Hi all. Here's chapter ten. Hope you like it and please review. Thanks, bye.

7th Year

Chapter Ten: Party Crashers and Answers

Suki ignored the screaming mass of students as she spun around; sharpening her frozen dew drops into lethal, icy darts, and then threw them with the force of her spin. They landed with an almost squishy sound in the Shade's undulating mass, but otherwise didn't appear to harm it.

Some of the smaller rocks made it through the teachers and older students' defenses, hitting students as well as the floor, causing damage either way.

"Get everyone out of here!" Suki yelled at Professor McGonagall behind her, snapping the older woman out of her shock. Gathering water from the air in a hurry Suki threw it out in front of her as a solid wall of ice just before a long, dark, liquid arm crashed into it. Large cracks spread out from the center of the Wraith's impact. The tentacle like arm writhed and wriggled trying to find a way past her barricade. In the time it took for Suki to shift her eyes to see two of the professors herding the majority of the student body out of the great hall doors, the Wraith's arm seeped through the broken ice, reaching for her neck.

Suki drew her arms together in front of her, sweeping along the sides of her shield shifting the ice together again, entrapping the arm. It stretched making itself skinnier to get closer to her, but she jumped back, somersaulting through the air to land on the far table. The table cloth slid under her feet and she slipped, landing with a clatter among the tableware. A badly placed flower arrangement knocked the wind out her and she lay there stunned.

Distant voices tried to break through the cotton that felt like it was surrounding her head.

"…Up! Get Up Suki! Get Up!" More then one voice called her name, screamed at her to get up, but she couldn't do it. Her whole body felt like it was made of the ice she had just used to defend herself. She couldn't move.

A chill suddenly ran down her spine, numbing her as it went. Why move? What was the point? Her powers didn't have any effect on the Wraith so why fight the inevitable?

Suki watched as a dense shadow swarmed over her body as well as her mind. It closed in, suffocating her, settling in against her skin freezing her even more.

A flash of light hit the blanket surrounding her and spread through it like fire. The Wraith shrieked and leapt back, pooling on the ground against the wall it hadn't busted through. Suki sucked in a deep breath of warm air, regaining feeling fast enough that her fingers and toes tingled.

The Wraith regrouped itself and hissed at her. Her mind still confused by the living shadow's sudden arrival and equally sudden departure, the Ice Maiden scrambled off the table top and nearly broke her nose as she managed to avoid the bench to crash onto the floor. Instead she banged her elbows on the stone floor and traded a bloody nose in for a couple of bad bruises.

Hands suddenly appeared lifting her up off the ground. Holding up most of her weight, Lavena pulled Suki across the floor, zigzagging across the floor to avoid the fallen stones, although it did have the added bonus of helping them avoid any attacks thrown at them by the shadow.

Lavena pulled the still stunned Ice Maiden down behind part of a broken table that had flipped over on its side. "Suki?" She asked looking around the edge of the table to make sure the others had the Wraith occupied. To her surprise Harry was the one pointing his wand at the Wraith's throat. Kind of anyway, Lavena wasn't sure if the thing had a throat at all.

The half demoness charged her energy anyway, just in case the inky bug escaped from the group of attackers surrounding it. "Suki are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Suki looked dazed and Lavena wasn't sure if the smaller woman was really focusing on her. "Y-yes I'm fine. I'm not hurt."

Lavena wasn't sure if she believed her either, but before she could come to a decision Yukina dropped down behind her long time friend and asked the same thing. She didn't wait for Suki to answer though and instead cupped her face to make her look at her. Yukina lifted Suki's eyelids and checked her bones and pulse, giving a much more thorough examination then Lavena ever could have.

"We need to get her out of here before the Shade tries to attack her again." A quiet authority entered Yukina's voice as she spoke of her friend's safety.

Lavena nodded. "Right but should we go-"

A loud hiss coupled with a crackling boom shook what remained of the furniture and decorations. Lavena chanced another look beyond the table the three of them hid behind. The Wraith had transformed from a smooth blob of inky substance into a hard spiked ball. The spikes shot out of the shade's main body toward its attackers and if they missed they turned supple enough to whip around and stab them from behind. A small lump pulled itself apart from the main body and twisted this way and that, like a head looking for something.

Somehow it spied Lavena peering around the corner and shriek-hissed. The part fox demon ducked back around the table and met Yukina's wide worried eyes. "You go first. I'll get Suki." Lavena snapped a she hurriedly picked up the still dazed Suki.

Yukina nodded and dashed for the door without a second thought. Lavena scooped the smaller woman close hoping she wouldn't drop her in what she was sure would be a mad dash to the doors. She took one more look around the table edge making sure the shade wasn't two feet from her nose, before copying Yukina and running across the rubble strewn floor.

One sharp pain later Lavena found herself strewn across the floor, Suki half on top of her. She must have tripped on a piece of the rubble, specially since her toe hurt like the time Yusuke had ridden over her foot with his bike.

She looked up in time to see the Wraith ram half the people attacking it to the ground before skidding across the floor towards her and Suki.

Lavena tried to get her feet under her, but Suki shrieked and flopped over, trapping her feet and then falling on Lavena when her own legs wouldn't hold her.

The Wraith raced forward, sliding and pooling across the floor like oil running down hill. It hissed and spitted like some kind of sick feline and as it drew closer Lavena heard words in the angry noises.

"Come here Maiden-mine," It whispered to itself Lavena was sure, "I trade you for cloak and I trade cloak for life. All that's left is you and I can finish my Master's work. So come now. Come, come."

It sprung forward looking to swallow both Suki and Lavena with its writhing mass. Lavena couldn't move. The Master's name was enough to freeze her in terror. Even after all this time, nothing but that simple word made her feel like the tall, thin man with glasses dressed in clean, simple clothes that would never attract any attention was standing right next to her. The shade that possessed him and had controlled the man's every movement for more then Lavena would ever like to know, hovered just under his skin, his darkness hooked soul deep into the man.

He took a step forward ready to suck the very life out of a fifteen year old girl.

Lavena screamed throwing out her arms to protect her face. But she wasn't as helpless as she had been then and she threw an almost glittering shield out in front of her and Suki. She still had some of the power leftover from the ultimate being or celestial organism or whatever it was that Kiran called herself nowadays and it obliterated every piece of darkness that tried to ram through it like it had rammed the simpler circle of attackers just moments before.

The Wraith screamed when it touched the glittering shield. A horrible, ear shattering noise that had Lavena and Suki clawing at their ears trying to block out the clamor. The Wraith straggled and struggled, flailing in its attempt to escape. Another blast of white fire shot forth from Harry's wand and hit the shade that had passively tortured him over the past months. The vile creature shrieked again, but found his feet, er, tentacles and scuttled as fast as he could manage out the hole he had left in the wall. Several students as well as Yusuke and Kuwabara followed it, leaping over fallen stone and broken tables.

"Stop!" Professor McGonagall ordered from the main doors, wand out, several other professors behind her. The students froze, but Yusuke and Kuwabara didn't acknowledge her presence and darted through the jagged hole and into the forest the shade.

"Are you alright?" A soft and incredibly welcome voice asked Lavena while the steel haired headmistress demanded that her foreign exchange students "Get back here!"

Lavena looked over into the concerned eyes of her husband. "Fine, yeah. Suki-"

"Is fine as well." The other woman interrupted before Lavena could finish.

Both Kurama and Lavena looked at her worriedly. "Are you sure?" Lavena finally asked. "You hit the table and the floor pretty hard."

"I'm fine. I only collected a few bruises." Suki insisted although neither of the two missed the slight wince when she struggled to sit up, or how her hand went to her stomach where her children lived. "Although I wouldn't object to any help offered getting up."

Kurama offered her a hand and pulled her up before doing the same for Lavena. But instead of letting go, he pulled Lavena into a comforting hug. She managed to wrap her arms around his neck before her knees gave out.

She hated those god-forsaken life stealing blobs.

Teachers were swarming the area trying to clear the floor by the time her legs quit quivering like piles of jell-o. She dried her eyes and glared at the far wall where the Wraith had tried to possess Suki. "They're not going to get what they want." She said angrily. "Not this time. Not ever again."

Kurama saw the hard look in Lavena's hazel eyes and nodded. "But why would the Wraith be after Suki? I would've expected it to go after Potter."

"Maybe we should wait to discuss this in private with the others." Lavena suggested tearing her scowl away from the place where the Shade had stood. She took a deep breath and gave Kurama a softer look. "I bet they're all with Suki in the Infirmary." She offered. Kurama took her hand and gently pulled her to the door.

"I'm sure I have said something like this before," Kurama said once they had reached the quiet and relatively safe hallways. Lavena spared a thought that everyone else must have gone to bed. "But without being able to reach your energy there wasn't a way you could've stopped the Master," he held her hand tightly when she cringed at the name, "from dragging Karin out of you and shoving her into the containment case. It was not your fault."

Lavena knew she had heard that part before.

When she didn't say anything, Kurama stepped to the side of the Infirmary doors, pulling his wife to him.

"Kurama what-?"

"You did everything you could." He said firmly.

"But-" She started.

"Not likely."

"And-"

"Wasn't possible at the time."

"Well what about-"

"You couldn't reach your energy remember?" He reminded her smiling crookedly. Lavena crossly pouted a little. She didn't like being reminded that one, she was wrong, and two, that she really had done everything in her power at the time, which wasn't all that much considering.

Kurama pulled her closer and Lavena was lost in the bright green of his eyes. She had always loved his eyes even though when she first met him she probably would have denied it. She loved his kisses too, but those were a different story.

"Hey!"

Both foxes jumped like the first time Lavena's mother had caught them, uh, kissing outside Lavena's apartment door. Except this time it was Yusuke who stood hanging outside the Infirmary door grinning brashly at them.

He watched his two friends turn red then jerked his thumb inside. "We're all here if you're ready to join us."

Kurama managed to smile a little as he led Lavena into the room. Yusuke, smirking, closed the door behind them.

It was fairly quiet inside the large hall. Which kind of surprised Lavena considering it looked like half the student population inhabited the cots. Lavena suddenly felt the urge to tiptoe past the sleeping students after Yusuke who headed towards the far end of the hall. Looking around it didn't appear that many of the children suffered from serious injuries or life threatening ones anyway. Most of the sleeping students she passed wore bandages, clean or otherwise, from where the wall had exploded on them.

Near the end of the hall there was a patch of empty beds. By then Lavena could hear the hushed arguing coming from behind a heavy curtain someone had hung for privacy and could guess why they were empty.

Yusuke found a gap in the curtain and ducked through, waiting for Kurama and Lavena before letting the heavy cloth fall back.

"I'm telling you I'm fine." Suki kept insisting. She sat upright on the small bed arguing with Yukina who, for all her usual calm and sweetness, was giving her friend a stern look as she tried to climb out of the small hospital cot. Suki was trying to ignore her and was sitting up anyway.

When Suki finally got her feet on the floor though, she listed to the side, her hand flying to her head.

"Suki," Yukina pleaded as she steadied her patient. "You need to rest. You fell off a table and the Wraith nearly smothered you. Now please lay down now."

Steel entered Suki's spine and she brushed off Yukina's grasp and stood on her own power. She faltered the tiniest bit, but didn't fall. "I'm fine Yukina. It's just a side effect of the Wraith's influence. I'm going to go to my room and then I'll rest. Goodnight everybody." Suki left without looking back, ignoring anyone who tried to convince her to act otherwise.

Yukina's pale face fell as she sat down dejectedly on the bed Suki had just vacated. Kuwabara put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He didn't like to see her sad.

"Don't worry. I'm sure she's fine."

Yukina nodded. "Yes, but she's also so stubborn. She won't ask for help even if she needs it badly." Yukina said in a quiet voice.

"Whoa," Kuwabara said, "sounds like Hiei. Well, except she's a she and she talks more and she's nicer."

It worked. Yukina laughed, however weakly. "Thank you Kazuma." She said in a quiet voice that he thought only he could hear. Kuwabara just smiled sheepishly.

"I take it you lost him?" Kurama spoke up from his place near Lavena.

Kuwabara looked up as Yusuke answer. "Yeah, the little beast got away in the Forest. There are so may shadows in there it must be like a family reunion to him."

"Were you able to tell Hiei about what happened?" Kurama asked.

"Naw," Yusuke said as he leaned against the wall behind him and scratched his head. "We couldn't find him. I tried to track his spirit energy but I think he was much deeper in the forest then we were. Maybe he finally found the centaurs Botan told us about."

Kurama shook his head. "No, they don't live that deep in the forest as that. Hiei must've found one of the nastier inhabitants."

It was silent for a moment, with the only sound coming from one of the sleeping students as he began to snore.

"The thing knew the Master." Lavena suddenly spoke up. All heads turned towards her but she didn't look up from the floor. "The slime said he would trade Suki for some cloak so he could 'finish his Master's work'."

A new, dread ridden silence stretched out even longer then the first. The Master's terror hovered over them; a formless cloud that hung heavy in the air between them.

Kurama took Lavena's hand when she began to shiver as if she was freezing all over. "He won't win." He reminded her and she nodded sharply, a granite hard determination in her eyes.

"At least now we know what the Wraith wants." Kuwabara thought out loud.

"But why?" Kurama wondered. "How does kidnapping Suki help it get this cloak?"

"Why would a blob like that even want a cloak?" Botan asked.

Yusuke snorted. "Even blobs need to keep up with the latest fashion Botan."

Botan rolled her eyes and only Kurama's grip on Lavena's hand kept her from reaching out and cuffing him upside the head.

"It's Harry's Invisibility Cloak idiot. He wants the cloak in exchange for Suki."

"Well who's he gonna exchange her with? Huh? Have you figured that out too?" Yusuke sassed, annoyed at Lavena's name calling.

Lavena rolled her eyes while, surprisingly enough, Yukina answered. "It's the Ice Leader. No one wants Suki as bad as she does. She must want her very badly if she's willing to speak with such lowly demons."

Kurama nodded. "It does make sense. The Ice Leader wants Suki to reverse the biological changes the D'ta made. The Wraith wants Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility along with the other Hallows to complete the Master's super race."

Lavena nodded as her husband spoke, picturing the Master's desired end in her mind. The three worlds in ruins. Humans and demons alike trampled under the Master's super race. Creatures that answered to no one apart from their now deceased Master roamed the world, stirring up dry dust and the bones of buildings behind them.

They couldn't let that happen.

********

They broke up shortly after that, going to their separate rooms to sleep. The next morning Harry, who had no idea that a small moving blot was trying to get his tentacles on his invisibility cloak so it could take over the world with a new horrid super race, was on his way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom for his tutoring with Suki.

He felt a little more like his old self this morning and, like the rest of the school including most of the teachers, he was wondering what that thing from the Halloween party had been. But unlike the other students, he recognized it. Not by its features, because honestly it really didn't have any features, but by the dark and harmful quality that had hung around it. He had felt that oppressive atmosphere several times before, some worse then others. Like when Lavena had found him on the floor. It had been that same awful, unending, loneliness that had frozen him into numbness until he was little more then a living doll on several previous occasions.

But what in the world had it been?

That was the questions on everybody's mind and Harry knew the answer as much as they did.

He was thinking about asking Ron and Hermione to help him find the answer as he walked into the classroom.

He didn't see Suki there, which surprised him just a little. At all of the previous sessions she had arrived first, apparently she was an early riser. He had just taken a seat when he heard a low, painful whimper.

Wondering if someone's cat had escaped from its home, Harry peered around the professor's desk to see what was making the noise.

Suki lay collapsed on the floor.

Harry rushed forward and for a moment thought that the evil black smear had returned and gone after his teacher. But he didn't see anyone or anything near by.

"Professor, are you alright?" He asked worriedly.

She didn't look like she was alright. She was paler then usual and her face was covered with a light sheen of sweat. Her eyes were clouded with pain and her arms were wrapped around her middle.

"Get Yukina." She told him quietly.

"But-" He started, not wanting to leave her alone when she was hurt.

"Now." She ordered in a strong voice mixed with hurt.

With an unsure look at the small woman, he got up and ran out of the room and pelted down the hallway towards the infirmary.