Not much happens in this chapter. It's just filler. The 'reintroducing-minor-characters' kind of filler. You also meet a fan favorite HP character in this chapter.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6

Meet and Greet

The Hogwarts Express whistled as several children were bidding their parents and guardians goodbye. Rin and Yukio were hugging Shiro as tightly as they could. While the pain of leaving him wasn't as great as last year, it still hurt that they wouldn't be seeing him until the holidays.

"You two have fun, okay?" said Shiro.

"We will," said Yukio.

"Rin, promise me you won't break anyone's noses this year," Shiro requested. Rin could only look away, his face turning bright red.

The twins boarded the train and began looking around for a compartment. Their luggage (plus cat carrier) was heavy and they wanted to find a compartment as quickly as possible.

"Man, this train is crowded," Rin grunted as he adjusted his grip on his luggage. The train started pulling out of the station.

"Where are Harry and Ron?" asked Yukio. "I thought they would have claimed a compartment for us by now."

"Yukio? Is that you?"

The twins turned and saw a dark haired boy sticking his head out a compartment.

Yukio smiled. "Hey Michael! How was your summer?"

"Pretty good," answered Michael Corner. "Want to sit with us? Terry and Anthony are here too."

Yukio and Rin looked at each other.

Rin shrugged. "I don't mind if you go, Yukio. I'm gonna find Harry, Ron, and Hermione."

"You sure?" asked Yukio.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

Yukio smiled. "Thanks, Rin. I'll see you later."

Rin smiled back and continued his quest to find his friends. Shifting his luggage in his arms again, he started trudging through the narrow corridor of the train car.

The sound of a compartment door opening behind him got his attention. "Rin! There you are!" Hermione exclaimed in relief. "Where's Yukio?"

Rin was also relieved. "Hey, Hermione! Thank God I found you. This stuff is getting heavy."

Hermione grabbed Kuro's carrier and Rin followed her into the compartment. Ginny and a boy named Neville Longbottom were sitting in there as well. As soon as Rin put his luggage above the seats, he sat down. Hermione then let Kuro out of his carrier.

"So, where's Yukio?" Hermione asked again.

"His Ravenclaw friends saw us and invited him to sit with them," Rin answered.

"Is everything alright, Neville?" Ginny asked the round-faced boy.

Hermione and Rin looked up and saw Neville trying to stay as far away from Kuro as possible. Kuro, who was stretching his legs next to Rin's seat, straightened up when he realized that someone was staring at him.

"What's the matter, Neville?" asked Hermione.

Neville looked at his friends and shakily pointed at the demonic cat. "D-D-Don't you s-s-see?" he asked incredulously.

The three of them stared at Kuro, who tilted his head innocently. "Mrow?"

"See what? What's wrong with Kuro?" asked Hermione as the cat started scratching his ears with his hind leg.

"H-He...He's a demon!" Neville exclaimed.

Both girls widened their eyes at this revelation. Rin just shrugged.

"Yeah, so?"

Hermione and Ginny looked at Rin in shock.

"You know?!" Hermione exclaimed.

"He looks like an ordinary cat to me," said Ginny. Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I first saw what he really looked like, but he's still Kuro," said Rin.

Ginny was the first to recover from her shock. "What does he really look like?" she inquired.

Rin smiled at the fact that someone was willing to accept this turn of events so quickly. "He looks the same as you see him now, except he has little horns on his head and he has two tails," he explained.

"How long have you been able to see him like this?" asked Hermione.

Rin took a moment to recall when it started happening. "Remember when we were in the Forbidden Forest for detention? I think that's when it started," he said.

Hermione took a few minutes to think back at that moment in time. "Now I remember. You claimed you saw green monkeys in the trees," she recalled.

"It's true! I did see green monkeys!" Rin insisted.

Something then clicked in Hermione's mind. She looked at Neville. "That night. You fell into a chuchi nest, right?"

Neville shuddered at the memory. "Yeah. They bit me all over. That's how I got a temptaint. Professor Shura told me I would be able to see demons," he then looked at Kuro in fear, "but I didn't realize you kept one as a pet."

"You didn't notice that Rin's cat suddenly looked different after you got your temptaint?" Hermione asked skeptically. Kuro then hopped onto Hermione's lap and started nuzzling her, as if to tell her that he was harmless.

"I always told myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me," said Neville. "Guess I wasn't seeing things."

"Well, he seems pretty harmless to me," said Ginny. Kuro then jumped across the compartment into Ginny's lap and hopped up onto her shoulder and rubbed against the side of her head. She couldn't help but giggle at how affectionate the cat was acting. "He's so cute!" A lick on the cheek made Ginny laugh.

Rin and Hermione couldn't help but join in the laughter.

"I think he's showing Neville that he's harmless," said Rin.

"Or that Ginny has an admirer," Hermione added.

Rin then noticed that Neville was still staring apprehensively at Kuro. "You can pet him, Neville. He won't bite," he assured his friend. Neville looked at Rin for a split-second before looking at Kuro, who was staring at him from Ginny's shoulder. Neville hesitantly reached his hand out and started petting the demonic cat. He nuzzled into Neville's hand before jumping off of Ginny's shoulder and into his arms. Purring could be heard in the compartment.

Hermione giggled. "Looks like Neville's made a new friend."

~0~0~0~

Mephisto Pheles sipped on his tea as he listened to Shiro talk about his recent stay at the wizarding world. He didn't really care much for the first few weeks of Shiro's visit, the visit to Flourish and Blotts, however, piqued his interest.

"...and then the prick left the shop with his son trailing behind him," Shiro finished.

"Lucius Malfoy. That name does ring a bell," Mephisto recalled.

Shiro raised an eyebrow. "You know him?" he asked.

"I know of him," the Demon King replied. "Apparently he was one of the more loyal members of Voldemort's followers. Don't ask me for any details, everything I heard about his activities were rumors. The moment the war ended, he was one of the first Dark wizards to rejoin the good guys, claiming to be under the influence of the Imperius Curse."

"Imperius Curse?"

"A curse that controls another person's actions," Mephisto explained. "Malfoy's the puppet, Voldemort's the puppeteer."

"Was he under the curse's influence?" Shiro inquired.

"Depends on who you ask. Personally, I wouldn't believe his story for all the Every Flavor Beans in the world. Speaking of which…"

Shiro rolled his eyes and tossed a small bag of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans (that he had purchased at Diagon Alley) to Mephisto, who happily caught it. He took out a bean and popped it into his mouth. He grimaced.

"Soap!" he gagged.

"They weren't kidding about 'every flavor,'" Shiro murmured.

Mephisto swallowed his candy followed by a big gulp of tea. "A surprise in every bean!" he laughed.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Shiro asked irritably.

Mephisto cleared his throat. "Yes. Regarding the Malfoys, you shouldn't worry about Lucius. He's a pureblood supremacist, but he doesn't know how to pick his battles."

Shiro quirked an eyebrow. "He's a what now?"

"A pureblood supremacist. Magic through and through. Muggleborns, like your late friend Lily Potter, are the scum of the earth," Mephisto explained. Shiro tightened his grip on his teacup at the mentioning of his late friend. "As for half-bloods - those who are born with one magical parent and one Muggle parent - it depends on if they support Voldemort's cause or not."

"What about the twins and their friends?" asked Shiro.

Mephisto took another sip of his tea before answering. "Rin and Yukio are half-bloods. While their father isn't particularly 'magical' so to speak, their mother was. Yuri was Muggleborn," he explained.

Shiro nodded. "That explains a bit about her before she passed away," he muttered. "She once told me she was ambushed by a wizard. She didn't give me any details because her father entered the room. Clammed right up."

"My, my, how troubling," said Mephisto.

"What about the boys' friends?"

"Hermione Granger is Muggleborn. No magic in the family, whatsoever. Ronald Weasley, if you are not already aware, is a pureblood. Both his parents come from pure-blooded families, if you're not already aware. Not sure what Molly, her brothers, or Arthur told you regarding their bloodlines. Harry Potter is a half-blood. His mother, as you know, was Muggleborn. His father was a pureblood," Mephisto continued.

"Wouldn't that make Harry quarter-Muggle, then?" Shiro inquired.

The Demon King shook his head no. "Doesn't work like that. You're either pureblood, half-blood, or Muggleborn. If you so much as have a hundredth of Muggle blood in you, you're a half-blood."

Shiro let out a huff. "Whatever happened to nationality? When people would just learn about what countries their ancestors came from?"

~0~0~0~

Yukio kept looking towards the Gryffindor table, as if to see Harry and Ron miraculously appear there. His Ravenclaw friends, Michael Corner, Terry Boot, and Anthony Goldstein didn't know how to help their foreign friend. They knew how close he was to his brother and his friends.

"Are you looking for Wrackspurts?" an airy voice next to Yukio asked.

Yukio turned and came face-to-face with a first year with dirty blonde hair and silvery eyes. Her presence alone gave Yukio the impression that she was an airhead.

The four Ravenclaw boys looked at the girl with wide eyes.

"I'm… looking for… what?" Yukio asked with uncertainty.

"Wrackspurts," the girl repeated. "They're invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy."

"They're...invisible?" Terry repeated with an equal amount of uncertainty.

"That's right," the girl confirmed. "I'm Luna Lovegood. I hope we get along."

"Uh… sure," Anthony answered hesitantly. "I'm Anthony Goldstein and this is Michael Corner, Terry Boot, and Yukio Okumura."

Luna nodded to each of them then turned her attention back to Yukio. "You keep looking at the Gryffindor table. Are you looking for Wrackspurts or someone you know?" she asked.

"My friends. Two of them are missing," Yukio answered.

"Harry Potter and Ron Weasley," added Terry.

Luna's faint eyebrows rose a little. "You're friends with Harry Potter, Yukio?" she inquired.

Yukio nodded as he took a bite of his mashed potatoes. "Yeah. My brother is in Gryffindor with him. He's the one with the blue hair sitting next to the Weasley twins."

Luna looked in the Gryffindor table's direction. "Something is different about him. It could be the hair or it could be that he already has Wrackspurts inside his head," she said airily.

A half-smile appeared on Yukio's face. "If that's the case, then his head is full of them," he replied. His friends snorted at that.

Luna frowned. "Why do you say such a thing?"

"Rin didn't get the highest grades last year," Yukio explained. "He barely passed his finals, although he did get the second highest marks in Potions. It's to be expected though, since he has a natural talent for cooking."

The groundskeeper, Argus Filch, entered the Great Hall and walked up to one of the teachers. He whispered something into his ear. He stood up from his chair and stormed out of the Great Hall. Yukio didn't have to look at his hooked nose and greasy black hair to know that this teacher was the Potions teacher, Professor Severus Snape.

"And that's your new Potions teacher," said Anthony. "Mean to the bone, hates anyone who isn't in Slytherin House."

"I don't think he'll be much of a problem," Luna said airily. "He looks more like he's angry about something all the time."

"Well he's certainly angry about something," said Michael.

"He's always angry about something," said Terry.

~0~0~0~

Demonology Professor Shura Kirigakure stormed through the hallways of Hogwarts, trying to go to her office for the night… and shake off the pest that wouldn't leave her alone.

"Gilderoy, how many times do I have to tell you? I am not interested in going to Hogsmeade with you!" she exclaimed to the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Lockhart flashed a sparkling grin to her. "Come now, Shura! I don't know anything about demons. Perhaps you could tell me more about that," he suggested, wiggling his eyebrows.

A tick mark appeared on Shura's flaming red hair. "Rrrrgggghhh! Just go away already!" she growled.

"Just give me a chance," Lockhart insisted. "We can go to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer."

Shura readily frowned. "One, I have already have a drinking buddy. I don't need another. And two, I prefer the Hog's Head, thank you very much," she flatly told him. She then turned to him, dug a Galleon out of her pocket and put it into Lockhart's hand. "Here. Take this. Go buy yourself a date and leave me alone." She continued walking towards her office, never looking back.

She made it to her office and slammed the door behind her. She summoned a Naga (a snake demon) and ordered it to guard the door.

"No wonder the other teachers can't stand him," Shura said to Naga. "He's only interested in me because of my body." The snake demon let out a hiss in agreement.

Told you not much happens in this chapter.

Kuro will play a somewhat minor role in this story, but I won't say what. Same goes with Luna. She's now part of Yukio's circle of Ravenclaw friends (for now).

Last chance, folks! Should the Exwires be part of the story or not?

Please review! The more reviews I get, more sooner I'll review.