The Root of Darkness

by Amorphis760

I was nothing special before I died the first time but when something offers me the chance to live again I take it. Reborn into a world of death I will survive. There will be no mercy and no pity. For there are monsters that roam this world and to survive I might have to become one myself. Elements of the Gamer and X-overs in later chapters.

37. Wizarding World's Reaction

Author's Note: As a reviewer pointed out to me that as Shiro is studying Runes he should get a Rune mastery skill or something along those lines. I've decided that it was slightly redundant to have one with Fuinjutsu Foundations so I've just made a note of Norse Runes being another language he can read and write.

Also, a big thank you to AndreyKl for their contribution to the story. They wrote a review, more like a short chapter, that I found interesting enough to include in the chapter. Their portion is the Tonks' interlude and you can find the original version in the reviews if you wish.

As soon as my feet touched the ground pandemonium began to rein in the stands as it settled in just what had happened to the collective witches and wizards. There was a fair bit of screaming but mostly yelling as everyone tried to be heard over the person standing next to them making it so there was no intelligible sounds coming from the crowd, just a loud wall of noise. I irritably dampened my hearing even further so everything became a faint buzz and walked towards the champion's tent to check on Harry. I was reasonably sure he was fine but better safe than sorry.

I walked into the sight of an older witch fussing over a slightly red Harry. "Honestly, Madam Pomfrey, I'm fine. The flames never touched me."

"Tch, I'll be the judge of whether you're fine or not and seeing as you look like a lobster I'd say they came close enough. Honestly, what were the tournament officials thinking having you fight dragons of all things. It's like they thought this tournament wasn't dangerous enough already and needed to make it even deadlier."

Near the end of her rant Harry had seen me standing near the door flap and given me a small wave with a huge smile. "Shiro! Thank you for what you did. I don't know what set the dragon off but you saved me." That would have been my fault, even if it was unintentional. Sorry, I'll make it up to you somehow. It's also admirable that you didn't even flinch when you saw me even after that display. Maybe it was because he'd already seen how powerful I was with his Mage Sight.

I tried to wave it off even though I would probably have to jump through quite a few hoops after this. "You were doing just fine on your own before that chain snapped."

I noticed that Madam Pomfrey shivered as she looked at me but straightened as the universal expression of doctors and nurses who wouldn't tolerate anyone's bullshit took over. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave Mr. Shiro. Trained Healers or patients only." I quirked an eyebrow at her but it wasn't worth getting into a fight over so in just gave her a nod and turned to leave.

Right before I did I had one last thing to say to Harry. "I'll probably see you after the points are given out. I think I'm going to go hide from the reporters for now though." I'm almost positive at least one of them managed to snap a few shots while I subdued the dragon and by tomorrow my face would probably be on the front page. The noise level jumped back up as I exited the dampening wards of the champions tent and I could see people begin to wake up from their knocked-out state. Time to make myself scarce for a bit.

~Interlude~ Tonks

I woke up feeling groggy, with a pounding headache, like I went on a bender with a case of Ogden's Firewhisky, but I didn't think that was likely. Once was more than enough to put me off the stuff for a good long while. I squinted at the bright light and the shouting that was going on around me. It sounded panicked which wasn't good at all. With what felt like a monumental amount of will I sat up and opened my eyes fully as I took a cautious look around.

What I saw didn't make much sense to me. Almost everyone around me, and a good ways away from me, was slumped over as though unconscious and the dragon that Harry had been up against was out for the count as well if the massive depression in the ground its head made hadn't killed it. I looked around some more and didn't see Shiro anywhere. Where was he? Wait, Shiro!

Everything came back in a flash. I remembered seeing the dragon's chain break and feeling horrified then, suddenly, Shiro was standing on the edge of the stadium. I hadn't even seen him move and he had commanded the dragon to sit like a disobedient dog. The odd thing was it had actually stopped its attack to look at him and there was an all-pervasive pressure that had pressed down on me. It had felt like I was drowning in air and the last thing I saw as my vision blackened was some sort of blue light surrounding Shiro as he stepped forward. I had tried to stop him but it was like my body was weighed down and I couldn't move. I quickly leaned over the side of the stadium completely expecting to see his mangled body down below and let out a sigh of relief when I didn't see it.

The sounds of people moaning drew me from my thoughts and made me focus back to the here and now. People needed my help and as an Auror it was my duty to help them. I briefly touched my wand to my throat so that my voice would boom out and started to try to direct the mob of people.

Several hours later I was sore and tired as I sat in front of Professor Dumbledore. The process of waking everyone up in a semi coordinated fashion without anyone being hurt and the chaos afterwards had drained me. I wanted nothing more than to take a nice long bath then curl up to read a book before falling asleep. Instead, it looked like he was getting ready to interrogate me as he started putting up silencing charms and darkening the windows. I thought that I had prepared myself but I was utterly wrong as the kind grandfatherly figure transformed and I felt a weight similar to the one I experienced earlier today. I tried to do my best to not to shrink into the seat. I tried and utterly failed.

Before me, almost towering over me, was Albus Dumbledore. Not the kind and grandfatherly Dumbledore, but The Mage that had fought Grindelwald and the one that Voldemort feared. Now I was facing such a Dumbledore, and an angry one at that. Now all I could do was feel like a little girl and try to shrink away from the legend before me. What was left of my will was only enough to not curl up or pass out right then and there.

"Tonks." I knew right then and there this was going to be a serious talk. Dumbledore never used a person's last name. "I understand that I'm not your superior, nor you are willing to talk about your friend behind his back, but I will be blunt with you, Tonks. Some time ago a man come into the castle giving the impression of a muggle. Indeed, someone that had even less magic than a muggle as his magical presence was weak to the point of not triggering a good chunk of the wards. He even came without a wand I must add! Then in the discourse between him and myself he gives an impression of a nice young man with a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Any and all background investigations I launch turn up blank, which is truly surprising in this day and age. Now, over the next week I learn that the wards will sometimes not detect him where he actually is but somewhere else entirely and that he can seemingly hide from them, revealing or hiding his presence, at will. In addition, it would seem that he actually has a wand on him that nothing seems to be able to detect and performs magical feats in public that require a monstrous amount of power. To top it all off it seems that he is outright ignored by tracking or divination spells." Dumbledore took a small pause as if to emphasis his words.

"And now this! He intimidated a dragon, of all things, with sheer magical power alone, performed something, presumably a conjuration, motionlessly and wandlessly, that was strong enough to douse dragon fire and knock a dragon unconscious. On top of that he did this while walking on air as if it was solid ground! All of this happened and after three weeks of his company the only thing you can say to me about him during our chats is that he's a nice guy?" The pressure lifted slightly and I was able to somehow master a bit of power to voice my opinion.

"But he is." I protested. He'd been nothing but courteous towards me except for that first day when he questioned me about my ability. Sure, it had been embarrassing but then he passed my morphing test by so much it was off the scale and when he said he wanted to be my friend he meant it. There hadn't been a single attempt to try to turn that into more than friendship as I first expected when he said that.

"He is far more than simply a nice guy." He nearly shouted before he drew back to compose himself. "I suppose I will have to voice my reasons for my distrust more clearly then. First, his stealth skills are extremely high. Moody has lost sight of him on more than one occasion even with his enchanted eye. He has told me that Shiro simply vanishes into thin air as he watches. Second, wards to him are nonexistent, do you understand the ramifications of that? He literally registers as less than a ghost to Hogwart's wards. Third, even his wand isn't detected by the wards as they only detect him doing magic, which is also the only time he registers on most of the wards at all. Fourth, house elves won't go into his room. I've seen them break down sobbing when I ask them to clean his room. Fifth, there is absolutely no background on him anywhere that I could find even with all my connections in the ICW. Finally, Karkaroff is this close to being fired as headmaster." Dumbledore's pointer finger and thumb were almost touching. "Even though he is an admitted Death Eater Karkaroff has held the title of headmaster of Durmstrang for 5 years with an almost unassailable position. Then, after just one little talk, Shiro has crumbled away years of goodwill and political favors that Karkaroff had. Now, do you know of any professions that require such collection of skills?

"Um... no?" Yes, my brain supplied, Unspeakables.

"Spies and Assassins, Tonks. Spies and Assassins. I met a number of them during the war against Grindelwald and the similarities are flashing before me more and more each day."

"What?! But... That doesn't add up! Why would he be here then?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to get to the bottom of and why I brought you here. So? Any ideas? Any tiny details that stick out in your mind?"

'His training,' my mind supplies. 'He didn't want to talk about his training.' "He couldn't be a spy. If what you're saying is true he's just too powerful."

"You forget that he is Japanese and they have a bit different outlook on things. They hold their duty to the Emperor very seriously and if the Emperor demanded that Shiro become an assassin then he would do so."

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" I said angrily. "I think you're rushing to conclusions. Let's at least try to guess why he might lower himself to teaching Harry bloody Potter first if he's an assassin? Maybe everything is far simpler and you're simply overreacting."

He eyed me somewhat grimly. "Well it is certainly admirable the amount of trust you have for Shiro I have a duty to the children within these walls. He has shown to be a verifiable threat and, while I hate to admit it, I do not think I could stop him if he wanted to kill someone."

"Shiro wouldn't do that." Even to my ears that felt weak. While I hadn't seen it people had said that when he spoke to the dragon that they had felt afraid for their lives. Then there was his avoidance most things from his past life. "He says he's teaching because Harry paid him a lot, but with his power he could probably get far better paying jobs so why teach?" Damn, now I found myself starting to doubt him. "It might be for fame." I admitted after a moment but found myself refuting it. "But with his power it would be easy to gain fame in a number of ways. Besides, why would he do so in foreign country?"

I almost desperately tried to think of reasons not to doubt him. "Maybe he was looking for connections?" But I don't see him associating with anybody besides Harry, Hermione and myself. So, a miss again. "Harry might have caught Shiro's interest as a promising student, and Harry definitely is, but Shiro doesn't show that much interest in teaching even if he does it well. Hmm, Shiro is here to learn?" I latched onto that. "He checked out all those books from the library on the first day I saw him and more every day." Now I definitely sounded desperate.

"And he did, yet you've clearly seen his level first hand when you duel with him. He doesn't need to study and the books he's checked out are very generic. He would be better off buying specialized books from… less reputable sources. And with that I think we just voiced the most common options, the less common ones and those that make even less sense."

"He can't be a spy." I still clung to that thought. "Why send one into school? What could he gain? Besides, why take such a complex route? With the TriWizard tournament going on he could have placed himself as some kind of minor official, a hired guard for somebody or maybe even a reporter from different country. Something, anything, would be less inconspicuous then training Harry."

"Well, I do agree that there is nothing I could conceive of that a spy would find valuable here and that there are far less conspicuous ways to do so if he truly wanted to spy on someone. With this in mind, I can only conclude that he is an assassin with a tricky target that decided to hide in the light to draw them out."

"But a tricky assassination task also doesn't make sense. If he's truly as powerful as you say he could waltz in, off the target and waltz out. He could do that while barely meeting any resistance or immediately suppressing it. Hell! We saw today that just flaring his magic brought even strong wizards to their knees and that was across the stadium. Everyone near him fainted."

Silence fell between us and the only sound was the soft warbling of Fawkes. Normally that would cheer me up but right now it didn't seem to be doing much. After a long pause Dumbledore began to speak again. "Alas, somebody did drag young Harry into this tournament. Somebody set up a situation where Harry was lucky to only be thrown from his dorm. Then it was suspicious how quickly, one could almost say how lucky, that Harry found a strong mentor. He was gone for less than half a day before he came back with Shiro. Then the chain holding the dragon back snapped like a twig. I've already checked and it was indeed tampered with yet Shiro stepped up almost instantly, before even I could react, and managed to save Harry therefore reinforcing the bond between them."

I had nothing to say to that. Somebody did cause those things to happen and the timing was suspicious. "I see that you still aren't convinced. Perhaps if…"

"What if he's a target?" I blurted out without conscious thought.

Dumbledore appeared baffled by my remark. "Excuse me, but what do you mean by that?"

"What if he showed such power at a young age?" I said slowly as I tried to work out what I wanted to say. "What if his skills are a necessity, not to work, but to survive? What if his skills are a necessity to survive against assassins?"

"I must say again you that it is admirable the amount of trust you place in him." He sat back and slowly stroked his beard as a thoughtful expression on his face. "And an interesting theory as well. I haven't considered such a possibility yet. A child born with too much power in an influential family would be prone to assassination attempts from their enemies and the best way to hide such child is for it to never exist. He would have been almost like young Harry in that regard as he would have been hidden away. It would explain some oddities. In fact, quite a few of them. So, a possibility yes, yet one we hardly can check." Dumbledore paused for a moment as though lost in his thoughts. When he resumed his voice was heavy with regret.

"Think about this my way for a moment. What if he is an assassin with the task to murder Harry at his greatest? Or if his task is to eliminate all of the champions during the last task mere moments from their prize? What should I do? What if he kills other children or champions in the processes? You can't be sure that he won't and I am unconfident in my skill to stop Mr. Shiro if he does prove a threat. So, with a heavy heart I must insist, if only for security of children, that you give me every memory you have of him for review. Please do this for me, no, for the Greater Good." Dumbledore silently pushed an empty pensieve towards me as he finished speaking. There was a brief, but heavy, internal debate but in the end logic and duty won out and I placed my wand to my head as I recalled my first memories with Shiro.

~Interlude End~

I had merely gone far enough away that no one would see me turn invisible. Then I had made my way back to the stadium and stuck to the side of it so I could get an idea of how people were going to react without being swarmed by everyone. The conclusion I arrived to was mixed. Yes, there were some people loudly calling for me to be thrown in prison but just as many, if not more, seemed to have been enthralled by my show of power. Throughout it all I could hear Tonks' voice over the bedlam directing people to help those that I had accidently knocked unconscious.

It took a while but the organizers for the tournament brought some semblance of order back for long enough to give the final scores for everyone. Krum came in first with 40 points, followed by Harry with 36, then Cedric with 35 and finally Fleur at 32. I thought the scores were completely disproportioned to what each person actually did even with Karkaroff being totally biased and giving Harry a 0 and Krum a 10. Fleur had obviously pulled off the most complex magic to retrieve the egg successfully while Krum had only shot one spell repeatedly. Perhaps it's because of her nature as a Veela that they scored her so low?

Eh, whatever, it's not my problem to try to solve racism and perhaps sexism as well. For now, while the dragon handlers are busy, I want to check on that chain. It broke far too easily to be normal. I made my way over to it but I didn't even have to look for very long or all that hard to find evidence of tampering. The runic script in Norse was quite visible and I only needed a moment to parcel out what it was meant to do.

The main function of it was to shatter the chain, of course, but there was a portion that connected to a trigger switch that someone could hold in their hand. I couldn't get a read on the magical signature at all which is completely normal, at least with my experience in seals, but highly frustrating. It was unfortunate but the magical signature fades very quickly as runes, and seals, need very little power to activate. If I had checked immediately after I subdued the dragon I might have caught the barest whisper of a signature but my signature might have overwhelmed it even if I did. While it was frustrating it is what it is and complaining about it wouldn't solve anything.

I rubbed at my forehead as I left the chain and began to trail after Harry, as he was escorted by a large number of Gryffindors, up to the castle. They dragged him to their common room for a celebration of some sort and I left them to it. Going by Harry's expression he wished he could skip it but he was far too polite to simply leave. Sucks to be him I guess.

I made my way to my room to await what I knew to be the inevitable summons from the Dumbledore. The hours trickled past and still no word came from Dumbledore or anyone else for that matter. I did sense a steady trickle of people stop near the portrait leading into my room but no one asked to see me. Even Harry only stood outside for a moment before he went into his room. I could excuse him not asking to see me though as it was nearly 1 am when he did so.

It was nearing 6 in the morning when the painting called out to tell me someone was at the door. I meandered out and saw Snape waiting there with a dour look on his face. "The headmaster requests your presence in his office for an urgent meeting."

"I suppose I'll make my way there then. Is the password still the same?"

"No, it has changed to black licorice." I nodded congenially and swept past him. He had quite a good poker face but I could tell I unnerved him and he wanted nothing to do with me. That's fine. I came here to learn not make friends with everyone. Thankfully nobody seemed to be up yet so I didn't have to face people staring at me as I walked through the corridors until I came to the gargoyle guarding the Dumbledore's office. I gave it the password and walked up the stairs to knock on the door. I couldn't feel anyone else in the room except for Dumbledore and Fawkes, which I took as a good sign.

As I entered his office, after he had told me to come in, the first thing I saw was his desk. I suppose it would be more accurate as to say I saw where his desk used to be as not an inch of it was visible under the mounds of letters that formed disorganized piles that spilled over to the surrounding area. With a sinking heart I closed the door and moved closer to where I could see Dumbledore's hat sticking out from behind the mounds of paper. "This wouldn't happen to be your correspondence day would it?" I asked weakly.

There was a muffled chuckle from behind the paper stacks before Dumbledore stood up. "I'm afraid, my dear boy, that it is not." His eyes were tinkling madly and I swore his smile would put the devil to shame. "No, you see owls are apparently having quite a hard time finding you so all your correspondents are being sent to Hogwarts and, as headmaster, it falls to me to see to Hogwarts mail." He paused as several owls swooped in and dropped off more letters causing one stack to tumble to the ground. "I like my desk." He said suddenly as he seemed to completely change the subject. "It is a very nice desk, pure mahogany you know, and the best part about it is the fact that I can use it."

He snapped out his death stick as two glowing red letters entered his office causing them to turn to ash. "I would normally have the house elves take all your correspondents to your room but seeing as they break down crying whenever I ask I seem to have to take matters into my own hands." He flicked his wand and a leather satchel came flying over to him as he began muttering spells at it. The process took several minutes and was punctuated by more owls swooping in to drop off more letters. When he finally finished he tapped his wand on the satchel and opened it wide as all the letters streamed into it, cleaning his desk of paper. Another owl flew in and as it dropped its letter it flew straight into the satchel which caused Dumbledore to smile as he sat back down and ran his hands along his clean desk.

"Now that the mail problem is dealt with, at least on my end, would you mind answering a few questions from a curious old man?" And now we get down to the heart of the matter. I tore my eyes away from the horror that awaited me in the inconspicuous satchel and focused on Dumbledore.

"I wouldn't mind answering a few questions if I can."

"Ah, wonderful, I have a list somewhere," he reached down into one of his drawers and drew out a long parchment. "Here it is. I put this little list together after several high ranking officials in the Ministry kept pestering me for answers and I found myself unable to answer them." He cleared his throat and began to read. "I suppose the first one would be why are you teaching Harry Potter?"

I leaned back in my chair as I regarded him. "I feel like we've already been over this before. He asked me to teach him and I said yes. The fact that he is paying me quite well to do so might also have something to do with it."

"Yes, well, it is always a good thing to recap and make sure. That was my question actually but the next was most of the people who talked to me. How did you become so powerful?"

"Training." I said succinctly as I stared him right in his eyes daring him to try to read my mind. He declined.

"Would you be able to expound on that at all?"

"I won't and can't." There was a pause as he began to hum thoughtfully.

"Are you training Harry the same way you were trained?" I tilted my head as I considered the question. Hmm, it might be prudent to say yes just to make it seem like the indirect question was a loophole in a seal that bound me.

"A very watered-down version, yes." His eyes light up as I began to lead him down the route I wanted him to take. Now if only he could cooperate.

"Why are you training him like that?"

"Forgive me, but I'll answer that question with a question of my own. Do you know what a phylactery is?" Time to gamble a bit.

"I'm sorry the term is not familiar to me."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "That's fine. It means a receptacle for a soul that has been torn from a body." He had an excellent poker mask but the slightest hitch in his breath betrayed his knowledge of the subject. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the portion of Harry's skull. I had intended to study it but if I could get Dumbledore on my side then I would consider it a fair trade. Harry's skull piece flew through the air and landed on his desk with a wet plop.

He stared down at the bloody mess on his desk for a moment before comprehension began to dawn and he jolted to his feet with a hardened look on his face as he clutched his death stick. "What have you done to Harry Potter?" His voice was cold and calculating as the grandfatherly figure was ripped away to reveal a battle tested warrior.

"So you did know about Voldemort's soul fragment stuck in Harry's head." I murmured loud enough for him to hear. His only response was to tighten his grip on his wand as his hands turned white. "You'll be pleased to know that I removed, and destroyed, the piece of Voldemort's soul." I paused to let the full import of what I was about to say hit him. "Nearly three weeks ago when I first met Harry."

He blinked and then blinked again as the warrior receded for the moment. "I'm sorry, could you say that again?"

"I removed it from Harry three weeks ago after I became his mentor." My words were like a physical blow and he collapsed into his chair. He didn't look capable of speaking for several moments before he seemed to draw himself together.

"How? How did you do so without killing the boy?"

"Simple really, the soul was stuck between his scar and his skull so I simply removed the portion around it and had him drink a skelegrow potion after the operation. Then it was an even simpler process to acquire the means to destroy the soul fragment. I even let Harry do the honors as I found it poetic that he would destroy that which kept the man who murdered his family alive."

Silence fell between us before it was broken by Dumbledore chuckling. It quickly evolved into full blown belly aching laughter that went on for quite some time before he was able to regain composure of himself. "Mr. Shiro, I have searched tirelessly for 13 long years on any information on how to remove a horcrux from a living container without killing the container to no avail. To hear that it was that simple boggles my mind and shows me that, perhaps, I am getting too old for my many positions if I cannot think outside the box anymore. Ah well," he said dismissively, "if it is not too presumptuous I would ask that you provide your memory of the event."

I had no idea how to do that and I didn't want to reveal that fact. "I'm sorry to say that I can't do that although you are free to ask Harry for his memory regarding the event." He nodded congenially and let it drop.

"I assume your target is Voldemort then?" What the fuck? Where did that idea come from?

I let a confused expression form on my face as my thoughts began to race. "My target? Whatever do you mean?"

"Have you not been ordered to kill Voldemort once and for all?" A perplexed expression formed on his face. How to play this out? I suppose just getting him on my side is good enough for now. That he believes that I'm some sort of assassin after Voldemort's head was, not good, but workable. This is probably what his discussion with Tonks was about so there would be at least one contingency if he disappeared and I wouldn't put it past him to have more that I didn't know about. If he knew Legilimency then he probably knew Occlumency as well so obliviating his suspicions of me probably wouldn't work and I didn't know him well enough to kill and impersonate him.

"I, good sir, am no assassin for hire. I am merely a teacher that takes the protection of my charge quite seriously." I stood abruptly. "If you wish to throw baseless accusations at me I will have to wish you a good day." I had no doubt that such a feeble excuse would hold up to any scrutiny and indeed it would almost certainly confirm his suspicions that my target was indeed Voldemort or that I was indeed an assassin. While the development was outside my expectations it was not an unworkable one although I had to wonder how he had cottoned onto the fact that I was indeed an assassin, amongst other things.

I turned and promptly started walking out of his office but his voice stopped me. "I do believe you are forgetting something." I turned slightly and caught the leather satchel that was floating towards me. "There are, after all, quite a few letters that it would behoove you to respond to and a great deal more that you need to respond to if you want to avoid complications down the road."

I started to cry mentally. Dumbledore really is the devil if he could dump so much paperwork onto someone else with such a cheerful expression on his face. I was hoping that he would forget if I stormed out of his office. "Fawkes," I said suddenly, startling him. "Would you like to come and try to cheer me up as I work through the evil that is paperwork?"

Would there be berries if I go with you?

"Yes, there would be." He launched himself from his perch and gracefully landed on my shoulder. Faster pet human. I demand my weight in berries. Ha, take that old man. You might have fostered the greatest evil ever known onto my shoulders but I'm taking your phoenix. Now if only I could get him to stop calling me a pet. "What kind of berries would you like?" I asked as I closed the door behind me, catching one last glance at Dumbledore's befuddled expression. There's more than one kind!?

Several hours later found Fawkes and I sitting at a low table. Every now and then Fawkes would sample one of the many different kinds of berries laid out in neat rows as he warbled a happy tune. I, on the other hand, was surrounded by letters and I had just politely refused a marriage that would have seen the girl, all of 12 years old, no better than my sex slave. All I had to do was name my firstborn son as heir of their family line and allow him to be raised with their family values which probably meant that he would be taken from me on some pretense. I finished enclosing the refusal in an envelope as 6 more owls swooped in and dropped off even more letters. Almost absently I burned the red one before it could start yelling at me.

'Perhaps if I made a clone and henged it into a girl I could announce that she was my fiancée and stop all these stupid marriage proposals.' I almost slapped myself as the thought came into my head. The idea of clone sex had long been spoken in hushed whispers amongst the ninja community. It was always introduced as merely having heard about it from a friend of a friend's brother's cousin's thrice removed weird uncle, otherwise known as Jiraiya, but the question remained the same. Was it masturbation or sex if a clone of yourself was involved?

I looked up as the door to my lair opened and Tonks and Harry walked in. "Hey Shiro, I got your note… Bloody hell are you alright?"

"What?"

He frantically gestured at my face. "You're crying tears of blood mate."

I conjured a handkerchief and dabbed at my cheeks before vanishing the mess. "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." I said solemnly as I pulled another letter towards me. I absently dabbed at my cheeks again as I began to read it.

They stood there in stunned silence for a moment before Harry spoke. "Are you crying tears of blood because you're doing paperwork?" The was a note of incredulousness in his voice. The poor naïve fool. One day he would understand and on that day I would laugh and laugh at his misery.

"Yes," I said solemnly once more. "The battle against the root of all that is evil in the world is an endless one. I would rather face another dragon than continue doing this for one more second but, alas, I must." I had to do it personally as well. Any clone I summoned took one look at the mounds of paper and dispelled itself. Curse my subconscious mind.

I felt the tenseness that had been coiled within Tonks' energy ever since she had visited Dumbledore's office last night loosen slightly as she let out something between a giggle and a snort. "Have you seen the headlines about you yet?" I set aside the letter for a moment as I regarded her.

"No," I said slowly. "What are they saying about me?"

"See for yourself." She tossed a rolled up newspaper my way which I caught easily enough and unfolded it to see the sight of the dragon cowering beneath me as what looked like flames flickered around me. They had even given me the title of the Azure Warrior and I quickly scanned the rest of the article before setting it aside for the moment. Thankfully the tone of the article had been rather neutral, leaning towards positive, all things considered as it hadn't condemned me as some sort of Dark Lord come to enslave everyone but rather a teacher defending his charge. It might have had a mention or two of those measures being excessive but nothing too horrendous.

I came out of my thoughts and quickly leaned across the desk to catch Harry's arm before he could touch a letter. "I wouldn't do that if I was you. That one has a nasty compulsion on it to open it and then some sort of cutting curse. I can only assume that when your blood spills on the page it puts some sort of contract into effect." He jerked his hand back and I caught Tonks eyeing the rather large stack of unopened letters that all contained some sort of curse or poison. I would have to look into getting Harry some way to either resist or detect mind altering magic so he could break out of it. That's twice now that I've had to do it for him.

"Are all those letters like that?" Harry asked as a combination of guilt, shame and worry shone through his eyes. I would have snorted that he thought he was responsible for someone deliberately trying to kill him and for me having to interfere but it was nice to have someone care. That and I think it would have horribly hurt his feelings if I laughed at him. He already looked like a miserable puppy that was just kicked for God sake.

"Just some. Most of them are marriage contracts, betrothals, vaguely threatening letters, invitations to events and official forms from the Ministry. There was even one from the dragon handlers saying that I should be ashamed of hurting the poor little dragon's feelings after it tried to eat you." There was a weak round of chuckles as I reached down and pulled out a large envelope that I was saving for Harry. "There were also these." I tossed the envelope towards Harry who caught it as he gave me a questioning look but I just motioned for him to open it.

He did so and it was glorious seeming the way he froze solid and all the blood in his body rushed towards his face. Tonks even stopped her diagnostics on the cursed letters as she noticed him and ambled over to see what he was looking at. As soon as she did she let out a low whistle which made Harry jerk as though he was electrocuted. "She's certainly a flexible witch. Both legs behind her head and is that thing supposed to be a dildo? Damn, that thing is massive and," her eyebrows nearly rose to her hairline, "that's a bloody impressive control over her gag reflex. That thing must be touching her stomach."

Harry had finally overcome his paralysis and quickly shoved the photo back into the envelope and closed it tightly. I noted that he kept it rather close to his chest and didn't throw it away though. "W-Why would you give me something like this?" He sputtered out as I grinned at him.

"Isn't this the thing every teenage boy wants?" I asked in a faux innocent voice as I waggled my eyebrows at him.

"N-No! I mean," he stuttered and tried to defend himself as Tonks gave him a knowing look with a wry smile on her face. "Excuse me, I have to go do something very important now." The last part was said in a rush, almost a babble really, as he ran out of the room still clutching the envelope. As the door slammed shut behind him Tonks turned to me with a quirked eyebrow.

"I'm not really sure how to feel about what just happened. On one hand I want to congratulate you on the prank, brilliant job by the way, and on the other hand you just gave a teenager pictures of naked witches."

"I did," I admitted freely. "But he could have thrown them away or given them back to me." Sorry Harry. I hope my gift doesn't get you in a lot of trouble.

She pursed her lips as she seemed to think about it. In the end she just gave an ambivalent shrug. "Just don't do it again and we won't have a problem."

I had no problem agreeing to that and nodded as I decided to switch the topic. "I wanted to say how sorry I am about what happened yesterday." She turned away slightly but I could tell she was listening closely. "When the chain holding the dragon back broke I knew I needed to do something and the only thing I could think of that would work was to gain its attention fast." I gave her a wry smile to which she didn't react to. "I have to keep a tight grip on my power usually just so I can be near other people but I didn't want the incident of yesterday fester between us so, once again, I apologize."

Her energy unwound even further as she slowly nodded. "It's okay. You did what you had to in order to save Harry." As she finished speaking I couldn't help but pity her and Harry slightly. They were like tiny minnows that were stuck in between the three large fish that circled them. While I didn't know exactly what Dumbledore told her up in his office yesterday I had certainly felt her fear as he had flared his power. Then there was the third party who kept trying to kill Harry. I was relatively certain that it was Voldemort, or at least one of his agents.

"That's great. I'd hate to lose a friend over that." I smiled at her and while she did smile back it still contained a hint of caution. "Now, since you are an officer of the law I feel I should mention two things. First of all, would you be so kind as to take the letters that are cursed to your department and try to find out who sent them? The one on the bottom would have skinned me alive and I would like to see the person who sent such a thing behind bars."

Her expression hardened at that. "I'll make sure that the letters get sent to the DMLE." She paused as another large batch of owls flew into the room and dropped off more letters. I couldn't hide the slumping of my shoulders and her snicker at my depression was not appreciated. "What was the second thing?"

"Oh, right." I straightened up and looked her in the eye. "Since you're Harry's guard for the duration of the tournament I should mention that I checked the chain that was supposed to hold the dragon. It was tampered with, but you already knew that didn't you? I assume Dumbledore told you?" She didn't bother denying it but there was a curious expression in her eyes that I couldn't place.

"Hmm, thanks for confirming it. So, do you want any help with all this?" She indicated the ever growing piles of letters. I think I felt actual tears form as I looked at an angel given form.

"Angels weep in shame for not being as kind and generous as you." Fawkes burst into song and I saw the tiny smile on her face as she sat down opposite from me. Several long, torturous hours later we had made a sizable dent in the paperwork and the inflow of letters had tapered off slightly. Strangely enough, when we finally met up with Harry he wouldn't look either of us in the eye but I didn't bother teasing him about it. Maybe later.

The dining hall fell silent as we entered and I could see the eyes of everyone upon me. I cleared my throat and took a small step forward. "I would like to apologize to everyone that was effected when I flared my power yesterday. I could see no other way to protect my student and you were the ones that paid the price for my actions. I sincerely hope that no one was injured and ask that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for my actions." I gave a deep bow to the room and held it until I heard the first hints of murmurs before I straightened. With that done I took my customary place on Gryffindor table and the murmuring grew louder but I appeared to ignore it. For the most part it was positive but I noticed that everyone was giving me a good amount of space.

Other than that, the rest of dinner was uneventful although a rather comely seventh year Ravenclaw performed some sort of switching spell with my mash potatoes and some sort of potion. It smelled of cherry blossoms and for some reason it reminded me of Hina. After a moment it came to me. It was the scent of the perfume that Hina wore on our first "date" after the Chunin Exams. Hmm, curious.

I also made an individual apology to Hermione later that night and Madam Maxime tracked me down to repeat her offer to teach at Beauxbaton to which I had deferred making a choice until at least the TriWizard tournament was over with. Oh, I also gained a semi stalker in the form of one Fleur Delacour but other than that everything seems to be turning out okay. It could be better but I'd take what I was given as it could have been a lot worse. Time would tell if what I had done was truly a bad thing or not I suppose.

Age: 10 years - 4 months

Title: Root Shinobi, Son of a Kage

LVL: 31 - 5% to next LVL

HP: 1,760/1,760

Chakra: 98,192/98,192

Elemental Affinity: Water, Earth

Bloodline: Crystal Release

STR: 180(234)

VIT: 176

END: 168

DEX: 190(209)

INT: 202(216)

WIS: 155(165)

LCK: 50

Points: 18

Money: 921,402 ryo/ 15,276 galleons