Harry Potter and the Legend of the Shinobi
A/N: Sorry for the wait! I've had a busy couple of weeks, especially the weekends. Weekend before last, I went to the Josh Groban concert on Friday, a meeting for my England trip on Saturday, and a ballet on Sunday. And then I spent last weekend obsessively studying for the National Latin Exam, which was on Wednesday. Now that everything's slowing down, I was finally able to finish this chapter. So, sorry again for the wait! And I think the chapter title will give you all a clue about what happens. ::wink:: Happy Reading!
Chapter Ten
The Too Smart Witch
Snow still covered the castle as Dumbledore's Army began meeting with more regularity. Sasuke soon began to despise the snow as it stopped being an enjoyment and started to be a hindrance. The bitter cold pierced his bones and made waking up in the icy tower pure misery. On an especially cold morning, Hermione sprung lightly into the Great Hall during breakfast, far too energetic for the earlier hour. Every single one of her friends glared at her abysmal mood. She handed them all a gold coin, making Ron very excited.
"What's this Hermione?" He said, looking at her with adoring eyes.
"Oh, calm down, they're not real." She said, exasperated.
"Then what are they?" Naruto asked. Sakura examined the large round coin carefully. She immediately deduced that the numbers along the side could be changed, much like some of the information sharing methods used by the ANBU.
"They're a way to contact all the members about when the next DA meeting it." She said, seeming proud of her accomplishment. "Since they move around so much, we needed a way to let the others know without tipping off one of the teachers."
"This is…ingenious." Sakura said reluctantly, somewhat jealous. Hermione swelled with pride.
"Thank you." She said smugly. Sakura grumbled to herself, saved, literally, by the bell as it clanged across the grounds, signaling the students to start their day. Sakura was grateful that Hermione had arthimancy, despite the fact that it meant that Sakura had to suffer through Divination. She was able to escape the girl Sakura had rapidly begun seeing as very annoying. The pink haired kunoichi had a greater understanding for her teammates' rivalry…
The next day, thankfully, was Saturday. The three ninja, Harry, and Ron were procrastinating in the common room when Hermione burst through the portrait hole, gasping for air.
"Hagrid's back!" She gasped. Both Ron and Harry sprang to their feet.
"Really?" Harry said incredulously.
"Ah…who's Hagrid?" Naruto asked.
"Come on and meet him." Ron said, grabbing his cloak. Naruto eagerly followed suit. Sasuke and Sakura both declined.
"I've got homework." Sakura declared.
"I hate winter." Sasuke said darkly. Hermione cast them an annoyingly superior look and left through the portrait hole followed quickly by Harry and Ron, who nearly tripped over her in their eagerness. Naruto waved back to his teammates and followed, closing the portrait behind him. Sakura closed her book with a sigh.
"So," She said with a smile. "How long do you think they'll be gone?" Sasuke smirked back at her.
"Long enough." He said, realizing that they were all along in the Common Room.
The entire afternoon passed without the others returning. It was finally time for dinner.
"I guess we should just go down without them." Sasuke said with a sigh. Sakura looked worried.
"What if something happened?" She said quietly. Sasuke allowed his hand to brush against her wrist.
"Stop worrying. We would have felt if something went wrong." Sakura nodded, following her teammate out of the tower and down the winding hallways to the Great Hall. When they reached the hall, they both spotted a familiar blond head among the sea of black uniforms. It was accompanied by a messy black head, a fiery red one, and a mousy brown wavy one. Sakura grumbled.
"I am going to kill him. Making us worry like that." She said.
"Making you worry…" Sasuke hissed under his breath. Sakura turned to him, her green eyes flashing.
"Did you say something?" She glared. Sasuke just shook his head, shifting over to Naruto. The pair approached the four others, who didn't notice their presence until Sakura tapped Ron lightly on the shoulder. The redhead jumped a mile, whirling around to laugh, embarrassed.
"Bloody hell! You guys snuck up on me!" He laughed again and Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a puzzled look. "It's like you guys are ninja or something!" A collective freeze passed through the three…well, ninjas. It was almost as if time stopped a second for them. Sasuke and Naruto exchanged a look and, against all of her judgment, Sakura involuntarily winced.
The next second, time moved again. Sakura prayed to any god that would listen that no one noticed. Harry and Ron didn't seem to, but Hermione was too observant. She frowned in concentration as the others took their seats.
"Hey, Hermione where're you going?" Harry asked when he saw the witch hadn't moved to sit.
"Ah…I have to go to the library." She said, turning and rushing out of the hall before anyone had time to say another word to her. Sakura spent the rest of the meal chewing on her fingernails and inwardly kicking herself.
Hermione burst into the library, ignoring the looks from Madame Prince. It may be just a long shot, a simple suspicion that won't come to anything. But she decided to look anyways. The witch knew her way around the library like the back of her hand and quickly found the section on World Cultures. She thumbed through the titles, finding several titles that suited her purpose.
The witch read for three hours, pouring over the books she had found. When she had found enough evidence to prove her suspicions, she made a packet of information and with a smug look headed back to the common room.
She found that the three she needed were still up, something she found very convenient. In truth, they were worried about her running off by herself and were about a minute away from panicking, contact Kakashi-sensei and running after her. She plopped down at their table, still with the smug expression that made Sakura cringe.
"So." She said with a smile. "I found out your secret." Silence. A pin could have dropped and sounded like a host of exploding tags going off.
"What are you talking about?" Sasuke said slowly. Hermione's smile was getting on everyone's nerves.
"Sasuke Uchiha." She said, pulling out a copied sheet of paper. Sasuke skimmed it, enough to understand that it was an excerpt from a book…on his family. "And I noticed that fan you drew on the edge of Naruto's homework. It matched the symbol of this clan, the Uchiha clan. I'm assuming, your clan." Sasuke remained silent.
"We still don't have any idea what you're talking about." Naruto said in a final attempt to save face. Hermione placed the rest of her packet on the table. She began her narrative.
"I've known for some time that you were hiding something. There was a certain reaction when Ron accused you of being ninja. So I went and did some research. Who knew there was so much information about the secret society hidden deep in Japan?" She continued, undeterred. "There were several books on the history, but they weren't very recent and all I was able to find in them was information about the Uchiha clan. That might have been enough to convince me, especially having seen the symbol before, but it wasn't enough. I didn't know how common a name Uchiha was and I didn't have any proof for Sakura and Naruto. Who knew, you could have left the society, and I would have been wrong. So I kept looking. I found some information that was more recent, in a sort of periodical form. The names and profiles of the recent applicants to the Chuunin Exam. I was able to find all three of you in there." She sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. "My conclusion; the three of you are indeed ninja. I'm assuming you're here on some sort of mission. And I'm not going to leave this spot until you tell me exactly what it is. I want to know everything. Not a single detail left out." They were speechless. Even Naruto, the most loud mouthed ninja, was at a complete loss for words. Sakura flipped through the information, finding the information on the Chuunin exam they took nearly a year ago. She sighed.
"Fine." Sakura said, prompting a confused look from a silent Sasuke and an infuriated look from Naruto. "Oh come on, you can't say you weren't getting tired of hiding? Of dodging suspicious looks?" Sakura sighed. "Actually this is a bit of a relief." Hermione raised her eyebrows at Sakura. She thought it would be much harder to get the information out of them.
"I guess…" Naruto said. "And I guess we might need an ally sometime soon." Sakura nodded.
"My thoughts exactly. Okay, you want to know everything?" She smiled wryly. "You sure you can handle it?"
"Sakura…" Sasuke hissed in a warning voice.
"No." The kunoichi said, locking eyes with Hermione, who was almost regretting her decision. "She wants to know, I'll tell her." With that, Sakura launched into her own narrative. By the end of it, Hermione was nauseous, Sasuke was gripping the table like he was going to fall away, and Naruto was smiling widely. He had injected some of his own hero tales into Sakura's story, which was truly every detail of their lives. It was also quite a bit…gory. She was now sitting in Hermione's previous position, the same smirk gracing her lips. Her smile widened at Hermione's diaphoretic state. "Was that enough information?" She said. Hermione nodded.
"So…we're going to die?" She said, trembling.
"Not if we can help it!" Naruto said smiling. "We promise to protect you!" Sasuke was calming down.
"Naruto's right. Nothing's going to happen. We've got some of the best resources and talents on our side. Don't panic so much, you'll give it away." He said, releasing the table. Sakura nodded.
"That's the other part. You can't tell anyone about this." She said. Hermione looked at her, shocked.
"We're going to be attacked, and I can't tell Harry or Ron about it?" She said. Sakura shook her head.
"Just let us take care of it. We won't screw up." Naruto assured her. Hermione nodded, feeling overwhelmed.
"This is a lot to take in." Sakura's tone was gentle again. "Go to bed. We'll talk more in the morning." Hermione nodded, still looking green. "I'll be up in a minute." Hermione stumbled up the stairs to her dorm. Naruto and Sakura turned to Sasuke.
"Are you okay?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded. When Sakura said every detail, she meant every detail. There were some she kept out, like the massacre and the Kyuubi, but she spared no detail about Sasuke running and the others dragging him back. Once she started talking, it seemed like she just couldn't stop. It was almost therapeutic to have all of their troubles out in the air like that.
"Sorry." Sakura apologized. "I got carried away, didn't I?" She said with a sheepish look. Sasuke shook his head.
"It's okay." Sasuke said, feeling the same as Sakura. "It felt…good…to talk about it." He gave a small smile, which was returned by his teammate before the three parted, going their separate ways.