A/N: Hello again! I'm really grateful for all the reviews and other forms of support! It's really crazy how many people decided to follow this story, I never expected something like that!
Right now, I'm slowly going through editing stuff that was already published - no changes in the storyline, just making the chapters more readable.
I'll try to keep up the updates monthly, but the next one might be late - I'm going to be pretty occupied with real life.

Chapter 5
A Curious Case Of A Very Bored Goat

Not being on the active duty didn't mean that Ryuji had all the time he wanted just for himself.

Actually, it was a reason why he was spending even more time working by the desk. Now he understood perfectly well why teach Okumura had always energy drinks on hand. This stuff was hopelessly boring.

At least when he was talking his face of about demons of Japanese origins his audience wasn't bunch of inexperienced kids but full fledged exorcists, so he was spared all the dumb questions. Well, most of them. When he wasn't at job he was supposed to rest from, he was either trying to not get thrown out of school, or he was keeping himself in shape and trying to have eye on Harry. At least Suguro was able to mix together the last two things together, otherwise he would be forced to drop sleeping.

How exactly Joseph imagined it to be resting?

Suguro shook his head. The old exorcist was probably just getting his petty revenge out of it.

He groaned, then continued on typing. He wanted the whole case about the zombies - well, excluding his stupid fall - archived and accessible for the rest of his group. Maybe someone would be able to tell him, why these undead suckers were so eager to jog around the town, no matter how many times they were send to the other side.

Shortly after finishing the cram school and officially gaining their first Meisters, they happened to have more and more missions in pairs instead as a whole group. Sometimes not even that, instead of working with people they weren't even familiar with. Konekomaru decided that it was time to put some sort of a system together. Soon enough a database was created, easily accessible to all of them, no matter where they were.

It was a good way to check out if the others were fine too. After some mishaps with very badly placed calls - for example right in the middle of mission that required stealth - Neko added a function that automatically showed up list of people that were active for the last twenty-four hours.

It was really useful, especially after they started to travel further and further away.

/Even zombies are running at your sight?

It was a reaction he pretty much expected, but still snarled at the screen.

/Rin, if you have nothing important to share then get out.

/Rude!

/You bring it on yourself. Bon, I do not know how somebody would be able to summon familiars for distance long enough to not be visible.

/Could there be a summoning ring somewhere on that graveyard?

/If that was the case then this would have occurred long time ago. It was only a month since they started to rise.

/Fair point. Send the history of that place, not only the graveyard, I'll try to find something similar.

Ryuji groaned. Great. While he hadn't anything specific about spending a lot of time in the libraries, he really had enough work by the desk right now. But no choice now. Once Miwa set his mind onto something, there was no turning back, so the archives it was. Maybe he could talk somebody with esquires under his wing to lend a hand?

He scratched his chin. Definitely worth a try, the new recruits needed to learn how to search for important things through lots and lots of useless data after all.

"I'm getting lazy," Ryuji groaned, stretching his arms. "Way too much time with the idiot!"

It really wasn't Suguro's fault that he got stuck with Rin for almost a year, since he could control him almost as good as the other Okumura. Or so Mephisto said. It was probably either him or Angel and really, everything was better than leaving Rin anywhere near the Paladin. There was many more reasons for putting them on one team, starting with the origins of Kurikara to the fact that their Meisters were a neat combination.

After spending so much time it wasn't all that strange for something to rub in, no matter how irritating it was.

Ryuji hoped that Rin at least got something annoying out of it too, otherwise it just wouldn't be fair.

He tapped an quick answer and turned the computer off. He had people to hunt down.

xxx

Hunting down exorcist involved in some way with esquires and pages was pretty simple; he had to just wait in the kitchen for somebody to show up.

It was probably the biggest room in the whole building, because some bright soul decided, that smashing the walls between two different flats on the ground floor was a good idea.

Besides, it definitely made moving inside the whole building way less complicated.

And turned the kitchen into the main common area. There even was not one but two wide tables by the wall and a bunch of chairs - each one completely different from another - and two ovens, so nobody would fight over a cooking place. On the other hand, nobody was really interested in cooking at all and were living mostly on TV-Dinners and take-outs. Besides tea, because these people for some strange reason found proving the stereotypes to be right utterly hilarious.

Suguro sat down by the table and continued to work on his next presentation about oriental demons. While he had a chance to drop one job on somebody else, there was no reason for not working on another one while he had some time on hand. If he had unlucky day today, then he would just wind up with materials for another one or two session ready to go at any time.

"Fancy seeing you here," and he didn't end up waiting for really long at all.

Suguro smiled. "Same goes for you, May."

Mbali May was in her mid-thirties and before she became an exorcist she was a model. Seemed to enjoy this job much more and probably was the best tamer not only in the cell, but the whole south region of Britain. And she was one of the people Suguro needed, currently monitoring first year of the esquires.

"Cut the sweets and start talking," she rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Is this that obvious?"

"Pretty much," May grinned widely at him. "Nobody bring job down here, so you want something from somebody. By the way, normal people use newspapers to look innocent, you know."

"Never liked crosswords too much," Suguro mumbled, a bit ashamed that he was busted so easily. "But yeah, you're right, I need something."

"From me?" May raised eyebrow.

"More or less?"

"Talk," she ordered nonchalantly, sitting down in front of him, her big, dark eyes shining with interest.

So he told her vaguely about the irritating way too lively zombies and how he needed to borrow some esquires and pages to do the boring part of his job. All that, while trying not to stare at her too much. At least Ryuji wasn't as awkward as during the first week here, when the wide race diversity smacked him right in the face. He knew it would be different in London than it was in the Japan, but seeing was the whole different thing than knowing.

Besides, she was just oozing with self-confidence, turning every small defect into one hell of an advantage. Even the scars, bright white lines shining on the dark skin, she was wearing like the most precious jewelry.

"Ah!" Mbali laughed quietly, when he finished speaking about the weirdly acting zombies. "These!"

"You meet them too?"

"Nah," she waved her hand at him. "But your partner is quite the gossip, you know."

Suguro grimaced.

"So, how was the flight?"

Ryuji moaned and hid face in his hands, wishing to be someplace else. "Bug off, will you?"

"This is not going to die so easily," Mbali warned him. "Especially since you royally pissed Joseph off, you know."

"How many times I need to say that I get it?" he groaned.

Then shook his head. He wasn't hanging out around here just to moan about stupid gossiping people and being ashamed by dumb mistakes.

"Anyhow, I think they will be back in a few days. Or that this could happen somewhere else, so it would be useful to learn something about how it happened in the first place."

"And you think the answer is in the archives?"

"Worth a try," he said. "Besides, the kids need to learn how to do this stuff anyhow..."

"And you are just too lazy to do it yourself, aren't you?"

"More like I have enough on my plate as it is," Suguro said. It's not like she wasn't there when he was stuck in the auditorium, talking about demons and explaining differences in their behavior in comparison to the European monsters.

"Well, keep your notes, then," Mbali shrugged. "If you piss Joseph enough you will end up with new bath of pages on your very own hand."

Ryuji snorted. "I'm not planning to become a teacher."

"And you really think he will let you decide?" she chuckled. "This is so very naive of you!"

"Whatever," he mumbled, making mental note to try and not do anything stupid anytime soon. "Can I borrow your kids?"

"I can send them, why not," the woman opened the fridge and then grimaced. "And if you find out who is stealing my yoghurt I would be deeply grateful."

Suguro decided it was definitely time to get away from the kitchen, before he accidentally say a thing too much. Since Joseph was still pissed off, outing his little stealing habits would be a really bad thing to do.

xxx

Compared to the magical books, the stuff exorcists were learning from looked rather underwhelming. It was just a book, pretty thick and with cover that definitely saw the better times and many, many hands. It looked almost like it was about to fall into pieces when handed wrong. The paper was yellow and crumbled on the edges and there was almost as many loose pieces of paper shuffled between the pages of the actual book.

The letters weren't as straight an usually in book, probably written with use of a writing machine instead of computer.

The drawings were unmoving, which wasn't all that surprising, considering they were created by Muggles. Mostly black and white, sometimes - mostly added to the loose pages - there were photographs in color too.

All were gloomy, dry and looked like mix between pure scientific research and ancient drawings of mythological creatures. For some reason, they were looking really upsetting, even like that. The dry notes on the margins and over the small letter weren't helping the matter at all. They were telling about how to defeat these things after all and they weren't exactly shying off from dealing with the problem in the most... sufficient way.

On the other hand, nobody was shying off from the most gruesome details about how the monsters were killing people either.

This, Harry decided, was stuff straight from the Restricted Section of the library. If even somebody was even keeping that sort of stuff at Hogwarts, where curious students could be exposed to something as gruesome as this.

He knew that the exorcist was curious about magic, so they actually exchanged books. Harry couldn't help himself, but add into the mix the toothy, aggressive volume that Hagrid asked them to purchase when he started to teach, curious how Suguro would react.

He should have expected it.

The moment the book tried to take a bite from him, was followed second later with the volume hitting the floor with loud spat.

Then the exorcist stepped on it, hard. And then again.

"You little piece of shit, do you think you can chew on me just like that?!" Suguro growled.

The book whimpered miserably.

After that, it was obedient like a good dog, probably absolutely scared of getting stepped on again.

Exorcists were truly terrifying people, Harry decided.

Comparing both worlds was an interesting experience for both of them. The magical creatures and things that exorcists called demons were both similar and completely different at the same time. The Goblins Magical World knew about were completely different from the things they knew. Dementors acted like spiteful spirits, but weren't them. Even the ghosts were different.

"How come you never knew about this?" Harry asked, blinking, when they talked about it for the first time. "I mean, if you guys were fighting monsters for long time now, you definitely had to bump into some of them, right?"

"Point, "Suguro nodded. "But as far as I understand, all the magical things are in hiding, right?"

Harry chewed on his lip for a moment. "That makes sense, I guess... But still, nothing?"

"Isn't it the same in every world?" Suguro smirked. "You are never told all the details, all the secrets are never revealed."

"So, you think somebody knew?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure of it."

"But isn't that unfair?" Harry protested. "I mean, somebody could get seriously hurt just because he didn't know what he was dealing with!"

"We have a lot of safety protocols," Suguro murmured. "The death rate is so high, because... uh, damn, nevermind."

There was a story behind it and he wasn't sure he wasted to hear it, considering how the exorcists expression darkened.

Back then, Harry decided not to ask and instead changed topic to something more comfortable for both of them. But now, when he was sitting at home completely alone, he couldn't help himself, but think back and trying to guess what it was.

The Dursleys ventured with Dudley quite early that day, managing to squish visit with every doctor in one day; since his cousin weigh was still an issue and Aunt Petunia got slightly paranoid that he would get overboard and actually hurt himself by following his new workout schedule. Dudley, naturally, wouldn't listen to her, because he had a new goal in his life – he wanted to get a better set of muscles than Suguro and Harry couldn't quite decide if it was the most stupid thing in the world or just awkwardly adorable.

Anyhow, Aunt Petunia made a bunch of phone calls and the family had no other choice than to follow her instructions. Harry, somehow, managed to excuse himself from the whole deal, but now he had no idea what to do with himself. The homework was already done and he wasn't in the mood to randomly read through his schoolbooks again. Besides, he borrowed the most interesting ones to Suguro anyway.

Harry quickly discovered that TV was completely not his thing and it didn't change this evening either. He turned it on, then proceed to switching through channel after channel looking for anything that would be even slightly interesting, but he failed to find anything. So, five minutes and over a hundred channels later, he was still bored out of his skull.

For a moment he toyed with the thought of calling Suguro, but Harry didn't want to annoy him too much. It was pretty easy to tell that the young exorcist was a really busy person. It was already awesome that he somehow managed to squish some free time out of his schedule just to hang out, since he was having the job with really odd – and quite often long – hours and school to top that. Besides, what he could tell him? I'm bored, please, do entertain me?

Harry shook his head. That would be just ridiculous and totally bratty thing to do. He wasn't five. He groaned and stood up, deciding that taking a long bath and then going to sleep was the best thing he could do at the moment.

It was just the moment when the magical world suddenly remembered that one Harry Potter actually existed. With a loud crack of apportantion, several figures suddenly appeared in the middle of the neat salon, at least two of them leaving dirty footprints on the shiny, wooden floor.

Harry was startled, but after he recognized the odd posture of Alastor Moody – probably this time the real one – and slightly hunched figure of Remus Lupin, he relaxed slightly and let the annoyance hit him. He had no idea how many times he had cleaned this floor on his knees, making sure the wood looked shiny enough and without any marks and here they were in their dirty shoes, casually leaving bits and pieces of whatever was on their soles on that pretty floor of his.

Then they told him that he was supposed to pack his bags and go with them.

"Just like that?" he asked.

"There's no time for that, boy!" Moody barked at him. "Now, hurry on!"

"I think I need to talk to my aunt and uncle first..." he mumbled, not really eager to leave the Privet Drive. Because going back to the magical world was same to jumping back into the middle of madness, no mention no way to contact Suguro – and keeping in check with the exorcist was really important, even if he couldn't really name the reason why. Harry didn't feel quite ready to return to the magical world just yet. He had the most peaceful summer vacations ever and felt almost cheated by people appearing without any previous warning and demanding that he needed to go back right now.

"Don't be silly, we don't have time to deal with the muggles," Moody hissed. "Somebody would visit them later."

"And they are supposed to be just fine with discovering in the morning that I'm not here?"

"Harry," Lupin sighed, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know this is difficult, but we need to go now. It's really important."

"Sure," he huffed. "Right. Now it is important. And a month before..."

"We are going to explain everything when we arrive at the place, okay?" Remus said quickly. "Now, where are your things?"

Harry sighed heavily.

xxx

The Grimmaur Place nr 12 was a rather gloomy place, Harry decided. It looked more like hideout of a villain than the hangout place of the good guys. Even with the curtains teared down from the windows, it was still dark inside and the old tapestry in shades of green and midnight blue wasn't helping to make it feel more homey.

Everything – the furniture, the old portraits in heavy frames, the giant chandelier still covered in thick, complicated spider web that somehow got forgotten during the cleaning – looked more like a mausoleum than a real house people were supposed to live in.

And there were a lot of them, Harry noted, looking around. The people who brought him here, a few more faces he was unfamiliar with, Hermione and Ron, and Ron's mom, so somewhere probably was the rest of the Weasley family. Sirius probably was around somewhere too, Remus already told him who this place belonged to.

"Harry!" Ron grinned widely, when he spotted him. "How to good to see you, mate!"

Then he hugged him tightly in a split of second crossing the distance between them.

Harry tensed.

"Guess so..." he murmured, humorlessly, not hugging back. Maybe he was acting like a brat, but hell, Ron was even worse. Like Harry wasn't sending him letters with desperate pleas for a whole freaking month.

"Harry, we were worried..." Hermione was no better.

"Really?" Harry grunted, unwrapping himself from Rons arms. "Wouldn't think so."

"Harry," she sighed. "I'm really sorry we couldn't write anything important, but Professor Dumbledore told us..."

"Dumbledore?" he shook his head. "Why would he even care about you writing to me about what is really going on in the magical world?"

"Well, he said that you needed some time on your own, to deal with all that happened in the fourth year..."

"No," Harry shook his head. "That was not what I needed at all. My letters hadn't give you any clue?"

"But Professor...!"

"I don't fucking care about Dumbledore!" Harry growled. "I needed to know what is going on! Do you even know how does it feel, when you're just sitting there, waiting, worrying sick that there is something really bad going on?"

Hermione shoulders slumbered with embarrassment.

"Right you are," Harry huffed, mercilessly continuing his rant. "Silence. Silence was all I received from all of you. Are you guys proud?"

"Guess so..." he murmured, humorlessly. Maybe he was acting like a brat, but hell, Ron was even worse. Like Harry wasn't sending him letters with desperate pleas for a whole freaking month.

"Harry, we were worried..." Hermione was no better. Nor the only one.

Harry found himself in a very awkward situation with a nothing else than a real queue of people wanting to hug him and ask how he was doing. And not waiting for the answer, since somebody else wanted to hug him.

He had also the amazing experience with meeting the old lady Black, screeching from her portrait and observing Sirius sneering back at her.

Was he seriously living in this mansion with that thing on the wall? Harry was sure that this wasn't the best thing for Sirius. After over a decade in the Azkaban prison, with the Demetors roaming around, he really shouldn't be in place so dark. Harry didn't know much about the evil spirits and everything connected to the demons, but just seeing how many Coal Tars were flying around - swarming around his head to the point he could barely see Sirius's eyes - this just couldn't be good.

"I'm fine," he said, hoping that would cause all these people to give him a moment to breathe. "I really am. But I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore. Is he here?"

"Harry, darling, Professor Dumbledore is a really busy man..." Mrs. Weasley started.

"That's kind of important?" he added awkwardly. He really needed to ask about that Voldemort wraith. Did he knew about it, being with him? Did he suspected it? And how the piece of dark lord soul got stuck on his forehead in the first place... Harry would be glad with even a some sort of dumb theory, something quickly made up.

"If this is about the letter from the Ministry, then don't worry," Lupin smiled warmly at him and put a his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Everything is going to end just fine, they have no reason to throw you out."

"They seems to think otherwise," Harry deadpanned. "But this is not it. Still important, through."

"You're not worried about the process?" Sirius blinked with a clear surprise.

"But Harry!" Hermione gasped. "This is really important, don't you see what they are doing?"

"Sort of but not really?" he shrugged. "Listen, really, it's fine. I just have something more important to talk about with Dumbledore and I really would like to do it as fast as possible."

"If this is about all the question in yours letters..." Mrs. Weasley started.

"That's important too, but no." he shook his head. "I still want the answers, but since nobody wanted to give me these..."

He shrugged." It seems like I don't need to know anything about what's going on in the magical world at all, right?"

"It's not that!" Hermione said quickly. "It's just..."

"We couldn't write anything, because somebody could get his hands on the letters," Lupin carefully explained. "I'm sorry, but we couldn't endanger anybody in such way."

"But you uh... stopped writing," Ron pointed out, not looking at him and scratching back of his neck, clearly ashamed. " Does that mean, that... you know, you're okay now? Or you just gave up on us?"

Harry blinked. That was the truth, after the whole deal with the exorcism, he tried to write, but had no idea how to explain things. And since his friends clearly didn't care enough to explain stuff to him… Well, there wasn't much else to write about. So he was promising himself that he will send the letters tomorrow, and when the next day come he was sure that he will be done on the another day for sure. The days just flew.

Finally, Harry just shrugged again. He felt like they deserved the truth, so there was no point of sugar coating a single thing.

"Both, I think."

"Now, Harry I don't believe there's a reason to be so harsh..." Lupin said quickly, trying to be some sort of neutral medium between them.

His mouth moved on its own before he even realized it."Sorry, but you're no better."

"Harry, we have our reasons..."

"Yes, you probably did," he sighed. "But think for a moment, how it looked like from my perspective. I... I just saw somebody die right in front of my face and then Voldemort literally rised from the grave. And then I was just put away at the Dursleys, with no one to talk to."

"We were here all the time, mate!" Ron hurried up with explanation. "But we really don't know anything, all the adults do is so hush-hush that even Fred and George can't get a word..."

"Ron!" Lupin hissed. "You shouldn't be ever trying to spy on us! It's really dangerous!"

"But we want to help!"

"You're just kids, you shouldn't worry about things like that!" Mrs. Weasley hurried up with explanation, hushing her son when he tried to protest.

"Well, funny you mention Voldemort," Harry grinned. That was probably not the very best thing to do in his situation and would freak out everybody, but he really needed to talk to Dumbledore. "Because we sort of have meet this summer. I think I'll need to talk to Professor Dumbledore-"

He couldn't even finish the sentence.

"What?!"

"Harry, are you all right?"

"Now I'm fine, but before that... did you knew that I was running around with piece of Voldemort souls stuck to my forehead all the time since he outed himself at Halloween all these years ago?"

"Harry James Potter, these jokes are not funny at all!"

"But I'm not joking," he said. "Uncle Vernon decided to actually do something and contacted an exorcist. And so, I was exorcised. Imagine my surprise, when it actually worked and a fucking Dark Lord came out of my forehead!"

Mrs. Weasley gasped, through Harry wasn't exactly sure, why. Was it because he was talking about Voldemort – using his name, for Merlin sake! – or was it was about the foul language or just the information was what on his forehead all that time?

"This was just some sort of a trick, I'm sure of it!" Sirius said, but his eyes were telling otherwise. He exchanged odd stares with Lupin.

"An exorcist!" Hermione gasped. "But that's… that's just ridiculous!"

"He probably hoped to exorcise the magic out of me and that's what the exorcist expected to deal with too. Well, actually they expected to have just talk an idiot out of some dumb stuff he believed in or send him to a hospital to get his head checked, or something." Harry explained.

"That's horrible, man!" Ron looked at him, his eyes wide. "Could they even do that? Take the magic from you?"

"I don't think so…" he murmured. "Funny, I never asked about that."

"Wait, wait!" Sirius shook his hands. " So your muggle uncle was just walking around babbling about magic around other muggles?"

Harry blinked. "Yeah?"

"That's not important at the moment!" Mrs. Weasley hissed at him, then looked at Harry with a worried expression on her face. "Are you sure you're okay, dear? Did they hurt you?"

"No, they were totally fine!" he said quickly. "But they said that the dark spirit being in me was messing with everybody's heads, something with bad stuff not able to cross through the wards around the house."

"They told them about the wards?!" Lupin groaned painfully.

"Er, no. One of them could see the wards just fine. Whatever these wards actually are."

"That's ridiculous!" Sirius shook his head. "You can't see the wards, that the whole point about them! You don't set them up so they could shine around your place like a giant Christmas tree! And a muggle seeing them, that's just…!"

"Well," Harry stepped back a little, because his Godfather was getting louder and louder with every word he spoke. "I don't know how he was able to see them. And that's not the point. The thing is, the Voldemort was there and I have no idea why. That's why I want to talk to Dumbledore."

The glances were exchanged. Hermione and Mrs. Weasley were still fretting over him, while Ron was just standing there, not sure what to do with himself. Once or twice he twitched, like he wanted to walk towards Harry and do something, but stopped himself, a sour expression blooming on his face.

Finally, the decision was made and Professor Lupin walked away to contact Professor Dumbledore by a Floo. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weasley shooed them all to kitchen, probably because she decided that food was just the thing everybody needed.

Harry spend the next few moments jabbing potatoes on his place. He wasn't really hungry, but he didn't want to hurt Mrs. Weasley feelings.

Professor Dumbledore, alarmed by the news, showed up pretty quickly and asked him to go someplace where they could talk in peace and Harry obediently followed, suddenly feeling slightly nervous. The joyful tingle in Headmaster eyes was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a serious air around him. The little demons in his path probably were able to tell that too, because they were jumping out of his way even before he was about to bump into them, creating a clear path in the dark corridor.

They settled in a room that served as a bedroom for Ron and his brothers, considering the mess inside. Ron trousers were lying on the floor, next to a sock without a pair, and the beds were covered with a lot of different stuff too. Clothes, unwrapped candy and just the wrappers, sparkling in the dim light. Headmaster carefully put away a sport magazine with some Quidditch team flying on the cover and sat down.

Harry decided to take a chair, because he only had to grab all the clothes on it and throw them on the other one instead of digging a bit of space for himself on the other bed.

"So…" he started awkwardly. "Can you tell me something? About Voldemort, I mean. Why he was..."

Harry stopped, looking for the right words and failed in his search.

"I would really like to see the exorcism for myself, if you don't mind," the old wizard said.

"See?"

"Ah, yes! Just concentrate on the memory and I'm going to extract it with my wand," Dumbledore explained. "Do not worry, this is not going to hurt and you're still going to remember it."

"Okay?" Harry said with a small shrug. He didn't really understood where the old wizard was going with all that, but if it was going to help, then he had nothing against rolling with it.

A moment later, a silver mist was floating around the wand, shiny and elegant. Harry didn't know how exactly the thoughts were supposed to looks like, but he wasn't expecting something so… neat coming out of his head. Especially now, when he was still battling his own emotions, unable to say if he was anxious, angry or just sad about being left alone for so long.

Headmaster waved his wand and the silvery thought suddenly exploded around them in a blast of colors. Harry gasped, surprised by sudden light and blinked. When he opened his eyes, the memory was spread around them, the messy room still visible behind, but dimmed and dark compared to bright colors and silhouettes of people that seemed to be shining.

Harry felt rather odd, suddenly facing himself from few weeks ago, sitting on the floor by the bed with a really scared expression on his face. The t-shirt on his memory-self looked dirty, just like the rest of his room and Harry eyed carefully the headmaster, feeling the blush creeping up into his cheeks, but the old wizard seemed to be completely absorbed by observing what was going on.

The moment when the wraith manifested itself was almost as terrifying as when he lived through the whole situation, a menacing shape creating itself from the darkness around. It was growing rapidly, towering above everyone in the memory, draining the colors from the world.

Harry tore his eyes from the Dark Lord and looked at the Dumbledore instead. Just then, the wraith spoke in the unclear words and raspy, high–pitched voice and Headmasters eyes widened slightly.

"What was he talking about, Professor?" he asked quietly.

Dumbledore was silent for a moment and Voldemort was burning in the middle of the room that seemed to lose its clarity for a moment; the silhouettes of everybody turned fuzzy like he lost his glasses or something, the colors blending together into vague stains. Then, suddenly everything looked fine once again. Voldemort was dying and Coal Tars were flying furiously around, trying to get away from the blazing fire only to stop rapidly in front Suguro.

Who didn't looked quite human either, standing in the fiery blaze himself, flames dancing on his skin, seeming to rise straight from the small cut on his hand. The fire seemed to take a shape of some sort of a winged creature, but it was so bright, Harry couldn't stop his eyes from watering. But he stared anyway, not sure how the whole thing with memory worked. He was really sure that all he saw during the fight was lord Voldemort spirit and then a sudden burst of fire. So why now could he gaze into Suguro's burning, bright eyes?

Harry shook his head. That wasn't important at the moment. What really matters…

"Can you explain why he was there, sir?" he asked. "I mean, he already have a body, so how it was possible for him to be… there?"

Dumbledore was silent for a few moments. After he finally decided to speak, his voice was quiet, and for some reason, he sounded old.

"Three years ago, you showed me a destroyed diary. Since then, I suspected that Voldemort have done something truly terrifying. This…"

The headmaster shook his head.

"Did you suspected that he had done something to me?"

"Please, Harry," Dumbledore looked straight at him, his pale blue eyes had a truly serious look. "Give an old man some time to put his own thoughts together. "

"Well, he sort of came right out of my head, so at least some explanation…" Harry found his mouth running and bit his tongue, feeling slightly ashamed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that… but I'm really scared. I just want to understand, what happened."

"Me too, my boy."

xxx

Sitting in a lone chair in the middle of really huge room, surrounded by gloomy looking members of Wizengamon, Harry Potter by all means should be at the end of his wits, sweating and panicking between fits of utter frustration.

He probably would be doing that just now, if not for the goat.

Because there was a goat, right in front of him, mere few feet away, staring at him with apathetic eyes.

The goat looked utterly bored and like it needed a bath rather desperately; tangled fur that once could be whiteish has uncomfortable grey coloring to it and there were disturbing dark spots on it too, especially around goat's jaw.

The wizards were completely oblivious to her existence and Harry Potter found that fact astonishing.

Here they were, glorious and mighty, refusing to believe in mass murdered return, snapping at him every time he tried to open his mouth to try and answer their questions and they hadn't the slightest idea that there was ghost of a goat in the middle of their courtroom.

His aunt was right, wizards were beyond ridiculous.

The whole thing looked like taken right out of some B class movie about unjust world or something like that, just with weird violet clothes and with people who were not even trying to hide the fact that they were insulting each other – and him, mostly. Especially the toad–like lady, who seemed to love the sound of her own voice, since she was going on and on, sweetly spitting more and more absurd words.

The goat looked completely disinterested.

He tried to tell them about the Dementors, since somebody asked, but besides being amazed about his ability to use a Patronus Charm, nobody really listened to him. Then Arabella Figg, who just conveniently happened to be a squib, tried to tell them the same story.

The toad-like lady jumped at her chance and started telling poor Mrs. Figg what she was supposed and not see. Harry Was pretty sure the goat snickered.

"Mister Potter!" somebody demanded his attention. "Are you even listening?!"

"Aha," he said, nodding. His brain still felt like something was broken inside.

They were hidden society of very proud people, because they knew something about the world that mundane muggles did not. They lived among magical beast, so sure that they saw it all and knew best, because they had power and could do whatever they want...

And now Harry had the greatest proof that they were not that special. There was yet another hidden world, that seemed to be even more dangerous than magical one and muggles were doing just fine, inviting a way to fight they way through the pure horror, while wizards were completely oblivious to ghostly goat existence.

The spirit seemed to share his sentiment. It chewed a few times on nothing then tilted head a little, eyeing for a short moment Dumbledore - and when exactly he showed up anyway? - who was in the middle of very complicated speech about morality and innocence. A lone Coal Tar flew by him, yawning widely, two others were trying to chew on Harry's shoelaces. They were really adorable for a spirits that were possessing dirt. And definitely much more interesting than Wizengamon.

The session finally ended, showing him mercy and letting keep his wand intact, which probably was a nice turn of events.

Harry wasn't sure anymore. He loved magic of course, but right now he would prefer a little bit of mundane in the mix. A year without anybody trying to kill him would be a really nice thing.

Dumbledore was not even looking at him, just leading him through corridors of Ministry to where lift was and Coal Tars were dancing happily around them or even floating on paper-planes of great importance. Harry walked carefully, so he wouldn't step on one of them accidentally, which made the whole venture even longer.

xxx

The moment Harry arrived back at the Grimmaur Place he was instantly swarmed by everybody who lived there, temporary or not. Once again, there was a lot of hugging, a lot of happy shouts and no way out. He just sighed and let them do whatever they wanted, because that was the fastest way to be done with all that mess and get away.

After he went through the hugging – which seemed to be not one, but two rounds this time – Mrs. Weasley dragged him to the kitchen and was close to force-feeding him, since he still was too thin in her protective eyes. Not that he had anything against the food, Mrs. Weasley was really great at cooking. He just got issue with how much of it he was supposed to fit inside his stomach.

At least after he was done, he could use the excuse of being exhausted by the stress of getting through the fight in the courtroom and find a lonely corner just for himself.

However most of Grimmaur Place was still out of commission. There were dangerous and dark things hidden in too many corners to count, so he could just wander deeper into the dim corridors and got lost for a few hours. Because of that, soon after he curled into one of the ancient, green armchairs with Suguro's book, Harry found himself having a company.

"So," Hermione said slowly, rocking on the balls of her feet, trying to not sound very awkward while starting this conversation. "What are you reading?"

"A book?" Harry answered carefully, closing the battered up volume. He wanted to find out what the ghostly goat exactly was and why it was hanging out in the court room instead of somewhere outside, like any other good farm animal. But he didn't feel really good with letting other people know what he was reading.

In the worst case scenario they would decide that this book was pure dark stuff and take it away, as always not listening to any sort of reason at all. And the book was borrowed. Probably at least two times, since Suguro had to ask around for the English version. Losing it would be out of the question.

"This isn't anything from library over here, isn't it?" Hermione asked. "Because I tried to borrow some book from there, you know, to learn something about what Purebloods are reading in their free time and all, but they said it was absolutely impossible and all of these volumes could be dangerous..."

"No," he shook his head. "I borrowed it when I was still at Privet Drive."

"Oh, good then," Hermione nodded. Then bit her lip.

"Look," she started again. "I know we made a terrible mistake and we shouldn't just let Professor Dumbledore decide about everything we do... but I just didn't know what I was supposed to do! I mean, he should know better, right? All that knowledge, years of experience... he's supposed to be right!"

"And then the world proved you wrong in funny way, huh?" Harry asked.

She blushed brightly, turning her gaze away, clearly ashamed.

Harry grimaced.

Damn, he probably was channeling Suguro a bit too much. The exorcist was definitely rubbing on him and in more than just one way. Mrs. Weasley already told him what she was thinking about his new and improved language. And Harry was pretty sure that Suguro was censoring himself, since talking in foreign language and all.

And right now, one of his friends looked hurt, because he didn't know when to bite his tongue and stop talking. Deciding to end this as soon as possible, he put the book away, on the table next to his armchair. Her eyes followed the movement.

"Sorry," Harry said. "I'm still angry, but I shouldn't take it out on you like that."

"It's okay," Hermione sighed. "I really should have think instead just following orders. So… are we finally talking to each other?"

"We always were talking to each other," he mumbled quietly.

"Yeah, right," the girl rolled her eyes in theatrical manner. "I was talking, you were brushing me off. And I get why, I just… I think you made your point…"

Luckily, Ginny showed up before the conversation turned any more awkward. Because awkward it was, Hermione was just going on and on and would do it for the next hour, just to make sure she said everything she wanted to.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Just talking, I guess?" Harry answered quickly, before Hermione decided to shoo away the other girl. "And what are you doing?"

"Just being bored out of my scull, I guess," she shrugged. "Do you have any idea how dull all the jokes gets when you lived all your life with Fred and George under one roof?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Harry agreed. For a magical place, Grimmaur mansion was rather dull, since there was nothing for them to do other than carefully cleaning or doing their homework. Which was a problem, when it was already done.

"Huh," Ginny eyed the book with curious eyes and then picked it up and opened it, turning a few pages. "This is pretty wicked! Where you got that?"

"A friend borrowed it to me."

"He got an eye for wicked stuff, that's for sure!" she said, grinning widely, while stopping on particularly gruesome image. "Are these photos muggle? They aren't moving..."

Harry nodded.

She continued browsing through the book, barely blinking, completely fascinated by the strangeness of it all.

"Throwing knives at the windstorm?" Ginny frowned. "That just doesn't seems to be right!"

"You can always tell it you're strangling it with your belt..." Harry murmured. That sounded even more ridiculous than assaulting air with a knife.

"This is ridiculous!" Hermione winkled her nose. "Why are you even read something like that?"

"For fun?" he said, a little bit too quickly for it to sound really natural. But it would be quite hard to explain to people that he was seeing things they were unable to see. Considering how that woman in the court acted towards Mrs. Figg, the wizarding world was pretty sure that it saw it all.

"Well," Ginny shrugged. "We do have a vacation after all. He can read whatever he wants."

"But this is so... brutal!"

"Yeah," Ginny grinned. "Awesome!"

"I will never understand you two," Hermione shook her head.

Ginny just continued to flipping the pages in quick pace, with eyes wide open. A small blush of excitation crept up her cheeks as she was hungrily reading through bits and pieces randomly choosen from the content.

"Can I borrow it?" she asked.

"Uh, I think so…?" Harry said slowly, blinking. He was a bit surprised by her sudden interest in gruesome stories. But she was stuck here much longer than he or Hermione, so at this point anything different could pass as the most fascinating thing in her entire life. "Just be careful, it's not mine.

"Sure thing!" she almost jumped in excitation. "I will be totally careful, promise!"

And then she turned back on her heel and ran with the battered book hugged tightly in her arms.

"That was…" Hermione shook her head in confusion. "I have no idea what that was."

As soon as she finished the sentence, there was a loud thud coming from somewhere outside the room.

They looked at each other.

"You know what?" she murmured. "I'm going to check if she's okay. There were at least three false steps in the staircase and she seemed to be too excited to care where she put her feet, so…"

Harry was thinking of exactly the same thing, but since she was already halfway towards the doors, he decided to not follow her. Instead he just sighed and just changed his position, to be as comfortable as possible. Now he was without his book and alone and it looked like a neat opportunity for trying out how he would deal with the whole Zen meditation without Suguro being somewhere around. Sitting and just thinking was still somewhat strange for Harry.

But he barely managed to sit down, this time on the sofa so he could cross his legs, and take a deep breath before the doors opened again.

Figures, Harry thought, exhaling and opening his eyes. Of course he couldn't have a moment alone when the building was full of people who were worrying about him or just wanted to talk to him. Maybe in a day or two…

"So," Lupin started awkwardly, not sitting down but just standing there, like he expected to be banished from the room at any moment. "Everything ended up fine, yes?"

"I guess so?" Harry shrugged.

Sirius, who seemed to be attached by hip to his werewolf friend, at least he sat down instead of towering over people around him.

"You guess?" he asked, elbowing Harry.

"Well, you know, live without school, that would be something," Harry snickered.

"Yeah, sweet dreams," his Godfather grinned back. "But you're still a student and that's what's important, right?"

He didn't sound all that happy, Harry noticed.

"Anyway, Harry, since we have that awful thing with the ministry behind us," Remus started carefully. "Would you like to tell us something more how you spend your vacation?"

"Yeah, you seemed to be almost unhappy when the guys pulled you out of that house," Sirius pointed out.

Well, that could be quite puzzling for them, Harry had to agree. Usually the Privet Drive was like a prison for him, where only the work and unhappiness await. But this July was different and he really enjoyed it, the silence and not being forced to deal with all the dangers that seemed to gravity towards him every time he touched his wand.

"It got better," he said. "We found some sort of common language, I guess."

"And that new friend of yours?"

"He's fine," Harry said carefully. "Why are you asking?"

"Just trying to make up for the lost time, I guess!" Sirius gave him a toothy grin. "I should know what stuff you like, what sort of people you hang out with…"

"You know Hermione and Ron already," Harry pointed out.

"…do you have an eye on some girl!" Sirius continued happily, his smile widening when the man noticed the blush on Harry's face.

"I don't!" he protested, already feeling like his face was burning.

"Oh, are you sure?" Sirius playfully poked him into the ribs. "Because you seemed to be way to red for somebody who's innocent!"

"You're just asking all the weird questions!" Harry protested. He was falling deeper and deeper into a trap and couldn't do anything about that.

xxx

"And they took him?" Suguro asked, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. He wasn't around for a few days and this was what he was greeted with. "No hello, no kiss my ass, no nothing?"

"You got this in one," Vernon grunted unhappily. "They remembered that they had to send someone only after we started panicking it was the other group."

"Are you sure they are the good guys?" Ryuji massaged the back of his neck, grimacing. After meeting Seven Ryuji expected wizards to be annoying, but this was much more than he expected to deal with. Honestly, these people had no emotional intelligence whatsoever.

"They told us the bad guys would just kill us, so..." Vernon shrugged. "But sometimes it looks like they are not even considering us when they are doing their thing, good guys or not."

"Sounds like it," Suguro grimaced. Grabbing kid in the middle of the night, not letting him even use the phone to call his family definitely wasn't a nice move. Showing up the day later, after the family in question was about to start walking up the walls didn't seem fine to him either.

On the other hand, Dursley family managed to shake off negative effects of evil sucker surprisingly well, especially considering they spend years under its influence.

"And they took that blasted owl too!" Vernon continued his rant. "How in the world we are supposed to contact the boy without this freakish bird?!"

"Cell phones aren't mixing well with magic, aren't they?"

"No, they don't even work on their side," Vernon shook his head. "Ridiculous if you ask me."

"And what about that law issue?" Suguro frowned slightly. They're going to tell you what's going on?"

"Right now they told us only there's nothing to worry about," Vernon grunted. "As if!"

"So, nothing about these Dementors either," Suguro sighed.

"Not a word."

"We can send a patrol around, just to be sure," Suguro said, deciding to not explain how exactly these patrols were looking like. There was no reason to tell tales about how local tamer was able to summon swarm of locust or other insects to do her bidding. Bugs alone were freaking people out. No reason to scare them even more with talk about ghostly insects.

Just as Suguro was about to say his goodbyes, Dudley showed up at the corner of the street and greet them loudly, before jogging towards his house. He was red on the face and his breath was short.

Suguro frowned slightly at the sight of him.

"Don't you think it's a little too hot for running?"

"That's why I'm doing it in the morning!"

"This," the exorcist said slowly. "Is not the morning."

"Well, maybe for you," Dudley shrugged. "What you call a morning is the middle of the night of everybody else."

Suguro rolled his eyes.

"Well, at least try to remember about drinking a lot of water," he huffed. "Dehydration is not a funny thing."

Vernon snickered slightly, observing the interactions between these two. At first, he wasn't sure if letting Dudley go hang out with that cousin of his and the exorcist was a good idea. After all, Duds was his only, precious son, so Vernon ought to be careful with him and look carefully at what sort of people his boy was spending time with.

But Suguro was fretting even more over both of the boys than Petunia was, and she really was giving her best for Duddy. It wasn't the first time when he was nagging about getting enough fluids and for whatever reason, Vernon was always finding it hilarious. It was quite hard for him to not laugh the young exorcist in the face.

"Yeah, yeah," Dudley waved his hand, completely ignoring the stern glare. "Dad already told you about the fre...uh! magicians that took Harry, right?"

After Suguro nodded, Dudley told him about the Dementors showing up three days ago, since Harry hadn't the chance to do so himself, at least in not such great detail.

"Naturally, nobody else decided to explain why in the world these things were even out in the open?" Ryuji scowled, when the boy finally finished his story and the glass of water. After the conversation headed towards the stuff Mr. Dursley considered to be not normal, he rushed them both inside.

"Not a word," Vernon grunted. "And Petunia told me that these… things are supposed to be only in that prisons of theirs."

"Prison?" Suguro blinked. "Wizards are keeping these things shut?"

"It's the other way around, I think. These things happened to be prison guardians."

"Wait, what?" Ryuji hoped, that he understood wrong, but no. Apparently Wizards decided that soul-sucking monsters were a great and cheap working force. Apparently not only the devil wanted his payment in souls.