So, here's the sixth chapter! Thank you so much for everyone's advice on what Matsumoto should teach, I've decided to use totalnarutofangirl85's suggestion for this lesson, it seems easier to write, but I'll try using everyone's advice for later lessons. And thank you to everyone who reminded me of the effects of being exposed to too much reiatsu, seems my memory is really starting to fail me
I'm in the middle of reading the Chinese version of Inkheart (very hard… the English one was boring enough) and my friend has borrowed my English copy and now she's not here so I can't get it back =.= I have also been forced to write a fanfic for somebody (well, not exactly the whole thing... although most of the first chapter was mine... it's called Shuriken's Blade... I think. Naruto and Bleach crossover) and unfortunately my heart is not really in it because I'm TRYING TO CONCENTRATE ON WRITING THIS ONE. Sigh...
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Bleach
"Er... h-hello. I'm P-professor Matsumoto, and I'll be... er... teaching you Defense Against the Dark Arts t-this year."
Silence ensued, and a faint smell of wine or some other alcohol drifted into the air. Hitsugaya sighed. What strange concoction had she managed to whip up this time?
Obviously stuck for ideas, Matsumoto grabbed the role book nervously and declared that she would take the role. Having mispronounced many names (and deliberately messing up Hitsugaya's name with a rather mischievous chuckle, much to his annoyance) and eaten up more than a quarter of the lesson time, she finally closed the role book, clapped her hands together, and announced,
"So, today… I will be teaching you about… dodging spells." Her eyes slid to Hitsugaya's seat, her eyes half pleading him to help and half telling him that she had it all covered. Hopefully nobody else could read her expression, as confusing as it was, but Hitsugaya highly doubted it. She pushed a few tables aside (this caused an outbreak of muttering about why she was moving the tables by hand and not using magic to get it done), then stood up straight and said,
"I'm going to need a volunteer." Hermione's hand shot up in the air immediately, as if by reflex, although Matsumoto had looked automatically at Hitsugaya. Thinking better of it (something that happens quite rarely), she nodded at her and said, "Okay, Miss Granger, could you stand over there…" The tables were now in a position so that they made way for a straight line in the middle of the room. Hermione moved to the end of it, while Matsumoto stood at the other end. Everyone else moved back slightly.
"Okay, er… when I say go… please shoot a spell at me and I will show you how to.. make sure it doesn't… hit you."
At Matsumoto's indication, Hermione shouted the same thing the Malfoy boy was trying to shout at Hitsugaya at the bookstore when they had first met, now understood by him as the stunning spell stupefy, and a red light flew from her wand and shot towards Matsumoto. As it neared her, Hitsugaya hoped silently that she at least knew what she was doing, but she had not even drawn her wand. People were muttering again, and something dawned on Hitsugaya. Is she going to use Kidou?
He was about to step out as the red light came a few inches from Matsumoto's face and stop her when she did something so unexpected Hitsugaya almost fell over in shock.
She stuck one foot out and hopped out of the way, letting the red light pass through the spot where she was just a second ago and crash into the wall. Everyone's jaw dropped, including Hitsugaya's and Hermione's, and Hitsugaya's head drooped in exasperation. The stupid woman was going to get herself fired soon. Dodging spells? What was wrong with her? Had she just taken the books out to look as if she had actually been studying? But then again, this was to be expected, after all, dodging something as slow as that spell was a piece of cake compared to everything else Matsumoto had dodged in the past (this included flying objects that were the result of Hitsugaya's annoyance), so she would not have to do anything at all.
After the shock passed, the entire class erupted in shouts of disbelief and doubts of Matsumoto's talent. She, however, did not care, instead she grinned sheepishly at Hitsugaya, all nervousness gone, and winked. He fumed at her, now really fighting the urge to scream at her, but still managed to regain self control and decided to wait before yelling at her for her incompetence.
"Now," she said cheerfully, clapping her hands together again, "Split into twos and practice!"
"B-but professor!" Hermione spluttered. "You haven't taught us how to-"
"This is Defense Against the Dark Arts, isn't it?" Matsumoto chirped. "I didn't get hit by your spell, so it's effective." She smiled widely and everyone reluctantly got into pairs. Hitsugaya vaguely heard Malfoy mutter, "If my father heard about this..."
Hermione came up to Hitsugaya and he could see she was obviously unhappy about the lack of magic used in this exercise. "Would you like to work together?"
Hitsugaya sighed but nodded anyway, if he was left standing idly in the middle of the room Matsumoto would surely come up and speak to him.
Hermione decided to dodge first, seeing as she had already cast the spell with Matsumoto, so Hitsugaya pulled out his wand, uninterested, and muttered, "Stupefy"
A jet of red light flew out from the tip of his wand. Hermione brandished her wand, ready to deflect it when she remembered she was supposed to be dodging it. Obviously she was too used to the use of magic in classes. Her brief confusion cost her, however, and the spell hit her on the shoulder as she ducked to avoid it. It looked as if she had suddenly lost all the feeling from her shoulder to her fingers, but she still pointed her wand at the stunned shoulder and said, "Enervate". There was a slight wince as she regained the use of her arm and smiled weakly at Hitsugaya. "Good job, Toshiro." Obviously she did not enjoy failure, from the unhappy look behind her fake smile. Hitsugaya nodded absentmindedly and waited for Hermione to shake her arm around a bit before dodging her spell perfectly.
"Well, y-you've got good reflexes, Toshiro." Hermione said, smiling again, although this time it more resembled a grimace. "So, it's my turn, right?"
They continued through the rest of the lesson in this manner. Hermione managed to successfully dodge it the second time, and the rest of the tries were just to kill time. Finally, the class was over, and many of the students looked up hopefully as Matsumoto inspected a wine bottle and stroked Momo, who was curled up on her lap. Noticing the stares, she checked the time and exclaimed, "Oh, is it already time? Okay then, for your homework..."
She ended up setting a five-page essay on the leg muscles and how they were used for moving around quickly, reading the entire textbook and... making 1000 paper cranes.
Apparently the first two were already outrageous (Hitsugaya received much more work back in Soul Society, so he was not too bothered, although he had yet to see what the homework had to do with the actual subject), but the last assignment was just completely insane. "It's for good luck!" Matsumoto protested as everyone expressed their disagreement (grossly understated). Malfoy called her a 'stupid woman who was going to get fired after he told his father about this' and even Hermione had a few protests of her own. But Matsumoto, who was used to Hitsugaya's constant yelling and scolding, waved all these complaints away and told them to hurry up and get it done. Hitsugaya sighed as he muttered under his breath: "That's my line."
She dismissed the class, her impish smile still stuck to her face, and closed the door.
"Well that was a completely rubbish class. I mean, we didn't even learn anything apart from jumping around like rabid rabbits. I'm actually starting to doubt her magical ability." Harry muttered as Ron nodded and chuckled at his comment on 'rabid rabbits'.
"Agreed." Ron said, rabbits forgotten "And the homework she set is just shockingly evil. One-thousand paper cranes? Is she completely out of her mind?" He squeaked in terror as if the idea was just far too terrifying to contemplate.
"Yeah... well if Dumbledore hired her, I guess she must be capable, right?" Hermione muttered. Ron looked at her exasperatedly and said, "Hermione, you are just way too naïve." This was followed by Hermione's many splutters of "I'm naïve? What about you, Ronald Weasly?"
"Well, guess we had better head down for lunch, or all the food will be gone."
"Is food all you ever think about, Ron?" Hermione asked, still annoyed from his comment on her being naïve.
He shrugged, "Hey, what's the problem with it?"
"Ah... we both have detentions tomorrow night." Harry sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "I wonder what we'll have to do."
Hermione grumbled. "Well, you deserve them anyway, so suck up and deal with it."
"Eh? Hermione, are you still going on about that?" Ron asked.
She did not answer, simply grunted
---
Luna had showed up again, this time asking him how his classes went and muttering about the Nargles going into hibernation for the winter. Despite her strangeness, Hitsugaya had started to enjoy the girl's company. She, along with Hermione, were the only ones who didn't flinch away from him or call him short or any other infuriating insult. Although she, like Hermione, was in Hitsugaya's opinion rather persistent, she was not as annoying as the bushy haired girl who seemed to worry about every little thing about him.
"I quite like my house, Ravenclaw." she hummed, fingering her hair. "Although some people make fun of me, I don't really mind. There was this boy yesterday who called me 'Loony', so I told him he had Blue-Snout Swangies in his hair, but he didn't seem to understand. But it seems the nickname has caught on." She sighed and dug out a magazine from her bag and started reading. "Would you like one?" she asked Hitsugaya, handing him another copy. He shook his head, and Luna continued about how chilly it was getting. Harry and Ron entered the Great Hall and, strangely enough, not accompanied by Hermione. They sat at the other end of the table and started chattering animatedly to Seamus, Dean and Neville. Hitsugaya got up, having eaten enough to satisfy his stomach, and was about to say goodbye to Luna when she piped up,
"Going to the library?"
Hitsugaya looked surprised."Yes... how did you know?"
She looked up. "Oh, it's just the look on your face. See you later then."
He nodded and left the Hall, hoping to look for more information on Potter. While he was probably not a potential threat, what with his sudden fainting and strangely shaped lighting-bolt scar that attracted so much attention he was at least worth looking into, and as Hitsugaya's pride forbid himself to look ignorant when asking someone his only choice was, again, the library. It was a huge place, and he had only looked through a bit of it.
---
He found Hermione surrounded with five books in the library and reading another book with her left hand, scribbling notes on a piece of parchment with her other. Finding the last spot where he left off, Hitsugaya started looking around again.
This visit to the library was more fruitful than the last; although he found no reference to Harry Potter in the text of the books, he had managed to come across a small paragraph on someone who was 'too evil to mention, hence called He Who Must Not Be Named.' While the author of the book seemed far too terrified to elaborate on this strange person, although he had caught Hitsugaya's interest, it was not this that he had found useful in his search for Potter. Someone had scrawled in the margin Long live Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived. May his great deed remain in the hearts of wizards and witches everywhere. While it was short, it obviously indicated that Potter had survived some tragic incident, presumably caused by this 'He Who Must Not Be Named' (Hitsugaya grumbled at this, muttering about its inventiveness and creativity, not to mention the fact that they actually were so scared of the guy that they could even write his name). Concluding that he could probably link Potter to this 'You-Know-Who' ("No, unfortunately I don't know who" Hitsugaya muttered) he decided to start looking for any reference to him. And if people were so scared of him, he most definitely could be a menace.
And so the search for Lord Voldemort (not that Hitsugaya knew him by that name) began.
---
Despite the day's events, Ron was as wolfish as normal, downing his food in seconds and reaching for more. Harry was eating less, instead concentrating on what he and Ron had in store for them in tomorrow night's detention. And then there was Quidditch, of course. He wondered if Wood's new training scheme would actually work, or if the results would be a drastic as last year's. After all, last year he had nearly died battling Voldemort and Quirrell, and had been in no condition to play. It was understandable that Wood wanted to improve his team. But then again, didn't waking up early mean more sleepiness? Harry pondered on the subject for a while before making a mental note to sleep early for once. It was hard trying to catch a Snitch if your eyelids were half closed.
Then his mind moved from the trivial subject of Quidditch to Toshiro Hitsugaya. He didn't know what had happened during breakfast this morning, only that the moment Hitsugaya had entered the Great Hall a great crushing force had suddenly seemed to squeeze the air out of his lungs, leaving him with no air at all. Then suddenly he felt sick and it had taken all his strength just to get up and run to the nearest toilet. Was it a spell that had caused it? While Harry's knowledge of spells was not too wide, he was pretty sure such a spell did not exist, or at least was not commonly used. And if it was a spell, then did Hitsugaya cast it, or had it just been a fluke that he had walked in at exactly the same time when he was affected?
No, that's just too much of a coincidence. Harry thought I've been feeling sick all the time ever since he's come here; there's no way he could always be walking in at the wrong time. With a lurch, he remembered Quirrell, whom he had fought last year. The apparently stuttering teacher had been trying to kill him all year, under Voldemort's orders, and would have succeeded had it not been for (Harry thought grudgingly) Snape, who had saved him from the broomstick incident, stopped Quirrell from getting to the dog and had, to some extent, stopped Quirrell from reviving his master.
And with a sudden revelation, Harry remembered Dobby, who had visited him during the summer, with disastrous results. But it was not the flying cake that Harry was worried about now. Dobby had told him not to return to Hogwarts, because something bad was going to happen to him.
Was this what he was referring to? Am I in danger of Hitsugaya? Is he trying to kill me, like Quirrell, under Voldemort's orders?
But he is just twelve, maybe younger, judging by his looks. Why would Voldemort ask a boy to carry out the task of his revival? Isn't his life too precious to him to entrust to someone like that?
Well, anyhow, he was going to discuss his theory with Hermione and Ron. It was pretty obvious that Toshiro Hitsugaya* was no ordinary boy; he could be in disguise for all he knew, after all, they had not suspected Quirrell until he had finally met him down in the chamber. Perhaps Hitsugaya was just another servant of Voldemort's, and his sole reason for coming to Hogwarts was to kill him. If that was the case, then once Harry got enough proof, he would take this immediately to Dumbledore.
---
"Tai-cho!"
Hitsugaya turned, annoyed, to look at Matsumoto, who had suddenly appeared behind him, Momo in her arms. She looked down at what he was writing and muttered.
"Taicho... you're already writing your report?"
A vein started to pulse in his head an he hissed, "Matsumoto, what part of 'you do not know me' do you not understand?"
"Well, I'm sorry." Matsumoto pouted. "But I wanted to ask how my first lesson went!"
Turning away and sighing, Hitsugaya answered casually, "It was awful. You continue at this rate and you're going to either get fired or, even worse, discovered, and then I'll have you moved to another division so I wont have to deal with you anymore."
"Eh?" Matsumoto said rather loudly. "Was it that bad?"
"Yes it was," Hitsugaya hissed, stepping on her foot to keep her quiet. "You're supposed to be teaching magic, not jumping around! Honestly, I wonder why the captain commander got you to do the job when the results would obviously be drastic."
"You're so mean, taicho!" Matsumoto whined, "It's not like I can actually try teaching that stuff!"
"Well, try anyway." Hitsugaya told her, returning to his report. "And you really have to stop looking at me for help all the time. How many times do I have to tell you?" you could tell her a million times and the result would still be the same. He thought to himself, smirking slightly.
Another pout. "Fine." Looking down at paper Hitsugaya was writing on, she asked,
"Taicho, who is this 'Lord Voldemort'? His name sounds weird…"
Looking at her with an extremely irritated look on his face, Hitsugaya yell-whispered, "Matsumoto, what did I just tell you?"
Grumbling, Matsumoto put Momo on her shoulder and left the library, muttering about something that most probably had something to do with beer.
Turning back to his report, Hitsugaya continued to read the book that he had propped out in front of him. It was a handwritten book, and the author had been shaking so much when he wrote Voldemort's name that it was all blotchy, but it was still legible, somewhat. After looking through the whole library's collection of books talking about famous wizards, Hitsugaya had found out that Voldemort was the greatest evil the wizarding world had seen in a long time, and that he would have taken over the world had it not been for the one person who led to his downfall. Harry Potter, also known as the Boy Who Lived ("Wow… imaginative…"). Apparently he was the only one in the history of the wizarding world who had survived the killing curse Voldemort had used to kill both his parents and many of his other victims. Despite all this, he didn't seem to special, or strong for that matter. Finishing off the report on today's findings, he rolled up the paper and packed it away in his bag, slamming the book shut and returning it to the shelf. The captain commander would probably be expecting some word soon, but apparently electronics did not work in this castle, as Hitsugaya had noticed when he flipped open his phone to check for Hollows. He'd probably have to get a hell butterfly to tell him of their progress then. Sighing, he left the library and headed off to his next class.
*GAH!! That sounds so WEIRD!!
I cracked up during lunch when I pictured Matsumoto jumping away from Hermione's spell, but the result after I wrote it did not nearly do it justice, so hopefully no one's too disappointed. Also, for some reason it was so hard writing Hitsugaya in character, but hopefully it's not too bad.
I have been sorely annoyed in the past week; the apartment next to ours is renovating and I am constantly having to deal with the knocking and drilling and crashing and whatever else happens there, and coupled with the ten different drilling sights all in our district I think I'm going to have a permanent headache :P Maybe that's why the writing quality has gone down, or maybe its just me... And I absolutely HATE the weather here, it starts raining like the world's going to end for literally ten seconds, and then the sun comes out again, and it seems so cheerful until it starts raining EVEN harder twenty seconds later! Grrrr...