And another chapter—I'm on a roll. I'm trying to compensate for not updating in two months…I'm really, really sorry.
Warning: It's a little late, but MAJOR DRACO OOC IN THIS ONE. Like, he's sobbing and stuff. Apologies for any inconvenience.
chibi-me: By the way, this is not a Kankuro/Hermione fic. Kankuro doesn't have a very high opinion of Hermione…he thinks she's nosy and she thinks he's dodgy and frustrating and a meathead.
P.P.S. Sasuke is on top.
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"As many of you have heard, there is a new threat to the wizarding world, one who has joined with Lord Voldemort. Many of you have heard of Orochimaru."
There was dead silence.
"Orochimaru is not your average Dark wizard. Orochimaru does not fight with a wand. Orochimaru is a snake demon, a very dangerous one. You could say that he is also a Parseltongue, and is akin to Voldemort in many ways. He is extremely powerful, both physically and magically." Here Dumbledore paused, his gaze sweeping the room. Everyone's eyes were fixed on him.
"What a lot of you just saw in the fourth floor corridor was an example of his powerful spells and explosives. If you ever, ever meet him—and I sincerely hope that you do not—treat him exactly as if he was Lord Voldemort. Orochimaru is a very real threat to the wizarding community. Currently, he is making a spell which we do not know the purpose of which involves brutally murdering and stealing the hearts of young lovers."
Here, there was a reaction from the audience: friends were drawn closer to each other, hands were clasped.
"If I may now turn the podium over to a few people who have seen and fought with Orochimaru—your new transfers. If you would?" Dumbledore stepped back as whispers started. The ninjas disappeared in various poofs of smoke and reappeared next to the podium (except for Gaara, who disappeared in a whirl of sand) Sasuke stepped up first, and the sound-amplifying spell placed on the podium made the boy's voice echo faintly around the room in a slightly eerie fashion.
"If I may differ from Dumbledore-sensei on one point?" Dumbledore nodded.
"I do not know that much about Voldemort, but from what I can tell, there is one big difference: Orochimaru is a pedophile. I'm sure you all know what that means."
There was a pause while everyone's eyes bugged out.
Sasuke had a straight face as he continued.
"Besides that, he often fights with doppelgangers, which means that unless you have a bloodline limit like me or Neji and Hinata over there, you never know whether you're fighting the real him or not. So watch out for that.
One of his objectives is to gain eternal life. That might be the reason he is doing this—helping out Voldemort, I mean. About the blackbombs—right now, we have no way of knowing where or when they will hit. We don't know how many the enemy has." Unconsciously, he started slipping into the voice he usually used when delivering a mission report.
"Hyuuga Neji and Hinata can see the blackbombs, and they are the only ones so far who can. Evidently, before they explode, they look like small, black shadows, and they move extremely fast. The only current known protection against these is Gaara's sand shield. Once again, to emphasize, be on the alert. That is all."
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Draco stared at the sky.
The sky stared back at him.
It was a beautiful day, Draco thought. Grass swished all around him, a gentle breeze blew across the grounds, and the lake so calm it looked like a mirror, a giant mirror just sitting there in the middle of a lush green world. What few trees were losing their leaves this early in September were out of Draco's line of vision. He should feel like taking a nap, but he didn't. He had too much to worry about. With Harry being at the top of the Dark Lord's Most Wanted list and everything, he had a lot to chew on. He sighed and shifted on to his side. And on top of everything else, there were those new kids. The "transfers" as the headmaster had called them…they were as weird as anything else. He was still in shock about the whole gender-bending fiasco with Hyuuga. He could swear that the (boy, he firmly remnded himself) glared at him every time they passed each other in the halls. God that was freaky. He wasn't sure what he thought of the others, though…Naruto and Sasuke were so obviously a couple, there was no question, and the sister of the redhead was definitely taken—he could tell, but…the others—Hey, he thought, mentally slapping himself, Draco Malfoy! What are you doing, thinking about the sex lives of the weird people! This is not what you think about in your spare time! Get it out of your head! Out of the head! OutoutoutoutoutoutOUT! He slapped himself in the face repeatedly.
"Uh…Draco?...you okay there?"
Draco froze and looked up slowly.
Harry's (as it appeared to Draco) beautiful, warm, sparkling, smiling face shone down at him with ultimate kindness, understanding, and compassion and immediately banished all thought of the weird people from his mind.
"Harryyyyy!"
Harry found himself glomped by the platinum blond, who was sobbing tears of joy into his shoulder and saying things like "My knight in shining armor!" and "I love you, Harry!" and "Save me from the weird people that want to take over my braaaiin!"
Harry made a "wtf?" anime face, then forgot about it and just enjoyed the attention.
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"By the way, Harry, what are you going to do about Ron?" Hermione asked in an undertone as she took some bean sprouts from the dish in front of Neville. Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head on the table.
"I've been really trying, Hermione, really, but he's being a pigheaded ass right now. Not helping is the fact that Draco has sort of sworn enemies with him since me and Ron had that whole fight the day I told him about our relationship…Draco takes every chance he has to snipe at Ron, or showcase our relationship in front of him." He sighed, then looked over at her.
"At this point, I really don't know what to do."
She looked at him.
"I could try talking to him. Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it with you."
"Yeah, could you try that? Thanks a lot, Hermione, that means a lot to me…" Harry cast his gaze around at Naruto and Kankuro, who were arguing because Naruto, in the process of making some wild speech, had gesticulated a little too much and had knocked his hand into what was apparently a delicate puppet of Kankuro's that he had been trying to fix. Why Kankuro had brought it down was a mystery, mused Harry, wasn't a dining table a dangerous place for a delicate puppet?
Kankuro's dark green eyes flicked over to Harry.
"What?" Naruto, glad for the distraction, also looked at Harry.
Harry was saved the trouble of replying when Sasuke walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Naruto with his arm around said blond.
Harry blinked, then smirked and looked down into his cup as the argument soon became two against one with Sasuke on Naruto's side.
Hermione watched Kankuro with a stubborn look on her face.
"What?" Harry asked her, amused. "You seem to be tailing Kankuro a lot lately," he leaned over. "do you like him?"
"What! No! Ew! Ewewewewew!" Hermione batted at Harry. "That's gross! What gave you that idea?"
Dumbledore chose that moment to stand up and clear his throat.
The dining hall fell silent.
"I have the pleasure of introducing more new last-minute students to Hogwarts. They are, along with the other new students, who by now I hope are not so new, (it is September twenty-ninth!) going to be teaching a new class for defense against ones such as Orochimaru. May I introduce Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Ten-ten, Rock Lee, and Sakura Haruno?"
TBC.
chibi-me: There. Now do your lab report!
accolay: Please review!