Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Grim's Promise ❯ Chapter Eighteen ( Chapter 19 )

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter books or Yu Yu Hakusho. I don't own any characters from Inuyasha either.

 

Summary: Two years before his death a powerful psychic made Sirius a promise. Now Genkai and Yusuke travel to London to keep it and throw the British magical community for a loop.

 

Warnings: Swearing

 

A/N: I'm so sorry! I ended up having to cut a thousand words from the original version of this because, as my beta not so nicely reminded me, it was way, way too early for the conversation that took place. So I had to rewrite that scene plus play around with the rest of this chapter to make it fit. This chapter is roughly five hundred words less than it originally was but it stopped me from doing something stupid. Also, Aura Black Chan mentioned Hedwig, who if you remember from a few chapters back is off delivering letters, and a mini plot bunny attacked so towards the end we get a look at what she's up to.

 

A Grim's Promise

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

July 13th

 

 

Harry looked at the Devil's Snare vines warily before turning to Kurama asking, “Do I have to?” No matter how many times Kurama assured him that the plants wouldn't kill him, Harry was still reluctant to voluntarily give them access to his energy. To him it was like putting a giant target on his chest, standing in front of Voldemort and saying `Here I am. Please kill me now.'

 

“Yes you do,” Kurama said patiently, standing between Harry and the door. “To get anywhere with your talents at some point you will have to learn how to do this. By getting it over with now you save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run and you gain several plants that you can use. Now please get started. I would like to finish this sometime before dinner.”

 

“Evil Snape wannabe,” Harry muttered as he stared at his left hand and concentrated on making his energy flow to the surface there. He had wanted to use his right hand but Kurama had vetoed that idea right off. When Harry had asked why the kitsune had briefly explained that his magic was already naturally inclined to flow to that hand so he needed to `train' it to also flow to the left. Eventually it would give him a bigger advantage in a duel since he could use both hands but for now it would begin to increase the small energy pathways in his left arm while at the same time the amount of energy he could call forth would be greatly reduced making it harder for him to lose control. However, Kurama purposely didn't tell him that using his left hand meant he was more likely to pass out from exhaustion. With the way his luck was going lately Kurama was worried that if Harry knew about that he would try using his right hand anyway, not caring that he was risking blowing his hand off.

 

Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw his right hand begin to glow. Biting his lip, he forced his energy to listen and the glow faded. He had to force it back a few more times before he felt his energy begin to obey him. He was sweating by the time his energy covered his left hand, making it look like he was wearing a gauzy yellow glove. “What next?” he asked, concentrating on keeping his energy covering only his hand and not letting it go to the plants like it wanted to.

 

“Now you touch the vines and talk to them while letting the plant feed off your energy,” Kurama said, stepping away from the door and moving closer to the bookshelf in case something went wrong. He resisted the urge to sigh when Harry turned his head to look at him instead of touching the vines. “What?”

 

“Umm, what do I say?”

 

“We went over this after lunch Harry. Quit asking questions you already know the answers to.” Kurama did sigh when the other boy continued to look at him. “Introduce your self, tell them that you'll feed them once a week, let them get to know you, and explain to them why you need to leave your room. The whole purpose of this is for you to form a slight bond with the plants so they know you can take care of yourself and that you'll take care of them. When they realize that they'll be more agreeable to letting you leave. And if you're lucky, or if they pity you,” he smiled when the shorter teen scowled, “they might give you their seeds willingly so they can protect you when you're not in your room.” Even if you won't be able to start using them for at least another month, he added silently.

 

“Is that how you get your seeds?” Harry asked, looking at the other's hair curiously. How did the kitsune keep seeds in there without losing them? He pushed that question to the side to ask later and turned back to the vines when Kurama pointedly looked at the plants. “I'm not stalling, I really am curious.”

 

“No it's not. I don't need to bond with a plant for them to give me their seeds,” Kurama said with a small smile. “If you do this with all seven plants without complaining or losing control I'll explain during dinner why,” he added when the wizard turned to look at him again.

 

“Promise?” Harry gave the kitsune his best puppy eyes.

 

“Now you are stalling.” He rolled his eyes when the wizard continued to look at him pitifully. “Yes, I promise.”

 

Harry turned back to the Devil's Snare and frowned, he still didn't like this. He slowly reached out to touch the dark green vines. As soon as he touched one of the vines his mind was bombarded with a hundred different things at once. Pictures and smells raced by while he felt several different emotions; relief at finally eating, happiness that he was talking to them, nervousness that a silver fox was in the room, anger at Hana for trying to freeze them, concern that they couldn't protect him from the cat or the fox, but mostly Harry felt curiosity coming from all the plants, not just the one he was touching. Harry blinked rapidly as he tried to process all the information. When it stopped he turned to give Kurama a small glare. “You could have told me I was killing them by not giving them my energy,” he said angrily.

 

Kurama shrugged, not looking at all sorry. “I thought you would have picked that up from the reading I gave you.”

 

Harry shook his head, turning back to the plants. “The books said they feed off energy but they made it sound like they could get it from the air around them, not that they were dependent on me.”

 

Kurama frowned; he had thought the books had been more detailed. “I'll see if I can find you a book about the Makai later. That might help explain why they need you to feed them like this. For now, keep doing what you're doing.” Kurama sat down on the bed and watched the wizard make the beginnings of the bonds he would need with the Devil's Snare. One down; six to go.

 

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“All the other hexes you've shown me are kinda cool but I still don't see what's so great about the Expelli-whatis spell,” Yusuke said as he carelessly tossed his wand into the air. “I mean, all it does is disarm someone but you can still punch the guy so,” he caught his wand before throwing it back up into the air, missing the look on Genkai's face, “it's pretty useless, right?”

 

“Expelliarmus!” Genkai yelled, jabbing her wand harshly at Yusuke. She watched her student fly through the air and crash through the doors of the training room. “Useless huh?” she muttered, catching Yusuke's wand when it floated over to her.

 

When he landed in the courtyard Yusuke recalled a passage from the theory book Genkai had made him read. `…All magic is driven by the caster's will. The best example of this is a disarming spell. Depending on the power, thought and emotion behind the spell, it can either simply disarm one's opponent or it can send them flying, sometimes several hundred feet. In both cases the caster receives the target's wand but with the second the target can be severely wounded…'

 

Time to reread those books and talk to Harry, Yusuke thought as he stood up and dusted his clothes off. While getting thrown around like this didn't actually hurt him, he was sick of getting his butt kicked and he was sure the kid would want to learn to control his energy faster. Maybe they could help each other out.

 

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Shizuru shook her head as she watched her brother and Hiei jump out of the car and run down the street to Kurama's house. She wasn't stupid. She knew those two were up to something. Even if she ignored the past three hours Hiei had willingly spent shopping with her and her brother, the fact Kazuma had not called him shorty, short stuff, shrimp, or three eyes the entire time would have given them away. Then there was the tiny, almost invisible, smile that Hiei had been wearing all day. That guy did not smile unless someone was going to die, preferably at the end of his sword.

 

Shizuru got her cigarettes out of the glove compartment and shook one out of the pack. She put it to her lips and lit it as she watched Hiei jump through Kurama's open window while Kazuma stood below it, ready to toss things up as the other needed them. God help them when Kurama got home. She turned to look at the other bag sitting in the back seat. And God help Yusuke when they got done with him.

 

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“We're done now, right?” Harry asked hopefully as he tucked the last of his new seeds into his pockets. He could find a better way to carry them around later but he definitely wasn't going to try hiding them in his hair like Kurama. No matter how hard he thought about it he couldn't come up with a way the kitsune was able to pull that off.

 

Kurama nodded, not taking his eyes away from the two new white roses. “Yes, we're done.” He turned to look at the wizard and saw him digging through his closet. “Taking a shower?”

 

“Yes,” Harry said emphatically as he pulled some fresh clothes from the closet. “If I had known I was going to sweat that much I wouldn't have bothered with one this morning.”

 

“Don't take too long. The others should be here soon.”

 

Harry groaned as he grabbed some clean socks and boxers from his dresser. “I completely forgot about that.”

 

Kurama smiled as he watched the boy almost run into the bathroom and push a grumpy Yusuke out before slamming the door. He turned back to the white roses with worried green eyes. He had given the boy a seedling from one of his rose plants. Any new roses that grew because of the boy's energy should have been red; maybe not exactly the same shade, but still red. The boy wasn't strong enough to remove the kitsune energy from the plant that fast, but somehow he had grown two completely white roses and the other rosebuds had paled to a light pink. He wanted to ask the flowers what had prompted the change but held himself back. If he tried to communicate with the plant now it would destroy the new bond Harry had made and he would have to start over with a completely different plant.

 

Like flowers in the human realm, flowers in the Makai were also used as symbols. Roses in particular had special meanings and Makai roses grown with a person's spirit energy were considered somewhat prophetic because they reflected the person's personality and possible fate. White roses had several meanings and names but the most common name was the Rose of Sacrifice. From what little he knew about the boy it didn't fit him. He could see Yusuke's energy creating white roses because he had willingly sacrificed his life twice to save people but he couldn't see Harry making them.

 

Kurama scowled at the flowers one last time before leaving the room and going to Genkai's library. He could figure out this mini mystery later. For now he needed to see if Genkai had any books about the Makai in her library. With exams coming up he didn't have the extra time to explain to Harry how the differences in the two realms affected his plants. If Genkai didn't have anything he would be stuck asking Yusuke for help or bribing Hiei to do it.

 

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“Genkai,” Shizuru said holding out her pack of cigarettes. “Do you know what's gotten into Hiei?”

 

The old psychic smiled as she took the pack from the young woman. “My latest guest started a prank war with Yusuke and Yusuke pranked Kuwabara while getting him back. I believe Hiei is helping Kuwabara out with his prank so he can get one up on the Dimwit and the fox.”

 

“The new kid started this?” Shizuru asked, looking at the temple where Yusuke, Kurama and another boy were talking. Genkai nodded as she lit her cigarette and Shizuru narrowed her eyes at the black haired boy. “If Kazuma's grades drop because of this, that kid and I are going to have a very long talk,” she said menacingly, glaring daggers at the teenager.

 

Genkai snorted, tossing the pack and lighter back to the other woman. “With you on his case do you really think Kuwabara would ignore his studies for something as childish as a prank war?”

 

“Good point,” Shizuru said, flicking her cigarette. She took a drag as she looked at the forest surrounding the temple. If she looked at the trees just right she could almost see a shimmering…something. “Is that kid also the reason for the new wards?”

 

“Yes.” Genkai sighed as she looked at the boys. “You remember me telling you about Black?”

 

“The guy who turned into a dog?” Shizuru asked after a minute.

 

“That's him.” Genkai smiled briefly at something the boys and Keiko were doing before becoming serious again. “Harry's his godson. He's almost as big of a trouble magnet as Yusuke.” She looked at Shizuru as she took a drag off her cigarette. “I'm going to be raising even more wards next week. Is that going to bother you when you come next weekend?”

 

Shizuru shook her head. “They won't bother me but just in case I'll warn Kazuma later. They might bother him.”

 

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Kurama was convinced he had the worst seat at the table. On one side he had Harry who kept asking him questions about tomorrow's lesson and silver kitsunes and on his other side he had Shizuru who kept looking around him to give the small wizard curious looks, causing him to try to use Kurama as a shield. Shizuru's looks also had they unfortunate side effect of making Harry lower his voice to an almost whisper making it difficult for him to hear the wizard thus missing his latest question. When Kurama asked him to repeat what he had said Shizuru would look their way and the whole cycle start over again. Kurama poked his chicken with his fork, looking at the younger teen out of the corner of his eye. After the boy had hugged him for letting him touch his ears he had been sure Harry had a very out going personality but now he was acting extremely shy. Maybe Shizuru made him nervous. Kurama glanced at Shizuru and saw she was looking at the wizard again. Or maybe just girls in general make him shy, he thought when Harry moved his chair again to hide from Shizuru.

 

Kurama was distracted from his student's possible girl issues when Hiei slid into the empty seat next to Keiko. He raised an eyebrow at his friend, silently asking where he had been for the past few minutes. His curiosity was peeked when Hiei smirked at him and looked away. As he passed a plate of green bean salad down the table Kurama went over his list of reasons for Hiei to smirk like that and realized none of them had happened in the last twenty four hours. No powerful demons had been killed; Mukuro hadn't suddenly died off and left Hiei in charge; he hadn't won a fight against Yusuke; Koenma hadn't gotten in trouble with King Enma for messing something up… Kurama looked at Hiei warily. He did not like this.

 

Hiei continued to smirk as he filled his plate. This was the second best idea Kuwabara had ever had. Even though Hiei himself had been stuck with most of the work, the orange haired teenager had willingly bought all the supplies Hiei had needed for his prank and had planned his own prank on Yusuke down to the very last detail. As long as Shizuru kept her mouth shut, and she would, no one would ever suspect the two of them of doing what they had done. Hiei looked up from his plate to find Kurama staring at him. Well maybe Kurama would, but he wouldn't be able to prove it.

 

After dinner was over the group, minus Hiei and Yukina who were putting away the leftovers, went into the living room and split up. Yusuke and Genkai wound up sitting on the floor playing a racing game. Occasionally Yusuke would start swearing at the TV when Genkai pushed his car into a wall or Genkai would say something about Yusuke's crappy driving skills but unless someone asked one of them a specific question they were too focused on the game and trading insults to get involved with everyone else. As soon as they had walked into the room Kuwabara and Keiko had claimed most of the couch. They had their project notes and books spread out across the coffee table as they tried to plan out their presentation ands essay while missing one member of their group. Other than Kuwabara telling Yusuke not to swear in front of girls, the two were completely oblivious to the world around them as they good naturally bickered over who would do what. Kurama was sitting in the last open spot on the couch looking through his own notes as he did some studying for his exams but at the same time he was listening to the conversation between Harry and Shizuru. Every once in a while he would smile when he heard her threaten Harry and Yusuke with bodily harm if they caused Kuwabara's grades to drop. He started laughing softly at Shizuru's upset grumbles when she finally realized Harry had fallen asleep in his chair halfway through her lecture. He briefly looked up from his history notebook to find Hiei and Yukina had just come into the room. Hiei grudgingly picked Harry up when Yukina convinced him to carry the sleeping wizard to bed.

 

About time, Kurama thought as he watched Yukina leave to show her brother where the wizard's room was. He had been expecting him to have fallen asleep long before he did. To bad he hadn't been able to stay awake just a little longer though; it was almost time for Botan to show up.

 

China, July 13th

 

 

Hedwig's feathers puffed up in annoyance as she watched the local portkey landing spot, waiting for her ride to London. It only took one man arriving and tumbling down the hill for the few owls around her to start hooting loudly in amusement and for her to realize why the local owls liked to call the hill `Moron Central.' While Hedwig was disgusted with the owls' lack of care for the humans they protected and served, the gossip about a British man's landing had given her an idea. After listening to the gossiping birds for a few minutes she had learned that Fudge had sent out representatives to the Russian, Indian, and, most importantly to Hedwig, Chinese wizarding communities in an attempt to spread the word about Voldemort's return and tonight the twit he had sent was returning home. The snowy owl had mentally snorted when she had heard that. The Order had already sent out word that the fool who wanted to hurt her human was alive. The only thing this trip was good for was giving her a ride.

 

Hedwig hooted disdainfully as more of the local owls began flying over, hoping to see the man walking up the path make a fool of himself again. She ended up swallowing an amused hoot as she watched one of the Weasley boy's trip and tumble down the hill below the portkey site. As she flew over to hide between the two top trunks Hedwig decided the local owls had a point. It was funny to watch some humans, specifically Percy Weasley, get just what they deserved.

 

tbc…

 

Author's notes: The white roses in Harry's soul room don't have anything to do with the white roses he grew here. As Kurama hinted at in this chapter flowers native to the Makai have completely different meanings then their human realm counterparts and the roses in Harry's soul room get their meanings from the human realm. In other words, the meaning and the name are from my over active imagination. If you're curious I got the original idea for the meaning for them from my grandmother who hates white roses. For some reason she thinks they're bad luck. I know the name I chose isn't creative but it fits.

 

Review Responses:

Shigatsu87: Right now the Kurama/Harry pairing, if it does happen, is dependent on Kurama being the teacher because of the way their personalities are. So if it does happen, it will be slow. By slow I mean the first hints of it will be around Halloween or Christmas.

 

Jade-8199: Any romantic relationship Harry gets involved in, not just one with Kurama, will be slow going. It's just the way his personality is in my head. That is one of my main problems if Kurama wins the coin toss.

 

Ariyah-Chan: Thank you! They've been a big help. I've already started playing around with them when I get a possible scene stuck in my head.

 

Sessha's Crazy: Oops, didn't mean to make anyone think that was going to happen here. The Yusuke/Harry is a totally different story. A couple of reviewers mentioned the pairing and it gave me a plot bunny that I've started to play around with. In this story Yusuke and Harry will not ever think about each other that way.

 

Eternal Light/Fire Dragon: He's not a cat. Sorry!

 

Vialana: Thank you for putting my story in your C2. I'm glad you think I've got the brother bond right. That's almost as difficult to write as Shizuru and Genkai are. Harry's not a bear, sorry.

 

Crimson Colored Cloaked Figure: Hiei can't be the teacher. Like Yusuke pointed out when Koenma first asked him, Hiei is needed to guard the barrier on the Makai side. Just like Yusuke is a threat to any demons that make it through, Hiei is a threat to any demons that attempt it. Just the thought of facing the two of them has cut down on the number of the minor demons testing the barrier. Plus before he could go he would have to get Mukuro's permission and learn to deal with small human children without his sword.

 

Bomb-O-Maniac: It might be a puppy but it's not a weasel. That's more like Malfoy or Ron to me.

 

Dark Avalon: Sorry, not an otter. It's a land animal but it can swim. (Isn't Hermione's Patronus an otter?)

 

Tazzy: I know I've said it wasn't a bear, hawk fox, magical creature, snake, deer, or a demon but I never said it couldn't be a dog or a wolf.

 

BabbleQueen: Sorry but he's not a deer or a cat.

 

Anasazi Darkmoon: You're on the right track.

 

Arano Honou: Nah, you didn't miss any author's notes but I mentioned that this might end up being Kurama/Harry in a review response.

 

pr101: Harry/Luna is just as possible as Kurama/Harry or any other pairing. It depends on if the story goes that way.

 

General Questions:

Yusuke/Harry story: The plot bunny attacked after I got a couple of reviews about it. The first time I was able to push the cute little guy away but the second time it came by it wouldn't leave. It is completely different than this story, even the way magic and spirit energy relate is a little different. Right now it is in a rough outline form with only five or six short scenes sketched out. It'll probably end up being a really long one-shot (I hope).

 

Pairings: Like I said last time all pairings, het and slash, will be background, but I forgot to say that new pairings won't begin to form until Harry goes back to Hogwarts (which is in the sequel to this story) and even then it won't be until Halloween, possibly Christmas. There are a lot of reasons for this; two characters have trust issues, Sirius just died, Voldemort and his minions, spirit energy training, School, College, Koenma and Spirit World politics, Dumbledore and the Order, Demon politics, etc. I know someone, they might be a major or minor character, will end up dating someone else sometime because life isn't life unless there is a little romance somewhere but it won't take over the story.

 

Hana/Liam/Hedwig adventures and point of view: I'll try but those come to me at weird times and I'm not always able to write them down somewhere. The Hedwig scene got worked on during one of my classes and I had to fit it in the margin of my notes. I also had an idea for a Hana scene on the way home but I couldn't write that one down in time and now I don't really remember why I liked it so much, let alone what happened.

 

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I'm not sure when the next update will be because now that my beta has her computer working again we're going to go back through the previous chapters to find any mistakes I missed. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.

 

Kel