Disclaimer: I'm neither Japanese nor British. Do you really think I own either Ranma or Harry?

Chapter 10

Ranma looked out the window of an unused tower and sighed softly. "My time is almost up. I'll be able to change at will soon, without worrying so much about accidental splashing." He stretched as he perched on the windowsill.

"My life here has been really interesting. I finally have friends, I finally got rid of Genma—" he cut himself off long enough to snarl softly at the name. "—and I have a decent teacher. I wasn't lying to either Ryouga or myself when I said that she teaches me. I became better then ever at the Art."

Ranma absently extended his chi claws. "I even have full control over the Neko-ken." He laughed bitterly and put his chi claws away, extending the physical claws he had gained at Jusenkyo. "Of course, I get all this at the cost of being human. Not too big a sacrifice at all!" He snorted sarcastically.

Ranma sighed softly. Now that his time was almost up, Ranma was getting really nervous. He didn't think anyone here would reject him or call him a freak. Ranma snorted. "Yeah, the only problem is that I don't know how most people will react. After all, being chased out of a village more than once because people thought I was a demon…"

His form shrank slightly as he changed into his female form. While he wasn't as bad as before, Ranma still had trouble showing his feelings in male form. She buried her face in her knees and wrapped both tail and arms around her legs. Her voice was a little muffled when she spoke. "How long have you been there, Ryouga?"

Ryouga stepped a little closer, uncertain what he should do. "Only a few minutes. Why are you so sad?" He uncertainly put a hand on her shoulder.

Ranma stiffened ever so slightly at first, but soon relaxed. "Bad memories. Fear. I'm not so much sad as I am afraid. I don't think I can stand to be rejected again."

Ryouga shook his head in confusion even as he wrapped a tentative arm around her shoulders. He was caught by surprise when Ranma turned and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder, but he tentatively hugged her back. That seemed to be the right response, so he continued. "Why would anyone reject you? Once you got away from your f—ah, Genma, you improved quite a bit."

Ranma smiled shakily but did not look up. "Yeah, my life improved without Genma, but it also got worse because of my curse. It's only since I got here that Auntie Min began teaching me how to change back to human. Before, I was like I am now. I couldn't try to look human, and at first I didn't have any way to cover my strange features."

She shook her head slightly. Ryouga twitched slightly, and she looked up at him in confusion. Ryouga smiled slightly. "Your whiskers tickle, that's all."

Ranma sat back in the windowsill and touched her face. Sure enough, her whiskers had grown. She sighed bitterly. "Yeah, I go more cat-like when I'm emotional. Fortunately, I don't usually end up farther than thicker fur and whiskers. Of course, that tended to make things worse at times."

Ryouga's eyes widened slightly in comprehension. "You said that a few of the villages ran you out because they thought you were a demon?" Ranma looked away, but nodded slightly. Ryouga shook his head. "No wonder you're afraid. But they already know about you being partially cat. What could be wrong past that?"

Ranma sighed and turned back to look Ryouga in the eye as she slowly changed to her male form. Ryouga's eyes widened, and Ranma nodded. "Neither male nor female…"(1) He trailed off. "I've heard monster thrown at me before. I've heard freak, and I've even heard demon. But the worst is when someone sees me change. Then the insults get worse. After a while, I learned to stay female as long as I was in a village and wear a long coat with a hood whatever the weather was."

Ryouga shook his head. "Were they all that bad?"

Ranma smiled slightly and shook his head. "No. A few places were pretty good. Some people thought I was some kind of cat spirit. The Amazon village was also a good place. I liked it there, and might have stayed."

Ryouga cocked his head as he watched his friend begin to lose herself in good memories. "Why didn't you?" he asked quietly.

Ranma sighed. "I felt the call. When the spirit of the spring I fell into told me I could control the Neko-ken and the change if I was willing to merge with her and Neko and spend most of a year in my female form, she also said that I would feel the pull of a teacher. It's what brought me here."

Ryouga simply cocked his head slightly as he considered this. He was using a technique that Kasumi had used on him before, and it seemed to be working. "Do you know why you received the offer?"

Ranma nodded softly, eyes starting to droop in exhaustion. "Yeah. I learned that a bit later. It turns out that she was lonely. There was something strange with my soul that allowed her and the spirit of the cat spring to ride along with me." He yawned widely. "Something about I needed healing…"

Ryouga sighed as he watched Ranma fall asleep right in front of him. Turning back to his bag, he rummaged around in it. "Probably a good thing I started packing a second sleeping bag. Never know when Kasumi might decide to take advantage of my curse…Ah, here we go," he muttered quietly, not wanting to wake Ranma.

Ryouga calmly laid one of the sleeping bags on the ground next to the window and turned back to Ranma. He considered for a long moment how to do this, and shrugged to himself. Carefully, he picked Ranma up out of the window and set him in the sleeping bag. He took a moment to unhook Ranma's claws from his shirt and covered him. Then, he set up his own sleeping bag up a couple feet away.

"Night, Ranma," he murmured softly, already falling asleep. He heard a faint mumble that might have been a 'good night' just before he fell completely asleep.

> > > > > > >

The next morning, Ranma woke up in a sleeping bag. He looked around in surprise, and realized that Ryouga was a couple feet away in his own sleeping bag. 'Ryouga must have put me here. That was nice of him.'

Ranma yawned and stretched, and it wasn't until then that he realized something. "Wait a minute, I'm still male. There's a window right there, I should have been splashed somehow."

Ryouga woke up when he heard an extremely confused voice a couple feet away. Looking up, he saw Ranma sitting up and staring at himself in confusion. "Ranma? Something wrong?"

Ranma shook his head. "No, it's just that I should have been female by now, unless…" He turned toward Ryouga. "Do you have any cold water on you?"

Ryouga looked at him in confusion for a moment, but shrugged. He dug out a canteen and handed it to Ranma. "What do you need it for?"

Ranma smiled slightly. "I want to test something." He splashed himself with the water, but for the first time in a year, he didn't automatically change. "I thought so! My time's up! I can change when I want."

Ryouga grinned. "Good for you. Are you going to tell anyone?"

Ranma shrugged. "I'll tell Grandmother and Shampoo, but I don't think I'm ready to tell anyone else right now."

Ryouga considered the answer for a long moment before he nodded, accepting it.

> > > > > > >

It didn't take long for Ranma to hunt down Kuh Lon and Xian Pu. Kuh Lon had decided at some point to take advantage of Hogwart's facilities and was teacher her Great-Granddaughter Potions. Unfortunately for Ranma, this posed a different problem.

Kuh Lon and Xian Pu both looked up when they heard a loud sneeze from outside the door. Xian Pu snickered and Kuh Lon smirked softly as she called out. "Hello, Ranma. Care to come in?"

Ranma growled softly but didn't say anything when she came in. Instead, she stroked two fingers down the bridge of her nose and smiled. (2) "Hello, Grandmother. Hello Xian Pu. I have some really good news!"

Kuh Lon smiled as she observed the girl's obvious excitement. She had slipped into her native Japanese seemingly without realizing it. "Obviously, you seem very excited," she calmly answered in the same language. "But why don't you speak Chinese? I'm sure Xian Pu would be pleased to be able to talk without sounding like an airhead."

Ranma blinked as she realized that she had slipped into Japanese accidentally. "Oh, sorry. But anyways, my time is up! I don't have to worry about randomly changing any more!"

Xian Pu grinned happily for her sister. "Congratulations, Ranma. But I thought you had a couple more days."

Ranma grinned sheepishly. "I kinda miscounted. I only realized that my time was up when I woke up this morning after I spent the night male."

Kuh Lon frowned slightly in concern. "I thought you preferred to sleep as a female in case someone finds you."

Ranma looked away, blushing slightly. "Well, last night I was getting kind of depressed thinking of all the ways this could go wrong. Ryouga found me and what he said reminded me of the good times, when I wasn't just some freak passing through."

Kuh Lon and Xian Pu looked at each other, frowning in concern. Both quickly decided that now was not the time and didn't question Ranma. Instead, Kuh Lon said. "Well, this is good news, child. Perhaps we should find some way to celebrate."

Ranma instantly perked up at that. "Great! And now that I can control my changes, we can go out if we want."

Kuh Lon smiled slightly. "Yes, child, that thought had crossed my mind. Why don't we go tell the Headmaster? He should know of some way to send us into London."

Ranma nodded eagerly and turned to lead the way. In her excitement, Ranma forgot about a certain thing that would probably bring trouble later.

A certain panda slunk through the halls of the strange old castle. He had taken a long time to find this 'school' that the Hibiki boy had told him of, and hadn't even been able to enter it until it rained. Using the Umi-Sen Ken, he was currently invisible to both sight and ki senses. Unfortunately, his scent was still easy to track, which he had found out one time while trying to hide from his son in the Neko-ken.

Genma froze completely as he heard what sounded like a pogo stick and two girls talking with an old woman. Fortunately, none of them sensed him, and he carefully made his way onward.

> > > > > > >

(1) It's the beginning of a Biblical verse. I thought it was appropriate in this case.

(2) Basically, she's suppressing her sense of smell somewhat so she's not sneezing her head off while talking to Kuh Lon and Xian Pu.

> > > > > > >

I don't particularly like this chapter. Okay, I kinda like it, but it was still a bear to get it out and I'm still not really satisfied with it. It's too short and Ranma is kind of OOC, but I couldn't seem to think of anything more. That pretty sums up my reasoning on why I took so long with this chapter. Unfortunately, the next will probably take some time, too. I've been tackled by a whole bunch of baby plotbunnys, and none of them are even remotely related to this. They seem to center mainly on Inuyasha for some reason...

Anyway, I hope you like it. If you have any ideas on how to improve this chapter, I will take them into account. Thanks!