Celebwen Telcontar: Whoa... I have to hand it to you. I've never received this much attention for a story this short. Ever. Incredible. Thank you all.
Balrog: Huh. Well, in that case... xXSweetestXAngelXNightmareXx, Alec McDowell, Firehedgehog, and RokibaHitake, you have all won a granite, sandstone and shale sundae with gneiss sprinkles and hot mica fudge! Eat up, all of you!
Celebwen Telcontar: ... Thanks to those who reviewed. Those who reviewed right before I got this chapter up have earned a sundae... apparently made of rock. Thank you all, including those who didn't leave reviews, those who favorited Hidden in Plain Sight, and those who are following it! You are the best!
Albus Dumbledore listened to his deputy. This was not an unusual occurance... after the Muggle candy store incident... and the problem with that Muggle Healer and his son and twin daughters... and the dead cat... Dumbledore didn't think he would ever enjoy football the same way again. Or hats. Or pez. Pez weren't supposed to send you into a week-long coma.
Anyways, the thing was he was listening to her. She had told him that the Dursleys were incaepable of loving anythng Magical, so he tied the Blood Wards to a series of Protection wards powerful enough to make a Pharaoh's tomb look like a child's playpen. The problem was, the strength of the Protection Wards was connected directly to the Blood Wards, so the stronger the Blood Wards, the stronger the Protection Wards. The way Blood Wards worked, unfortunately, was they tied themselves to the first person from the family the Blood Wards were keyed to that touched him.
Suddenly, the instrument tied to the strength of the Blood Wards shrieked. With the hatred Petunia showed, the gyroscope-like instrument should have spun lazily, if it had any perceptable movement at all. Instead, it was glowing a brilliant blue-white, spinning out of control.
Without warning, it came apart, flinging shrapnel around with incredible power. Dumbledore took refuge under his desk. Fawkes gave an indignant squawk and vanished in a burst of flame before the flying metal could reach the majestic bird. The portraits were yelping and hiding behind their frames. The power being poured from the Wards to the instrument transferred itself to the very air, making the atmosphere within the office feel like the inside of a thunderstorm. The scent of ozone filled the air, and another instrument, the one monitoring the sanity of the Minister of Magic, blew up in a poof of acrid smoke, transforming into a phoenix fledgeling, but not Fawkes, that immediately took cover with the baffled Headmaster. Dumbledore's Pensive was glowing an eerie blue-white and shooting off bolts of lightning while making a sound like birds chirping. The instrument that measured the health of the current Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor began giving off ominous energy, the magic flowing every which way with incredible power while still contained within the area the instrument had been in and began scorching the desk it was on before it blew up in an outward spiral, blasting a hole in the tower as it went. Spectral arms reached out and grabbed Dillis Derrywent's portrait, pulling the former Headmaster kicking and screaming into the frame before it grasped with one hand and sliced Professor Derrywent from the picture with a long knife, leaving a gash in the painting. Shadows lengthened to grip the desk, shredding it like a Muggle woodchipper. A high wind blew through the office, swirling bits and pieces of Dumbledore's effects everywhere before raining down in a hail of various weaponry. A small hand-held knife with a looped pommel slashed through Dumbledore's arm, cuttig to the bone before healing itself. The small hatchling in the Headmaster's hands spontainiously combusted before poking a wrinled head out of the ashes now decorating Dumbledore's robes. When he gathered his scattered wits about himself, Dumbledore saw an opening. He flung himself towards the office door, carrying the infant phoenix and dodging shrapnel of varous materials. He managed to get onto the staircase as the portrait of Phineas Negillus went up in a burst of fire.
He landed on the third floor, nearly running into a gaggle of First Years, who were looking traumatized as they watched the gargoyle change colors and materials before erupting into pure sand.
"Professor?" young Bill Weasley asked, watching the Headmaster careen around a corner and go flying towards the Transfiguration classroom. Other students dodged out of Dumbledore's way as he scampered down the hallway, his robes hitched above his knees with one hand and a baby phoenix cradled in the other. He skidded to a stop, let his robes drop, and barged into Professor McGonagall's classroom, startling her students.
"Sorry, children, but could I borrow your professor?" McGonagall walked out, and asked Dumbledore what he was doing.
"What happened to Fawkes?"
"This isn't Fawkes. And my office is a shambles, not to mention the Ward-monitor was overpowered and exploded, causing my other instruments to explode. Last I saw, a hurricane is taking my office apart, I have a large hole in my wall, my Pensive may have exploded, Phineas is up in flames, and I have no idea what happened to Dillis."
"Oh, dear."
"We have to see to Harry immediately."
"I suppose we do. Alright." McGonagall poked her head back into the classroom to dismiss the students early, hit the blackboard with a spell to write that all Transfiguration classes were cancelled for the day, and left with Dumbledore out to the edge of the Wards, where they Apparated to Surry.
"Get away," Petunia hissed to the two Professors. "He isn't here. My cousin Anne took him." She slammed the door in their faces, and they looked at each other. This wasn't good.
Anko kept her eyes firmly closed. She was in Surry, England, living with her cousin Petunia. She was not on a mssion, back home in the Hidden Lands, as she had dreamed. She was still in this... wait, England didn't smell like pine forests. She snapped open her eyes, gasping in recognition. She was home! Finally! After so much time! She listened to the birds chirping, a sound she hadn't heard since before she left the Hidden Lands. She stretched, breathing in the unique scent of home, feeling the closeness of where she was born and raised seep into her very bones. It was intoxicating, being home. Finally. She could stop riding in those wretched vehicles, stop breathing the polluted air, stop using English. Here, people would know what she was, not ignore her in favor of penned up animals. She wouldn't have to evade flying cereal launched by Dudley Dursley. She scrambled out of her bedroll and lifted a now-awake Harry into the air with exhuberence, swinging him around. He laughed before looking at her with solemn green eyes. She kissed his forehead and set him on the ground before packing up. When everything was up, the snakes having slithered close to Harry and were wrapped around his neck at that point, she picked up her gear, swung it onto her back, and lifted Harry before enthusiastically leaping into a tree and jumping from branch to branch, excercizing her chakra. It felt good, like walking around after a three-day stay in a hospital bed. Or, perhaps more accurately, running after a decade-long coma.
She ran up the last rise, wondering what had happened. The older trees were all splintered. The growth was maybe half a decade long, at the most. Gouges were torn through the ground. She remembered seeing a strange valley with a pair of new statues between the Land of Rice Patties and the Land of Fire.
Then, she was past the gates. The four Hokage's faces were the first thing she saw. Then, she saw other things. The houses all looked new, so new that they couldn't have been there more than five years. Familiar buildings were gone. She had come to Konoha right after being betrayed by Orochimaru and spoke with Namikaze-sama, the Hokage, and arranged to leave the Hidden Lands for a while to regain her mental, physical and spiritual equilibrium.
Anko yanked her mind out of the past and headed to the Hokage tower. Maybe Namikaze-sama could help her understand what had happened.
When she got to the tower, she noticed people looking oddly at her. A young boy, probably a Gennin, ran past, both cheeks and the bridge of his nose deeply scarred. It looked like some animal had caught him across the face with a long claw.
"Iruka! Wait up!" a white haired boy called. The scarred boy laughed and put on a burst of speed, both of them laughing.
Anko went up the steps, thinking hard about what had happened. Something devestating, that was certain. Then, she was in the Tower.
"Hello?" she asked. The face that greeted her caused her to drop her bags in shock. Sarutobi was the Hokage, not Namikaze. This made no sense. "S-Sarutobi-sama?" she asked.
"Mitarashi-san?" he asked, dropping some paperwork. "I had wondered where you had gone! Namikaze-kun didn't tell us anything. None of us knew where you had gone. All we knew was that you had been closeted with Namikaze-kun for a couple hours and you left! Are you alright?"
"I was Outside, getting my thoughts together. I was a mess. Where's Namikaze-sama? What happened?"
"The Fox is what happened. Six months after you left, we were attacked by a nine-tailed kyubi-kitsune. It destroyed Konoha, killed many of our best people. Namikazi-kun stopped it... by sealing it in his own son and sacrificing himself in the process."
"Kami-sama..." Anko whispered. "Damn. I leave and everything falls apart." Harry took that time to whimper. "This is my cousin, Harry. He's from Outside, and will be living with me. His parents are dead and no one seems to want him aside from me." She dried her tears in Harry's shirt, holding him close. The boy hugged her, and she felt the snakes move under his shirt.
"I understand. Please, make yourself at home here." There was an almighty crash, and Sarutobi and Anko turned to find a blonde-haired whirlwind flying through the window. The Hokage monument didn't look the same... it had been painted in flourescent colors. Anko blinked. She had never seen anyone with so much nerve!
"Uzumaki Naruto!" Sarutobi scolded. Anko scooped him up on habit, lay him across her lap, and swatted his rear a couple times, glaring at the boy for good measure. She had swatted Dudley several times, but only when the brat did something he knew he shouldn't do, such as fling cereal on the walls, urinate in the living room without a nappy on, kick and scream until he was hoarse. Hopefully, while Naruto grew up, he wouldn't need correction with a two-by-four.
"What were you thinking, you little brat? Where are your parents?"
"Don't got none," he replied, rubbing his rear. She looked at Sarutobi. The blonde hair was familiar, as were the intense blue eyes.
"Is he who I think he is?" she asked.
"Yes. He lives at the orphanage now."
"You're kidding me," she replied. "Uzumaki Naruto, huh? Well, you're living with me from now on. Hold Harry." She put the toddler in Namikazi-Sama's son's arms, and he and her cousin looked at each other for a good few minutes. Sarutobi smiled.
"You two will be good for each other."
"Kid, no painting anything in my house unless I give you explicit permission. Got that?" She smacked him on the rear once more for emphasis. He yelped and looked up at her, the blue eyes questioning. "I just adopted you. I know what it's like to be in the orphanage."
"I remember. You looked up to Orochimaru after he became your sensei."
"He was like a father to me. And he threw me away like trash." Anko's fists clenched, and she only unclenched them when she felt blood dripping off of her hands to examine her palms and lick them clean, closing the four cresent-shaped wounds in each palm as she did so. Harry whimpered, and Naruto set the toddler down only for the younger boy to walk over and cling to Anko's legs.
After Sarutobi told Anko where an unused home was, she picked up the heaviest things, handed one of the lighter bags to Naruto, picked up Harry and the three set off.
"Why?" Naruto asked.
"Why what? Why am I adopting you?"
"Yeah."
"You remind me of myself. Come on, hurry up." She walked down the street, finding the empty home, and entered it with the key the Sarutobi-sama gave her. How he ended up with keys for the unused homes in Konoha was a mystery. She dropped the bags, heading over to the kitchen to wash it and make fresh-caught fish and rabbit meat skewers for lunch.
Celebwen Telconar: How was that?
Balrog: Not bad.
Celebwen Telcontar: Extra-long chapter for all the reviewers! I think I'm intoxicated on reviews...
Balrog: (Confused shrug) Please review! Especially if you want a virtual rock sundae! I still have the makings for many more!