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Recca Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter Ten
An Appreciation Omake/Sequel
By Aleh
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The minutes after Recca's reunion with his old friend passed in a whirlwind. The green-haired weapons peddler vaguely remembered excusing himself from the compartment and leaving his baggage in Mike's care.
It wasn't like he was worried about someone stealing his things -- that was what the security system was for. Of course, Recca wouldn't settle for anything but the best, which was why his "security system" involved a liter bottle of sarin, fifty kibakufuda, seals containing several metric tons of explosives, and a few magical backups from a rather interesting book entitled "5001 Absurdly Nasty Magical Traps" written by a retired American brigadier named Xavier Plosive.
Recca figured that it would be enough to keep out a few schoolchildren. The real trouble had been ensuring that the traps wouldn't also get people Recca wanted to keep safe... such as Minato.
The next thing Recca knew, however, he found himself being shoved into another one of the train's compartments. "Here he is," Minato quickly shouted, ducking his head into the compartment... before he suddenly vanished in a burst of familiar yellow light.
Quickly regaining his balance, Recca looked around and briefly surveyed the inhabitants of the room. It only took a moment for him to catch sight of the youngest of them and for his breath to catch. The sight before him was utterly unmistakable.
Sitting next to a fairly nondescript red-haired boy and across from a bushy-haired brunette, a painfully familiar girl stared into his ruby eyes. Straight, black hair, cut to shoulder length, framed her sapphire purple eyes. Her willowy frame was hidden by Hogwarts robes, but they did nothing to conceal her identity.
"Hotaru-chan?" Recca gasped.
"Recca-san?" she returned, quiet desperation laced through her voice.
"Yeah," the former shinobi answered. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Yes, it has," Hotaru quietly agreed before suddenly narrowing her eyes. "What happened? What about Naruto-kun? Is he okay? Minato-kun said that you knew more about what that than he did..."
Recca blinked and straightened, staring at where his friend had vanished. "Damnit, Minato!" he shouted at the empty door. "Get your yellow-flashy arse back here! You don't just dump this sort of thing on me!"
Hotaru's eyes narrowed further. "What. Happened?" she demanded, standing up and grabbing Recca by the lapels of his jacket.
As Recca frantically moved to explain, however, the nondescript redhead who had been sitting silently throughout the conversation burst into the distinctive smoke of a transformation releasing. Hotaru released Recca and sat down as if nothing had happened. Across from her, the bushy-haired brunette started giggling. Hotaru soon joined in.
Recca quickly realized he'd been had.
Recca's realization was quickly confirmed as the smoke dissolved, revealing Minato's grinning face. "You don't really think I'd leave you to face Hotaru's wrath on your own, did you?"
"Now, Minato," Hotaru corrected, smiling slightly, "I'm not angry."
Recca and Minato shared a quick glance. "You don't know of what happened after... well..." Recca pointedly glanced to the compartment's other occupant.
"Hermione is my sister," Hotaru stated. "She is aware of our life in Konoha and how mine came to an end."
Recca blinked, taking in the appearance of the latest entrant into his "must protect" list. "My apologies, then," he stated, bowing slightly towards her. "I didn't mean any disrespect; I was simply overwhelmed to see Hotaru again after so long..."
"I understand," the girl answered. "Hotaru has told me quite a bit about you. To tell the truth, she hasn't spoken of much else in the last few weeks."
Recca frowned. "But why? I'd think she'd be more excited to see Minato..."
"Yeah," Minato agreed, "but she didn't know I'd be on the train, did she? It's not like I show up in major Wizarding history books."
Recca nodded in acknowledgement of the point. "I hope you didn't take them at face value," he told the others. "They weren't exactly well-written... and their idea of historical research..." Recca shuddered theatrically at that bit before reaching a hand towards the sole occupant of the compartment who didn't already know him. "I'm Recca Potter, by the way. Pleased to meet you."
"I'm Hermione Granger," she answered, holding out her own hand to meet the red-eyed boy's. "Pleased to meet you."
"Granger?" Recca asked curiously as he firmly shook her hand. "Any relation to the doctor at Great Ormond Street?"
"That would be me," Hotaru deadpanned as Recca released Hermione's hand and moved to sit down. "Now about Naruto-kun..."
The green-haired ex-ninja opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a familiar voice. "Hotaru-chan," the voice of Kurotsuchi Mikan began in Japanese, trailing off as its owner entered the compartment and saw just what was going on, "you wouldn't believe what ju..."
Recca quickly glanced between the staring miko and his favorite student's reincarnated mother. At seeing the expression on Hotaru's face, the overkill-obsessed weapons dealer promptly reassessed his opinion of the Emperor's eyes-and-ears.
"Hey, Mikan-chan," Hotaru answered in the same language. "I see you've met Recca-kun."
"Y... yes," the black-haired miko stammered out. "W... wait a moment... Recca-kun?"
"Just what did you do to scare her this badly, Recca?" Minato chimed in, leaning back in readily apparent amusement.
"It's actually not my fault this time," the green-haired student protested, ignoring Minato's amused snort. "I just talked to her for a bit. Well, that and I did burn one of her spirit wards after she tried to slap it on my pet cat."
Minato and Hotaru blinked in unison before staring at their friend. "There wouldn't happen to be anything... special... about this 'cat' of yours, would there?" Minato asked after a moment.
Recca shrugged. "Mike's a cat. It's not like he's an undead abomination or a cyborg or anything..."
"That... cat is a nekomata!" Mikan protested before suddenly covering her mouth and staring at Recca in horror.
Minato burst into laughter. Recca soon joined in his mirth, chuckling at the expression on the shrine maiden's face. "I'm not that easy to offend, Mikan-chan! Besides, it's not like you said anything that matters."
Minato, Hotaru, and Hermione all started chuckling at the look of dumbfounded shock that Mikan wore at that, although Recca's mirth had since subsided.
Much to Recca's surprise, however, Hermione decided to stand up at this point. "My sister and the others really need to talk about some things, Mikan-chan," she stated, walking to Mikan and lightly tugging on her arm. "Shall we leave them alone for a while?"
Recca could only give the bushy-haired girl a grateful smile as she led the person he least wanted to hear the upcoming discussion away from the compartment. "Now where were we?"
Hotaru's left eyebrow twitched slightly. "Naruto-kun," she simply stated.
Nodding his head in acknowledgement, Recca started to spin his tale. He'd barely gotten through the events of the Kyuubi's sealing, however, when they were again interrupted.
"Anything off the cart, dears?" a smiling woman asked, carrying a cart of...
"Ooh, candy!" Recca cheerfully exclaimed. Not only was she carrying sweets, but they were ones he was unfamiliar with!
Hotaru's eyebrow twitched irritatedly as she watched Recca promptly pick out multiple examples of each and every item the witch had in stock. Paying the witch a couple of galleons and telling her to keep the change, Recca sat down and started picking through the spread. "Pumpkin pasty?" Recca asked, holding out a treat to the youthful doctor.
"Get. On. With. It," Hotaru declared.
Recca held up a single finger in a hushing motion. A few seconds later, he lowered it. "Right. She should be out of easy hearing range by now."
Hotaru's eyebrows stopped twitching as she cocked her head sideways. "You've changed," she observed.
Both of the male inhabitants of the compartment solemnly nodded. "Yeah," Recca confessed. "A lot's happened. Now... where were we?"
Recca never recieved an answer to his question. Right then, showing truly abominable timing, three boys entered the compartment. Recca instantly recognized the middle one as the pale-faced wanker he'd met at Madam Malkin's. Looking at Recca with far more interest than he'd shown at the robe shop, the boy spoke up. "Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Recca Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, isn't it?"
"Yes," Recca agreed, noting that the two heavy and thickset boys to either side of him were trying to look intimidating. To the trained assassin, however, they merely managed to look pathetic.
"Oh, this is Crabbe and his is Goyle," the pale boy carelessly remarked, having taken note of Recca's gaze. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."
Recca silently used a genjutsu to communicate his thoughts to Minato.
It wasn't the sign above Draco's head labelling him the "Dragon of Bad Faith" which made Minato chuckle. It was the twin signs above Crabbe and Goyle's heads which labeled them "Catamite #1" and "Catamite #2" which did that.
"Think my name's funny, do you?" Draco responded, completely misunderstanding the source of Minato's mirth. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all about you. Tell me, Weasley, who did your mother sleep with to-"
Draco's little speech was cut off by Recca's fist firmly impacting his face. Sitting against the far side of he wall and weakly attempted to wipe the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand. Looking towards Crabbe and Goyle for help, the young wizard noticed that they had both dropped to their knees, shaking as if they were being crushed by an incredible pressure. He had barely noticed this when the pressure came crashing down on him as well, robbing him of his ability to move... or to hold his bladder.
"Now, then," Recca stated, walking through the door, covered by a pulsating corona of power and quite obviously the source of the pressure holding the three in place, "let me explain a few things."
Before Draco could realize what was going on, the green-haired weapons manufacturer was holding a long, twin-barreled object which the pureblooded wizard lacked the ability to recognize. Had he been more aware of non-magical factors, he would have recognized it as a shotgun. He'd have been wrong in the assumption, however -- the weapon Recca was holding was far, far worse.
After casually pumping the stock with his right hand, Recca held the weapon in a single-handed grip and pointed it directly at the would-be bully. "Now let me explain a few things," he stated. "Minato is my oldest friend. We have known eachother for a very, very long time, and literally been through hell for eachother. I will not -- cannot -- tolerate insults towards his family." As Recca said this, the corona of energy surrounding him began to extend down the twin barrels of the weapon aimed at the pureblooded wizard's head. "I don't care how wealthy or influential your family is -- if you insult my friends again, I will swat you like the pathetic little insect you are. Am I understood?"
Terrified, Draco wanted nothing more than to voice his agreement... or at least to nod his head in affirmation. As much as he tried, however, he couldn't so much as twitch his eyebrows.
Recca twitched his finger and a sphere of swirling white energy, a stark contrast to the blue aura surrounding the firearm-esque weapon in his hand, began to form between its twin barrels of his "shotgun". "I said," he stated, his voice all the more terrifying for the fact that he didn't raise his voice even slightly, "do you understand?"
Somehow, Draco found the strength to respond. "Yes," he managed to squeak out, his terrified voice soft yet absurdly high-pitched to his ears.
And, in an instant, it was all gone. The aura surrounding the green-haired boy, the feeling of pressure, the ominous weapon that had been aimed at Draco's head... they all vanished as if they had never been.
"Now shoo," Recca stated, making a vaguely dismissing gesture by waving his hands. "Oh, and you might want to change your pants -- you're starting to smell."
Draco started to scramble away, his goons following him. Smiling and waving casually to Mikan, who was staring at him in dumbfounded shock from a position in the hallway, Recca stepped back into the compartment. Sitting down and casually opening a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, he popped a pink jelly bean into his mouth. Smiling at the strawberry-and-cream flavor, he spoke up again. "That should get them to leave us alone for a while. Now where were we?"
Minato sighed. "You were just about to tell her about the council meetings that followed the sealing."
Recca nodded, not really sure how to tell Hotaru what had happened, but not really having a choice. Grabbing a brown-colored candy from his bag of jelly beans, the green-haired boy popped it into his mouth. "Ooh! Cyanide!" Perhaps understandibly, the other inhabitants of the cart kept their distance from the Every Flavor Beans after that.
Fortunately, however, that was the last interruption in the tale. By the time Recca finished his explanation, Hotaru was emotionally exhausted and hanging tightly onto Minato. At times, the story had forced her to tears. At others, her rage had been palpable. Some parts had made her laugh. Others had made her smile.
In the end, however, Hotaru was grateful to Recca... even if she did find several occasions to slap him with a trout. Recca had no idea where she'd gotten it, but was sure of one thing.
It was damned good to see her again.