A/N: Hi there! Sorry for being late with this chapter, but if you checked my profile page, then you probably already know that my computer decided to give me some trouble. It still isn't in the greatest shape, but I hope that I won't be forced to repeat the experience of clicking out a missing pieces in the chapter. That was beyond annoying. An old type mouse is not a writing tool of the year, let me assure you.

Chapter 12
The Joys of Teaching

A few days after the beginning of the September, Sirius walked into the sitting room with a triumphant smile on his face and a small mirror wrapped in cheap, plastic case.

"I did it!" His grin widened even more as he waved the pink item around. "The mirror is working like a charm!"

"You did not just said that," Moody groaned. He was already having a migraine and for a good reason too - he was the one stuck in the same room with Molly Weasley and the exorcist for quite awhile and they still were unable to keep a decent conversation without starting to argue about dumb little things every five minutes.

It was a painful experience - one Moody definitely would wish upon his enemies - but there wasn't much else to do than to sit there and try once again explain to the stubborn woman that the kids should learn how to use what they had at their disposal even if it was a stinky, man-eating monster. Luckily, the woman actually had a dinner to cook and no one to banish her from the kitchen since Rin was gone, so he could rest for at least a moment from her constant screeching.

Black was actually a very nice thing to see, since the attention instantly moved towards him and away from all that stuff that triggered Mrs. Weasley's dark side.

"Did what?" Sirius blinked. "I told you I can work out how the communication-"

"I was talking about the joke," Alastor explained.

"Don't spoil my fun, I was waiting for ages for a chance to say that one!"

"It was a very bad joke," Suguro decided against pinching the bridge of his nose just yet. Knowing the wizards and how different they were from his people, he will have many more reasons for doing just that before the day ends. He was becoming afraid of having a permanent bruises just below his eyebrows. Wizards and reasons... they just didn't get along very well. Instead, Ryuji decided to concentrate on the actually important thing.

"Have you already tested the mirror?"

"Yup!" came the enthusiastic answer. "And since now I actually know what I'm doing, I can replicate it much faster. The trickiest part of the whole deal was to connect that thing to more than one other mirror..."

Sirius kept rambling and Suguro just let him. Even if the kid had no idea what exactly the man was babbling about, he seemed to be happy letting him do so. Alastor shared the sentiment; happy was much better than Back's usual self even if it was annoying.

"That's good," Suguro nodded. "It also meaning that I should be leaving soon."

"What," Alastor snorted. "You have enough off magic?"

Suguro snorted. "More like I have to return to my life at some point."

Rin already did that, a day before Mamushi and the kids left for Hogwarts. He promised to show up again as soon as he could. Through, considering how pissed off his brother was about the whole thing, it was going to take awhile. You can't simply disappear from Yukio's Okumura radar and get away with it. Suguro already heard his deal from the younger of the twins and expected to find his mailbox filled with very angry messages about irresponsibility and other things.

"A shame," Sirius mumbled, suddenly losing his wide grin. "It was quite fun, you know. Even if it didn't start that well."

"I don't think you should spend more time in here either."

"Well, duh," Sirius rolled his eyes. "It's not like I asked to be an escaped convict. Or just a convict. It just happened and I kinda shouldn't show my face outside."

"I'm pretty sure you told me once about escaping someplace far away," Suguro pointed out raising an eyebrow at Sirius.

"Well, yeah," The man said with a shrug. "But then the whole mess here started... I couldn't just leave Harry all alone. Even if I'm not doing anything..."

Harry out of this whole deal was getting only a whole bunch of stressing out about his Godfather and his fate, but Ryuji decided to keep his mouth shut for the time being. An argue seemed to not be what he was looking for.

"You suspect that someone knows about his dog form?"

"Nobody knows for sure," Alastor grimaced. "But as much as I would like to talk shit about Malfoy and the rest of his merry cousins, stupid they're not."

"Well, they could be expecting Sirius to hang out with you people..."

"...where is this one going?"

"Do you think they are going to look among the Muggles for him?"

"Huh?" Alastor blinked. "He's still a wanted criminal, you know!"

"Last time I checked dogs aren't considered criminals," Suguro shrugged. "Sure, not being able to talk to people is not going to be fun, but I think it beats the current situation."

"You want to take him with you?" Stating the obvious usually was a pretty stupid thing to do, but in a situation like that... Alastor wanted to know everything there was to know, since Black himself couldn't be trusted when it came to his very own well-being. Mostly because his fate was connected to the fate of the Entire Order of Phoenix - so if something happened to cause him spill the beans, the spill will hurt the entire magical world. The exorcist was a nice kid and all, Alastor also would admit that he knew how to fight, but no sane person would trust someone why their knew for a bit over two weeks.

"Well, we do need to stay in contact and exchange information somehow," Suguro explained. "While the mirrors are helpful and all, a contact with real person beats it."

"Besides, we got one of yours, so you want one of ours," Moody snickered. The exorcist was actually right, but still. He wasn't telling them everything. And Alastor wanted to hear it all. "Isn't it right?"

"My," Suguro raised eyebrows. "You're never going to stop amazing me."

"You didn't say I'm wrong," Alastor grinned. "So you do want to exchange hostages! And check how some other things about us, too."

"You're going too far with it!" Sirius hissed at him.

Alastor rolled his eyes. The exorcist literally throw a bone to the dog and not the idiot was growling at everyone who wanted to check if the surprise gift wasn't going to hurt him.

"No, let him talk," Ryuji said, waving at Sirius to shut up. "It's pretty entertaining like that. Please, do continue, old man."

"This is also a morality check for us," Moody decided to obey. He was curious how close to the truth his guesses were. "Black here is in quite special situation. It wouldn't do us any good if someone discovered that we're actually chummy with each other. On the other hand he's one of us and we can't just let him to his fate if he stepped into something nasty even if it would be the most logical thing to do."

If Black got caught either by the Muggle Police or the Auror forces, the Order of Phoenix would be forced to at least try and save his sorry skin. And doing so would portray them not as what they were, but as a bunch of criminals that were dead set of saving a sociopathic murderer. Something like that would win the war Voldemort didn't even started to fight yet.

"The point is, you don't want logical. You want us emotional and stupidly good and helping out Sirius is your way of checking out if we really are the good guys in this whole mess."

The truth was, the Order Suguro was working for didn't care for the magical world. For all they care, the wizards could kill each other until no man was standing. Alastor had a weird feeling that it actually would be a preferred outcome. For someone who was fighting demons, dealing with magic would be too much of a bother, after all.

"What I want, is for you to trust me," Suguro said after a short moment of silence. "But not to blindly follow whatever I say. I don't have power to shield you from all the dangers that are going to come from my side of things, human or otherwise."

"Good," Moody nodded. "We're no children."

"Hey!" Sirius waved a hand, calling the attention back to himself. "I'm the one going on a trip, not you!"

"So, you're going?" Alastor raised eyebrows.

"Sure I am!" Black grinned. "Where else we're going to learn what exactly we're dealing with than at the very source of it?"

And there was that. Not even a few moments of doubt during packing the bags, since a dog, no matter how big, didn't need things like a fresh change of clothes. Besides, the closest to leaving the old mansion, the more enthusiastic Black was becoming over the whole idea.

"You sure you want to do that?"

Suguro smiled.

xxx

"This is going to be very awkward and possibly very loud," Ryuji warned the big black dog that followed him. Somewhat on the border of breaking the law, since people were supposed to walk their dogs on the leash instead of letting them roam free.

Sirius only gave him a dog-style smile, because he was waiting for this moment. He was curious about the not so usual Muggles and their ways. He was also curious about people who dared to scream at someone like Suguro who weren't Mamushi. That lady was just plain scary and Sirius felt deeply for all the kids at Hogwarts that now were doomed to deal with her as one of the teachers.

From the outside, the place the exorcists were hanging out looked very underwhelming. It looked so... Muggle and normal. It was a two store building, but not old like the Grimmauld Mansion - it looked more like a box than anything else, standing among other, very similar box-like buildings on both sides of the street.

Not that Sirius had anything against Muggle-style boring neighborhood. In his eyes everything was better than that annoying better than thou style old magical families were so fond of. Besides, the building had numbers on them so it wasn't like he was going to mix them up. Unless drunk, but being an escaped convict and drunk weren't a very good things to mix together unless there was a death wish involved.

The inside looked as boring as the outside, unless you were carefully looking round for certain things. Like the things around the doors and windows that for anyone not on the whole thing looked like someone just tried to fancy up their house with some cheap but curiously looking wallpaper. Or chunks of it. Sirius was pretty sure there was more of hidden seals under the boring carpet that had seen better days and quite some time ago too. Sirius was pretty sure that the carpet was blue, but being a dog kind of screwed with his perception of colors. It was still much better from the horror James went through, suddenly forced to learn how to deal with re-learning how to see the world when eyes were on the sides of his scull instead of the more human-like place.

The lowest floor smelled like lots of people were constantly moving all around it. It was also hard to not spot the signs of human presence. A dirty cup with dried up dregs inside here, a newspaper there, a small pile of books with paper scraps in between the pages on the kitchen counter, a jacket messily left on one of the chairs. The place was filled with little things like that.

If Sirius had a way of talking as a dog, he definitely would say it looked quite homey. But he hadn't, so he was stuck as a mere observer of what was going to happen.

Sirius wasn't sure what he expected of the exorcist, but a middle-aged man on the rather short and a bit of chubby side - the small, while dot of a collarino was the only thing that actually fit into what Sirius was imagining. Well, that and the royally pissed off expression on the man's face.

Sirius gulped.

Suguro seemed to be much more resistant for stuff like that, or maybe he was just used to this kind of a glade, because he only sighed.

"I'm home," he said. It sounded like he was trying to say something else, but caught himself in time.

"Finally," the man grunted. "What the hell were you thinking, going all chubby with people that kidnapped you?!"

"...we were over that one, weren't we?"

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm still pissed at you!" The answer came instantly. Then the older exorcist looked at Sirius, who whined and tried to hide behind Suguro. It wasn't working too well, since his Animagus form was on the big side and big chunk of his butt was clearly visible from behind the Japanese guy.

"And the hell is that?!" The man gestured towards Sirius' furry shape. "Did you decided to adopt a pet on your way back here?!"

"Actually..." Suguro bit his lip. Then explained the whole situation anyway.

"A dog," the older exorcist decided to sum up all of the revelations. "Is an escaped convict that police was wasting their time on."

"Yeah, more or less that," Suguro sighed. "I don't like it either, but it's not like we can call the press and tell them that the real murderer was the one turning into a rat."

"...and you dragged him here because?"

"You do want to know what you're dealing with, don't you?" Suguro smiled. "Mr. Black here is from the same old family that got the fancy library filled with books. During writing my reports I only scratched the surface..."

Sirius blinked, not paying attention anymore. Not because the conversation was boring - it was his fate there, so it couldn't be boring - but because his brain stopped dead. Just when the young exorcist managed to put his hands on the books, dark, dark books in the library and why no one was aware of it? That stuff was unpredictable and just plain dangerous and the Orde of Phoenix was supposed to keep kids and guests as far away from that stuff as possible!

He really, really wanted to turn back into human and demand answers in this very moment, but that would be a stupid thing to do. There were windows, they were on the ground floor and it was middle of the day, so people were outside and people could take a peek at what was going inside. While his photo from two years ago wasn't too actual anymore - Sirius got rid of those blasted long hair, shaved his beard off and put some weight on, but someone could still recognize him. Getting jailed now, when there were Death Eaters not only on the loose but, pulling strings at the Ministry of Magic itself would be a bad, bad idea.

So Sirius had to be satisfied with voicing his opinion by growling at Suguro.

The bastard only shrugged, with one of his eyebrows slightly raised... Sirius really wanted to bit his ankle right now.

Meanwhile the two exorcists still argued with each other, mostly about how inconvenient hiding an escaped convict was and how it could end for the whole lot of them.

Then Sirius saw a pair of legs walking into the room. Well, legs were what he could see, because no matter what big his Animagus form was, it was still a dog and Sirius still had to look up if he wanted to look at people. So, a pair of legs. Long, perfectly formed with dark shiny skin. Sirius raised his head to see that Muggle tendency of wearing very short shorts was the most brilliant idea ever. But the people here were aware that he wasn't just a dog, so he couldn't spend the next half of an hour staring at some woman's butt.

A shame.

"So, the dog is the guy?" She said, eyeing Sirius.

The woman had a voice fitting her perfect form. Was she an exorcist too? She kind of had to, hanging out with these two, but once again - she was not what Sirius expected exorcist to looks like. He probably had to get used to that feeling.

"The dog is the guy," Suguro nodded.

"Well, if they are looking, then they are looking for a black dog sticking to some wizards are they not?"

"I guess it would be quite hard for them to comprehend the idea of hiding among the non-magical people," Suguro shrugged. "Why? You have some idea?"

"It depends," the woman smiled, her dark eyes not leaving Sirius for the shortest of moment. "Is your doggy form depending on how you looks in real life...?"

That one, innocent question lead Sirius to a world of pure horror of make-over muggle style, because his Animagus form was influenced by how he looked like a human - after escaping the Azkaban his dog form looked like something that crawled out of the trash bin, all thin with dirty messed up fur and all, while now Sirius looked somewhat decent.

"They definitely are not going to look for a yellow dog, are they?"

And so doggy-hair dresser happened. It was a true stuff of nightmares but he walked out of that looking definitely not like himself. Which theoretically speaking was a good thing.

Upon returning back to... whatever the exorcists' place was called, Sirius found himself dragged down to the basement. Which was quite unnerving because dragging someone to the basement wasn't among the things Sirius counted among the "let's be friends!" stuff.

Luckily, there was no prison or torture chamber underground. Well, not one of the traditional sort. However, Sirius could spot random muggle devices set down in the big, surprisingly bright room underground.

Among all that stuff, Sirius was only able to recognize a set of mattresses and a set of weights. And there was something that looked like a bicycle without wheels.

"This is not perfect," the woman - Mbali, as Sirius learned during the trip to the land of nightmares, said. "But we at least can talk here. And check out if the hair-dye is going to stick around when you switch between the bodies."

It did.

It also wasn't as good of a thing as he expected it to be. She snorted.

"Blond is definitely not your color."

"Oh, har har!" Sirius groaned, pulling on his hair to actually see the color. He had to agree with Mbali, this definitely wasn't his thing. It even wasn't a honest shade of blonde, it was that annoying, bright chicken-like shade that could make anyone looks like an idiot.

"It wouldn't be that bad if he wasn't pastry-pale," the older exorcist commented.

"You try to spend thirteen years in a prison and don't get pale," Sirius huffed.

"Don't worry, lad, we can deal with that no problem," he looked at Mbali. "There are cosmetics for getting a nice tan without walking out of the house, right?"

She stared back at him for a very long, very awkward moment. "...why are you looking at me?"

The man walked right into it and Sirius watched with satisfaction as Mbali proceed to voice her opinion about the whole situation.

Then Mbali ended up as a person to introduce him to the stinky concoction that was supposed to improve his skin color.

Apparently, the bunch of exorcists decided to change Sirius into something they called a jock and they seemed to be trying really hard to keep him from getting the joke.

xxx

Harry wasn't sure how much time has passed, but some of it definitely did. He just couldn't move, or think or do whatever, his mind in inner turmoil about the whole issue.

"You think?" he shuddered. The mere thought that he shared more than just a little bit of skin tissue on his forehead with the frightening wraith was repulsing. However, no matter how awful it was, Harry had a nasty feeling that Hermione was totally and absolutely right. The wraith of Voldemort that was stuck in his scar up until recently did more to him than just using him as a hidey-hole. What else that thing had changed inside of him?

"I really don't think he wanted to share it with you," Hermione shook her head. "Your scar, that ability... it was all an accident on his part. He never expected it to end in such way as it did."

"I really need to ask Dumbledore about that," Harry sighed. "But it might be it, Hermione. As long as he was inside my head - so to speak - I could use the Parseltongue and talking to snakes was his thing. But after he's gone... nothing. Na da. Damn, just when it could actually be useful!"

It was so wrong, to consider something that possibly spilled over- or maybe not – from the chunk of soul of somebody as evil as Voldemort to actually be useful, but Harry didn't have any other words to describe it. He needed that blasted ability. He avoided using it for two years, trying to forget about the Basillisk and everyone shunning him away. He wished for it to disappear… and so it did. Just when it actually could be of some use.

"Hey, man," Ron put hand on his shoulder. "Don't sweat it. It's a good thing that you no longer have that bugger with you. Even if we can't go downstairs, we still can find someplace else."

"What about Ma'am Hojo?" Hermione suddenly said.

"What about her?" Ron looked at her.

"Well, she is summoning snakes... snake-like creatures all the time," the girl explained. "I don't know about the beings exorcists works with, but if you can use Parseltongue to talk to a sink..."

"Then you think a spirit could help me?"

"We can at least try. I mean, the language is just a language. With a bit of hard work I think we could at least try to learn hiss the simple commands."

"Hiss the commands?" Ron shook his head. "But… how do you say something you don't understand?"

"Do you understand what the spells actually mean, Ron?" Hermione tilded her head with a knowing smirk.

He blinked.

"They're uh… a bunch of syllables that make magic happen?"

Harry managed to not snort out loud. Which was a good thing. Partially because it would annoy Ron and partially because they were still in awfully dusty classroom. Breathing too deeply, exhaling too strongly – it would lead to a whole world of trouble.

"The spells are actually words. Changed, sometimes because the way we speak is different than how it was centuries ago and sometimes because long research proved that twisting something would improve the spell," Hermione started explaining, choosing her words carefully. At least she was aware that she was a few steps from the full encyclopedic rant they wouldn't be able to understand all that well. "Anyhow, every spell has it beginning with a single word. We are using mostly the Latin ones, the reason for it is further explained in the History book for N.E.W.T.s levels…"

"…so, okay, they are words," Ron shrugged. "And?"

"You don't know these words, Ronald, " she explained with a slight annoyance noticeable in her voice. "But you are still able to cast the spells which mean that you are able to pronounce the unfamiliar word well enough for it to work. Which mean…"

"…That we can do the same thing with the Parseltongue," Ron finished for her. Then looked at Harry and back at Hermione. "You think we can do that? I mean, sure, Latin, but Latin is just a language. Parseltongue is a magical language. How do we know the rules are the same?"

This time Hermione was the one blinking in surprise, but she pulled herself together pretty quickly. "Fair point, " she said with a sharp nod. "But we won't be able to tell that until we try it out, right?"

xxx

The safest way to talk to somebody who wasn't among Gryffindor students without raising suspicions of Professor Umbridge - especially when you needed to talk to the unusual addition to the staff - was to get in trouble.

Harry had no idea that getting a detention when one actually wanted it was so difficult. Especially since he couldn't just work out one tactic and repeat it over and over again. There was also the risk of getting a detention with somebody else. He already scrubbed stuff for Mr. Filch twice and was starting to get irritated.

The problem was, Filch liked Miss Hojo. They had similar opinions about hard work and how people should treat it with respect and she wasn't prone to repair all the problems by wand, so she gained his respect and the man decided he will get all the nasty brats out of her way, handing detentions quicker than she could react. Sometimes it looked almost like he moved from creeping in the dark corners to openly stalking the students, hoping to catch them in the act.

Because of that, there was no way Harry could get a detention from the right person for throwing a curse in the general direction of Malfoy or something like that. The situation called for far less subtle actions. Harry needed to ask about the snake language… and something else. Since the discovery they made, Harry couldn't banish the dark thoughts that filled his mind. An exorcist, former or not, seemed like just the right person to ask about how much of him was actually him and what was twisted and nurtured under the darkness that his in his scar.

So Harry gulped and used the first opportunity, when he still hadn't too much time to think things through; Mamushi was a terrifying person and he really didn't want to get on her bad side. When she passed him in one of the corridors, shortly after lessons, Harry bumped into her, hard.

Mamushi pushed him away, but had enough sense - or maybe just lost her balance for a moment - to not smash him into a wall nearby. Because she totally was able to do that, Harry could feel it rather well; her hands were like made of steel.

"Mr. Potter!" Ms. Hojo thundered at him, raising her voice for all to hear. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Uh..." he scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry?"

He made a movement like he was about to leave, when she grabbed him. By the ear, naturally. What was with that woman and the ears?

"Ow!" Harry protested. "What the heck? Let go...!"

"Were you seriously going to leave like that?" Ms. Hojo said loudly.

Somebody snickered behind Harry. He supposed the situation might have look quite funny when you were not the one dragged by the ear around.

Mamushi led him towards the nearest corner and positioned him so he faced the wall. Now this was embarrassing. The fact that he clearly heard fight-pitched laughter of Umbridge wasn't helping at all. Or it was. It worked just like they planned it to do so, but the theory was one thing and bringing it to life was so much more uncomfortable than he expected it to be!

"And stand there, thinking about what you have done wrong!" she growled at him. "You have a detention with me too!"

"You sure have a great way with children, my dear!" Umbridge chirped to Mamushi.

Harry couldn't see her face, but the tone of her voice told him everything he needed to know. The nasty woman found the whole situation to be absolutely hilarious and she definitely approved.

"Since he decided to act like a child, he shall be treated like one," Ms. Hojo said, then her attention turned back towards Potter. "Tomorrow is a Saturday, so you have all day free. Or you had, until now."

"But..." Harry started to protest. She was taking it a bit too far. He liked his weekends. He had quidditch to worry about, homework to do and some free time would be nice thing to have too…

"Oh, and here goes another Saturday of yours!"

After that, Harry decided to stay silent.

At least now, he thought bitterly, there will be no problem with getting a detention from Miss Hojo. On the contrary. He was going to have so many detentions, that he probably should count the Saturdays among the normal schooldays. That sucked. He was going to be left with only Sunday's to do all of his homework, unless he cave in and join Hermione in her daily sittings in the Library.

xxx

Mamushi was not impressed with the request.

Harry showed up at the Saturday detention with a determined expression on his face and as soon as the woman asked Dobby to make sure the room was safe, started to talk.

"You," Ms. Hojo said after he finished. "Are being stupid."

"Why?" Harry groaned. "Nobody else even know where the Chamber is! That is perfect for meeting like we have planned!"

"I'm not talking about your place of choosing," she winkled her nose. "I am merely speaking about your sudden inability to speak."

Harry groaned. "I explained it, the piece of his soul is no longer on my forehead, so I lost the ability..."

"This is just a language, Potter," the woman hissed. "Unless you had a stroke you forgot to mention till now, I see no reason for you to not remember how to use it."

"Magic?" he muttered, raising single eyebrow. Moment later he really regretted that he didn't bit his tongue instead. The glare she send him was truly freezing.

"Language," she said. "To recognize words as words and not meaningless jabber, your brain is creating a certain pattern that help to recognize. While I admit, you were doing all you could to not use the ability to speak with snakes up until now, the pattern still should be there. Half-buried, but still under your skull somewhere."

Harry blinked.

His memory was rather fuzzy, but he remembered his aunt chatting with one of the neighbors about some curious case. An old person lost in the woods apparently forget his native language, but was perfectly capable of talking in French, or something like that. It was weird, so he remembered it, because times when his family was talking about unusual stuff were very rare.

Maybe Ms. Hojo was right and there was something he still could do.

"It's still a magical language," That was what Hermione said. "I never learned it or anything, it just was in my head from the beginning. Or at least since the scar… You really think it would work the same?"

"Magic is something that can bend the laws of physics and twist what we perceive as the reality," Ms. Hojo said with a small nod. "But it can't ignore these laws completely. Magic is still a part of this world and because of that it is using what's available around, instead of creating a whole new thing."

"You seems to be awfully sure of that for someone who only learned about this whole stuff a month ago," Harry furrowed his brow. "But it kind of make sense. Like, you can't just create a needle in the Transmutation class, you need the match or something like it."

Harry wasn't sure how he felt about chunk of Voldemort's soul bending his brain to understand the language of snakes. At the same time, if it was the case, then there was still hope to unlock the ability once more.

"So... I have to do what exactly?" he mumbled. "To make the pattern in my head to be strong enough to actually hiss at the sink?"

"Listen to the snake, obviously," Ms. Hojo huffed, like she was angry at him for wasting her time with questions.

The woman made a vague gesture with her hand in his direction and a small, white snake crawled from her sleeve and looked around, its tongue moving curiously.

"This is... I believe the English version of her nickname would be "Jabber"," her mouth twisted in a crooked smile for a short moment. "She is annoyingly talkative specimen and even her family have enough at times."

"You want me to make friends with her?"

"I want you to listen to her," Mamushi looked at him. "While she won't be able to communicate with you in English, she is more intelligent than usual snake. She will remember you and correct your hisses when you screw up."

"A native speaker, huh?" Harry blinked and slowly reached towards the snake.

It was a tiny little thing, barely able to wrap itself around is forearm, with shiny white scales and big eyes that looked like a pair of small, black buttons. Completely different from the giant snake that hanged out around Voldemort. Also, Harry couldn't imagine the huge creature nudging anybody playfully with its head and Jabber was doing exactly that.

"I must warn Hedwig about my new teacher," he said. "I don't want her to be jealous or something..."

He still needed to talk to Ms. Hojo about the other thing. He planned to do it first, before asking for help with the Parseltongue thing. Then, as soon as he walked into the room, he decided to procrastinate, not wanting to hear the answer just now.

At the current moment, he had his hands filled with a tiny little helper and an excuse to walk away. It's not like there wasn't another detention with Ms. Hojo waiting for him. He could do it then.

xxx

"A snake? That's great!"

Harry returned to the Dorms right for the homework time. Ron and Hermione occupied their usual table at the far side of the room. Not even Gryffindors were brave enough to get between Hermione and her schoolwork, so the corner was quiet and there was a health distance between them and everybody else. Unless there was someone desperately needing Hermione's help with something, but even then, people tended to wait for Hermione to move from the table to one of the armchairs for her relaxing evening reading time.

Because of that, Harry could safely share the news with his friends. Which lead to quite surprising reaction from one of them.

Hermione looked at him from over her homework with a worried frown on the face. "Ron... are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You just said "snake" and "great" in the same sentence," Harry chuckled.

"Uh.. you know what I mean!" he protested. "And anyway, this isn't a snake-snake. This is a spirit-snake, which is wicked!"

Hermione blinked.

"Sometimes," she said slowly. "The way you think amaze me."

"Only sometimes?" Ron asked with a wide grin on his face.

"Don't push it," she warned him, then looked back at Jabber.

The white snake looked back at her, waving it's tongue back and forth, the tip almost touching Hermione's nose at several occasions.

"You think we can ask Jabber to open the Chamber for us?"

"Huh," Harry blinked. "That's a good idea. Though Mamushi would act like I'm cheating, or something..."

"You said it yourself," Ron shrugged. "We need to get down there as soon as possible. And you will help us, don't you? Who's the pretty little thing, who is?"

Both Harry and Hermione just stared at their friend, who was chirping sweetly and cooing over the snake.

xxx

The students were distraught, when they discovered that the hour they all considered to be a nap time turned into a horror. Instead of familiar half-transparent figure of Professor Binns floating a few feet over his desk, they were welcomed by Professor Umbridge in all her pink glory.

"Umbridge as a History teacher!" Ron gasped, after they were at the safe distance away from the class. "This is mental!"

"I must agree with you," Hermione said with a frown. "What is she even thinking?"

"I have no idea," Harry shrugged.

"If things keep going like that, then sooner than later the Muggleborn student are going to start dropping off!" Hermione continued. "And with Death Eaters looming around... oh, this is so bad!"

"Dad said she never really liked Muggleborns," Ron grimaced sourly, like he just showed an entire lemon into his mouth. "But she and people with similar opinion can't just say it out loud, because then Amelia Bones is going to get them."

"Of course she can't!" Hermione huffed. "There is too many Muggleborns and Half-Bloods to risk the outrage."

"But with Voldemort..." Harry furrowed his brow.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "He already has people in the Ministry. Malfoy and the likes of him..."

"Well," Ron shrugged. "At least now she got close to having no time at all. So no more detentions with her!"

"You think that was the idea?" Hermione blinked, turning towards him. "To give her so much to do that she would spread herself too thin?"

"We still remember how you were during our third year, you know," Harry smirked.

"Don't tell me that I'm like her! I'm nothing like that... witch!"

"No!" Ron said quickly. "Of course not! You just like to uh... achieve. And have control. And rules. But sane ones. Really!"

Harry snorted.

Sometimes, Ron was letting his mouth running and it always ended up funny.

"I still don't think this is a good idea, to just let her teach people these things. She's talking to the kids too!"

"And you really think any kid would just let her brainwash him like that?"

"I don't know," Hermione shook her head. "I mean, people got talked into all sort of madness, no matter the age."

"On the other hand," Harry muttered. "At least the kids are going to be warned pretty early about what kind of people they can met in the magical world."

He himself had a nasty surprise. While there were many wonders in magical world, charming far beyond imagination, it was also very, very messy and working in a way, that at times still escaped him. More than once Harry felt like a complete stranger, who didn't belong at all, nor was able to understand a single thing.

Sometimes, especially this year during the summer, he was trying to guess how his life would be like if it lacked magic. The image he came up with wasn't that bad. Boring, but not bad. On the other hand, without magic he never would learn about all the dangers. And that would be bad. Not knowing that there was something odd and tricky, something that could hurt you not because it was angered but just…because. That would be bad. Harry was pretty sure he wouldn't want that. Knowing was better than ignorance, even if it also led to having pretty nasty nightmares.

"You think she is on our side at all?" Hermione suddenly asked.

Harry blinked. "Who?"

"That Hojo woman," Hermione muttered. "I mean... I know that she is risking a lot, but Umbridge herself told us that it was her idea in the first place."

"She is working for..." Harry looked around. "Are we supposed to have this conversation here?"

Hermione hummed.

"Right," she said with a sigh. "I just... I can't force myself to trust her. There is just something wrong with that person."

She was right. The air around Mamushi never was quite right. He almost expected for something dark to creep out of the shadows behind her. It wasn't making any sort of sense at all, but the odd feeling was coming back every time he was her. Suguro trusted her, but then again – Dumbledore trusted Alastor Moody last year and he happened to be a masqueraded Death Eater. Harry wasn't so eager to believe in people others found trustworthy anymore.

And it seemed that he wasn't alone. Besides, it was Hermione who found Ms. Hojo to be suspicious and Hermione always got her head cool and rational, even when he and Ron were about to start climbing up the walls. If Hermione said there was something off, then things definitely were not as they seemed to be.

xxx

"I promised you that something is going to happen if you pull another stupid move, didn't I?" Joseph asked a few minutes into a very awkward tea break.

It was a bit after Mbali left dragging Sirius along to the hair-dresser and for the entire time Joseph was giving him both the cold shoulder and the silent treatment. Ryuji decided to just sit there and roll with it, since the old man definitely deserved to have his vengeance.

He spoke out so suddenly, that it actually made Ryuji jump a bit in surprise.

"It was making sense, at time," Suguro mumbled. "It still does, actually. We do need to learn as much as possible..."

"And that's your reason for risking your life? You made the initial contact and that's enough," Joseph massaged his forehead in a tired manner.

"It's kind of in the job's description, you know."

"There's also something about you being a future head of a temple and in not so fine print either," Joseph grunted. "Your head is worth a lot, kid. You need to learn how not to go places and send people there instead."

Ryuji looked away. O'Callaghann was right, obviously. If someone around here a a good hostage material, it definitely was Ryuji himself. Besides, if he died, he wouldn't be able to realize his plans for the temple and other things. The other things were especially important, because the state they were in could influence his home in a very bad way if something went awry.

"Okay," Ryuji finally said, fingering the edge of his cup of tea. He barely touched the drink and the stuff was now lukewarm and probably tasted awful. "I screwed up, I admit it. I think I got myself too involved with all of this."

"And do you know why?"

"Harry's a nice kid. Kinda reminds me of Okumura too, you know... The guy, he had a whole bunch of issues and in the beginning, I messed shit up."

Ryuji was still ashamed about how he flipped out after learning about Rin's parentage and how long it took him to cut the stupid and start to act like a friend once again. It was an unfair thing to do, it was a nasty thing to do and even if Okumura decided to forget about the whole thing, Ryuji couldn't. He was supposed to learn from his mistakes but it seemed like desperately trying to avoid falling in the familiar trap lead him to a whole new kind of stupid.

"I don't want to isolate you from the case, since right now you're probably the best informed person among us all," Joseph shook his head with resignation. "And I'm not going to tell you if you should keep talking to the magical kid or not. You're an adult."

"But you're still going to keep me away from action," Ryuji stated with a grimace.

"I told you already. I promised you something and I keep my promises," Joseph snickered. "You have about a week to put together your schedule, because the Book Club is starting in the mid-September. Have fun."

Saying that, O'Callaghann stood up and left the room, leaving the empty cup in the sink on his way out. All Suguro could do was to painfully groan. Then he followed the example - a week to put together something that actually made some sense wasn't a lot of time and he also had other things to spend his time on. People to call, too. Every single one of them with a pretty decent reason to scream at him.

As Ryuji walked into his room, he discovered there was another thing to do, preferably as soon as possible - he wasn't around for a while and it was showing all over the place. His desk was covered in dust, his bed was covered in dust and his potted plant definitely died.

"Crap," he muttered and then get to work, because there was no point to procrastinate. Unless he wanted to sleep in a dirty bed tonight.

A week passed in a blink of an eye, or so it seemed. Between creating a detailed plan for the first few schooldays, listening to lots and lots of people voicing their opinion about his disappearance, Suguro also wrote down a training schedule for Sirius – the man really needed to put on some muscles if they were going with the jock gig with his disguise – and tried to stay in contact with Harry.

Suguro also started to lurk around, trying to find people who were in contact with Neuhaus. He could ask Mephisto for help, of course. However asking a literal devil to do you a favor wasn't the smartest idea, especially if it was a little thing like that. Even if the demon was on their side for real, he was still a demon. Very fond of tricking people just for fun. Suguro had quite enough of fun for now.

Then, the time has come and Ryuji had to face teaching people.

At least O'Callaghann hadn't forced him to move all the way to the British TCA, to teach moody teenagers there. Instead, he let him set for the much more local so called Book Club.

The Book Club was a pretty sound idea, considering how big age difference was in every group of people who trained to be an exorcist. The older students were somewhat sticking out among the teenagers and it was always rather troublesome to find a viable excuse for them to be on the campus. While it wasn't a secret that The True Cross Academy was a place to go when one needed an exorcist, most of the people treated it just like a very unusual way of getting more attention and milking money out from the Church.

The Book Club allowed to actually recruit people not only from the TCA, but other places too, without bumping into worrying about good name of the institution or causing a scandal, because someone accidentally wandered where he wasn't supposed to.

On the other hand, the activity of spiritual nature wasn't as high as in Japan or on the continent - or so he heard. Because of that, while it was still a lot to work, not very many people had a chance to painfully bump into a whole new side of the world.

Suguro checked his notes once more and entered the building.

The auditory part of the schooling took place at neutral ground, the TCO simply lending a room someplace else instead using classrooms that belonged to the school. Ryuji had yet to ask around how in the world they were dealing with all the practical work or physical training. Workout in the gym was hardly similar to meeting actual demons. Were they keeping a bunch of monsters stuffed in a basement somewhere? A secret base in the middle of nowhere, filled with nasties? Thinking about it, it was almost sad that he was stuck with books only.

It still was going to be an adventure. He was not only supposed to teach a group of newbies, but also spend time with much more experiences groups of people, most of them already with decent amount of time spend in the field. Apparently, the database filled with well-detailed reports was not enough for these people and they feel the need to poke an Asian exorcist with a stick.

Suguro walked through the doors and stopped by the wall next to the blackboard, so he could look around the room while not being in a way of anybody.

It looked just like any other classroom, with desks in three neat rows, wide windows on one side with view on some threes on the outside and another building behind them. It wasn't as trashed as classes they used to sit in while at TCA, but was still far from sparkling new.

The people were gathering slowly, entering the room in small groups. Apparently, somebody had a bright idea to mix all the groups together, so everybody can hear him ramble about demons at the same time. Nobody really knew if he was going to stay in England for long or if he would end up moving somewhere else. It was rather sound reasoning, to try to squeeze everything useful out of him in the shortest amount of time. Information in this world was a lifesaver after all.

In the front row, there was a group of four people. One of them was a middle-aged woman wearing an elegant dress and high hells - not exactly clothes exorcists were usually wearing, but after dealing with Shura and her so called shirts, Ryuji just shrugged - the rest of them around his age. They were the object of rather unfriendly stares from the other group, this one made of just three people, only one of them below thirty.

Well, at least some people here were interested in actually learning something. The real deal – the true exorcists with the official titles and all – were not yet here, so Suguro had to stall a little. It wouldn't be a good idea to annoy people he wanted to have on his side, even with silly things like starting his first lesson on time.

Ryuji counted another three in the room, each of them looking more or less lost, each of them keeping distance from the other people. So, they had to be the newbies. And just starting, considering how each of them creeped into the classroom on their own. They were teenagers too, so they must have felt quite odd among all these other people, pretty much every single one older than them.

"I haven't seen you here before," the dress&hells lady said suddenly. The woman looked like she already had made her mind about him. That was going to be entertaining.

"Probably because I wasn't here before?" he said helpfully.

She winkled her nose.

"Then you must be one of the new paiges, yes?" she said, but didn't wait for him to answer. Instead, she continued rambling. "Honestly, I have no idea who decided that putting everybody in one classroom was a good idea at all! No offence, but paiges don't have the experience like we do and will only take time from the course, asking all the questions about stuff we already know!"

"Well," Suguro said slowly and mentally congratulated himself for keeping his face straight for this long. "They just want everybody to learn as much as possible."

"This is quite optimistic thing to say," she said, then looked around, her brow furrowing in irritation. "Honestly, I would expect from teachers at least to not be late!"

"Um..." Suguro couldn't keep his face blank anymore. He grinned widely, amused by the nervous woman. "That actually would be me."

She blinked, then looked at him once again, from the top of his head, stopping for a moment probably to count his earrings, then down to the black T-shirt with logo of one of the bands he was listening too, bracelets and his faithful jeans with the material cut just under the knees. It was too hot for that blasted dark coat anyway. Ryuji wasn't supposed to stick out like a sore thumb, since the whole thing was kind of a hush-hush deal for some unexplained reason. A heavy coat during a very warm day wouldn't help with that.

"Well," he shrugged at her baffled expression. "They told me to not overdress."

She opened her mouth, then closed them without a sound and opened them again.

"You are the teacher?" she breathed out, clearly not believing him.

"You want to see my license, or something?"

"How old are you?" the woman shook her head, still troubling with wrapping her mind around unexpected turn of events.

"Old enough," Suguro shrugged. "Four years of active service if you're asking about that."

Now she was just staring, like he suddenly turned into something really, really weird. Well, Ryuji had to admit, he started the whole thing pretty young and even before getting the coat and the pat on the back, he landed himself into quite a few troublesome situations… so, yeah, he probably should start counting himself as a unusual thing.

"If you are who you said you are," the woman managed to regain her cool. "Then why aren't you starting already? It's five minutes past the time and we haven't all day…"

"We're still waiting for the bigger part of the audience," Ryuji explained. "It would be silly to start now just to have repeat everything fifteen minutes in or something."

"They should show up on time," the woman huffed angrily.

"There's a rarely thing like being on time in this job," Suguro snickered. "All you can really can do is to try and adapt to the circumstances."

Which mean that a fluid work schedule was a very good idea. It wasn't like all the monsters and spirits cared about clocks and showing up at decent hour, so you could plan your day or something like that. This job was pretty much about reacting and hoping for the best.

The woman didn't seem to happy with the answer she received, but settled down to wait anyway. It's not like she actually could do anything about the whole situation. Luckily, they weren't waiting for too long. Just a few minutes later, more than ten people walked in and took seat in the far end of the class. Apparently a few of them decided against writing down notes and just left a dictaphone on Ryuji's desk.

"Is this everyone?" Suguro asked.

"Yup," someone answered. "It's not like the entire Britain could just show up here, you know. That's why there's that fancy stuff set up to record everything."

Suguro clapped his hands and moved towards the teachers desk.

"Okay, people!" he raised his voice slightly, just to be sure he caught attention of everybody in the room. "Settle down and we can start working! There are going to be detailed notes accessible through the web, so don't worry if you miss something."

Considering the looks he received, not only the overdressed woman was surprised by his appearance. He was so going to be the talk of the week.

"My name is Suguro Ryuji of MyouDha and I'm currently operating at the London base. I was asked to start teaching this class, because of my experience with things that are considered unusual in Europe." Also, because O'Callaghann needed his petty revenge, but there was no reason to speak about that.

The response was instant. "Is this true that headmaster of Japanese branch is a demon?"

He rolled his eyes. Of course somebody had to ask about that before anything else.

"This is hardly a secret."

Two of the paiges looked at each other with weirded out expressions on their faces.

"Aren't we lake supposed to fight with them?" the braver one asked.

"Not all demons are evil," Suguro sighed. "There's no reason for fighting if they're not hurting anybody."

Or if they were ridiculously powerful beings that bended time and space as they pleased.

"Aren't they like supposed to attack people?"

"Try to ask that question any tamer," Suguro snickered. "And hope he won't punch you in the face."

A snicker came from one of the back seats, followed by a short conversation about how screwed up the system actually was and how unfair it seemed to shove every supernatural being under the demonic names.

"May I ask, what Meister do you have?" the overdressed woman raised her hand slightly.

"I actually got two," Suguro answered. "I'm an Aria and a Knight."

"That's... rather unusual combination, right?" she frowned.

"I actually planned to become a Dragoon, but something is always in the way," Suguro grimaced. By now it was almost like a running gag for him. As soon as the exams were nearby, something was going on. An idiot in need of saving from himself, a broken wrist, a mission that took surprisingly long time because something unexpected had happened… "Anyhow, I do specialize in barriers and seals and that's exactly what I'm going to teach you."

"And what about oriental demons and spirits?" she blinked with confusion. "Weren't they the main topic of this class?"

"First things first," he shrugged. "To identify your enemy you need to have time to actually look at him. Fighting blind is a great way to die quickly."

"And if somebody don't plan to test for the Aria Meister?" somebody else asked.

"Even if you don't plan to get the title, there's no reason to not learn some of their stuff. It can save your life, one day."

"There is already a lot to learn!" One of the younger esquires moaned and dropped on the desk face first in rather theatrical manner.

"Then find something else to do," Suguro huffed angrily. "As an exorcist, you are going to risk your life on daily basis. Did anybody even told you how high the death rate is?"

"Yeah, but we are supposed to work in groups, right?"

"People are getting injured all the time," Suguro cut in, more and more irritated. "What then? Are you planning to just stand there? Or what when you get separated from your group?"

The man lowered his eyes in embarrassment and Suguro could proceed with explaining what exactly he was going to teach them. Dress&Heels and two others were making even notes, so he count this meeting as successful one. The bunch of pros were also making notes and Ryuji expected to see his mailbox filled with all sorts of questions by the evening. At least they knew the basics, so hopefully nothing too dumb. Probably a lot of questions about Satan's son, though. That topic – it wasn't going to die any time soon.

"One more thing, I'm going to ask for paiges to stay for awhile," he finished with a quiet sigh.

The teenagers looked at him curious.

"The higher ups really want to have a so called division for the odd cases. Since you're just starting, you're stuck with me."

Naturally – by now Ryuji expected her to say something – the overdressed woman waved her hand. "And if somebody else also would like to learn something more?"

"You're free to join the group as long as you're not skipping lessons with your other teachers," Suguro shrugged. The more the merrier and if she had already some knowledge in her head, he could use her to control the kids. Teenagers were prone to dumb, and dumb didn't connect too well with the whole exorcist business.

She nodded.

"It would be a good thing to exchange phone numbers and emails too," Suguro said, while picking up the chalk and writing his own on the blackboard. "Here's mine. Text messages only, unless the situation really got out of hand."