Hey, sorry for shortness and suckishness. I'm really sick, so I wasn't exactly at my greatest. And by sick, I mean shaking with fever. So, basically, not good. That, and I got a kitty. She's been taking up a lot of time since she so playful, though right now she's just sleeping on my bed. I love her so much. Her name is Lanie.

Anyway, the first chapter of an OC story is coming out soon. Someone suggested an AU with a guy OC, so I ran with that. But, I also decided to do complete mindfuckary. Pairings, both with canon characters couplings and an OC (I made a boy and girl - siblings - so there's one of each gender) with a canon, are to be decided by the readers. Actually, a lot of the story is going to be decided by the readers. I wanted something interactive basically. Other stuff can be decided too. It's a generational flipping in an AU world. Read if you'd like.

Disclaimer: Just borrowin'.

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Chapter Seven

Kakashi lay on the ground of the clearing he was using for training in the Forbidden Forest, vision out of focus as he stared up at the sky, Pakkun's paws were on his arm, and wondered what the fuck just happened.

He started out with taijutsu, because he hadn't practiced that since before the fight with Orochimaru. But not practicing it for that long was okay, because even once his lungs healed, his body was still fucked up enough that doing too much hurt. But now, the taijutsu was fine—went great, actually, considering he rarely used it when real fighting. Then he practiced with projectiles, throwing them at places he picked out on random trees at different altitudes, but he'd been practicing them all along, so naturally that went fine. Still, the entire time, no matter how goddamn perfect he was being, he was getting pelted with the feeling that something was wrong.

In retrospect, he was a damn idiot. After a month of no connects from home, he was dying for some familiarity, so he summoned Pakkun. It left a burning pain in his shoulder, one so bad that he actually couldn't stay upright (must've scared the crap out of Pakkun, too, now that he thought about it). That should've been a warning to stop right there, but no, he just had to go and continuing because he was too stubborn to admit something was wrong. So what triggered the reason behind his bad feeling?

A fucking genin level body switching jutsu.

It felt like his body was being burned alive, and he didn't scream not out of willpower, but out of an inability to even get his vocal cords working. He collapsed, landing on his side, and literally felt the cursed mark straining against the seal. Hell, it wasn't working, the pain itself spread everywhere, causing him to practically have a seizure while Pakkun kept asking him what was going on, what was wrong, should he get help. Eventually it stopped (it felt like a forever, but in reality was less than five minutes), and he turned over so he was on his back, too exhausted to move, the pain gone but the sensation lingering.

"I'm fine," he said to Pakkun, his voice sounding weaker than he liked, having to stop himself from speaking English. The little pug came to sit on his chest. "Don't worry about me."

"So that's the mark," said his nin-dog, motioning with his head to Kakashi's right shoulder. He nodded. "Who sealed it?"

Kakashi coughed before answering, "Jiraiya-san. 'Least that's what Tsunade-san told me."

In an odd moment of affection, Pakkun nuzzled his cheek with his head, making the silver-haired body wonder if whatever was going on was even worse than he suspected. Goddamnit, he needed someone to explain all this crap to him because he was at a loss. Even his, as the Sorting Hat put it, brilliant mind couldn't figure it out on his own. He didn't know enough about Orochimaru, and he couldn't for the life of him remembered what happened.

A two hour fight, sure, that he remembered. Along with getting nearly hacked to pieces, but there were whole gaps of the even missing. Like what he saw in the genjutsu, or Orochimaru's words. And he knew, after Tsunade told him, that he'd been awake (but barely) when Jiraiya found him. Just, he didn't remember that at all. Except someone saying something about him being an ANBU captain, which he wasn't sure actually happened, so he probably just imagined that.

"You look like shit, Kakashi," said Pakkun bluntly. Kakashi reached up and pat his head, causing the little nin-dog to scowl. Then he grunted, "Need me to get someone?"

In a moment of sheer stupidity, he answered, "Rin—"

Kakashi-kun, I'm dead.

Well, fuck.

"I mean," he said before Pakkun could comment on his blunder, "if you could go back to Konoha and get Jiraiya-san to tell me what the fuck is going on, that'd be lovely."

Wisely, Pakkun didn't mention his mistake. "I'll go hunt 'im down. Now get your ass into shape and go back to that school thing."

"I know, I know, I know." He frowned. "But, you know, to sit up, I sort of need you off my chest."

The nin-dog walk off, sitting on the ground beside him. Hiding the struggle it took, Kakashi used his hands to force himself into sitting position. A head rush followed for a moment, but other than that, he was fine. Even the pain in his shoulder was going down. Pakkun licked his hand.

"Take care of yourself, Kakashi," he said, big brown eyes eye looking up at him. "I'll pass on the message. Don't try too much chakra until then."

"God, I don't need you lecturing me too," he said, shaking his head. "Thanks, Pakkun, I owe you one. When I figure out what's going on, I'll summon you again." Because I could use the company, he added in his head.

Then there was another lick to his hand, and his friend was gone after half an hour's worth of conversation. Reality was hitting him hard; he hadn't been sociable since he was six, but he'd never felt so absolutely alienated before. The first few years of his life were dominated by his dad and Jiraiya, and not fully bothering with emotional restriction (though, still, he felt an inability to come to terms with that, even if he knew what happened). Then after that he had Minato-sensei who never really cared about his personal boundaries and acted like a ridiculously happy ball of energy anyway, forcing him to converse and then eventually living with him. Obito and Rin came next, and they were practically an extension of Minato. All he and Obito did was argue (which was his way of being friends, even if Obito didn't understand that), and speaking bare minimum to Rin (who didn't understand that speaking even a little was a different sign of friendship). By the time everyone was gone, he was on the ANBU squad, and on missions with others who respected him and treated him like anyone else—like what this society considers an adult—and that idiot Gai who kept asking for matching and claiming them rivals when Kakashi personally couldn't care less.

And what did he have now? A school of curious kids and teachers, a few fake friends, a near-absent client, and a fabricated persona. Loneliness rarely affected him before, but now that he thought about, that was the best way to describe it at the moment. That, and frustrated because there was something wrong with him, and something going on, and no one bothered to let him know.

With a sigh, he shoved himself up so he was standing and walked around the clearing, collecting all the kunai and shuriken he'd thrown at various targets. One was pretty high up in a tree, and since he was a little nervous about using chakra at the moment, he climbed it the civilian way, using the branches to grab it before dropping himself back down. He looked around for a tree he hadn't marked up too badly and found one at the exit of the clearing, the one that led back to the school. He saw down in front of it, kunai in hand, and carved the names he needed.

Uchiha Obito

Naoko Rin

Namikaze Minato

Then, after a moment's hesitation, he did as Rin asked and carved a messy heart around her name, wondering why he was listening to something his own mind suggested when he was never in love with her or anything of the sort. Another moment of hesitation came, and he swallowed thickly before writing, with a shaky hand:

Hatake Mori

Hatake Sakumo

There was no real reason for him to write his parents' names. His mom he never met, as she died in childbirth, and his dad left him to fend for himself at seven by committing suicide, the least honorable death possible. That entire thing just fucked with his head, so doing this made no sense, but he didn't have it in him to scratch it out. He took a moment, looking at all the names, the heart around Rin's, all carved in this foreign tree, and wondered how the fuck his life fell this far.

Talk about pathetic.

Don't say that about yourself! Kakashi-kun, you're anything but pathetic.

Please…just, not now, Rin.

I'm sorry. I can't help it. I wish I'd known you were always this self-deprecating.

And what help would've that been?

Well, Obito and I could've tried to help. Minato-sensei tried to tell us—

What the hell? Rin kept talking (but we didn't understand. Kakashi-kun?), but he was trying very, very hard to remember if Obito or Minato or Rin ever told him about that. (Kakashi, are you listening? 'Kashi? Oh god, please answer) Because if they didn't, then that officially meant he was doing more than talking to his dead teammates—he was fabricating old situations, too.

Yeah, he answered, shaking his head and standing up. Yeah, I am. Sorry, I got distracted.

I know. Listen, he told us after our first B-ranked mission, when you and Obito got into that huge fight.

The fight he remembered. It was a bad one; Kakashi had already had a bad enough day, having just come back from a solo scouting mission, feeling cheated by being thrown something so easy. Obito was doing his usual try-to-impress-Rin thing, and Kakashi snapped. Back then, snapping like that wasn't too usual, but it was exceptionally bad that day. Normally he held back in the severity of his insults, using them more as an attempt to help Obito than to actually be cruel, but he pulled out everything he could think over until he left the other boy crying, blaming dust in his eyes (admittedly, he wasn't wearing his goggles that day, but still), and for the first and last time ever, Minato actually told him to stop rather than Obito. Even if half the arguments were, in fact, started by Kakashi, he was never admonished for them.

Looking back, that made a twisted sort of sense, especially if he wasn't just making up this incident in his head.

Oh. Okay. I'm sorry, Rin.

Why?

I completely closed you guys out. For a genius, I can really be an idiot, can't I?

Stop it, Kakashi. What's wrong with you today?

I don't know. I think I'm tired.

Okay. Okay. Go back up to your dormitory and try to get some sleep. Please? For me?

I am. Goodnight, Rin.

Goodnight, Kakashi.

Then he reached out and touched Minato's name one more time before leaving, ready to curl back up into bed, hoping Pakkun would have his answer soon.

.

An hour before Umbridge's detention, Kakashi discovered a dilemma with his cover. It was this:

He had never written an essay before.

Mission reports, yes, absolutely, and he could write jutsu scrolls, so it wasn't that he was incompetent in the intellectual writing field. Both of those he was used to keeping concise, straight to the point, while using as little words necessary. That was the problem: the word restraint. He had a minimum of a certain length and with his handwriting and habits, as well as unknowing how to actually write one, wasn't working out so well in his favor. So, again, he was forced to swallow his pride and go to someone for help.

With one hour to go.

"Um, Hermione," he said awkward, coming up behind her. The bushy haired girl turned around, looking unsurprised; by now, her, Harry, and the Weasleys learned not to be skittish.

"What's wrong?" she asked, because her first assumption with him was that there was always something going on. There was no real reason for her to think that, considering that she saw only saw a crack in his cover once, and that was a physical thing that she had no ability to help out.

Holding back a sigh, he sat down in the empty chair next to her (which was unfortunately not one of those squishy armchairs) with his quill, parchment, and history of magic book. After taking a deep breath he answered, "I don't know how to write an essay."

"You—what?"

"I can't write an essay. I've never had to."

Apparently this idea wasn't too difficult to understand for Hermione, because she looked shocked for all of ten seconds before nodding. "Right. I should've expected that. So what're you having trouble with?"

Reluctantly, he answered, "Everything. I don't know the format and I don't know how to make it the length required."

"That's why we make half the stuff up, mate," said Ron from the other side of Hermione. "I just say things over and—"

"Ron!" She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, you write it in paragraphs. For History of Magic, make sure you have a thesis statement—a brief introduction of your analysis shortened into a sentence placed in the first paragraph—and write the rest of the essay using topic sentences as your first line. Topic sentences relate back to your thesis. You can cite quotes when appropriate from the book, too. I can help you; I've already finished mine. What else do you have?"

"The Divinations dream chart, the Charms essay (what's with all the essays?), Herbology essay, and the essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts," he said. "Harry and Ron said to say whatever for the dream chart to get a good grade, McGonagall talked Snape into giving me an exception in his class, and I'm not sure about the others. Are they same thing?"

"Somewhat," she answered, running her fingers through her hair. "Just, it doesn't sound like Umbridge wants an analysis. It seems like she just wants a summary…I'm planning on using a lot of quotes as filler, and paraphrasing much of what the author says. Does that make sense to you?"

He went to nod, but shook his head instead. "I don't know what paraphrasing means. It wasn't in the books I learned English from and I never heard it in the Burrow."

Both Harry and Ron were looking over now, evidently curious about his problem, not expecting it. Well, good for them, because he wasn't either. "Basically," she said, "you rewrite an author's point, or a sentence in a book in your own words. Now does it make sense? And citing I'll teach you about as we go along."

"Thanks," he said. "What about Charms and Herbology?"

"We can work on those tomorrow when we have more time," she said, flipping open Umbridge's text book. "I'm assuming you know how to write objectively."

"Yeah. That's how I wrote all my, uh, summaries back at home." Luckily Hermione was a smart girl, so she understood that summary was code for mission report. Thank god his fake friends weren't completely idiotic. Naïve, sheltered (somewhat, as their society worked differently), and nowhere near his level, but smart nonetheless. Now, if he was stuck with Malfoy and his make-shift bodyguards all the time, then he probably would never pass these classes (why did he even care?) and fervently hate the Wizarding world. Good thing he ended up with who he did. "The academic style is the only one I know. Or am good at anyway. I know literary terms and everything, just never put them to use. I do read fiction, though…"

Again, she nodded. "I understand. I prefer reading fiction too, but I never have much time in Hogwarts. It's all academic writing simply because of the subjects. Anyway, let's get started. We'll begin with Defense Against the Dark Arts, because that should be simpler than an analysis at the moment."

"Thank you so much," he said with relief, so tired and frustrated from the night before that the emotion was surprisingly real. "I'm sorry for not starting with you guys last night. It would've been so much easier."

"No, no," she said, waving her hand in the Don't Worry About It type ofway, "this way I already have my done, so I can give you my full attention."

"Still," he said. "Thanks. I mean it."

She smiled cheerfully and Ron rolled his eyes. Hermione launched into a lesson, and Kakashi had a feeling that most normal people could never follow it at all. The girl talked way too quickly and used words he never learned before. By the time the hour was up, his second draft of the Defense Against the Dark Arts paper was finished (because she could move incredibly fast through her work when focused as it turned out), and the introduction paragraph of the History of Magic essay was written. At five to five, Harry stood and said, "Shall we go down to detention now?"

As he stood, too, both Hermione and Ron sent them sympathetic grimaces. No one else looked at them as they slid from the portrait hole and out into the chilly hallway. Automatically, Kakashi wrapped his robes more tightly around himself.

"Listen, Harry," he said after making sure that no one was around. "Keep your temper in there, okay? No matter what the woman does."

"I'm not planning on doing anything," said the other boy, clearly offended. "I don't want to get into anymore trouble."

But he got angry too easily, so that didn't count for much. "Okay," he said warily, preparing to jump in if Harry did anything stupid, because he knew this wasn't going to be fun or even mildly annoying.

"You know, I've been in this office before," said Harry.

"Oh?"

"One was second year with Lockhart. You know, the arrogant fraud?" Kakashi nodded; he'd heard many things about each Defense teacher. "Well, he had a whole bunch of smiling pictures of himself—bloody prat." He shook his head in exasperation at the memory. "In my third year, I was in Lupin's office, and there were always Dark creatures, Hinkypunks or something. Then when Moody's imposter was my teacher, there were a lot of Dark wizard detectors."

"What do you think it's going to be like this year?"

"Something miserable with a lot of lace," said Harry dully, and all Kakashi could think of doing was giving him a nod.

For the rest of the walk, they were silent; neither were particularly in the mood to talk. Kakashi, because he didn't like talking in general so these moments of quiet were a relief, and Harry because the boy wasn't an idiot, so he wasn't expecting something easily either. Kakashi hated these kids and hated this mission, because it was making him draw attention to himself. That was the appeal of the ANBU for him—a masked face in a sea of masked faces, inconspicuous, feared and respected, but hidden among the rest of them. He rubbed his eye, chakra exhaustion from the night before hitting him hard.

Fuck Orochimaru.

When they reached the office (which, yes, had lace, as well as creep kitten pictures), Harry knocked and Umbridge said, "Come in." The two boys looked at each other before Kakashi pushed open the door. "Good evening, Mr. Potter, Mr. Hatake."

"Evening," said Harry and Umbridge looked at Kakashi expectantly.

In the most bored voice he could muster, he said, "You too, Professor."

Her mouth pinched into a thin line at his blatant rudeness, but she didn't comment. "Well, sit down."

Neither of them did, Kakashi not planning on moving until Harry did because he could detect stupidity relatively easy at this point and with Umbridge right there, he didn't know how to stop it. Harry said, "Er, Professor Umbridge? Er—before we start, I-I wanted to ask you a…a favor…"

The Quidditch try-outs. Of course. Angelina talked about them last night, and Kakashi kept forgetting how important the sport was to these people. Still, asking was pretty ridiculous.

"Oh, yes?"

"Well, I'm…I'm on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. And I was supposed to be at the tryouts for the new Keeper at five o' clock on Friday and I was—was wondering whether I could skip detention that night and do it—do it another night…instead…"

"Oh no," said Umbridge. "Oh no, no, no. This is your punishment for spreading evil, nasty, attention-seeking—"

"Professor," he found himself saying suddenly, and vaguely wondered if Obito temporarily took over his ability to talk because this wasn't like him at all. "If you let Harry off, you could always have him make it up on Monday. Or I'll do it for him."

She turned her frog-like smile to him. "No, dear, he will not make it up on Monday. He will sit here on Friday like he will for the rest of the week, same as you. Bad children don't deserve to go out and enjoy fun activities because they need to be punished properly. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor," he answered dryly, "you said your opinion quite clearly."

Apparently, she didn't like the word choice, but he didn't care. She said, "Sit down, boys." Silently, they followed orders, grabbing seats at two tables next to each other. "Now, you are going to do lines for me, both of you. No, not your quills, but with two very special ones of mine."

Kakashi didn't like the way she said special. She handed each one of them a quill, and he could feel immediately that this thing was loaded with compacted magic, something similar feeling to killing intent chakra. Oh, just joyful. He was right in his assumption that she was a sadist bitch.

"I want you, Mr. Potter, to write I must not tell lies," said Umbridge. "And I should like you, Mr. Hatake, to write I must be silent."

Talk about a cop-out. "Really? Of all the things to write, you want me to use that?" he said, looking from the quill to her. "I mean, I understand, since all I did was point out indisputable truths. But, I guess I shouldn't've expected much from a teacher who speaks in passive voice to her 'impressionable' students. Sure, you might think that Dumbledore's off in the head, but at least he uses proper grammar."

Umbridge's eyes bulged, which was more than just a little bit satisfying. "I have changed my mind, Mr. Hatake," she said. "I would like you—"

"'Would is passive voice.'"

"—to write I will not insult. Also, I do not believe a non-English speaking student should be lecturing me on grammar. I do believe I know better than you."

He smirked. "Check a grammatical dictionary, Professor. And is that all?"

"Oh, yes." A smile expanded across her wide mouth. "I find that shorter lines make for better use. Do you understand that too, Mr. Potter? Now, get to writing, dears."

"How many times?" asked Harry, glancing at Kakashi, one corner of his mouth twitching as he fought against a smile.

"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in."

"You haven't given us any ink."

"Oh, you won't need ink."

That didn't sound good. Harry got to writing first. There was a sudden gasp from the other side of the room, and when Kakashi looked over, he saw words fade to nothingness on his hand, and red ink on the paper. This wasn't ink, of course, and he knew that by the end of this, the smell of blood was going to be overwhelming.

"That was a terrible pun, Professor Umbridge," he said bluntly as she turned her sadistic smile to Harry. Her gaze snapped to him.

"Get to work, Hatake! Ten points from Gryffindor."

You're having way too much fun, said Rin in his head an hour after he got to writing, completely unbothered by the repeated wound showing up on his hand.

Really? I think it's hilarious.

He's only making the situation worse for himself, Obito.

Um, Rin, I'm fine. Honest.

Yeah, let 'em have his fun!

Hmph. Boys.

Hey, I'm just doing this for observational work.

And because it's fun. Hey, Rin, remember the spitball incident?

Gai deserved it! So, you still can't lump me into the same category as you.

That happened when you guys were still academy students, right?

Yeah. Gai did his whole 'I love you!' thing to me.

Ew.

Exactly!

Yeah, yeah. He might've deserved it, but you were still the one who used spitballs.

Ooo, Akira-sensei was so mad.

Um, hello? I'm here too, you know.

So? You never cared before, Kakashi-kun.

That was before you two were in my head. Now it's just awkward.

Maybe you should stop writing so fast.

She's kinda right…

Why?

The cut's taking a longer time to heal. See, Harry's is still fading fine because he's writing in intervals.

You're in my head, Rin, you can lay off the medical lectures.

Still, he followed her advice and slowed down his writing speed, noticing that the words were starting to run into each other already.

I'm starting to think sadistic bitch is an understatement, he said.

No kidding. This is torture. Literary.

If I were where you are now, I'd totally lecture her about how unsanitary this is.

Do you guys think this counts as sinking in?

I'm pretty sure she means down to the—

Obito was cut off as Umbridge said, "Come here, you two."

He let himself make eye contact with Harry for a moment, something the boy obviously needed at the moment before standing at walking over. The blood on the parchment was starting to seep through, wetting the wood of the table. Well, it was her fault. But, as this was his last opportunity to piss her off for the night, he pointed his wand behind him at the table and lazily said, "Tergeo." It was one of the spells Molly taught him, meant to scour objects clean. Now both the paper and the wood were spotless. Again, the professor's eyes bulged.

"Did I tell you that you are allowed to do magic in my classroom, Mr. Hatake?" she asked, voice growing sharper in pitch. "And especially one that should not be taught until seventh year in theory with the new Ministry-app—"

"I'm sorry," he said politely, "I didn't realize you liked having blood on your furniture. And I'm also sorry to tell you that I learned how to use a scour spell three years ago." Years, of course, meaning weeks. "You know, isn't corporal punishment illegal? As in, what you did was just now breaking your own laws?"

"I have the authority to do this," she said. "I should like you—"

"Passive voice, Professor."

Umbridge clucked her tongue. "You may leave now. Go rest up."

"Goodnight," said Harry, already backing to the door. Kakashi parroted him, and when they were outside and clearly out of earshot, "Does your hand hurt?"

He shook his head. "Yours?"

"A little," the other boy admitted, wincing as he stretched out his fingers. "Hey, can you not tell Ron and Hermione about this?"

"I have to tell Dumbledore," he said, double-checking to make sure he wasn't bleeding before tucking his hands into his pocket. "You know, it is sort of my job."

"Please don't." For the life of him, Kakashi couldn't see why he wanted to keep this hidden. Whether he realized it or not, what Umbridge did was literally torture. "Look, it's just that…Well, I don't know. Ron and Hermione will want to tell McGonagall and if it reaches the teachers, then Umbridge'll think she won."

After a moment of staring at Harry incredulously, Kakashi said, "You do realize that was stupidest reasoning ever, right? 'Think she won.' I understand how much that feeling sucks, but her 'winning' is letting her break both school protocol and the law."

"Please don't," he repeated, eyes pleading and wide. "I—I get that. I do. But Dumbledore and McGonagall can't do anything about it, and Fudge'll back her up. It just—"

"Okay, fine," he said, concocting a way to work this in his favor. "But only if you promise me something."

"What is it?"

"You need to keep your temper in her class," he answered, "no matter what she does. You aren't going to talk back. That Friday will be your absolute last detention for Umbridge at least until I'm gone at the end of the summer. The moment you snap, I'm going straight up to Dumbledore's office and telling him, getting both her and you in trouble in the process. And it's against my principals to go back on my word unless I'm promising something in undercover, so you can guarantee that I'll do it. Is that understood?"

Face white, eyes wide, Harry nodded. "Understood," he said weakly. Then he shook his head, and was back to normal. "Anyway, why do you hate her so much? Mind, I'm not saying it's unusual—everyone hates her—but you seem to hate her about as much as I do."

Explaining the personality traits of different torturers was going to take too long, and he didn't want to explain how he knew, so he opted for a shrug. "Eh. You had a detention, so I needed a detention. Then today? Well, let's just say I got pretty frustrated by not knowing how to do something, and I took it out on her."

"The essays?" He nodded. "I don't like essays. Never liked them when I was in Muggle primary school, and I don't like them here."

"I find them pointless." They were nearing the common room, taking the distance down by half with all the secret passageways. So far, Kakashi knew of forty-seven, but was sure there was more. "They don't exactly help me remember something more than I already do. They're just a waste of time."

"But teachers keep assigning them anyway."

"Mimbulus Mimbletonia," Kakashi told the Fat Lady, who sniffled and let the door swing open.

.

"What happened in there?" Kakashi said on Friday after their final detention, hurrying back to the common room. "You—what did she do?"

For the first time since he'd known the boy, Harry seemed absolutely terrified. Though he hid it surprisingly well in Umbridge's office, his face melted straight into fear the moment they were gone. The worst part of this?

Kakashi was genuinely concerned.

"When she touched my hand, my scar hurt," the boy answered. "My scar—well, you know what it means, right?"

Unfortunately, he did. "So, you're saying that Voldemort's around here somewhere? I've been all over the castle the past week in between classes and at night…the grounds too, and I haven't seen or felt anyone."

"It doesn't necessarily," Harry said, fidgeting. "I mean, what if she's possessed or something?"

"I would've noticed," he said, running his fingers through his hair. "She would have two different magic signatures in one. I've felt it before—" (And since Naruto was still a baby, the patchy, underdeveloped combination made him painful to be around.) "—and she's normal. Same condensed chakra as the rest of you. Slightly different of course, but everybody has his or her individual signature."

Though evidently confused, Harry still looked relieved. "So what do you think happened?"

"I don't know," he admitted, and hated himself for it. How could he help when he was still completely oblivious? "I have a meeting tomorrow with Dumbledore, and since you're against seeing him for the detentions, then I'll try to get him to give me answers without being obvious about it."

With a sigh of what was even more relief, Harry said, "Thanks, Kakashi, especially since I know how against you are with this in the first place."

Even if it was hard, he managed to get out, "Don't worry about it," because in truth there was a lot to worry about.

When they entered the common room, they were hit by an explosion of noise. Ron suddenly popped up in front of them, beaming, sloshing some of his butterbeer down his front. "I made Keeper!" he yelled over the news, and now the party made sense.

"Good for you!" said Kakashi, because he couldn't think of anything else. Harry gave him his own congratulations and disappeared off in the direction of the sleeping Hermione, leaving him alone with Ron. "How'd it go?"

"It was good! Angelina told me I was great after." Hopefully this gave him some confidence, because he seemed like the type of person to crumble under nerves. "You coming to the first game, Kakashi?" he added hopefully.

"Of course," he answered, "I've never—" A few other people were close enough to be in earshot, so he couldn't say the truth. "—been to a game since my accident. Haven't exactly flown since then either."

Ron's face lit up. "If you want, you can come down with me and Harry one day and fly again. 'Course, I understand if you don't want to…"

In truth, Kakashi was absolutely fascinated by the idea of flying. Sometimes, when moving fast enough while jumping from giant tree branch to giant tree branch, it almost gave the illusion flying (the momentum allowed very, very long distance jumped, coupled by chakra), but, like everyone else in the Hidden Continent, he'd never actually flown before. There were rumors that some of the skilled enough Suna-nin could, but he had yet to see that for himself. "Sure," he answered. "It's been a while and I miss it. Might be pretty bad, though, since it's been about two years."

"Don't worry, Harry and I'll help you out." Then his smile wavered a little bit. "How'd your detention go?"

As he figured it was Harry's choice to disclose the ending or not, Kakashi shrugged and said, "Same as usual. Boring, obnoxious. Hopefully I won't have to go back in there again, because I can only take so many creepy cats looking at me." He spared a glance in Harry's direction. Ron noticed, and nodded.

"If he does it again, are you going to tell someone?"

"Yeah. I think that's enough of a threat for him to keep his mouth shut." He looked back to Ron. "So when does practice start?"

"Tomorrow," he answered. "Angelina says we need to get working now if we ever want to beat Slytherin, and to make up for lost time."

"But, it's only been a week."

"No Quidditch last year, remember?" he said. "We told you about that, I think."

Actually, they hadn't, not even Hermione; he picked it up from Fred and George. "Yeah, you did," he lied. "So where's the butterbeer? I'm pretty sure I need one after a week of the detentions from hell."

"Come on, I'll show you."

They forced their way through the room until they reached a table in the back with food and drinks. Next to it, the twins were testing their products, taking advantage of Hermione's distraction. Regardless of what she said, Kakashi still didn't see much of a problem in it. He grabbed a butterbeer off the table. Ron's eyes gravitated to the scars on his hand, still an angry red and not fully closed yet. Technically, he could've just healed the marks after each session, but he knew that if Harry decided to go and be argumentative again, he'd need some proof. And back at home he always wore gloves, so it never mattered much anyway.

"I think I'm heading upstairs," he said, intending to go outside. "You know, tuck in early."

As he on the second day of doing so, he realized he needed a back up cover if one of the other boys in the dormitory found his bed, he decided to tell Harry and Ron about his night escapades. It did no real harm letting them know, as they were already perfectly aware of his status as a shinobi. He never thought letting a group of charges know anything about himself could be a good thing, but he was proven wrong. Quite thankfully, too. Ron nodded.

"G'night," he said.

"Good night, Ron."

And he went upstairs.