Chapter Five

Catching the Wild Horse

"Japanese Speaking"

"English Speaking"

'Thoughts'

"Spells"

The young martial artist until now known as Saotome Ranma wandered around the village for what felt like hours, his emerald green eyes not even taking in the sights around him, his ears not hearing the sounds of the fighting tournament taking place so close to him, so lost in his thoughts he was. Could it really be possible? His hand traveled to his forehead without him even realizing it until his fingers brushed the strange scar that marked him. He had always sort of liked that scar, it looked cool on him and, until recently, he thought he had gotten it during one of his earlier training exercises, or at least that's what his pop had told him before. Now, after the Old Ghoul had told him that the scar was apparently a mark of Dark Magic given to him by a psychotic Dark Lord, he was starting to hate the thing. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that his whole life was falling down all of the sudden just because that Amazon Elder thought she knew something about him, it wasn't fair that his pop had lied all these years about him. It wasn't fair that they all messed with his life.

Finally frustration won and the young martial artist snapped and ran. He was leaping and running through the woods near the village, the speed was usually exhilarating, but right now it didn't even manage to quell his anger. Finally he stopped and punched a tree trunk. Splitters flew as the wood cracked under the power of his fist, his anger feeding his strength momentarily. He was breathing hard, and he couldn't deny the wetness in his eyes as this whole mess caught up to him. What if it was true? What if he really was this Harry person and not the son of a martial artist as he'd always thought?

As the boy's confusion and anger grew, he was unaware of the approaching company. A series of loud cracks filled the air and, if he wasn't in the middle of the Chinese nowhere, he would've thought it was a multitude of car backfires, as strange as that was. As it was, the noise alerted him and he quickly turned around to the direction of the noise. He could soon enough hear the rustling of bushes and leaves as what seemed to be a whole bunch of people took to different directions in the forest. Perhaps the Amazons were looking for something, it was their land and all.

The boy soon lost interest and stopped paying attention, preferring to sit down in the forest ground and wallow in misery for a while longer…teenage angst and all that. However, he was suddenly reminded of the score of people looking for something. As it turned out, they were looking for him. And they weren't Amazons.

At least five oddly dressed people suddenly burst into his little patch of forest and, after seeing him standing there all confused, they just stood and gapped. Ranma was starting to get annoyed with the suffocating fish impressions they were doing because really, his day had so far not gone as he would have liked and these people were just making it worse. "You can stop staring now" His voice left no doubt about his annoyance and it if did then the narrowed eyes and angry look were sure to get the point across. However, these people were apparently not aware of what is the standard procedure when someone is annoyed at you. One of them actually jumped at him and hugged him. Hugged him! What the hell was wrong with this guy, hugging random strangers in the forest? The man was also babbling insistently in some other language, which Ranma barely remembered as English from classes at school.

The poor boy was now at new levels of confusion and considering all that had happened today, that was saying something. He leapt away from the man, who hadn't stopped smiling the whole time and kept babbling things Ranma couldn't even understand. Just as the martial artist was considering running for it, an old long-bearded, white-haired man called out something and the hugging maniac stopped, although he did look like he was barely containing himself from giving the boy another hug. The old guy took out a stick from within his obscenely bright robes and mumbled something while pointing to himself.

"Ah, I apologize about that. Sirius was merely happy to see you and decided to express himself accordingly. No harm done, though" The man's smile was almost brighter than the twinkling blue eyes and Ranma couldn't help but feel even more angry at this display of cheerful energy. But at the very least this man could speak Japanese.

"Yeah well, I don't know why he's happy to see me but he ain't welcome to another hug. Who te hell are you?" Green eyes kept shooting nervous glances at the hugging wacko, now known as Sirius, and the other people in the group. For some reason he was getting more and more nervous each minute he spent alone with these people.

"I'm sorry, perhaps I should explain a bit more, my boy. I am Albus Dumbledore and these are Molly and Arthur Weasley, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, your godfather…" The man couldn't even finish his sentence before the boy interrupted him with yet another angry excalamtion.

"Godfather my butt! I don't know the guy so keep him away from me!"

The old man didn't seem all that surprised of his reaction, in fact he kind of looked like he was expecting this. "I know everything is confusing for you right now, Harry, but I promise I'll explain everything to you as soon as we get you home"

Certainly not the best thing to say to a boy who had just had the most confusing and life-changing day of his life and had a temper to match a redhead which, if you added some cold water, he was. "Alright! That's it! I don't know why you're doing this but I'm pretty sure the Old Ghoul put you up to it. I am not Harry! My name is Ranma…Ran-ma! Learn it and use it and leave me the hell alone!" The wind was picking up now and tearing the leaves off the tree branches, but Ranma didn't notice any of this, he also didn't notice that the wind was circling around him, as though he was the source.

"I'm really sorry, my boy, for all of this, but we really must go. I will explain later and all shall be well once again" with these words the man once more lifted his stick and suddenly a beam of red light was being shot at the angry teenager. Ranma, however, hadn't trained all these years for nothing, his speed and reflexes were truly extraordinary and he had no trouble dodging the beam. Even though he wasn't sure what the light was, he could recognize an attack when he saw one and this was most certainly an attack.

"Have it your way then, old man" He declared and soon blurred into high speed movement. The weird people could only watch as Albus Dumbledore, greatest wizard of the century was disarmed by a sixteen year old teenager without even the help of magic. Ranma had figured that the old guy needed his stick in order to do his little tricks and decided that the best way to eliminate the threat was to take away the stick. The old man was caught by surprise from the physical attack, not used to people using their bodies and not their magic to attack and his reflexes could not match the speed of a trained martial artist.

Ranma, now that he had the magic stick, became confident and perhaps just a bit too cocky because of his victory over the annoying old man and didn't notice a new arrival creeping behind him. "Ha! Let's see if you're so mighty without your stupid stick!" At least the twinkling had finally diminished because man, was that annoying or what!

"Stupefy!" Was the last thing he had before he felt some energy hit his back and his world went suddenly dark. The last though that crossed his mind was something along the lines of 'Crap'