Warnings, disclaimers, you know the drill.

A/N's -

aniki: elder brother, more formal and respectful than the "(o)niisan" Yukina's been using throughout the ruse

imouto: younger sister.

Unreliable narrators for the win. Sigh.

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Ch. 21 - Visitations

Hiei woke feeling like something very small had flayed through every centimeter of his veins. He choked on an instinctive gasp, his head flooding with the scents of stale blood, fresh potions, and way too many people.

The hospital, then. With (greenery, frost, the seared-ozone tang of gold ki) Kurama, Yukina, and the damned oaf.

A soft sound made him crack open his eyes. White blur, blue blur, red blur... he blinked, and the world resolved into Kurama, fast asleep in the next bed over and looking ashen and worn enough that he'd obviously done something extremely stupid. Hiei frowned and rolled his head, finding Yukina hovering over him on the opposite side of the bed, with Kuwabara standing behind her. She was clutching at the collar of her striped pajamas with one hand, apprehension etched deep into her face. "A...aniki?"

And with that, Hiei knew she'd figured it out. He flinched, but nothing seared through his skull (again, the notion ghosted across his mind and was gone). No curse. That goddamned lying cheat Shigure... there was supposed to be a curse.

His sister looked like she wanted to cry.

Dammit.

"Yukina," Hiei acknowledged, the air like sandpaper in his throat.

Her expression cracked. Then, with a wordless cry, she flung her arms around his neck, collapsing against his chest. "I thought you were dead!"

... what?

Hiei's eyes snapped up to the idiot witnessing this. Kuwabara turned away, snorting a poorly-concealed laugh into his hand, and Hiei instantly schooled his expression to glare daggers at the man. "I hurt too much to be dead," he grumbled.

That got an even less-concealed laugh, this time with Kuwabara meeting his gaze with too-bright eyes, and a thump on his shoulder from Yukina's fist. Then she pushed herself up a few centimeters, hair falling loose around her wobbly smile and tickling at his throat. "That's not funny," she told him. Her fingers curled more tightly in his collar, anchoring him in place... not that Hiei thought he could move.

"Wasn't meant to be." Even if Kuwabara was laughing at something, holding most of it in so hard tears were streaming down his face. Humans were so weird. "What happened?"

Yukina stilled, her expression shifting. "The Jagan," she replied, soft and almost hesitant. "It... it had a curse..." She paused, barely long enough for Hiei to think There was?, before she rushed on. "There was a sort of shapeshifter in the corridor, an animal that mimics people's fears, they said. When I realized Rui-san was taken from your memories..."

Rui. The dizzying rush when the ground had dropped out from under him, the heartstoppingly cold roar of wind so like his fall from the island... something tattered and shadowy black, screams tearing his ears and throat...

Of course Yukina would've known. "The curse went off," Hiei finished.

She nodded, and let her eyes drop to the place where she gripped Hiei's pajama top. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Ice lumped in Hiei's chest, not from Yukina's power but the sheer wrongness of hearing that. Hiei stared, speechless. She... couldn't possibly think... but that was ridiculous!

Slowly, Yukina seemed to diminish under Hiei's eyes. "I... see," she murmured. Slim fingers slid free of Hiei's pajama top. "I'll just..." Her voice trailed off, as she cringed away.

Hiei's hand snapped over Yukina's wrist, the soft slap like a thunderclap in the silence. Red eyes shot to meet Hiei's, wide with shock.

"I..." Hiei had no idea what to say. But there had to be something, as instinctive as catching Yukina had been. "... I was eight years too late."

Her eyes gentled, still pained. "I can't blame you for that," she whispered.

Hiei waited. He couldn't think of anything else to say... but he could see the moment she understood what he'd meant, a light flickering on in her eyes with the realization that he couldn't blame her either.

Yukina's free hand curved over Hiei's. "Oniisan..."

Just this once. Just in case the curse was biding its time. Hiei loosened his grip, curling fingers around Yukina's. "Hey, imouto."

A few seconds later, he was still alive, and Yukina's smile broke out like the sun from behind winter clouds: weak, tremulous, but bright.

They spent the next few hours talking quietly. For all that she knew as much about Hiei as most of the other Tantei, Yukina still had plenty of questions to fill the time. And the idiot, surprisingly enough, had retreated to stand guard from behind the privacy curtain. It couldn't keep him from hearing them, obviously, but it was... polite.

Only the fact that it was Kuwabara, who was too stupid with his 'honor' crap, let Hiei relax enough to pretend he wasn't waiting for a knife in the back. Which, in turn, kept Yukina relaxed and happy... until sometime shortly after noon, when their conversation was interrupted by Kuwabara rapping sharply on the back of his chair.

"Visitor," the boy called, before peering around the privacy curtain. His mouth was twisted in a lopsided grimace of a smile, one that was obviously taking a lot of effort to not be a smirk. "You up for seeing anybody?"

Lie and say he wasn't, just to see the look on the idiot's face, or play into Kuwabara's challenge? No contest, even if Kuwabara wasn't deranged enough to have questioned Hiei's strength so subtly on purpose.

Hiei inhaled carefully, picking out the scent of dragonskin and human male. Nobody he knew off the top of his head... there weren't a lot of strangers who would visit, though. "Let him in."

Kuwabara pushed the curtain aside, letting the man pass.

Way too much leather to fight for long in, Hiei noted first, then the holstered wand, red hair, and professionally pleasant expression. Not a doctor, unless wizarding Britain had weirder customs than Japanese humans with their 'scrubs' and 'lab coats'. That left... ah.

"Cursebreaker," Hiei muttered. Ron had mentioned the job, and the man had red hair. "Weasley."

The man grinned, sketching a weirdly European bow. "Bill Weasley, at your service."

If the man was anything like his brothers, the worst Hiei had to beware of was bad jokes... and a savior complex. He faked relaxing back into the sagging mattress, letting a smirk tug at his mouth. "The hero of the day, hm?"

He got a sharp, suspicious look from Kuwabara, but Bill only nodded cheerfully. "Yup."

"I hate heroes."

Bill blinked. Then his smile took on a hard edge. "Boy, are you in the wrong House." This time, Hiei blinked, as Bill bounced right back to professional cheer. "Anyway, no time to beat around the bush, I'm afraid. I'm on my lunch break."

Kuwabara frowned. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

Because you aren't a completely hopeless moron, Hiei thought.

"Because," Bill began, echoing Hiei's thought, "he owes me his life." Hiei cursed mentally as Bill's attention turned back to him. Almost apologetically, the man said, "I'm going to have to request payment."

Dammit. He knew way too much about how this worked. "I take it back," Hiei grumbled. "I like heroes. They're stupid enough to save people for free."

Bill choked on a laugh. "I like you," he said over Kuwabara's indignant yelp. "So the bad news is, between impressive job qualifications, distant and lonely postings, and hazard pay, Gringotts pays its cursebreakers ridiculously large amounts of money. I'm not interested in gold."

"No," Hiei snapped, glaring daggers at Bill. Whatever it was, favors instead of money... no.

Yukina laid gentle fingertips on top of his wrist. "Hiei-niisan, let's hear him out."

Unfazed, Bill waited.

Dammit. Hiei couldn't refuse Yukina anything. After a long moment, he gave one curt, miniscle nod.

Bill continued, "What I am interested in is shutting the twins up." His smile twisted ruefully. "They haven't quit bemoaning the loss of some kitsune's hair for the past six months."

Rage flared fire through Hiei's veins.

Nobody. Touched. Kurama.

But vaguely, he could hear Bill finish, "So I'd like one strand of yours, please."

And just like that, the fire cut out, the edges of Hiei's vision clearing. One strand of... his? "What?" Hiei croaked.

"I wouldn't ask for Miss Koorime's," Bill inclined his head kindly at Yukina, seemingly unaware of his close call. "The color's too distinctive, as is Mr. Minamino's. Besides, I haven't yet figured out what he is, and I'd rather the twins have identified ingredients. If you'll pardon the term." Then Bill's grin went conspiratorial. "I figure, if you agree, that I can make a deal with the twins: I find one demon hair or similar on my next business trip somewhere exotic, and they leave off about the one they lost. Then I'd hide the hair in my vault until after that trip, so they couldn't guess it was you."

Hiei stared. The man was crazy.

"Which means," Bill pointed out, "that I'd trick the twins, which is always funny, by giving them something they could've had in abundance if they'd just raided your hairbrush last year."

Ah. There was the real motive. "So it's revenge," Hiei stated.

"Sure." Bill shrugged. "Why not?"

Hiei studied Bill for a long moment, then cursed and looked away. I'm going to get myself killed one of these days, he thought viciously even as he raised a hand to his head, tugging his fingers through the coarse spikes. His hair hadn't been brushed for too long; a number of shed hairs tangled freely around his fingers, dark and wiry against the loose weave of his bandages.

Thick fingers started to clench reflexively into a fist, but Hiei forced them open and jabbed his hand brusquely out at the man grinning like a first-year at Christmas. "One," he warned, not trusting that bright smile.

Bill delicately pulled a single hair from the tangle, and folded it into a handkerchief he took from his pocket. "Thank you," he said, bowing deeply.

"Go away," Hiei said. He was tired, but he wasn't going to fall asleep with a curse-breaker who wanted his hair still in the room.

Bill left.

-0-0-0

"But I need to see him!"

Harry turned the corner in time to see Yuusuke, leaning easily against the Infirmary doors, uncross his arms, hands shoving in his pockets. "Sorry," the boy said, just sympathetic enough to keep his expression neutral. "It's still family only."

Hermione's face fell. "But... they said he's awake." And okay, her tone added, the words left unspoken.

"Just 'cause he's awake doesn't mean he should be," Yuusuke answered. He paused, then hastily went on, "He's out of the woods and gonna be okay, yeah, but he's gotta get some rest. Which," he grumbled, "he won't with people tromping in and out of the room all the time. Even Madam Pomfrey... even I'm stayin' out til they've got a private room set up."

Harry could buy that. Hiei was paranoid enough to have protections on his bed when he was in perfect health; he had to be scared almost out of his mind to be this sick. Walking closer, Harry raised a hand to Yuusuke when he got in range enough to be polite. "Come on--"

She almost jumped out of her skin. "Harry!" she yelped, spinning.

"Sorry." Harry caught Yuusuke's grateful half-smile over Hermione's shoulder. "But it can't be that important, can it?"

"Well..." she hedged. "I just had a question about my tutoring..."

Harry stifled a groan. "Merlin, Hermione!" Figured. It just figured. He hooked his hand around her elbow and tugged. "Let's get you out of here before somebody with a lot less patience than Yuusuke hexes you or something."

"But you don't understand..."

Harry cast a quick glance back at a poleaxed Yuusuke, nodded a goodbye, and pulled Hermione off in a random direction. Once out of sight, he met her slightly wild eyes. "How long have you been winding yourself up about this?"

"Er..."

Translated, that meant 'too long'. "Right. You can't, I dunno, study for NEWTs or something?"

"I do."

"Trancewriting?"

"I'm up to eight pages."

"Extra credit?"

"They won't give me any more."

"... There's this thing called 'sleeping'. I hear it's rather popular. You might want to try it."

Hermione poked him, getting the ticklish spot under Harry's ribs, and Harry flinched away with a laugh. "I do sleep!" she protested.

"For how many hours a night?" Harry asked, still grinning.

"More than you were getting last year," she retorted. Then, she paused. "How are you sleeping?" she asked.

Harry sobered. "The visions are getting weird," he told her frankly, remembering how it had started like a real dream.

Hermione frowned. "Weird how?"

So he told her. How the dream had started deep in the lake, with books swimming and turning into gillyweed in his hands... how the lake's water ebbed to a clinging, blue-green fog, how the mist guided his hand to the silver-framed paintings and stabbed viciously at the oblivious images... how Voldemort's voice, fuzzing in and out like a poorly-tuned radio, ordered someone to 'take the three first' and that he 'didn't care about about the Muggles'...

Throughout his explanation, Hermione's frown deepened, brow furrowing while interest flared ever-higher in her eyes. "Harry... it sounds like there's something going very, very wrong here."

Well, yeah. "How so?" Harry prompted.

"I'm not sure. It's only... well, they've been so true-to-life that they've been good intelligence," Hermione explained. "Which is probably why everybody's let it alone for so long. But now..."

She didn't have to finish the thought. Harry got the idea.

Her gaze flickered around the corridor they were in, landing on a statue of Boris the Bewildered, then her head snapped around unerringly to a junction they'd just passed. "We need to study visions."

Harry blinked once. Twice. "I thought you hated Divination."

"Not Divination," Hermione said witheringly. "There has to be something serious about magical links." Harry jolted, and she rolled her eyes. "Don't look at me like that, Harry, it's obvious you have one with him. Anyway, we need to find some real books on how visions between wizards work. You can't be the first wizard stuck to another's mind."

The fleeting image of himself, with a tiny, struggling, upside-down Voldemort glued to the top of his head like some sort of hideous hat, popped up for just a moment before Harry managed to banish it... mostly by dint of realizing where Hermione's focus was aimed.

Oh Merlin no. "Can't you try that trancewriting thing?" he asked, pretending it hadn't come out as a whine.

She gave him a look familiar from years of last-minute scrambles to do homework. "Honestly, Harry! Do you have any idea what I'd get looking for 'visions'? Fifteen hundred pages of everything from eyesight charms to Muggle religion." She shook her head firmly, a poorly-hidden smile tugging at her mouth. "No, we're going to do this the right way."

Harry groaned. "To the library?"

"To the library!"

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TBC

A/N's -

Jo: What the heck happened to your deferential reverence towards demons?
Bill: It figured out that this one can't attack, the other hair-trigger guy is crashed, the girl's a Hufflepuff and will at least give me fair warning, and all three of them owe me his life. So it went on vacation to Tahiti.

Jo: No wonder your mother fears for all your lives.

Also:

Yuusuke: I have patience? ... I thought I was just that bad at hexes that I didn't want to try to Silence her. Patience. Man, my reputation is ruined.