(slightly teed off, pulls out Chinese Astrology book) Look here, people. It says it right here: Yin is Darkness, Death, Night, Passive, Feminine and Cold. Yang is Light, Life, Day, Active, Masculine and Heat. It's not the other way around. (throws book over her shoulder) Sorry. I just annoys me when people (and you know who you are) correct me on my through and exhaustive research.

To me, Potions sounds quite similar to Chemistry (in which, I am currently not doing much better than Harry and Ron). So the potions classroom is based on my Chemistry class. Though my teacher is no Snape, it sure smells like a dungeon in there sometimes…

And yes, this chapter is a bit late. Why? Well, I'm in Joseph and the Amazing, Technicolor Dream Coat at a community theatre in the town twenty minutes away. Between rehearsals, school and swim practice, I'm home at about 10 and trying frantically to do my homework, which gives me about thirty minutes before school to write fanfics. Please be patient as the author attempts to kill herself from overwork. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I don't Harry Potter or the characters of Digimon Frontier. I'm just weird.

Chapter 15: Potions, Predictions, Books and Wednesdays

Wednesdays were certainly not turning out to be Harry's best days.

The schedule called for Potions, followed by Divination after lunch, with a short bit of extra rest before Astronomy. While the last class wasn't so bad, the first two most certainly were.

At the moment, he was sitting on a three-legged stool in the front of the potions classroom. The cauldrons had already been set up in the…for lack of a better term…'lab' half of the dungeon, the fires burning bleakly under them like a preheating oven. He was sitting alone, seeing as Hermione had gone to stop by the library beforehand, and Ron had slipped off to heaven-knows-where before breakfast had even finished.

A few other Gryffindors scattered the room, the vast majority rather unhappy to have arrived early. The others were trickling in at a semi-steady pace, about one every five minutes and increasing as it got closer to class time.

The Slytherins, however, arrived about five minutes before in a bit of a group. It started with Malfoy and his cronies and finished up with the rest of the green-robed house. They exchanged glares with the Gryffindors gathered, especially Malfoy and Harry.

Kouichi was right behind the lead group, almost hidden by Goyle, and looked relatively wind-blown, as though he had been dragged there. He caught Harry's eye, breaking his stare-down with Malfoy, and offered a placating smile.

Then he chose a seat at the far end of the room, to the between Malfoy and the wall.

Kouji, Takuya and the other Gryffindors who hadn't arrived yet came in after the Slytherins. Kouji seamed a surprised when Kouichi had chosen to be boxed in on the side, but a slight wave from his brother seamed to calm him down. He sat next to Takuya, instead.

Hermione and Ron slipped in next to Harry, Hermione sporting a new library book and Ron looking more than a little anxious himself.

The door at the other end of the room flew open with a bang, and the formerly chattering class was silenced. Snape strode in, his long, black cape billowing around him almost dramatically, but his face held the normal soar look.

"Everyone sit down now." he snapped, and the remaining two Gryffindors scrambled to their seats. He strode to the front of the room, spinning on his heels to face them with a glare.

"You may be hoping that, after O.W.L.s last year, your classes will be easier than before. But I assure you that this class most certainly will not. The fact that you all managed to make it in this class at all is astounding, and I will be certain to weed out the worst of the bunch…" his eyes glared at Harry. "…Before you managed to embarrass this school on the N.E.W.T.S. next year."

He snapped his wand at the chalkboard, and a list of instructions appeared. "Today we will be starting with a Delirious Drought, a concoction to send the drinker into rambling fevers. The instructions are on the board. You will work in pairs. No outside talking. Rare materials are up front. Begin now."

Takuya gulped, glancing over at Kouji with a distressed whisper. "What're we gonna do? The instructions are in English, and it's not like we can just translate every bottle on that table, either…"

Snape over-heard him, slamming a heavy piece of parchment onto the table, making Takuya jump and Kouji glare.

"Five points from Gryffindor for being off-task." the teacher sniffed sourly, and moved on to place another parchment in front of Kouichi. The black letters on the top of both copies read, in Hiragana: Nekkyo Mizugusuri…Direct translation: 'Fever Potion', same as the Delirious Drought. In Hiragana, below it, were the instructions on the board, with the labels of the ingredients in Romanji.

Kouji glared sourly at the Potion Master's back, then stormed forward to pick out their ingredients, while Takuya started laying out the utensils. Harry slid in right behind him and started searching through the bottles. Wolf's Bane…Fey Flower…Powdered Moonbeam…easy enough. Right?

Unfortunately not.

Said potion was, in fact, immensely complicated, with intricate timing and measuring. The proper result was to be like the mixture in Hermione and Lavender's cauldron: a dark mauve in color, thick like chocolate syrup, that gave off the smell of a slightly over-ripened tangerine.

No one else's looked half as good. Ron and Harry's gave of the stench of burned meat, was runnier than one of Aunt Petunia's fried eggs, and a sickly green color. Takuya and Kouji's was as clear and smooth as a glass of water, but ate through their cauldron like an acid. Poor Neville's had a similar reaction, before exploding outward and drenching him and Seamus in half-made potion, both of them retreating to the Hospital Wing for the welts that spread across their bodies. And Kouichi, working with Malfoy, had some how managed to evaporate the potion all together in clouds of pungent purple smoke so that half the room had to clear out.

Malfoy coughed a few times, rubbing his watering eyes. "Kimura…what did you add?!" he demanded, keeping his voice under control, but only just barely.

"I…cough…don't know." the transfer sighed, his teeth chattering slightly. "I told you…I'm not very good at Potions."

Snape strode up, vanishing the smoke with a few waves of his wand. He glanced wordlessly down at the two boys, examining them with scrutiny. Kouichi was shivering and had gone slightly pale, while the end of Malfoy's nose had was slightly blue as he blew on his hands to warm himself.

The Potions Master placed a bare hand against both their foreheads momentarily, then spun on his heels. "Hospital Wing, both of you." he snapped in an almost-concerned voice. "Madam Pomfrey should have plenty of Heat Support potions to stem off the hypothermia."

"Um…Sir?" Kouichi looked confused. The last word hadn't translated very well, it came out tsumetai-shokkaku-kogoeru-shi…cold-touch-freezing-death.

Snape's eyes narrowed at him. "Go to the Hospital Wing before you freeze to death, Kimura." he said slowly, so the charm could translate easily.

The two students hurried away.

. . . . . .

"You know, if we'd done that, Snape would've just let us freeze." Ron muttered as the exited.

"Don't joke, Ron!" Hermione snapped. "It's very dangerous! If they hadn't gone, their tempature would keep dropping until they were completely frozen, inside and out!"

"Yeah, and the world would be better for it." Ron muttered sourly. Hermione knocked him up the side of the head with her notebook. "I meant about Malfoy, not Kimura!"

"Think before you speak, then!" she hissed, annoyed, and glanced a tad nervously in the transfer's direction. However, Kouji seamed too distracted by making sure his brother was okay (he was just fine, though he had acquired just the slight bit of a cold) to hear them.

She turned on her heels, giving the boys a quick goodbye before heading off to her Ancient Runes class. Across the hall, Kouichi checked his watch, said goodbye to his brother and Takuya, sneezed, and followed her.

Harry and Ron, followed by Neville, Takuya, Kouji and the rest of the Gryffindor sixth-years, tromped up the stairs and up to the foggy, gloomy, smoke-filled Divination classroom. They were only spending every other week in here, thank goodness, seeing as they switched off with Firenze downstairs.

Takuya made a face as soon as his head entered the tower room. "Whew! What's burning?! Did something catch fire or what?"

Kouji gave his friend an annoyed shove from behind, then climbed up himself and frowned. "It's incense, Takuya. Probably yuri or something like it…"

"Yuri?" Ron blinked. "What, like your owl?"

"No." Kouji said coolly, sitting at the table next to him and Harry, with Takuya across from him. "His name is Yurei. It means ghost. Yuri are flowers…Lilies, I believe is the right translation."

"Oh." Ron blinked, obviously confused. "That's…complicated. They sound a lot a like, don't they?"

"Well, English is pretty complicated too, you know." Takuya shrugged. "I mean, not or knot, meat or meet, lay or lie, there, their or they're…It's almost impossible to learn if you don't speak it fluently."

"That's what these things are for." Kouji tapped the translation charm in his ear.

Before Ron or anyone else could say anything, Prof. Trelawney suddenly appeared out of the shadows with her usual pomp and flourish. She carried with her a large, decorative mirror, which she gazed into constantly, as though using it to guide her way.

"Good day, my children." she sighed airily, setting her mirror down on a table beside her chair. "Such glorious fortune to see you again in the physical world…ah, and at last, I am able to meet a few of the travelers I foresaw over the summer…"

She strode over to the table where Takuya and Kouji sat, both looking skeptical. She hovered her hand over their heads a moment, before dropping it down and cupping Kouji's chin.

"…You have a very troubled aura, my child." she said mysteriously, her butterfly-like eyes glazing over slightly. "As though there is a battle being warred within you, a struggle against Darkness…"

The Sorting Hat's words echoed in Kouji's mind, and he frowned in annoyance. "Right." he said skeptically.

"Ah, I see you are doubtful!" Trelawney exclaimed, pulling her hand away and striding across the room. "Many are of the same mindset, but soon they shall become believers…You must fight against your darkness, child, less it over-take you."

Takuya covered his mouth with his hand, cracking up a moment before leaning over to whisper to Kouji. "If you start seeing a really tall guy with too many eyes, make sure you warn the rest of us, 'kay?"

Too many eyes? Harry racked his brain a moment, then shrugged it off as a cultural thing when Kouji whacked Takuya up the side of the head semi-playfully.

Trelawney cleared her throat, drawing attention back to herself. She reached over and picked up the mirror from her table. "This year, we shall begin with the ancient art of mirror visions." she proclaimed airily. "A mirror is a window into the soul, the very heart of a person…and through this window we shall see our very destinies…"

Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil let out low gasps and shuddered. Kouji and Ron rolled their eyes.

"After we thoroughly explore the secrets taught by the mirrors…" the professor continued breezily. "We shall move on to more elemental predictions. As dear… Professor…Firenze instructs you further on the works of the stars, we will begin interpreting the patterns drawn in sand by the winds, and then in the oriental style of flames. We will have to pause our studies there, as the stress of exams will cause an outbreak of chaos that will result in many, many trips to the hospital wing."

"Now…" she opened a cabinet, displaying dozens of mirrors of various sizes, shapes and designs. "Choose a mirror that calls too you, find your focus, and gaze into the beyond…"

. . . . . .

That evening found Kouichi, once again, in the library. Technically, he was supposed to be back in the dorms by now, but was cramming in a few last-minute books before bed.

The book he had open now was Deciphering Dreams in the Shadows of the Mind, the fifth one on the subject he'd skimmed through today. It wasn't that he was really worriedabout those dreams or anything. But a repeated dream, over and over, every night since that day on the train…There had to be something going on.

He check his watch. Only ten minutes until he'd get in trouble for being out and about. He better head back now…

Scooping parchment, quills and ink into his bag, he gathered the little that was left in his arms and headed out. About half-way through the C section, he ran head-long into another figure and dropped his bag with a noisy clatter, nearly falling over himself.

"Watch where you're going!" an annoyed voice spoke, and he realized abruptly that he had plowed straight in to Malfoy. The blonde had and annoyed look on his face, holding a few books in his arms. "Honestly, Kimura, I didn't pin you as being so…clumsy."

"…And which one of us nearly got clawed by a Tengu?" Kouichi almost swallowed his tongue after muttering that. He didn't want to cause trouble, really he didn't, it'd just slipped out, and besides, he really couldn't…

Malfoy glared at him, then sniffed haughtily, turning away. "It was that oaf Hagrid's fault." he sniffed. "For bringing in mangy beasts like that. If it wasn't for Dummy-dore being so damn soft-minded, he'd have been thrown out of here years ago."

This boy really needed to work on his people skills. Kouichi just sighed and started to pick his things back up. To his surprise, Malfoy helped him…well, in a way, as he slid the books closer with his feet so he didn't have to reach as far.

Kouichi gathered his things and stood, glancing at the books Malfoy was carrying. Charms for the Un-Charmed, Wand Techniques For Better Spellwork, Casting Accurate Charms: The Know-How to Know How…

Hm…Interesting.

Kouichi filed those thoughts away, sighed and glanced at Draco in a way he hoped was friendly without any sort of a smile. "Well then." he sighed. "Shall we get back to the dorms? It's getting late, and I still don't know the fastest way to the commons."

Malfoy eyed him level, shrugged, and lead the way out.

TBC…

Relax, relax, Kouichi's not 'going over to the Dark side' as one person put it. I am addressing this from the point that no one is really bad, even the Slytherins. Kouichi's just trying to survive the school year by making friends with his housemates.

Cold-touch-freezing-death: I couldn't find a word for hypothermia in my Japanese dictionary, so I decided this would be a fun time to explain how the stranger words are heard with the translation charms.

Heat Support Potions: This is the opposite of the Cooling Crest Potion that Ms. Kimura mentioned in the 2nd chapter, both of my own creation. Cooling Crest, naturally, cools down a fever, while Heat Support diverts hypothermia by raising the body temperture.