Author's Note: Part III of my hypothetical RWBY/HP crossover. Thanks again to MrStark357 for Beta-ing.

Anyway, some of you may notice that there was a timeskip between this chapter and the last one. Well, remember, I'm just playing around here, not actually writing a real story. If this interests you, I would encourage you to write your own version of it, which was kind of the point of starting this thing in the first place.

Just please tell if you do so I can read it. Please?

Also, I expect some of you will forget this by the time it comes up, but I am using the illustrations from the books as a guideline, that is, that Hogwarts students just through their robes over whatever their wearing as opposed to the movies where everybody is wearing what us Americans slobs would call "dress clothes."

RWBY/HARRY POTTER: Part III

Earth

Harry sat in the compartment watching the land rush by. It still amazed him; the idea that people expected to travel through all of this open land without every worrying about being attacked by Grimm. Of course, the train itself was kind of disappointing. It was very old-fashioned looking, probably even still ran on coal instead of the liquid fuels people of this world used instead of Dust, and in spite of the magical station it had been hidden in, it had no apparent enchantments of its own. The thing also had no shock absorbers built in; it bucked and rattled over every little bump in the tracks. Harry was missing Remnant already.

"Do you mind?" A voice asked.

Harry looked up. It was the red-headed boy whose mother had shown him how to get onto the Platform. Harry remembered that she'd said the station was "packed with Muggles," a phrase he didn't understand. He did think it odd that after three children she didn't know better than to say the name of the secret platform out-loud.

"Everywhere else is full," the boy said.

Harry realized he was asking to share the compartment. Of course, this opened the question to where he'd been sitting earlier when the train started. "Sure," the young wizard said. His parents had taught him to be generous to others, if cautious around them.

"Thanks," the redhead said, plopping himself down with his trunk and the cage containing his pet rat in the seat across from Harry. "I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley."

"Harry. Harry Potter." Harry immediately wondered if he'd done something wrong. Ron's eyes bulged comically.

"Really?" he asked. Before Harry could answer he continued. "Do you have the, the scar?"

Harry's eyebrows went up. "What scar?" he asked.

"You know," Ron said. "The one on your forehead. The lightning bolt."

Harry's hand immediately went to his forehead. Underneath his bangs was indeed such a scar. His Mom said he'd gotten it from a Beowolf the night she'd found him. "How'd you know about that?"

"Everyone knows about it," Ron said. "It was in The Prophet."

"The what?" Harry asked.

"The Daily Prophet. You know, the newspaper," Ron said, looking at him oddly.

"Sorry, I'm not from around here," Harry said. In truth, he and his parents had spent most of their time prior to the train ride in the Muggle city of London as it was slightly closer to Remnant than Diagon Alley. Even if it was horribly behind technologically. These people had barely developed an internet for Dust's sake!

"Yeah, The Prophet said you'd been out of the country," Ron said nodding.

"It said what?" Harry asked. "Why does The Prophet care so much about me? Why is it running all these stories? Scratch that, how does it know all this stuff about me?"

"Well, Professor Dumbledore told them," Ron said. "He said you'd been hiding for years, but that you were coming back to the Wizarding World to come to Hogwarts. And he said, you got the scar from when You-Know-Who tried to kill you."

"You mean Voldemort?" Harry asked. Ron's reaction was almost comical. His eyes bugged out even further and his mouth dropped like a ton of bricks. "What? What did I say?"

"You said his name," Ron whispered. "Nobody says his name. Nobody!"

"But hasn't he been dead for a decade?" Harry asked. "My birth-parents killed him, didn't they?"

"Yeah well, people still don't like to talk about him. And what's this about your parents? Everyone knows you're the one who beat him."

Harry snorted. "Yeah right. I was a baby then. What did I do, spit up on him? Unless this so-called Dark Lord was allergic to baby drool, I don't think that'd work." Harry didn't know much about that night; he and his parents had done their level best to avoid the Boy-Who-Lived (was it just a habit of these people to give out long, hyphenated titles or something?) nonsense as soon as they'd figured out it existed. The three doubted that whatever had happened that night was his doing. Harry hadn't even developed his Semblance yet, and his spellcasting left a lot to be desired at present. A one-and-a-half year-old couldn't have beaten a master Wizard.

"But Dumbledore said it was you," Ron protested.

Harry grimaced. "Well, I can't say I remember, but he wasn't there, was he? If he was, my birth-parents wouldn't be dead."

"Birth-parents?" Ron asked.

"I was adopted," Harry said, shifting in his seat. He loved his Mother and Mom, but they'd instructed him to keep mentions of them to a minimum. It would be hard to talk about them without mentioning Remnant. Also, this world seemed to be a little behind on the whole gay marriage thing.

"Oh, well. That's cool, I guess." Ron said.

"Yeah, I love them. What about you, Ron. What's your family like? Are they all Witches and Wizards?"

"Well," Ron said. "Mum's got a cousin who's an accountant. We don't talk about him much."

Harry's stomach dropped. "Why not?" Harry asked. He recalled how his Aunt Winter told him of her father's attempt to exile his Mother for not fitting into the molds he'd assigned to her. Had Ron's family done likewise to one of their own? Had they succeeded?

Ron shrugged. "He doesn't visit. Mum said he got tired of living in a world full of magic and not being able to do any of it, so he left. We get Christmas and birthday cards from him. That's about it."

"Oh," Harry said. He wasn't sure if that was the truth or if Ron's mother had sanitized events for him. Harry also made a note to look up what "Christmas" was. Was it this world's version of Oumsmas? "What about your brothers and sister? Are they your only siblings or do you have more? Do you have any cousins?"

Ron frowned. "I've got five older brothers. Bill and Charlie graduated already. Percy's in Fifth Year; he's just made Prefect and can't shut up about it."

"Oh, I think I remember him," Harry said. "The one with the badge?"

"Yeah. Then, there's Fred and George, the Twins."

"Not Gred and Feorge?" Harry asked, recalling the pair's antics. Aunt Yang would love them.

"Nah. They're all right, usually. Ginny will be coming next year. She's the baby. And I haven't got any cousins; Mum's an only child, and Dad's brothers were all killed in the War." Harry winced—maybe Ron's fascination was learned behavior. "What about you?" the redhead asked.

"I'm an only child, but I've got a lot of cousins. Granted most of them aren't legally related to me; they're my parents' friends' kids, but we all call each other family. And my Mom's sister adopted a bunch of kids too. They're like sisters to me." Harry smiled as he thought of Topaz, Blanche, and Crimson. All three were Faunus, unsurprising given how passionate Aunt Blake was about her race's welfare and how much Aunt Yang supported her.

"Must be nice," Ron mumbled, "not having to compete with anyone."

Harry frowned. Ron didn't know how lucky he was. Growing up, a lot of the children he knew had dead parents or siblings. It'd been worse in his parents' day; his Mom's status as the child of a second marriage wasn't that uncommon, and while most people knew Uncle Jaune had seven younger sisters, not so many knew he used to have twelve. Aunt Blake and Aunt Pyrrha had both been orphaned young, and Uncle Ren and Aunt Nora . . . They didn't talk much about their childhoods, only that they'd had each other. They never mentioned anyone else.

Harry was saved having to give a lecture by the appearance of an older, rather plump witch pushing a trolley full of sweets. Harry saw the look on Ron's face and asked for some of everything—which thankfully he could afford thanks to his birth-parents. A trip to the Wizarding World's bank had revealed they'd left him a small fortune.

Ron was quite happy to trade both slices of his Bologna sandwich for half of Harry's sweets (Mother had drilled into him a need for moderation, and a few failed attempts to keep up with Mom's sweet tooth had convinced him that it was a good thing). Between bites of meat and mustard, he learned that cauldron cakes were bland, liquorish wands were all right, Every Flavor Beans really do come in every flavor (he ate a green one he was pretty sure was grass and set the box down after that), and Chocolate Frogs weren't real frogs but someone had decided to enchant them so they acted like real living things because yeah, that made eating them easier. Chocolate Frogs also came with a pentagon-shaped trading card featuring a famous Witch or Wizard. Harry's first was the infamous Professor Dumbledore.

"I've got about a hundred of him," Ron said proudly.

"He's gone!" Harry said. He'd been reading the back to see if there was anything useful about the strange, meddling old man, and when he'd flipped it back around again, the image of the Wizard was gone.

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day, can you?" Ron said, as though it were perfectly obvious. Harry chalked it up to another oddity of the Wizarding World.

Like most First Years did upon arrival at Hogwarts, Harry cast his eyes around the castle. Unlike most, however, he was decidedly disappointed. Oh, the ceiling was amazing and the talking pictures (Harry still wasn't sure how they did that. Would the paintings have Auras if he checked them?), and the outer walls gave the place a feeling of strength and grandeur, kind of like Beacon, he thought. Unlike Beacon, the inside of the castle was simplistic, aside from the aforementioned ceiling and paintings. The castle was just an old pile of unpainted stones, lit by torches, actual fire burning torches. Harry was starting to get disappointed with this world's spell-casters. They had so much power but insisted on living as medieval as possible.

Harry raised a hand to the back of his head. He could almost feel Aunt Blake's hand giving a disapproving swat for his cultural insensitivity. It was their world, and they could run it how they liked. Even if it did make no sense.

Harry ignored the castle in favor of listening to the other students' conversations. They were discussing the upcoming sorting, wondering how it was done. His friend from the train, Ron, said that his brothers had told him that it involved wrestling a Troll. From what Harry had read about Trolls in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, that seemed unlikely. Despite that, his right hand drifted to his hip where he'd hidden his weapon under the robe. It wasn't finished, of course, but it made the young wizard, formerly the young Huntsman-in-training, feel better.

To his left, he heard a bushy-haired girl he had met earlier on the train—Hermione, he thought her name was (and what was with these people and all their weird names? Harry still had no idea where his came from, and when he'd asked Ron where his came from and the other boy had just shrugged and said "my Mum liked it") fretting over being made to cast spells as some sort of entrance exam to determine what House they belonged in.

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, Mudblood," a voice drawled. "It's not like anyone expects anything from you anyway. You should have stayed with your filth-veined parents where you belonged." Harry looked up and saw a boy with almost white hair sneering at the collective First Years. The boy was their age but stood on the steps to look down on them. He was flanked on either side by a pair of pasty-skinned boys who were either fellow students or shaved gorillas; Harry wasn't sure which. He was trying to look relaxed and disinterested whilst speaking loud enough to be heard by everyone present.

"What's your problem?" he asked, stepping forward to glare at the boy. Between Mother and Aunt Yang, Harry felt he had learned how to do a pretty good glare.

"My problem is all the Muggle-born garbage cluttering the halls that only proper Wizards should walk," the boy answered.

Harry's scowl increased. He remembered a time Cardin, leader of the not terribly popular team CRDL had insulted his Aunts Yang and Blake at a class reunion. Somehow the fact that one was a Faunus and the other married to a Faunus trumped his team's own lack of success after graduation. "Is that so?" he asked. "Well, when if I see any proper Wizards, I'll warn them about the brat with a big mouth and no manners."

The blonde's face scrunched up comically, almost like Mom's did, but way meaner than Mom ever was. "And who do you think you are?"

"I'm Harry Potter, and I don't like bullies." Harry mentally kicked himself, twice. Firstly, he could hear the whispering that erupted at the sound of his name, and secondly, he must've been able to come up with a cooler line than "I don't like bullies."

The blonde boy's eyes widened, and he needed to swallow once to recover. But recover he did. "It's true then, what they were saying on the train; Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts," the blond announced. His attitude had shifted; he was still arrogant, still trying to mask it as refinement, but now he seemed almost approachable. Harry suspected a trap. "This is Crabbe and Goyle," he said, introducing his backup. Harry was almost positive the two were too old to be First Years, given how big they were. "And I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." It was obvious he expected Harry to have heard of the name. Beside him, Ron snorted. Malfoy frowned. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask what yours is. Red hair and a hand-me-down robe? You must be a Weasley." Malfoy returned to his venomous smile (Harry was starting to wonder if he'd need medical attention after this conversation). "Everyone knows the Weasleys all have red hair and more children than they can afford. You'll soon learn that some Wizarding families are better than others; you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort." Malfoy's eyes shifted to Ron as he spoke for a moment. Then he offered his hand. "I can help you there."

Harry snorted. "Wow, are you dense." Another time, he'd wish he had his Scroll, so he could take a picture of the look on Malfoy's face. "You insult my friends—and my biological mother by extension, since I hear she was a 'Muggle-born'—possibly my adopted parents as well, since you don't know them, strut about like a talking peacock, and you expect me to just fall in as your new lackey?" Harry's frown deepened. Malfoy took a breath to respond, but Harry cut him off. "No. I've met people like you before. I've heard stories from my parents about people like you from when they were in school. For Dust's sake, my adopted grandfather acts like you, and—in case you haven't figured it out yet—NO ONE IN MY FAMILY LIKES HIM!" Harry calmed down and took a breath. "Look, just stay away from me and my friends, and we'll stay away from you. Sound good?"

Before Malfoy could respond he was tapped on the shoulder by Professor McGonigall who announced that they were ready to begin. Harry couldn't help but smile at the sight of the Cardin-wannabe being cowed by a woman who reminded him of Professor Goodwitch. Even if he had to surreptitiously wipe away a few tears. She'd been a good teacher.

He didn't notice how Ron and Hermione reacted to being called "his friends."

McGonigall led them into the Great Hall where the older students were seated at four long tables. It was easy to see these were the four Houses: the brightly colored banners were a dead giveaway. At the end of the Hall, another table stood, this one apparently for the staff. In front of this table stood a small stool, upon which rested an old hat. Harry took one look at the frayed, patched old thing and immediately realized two things: his Mom would love it, and his Mother would hate it.

Then, the hat did the last thing Harry expected it to do (though, in fairness, he had no idea what the thing was supposed to do). It started to sing. It sang much the same way Mom sang, not particularly well, but full of passion and good cheer. The kind of singing you either had to join in with, or cover your ears and hide from. As it sang, the Hat explained that the four Houses were each known for a different virtue or view-point. Gryffindors were brave, Ravenclaws were smart, Hufflepuffs were loyal, and Slytherins were ambitious. Harry mentally began assigning his relatives into each House. Mom was a Gryffindor for sure. Still, why the heck had these people brought an old hat to life just to sort the fresh meat?

McGonigall then began calling people's names alphabetically. Harry noticed that some students the hat had trouble placing. It sat on Hermione's head for a minute or two mumbling to itself before it announced "GRYFFINDOR!" Meanwhile, it declared Malfoy to be in "SLYTHERIN" practically the instant it touched his head.

"Harry Potter!" the Professor called. Harry swallowed and started forward. The hat looked worse up close; as McGonigall placed it on his head, he was afraid it would come apart at the badly-mended seems.

"Don't worry about me, Mr. Potter. I'm more durable than I look."

Harry blinked and looked around. It sounded like the hat was speaking—in his head.

"Oh, don't mind me," the hat said. "I'm just here to see where you belong. If I may say, you've got an interesting background."

You're reading my mind! Harry thought.

"Don't worry; I won't tell anyone. Attorney/client privilege, you might say. All anyone will know is where I sort you. If I can ever decide. Plenty of courage. Not a bad mind either. A strong sense of loyalty. And a thirst to prove yourself, a desire to live up to your parents' legends. But where to put you?

If I may," Harry asked, calling on all the etiquette lessons his Mother had ever given him. "May I please request to be in Gryffindor with my friends?"

Harry heard the hat chuckle in his head. "It's not often I get to meet a young person with such good manners. I don't suppose I can turn down such a request, can I? "GRYFFINDOR!"

The table under the lion-headed banner cheered louder for Harry than they had for anyone else up to that point. Harry found a seat next to Hermione. The rest of the sorting was uneventful except for Ron who—despite looking like someone in an ancient (on Remnant) electric chair under the hat—was placed in Gryffindor along with Harry and his brothers.

In the center of the table at the staff table, the Headmaster stood up. "And now I just have a few short words to say before we dig in: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."

Harry resisted the urge to bang his ears with his hands. "Did anyone else understand that?" he asked.

"That's just . . ." one of the Weasley Twins said.

"Dumbledore?" the other offered.

"Quite right, George."

"No, I'm Fred. You're George."

Harry was distracted from the conversation by the sudden appearance, literal appearance, of trays of food all up and down the table. Mashed potatoes, green beans, slices of roast beef and ham, piles of rolls, asparagus, creamed corn, and pictures full of orange juice. Harry thought that last one an odd choice for dinner, but maybe it made more sense here than it did on Remnant. It would be one of the tamer differences, really. With this in mind, he poured himself a glass full of juice and took a large swig; he was rather thirsty.

BLECK!

"What-hack-was-hack-THAT?" he finally forced out. Hermione helpfully began thumping his back to try to help clear his throat.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Ron asked. "Something wrong with your juice?"

"That," Harry said, "has to be the foulest orange juice I have ever tasted."

"Orange juice?" Ron asked. "Is that what Muggles call pumpkin juice?"

"Pumpkin juice?" Hermione asked. "Seriously? Wizards drink this? Are you all right, Harry?"

Harry straightened up and tentatively took a sip of the foul brew. Now that he wasn't expecting orange juice, the taste was tolerable. Although why the only other drink option was water, he had no idea. "Why isn't there any tea?" He asked. "I thought British people were supposed to like tea."

The meal continued on more or less normally after that. Except for two things: first was the heated discussion of the fact that the Boy-Who-Lived apparently wasn't a fan of Pumpkin juice. The other was Harry's hesitation every time he took a bite of something new. Harry didn't care how these people looked at him; he was not going through that again.

To cap the night off, Dumbledore rose and invited everyone to sing the school song, according to their favorite tune. What followed was—in Harry's opinion—a complete and utter mess that would have Aunt Blake and her children clawing their own ears out and probably send his Mother into a murderous fury. Aunt Yang and his Mom would probably have fun with it, though. Especially as he could vaguely make out the Twins singing the song as a dirge. Thus suitably inspired, Harry began to belt the lyrics out to the tune of one of Mom's favorite songs: Red Like Roses.

He might have chosen Mirror, Mirror, but his voice wasn't right for that. Even before puberty, some things just sounded better out of a girl's mouth. Or maybe it was just Mother was too good. He also briefly considered This Will Be the Day, but discarded it as too loud. He didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to himself.

Regardless, everyone in the room finished at different speeds, with the Weasley Twins wrapping things up. Dumbledore actually wiped a tear from his eye and praised the assembled student body's singing. Judging by the looks on the rest of the faculty's faces, Harry wasn't the only one who thought the old man might be a little crazy.

Or maybe he was messing with them all.

The weeks passed. Unlike most students who had spent their formative years among Muggles, Harry knew from Professor Goodwitch that magic was about more than saying a few silly words and waving a wand. She had warned him early on that his apprenticeship would be long and filled with many hours of work and study.

It still didn't prepare him for what he had to do at Hogwarts. In fact, he wasn't sure what to do with Hogwarts. The only two courses that involved waving their wooden wands (and why were they all wood, he wondered. Professor Goodwitch had used her riding crop, and he had no idea what it was made of but it was certainly wrapped in leather at least) and saying the words were Charms and Transfiguration. Harry wasn't entirely sure why the two weren't considered the same thing, really, though he was even more disappointed with the coursework; Professor McGonigall had started her first class by transforming into a cat and back which seemed like something that would be very useful to a Hunter (stealthy, sharper senses, innocuous but capable of defending itself to a certain extent), but then informed them they would spend the entire first class turning matches into sowing needles. Charms was more diverse, although Harry didn't need for Professor Flitwick to squeal his name and fall over during the first roll call. Harry was fairly certain the short Professor was at least partially related to the Goblins he'd seen in Gringotts, though Aunt Blake had raised him better than to mention it. Flitwick would do it himself if he wanted to, and that was that.

In addition to those courses, they spent two days a week in the Greenhouses for Herbology, the study and care of magical and mundane plants. Harry thought the first part sounded rather useful, but why did they need to learn how to take care of the plants unless they were planning to make a career out of it. The only people Harry knew who could look after plants were his Uncle Ren (who grew tiny trees in his house which Aunt Nora and their children routinely destroyed), and Aunt Blake (who kept a garden which Aunt Yang and the children knew not to destroy or else). Neither of his parents were any good around plants except for cooking and eating them, and Harry was much the same. If Herbology was half-useless though, it was still better than Astronomy. Once a week (on a Wednesday, no less) the First Years all hiked to the top of the Tower to look at the stars and fill out charts. On Remnant, at Beacon, Astronomy was taught to Hunters to help them navigate when in strange places, and Professor Goodwitch had taught him that keeping track of the movements of the stars would help him keep track of the ways the ambient magic of the world ebbed, flowed, and twisted. Hogwarts taught none of that. They just dragged an army of eleven-year-olds up the staircase at Grimm-begotten midnight to look at a bunch of stars and constellations Harry had never heard of but everyone here expected him to with NO explanation needed, apparently.

"Grimm and Dust this is dumb," Harry muttered. A sleepy Ron had turned to him and asked what he'd said, but Hermione had heard him better and, thankfully, was too concerned with scolding him for thinking any class was dumb than wondering about his odd expletive.

Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, and Potions were the most understandable classes and had been the ones Harry had been looking forward to most, but were compromised by their teachers. Professor Quirel was a stuttering wreck of a man. According to the rumors, the man had had some bad run-ins with creatures called Vampires and Hags prior to accepting his current position. Harry had to look the creatures up, and they sounded like Hexenbiests and Sangrienta Manos of Remnants' legends, which raised further questions to look into. Apparently, Vampires were also to blame for the scent of garlic that permeated the classroom. The teacher also kept some in his Turban which he claimed he'd been given by a Prince from some place called Africa after defeating something called a Zombie (a Kosche on Remnant, the dictionary was rapidly becoming Harry's constant companion). Given how faint the man got at the mere mention of his previous exploits, however, everyone took that story with a grain of salt.

At least, if you could understand Professor Quirel, he said interesting things. By contrast, Professor Binns the Ghost seemed to turn History of Magic into the single dullest class in the entire school. Everyone but Hermione and Harry fell asleep as he droned on about things and people Harry had never heard of, and even if he had, he'd still have no clue what they'd done because of Binns' lifeless (pun-intended, he might've been around Aunt Yang too long) teaching style. Honestly, the textbook was more passionate about the material than he was. Harry amused himself by imagining Binns was bitter over dying and was working on a way to force the students to join him by boring them to death. "I'm on to him, thought," he told his friends in the hall one afternoon. "Every time I start to feel my heartbeat dropping, I imagine my parents reading bedtime stories to me. Way more adrenaline inducing than that." Cue another lecture from Hermione about paying attention in class and respecting teachers. Followed by another argument between her and Ron about being nosy.

Part of the reason Defense and History were so horrible was because Harry had already met the exact opposite of Quirel and Binns. Professor Port was loud, cheerful, and eager to share his own adventures at every opportunity, and also unlike Quirel, he enunciated all his words. Professor Oobleck, by contrast, was as lively as Binns was dead, and it wasn't just because of his bottomless thermos of coffee. Oobleck cared about history, tried to instill some of that love or at least inquisitiveness into his own students. People sometimes complained that the green-haired man spoke to fast, but Harry didn't think his classes were ever boring.

Finally, there was Potions, a class Harry had been looking forward to because combining various magical substances made him think of Dust, his Mother's area of expertise and the foundation of all of Remnant's civilizations. Unfortunately, it was taught by the single most unlikeable (and unliking) teacher in all of Hogwarts. While Quirel was a mess, and Binns was dull, Snape was just plain mean. If Harry was to compare him to anyone on Remnant, it would be the stories he'd heard of Mordred Schnee, his Mother's biological father. Except whereas Old Man Schnee had hated more or less everything, Snape showed blatant favoritism to the Slytherins, particularly to Malfoy and his goons. Harry on the other hand was the professor's least favorite student; the man had opened the first class by quizzing Harry on various magical plants and their effects. Yes, Harry had tried to read some of his books to prepare for class, but he'd only bought them a week before class had started and they were filled with references and concepts he'd never heard of before. He was still trying to figure out how to deal with this world's stupidly complicated system of money, for Dust's sake!

As such, Harry was looking forward to the dropping out of this school after the Fifth Year exams and disappearing off the face of the Earth back to Remnant (and really, did these people know they'd named their planet after dirt?). Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he was doing well in most of his classes. He'd learned to turn a square of cloth into a parchment (mildly useful), could take care of roses (arguably more applicable), knew how many potions rose hips were used in (34, mostly healing and cosmetic potions), could recognize the North Star (which was supposedly three stars but he didn't care), understood the differences between jinxes, hexes, and curses, had learned that the most important culture in the history of the western half of both the magical and Muggle worlds was a Kingdom called Rome, and might be able to brew those rose hip potions if given the chance or the motivation. When they'd started studying levitation in Charms, the only one who'd learned it faster than Harry had been Hermione. And so, the days dragged on until it became the 31 of October, a day the people of this world called Halloween.

Harry's family called it his birthday.

Harry looked at the magically delivered food on the tables in front of him. "Um, why is it all sweets?" he asked. Indeed, the table was piled high with lollypops, candy corn, treacle tarts (Harry's favorites), and more types of chocolate than he could count. The only non-confection being offered was the pitchers of pumpkin juice, a drink that Harry now found acceptable but was rapidly getting fed up with, since the only time they offered anything else was milk at Breakfast. Harry'd had some impressive birthday parties before but this took the cake. Not literally though, there were pies and cupcakes; real cake seemed to be the only sweet absent from the table.

"What?" Ron, replied through his mouthful of sweets. Ron was never one to miss out on free food. Swallowing, he continued. "Harry, it's Halloween. What do you expect?" Ron was all right most of the time, but his inability to comprehend that Harry was clueless about the Wizarding world was a little annoying.

"Just because it's Halloween doesn't mean we have to eat all this," Hermione said from Harry's other side. "It's unhealthy." Harry had approached her for help with his studies shortly after classes started. The dark-haired Wizard had quickly learned that—despite having been raised with magic—Ron barely knew more than he did about this world. Which was pretty pathetic when you thought about it. Hermione had been hesitant at first but eventually warmed up to him. The two had quickly discovered they had a love of learning and had become fast friends.

It was a shame his two friends didn't seem to like each other very much.

"Just because your parents won't let you eat anything doesn't mean the rest of us can't," Ron snapped.

"My parents let me eat sweets, but they also made sure I knew to only eat a little at a time," Hermione—whose parents were dentists—snapped back. "A lesson it seems you never learned."

Harry swallowed a groan, once again forced to play the part of the demilitarized zone between his first friends in this world. Time for a distraction. "No, I mean why are there so many sweets? I thought Halloween was about celebrating Voldemort's defeat. What does huge amounts of candy have to do with anything?"

Harry realized immediately that he'd made a mistake. It was one thing for Ron to be confused when he didn't know something so important to the Wizarding World, but when Hermione looked at him like he'd grown a second head, he knew he'd made mistake.

"Harry, how do you not know what Halloween is?" Hermione asked. "It's a popular holiday in the Muggle World, too."

"Really?" Ron asked.

"Well, it's more about dressing up in costumes, and telling scary stories," Hermione said. Looking at the table she added, "and eating far too many sweets."

"Sorry," Harry said. "It wasn't celebrated where I grew up." His friends knew he didn't grow up in Britain—his accent took care of that—but they were thankfully laboring under the assumption he had grown up in America. North or South, he had no idea, but at least they didn't think he was from an alternate universe.

"Harry," Hermione said. "Halloween is a very popular holiday throughout the Northwestern world. "People all over Europe and in North America and I believe even Japan celebrate it. Even if your family didn't—and I know there are some people who for personal or religious reasons don't like it—you still should've heard of it."

Harry cringed. "Well, ah you see . . ."

Harry was spared by the sudden arrival of Professor Querril.

"TROLL! IN THE DUNGEONS! TROOOOLLLLLLL! IN THE DUNGEONS!" The man paused for a moment in the middle of the Great Hall for a moment before muttering "Thought you ought to know." Then he fainted.

Naturally, of course, this led to lots of screaming and panicking among the student body until Dumbledore commanded them all to be "Silent!" Then he ordered the Prefects to escort the students to their dorms whilst he took the teachers to the Dungeons to deal with the beast.

"How could a Troll have gotten in?" Harry asked as they filed in behind Percy Weasley with the other Gryffindors to return to the Gryffindor Tower. "I thought they were supposed to be extremely stupid." Harry may not have memorized his Herbology textbook, but he had read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from cover to cover. Being the child of a pair of Huntresses, he wanted to know about all of the dangerous animals that might try to kill him. It was a bit disappointing actually. Why were Centaurs and Mefolk classified as "Beasts" when they were clearly as intelligent as humans and other so-called "Beings?" The book said it was because they wanted to manage their own affairs, but lumping them in the same category as house pets seemed a little extreme. For that matter why were Jarveys (talking ferret-like things) classified as Beasts when they obviously had the ability to understand human speech and communicate with people? Trolls were supposed to be incredibly stupid. Yet, they made clothes as humans did. Simple clothes, yes, but that was something the lower primates didn't do. And they had their own language, yet could learn to understand and even speak a few human words. Granted a dog could learn the same, but it did suggest that Wizards were exaggerating how dumb Trolls supposedly were.

"Someone must've let it in," Ron said as they were herded to the castle. Harry and his friends were in the rear of the group. "Probably a prank, I'd wager."

"That's incredibly dangerous for a prank," Hermione said. "Someone might be hurt."

"Oh, no," Harry whispered. His friends looked at him. "The Troll's in the Dungeons—Slytherin dorms are in the Dungeons. Why did Dumbledore send them . . ."

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Hermione whispered.

Ron snorted. "Who cares about a bunch of bloody snakes? A few less of them would be pretty nice if you ask me."

"Ronald!" Hermione snapped. "How dare you be so cavalier about the lives of others?"

"What? They're just snakes."

"No, Ron," Harry said, feeling a little queasy. "Hermione's right. They're still people—people who need to be protected from the dangers in the world. Haven't your parents taught you to always help others?"

Ron's reply was cut off by a screaming portrait. "It's attacking the Slytherins!" a man dressed like a jester was in a portrait of a garden with children and their caretaker. "The Troll—it was leaving the Dungeons! And they were trying to get to the door! Merlin! It'll be horrible!"

The train of Gryffindors stopped, buzzing in confusion. Some—like Ron—made noises or approval. Only Hermione had the presence of mind to ask "What about the teachers?"

"They went the wrong way!" the Jester screamed. "They'll never make it!"

"Harry! Where are you going?" Neville asked, prompting Hermione and Ron to turn around—just in time to see Harry's robes disappear around a corner.

Harry stripped his robe off within half a minute of running—Mom might have been able to run in her cloak, but it was a hindrance to him. Underneath, he wore a bright red shirt and a pair of blue jeans. The shirt had a gold lightning bolt stitched onto it in the same shape as his scar: Harry's emblem. He bolted back through the Great Hall down the path he'd seen the Slytherins disappear. A normal eleven-year-old couldn't have kept up at the speed he was moving, never mind the terribly untrained Wizards of this world (Harry wasn't entirely sure what the teachers would do in battle against the Troll), but then, normal eleven-year-olds weren't trained by a family of Hunters. Harry vaulted over every obstacle he could, jumped down flights of stairs using his Aura to absorb the shock.

Harry had never been to the Slytherin dorms before, but he knew the way to the Dungeons. And all too soon, he didn't need to know; he could hear the sounds of children screaming. As Harry rounded the last corner, he skidded to a stop at the sight before him. Before him was a mob of children screaming and pushing each other trying to get away from the thundering steps coming at them. One of the First Years, a blond-haired girl he recognized from the Sorting, tripped and fell. Another Girl Harry presumed to be her friend stopped to try to pick her up, and both fell under the shadow of the Troll as it stomped forward. Harry gasped; there were Grimm less frightening than this monster! At least 10 feet tall and gray-skinned, its huge legs covered with stubby horns. The Troll was bald and wore crude leather clothing. Its ugly heard swung around as the Slytherin Prefects (four of them—two had apparently fled) fired ineffectual spells at it, trying not to be crushed as it swung a club made from a tree trunk at them.

How was he supposed to fight this thing? Harry wondered. Grimm and Dust, what had he been thinking trying to fight this thing? He wasn't a Huntsman or a soldier. He was a child who'd never even attended a day of formal combat training. He should've stayed with the Gryffindors, not gone running after this thing like a storybook hero.

The Slytherin girls screamed as the Troll, now above them, raised its club and brought in down—wooden death coming speeding towards them.

BANG!

Daphne Greengrass had a front row seat to the strangest thing she'd ever seen in her entire life. As the Troll brought its club down to crush her and Tracy, there was the sound of an explosion, and a crimson comet collided with the Troll's club, knocking it from the beast's hand.

"Daph . . . Merlin, look," her friend Tracy said.

Daphne turned away from the sight of the Troll stupidly gazing at its now empty palm (the irony was not lost on her), and looked to the side. There, groaning, pushing himself up on his wobbly feet with some manner of metal red staff, wearing Muggle clothes without robes was the person who had saved her and her best friend: Harry Potter.

"Ouch," the dark-haired boy muttered. "Need to remember to ask Mom how she can do that." Unfortunately, this drew the attention of the Troll. Growling, the beast turned on him. Potter spat some dirt from his mouth. "Stop. Please. I don't want to fight you. You don't have to do this." The situation was only becoming stranger. Was Potter trying to reason with the Troll? "You're not a monster; you have a soul, and you have a brain. We can work this out."

It was at this point one of the Prefects decided to fire a curse at the Troll's head. The beast stumbled forward a step or two before turning around. The Prefects panicked and began firing spells randomly again. The beast roared in rage and began trying to smash the students with its empty, but enormous fists.

Another Bang! Sounded, and Daphne saw Potter fly at the Troll once more.

Harry was not having a good birthday. Firstly, his plan to use his still incomplete, still unnamed weapon like Crescent Rose had reduced him to a groaning lump on the floor. Said weapon looked like Crescent Rose, but minus the magazine, the handle, and the scythe head, a long, red staff with a spear-heard on the end. On the top, was a revolving head loaded with six different types of Dust, like Mother's Myrtenaster. Harry was trying to combine both his parents' weapons to create his own. It was still a work in progress.

Once he'd realized the Troll had heard his whining, Harry tried to reason with it. Again, Trolls might not be the brightest street lights, but they weren't unintelligent. Unfortunately, no one had told the Slytherin Prefects this, who had angered the Troll with their ineffectual spells (didn't they know Trolls were resistant to magic? Grimm and Dust, he wasn't a native of this world, why did he know more about the dangers of it than them?). Naturally, the Troll had taken offense to this and was now trying to smash the older students.

For a brief moment, Harry was tempted to let the invader clear the world's gene pool a little.

Then, he pointed the blunt end of his weapon at the ground. Unlike his Mom, Harry preferred an ejector to a hand-pump, since it made the weapon more stream-lined. Thus, he already had a round or Explosive Dust chambered and ready. Squeezing the triggering mechanism, Harry launched himself at the Troll once more. Mother would probably yell at him for this if she saw him—so would Aunt Blake, Aunt Pyrrha, Topaz, Blanche, and Crimson for that matter—but he didn't want to risk killing the Troll, so this was the best option. Harry brought his legs up. Reinforced with his Aura and powered by the explosion, his feet slammed into the back of the Troll's head. Luckily for the Troll, it was too dumb to turn and look at the sound of the explosion, otherwise Harry would've broken its nose for sure. As it was, the Troll still lost consciousness, falling forward and almost crushing a slow Prefect under it. Harry found he couldn't care.

That might've been because of how he'd crumbled to the floor after making contact with the Troll's cranium. Unlike his parents and relatives, he hadn't quite gotten the hang of landing on his feet yet. After all, he'd never been to a Hunter school, except to visit with his parents and relatives.

And yet, he'd still beaten a Troll. That was a thing.

Author's Notes: Wow! That was a long one, huh? That's what happens when you can't find a place to start and can't really stop until you find a big flashy event to end it on.

This one really dives into my headcannon for Remnant. Those parts about how dangerous Remnant is, yeah that's real to me. I stole the idea of Jaune having five dead sisters from "Sunshine and Shadow" by RejectedKnight34, AKA maybe the best RWBY fanfic of them all, but I digress (although, fair warning, that story can be DARK. Not unnecessarily, not unrelentingly, not so bad that you want to stop because you know all your favorite characters will die horribly, but it can be pretty harsh at times). The rest though, that's me. Given how dangerous the world is supposed to be, I feel like there are a lot of broken or mixed families on Remnant.

The "Remnant Names" for various Creatures are all stolen from the NBC series, Grimm. The Koschei really does look like a zombie and the Hexenbiest is a pretty good example of what a Hag could be, but mostly I just wanted an excuse to play around with the names of Creatures that had been mentioned but not physically seen on the show. I'm nerdy like that.

I hope I get a chance to explore religion and culture on Remnant more in one of my fics in the future. I've kind of worked out my own headcannon of how they work or how I would do them. Yes, I did the trope of using Monty's name as the name of their God. It's a tribute to the man and when you think about it, it's kind of true.

References!

For those who guessed, Harry's Combat/Huntsman outfit is based on Jay Garrick's pre-New 52 costume, minus the boots and the helmet. Literally, the guy's costume was a t-shirt and jeans! I have a fondness for superhero costumes that look like something a normal person could actually through together without an alien power ring or their own billion-dollar company (seriously, where do these guys get their spandex?). The lightning bolt obviously would be modified but you get the idea.

Also, I would like to apologize to Pax Humana (Achilles on HPFanficArchive) for blatantly ripping him off. His story "The Potter Attraction" was kind of inspirational in how a Harry who was both well-trained and trained by people from another universe/series would react to the Wizarding world.

I already mentioned "Sunshine and Shadow" and what I stole from it.

A lot of HP fics make Halloween out as a time Harry hates. I get that, but I always wanted a version of Harry who had once liked Halloween.

Am I the only one who legitamately wonders why Trolls are considered Beasts?

I actually didn't have a name for Harry's scepter/spear thing when I made it. Now, I would like to suggest the name "Rose MADR" ("Rose Madder," with the "R" standing for "Revolver" or something rather than "Rapier"). No, I'm not sure how the gun works, I just liked the idea of Myrenaster's revolving Dust cylinders as the focus of the weapon without the rapier, and I liked the "spear" part of Cresent Rose.

Finally, let's get this out of the way: Topaz, Blance, and Crimson are all basically Faunus versions of Yang, Weiss, and Ruby: specifically a Bear Faunus, a Fox Faunus, and a Wolf Faunus, because those are what everyone says those three would be if they were species flipped. What rule is that by the way, Rule 70? I know a lot of authors like to use magic Dust science to just give our favorite same sex ships (say that five times fast) babies of their own, but I don't particularly like that. I think it's just because of my love of Batman and Robin, but I've always held a special place in my heart for adoption. And, as I said, I feel like Remnant is a world where there's a lot of kids who need to be adopted. Especially Faunus, and we all know Blake wouldn't like that. And Yang would be so supportive of her.