The stone rolled in her palm. Hikari frowned at it and sighed at its eagerness. Troublesome.

She had no idea who to start with.

She shook her head; the most important thing was a safe place to experiment in.

She looked around her, she was hidden between the trees but still someone could stumble upon her suspicious figure any minute.

Hikari whistled, "Pronglset! Where did you go?"

The stag, thankfully not bloody, suddenly jumped from the tree behind her to land two feet away. She scowled, heart dropping in her stomach. Fucking deer and their fucking abilities to climb enormous trees.

Okay, so maybe she was a bit nervous about the whole summoning thing.

"Don't do that!" Hikari glared and stood up. "What's wrong with walking around like a normal stag?"

Prongslet didn't seem to like her words, he turned his head away and stomped on the ground. Hikari rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. Listen, can you take me somewhere safe? Somewhere no one has access to?" The stag turned his head towards her and tilted his head in thought.

Finally, he grunted coming closer to her and picking her up by the collar of her dress to put her on his back. Hikari didn't even flinch, instead she quickly threw the stone in her bag and clutched his fur with both hands, readying herself. Knowing his usual speed, she would be thrown away otherwise.

The stag sprinted away.

He only let her down when they reached a familiar clearing. Hikari's voice hitched in her throat. Oh no.

Heart hammering like a rabbit, she looked at the black and white surroundings where she found the Deathly Hallows.

This – this wasn't what she meant!

But it was, wasn't it? She wanted a place where no one would be able to interrupt her and Prongslet delivered just that.

Hikari felt her blood pressure rise when she stared at the stag casually puffing his chest beside her.

Her lips twisted, at least she would be able to check the runes for herself.

She walked towards the marble altar, making sure her steps were steady before stopping a safe distance away, just enough to study the runes array.

Hikari narrowed her eyes, she recognised a few rune letters from her time as an auror, the amount of people using dark rituals was mind-blogging.

There was Bind, – Hikari preened for a moment at being right, where was Hermione to praise her now? – Preserve, Protect, Deflect, Need and –

She swallowed nervously, the rune Ihwaz or Yew could mean many things but most commonly used in rituals to mean – Immortality, Death, Timeless, Eternity.

Hikari closed her eyes and sucked her panic into a classroom in Hogwarts and locked it behind.

It's alright, she could do this. There was no turning back, anyways.

Despite her efforts, she was still in a child's body no matter how extraordinary, her eyes sought the stag that came with her in search of comfort.

"Prongslet," She called and pretended that her voice wasn't shaking. The stag was beside her in a second, nudging her cheeks.

Hikari smiled despite herself and hugged his head.

"Why did you bring me here?" she murmured. "Why is it important that I do this? Whatever this is?"

Prongslet paused, and lifted his head black meeting nervous green.

They stayed like that for more than five minutes – Hikari was counting – staring into each other's eyes before the stag broke the staring contest first and reached down to her backpack. Hikari watched in confusion as he shoved his head into her bag and came out with the Elder Wand clutched between his teeth.

The stag threw the stick in front of her and went back to staring. Hikari blinked.

"Uh. What am I supposed to do with it?"

A push to the wand and a nudge on her hand.

"Oookay." Hikari mumbled and picked up the wand. "Now what?"

Prongslet leaned in and sniffed her head. Hikari blinked rapidly, not understanding anything, she repeated so, "I don't understand, what do I use the wand for?"

An aggressive stomp on the black sand was the answer. Hikari frowned, "Yeah, this isn't working. I am gonna ask you yes or no questions. Nod your head if it is a yes and stomp your legs if it is a no, okay?"

The stag dropped his head into a nod. Hikari breathed, "Okay. Here goes nothing. The thing you want me to do, is it related to my mind?"

Nodding.

"Something with my mind and my wand?"

Nodding.

"Is it defending my mind? Because I can already do that."

A loud stomp.

"Okay chill, is it – is it reading your mind? I have never done that here before and it's not safe." Hikari worried her lips.

Prongslet nodded back at her and she flinched. "I can't do that, Prongslet."

The stag dragged its hooves against the ground in irritation and she snapped at him. "I don't want to do it, Prongslet. I haven't done it before, it's not safe and I never did it on an animal before not even when I was Harry!"

The mention of her previous name stilled her, she had never said that name out loud before and saying it somehow made everything more real. Hikari felt like crying.

Prongslet huffed as if telling her how stupid she was and dragged his tongue across her face. She recoiled in disgust.

"What the hell?" The stag kept licking and grooming her hair gently, much gentler than he was when they were playing. She stopped struggling and sighed, letting him comfort her.

"I still won't do it, Prongslet." Her voice was raw.

The stag grunted and nosed the hand that held the Elder Wand. She almost dropped it from the force.

"I – Are you sure, Prongslet? Are you sure this is the right thing to do?" she whispered, afraid of the answer.

His head dropped in a nod and Hikari sighed in defeat.

"Fine. You know I am only doing this because I trust you, right?" She got an Eskimo kiss as a reward.

Hikari ignored the part in her mind that was screaming at her that this was the stupidest idea, forcefully shutting her logic down. She didn't need to be a Hermione right now. She needed to be Harry, the one who always got out of the fight by sheer power and instinct, she also needed to be Hikari, the child the deer adored and trusted.

She could do this.

Breathing deeply, she tightened her hand around the wand and stared unwaveringly at the black eyes of her animal friend.

Finally, she whispered, "Legilimens."

(The world would never be the same.)


Shikamaru lied down on the roof of the academy, watching the clouds go by.

Choji didn't want to skip that day and that worked with Shikamaru just fine. He had some thinking to do after all – he did feel a bit guilty, leaving him down there when he knew that Naruto had prepared a prank on the whole class.

But well, he had offered, hadn't he?

His home was too calm these days, his family falling into a relaxing routine. It felt like the calm before the storm.

Shikamaru was an observing person, not one for much action unless he absolutely needed to.

It was obvious however, that something was going to happen soon and he would probably have to interfere.

Ri-chan didn't stay in the house for long anymore, spouting nonsense about the deer helping her build a tree house and making gifts or something.

Shikamaru knew there was some truth to what she was saying, obvious in the way she didn't feel any guilt about her words unlike the usual. He had seen her buy more yarn and thread which meant that she had been making something with them.

And using them as a distraction for their mother, as well.

He hummed, seeing a cloud shaped like a rabbit. It reminded him of his sister. Always excited and active, hopping here and there, never stopping to enjoy life.

She had been quiet the past few weeks, though. That was worrying Shikamaru the most. Hikari was never quiet. Not when she was emotional, not when she was scheming, not even when she was glaring at their father when their mother couldn't see her.

Hikari was planning something big enough that it was sucking away all her energy to act like a normal child in front of their mother. Not that the woman noticed with all the convincing excuses she had been given.

Shikamaru himself was planning things but it was only to reach his slacker life and he wouldn't put that much effort into something long term unless it would guarantee his goals.

Which was also another thing that confused him.

He didn't even know Ri-chan's goals.

His little sister was anything but predictable, but it was starting to get frustrating since none of her actions lined up.

He sighed, 'How troublesome.'

Even after five years, his little sister remained a puzzle.

At least he wasn't the only one being affected. His lips stretched slightly and his eyes crinkled. His father had been losing his mind the past few years.

Unfortunately, his father was also digging himself into a hole and it was getting deep enough that Shikamaru wasn't sure he would be able to get out of it when the situation called for it.

Seriously, training Hikari would have taken nothing of his time as long as he asked Suzaku-san or Ensui-san or even Maen-san.

But alas, his father was whipped.

Shikamaru didn't even want to be the Head of the clan, but he understood why his father started training him early. He had his team planned and if he couldn't keep up with them, their clans would be in danger, their usefulness would be questioned.

The Shadow Clan jutsu didn't exactly need to be started at a young age. In fact, starting at a young age was probably more dangerous, that's why most of the clan children started learning when they entered the academy at seven. Thankfully, Shikamaru had enough Yin chakra to start learning early.

The thing was, Hikari did too. He had seen enough evidence of her manipulating the shadows to be sure. She probably had more chakra than Shikamaru would ever have.

His father, however by some kind of miracle, didn't know that.

Shikamaru knew that his father was trying to avoid training Hikari because of what she could do (which he had no evidence of. yet.), he suspected, too, that Hikari had some sort of kekkei genkai and outing that to the public or even to the clan was far too early. Hikari could easily be put in danger, way too early. They wouldn't be able to keep the village's hands off of her.

Although, it seemed like it was going too far.

Well, it was about time to have a talk with his father before he made an enemy out of his own daughter and before said daughter took drastic measures.

Whatever those were.

The Nara heir sighed. Who'd have thought he would have to save his father so soon? He wasn't even a genin yet and he was already working so hard.

Far below him, glitter bombs exploded all over his classmates and chaos spread.

"NARUTOOOOO!" The shout was soon followed by loud belly laughter.

Troublesome.

Shikamaru didn't know what his sister had ever seen in that guy.


The moment Hikari went back to her home, she was told by her tense mother that her father was waiting for her in the training room.

Hikari's mind spun into scenarios of why he would ever call her into the training room so suddenly. She didn't have time to listen in on all the meetings in his office since she started training, but what could have changed his opinion so quickly? The counsel definitely couldn't and her mother was against this, judging by her reaction.

She made her way to the training room in silence.

It had been barely a few weeks since Prongslet told her that he could see the future. It had become common for them to have whole conversations in their minds, she hadn't approved at first but it was easy and much more importantly, it was needed.

His visions guided her. Sometimes she saw herself as an adult in his visions, sometimes she saw herself mere seconds into the future trying to do something. Prongslet didn't show her everything but he showed her enough to understand what she needed to do.

She was meant to be here. She was meant to learn this.

She broke out of her thoughts when she stepped in front of the sliding door of the training room. She breathed, there was no use to standing like this, her father already knew she was standing outside.

Knocking, she waited for the quiet 'enter' before she slid the door open.

She paused slightly at the two pairs of eyes watching her. Well, she certainly hasn't expected this.

"Hi, Uncle Inoichi. Hi, Daddy." She smiled as cutely as she could.

Her uncle smiled at her kindly, a wide contrast between her stern-looking father.

"Hello, Ri-chan. Don't worry, we are just going to check something really quickly." The words reminded her of healers who were about to cast a diagnostic spell on her after a particularly jarring fight. But why would–

Her uncle could walk through minds.

Fuck.

Hikari was very careful with her expression as she nodded, because she knew if her uncle missed her reaction, her father definitely wouldn't, no matter how miniscule.

"Is something wrong with me?" She tilted her head.

"No, no. Not at all." He comforted her.

"The Nara clan aren't susceptible to the mind arts. Do you know why, Ri-chan?" His voice had taken the gentle tilt of a teacher guiding his student and Hikari almost relaxed if it wasn't for the subject being discussed.

"Because their minds are too complicated?" Hikari answered, almost upset about the doubt in her voice.

The reason why the Yamanaka can't get anything out of a Nara is exactly the same reason as to why they were allies, as well as the purpose of the Ino-Shika-cho team.

"That's right, and do you know what a Mind Palace is?" He continued.

Hikari knew where this was going and wanted to run from the training room as soon as possible. There was no harm in answering this question though, she had multiple ways of explaining her answer. "A Mind Palace is a place you build in your mind to organize your memories or stuff like that."

She grinned, feeling proud of how childish that sounded. Her uncle grinned back at her. "Correct. It is also the cause of your superior memory. Nara's generally build their mind palaces at a young age so today; I am here to check how your mind palace have progressed and also to offer you advice to help you strengthen it."

Hikari blinked. That was.. Useful. But –

Her eyes glanced at her father and saw him staring unnervingly into her soul. Yeah, maybe not when everyone will know what her uncle will see. Should she show him useless memories and be done with it? No, that was something apparently all Nara had and if she showed too little, someone might accuse her mother of infidelity. Hikari had green eyes which were extremely rare and recessive and people were already confused where she got them from, even if pictures of her grandma who looked exactly like her silenced them for now. If word got out that she was stupid and didn't even have a mind palace, her mother was going to be blamed.

She stared at her uncle's face. He seemed genuine, like he actually wanted to help. But she couldn't ignore the fact that his loyalty lied with her father and not her. It only extended to her now because he thought her father doted on her.

Her eyes went back to her father. What would he do? What could he do? Starting to train her will cause her mother to erupt and she didn't think her father was going to outright deny her mother like that. He had shown no sign of even caring about what she did, other than the useless staring, and that had been going on since she was a one-year-old.

He could do nothing and even if he tried, her mother wouldn't believe anything that could fault her hand-drawn picture of her perfect daughter right now.

Her mother and Shikamaru were on her side. She was protected.

Decision made, she sat in front of her uncle and nodded. "Alright."


"What did you see?"

"A fucking castle, Shikaku. A castle out of a fucking fairytale that she probably read while you were wasting time. Not one stone was out of place, everything was too imperfectly perfect that for a second, I forgot that I was in someone's mind and thought I had teleported."

"There were no tells, there was nothing and everything. The grass had a patch that seemed like people stepped on it everyday. The rooms kept exchanging themselves when I wasn't looking but I could feel them. The stairs only played mind games with me like it could read my mind instead of the opposite. And don't fucking get me started on the fucking forest."

"... How big was it?" Came the defeated answer.

"Bigger than the Nara compound. Bigger than three compounds. Maybe as big as the village. I couldn't reach the end of the forest and there was constantly something new showing up so I knew it wasn't being repeated. The castle was far bigger on the inside as well .I also saw a village from the top, it looked like it had too much details to be just a background."

"Fuck."

".. How the hell did you not notice?"

"I just didn't want to. Humans can be selectively blind when they want to be."

"Fuck that shit, Shikaku. You know what I think? I think you knew exactly what was going on and you just decided to ignore it. This is treason, Shikaku. It's also betraying your daughter, making sure she was weak while playing house to please your wife."

"…"

"Are you telling Yoshino today?"

"Yes. Tonight."

"I wish you luck, my friend ."


The fight was as spectacular as everyone had expected.

Hikari sat in her bedroom after being sent away when the fight broke out. She could still vaguely hear shouts in the background. Shikamaru was in the room next to hers, and she already knew that he was using his own shadow to eavesdrop, evident by the small trail of darkness outside her door that she had seen when she entered her room.

She couldn't teach Shikamaru how to make the shadow dolls, but she figured out that their shadows had similar characteristics, he could do almost the same things with it, but didn't have any direct control over its shape. He also couldn't get it to become three-dimensional, the one time he tried that almost ended up with him passed out from chakra exhaustion.

Hikari weighed her options, should she eavesdrop on them? It was about her after all, but it didn't feel right to listen to her parents fighting.

'But Shikamaru was already doing it.'

She huffed, if he was doing it then it should be fine.

She didn't have a shadow doll in her parent's room but the house was dark enough to sneak one in.

"-S MY DAUGHTER. YOU DON'T GET TO CORRUPT HER LIKE THAT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!"

"I am not corrupting anyone. She needs to learn, Yoshino. Her powers are too strong, she can't go to the academy without learning how to use them, it would be disastrous."

"Right, it wasn't enough that you made Shikamaru start early, you want to take my daughter too? All Nara start training when they go to the academy and they are all just fine. Do you think I am that stupid, Shikaku?"

Hikari's breath hitched at the new information.

She had miscalculated. Shit shit shit, this was bad. She had revealed things too early and this was all her fault.

"Shikamaru's situation was different. Hikari has too much chakra."

"She hasn't shown any signs! Why can't she stay like this for two more years?!"

"Ino said that her chakra levels are too high. If she doesn't start training, she will never master chakra control."

Hikari shook and clutched her bedsheets, breaths rapidly increasing.

"You're lying." Her mother's voice shook.

"I am not. I never lied to you, Yoshino."

"You ALWAYS lie to me, Shikaku! Ever since we got married – hell, we married because of a lie that you MADE UP TO RUIN MY LIFE! YOU NEVER LIED TO ME?! DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!"

"Yoshino, I-"

"SHUT UP! YOU DID THIS TO ME! Do you think I was happy when you created a political scandal to threaten my family? Do you think I was happy when I was sent here like a pig to marry you?! I HAVEN'T SEEN MY FAMILY IN YEARS!"

"I didn't –"

"YOU DID! You did all of that and even after we got married, you didn't even respect my decision to not have a child! You got me pregnant because both of your friends told you to! Do you think I was okay when I almost died delivering a baby I DIDN'T EVEN WANT!? I-"

"-So, you decided to die for a baby that you wanted? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED, YOSHINO?!"

There was no reply.

"You were dying, Yoshino! You knew that you were going to die and you told the doctors to deliver the baby naturally! What did you think was going to happen?!"

"It was my choice and I lived –"

"YOU WERE DEAD FOR FORTY-THREE MINUTES!"

Hikari realised she was crying when her tears dripped into her hands.

She didn't even bother wiping them.

"… Hikari is the only thing I chose for myself in this hellish life you forced on me. You are not taking her away from me."

"I already called Suzaku-san and told him to start her training. She starts next week."

"No, NO YOU'RE –"

"It is only once a week, Yoshino. It is not like she is joining a cult. You can do whatever you want with her the rest of the week!"

Silence enveloped them.

".. I hate you, and I hate everything you made me become."

Hikari heard a door closing and steps near her room. She already knew who it was. Disconnecting from the shadow, she pulled the covers over her head and waited.

Her door opened. The steps got closer to her bed, then a heavier, warm body dipped her bed. Hikari could barely stop herself from sobbing when small hands patted her head.

"It's not your fault, Ri-chan." Shikamaru's still childish voice reassured her.

She wanted to shake her head in denial, but refrained. Of course, it was her fault. And now she was crying her heart out while Shikamaru, a seven-year-old who had just heard that his mother didn't want him, comforted her.

Hikari couldn't complain to him, she wouldn't. So, she hugged him, hoping that at least she could give him some of the comfort he was giving her.

They stayed like that on her bed for who knows how long, Hikari pressed to his chest with her arms around him, tears soaking his shirt while he patted her head and whispered sweet nothings to her.

Hikari had never hated herself more in that moment.


I may be using this fic to procrastinate my studies. Whelp.

Thank you so much for all those who commented! I do read the comments but I publish from the app and I read them on it as well, so I don't know how to reply to your comments here.

I do read them all, though. I would also be very happy if you guys dropped suggestions or potential scenes that you would like to see. I don't promise to write everything but they inspire me to continue.

Thank you for reading!