Disclaimer: I don't own YYH or Harry Potter.

Authoress Note: Hey everybody! No review replies this time, because I think this'll be a long one and I wanna get this started. Enjoy!

Chapter Five

What You Least Expected…

Day after day of normal classes at Hogwarts went by, the students slowly forgetting the Dean Thomas incident and moving on, the ominous fear of demons and monsters that had hung over the students right after the attacks dissipating as days and weeks went by with no problem.

What the students did not seem to notice, however, were the extra people sitting at the teachers' head table for meals in the Great Hall. They conversed quietly among themselves, and all of the teachers beside Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape ignored them and continued to mingle with the other teachers who weren't part of Dumbledore's little nightly party. And yet none of the students seemed to notice, though Dumbledore's little friends were quite noticeable, one with a crazy electric blue eye that he popped out occasionally and dropped in a glass of water, and another woman with hair that changed almost nightly.

But the Tantei did.

"Okay guys, this is getting weird," said Kuwabara one night at dinner as Dumbledore talked with the now-sapphire-blue-haired woman. "We should ask someone if they're just ignoring those people or they're just blind."

"Yeah, we should ask Harry's little group." put in Botan. "They normally seem to have an eye for strange things like this."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" asked Yusuke. He leaned over across the table a few seats over and tapped Ron, the closest one, on the shoulder. "Hey," began Yusuke, "Do you see those weird people up with Dumbledore?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"Why doesn't anyone else even bother acknowledging them then?"

"Could you please stop leaning over my dinner?" a student requested wearily.

"Sorry…" apologized Yusuke quickly, sitting back down as Ron turned back to Harry and Hermione.

"I tried." The detective said as he plopped himself down. "That little group hates us for some reason. They always look and talk to us with such distaste."

"Oh well. If that man's planning something, I'm sure we'll know soon enough."

Twenty-five days came and passed, and on the twenty-sixth the Tantei found a note on the Gryffindor bulletin board, next to the one announcing Quidditch tryouts, that excused them from classes to patrol the grounds.

"Finally, permission to miss school and I'm doing grunt work." Yusuke complained as the five teens strode out onto the grounds. "He's going to have us out here all day waiting for some guy to come kill a student! What idiot attacks during the day, anyway? We aren't needed until tonight, most likely."

"And that's just the way the enemy probably wants us to think, Yusuke. So if there wasn't a day patrol and he attacked during the day, where would that leave us?" remarked Kurama pointedly. "So that is why we're going to be out here all day. Always be two steps ahead of the enemy."

"Yeah, yeah, I know…" muttered Yusuke, mad that his rants had been cut short by logic.

"There they are!" exclaimed Kuwabara, pointing to a group of people gathered around Dumbledore a few yards away. The Tantei jogged to meet up with them.

"And here are our demon-killing experts," said Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eye. "They'll be taking the main patrol, and our group will take the secondary."

Botan noticed swords and daggers at the belts of the wizards. 'Why do they need those? Can't they just magic the demons away or something?' she thought, but kept silent.

"Botan, get your oar and watch from above, Kurama, I want you and Hiei to be along the forest, and Kuwabara and Yusuke are to watch out along the lakeside of the grounds. My group will just be everywhere else. If you hear fighting, send one of the members of your patrol, but don't abandon your original job. We have to be careful about distractions." Dumbledore finished and the ferry girl summoned her oar, flying up and staying there for a moment before flying around in a circle around the school. The others walked off to wherever they were supposed to be.

Let's just say it was a very boring, uneventful day. Before noon, all of the members of the patrol, the wizards, too, had sat down up against something. Some had even started to fall asleep, and Botan, who was getting really cold and dizzy, was sitting next to Hiei.

Naturally, it was pretty awkward. Both were quite uncomfortable, for the tree they were up against pierced the ground around it with knobby, hard roots, but that wasn't all of the reason.

'What am I doing here?' thought Botan.

'What is she doing here?' wondered Hiei. And they both looked at each other oddly, as though they'd read each other's minds or something.

Slowly and carefully, Botan moved her hand from its current position on her lap and laid it on top of Hiei's, which he was leaning on for support. He stiffened for a moment, but relaxed and sighed, giving in by shifting his weight to his other side and turning his palm up, giving her hand a slight squeeze. Botan almost jumped at his touch, which sent a tingly fire up her arm. Her head buzzed for a moment before she collected herself and looked back to Hiei.

"Why did you do that?" asked Botan, looking down at their clasped hands skeptically.

"It felt right, I guess. Why did you touch me in the first place?"

"It felt right."

"Gotcha. And onna?"

"Yes?"

"Don't get any ideas."

Night fell over the Tantei, who were bored out of their minds. At least they weren't hungry, though, because some students had brought out plenty of food for the patrol's lunch.

But and end to hunger is rarely an end to boredom.

Botan, after mournfully breaking her and Hiei's little bonding moment for lunch, was ordered by Dumbledore to take to the skies again, because since the cover of night was now over them and any intruders who might care to sneak onto the grounds.

But at around eight-thirty, a scream came from the castle, sending everyone running despite their orders. Tantei and wizards alikeheaved at the great double-doors and ran upstairs to where the scream had seemed to come from getting directions from a breathless student who'd been running for Dumbledore. Botan zoomed in on her oar and up ahead of them.

"Yukina!" she cried. The others clambered up the steps.

Yukina was straddling professor Sprout (Which is quite hard in a kimono, and NO DIRTY IDEAS, PERVS!), pinning her arms to the floor. The teacher was spitting in the girl's face, kicking and cursing. Most of Yukina's hair had fallen out of the bow it was always neatly arranged in, giving her a kind of ragged, desperate look as the muscles in her arms strained to keep the teacher down. A very frightened Parvati Patil was pressed up against the wall, the color drained completely from her face. She almost looked dead.

"Ms. Koorime, an explanation please!" demanded Dumbledore, walking over and trying to free Sprout. Yukina pushed him with her shoulder and told him that she couldn't free the teacher, because if she did the crazy woman would try and kill Parvati again.

"What?" gasped Dumbledore and his group.

"She's lying! That damn Jap is lying!" shrieked Sprout. "I didn't try and kill Parvati! That's ridiculous!"

At this point, it was clear that something was wrong. Any student would tell you that Professor Sprout, who was actually kind of nice, would never call a student a 'damn Jap.' Dumbledore muttered something that sounded like, "We'll see about that," and moved across the hallway to Sprout's wand, which was lying on the ground. Yusuke and Kuwabara, while carefully keeping Sprout pinned down, gently pried Yukina off of the teacher. She stumbled a bit as she walked toward her friends, and Kurama and Botan, who'd jumped off of her oar, rushed forward and steadied her, helping her walk back to Hiei and Dumbledore's group of wizards.

"Prior Incantato," muttered Dumbledore lightly, touching his wand to Sprout's. A plume of smoke rose from the tips, creating a skull and cross-bones. (I don't know if this is the actualsign for when the killing curse is used...DON'T SUE ME!)

"That proves nothing." Spat Sprout. "That girl did it! She took my wand and-"

"Sprout's lying." Mumbled Parvati weakly, sinking to the ground. "I was on my way to Gryffindor Common Room from the Hospital Wing when Sprout came up from that connecting corridor over there," Parvati pointed at a smaller hall of classrooms branching off of the hall they were in. "And she was acting like herself, you know. But then she put out her hand and stopped me, pinning me against the wall and pressing her wand to my throat. She said if I screamed she'd kill me." She sniffed pathetically. "But I scream, anyway, because I'm scared and I figure she plans on killing me anyway. And then she says 'Avada k-' and then I see a flash of blue-green andthen thisgreen light blinds me for a moment, andI feel a breezeby my ear as the curse misses. When I blink the lights from my eyes,Yukina and Sprout are wrestling. It was a spectacular show, really. Yukina grabbed her pressure points and rolled Sprout onto her back, then pinned her, and managed to hold her down even when blood was on her face and running down her arms from the scratches Sprout had given her."

The blood on Yukina's face had been visible, but as Kurama pulled back the sleeve of her kimono, he revealed deep scratches from the teacher's long nails. Hiei's fists tightened as he looked angrily at the teacher with hate-filled eyes.

"And then you guys showed up." She finished her story with a sigh, as though she were tired of telling it.

"You're going to believe her over m-"Sprout stopped short and her eyes widened, then closed. Yusuke pulled her eyelids up to reveal the whites of her eyes. Letting go of her right arm, he said, "She's gone and fainted," and left her side, going back to Yukina and them. Kuwabara followed suit.

"Why were you even out here, Yukina? I thought you were supposed to be helping Madame Pomfrey until nine. I was going to meet you outside, remember?" Kurama's voice sounded concerned. He started to wipe the blood and spit from Yukina's face with the shirt of his normal magenta school uniform.

"Madame Pomfrey prescribed a potion for Parvati's chronic headaches, and she forgot it. Pomfrey then sent me after her to deliver it. I threw the bottle when I saw Sprout and Parvati, though. It shattered somewhere."

"I see it," replied Dumbledore softly, pointing to the stretch of wall before where the little scene had taken place.The wall was stained with some sort of potion and glass shards were on the floor before it.In a more assured manner, he started spitting out orders. "I want Sprout taken back down to the Hospital Wing and put in a four-pin restraint. Moody, when she wakes up, question her. I think she was under the influence of Voldemort's Imperious Curse. Yukina, get down to the Hospital Wing-"

Kurama cleared his throat. "If it's all right with you, professor, I'd rather take care of her myself. I have a first-aid kit in my trunk."

"Of course, if Ms. Koorime is all right with it. Are you?"

"Yes." Replied Yukina.

"All right then, Parvati, go and get your potion, and Lupin?"

One of the other wizards from the patrol party looked up. "Yes?"

"I know it's not your best subject, but will you please teach Herbology in Professor Sprout's place tomorrow?"

The man paused. "I don't know…"

"Please." Repeated Dumbledore pleadingly. "If Tonks does it, god only knows what will happen."

"Hey!" protested the now-pink-haired woman who'd always been at the Head Table.

With a sigh, the other wizard agreed.

"Off with you, then." Said Dumbledore in a brisk, business-like manner. "I'm going to go and have a chat with the Minister."

In a secluded corner of the Common Room, Kurama carefully covered each of Yukina's scratches with a lime-green paste and then wrapped them up in fresh white bandages. Satisfied, he sat back.

"There, the paste will speed the heal time to about two days, maximum, and stop any scars from forming. It's made from Makai plants, as you probably guessed."

She nodded. She hadn't done much else since her brawl with Sprout. Kurama, trying to understand, had been cheerful and talkative, to no avail. Dropping his cheeriness level a bit, he laid one of his hands on hers and squeezed. "Where did you learn the pressure points and how to keep an opponent down? You were doing it perfect, and Sprout is definitely bigger than you."

"Genkai taught me, when she heard about Tarukane." Came Yukina's soft reply. For the first time all night, she looked up with a tiny smile. "She said that a pushover like me has to know how to defend themselves against the evils of perverts and moneymakers."

"I see." replied Kurama thoughtfully. "Good thing, too, or Sprout might have killed you."

"Mm hmm. I think I should go to bed." She rose from her seat, and so did Kurama. "Thanks for the first-aid."

"Anytime." He reached over to Yukina and squeezed her arm gently in a place where he knew she hadn't been scratched. "Night."

She made to head for the spiral staircase that went to her room, but stopped and turned back around, blushing as she went back and hugged Kurama. She stepped back, whispered, "Night," and ran for her room. Kurama just stood there, a slight pink flush creeping onto his cheeks. Had she just…

"So, how are things with Yukina?" questioned Hiei from the shadows. Kurama jumped and turned around.

"Were you there the whole time!" the fox cried.

"Yep."

"Stalker," Kurama accused.

"Rapist, murderer, thief…do I have to go on?"

"No."

"Be careful."

"What?" Kurama was confused.

"Go slow. Be patient. She's no doubt confused about what she just did." Hiei paused, searching for the right words. "She comes from a world where love isn't even in the fairy tales. Let her find herself before you try anything. Let her figure things out on her own."

"Does this mean you don't mind if I have a relationship with your sister?"

"I never said that, did I? Hurt her and die."

Kurama smiled a little and sighed sarcastically. "I won't."

How was it? I, personally, think it was pretty weird. BUT LUPIN IS SUBBING! WHOOPEE! That was so long though! Please review.

(Oh, and how was the in-characterness? I'm trying to work on it…)