~Tears of a Phoenix~
A Fushigi Yuugi/Harry Potter Crossover
DISCLAIMER: Rowling-sama owns Harry Potter and Watase-sama owns Fushigi Yuugi. Chibigreen only owns a homemade Chichiri plushie. *glomps plushie*
~Chapter 8~
*Juan's POV*
Why did Tama run into the Forbidden Forest? I know that he's a very smart cat, so I know that he must have had some reason. I became even more suspicious when I discovered that all of the other pets had gone out, too.
Tama is smarter than I thought if he knows how to open doors and get through the portrait holes. Maybe Doukun was right about him not being normal…
In any case, I knew that I had to go out and find my cat. Saihitei had suggested using his owl to find the other pets, but the owl that belonged to him was also gone. So were the other owls that belonged to my friends. Whatever was happening, it was very strange. Then again, random things happened at Hogwarts all of the time. I think that magic has never been fully controlled by wizards or witches.
I put my mind back onto the disappearance of the pets. It was the reason why I was outside right now and searching for Tama. With me were Miaka, Genrou, Doukun, Ryuuen, Saihitei, Houjun, and Taka. Somehow, we had been able to sneak outside without our teachers noticing. If we were caught outside, we would be in huge amounts of trouble.
"I'm starting to get a bad feeling," Doukun said quietly as he looked around nervously. "I feel like something's going to happen." I was probably the only that heard or paid attention to him.
Whether it's magical or not, Doukun's hunches are usually right. Once, he had a hunch that Professor Snape was going to give us a pop quiz the next day. He was right. Another time, he had been particularly cheerful before dinner. "I have this feeling that they're going to serve sweet and sour chicken! It's my favorite," he had said to me. At dinner, we had discovered that he was right.
That's why I paid attention to him now. My hand drifted towards my wand. I might not know many spells yet, but surely there's something that I could do when whatever's freaking out Doukun happens. I noticed that Houjun's hand was also going towards his wand; maybe I'm not the only one that heard Doukun.
Genrou tripped on a rock and slammed hard into the dirt. "Crap! That hurt," he complained as he stood back up. Clods of dirt and grass were stuck in his hair, and he began to brush them out rapidly.
"You know, doing that, you look like a squirrel," Taka remarked as he watched his friend continued to get the dirt out.
"Hey!" Obviously, the redhead took offense to that. "I dare ya to say that again! You're like a little ghost: we can hear ya and see ya, but ya got nothing backing up your great big mouth!"
"Fang Face!" Taka shouted at him.
"Little Ghost!" Genrou returned.
The two glared daggers at each other. "Calm down," I said to them. "If someone hears us, we're all going to get in trouble." They didn't look impressed.
They said, "So?" while continuing to glare at each other.
Miaka looked between the two with a slightly nervous but mostly annoyed look in her eyes. "Just think about this: What if it's Professor McGonagall that catches us?" They both gulped at the thought of the formidable teacher getting angry at them. "Or Professor Snape?" Taka and Genrou's faces were an identical pale shade. I could understand why; Professor Snape would be happy to take away all of the points that our House had. The two turned away from each other and pretended that a fight with the other wasn't worth it to them. My friends are all such unusual people. Then again, in a world where magic is real, is anything normal?
"Well, no da," Houjun said with a grin, "we should continue, na no da. Nice job, Miaka," he added in a softer voice. "We don't need them fighting, especially not now." She grinned and made a victory sign.
We began to walk again, but Taka didn't watch where he was going because of his little verbal fight with Genrou. That's why he stepped on something that he shouldn't have. He only felt it slightly, looking down at his foot with a puzzled expression as he felt the ground sinking. "What…?"
When someone says, "What…?" that way in a story, usually something bad happens. When someone says, "What…?" that way at Hogwarts, usually something very strange happens. I thought of that in the split second between Taka's "What…?" and the ground falling beneath our feet.
We didn't scream or have time to scream because of falling; we only fell a few inches. Then something welled up from the ground and coated our shoes with a slimy, yellow-green substance. A pool of the gunk formed around us. It had a vaguely shiny look to it that reminded me of a wet frog. Cautiously, I tried to take a step out of the pool… and then I could not stay still.
"WHOOOOAAAAA!" I'm usually a very quiet person. I don't speak unless I want to, most of the time, but it's really hard to keep quiet when you can't stop slipping. 'W-WHOOOAAAA!!!" The potion – which the yellow stuff must have been – created a smooth coating between itself and everything else. It was like skating on the smoothest ice of all time, but on this ice I had no way to stop. I slipped, I slid, but somehow I stayed upright as I skidded right towards the Forbidden Forest.
I wonder how much it hurts to hit a tree going around twenty miles per hour. I don't want to find out.
I could hear my friends try to come after me, but of course the potion has reduced the friction on their boots, too. When they got out, they all began to slide, and that meant eight people were going uncontrollably towards the Forbidden Forest, where'd we hit the trees at such a speed that even Madame Pomfrey would have a hard time patching us together again.
"Sit down no da!" Houjun shouted suddenly. "Just do it!" He sounded so commanding that everyone did as he said right away. It was hard to make myself lose my balance. I knew that the ground hurt much less than a tree would have, but it still wasn't pleasant when I hit it.
"&@%$, that hurt!" was a certain redhead's comment. I had to agree with his exclamation.
"What does &@%$ mean?" the most intelligent of my friends asked. I sweatdropped. Doukun's a genius, but he's unbelievably naïve about some things. Did he ever watch TV…?
None of us had time to answer. We heard another set of screams, and soon after eight speeding blurs rammed into us, literally and painfully.
When everyone had sorted themselves out and sat up (standing up was impossible), I was shocked by who had run into me. It was a Slytherin; specifically, it was Koutoku, one of the Slytherin twins. Around us were other Slytherins: Chuin, Kaen, Ayuru, Karasu, Shunkaku, and Yui, Miaka's best friend.
"What are you doing here?" Ayuru asked us coldly. Despite his arrogant attitude, I noticed that his shoes were also covered in the potion.
I replied before any of my more smart-mouthed friends could answer. The traditional Slytherin/Gryffindor rivalry could begin at any time, but it really wasn't needed when we were already breaking the rules. "We're looking for our pets," I said simply.
"Hmm…" Ayuru appeared ruffled at the reply. He lapsed into silence.
Yui was the one to explain that their pets had also run away. There was no doubt in my mind now: the pets were up to something that they didn't want us to know about.
A sudden weight on my shoulder told me that Tama-neko had reappeared. "Where have you been?" I asked him as he worriedly twitched his tail.
"Just meeting with the other pets. They're my friends, and we like to talk about…stuff," he meowed at me. I took that to mean that it wasn't really my business. "When I heard you screaming, I was worried that there was something wrong."
"…" I contemplated over. "How did you get outside?"
"A secret passage here, a hidden staircase there… You know, the usual." He was either being slightly sarcastic or dead serious about it being 'the usual.'
"A hidden staircase is not usual," I informed him as I tried to get up… and promptly fell back on my behind with an 'ouch!' The slippery junk on my shoes was not coming off anytime soon.
I noticed the stares of my friends and the Slytherins. Blinking, Koutoku said, "You…were talking…to a cat?"
"It seems like you shocked them," Tama observed with amusement. "And don't try to get up again with those shoes on – falling jars me horribly. By the way, the other pets are back at the castle now."
"Yes," I replied to Koutoku's question as I removed my shoes. "I can understand cats." It felt like they were boring holes in me with their eyes as I calmly stood up with my shoes in my hand. Changing the subject, I said, "If you take your shoes off, you'll be able to walk properly. Tama says that the other pets are back at the castle."
"Really? Then we should be going, too!" Doukun said cheerfully as he stood with his shoes in his hands. Apparently, he had already thought of the solution to the friction-reducing potion problem.
With some of the Gryffindors and Slytherins casting untrusting glances at each other, it was a relief to slip back inside the castle and part our separate ways. Luckily, no teachers had noticed our absence, and so there was no problem between the two differing groups splitting apart. No one thought anything more of the incident; they were just glad that their pets were back. But Fate has many ways of getting opposites to become allies.
I thought I felt some strange connection with them, but I could not see any reason why. It was like trying to draw in a missing piece of a puzzle without ever having scene it before. I was clueless, like I am at Potions. And about potions…
The library is always a pretty quiet place. Madam Pince makes sure of that, and any disturber of the peace is likely to regret it. She's a very clever witch, at least when it comes to the hidden charms and curses in her books and in her library. I was in there with Doukun and Houjun to research potions and (hopefully) improve my grade just a week after the mysterious pets event.
Dejectedly, I set down the book that explained how to make a potion that would repair skin. "I don't know why it's so confusing. I was great at chemistry in my Muggle school, but Potions just doesn't make sense. It's like the 'Potions' part of my magic has been switched off."
"Maybe it is, no da. At least if you remember the ingredients, your grade won't drop too much, no da. You get down the instructions perfectly, but any potions that requires wand-stirring goes wrong for you, na no da."
Most wizards would not understand exactly what 'chemistry' or the phrase 'switched off' meant, so it said a great deal about Tokyo if even pureblood wizards like Houjun knew what I was talking about. Sometimes Muggle inventions are convenient for wizards, too, I suppose.
"I guess you're right…" I sighed. My Potions grade wasn't too low since I have begun to work hard at memorizing the ingredients and instructions. It'd actually been rising slightly after Houjun had guessed that my magic had something to do with it. Since he was my Potions partner, I just left the stirring to him. The mishaps were growing much less frequent. "It's around dinner time, but I'm going to study. You guys go on down."
"Are you sure? We could wait for you," Doukun offered as he picked up his books, but his stomach growled slightly.
"I'm sure. See you later." I turned back to my books as they left. I really needed to study the skin-repairing potion. We were having a quiz on its preparation tomorrow.
After a few minutes, I realized that I had better get down to dinner, so I went to check out the book. On the way to the desk, I heard a two students whispering.
"Aniki, are you sure that the book's in this aisle?" It was Shunkaku, Koutoku's twin brother. "We can't find it!"
There was a laugh. "Shun-chan, calm down. We'll find it; don't worry. Remember, it's title is Healing Potions Made Easy."
I looked down at the title of the book I had in my hand. Sure enough, I was holding the book that they were looking for. My conscience kicked in.
'They might need the book more than you do… Should you give it to them?' My conscience is very loud. Maybe I should give it to them; I think that I have the potion memorized.
"I still can't find it, Aniki! Where is it?"
"I don't know, Shun-chan," Koutoku said worriedly. "But we need it for the potion to heal Yume. She looks sick, and that book has some great potions for the treatment of owls in it! At least that's what Professor Snape said."
For me, that clinched it. If it was for a pet's sake, I was definitely giving the book to them. Though the Slytherins, as a whole, usually tried to ignore Gryffindors, I didn't have to be cruel back. Slowly I walked towards the aisle where the two Slytherins were.
Koutoku and Shunkaku looked mildly surprised at my arrival. "What're you doing here?" Shunkaku asked with a sneer.
Quietly, I handed the book to Koutoku. "I overheard you talking. I was using it to study, but it sounds like you two need it more."
"Ah… thanks," Koutoku was taken aback. "Um… Why are you being nice to a Slytherin? Aren't you a Gryffindor?"
"Aren't reasonless rivalries idiotic?" I returned. "Besides, I see no reason for an animal to stay sick because of humans being mean to each other."
"Thanks," Shunkaku said grudgingly. He seemed both relieved and disgruntled.
"No problem."
I turned to leave, but Koutoku said, "Wait. It's Juan, right?" I looked back and nodded. "If you ever need help, just ask us."
"The same goes for you." About to turn and leave, I hesitated. "Friends?"
Both nodded and replied as one. "Friends," they said affirmatively. I had a good feeling about this friendship. It was like I had remembered where the missing puzzle piece was and now I was one my way to find it so that I could finally complete the puzzle.
The established competition between Slytherin and Gryffindor was a thing of the past, at least for me, and, hopefully, my new friends. And it was all because of one sick owl. It couldn't be just a coincidence that it was one of the pets at the source of the change, could it?
Chibigreen's Note: Wai! Another chapter done, and this one is Mits' point of view. I was surprised at how many fans were clamoring for him to have a chapter up. But it's nice to know that he's liked. ^___^ I used to be a big Mits fan myself. So, ah, here are the replies to the reviews.
Kryssa, PrincessKitty-Chan, Keimei, and shadow priestess – Thank you for your nice reviews! ^___^
TA Maxwell - I'm glad that some people don't mind the lack of Tas/Chi. But Chiriko may or may not have a problem with Herbology. It's undecided.
Scythe – Sorry, but there won't be Kneazles or Crupps. I know what they are, but I try to keep the pets thing fair by making the pets some type of normal animal. Thanks for the nice comments.
Skipsida – No, Miboshi and Ashitare will not steal pets, and Ashitare will not end up with a cat. ^___^ The idea is amusing…
Draconsis – Genbu and Byakko probably will have a representative at Hogwarts, though it could be a human, pet, or ghost… You, a Byakko pet? …I'll think about it. No promises yet.
Chachiri – A pessimist could come in handy. ^___^
Ryuen – If you like Raistlin from Dragonlance, I can see why Snape's your favorite. Tasslehoff from Dragonlance and Lupin are my favorites. I find Snape and Raistlin…creepy… ^___^;;
Sansele – Hai, I was planning to have Chiriko afraid of flying…slightly. Not much. After all, he is under a winged god.
Saihitei no Miko a.k.a. Sanomi – Yay! Someone volunteered to be Miboshi's pet! ^___^ Happyhappyhappy! Ahem. Don't worry; he won't be too evil.
Flying heart – Mitsukake isn't good at Potions now because I thought that would be a good problem for a doctor to overcome. It's that simple. He'll get better…eventually.
Today's recommendation: Fushigi Yuugi: The Next Chapter by DeeChan.
If you want to be notified by e-mail when this story is updated, leave your e-mail address in a review.