First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who reviewed. It's been a tough year for me and I didn't have a lot of motivation for writing. But everytime I would come on here and read all your wonderful reviews I would become really determined to make progress and I would go open up the chapter 4 document and sit there until I'd written something. When I finally got my new copy of Order of the Pheonix I went and reread reviews again and told myself "you have no excuse you lazy child! NOW WORK!" And low and behold it is here! So thank you. You reviewers are the thing that keeps me going when I feel like giving up.
On another note, my summer has been a lot busier than I thought it could possibly be. I spent the first week after school got out cleaning my abysmally messy room, followed by two weeks in Japan. Then when I got back my iPod died and my dad made a deal with me. In order to get a new one I had to go on a camping trip with him, start cooking three nights a week, and start working for my aunt, who owns a 5 acre ranch with 11 horses. Not trying to make excuses, but with everything that's going on I just haven't been able to put as much effort into making an actual plot for this as I wanted. I did start on it though. So not all is lost!
So, my issues aside, enjoy the new chapter! And pray chapter 5 will come out faster...
Chapter 4: That'd Be Okay
After History of Magic and the rather disturbing conversation with Itachi things had gone, well, not so well. Though to be honest, Sasuke wasn't all that surprised that Harry had already landed himself in detention, what with all the yelling at a Ministry official about the Dark Lord and all that. Didn't make him any less of an idiot. After that Naruto had the brilliant idea to also act like an idiot in order to also receive detention. His reasoning? What better way to keep an eye on Harry!
"Genjutsu, idiot," Sasuke had muttered.
"…Oh."
It was too late by then though. So Naruto would be accompanying Harry to his detentions with Umbridge and Sasuke would do…something. Maybe work on his bad boy image by scaring little first years?
The two classes before that disaster, Potions and Divination, had gone badly as well. It was obvious to anyone with any semblance of a brain that Snape hated Harry. And as for Trelawny, Sasuke couldn't say he blamed them for their lack of faith in her 'inner eye'. Perhaps if she were to desist in making herself look like a large-eyed bug and aired out the classroom a little she could improve her credibility. Toning it down on the dramatics might help too.
"Hey Sasuke-teme!" Naruto skipped up to Sasuke's little corner in the common room where he'd staked his claim for the evening and plopped down beside him. "What's with all the doom and gloom?" Sasuke gave his partner a glare. Naruto just blinked. Sasuke 'hned' and turned his head away. Naruto frowned in concern. "Hey Sasuke, what's wrong?" The Uchiha sighed heavily. He hesitated, but one look at Naruto's concerned face and he couldn't bring himself to ignore the blond.
"My brother's gay." Sasuke glanced at Naruto out of the corner of his eyes and was surprised to see the blond didn't look the least bit shocked.
"Dude you didn't know?" Naruto asked. Sasuke frowned now.
"What and you did?"
"Dude it's so obvious! The guy wears purple nail polish!" Sasuke's mind blanked for a second.
"What does purple nail polish have to do with anything?"
"What kind of straight guy wears purple nail polish!"
"Uh, the kind that…that…."
"Exactly. Anybody that wears nail polish is at least a little bit gay. In Itachi's case, more than just a little bit. A lot more."
Sasuke huffed and crossed his arms and no, he was not pouting! He was simply contemplating the events that had lead to not only discovering that Itachi was gay but being accused of it himself. He watched as Hermione went over to Fred and George and yelled at them for testing their—what had Harry called them? Fainting Fancies?—on first years and goddammit he was not gay! Itachi was just trying to mess with him! He was not gay and he did not like Naruto!
"Sasuke? Duuuuude, hellooooo!" Naruto's annoying voice broke through Sasuke's emo sulking and he turned, glaring viciously.
"Dammit Naruto I am not gay!" Naruto gave him a quizzical look.
"Dude I didn't say you were. I just wanted to let you know I'm heading off to bed." Sasuke attempted to regain his air of coolness.
"Whatever."
And failed miserably.
"Dude," Naruto said, putting a supportive hand on Sasuke's shoulder, "It's okay to be gay. Hey that rhymes!" And then he went of up the stairs to the boys' dorms, singing his newfound rhyme in an annoyingly loud and off-key voice. Sasuke clenched his teeth and told himself somebody would probably tattle on him if he threw something sharp at another student. Even if said student was his idiot partner.
After a hard first day of teaching, frightening children, and avoiding Umbridge, Itachi was tired. All he wanted to do was collapse on his big comfy bed and sleep. Unfortunately there was a problem.
"Kisame move."
"Aw, but Itachi-san I've kept my lap all nice and warm for you!"
"…Move or I'll throw you out the window." Kisame snorted amusedly. "After I cut your balls off and shove them down your throat." The shark paled.
"But then we will no longer be able to make sweet love to each other!"
"Sounds like a personal problem."
"Itachi-san!"
"Move!"
Grumbling and pouting like a child Kisame rolled off the bed. "I don't see what's wrong with my lap!" Itachi ignored him. He flopped face down on the bed and simply relished for a moment in the feeling of the soft, thick covers. Who knew being a teacher could be so hard! All those people who thought it was just standing in front of a bunch of snot nosed brats, talking, knew nothing, nothing, of how horrible it really was. The only highlight of his day? Teasing Sasuke about his incredibly obvious gay crush on Naruto. God he hated wizards. Bunch of whiny little brats...
"NOOOOOOO SASUKE! DON'T DO IT!"
Itachi nearly jumped out of his skin. He rolled over and sat up, glaring at the armchair by the fireplace where Kisame was seated. The man's knees were draw up to his chin and his eyes were fixed on the pages of his favorite shounen manga: Naruto. Itachi crossed his arms, tapping a finger against his bicep as he waited for Kisame to notice the icy glare directed towards him.
"WHY SASUKE, WHY? WHY WOULD YOU GO TO THE DARK SIDE LIKE THAT?"
"Kisame."
"GODDAMN YOU MASASHI KISHIMOTO!"
"Kisame."
"YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!"
"Kisame!"
"WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SASUKE INTO EVEN MORE OF A BASTARD THAN HE ALREADY WAS?"
"For the love of god Kisame!"
"NOW HE'LL NEVER WIN ANOTHER POPULARITY POLL!"
"KISAME SHUT THE HELL UP!"
Silence. And then... "Jeez Itachi-san, you don't have to yell."
Twitch. Itachi took a deep breath and reminded himself of how unhappy Pein had been when Kakuzu had come home sans his partner. He did not want to be the next unfortunate member saddled with a fanatically religious immortal who sacrificed virgins to his god for a hobby.
"Kisame," he began, "I am tired. So I am going to go to bed. And so help me if you dare disturb me I will castrate you and then force you to relive it for seventy-two hours WITH MY MANGEKYOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Kisame nodded fearfully. "Good."
The next morning found Sasuke and Naruto sitting in their usual places across from the Golden Trio for breakfast in the Great Hall. While Ron and Hermione bickered over House Elves and woolly bladders (or hats...it was rather unclear...) Sasuke sulked. He had not slept well last night. He had tossed and turned in his bed for hours being tormented by nightmares of little weasels with sharingan eyes and Itachi's voice dancing ritualistic circles around him chanting about rainbows and gayness.
Now Sasuke didn't really have a problem with gay people. It was just weird (to him at least) to think of Itachi, emotionless, psychotic bastard that he was, in association with rainbows and all the general stereotypes that surrounded gay people. And as for him? Well, Sasuke had sworn a long time ago that he would revive his clan. Having babies is kind of hard to do without the woman parts. Though Naruto's orioke no jutsu might- No, no, he was not gay. He was definitely not gay so there was no need to even think about Naruto as anything other than his partner...his mission partner! Not his life partner! Mission...not life...
"Today, because I don't feel like sharing gory stories from my distant and mysterious home with you, we shall instead study the mythical creature known as...the Man Shark." Kisame scowled as Itachi removed the genjutsu, putting him on display for the entire class of awed...first years? Second years? He couldn't remember. He should be back in their room, lounging about while reading Naruto and scaring off freaks from his window that reminded him of Orochimaru. He most definitely should not have been being used by his sadistic partner as a lesson for an eager class.
"First, what do you notice about the Man Shark?" Itachi asked the class. A boy covered in freckles shot his hand into the air.
"It's blue!"
Oh, so he was an it now? A glance to the side showed that Itachi was smirking.
"Very good, it (insert evil shift of eyes towards Kisame here) is indeed blue. Anything else?"
"Its eyes are small!"
"It's got gills!"
"It looks funny!"
"It smells funny!"
Itachi wrinkled his nose a little. "Yes, it could do with a bath, couldn't it."
Kisame bared his teeth at the children. A few of the girls screamed and by the smell of it boy-with-freckles had pissed his pants. The ninja smirked, quite satisfied. A moment later Itachi delivered a hard smack to the back of his head.
"Bad Man Shark! Bad! If you continue to terrorize the children I will make good on that promise to emasculate you!"
Kisame paled.
"Professor Uchiha," one of the students piped up, "what does emasculate mean?"
"...Moving on!"
First class of the day was double Charms, which was started off with a nice long lecture on O.W.L.s (some sort of test, though Naruto wasn't sure what that had to do with nocturnal birds) followed by an hour of review. Naruto had a lot of fun watching Sasuke fail miserably at the summoning charm. He himself wasn't doing so badly. He started to feel a little queasy however when the homework was announced. The shear amount of it coupled with how tedious it sounded reminded him of mission paper work and mission paper work was always a bitch.
Transfiguration was much the same. The only difference was that instead of review McGonagall started them right off on the new stuff. While extremely hard to do, Naruto got the feeling that when he mastered the Vanishing Spell he was going to have a hard time not misusing it. At the end of class homework was assigned, adding to the already abysmally towering pile they'd acquired from Charms. Hermione, being far luckier and smarter than Naruto could ever hope to be, was exempt. So it was with a growing sense of dread (homework was never his forte and they were supposedly getting tons from every teacher) that Naruto followed his partner and the Golden Trio out to Care of Magical Creatures where he immediately took note of a table full of...moving sticks?
"Ne, Teme, are those sticks moving?" Naruto asked. Sasuke barely even glanced at the table before shrugging.
"How should I know?"
"Because you know everything."
Sasuke proceeded to ignore him. Naruto stuck his tongue out at his partner. Stupid Sasuke…
Aside from the fact that Harry looked to be gearing up to punch Malfoy square in the face, the fact that the object of their study was to be a bunch of twigs indicated to Naruto that this was going to be a rather wearisome class. He'd heard that the old teacher was crazy and brought fearsome monsters in for them to fight or something like that. All this lady wanted them to do was draw a picture of something that could potentially gouge your eyes out. Lame.
So, because life apparently had to live up to Naruto's abysmal expectations and be boring, nothing really exciting happened. Until halfway through the lesson when Naruto happened to glance over towards the lake and see Kisame streaking towards the water…HOLY SHIT!
"Sasuke! Kisame's naked!"
At his shout the whole class immediately forgot about their very dangerous wooden stick magical creature things and turned to the lake. There was a simultaneous jaw drop that Naruto was sad he couldn't catch on camera and Sasuke's expression turned a funny mix of utterly horrified, sickeningly shocked, and nauseated. Then, since life had suddenly changed its mind and decided that its sole purpose was entertaining Naruto and scarring the minds of the wizarding children, as Kisame began a spectacular dive into the lake that sent his freely dangling junk flying all over the place Itachi came tearing out of the castle, a katana glinting in the sunlight, and, like his partner, his clothes were mysteriously missing.
"HOW DARE YOU YOU MISERABLY EXCUSE FOR A MAN! YOUR BALLS ARE MINE!" the elder Uchiha screamed, waving the katana around as he ran. Naruto heard a thump and looked beside him so see that Sasuke had passed out cold on ground. Which was understandable. After all, his very naked older brother was waving a sword around while chasing after a very naked Kisame who had just dove into the water and was now running screaming from the Giant Squid. Wow…Naruto was fairly sure he was going to have nightmares tonight.
The Hogwarts students seamed to feel much the same.
"Ron, are they…"
"Naked? Yep."
"And is that…"
"A sword? Uh huh."
"And did Professor Uchiha just say…"
"That he was going to chop that guys balls off? Not in those words, but yes, Hermione. He did."
"…Oh. That's…"
"Strange?"
"Yeah. Are you watching this Harry?"
"…"
Ron and Hermione turned to their friend.
"Harry—"
But Ron never got any farther. For Harry, at the frightening sight of two men running naked through the castle grounds, had proceeded to have some sort of fit that involved foaming at the mouth and was now twitching pathetically on the ground.
Meanwhile, a couple yards over Sasuke was finally coming to.
"Hey there Teme," Naruto said cheerfully. By now Itachi and Kisame had disappeared somewhere into the forest and those around them were beginning to recover as well.
"Naruto did…did my brother just…"
"Yeah, yeah he did. And I got to say, if he wasn't the enemy, I'd so tap that."
Sasuke went from dazed to horrified in two seconds. Naruto blinked. Then while Sasuke began ranting about how Naruto shouldn't be using Itachi and sex in the same sentence the blond happened to look down. Oh. Hello there….
"Sasuke," Naruto said. "Is there a reason little Sasuke is standing at attention?" The Uchiha blanched. How the fuck did he explain this? He was most certainly not going to explain to Naruto that moments before the horrifying sight (possibly more horrifying than his dead parents) that had been Itachi and Kisame he had in fact been involuntarily fantasizing about the dobe. No. That was most definitely out.
"Uh, well…" Naruto listened intently. But Sasuke's vocal chords had decided that now would be a wonderful time to make him temporarily mute. So Naruto decided to use good old shinobi detective skills to root out the answer. He went over the events of the past several minutes, searching for anything that might induce arousal in an anti-social, prudish bastard with a stick up his ass. It did not take long to come to a conclusion.
"Whoa Sasuke!" Naruto yelled. Everyone was now beginning to stare at them. Sasuke's brows furrowed in confusion.
"What the hell is wrong with you Dobe?"
"I knew you guys were into that kind of stuff but your brother? Or maybe it was Kisame! I mean his thing was pretty—"
"NARUTO!"
Off to the side Ron and Hermione exchanged traumatized looks.
"I think I need a therapist," the red head whispered. Hermione nodded solemnly.
Professor Grubbly-Plank, as thoroughly scarred as her students, decided that the events of the past several minutes were a very good excuse for releasing class early.
Wow. This didn't turn out anything like it was expected to... Well, such is life sometimes.
Yes. I mentioned Kisame's man bits. Have fun with your nightmares tonight :)
Review? Pretty please?