Magical Rackets

Summary: "Not all wizards use wands, some use their magic through other mediums. Swords, brushes, pencils….and in your case, tennis rackets." HPXover

Author's Notes

I'm glad everyone liked the last chapter! Now I'm afraid that this chapter would ruin your expectations. Thanks to all of those who gave such encouraging reviews!

Dementors

Atobe stared at the headlines with shock. This was not happening. How could this have happened? Albus Dumbledore of all people, dead. The old man was one of the reasons the Ministry of Magic didn't surrender, Atobe swore that they had a white flag stashed somewhere so they could surrender whenever they felt necessary, which would probably be when their last hope (please note the sarcasm), Harry Potter, fails them. Apparently, Death Eaters were able to penetrate Hogwarts many barriers and protections. With that, they cornered Dumbledore and killed him. Who killed him exactly many are skeptical.

Harry Potter himself had confessed that he saw Severus Snape do it. Atobe didn't exactly loath his former Potions professor, but he didn't have some undying admiration either. He remembered the man, with oily black hair and a razor tongue to go with his overly greasy look. Not someone he would admire, but since the professor never bothered him back when he was in Hogwarts, Keigo never saw the professor as an object of loathing. He impressed the professor by being a star over the rest, but it was rather grudgingly, since, on the contrary to popular belief, Atobe Keigo was not in Slytherin.

It was hard to truly believe that the headmaster, whose office he had practically memorized from all his trips there, had finally died, murdered to be exact. Atobe had once thought that the man was unable to die or be killed. He never thought that Death Eaters, not Voldemort himself, would bring Dumbledore down. It seemed like an inerasable smudge on the image that the old man had given him. The old man in the picture stared back at him with a smile with his eyes, which would have been blue in color, twinkling with some sort of secret.

He glared at the picture accusingly as if he could somehow get his message across to the person who was no longer alive. Looking at the date of when it happened, Keigo noticed how it stated that Dumbledore died a month ago. That was awkward this paper should have been delivered to him a month ago, why it didn't come through there were many possibilities. The owl could have been intercepted, bad weather could have been a factor, and maybe the owl couldn't find him, which would be extremely suspicious since the owls found him when he was in Hong Kong for vacation.

Suddenly feeling frustrated with life, Atobe threw the newspaper and was satisfied with a dull 'thud' of it falling on the ground. His feelings were getting the best on him, and he knew it. Blaming the dementors on his sudden rush of anger and dejection, Atobe grabbed his racket and headed back toward the tennis courts not even retaliating to Echizen's greeting of 'Monkey King' as they passed each other.

It wasn't usual for Atobe Keigo to be so careless, he should have known better than to throw the newspaper around and leave it so others can see. However this time, it was a trick of fate that brought such carelessness…

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Echizen Ryoma did not grow up in America not understanding English. There were a few words here and there he couldn't understand, but overall he read the paper's content; something about a group that caused destruction and fear. On the page there was a picture of some skull with a snake crawling out where the mouth was supposed to be, Ryoma blinked multiple times, he swore the picture was moving. Shaking his head to clear out that outrageous assumption, he went to gather the rest of the papers, some having fallen out, and tried to shuffle them together as you do with a messy deck of cards. His effort was futile since the papers were two times the size as normal printing paper, and his arms could not reach to stop them from folding over.

Feeling a wave of frustration, Echizen let go of the papers, but instead of falling down in an undignified heap, the papers arranged themselves together. Slightly shocked, he cautiously bent down to see a picture of an old man, the same old man that gave him the mysterious envelope. The old man smiled in Ryoma's direction, which finally convinced the young tennis player that the pictures were indeed moving, and beckoned him forward. Pulled to the secretive smile in the picture, Echizen picked up the papers and looked down at the headline, which was impossible to miss due to the large black letterings.

Someone called Albus Dumbledore was dead, looking at the date the man died a month ago, and seeing how he was on the front page this man was an important figure in which ever country the paper came from. Why was the Hyotei captain reading this paper though? While pondering why Atobe had the paper in the first place, Ryoma suddenly remembered something.

The man introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore.

Then it clicked. It was that mysterious foreigner he met days ago. If Atobe knew something about this, then does that mean the monkey king is also a wizard or whatever they're called? Carefully folding the first page of the newspaper as small as the paper would allow, he tucked it into his shorts pocket and hurried back to the courts. As a detour he ran from the back of the clubroom, he saw Inui's lone figure as the older boy stared at something in fright.

Echizen couldn't see what exactly what he was afraid of…

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Oishi Syuichiroh had decided to go back to the clubroom to fill some papers out for the budget of their tennis club. They needed some more plastic cones, since most of the old ones have broke somewhere or another, they needed lots of things now that he thought about it. Hearing a thud outside, he ignored it since it was probably, from the sound of it, some teacher's assistant who was passing by that dropped a stack of papers. It was quiet for a certain amount of time as he continued to fill out the papers. Looking down at the verification, they needed a signature from the captain and Oishi was certainly not the captain.

He was about to head out the door when he remembered that he needed to take Eiji's notebook back to him. Usually Oishi would have just waited until after practice, but he didn't want to forget about it. There was a commotion coming from the back of the club room, what type of commotion he didn't know. Standing on top of the benches, peeking over the club room lockers, and looking out the small window up there, he saw a bunch of what dark clothed men surrounding Inui.

Gangsters?

The situation didn't look good, and from his point of view it was not something students like himself could solve. Taking a brave step without looking down he slipped and a small crash ensued from his landing. What he didn't think would happen was see a hooded figure crawl in from the window. It was like a horror movie when some awful creature would crawl into your room and scare the wits out of the main character. At the moment, Oishi felt like a character who was in a scary movie however the only thing that was different was that there was no director to say 'cut' when things get too out of hand.

He heard heavy footsteps that were coming toward the outside. Who or what was coming toward him, it better be aid.

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Eiji twirled around in alarm, there was something wrong with Oishi. He could feel it. Usually Kikumaru would just excuse it as a chilly wind but he was getting pictures of things, large with black clothes and no face, surrounding Inui. His fellow peer was surrounded by them, while another picture came into his mind. One was coming toward him, but rubbing his eyes, he saw nothing of the sort. It was pure instinct that made him run toward the clubroom with Fuji calling his name behind him. What screamed in his mind was that his best friend was in danger, and if he didn't get there fast enough, he would never be able to see his double's partner again.

Eiji ran like when he ran laps to not drink Inui's juices, maybe faster. It wasn't something that he'd take lightly, it was his partner they were talking about. Memories flooded him, but it wasn't from his eyes. The memories were of Oishi's family, the tennis team, and the times they spent together as double's partners. Opening the door quickly, he felt something that he wasn't usually acquaintances with.

Fear.

Dread.

Living as a quite normal teenager with no secret life outside of tennis, he was sheltered from most problems in society. No poverty, no starvation, and no worries about not having a roof over his head. This was the fear, or thrill, you get when you go on scary roller coasters, but he never knew that he'd soon get a taste of real fear before summer is over. And the dementors were just the beginning.

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Tezuka felt like swearing again. The first time he wanted to do so was when Atobe clued him in that Voldemort was alive and had been for two years now. He felt like cursing when the little explosion from Momoshiro and Kaidoh happened. Now was because he wasn't able to detect the dementors that have gotten close enough that they were in the school, and that he wasn't able to make sure where everybody was so that no unexpected situations would happen. He no longer remembered where Inui disappeared off to, nor did he keep track on their youngest regular, Echizen. Atobe had disappeared a while ago and just came back on the courts, while Oishi was supposed to be in the clubroom writing some papers.

What worried him was the speed of that Eiji took off at toward the club house. It didn't take a genius with an IQ of 300 to guess that the Golden Pair had some sort of telepathy ability that allows them to feel what the other does. After that incident with the scrap, it was too much of a coincidence that one felt the hurt of another at exactly the same spot at the same time. At the speed Eiji was running at, you'd think that Oishi was about to die…

That was the fourth time Tezuka wanted to curse. He wanted to smack his head and yell at his own lack of observance. The dementors were on campus, which meant they could well be by the tennis courts. Precautionary actions such as set up wards, he had neglected and ignored. After all, with two knowledgeable individuals at the courts he didn't think anything would have gone wrong. If he didn't pick up the dementors, then probably Atobe would. He didn't count on the fact that Atobe might have been too wrapped up in his own emotions to notice the change.

Tezuka wasn't a very expressive person, but ever since the sudden thrust back into the world of magic he was experiencing emotions that usually were kept in check. He didn't usually feel fear. Fear was something he didn't need back in Japan, in the world of tennis. Fear was needed in the magical world, in the world where words can literally kill, in the world where dangerous creatures reside, in the world of wizardry and witchcraft.

Fear, yet a certain amount of thrill was running though his veins. Thrill, ha! Tezuka was about to laugh at himself to think that, dementors themselves were thrilling, but fighting off what could be a pack of them was not thrilling.

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Echizen couldn't see what had caused such a ruckus. Everyone seemed to be worked up about an invisible foe. The past three minutes went by so quickly that he had a hard time to remember what happened. From where he was standing, all the multiple things going on were in view.

What he did remember vividly was Tezuka running yelling for him to leave. As that happened, he was dragged off by Atobe who lead him to the other side of the club house where from the large window he could see Eiji trying to get Oishi out of the club room in fright. Atobe later took off into the clubroom instructing him to do something, which was probably something along the lines 'stay there.' A couple of shouts of unknown words, everyone seemed relieved after that.

He still didn't understand what went on. They were all standing in the middle of an empty classroom, those who weren't involved left by instruction. The first question was asked by Fuji, but it struck the heart of all their questions:

"Explain what that was about."

Ryoma just stood there confused as everyone began to explode in questions, what were those things, why were they here, and what were those weird spell like incantations that drove the things off. Everyone had a description of the thing, clothed in black with no faces only a mouth, made the air seem damper, horrible smell.

"What are you talking about, there was nothing there."

When the seventh grader said that, stating his confusion, most were shocked. It was Eiji who in the end yelled in astonishment how ochibi couldn't see them. Atobe directed a quiet question toward Tezuka, but everyone stopped to listen.

"If Echizen can't see the dementors, does that mean he's not magical?"

A/N: I hated this chapter. Geez, I felt like I rushed though too many things. Well currently I'm very disappointed that our school soccer team lost (yes, I am on the soccer team). I'm even more disappointed that the other school showed little to no sportsmanship to us and basically mocked us for our loss. (They lost 6 to 0 on their last game and yet their mocking us for losing 2 to 1?!) If I start on the 6th chapter today, it'll probably take either a dark turn or be very sloppy like this one. Most likely the former than the latter or just a combination of both, I just really want to get this chapter out before I start doubting myself and delete it.

Thanks to all those who have been reading on. I apologize to the speedy chapter, I swear to make it up when I feel better. I should be writing this chapter when I don't feel as miserable, but I'm neglecting my homework, which I shouldn't be doing.

Sorry to the rant I have, I just needed to release that! Thanks to those who reviewed previously. I would appreciate some feedback! See you next chapter!