DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto or Harry Potter universes.
A/N: Yes, I did copy some text from The Goblet of Fire toward the end of the chapter. I couldn't figure out a way around it that would carry things along smoothly. Also, since it's been so long since I've updated, the beginning of the chapter sums up a little of what happened in the last chapter.
Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Naruto speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
"Kill the spares!"
"Avada…"
Naruto grabbed Cedric and gawked when she saw that one of her clones had teleported with her. It was now lying, wide-yellow-eyed, and dead on the ground. Not dispelling! "Oh… Oh, Kami!"
"What… What is this?" Cedric asked as he stared at Naruto's dead clone, his heart racing and feeling as if his world was falling apart. Naruto shushed him - thank Merlin she's alive; that's not really her. It's not! - and she grabbed Harry with her henged arm. The bespectacled boy was paling fast.
"We've gotta get out of here," the youngest muttered. Harry grabbed onto Naruto's jacket in a terribly unusual display of terror as he curled into himself. "Owwwwwww!"
Naruto saw that with his other hand Harry had grabbed his forehead - no, his scar - and didn't get why that "being" sealed in his forehead felt so much like the thing that was on the other side of the statue they were hidden behind. "Hold onto me," she ordered the boys as she put her hands in the seal she used most often. Two chakra arms shot out of her back and held onto the boys.
It was a testament to how terrified they all were - something very bad was going on here and that clone: oh that clone: how can she be dead?! - that neither seemed to even notice. "Taje Kage Bunshin no jutsu," she whispered and then turned a fierce look to the three clones that appeared, crouching, in front of them. They all looked sick as they gazed upon their dead doppelganger. "Don't allow them to touch you. Henge at us and take them all down!"
"Hai!"
Naruto scooched out and shoved Harry into Cedric, a fierce look on her face as she gritted her teeth and tried to look away from her dead clone. "You two need to get out of here. SHUT UP," she cried when Cedric tried to interrupt. All hell sounded like it was breaking loose behind the statue they were hiding behind but fortunately, the clones dispelling over there didn't die - DIE: for fuck's sake what is this all about?!
How could this happen?!
"I'll be fine but I need to investigate. DO AS I SAY, CEDRIC!" The blonde didn't even recognize how hurt and bewildered her boyfriend looked. None too gently, she thrust a shaking, sweating, and groaning Harry by his shirt into his side. "Harry's hurt. GET OUT OF HERE - and do NOT let ANYONE touch my - THAT body," she demanded gesturing toward her clone. "NO one, Cedric! … Promise me," she begged. "Promise me you'll guard it!"
"Y- Yes. I promise." Cedric then got his shit together. "But I'm not leaving you here!" He was bewildered when Naruto sliced her hand with one of her strange knives and began hastily writing symbols in blood with her fingertip! She'd begun to put the design on her clone - dead, dead, dead - but seemed to think better of it, instead drawing on the back of Harry's hand.
"Fuuin," she whispered, pushing a little chakra into the formula and praying that she'd replicated the Hiraishin seal properly. If it was hard to write seals with a brush or pen, it was almost impossible to write one with her fingertip! "Hold on to each other and don't let go! I'll guard you and…"
Cedric wasn't sure what was wrong with Harry - but he was now in really bad shape. And there was dark magic all around them as a battle quieted behind them. He couldn't make out what Naru was saying anymore! There was less shouting as the many spells that were being cast behind them quieted but everything somehow seemed even more dangerous than it had earlier.
"I can't leave any of my clones here!" Naru unceremoniously pulled her dead clone into Cedric's lap, wincing at the pained, choking sound he made as he looked down at it - or how he shook as he held her… It. She grabbed the hand he was holding his wand with and forced him to also hold onto Harry with it. "Hold it! And Harry! –PLEASE, Cedric!" She glanced up toward Harry's face just as he moved and grabbed her robe.
"ACCIO," the younger boy yelled, pointing his wand at the cup. Instantly, Harry felt that familiar jerk from behind his navel when one handle of the cup landed in his hand. The Triwizard Cup was again pulling him forward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cedric and the two Narutos at his side. One dead and one alive. How can this be?
Or that's what Harry thought had happened.
"OOF." They landed in front of the maze they'd been in; an audience full of students and those who cared for them around them - but… Where is Naruto? Where is the ALIVE Naruto?!
And why was he holding part of a robe that only had a LOG inside of it?!
Cedric looked at Harry with horror written all over his face. "Where. Is. She?"
"I - I had her… I… I know I had her!" He looked at the log he'd dropped and at Naruto's yellow-eyed cold, dead body.
Her pretty face was still set in an expression that didn't seem to belong there no matter how becoming it might be to look at: somewhere between surprise and alarm.
*Her mouth was slightly open; white teeth peeking through puffy pink lips.
*Her golden eyebrows were only slightly pinched as her eyes - they shouldn't be yellow; pupils are not elongated and rectangular like that!
It couldn't be real. Was he right about her being a Dark Witch? That she was Voldemort's?
Don't be real… Please don't be real! No matter what: don't be dead!
And that's when the audience full of students' first horrified screams rang out.
"Nar- Naruto!"
–It was his Quidditch teammates' cries - her roommates' cries - that were the first he recognized. He stumbled forward to guard her body when wizards and witches began running up to them. He looked up into Draco Malfoy's pale face and instead of his normal sneer, saw nothing but horror reflected back at him as he let out a choked cry.
Pushed away from her body harshly - enough so that his back hit the ground - Harry realized that it was Neville that had done it.
"No. No, please," his roommate whispered.
"This isn't… really her," Harry insisted to Neville, praying that was true. "It's not. It's her clone."
Meanwhile, in the cemetery, Naruto stood up, a snarl emanating from deep within her. She had henged herself as Harry: Dumbledore claimed that he was the one This Guy wanted dead. She held her wand out and then worked it into her henge, too, although she had little idea of exactly what Harry's wand looked like. She knew it didn't look like her log-ish-looking wand, though. As soon as she glanced around the big creepy statue, she quickly appraised the situation.
"Tom Riddle," the headstone said.
"Oh, that's just fucking great…" The blonde tucked her wand back into her weapons pouch. She didn't know magic strong enough to really fight this guy - but she sure as hell had jutsus that would.
And Harry doesn't really curse, Naruto! Get your shit together! A sly smirk unknowingly grew on her face when she saw how many wizards her clones had knocked out, though. Better yet, there was a pile of broken wands in the grass where her last clone dispelled. One guy was left: he had been cowering and… Her clones had thought that he was being taken advantage of or had been held hostage before she felt the sudden bloodlust coming from him. Killing Intent: whatever they called it here.
She was horrified that he was holding a baby-thing. She would have thought it was just a blanket or something when she'd surveyed the area, but the thing had chakra. But that thing's not a baby. Nor is it helpless… "That's like, a clone of the thing sealed inside of Harry."
"That's a surprise."
"It's pretty gross," Naruto said to her furry partner, agreeing with him completely.
The short man in the cloak put down his bundle, which had given Naruto time to make more clones who sunshinned off to hide and look for other threats. People here are so freaking slow! He hadn't even noticed what she'd done! The man's wand lit up when he turned back to her, and he began dragging Naruto (still henged as Harry) against the marble headstone with his spell, which he slammed her against.
"Owww." She jumped when the statue grabbed her.
Ghosts!
Naruto swallowed hard and reminded herself that it was probably some kind of spell that had moved the big, creepy headstone and NOT ghosts. She'd had a feeling that this guy would try something that would otherwise make one of her clones dispel - and that's why she'd stayed. She needed to put this threat to Harry-kun down!
Then I can work on getting home…
Short Dude worked at conjuring tight but weak cords around her, tying her neck and ankles to the headstone. Naruto was reminded of when she was tied to the post after her Genin Test: how she was left there, all alone, while my team walked off together, chatting as if I didn't exist. The next jutsu she made sure to learn (from Iruka-sensei - not Kakashi-sensei) was one that would allow her to untie herself. With her wind chakra, now, it wasn't like she couldn't just tear through one of these cheap ropes or the headstone completely…
Probably.
Would Harry have been able to do the same? I need to teach him and those in my taijutsu class how to get out of binds.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked the short, scared man. "Why are you after Harry? What's YOUR role in all of this? …You might want to talk before I beat the ever-loving crap out of you."
Naruto was surprised when the cloaked man clumsily hit her - since when do wizards smack or punch people? - with a hand that had a finger missing, no less. The rat-faced man WAS truly afraid: his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots he'd put around her. He drew a length of the black material from the inside of his cloak and unceremoniously stuffed it into her mouth; then, without a word, he turned and hurried away, almost tripping over one of the guys her clones had knocked out.
Then he spoke, sounding outraged. "I don't know who your friend was or where she went but you will pay for what she's done, Harry Potter!"
Naruto - in her Harry henge - shrugged; the twitchy bad guy had already run off, though.
Baby-thing was down below her, at the foot of the grave, stirring fretfully. Naru unintentionally let out a shaky, gritty sound when a long snake slithered through the grass, circling the headstone to which she was tied. It almost seemed to be cuddling the long-limbed Not-Baby.
Now, Naruto despised snakes. They're only associated with bad guys: Orochimaru, Sasuke…
Wasn't that a terrible thought? –That she considered Sasuke a bad guy?
There is Anko, though… She's not so bad.
Are they talking to each other?
Is that snake talking to that weird baby?
So that meant that this snake was like a… a summon, she supposed, but it also FELT LIKE THE BABY? And Harry's scar? But it was different. When the snake sniffed her, she knew that she was in trouble. The baby began to HISS and the cloaked guy ran back to it, panicking. She spat the cloth out of her mouth. "Jig's up, eh?"
She was out of her binds in less than a heartbeat, an incredibly sharp wind whipping around her, as she dropped and drove a Rasengan into the man and whirled around to do the same to the Not-Baby. She just couldn't, though, no matter how evil the thing seemed! It was a fucking baby and a part of Harry! She Rasengan-ed the snake instead and was suddenly lifted off the ground by a fucking bird who had swooped down and grabbed her by her top. "Put me down," she shouted reflexively, struggling and ready to jutsu it, too, before looking up. "Fawkes?"
Considering that she was being flown away from the scene on a blazing bird, he had to be Fawkes. "I wasn't finished! Put me down! Come onnnnn!"
Hopefully, her clones would take care of everything for her. Fuck.
.
Fawkes flew her straight into Dumbledore's window. Her clone was laying on his office floor, dead and probably ready to get stiff. She rushed to it, pulling her wand out and snarling at her potions professor, guarding her other body. "Where's Cedric?" she spat.
Cedric was supposed to guard me!
Severus' eyebrows rose as his student lit up in what looked like golden fire, designs or "seals," as she'd called them before, covering her body. "Your boyfriend is safe, Naruto. He and Mister Potter are in Dumbledore's care."
"He was supposed to guard me… This," she hissed - her voice cracking - and gesturing toward her dead clone on the ground. She realized that she was shaking all over. It was a mistake to look into her own face and dead, yellow eyes. Her own teared up before she gritted her teeth, trying to remain above this insanity. "I warn you: I like you a lot, Professor, but I am not someone to challenge right now. Choose your words and actions carefully!"
"That's normally my line," Snape seemed to say more to himself than her.
He stood up straighter and put his hands behind his back, imitating what he'd seen of those in the civilian-military, knowing that Naruto was a soldier whether she called herself a kunoichi or anything else. The position also allowed him to palm his wand but not seem more threatening, he hoped. "Report."
"I report to Dumbledore." And my dead father's fucking picture. Embarrassingly, Naruto let out a whimper as she idly pulled at her hair: this was all so fucked up! "It's weird to… see myself dead, ya know," she blubbered.
Severus nodded slowly. Having reached the age of majority or not, Naruto was just a teenager. A child-soldier. "This is something new to you as well?" he asked softly - nodding toward the witch's dead doppelganger. How horrible. Naruto sniffed and harshly wiped at her eyes and nose although she had not shed a tear.
"Yes," she admitted in a voice she almost didn't recognize. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I've died before but ya know…" She dispersed Kurama's chakra and allowed herself to collapse into a crouch, keeping her dead clone between her legs. "Just… stay over there. Please."
"I need to inform Dumbledore that you're back, Naruto." The blonde nodded at him but her eyes had somehow become even more haunted as she looked right through him. "We will return shortly, I'm sure."
Naruto made several more clones to guard the window, door, and MANY angles and corners around which she couldn't see in Dumbledore's office. Then she bit her thumb, going through a series of hand seals she'd repeated hundreds of times before. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu. Please!" The toads hadn't been responding to her but as she continued pressing more and more chakra into the seal that had appeared on the ground, she finally pushed Kurama's chakra, hard, into it. "Gamakichi!"
Dumbledore arrived to find another giant toad that had destroyed most of his office. The toad and Naruto were arguing.
"Why haven't you been responding to me?!"
"It's difficult to get and be here, brat," Gamakichi admitted reluctantly as he stared at his summoner's dead clone. What the hell have you gotten yourself into now?
"Don't call me a brat! I'm older than you! And I need you to take… THIS to the mountain," she said, hoisting her doppelganger up. Thank Kami it wasn't stiff with rigor mortis yet but… UGH! "Bury it: whatever! I Don't Care. It cannot be here or anywhere it can be experimented on. Hide it. Please?!"
"Naruto," Dumbledore began gently as he stepped around the toad - who was holding what looked like a giant lit cigarette in his office. And as Severus told me: a dead version of Naruto in the other flipper -no: his hand! –What strange and marvelous magic! –He easily shook that thought off and reminded himself that although he could separate that the clone was not Naruto, that poor Naruto didn't seem so sure.
"GO! Gamakichi, please! Don't let anyone get her - it; I don't want to think of Orochimaru or someone like him doing experiments on me or…"
Gamakichi looked between those with his summoner several times before he nodded, held the dead clone closer, and vanished again while she was still speaking.
"Oh, thank Kami!"
.
Naruto had dutifully reported everything she or her clones had seen or done at the graveyard. Now she was in the Room of Requirement, wondering if she was going to be sent to Azkaban, the wizarding prison.
Whether this "Wormtailed" Peter Pettigrew person had been in the "Service of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named' or not, it was deemed unacceptable to kill him. And Naruto had killed him. –Dumbledore promised that he would get her out of this mess but as a sensor, she knew he was very anxious about it. About me now.
What the hell did they want me to do?! Did they not want me to protect myself? To protect Harry? –That's my assigned mission!
And how much influence does Dumbledore really have here?
One thing was certain: she was going to get answers before she did anything else here. She was NOT going to prison (and then escaping, of course.) What was she supposed to do after she escaped? Live among the civvies? Oh, she supposed she could henge, get a job, and live her life… snatch some paperwork since everyone here seemed documented to the gills.
–So foolish. It's so easy to be tracked…
And I don't give a damn what Tou-san says. How a piece of his spirit or whatever was in a picture was beyond Naruto, but he'd left her, choosing to die with her mother before, and it felt like he'd left her to the wolves now.
Maybe she was so riled up about the prison thing because of her experience at the Blood Prison. Naruto was NOT going through something like that again.
Continuing to slowly pace, the blonde noticed an ornately framed picture that was hanging, extremely crookedly, on the wall. She straightened it and tried to smile at the old lady inside of it.
"Thank you, Darling," the old woman in the picture said. "I've been trying not to fall off this old rocking chair for what feels like decades," she laughed. It ended in a heavy, sigh-song sigh.
"Sorry about that." Naruto scratched the back of her head. "I mean, you're welcome! I was just sorry you had to deal with that, ya know. Someone should've helped you a long time ago, ne?"
The woman with the prominently hooked nose laughed tiredly. "Why are you here, young lady? …Normally when someone accesses the Room of Requirement, it is for a purpose." She smacked her heavily wrinkled lips a couple of times before offering Naruto a kind smile.
Something about her was familiar and set Naruto at ease. A little.
"I'm just… hanging around. Looking at stuff," she said lamely. Naruto sure wasn't going to tell anyone what crazy nonsense had been going on in the last days: not even a picture - although she'd learned over the time she'd been here that those framed people liked to gossip. "Say, do you know Namikaze Minato? –Or Minato Namikaze, I suppose?"
Maybe this old hag could bring her father here for a little talk?
"Namikaze, Namikaze… that name does sound familiar," the elderly woman said, then narrowed her eyes when the pretty young witch turned toward the room's door. She had a direct view of it. Internally, she groaned when she saw who had entered. If only she had even a few minutes more to speak with the one-armed witch.
"Don't speak to her," Severus drawled to his student, taking large strides toward the picture and yanking it off the wall. He threw it into a tall wardrobe and sneered at the woman in the picture. "I know what you're up to… Old. Woman," he whispered in what sounded like a hiss.
"That's no way to speak to your granny, Severus! DON'T YOU LEAVE ME IN HERE!" Severus had already slammed the door closed, however.
Naruto pulled a face. "Maa, that was rude."
Severus huffed. "Are you now prepared to take your OWLs? It's time."
Naruto crossed her arm over her chest and then berated herself for what felt like the thousandth time because she didn't have another arm to make sense of her action. "You've gotta be shitting me."
"Language," Severus chided without real heat; he was more exasperated that she spoke the way she did than anything. "You have no choice but to take them, Naruto. It's the first step to establishing your identity." And beginning your career. "They are important."
Naruto clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. "So no prison then? Here, all I've been thinking about is this Azkaban that Hermione-chan's prattled on about and you want me to take a stupid test?! And no one's told me anything about what's going on!"
"Thanks to your… clone's presence at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the Ministry has become aware of you, Naruto. They believe you to be dead. It has changed our plans and you will require a disguise. For now." He watched the girl conjure an arm and move her hands together into different "signs." He quickly looked away, flushing, before berating her when her appearance changed. "Better cover up… those!"
"This is what my granny looks like, right here, I hope you know," Naruto pouted, having henged herself into Tsunade. "She dresses like this. What's the problem?!" What Tsunade wore was seriously conservative in kunoichi terms. The only kunoichis who didn't show off their figures were her and Shizune-nee-chan, now that she thought about it. She turned around to show off the back of her haori. "Look!"
Severus sighed. "I cannot read Japanese, Naruto."
"Right," Naruto said, having forgotten about that. "It says 'Gamble,'" she explained and then snorted. "This thing makes a lot more sense on me than it does on her, dattebayo."
.
Call Naruto an asshole if you will but she was not speaking to Cedric. Neville claimed that CEDRIC said that he had been ordered to leave Naruto's clone with Dumbledore but Naruto didn't really know the headmaster… and she THOUGHT she had known Cedric!
What she did know about Albus Dumbledore didn't exactly set her at ease with leaving a large (dead) part of herself with him.
- Smart.
- Cunning.
- POWERFUL.
- Conniving, at least a bit…
- He's got a secret army that's off the books.
- It seems that he's fighting not only Voldemort but the Ministry, too.
- And I can imagine him experimenting with magic…
It wasn't fair to the wizard that such things, combined, reminded her of Orochimaru. She would have a hard time believing that Dumbledore was trying to live forever by switching bodies, especially because - in Naruto's eyes - he looked like he was over a hundred years old in the body he had… I would've switched before I got so damn old, Naruto thought and then shook herself, letting out a quiet chuckle at such a vile thought.
Switching bodies… Taking over someone else's is what that entails!
Honestly, Naruto: you need to do something aside from sitting here, stewing in your weird thoughts, and being alone. She got up to go see Neville again. She'd already been sitting, meditating on the ceiling, so she walked the familiar path on the ceiling toward the picture she didn't want to deal with.
She'd been hiding out - not that she would admit that - near Snape-sensei's office even though he wasn't always in there.
Her mind continued to be a drag as she made her way to her destination.
I wish you were here, Shikamaru-kun.
Dumbledore's final solution to all of the students and ministry having seen or heard of her dead body showing up at the end of the tournament? It was so LAME! Naruto knew that not everyone was going to buy it. Plus, she wasn't sure that Harry would obey his direct orders to keep his mouth shut about what really happened. I guess I also have to wonder if Cedric will tell anyone the truth.
"Flamingos at Dawn."
Minato smiled at his daughter, glad that she had finally come out of one of her little hiding spots. "I was wondering when you'd show up! You wouldn't believe the rumors I've been hearing, Naruto."
One of Naruto's eyes twitched. "FLAMINGOS. AT. DAWN."
"Hmm. I hoped that you simply didn't know the new password," Minato sighed, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked around. His portrait-ed fellows were definitely trying to listen in but he just HAD to know… "What really happened?"
Naruto's grimace turned vicious and she got right up in his face, almost pressing her own into the canvas. "My clone was in Sage Mode and was KILLED. Kurama and I lost a THIRD OF OUR CHAKRA," she hissed. "Happy?!" She felt vindictive at seeing the befuddlement that was mixed with fright in her father's expression. "FLAMINGOS. AT. DAWN!"
"We'll speak of this the next time I see you. At my other portrait's location." He allowed the door to swing open, wilting when his daughter's hair had parted and began to rise in nine directions.
"NARUTO!"
Naruto flinched but tried to smile at her housemates. "Yo!" She was engulfed with hugs and finally knocked over by and along with the students who had greeted her. –Which seemed to be ALL of the Gryffindors, almost.
Honestly, it was heartwarming. She eventually got hauled off the floor as the questions just kept coming and coming!
Hermione pointed her wand at her throat, making everyone cover their ears and crouch down when she magnified her voice, telling them all to shut up. "Oh. Sorry! ...NARUTO. WHY in the world were you in the maze?" she asked critically. "Dumbledore really had you use one of your clones to fool the Champions into believing you were dead?"
"Bloody horrible it was," Fred said.
"You gave us quite a fright!" George added. Naruto squawked when he lifted her to stand on the tea table they were near so that she could better see everyone. His twin slapped his arm, giving him a perverted thumbs up. Honestly.
"Sorry," Naruto said genuinely, feeling her face heat up at all of the attention. "I uh… think he wanted to see how the Champions reacted to seeing something so… awful. It was probably something about... teamwork? -Not leaving a man or woman behind, ya know."
"The man needs a good bollocking," Angela whispered, not letting go of her roommate and climbing on top of the table, too. Katie did the same on Naruto's other side. "Where have you been?"
The room was too quiet, as far as Naru was concerned. "I was… afraid you would all be mad at me." They should be.
"NAHHHHH," was pretty much the general cry.
Naruto let out a series of quiet chuckles and snorts. These kids were hilarious. And sweet.
Ginny had made her way forward, however, looking quite critical. "Why was your clone acting like that? Pretending to be dead even after the tournament was clearly over?"
Ieee! That girl's way too smart. "My clones are weird;" Naruto didn't lie about that. "I uh… think she was asleep!" She saw Harry roll his eyes; he'd been glaring at her from the back of the room. "What?! Seriously!" Neville finally got everyone to back off but not before Harry had clearly mouthed a threat at her:
"I know who you're serving!"
Naruto facepalmed. That kid was such a brat. He thought she was some kind of "Dark Wizard," didn't he?
.
Not even a month later -
Harry couldn't believe that it was happening again! In the same place! But this time he was alone; this time Voldemort was up and ALIVE, ranting and…
"I can TOUCH you now, Harry Potter!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!"
He was going to die this time. He was truly going to die: there was no portkey; there were no friends to rely on or back him up; there were no clones he could half-possess… He collapsed to the ground when Tom Riddle's horrible headstone let go of him.
"Get up! Get UP," Voldemort ordered.
Shaking violently, Harry forced himself to get up. He had been repeatedly tortured, he had been manipulated, he had been… A fool! Broodily having gone for a long walk after having had quite enough of the Dursleys, Harry had been grabbed off of the street, stunned and kidnapped, then brought to where his nightmares became real.
"You have been taught to duel, have you not, Harry Potter?" Whether he was Tom or Voldemort, he always did enjoy putting on a show. "We bow to each other, Harry," said Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed! Dumbledore would like you to show manners! Bow to death, Harry!"
The Death Eaters were laughing again. Dumbledore said they'd all been detained! Voldemort's lipless mouth was smiling at him.
Harry would not bow. He was not going to let Voldemort play with him before killing him; he was not going to give him that satisfaction.
"I said, bow," Voldemort ordered, raising his wand — and Harry felt his spine curve as though a huge, invisible hand were bending him ruthlessly forward, and the Death Eaters laughed harder than ever. "Very good," said Voldemort softly, and as he raised his wand the pressure bearing down upon Harry lifted too.
"And now you face me, like a man: straight-backed and proud, the way your father died! And now — we duel." Voldemort raised his wand, and…
Harry decided that if he couldn't escape death, then he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible. Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!" A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's — they met in midair — and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it… He couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to — and a narrow beam of light now connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold.
Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating. And then — nothing could have prepared Harry for this — he felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then came to rest on a patch of ground that was clear and free of graves.
The Death Eaters were shouting; they were asking Voldemort for instructions; they were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort… That terribly wounded snake was slithering weirdly at their heels. Some of the Death Eaters were drawing their wands.
The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web: a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now.
"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked to the Death Eaters, and Harry saw his red eyes widen with astonishment at what was happening, saw him fighting to break the thread of light still connecting his wand with Harry's. Harry held onto his wand even more tightly, with both hands, and the golden thread remained unbroken. "Do nothing unless I command you!"
An unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air. It was coming from every thread of the light-spun web vibrating around Harry and Voldemort. It was a sound Harry recognized, though he had heard it only once before in his life: it was phoenix song. It was the sound of hope to Harry: the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life! He felt as though the song were inside him instead of just around him!
Don't break the connection, it seemed to sing. "I know," Harry said to the music, "I know I mustn't." No sooner had he said it than the thing became much harder to do. His wand began to vibrate more powerfully than ever before - and the beam between him and Voldemort changed too. The wood beneath his fingers grew so hot he feared it would burst into flames. Beads of light that had been moving toward Harry moved back toward Voldemort as Harry struggled and struggled.
Harry didn't understand how or why he was doing it, didn't know what it might achieve - but he now concentrated harder than he had ever done in his life on forcing that bead of light right back into Voldemort's wand.
At once, Voldemort's wand began to emit echoing screams of pain. And then - Voldemort's red eyes widened with shock - screams of pain came from his wand.
Something different emerged from its tip: the dense shadow of a man's head, quickly followed by his arms and torso. It was an old man Harry had seen only in a dream who was now pushing himself out of the end of Voldemort's wand. The ghost or the man's shadow - or whatever it was - surveyed Harry and Voldemort, the golden web, and the connected wands with mild surprise. He leaned back on his walking stick.
"He was a real wizard, then?" the old man asked, his eyes on Voldemort. "Killed me, that one did. You fight him, boy!" But already, another head was emerging from Voldemort's wand. This head, gray as a smoky statue, was a woman's.
Harry, both arms shaking now as he fought to keep his wand still, saw her drop to the ground and straighten up like the others, staring. The shadow of Bertha Jorkins surveyed the battle before her with wide eyes.
"Don't let go, now!" she cried, and her voice echoed as though from very far away. "Don't let him get you, Harry: don't let go!" She and the other shadowy figure began to pace around the inner walls of the golden web, while the Death Eaters flitted around the outside of it. Voldemort's dead victims whispered as they circled the duelers: they whispered words of encouragement to Harry and hissed words Harry couldn't hear at Voldemort.
And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand - and Harry knew when it began, he KNEW who it would be. He knew, as though he had expected it from the moment the old man's shadow appeared from the wand. Harry knew because this woman was the one he'd thought of and yearned for more than any other on this dreadful, dreadful night.
The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him. Harry - his arms shaking madly now - looked back into the ghostly face of his mother. "Your father's coming," she said quietly. "Hold on for your father. It will be all right; hold on."
And then he came: a man with tall and untidy hair, much like Harry's own: the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened up like his wife. He walked close to Harry, looking down at him, and he spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his victims prowled around him, could not hear.
"When the connection is broken, we will linger for only moments, but it will give you time. You must use any and everything in your possession to get to safety. Do you understand, Harry?"
There was only one thing that Harry could think of that he had on him that might get him out of this place. His father couldn't be serious? ...Yet Harry trusted his parents...
.
Harry glared at the blonde Death Eater who was giving him an exasperated look. He really just wanted to meet up with his friends and get on the train, even though that would take him back to the Dursleys today. But now he had to deal with HER. "I will NEVER call on you." Naruto scrunched her face up and for a moment, Harry thought she might punch him, considering the way that she began shaking her fist at him.
"Look here, you ungrateful little brat! I saved your ASS and sacrificed a part of myself to get you out of that creepy graveyard and away from those weirdos…"
Harry winced, flinching back at the reminder although he really didn't understand what had happened behind Tom Riddle Sr.'s grave. Dumbledore had given him that information but little more.
"Now, now, Naruto," Dumbledore interrupted placatingly. He placed a hand on each of the teens' shoulders, careful of Naruto's missing arm. "Harry," he said with a raised brow, addressing him firmly yet kindly, "I ask you to put some faith in Naruto-chan. IF you find yourself in danger, she has a technique that could rather instantly bring you to safety."
"I'm not weak," Harry said (petulantly, he would later admit to himself.)
" Dumbass," Naruto sneered as she put her fist on her hip. "It's just a spell-thing to get one out of troublesome situations!" She snorted for some reason and then glared at him again. "You're not weak to ask for help! It's smart to ask for it when you need it and NOT REMAIN WHERE YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE, YA KNOW!"
Dumbledore tried to chuckle but turned Harry fully toward him, placing his other hand on his other shoulder and bending down to better look at him, eye-to-eye. "Harry, I must insist that you carry Miss Namikaze's special kun- tool with you at all times. I may not always be available, and… Please, Harry."
Harry finally realized just how serious he was. And who was he to deny Dumbledore? "Alright, Professor." He shot a glare at Naruto just because. She responded by maturely sticking her tongue out at him.
"I mean it, Harry," Dumbledore pushed. "Naruto carries an identical one with her at all times…"
"Even in my jammies! And right beside me if I'm in the shower and naked or something," she added with a snort.
Harry blushed all over himself but couldn't help but softly chortle when Dumbledore uncharacteristically popped the witch on her head.
"That's enough, Naruto. And Harry: you will do with that tool exactly what Naruto is doing. That is an order." Harry blinked up at him in surprise. "Or a strong request. At all times, please."
Naruto gave him a sly smile. "He'll know if you don't. Oh… and that tool can make you stronger, ya know."
"Is it dark magic?" Harry asked the headmaster. Big-mouthed Naruto answered instead.
"Baka! Of course, it's not 'Dark Magic!' It's a special, tri-pronged kunai that's got a seal on it that if you fuck with, I'll know! …Keep it a secret, ne?"
"Please, Harry," Dumbledore beseeched of him again.
.
Harry nodded at his father as the shadow of his beautiful mother begged him to "let go."
He did - and began running as he had never run in his life. The Death Eater's curses were flying at him as he zigzagged through the graveyard. Voldemort and the others were screaming in outrage. Finally, behind another large headstone, he threw the thing Naruto had given him, just as Dumbledore had instructed him to. At first, he thought she wasn't coming - but then she was there.
In her pajamas with bare feet. A pouch, however, was fastened around her leg
"Aw fuck," she said crossly. Harry cried out when she threw him over her shoulder. "Sorry! Kage Bunshin no jutsu."
The last thing he saw before the wind was knocked clean out of him and everything went dark for an instant was Naruto's clone viciously jumping high up and punching Voldemort where his nose should be. Blinking rapidly, he realized that he was now in a clean but rather run-down kitchen. "Wh- Where are…" A woman with bubblegum-pink hair grabbed a nearby bucket just in time for Harry to vomit into it.
"So this is Harry Potter," the woman said cheerily.
"Yeah, it is," Naruto said with a heavy heart. She patted Harry's back as he threw up again, knowing that the Hiraishin was a bitch to get used to. "I'm proud of ya, Harry-kun. Thank Kami you overcame your bullshit!"