ShizNat in Hogwarts! Need I say more?
Some warnings though:
1. English is not my first language
2. I'm a pretty inexperienced writer
Nevertheless, I hope someone out there can enjoy this. Feel free to critique!
*EDIT: beta'd and stretched
A girl held a parchment with trembling hands. She looked left and right, as if worried that someone might see her. Having made sure that she was indeed alone, she began to speak.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Words began to appear on the paper, like magic. Well, not like magic; it was indeed, without a doubt, magic. The girl is a witch, you see, and artifacts like what she is holding were not that surprising. This particular item was a bit more special, though, and fitted her current needs.
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Whoever they were, the girl only knew that they were amazing.
The girl opened the parchment. She saw many names. Some names she was familiar with, and even knew their owners personally. She attached faces to them in her mind, at least to those of whom she knew. She could now see where exactly everyone in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was. Her eyes scanned the parchment for the one name that mattered. That one name she was intent on following.
Shizuru Fujino.
Natsuki Kuga has just started her first year at Hogwarts, and so she was naturally nowhere near achieving her purpose for coming to the school at all. She overslept as she almost stayed up all night out of excitement, even when everyone in the dormitory fell asleep after a night of hard partying for the firsties; she finally got to the school where her father went, after all. She sighed as she tried to make it in time for breakfast and made her way to the Great Hall. She can think of achieving her goals later if she wants to eat at all.
"Hey, first year! Where's your cloak? Wear your uniform properly!"
A shockingly blonde girl with bangs too short for her rather large forehead was looking at Natsuki expectantly, her similarly shockingly blonde eyebrows raised. Natsuki looked around, but no one else was there. She then pointed at herself.
"Yes, you!" It was Haruka Suzushiro, a maximus pain in the gluteus. And of course, a Prefect. Who could ever forget that Suzushiro was a prefect when she announced it all too often? "That jacket is not part of the standard issue for the students! Take it off immediately and wear your cloak!"
Natsuki was wearing an unzipped blue hoodie over her uniform, an item she'd been wearing for the past days. It felt comfortable on her skin, despite looking rather disheveled. Only now did anyone take notice of it, and it just had to be that Suzushiro girl. She did not stir from where she stood, opting to glare at the older woman who had no inkling of what "indoor voice" is.
"As much as I don't want to take points from my own house, I would have to if you don't take that jacket off!"
Indeed, Haruka Suzushiro was of the house of the brave: Gryffindor. But Natsuki did not think her brave. More like foolhardy, she thought! Hers was a stubbornness that could only be likened to a raging bull. An unthinking bravery, if it could be called bravery at all. Haruka Suzushiro was but a fool in her eyes.
Natsuki's temper was becoming short at record speed. Natsuki Kuga hated fools. And her hunger was of no help in the matter.
"Now, now, I don't think that it should come to that, Haruka-han."
It was Shizuru Fujino, another prefect. Or was it more fitting to say, not just another prefect? She smiled warmly at both Haruka and Natsuki, but only the latter seemed to notice the humour in the girl's eyes. It was then that Natsuki understood.
Shizuru Fujino was no fool.
She was the most popular lady in Hogwarts; a prodigy, the best there is both in magical theory and in the practice of it. And what a face she possessed, Natsuki caught herself thinking! She had the whole student body fawning all over her, though Natsuki noticed that, oddly enough, it was always girls who surrounded Fujino. This lady-attracting lady seemed to understand that it was actually Suzushiro who was in trouble, so much so because of the dark-haired girl's thinning temper. Not that the darker blonde had a bit of care for poor Haruka! She only went out of her way as the raven-haired girl piqued her interest. She let her smile reach her eyes.
"You may go now, um.."
"Kuga, prefect. Natsuki Kuga."
"Na-tsu-ki. Natsuki." the Fujino's lips curled as she repeated, no, purred the other girl's name. "Hurry up Natsuki. You are trying to catch breakfast, are you not?"
Natsuki immediately remembered why she was there in the first place and sped off, leaving the two blondes before the one of fairer hair could protest.
"Ah, Natsuki?" Shizuru called.
Natsuki stopped running and looked back. "Yes, prefect?"
"Haruka-han is right, Natsuki. Students should wear their cloaks. Go, before a professor sees you. You might get into bigger trouble, sweet girl."
Natsuki acquiesced, seeing sense in the other girl's words. She removed the jacket and tied it to her waist, making a mental note to grab her cloak later. If only Suzushiro was at least a quarter as nice as this one! She tipped her head to Shizuru in a sort of small bow, and ran off again. Only later would Natsuki realize that the Fujino girl did not address her with any honorifics.
"That's why students are becoming so lax these days, Fujino! You're all 'now, now' and let them do whatever they want! No wonder they think that I'm the bad guy!"
"Now, now.." Shizuru Fujino's eyes were still so full of mischief
"There you go again!"
"But I do wonder, Haruka-han," Shizuru squinted as a smile tugged at her lips, "why hasn't any professor berated her for that?"
Natsuki entered the hall. There were four tables parallel to each other and another one in front where the teachers and staff sit. There were owls flying about, delivering mail and packages to the students. Natsuki went to the Gryffindor table and seated herself next to an orange-haired girl.
"Kuga-san!" Mai Tokiha, the orange-haired girl, exclaimed. "I didn't think you'd make it in time!"
"Natsuki is fine." Natsuki grabbed an egg salad sandwich, adding an extra helping of mayonnaise on it. "Well, that prefect Fujino kinda saved me from Suzushiro."
"Oh! You met Fujino-san? How lucky! She's so beautiful no?"
"Well, yeah, she's okay, I guess." Natsuki's nostrils flared. She scrunched up her mouth to mask the smile attempting to break out.
"She's okay!? Let me check your eyes Natsuki!"
"Oh piss off, Tokiha. She's just one of those nosy prefects." She made that silly scrunching face again.
"Prefect? More like perfect, am I right?" Mai laughed. "Hey, no fair. You can just call me by my name, too."
"Alright, alright, Mai, now let me eat in peace." Natsuki paused. "So you swing that way, huh?"
"Huh? Me? Not really. But I do believe that gender is an ever-flowing stream so..."
Natsuki snorted.
"What? Hey, I'm just saying that I'm not really attracted to her that way, but can't a lady show appreciation for fellow ladies?"
"Whatever you say, Mai." Natsuki drank her milk, and reached for a second sandwich (also with an extra helping of mayonnaise, of course).
"Oh Natsuki. Can't you see? She's just so wonderful! And I've heard that she's just in her third year. Have you heard of any prefects appointed in their third year? I bet she's gonna be Head Girl in her fifth year. And occupy that office until she graduates!" Mai chuckled.
"For someone who just 'appreciates' Fujino, you seem to know a damn lot." Natsuki snickered. "And Head Girl in year five? No way."
Mai frowned at Natsuki. "She's like the school idol, what do you expect?"
Natsuki gave Mai a nod, and stared off in the distance, her mind veering off the topic and moving onto another. Ah, yes, her goals. Natsuki had big ambitions, and it was almost a pity that she was not sorted into Slytherin.
The child of a high-born wizard father and a muggle biochemist mother, Natsuki grew up in a surprisingly happy household. One would wonder how her parents got along at all, as they were truly different as vastly different two people could be. But they did, and that was all that mattered.
She was taught both with science and with magic, learning about the world with two different lenses, somehow making sense of it all in her young mind. Their house was filled with many curiosities, a potpourri of cultures and disciplines. When it became evident to her father that little Natsuki had the same talents as his, he was quick to warn her about keeping it a secret from her mother, as was the rule against non-magical folk, as stated by the International Statute of Secrecy. But the truth was, there was a precedent to matters such as these, such that they could, in fact, tell Natsuki's mother about them being magical creatures. But Natsuki's father refused to do it, even going great lengths to keep magic a secret from his wife. Dr. Saeko Kuga was a woman of science, and her husband could only think of two possible reactions when she discovers magic: utter disbelief that all her research could be rendered nil, and suffer a mental breakdown; or she could see a whole new world of possibilities in furthering her muggle research with magic, and have him help her with it. Both projected outcomes were, to say the least, undesirable.
Dr. Saeko Kuga thought her husband eccentric, but never did she think that he could be a "magician", as she would probably have called it. He had an even more eccentric family and an equally eccentric manor. A manor! And yet he opted to live with her in a medium-sized condominium unit in the city, insisting that Saeko wouldn't like it there. Well, she didn't really mind either way, as long as they all stayed together.
But it was such a pity that she died before seeing Natsuki slowly bud into a talented young lady.