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xXx Harima! Wizard Marshal Harry xXx
xXx Ch. 02: Galatea of Mahora xXx

xXx Mahora Academy xXx
xXx April 1st, 2003 xXx

"Sayo, you've attended classes in that room for about fifty years. I don't think anyone is going to care one way or the other if you choose to skive off. By all rights you should have graduated ages ago," Harry remarked as he watched his friend and as of recently his bunkmate, having a nervous breakdown about whether or not she should attend classes.

"But… but…" Sayo protested with a nervous look towards the door to the home ec classroom. "What if…"

Sighing, Harry said, "Okay, go attend home room, if you are that worried about it."

She floated forward with extreme speed and pecked him on the cheek, "Thank you!" and then dashed off to do just that.

That ended up being the last he saw of her until several lessons later, when she joined the girls of Class 3-A when they came to his room for their first home economics lesson. She gave him an extremely apologetic look, while shooting a glance over at the petite blonde girl that was looking at him with a curious expression on her face.

Harry narrowed his eyes as he pulled out the class register in front of him and looked it over. "Evangeline is it?"

The girl looked at him in surprise at having been called on so swiftly. Most of the other girls had taken seats where they were all but drooling over the hunk that would be their home economics teacher. The blonde girl, Evangeline, tilted her head to the side and asked, "Yes, what is it?"

"Detention with me after classes let out today," Harry stated authoritatively.

Evangeline winced almost as though she had been slapped, while the other girls in the class all went completely silent at that pronouncement. Eventually one of the other girls, a girl with short pink hair that was done up in pigtails, exclaimed "No way! Not even us Baka Rangers get detentions on the first day of classes!"

Harry grinned at that, but didn't comment on it. Truthfully, he was using the detention more as a ruse than he was anything else, because he actually recognized the name 'Evangeline A.K. McDowell', and was a bit confused to find her in this classroom.

After the girls all settled down, and he had begun calling roll, he was surprised when two girls burst in through the classroom door. One was a dark haired girl who for some reason had her dark purple hair styled in a manner eerily similar to the style Harry would usually associate with Patchouli Knowledge from the video games known as Touhou.

The other girl however had long red pigtails that almost trailed down to her feet due to how long they were, and was clearly being dragged to the class against her will by the other girl. The Patchouli expy, who Harry quickly glanced down at the register to learn was named Ayase Yue, exclaimed "Sorry we are late Sensei. Someone just didn't want to stop bullying a poor defenseless kid."

Harry grinned and looked over to Evangeline while saying, "Cheer up, Eva-chan. It looks like you are going to be sharing your detention with um… Kagurazaka-san."

The redhead immediately turned to glare at him, only to blink and promptly bush, while Konoka smirked and mused, "Asuna, what was that you were saying this morning?"

Asuna mumbled something under her breath, though she failed to realize that Sayo had floated up behind her, heard it perfectly, before looking at Harry and saying "She believes you can't possibly be real, because no one could possibly be hotter than Takahata-sensei."

Harry smirked and said, "I assure you, I am very real."

Another of the students asked, "Are you related to Negi-kun… er sorry, Negi-sensei…"

"Okay," Harry started, "First off, I'll state right off the bat that to the best of my knowledge I am not related to this Negi person. Second off, would Negi-sensei be the boy who was being bullied by Kagurazaka-san?"

That got him a frightening number of head nods, he also noticed quite a number of blushes. "Okay then. Kagurazaka-san, you will definitely be serving detention as picking on teachers is never acceptable, no matter the reason…"

Harry internally remarked, 'Unless they are a toad or a bat in disguise. And even then some allowances have to be made for exceptionally cute bats.' here he looked at Evangeline and smirked. "Right, so first lesson will be covering safety in a kitchen, and also if we have time, we will try cooking something simple."

xXx An Hour Later xXx

Harry had immediately dismissed the class when he saw what it was that Asuna had somehow caused to happen. How she had managed to take the instructions for a pan pizza and turn it into a… well she somehow had created an entirely new species of magical creature on the spot. He should inform Hagrid his job security was in trouble.

Despite having dismissed the class, two of the students were pointedly ignoring his request to leave. One being Sayo, which was to be expected really. The other was Evangeline, though her reason for not leaving became apparent when she said "You know, I could deal with that for you, if you let me off the detention."

"And miss the opportunity to show off a little bit? Perish the thought," Harry snarked. He then withdrew his wand. "This creature, unless I missed my mark, is somehow the larval state of one of Cthulhu's Starspawn, or near enough at any rate. Would you concur?"

Eva nodded, "Close enough to one that it doesn't matter. It's pretty much a living anti-magic zone."

"Neat," Harry remarked. He then swished his wand while saying, "Evanesco."

"There is no wa-wa-WHAT?!" Evangeline had to change her tact as soon as the spell did what it was supposed to do and completely disappeared the miniature eldritch horror.

Harry grinned at her flabbergasted expression, "I'm the Master of Death, Eva-chan. Killing things that don't want to die comes with the territory."

Evangeline blinked before frowning, and asking, "You're not here to kill me, are you?"

Harry sighed and said, "I only just started here, I don't think I have any reason to go and kill one of the students, even if the last record of your existence in England says you are a bloodthirsty monster… but given that dates from a few centuries ago, I can overlook it."

"So… the detention?" Eva wondered.

"Oh you still have to serve it. I don't take kindly to people telling someone they can't do what I specifically told or asked them to do. Now get to your next class."

Eva made to leave the room, before frowning and saying, "Sayo?"

"Is a spirit, and thus not really under any obligation to attend classes that she has been witnessing for fifty years," Harry replied.

"I've been stuck in the classes for nearly two decades, you know!"

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Yes, but unlike Sayo, people will actually notice it if you are skipping classes."

That got a huge pout from the school's resident ice queen. If Harry had known tweaking the chain of ice queens could be this entertaining, he'd have tried it with Greengrass ages ago. "Now get moving or I start hexing."

"Okay, okay, sheesh!" the girl exclaimed before dashing from the room.

Once she was gone and it was just Harry and Sayo in the room, the cute ghost started giggling, "I've been sharing that classroom with her for all this time, and this is the first time I hear her say more than a few words. And just… wow."

xXx Later That Night xXx

"Thank you for being punctual, Eva-chan. Do you happen to know where Kagurazaka-san is?" Harry wondered as he watched the ice queen take her seat.

"You'd have been hard pressed to get any of my classmates into a detention today. They are all throwing a surprise welcome party for our homeroom teacher," Evangeline remarked.

Harry sighed, he should have expected that based on what he saw of Negi-kun earlier that day. Seriously whoever it was that assigned a ten year old boy, prodigy or not, to the task of teaching a classroom full of hormonal teenage girls, needs to have their teaching licenses rescinded. That is just one major recipe for disaster. "Well, maybe it is better she isn't here then. At least now we can talk about matters unsuited for mundane ears."

Eva rolled her eyes, "You are aware that this school is the headquarters of the Kanto Magic Association, right?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "I am aware, which is why I consider the existence of magic to be a mundane topic at a school like this. No, it is the existence of immortal and amortal beings that I wish to discuss. Specifically, why it is that a vampire who according to history books is one of the most beautiful non-Veela women to walk the earth, currently looks like a ten year old girl, and has been attending an seemingly muggle middle school for the past two or so decades."

Evangeline frowned and said, "You really do know how to pick topics that annoy people, don't you? In any case, it's the fault of the father of my new homeroom teacher. He nailed me with a curse called the Infernus Scholasticus."

It took Harry only five seconds to translate that bit of faux Latin, and once he did, he broke up laughing. "It's… not… stop laughing you heartless jerk!"

After several seconds, Harry got himself under control and said, "Sorry, it's just, if I had known such a spell existed, I'd have suggested it to my old headmaster for the purpose of dealing with the Dark Lord problem we had been facing at the time, though now that I think about it, that would have been a bad idea considering the giant snake we had in our school's basement at the time."

"Uh huh," Evangeline muttered, "So what now, Mister Master of Death?"

"Now? Now I find what it is trapping you here and blow it to smithereens, because I am fairly certain that it is this Infernus Scholasticus that is having such a catastrophic effect on the leylines in the area. Unfortunately, that could take considerable time," Harry admitted. "Plus, my curse breaking skills amount to the magical counterpart to percussive maintenance, which could wind up doing more harm than good."

"Get me out of here and I'm yours forever provided you live that long…"

"I'll assume you have an adult body, so I don't get thrown into jail for being a pedophile, Eva-chan," Harry snarked.

"Until this ruddy curse is lifted, I can only access it on the night of a full moon. But yes," Eva acknowledged.

"Better than nothing, I suppose," Harry admitted.

At about this moment, Sayo floated into the room, and said, "Those girls are going to hurt him if they aren't careful."

"Huh?" Harry and Evangeline asked at the same time.

"In the dorm that most of Class 3-A live in, they are holding a huge welcome to Mahora party for Negi-sensei. Only they keep grabbing him by the scruff of the neck just as he enters a conversation with one of them, and forcing him to come and talk to one of them. The poor boy is going to get whiplash if they aren't careful."

"You know what whiplash is?" Harry wondered bemusedly.

"I do read, Harry," Sayo countered.

"Right, well perhaps one of the two of you should show me how to get to the girl's dorm, so I can save that poor boy…"

xXx Class 3-A Dorm xXx
xXx A Few Minutes Later xXx

As he entered the building, one of the first things he noted was that the dorm nanny appeared to be under the effects of something that to his eyes closely resembled the stunning charm. Sighing at that, he hit her with a reviving charm even as he walked past her. Evangeline, had only been a few steps behind him on account of her shorter legs, so when she saw the woman waking up, she said, "You might want to lay off the booze ma'am"

As Evangeline caught up, Harry asked, "Does she actually drink?"

"I don't know, nor do I care," Evangeline immediately retorted. "I only have a room here, I don't actually use it for anything other than entertaining my classmates. I actually have a cottage in one of the forested areas of the academy."

As soon as they reached the room that Sayo was leading them to, Harry had to scowl. Based on noise coming from within, you'd assume that the entire school was in attendance. Throwing the door open with enough force to cause it to ricochet off the wall, which he would likely need to repair as a result, he was glad to see he had immediately gotten the attention of every person within.

"I like parties as much as the next person, ladies. In fact I've been the guest of honor at more than a few. But I believe it would be best for everyone if you all went back to your rooms, did your homework, and then got yourselves ready for bed. It is a school night after all."

Harry and Evangeline had to move out of the way as pretty much every girl in the room knew to get, while the getting was good. Once they were gone, Harry realized that the room was apparently shared by Konoe-chan and Kagurazaka-san. So, once he focused his eyes on the redhead, he remarked, "Congratulations, for skipping out on detention with me, you will be having to serve a makeup detention with Nitta-san after classes end tomorrow."

Nitta-san was the closest thing Mahora Academy had to a Dolores Umbridge in terms of how he chooses to discipline students when they misbehave. The main difference was that Harry could at least respect Nitta for his chosen method. Making misbehaving children sit in the Seiza position for protracted periods of time wasn't anywhere near as bad as what Dolores Umbridge had done to students that were supposed to be under her care, including Harry himself. That didn't mean the children were likely to enjoy it anymore than what Harry had to deal with, though.

"Please no…" Asuna exclaimed.

Harry shook his head, "Maybe this will teach you not to skive detentions with a teacher you might actually enjoy the time with. I had been planning to actually try and help you figure out what went wrong with your attempt at the pizza this afternoon, but nooo…"

Asuna promptly turned to glare at Negi and bellowed, "You! This is all you…"

"Does yelling at a defenseless young boy make you feel better?" Harry snarked.

"I'm not defenseless," Negi protested.

Harry rolled his eyes, "Stop helping, kid."

Konoka and Sayo both snickered at that. While Konoka was as much of a fangirl of Negi as the rest of the class, she could at least appreciate the fact that Harry was actually at the point where he would be appropriate for… "Mind out of the gutter, Kono-chan."

Cue massive blushes of embarrassment, "Bwha?"

Harry smirked at her and said, "Odd as this will sound, for you, Negi is the better romantic interest." He then turned his attention to Negi and said, "I have a huge manor house within walking distance of the academy with two floors full of bedrooms. How would you like one of them?"

Negi's eyes widened, "Thank you, thank you so much."

"But…" Konoka started to say, "Grandfather said…"

"If I find out your grandfather has arranged for him to share a room with the two of you, I will be calling the police on that old man. That is incredibly inappropriate."

Evangeline upon hearing that, rolled her eyes, having already figured out that Sayo was bunking with Harry, but she had no intention on calling him for it, not now that Sayo had an appropriate body to go with such a relationship, and especially not after what she had offered as payment for getting her out of her idea of hell. Though now that she thought about it, that might not change where she was living too much given Sayo was even more thoroughly stuck than Eva herself was.

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

"Potter-san, this place is far too nice, I should go back to…"

Harry clapped a hand on the ten year old's shoulder and said, "Mi casa, es su casa."

Negi deflated after that and went to find a room he could stay in. The only rule Harry had given him was to stay off the third floor as that was warded differently to the rest of the house. In truth it wasn't, but Harry didn't want Negi to walk in on him and Sayo by accident, especially since Harry figured it was only a matter of time before Negi notices Sayo for the first time.

Once Harry had made it to third floor, he was unsurprised to find Evangeline standing on the balcony. What he was surprised to see was that she had a green haired girl with her, one that had rather mechanical looking headgear on her. He didn't remember seeing this girl in class, so she must have been absent today.

Walking over to the balcony, he opened it, looked at her amusedly, and said, "I suppose you want me to extend an invite?"

Eva glared at him for just a moment, before saying, "That is largely an urban myth. Or at least is with regards to vampires of my caliber."

Harry nodded his head and said, "I will still need to extend an invite to get you past the last bit of wards. So I suppose… Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell, would you care to join me for a cup of tea?"

"I would be delighted, Harry-kun," Evangeline curtsied. It was only then that he noticed both she and the green haired girl were dressed in elegant gothic lolita fashions.

Surprising him however, the odd girl just walked right in, completely unmindful of the security wards. "Wha?"

"Chachamaru isn't actually an organic being, Harry. So wards keyed to such existences tend not to work against her, the same way said wards tend not to work on ghosts and poltergeists," Evangeline explained for him.

Harry watched Chachamaru for a few moments as she looked around the room with all the curiosity of a child. Before saying, "Eva-chan, did you make for yourself a female Pinocchio?"

"I didn't make her, though they needed my help to finish her," Eva remarked. "And now that you mention it, I suppose that is sort of how our relationship works, with me being her Geppetto."

"Okay, well let me go fetch us some tea, you and Chachamaru can look around, but I suggest you stay on this floor unless you want to run into Negi."

xXx Ten Minutes Later xXx

Sayo showed up about the same time that Harry entered the sitting room on the floor he was now starting to think as the 'immortal sanctuary' as while he wasn't sure he was immortal just yet, it seemed likely he was. "Oh, heya Sayo. Where did you skip off to?"

"Hiya, Harry. I was actually making a report to Takahata-sensei about what happened. I was right, he can see me. He says he approves your idea to bring Negi-kun into your home for the duration of his time here and will mention it to the Headmaster," Sayo admitted.

"I wouldn't be surprised he can see you, Sayo," Evangeline remarked. "The man was in the same dropout class as Negi's father at the magic school that sent us Negi."

"Interesting," Harry remarked, "That means he may be the one maintaining the curse."

"Don't bother, I already investigated that angle ages ago. While he likely knows how it is being done, he isn't involved in the process directly," Evangeline admitted.

Once they had settled down and all had a cup of tea and biscuits, including Sayo, Harry asked, "So what brings you here tonight, ladies?"

"Two things, Chachamaru didn't get a chance to meet you today, she had gotten the sudden urge to go rescue a cat from out of a tree or something. She tends to do things like that from time to time. The other being that I want to know why you are helping both me and that boy?"

"You don't need a reason to help someone," Harry replied.

Eva's eyes widened in recognition, though she did not actually admit she recognized the quote as that was one of her shameful little secrets that she didn't want people knowing about her. Eventually however, she had to ask, "Just so you know, I occasionally have to harvest magical energy, which is similar to how a traditional vampire would harvest life sustaining blood. If I weren't under the curse, I wouldn't need to do that. However if you want me to make it to classes with any regularity, I have to do something to keep my magic from withering away."

"Odd as this is going to sound, I have no issue with that, provided you don't actually drain your victims to the point where they would likely die without assistance," Harry admitted.

"Reports of my monstrous appetites are greatly exaggerated," Evangeline admitted, "I much prefer to only hurt those who attack me first, and even then will usually only kill them if they don't take a hint and back the hell off. I also wouldn't normally even target women or children as a source of mana replenishment, except I don't have very many alternatives given the situation."

"I understand, Eva. I actually have some familiarity with the need to do what one must in order to survive, and so I won't persecute you for it," Harry admitted. "However, I will warn you to be careful to cover your tracks as best you can. Humans, magical or otherwise, tend to jump to conclusions about people before actually thinking matters through. It's kind of why I want Sayo staying where I can keep an eye on how others react to her, because there is the chance someone could observe something she is interacting with and react badly enough to cause all sorts of trouble."

"Harry?" Sayo wondered in confusion.

Harry turned to her and gently traced her cheek, which drew a blush from her, before saying, "While it is unlikely they would have the correct exorcism ritual, it is possible someone would attempt to exorcise you. It wouldn't truly kill you, but it would banish you from Mahora never to return, and that is something I will do what I can to avoid having happen, as this is your home, Sayo-chan."

He was suddenly glomped by a now sobbing poltergeist, as she realized how cruel humans could be. Evangeline sighed and said, "On that note, I believe it best if Chacha and I leave for the evening."

"You could always take one of the other rooms on this floor. I already informed Negi not to come up to this level, warned him that the wards are built differently," Harry said as he did what he could to comfort Sayo.

"Are they?" Eva wondered.

"By the time you reach the room you wish to call yours, the wards will have been adjusted in such a way to at least look different, if not actually be different," Harry offered. "Unless he studied Goblin magic at his school, he is unlikely to tell the difference, and I only earned the right to such wards after paying for damages I caused to the London Branch and offering them the chance to let them examine my three artifacts."

Eva smiled and said, "Then for tonight, I'll take you up on the offer."

xXx Early Hours of the Morning xXx

Harry's eyes snapped open as he felt a pulse of energy from the most innocuous of his three artifacts. "Sayo, I need to get up."

"But I'm sweepy," the ghost girl complained.

"Someone from the afterlife is making a collect call and I need to go find out what it is they want, sweetie. It may be important," Harry urged.

That got the girl to make herself insubstantial enough for him to pass through her. She did not however, get up like a normal person would have. So sighing, he braced himself and pushed his way through the splash of cold energy that made up her body when it was incorporeal like that. He then made his way over to the desk and pulled open the draw that contained two objects, one a neatly folded cloth, the other a small rock.

As soon as he picked the stone up, it flared and a figure made itself visible to his senses. "Mum?"

"I merely took your mother's form as it would be easier for you to hold a conversation with her than for me to be in the form I was in the last time we spoke, Master," the entity that had first created Harry's artifacts informed him.

"Death?" Harry wondered, which got a nod. "Okay, so why are you contacting me?"

"To warn you not to break that curse in your usual hamfisted way. If you do, it will likely kill both her, and possibly several others. You are going to need to find the backdoor that allows you to unlock it the correct way. Unfortunately I don't know what that is."

Harry scowled at the entity and asked "How can you not know what the correct method is?"

"Because it doesn't lead to multiple deaths the way your usual method would have done. As such I can't perceive it. I can only perceive something if it is either a person nearing the end of their life, or else is directly responsible for a loss of life."

"Okay, good to know," Harry admitted. "Well as fun as this is, I have a girl who is probably quite annoyed with you that I need to go calm down."

"You do? Who is it?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "A poltergeist, which is why I think, you are surprised."

"Oh pooh, Poltergeists are one of my biggest blind spots. Both them and odd as this will sound, Dementors."

"Right, sucking a person's soul out through their mouth, doesn't actually kill them, how could I forget that," Harry snarked. "Go away Death."

There was a flare of light and she was gone again. Harry then walked back over to the bed, and immediately frowned, "You aren't planning on letting me back into the bed, are you?"

"Mm comfy, go bug Eva," Sayo muttered.

Sighing, and knowing better than to heed that suggestion, he walked out of the room, and headed into the room right next to it, which he knew wasn't the one that… "Oh crap…"

Chachamaru was in this room for some reason, though Eva was nowhere to be seen. Worse still, she was completely lacking in clothes at the moment, which revealed to him the fact that she was most definitely a robot of some variety. An attractive robot to be sure, but one that definitely needed at least a few upgrades before she could say 'look at me, I'm a real girl!'

The girl looked up at him, took note of his presence, and then just completely seemed to ignore it. He had to assume she was used to people walking in on her when she wasn't wearing clothes, or else that reaction was not going to be in any way normal. "Chacha, what are you doing in this room specifically?"

"Guard duty," Chachamaru admitted. It took Harry only fraction of a second to realize that this room was in a optimal position where she could attack someone coming up the stairs. That slightly worried Harry.

"Eva set you to guard us from Negi?" Harry asked, more rhetorically than anything else.

"Hai," the girl replied.

"Do you mind if I spend the rest of the night on the bed in here?"

She looked at him critically for a moment, before he noticed a slight blush tinge her cheeks, "Go ahead."

Harry sighed, and said, "Chacha, no matter what anyone else might say to the contrary, don't ever think of yourself as anything but a beautiful young woman. I can tell someone put a lot of time and care into making you possible, so you feeling self-conscious like that is not something I want to ever see."

He could tell she was considering that, but that she didn't say anything. So he took a spot on the bed and got at least another hour of shuteye.

xXx Chapter Concluded xXx

Author's Note: So Harry has now officially met the three girls that are by and large immortal… yes Mana probably qualifies too, but there is a reason I don't plan on involving her. There is the fact that these three have are the ones most likely to survive the time skip between Negima and UQ Holder if given a reason to do so.