Disclaimer: D. Gray-man and Harry Potter and their characters do not belong to myself or Azhwi. They are the property of Hoshino Katsura-san and J. K. Rowling, and all associated thus.

By the same token, this story does not belong to anyone else, and as such, any elements not associated with Harry Potter or D. Gray-man are by proxy mine and my co-writer's to do with as we please. Do not take and reuse, redistribute or warp in any manner. Thank you.

The Depths We Will Go To
Part 1: Harry Potter Had it Easy
Chapter 4: Christmas-time Shenanigans
Fandom: D. Gray-man x Harry Potter
Characters: Kanda, Allen, Albus, Scorpius, James, mentions of others
Summary: Gift-giving at its finest.
Warning: Violence, language, shonen ai
Rating: T
Written by: Azhwi and Lost to the Hoping

I know, I'm a horrible excuse for an updater. Seriously am.

xXx

When Christmas came around, the list of people staying behind for the Holidays was taken. Very few signed up, but of those few were both Potter boys, Allen, Kanda, and Rose Weasley.

The Potters because one wanted to keep an eye on Rose and the other was keeping an eye on his brother (or so he said), and Rose because she insisted upon doing over-the-break studying. Naturally, her mother approved.

As it was, only they, five other students, and most of the teachers remained.

"Well it's convenient, at least," Allen murmured as he plopped down on the seat beside Kanda in the Great Hall. All tables but one had been removed, forcing all the students to sit at the one regardless of house. "So few people being here, that is... Scorpius went home, though, so we probably won't be getting any leads from him-"

He cut himself off as James, Albus and Rose came over and sat across from them. The redheaded girl smiled at them. "Good morning! Can you believe it? A week until Christmas! Oh, we should do a gift exchange, don't you think?"

"Good idea, Rose!" Albus chirped. "I'll get you an attitude adjustment."

Predictably, she swatted him on the shoulder, and he winced. "Excuse me? I'd think you'd be a bit more grateful!" she huffed. "After all the trouble I went through last night-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right, I'm sorry, now shush!" He glanced around to make sure none of the teachers were nearby and sighed in relief. Then grinned at the others cheerfully. "Morning!"

"Good morning Albus!" Allen returned easily and added with a wide smile, "James, Rose."

Kanda meanwhile ignored the greeting. It had been months since he and Albus had exchanged any civil words. Mutual apathy as it were. However, he did look up and nod a greeting to his roommate and Rose, then went back to his meal.

Rose gave Kanda a brief smile when he looked at them, then sighed as she started to dish herself up. "Oh, it's such a shame, though. I still haven't found a teacher that's willing to give me a pass into the forbidden section... Honestly, I only want to do some research. It's not like I'd be behaving like a couple of little mischief makers." This was said with a pointed glare in Albus and James' direction.

Feigning hurt, James muttered, "Ouch," before recovering miraculously. "What is your research for? A paper? Because if you think about it, if the teachers give you a pass, they will need to give everyone else in the class a pass as well just to make things fair."

"Not necessarily. It's an independant study anyway," Rose replied, splitting open a biscuit to butter it. "I had a long talk with Professor Sprout during the second week of school about it. I asked, should I do a paper on different plants all over the world, if I would be able to turn it in for extra points on my OWLs."

Albus blinked, mouth full of bacon. "Really?" he asked around the food, prompting a disgusted look from the sole girl at the table. He ignored it. "Why d'ya need to get into the forbidden section?"

"Well, the really lethal plants are there- no, don't give me that look, it's important to know which ones are the most dangerous! People could use them against us!" she said, and paused to eat some of her biscuit. Above them, a few owls entered, one of them dropping the daily paper before her.

"Sounds... important," Allen said hesitantly, then blinked as beside him, Kanda snorted and got up. "Oops!" Allen said brightly. "I'll see you all later!" Snatching up one last sausage roll, the smiling boy left the table, jogging to catch up with the long strides of his partner.

James chuckled. "For two people in opposite houses, those two are near inseparable."

"Yeah, and total creepers, too," Albus replied with a faint frown, only to get hit by Rose. "OUCH! Hey!"

She glared at him for good measure. "They're very nice. Stop being so rude!" Albus just pouted, so she rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "Anyway... I brought it to your room once I'd gotten through the spell. You'd better be lucky that Uncle George told me how to get into it."

Albus perked at that. "Ohhh, yeah? New shipment, eh? He didn't tell me what was coming, in his letter."

Shaking his head, James was smiling. "Of course he's not going to tell you. Plausible deniability should your letters ever get out." Raising one bushy brow, he turned to Rose. "You think Kanda is 'nice', huh?"

She blinked at him. "Well, nice enough," she amended. "So long as you don't bug him too much. Unless of course Allen's in the room, then it's pointless to even try talking to him."

Albus smirked. "Whaddya wanna bet they're gay for each other?"

She smacked him again, face burning bright red. "Albus Severus Potter, you shut up!" she yelped, voice slightly squeaky.

James only snickered. "You know, that was the same speculation that went on between our dad and Ron. So many people asked Aunt Hermione that exact question."

Rose got even redder as Albus burst into laughter. "Ohhh, you!" she fussed, jumping to her feet. "I don't have the time for this! I have to study!"

"But it's holiday!" Albus protested, trying to get his laughter under control as she scooped up her newspaper and a bit of bacon. "Why d'ya gotta study so much?"

She frowned at him. "Unlike you two, I take school seriously! Anyway, I'm going to see if Professor Sprout's at school. Maybe she'll give me the pass." She frowned some more, but when neither of them looked particularly apologetic, she just huffed and left.

Albus watched her go, and turned his gaze onto his brother. "So?"

Since James was still chewing, he only raised his eyebrows. So?

The younger brother grinned. "So Hugo pointed something out to me the other day, and I found it particularly fascinating..."

Swallowing, the other Potter picked up his glass of pumpkin juice. "And?" he prompted, taking a sip.

Albus waited until his brother's mouth was full before dropping the bomb. "He says you've been moony-eyed over Kanda."

The normally calm James coughed and sputtered; thankfully the glass took most of the spray. His little brother just grinned smugly the entire time, holding up a napkin when James managed to get the liquid out of his lungs.

Snatching the offered cloth from Albus, James wiped his mouth, eyes, and finally blew his nose. Looking down at the crumpled napkin, he grumbled, "I don't know who is worse, little brothers or best friends." He stuffed the evidence into the glass before facing Albus, grimacing. "And I certainly am not 'moony-eyed'."

Albus smirked. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that," he said, grinning widely. Then he sobered. "If you ask me, though, I'd stay away from that guy. He's an ass."

The older brother coughed once to make a point, giving Albus a flat look. "So are you."

"At least I don't rat people out without a reason," Albus retorted. Or keep dangerous secrets. Though, maybe he did. Still, gave the man no right to rat out his housemates, regardless of the reasons!

Sighing, James rubbed a finger between his brows. "Are you still going on about that? In case you have forgotten, he did that in consideration of me. And since then, you've done plenty of pranks, some that he's even caught you at, and he didn't do anything then." Mostly because Albus had taken Kanda's advice, providing an out for all the guilty and, unknown to his little brother, James had asked Kanda to leave the interactions between the siblings alone.

Albus had to concede that, even if the older boy gave him bad vibes. "Well, fine then, don't take my advice. At least just be careful, alright?" What he didn't say was that he flat out didn't trust the man, and if Kanda did anything that got James in danger... Albus didn't know what he'd do. He might just lose it completely on the Japanese boy.

Blink. "I'm more careful than you give me credit for; I don't needle Kanda like you do," James said, tilting his head and giving his brother a penetrating look. "One incident doesn't result in months of antagonism. Not from you. Unless it's Malfoy, and we both know that's an act."

Albus shrugged; his friendship with the Malfoy heir wasn't news to either the Potters or the Malfoys. "Your point?" he asked almost boredly, though he knew what James was insinuating.

"My point is," James leaned forward, throwing an arm around smaller shoulders, "you're my brother and I trust you." He looked into matching green eyes. "Tell me why you want me to stay away from Kanda, a real reason. The reason why you don't like him so much. Then I'll consider your advice."

Albus looked away. "There isn't a real reason," he admitted quietly. "I just... you remember that one Summer, when Dad told us that we should listen to our gut instinct? That's what I'm doing."

Hugging his brother tightly, James brought his free hand up to ruffle Albus' hair. "And Kanda is an ass. Yes, I know that too. Makes me wonder why Rose thinks he's nice," he mused, backing away from the younger Potter's swatting hand. And it was true, but instinct said his roommate was caustic and dangerous. But, and maybe this was because he was around Kanda more, he got the feeling that Kanda was trustworthy.

For a moment, James frowned. Had he been moony-eyed? Sure, being on the same Quidditch team meant that he and Kanda spent time on and off the pitch together. The new Beater still wasn't too clear on the rules and kept getting in James' way when the Snitch buzzed by too closely.

Worse, Kanda had a habit of actually snatching the golden ball out of the air and pelting it at Allen whenever the Slytherin was in the area watching. Why he threw the Snitch after catching it baffled the entire team. Which was one of the reasons why James still had his position. At least he didn't let go of the flying target!

"You're doing it again," Albus deadpanned, getting up as the end of breakfast bell rang. He smirked. "I suppose I'm just going to have to hex him pink in retribution!"

"What?" James blinked. Then laughed and pelted a bread roll at his brother-much like Kanda at Allen come to think of it. "You're an ass!" Pause. "Make sure to get pictures." May as well get Kanda used to the pranks if Albus was going to give him a bit of a chance.

"Of course! Then I'll have to sell them to Allen. I have a feeling he'd like some blackmail," Albus said thoughtfully. He turned toward the doors, grinning faintly as he headed that way, but paused. "Oh, yeah... I almost forgot."

This time, James put down the fresh glass of juice without drinking and waited.

The younger snickered. "Uncle George wanted to talk to you. Send him an owl?" His eyes danced with mischief.

Curious, James nodded. "Sure. Anything I should know?"

"Probably not," Albus said with a shrug. "Least, I can't think of anything. Anyway, I'm gonna bring some bacon to Rose..." He scooped up some and put it in a napkin. "She barely ate anything. See ya later."

The older brother waved and was already pulling out parchment as Albus left the hall. What could Uncle George want? James wondered.

xXx

In one of the many classrooms, now abandoned in lieu of the holidays, the two exorcists were pouring over reports and notes. White papers full of text and scribbled notations were scattered over two tables pushed together. Some had fallen on the floor. Some had been tossed there intentionally.

Just because Komui finds owl post amusing and quaint, does not mean he has to send his paperwork to us to look through! Kanda snatched up another report and scanned through the introduction, searching for the location note. Like this one! It's not even for England, it's for Germany!

Flinging the report to the discard pile, Kanda picked up another. They had already gone through all the communications from the local finders. There were some leads for this month, but not many. With most of the student body gone home, it wasn't surprising.

What was frustrating Kanda into gnashing his teeth was that of all the leads that they had shown Scorpius, the wizard boy had shaken his head and pointed out most could be explained away. Goblins and house elves, floo powder, drunken brawls involving mispronounced spells, defective potions, cracked wands, ghosts, magical creatures... the list went on and on. The finders were doing their best, but without their involvement with the wizarding world, they weren't able to distinguish between what was Innocence and what was 'normal'. And even then, Kanda still found what passed as common day in Hogwarts to be... fantastical. And fucking useless!

They still didn't know if spells could affect Akuma and without seeing the Innocence they were searching for in action, there was almost no chance of finding it on hearsay.

Looking through the newspapers from the wizarding world was almost painful. Things that the exorcists would find common with Akuma were credited to curses and hexes, resurgences of dark wizards or a bad batch of butter beer. Their two cultures were so removed from each other, interpreted events so differently, that it was hard to choose whether to disregard information or not.

Thankfully, Malfoy was helping. When he wasn't being trained by either exorcist or fulfilling his student responsibilities, he helped them with the reports. The blond boy had quickly formed an opinion of the Chief.

Kanda glowered at the paper in his hands and then realized that he had been staring at the same cover for the past five minutes without even reading the title.

"FUCK!" he burst out. "Moyashi! Outside. Now." he barked. I need something to hit.

Allen blinked and looked up, brow furrowing. But he didn't argue, since he knew how frustrating this was first hand. "Alright. Let's go to the Room of Requirement though. Don't want anyone blundering into the middle of it." That was one headache he'd gladly forgo.

But his partner was shaking his head. "No, I want to hit something. No Innocence, just hand to hand." Kanda slanted a look at him. "Besides, I think you've gotten slower."

The answer he got was a twitch, and then Allen was stomping out the door. "Courtyard," he bit out.

"Perfect." Kanda closed the door after them and flicked his wand at it. The door disappeared into the brickwork. At least some of what they had learned in this blasted school was useful.

xXx

Before they knew it, Christmas had come. The lot of them promised to gather in the Gryffindor common room (Kanda was dragged down by Albus, who had perfected the art of pissing him off, and then lured him downstairs). Once there, Rose started the 'mystery exchange' by giving James a present. James gave one to Albus... Albus gave one to Kanda...

There was a brief moment of silence as the grinning Potter held the innocently wrapped parcel out to the exorcist, and Allen briefly wondered if maybe the thing was booby trapped. There was certainly no telling with Albus. And Kanda hadn't taken it yet, either, so he was probably thinking along the same lines.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Rose muttered in exasperation after a moment. "He didn't hex it! I already threatened to tell his mother if he did, so it's safe!"

The Japanese male eyed the girl, then the gleeful younger Potter. Albus had made various attempts to prank him in the past week; three alone in the last two days. Kanda knew you didn't have to hex something for it to blow up in his face. "Just put it down on the floor Potter," he told Albus, then passed a green box to James.

Albus grinned and set it down on the floor. Of course it wasn't hexed. Not even he was fool enough to get the wrath of Ginny Potter brought down on his head. None of them would cross her; she wasn't afraid to hex them in retribution. "Don't worry, Rosie," he protested under the redhead's suspicious glare. "No harm done."

She sniffed and put another box beside Albus', offered Kanda a smile and held one out to Allen. "Here. I wasn't sure what to get you, but... I figured it'd be good."

The younger exorcist blinked but accepted the box with a smile in return. He shook it gently by his ear and sniffed it. "Chocolates?"

Kanda blinked as the package croaked. And Europeans say Japanese cuisine is odd...

Chuckling at the expression on his dorm mate's face, James shook his own present by his ear. It swished. Cloth? All the Weasleys, and by extension the Potters, knew what clothing in a box sounded like. The sweaters were legendary. "Is this... clothing?" he asked, puzzled.

All he got was a shrug. Though Allen was smiling wide as Kanda shifted his eyes away.

Albus would have snickered, but a box was thrust into his face at that moment, and he grabbed it, lowering it to frown at Rose. She just smiled brilliantly at him, so he shrugged and put it in his lap. "Alright!" the ginger girl gushed. "Has everyone passed out their presents to everyone else-?"

"Oh!" Allen gasped, patting his pockets frantically. He frowned when he came up empty handed. "What? Where did I... Ah!" He twisted around and scooped up a small parcel from behind him, holding it out to Rose, who beamed as she accepted it.

"Anyone else?" She got shrugs and murmurs that basically meant they were all done. "Alright! You can open them now!" she chirped cheerfully.

Of course, the first thing Allen opened was the food. He peered curiously at the chocolate frog, tugging open the casing... and nearly jumped out of his skin when it jumped out of the package and on top of his head. "Eeh!"

Albus nearly ruptured an organ, he was laughing so hard.

Just as amused, James thumbed open the box from Kanda. He blinked. Running a palm over the soft dark grey material, he thought he recognized a collar... "Is this a shirt?" He lifted up an edge and tilted his head as the cloth came up without any buttons or zippers. Very unlike any sweater he had ever received.

Albus peeked over curiously. "What is it?" he asked, looking at James first, then Allen. The pale-haired boy pretended not to notice, busy opening his second present as he chewed the chocolate frog. So Albus was forced to look at Kanda.

Sitting across the circle in a wooden chair, Kanda was frowning down at his own present. What is this? It was a small red-enameled palm-sized object. Made of metal. Narrow, almost rectangular. There were polished flat pieces hinged and folded into the sides. Notches near the ends... The Japanese exorcist flicked open the long blade of the Swiss Army knife and blinked. Interesting.

Albus' brow furrowed faintly, before he shrugged and went back to his own presents, and Rose smirked slightly. That was when she picked up the parcel Allen had given her. After opening it, her entire expression brightened. "Oh! Allen, they're beautiful!" she gasped.

Allen grinned as she lifted the white-glass, engraved hairsticks gingerly. They probably hadn't cost much, but they were still gorgeous, with swirls and dots in various different colors, designed to write out her name on both sticks. Probably magicked, in fact.

"I'm glad you like them," he replied with a nod.

Looking up at Rose's exclamation, Kanda's face smoothed into polite neutrality. He turned to the younger Potter. "Thank you for your gift," he said, sliding the blade back into place. "It's very practical."

Albus met his gaze, teeth currently trying to rip open James' present (which had been purposely over-taped). He quickly released it and nodded. "Yer welcome," he said hurriedly.

At that moment, James lifted the entire 'shirt' out of the box. It looked like a... robe? The closest thing he could think of was a house coat, but it was far too thin. It was nice, but he already had a house coat. "Kanda? What is this exactly?"

There was a snort. "Did you give him a dress?" Albus said, voice choked. Any possibility of civility between he and Kanda ended right then.

Sighing, Allen watched as his partner's expression frosted over. Ah well.

"No," Kanda grated out. "It is not a dress. It's a sleeping yukata," he added for James' sake. Beside him, Walker dropped his face into his hands.

"A sleeping... yukata?" Albus asked slowly, eyes narrowing. "That sounds dirty. Like... lingerie dirty."

Rose's face turned bright red at this. Oh no.

Twitch. "Fuck you," Kanda said flatly.

Lowering the yukata, James obviously was realizing something. "Oh... This is what you wear to bed isn't it?" He chuckled a little guiltily. "I was wondering about it."

"Bed..." Albus had an odd expression on his face. He looked like he was about to continue, however for his own good - and probably the rest of them - Rose hexed his mouth shut.

xXx

Yes. I know. Albus is an ass. Then again, not everyone can be a nice guy. *coughs* Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Please review.