"His wand hurt Mr. Ollivander when he touched it?" asked Hermione. Harry nodded.

"Yeah. It was quite strange. It was like the wand was alive, has a mind and refuses to be touched by him."

"Well, it is alive." The black haired boy's mouth fell.

"What?"

"Did he not say it to you too, when you bought yours? The wand chooses the wielder and not the wielder the wand. Unfortunately, I don't know what kind of magic they use to do that..."

"You mean that..."

"They can feel and think. They share the pain of their owners. I also read that a long time ago, even before Hogwarts was founded, people could manifest the spirit of their wands after they found out its name. But for some reason, later on they started to think about them as tools, not actual partners, just like with the house elves. The spirits however help their owners, they kept their names secret, though together they could become stronger. And now all of this is completely forgotten. I tried to find out the name of my wand, but nothing was written about it in the books I read, and everybody who ever knew how to do it are most likely all dead," she finished sadly.

"They could manifest the spirits of their wand and they even had names..." echoed Harry. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am. The spirits became whole after they found their wielder. They got their own name and shape which could be anything from an ant to a human. It all depended on the wielder. But they already had their personality which changed only slightly afterwards."

"So you say that these... They are alive?" He pulled out his wand.

"Yep. Pretty much. I wonder what my spirit is shaped as."

"Probably a talking book," muttered Harry under his breath. Hermione looked at him.

"Did you say something?"

"No." He sighed and shot a glare towards Ron who laughed a little too loudly at a joke Neville told him. "What class do we have now?"

"Defense Against Dark Arts. Listen, Harry..."

"Stop."

"What? Why?"

"Because I know what you want to say. And until he does realizes he's wrong and asks me to forgive him, I won't do so, either." Hermione shrugged.

"Whatever. I think we better go."

"Yeah, probably." On their way to the classroom, he wondered about the possibility of a spirit living in his wand. Even the idea of it seemed to be... Absurd. But the way Mr. Ollivander talked about them... He shook his head. He probably won't have enough time to find anything out about these spirits other than what Hermione had said. He suddenly bumped into somebody tall and.. Orange?

"Oh, hey. What are you doing here?" he asked Ichigo. The other one shrugged.

"Visiting classes. Actually, I didn't really want to - that Moody guy gives me creeps. He's your DADA teacher, right?"

"Yes, and he is a very good teacher, even if his way of teaching is... Unusual."

"Don't listen to him. Sometimes he doesn't know when to shut up," said Rukia.

"Whose classes did you visit already?" Asked Hermione.

"Let's see... There was Professor Sprout, Flickering-"

"Flitwick."

"McGonagall and Snape. I hate to admit, though he is not the kindest one, he's a good teacher."

"Exactly! You see, Harry?"

"Hermione, I've never said he's a bad teacher. I only said that he hates me as much as Ron hates spiders."

"That guy is afraid of spiders?" asked (if they remembered rightly) Renji, amused.

"Long story. Anyway, I think we should go into the classroom." The place seemed extremely crowded with the Japanese students there as well, so they sat in the few remaining places and waited. When Moody entered the classroom everybody went silent.

"Put those away, and follow me," he told them. "Today we have our lesson on the field."

"But it's, like, minus ten outside!" said Lavander, but immediately regretted it. Moody turned his magical eye towards her and had a strange expression on his face.

"Does that bother you, Miss Brown? You'll never know when you have to defend yourself; the last thing you should be worrying about is the temperature."

"I am sorry..." mumbled the girl.

"Right then, anybody else with serious problems and not about how cold is it outside?" The entire class - plus the Japanese - shook their head. The man grinned.

'If it is only minus ten,' Harry thought. 'Than I am a muggle.' Hermione fortunately put some kind of spell on both of them which kept them warm - at least warmer than the others. The Shinou Academy students, however, did not appear to have the same problems.

"Well, then," Moody started. "Today we'll be duelling."

"Duelling? With them? They know much more than we do! Are you mad?" somebody shouted. Harry couldn't really bring himself to be angry at him, remembering Lockhart's duelling course.

"Yeah, some people think so. And I ensure you that Professor Dumbledore agreed on it, if all of us will be... Careful. So, please find yourself a partner and line up before me. Oh, no Mr. Potter, you don't. Your opponent will be Mr. Kurosaki, while Miss Granger will duel with Miss Kuchiki." Their mouths fell open. How on the earth did he know Rukia's name?

"Right then! I'll put up shields between the pairs, so they can't hit each other with spells, only their partner. Remember not to use any deadly curse or anything that can cause serious injuries which will not heal within a week. You are free to use any other curse, hex or jinx. Understood? Then stand back, away from each other!"

"This is what I call visiting classes," Ichigo murmured in Rukia's ear. "Duelling!"

She smiled, but said nothing as she faced her opponent. She felt the invisible shields appear, cutting out every noise but those that she and Granger made.

"Do you want to start?" she asked her.

"After you."

"Well, then... Hareges!" Rukia shouted. The other girl blocked it with another spell and the duelling began.

Harry looked up at his opponent. The scowl on Ichigo's face became deeper, if it's even possible. They both raised their wands. Black energy swirled in the air, pushing Harry to the ground. He gasped. It felt like a herd of elephants had ran on top of him.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"Hell you are. Maybe I should start with a lower level spell next time..." he said as he helped the black-haired boy up.

"Probably."

"Ready?"

"Yes." Harry felt more and more desperate as time passed by. Ichigo beat him every time except for one, when the orange-headed boy didn't pay attention for a second. He'll be in a serious trouble if the other champions know half as much as he does. In the end he had several bruises over his body, while the Kurosaki had only one cut on his face, thanks to the second time when he dropped his guard down.

"Time's up!" they heard Moody shout. "Go back to the classroom and grab your things!"

"Hey. You were good." He turned his head to Ichigo.

"Don't lie. You would wipe the floor with me, if you'd have to." He said.

"Well... Yeah, but I'm older than you are, and I also had good teachers. Hermione told Rukia about that Lockhart guy - with those kinds of teachers, we wouldn't be half as good as we are."

"I suppose... Hermione! What on the earth happened to you!" They shouted in unison (although Ichigo called Rukia's name) as they saw the two girls covered in some kind of strange liquid.

"Chhanh't tharlk. Hrsorrygh." She "answered". The orange-head turned to the other girl, whose hair seemed to be burned.

"What have you done to each other?"

"She knows some nasty spells, so I didn't hold back much, either. But I see that you got hit, too."

"That's not important, but you two look like you just got back from hell. Are you crazy?"

"Well, we had to duel, so we duelled. Is that a problem?"

"Yes, it is!" Ichigo shouted. Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Youhhr twro tahlk like yourre an ord mharried choupre." The two shouted immediately.

"What? We do not! Take that one back!" The girl just smiled and pointed at her throat, which meant that she cannot say more.

"I thought they'd be much more colder towards us considering that you're the champion of the 'enemy'," said Hermione once she could speak again.

"Yeah. But I suppose they thought the same."

"Well, there were some people who tried to curse Ichigo. I saw it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Rukia turned them into bunnies afterwards until they swore that they wouldn't do it again and would never speak about what happened to them."

"How could they swear if they couldn't talk?" Wondered Harry.

"They had to raise their front right paws. Anyway, it was an interesting day."

"Yeah... Interesting for sure."

-end-of-chapter-

Hareges - comes from the Japanese word, hage, which means bald. Find out what was Rukia's goal with it. :D And sorry about the last paragraph! I wrote all of it at once and got kinda sleepy... If you're wondering why did they tried to curse Ichigo, well, here is the reason: they couldn't stand that the champion of an other school stays at the castle with them and visiting their lessons. (However Hogwarts students do the same.) They thought that they're cheating, just as Ron did.

Also thanks for AllieOutOfWonderland for beta-ing(? I don't know how is it written in the right way. xD) the chapter. :) However I rewrote some things, those were of course changed. But mostly unimportant things.