A/N: Alright, so everyone is getting this Chapter a little bit early since I'm going away on a geography trip to study mountains and such in Costa Rica, it's gonna be fun! I'll be back next Sunday, so you'll get your next update somewhere around then. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Eleven- The Horucrux

Hitsugaya POV

Mrs. Weasley eventually brought up a plate of sandwiches for us to eat, and just as promised there was no mention of the fact that Harry had been attacked by a doxy and I had used wandless magic to force him to stay sitting down while the antidote took effect. She then left again, my guess was so that she could go have lunch with the Order members while they ate her food.

I didn't join her, from the stories the kids had told me they were actually more effective against the great evil wizard (note the sarcasm) than the adults were.

I also figured that if I stayed up here then I wouldn't actually have to eat anything, if I went downstairs then the mother hen would try to feed me and I was already full from breakfast. Fred and George both wandered over to me while we all sat in front of the grimy window, "So, we've decided to tell you our names."

Their faces were cheerful, and given their natures I automatically expected a prank, "I'm Fred."

Fred pointed to himself.

"And I'm George."

George pointed to himself.

I nodded and they both grinned at me, "Don't tell Mum, though, we think she might have gotten us mixed up when we were babies."

I chuckled, "Somehow I doubt that. Though your mother might have a few faults, it can never be said that she doesn't take care of you."

They both nodded and simultaneously took a bite out of their corned beef sandwiches, "True enough, mate, but I think you've been on the receiving end of enough of that tender loving care to know how fun it can be."

"Tch. Unlike me however, she has a responsibility to look after you lot. I'm just the lost puppy she picked up in the street, and I challenge her so much I think she might just want to stick me back on the street where I came from." I said, "You'll notice I got my sword back and she won't be making me take it off again. She is not happy about that."

Taking it off? I think these people are contagious.

My apologies, slip of the tongue.

There were a comfortable few minutes of silence- well silent for the humans, Hyorinmaru spent the entire time teasing me about that tiny slip of the tongue, stupid dragon wouldn't shut up. I noticed a strange, strong reiatsu coming from a desk in the corner of the room. It rattled every once and a while and I felt odd when I tried to concentrate on it. It reminded me of the dementors, and yet it was obviously a different creature. With a shudder I turned away to concentrate on the cabinet beside it.

I almost stopped dead.

I could feel a horucrux in that cabinet, pinpointing it made me believe it was the silver locket that sat in a corner. I gritted my teeth, Voldemort was obviously more intelligent than I thought- to hide the locket among a bunch of other dark objects in his death eater's house. No one would ever look sideways at it.

Oh well, I have it now. I'll sneak down later tonight and grab it before taking it away to destroy it.

This is far too easy, shouldn't there be some defences on it at least?

There should be, perhaps Voldemort never intended for it to be here, maybe another wizard found it and the Blacks bought it from him. Maybe there are traps and we just can't sense them.

Maybe, but something still seems wrong about this. Surely there must be some curses or spells on the object itself to hide it.

There is no need for spells that would hide the locket, such spells would only make it more suspicious than before. Normal wizards would just see it as a regular old dark locket, and there's no way you would be able to hide the aura of death and darkness emanating from that thing. It's revolting.

True. Be on your toes when you destroy it though. It won't go without a fight.

Hai.

We spent an hour after lunch finishing up the de-doxying of the curtains. It probably would have taken longer, but eventually I just got bored and froze everything in the curtains that had a slight bit of spiritual pressure solid. Ignoring the protests of the Weasley- I doubted the doxy venom would hurt me even if it did bite me- I shook the curtain and all the dead creatures fell the floor.

We collected them up, threw them in the buckets and finished our job just in time for the show. The doorbell rang and Mrs. Black started screeching up the usual storm. I rolled my eyes when I looked out the window and saw Mundungus Fletcher. I smirked a little, that man was going to get it.

He had a pile of cauldrons- most likely stolen ones- with him and he was trying to persuade Mrs. Weasley to leave it in the mansion, which then caused her to burst into a fit of screaming rage. Again. Both Fred and George got dreamy looks on their faces, when I shot them a funny look they both sighed and said, "It's so nice when it isn't us." I rolled my eyes.

Mrs. Wesley looked up and everyone ducked down, well, everyone except me. She glared at me and I waved lazily, "She's already seen you all." I informed the group of children laying around my feet.

"Damn." Ron hissed. Hermione shot him a disapproving look and he corrected himself, "Err... darn?"

I just barely managed to keep myself from snorting. I had heard much worse words than that, and quite a few of them have been directed at me personally.

Soon enough Mrs. Weasley came into the room, she eyed the bottle of cure suspiciously. I frowned; did she notice it was a little emptier than before? I had put it back exactly the way it was before, "Why is there less cure in the bottle?"

I was surprised when it was Hermione who covered for us, "We bumped into the table and knocked it off, sorry. Hitsugaya fixed the bottle for us and salvaged what he could, but he said he didn't want to risk putting some of it in the bottle if it was contaminated, so there's less than before. We're sorry."

Alright, so that was actually a pretty good cover story.

Mrs. Weasley nodded, "It's okay, dear." Turning to me she said, "And your Professor Urahara told me to tell you 'it's done'. Whatever it is."

I shrugged, "No idea. I'm sure he'll tell me later though. I'm sure you noticed how mysterious he likes to be." I had filled the children in on the fact that Urahara would be teaching this year. They had been thrilled that they would be learning some defensive magic this year.

I had no intention of telling Mrs. Weasley about the horucrux finder, nor about the fact that there was piece of Voldemort's soul right behind her. It would just freak her out, and then I'd have to explain about the horucruxes to her kids too.

And no doubt they'd run off to try and find them. Immediately with absolutely no planning. Tch. Thoughtless baka. Or rather, thoughtless wizards. The two words were starting to become synonymous for me, and I was almost a hundred percent certain that feeling that way about you allies is a really, really bad idea.

Then again, in terms of idiocy I doubt that the Seiritei is actually any better than the wizards, so there really isn't any room for me to talk.

Tch, and death is supposed to be peaceful.

Obviously whatever human thought that one up has never been in the Soul Society before. That whole 'it's a peaceful, nice place' speech we give to newly departed souls before performing conso is bullshit.

Mrs. Weasley got the cupboard open for us, and ordered us to clear it out for her. She then proceeded to warn us that almost all of the objects in there were dark, so it was probably best to be careful. She promised to come help us later, but she had to go start cooking dinner. I could still sense the reiatsu of the wizards in the kitchen, they must still be talking.

Honestly, I am not setting foot in another order meeting again. Kisuke and his pet cat can summarize for me, and the children are better company than the adults. As soon as the doors were open a couple of the objects flew at us. For me it was a tiny spindly silver thing that had some kind of strange green stuff on the tips of its 'legs'.

The legs were sharp, and the green stuff looked poisonous.

Naturally, my reaction was instinctive, "Hado one, Sho!"

The thing was slammed backwards into a wall where it shattered. Ginny had crushed the glass butterfly thing attacking her with the shoe. Fred and George had their wands out, and they were busy incinerating the little blue flies that swarmed them. Ron and Harry were dealing with a book that looked suspiciously like the monster book of monsters. Hermione was stomping on a metal spoon that had tried to gouge out her eye.

Maybe the horucrux wasn't as undefended as I originally thought.

Mrs. Weasley conjured up some large garbage bags for us, and we began throwing junk in them. "I'll be in the kitchen if you lot need me," she said, "Sirius should be in here soon to help out, he's just feeding Buckbeak right now."

"Who?"

"A hippogriff." Hermione explained, "It's a creature half horse, half eagle. Sirius escaped from the Ministry on Buckbeak's back." She then proceeded to tell me the story of the groups fourth year and I was no longer surprised by the fact that Dumbledore wanted guards on Harry at all times, sure the boy had tried to keep his nose clean, but trying doesn't really cut it when you end up alone with a supposed serial killer whose next target happens to be you.

I managed to get my hand on the locket by pure luck, grabbing it and pretending to drop it in the bucket when in reality I slid it into my sleeve. As soon as I felt the horucrux touch my skin I felt a sense of wrongness, of anger and repulsion. Suddenly it was as if I wanted to kill someone, as if I now had an outlet for all my anger. I wanted to kill the wizards, to kill Aizen, to kill Yamamoto.

Master...

It was their fault, really, for sending me on this stupid, idiotic mission in the first place just because I looked like a child. I was going to kill them for insulting me. Kusaka had it right, we needed to create a new world, create a new place. This old one was rotting.

Master...

And when I did that the no one, not one single person, would ever doubt my skills. No one would ever laugh and call me a child again. No one would ever insult me and sneer in my face. No one-

MASTER!

A mental hand hit me hard, I can't really say how exactly, but it was the equivalent of getting slapped in the face by Hyorinmaru had he been in his physical form. Hyorinmaru then reacted by doing something he hadn't done in a long, long time, jumping in and taking control of my body while I was still reeling. It took him only a few seconds, but then the amulet was in my pocket and no longer in contact with my skin. And then my body was mine again and Hyorinmaru was sitting in the back of my mind as if nothing had happened.

. . . Thanks.

Think nothing of it. That thing was encroaching on my territory. I'm the only one that gets to influence your decisions and make you do corrupt things.

Still, that was fast thinking. I wonder what did that. That amulet was . . . different. There's no other way to describe it. I wanted to kill someone.

Who knows, who cares. We're aware of it now, and I can keep it from effecting you.

Thanks again.

And then I went back to helping the wizards clean. They hadn't noticed anything at all, which really said something about their observation skills. Then again, not very much would have appeared to happen apart from me spacing out for a little bit and then reeling slightly before spacing out again.

Eventually it was time for dinner, and they all headed downstairs. It was the same as it had been last time, except that now Kisuke and Yoruichi were there. The twins were practically worshipping Kisuke, and the girls thought Yoruichi was amazing.

The two of them 'left' after dinner, and I had to role my eyes a where they 'left' to. Apparently I'm not the only person who enjoys sleeping on rooftops. You know what, I think I'll knock them off at breakfast time so that they fall right past the small window in the dining room. The look on Mrs. Weasley's face would be priceless.

We went up to bed again and I skipped right to freezing the room solid and trying to sleep.

It wasn't my fault when Fred and George apperated into my room and slid across the floor before crashing into my bed. I picked them both up by the back of their pyjamas and threw them onto the bed, which was the only part of the room not covered in a sheet of ice. Glaring at them I said, "Was there anything in particular you wanted, or are you just enjoying ruining my sleep?"

"B-b-blimey, Mate! It's freezing in here!" one of them chattered out.

"I'm aware. I prefer the cold. Suck it up or get lost." I snapped at them, laying Hyorinmaru down across my legs in a meditative position. I had planned on chatting with my Zanpakuto tonight.

Actually, allow me to rephrase; I planned on discussing various ways to destroy the horucrux to stay awake, and then when the rest of the house was asleep I planned on sneaking out and beating the shit out of it until there was nothing recognizable left of it.

I paused and thought about that plan.

Are you sure there's no lasting effects from that amulet.

Yes. You just need to get rid of some... angry emotions. Besides, that thing messed with your head. Your right to try and destroy it.

Fred and George seemed to debate whether or not they should leave. Eventually Fred looked around the room.

Unfortunately for me, his eyes fell on the small, insultingly cute stuffed dragon Rangikou had forced on me, slipping over to the suitcase I had stuffed it in and pulling it out he said, "Aww... Ickle 'Shiro has a baby dwagon."

Shooting Fred a look of pure loathing I said, "You know how your mother sometimes gives you things you don't want?"

They both nodded smirking at me, "That dragon is kind of like that for me. Matsumoto stuffed it into my suitcase before I left. I don't want it, but if I were to destroy it like I wanted to, then she would have given me something even more disgusting to cover it up."

"Prove it." George taunted.

"Bakudo Four, Hainawa." The rope shot out and tied Fred and George together. Walking over and pulling the dragon out of their grasp I said, "I don't have to prove anything to you. Get lost."

There was a moment and they said, "We can't. Your spell is getting in the way."

I took off the spell.

" 'Night, Hitsugaya." Said Fred, and the two of them vanished.

I looked at the dragon in my hand and said, "You're more trouble than you're worth," before carefully putting him back in the suitcase where no one could see him, but so that he wouldn't be squished either.

Damn, the thing was growing on me.

I settled down and meditated for a while, breathing calmly and just chatting with Hyorinmaru as we examined the reiatsu building up around the amulet.

Eventually we felt the reiatsu of everyone else in the house dim down to a level where you knew they were sleeping. I debated whether or not to open the window, but then decided it would be a safer bet to just go through the wall. Warming the room up to a point where Mrs. Weasley wouldn't think I had frozen myself solid I left, leaving a very convincing ice clone in my place.

We found a forested area with no one around and I sat down, dumping the amulet on the ground and erecting a kido barrier around the area so no one would be able to see or sense me.

So, are we going to go all out on the amulet first, or work our way up.

Work our way up.

Hai. This'll be fun.

I spent a few seconds pondering the amulet, eventually I stepped back, held out my hand and said, "Hado Four, Byakyuri!" This time I put all my power into it and the blue lightning bolt was huge, it would have had the power to go straight through several regular level hollows in one shot.

The amulet didn't have a scratch.

It's a good thing we found a place with no humans around for miles, this will get ugly.

I moved up to another level spell, deciding that since I had the time I might as well start using the chants. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado Thirty-One, Shakkaho!"

The amulet didn't have a scratch.

"What on earth is this thing made of?"

I paused to think things through and took down the kido barrier around me, if I were to try any higher level spell inside of it then it would probably incinerate us all. I then took a few steps back, and decided to skip a few more levels of kido and go straight on to the highest level one I could use right now without attracting too much attention, anything over level fifty-five was just plain too powerful. If I needed to resort to that then I would go out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where there was absolutely no one around, "Hado Fifty-Four, Haien!"

That spell was made to incinerate something so completely that nothing was ever left.

The amulet looked a little singed, but it was still completely intact.

Obviously, Kido was not a sound tactic on this amulet. I unsheathed Hyorinmaru and held him over my head, bringing him down on the small helpless amulet.

The amulet sunk about a foot into ground. I swore loudly and spent a few minutes digging it out. This time I cast Danku horizontal to the ground and put the amulet on it. Standing on top of the kido barrier I tried again.

Hyorinmaru slammed into the amulet, and the explosion of reiatsu that resulted was enough to make me shunpo thirty feet backwards to avoid it. I was face with a dense, dark cloud of pure reiatsu. I looked deeply into it, trying to see the amulet.

I really wished I hadn't.

Thoughts and images of my worst nightmares filled my head, Hinamori and Aizen were looking out at me from that cloud, and Rangikou and Gin stood there as well. "This is your fault, Shiro-Chan." Her voice was accusing, innocent and I realized that it was because she had been stabbed by Aizen. Again.

Now, looking back on that moment in hindsight I realized what the spell in the amulet was doing, it was attempting to scare me away from it so I wouldn't destroy it by showing me my worst memory.

However, I don't think that the amulet realized just how much I hated Aizen.

I put Hyorinmaru into a battle stance and yelled the very first thing that came into my mind, "Sit upon the frozen heavens, Hyorinmaru!" And then I lunged, charging at Aizen- which also happened to be the amulet- at full force.

"Ryusenka!" I yelled as Hyorinmaru hit the center of the amulet, which happened to be right behind the imaginary Aizen so I got the added pleasure of pretending to stab him.

The amulet didn't stand a chance. I shattered the ice and all that was left of the horucrux was one tiny piece of crush, misshapen metal. We headed back to the Headquarters and slid into bed after melting the ice clone and freezing the entire bed solid.

It's done.

That it is, let's go take it and show Dumbledore next time we see him. Honestly, I cannot believe he missed a horucrux that was inside his own headquarters.

I agree, some people seem blind sometimes.

You know, I actually feel pretty good right now.

Lack of sleep is fogging your mind- literally. I doubt you're in any state to tell whether or not you're fine.

I never said I was fine physically, I just figure that that thing's aura has been affecting me all day. Now that I've gotten rid of it I feel like I'm on a high.

Go to sleep.

Spoilsport.

I'm going to sleep. You don't have to. Just don't bug me.

I decided that I might as well, so I curled up on the frozen bed and shut my eyes. To most people sleeping on a frozen hunk of ice might seem uncomfortable, but to me it was comfortable. Familiar. Ice wasn't a hard substance to me unless I wanted it to be, it did whatever I wanted it to, so sleeping on the bed felt just like sleeping on the bed.

Except it was gloriously cold.

I would have never thought I would have been able to get away with doing this in the world of the living. In the Soul Society I have a house to myself, so I get away with doing whatever the hell I want there. Not to mention having absolute control over my division means that I can keep my office at whatever temperature I like (although I refrain from freezing Squad Ten too often, it's not the squad members fault I can't stand the heat and it would be cruel of me to freeze them all constantly).

Speaking of which, I wonder how they're all doing.

Images of Rangikou throwing sake parties filled my mind and I decided that I just didn't want to know. If my division was in shambles when I got back, and the less experienced recruits were hanging out the windows wearing only their loincloths then it would take only two minutes of a small blizzard before everyone was doing what they were supposed to again.

. . . although those unlucky few wearing only loincloths might be making a quick trip to the fourth to get rid of some bad frostbite. It's their own fault for drinking with Matsumoto.

I wasn't sure where the images of my division morphed into dreams, but somewhere along the lines I fell into the first deep sleep I had had this entire mission. Maybe the horucrux's aura had been interfering with me from this far away, I don't know. All I know is that once it was gone, all the nightmares that had haunted my previous night's sleep had vanished.

The next morning I woke to an owl sitting on my head. "What the hell?" I mumbled sleepily as the bird hopped around my room, its feathers all fluffed up for warmth, "Am I hallucinating, or is there an honest-to-god-bird in my room? I hate wizards."

I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the damn thing started nibbling my ear.

There's something about you and regular animals, Master. Do me a favour and don't accidently freeze this one solid too. I don't think that Hermione girl would ever forgive you if you killed an innocent animal in the house.

Because no one has ever done so before.

Huh?

That was sarcasm. I was simply thinking about the line of decapitated house elves, the other line of heads of animals killed for trophies, all the things we're killing for cleaning, and whatever poor animals the dark wizards who had this house before us decided to have killed.

You know, I think I've decided you're just angry in the morning.

I'm just angry because that bird woke me up from a really good dream. And it did it by entering the room and landing. Right on top of my head.

Well, that letter attached to its leg might be of interest to you.

You just had to go and use logic. Fine.

I sat up and untied the letter from the owl, the owl hooted and flew out the window again. Putting the letter down I rolled over and went to sleep. Or rather I tried to go to sleep, the annoying voice in my head just wouldn't shut up.

That might be important.

If it were urgent then they wouldn't have sent it to me by owl. It's six in the morning, whatever it is, it can wait until a normal hour.

Whatever you say, Master.

I ignored the fact that my Zanpakuto was trying to guilt me into reading the letter and went back to sleep, unfortunately though, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't manage to seem to get to sleep. Hyorinmaru was sitting in the front of my mind, emanating a disappointed and upset aura. It was the equivalent of someone sitting an inch in front of your face and staring at you. Eventually I gave up and picked up the stupid letter.

It was written in a cream envelope with green ink, opening it up it revealed a letter that had the school supplies I needed (and I already had) and told me that I had been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Yay.

I already knew all that.

Are you happy now?

I suppose I am. Thanks.

I tried to go back to sleep, but found that I couldn't. Eventually I gave up and got dressed. This time I cleaned off my Shihaksho with a quick cleaning spell and wore it again. I also wore the haori and Hyorinmaru. If the school lists were anything to go by then the others would be going shopping today. Or maybe they would still be cleaning more, who knew what would happen.

I climbed out onto the roof and found Urahara and Shihoin sitting there looking at the sunrise, "Good morning." I said softly.

They both nodded at me and we sat there in silence, watching the sun rise over the city. Eventually it was finished and they both began moving about, Yoruichi tossed me a sleeping bag and said, "Roll this up."

I shrugged and did it, it's not like I had anything better to do. Kisuke turned and sent me a knowing smile, "So where did you sneak off to last night?"

"To destroy the first horucrux I found. That's one more down. It was surprisingly hard to deal with though, it played tricks with your emotions and cast illusions that you had to get through."

"Sounds like fun." Yoruichi chuckled.

"Strangly enough, it was. Maybe just because the thing was stupid enough to try and send me an illusion of Aizen to scare me off. I enjoyed running him through."

"Now I really wish I was there," Urahara sighed, "How come you get all the fun?"

"I carried the thing around all day, which means I get to be the one who hacks it to pieces." I said, sticking the sleeping bag in their suitcase. I wondered how it was all going to fit, but when I looked inside I saw that there was still all sorts of room left in the suitcase.

"Interesting." I said and Urahara grinned at me.

"A temporal space displacing suitcase, I can get you one cheap, Hitsugaya-kun.

"Thank, but I think I'm good." Knowing him he would try to hide some dark object in the corner of it so no one could ever find it again before passing it off to me. You could trust Kisuke's products, but only as long as he never offered them to you cheap.

"Suit yourself." Kisuke shrugged, "I have some other stuff for you too. Here's the horucrux detector." He passed me a thin blue cell phone, "It works exactly the same as your soul phone, except it will only ring once it's near a horucrux and you can't call anyone on it. The screen will show you where they are. All you have to do is zoom out and you'll get a bunch of arrows pointing you to the horucruxes. As you get closer to them zoom in on the radar. It's accurate up to about five-hundred meters. After that it's up to you. It won't ring around Harry, I've programmed it to ignore him since we all know what he is."

"This is a really nice piece of work, Urahara-san." I said politely, looking at it.

He picked up the fan and pretended to act embarrassed, "Oh, it was nothing."

I rolled my eyes at his antics.

"And here's the glove." His eyes darkened seriously, "When are you going to try and get the horucrux out of Harry?"

"Once all the other ones are destroyed. I have a feeling Voldemort didn't mean to make Harry a horucrux, so he didn't put any defences around him. Besides, I assume you know this, but the Order has this insane fanatic idea that Harry has to be the one to kill Voldemort. Because of that he's under guard constantly. I'll have to wait until we get to Hogwarts to do anything."

Kisuke nodded, and he looked as if he was about to say more, but there was a knocking noise on my bedroom door. "Another new day." I said, and I climbed back through the window right when Mrs. Weasley opened the door.

"You- you- you were on the roof?"

Urahara and Yoruichi- who was in her human form- looked over the edge of the roof, their heads upside down. I think Urahara had his hat glued to his head, because gravity says it should have fallen off by now. "He was visiting us!" Urahara said cheerfully, "Good morning!"

Mrs. Weasley let out a screech of shock when she saw him and Yoruichi, her mouth fell open as she looked at the cat woman, "You're human! And you're a girl?"

Yes, it was another new day.