This War of Ours: Year Two
SUMMARY: Harsh realities of war slowly seep through the Academy's walls. Old allies disappear and new ones take their place. As Katara starts her second year in the school, she is faced with secrets that are ripe to be uncovered. [Zutara AU, inspired by Harry Potter. Book Two of This War of Ours series]
A/N: THIS IS IT! It's Book Two of TWOO, people!
Since we've reached this point, I feel it's about time I clarified this: There's only four years in the Academy, plus an additional year of service; I thought it was an appropriate parallel since there were four elements, plus energybending. In the Wizarding World, seven is the most magical number, and there's seven years at Hogwarts. So, because I'm sorta shortening the series, think of this book as Chamber of Secrets with a mishmash of events from the other books.
I'm so excited to have reached this far, but this story would have just remained in my graveyard of unfinished documents without your support. Your encouragement kept me going all through Book One, so enough rambling and on to Book Two! Cheers!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or Harry Potter.
CHAPTER 1
duty-bound
"There it is!" Sokka crowed, his fur-lined hood falling back as he hung over the railing of the ship. He squinted his eyes against the snowflakes that clouded his view. "Is it me, or is the village bigger than I remember?"
"It is!" Katara gasped, pointing to one side of the settlement in the distance. "There's more watchtowers, Sokka, look!"
Their father chuckled behind them while his first mate, Bato, took over the steering.
"We had to add more along the walls, with the traffic we get from foreign merchants," he said, laying a hand on both his children's shoulders. "The one you used to man with Amaruk is still intact, though, don't you worry."
"The port's bigger!" exclaimed Katara excitedly, but she shrank back towards her father as they neared their home. "Dad… are those…?"
Sokka blinked, too.
"Why do we have Fire Nation ships on our port?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly. Their father sighed.
"They are necessary in maintaining peace in the Southern Water Tribe," he recited stonily, and both his children knew this wasn't a welcome change.
To Hakoda, widower and father of two, Fire Nation ships moored on their shores spelled nothing but doom to his family. Soldiers now manned the ports and disrupted the carefree life in the South, a curfew had been set and violators were publicly whipped with fire, and the constant presence of black snow from the steamers forced him and his comrades to relive the worst days of their lives.
As the chief of the Southern Water Tribe, though, it was a necessity. The thaw in the cold war between his country and the Regime of Fire reintroduced trading and opened communication lines between them and other countries once more; Fire Nation troops in the area worked alongside his own warriors to keep track of whoever goes in and out of the village walls; most importantly, there were no more starving children. No more hollow cheeks or deadened eyes. In Hakoda's book, having the life back in the eyes of his people trumped anything the tribe would have to give up.
He acknowledged his children's concerned looks with a nod of resignation, and walked back to Bato to check up on their progress at sea. Sokka and Katara, however, exchanged glum looks with each other.
"It can't be that bad…" began Sokka. "There's some Earth Kingdom ships over there, too— look. Besides, Dad wrote last winter that less people died 'cause we didn't have to hunt as much and we finally had healing creams and fever brews from the Earth Kingdom."
Katara scrunched up her face and turned away from the ocean with her arms crossed.
"I still don't like it. Haru said the Fire Nation soldiers at their village were thugs who stole from the people. How could these soldiers be any different?"
Sokka just shrugged and pulled up his hood.
"I don't really know, sis." He heaved a huge sigh and continued to watch as their village grew on the horizon. "I guess we'll just have to see."
Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at the Northern Water Tribe palace.
Chief Arnook had been woken in the early hours of the morning by a solemn guard escorting his daughter back to the royal wing, after yet another night of disruptive combative waterbending that left a bridge collapsed over the main canal.
"Third time this week!" cried Arnook, pacing the length of the royal family's private dining room. "I have turned a blind eye to your blatant disregard of our traditions, my daughter, but enough is enough!"
Yue tried, yet again, to explain.
"The moon calls to me, Father," she pleaded. "Even Sifu Pakku agreed— if you would just allow me to use the main plaza at night—"
"I do not know what possessed that man to teach you something as unforthcoming for a princess as combat training, but I put my foot down at any public spectacle of your new… hobby," her father spat, still pacing, still red-faced in his indignation. "This will not do, Yue. You are to be wed in a fortnight. Who knows what your in-laws would say if they found out you are anything other than a healer? Who knows what your betrothed will say, my daughter?"
They shouldn't give a viper rat's butt, said a voice in Yue's head that sounded remarkably like Katara, but Katara was simply the chief's daughter in her tribe, not a princess, and princesses like Yue didn't have the power to speak their minds.
She looked down at her hands, curled into fists in her lap, and slowly unclenched them as she let out a heavy breath.
"I understand, Father," she said, as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. She blinked rapidly and swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. "I do not wish to bring dishonor to our family."
"Good." Arnook sat down at his usual chair at the head of the table and ran a hand down his face. "I am glad you understand, Yue."
Her mother, who had been silent during the whole exchange, gently laid a hand on Yue's shoulder.
"You must also understand, my dear, that it would greatly shame your husband if you are better than him at waterbending," she said, as though it was the most sensible thing in the world. "It is the job of the wife to support her husband and keep him happy."
What of my own happiness? thought Yue sadly, but she nodded at her mother's words. She was the princess of the Northern Water Tribe; her own happiness came last. Her duty was to the people, and if marrying a man she didn't know or love made her people feel safe and secure, then she would gladly give up any semblance of happiness.
"Now that's settled," her mother cast a furtive glance in Arnook's direction, "It's time to plan your wedding, my dear. Now, the chief of our sister tribe—"
"Chief Hakoda will attend my wedding?" Yue blurted out, heart hammering in her chest. "Will his— will others arrive with him?"
Her mother's lips pressed into a hard line at her interjection, and Yue bowed her head in apology.
"I was saying, daughter," her mother continued pointedly, "The chief of our sister tribe will hopefully depart with his retinue to arrive about two or three days before your wedding. Our delegation is getting ready to set out for the South Pole as we speak, and will arrive there in about five days, should Tui and La allow."
"Hadn't invitations been sent out, Mother?" she asked timidly. "May I ask why we are sending a delegation to accompany the Southerners here?"
It was her father who answered, however.
"Our sister tribe may not be as well-versed in politics as we are, my daughter," he began. "But it will obviously be in poor taste if we do not extend a personal invitation to them, especially now that they've signed the same pact we did with the Regime of Fire."
"Who among them are expected to attend my wedding, Father?" Yue asked lightly, as though she were truly excited about having more people attend the event, but her heart was in her throat and she couldn't decide which was better— to see Sokka one last time, or to not see him at all.
"That is for them to decide, Yue," explained her father sternly. "No matter who they send, we will give them a gracious welcome. Understood?"
"Of course, Father."
Her mother chose this moment to get back to planning the wedding.
"Now, I have called in the seamstress to alter the ceremonial robes you will be wearing… goodness, you have gotten so much thinner, my dear, you'll have to bulk up, otherwise they'll think you couldn't bear sons..."
Yue nodded along and tried her best to look remotely interested, but her mind was already far away.
The Southern Water Tribe had changed— that much was certain.
After three days of wandering around the village, Katara decided that it wasn't as drastic as she imagined— or feared, really. The change was, however, palpable in the air and in the way people held themselves a little straighter, their heads a little higher against the cold.
The marketplace was thriving. Just a year ago, the little square held little to no goods, but with the influx of Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation merchants, stalls of hide had been erected in a loose circle around the open meeting place where the village elders usually congregated to settle matters within the tribe. Hawkers from the ships moored on the makeshift port now stayed a little longer and traded a little better. Bolts of silk and stacks of ceramic wares had made their way to the South. Children held colorful fruits and spiced candies as they ran through the tundra.
Katara didn't know what to make of all the changes. She couldn't remember a time when life here had been this carefree.
She told herself she would get used to it all, but it still terrified her.
Last year, their tribe was starving; more people died at each season's turn, and they couldn't afford luxuries like dyed clothes or healing ointments. But they were also on their own, cut off from intrusive foreigners, blissfully pretending that the war wouldn't come knocking on their shores.
Katara shivered. Fire Nation streamers were always the stuff of her nightmares, and now they bobbed on their shores like it was an everyday occurrence (although it probably was, since the Fire Lord opened trade lines again). Soot caught on the fur of her parka, and she shook it off, still trying to convince herself that black snow didn't mean death.
"Oh hey, Katara," Amaruk, one of Bato's seven sons, caught up to her with a woven basket filled with fish strapped to his back. "See you're back from school. You learn anything good up there?"
She shook herself and grinned at the older boy.
"You tell me," she bent snow into water and transformed it into a whip, before letting it fly gracefully in the air and freezing it back into fine powdery snow. Amaruk watched in undisguised amazement and Katara beamed, despite the guilt churning in her stomach. Amaruk was older than her by about four years— he could've been old enough to go to the Academy before she and Sokka did, had the circumstances allowed him.
He would have been a great warrior, and Katara felt her anger swell at the unfairness of leaving the rest of their tribe behind.
But if he'd gone to the Academy, he now would have been old enough to die keeping the Regime of Fire's peace, Katara thought bitterly. He wouldn't be here, helping Bato and Dad and the rest of the village.
"Something on your mind, turtle seal?"
Katara blinked, only to realize that she was trailing a few paces behind Amaruk. She sighed in resignation— there was no escaping her thoughts.
"I guess I'm still not used to…" she gestured vaguely at the bustling marketplace, "...to all of this."
Amaruk paused in his tracks and smiled dryly at a couple of children passing a wicker ball back and forth.
"I know what you mean," he agreed, voice low. "Only the elders remember what it was like when our tribe flourished. It's been awhile, but all of this… it still seems fake, somehow."
Katara nodded, clutching her mother's necklace at her throat.
"Like it could all be taken away at the snap of the Fire Lord's fingers," she said, just as quietly, looking warily at the pair of Fire Nation soldiers standing at attention nearby.
"Dad feels the same way," muttered Amaruk, also surveying the soldiers from the corner of his eye. He raised his voice and laughed freely. "Of course, my mother says it's just his paranoia talking— and you know her, she's always right about these things."
He motioned for Katara to walk alongside him, and casually slung an arm around her shoulders. Katara opened her mouth to protest, but Amaruk leaned in and whispered conspiratorially.
"We need to get word to your father, turtle seal," he murmured urgently. "We couldn't send reports to him when he and Dad went to the Fire Nation and left us in charge— our letters are being monitored, and so are the council meetings. But we got word from our merchant friends that the Fire Nation is amassing troops and they're increasing their presence in the North Pole. They said Chief Arnook is sending his warriors to recruit men from our tribe."
A shiver ran down Katara's spine.
"What does that mean?" she hissed. "They want us to go to war again, just when things are finally settling down between us and the Fire Nation?"
Amaruk curiously looked down at her.
"I thought you agreed that giving up our independence to the Regime of Fire wasn't the right decision."
"I didn't say it was! I didn't say it wasn't either!" Katara wrung her hands and glanced around agitatedly before continuing. "Dad sent Sokka and me to the Academy so they'll leave us alone, Amaruk. I didn't understand at first, but— our tribe was dying. It was the only way to save what's left of the Southern Water Tribe. If we go to war against the Fire Nation again— this time with the North, who, let me tell you, don't really see eye to eye with us— it'll be a thousand times worse than the Siege of the South!"
"Okay! Okay. Calm down, turtle seal," Amaruk laid a hand appeasingly on her shoulder, and Katara crosses her arms with a huff. "You still need to tell your dad, though. He needs to know, so he can decide what we could do."
Katara's posture slumped forward as she sighed.
"Yeah, I'll tell him."
Amaruk grinned at her and tugged her braid.
"Hey, cheer up. What were you in the market for, anyway?" he asked, adjusting the straps of his woven basket on his shoulders.
"Oh, right!" exclaimed Katara. She walked back to the center of the village. "I was looking for water skins."
Amaruk chuckled at that.
"What, all this snow isn't enough for you?"
"No," Katara answered with a roll of her eyes. "I'm giving them as gifts to one of my friends from the Academy."
A sly smirk appeared on Amaruk's face.
"Ooooh, you got yourself a waterbending boyfriend, turtle seal? Do Sokka and Uncle Hakoda know?"
"It's not like that!" Katara laughed as she strode towards a stall. "I'm buying them as a wedding gift for my friend because she is getting married."
"Wow, getting married, huh?" Amaruk scratched his chin thoughtfully. "What are Northern women like?"
"Ugh, you wouldn't want to know most of them," grumbled Katara, her thoughts landing on how the other Northern Water Tribe girls treated her before she remembered Yue and Gumi. "But they're not all bad. They're just raised differently from us."
"Girls! Breakfast!"
Gumi groaned against her pillow. Her older sister, Vanya, was already puttering about in their shared room, humming happily to herself despite the early hour. The polar bear dogs were barking up a storm outside— their father was most likely unloading the sleds from his pre-dawn hunt, and that meant Gumi and her little sister, Popo, would be on meat curing and smoking duty until lunchtime.
"Gumi, get up," Vanya said, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. When Gumi burrowed deeper into her pelts in response, her sister sighed and yanked off her blanket forcefully.
"Cold!" yelped Gumi, scrambling to get her blanket back. Her sister held it out of reach and smirked at her.
"What, did you dream your were back in the Fire Nation where chores didn't exist?" Vanya asked dryly, hands on her hips. "Come on, you big baby. You're feeding the dogs after breakfast; Mom needs me at the healing huts."
"When will I be needed at the healing huts?" mumbled Gumi, shoving her hair out of her face with a frown.
Ever since she arrived back home and told her family about her first year in the Academy, her mother had been acting… rather distant. She used to call Gumi her "little healer in training" whenever she brought her to the healing huts— something she never did with her big sister, but now it was always Vanya accompanying their mother, always Vanya doing the chores that Mom used to entrust Gumi with.
It didn't help that Vanya, who was just a year older, had gotten engaged a few months back. Their mother had done nothing but dote on her eldest all summer.
Gumi's next words were coated in bitterness.
"You're not even a waterbender— why does Mom even want you down there?"
Her sister pursed her lips and busied herself with the blanket in her hands.
"Well, she's just having a hard time, you know," said Vanya, handing Gumi back her now-folded blanket and sitting down on the bed beside her. "You were gone for some time. She'll warm up to you again after a while."
Gumi pouted at her rumpled bedclothes.
"Yeah, when I finally agree to go to the matchmaker and stop using waterbending for anything besides healing," she grumbled, plaiting her messy hair into a braid. "Dad doesn't seem to mind the stuff I do."
Vanya snorted at that.
"That's because Dad's always wanted a son and now you're acting like one," she said haughtily, and Gumi stuck her tongue out at her as she shrugged her parka on. Her sister crossed her arms and continued in her Big Sister Voice. "Seriously, though. How long do you think you can keep this up, Gumi?"
"Keep what up?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"This," Vanya pointed at her, as though it explained everything. "Putting off going to the matchmaker, starting fights with the boys from your class, practicing your oh-so-special waterbending by doing menial stuff like filling kettles and cleaning pots— This is not you, Gumi."
"Did Mom put you up to this?" Gumi said suspiciously, but Vanya ignored her.
"How do you expect to get married, huh?" she pressed on. "Do you think boys care if you can do that octopus form thing when you can't even cook a simple stew?"
"Not everything's about marriage, Vanya!" cried Gumi with a stomp of her foot. "What if the war picks up again, do you think anyone would care if I couldn't cook a freezing stew?"
"The war can't pick up again— the Fire Nation's already won," Vanya replied hotly. "What's more important is settling down and helping out Mom and Dad by not freeloading here until you're too old for a match."
With that, she sauntered off. Gumi scowled at Vanya's retreating back and contemplated on covering her sister's bed with frost or encasing her favorite hair beads in a block of ice.
Instead, she laced up her boots, tucked her hair into her hood, and marched to the communal space where their family ate. She grabbed some seal jerky and ladled some soup into her bowl, munching and slurping in a pointedly unladylike behavior— maybe when they see her acting like this, no one would want to marry her even if her mother managed to drag her to the matchmaker.
It wasn't like Gumi didn't want to find a good match, though; just a year back, she was as boy-crazy as Yuka and Yura, and she gushed every time Baya showed her the letters that her match sent her. But then she stood up to Sifu Pakku— and everything changed.
"Who would even like those stupid chicken pig-headed boys, anyway?" she mumbled to herself, chewing vigorously on a hefty chunk of seal jerky. She gulped down her soup straight from the bowl— something her mother would definitely not approve of— then bent a bit of water from a pot to wash it.
She shook her cold fingers and tugged on her mittens, pulling up her hood as she made her way to the door of their house. She paused at the threshold when she heard voices outside; it seemed her father was still with his hunting buddies, chatting away as they cleaned and gutted their kills.
"The royal guard said it was the princess's fault; apparently she was trying to have it all, practicing waterbending to fight, could you believe it?" said one of the younger warriors.
"It's just teenage rebellion, mark my words," replied another. "My daughter almost eloped at sixteen before I beat some sense into her."
"Word is, the old master taught her to fight, back in the Academy." There was disbelief evident in the younger one's voice, and Gumi rolled her eyes.
"Education is wasted on the women," scoffed the older hunter.
It was only at this moment that she heard her father's voice.
"My daughter is studying how to fight," he said, in that gruff way of his, "She's a girl, but that's not a problem."
There was a pause, before the younger voice replied laughingly, "Are you sure your daughter's not just… an oyster shucker?"
Gumi's jaw dropped at the insinuation. Sure, she didn't want to find a match just yet, but she didn't like girls that way!
"Wouldn't care if she was," came her father's answer. "'S long as she's happy."
Gumi shook her head, thinking she must have misheard him. Girls who liked other girls were the butts of jokes in their tribe, along with boys who liked other boys. It never occurred to Gumi that they could be happy the way her mother and father were happy, especially with the way "oyster shuckers" and "icicle lickers" were treated.
Apparently, her father's comrades felt the same. The older one let out a loud, rumbling laugh, and the younger one scoffed.
"You won't be happy when she ends up living in your tent in disgrace, Nukilik," warned the older one. "Tui and La do not look kindly on those who defy nature."
"Those freezing fish don't care what we do, Tamilok," grumbled her father. "If they did, they'd have ended the war long ago."
"There now, careful what you say," reproached Tamilok. "Your lack of faith might cost you."
In one of the many shadowed alcoves of the too-empty Academy, Fire Prince Zuko examined the missive he stole from his uncle's desk, his brows furrowed with displeasure.
The Fire Nation was known for its blazing summer afternoons, but the stifling weather was not the reason for the tightness in Zuko's chest.
It's only been a year, he thought bitterly, the corners of the parchment in his hands smoldering as he barely kept his anger in check. How can I be expected to fulfill my destiny in just a year?
A pounding headache began to mount behind his scar, and he closed his eyes and his fists, crumpling the letter he was reading.
It has been a year, and Prince Zuko still sometimes wished his father had actually banished him.
There was an odd sort of freedom to that. Banishment was the extreme, short of death. He would be removed from the line of succession, he would be reduced to a nobody… but he would be free to make his own destiny.
Had the Fire Lord banished him, he wouldn't have to hold onto the hope that someday his father would look at him with pride. Had his father so easily dismissed him, he would have known where he stood— albeit the pain of knowing he would never be enough for his father and his king. He wouldn't have to second-guess if there was a chance his father would ever love him.
But this…
Our most-esteemed Fire Lord has also enquired upon Fire Prince Zuko's progress in the mission he was tasked to complete. If, in a fortnight, the Fire Prince fails, the hunt for the Avatar would be given prime importance. All information regarding the Avatar must be reported directly to Admiral Zhao.
"So that's how it is," Zuko muttered to himself, finally opening his eyes, the fire within him spreading resolutely. He clenched his jaw and set aflame the piece of paper in his fist until it was nothing but ashes. He leapt off the alcove and made his way to his chambers.
"If that's what you want, Father," he declared darkly, "Then so be it."
A/N: A couple of notes on Zuko's task: In the series, it seemed unusual for me that common people will not know about Zuko being banished, and it seemed unusual, too, that some of them will not be sympathetic, especially with the civilian casualties in the war. Sure, he was a prick in season one, but people who know the bare minimum (especially after Azula was declared heir to the throne) could actually question how a father could send a young boy out to sea just like that, and might even try to persuade him to side against his father in open rebellion. This is why I tweaked it— Ozai, despite his power and people's fear of him, has an image to project. By not banishing Zuko but still giving him an impossible (and relatively secret except from the military) task that he has no resources to achieve, Ozai is still setting him up for failure while washing his hands of the whole thing.
Anyway, that's the first chapter! Please tell me what you think!