Heya all, sorry about the late update.

Just as the Sorting Hat announced its decision, the Great Hall erupted into angry and shocked hisses. Never ever in history had someone been connected to both Gryffindor and Slytherin at once. It was like a historical impossibility. Yet this Japanese boy had just been Sorted into both the rivalling houses.

Kouichi, startled by the outbreak of shocked muttering, stood up and handed the ragged Sorting Hat back to Professor McGonagall, who looked so surprised that her eyes were wide. Uncertainly, he made for the Gryffindor table, where Kouji was, but then suddenly caught sight of the blond boy seated at a table further along the hall.

Then, much to Kouji's surprise, Kouichi walked right past the Gryffindor table and went up to the Slytherin table.

"Er… Is there anyone sitting here?" Kouichi asked, pausing at the empty spot on the bench directly opposite the blond boy.

Draco Malfoy shook his head with a smirk. "Congratulations."

Kouichi sat down, staring at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

One tiny – okay, not so tiny – fact that Kouichi had kept a secret from Kouji was about his part-time job in the Dark items shop. One day, he had been instructed to attend to some English customers who were coming, although it wasn't part of his job. Since it meant extra pay, he had willingly taken up the duty. The customers had been Draco Malfoy and his father. He had befriended Malfoy then, and they had kept in touch ever since they met a year ago.

Dumbledore was saying something now, and Kouichi turned his attention to him. He didn't really understand the odd reaction of the students when Dumbledore introduced the new Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, and the announcement that Professor Snape would be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. Soon the feast started, and there was a clinking of forks and knives over the hall as the students started on the food, which magically appeared on the plates.

"Your brother's staring at you," Draco commented coolly.

Kouichi turned to look at the Gryffindor table over his shoulder. He caught Kouji staring at him, and for some reason felt uneasy. He quickly turned away, although he sensed Kouji staring at him long after he looked away.

Japanese food was served alongside the normal Western food on the tables. Most of the students tentatively tried out the foreign foods. Kouichi half-heartedly listened to their reactions, feeling mildly amused. Ken Ichijouji, who was sitting a few seats across the table, was busy with his bag, which lay partially open at his feet. Kouichi stared at him, feeling that something was amiss, until he was completely unaware that Ken was soon staring back at him.

"Uh… Hi," Kouichi said uncertainly. "I'm Kouichi Kimura."

Ken relaxed slightly, although he continued to stare suspiciously at Kouichi for some reason. "Hi. We haven't exactly met before, have we? I'm Ken, Ichijouji."

Kouichi offered a small smile, quite unsure about how to conduct a conversation with someone he didn't really trust and also appeared to distrust him. "Er… I guess we'll have to become friends, if we're the only ones here…" His voice trailed off lamely.

"Yeah, I guess." Ken stared some more at him before relenting and looking away.

Draco snorted. "You two are weird."

"Was that obvious?"

"Are you that lame?"

"Okay, okay…"

At the Gryffindor table, things were going far more smoothly. Takuya and Davis, who had achieved instant rapport with each other, were excitedly describing in detail to Harry, Ron and Hermione about the different forms of the Japanese magical education system.

"We actually go to Muggle school as well, in the day, and study magic in the evenings. The Ministry wants us to study Muggle fields as well, for the students to be more advanced, but it's interesting enough. In fact, all the elements study different forms of magic," Takuya was explaining enthusiastically. "Basically, everyone takes four subjects. Three are core subjects, and the fourth is an elemental subject."

"You sure do sound cheerful explaining that, considering how much you hate school," Kouji commented dryly.

"The three core subjects are Basic Magic, History and Magical Defence," Takuya continued, ignoring Kouji completely. "I hate History, Magical Defence is exciting, but Basic Magic is the real killer, it's the toughest subject."

"You mean like the basics?" Ron asked with a frown. "How can that be tough?"

"It's like a combination of the Western subjects Transfiguration, Charms and more advanced levels of magic," TK interjected. "Basic Magic… As if."

"Then there's the elemental subjects," Davis explained, picking up where Takuya had left. "The Fire elements study Active Magic, which is pretty much like Duelling and stuff."

"Duelling is a subject?" Harry asked incredulously. "That must be fun."

"Yeah," Davis said with a grin. "And the Light elements study Holy Studies-"

"Sacred Studies, Davis," Kari corrected him.

"Oh, yeah, Sacred Studies," Davis said sheepishly. "Mostly about shrines and boring stuff."

"It's not boring, Davis," TK put in. "Just because you consider fun as something when you aren't sitting down and doing something serious…"

"Active Magic is serious!"

"But the most mysterious elemental subject is the one that the Darkness elements study," Takuya said with a grin.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, interested.

Before Kouji, TK or Kari could do more than glance up, both Takuya and Davis happily dug the Japanese students – or more accurately, the Darkness elements – into a deep hole.

"The Dark Arts!"

There was a sudden lull in the conversation around them. The other students who had been involved in their own conversation and only half-listening to the Japanese students also turned around and gave them startled looks. Harry stared suspiciously at them, while Ron surreptitiously glanced over to the Slytherin table to get a look at the Darkness element students sitting there.

Then both Kouji and TK kicked Takuya and Davis under the table. Both gave muffled yelps and slowly realised what they had done with a glare from Kari.

"Oops," Davis muttered quietly.

"Er… I did say it was mysterious," Takuya said hastily, shoving food into his mouth. "No one knows for sure what exactly they study, and they're the only ones who aren't allowed to talk about their elemental subject, so… er… like I said, no one knows exactly what they study."

"But they're definitely taught to control themselves," Davis added, determined to diffuse the situation.

"Oh… Okay," Hermione said, but with a guarded tone. Slowly, the conversations around them resumed, although the Japanese students were gifted with more odd looks than ever.

"Way to go, Davis," TK hissed.

"Sorry," Davis muttered. "Gosh, I feel like a complete jerk."

"Well, that's what you are."

"Hey!"

Kouji glared at Takuya. "What was that for anyway?"

"It was a slip of the tongue!" Takuya defended himself. "How do I know the West is so touchy about it? For us it's perfectly normal!"

"Kimaru-san did warn us," Kouji reminded him in irritation. "Since Voldemort came back-"

There was a loud clatter as Ron dropped his fork. "You said the name!" he exclaimed. "Aren't you all scared at all?"

"Of what?" Kouji asked. "A name?"

"No one says his name," Ron said firmly.

"Except for me," Harry put in even more firmly with an irritated glare at Ron. He paused, taking a sip from his goblet. "And except for Dumbledore, and quite a number of other people."

Ron sighed as though there was no explaining the situation. "Oh, well. It's perfectly okay for you and Dumbledore, you've faced him before, but for others the name itself creates fear."

"That's pretty eloquent, Ron," Hermione said with a grin. "I guess in the East you don't mind it so much." She paused. "Just out of curiosity, what exactly did you mean earlier about the Darkness elements studying the Dark Arts?"

She sounded sincere, so Kouji decided that it would be fine telling her a little. Of course, Kouichi had been forbidden to talk about what he had learnt, but the twins had found a way around it. Using Legilimency, Kouichi had revealed quite a lot to Kouji about the subject. That way, he hadn't spoken about it, and Kouji got to know about the subject.

"Some curses and jinxes," Kouji said lightly, making sure that he sounded vague. "Mostly the ones that aren't commonly used. The Darkness elements are supposed to be able to perform them better than other elements."

"Oh," Hermione said, sounding slightly disappointed at the lack of detail. "But it sounds interesting, though. If we ever need to defend ourselves, the enemy will never expect us to use Dark Arts."

Harry stared at her as she made that comment, but did not say anything. He went back to his plate, although the look on his face had changed slightly, taking on a more intense look.

The rest of the meal continued cheerfully, and finally, when all the food had disappeared and there was a general air of sleepiness among the students, Dumbledore dismissed them off to bed.

&&&&

Kouichi saw that he was to share a dorm with Ken, a boy named Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy and his two close friends, Crabbe and Goyle. Still quite aware of the fact that Ken looked rather guarded around him, and of the fact that he just knew that Ken was hiding something from him, made the situation rather tense. Not that it really mattered now, Kouichi pushed the box containing his D-Tector under his pillow, had second thoughts, pulled it out again, and stuffed it into the pillowcase.

Draco Malfoy had the bed right next to his. Draco stared at Kouichi for a while. "What's the matter with you?" he asked at last.

"Nothing," Kouichi said as calmly as he could. Across the room, he saw that the thick curtains around Ken's bed were already pulled shut, although Ken was busy with his bags at the foot of his bed. He frowned, quite certain that Ken was hiding something, but then again, who was he to talk? He sighed a little as he glanced at his pillow.

"Well, go to sleep early. I don't want to wake you up in the morning if you oversleep,' Draco said with a slight smirk. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Kouichi glanced at his watch. It was near to eleven, but he was perfectly awake. As usual, the night only served to make him feel more alert, as his element was Darkness. He went over to his unpacked bags and extracted a book, considering reading it by wand-light until he felt tired, which was his norm. He looked over to Ken, who looked as alert as he did. Ken shrugged, and climbed into bed, disappearing out of sight.

Looking around, Kouichi guessed that Draco was of the Darkness element as well, since he didn't seem to be that sleepy. In fact, Kouichi noticed that Draco was fidgeting slightly in bed. Thinking no more about it, he pulled the curtains shut around his bed and settled down to read.

&&&&

Meanwhile, Kouji, Takuya, Davis and TK were to share a dorm. Takuya and Davis remained chatting with each other cheerfully although both looked sleepy. Kouji and TK fell asleep as soon as they lay down, but Takuya contentedly lay on his front and thinking happily about his day. Time passed, and just as he was drifting off to sleep, he heard soft voices chattering excitedly.

"Oh boy, that food was sure delicious!"

"Shut up, you're going to wake them up!"

"They're sleeping, even if they aren't, they'll probably think that they're dreaming."

Takuya sat up, listening carefully through the curtains around his bed. The voices disappeared, as though the speakers had gone down the stairs to the common room. Frowning slightly, he lay back down and was soon asleep.

&&&&

Harry lay awake in bed for a long time, thinking hard. During the summer, he had wondered a lot about what the new school year would bring, with Lord Voldemort's return finally agreed to by the stupid Ministry. He had anticipated a lot of extra security around the castle, hoped that he would actually be allowed to help defeat the Dark Lord and guessed that the whole year would be hard-pressed to be described as 'normal'. But what he had not even anticipated was the arrival of the Japanese exchange students.

He thought back to the conversation with some of them during the feast. Takuya and Davis were outgoing and bright, and he knew that it would be easy liking them. Kouji was quiet most of the time, but he could tell that Kouji was generally a serious person, a balance to Takuya's wild side. TK and Kari were less direct that Takuya and Davis, and probably would make good friends.

But about Kouji's twin brother…

He remembered their brief meeting in the Leaky Cauldron. He had thought that Kouichi was okay, a little shy and reserved but he had never thought of him as a Slytherin. But the Sorting Hat had easily placed Kouichi in both Slytherin and Gryffindor, something that he considered a world record. The other boy who had been placed in Slytherin, Ken, seemed equally mysterious as well, but Ron had earlier mentioned in full awe that Ken Ichijouji was a famous prodigy in the East, not only having excelled in Muggle activities but also in magic and Quidditch as well. Ron had finally asked Davis about him, and Davis had confirmed it, although with a certain odd look on his face that stopped any more inquiries.

Then he remembered what Hermione had said about your enemies not expecting you to use Dark Magic in duels. Well, he supposed that his enemies definitely wouldn't expect him to pull off any successful Unforgivable Curses – he suddenly remembered, with a sad pang, that he had tried to do so when fighting Bellatrix at the Ministry the previous year in his fury – and he supposed that even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn't be advanced enough. Hermione had already told him and Ron in the train about how advanced Japanese students were.

In the end, he tired himself out thinking and fell asleep.

&&&&

Can't guarantee when the next update will be. Just reminding everyone, I'm a student.

Ken