Summary: Harry's job in Suna takes an unexpected turn.
Cramming down the last of his crunchy seaweed snack, Harry gathered his magic for a Reparo spell and aimed at the crack still visible on the newly repaired doll's neck.
His magic washed out onto the doll, the hairline crack glowed but remained even after the magic vanished.
Frowning, Harry aimed another Reparo spell at the crack.
The persistent crack remained even after another five Reparo spells.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Harry tugged his wand out of its holster and gathered a chunk of magic. "Reparo!"
His fingers tingled, his wand buzzed with warmth and a wave of magic shot out to his target.
The crack glowed, rippled and smoothed out.
His magic lingered around the doll as a visible glow before it dissipated through the doll and into the air with an audible shock-wave.
The doll's smooth surface rippled, bulged and shifted into a dark leathery surface. The transformation continued until the entire doll had rough leathery skin.
Within seconds, under another ripple of his magic, every other doll in the room gained the dark leathery skin as a thick smell of rot filled the room.
Wary, Harry kept a tight grip on his wand as the last of his lingering magic sank down into the lifeless dolls.
To Harry's horror, the glassy eyes darkened with life and swivelled around in their sockets until all the dolls- no, the humanoid creatures now- blinked and turned to stare at Harry as one.
Wand still in hand, Harry physically stopped himself from firing a barrage of spells at the creatures that stared at Harry.
As minutes passed, Harry glanced at the door, wondering if he needed to break out of this place.
One of the creatures turned to the door, opened it's mouth grotesquely wide and spat out a large orange fireball.
The door exploded outward in splinters creating a large hole.
Harry flinched back as the red spell he'd cast in reflex sank down into the creature harmlessly instead of damaging it.
As one, the creatures moved and blocked Harry from the exit completely.
"Harii," Shikamaru's voice, higher than his usual nonchalant tone, came in.
Harry wished he had a clear line of sight so that he could see Shikamaru.
As if in answer to his thoughts, the creatures moved, creating a tiny line of sight to the blown up entrance.
Shikamaru stood beside Kankuro and another person that Harry had only met once- Gaara.
"I don't think the papers I signed covered this scenario," Harry said with a rueful smile.
"How did you manage this?" Kankuro asked, shaking his head.
"I was trying to be an overachiever," Harry said blandly. "I've learnt my lesson and promise to be as average as possible from now on. So please, help me."
Gaara tilted his face and narrowed his eyes.
A trickle of glittering sand rose up into the air and curled around one of the creatures.
All the creatures stood unmoving in the face of the blatant attack.
In the next instant, more sand rushed forward and engulfed the entire creature with a swift hand motion from Gaara. With another signal, an almost violent squeeze of his fist, the sand mimicked his gesture and squeezed.
Flesh squelched under the onslaught and black stained the sand for an instant before vaporizing into thick black fumes that floated towards the open hole.
The sand fell off a mangled mass of dark rotting flesh that spouted even more noxious fumes in the air.
Harry gasped as his magic swirled out.
"Harii?" Shikamaru called out amidst coughs, as a shimmering barrier appeared at the entrance and the creatures moved to close Harry's line of sight to the entrance.
The mangled flesh expanded and smoothed out till the creature regained it's previous form.
"It fixed itself," Harry said, raising his voice and faintly noting that the fumes had no effect on him. "Using my... power."
Shikamaru cursed. "A connection?"
"Looks like it," Kankuro said. "Even though I have no idea how such a connection was made in the first place."
"I don't understand why this happened," Harry said with a shake of his head. "I was just fixing these dolls and then this."
After a moment of thick silence, Shikamaru said, "They weren't just dolls, Harii. They were human puppets."
Harry swallowed his apprehension. "By that, do you mean..."
"Humans who were turned into puppets," Kankuro supplied with a careless tone.
Pushing away the sudden onslaught of memories from the temple, Harry took a deep steadying breath as the three ninja debated possible options amongst themselves.
"Harii," Shikamaru called out from the entrance. "Is there any way for you to break the connection? Anything you can try?"
"I have something," Harry admitted, feeling dumb for not having thought of it sooner. Glad to be hidden from the others, Harry waved his hand and murmured the Finite Incantatem spell. "Nothing happened," Harry said out loud.
"You need to stay in here," Shikamaru said, his voice apologetic. "Until we figure out what's going on."
Harry wanted to argue. But he couldn't think of a single argument while he was surrounded by the horde of dead. "Right."
"This brings a whole new level to having puppets working for you," Kankuro said with something like a grimace.
"How many of them are in here?" Shikamaru asked.
"Every one that I fixed," Harry said.
"And how many was that?"
"All of them," Harry said with a groan.
At least the answering groan showed that he wasn't the only one to realize just how bad the situation was.
After they left, Harry moved away from the still standing puppet till he was in a corner of the lab and pulled out his mirror.
Something of his desperation must have been obvious because the moment he called, Hermione's face appeared in the mirror with a tired but worried expression in her eyes. Not even waiting for a greeting, Harry explained everything as best as he could.
"So basically, reanimated corpses?" Hermione said with wide eyes as he caught his breath.
"Looks like it."
"Harry," Hermione said slowly, as though she didn't want to continue. "What you're describing is an Inferi."
"A what?"
"They're products of necromancy, puppets used by dark wizards to do their bidding. These undead have immense strength and can kill a human with ease."
Harry made a weak sound. "Oh."
"There is a way to destroy them," Hermione said. "No Inferi is impervious to burning."
"I need to burn them?" Harry said with disgust.
"If you want to get rid of them, yes."
Harry considered this for an entire minute before he slumped. "There's a problem with that. They're using my magic to repair themselves from any damage."
"They're doing what?" Hermione asked with wide eyes. She blinked, "Well, that's, I suppose..."
"Hermione?"
"I don't think Inferi can do that," she said weakly.
Harry groaned. "Are you sure?"
"Necromancy isn't exactly a popular topic of discussion Harry," Hermione said with a frown. "I've never really considered looking into it but... what you've managed to do intrigues me. Especially since you've managed necromancy with only a Reparo."
"I didn't know it was a human puppet!" Harry defended himself. "I thought the Reparo wasn't supposed to work on humans."
"On living beings," Hermione corrected even as she looked lost in thought, as though working out a puzzle.
Seeing that he wouldn't get anything useful out of her, Harry said his goodbyes and looked around. "A necromancer," he said with disbelieving laugh. "Hermione's being ridiculous. You're hardly doing my bidding." Harry told the room at large. "And even if you did, what could I possibly ask you lot to do? Get me snacks?"
A puppet moved, tore open the snack cupboard and grabbed an armful of snacks.
Staring at the snacks offered by the leathery arms, Harry sighed even as he grabbed a packet of seaweed crisps. "A necromancer it is, then."
Hours later when Shikamaru showed up, he stood unmoving at the entrance and stared. "They're sitting."
Harry nodded. "They listen to verbal commands."
Shikamaru tilted his head and glanced at the puppet nearest to him. "Stand." When the puppet didn't react, he sighed with relief. "So they only listen to you."
"More tea," Harry told the puppet in front of him.
Shikamaru twitched. "They make tea? You asked them to make tea?"
"It took a few tries to get it right," Harry said.
"You're taking this fairly well," Shikamaru said, still not taking a step inside.
Harry snorted. "I asked them to make tea, Shikamaru. I asked the puppets to make me tea. And they did. I have twenty three puppets who will do my bidding even if I'm just bidding them to make tea and bring me snacks."
"So," Shikamaru said. "Not taking this well at all."
"No," Harry said as he took his cup of tea from the puppet. "What's Suna going to do?"
"They'll want the puppets," Shikamaru said. "They're Suna property even though they've changed."
"They're welcome to take them," Harry offered.
"I doubt they'll get any use out of the them though," Shikamaru said. "Without you, these things are useless."
Harry sipped on his tea and stared at Shikamaru. "Are they going to keep me here too?"
"They," Shikamaru hesitated but then straightened. "Even if they try, you have twenty three puppets to do your bidding."
"Are you telling me I'll need to fight my way out of Suna?"
"No! I'm just saying it's an option if things take a turn for the worst," Shikamaru said, "I've got to go back to the meeting. You're going to be okay here?"
"I'll manage," Harry said
With Shikamaru's ominous words ringing in his head, Harry waited with bated breath as Gaara and Kakuro came by a few hours later.
"They're going to test and see if the puppets really can't be taken away from you," Shikamaru explained from beside the two Suna ninja.
Harry watched them try and fail to make the puppets do anything without Harry's permission. After the tenth test, Harry sighed, "How am I going to explain this to Naruto?"
The Suna ninja stilled in their testing.
"Naruto?" Gaara asked with a tilt of his head.
"My cousin," Harry explained, "who's not going to like any of this."
"When you say Naruto," Kankuro said, glancing at Shikamaru.
"Ah, didn't I tell you? Harii is Uzumaki Naruto's cousin."
"I see," Gaara said, his eyes turning to Harry with an even more intense look.
Harry perked up. "You two know Naruto?"
Kankuro snorted. "Who doesn't know that twerp?"
Harry frowned in disapproval, ready to defend his cousin, but Gaara said, "Naruto is my friend."
Kankuro sighed. "What are we going to do now?"
Two weeks later when he was back in the familiar confines of his Konoha apartment, Harry tossed a small scroll to Naruto. "Here's your present. If you ever get in trouble, summon them and they'll help you."
Naruto blinked in confusion as he unrolled the scroll and squinted at the intricate seal array. "They?"
"You'll see when you summon them. Just remember that they're there to protect you and everything will be fine," Harry said. "Now come on, let's eat. I'm starving."
Without hesitation, Naruto put the scroll in his pouch and Harry was more than happy to forget about it.
"What is it?" Shikaku asked three days later, with a raised eyebrow as he put his tea cup down.
Noting the sudden drain of his magic, Harry sighed. "Naruto has gotten into a dangerous fight." He moved his hand down and placed his Shogi piece on the board.
True to his words, the moment Naruto entered the apartment that night, he said, "Nii-san, they were creepy."
"But they protected you, right?"
Naruto grimaced as he sat down next to Harry. "What are they? Sakura-chan said that they looked like the puppets she fought."
"They probably are," Harry admitted as he turned the page of his book. "Things went a bit wrong when I went to Suna to fix them."
"But," Naruto gaped. "Those puppets were..."
Harry looked up, glad to finally have someone understand the horror of the entire situation. "Exactly. Human puppets. Who ever heard of such a thing? That's why they've now become Inferi that I've accidentally resurrected. And Hermione thinks I've gone on the dark path and instead of keeping me off it, she's looking into it. And Ron? He thinks it's the most hilarious thing to happen to me. Becoming a necromancer with a Reparo spell. How is that funny? It's not and..."
A snore interrupted his rant.
Harry sighed even as he pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa and placed it on his sleeping cousin. "Why is no one concerned about the necromancy?"
