Chance Meeting at the Ink Pot
by Healer Teddylonglong
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
COMPLETELY AU! Partly OOC!
It is my story, and I intend to write it the way I want it. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Reviews are very welcome, as they inspire my muse.
Ten minutes later, everyone was assembled in the Planetarium, and the Headmaster informed them, "Yesterday, we cut down a dozen khaki trees. Although we did not even use magical methods to cut them down, we seem to have angered the tree gods because of not making an offering to them beforehand. I am very sorry for this grave mistake." He bowed deeply, before he continued, "Unfortunately, the tree gods sent ninja gnomes to eat all wooden parts of our main school building, and we must quickly work together to remove them away and de-gnome the school."
Teachers and students headed out onto the grounds, where they saw hundreds of small yellow creatures, picking at the wood at the bottom of the school building. They spent the next few hours on the grounds, trying to cast spells at the ninja gnomes, who unfortunately seemed to be resistant to most spells. Light was already beginning to slowly appear on the horizon, when Professor Ito finally managed to banish them with laser magic, causing everyone to sigh in relief.
"Thank you so much for your help. All students go to bed now quickly; the teachers help me repair the building please," the headmaster announced.
However, before Sirius could even move, he felt himself being pulled into a vision. As usual, he was surrounded by his followers. However, tonight, he seemed to be in a very bad mood. "This is already the third address. Where are all the muggle born students and their families tonight?" he hissed, before he began to curse every single Death Eater standing in front of him.
Sirius let out a groan, before he collapsed into unconsciousness on the ground.
"Mum, Professor Snape!" Kenji shouted, causing Severus, Poppy and Minerva, who were still nearby, to turn around and run over to the four friends.
Pomfrey pointed her wand at Sirius. "Enervate."
"Sirius," Severus said softly, kneeling down on the ground next to his son. "Another vision?"
"Yes, but it was horrible," Sirius replied miserably, and Kenji noticed that his limbs were shaking worse than after his normal visions.
"Sirius, are you all right?" he asked in concern and helped Poppy to pull Sirius into a sitting position, completely ignoring the fact that Mami Abe shooed their friends away.
"Here," Severus said, pressing a phial against his son's lips, glad that he had made it a habit to carry a dose of the anti cruciatus potion with him at all times in case Sirius would need it.
"Thank you," Sirius said gratefully, although he still felt the after effects of the curse. 'This was the worst so far,' he thought and fiercely shook his head when Severus asked if he was ready to go to bed. "No," he said firmly. "The Dark Lord was so upset; he might be up to something else. May I stay up please? The refugees are going to arrive soon anyway, aren't they?"
"In a little more than an hour," Minerva replied after a glance at her wrist watch. "Shall we go and have some tea then?"
"We can have tea in our quarters," the headmaster invited his colleagues. "Kenji, go to bed."
"No Dad. I'm going to remain with Sirius. If he stays up, so will I," Kenji replied firmly. "We can sleep in my room later on."
"Very well; discuss that with your mother," Abe replied, smirking, and led the small group to his private quarters.
Sirius and Kenji made themselves comfortable on the sofa between Mami Abe and Minerva, and it did not take long until the boys were fast asleep, Kenji with his head on Mami's lap, Sirius leaned against Minerva's chest. Only an hour later, Sirius began to whimper miserably, and Minerva carefully shook his shoulder. However, she was not able to wake the boy.
"I'm afraid you won't be able to rouse him from a vision. I tried that before, but it didn't work," Mami informed her.
All of a sudden, Sirius jerked awake. He quickly looked around with panic flashing in his eyes, before he visibly relaxed and nestled deeper into Minerva's robes.
"Sirius, what happened?" Severus queried, casting a warming spell at Sirius' tea.
"They attacked the hospital... the wizarding hospital," Sirius explained in a barely audible voice.
"St. Mungo's?" Poppy asked in apparent concern, causing Sirius to look at Severus, silently inviting his father to cast the Legilimens spell.
"They destroyed huge parts of the hospital," Severus said gravely, "and the remaining parts are now in the hands of Death Eaters."
"I just hope Albus will be all right," Minerva said worriedly, just when a phoenix appeared with a bright flame. "Fawkes!" the Transfiguration professor blurted out in shock. "Is Albus all right?"
Fawkes nodded and hopped onto Sirius' lap. #Hello nestling,# he trilled. #I'm going to be your familiar, because I can't stay in the hospital with the old grumpy one anymore. Please tell the young Minnie that he is all right though.#
"Okay, Fawkes," Sirius replied dazedly, unable to believe that a phoenix had chosen to become his familiar. He quickly translated for the teachers as he noticed the questioning looks they were casting at him. 'Apparently, no one except for me can understand him,' he realised. 'A phoenix familiar, and the former familiar of Dumbledore at that – that's so absolutely cool. Taiyo-kun is something like a familiar to me as well, but I can't take him into my room with me, while it's no problem to bring Fawkes,' he thought happily, unaware of the smiles that spread over the adults' faces at his sight.
"I believe it's time to head out onto the grounds," the headmaster suddenly spoke up. "If everything goes well, the Portkeys should arrive in fifteen minutes.
"May I come?" Sirius asked hesitantly, watching as Mami carefully lowered his sleeping friend onto the sofa.
"Of course you may," Mami replied gently. "As far as I know, there will be two students for your class. We're going to let Kenji sleep though."
Sirius excitedly followed the teachers out, smiling as the phoenix made himself comfortable on his shoulder. 'His feet tickle on my shoulder, but still it's great,' he thought, yawning.
They didn't have to wait long as a huge number of people arrived with their Portkeys on time.
"Welcome to the Mirai school," the headmaster greeted the refugees. "We are glad that you were able to escape from the war in your home country and are in safety. In a few minutes, the students will be taken to the common rooms of their year by their teachers, while I will lead their families to our new apartment house. House-elves will provide you with food and everything else that you will need for your daily life. Every day from nine o'clock in the morning until noon, a Japanese language and culture class will be held for you in the school building. I will come and fetch you for your first class tomorrow morning. In case there are wizards or witches among you, we will try to find a job for you within our school. Otherwise, you're free to search for a job outside, where we have a huge non-magical community, and we will of course help you. However, this will only be possible after you finish your language course, because this is a rural area, where hardly anyone speaks English outside of this school."
The teachers began to call the students according to their age, and Sirius stood behind Mami, observing with excitement how a girl and a boy of his age stepped over to his Head of year. Mami greeted them warmly. "You must be Hermione and Neville," she said, smiling. "I am Mami Abe, your head of year, and this is Sirius Snape, one of your classmates. The others are still asleep I'm afraid."
"Will my parents be all right?" Hermione asked worriedly. "They're muggles, and..."
"My husband will take good care of them," Mami replied soothingly. "Don't worry. They will be all right, and you'll be able to visit them whenever you want."
"Did your parents come here as well?" Sirius asked softly, turning to Neville, who seemed to be very frightened.
"No, my parents are ill and are in St. Mungo's, and my granny couldn't come because she didn't want to leave them alone," the boy replied sadly, fortunately too preoccupied to notice Sirius pale at the mentioning of the wizarding hospital.
"I'm afraid both of you will have to stay in a room by yourselves for the time being, since we have an uneven number of girls and boys now," Mami explained as she led the three students to the fifth year's common room.
"Professor," Sirius asked quietly, noticing that Neville seemed to be very sad and frightened, "couldn't we make two triple rooms? Neville can live with Kenji and me, and I'm sure Kazumi and Mandy wouldn't mind sharing their room with Hermione." He paused for an instant, while Mami threw the two new students an enquiring look, before he added, "I can understand that it's no pleasure to share a room with me, considering that I wake Kenji up with my visions every now and then..."
"Sirius!" Mami interrupted him sternly. "Kenji doesn't mind being woken up by your visions, and I can well imagine that Neville would prefer that to being all on his own."
"Yes Professor," Neville threw in quickly, "if Sirius and the other boy don't mind."
"Kenji won't mind, and I'm sure we're going to have much fun," Sirius replied, chuckling.
Mami smirked and led the students into Kenji's and Sirius' room, where she waved her wand a few times to enlarge the room and add a bed, a wardrobe, a desk and a chair as well as a perch for Fawkes on Sirius' side of the room, before she entered Kazumi's and Mandy's room and made the same changes for Hermione. Finally, she woke up Kazumi and introduced her to Hermione, before she instructed everyone to go to bed and get some sleep.
本屋さんでの偶然の出会い
During the remaining weeks of the holidays, Hermione and Neville had to participate in the Japanese language and culture class every morning; however, in the afternoon, Sirius, Mandy and the twins took care of their new friends, and the new group of six fifth years soon became inseparable.
It was a few months later that Kazumi suddenly stormed into the three boys' room, where her five friends were doing their homework.
"Slowly Kazumi," Kenji slightly admonished her, picking up his book from the floor, which she had just kicked down. "What's wrong and where have you been?"
"I heard something interesting," Kazumi panted, still out of breath from running. "I went to see Mum, and on the way back here I overheard Professor McGonagall speaking with Ryo-kun, one of the sixteen-year-olds. She told him what he had to consider if he wanted to try to become an Animagus." Looking at her friends in excitement, she asked, "Don't you think we should try becoming Animagi?"
"I'd love that. I'd love to become a kneazle cat," Hermione was the first to reply with apparent interest. "What exactly did the professor say?"
Kazumi chuckled. "She was scolding him because he didn't gather enough information about the animal into which he wanted to transform, and apparently he tried to change his whole body at once, which didn't go well. Anyway, she told him that at first he had to imagine his mind to be that of the specific animal he chose, and then he should exactly envision what his left hand looks like in his Animagus form and then try to only change the left hand. Only after succeeding in transforming his left hand, he should try his right hand and so on."
"What do you think? Shall we try to become Animagi?" Sirius asked, carried away by Kazumi's and Hermione's enthusiasm.
"I don't think I'll be able to become an Animagus," Neville said sadly. "My granny always complains that my magic is not strong enough."
Kenji threw the other boy a sharp look. "Did you ever see Madam Pomfrey about that?"
Neville blushed and shook his head. "No, but it has always been like that."
"Well then I suggest that you talk to Professor Ito about the problem," Kenji said firmly. "I don't think that your magic is weak. You're fairly good at laser magic and also in Herbology, and don't tell me that it doesn't afford magic to make magical plants like pearl tulips grow five centimetres in two hours like you did last week."
"That's true," Hermione threw in thoughtfully. "Kenji is right, Neville. Try to speak with Professor Ito. Maybe he can help you."
"I can go with you if you want," Sirius offered, knowing that Neville seemed to be very shy and not self-confident at all.
"Thank you, Sirius. I really appreciate it," Neville said gratefully.
"Well, what animal forms are you going to choose?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"A magical lynx," the twins replied simultaneously, causing everyone to laugh.
"Oh cool, and I'm sure you're going to choose the same colour, so that we won't be able to keep you apart," Mandy chuckled. "I'd like to become a unicorn. Do you think a unicorn would be able to communicate with your cat forms?"
"All magical animals should be able to talk to one another," Neville said hesitantly. "If I'm able to transform at all, I'd choose a griffin. And you, Sirius?"
Sirius let out a long sigh. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. "On one hand, I'd like to become a phoenix like Fawkes, but on the other hand, I'd love to be able to transform into a hippogriff to be able to properly communicate with Taiyo-kun."
"A hippogriff would be a better match to all our forms," Kenji said thoughtfully.
"All right then, let's go to the library right after lunch tomorrow and find out as much as we can about these animals. Are we going to practise here in our room?" Seeing the others nod, Sirius added, "I just hope Professor McGonagall won't catch us. I can't imagine that she'd appreciate it if we practised on our own."
"Well, don't practise on your own. At least two of us have to be together in case something happens," Kenji said sternly. "We can use the New Year holidays to practise. It's only three weeks until then anyway."
The winter holidays were going to begin on the twenty-third of December, the emperor's birthday, in spite of the fact that Christmas was not a holiday in Japan. Instead, the New Year feast was the most important holiday and lasted three days. This year, however, the Abes decided to celebrate Christmas as well in order to please the many refugees from Britain.
"Most Japanese people are Buddhists and Shintoists at the same time, and they're very open for other religions. Therefore, no one will mind celebrating Christmas according to British traditions," Mami Abe explained to her colleagues, before she asked Minerva and Poppy to tell her exactly how they had spent Christmas at Hogwarts during the previous years.
The six friends spent every free minute during the following weeks until the beginning of the holidays researching about their animals and trying to imagine being that animal, which was extremely difficult.
"At least you can try out if you're able to communicate with Taiyo-kun if you try to change your mind into that of a hippogriff," Mandy laughed as Sirius let out an exasperated sigh, "but where am I going to find a unicorn to practise?"
Sirius laughed, unaware of the fact that he was going to test his ability to communicate with Taiyo-kun sooner than he could imagine.
本屋さんでの偶然の出会い
It was on the last day of classes that the red team and the white team had another Hippolo match. Unfortunately, heavy snowfall made it hardly impossible to catch the Snitch, and after more than three hours of flying, Sirius and Taiyo-kun were both tired and somehow missed a Bludger that came straight into their direction. The Bludger forcefully hit Taiyo-kun's right wing and broke it, causing the hippogriff to become unbalanced and tumble downwards.
'We're going to hit the ground,' Sirius thought, panicking, when he suddenly heard Taiyo-kun whisper in a pain-stricken voice, "You must call the wind gods and ask for help."
'Wind gods?' Sirius thought in confusion, looking up at the heavy dark clouds with a pleading look. 'Please send us some wind that saves us from hitting the ground,' he thought, pushing as much magic into the thought as he could.
tbc...
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