Naruto did his best to wait patiently. He'd scoped out the location and taken up position around the corner between a suit of amour and sculpture thingie. The amour was at least entertaining. It'd taken a few minutes to figure out how to get it apart – particularly since it objected to being dismantled. It took even longer to figure out how to put it on. The shoes were ridiculous and Naruto loved them and wanted his own. They were long and pointy and seemed to serve no logical purpose but he was sure he could manage to make 'em combat effective. But he got tired of clanking when he walked and had to put it back. More or less the way he found it. The sculpture had been boring. Just a bust of some old dead dude on a pedestal. He'd entertained himself for a while seeing how much he could wobble the pedestal without knocking over the bust, but finally had to give it up after the paintings started yellin' at him. It'd never actually hit the ground, so he wasn't sure what their complaint was.
All around, magic was pretty cool, but it seemed to Naruto that far too much of it went into things that just ended up yellin' at him. He got enough of that from real people. He didn't need objects joining in too.
But Naruto had a very important task! So while the others might be enjoying their night roaming the castle grounds, finding new secret entrances or magical beasts in the forest, Naruto was stuck guarding his hallway.
It was a very boring hallway too. Nothing much happened here after midnight. All of the good little children stayed tucked in their beds. The teachers too. If it wasn't for Harry showing them all the places he'd snuck into over the years, Naruto would've thought nothin' ever happened here. He'd have been wrong though, and hadn't that been an interesting conversation. Seems there wasn't too far of a stretch anywhere in this castle where Harry hadn't almost been killed by something. Giant snakes and trolls and possessed teachers and cursed teachers and murderous psycho teachers and apparently the Uchiha's had a consistent tradition of almost getting killed by their teachers.
Sasuke had about near blown a gasket. For someplace that was supposed to be the safest place in Wizarding Britain, it sure did try to kill Harry a lot.
Hence Naruto's very important mission! Harry might insist there was nothin' to worry about but any nin worth their kunai knew that just because it seemed everyone was out to get ya didn't mean they weren't. And clearly, everything was trying to kill Harry.
In the distance, Naruto could hear one of the moving stairs shift once more. But instead of moving above or below it stopped at this floor and Naruto quickly returned all forms of entertainment to their proper place and did his best to become one with the shadows. Sasuke didn't think Naruto could handle a bit of stealth! Well! Naruto would show him! This was Naruto's specialty after all!
The stairs were on the far side of the hall, but it didn't take long for there to be the soft shuffle-slide of smooth shoes on stone floors. Someone was clearly makin' an attempt not to make noise. Pity they were doing such a poor job of it. Naruto bit the inside of his cheek, waiting as patiently as he could, breath held until –
It wasn't fireworks. Or gun power. Or even a bucket full of marbles. Technically, Naruto wasn't supposed to be out wandering the halls either, so he certainly didn't want to draw too much attention. Oh, no. He went understated this time. A nice quiet splat.
Naruto slapped a hand over his mouth, trying not to giggle. Sometimes, you just had to go back to the basics. Especially when Harry said they couldn't use lethal force against a fellow student. But that didn't mean Naurto couldn't be very effective at makin' someone's life miserable. Just to be sure though, Naruto leaned around the suit of armor and took in his good work.
Green might be traditional for slime, but Naruto found a nice dingy mysterious brown did wonders on the psychic. So many possibilities. Was it mud? Was it rotted vegetation? Was it snot? Was it something worse? The mind was quick to go to the worst place imaginable and judging by the look on the other boy's face, he was mentally working through all of the possibilities as it dripped down from his head and slowly slid over his shoulders. The boy tried wiping it off. It was a reflexive move to make. And Naruto had been banking on it. Earth based chakra might not be his strong suit, but Naruto still knew how to knock a few things together. What had dripped easily downward onto his victim was quickly becoming viscous. So viscous, in fact, that when Draco Malfoy tried to wipe it off from his face, instead his hand became stuck. Oh, he could pull it back an inch or two, but it took effort and as soon as he stopped actively pulling, it went slamming back with a wet dull thwack.
Naruto nearly choked. Subtle. He had to be subtle. He knew damn well how to play a prank and not get caught. Make the boy's life miserable but not actually give the game away.
Which was all going swimmingly – for the record – right up until Malfoy tried to magic it away.
The thing about pranking nin was you had to take one of two forms. Either you went purely physical. A bit of slapstick humor that only worked because it was so unexpected. The bucket of water over a door. A squeaky toy where it was least expected. That kind of thing. Or you had to go big. Chakra tags were a bitch to make on your own, but Naruto had been perfecting them since he was a kid. Compounds were the same. You couldn't just mix dirt and water together and hope to get something impressive. It took a bit of finangling. A judicial application of chakra – as Sakura liked to put it. It had to have just enough energy to hold itself together and do something impressive, but not enough to set off a nin's sense of danger. It was a fine art that Naruto was the freakin' master at.
Except they were still kind of sort of figuring out how Chakra and Magic mixed together.
Harry did well enough. Sure, he wasn't going to be flinging around jutsu's any time soon, but he was getting better and better at not getting bowled over by Kakashi-sensei in training. And while Naruto was severely bummed out that a wand was probably not ever gonna do anything for him, he was getting better at dodging. At being able to feel what magic felt like when it tried to grab ahold of ya. You just had to know how to move to get away from it and you could totally dodge at least half the time. Good odds in his book. Harry didn't think it was good enough to survive a wizard fight, but Harry was a bit twitchy.
The chakra in Naruto's sludge wasn't going to dodge anything. And apparently, when certain forms of chakra met certain forms of magic, unexpected things could happen. Naruto knew that. He just didn't expect the damn stuff to catch fire.
There was an actual whoosh! as Malfoy went from being a disgruntled nefarious school boy to someone's idea of a living torch – bright white fire roaring to life from the shoulders up. It matched his hair, Naruto thought. Naruto also flung himself around the corner and tackled the boy with the fastest, most slapdash water jutsu he could come up with. The two of them went crashing hard to the stone floor. Malfoy was a tangle of awkward limbs beneath him as Naruto kept himself brace above, hands already frantically checking the damage.
"Son of a whore bastard!" Malfoy screeched.
Well. That was good. If he had enough air left in his lungs to start questioning Naruto's parentage, then he couldn't be hurt too badly. Harry was gonna kill them if Naruto accidently maimed or killed another student. And Sasuke would give him hell for it, even though in this particular case, Naruto suspected Sasuke wouldn't mind an 'accident.'
"Oh my god is your face still whole? Did it melt off? Are you a meat face now? If so, I totally did not do it."
Malfoy made another one of those high pitched noises and flapped his arms at Naruto. The damage seemed surprisingly limited. A bit of redness on the nose. Hair about an inch shorter and crumbling along the edges. Collar soot stained. Not the end of the world by any means. Naruto heaved a heartfelt sigh and patted the boy on the check. "No harm, no foul?" he chirped before realizing that the frantic scrambling beneath him was apparently the other boy's attempt to throw him off. Oh, right.
Naruto hopped back up to his feet. He was glad he didn't think to offer a hand up, because Malfoy went scrambling backwards with such force and flailing limbs that he might have actually gotten in a lucky shot to the face if Naruto had tried.
"Wow, you're high-strung."
Draco snarled. It was a much more impressive reaction. Almost on level with dear Sasuke-kun on a good day or Sakura when you woke her up wrong. Naruto was almost impressed. And the little shit even tried to fight back. The first rule, however, with wizards was they were shit at hand to hand. Once you got close enough to grapple, shit was pretty much over. From a distance, they could hex and jinx you three ways from Sunday. Naruto had watched Harry take down even Kakashi-sensei enough times to know that. But have one of them try to draw a wand on you with only a few feet of distance in between you? That was going to be over before it had even really begun. Naruto grabbed him by the wrist, twisted slightly, pulled just enough to stretch the arm, and ducked in close enough to give a gentle love tap to the kid's ribs.
To give him credit, he didn't actually drop his wand. But he also didn't have the best grip on it while he was wheezing for air and Naruto was able to knock it out of his grip easily enough. "Now, now, let's be friendly about this, no?" Naruto told him. "Doubt either us wants the teachers getting involved, eh?"
"You attacked me, you filthy heathen! I ought to-"
"Me?" Naruto gasped dramatically, laughing even as he let the boy go. "Why I was just lost tryin' to get back to my rooms - confusing big castle, you know - when I happened to see you set yourself on fire! My goodness! Whatever must have possessed you to do such a thing! Inexplicable! Astounding! Moronic!"
Malfoy tried to shove him away but mostly just managed to push himself back. It gave him the space he so desperately seemed to want, but he did fail to pick up his wand in the process, which really? Thank goodness Harry had better reflexes than that. Kid never let his wand out of his possession. Malfoy however seemed distracted by the ashy ends of his floppy hair. There was another one of those noises. Like an animal getting stepped on. What a funny sound of pure rage. "I'm damaged!" the kid hissed. Like he had any idea what real damage looked like.
"Seems like an improvement to me," Naruto fired back smugly.
And oh boy, there was a look that could kill. The kid might be funny to rile up but that there was the look of an animal that would gladly rip Naruto's throat out if given a chance. Naruto tried not to feel for the kid. He'd met a lot of balls of rage that wanted nothing more than to do something. He understood that kind of frustration. After all, whose brilliant idea was it to put this kid back in school with the person his father tried to kill? Did no one think that might not lead to a wee bit of resentment and animosity? Nin would throw down for far less than that and they remembered shit far far longer. There was a reason nin villages kept separate and a reason why every nin within the same village was expected to bury the damn hatchet. Feuds never ended well for anyone.
So yes, Naruto could kind of feel for the kid. And maybe if this was a different kind of mission, he'd take the time to get to know him. Give him hell, of course, but figure out what was driving him just as much as was driving anyone else. People didn't just do things for no reason – no matter how much it might feel like it. So if Malfoy had been making a habit out of wanderin' the castle at night, putting his nose where it didn't belong and potentially lookin' for a way to attack Harry – there was probably a good reason. One Naruto was supposed to find out without letting the kid know they were on to him. But letting him burn seemed like a bad idea too and since subtle had kind of already gone out the window at this point...
Sasuke was going to give him such hell.
"Well, then. That was fun. Let's not do it again, eh? Time to call it a night!"
And props to him. The kid had just gotten set on fire and been knocked on his ass and was missing his wand, but he still got up in Naruto's face like he thought he was going to do something about it. "If you think for one second I'm not going to- "
Naurot held up his hands in the most condescendin' manner he could manage. "Do you wanna go see a teacher? I mean, we could, I guess. Kakashi-sensie's going to sigh so loud though, if he finds out about this. It'll be tragic. Really. I can only imagine how your teachers would react. I mean, a couple of students scuttling about in this weird hallway for no reason doing who knows what. So many questions."
And damn if that didn't shut someone up. Naruto grinned back, showing as many teeth as he could. "I didn't think so. See ya around, matchstick! Try not to get into any trouble in the meantime, eh? I would so hate to have to come save your ass again."
Malfoy cursed again but took the opportunity to snatch up his wand as soon as Naruto started moving back down the hall. And here was the tricky part. Never turn your back on an armed opponent and all that, but Naruto didn't really wanna spend all night talkin' to this idiot. So as soon as Malfoy ducked to grab his weapon, Naruto pivoted sharply on one heel and darted around the corner before the other boy could get straightened back up again. As it was, a nice splash of bright light slammed into the far wall after him. Naruto cackled and cheerfully made his way back home. He might have tipped their hand a bit more than they would have liked, but hopefully he taught someone a good lesson.
Malfoy might now know they were watching him, but that also meant Malfoy was going to be flinching and lookin' over his shoulder for them everywhere he went. A bit of nudging and prodding and they could probably keep him running in circles for months.
