Chapter 13: Introducing Choji
Summary: In which Calla cooks enough to feed even the Dursley family twice over and remembers Ron's misadventures in trying to start up a rockband.
Okay, babysitter again – her first priority should probably be to make sure the little child was actually here and still asleep. No way was she getting accused of not having protected him if he wasn't even here… although with Akimichi-san – Choza – having left already that may be the end result anyway.
Now, to find the toddler. The house was large and the clan head hadn't really shown her around.
Children souls were intriguing. Baby souls were like little blobs; floppy, malleable, churning and changing with every second. However, as they grew up, children's souls started to grow firmer, stronger, gaining colours and hues as their character formed over time.
Finding the boy – Choji's – soul wasn't hard. Finding the right path to him, on the other hand, was a little bit more difficult. This house was a lot more labyrinthine and the child was well-hidden. Choji's soul was soft, kind – a lot kinder than Shikamaru, who had felt a lot more apathetic but intensely curious. She liked him already – and a part of her mourned, already, because she knew that in this new world, born into a clan, as its heir, the little two-year-old child had no choice – would never have a choice but enter a profession which would seek to strip him of this kindness, would see it as a weakness.
But he was well for now, safe and asleep. Little Choji had light brown hair, red curls on his chubby cheeks and Calla couldn't help but put an alert spell on the small child. Just to make sure – she hadn't intended to intervene, but no child she had personally known had disappeared (and it was easy to pretend it wasn't real, it wasn't her problem, it didn't affect her), and neither Shikamaru nor Choji would be the first. Not on her watch. Not these ones. She had the power to protect these ones – not all the kids in the world, but these ones she could protect. Calla had been drafted as their protector, she would be there for the next few years, help them learn and grow. She could no more fail to do her utmost to protect these two children than she could have stood by when she really had been a child and Ginny had been taken into the chamber by Riddle. Not when she was in a position to be able to help them. Not when adults only ever stood by and talked, instead of acting, instead of helping. It was the highest irony that it was Snape, of all adults and teachers she had ever had, who had been the one who intervened on the children's behalf most often.
Another quick alert spell – learned to deal with Teddy originally – would let her know once he woke up. Until then – it was time to cook and bake and create a veritable feast for this little darling's lunch and dinner.
A nod to herself and she gently closed the door, leaving to seek out the kitchen. Naturally, instead of the kitchen, the first door she opened led to a bedroom – presumably of the clan head and his wife. Blushing furiously – even though there hadn't been anything scandalous to see, Calla felt as though she had intruded on their privacy – it took another few false starts before she finally located the kitchen (they really should have better security for a clan head's office though).
"Alright, let's see what we've got to work with," Calla murmured to herself, opening the refrigerator and gawping for a long moment at finding it filled to the brim. Even the Dursley's fridge had never looked quite that full (and there would never have been that many vegetables and fruit in it, not even during Dudley's enforced diet).
But this, now this she could work with. Cooking for herself was more of a chore – not to mention boring and a time sink. Cooking for her friends, however, was fun – or at least, it was when they weren't on the run. But with a few tricks from Molly to accelerate the cooking, and her friend's vocal appreciation and enjoyment, it had become an occasional hobby.
So, it really shouldn't come as any surprise when given carte blanche to whip something up for the clan heir for lunch and dinner and the instruction to feed him copious amounts of food; well, Calla really had no reason to hold back, did she?
The dough for pastries first – one for a savoury pie and one flaky for sweeter desserts. Teddy had always enjoyed fingerfoods – little things he could eat and snack on anytime and eat with his hands. He had still been learning how to hold his own cutlery and things were generally a lot less messy when he used his hands… Okay, somewhat less messy; but he definitely had better control of his hands than his cutlery, so her point stood. Spoons were what he could handle best, but she had no idea how long it took to learn how to use chopsticks (she still struggled).
It was truly unfortunate she hadn't learned how to make spaghetti or pasta from scratch, but pie was a good old English standard and one of Vernon's favourites. And with magic, the dough was done lickety-split and she could create a steak pie. Now kids usually couldn't handle more complicated flavours and they tasted a lot more bitter on younger tongues (advice from Andromeda Tonks, who had been more well-read across both muggle and wizarding research than Molly), so all the sauces were made a lot lighter than what she would have created for the Dursleys. Some small baby peas and carrots on the side; sweet enough kids usually didn't object to eating them.
With the flaky pastry she made some berry and apple pockets with tiny amounts of cinnamon in them. Unfortunately, she could do nothing for baking time as magic and electric ovens really didn't go well together, but even just shortening the preparation time was enough to accelerate the process a lot. Plus, this clan was full of people who loved food – and cooking; the clan head's kitchen alone had four ovens – one which was industrial sized large, one Dursley-sized one (and yes, that was an acceptable unit of measurement, thank you very much) and two small ones – so it was easy for her to occupy them.
Then, because she never really got the chance to cook for others or show off anymore, she decided to use this time and cook more. Yes, she probably should be familiarising herself with the children's books, toys and just how to keep the little boy entertained… but, well, this was so much more interesting.
The oven in her own apartment was… well, it worked. Mostly. And that was really the best thing she could say about it. She'd tried baking in it once and, well, it had managed to burn the cake on one side and leave it raw in the centre. This, however, was amazing. These ovens were A-grade and not just that, but they were immaculately cleaned. So, with a captive audience of tiny baby-sized food connoisseur, how was she meant to help herself? This really wasn't Calla's fault.
When her alarm warned her that the child had woken up, Calla looked around herself and hoped fervently the Akimichi clan head wouldn't dock her pay or ban her from the kitchen on future visits because she had depleted his fridge rather magnificently.
The dining table was set. All the plates were spelled to keep the food warm, naturally. She had made apple sauce (god, so many years without apple sauce, how ever had she survived?) and, well, you couldn't have apple sauce and not have pancakes, right? And then there was the steak pie and the smaller chicken pie as well as a large serving plate with sweet fruit pastries. On the other side were the omelettes with a mix of ham, tomato and capsicum in them. Beside that was a dish with potato gratin and the last oven had been used to bake some muffins with chocolate chips inside them (such an expensive commodity in this world, so they had been used rather sparingly) and de-stoned cherries inside.
Yes, even the entire Dursley family would struggle to eat this – never mind a single two-year-old child, Calla thought to herself with some chagrin. She had always hated wasting food (having gone hungry for much of her childhood, seeing it wasted still grated), so hopefully the Akimichi wouldn't notice that she kept the food warm and from going off. They surely would it eat it fast enough not to notice, right? And if not, then Calla had no idea why or how that could possibly have happened. Right, that was her story and she was sticking to it.
She quickly used the last spells to clean the kitchen – ovens and chopping board included – silently thanking Molly again for showing her all the magical ways of cooking for a large group and accelerating and using magic to do even the simplest processes, such as stirring, chopping and making dough rise faster.
Despite the years which had elapsed since then, Calla still giggled every time she used it; when Hermione had seen Molly casually use it one day, absent-mindedly, completely focussed on a very different task, she had freaked out. Hermione had spent a week barely sleeping, only eating when prompted by either Ron or Calla to do so and making dough after dough and using the spell on a variety of other things. According to Hermione, this spell was like a miniature timeturner, speeding the dough up through the growth process, like forming a small time-bubble around it in which time passed differently.
Still, a week later, Hermione still hadn't been able to explain or replicate it with other objects or even locate the 'bubble' around the dough. Ron and Calla were by that point well-versed in getting their friend to bed and forced her to sleep; upon waking, Hermione had conceded momentary defeat and focussed back on rewriting legislation for the Wizengamot as her deadline was approaching rapidly thanks to the weeklong delay in progress.
But they all knew she harangued Molly every few weeks for any and all other household spells she'd claim all pureblood witches were taught. Nothing else had cropped up of the same magnitude by the time she left and Ron had told her, snickering the entire time, that Hermione kept a notebook with ideas and experiments specifically for this one spell and kept working on it anytime she had a moment to spare.
That was also the first time Calla had really taken notice of Molly's way of cooking which had led to her being tutored by the other witch for several weeks – so really, it was all thanks to Hermione.
It was funny, Calla had never been quite as interested as Hermione had been in why or how things worked the way they did, she just accepted it and knew her magic well enough by now that willpower and visualisation was largely enough.
Chakra, on the other hand, made her a lot more curious – it was not as responsive as magic, you couldn't just wish for something, it didn't magically (pun intended) shield you; magic could do things you never heard of or thought of because your only thought was protection. Children raised by muggles could apparate, could create a safe bubble of magic around you, a shield, push others away and any number of things.
Chakra had to be learned, had rules and hand signs.
Magic could work without wand movement or wand – they were added to facilitate it, to make it easier for others to learn, to create a unified intent. With Chakra however, unless it was a kekkai genkai, it had to be controlled, changed intentionally. It was interesting in the way it worked as it was nowhere near as intuitive as it had been to use magic.
You could make magic do almost anything, it was just a matter of creating a replicable process (wand movements) and wording to get the same intent. Chakra, on the other hand, was more like discovery. It existed and it did certain things already, it was just up to humanity to discover them. Handsigns responded differently when done in a different order – linking up tiger, ox and rat had a different effect than ox, tiger and rat. It also mattered which hand you used for the hand signs. Chakra responded, and chakra converted to, for example fire, based on the hand signs. Or at least it tried – depending on your chakra system and whether you had learned how to change your chakra nature.
It was contradictory, like humanity was using and creating jutsu but it was less an act of creation and more of discovering the fundamental pre—written laws of the universe. On the other hand, you could interact with your own chakra, use it to reinforce your taijutsu, your body, change its nature or take nature out of it to convert to neutral – medical – chakra. It was so very different and yet similar in many ways.
It was interesting. A part of her was still averse to using or learning death magic beyond what was necessary – didn't even know what it was all capable of, but this, this chakra thing, it was so very interesting. It was literally a part of this world – and unlike hers, everyone actually had chakra – everything had chakra, right down to trees and animals. It was fascinating how so many things could be the same and yet so very different.
Choji walked in rubbing his eyes tiredly, looking around and finally settling on her, looking confused. He had a small baby blue blanket he held onto, tiny fists curled into the fabric. Calla smiled her kindest smile and easily placed herself at eye height with the boy (she hated being short but had to concede that she was unlikely to grow much taller any time soon).
"Hi. You must be Choji. My name is Kara. Your daddy asked me to look after you until you mom comes home later tonight. It's a pleasure to meet you."
She smiled as he flushed shyly and avoided eye contact. He was adorable.
"Now Choji-kun, I hope you're hungry, because this is all for you."
For the first time, Choji looked at the actual food spread out on the table and his eyes went wide, mouth hidden behind the small blanket he held in his hand.
"All for me?" He repeated, wide-eyed, looking at her for confirmation. At her nod, he quickly sat down.
She forced him to get back up and wash his hands, but then proceeded to watch indulgently as he tried one thing after another, mixing savoury and sweet food as he tried to make sure he got to try everything on the table before he felt too full.
Calla sat next to him, amused. At least she had managed to eat something at lunch with her friends – she was getting paid to cook and watch over their son, not to eat their food. It was nice making food again and having someone so obviously appreciative.
Although she definitely should have accounted for how messy apple sauce would make little children (although rolling the pancake helped, there was still a lot of sauce over little Choji's hands, face and clothes. Luckily the blanket had been spared.
Babysitting Choji had been fun – despite the occasional tantrum – and the mother finally came home at ten at night to allow her to go home. Choji was in bed by then and Calla had retrieved books from her bag to tide her over the boredom (although she still felt like she was intruding).
Hopefully there wouldn't be any complaints from her boss after this one, although she didn't think there would be. Despite the amount of food she'd made, little Choji had enjoyed them all (the little apple ones were his definite favourites though), and they were clan heads – the money on groceries probably didn't even make a blip on their radar. And it wasn't like it had gone to waste.
Plus little Choji had been entertained (coming up with new games was hard after a while though) and well-fed, cleaned, dressed, and tucked into bed. Unlike what Shikamaru had wanted, though, Choji had demanded a lullaby. That had been a little (a lot!) more tricky.
After the war, and at Hermione's recommendation, the Golden Trio along with most of the Weasleys, had tried to find new hobbies to focus on and distract them; easier said than done. Except Ron had helped her clean out Sirius' room and the discovery of Sirius' and James' Rock'n Roll phase (the motorbike really should have clued her in), had triggered a belated teenage rebellion urge in her friend.
Somehow – Calla would still like to know how, exactly, he had convinced Hermione that they should be a band. She was still working under the assumption that her best female friend had merely agreed to indulge Ron but it was still a possibility – however remote – that Hermione had wanted to let her hair down and become a rock'n roller. …. Yeah, Calla didn't think so either. Ron probably had either really good blackmail, a secret cache of old books or damn good puppy eyes. Or a mix of all three.
It had lasted for all of two weeks. Apparently reading music sheets ("What the fuck, Hermione! There's a reason I didn't want to take runes, you know! I've seen Bill and Charlie struggle through that mess – no thank you") had not been what he expected. And learning by doing – or watching and listening – still required time, training and effort. Calla had not been surprised when Ron's "coolest idea ever" of building a rock-band with them called the "Golden Trio" died a quiet, ignominious death. His guitar was relegated to a dusty corner and occasionally he strummed along, but that was the extent of Ron's illustrious music career.
But it had revealed that Hermione was really talented with the violin (a sniff and condescending look that she must have learned from Snape or Malfoy, paired with a "well, if Sherlock Holmes, could do it, then why would you think I couldn't") and that her friend may have had a very long-lived crush on a literary character ("it's Sherlock Holmes, Calla, how can you not? He's a genius and I wish you and Ron both had even half as much logic as he had in his fingertip!") that they must not tease her about under any circumstances.
But Ginny had been the real surprise. Growing up among the boys and her mum talking about growing up and marriage, it wasn't really a surprise when she tried to fit in – flying at night to get better, learning and improving on her own with the things her brothers were so talented in. But her voice – god, that girl could sing. It had been Ron who had prodded a very reluctant Ginny into singing which had convinced both Hermione and Calla forevermore that if any Weasley were to ever have a music career, Ginny would be it. That girl could not just project her voice, but it was smooth, steady and boy, could she sing.
It was a shame, really, that Ginny was so set on going into Quidditch. Calla had discovered she loved the piano, but she just had nowhere the aptitude Ginny or Hermione had shown, so she'd kept her continued training hidden. Learning to read sheet music was hard, but a judiciously applied silencing charm on her room kept the outside world from knowing about her missteps.
Still, even without Ginny's amazing voice, Calla could string simple tunes together; and whiles he would never have her friend's vocal abilities, she could at least carry a tune and remembered a lot of songs. So Choji had been sung to sleep with the same song she'd sung for Teddy; "Count on me" by Bruno Mars. It still worked a treat, luckily.
The hand-off to Choji's mother (who had been somewhat tipsy) had been quick and professional and Calla could finally make her way home and into bed. Hopefully tomorrow would be better.
Author's Notes: Hi Everyone,
I know this is late, but I have finished up with work for a bit and just enjoying a small holiday, before I write more. Sorry. Just wait a little longer. This chapter really didn't want to come either, so made it even worse. I'll reply to comments etc in a bit, but as I said relaxing and taking a break for now (still stuck under lockdown, but with a new laptop and the discovery of Dragon Age Origins, new chapters may be slightly delayed *Whistles innocently*). THanks for all the lovely comments; just a quick note to all:
Voting will continue until the chapter where a romantic relationship is actually happening (dates / kisses). Then you can assume - and I will probably make it clear at the end, that voting is over.
From now on, to vote you need to actually give a review, i.e. singular comments with just the pairing name will no longer be counted. If you only want to vote, go to my profile and at the top there's a poll you can vote in for whatever pairing you want.
Also - there will not be an Uchiha massacre. Ever. Not in this story.
Thanks everyone for all the lovely comments and feedback, hope you enjoyed this chapter despite it being short. We'll find out Akimichi reactions in a bit :)