Responses:

Minakara—Okay, I'm warning you ahead of time. This chapter and the next one both leave you hanging. So you could either read this now and kill me for ending the chapter the way that I did, or you could wait until I update again, kill me for ending both of them the way I did, or you could wait until I update the time after that. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Lobs-StAcEy-Ters—Thanks for reviewing and for the spelling lesson! lol.

Amari Koorime—Thanks! And yes, Thia and Kurama are one of my pairings.

YYH-Yu-Yu-Hakusho-Fan/HieiHot—Repetitiveness is good! Thanks for your input!

Shadow Fox777—Yay! Someone else likes long author notes!!! Thank you!

xKitsunex/Meghann—Thank you!!! I'm tearing up... you drew a picture of Thia? ::is so happy:: Darn. I thought I put up an: Thia-Kurama scene warning! Could be kissing! in nice neon lettering... Okay, JKR's site is just: http:www. jkrowling. com.

Rose—Yes! You have your lifetime supply of EverFreez ice cream, (don't tell Hiei, he'll kill me) including the limited edition flavors! I've explained the ditch below.

Slave2anime—Sporks! The greatest invention ever! Well, except for paper shredders. Thanks for reviewing!

Notes: Okay, so, here's the deal with the ditch thingamabob: It's a little triangular island surrounded by a hole that's shaped like a circle. Only Thia fell in.

DISCLAIMER: rogueicephoenix owns no part of Yu Yu Hakusho or Harry Potter. And she is only admitting this because those stupid lawyers won't stop stalking her.

Chapter 23: Bargain and Break Through

Hogwarts

Thia and Kurama had jumped from their little island and back to safe ground and were currently studying it. Their talk had been reduced to a minimum and the rain was beginning to slow a little. Even so, the water in the ditch had begun to overflow.

"Can you feel it?" Thia asked suddenly of her companion.

"It's radiating power," he responded, his expression unreadable.

"When I fell in, the pressure of it was crushing. Now it's not quite as much. Do you think that was just because I was in the trench?"

"Yes, probably. But that isn't the question so much as: Why is it here? I highly doubt that this is simply a natural occurrence."

"Agreed," Thia put in softly. Then, a little louder: "Why don't we go back?"

Kurama nodded and they headed back to the castle.

Surprisingly enough, the rest of the team met them as soon as they came through the front doors.

"Hi, guys. We were just coming back to see you. There's a-"

"Yeah, we know. We filled Hiei and Genkai in, too," Yusuke interrupted Thia. "We were watching," he put in, seeing the confused look on her face.

"Then you saw everything?" the Ravenclaw asked, and the question in her too-calm voice was evident.

"Yup. Everything." The leer on his face spoke volumes. The rest of the spectators waited to see who would strangle Yusuke first, Kurama or Thia. However, both seemed to be retaining their calm, though Thia's eyes had narrowed.

"Well then. There's a powerful, weird aura all around it, particularly in that moat-thing."

"Spirit energy or demon energy?" Kuwabara asked.

"That would be the strange part. It was both, as though they had been merged," Kurama answered. And I know that I've seen that symbol somewhere else...

"Is that all?" questioned Genkai, to which Kurama and Thia both nodded. "We'll have to check it out tomorrow, just in case."

"All right then. If you'll excuse me, I have to change." With that, Thia walked off.

"I will do the same," Kurama said, and followed. Genkai left without a word.

"What d'you think is going on between them?" Yusuke asked once they were out of earshot.

Hermione and Kuwabara both sighed in exasperation.

"You don't understand love at all," they said in unison, startling not only the others, but also themselves.

"Jinx! You owe me ten sodas!" Kuwabara yelled.

Sweat-drops for everyone.

"That was love?" Ron asked skeptically once everyone had recovered. "Didn't look like it."

"It was 'like'. You probably thought that she was going to slap him," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"She wasn't?"

"Get a sense of romance, will you, Ron?"

The said boy flushed.

"I'll have you know that I know a lot about love and... mushy stuff!"

"If you say so, Ron."

"I do!" The spectators watched them the way that someone would watch a tennis match; Ron and Hermione were the players and their responses to one another was the ball. Harry opened his mouth to interject something, but received glares from both. Apparently they hadn't forgotten the last time he'd interrupted one of their spats.

Thia didn't know what to feel. Or think, for that matter. Or say. Or act. Jeez, she might as well just give up doing anything whatsoever, because in general, it was all too confusing.

Was she supposed to get angry at Kurama? Tell him that the mistletoe was a completely different thing and that the incident in the rain had been completely uncalled for? Because if it was, then she was screwed. It would take more guts to say that than to fight off a horde of bloodthirsty, rampaging demons.

Then what? Act like one of those crazy girls at her last school, grabbing him by the shirt collar and planting one smack on his lips? Now there was an idea that was too much for her to handle. It would probably scare him off, too. She could imagine his, 'Uh, I think I'll go, uh, that way,' right before he sped off in the other direction.

So she took her final option: Pretend.

Pretend it never happened. Pretend he never kissed you. Pretend-

"Dry up already, Sherwood. You're making a puddle on the carpet," someone in the dormitory told her.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"They're stalking me, you know." Kurama glanced at Hiei. The two were having one of their guy-demon-to-guy-demon chats down in the dungeons, where Kurama had found Hiei wandering.

"They're stalking me as well."

"Not that fan club." The fox's only indication of his surprise was the inclination of his eyebrows, and he waited for his friend to elaborate. "Those stupid humans. The idiots that the old hag feels the need to train. They followed me into the forest."

"What? Why on Earth would they do that?" Kurama asked aloud. It dawned on him. "Unless... they believe that there's some sort of spy in Hogwarts that somehow helped to let the attackers onto the school grounds."

"Hn. The fools."

Kurama caught the look in Hiei's crimson eyes.

"Just don't kill them," the red-head warned, "no matter how much they annoy you."

"What gave you that idea?"

Death Eater Safehouse

"I will bargain with you, Pearl of Three. If you transport me to the third Sacred Site of mud and water, I swear that you will have your fill of human souls," Tsurin said as he stood in the middle of the ash triangle, and spoke to the Pearl.

"And if you fail, Master Tsurin?" The Pearl asked. Its voice was a sort of whisper, harsh and yet gentle, with an odd sort of mystery to it.

"I will not fail. How dare you-!"

"So many before you have said that, master. Their souls are mine now."

The Dark Lord Tsurin only clenched his fist over the Pearl of Three Worlds and began his chant.

Hogwarts

"Okee- time to check out the hell hole!"

"Urameshi, why the hell are you being so cheerful? It's, like, six in the morning," Kuwabara grumbled.

"Because it's pissing you off Kuwabara! You should know that."

"Yusuke only lives to be a pain in the ass. I would know," Genkai pointed out. "Now stop whining, all of you."

Slowly, nine people trudged to the triangle-in-a-circle, silent but extremely curious. What was it? Why was it there? Who created it? Why was the energy fused? There were so many questions!

As they got closer and closer, a wind seemed to swirl around them, caressing at first, with the scent of power only laced in, and felt only by those most sensitive in the group. Yet the closer that they got, the stronger the wind, and even the ones with very little spirit awareness (e.g.: Ron) felt it.

"It wasn't like this yesterday," Thia pointed out. "Except for in that ditch."

"Then-"

"The Pearl! Of course! I knew-" Kurama burst out, eyes widening as he finally remembered.

"What's he talking about?" Ron asked, alarmed. "What about the Pearl?!"

"This is a Sacred Site! A portal, if you will, between the Three Worlds. This must be the one that they tell of in legends connected to the Pearl, that only appears under the rarest of circumstances."

"What Pearl are you talking about?" Genkai asked, apparently confused and partially alarmed.

"Not the time to play innocent, Grandma. ('Cause we all know you're not.) The one that you were trying to find out about at Knock-somethingorother Alley. That thing that Botan was all, 'It's been sold,' over."

"Knockturn, dimwit. But you've got it all wrong. I don't know what the hell this Pearl is."

There was a shocked silence. Or there would have been, if the wind hadn't been whistling like there was no tomorrow.

Then it was like a dam had burst. The strength of it was so much that all nine of them slid back at least an inch or two (or a foot, in Harry's case).

"Someone's trying to come through!" Kurama yelled over the wind.

Tsurin

Traveling from one world to another was extremely tiring and dizzying. However, going from one Site to another in the same world... Now that was one rejuvenating experience. Imagine his surprise when he hadn't needed Voldemort to unlock the Site's protective barrier, the one that Dumbledore must have surely put up, a difficult task to say the least. Imagine his surprise when they realized Dumbledore hadn't put a barrier on it in the first place. Imagine his surprise when all of the natural conditions of opening that particular Site had been met.

Dumbledore really outdid himself. This was practically a welcoming party. Was the man stupid?

Perhaps... Perhaps not.

Hogwarts

At the center of the island, an image flickered.

And a hideous image it was.

"What the hell is that?!"

"JUST SHUT UP, YUSUKE!"

The image, gradually, became solid. And it began to move, with heavy, lumbering steps, towards them. It jumped- and the landing felt like an earthquake.

And then it began to laugh that manaiacal evil laugh that villains have. And like all evil laughs, it went on for way longer than it should have. It really made one wonder: Do villains learn that laugh at school?

"GOD! Would you just SHUT UP!?" Yusuke yelled finally.

"Stupid human. You will be the first that I sacrifice to the Pearl!"

"You and what army?!"

"This one." The thing put a hand into the muddy water behind him and poured a minimal amount of energy into it. Slowly hundreds of bubbles rose to the surface and formed shapes. They stood up. And they gathered behind the thing so that their brethren had more room to breed.

"Children of the Mud! Now bow to the All-Powerful Lord Tsurin, you foolish humans!"

Cue the evil laugh.

Author's Notes: Okay. I know you want to kill me. Cliffhanger (sort-of). But see, the problem with killing me is the fact that you need me to complete the next chapter. So, see, we have a symbiotic and interdependent relationship. I create the chapters so that y'all don't go through withdrawal. In return, you feed me reviews. And then I'm able to churn out another chapter. And the cycle goes on. So if you abandon me now and don't review, then you won't get that chapter.

I'm gibbering, aren't I?

And just so you know, I fully intended to post this chapter yesterday, but I had to go to my HS orientation and I came home completely exhausted. Happy but exhausted.

Anyway, review! Bobby: Not so fast, r.i.p. Thia wants a word with you. Thia: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?! ARE YOU NUTS?! DIE, r.i.p., DIE! You put Kurama and I back to square ONE! ::r.i.p. flees:: Finally! Now that the brat's gone, Thia and I will be writing the next chapter. Because r.i.p. has a bad habit of creating a LOT of plot twists.