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Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, otherwise the NejiTen would be canon.

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Enjoy.

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Chapter 4. Apparition II

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She had seen the sign hanging in the Gryffindor common room announcing registration for Apparition classes just before Christmas break, so the first thing she did was ask her classmates what that was. Many were used to her curiosity and even found it amusing that she didn't know things that for those who had always lived in the magical world were normal. She was a little disappointed to learn that it was a form of transportation and not something to become a ghost temporarily, because of the 'appearing' thing.

On the train back to the station she was thinking about the issue, although in some class the ways of transportation had been mentioned before, the truth is that so far she had never seen a portkey, much less used it, the chimneys sounded strange to her, and she had reservations about flying on a broomstick. She wouldn't deny that she loved to feel the wind in her face especially when going at high speed, but the moment she saw down, and realized that if she lost her balance she would be close to her imminent death, she didn't like it so much. That was one of the reasons she hadn't considered joining the Quidditch team, even though she was a sports lover in general.

She left the magical station to dive into the Muggle part of the place, and start looking for her parents who preferred to wait for her in that area, smiling at the sight of them. Her father took her luggage and commented that it was lighter than in other occasions, to which she held back her laughter so as not to explain that she was testing the ability of a spell she had learned, she wasn't entirely sure if that would count as doing magic outside of school, but she had wanted to try it so that she wouldn't suffer again having to fit her belongings in her suitcase.

"Jidanda arrived this morning," her mother commented as soon as they were inside the car, "she started to ululate when she noticed that we were going out, and she would be alone."

"She is pampered, it's always the same on vacation when I tell her to bring the letter, and stay at home waiting for me."

"You should have a cell phone, with that you can write us easier."

"Muggle technology doesn't work at school, dad," she didn't want to use her tone of obviousness or roll her eyes, the latter her father would see in the rear-view mirror.

But it was a conversation they had been having every vacation, regardless of the fact that since she had bought Jidanda as her magical companion, she did so with the idea that they would be able to communicate through her. That day they had been told about the technology problem, plus she had enrolled in Muggle Studies in her third year, so she had explained to her parents again why a cell phone didn't work, but a Howler did. She laughed softly, the truth was that it was better that her father didn't know what a Howler was.

"Well it still seems silly to me, it's the fastest way to communicate with anyone in the world, and there is no spell or class at your school that will make me change my mind," she laughed again, her father was a stubborn man, and although he had made up his mind from the beginning that he had a witch daughter, there were issues that he just didn't want to understand.

The traffic was chaotic and she from the back seat was thinking about the apparition classes, that would mean never worrying about issues like traffic, weather or hour, and the best thing was that she would have a very fast way to travel. The problem was the price, her parents would give her enough money so she could buy whatever she needed during her time at school, but that didn't mean she could spend it all on candies in the first week, she would have to be organized to make it last until the next vacation when she would go home and get more money. And while the cost of that class wasn't excessive, it was above what she could afford without telling them, or at least without staying until the Easter vacation without being able to buy some treats.

"Dad..." she said without knowing exactly how to explain what she wanted, "at school they are going to teach an additional class..."

"At this point in the school year?" her mother asked.

"Yes, it's an extracurricular class and..." she bit her lip for a moment before continuing to speak, "and it costs 12 galleons."

"What? Now we have to pay for the classes?" It's not that her parents couldn't pay for her tuition, it's just that they had been told from the beginning that the school was completely free.

"No, it's not that," she clarified, "it's just that it will be taught by someone from the Ministry and that's why it's not included, but I would find it interesting to take it."

"Aren't you seeing enough classes already?" there was a slightly worried tone in her mother's voice, "and you had mentioned something about having low grades in... potions?"

"I'll catch up in potions," she promised trying to make her voice sound confident, "and it won't affect my other classes, the new class is only on Saturdays for 3 months or something like that."

"What will you learn about?"

"It's called apparition, I was looking into it and it's a way wizards transport themselves, if I pass the exam the Ministry will give me a license to apparate."

"You didn't want to take the class to get your driver's license, and you want to take it for this?" was a claim of her father.

"In the magical world you don't need a driver's license," she answered between her teeth, and she could see her father frowning.

"But here you do, having your driver's license is not a luxury, it's a necessity for everyone these days. All teenagers do their best to get theirs as soon as they turn 16," she pouted, she didn't like cars much nor the idea of being stuck in traffic being the one behind the wheel, "you'll be 17 in March."

"I know," and for that reason she could sign up for the apparition class, "but it's not the same thing... right now I don't need to know how to drive a car, I can learn that later... when I've already graduated."

"You don't need to apparate anywhere either, you' re our daughter and we'll take you wherever you need to go, or you can take the bus," she puffed up her cheeks more, "let's make a deal," her father offered after a few seconds without her removing her pout, "I'll give you the money, under one condition."

"Which one?" she asked cautiously without celebrating her victory yet.

"In the vacation before the next school year you will take the driving lessons, and you will also get that license."

"Dad..."

"You will have 2 licenses or none, you choose," was his ultimatum.

"All right," she agreed, "Will you borrow me the car when I get my license?" she wanted to provoke him.

"We'll see, maybe you could be the one to drive when we go to spend the Christmas holydays at your grandmother's house."

"Done."

With a smile she rearranged herself in the back seat, her parents were muggles and so it made a little sense that they expected her to follow several of those traditions. Learning to drive was a small price to pay for just being able to learn a skill that sounded completely interesting to her, no matter what her peers had warned her about it being dangerous due to the splinching. She could even think about challenging her father to a race on who would get to Grandma's house first.

The truth is that she loved going to her grandmother's house at Christmas, although in fact they had to stop referring to the place that way, her grandmother had died 2 years ago, and therefore the place now belonged to her mother even though the woman didn't want to make the arrangements to pass it to her name. It was in a small town far away from the city and everything in general, so it was great to go there to disconnect from everything while watching the snow fall out the window.

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She had eaten lunch excitedly, eating an extra slice of pumpkin pie to try to entertain herself a bit, and incidentally make time while the Great Hall cleared out for her new class to start. After making the registration and the corresponding payment she had been given a summons with the time and place where the apparition classes would take place.

During 12 Saturday afternoons after lunch they would spend some hours in the Great Hall receiving the classes, at the end they would have an exam and only those who passed it without leaving any part of the body behind would pass it, having to go then to the Ministry to be given the respective license. Suffering a splinching, and losing even a fingernail would be considered a failure and they would have to take the exam again the following year, or whenever they wanted after graduating, the point was that they would failed.

Little by little the place began to get vacant, in general on Saturdays there weren't so many students who decided to spend the afternoon at the castle, it was always more entertaining to go to the nearby town for a walk, and buy candies while she was at it, or at least she liked that plan. Her friends usually preferred to buy jewelry or shoes, the point is that not many of them chose to stay at the castle on a Saturday afternoon. From her own house there were a few students, unfortunately her friends had decided not to take the class, so she was sitting next to the classmates who had.

It was about a dozen students from each house, except for Slytherin, whose table was barely half that number. She had nothing in particular against that house, it was the members of that house that seemed to have something against her, and though she wouldn't say it out loud, she was a little glad to see that the silver-haired guy who always hissed at her in the hallways wasn't there. Neither was the black-haired guy who sometimes joined in the hissing, and sometimes just looked at her in a bad way, the one who was present was the third member of that trio of vipers. She didn't remember his name, only that he was a know-it-all who hung out with them and whose eye color was excessively light, almost white.

What she did remember about the man was his last name, because she knew Hinata, a Hufflepuff who, despite being a year behind her, was one of her group of friends. But the young girl never mentioned anything about her family, neither her father, nor her cousin. Nor did she see them spending time together or anything like that, so she only knew that the member of the trio of snakes was a Hyūga. Knowing he was a know-it-all was because he was always participating in class, and the teachers were constantly praising his test scores in the classes they shared, even giving him points for Slytherin.

She took another bite of her cake, not that she envied anyone's academic results, nor did she consider herself a bad student. Nobody mentioning her Potions results! She hadn't forgotten her promise to her parents about catching up in that class, it was just that the class seemed... lifeless. Having to follow a book's instructions to the letter without any room to be creative or personalize the potion seemed boring to her. It had been a miracle that the year before during her O.W.L., the evaluator for that class had given her the only potion she halfway knew how to make, and coincidentally that the man had been distracted by a flying note that was sent to the wrong classroom, so while he reported a possible copycat attempt between students, he didn't notice that she'd had to start over because she'd gotten an ingredient wrong.

Her grade had been an 'Acceptable', which had surprised her, and so she had been able to continue to see the class even if it was at the normal level and not with the advanced potions. The professor of that subject said that he wasn't going to give an additional class, so in the classroom they were divided into basic and advanced level, with the difference that they were assigned different potions to perform according to their result. One advantage was that she still had the possibility, if she wanted to, to take the N.E.W.T. of that class the following year and level her grades.

She hadn't decided anything yet, because her friends were telling her that for the next year exam she might better focus on Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts, whose grades had been an 'Outstanding' in both, and that's why she saw the advanced level of these. But before she could continue to ruminate on her future plans for her remaining time at the school, an older man entered the Great Hall, motioning for them all to sit down in front.

They all listened to the explanation, which of course began with a reminder of the risk involved in transporting in such a manner if the fundamental principles of apparition weren't adhered to. And of course, if there was a license to apparate it meant that doing so without one was illegal. As all those present at the time were minors, even if they had a license, using magic to apparate during their vacations was also forbidden, just like doing magic outside of school.

As the professor sent by the Ministry spoke, it crossed her mind that she had never bothered to read much regarding the castle or the history of the school, so she had no idea that the whole place was covered by an anti-apparition charm that would be lifted only from the Great Hall for the duration of the class so that they could practice. She smiled inwardly as she listened to the bit about the three 'D's' that governed that ability: Destination, Determination, and Deliberation. It sounded fascinating to her, anything that required her will more than memorizing something verbatim was completely perfect for her.

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She closed her eyes to concentrate on the place she wanted to go, she could feel the attentive gaze of the professor and several of her classmates on her, so she only regulated her breathing to play it down and continue thinking about the place she was going to. Without ever leaving aside not to lose any part of her body on the way, something that had already happened to a Ravenclaw guy, fortunately the nurse and the professor acted in time to put the student back in one piece, literally. But his screams of pain revealed that it hadn't been a pleasant experience, and she didn't want it to happen to her. She slowly counted backwards from 10 and soon felt as if she was squeezed between a very narrow tube before she felt like herself again.

She opened her eyes and looked around, letting out an excited scream. So far she had tried a couple of times to appear inside the Great Hall itself, which hadn't presented her with any challenges. The reality was that the professor had complimented that it seemed to be a born ability in her, being the most advanced student in the class, even above the know-it-all Slytherin who seemed to be having trouble with that class and in one of his attempts had lost a few centimeters of his long hair.

That was why she had decided to challenge herself and go much further than before, not only by appearing in a place outside the school, but outside the magical world. She took a couple of steps just to check that she was in the living room of her home in the Muggle world, and was about to take an object from the bureu as evidence of how far she had reached without suffering any harm when an angry shout made her freeze.

"Who's there?" It was her father, who had run downstairs and entered the living room holding a baseball bat, so she held up her hands all at once.

"It's me, dad!"

"Tenten?" she nodded, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Yes," she pointed at the bat to he put it down, her father was still looking at her suspiciously, "I'm in my apparition class, and I wanted to see if I could make it this far, I'll be leaving in a second."

"Apparition class?"

"The one I told you about on vacation, it's a very fast means of transportation," she commented with a smile, "no traffic jams," she provoked him.

"And they don't tell you anything for coming all this way?" She bit her lip slyly and shook her head, she hoped not.

"That's why I'm leaving now, but I want to bring something to prove that I came here."

"Your mother made chocolate cake," she drew a smile, running in a hurry to the kitchen to put a huge slice on a plate, eating a little on the way.

"Now yes, say hi to mom for me. I'll write to you soon."

"Tenten," she was about to close her eyes to concentrate again when her father spoke to her, so she just watched him waiting for him to keep talking, "please let us know next time you're going to show up in the middle of the house, I thought it was a thief."

"Yes, daddy," she answered at once, closing her eyes.

"Ah, dear!"

"Tell me."

"You'll still get your driver's license in the summer," she closed her eyes once more so that it wouldn't be noticed that she had rolled them, disappearing back to her class.

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All corrections and comments are always well received, they help me improve a lot.

I hope you like it!

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Regards, Sally K.