Previously on WHWTO:

Determent, Harry stepped towards Byakuya and pushed him towards the gate. Ichigo followed, not trusting the two men at all.

"Sentenced?" Gin raised an eyebrow. " Worst case she's stripped from her powers, no?"

Harry frowned at him. "You were there, Gin. You know Rukia's sentenced to death."

In the opening of the door stood Urahara Kisuke, being accompanied by Shihouin Yoruichi.

"What are the two of you doing here?" Harry asked curiously.

"We're going to capture your little girl back," Urahara explained.

Harry looked Gin directly into his eyes. "Tell me about Aizen."

All color drained from Gin's face. "Nothin's wrong wi' him," He said, his lips forming a straight line.

"Potter! Emergency state has been released! Captain Aizen has been killed. Everyone is to get to the first division this second!"

21. Combined powers

"I can't let you go just like that."

Starting a conversation with Ichigo was hopeless in Harry's mind; he knew that. However, every bit of time he could stretch was a given. The longer he could delay Ichigo, the longer he had to think things through.

Aizen dead?

However, he wasn't really paying attention; before he knew it, Ichigo had taken a hike and was speeding up to the center of Seireitei. And actually, Harry did not feel like chasing after him. He had other things to take care of, and all Harry and Ichigo really wanted was for Rukia to be set free. What other harm could that man do?

Kill a fellow captain? No way, decided Harry resolutely. Ichigo was a determent man, but fighting to death was not his favorite options. Best not to linger on this too long, Harry thought.

So with all the strength he had left in him, Harry shunpoed around the area, looking for signs of Urahara and Yoruichi. He needed to talk to them desperately; he wanted to know more about the thing they needed to reclaim and what they would do with Rukia when they had got it back.

Harry passed several buildings and barracks and jumpy officers on his way. He went through gardens of houses, stopped at squares to feel for reiatsu, but did not make much process.

Passing a storage, he suddenly felt a hand covering his mouth and two hands grabbing his waist, pulling him into the building. Surprised as he was, Harry's mind quickly went over the most effective spells he could think of, realizing too late that, no matter how good he was as a captain, they would not work. You'd think he'd realize that sooner after some serious injuries in battle because of his wrong-chosen battle styles.

"Let go of me!" Harry yelled.

"Happy to," Urahara said, grinning up at him. Yoruichi pulled back her hand from Harry's face and wiped it to his shirt. "Now, hear me out. I've been in contact with some old friends of you, who, by the way, were very pleased and surprised to hear you were doing just fine. They asked if ~"

"HOLD ON JUST ONE SECOND," Harry interrupted. "What are you talking about? I haven't even had the chance to catch my breath."

The answer he got was a smack on his head. "Breath while listening. Men can do at least those two things at one time," Yoruichi said.

"Thank you," thanked Urahara with a slight bow. "Now, listen up. Apparently, your favorite snake-buddy hasn't coped with your dead yet. The moment I heard they wanted to see you again, I started developing these bracelets -aren't they fashionable? Yoruichi-san did the designs!- which can disrupt the portal to the material world and makes you end up in any wanted area. Now, any questions?"

"Tons of them!" Harry's head was spinning. "Is either one of you responsible for Aizen's dead? Who hasn't coped with whose death and who did you talk to? What does this have to do with Rukia? And why oh why do those bracelets have big eyed-kittens on them?"

"Okay, okay," Urahara said, shushing Harry and urging him to sit down. "Let's start with the most important of those questions. Like I said, Yoruichi-san designed them. Now, I wanted red colors, you know, because of Benihime, but then here she wanted the blue ones, because of the sky and stuff, so we decided on green and yellow, for~"

"I think we need to work on your priorities," Harry gnarled.

"Let me take this, Kisuke," Yoruichi said, sitting in front of him and hereby blocking him from Harry's view.

"No, we did not kill Aizen. We are trying to find out whatever we can, but we've got other things to care about. Now, see here. For testing out these bracelets to get to other places, we figured that the safest way to get to the material world, was through a portal that had not yet been confirmed to exist by the Twelfth division. However, once we found this limbo, our test results showed that this portal already had been used one time before. By a man whose reiatsu started developing in that very limbo. You with me so far?"

Harry nodded.

"Good boy," continued Yoruichi. "Okay, so when we got out, we ended up in this dark room, okay? There was nothing but some wrecked benches, shattered glass and an old curtain or something of the sort. There was a door, which was locked, but thanks to your wicked old mentor Kisuke here -" Urahara bowed "-that problem was easily solved. Now we were in a hall and we read on the door he had just kicked in that it was from the Ministry of Mysti-something."

Harry's heart began to race. "The Department of Mysteries?"

"That's the one! Okay, now listen, this part of the story is really good. So now we left and somehow, we ended up in a large huge square, underground, and there, in the middle, is a huge big-ass statue of you, my dear Potter-man!"

Urahara popped his head up from behind Yoruichi. "The first thing we did, obviously, was making fun of your large nostrils! It had never occurred to us before, but they really are above average."

"Anyhow," Yoruichi continued, pushing her friend away, "that's when three people came up to us, asking why we were laughing so loud. I told them it was nothing they would understand, but they insisted that they would, because they had been your best of friends! Can you believe that?"

His racing heart now stopped in his tracks. "My friends?"

Urahara nodded. "I believe their names were.. uhm.. something with an L, I'm sure… Lucy…"

"Granger?" Yoruichi helped. "Hermione Granger?"

"That's the one! And the other two were family, I guess. Uhm, a.. B?"

"Weasley," confirmed Yoruichi. "Eustace and Susan."

"Absolutely not," Urahara cut in. "Ron and Ginny?"

"That's exactly it! See how they sound just alike?"

"Not quite."

"Ronald Weasley and his sister, Ginny. My name is Hermione Granger," introduced the woman her and her friends. "Pleased to meet you."

"Shihouin Yoruichi and Urahara Kisuke."

There was an awkward silence, when Ron spoke up. "So, Harry, huh."

"Potter?" Urahara raised his eyebrow. "Yeah, I was wondering. Why the statue? He's not that good, really."

"You're just envious, aren't we, little misunderstood genius?" mocked Yoruichi.

"Am not little!" Urahara folded his arms together. "I was just asking what the deal was of this statue. I mean, what's with that twig in his hand, anyway?"

Hermione frowned. "I can't believe you dare mocking him. Even in this room!"

"Why can't we mock him?" Yoruichi asked. "Come on, even you have to admit that that cloak is so twenty years ago."

"Exactly!" exhaled Ginny. "That's when he first came to Hogwarts."

A light bulb appeared above Urahara's head. "Oh! Hogwarts, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Sirius, Ron, Ginny, Nurgles… it's all coming back to me! Harry told me back at the academy!"

"Academy?" Ron asked. "I've never heard anyone call Hogwarts an academy before…"

"He means the shinigami academy," Yoruichi explained. "So, the twig?"

Ginny frowned. "He mentioned nurgles… he must be serious."

"Yeah, but listen to this, when I spoke to him yesterday, he didn't really seem like a -"

"I told you not to mock him," warned Hermione again. "He's been gone for twenty years. Afterlife contact other than with ghosts is impossible, I've never heard of it before."

"Hold your voice, girl," Yoruichi said. "Harry's been in Soul Society for twenty years. For someone who thinks who is smart, you're not very smart."

Pouting, Hermione decided to wait for the conversation to continue. It was Ginny who first asked the question.

"How is he?"

"Are you serious?" gasped Hermione.

"I believe he's quite fine." Urahara answered amused. "Sometimes a bit hung up on worries about, I guess, you guys. You sais you were his friends?"

"Yeah, we were," said Ron. "But, hang on- does this mean that he's out there? That we can actually see him? Speak with him?"

An indecisive nod from Urahara. "The moment we finish our experiment on interworld traveling -" ("Goodness me") "-we will see if we can make it for non-spiritual beings-" ("You cannot be serious.") "-and so transport someone from your world -" ("Please don't say it…") "-into our world."

"..I can't believe you did say it," Hermione snarled. "Listen, I do not know why the psychiatry ward of St. Mungo's let you go, but-"

"Who are you calling crazy here, woman?" bit Yoruichi. "Watch what you say."

"How about you be quiet now, Hermione?" suggested Ron, patting her on the shoulder. "Let the open-minded people talk out of the box, now."

Hermione made an angered noise and threw her hands up in the air. She spun around and went to sit on a bench near the statue. She diverted her eyes from the group, her arms folded.

"Well, now that we know our experiment works at least one way, I think we need to focus on the other way around. I guess we'll see you later!" grinned Urahara. He reached out for his green bracelet.

"No, wait!" was the last scream of desperation (for answers, they bet) from Hermione that they heard.

For a moment, Harry was completely taken aback from their story. "They were okay? Did they mention anything about a Luna, or Neville, or perhaps anything about ~"

"THAT is what you get from the story?" sighed Urahara in exasperation. "These bracelets kick ass, if I may say so myself, and they are going to safe your world, Potter!"

"How exactly?" continued Harry, irritated.

"Because your Voldydude is the key to releasing your precious Rukia-san."

"Wha- how?"

"Well, you see," started Urahara, sounding a lot more serious now. He closed his fan and put it on his lap, his hands in fists. "I bet you do remember that untraceable gigai I created years ago. Then you must also remember the hougyouku I showed you. It seemed that it was quite the wrong invention… you see, it breaks down the limits of either shinigami or hollows.

"It so means, that those powers can blend together in an individual, creating some sort of ultra-warrior. After some experimenting with it, after which we were banished, don't ask, it turned out that it created uncontrollable monsters.

"To get rid of it, I had to think of a way of suppressing it's powers. So I hid it in the gigai, which I happily handed over to, I am ashamed to say, Kuchiki Rukia, when she needed one the most.

"Now the next problem was, that Rukia-san's power had thus far diminished that it would no longer stop the hougyouku from seeking power. She could hold it off for a bit, but we needed something much more stronger.

"We tried some more things, like putting it into a hollow, which did not work; after being slaughtered, the orb would just fall down and wait for the next victim to appear. Same thing with plusses; the moment konsho was performed, the hougyouku left it's surroundings.

"This made me think: what if the hougyouku was to be put into something unfamiliar to him? That's when you gave me the next brilliant idea we're still trying to pull off: your magic powers. We know that you don't have any left of it; it was transferred into reiatsu in that limbo that brought Yoruichi-san and myself into your magic world. Putting it into one of your friends came to mind, but I knew that that would be useless.

"Which brings me to the conclusion of this ramble: we need that Voldotwarttle to accept it. But for it to happen, we need him here; the only place where the hougyouku thinks it can go it's own way because of all the spirit particles. The greatness of Dickaduddle's strength and combined powers from all kinds of sources will destroy the orb. Not just that; we think the hougyouku will destroy it's surroundings with him. That will not only safe our world, but yours, too."

The shelter was dark, and the only light there came from cracks in the walls. The heavy atmosphere was now almost killing, when Harry's mind fit the pieces together. That's what he's been noticing all this time. That odd reiatsu popping up on the weirdest of occasions, randomly anywhere he went. That's why it was so much stronger in the material world; Voldemort must've been close back then. That's why Urahara was banished and that is why Rukia's reports turned out to be so vague.

"You SON OF A BITCH!" Harry screamed, throwing himself upon his old mentor. "How dare you do that to Rukia? How DARE you involve Voldemort in all this? I felt his presence and you never warned me for him?"

"Wait, wait, wait wait," said Urahara, quick to defend himself. "All I want is to return the hougyouku and destroy it. Whatever happens to Rukia-san is up to you."

"You are luring Voldemort into this place," bellowed Harry. "Do you have ANY idea what consequences it could bring?"

"None!" replied Urahara happily. "He'll die before he could do anything!"

"He can't die here, you git!"

In silence, Yoruichi has been observing that what was going on in front of her. Only seconds after Harry's outburst, she stood up and placed a hand on her hip. "I think there's more, Kisuke."

"Hmmm?" asked he, struggling out from under Harry's pressure in wrestling.

"While experimenting, we never detected anything. How could he have?" she nodded her head towards Harry. "I don't think he's a normal soul… Or is he?"

"No," Urahara agreed. "I don't think he's a normal soul after all…"

Harry wiped the dust off his sleeves and looked up to the two in front of him.

And suddenly, he felt a shiver going down his spine.