So, my previous attempt at a Harry/Eto story didn't quite work out. I think this one has potential, but again, whether it becomes a full story is another matter. This is a WBWL fic, but with Neville as the WBWL, and closer to his canon self than the usual self-centred sibling of Harry that I usually use. This is Harry raised by Kishou Arima. It's based on a hybrid of a number of challenges, including my own 'Don't Fear the CCG Reaper' challenge...

JANUS

CHAPTER 1:

A MISTAKE IS MADE

Ghouls, a human subspecies, obligate cannibals who could only survive by feeding on normal humans. Feared in myth and legend, but now an immutable fact of life, especially in urban areas. Oddly enough, while they were found across the world, the biggest concentration seems to be in Japan, specifically Tokyo.

The greatest bastion against this plague, then, was the Commission for Countering Ghouls, aka the CCG. Humans trained to fight against Ghouls, wielding biological weapons named Quinques, created from the very organs Ghouls used to fight, their kagunes. These Quinques are the very edge Investigators, colloquially known as 'Doves', need to take down Ghouls, proving that, if fighting monsters didn't mean you were in danger of becoming them, then it at least meant turning them into weapons1.

Yet there was a conspiracy behind the CCG, and a conspiracy opposing that conspiracy. Ironically, two of the key figures of the counter-conspiracy were a trusted member of the CCG, and his adopted brother. The young CCG Investigator already feared as the CCG's Reaper, Kishou Arima, and a rather more eccentric Provisional Investigator called Harry Arima. And of all things, Harry had a relationship with a Ghoul, a strange love with a One-Eyed Ghoul called Eto Yoshimura…

He stood there, basking in their applause, having just basked in the blood of the man he just killed. The grin on his face was there for the audience. Behind it, a young boy sat staring, no longer sobbing, just looking at the carnage he had wrought. Or rather, someone else had wrought. He was a passenger in his own mind in more ways than one. He'd given it over to the one who took the pain, physical and emotional, and made it his own.

And then, screams of panic. The alarum call of "DOVES!" went up all around the chamber. And the boy just stood there, coming back to himself, his grin becoming more real, but also more tired, more weary, more broken. It was a smile that did not belong on a human being. Something in him realised that it was all over.

And then, he saw him approaching. A tall, imposing man, with short blue hair framing a stern face, and wearing glasses (just like he did), stopped near him, looking down at him.

The boy knew, with some primal instinct, that this man was Death, that he was the very Reaper himself. But he did not cringe away or retreat. He just smiled, dropping the weapon, greeting Death like an old friend, hoping he'd take him away…

"…And THAT, my dear Rei, is why you should not kill people you have grievances with. Rather, when the time is right, you make their lives a living hell through pranks."

The albino, effeminate boy stared at him, his crimson eyes wide with something akin to religious awe, a theophany apparent in that gaze, before he gave a deep and somewhat comical bow. "…Please teach me your secrets, Sensei-Senpai!"

"In due time. I don't think Shinohara will enjoy me teaching you too many bad habits, Rei. He's a good man, and doesn't need the headaches," Harry Arima said. "And you have to be discerning about your targets, who you prank, when, and what you do to them."

As Rei Suzuya looked at him with starry eyes, an older man with mismatched eyes (one squinting, the other wide open, giving him the air of a stroke victim or a lunatic) and wild white hair chuckled, drinking from a cup of tea as they convened in a break room at the Commission for Countering Ghouls. "Now, now, Harry, don't give him too many ideas just yet. Shinohara may have taken him under his wing, but unlike you, he still needs to go through the Academy."

"It doesn't mean I can't give my cute little minion-to-be some tips," Harry said, ruffling Rei Suzuya's hair. "Besides, Rei's gonna be a good boy, and only prank the deserving, right?"

"Yeah! I'm gonna make you proud, Sensei-Senpai!"

"Good. Now, as a mental exercise, I want you to think of all the ways you can prank Marude. I don't want you to do them, just go and write them out or something, okay?"

"Sure!"

As the albino wandered away, a notebook in hand, humming, the white-haired man, Kureo Mado, remarked, "I don't think anything could top the time when you stole his motorbike and parked it on the roof of this building, somehow. I swear, I coughed up half a lung from all the laughter." Mado looked at Harry, a pensive look on his face. "…You see yourself in him, being an ex-Scrapper yourself." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Of course. I was probably more functional than he was, but there's a few reasons for that. The first was that the Ghoul I was working for wasn't quite as much of a sadist as Big Madam was, odd though that seems in hindsight. The second is…well…"

"Edward?"

"Edward," Harry concurred with a nod.

"…Fair enough. For all that the Ghouls are monsters in human skin, I will admit that there are degrees of depravity even amongst them," Mado said, his eyes narrowing at Rei. "…What Big Madam did to that boy…the boy is broken, and may never recover fully, if at all. What a freak, to make a eunuch out of Rei to preserve his beauty. And that was only one indignity of many that that monster did to him. I read the file on his debriefing. Good Boy Points indeed." Mado scoffed.

Harry nodded. Rei Suzuya, an ex-Scrapper from a Ghoul Restaurant, a human slave taught how to kill and dismember their fellow man for the entertainment of Ghouls wanting a Grand Guignol version of dinner cabaret. Harry empathised with him because the same thing happened to him. His aunt and uncle had sold him to a Ghoul…only to find themselves on the menu in short order. They weren't Harry's first kills…but they weren't far from them.

Then again, only Dudley he regretted. Vernon and Petunia had told him that he was a freak, that his parents were drunkards who died in a car crash, not the truth. They treated him like a servant. Becoming dinner at a Ghoul Restaurant was karma.

"Apropos of nothing, have you heard the latest rumours?" Mado asked. Without further prompting, he said, "You know of the decrease in Ghoul numbers, something of an exodus. We just had confirmation that a number of Tokyo's Ghouls have been emigrating to Britain. Not that many, perhaps a dozen at the last estimate, but still, considering that there were a couple of big fish amongst them…"

Harry nodded. "I did hear the rumours. My big brother told me why. Despite the British being in denial, Voldemort has, somehow, resurrected himself. The so-called Boy Who Lived barely managed to escape. And apparently, Voldemort's had his followers reach out to Ghouls in Britain and in other countries, including Japan."

"Yes. And while the prospect of Ghouls disappearing from this city is an appealing one, it doesn't bode well that a rather tenacious warlock wants to use them as part of his army. And the current British Minister of Magic has stuck his head in the sand. Our Minister is appalling enough, but Cornelius Fudge makes him look superlative by comparison."

"So what is the British CCG going to do about it?"

"Good question. Even our CCG branches have had clashes with the local Aurors over jurisdiction, but apparently it's worse over there. Despite being one of the few organisations excepted from the Statute of Secrecy, they have a bad habit of Obliviating their Investigators anyway. They also get the rejects from the local DMLE as we do, though that's not necessarily a bad thing, as they tend to get those who are dismissed for political reasons, or not having pure enough blood. Some actually have good skills. But they're also seen, as we are, as a joke by the DMLE."

"Too many wizards are arrogant idiots," Harry muttered.

Mado nodded sagely. While Harry didn't like his more obsessional quirks, to say nothing of his extreme hatred for Ghouls, Mado was a good man, and tolerant of Harry's own quirks. The older man even had a prankster's nature himself, and was often a sounding board and co-conspirator for Harry's pranks. And unlike that lipless wonder Hachikawa, Mado at least cared about civilians who got in the way.

Of course, if Mado ever learned the secret Harry was hiding, Mado would probably kill him, albeit over a protracted period.

After all, he probably wouldn't take kindly to Harry dating the very person who killed Mado's wife.

At this time, Yukinori Shinohara and Kishou Arima walked into the break room. The former was a burly man with a pleasant face and an equally pleasant demeanour. The latter was a tall, stern-looking man whose features, while handsome, even beautiful, were cold, calm and stoic. His short blue hair had streaks of white in it, and his steel grey eyes peered out from behind glasses.

"Hey there, Harry," Shinohara said, before looking at Juuzou. "You haven't…uh…been teaching Juuzou any bad habits, have you?"

"…Just replacing bad habits with less bad ones," Harry said cheerfully. "You don't want your pet project to try and gut anyone he doesn't like at the Junior Academy, right? Besides, I've told him not to give you any headaches."

"Hmm. By the way, Arima here told me that your relationship with that author, Sen Takatsuki, is going well. It's good to have something outside of work. Still…you'll have to think of something to say to her."

Shinohara's words worried Harry, and his adopted big brother nodded to confirm that worry, sitting down, as did Harry. He knew when his adopted big brother, Kishou Arima, was being serious. "…What happened in there?" Harry asked, knowing that they had been to see Tsuneyoshi Washuu, the chairman of the CCG…and, unbeknownst to most, Arima's father.

Arima closed his eyes, a faint exhalation the closest thing the stoic and oft-expressionless CCG Investigator had to a sigh, at least publically. "There has been a complication in Britain. Due to the sudden influx of Ghouls into the country, the local CCG is having a hard time of it. However, Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, has requested that a CCG Investigator, albeit one with magical ability, teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts for this year. Amber Baum has accepted. Due to her injury taking down the SS-rated Ghoul Maenad, she was taken off active duty some years ago. However, she has requested a teaching assistant from us. She wants someone experienced with both Ghouls and wizards. Unlike the British, we don't have many wizards in the CCG here in Japan. They prefer to work in the Committee for Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, and even then, they're content to let us handle Ghouls."

"…So one of us is going over," Harry said. "It can't be you. The Washuu clan wouldn't dare lend the British their biggest trump card."

"No. There is another problem. With Fudge in serious denial over Voldemort's return, he's looking to exert more control over Hogwarts," Shinohara said. "When you read between the lines, he's actually trying to dig up dirt on Dumbledore and Neville Longbottom. He's a paranoid imbecile who thinks that Dumbledore is scaremongering to get his position, and wants Dumbledore and Longbottom out of the way. The fact that he has known associates of Voldemort slipping him bribes and whispering in his ear doesn't help."

"Cretin," Mado said succinctly. "So many escaped imprisonment by claiming to be under the Imperius. I doubt that even a third of them were. I'd love to confine them to Cochlea, see whether they enjoy being made a Ghoul's bitch."

"Be that as it may," Arima said, "there is another reason for this. Dumbledore has also requested that the teaching assistant also help train Neville Longbottom. Augusta Longbottom's chosen tutors haven't done well for the boy. Dumbledore wants someone capable of training the Boy Who Lived in a manner that won't turn him into a wreck like many of the other tutors."

"Not a good showing at all, given that he's trumpeted as the Boy Who Lived," Mado remarked. "I personally think it's more likely that young Harry here was the one Voldemort tried to kill. And even if he weren't, it makes little difference. Whatever saved them was due to the sacrifice of the parents."

"In any case, Chairman Washuu has made a decision as to who will be sent over." He then looked pointedly at Harry.

"…This is his way of stopping me from pranking him, isn't it?" Harry said in annoyed resignation. The nods he got, even from his big brother, told him all he needed to know. Oh, joy…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

Oh dear. Harry is the ex-Scrapper protégé of Kishou Arima…and is about to be unleashed on Magical Britain. They are NOT ready…

No numbered annotations this time.