Have you ever gotten sick and thrown up on a cushion on a couch or something? And then ages later, looking after it's been cleaned up and everything's good, and it doesn't even smell anymore, you still can't touch it because in your mind, it's still linked to that vomit?
That's kind of what happened with this chapter. I had an awful case of writer's block in this story, compounded by a writer's voice cold in most of my other stories, and I tried to force my way through. Well, I got the chapter written, but now every time I try to go back and fix it I can't do anything good with it. I'm not even really sure what happened here, because my characters kind of took over and did things I hadn't planned on. But it kept flowing afterward, so... whatever.
I guess my point is that this chapter is cursed, so please forgive me. It gets better again after this, but sometimes you have to slog through the mud to get to the lake.
Disclaimer: Heaven save me from the people who would hunt my head for sport should I ever claim either of these franchises.
The Hogwarts children— Fred, George, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny— stood eagerly set the top of the stairs, earnestly listening through the Extendable Ears to the discussion going on in the kitchen.
It was really all Ginny's fault. She had run into her mother on her way upstairs from chasing down Crookshanks to retrieve a stolen sock, and conveniently gleaned from Mrs. Weasley's muttering that there was a new visitor staying in the room across from Buckbeak's. She had, of course, reported this information to her brothers, who had gathered everyone deemed "too young" for Order work to the door in question with their invaluable devices. Unfortunately, however, the visitor was speaking some kind of foreign language, so they gave up on him and moved their attention to the dining room, where the adults were sure to discuss the foreigner.
It was just in time, too, because they heard the door close behind Mrs. Weasley almost as soon as they attached themselves to the Ears.
"Now, Alastor, what were you saying about your experience with ninja in the past?"
There was a gruff "Harrumph!" and then began his explanation.
"Muss'a been... oh, mebbe a decade ago I first heard about the Hidden Continents. They call 'em the Elemental continents, but i'ss same difference, really. We were working an international case over in Japan, tracking a Death Eater who had family over there. It was goin' about as well as anythin' could, mixin' with foreign affairs as we were, an' I'd managed to track 'im down to his family home, but everything went strange as we were getting ready to nab him.
"We had already set up the perimeter when suddenly there was an explosion and a blast of flame from immediately behind the house. I ran to check on the man posted there and see if there was anything to be done— we at the front all thought it must be some kind of magical creature on the loose. When we got back there, the destruction was worse'n anything I ever saw anywhere else. Ground torn up, huge chunks of rock sticking up all over, ashes frozen in ice— the rear end of the house was in total collapse. 'S the kind of thing you might see after a duel that went on for too many hours. This was done in seconds. The chap out back was one of the Japanese fellows I had on loan from their ministry and when we got there he was whiter than a sheet and barely blinking. Only word we could get out of him was 'Shinobi.' Of course that got me interested.
"Shinobi are the kind who dance the line between myth and reality. The Japanese Ministry have barely a handful of witness accounts involving ninja, most of those from aurors who were forced into retirement shortly after because they were too jumpy to be around safely. Any who haven't retired will have had an extensive leave for rehabilitation.
"At the time, they knew of only two ninja villages, called 'Eewah' and 'Oozu,' and their information on those was nearly a century old. They had nothing to tell me. I had to find out everything else myself.
"Well, due to the distraction, our guy got away that time. I kept following him for another year or so, and finally caught up to him in a forest in the Yamanashi prefecture. The rest of the group had fallen behind, so I was alone. And then I got this close to meeting them face-to-face.
FLASHBACK
Moody looked around. The trail was right around here; he could feel it in his bones. He moved to step forward—
Thkwi-Thunk.
He froze, listening. Something hard, probably metal, and heavy had just hit the tree next to him, and it had gone through flesh to get there. He had heard nothing— no footsteps, no breathing, nothing at all to indicate anyone else's presence for at least the last three miles, but quite suddenly he heard the death rattle of a man impaled by the throat.
Then came the voices.
First a young man's voice— perhaps in his mid-twenties— congratulated someone.
"Good job, genin-san! How old are you?"
Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody would never forget the conversation that followed.
"Twelve." It was a boy's voice. Moody felt a chill run down his spine.
"That your first kill?"
"No... third. But it was my first one-hit on a human!"
"You've had more kills than that! There was that Iwa nin just last week that you got—" A girl protested.
"That doesn't count; those were shared kills. Shared kills belong to the team, right White Fang-sensei?"
The young man laughed.
"Just Sakumo-san is fine. I'm only your temporary jounin-sensei, remember? I do suppose shared kills belong to the team, not the individual, though."
"Do you think we should maybe get going now?"
"Thank you, Akira-san. See, kids; this is why you have three genin and a jounin on every team: when the jounin distracts two of you, the third can get everyone back on task so you can finish up and go out for celebratory sake."
"I thought you had to be sixteen to drink Sake?"
"Nah, you only have to be an adult. Civilians have to be sixteen, but you've been adults since you donned those Hitai-ate two years ago."
FLASHBACK END
Silence reigned in the kitchen.
"They consider ten-year-olds to be adults?" Molly finally gasped, horrified.
"Only sometimes. It depends on how early you earn your hitai-ate."
"But— but— they shouldn't even be in school yet at that age! They—"
Arthur interrupted his wife's furious spluttering. "How do you know so much about them of that's all you heard?"
"There was another ninja following them, alone. Not very good, because I heard him coming when I couldn't even hear the others leave. He was an Iwa nin, and after some... persuasion... He told me everything he could about their world."
There was another silence, and then Tonks spoke. "So when he says he's been an adult for most of his life..."
Moody finished, "He could be anywhere between twenty and forty. Or even younger—" several cries of shock— "Or older. According to the man I interrogated, average graduation age is anywhere between twelve and sixteen during peacetime, nine and fourteen during war. Slow students may be as old as eighteen. Quick ones may be ten in peacetime, usually no earlier. Geniuses may be nine."
Remis marveled, "That young?"
In the stairwell, the teens could imagine the grizzled auror nodding gravely. "Konoha had just put our their youngest graduate ever a few months before when I caught the Iwa nin. Rumors said a prodigy of age seven; Iwa, Konoha's greatest rival, suspected the supposed graduate was either a complete myth designed to make the other villages think Konoha was stronger than the others... Or much, much younger than they'd heard. He was following the team I'd over heard because the temporary jounin was supposedly related single to the 'youngest genin in ninja history.'"
"So somewhere out there, there might be a teenager who can't remember not killing for a living..." Sirius' voice was strained, trying to grasp the horror of it.
Tonks spoke up, "You said he could also be older? I could believe it, with his hair..."
"Most shinobi work until they die. While that's usually between ages twenty and thirty-five, depending on rank, the good ones live to sixty, seventy, eighty years old, easy, and still work at that age."
"Indeed," Dumbledore joined in, "My friend, Hiruzen Sarutobi, who sent our mysterious aid, is nearing his sixtieth year, and is regarded as one of the most powerful shinobi in the ninja world."
Molly frowned. "So the only useful information he gave us..."
"... Was that the child isn't his." Lupin looked contemplative as he finished Molly's thought for her. So many questions left unanswered.
They thought they'd get an opportunity to meet the ninja in the morning, but all there was remaining from the early morning Order meeting was a brief flash of silver exiting the kitchen just as they entered it. Rom was the only one to see it.
"What was that?" he asked, baffled.
"No idea. Is that bacon?" Harry dismissed it, and they all forgot about it that day.
The next morning was much the same, only Hermoine was the one to notice.
"Is there something reflecting in here?" she wondered. The boys dismissed it as her usual thinking out loud and made for the toast and marmalade.
Harry saw the silver on the third day, but thought it was something reflecting off his glasses, and didn't comment.
There was nothing on the fourth day, but on the fifth day after the arrival, all three of them saw it.
"Did you see—" Hermione began, just as Ron said "Was that—" and Harry exclaimed "What—?"
After a moment's confusion, they decided to discuss it later and simultaneously descended upon Mrs. Weasley's pancakes.
After breakfast, they met in Harry and Ron's shared bedroom to speculate on the nature of the mysterious silver glimpse. Hermione proposed that if you opened the door while standing at a particular angle while the stove was lit, an optical illusion presented itself. Harry thought it might just be light bouncing off the lense of his glasses into their eyes. Ron had the most ridiculous theory:
"What if it's the ninja?"
His friends stared at him like he'd grown a third head. Hermione spoke first.
"What in the name of Merlin's neckerchief would give you that idea?" she asked, baffled.
"No, no, it makes sense, see? You guys said ninja are supposed to be some kind of group of superhumans, right? They train themselves their entire lives to be able to do impossible things, like walk on walls and water and make rocks into sand without wands. So, why shouldn't one be so fast that we can barely see a flicker when he moves?"
Harry and Hermione blinked in unison, still staring at the ginger oddly. Finally, Harry said, "I don't think so. But who knows? Could be."
Hermione started postulating aloud again. "That should be physically impossible, but if they..."
The boys just rolled their eyes at each other again and started a game of gobstones, leaving Hermione to argue with herself.
It probably wasn't even that important, anyway.
So, there you have it. Five months late, of course, but at least it's here!
(really, I'm so, so, so sorry. Please don't hate me.)
I have no idea why the kids know about there being a ninja in grimmauld place. They just do. I'll be surprised as the rest of you to see how this turns out.
Again, this is completely unbeta'd, so I appologise for any weirdness, and most definitely for the lateness. Hopefully updates will be more regular than "every six months to a year" soon (LOL— I'm going into senior year; who am I kidding? Seriously though, I'm going to be trying even if it kills me.)
In other news, I finally got an accout on Archive of our Own, so everything here will soon be appearing there, and hopefully this and Accidental will be up soon as well. It's easier to post mobile there, so depending on how things go, updates may appear on Archive first. My account is Rick_KTish, if anyone's interested.
Please review and tell me what you think!