Edited as of 11/07/14

Eyes of Gold

Seven teens stood scattered along the sidewalk, half of them leaning against the fence separating the street from the park. They appeared to vary in ages, the youngest two looking to be about twelve and thirteen, the tallest maybe seventeen. The tall girl stared at the moon, a soft smile on her lips. It was the smile of a shy, kind girl. Beside her horizontal on the pavement was the youngest boy, doing one-handed push-ups. His mouth moved in numbers of the three digits, but he maintained a steady rhythm with little divergence. Dumbledore found himself amazed; most wizards thought physical exercise beneath them. Then there was the hair of that boy! If he was muggle, he had dyed it; if he was a wizard, then Tonks would be ecstatic at meeting another metamorphagus.

Another pair, both the same age, seemed to be having a staring contest. The girl appeared normal, and the boy might have if not for the shark-like teeth - he was albino, signaled by the white hair and red eyes, and although uncommon, the muggle world accepted it as possible.

The girl turned around as he approached the group, and the boy noticed her line of vision. Dumbledore smiled, but they didn't move. The girl stared, while the boy raised an eyebrow, apparently more interested in mentally criticizing his fashion sense. An edge of caution to their stances, they were still. Waiting.

The last three teens grouped together were two girls and a last figure. The youngest out of all of them sat on the ground, humming as she rubbed an orange crayon over a giraffe in a coloring book. An older girl, wearing identical clothing, watched her with an expression of indifference, occasionally glancing at the last figure.

The last of the group disturbed Dumbledore. He wore a flowing cloak, perhaps a magical cloak, as it was a pitch black like nothing and jagged out at the shoulders. More disturbing than the cloak, was the skull mask. He only relaxed as it was a different style than those of Death Eaters, nor decorated as such.

Dumbledore hoped he had been mistaken. Any place named Death City would be horror, and he couldn't condemn any child to live in such a place. A lump grew in his throat as he thought about how Fawkes had told him this group spent their lives training in armed combat. As his steps became audible to the teens, they started to notice him one by one. Finally, the older sister to the one coloring on the ground shook the masked one's shoulder, paying no mind to the spiked cloak, to get his attention. He stepped forward in front of the rest, the identically-clothed girls flanking him on both sides.

"I assume you're the headmaster of Hogwarts?"

His voice was that of a child's, though it held the formal tone of an old wizarding family. Perhaps his family were Death Eaters and he aspired to join them. Judgment would be held, however, as children were fluid and open-minded.

"I am. My name is Albus Dumbledore." He held out his hand, and the child shook it in a formal fashion as an old family would; no friendly firm grip, just hard enough to be steady, no limp fish shake, just long enough to be adequate but not too long as to be uncomfortable. "May I assume you are the team sent from Death City?" It chilled him to think a place named such existed. It gave him a sense of foreboding simply speaking the name. He hoped he had mistaken them. it would be devastating if these children were the ones trained in armed combat. His hopes fell.

"Yes. I am Death the Kid. Is there anyone else who needs to know who we are so we don't have to do this twice?"

"I'll wait for the rest, then," Dumbledore decided. An alias? "Before we move on, would you please remove your mask? An enemy organization wears masks similar to yours, and the others might attack unnecessarily."

The child did so, the hood falling, and Dumbledore mentally sighed in relief. His heart warmed with fond, yet solemn, memories when he saw the intense golden eyes. He smiled, mentally promising he would make this outcast feel welcome.

Dumbledore continued, "We can wait until we're with the rest before introductions. For now, I want you all to read this." He handed a piece of paper to the apparent leader, and waited as it exchanged hands throughout the children. A few eyes widened as the building appeared to them Sounds of awe escaped the mouths of the two youngest. Dumbledore led them in to a warmer setting, inside Grimmauld Place; warm in heating, not in the sense of hearth and home. In to the dining room they shuffled through the narrow hallway, and gathered around the half of the table reserved for them.

An unnerved hush fell over the ground level of the house. The members of the Order of the Phoenix stared in silent confusion, having expected a team of grown wizards, not a group the same age as Molly's younger children.

"I believe introductions are in order," Dumbledore said, as if no rift existed between the groups, and pointed out the names of the Order members.

The cloaked child did the same with his team. Dumbledore frowned. Death the Kid? Blackstar? Soul? Aliases, and they were blatantly obvious about it.

Snape sneered at the newcomers, looking down his thin nose. "Children do not have the capability to protect a child, much less the Potter brat."

Blackstar jerked up in the chair he'd chosen on. He opened his mouth, but seemed to remember something and grit his teeth to avoid shouting.

"A phoenix arranged this mission for us, so I apologize that I do not take that as an insult when the phoenix has already judged our capability," Death the Kid smoothly replied, not as ruffled as his teammate.

Momentarily defeated by them, Snape turned his misgivings to Dumbledore. "Why children? Surely, Fawkes could have chosen better candidates."

"Fawkes was only my translator in this arrangement."

Soul interrupted when Snape was about to speak. "You're questioning how competent we are, and you don't even know what it is we can do! Hell, we don't know what you 'wizards' can do, besides the small bit that Kid told us."

Sirius choked on air. "You're-you're muggles?"

Blackstar threw up his hands in despair. "I don't even know what that word is! How can I come up with a comeback when I don't even know how I was insulted?"

"We're not muggles, and we're not wizards. We use our power differently," Kid stated.

"Different how?" Moody demanded. "Where are you from, anyway?"

"We are from the DWMA in Death City."

The acronym elicited a few gasps from the wizards, while others were left chuffed.

"I'm sorry, I'm unfamiliar with this 'DWMA'," Dumbledore gingerly said.

"Death Weapon Meister Academy," Kid explained, a bit of pride in his voice, although serious. "The DWMA was designed by my father to train Meisters and weapons to fight Kishins, souls of pure evil that are no longer human. We stay out of the United Kingdom due to conflicts because of the high population density of wizards here, but we were contacted to help you with a Kishin egg."

"You're the 'Meisters', then?" Lupin asked, while Sirius muttered, clearly questioning the group's sanity, "How do you train a weapon?"

Blackstar laughed. "What are you guys, stupid? Meisters need weapons. Kid, Maka, and I are Meisters. The others are weapons."

"How is that possible? What-"

Blackstar interrupted, apparently having been waiting for a question close to the one just asked, "If you wanted a demonstration you could have just asked. Finally, something to do!"

"A demonstration would be best," Tonks chipped in, hoping to diffuse the mood.

"We'll need a bigger space," Maka said. "And move anything you don't want broken."

"That table, for instance," Soul offered, grinning pointedly at the distasteful sneer on Snape's face.

The Order members looked wary, but pulled out their wands. They enlarged the room and minimized the table. As an extra precaution, they cast shields on the walls.

"Wow," breathed Maka.

Kid ignored the cantrips and turned to Maka and Blackstar. "You two against me or free-for-all?"

"Every man for himself," Blackstar chose, grinning.

"No Soul Resonance, partial weapon transformations, or Big Star Wave." Kid grimaced. "That thing hurts."

Blackstar laughed. Maka stomped her foot.

"What about your restriction? No activating the Lines of Sanzu!"

"Obviously."

"Maka, you need to think of something more practical, like his Reaper Arts. But he can't have a restriction; I want him to go all out on me!"

"But-"

"No buts, Maka. You missed your chance."

"Liz, Patty." The girls transformed into guns in Kids hands. All of the wizards leaned forward in interest and shock, only Moody and Snape aware of the dangers of those weapons, and their colleagues shot them curious glances as they stepped back.

They all jumped back when Soul transformed into a wicked-looking scythe, wielded by the dainty Maka with clear expertise. Molly and Arthur looked pale as ghosts. Children! Children who could become dangerous blades! Children who were expected to fight!

Finally, Blackstar juggled two exotic blades joined by a chain, Tsubaki's weapon form.

The ensuring spar left little to the imagination, blowing away expectations. The children displayed quick reflexes, awesome stamina and endurance, and a large threshold for pain. By the time they stopped (it really wasn't long), Blackstar and Maka had a few cuts and were only starting to break a sweat. Molly had fainted. They voted against reviving her, instead levitating her to bed.

"Astounding," Dumbledore breathed, as Kid tossed the guns in the air, the items turning back into the Thompson sisters, the two landing safely on their own feet. Now the wizards knew to be wary of the explosive muggle weapons.

Maka yawned. The rest of the group followed her lead. The simple act seemed to break the wizards out of their stupor, a few chuckling. Yawns echoed through the room,

"I guess the jet lag is starting to catch up," Tsubaki said, in a soft voice. It made Dumbledore wonder if she had said anything at all, her voice only noticeable because of the silence from the yawns.

Lupin led them to their room. Dumbledore was left contemplative from the odd group.

Kid paced in the rectangular room, clearly agitated. Blackstar and Soul, who had to room with Lord Death's son, both sighed and stated, in unison, "What's wrong."

They knew full well for why he was pacing. They had organized the room and beds as best they could, but they knew it wasn't up to the expectations of an OCD kid who required everything, especially his room, to be symmetrical. Namely, the window was the irritant, as it was two-thirds across the wall and perpendicular to the door. And so, they recited mentally, it was asymmetrical garbage.

"It's the moon," Kid suddenly said, surprising the two. "The moon is making me uneasy."

"Uneasy?" Blackstar asked, incredulous. "You've lived your whole life seeing the moon every night. What about it that's making you weirded out now?"

"He finally realized it was asymmetrical," Soul muttered.

"No... It's...it's white."

"White?"

Curious, Blackstar and Soul dragged themselves from the comfort of their beds to look out the window to find that, indeed, the moon was white. It was fully round, and had no eyes or grinning teeth, very unlike the moon they saw every night in Death City. Half of it appeared faded very slightly.

"What the?"

"My father told me the moon was different, but I had no idea how uneasy it would make me."

Blackstar and Soul noticed the grey splotches covering it, and made the tired note in their tired minds: it was asymmetrical.

"Think about something else. Think of..." Soul thought for a moment. "Dice. Dice are symmetrical, no matter which side."

Kid glanced once more at the moon, then at the exasperated faces of the weapon and Meister. He gave in and trudged to his bed, not fussing over any symmetry other than a mechanical effort to lie symmetrically, discomfort clear on his face.

Soul and Blackstar, too tired to think of more than the thought of symmetry that usually came with hanging around Kid, plopped back into bed.

I had 'Fumbledore' at one point which I fixed during editing.

Editing has been going on. More chapters to be edited. The ableism and plot holes will be remedied.