Warnings, disclaimers, etc.

A/N's - remember, Imperius is the spell name, Imperio is the incantation to cast it.

Ch. 28 - Under Masks

Kurama was prudent enough to let Hiei stew for a couple of days over the whole prospect of studying Keiko's link before coming back. Hiei took the time to consider every angle he could think of for why the stupid fox was pushing the idea at all.

A potential flaw in an ally's - in Hiei's - defenses, to be addressed and fixed before said ally got him killed. Sure. Entirely reasonable. And if it so happened to be a potential flaw to exploit later on... well, that was reasonable too.

The one thing Hiei could be sure the fox was not, was reasonable. Ruthless, manipulative, predictable... sure, if he was in a fight. But... then there was the rest of it.

Hiei had the sinking feeling that Kurama honestly wanted to help.

And somehow, he couldn't bring himself to be paranoid about it.

The door creaked open (one more week stuck here, just one more damned week, and this stupid ruse to hide the storm-making will be over), and Kurama entered quietly, shutting the door behind him as if anyone would care whether it banged shut or not.

He was alone.

"Where's the girl?" Hiei asked gruffly.

Kurama turned back from the doors, his face a pleasant mask as he walked over. "I thought we'd first see if you can form the link without Keiko-san." Hiei raised an eyebrow, and after an expectant beat, Kurama went on, "After all, if you can't do it on purpose, it's likely you won't by accident. Which is one less danger to be aware of." A quirked smile. "Right?"

Except for the part where it went against all the magical theory Hiei knew, Kurama had a point. Then again, the mess with Keiko getting magic implanted in her in the first place was just as implausible... "Fine. Sit."

Kurama did, pulling the privacy curtain behind him. A dropped seed sprouted and tangled in the outer corner, sticking the fabric to the floor. It wouldn't be enough to truly stop anyone from getting in - not a good idea, if something did go wrong - but it would help prevent accidental interruptions.

Hiei reached up to pull his headband free, and Kurama asked, "Is that really necessary?"

"Probably," Hiei replied. "Whatever Keiko did, it's more like telepathy than anything I can do naturally." Which meant using the Jagan; its clairvoyance was far closer to the mind arts than the elemental ones.

The thick white cloth fell, and the world went oddly translucent and multi-colored. The walls of Hogwarts failed to hide the softly glowing web of its magic, or the fluttering pulses of life in the Houses and the Owlery. Hiei could see out to the aged-gold weave of the Squid in the lake, tentacles trailing out behind it.

Focus.

He didn't need to see past the Infirmary walls. Just inside, close by, where there were quicksilver sparks in the bottles on the Infirmary shelves, at Kurama's fingertips, and in the seeds in his hair.

Closer.

The silvery sparks had a heartbeat, slow and barely there, but enough that they shed gauzy wisps with every pulse. The wisps drifted across Kurama's face, hitching as they crossed his nose, and dissipated into tattered threads with every breath.

Hiei reached out with one violet-misted hand, fingertips brushing through the silver drifting across Kurama's eyes, and pinched.

Nothing. The pale mist of Kurama's magic fell through Hiei's fingers like they weren't even there.

Remembering the strange twist Keiko had used, Hiei tried again, pinching and twisting this time. But the magic may as well have been smoke... worse than smoke; at least if there was ash and heat, Hiei could manage to coax enough fire out to be able to handle it.

He huffed out a sharp breath, earning a raised eyebrow. "Nothing?" Kurama asked.

"I can see it," Hiei admitted.

Kurama's gaze softened, thoughtful. "I see," he murmured. "So we were probably wrong, assuming that the link was a new power of the Jagan." Hiei twitched, stung; Kurama was right, they hadn't once considered that maybe the magic was Keiko's instead. "I wonder if... even if you can't make the link, if you could break it?" he mused, focusing on Hiei once more. "From the outside, I mean."

Something about the tone set Hiei on edge. "Probably not," he answered warily.

"Then, if it's hard to break from the outside... and you have to know how to do it from the inside..." Kurama's eyes crinkled in a calculating little smile. "I wonder what her range is?"

Range...? Waitaminute. If it was hard to break the link, and it knocked people unconscious, and Kurama was speaking in terms of range... which would, of course, be range of attack...

I should've thought of it myself.

No wonder Kurama wanted to study the link. The more they knew about it, the better they'd be able to defend against it.

Hiei bared his teeth in a grin.

-0-0-0

One more 'subtle' mention of Merlin (or Godric Gryffindor, Thor, or Superman... the Creeveys needed a good shaking for that last one, really they did), and Harry was going to go spare.

He threw himself into a chair half-hidden by Hermione and a tall bookcase, grabbed the top book in her 'discard' pile (at this hour, it would be the taller stack... plus, she always put the finished books face-down), and brought it up in front of his head to finish hiding himself.

"It's upside-down, Harry."

Harry automatically flipped the book right-side-up, then flipped it again. Maybe he'd wanted to read it upside-down, so there. ... Oooor, spotting the title, maybe he didn't really want to read it at all. Potions. Ugh. He set the book aside and peered over Hermione's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

She helpfully tilted the book to show a drawing of a 16th-century woman, heavy robes flaring out as she spun artfully on the page. "Picking out a costume."

Not the bloody ball again. "I thought you were doing the," Harry twirled a finger, "the myth thing. Hermione of Troy."

"Well." Hermione went slightly red. "I thought about it, and I realized that there's naturally going to be a preponderence of togas at the masquerade, given that wizarding culture draws heavily on the Greco-Roman influence. After all, most of the spells are obviously of Latin derivation," Harry felt his eyes glaze over, but he blinked and mentally shook himself as Hermione went on, "So I decided I need a costume that isn't a toga." A slight, wry smile. "Besides, copying my namesake is horribly unclever anyway. So I thought I'd start from the Shakespeare instead, and from there I found a real Sicilian-Spanish queen of the time - Joanna of Castile, though of course her name was really Juana - and there are several portraits and books to help me with the robes."

"Uh huh." Sometimes, the way Hermione's mind worked was just scary.

"What about you?" she asked, eyes bright and curious.

Harry groaned, letting his head fall onto his arm. "I dunno," he grumbled. "I think everybody's expecting me to go as some sort of grand hero." Several days of ever-so-subtle hints were a bit of a dead giveaway, there. "Besides myself, I mean."

"Ignore them," she said flatly. "What do you want to go as?"

"I don't-"

"Just give me some adjectives. Scary? Handsome? Fun? Happy?"

"Fun and happy," Harry agreed. "Normal."

"You're going to have to be recognizeable, too," Hermione pointed out.

An unmistakable flash of color flickered in the corner of Harry's vision. He blinked, lifting his head to see Ginny laughing with several girls across the room. Recognizeable. Fun. Happy. Normal. "... Can you charm my hair red?"

"Red?" Hermione echoed. She followed his gaze, then kicked him sharply in the ankle. "You're not going as Ron. Honestly, Harry!"

"No! No. Not as Ron." Ron would never get it, or let him live it down. But... "I have a better idea."

"Harry James Potter..."

"I swear! You'll love it, Hermione, it's brilliant, no one's ever going to expect it."

"... I reserve full veto power. Now tell me."

Harry did.

-0-0-0

It had taken exactly one word - Imperius - to convince a horrified Keiko to train her newfound weapon on them. Kurama hadn't even had to go into the longer explanation: that if an enemy used the Unforgiveable curse to make her attack, the more experience her allies had in breaking free, the better.

"And the fewer people I start with," she'd mused, "the fewer are at risk if something unexpected happens. And since you two have the most experience..."

She'd practically convinced herself.

"Bravo," Hiei had muttered dryly later, when Kurama was recounting the discussion. "You're a cunning bastard."

It wasn't meant to be a compliment. More a statement of the obvious. Kurama took it as a compliment anyway, and headed out to fetch Keiko for the first session. Which was when things had gone wrong.

"We scheduled summonings on Thursday and Monday so that everyone would have a chance to rest," Keiko had flatly informed him. "If you absolutely cannot wait until next Friday, when we're finished," Her eyes flashed with the threat of dire consequences if someone didn't have enough patience to suit her. It was almost cute, and would have been hilarious if it had been directed at Yuusuke or Kuwabara, "You're going to have to settle for a short session on Saturday. Short! I'll bring you out of it myself in five minutes if you don't."

So here it was, Saturday - Saturday afternoon, just to add insult to injury - and now Keiko was balking again.

"From there?" she asked, eyes flickering to the far side of the room and back incredulously. "Kurama-san, if I were like Kuwabara-san, maybe I'd just jump in the deep end like that and hope not to knock myself out, but I'm not him. I am going to 'attack' from right here," she pointed at the floor under her feet, little more than a meter from Hiei and Kurama themselves, "which is already considerably farther than I'm used to. And then we can build up my range from there, the normal way."

Pampered little brat. The normal way was to get thrown in the deep end and hope to survive it, though Yuusuke would probably have problems with studying Keiko's abilities that way. So Kurama faked a chuckle, getting a sharp and unamused look from Hiei, and subsided into an armchair next to the little demon. "As you say," he replied coolly, glancing airily away. "Whenever you're rea-"

A flicker of fingers out of the corner of his eye, and

The scent of flowers hung thick in the misty air.

Kurama looked around at the dim woods - familiar, so familiar, the sharp incline under his slippered feet hinting at mountains, a pristine forest like hadn't been seen in Japan in centuries - and stretched, inhaling deeply.

- the rustle of mice in lush undergrowth, warm blood in his mouth, and had that vine really moved to catch it for him? -

Cool air brushed over his bare arms, carrying the peculiar sharp bite of the very early morning. Strange, that the fog should be so thick just before dawn, when it should still be dew dripping off every leaf, but it did feel right somehow...

Kurama's tail swung in pleasure.

He blinked. Tail?

A glance down confirmed it: strong, pale arms; claw-tipped fingers; white clothes; a silvery tail flicking into view. He was Youko in here. Though... there looked to be a trace of green thread at the hem of his robe, a few stray red hairs in his tail tip.

Odd.

But he had work to do. Which way to locate the link to Hiei...?

Leaves rustled somewhere off to his left.

Hiei had better not be in here already, Kurama thought, slipping noiselessly into the underbrush that had seemed so impenetrable a moment ago. It was one thing to form the link, something else entirely to sneak in before Kurama had even located the point of connection.

... Except, as the treetops rustled again without benefit of a breeze, Hiei wasn't clumsy like this. Though Kurama wouldn't put it past the trees to tell him...

Oh.

Of course. They were leading him to the link.

He darted across a thick, moss-covered tree trunk that bridged an ivy-coated ravine, a sliver of empty twilight sky flashing between the canopy above. The far side of the ravine dropped sharply in hairpin turns, crooked pines still rooted somewhere under the ivy. Needles shook, beckoning Kurama down.

A trickle of water lay choked in fallen leaves, wet and brown and trailing back to a dead-end ivy grotto, where the fog broke in a clear semi-circle before a pair of maples in full autumn leaf. The two vibrant trees formed each side of a tori'i-style gate, faint eddies swirling at the edge of a buffeting heat Kurama could feel from here. Within the circle, everything was starting to wilt already; a few maple leaves seemed to be crisping at the edges.

On the far side of the gate, a small, hard face nearly glowed with moonlight.

"Hello, Hiei."

The little demon looked a bit shorter than usual, even given that Kurama was taller. His hair, usually bristly anyway, seemed heavier, more like fur than much-washed human hair. And although he wore a concealing brown cloak that had seen better days, it did little to hide the lean and hungry lines in his face.

The Jagan eye was missing.

There was no mistaking that this Hiei was the image of a feral Makai bandit, nor that Kurama wore the body he expected to have as well.

However...

Kurama jerked awake with a resounding thump. He barely managed to stop the rose that sprouted in his hand, thorn digging into his palm, before it became visible.

"Five minutes?" he asked instead, voice perfectly controlled.

"Yes," Keiko answered. "How was it?"

"Intriguing." And very, very worrying. If just five minutes had started doing damage - if the wilting leaves had meant that - on Kurama's side, what was happening on Hiei's?

They were going to have to find out. Fast.

-0-0-0

Later that evening, down in the Slytherin dorms, Kurama double-checked the ties on the crude fur trousers Daphne had handed him moments before, then opened the door to his room. "I'm decent," he said simply.

"Wonderful," Daphne answered, following him into the dorm with a plain wooden chair tapping in her wake. "Take a seat." He did, and she knelt, poking the hem of his tunic up and out of the way with her wand. "That obviously won't do," she muttered, a dismissive eye on the fabric, as she picked up his foot, cool fingers articulating his ankle and toes in a matter-of-fact way. "Definitely a toga." Her wand tapped at his heel, then up the top of his foot from big toe to shin, ending with the tip halfway to his knee. More mutterings, and she pushed at his knee, hands circling just above the joint and pressing at the sides.

If she got much higher, they were going to have words.

But she let go, jotting notes onto a piece of parchment. "How's your sense of balance?" she asked. "Ice skate much?"

Kurama winced. "Not often. I only last year got the hang of it." After several introductions, face-first, to the snowdrifts around the lake. Though it had inspired Hiei to come and haul him around half the night...

She glanced up at him, face carefully void of expression. "We'll try it without the hip transfigurations first, then," she said, barely managing not to go pink. "But if you can't walk after a couple hours' practice..."

A dire threat indeed, being felt up by a Slytherin girl, Kurama thought dryly. "I'll do my best," he promised. "Whenever you're ready?"

Daphne looked away, back at Kurama's foot, then looped her wand in a complex pattern and murmured, "Abeo capracus cruris."

Pressure squeezed at the sides of his foot like a too-tight sock, then stretched from toe to heel. His knee then seemed to pull his heel up, as his middle two toes went thick, dark, and oddly warm, then with a final shuddering twist-and-squeeze, his three remaining toes slid to the mid-underside of his foot and shrank to nubs.

"Obduras," Daphne finished, and the leg of the trouser slid to cover Kurama's foot, then went skintight. "Tell me how that feels."

Carefully, Kurama tried (and failed) to wiggle his toes. Then he bent his ankle, lifting his new cloven hoof. The fur slid over a bone structure that looked like those of the deer he'd eaten for centuries, and nothing hurt. He pressed two fingers to the pad under one hoof, feeling a slight pulse. It felt like his fingers were thin and tiny now.

"Strange," he told Daphne. The joint for his knee was off, too, very stiff; he hadn't even noticed his thigh being narrowed, though he could see that the base had tapered to suit the stump of his calf and his long, thin foot. "But it doesn't hurt. Do the other one."

Quietly, Daphne copied the two spells, then stood and put her wand away. "Sit a while and get used to the feeling, okay? We'll try standing in a bit."

Kurama pressed his new goat legs together, tapping the hooves lightly and getting the strangest sensations, like half of each foot was fitting between the second and third toes of the other. "I take it that's a hint for me to do a practice run on your costume?"

"Well, I suppose, since you're stuck here..." she demurred.

"Laurel, right?" Kurama asked rhetorically, taking out a slender bay leaf.

Daphne smiled as she shucked her robes. "You read the myth." Underneath, she had on a white, close-fitting shift that wouldn't get bunched up under the costume. She then dug a few sheets of parchment from the discarded robes, handing them to Kurama.

The most plausible image was on top: a loose bark dress, tattered through the skirt and coiling into one sandal, with a knee-length overrobe of interwoven leaves 'fastened' at both shoulders with tiny, pale clusters of flowers. The sketch's hair was caught up in a tangle of more leaves. The image on the second page was similar, adding a shawl-like headdress to the leafy overrobe, but a note in the lower corner marked it as a Roman style. Not that Kurama was sure why that was a problem, unless Daphne just didn't want her hair covered.

Further pages added branches or trailing roots, but Kurama discarded those with barely a glance. The weight would be ridiculous, and Daphne wouldn't be able to move easily.

Kurama tugged Daphne to stand in front of him, her knees barely touching his. Then he settled his hands on the flare of her hips, laurel leaf flat between palm and robe, and let his magic flow.

"Are you wearing supportive underthings," he asked mildly as the bodice formed, "or will I have to make some?"

"No, it's fine," Daphne answered quickly. Kurama glanced up in time to see her face flaming. "Just the dress." Kurama nodded and returned to work. After a few moments, she started to chuckle, and he paused so that the design wasn't thrown off by her breasts shaking.

"Yes?"

"Well, I wasn't paying too much attention to those old rumors," she got out, eyes bright with amusement, "but you didn't sound all that enthused about my underwear. So. Just what are you 'teaching' Longbottom?"

Kurama blinked. "Not what I suspect you're suggesting," he replied.

"No?" Daphne hummed thoughtfully. "Who else do you spend a notable amount of time with...?"

Hiei. "Exactly," Kurama replied, starting the costume growth again. "Look at who I spent a lot of time with before coming here." Anyone at Hogwarts would think it was the other Tantei. "It's one thing to speak crudely about women in general - Inari knows my friends do - but I wouldn't recommend behaving like that towards, oh, say, Yukina."

Daphne's eyes went fractionally wider. "Oh. So you... you like Yukina?"

Kurama jerked, nearly dropping the growing dress. "No!" Hiei would kill him. Kuwabara would be crushed, and Hiei would kill him. And Yukina was like a younger sister. Gah. No. "I meant that, among my friends, it's much more prudent to be polite about girl things than get embroiled in a fight with anyone trying to defend the ladies' honor." How convenient, time to do Daphne's hair. He tugged at her shoulder with a vine, beckoning her down.

He pretended not to notice the blush that had returned to Daphne's face, the quick glance she cast towards his groin as she knelt at his cloven feet. It seemed she now wasn't so sure he wasn't interested in girls after all.

Kurama spiked a few leaf buds from a branch, and began to comb her hair up. Careful tugs, separate into sections... how did girls do this? Maybe if he twisted it around like so... yes, secure with a tightly looped branch and let a spray of leaves fall...

Just for kicks, Kurama added a thin, leafy vine spiraling down her left arm, and finished it off in a flowered bracelet. "There. Walk around a bit, see how it holds up."

Daphne stood, but instead of obeying, she held her hands out. "You too," she said, her discomfiture gone as she caught Kurama by the forearms and pulled with surprising strength. "Up you go!"

Up he went, indeed... and kept going, stumbling forward with hooves tapping jarringly against the stone floor. Kurama lurched back, Daphne let go in sheer self-preservation, and with a stomach-turning moment on the edge of balance... Kurama corrected too far. His legs went out from under him, and he landed hard on his rump.

Well. This was obviously going to take some practice. Also, "... Ouch?"

Daphne burst into helpless peals of laughter.

TBC

A/N's -

- Hermione of Troy: in Greek myth, Hermione was the eldest of the children from Helen's marriage to the king of Sparta, before Helen left for Troy. The Shakespearean namesake is a Sicilian queen in The Winter's Tale.

- the old rumors about Kurama are not regarding Neville, but were about Hiei. They were also mostly meant to undercut whatever influence he could gain in Slytherin. They were mentioned in Best Defense all of about once, before anyone in fandom knew anything about Blaise Zabini.