Chapter Text
"And so…," Renji was rambling on, once again explaining to the two students in front of him all the ways he had checked for spells and curses on the Quidditch balls.
Barely stifling a yawn behind the wide sleeve of her robe with red and gold stripes, Karin gave a short flick of her wand, casting Specialis Revelio, which, unsurprisingly, produced no results.
This whole fuss with the captains of the opposing teams inspecting the game balls had started last year when the Slytherins, never too picky about how they secured their victories, had placed a curse on one of the Bludgers, making it relentlessly chase after Hufflepuff players one by one.
Naturally, such blatant interference didn’t escape the notice of the school’s faculty. Along with a couple of stern reprimands—and five badgers in the infirmary—it led to the mandatory inspection of the balls a day before the match and the sealing of the equipment trunk with a handful of spells.
The young first-year flying instructor puffed with self-importance and twitched his tattooed eyebrows amusingly in time with his words. Abarai had held his position for barely a year, so he had yet to grow weary of these tedious formalities, eagerly narrating his actions in painstaking detail every time.
Renji was someone Karin had known practically since infancy, as he had become her older brother’s best friend back in their first year at Hogwarts. After that, the two boys—sometimes joined by Rukia—spent nearly every summer at their family estate.
The three proud Gryffindors hadn’t even been able to cast proper spells back then, mixing up Confundus and Confringo because they sounded the same to them, yet they still managed to wreak havoc across the entire property, tearing through the grounds on their broomsticks. Five-year-old Karin had always been tempted to join in on their reckless adventures, but Masaki usually found her something calmer to do. Usually.
Yeah. As if that ever worked.
"I put Protego Totalum on these two a week ago," Renji continued importantly, pointing at the Bludgers strapped down and trembling with anticipation.
Still hoping for at least a shred of praise from one of the students in front of him, Abarai tried not to lose heart. But with no reaction forthcoming, his further instructions came out somewhat more rushed.
When Ichigo, Renji, and Rukia had all joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team almost simultaneously in their second and third years, it became immediately clear that once they gained a bit of strength, they would start claiming trophy after trophy. And that’s exactly what happened.
Renji, charging ahead like a battering ram, slammed the Quaffle through the opponent’s hoops alongside the lightning-quick Rukia, while Ichigo, moving at some ridiculous speed, snatched the Golden Snitch. His name still held a plaque in the trophy case for the fastest Snitch catch in Hogwarts history—just three minutes and forty-six seconds. Sure, that was nowhere near Roderick Plumpton’s record, as far off as the edge of the Forbidden Forest, but the school had still been thoroughly impressed.
"Who's sealing the trunk?" the young instructor asked dryly, pulling Karin from her thoughts.
The sixth-year across from them rolled his eyes in exasperation and silently gestured toward Kurosaki. If not for his perpetually grim expression, Karin might have even considered it a rather gentlemanly gesture.
The Gryffindor girl wasn’t one of the girls from the older student’s personal fan club, and ignoring his behavior had always been incredibly easy for her. But even the brunette couldn’t deny that, in reality, he was worth looking at.
The captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, a sixth-year, a talented Chaser, prefect, and a recognized genius in Transfiguration—that was who stood before her, her old rival, Hitsugaya Toshiro.
The sleeves of the boy’s white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned forearms. The gaze of his teal eyes was habitually cold, for which he had earned the nickname "Ice Prince" back in the day. However, the final nail in the coffin of his reputation was the nearly undetectable Stupefies, which he had mastered effortlessly during his third year and had been striking fear into the dueling club ever since.
On the perfectly pressed robe draped over his shoulders, alongside the bronze and blue stripes, was a shiny prefect badge. Karin, whenever her team lost to Ravenclaw, angrily imagined that the white-haired boy polished it at midnight, just to blind any foolish girls who happened to let their guard down.
With an annoyed huff, Kurosaki nodded, what she hoped would look like politeness, and quickly scanned the white-haired boy before sealing the long-suffering trunk, which snapped shut with a loud metallic click.
Over the past summer, Hitsugaya, it seemed, had made the long-awaited growth spurt, transforming from a medium-height, charming boy with big, innocent eyes into a fully grown young man. Tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones and broadening shoulders, he left an indelible impression, as evidenced by the frequent, dreamy sighs from the girls in his vicinity. But the Ice Prince, to their dismay, remained indifferent to them. It seemed that his poker face and aloofness only fueled his audience's interest even more.
That ridiculous nickname always made Karin roll her eyes—only someone who had never truly watched this so-called iceberg play Quidditch could say something like that.
Kurosaki and Hitsugaya, both captains and both playing as Chasers, often clashed on the field, whether during training or actual matches—where the wind and speed stripped away any pretense, leaving only raw instinct. In the heat of the game, during particularly intense plays, Hitsugaya could yell and curse with more fire than her own brother—a prime example of Gryffindor’s reckless nature. So no, save the nonsense for someone else.
"Well then, that’s all," Renji clapped his hands, dismissing the two captains, but as he turned away, he suddenly froze, eyes widening in surprise.
"What is it?" Karin asked, following the redhead’s gaze—only to let out a loud exclamation. "Jinta! Merlin’s beard! What happened?"
Storming down the old stone path, lined with moss-veined cracks, Hanakari stomped forward, his fists clenching and unclenching as he struggled to calm himself. And while an enraged Gryffindor sixth-year wasn’t exactly a rare sight, the deepening bruise on his cheekbone and the swelling around his right eye were something else entirely.
"Nothing new," he muttered, already resigning himself to the fact that there was no escaping Abarai and Kurosaki’s attention—but still, he tried anyway.
"Spit it out," Karin demanded, her brows knitting together.
Fistfights at Hogwarts were a rare occurrence. Why dirty your hands when it was so much easier—and more effective—to hurl a couple of spells or curses at your opponent? And while that sort of thing wasn’t exactly encouraged by the professors, it was far more likely to be overlooked than outright physical violence. Classic double standards in action.
Kurosaki examined the swelling bruise blooming across Hanakari’s face with concern. The redhead was one of the few friends who brightened her otherwise grim solitude at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—not to mention, he was one of their team’s Beaters. And while the two of them had nearly killed each other over the captain’s position last year, they never hesitated to back each other up when it came to trouble.
"It’s that damn alley cat and that brainless insect," Hanakari practically growled, wincing in pain when he twisted his injured face too much. "Their filthy mouths—"
"Jinta!" Renji cut him off before he could cross a line in front of both a professor and a prefect from another House. "Just tell us what happened properly."
The Beater fell silent, staring intently at Kurosaki from beneath his furrowed brows until she gave him a brief nod.
"Yuzu and I were coming back from the Hogwarts greenhouses," he finally began. "Her Mimbulus Mimbletonia sapling had started producing its pus, so she figured it was time to transplant it into prepared soil before she could start using it for—"
"Yeah," Karin interrupted, exasperated. "Potions. I asked her to. Get to the point."
Hanakari measured the group with a wary look, as if debating whether he should continue or not. His gaze lingered particularly long on Hitsugaya, who was still standing nearby, pretending to be a statue. Jinta knew his fellow sixth-year well enough, even if they didn’t interact much—there simply weren’t many points of overlap between them. But the fact that Hitsugaya was a prefect could end up being a problem.
Catching onto her friend’s train of thought, Karin glanced at Toshiro, raising a brow in silent question.
"I don’t see an eagle on him," Hitsugaya muttered, implying that whatever mess students from another House got into was none of his concern. "Besides, there’s a teacher here," he added, making said teacher swallow nervously.
"A nosy little raven," the brunette teased, narrowing her eyes mischievously.
The prefect responded with an irritated hiss.
"Hanakari," the ever-responsible adult in the group interjected again. "I can’t stand around here all day!"
Hitsugaya and Kurosaki exchanged a knowing look. That’s not what it had felt like during the briefing.
"On our way back, we ran into Grimmjow and Nnoitra," Jinta practically spat their names.
"Ooooh," Karin grimaced. "Those damn Slytherins again."
Her friend nodded.
"What did they do?" she asked warily, already sensing where this was going.
"Kurosaki," Renji warned, trying to keep her in check. "Calm down."
Hanakari, however, seemed to share the storm brewing inside her.
"They started harassing Yuzu again with that idiotic pureblood nonsense."
And that was when Abarai realized that his best friend and his best friend’s little sister lost their tempers in exactly the same way.
***
Being born into not just one but two noble pureblood wizarding families was both a blessing and a curse. The long-awaited children of the nearly extinct Kurosaki bloodline and the sprawling Shiba family had known this from the cradle.
Privileges, books, and the best tutors—all of it had given them a massive advantage over many other students even before they set foot in Hogwarts. Karin, for her part, had made sure to capitalize on it, always pushing herself to stay at least half a step ahead of everyone else. That was why, year after year, she held the top spot in her year’s academic rankings—not without a sense of pride.
The curse came in the form of relentless scrutiny from Slytherins, staunch defenders of pureblood supremacy, who were convinced that witches and wizards of her caliber belonged in their House. They didn’t care that neither her father—a hot-headed Gryffindor—nor her mother—a kind-hearted Hufflepuff—had any ties to the green and silver. They weren’t even fazed when Ichigo added another lion to the family tree. No, their obsession was fixed entirely on the twins, who (Merlin, how was this even possible?) had no interest whatsoever in joining the snakes—an insult, apparently, to the very essence of Salazar’s House.
Yuzu usually bore the brunt of it. More gentle-natured and a true embodiment of her House, the Hufflepuff girl was an easy target.
Back during the Sorting, when Karin—grinning wide and proud—had already taken her seat at the roaring Gryffindor table, welcomed as yet another lion without a moment’s hesitation, her world had been turned upside down.
The ten-year-old girl with dark hair had watched as the Sorting Hat loomed over her younger sister’s head, waiting for the verdict. And then she heard it: Yuzu had been placed in a different House.
At that moment, it felt like her heart had been torn apart.
Of course, the family had considered this possibility. There had been plenty of signs pointing to such an outcome—from Yuzu’s endlessly kind nature and her uncanny sense of domesticity, far beyond her years, to her appearance. The younger twin was nearly a perfect copy of their radiant mother.
But there was a difference between expecting something and actually witnessing it happen.
At first, Karin had reassured herself. They’d still see each other in all their shared classes, and the Hufflepuff table was close—just a quick turn of the head away.
But in practice, things turned out quite differently.
Her honey-haired twin was quick to form new friendships, surrounded by housemates who welcomed her with open arms. Naturally, Yuzu never forgot about her sister or the special bond they shared, but she couldn’t be in two places at once, torn between family and the thriving social life she so clearly enjoyed. And logically, everything was in balance: one day spent with her sister, another with her friends.
But for Karin, it didn’t feel that way at all.
The brunette felt as if she had been erased from the life she had always known. She simply couldn’t adapt as quickly to this new social structure. The Gryffindor girl missed her beloved sister terribly, but she let new people into her life with great caution.
Some people only wanted to befriend her because of her brother. Others saw an opportunity to gain something from being close to a member of an ancient pureblood family. And then there were those whose intentions Merlin only knew—but Karin couldn’t quite bring herself to believe in the sincerity of their interest.
In the end, she spent most of her time alone—except for the handful of fools who were just sincere enough and just reckless enough to make her think they weren’t running some elaborate scheme.
One of those individuals turned out to be Hanakari Jinta, a sixth-year Gryffindor who had never tried to befriend her. On the contrary, the boy constantly shouted something about rivalry, but without even noticing it himself, he became the closest person to her in their House.
In response to everything that had happened, Karin buried herself in her studies, standing out in everything yet excelling in nothing in particular. That was until one Potions class, when she mixed up the pages of the standard textbook on every desk and ended up brewing a stamina-restoring potion meant for third-years—while still being in her first year.
The wildly eccentric and strange Professor Kyoraku, who, as far as anyone could remember, had only ever shown real interest in the Head of Ravenclaw House, Ise Nanao, seemed genuinely intrigued for the first time. And Karin, having spent years under the same roof as her madcap father, apparently had built up an immunity to the quirks and nonsense of a teacher so many students disliked.
And so, they clicked.
From that day forward, she always had individual assignments in his class, her own designated table in the farthest corner—an unspoken claim that no one challenged. Along with it came the reputation of the school’s rising star in potion-making.
That subject became her refuge, a sanctuary where she could escape the people swarming around her sister and, by association, around her as well. Karin never deluded herself into thinking those strange acquaintances were there for her.
Potions and the meticulous, thoughtful, methodical yet deeply creative and mesmerizing craft of brewing helped her adjust to the new rhythm of her life. They helped her cope with her sister’s frequent absence and, more than anything, allowed her to find herself and build her confidence. More and more, she spent her evenings in the company of a quietly bubbling cauldron and Shunsui, who had long since relaxed and begun offloading more and more of his work onto his young protégé.
Her life, already seemingly wonderful, became even more vibrant when, one day in her third year, Hanakari came storming in, shouting something about her brother the Seeker and waving his arms wildly, before dragging her to the Gryffindor Quidditch trials. Later, it turned out that Ichigo had nothing to do with Jinta’s sudden burst of enthusiasm. This time, the mastermind behind the scenes was none other than Yuzu, who had oh-so-casually mentioned—right in front of her hopelessly smitten admirer—that Karin was an exceptional flyer. Truly, the youngest Kurosaki was a puppet master in her own right.
Karin breezed through the trials with an impassive expression, as if still debating whether she even wanted to be there at all. She rejected the offered Seeker position on the spot, threatening to walk off the pitch entirely. But the Chaser role? That, as it turned out, was another story.
With the departure of star players like Ichigo, Renji, and Rukia, the team was more than happy to take in any skilled recruit, so they accepted her without question.
And so, Quidditch became another defining force in her life, disrupting its steady rhythm in favor of even fiercer clashes with Slytherin—especially whenever she sent another powerful shot straight through their hoops.
***
"You’re about to start shooting lightning bolts," Jinta elbowed her in the side, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Karin rolled her eyes but silently admitted he had a point. Her whole body was buzzing with unspent anger and the adrenaline rush of anticipation right before the match.
"I still want to kick those trolls into next week," she muttered, finally conceding to her best friend.
"As if," Jinta ruffled her black hair with a smirk. "No way a girl should be handling that kind of business. That’s a man’s job!"
He barely had time to register the weight of her deadpan stare before a shiver ran down his spine. That look made it painfully clear just how thoroughly she’d fold him into a pretzel if he ever said something like that again. His ridiculous, performative machismo was bound to land him in trouble one day.
"And it's a good thing we managed to smooth it all over," Jinta added in a lower voice, stepping closer to her in the dimly lit space beneath the stands.
Above them, the crowd of students buzzed with excitement, their voices merging into a restless hum as they waited for the match to begin. The warm scent of pumpkin pasties drifted through the air. Somewhere nearby, following an old tradition, someone had set up a betting pool, hastily taking wagers while trying to stay out of Ise’s watchful sight.
Absentmindedly picking at the familiar scratches on her gloves, Karin gave a small nod. She never doubted that Renji would keep his mouth shut. He treated both her and Yuzu like little sisters, which meant he’d been just as furious as she was about the behavior of those particular Slytherins last night. Though, at the time, he’d had the extra challenge of physically restraining the elder twin from storming off and starting a fresh fight. And quite literally, too—both hands across her entire torso—because otherwise, he knew damn well that the quick-footed brunette would’ve twisted free and bolted straight into the sunset.
But she was especially grateful for Hitsugaya’s silence. Though, knowing the Ravenclaw captain, he had to have at least considered the tempting idea of reporting Gryffindor’s star Chaser right before their big match.
If she were in his position, Karin definitely would have.
His reaction had been odd overall—minimal interest in the story itself, and then, as soon as brief retelling spiraled into pure emotional venting, he had simply shoved his hands into the pockets of his uniform trousers and walked off toward the Astronomy Tower. Didn’t even say goodbye.
And yet, after a lifetime of dealing with her family’s brand of chaos, Karin found something oddly charming in that silent acceptance.
She gave her tightly bound ponytail a quick shake, wincing as the ends lashed against her cheek. No. She wasn’t about to waste another second dwelling on the Ravenclaw’s unreadable behavior. There was a match ahead, and her team needed a win—desperately. And preferably by a large margin, if they still wanted a shot at the Cup this year. For Gryffindor, this was the last game of the season. They had fought through two matches and claimed victory in all of them, yet the overall rankings still weren’t in their favor.
In their last game against Slytherin, despite Gryffindor’s victory and the relentless barrage of Quaffles making it through the hoops, the snakes had managed to snatch the Golden Snitch at the very last moment, ending the match with an almost even score.
Which wouldn’t have been a disaster—if not for what happened next.
In their match against Hufflepuff, the Slytherin team had somehow racked up an absolutely insane number of points. Their Chasers and Seeker had played like it was the game of their lives, securing an astronomical lead.
As a result, despite technically losing to Gryffindor, Slytherin still sat at the top of the leaderboard, holding a tentative first place thanks to their ridiculous point advantage.
Bloody hell.
"Oi," Karin called out, snapping her teammates to attention. "Focus!"
The Gryffindor team wasn’t exactly in its golden age right now. In fact, their overall lineup was, at best, average. The only real standouts were Karin—who carried the bulk of their points as a Chaser—and Jinta, who, with a Beater’s bat in hand, turned into a genuine sadist and a nightmare for the opposing team.
The rest of them? A sea of mediocrity on broomsticks. Not entirely talentless, sure. They had their moments. But they weren’t exactly the kind of players you’d pin your championship hopes on.
Still. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
That included their weakest link—Ryohei Toba, who, of course, played as their Seeker. How could it be any other way?
The guy was solid enough on a broom and, generally speaking, wasn’t bad. But when it came to competing with the absurdly skilled Seekers from Slytherin or even Ravenclaw, he just didn’t measure up. Unfortunately, Gryffindor didn’t have any better options, so they had to make do with what they had.
That meant adjusting their strategy.
Instead of relying on Toba to secure the Snitch first, their game plan focused on dragging out the match. The longer it lasted, the more time Jinta had to take out as many opposing players as possible, while Karin and her Chasers racked up enough goals to offset the Snitch’s points.
And that was exactly how they planned to play this time—except now, there was a new threat on the field.
Ravenclaw had recently brought in a Beater straight from sixth year—Hisagi Shuhei.
A serious threat.
Possibly even more ruthless and talented than Jinta himself.
"Your main target is Yadomaru," Karin reminded Hanakari for what felt like the hundredth time.
"Yeah, yeah," Jinta huffed, clicking his tongue in annoyance. "Keep her from catching the Snitch for as long as possible so the match doesn’t end too soon. I got it!"
Lisa had joined Ravenclaw’s team a couple of years ago, practically dragged in by Hitsugaya himself, who was already captain at the time. As it later turned out, the white-haired strategist had to borderline blackmail her into playing—leveraging her stash of adult magazines to get her to agree.
Lisa was laid-back, sarcastic, and always has a mind of her own. No one quite understood how those traits all coexisted in one person, but when she was on a broom, she moved like lightning, and catching the Snitch was second nature to her.
"Heita, Kei," Karin called to the other two Chasers. "Your job?"
"Support you. Keep Hitsugaya in check," the two friends barked in unison, snapping to attention.
Karin had drilled them well.
"Perfect!" She clapped her hands together three times, just as the signal to take the field echoed through the tunnel—her usual pre-game ritual.
"Let’s go pluck some feathers off these nerdy little birds!"