No, I haven't died yet, but well, life got in the way and so I couldn't get to updating sooner.

I really hadn't intended the person yelling "Kagome" to be such a mystery, yet a lot of people seemed to focus on it. I was rather thinking that it could've been Shippo, or maybe Harry, who yelled it out. But really, it doesn't matter; it could've been anybody.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews. I honestly can't get over how many people are reading and liking this story! Unfortunately, because there's so many of you, I'm going to have to stop thanking you all before each chapter, 'cause it's getting to be a long and confusing paragraph, which most people probably skip anyway. So as of this chapter, I'm only responding to a few reviewers at a time, who I think have valid questions or who I just really want to answer.

But, I'm really, really grateful to all of you. Thanks a million!

Lonewolf-chica - Yay! hugs You guessed it! Actually you were the only one who remembered Tsubaki. Have some fluffy-shaped cookies.

Shadow-wolf888 - Seriously, I'm not out to break any reviewer number records. I am totally thrilled with how many I have. But hey, if you want to spread the word, go for it (and no, I have no idea how you'd do that other than tell all your friends or possibly add my story to a C2 group).

lady-of-tormentdeath - Yeah, if had occurred to me to have the curse not effect her in the same way because she was a miko, but at the end of the day, I think it basically comes down to the fact that she's human. And since she's human, the curse can still kill her. But. . . . well, you'll see in a moment where the "but" comes in.

Shavaineth - Aaahhh!. . . did I not correct the 'katana' bit? Damn it! It sounded wrong when I used it, so I looked it up and changed Kohaku's weapon to being called a sickle and chain, but I must've overlooked it there. Thanks for catching it, I shall eventually go back and fix that. And yeah, it does make sense that Kouga and the wolves have an animal form as well. . . I wonder if there's an actual reason why they never transform? I sort of figure they prefer their human forms. Hmm. . .I'll see where the story goes before deciding whether or not to give poor Remus a heart-attack. Lol!

froggiesrcool - Oh, so you were talking like Sesshoumaru on purpose? And here I just thought you were insane, lol! As for the death eaters dropping like flies. . . it's what they do in Inu Yasha all the time. I mean, in one episode I distinctly remember Jaken taking out an entire army in, like, less than five minutes. At least no one's started wielding a sword yet! I'm glad I made you laugh, cry and curse me all in one chapter, though (so sue me; I talk like that!). LOL! And now that I have someone going over my fic with a fine tooth comb, I will have to pay more attention to my editing. I like criticism (as long as there's a point to it) and I can be horribly nit-picky myself, so don't worry about it. I'm happy you like my fic this much.

Disclaimer: I only own the story. That's it, nothing else.

A Clash of Cultures

Chapter 11 - The Headmaster

"Very well then," Lucius said evenly, his aim shifting to her, "Avada Kadavra."

"Kagome!" she heard someone cry in the distance as she watched the flash of green light head straight for her.

It only took a moment, but in that moment Kagome thought she saw every little particle of the curse headed her way. Before her eyes the green light surrounding the curse seemed to divide and its brightness fade, until she could see its core and the searing, white light it contained.

Instinctively she brought up an arm to shield herself.

Then she felt the curse hit, felt the intense heat of the white light as it aimed for her heart. Somewhere in that heat she sensed human emotions tangled up with the magic: hatred, anger and betrayal.

Then suddenly the heat was gone. So was the light. Kagome collapsed onto her knees, gasping for breath.

Her head felt like it was full of water and she heard the murmur voices as if from a great distance. Even the blades of grass in front of her seemed to meld into one big, green puddle. She shook her head in order to clear it, then looked down again.

She noticed that her right hand was still tightly clutching her bow.

Someone touched her left shoulder.

"Kagome?" she recognized Draco's voice. "Are you alright?"

She nodded, not really wanting to say anything at the moment, because her mouth felt like she had just kissed a dragon with bad breath.

"Kagome. . . you-you're alive," someone said in amazement. Kagome looked up. It was Harry.

"Wow," Ron breathed from behind him, "someone must've forgotten to tell her she's supposed to die from that curse."

Beside her, Draco chuckled.

"Yep, that's our Kagome!" Shippo said happily from where he was standing next to Lucius's prone body. Kagome's eyes widened.

"Is he. . .?" she asked, looking at Lucuis in horror.

Shippo looked down and sniffed twice. Then he looked at her and nodded.

'I killed him. . . I killed a human being,' was the first thought that went through her mind. She couldn't believe it; she felt horrified at the very thought, yet everything, the dead body, everything just seemed so surreal.

Just then someone stepped in front of her, blocking the sun. She heard Shippo growling in the background. Kagome looked up.

Looking down at her was the image of every single wizard drawing she'd ever seen. In fact, she distinctly remembered watching a cartoon when she was little where the wizard Merlin looked exactly like the man standing in front of her. He had a long, white beard, dark purple robes covered in gold stars and a pointed hat on his head. There was even a twinkle in his eyes as he watched her with evident curiosity.

"Hello there," he said in a kind, grandfatherly tone, "and who are you?"

"I am Kagome Higurashi," she said, winching at how rough her voice sounded.

"She's Cho Chang's cousin," Harry explained.

"Really? How very interesting. And Mr. Malfoy. . ." The old man paused and seemed to study Draco for a moment.

He reminded Kagome of Lady Kaede; there was the same mixture of wisdom and determination in his eyes. It was a comforting thought. Slowly, she saw astonishment slowly creep into his expression as he stared at Draco.

"But I was told that you were. . ."

He was interrupted by a small "pop" to Kagome's left.

"Aaahhh. . . if it issn't the great Albusss Dumbledore," came the raspy voice of the Dark Lord, "I was expecting you much sssooner."

"Hello Tom," Albus Dumbledore responded, "I apologize for being late, but I was at Hogwarts and the message didn't get to me as fast as it should have. And then I came across this remarkable young lady here."

The Dark Lord chuckled.

"Yess, young Kagome is quite remarkable issn't she? I mussst ssay, she hasss made quite a nuisance of hersself ssso far."

"And he hasn't even heard that you can deflect the killing curse yet," Draco muttered to Kagome under his breath.

"And her friends proved to be an even greater nuisance, but those are only minor setbacks. . ."

"You call the obliteration of half your army a minor setback?" Shippo asked with raised eyebrows.

The Dark Lord turned his attention to Shippo and narrowed his eyes.

"I thought we were missing a wolf," he said.

"Fox. I'm a fox."

'What does he mean, they're missing a wolf?' Kagome thought.

She carefully stood up with Draco's help and scanned the battlefield. She saw Jaken running away from a group of sorcerers who were bombarding him with a series of curses. He was missing his staff. By the edge of the park, she saw Kouga and company laying on the ground with four masked sorcerers standing over them. They seemed to be somehow magically restrained from moving.

Her breath caught in her throat as she watched Kohaku get hit by one of the green killing curses. He fell to the ground. Then she saw the Shikon shard in his back glow for a few seconds. When it stopped, Kohaku got up and charged, sickle and chain in hand, at the sorcerers who had cursed him. He leapt to avoid getting hit again and threw the sickle which he was in mid-air. It neatly sank into the shoulder of the sorcerer nearest to him.

Kagome suddenly felt an arm grab her and pull her away. She was about to start struggling when she realized it was Draco.

"Come on," he urged her, "believe me, we don't want to get caught up in the middle of this duel!"

'Huh?' she thought, but followed him anyway.

Behind her, she could feel a sudden build-up of magic. It felt like two powerful storms about to clash. She broke away from Draco's grasp and stopped to look back.

Both the Dark Lord and the old man had their magic sticks out and aimed at each other.

There was no longer anything kind or grandfatherly about the old man. He wasn't stooping slightly anymore, but standing straight, his aura swirling angrily around him in a dazzling array of lights. She could feel raw magic emanating from him.

The Dark Lord glared at him with an intensity that would've made most people cower. His eyes glowed bright red, making him appear even more demonic than before. He was also standing tall, his feet slightly apart, as his aura formed a sort of dark whirlwind around him.

The air around them felt tense, as if preparing for a truly spectacular thunderstorm.

And then it hit.

With a mighty bellow, the Dark Lord cast the first spell. A beam of light left his stick and headed for the old man. The old man shouted something back and the spell was deflected at a tree, which burst into flames. He then retaliated with his own spell, which was just as easily deflected by the Dark Lord.

Who answered with a dark red curse. It was deflected straight back at him. The lipless mouth smiled maliciously as he raised his stick so that it lined up exactly with the returning ray of light. His lips moved and Kagome knew he was chanting something, but he was too far away for her to hear what it was.

The curse impacted with the tip of his wand. Kagome could see it swirl around his wand before gathering at its tip again. It looked as though he was blowing up a lethal bubble of dark red chewing gum. Except that the centre of the bubble wasn't empty, but full of dark magic.

The Dark Lord hissed the last syllable of his chant and the red ball of dark magic flew at the old man.

"Protectus Patronus!" the old man shouted. A fiery gold and orange phoenix emerged out of his wand and flew to meet the ball. The two spells met in a massive explosion of magic. Small pieces of both spells scattered in all direction.

Kagome saw Shippo grab both Ron and Harry and jump out of the way of a rain of sparks. At the same time, the twins, who had been standing on either side of them, disappeared.

"Ok, as exciting as this is to watch, its gettin' kinda dangerous," Shippo commented as he landed next to Kagome. He put a slightly dazed-looking Harry and Ron down and began to scratch at a smouldering spot on his right shoulder, where he had been hit by a piece of the explosion.

Kagome watched him for a moment. Then she reached a hand up to touch the spot he was scratching. The curse was very powerful, but there was only a small amount of it on his shoulder. It wasn't hard to purify.

"Thanks," Shippo said when she removed her hand. She nodded to him before looking back to the duel.

"Kagome, look out!"

Suddenly Kagome found herself being shoved aside and knocking down Draco as she careened towards the ground. Her mind just barely processed the curse that whizzed past her.

She did, however, hear something snap and Draco yell out in pain as she landed on top of him. When she looked back, she realized that Shippo had slightly overdone it and sent them both flying about five metres away from where they had been previously.

Shippo, meanwhile was throwing foxfire at every black-cloaked figure he could see. Unfortunately, they had gotten somewhat smarter and were deflecting most of it or disappearing and reappearing elsewhere.

Harry, Ron and the twins were doing the same with their magic sticks, with similar results. Although, at least Shippo's targets ended up with singed robes despite their shielding charms.

"Bloody Merlin, Kagome! Get. Off." Draco growled through clenched teeth.

Kagome looked at him and saw that his eyes were closed tightly in pain. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Slowly she got up and as she did, she noticed that the arm she had landed on was laying limply and at an awkward angle.

"Let me get a look at that," she said, mentally preparing herself for an argument.

"Are you any good with healing spells?" Draco asked instead of arguing that he was fine. The question took her with surprise.

"Healing spells?" she asked. "I know all about herbs and I can make some healing potions. . ."

"Don't bother then. One of the others is bound to know some spells to heal this quickly."

Kagome's eyes narrowed, but any response she was going to make was forgotten when something crashed into a nearby bush, which immediately burst into flames.

She spun around just in time to watch the old man send a very powerful curse at the Dark Lord. Seconds before it hit, the Dark Lord vanished and the curse hit two sorcerers behind him who were trying to cover Kohaku as he swung his sickle and chain at yet another masked sorcerer.

The Dark Lord reappeared behind the old man.

The old man was already swinging around to face him. He pointed his wand at the ground in front of the Dark Lord and seconds later the spot exploded, sending dust, dirt and rocks into the Dark Lord's face. The next curse was directed at the Dark Lord himself.

However, the Dark Lord was gone again before it hit. When he appeared again, Kagome saw his red eyes flash angrily and, for a moment, she was reminded of Naraku.

Her eyes went wide. It had been growing so steadily, she hadn't noticed it. Now that she was paying attention to the Dark Lord alone, she noticed that the yjaki was back. She concentrated on his aura. It was dark and impenetrable and the yjaki seemed to be emanating from within it.

Except that now that she was actually paying attention to it, she realized it wasn't quite yjaki. It had something almost demonic in it, but not quite. It wasn't strong enough to be yjaki. Yet it was still incredibly powerful and certainly not at all natural.

Then the Dark Lord disappeared again.

He reappeared on the other side of the old man and immediately cast another curse at him.

At the same moment that the old man cast a shield of some kind, several figures popped up behind him. They were all wearing black cloaks and white masks.

"Crucio!" they cried in one voice.

For several seconds it seemed that their target might just manage to throw off the curse. Eventually, though, he let out a hoarse scream and fell to his knees under the onslaught.

"This is about as far from good as it can possibly get," Draco said from behind her, fear evident in his voice.

Kagome looked back at him. He was now standing, cradling his arm. Kagome winced slightly: it looked as if his shoulder was dislocated. The expression on his face was something between shock and horror.

She felt the magic behind her ebb off and she looked back. The newest arrivals had their sticks still pointed at the old man, but they were no longer cursing him.

'I have to do something,' Kagome thought.

Looking to the side, she saw Shippo defending Harry and an injured Ron. He looked as if he was barely standing.

The twins had been joined by what Kagome assumed was their older brother. They were a little further away, exchanging curses with a group of dark sorcerers, who must've arrived at the same time the ones who cursed the old man did, because they didn't have any battle marks on them yet.

The yjaki coming from the Dark Lord suddenly got stronger. Kagome looked in that direction.

"Oh lookie, lookie," a female voice practically sang from behind Kagome, "what do we have here? Two very, very naughty children, who should've stayed at home."

"Damn," Draco cursed under his breath. Slowly he and Kagome turned around.

"Hello aunt Belatrix," Draco said politely.

'Aunt Belatrix?' Kagome looked to Draco in shock. The blonde simply shrugged.

"What, and you thought you were the only one allowed to know the random people who show up around here?"

"Oh, hello Dragon dear," the lady said brightly. Kagome couldn't see what she looked like, because, like the others, she was wearing a white mask. "I've heard that you've been especially bad. The Dark Lord allowed you the honour of joining his ranks and you left. We don't like people who leave the party early. It's very impolite of you."

She raised her magic stick and aimed it at Draco.

Kagome heard her taking a breath just before something big and yellow sailed through the air and knocked her to the ground.

"Kirara!" Draco cried out. Kagome breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Kirara growling at Draco's aunt Belatrix and holding her down with her paws.

She turned back to the where the Dark Lord was saying something to the old man. They were too far a way though, and Kagome couldn't hear what was being said. The yjaki surrounding the Dark Lord was stronger now.

She registered a small group of the "good guys" trying to fight their way through the mass of masked sorcerers in order to help the old man.

Once again, Kagome put all her effort into concentrating on the Dark Lord's aura.

It was like a tornado of darkness swirling around him at a dizzying pace. But she knew there was something else there; something that was hiding from her. She could feel it. It had to be there.

And then she got a glimpse of something pale gray amongst the black. It was just underneath the surface of his aura. Kagome latched onto the little bit she saw and concentrated on that one spot. Centimetre by centimetre a gray shape revealed itself.

Hidden within the Dark Lord's aura and wrapped around his body, was a giant snake.

Well, there it is guys! Hope you enjoyed. One of the reasons this took so long to write, was because I had a really hard time with the action sequences, mainly the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore. So please review and give me your honest opinion about it.

Author's Notes:

Protectus Patronus - this spell is my own creation. Just got this image in my mind and thought it sounded kinda cool.

The Snake - I'm going to explain this here, 'cause Kagome's never going to get a good explanation for it. The snake surrounding Voldemort is a product of his resurrection. Like his serpent-like appearance and the lovely red eyes.

Oh yes, and Kagome deflecting the killing curse is something I took from the episode with Tsubaki. The snake's from that episode too actually.

Well, I'm off now to find out just how OOC my Draco really is! TTFN