May - heh, I think my parents would have given up by now if my father wasn't as bloody stubborn as he happens to be. Ah, sorry, I meant that they'd switched the colors around-- black outlined in blue instead of blue outlined in black. Blue triangles on the left wrist, black triangles on the right. When I wrote it, I knew that was kinda confusing, but I guess I forgot to go an clarify it. Oops. I have thought about it, and we'll just have to see how it goes. For now though, neither party is interested in romance for various reasons, and if it comes about it'll be a slow process. I doubt he'll switch to school robes, which'll probably put him at odds with the teachers. Voldemort is still a large/powerful player, but he's... not quite the same bad guy as before. Oh such evil ideas I have. =snickers= You'll find out when everything gets explained to Haku and Zabuza.
Strata - You're welcome. Zabuza-san's dream for the MoM is similar to his dream involving the Mizukage-- to over throw the Ministry and set up his own government. Maybe not with him in the leader's position, because that doesn't matter to him. What matters is that he sees the need for change, and has decided that democratic ways won't work with the MoM. Understandable, considering Lucius-through-Fudge seems to run it as a tyranny.
Nytingale - I'm sure that as soon as he realises that she's going off to train with Zabuza instead of heading to the library every day, he'll call her in for a chat. That should prove to be an amusing scene! As for the Chuunin Exam... hehe, I have plans. Mwaha.
DracoStarbo - =grins= She's a ninja, she'll find a way. Yeah, I figured that without Harry neither of them would have had the incentive to become friends-- let alone be the people they were with him there. So I changed them, but I tried not to change them into completely different people. Making them OCs wouldn't be fun. Hehe. =chuckles= That marriage proposal... well, we'd spent a month or two talking ((me in these notes, he in reviews)) and he suddenly popped out with "Will you marry me?". It was amusing, much more so than the threats I've gotten with the stories on my other account. Yessssssss, strawberries are the proper rulers of the earth.
Xyverz - I'm glad that I've got you hooked again. I like throwing people off track, because that's how I get people to stick around. Mwaha.
Black myst - Ooooh yeah. =evil grin= Hermione has a long way to go-- especially to get to the physical level Zabuza wants her at, as fast as he wants it. The pictures were wonderful, thank you!
maleficus-lupus - =taps her chin= Hmmm, I don't know if I can make him 'good', since Draco isn't a good-guy, ever, and is known for being a prat. I could pull some strings for some of the differences that would have occured without Harry there, and play around until he's just... indifferent to people, but I don't know about not making him 'bad'.
Akua - Ah-ah-ah! You will learn what happens to Hermione's eyes later ((although, since we talked yesterday, you can probably guess)). I doubt it for her telling-- this is something she can do on her own, without having the professors hover. I know from experience that when an accident occurs on school grounds when you're little, the teachers spend however many more years you're there hovering and forgetting the fact that you've grown up and taken care of yourself. Hermione, especially this Hermione, doesn't strike me as someone who would enjoy being in that position for five years. Your idea will pop up, although not immediately. I'm still working on the "setting things up" part. You have many questions. They'll be answered... next chapter. hehe!
Kanashii - =chuckles= An amusing image, the one of the twins. I can see them doing that, too. It's definitely painful-- although I think I'm just an idiot when I exercise, since I do it like Rock Lee does. I love Rock Lee, but the way he ((and therefore I)) exercise is just stupidly painful... Nice guesses, but none of those are close. Here's a hint. Only two letters change-- and one of them is the 'M'. Gaara rocks-- I met this Gaara cosplayer at Animethon that was the best Gaara ever; she was so psycho. =pauses for a moment, then snickers= Oh god, I just suddenly had this image of Hermione and Itachi staring each other down from over top of their over-sized collars. Heh.
Chibi-Naru - Ah, okay, sorry, I guess I read it wrong or something. Still, they might accidentally kill Remus if they met up with him in wolf-mode-- they don't know he's a werewolf, afterall.
For Your Dream
Part Ten
The Itch
She had refused to believe her eyes. It had to have been a trick of the light. Squeezing her eyes closed and taking several deep breaths, she felt her world contract around her-- and suddenly she was back to just feeling the presense of those around her, instead of having an unconscious map of the area surrounding her fed into her brain. It was comforting to be back at where she had been.
And when her eyes opened again, her pupils were back. Her pounding heart had calmed.
It was a trick of the light, and nothing more.
Still, she kept to herself for the rest of the night, forgoing even dinner for fear that her eyes might change again. It was not something that she really wanted to consider. Hopefully, she would understand what happened before classes started up again-- or rather, Hermione thought as she pushed herself out of bed the next morning, when the other students returned. The Hogwarts Express would be bringing the students back from their Yule-time holidays that evening, and Granger would really rather prefer that she didn't have to deal with questions about her eyes.
Pain throughout her body caused her to stumble a time or two on her way down the stairs into the common room. The exercises from the day before were seriously taking there toll, and it hurt so badly... but she shook off the pain. She had agreed-- no asked-- for this, and dammit, she was going to go through with it come hell or high water. Hermione used the wall as a crutch as she made her way down to the Quidditch Pitch to go about another day of exercises. She was almost out the door when there was a rather loud bark from behind her. Whirling, the ninja-in-training held a hand to her heart and stared into the eyes of a huge, black dog.
"A... a grim...?!"
"Hermione, meet Scarecrow," Haku's voice came from behind the dog, and the girl looked up. Haku's eyebrows rose as he found himself confronted by pupil-less eyes, "Byakugan?"
Trying to breath properly, Hermione gave Haku a cool stare, but Zabuza's crossing over into the 'range' of her senses had her looking up. Her instructor was just coming down the stairs-- obviously his rooms were further away than the Hufflepuff dorms-- and his laughter cut off her chance to respond to the annoying mist-nin, "Did that mutt scare you, girl?"
"What gives you that idea, Mister Zabuza?"
"Your eyes," Zabuza was smirking, "Bloodline doujutsu are known for coming out due to intense emotions."
She scowled at him, annoyed that he hadn't seen fit to inform her of such the day before. She wouldn't have had to freak out over the strange eyes if she had been informed. She hated being caught off guard-- it was the antithesis to everything she was. Her ability to sense the world around her cut back on surprises nearly one hundred fold. Zabuza was still grinning at her when she stomped out into the snowdrifts just past the doors. The two mist-nin and the nin-dog followed her, amused by her reaction.
Once they were out at the pitch, and Hermione was painfully beginning her "daily" exercises, the girl's mind drifted back to her thoughts from the day before, "Mister Zabuza?"
"What is it, girl?" he had planted his cleaver into the ground and was fighting Haku kunai to kunai.
"What does that metal thing mean?"
Zabuza bent over backwards to avoid a swipe, planting one hand and using it as a pivot to try and sweep Haku's legs out, "What metal thing?" Haku had jumped over his swinging legs, so Zabuza pushed off the ground into an airborne spin, kunai out. The knife rang loudly against Haku's.
"That one you wear around your forehead!" The words were uttered painfully as she slowly moved through her sit-ups. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be doing much actual physical work until she could get through her daily exercises without pain.
"She means the hitae-ate, Zabuza-san," Haku murmured, jumping back to fling a handful of senbon at his master. Several of the needles sunk into Zabuza's arms around the place where Kakashi had planted the kunai over a month earlier. The man hissed in pain-- the area was still tender-- and threw himself forewards to ram his shoulder into Haku's gut.
"I know what she meant, Haku," he drew back, hands flashing through the seals needed to use his Kirigankure no Jutsu. The snow around them began to melt slightly, in order to be fashioned into the all encompassing fog. Though Hermione could no longer see him, hearing him was not a problem, "The hitae-ate is used to denote who is a ninja and who is not."
"So what does the symbol on them mean?" She grunted as she rolled over and began her push-ups, "I've see your lines, Scarecrow's swirlie thing, and an hourglass--"
"Where on earth did you see the symbol of the Hidden Village of Sand?" Haku burst out, giving away his location. Hermione was startled to see the boy going flying past her nose as she went up. Eyes wide, she saw Zabuza touch the ground in front of her for a moment, before he was off again.
"I saw it in the shard Mister Zabuza gave me," she didn't know why, but she felt like she should refrain from mentioning the cute guy with redhair. There was just something about him... it called to her, but it also told her to keep him quiet.
"The symbol," Zabuza's voice echoed from every direction, "is dependant on the village you come from. Haku and I wear the symbol of the Hidden Village of the Mist. Scarecrow bares the symbol of the Hidden Village of the Leaf. The hourglass is for Sand. There are other villages, like the Sound, the Grass, the Cloud... but you have no need to learn of those just yet. Concentrate on bringing your physical body up to the level needed to compete with Haku in taijutsu. We can work on genjutsu and ninjutsu later. Your meditations for doujutsu are to be begun as soon as you finish your exercises."
"Yes sir," it was sighed, but that was more due to lack of breath than anything else. She didn't know what she had been expecting when she had asked for Zabuza's training but this certainly wasn't it.
On a train headed towards Hogwarts, a set of redheaded twins-- both Seventh Years-- let out an explosive breath as they tucked themselves into a private compartment way in the front. Most students prefered to ride in the back, where the rooms were larger, but for now these two were just pleased to have some time alone.
Fred Weasley made as though he was moping his forehead, though he was doing no such thing. George Weasley sprawlled himself out on a seat, allowing a bone tired weariness take him over, "How tiresome..."
Fred raised an eyebrow, "What is it this time?"
George had closed his eyes, "The mana drain is terrible, Gred."
"Come now Forge it can't be that bad!" Fred took a moment to wish he could understand better what his brother went through each day for him, but decided that it was better that he didn't. The older of the twins always looked so worn out when it was just the two of them, and Fred always felt so guilty about it.
George gave Fred a /look/ and the younger twin sighed, crossing his arms, "Okay fine, maybe it is. Look, I could always--"
"No," his brother shook his head, just as Fred knew he would, "We're graduating this year, Fred! We've just got to get used to this!"
"You'll never pass the N.E.W.T.S. if you keep pushing yourself like this!" Fred didn't hesitate to yell at his brother. Sometimes it was the only thing that got through to him, "Look, George, I don't care! You're killing yourself just trying to keep both of us alive!"
"I'm not letting you just... just fade away, Fred!" it was a familiar argument, one of which George could argue in his sleep. He wasn't even conscious of the words he said, mind going over just why they were having the argument in the first place. After recieving the money they had won off the World Cup-- they were lucky that someone had seen Ludo trying to passing them Lephrachaun Gold and informing everyone nice and loudly about it-- the pair had planned to open a joke shop. Of course, they had wanted some truly spectacular jokes for the shelves and had been experimenting.
Well, one of those experiments had gone wrong, and Fred had gotten... well, stuck implied that there was some way to fix it. There wasn't-- they'd been trying for a year and a half, and Fred was still little more than a doll. Sure, he could move and talk on his own, and he had his own mind, but it was all dependant on George. His brother was giving up his own life energy on top of his magical energies to make Fred seem... normal. So that instead of the little six inch doll that floated along around chest height, he had the appearance of a real person. That he felt like a real person, and could interact with the real world.
George was taxing himself keeping his brother as alive as possible, and Fred was terrified that it would cost him his brother. He didn't care that he may have to live out his life as a little floating, talking doll. What he cared about was his brother, and George couldn't seem to see that what he was doing to himself in order to help Fred was only making the younger twin's heart break. It was not a good situation for either brother to be in-- especially since they had been very careful to keep the accident from their parents and siblings.
Neither was particularly pleased with the thought of ending up at the Ministry or Saint Mungos and being turned into human experiments. They'd had enough of that for one life time, thankyouverymuch.
"Look!" Fred's voice finally cut through George's runaway thoughts, "There's got to be a better way, George!"
"Like what? We don't even know where to start looking for information!"
"Then why don't we ask someone who does?"
George blinked a few times, startled by this new twist to the same old argument, "You have someone in mind?"
"That girl... you know, the one Ronnikins is always complaining about. The one who spends all her time in the library?"
"Hemmy?"
"Harmony?"
"Hemery?"
"Eh, something like that," Fred shrugged, "Whatever her name is, rumor has it that she knows where every book in the library is-- I'm sure she can help us! And to top it off, she doesn't have anyone to go blabbing the situation to; even if she did, I don't think she would."
"You know Gred, I think you've got something!"
"I do? I do! Of course I do, Forge! I'm me!"
End Part Ten
Well. That was certainly... enlightening. Fred and George make the sense, while Hermione is keeping Gaara to herself. And I suddenly had this wicked idea for the plot, that I must go off and laugh maniacally for awhile. And then return to pinch Oreo-kun's cheeks and say "Ut-oh! Doesn't look like you get to do what you do!"
I'll leave it at that for now. Mwaha.