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xXx Harima! Wizard Marshal Harry xXx
xXx Ch. 01: Mama Mia, That's a Spicy Meatball! xXx

xXx Narita International Airport xXx
xXx March 29th, 2003 xXx

As he exited the terminal, Harry Potter allowed his eyes to scan the people who were in the area awaiting their loved ones, and other individuals who would be waiting with signs to take someone to a form of transportation that would convey them to their intended destination. He had been informed by the people who sent him here that someone would meet him, so he was expecting to see someone with one of those signs and Kanji equivalent of his name written on it.

What he certainly did not expect to see, was for it to be a young girl with long black hair that was in a hime cut style, who was the one holding the sign. The girl couldn't be any older than fourteen years of age based solely on her height and proportions. The only reason he did not immediately dismiss the girl's presence as a 'I don't want to deal with this' issue, was because he had been sent here to work as a teacher at an All-Girls Middle School, and he vaguely recalled being briefed on the fact that this particular girl was the granddaughter of the school's Headmaster.

Sighing in resignation, while simultaneously being thankful he had all his luggage in a shrunken trunk inside one of his pockets, Harry walked over to the girl. Unsurprisingly when she noticed him walking over, her eyes did a once over of him, and then she promptly blushed. The problem was, Harry was mentally twenty-three years of age, but physically he didn't look a day older than eighteen. Which meant that as far as most of the girls in the school he would be teaching at were likely to be concerned, he was date-worthy.

Once he was right in front of the girl, who was now grinning at him, he asked, "Would you be Miss Konoe Konoka?"

The girl blinked rapidly a few times, before sighing, "You are planning on ignoring Japanese honorifics in favor of the European ones, aren't you Potter-san?"

Harry smirked at her a bit, which caused her cheeks to pinken a bit, "Of course I am."

"Then to answer your question, yes I am," the girl responded. "Now shall we collect your luggage?"

Harry grinned and said, "I've already got everything, so how about you show me to our mode of transportation. I'm quite curious what method of travel you intend to get us back to Mahora City using, since I'm pretty sure you are too young to have a driving license."

Once again the girl blushed, though this time in embarrassment rather than anything else. "Ano, we'll be taking a train."

"Oh, I suppose that makes sense. After you then," Harry suggested.

xXx Mahora Academy, Classroom 3-A xXx
xXx March 30th, 2003 xXx

While he had met the Headmaster and filled out the finalization of the paperwork to get him started as a professor at the school late in the evening the previous day, he wanted to take the time to acquaint himself with the school itself when he had a full day on which to do so.

Which was why he was currently standing in the door to the room that was about to receive a group of students as its primary occupants, that were reputed to be the the most troublesome in their year group. Unfortunately, Harry would only really get to interact with them for one class, as he had been hired to teach home economics, and didn't even rate a group of students that could call him their home room teacher.

Harry would have felt severely overqualified for the home economics post at this school, if it weren't for three things. The first being that as soon as he stepped foot in the town, he could tell there was a very powerful form of magic layering the entire region. The second was that there were rumors that the library's architect had been taking cues from King Jareth. And third…

"You are an awfully long ways from anywhere I'd have expected to see a ghost," Harry remarked as he entered the room more fully.

The cute girl, who looked to be about fifteen, which was reasonable given the place she was haunting, blinked in surprise as she turned her head away from the window she had been staring out of. "You, you can see me?"

Harry smiled gently at the girl, "Of course I can see you. What's your name, cutie?"

It was generally hard to tell with ghosts as their bodies tended to be a bit more monochromatic even when blushing, but Harry could definitely tell that he had caused this girl to blush when he called her a cutie. "Sayo, I'm Aisaka Sayo. Who are you?"

"I'm the new home economics teacher, Miss Sayo. My name is Harry Potter, and unlike most previous home economics teachers, I happen to know what it takes to allow a ghost to be able to actually enjoy food…"

"Oh thank, Kami!" the girl exclaimed with a look of extreme relief on her face. "Do you have any idea how long it has been since I've tasted anything?"

Harry smiled slightly as he began realizing that this girl was probably utterly clueless about what she was and what she could and couldn't do, "Do you actually know what it takes to enable a ghost's ability to taste food?"

If Harry thought Sayo was cute before, it was nothing to what he thought as he watched her stick out her tongue and scrunch up her face in intense concentration while she tried to think of whether she had any idea what it might take. Eventually she realized that "I haven't got a clue."

"The food has to be allowed to rot to the point where it is actually fatally poisonous to a living person," Harry explained for her, and wasn't surprised when he saw her face take on an utterly disgusted expression.

"I-is that really the only way, Harry-sensei?" Sayo asked in an extremely timid voice.

Harry proceeded to pout at her, "In all likelihood, you are older than I am, Sayo-chan. Thus it is you who should be referred to as 'Sensei', though I suppose I could just call you 'Senpai.' As for your question, yes, that is the only way, or at least it is the only one that I am aware of, though it may work in the reverse too… food so delicious that it affects the spirit world as much as the disgusting stuff does."

"Let's… um… let's try that method before resorting to the disgusting method," Sayo all but begged him.

Harry grinned at her, earning him another blush, "Deal!"

After a moment of hesitation she asked, "So why are you here today, when term doesn't start until the day after tomorrow?"

"I'm checking out the campus. I only just got here, and need to check the place out, see the sights as it were, so that I don't get lost. So, how about you show me around?" Harry wondered.

The girl gave him an odd look, "Aren't you afraid people will look at you oddly because you are talking to yourself, even when you're not?"

"Well, if you don't want to show me around, I could always go find a garden snake to do it…"

That bought him a giggle before she said, "You can't be serious…"

"No, Sirius was my godfather. I'm Harry, just Harry," and right there, she outright laughed at him.

"You're weird," the girl admitted as she considered him for a moment, "Okay, fine I'll show you around, but after that, you have to make me something to try to eat, see if it does the trick… and nothing rotten."

Harry sighed and admitted, "If I'm going to violate the general ban on relationships between teachers and their students, it's probably for the best that it be with a cute ghost girl." That got him what had to be full body blush from Sayo. "So yeah, let's go check the place out, and then I'll see what can be done about your dietary requirements."

As they were exiting the school, Harry took note of the fact that they were being observed, and it was in fact both of them being observed. The observer was one of his fellow teachers, who Harry knew to be a fellow magical, though one trained in Mundus Magicus, which marked him as a Mage, as opposed to being a Wizard the way Harry was.

One of the chief differences between a Mage and a Wizard, is that the magic of a Mage is largely useless for anything but combat applications. Meanwhile, witches and wizards had spells for just about everything under the sun. Part of the reason Harry had left Wizarding Britain was because he wanted to branch out and study the magic practiced by the Mage's, which he couldn't do in Wizarding Britain due to there still being a number of laws prohibiting such practices.

The ICW had offered him a means of pursuing the study, but it had to be while helping them deal with something that had been bothering them for several years now. Notably the fact that there was a huge draw upon the ley lines beneath Mahora City that none of them could account for. It was Harry's mission to find the source of that draw, and turn it off.

"So, Sayo-chan, what can you tell me about tall dark and broody behind us?"

Sayo tilted her head just enough to look behind her, frowned, and said, "That's Takahata-sensei. He's the object of at least a few crushes, but certainly not one of mine. That's mostly because I'm also fairly certain he can see me, but he hasn't ever bothered to talk to me the way you did."

After they exited the main building, as Harry had pretty much already figured that place out, Harry asked, "So what's with the rumors I heard regarding the library. Is it really built to resemble an M.C. Escher painting?"

Sayo tilted her head up to look at him confusedly, "Who?"

This caused Harry to palm his face slightly, "How… um… how long have you been haunting this school, Sayo-chan?"

Sayo thought about it for a moment, before saying, "I don't really remember very much about stuff that happened before I died, but I do remember one thing as clearly as the two days on which they happened. Those were absurdly large bombs the Americans dropped on this country."

Harry actually cringed at this information, "Okay, well M.C. Escher was an artist known for his rather surreal art style. The specific piece of his I was referring to, is called Relativity, and was first printed in 1953. Just looking at the piece has been known to induce a sense of vertigo."

"Well, without seeing it, I can't really compare it to the library," Sayo admitted. "And I haven't really gone into the library in a very long time. It has likely changed over the decades."

"Hmm, well, I think we'll leave that for now. Come on, show me around the grounds," Harry exclaimed as he began running off, with a confused but laughing ghost chasing after him.

xXx Potter Manor, Mahora City xXx
xXx Several Hours Later xXx

"Wow, this is such a nice home!" Sayo exclaimed as she floated through a wall, having been off checking the various rooms out while Harry prepared some food for the two of them.

Harry smiled at her and said, "Feel free to stop by whenever you want. It's not like I haven't got plenty of room, and odd as it seems, I'm sort of used to have ghosts around."

Sayo nodded, "I'll have to take you up on that offer. Staying in the classroom at all hours is kind of boring, and occasionally gets a bit scary. There are all these noises and, well it's just creepy."

"You know, most other ghosts I have met, would actually enjoy being in a creepy environment," Harry admitted. "Then again, I've only ever met one other that was as new to being a ghost as you, and she was just dreadful."

Sayo rolled her eyes at him, before asking "So what did you make for me?"

"Pretty much this entire menu is a fire hazard," Harry admitted with a smirk. "Or at least it is if you are a human."

"Spicy foods?" Sayo wondered, "Dare I ask why you picked that plan of attack?"

"I um… I happen to have a friend who is a bit precognitive, and another friend who is a bit of a gardener. The two of them put their heads together and created a type of pepper that won't technically be discovered by the rest of the world for another four or so years… I thought that if we aren't going for the usual method of allowing a ghost to taste food, we might as well give my friends' Ghost Peppers a try."

"There is a… a pepper that has such a name?" Sayo asked as she lifted the spoon and collected a bite of the chili, causing Harry to blink in surprise that she was actually able to manipulate a physical object in such a manner.

"You do realize ghosts can't normally manipulate physical objects right?" Harry wondered.

"They can't?" Sayo wondered in honest confusion as she took her bite. What confused Harry even more, was that the bite did not simply fall through her body and hit the floor.

Whipping out his wand, which was an oddly shaped wand with knobs that resembled berries at various lengths, he began waving it at her and blinked in surprise at what his detection spells were telling him. "Well I think it is safe to say you have existed a lot longer than your memories would indicate, Sayo-chan."

Sayo looked at him with a bit of a pout, "Are you calling me old, Harry-sama?"

Harry blushed in embarrassment, and immediately placed a placating hand on her head, "Perish the thought. For one, I know better than saying such things to women, no matter what their age. For another, such a comment is utterly meaningless with amortal beings, such as poltergeists like you. You are as old as you want yourself to be."

"I'm a… a poltergeist?" Sayo wondered in confusion.

"Yeah, and actually now that I think about it, it explains why you have difficulty with certain things ghosts would take for granted. Poltergeists are not ghosts. In fact they are the closest thing to living ethereal beings that you can find. Amusingly, a poltergeist can actually enjoy all the perks of being alive that a human could, provided that they want to enjoy those perks," Harry admitted, which got a noticeable blush from Sayo.

Harry grinned at her, and said, "The only poltergeist I have personally met before today, was an absolute bastard who loved tormenting people with what he believed were harmless pranks. I am happy to see you are nothing like that poltergeist was."

"I just want friends!" Sayo exclaimed. "Are you telling me I can have them if I just put in the effort?"

"Well, yes and no. Mundane humans won't ever be able to see you, not without being the recipients of one of those nifty pactio agreements that some magical humans employ, and sadly the vast majority of people in this town are mundane humans. However, that won't stop me from being your friend, Sayo-chan."

"Then… I think I would like to stay here with you, at least when classes aren't in session," Sayo admitted.

"You are more than welcome to stay here, Sayo-chan."

xXx Potter Manor, Mahora City xXx
xXx The Next Morning xXx

Harry should have figured this would happen when he offered to let Sayo stay in his home. Looking down, he had to sigh as he found a head of snow white hair falling all over his chest, which was attached to a rather corporeal feeling poltergeist. He was just glad she didn't appear to sleep in the nude, and was dressed in what appeared to be an actual nighty. Where she got the thing, he had absolutely no idea.

Fortunately, he didn't have anywhere important to be until the next morning, so he was willing to let her sleep. The only reason he wasn't having a panic attack at finding a physically fifteen year old ghost girl in his bed, was because as an amortal existence, age was entirely optional for her. As far as the teacher-student relation factor was concerned though, she'd been in that school since the second great war, there was not very much chance the school had anything left to teach her.

On that note, knowing what he knew about Poltergeists, it was very lucky Harry turned up and offered to be her friend. Because if she did not find a friend very soon, she would begin to slowly descend into the state of dementia that Peeves had fallen into over the centuries, and that would be a crying shame. Poltergeists were never alive in the organic sense, but that does not mean they lack a point of origin. Or rather, they have a point where they cease being a formless mass of chaos magic, and coalesce into a sentient being. Harry was certain that Sayo reached that point during the second great war, giving her the ability to recall the end of that war.

Harry had no intention of letting Sayo become an embodiment of mischief, despite the fact that such an embodiment is what most Poltergeists eventually become. The question was how he would go about achieving such a goal.

It was a good hour before either of them felt it necessary to get up and face the day, and when they did, the first thing Harry did upon seeing the specific nighty that Sayo had picked, was to blush a whole heck of a lot. It was about as see-through as you would expect a ghost to be. Sayo for her part merely smirked victoriously over his reaction. He would later on learn that among the more unusual abilities a poltergeist had, was the ability to manifest whatever clothing they wanted to be seen wearing, or no clothing at all, if that's what they wanted. That was just another thing that set them apart from ghosts, cause ghosts were stuck wearing what they died in.

Harry also realized, he had to keep on his toes with this girl. She may be one of the nicest girls he had ever met, but she was still an embodiment of raw chaotic energy, and there was no way she would ever be predictable.

After getting his blush under control, Harry sighed and said, "Sayo, could you take a moment to concentrate your mind on making your body's physical appearance change so that it looks about the same age mine does?"

Sayo considered the question for a few minutes, before nodding her head and focusing her mind. A few seconds later, her figure filled out a bit and she gained a few inches in height. It wasn't a substantial difference though, for which Harry was somewhat thankful, since it meant she wasn't feeling like becoming a parody of beauty the way she could have if she had really felt like it, some female Poltergeists were documented as having figures that would make Jessica Rabbit envious.

Doing a bit of a spin, Sayo asked, "How do I look?"

"Perfect," Harry admitted. "At least now I won't feel as awkward when you turn up in my bed unexpectedly."

Sayo pouted, "Why would you feel awkward? You aren't that much older than I used to look…"

"I may not look it, but I'm twenty-three years old, Sayo-chan," Harry admitted to the girl. "Something happened to me a few years ago that has seemingly halted my aging process almost entirely, if not completely. You'll be happy to learn, that I may end up living for as long as you will continue to exist."

Sayo glomped him while exclaiming "YAY!"

xXx Chapter Concluded xXx

Author's Note: Harry's harem, and he will have a harem, is going to largely be composed of those girls who can actually spend eternity, or as close to it as one can get, with him. That should give you a really good, and in some people's opinion, potentially horrific, idea who the next girl might end up being.