Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or YYH, nor anything affiliated with them.

Chapter One

Harry Potter did not like Number 4 Privet Drive. He hated it; he found it completely and utterly insufferable in fact. It wasn’t the weather and it wasn’t what it looked like that bothered him so much. It was the people, pure and simple. He loathed the people in the ‘neat’ and ‘orderly’ town, the ‘nice’ and ‘upstanding’ citizens. He hated the secrets the little clean town in Surry held. From the outside it seemed almost… picturesque.

There was nothing that ever seen out of place. No body ever noticed the kid who was being picked on, the wife with the cheating husband, the bully, nothing. They lived in their own dream world.

Vibrant Killing Curse green eyes peered out an iron bar covered window with an indistinguishable emotion in their depths. Some days he couldn’t believe he put up with all the people in their pretty little houses and blindness. Everyone was blind. The thought on the matter had been coming to him, even when he had been a young child. That is, if he had ever been a child in the first place. He couldn’t help it, people seemed so blind to him, and he doubted that belief would ever change. No matter how ‘observant’ the person, they had never noticed.

It was sometimes so frustrating… Their weak blindness, and refusal, to see what was right in front of their faces was something he really hated about humans. He frowned; these humans were a particularly vexing group.

Harry adjusted his bent glasses and sorely wished he could lash out with no long lasting consequences for his actions. His lips twisted in a faint mockery of a sneer. He had no energy to pull it off. Not considering the circumstances.

When would he get out? Harry counted the days till school started again. He would rather sit and spend the whole school year in any of Snape’s potion classes than stay with his so called ‘family’.

They had found a way through the threats. The order hadn’t been specific enough with their demands and orders. The damned Dursley’s still found a way to ‘punish’ him.

He was getting tired of playing nice and just taking it.

He rested his head against the window pane in a fruitless search for relief from the pounding in his head. His act was starting to wear down… He couldn’t take this much longer.

Harry had been staring at the wall with a listless expression since he had woken up that morning. He only had his memories for company, though the thought that he would only have a few more days in his own personal hell helped his mood a bit. He would get through it. He knew it and wouldn’t allow otherwise. “I have all the luck don’t I?” he murmured almost imperceptibly.

He moved, sitting up with a bit of effort and he smirked at how difficult it was. The rules his family had to follow were actually pretty simple. No physical harm, though Harry guessed that the Order never thought of his mental health, no excessive work, and he had to be fed. They had also been advised to leave him alone in an effort to give him time to grieve. His smirk twisted to a frown and he almost felt like laughing at the irony. Almost. The Order was supposed to help him, not sign his death warrant. He hadn’t left his room since summer had started and it was finally taking his toll and, although he had been being fed, it was always the same non-nutritional substance every day. Malnutrition wasn’t a fun thing.

Harry supposed he was lucky in a way. If he hadn’t been so special he probably would have been dead.

Sometimes he really wished he had never died.

“Boy!” the sharp bark caught Harry’s attention faster than any other noise could ever hope to and the door swung in on its less than well oiled hinges. Green eyes darted to the door way and his body shifted slightly when the expression on his uncles face came to view.

“Get your self presentable!” Vernon’s bulky form stood in the doorway and the man had an expression of hatred on his face. The light filtered through behind him and into the dark room, illuminating Harry’s weak form on the bed. It was in situations like these that Harry liked to amuse himself with thoughts on how the man could fit through his small doorway. Magic was a common thought, as was science-fictional twists. As it was, the thoughts he could twist and invent kept him forcefully preoccupied.

Harry forcefully kept his attention on his thoughts and fought not to recoil at the man’s presence.

“What are you doing, Boy?!” Vernon took a threatening step into the dark room.

“Move it!” and Harry moved, a dark scowl on his face and a flicker of purple in his eyes…

Kurama was playing hide and seek. Or rather, that was what how he politely put the not so rare phenomenon he was experiencing. From his outlook in his tree he vaguely wondered how the girls at his school would take it if they knew he was gay. He winced as a hoard of girls passed below. It would just give them more ammo.

He didn’t bother looking up when Hiei joined him in his perch. He knew the fire apparition knew he knew he was there. He also knew that what ever it happened to be, was probably important. The Hi-youkai rarely visited him any more, not since Yusuke had become the King. Hiei usually spent his time with Mukuro.

“You have a mission.” Hiei was straight to the point, as always.

Kurama’s somber leaf green eyes lifted off the ground to meet Hiei’s blood red pair just in time for him to catch a black tape that was thrown his way. “Thank you Hiei, will you be staying a while?” his tone was polite, as always and he spared Hiei an inquiring glance.

The answer was a short “No.” before the fire apparition flickered away at his high speed leaving Kurama standing alone again on his now swaying branch.

The branch hadn’t even stopped its mild swaying when a, “There he is!” from a single girl’s shout caught everyone’s attention. Kurama paled drastically. Oh, Inari-sama… His face swung in the girl’s direction to see her grinning malevolently. Inari-sama! It was her. Before he could think of what he was doing he was out of the tree and running. Instincts were really a wonderful thing to boast.

With the tape held securely in his hand and the bag over his shoulder he made quite a sight, darting between trees and out of the park with a gaggle of girls being left in his dust. He only slowed down once the park was far out of sight and the screams of ‘Shuichi-kun’ faded into the sound of the cars passing him by. It never hurt to be careful, especially when being stalked by such a rabid group.

Kurama made his way through the crowd, focusing on the tape in hand. He was almost the only one still in active service of the old group. Kuwabara only attended when Yusuke did, Yusuke was learning about his heritage in the Makai, and Hiei was always around Mukuro. He smirked slightly at the thought of Hiei and Mukuro. He had a feeling that there was more than one reason to why Hiei was always there.

In no time at all Kurama was entering his home. He opened the front door and called out “Tadaima!” to his mother, smiling when he received an answer he headed up the staircase to his room, greeting his younger step-brother when he passed the occupied room. Upon entering his room he set his bag down in a corner next to his desk and put the tape in his VCR.

Koenma popped up on screen, his pacifier muffling his speech. “Kurama, I have a mission for you.” The recording started to look a little nervous. “I know you won’t like this, and I am sorry!” Kurama’s eyebrow raised and he frowned when Koenma started chewing on his pacifier and wringing his hands in stress. “I have just received notice from my branch over in Europe.” Kurama was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

The recording took a deep breath and mumbled about firing the people in charge over in Europe. Koenma seemed to steel himself. “A soul that was assigned to be brought in at all costs never was.” Kurama nodded slightly and his interest spiked. “You are going to be going to England in a week,” Kurama winced at that, how would he tell his mother? “To attend a Magical Boarding School. Your books will arrive tomorrow. I have already taken the liberty of sending one of my operatives in Japan’s local Magic school an order on getting you some Transference Papers and another operative will be getting you up to date on what you need to know. He has a time turner; you will understand when he comes to get you.”

Kurama frowned when Koenma continued on to speak of how long he should expect the mission to take, and he outright scowled when he added on that he would be expected to spend an extra year or two on the mission if he didn’t retrieve the soul in his first year. His hands clenched into fists when the tape ended and he stood up quickly, fully intending on giving Koenma a piece of his mind on the matter of the mission. He couldn’t believe that Koenma expected him to leave his mother till he was sixteen or seventeen. It was an outrageous order, surely Koenma had other operatives who could fill the order, didn’t he?”

His heart was thundering in his ears and he got up quickly, leaving his bag on the floor and the tape in the VCR. Swinging around, he almost ran out his bedroom door and almost jumped down the stairs, taking them two at a time. In his haste he nearly tripped over the umbrella stand next to the door. A furious scowl settled on his face and he threw the stand out of the way and jumped into his shoes.

“Shuichi?” his mother’s voice made him pause, “Shuichi? Where are you going? Dinners almost done.” Kurama turned to see his mother come into the hallway.

Pausing another moment to gather himself, Kurama smiled at his mother, “I am sorry, I have to go meet someone… I forgot. I will be home soon.” He smiled again and quickly left the house, leaving his smile and a worried mother behind.

He was going to kill Koenma!

Several blocks, one portal, and a long series of twisting halls later Kurama was standing outside Koenma’s door. “KOENMA.” He was quite pleased to hear an ‘eep’ from inside.

Throwing the doors open he entered with a purposely intimidating flare, reveling in Koenma’s cowered form. “Ko-en-ma.”

“I’m SORRY!! Very sorry! Insanely Sorry! SORRY!! You are the only person who could do it!” Koenma seemed to be shielding his head from any possible incoming blows.

“Why me? You have other professionals for infiltration and confiscation. Don’t you?” He crossed his arms. He was not at all pleased but his tone was level. Had he had his ears out, they would have been laying flat back in irritation and anger.

The demi-god looked up searchingly. Realizing that he was no longer in danger he straightened his shirt and took a deep calming breath. “You are the only one with the right age and we need someone with mental shields.” He crossed his arms and climbed into his swivel chair. “A lot of my operatives do not have mental shields, and the ones who do are obviously too old. We need someone who is a student.”

He reached forward and pulled two files off the corner of his large desk. He looked at them with a frown before holding them out for Kurama to take. “These are the files of Tom Marvolio Riddle and Harry James Potter. Riddle is your target, although Potter should have been taken in as well. No body in the England sector is sure why Potter didn’t die, but Riddle did. Riddle has been doubling the death rate of the citizens in Europe. Scotland and Great Britain have been hit the worst.”

“What is he trying to do?” he took the files out of Koenma’s hands and flipped open the one on Riddle.

“The ones who investigated the problem say he is trying to wipe out any ‘muggles’ and non-‘purebloods’ in their magical community. He seems to be killing off any ‘purebloods’ that defy him as well.” Koenma was pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to fight off a migraine.

Kurama sighed and shifted his weight, “What is a ‘muggle’, exactly?” He tangled his fingers into his hair. And why did he have to deal with it? He wanted to ask, despite the fact that he had already received an answer.

“A ‘muggle’ is a person who only has enough Reiki to live. They call it ‘Magic’. We have schools here in Japan that teaches ‘Magic’ and people like Yusuke and Kuwabara would be the people who attend.” He leaned back and looked Kurama full on, “I know. Why didn’t Yusuke, or Kuwabara, attend the schools?”

Kurama nodded and began looking through the papers in the file.

“At the time of enrollment, Yusuke had very little Reiki and Kuwabara only had his ‘awareness’. They would have both been classified as ‘squibs’ by the community. Before you ask, a ‘squib’ is a person who is born to parents who have high amounts Reiki while the child has only enough to live--like a ‘muggle’.”

There was a bout of silence and Kurama looked up, “And that is why Riddle is killing them off? Just because they don’t have much Reiki?”

“It’s something like that, though they have no concept of Reiki. The reason he uses is that they are different and would wipe out the ‘Magical’ community if they ‘interbred’. He thinks it ‘weakens’ them.”

Kurama looked down at the moving pictures in his hands. One file, the one he currently held open, had several pictures of a man, and although it was the same person in all of them, the photos looked very different. There were a few from childhood and a few from his school years and after his graduation. The most recent one was of a snake-like man with blood red slit eyes and no nose or body hair. Tucking the folder and photographs under his arm, he started looking into the other.

There were a few pictures of Harry as a baby, always being held by an adult, followed by some photos from while he was growing up. He may have frowned when he saw the too thin frame and over large clothes, but he out right scowled when he saw little snippets of bruises. The most recent was taken during school hours, a photograph of Harry sitting under a tree with his friends studying for the OWLs. It was such a normal scene, so completely and utterly un-posed, that he couldn’t suppress the faint smile tugging at his lips. The boy just looked way too cute!

“Riddle, or ‘Voldemort’ as he calls himself when he’s commanding his ‘Death Eaters’, has been targeting that boy for several years. Harry Potter is the unfortunate victim of several plots. He has miraculously survived them all.” He tapped his fingers on his chin before continuing, “In a fist to fist fight with a C- Class demon a ‘Witch’ or ‘Wizard’ would loose terribly, but their Reiki, when used like they have trained themselves to do, they could put up a fair fight and probably win. They are no whereas near as strong as Yusuke is, but their ‘Magic’ is both flexible and powerful. They can be dangerous. Harry there though…” Koenma gnawed on his pacifier a bit more violently, “His power is that of a B class demon… Maybe even a high B+ class demon. He is unusually powerful for a ‘Wizard’ though it has been known to happen; it is usually in ‘Wizards’ twice his age. The scale goes between a low C class and a mid B class.”

Kurama nodded, making a mental note on that, “What would ‘Voldemort’ be?” He didn’t have a good feeling on the matter.

“I believe he is somewhere around a mid A class, maybe even a little higher. He is a very dangerous man, I would advise you to be careful in your retrieval of him.” He paused a moment, seemingly considering something, “You would have learned this tomorrow, but a ‘Witch’ or “Wizard’ has a very flexible ability with their Reiki. They can do almost anything with the right word or the right sequence of words. And by anything, I mean, they can do something as seemingly harmless as making another person laugh or changing their hair color, to doing something as dangerous as creating insanity inducing pain and instant death. Not all ‘Spells’ can be blocked, so study hard and dodge the ones you know you can’t block.”

Kurama closed the second folder, of which its contents he had been examining the majority of the time Koenma had been speaking. Tucking them both under his arm he nodded at the demi-god. “Tomorrow, it is. Sayonara.” He turned away and left the room quietly, leaving a very relieved deity behind.

Note: Inari is the Shinto food goddess/god, which means that she/he is quite important, her/his symbols are Foxes, Fox Statues, Mountains, Rice, Torii, and Deep Red Temples. Inari is both genders and is often depicted as a beautiful woman riding a fox or an old man with a long beard. Kurama is Japanese, and Shintoism is a religion native and common to the area. It is also a fun non-swear word for him to use.

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