Uchiha Shisui stood nervously out side the famous Flying Blackbird for what felt like hours waiting for the owner to let him inside. He had been sent by the elders of his clan to "Encourage beneficial bonds between fellow extrodinaires to bring about prosperity." Ie. bond with the woman and learn her secrets so that she doesn't turn into an enemy.
He knows that he was offered up as a guinea pig and he wanted to scream.
He loved his life in Konoha. He loved his clan. He would gladly walk through heaven and hell for them both. He promised his father he would do his duty as an Uchiha and as a Konoha nin to the best of his abilities.
Unfortunately this also included in stepping in when they have done something stupid.
So here he stands awaiting his punishment (He would honestly prefer a suicide mission then be experimented on by the lady who grew plant monsters.)
He really just wants to get this over with because the waiting was torture and the civilians kept staring and whispering.
"Oh, good. You are here." Calls the woman from the floor above the shop. "The door is unlocked. Go inside and put on the goggles on the counter."
Mina was well aware that the boy sent to her was meant to be a sacrifice.
No doubt his hou- clan sent him to placate her. The anti theft charms on her wand had harmed someone important.
Wand theft was generally a common part of the lives of wizard celebrities and parents.
Little children want to imitate their parents and so they take the wand and wave it about. Toy wands existed for a reason.
Quidditch fans either want to keep the wand of their idol to themselves or be the hero that returns the wand in hopes of sparking a special relationship.
She knows of at least a few Slytherin students who would playfully steal wands to flirt with people (House culture and all that).
Using a stolen wand was typically a poor idea. As said by her Grandfather Garrick, the wand chooses their wizard. Using a wand that has not been conquered (And thus earning their respect) typically yields subpar results or nasty surprises.
It's why the wand shops are always set up very simply. Less to break, less to repair after all.
She had no intentions of harming the boy but she will certainly show him the hazards using a stolen wand.
Scaring him would also be fun.
After explaining the rules of the shop to the boy, she set about putting him to work.
She had him clean the unused cauldrons with a wire scrub brush (cauldrons had to be cleaned by hand since magic reacts to the residue and causes nasty mutations.) and showed him what happened if magic was used to clean it by blowing up the pot.
Then the boy's fell off the shelf he was cleaning Morino Ibiki walks in along with two other ninja who had gotten reactions from her wands.
It seemed that the Hokage had given them all time off after a particularly tough interrogation and they had decided to spend more time fiddling with her wares.
The timing is rather suspicious, but she lets them try her wand selection as she always did (for a small fee each.)
The trio would fiddle around until the bars opened. Then they would put the wands back (Or in Ebisu's case, spell book) and march back out.
If it wasn't for his clan (He occasionally sees them watching from the shop windows), Shisui thought that he might've actually enjoyed his time working here. The store had the same number of health hazards as shinobi life and he didn't even have to leave the village. There were plenty of adrenaline involved the the number of explosions the shop went through each day. Tending the plant monsters (Or maybe they were monster Plants?), was more exausting then going to the front lines of war.
Shisui's reports added very little to the clan's store of useful knowledge (though some ravenclaws may disagree). His time was spent mostly as an indentured servant and guinea pig in the basement. It was like being a genin doing D-ranks all over again, only worse.
He didn't get paid as this was meant to be a punishment. In fact, right before she had him work, she threatened to jinx off his fingers (on top of what ever anti-theft charms on her products) with the same happy smile she used to greet her customers. Then she directed him into her basement had had him scrub her cauldrons.
Most of them had some sort of strange residue in them that caused funny effects (He accidentally got one of them in his eye and it swelled until it was bigger then his head.)
When he brought his eyeball to Mina she poured another potion onto it so that it shrunk back to normal, then inspected his eye.
Somedays he would work outside with her monster plants. He was more fond of those days as dealing with them was a lot like taijutsu training. He would use his sharingan to anticipate the movements of the bouncing bulbs and avoid being crushed by something the size of a crate. The venomous tencatula was like some of the Kiri nin he had fought in the war, aggressive and tenacious and very very toxic.
Ironically, the worst days were the ones where he had no work at all.
Those days, Mina would test her potions or do quality control.
He would have to drink a variety of potions that do a variety of things like causing him to breathe fire when ever he spoke, turning him into a member of the opposite sex for an hour, and shrinking him to the size of a mouse (Some guy dropped a porn book on him and put him in the hospital. He'd prank him but he had no clue who the guy was.)
Once such potion was a solution for regrowing bones.
He horrified the clan when he showed up one evening missing the bones in his arm.
That day was the first time the Uchiha clan elders realized that they were poking a sleeping dragon.
The bone removal was a complete accident too. She had stayed up for several nights brewing a very sensitive potion of some sort which left her in an extremely sleep deprived state.
He had just finished extracting ooze from a slug like plant when he walked too close to a bouncing bulb was the size of a crate and it barreled into him and crushed his right arm. Having heard the noise, Mina came outside and saw him lying on the ground, covered in freshly harvested bubotuber pus. She tried to cleaned him up by vanishing the mess only to accidentally shatter all the windows in her shop instead.
She was using the same wand that had landed him in this mess, the wand that nearly electrocuted Itachi's little brother(It sent a lightning bolt right up to the clouds and lit the poor boy up like a torch). Then with another wave of her wand she tried again and this time she successfully managed to vanish the mess only for the bones in his arm to disappear as well.
Two reparo charms (small fires, accidental colour changes, and one near explosion) later, she produced a strange concotion that not only tasted like something scraped off of somebody's shoe, but caused excruciating pain in his arm and sent him home. She called it skelegrow as it was meant to regrow bones.
It shocked the clan to the core to realize that a wooden stick was capable of such feats.
Much to shisui's despair, he was ordered to learn how to make one himself.
Interestingly enough, while he was not amongst the number of shinobi who could use a wand (Most of them were civilian born or children) he had some skill in potions which was something noone else could do if they didn't have magic.
He could mix low level magical balms. They were usually hit or miss in their effectiveness (the burn salve would either heal the burn, or give them boils), but it meant something all the same.
So he asked Mina to teach him how to make a proper wand.
She declined.
"Not many good wand cores here. Or wand wood for that matter."
Which explained why she occasionally rented out wands for shinobi to fiddle around with but never actually sold any. She did show him how to make a rudimentary wand with oak and dittany stalks (The leaves were useful, stalk were usually thrown out) though.
When she tested it out, the wand shattered the windows.
He had to explain to the ANBU that showed up what he was doing.
She commented that Hashirama wood was very powerful but was more likely to cause violent and excessive plant growth or hurt the one using it by fusing with them.
Fugaku wondered if this is what his life's purpose was to mediate between the clan elders and the rest of the village.
He had been sent to the store for the third time that week to check up on how Shisui was doing (He was apparently scrubbing cauldrons in the basement again). When he heard an interesting conversation.
"Hey Mina-san. You lived here for what. Two years now? How are you liking Konoha?"
"It's nice here Inoichi-san. I feeling like there is something below the surface."
"Well, there are plenty of rumors as to why you have an Uchiha prodigy working for you. Care to share?"
"Oh. He vandalized the shop and caused serious damage to the clan heir's youngest son."
"You mean the clan head's son. Itachi-sama isn't of age to actually have a child. That actually makes more sense then the rumor that they sold him to indentured servitude like Ebisu did. Or the other one where you two are dating."
"I do not know what to make of that." Fugaku could practically hear her expression.
"I heard some civilians talking about some Kyuubi attack. What happened to it? No one would tell me."
"Officially. The fourth Hokage killed it."
"They didn't put it back?"
"... What do you mean?" Funny, he was wondering the same thing.
"Ninetaled foxes are very secretive. They rarely leave their domain willingly. They should've put it back where it came from. I doubt it would've gotten so volatile if it was told that."
"Wizards have those?" "They're sentient?" Both men ask at the same time.
"Yes. There was a white one that lived in the forbidden forest at Hogwarts. My wand core was made from a hair on the center tail. That kyuubi helped me and some of my friends prank the teachers and the wizard ministry by proxy."
"You are going to have to tell me that story sometime. Do you have a picture?" Inquires another a voice, Shikaku Nara probably.
"Yes." A rustle of papers. "She is sleeping right now. Perhaps I can introduce you in a few years when she wakes. I'd tell you her name but that would be rude."
"It's much smaller then the one that ravaged the village. It's only the size of a building, how did it hide in the forest?"
"Well she can shapeshift into a human. The first Hokage should've put it back when he no longer needed it."
"Well, I wasn't alive around that time, but to my knowledge it was a hostile creature intent on destroying everything and could not be removed from his wife without killing her. I'll let the hokage know." Explained Inoichi.
"Good heavens, Ninjas don't have much logic do they?"
"Mina-san. I don't want to hear that from a magus. You're just as bad" Groaned the blond.
"Now, Shikaku-san. I believe it was your move?"
"Hn. Troublesome. Knight to G4" Followed by a smashing sound.
He left after that.
"I believe out eavesdropper has left" Chirped Mina.
"Thats a really handy spell." Replied Inoichi. "What was it? Homunkurusu Reberio."
"You are speaking it wrong but yes."
"I take it the sign above the door is a derivative of that spell." Asked Shikaku while pointing to a wooden sign that read 'Enter Yamanaka Inoichi, Nara Shikaku'.
"Yes. An upperclassmen from Gryffindor showed me how to do it. He and his friends actually made a map of Hogwarts that could track the locations of people in the building. Please don't ask me to do that. I would need an extensive knowledge of every part of Konoha and I suspect that people would kill me for it." She replied.
"You're not wrong." Shrugged the Nara clan head as he hunched over the chess board. "I wanted ask you if your servant has done anything suspicious? Aside from stealing your wand."
"Ah. You know about that?"
"Both of our clans have people who work at the hospital. Plus there was a huge lightning bolt several months ago. With Sasuke ending up in a coma and needing you to wake him, it wasn't hard to draw conclussions."
The witch sighed heavily. "Please do not drag me into you blood feuds. The lightning rune I placed on to my wand was to make sure people didn't steal it and try to use it."
The two clan heads shrugged. They knew that she was involved no matter what she wanted.
"What's so special about your wand anyway?"
The witch plucks her wand from beneath her cloak and carefully places it on the table. "Beech, 13 inches, Kyuubi tail core. Good for multitasking. Yes, my wand is unique."
"Kyuubi tail is rare since the foxes do not shed. The only way to get it is to bribe, bluster, trick, and haggle for it. Or in my case, Impress it with a suitably large prank. Apparently helping a squib graduate from hogwarts qualifies."
"Did you're grandfather actually make it for you?"
"Yes. It's a family tradition to use the wand of a deceased family member until you procure your own core and wood. Then the head of the house would make it with the wood best suited for you. You get some strange cores from time to time. One of my cousins used a wand with a harpy feather core."
"You always say the wand chooses the wizard, thats why you sold a wand to Ebisu." Prompted Inoichi.
"The wand often is a reflection of the magus that uses it. Large wands tend to end up with people who have large personalities. Small wands with people who are lacking in character. Degrees of flexibility indicating their mental thought process. Theres more to it but that would fall under trade secrets."
"And what would we have" Questioned Shikaku
"Blackthorn, 12 inches, phoenix feather. Surprisingly grounded." Answered Mina while she pointed at the Nara "Willow, 10 inches, Unicorn hair. Whippy." Then she cocked her head and smiled slightly. "I presume your third would have a dragon heartstring. but I have yet to meet him."
The two of them glanced at each other and nodded to the woman. "Thank You for having us Mina-san. We must be going."
"So what do you think?" Asked Inoichi. "Should we involve her?"
"It would make things easier if we had access to her resources. Danzo isn't the type to let g of things easily no matter what Hokage-sama wants to believe."
"If i recall, Shisui has a mangekyo sharingan. Him working in her shop is probably not a good thing if it does what I think it does. A witch is dangerous enough. A witch with her thoughts addled would be much worse."
"Troublesome" He sighed. "Looks like I'd better start bringing food here too."
AN:
Magic is wholly separate from chakra although the presence of the latter affects the former. Few people have magic in the naruto verse through they definately exist. This is how i explain crazy odds to myself in my head regarding certain situations. The more chakra one has the less likely magic will show itself. Forcing the magic causes extreme pain to the person and the immediate surroundings. Consequently someone with very low chakra levels would have better luck using it. Therefore, ninjas make for sucky wizards.
I will explain this more as the story goes on but what I said about ninjas using wooden sticks to fight still holds true. It's expensive and fragile compared to standard ninja weapons (Seriously. Indentured servitude).
Regarding the wands. I referenced pottermore wiki and hp lexicon for the information.
To the ever mysterious guest: I am aware that i have some grammatical issues. Growing up in a Bilangual family does tend to screw around with it. That and I have yet to figure out how to shut off autocorrect. Sadly I do not have a beta, nor do I have any idea as to how to get one. Grammatical issues when Mina is speaking happen to be intentional though.
orion0905: I would love to introduce other hogwarts characters. I'd do it as soon as i figure out how to do so. (She's five years younger then the marauders.)
Lurking Pheonix: You're right in that the Hyuuga twins tried to avoid the worst plant. They've watched her handle the plants from a distance with their byakugan and the tentacula was definitely more active compared to the one that got hiashi, which just squelched and squirted goo. The venomous tentacula is as dangerous as it sounds while the bubotuber sounds kind of dumb, and the spikey wikey plant isn't too different from someone throwing senbon. Boils are really painful and he got covered in something that causes them, so I'll leave you to decide whether he really did get off the lightest.
Also, Her shop isn't really in the middle of nowhere either, it's just away from the densely populated locations with a large space in the back for testing and plant growing. I believe that most shinobi shops are like that since its really easy to sneak up on someone in a crowded space.