A/N: I own neither the Harry Potter or Naruto franchise.
Update: So, I'm an idiot and completely forgot about the language differences (thanks to the reviewer that pointed that out to me!). Changed a few things to fix that, and also changed a few other scenes because, after reading through the entire thing, I found Hermione is really, really annoying. You know, with the whole boohoo, look how hard my life is, angst, angst etc. Some of it's intentional, but most of it isn't. I tried to make her a bit more bearable, but wow, is it a lot easier to write annoying characters than likeable ones.
Changed a few other things, like "Owl" concealing his face, and went straight to the chase and revealed him as Shisui—bet you weren't expecting that. Didn't really make sense for a masked anbu to be casually strolling about the village. Some OOC-ness, you say? Well, about that…I do have my reasons, and hopefully in the coming chapters I'll get to show those reasons. That said, if you've already read it, you wouldn't need to read this because the gist of it is pretty much the same. And please let me know if you find any problems (I swear sometimes I really am blind, or just stupid). I proofread it a few times, but each time I found a dozen errors, soooo I'm not too confident in it.
About half-way through the next chapter.
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Day: 1; Hour: 9:49am
He bangs his fists against the table, and it makes her flinch. She stays there though, doesn't look away, because she was never the sort of person to look away when things became rough. There is a silence, then. Complete silence. She takes a breath, quiet and careful as to not break it, and in that silence, she studies his face. It isn't memorable. If not for his blue hair (dyed, she thinks) and his thrumming veins, he would have looked like any other stranger.
He speaks, or she thinks he does, because his mouth moves in rapid motion and spit flies. The words are harsh, acerbic and indecipherable, and she has heard many languages before, but none have sound as foul as that. Perhaps he is decreeing her prisoner. Perhaps, she thinks with some amusement and a snort, he is asking how her day is.
"I don't understand you." She has said that four times now.
There is a moment where she thinks she angered him, and he will hit her, or throw her in a cell and be done with it all. But the anger slides off his face, and she doesn't know what to think. Calm. He is calm. Calm, she knows, is bad. Bad because he is her enemy, and calm means that he has collected his wits about him, and she has not.
He gestures to the man, considers him, and speaks, and she does not understand. She does not understand anything, and she wants to tear her hair out because not understanding is something Hermione Granger does not deal with very well. Though she can smell him, smell metal, blood, ash. He does not smell like the kind of person she would ordinarily be around.
The man with a mask sitting beside her is silent, perhaps thoughtful, and he nods. He rummages through his pockets, and the sound of cloth rubbing against cloth would had been the only sound in the room if not for the buzz of the lightbulb. His hand recedes, and there is a stick. A very familiar stick. A very familiar stick that looks like her wand.
He gives it to the blue-haired man, and she can hardly hear their speech over her own bewilderment. Her wand, that is her wand.
"Where did you find that?" she demands, despite knowing they can't understand her like she can't understand them. "That is mine. Give it to me. Give it to me now!"
He smiles, and she thinks it is the smile of a killer. He considers her for three breaths, in and out, and he grabs either end of her wand and bends it. Her heat halts, stays like that as she stares, and when it sinks in that he is going to break her wand now—now, she thinks, he will break her wand now—it gallops double as fast. Her chair scrapes against the concrete, and she is on her feet, leaning over the table, and she has heard of hysteria, but doesn't think she has felt it until now.
"What are you doing?" she shrieks, and her heart hurts, hurts and she can't think. She can't think, because she needs her wand, and he is going to break her wand. "Stop that. Stop it!"
She makes to grab it, but he holds it away from her grasp. "Please, please…you don't understand…please…my wand, I need my wand…" She whimpers, because she can see it now. He will break her wand, and she will be wandless, defenceless, and she will never find her way back home.
The man beside her says something, she hears, and it makes the blue-haired man angry, and she does not care. She does not care. She cares about her wand, that is what she cares about.
Words fly, he rages, she panics. What does she do? God, what does she do? Perhaps she could take a leap of faith and jump on him, and hope that there is some god looking over her and he does not break the wand in his descent. Perhaps she could play it cool, because he won't break her wand. He won't break her wand because he needs her cooperation. Won't he?
He looks pained when he does it, like doing this will forever burden his good name, but he offers her wand. To her. He offers her wand to her.
She does not know why he does it, and she thinks it is obviously a trap. But she takes it. It is cold and warm in her hands, when she takes it. She also does not know how something can be cold and warm, and perhaps she imagines its warmth, and it the warmth of safety, and nostalgia, and magic.
He braces himself, the set of his shoulders tensing and his jaw tightening. She thinks she can curse him, get out of here, and find home, wherever that is. She will be gone, gone and they won't care, because she's just another girl, another civilian, and they have plenty of those. She saw them, when they forced her into the prison. Then she will change her name, perhaps magic her appearance, and lie low.
He speaks in the same incoherent rumble, and she knows it's impossible. There's too many of them, and only one of her. And this is a prison. Should she flee, they would kill her on the spot. Kill her without a second thought, and she won't be much use in the war if she's dead.
So, she watches his mouth move in rapid motion, hearing words that she knows are demands despite not understanding him. Demands, because she has been on the other side of the table before, she has been the one in power, and power has a way of making people feel better than those around them. She grips her wand and—
As if a bucket of ice water was dunked over her head, she feels the weight of her wand in her left hand, like money or a wedding ring, and she remembers. Just three words. Just three words, just a spell, just a twirl of her wand, and she can understand them. She wants to think otherwise, because after sitting there, not understanding and lamenting, and then realising the worst feeling she has ever known, it seems too simple. Just a spell, that's all it is. Just a spell, and she's out of this mess.
Her arm is too shaky when she wrings out her wrist in one sharp movement under the table, and she mumbles those three words she has already repeated in her head four times.
For a breathless moment, she knows it doesn't work. Her hand was too shaky, her flick not sharp enough, her words too hesitant. She knows it's over. She will stay there, not understanding a single word, and they will lose patience and it's over. Done. And all her efforts and struggles has led up to this point, in room that she doesn't even know is underground or above, and how mundane is that? Kept prisoner until she is weak and old, then have a death of the same triviality as her life, and no heroic sacrifices as she always imagined herself to go.
Though, the words become more and more defined, and somehow she can understand, over her own paranoia.
"—country are you from?" His voice is weary though, because she has only responded to his demands with a I don't understand and Let me go.
"Where am I?" To her ears, it sounds like English, but his look of surprise tells her the spell is intact, and it is translating her words as she speaks.
His eyes move to the masked man, and he nods a minuscule amount. He looks at her, then, and she thinks there is a slow contemplation in the look he gives her, as if he were deciding whether to purchase a puppy or not. She scowls, because she is not a possession, and has no intentions in becoming one.
"I said," she says, her voice rising and her hands balling, "where am I? Which country am I in?" Not England, that's for sure.
It is with a drawl that he speaks, and it annoys her no bounds because it is too much like Malfoy, and the mere mention of him agitates her. "Interesting, that you choose to speak now, and that is what you say."
"What did you expect me to say? I wake up in an prison with a man with blue hair and another with a mask, and both of which is speaking a language I've never heard. Of course I'm going to ask that." Her retort was quick and sharp, and only a bit curious.
"Speak a lot of languages, do you?" His voice is mild and flippant, and he slides his finger along the edge of a binder, and it clicks open.
Hermione feels heat swarm cheeks. "Well, I…no. But you hear it on telly, don't you? I know the sound of them."
He sorts through paperwork, and doesn't look up when he asks, "What's telly?"
She blinks at him. "You don't know? Like an animated picture, I suppose. You have a remote, and it's connected to…Oh, nevermind." It feels like he was a wizard, and she has long ago learnt to not bother explaining muggle technology to those part of the magic community. It's not worth the trouble. "Where am I?" she repeats instead.
Finally, he looks at her, and she juts her chin up. Perhaps that is the only reason she wanted him to look at her, so he would know she is not scared and she doesn't think of him as any higher than herself. "Generally, it is the captor that asks the questions and not the captive."
"I know."
He taps his pen against the paper, and she thinks while that's her nervous habit, that is his impatient habit. "How strange. You don't speak or seem to understand anything for an hour, but as soon as you get that stick, you talk as if you weren't sitting there, clueless and seemingly deaf. Strange, isn't it, Owl?" He shrugs, or she thinks he does, because he doesn't say anything. "What is it? That stick?"
"The stick?" If he doesn't know what it is, she's not about to tell him. It would be stupid to clue her captor into its significance.
He sneers, and it's ugly, and horrible, and somehow it suits him much better than the pleasant smile he was wearing earlier. "No, that bush on your head. Yes, the stick. Don't play dumb. We know it has chakra properties. It's like a bomb, isn't it?"
She crosses her arms. "I don't know what you're talking about that." And really, she didn't. It has magic, and its magic could create something like a bomb. But chakra? Her wand being bomb? Talk about obviously false accusations.
He writes something, and a glance at the paper's title told her she is prisoner number four-hundred-and-seventy-two. "Take her to prison, Owl. The one that Katsuko was staying at."
She goes to her feet with a fever, and her chair scrapes the concrete. It is loud, since the room is so quiet, and she thinks if her heart thrummed any more, her breathing would be just as loud. "You can't."
"Excuse me?"
"You can't. You can't take me to prison. I haven't done anything."
He snorts. "I can do whatever I want."
She raises her wand and points it at him. Him, her captor. She is pointing her wand at her captor and only chance to escape. He stares at her, and laughs, and it thrums her heart as though it were guitar. She knows it will get her nowhere, and even if she escaped him, she will have to escape the mask man, and then she will have to have escape more and more, and it will never end. Running and running, and hiding, and fighting. And she already does that too much.
"Are you serious right now? What are you going to do? Whack me on the head with it? Poke me?" He scoffs as he starts closer to her, slow and sordid, and she backs away. "Put that down. Now. Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."
Her breath catches in her throat, settling just above her vocal cords, and she panics. There is a blue light that bursts from the tip of her wand. Bright and brilliant, it is and flies to the sneering man and sinks into his chest. His eyes glaze over, and it reaches his nerve system, and his body locks up too. She cursed him. She realises this as his body falls back, slams onto the ground, and does not move for the minute it takes her to come to this realisation.
By the time she rushes to him, hovers over his still body that she would have thought lifeless if not for his dilating pupils, she thinks of a dozen apologies and excuses, but knows it's too late for any of those. Still, she mutters them over and over, because she is young and naïve, and she does not want to go to prison. Because if they didn't have a reason to throw her in jail before, they certainly do now.
"That's some stick you got there." A voice, words, a rumble. "You didn't kill him, did you?"
She swallows the dry air as she turns, and her throat's burns. Burns because her vocal cords are rearranging themselves as time whirls by. "I…I don't think so…No…I didn't mean to…"
"What did you do, then?" What did she do? She thinks long and hard, and she cannot for the life of her remember what spell she used. Petrified him, perhaps?
"I think I…" she shakes her head, and looks back at the body beside her, because looking at a mask with black swirls is distorting to the point that she blames her brief dementia on that. "He's okay. He will be okay." He might not be. "I just stunned him. He'll be back on his feet within the hour...You don't think it's strange? That I was able to lock up his body with a light from my w—stick?"
He shrugs or crosses his arms, or she thinks he does, and she can hear the rustle of clothes brushing against skin. "A little. But it's no stranger than most things you encounter as a shinobi."
She peers at him, careful and curious. "A shinobi?"
"Yes, a shinobi." Well, that wasn't helpful in the slightest.
She goes to her feet. "What is that? A shinobi?"
"What is the name of that stick you use?"
"Nothing. No name. It's just a stick," she says, firm and curt, and it makes the masked man consider her briefly, tilting his head in a way that the faint light catches his eyes. They're red, and red, and beautiful. Beautiful in a way she doesn't understand, and she stares until she realises with a jolt and a scruff that might have been his shoes that she was staring, and looks away, embarrassed. Embarrassed, because she's told a fair number people that it's rude to stare, and now she's the one staring. When she looks up, she knows she had been imagining it, because his eyes are now black, like coal or a crow, and there is only one person—creature—that has red eyes. And that's Voldemort.
"Then a shinobi is just a shinobi." She knows what he's doing, but doesn't call him out on it. If he still hasn't realised what it is she did, she's not about tell him, and she can find out the information some other way. Books. Yes, books. She will read books, many books. And she'll go home.
"Are you still taking me to prison? Or am I allowed to go?"
He takes a moment longer than she did to respond. "Depends. Are you going to blow up the village? Are you going to use that light on civilians? Shinobi? You're a foreigner, you know. Since the war, we don't allow many in. Especially those that carry a bomb in their pockets."
He thinks she is going to attack random people, and she is offended. "I don't just waltz up to people and curse them. I hardly ever use…use what you just saw in public, or even when I'm alone. My people value secrecy. Furthermore, you have no reason to keep me here, and—"
"And I should let the innocent girl who just stunned one of our best men wonder the village? What a great idea!"
She glares at him, but she puts her wand in her pocket to show that she means no harm and will stay true to her word. Though, she cannot bring herself to move her hand from its handle. "How did you find me, anyway?"
"Don't you know? You fell from the sky." The sky, he says, she fell from the sky. She doesn't want to believe him, because it is absurd, but she thinks he has nothing to gain by lying. "Which further prove my point that you cannot be trusted."
"How was I supposed to know I will fall from the sky? It's not like I planned to." Awry apparition, perhaps, or a portkey. "Will my breathing also prove your point? Will my blinking, speaking, walking prove your point? Let me go. I'm not going to do anything to you or your village." Unless you give me a reason to.
He sighs, loud and exaggerated, and it makes Hermione want to hex him, despite her earlier words. "I told you, I can't let you go."
"So what? You're going to throw me in pr—"
"Shut up for once in your life and listen, would you? I'm not going to lock you up, and I don't recall ever saying that. I will watch over you. I found you, so I will be the one to watch over you. Make sure you don't get up to no good. Sound good?"
She blinks one time, two times, and three times, and decides that yes, that does sound good. Great. Better than she was better expecting, at least. "Oh. Yes, that's okay with me."
He gives her a long look that might have been of derision, but she cannot be sure because of the mask, and she can't decide if that's a good thing or not. He turns, starts to the bar door, jiggles the lock a few times, and it bangs against the brick wall as she follows him. He throws a look over his shoulder, perhaps to check if she is following him, perhaps to check that she does not have her wand pointed at his back and is about to stun him like his friend, and their eyes meet before she looks away. Her wand is still in her pocket, heavy and fierce.
Shouting. He, shouting, now. Blinking rapidly, she stumbles a bit at the sudden noise, and he is shouting. "Someone get this man to the hospital. The poor sod's alive, but he can't move."
At first, the blank air does not move, and it is mocking him, but she thinks she sees a faint outline, then two, and then footsteps, and there are people rushing forward, looking very much like her captor, or saviour, with their masks. She stares at them until she realises that her captor-saviour is ahead of her, though they don't spare her even a look. She hurries forward, watching the back ahead of her through darkness, and the smell of iron, and mist shown only in the soft candlelight.
If she is feeling brave and foolish enough, she would look to the jail cells. Sometimes there was nothing at all. Sometimes the light was just right, and there might have been a person. Though, she is doubtful, because a person is not made up of only bones, skin that stretches across these bones like a swimming cap, and two sunken holes that appear to be carved out for bloodshot red eyeballs. They are made of love and joy and hope. Hope and faith that humanity is not as cruel as they know it is, and that things will always get better after they hit rock bottom. And rock bottom, they hit it. Would she be there, hopeless even though the world brims with hope, had he decided she wasn't worth the trouble?
When they step outside, she gulps down the fresh air as if she had not breathed for days. She thinks about hope, and people without hope, and what a horrible place the world would be if not for it.
Hour: 12:13pm
"No money? As in, nothing at all?" She can hear the judgement in his voice, and she thinks it shows on his face. He had taken his mask not long after they stepped outside, saying it would be silly to wear it in broad daylight, and she agreed. Agreed because she didn't want to be seen walking with a masked man, but mostly because it reminded her too much of death eaters, though she would never admit it.
"I can earn money," she tells him for the third time. "Just point me to the nearest store, and I'll get a job."
She squints at him, and she thinks he has that rare classic sort of beauty to him. A beauty that makes people stop and stare, but Hermione has known many attractive people, most that are some of the worst people she has ever known, so she doesn't pay it much mind. She likes looking at him now and then, though. Something about the perfect symmetry of his face that she finds satisfying, and should a mathematician be in need of a symmetrical face for just about perfect ratio calculations, that would be it.
He makes a nose that might have been an exaggerated sigh but could have just as easily been a scoff. "Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy as that."
Hermione slides her tongue over her front teeth and feels impatience wash over her. "Why not? You do have jobs, don't you? Where employers hire people to—"
"I know what a job is," he interrupts, and she blinks at the bite to his words.
"Then you know I can earn money by getting a job," she says, and shifts her weight to her other leg. "You don't have to babysit me, you know. I can look after myself—"
"You seem to be conveniently forgetting that you're a foreigner with a stick equivalent to a bomb—"
"It's not a—"
"And," he says loudly, "like it or not, I'm the one that found you, I'm the one that brought you here and, as such, I'm the one that will watch over you." His tone makes it clear that he expects her to leave at that.
Not for the first time, she wants to ask him what he means by watch over her, but knows from asking him whilst walking to the forest he will only answer her with a wave of his hand and a disdainful stare that made her feel like she asked him if he had legs.
"I will give you money for the first few days, and I'll see what I can do with getting you a job."
"But I can get a job now and you won't have to give me—" she starts.
"Don't you get it? We're not just going to give you a civilian job where you can kill everyone without any shinobi to stop you. We may be known as the naïve nation, but we're not thick." His says, blunt and calm, and though her mouth goes dry and she can't think of anything to say back, she knows his words are not intended to inflict harm but state facts.
She settles on, "Okay. What's next?" And he dusts his hands and gives her a look that makes her regret leaving the prison.
Hour: 1:13pm
It takes two hours to get her citizenship. She stands there, alone. Alone, because Shisui has better things to do than stand in line with her and keep her company. So, she stands there, between two families, and does nothing but stand for the entirety of the two hours.
For some time, she listens into people's conversations. Mundane, useless conversations that do nothing in gleaning her information about the village, but makes her smile nonetheless. And she thinks. Thinks about home, and magic, and Harry and Ron, and Shisui. A strange name, Shisui. She wonders if it means something; most strange names do. Her own name came from Greek mythology. Hermione, the daughter of King Menelaus of Sparta and Helen of Troy. Hermione, an optimistic, an explorer, a scholar of natural wonders. Perhaps he was named after a God too, his culture's own God. Or perhaps he was named after nothing at all, and his parents only liked the sound of it.
It is a paper card that looks like a raffle ticket that she waited two hours for. By the time she gets it, she can't be bothered to feel outraged by their inappropriate methods, and she wonders how long it will be until she loses it.
Hour: 2:10pm
She glances at the display window, looking for a familiar man dressed in black clothes with a grey vest. She finds only people, bustling by with smiles and chatter, and a store with a sign that read Arakawa Tempura. A Japanese name, she knows, like the other stores on the street.
She turns back to the clothes rack in front of her. Frowning and nibbling on her lip, she searches through the shirts, lingering on some and zooming by others. Most are daring and show a disturbing amount of cleavage or stomach, and the few that are appropriate are too colourful or plain for her liking. She has never been much of a shopper, and she has never wasted so much time finding a shirt. When she passes a blue shirt that would only reach her bellybutton, she clicks her tongue and huffs, and she hears the click clack of heels approach her.
"Is there anything you need help with," a woman with strawberry blonde hair says as she twists her head around to look at her. She looks amused with her frustration, and she smiles kindly as Hermione feels her cheeks burn. She decides that she will never go clothes shopping again.
She clears her throat and returns her smile. "Yes, actually. I was looking for, um, well—"
"Clothes?" she suggests, and this would have been sarcastic if not for the merry tune to her voice. "Shirts, pants, dresses? Something not mud-caked?"
"Something like that," Hermione says, and, involuntarily, glances down at her attire. Not only did she look like she jumped into a mud pool and swam in it, but her clothes are also torn, tattered and nothing like the fashion of the people around her. Her mind is already swarming with reasons why she's wearing outdated clothes should she ask—her preferred reason being she sows clothes because it is cheaper but is not a very good sower.
With a satisfied hum, she removes a pink shirt from the rack and hands it to Hermione, as well as a pair of tights. She thinks this looks worse than the blue shirt. It has gold and silver frills attached to the collar, and it shows stomach with an upside-down V cut. She wants to refuse, but Hermione takes it with a smile and Thank you because she is sick of shopping for clothes and just wants to get this over and done with.
When the woman leads to her the fitting room and closes the curtain with a clatter, she takes another ten minutes trying to pull the clothes onto her body. She tries not to feel self-conscious as she struggles to put on the tights, and then the shirt, but with a final tug, the shirt squeezes down on her chest and her ribcage tightens. It feels like someone is forcefully hugging her, and she wheezes, desperately trying to gulp oxygen into her lungs. She takes a deep breath and—
A rip.
Hopelessly, she watches the shirt tear from its ridiculous ruffles, creep to her chest and shoulders, and it explodes. Gold and silver flutter around her, tangling with her hair and falling to pink cloth as lightly as cotton, and she feels something sting the back of her eyes that she refuses to acknowledge.
She stares at her reflection—a tanned girl with a bra covered in dried mud, tights that show the line of her underwear and hair like a bird's nest stares back.
Quickly, she changes back to her old clothes, cringing as the dried mud scrapes her skin, grabs her wand from the stand in the corner of the dresser room and opens the curtain. She apologises profusely to the woman and, despite her saying it was unnecessary, pays her for the ripped shirt with the money Shisui gave her.
"Perhaps you'll have better luck in an adult clothing store," she says, putting the money into the cash register.
Hermione's stomach sinks. "Adult? Where am I now?"
She gives her a funny look. "A preteen store," she answers.
Hermione thinks about how the clothes were all ridiculously small but just assumed people are smaller here. She rubs her temples with her forefinger, massaging out a headache before it hits, nods and thanks the woman again.
When the door swings open with a bell tinkering and creak, Shisui appears beside her just as suddenly as he disappeared. She gasps and reaches for her wand, only to remind herself it is only Shisui and she has nothing to worry about. She has seen people apparate and is going to get her apparition license within the coming year—if the war is finished by then, and if she is back home—but it's still disorienting to be looking at blank air one minute and a face the next.
"Took you long enough," he greets, and there is amusement in his voice. Perhaps he finds her fright funny. Perhaps it's because of the edition of gold and silver frills in her hair—as if her muddy clothes weren't enough.
She glares at him, points to the sign above them and demands, "What does that say?"
He looks up. "Daiso Harajuku," he says, bored and distractedly, "can't you—"
"What does it mean?"
He stares at her, and his long eyelashes bat at her as he blinks. Bat. Bat. Bat. "A store for little girls, I guess," he says shortly.
She places her hands at her hips, and is about to scold him like she scolds Ron and Harry for not finishing their homework or leaving their assignments to the last minute, but thinks better of it. Instead, she spins, puts her chins in the air, storms away.
It isn't until Shisui buys her ice-cream that she forgives him.
Hour: 6:05pm
She fiddles with her motel keys. He drums his fingers against the side table, staring outside through the louvered window.
She checks her dress watch, though it is just for show and has not told the time since her introduction to this world. His fingers still drumming against the table, he stretches his neck and rolls his head around his shoulders.
She takes a deep breath, gulping and pushing oxygen into her lungs. He exhales.
"Why were you wearing a mask?" she blurts, because she has never been good at being silent around those she doesn't know.
He gives her a look that makes her think where she hates the tense air smothering the silence like a damp cloth, he doesn't mind it and prefers it to talking. "Out of the many things you can ask me, you ask me that?"
Her cheeks warm, and she huffs. "It's a good question."
"Sure. But I have an even better question. What is that stick of yours? What does it do? Can anyone use it?"
She sucks the humid air through her teeth, and she regrets stunning the blue-haired man. "I don't know."
"Then I don't know."
"Fine then."
"Fine."
"Great."
And they fall back into silence, and this time Hermione keeps her mouth shut. She focuses on the billowing curtains, thumping against the wall and rattling the window frame, and sees the starts of a storm off in the distance. Shisui focuses on something behind her. They sit there, in that horrible silence, for nearly over a quarter-of-an-hour, and though she is stubborn and does not want to give him the satisfaction of her submitting into him, she is about to speak when he stands, goes to the window, tells her he will be back with money tomorrow and jumps to the roof. She sits there for some time more, and when she goes to bed, she screams into her pillow.
Day: 2; Hour: 7:16am
Her meeting with Shisui is brief, and she doesn't know why she expected it to be anything more. Though he leans against the wall and is by far the most casual she has seen him, his eyes stray to the window and his foot taps against the floor. Tap, tap, tap. He hands her money that he says will last the week and tells her to stay out of trouble. Tap, tap, tap. He asks if she needs anything else. She needs many things. She needs to get home and find Harry and Ron. Harry and Ron, they are who she needs. Tap, tap, tap. She shakes her head. Tap, tap, tap. He is gone.
Day: 4; Hour: 4:23pm
Just a week ago, she would have done anything for a break. Now she has a break, and she would do anything to go back. Because there are people need her. Because this is her war, not theirs, and while she appreciates their contribution, she needs to be the one to fight it. She needs to be the one that will stand by the victors when they win. And should they lose, then she will be part of the sea of fallen bodies, forgotten, disregarded, dead. But she would have fought.
She rests her head by the window frame, lost in heavy thoughts and contemplation. It's a beautiful day out, and had she not felt the guilt of a war that she is not fighting, she would be outside, rejoicing in the small treasures life offers, because there is not enough time in the day for that.
Day: 5; Hour: 11:38pm
Her one constant source of comfort has, and will always be, the library. Perhaps it is because of familiarity; since she could remember, the library was her hiding place, her idea of a day-out, her sanctuary. Perhaps it is more than that. She always had a thirst for knowledge, a craving, what one might call an unhealthy obsession. The library could salve that. Maybe it is the simple things. The smell of worn book covers, leather seats, and ink. A place where, for once in her life, she didn't feel different. Different, and not in a good way. The library was full of people just like her, and she could feel normal. Normal. Not even a second a glance thrown her way.
She likes that. She likes it very much.
When Shisui casually dropped there is a library a few blocks away from her apartment, she didn't think twice. As soon as Shisui left, she made quick work of finishing her breakfast, throwing her hair into a messy bun, grabbing her keys and shoving her wand under the waistband of her pants, and then made her way to the local library.
The village, she quickly learned, is much like Hogwarts. Dozens of corridors in the form of streets, and seemingly no reasoning or logic behind its layout. She nibbles on her lower lip, because she hates not knowing what to do, and she is lost. Lost, and alone, and not a single thing stands out to her.
There is moment where she wants to tear her hair out, march up to whoever designed village, in a grave or not, and politely inform them exactly how one should go about designing a village. For one, they shouldn't aim to make their streets an unbreakable maze.
She makes a left turn, then a right. She traverses up the steep incline before making another right turn into what she guesses to be a road, though it would look exactly the same as the streets if isn't wider. She has taken so many turns that now she had no idea where her apartment is, let alone the library. A few blocks away, he said. You don't need me to guide you, he said. It's a short walk, he said.
If he thinks an hour-long walk is short, then she doesn't want to know what he thinks is long.
One step, and another, and another, and she is just as far from the library as before. Nowhere. She is getting nowhere. It will be midnight by the time she reaches the library. She meets another intersection, and her stomach churns, her hearts hammers and she glances from left, to right, to straight. Left, right, straight. Left, right, straight, which one will it be? She took a right before, and a straight before that. Left. She will take left. Left, that is what she will take.
She turns left, and there is another intersection. Her stomach drops, and she blanches. Left, right, straight. Which one should she take? She took a straight, then a right, another right, then a left…She will take…She will take a straight. Yes, she hasn't taken a straight in a while. That is a good idea, a straight.
She closes her eyes and counts to ten. One, two and three, and a straight is not a good idea, she knows. Three, four and five, and she is lost. Five, six and seven, and she wants to go home. Wants to go to her apartment, wants to go to Hogwarts, wants to go to Harry and Ron, because they are home. Seven, eight and nine. The library, she only needs to go to the library. Nine and ten, library starts with L, so she will go left.
She starts to the left street, and a shinobi cuts in front of her. She stumbles back, falls on her bum and he is gone by the time she looks up. Shame heats her already hot cheeks. Quickly, she scrambles to her feet, and a hand is outstretched to her. She takes it, and she smells smoke before she sees him.
His eyes are warm, warm in the same way as her friends, and he has the starts of a beard. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth and holds by his side, away from her. Perhaps because he can't talk while smoking, perhaps out of curtesy. Though she smells it all the same.
He grins. "Sorry about my idiot friend. Been cutting in front of people since we got back in the village." She can believe that.
"That's fine," she tells him, and she dusts her pants even though she knows it won't do anything. Out of politeness, she asks, "Do you go out of the village often?"
He shrugs. "Guess you can say that. We're shinobi, you see." He taps his cigarette, and she watches built-up ash at the end fall to the ground, mingling with the grass.
"What is a shinobi anyway?" She probably shouldn't have asked; it's a big red flag that she isn't from the village if she's ever seen one. But it isn't in her nature to ignore her curiosity. She couldn't even if she wanted to. If she could, she would imagine life would be a lot easier, but a lot duller too.
He gives her a strange look. These days many people look at her strangely. "You don't know?" She thinks to tell him she wouldn't have asked if she knew but decides against it. She didn't want to be rude, and she really doesn't need to go making enemies in her first week here. She already has too many back at home.
She shakes her head, and he says, "Guess we're sort of like…I don't know, the police? But not really."
He scratches his chin and searches for words that will not come, and she knows he is lost for words because she has been in the same position many times before. For all her intelligence and eloquent speech, she could never explain the significance of wizard or witch to her parents. Couldn't articulate the way she would have wanted, anyway. The words would just not come.
"It's dangerous, but anyone can see that. We got tricks up our sleeve that are pretty cool. We're kind of like the protectors of the village. Or maybe we're the dirty little secret, seeing as we do all the dirty work. Depends on how you look at it." He shrugs, and she thinks it's a bit both. Experience has taught her that dirty work is necessary to protect those you love. "I've never really thought about it."
She folds her arms and hugs herself. "That makes sense."
"Yeah, anyway, sorry about that, I got to—"
"Do you by any chance know where the library is?" she blurts, even though he is clearly in a rush to follow his friend, and even she can see that.
He hesitates. "I guess so," he says slowly, "why?"
She clears her throat, attempting to elucidate her clogged throat, and hears a crash, like glass bottles smashing, or a sign thumping against the ground. She turns, and there is boy, about eight or seven, on the ground. Around him is thong of canned food, a smashed bottle, vegetables, and rolls of toilet paper. He had a sheepish look, a look that said Who, me? I didn't do that, promise, and while it isn't the best she had ever seen, it is better than most. Though the woman stands with her bones rigid, a sneer pulling who mouth, and she isn't buying it.
"Look what you've done, you stupid boy." Fury is compacted into her small, shrill voice, and it sounds as though she might burst her vocal chords. Hermione frowns, because he is just a child, and children make mistakes, and she hardly thinks a honest mistake is worthy of name calling. "This was my food for the week. What do I do now? Get up, boy. Get up!"
He scrambles to his feet, and his head is bowed. "You think you can get away with this, do you? You think just because you're a boy, you're blameless?"
"No, Ma'am," he mutters.
"That's right. Say that louder, would you? Nobody can hear you. Go on, aren't you going to apologise?"
He stares at her and doesn't say anything. She becomes redder and redder, and Hermione thinks if she were any redder, steam might waft from her ears. The pinch faced woman slaps him on the head, and she is between the woman and the boy, using her height to shield the boy. She doesn't remember moving, and she knows she shouldn't have. It would only create unwanted attention to herself, and that's the last thing she needs right now. But he is just a boy. Just a boy, and children, people, make mistakes, and hitting a child is never okay.
She is minutely surprised, and Hermione wonders why that is. Had she not stepped up, would nobody else? Is hitting children okay in this world? "What are you doing?" she demands, though she pulls her purse closer to her chest, and she isn't nearly as haughty with her as she was with the boy.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," she says hotly, "don't ever hit a child again. I don't know you or how it works around here, but where I'm from, if a child does something wrong, we calmly tell them what they did wrong, put them in a corner for a few moments, and that's it. That's all you need to do. You don't hit them, for god's sake."
She raises her chin and sniffs. "Well, that's how you do it. We do things a bit differently here." She thinks it's more than a bit.
"And I don't really care. Don't ever hit a child again," she repeats.
She must have looked more intimidating than she thought, because the woman trembles. "He killed my husband, you know. He's a monster! A monster! Don't be fooled his looks."
She sincerely doubts that he killed her husband, and she thinks if she were in a mental facility, perhaps she wouldn't be sprouting hogwash and hitting children. "I'm sorry," she says without feeling.
The woman sobs and crumbles to the ground, and she buries her face in her bag, muffling her wails. Hermione shifts from one leg to another, and she feels momentarily bad. Bad, because she has never made anyone cry like that, and usually she is the one doing the consoling than the inflicting. She would have comforted her, despite what she had done. Because she quickly learnt she hated making people cry, but the war had hardened her, or perhaps it made her numb to all pain but her own and those closest to her, and so she only picks up the woman's groceries, what could still be used, anyway, and when she reaches for the tin of sundried tomatoes, the boy has it in his outstretched arm, and he was waiting for her to take it. She gives him a smile as she takes it, and, when her fingers glaze his, he pulls away from her as if she burnt him.
She stands, and the boy stares at his feet. "Thank you," he mumbles.
Smiling, she says as warmly as she could as to not frighten him off. "You're welcome. What is your—"
And he is off. Off, gone, and she didn't even learn his name.
The man that she had spoken to early goes to her, and he grins. "That's some scene you made." Almost on cue, she notices the thong of people that had gathered around the scene, and they are whispering, giving her nasty looks, hissing. She feels heat swarm her, because she has never like making a scene or standing out, and nor does Harry, and maybe that's one of the reasons she's closer to him than she ever was to Ron. "Don't worry, you did great."
"Is that normal? Hitting kids?" her voice comes out bossy, as it always does when she feels uncomfortable.
He takes a drag from his cigarette, seemingly not having the same boundaries as earlier. "Not usually. Naruto, he's…" Naruto, that is an odd name. She supposes it isn't any stranger than most names she had come across since her introduction to this world. "Villages have secrets, right? He's one of them. I can't tell you why, but he's a good kid. My dad's like a grandpa to him. Some people don't like him for…reasons, and I guess I don't blame them. Ain't fair on the kid, but that's the way things are. Come on, you wanted to know where the library was, didn't you? I'll take you."
He sets off, and she scrambles after him, not wanting to be lost and alone again. She falls into foot beside him. "I don't understand. Why would people not like him? He's a child."
He glances at her sideways. "You're not from around here, are you?"
She licks her lips and feels the beat, beat, beat of her heart, and she thinks she has done it now. Stupid, asking him that. Asking him anything. Now he'll know who she is, and he'll spread word that she's not from around here, and Shisui will decide she's not worth the trouble that her secret's out. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Has she always been this stupid?
He takes one look at her face and barks laughter. "You're face…my god…I'm really—" he laughs more, and more, and when she thinks he is about to stop, he looks at her face and laughs again, and she had just about enough of his laughter.
"It's not that funny." Many would say she grumbled, but she does not grumble. She argued a perfectly justified complaint, is more reasonable.
He calms and only a lazy grin remains, though she notices he doesn't look at her. "You're right. I'm sorry. It wasn't funny at all. I don't know what took over me. I would never do that." He says that, but they both know he's bullshitting.
She doesn't point out his lie. Instead, she says, "Of course not." Her voice is dry, and teasing, and the moment she says it, she regrets it. Because that would mean they're friends, or friendly acquaintances, and he isn't her friend. He isn't even from her world. She doesn't know him, or his village, and she doesn't want to know. She just wants to go home.
"Ah, finally somebody that believes me. Nobody else seems to. Can't figure out why." He pretends heavy thought.
The words I wonder why that is lie on her tongue, but she unfolds her arms and says, "Are we near the library?"
"Yeah, just up the road. That was real brave of you, you know. Standing up to her like that."
Even now a part of her glows at the praise. It was the same part that wanted to be like her peers. That wanted to be accepted. That wanted to be accepted for her and what she was capable of, not because she's Harry Potter's best-friend. She didn't like putting her self-worth in other people's hands, and liked it even less when the people who determined her self-worth were those she thought to be rotten toads. But that's the way she is, she supposes, and everyone has things about themselves they don't like but can't change.
She ducks her head to hide her pride, and it is her turn to shrug. "Not really. If I didn't do it, somebody else would have." She hopes.
"I know. But still. Not many people can fight for what they believe in, especially when what they believe isn't a shared opinion."
She squints at him, and in the way his head is tilted, the sunlight shines on his eyes so that they look more like her own than ash. She thinks about what he must had seen, what he must had lived through, what opinions he must had battled to stay true to his own for him to say something like that.
"Anyway, see that building up there, the one with the sign that reads in big, bold letters library? Well, that's the library." And there goes his wise, tragic entity.
"Thank you. I couldn't tell."
He chuckles. "You're welcome."
He holds up two fingers and throws her a salute, and then there is blank air. It startles her, despite seeing Shisui do it multiple times now and having done it herself once or twice. When a woman gives her a look, she turns and goes to the library.
Quietly, she revels in its glory, in its silence that she thinks is the closest to peace that she will ever be, in its bookcases that stretch and stretch and stretch to no end, and for moment too long she allows herself to close her eyes and simmer in the fantasy that she is in Hogwarts' library again. It doesn't last long though, and if not the clap of a book snapping shut and a woman's heels clacking against the wooden floorboards, she would have stayed there like that, her eyes closed, lost in fantasies and memories.
She borrows nine books. Some are about the world's politics, geography, and history. Others are about something called chakra, what seemed to be this world's magic, and she is equally fascinated by it. One or two seem to be useful in finding her way home, but she knows is only wishful thinking and will have nothing about her world. She allows herself to borrow one romance novella, because sometimes it's nice not being so caught up in things, and she has always been a helpless romantic—though, if were one to declare it, she would snort, stick her chin in the air and kindly inform them they are delusional.
When the books fall onto the counter with a thump, and she gives a look that dares the librarian to say anything. There wasn't a time Hermione Granger hadn't got her way with books.
She wisely keeps silent about the pile books, and scans each book one by one. "They're due next Friday," she says, her eyes going to hers for a split-moment before returning to the half-finished crossword.
She thanks her, and she left the library with far too many books than she should have borrowed. Yes, she feels very much like gossip deems her to be. But, for the first time, she thinks that isn't such a bad thing.
Day: 7; Hour: 7:12am
This time she is asleep when he arrives. He speaks, and she stares because she does not understand. It isn't until he sets a money bag on the table that she realises where she is, and reaches to the bedside table for her wand to cast a translating spell. She wants to refuse, because she hasn't done anything to deserve it, and she was taught to give and not take. But she needs it. She needs it, but she does not want it. So, she thanks him, and does not acknowledge it again.
He stands by the window, because he will stay for no longer than necessary. There is a door, she wants to tell him. But he is a shinobi, and what does she know about the ways of a shinobi? "How was your trip to the library?"
She wonders why he asks. He does not care about her life. Why should he? He has better things to do, a village to protect, family and friends to see.
"Do you usually give directions?" she asks.
He blinks three times and bat, bat, bat goes his eyelashes. "No."
"Please don't ever give directions again." She never thought giving misleading directions should be a crime. But he makes her think otherwise.
Day: 10; Hour: 10:34pm
She reads, and reads, and reads. And she learns. Learns about these people's customs, history, politics, magic, and she feels knowledge like the weight of age, and she keeps at it until going home no longer seems like an impossibility. Home is somewhere far, far away, but, for her, that's nothing new. And she will find it—she always does.