The first week was rather boring. Professors spent the first two days mostly just going over the syllabus and explaining in depth what they would be learning about and what their expectations were as instructors. Sitting in the dining hall eating with the other slytherins every day, he couldn't help but get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach looking around.
Why are there so few kids? There's just 40 per year, maybe 300 students total. Even the Academy had more than that, and we're just one village. The other two schools are small, private schools with expensive tuition, so as this is the only public school I expected it would have the amount of students equal to if all the Five Great Nations combined their academies, cause it serves all of the European region. Did the war against Lord Voldemort really cause that many civilian causalities? Where were the aurors to protect them? The castle is so big, and there are only as many teachers as there are floors. Entire wings are going unused. Why? Are they not as peaceful of a society as they appear to be on the surface, with all those domestic spells on the Charms syllabus? This kind of population drop is on par with that of the Third War.
He wondered if it was like his own village's Academy during and after the Third War. His graduating class was small, especially in comparison to what he knew Sasuke and Naruto's would be like. Lots of clans had babies in the wake of the end of the Third War in April of that year. Conflict like with Kumo was normal, but a full-scale war between all the nations was not. That's why the mandatory minimum Academy entry age and the minimum age restrictions for the genin exam were temporarily revoked during the Third War, so they could put out more genin on the battlefield.
TIMESKIP
Classes were going alright. All he really seemed to do now was go to class, get lectured and do the exercise, read textbooks and write papers. It was a lot like being back at the Academy, which was concerning cause he found the Academy classroom time so boring. That's why Tenma-sensei was always yelling at him and Kaito-kun and assigning them detention because they were always goofing off and playing pranks and calling it training. Because trying to catch the teacher in a trap prank while he was teaching was the closest thing they could get while being lectured about things they already knew. And this was after Sandaime-sama moved him up from year 1 to year 4 so he could be in Kaito's class.
Only some of it looked like something he could bring back for Sandaime-sama. Potions and herbology for sure, but other topics he wasn't so sure about, like the animagus transformation and spells. It would be easier if he could consult a Hyuuga and see how much his and a regular shinobi's chakra network differed when they did spells. He'd read some magical theory books from Theo's bookshelf and still nothing answered the nagging questions he had. Could a regular shinobi do magic, too, because they trained to increase their reserves? Did magic pull from just chakra's spiritual energy component, or was it a separate network or addition altogether, like the Uchiha and their unique chakra pathways from the brain to their eyes? From what he could see, and from what he had read, their wand was a lot like hand seals – necessary for focus, molding, and directing power but not entirely mandatory. He wanted to try it out when he learned more – could he get to the point where he didn't even need a wand or spell name to do a spell? Then he could use it in battle, and it would really be worth coming here. It would be even better if normal shinobi could do that, but he wasn't sure. Maybe it would be like giving a non-Uchiha the sharingan.
Training was going well, or at least as well as it could. He'd asked Prefect Rosier about it at dinner after his first day of classes, and he told him about something called the Room of Requirement. Ever since then he'd woken up at 5am, jumped up the moving staircases to the 7th floor, and trained in the Room of Requirement. It could call up any training field he imagined, no matter how big or how complex the course was. Really, it was better than home in some ways because the room could call up holograms for him to fight, he just didn't have a real life sparring partner.
He'd written to Sandaime-sama about it using the enchanted scroll, and he said he would send someone to spar with him on weekends, he just had some stipulations. He had to call them shinobi-san, they had to come under a henge, and they had to come, drop the henge and spar, then put it back up and leave cause if they were seen that was a security risk too.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry about not updating! I promise, this isn't abandoned. I just have a habit of only writing when i'm inspired and in the perfect mood, which doesn't happen often. This is what i have written. I know its not much, sorry.
I got stuck because I didn't know how to approach writing the interaction of the Slytherin boys and Shisui. So to deal with that I started yet another fanfic, Make Them Hurt, and promptly got stuck on that one three chapters in trying to figure out how to develop Harry's relationship with the Dursleys. I have more planned for this chapter, believe me, its just about writing it out.
I'm debating something, though. Should Year 1 be an introductory year with no major 'save the world' plot like in the books, or should Year 1 have some sort of plot going on in the background in which Albus expects Shisui to step in and save everyone to test him? Because there's also the problem that I need Shisui to grow from looking at this as a mission to becoming attached to the people and to the school. Bear in mind, I have Konoha-based plot points that will soon come into play as well. I've been hinting at them.
