DISCLAIMER: This is getting extremely annoying... I do not own Harry Potter, Yu Yu Hakusho, or any of the gangs I named (except for the Pink Dragons... I made that one up).

Chapter 4: The Train Ride

The five of them were at the station just in time. Both Kuwabara and Yusuke had been up for half the night being themselves, talking and fighting, both homesick but acting like tough guys. It had taken about a half an hour to wake them up.

And then it had taken quite a few minutes of watching  and worrying for everyone to get past the barrier onto Platform 9 ¾. But now they were on the Hogwarts Express, a huge red train that was positively crawling with students.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing, Sherwood?! Dragging us through the entire friggin' train... This trunk is heavy here, lady!"

"Will you just calm down? I know what I'm doin', got it?" was the snappish response. "And just play along for once. You got a problem, call my lawyer."

"Your lawyer? You probably don't have a lawyer!" crowed Yusuke triumphantly.

"That's my point."

"Huh? Kurama, did you get it?"

"I'm afraid her logic is quite lost on me. Or perhaps the entire point of it was to confuse us..."

"Oh, hello! I'm sorry to be a pain, but are these seats full?" Thianadel, seemingly ignoring her companions, stepped into the compartment and greeted a thin boy with a lot of black hair and green eyes: Harry Potter.

"Oh, er, not at the moment. My friends are coming back soon, but you can stay if you'd like..." The truth was that Harry was torn between his unwillingness to socialize at the moment and his curiosity. After all, he'd never heard of Hogwarts taking in any transfer students...The Triwizard Tournament, yes, but that was a different story.

Well this was an odd bunch! Two were very average-seeming boys, one of whom had Weasley red hair and fair skin, though no freckles. Perhaps a very distant cousin of Ron's, Harry speculated. There was also a very Goth-dressed-all-in-black-don't-you-dare-come-near-me looking first year- Wait, was it a first year? Looking closely into those red eyes, (Harry was a little... unnerved at this; Voldemort's eyes were red...) though, one could see that this person had seen a whole lot beyond the perceived age. So maybe this kid was like Flitwick- he didn't grow.

Harry turned his thoughts and his gaze to the two girls in the group. They were both about the same height and age, and Harry wondered if, maybe, they were sisters. Both had green eyes, though the dark-haired girl's had a tint of brown in them, whereas the red-head's were brighter and more like emeralds.

"Oh, sorry. Let me introduce myself. I'm Thianadel Sherwood. I like Thia better, and only idiotic buffoons call me Sherwood," the dark-haired girl said, smiling poisonously at Yusuke, who rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. She had to be from America, judging from the 'blunt' accent that the British boy spotted in her speech.

"Suichi Minamino. It's a pleasure to meet you..." Kurama swiftly interjected. Harry was astonished- the girl was... a guy!

"I thought you were a girl!" flew out of Harry's mouth even before he could stop it, and Kurama's implied question was forgotten. The target of the comment only sighed, almost as if he was giving up. The average-seeming boys went into fits of hysteric laughter and the first year gave up a reluctant smile. The girl rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same.

"I get that remark often," was the Suichi boy's response.

"You should cut your hair once in a while, Kur- I mean, Suichi!" Kuwabara almost slipped up.

"Hn," from the little Goth boy. "He wouldn't cut it if his life depended on it."

"Oh, leave him alone."

"Hn. 'Suichi'-" this name was spat out like a curse, "-can fight his own battles, hu-"

Clapping his hand over the little fire-demon's mouth, Kurama said, "This is Hiei. He doesn't have very many social skills, I'm afraid."

"I'm Kuzuma Kuwabara, but you just call me Kuwabara. Only my beloved Yukina-" fangs were bared and a growl escaped from Hiei's mouth, "-calls me by my first name... And, well, my sister."

"And I'm the great Yusuke Urameshi!" he crowed triumphantly.

They looked at Harry expectantly.

"Oh. Yeah. I'm Harry Potter." The 16-year-old waited expectantly for the reaction to come.

"Oh, so you're that guy."

That was unexpected. 'That guy'? These had to be transfer students for them not to get flustered or shy. A blow to Harry's ego, perhaps, but one that was welcomed in a way. Anonymity seemed like a great prospect after all of the media controversy surrounding the famous Harry Potter during his 5th year at Hogwarts.

"Er. I've never seen you at Hogwarts before. So, uh, what-"

"Hiei, Yusuke, Kuwabara, and I are transfer students from Japan. Our master,-" Kurama willed Hiei to not give them away, "-Genkai, is to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

"And I'm from the U.S."

"You're lucky that you didn't come last year. The last Dark Arts teacher was a horror," Ron remarked as he came into the compartment, Hermione close after.

"Hello. Uh-"

"Ron Weasley. Hey Harry, did the sweets trolley come round yet?"

"I'm Hermione Granger. Pleased to meet you." She stared at Kurama for a moment, and then managed to pry her gaze away.

"No."

Ron sighed and looked the new Hogwarts students over intently.

"I'm Thianadel Sherwood, and these are Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara, Suichi Minamino, and Hiei."

The silence after that was a bit uncomfortable.

"So. Uh. What part of America do you come from?"

"New York."

"Really? I've heard that they've got gangs there! Really violent, too. Do they really carry guns and knives with them everywhere they go?" Ron asked enthusiastically.

Thianadel decided to try to frighten them a little. "Well, yeah. You've got the Bloods, the Crypts, the Latin Kings... the, er, Pink Dragons (a Chinese gang, you don't want to make fun of the name). If you wear the wrong bandana on the wrong turf, well then, bang. There are some rogue gangstas, too, and they're the worst kind. No one's safe around them, not even their so-called allies."

"Wow..."

"So you mean that if the shrimp here-"

"If you value your life, I advise you to-" Hiei was cut off by the sliding open of the compartment door once again.

"You were bluffing just now, were you not?" Kurama whispered to Thianadel. Her response was a grin.

"Well, well, a couple of new students, eh?" Draco Malfoy's snide voice drifted into the ears of all those around him. Harry could see that the blonde was ignoring him to the best of his abilities. And why not? His father was in Azkaban supposedly because of Harry.

"Don't associate me with these idiots." Hiei crossed his arms, offended.

"A pureblood, then? You should be sticking with us. No telling how they'll contaminate you. Look at Weasley here. Eh, this one here's about as poor as you, Weasley, if that's even possible. Can't even afford a pair of socks!" Thianadel looked down at her sockless feet nestled inside her sneakers.

"Oh, how boring you are. Who in the world cares about socks?" the girl asked, unfazed, and began to read a book in her lap. Malfoy's face screwed up in disgust, and then turned to the person to her left.

"How about you? What's your name, besides 'beautiful'?" Once again, Kurama had been mistaken for a girl. Next to him, Thia shook with silent laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks and onto her book. Yusuke and Kuwabara stopped exchanging glares with the blonde boy's lackeys in order to stare at their leader. Kurama sighed and took the book away from Thia before she damaged the pages any more.

"What?" Draco was furious at being ignored.

Harry was glad to have a remark ready for Draco. "Malfoy... Do you have something to tell us?"

Too curious to realize that he had broken the method of the 'arctic shoulder' towards his mortal enemy, Malfoy wanted to know, "What in the blazes are you saying, Potter?"

"I didn't know you were that way."

"What in the bloody HELL are you so smug about?!"

"We never guessed that you were queer, Malfoy."

Thia shook so hard that Kurama wondered if she would explode.

But seeing Draco's face was pretty hilarious. His face drained of any and all color, and then swiftly became redder and redder, until he was a puce color that reminded Harry of his Uncle Vernon.

"Ok, air. Breathe," Thianadel reminded herself aloud, only to relapse into laughter once again. Kuwabara and Yusuke joined in, as well as Ron (covering up the fact that he hadn't known that Suichi was a guy quite well), Hermione, and Harry. Hiei allowed himself a very small crack of a smile.

Malfoy stormed away, Crabbe and Goyle not far behind him.

"Oy... sorry, Suichi. That was just too good of an opportunity."

Author's Notes: Ok, I know that Malfoy was a bit out of character with the whole 'beautiful' thing. Let's just make this a side effect of his raging hormones. I am totally sorry if I offended you with the little prank that they played on Malfoy as well as in the terminology that I used. I have nothing against homosexuality and therefore please don't kill my confidence or my writing career!!!! As Harry said, it "was just too good of an opportunity." Any other comments are welcomed. The story may be going a bit slow, but just hang on; I think it'll get better.