Sorry Z-Wing Dragon, no Scythe in this story… yet. Maybe it'll come later, but not this early.

Hope you all like it!

Harry Potter and the Duty of a Shinigami

Chapter 2: On the Beaten Trail, Mirror of Another Dimension

A month and two weeks. Six long arduous weeks, of running around fighting Hollows. That was basically all he had done during that time, well, that and sleep. He was getting more and more tired for no apparent reason. Maybe the amount of physical activity was getting to him, but with all the running and walking he had to do at Hogwarts, he doubted that. Something else was happening to him.

Every morning, he would wake up at around ten, with Rukia sitting at his desk waiting for him. They would go out, and take out any Hollows that had popped up since the day before. The Hollows had apparently started to gather in Little Whinging, and Harry was attempting to cut their numbers.

He had found out some things during these three weeks. Several good, and several other bad. He was able to channel magic through his Zanpakuto, and it worked quite well. But the annoying thing was that he had realized that he hardly knew any worthwhile spells to practice. He had barely any battle type magic, nothing he could use against Voldemort.

So he set out on a quest, to find books that had good amounts of battle magic in them, as well as having Rukia try to teach him some Kidou. But both of these quests were failing miserably. He, having used human magic too much, was still too deeply rooted in how they do things. Thus, he couldn't find the right way to summon his magic for a Kidou spell. It was irritating him.

He had mailed all of the bookstores that he knew for any books they had on battle magic, but none of them came through for him. None of them had books on owl order for battle magic. Those were "store buy only."

It pissed him off. Here he was, just trying to find some good way to fight Voldemort, and nothing seemed to be helping him.

Jeezus, was it that difficult to find some way of destroying a homicidal dark lord with a passion for killing mud-bloods and half bloods, even though he was one himself?

Harry snarled at his book. He had decided to read through all of his school text books again, hoping that just maybe there would be something useful in them. Nothing, that was all he got. Nothing useful in the books. But, he knew he would do well on any tests from any of the years before materials.

There was a slight knock on his window, and he saw Rukia sitting there.

"Hey, stop thinking! We have a job to do!" she hissed at him.

"More Hollows?" Harry asked.

"Yeah!" she climbed into the room, and rammed her gloved palm into Harry's head. Harry wished that she had a… less painful way to remove his Shinigami form from his regular body, but it was not to be. The forcible tearing of somebody's soul from their body hurt like no other. He stifled the pain, and set his body on the bed to look like it was sleeping.

Then, he grabbed her hand, and pulled them both out the window, landing with a soft thump.

For several minutes they dashed, before coming to the source of the Hollow's spirit energy. Harry drew his sword, making sure to pull some magic from it, so it wasn't so gigantic.

His mind wandered for a few seconds as the Hollow watched him. He had found out that, while he could manipulate the size of his Zanpakuto, he couldn't change the shape, very much. He had been so very upset when he had found that out. He had so wanted to run around killing demons with a scythe. He could be like his own personal Death! It would have been awesome. But sadly, it was not to be. He could only pull or add magic to change the size of the sword, or only slightly the shape, making the blade straighter or a little more curved. At the moment, he wielded a fully straight blade that was about the same size as the one sword he had used before, the Sword of Gryffindor.

He stared at the Hollow for another moment, before jumping at it. Several of its many hands came down towards him, but he lightly slid between them. Before he could get a good strike in on its mask, one of the arms had pulled him back and flung him away.

He snarled at it. The sword in his hand shivered for a moment, and he pointed it at the hollow.

"Bastard. Ventus Vesica!" A green blade of energy erupted from the tip of the sword, slicing off about three of the hollow's arms. It cried out in pain.

Harry fired the spell off three more times, severing off the remaining limbs. The creature cried in its torment.

Harry quickly leapt forward, and ended the creature's misery. Even if it was a monster that ate souls, it didn't deserve to be tortured, for long.

The mask of the creature split, it started to turn to dust, blowing in the wind.

Harry nodded towards its remains, before turning and walking back towards Rukia. She smiled, "Good job," before turning and walking back towards Number 4, Privet Drive. Harry followed her.

They arrived back to see Vernon Dursley getting out of his car after a "hard days work." Anyone who knew him well knew that was a total lie. All he did was walk around and yell at people to do their jobs. Then again, Harry thought, maybe all that walking was hard on someone as fat as him. He sniggered, before jumping up to his window, with Rukia in toe.

They climbed through, and Harry settled back into his body.

They spent the next few hours trying to teach Rukia human magic, and trying to teach Harry Kidou.

Rukia was learning at a remarkable pace. She had gone through the whole first year set of books on magic, devouring them like they were rabbit-shaped Peeps.

She had practiced using Harry's wand, which was a surprisingly good match for her. She had complained about the need for a tool such as a wand to help perform human magic, but decided that if she wanted to help Harry, she needed to go to his school with him later, thus she would need to do human magic, and thus would need to use a wand. Harry had been surprised when she had first used his wand, without his permission, and cast the first year Wingardium Leviosa spell with no trouble at all. It was like she was a natural. And plus, no letter came for her. It was like she didn't exist to the Ministry of Magic, nothing she cast showed up on their monitors for some strange reason, probably because she was a Shinigami. She hadn't known about them monitoring magic before hand, and had taken his wand to try and cast an early level spell.

Harry was kind of jealous at how quickly she understood things. She took a look at the page for about a minute, swished-and-flicked, and cast the spell, perfectly on the first try. Then, she flipped the page and went on to the next spell. Harry was jealous, but then again, she did have somewhere around one hundred and thirty five years on him, so it made sense she understood things quicker than him. She also had previous experience working with some type of magic, unlike him had in first year.

The two worked quickly, adding the first half of the Transfiguration second year book to her knowledge. Then, a shout rent the quiet air.

"BOY! GET DOWN HERE!" his uncle's voice thundered.

Harry jumped nearly a foot in the air. He had to work to keep his heart and breathing steady.

Rukia watched him. "He sounds angry. What'cha ya do?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing, but it's probably better if you get out of the house. I don't want to know what he'd do if he found you here."

Rukia nodded, and jumped back out the window. Harry resolutely closed it, before turning to face the storm. He opened his door and walked down the stairs to his Uncle.

"Yes, uncle?" he asked.

"Don't take that tone with me, boy. I know what you've been doing in that room lately. All you've been doing is sleeping and sleeping. It's not happening any more. If you have time to sleep, you have time to work. I have a list of chores I wrote up, just for you. If you don't complete them by tonight, I'm not giving you dinner, and instead, I'll be giving you a beating you won't soon forget," his uncle nearly shouted at him, throwing his hand towards Harry, with a list clamped tightly in his sausage-like fingers.

Harry grabbed the list, and took a look at it. His eyes widened. There was no way he could finish this in time! No way!

"Bastard," he hissed. His uncle looked at him. "What did you say?"

Harry smiled sweetly. "Nothing, uncle." He lied.

"That's what I thought, boy." His uncle's meaty fist slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. He cried out in pain.

"Do your chores, boy. If you're lucky, you might get some food."

His uncle walked out of the room. Harry lay there, trying to recover his lost breath.

"Damn him," he whispered.

Harry slowly stood up. Then he grabbed the list, and read it again. He went about doing his assigned tasks until dinner, and was denied it.

His uncle glared at him, a gleam in his eyes. He took Harry's arm in hand, and pulled him up to Harry's bedroom.

When the door had closed, his uncle rounded on him, fist raised. "Boy! I told you to do your jobs before dinner! Why didn't you?"

Harry snarled at him. "How could I, when you gave me a list that would last anyone until the next day?" His uncle smashed his fist into Harry's face.

"Did I give you permission to talk? NO, so stay quiet."

"But," Harry managed to get out, before another fist slammed into his stomach.

He hissed in pain again, before looking defiantly into his attacker's eyes. "You won't break me, you know," he said conversationally. "You can't get rid of magic. It's impossible."

His uncle grabbed him by the arm, and pulled his face close. "So what? The world will be a better place with one less freak in the world. If I do that, maybe then I'll be in the history books as one of the greatest human beings alive, for killing off a freak like you. Once the rest of the world finds out about your kind, then they'll be clamoring to kill you all off. Any person who offed one will probably get a medal!"

Harry snarled again, before looking around his room. Everything was still in the same spot as usual. But something felt off.

He looked towards the window. And there she was.

Rukia sat watching the proceedings with wide eyes. Harry was getting beaten! By his own uncle no less! She had to do something.

Harry snarled again, shaking his head at her. He mouthed at her. Get away before he sees you! This happens all the time!

She stared at him, through the window. Then she realized something. The small outcropping she kneeled on had small holes in it, like something had been inside of them. There were other holes on the top too. Her eyes widened more as they connected the dots. Someone had put bars onto this window!

"How dare they?" was the first thought that popped into her head. "How dare these… these… monsters do that to their kin? How dare they do that to a Shinigami? They are nothing compared to us, and yet they do such terrible things to him!"

She snarled, and reached towards the window, intent on opening it up, and beating the shit out of that monster that was supposed to be a man. Harry snarled again, shaking his head more furiously.

He glared at her in a way that said "Don't you dare even try that!" She glowered back at him.

A silent conversation passed between them.

Rukia backed down, seeing the desperation in his eyes. Her eyes started to tear up. She nodded to him, seeing the relief in his eyes, before jumping back down to the ground.

A cry of pain split the quiet evening around her. She winced, and tears started to slide down her cheeks. She leaned against the wall of the house; listening in torment as Harry was brutally beaten by his uncle. Every cry rent her heart more.

She couldn't even do anything, totally helpless. She was no help to him. Her running tears turned to sobs, quiet but unrestrained sobs. She folded herself up into a ball as she heard a crashing sound that was probably Harry being slammed into a wall. Her head went down to the tops of her knees, and she cried.

She sat there, wishing for something, anything to take away his pain. But she couldn't help him, he wouldn't let her.

For two hours, she sat listening and crying, the cries of pain slowly dying down. After they stopped, she took a leap up the window, Harry's window, and peeped inside.

A few minutes before the beating had ended, Rukia had felt the magical bonds that held Harry back breaking and shattering. After his uncle had left, she had felt the magic itself flare up. And she looked to see what sort of damage had been caused, bad enough to not be repaired.

Harry was lying in the middle of the room, covered in bruises. His blood had leaked out, covering a significant area around him, although most of the cuts had been healed by Harry's magic. She whipped the window open, and jumped inside. Her hand crackled with as much healing magic as she could gather, and she slammed it into his bloody chest. The glow spread in an instant, removing most of the bruising from his body.

Harry let out a pained moan, but was not wakened.

Rukia took a moment and examined all of the wounds that covered his body.

She winced upon seeing them. On both of his palms, and on the back of both of his hands, a pentagram was carved, along with, on his right hand, the scars of the words "I must not tell lies."

Then, magic flared in his body.

She realized what had happened, again. His magic had been bound when she had met him, but ever since he had become a Shinigami, the magic bindings had been breaking, slowly but surely, one by one. His body had attempted to get used to the feeling of having more magic, which was the reason for his tiredness of late. Now that his body was in deep trouble, the new magic had started to go to work. It would heal his body, hopefully, leaving him without scars or other reminders.

And now, another one had broken.

With a sound of breaking glass, more of the bindings shattered, only hearable by one with magic. There was a flash of light, and a pure emerald green aura formed around Harry.

The only remaining marks on Harry's body, the pentagrams carved into his hands, glowed. The cuts closed, and covered over in scar tissue, before fading away, leaving no marks on his body.

Then with another moan, Harry Potter's eyes softly opened.

He attempted to sit up, but was pushed down by Rukia. His eyes looked up to her. "Wha…?"

With a hiss in her voice, she replied. "Your uncle. Why didn't you tell me this was happening to you?" she asked, tears forming again in her eyes.

"It's been happening all of my life. It's never been that bad before though. There's not really anything you could have done about it. It's not like I have a choice in living here," Harry responded sadly.

"So what?! You could have at least told me! I thought I was your friend!" she cried.

Harry smiled softly. "You are. But I couldn't tell you. I can't tell anyone. Nobody knows how bad it is."

Rukia's eyes teared up more. "But, why? Why haven't you told anyone?"

"It wouldn't make a difference. It would destroy the world's view of me, boy-who-lived-only-to-be-beaten-by-his-muggle-relatives. I don't want them to pity me. They can't take me away from this place. Not without Dumbledore's express permission. And since this is the safest place for me, there's no reason to take me away. Not by Dumbledore's logic anyways. He doesn't listen to anyone but himself, and if he took me away from here, his plans would be ruined."

Rukia's glared at him. "You mean this Dumbledore person would leave you here, with an abusive family, just because you're supposed to be safe here? HERE?" She shouted at him.

"Quiet!" Harry hissed.

Rukia snatched Harry's wand from the bedside table, and slashed it at the door. She created a silencing ward on it, so no one could hear her shout. She repeated her actions on the window as well, just to be sure.

"Damn it, Harry! Why? Why?" she shouted, as she closed in on him. She wrapped her arms around him, and he stiffened. When she burst out crying into his chest, he softened. He wrapped his scar covered arms around her, and just held her.

After letting out her tears, she sniffled. "Why, Harry? What's so important about you, that you have to stay in a place like this?"

Harry just looked at her sadly. "There is a prophesy about me, and Voldemort, the man I told you about, who killed my parents. He's the world's worse Dark Lord right now, and I'm supposedly the only one who can kill him. Dumbledore told me the prophesy a few weeks ago. It said 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…' I was born at the end of July, and Voldemort attacked us on Halloween of the following year. I was a year, and three months old at the time. A year and three months, but he still came for me. He killed my parents in front of me. But then, you know what happened? He used the Killing curse on me, and it didn't work. I didn't die from something's that sole purpose is to kill. I lived, with one remembrance of the night." Harry pulled his bangs back, revealing the lightning bolt scar on his forehead that made him so famous.

Rukia gasped. "Mark him as his equal!" she cried. "His curse failed, and it left a mark on you, making you the one the prophecy was talking about." Tears flowed once again.

Harry shook his head. "I don't think I can do it."

"Why not? You could figure out a way."

"My main reason for fighting, my godfather, was killed by one of the Death Eaters, followers of Voldemort. That was the night, the night Dumbledore told me about the prophecy. I don't want to be bound by this fate. I just want to mourn and move on, but it won't happen here."

He heard a sniffle, and found Rukia, crying again.

"He was really important to you, wasn't he?" Harry nodded. "How did he die?"

Harry looked back at her. "He fell through a magical veil in the Department of Mysteries."

"A veil?" Her eyes widened. "What does it look like? What happened when he fell through it?"

Harry just looked at her, confused. "It was a large arch, with a fluttering black veil over it. When he fell through it, he just didn't come out the other side. They said he was dead, but I don't see how that could be. Unless the veil was a way to suck out souls or something." Harry looked back down at Rukia, whose eyes had widened even more.

"That's it!" the Shinigami girl cried. "The Archway to Death! It is the passageway that links the world down here and Soul Society! Some crazy German guy, Grindel-something or other, created it about sixty years ago. I don't remember the exact history or how it works, but it takes the body thrown in and destroys it, while sending the soul to Soul Society. Your Godfather is in Soul Society. Maybe we'll be able to see him some day." She said, happiness flooding her voice.

Harry's eyes narrowed. "But what about the mirror?"

"The mirror? What mirror?"

"Sirius gave me a mirror, a two-way mirror that connects with the one that he carries. I say his name, and his image shows up in my mirror, and we can talk to the mirror, and it comes out the other mirror. Shouldn't he have shown up on it, if he was in Soul Society?"

"The Archway has a flaw. It could only gather ambient magic from the atmosphere around it at a small rate. A person that fell through it lost their body immediately, but their soul was held in stasis for one month before enough energy could be gathered to perform a sort of semi soul Burial without a Shinigami, and send the soul to Soul Society, because it takes so much."

Harry's eyes teared up. "So does that mean, that maybe I can contact him? Now, since it's been more than a month?"

She nodded, and he ran over to his trunk. He opened it, and reached inside, pulling out the mirror that he had kept so desperately since it was all that remained of Sirius. He had broken it once, but repaired it, and hoped the magic involved still worked.

He reverently leaned the mirror against the wall so that it stood up, on his desk. He stared at it for a moment, before reverently whispering his Godfather's name.

"Sirius Black."

The mirror let out a fuzzy noise. Harry jumped back, startled.

"Sirius Black!" he said more forcibly.

The mirror started to show a fuzzy scene, like something out of a badly snowy television screen.

"Sirius Black!" his voice raised more.

The picture started to clean up, leaving only half of the screen covered in the static. Noises started to come through as well, but they were horribly quiet.

"SIRIUS BLACK!" Harry roared out.

With that, the picture cleaned up immediately, giving them a perfect view of the inside of someone's coat.

Harry's eyes widened, hearing, in the background, the voice of his godfather conversing with someone.

He heard his godfather gasp, and heard the sound of running, along with appropriate bouncing of the image in the mirror, proving that Sirius was running.

He ran for a few moments, before ripping the mirror out of his jacket.

"Harry!" Sirius cried, his voice echoing through the mirror.

To be continued.

A/N: So how's that for divergence from the original Bleach storyline, eh?

If you think it's weird that Harry and Rukia are such good friends so quickly, remember it has been six weeks of almost non stop being together. They're bound to either hate each other (like Ichigo and Rukia did) or get along really well (as Harry and Rukia did). At least, that's what I think would happen. Constant close proximity seems like it would make people become friends really fast. Harry could share things with her that he couldn't tell anyone else, since nobody would know about her because technically, she didn't exist. Thus nobody would go looking for her to try and find answers about him.

The Veil's only reason for existence was so that Grindelwald could get into Soul Society without a Shinigami Soul Burial-ing him. Since he doubted, after all the bad things he had done, they would actually not send him to hell, he decided to create the Veil/Archway and jump in it. He may or may not be a character later in the story.

Yes I realize that having Sirius still be semi-alive is kinda lame, but what can I say, it came to me in a flash of inspiration.

2nd A/N: Sorry, I was half asleep when I wrote and displayed that chapter, the first time. It was definitely not supposed to be that graphic, so I changed that section, hopefully making it a little better. The part with the pentagons is important though, so I couldn't change that.