Hello again everyone :) I'm back again with another chapter. As usual I had hoped to get this out a little sooner, but found myself quite busy lately (and it doesn't help that it's taken me 3 months, but I'm finally almost over Whooping Cough – I'll be so glad when it's completely gone :/
I actually had this chapter written about two months ago, but it really needed some editing, which took me a long time to get around to, but for reasons I'll discuss at the end of the chapter I really wanted to get this chapter out this weekend.
Quickly a word to my reviewers;
FullMetalPon-3 – True, things rarely go the way the nations plan, but unfortunately for them it makes it more interesting for us.
SynPre – Thanks, as you might expect, things will get more difficult for the nations as those at Hogwarts start asking questions.
Tsubakiryuu – When I first wrote last chapter, it ended with the meeting. Then the idea of Crouch/Moody visiting Voldemort literally just hit me and I skipped jotting down ideas in point form and went straight to writing that section. The entire section just came to me and I had it written down in about 15 minutes (though edited later). So I'm glad you found it interesting.
Land of Insanity – Thank you for your feedback on Dumbledore. I do my best to write the characters in character, so it means a lot to me that people feel that I managed to write his character accurately. Hopefully I will continue to be able to do this.
Cutoutscout – Here's your update, sorry it's a little shorter than usual, but the good news is that chapter 12 is at 3000 words and only needs to be edited :)
Hogwarts
7th September
Arthur's POV
The following morning, Arthur and Matthew met with the others and filled them in on the events of the previous night. As predicted, this had been met with loud complaints and though Arthur and Matthew had insisted that their status as nations had remained a secret, an argument had still broken out. However, no amount of complaining could undo what had already occurred, so eventually they'd had to come to accept it.
McGonagall, Snape and Moody, as promised had maintained full discretion about what they did know, or thought they knew. Apart from a brief comment to the others, the Hogwarts staff gave no indication that they knew the new students were anything other than ordinary transfers.
And so the rest of September continued with no major incident, and Arthur finally began to feel some peace. Alfred too had been doing better, Arthur thought – at least he had stopped fleeing the room upon entrance of a ghost, and more importantly he had even managed to keep his fear from both Malfoy and Peeves, both of whom Arthur had no doubt would have loved to exploit this fear. That being said, Arthur found it irritating that for the fortnight after his and Matthew's meeting with Dumbledore, Alfred had insisted on greeting him with an exaggerated lack of enthusiasm - the petty brat.
Arthur was also finding life in the Slytherin house to be interesting. For a group that prided themselves in blood purity, Arthur found it somewhat amusing that while a few students indeed descended from very long lines of wizarding families, others were either unaware or in denial about the fact that their magical roots barley went back a few generations. Regardless of this, Arthur found himself liking the majority of them, especially at times when students from the other houses were not present. It was times like this – when the 'less worthy' were not present – that Arthur was able to see the more pleasant aspects of their personalities and he found himself wondering how he could encourage them to let others see this side too. That being said, Arthur couldn't help but suspect that since the Slytherins were his people, his thoughts might be bias – something which Kiku's scepticism seemed to support.
Kiku had not directly stated anything negative about their fellow Slytherins, however having known Kiku for many years, Arthur could tell that he wasn't fond of the people they shared their dorm with, and was suppressing these feelings. Arthur made a mental note to discuss this with Kiku at some point – he had witnessed what had eventuated when his friend had silently allowed negative feelings to build up in the past, and Arthur was not keen to let it happen again anytime soon.
On a Wednesday evening in mid October, Arthur, Kiku and the other Slytherins entered the Astronomy Tower. Astronomy classes were always held in one of two locations depending on whether the lesson's focus would be practical or theory-based. For the first couple of weeks, bad weather each Wednesday night had only allowed for theory-based lessons in the class below the final set of the stairs to occur. This Wednesday however, provided them with the clearest night of the year so far and Arthur looked forward to seeing what Professor Sinistra had planned for their first practical lesson.
To access the top of the Astronomy Tower, where their lesson would take place, Arthur had to climb up through a trapdoor similar to the one used to enter the Divination classroom. He followed Malfoy up out of the overhead hole. Arthur straightened up, taking in the sweeping view of the classroom and remembered why this room had always been one of his favourites.
Though to call it a room is not entirely accurate, Arthur corrected himself, for the class had no ceiling, and walls that only reached chest-height in order to offer students as much space to view the night sky as possible. Positioned around the circular wall were work stations that allowed students to take notes while using the provided telescopes. Staring up at the blanket of stars, Arthur wandered over to the side of the class where moonlight illuminated the Great Lake and edge of the Forbidden Forest. Across from that Arthur could see the flickering lights of Hogsmeade. Squinting and leaning forward a little, he tried to see if he could identify any of the town's buildings.
"Yo, Kiku, Iggy!" Arthur look back to see Alfred, along with the other Gryffindors climbing out of the trap door. He rolled his eyes at the irritating nickname. Alfred had eventually given up on greeting Arthur as though he was impersonating Professor Binns during roll call, however now he was using that bloody nickname more than ever. Arthur was currently testing the new strategy of ignoring the nickname in the hopes that Alfred would grow bored using it if there were no reaction…
No luck yet though.
"Good night for it," observed Ron, walking closer to the railing to get a better view of the midnight sky.
"Finally," agreed Alfred. "I've actually been looking forward to this class."
"Really?" Arthur found himself smiling, "You actually like this class?"
"Well yeah dude, Astronomy's basically studying space, and anything to do with space that gets me ahead of that bastard is ok with me."
"That bastard?" questioned Harry, eyes momentarily flashing to Malfoy. "Who's that?"
"Alfred-san's rival from our last school," Kiku explained carefully.
"So your motivation to do well in this class is basically to beat someone else?" Hermione asked with a hint of disapproval.
Arthur inwardly groaned as Alfred confirmed this. For just a moment he had thought that after three hundred years, Alfred was finally genuinely interested in something from the wizarding world – but no. While a small voice in his mind reasoned that Alfred's willingness to accept the subject – regardless of his motive – was definitely a step forward, he couldn't help but feel bitterly disappointed that after the events of the last few weeks, Alfred's reasoning wasn't something more genuine. Given it was Astronomy though, he really shouldn't have been surprised that the stubborn yank's actual reason for his interest in the subject rested entirely on his obsession to get another one up on Russia – despite the fact that the Space Race ended over twenty five years ago.
"It's because he's a pratt who can't get over narrowly winning some race a few years back." Arthur heard himself say.
"I seem to remember you being pretty happy when I did win," Alfred said somewhat smugly.
"And you haven't let anyone forget it since. Haven't I always tau-told you that no one likes a boaster?"
Alfred frowned at what had been implied. "That doesn't mean much coming from the guy who has nothing to boast about," he responded in a snarky tone. "Remind me, how many of us managed to beat you there? Kiku, I know you were one right?"
"Please leave me out of this," Kiku said, moving away just as Professor Sinistra arrived.
Quickly, the professor split up the bickering pair and proceeded with the night's instructions.
"Tonight we will be catching up on some of the practical aspects of Astronomy that the weather has as of yet, not permitted us to view." The professor then proceeded to instruct the students on where exactly to position their telescopes. "Tonight we will be taking a closer look at the rings of Saturn. For that you will need to set the dials on your telescopes to 5.5. Now, we have much to cover, so if you would find your partner, we will get to work."
Arthur moved to his designated telescope with Malfoy, who he had been paired with on the first week. Quickly he opened their book to the correct page, turned the dial to 5.5 and began to position the telescope correctly.
"What's the rush?" Asked Malfoy as Arthur hurriedly began positioning the telescope in the correct location according to the planetary chart from the text book.
"No matter what happens tonight, we must beat that git."
Malfoy looked briefly in the direction of Alfred before giving Arthur a strange look. "You don't like me calling Jones a 'Mudblood', yet the two of you are almost always at each other."
Arthur felt taken aback by the observation. Only a few minutes ago, he had been glad that Alfred had finally accepted a class at this school, and now he was doing his best to beat him at it? It wasn't any wonder it had brought up such a question – though to give a proper answer would involve dredging up the very long and complex relationship with his former colony. Arthur wasn't sure he was prepared to have such a conversation with anyone, let alone the boy sitting next to him.
"It's just the way things are," Arthur finally answered vaguely before asking Malfoy to pass his quill.
At a nearby bench Alfred and Ron were also setting up their telescope.
"Wait dude," Arthur heard Alfred say. "Turn it in that direction first and turn the dial to 3.5."
"Sure," Ron complied. "Why?"
"I want to see how good these magic telescopes actually are. See if I can find the American flag on the moon."
"What would the American flag be doing on the moon?" laughed Ron.
"Uh…" began Alfred, looking as though he couldn't decide whether or not Ron was joking. "Because they put there when they went there..."
"Man, no one's been to the moon – there isn't a portkey powerful enough."
There was a short silence.
"You cannot be serious!" exclaimed Arthur, speaking for Alfred who wore an expression of appalled shock and seemed temporarily incapable of speech. "The Muggles went there years ago – it had nothing to do with a portkey!"
"Wait - How could Muggles," Malfoy said the name as though it were something dirty, "get to the moon before Wizards?"
"They built a rocket and went," said Harry in a matter-of-fact tone. "All without magic – so they're not as stupid as you seem to think."
"It's common knowledge in the Muggle world," said Hermione, who also seemed surprised that anyone could be unaware of the fact.
"I knew," contributed Neville. "My uncle mentioned it during his last visit, summer before last."
"Bull Shit. As if people could get to the moon without using any magic."
This comment finally seemed to bring Alfred out of his shocked silence. "What, are you embarrassed that the Muggles have done something that the Wizards haven't yet achieved?"
Arthur tuned out Malfoy's response as he noticed the topic begin to spread through the class. Naturally it seemed that all the Muggleborns and half bloods already knew about Muggles in space (Though Arthur did hear Seamus mention that his own mother hadn't known until she had begun dating his father). Of those who grew up in purely wizarding families though, it seemed that less than half had known – though Arthur did hear Zabini next to him admit with some embarrassment that he already knew, leading Arthur to wonder if any of the other Slytherins secretly knew.
"That's enough!" Professor Sinistra said sharply. "Not one of you have your telescopes ready. If you wanted to learn about the moon landing, you should have taken Muggle Studies instead. Now position your telescopes correctly and we'll begin."
Leaning back towards his equipment, Arthur corrected the dial while trying to ignore the growing disappointment he felt. The resentment towards Muggles that existed in the wizarding community was something he was well aware of – despite the fact that tried to downplay it when speaking with Alfred. The fact that so many of the younger wizarding generation were so ignorant of Muggle achievements came as something of a shock to him though. Arthur made eye contact with Alfred, who seemed to have guessed what he had been thinking, returning something of an apologetic 'I told you so' expression to the older nation. Arthur sighed, turning back to his work, he wondered when, if ever there would be true respect between the two worlds.
And done again!
Today 50 years ago was the day when man first walked on the moon. I actually had the scene with Ron being unaware of this planned months ago, but it was only last week that I thought it would be great to have this scene come out on the 50th anniversary – glad I managed it.
My mum was actually able to get all three signatures from Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins at the time which she still has alongside the newspaper article about how she got them (We're from Wollongong in Australia, which is why it was in the paper). I was looking at them the other day, it was pretty amazing to be holding their signatures, and looking at the newspaper with my mum as an 8 year old was pretty interesting too (even flipping the newspaper to a different page was interesting – can't get a bedroom suit for $342 anymore that's for sure).
Finally in regards to the 'race'. Arthur and Alfred not just talking about what countries have been to the moon, they were also talking about space in general. According to good old Wikipedia, Japan was the 21st nation to get a citizen to space while the UK was 22nd, which is what Alfred was referring to when he mentioned that Kiku had beaten Arthur there.
Sorry the chapter's a little short this time, but good news is that the word count is there for the next chapter. Though I am struggling a little in some places - particularly regarding how to word the way certain characters think, so some heavy editing is needed before chapter 12 sees the internet. I'll try to have it out before September.
Next Time:
As October continues, the Hogwarts students enjoy a day in Hogsmeade before the foreign schools arrive. Kiku finds himself wondering about his place in Slytherin – as does Malfoy.
Character Profile:
Japan – Kiku Honda
Year of birth: 660BC (This year, was when Emperor Jimmu founded the country of Japan).
Birthday: 11th February (Out of all the main nations in my story, Japan's was the easiest to decide on, both year and day were on the Hetalia Wiki and when you type into Google 'When was Japan founded', '11th February 660 BC is the date that comes up).
Age: 2654 (as of 1994): oldest of the 5 by far (though China's older still).
Appearance (normal): 29
Appearance (Hogwarts): 14
Height (normal): 165cm (5.41 feet) (Cannon – Hetalia Wikia)
Height (Hogwarts): 152cm (4.99 feet)
Done – that's the last of the character profiles for now (as I don't see any point of doing this for the Hogwarts students). Hopefully you enjoyed this part and that it's helped you visualise what the nations might look like while they're at Hogwarts.
And as always, please let me know what you think.