Author's Note: A warning that this is a side fic of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and if you aren't fairly caught up with that you'll be very confused.
"Alright, Tequila, you're going to have to explain this all again because I'm just not getting it."
Tom really did not understand why he'd been so eager to jump at the opportunity to be Lee's cultural translator. Well, wrong, he knew exactly why he'd done it. One, it'd been an obvious attempt to get closer to her and assimilate her into his own designs on England. Two, that odd little fluttering in his stomach that happened whenever she stood too close to him was also an incentive though he tried to deny it.
He'd simply forgotten what it would entail.
"What's to explain?" he groused, wishing he could be anywhere else in the world, "It's quidditch."
He wasn't even sure how they'd gotten on the topic of quidditch. One benefit of the Triwizard Tournament was that quidditch had been suspended for the year. There had been much disappointment among the students even with the allure of the tournament to distract them. Somehow though, someone had brought it up (Tom was going to go ahead and blame this one on Ron and his thrice-damned Chudley Cannons) and now the adolescent shinobi were stuck on the idea.
And, sadly, Lee was doing better than the others who couldn't even seem to comprehend the idea of a sport at all.
"Well, it sounds sort of like cricket, with all the excitement of flying broomsticks I suppose," Lee summarized, which wasn't altogether a wrong explanation for all it would have turned Ron red with affronted rage, "But from what your ginger brother says—"
"All my brothers, Lee, have red hair," Tom snapped in frustration, "But I'm just going to go ahead and assume you mean Ron."
Fred and George were all for quidditch, far more talented than Ron for that matter, but as far as Tom was aware, they had yet to reach out to Lee and the rest of them. They wanted their entrance into the ninjas lives to be positively bombastic and unforgettable, to win over the chaotic force of Konohagakure over to their side in the constant war against Slytherin.
Tom would honestly say they were a bit intimidated, but he knew better than to say that out loud, that'd just be goading the pair of them.
"Fine, from what that one says, it sounds like this sneaker's the only one that matters."
Seeker, she meant seeker, but Tom was not going to prove himself as living in a secret quidditch lover's body by correcting her. Ginny, though, had she been among the living would have corrected her idol without hesitation.
"Well," Tom mused, digging through Ginny's quidditch fanatic memories, "There have been games that have been won without catching the snitch before."
Granted, they were extremely rare and exciting things, as it typically wasn't done. However, the point was that once or twice in professional quidditch it had miraculously happened that a team had slaughtered via regular goals so much that their subpar seeking and that loss of one-hundred fifty points hadn't mattered.
Tom hated that he knew this.
"But…" Lee trailed off, hand gesturing, as if she could grab the rest of her sentence from the air in front of her, "What's the point?"
Lee was asking the entirely wrong person.
In fact, he could say as much, "Have you tried asking Ron?"
"Minato did," Lee said blankly, which said more than enough. All too likely Namikaze had received and over-enthusiastic earful from the Gryffindor as well as a promise to teach him how to play. Which, given the fact that Konoha apparently didn't have sports at all (that the closest they had was watching a rough equivalent to the OWLs and NEWTS) had probably gone over as well as Lee's tactics to pass Care of Magical Creatures.
(Lee had insisted to him, multiple times, that even though Hagrid had told her she was failing to her face multiple times for blowing up the creatures she was supposed to be caring for, she was secretly earning an O because she was the only student who had figured out she was supposed to blow them up.
Tom had run out of things to say, except to blandly state that sometimes while he didn't wish Lee had been attending Hogwarts when he had, he also sometimes did. If only for the entertainment.)
"The point is that people like it," Tom said with a sigh, "My family loves it, nearly every family in this country loves it, and it's just best not to ask specific questions about it."
He nearly asked why her people cared so much about watching their chunin exams except he caught himself because that actually made sense. Those who passed the exams would be their future comrades, perhaps future apprentices, and the future of their society depended very much on the outcome of those exams.
The future of Britain did not rely on the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup.
"But I really don't get it," Lee said, apparently well and truly unable to let this one go, "I mean, I know I don't understand a lot about this place, but this one really doesn't—"
"Lee," Tom said sharply, sighing, and finally admitting, "I don't understand it either."
She looked as if he'd slapped her over the face with a fish. As if he'd just admitted the unthinkable, more, had stabbed her in the back and betrayed her with those very words. This, he thought, was the face he'd imagined as he'd gained the revenge he no longer even daydreamed about.
"Oh, don't look at me like that!"
"But if you don't get it, and Minato can't get it, then—"
"Then you'll have to just suck it up with the rest of us," Tom spat back, some of Ginny's parlance instinctively slipping in. Every time he thought she was well and truly gone, little bits of her here and there would slip instinctively back in.
"Tequila!" Lee cried out dramatically, gripping her red hair and pulling at it, "This is what you're here for!"
Tom could say so much to that, so very much, as it was he decided it was time to end this conversation by running away. No, not running, Tom Riddle did not run from fourteen-year-old girls (even if they could swat him like a fly), but speedily walking towards his next class and slamming the door in her face.
At McGonagall's raised eyebrows he just smiled demurely, Ginny's innocent expression used whenever she wanted out of trouble. Flushing, looking down at the trouble, he said the first thing that popped into his head even as Lily pounded on the other side of the door, "Boy troubles."
Goddammit, he hated those lingering bits of Ginny.
Author's Note: Written for the 2600th review of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" by Bisque-Ware who asked for a fic where Lee doesn't understand some aspect of wizarding culture. Which, really, is nearly everything, but she really doesn't understand quidditch. Unfortunately, neither does Tom.
Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto