A/N: Hi there! I'm sorry it took so long to upload this chapter, but well. It is summer and my computer is not taking the high temperatures well. It's quite difficult to write when you need to turn your working device off every now and then - and I'm not native, so it takes even longer.
There's also the thing about how long this chapter happened to be. I have stuff planned for every chapter and they are just growing a bit bigger than planned. I don't really want to cut them in half, just to have more stuff to update.
Right now the chapter is not proofread-ed, later on I'm going to switch it with the prettier version. Didn't want to make you wait even longer.
Chapter 3
Dealing with the demons
Vernon Dursley didn't know what to expect from the exorcists, but that definitely wasn't it. Whatever the kid did there it looked more like job of these freaks his nephew was hanging out with. On the other hand, Vernon knew that throwing out of the house somebody who could set things on fire by pure power of will wasn't the best idea.
Petunia shared his sentiment, considering how pale she looked.
"I..." she said, her voice slightly breaking. "I'm going to make tea."
"Yes!" he agreed quickly. "Tea! Tea is wonderful!"
They both hurried downstairs, grabbing Dudley on the way and dragging him away too, because the more distance between them and the weirdness, the better.
Suguro raised eyebrows.
"Brits," the other exorcist snorted quietly.
"You are one too, Joseph."
"Doesn't mean It will stop amusing me any time soon," the man grinned. "You freaked them out a little, you know."
"W-what was that?" Harry managed to wheeze through his teeth. And not bite his tongue off while doing so, which was rather impressing, considering how much they were clattering. He saw many things during his short time in magical world, many terrifying things, including Voldemort himself and Dementor who was about to suck his soul out, but this… this was something entirely else.
"I just exorcised an evil spirit?" Suguro tilted his head, like there was nothing wrong about the situation at all.
"By setting it on fire?" Harry shook his head. "I was sure it would look more like reciting prayers all day or waving around something that smells funny..."
He blinked, then blushed. Damn, he was nervous wreck and babbling really stupid. Or at least this was how Harry felt.
"Uh... sorry?" he murmured. "No offense, I just..."
"Saw that on TV?" Joseph helpfully added.
"Uh, yeah!" Harry agreed. "Something like that. But still! You set Voldemort on fire!"
"...um, yes. That wasn't planned," Suguro grimaced slightly. "Usually this sort of spirits is not that, uh..."
He paused an eyed the other exorcist. His expression was odd mix of annoyance and loss.
"Touchy-feely?" the older man proposed with a smirk.
"Stop joking around!" Suguro growled.
"In need for a hug?"
"That's not the word either."
"You're just picky."
"Are you guys even serious?" Harry groaned. All that bickering was definitely completely out of place. Shouldn't they act more professional or at least act like it wasn't just a childplay.
"Right now not really," the older man admitted with a smile and a shrug.
Suguro huffed at him with irritation, crossing his arms. The other exorcist completely ignored him and started explaining further.
"Anyhow, the plan was to do the usual, boring, recite until it drop dead stuff," he said. "Or shot it."
"You can exorcise evil ghost by shooting them?" Harry's eyes widened. "How that even works?"
"Well, you pull the trigger..."
"But wouldn't the bullet just go through the ghost like he's made of air?" Because well, ghosts were still ghosts. Things were just going through them, Harry remembered Moaning Myrtle and her bad mood triggered by that sort of happening rather well. How exactly were they supposed to feel the bullet then?
"It all depends," Joseph shrugged. "Different things can be put down by different types of ammunition. There is surprisingly great amount of memory work. It's easier for knight, they just smack things until they drop."
"Okay," Harry said slowly. He still didn't understand a thing, but maybe they just found a way to make ammunition from ectoplasm or something like that. It worked in the movies, so why not in the real life too? "But where the fire comes in?"
"He just tapped it."
"Excuse me?"
"Tapped. Like in a card game. To beat one monster you have to bring your own. Stronger too, obviously."
That was making sense, Harry decided. Ask bigger monster to smash smaller one over the head. Pretty simple, but still, one thing about using dark creatures in exorcism was odd.
"Aren't you supposed to fight demons?"
"There's just a problem with ordination," Suguro shrugged. "Honestly, the man who put the system in place was an idiot."
"Yeah, sorta. He just smashed everything together and called it a day," Joseph sighed with a small smile.
"So, there are good demons, or something?"
"It's way more complicated than that," Suguro groaned. "But for now we might stick to that. Familiars counts as good demons. Just don't tell anybody I actually said that."
Harry nodded slowly.
"I think your family had enough time to get over it, don't you?" Joseph smiled towards him.
"I think it's going to take them years to get over it," he grimaced. "They still are in the process with getting over me being magical, so uh…"
"I'm sure we can work something out," he said optimistically.
Yeah, Harry thought. A black eye, for an example.
He looked around the room, not sure what he was expecting to see. Still no traces of any kind of fire whatsoever. Only the cracked window was a proof that something actually happened in here. That, and…
"Your hand," Harry licked his lips, trying not to stare too much. Gaping at other people's hands was weird, but he couldn't exactly help it as his brain decided to recall the whole situation, focusing precisely on the moment when knife's edge pierced skin.
"It's just a gash, kid," Suguro shrugged. "Relax."
"But–" he tried to protest, but stopped himself. That was the stupid question and he could guess the answer on his own rather well. But that brought another mystery. "Why had you do that? I don't know anything, but using blood still seems…"
"Excessive?"
"Yeah," he nodded. Even in magical world people usually were not using things like that, unless they were right in the middle of some very dark rituals.
"It's because I used fire spirit's help, as Joseph said," Suguro explained. "Some demons don't like to act like familiars and prefer to stick more to the guardian spirit tradition. You usually have to pay them in some way for the help, and blood is…"
He stopped, unsure what word to use.
"Always on hand?" Joseph smirked.
"Something like that," Ryuji grimaced slightly at the joke, because it was another bunch of words he wasn't really looking for. But it was close enough. "Anyhow, it's more like a cat scratch anyway. All I needed was a few drops, so I didn't try to chop my hand off or anything."
xxx
"What are we going to do, Vernon?" Petunia whispered to her husband when they reached the kitchen.
"Why are you asking me?" He wheezed back, nervously looking at the doors from time to time, like he was expecting something spooky to jump any minute.
"You were the one who asked weird people to come!" Petunia grunted, filling the teapot with water and setting it on stove with loud clang. She exhaled loudly through her nose, staring at it, like it would help water to boil sooner than usually.
"How could I know that it would turn this way?" Vernon grunted. "All I wanted was to exorcise the weird out of the brat, not this!"
"This somewhat counts as the weird," Petunia pointed out.
"You know what I meant!"
"And I told you was impossible even before they actually started doing... whatever it was," she hissed through her teeth, collecting tea service from the cabinet and then arranging it neatly. "It's like trying to exorcise a mustache from a man. You just can't do that!"
"Actually..." Dudley suddenly cut in. "I saw on the TV once, that there are pills for that..."
"Dudley, hush!"
"But mom!" he protested.
"Don't argue with your mother, young man!"
"I'm not arguing...!" he protested. "Besides... that was sort of cool!"
"Dudley, no!" They both gasped, not even sure if he was talking about the pills from TV or the whatever happened upstairs. They weren't even sure which one was the better of two evils in this equation.
"But it was! Like in the movies, or something!" he continued, flushing slightly from excitement. Well, at least they now knew what he was talking about.
"Yes, almost like magic," Vernon rolled his eyes.
"That wasn't magic," Petunia stated. "I know how it's looks like and it wasn't magic."
"Well, so Harry can't set stuff on fire," Dudley shrugged.
"And thank Heavens for that!" They both screamed at the same time. Their son blinked, then took the step to the side, then another one, making a little bit of distance between himself and them.
"So," he asked carefully. "What now? Are you going to throw them out, or something?"
"They just set that thing on fire and I doubt they have the same rules about using weird stuff around normal people as the freaks," Petunia murmured, eyeing her husband carefully. "Otherwise they wouldn't work like that, right? Visiting honest people and doing… things."
Vernon understood the point she was making very good. If there was no rules against doing something, then if angered, some oddballs might decide to prove a point in a very uncivilized way and he had literally nothing to prevent weird people from hurting his family.
"We are going to sit down and listen whatever they want to say," Vernon said out loud, trying very hard to not sound nervous. "We are going to politely nod and then we are going to forget about this whole thing."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Petunia sighed deeply and shook her head. Then she proceed to moving the tea set and then the kettle with hot tea to the dining room, putting down everything with great care, like the fate of the world depended on the spoons lying down in perfect straight line.
"What was that thing anyway?" Vernon asked, when she made second turn for more cups.
She almost sounded like she was bored when she answered him. "The Dark Lord, I think."
"Isn't he supposed to be dead?"
"He was," Petunia grunted. "But apparently, he's not."
"Were the freaks lying then? In that letter, I mean?"
"I don't think so..." Petunia shook her head. "I just can't wrap my mind around it."
"You're not the only one, Pet."
"But why the freaks let Harry just run around with that ultimate terrorist of theirs?" Dudley asked. "Couldn't they do the thing?"
"I don't think they even knew about it."
Dudley frowned, thinking for a moment, before he stated the obvious."That's weird."
"We're talking freaks here, son. Of course it's weird."
It didn't took long for Harry and the two exorcists to join them downstairs. At least the brat had the decency to look as nervous and the rest of the family.
"For what I understand," Suguro started when they all settled down by the table, gesturing slightly, white piece of band-aid on his palm catching eye and proving that whatever happened upstairs, really took place. "The being wasn't only parasiting on the boy here," he waved at Harry. "But was subtly changing the whole family."
"What do you mean, changing?" Vernon demanded.
"The usual victims of spirits similar to your problem are very fond of depressed, isolated people. They also tend to bring to surface the ugliest feeling and make them grow stronger. They also tend to..." he stopped for a moment, looking for the right expression, then just shrugged. " Invite friends."
"You mean, there is more than one?"
"No, which would be surprising if not for the rather creative wards around the house."
Petunia brow furrowed. "The man who left Harry here wrote something about the blood wards," she said quietly. "They were supposed to keep the evil people away."
"And fine job they did!" Vernon grunted.
"Actually, they seems to work just fine," Suguro said. "I managed to caught just a glimpse, but I'm pretty sure they're active and working. The problem is, while they were not letting anything in, they were also keeping everything inside too, isolating you even further. Double edged sword, of sorts."
"I doubt they ever knew there was possibility for these wards to work this way," Joseph said, putting down his cup. "Most of the people, even magical people, are oblivious to this sort of things and supernatural beings tend to ignore normal humans. That's why all the clashes are spectacularly bad; nobody knows what is going on."
"Then how are you going to deal with it?" Petunia blinked, feeling worried again. "And how we are going to live with it?"
Because she really hated to put her Duddykins in any sort of danger. If there really was something in the house, something similar to that horrifying wraith of a man who killed her sister…!
"I would like you to be in contact for at least a few months," Suguro stated. "Malevolent spirits tend to be stubborn. And the sudden power vacuum looks like an invitation for anything interested."
"Are you telling that it could return and take over the boy again?" Vernon groaned.
"Not only to him," the old man shook his head. "I'm afraid, they tend to attack people connected by blood. Or leave enough miasma traces for other beings to take interest."
Petunia didn't understood what that miasma thing was or how it worked, but she could guess well enough that they were still in danger.
"How… how it could end for us if Vernon wouldn't ask for help?" she asked. Grasping hard on the material of her skirt under the table, so nobody was able to see how trembling her fist was or how white her knuckles turned.
The exorcists exchanged looks and it was really all she needed to know, it was telling so much that hearing the answer was unnecessary.
"Well," the older man started carefully, his eyes wandering from one member of the Dursley family to another while he was talking. "It all depends on what kind of spirit decided to invite itself to the household. Cases of decreasing energy of members of the household are rather usual, sometimes to the point of putting the whole family in coma."
"And this isn't the word case scenario, isn't it?" Vernon asked, grimacing.
"No, this is really mild," Suguro admitted bluntly. "That's why I want to monitor your family, Mr. Dursley. I have more experience with this sort of thing and know what to look for."
He stopped for a moment, as if he was thinking which words to use to explain things further. Instead his mouth curled a bit and his fingers travelled along the white line of band-aid.
"And I'm sorry about the window."
xxx
It was almost half of a year since Suguro got stuck in England because of reasons nobody wanted to talk about but everybody knew politics was somewhat involved.
He didn't really mind living that far away from home. And besides, he was doing exactly the thing somebody was trying to prevent him from doing.
Naturally it all started with Rin, because everything in this world had to do something with the idiot.
First, he admitted to have quite a big problem and a real-deal guillotine hanging over his head only two months before theoretical exams for the title - either he passes them or he end up dead and the fact he managed to beat the crap out of Illuminati and stand up to Lucifer himself wasn't meaning a thing. At least Mephisto managed to talk people into counting it as a passed practical part of the exam.
Suguro ended up pretty much moving into the dorm where Okumura brothers were living and, by joining forces with Neko and Izumo, started a painful and frustrating process of forcing the knowledge into thick skull of half-demon.
After Rin managed to do the impossible and actually passed the real mess started with everybody fighting with everybody else and somehow MyouDha managed to not only stay afloat but actually rise in the ranks. They also managed to assimilate two small families, thanks to what Suguro could throw his weight rather effective.
The sudden grow in power wasn't welcomed everywhere and somebody had to recognize Suguro as dangerous enough to move him away from the chessboard before he would become too important.
And so, Suguro ended up in England and proceed to quickly building up his reputation and trying to meet as many people as possible.
Now it was getting even more interesting, because magic.
Suguro dropped into chair at the kitchen table with heavy sigh.
"Was all that showing off really needed?" Joseph asked, taking a seat nearby.
Living here was not all that different from living in the True Cross Academy dorms. Most of the local exorcist were living in single building. Similar cells were located all over the England, making moving people around much easier. As far as Suguro knew, the Doors around here were used only for emergencies, so the path wouldn't be in lockdown if something happen.
This particular cell was located in old, one store high building with elegant facade and truly annoying mess when it came to heating. It was more not working at all than working properly and when for some reason it was actually doing its job, it wasn't the time.
But they all were living here rather temporary and they were returning to the cell just to sleep for awhile and then go back to whatever they were actually working on.
Joseph was rather special snowflake; for years he was walking into situations others were not even trying to poke with a stick and while he wasn't the most talented person in the field, he had patience of a saint. He also instantly took Suguro under his wing, finding time–lagged, dumbstucked by sudden change of scenery and language youngster as something hilarious. Especially after Ryuji opened his mouth and tried to communicate in English for the first time.
"No," Suguro admitted. "I didn't expect it to break through my barrier."
"You should be more careful," Joseph said, standing up and heading straight for the pot, to make some tea. Bad sign. When someone like him get worked up on something that meant you screwed something really badly.
"I know!" Suguro moaned. "I'm getting too used to all this and I know I should keep my head in the game, but..."
"What you need is to take a few days off," Joseph pointed out. "I know what you are trying to do, but overdoing it wouldn't lead to anything good."
"Easy for you to say."
"Pointing out that I'm not the most ambitious of people is not a very good thing either."
"Right. Sorry," he mumbled, turning away.
"I'm not angry at you for alluding to my weak points," Joseph huffed, venturing through the fridge to stole something edible from somebody. "I'm angry because for all your smarts, you're still not thinking! You can't just let things grab you and hope for the best. There will be that one time when it will fail and you will be done."
Suguro grit his teeth. It was not the first time he heard that. Apparently, he made a full circle and was exactly where he started. He felt frustrated with himself, because all that effort he put into breaking this bad habit – it was all for nothing.
"You just need a rest," the older exorcist patted him on the shoulder blade; because of the height difference reaching all the way towards his shoulder would be a bit too much. "Give it a few days and you will be back with a fresh mind. No need to be down."
"I'm not good at doing nothing," Suguro admitted with a grimace.
"Well, you promised that kid to show up, why not turn it into a bigger project then?" Joseph shrugged. "You will be doing something and not risking your life for a change. You can even learn something new if you really need to."
"About that," Ryuji mumbled, eyeing the other man. "Did you know? About magic, I mean. Because I definitely wasn't expecting that to came out."
"I knew they exist," Joseph admitted. "Didn't tell you, because they are really twitchy about the topic and trigger happy too. Shoot fireworks first, ask questions later sort of people. Better to ignore their existence whenever that's possible, the life instantly gets far less messy."
"It might change pretty soon, through," Suguro murmured. "The kid told me quite a story about the dark Lord of theirs who recently came back to life. He might become an issue."
"Well, then you found yourself a mission already," Joseph snickered. "Have fun investigating that."
Were magical people really that bad? Right now Suguro had no idea, but sour mood of the other exorcist was telling stories of its own. He usually was very cheerful and tolerant. If somebody got on his nerves enough to made him spitting a bit of venom on the whole community…
This, Suguro decided, was going to be very interesting.
He probably should run.
xxx
A few days later, the younger exorcist showed up, exactly as promised. In civilian clothing with was good and bad at the same time. Good, because these dark cloaks were rather odd in such warm weather and people would talk and bad, because he was sticking out like a sore thumb anyway.
"Well," Vernon grunted awkwardly, trying to look everywhere but the young exorcist. "It's better, I think. And we took down the bars from the windows."
Suguro blinked. "You had bars in your windows?"
"You didn't...?!" Vernon gasped, then his face turned bright red. "I think this is too late to act like I never said that, right?"
"Kinda?"
Vernon Dursley hoped that after the exorcism was done, he would feel better, like that man from work, who was so in awe.
Not that Vernon actually believed in this sort of things, he was standing firmly on the ground, but still, he knew all that psychological mumbo-jumbo was worth something. It was showing up again and again in management meeting in his firm, where some people from schools were babbling about how making people feel better about themselves was making them working better, even if the method of choice to rinse their morale was plain dumb.
But Vernon wasn't feeling better at all. If anything, his feelings got much, much worse.
For the two whole days he was walking around with the feeling of uneasiness, not even able to tell what was the cause of this anxiety. The only thing he know it was the feeling of wrongness was strong enough to keep him up at night, stirring in the bed frantically and trying not to follow the impulse to get up and just run as fast as possible, far, far away and in his pajamas.
In the evening of the second day he gave up on sorting this out by himself and started asking brat the questions; because he spend some time alone with both of the exorcists, so maybe he had an answer to this problem.
He hadn't, of course, but now Vernon had at least clues.
They told him that living with the bug-wraith on his forehead for years could have an impact on his biochemistry, wrecking havoc on hormonal levels and all the other things.
That actually made some sense; it was similar to nicotine addict deciding to drop the cigarettes - all the machinery inside the body was so used to that substance, that without it, everything was working just wrong.
Were they reacting in similar way? Were their bodies so used to this dark weird thing being nearby so much, they were going through withdrawal symptoms?
The answer came suddenly, from completely unexpected source.
Because the glass in Harry's room was broken, he had actually call some people to do the work and put a new one in the window frame. It was all very irritating and both Vernon and Petunia were too tired to really deal with people, but there wasn't much choice. This had to be done before it starts raining again, otherwise the whole life would go to hell.
Luckily, the two guys who showed up did their job quickly and professionally. But one of them said something, that freeze blood in Vernon veins for some unexplained reason.
"Oh," the man said, entering the room that was once Dudley's second bedroom. It was still pretty empty, just a bed and that broken wardrobe, a desk and a bunch of knick-knacks. " Somebody is moving in? Pretty bare for now on, huh?" he probably noticed Vernon's reaction, so he added quickly. "Don't worry, after a few days this place will surely fill up with all kind of things!"
"Yes," Vernon nodded, trying to not turn stiff as stone. "My nephew just moved in, it was quite unexpected and we had to clean up this room in hurry. It was... a store room, you see."
"I understand," the man grinned cheerfully. "I don't really like to throw stuff away too and after awhile the garage is just not enough to keep everything, right?"
He wasn't exactly sure why he was lying or why he laughed with that irritating guy, trying to not sound nervously, while the feel of wrongness was growing inside him.
Later that day, he sat down in his and Petunia's bedroom and turned on the computer, creating a new file with simple table with two columns. Putting things in order was always making thinking easier while he bumped into some sort of challenge at work, so it should work elsewhere just fine.
The one side was titled 'weird' while the other was proudly stating 'normal'.
Vernon clicked his tongue, staring at it for awhile, then typed his nephew name, just under the first word. It didn't seems to be working, he decided after another minute of gaping at the computer screen. He deleted the word, then decided to take a different approach and start with the room.
Harry was living in the spare bedroom like just any other kid and that was just fine and perfectly normal. Harry was living in the room that looked like it was a storage just until yesterday and he was living there for years, which seems to be somewhat wrong. And before that, he was living in the cupboard under the stairs. Vernon frowned, then wrote down the sentence. If he found that statement in a report, a book or even a movie, he would call it ridiculous. Knowing that he actually used to keep a kid in the cupboard was...a bit disturbing, no matter all that freakishness.
Vernon groaned, but decided to leave the cupboard in the weird section. Now, when he was on a trail, the work got easier but at the same time he really didn't want to see what he was typing.
Harry was cooking, harry was cleaning, Harry was doing gardening and wearing Dudley's clothes. Everything seemed to somehow be about Harry and everything was just wrong.
The exorcist who set the evil weirdo on fire said that the weirdo could made them do nasty stuff. Was this it then? Was he feeling so uneasy, because without monster hovering over the household he was finally able to feel that something was not right?
Vernon shook his head. Magic was weird and dangerous, so keeping freaks away from normal people was making sense, right?
Anyhow, now he was forced to make some changes. People saw the state of the room, not only the other group of weirdoes but the normal, honest to god workers too. People do talk and Vernon would really hate them to talk bad about him. He had a reputation after all. Till this day, the magical thingies freaks set up around the Privet Drive were keeping people from noticing much, but Vernon didn't feel like resisting this too much. It's not like they really cared about him or his reputation.
The next day, he handed the brat a hundred and told him to go and purchase some decent clothes. And decided that the bookcase was just taking too much room in the dining room anyway, so it could go to the smallest bedroom, along with the trunk and all the other stuff that belonged to kid and was taking space in perfectly good cupboard.
"Barriers...!" Suguro groaned, massaging his temples. "Apparently, they make people ignore certain things."
"But why you didn't notice this before?" Vernon blunted out.
"I might be an exorcist, but that doesn't mean I can't be influenced."
"Isn't this making things more difficult?"
The exorcist shrugged. "I do know to expect something. I know what I wrote myself for, after all. And it's not like these things are malicious anyway."
"They could be," Vernon murmured. Then he bit his tongue, but it was already too late, the words were already out in the open.
"Point," luckily, the exorcist didn't took is as something offensive. "I can set up some sort of defense against the evil spirits if you like. The most effective way would be to just do it outside, but I doubt you want somebody wandering around out in the open and talking funny."
"It is going to look like a priest blessing the house, or something?"
Suguro blinked, then he gave a small, crooked smile. "Actually it would be exactly like that."
Vernon stared for a moment and then stared some more.
"You are a priest?" because, honestly, with how he looked like…! Not to mention, he was a bit too young to be some sort of religious figure.
"I am," he just said.
There was, of course, some sort of story behind that, but Suguro decided not to share this. Vernon was completely fine with it, because he still wasn't sure how he himself felt about the whole deal. At least the exorcist was bind by some sort of secrecy, so he could be a bit less worried about people knowing.
The – whatever he was doing – took a few hours and was rather underwhelming. Just standing in the room, reciting prayers out loud, with fingers bend in odd way and strange rosary dangling between them. The most admirable thing about the whole deal was the fact that young exorcist didn't die out of boredom.
He finished at the smallest bedroom and then proceed to ask Harry all sort of questions about how he was feeling. Vernon after a moment of consideration decided let them be. Not that anything was going to happen. All the scary stuff was already done. At least he hoped so.
Harry wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation either. On one hand, talking magic with somebody completely Muggle felt weird – the magical world probably rubbed on him with this one – on the other, he saw how Suguro dealt with the Voldemort–like wraith.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, after they were done with all that difficult stuff about changes in emotions and fear.
"Doing what?"
"You know," Harry made a wide gesture with his hand. "This. You weren't ever scared when you fought off Voldemort."
"Saw way more terrifying things than him," Suguro shrugged. "And I'm doing it, because I can."
"That's a stupid reason."
"But the only one you're going to get," he huffed. "It's not like you were not in similar situation before."
Harry blinked.
"That brat you saved? You told me about it."
"But that was different!" Harry protested. "If I didn't do anything, she would have died!"
"Probably," Suguro agreed. "But this is exactly the same for me. Either I do my job, or people are going to die."
"At least you got to choose," he grunted, looking away.
The exorcist hummed quietly, his brow furrowed. "You know, I'm not exactly sure about that. I was shielded in some way, but eventually I would end up in the same place I'm right now. It would just take a little bit longer."
They talked a bit more, but there wasn't anything as meaningful as that. Harry spend rest of the evening thinking, how his life would go, if there was a choice for him to make. Would he just ignore everything, that was going on, or go and do the right thing anyway?
It was called a right thing for a reason, after all.
xxx
The exorcist showed up again after three days.
By all means, Suguro should be the last person Vernon Dursley would felt comfortable talking to.
Foreigner who was still butchering English from time to time, very young but at the same time a few years too old to treat him like a brat. He looked like a thug too, especially without his uniform. No mention, he was living in even more freakish way than his nephew, in a world, where monsters really were crawling from under the beds and dead were walking.
But for some strange reason, talking to him didn't seem wrong. Or he just needed to let all of it go, before the words would burst out of his mouth when somebody else, somebody not weird would be around.
"You see, it all was making perfect sense!" Vernon said, feeling a little bit like he was just rambling at this point. "But a few days ago I've written it all down, the things I was doing and why, and then it just... stopped. Making sense, I mean. Or even being normal!"
Because keeping little brat in cupboard, hoping that all the odd things about him will perish from one day to another was definitely not normal. Right now, Vernon wasn't even sure how exactly it seemed logical at all.
"You guys told us it was because of that...whatever it was, but I don't think we can just dump all the off things on that and call it a day."
They just wanted to be normal back then and it didn't change much. Vernon still preferred his mundane life from all that craziness around. But by trying to force the world act the way they liked, they jumped straight into doing things that definitely counted as, well, crazy.
"I won't tell you it wasn't you," Suguro said with a deep sigh. "Or it was all the barrier and dark spirit fault. The beginning lies elsewhere and we both know it."
That was fair, Vernon thought. He should be offended, furious even, but this was just dry statement, nothing else. They never really wanted another child, Dudley was just enough. And the way magical people just dropped the boy on them was really angering.
It seemed to be somewhat logical too. The emotions, closed in bubble that wasn't letting anything go through, the emotions probably started to just acting like geometric sequence growing worse and worse until they finally turned into some wicked parody of normalcy.
"But shouldn't we all be afraid? Of things that we can't control?"
"Fear is natural. But denying that shit hit the fan would not make the room any less stinky," Suguro deadpanned.
"Way to break the mood," Vernon grimaced, trying very hard to get rid of that particular mental image and failing.
He received a shrug for an answer. "Dumb jokes always make things easier to accept."
Honestly, Vernon had no idea what his opinion about the exorcist was. On one hand he was one of the weird people, no mention that he gave a distain suggestion about seriously messing things up if he meets resistance. But then, he was not overusing his power at all. And he was listening, while not judging. Vernon wasn't sure if it was because of the whole being a priest business or because Suguro just didn't really cared about anything that took place at Privet Drive.
Mr. Dursley wasn't the only one who couldn't make his mind; Harry had exactly the same problem. Suguro could be downright terrifying at times.
Besides, he had no idea what else was there to do, after the wraith of Voldemort was dealt with. Everything was supposed to be fine, the adventure over before it even began. But the exorcist seemed to not share the sentiment, considering the fact they were meeting again.
"Well, uh..." Harry suddenly felt awkward. "That's for showing up?"
"Not a problem. I was the one who offered in the first place, dumbass," the exorcist snorted. Or should Harry said, Suguro? Since the other boy was out of his uniform, wearing a tank-top and jeans cut under the knees, he looked more or less normal. Punkish-style and somewhat oriental because of his origin, but still like any other ordinary guy. Was he off the clock then?
"So," he said. "How's going?"
"Uh," Harry bit his lip. "Fine, I guess?"
"You guess," Suguro raised eyebrows.
"Well, okay, I have no more nightmares," he said, grimacing slightly. Less than usual, at least and he wasn't dreaming about things he didn't saw anymore. That didn't erased the Triwizard Tournament from his mind, but he actually managed to sleep through whole night once.
Suguro was waiting.
Harry grimaced, but the exorcist wasn't going anywhere, at least not until he hear everything he wanted from him, so all Harry could do at the moment was to raise white flag and just cooperate. "Well, at least these about...him. I still dream about the past, though."
"That's not really surprising, you know. The brain is trying to cope, make sense out of the informations and so on."
"I suppose," Harry mumbled. "But that's definitely not the best thing in my life. I mean, if I could've do anything to..."
"Are you trying to say that his death was your fault?" he picked up instantly, his sharp eyes staring right at Harry, making him feel uneasy.
"Well, I was the one, who..." he babbled nervously.
"Cut the crap and stop being stupid," Suguro huffed with irritation. "Was there a way for you to know that it was a trap?"
"Well, no, but..."
"No buts. Others were responsible for keeping the whole thing safe and they failed miserably at it. You were not supposed to join the mess in the first place."
"Don't expect logic from wizarding world," Harry sighed.
"I have to agree on that one," Suguro rolled his eyes. "But this doesn't change the point. You never pulled the trigger nor you had the chance or skills to do anything."
"But if not me, then who? I mean, everybody is fixated on me, even, you know, Him. I can at least try to use all that stupid fame to do something!"
Ryuji smiled. "I can understand that. But what exactly are you going to do?"
Harry blinked.
"I mean, to do something, you have to actually plan, right?"
"I was always just rolling with it, I guess?" Harry scratched his head. "The disaster just happened right in front of me anyway, so…"
"But right now everything seems to be rather still, isn't it?" the exorcist pointed out and Harry had to agree. He couldn't find sign of Voldemorts activity anywhere and the wizarding world was even quieter than usual.
"So," Ryuji continued, satisfied with his silence. "Why not use all that free time?"
"Like what?" he grunted. "He's not only more powerful than me and has more experience, but he's like The Dark Lord around here! What possibly I could do?"
"This is not the right attitude, you know," Suguro huffed, crossing his arms. "While it's good you don't underestimate your enemy, there's no reason to not do something unexpected."
"Unexpected?"
"The options are all around you, kid. Read more about that magic of yours, so you would have at least an idea what's going on. Try to learn something about self–defense. Go learn how to make explosives and blow up his hideout. Or better blow up something else and frame him, so other people would join the fight!"
"Explosives?" Harry blinked. "Like how I'm going to learn that?"
"Go ask your cousin, I'm sure he can tell you all about it," Suguro grinned.
"Are you even treating this whole thing serious?"
"Yes, I am," Ryuji nodded. "I just don't see much sense in curling in the corner or looking for the cover when shit hits the fan. Since you can't deny that there is something wrong out there, then you at least can try to do something. This will make you feel better."
Harry hummed. It's not like learning a little bit of everything would help him against somebody as powerful as Voldemort anyway. Before he managed to get away only because he was insanely lucky, but luck had to run out sometime, right? Then he would be left with absolutely nothing to fend for himself.
On the other hand, he had to admit, when Professor Lupin was teaching DADA, he was really feeling good with himself, especially after he managed to create his Patronus. So, even if he only managed to teach himself a very little until the next meeting with the Dark Lord – because they would definitely meet again – it would be still something up his sleeve.
"By the way," his voice brought him out of his thoughts. "You feeling fine? I mean, besides the nightmares?"
Harry shrugged. "I'm no sunshine. At least I'm less... angry, I guess."
Suguro nodded. "Connection to spirits usually influence the mood of the carrier. Anything else?"
"Why are you asking?"
"Because as far as I understand, you were connected to this crap almost your whole life," Suguro explained in the tone, that sounded almost like male version of Hermione. Even the gesticulation was similar. "Human emotions are connected to biochemistry. Basically, your whole organism is so used to add stuff for the emotions inflicted by the spirit that it will still works like it was still stuck to your skull."
"And that means... what exactly?"
"That it could get messy. But hard to tell what kind of messy," Suguro shook his head. "I think over the time it should balance things out, but as you are now, it could get nasty. Like you're trying to drop smoking or some other addictives."
"Just what I need," Harry snickered.
"That's why I want you to stay in contact," Suguro sighed. "Because of all that secrecy you can't get the help usual way, so in worst case scenario I could contact you with a friend of mine. "
"I don't need a shrink, I'm not crazy!"
"Yes, you definitely aren't," Suguro nodded. "But that doesn't change the fact that you were coexisting with an evil spirit and you had a traumatic experience. Experiences, considering what you have told me about you early years."
"I managed to survive!"
"People are not supposed to just survive, you know," Suguro sat down next to him with a heavy sight. "Nor are they supposed to go on on their own. I know that accepting the help is a difficult shit..."
"It's not like I wasn't asking!" Harry shouted. "I tried to contact them, anybody, but they just didn't..."
He was shaking. Shaking, desperately trying not to cry and completely miserable to boot. Ashamed to, he really didn't want people to see him like that. But it was hard to not feel like that when the only answers he received from his friends were short and just telling him to hold on in there and that's everything was going to be fine. Nothing was.
"Hey," Suguro said, carefully placing his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know it's not okay. But at the moment you are not alone, are you?"
"I just don't understand!"
"There is only a month until next school year," Suguro pointed out. "You can force them into explaining face to face."
"I shouldn't do that in the first place," Harry grunted.
"In the ideal world," Ryuji snickered, but not at him. More like at memory of sorts. "Look, I can't tell you what's going on in heads of your friends. But people are dumb and they tend to avoid situations they don't know how to deal with. It's like hoping the trouble would just go away if you ignore it long enough. Totally not working, but people are doing it anyway."
"You sound like you know what you are talking about," Harry hummed, eyeing him curiously.
Suguro grimaced. "Fell into that trap once," he admitted. "It was messy, but turned okay in the end."
"And how you dealt with it?"
"Screamed at each other for a bit, then we were too occupied by trying not to die," Suguro shrugged. "It was in the middle of really nasty situation, not even an assignment. We all were in school back then and shouldn't be even let close to that sort of things, but shit get messed up everywhere."
Harry blinked. Somehow, that wasn't what he expected to hear. He was waiting for something more… epic, he supposed. Big story about how talking to each other was important, how people were supposed to explain their opinions and how you were supposed to respect their opinion.
"Well, nice to know I was not the only one who got this sort of stuff at school," Harry smiled slightly.
"Were you expecting it?"
He blinked, surprised by the question. "Uh, no? I mean, I knew it was going to be different, because magic and all that, but fight with the Dark Lord definitely wasn't in the guidebook."
Being a national hero wasn't there either. He expected to be just another student, pretty normal and no different than anybody else.
"So here's the difference – I was," Suguro said. "Even before the semester began, I already knew what I was walking into."
That probably was nice, Harry decided. He didn't know if he would make same choice if he was given one. He wasn't going to abandon the magical world in need, but if there was an option to chose something more mundane, he would definitely be grabbing it instantly.
On the other hand, depending on somebody else to act, when people, especially his friends were in danger – that probably would be even more nerve wrecking. Ducking from the curses was definitely easier even if it was painful at times.
"What's done is done," Harry finally said, shrugging. "I can deal with it, so it's fine."
"Try to not do stuff on your own at least," the exorcist grunted. "I already promised to have an eye on you for awhile. If there's a problem or something you can just ask."
Harry nodded slowly. Help from someone who knew what he was doing would be definitely a good thing, Though, how could he keep in touch while at school? That would be rather troublesome for somebody not magical. And there was always the problem with timing – at least a day before receiving an answer, even if the situation was really difficult and no way to make it any faster.
"Obviously," Suguro continued. "I won't be able to always answers the calls, my job has somewhat odd hours, but you can send a text message. I'll call back when I'm free."
"That's... nice." Harry murmured, staring at the ground. "But why are you doing this?"
"Just because? "Suguro smirked. "It's not a pity, I assure you. More like curiosity."
"Curiosity?"
"The magical abilities are really strange concept for me. Not because they let you do the whatever shit you find fancy, but because the connection to the spiritual beings is still half-assed. More than for an usual human, but not strong enough to give you ability to actually see."
"I can see them, since the exorcism," Harry muttered.
"And this in the next reason, why I decided to stick around. It's not very usual occurrence and you can't exactly go and join the True Cross Order to learn how to live with all that," the exorcist sighed deeply. "How are you dealing with that, anyway?"
"Fine," he just shrugged. "Sometimes is hard to not start to gape at them and people are thinking I'm unwell in the head, but that's nothing new."
It was probably a bad thing to say and as far as Harry could tell, but it didn't seem to move his interlocutor all that much. But as far as he know, Suguro liked honesty and was very blunt himself.
"I can probably get my hand on books for you. At least I think I can. Then you would at least know what you are seeing."
"Can't I just borrow yours?" he asked, slightly confused. Hunting down books just for him seemed like overdoing things a bit. Especially since the exorcist was already giving subtle vibe of workaholic, he really didn't want to give him even more stuff to do.
"And you can read Japanese since when?" Suguro snickered.
Harry laughed, blushing slightly. "Right, sorry. That was dumb."
xxx
The man was wearing midnight blue, three-piece suit like a second skin. His face was covered with simple, white mask and he appeared completely out of nowhere at the afternoon of the first day of July.
"And who in the hell are you?" Suguro glared at the intruder, not sure how he was supposed to react. Joseph seemed to be completely fine with this person, whoever it was, but that doesn't mean Suguro was supposed to do the same.
People randomly showing up in the middle of the room usually were not trustworthy. Mephiso taught him this lesson well enough.
"Oh, I'm Septimus," he said with strong, Scottish accent. "Seven, if you prefer."
"That's not meaning anything," he grunted.
"It's fine," Joseph said in gentle voice. "I know Seven quite well. We were actually working together for a few years."
"So what's up with the mask?"
"I'm an Unspeakable," Seven said in a matter of fact voice. "Because of that, I cannot speak of my other life nor show my face."
"I still don't understand a thing," Suguro admitted with a shrug.
"Well, this is quite a long story," Seven said happily. "Since you already know about the magical world, we can skip that ridiculous part about proving magic to be real, yes?"
Suguro blinked. Finally, something that was making sense.
"You see, both of our worlds had some trouble recently in the past. We had a Dark Lord and his Death Eaters on the loose, while you had the Blue Night, am I right?"
He just nodded, letting him continue.
"Because of that, suddenly there was close to none well trained people on your side to fight demons and spirit and we also lost way to many people to keep things in order. Soon, both word started to mix with each other. A stray spirit there, wreaking havoc on poor, stupid wizards, or a stray Dark Lord supporter who bumped into you guys while running away from us. It was a complete mess."
"After we were done with trying to beat each other to a pulp, we found out that cooperation is actually the best way to go."
"Then why the kid had no idea how the Exorcists work?" Suguro pointed out.
"Because not many people knows about it, obviously!" Seven said, like it was elementary knowledge. "We Unspeakables are as independent from our government as you are. But we're unlucky enough to share building with our government. Foolish people, I tell you!"
"So you are lying to your own people?"
"They are too stupid to notice they can't do thing or two on their own. Saw more than once what's left after wizard trying to take down even a low level demon. Quite disgusting and spatters even on the ceiling."
Well, that was a little bit underwhelming, Ryuji decided. On the other hand he saw himself that magical people were not good when dealing with supernatural. On the other hand, they seemed to ignore things like being dead, so…
"On the other hand, we were not expecting their abilities to," Joseph admitted. "While the wiping memory trick was just irritating, the more battle oriented spells were more troublesome.
"Wiping memory?" Suguro asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Imagining, that some random dude could pat him with a piece of wood and turn him into a vegetable was disturbing. Way more disturbing, than imagining what could happen on screwed up job; monsters were interested only in tearing people apart and that was easy to deal with. Shared sentiment, really. Manipulating brain on the other hand was just wrong.
"They're using it, so the normal people don't burn them on stakes," Joseph shrugged. "They are a bit... behind the times."
"But still, wiping memory, how's that a good idea at all?"
"Well, it comes with a note to not use it on Occluments and exorcists," Seven shrugged. "An organized mind is not only much more resistant but also capable to spot the modification almost instantly."
"I still don't like where this is heading," Suguro shrugged. Acting like modifying somebody's memories like it was nothing... apparently, the wizard society happily threw all their morality out of the window for the sake of comfortable life.
"It is going to be a mess after the non-magical discovers us," Seven agreed. "But the idiots are so used to threw spells around we can't do much."
"After?"
"Well, the technology is more and more advanced and it's quite hard to cheat on satellites anyway," the Unspeakable said in somewhat bored tone. "I think we have a decade or maybe two before everything is going to fall down."
He didn't seem to be particularly disturbed by this vision, like he didn't really cared for all the secrecy at all. Ironic, considering the fact he couldn't even tell them his real name.
"Anyhow, I wanted to meet with you, because of the boy you mentioned. Harry Potter."
"What about him?"
"Tell me about what you exorcised," Seven demanded, his voice all of sudden deadly serious.
"Harry called it Voldemort," Suguro said, carefully choosing his words. "It was almost like any other malevolent spirit, but it was lacking something."
"Lacking?"
"Like he was incomplete in some way," Suguro tilted his head, thinking. "Or like not everything of him was around."
"And Joseph told me it was hiding in the scar?"
"On the kid's forehead, yeah," Suguro nodded.
"Piece of soul, most curious..." Seven mumbled.
"You know something?"
"Oh, don't mind me!" Seven said quickly, his happy, sing-songy tone back and even more annoying."I'm just standing here, planning murder!"
"Ouch?" Joseph asked, raising slightly his eyebrows.
"Ouch indeed," Seven grunted. "Can you do me a favor and keep an eye on the brat? He's somewhat important, you see, symbol of hope and golden mutton of sorts, you know."
"Gathered that much," Suguro shrugged. "And I promised to be in contact already anyway. Something I should expect?"
"Idiots with magical sticks," Seven wandered across the room with dance in his steps. "And now I'm sorry, but I have to attend to important matters!"
He bowed deeply and then just disappeared with a quiet pop.
"That was... weird," Suguro said after a moment of silence.
"You get used to it."
"Well now at least I know where your lack of temper came from."
"Compared to them, working with you is gloriously boring," Joseph grinned widely. "No offense, of course."
Suguro just shrugged, trying to piece together all the new information he received with things he already knew. The image was turning to be more and more disturbing, especially around Harry. The brat was just a brat, nothing less, nothing more. Yet, the magical world was treating him like some sort of special snowflake, at the same time refusing to give the kid tools that would at least give him a chance. That was just plain unfair.