The door to the classroom of Professor Minerva McGonagall burst open, loud and late, as the final two students came bustling in. Both wore the uniform of gryffindor, that of the taller in a significant state of disarray, and we breathing heavily as the hovered in the doorway.

Then the taller spoke,

"Thank God old McGonagall wasn't here! Can you imagine her face if we were late?"

The bright eyes of a cat with marks suspiciously reminiscent of glasses scrutinised him as he spoke.

Then the cat moved from the table with a leap, fluidly shifting in forms, melting into something that was certifiably not a cat.

It was a woman, dressed in varying shades of emerald from her pointed hat to the very bottom of her flowing robe. The eyes had changed in colour but not at all in expression.

"Bloody brilliant!" Ron breathed, as though forgetting the sanction he would certainly be relieving.

"Thank you for that observation, Mr. Weasley," she responded shortly. A snigger of mocking bubbled up over the lips of a blonde slytherin, every part of him so pale as to appear near translucent.

"Now," she continued with a nod of her head "Perhaps I need to turn Mr. Potter or yourself into a pocket watch?" another snigger, though it was soon halted by a stern glare from the adult in the room.

"We got lost, Professor," Harry defended unsurely.

"Then a map, perhaps?" She shooed them to their seats as she returned to her desk to begin her lesson.

Meanwhile, a fair few floors below, the young Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were having a less than enjoyable lesson in the dark, damp, musty dungeons.

"As there is little foolish wand waving in this class, I believe you will hardly consider it magic at all," the man's voice was much like silk, soft and gentle, quiet to the point at which it barely rose above a whisper. However, none of them missed a word, as though they were physically hooked on to each word.

"Most of you can surely not understand the wonder of the bubbling of a cauldron, the curling of rising fumes, the shimmer of a near-finished, the power of liquids that creep through the human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death." the last part of his speech was sharp, spoken in staccato rhythm for no purpose aside from emphasis.

That is, he continued with a significant increase of volume but no less lengthening to the words that passed his thin lips "That is, if you're not as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

He very seemed to be trying to stir up an atmosphere of fear and respect around himself. But, to Ichigo who sat there examining the room, the only one who didn't seem at all scared by the man's speech, the only one who didn't hold breath in his lungs unnecessarily, they seemed too carefully rehearsed and revised, everything down to the infliction memorised meticulously. It took all impact out of them, there was no more intention, no emotion, behind the words he spoke.

Ichigo continued to observe the cold room that was never properly still, finding it both more interesting and intimidating than the man who addressed them. There were various things pickling in solutions in jars around the room, balanced on old shelves that didn't quite sit straight. The liquid in which they floated bubbled every few seconds as the floating things, an example of one being eyeballs that seemed disturbingly human, bobbed.

Eventually, he drew his eyes from the jar with the blue eyes, allowing them to settle on Wayne who sat behind him for only a moment, before moving them challengingly to the eyes of the teacher, as cold as the room but not as cold as his own when he schooled them as sternly as he was.

The man scrunched his eyebrows together, but did not speak. Instead, he broke the uncomfortable contact with his scowling student, and turned to the blackboard behind him.

Ichigo almost grinned, pleased that he was the reason behind this. The scratching of the chalk on the board was almost violent in nature, definitely angry. Trails of cursive writing continued along the dak of the board that camouflaged itself with the darkness of the room.

Snape was definitely making his writing at least semi difficult to read purposefully.

Ichigo sighed as he looked over at Wayne and began to look around the classroom as though the teacher had done his job well and actually bothered to tell them where abouts in each cupboard things were located.

He met harry again and lunch - both with a fair bit to complain about, the main being the lesson with Snape both had. That just proved Ichigo's suspicions: they had both been forced to suffer through the same, dull speech, just allowing Ichigo know he was right to have suspected it to be rehearsed.

But they had then split up to join their separate tables after, as the walked in from the humid outdoors, through into the grand space of the great hall that seemed larger than it was due to the enchanted ceiling that stretched up above them like the sky they had recently passed from underneath.

Ichigo remembered the girl from the sorting who had told them that, the bushy-haired girl who had quizzed them about the toad on the train, the girl who had done better than most of them in the herbology lesson both his class and hers had shared.

And there she was, sitting off to the side of the Gryffindor table, alone with nothing for company aside from the thick tome sat on the table in front of her, which her nose was currently stuck in. She looked a bit lonely.

Ichigo reached a hand behind himself, jabbing harry in the small of the back.

"Go speak to her," he told him, gesturing vaguely with his hand and hoping Harry understood.

Harry looked uneasy and fumbled his hands over the table as he shared an abundance of awkward eye contact with Ron between each fleeting glance at Hermione's back.

Ichigo sighed "Forget it," he gripped Wayne's cloak in his hand and made sure the rest of them all followed him over.

Harry squirmed as he watched his unapproachable cousin storm over to the small, buck-toothed girl purposefully.

Hermione was somewhat shocked as she watched the group of Hufflepuff boys fill the empty space on the table around her. She was even more shocked when she realised the leader of the group was Ichigo, from the train and the prolonged sorting.

"Hello?"

"Hi," he responded back dryly as he pulled a slightly crumpled muggle novel from his bag. She looked at the cover, unable to read the characters but still happy to know she was not the only one who enjoyed reading.

"Shakespeare's classics," He told her, noting her curious glancing.

Her face flushed as she realised she had been caught, growing redder as the others laughed.

"I'm sorry," She told them somewhat wearily "I can't recall your names…"

"Wayne," There was just as much expression in the boy's disorderly hair as there was in his animated features. She shook his hand.

"Ernie," the hand she shook was as bony and pale as the rest of his arm.

"Justin," he seemed somewhat quiet and his handshake was not the firmest or most confident.

"Nice to meet you all," She told them, deciding to close her book and engage the kind faces in conversation.

A less kind face was revealed from behind another book as a similar decision was made. But, for the first time, she didn't feel at all off-put by the disapproving expression - she had friends.

From across the Hufflepuff table, a girl with skin the colour of coco, and coily hair that would not sit straight, smiled as she watched Ichigo interact in a way that was almost normal by her standards.

From over her shoulder, Gabe leaned forwards and watched what she was. He cocked an eyebrow.

"What's got you so happy?"

"He is actually a Hufflepuff, huh?"

"Who?"

"Mister 'I even confused the sorting hat'."

He looked from her and back over again.

"Yeah, hufflepuff, definitely."

That was a fact he only served to prove a few days later, as the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws united for the first of their flight lessons.

They arrived to two rows of broomsticks facing each other and a stern looking teacher with a whistle slung around her neck on a lanyard.

"Everybody," SHe spoke loudly and clearly "Step up to your brooms and out your right hand up over it."

Ichigo almost walked into Wayne as he stepped to the side to allow his arm to stretch out to the side.

"Your other right," Ichigo hissed beneath his breath before the teacher could notice. Wayne's face adopted a pale shade of pink as he giggled nervously and hopped over the broom to take his place on the other side.

"Oops?"

"Yeah," he agreed "oops."

"Shut up."

"Now," the teacher, madame Hooch, continued "Shout 'Up!'"

"Up," Wayne was the first to shout. The broom rose a bit before driving itself backwards and jamming very intentionally into his knee cap. He stumbled and fell backwards.

"Ouch," There was a laugh beside him "Ichigo, Ernie, shut the hell up - I dare you to do better."

With a shrug, Ernie tried himself, but the broom didn't move, as though it were nothing more than a muggle cleaning supply.

"At least mine doesn't want to hurt me," he defended as Wayne allowed Ichigo to pull him to his feet, scowling jokingly.

"Ichigo," he continued "You try,"

"Sure," he sighed, not feeling as though the broom would listen, should the useless lolling around of everyone else's brooms be any indication "Up!" The broom hit his hand decisively in a moment, his hand reflexively clutching around it.

"How?" Wayne asked, leaning on his bruised leg.

"I'm just better than you." he deadpanned, ignoring Wayne as he felt the other boy's hand hit his arm.

"Up," Ernie called again. This time the broom rolled a little, perhaps rising a few inches, but it did not fly up.

"Up!" he called again, semi frustrated as he watched, after only a couple of attempts, Justin's broom unite with his hand. The broom rose to his knee cap before falling back to the floor.

"Up!" This time the broom rose all the way.

Hesitantly, eyeing the broom distrustfully, Wayne tried again.

"Up," he called, ginning smugly after a few attempts, after which he broom hesitantly flew upwards.

It wasn't a cold day, but it was a windy one.

"Right," Madame Hooch yelled again "Mount your brooms and wait for my signal!" she pursed her lips around her whistle, but a nervous girl he did not recognise kicked off too early, carried sideways by the wind, knocked into the wall, then down to the floor, before being carried by the teacher to the infirmary.

She left them with a warning:

"No one is to fly while I'm not here," She waved a stern finger before turning back to the whimpering girl who was hopping unsteadily along.

But then something went flying into the air, an ornate hair clip from the end of the braid belonging to one of the Patil twins; Ichigo could not remember whether it was Padma or Parvati that had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

She called after it, jumping up in futile attempts to grab it between her cupped palms, as the boys around her laughed and tear strayed from the corner of her eye.

"My sister got me that-"

With a sigh and very little comprehensible reasoning, Ichigo kicked off the grass and went flying after the little clip, as fast as the broom would carry him. He cursed at the extra drag of the excess material of his uniform, but caught the clip with a flip, right in front of the greenhouse a fair distance from the grounds over which they had been practising on.

"Geez," He looked down, not realising there may have been someone looking up "How did I go this far?"

He tucked the clip into his pocket and went back. The Patil girl smiled at him unsurely as he handed it back to her.

"Idiot," Ernie nudged him with a smile.

They spent the day believing he had gotten away with the blatant disregard to the rules, until Pomona Sprout approached them at the dinner table, drawing Ichigo away.

The kindly woman stared up at him, even at the tender age of eleven, he towered over her.

"You can save us, you can save Hufflepuff's quidditch team!"

She sounded excited; he might have too, if he had any clue what on earth quidditch was.