrily. The spiky haired man seemed to twitch slightly in anger and you definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of the glare he was giving her. It would've made anyone wet their pants in fear, well, except the old lady it seemed. They guessed that the others would be unaffected by it as well.
"Hm. I was only aware that 4 of you were coming. Please explain why the rest of you are here," the old woman commanded.
"We're here to make sure that these three will be ok. And to ask you a few questions ourselves," Moody said abruptly.
"You would have to tell me your opinion of 'ok' for me to confirm if they will be. As for the questions, I'm not about to be the center of a press conference. If you must ask questions, ask them," she said, pointing to the group at the stairs who were staring at the newcomers and then walking into the temple.
"HEY! You can't just pile your crud onto us!" the greasy-haired one yelled. "I wouldn't bet on that, dimwit!" the old woman yelled.
"Hey! You can't just leave us out here with these freaky people whose auras are way off!" the orange-haired man said loudly. But his statement probably wasn't heard since the old woman had just slammed the sliding door shut.
The greasy-haired man sighed. "Tell us what you want to know and we'll answer. Just don't ask too many questions, my patience has been lower than normal today. I think it might be 'cause of the moon. Hey, Kurama, you feelin' off today too?"
Kurama looked up from the spot he had been staring at on the ground for the past few minutes. He sat on one of the stairs and ran one hand through his hair. "Of course, Yusuke. You know what today is."
"Yeah I know," Yusuke replied, sitting on the other side of the stairs. "Um, if you don't mind us asking, what might today be?" Mr. Weasley stuttered nervously.
"None of your damn business ningen. Now ask your questions and get lost," the spiky haired man hissed. "Hiei! Be nice to the ningens, they're stronger than normal ones and grandma will put you in her E.B.C. for a month if you don't at least be nice to them for the few minutes that they're here. Remember last time we got stuck in G.E.B.C.?"
All four of them shuddered. Apparently it had been a bad experience. Moody, the ever impatient one, wanted to get his questions answered, and now.
"Alright. I'll give you a question. Will these three be alright staying here?" Moody asked. Suddenly the others remembered that they had come to ask these people questions.
"Well, as grandma said, that depends on your idea of ok," Yusuke repeated. "Then tell us what they might be put through, what dangers they might encounter," Dumbledore said.
"Well, I would not suggest getting on grandma's bad side. Otherwise you'll get a certain amount of time in G.E.B.C., depending on what you did. Getting into G.E.B.C. is definitely not a good thing to do. You don't wanna get in there, trust me. Then there's the ancient demonic forest, once you get to a certain level in your training, she'll let you go in there without one of us accompanying you. Until she says you can, don't go in there or you might end up being lunch to Baldok or some other flesh-eating, blood-sucking, carnivorous monster. Then there's Hiei, nobody mess with Hiei. He'll kill you, he will, no hesitation at all. Then there's Kuwabara. We're still trying to figure out if his stupidity is contagious. Until then, no one go near him until our experiments are finished. Then there's Kurama. If you actually do manage to get on his bad side, out of the very few that have, you are most certainly dead, or wishing to be dead. Sometimes I think he's the most sadistic and cutthroat guy we got, even when you count Hiei and Genkai. Ummm, what else? Oh yeah! Beware the evil stairs of doom!" Yusuke yelled excitedly.
"Uh, is he alright in the head?" Ron asked the new boys. Hiei and Kurama shook their heads while the orange-haired man tried to ignore Yusuke poking him constantly. "URAMESHI!" the orange-haired man yelled, "STOP IT!" Yusuke stopped to punch the orange-haired man in the face while yelling, "SHUT IT KUWABARA!"
The others watched in fascination. Harry and the others were completely oblivious to the yelling coming from inside the temple, but that was probably because of the racket Yusuke was making.
"If you don't mind, we have some more questions," Tonks said. All four boys turned to look at her.
"Hey, wasn't your hair black a minute ago?" the orange-haired man, now dubbed Kuwabara, asked. Everyone turned to look at Tonks' now pink hair.
"Yeah, but I was tired of having black hair. Too normal," Tonks said, then turning her hair a bright shade of purple.
"Waah! It's freaky!" Kuwabara yelled. Suddenly, everything was very quiet and everyone could distinctly hear Genkai yelling, "SHUT UP DIMWIT! I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOUR SCREAMING UNTIL IT'S TIME FOR YOU ALL TO TRAIN! THEN I CAN SIT THERE AND LISTEN TO YOU SCREAM WHILE KURAMA OR HIEI OR MYSELF TORTURE YOU!"
Yusuke stood at the steps to the temple with wide, dotted eyes. "You guys aren't really gonna torture me, are ya?" Kurama and Hiei traded mischievous glances.
"I don't know Hiei. That sounds like fun," Kurama said slyly. "Yes Kurama, it does sound fun. I can't wait to try out some new torture techniques on him," Hiei said menacingly. Yusuke began to slowly back away, until Kurama and Hiei began chuckling.
"You tricked me!" Yusuke yelled angrily. "Ha…o-of course we did, Yusuke…ha-ha," Kurama managed to say as he bit his thumb to stop himself from laughing.
"Can we ask our questions now!" Moody yelled impatiently. Kuwabara woke up from unconsciousness and took the liberty of trying to answer since one of his teammates was having a fierce bout of chuckling, the other would most definitely refuse to answer any questions, and the other one was fuming and Kuwabara didn't want to risk the group's safety.
"Alright, I'll answer your questions," Kuwabara said grumpily, he didn't like being singled out.
"Good. Now exactly how long have you been employed by the Spirit World?" Mr. Weasley asked. "Uh-We don't work for the Spirit World any more. Haven't for 3 years now."
"Oh. I see. Well, how long have you known about the Wizarding World?" Mr. Weasley asked. "The what? I ain't never heard of no Wizarding World."
"Um-ok. Well, how old are you anyway?" Kuwabara held up his fingers, muttering as he marked off his fingers, "Well, I was 14 when I joined Urameshi in being Spirit Detective, 15 when we were fired, waited for 3 years for Urameshi to come back from Makai, so I'm 18 now."
"Alright, so you were fired when You-Know-Who came back to life." Kuwabara looked very confused, as did the other three. "Who is You-Know-Who?" they asked simultaneously. The looks on their faces were absolutely adorable. Each of them had an innocently confused look on their face.
"Voldemort," Harry stated tiredly, though he was surprised that someone said to be so powerful had never heard of Voldemort. Everyone--except the newcomers, Dumbledore, and Harry--flinched at the name. "Oh will you guys cut it out! There's no reason to fear his name!" Harry yelled, annoyed at their flinching.
The new four looked amused at the sight of the teenager yelling at the adults with very true logic. Normally it was the other way around.
Dumbledore glanced at the watch on his wrist. "We should be leaving now. Harry, Ron, Hermione, be good to your hosts and listen to them. I will be checking up on you every now and then. Take care," Dumbledore said waving to the three as he walked a ways away. The rest of the group that wasn't staying followed him, wishing good luck and bidding farewell to the three teenagers. They each touched the beat up computer mouse that Dumbledore was holding, and vanished from sight with a loud pop.
Dumbledore's last thought before departing was: I wonder how they will be trained against a foe that their trainers no not of.
MA: Review! Inspiration provided by the song Simple and Clean--Remix. I just love that song! It's so beautiful!
Kurama: Listening to it non-stop for two days can't be good for your health.
MA: (gets teary-eyed) But I love it
Kurama: No! Wait! Don't cry!
MA: (still teary-eyed) Don't you like the song, Kurama?
Kurama: If it'll make you stop crying, yes.
MA: Yay!
Yusuke: HEY! WHAT ABOUT ME! DO I GET UNTIED YET!
MA: No. You're not cooperating.
Yusuke: But you untied Kurama.
MA: That's because he was being good.
Kurama: (superior look)
MA: Now review people!