Castle Walls

Chapter Six: Of Fish, Tails, and Shadows.

Note:  Hey! Thanks are in order. You all have surprised us and we have reached the all important hundred review mark. Not only that but we have had a lot of responses for our Be-A-Hogwarts-Student Contest!

Sadly, some of you will not be students of that illustrious institution. You will be folks Gohan meets during the summer! We still need students. Younger students and males are very needed.

Here are the requirements (If you have already submitted ignore the next part.)

1.) A realistic name, no Dark Warrior, Gohan's Lover, Zippo, Japanese names or any pen names. We have to make this sound like it could happen. That means you got to sound at least semi-British or that you were born into an English speaking family.

2.) Personality traits, go ahead be in depth. The more we know the better. This will determine your house and your relationship to Gohan, as well as how big of a role you play later on.

3.) Description of your appearance. Don't be afraid to be the chubby kid or have pimples and braces. No tails, wings, odd colored hair( unless you're a punk rocker or something like that) and general perfection. We all have flaws, embrace them. It makes you more fun.

4.) Your age. This is important, how old you are will determine a lot of things.

5.) Your trust. We need you to trust us, some things need to be done in order to bring this plan into the full glory that is our vision. You may be turned into Gohan's nemesis or a martyr. You may end up getting more glory than you had ever dreamed. You may not start until later years or not even have more than a cameo or not be used at all. We give none of you any promises, we will give none of you special treatment.

Got it? Great! You can put this in your review or put it into my e-mailbox.

Now onto the thanks. Silver Angel, happygohangirl, Golden Cheetah, Nicky, Frying Pan of DOOM ( LOL, did you read Frozenflower's Take Your Father To School Day as well? We love the name!) Rei.K Chaney, Danielia C, Cory, Gohans-Girl, Pyro, Ooshii Kurai, Shinigami Videl, Ashley Lirael, Daniel of Lorien, Kagome Rowena Gryffindor,  and Juno.

By the way, Ms. Gryffindor, we totally understand your problem. However after much deliberation and a lot of looking at other crossovers like this, we decided that Gohan is not a true Gryffindor. In this story he was pulled out of a battle just as he began to believe that he had failed his world and that his father's death was all his fault. He has not had time to totally understand the situation and will not open up to anyone just yet about it so that he can recover mentally. This is a very important factor. As is the fact that in the Cell Games he recalls that in every battle before that he had to be saved by someone else and that people suffered on his account. We know that this view is totally messed up, but he is still a child and hasn't the full maturity to work through this just yet.

Sorry for the long note. Read, review, and give us your profile.

O golden Silence, bid our souls be still,
And on the foolish fretting of our care
Lay thy soft touch of healing unaware!
Silence.

-Julia Caroline Dorr.

As he followed Professor Snape through the crowded streets he heard the sound of hoots, squeaks, and other animal sounds. He turned and saw a shop chock full of all shapes and sizes of creatures that he just knew were not ordinary.

"That is the pet store." Said Snape when he noticed where Gohan's attention was.

"Really? I've never seen one before. I guess they are not really politically correct at home. I would always get followed  home by animals and if I could convince my mom they wouldn't eat more than me and that I could take care of them I would keep them until they grew too big." Said Gohan with a smile. He was recalling all of the secret animals he had raised without his mom's consent, like Icarus, the lavender dragon. He and his father had worked so hard to try to keep the hatchling a secret until they went to go visit the dragon at the secret cave and found Chi Chi feeding Icarus a large fish.

"Why are pet stores not politically correct?" asked Snape, a look of confusion was written plainly upon his face.

"Oh, well our king is a dog or cat or something and a lot of the brightest people are descended from the same ancestors as the animals that we keep as pets. So instead of buying and selling we have shelters where you can go and adopt an animal that likes you. It is kind of like how you would adopt a child there as well. It's not politically correct because our king equates it with slavery and I kind of agree with him. I always have been chosen by my pets not the other way around." Said Gohan with a smile still evident on his face.

"So what kind of pets have you had?" asked the teacher.

"Once I helped raise a baby tiger that my dad found, then I was followed home by a big snake and she had her children in my room until they were old enough to go and live outside. An iguana or something came and lived with me one winter. I raised a lot of baby birds and dinosaurs. I also raised a dragon hatchling until he was old enough to go and find a mate. I did a lot of that behind my mom's back though, she always said I'd turn the house into a halfway house and orphanage for every creature in the world if she would let me. I wonder how Toto is." Said Gohan trailing off.

"Who's Toto?"

"Oh. Toto is this male pterodactyl that my dad hatched when I was a baby and he would take me to play with him when I was little. I haven't seen him since before the androids attacked South City. He was pining over a girl then and wasn't very fun to fly around with then. I wonder if they ever got together."

"It seems that your world and this one are very different. Would you like to go and see the pet shop?" asked Snape. Gohan grinned.

"Yes sir. I would enjoy that a lot. Thank You sir." Said Gohan. Snape sat down at a table at an outdoor café and Gohan set the large pile of books down on a chair then ran off to go and see the pet shop. He ran across the street and into the shop.

"Whoa boy. Slow down there." Said a younger woman behind the counter. He had a large colorful bird on her shoulder and an odd terrier with two tails in her arms.

"Sorry madam. I just want to look around. Is that okay with you?" he asked with a slight bow of his head.

"Yeah sure. Take a look around short stuff." Gohan nodded and gazed around. His eyes fell upon a glass tank with a large white golden fish that seemed to shine with an inner light. He walked over mesmerized. The fish had spiky fins and odd green blue eyes without pupils. It reminded Gohan of his Super Sayajin form. He looked on in wonder as the fish swam lazily back and forth

"Kyoumishinshin." Said Gohan with his awe very evident in his voice.

"Pardon?" asked the shopkeeper who was putting the bird into a large bamboo cage. Gohan blushed.

"I am very sorry. I just said kyoumishinshin, which means very interesting. I was just looking at this fish." Said Gohan.

"Oh, that! That's a very rare fish, it's a Jamaican Sunray Koi. It was bred years ago by Merlin himself and has the ability to move at very fast speeds and blind it's enemies with some kind of inner light. This is on hold for some old witch who runs a zoo over in Kent. This is the only one known to exist still."

"Wow, that is really fascinating." Said Gohan.

"You don't know the half of it. They say that Merlin bred the fish after watching King Arthur in a horrific battle. The king was still young and while he and Merlin were traveling around they were surrounded by an army of demonic warriors sent by the Devil himself to kill Arthur before he could change the world too much.

"Arthur got Merlin to safety then fought the seven thousand warriors who had the strength of twenty men each and other powers akin to Dark Magic that is in use today. It looked like, despite the fact the young king was killing them with very little trouble, that Arthur was going to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and die on that moor. That is until something inside of the king snapped.

"In a flash of golden light and a loud cry, the king was replaced by an angel of war and almost as quickly the army was massacred and the angel was gone as quick as he came and replaced by an exhausted Arthur. Merlin saw the entire thing and was amazed. Many years later in tribute to the battle he started to breed the Sunray."

Gohan was speechless. He knew what had happened. But how could a human hundreds of years ago go Super? It made absolutely no sense at all. Sayajin don't exist here do they? So many questions floated in his mind but he couldn't ask the shop keeper. How bizarre would she think he was if he started to ask about alien species that don't really exist anymore.

He was about to go and look around some more when an orange brown ball of fur attacked him. With a howl and razor sharp claws it slashed four long lines into his right cheek and then leapt away, onto a large bookcase high above Gohan's head.

"Kuso." Muttered the boy as he rubbed his cheek. The claws had actually cut his steel like skin. The shop keeper glared at the monster and hurried back behind the counter. She came back up to Gohan and handed him a small vial of something orange.

"Here this is a Cure-All Potion. Drink it and those scratches will heal up instantly. I am very sorry. Crookshanks is a very disobedient cat and too intelligent for his own good." She shot one last glare up at the cat who seemed very pleased with himself. Gohan uncorked the small bottle and drank the liquid.

"This is good, it tastes like orange syrup." He said licking his lips. He felt the skin pulling back together and mending itself and even old broken bones become like new. He looked at his arm, old scars from the endless days of sparing were gone. He then felt a pain in his back just at the base of this spine.

He paled. "My tail." He quickly tore a small hole in the back of his pants and underwear. Soon a long thin brown tail was curling around Gohan's legs as he and the shop keeper stared at it.

"Oh man, I had no idea. Is that a curse or something? I mean, wow, I really didn't know at all. I'm sorry." Said the shop keeper with wide eyes. Gohan shook his head.

"No, I really don't mind. It's, it's alright. I mean it. I was born with it and it gives me more power than I should have but I think I'm old enough to deal with it. Besides I kind of missed it." Gohan gave her a reassuring smile. "Thank You. I need to get going, my teacher is waiting for me." Gohan bowed and ran out after wrapping his tail around his waist tightly.

He still had trouble balancing, but his years of training helped him to quickly adjust. He sat down in a chair across from Snape and sighed. At this the teacher raised an eyebrow, what had got the boy who seemed so happy so despondent.

"What happened?" he asked sincere concern worming his way onto his face. He didn't like when his students were sad.

Gohan frowned, stood up and let his tail loose. Snape frowned.

"Who put that tail on you?" he asked getting mad. Gohan smiled a little at this.

"I was born with it, everyone on my father's side of the family are born with tails like this. In the pet shop this mean cat called Crookshanks scratched me and the shop keeper was really good about it. She gave me something called a Cure All potion that not only healed my cuts but also it fixed all my scar tissue,  badly healed broken bones, old rips in my muscles, cured a little bit of amnesia, and it brought back my tail, which I last lost while in battle when I was five. I was sure I'd never re-grow it until today." Said the boy, wrapping his tail around his waist once more and sitting down.

"The Cure All only works on resent hurts. It shouldn't have done all of that." Said Snape looking thoughtful. "Even if mixed wrong, you shouldn't get a potion that strong. What did it look an taste like?" asked the teacher.

"Orange flavored cough syrup. It looked and tasted like that." Said the boy. Snape frowned.

"That is how it should be." He said. He was now studying his student as if he was a dangerous lunatic who could go berserk in a second flat.

"Well, my body has an advanced and very aggressive immune system. It could have infused with the potion and made it stronger then healed my body to where it should be. That has happened before in the hospital, I had to take a pain killer that was just supposed to dull the pain and it ended up numbing my body entirely. The effects wore off very quickly when my body realized it though." Said the boy with a slight smile playing upon his lips. Snape nodded.

"It seems you are not going to be testing any potions unless you are in private with at least me around with the antidote." Said Snape standing up. Gohan stood as well and collected his books. "Time we got you to the clothing store." Said the teacher and they set off again battling through the sea of bodies to get to a small neat looking store, rather close to where they came in.

Gohan entered the common room as the large grandfather clock in there struck four. It just seemed like it had taken all day to shop but in reality it had only been a few hours. Despite that fact he just wanted to sit and zone out until dinner was ready.

Gohan took a look around, the ten or so in the room had no look of friendliness about them. One boy who looked slightly older than him with silver blonde hair stood and left the way that Gohan had just come in. Soon the rest followed suit, following the boy or going to their rooms. Gohan was shocked at this display of utter hatred and animosity. Not even Krillan and Vegeta were that mean to each other.

Slumping into a large chair by one of the very few windows in the room he vowed not to let them get to him too much. He knew this new lifestyle would be hard and he would get through it so he could get home. It would be like the time Piccolo left him in the wild or when he went with Bulma and Krillan to Namek-sai. He would make it, or die trying.

In the shadows something stirred, a tall and darkly dressed girl with a face that reminded Gohan of a full moon on a clear winter's night emerged with a notepad and pen in hand. Her hair was pulled back and she smiled at him.

"Don't worry about those fools, they are just scared that you may purify this festering hole in the wall. Either that or they are afraid to cross a Malfroy. I am Aster." She extended a pale thin hand. Gohan gently shook it. "Welcome to Slytherin."

P- That's it. Hey, B. you got anything to say before we go?

B- I came up with the whole idea!

P- Did not you lying little git!

B- So? You asked if I had something to say not weather it was the truth or not. You should watch what you say big sister.

P- Why you little. . .

B- You know you love me.

P- We're family, I have to love you.

B- Say goodbye.

P- Goodbye.