~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 9~
*Genrou's POV*
It was Halloween, and Hogwarts was busting out the decorations for a huge feast. Celebrating Halloween must be a big thing for a magic school.
When Hogwarts has a feast, they mean business! I thought that the meal at the Sorting Ceremony had been huge, but this…! There were so many different varieties of pumpkin-flavored food that they could have been made a good-sized feast on their own. There was pumpkin juice, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pudding, pumpkin pie, and so much more. There was tons of other non-pumpkin foods, too.
My friends all looked like they were enjoying themselves. Miaka looked as if she was in heaven as she ate from a very loaded plate. In between scarfing, she would look in awe at the lit jack-o-lanterns that had replaced the usual candles. The entire Great Hall was decorated in orange with some black here and there, and a happy mood seemed to have descended on everyone at once.
There was even some people moving between the different Houses' tables and talking to friends. Usually, other kids discouraged their friends from mingling between Houses, but tonight, no one seemed to care too much. I wasn't too happy myself when Juan started to hang out with Koutoku and Shunkaku, but they spent as much time at the Gryffindor table as they did at the Seiryuu table. Actually, they were probably at the Gryffindor table more often because Slytherins looked down on most Muggle-born wizards. Koutoku and Shunkaku were half-and-half, so the others didn't bother them too much.
Koutoku's not such a bad person. He's kind towards everyone, no matter what. He would've made a good Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor, or even a Ravenclaw. I think that he's only in Slytherin for his brother – though I have no idea how he arranged that with the Sorting Hat. For me, it was: I put the Sorting Hat on my head, and it told me to go to Gryffindor. Simple.
Though Koutoku and Shunkaku are twins, they are radically different. Where Koutoku is calm, Shunkaku is angry. They do get along very well, but that's partly because Shunkaku has a streak of loyalty in him. When he considers someone his friend, he'll do anything for him or her – which is a trait I normally respect, but he takes is way too far. Does he even have a mind of his own when it comes to people he adores?
My brother is strange, too. I watched as Kouji piled a strange-looking wasabi on a piece of sushi. Whatever was in the center of the sushi, I had a feeling that it wasn't fish. When the thing was coated with the spicy sauce, he plunked it in his mouth with his chopsticks. Gleefully, he chewed and swallowed it before going on to prepare a second one.
He held one wasabi-covered sushi in my direction with his chopsticks. "You should really try this, Genrou! It's great!"
I looked at it dubiously. "You've gotta be kidding me." Was that orange sauce even real wasabi?
Miaka bounced in her seat. "I'll take one, Kouji-kun!" she said happily. Kouji plopped one down on her plate, and she quickly ate it. I'm not going to be outdone by a girl! Grimly, I also grabbed one of the strange sushi and bit into it.
The taste was unbelievably good! As I finished the first bit off, I realized that it was pumpkin-flavored imitation wasabi with pumpkin sushi. It was great! I grabbed another while observing Miaka's reaction.
Her color turned pink and slowly went red. Her mouth was gasping because of the intense heat of the wasabi. "HOT!" she finally shouted, and then she dove for her pumpkin juice.
I shrugged and continued to eat. Spicy food is my favorite type of food.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a red flash of light crossed my vision. Then I no longer saw the great hall. Instead, I saw a gigantic fire. I felt like I was standing in it, but it did not burn. A might firebird rose into the sky…
A blink later, and I was back in the Great Hall. The vision was gone.
Kouji was staring at me with a dumbstruck look. "Were you…?"
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. That vision had probably just been my overactive imagination. "What?" I asked absently.
He continued to stare at me. "I could've sworn… Ah, never mind. It was probably just me." He still looked slightly dazed, but I just shrugged. It was most likely something completely unimportant. Though…that vision… It had certainly been strange, especially if it was just my imagination.
*Tama's POV*
A flash of blue and red together, and then the two eggs were gleaming in front of me. The pets had gathered again on All Hallow's Eve to receive the earthly incarnations of Seiryuu and Suzaku. None of us had expected them to be that young, but I quickly thought up a plan. A satisfied smile curled my lips as a purr came from deep within me. The warm contentment that the eggs emitted just had that effect on everyone.
"We did it," another pet muttered tiredly. It had taken a lot of channeled strength to bring the incarnations into this realm. It might have been Sanomi, Karasu's new silver tabby, who had murmured that. I really couldn't tell.
One of the other pets called out, "What're we going to do with the eggs now? I wouldn't trust some of the humans around them until they've at least hatched."
"Two owls should carry them to the Owlery. They have some nests there, and they can be hidden in the owl roost until Christmas. They'll be about ready to hatch then, and so we can give them to our humans," I replied.
The owls agreed tiredly. Two picked up the sapphire egg and two picked up the ruby egg, and then they flew off.
Remembering something, I called out, "Make sure that you humans stay at school over their holidays!" Pets meowed or hooted in agreement as they left the clearing. With a flirt of my tail, I also vanished into the night.
*Koutoku's POV*
Something had happened. There had been a flash of blue, and then…then I saw something. Had it really been a blue dragon that I had seen diving from thunderclouds into a lake? Why would I see such a thing in the middle of a feast? For when the dragon hit the water, I was jolted back into reality, which was the Halloween feast.
I had been in the middle of a discussion on Potions with Juan and Doukun. Shunkaku had gone back to the Seiryuu table out of boredom a few minutes ago. My two friends also looked shocked, but they were the only others I saw with that expression on their face.
"Was that a phoenix?" Doukun wondered aloud. "In a fire?" Juan shrugged and nodded at the same time, but I shook my head.
"I saw a dragon in a lake, not a phoenix in a fire," I contested.
"But we all saw something?" he demanded to know. "We're not going crazy?"
Juan shook his head. "I doubt that we're going insane if we all saw something at the same time. Even if it was something different, the chances of that point to magic, not insanity."
I considered this. If it had been magic, it could have been just a harmless prank, or it could be a portent or an omen. "What should we do about it?" I asked Juan.
"I don't know," he replied. "Perhaps we shouldn't do anything."
Doukun spoke, sounding unusually fatalistic. "I don't think that there's anything we can do."
That was a depressing bit of food for thought. What if he was right? But we slowly relaxed, and the subject of Potions came up again. There was going to be a big test the next week, and Juan wasn't sure if he had the formula memorized yet.
********
I could practically see a sadistic gleam in Professor Snape's eyes when he approached Juan's table. Houjun was currently stirring the potion with his wand after he and Juan had both put in the ingredients. Snape rested one hand on their desk, and then he said, "Mr. Myou needs to take a turn stirring now." His tone brooked no argument, and the look on his face suggested that trying to disagree would make them lose points for Gryffindor.
Snape is sometimes too mean to the other Houses. He tends to discriminate against them, Gryffindors especially, but he doesn't do anything bad to Slytherin at all. The only reason that we earn a lot of points is because of him, really.
Juan looked between his want, the potion, and Professor Snape. I knew that he was good with all parts of making potions except for the stirring. Every time, his wand did something strange. I remember that it had made one potion – a potion that should have been for protecting trees from magical and nonmagical pests – into a very strong form of whiskey. Snape had nearly burst when he saw it, especially when he identified what it was.
Of course, Genrou had said something along the lines of, "Hey, Juan, can ya make that potion for me and Kouji?" with a playful grin. He's strange, but brave, I have to admit. Only a brave or a stupid person would backtalk to Snape as much as he does, and I don't think that he's the second one.
Now Juan was reluctantly holding his wand and stirring the potion. The whole class watched with their breath held, waiting to see what would happen this time. Not a few of the other Slytherins were wondering gleefully how many points Snape would take away from Gryffindor.
Nothing happened. The potion stayed a pale white and slowly became smoother and thicker, like it was supposed to.
Professor Snape looked puzzled for a second, but then he – almost – smiled. It was more like an almost-smirk. "It seems like you finally did something right, Mr. Myou. Now you get to test it out."
It was a lose-lose situation. If something were wrong with the potion, Juan would find out the hard way. If it were made correctly, he wouldn't have time to find out. The potion was a sleeping draught for people with insomnia or narcolepsy. He looked again between the potion and Professor Snape, and he stopped stirring. Then he grabbed a beaker, dipped it carefully into the potion, and drank a small amount. He carefully put down the beaker and sat down on the floor before he fell asleep.
I wonder why he finally made a potion correctly? He's never done it before. I'm glad that he finally succeeded after trying so hard.
********
"I can't believe that Juan kid actually made a potion correctly today," Chuin commented disdainfully as we – the Slytherins – sat around our House's common room. Chuin was not too nice towards most people; I'm not quite sure why, but he's the type that 'hates the world.' The only possible exception to that is his cat, Woden.
I tried not to pay attention to them insulting my friends. I wasn't exactly comfortable around my year group in Slytherin, but beggars can't be choosers. I'm just glad that the Sorting Hat let me stay with my brother. He's slightly hotheaded, but he's actually a very nice person. We don't fight that much at all.
Shunkaku is also much more outspoken than I am. "Don't insult Aniki's friends!" he said sharply toward Chuin. It's kind of funny that he refers to me as 'Aniki,' or 'older brother,' even when we're speaking English. It must be habitual.
At first, I wondered why more people didn't drink the potion that we did to learn English. It turned out that it was usually rather expensive, and it had to be made on the home soil of the language that the potion included. On top of that, it had to be drunk within five minutes of being made, and it had to be drunk in the same country it was made in, too. Potion-learned languages also did not stick in a person's mind unless they spent at least eight months of the next year in the country where the language was made. Overall, it was very inconvenient, and hardly that useful for most tourists.
"I can insult whoever I want to!" They exchanged glares.
I noticed with amusement that Chuin and Shunkaku looked about ready to get into a fight. Sometimes Chuin won, sometimes Shunkaku won; it depended on how desperately the former wanted to preserve his looks, and how angry my brother was. "Calm down. Professor Snape will take points off you if you two fight again," I pointed out. He might favor the Slytherins in Potions and around the school in general, but he didn't tolerate breaking the rules in the dormitories or the common room. Too many Slytherins would misbehave horribly if he weren't slightly strict. That's one thing about Snape: he knows how to get his House to respect him. It's like McGonagall with the Gryffindors.
Reluctantly, my brother and Chuin settled back down. They knew that they'd regret breaking the rules if they did again. The last time, they had both lost a point for Slytherin and had spent an hour cleaning suits of armor in one passageway.
The others were smiling or rolling their eyes at the usual conflict between the two. Ayuru, as usual, looked superior to all; Yui and Kaen began to giggle, and Karasu simply stared at them like they were idiots. He has that attitude towards most people. Kiba was just studying and didn't pay attention to any of it. He was not very good in any of his classes, so he had to study for them almost as hard as Juan usually studied Potions.
It's a strange little 'group' we have, I suppose, but we usually get along well. Sometimes, conflicts come up, usually between Chuin and Shunkaku or Chuin and Kaen, but usually it's okay. After the Halloween party had ended, we found out that we all had had the same vision of the blue dragon. If it had just been my brother and I, then I wouldn't have been surprised. We often share dreams and thoughts, and sometimes even pain. This was something different.
I was broken out of my thoughts by Kiba asking for someone to help him study Herbology. "Sure, I'll help," I volunteered. Mentally shaking my head, I pushed the thought about the strange dream back. I could reflect on it another time, but right now I had to help my friend. At least, I think he's my friend. In Slytherin, it's sometimes hard to tell.
Chibigreen's Notes: I needed to get Genrou's POV in, yet fans were clamoring for a Seiryuu – I hope that I merged it well enough! ^___^ And… this story was pretty easy to write. My muses were well fed on all of the reviews. Speaking of which:
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! ALL OF THE REVIEWERS HAVE HELPED ME BREAK 100!!! ^________________^ Happyhappyhappyhappy! *takes deep breath* Happyhappyhappyhappy-
Rime: Shut up and reply to the reviews. *can't stand the happiness*
Chibigreen: Oh, all right… ^___^
Kryssa – Don't worry; the Seiryuu won't all be evil because I love having sadistic good guys! ^___^ Also, some (like Amiboshi) aren't evil at all.
TA Maxwell – Yep, Amiboshi is definitely a nice guy!
Anonymous – Sorry, Kaen already has a pet, you know?
shadow priestess – I know the feeling about getting jealous about reviews. And you want your fox identity to snuggle up to Chichiri, huh? *idea!* MWAHAHA- Ahem.
angel-miaka – Harry Potter won't be in this fic because this happens way before he knew he was a wizard. It wouldn't fit into my plot at all. It'd be fun to do…but no. (Ron Weasley is a possibility, though.) And you did the 100th review! Congrats. ^___^
Skipsida – I agree that Sanomi deserves a medal for volunteering to be Miboshi's pet. And…I got glomped? (Well, that's a first…) Sugar can be dangerous.
Flying heart – Sorry, but I don't have room for any more pets…unless you want to be Ashitare's owl or mouse (I'm not going to give him a cat). And thanks for adding me to your favorite authors list! *goes starry eyed*
PrincessKitty-Chan – You're obviously being your normal, hyper self. And yes, Mitsukake can talk to cats. I decided it fit his character.
ember-fang – You're on the update list for this now. ^___^
SilvaraWilde – Amiboshi is my favorite Seiryuu, too. *V-sign*
Draconsis – So many people wanted a Seiryuu this chapter… I was surprised!
Keimei – I'm glad that the irony was appreciated. ^___^ And Taka and Genrou are going to have a whole lot more fights in the future, especially now that they've invented nicknames for each other.
Sansele – I make sure that the insertions don't bog down the plot because they're just a little thing I did for fun. It was basically a choice of making up my own names for pets or having people make up the names for me. Anyway, insertions are always interesting.
Saihitei no Miko a.k.a. Sanomi – Sure, Sanomi-neko can be stuck-up and smart… I might not mention the pets often, but when I do, I'll put in something about that.
Today's recommendations: Bridge Over the Abyss by roku kyu. It's a prequel to her White Stones in the Moonlight. Considering that White Stones pushes a Tasuki/Miaka pairing, I wonder why I like it so much. It has to be good if I ignore my hatred of Tasuki/Miaka pairings just to read it. And Bridge focuses on Chichiri. That's always a good thing.
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Which Seiryuu seishi do you want to narrate next chapter? I was thinking of using Chuin…