"Did you hear?"
"Yeah I can't believe it!"
"And she's a Slytherin too."
"Wow!"
"Quiet! Here she is now!"
The two chattering first years squeaked, disbanding and running off to their separate classes. Temari smirked, thoroughly enjoying the attention. It was so surprising how in just one period, the word had spread around the whole school. I thought it would have at least taken until morning. Man things around here travel fast.
"So Temari, where do you want to go next? We could go back to that common room place, or should we go look into one of the classes. It says on the scrolls we got that we're allowed to." Kankuro said extremely quickly. Temari laughed inside her head. He can talk even faster than me, man he is such a girl. I'm just waiting for the day he starts saying 'whatever.'
"Okay, I've wanted to check out how these people summon things here anyway. Are you coming Gaara?"
"No," Kankuro and Temari visibly froze. "I've also wanted to look around here myself." His siblings looked at each other hesitantly.
"Al-alright, we'll meet you at dinner. Make sure you don't attract attention to yourself." Temari spoke up.
"Yeah, Temari already attracted enough. We don't want to give the sand village more of a bad name do we?" Kankuro added.
"Hn." Gaara turned around and walked off.
"Y-you don't think he'll really do anything, right?" Kankuro said weakly.
"I'm sure he won't." Temari hesitated "He doesn't do that so much anymore. Not since you know what happened at the Chuunin Exams."
"Mmm, well, c'mon. We should probably get to whatever class we're watching in on."
--
Harry walked into the walked into the classroom yanking his robes straight and plonking down in his seat, piling his books up in front of him. The rest of the class came in in drips and drags, chattering away happily, when they heard,
"COOL!"
Harry, along with everyone else looked up to the source of the voice that Harry vaguely recognized as one of the new ninja at the Gryffindor table. Naruto and Kiba stood at the front of the class staring at Lockhart with a look of pure amazement on their faces.
"And that is just briefly how I defeated the Waggawagga werewolf. But I'm afraid if you want the full version you'll have to read my book Wanderings with Werewolves." He gave them a roguish wink that made them, along with all the other male students want to retch. "But now if you excuse me for a moment, hem hem." The class went silent as he walked up the front, picking up one of Neville's books.
"Me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, third class, Honorary Member of…" as he continued his little speech, the two ninja stood watching.
"So Naruto, think he's a poser?"
"Defiantly, I mean honestly, who does he think he's fooling?"
"Those girls by the looks of it." Kiba stated referring to the swooning groups of girls scattered throughout the crowd, all of them dreamy eyed and obviously not really paying attention.
"Doesn't seem that pretty boy's getting to any of the guys though, that's for sure." Naruto added gesturing to the rest of the crowd, filled with snickering boys, scribbling on the pictures of Lockhart in their books and generally not paying attention.
"Hey what's this?" Kiba picked up a spare test paper, the rest of which Lockhart was handing out. He snickered, "Hey Naruto check this out,"
"Who does this guy think he is, seriously?"
Kiba smirked evilly. "Should we?"
"I'm way ahead of ya," Naruto whispered, already scribbling down a fake name…
--
Half an hour later, Lockhart went around and collected everyone's tests, including Kiba and Naruto's, which they snuck on top of another student's just as he passed. As he reached the front he started rifling through them, tutting and pointing out the students mistakes.
"And I'm afraid that one of us may need to spend some study time with me after class. Contrary to this one student's answers, the book, Holiday with Hags, was not set in the teachers lounge," a few stifled chuckles was heard throughout the classroom that Lockhart didn't seem to notice. "And my middle name is not Francine, in fact, I think that Miss Poser might have to stay in with me for a private lesson some time, where is Miss Poser, anyone? Ima Poser?" The entire class erupted in laughter, some falling off chair, no one noticing the two ninja high-fiving in the background. Lockhart flushed red realizing his mistake, but recovered quickly.
"Alright, alright, that's enough," he said putting his shining smile back on as everyone calmed down a bit. "A bit of harmless pranking, I hope you know that I was prepared for that, I was quite the prankster myself when I was your age too you know" he gave them another wink before returning to his lesson plan, not seeing Kiba and Naruto pretending to retch behind them.
--
Gaara wondered the halls alone, the few students who did pass them becoming petrified and dashing off quickly. He took no notice of the familiar sight and continued on his way, listening and watching carefully for any clues of what he was looking for.
Yes, turn here, we're getting closer now.
Listen, what exactly are we looking for here?
I'm not sure; I only sense the power not what the object or thing actually is.
Hn,
Gaara turned the corner and continued up one of the many turning steps stopping in front of a portrait of a fat woman in a pink silk dress.
"Password?" she said sounding as scared as the surrounding painting looked.
"Wattle bird" The portrait swung open revealing the warm common room behind.
"Awesome!" someone yelled.
"Brilliant!" two voices chorused.
"Bloody hell!"
"Thank you, thank you!"
Gaara walked in to see Naruto and another one of his friends who he did not know the name of celebrating with all the other Gryffindors, well, just the boys by the looks of it. All the girls sat apart glaring at them and whispering to each other.
"Come on Hermione, you know it was just a joke, I mean- bloody hell!"
Every eye in the room turned towards Gaara, who just stood there emotionless as usual. Lavender Brown gave a frightened squeak. Every face fell at his arrival, except one.
"Gaara! Hey buddy!" Naruto bounded over to the human ice block known as Gaara, wrapping his arm around his neck, causing everyone else in the gasp. Not just the fact that Naruto had just touched the homicidal Gaara of the Sand but also the fact that Gaara made no move to even so much as push him off. Instead he just looked at him, with the tiniest expression of surprise passing across his face for only a nanosecond. "I was just telling everyone about how we just pranked that pansy Lockhart. Did I tell you about it?"
"Surprisingly, no, although I overheard some other Slytherins talking about it." Gaara replied, moving his gaze up to the staircase leading to the Girls Dormitories.
It up there!
I can't go up there, that's the Girls Dorm.
Well duh.
By this time, most had noticed where he was looking. The girls looked even more scared than before; even Naruto started looking from Gaara, to the stairs, back to Gaara, and back to the stairs again.
"Hey Gaara, what are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Gaara stated quickly be fore looking back around the common room. Frightened faces surrounded him.
"Hey, why'd you come here anyway?"
"No reason, just looking. I'll be going now." He turned and headed to the entrance, the atmosphere still thick with tension. As the portrait door closed again, Ron broke the silence.
"Are, you, BLOODY MENTAL!"
"Huh?" Naruto turned toward the certain red head staring at him with a disbelieving face. "What?"
"You!? Gaara?! What just happened?! You walked up to him and just wrapped your arm around him and talked to him like he was your friend!"
"Well he is! Do you have a problem with that?" he said suddenly getting into a defensive mode.
Ron faltered "I mean, no, but, uh" he stumbled his words looking around for help.
"I'd have to say that I agree with Ron on this one Naruto." Kiba spoke up. "Gaara's not exactly the kind of guy who makes friends with people." Those around him nodded in agreement.
"I don't care, I'm his friend, or at least as close as anyone will ever get." Naruto looked down. "You don't know Gaara like I know Gaara. Now if you excuse me, I'm going out to start some training. See you in Kakashi's class later." And with that Naruto walked out of the Common Room. Everyone was silent for a few seconds.
I wonder what got to him, was as Harry's only thought as he set off to his next class.