I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter!
Rock Lee was not as oblivious as his teammates thought. Sure, he could be a little eccentric at times, but he was very observant. When Neji and Tenten came back from the broom closet, Lee pretended not to notice how they stood just far enough from each other to be proper, but much closer together than they had to be. Lee also noticed how Tenten would glance at Neji then look back at her weapons, then Neji would glance at Tenten before going back to his meditating.
But at the moment, he was watching Harry Potter teach his classmates magic. Of course, living in a magical castle for the last few months had definitely been strange for Lee and his two teammates, it was stranger still to see them preform such spells. Lee had only sat in on Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures classes, while Neji had watched Potions and Charms, leaving Tenten with Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration. Anyways, Lee had not seen much magic during his time at Hogwarts, so he was amazed at the spells that were cast in front of him.
The students and Harry Potter were all so youthful. As Gai-sensei would say, they are in the springtime of their youth. They must burn with passion until they can burn no more. Although, thinking about Gai-sensei only made Lee miss his green spandex training suit and overly intense training sessions. Once Harry Potter was done with his lesson and the other students were done practicing, Neji walked up to Harry Potter. "My teammates and I would like to contribute to your lesson, if you would let us"
Harry Potter nodded, and Lee followed Tenten to where Neji stood in front of the students. "We are here to help you grow in passion and youth!" Lee shouted.
Many of the students widened their eyes. They talked amongst themselves for a few moments before Tenten spoke. "He means that we're going to teach you another kind of defense. This is a kind that doesn't require wands or spells, but rather your body"
"Why would we need to know something like that?" A girl asked. She had dark hair and wore a blue and copper Ravenclaw tie. She seemed to be challenging Tenten, which was something Lee could not stand for. If he could not protect his teammates, he would run fifty laps around the castle on his hands, if he could not do that, then he would subject himself to one of Neji's talks about fate, and if he could not do that he would spar with an angry Tenten to help her get her anger out.
"You must know to increase your youth! Also, if your wand breaks or is taken from you by the enemy, you must know how to defend yourselves, no?"
"Let's just start. I want you all to pair up. If there's an extra person, let me know. They'll partner with me." Tenten turned back to look at Lee and Neji. Neji nodded in conformation.
The students all hurried to partner with their friends, and once that was done, the brown-haired girl from earlier stepped forward. "I don't have a partner" she said.
Tenten nodded –Lee knew she was smiling, but only he and Neji could tell –and stepped beside the girl. "Ok, we're partners then. Bird and Tiger, you guys demonstrate then walk around and make sure everyone's got the technique. Ok?"
"Of course, Dragon! I will not let you down!" once again, Lee opted for his 'Nice Guy' pose that he had learned from Gai-sensei.
The two girls stepped back, and once the two ANBU had their full attention, Lee and Neji demonstrated a few kicks and punches. "You want to keep your opponent from attacking you as much as possible. I want one partner to attack using kicks and punches, and the other to defend themselves as best as they can, understood?" the students all nodded respectfully under Neji's powerful gaze.
The students started the exercise, so Neji and Lee walked around to help the students. Most of the students struggled, having used wands their whole lives, but a few were actually fairly youthful in their endeavors. After Lee finished checking up on each pair, he walked over to his youthful teammate, Tenten, and her student partner. Lee could easily tell that Tenten did not have to put much effort into defending herself from the girl, simply side-stepping and shifting her weight to avoid various attacks. But then, Tenten was a part of Team Gai, so she had had extensive training in Taijutsu. Lee would have been genuinely surprised if the girl had been able to land more than a few hits.
Hermoine panted during her spar with Dragon. This girl was really good and it seemed like she didn't put much effort into avoiding Hermoine's attacks. It was frustrating, to say the least. Hermoine had taken self-defense classes during the summers and winter holidays for years, but she felt severely inadequate while sparring with Dragon. Of course, the three masked guards were hired to protect Hogwarts, so they were probably all trained extensively to handle all kinds of situations that could possibly happen during the school year.
Once they were done, Dragon patted Hermoine's shoulder. "You did pretty well. I'm sure you'll really improve over time" it was almost as if the girl had known what Hermoine was thinking. Was that something that had to do with the masks they wore? It helped them read emotions (A/N: Well, no, but that would be cool, right?)?
"Thank you, Dragon" Dragon waved and walked towards Tiger and Bird. Hermoine smiled a little and looked for Harry and Ron. She had a few theories about the guards to discuss with her two best friends.
Hermoine sat in the Gryffindor common room with Harry and Ron. "It's just weird, is all I'm saying. Really, who are these guards? Where are they from? What do they even look like? And I know that Tiger, Bird, and Dragon aren't their real names either." At Ron and Harry's confused faces, Hermoine decided to slow down a little bit. "I overheard Tiger almost call Dragon a name besides Dragon. It started with a 'T', but he didn't get to finish because she yelled at him."
"Ok, but that doesn't explain much, Hermoine"
"I'm getting to that, Ronald!" she sighed, took a breath and continued. "They wear strange clothes for wizards, but they may simply be from another country. I'll have to look into it. I'll meet you in the Great Hall for dinner." Hermoine left the common room and headed towards the library.
She searched through the maps and books about other countries, but she couldn't find anything similar to the three strange guards. After a while, someone sat across from Hermoine. She looked up to see her roommate, Lavender Brown. "Hello, Lavender. Do you need something?"
Lavender smiled. "Yes, actually. Parvati and I were wondering if you think Bird is cute"
Hermoine raised an eyebrow. "Isn't he far older than us, Lavender?" she asked, feeling annoyed at being interrupted.
"Well, yes, but he's cute. And so, foreign, especially with that accent"
"Accent?"
"Yeah, he sounds Japanese, but only faintly. You'd have to know the language to tell. Well, I have Divination homework, see you later, Hermoine."
"See you later" Hermoine bolted from her seat as soon as Lavender left. She put all of her books away and looked in the section about Japan. There were only three books, and one was a Japanese-English dictionary. Hermoine grabbed all three of the books and brought them back to her table. She flipped through the pages until she found an old newspaper, titled "The Hidden Continent: Is it Real?"
"What is this?" Hermoine asked herself. The article was written in Japanese, so Hermoine put the dictionary to good use. It was hard to understand and definitely not poetic, but Hermoine sort of understood.
Just off the coast of Japan is a fairly large, yet hidden, island. This island has been fabled to be the home of ninjas, which are a strange society of warriors that use strange magic. Recently, there were huge explosions heard from the site, and the island was visible to the naked eye for almost three hours! It is still unknown if there really is a strange society of warriors living on the island, but (continued on page 12). Hermoine desperately flipped through the newspaper, but was unable to find the rest of the article.
"Ninjas… What if the guards are ninjas?"
Hey Readers! Sorry this is so late, but I've been super busy with school and sports. I've barely had any time to read or write this past week! Also, I'm probably only going to update once a week during the school year, but I'll try to write two chapters if I can. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Le me know what you thought!
~Nerd
QoD: If J.K Rowling wrote a book about the Marauders at Hogwarts, what do you think it would be called?
AoD: I personally think that 'Lily Evans and the Annoying Boy That Won't Leave Her Alone' would be a great choice (PS. My friend and I came up with that a few weeks ago during a Harry Potter movie marathon).
PSS. How cool would it be to have seven books about the Marauder Era at Hogwarts, with each book from a different perspective (ie. One from James', one from Sirius', one from Remus', one from Peter's, one from Snape's, one from Lily's, and some other random student?)