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Story: [Hanyou Academy]
Summary: At the end of the Chamber incident, Hogwarts is forcefully closed down, and its students must go elsewhere. Harry, trying to flee his fame, decides to go far.
Genre: Friendship, Humor, Adventure?
Multi-Fusion Crossover: (Harry Potter) / (Naruto) / (Mahou Sensei Negima) / (YuYu Hakusho) / (Ranma½)
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Additional Disclaimer: This was written mainly in an attempt to reflect how truly different Japan's school-culture and magic-culture is different from Britain's. As I'm not a native Japanese person and have only dabbled in its culture over the years, I reiterate that it's an attempt.
XXX
Hogwarts was closing.
Sure, the great big monster had been slain, and everyone was still alive to celebrate it, but Hogwarts was closing. Turns out, the ICW had some guidelines about child-endangerment that were generally never really brought up, but which a basilisk loose in the corridors kind of violated.
Which meant that Hogwarts was closing until the ICW were satisfied that something like that couldn't be repeated – and reminding them that the basilisk was already dead was apparently not enough for that. Hogwarts was closing, and – for 'a year or two at most', Dumbledore had reassured them with a smile that made him sound doubtful of that – they'd have to enroll in a different school.
Thankfully, the magical schools of Europe were more than happy to have them. Malfoy and most of the other Slytherins would be off to Durmstrang, and for everyone who was more uncomfortable with the Dark Arts there was always Beuxbatons.
They were being encouraged by their professors to consider the change in environment as a learning opportunity, and grudgingly Harry could see their point. There was just one problem with it.
Harry Potter got a personalized invite.
Everyone else got a small brochure that blatantly declared their given school better than all the others, along with some easy-to-use temporary enrollment papers. Harry Potter received a letter from the headmasters of the schools, along with a massively extended brochure where they all insisted that they wanted him to go their school the most.
Even Ron looked more creeped out by the difference in treatment than he looked envious, and Hermione had made a frustrated huffing-sound and then returned to burying herself in all of the books that she might not have access to in the coming years.
There were other schools than Beuxbatons and Durmstrang, of course. A few tiny little local schools with two or three teachers and a few dozen students, but that was it. There were only really three magical schools worth talking about in Europe, and the more Harry looked at it the more he was coming to the sinking conclusion that Hogwarts' obsession with the fame of the Boy-Who-Lived was actually fairly tame.
But outside of Europe, there wasn't much of anything.
Magical North America didn't like to in any way associate with Magical Britain, and seemed to have turned the whole 'basilisk in the corridor'-thing into a great joke. Most of the African schools shared the sentiment, which kind of said an awful lot about Britain's unfortunate political history.
That left South America, and Eastern Asia.
South America that still generally hexed non-natives on principle. Harry had always known that wizards could live for a long time, but it turned out that South American wizards tended to live for a longer time still. So a lot of the people in their government had grandparents who'd fought against Cortez, and from what Harry's brief research had shown – however untrustworthy that source might be – they were still working on powering down a few of their really gruesome blanket-curses that they'd stashed away. Things like turning still-living people into inferi.
Harry kind of doubted that it'd be quite as bad as the books made it seem, but it wasn't like they'd sent an invite either, so it was a bit of a moot point.
Of course, China had more or less broken up with the ICW over an argument about to what extent magical people were allowed to go to in order to hide away from the muggles, and they'd dragged most of their close neighbors along with them. Which left a few more scattered local schools in a number of countries that Harry wouldn't even know where to place on the map.
The only really big name left was a somewhat isolationist school in Japan. A school that had in fact sent a sort of half-shrug blanket-invite to the students of Hogwarts – likely as a show of good faith to Magical Britain, more than any desire to actually have students take them up on the offer.
It really came down to 'blatant special treatment because of his fame' and 'likely disapproval because he was British'. And considering Harry's memories of Hogwarts, he'd take the less personal isolation over the one designed to cater to his every whim. So, as long as he could figure out how to go about it, it looked like he'd be off to Japan come autumn.
Hopefully, he'd be able to convince Ron and Hermione to come with him, but he wasn't going to be holding his breath on that.
Japan was an awfully long way from home.
XXX
They called it 'Hanyou Academy', but from what the rugged-looking man telling him of it, there was a much longer name for it as well. That nobody used or bothered to remember. Including himself.
Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but at least the man was fluent in English, and assured him that so three other faculty-members – not including the ones who could speak it if they had to.
There was also the strange way that the place arranged the terms, having three instead of two, and having already finished the first by the time summer had rolled around. So anyone transferring in over summer would do so mid-year. Which wasn't exactly ideal, but – considering the very different subjects involved – it wasn't like they could hope to keep up with the regular classes regardless.
No, the most important thing about Hanyou Academy was that it had a dorm that was available to its students for every day of the year.
Harry had sent Hedwig with a note to drop off at the Dursleys, hands shaking at the thought of never having to go back to that place. Hopefully, his 'moving out'-note was still legible, but Harry supposed that they'd figure out that he wasn't coming back regardless.
Professor Takamichi had tried to explain the subjects as being roughly divided between 'magic' and 'magic', which hadn't really made sense until he'd elaborated with an example.
Japan was quite possibly the country with the biggest concentration of supernatural creatures in comparison to it human population. Something about how the leylines changed the nature of magic until creatures like Peeves the Poltergeist didn't just appear within old buildings like Hogwarts, but appeared within objects and creatures who survived for long enough. And they took the shapes of humans and animals both.
Japanese magicals called them 'youkai', and they were somewhat infamous for being mercurial in their moods. A bit like folktales of fae, except with less monkey's paw and exact phrasings and honorable trade-agreements, and with a lot more 'turn around and get eaten'.
Hanyou Academy wasn't really a place for those creatures, so much as it was a place for the offspring of those creatures. The offspring of humans and youkai, excluded from both worlds for being 'other', and finding a haven in Hanyou Academy.
Japan had three magical schools, and they were kept separate for a reason. Mainly, the reason was that trying to mix the different sides of the magical world, especially when everyone were young enough that they were still learning to 'behave like humans', tended to result in a lot of collateral damage. And a lot of dead children.
The divide between 'magic' and 'magic' referred to the inherent magic of youkai, and the more structured magic of the priests whose job it was to not let those youkai run wild and devour the populace.
Of course, Hanyou Academy being what it was – a place for orphans and bastard children and unwanted spots on the family tree – there were some quirks involved. One of them had been the living-space for its students being always available, another had been a decision to not use surnames whilst on school-property.
After all, when more than half the classes didn't have surnames, it was more than a bit cruel to address the others by theirs.
Professor Takamichi's full name was Takamichi Takahata, but he went by Takamichi-sensei, just like most everybody else. Excepting, of course, Evangeline. Who mostly went by Eva-sensei, until she threw a fit every other year or so and got them to refer to her by her entire name for about a month, before being so utterly disgusted by their mangled pronunciation of it that she just gave up.
Harry wasn't quite sure what he thought of that, but the memory of it seemed to make Takamichi-sensei chuckle, so she probably wasn't like Snape, at least.
No, supposedly, there was only one teacher who was really considered 'strict', and none of the younger years had any classes with him. Apparently he was in charge of the youkai-side of advanced magical theory, which sounded like a very important position, whereas Takamichi-sensei was in charge of the priest-side of it.
Takamichi did give Harry a warning about the professor of Care of Magical Creatures – who'd cheerfully toss her students into a snake-pit just to see what would happen – and the Astronomy professor – who was a pleasant enough person but whom never to trust in any shape or form with his physical education. But unless he was trying to smuggle dangerous or endangered species into the school, or took a clear interest in martial arts, they should both leave him alone.
Harry was nervous. Excited, and nervous.
He wasn't sure about what Ron and Hermione had decided to do about their education. It was entirely possible that Ron would just go to a local school in Britain, and Hermione seemed to at least consider France a beautiful place to visit. So perhaps their trio would break apart here. After two years together, facing trolls and dragons and Dark Lords and spiders and basilisks.
It hurt, more than a bit, to think about it like that. But he didn't want to have some headmaster touting him around like a price to be won. And it seemed like that left this as his only option, even if it sounded great on paper.
XXX
"You should join the Martial Arts Club!" The blond boy with the big grin shouted into his face the moment Harry opened the door.
The blond received an elbow to the throat from a girl with pink hair, causing him to collapse to the floor with a gurgling noise. "Dammit Naruto! Nobody's going to join that crazy-ass club! Even if I have to physically drag them out of it! You hear me?!" The girl stooped down to lift him up by his collar and shake him. "I spend too much of my time piecing you idiots back together as is!"
"B-But Sakura-chan!" The blond struggled weakly in her grip. "Martial arts is important!"
"Having a functional urethra is goddamn important!" She growled back at him, eyes full of dark promises.
Naruto paled, and then very slowly closed his mouth.
The pink-haired girl smiled sweetly at the blond, patted him on the cheek, and then straightened up to turn back to Harry.
Her polite smile didn't look nearly as reassuring after Harry had seen her use it in the previous context, but at least she was trying. Harry smiled back weakly.
"Right, we're your neighbors. I'm Sakura, the idiot is Naruto." She paused. "Even if you like martial arts, don't join the Martial Arts Club, Ranma-sensei gets his training-regimes from manga."
"Umm?" Harry blinked, not really familiar with the word that for some reason didn't translate properly. Possibly because of the context? Who really knew with the translation-spells that Takamichi had provided him with.
"He gets result." And Sakura looked loathe to admit it. "But the students spend more time in the nurse's office than they do in classes. They're the reason club-activities of all kinds are banned during exams."
"Hey! Ranma-sensei is great!" Naruto protested, having finally made it back to his feet.
Sakura sent him a withering glare, causing him to step back out of the range of her hands. Which was probably a sensible solution to it. Merlin knew that Harry and Ron did much the same when Hermione was in one of her moods, and their beloved bookworm didn't shove elbows into their throats on a semi-regular basis.
"Ah." Harry paused, trying to figure out where the conversation was supposed to be going. They were his neighbors, right? That meant that they were students here too, and that they lived in the apartments around him. "I'm Harry."
Sakura blinked at him curiously for a moment. "That's a nice accent." She finally said with a warm smile.
Naruto sent her a funny look, but apparently decided to let it slide. "You're from England, right? Does that mean you know Eva-baachan-? Ow!"
Sakura had visibly flinched at the 'baachan', and hurriedly threw a glance down the corridor, before stepping on Naruto's foot. "Don't call Eva-sensei that, you moron!" She hissed at him. "She'll cause another blizzard!"
Naruto scoffed. "If she's old, she's old. She should learn to deal with it."
Sakura's fists clenched together, and Harry very sensibly took enough of a step back that he wouldn't get in the way of her swing when she caved in Naruto's face.
It was nearly enough to make him smile. If the rest of it was this easy, then he'd figure out how to live in this place by the end of the week. Culture-clashes and all.
He was the only person to have come from Hogwarts. Or at least, he was the only one to arrive in the middle of summer instead of at the end of summer vacation. Harry had seen an opportunity to dodge out of his yearly dose of the Dursleys, and leapt for it. And he wasn't regretting it at all, even if the dorms had been eerily quiet before these two neighbors of his had showed up.
"Hey hey, Harry-san, do you know her?" Naruto returned to his earlier question, ignoring Sakura's anger.
Harry shook his head. "I don't really know a lot of people. But I did meet Takamichi-sensei when signing up for the school." And he'd been the one to show off the very nifty translation spell that had allowed him to more or less cram the Japanese language into his head over the course of half-a-month.
It hadn't exactly been a fun month, and he still hadn't quite figured out reading, but he was getting there, and it was definitely better than nothing.
"Eh? Boring." Naruto whined a little, before getting smacked over the head by Sakura.
"Quit being rude, Naruto." Sakura frowned at the blond before turning another polite smile Harry's way. "Do you need anyone to show you around? This place can be pretty big when you're new to it."
Naruto – who'd been pouting whilst rubbing his aching head – perked up. "I know all of the cool places!" His grin turned a bit gleeful. "Oh! And we should go see Yusuke-nii! He makes the best ramen!"
Sakura looked halfway to hitting him again, but then suddenly paused, thoughtful, before her face turned a little bit pink. "Ah, yes, that's a good idea, Naruto."
Naruto blinked stupidly at her for a moment from where he'd been bracing himself for the impact, confused. "Huh?"
"I need to talk to Shishou about something." Sakura explained, resigned. "And I don't think he'll be at his office today."
Harry glanced between them, feeling a little bit lost. "Is that okay?"
Naruto grinned at him. "It's not like there's anything else to do!" He snickered. "And I can't really go bother Iruka-sensei today."
Sakura paused mid-step, face darkening. "Naruto. Please tell me you didn't-..."
Naruto hurriedly waved his arms in front of him. "I didn't do anything! But Ranma-sensei said that they had something planned."
Sakura made a noise of understanding. "Are they going on a date?"
Naruto grunted in annoyance. "Who knows?"
"Ah, two of your teachers are dating?" Harry asked, a bit curious, seeing as how romance hadn't really been on the menu for any of the professors at Hogwarts.
"Who knows." Sakura and Naruto chorused, shrugging in resigned frustration.
Harry just blinked stupidly at them from where he was locking the door to his apartment.
Sakura glanced back at him, and sighed at his obvious confusion. "There're rumors, and they're really close, and nobody can confirm anything. There's a betting pool."
Nodding to show that he understood, Harry let his two new neighbors drag him off towards what was apparently 'Yusuke's ramen-stand'. There were promises of wondrous food beyond his wildest imaginations, but seeing Sakura roll her eyes at Naruto waxing poetically about it, Harry wasn't going to be getting his hopes up.
XXX
Hanyou Academy was nothing at all like Hogwarts.
Hogwarts was a castle, one big building with multiple floors, and even the 'outside' was often 'inside', what with the walled-off gardens. Hanyou Academy was more like a small village, with a few bigger houses and an awful lot of space in between them.
Hearing Naruto comment on how it was 'to contain fires', hadn't really helped with Harry's feelings on the matter. Then again, considering how youkai-magic tended to lend itself very heavily towards elemental stuff rather than the more blatant-reality-bending that Hogwarts was known for-...
Harry got the feeling that Sakura would've had a nervous breakdown about the stairs moving around, and walls pretending to be doors. So at least he didn't have to feel like he was the one at fault for not being immediately comfortable with the sprawled out layout.
The 'main building' and its attachments were all unavailable, seeing as how everyone were on holiday, but the dorms were always there and a lot of the staff-members wandered around the area in a very casual way.
For all that Hogwarts was the closest Harry had ever come to an actual home, Hogwarts was a boarding school. Hanyou Academy, on the other hand, had been designed as a refuge and haven for those who might not fit in elsewhere.
Ignoring the sentiments related to it, and the silently gnawing worry that perhaps Hanyou Academy shouldn't need to exist – despite how Takamichi had described it as necessary – the differences between the schools were obvious.
Hanyou Academy had been designed to be a home, even for those who'd already graduated. A place to return to if they proved incapable of adapting to life outside of its walls, and which had resulted in an entire array of shops and restaurants and hair-dressers and seemingly everything else between heaven and earth.
Naruto loved it, though from the way he pouted resignedly at a lot of the closed shops, the place was still a bit of a ghost town during the school-holidays.
The ramen-stand was nice though, even if Yusuke ended up putting Naruto in a headlock over the blond having apparently not paid his tab. The man certainly seemed cheerful enough about the whole thing, so Naruto not paying his tab was probably an old almost-tradition between the two of them.
The person that Sakura had wanted to talk to turned out to be a pretty-looking man with long red hair who introduced himself to Harry as 'Kurama'. The actual subject they talked about mostly went over Harry's head, but seemed to include something about Sakura studying medicine, or something, and Kurama sort of poking her into letting her make the right conclusions to her questions on her own.
His style of teaching was probably a bit more like Professor Flitwick than it was Professor McGonagall. More smiles and encouragements and a warm pat on the back, and less deadpan stares and disappointed sighs and a small proud smile.
Apparently, Kurama was the school nurse, but also kind of in charge of Herbology? But it was very much an elective here, instead of the required course that it was at Hogwarts. And since the nurse's office was kind of right next to the greenhouses, the two duties didn't exactly clash.
Naruto and Sakura had both taken the elective, though in Sakura's case it'd had more to do with her chosen career-path than any particular fondness for plants. Otherwise, it wasn't exactly the most popular one, since most students either tended towards the Hagrid-school of 'it's more fun if it tries to kill you' or towards the Hermione-side of 'theory is always important'.
Herbology kind of fell into the gray zone of being a little too lacking in the 'trying to kill you'-department, whilst still being heavily reliant on theory-lacking grunt-work.
Kurama didn't seem to mind the smaller classes though, seeing as how more students would mean more people around throwing fireballs at things that annoyed them.
Both Sakura and Naruto coughed guiltily at that, but it sounded a lot more like they were trying to mask saying 'Sasuke' under their breath, rather than actually coughing. And considering how Harry had heard that name mentioned as 'the only other person crazy enough to be part of the Martial Arts Club', Harry was guessing that the three of them were friends.
XXX
Harry encountered 'Eva-sensei' two days later.
She was a little kid. With fangs.
They passed each other in the courtyard – or a courtyard, anyway, Harry still hadn't explored all of the area – and she briefly glanced his way, realized that he was new, and then glared in a surprisingly intimidating way for someone who looked younger than a First Year.
"I have tenure." She told him, her girly-sounding voice clashing horribly with the dark promises in her eyes. "There's nothing they can do to me, even if I were to massacre an entire classroom of students."
Harry opened his mouth, because he sincerely doubted that 'tenure' would be enough to make the Japanese version of the Ministry of Magic stand down. However, the way Evangeline grinned at him, fangs showing in sadistic anticipation, convinced him to keep his mouth shut. For now.
He didn't want to sound stupid if it turned out that the Japanese Ministry of Magic was crazier and more incompetent than the British one.
"Hanyou Academy is neutral grounds, brat. And I could squash the headmaster like a grape." She continued, despite him not speaking up. She seemed a bit annoyed that she hadn't been able to blatantly crush his hopes and dreams, but apparently, she was far too dedicated to feeding her own ego to be thrown off.
Harry wondered briefly if she and Malfoy were related.
Evangeline continued to glare at him, daring him to oppose her. So Harry kind of shrugged. "At least if you kill us all, maybe History of Magic will be more interesting than at Hogwarts?" Because Sakura had explained that the supposedly-ancient vampire did indeed teach history, rather than anything actually sinister-seeming.
Evangeline scrunched up her nose in a childishly petulant way, and Harry was sorely tempted to laugh at it.
However, before he fell victim to that urge, a young man passed a corner, and the temperature went from 'hot Japanese summer day' to 'an actual bloody blizzard'.
"Evangeline." The young man stared at her, his white hair strangely at odds with the rest of him.
"Tertium." Evangeline sneered at him.
The young man's face was perfectly blank, but he glanced briefly towards Harry before turning back to the vampire. "Don't harass the students."
The young man's tone hadn't changed at all, remaining a kind of monotone echo that sent shivers down Harry's spine.
Evangeline's sneer morphed into a malicious smile. "Oh? And why's that, Tertium?" She pronounced his name an awful lot like an insult.
Tertium's eyes narrowed. And then the ground the man was standing on started to warp and writhe.
Harry hurriedly backed away. Between Evangeline's blizzards and this new guy's mini-earthquake, he was suddenly reminded that he was probably desperately needed somewhere on the opposite side of the academy.
"Ah, Master-... Fate!" A third person made an appearance. A young man with red hair, glasses, and a very neat-looking suit.
The blizzard disappeared, the ground stopped writhing, and two sets of eyes turned to give their full attention towards the new arrival who was jogging towards them with a big grin on his face.
"Am I interrupting something?" He was still smiling, and appeared honestly worried that he might've interrupted something important.
Harry wondered if this guy had ever met the two of them before, because if they were like this regularly, someone would have to be both blind and willfully blind to miss it.
Also, he seemed to be referring to 'Tertium' as 'Fate'? Did that mean that Evangeline had been using the white-haired man's last name? Was that why she seemed to be using it as an insult? But then... wasn't Tertium something like Latin for 'three'?
Harry wasn't exactly well-versed in languages that weren't English, but he was pretty sure that he'd picked up something from his time at Hogwarts.
Fate step forward with a smile. Which made weird things happen to his previously blank face. He actually looked handsome now, instead of creepy. And Evangeline was back to frowning like a petulant child at his back.
"It was nothing, Negi." Fate assured the redhead, and Harry got the distinct feeling that the fact that the man had bothered with actually naming the person he was addressing meant a lot more than what was immediately obvious.
It might've been the way Evangeline bristled at the name, or the way his smile got a little bit warmer, as if he enjoyed saying it.
Harry was pretty sure he'd seen jealous lovers a time or two before in his life. But this wasn't quite like that. Or maybe it was? Was this what happened when two people fell in love with the same person?
Harry was suddenly endlessly relieved, knowing that it was Ron who stared dazedly after Hermione whenever she smiled at them. He really didn't want his friendship with Ron to transform into the obvious dislike between Evangeline and Fate.
Blinking back to the actual conversation, Harry realized that he'd lost most of it, because suddenly Negi and Fate were discussing some kind of intricate magical formula, and Evangeline was slowly working herself back up into a fury.
Then she grabbed Negi's arm, grinned with absolutely no warmth at all towards Fate, and said that she really needed her assistant for something. Then she quite literally dragged Negi off.
Considering that she was still smaller than an actual First Year, and Negi seemed to be old enough to have graduated Hogwarts, this was a rather comical view.
Except, of course, if you were Fate. Fate whose face was back to being perfectly blank, and who might actually be glaring after Evangeline. Then he turned on his heel and marched off in the opposite direction.
Harry remained where he'd been standing for a bit after that, trying to piece together exactly what he'd just seen.
He was only marginally successful.
XXX
"Yeah, Negi-sensei and Fate-sensei were old classmates and were both super-good with advanced magical theory." Naruto paused in order to inhale some more ramen. "But then Eva-baachan came out of nowhere and made Negi-sensei her assistant teacher. In history."
Harry paused. "What's wrong with history?"
Naruto made a face. "Well, it doesn't really require someone to be scary good with math and stuff." He shrugged. "So, rumor is that Fate-sensei felt that Eva-baachan made Negi-sensei 'squander his talents'."
"Because he wanted to teach history?" Harry asked, a bit incredulous.
Naruto shook his head with a gleeful grin. "Because Eva-baachan is so useless at teaching that she needed an assistant."
Harry frowned. "But she's a vampire, right? So she probably knows a lot of history from personal experience?"
Naruto nodded, and shuddered briefly before returning to his ramen for a moment. "Eva-baachan remembers everything. But she remembers nothing." He frowned to himself, holding up a hand to stop Harry from asking the question that he obviously wanted to say. "It's like... There was a World War, right? Not the second one, the first one. And Eva-baachan missed it. And nobody can convince her that it actually happened."
Harry blinked. "How do you 'miss' a war?"
"Well-..." Naruto glanced around suspiciously. "You didn't hear this from me, but rumor is that she's got some really explicit things to say about rainforests. And she always tend to curse-... umm, 'appropriately to the time-period'."
Harry stared blankly at him for a long moment. "You're able to guess when she was lost in a rainforest because she uses specific curse-words to describe the experience?"
Naruto nodded happily. "Dunno the specifics, of course. Mostly, I just wrote down the curse-words that sounded funny."
Harry shook his head, a little bit awed at the madness of someone having 'lived' history, but had managed to be at the wrong place whenever it happened. And if she was stubborn enough to refuse to teach from anything except her own memory-...
Yeah, Harry could imagine Evangeline being a massively useless history-teacher. But then again, Binns hadn't exactly been a stellar example of one either, and at least Evangeline sounded like she ought to be entertaining.
XXX
Mid-July was the first time Harry met someone who didn't speak Japanese. Apparently, the blonde girl had also been a student at Hogwarts, a First Year, and had happily accepted the chance to study further in Japan. Something about how they had a very interesting population of magical creatures. Harry could admit to not having entirely followed her reasoning. She seemed a bit... weird.
Considering that he'd had over a month to get used to at least the geography of the new school, whereas Luna had only arrived recently after some vacation-time with her father, Harry had helpfully pointed her in the right direction for Yusuke's ramen-stand, and called it a day.
Mid-July also marked the first time Harry had actually entered the library-building. Which he'd only done because Sakura literally dragged him inside, Naruto following in their wake with the resigned air of someone already bemoaning their immediate future.
The two students had homework to do, even if Harry didn't. Honestly, Harry wasn't entirely sure why the two of them had dragged him along, but he could grudgingly appreciate the chance to see what the library looked like. It'd taken him a time to get used to Hogwarts's after all, so it might be for the best to familiarize himself with the new one preemptively.
In hindsight, that had been the right decision to make as Hanyou Academy's library was an awful lot more bizarre than the one at Hogwarts.
There was a librarian who lived at the library, who – according to Naruto – was a youkai who'd somehow managed to accidentally imprison himself inside of it. There was a lot of very expensive-looking architecture, with bookshelves going from floor to ceiling, sometimes at heights that would've made the Great Hall at Hogwarts tip its hat in acknowledgment. And then there were the complete lack of a Restricted Section.
Or rather, the very different way that Hanyou Academy enforced its Restricted Section.
Whereas Hogwarts had a neat little rope separating the 'accessible' part of the library from the Restricted Section, Hanyou Academy had a staircase. It wasn't that they weren't allowed to travel down the staircase, it was simply designed as an 'at your own risk' warning.
Harry discovered this the first time he pulled out a book from the shelf and nearly got skewered on a crossbow-bolt. Naruto had laughed to the point of collapsing into a pile on the floor at the look on his face, but Sakura had at least had the decency to look worried.
"Faster reaction times are kind of the norm among students here. And an instinctive understanding of danger is kind of needed when trying to reason with youkai." Sakura explained, motioning to her books. "It's why Hanyou Academy alumni have a much higher casualty-rate than those of Onmyouji Academy."
Harry still didn't entirely understand how the three Japanese schools of magic coexisted. But from what he could gather from Sakura, Onmyouji Academy focused almost exclusively on 'policing youkai' to the point where they were more military enforcers than anything else. And Youkai Academy rarely bothered with anything beyond teaching its students to not pick fights with people, or to not eat people, depending on how charitable the one describing the youkai-population was being. Hanyou Academy kind of straddled the line by giving the two sides a chance to coexist, but also paid a hefty price in lives whenever either one of the other sides went off the deep end.
It sounded complicated, and Naruto readily admitted that the whole thing gave most students headaches from the sheer mass of politics involved. Sakura didn't seem to agree, but she didn't really argue the point either, so it was probably not far off the mark.
Still, for Hanyou Academy to decide to solve their high casualty-rate by introducing its students to lethal projectiles firing out of their homework, sounded a bit extreme.
"You should see the lower floors." Naruto grinned widely. "The Library Exploration Club is really hardcore."
Sakura paused briefly in the middle of turning a page, looking distracted, before smiling dreamily in a way that reminded Harry a bit of how Lavender and the other girls had used to look at Lockhart before people had really understood that he was a fraud. "Yue-san is really amazing."
Naruto made a face like someone who'd just remembered that the can they'd decided to open was indeed filled with worms, just like last time. "She's not that amazing. She's had Negi-sensei helping her out."
Sakura turned to him with a frown. "Oh please, Negi-sensei is far too caught up juggling Eva-sensei, history, and his own research. He might officially be their advisor, but he doesn't ever really show up."
Harry wondered how old an argument this was, and exactly why Naruto was disagreeing with how amazing this Yue-person supposedly was, considering how he'd praised the club she likely belonged to. Maybe it was a bit like-... like praising one person for the accomplishments of an entire group? Was that why Naruto was so annoyed about it? Or did he just not like Yue for some reason?
"And she's not only made progress in sorting out the barely-explored floors, but actually gone on to find ones hidden even deeper than that." Sakura continued. "Even Albiero-san thinks she's impressive."
"That weirdo librarian thinks that Eva-baachan is cute!" Naruto argued. "And how could he not have already found the hidden stuff in the place that he's lived in for the last three centuries!"
Sakura sniffed. "Well, he's kind of notoriously lazy. And I've heard rumors that the library is actually growing bigger on its own."
"That's a conspiracy-theory, and you know it!" Naruto glared at her.
The chance for a proper study-session kind of deteriorated from there.
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A/n: This is really my first attempt to make a multi-fusion crossover, and the main reason for it was because I didn't feel like inventing massive amounts of OCs for it all.
Honestly, I have notes for this AU that go on for quite a while. Things like the necessity of all three schools, and the personal motivations of the characters for why they picked Hanyou Academy, with added backstories for those I felt were in need of one. But unfortunately it'd take way too much room to include it all here, so I won't.
(For example, Ranma is part mouse-youkai. His fear of cats wasn't helped by his completely human father deciding to try teaching him the Cat Fist, so he could "stop being a wimp about cats".)
(Other example, Akane is the PE-teacher and the advisor for the Drama Club. She and Kuwabara are dating since several years back, she's waiting on a ring and he's very much planning on giving her one.)
(Extra example, Kotaro will join the Martial Arts Club once he gets old enough that school-policies allow him to be under Ranma's supervision. He's currently part of the Library Exploration Club, and is crushing hopelessly on an older girl in the Drama Club called Natsumi.)
(Super-extra example, the Uchiha clan was a big name once, but was in a single night reduced to two underage members after they'd stepped on the toes of a particularly nasty youkai. Nobody outside of the two survivors knows the full extent of what happened.)
The plan was to have Hermione and Ron surprise Harry before school started, and then have Konoemon show up to hold a speech and act even crazier than Dumbledore (mainly because he'd forget about the speech in order to rant at some random bird that landed nearby, because he still holds a bit of a grudge about his granddaughter eloping, even if he's happy that she's happy). But beyond that... there wasn't much in the way of plot.
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Omake
Experimental scenes for the setting
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Iruka sometimes dearly wished that Kakashi was more... 'pleasant' was probably the best word for it, even if it was insufficient to describe just how frustrating the man could be.
Ignoring his tendency to toss his students into the deep end – in as many subjects that he could find any excuse for 'teaching' to said students, simultaneously – Kakashi couldn't ever seem to stop himself from poking around for weak points even among his fellow teachers. Which could lead to some very aggravating scenarios.
It didn't help that the man had a rather substantial seniority over Iruka, who sometimes felt an awful lot like he was on the absolute bottom among the staff-members in general. Sure, there were a few people who had arguably 'less important' positions than himself, but with the way most of those people tended to act, the mere fact that they hadn't been fired yet kind of lent credence to Iruka being the only one among them who actually needed to be on his best behavior.
Anko even seemed to thrive on the trouble she caused, though Iruka supposed that – as she was usually chosen for various kinds of 'surprise inspections'-related tasks – that was probably a good thing. If she'd actually had enough sympathy in her to act like a reasonable human being, she would've probably cracked after having brought all those poor innocent teachers to tears.
At least Ranma usually didn't mean to cause trouble, but even back when they'd been classmates and Ranma had only barely been scraping by despite trying his hardest, Iruka had always known that the man could go on to do great things. Well, he could, if he didn't keep getting distracted by food or his unfortunately good luck with women. And men.
Honestly, Iruka was still trying to figure out if Ranma was flirting with him, or if he was just pathetically desperate for someone to talk to who wouldn't try to punt him through a wall because he stuck his foot in his mouth. It was always hard to tell with Ranma.
Back to the subject of Kakashi though, Iruka was left wondering if he should encourage Naruto to cut loose with his fellow teacher. It would probably come back to bite him later, but Iruka was reasonably certain that it might very well be worth it.
Except-... If Iruka encouraged that kind of behavior in Naruto, then Naruto's recently acquired kouhai would be bound to follow in his footsteps. And Konohamaru and his friends were aggravating enough to deal with as it was. Kind of cute, but mostly frustrating.
Besides, for some utterly bizarre reason, Naruto actually seemed to have become quite fond of Kakashi. Iruka wasn't sure if it had to do with a lack of paper-learning, or if being thrown into the deep end was encouraging him further, or if there was any substance to the rumors that Kakashi might actually be a bit of a softy on the inside.
If ever there was any truth to the latter, then Iruka wouldn't be surprised to see Naruto be one of the few who managed to actually draw it out into the open air. The boy was simply far too enthusiastically cheerful to ever be stopped by an aloof attitude.
And Iruka had the picture-proof of it, too. Not that he was going to let anyone know that until he actually had good reason to blackmail his old student. Or possibly just embarrass him to no end with a girl who he really liked.
It wasn't every day that Iruka stumbled upon two of his students kissing in the middle of a fully-packed classroom – thank Amaterasu for small mercies. And he was quite certain that the boys were never going to be able to live it down. He'd personally make sure of it.
Feeling an evil grin spreading across his face, Iruka carefully wiped it off and turned back to his paperwork. The paperwork that Kakashi really ought to be doing, but which he'd somehow managed to foist off on Iruka because 'Kakashi's students used to be Iruka's students'.
Someone really ought to doing something about that impossibly charismatic bastard.
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Iruka suppressed the urge to sigh as Konoemon trailed off in the middle of his speech in order to glare at a seagull that'd just landed nearby.
"Have you come to steal more from me, you damn bird?!" Konoemon hissed at it, shaking his fist. "You've already stolen my cute little granddaughter away! What more do I even have?!"
Iruka pinched his eyes shut and prayed for strength. The headmaster could go on about birds for quite a while, and without Evangeline present to kick him in the face for wasting her time it didn't look like there'd be anyone brave or foolish – or benevolent to their fellow man – enough to interrupt the man.
Glancing around, Iruka felt his eye twitch at the sight of Ranma sprawled out on his chair, napping. There had to be a limit to how disrespectful someone could be without getting fired, but Iruka was pretty sure that Ranma ought to have crossed that line several times a week. It was unfair. Iruka wanted to sleep through Konoemon's pointless rants too, but he'd get in trouble if he tried.
Then again, if Iruka couldn't enjoy himself, then he'd drag as many others down with him as possible. So he leaned back in his own seat and let out the softest and most silent 'meow' that he could.
Ranma hit the ceiling. "CAT!"
Iruka carefully ignored the unimpressed look that Kakashi sent his way. At least it'd stopped Konoemon from focusing on the bird.
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"They had a basilisk loose on school-grounds?" Anko's eyes were wide, and if Iruka hadn't known the woman better, he'd have assumed that she was actually horrified for the poor innocent students put inches away from certain death.
Thankfully, he did know her, so when she turned towards the headmaster and started demanding why they didn't have gigantic death-glaring snakes slithering around in their corridors, Iruka didn't feel at all like his hopes for humanity had been crushed once again. Instead, he mostly felt that he needed to scratch his nose.
However, scratching one's nose in the middle of a staff-meeting tended to lead to massive derails in the conversation, usually derails that were detrimental to the person doing the scratching. So that'd have to wait.
Honestly, that it'd taken not only a full year for the school to close, but that the headmaster had actively opposed – and in fact tried to entirely ignore – the ICW's ruling, likely meant that perhaps the school needed some careful examination from an outside party. In the end, the British school had had its license temporarily revoked, meaning that its students would have to look elsewhere for their studies.
Not exactly ideal, especially for the poor souls who were close to graduating. But then it'd be worse if there was something like a repeat of a basilisk slithering around unchecked among school-children. That was simply a recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, breeding basilisks weren't exactly easy, so there was little worry that Anko would take this as a chance to become inspired towards new goals of chaos and pointless destruction.
On the other hand, there were plenty of substitute-creatures that'd be at least similarly lethal to its surroundings.
Iruka sighed and made a mental note to check out all of the book on dangerous creature for the next week or so, to keep Anko's urges contained until she grew bored with the idea and settled for throwing dynamite inside of occupied classrooms instead. Like she usually did.
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