Carry Our Burdens.
Chapter Seven.
Death Eaters.
Edit: 06.10.11
[A nightingale sings its song of farewell]
Harry hurried down the hall to the common room. The first day of school had seemed to last forever. He had been a little surprised when he saw guards in the other classrooms but not very. After all, he had heard Dove say that they would be patrolling other classes too. But it seemed like the six were covering way more ground than just their number could do. It almost seemed like there were twice their number stalking Hogwarts.
He passed by Viper, the white haired man leaning against the wall, dark eyes watching very person as they went by. He shivered, remembering exactly how the guards looked without their disguises. They were masters of keeping to the shadows and killing. He wondered how long it would take before a student ended up dead with a knife in their back.
A scream resounded from down the hall. Harry's heart nearly stopped. Even though he had been wondering how long it would take he hadn't expected it this soon. Other people started running towards the shriek while a few darted the other direction. A girl tore down the hall, her face bright red from yelling her head off.
"Death Eaters! Death Eaters!" she screeched. Harry froze in the middle of the hallway. Death Eaters? Here? That was impossible! He pulled out his wand as he started running again. There was no way he was letting them get away.
Harry looked around the corner warily as a student flew past him. There, amidst several students shooting spells at him, was an ANBU. The shinobi spun swiftly in place, creating a shield of energy around him that knocked away the clumsy spells. Knives flew out, thrown so that only the handles struck the students' heads and knocked them out. One ran at him and threw an awkward punch at his head. The ANBU ducked, grabbed the arm with one hand and the boy's waist with the other, and flipped him over his head, sending him crashing to the ground.
The other kids took several steps back from him and scattered in other directions, scaring off any that were thinking about coming anywhere near the 'Death Eater'. Harry walked towards the ANBU but, unfortunately for him, the guard reacted on gut instinct and grabbed him without looking and tossed him down the hall.
From the floor he looked up and saw a white ANBU mask staring down at him. The dove design seemed to smirk at him. Other students hadn't made it that far; a few even lay unconscious on the ground. Harry took in the long, dark brown hair falling down the guard's back and the black and white uniform.
"Dove," he whispered. The ANBU held up his hands, fingers in a weird sign and murmured something. Harry coughed as smoke billowed around him and when it cleared he saw the wizard Dove standing before him again.
"Sorry about that," the redhead said cheerfully, holding out a hand to help him up. Harry accepted it after a moment's hesitation.
"Potter!" someone shouted. Harry turned to see Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore, Snape, Umbridge, and Fox all running towards him. "What happened?" McGonagall asked as they caught up to them. Dove looked like he was just waiting for the right moment to bolt.
"Um… the students thought they saw a Death Eater," Harry said. It was the truth… kind of.
"Why are there children knocked out on the ground?" Snape asked sharply. Dove rubbed the back of his neck, blushing slightly. Fox was the only one that seemed to notice this action because his blue eyes snapped to his teammate and fury burned behind them.
"Dove, what did you do?" he asked.
"Ano… Uzumaki-san, they annoyed me first?" Dove said in Japanese. Fox stomped up in front of the taller ANBU and got right up in his face, not even bothering to speak in Japanese. The teachers had a right to know what had happened anyway.
"Hyuuga Neji!" Dove flinched. Fox was really mad if he forgot to call him by his ANBU name, "It is your job to protect the school, not to hurt the students."
"I didn't draw blood," the ANBU said quietly.
"I could care less if you didn't draw blood. Now they will all think that we are here to hurt them! Plus, you seriously jeopardized our mission. What am I supposed to tell Tsunade?" Fox ranted.
"They didn't see me in this form," Dove muttered.
"You used your real self? Are you insane? I thought that you were supposed to be a genius!" Dove noticed how all of the teachers were watching the display with nothing short of fascination. How often did you see a half English half Japanese verbal abuse session anyway? Umbridge had a sneakily pleased expression on her face. No doubt she was plotting something nasty.
"Uzumaki-san…" Dove tried to speak again.
"No, don't you dare try to suck up to me. I'm not that stupid, Hyuuga! You know what, I don't exactly know how I should deal with this. So, I'm just going to have to do the only thing that will get through your thick skull," Fox took a deep breath and Dove flinched, knowing what was coming. "You get to do detention with Potter-san."
Dove looked at the ground and gritted his teeth. Umbridge was nearly dancing for joy at the chance to torture the one person that she had grown to utterly hate. Harry's eyes nearly fell out of his head. Fox was giving his teammate detention as punishment? Why? He doubted that it would have any effect on the ANBU.
"Did you hear me, Dove?" Fox asked, his voice growing calm again. Dove frowned and drilled holes in the floor.
"Hai, Fox-taicho," he said angrily. Harry could only feel his wrath because his voice had gone completely cold, devoid of emotion.
"Good, you will accompany Potter-san to his detention and take part. That leaves Professor Umbridge to decide how she is going to deal with you. Is that alright with you, Professor?" Fox asked, turning to the toad-woman.
"Of course, Captain Fox, I would never dream of letting anyone get away with harming students," she said smugly.
"Good. I will see you later tonight, Dove." Fox disappeared in a puff of smoke and when Harry turned to look for Dove he found that the guard had vanished as well, small amounts of white smoke drifting around lazily before dispersing. Harry laughed nervously and fled from sight up to the common room. Hermione and Ron probably were wondering where he was by this time already.
Later that day six students were sent to the Hospital wing suffering from various bumps and bruises, having been on the receiving end of an irate Dove's pounding. It was mostly their fault though; they had teased him about his eyes. Nobody teases a Hyuuga about their eyes and lives to tell the tale. He had just gone easy on the kids, partly because he didn't want Tsunade to kill him and partly because he didn't want to clean up the mess.
[Remember the day there was a sign]
Harry walked silently down the corridors towards Professor Umbridge's office. He felt sick to his stomach, who knew what the old bat would do to him? He saw someone leaning against the wall next to the Professor's door. As he plodded closer the shadowy shape turned into Dove, staring at the floor with his arms crossed.
"Hi," Harry said lamely as he stood in front of the door. He had one hand on the handle and it didn't seem like Dove was willing to follow him inside the room. He didn't blame him. It was one thing for a student to get detention but it was completely another for a grown man to have to endure the same punishment as a child.
"Hi," Dove muttered. Yup, he was not in a good mood. Harry sighed; he wasn't going to be getting anything of substance out of him at this point. He opened the door and nearly had to cover his eyes to stop the burning. There was pink… everywhere. Dove peeked in behind him and quickly withdrew his head. Hyuuga eyes are very sensitive and the toad-lady's office threatened to turn them to mush.
"Good evening, Mr. Potter, Mr. Dove," Umbridge said from her desk where she was making herself a cup of tea. "Please come in." She had a smug smirk on her face as she watched them enter the room tentatively. "You will both be writing lines for me today with a particularly special quill that I keep only for my detention students," she said, her evil smirk growing wider by the minute. The two sat down at the desks that were arrayed around the room. Harry was nervously twiddling his thumbs under the desktop and Dove had leaned his chair back lazily.
Umbridge stood from behind her desk and picked up two quills. These she set on the desk in front of them and then gave them each a very long sheet of parchment.
"Mr. Potter, I would like you to write for me, 'I must not tell lies' and Mr. Dove, please write, 'I must not attack students'." Umbridge was about to continue speaking when she noticed that Dove was looking at the quill in confusion. "Is there a problem Mr. Dove?" she asked. He shrugged.
"I've never used a quill before. Do you happen to have a brush instead?" Umbridge turned purple with unspoken anger at his 'impertinence' as she thought of it. She rummaged in her desk until she found what she was looking for. She had guessed that something along these lines would happen. Dumbledore had said that the guards were an odd lot and that it would behoove her to have basic Japanese essentials ready.
She pulled a long, dark brush from one of her desk drawers. Behind her she did not notice Harry and Dove share a smirk at her annoyance. She tapped the brush with her wand twice and placed it on Dove's desk.
"Professor Umbridge," Harry said, "We don't have any ink."
"Oh, I think you will find that you don't need it for this exercise," she said happily as she sat back down. The two looked at each other for a moment before getting to work.
Harry wrote the first line of 'I must not tell lies' and felt a sharp pain in the back of his left hand. He looked at it and found, much to his horror that the words that he had just written on the page came out in blood red because the quill was using his own blood for the punishment. He snapped his eyes to Dove and found that the guard had noticed the same thing, only the redhead was looking at his hand and then at the paper and then at Umbridge in utter disgust.
Umbridge sipper her tea and watched her captives. Her eyes sparkled with malicious hatred for them both. Harry bit his lip and touched the quill to the paper again and wrote slowly and carefully, 'I will not tell lies' and nearly cried when he felt an invisible force rip into his skin again. He glanced over at Dove and felt like he was going to throw up.
The ANBU looked at the brush for a moment, then at the paper again. He put the brush to the parchment and started writing in Japanese down the side of the paper, '私は学生を攻撃してはならない'. Harry's throat constricted as he saw the long string of symbols appear on Dove's hand in blood.
Umbridge turned her attention to Dove and she and Harry watched with growing horror as Dove wrote too fast for the wound to reseal. Blood dripped from his hand onto the desk. He didn't pay any attention to it and Harry went back to his careful writing. There was no way he was going to be able to take the punishment like that.
"Professor Umbridge," Dove said softly. The woman snapped her eyes to him and saw that he was resting his chin on his left hand, the blood slipping down his arm into his sleeve, staining the fabric.
"Yes?" she asked. Harry noted the slight tremor in her voice.
"I seem to be out of parchment." Harry looked down at his own writing. He hadn't even filled a fourth of the page yet. He glanced at Dove's paper and saw that, sure enough, the entire thing was covered in tiny, neat writing.
"Yes, well. Has the message sunk in?" Umbridge asked, salvaging the dignity that had been shattered by the ANBU's reaction to her detention. She shivered when Dove brought his hand up to his face and slowly licked the blood from his arm.
"Perhaps," was all he said. A smirk twitched the edges of his mouth. Harry shuddered.
"Um… well then, I suppose that means that you are finished. Mr. Dove, Mr. Potter, you are free to go." Harry looked at her in amazement. She was letting them go early? Dove stood in a fluid movement and waited for Harry to rise. The Potter boy followed.
As they walked silently up to the common room Harry blew on his hand. Dove noticed and stopped. Harry turned to look at him.
"Something wrong?" the wizard asked. Dove shook his head and held out his hand, still stained the blood.
"Is your hand bothering you?" the ANBU asked. Harry shrugged and was about to keep walking when the guard's hand shot out and grabbed his by his wrist. "Slug will be able to fix you up better but this will do for now." Harry squirmed as Dove's good hand started to glow slightly with a green light and he closed it over Harry's injury. The boy stilled as he felt the pain recede. Dove released him and started walking again, leaving Harry to look at his partially healed hand.
"How did you do that?" Harry asked. Dove glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"I can't tell you but I will say that it is similar to your healing spells. I just don't have a knack for them so that is the best I can do. Slug will be able to heal you completely once we get back to the Gryffindor common room."
"But you are hurt to!" Harry protested. Dove laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh either.
"What? This?" He asked, holding up his hand. Blood still dripped from it onto the stone Hogwarts floor. "I've taken worse than this before. A little cut isn't going to hurt me."
Harry was silent for the rest of the time until they got up to the common room.
[There is an engine in my body with every beat it lets me breathe]
"I can believe you got detention!" Panda shrieked with laughter as she flopped down onto the couch next to Dove. She put her feet up on the table and grabbed his hand, fingering the wound. He pulled away from her sharply.
"Whatever," he muttered. Panda leaned over and got up in his face.
"Poor Dove, always the good boy in the Academy and now that he's old he got a detention." She giggled and leaned back again. Harry watched the scene with interest. They looked like an old married couple the way she was nagging him. He winced as his wound closed the rest of the way, Slug's magic coaxing it along.
"Leave me alone, Panda," Dove sighed and slouched. She laughed and poked his face until he turned to glare at her and swat her hand away.
"So what did the witch do to you? Did you cry?" Panda asked, bouncing up and down in her seat.
"Hardly. But her methods may have potential for Ibiki if the loon wants to brain wash and harm someone at the same time." Panda kept poking him and he sat up straight, sending her a deadly glare. "If you don't stop poking me and leave me along I am going to take away all your weapons and hide them again."
Panda squeaked and vaulted over the back of the couch, hiding behind it.
"There is no need to be so mean, Dove-kun," she said teasingly. "I was just wondering if you cried when Umbridge enacted her so called 'torture'." She reached up and poked his face again.
"That's it!" he shouted and leapt from his place, darting after her. Harry grinned and tried to ignore the pain as Slug finished her healing. He flexed his hand when she let go and felt a pleasantly soothing feeling run up his arm. Dove managed to wrestle Panda to the ground where she was twisting to try and get away. She got one hand free and poked him again then did several signs and disappeared into a cloud of spoke, leaving only a log behind.
Harry grinned as he watched them. Maybe the guards were more human than he had first thought.
[Author's Note]
Song lyrics are copyright to Within Temptation, Cascada, and Cute Is What We Aim For respectively.
