I realized there was some understanding issue about the end of the last chapter. Sprout is simply shocked at how little Kakashi cares about being called the right name. His answer to the question whether he wants to be called his own name or the false name, his answer is essentially "whatever is less of a bother".

XLIII

Snape liked him even less now, it seemed. He was glaring at Kakashi throughout his Potions classes and every time he used the fake name, there was a slight hesitation and a sour tone in his voice, as if he was silently begging any of the children to pick up on it. They did, of course. These kids weren't all stupid. They realized that Snape was struggling with the name but of course, they didn't think that the name itself was the problem.

"What did you do?" Justin asked Kakashi on his way to the Great Hall. "I could swear he likes you even less now. Did you force him to give you an Outstanding on the Polyjuice essay?"

"Nope," Kakashi waved the essay Snape had given him back that day. "Got an E though."

"An E?" Justin whistled. "I thought he pulls you points for spelling."

"He does," Kakashi lifted the essay for Justin to see Snape's scribblings in red ink, telling him to check his spelling. "Only one point this time."

Zacharias walking behind them, gave Justin a slight push when he stopped in the middle of the stairs to read Snape's commentary. "Seriously, Justin, you didn't notice that his spelling is getting better?" the blond boy asked as he pushed past them. "You read those History transcripts every week."

Justin blushed, but he gave a simple nod. "I didn't notice." With one last glance at the essay, he shoved his hands in his pockets to follow Zacharias. "Guess you're really getting better. Soon, he will have to give you that Outstanding. Can't wait to see his expression." He snorted even just imagining it.

Kakashi was about to follow into the Great Hall after his fellow Hufflepuff when he was distracted by movement on the other side of the Entrance Hall. Fred and George Weasley were lingering around the main entrance, looking at a piece of parchment in George's hand. Kakashi thought it was the same one he'd seen before. That night when he found the Boggart.

Then Fred looked up and turned around. He saw Kakashi watching him and waved while surreptitiously bumping George in the side. The other twin quickly let the parchment disappear.

Those two…

Kakashi frowned, but then, just as he was about to go to them and ask them what that parchment was about, Neville came running from the stairs, bumping into Kakashi.

"Ah, sorry, sorry Charlie," he apologized quickly, before remembering that they were friends, shoving his nervosity away. "How's Mighty Green doing? Are you two getting along?"

With a final glance at the twins, Kakashi turned to Neville. "Yes, I like him. He's quite smart."

"Uhuh!" Neville agreed with a determined nod. "That they are, toads I mean. Trevor's smart too."

There was a muffled snort, but when Kakashi looked over his shoulder, Malfoy only pushed past them into the Great Hall. "You're blocking the door," he said under his breath but didn't linger any longer.

Neville blushed, and he took a big step into the Great Hall, pulling Kakashi along by his sleeve. "Do you wanna eat with us?" His tone was nervous, eyes lingering on the back of Malfoy's blonde head.

"Sure." Kakashi shrugged although he'd never eaten at the Gryffindor table, and wasn't even sure if it was technically allowed. However, when he arrived at the Gryffindor table, nobody complained outright. Harry was glaring at him though. Thankfully, he sat between Ron and Seamus Finnigan with Hermione opposite him. So, when Neville sat next to Hermione, Kakashi could sit between Neville and Ron's older prefect brother, putting a safe distance between him and Harry.

"Thank you." Neville's whisper interrupted Kakashi's worrying thoughts about Harry. "For Malfoy…whatever you said to him, he left me alone completely for almost the entire month… I bet it's something you did."

Kakashi glanced at the Slytherin table, then back at Neville. "I didn't do much, Neville."

Neville shook his head. "No, I know it was you… Whatever you did… You're a great friend, Charlie."

Flustered Kakashi stared at his empty plate before pulling a huge bowl of salad to himself, that was almost big enough that he could hide behind it. The sour scent of vinegar tickled his nose. When he heard Harry snort, he froze.

"Yeah, a great friend…" Looking up through his lashes, Kakashi found the boy glaring at him over the salad bowl. Their eyes met only for a brief second, then Harry growled. He pushed his jaw forward, green eyes snapping to Neville. "What's he doing here? Shouldn't he eat with the Hufflepuffs?"

"Harry!" Hermione hissed in a scandalized and entirely fake tone. "Be nice!"

"Nice?" Harry glowered at his friend, pushing his jaw even further. "He's a liar."

"What's going on?" Neville asked, voice uncertain. Kakashi shrugged. He'd like to know too.

"That's what I want to know," the prefect Weasley piped up, puffing himself up and peering at the younger students in a way that was a bad mimicry of McGonagall. "Harry, what is going on?"

"None of your concern, Perce!" Ron snapped at his brother. Then he leaned forward to grab the salad bowl from where Kakashi still held it in front of his face. "Do you need that?" Before Kakashi could protest, he had snatched the bowl away and served himself a generous portion of salad. "You too, mate?" he offered to Harry, but Harry was too distracted glaring from Kakashi to Hermione to Percy.

"He's a liar!" he announced, jutting his index finger out at Kakashi. "I know you're lying."

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked in an offended tone as if Harry was talking about him.

"It's got nothing to do with you!" Ron snapped again. "Stay out of it!"

Kakashi ducked his head between his shoulders. So, Harry had finally figured it out? How much did he know?

"Harry, not here!" Hermione warned. "We spoke about it." She turned to Kakashi, Neville sitting between them cowered as if he wanted to disappear from the table, leaving Kakashi and Hermione able to look at each other directly. "I'm sorry, Charlie! This is not…"

"I'll eat somewhere else!" Harry announced angrily, cutting her off. He grabbed his plate and stood from his seat.

"Harry, wait!" Ron jumped up next to him. Then he seemingly remembered the salad and shoved it back toward Kakashi right into where his hands still rested on the tabletop. "Sorry." He took his own plate and hurried after his friend, leaving a fuming Hermione, a confused Percy, and a distraught Neville behind.

Well… Fuming was a strong word to describe the flushed red expression on Hermione's cheeks. She wasn't a particularly good actress, not even compared to some of the other fourteen-year-olds in the castle. When she began apologizing profusely to Neville and Kakashi, Kakashi knew that she was hiding something. This little scene had been quite the act.

He didn't doubt, that Harry's anger had been genuine, but the outbreak was not. He didn't know why, until he finally took the salad bowl again, smelling the same vinegary odor, but there was something else there, almost undetectable. Something he wouldn't know how to describe, but he hadn't smelled that before.

Looking down the table, he saw that Harry and Ron were sitting with the twins now, but their gazes were locked onto Kakashi. Only when he caught them staring, did they quickly turn to talk to each other.

What had Ron put in the salad?

"I'm starving!" Hermione said, all but inconspicuously. "Would you give me a bit of that salad, Charlie?" Her brown eyes were burning into him expectantly.

Kakashi complied easily, putting some of the salad on her plate, then he pushed the salad away, not trusting the bowl and its contents.

"Didn't you want to eat something too," Hermione asked after a moment, already digging into her food, eyes still fixed on the bowl of salad. He watched her closely, but nothing happened to her as she ate, so whatever Ron had put into the bowl wasn't a fast-acting poison.

"Nah," Kakashi reached for a casserole dish right in front of Seamus. "I think I want something cheesy."

Hermione bit her bottom lip. "You should eat salad," she said in a smart tone. And as if she realized only now that this behavior was very odd, she suddenly turned to Neville. "Do you want some salad, Neville?"

"Is he eating it?" Ron asked curious, back demonstratively turned toward where Charlie still sat.

"Wait," Harry raised himself from the bench, just high enough so he could see over Ron's shoulder. "No, I don't think so." He grimaced in frustration. "Are you sure he didn't see you put it in?"

"I'm sure he didn't see," Ron nodded in a tone as if he felt offended by the mere suggestion. "Damn! I thought this was a good opportunity. He wanted that salad." Unhappily he looked down at the big portion of greenery on his own plate.

"It was a good attempt," Harry agreed, looking again past Ron toward the other third years. Hermione was putting salad on Neville's plate, but not on Charlie's, who was instead shoveling down a cheese casserole in a tempo that made Harry nauseous. "He eats fast."

"Always does," Ron shrugged. "You know what you said about him having a brother, maybe that part was true after all."

Harry frowned, finally settling back down on the bench glaring at Ron. "You said it yourself. He's been lying all this time."

"That would explain his fast eating, though." Ron was about to look over his shoulder, but Harry gave him a slight kick against his shin. "Don't look!" He didn't want Charlie catching them staring again. Harry was certain, he'd already seen them stare once.

"Ouch," Ron rubbed his thigh, a spot where Harry had never touched him. "Look, if that was a failure, you and Hermione still have your Potions, right? So that's two more chances."

Harry frowned. "Sure, but how did he figure it out?" As he spoke, he checked in the pocket of his robes for the small corked vial Hermione had given them this morning. The potion that would reveal Charlie's real looks. "Maybe he saw you after all." There was reproach in his voice.

"He didn't!" Ron insisted. "Maybe he smelled it." He shrugged. "Hermione said it has a slight odor."

"But it would be overshadowed by anything sour," Harry argued. "He won't smell it with all that vinegar." But even as he said it, he knew that was probably where they'd been wrong. He remembered their first day in Hogwarts after the Dementor had attacked him and Charlie on the train. Charlie had somehow smelled out McGonagall's Animagus form, hadn't he? Harry hadn't even noticed anything, but Charlie had just sniffed the air and known that there was a cat around.

Harry shook his head. No, that sounded absurd. It must have been a coincidence then, and this too. "He probably just doesn't want the salad after all."

Ron huffed. Aggressively, he poked the fork into his own salad. "Yeah," he growled, "well neither do I." Unhappily he shoved a big green leaf dripping with vinegar and oil into his mouth. "I hate salad!"

"You always did," George piped up. Harry had completely forgotten the twins sitting just across from them. He flushed when he realized that they must have heard every word and would be able to draw their own probably completely false conclusions. Harry didn't want them to think he was spying after who they would still consider his friend, never mind poison a fellow student. "Our Ronnieboy was always a sweet tooth."

"Sweet Ronnieboy," Fred exclaimed, leaning forward to pinch Ron's cheeks but Ron slapped his hand away aggressively. "But a very badly-behaved Ronnieboy."

"Shut up!"

"So badly behaved." George mimicked his mother's voice before huffing with laughter.

"What are you two planning with Charlie?" They turned serious from one moment to the next, as if flicking a switch. From teasing Ron to investigating their secret plan in an instant.

"None of your concern," Ron growled between bites of salad, half-chewed green remains still stuck between his teeth.

"Didn't Mom teach you to eat with your mouth closed, Ronnieboy?"

"Stop it!"

"Naw… But I think we might be able to help each other," Fred leaned forward conspiratorially. "Don't you think we can help each other?"

Harry eyed Ron, who was frowning with suspicion, but Harry knew that if anybody knew anything that was going on in Hogwarts, it would be these two.

"What do you know?" Harry asked carefully.

"Nah, come on!" George hit the table with his flat hand. "Don't be boring! I thought you'd be more fun, than our Sweet Ron. You tell us what you know, and we tell you what we know. A fair deal."

Harry considered this for a moment. "Alright," he agreed, partly because despite everything he didn't know much. "He's not who he says he is," he whispered so quietly, nobody else would be able to hear them.

Fred grunted unimpressed. "Boring, we know that."

Blinking in surprise, Harry shared another glance with Ron. Ron swallowed audibly. "We know he's Japanese."

"Well, that's better. But still pretty bad."

"It is pretty bad," the other twin agreed. "I don't know if that's worth sharing our information."

"You said—" Ron growled angrily. "You can't just give us nothing!" He turned bright red, his freckles almost disappearing on his flushed skin.

The twins watched Harry and Ron with identical grins, then Fred nodded gravely as if he was committed to doing something very tiring that he'd soon regret. "Ah, you barely gave us anything," he whined, "but as you please. Kakashi."

"Kakashi?" Ron repeated the word. "What nonsense is that?"

"Not nonsense," Fred said.

"It's a name," George continued. "Kakashi Hatake."

"His real name."

"How by Merlin's Beard would you know his name?" Ron scoffed disbelievingly, but Harry stayed completely quiet.

Kakashi… Kakashi Hatake. The word jogged something in his memory. Caucasus… No, Kashmir. That was it. However, the twins had found out about it, Harry was certain. It sounded too similar, just the right mix of Caucasus and Kashmir: Kakashi.

Kakashi Hatake.

It didn't help him, though. He'd never heard the name before. It wasn't Tom Riddle; it wasn't Sirius Black. He didn't know any other followers of Voldemort by name apart from Draco's father. Was there a list somewhere? Somebody he could ask?

"That's our secret," Fred leaned over the table to flick Ron's forehead. "We gave you what you asked for. You didn't really give us anything. So, why should we tell more than that?"

"Do you know more than that?" Harry asked curiously.

The twins shrugged in unison. "Who knows?"

Ron growled rubbing his forehead. He eyed them angrily. "They don't know anything else," he announced.

"Ah, Ronnieboy, maybe we just don't want to tell. If you find out anything else of interest, we might have more secrets to share."

Ron huffed. "You don't have anything else," he mocked. "Or you wouldn't stop here, you'd rub it under our noses." He looked at Harry. "They don't know anything else. No idea how they figured that one out, but that's all they know. I'm sure of it."

Harry was inclined to believe his best friend, but if the twins were still hiding something... For now, it wasn't important. Harry and Ron had nothing else of interest to share with them, yet.

"Have you ever heard the name before?" he asked Ron but kept his voice loud enough for the twins to listen. None of them had anything to say though. All three Weasley's shook their heads.

Kakashi Hatake.

Who could he ask about that name? In his first year, Hermione had somehow found out who Nicholas Flamel was. Would she be lucky again? Where there archives listing former sympathizers of Lord Voldemort? Maybe old editions of the Daily Prophet?

They had a name. Even if he didn't know what to do with it yet, it felt like a huge step forward.

Remus Lupin had a connection to Sirius and Snape that Kakashi didn't know about, yet. He wanted to ask the man, but the last few days of September, Professor Lupin was sick. He didn't see him during the entire weekend, so instead, Kakashi called Pakkun to get an update from Konoha.

"The elders are getting impatient," Pakkun said as he sat on Kakashi's chest, soft paws entangled in Kakashi's cloak. "How can you move in that?" he added indicating the heavy fabric.

"It's not so bad," Kakashi answered, although he'd rather exchange the cloak for more convenient clothes. It was good to hide things, though. It had many pockets and was billowing wide enough, that he could – if he wanted to – hide even a sword under it.

"What about the toad?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow a little disappointed. He'd hoped he had successfully masked the scent, but of course Pakkun's nose was too well-trained to fool so easily. Kakashi whistled as he shook out his sleeve. With a silent ribbit Mighty Green came crawling out from inside the black cloth. "That's Mighty Green," he introduced the Toad.

Mighty Green sat lazily on his belly, looking up at the pug, before turning away rather disinterested. With a somewhat louder quaking it suddenly jumped landing on Kakashi's face. Kakashi sputtered, shooting upright, throwing both the toad and Pakkun off. Or rather, just the toad. Pakkun jumped to the ground gracefully, howling a deep and rolling laughter.

"I like your new companion. You named him after Guy?"

Kakashi growled, catching the Toad before it could land on the stony shore of the lake. "Little bugger," he grumbled, holding the toad up, before settling it down next to Pakkun.

"That an attack you taught him? Jumping a ninja in the face? Not very effective."

"I didn't teach him that," Kakashi defended himself, wiping his face. "I train him for Substitution."

Pakkun looked unimpressed. "Speaking of Guy, he's worried about you."

Kakashi finally looked back to the pug in surprise. "Guy? What's he worried about?"

"You haven't been home for two months, pup."

Kakashi frowned. "You told him where I am, right?" What would Guy worry about if he knew?

Pakkun nodded, his brown eyes were staring into Kakashi's, an uncharacteristic emotion pooling in them. "Doesn't mean he's not worried." He plopped down on his hindlegs making himself comfortable. "And not without reason. The elders—"

"You said that already." Kakashi interrupted him unhappily. He couldn't do anything about the elders getting impatient.

Pakkun growled in acknowledgement. "You said, you'd bring some knowledge over. Anything so far?"

Searching in his pockets he fished out a chocolate frog card he'd found in one of his birthday presents. According to the title under the picture, the man on the front was Andros the Invincible. On the back, a short text told the story of the Greek who was able to produce a giant Patronus charm. It was that text on the back that had made Kakashi keep the card.

Name, dates of birth and death, feats… Allegedly battled a thousand Dementors with a giant sized Patronus.

Reading through the text one final time, he handed the card over to Pakkun. He'd only found the card this morning and he didn't have a chance to research the Patronus charm yet, but it was on his To Do list.

"Get this to the elders. See if there's any use to cards like these?" He held the card up for Pakkun to see the moving figure of the muscular man in a white tunica. The man looked a bit bored, leaning against his picture frame before eyeing the pug. Unlike Andros the Invincible, Pakkun looked interested by what he saw.

"Is he alive in there?" he asked poking the picture with a padded paw. Andros looked affronted, but he didn't say anything.

These chocolate frog portraits were much less complex than the real ones. They barely did any more than wave and smile. But it would be a good enough thing to start with. Maybe the Research Division could get some information about how it worked. If they could use this technique, it would be very useful for espionage and messaging, Kakashi thought. That was, if the cards even still worked in his homeworld.

"Not quite," Kakashi said when Pakkun took the card carefully between his teeth. "But they might be useful regardless."

"I'll give it to the Hokage," Pakkun promised, through clenched teeth, voice muffled. "Nice getting to know ya, Tiny Guy." Then, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.