As McGonagall's sharp, dark eyes met his Ichigo promptly released the makeshift weapon from his hand. It clattered to the floor with a noise that seemed louder than it was in the otherwise silent setting. McGonagall narrowed her eyes,thin eyebrows lowering atop them as her lips split from one another. Ichigo felt something warm trickling down his hand slowly, trailing down his fingers as his hand hung limp to his side.

"What is going on here?" her voice was far more shrill than usual "Miss Granger, explain what they are doing in here and why the troll is on the floor."

Ron's face crumpled, looking downtrodden like they were already doomed. The grim face Snape wore like a mask as he stared at the young Weasley, almost through him, wasn't helping.

Ichigo couldn't tell whether Ron had perked up or felt his heartbeat become irregular as his face changed when Hermione began her answer.

"It was my fault professor." she spoke with an uncomfortable unease that further alerted the boy to her unfamiliarity with lying to authority figures "I've read about trolls," her eyes were focused downwards, on her twiddling fingers and the shattered floor tile she stood on rather than the harsh face of the one she was addressing "And I thought I could take it on. Harry, Ron and Ichigo came to help me - it was all my fault."

McGonagall looked taken aback "Well, Miss Granger, I expected better of you! 10 points from Gryffindor." Hermione's eyes went lower "And, Mr.Potter, Mr.Weasley, Mr. Kurosaki, 5 points each for sheer dumb luck!"

The teachers then left, the students not far behind, after Snape sent a look that lingered somewhere in the space between disapproval and contempt to the group of first years who were honestly bewildered by his seeming hatred towards them.

Ichigo stepped into the hallway, relishing the absence of the pungent stink of troll that permeated the bathroom. Harry stood to his side, breathing heavily with a combination of exhaustion and relief.

"we got away with it." Ron stated, staring dumbly forward with absent eyes. "we got away with it," he chorused blandly again "We got away with it!" and, just like that it was as though he had awoken from a trance.

Harry and Ichigo nodded as they stared at the retreating backs of their professors then behind them at a limping Hermione who was peppered with bruises and scrapes like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

"Here," Ichigo put his hand on her shoulder and helped her forwards "you'd best get to the medical wing."

"So had you." Ron told him before he could take another step.

"huh?"

"you're bleeding and it looks like you have some of that wood left in your hand."

"oh." Ichigo said dumbly as he suddenly became aware of the warmth across his hand and the steadily spreading smear of red he was leaving on Hermione's tattered robes.

He and Hermione began on their way but stopped when Ichigo halted mid-step, looking over his shoulder with eyes that looked as though the emotion had been flushed out of them.

"you two better not be so stupid again." he warned cool before continuing onwards towards the infirmary.

As they got closer, Ichigo began to be able to feel the sharp sting of his hand, the splinters being driven in further as he kept his hand pressed gently on a limping Hermione's back, as the adrenaline from the debacle began to drain from him. He grit his teeth and clenched his hand, probably not the smartest of actions to have taken.

Hermione stopped then.

"Are you okay?" She asked, looking up with curious, worried eyes.

"Yeah, don't worry."

"If your hand hurts, you don't have to help me, you know?"

"I'm helping you." he insisted, watching her tentatively limp a few steps forwards. He stepped to her other side, put his good hand back onto the spot, stained red, where his other hand had previously been, and continued to guide her onwards, up the moving staircase that would take them to Madame Pomfrey.

The second ichigo had his hand magically fixed he sprinted from the wing faster than Hermione could bid him goodbye. He had almost forgotten. It was meant to be his first formal Quidditch training session with the Hufflepuff team and he was going to be late!

He ran down the corridor then practically flung himself down the staircase as it was mid-shift. He landed a few steps down, bending his knees before jumping down a few more, then repeating until he leapt of the last few in the few seconds he had left before the bottom of the staircase would spin around, over a far deeper drop.

Ichigo was fast but he had no idea where he was going from that point. It seemed as though the Halls of Hogwarts had shifted and rearranged themselves since he had last traversed them and, at that moment, he wanted nothing more than a map.

He was only hung up further when he passed the little poltergeist that floated above him, right near the ceiling, he was dressed in the same oddly assembled outfit as always, the same mischievous glint ever present in his dark eyes. Ichigo couldn't help but feel as though he was being scrutinised by those blacked out eyes, like the wide smile that spread across the small face was masking sinister intentions.

"Ickle firsty," the high pitched, uneven voice cackled, the figure floating down from the ceiling "Where are you going?"

Ichigo wanted nothing more than to be able to ignore Peeves, to walk past him dismissively, but every step he tried to take was blocked by the little poltergeist.

"Answer me," he smiled wider "Wait a moment, aren't you that firsty everyone keeps calling the sorting hat's mistake-" But he was cut off by a loud shout from across the hall.

"Peeves!" It was two voices that merged together to create one with a slightly odd quality. But, more than anything, it was a vaguely familiar chorus. Ichigo looked over to the source of the noise, finding two students not much older than himself standing defiantly at the opposite end of the hallway, just descended from a set of stairs that had not been there when Ichigo arrived.

The poltergeist sped away with a sheepish nod at the orange-haired twins that stared him down with stern eyes that changed, dissipated into something much more kind and mischievous the second he had left.

"Weasleys…" Ichigo vaguely recalled, guided in the decision by the ginger of their hair, much more subtle than his own bright orange and the freckles that adorned pale skin.

"Fred and George." They told him, still smiling "You're Harry's cousin Ichigo, right?" ichigo had to curse his own incapability to remember names as he nodded.

"Hey, sorry - I have to get to Quidditch practice…" He told them as he slowly turned on his heel.

"No worries, we have to run or Filch will catch us."

"Why are you running from Filch?"

"Ask no questions and we will tell no lies." they left with those final cryptic words.

Ichigo ended up being late to Quidditch practice in the end. It probably wasn't the best of impressions for him to make on the majority on the team and he had been worrying about their reactions to him.

It turned out it was all for nought. Ichigo had forgotten they were Hufflepuffs, members of the house known for their kindness.

It was as though his lateness meant nothing. They greeted him with friendly smiles and hugs he found uncomfortable but they saw nothing wrong with. He was given robes and passed the best of the broomsticks from the school's shed. There were a few sticks of straw pointed in odd directions but nothing too major.

"Ready for practice?" Cedric slid up to Ichigo's side, asking him the question with a smile.

"Yeah, I guess. When do we start?"

"When our last, constantly late chaser shows up."

"Constantly late?"

"She always gets lost."

"Should I go see if I can find her, I'm an expert in getting lost myself."

"Go ahead, we need her. You'll know her when you see her, she'll be ready for practice even if she isn't here."

"Right." Ichigo nodded before running back into the grandiose building and desperately hoping he would not run back into the annoying poltergeist that haunted the school halls with nothing more sinister than juvenile pranks.

He paused after a moment, looking up and around him at all the possible places where this girl might be. He twirled his new quidditch robes between his fingers, pulling them tight around himself, as he stood there and observed.

Then he saw her.

There was a girl, a few years older than him, wandering around on the floor above looking hopelessly confused wearing the yellow Quidditch robes he had recently donned himself. He ran up the stairs with less determination than he had the stairs he had desperately flung himself down before.

He met her at the top where she just stared at him for a moment. He stared back.

He guessed she was maybe in her third or fourth year. She was slightly shorter than him, but nothing more drastic than a few minor inches. Her hair was orange aswell but, as always, not nearly as bright as his own. She had wide brown eyes, her long hair pinned back and away from them with flower pins at either side of her head.

"Cedric is looking for you." He told her after a moment.

"Oh!" Her voice was just as soft and girly as her appearance but Ichigo doubted it was a good idea to underestimate her "He sent you to look for me?" She giggled, slightly nervous and uncomfortable "Sorry."

"It's fine, I was a little late too."

"You're that first year, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Ichigo was it?"

"Mmhmm."

"Nice to meat you, I'm Olivia." She smiled and offered him her hand.

He followed her down the stairs. The surname printed in black on the back of her flowing quidditch robes was Irvine.

"Oh," Cedric began when they returned "Kurosaki, I guess you found irvine then." ichigo nodded "Good. We can start then. Ideally we would have had a few team practices already but Slytherin and Gryffindor always seem to have the pitch booked. You confident you know how to play?" he checked, despite having personally mentored him in the ways of Quidditch for the past month or so.

"Fairly."

"Good."

They made their way onto the pitch and began to play miniature games amongst themselves, teams an even split between starting members and substitutes.

After Ichigo managed to clasp his hand around a final snitch, once again beating the short, scrawny substitute second year to it, they dismounted from their brooms, out of breath, and made their way off the pitch.

They walked in a cluster back up the the Hufflepuff common room, meeting a fair few students who were sat by the blazing fire in the old, comfortable chairs that easily sunk beneath the weight of even the lightest person. Ichigo smiled at Wayne as he sank heavily into the chair next to him, watching the boy's scrawl slowly fill the parchment he slowly scratched his quill across.

"What homework is that?" Ichigo asked, looking at the page of writing he knew he had no chance in reading. The rest of the quidditch team was slowly trickling off into their dormitories to change into pyjamas and go to sleep.

"Charms." Wayne answered easily, pausing his writing for a moment. Ichigo watched as a blob of black ink fell to the parchment. "You're lucky," he continued with a dismissive wave of his hand and the parchment he was holding in it. The blob of ink ran across the page, branching out and obscuring barely legible words "Not all of us get the extra help you do from Flitwick - charms is hard!"

"Trust me," Ichigo picked up the old, battered book he had read maybe a hundred times through from the table in front of them - he remembered having accidentally left it there that morning "I know more than anyone. If you're that desperate for help go to Flitwick."

"Or I could ask you," Wayne rebuffed "Even if you struggle with the practical, you're pretty great when it comes to theory." He turned eyes to Ichigo, pleading "I need help, please!"

"Sorry," Ichigo found himself laughing as he trailed the remainder of his page before placing the book back down "Flitwick has made it very clear to me that I need to practice my spells a fair bit in my free time." He twirled his wand between his fingers with an ease he wished he had with actually using it.

"Umm," A very feminine, vaguely familiar voice chimed behind them, "I could help you if you'd like." Ichigo turned around, resting his arm across the back of the chair.

"Oh, hi Olivia." He silently congratulated himself for remembering her name, something he was notoriously bad at doing. She was wearing a fluffy dressing gown over equally fluffy pyjamas and near-laughable pink bunny slippers that looked as though they had been worn outside a fair few times.

"Care to introduce me?" Wayne asked, looking between the two of them, lost.

"Oh, right! Wayne, this is Olivia, she's on the quidditch team."

"Nice to meet you." She giggled.

"You too." Wayne looked her up and down, eyes lingering a little too long on those ridiculous slippers of hers. "You sure you want to help me?"

"Absolutely," She smiled, pretty eyes closed "Flitwick loves me - he says I'm one of his best students."

"Then, yeah - I'd love some help."

She smiled again and sat on the chair to the other side of Wayne. Ichigo didn't know much about Olivia Irvine but he knew she was a mystery and felt as though he would enjoy her presence in future - as weird as she was, she seemed nice.

A/N this hasn't been beta'd yet and some was written on my phone and this A/N is written on my phone but it's been so long so it didn't feel fair to keep this back any more - my computer isn't working, I barely get access to the family one if it isn't for homework and typing on my phone is rarely a good idea. So yeah, not abandoned, just circumstantially late.~We'reAllABitOdd