Next chapter here! To demonflame: coincidentally, I was writing exactly what you suggested when I got that review. xD

By the way, schizo!Kakashi is fun. No matter how terrible it is. But hey, it's fanfiction.

Also, I was originally going to write the last scene but eventually decided to say screw it and did it anyway, no matter how cliched it is.

Disclaimer: Just borrowing.

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Chapter Three

Kakashi, for the first time in a long time, felt giddy with happiness.

The week was almost up, meaning that if Tsunade was right, he had two more days of having his lungs hate him. And, after sneakily convincing Remus to give the general idea of his condition to Molly, he managed to get out of cleaning until Friday. Though he hated being weak and ill, the fact that it was getting him out of make-the-house-look-presentable duty was a definite, unseen perk. And he wasn't about to start complaining.

"How's your learning going?" asked Hermione on Wednesday after Minerva left (he officially had a great respect for the woman, as she managed to teach him over half of what he needed to know in eighteen hours) as he sat in a bedroom where they were cleaning out mold and other such things that he was glad to avoid.

"Pretty good," he answered, because it was true, though much cheating was done through his Sharingan. "I've got down first through third year from practicing on my own, too, and I bet I can get down fourth year either today or tomorrow."

All three were openly staring and he felt a certain amount of satisfaction. In Konoha, most shinobi knew rumors of his general history, so while they were impressed if he figured out something new in less than a day, they weren't surprised. After all, he was called Copy-Cat Kakashi. But to actually catch someone off guard with it was more amusing than he remembered.

"You're kidding, right?" said Ron before shaking his head in bewilderment.

He grinned cheekily. "No, I'm not." Then he tried another bit of honesty. "I think it helps that it isn't boring, though. To tell you the truth, I didn't even know wizards and magic existed until last Tuesday."

Hermione's eyes were wide in admiration. Harry asked, "What are you going to do when you learn everything? Stop until you get to Hogwarts?"

Kakashi shrugged. Now that his curiosity was officially awakened (something the Obito voice kept poking fun at), he wasn't looking forward to not doing anything for the next two weeks.

But there was also another point of curiosity, and one he didn't like nearly as much. For the most part the control he had monitoring the amount of chakra he condensed into magic to perform spells to an exact calculation, but there were times where let out a bit too much without him knowing how it happened. And this was always accompanied by a burning pain on his neck, like the cursed mark Orochimaru gave him was trying to break through Jiraiya's seal. And, of course, no ever told him what the thing did even if he tried to pry it out of Tsunade on several occasions.

It's sealed, was all she said, worry about the rest of your injuries. It can't harm you now that Jiraiya was smart enough to do something about it.

He wondered what she'd say now if she knew how often it was bothering him.

"I might practice ahead," he answered, pulling out his wand and twirling it in his fingers, a few sparking shoot off the end, waking a portrait of a scruffy looking rabbit in the corner of the room. The thing glared, but luckily couldn't talk. "Though I haven't spoken to him yet, apparently Dumbledore told Hokage-sama that I wasn't constrained to just the first four years." He looked around to all of them and added, "Any suggestions on something that might be useful?"

Surprisingly, Harry spoke first rather than Hermione. "How advanced do you want to go?"

"I'd like to do as much as I can." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I mean, I'm only here for a year, so I mineaswell make the best of it. I don't know if I'll ever get the change to do anything with magic back in Konoha, since we technically aren't supposed to know about here."

"If you find the time, you should learn how to do a Patronus. It's not something you learn in Hogwarts, but Lupin can tell you," said Harry, jumping out of the way as a music box started coming after him, playing ominous orchestra music.

"Reducto," Kakashi said almost lazily, pointing his wand at the destructive object. It burst to pieces.

"Thanks, mate," said Ron, as it was heading in his direction. "Last one that attacked nearly bit off my nose."

Kakashi almost snickered. Key word there being almost. "Then it's good someone in this room can do magic outside of school," he said before turning back to Harry. "So what's a Patronus?"

"It protects you against dementors," he answered, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn green stain. "They guarded Hogwarts in my third year, so Lupin taught it to me—he was the Defense teacher at the time."

Hermione, correctly interpreting the confusion on his face, added, "Dementors are used to guard Azkaban, the wizarding prison. They suck the happiness out of everything, leaving you with only depressing thoughts and replays all the worst moments of your life. Long enough exposure can drive you insane, but the Patronus is made of pure happiness with an absence of misery, so they can't harm it."

Sucks all happiness? said the Rin voice. If an enemy ever got its hands on one of those, imagine what would happen to Konoha.

We'd be screwed.

I'm pretty sure all shinobi would.

Well, unless they're sociopaths.

True. But how many sociopaths—

Anko.

Ah, point taken.

"Kakashi?" came Hermione's voice, snapping him out of his conversation. His long conversation at that. Oh god, he was getting worse. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answered, putting on his best smile. "Just trying to calculate how long it will take me to reach a spell past the seven years, but I guess it also matters how often Remus is around."

She didn't look fully convinced, skepticism blatant on her face even if her two friends seemed to buy it; he had to watch himself around this girl. "What you use is a different form of magic, right?" she said as she wiped down a cabinet; some dust went his way and he sneezed. "Oh, g'bless you."

"Thanks," he said automatically, as he learned that it was the correct response. "And yeah."

Earlier that week after they caught him using a Shunshin to go down to breakfast from laziness, he had to explain that it was different than Apparating and his "magic" differed from theirs. It took a while, longer than he liked, but they eventually got their minds around it (much quicker than he did, though he didn't point that out).

"Have you thought of using your wand as an amplifier for some of your…uh, jutsu?"

A smart idea for a witch to figure out, but he unfortunately already attempted. "I tried," he answered, adjusting the way he sat on his little area of the cleaned bookshelf, "but I almost overloaded the wand. I think if I tried anything to its full capacity, I'd blow the thing up."

Ron, as bewildered as before, said, "Wait, but how does that work?"

Did he really have to answer that?

You're supposed to play nice, reminded Obito.

He had a feeling saying, "I don't really think you need to know," didn't count. And besides, explaining it wasn't necessarily a bad thing; seeing civilian kids actually want to learn something new was so rare that their questions were almost refreshing. He was curious about them, so they were curious about him. An even exchange.

That, or he was making up excuses so he didn't kill them all from annoyance.

After a moment of thought, he held up his wand. "Okay, look at this," he said, trying to figure out the best way to have this make sense to three people who knew very little about chakra (though, in actuality, his knowledge of magic was pretty limited too). "Lumos. See, this is magic condensing itself to form a light—there's so much concentrated here that it's visible."

"I never knew that," said Hermione, peering at it even after he said the countercharm to release it. "How did you figure that one out?"

"It feels similar to highly concentrated chakra," he answered, which was only half a lie. In truth, it fascinated him so much that the moment he was alone, he tried and looked at it with the Sharingan. Before, even he hadn't fully understood what the Hokage explained to him, but now all the pieces fell together in his head, connecting to form a fumbling type of logic. "Magic is naturally at a high concentration in your body, which is why it's normally so difficult to learn. Releasing something that condensed in small bursts can be detrimental. The only reason I can do it so easily is because it's close to chakra, and precise chakra control was one of the first things I learned.

"Chakra, which I use, is loose in the body, which is why I don't need a tool like a wand unless I want to, and why I can channel into as a physical skill rather than an extension. Concentrated chakra, in comparison to magic, looks almost messy, even if it is powerful. Close your ears, this is loud."

Though they looked confused, all three did so. Gently, he kicked the door shut and cast a Silencing Charm on the door so no one ran up too look at one the hell was going on. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, he discovered, didn't disclose much information if asked not to, preferring to pry it out of others, and he (somehow) managed to gain their trust and friendship, however the hell that happened.

Even if it was harder to do without the Sharingan, he wasn't going to risk showing that to them. Instead, he sped through the hand seals necessary and concentrated as hard as he could. Suddenly, the room was filled with the sound of chirping birds, and he smiled brightly as the three of them stared at him with shock. And this time, the smile was one hundred percent real.

But it disappeared abruptly when the cursed mark suddenly hurt so badly it took all his willpower not to scream in agony. His Chidori released automatically and his hand flew up to his neck, pressing down on the mark before he even thought to stop it. Shock turned to alarm and the three friends uncovered their ears. Hermione rushed over, worried.

Well, at least he knew she liked him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, eyes searching his face, skipping (logically) over the are you okay question. "Should I got get Mrs. Weasley?"

Oh god, definitely not that.

"I'm fine," he said, taking his hand off the mark even if the pressure had made it feel slightly better. But the pain was already going down and he wished for not the first time someone told him what the damn thing did. It was tied to chakra, he knew now, but how it worked he had no idea—and he hated not knowing. "Old injury acting up. Problem's already gone."

"What is it?" asked Ron as Hermione wisely backed away.

"Stupidity," he answered, relieved that the pain was almost completely gone. "Please don't mention this or the Chidori to any of the adults. They're already don't trust that I'm good at what I do."

"You can at least tell us what happened," said Harry. "And is the Chidori thing what you did before?"

He nodded and kept a straight face. He needed to think of something and fast. Then he realized he could use this to further their good opinion and said, "I took a hit for a teammate. She was injured and couldn't dodge—and I'm smaller, so instead of going through her heart, I used my speed to push her out of the way and my height to get stabbed in the shoulder."

Since these kids had no idea how to keep emotion out of their expressions, he could tell they were all in varied degrees of being impressed. Up 'til now, they probably all thought he was the type of look out for himself (which used to be true, but wasn't now), but hopefully this convinced them that he actually knew how to help others. Which was sort of true.

Yeah, because I taught you.

Be quiet, Hermione keeps looking at me weird.

"Is she okay?" asked Hermione anxiously. "You said she was hurt."

"It was just chakra exhausted," he lied. "Unlike with magic, using too much can either exhaust us and kill us. The Chidori is chakra so highly concentrated that I you can see it. I can only use up to four a day without dying, though usually one is enough. I tried five as an experiment and, well, the outcome wasn't good.

"But anyway, see the difference? You can moderate magic more than you can chakra, which is why you don't get exhausted. And since it's so condensed, I think you have a near-endless supply. Little kids can do wandless magic, right? And it's really unpredictable."

Hermione and Ron nodded, but Harry said, "It can happen when you're older too if you get too mad or something." The redheaded boy suddenly snickered. "What? It was one time!"

"He made his aunt blow up like a balloon," said Hermione, disapproval lacing her voice. These kids revealed their emotions so much that Kakashi didn't feel socially inept! It was a mix between strange and awesome.

"She insulted my parents for four days straight!"

That's new.

What did I tell you?

Sorry, shutting up now.

"Um, interesting," he said, remembering his own reaction to hearing insults about his father and thinking that making someone blow up and float away was what he probably should've done rather than believe it—now that he acknowledged everything, he was forced to admit that he was a terrible son. But he quickly shook those thoughts away, not wanting to hear anymore voices in his head or do something stupid. And, from what he managed to infer, Harry didn't have parents either. How they died was still a mystery, but for the kid's sake, he hoped it was better than his own experience. "But, I meant to say that your wandless magic is closer to my chakra use than what you learn in school is. And I also think wandless magic could be really destructive if someone tried to control it with larger spells, like that Cruciatus Curse I read about."

Then a shudder went through Harry, and Kakashi knew this too: The boy had been tortured at least once.

"So if you weren't good with controlling your chakra, you couldn't use magic?" said Hermione.

"Yeah. Or at least I can't image how you could."

"Then I guess it's good they sent you, right?" said Ron.

Technically, he was sent for himself, not them, so that was just a good coincidence. Not that they needed to know that. Ever.

"You should ask Mum how to clean with magic," said Ron as he struggled to get off some mold that stuck to his arm. Good boy. "That would make everything easier—Why won't this mold come off!"

There was the sound of food sleeps coming up the stairs, heading for the room; he quickly released the Silencing Charm before saying, "I'll ask. It'll help when I go back home too, because the dust pile up in my apartment'll be terrible."

Molly entered and surveyed the room before asking, "Still not finished?"

"I thought you might be here to tell us to have a break!" said Ron. "D'you know how much mold we've got rid of since we arrived here?"

"You were so keen to help the Order," said Mrs. Weasley, "you can do your bit by making headquarters fit to live in. Kakashi," she added, turning to him, "Sirius is finished and offered to start you on fourth year if you'd like."

"Sure," he said, hopping off the bookshelf. Harry and Ron looked at him with jealousy, but Hermione seemed more annoyed at them, though Kakashi couldn't imagine why. Everyone hated cleaning (well, most people anyway). "Where is he?"

"The kitchen," she answered, which he supposed was obvious by now. The kitchen seemed to be the center of everything. Then again, it was one of the few places besides the bedrooms that was completely clean.

"Thanks." He slid past her before remembering what Ron suggested. "Oh, Molly, do you think you'll be able to teach me cleaning spells?"

"Did they put you up to this?" she asked, throwing a dirty look at her son and his friends.

"It sounded like a good idea," he said with a shrug, then decided to use his arsenal of manipulation to his advantage. Smiling as sweetly as he could manage, he added, "Using magic will make harder for me to breath in dust, too."

Thank god for natural maternal instincts. Molly's facial expression changed to something he thought was probably sympathy, or reassurance; they were difficult to tell apart. "Of course, dear. I'll show you tomorrow—but until then, you three get back to cleaning."

"Thank you," he said as he started heading away, catching Ron say something about feeling like a house-elf under his breath, then very clearly hearing Hermione's angered answer. Molly disappeared in the opposite direction, and he went to the kitchen fast before he could get roped into the argument.

"There you are," said Sirius as he entered the room, arranging two of every object he had on the table. "Since I'm not a teacher, I'm not going to show you anything in any particular order. Is that okay with you?"

"Yes," he answered, looking at the table. "Besides, I don't think Minerva or Remus were using organization either."

"True. Let's start simple. I'm going to make the apple on the right swell," he said, pointing his wand at it. "Engorgio!" As he said, the apple swelled about twice its normal size, somehow not exploding in the process; magic half the time ran on no logic whatsoever. "You try."

I need to get all of these on the first try, he decided. After using the Chidori and the reaction of the cursed seal, he felt the problematic beginnings of chakra depletion. This cursed seal was screwing with him, because he hadn't had this much trouble since he was four and still an academy student. He pointed his wand, said, "Engorgio," and was relieved that it swelled to the same size as Sirius'.

"Now that should be impossible," said Sirius, shaking his head.

"Graduated at five," Kakashi reminded him. "What's next?"

"We're going to dissolve it."

"You can dissolve an apple?"

Magic lacks logic, he reminded himself.

"Yeah," answered Sirius. "Watch. Evanesco! Your turn."

And as he said, the apple dissolved. He imaged doing that to a kunai flying his way and cursed the fact that he couldn't use this (at least in the sight of others) back in Konoha. Some of this could be really useful given the opportunity. "Evanesco."

After that, they practiced for another hour. By the end of it, Kakashi could split seams on fabric (the Obito voice liked that one), Summon and Banish, the Knockback Jinx, immobilize and slow down an enemy, repel water from an object, light a fire, create water, conjure flowers from the end of his wand, the Shrinking Spell, how to cause the sensation of tickling (to his great mortification, he actually giggled when Sirius hit him, much to the man's amusement), and how to damage eyesight. This, of course, was on top of everything else, which officially meant he knew about as much as a skilled fourth year. And when he asked, Sirius promised to teach him fifth and maybe sixth year spells when he had the opportunity.

When they finished, Sirius turned to him and said, "I need to tell you something."

Now that was unexpected. As a guard, they were forced to treat him as an adult, which meant he had a chance to sit in on the meetings. Of course, no one really explained the background of things to him, so he still had only a vague idea of why Voldemort was so bent on killing Harry, or how Harry survived the Killing Curse, but he was told enough that being spoken to privately didn't bode well. What could be so important that it couldn't be addressed in front of the rest of the Order?

"What is it?" he asked, sitting on the tabletop, listening for Molly so he could hop off in time.

"The rest of the Order is going to know tonight at an emergency meeting," he said, "but I thought I should tell you first. You know how the Ministry is involving itself with Hogwarts, right?" Kakashi nodded; he heard this multiple times. "Well, they said at the beginning of the summer that if Dumbledore didn't find a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, then they would choose one for him."

"It passed the deadline, didn't it?" he said, not liking where this was going. Even if he still didn't know much about this world, he managed to gather that the Minister of Magic refused to believe anything potentially dangerous or fear-inducing. If they meddled with Hogwarts, his job was about to get a whole lot harder.

With a sigh, Sirius answered, "Unfortunately. And Kingsley Shacklebolt just found out that Dolores Umbridge is the most likely candidate for the job. I don't know how else to word this, but this woman is evil. She had no redeeming qualities and she will do anything—and I mean anything—to get Hogwarts under her full control, probably by restricting the rights of the students. She pretends to be all sweet and innocent, but she far, far from it."

"What do you think she's going to do?" he asked, a disquiet growing. Then he felt the scratchy feeling in the back of his throat and reached up, covering his mouth with his elbow. He coughed once, feeling the blood come up. He couldn't wait for Friday. When he lowered his arm, he added, "How hard will she make my job?"

Sirius leaned back against the counter, his arms crossed. "I can guarantee she'll try to turn the student body against Harry and Dumbledore. And I know Harry seems like an angry kid now, but he normally isn't like this. The stress is getting to him and school hasn't even started yet. Umbridge has a way of bringing out the worst in people, and I bet she'll provoke Harry into doing something stupid. And if she assigns a detention, it'll be much worse than cleaning the trophy room the Muggle way."

"If she gets the position, what should I do? Kill her?"

For a moment Sirius' eyes widened before he fervently shook his head. "Even if you made it look like suicide or a complete accident, Fudge will still blame the school—it's a private establishment, but that doesn't mean the Ministry still can't shut it down." He took a deep breath. "I'm telling you this alone because if I said it in front of Snape or Molly or even McGonagall, they'd watch you a lot more closely, or at least disagree."

"That bad?"

"Yes, that bad. Listen, Harry, Ron, and Hermione aren't the type just sit around and take abuse, even from a teacher," he answered. "They'll break rules, go behind her back, rebel, just not openly. Still, there are risks. I'm saying that you shouldn't stop them, but help them keep a secret, out of trouble."

"Why? That goes against my job description."

Really? I like the idea!

Of course you do.

Well, then just listen to me for advice, yeah?

Sirius was saying, "I know, but if you stop them, it'll contradict your job anyway. Others will try too, probably, but those three are good with their secrets. If you stop them, you're helping turn the school over to the Ministry which is something you're supposed to help avoid."

He nodded; what he said was right. While he knew he probably wasn't going to agree with everything about Hogwarts, he could tell from the way everyone talked about him that Dumbledore, though unconventional, was good to his students and his staff and fully devoted to keeping everyone safe. If the Ministry took over, it seemed, the school would change for the worse. And Kakashi understood now that sometimes the rules had to be broken for the sake of sanity.

"So basically I should help them not get caught and keep them out of any type of severe trouble?" he asked.

Sirius nodded, but before he could say anything else, Molly entered to make lunch. He quickly got off the tabletop before she could see.

"Thanks for the lesson, Sirius," he said, acting like the last five minutes never happened, crossing his arms so Molly didn't see the blood on his sweatshirt. He made a mental note to clean it out once he was alone—or ask Remus to do it when he came around for the meeting. "Are Harry, Ron, and Hermione still cleaning?"

"No, they should be down in a minute."

He nodded and backed up to the door. "I'll be back in a second," he said, without giving reason, and used a Shunshin to get out of there fast enough that Molly didn't have time to ask any questions.

The bedroom was blessedly empty. He gave himself a moment to appreciate the silence before going to his bed and changing his sweater.

.

"How was the meeting?" asked Hermione as Kakashi entered the boys' bedroom around eleven.

"Boring," he answered, sitting on his bed. "I think they expect me to know everything already, because all they do is talk about the same things over and over and never tell me what they mean. And Snape keeps staring at me and making snide little comments about how he'll be watching me at school. Potions is going to be wonderful."

Her two friends grinned, happy to hear an insult against the man. "He's a bloody git," Ron said cheerfully. "Head of Slytherin house, too."

"Then I better not be a Slytherin," said Kakashi, shaking his head. Like it usually was at night, the headband was off, his left eye covered by bandages. Hermione was itching to know what he was hiding, but every time someone tried to discreetly get it out of him, he abruptly changed the subject. "Last I checked, I'm the one supposed to be guarding him, not the other way around."

"He's like that to everyone," said Harry, "and he'll only get worse if you're a Gryffindor."

"I'd rather be a Gryffindor than a Slytherin." Though she truly did like to promote the idea of inter-house unity, it was somewhat satisfying to hear that, she had to admit. "I doubt he's going to let me out of doing homework, either. Minerva said I could for her class, but that's about the only one."

"Hey, we don't get out of any homework," said Ron, leaning back against the wall. "Do you get out of final exams?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Only three teachers know I'm not a real exchange student, so I doubt it."

"Actually," said Hermione, realizing this was something she should've asked a while ago, "who are you supposed to be?"

He answered, "Some random kid from a place called Konoha Academy who did really well and got a chance to study abroad, and Dumbledore accepted the request for me to go there. Relatively simple. And I can make something up on the spot if someone asks a personal question."

"How are you going to explain already being friends with us?" Harry asked, and Hermione truly felt terrible.

It was her idea, after all, to befriend the boy to pry information out of him, but then a problem came up: They all legitimately liked him. He was smart, and curious, and interesting. And it didn't help that she started noticing what Sirius was talking about (even if Ron and Harry were still clueless), which made him feel bad for him, because what could've happened to him to make him that way? It wasn't in her or her friends' natures to be coldhearted and she should've known when she first suggested it that they couldn't pull it off. While she still was dying to find out, she knew there was no way she could ever manipulate it out of him.

They trusted him, and she knew that if really came down to it, he would protect them even if they didn't want protecting and it seemed like he trusted them, too, or at least liked him. In response to Harry's question, Kakashi shrugged.

"You can say you stayed with us," said Ron, "but at the Burrow, our actual house, before coming to school. It's not really lying, either."

Kakashi looked at him skeptically, the visible eyebrow raised. "And people will believe that?"

"I don't see why not," she answered. "Also, sorry if this is, well, personal, but are you going to wear to wear the bandages at school?"

He shook his head and held up the headband. "This forehead protector's supposed to be my school uniform. Like, we can wear whatever we want at Konoha Academy and this is our symbol just like Hogwarts students have their robes, which I'm also wear—Chi kisho!"

Hermione jumped, startled. "What's wrong?" she asked as he pulled his hand out of the bag and put the side of his thumb to his mouth.

"Sliced my finger on a kunai when I was putting back the forehead protector," he answered, lowering his hand and holding his wand out. "Episkey," he said, and it was healed. Then he added, "Spare weaponry was supposed to be at the bottom, but I guess they moved."

"I thought you only learned first through fourth year spells so far," said Harry, looking at the place on his hand where the cut was only a few seconds ago.

"I read ahead," he said, sitting back down, "yesterday while you were cleaning. I think you're supposed to learn it sixth year—I don't know, I took one of Fred's old textbooks."

If Hermione had his learning capacity, she'd be the happiest girl in the world. Such endless possibilities wasted on someone who could only openly use magic for a year.

Then there was a moment where Kakashi paused and looked down at his thumb again. Over the past week Hermione'd seen a lot of these pauses and she was beginning to think that Sirius' analysis of "not a people person" was too weak to really explain what was going on. He moved again suddenly, taking a sweater out of his bag and bundling it in his arms.

"Um, I'll be right back," he said, and left.

"I'll never get used to that," said Ron after the door swung shut behind the grey-haired boy. As usual, he moved almost too fast to see. "He's like the human version of a Firebolt."

"He'd make a good Seeker," said Harry, causing Hermione to shake her head. "What?"

"All you boys think about is Quidditch," she answered, crossing her arms. "Honestly, I doubt he even knows what Quidditch is."

This, as it turned out, was the wrong thing to say. Ron's face lit up as he looked to Harry and said, "We've got to show him when we get to school." Harry nodded enthusiastically.

"You boys are hopeless." She rolled her eyes. Then, after a moment, she added, "I wonder why Snape doesn't like him."

Ron snickered. "I bet he just doesn't like the idea that a possible Gryffindor will get everything on the first. Love to see him try to take points away from that kid."

"It could be because he's young," said Harry, which was a pretty logical deduction for him from once. "Everyone has a problem with that. Your mum and McGonagall still talk about it."

"Yeah, well Mum thinks everyone below the age of thirty is too young for anything," said Ron, standing up and taking from socks out of his drawer. "What do you think, Hermione?"

What did she think? "Harry's most likely right," she answered, "but I guess we'll find out at school."

"Yeah, if he's a Gryffindor or Slytherin," pointed out Harry. "I can see him ending up in Ravenclaw. Then we'll never found out."

Then a voice from the door said, "He doesn't like me because he got in the way of my kunai practice." He had a smirk on his face as he leaned against the door frame, twiggy arms crossed over his chest as he held the bundled sweater, and for the first time since arriving he really looked like he could kill everyone in the Order and never break a sweat.

It scared her.

But the smirk faded and the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came and Hermione found herself wondering if it was just her imagination acting up. When she looked to Harry and Ron, she saw that neither of them looked remotely uneasy.

"When did that happen?" asked Harry. "I didn't know you were practicing."

"Sure I am, every day," Kakashi answered, moving from the doorframe and going back to his bed. "Anyway, I was in the sitting room that no one uses—you know, the one at the end of the entranceway hallway?—and throwing a kunai around a mark I made in the wall so I could make a smiley face. He heard a noise and came in right as I threw one at the door. Nice introduction, isn't it?"

"Snape deserves getting hit."

"Ronald!"

Kakashi laughed, something Hermione only heard once before. Though she still didn't know a lot about the boy, one thing she knew for certain was that he wasn't a happy person, and probably never had been. Or at least for a while. She could never claim to be an expert on human psychology, but she did have a woman's intuition and it activated itself almost every time she and Kakashi were in the same room.

They were in the same room a lot.

.

The day the Hogwarts letters came, which also happened to be the day before school started, Molly and Arthur threw a party for Ron and Hermione and Kakashi had one of the worst moments of his life—and that was saying something.

It started out like this: Ron and Hermione were made prefects, though it seemed like everyone thought Harry was going to be, and about half the Order members were invited over the celebrate. Though Kakashi wasn't positive about what a prefect was, he didn't feel like asking (he had the general idea, which was higher ranking students if that made any sense which it didn't), and said congratulations because that was what seemed appropriate. Later he went down to the party thing with the rest of them, and was immediately yanked aside by Sirius and Remus, and one look at their faces gave him all the answers he needed.

"Umbridge is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, isn't she?" he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his sweater to stop him from reflexively clenching his fingers.

Sirius nodded, and Remus said, "I know you can take care of yourself, but be careful. She won't like that Dumbledore let an 'exchange student' come to Hogwarts without clearing it with the Ministry first."

"So basically she'll think I'm part of a whole conspiracy thing and torture me all year to make my life miserable."

It wasn't a question.

"Most likely," said Sirius, "or she'll try to get your on her side."

"Can't wait," he said, scowling. He was here for his own "protection," an undeterminable number of kilometers away from home, and his luck still sucked. Fate hated him. "The kids are coming over and from the conversation they with Tonks, I'm assuming they're about to ask you about whether or not you became prefect."

Startled, Remus started to ask, "How did you—"

But he was cut off by Ginny saying, "What about you, Sirius?"

And Sirius laughed, though whether it was reflex or he was faking it Kakashi didn't know. "No one would've made me a prefect," he answered, "I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge."

So Remus said, "I think Dumbledore might have hoped I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends. I need scarcely say that I failed dismally."

After that, Kakashi inched away, leaving everyone to break off into their separate groups to talk. He debated on the pros and cons of sneaking away and decided to wait for someone else to leave too. His ears picked up random conversation ("werewolf segregation;" "Skiving Snackboxes; "naught to sixty;" "shown confidence in;" others), but he didn't stop to listen to any. He finally read about the Patronus Charm earlier and really wanted to try it out. On his own, though, so if he fucked up with the happy memory bit, he didn't need to answer any questions.

What happy memories did he have anyway?

How about the day you became a jounin?

Rin, think about what you just said.

O-oh, yeah.

Yosh! How about the day beat Gai in front of everyone!

Great, so now you've both invaded my head?

Of course!

Why wouldn't we, Kakashi-kun?

Well, I'm shutting both of you up before anyone notices I'm talking to myself.

You do realize you aren't talking aloud, right?

Hey, he has a point, Rin! Maybe wizards can read minds!

Really, shut up! Come back when I'm alone.

Don't need to be so mean abou—

He was saved from both his own head and the party when he saw Harry heading out the door. Discreetly looking around making sure no one was about to stop him, he slipped away after and ended up next to him.

"Someone doesn't look happy," he said and for once Harry didn't have his normal skittish response. Then, before he even realized what he was doing, asked, "What's wrong?"

He blinked owlishly. The Notoriously Emotionless Hatake Kakashi just had a moment of concern. What was the world coming to?

After a moment, Harry answered, "It's stupid. Moody showed me a picture of the old Order of the Phoenix. My parents were it, but he went through everyone else too and all about the way they died or were tortured or vanished—well, I know it must not seem like a lot to you, but I don't know, I guess I just wasn't expecting it."

Honestly, he did understand what Harry meant because every time he looked at the Memorial Stone he felt the same way. But he never got the change to say something someone upstairs suddenly broke out into sobs. He look to the boy next to him. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear wha—oh, yeah. Is that crying?"

"I think so."

Together they headed in the direction of the sound, even though Kakashi thought this could turn out into a terrible invasion of privacy.

What they discovered was Molly in the drawing room kneeling on the ground next to Ron's body. Ron's dead body. Ron's dead body that shouldn't exist because Ron's perfectly alive body was downstairs, talking about broomsticks and enjoying the recently discovered deliciousness of butterbeer.

…The Fuck?

Genjutsu was his first thought, but when it changed into Molly's other son Bill (who he had yet to meet, but learned a lot about) with the use of a spell, he knew that whatever was in front of her was one hundred percent corporeal and screwed up enough that all three of those in room could see it. Harry shouted at her to get out of there, and Kakashi remembered reading about a boggart, and how Mad-Eye and Molly were talking about one earlier. Sighing, he walked over to the woman kneeling on the floor and said, "Molly, this isn't real. Come on."

Though still sobbing her eyes out, the closeness of his voice seemed to jog her out of it. In retrospect, not moving back along with her was a crap idea, but he didn't know enough about the creatures to understand that. Nodding, Molly stared in horror down at the currently dead Hermione as she backed up. He (stupidly) stayed where he was. The moment he was closer to the thing than she was, the other two occupants of the small room screamed.

"Kukuku."

Kakashi froze, fear instantly rippling through him. Don't turn around! screamed Obito in his head, and though he knew this perfectly well, his body moved against his will, and he was facing what was literally his worst nightmare. It consisted of this:

One Nine-Tailed Fox Demon with its mouth clamped around Minato-sensei's body.

One Orochimaru leaning against the Kyuubi, dead Rin in one arm, dead Obito in the other.

One crying baby Naruto.

He stumbled back, reminding himself that it wasn't real but not knowing how to get rid of it, eyes wide as he tried to process what he was seeing. Then his body collided with someone else's and he promptly fainted.

He had just enough time to hear someone scream.