Chapter 4 – Screams in the night
AN: This is an entirely new chapter with scenes that I never wrote originally (but had intended to). Enjoy!
Normal writing-English, with the exception of honorifics
Italics-Letters or Japanese
Hermione was thinking.
There were still conversations going on around her, which she was half-listening to (Mr Weasley had taken over speaking with Hinata about her home, with Hinata interjecting her own questions about the wizarding world).
Sasuke kept tending to the fire, to all appearances listening to the others talk about the upcoming match as the day progressed.
She really didn't know what to think of him. He was incredibly good-looking, although his features were a little on the feminine side – almost enough to be called beautiful, but he'd stared at them at that first meeting like they were something peeled off the bottom of someone else's shoe. He had tended the fire though, and he hadn't been obviously rude. Considering that his English probably wasn't very good it was just likely he hadn't wanted to embarrass himself.
Or maybe he just wasn't a talkative person.
Hinata had been kind, even with the language barrier presented (Hermione had been astonished they had only really properly started learning English three weeks ago – even with a head start on the other girl's part, they shouldn't be this good – it was incredible). She also seemed a little reserved though, and stuttered occasionally. Maybe their culture was very conservative or restricted.
And that brought her to the main subject of her thoughts - the hidden countries. Hermione had never even heard of them – neither had Ron or Harry. She'd heard of ninjas of course – pretty much all muggle children would know about them. But to think there was an entire continent that had been made nigh inaccessible over 1000 years ago – it was almost unimaginable.
How had they managed to keep it hidden? Was it unplottable? Hinata hadn't seemed to know how to answer the questions when she'd asked them, so was it an ancient art that had been forgotten?
To think it had just been chance that they'd met up with such interesting people. It was a shame they were only here for the World Cup – she would've loved to have asked them more questions about their home and their lives. Were they really like the ninjas in old stories or were they like wizards and witches – being hidden for such a long time having twisted all living memory of them into fanciful tales? Did they use magic like wizards do?
She'd have to see what she could find in the library when they got back to Hogwarts and ask as many questions as she could now.
Hinata had actually been enjoying herself for most of the day. After the disastrous beginning with those terrible portkeys she'd spent a good hour exploring this strange camp – and had then spent the rest of it in the presence of kind, if chatty, strangers.
She'd learned a lot about the wizarding world from them, about muggles and the hiding of wizards and witches and a little about their society, while giving relatively little away about their own world. All things like basic geography and the layout of the country. She hadn't even really had to evade that much – pretending you didn't know the right words to explain something worked wonders on polite society. She sometimes felt a little bad about it, especially when it wasn't an especially big matter, but Hermione's questions were getting a little bit intrusive towards the end of the afternoon.
Luckily some of their party had walked off at different points – to buy souvenirs and other knick-knacks from people who had appeared out of thin air in various places. She and Sasuke didn't have any money (not that would be accepted there anyway), so they had stayed put at the tents. She'd given him some updates on what she'd learned so far and explained some new words that were apparently ubiquitous in this strange place. She'd also passed on information about the sport they were about to go watch – all her questioners had been aghast that she'd never heard of Quidditch.
The rest of their party rejoined them at dusk, faced aglow and bodies tense. Their excitement was contagious, she could even see Sasuke becoming restless.
As darkness fell the sound of a deep gong reverberating through the woods spurred their party into making a move.
Lanterns lit their path and they made their way towards the stadium through the woods, following Mr Weasley and the rest of the party. Sasuke walked close behind her, nearly silent, and the oldest brother Bill followed behind him.
All around her she could hear enthusiastic shouts and the low murmurs of conversations; many thousands of footsteps all moving together blended into a thrum of vibrations beneath their feet. She wondered how many people she'd be able to see if she activated her Byakugan – if she'd even be able to count them.
Through the trees she began to glimpse something golden. The woods abruptly stopped and they entered a clearing. As they walked into it she gasped as she saw what the golden thing was. It was an enormous stadium – big enough to fit what seemed like half of Konoha (she could certainly see more people than she had ever seen in her village at any one time).
They made their way through the crowd at the entrance – their tickets seemed to be quite special as they were waved through quickly – and made their way up, up, up, right to the top of the stadium into a small box with something like forty seats.
The inside of the stadium was shining with a golden diffuse light and the sight of thousands of people making their ways to their seats greeted her. Three hoops on sticks were high above the ground, directly in front of them. As many people as she'd sensed outside while approaching the stadium, there appeared to be even more, tens of thousands, filling up the oval spread out beneath her.
Mr Weasley handed them their tickets and worked on getting his own party seated. She and her teammate followed the number and letter on the ticket to their own seats and sat themselves down. They weren't quite in the front row, but the view was still excellent.
The only other occupant in the box was a curious looking creature that Harry had apparently recognised. He called it something like a house-elf (which didn't make any sense at all – it must have been one of those wizarding words she didn't know).
She lost track of the conversation then as she turned to the far more interesting stadium.
She was very tempted to turn on her Byakugan – the magical tents had looked very strange with it and the stadium would probably be incredible – but there were too many people who could potentially be watching. Maybe she could take a look when the match was on?
Suddenly a hand was on her head and ruffling her hair, "Hello my cute little underlings!"
She turned around to see Kakashi there. While she had been enraptured by the stadium people had slowly been trickling into the box. Next to her Sasuke had jerked back his head from the hand ruffling his hair and he was now glaring at their sensei.
Kakashi withdrew his hands and Hinata quickly moved to tidy her hair. He plopped down in a seat next to her. Behind them more people were being sat down, with one row of people with very pale blond hair seating themselves in front of them. Briefly Fudge introduced them to the family, before turning back towards dealing with his other guests.
"How are things? Been making friends?" Kakashi smiled at them both.
Hinata began a small debrief of everything she'd found out so far while the seats around them filled up. She kept the talk light, leaving out any classified details as she was conscious of the many potential eavesdroppers.
Finally the rotund man from before bounded into the box. He pointed one of those sticks at his throat, said "Sonorus."
With this his voice seemed somehow to be amplified far beyond its normal volume – a puzzle for later – and he gave a small opening speech, followed by introducing the mascots for one of the two teams and some very strange looking women came on to dance. As they began to dance she felt Sasuke tense next to her. She glanced at him and was startled to see he had activated his Sharingan. Quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then she ducked her head and activated her Byakugan – only to shut it off immediately as her eyes were assaulted on all sides by innumerable strings of light. She kept her eyes shut – there was a sharp throb behind her temple.
Once the music had faded away and her headache had subsided a little she opened her eyes again.
The strange women had gone to stand on one side of the stadium. The mascots for the other team were introduced and another strange display followed – ending with golden coins falling from the little men zooming over their heads. She bent to pick one of them up – they seemed to be the coins that the wizards liked to use. All around them people were scrambling for the coins – in seats outside their box it even looked like fights were breaking out between people.
"Don't bother, it's all fake," came a low drawl next to her. She looked at Sasuke again – his Sharingan had been deactivated again and he had his head leaned back against his seat, glowering down at all the people battling for coins.
"I couldn't really g-get a good look..." she began, when suddenly at Bagman's next announcement a scarlet figure shot onto the pitch at incredible speed. When it stopped moving she saw quite clearly a young man flying in mid-air on a broomstick.
Hinata hadn't really been able to picture the descriptions their earlier companions had given her regarding the sport – flying sitting on a broomstick? Yet here it was right in front of her eyes. And more people were dashing in to join him, six more in scarlet and seven in green.
The match kicked off shortly after and what followed was like nothing Hinata had ever seen. She had only the vaguest grasp of the rules, and so was a bit lost following what was happening, but what was surprising was the speed the two teams were moving at – they were as fast as some shinobi. The green team in particular wasn't only fast but had seamless teamwork.
As the match progressed it got dirtier and more violent, culminating a baffling victory for the green team after a vicious battle between the mascots as well as between some of the attending wizards.
While Bagman made the announcement of the end of the match and the final results Kakashi said in a low voice,"Separate once we get down and meet back at the tent at the campsite for a full debriefing."
Hinata agreed quietly and heard Sasuke's equally quiet assent next to her. She was watching the green team zoom around the stadium in a victory lap (while Kakashi laughed quietly at something the Minister from before had said to another man, looking rather indignant all the while).
A blinding light filled the box suddenly and she turned around to see a trophy be carried into the box and be handed to the Minister. The scarlet team came in – with one of their team still sporting a bloody nose from receiving a ball to the face – and received a hearty cheer from the crowd for their efforts (the cheer for the bloody one was particularly loud). Shortly afterwards the green team entered to be awarded their prize. The cheers resounded throughout the stadium.
After receiving their congratulations they left again to perform another lap of the stadium.
Slowly the trickle of people out of the box began. Hinata walked to mingle a little with the crowd (and to avoid the attention of Fudge, who was not paying attention just then), and when she joined the stream of people leaving their seats from the other areas she lost sight of her team entirely.
She let herself be carried out by the flow of the crowd and into a beautiful summer's night.
Hinata woke with a start to the sounds of people screaming.
She hadn't been asleep for long – maybe an hour at most. Their discussion of the day's events and the compiling of it into a single report had taken hours and they had all got to bed very late.
Now she quickly strapped her weapons on and made her way out to the common area. Kakashi and Sasuke were already there.
"Hinata-chan can you use your Byakugan to take a look at what is going on?", Kakashi asked her.
"I can t-try, but at the stadium it d-didn't work very well - I was almost blinded."
In spite of her apprehension she did activate her kekke genkai and to her relief the lights were not as blinding this time. Magic was very odd to look at – it appeared mostly was strands of different coloured lights. The tent had many different ones criss-crossing and weaving amongst each other.
Wizards luckily didn't look too dissimilar to shinobi – the colours and the network were a bit different, but she could at least pick them out from the surrounding magical objects.
"In the direction of the screams there is a group of people moving together in masks. Some of them seem to be using some magic to make people float – the people floating do not seem to be wizards or shinobi. They are crushing tents in their way and people are fleeing from them. There are wizards observing from a distance but not acting" Hinata's eyes widened a little in shock at what she was seeing. "One of them has just flipped over in midair – a woman I think. Two of them are young children – one is being spun in midair-"
"That'll do." Kakashi interrupted. "Are they moving towards us at all?"
"Yes- and not slowly."
Kakashi's face turned grim. "Both of you grab your things and meet outside. We will do as the other wizards are doing and observe for the moment. You two flank on one side – I'll take the other. If it looks like the hostages may fall we will intervene, but not before then. Sasuke you provide a distraction and firepower with long-range attacks in that case and Hinata focus on rescuing the hostages as quickly as possible. No close-range combat if at all possible – we are not sure yet what their capabilities in this are."
Hinata ran to grab her pack, grateful that she hadn't bothered unpacking anything earlier.
They met outside, Kakashi dashing off in one direction once he confirmed the two of them were together and Hinata and Sasuke in the other. They found the masked group and began following their course at around thirty metres distance on the side closest to the forest, weaving between tents that had not been trampled yet to keep out of sight. Closer to the masked people were other wizards, keeping their sticks in their hands and looking anxiously up at the four floating people, but not sending any jets of light towards the group.
The group had no such hesitations and sent jets of light towards the waiting wizards, jeering, laughing and shouting all the while.
This continued on for some minutes with the situation at a stalemate. The masked group performed further indignities upon the floating people – and Hinata felt something hot swell up inside her as it became a challenge not to interfere. She could sense Sasuke tense up more and more next to her and his chakra began to feel dark and foreboding.
Suddenly the group erupted into shouts of fear and horror, pointing up at the sky towards the forest. She turned around and felt Sasuke do the same. In the sky there had appeared a symbol out of little green lights – a skull with a serpent coming out of its mouth.
She heard cracks behind her and turned back – the masked group had all disappeared without a trace. Hinata started a dash towards the falling family, which halted with Sasuke's hand on her arm. It brought a pause in which she observed they were falling gradually – as if time had been slowed. She could see the surrounding remaining wizards pointing their sticks at them and keeping them pointed. Sasuke's hand dropped off her arm immediately once she stopped completely.
All around them new screams were beginning to erupt as more people noticed the mark floating in the sky. If she'd thought the screams before were terrified that was nothing on the shrieks that shattered the night now.
Many of the wizards who had been surrounding the masked men were also disappearing now with cracking sounds littering the night, with just a few of them being left behind with the muggle family.
Looking back at the forest she could see people hurrying out as quickly as possible and a crowd was beginning to form at the edge; people waiting for their loved ones and also for news about the symbol in the sky.
She felt more than saw Kakashi approach them, also coming to watch the aftermath of the panic.
"Well that was interesting."
She couldn't have agreed more.
Just to note, Rowling originally said there were about twenty seats in the Top Box. I call bullshit, therefore I changed it to be about forty (seriously, the weasley party is 10 people, that would leave 10 seats left for Fudge, the malfoys, the bulgarians, bagman, Winky and Crouch Jr and any other people coming into the box. No way).
Also I've never understood how often in other HP/Naruto crossovers the shinobi almost immediately consider witches and wizards inferior or incompetent. Fudge comes across as a bumbler, but not many of the other characters have such obvious character weaknesses. Fortunately this little team will have plenty of time to make up their minds about wizards.
Next time: A new teacher at Hogwarts and two teenage ninja in a shopping street
Soccus
