Yard work and Propositions

Harry had no good reason to be wandering around in Hogsmeade under an invisibility cloak. Not only was he banned from all Hogsmeade trips but his OWLS were to be taken in a week and studying was something he could stand to put a little more effort into.

However, all Harry wanted was some time to get out of the castle—away from Umbridge, his visions, and the impending OWLS.

He wandered aimlessly around the dry, crowded grounds for about an hour before growing restively tired of having the stuffy cloak draped over him. Convincing himself that it wouldn't hurt for some fresh air, Harry flattened against the tall brick wall of one of the shops and glanced around tensely—no one was watching. He cautiously slipped the cloak from his body and folded it up in his arms.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Harry had his wand under the person's chin before he had fully looked the stranger in the face.

It was a teenager, not much older than he was, with a tall athletic build and dark brown hair pulled back in a little ponytail at the base of his neck. Harry could tell by his features that he had an oriental background. The man was dressed in muggle attire and judging by the way he stared at Harry's wand in absolute bemusement he most likely was a muggle.

Harry wearily lowered his wand from the stranger's neck and spoke curtly, "May I help you?"

"You Harry Potter?" the guy asked. He seemed to have regained his composure after Harry removed his wand from his face.

"Yeah..." Harry said suspiciously.

"Tai Kamiya," the boy introduced himself, holding out a hand. "Guardian to the Digital World."

"Uh…?" was Harry's intelligent response as he distractedly shook Tai's hand as switching his wand to his left. Tai threw a neighborly arm around Harry's shoulders and led him off away from the crowds and out the other end of the alley.

"Harry my good man...you don't mind if I call you Harry do you? Well anyway, I have a proposition for you..."

For the next two hours Harry's view on everything outside the wizarding world was skewed to the point of no return. For starters he learned that there were many different dimensions on the planet Earth. One of them being the Digital World, a world created from pure data. Also, while humans were the dominant specie in the Mortal Realm, as it was called, there were other breeds that mingled within them. Such as demons. That was the one that threw Harry for a loop. While he was never religious, he always thought of demons as something the church made up. Apparently they were real. So was Hell, seeing as it was an ally to this 'Digital World' Tai spoke of as well as a far more neutral orientation than most humans believed.

And Tai...he himself wasn't even human. He was some sort of demi fire-god...a possible variation of the heliopaths the wizarding world knew them as.

By this point, Harry was so overwhelmed with so much information that he waved it off the claim. It took Tai throwing off his human cover-up in another vacant alleyway to convince Harry that his tale was real.

The reason Tai had sought out Harry was because of a self-appointed mission to unite many of the different worlds in some manner and gain potential allies if trouble ever arises. Originally Tai planned on reaching the ministry, but found them most disagreeable. That, Harry could relate to.

It seemed that Tai had decided to target someone he could relate to better, someone who still had influential power, no matter if it was untapped, and came up with Harry.

Harry informed the representative that he'd have to think on it. There was no chance in hell he could answer an offer such as that. Everything seemed so far-fetched that Harry was half convinced Tai was a distant relative of Luna's.

They parted on amicable terms. However, as soon as Harry got back to the castle, he remembered none of it.

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Harry frowned as the memory came back to him. Why hadn't he remembered his encounter with Tai after he got back from Hogsmeade? He filed the oddity in his mind as something he'd think on later. At that moment, Tai had reached them.

"Hey, Harry. I am so sorry about this. She made me take her with me," Tai grimaced at his own lame excuse. "Oh yeah! This is Shiva. Shiva, this is Harry Potter."

Harry felt himself stiffen unconsciously at the mention of his full name, as he often did with introductions.

Wait...her name was Shiva...that would mean that she was the half-demon Tai mentioned during their discussion—another guardian of the digital world. Harry looked at her longer and could find no trace of her being a demon. It made him wonder just how many people were walking around with demon blood...or any non-human blood for that matter.

"But he told me his name was Reg!" Shiva whined.

Tai looked at Harry incredulously.

"Did you get that off of 'Boy Meets World'?" he asked.

So that was what Dudley was watching earlier.

Harry just grinned at him, unsure of how to respond while finding no threat at the moment in Tai or Shiva. Tai laughed at his impish response.

"So what brings you here?" Harry asked. He was suddenly in a good mood. If felt nice being able to talk with other people...even if they weren't all human.

"You have a really sexy accent!" Shiva exclaimed, suddenly very excited.

Harry looked at her feeling mildly confused, "Erm...you came here for my accent?"

Another witty response. Hadn't he been try to look cool in front of her before?

Tai bopped Shiva on the head. Harry didn't often see guys who physically hit women so openly. Shiva didn't seem to mind it.

"Stop it," Tai commanded. He turned to Harry. "Can we talk inside?"

"Sure," Harry replied easily, without thinking. Just as he started to walk towards the house he realized that his relatives would not be happy with any company of his.

'Well', he thought, 'now is a good as time as any to put Moody's threat to use.'

He stopped and faced the pair behind him, "Just agree with anything I say, ok?"

Tai and Shiva nodded before following him into the ridiculously clean house. The group didn't make it five feet into the hallway before his aunt heatedly swooped down on them.

"Who are these people?" she hissed at Harry while shooting Tai and Shiva dirty looks. Her eyes dodged around suspiciously and she craned her neck to look out the window. Probably hoping no one saw her deranged nephew associating with normal looking people, "You are not to be bringing more freaks into this house!"

"My headmaster sent them," Harry said calmly "He thought I could use a little company. Don't worry; we'll be quiet. You won't even know we're here..."

He breezed by her up the stairs while Tai and Shiva followed. But not without shooting his aunt strange looks.

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"I can tell they like you," Tai said sarcastically as he eyed Harry's 'bedroom'. Harry shrugged not really caring what they thought of him or his relatives and picked up an oversized shirt from the floor and put it on.

"So you're a wizard?" Shiva asked him as she plopped down at his desk and rifled though his homework, much to Harry's amusement.

"Shiva! Get out of that!" Tai yelled at her.

"No, it's ok. As long as she doesn't destroy it. That's my summer homework," Harry said.

"Oh, WOW!" Shiva cried in excitement. "You use quills? And parchment?"

Harry laughed. He liked her; she reminded him of a little kid, "Yeah, we do."

"That's so medieval!" Shiva went back to examining odd things in the room, softly voicing her amazement. Tai turned to Harry.

"So? Have you thought about what I said?" he asked, referring to their encounter in Hogsmeade.

"I still find it hard to believe you live in a computer," Harry stated flatly. The very notion was ridiculous. Tai laughed in good humor.

"Well, it's not so much a computer than all the data of the worldwide computers collected and merged into a parallel dimension."

"Uh-huh..." Harry said disbelievingly.

"We live in a coliseum!" Shiva piped up from his left. He was about to tell her that such information would not help the credibility of the argument when he caught sight of what she was wearing. The girl was dwarfed in one of Dudley's old, oversized shirts and was clutching a mass of pants that we're held up by only her hands. He couldn't help it—he threw his head back and started laughing. She was wearing his clothes!

"Shiva!" Tai yelled at her. "What are you doing? Get out of those! And you—," he rounded on Harry, pointing a finger at him, "—don't encourage her! I'm trying to train her to be...well behaved!"

"Are these really yours?" Shiva giggled tugging at the jumbo shirt that draped down to her knees. Harry's laughing slowed to a stop. He suddenly felt heat rise to his cheeks in embarrassment.

"Erm… yeah. They're actually my cousin's. I don't own any muggle clothes of my own," He said hesitantly.

"Muggle?"

"Non-magic people," he replied easily. Shiva only nodded.

"So," Tai said, "will you ally yourself to the digital world? We're in a war and you're in a war; I think both sides can use all the help they can get."

He had a point. And it would be good to have some leverage in the war without Dumbledore or Voldemort knowing. But he wouldn't rush into anything, not this time.

"Please, please, please, please…" At least Tai was being professional about it.

"I still really don't see how I can be of much help," Harry argued.

"I can!" Shiva exclaimed loudly as she waddled to the bed.

"Shiva, take those damn things off!" Tai scowled at her. It was easy to see who the more responsible one was.

Shiva ignored Tai and, to Harry's immense embarrassment, plopped herself right in his lap. Harry was sure he could give Ron's hair a run for its money with how red his face must have been.

She grabbed his face with both her hands and seemed to stare right through him.

"You're going to be an extremely valuable ally after you kick Voldemort's ass. And before the war is over you will need our help." She blinked a few times, her eyes focusing on his own. "Hell—you need our help right now! Look at these clothes!"

Harry stood up alarmed, not caring if he sent the girl spiraling to the floor. He never mentioned Voldemort once, let alone his responsibility to 'kick his ass'. Where was she getting her information?

"Whoa, whoa, wait. How do you know about Voldemort? And what makes you think I'll kill him? What—I mean—are you a seer?" He finally demanded.

This was getting ridiculous. Just who were these people, really? Had he been too trusting?

"Yeah...how do you know that?" Tai asked guardedly. Harry looked at him. So...maybe he wasn't the only one lost here.

Shiva rubbed her butt and pulled herself up from the floor, shooting Harry an agitated look.

"Hello," she said waving her hands. "I'm Shiva...the psychic demon! I've seen this. To answer your last question, no, I'm not a seer. And I never said you would kill Voldemort."

"You're a psychic?" Harry asked. He really needed to read up on demons—especially if there were psychic ones. "And how is that different from a seer?"

"Well, I move things around with my mind—as in, I'm psychokinetic—and I get dreams of the future—," Shiva started before Harry interrupted her once more.

"Wait—dreams as in premonitions?" he did not need another Trelawney on his hands.

"Yeah, whatever they're called," Shiva waved an impatient hand. "I get them—don't always know what they mean, but they happen. And I can also skim people's minds if I want—just sensing and hearing things..."

She leaned in and leered at him. "Don't worry, this is the real deal, none of that shit Trelawney gives you."

"How did you...hey! Don't go through my head!" Harry fumed as he was avidly reminded of Snape.

"If you don't want people to go through your head, you gotta get some defenses up around it." Shiva sang, prancing around the room until she tripped on the legs of the giant pants and went crashing to the ground.

"Just give it up," Tai said to Harry when he opened his mouth to replay. "She's always going through mine. Annoys the hell out of me."

"Yeah, well I have stuff in there that shouldn't be known by just anybody." Harry replied huffily. What gave her the right to go through his head? Although she did have a point about him getting some defenses around his mind...whatever that meant. Maybe it was like Occlumency? He should probably ask her to teach him a few things about building these walls.

"Don't worry about that prophecy," Shiva said waving a dismissive hand from her place on the floor, "It's all gunna work out for you in the end."

Harry looked at her confused.

"I thought you said I don't kill Voldemort?"

"Where the hell did you learn all this shit?" Tai exclaimed. The poor guy didn't know what the hell was going on.

Shiva ignored Tai, "You don't. You can't. His soul is immortal after what he's done."

"Well then he's obviously going to kill me," Harry argued back, "Neither can live while the other survives… sound familiar since you went through my head? How is that 'working out' for me?"

"He's not going to kill you." She said calmly.

"Ok, now she's freaking the hell out of me…" Tai mumbled to himself.

"So the war will never end," continued Harry.

"Yes it will. It won't last as long as the first, I can tell you that."

"Well then he must kill me!"

"He can't. No one can."

"I'm immortal?" Harry asked finding this very hard to believe.

"Not yet...?"

Harry stared hard at her. She seemed to know the outcome of the war but for some reason or another wouldn't tell him.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"I don't understand," Tai moaned.

"I can't tell you that! It would ruin all the fun!"

"Shiva!" Harry finally yelled. He couldn't take this game any more.

"Alright, alright! I don't actually know how it ends. Some things I sense are clear, like the distinct lack of dying, while others are too foggy," Shiva groused with plain annoyance. "Jeez, you take all the mystery out of it when you make me explain."

"I hate you all," Tai pouted.

Harry countered with, "I hate life."

"Let's go shopping," Shiva said suddenly, completely forgetting about what they were just talking about. Tai and Harry blinked at the unexpected declaration.

"Come on!" She urged, heading for the door. She was really serious.

"Shiva, we didn't come here to shop." Tai stated crossing his arms.

"Come on. I want to play "dress up Harry". Worldly-saviors can't wear this stuff," she picked disdainfully at a moth-eaten shirt hanging off the dresser.

"I'd rather not." Harry deadpanned. What was up with this chick?

"But I have a credit card and a master plan!" Shiva exclaimed getting a dreamy look on her face.

Neither Harry nor Tai moved to follow her.

"We're leaving now." Shiva growled sternly.

Stubbornly, no movement roused at her command.

"NOW!" she roared at them. Harry could have sworn he saw her eyes go black but didn't want to take the chance to look again. He just scurried down the stairs and out the door with Tai at his heels.

Just as the three of them stepped out the front door Harry remembered his guard.

"Wait a minute!" Harry exclaimed, grabbing both their arms and leading them back into the house. It may have looked comical to anyone on watch.

"What now?" Shiva asked impatiently. She seemed really desperate to buy him clothes.

"I don't know if Tai told you, but there are people out there—" Harry started.

"Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, he told me." Shiva said.

"Damn it," Tai ran a hand through his bangs in frustration, "I forgot about them."

Harry mentally swore at his guard for keeping him from having an afternoon of somewhat normalcy. He didn't feel like taking any of the Order's overprotective shit this year. He prepared to tell the other two to simply ignore the guard when Shiva spoke up.

"Boys, boys, boys. When will you learn?" She threw an arm around each of their shoulders. "Women have the solution to everything."

Without warning all three of their bodies dissolved into wisps of smoke, evaporating from the property of number four Privet Drive.

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A/N: Shiva and Tai are not going to be central in this fic. They just help him out in the beginning and randomly pop up now and then later on. However, someone else *coughInuyashacough* will be showing up later on who will have much more of an impact on Harry.