A/N: New chapter:D
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Now, on with the story and the longest chapter so far! ;)
Kakashi stumbled out of bed and yawned widely. He couldn't remember what had woken him, but Kami, he was tired. He hadn't been this tired (while conscious at least) since… no he couldn't remember when he'd been this tired. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to go swimming in the lake in the middle of the night, but he had really wanted to see that octopus up close and been unable to sleep.
A knock was heard on the door. So that was what had woken him up. He pulled his mask on and tripped at his way too big pyjamas on his way to open the door. Dumbledore-sama was way too kind, Kakashi thought. He provided food, shelter and clothes, even more than that actually – and he asked for nothing in return. What the old man didn't know was that Kakashi had appointed himself to be his bodyguard to the extent it was possible without breaking his cover – it would be impossible for Kakashi to follow him around everywhere. A kage bunshin would have worked, perhaps, but Kakashi knew that the wizard would not accept it and besides, his chakra was too strained as it were. He hated feeling so weak.
Harry and Ron sighed simultaneously as they waited behind Hermione outside Kakashi's door. She had talked them into going there and 'invite' him to come to breakfast with them after last night. Harry remembered Dumbledore and Sirius' words about 'trying to be nice', Ron remembered the latter's. Both suspected that Kakashi was Hermione's new 'project', and prayed that she'd at least give up on S.P.E.W. now. After they'd knocked a third time, Harry thought that Kakashi might be down in the great hall already – he had always seemed to be done with breakfast when they got down, the door opened. Kakashi stood there looking completely dishevelled. That alone was a surprise, Kakashi had always seemed… well, undishevelled. If you didn't count his hair (seriously, how many thirteen-year olds had white hair?). The mask was in place, as always, Harry wondered where the weird, metal-plated headband had gone. Ron had a theory that Kakashi's face was freckled or something and felt self-conscious about it – hence the reason of the mask. Harry though that the chance that nargles had stolen it was bigger than Kakashi having freckles. Both boys glanced at each other when they noticed the long scar that ran across Kakashi's left eyelid and down beneath the mask. Ron wondered what kind of spell could have caused something like that, and Harry couldn't comprehend what someone so young had been doing in a fight with knifes.
That was when Hermione's… girlyness kicked in, at full speed. She couldn't help it. She knew that Kakashi was technically only a year or so – perhaps a little more, younger than them, but still! It was clear that he hadn't started growing for real yet, he was about the same height as the most first- and second year boys. And he looked so small, and so cute, when he stood there in the doorway with an oversized, striped pyjamas and looked like he'd just woken up. He probably hadn't slept well, considering the black rings around his eyes. Wait, eyes? The left one was closed, Hermione gasped when she saw the scar. Was there an empty socket behind that eyelid? Was that why he covered it? It didn't look all caved in though… Hermione had an urge to hug and comfort Kakashi who she now suddenly had started to think of as a small child, it seemed.
Kakashi sighed. He knew that look. He hadn't seen it in years though, not since he'd made a name of himself. But before (especially during his genin and chuunin years) he had gotten it a lot from insane amounts of kunoichi.
"What do you want?" he grumbled. Ron realised that Hermione would probably say something very embarrassing if she spoke, judging by the look on her face, and clamped a hand over her mouth.
"We were wondering if you'd like to come to breakfast with us," Harry hurried to say.
"Though you might want to change first," Ron added with a hint to the blue and white pyjamas that was currently drowning the shorter boy. Kakashi made a noncommittal sound.
"I'll be right there," he said and slammed the door in the faces of the trio.
Robes were evil. Kakashi struggled with the black, restricting garments. How the hell had Minato-sensei managed fight in this kind of clothes? Perhaps the Hokage-robes were differently designed. There was a tearing sound, which Kakashi in his tired struggle to put the clothes on failed to notice.
"Uhm… Kakashi?" Harry said when Kakashi opened the door again, the headband in place this time. "You might want to change again…" Kakashi looked down at himself. Just great. The robes were only held together by a few, black threads. He turned back into his room.
"One minute," he said and slammed the door again. Great, just great. He realised that he had just destroyed his only wizard-like clothes. Now he was standing with a striped pyjamas and an ANBU uniform. He had a cover to uphold, dammit. He put on the plain, black ANBU issue pants and the skin-tight sleeveless shirt. At least those pieces of clothing weren't completely out of place. He hoped that the slightly reddish bloodstains he'd never managed to wash out entirely wouldn't show if he stood in the sun. Hopefully he was the only one who'd see them since he knew where they were supposed to be. He opted for a second if he should put on the heavy ANBU cloak to perhaps fit in better, but decided against it. He would be cooked in it; the sun was already sending immense heat in through the window.
He looked like a wannabe-ninja; Harry decided when Kakashi came out of his room again. Though he looked kind of cool, Harry had to admit, not as dorky as the figures in Dudley's countless videogames that Harry never had wanted to try out.
Ron just gaped at the shorter boy's left arm. Kakashi was younger than him and had a tattoo, Ron had tried to convince his mother for years that she'd let him have one. And if he would ever be getting one he wouldn't just do some little swirly thing, he'd do something big and way cooler. It never hit him that it might have been just that that had Mrs Weasley so against it.
Hermione, on her side, had to drop the pretence of Kakashi as a child, there was no left-over baby fat anywhere on him, as far as she could see… and that shirt was too tight to cover anything.
Kakashi suddenly felt naked beneath their stares and considered running back into his room and taking the cloak after all. Then he realised how ridiculous his previous thought had been. As if he even cared if they thought he looked weird. He felt more concerned about being too obvious and blowing his cover. Then, for a split second, he thought that Ron recognised the ANBU-tattoo before realizing that it could not be the case
"Are we going?" Kakashi asked when he figured that the staring had kept going for too long. His voice was back in its normal, flat tone.
"Oh, right… yeah," Ron said. Kakashi rolled a visible eye and took the lead down the corridor.
Then, the first bomb hit. It was big, and green, and in lesser time than it took for Ron to blink Kakashi was gone and freezing water flooded his sneakers. The first, green, water balloon was then followed by a pink, then a blue and an orange. Soon the trio were running as fast as they could down the hall, desperately trying to dodge freezing water projectiles. They turned around a corner and darted down the stairs, all of them soaked to the skin, when they noticed Kakashi standing leaned against a wall, completely dry, and Peeves howling laughter turned into a despaired cry. Apparently he was out of balloons.
"You're going to pay, Faceless old man!" Peeves screeched before disappearing with a bang.
"He's not really good at coming up with insulting nicknames, is he?" Kakashi asked with a raised eyebrow. He turned down the stairs again and they all walked down to the great hall.
"He's always made up pretty good ones before…" Ron mumbled, not really knowing what to say. Harry just stared at the younger teen's back. He was shocked, cold, and wet. And annoyed. Sometimes, (okay, almost all the time) he agreed with Filch that Peeves should be thrown out of the castle.
Hermione, despite being as cold, wet and shocked as Harry, couldn't keep from wondering how Kakashi had been able to stay dry, and how he'd managed to get that far so fast, without them seeing him, and how he'd managed to keep his feet dry, the floor had literally been flooded. She really wanted to learn that spell. All water repelling spells that could possibly be used in the way Kakashi seemed to have done took too long and had too many incantations to them to be done that fast. The ones she knew would have you completely soaked by the time you were done if you were surprised by rainfall.
They sat down at the Gryffindor table, Kakashi earning questioning looks from the few teachers sitting at the head table that were used to him sitting by them. Professor Sprout looked extra disappointed, since she kept discussing Asian plants and herbs with him during breakfast. Kakashi had red up on the subject and could actually answer her questions now, even though those answers mostly were monosyllabic, it didn't seem to do anything for her to find their 'conversations' less interesting. The teachers probably wondered about his clothing and the reason why the three fifth-years he walked with were all soaked.
Hermione, wet, cold, and deep in thought fell off her chair when an owl collided with her face – she had completely forgotten her Daily Prophet subscription. She paid the post-owl and gasped when she had folded out the paper.
Harry and Ron leaned in closer, to meet with a large picture of a smiling Umbridge. They read the headline above, declaring that Dolores Umbridge had been appointed as Hogwarts first 'High Inquisitor'. Hermione read the rest of the article out loud, gaining angry comments and then silence as the text claimed that Umbridge had been awarded with 'immediate success' as a response to the new Defence Against the Dark Arts method of teaching and then proceeding to overall bashing of previous DADA teachers.
Kakashi ignored them and ate his toast.
"Well, at least now we know how Umbridge got here! Fudge accepted this decree and forced her on us! And now, now she's gotten the authority to inspect other teachers!" Hermione was almost hyperventilating now and Kakashi looked up too find that she had a facial expression eerily similar to Rin's just before she would send Obito flying. "I just can't believe it!" she cried.
Harry agreed, though in a calmer way, while looking at his hand where the words 'I must not tell lies' were faintly visible. Ron's reaction was the weirdest of all. He smiled.
"What?" both Harry and Hermione asked simultaneously.
"Oh, I just can't wait to see McGonagall inspected, Umbridge is so going to get it."
A second later Hermione hopped up, urging them to hurry, they did not want to be late if Umbridge would be inspecting Professor Binns' class.
She weren't, and as usual, everyone in class got a nice, hour long nap. Except for Hermione, who was taking notes as usual, and Kakashi, who was trying to conjure up a plan so that he could get out of Divinations without earning to much suspicion, or rather, without seeming too weak – he had already promised Neville and Ron that he'd go, Neville had pleaded for help and Ron had begged that he shouldn't leave them if Umbridge happened to be there. Kakashi cursed his stupidity, he should have paid more attention and actually listened to what they had said, and not just agreed.
Umbridge were not there during Potions class either. Harry noted with disappointment that he'd gotten a 'D' on his essay about moonstones, but his essay was snatched back by Snape as soon as he'd given it to Harry. He looked up questioningly, and saw Kakashi looking at Snape with his eyebrow raised, and Snape staring back, with a face looking even more constipated than usual. When Harry got the essay back the large 'D' was exchanged with an "A".
The rest of Potions class carried on without a hitch, and everyone noted surprised that Neville's potion was just as turquoise and thick as Hermione's. Hermione herself, who had been sitting next to Neville, kept wondering why Snape didn't lash out and take away Gryffindor points or even give detention when Kakashi calmly instructed Neville on how to do the assignment, helping him with every step.
At lunch they got involved in a discussion about grades with Fred and George after Hermione had, not so discreetly, asked what they had gotten on their Moonstone essays. Harry thought with guilt about the 'D' that had originally adorned his paper but said nothing about it.
The subject moved on to Umbridge and it was revealed that she had been inspecting Fred and George's class with Professor Flitwick earlier and that she hadn't been too bad. She had just been sitting there, taking notes.
"Do you know what's up with Peeves by the way?" Fred asked and leaned in closer.
"Peeves?" Neville asked.
"Yeah, he'd been acting strangely…" said George.
"…He's occupied the Arithmancy classroom for hours now…" Fred continued.
"…Muttering and drawing up diagrams and stuff on the blackboard!"
"Even the Bloody Baron's having trouble getting him out of there." Fred concluded. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Who care about Peeves? We have to leave for class now," Hermione said, forgetting that the boys had Divinations while she herself had Arithmancy, and that classroom was currently occupied by Peeves and therefore class was cancelled… Fred and George were so kind to point this out to her, which did nothing to lighten her mood.
"Boys," she muttered under her breath. "I just hope you two haven't been testing any more of your… 'products' at first-years," she spoke up. "As a prefect, I would have no other choice than taking points from Gryffindor and giving you detention." Ron looked mortified; she said that she'd draw points from her own house!
"Hermione!" both Weasley twins gasped, playing hurt. "We're not testing anything! We're selling, and they are buying, completely informed and aware of the risks!"
"Whatever," Hermione growled. "You have class," she said and stalked away towards the library.
Kakashi had just seated himself by the same low table as Harry and Ron when the hatch reopened and the disgrace-of-a-toad came climbing out, puffing slightly from the exercise. The suddenly lower volume of talking made Professor Trelawney, who had been handing out some sheets on dream-reading, turn around.
Umbridge greeted Trelawney in her usual, overly sweet voice and confirmed that the Divinations teacher had gotten her message about inspecting the class this afternoon. Her smile as she took one of the puffy chairs and placed it beside Trelawney's made most of the students want to retch. Kakashi was glad that no one did, if they had he would have surely passed out from the smell, since the way this whole tower was… scented, already made his head woozy.
Professor Trelawney announced that they'd keep working with prophetic dreams and pulled her shawls around her more tightly.
"Would you please pair up and decipher each others' latest vision using 'The Oracle'," she made a turn to go back to her own chair, but spotted Umbridge and turned to two girls, Kakashi blamed it on the incense that he couldn't remember their names, Lavender and…? Pervy? No, that couldn't be it…
Umbridge was already taking notes in a speed that Kakashi almost considered lethal while Harry and Ron kept arguing about who should make up a dream this time.
"Well, uhm… Kakashi!" Ron exclaimed. "You can tell us what you've dreamt and we can 'read' it!"
Blood, death, Sensei, Obito, father, as if he would tell them those dreams. He pointed out that he was only there to learn about the educational system, it was their assignment. Ron muttered something about Kakashi being too much like Hermione before Harry made up something about him drowning Snape in his kettle.
Professor Trelawney was only a few tables away and would soon be coming towards them. Umbridge had gotten up now and followed the Divinations teacher around the classroom.
"Tell, me," Umbridge interrupted Trelawney's conversation with some boy, Dean. "How long have you been employed here at Hogwarts?"
"Almost sixteen years," came the reluctant reply. Umbridge asked some more questions about the terms of her employment and then moved onto asking Trelawney of her family.
"So your great, great grandmother was the famed Cassandra Trelawney?" the eyes behind Sibyll Trelawney's round, magnifying glasses narrowed for a second and she straightened her back.
"She was," Trelawney confirmed. Then Umbridge asked if Trelawney herself was the first one to have the 'gift'. She clearly considered Trelawney to be fake. The toad like smile on Umbridge's face grew wider when Trelawney explained with a stutter that the 'gift of second sight' often skipped three generations.
Then Umbridge asked if she could predict something. Trelawney froze. She made some lame excuse and said something about not understanding what the 'High Inquisitor' had meant. Umbridge kept pushing her and eventually she exclaimed, clearly upset, that the 'inner eye' could not obtain visions on command.
"Alright then," Umbridge said, as sweetly as ever, and made a note on her sheet. Then Trelawney, who seemed to become desperate started to speak about how Umbridge were in great, horrible danger while she trembled and pointed at the other teacher dramatically.
"Hm…" Umbridge made another note. "If that's the best you can accomplish…" Kakashi sneezed. He could feel the eyes of everyone else on him. "Did you want anything, Mr Hatake?" Umbridge asked, obviously annoyed that she had been interrupted.
Kakashi didn't know what compelled him to do it. Perhaps it was the heavy incense and perfumes that had gotten to his head, or the fact that he knew that Trelawney wasn't fake. Probably both, his somewhat clouded mind decided.
"Acdually, I did," he silently cursed his nose for being all clogged up. "I know what you think, but Professor Trelawney here really isn' fake."
"Is that so?" Umbridge sneered.
"I'd is," Kakashi kept his voice as flat as ever.
"And you can prove this to me?"
"I can," Kakashi glanced at the students around him. "She said something abou' me the first time I came here."
"Yeah," Ron put in. "Something about some 'son' or something. And a fox..."
"And 'jutsus', whatever that is," someone put in.
"And 'a spinning eye'," the girl who couldn't be named 'Pervy' said in a solemn voice.
"And you are going to prove to me that this is a real premonition how? Exactly." When Umbridge had finished Kakashi rose from his chair and walked around the table. "And since when does Hogwarts clothing regulations not apply to you?"
"You never said tha' they did in the first blace," Kakashi looked up into her eyes. Damn, even this toad-woman was taller than him. "I can't prove the whole bremonition, but some of its true." Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate and opened the sharingan, the three tomoes slowly circling around the pupil.
Umbridge stared into the red eye; the three spinning dots seemed to draw her closer. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Her mind went blank. After what seemed like an eternity, the boy closed his scarred eyelid and pulled down the strange headband. Umbridge shook her head a bit, it seemed somewhat clouded… She picked up her sheet of notes and made a large X all over it, turned it over and wrote 'She's Good' all over the paper. Then she sat down in her chair, the notes lying forgotten on Trelawney's desk, and told the other teacher to pick up her lesson.
"That was so wicked man!" Ron screeched when they all got out of the classroom. Harry was terrified, he hadn't seen it properly, but even a glint of a red eye made chills run all over his body.
"Is it magical, like Professor Moody's?" Hermione asked. Even she didn't see the danger in red eyes, Harry mused. Didn't anyone think? Helloo? Voldemort had red eyes!
"Who is 'Professor Moody'?" Kakashi asked. He knew that it had been a bad idea to reveal the sharingan… stupid, evil, incense. It made his head quit working.
"Uhm, he's an ex-auror who has this weird eye that he can see through things and stuff with!" Ron exclaimed.
"Then, no it's nothing like 'Professor Moody's', I lost my eye and this one is simply a replacement. A combination of muggle technology and magic. It's a new, Japanese thing." He hoped that they would by that story, if he said that it was entirely magical, he had no doubt that Hermione would read up on everything concerning magic and regaining lost sight. Kakashi was pretty sure that none of those books would contain anything about the sharingan.
"That's so cool!" Ron, again. "But why do you keep it covered? I mean, if you can have perfect eyesight, why don't have it all the time?"
"Because my body can't handle the constant drain of energy if I do. So I'm only using it when I feel it's necessary."
"Well, that does make sense," Hermione put in. Kakashi sighed, relieved, on the inside. She had bought it. "It's experimental right? Not many people have got eyes like that." Kakashi made a noise of agreement. He had filled up his 'answer' quota for the day.
The Dark Lord stood by the window, looking out. Long, pale fingers twiddled with the wand in his hands.
"Why is it taking so long?" he asked no one in particular. Lucius Malfoy, the only other person in the room, looked up. He'd been standing there for quite some time now; waiting to obey the Lord's every wish.
"What is taking so long, My Lord?" the head of the Malfoy family asked.
"The old man, he is still alive. Perhaps shinobi are not as reliable as I remembered…"
"Or they are more perceptive than we thought," there was a moment of silence.
"What do you mean?" the Lord's cold voice cut through the silence as he moved across the room and seated himself behind a large desk.
"Perhaps they have figured out that we won't pay them…"
"What?" the word came out almost as a hiss. "What do you mean 'we won't pay them'!?,"
"Well, we have nowhere near the funds to cover such a large expense…" he had started to shake slightly.
"And you were planning to tell me this when!?" Voldemort roared.
"I-I thought you knew!" Malfoy tried to look everywhere but on the man he served. Voldemort groaned.
"This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad," he said, emphasising each 'bad' by slamming his forehead onto the desk. This was so far from the Dark Lord's normal cold, calculating demeanour that Malfoy for a second thought that this was an impostor. He quickly abandoned the idea. No one could have defeated the Dark Lord and then not brag about it. They sure wouldn't take his place and pretend to be him. "We can only hope that they only sent one," he murmured. "And that they haven't figured out how to get past the gap yet… please say that they won't send more" Malfoy was sure now that, had Voldemort had hair – he would have pulled it all out.
"Is this going to stop the plans, My Lord?" Malfoy wondered.
"I don't know, Lucius. I don't know." That was when it hit the Death Eater that Voldemort was as human as any of them.
Harry sat in a puffy armchair next to the fire in Gryffindor's common room.
"I'll think about it," he told Hermione. She had just told him that they (or at least she…) wanted him, Harry, to teach them Defence Against the Dark Arts. Like in a club or something t, so that they could actually learn anything this year. Apparently she had asked around and it seemed like there were others interested as well. Harry sighed. At least he had managed to get through the day without getting more detention from Umbridge.
There was a puffing sound and a cloud of white smoke appeared in front of the fireplace. Harry, Ron and Hermione coughed and tried to wave away the smoke. It cleared away eventually and saw that there was someone sitting on the mat where the 'puff' had emitted from.
"Kakashi!?" Ron yelled. The white-haired boy put up a finger in front of his mouth, signalling for Ron to be silent.
"Peeves can't get in here, right?" he whispered.
"No he can't…" Harry stated with a dumb look on his face.
"Good," Kakashi said with a relieved sigh and turned to the fire, the trio now noticed that he was sopping wet.
"Err… Kakashi, I don't think you should be in here…" Harry tried. Kakashi just shrugged.
"H-h-how did you do that!?" Hermione burst out when she'd finally managed to get hold of herself.
"Do what?" Kakashi wondered, his back still turned to them.
"Apparation! Inside the castle! That's supposed to be impossible!" Though she did wonder where that smoke had come from…
"You sure?" Kakashi asked flatly. "It seemed to work fine to me," he had decided to play along, and pretend that he'd used magic. Ron interrupted Hermione when he noticed that a very… pink colour started to cover Kakashi's hair out from the roots.
"Kakashi…" he said reluctantly. The younger boy turned halfway around and looked at him. "Your hair is kinda'… pink." The look in Kakashi's eye chilled Ron to the bones. He was so glad he wasn't Peeves right now…
A/N: Thanks for reading!
It would be nice if you'd let me know what you think... ;P