Chapter 10
Prophecies and Knights
Making friends with your very own kidnappers. Mamushi huffed with irritation. She wanted to smack the brat over his dumb, dyed head. Only, Suguro wasn't a kid anymore and smacking him over the head had to involve way too much jumping for her liking. After dealing with this whole situation she probably would see to his training. After such a long time, Suguro surely became somewhat rusty, since melee weapons never were his first choice.
"At least he's fine," Joseph said with a sigh. The witch said the same thing, but it was entirely different thing to hear the good news from someone trustworthy.
"Suguro-dono should soon enough make a call to confirm his status," Mamushi continued.
"And that would be what, exactly?" Marie snickered. "Officially admitting that he waltzed right in the middle of a civil war?"
"Now at least we are aware that there is a war," Joseph said, fighting off the need to massage his temples. Discovering a whole new world was one thing, but bumping into it when it was in the middle of a serious internal conflict was a whole other issue. Not to mention, now they had to go back through a huge pile of archives, looking for a traces of magic and doing lots and lots of guesswork. Just how many of their decision were influenced by magical people trying to start hidden? How many decision of politicians and important public figures were influenced by a little, not so innocent charm? It was one huge headache awaiting.
"At least it seems to be a problem only on the British Isles," Mamushi said with a small shrug.
"Only?" Marie grunted.
"It definitely could be much more difficult if the entire... race, for the lack of better word, was at war, not only this small group of people."
They seriously needed a better dictionary or at least another language that had more than one word for "people", because they happened to come in more than one flavor. And it was getting troublesome linguistically.
"Yes, considering the numbers it's more like small city gang-war than anything else," Joseph sighed. "But considering they have unknown powers..."
He shook his head again. The report was already half-way written, followed by bits and chunks of another, but he couldn't quite get it to not sound ridiculous. Magic and wizards, and spells and Dark Lords… They could at least invent important titles that didn't sound stupid, but no. Supreme Mungwump it was, closely followed by bad French.
"That's the reason why Suguro-dono decided to stick around their group for a little longer," Mamushi continued. "And I do agree, even if I don't really agree with him being the person to do it."
"They already know him," Joseph pointed out. "That makes the whole situation a little bit easier to handle. Besides, Suguro is not prone to charge head on into trouble without a plan."
Mamushi rolled her eyes. "Unless he does. I hope to find a better way of communication. Abusing the Keys is hardly a good option."
"As far as I understood, the electronics doesn't work too well around magic," Marie grimaced. "And I sure as Hell don't want to working using methods I can't fully understand."
"We will find something."
"Right now, Suguro-dono is gaining as much intel as it is possible. Apparently, his new friends had a base filled with a rather interesting sort of books," the Japanese woman continued her report. Well, it wasn't actually her report. In the book, her name was not going to show up at all, switched to something else. Joseph couldn't quite grasp the controversy around the ex–exorcist, but it wasn't time nor place to ask questions. She was doing shady work and the kid trusted her with the shady work. So it was enough for him. Temporary.
Marie brushed her hair aside, her movement startling Joseph back into paying attention to the conversation. "We already have some of those."
"Schoolbooks," Mamushi corrected. "They don't have nothing on a stuff he managed to put his hands on. It would help with at least recognizing the damage."
"At least…" Joseph muttered under his breath. A grim thought, it was, to not know what you are facing and only hope that the enemy was lazy enough to not put a lot of effort in hurting the innocent. He felt the sudden need to flip the table. Or do something as stupid.
Bloody Blue Night! It definitely hurt the True Cross Order in many more ways than just reducing their numbers in a single moment to almost nothing; the flames that swallowed the bodies were as hungry as it was to be expected and devoured much more. Precious books and scrolls with irreplaceable data, artifacts of the old times – all gone. Even the archives deep underground were not left unscratched. Humans could do a nuke–proof bunker alright, but these were definitely not Satan–proof.
"Because of the new source of information and usefulness of the alliance, it would be a good idea to let the woman and the boy go," Mamushi finished. "They are of no use to us anymore."
"You just want to let them go?" Marie shook her head. "Just like that?"
"I was pretty sure they were not our prisoners," Joseph muttered.
"A conflict with an enemy we knows nothing about is definitely not desirable," Mamushi stated coldly. "Showing a little bit of trust might help us in the long run, especially since these people are interested with fighting along with us."
Marie definitely wanted to argue some more, but then the phone finally rang, startling them all off their chairs and then there were things to do.
xxx
"Can we repeat that?"
"Aren't you tired?" Tonks asked, arching one eyebrow at him. All the time they spend in the park, Sirius spend on moving around. Mostly chasing his own tail, some crazy bugs that decided the hot weather was ideal time to fly around or just jumping from one place to another. She was sure that he at least one managed to trash face–first into a tree, too.
"Yes!" he answered happily. "I want to do that again!"
"I think you just were a dog for faar too long, cousin," she said, shaking her head.
Tonks herself felt somewhat sticky, because beauty charms or not, it was hot on the outside. Her skin was a bit tingly too. She would probably end up with sunburns in weird shapes. It was always hard to tell what was wrong with her skin, because of the whole shape shifting business.
"What, you discovered something new about yourself?" Suguro snickered, gesturing towards his neck. There was still a leash dangling from a collar on Sirius' neck.
"What, you need to pick on someone because your girl was screaming at you for over ten minutes?" The wizard parroted the tone of his voice with admirable precision. It was fully deserved, too.
"Good one," Suguro admitted. "But now can you take it off. And go to the kitchen, bug Rin for some lemonade or something."
The wizard blinked, gaping at him for a short moment, then he returned to wrestling with the collar. It was hard to undo when he couldn't see what exactly he was doing.
"Though the jokes about you being a mother hen were just jokes."
Suguro pouted. "I don't want to end up dragging you only because you managed to over exercise yourself."
"There is that funny thing called magic, you know," Sirius commented, then yawned, not carrying about covering his mouth at all. "But eh, you might be right. I'm bad at keeping that sort of stuff reasonable."
Tonks giggled and Ryuji decided to leave it without any further commentary. Harry very vaguely mentioned his Godfather, but it was enough – especially after observing the guy for the past few days – to get the idea that Black was apeshit crazy. And Apeshit, Suguro understood. Rin was his friend, after all.
Instead, Ryuji looked around, counting all the magicians in the building. It became somewhat a habit of his, during the time of captivity. The hobo wasn't there, as usual; the wizards didn't seem to be too fond of the shady type that had a tendency to steal all the silverware he could stuff in his pockets. The werewolf, same as most of the wizards with actual jobs were not in the building either, excluding the shady and cranky Snape, who was doing his own staring from one of the dark corners with a sour look on his face. Suguro was pretty sure that it was his default expression.
Oddly enough, a person who wasn't in habit of showing up too often in the building actually was present. Blinding with a nasty fashion sense, too. Wherever Dumbledore was finding these clothes, the tailor definitely was mad like a hatter. Or was a hatter. Or the old wizard was just magicking his clothes to look as painful as it was humanly possible.
Suguro shuddered, forcing himself to ignore the fashion disaster and concentrated on observing what the old man was actually doing here.
Dumbledore himself, had a bad day. Week. Or even weeks, but also he knew very well which colors were capable of making a person looking fresh and healthy. He may have gone too far this time, but the experience said that horrendous details always were catching the eye of the observer and things that were supposed to be hidden, stayed hidden. Albus definitely did not need people worrying about his lack of sleep or other silly things like that.
What he needed, though… Albus needed to talk to Harry. He was batting the idea since the silly boy decided to stand against the dark lord in his very first year at Hogwarts no less and waltzed right in the middle of Dumbledore's trap. However Harry was just a child then and he didn't look too different now either. In the eyes of the old man everyone else seemed to be too young for learning of the things looming in the shadows. It was an unfair thing to do, to withhold the information about his destiny, but Albus couldn't force himself to tell the whole truth. Not after the Basilisk incident confirmed his worst fears. A chunk of Tom's soul attached itself to Harry and no magic could break the connection.
Then the young exorcist showed up and somewhat broke the reality. Or what Albus took for the reality. It forced him to rewrote many of his plans, but in all his years, Albus was never so happy to throw everything out of the window just to start from the scraps. Now the plans were all planned and he was all out of excuses. It was time to talk to the boy.
"Harry," Dumbledore said with a deep sigh. "If you truly wish to lean the answers, then follow me. I'm ready to explain. But be warned, some of the things I'm going to tell you... They are dangerous, Harry. Gravely dangerous to anybody who is going to find out anything at all about them."
"So," Harry said slowly with a frown on his face. "I'm not supposed to tell my friends, right?"
"I'm afraid so, Harry," the Headmaster nodded. "There are ways to seek through somebody's mind."
"And Voldemort knows how to do it," Harry finished for him.
"Indeed," Dumbledore sighed. "But many of his servants are capable of doing so too. Some of them capable enough to get a glimpse without the victim even noticing that something is wrong."
Leglimency was a scary branch of magic. In a hands of fool, it could break a human mind with ease. In a hand of intelligent man – the entire world could snap in a single moment.
"Well," Harry said after a short moment. "I'm already a target, aren't I? I just want to know why. I need to."
"Are you certain of that, Albus?" Snape was suddenly behind Harry, making the poor boy jump in surprise. He looked at the boy with a sneer, while Harry seemed to be forcing himself to not say certain things to Severus, trying hard to act like an adult who was ready to get the answers.
"This boy has a nasty tendency of getting himself in the trouble no matter what is he doing," Severus continued. "Merlin knows what the brat would do–"
"I believe, he deserves to know," Dumbledore said carefully. "He needs to at least know why he is the target, don't you think?"
Severus just huffed angrily, certainly dissatisfied with the decision.
"Can Suguro go with me?" Harry asked, his gaze wandering between the old wizard and the exorcist.
Dumbledore hadn't noticed when the young man returned from his stroll in the park, but Albus himself definitely wasn't unnoticed. Now he could feel the weight of his gaze upon his shoulder. If there was even a staring contest somewhere nearby, Severus wasn't the definite winner.
"This is supposed to be a very private conversation, Potter," Snape cut in with his usual sneer, grimacing, like he just tasted something sour. "That means you are supposed to keep these things secret from anyone."
"I know!" Harry grunted. "But you said it yourself, you can't get into his brain, right? And I don't want to run after Headmaster every five minutes, because I forgot to ask some important question!"
"And you believe others to remember such things for you?"
"Well, he is much better of picking stuff apart than I am," Harry shrugged. He was trying to think about clear blue skies, or blue water, or blue, peaceful something. He didn't want to give the nasty teacher the satisfaction and blow up, right before the man he was trying to prove that he indeed was to be treated like an adult, not as a child that needed to be sheltered.
Albus decided, that Harry's arguments were actually of the decent sort. The exorcist was smart and insightful and apparently he knew things Dumbledore himself was not aware of. Besides, he seemed to be fond of Harry. So he let the boy go and drag his new friend towards them.
"Well," Snape slightly raised eyebrows. "I must agree with you, boy. You definitely need somebody to do the thinking for you."
Suguro snorted.
"Sorry," he said, still chuckling. "But you seriously should rethink your life choices. You would be brilliant in a cabaret."
Dumbledore simply looked away, his fingers smoothing his beard. It was a nice way to hide the amusement. Harry had more trouble with it, considering how his face reddened while he was forcing himself to not laugh out loud.
"This wasn't even a very good joke," Snape finally commented.
"I agree," Ryuji nodded. "But we already covered that you wizards are weird."
"So," Dumbledore said, with something twinkling in his eyes. "What do you think about joining us?"
"I would like to hear what you have to say," Suguro shrugged. Then his eyes darted towards Snape, who clearly wasn't following the small group. "You're not going?"
"I can tell the difference between what I need to know and what I'm not supposed to know," the wizard bared his teeth in humorless smile. "A very useful skill to obtain, but I'm afraid some of us are a lost cause."
The man just had to have the last world, didn't he?
There wasn't any trouble in finding an empty room in this ancient house, so the three of them settled someplace rather quickly. Ryuji only vaguely remembered it; he had no business in hanging around in the study of late Lord Black, especially since up until yesterday it was also a place filled with many trinkets filled with power he had no way of countering. It would be a quite dumb thing to do, to just wanted in there and get busted, because something decided to explode into his face. Especially since while he wasn't a hostage anymore, he still wasn't supposed to just wander around snooping among the evil books of doom.
Suguro grimaced, when Dumbledore pulled out his wand.
"Could you please explain what are you going to do before you actually do it?"
"Oh," Dumbledore blinked. "My bad. But I assure you that I'm not going to hurt anyone, I assure you."
"It's not that," Ryuji grimaced. "I just would like to know what to expect."
Dumbledore nodded. "I'm going to cast a spell that will provide us with as much privacy as we need," he said. "No one is going to be able to listen in on our conversation. All he would hear is going to be a strange buzz, even if he decide to stand right next to us."
"Fancy," Suguro raised eyebrows. "And useful too."
"Could you teach me how to do it?" Harry almost jumped with enthusiasm.
"I might show it to you," Dumbledore sighed. "But I' afraid, that for the further instruction you will need to ask somebody else."
"Oh," Harry's shoulders slumbered slightly. "I guess that makes sense. You have a lot of work to do... Does Sirius know the spell?"
"He should," Dumbledore nodded in approval.
Then he casted it, with a discreet movement of his wrist.
Suguro shuddered.
"What?" Harry looked at him curiously.
"It's like somebody painted the room in aquarelles and then tossed a bucket of water at it. A very dirty water, it's sort of brownish," he grimaced then looked between Harry and the Headmaster. "You can't see it, can you?"
They both shook their heads.
"Well, what the hell," he shrugged. "It just looks weird."
Albus was tempted to ask for something more, because the ability to see the effect of the spells was a truly fascinating thing – especially demonstrated by a Muggle –, but now was not the right time. He sat down in one of the chairs by the table and gestured for them to do the same. The Pensieve was already waiting for them, standing on the table and filling the air above with a subtle, silver light.
Suguro chosen the place right in front of him on the other side of the table, his arms resting on the wooden surface and Harry decided to stuck close to the exorcist.
It was understandable, Dumbledore decided. After all, that young man was the only one who treated the boy like an actual adult. Or maybe because he was barely an adult himself.
"So," Harry started impatiently. "Are you going to tell us what really is going on? Why Voldemort suddenly decided that killing babies is the way to go?"
Dumbledore took deep breath and started talking. It was like drinking a Pepper–Up: the sooner you're done with it, the sooner you're done with it and can forget about the most unpleasant part of the whole experience.
Suguro hummed, tapping his lower mouth, deep in thoughts.
"Can you repeat the whole prophecy once again?"
Dumbledore nodded and waved his wand over the Pensieve so the ghostly image of Trelawney replayed, just like a video. When she finished, there was a heavy moment of silence.
"I would really like to call you a dumbass," the exorcist finally said. "But you are not stupid, are you?"
"What have you in mind?"
"First of all... what usually you people do when they bump into a prophecy?"
Dumbledore closed his eyes, a muscle in the corner of his mouth twitched little, like he was trying really hard to force the smile away.
"I see, you are able to point the most dangerous part straight away," the wizard say. "Usually, the memory of prophecy is isolated in an object charmed specifically so only the one's the prophecy is about could access it. They are stored deep under the Ministry of Magic, guarded by the Unspeakables."
"And what with the Seer? And the people that saw or heard something by accident?"
"These things don't happen too often. But when they do, the Unspeakables send somebody to Obliviate the memory out of everybody's mind."
"So... kind of like storing some toxic waste?" Suguro guessed. "That actually makes a lot of sense."
"Prophecies never work like we expected them too," Dumbledore agreed with a heavy sigh. "Nor they are easy to understand. And a fool who try to oppose them, after hearing even a part..."
Harry blinked.
"Hey, wait!" he waved his hand, like he was in the classroom. "If these things are so guarded, then... how come there is one about me and people know it?"
"Good question, Harry," Dumbledore nodded. "And I must sadly admit, that was my fault. After fighting Voldemort of twenty years, the war seemed to be going nowhere. We were merely reacting to the attacks, but nothing more."
"So... after you the prophecy suddenly happened in front of you, you decided that you lucked out, am I right?" Suguro ran fingers through his hair. "You decided that with using the prophecy, you will be able to set up a trap for the so called Dark Lord."
"That I did," Dumbledore nodded.
"But to set something like that up, you had to... that Death Eater who listened in on the Prophecy..." Harry gasped. "You let him just go away? So Voldemort could hear the thing and start doing... things?"
"It's not like he pointed finger at your family," Suguro said, before Harry managed to find the right words. "Actually, this Prophecy could be interpreted in a many different ways. Even pointing the right time is wacky."
"But it clearly says that the end of seventh month!" Harry protested.
"Which calendar?" Ryuji smirked. "Because for all I know, it could point to the seventh month, counting from the time where the prophecy was made. Or it could be connected to the moon calendar, each month got only twenty eight days instead of thirty. So it would really be the middle of July for example. And it still could use Aztec calendar for example, the end of seventh month there happens to be in the middle of June."
"But... it ended up being about me, right?"
"I think," Suguro said slowly. "That Headmaster was trying to trick his enemy into choosing something that would give the good guys an upper hand."
"Humor me and explain it further?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes not leaving the exorcist even for a moment.
"The Order of Phoenix existed since the first war with Voldemort," Suguro shrugged. "My bet is, you created it after hearing the prophecy – or at least officially called it a thing –, trying to use the nearest date that could be covered by the prophecy."
"You... wanted Voldemort to choose the whole Order instead of one person?" Harry gasped, realizing where Suguro was going.
"The Order was not created from gathering random people either," Suguro continued. I guess you contacted as many people who opposed Voldemort as you knew about at the time."
"The group was supposed to protect each other as much as fight the Death Eaters," Dumbledore explained. "They all were the targets, even if only of the Voldemort's supporters. "
"And they could have babies too?"
"Are you familiar with the expression "the man died and a hero was born?", Harry?" Suguro asked, looking at him with his head tilted to the side.
"Uh..." he thought for a minute. "I guess I heard it once... In one of Dudley's games, I think."
Suguro grimaced.
"Good, enough, I think. Anyhow, the phrase is showing up in mythology. And mythology is pretty close when it comes to prophecies, am I right?"
"So..." Harry frowned. "You were keeping an eye on people that went through something bad too?"
"And the muggleborn children, who were about to enter a whole new life at Hogwarts," Dumbledore nodded.
"But he choose a baby."
Dumbledore sighed. "I counted too much at Tom being proud. I was sure that choosing a baby as his opponent was much beneath somebody like him."
"But he was more clever than you expected and dumbed the whole thing down," Suguro finished. "Your whole plan crashed and burned and you were left with a small baby and a prophecy already forcing the world to head in the certain direction."
"Yes," the Headmaster said shortly.
Harry bit his lip, trying to decide, what he was feeling about the whole situation. He felt... cheated out of something that could be a normal life with normal parents. On the other hand, he could hardly even imagine living with a danger like that for over twenty years. Something, anything had to be done. And it even worked. Voldemort was banished, at least for a little while, letting the magical Britain to breathe for a moment and rebuild itself.
"After Harry was chosen, you tried to give him a childhood," Suguro continued. "But keeping people in dark is never a good option. At some point they will learn what you were trying keep hidden and then they will be royally pissed."
"There is one other thing," Dumbledore sighed. "Well, there was one other thing."
"You're talking about the piece of Voldemort in my head, right?"
"Remember your visions, Harry? Those during the fourth year?" when he nodded, Dumbledore continued. "I was afraid that your mind was somehow connected to his. And that he could caught a glimpse of your mind the same way you were looking into his."
"Oh," Harry blinked. "Oh! Then you didn't want to tell me that you know about the connection, because you didn't want Voldemort to know that you know..."
He shook his head. The sentence was getting more and more messed up.
"What I don't get, is how the guy managed to leave chunks of his fucking soul left and right," Suguro said, running fingers through his hair. "This is… I don't even have right words for it."
Dumbledore sighed.
"There's a certain dark object…" he started.
xxx
Sometime after Dumbledore, Potter and their guest disappeared behind the doors, Lupin decided it was the right moment to show up. He looked at them with a confused expression, but soon enough, Black explained to him what exactly was going on. They continued to wait. The two ex-marauders started to exchanging looks after awhile, each time more and more worried.
Severus himself felt intrigued. He knew the Potter brat pretty well and he expected to hear screaming after the first five minutes. But they were sitting in there for what appeared to be an hour and it was still quiet.
Well, at least the exorcist seemed to have some control over the boy. Besides being a very bad influence when it came to the language.
After another fifteen minutes, the doors finally cracked open. Potter hurried away, not even stopping to exchange words with his Godfather or the wolf. The exorcist followed in much slower pace. Severus felt his gaze stopping for a short, barely noticeable moment at him.
Then the young man smiled slightly and followed Potter, without a word. Lupin and Black looked at each other, shrugged, then stood up and also walked away, without even a snide remark.
Snape frowned. He didn't like that smirk on the exorcist's face at all. Just what they were talking about? Dumbledore surely wasn't mad enough to tell them anything that would endanger his only spy among the Death Eaters. But he still felt uncomfortable
"So?" Severus asked lazily, when Dumbledore was passing by him.
"What are you referring to, my friend?"
"The Muggle brat."
Dumbledore was silent for a moment.
"I'm not sure," he finally said. "If we're supposed to be happy or devastated that he has no magic."
"And now I'm starting to doubt that I really need to know that," Snape grimaced.
"He picked apart the prophecy and then explained my plan."
The potion master groaned.
"Now I'm going to obliviate myself. I'm seriously tempted to just throw that foreigner out of my brain."
"Just make copies before you do that," Dumbledore chuckled. "The knowledge might come useful."
"To whom exactly is what I fear."
"Are you suggesting that Tom would be willing to try and use Muggles?"
"I'm suggesting that he had his own agenda," Snape sneered. "Why else getting mixed up in our war after being kidnapped? By all means, any sane person would try to move as far away as possible, just to not get mixed into this madness again."
"I do agree," Dumbledore slowly nodded. "His argument was that since the piece of Voldemort was defeated by an exorcism, he counts as a very dangerous spirit."
"So it is his job to be a hero?" Severus snorted. "Don't tell me you believe it."
"I sincerely doubt that he was lying. He merely skipped the other reason."
"Which is?"
"Oh, he once mentioned that he was send to the British Isles by the means of political struggle of some sort."
"Are you trying to tell me that he is going to forge an alliance and fight against one of the most powerful Dark Wizards because it is going to give him an upper hand? Risking his life like that, just for dumb little thing? He's not going to take over the world even if he decide to wave around that silly alliance of ours."
It was a fair point, Dumbledore decided later on, when he was alone in his study, creating copies of the newest events so he could rewatch them in the future with a clear mind. Suguro was a good, driven person, but he was also intelligent enough to recognize the risks. Just what it was that he wanted to gain?
xxx
The next day, Molly Weasley and her son returned to the Grimmauld Place. It was a touching, teary reunion, with a lot of hugging, sweet–talking. It was also clearly a family thing, hence Ryuji was currently in the kitchen with Rin. Who managed to freak the hell out of wizards, by dethroning Molly and then throwing her out of her kingdom.
"But I have to…!" the woman tried to argue. "Dinner!"
"Go sit with your family," Rin ordered. She was still trying to ignore his orders, so he just picked her up and then carried her all the way to the middle of the living room.
"Stay," he ordered once again.
She was too shocked to try and dart towards the kitchen again, so it counted as a victory.
Another person crept into the kitchen, searching a refugee from the overly sweet and teary family thing, carefully lurking from behind the cupboard like she was expecting to see something scary to go on.
Rin was happily checking the cupboards, in search for cooking utensils and food items, handing many of the packages to Suguro, who, while wearing expression of absolute boredom, was translating the labels.
"You need any help, or something?" Hermione asked, feeling a bit awkward. She didn't want to get in the way of the Weasley family, not right now. This was their moment and they definitely deserved to have all the time they needed to spend as a family. She knew that they wouldn't mind her hanging around, but no matter how close friend, in the end she was she was still an outsider.
The problem was, she was an outsider in the kitchen too. Hermione always could find herself a lonely corner and spend some quality time with her books, Merlin knows that with the OWLs coming she definitely should start rereading some of the material, but that didn't feel right.
"Uh, sure?" Rin grinned brightly at her.
Then there was an awkward silence.
"So... you have a dinner plan yet?" Hermione asked, feeling pretty stupid about the whole thing.
"Right now we're just scouting," Suguro explained. "Or he is scouting, while I'm sitting here, reading stuff out loud."
"I can hear you," Rin grunted.
Suguro chuckled. "Understand too?"
"My English is not that bad!"
"Then translate this stuff yourself!" he groaned. "It's food, you should be able to recognize most of it!"
"Then you would be sad about being completely useless," Rin answered immediately.
The bickering was quite amusing, even if they were quite harsh to each other. Definitely a bit more than she was used to.
"It's nice that you decided to let Mrs. Weasley spend time with her family like that."
Suguro just huffed. "That's one hell of a stubborn woman. One would thing a world was going to an end if she didn't spend her quality time in kitchen, or something."
"She's just used to cooking for everyone."
"Whatever," he shrugged.
"Okay!" Rin suddenly clapped his hands together. "I have a plan! Bon, peel veggies for me, you there, join the fun!"
Hermione blinked. "Bon?"
"Don't ask," Suguro grimaced. "And don't use it either."
"...okay?"
"Don't mind him, princess is just a prick."
"You spend all night thinking about it, didn't you?"
"Princess?" the need to ask was stronger than her common sense.
"You are planning to drop all of the ridiculous nicknames you even came up with, didn't you?" Suguro grunted. His voice sounded menacing, but he just picked up the knife and started peeling the potatoes. Hermione decided to help, since just sitting there and staring would be stupid.
"You never cease to be hilarious."
"Cease, huh?" Suguro hummed. "You learned a bunch of new words."
Rin rolled his eyes. "I'm not that bad, you know. And I spend a lot of time away from home too."
For all the bickering, they worked together surprisingly well. They also seemed to know what they were doing, to the point Hermione felt like a klutz.
"Crap, it felt like we're back at school, isn't it?" Rin shook his head.
Suguro made a small noise of agreement.
"You were cooking while you were at high school?"
"The prices at the school cafeteria were crazy," Suguro shrugged. "And he and his brother were living at the old dormitory building. They pretty much had all the place for themselves, kitchen included."
"Hey, to use the kitchen I had to talk Ukobach into a cooking contest!"
"Ukobach?"
"He's a demon," Rin shrugged, like he was talking about the weather. "Sort of like those elves of yours, but not quite. He really didn't like when people did things in his territory."
"Wasn't that dangerous?"
"Not very," he shrugged. "Anyhow, the bunch of us ended up putting the money together and cooking on our own."
"It was fun wasn't it?"
"Yeah. But I have no idea how we managed to squeeze it all in, between the normal school and the uh... juku?"
"Cram school," Suguro helped.
"Oh," Hermione nodded slowly. She knew that in Japan people were very serious about everything education-related and the students attended not only the normal school, but also a second one, that was concentrating on solving all sort of quizzes and exams.
"What are you making anyway?"
"No worries, nothing too Japanese," Rin grinned. "I know you people don't like sashimi or other stuff like it."
"Like that," Suguro corrected him. "And to tell the truth, I don't really care. I spend over a week on British food. you people can suffer through one meal of something more edible."
Hermione snorted.
She knew that he didn't like the traditional British food - it was hard to not learn about that, not when the exorcist was in a mood bad enough to say a thing or two right in Mrs. Weasley face - and it wasn't all that strange. They both were probably used to a really different diet.
Whatever Rin was cooking, it smelled unusual, but quite interesting at the same time.
It was a pretty nice dinner. Excluding the moments when one of them growled at Mrs. Weasley to stay in her chair through the whole thing.
xxx
George exchanged looks with his twin brother and they both nodded.
It wasn't long since Fred was released from the muggle - only not so much - hospital and still looked somewhat pale. But otherwise he was fine. Only his gaze keep wandering around, away from the people and following some invisible beings. It was pissing George off, it really was.
They were twins, they were supposed to be exactly the same. But now there were pale, scar-like lines on his brother shoulder and it just wasn't fair.
Because of that, they both followed the not-cat around, trying to corner it in some dark, lonely corner. Fred said it had two tails and horns, but no matter how long George was petting it, he couldn't find any difference between Kuro and any other cat.
At least the demon still acted more or less like cat should. It liked food and petting and they caught it once drinking firewhisky from Sirius's glass with a really satisfied look on its little snout.
For somebody with their experience in pranking - which was mostly based on having people go where and when they wanted them to go - it was a child's play to get the demonic cat to wander off somewhere and they hadn't even used too much of the resources they gathered for this occasion.
"Okay," George said, looking around, then turning his gaze towards the cat. "Nobody close, no way to run... now chew on me!"
Kuro made the strangest expression they even saw on a cat. Then he proceed to clean one of his paws, completely ignoring the twins.
"Hey, furball!" George groaned. "Stop ignoring me and bite already! I don't have the whole day!"
The cat continued to clean itself. Slowly, like he was taunting them.
George growled with frustration and decided there was no other choice than to go further. If the cat wasn't cooperating, then he had no other choice, but to force the furry demon to do his bidding. He was just about to grab the cat by its tail and pull, when he noticed his brother going even more pale than he already was. Fred, with a shaking hand, gestured, pointing at something behind him. George gulped, having a pretty good guess what to expect.
"What in the world are you two doing?!"
"Bu-sted!" They both groaned and lowered their heads at the same moment. Their foreheads meet with a quiet smack.
"No, seriously," Suguro joined Mom and they both towered over them, surprisingly not arguing with each other. It was bad. Very, very bad. "Please. Do explain yourselves."
"We decided to..." Fred immediately started.
"No lies," Mom cut in before he even started at improvising a story.
"Like you guys could understand anyway," George huffed angrily.
"I can always go get Rin and we can ask the cat what is going on," Suguro shrugged. "Only then you will be in even more trouble, I imagine. It's his cat."
Fred and George exchanged looks. The other exorcist was a really nice, cheerful guy, but they saw what happened to the front doors. One of them actually saw it happening to the doors and really wasn't in the mood of checking how exactly it would feel to be smacked by someone with a power like that.
"Fine," George sighed. "I'm going to spill the beans. I wanted Kuro to bite me."
"Why in the world would you want such a thing?!" Molly gasped. "Don't you realize how dangerous it is?! You brother was really sick!"
"I do agree with your mother, you are being dumb," Suguro said. He sounded more annoyed by the whole situation than scared. The cat didn't seem to care at all. The little furry bastard dared to look like he was bored.
"I just..." Geroge sighed. "I don't want to leave my brother alone."
"What do you mean?" Molly frowned. "He is not alone! He never will be, we are going to help him as much, as we can!"
"You don't get it, do you?"
"The dependence between you two," Suguro grimaced. "Is rather troubling."
"Well, duh!" George grunted. "We are twins. We... I need to know what is going on with Fred. I can't help him otherwise!"
"If you're going to get on this road, then you need to get over it," Suguro crossed his arms. "And you're going to learn how to live without being attached to each other by hip."
"What are you saying?" Molly gasped, looking at Suguro with shocked expression at her face.
"They are going to try again," he explained in a dry voice. "And again, and again, each time risking more. At some point we would be too late to save them from themselves."
"So... you are just going to let them do it?"
"What is better," Suguro looked at Mom with stern expression on his face. "Doing it in controlled environment, with more than one exorcist on hand and an Emergency Key ready to use, or letting them picking up one fight after another with things they are not even understanding yet?"
She went silent after that. The exorcist obviously was right. She knew her sons well and they wouldn't just let it drop. They were going to try until they succeeded. Or got seriously hurt. Molly had more than enough of her kids getting hurt by evil, powerful spirits.
"Is he going to be so sick too?" she only asked in a small voice.
"No," Suguro shook his head. "That was because ghouls are foul creatures," he said. "Usually people are using something much less venomous while introducing somebody to this stuff."
"Like Kuro?" Fred asked.
"Usually it's just some low class demon," he shrugged. "My teacher used goblins - not the creatures you call goblins - and as far as I know the London group prefer to let small insects do the job."
"Woah, wait, there are ghostly insects?"
"Since I can't summon these," Suguro continued, "I'm thinking of asking Rin. He's probably the safest option."
It took much more time than just finding Rin and doing whatever Suguro wanted his friend to do. George suspected that the adults were trying to screw with them, making them nervous enough to drop the idea altogether. There was a lot of talking involved too – first the exorcist talked and talked to Mom, then Dad showed up and there was talking again, pretty much about the same thing, repeating exactly the same arguments.
They even couldn't get away and escape this boredom, because someone asked Moody to keep an eye on them and since then the retired Auror was giving them his best murderous glare.
"Just remember, I'm an making exception here." Ryuji sighed. "I'm not going to start running around and inviting everyone into the club."
"Like we would let Ronniekins got chewed up by anything!" Fred protested angrily.
"Unless that's a spider," George added. "Then we can start talking."
"I am still very angry at you!" Molly thundered at them. "By all means, I should... I don't even know!"
Then she turned towards Suguro.
"And you! I'm not happy with you either!"
The exorcist didn't even roll his eyes. He was used to not agreeing with Mom by now.
"So…" Dad asked, nervously wiping his hands on the front of his robe. "What exactly is going to happen?"
"I'm going to poke them," Rin answered with a small shrug, clearly unhappy with the whole situation. "Then they are going to… see weird stuff."
"That's all?"
"There's nothing else to it," Suguro answered with a small shrug. "But there's no turning back either. Once you see something, you can't exactly will yourself to un–see it. Unless we're talking about frick–fracking with brains like you people do. Though I'm not sure if wiping the memories would wipe the ability too…"
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other nervously and the twins looked as stubborn as ever. Alastor rolled his eyes, because it seemed that they all were going to just stand there for awhile, looking at each other and waiting for some sort of a revelation.
"Okay," he said. "Jab me first then, kid."
"Huh?" Rin's eyes widened.
"You heard me, right?" Alastor snickered. "I do like to know what exactly is lurking around. And besides, you are driving me mad! Just looking at you feels like someone is standing behind me and obliviating the crap out of me every five minutes!"
Because there was definitely something odd about this Rin kid, but the more Moody was glaring at him, the more the details were getting away from him. He knew they were there, but they just kept escaping from his memory, like his mind refused to accept the reality. A bit more of that and Alastor would end up crazy.
"Besides," he continued with a small snicker. "This is the easiest way to check if it's safe for the brats, isn't it?"
It was. It was also very underwhelming. Everybody expected at least some fireworks to happen, but it was literally a small jab with a finger. Alastor didn't feel any different after Rin stepped away. He was about to open his mouth and tell the kids that something wasn't working with their little trick, but then he noticed, that the invisible–obliviator–feeling finally disappeared. And the fact that Rin looked different. Nothing exactly unhuman about him, just little details. Sharper teeth, a small change in how his ears looked like, eyes much more blue. And some weird little things flying lazily in the air, but since both of the exorcist were completely ignored them, Alastor written them off as an unimportant detail for now.
"That's better," Alastor said with satisfaction.
Rin grimaced. "You people are crazy."
xxx
Crazy wizards were indeed. Not long after the twins finally stopped being troublesome and stalkery towards poor Kuro, another thing came up out of nowhere.
"You have a what where?!" Suguro spluttered. He couldn't possibly hear the man right.
"That ghoul was always in the attic," Mr. Weasley admitted with a sheepish smile. "He's not even smelling weirdly or anything."
"You have a ghoul in the attic?!" Rin gasped. "But why?"
"I don't know," the wizard shrugged. "He just… was there, when we moved in. He never even attacked a thing, he's just hanging there. Sometimes he bash on the pipes, but not too hard or anything."
Suguro hid face in both of his hands with a painful groan.
A ghoul. In the attic. And nobody cared.
"The hell is wrong with you people?" Rin said, perfectly voicing their shared opinion about the whole thing. And the wizard mentioned it only now, a few days after ghouls attacked one of his sons.
"We really don't think it was one of these," the wizards explained themselves.
To be fair, they could be actually right. The magical society seemed to be completely oblivious when it came to what was a daily routine for an exorcist and it possibly could have something to do with all these fancy spells hiding their houses from mundane eyes. It was making some sense, especially if the supernatural beings saw the magical barriers in a way Suguro did. Those were just straight in the eww territory, messing up with his senses. Not even a really crazy spirit would want to run into that, not when everywhere around were much easier targets. Besides, it wasn't like normal people were stumbling upon wraiths on daily basis.
"Maybe it's a familiar?" Rin proposed. "You know, at some point they were living among normal people like… normal people, so maybe someone actually has something to do with our job, or something?"
And then had babies, the babies grew up and had other babies and the contact with the spirit was still existing, while the knowledge about it got lost at some point.
Suguro blinked. "That actually makes sense."
"Why the hell do you sound so surprised?" Rin hissed.
"Who would want something man–eating and stinky as their familiar?" Mrs. Weasley shook her head in disapproval. "That's dangerous!"
"…that's the general idea behind taking a familiar like that," Suguro said, trying not to chuckle. He failed. Mrs. Weasley glared at him angrily. "Anyhow, we can check it out even from here."
"How exactly?" the woman blinked.
"If it's a familiar of the family, then It is possible that one of your kids is a tamer and can summon it. And do please, don't look at me like that, I don't mean to go there and teach the kids how to summon a man–eating creature right now!"
Mrs. Weasley only glared at him some more.
They ended up trying things out anyway, for the exactly same reason as before. The kids could land themselves in danger not while not even trying to do so; spontaneous summoning wasn't a thing to happen very often, but it was still possible. Especially during a stressful events and, considering what Ryuji knew about what was going in Hogwarts... it ought to happen at some point.
"So, this thing is going to keep whatever shows up contained?" Moody asked, looking doubtfully at the scribbles on the floor.
It seemed that smearing random swirls in rings with chalk was a favorite pastime of Muggles. It was beginning to be hard to walk around the place with all that stuff on the floors. He knew, of course, that a man could do a lot with things like Ancient Runes. But those were no runes and it definitely was not a wizard who created them. Then again, the reality seemed to be not working properly. If something was going to go wrong, then at least now Alastor will be able to see it.
"Yeah, not leaving the ring," Rin enthusiastically nodded. "We're only calling to say hi anyway."
All the kids needed to do, was to say whatever come to mind, after smearing a drop of blood on a piece of paper with more swirls on it. For that, Suguro produced a handful of needless, all of them neatly packed the muggle way – in the paper wrapper and a little plastic tube. Why in the world the brat was even carrying things like that on hand was beyond Alastor.
"Rise, my undead army!" Fred was first one to go, but luckily, no undead army decided to show up. Everyone breathed out with relief, while he muttered something under his breath, rather unhappily.
George was next in line, followed by Ron.
"Biddy–babiddy–bo!" he mumbled with the roll of his eyes, then grinned. Because the ring was still empty. "Why are you looking at me like that? I don't want to have anything to do with all that madness!"
Suguro and Rin exchanged glances.
"It's just me, or he's the only sane one around?" Rin asked, not even trying to lower his voice. Language barrier was a beautiful thing.
"He's the only sane person," Ryuji agreed. From all of the kids at the Grimmauld Place, Ron was the only one who preferred to stay away from weird, unhealthy stuff. Meanwhile his friends and family were pretty much tossing themselves either in the whole new world or into all the books they could put their hands on.
Ginny nervously stood in front of the ring, a piece of paper in one hand and a sterile needle in the other. She wasn't sure if she wanted to invite something any time soon. She still remembered how scary these beasts were and how close they were to hurting her Mom just a few days ago. To being able to control something like that, or even worse, to order it to chase someone… a truly mind numbing scenario. On the other hand, it was a weapon. Something different from her wand, something no one would be able to take from her. With all of the Death Eaters hidden in plain sight, she really needed something more than just her wand to feel safe. And even if the wand was in her hand day and night– it's not like it was able to keep her away from that little, black book that almost ate Ginny's soul.
"Step forward and join me!" Ginny heard herself speaking. The words were just appearing like they always were there, just waiting for a chance to slip out. A surge of something unfamiliar went through her body, filling her veins with a cold sensation. "Appear, my knight!"
The chalk ring on the floor came to life with the second sentence. The complicated patter moved, rotating slowly but surely towards the left, the unfamiliar runes slowly filled with dim, cold light. The center of the ring filled with mist – or maybe it was foam or something else entirely – with a quiet hissing noise.
Then, there it was. A ghoul was standing in the middle of the ring, crooked forward. It looked different than the beasts that attacked them; while it still was deadly pale and had disturbingly long hands, all of the limbs seemed to actually belong to him instead of being chopped off from random bodies and sewn together. The only visible sews were on its head – a wide, uneven row of dark lines crisscrossing the place where the eyes were supposing to be and another one, this time wide open, around the mouth area.
Ginny, same as most of the other people in the room, gasped.
The ghoul opened its mouth. "Hellooo."
"…what," Suguro said, his voice flat.
Rin blinked and looked at his friend. "Wait, since when you can understood demons?"
"You are not supposed to understand him?" Fred shook his head. "But he clearly said..."
"Hellooo," the ghoul repeated.
"That," George finished for his brother.
"Usually only the summoner is able to communicate with the summon," Suguro explained with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Then why Rin is supposed to understand that?" Moody frowned.
Okumura snickered. "Not human."
"Um, yeah, right…" Alastor mumbled awkwardly, feeling stupid. It was stupidly easy, to forget about the guy…whatever he was.
After the summoning piece of paper was torn, the ghoul obediently disappeared, leaving the wizards and exorcist still staring at the ring.
"I guess talkative dead things are not what was supposed to happen?" Molly asked slowly.
"Talking usually is not included," Suguro admitted. "Though I think he got… weird after being stuck in the attic for so long. Probably heard people talking and started to mimic it after awhile."
"You're just guessing," Rin scratches his head. "But eh, I got nothing! It's just a weird one and that's it!"
"I think I'm going to name him Lance," Ginny said, unfazed by the whole talking thing. So what if the ghoul was able to greet her? It was still just one word.
"Lance?" Suguro repeated after her, staring like she suddenly grew herself a second head.
"Lancelot," she said, like it was going to explain everything.
"But... why?"
"My name is Ginevra," Ginny rolled her eyes in mild annoyance. "What else were you expecting?"
It was hard to not agree with her. It was all in the name. Even the summoning call fit the theme, even if the knight wasn't exactly wearing an armor. Or any clothes at all.
"Okay," Suguro took a deep breath and ran fingers through his hair. "Let's set some ground rules. Don't call Lance without supervision at any circumstances."
"Really?" Ginny frowned. "But... shouldn't I get used to him?"
"You do remember that one of his kind almost killed your brother, right?"
"Yeah..." she grimaced.
"The fact that you happened to be his tamer doesn't change how dangerous Lance is, kid." Suguro explained. "You might got somebody seriously hurt by a complete accident."
"Yeah, I got it," she shuddered. "But after I train in being that tamer or whatever... it will be fine, right?"
"To tell the truth, I don't know much about that specialization," Suguro sighed. "Even less about actually commanding ghouls."
"But that fire of yours..." she furrowed her brow." You said it was a spirit, right?"
"It started more like a family contract and ended up just plain weird," Suguro shrugged. This was not the time to dive into his family history or his personal one.
"This is the most used word in your job, isn't it? Weird?"
"Yeah, it sort of is," he smirked. "Anyhow. I do know a man who is a tamer too and even do the ghoul stuff. I'm going to try to contact him, though I'm not sure if he can speak English."
"Oh," she blinked. "Is he Japanese too?"
"Actually he's German, I think?" Suguro shrugged. "Or something nearby. In the worst case scenario somebody would just run the translation between you two."
"Why are you so sure he is going to agree?" Ginny chewed on her lip. "I mean he don't need to do anything for people he don't know... And it's not like I can tell him that I'm a witch."
"Being a tamer is a very rare thing, I told you that before," Suguro smirked. "And finding somebody with exact same type of familiar is like winning a lottery."
"Okay..." she said slowly. "but that still don't mean that he would be ready to just drop something and travel all the way here just to teach me!"
"He's fine," Rin said. "He's kinda uptight and all about the consequences of your actions and stuff, but he's going to help!"
What he was not going to say was the fact that the guy also tried to murder him really hard. They talked it over, it got better. Now they are just avoiding staying in the same room. City. Country. Whatever. The wizards didn't need to know that little detail.
"Do you even know if he is a good teacher?"
"He taught our group for a few month, up until the first exam," Ryuji smiled slightly. "Actually he was the key item in that test."
"How so?"
Rin happily admitted: "He summoned two ghouls and set them on us?" Then he wanted to bit his tongue, but it was too late.
"He what?!" Molly gasped.
"Well, they had to check out how we are going to act in a dangerous situation," Suguro just shrugged. "So they left us in big empty building, closed the doors and turned the lights out."
"That's terrible!"
"Nah," he waved his hand. "After we were done with freaking out we managed to pass. And the teachers were hiding all over the place too, so if there was a real danger they would step in."
Well, that was the pretty and not exactly truthful version. The teacher were perfectly fine with letting them get grabbed and one of their schoolmates got seriously hurt. Then there was that one small issue with that particular teacher actively trying to kill one of the students during that particular exam...
"Besides, you have school anyway," he decided to finish his speech neutrally, since he really wasn't in the mood to fight with the woman again. "Try to concentrate on that and during the summer break you should have enough time to grasp most of what you need about taming."
"And before that, no calling for Lance?"
"Unless you're in a real danger," he sighed. "Like that fancy terrorist of yours standing in front of you and no way to run. But you need to be ready for the consequences."
"Don't say things like that!" Molly immediately protested. "She's just a child!"
"In a world where are people perfectly fine with targeting brats!" Suguro groaned. "I'm not telling her to run around and murder everyone who will look at her in a wrong way."
He only suggested that she might find herself in a situation, where killing in cold blood was the only logical conclusion. He hoped she will never find herself in danger, but live proved him over and over again, that hope wasn't enough.
xxx
The first of September was mercilessly approaching and they still had to find a way how to deal with a handful of teenagers who gained new abilities over the course of summer. What exactly the staff was supposed to do about them, or help them when they approach some problem that is invisible to anyone else? Asking Suguro and Rin for repeating their little favor was out of the question – it was one thing for bunch of teenagers to be absent–minded and for their gaze to wander around, following some supernatural being and a completely different thing for a teacher to do the same. Especially with that woman in Hogwarts, observing them all like a hawk, waiting for anything to use against Dumbledore. A sudden epidemic of seeing things would definitely made her day.
It wasn't the only worrisome thing on their plate. The more they were thinking about the ghoul's attack, the more it looked like an actual attack and not like a random happening. Someone deliberately set the ghouls at them, knowing that the wizards had no way of protecting themselves. Only the poor communication skills that led to a very fortunate kidnapping saved their lives.
By all means, it could happen all over again, this time at Hogwarts. They couldn't let it happen, not without having at least one line of defense between the monsters and the students – and Ginny Weasley didn't count. She was one of the children and a tamer, especially one as inexperienced as her has no way of taking control over beings summoned by another. Or so the exorcist said.
Albus Dumbledore wasn't sure if he trusted Suguro. While the boy definitely saved lives, he was also too ambitious to not have an agenda. Then again, desperate times called for desperate measures.
"What about communication?" Suguro asked. "I would like to keep contact with Harry. And Mamushi. I can't just send her in there and hope for the best."
"I am going to be fine," the woman cut in shortly, but he ignored her completely.
Sneaking Mamushi into Hogwarts was the most reasonable thing to do, even if it seemed cold. The woman had no connection to whatever powers the exorcists were answering to. If something was going to go wrong, the mess with political clash would be avoided. The price, however…
Mamushi herself seemed to be absolutely fine with taking the risk. With her cold demeanor she was perfect for playing the role of a pureblood from afar away country, which should keep her relatively safe. Still, the idea was just plain crazy, smuggling a Muggle into school of magic and masquerading her as a noble. With magical powers, no less.
"Well, there is owl post..."
"You really expect me to drag a bird to wherever I'm going?" Suguro raised eyebrows.
"And I doubt you'll be too fond of sticking your head into the chimney to use the floo..." Lupin muttered.
"Wait, what?!" The exorcist gasped. Then suspiciously looked at the chimney, now standing there cold and slightly covered in tar. "You like... kneel in front of it and stuff your head into the flames?"
"First you need to use the floo powder," Sirius pointed out.
"How come nobody kicked you in the ass when you're doing something like that?"
The wizards made all sort of different noises. Sirius started hysterically giggling and was unable to calm himself down.
"What?" Suguro asked after waiting for a minute, so the man would have time to put himself back together.
"How come you said it like it was a logical thing to do?"
"It is? Sort of?"
"I never thought of it," Ron admitted.
"We never thought of it!" the twins cried.
"Why did you give them the idea?" Molly groaned.
Suguro just shrugged.
Sirius finally crawled out from under the table. His face was wet with tears and he was breathing heavily, still with a wide, toothy grin.
"I might have just a thing," he managed to wheeze.
"Oh?"
"A two-way mirror," he said and inhaled again. "You say a name and tap it with your wand and a person you want to talk to appear. When that person got a mirror too."
"I see one small problem there," Suguro grimaced.
"I think I can work something out," Sirius continued, forcing his breathing to calm down. It wasn't going to well with him talking, but he managed to be at least understandable. "Me and Lily... we played a lot with these things, trying to recreate the idea and then modify it. The original was sort of big, you know."
"You did?" Harry blinked.
"Yeah," Sirius nodded, blushing with embarrassment. "Sorry i didn't tell you before."
"Well, it's not like you had the time," Harry sighed. "But tell me later okay?"
"So you think you can made these things to work without using a wand?"
"Yeah," he muttered. "We actually added the wand thing, since the mirror suddenly was pocket-size. Just to keep them from turning on during talking with people when you actually have one of the mirrors in your pocket."
"Have you try to have them password locked?" Suguro proposed. "Or like phones with touch-screen, to turn it on you actually have to move your fingers against the surface."
"Huh," Sirius raised his eyebrows. "That's actually pretty interesting. We could use a rune, or something..."
"And can you create a connection between more than one mirror?"
" I might try," he shrugged. "Why?"
"Well, I bet you want to keep in touch with Harry," Ryuji said. "Same as I do."
"But you want me to give Ma'am Hojo one," Black guessed, eyeing the always angry woman carefully. She was scary, scarier than McGonagall, even just after catching him in the middle of a really dumb prank.
"Yeah, that's about it."
"It's not like I have anything better to do," Sirius said, giving another shrug. "But it will take some time. I'm a bit rusty and I'm going to re-read some stuff before I even start..."
Still talking to himself, he stood up and walked away with a whole new spring in his step.
Lupin and Molly just stared after him, like he grown himself a second head.
"That was very clever," Dumbledore said, walking into the room. "I'm afraid I was unable to provide Sirius with something to keep him occupied."
"That's actually surprising," Mamushi said. "Didn't you want to keep in contact with his family?"
"I'm afraid we are so used to owls, that different ways are... not so easy to notice."
"And they told me that I tend to think in straight lines," Suguro chuckled. "Anyhow, don't you think that the Ministry of yours will be trying to hunt down your birds? They already don't like you and they might come up with a way to call you a terrorist group."
"They have an easy access to take over the floo network," Dumbledore admitted. " I doubt that they will ever go that far."
"It's better to be prepared than surprised," Mamushi said coldly. "The mirrors are a good idea. And you can actually use them among Muggles. Just put them in the plastic casing and they will look exactly like a fancy phone."
Mrs. Weasley furrowed her brow. "Aren't phones these strange devices bout to a wall with a curly line?"
"They were about fifty years ago?" Suguro snorted. "Seriously, you guys should keep up with times."
"But that was only fifty years ago!" Molly protested.
A/N: Hello again! Thank you guys for the reviews and favs!
About this chapter - well, Dumbledore talked. I read a lot of fanfiction and because of my love for time-travel or other forms of alternating the universe, I've read more than just a few scenes where the poor guy is portrayed as absolutely stupid when it comes to the whole prophecy thingie. So, I decided to have a little twist on it and show that he actually was trying to tweak the thing as far as possible. Obviously, it didn't work, because TMR is a smart cookie.
Next chapter - Hogwarts. Finally. First arc of the story - officially finished.