XLV

Lies! Lies! All of it!

Harry didn't believe a word. And how could he? It was a ridiculous tale! This Kakashi wasn't even trying to come up with something that was plausible. The story he spun made no sense whatsoever. It was so absurd Harry would be almost inclined to believe it just for the absurdity of it.

Snorting in derisive anger, he grabbed Ron's shoulder and turned to the door. "Let's go. It's all bullshit. What a funny little tale…"

Truly, Charle...or Kakashi...or whoever he was, had overdone it quite a bit. Harry had expected an appropriately sad story to garner sympathy; he'd not expected that absurd amount of trauma. Did Kakashi take him for a fool?

A boy from a different world, where they trained young orphans into ninjas, to battle and die in a war. And then pop, he just appeared in England and coincidentally found Harry of all people. Such a wild tale. It was more tragic even than the first story he'd come up with for his Charlie-character. Now, his parents weren't abusive, so he ran away. Nooo, they were dead, and he trained to be an assassin with some other children, only to lose his homeworld to be teleported to England.

Even just repeating it sounded ridiculous.

What absurdity! What lies! Not only did Harry not believe a word of it, he didn't want to even hear the rest. Charlie had been slow with giving information, and sure, Harry could still demand more of it. How had this friend Obito died exactly to receive such injuries? How had his parents died? Truthfully, though, Harry had stopped caring. It had become strikingly obvious very early on that Charlie wouldn't utter a word of truth. He didn't even try to hide it now, coming up with a fairy tale that simply couldn't be genuine.

Ninjas…

What a laugh!

"Let's go," he told Hermione, already pulling Ron with him.

Hermione, who hung on Charlie's – Kakashi's? – lips, was enraptured by his story.

"Wait, Harry," she mumbled, but ultimately relented, following Harry to the door. There they waited for just a moment. Harry somewhat hoped that Charlie - Kakashi called them back, that he changed his mind and came up with another lie, at least one Harry could believe, one Harry wouldn't have to feel stupid to believe…

Kakashi still had a foot on the backrest of the chair, slouching on the table, watching them with slightly hooded eyes.

"See, and that's why I lied," he spoke up eventually, which made Harry only angrier.

As if it was his fault! If Kakashi didn't want to tell the truth, well that was that, but to blame Harry for it, as if Harry couldn't have believed it and thus warranting all the lies… And then topping it with such a horrendous one. Ridiculous!

"Don't put it on me now," Harry snapped. He was already half-turned around and growling at Kakashi, but Ron stood between them and didn't budge. "It's not my fault you can't tell the truth if your life depended on it."

Kakashi was staring at him over Ron's shoulder. He seemed pensive now. "I don't blame you," he said eventually. "I'm just trying to explain."

"You didn't explain anything!" Harry yelled. Why would Kakashi even continue with this farce? He had to see how unbelievable his narrative was. Even if Harry had come into this conversation, determined to believe every word, he couldn't have done it. There was simply no way. Was he just mocking them now?

Dimensional world-hopping… Yeah right! Ninjas and assassins – child assassins – in a foreign world. But oh, he so conveniently spoke Japanese. What? Did this fantasy world of his have different cultures, and geography, and magic but oh, they conveniently still spoke a normal language?

Trying to calm himself, Harry reclined a little. "Well, who cares? Keep playing ninja… We'll learn soon enough what you really plan." But he did care. He could lie to Kakashi, but not to himself.

Kakashi had used his sensitivities, quite clearly. He'd even admitted to it: When Harry asked him, he confessed that he had used what Harry told him about the magical world to come up with his character's backstory. He'd given Charlie abusive parents to find sympathy with Harry. And now, he was trying to do it again, obviously. Going the full mile, this time.

No, it wasn't just that he had to be a fifteen-year-old assassin, a ninja with a dead friend, fighting in a war. No, he had to be an orphan too. Somehow it was this, that made Harry angriest. If this would just be the adventurous and horrific tale of a young ninja fighting in a war and burying a friend, Harry might have just taken it as what it was. Maybe, in that case, he might have found it in himself to entertain Kakashi and play along with this farce. After all, it would be quite clear to everybody that it would never be more than a farce, but an exciting, dramatic and adventurous one all the same.

At least Harry could appreciate the creativity of it, without hating Kakashi for it...

But he had to pull the orphan card.

It was far too personal to Harry, it hurt too much to just pretend that it was anything other than ugly lies.

Harry felt even a little bad for it. Clearly, there was something wrong with this kid, if he'd rather tell such a fantasy than reveal his true life story. Even if he was lying, there might be at least some truth to it, hidden there in the fantastic imagination of a teenager. His Boggart suggested that he had indeed lost a friend. And still, to his own shame, wrestling with all these lies, with his anger and hurt, Harry wasn't inclined to give Kakashi the benefit of the doubt.

He might have… He might have if it wasn't for that blatant attempt to appeal to Harry by making himself an orphan now.

Harry didn't believe it; he couldn't. Somehow, that part – being an orphan – was the most realistic part of this whole story, and yet it was the one Harry believed least of all.

He had already connected with Kakashi over their shared trauma of an abusive upbringing. He'd even seen parallels in his character and behavior that Harry found in himself, and could maybe attest to his traumatic past… And yet, with time, he had made himself see these signs and learned to ignore them, read them only as lies, as make-pretend, part of the mask, or the character Kakashi had invented. Now, it was impossible to see them as anything other than that. A mere masquerade.

"You think that's funny?" Harry asked venomously. He snorted, huffed, and shook his head in mock. Really, if Kakashi was trying to gain their trust, he'd done a horrible job.

"You're the one who's laughing," Kakashi muttered, and didn't say anything else until Ron pulled the door shut behind them. The trio remained silent all the way to Gryffindor tower.

"Why were you laughing," Ron asked. He sat on his bed in the boy's dormitory, leaning against the wall, his History of Magic book in one hand and Kakashi's transcripts in the other.

"He was lying," Harry growled. "You must have seen it too. Ninjas? Different worlds? And then he just pops up at my door?"

Ron weighed his head thoughtfully, putting his book aside. "Sure," he muttered, "I'm not saying that he was telling the truth. But it wasn't funny, either." He frowned. Scabbers was sitting in his lap, eating some breadcrumbs. The sounds of his nibbling bites were a good distraction for Harry to calm his anger.

Ron was right, Harry thought. He had overreacted a little, but he didn't want to admit it. He was certain that most of what Kakashi had told them was a lie, so he didn't feel bad about treating it as such, but now, as time had passed and he had a moment to calm down, he couldn't shake what the Hufflepuffs had said about Kakashi's Boggart. A boy, just half a man, horribly disfigured.

They didn't know for sure. There was no proof and nobody Harry could ask who had seen the Boggart and could tell him what it was. It might be a dead friend, or maybe just some Japanese demon. Just because Hermione couldn't find it in a book didn't mean it didn't exist. Yet, if it was a dead friend… Harry didn't want to think about it. If Kakashi was just a liar, he wouldn't feel bad for snorting and laughing at his story. But if he had truly lost a friend and came up with such a fantastic tale to rationalize it to himself or whatever the purpose of it was…

Surely, Harry hadn't laughed at the death of Kakashi's friend, had he?

He didn't want to think about it, and he didn't want to admit it. For weeks he had made himself see Kakashi as his enemy, an infiltrator trying to snake his way into Harry's heart. This made it easy to just dismiss everything he said. But he'd be blind not to notice that neither Hermione nor Ron seemed to share the sentiment.

"He was trying to appeal to me," Harry reasoned. "You heard it yourself. He made his parents abusive muggles because he thought we could connect that way." He scoffed. "It's the same with this orphan business."

Ron put his history book away. He yawned, shuffled the transcripts together, and hid them in his nightstand. "That's not what he said." Picking up Scabbers, he put him on his mattress before standing to go to the bathroom. "He said he did it because he wanted something believable, not to connect with you."

"Yeah, and the story he used was mine. Don't you get it?" Harry spoke a little louder now, with Ron disappearing into the bathroom. He heard water rush, then Ron appeared with his toothbrush in the door.

"Sure, but not to worm his way into your heart. But because he needed a believable story."

Harry felt angry then. Why wouldn't Ron understand? But of course, how could he? He still had all his family, who loved him, who never hurt him. He had no idea of the sort of connection Harry had formed with Kakashi just on the basis of their shared trauma.

"You don't get it."

Ron's toothbrush stopped in his mouth, he frowned, then shrugged. "Maybe not. I just—"

But thankfully, at that moment, the door to the dorm banged open and Dean and Seamus came in. Ron scowled at being interrupted and disappeared into the bathroom again. Their classmates didn't know anything about Kakashi's true identity. Harry considered if it would be best to tell them. It wasn't just about Harry after all. By handing out his transcripts Kakashi had lied his way into all their hearts.

"What's up?" Seamus asked when he saw Harry's dark expression.

"Nothing," growled Harry, deciding against telling for now.

"Close the door," Ron yelled from the bathroom. "Don't let that fat beast in."

"Right, right." Dean pulled the door closed. "By the way, Harry, did you see the information on the blackboard?"

Harry shook his head. He hadn't read anything after his conversation with Kakashi.

"You have training tomorrow. Three times a week, now. Wood's taking it seriously, isn't he?"

Groaning, Harry nodded. Even the thought of Quidditch couldn't better his mood. "Yeah, his last year. I should get some sleep then. Good night."

He ran. The crumbling cave, a rock against his face. Kakashi never quite remembered Obito pulling him out of the way. He knew of course, but in the quick succession of events, Obito grabbing him and pushing him out of harms' way was hard to distinguish from the drumming pain in his head.

It was only ever after, in those short seconds between blinking his eyes open and seeing his comrade crushed under the bolder, when he fully comprehended what had happened.

His eye burned and itched. Obito's eye, not his own at all.

Kakashi woke with a start. There were silhouettes shifting around him. He stiffened and readied himself for an attack when the bright yellow curtains around his bed were shoved aside.

"What's go—"

Kakashi was on the stranger before he could even finish his sentence. His hand grabbed the Kunai he always had under his pillow, but it wasn't there.

Had somebody stolen it?

"Woah!" somebody exclaimed.

"Gah!" a boy's voice cried when Kakashi grabbed his collar and neck.

He knew the voice. It jogged his memory, settled his surrounding reality back into place. A head of curly black hair, a sleeping mask pulled up over the forehead and light blue pajamas. Justin…

Kakashi immediately retreated, pulled his hands back, and looked over the boy to make sure he hadn't hurt him.

"Are you alright?" Ernie asked kneeling next to Justin.

Kakashi retreated further until his knees hit his mattress and he sat down on his bed. Eyes traveling from Justin to his overturned pillow he was immensely grateful for his forethought not to hide a Kunai there, feeling safe in Hogwarts.

"You had a nightmare," that was Nitin's voice. Calm and matter-of-factly. He stood next to Kakashi's bed in a long nightgown, that hung over his knees like a dress. "You were screaming and moaning."

Kakashi eyed him wearily and a little embarrassed. He rubbed his eyes. "Sorry." He didn't normally make any sounds in sleep. Even when he dreamed, on the battlefield such unwanted noise could mean death.

"Damn, what the fuck?" Justin moaned, rubbing his neck. There was a slight bruise forming, but thankfully, Kakashi had realized his mistake in time to avoid seriously injuring the boy, but he still felt ashamed as he saw the shape of his fingerprints darkening Justin's skin.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi repeated this time to Justin. He had been startled, but that would be a bad excuse for attacking a friend. What if he'd seriously injured him?

"Yeah, yeah," Justin grumbled. He winced as he prodded his neck. "I just thought I should wake you up… None of us could sleep with the way you were thrashing."

Kakashi had been thrashing? Talking about his past, even if he'd only spoken about the bare minimum, seemed to have left an impression on him. He rarely had nightmares ever since coming to Hogwarts, and he hadn't thought they'd come back so easily. Truthfully, now that he was awake, he could barely remember what he'd dreamed about, though he still felt a little shaken.

"Don't try to wake me," Kakashi said instead of giving a proper explanation which would only serve as a bad excuse. And it would be useless. The boys were smart enough to figure the cause for his agitation out themselves.

"Don't try to wake you?" Ernie asked confused. "You were thrashing!" Which Kakashi had understood already, and it was embarrassing enough without being reminded of it again and again!

"I'm fine." He stood. Looking to the window, the sun was already going up, so he excused himself to the bathroom to prepare for breakfast.

Kakashi hadn't expected Harry to believe him. He really hadn't. Going in, he'd known that at best, he could annoy Harry so much, that he'd stop investigating him, but presumable even that hadn't worked. Frustrated, he switched his cup with Justin without being noticed. The trio's attempts to give him their potion had grown craftier and craftier. Now, he didn't even know when they'd put the potion into his glass. It must've been in before he'd even arrived at the table…

Lifting Justin's cup, he stopped. There it was again: the smell. Had they poisoned the entire pumpkin juice flagon on the Hufflepuff table? As if on cue, a girl down the table, just in front of the teacher's table screamed out in shock.

"What's going on?" Ernie asked as he leaned forward to see past the raised heads and craning necks. Kakashi stood from his bench to see.

She was a stout girl, a few years older than Kakashi himself. One of the seventh years, Kakashi assumed. Maybe sixth. With trembling hands, she held strands of unhealthily pale hair in her hand, watching in horror as the brown dye drained out of it.

"What's happening with her?" Hannah asked. She'd stood up with Kakashi and had gone a few steps towards the front of the table. "What's with her hair?"

Children all across the Great Hall snickered until eventually, Professor Sprout came waddling down the stairs from the podium. She probably meant well, as she offered the girl her earthy flappy hat, although the girl looked mortified at the unfashionable piece of clothing. Sprout shoed her out of the hall to bring her to the hospital ward. Snape had stood with her. Frowning he took a strand of hair that the girl must have pulled out in her frantic panic.

He held it to his nose, sniffed at it, then he inspected the girl's food and drink. Eventually, his eyes snapped up. "What are you staring at?" he hissed at the goggling kids. For a second, beady black eyes found Kakashi, drilled into him, before moving on to glare at the kids from the other houses, even his own Slytherins. "Go back to eat or go to class."

"Professor?" A girl asked in a tiny voice. She stood right next to where the girl had sat. "What happened to Maddy, Sir?"

"I don't know," the teacher admitted through gritted teeth. "But I will find out." He grabbed the plate and glass of juice and carried it out of the Great Hall.

As soon as the door fell shut behind him, muttering ensued.

"What the heck was that?" "Was she hit by a curse?" "Did you see her hair?"

Kakashi was confused too. From Hermione's explanation, he thought it would just undo his hair dye, but the girl's hair had been ruined. He felt almost a little guilty for being the cause of this.

His eyes searched for Harry and his friends on the Gryffindor table. He could find them sitting among the other Gryffindors of their year. Hermione looked pale and was intensely arguing with Harry. From where Kakashi sat and through the general buzz in the room he couldn't understand what they were saying, but to Kakashi, it looked like Hermione hadn't known about this and felt guilty.

"It was a potions accident," Hannah announced as she sat opposite Kakashi. She was talking to her friends Susan and Megan, but Kakashi could hear her well enough. "Apparently she tried to dye her hair with a potion during the holidays and it went horribly wrong. That's why her hair looked like this. She used muggle dye to hide it, but no idea what happened to it now."

So at least, the ruined hair wasn't the trio's fault, though they had set the girl up for an embarrassing spectacle.

"I'll see you in class," Kakashi excused himself to walk over to the Gryffindor table.

Neville was the first to see him there. He waved at Kakashi excitedly. "Hey Charlie!" Shuffling a little on his bench he opened a tiny space between himself and the black boy, Dean Thomas. "Here, sit with us. Did you try the plum jam?"

Kakashi hadn't but he had already eaten. "Sorry, Neville, I need to talk to Harry."

"I don't want to talk to you, though," Harry shot back immediately, demonstratively turning away giving Kakashi only his shoulder to interact with.

Hermione glared at her friend. "Harry!" Voice frustrated and imploringly she was clearly in the midst of an argument with him. Eventually, it was Ron who acknowledged Kakashi. Looking up at him, he gave a silent shrug and mouthed a non-verbal apology.

Kakashi wanted to ask them to at least stop poisoning his classmates, but sitting among all the other Gryffindors, voicing such a reproach would only create more questions. Frustrated, he huffed and left the Great Hall.

Fine, if Harry truly didn't want to talk to him, he had a lot of other things to do and problems to solve. There was still the mystery of Hermione's time travel, figuring out how to protect and feed Sirius, diving into whatever past he, Lupin, and Snape shared and finding a way to appease the council and how to get home when everything was said and done.

It would be much easier, bringing Sirius and Harry close, if Harry trusted him at least to a degree. But if necessary, he could also just kidnap the boy and force him to meet his godfather. Kakashi wasn't squeamish after all.

He had noticed already during breakfast that Lupin hadn't been at the teacher's table, so he made his way up to his office, thinking the Defense teacher was as good a place to start with his mystery-solving as any.

However, when he entered the corridor of their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where Lupin's office was, he could hear voices. Kakashi stopped short, sneaking a little closer and then hiding in the shadow of one of the live armors. He had immediately recognized that first voice. Professor Snape.

"…a dry throat?"

A sickly cough, then Lupin replied. His voice sounded hoarse and dry. "I just feel a bit exhausted."

"It's been almost three days since the full moon, there shouldn't be any after-effects for so long." Although judging by his words, Snape was expressing worry, he didn't sound that way. Instead, there was a snarled annoyance in his tone.

"I'm aware, Severus," Lupin replied drily. "It doesn't normally happen."

"And you took it the way I ordered? No sugar, no milk, not mixed into your tea?"

When Lupin replied, the scoff was audible. "Of course. Just as you said."

"Maybe you're coming down with a cold then," Snape sneered. "In any case, it's not caused by my potion."

Lupin had been sick during the weekend. Kakashi was surprised why Snape would be so put off by lingering after-effects. It wasn't too uncommon to still feel a little under the weather after recovering from a sickness that – according to some – left Professor Lupin curled in his bed unable to even move. The man was always a little sickly, Kakashi thought. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. He'd improved a lot after the Sorting Ceremony and then he got worse again at the end of the month.

"I never get a cold," Lupin argued.

Snape snorted. "Sure, you have impeccable health. Comes with your condition, I guess?" He sounded amused.

What a weird thing to say to a man who'd just been sick…

"So, Dumbledore asked me to check with you, but I have no idea what caused this." He hesitated. Then as if forcing himself to continue the conversation: "Any other complaints?"

"No. The night was good. I'm recovering well. Thank you."

"I see you gnawed on your trunk," Snape spoke with contempt.

"You try to get through a full moon without chewing on something… I'm fine, Severus. I think I'm just thirsty."

Snape huffed. "Be careful. Students poisoning the drinks now. There was an incident earlier." Kakashi could hear the hand against the door handle. He sunk further into his shadow to hide completely.

"What happened?" Lupin was curious.

"I'll find out," Snape announced with certainty in his voice. "And once I know the culprits," he pulled the door open and stepped into the corridor, "they'll see consequences." And with that, he smacked the door shut. Kakashi stayed hidden until Professor Snape vanished down the corridor towards the stairs. He was muttering to himself, complaining about disappearing potions supplies and bezoars, and Kakashi immediately regretted having stolen from the Professor's storage. Clearly, he was keeping track.

Now, little thought experiment, lmao:

Imagine you believe somebody is possibly a really dangerous person, a liar, who wormed himself into your hear. You're also Harry Potter-repeatedly hunted by some of the worse killers in your world-and then that suspicious person tells you: "Yeah, I'm from another world, in another dimension, that you don't know, where I'm a ninja and everybody I love was killed." (And yeah, I want you to imagine it in such a casual tone. Kakashi really doesn't try to ease Harry into the story to make him more likely to believe him.)

So, would you believe a word of that?

Harry at least doesn't, partly because he went into this situation determined not to believe a word of it, partly because Kakashi doesn't try very hard to make him believe.

This is kind of the point where Kakashi realized that he's been telling too many lies and can't just keep it up, so he very much on purpose went with the solution of "well, the truth is the most obvious lie of all-so next I'm just gonna troll them with the truth" (though I think he's still somewhat hurt with the way Harry reacts.) However, it's also the point at which I think Hermione and Ron are slowly pulling out of the investigation. I think Harry finds the story completely absurd. Hermione is mildly curious about it, wanting to learn more, while Ron thinks it's probably a wild tale that includes some truth-enough truth that he doesn't want to continue digging into the life of somebody who possibly really lost all his family.

But yeah, Kakashi of course knew that this would be the reaction. He feels a bit more hurt and rattled by first telling the story then getting mocked for it, than he assumed, but he didn't think Harry would believe it, and he doesn't try to make him believe it either. At this point, I guess the aim is mostly just to give them a story so ridiculous that they'll stop asking questions. And what would be better than the truth? So far, harry's strategy has kind of been to catch Kakashi out on an obvious lie and then throw it in his face and demand the truth. Now, at least KAkashimade it clear that even IF they catch him on a lie, they'll only expect bullshit explanations. It's not like Kakashi needs them to believe them. He's just getting annoyed by their constant and frankly unprofessional snooping around.