Chapter 4: Why You Little…

After being publicly humiliated, forced to wear a dress, abandoned by his friends and learning that he would be rooming in a dungeon along with the stupidest, most stuck up pricks to ever walk this world, Hiei became officially pissed off. To top it all off, he couldn't even sneak out of this maze of a castle, seeing as the way that he had remembered led to the main gates just plain didn't. Recalling what the giggling girl that had taken Kurama away earlier that night had said about moving stairs and hallways, Hiei cursed into the dead air.

It was now after midnight, and the short-tempered demon found himself perched on the top of a set of stairs that he distinctly remembered had pointed in the opposite direction. He swiftly jumped to the banister and looked down. Below about five stories was the hallway he was looking for.

---------------------------------

"Hey, there's Hiei now!" Ron whispered to his two closest friends, all three of whom were huddled together underneath Harry's Invisibility Cloak. They had followed Yusuke to this very spot when, moments before they could reach the staircase, it had swiveled to a different location, though they knew that it would be back in five minutes, at least. They watched with interest as the short boy jumped onto the banister with amazing ease and grace. He reminded Harry of the acrobats that Dudley use to watch on television.

"What's he doing?" Ron muttered, "He's so gonna fall to his death." Harry doubted this. Though the exchange student looked lost, he also looked very confident in his balance.

Suddenly, the boy bent his knees and vanished. Hermione gave a loud gasp and, forgetting that they were suppose to be hiding, ran out from under the cloak to the spot where Hiei had last been. Stunned, Ron and Harry followed her. All of them gripped the banister, preparing to see the mangled body of their peer on the floor five stories down. But it wasn't there. They arrived just in time to see the spiky head of the perfectly alive Hiei disappearing down the hallway.

"Bloody brilliant! How did he do that?!"

"Did he just Apparate and Disapparate?"

"For the last bloody time, it is impossible to Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds!!!"

"Tell that to him, Hermione!"

----------------------------------

With the arrival of Hiei on the front steps of the castle, the group was completed. The four friends stood in a circle, one half higher than the other on the old stone walk, in the darkness of the new moon. They, of course, first complained about every inconvenience that they had encountered before getting down to business.

"I can't believe these uniforms! Even Kurama's pink school uniform is better than this ugly black dress."

"Do you have to drag my uniform down into this, Yusuke?"

"It's the people here I don't like. They seem so. . ."

"Dorky."

"Yeah, we really hit Nerdsville here. Though that will make it easier to become 'Number One Toughest Punk of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'" Everyone stared at Kuwabara.

"Normally, I would fight you for the title of 'Toughest Punk,' but you can have this one, pal," Yusuke laughed.

"Well, anyway," Kurama broke in, holding the orange-haired brute back as he reached for his friend's collar, "we really can't do anything until we find out why we are here."

Suddenly, Kurama noticed a black shape moving between the trees on the edge of the forest that they had been warned was 'forbidden.' As the figure slowly and creepily glided towards the castle, the other boys noticed it as well. They waited in anticipation, knowing that it may pose a threat, but it was nothing they wouldn't be willing to deal with. They were ALL eager to release some frustration on any poor soul that unwisely decided to mess with them tonight.

The figure reached the first step, its hood low over the face. It stood there, motionless for a minute before Yusuke lost his patience with the stranger.

"You lost, freak?" he sneered, looking sideways at the figure.

"No," came a feminine voice from under the hood, "but I heard that you boys are." The figure suddenly ripped the entire cloak off and threw it to the side, where it vanished before hitting the ground. Now they could see who the interloper was. There, illuminated by her own inner glow and excitement, stood Botan, the detectives' manager. She smiled her cute little innocent smile at them and pulled her hands into the giant sleeves of her blue kimono.

"Hello boys!"

The stunned young men stared at the girl for a about six seconds before. . .

"Botan, I'm gonna kick your ass!"

"What the hell is going on?!"

"You have some nerve sending us into this strange culture without an explanation, Botan."

"You will feel my hand ripping out your heart soon if I don't have my sword returned to me immediately, woman!"

"Woah! Woah, guys!" the blue-haired girl motioned, backing away from the on slot of anger as the boys charged down the long staircase at her. "Please, wait a second before you decided to rip me to pieces! Koenma and I have reasons for everything that we do, so calm down and let me explain!"

"Start moving those lips, girl, before we make you guide yourself down the River Styx," Yusuke warned, his face red with anger. The four boys stood three steps above Botan, who was now cowering under their looming glares. Even Hiei seemed so tall and menacing, standing over her with his arm twitching to where his katana should have been hanging.

"Okay, okay, I'll explain soon, but not RIGHT now." Kuwabara glared at her, his homely face screwed up into a more unflattering look.

"Yeah, we know," Yusuke surprisingly agreed. "Not with them here."

"What?" Kuwabara was totally out of the loop. Yusuke, Botan, Hiei, and Kurama, however, all turned their heads knowingly towards a large rock some yards to the left of the group.

"You've been discovered. You can unveil yourselves honorably now," Kurama directed to the air around the spot. Suddenly, three confused and almost scared British kids materialized by the rock.

---------------------------

Millions of thoughts were swarming the poor clueless kids' minds. How did they know that they were there? Only highly talented wizards and witches (and magically enhanced fake eyeballs) can see through Invisibility Cloaks. The possibilities and uncertainties about these newcomers frightened Harry, Ron and Hermione, which is saying something, as they all had fought and beaten some of the nastiest things found in the wizarding world. They huddled together, Ron and Hermione semi hiding behind their bolder friend Harry, as he clutched the silvery cloak in his hands.

"Oh my gawd!" Botan squealed, breaking the tense silence between the groups. "That is the CUTEST outfit I have EVER SEEN!" The giddy grim-reaper shuffled to the scared and surprised Hermione and just swelled with excitement. "You have to let me try on one of your uniforms! I just LOVE those socks! Oh my gawd!"

"Err, sure," Hermione said, standing up from behind Harry. She nervously shuffled her feet under the glowing gaze of the hyper stranger.

"Damnit, Botan, you came here to help us out, not to get new clothes!" Yusuke snapped, marching over to them with his hands curled into frustrated fists.

"Alright, but . . ." All five sets of Japanese eyes turned to the frightened British kids, who flinched and took a step backwards.

"Beat it, mortals," Hiei growled threatingly, even though he had to look UP at the three cornered kids. Harry and Ron were perfectly okay with backing up and running, full speed, to anywhere farther away from these odd newcomers, but Hermione stopped them before they could.

"Wait! I think that we deserve something of an explanation ourselves! If you guys are gonna stay in our castle and, in Yusuke's case, our bedrooms, we think you should start acting like our classmates, like, you know. . ." Everyone was staring at the frizzy haired girl, her friends with something of a look of horror at her brashness. ". . .like what Professor Dumbledore said."

For a few moments, they all continued to stare, and Hermione began to fear the worst. Perhaps Japanese students were like Hippogriffs, which you have to let them tell you what to do and which you really don't want to upset.

"She's right," Kurama sighed with a smile. He turned his brilliant green eyes to the witty girl, who although terrified, seemed to melt like chocolate. "We should at least tell them why we are here."

"Which is something that we would ALL LIKE TO KNOW!!!" Yusuke burst, totally pissed off with frustration now. They all turned towards Botan, half of them merely curious, the other half deadly upset.

----------------------------------------

After deciding to relocate to a place where absolutely no one else could overhear their conversation, the large group now gathered in a small cove a minute's walk into the Forbidden Forest. Harry, Hermione, and Ron, who had been the ones to suggest the opening in the trees as the meeting place, sat together under the same large crooked tree holding their wands in front of them with the Lumos charm illuminated their anxious faces. Yusuke stood, leaning nonchalantly against the trunk of a large oak. Kuwabara stood in the middle of the circle purposefully not looking past the nearest tree into the dark forest while. Hiei decided to perch himself as the look out one of the highest branches, but instead of surveying the perimeter, he was watching his friend Kurama on the ground as he studied the plants growing on the forest floor. Botan stood at the edge of the circle of trees, nervously watching the dark shadows.

"Oh, he should be here by now!" she whispered with worry shaking her usually bubbly voice. "He said he'd be right behind me!"

"Who are you waiting on, Miss Botan?" Harry boldly questioned, somewhat uncomfortable using her first name when they had just met, but for all he knew, she too didn't have a last name.

"My boss," she whispered without looking away.

"Koenma," Yusuke explained, seeing the curiously lost look on Harry's face. "He's our group's employer, and the stupid pacifier face is always late. You should be used to it by now, Botan."

"HEY! I am NOT always late!" came a voice beyond the trees that seemed to echo from all angles. Suddenly, a tall, brown-haired young man appeared by Botan's side. He was a fairly good looking Asian boy, Hermione noted, except for the baby toy sticking out of his mouth.

"And I resent that pass at my pacie, punk!"

"Welcome to England, Koenma" Kurama said, standing up with a bushel of odd flowers in his hand. "Now please, tell us why we are all here."

The young ruler of the otherworld cleared his throat, and everyone except Botan leaned in with anticipation. She, on the other hand, looked like she was getting ready to blot it at the slightest movement.

"You have been sent here because. . ." he started, his eyes shut with a matter-of-fact look.

"Yeah?"

"Because a mortal discovered an odd mystic object a few weeks back," he continued explaining. "After destroying herself and about fifty other people around her, we decided it was filled with evil spirit powers and needed to be confiscated. My ogres tried their hardest to find something about it in our library, but no such luck." He paused briefly to pull the object out of his robes. It looked like a twisted old stick to the rest of them. "This is it. The only lead we had was that they seemed to be used in old England, more specifically, this school."

"So what do we have to do with this?" Hiei asked, suddenly appearing on a lower branch of the tree.

"Well," the boy continued with a giant smile behind his blue pacifier, "I think its really cool, but I don't know how to use it! I want you guys to figure out how to use it and then teach me!"

"What?!"

"I'll be the most feared ruler in all the galaxies once I master this strange, powerful thing! Wahahaha!" With his eyes scrunched in laughter, he waved the object randomly in the air, overcome with zeal. Hot blue sparks shot wildly from the tip of the stick, showering the cove. Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke merely dodged the attack gracefully, but Kuwabara, Harry, Hermione, and Ron yelled under the heat of the embers and hurried to put out each glowing spark that had landed on their clothes and hair.

"Oi! You shouldn't play around with a wand like that when you don't know how to use it, man!" Ron snapped, cursing the ignorant foreigner as he patted a small burning hole in his robe.

Not noticing the three British kids before now, Koenma started suddenly.

"Who are you?"

"We are students at this school, sir," Hermione answered first, of course. Koenma eyed the disheveled kids before spying the glowing sticks they each held in their hands.

"How did you get those? Who would let young children weld such powerfully evil weapons like those?"

Harry and Ron exchanged looks. "They're ours," Harry responded, annoyed. "We got them when we were eleven. And they're not dangerous if you know how to use them!"

Koenma seemed doubtful of the strange kids and stepped back from them slowly. Kurama laughed as he saw the powerful prince of the otherworld do this.

"Koenma-sama, they are telling the truth. We have seen them use them before. That's how they learned Japanese." He glided over to his boss and plucked the item from his hands before the other boy could react. "I believe you just need to say an incantation to get it to do certain things. Lets see," he held the stick up to study the point of it. "what did they say? Lumos!" the wand burst with light for half a second before settling down to a low glow, significantly dimmer than Harry, Ron, and Hermione's.

Kuwabara openly laughed at the fox spirit. "Look at that! Awesome powers you've got there, Kurama! My night light is brighter than that!" Suddenly he turned white.

"You have a night light?!" everyone burst into hysterical laughter, except Kuwabara of course, who tried to take back what he said, but definitely was unable to.

-----------------------------------------------