Chapter 8: Dammit.
Inari- This is actually the second half of what was supposed to be chapter 7, but I have writer's block and decided to update if only for luney-chan's sake… kinda sad when even a reviewer can't make me happy… But in order for ME to make LUNEY-CHAN happy, I have to add in some yaoi, so just in case, here's a warning… drags out Gaara IF YOU ARE A HOMOPHOBE, GET OUT! AND IF YOU DON'T AND YOU ARE STILL IN HERE, THEN I'LL SIC GAARA ON YOU! And I mean it, too! Oh yeah, and some disturbing information about Harry's parents…
Luney-Yip, yaoi. Is a yaoi lunatic Hehehe.
When Maboroshi woke up, his hands were cuffed together; his wings were bound to his bare chest using none too soft rope.
Harry looked around the stone room. It was cold, dark, and had no windows. The darkness wasn't a problem, however, because he could see in the dark. He could make out a door that looked to be steel. Harry jumped when the door opened when a man stepped in.
It was no ordinary man: It was Lord Voldemort. His red slit eyes pinned Maboroshi down with his gaze. Maboroshi squirmed for a second, then glared hatefully up at his enemy.
"So," Voldemort began, "How is my little bat doing?" Voldemort bent down and lifted up Harry's head. Maboroshi growled, and bared his fangs. Voldemort whispered down into his ear, "Pets shouldn't growl at their masters."
Maboroshi growled back savagely, "I'm not your pet!"
"Oh, but you are." And, as if to prove his point, Voldemort brought his lips down onto Maboroshi's and kissed him. Maboroshi's fangs bit down on the intruding lips and he was released almost instantaneously.
"You sick freak!" Maboroshi hissed. "Tell me why I'm here before I rip you to shreds!" Being semi-knocked out and crumpling on the floor, jarring a wing and slicing open his Achilles tendon with the sharp point on his right wing, rewarded his demanding question.
Maboroshi screamed in pain, before taking three gasping, shuddering breaths and falling silent; he couldn't even twitch a toe on his right foot the muscles were so damaged. He looked up at Voldemort, who was standing there, grinning. Maboroshi glared at him for a second, then closed his eyes. He could feel his whole body going numb from blood loss, and his last coherent thought before he fell into swirling darkness was that Voldemort was a good kisser.
Hogwarts
Kuroune was sitting in a beech tree at the lake's edge. The tree shifted, but there was no wind to move it. Kuroune sighed "What are you doing here, Kurama?"
Kurama jumped up into the tree onto a branch opposite Kuroune's on the other side of the trunk. "I came to talk to you."
"About what, fox?" Kuroune sighed as the tree moved into a more comfortable position against his back.
"How did you come back for one? I thought you died at that castle?" Kurama's voice was curious, but underlying that curiosity was a tone of guilt, and Kuroune didn't miss it. No doubt Kurama still felt bad about his old partner dying, then treating him like that before.
"I did die in that castle. But not right away; I was tortured first. The mistress of the castle made human women she had caught rape me. One of them, a redhead named Lily, eventually got pregnant, and I was locked in a small room, chained to the wall. I was being starved, and a demon came to whip me everyday until I fell unconscious." Here, Kuroune's voice cracked, but he kept talking through his accumulating tears, "Kurama, the demon looked like you. He kept telling me how you never liked me, and that I was just being used by you." Kuroune stopped here, taking a deep breath and falling silent.
"Oh Inari-sama, Kuroune. Why didn't you try to escape?" Kurama was horrified.
"I did try, Kurama. Believe me, I did. But after a while, I couldn't even move, and my whole body was bloody. But that's in the past, now, Kurama. How did you get my pendant? I was sure that when I died, I still had it around my neck. That was one thing that I wouldn't let them take from me, so how did you get it?"
Kurama told him about the imposter and what had happened. Kuroune had opened his mouth to say something, when a demon suddenly appeared at the lakeside.
It was a demoness, a white tiger, by the looks of her. She wore a black Chinese-style dress, but it was veined with white and silver streaks. Her tail was striped black and white, just like a regular tiger's, but black ears popped out of her knee-length black hair.
Blue stripes ran like lightning up around her arms, starting at the fingertips and ending at her elbows. There was another blue tattoo-like mark beneath her left eye in the shape of a paw with claws outstretched.
She looked around and saw Kuroune staring at her in amazement. She walked toward him, sashaying gently. Kuroune gulped as he watched her hips sway from side to side. She stopped at the foot of the tree, and asked, "Whare is Yusuke-sahma?" Kurama had bolted around the tree and stood next to his friend on the suddenly platform-like tree branch.
"He's in the castle. I'll show you!" But Kuroune had already darted to the ground and was standing in front of the demoness. Kurama growled and transformed into a three-tailed silver fox and ran out in front of them, head held up proudly and ears erect.
But he wasn't that silvery-blue color. The last third of each of his tails were red, and so was his muzzle, making him look like a wild animal. A stripe from his muzzle ran up his nose and spread out to cover the whole of his ears.
The demoness immediately began to compliment Kurama on his number of tails and the softness of his fur.
Kuroune knew that Kurama in fox form couldn't smirk, but that didn't stop Kuroune from glaring at him as his kitsune best friend looked haughtily at the bat from the corner of his eye. They walked into the castle in a strained silence, Kurama showing the demoness to the door of Yusuke's office.
She hugged Kurama, and pecked Kuroune on the cheek. "Th'nks boys. My n'mes Tora." It was Kurama's turn to glare at an obviously pleased Kuroune.
Tora knocked twice on the office door with two of her knuckles, then walked in without any hesitation at all.
Several minutes later, there was a loud crash and an obviously PO'ed Yusuke stormed out of his office, Tora behind him. Yusuke saw Kurama and Kuroune standing there looking at him with curious expressions on their faces. Yusuke growled and grabbed the fronts of their shirts and pulled their faces close to his, almost lifting them off the ground. He snarled out in a hoarse whisper, "If you two so much as look at Tora the wrong way, I swear I'll make sure that neither of you will have any children as long as you live!"
The blue marks that identified him as a toushin flickered into existence on Yusuke's skin as his youki levels spiked dangerously close to that he had possessed when Raizen had first taken over his body.
Yusuke released a startled Kurama and an obviously frightened out of his witsKuroune. Kurama asked, "Why? Are you going somewhere?"
Yusuke sighed and pushed a hand through his hair until he reached a snarl in the long brown locks. Wincing, Yusuke said, "I have to go back to the Makai. That new demon lord that took Yomi's place is threatening to move onto my territory and I have to go keep him out. But I probably won't be back in the school because that demon is a nuisance. A powerful little nuisance, but a nuisance nonetheless."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh, Kuroune. Now I have to go talk to the Headmaster and see if he can find a new teacher to teach DADA for the rest of the year. I don't want anybody that I don't know trying to teach what I've been trying to get across to those thick-headed students. Maybe I was hoping too much when I brought across the topic. Thirteen year-old wizards in Japan would already be able to use all three of their possible forms.
"Here, only Harry had been able to transform and that was only because he had died!" Yusuke threw his hands up in the air, and started to walk towards the Headmaster's office, before he was halted with a shout from Kuroune.
"Hey! I could teach them!"
Yusuke rolled his eyes and continued walking down the hall, "NO!"
Tora scoffed, and said, "Wait, otou-san! Maybe I could teach them!"
"Fine!" He yelled back, "Just make sure you stay away from that bat!"
Kuroune cringed as he was mentioned. Tora jumped happily into the air, cheering, her tail flying and accidentally whacking Kurama and Kuroune across the faces. She didn't notice, and left Kurama and Kuroune watching her jump up and down hair bouncing.
Kuroune said to Kurama with a red mark splashed across their faces, "What's with your fox form?"
"Fox form? Oh, you mean the colors? The red is from my human form."
'Human form?' "You have a human form?"
"Kuroune, you do not honestly believe that I would give up two of my tail for nothing? No, you're not the only one that has died, or at least came pretty freakin' close."
"How close is 'pretty freakin' close?'"
"As in so close that you have to give up two tails and possess an unborn human child. That close."
Tora had stopped jumping up and down and hooked an arm through one of each of the kaitou's arms, and set off happily to the Great Hall ((She somehow knew where it was)) to dinner.
As they entered the Hall, Kurama found himself almost knocked over by a fox Yuki. Kurama's arms immediately snaked out to catch Yuki from falling back to the ground. Yuki squirmed out of his grip and scrambled up onto the silver kitsune's shoulder.
Yuki blinked at Tora and Kuroune—he had never met them before. And, as a fox's curiosity was, Yuki tilted his head to the side and asked ((with none of Kurama's slyness, we might add)) Who are you?
Tora's eyes widened a bit and immediately introduced herself. Yuki took a liking to the young tiger and jumped to her shoulder and licked one of her black ears. Tora giggled.
The snow fox now sat on top of Tora's head, front paws planted on her bangs; he looked over at Kuroune. He's your old partner, isn't her, Kurama?
"Yeh, my name's Kuroune, thief extraordinaire.
Yeah, and also a bat that got himself killed over some stupid pendant.
"That's enough, Yuki." A deep voice cut off Kuroune from snarling at Yuki and snatching him off the top of a would-be startled Tora's head. Kuroune managed to take a deep breath, calm down and turn to face an irate Hiei standing behind him.
Hullo, Hiei.
"Hn. The toushin is going to leave. He's already talked to the Headmaster and arranged for Tora to replace him for the rest of the year. Oh, yeah, and I was supposed to tell Kurama that Kuroune can sit at the Head table." And with that, Hiei flitted, off, demonic eyes just keeping up as they watched him head for the dungeons.
Dumbledore, who had been talking to McGonagall, looked up and saw the group standing next to the doors. He swept over to them, robes dragging on the ground, "Ah. You must be the new teacher that Mister Toushin ((remember that's Yusuke's last name now, right?)) told me about." He was looking at Kuroune as he said this.
Kuroune threw a startled look at Kurama, but Tora intervened, "Oh, that'd be me."
Kurama scoffed and plucked Yuki off of Tora's head to allow her to talk to the Headmaster without any eavesdroppers listening in; and, carrying the fox under one arm, and guiding the bat with the other, Kurama led the two to the Head Table.
Lunch was uneventful, except when Kuroune had yelled in surprise when the food appeared on the tables, and Tora and Hiei talking in low voices the whole time. Tora had ended up happily hugging Hiei, who sat there, stiff as a board.
Kagome, Gaara and Sasuke, who had finally decided to sit at the Head Table, were eating in sullen silence, and Yuki was sitting in Kurama's lap, happily eating the scraps that the silver kitsune was feeding him under the table.
Malfoy, who was sitting in between Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, was glaring at the Gryffindor table across the hall. Nobody knew why, exactly, but the Slytherins knew that it wasn't a problem with the rival house that had him glaring.
Flashbackflashback
Earlier that week, Malfoy had been walking back to the castle. He had been walking behind the Gryffindors, and most of the girls were shooting dirty looks at him. It was probably because he had muttered something to Kurama, their professor, about plants being stupid.
Needless to say, he found himself picked off his feet by a plant and hung by his ankles for the rest of the lesson while the professor continued teaching, seemingly oblivious to the student hanging in the vines of one of his plants.
What also bugged him was that the teacher seemed to favor Longbottom. The professor would croon over the boy. All because Longbottom could do something with the plants that nobody else in the class could do. He had a little bit of control over the plants that were in the greenhouse.
Endflashbackendflashback
And now that lunch was over, he had to go again to Herbology. Great. Draco sighed and stood up. He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the hall, his friends following him like a tail.
He gasped as he felt his left forearm burn and he stopped, holding it tightly to ease the pain. Luckily, the others didn't seem to notice, and they just kept talking. After the pain subsided, Draco quickly pulled back his sleeve and inspected the Mark. It burned neon green. 'Odd, its never done that before,' he thought. It burned a less painful red when a new member was burned, but it had never turned neon green before.
Draco kept walking towards the greenhouses and had entered when Kurama also entered the greenhouse from another greenhouse. Kurama gave Draco a funny sort of look when he passed, the gold eyes sending a shiver down his spine. Quickly, Draco turned and took the plant he was working on off the shelf.
The plant had red vines and two flowers- one black and one white. There were no leaves or thorns on it or anything. Supposedly, if grown properly by one person, its colors would reflect the emotions of that person's heart. In theory, anyways. Kurama himself said that he had only ever grown two, his second sitting on a greenhouse shelf one clear flower hanging from a vine. Every now and then, a swirl of gold or green rippled through it.
One could only guess at what the colors might mean on Kurama's plant, but Draco knew what the colors of his own flowers meant. The black represented the Dark Mark that burned on his arm, and the white represented himself.
Draco sighed, ruffling his blonde hair with a free hand, an uncharacteristic thing, coming from him. The sixth and seventh year Gryffindor and Slytherin houses were combined for this class, and the chatter of the two houses was amazing.
Kurama reached the front of the greenhouse, stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled piercingly. With a few groans of pain and the students in the front of the class massaging their aching ears, the huge class turned to look at their professor, who said, "Now that I have your attention… Does everyone have their plants?"
An echoing "Yes" answered him.
"Good. Now, today we're going to do something different, since all of your plants have grown to a mature size, and they can properly sense their master's emotions. Normally, one would be learning the color of their own emotions by trial and error, but since this is a unique class and a unique plant, we're going to do it as a group. Right now, your plants reflect your psychological state, and have been since they've sprouted the flowers. All of you have only one flower on the plant, but some of you have two, reflecting a unique mind.
"Would those of you that have more than one flower on their plants please bring yourselves and it to the front of the class?" Draco and Ginny Weasley gathered their plants up in their arms and walked to the front of the greenhouse, next to the professor.
While Draco's flowers were black and white, Ginny's were a bright cheery yellow, and a dark, almost black, purple. Kurama bent down to examine Ginny's plants and she turned red when he said something that Draco nor anybody else except Ginny and the professor could hear.
Then Kurama turned his attention to the boy's plant, and stiffened when Kurama told him what he thought the colors were. The silence in the room was deafening. Finally, Kurama straightened up and said, "Well, since these two don't obviously have any desire to have me tell about the flowers, I won't, but can anybody guess why they would have more than one emotion?"
Nobody moved for a second, as if they were thinking, then Hermione Granger raised her hand. Kurama nodded to her, and she answered questioningly, "Is it because they are possessed, or something?"
"Yes, that could be one reason, but another reason exists. If you have a life that you keep secret from everybody else, then that personality might show up in the form of a second flower. But, just as you said, Miss Granger, if something possesses you and you own one of these plants, the second flower will change to reflect the mood of the person or thing that possesses you.
"But I think that with time running short, that maybe you all should take your plants with you and to find out what color your emotions are on your own." Kurama was cut off as the bell rang, and the scuffling as the students hurried to gather up their things.
Draco grabbed his bag from his previous spot, and scooped up his plant into his arms. He would have time to take it to his dormitory before he went to Transfigurations.
Ten minutes later, he entered the Transfigurations classroom and sat down to wait for the class to start. A few minutes later, the bell rang for the start of class and a few more students darted inside just a few seconds later- Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to be exact. They were panting and red-faced, looking as though they had tried to outrun a horse and won.
The two Gryffindors hurried to their seat and took out their books, taking deep breaths. Everyone in the class, jumped, however, when the door snapped shut quietly and a female voice said, "Can I have your attention, please?" Draco looked around as a woman walked to the front of the class, carrying a small cauldron. Her black hair was knotted neatly into two pigtails behind her tiger ears.
She set the cauldron down on the desk and said, "Well, I'm your new teacher. And since my tou-san couldn't get any of yah guys to transform, I'll just have to do it myself."
Draco, who could speak some Japanese, thought, 'Otou-san… does that mean that Yusuke is her father?'
The woman continued, "My n'mes Tora. I have a slightly different teaching style. I can teach you guys how to turn into animal forms, but I make potions to do this. You'll see what I mean in a few minutes. In the time it'll take me to hand out the potion, can you all arrange yourselves in alphabetical order?"
A few minutes later, every student had a vial of clearish potion in his or her hands. "Okay, now, once you drink the potions, nothing'll happen for a few minutes, then you'll transform. Now, drink your potions."
Draco and the rest of the class quickly downed their potion and the room was filled with an awkward silence for a few minutes, then Draco found himself shrinking and covered in black fur, teeth growing into fangs and smell and eyesight becoming much better. A tail sprouted from his tailbone and ears grew up and into points. Finally, his legs became slender and feet became padded gaining white socks on his front right paw and hind left paw; eyes turning a dangerous yellow: he was a wolf.
Malfoy's shoulders hunched up and he looked around. There were a variety of animals and some mystical creatures. There was a griffin and another wolf. Suddenly bored, Draco yawned and lay down, ears alert. His hearing and eyesight was much better than when he was a human. He scratched the left side of his head by his eye, where there was a whitish marking that looked almost like a wing.
Tora clapped her hands to get the class's attention. "Now that we're all transformed, we need to figure out who you are, exactly. I trust that you are all still in alphabetical order? Well, that doesn't matter, but just move into species groups. There may not be any more of your species in this class, but there might be in other classes or houses."
There was a shuffling as everybody moved, and just about five minutes later, the class was grouped by species.
Tora looked around at the assembled animals. Aside from the two wolves, there were no other pairs of matching animals. She called the two wolves forward. The black male and white female wolves stood up and walked over. She knelt down and looked into the two's eyes and could tell who they were with just a glance. Smiling, she said, "Well, I would have never thought that a Gryffindor girl and a Slytherin boy could share the same form."
Still smiling, Tora said to the class, "If you try hard enough, you should be able to talk in these forms. Walk around and talk and get to know who's who."
Draco grumbled, and walked off, shoulders hunched. He crawled under a desk as a hoofed creature walked by, nearly taking off a few of his tail hairs. The white female wolf soon crawled in after him, trotting to keep out of the wickedly clawed feet and paws of the griffin. Her brown eyes stared at him, and she said, 'Who are you?'
Draco's eyes widened, he knew who that was! It was Hermione Granger! He accidentally took in a huge breath of air and went swirly-eyed (figuratively) from the scent. She smelled like he wanted to take her right then and there. He stuttered out, 'W-who do you think I am?'
'Well, for one, you sound like Draco Malfoy, and you seem like the arrogant type he is, but maybe you aren't.'
Blocking her scent out, Malfoy said, 'Yeah, I am. But we're the only matched pair of people in here, so we might as well learn how to get along.'
'Huh. I wouldn't have thought that you could learn to think like that.'
'Yeah, well… I never had anything against you personally, just Potter.'
Hermione gave the wolf equivalent of a sigh, and lay down next to Draco. He laid down too and before he could control himself, put a paw and his head on her back.
'Wha-?'
'Sorry. It's just that scent is much more powerful as a wolf, and your smell is a little bit too much.' He closed his eyes and fell asleep. He was shaken awake an indefinite amount of time later. He opened his eyes, yawned, and looked at Tora, who had shaken him awake. If he could have blushed, he would have, but stood up anyway and shook out his black fur.
He nosed Hermione awake, for she, too had fallen asleep. She blinked, 'Ugh… how long did we sleep?'
"It's about 9PM right now."
'9!' Their voices cracked, and it came out as a yelp "Well, yeah. It didn't seem right to have to disturb you two."
It was silent for a second, then, 'What happened to everybody else?'
"They eventually turned back to normal, but that doesn't matter. I don't think you realize how special you two are. Wolves are among the greatest animals on the earth. You would virtually never tire, and in a pack, you could take down a full-grown moose. Wolves can run all night and never have to stop to catch their breath or to rest their legs. You have sharp wits and even sharper teeth."
'So what do you want us to do?'
"Meet me outside tomorrow by the lake. Your forms should hold until then." Tora smiled, stood up and walked out of the classroom, leaving no room for discussion.
Hermione sighed; then said 'So this means that we really have to go.'
'I guess so. Hey, as long as we're out and can't get in trouble for being up late, why don't we go down to the lake now?'
'Okay.' Hermione heaved herself to her feet and blinked her blue eyes. Together, the two trotted out the open door, side by side, and down to the lakeside. Sighing up at the full moon, the two opposites together.
Draco looked up at the moon, and felt the sudden urge to howl. Not wanting to try to push the feeling away, he allowed his throat to unleash an almost heartbreaking howl to the sky. He howled until he had no more breath and was forced to take another.
As the black wolf started to howl again, his white-colored partner joining in, carrying the sound over the dark deserted grounds and the silent lake. Somewhere, deep in the forest, other wolf packs howled back.
If a wolf could have smiled, then that's what the two would be doing. In a tower, a red-haired boy looked down into the grounds where the two were laying, side by side, comfortably sleeping. Ron felt his heart twist just before he went back to bed.
Inari- .:Megumi laugh:. Oh, this is gonna be great! Ron's jealous and Malfoy just found out the influence of hormones on a wolf!
Luney-...yick. Malfoy and Hermione together. D; Oh well, can't be helped.