The first thing I have to do is apologize – deeply and sincerely. I'm truly, truly sorry.

The second thing is to explain.

I have to let this fic – and my other 'long' fics – go now. I'm pretty sure most if not all of you saw this coming ages ago. My updates slowed to a crawling chapter-a-year pace, not because it honestly takes me a year to type twelve thousand words but because it was taking me some eleven months and twenty-five days or so to get up the required impetus to write it at all.

Part of it may be the passage of time and the advancement of canon material. The more Bleach moves on, the more this fic obviously diverges from it in terms of core concepts. And while in theory I can work past that, it's still somewhat frustrating to realize that I'm working with an outdated theory or model in terms of Zanpakuto origins and mechanics, the truth behind Ichigo's hollow and indeed his entire parentage, and more.

More importantly, though, there is the conflict of personal priorities my larger and more involved fanfics, such as this one, induce.

I started this fic halfway through college. Now that I'm well out of it, I should be prioritizing original writing above all else. Thing is, my original writing obviously doesn't have the interest or the pre-built fanbase that fanfic has. Therefore I have, at best, one or two people per original work rooting me on to finish it. Meanwhile my fics have...wow, how many of you are there? Hundreds? And that's just in favorites and alerts – reviewers are obviously fewer, and the people who go the step beyond and PM me asking after updates after prolonged inactivity fewer still, but there's a certain impact there. It's called guilt. I leave an original work sitting unfinished on my flashdrive for months on end, and the only person I'm really disappointing is myself. I leave fanfic incomplete and on a cliffhanger, and every time I get another review or message wishing me well and asking when I might, perhaps, possibly update again because for some reason you guys actually like what I'm doing here, I know I'm disappointing a lot more than that. So then I open up a document, try to start writing fanfic...and I'm hit by that self-disappointment. Guilt from another side. Why are you writing fanfiction? You have free time, you should be working on something which might actually get published somewhere. You want to write for work? Then write for work!

And so it goes. I'm guilty about writing original work over fanfic because I'm disappointing people. I'm guilty about writing fanfic over original work because I'm disappointing myself and my own hopes for the future. As a result, I can't bring myself around to consistently writing either one.

This was a hard decision to make. I don't like the feeling of abandoning this. I always hated it when I finally found a fic I liked only to discover that the author got halfway through the plot before stopping dead in the water. I never wanted to do that to my own readers, but...well, you know. All of that above.

So I need to put an end to this, and I need to do it immediately, in one sharp stroke. Prolonging the inevitable just lengthens the cycle and keeps me stalled, barely moving. My long fics have to go.

This is not to say that I'm retiring this account altogether. I might occasionally return with a one-shot here or there. Maybe it'll be related to this universe, maybe not. I do have the "Files" side-fic collection after all. Should inspiration ever strike again, I'll keep it brief and contained in there. Fanfiction is still fun and can still be done on the side...just nothing as involved as this monstrosity has become.

HOWEVER, I'm not leaving this just at that. One of the reasons why I found abandoned fics frustrating was the fact that I knew I'd never be able to find out what the author ultimately intended for the characters. Any trace of mystery would be left unanswered, any changed circumstances unexplained.

If you prefer to imagine your own continuation, feel free to stop reading before the break below. Afterwards I'll be providing a rambling summary of what might have happened next – things I planned, things I felt inclined towards, things I just really really wanted to do. For the most part these are individual scenes and plot points, plus the vague shadow of an epilogue I've had in mind for a long while. It will be interspersed with loads of reasoning on my part as to why I planned this or that and explanations for what I was going to have the characters go through and why they might make these choices in the circumstances I put them in.

For instance, I know there was a little confusion over my treatment of the various types of magic and their interplay as well as the apparent 'power' of the wizarding SS over the general one in that attack I ended on last chapter. I will address that first, in plain terms, as it would have been a theme in the next chapter anyhow. From there I will ramble on towards the end of it all. Please excuse my occasional lack of coherency; I was not into concretely planning my fics when I originally started this. Thus I have general ideas at times, but no specifics. Writing by the seat of your pants often leaves you with a rather squishy and mutable plotline, which doesn't help with summarizing at the end of all things.

Thank you so much for your readership and your support while this fic lasted.

And now, here is the further plot and foreseen ending of Wizard and Zanpakuto.

First off, a few reviewers made mention of the wizard reapers' apparent surplus of strength over those of the Center, and how little sense it made. Allow me to clarify something: I don't believe so much in "Strength" (or in any singular aspect) as the great decider of battles. Yes, sometimes it is the be-all, end-all: you pit a white belt against a black belt in any discipline (or across disciplines using the same general ranking system), and you really can't expect the newbie to come out on top. Thing is, you need a vast gulf in ability between the participants for this to be true. If you pit two people of roughly equal rank/experience against each other, it's harder to classify why one wins over the other. We do tend to prefer a strict and simplistic reason, i.e. he won because he's stronger or better or faster or smarter as an overall absolute, completely neglecting the myriad little uncontrollable influences that can go into any fight: location, frame of mind, any distractions, sheer and utter unpredictable chance. Have the same two individuals fight a second time, a third, another day or week or month, and the outcome will very likely be different – the course of the fight certainly will be.

So, no, this isn't a case of Wizard Reaper Magic/Army Central Reaper Magic/Army. This is a case of a surprise attack (in the middle of the night to boot) and unfamiliar opponents/tactics rendering the beginning of the battle imbalanced. As for the interplay of magics themselves…I wonder, have you ever heard of a Kenpo Karate saying, "the line defeats the circle; the circle defeats the line"? The idea here is that a circular block is best against a linear attack and vice versa, while also holding true the idea that a linear attack can overcome a circular block and vice versa. The details make the difference. Miss-time or use too little power in the block and the attack gets through. Time and gauge it well and it's your best defense and counter.

There are three varieties of magic in play right now: Living, more specifically that used by British wizards, and Dead, which is split into two 'styles' or methods of use due to the different paths taken by the two groups involved (meaning different techniques, different spells, different ways of treating the same energy at times). Circles and Lines. Or Rock-Paper-Scissors, assuming each one can defeat either of the other two depending on application, circumstance, luck, speed, power, and all those other little influences. And that's not even mentioning the soul blade abilities being thrown about by the majority of the characters involved.

In short, I'm not trying to be unrealistic or unreasonable in my fight scenes, and it's good to keep in mind that sometimes the beginning of a conflict does not specify the end.

This is certainly the case in this battle. In the end, the wizard reapers (WRs from now on) tear up Central and make a big mess, but they don't 'win' in the greater sense. They don't take over, they're not in power, but they did certainly hit hard. There's property damage, casualties, and perhaps even a touch of quasi-political outcry and uncertainty over what to do with the surviving attackers. Moreover, some of them would have escaped through the portals, running into the living world and probably making messes there. Goodman would have been one of them. Sinclair...she might have died. I'll admit I didn't have that battle completely planned out in details as far as that goes. Either way, I could have showcased a few of the central reapers (CRs now) and their abilities in the process.

Now, the super-important bits would obviously have followed Harry and Darksun/Ichigo. The battle over central would've been more background than anything. When we left these two, Harry was still unconscious and Dark was wrestling with a bit of a moral dilemma. Meanwhile there's Hermione and Ron under the invisibility cloak, sent by Dumbledore. Their involvement would have introduced the time turner concept to Harry and Dark and, more importantly, outlined some of the perils of time travel to Dark himself. Lately he's been thinking about the fact that he's several years in the past. He exists now in 1994. Personally I set the beginning of the manga in around 2004 (which is the year the anime started rather than the manga, but the timeline there is vague enough to allow fudging of a few years). This means that while Dark is a zanpakuto in Britain, little Ichigo Kurosaki is a five-year-old in Japan, complete with a living mother. Naturally, Dark has been entertaining thoughts of perhaps getting Harry trained up in time, finding them a way around the world, and maybe saving Masaki. Maybe even ending Aizen. Maybe changing everything.

He needs a wake-up call in terms of how impossible that would be due to laws of causality, hence Hermione's time turner and its involvement. Time travel doesn't work that way. Dark needs to realize this.

As for the cloak, I gave it the ability to shield you from not just sight but also from reiatsu senses. Hey, it's the cloak that legend said could hide you from death. It was too convenient a tie-in to pass up. But I digress.

Now, due to the time aspect this might get a little confusing. I was going to start the chapter with the trio in Dumbledore's office having explained the whole mess to him after the fact. He then sits them down in an antechamber to recover a bit and sends for Ron and Hermione, plus time turner and cloak of course, and sits them down to give them an important task: Harry was in danger, and they need to go help him, because technically they already have. He gives them instructions, imparts them with advice, and tells Hermione just how many turns should do it and to wait in the dorm. As such, when Harry gets up that night and goes through the gateway, he is unaware of the fact that he's being quietly followed by two time-travelling friends under his own invisibility cloak. He shakes them off briefly due to flash step and so forth, which is why it takes them a few hours to catch up (it's possible I would have converted one of Dumbledore's silver whirly devices into a convenient little one-person tracker for the purpose, using a bit of future!Harry's donated reiatsu or the like). Once there, they help spring the Potters from the cell by essentially overloading the WR-style deathspell sealing them in with a form of magic it's not technically built to withstand in concert with the sheer power of Lily and James hammering at it from the other side with a form of magic it normally would have withstood. Concert effort.

Lily and James sort of want to hurry off, hoping to get to Central in time to warn them though they know the effort is likely in vain, but they're torn by the fact that their son is still konked out and this is worrisome.

Dark decides to pilot the body for a little while, since he can't seem to wake Harry up himself and he's worried that he's in danger outside. He couldn't promise 'never again.'

Of course it's a little freaky to the others when 'Harry' sits up with golden eyes and a weird voice, but once Dark explains himself they get over it (at least a little, for now) and get a move on.

After the battle has ended and things have calmed and Harry wakes up and so forth, there is still the question of what to do with the WRs and the uninvited living souls and really Harry himself. I already established that there are CRs who have a liking for him, others who have a tolerance or at least an apathy, and some who really don't care much for him at all – not on a personal level, but mostly in concept. (Because hey, you're going to get a blend of attitudes like that in life. Nobody is liked by everybody, not even the hero.) Now none of them directly blame Harry for the attack and so forth by thinking he betrayed them deliberately – they're all pretty well aware that he was tricked out of information and he and his parents were all emotionally manipulated in a way to manage it, but keep in mind that this is an ultimately militaristic organization and that the information leak, as it were, resulted in casualties and damage. Harry needs to learn not to be so careless with the freedoms he's been given, nor should he have snuck behind their backs with a privilege he'd been allowed.

A compromise of sorts is struck. Lily and James officially join the CR ranks (they're pretty well disillusioned with the mostly-decimated and scattered WRs anyhow due to this manipulate-and-attack business) and act as liaisons between central and the remaining wizard community in an attempt to bring them together, or at least to bridge this gap of miscommunication and prejudice in time. Harry loses the keying on his sword for a time – not exile, more like probation. He can't move freely between the realms, but they've got ways of communicating should an emergency arise, and he'll be allowed specific visit days and so forth, so he's not completely cut off, and he'll be able to regain the keying eventually. Think of it as a time out and a warning to be more careful about the choices he makes in the future, because while he was tricked, he was able to be tricked, and that's important too.

But yes, when all those WRs escaped into the living world that would be the onset of Trelawney's changed prophecy, what with death from the sky and so forth. As for the path to the return of Voldemort being laid...Goodman. Goodman and some interesting concepts in the HP verse regarding souls sharing a body and the concept of souls inhabiting other bodies in Bleach and whatnot. He's got an entire backstory that ties in somewhat, and which I might need to explain eventually. In very short terms, he's a scientist who has discovered the truth he pursued all through life by only by dying and in part he wants to live again because he feels he died too soon and in another part he wants to share his findings with the world plus explore a few more hypotheses he's worked out in the meantime but could not test due to certain conditions. Now, being in a soul form, only able to interact properly with a few people in certain areas and nothing more, is unsatisfactory to him, plus one of those hypotheses has to do with the ability to inhabit another body as a foreign soul (English SS doesn't have gigai – I'm keeping that local to Japan, and maybe a few others). Thus he finds Voldy inhabiting snakes and so forth and sees potential for himself and his own hypothesis, but it's imperfect so he'll need a proper living body and Voldy has some methods and means to that and will serve well enough as an initial test subject, soooo...

As for Lupin's wolfy secret, Snape's been dropping hints all year. He might ramp them up a notch out of bitterness over Sirius being cleared of all charges and getting his life back. Eventually someone catches on and of course it's all over the school like wildfire, leading to Lupin's resignation.

On to book four, which is when much of that would really happen! After a summer of trying to clean up the soul mess thing (not that Harry's super involved but he sometimes hears from reapers in the area trying to hunt down those last few rogue WRs making a mess of things in the living world) and settling down in Grimmauld place with Sirius and Buckbeak and finding a new accord with Dark in which they try to be more open with each other (though Dark is still somewhat set on the fighting thing since it promises a permanent end to some problems and would give Harry more power to protect himself and others to boot), we go back to Hogwarts for the tournament.

Harry doesn't take part this time, much to Crouch and Voldemort's displeasure. I'd be inserting a technicality to manage it: the cup, in the process of choosing its champions, is set with a function to weed out not only the unlikely sorts but also to entirely dismiss the dead. It's possible that in the onset of the tournament some students played little jokes by entering the names of long-dead wizards or something of the sort. When the chosen champion of one school came up with the name "Merlin" on the parchment...well, something had to be done. Harry is an anomaly; he's technically alive, but technically dead at the same time, and so the cup's enchantments go with the dead option and disqualify the confundus-induced 'fourth school' on the basis of having no qualified contestants. Crouch is stymied and has to work toward finding another means of getting Harry out of the school and to a completely prepared Voldemort and Goodman. I'm assuming they used the tournament as the means in order to have a circumstance in which Harry would be out of Dumbledore's sight for a long while, could plausibly have died in the circumstances (thus diverting suspicion for a time), and in which the day if not the hour of his arrival in the graveyard would be concretely scheduled so they could have everything in place.

(By the by, they probably find a way to spring Wormtail from Azkaban for the 'flesh of the servant' bit. Goodman's not a servant and Crouch would be busy undercover at Hogwarts, so they'll need some way to get that ingredient.)

As such it follows that Harry's fourth year has less drama over the tournament and more focus on him working himself up to Dark's standards of fighting ability. He can focus on that rather than on outward concerns. Hermione may insist he focus on his spellwork as well, though it wouldn't be as much of a priority to him in this universe.

Now, in order to manufacture the circumstances necessary to get Harry away from Hogwarts for a few hours free from suspicion and with an excuse to cover his inevitable death in the process, "Moody" starts getting really free with his lesson plans, ostensibly in the spirit of the tournament and teaching his students to survive in similar circumstances. He's got to give the appearance of it all being toned down of course, but it does lead to excursions into the edge of the forest and the lake and random little-used classrooms and corridors transformed into battle grounds. After the real tournament ends (Cedric wins, and bonus: he lives!) they have their final: a constructed maze similar to the tournament one but presumably less intense, at least to the point where the students will be pressured to get through but not to the point where any should die...as long as they keep their wits about them and all goes well of course. Dumbledore and some other senior staff are probably on hand at Moody's request to help with any difficulties (as a means of keeping suspicion off himself). Each student has a name-labeled item in the middle of the maze they must retrieve – could be they're all meant to be portkeys and intended to return the students back to the edge of the maze. Thus we can have Harry's graveyard duel – or at least a version of it – and Voldemort's return to power. Differences? Priori Incantatem doesn't summon actual ghosts or shades of his parents, but 'echoes' of them as they were when killed, and Harry would know that. He's better at dodging and running, probably more physical about the fight. He probably sneaks a deathspell or two into his efforts and they take Voldemort off-guard. And he doesn't drag a dead body back with him, and despite being a little bloodied and lost-looking it's not the shocker to any onlookers the task's ending was.

Except Dumbledore. Moody can't have known this, but Dumbledore's spirit sensitive and Harry's got some power there. Dumbledore needn't have even kept an 'eye' on Harry in an active sense; the moment Harry's presence vanished entirely from the maze he probably knew something was wrong. He may have hoped otherwise, assuming that Harry was making use of his invisibility cloak – he's done that before in Moody's battle-setting simulations perhaps – but he'd be uncertain until Harry abruptly showed up again without the cloak in sight. Moody is revealed to be Crouch junior, Dumbledore knows Voldemort is alive, but they haven't a dead body to lend fuel to the fire yet. Hit wizards are called to take custody of a death eater imposter at the school rather than Fudge himself (he's not there anymore, having returned to the ministry after the actual third task of the tournament) and so there's no dementor to destroy the evidence, as it were.

Crouch might keep his mouth shut about Voldemort due to secrecy being part of the plan. If he does talk out of sheer madness, though, he'll be taken as a gibbering lunatic and his words ignored.

This is where it all gets a little fuzzy, so bear with me.

Without the impetus of a boy's dead body to lend credence to the idea, overt assertions that Voldemort has suddenly returned will work even worse than they did in canon. As such book five is much more about the two sides operating more in secret than in the obvious political stuff. Dumbledore will of course do all he can to subtly caution and forewarn, but all he's really got are, at best, the ravings of an obviously insane death eater who for some inexplicable reason impersonated a former auror for a year and taught at Hogwarts (okay, so that'll be enough to cause some people to doubt, but not enough for an entire public awareness platform). As such the ministry may feel less need to introduce Umbridge and strict control to Hogwarts. I hadn't planned concretely whether it would happen or not; I was sort of playing with the idea of going a different direction entirely and having Sirius try his hand at teaching. Or perhaps not. Again, this is where that squishy plotline comes in because I didn't plan everything out.

On the HP side of things, mostly this year would be the two sides slowly and quietly gathering all the aid they possibly could for the war. On the Bleach cross side...well. At this point, the Horcrux awakens.

The effects are subtle at first. Maybe the air in the inner world is a bit colder. Maybe the weather's a bit more unstable. Dark puts it down to Harry going through a moody teenager phase. Then, not long after the start of term, they have their final fight for Bankai and control. By now, due to all that training in year four and the summers between, Harry's got a grasp on all the various tricks and techniques in his initial release, including one or two I haven't revealed yet (one fun one has to do with the chain at the end of the hilt. It's short and ends not in a broken link, but in a larger circular loop. This allows a certain refinement of the Hollow's old 'spinning sword flail' technique; the loop is meant to fit a finger or two for the spinning. Moreover, the chain extends on command, so that it lengthens and contracts similar to the ribbon on Zangetsu's old cleaver form. It's built for that technique.). The fight is long and hard of course, but Harry's holding his own and Dark wants him to win enough that, while he does have to put in effort for this to work, he's obviously not going to overpower him right off the bat.

Then it finally ends with Harry's sword through Dark's chest. Dark is equal parts pleased and unhappy – pleased because Harry finally did it, a little unhappy because it's not in his nature to enjoy losing to anyone, because in a sense this is a final subjugation and he's always been too independent to happily hand the crown over. Still, what's done is done, and he'll live with it...and then Harry grabs his hand, with his sword still in it, and before Dark knows exactly what he's doing, Harry's impaled himself as well. It's Harry's body, he's proven that much to the hollow aspect, but for the rest he wants them to be equals.

And so they achieve Bankai, or in English True Form, and I'm a complete and utter tease troll and don't let you see it just yet. Instead we go to a later moment while Harry's asleep that night and Dark's relaxing against that one oak tree, feeling very light and accomplished for once, when he feels something wrong. He sits up, looks around, but nothing's out of place. The sun is shining, the sky is cloudless, there is no fear or dark...but it's cold. It's cold and he doesn't know why. He goes to stand up and investigate further. It's impossible; he's rooted in place, stuck to the tree itself. The bark cracks open, revealing a dark, hissing interior, and he's dragged inside.

Outside the tree, the grass begins to frost and crack, and the leaves begin to wither.

Harry, when he realizes that Dark is somehow missing, has no idea what to think. Did he somehow damage him when he pulled his equals stunt? Was this normal for a new bankai user? Was Dark somehow manifesting himself outside Harry's body and running around on his own without his knowledge? He's rather short on mentors to answer his questions. Dark's been the source of most of his spiritual knowledge, and that's obviously a dead end.

In short, fifth year would involve an arc about the struggle between the inner Horcrux, Dark himself, and Harry. Plus Voldemort's gearing up for conquest and Goodman's on the loose somewhere or other. Umbridge may or may not be teaching. It's possible that the Horcrux either infests Dark himself or takes on his form, further misleading Harry for a time.

To be honest, I have very little idea how all of that winds down, or how book six would go. This is where the squishy plotline gets extra undefined. For the most part from now on I have only vague ideas and concepts. I know that they eventually get into hunting Horcruxes later in the storyline. Years later, perhaps, if I kept to the book pattern of events, but it'll happen. Goodman might end up helping them. He's after the body Voldemort made, since making his own has proven impossible – he has no servants and enemies are in difficult supply, so that route of effort won't work, and on top of that being hunted constantly has made settling down with a well-equipped lab a bit tricky. So instead, he'll take what he can get, give it a little remodeling if necessary. First though, Voldemort needs to be made properly mortal and his spirit therefore capable of being permanently ousted so there won't be a struggle over the real estate, as it were. The Horcrux inside Harry is simple enough to deal with once he realizes it's there and takes care of it, releasing Darksun in the process. They may not need Gryffindor's sword or the resurrection stone or the snitch set up; Harry's got a sword capable of not only destroying the containers, but killing or releasing the souls inside. He's taken his Horcrux out early and won't have to 'die' to get rid of it. Dumbledore may still entrust the Stone to Harry, but it won't be used to encourage him through his parents' ghosts. If Harry enters the forest that night, it won't be to die. It'll be to kill off Voldemort once and for all, and with luck, to subdue Goodman so that he won't continue running around trying to possess things (he may have gone a little loopy on that matter). And then Harry tries to off Voldemort with a spirit blade, something that could render that body unusable for all Goodman knows. So he makes a jump for it and forces his way in before the sword can connect, and we get Voldy-Goodman versus Harry. One way or another, it does end with Goodman going into his own Bankai in an attempt to kill Harry (or at least keep him from stopping his attempts at life) and Harry revealing Bankai to you lot at last. (Dark Sun Reborn)

This is where Harry's 'equals' stunt makes things interesting. Originally his Bankai would have been something a little bit like Renji's original Bankai or maybe Hitsugaya's ice-dragon-summoning technique. In short, the bankai was meant to be a wielder who has a short blade in his right hand and a great flaming black phoenix construct on his left. The phoenix would have functioned somewhat like one of those ice dragons, being sent out to attack semi-independently, but with a connecting cord or ribbon similar to Renji's bamboo snake, through which it could be controlled by the wielder. In short, it would've been something like a puppet used to attack at a distance in a sense.

But thanks to that equals thing, that one twist in the terms of victory and defeat, his Bankai takes a very slightly different form. There's no connecting ribbon. There's no puppeted construct. It's Harry with a blade and Darksun himself in the form of a black phoenix. It's quite literally two of them fighting together as one.

Goodman doesn't stand a chance in the end.

With he and Voldemort finished, the course of the books pretty well reaches its end.

There are some aftermath threads to tie up on the Bleach end, though.

After the school years Harry does enter a career as an Auror. He does marry Ginny and start a family. However, he's also taking a certain extra interest in learning Japanese (apparently self-taught. Dark is helping) and, as the date of the destruction of Karakura draws closer, he pays attention to the media in regards that region. If Inoue failed to reject that destruction, then the disappearance of an entire town without apparent cause will surely make big news. If she succeeded, they probably won't hear anything at all.

She succeeded.

Harry takes some vacation time and they do a family trip to the area, apparently to sightsee.

With Dark's help, he tracks down Kurosaki Ichigo's family and friends. Much weirdness yet happy relief abounds as they learn what happened to Ichigo after he apparently faded away. The time travel aspect might be a bit for them to swallow – after all, he's now lived about twenty-some years extra since they last saw him, maybe a few weeks ago. Still, it will be managed and could well be the start to some new international relations between the English and Japanese Soul Societies.

Years and years pass. Harry does live to a ripe old age before passing on, and Dark is with him the whole while. Once in Soul Society Dark allows Harry to free him by way of his real name, since he's pretty well assured that even if he's wandering around unattached Harry can damn well defend himself.

And then, the final epilogue. Hogwarts still exists, or at least an offshoot of it, despite being millennia old. A truly ancient bullet train network ferries students to school. And there's a family, preparing to board: cousins, with twin girls and an orange-haired boy on one side and a younger, dark-haired boy on the other, with perhaps an older, adoptive sister of Japanese descent carrying a pet rabbit. Family lines have obviously mixed and crossed in reincarnation, but patterns exist when you know they're there, and in their new lives so many connected souls come back together again.

It's vague, and rambling, and too long even for a summary, but there it is: what plans I made and what scenes I had in mind at this point in the process. Everything below is extra material which might have cropped up here or there but wasn't significant enough to make special note of in this sprawling mess of explanations – mostly it's the English SS ocs I had to make to fill in that organizational gap, plus a little bit of world organization and so forth. Read if you like; it's probably not too important, and I just copied and pasted it from my document of Notes for the story.

England is a relatively small country, and I don't believe there's a very dense population there. As a result, no thirteen squads. Seven at most, and probably only that many because Merlin liked the number. Seven squads, shall we say about fifty members each on average? So that's a good 350 soul reapers total for all of England.

Ireland, Wales, and Scotland will be stubborn and independent and insist on governing their own Soul Societies. Relations exist but are fairly strained.

Those numbers are almost too small for the number of dead with high reiatsu. As a result, the healing corps will be separate and run more like a general hospital, and there will be a decent-sized crafts and construction guild of sorts, since everything in soul society is made of condensed reiatsu it makes sense that the only people able to make new things or repair old are those who can manipulate this reiatsu.

Why is life preferable to death in general? Life is more interesting at least. Things change, the world moves. In death, it's all rather boring. They have plenty of reapers to take care of hollows and watch over the living world, so everything is very well in hand in those terms. Keeping the peace in soul society is actually the reapers' biggest job – they're more like a police organization under the judicial system than anything else. Of course, this does make the 'no second life' rule a fairly major one, both because it is rather unfair to those who don't have that option and because it can really mess with the balance of things. It's also highly tempting.

System of rankings in the squads:

Chief, plus Deputy. About five Officers, for a grand total of seven officers. All the rest are split into senior members (certain time period of good service) and junior members. There's no real ranking beyond this in the individual squads.

True Form is not required to become Chief, nor is it necessarily a marker of a chief. Chiefs are typically quite powerful, of course, but they have to have certain qualities of leadership, such that it is possible for someone without true form to be ranked over someone with it. Leadership ability, and not flat-out battle power, determines leadership status.

There is a leader of all the squads in general, but in function he's a bit more like a mediator than a decision maker. The squads tend to make major decisions in concert and it's a general requirement that they keep each other up to speed on important events in each individual squad. This isn't always followed, of course, but it's an ideal at least.

Reactions to Harry's situation are mixed. The official stance on one who is both genuinely living and with the powers of the dead is one of loose connection combined with allowance. In other words, they're willing to let Harry live his life out as long as he doesn't suddenly prove himself to be a major risk (i.e. turn on them, attack humans, etc.) and they're also willing to give him aid if he needs it and allow him to travel more-or-less freely between the worlds, as long as he follows certain rules. Dumbledore's influence may deepen this connection somewhat. Some individual reapers consider what Harry has to be a blessing of sorts. Others are jealous of him. A few may regard him a sort of abomination of nature, but these are in a minority and that sort of thought is frowned upon. There is something like a precedent for what Harry is, sort of, in the form of Arthur Pendragon, who was a living reaper himself. Because Arthur managed to do fairly well with it, despite dying young and having a few issues himself, they're willing to allow and aid these rare occurrences.

The seven squads are named for the seven stars in the Pleiades.

Alcyone - squad 4

Asterope – squad 6

Celaeno - squad 5

Electra – squad 2

Maia – squad 1

Merope – squad 7

Taygete – squad 3

Wizards in the afterlife.

Those who had magic in life – perhaps because of that magic, perhaps because of the rather unique way they pass on – retain their memories in that afterlife, whereas most souls fade and forget. Many end up having high reiatsu in place of their old magic and stand to become reapers. However, since they hold onto their memories they also hold onto certain prejudices and habits, including the hide-from-muggles thing.

It should be noted that the former muggles actually know quite a bit about wizards after death, because some wizards become legitimate soul reapers and integrate quite well.

However, this underground reaper association has developed over time, with former wizards drawing together people and training them in their own style. Unfortunately, there's not much they can do at that point. The worldcrossing gates are all controlled by the official soul society, and the secret of their making was lost with the centuries. The wizards' one attempt at recreating it ended up making the veil – which is fixed in one location in the real world and completely invisible and randomly drifting in SS, and therefore borders between impractical and unusable.

To the point, they're feeling rather powerless despite their power. They want to be able to operate independently and in secret from the SS, but they can't, really, except in managing their own affairs and after-life society. Some may resent the 'muggles' for their power and control. Most of that stays under the surface, however, until a slightly more power-hungry-than-most fellow picks up the reigns and starts to stir up dissent.

Then the news of SS welcoming a living reaper will reach them, and conspiracy theories abound, the most common being that either this living reaper was a project of the SS so that THEY could go live again or that the living reaper is a natural phenomenon that could give the wizards the ability to live again, if only the SS hadn't gotten their claws into him and corrupted the boy.

OCs. I don't particularly like them that much, but this time, they're necessary, and I need a lot of them. I really hate this, but…

Central Commander: Gavin Murgatroyd. Male, dead about 400 years. Looks like he's in his nineties. Smallish man, but highly powerful. He succeeded the position of Commander about 200 years previously when the former commander, Merlin himself, retired and then vanished. Remembering Merlin's more allowing policy about relations between life and death as well as the revered commander's protégé, Arthur Pendragon (who was another living reaper like Harry, only minus the wizard part), he is fairly lenient toward Harry – ecstatic, almost, that another living reaper should come to be during the time of his afterlife. He does expect Harry to follow some of the more general or moral rules, but other than that, he's not going to be overly strict about things.

Leader of Wizards: Calypso Sinclair. Female. Dead only 80 years or so. Seems about thirty or thereabouts. Former witch. Actively believes in the supremacy of magical over muggle and was rather appalled to learn that the afterlife was run by former muggles given magic-like powers (which must have been stolen, since muggles cannot hold any form of power by their nature). Upon meeting her second-in-command and learning to control her own form of these powers, she set about stirring up trouble in the wizarding sect of the afterlife, seeking nothing more than to gain utter control of the afterlife in favor of former magical people, securing the supremacy of her race. Definitely favors kido, holds her sword somewhat in contempt for being a muggle weapon in form. Because of this contempt, she never bothered to get to know it, only achieving its name and initial release.

Second-in-command: Phineas Goodman. Male. Dead 200 years, and quite bored with it, really. In life he could sense spirits due to a higher reiatsu than most humans had and so became fascinated with the idea of the afterlife as another world, perhaps one that could be crossed into and back again. His fascination and theories led him to create the Veil that now stands in the Department of Mysteries. It worked in theory, bridging the gap to that other world, but he could never get a message across or anything. Finally, lacking patience and perhaps driven a little mad by the whispering voices themselves, he tied a string about his waist and strode through himself. His assistants waited a while, then reeled the string in, finding it unbroken but unattached to anything at last. He never got back out, unable to find a way to re-open the gate. In the afterlife, wishing to return to the living world, he hypothesized several further theories, including some based on horcruxes, whereby the soul could inhabit and give movement to an otherwise inanimate object and others based on possession whereby it would take control of an animal or, even better, a living human, gaining a new body (possessing a living human, he will eventually find, is difficult-near-impossible, given the strength that this soul has on its body). Being trapped in the dead realm, however, he is incapable of putting these to proper test, nor is he wholly certain that one could retain these reaper abilities when alive. He couldn't find a way back to the real world, not being powerful enough to take on the seven squads himself nor charismatic or charming enough to rally the other wizards behind him. So he manipulates Calypso. In the future, he will gain a major interest in Voldemort's horcruxes, perhaps seeing a potential host in the man, though only should all of his scattered soul-pieces be killed. As such, once Calypso fails but Phineas manages to get back to the real world himself, he will start trying to manipulate Voldemort about.

Squad Maia Chief: George Cannon. Male, dead near 300 years now. Older in appearance, perhaps seventy or so? Small man, but stronger than he appears. Rather serious and strict, though he's got a soft spot for children because, as he often puts it, of their innocence in the world. Takes his work very seriously. Opposes bringing Harry to the afterlife, not because of the idea of power in human hands, but because he is still so young and should have nothing to do with death. Capable of final release.

Deputy: Frank Wescott. Male, dead 248 years. Looks like he's around forty, perhaps. Much larger than his chief; absolutely dwarfs him, in fact. Strong and thickly built. Agrees with his captain, with a sort of added dislike of wizards (dead and alive) in general, simply because they never had to (in his mind at least) work for their power, as it was simply 'given' to them.

Squad Electra Chief: Susan Blackbourne. Female, dead only 54 years. She looks that age, too, probably because when she died she retained quite a bit of her physical appearance and only de-aged slightly. Stately in bearing. Former witch, remembers her entire life. Very much likes Harry, believes that he's been given a gift and should learn to use it and use it wisely.

Deputy: Bertram Wolfe. Male, dead 120 years. Germanic appearance and language tendency, possibly from that country though he died in England – it's also possible he was merely descended from German lineage. Former wizard. Fairly weak in terms of power, but highly intelligent and with great creative ability in magic.

Squad Taygete Chief: Gwen Hawthorn. Female, dead 432 years. Ancient in appearance, small, light, like a bird. Quick both on her feet and in her mind. Lover of good jokes and (probably) loud parties with a lot of singing. Active despite her apparent age, very cheerful. Friend of Dumbledore's. Treats Harry like a sort of young pup who thinks he's a bigger dog than he really is. Not condescending in a mean way, but it does come across like that when she chuckles, reaches up to tap him on the forehead, presses him a candy, and shoos him away. I know she's one of those capable of the final release, but not precisely what it is. She's frighteningly powerful when she really gets moving.

Deputy: Magnolia (Nola) Fenn. Female, dead 128 years. Serious, young in appearance (perhaps mid-late thirties), constantly driven up the wall by the antics of her playful chief. Distracted in mannerism, hardly acknowledges Harry's situation at all. It just isn't that important to her. Also a former witch.

Squad Alcyone Chief: Blake Storm, originally Storm Blake (he decided that his original name sounded like it had been reversed, so he 'turned it around right again' on purpose. His original name is no secret, however, and so there is general confusion now about which one is his surname and which is his first). Male, 127 years dead. Young appearance, maybe his twenties? Maintains a sort of 'tough guy' look and attitude. He's not interested in Harry at first, thinking of him as little more than another recruit only without the potential to become one of the squad – he's more like another squad's recruit than anything else to him. Still, might develop some respect if Harry shows his willingness to work and fight.

Release: Trample, Six Hooves (transform broadsword into large war hammer)

True Form: Six-Hooved Warhorse

Deputy: Thane Lowry. Male, 60 years dead. Has the appearance of a twelve-year-old. Intelligent, but with a resigned temperament. Given his more bookish attitude and appearance, it's anyone's guess why Blake keeps him around as his deputy. (Really, the two are like brothers to each other, but few notice…or care). He is a former wizard, though he died too young to have gone to Hogwarts or any other school. Sympathizes with Harry at first, both appearing very young and therefore underestimated despite their power, though he does come to very slightly resent the fact that Harry keeps on growing up while he doesn't. He is smart enough to know that it's nobody's fault, though, and so he bears no grudge against anyone.

Squad Celaeno Chief: Warren Tate. Male, 349 years dead. Looks like he's about sixty or so, but healthy and strong. Former wizard. Out of all the chiefs, he probably dislikes Harry the most, being barely civil at the best of times and only out of a duty to represent his squad in a good light. He believes strongly that the worlds of living and dead should never cross except in the cycle of reincarnation and, if necessary, protection from hollow souls. Disapproves of Dumbledore's relations with certain other reapers, and definitely disapproves of Harry's much closer involvement. He believes strongly that Harry should either give up his powers or have them sealed away to live out his normal life, no matter the circumstances.

Deputy: Janice Acker. Female. Dead 34 years. Appearance of being in mid-forties. She agrees with her chief concerning what Harry should do about his reaper abilities, but her agreement is more out of motherly concern and pity than a belief that he upsets the balance of nature.

Squad Asterope Chief: Richard Davies. Male, dead 192 years. Appearance of a healthy man in mid-thirties. Wears his hair cut shoulder-length, brown with blue/grey eyes. Friend of Dumbledore's, and the one who finds Harry and formally introduces him to the other world.

Release: Gleam, Starshot (creates silver crossbow which fires bolts of concentrated reiatsu. Sword spirit is a former Quincy.)

Deputy: Alyssa Longstaff. Female, dead 95 years. Appears about mid-late twenties. Blonde hair cropped short, brown eyes. Acquainted with Dumbledore, but not on close terms with him. Frankly finds magical power in the hands of the living a little disturbing, but makes an effort to overcome this aversion to the idea.

Squad Merope Chief: Rhiannon Prescott. Female, dead 301 years. Another young-looking one, thirties or so. Former witch. Rather haughty. Harry should not have those powers unless he is under the jurisdiction of the squads; anyone powerful and uncontrolled is a threat. Capable of final release.

Deputy: Cassiopeia Ray. Female, dead 98 years. About as young appearance-wise as her chief. Shy and withdrawn, doesn't really interact much with Harry, so she agrees readily with her chief about him, not knowing much else other than what she has been told.

In the Squads, a Chief is denoted by a white six-pointed star on the shoulder of their jacket, underneath which is the roman numeral of their squad. Deputies may be identified by the outline of this same star over the number. Every member of the squad wears the number on their jacket's shoulder, and each squad is further identified by a particular color shirt.

The commander has neither number nor star on his shoulder, rather a larger version of the star across his back, and he wears white under the standard dark coat.

Squad colors are as follows: Maia, green; Electra, warm amber - almost a dark orange; Taygete, red; Alcyone, yellow; Celaeno, brown; Asterope, blue; Merope, deep violet.

Note here that Harry wears grey as he does not belong to a squad. Reapers in training also wear this color, though they do not yet have a black coat as he does.

Gigais: In the England I'm envisioning, there really wouldn't be much cause for the reapers to require bodies for longer stays in the living world, nor even for recovery after injury or loss of energy. If anything, they might have some other invention that aids in recovery/rest without giving them a false body. This will also sort of reduce the ability to become 'alive' again, something very tempting but forbidden among reapers.

So for rest during a long mission, the reaper has to be able to sleep without giving off reiatsu (which would draw hollows) and in an easy to enter/exit place, just in case of an attack or something similar. Perhaps some kind of specialized pod of sorts? It'd have to be collapsible. A sort of condensed kido device which, when needed, can spring open and stick itself to a material surface (a wall, a ceiling, a roof), providing a sort of long capsule-like bed which prevents spirit energy from going out but allows it to come in, though in diluted amounts. Probably also imbued with minor healing kido to soothe small injuries and refresh the reaper fully.

That's all I have. Thank you all.