Title: Reign Over the Frosted Heavens

Author: Meer-Heika

Category: drama, angst

Rating: PG-13 for now, may change

Summary: Bleach/HP xover. Toshiro Hitsugaya learns first-hand the cruel side of Wizarding Britain. Can Harry Potter teach him about the good? Dumbledore and Snape fans won't like this one.

Author's Note #1: Very much a work in progress. Real Life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into what little writing time I can find. AU for HP. No Deathly Hallows and most certainly no horcruxes! I love JKR for creating these wondrous characters and environs, but DH's and horcruxes feel convenient and contrived to me.

Author's Note #2: My first attempt at Manip!Dumbledore. I'm also new to the Bleach fandom (2 months as of October 29, 2010). I had the privilege of living in Japan for a year, so I am fascinated and impressed by its richness and depth. I hope to do that proud culture justice.

Author's Note #3: I heard that sigh! *g* Last one, promise. The first half of this story will occur mostly in the Bleach verse or from a Bleach character's pov. Harry will have more presence in the last half. Takes place starting end of fifth year for Harry and during the lull prior to the Winter War for Bleach, though I had to jack with the timeline a bit.

Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters or settings from either the Harry Potter or Bleach universes.

Prologue

Under normal circumstances ... I wouldn't mind the cold. I'd welcome it. Find peace in it. Ice and snow have been my friends for many years. I would never feel fear or despair in their arms. Hyorinmaru is proof of that.

But this ... this is not the peace found in the pristine blanket of winter's first snow, nor is it the pure, primal, untamed wildness of a cleansing mountain storm. It is not the crystalline beauty of an ice cavern or the mischievous, whispering lure of a frozen lake. This is a gray, sticky, all-pervasive cold, a creeping, malevolent chill that saps both strength and will. That whispers of endless sleep and loss of all hope. It has no place in life.

Understandable enough, I suppose. It is the chill of approaching death.

Had I the strength of body, I might laugh at the thought. Here am I, a Shinigami—a Soul Reaper, Captain of Squad 10 of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, proud bearer of Hyorinmaru, the strongest cold-based zanpakuto in the Soul Society of Japan. Hyorinmaru and I have helped countless souls reach the afterlife and meted judgment on spirits that have been corrupted and warped into monstrous Hollows. I have bested greater Hollows such as the Menos Grande and the Arrancar. I have bravely stood between Rangiku and a cabinet full of sake. Death in any form is no stranger and yet ... even I fear it.

I know where human souls go when their time on Earth has ended. But where does a Soul Reaper's spirit go when life is done? Shinigami far older and much wiser than myself have pondered that question for untold millennia. I suppose I'll soon learn the answer.

Hyorinmaru. I miss your wise counsel, your loving scolds, your protectiveness. I sense you somewhere far away, perhaps in London with Rangiku. I pray that is the case. Since I cannot have you at my side or in my hand, I can be glad you're too far away to feel the evil that has been done to your bearer.

My healing powers have never been very strong. They're no match for what's been done to me these past days. Weeks? Time has lost all meaning for me.

As I lay here in the blackness of my prison, the stench of blood and filth clogging my senses, my body broken and spirit flickering like a guttering candle flame, I at last understand what might drive a departing soul to resist the call of the afterlife, to remain behind on Earth even though they can neither influence events nor communicate with anyone.

Regrets.

Even I have them. Rangiku Matsumoto will never forgive me if I die. I can hear my lieutenant now, scolding me, crossed arms deliberately shoving her already significant breasts into even greater display-I swear they're going to pop right out of her kimono someday. She would cajole me and threaten to force-feed me sweets until I swear to never think about giving up ever again. Whatever part of me Rangiku might leave intact, Ichigo Kurosaki, Jushiro Ukitake, Renji Abarai, and the others will tear apart.

Despite all of that, I haven't the strength to hold on any longer. My captors have done what countless Hollows and the machinations of that traitor Sosuke Aizen have not been able to do.

They have made me surrender all hope.

At least I will pass from this world knowing that while my body surrendered, my spirit and my will never broke. I have kept my honor. There is comfort to be found in that.

I feel so tired. The pain of broken bones, burns and cuts ... I feel it less with every passing moment. This sense of floating ... of distance ... is this it, then? Is it time?

I suppose ... I have fewer regrets than I first thought. I can die knowing that I never betrayed the Soul Society, my fellow captains, my oaths, or my friends.

Yes. There is comfort in that.

Come, death. In whatever form you take when you bring home a Shinigami's soul, come for me.

Toshiro Hitsugaya is ready to die.