Chapter 1

Sirius and Remus were already in the kitchen when Harry made his way downstairs, Sirius cooking breakfast, Remus drinking coffee and flicking through a newspaper. Usually Harry was the one doing the cooking, the reason for that being that the 'adults' of the house were pants at anything to do with food-making, but his godfather had declared yesterday that he would be the one making breakfast for once since it was Harry's first day at a new school. Harry didn't have the heart to refuse him, even though he would likely suffer from food poisoning if he did eat anything made by Sirius this morning.

"Morning Harry," Sirius said, walking over to the table and placing a plate of bacon in front of Remus. Harry pretended not to wince at the state of the food.

"Good morning," echoed Remus distractedly as Sirius went back to the stove. He glanced at Harry, then grimaced as he poked at his 'food' with a fork.

Harry tried to keep a similar expression from crossing his features. "Morning Sirius, Remus." He sat down across from Remus and started making a sandwich. He wasn't dumb enough to actually eat whatever Sirius had decided to make.

"I made you lunch, it's over there on the fridge." Sirius pointed at the box with a proud grin. He took a plateful of eggs for himself and sat down next to Remus. He took a bite, clearly fighting off a disgusted grimace. "Don't worry about the smell, it actually tastes better than that."

Harry resisted the urge to raise a sceptical eyebrow as he eyed the lunch box suspiciously. Luckily he'd secretly prepared a lunch box of his own the night before. He took another bite of his sandwich to hide his expression.

"So, are you nervous yet?" Remus asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. Coward.

"I'm a little worried, yeah," answered Harry once he'd finished his bite.

Remus blinked at him in surprise. "Really? What's wrong?"

Harry considered the obvious joke about dying of Sirius' cooking, then thought better of it. "Well, the guys went out last night and when they came back they were acting really weird and mysterious. When I finally asked what was wrong they said 'you'll see when you go to school tomorrow' and started giggling."

Sirius looked at Harry's shoulder and then around the kitchen. "Where are your little copies anyway?"

Harry shrugged, unconcerned. "Don't know, they were here a minute ago."

As if summoned by the talk, the four missing charas flew in through the open window. Very suspiciously.

Harry frowned at them. "Where have you guys been?"

Ricky, who was the chara embodying Harry's Gryffindor nature and had therefore taken on the role of the leader, looked at him, then at the other charas, then back at Harry again. He smiled innocently. "Just wanted some fresh air."

Harry gave him a look that said he wasn't buying it, but started eating his sandwich again. There was no point questioning them this early in the morning.

Remus pushed his still full plate away with a carefully cultivated air of carelessness. "Harry, do you want me to give you a ride? I'm just about to go to work myself."

Deciding to take pity on him – the school was within walking distance, which is why they'd picked this house in particular, but he wasn't cruel enough to leave Remus alone with Sirius' cooking –Harry pasted on a grateful smile. "Really? Thanks. I'll go take my bag and we can go." Remus definitely owed him one.

"Don't forget your lunches!" Sirius rushed up from his seat to present them with the boxe, beaming proudly. Harry knew him well enough by now to see the hint of mischief in his eyes. That bastard, he was doing this on purpose!

"Thank you," he said through gritted teeth, pasting on a wide smile. Sirius winked at him. Evil.

A lot of weird things had happened since they'd decided to move to Japan. Harry waking up one day with eggs the colour of Hogwarts houses being one of those weird things. Finding out that Remus can drive a car actually seemed pretty reasonable when compared to that. Living with Remus had been weird at first. Learning to call him Remus instead of Professor Lupin for one. Finding out that his dominant personality trait wasn't actually being a professor was also a bit of a shock at first. But soon enough they bonded over Sirius' over-dramatic tendencies – the fact that Remus had been an amazing teacher, definitely Harry's favourite, also helped.

After once again swearing to each other that they'd never let Sirius cook again, as they did every time, Harry stepped out the car and waved to Remus as the man drove away. He shook his head mournfully. One of these days they'd actually manage to keep that promise.

Harry looked around the school grounds, not bothering to hide a small grimace as he watched the kids walking around in blue and red uniforms. He cursed Sirius for making him stand out. His godfather knew he hated attention, and yet it didn't seem to deter him in the slightest. Harry wore the same uniform as the other students, but instead of the usual blue tie, he wore the high school green tie, which was easily seen through the open jacket. Harry was pretty sure in was against school rules, but Sirius had insisted. Said it matched his eyes, and that since he didn't have to wear glasses any longer – one of the perks of being Master of Death – it meant that he shouldn't hide them.

One would think not drawing attention to themselves would be a priority, since they were sort of trying to hide out and all, but no, Sirius disagreed.

A flash of colour caught Harry's eye. The sea of identical uniforms was broken by a hint of pink. Harry made his way closer, feeling hope grow as he saw a girl with an unusually altered uniform.

His first thought was to get to know her better, make a new friend.

His second thought was the realisation that Dan, the embodiment of all things Hufflepuff, had decided to do a character change.

Shaking off the change with an annoyed look at the sightly apologetic chara, he noticed the girl coming to a stop, staring intently at something out of Harry's line of sight. Harry followed her gaze. A group of kids stood in the middle of a

crowd, though a respectful distance had been left between them and the rest of the student body. He thought he heard the word 'guardians' go around a few times. He dismissed the thought of getting to know them better – he'd had enough attention to last lifetimes, and making friends with only one person seemed like a more achievable goal than trying for a whole group.

He gathered his courage and walked over to the pink-haired girl, tapping her shoulder. "Hey, could you show me the way to the principles office? I'm new." Dan had once again decided to do a chara change, but this time Harry didn't mind as much. It made the smile that would have otherwise looked awkward seem friendly instead.

Of course, he already knew where the office was, but she didn't have to know that. Sal, clothed in green as is only fitting for a Slytherin, seemed to glow at his sneakiness. Now he only had to make sure she never found out about that, which was going to be hard, considering his home-room teacher had been there.

The girl looked surprised that someone was talking to her, and blushed like she was caught doing something she shouldn't have been. For a moment Harry thought she was just going to walk away without even answering, and he was opening his mouth to ask her to stay, but then she got a determined look on her face, as if she'd just won an inner battle against herself, and answered.

"Yeah sure, it's on my way to class anyway." Her voice was cool, like she didn't care either way, but Harry saw the way her eyes changed. He'd become pretty good at figuring out people's personalities ever since he'd discovered colourful eggs in his bed one morning. It'd been hard not to.

He was distracted from answering when he noticed people staring at him. No. They were looking at the pink haired girl. And although he was already preparing to defend her, he quickly saw that the attention wasn't negative at all. Instead, they seemed to be admiring her. He concentrated, and made out the words 'cool' and 'spicy'

Confused, he decided to brush off the thought and concentrate on her instead. He smiled, and this time it was actually genuine. "Thanks, I really appreciate it."

Her cheeks turned a light pink colour, but the blush was gone as quick as it had come. "Well, come on. I don't have all day you know." And then she walked away, not looking back to make sure he was following.

Harry hurried to catch up to her.

"What's your name anyway? I didn't know we had a transfer student. My name is Hinamori Amu, by the way," she said once they were out of earshot of the other students. She was rambling a bit, though it was still in her 'cool' voice, which was a strange combination.

"Harry Potter. I'm from England, and it was kind of a last-minute thing," he answered shortly but with a smile.

"So that's what your accent was," she mused, smiling back at him.

Learning new languages was hard, Harry had figured this out pretty quickly. (He intentionally didn't think about the memory enchanting potions they'd all taken – which were illegal in Britain, but luckily not in Japan – and which had made the experience much smoother than it would have been without any magical aid.) He was still struggling with writing and reading, but that should be taken care of by going to a Japanese school.

"Yeah, I still get confused sometimes," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

She blushed, looking straight ahead again. "You're doing fine," she said with a high voice.

Harry nodded, confused at the sudden change in personality.

As they got closer to the principals office – which he knew the location of, though she didn't know that – he noticed that she kept looking at his tie. Deciding that this would be the perfect opportunity to get the conversation started again, he gestured at his chest, grimacing. "My godfather forced me to wear it," he admitted.

Unfortunately she stayed silent, but he wasn't to be deterred. "What about your uniform, it's different too," he said pointedly.

"My mother has a really weird fashion sense," she mumbled, blushing again.

'Yes!' he thought in victory. And also oh because this was the first time he'd ever had a conversation about parents like this. Back in England, the shadow of his parents' tragic death always hung over his head, and he never got to commiserate about how weird his parents were. Now he could have that, even though Remus and Sirius weren't really his parents, could never really be anything like parents. But still.

Harry gathered his courage. "Hey, can I call you 'Amu'? I'm not really used to the honorific things." She looked startled at the change in topic, and then blushed at the intimacy.

"Yeah," she said hesitantly. "But then I get to call you Harry!"

Amu quickly became his only friend at the school. And he soon realised that he was her only friend as well. His first day at school wasn't an exception, people tended to stay away from her, and it wasn't a mystery why.

For some reason, Amu had developed a 'cool girl' personality at school, and it had stuck. By now, it was habit for her to respond in an unaffected way, and she was too embarrassed to change, no matter how much Harry encouraged her. She couldn't see his charas yet, but he wouldn't be surprised if she showed up with an egg of her own one of these days.

He also discovered that the group of people she'd been so intently looking at had been the so called Guardians, and that it was a daily occurrence. The reason she'd been staring at them? …Well, he's blonde, he's cute, and his name was Tadase Hotori. And him and all of the other Guardians also and charas. Which was sort of awkward, because as far as Harry could tell, they only recruited other people with charas, and he didn't want the attention of being a Guardian. Which meant he always had to be careful at school to keep his charas hidden. And nobody was happy with that.

"Why don't you just tell them you don't want to join," Remus pointed out, not for the first time.

Harry sighed in response. "But that would mean talking to them," he said. "Which would mean people seeing me talk to them, which would mean attention," he concluded, which was his usual argument.

"Well, I think it'd be great," Sal interrupted. "First, join the Guardians. Then, take over the school!"

"But Harry doesn't want to take over the school," Dan protested. Sal made a mocking face, but didn't respond.

"Besides, Harry needs to concentrate on his studies," Ciel said. "He still doesn't know how to write properly," he ignored Harry's pointed 'hey!', "And he needs to actually learn new things at school, which is what it's for."

"Learning how to lead a school would be a new thing," Sal pouted.

Ricky thumped his fist in the air. "No! Joining the Guardians would be all paperwork and decision making, Harry needs to join a club that's exciting! Like football or something."

Harry shook his head. "Harry doesn't need to join a club," he said, then winced. "I mean, I don't want to join a club."

Taking a sip of his tea with an air of amusement, Remus tilted his head. "Actually, I think a club would be a good idea."

Harry looked at him in betrayal. "What? But… learning..." he said weakly, pointing at Ciel, who puffed up in pride at being recognized. Harry didn't have the heart to tell him that he was only using him as an excuse.

Remus shook his head. "Being in a club would be learning something new, a new skill."

But their conversation was, luckily, interrupted. "What's for dinner?" Sirius called as he bounded down the stairs.

Remus gave Harry a pointed look. "Just think about it."