Carry Our Burdens.
Chapter Thirty-Six.
Arrested.
Edit: 06.10.11
[I feel like a zombie come back to life]
Harry lay on his back on the cold, damp ground of the Forbidden Forest, gazing up through the grabbing tree limbs that clawed at the night sky. He was sweaty and bruised and breathing hard. His whole body felt limp as the adrenaline rush left it. He felt too weak to hold his wand. It lay on the ground by his side, blending in with the dark dirt. There were still sounds of sparring going on around him, punctuated by the guards, shinobi, calling out advice every now and again. More often he heard other members of the forbidden defense club shouting war cries and grunting or yelping when they were knocked away with ease.
Ron flopped down beside him. "These things are getting harder, mate," he gasped as he gulped air like a landed fish.
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "They're getting us ready for the real thing now. Didn't you hear them with Professor Dumbledore?"
His friend took a huge breath of air and let it out slowly. "Yeah, but it's still kind of weird to think... that there's something worse out there."
Harry glanced over at him. "What makes you think it's worse?"
Ron sat up. "What do you think? Look at them," he waved a hand at the shinobi who were fending off students in pairs and threes. "They could kill any of us in seconds. In a real fight we'd be dead meat. If these new guys are anything like them then we'll be toast in seconds."
"Death Eaters are just as deadly," Harry reminded him somewhat impatiently.
"Death by knife seems a little more painful than the killing curse," Ron said bluntly. Then his eyes widened and he snapped his hand over his mouth. "Harry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Harry rolled to his feet, grunting with exertion, and grabbed up his wand. "Whatever, Ron," he said as he walked way, stung by the offhanded comment about the curse that had taken his family away from him. Regardless of how much it hurt, people died one way or another. He crammed his hands in his pockets and side stepped as Fred (or perhaps George) was thrown a particularly long way by Wolf, who was fending off the other twin's renewed attacks. He found a tree that seemed out of a danger zone and slumped down against it.
He was tired. Long days in school, no matter how light the homework was in the evenings (except for Potions, of course; Snape was too much of a stick-up-the-ass to agree to letting up on homework), going from class to supper to difficult work outs to sleep to class was taking its toll on all of the defense club students. They were dragging during the day and almost always tired. It was starting to effect their reaction skills during workouts too. But the ninjas just told them to fight through it, that they might not always be well rested before a fight.
A rustle in the bushes caught his attention and he looked over just in time to see a flying blur rush across the clearing and pounce on one of the two newcomers that emerged from the undergrowth. The blur was Captain Fox and the new person that he was attached to in a back breaking embrace was...
"Dove!" Mouse shrieked in an uncharacteristically loud voice. She left her students and ran to Dove and Panda, who had just stepped into the clearing. Fox let go just in time for Mouse to wrap Dove in a monster hug and bury her face in his chest. He patted her head.
"You're sooner than we expected," Fox said.
Panda nodded. "We allowed for more travel time than usual but it turned out that we didn't need as much as we thought." She looked around at the defense team members who were looking at them in surprise. "You'll have to fill us in on everything that's happened here. All we know is what's going on back home."
Harry had been watching as Dove and Mouse seemed to be having a quiet conversation between themselves while Fox and Panda spoke, lips barely moving while they kept their heads close together. Mouse had yet to release him from the hug and was looking up at his face. He was much taller than her. Panda glanced over at them but quickly looked away as if she had intruded on them. When the rest of the students began to gather around they released each other and Mouse stepped to his side, just barely brushing his arm with hers. She seemed more relaxed than she had been for the past few months.
A movement caught his attention and Harry turned slightly to see Julie out of the corner of his eye. She was shifting on her toes at the edge of the group, her mouth working almost convulsively as if she wanted to say something and run so badly but couldn't. He realized that she was looking at Dove and he was looking at her. He nodded to her, a tiny, hardly noticeable nod, and she suddenly calmed down. A small, peaceful smile tipped the corners of her mouth. The smile was mirrored on Dove's face. Harry saw Hermione watching the girl closely.
"So what are you guys doing?" Panda asked, stepping into the clearing. The students parted almost reverently for this survivor of Voldemort's lair. She planted her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows at Fox expectantly.
He grinned. "Some hard core sparring," he answered.
"Oh, really?" she said. She glanced back at Dove who was watching her blankly. He had yet to speak a word aloud to anyone but Mouse. "I guess we'll just watch this time then." A knife suddenly appeared in her hand, flicking lazily between her fingers. "We'll join in next time."
And so they began again, going off to their respective ninjas to train. Harry and all of the others were acutely aware of Dove and Panda watching them and the tale of their escape from Voldemort's lair, enlarged and glorified in their teenage minds of course, always in the back of their thoughts. These people had proven themselves to the students and they held them in naturally higher regard than the other, as of yet, unproven ninjas. Every once in a while Panda would shout an order to one of the students and they would follow her directions immediately. She took to prowling around among them, expertly avoiding all flying objects and accidental attacks. Dove remained seated on a fallen tree slightly hidden in the shadows of the trees, just watching.
They finished up at midnight, sweaty, breathing hard, and drained. They trooped back to the school in a tired line, expertly entering through a series of underground passages that would get them around the most open passages where patrolling teachers could see them. Harry looked back as they left the forest to see that Julie hadn't followed them. As he passed out of the forest and out of sight of the ninjas he saw her step right up into Dove's arms and hug him just as tightly as Mouse had. Her shoulders were shaking.
[We only got four minutes to save the world]
Naruto and his team sat in a small, comfortable room that had been provided for them by Dumbledore for their personal meeting room after Naruto had complained once that they couldn't get anything serious done in the common rooms. Neji sat on a couch in between his cousins who both looked like they were never going to let him out of their sight again. Tenten lounged on a chair beside the couch, watching the cousins with a serene expression.
"So what's going on?" Tenten asked.
Naruto stood from his seat. "We decided that it was time to stop pretending to be guards, basically," he began. Her eyebrows rose marginally. "We revealed to the defense club that we are shinobi hired to guard the school and we began to train them to attack shinobi with magic instead of just other wizards. We are guessing that Orochimaru is going to have plenty of his people where we end up fighting and we need them to be ready in case something horrible happens."
"You're teaching them taijutsu?" Tenten questioned.
Naruto shook his head. "No, we're teaching them to attack and defend against us with magic. We couldn't possibly get them up to speed in taijutsu in just a few months. We had to rely on their strengths, which would be their knowledge and mastery of magic."
"So why were you all outside?"
"Umbridge found the Room of Requirement," Sakura supplied from a loveseat as Naruto grimaced. "We can't us it anymore because we don't know how safe it is. Dumbledore was kind enough to let us take the children out after school hours into the Forest to train them after we read him the letter about Orochimaru moving his forces here." She rested her cheek on her propped fist. "The most he could do other than that was to tell the teachers to give less homework across the board. We couldn't just keep kids out of class."
"Umbridge is jumping on every little odd thing we do," Naruto grumbled. "She's a huge pain."
Shikamaru spoke up from where he was practically flopping off a particularly plump chair. "Which is why we need the two of you to stay hidden. She will question your leaving and then coming back. It's bad enough that I had to bring my team in. She takes every opportunity to make things difficult for us." He frowned. "It's only a matter of time before the Ministry becomes a huge force in this school and I would prefer to avoid it as much as possible while we're here."
"Of course," Neji said quietly. He was normally a taciturn individual but the level of silence that he had been using since his arrival had made the rest of his team and his cousin's team nervous.
Shikamaru turned a suddenly piecing eye on the eldest Hyuuga cousin. "How are you doing?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected," Neji answered shortly. Everyone noticed the way his fingers brushed over his left shoulder where his Anbu tattoo should have been. The gesture seemed unconscious for him. "Tsunade-sama cleared me for active duty so long as I did not get mortally injured again."
That didn't seem to be the answer that Shikamaru was looking for but he let it go anyway, remembering from his days on the same team as Neji that the other Anbu preferred to be left alone when he was struggling with his life, feeling more confident in controlling it himself than talking about it with anyone else. Shikamaru was a little proud of being one of the very few people that Neji was willing to talk to about his struggles. But now, in front of everyone else, Neji might as well have been mute.
"When do we expect Orochimaru's people to get here?" Tenten asked suddenly.
"A week to a week and a half," Naruto answered. "We don't think he'll try an attack before everyone's –"
An explosion rocked the stone floor.
"What the hell?" Kiba shouted as he shot off the stool he had been sitting on. He ran to the window and threw it open. "Guys. You should come here now," he said in a strained voice. The other shinobi crowded around the window.
Outside, just at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they could see a dim group of people barely lit by the moonlight. They moved among each other, a milling mass of bodies. Suddenly a bright light flared, illuminating several outlines before the light shot across Hogwarts grounds and struck the side of the castle walls. The shinobi were out the window and down the side of the castle before the echo of the sound of the attack finished reverberating.
They separated naturally into two groups, one for each squad. Naruto took the lead of his squad, Kiba leaped to the front of his, growling like a wolf. As soon as the group of attackers saw them coming, the shadows ceased to be a mass of movement and formed into four distinct groups that divided and spread out, forcing the two Anbu squads to each select a target, leaving one group open to attack as they pleased. The Anbu squads wordlessly split into smaller groups, matching the four groups. Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke took one group, Neji, Tenten, and Sakura took another, Kiba and Hanabi darted after one group, and Shikamaru and Ino faced the remaining one. When they clashed it was clear that the attackers had not been expecting the Anbu teams to split among themselves and were not prepared to deal with well-trained, quality warriors.
The Anbu fell on their enemies, dodging swings, deflecting jutsu, retaliating with cold ferocity, and always working in unison with each other. The Anbu never once came in any danger of hitting each other and were often back to back, whirling with each other to always keep their enemy from getting at their backs. Despite there being nearly a dozen enemies in each of the groups, the Anbu were clearly on the winning side.
As Naruto ducked under a wild swing from one of his enemies and crushed the man's windpipe with a swift punch to the throat, he realized why the fight felt so one sided. The shinobi that they were fighting were hardly chunin level. They didn't have a chance of defeating the better trained, more prepared, more ferocious Anbu.
Even as that thought went through his head, out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Neji take a full front kick to the chest and go down with a sharp shout of pain. Tenten immediately took a position over him, both guarding him and attacking while he fought to catch his breath. As much as Naruto wanted to rush over and help, he couldn't leave his position and so had to turn his back on his teammate to keep from breaking rank. The next time he managed to glance over, Neji was back on his feet.
It wasn't until the enemy started to fall back, leaving their dead lying on the dew-damp, green lawn of the school, that Naruto noticed that they had an audience. He turned to congratulate his team on a job well done when he saw nearly every teacher standing in stock at a respectable distance away, wands in hand, faces slack in awe and fear. He looked down at himself and found his clothes torn and bloodied, a few cuts from lucky strikes decorated his skin. All together, he had looked worse. His teammates looked a little worn but hardly anything to write home about. They had taken worse in sparring matches.
"Captain Fox," Dumbledore said, stepping forward. He did not lower his wand. "What is the meaning of this?"
"We were under attack, Professor," Naruto said, "My team neutralized the threat as we are trained to do."
"What?" Umbridge shrieked. "What is this, some kind of muggle fighting?" Her voice was a high shriek, obviously terrified as much of the enemy as of the protecting ninjas. When Naruto took a step closer, she leaned back. "This is an outrage. The children should not have to see this mess!"
"We were doing our jobs, Professor," Shikamaru said, already taking a drag on his customary after-battle cigarette. "You don't have to worry about the enemy coming back. They have been severely weakened by this attack."
"How did they get on the campus in the first place?" Professor Sprout asked, her face white in the darkness. She trembled as she looked at the still bodies.
"They hid themselves well. We did not know they were here until they attacked the castle itself," Naruto admitted.
That sparked talk among the teachers, whispering to each other but always keeping one eye on the roughed shinobi. Umbridge shrieked again. "This is an atrocity! This sort of violence is not tolerated in polite society!"
"This sort of violence just saved your life!" Kiba snapped back. Fighting always shortened his already short temper. "Would you have preferred us to let those guys," he gestured to the dead bodies. Umbridge paled, "come right up to the school and slaughter you all in your sleep? I don't think so." He crossed his arms. "We just did our jobs."
Umbridge sneered at him. "And what would your job be exactly, Mr. Wolf?" she hissed out his name.
"The protection of Hogwarts and its students," he growled.
"And do you think you are protecting the students when you allow them to see this carnage on school grounds?" she shrieked, pointing to the bodies but lowering her hand quickly. She didn't look at the corpses.
"Yes," Kiba snapped. "It's better than it being student bodies out here!"
"Wolf," Shikamaru broken in smoothly, "that's enough. Professor Umbridge, there is nothing we can do about the place that we must fight, only that we must do it. We can take care of cleaning up. The students won't even know what happened. Feel free to tell them whatever story you wish." He bowed and walked away from the teachers, deliberately turning his back on Umbridge. His teammates followed. Naruto bowed to Professor Dumbledore and followed Shikamaru and was, in turn, followed by his own team.
The teachers watched as the Anbu dragged each of the bodies into the forest, not bothering to help with the levitation charm, which would have been very useful; they gagged when Sasuke lit the bodies on fire with a very quick, hidden fire jutsu that consumed the bodies in minutes, leaving on the bones and sickening smell behind. The Anbu had grown used to the smell and wouldn't have even noticed it if it hadn't been for the teachers holding their noses and hiding their faces in their sleeves. Someone was nice enough to cast a scourgify on the grass before the Anbu trekked back out of the forest and made their way back to their room just as the sun was rising.
[Sometimes these cuts are so much deeper than they seem]
As they all slumped in their chairs and couches, Naruto stood in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back. "That was sooner than we expected," he said after a long while, his voice very quiet. "We should have been more prepared. I should have been more prepared."
"It's not your fault," Hinata said. "None of us knew what was going to happen."
Shikamaru said nothing but he would not look at anyone. He just looked at the smoke rising from the end of his cigarette and took a drag on it every once in a while. He sat on the couch beside Neji, who held one arm like a band around his chest where he had been kicked, face blank as he stared off at nothing.
"Those were chunin level shinobi," Sakura observed. "Hardly worth being used as preliminary attack."
"There were good for one thing," Sasuke said cynically, "They showed the enemy how close they could get to the school. I'm willing to be that that was their only purpose. The next group will be harder to find and harder to fight." Sakura grimaced at him and snuggled closer to the edge of the loveseat, away from him. She had a habit of withdrawing from everyone right after a battle, usually not wanting to be touched or spoken to.
"That seems like too simple of a plan," Naruto disagreed. "There must be something else that we're missing. Some reason why Orochimaru would be willing to send his men out so soon, when they aren't all gathered and when they are such a low level. Losing so many soldiers in the first battle engagement can't be good for their morale."
"They're evil henchmen," Hanabi said with a roll of her eyes, "They don't need morale." Ino smacked her over the head. "Ow."
Hinata stepped in, as motherly as you like. "I think we should worry about this after we have all had a few hours of sleep, don't you think?" She pulled Hanabi to her feet. "We can't think like this." With that, she dragged Hanabi off to one of the small rooms that had been furnished with futons off the side of the tiny common room. Ino, Kiba, Sakura, and Sasuke followed soon after. Tenten and Naruto went to patrol the hallways and send out summons to take care of the borders. That left Shikamaru and Neji alone in the common room.
Shikamaru continued to look at the smoke curling from his cigarette. It swirled white, purple, and noxious green. Cigarette smoke had always reminded him of clouds, only shifting much faster and always looking like a sunrise, right before his eyes. It was like time sped up, flickering at the end of the addiction that would no doubt cost him his life if he managed to live to retirement. He snuffed it out on the ashtray that had appeared as soon as he had lit up his first cigarette in the room. It seemed to follow him around whenever he pulled out his lighter.
"Since when do you get taken down by a kick to the chest?" he asked suddenly.
Neji didn't look away from the fire that he appeared to find fascinating. "Since I took a beating to my ribs a few too many times," he answered dryly. "And before you ask," he said, cutting off Shikamaru when he opened his mouth to speak, "yes, I did get an okay to come back from Tsunade-sama."
"A reluctant one, no doubt," Shikamaru deadpanned. "How long did you pester her before she gave in?"
"I did not 'pester' her," Neji answered. "I merely requested to be allowed to return to my mission since I am well enough to fight and therefore do not need to stay in the village any longer when I have an outstanding mission."
Shikamaru snorted his disbelief and they fell into companionable silence for a long while, neither willing to sleep. Shikamaru felt unusually awake and aware of his surroundings. Neji looked as if he was about to pass out on the couch but wasn't letting himself do so. One cheek rested in the cup of his hand as he propped his elbow on the arm of the couch. He slumped into the comfortable furniture. His eyes were nearly closed but every time he seemed on the edge of sleep, he would jerk back awake.
"Why don't you go on to bed?" Shikamaru suggested after watching his friend and former captain struggle with sleep. "I'll stay out here and keep watch."
Neji raised an eyebrow tiredly. "Since when can we trust you to keep watch?" he asked. He stood slowly as if pulling himself off the couch was the most arduous task he had ever performed. "I'm going to bed. Wake me when Naruto and Tenten get back. I'll take next watch. Stay awake," he said.
"Sure, Captain," Shikamaru said.
Neji gave him a little smile and waved him off. "Can't call me that anymore," he said.
The younger Anbu looked away. "Since when do I follow rules?" Neji didn't answer and Shikamaru listened to his footsteps as he went into one of the bedrooms and didn't relax until he heard the rustling sounds of fabric stop and knew that Neji was asleep.
"When did I turn out to be such a mother?" he asked himself.
[Stronger than yesterday]
Harry was eating breakfast, normal as you please, when Hermione ran up to him and flopped down on the bench, shoving a newspaper in front of his nose and successfully blocking the path between his plate and his mouth.
"Look!" she demanded, shaking the paper.
He took it from her hands to avoid being slapped in the face with it and glanced down at the front page. There was a picture of Hogwarts and beside it, a picture of Captain Fox and his team obviously taken when they weren't paying attention. The picture people moved every once in a while but, for the most part, appeared to be talking to each other and not walking around much. Not one of them looked out of the photo. After noticing the pictures, Harry read the headlines:
"ATTACK ON HOGWARTS – 'GUARDS' SUSPECTED."
"You're taking too long," Hermione said, jerking it out of his hand. "Listen." Ron appeared suddenly. "Oh, good, you're here. Sit down and listen," she demanded. He sat without comment and began loading his plate. Hermione read:
"Just after midnight last night, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was supposedly attacked." She skipped a few lines. "Although hired school guards claim that the attack was created by Voldemort's followers, authorities have come to believe that the guards themselves perpetrated the attack and are attempting to cover up their failure." She skipped more lines. "One guard has been taken into custody." She speed read the next few lines and read the last, "There is no word yet on how Headmaster Dumbledore is dealing with this attack or whether he will fire his guards."
"There was an attack last night?" Harry said. "One guard has been arrested?" He yanked the paper away, reading as quickly as he could. When he looked up he saw that the Daily Prophet was in many other students' hands and the ones who didn't have one stood around those that did. Several of the defense students were looking back at him grimly as they read the implied participation of their guard teachers.
They went through the rest of the day without seeing any of the guards. At supper, Dumbledore informed them all that he would not be firing the guards and that he did not believe that they had anything to do with the attack other than protecting the school from those who had attacked them and not to worry, they were perfectly safe with the guards. Neither Captain Fox's nor Captain Sloth's teams showed up for dinner. After the lights were turned out in the common rooms and students were put to bed, the defense club crept out of the school and went down to the Forbidden Forest like always. And, like always, the guards were there waiting for them looking ill tempered and short one of their number.
"Come on, come closer," Fox said, waving them toward the guards. They approached, some more hesitantly than others until they stood in a semi circle facing the group of ninjas. "I'm sure you've all heard by now that we are being blamed for the attack last night."
"So there was an attack?" one student asked.
"Yes, there was an attack but it wasn't from us. We were attacked by some of the ninjas who have joined Voldemort," Fox said. "We were not harmed but several of their number managed to get away. However, your ministry has seen fit to try to get rid of us and have therefore... arrested Wolf."
Cho gasped, holding her hands over her mouth. Tears pooled in her eyes and her friends were quick to pat her on the back and murmur empty consolations. Fox ignored her.
"This happened sooner than we expected, so we have to train doubly hard now. Don't worry about Wolf, we are not without political power here. We'll get him back soon enough. Until then, we can only prepare more and more. Now that Dove and Panda are back we have a greater number of us so we can help more of you at once." He gave them a blinding smile that Harry thought looked strained. "So let's all do the best we can and not worry about tomorrow."
With that, they separated into groups and Harry found himself facing Dove with Ron and Cho. When Cho had claimed that she didn't want to practice because of her overwhelming sadness for Wolf, Peacock had marched right over, yanked her off the tree stump she had been sitting on, and plunked her right back down in front of Dove with a snarled "It's not like he's dead!"
The last time Harry had seen Dove had been right after they had returned from the prisoner exchange with Voldemort and Orochimaru. The Anbu had been ripped apart, bloody, and barely alive. But now, here he was, just two months later, looking as healthy as he had when he had first arrived at Hogwarts. He pulled out his wand when he realized that Dove was obviously waiting for them to decide what they wanted to do. It occurred to him that perhaps Dove didn't really know what he was doing.
"So, do you want us to just attack you?" Harry asked.
"Is that not what you usually do?" Dove asked in his quiet, smooth voice. Harry had forgotten how controlled he was. It was an stark change from Captain Sloth's wild team and Captain Fox's customary bounciness.
"Sometimes we go over moves and what to do if someone attacks you in a certain way," Cho offered, sniffling.
"I see," Dove said. There was a moment's pause when he seemed to be thinking. "Attack me," he ordered.
The three students were accustomed to this command by now and spread out, covering as many sides as they could and hoping to force him to fight on multiple fronts at once. They took a second to take a deep breath and calm their nerves (there was something about actually fighting the man who had withstood Voldemort's torture that made all of their hearts beat wildly with nervousness), and leaped at him, shouting out spell names as they did so.
Dove dodged the first few spells with ease, moving much like Mouse did except with even more of a dancer's grace than a fighter's. He did not attack them, instead choosing to stay on the defensive. Harry went in first for a second attempt with petrificus totalus. He followed the spell as he had grown accustomed to doing but as he opened his mouth to cast the second one and Dove turned to avoid the first, he found himself flat on his ass several feet away.
Fox shouted at him from where he was observing. "You're against a first rate, short-ranged fighter, Potter! You had better not get in too close or he'll take you out!"
Harry, Ron, and Cho circled Dove until they were standing closer together. "Think of something long range," Ron said frantically. Dove stood farther away from them, letting them converse quickly, but they were under no illusions that they could talk forever and kept glancing his way to make sure he hadn't moved.
They spread out again, unsure of what to do. They had faced close range fighters before but they weren't sure what to do with Dove. Cho cast a nervous incendio that Dove sidestepped lazily.
"If you don't come to me then I am going to come to you," he warned.
They spread out once more, feeling suitably threatened. Harry nodded to Ron and Ron glanced at Cho. She raised her wand and shouted, "Impedimenta!" Ron cast expelliarmus immediately in its wake and Harry finished with reducto. The spells were cast very quickly, nearly hitting at the same time, but Dove dodged around each one. As he moved to avoid Harry's spell, Cho cast a very quick impedimenta again that clipped his shoulder as he stopped midturn to avoid running into it. His arm went numb.
"Stop," he said, holding up his hand. The three paused, wands raised as they prepared to move in again. "Put your wands away, that's enough." They tucked them into their pockets and he waved them over with his good hand. They gathered around and sat around him in a semi circle when he plopped down on the ground. His good hand hovered over his numb shoulder.
"Do you want me to take care of that?" Cho asked.
"It's fine," he said. A blue light trickled under his fingers and vanished into his skin, much like the method of attacking that they had seen Mouse perform on numerous occasions. He rotated his arm experimentally. "You did well," he complimented Cho quietly. "It is necessary to be able to attack as an individual as well as a team. Had you waited to make your next move with your teammates, you would have lost your chance." Cho flushed at the compliment. He looked over at Harry. "What you all need to practice is teamwork."
"We practice teamwork," Harry answered. "All the time."
Dove gave him a little, patronizing smile as if he was a very young child. "No, not teamwork in that you just attack as one. You need to know each other, be friends with each other. Know how your teammates think, what they enjoy, how they fight." He motioned absently to Hermione where she and two other girls was sparring with Panda. "You fight better with Hermione and Ron because you know them. You know their strengths and weaknesses."
"But we're not all in the same house," Cho reminded him.
"What does that matter?" he asked. "I don't live with Captain Fox or Slug but I can fight as well with them as anyone else here because we know each other. We took time to understand one other outside of fighting. We wouldn't have survived this long as a team without that knowledge." He stood with a quiet gasp for air that Harry thought he might have imagined. "My only suggestion is that you take the time to become friends with those outside of your house. The way Hogwarts is set up has only served to create animosity between you all. Harry, when Voldemort attacks Hogwarts again, will you not fight with a Slytherin just because of what house they are in?"
That didn't seem rhetorical, so he answered, "No, I would fight with them."
"And, Cho, wouldn't it be better if you knew the Slytherin and knew if they didn't know how to perform a spell than to not know the Slytherin at all and expect them to cast it?"
"I suppose," she answered slowly.
He nodded. "Take the time to get to know one another then. You spend a lot of time here with us but you also have classes with some of the people here. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws have many classes together, do they not? Cho, spend more time with some of the Hufflepuff students. You may find that it will help you when you come here to train, and of course if you ever have to fight with them."
"Switch groups!" Captain Fox shouted.
[You'll still be my star]
Sakura and Sasuke sat beside each other in the rafters of the Great Hall, sharing a plate of food between them. Well, Sakura was eating, Sasuke was watching the students below them with interest. Sakura held out a cluster of grapes.
"Come on, eat something," she said.
He accepted the grapes without looking at them and popped one into his mouth. "Look down there," he said, motioning toward the tables. "Some of the Gryffindors are sitting at the Ravenclaw table."
Sure enough, far below them they could see several of the red sweatered Gryffindors seated among the green clad Ravenclaws. Even from where they sat they could tell that they were members of the defense club.
"Good for them," Sakura said as she took a bite of apple. "I guess they actually listened to what Neji told them last night." Sasuke grunted agreement. "I can't believe that none of us thought of that. It's almost too late for them."
"It's setting an example for them for after we leave. Maybe they'll get over this ridiculous house nonsense and befriend each other," Sasuke said bitingly.
Sakura just chuckled. "I didn't know you felt so strongly about them."
"I don't," he snapped.
"Be careful, your feelings are showing," she teased as she leaned back against a vertical beam. One leg dangled off the side. "I guess they do kind of grow on you after a while. We have been here for nearly a year." Sasuke didn't contest her. "I wonder what they'll do when we're gone. Voldemort will probably still be around."
"Not if we get to him," Sasuke answered.
"Even if we get rid of Voldemort," she said, "The Ministry will still be after them. They have something against Dumbledore. I don't understand it." She tossed him her half eaten apple. "They're so power hungry."
"There are always power hungry people," he reminded her. "Are you planning on finish this?" He held up the apple.
"No, you can have it," she answered. He took a bite out of it. "Has Naruto decided who is going to Kiba's trial yet?"
"He said it was going to be me and him from our group, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall from Hogwarts, and that Tsunade-sama is sending someone over from Konoha," he answered. "It's serious business for them to be arresting Inuzuka."
"Won't that blow our cover?" she asked. "We don't want the Ministry to know that we're not from here. We're just supposed to be guards."
"They'll figure out sooner or later that we're not from here, that we're not even Wizards," he pointed out. "It's better if we take care of all this right now. If we have to leave then we'll leave and send someone back more covertly."
"That could hurt everything we've been doing up till this point," she said.
"Tsunade-sama knows that," he answered. "That's why we're going to try to handle this as quietly as we can. Unfortunately they seem to have a habit of using their media to turn people against the Ministry's rivals. We're the focus of that right now."
She swung both her feet over the beam she was sitting on. "It'll all work out," she said optimistically. "It always does. Tsunade-shishou will take care of it."
"You're too optimistic," he deadpanned.
She laughed and stood up, brushing little crumbs off her shirt. She walked across the beam over to him, as graceful as any gymnast. "And you are too pessimistic," she said as she tapped his nose with one slender finger.
He caught her wrist. "And what's wrong with that?"
She laughed again. "Absolutely nothing." She leaned down and gave him a swift peck on the lips before vanishing into a swirl of faint mist.
"Absolutely nothing. Ridiculous girl," he muttered, but he smiled as he took another bite of apple. Really, he wouldn't have her any other way.
[Author's Note]
Lyrics belong to Usher, Madonna, Maroon 5, Brittney Spears, and Rihanna respectively.
Oh my stars, I should be shot for that scene at the end. Someone please put me out of my misery.
In any case, here is the next chapter, grossly ahead of time (by about three months) and I hope that you all enjoy it. I had a whole bunch of other stuff that I wanted to put into it but it was just so dang long that I decided to hold off on everything else for the next chapter. Please don't hate me. Just be glad that you're getting this when you are getting it.
Thank you, to all my readers who were so good about reviewing last chapter. I had forgotten how much I enjoy reviews. They really made me smile and I appreciated each and every single one of them and tried to reply to them all (one person had their PM s turned off so I couldn't reply to them, which made me kind of sad but now I'm too lazy to go and find who it was and reply to them here so there you go).
I hope you all enjoyed it and have a fantastic day!