Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I gain anything (but writing and editing experience) by using the plot and characters from these works. Naruto and and the Harry Potter series belong to their respective creators, editors, publishers, and companies.
Summary: They were all trying to escape, whether it was from fate, war, grief, abuse, hate. They were all trying to escape. There are many Harry Potter spoilers for those who have not read the books, and spoilers for the Naruto series as well.
A/N: This is the last chapter Stella600 has been able to beta. Hikagi has not beta'ed this but but both Stella and Hikagi have reminded me that suspension of disbelief only goes so far. I think my editing has improved enough that I will not need a beta from here out (however there bound to be errors I miss, especially in punctuation which I use intuitively). Regardless enjoy! Much love, depressedchildren
Key:
text is text
levi corpus a known spell, usually a perversion of a Latin phrase
"Dialogue" the opposite language of the world they are in
Chapitre un
A young child lay in his bed. His mind was in the realm between sleeping and waking. It was warm there and the world was fuzzy, but there was a nice smell in the air. It smelled like salted meat being cooked in a hot pan, onions and other vegetables were roasting beside it. He could smell garlic and other unknown spices in the air. It was enough to make his mouth water and bring him out of that vague in-between world.
"Morning," someone stated softly next to the toddler's covered head.
Had cousin Minato come over? But that wasn't his voice... Surely it wasn't his father; the voice was too kind, too warm. Green eyes peered blearily out from under bed covers, what was going on?
"What are the twelve deadliest points on the human body?" that was a question his father would ask, but he never asked it in such a gentle manner, it always was a cool monotone command.
Regardless, the little boy pointed to the spots on his body that would prove fatal if struck by a needle. There was a chuckle above the child and he felt his body being lifted from the bed to be rested against someone's hip. Through his sleep addled mind, the child became aware that this person was indeed his father.
"Happy birthday," the man whispered while moving the child into the next room, from which all of the magnificent aromas generated.
"Daddy?" the child asked uncertainly as he pulled away from the man to regard him better. The man had the same face as his father: strong jaw, defined nose, thin cheeks - an overall aristocratic visage. He had the same messy black hair, the same glass-things over his eyes – brown eyes that should reflect dully in the artificial light; however, today those brown eyes held a light in them that the child had only seen on a few occasions.
One such occasion had been when the boy had tried to play a trick on his father by hiding himself for the whole day. Every time the man had drawn near, moving in an uncharacteristic panic, the little boy would sneak into another room and another hiding place. It had been a rebellion on the boy's part, he hadn't felt like reading that day, or being lectured on how to kill or use knives.
He had never seen so much emotion on his father's face before! The man had been screaming for him, and overturning all of the furniture in the house. It had frightened the little boy, but his father had soon left after donning his porcelain deer mask. The little toddler had come out of his hiding spot and had righted his small sitting chair. And there he had sat until cousin Minato had come back with his father, who was yelling in some strange language.
"Really Uncle, a two-year-old eluded you all day?" his cousin had asked, and gestured to the nervous two-year-old who had been regarding his father with wide and frightened emerald eyes.
His father had thrown off his mask and had rushed over to the little boy, where he had grabbed the toddler tightly by the arms, "Don't ever do that to me again!" he had yelled while he shook the boy until the toddler was in tears, "I thought they found us," the father had whispered, before he had brought the little boy to his chest where he held him tightly for a long time.
"Now, now, Uncle, I'm sure Cousin was just playing with you. He is a child, he's bound to want to play," Minato had crouched down next to them, and had pated the crying boy on the back. "There was no need to tear apart the village," the blonde man had added in a chiding tone.
After a short pause the blonde spoke again, "You will be cleaning up all the places you went to," Minato had stated this in an authoritative voice, "and I mean that as your Hokage in training."
The boy's father had nodded in resignation before pulling away from his teary son to look at him with that light in his eyes, "Did you really sneak away from me all day?" Hesitantly, the boy had nodded in affirmation to the question. "Good job," his father had stated, his voice had been a bit gruff and his hold a little too tight. "Very good job, but don't ever do that to me again."
The other time his father had such a light in his eyes, a few months ago when the little boy had successfully followed every hand sign his father had made during one of their exercises. But today was different, the boy had not completed any strange feat; he had merely woken up and his father had a light shining behind his usually cold eyes.
"What is the theory behind Chakra?" his father asked as they neared the dining table, which was laden with food the child had never seen before.
"From inside, and it life," the boy murmured, his words unarticulated, but his father understood and briefly went into his son's mind to make sure the child was thinking the correct answer. He was, but most of his thoughts circulated around his father's strange actions.
"It's not every day a person turns four," the man explained and set his son down at the table where he began scooping some scrambled eggs onto his plate with a few pieces of bacon.
"What is it?" the boy asked, his words rushed together, and he looked at his father with a furrowed brow and green eyes filled with suspicion.
"It's something your mother used to make," he explained before taking a bite of the eggs off of his son's plate to show they weren't poisoned. He did not put it past the child to be suspicious of new food, the man only ever made rice and unseasoned fish. Though he did make sure the boy knew what different spices and poisons smelled like - well, mostly poisons.
"Why?" green eyes looked at him in confusion, as the boy refused to touch his food. He knew his son was asking, "Why did you make this?"
"To celebrate your birthday," his son opened his mouth again, but the man beat him to the punch, "Because one should always celebrate life, now eat up and we'll begin our lecture,"
"What about work?" the boy dropped the "t"s off his words and the sentence was spoken quickly. Despite those obstacles, the father understood what his son was saying and waved his hand dismissively in reply.
He had taken the day off. He usually had the boy work on his literacy and stealth in the mornings with a clone, thus saving lectures and agility training for the afternoon when he was relieved of duty. He gave the lectures personally, for his clones could only do so much and his son asked many relevant yet irrelevant questions that usually went past the subject matter for that day. Besides, he wanted to see his son's progress as it came, not receive a rush of information after the clone was dispersed.
After quizzing the boy on the material they covered that day (projectiles and more chakra theory), he set the boy on his lap and produced a little box from his Jounin vest. Green eyes blinked at him owlishly, which caused the corner of the man's mouth to twitch upwards.
"It's a present, and I will answer one personal question as a gift for your birthday," he often motivated the boy to study and train through bribes of telling him about his mother or about their past. It helped that the man had forbidden Minato from saying anything to his son, in fear that people from his past would come and destroy Konoha.
The little boy opened the box slowly, his hands were shaking slightly. This was the first present he remembered receiving, he was sure his father gave him something when he turned two and three, but he could not recall what it could have been. His memories of those years were fuzzy, but he knew how to read and he knew many of the basic ninja theories from those years too – he usually just had a hard time articulating what he had learned because he did not have the vocabulary.
Inside the box were two small knives, knives that easily fit into the little boy's hands. "I'm going to start teaching you how to use knives, as well as how to throw needles, and we will also begin on chakra control. I'm going to start pushing you to your physical limits, Son," the man directed the child's attention away from the knives and back to him, "We will be working on your speed and endurance now too, it won't just be agility and stealth anymore," the boy nodded slowly. He could ask his father why, but he did not want to waste his question, and he had one that had been nagging him for some time now but he had been too afraid to ask.
"Daddy, what's my name?"
Of all the questions that had to be the one his son asked? James stifled a sigh.
"I can't tell you for your own safety," at the boy's frown he elaborated, "there are bad people looking for you. That is why you need to be strong, that's why I'm training you."
"But how does my name make them find me?" the child asked, only half of his words were intelligible this time, but the man understood none the less.
"Because it isn't a name from here, just as my name isn't. That's why Minato only calls me Uncle or Shika," the man explained slowly, his son's frown grew and his eyes were becoming watery.
"How is it not from here?" the four-year-old demanded, his arms were folded over his chest, and his present was forgotten in his lap.
"My name is James. Isn't that a strange name, don't you think it sticks out amongst all the other names in the village? So would yours, Son. And I will not insult your mother by giving you a new name," the man replied, his voice became cold.
"So everyone has a name, but me?!" the boy cried as tears streamed down his face. His father held his arms tightly, thus forcing the boy to look at him blearily through the tears.
"I am going to train you to be a ninja, and ninja do not cry," he hissed, his brown eyes were narrowed dangerously, which caused the boy to nod dumbly before he broke out of the hold and ran outside.
James could hear his son crying out there, beside the garden he had begun planting to commemorate the lives he took as a ninja and in regret over his past actions. Perhaps today's conversation would blossom another lily in that garden.
Cursing under his breath, James rested his forehead against the screen leading outside. "Harry…If only you knew what I was protecting you from."
"Minato will be coming over to take care of you while I'm gone on my mission," James explained to his son, who had just woken up with a leaf attached to his forehead. The man was quite proud of the boy - being able to maintain his chakra control even while sleeping was a great feat, but the next test was today. "Make sure he does the paperwork Hokage-sama has given him, and if you complete this list of training exercises before my return, without having the leaf drop, we can go eat at the new Barbeque restaurant." Harry's eyes lit up in excitement at the chance to eat something other than his father's bland food, excluding his birthday breakfast a few months back.
His father quickly left, thus leaving the boy alone with a very long list. All dreams of eating something savory left as his green eyes skimmed over the various tasks he was to complete. Find all fifty of the silver bells with red ribbon I've hidden in the house and yard. Whenever his father hid something, the man could never find it again, and it wasn't because he was forgetful, usually.
The four-year-old assumed his father would be gone for a few days, thus he needed to time himself accordingly. Perhaps his father would even tell him about his mother if he completed all of the tasks. So far, Harry knew that his mother died protecting him from a very bad man, and that said bad man would kill both of them, and Minato, if he ever found out where they were hiding. He also knew that his father had been too weak to protect her from him, thus why he trained so much and trained Harry from such a young age. He didn't want to be weak again; they both had to be strong, strong enough to protect their precious people.
With a small sigh the boy scanned the list for something he could do without adult supervision. Minato was likely to arrive in a few hours with his apprentice, Hatake Kakashi. Minato had a genin team now, but his other students had families to be with, and Kakashi had been his apprentice since the boy's father died so Harry was familiar with the older boy. Minato also had a lot of homework from Hokage-sama about being a Hokage, which made sense, since he was going to become Hokage in a few more years.
Decode all one hundred messages lying on the table. Since the day Harry could read, that was all he ever did, however, he only now understood how to write. It was hard to copy those characters down and to know which ones to use! Besides, the brushes and pencils always felt awkward in his hands and it was hard to mimic the characters.
As the four-year-old got out of his bed, pocketing the list in his sleep pants, he ended up jumping back onto his bed with a hiss and clutching his foot from where it touched the floor. He hated when his father did this! For Harry's agility training, James often rigged the floorboards to send up a small electrical charge, it was enough make one move but not really hurt.
Scanning the room, Harry noted that one of the silver bells was stuck to his window shade above his bed, while another was hanging from the center drawer of his desk, and a third bell's ribbon was sticking up from the floorboards near the door. Surveying the room for a storage scroll the boy noted several confetti traps were wired around his door. James did that every now and then, just to give his son a little scare and make him more cautious of doors. He would also make the boy clean up the mess if it was set off or disarmed incorrectly.
The boy closed his eyes briefly to focus on the energy in the room, in the darkness he began to see lights popping up around him. The general area around his bed glowed with an eerie pale purple light, and the floorboards around both of the bells locations glowed with the same color. Trying to keep those energies in mind, he opened his eyes and briefly saw the colors radiating up from the floor, but it was gone in the next moment.
Standing on the bed's headboard, the child was able to reach the bell hanging from the window; however, when he grasped hold of it, confetti hit him in the face with enough force to knock him onto the floor, and into what had been a purple area.
Giving a cry of shock and pain, the four-year-old scrambled up, and hopped from foot to foot until he finally jumped onto his dresser. He sat there for a moment panting while he tried to shake out all of the paper from his hair. He briefly brought his hand to his forehead and gave a sigh of relief, the leaf was still there covering his jagged, lightning shaped scar.
Green eyes scanned the room in a calculating manner. If he could get to his desk, he could retrieve some wire and a kunai, but from his current position that would be quite the task. Closing his eyes again, the boy sought out where his father put the electrical charges. If he took one large leap from his dresser toward the desk, he should be in safe territory. From there he would need to jump onto his desk chair and then be able to get what he needed from that area.
Putting his plan into action, Harry successfully reached his chair only to jump onto his desk in shock, his father rigged the chair too! Looking around his drawers carefully, he noted several more traps situated to go off when he opened them. The little boy looked at the bell hanging from the front drawer, if he pulled it straight down it shouldn't disturb the trap, but how was he to get the wire and his kunai, he anticipated using that to pry up the floorboard by the other bell.
Looking around his desk, the boy grabbed his scissors from his writing utensil box and began to disarm the trap around his weapon's drawer. Successful, he retrieved the wire and kunai, before proceeding to remove the bell from its hanging position. He also retrieved a storage scroll from one of his other desk drawers, thankfully it was not trapped. Storing the two bells he had so far, he tucked the scroll into his sleep-pants pocket alongside the list of things to do.
Focusing on the energies in his room, Harry noted that only the top of the chair was rigged, not the underside. Smiling, he flipped the chair over, and kicked it toward where the last bell resided. Jumping onto the chair, the boy then hooked the kunai and wire through the ceiling light fixture before embedding the metal blade at the end of the floorboard, where it was raised slightly from his father's hasty preparations. The boy then began to pry the floorboard up before claiming his prize. From there, it was a matter of disarming the traps around the door and making a quick escape to the dining table.
"Ah! What the fuck is he thinking!?" Harry chuckled at his cousin's yell from the entrance hall, "Is this confetti?" the Hokage-in-training managed to set off a door trap, a trap designed for Harry to disarm with some difficulty; how was he chosen to become Hokage?
"Sensei, that's why doors should be avoided," the four-year-old smiled at the bored drone coming from the window behind him. Harry was going to warn the older boy not to step off of the window sill, but he was too late. The silver haired eleven-year-old jumped back onto the window ledge, his visible eye was wide from shock, "What the hell!?"
"Daddy rigged the floor," the four-year-old explained, in his unarticulated way, "For training." he added after the two trained ninja made their way carefully across the room while acting as one does at beach when the sand is burning hot.
"No wonder he's in the T & I department," the silver haired youth mumbled under his breath before looking at what the toddler was doing.
"Hi Hatake-san," the child cried, finishing the last of the messages he needed to decode. Most of the unscrambled missives were difficult to read due to Harry's lack of experience at writing, but it was clear they were all done and appeared to be correct.
"I see you're doing the leaf exercise, Namikaze-kun"
Only Namikaze Minato and Shika knew the boy's name, but neither ever spoke it aloud due to some outside threat it could pose. Shika allowed his son to be called Namikaze, but he refused to give him a first name; saying his son would take his ANBU name as his given if he must have a new name, just as Shika had done. This left Kakashi with only one choice, and that was to call the little boy Namikaze; at least Minato could call him Cousin…
Shika was a strange man, several of the older citizens knew his name, but they never said it aloud for fear of what the ANBU would do. Shika had a strange ability, he could see into others' minds, similar but very different from the Yamanaka clan. He never seemed incapacitated when doing so, and most did not know it was happening until too late. Shika also knew when someone was lying, he could discover anyone's past –even the most stubborn captives in the T & I department could not keep their secrets from him. The man had also developed a terrifying attack, one people likened to the Uchiha clan's Tsukuyomi, if only for the mental anguish it brought to his victims.
The boy hummed in response to Kakashi's observation while favoring a bulleted scroll written in Shika's chicken scratch characters. The little boy took his preferred writing tool and crossed off one of the items from the list, and changing the number next to another bulleted item. Find all 45 of the silver bells the eleven-year-old stopped reading by that point – Shika was a madman.
"So, Cousin, what are we going to do today?" Minato asked excitedly as he began to withdraw an orange book from his jōnin vest.
"You're doing paperwork and your homework" Harry had a very serious expression set in place, while his arms were folded over his chest and his big eyes dared his cousin to suggest something else.
Sighing, the Hokage-in-training put his book away; he wanted to know what the book Jiraiya sent him was about. He was only a few pages in but he liked it so far. In fact, he wanted to name his first child after the main character. If he happened to have a girl he'd name her Naruko, and of course the boy would be named Naruto. But that would be many years off yet.
"You will never get a break," Kakashi teased, something which was becoming more common with time.
The soon-to-be twelve-year-old sat down beside the four-year-old and looked over his shoulder at the list of tasks.
"Cousin, have you had breakfast yet?" Minato asked the boy as he leaned against a nearby wall. Harry shook his head in response, all the while searching for something to do; he had already found all of the obvious bells in the little sitting room and now he was looking for another thing to do.
"Neh, Namikaze-kun, we could do the throwing obstacle course, I can show you some throwing techniques too."
"Kakashi," the eleven-year-old looked up at his teacher, alarmed at the suffix drop, "he hasn't had breakfast yet, neither of you are going anywhere until that's done."
"Daddy hid the food," the two ninja dropped their heads and exhaled. Shika was mad, very mad.
A/N: The ages have changed as well as the facts, I'm trying to make this more toward cannon, unfortunately the age differences will no longer be cannon but at least the "facts" will be. Thanks for reading ~ much love, depressedchildren -edited 2/9/13
