"I'm a snake. My skin is cold. I have no heart. I use the tip of my tongue to find my prey as I slither on the ground and engulf what I like whole. That's the sort of creature I am."

Gin Ichimaru

oxo…oxo

Thursday came around quickly with no further word from Dumbledore and nothing of much consequence happening. The first years around him had been going on and on about the flying lessons that were to happen that afternoon.

Hermione seemed to be terrified, the poor girl proceeding to bore anyone who would listen with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called 'Quidditch Through the Ages'. Toushiro had decided to ignore her but Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later. She was interrupted by the arrival of the mail, cutting her lecture short as a scruffy looking barn owl landed in front of the round faced boy.

It was carrying a package that Toushiro soon found out was from the boy's grandmother and, opening it excitedly, he showed his shinigami friend a glass ball the size of a large marble that seemingly full of white smoke. Toushiro watched it in vague wonder as the small white clouds danced around.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explained, gazing at the small glass ball as he continued his excited explanation. "Gran knows I forget things; this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight, like this, and if it turns red - oh..." His face fell as the Remembrall suddenly glowed scarlet, the clouds inside changing colour quicker than could really be seen. "…You've forgotten something." He concluded with a small frown. Toushiro smirked slightly at his friend's forgetfulness before stiffening, his eyes narrowing, when Draco Malfoy, who had been passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of Neville's hand.

Harry and Ron jumped to their feet, obviously half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who Toushiro had found could spot trouble quicker than any other teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

"What's going on?" she asked, a small frown on her face as she surveyed the scene before her. Harry looked up at her, a frown on his own face as Ron continued to glare at the blonde across the table from them.

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor." Neville explained quietly, always the pacifist. Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table. Even he had enough sense not to push the transfiguration professor.

"Just looking," he said snidely before sloping away with Crabbe and Goyle trailing behind him. Toushiro glared at the boys back before making a hand signal under the table and breathing an incantation quieter than could be heard.

"Bakudo 9; Horin."

Allowing the kido whip to trail along the floor, he grinned when the blonde tripped over it, landing face first on the floor and causing the hall to fill with laughter at the blonde's expense.

The still present McGonagall eyed Toushiro suspiciously; the boys grin tainted with a knowledge that had the professor believing it was him. But, with no proof on the matter no particular urge to help Malfoy however much she tried to hide it, she moved on, floating past the Slytherin now sprawled on the floor, her shoes clipping the floor delicately.

Dumbledore however had seen more of the little trick than his deputy and was now watching the boy he had assigned to protect the school with a great amount of curiosity. He had known the boy to possess a power he didn't but to actually see him use something the old man had never even heard of was surprising. He hadn't really known what he had expected but this wasn't it.

The light that had escaped the boys hand had held a strange power to it, feeling to him like some kind of mutated magic. But the boy hadn't used a wand, only the two fingers closest to the thumb of his left hand where the light had burst from. Dumbledore was surprised that no one else had felt the small rise in power that came from Toushiro as he had performed the 'spell' and the whole thing was making him curious if slightly uneasy.

He wasn't sure anymore if he had made the right decision in asking this boy for help but, never one to disregard benefit of the doubt, he decided to leave it be for now. Toushiro hadn't done anything of any particular harm; he had merely played a prank which he had made sure to be fairly inconspicuous about. The same basic thing could have been done with a wand and if it had Dumbledore knew he would have had no qualms with it.

So for now he would let it be, but he would be keeping a closer eye on the boy. It was generally better to be safe than sorry.

xxx…xxx

As Neville and Toushiro walked towards the Quidditch pitch, the round faced boy studied his friend carefully. He hadn't known exactly what had happened but there had been some sort of strange power emanating from the white haired boy since breakfast, or was it only that he noticed it now? He wasn't sure, but he defiantly knew that, just before Malfoy fell over, Toushiro had let out a weird energy that seemed to have gone unnoticed by everyone else around them.

He wasn't particularly worried about it, he had no reason to after all, but he was beginning to believe that no only was his friend somehow the one who had tripped the blonde boy up, he had some kind of powers he wasn't telling about. The particular thought hurt him; why would he keep a secret from his friend? But then, he hadn't exactly been his friend for very long and Toushiro didn't seem like the kind of person who would just tell you his innermost secrets.

Of course that posed the question as to whether or not he should ask about it. He could, but would doing that cause the boy to move away from him? He didn't know just how personal this power thing was and didn't really want to snoop. But he was curious and curiosity killed the cat. Letting out an almost inaudible sigh he jumped when Toushiro's voice cut through his musings.

"An unasked question can haunt you forever you know."

Toushiro's aqua eyes were watching him blankly; the only emotion in the entirety of his face was just a hint of curiosity. Neville stared back at him with an open mouth before closing it slightly when Toushiro raised one of his perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

"Where did you get that saying from?" he asked, attempting to hide the fact that he had just been caught off guard by the very person he had been thinking about. Toushiro didn't answer for a moment, looking back to the path they were following with what Neville could only call sad eyes.

"A friend of mine told me it once. He was the kind of person who enjoyed giving out advice and wisdom, even if he never followed it himself." He replied, looking up at the afternoon sky above them. Neville was silent, watching his friend for a moment before following his gaze to watch as several birds flew past their heads.

"Oh." Was all he said and they continued along the path in silence until they arrived at the lesson, Madame Hooch already waiting for them. After scolding the pair for being late she began the lesson, her short, grey hair trying its hardest to fly out in the breeze and her yellow hawk like eyes studying them all intently.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked, her eyes narrowed slightly as she gave out her orders. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Neville glanced at Toushiro, slightly surprised to see a look of apprehension on his face. In all the time they had talked he had never seemed the least bit worried about flying. "Stick out your right hand over your broom and say 'up'," Madam Hooch called from the front, gaining back the round faced boy's attention.

Toushiro was eyeing the broom warily. He had not been against flying, having done it so many times before, and was even kind of looking forward to being in the air again, but the broom below him with its mismatched twigs and bent 'saddle' did not look in the least bit safe or comfortable. He would not be looking forward to this. Sighing slightly at the teachers words he stuck out his hand and said "up." To his great surprise the broom shot right into his hands and he had to take a step back in order to keep his balance.

Letting out a breath he looked over at Harry and Ron, both having also gained their brooms, but Neville next to him was another matter entirely. His broom hadn't moved, blatantly refusing to lift itself into the dark haired boy's hands. As Toushiro listened to the boy repeat the words he decided that perhaps brooms had more of a conscience than he thought; there was quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.

Madame Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, before walking up and down the rows correcting their grips. Toushiro snickered slightly when she told Malfoy he had been doing it wrong for years before concentrating on getting it right himself. He still wasn't sure he wanted to do get on the wooden pole underneath him but knew that he couldn't just throw a paddy and say he wasn't going to do anything; he certainly wasn't going to act like a child just because he was pretending to be one.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," the short haired professor instructed, her hard, calculating eyes studying at her students with a merciless expression Toushiro last remembered seeing in Soifon. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle; three, two-"

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips. Toushiro pursed his lips as his friend let out a yelp, going to pulling him back down but missing as the broom accelerated upwards.

"Come back boy!" Madame Hooch shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle; twelve feet, twenty feet. Toushiro could see his scared white face look down at the ground falling away before seeing him gasp and slip sideways off the broom. His eyes widening slightly Toushiro acted on instinct, dropping his own broom between his feet and leaping towards where he predicted Neville would land, catching the boy in his arms.

But he had misjudged the weight of his friend and didn't managed to keep his balance, ending up on the floor with Neville settled on his arms, the broomstick still rising higher and higher, starting to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight. There was silence for a moment as the class took in what had happened before the pair on the floor suddenly found themselves surrounded by the Gryffindor's in the class.

"Out of the way!" came Madame Hooch's call and suddenly there was room to breath. Neville was groaning and Toushiro's arms were killing him though he knew he wouldn't know the extent of the injury until he examined it; not something he was looking forward to. "Come on boy, up you get."

Toushiro resisted the urge to groan in relief as Neville was helped to his feet by the worried professor. He had landed on something hard, and it wasn't particularly pleasant to feel the bumpy ground below him as it aggravated what he realised must be wound. After looking over Neville and finding him bruised but with no broken bones, Madame Hooch turned to Toushiro, crouching down next to him and trying to help him up. The white haired boy narrowed his eyes slightly, hissing in pain as the teacher tried to get a hold on his forearm to help him up. She pulled away quickly at the noise, watching as Toushiro managed to bring himself to his knees.

The skin on his forearms had been torn badly by the rocky hard ground it had landed on and was bleeding quite heavily from the wound. Toushiro frowned at it as he studied his arms, watching as the students eyes all widened in horror at the sight. He himself considered the wound small but he admitted that it hurt like hell, especially in his Gigai where his pain receptors were unused to being injured.

"Good lord!" Madame Hooch exclaimed as she took in his bleeding forearms. Toushiro looked up at her with cold eyes, staying silent as he got to his feet and waiting for the teacher to do so too. She did, pulling her expression back to its composed state and turning to the class. "None of you are to move while I take these boys to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dears."

She ushered the pair of them in front of her, back up the path and towards the castle. It was an awkward walk to the hospital wing, Neville walking silently with tears of pain trailing down his face, perfectly contrasting Toushiro who just stared ahead of him, his eyes stoic and unaffected. When they arrived they were swamped by Madame Pomfrey who set about fussing over Toushiro's arms and settling both boys down on separate beds before hurrying out of the room to look for the supplies she would need. Madame Hooch hadn't stayed long, going swiftly back to the lesson as soon as she got them into the relatively safe clutches of the school nurse.

The pair sat in silence for a moment before Madame Pomfrey swept beck in, placing the cotton wool and bowl of water on the table beside Toushiro's bed before turning to the boy with a small frown.

"I didn't take you for the kind of person who would get themselves injured Mr Hitsugaya." She muttered in vague annoyance as she set out to clean the wound. Toushiro let out a quiet hiss at her touch before shrugging slightly. Neville just watched as the nurse continued to work, strapping the wound after cleaning it before giving Toushiro a glass of some strange white potion and forcing him to drink it. He did so, albeit reluctantly, and she moved on to Neville.

He wasn't hurt badly, only a few bruises, cuts and a sprained wrist that the nurse easily healed, but she told him to stay, bandaging his tender wrist before waltzing back out of the room, her arms filled with the supplies she had been using and the frown still on her face. There was silence in the room for a long, tense pause before Neville opened his mouth.

"Thank you," he said quietly, his nervous voice catching the young captain's attention. His aqua orbs studied the round faced boy silently before the tiniest smiles came to his face, though it was soon covered up by a frustrated sounding sigh.

"You're welcome. I have to wonder though what exactly it is about you that attracts so much misfortune?" he asked dully, meeting his friend's now sheepish gaze. Neville scratched the back of his head apologetically before looking away in embarrassment.

"Sorry." He replied meekly, having no plausible answer to the question. Toushiro sighed; that boy was going to be the death of him, literally if it carried on like this. He didn't really know what it had been that had caused him to try and catch Neville like that and was rather unsure as to whether he wanted to know the answer. Had he really become that friendly with the boy in such a small amount of time? Or was it just the fact that it was in his job description to keep the students safe?

Toushiro dismissed the idea almost instantly. Something like that wouldn't have made him take the actions he had that day, only a strong connection to someone would have caused his instincts to go haywire like that. Unexpectedly his Fukutaicho popped into his mind, her bright eyes wide and her long blonde hair falling around her while her lips curved upward in a happy but shocked smile. "You made a new friend Toushiro? Wow, good for you! I always knew you were a softy inside!"

He resisted the urge to smile at the image. That was defiantly what she would say were she here and he fought the small bout of homesickness that came over him, brushing it off as he turned his eyes back to Neville who seemed to have something to say to him. The young boy might think he was being subtle but it was very obvious to him that he was having an inner battle on whether or not to ask him a question; same as earlier.

"An unasked question can haunt you forever you know." He repeated, causing Neville to jump slightly in surprise. Turning his cool eyes on the boy, he watched as Neville squirmed under his gaze before opening his mouth and closing it again, looking away from the Taicho in frustration.

Toushiro was intrigued. Whatever it was the boy wanted to say seemed to be eating him up inside and the young captain knew the round faced boy wasn't usually the one to keep something to himself like that. It must either be very important or very personal. Or both.

Neville turned back to his friend with a searching look. Should he ask or not? What if it was something bad? What if it wasn't and he was worrying about nothing? What if it was something he wasn't meant to know? What if it was something Toushiro desperately needed to talk about with someone? Staring into the curious aqua eyes of his friend he made his choice.

"When is your birthday?" he asked, keeping his voice nervous as he asked the question he didn't really want to ask. Toushiro's eyes showed surprise for a moment before the emotion was gone and he was turning away from the boy.

"Its December 20th." he replied, nothing in his voice to show any emotion, though Neville had to realise that there was less chill in it than there had been previously. The round faced boy almost let out a sigh but refrained. He would ask his friend about the power issue if it happened again. If it didn't then he knew it wasn't real, or that it was his imagination.

He kind of hoped that was the case.

oxo…oxo

Dear reader,

Well, what do you think is what I have to know? I hope you're enjoying it and I hope that you both review and continue to read. I can't really think of much else to say…

Animeloveramy

You forgot ^_^ No problem

AnimeAiedail