NEW BLOOD INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY
Chapter Six
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She was furious. Body a flushed rouge, heavy, harsh pants, eyes that practically spat angry fire as her hands crept behind her back for the huge weapon attached there. He idly wondered if she was seriously going to attack him for doing something they both knew had been long in coming. He felt a slight touch of irritation. Troublesome woman.
His family displayed a deplorable amount of dislike towards this female. He had never witnessed such a level of silent disapproval as when he chose to date the beautiful blond. His mother's reasons were simple: she found the girl arrogant, rude, distasteful and uncouth. His father's were a bit more complicated: one did not date former enemies, especially an enemy who had been one of the key figures instrumental in the attack on one's home. His cousins, uncles, aunts and even the wild deer on their land hesitated to be in her presence. He was truthful enough with himself to acknowledge that his attraction towards her had always harboured upon the mere physical, and that his laziness was a key reason why their relationship had lasted so long.
"Kagemane no jutsu, successful" murmured the quiet, lazy voice through the clearing.
The raging girl stopped in her tracks, her shadow bound by the shadow of her ex as she was forced to put down her weapon. Using her shadow to control her body, he made her tie herself up to one of the trees in the park, and walked away ignoring the stream of obscenities following him.
He thought his reasons for breaking up with her were rather obvious. It was not his family's disapproval, or her former enemy status, or even the fact that long distance relationships were a real drag. Unlike his father, his reasons were rather uncomplicated: she was not his intellectual equal and never would be. That was unacceptable. He hated being bored. He was a Nara. He would have a woman who was his equal or none at all.
Vernon
Vernon Dursley. A businessman. A family man of four. A very well connected man, Smeltings had seen to that. It would have greatly interested Dumbledore to know that Harry was not the first magically-inclined person of Vernon's acquaintance. The little one-year old terror's inclusion into Vernon's family had found the shrewd businessman calling up and renewing this acquaintance. Through said acquaintance, Vernon had grown his network of paranormal associates. That had been very good for business actually though he was very careful none were European. You never knew how far of an arm a man like Dumbledore had.
Enlarging the circle of his magical contacts had greatly reduced the amount of stress in raising a magical child in a nosey mundane neighbourhood. He warned his associates of his wife's discomfort with magic and so many, beyond the reversal of some magical mishap, tended to restrain themselves around the housewife and her children.
Eventually even Petunia relaxed. Enough to tentatively befriend a few of the men's wives, even calling up a friend from time to time to ask kindly whether she can pop over for a chat. While they were there the women would (discreetly of course) deal with any magical mishaps that Harry might have cleverly produced. The boy had developed a heinous love for all things shocking-colour orange in his toddler years and his magic kept changing entire rooms to please him. As a consequence of this sensitivity to Petunia, both boys had grown up never knowing that quite a few of the family's acquaintances were of less than mundane origins.
The child hadn't realised just how dangerous the venture he was attempting was. Based on the man's behaviour up to this point, this headmaster had no intention of relinquishing the tight control under which the Boy-Who-Lived fastidiously laboured. Vernon was an accomplished businessman and thus had met people like Dumbledore. He knew that the moment Petunia agreed to allow Harry's transfer to New Blood, was the moment the Dursleys became an obstacle. Men like Dumbledore made obstacles disappear. Vernon was not about to wait around for that to happen.
The attack on Dudley by two obviously magical creatures three weeks later made Vernon realise his caution was justified. The man stood in the doorway of his son's room whilst his distraught, trembling wife sat in a chair next to their son's bed and stared blankly ahead. Vernon had never felt more thankful in his life than when all the commotion made him look out through the window. To his shock Harry's white owl, like an angry, vengeful angel, streaked across the sky straight for whatever that invisible creature was and ferociously attacked it.
Dudley would live. He would be fine. His son was fine. His soul was still there and those creatures hadn't eaten it like he had been told they could. The magical police contacted by a neighbour, that Mrs. Figgs whom he hadn't known had contacts with that world, had confirmed it. That owl had saved Dudley's life at the cost of her own. He would buy a casket and pay for a fucking funeral for that owl. It more than deserved the respect.
Vernon left the doorway and headed downstairs to call one of these cultivated contacts. He would never know that the report of the attack on his son was burnt and the aurors' memories erased at the order of one Delores Umbridge. Or that two more of these soul sucking creatures would make their way back to Privet Drive a week later. It was time for his backup plan.
...
No one but their magical benefactor and Harry knew where the Dursleys were so it was with shock and fear that Petunia greeted the DSL man on her new house's doorstep the day after moving in. Signing in all the right places, she took the package and placed it on their brand new kitchen table and sat staring at it a good few minutes before she sighed and opened it. A huge pile of file sheets greeted her. At first Petunia didn't understand what she was seeing. The person seemed to write all over the place. There were diagrams and cartoon drawings in the margins and formulas placed all over the various pages. Quite a few paragraphs were crossed out and ideas pencilled in. One of the pages even had coffee stains on the edge. She didn't want to acknowledge the handwriting and would have packed it away if a neatly folded parchment didn't fall out of the folder onto the floor. Picking it up, Petunia unfolded and read it then started trembling.
Dudley walked into the room sometime later to find a slew of file sheets covering the kitchen table and his mother quietly sobbing. He panicked. His mother didn't cry. EVER. He tried comforting her and asking what was wrong but she was unresponsive. Running to the phone Dudley quickly called his father and informed him of the situation. Assured his Dad would be home soon, he hung up and went back to the table, gently patting his mother's shoulder in a gesture of uncomfortable support. Idly looking at the mass of papers he spotted a piece of parchment near her hand and picked it up. Understanding began to replace confusion as he read on. He pulled up a chair and sat next to his still sobbing mother.
...
October 31st, 1981
Dear Tuney,
We Live, we Love but more than that we LEARN. As I get older I get a clearer and clearer idea of what's important and what's not. Tuney I wish I could look back at my teenage self and say: "Hey you stupid self-centered little thing. Don't you know what you have?".
I wish I could take back the hurtful words and gestures and that foolish need to fit in with a bunch of outdated bastards whose smiles were as false as their morals. I wish I had listened to you when you warned me about losing myself. I am ashamed to admit I was taken with the wizarding world's supposed belief in its superiority. I should have known better and have no excuse really.
Sorry Tuney. Sorry.
You were always the cynical one with a cooler head and far more common sense.
I've been working on something lately. That's what's in the folder. I never told you but I once overheard our parents talking about your ability with blood. Don't worry I never told anybody but I...Tuney there's this mad man and he's hunting my family and I'm so afraid he'll come after you. I wanted to give you some way to protect yourself. I know you don't like magic but I thought maybe this is different? It's a medium you can use? Please don't turn this away, Tuney. You're the only family I have left and it's just us two left you know? Even though we have different last names now we're still Evans and...I don't want you to die. Please don't be mad. I put up a blood barrier around your house. The notes are in the folder. I thought maybe we could meet. It's...not just a blood barrier. Can we meet? Tuney it started out as a barrier but...read the notes. You've always been so brilliant with numbers. It's incomplete but I...I think I might be on the verge of creating some sort of weapon. I don't know. A weapon made out of blood? That's not something you hear everyday. With your eye for numbers though and your ability maybe you would see things I missed.
Maybe we can meet sometime next week? At that little coffee shop in London you seem to like so much. You know the one with the little blue and red umbrellas and the bald waiter with the gorgeous French accent? You can meet Harry and I can meet Dudley. Maybe we can exchange phone numbers? (Yes I bought a phone. James keeps poking it in fascination. Silly man.) We can make play dates for the boys!
Please come Tuney. I'll be there every day next week from 2pm to 5pm. Please tuney. Please come. Please.
From your Loving sister,
Lily.
...
Dudley put down the parchment and hugged his mother fighting back his own tears.
"Oh momma."
There wasn't really anything else that could be said.
...
Two days later, Petunia once again stood in front of the house that had been her home since she had been married and watched the red haze of binary that surrounded it. She knew she was the only one who could see it. She could always see it but had never taken the time to study it.
A bit of morbid amusement affected her momentarily and she gave a soft, harsh laugh. Lily had always been brilliant and a bit of an overachiever. This had to be her little sister's greatest work, a solid wall of binary written in her very own blood. A weapon created in a format that Petunia could actually use. This could not be spur of the moment like Lily's letter would lead her to believe. This had to have been years of work. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel.
Petunia lifted her hand and touched one of the many groups of binary in the blood coded program. It flashed a sharp array of colours before becoming a stark white and then slowly spread throughout. Petunia breathed out, turning her palm over to glance at the strange symbol which had now appeared on it. A rune Lily called it. For all intents and purposes it looked like a small birthmark or strange tattoo. Her eyes prickled and she clenched her hand into a tight fist before breathing out slowly and joining her family in the car.
A few minutes later and Petunia stood in front of the grave of Lily Potter nee Evans blankly staring ahead. What was she supposed to say now? Her heart squeezed in regret and her eyes burned but the words were stuck in her throat, practically choking her and suddenly she was hot and cold and more furious than she had ever been in her life.
What was she supposed to say? How dare Lily do this to her?
How was she supposed to apologize to the dead?
Remus
There were flashes where he was actually aware of what was going on around him. He thinks Jeff came to see him once. Harry too. Maybe the Professor. He wasn't sure. He hoped not. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. They had long since taken him to an empty room where there was nothing he could hurt himself with. They had long before that put him into a magical suppression jacket so he could stop clawing at his skin. Naked except for the jacket and covered in an oily sweat that stank with a rancid odor, he languished in the now bearable level of craving. The intensive itching under his skin continued though. It was better than last month. The uncontrollable shaking and hallucinations had been terrible. He had a dim recollection of crying then, and pleading, cursing, begging, vomiting, promising to do anything...
He felt humiliated.
It had since been two full moons he'd been back on Ivor Lonnath. He spent that first moon in a room in Customs enhanced with Were-resistance seals. It was the worst transformation he had ever had. The week leading up had been bad enough but the actual transformation had nearly snapped his mind with the pain. Remus couldn't even remember what he did during the night but the next morning he had been rushed to the Crystal Hospital's emergency room. It seems the wolf, unable to find any living thing to attack, had turned on itself.
He had almost died.
As it was most of his wounds were infected with the werewolf's magic-resisting venom and quite a few had had to heal the natural way. Some were very deep, like the one on his face that went from the right corner of his mouth to the collar bone. That one had to be treated and sewn up in the mundane manner and was too close to the artery to be eligible for plastic surgery. Remus welcomed the scarring. It was a reminder to never be so stupid again.
Why had he continued to take the wolfsbane when he left Hogwarts? Heck why hadn't he just pretended to take the potion to begin with? It would have been child's play to just switch the potion to a vial filled with water or something even with Snape looking on. So why hadn't he? And why hadn't he stopped taking the vile thing when his contract was up? There had been numerous reasons, all of them now that he was looked back, just mere excuses.
The potion had eliminated any pain that normally occurred during the transformation process. That had been a major warning sign. His tutor on Weres had explained that it was essential to experience a bit of pain in the process. Your body was changing it's very shape and even animagi (those that changed into their spirit animal) felt slight pain during their transformation process. With wolfsbane, Remus never felt any pain whatsoever. He couldn't understand how he missed such a vital clue to something being wrong. He couldn't understand why he had continued taking this potion and why he thought he was fine. He was just lost right now.
The sound of the security wards allowing someone through snapped him out from his nightmare recollection and he turned away from the door. He hoped whoever it was went away soon he was in no mood to talk. Unfortunately he was out of luck.
The Professor entered the room and raised an eyebrow at the back of his wayward student, secretly relieved that the man was finally alert enough to even attempt to ignore him. Remus would overcome this like he had overcome so much in his life and would take from this the valuable lesson of learning who to trust. Experience was the one aspect the Professor couldn't teach him.
The Professor had known immediately upon reading that letter exactly what Albus Dumbledore was attempting. A headmaster who demands you to take an addictive potion that only his pet potions master could provide for you? The Professor won't be surprised in the least if extras were added to bind the werewolf's loyalty to Dumbledore whilst also increasing addiction to the drug.
The seals in Remus's tattoo had registered and blocked at least fifteen attempts to break into and adjust his mind during the time he spent in Britain. Shikaku came to see him beyond furious though you would never know from his face. It was his actions at even approaching the Professor with his recordings that was telling. It's not an unheard of method of control. The result would have been a nice pet Werewolf who did what he was told without question. The Professor hadn't been surprised in the least that Remus thought nothing was wrong and that he had continued taking a drug from a potions master that hated him. Or that he continued to take said potion well after the time his contract was up.
He also hadn't been surprised when Remus had stopped communicating with him, his Clan Head or Jeff around a year of being in Britain. The scan results were rather ominous in its findings: a few more months and Remus's will would have broken enough to start giving information on his training with him and what his Clan teachings. That would have been disastrous since the seals in the Nara tattoo would have executed him immediately.
It was a concerned Shikaku who had arranged that entire fiasco with Customs. It was also he who asked Jeff to inform Remus that his godson sent in an acceptance form, knowing full well that Remus would want to pick up the boy. The scanner was actually not even a normal one. After all, how many scanners had the ability to scan both mind and blood? Even the healer had been a Nara contact. That this move had led to the discovery of that soul fragment in young Potter-san only cemented the belief that it had been the right call to make. Either way he agreed with Shikaku-san. It was time for the Nara to spread their network into the European Magical World, particularly in Britain. They had ignored the need for too long. Amused, he sat down and patiently watched the back of his stubborn student. The quiet lasted for a good twenty minutes before Remus lost his temper.
"Go away."
"Why?"
No answer.
"Why?"
No answer.
"You know you smell?"
A stream of obscenities was his answer. The Professor was impressed though he didn't think you could do that kind of position with a goat.
"Your vocabulary has improved dramatically. Did you take lessons from a toilet?"
"What part of Leave Me Alone that you don't understand!"
"I've left you alone for three months and before that several months while you were in Britain. That's quite long enough, bozu."*
The Professor leaned back in his chair, a small smile crossing his face as Remus stubbornly refused to look at him. This was more reaction than he had gotten for the entire three months. This man was the student he knew, not the snivelling, trembling mess that had arrived on the island.
"Tell me why you're here Remus-kun."
"What. The . Fuck."
"I'm just wondering why you're here."
"If you don't know I'm not about to tell you."
"I don't see why not."
"Find someone else to tell you your bedtime story you old geezer!"
"Hmm, maybe I should. That Customs Officer who brought you in seems like he would tell me. How about that Nurse? You know the one who was the first to walk into your room after your first transformation? She seems like a good storyteller. Or you know what? Maybe I should ask HARRY what he thinks? Maybe he's got some good theories, neh? That sounds like a great idea, Remus-kun! I'll go do that!"
The Professor got up from the chair and went to knock on the door to be let out.
"Don't." came a whisper from behind him.
Don't. Please. Just...don't."
The professor stared at the man on the floor then headed back to the chair and sat down.
Silence reigned for a few minutes.
"I was an idiot." Came another whisper from his student. He laughed bitterly. "I was so stupid."
"Why?"
"I suspected he wanted more from me than just someone that knew Sirius well enough to be able to stop him. I suspected something was going on. No. I KNEW something was going on but...I...wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe he was the good man he portrayed himself to be. A good man who just had faults like everybody else. I wanted to believe in my hero...the man that let me go to school and championed the causes of the misfortuned and led us into battle against the Dark Lord."
Remus started laughing, harsh and broken. At the end of it he was in tears. He held his head in his hands as the realisation overwhelmed him.
"I did this to myself."
Britain
Sirius would never tell anyone the sheer level of fear he experienced when he came to, tied up and naked on a bed in a room that definitely wasn't his. It wasn't really the tied up or naked part (he had always been a rather kinky son of a bitch), but the fact that the last he remembered he was in his highly protected, very hidden home whilst trying to stave off the headache Molly Weasley's screeching was creating. They were discussing his supposed missing godson (Sirius was well aware that Harry was busy having the time of his life at another school), and the woman seemed stuck on high soprano throughout the entire conversation. That he was pulling a blank after that memory scared him terribly.
Where was he? How did he get here? As a renown criminal the ministry was more likely to put him in a cell than a bed. As for the Dark Lord, well Sirius doubted he would ever have woken up at all.
Who the hell wants a piece of me now? He thought to himself. More importantly, how did they even find my house?
The door to his room opened suddenly. Swinging his head, Sirius stared at the brown haired man in a high ponytail that resembled the shape of a pineapple. The man, definitely Asian, leaned against the door frame like he was completely exhausted. His clothes were militaristic in design and fabric choice. Even with his slouch, Sirius could see that his eyes appeared sharp and intelligent. Mr. Pineapple Head gave Sirius a bored look, like it was too much of an effort to even look at him. Sirius took a brief moment to feel insulted. He would admit to being a lot of things but boring wasn't one of them.
"Who the bloody hell are you?!" shot out of his mouth before he even thought about what he should say. Sirius felt like banging his head against the headboard at his stupidity. He was already tied up and naked like in some cheesy blues movie, there was no reason to hand complete control over the conversation to the man. He sighed to himself. He had always been an impulsive person; why couldn't his captor be a woman?
Mr. Pineapple Head sent him an amused smirk and Sirius felt like decking the arrogant little shit.
"Hello Black-san, I have a proposition for you."
Hermione
The information Daichi-san produced coupled with his own observations only resulted in confusing the brown-haired teenage boy. Hermione Granger was such a multitude of contradictions that he found it difficult to assign her a label like he did to everyone else. She was a genius but lacked common sense, was a complete nerd but could figure skate like a professional, had almost no visible muscle mass yet was one of the leading students in her advanced kickboxing class back in her neighbourhood.
Was a prude yet kept wearing short catholic-school-girl skirts. Hated her hair yet played with it incessantly.
The last two drove him a little crazy actually.
She sat in front of him in Metaphysical Physics and had never once twitched at his blatant heavy-lidded staring, even though he knew she was acutely aware of it and it made her uncomfortable. When they met in the halls her eyes slid right over him like he was invisible. When she saw him sleeping in the library she made taking a table far away from him look like an actual absent minded choice rather than a preventative measure.
She fascinated him.
Truth be told, so did Harry Potter though he wasn't a girl and didn't insist on washing his hair with coconut shampoo. The Nara felt he could be forgiven for finding the Boy-Who-Lived less interesting than his genius female friend.
Class ended and the Nara heir lazily watched his classmate through his eyelashes as she gathered her things. Today she was wearing baby-pick-me-up-and-f-me boots to go with the short catholic-school-girl skirt. Sex kitten meets innocent schoolgirl meets girl next door. She had to know what she was doing. No one could accidentally dress like that. He watched her tense movements and knew she was aware of his...observation. Soon they were the only two people left in the room.
"You know you have lovely skin." he accidentally let slip.
He could have hit himself. He could actually feel the blush rising on his face. Unfortunately, his self incrimination didn't stop him from helplessly tracing her figure with his eyes from top to bottom, stopping especially to stare at the strip of exposed leg on display between the top of the boots and the bottom of that short short skirt. This girl was seriously beginning to make him feel like a pervert but that damn skirt just kept prodding at his hormones. She flushed as well but he was pretty sure it was out of anger and she wanted to punch him.
She impressed him by not acting on the impulse and actually managing to walk out of the classroom like she wasn't trying to run. Hermione Granger was so very confusing. She was too smart to not know by now who he was, yet instead of trying to get into his good books so she could get into the Nara Clan she was actively avoiding him. That was rather interesting actually. A slow predatory smirk graced his face. Women were normally so damn troublesome yet this female...perhaps he would start deliberately putting himself in Miss Granger's way.
Harry
New Blood was effectively Kicking. His. Ass. It wasn't that Harry was incapable of doing the work or having problems with keeping up. If anything, Aunt Petunia's summer school madness had landed him in the solid middle of the pack score-wise. The problem was he was not used to being middle of the pack. He certainly wasn't used to having to fight to just maintain that place. Most Hogwarts students had unfortunately a rather poor work ethic and this had allowed Harry, who was a bit brighter than the average teen, to cruise his way to better grades than his yearmates.
The wake up call came in the form of a failed essay in his Advance Offensive and Defensive Magics class (AODM). AODM was the equivalent of the Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) class back at Hogwarts. Except maybe not since he'd never gotten a bad grade in DADA.
It was his first assignment at New Blood too. Harry had honestly been shocked at the grade and the teacher's written detailed criticism. This unfortunately included a harsh but truthful comment that he wrote his essay like a work of fiction rather than an argumentative essay. The professor had then magnanimously given seven book titles that can be found in the library. Books that Harry had better have read before rewriting and handing that essay in by that week's Friday.
By the end of the first month Harry and books were best friends, coffee was his soulmate and his iphone was the love of his life. He was almost as bad as Hermione, whom he suspected sometimes just camped the night in the library, pyjamas and everything. However, Harry refused to give in to the high level of pressure that practically suffocated his classmates, a couple even suffering breakdowns, others already withdrawing their applications to the school.
Whilst he had never had to work so hard in his life just to maintain grades, Harry found that he loved the feeling of pushing yourself passed your limits. That was the problem though. He may be going pass his limits but he was still pulling embarrassing grades, well for him at least. Harry was used to a certain level of grades at Hogwarts. He liked being at that level and he really had no desire to go from getting top grades to getting lackluster ones. Nevermind that the level of school work New Blood taught was way above Hogwarts, that the intensity was hardcore, or that at least half of his classmates were failing outright and would probably not be here come September. Harry refused to allow himself to fail.
Finally fed up after getting a C in a Magical Theory essay that he worked weeks on, Harry decided to do something that was going to piss Hermione off. He was going to ask for help from the one student that had effortlessly matched, and many times even surpassed Hermione's grades in every course, much to the utter fury of his best friend. Considering that Harry saw the guy sleep through every single class without fail, he could understand Hermione's frustration and resentment. Of course, some of that frustration could very well be due to Hermione's belief that the guy kept staring at her.
Harry wasn't sure about that. He had never seen Shikamaru Nara even glance once in Hermione's direction. As previously pointed out, said guy was constantly asleep in every class so how could he stare at her? Harry however, thought better of contradicting a furious, ranting Hermione with logic. That just never worked. Sighing, he placed his books and papers in his bag and tried to think of places he could find the lazy Nara boy.