1Thoughts

'Not translated dialogue '

"Translated dialogue

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or Harry Potter

Chapter 7

Harry Potter was a peculiar boy. He was eleven years old give or take a month. He never

looked forward to his birthday as most other English boys do. He was very rich yet most of his wardrobe consisted of second-hand clothes. He had never been in a serious fight, even including the many beatings bullies had given him, but he had a very noticeable scar on his forehead. And, like the hero of this story, Harry Potter was a wizard.

Harry was arguably the most famous wizard in most of Europe. At age 11, he was already noted for conquering one of the most powerful dark wizards in history, Lord Voldemort. This Lord Voldemort had terrorized the wizarding world for decades before he suffered defeat at the hands of young Harry, something that Hiko had told Kenshin in his many Wizard Culture lessons. The strange thing is that Harry has no idea how he had defeated Voldemort, the one who had killed many wizards much more powerful than Harry. All that Harry knew was from stories that he had heard only a month ago. He knew that Voldemort first killed Harry's parents. He knew that after disposing of Harry's parents, Voldemort tried to kill Harry. He also knew that when Voldemort tried to kill Harry, the magical curse that Voldemort used backfired and hit Voldemort instead of Harry. Harry was left with nothing worse than a lightning-shaped scar on top of his forehead while Voldemort was most likely either dead or so powerless that he was as good as dead.

However, none of that mattered to Harry right then. What mattered to him was whether he could find a seat on the train. This train didn't wait for anything less than total annihilation. This train was the Hogwarts Express- the train that took promising young wizards to the magic school of Hogwarts. Harry had looked into every compartment and none of them were empty. In fact, the only one that wasn't full was the one he was standing in front of. He hadn't had any friends before so his self-esteem was very low. He was very nervous and shy so he had to work up some considerable courage to talk to someone his own age. He finally opened the compartment door.

'Excuse me, may I sit in your compartment please?'

The compartments only occupant, a Japanese boy with striking red hair, looked down in surprise. He was watching an owl fly around near the ceiling. Then, after a moment, he smiled and said in very fluent English, 'Of course.'

Harry smiled back and lifted his trunk up the steps. Or at least, he tried to lift his trunk. He couldn't even lift one end of it without dropping it in a few seconds. By the third attempt, his face was burning from the strain and embarrassment. He was looking like a weak fool.

'Can I help?'

Harry looked up at the Japanese boy and gasped, 'Please do.'

The boy got out and the two of them managed to get the trunk up the steps and into the compartment. Both of the boys stepped in to the compartment and shared a triumphant laugh.

'My name is Kenshin Himura,' the Japanese boy said. 'What's yours?'

'Harry,' Harry answered. 'Harry Potter.'

To Harry's delight, Kenshin showed no recognition to his name. Harry was still a little unnerved by his own fame.

'So, are you a first-year student too, Harry?' Kenshin asked.

'Yeah,' Harry replied. 'And you are too?'

'Yep,' Kenshin beamed.

'Going to Hogwarts should be fun, don't you think?'

'Definitely,' Kenshin said. 'I imagine that Hogwarts will be full of magic. I grew up without knowing a thing about magic so I'm eager to know what Hogwarts will be like.'

'I know what you mean,' Harry said, with a relieved smile. 'My parents were a witch and wizard, but I grew up with my relatives. They're muggles, and horrible ones to boot. I was worried I would be the only one at school who didn't grow up without knowing about magic.'

'I was worried about that too. I guess we'll just have to learn about this world together,' Kenshin said.

'Yeah,' Harry said with a big smile. He was so glad to have finally made a friend. He wasn't exaggerating when he said that his relatives were horrible. The Dursleys were Harry's relatives from his mother's side and they absolutely abhorred magic. Apparently, when the Dursleys took Harry in, they were afraid that he would be a wizard and, for some reason, thought that by seriously mistreating Harry they could somehow force the magic out of him. Needless to say, they were wrong, and Harry had left them to go to Hogwarts feeling the happiest he could ever remember feeling.

'So why do you live with your relatives and not your parents?' Kenshin asked.

Harry's smile lost a few molars. He was worried how his new friend would think about him if he found out that Harry was an orphan.

'Well,-' Harry was cut off as the train lurched forward and started moving.

Kenshin apparently sensed that he had hit a sore subject. 'I'm sorry, that was a stupid question to ask,' he said.

'No, that's okay,' Harry said. He decided that if he was going to be friends with Kenshin, then he shouldn't hide things. 'My parents were killed by Voldemort.'

Kenshin seemed momentarily speechless. Then, he quietly said, 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be,' Harry said. 'It wasn't your fault.'

They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Then-

'So that means that you're-' Kenshin began.

Then, the compartment door opened. A boy with red-hair stuck his head in nervously.

'Anyone sitting in that seat?' he asked, pointing at the seat next to Kenshin. 'Everywhere else's full.'

Harry recognized the boy. When Harry had arrived at the train station, he had no idea how to get onto the correct platform. He had spotted the boy- Harry remembered his name was Ron- along with his three brothers, one sister, and one mother, with an owl. He knew that keeping owls as pets was not normal for a muggle family and had moved closer. He heard them talking about Hogwarts so he asked the mother how to get on. She kindly gave him instructions and informed him that Ron was going into his first year too.

Kenshin shook his head and the boy sat down next to him, relieved.

'Thanks,' Ron said. 'My name's Ron Weasley,' he added as an afterthought.

'Kenshin Himura,' Kenshin said, smiling again.

'Harry Potter.'

Ron's eyes went wide. 'So you were Harry Potter!' he blurted out. 'Er- I thought I saw your scar. Do you really-?' Ron pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry pulled back his bangs to reveal the scar- he had taken to hiding it whenever he was near magical people because they had a tendency to give him a lot of unwarranted reverence.

'Is that where You-Know-Who,- you know-'

'Tried to kill you?' Kenshin finished quietly for Ron.

'Yes,' Harry said. 'I don't remember any of it though.'

'None of it?' Ron asked eagerly.

'Well,' Harry thought. 'If I try hard enough, I can remember a lot of green light, but that's all.'

'Wow,' Ron said nonetheless. Kenshin seemed to be pondering about this and said nothing.

Harry was eager to change the subject to something he felt more comfortable and interested about so he asked Ron 'Are your whole family wizards?'

'Er- I think so,' Ron replied. 'I think my mum might have a second muggle cousin but we don't talk about him.'

Kenshin seemed interested by an all-magic family too and asked 'So you must already know a lot of magic.'

Ron seemed flustered by all the attention. 'Not really. Mom wouldn't be too happy if I was trying to do any serious magic.'

'How about you two?' Ron asked. 'I heard that you went to live with muggles, Harry, but I don't know anything about you, Kenshin.'

'Yeah, me neither,' Harry remarked.

'Umm,' Kenshin looked a little nervous. 'I'm an orphan really. I live in Japan with my master who teaches me ss-pottery.'

'Master?' Ron asked. Harry agreed with the question. What did he mean by "master?"

'Like Master and Apprentice,' Kenshin explained.

'Oh,' Harry said, a little embarrassed. He had thought of something along the lines of slave labor.

'So, pottery?' Ron asked. 'That's... wicked.'

Kenshin laughed. 'It's okay. You can say what you want.'

'Really?' Ron asked. Kenshin nodded.

'Okay. Actually that's kind of girly.'

Kenshin sighed. 'Yeah, but, it's what my master teaches me.'

Harry's imagination supplied him with a mental picture of a short Japanese girly-man with long black hair and a thin face with white make-up on who was wearing a Japanese dress and affectionately carrying a plain pot.

'Why don't you go to a Japanese school of magic?' Ron asked. 'Wouldn't it be closer?'

Harry thought Ron had a point.

'The Japanese schools need their students to start going to school since childhood and I think that maybe I wasn't able to go.'

'Why not?' Ron and Harry asked.

'Well, I lived in a pretty poor orphanage so I think that the schools realized that I wouldn't have the resources to go to school.'

Harry and Ron looked each other. They had both forgotten that Kenshin said he was an orphan.

Harry tentatively asked, 'What happened to your parents?'

'They died of disease.' Kenshin's face was devoid of any emotion.

'Blimey, I'm sorry, mate,' Ron said quietly.

'Don't worry about it,' Kenshin said, his voice marginally more cheerful. 'How's living with your relatives like, Harry.'

Harry could tell that Kenshin was trying to change the subject quickly so he went along with it. 'Oh, they're horrible. They must be the worst muggles you could ever meet. I wish I had a family like yours Ron. Wish I had three wizards for brothers.'

'Five,' Ron said, for some reason, gloomily. 'I'm the sixth Weasley of this generation to go to Hogwarts. You could say that I have some big shoes to fill. Bill- he's already left- was head boy. Charlie -he's left too- was captain of Quidditch. Percy's a prefect now. Fred and George- they're twins- mess around a lot. They get good grades though and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others but they've already done everything first. It doesn't matter what I do. You'd never get anything new either. Everything you have is handed down. Bill's old robes; Charlie's old rat; even Percy's old rat.'

Ron pulled out a fat gray rat from his pocket. It was currently asleep.

'He's Scabbers and useless: hardly ever wakes up. Dad got Percy an owl for being made prefect, but they couldn't aff- I got Scabbers,'

Ron's ears curiously became pink. He started looking out of the window to avoid Kenshin's and Harry's eyes.

Harry didn't think that there was anything to be ashamed about in not being able to afford an owl. He himself had never had any money until the last month.

'I've always had to wear my cousin Dudley's old clothes too. And I've never gotten anything for a birthday present better than a sock.'

'And I've had the same two sets of clothes for the last 3 years. That's why I changed to my robes this early,' Kenshin added.

This seemed to cheer Ron up.

'And, until Hagrid the Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts told me, I didn't know anything about my parents or about wizards or about Voldemort or-'

Ron gasped.

'What is it?' both Harry and Kenshin asked.

'You- you just said You-Know-Who's name!' Ron said, both shocked and impressed. 'I thought that you, of all people, would-'

Kenshin and Harry glanced at each other, both with a confused look in there eyes.

'I'm not trying to be brave,' Harry said. 'I just didn't know that you shouldn't say his name. Neither does Kenshin. See, we both have loads to learn. Do you think...' Harry said worriedly, 'that we'd be so behind that we'd be at the bottom of the class?'

Kenshin was looking worried for the first time. It looked as if this thought had never occurred to him before. He looked at Ron too.

'You two won't be. There's loads of people who are from Muggle families. They learn quick enough and so will you guys.'

'You think so?' Kenshin asked. Ron nodded. Kenshin started smiling again.

Harry sure hoped Ron was right. He didn't want to be made a fool of himself at Hogwarts.

For at least a half-hour, the three of them talked about nothing. They just watched the scenery out the window pass by. During that time, the owl flying around the ceiling finally became bored and went to his cage. Kenshin introduced him as his owl, Hitmit. Then, after a half-hour, the door was opened.

'Hey, Ron,' said a red-haired boy, one of the twins Ron had talked about. He, like his identical twin who was standing next to him, was a few years older than Ron but not that much taller. Ron was tall and gangly while the twins were shorter and stocky.

'Finally found you,' said the other twin.

'Wow, you've made some friends,' the first twin remarked.

'Where are your manners, Ronnie?' the second twin asked.

'Yeah, aren't you going to introduce us?'

'Kenshin, Harry, they're Fred,' Ron said pointing at the first twin. 'And George,' he pointed at the second twin. 'Now what do you two want?'

'Harry?' Fred asked, ignoring Ron's question.

'Harry Potter?' George asked, also ignoring Ron's question.

'Er- yeah,' Harry said.

'Well we're Fred and George Weasley,' Fred said while Ron muttered 'I just said that.'

'Oh, right, little brother,' said Fred.

'Fred, don't forget why we came here in the first place.'

'You're right, George. Ron, we know how much you like spiders so we wanted to ask if you wanted to come with us to see Lee Jordan's giant tarantula.'

'I'll pass,' Ron mumbled.

'Suit yourself,' Fred said, smirking.

'Come on Ron, how about we bring it back in here?'

'No, I'm fine, George,' Ron said, a little pale.

'Fine,' George said with an unconvincing fake look of disbelief.

The twins turned around and walked back through the compartment door.

'Those gits,' Ron muttered.

'What was that?' Kenshin asked.

'Oh, nothing,' Ron said, his ears turning pink again.

Thankfully for Ron, because it took the attention away from him, a smiling, dimpled woman pushing a cart full of food slid the compartment door open. 'Anything off the cart, dears?'

Kenshin's stomach gave a very audible growl. 'I'm kinda hungry.'

'Me too.'

Ron's ears went pink once again and muttered something at having brought his own lunch of sandwiches.

'Do you have to gloat Ron?' Kenshin asked.

'Yeah, Ron, you get delicious sandwiches while all we get is candy,' Harry continued.

'I think you shouldn't eat those sandwiches,' Kenshin suggested.

'You should take some pity on us. Eat some candy so we don't feel left out,'Harry said.

'Come on, Ron. Please?' Kenshin implored

'It'll be on us,' Harry said.

'Well, if you insist,' Ron said with a shadow of a grin

'Thanks,' Harry said. 'We'll have a lot of everything,' Harry told the woman.

AN: Well Harry's in the story now. Is that good or bad? I also might have one of Kenshin's rivals be in this story but I'm not sure how I'd incorporate them in. Tell me if you have any ideas, please and thank you. And I know the ending to this chapter is kind of bad but I couldn't find a good way to end it.

Once again, please review.