Title: 1970 Somethin'
Chapter: 04 – What Am I Gonna Do with You
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 9,320
Notes: Written for Unconventional Courtship 2023 and based on the summary of the Mills & Boon book The Ninefold Key by Rebecca Brandewyne. Title comes from Mark Wills' song 19' Something. Disclaimer: I don't own either Harry Potter or Naruto. I just play with them. Part 4 of ?
Summary: Regulus Black is going into his 5th year at Hogwarts. Quidditch Captain. Prefect. Literally the guy of Ino's dreams. Dumbledore is more interested in Elvis than fighting the war looming on Wizarding Britain's horizon. Voldemort's still handsome but Farrah Fawcett's hair is, like, way better.
Regulus doesn't disagree but he really wishes Ino hadn't felt the need to say that to The Dark Lord's face.
And no, no he's not quite sure how they got to this point either.
It's 1970 somethin'.
"Thanks for abandoning me, Pig," Sakura says, when Ino wanders into her room without, like, even knocking.
Sakura tries to work up aggravation about that but, no, she's literally living with Ino and her father these days, so she's used to this.
At least, with just Ino around, she can talk in Japanese and not have to constantly stress about if she's using the right words or pronouncing them correctly.
"You abandoned Hinata and Tenten too," Ino says. "And me, for that matter, since I was left alone with Potter-san after we left you."
Sakura has no good response for that, so she just studies the way that Ino is still dressed up, pretty as a picture (quite literally, since they'd had a photoshoot done that morning) and heaves a dismal sigh.
"We can't change yet?" she asks, knowing it comes out sounding plaintive.
"No," Ino says. "I think it's better that we play the exotic foreign ladies for dinner tonight and then, tomorrow, move into how we're going to present in our day-to-day."
"I guess so," Sakura says, feeling a little sulky for all that she's going to do as she's told.
Ino's been good at not rubbing it in their faces that she's the one in charge but, like, the fact remains that she's the one in charge.
"It'll be fun," Ino says, laughing. "Don't start sulking now. You've done great."
"Potter-kun keeps staring at me when he thinks I'm not looking," Sakura complains.
"It's probably the hair," Ino says. "They don't have pink hair here, not naturally. Daddy said it was something to do with how magic presents differently in different places."
Sakura grimaces.
"I guess he's better mannered than Kiba," she says, "but I can only imagine the questions he's got if that's throwing him off."
"If he says something gross, hit him," Ino advises. "Gently, since he's a civilian, and you don't want to cause serious harm to him–civilians take that poorly–but hit him and I'll back you up. Proclaim that his question was an incredible slight against our culture, how dare he, and so on and so forth."
Despite herself, Sakura laughs. When she goes to hug Ino, Ino leans into the embrace.
"You're ridiculous," she says.
"I know," Ino replies smugly, tucking an errant strand of Sakura's hair back into place.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Sakura asks. "You didn't come just to hang out, did you?"
Not that she'd mind, really, if Ino had, but–
"Nah," Ino says. "I'm calling a preliminary meeting in my rooms tonight after supper, but I thought you might want to know where the nearest bathroom was before that."
"Boring," Sakura says, "but practical and necessary. Guide me, o wise one, and do the other girls know?"
"Tenten does," Ino says. "And she said she'd let Hinata know. I figured I'd come see you after the desperate way you tried to murder me with your gaze while Potter-san was here."
"You were no help at all," Sakura grouses. "But I will concede that showing me where the bathroom is will help make up for that."
"Come on," Ino says, and they venture out into the hallway.
They don't see anyone else in the short trip to the bathroom–which is as lovely and well appointed as anything Sakura could wish for–but the paintings on the wall, on the way back, do catch her eyes.
"They're moving," she says, delighted. "Imagine that! Magic to make pictures move!"
"Pretty," Ino agrees as they watch a few birds fly around a willow, whose branches sway in a wind magic created.
"I wonder how they do it," Sakura says, as they head back to her room without really discussing the matter. "I can't think of a jutsu that would be able to make that a permanent effect. Anything I'd do would be just an illusion and temporary, at best."
"Maybe it's like sealing?" Ino wonders. "Where you mix your blood and the ink to make it? I wonder what the back of the painting looks like?"
They both stop and look at the closest one. It's a cheerful thing, with puffy white clouds and a rainbow over what Sakura thinks is a lighthouse by a coast.
"It's framed," Sakura says meditatively. "We'd have to figure out how to take it out of it's frame and put it back before Potter-san or someone else came looking for us."
Ino looks as tempted as Sakura feels but, regret scrawling across her face, she shakes her head.
"Later," Ino decides. "Later. Maybe this weekend? Once they've had a few days to get used to us? We don't want to ruin the painting or get in trouble right now. Besides, we're dressed too nicely to be prying things from frames."
"Unless we had to," Sakura says, and after a wistful glance at the painting, looks at Ino.
They both burst out laughing.
"Come on," Ino says, once they've stopped giggling. "We'll go and get freshened up for supper. Make sure the others are ready too."
"You want to go down as a group?" Sakura asks.
"Well," Ino says, grinning. "It's a big place. We could get lost. And then just think of the kind of trouble we'd get up to."
Sakura wants to argue that, she really does, but they did just about give into the urge to vandalize a painting to see how it was done.
"Oh, fine," she says, "but we should all get ready together too. Do you remember where the other girls' rooms are?"
Ino does, so they go and find them.
Hinata has mostly unpacked–which Sakura hasn't even started, a fact she refuses to feel guilty for as Potter-san was a lot and she'd needed the time to recover–and comes along with them willingly.
It turns out to be a good thing that they've gone looking for Tenten, since they enter her room to find her standing on her window sill, peering upwards.
"Thinking about exploring?" Ino asks, and Tenten grins at them unrepentantly.
"I like rooftops," Tenten says. "And I thought it'd be a good way to get an idea of where we could train. We'll be able to see the grounds from the roof."
"Good thought," Ino agrees. "Definitely something we'll have to do later, though, since dinner's soon and we all need a few touch ups."
Tenten sighs as dismally as Sakura had at the news they're not allowed to change out of their finery yet.
"If you say so," she says, and hops off the window sill, into the room.
"Besides," Ino says, "it'll be more fun to do it as a team later. Team meeting after supper and we'll create a list of things we need to do."
"I still definitely want to take apart one of the paintings," Sakura says. "I want to see how they're spelled to move."
Hinata's laugh is quiet and startled. "You want to do what?"
Dinner starts off poorly.
It's not just Sakura's own pessimism speaking, either.
Tenten takes the seat next to Effie Potter, being the one most capable (and willing) of laughing off her over-powering excitement. Sakura wishes her the best with that and hopes no one expects her to spend time alone with Effie Potter anytime soon.
It's almost too much mothering.
Ino takes a seat next to Orion Black, who smiles thinly at her, and Sakura thinks Ino's crazy for beaming back at him.
That smile had had, like, a threat in it. She is sure of it.
She and Hinata wind up sitting next to Potter, the younger one, and Orion Black's–son?
It's got to be his son. They look so much alike. But I also don't think they've exchanged so much as a single nod in the time we've been here.
Sirius Black seems okay enough, he's patient while Hinata struggles against her anxiety of picking out the wrong word to use, and for that alone Sakura would like him.
Potter, the younger, on the other hand…
"I have to ask," he says, leaning over and smiling at her with what he clearly feels is a winning sort of smile. "Is your hair colour natural?"
"James!" Effie Potter exclaims. "We talked about this!"
"Mate, seriously..."
She hears the sound of Ino's muffled laughter and takes comfort in the fact that, should she give into the urge to dump the nearest tureen of soup on him, Ino will probably make it right.
She told me to punch him, after all. Soup's nicer than that!
Sakura ignores the fact that the burns would, in fact, not be nicer at all.
Well, nothing says she can't sass back. They can't fail her as an ambassador for sassing to rude questions, can they?
"Yes," Sakura says, then narrows her eyes at him. "Is yours?"
Ino's laugh that time isn't muffled at all.
Weirdly, though, Potter-kun looks startled and then delighted.
"I think so," he says, with a glance at his dad, who so far is just smiling indulgently. "I mean, it's kind of obvious where I got it from, don't you think?"
"It could be a curse," Tenten says, all wide brown eyes and wickedness in her smile.
Effie Potter makes a despairing sort of noise.
"Curses," she says, "are not appropriate for the dinner table."
"A curse, huh," Potter-kun says. "You know, I've never thought about it."
"I mean, like, you and your father do have hair that's practically identical to the strand," Sakura points out. "I really don't think you have any room to go around asking questions about how natural my hair is."
Orion Black leans over to Ino and murmurs something Sakura can't hear.
Ino laughs, again, and again, Sakura doesn't understand it.
Orion Black looks like he's a perfectly soulless, empty husk of a man. How on earth could he have a sense of humour?
"Could it be a curse?" Potter-kun asks his dad.
"It was terrible," Sakura insists and Hinata bites back a smile as Ino doesn't bother.
"I think he likes you," Tenten says. "Isn't that a good thing, though? And you held the whole conversation in English! Mom will be so proud of you! I'm totally writing her as soon as our meeting's over!"
Sakura flushes. "He was rude for starting the conversation in the first place!"
"I think the only one that really lost out was Effie Potter," Ino says. "The curse talk was fascinating and I can't wait to see what Fleamont Potter digs out of his family's history. Did you have fun talking with Mr. Black's son, Hinata?"
"Y-Yes," Hinata says, though she's not really sure how to feel about it.
He'd been nice.
He'd also been the kind of nice that reminded her of when Neji-ni-san had been polite because her father had been watching. The kind of nice that has teeth.
"A-Ano, I would like to think about it," she says, "before I decide if it was a good thing or not, talking to him. I… I think he has many problems, but I don't… I don't know if they matter, when it comes to us. He was polite, and he was patient, and he had excellent manners."
What else that meant for him, she's not sure yet. He'd been good to sit at a table with, when all of them were around.
But I got the feeling he was angry about something, deeply, and the air between him and his father was very, very cold.
"Alright," Ino says easily. "We can note that down. Sirius Black has excellent manners when under supervision of the parentals. It's a question mark for how he'll be without them. James Potter has some incredible foot-in-mouth disease but I have to agree with Tenten, I think he genuinely might want to be friends."
"I think he's just clumsy," Tenten says. "And not used to actually having to put forth effort. He's got that air, you know, of a spoiled child? Luckily, so far, he seems like he's a good-hearted spoiled child so while he's rude and awkward, he doesn't seem bad. We can probably whip him into shape."
"I agree with that," Hinata says, over Sakura's outraged protests that he was a terrible person and rude. "He felt… genuine. A disaster at tact, but he meant the things he said."
"That was my read on him too," Ino admits. "Good. I'm glad all of us except Sakura are in harmony about one of them at least. Okay, this, here, is my rooms."
Ino opens the door and Tenten whistles.
"Wow," she says, "you hit the jackpot. Effie Potter really likes you."
"It's for work," Ino says, with a flick of her long, long hair.
"It is really nice, though," Sakura says, immediately flopping down on one of the couches.
Hinata goes to look at the bookshelves and the curios on them interestedly. Ino has already plopped what she recognizes as the binder they'd worked through before coming here on the desk. She's not sure why Ino has brought that, but doesn't bother to ask.
"I like it," Tenten says. "I'm jealous, I think, except I don't want your job."
"I like my job," Ino says.
"Mr. Black looked like he was going to murder all of us by the end of the main course," Sakura says. "How can you possibly like him?"
"I like him," Ino says calmly. "He's funny."
"You're funny for thinking that of him," Sakura says, and Hinata quietly agrees.
Orion Black's manners had been as impeccable as his son's, but he'd reminded her of her father and Hinata tries, and fails, to imagine someone finding her father funny.
And not just because it's socially polite to pretend he is. Now that, that I would understand...
Ino just shrugs, though, and doesn't explain why she thinks he's funny or why she likes him.
"I think Effie Potter's great," Tenten says. "Now she's hilarious. I thought she was going to die of sheer happiness when I called her 'mom'."
"She's so much," Sakura says.
"I... I have to agree," Hinata admits. "I like her, but she is rather... overwhelming, in her kindnesses and her excitement. Her husband is much more... sedate and approachable, comparatively."
Fleamont Potter still had his own enthusiasm to him, which was good as, had he not, that would have been disconcerting in a completely different way, but he wasn't so... even in her thoughts, Hinata trails off there, not sure how to put Effie Potter's presence and her reaction to them.
Like we're the answer to something she's wished and dreamed for. Something she's wanted more than anything for a very long time.
It's not hard to put together the pieces from there, unfortunately. Both of the Potter-sans appear to be quite a bit older than Black-san, who has a son their age. Hinata suspects that one of the reasons Potter-kun comes off as spoiled is that he has been, by parents who wanted more children and never got them.
And now... here we are, seeming like an answer to everything she's ever wanted.
There's really no wonder why she would be so excited, if that's the case, but it doesn't make it easier to handle.
I don't know the others as well as Ino and Sakura know each other, but I do know that of us, only Tenten has a good relationship with a living mother. Which is... likely why she's the most capable of dealing with it. She's secure in not being someone's replacement. There's already a place for her.
Hinata ignores the stab of envy at that thought with the ease of long practice. It's not her fault nor is it Tenten's fault.
And, perhaps, with time, I shall get accustomed to being in Effie Potter's presence...
She's done harder things, after all, and part of coming on this trip had been to challenge herself.
"Okay!" Ino says, waving a blank scroll around. Her eyes are bright and gleeful. "Gather around and we'll make a list of things we want to look into!"
"The paintings," Sakura says immediately.
"A training area," Tenten adds.
They all look at her.
Hinata flushes a little. "S-Some place to swim, perhaps?"
"I like it," Ino says, "and we can prance about in our prettiest bathing suits and have guys drool over us."
Ino writes these things down, even while Tenten laughs and Sakura splutters about having nothing to parade around and Hinata finds she's smiling, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.
Two days later, and having four girls around is... is weird, James decides. It's not that they're gross or anything-they're all fine looking birds and seem to be obsessed with picking up after themselves-but there's a different air in his house, and he seems to be the only one struggling with it.
Mum's thrown herself into adoring them-which, James can't help but notice, only one of the girls seems to be actually comfortable with-while he keeps finding Dad engrossed in the oddest of conversations with them at the strangest times (did Ino and Hinata really want to talk about basic economics at five in the morning? why? and why was Dad even up at that time to talk to them anyway? he'd just been stumbling off to take a piss; what had been his dad's excuse?) and Sirius seems to have fun teasing them.
And then there's me, who can't seem to wrap my head around their existence, James thinks, feeling like he's being a prat and yet also not sure what to do about his feelings. What's wrong with me?
He doesn't think he's jealous of his mum paying attention to them and not to him. He's used to that, with Sirius...
"What are you looking at?" Sakura demands and James blinks out of his thoughts to find that, somehow, while he'd been brooding, she'd managed to get the drop on him.
It's so creepy the way they all walk around without making any noise, unless they feel like it, and then they sound like a herd of hippogriffs.
"Not at you," he says, and it's rude, but she was rude first and he takes pleasure in the way her grass-green eyes narrow at him.
"Hmph," she says, and stomps by him.
Because he's got nothing better to do, James follows her.
"Stop that," she snaps.
"No," he says, "it's my house. I'm just walking. I'm not doing a-n-y-th-ing to you."
She mutters something uncomplimentary, he's sure, in Japanese, and James just grins, tucks his hands into his robe pockets, and marvels at the way he feels better already. Getting on her nerves is, apparently, the antidote to a bad day.
"Where are you going?" he asks. "What are you doing?"
"Why do you care?" she tosses over her shoulder.
They seem to be heading outside, which James is fine with. It's a brilliant summer day, going outside sounds like fun.
"Because I'm bored," he says, as she leads the way down a flight of stairs. "Bored and getting on my own nerves."
He blinks. He hadn't actually mean to be that honest with her but, well, he supposes that the honesty doesn't hurt anyone there, not even himself.
She stops, turns, and looks at him. She's already short but, with them being several stairs apart, she looks positively tiny and James grins at the juxtaposition between that and the impressive glower he's getting from her.
Imagine that! Pink hair and nothing but frowns! If I had pink hair, I'd be a total clown! It would be the only thing to do.
"You're using me for your entertainment?" she questions. Her English isn't terrible, though sometimes it sounds funny. Accents are weird things.
"Well," James says, thinking quickly because he doesn't actually want her mad enough to leave him to his own devices. "Yes, sort of, but.. I mean, I don't think you've seen the pond yet? Would you like to? There's a lot of flowers around there, wild ones."
He has no idea what he's saying or why and has the horrible, awful feeling that he might sound, almost, like he's-no, no, he's just trying to be a good host. It's not his fault that he's had fantasies of showing Lily around the pond and saying embarrassing and trite shite like 'you shine like the moon over water', because it's pretty enough and she and her girls are always hanging out around the water at school so James has always just... sort of figured that pretty birds liked water.
James is, at least, smart enough to keep that observation to himself.
"Alright," Sakura says. "But if you do anything annoying, I'm throwing you in the pond."
James is also smart enough to not question how on earth Sakura thinks she's going to manage that when he's got to have, what, at least three stone on her in weight?
"I'll try not to deserve it," he says. "I make no promises though. I've been informed my mouth lacks a filter."
As if despite herself, she gives him a grudging sort of smile, and turns to start going back down the stairs again.
"At least you know that," she says, and he follows her, grinning a bit at the world's tiniest victory. "It could be worse."
"Dad says 'may you live in interesting times' is a curse all by itself," James says.
"What, like your hair?" Sakura replies.
James sniffs. "We have not yet proven that my hair is the result of the curse so, while it's delightful hair, I'll ask you to leave it out of this conversation, Miss Naturally Pink."
"I am naturally pink," Sakura grumbles. "I don't understand why this is so hard for you to accept."
"It's different," James says. "And not in the 'magic did it' kind of way. Sirius said you were a muggleborn, right?"
They head outside, into the bright sunlight, and he blinks a little as his eyes adjust. It's not that it's dark inside but it's different.
"That's the one where no one's had magic in the family before, right?" Sakura says. "We had questions about those classifications."
James is almost relieved that she's brought up something that is kind of normal to ask about.
He has no idea what the classifications in Japan are, sure, but he does know how to answer the questions Muggleborns have when they enter the magical world and start their first year of Hogwarts.
"I can try and answer some of those questions?" he offers, half expecting her to laugh at him, but she doesn't.
Instead, she gestures for him to take the lead and, after a half-second of confusion–right, right, he needs to lead the way to the pond, he's got this-he does so, hoping she hadn't noticed and guessing she probably had.
They all have sharp eyes, these weird girls from Japan. Even the pureblood ones–Ino, who from her laugh is as bubblebrained as any Quidditch groupie, and Hinata, with her shy stammer and the way she looks away from people all the time.
"I guess so," Sakura says, and though she doesn't sound enthused about his offer–and that pricks at his feelings–she doesn't reject it.
On the balance of things, James decides to accept that as… as close to a vote of confidence as he's going to get from her. For now.
"So," she says, "our understanding is that Muggleborns are new to the world of magic, half-bloods have at least one parent with magic, and purebloods have both parents with magic."
James nods along. "That's right so far," he says encouragingly.
It's only after he says it, and her eyes narrow, that he wonders if it came out condescendingly.
He does his best to radiate sincerity and reflects that not being a prat is hard work and seems to involve a lot of hanging on tenterhooks and waiting for the grindylow to bite.
"Okay," Sakura says, after a moment. "But we don't understand why this is important to know. It was one of the first questions we had to answer when we were doing our applications, but we haven't really figured out the why of… what does it mean?"
James frowns.
He… he's not sure how to answer that. It's a complicated sort of thing. One of those where you just grow up understanding it, and knowing everyone else understands it and…
Yeah.
"How are things classified in your country?" he asks, wondering if that's where the confusion comes from.
Sakura hums a little, thoughtfully, and he turns off the well-worn garden paths (his mother loves her gardens) and heads towards the woods.
It's a bit of a walk, but he's not going to ask her if she's up for it.
He's not quite that stupid and girls, in his limited experience, loathe and despise when someone asks if they're capable of doing something.
"I'm a first generation," Sakura says, under the dappled sunlight of the trees. "Tenten's family has had ninja in it before, but not consistently, so they're just… they're just normal, I think? She's expected to know what's going on but she doesn't have the…"
Sakura trails off there, then shakes her head.
"Ino and Hinata's families are really old. I'm not sure how old, but both of them were around for the founding of our village and were well established even then. What matters more than blood is… the length of our histories. The power of our family. I'm the start of a new family, a new story, while Ino's writing another page in her family's book. If that… if that makes sense?"
James thinks about that.
It's the most civil they've been with one another so far, so he's determined to give it a go and not make a fool of himself.
And he kind of likes that, the way she'd put it, that she's the start of a new book, while her friends are writing pages further in their own family books.
"What happens if in… in Ino's family, no one was a ninja for a generation? If no one had magic?"
Sakura considers him and the question with wide, startled eyes.
"That's not very likely," she says, though she makes no move to elaborate on why that wouldn't be possible. "But, I don't think… it wouldn't be the end of the Clan. All that history would still be there, just waiting. Waiting for the next capable heir to come by and pick it up and go out and do the work their families are known for."
"I think," James says hesitantly, wishing he had something more than pocket lint to fidget with but not willing to pull his wand and conjure something just for the purpose of fidgeting. "I think that… that might be a difference, right there? For us, it's all about the blood, but for you… it sounds like the family name matters more than the blood."
"Blood's important to us too," Sakura says, looking frustrated. "But… but no one cares, really, about the length of our stories. It matters for tradition and skills and the old families won't marry into each other ever to keep the bloodlines from mixing–"
"Wait," he says, "your purebloods don't intermarry?"
Sakura blinks at him, confusion writ large in her grass green eyes.
"No," she says. "It would be terrible."
"Why would it be terrible?" he asks. "Our pureblood families intermarry all the time. It's basically the done thing, the expected thing. If you're pureblood… like is expected to marry like."
"That's very different," Sakura says, looking a bit revolted.
James tries not to let it bother him too much. He's never been one to tout the pureblood superiority angle for basically anything but her expression is scalding.
He stomps on his temper.
"Why?" he asks. "Because it's different from what you do?"
She looks as frustrated as he feels.
"Because then the bloodlines aren't pure," she says. "If Hinata and Ino's families married, you wouldn't have a pure Yamanaka or a pure Hyuuga when they had kids. You'd have some sort of half-breed."
James nearly walks into a tree.
Okay, shut up, he does and as he clambers to his feet, clutching his glasses, he tries to decide the last time he's been so horrified.
"A half-breed?" he says, his voice coming out in an embarrassing sort of squeak. "Some sort of mongrel?"
Sakura looks startled.
"I–I don't know that word," she says, then studies him. "You're angry."
"Yes, I'm angry!" James snaps. "You don't go around calling people half-breeds like they're some sort of animal!"
She recoils slightly, but not like she's scared of him-which, well, good because he'd feel even more like a piece of shite than he does already as it slowly sinks in what she'd said-
I don't know what word.
"I did not talk about animals," she says, very carefully. "We were talking about family. Blood."
James spins around, away from her.
There's got to be quiet rituals or something of enormously successful people. A book or something. It'd be a pain in the arse to read it with everyone around but, fuck, I cannot do this.
"Don't," he says carefully, "use the word breeding, half-breed, or anything like that when it comes to speaking about people. It takes away their... personhood."
"What?" Sakura asks and he's glad that she's mostly sounding confused.
He mostly feels like he's winded from trying to not lose his shite on her, at least no more than he did already.
I need to get out of here. I am the very worst person to have this conversation with. I don't know anything about anything.
Even in his own head, that's hyperbole, but he revels in it for the moment, drowns himself in it, because what the fuck.
Who thought it was a good idea for him to have a go at this conversation?
Oh, right, that was him.
Fuck, he's a moron.
"Breeding," he says, then trails off there, because he makes the mistake of looking at her and she's so confused and he's just trying to gather the scraps of his composure back enough to masquerade as a sensible, calm human being.
Bizarrely, they're almost at the pond and he's grateful for that, too, because it'll be something other than this conversation to deal with. Flowers. He'd rather talk about flowers. This is what the day has come down to.
James shakes his head. "Breeding," he repeats. "Animals breed. People, well, people do but it's not the right word for it. Saying a person breeds is to demean them. Calling someone a half-breed is... is it makes them no longer human."
From the way Sakura stares at him, she doesn't understand him at all.
It's nice to know that boys are absolutely another species entirely whether they're home in Konoha or halfway across the world.
Sakura eyeballs Potter-kun's back as he walks, still trying to explain something to her that she doesn't understand, and while she admires the bulldogged determination to get her to follow what he's saying, the fact remains that-
I don't understand half the words he's using now.
But he's angry and she hadn't been trying to do that, so she keeps her mouth shut, her eyes wide, like she's listening to him, and tries to decide how to let him know that his talk of all of this is going, quite literally, over her head.
If I say the wrong word, though, I feel like it'd start a war.
Sakura sighs.
She's going to need to get Ino or Tenten to fully parse this conversation for her afterwards so she tries to listen enough to be able to repeat what he'd said for her friends later. She doesn't need to understand something to repeat it.
I thought it would be easy enough to understand. I've been able to follow the conversations at meals with only a little effort and we were almost having a real talk, back there, before...
"Potter," she says, when he takes a breath. "I'm sorry."
Sorry more for starting the conversation when she doesn't have the skills to finish it, sure, but the sorry is genuine enough.
But I really don't see the difference between half-blood and half-breed... or why the word breeding seems to set him off so badly...
What had caused Potter-kun to go up in flames about monsters (how? they hadn't been talking about monsters?) and humanity (what did who your parents were have to do with that?) so... Sakura, knowing they're on a mission, knowing that they need to keep the peace, knowing that this family is basically theirs for the next year...
She apologizes.
Potter-kun turns and stares at her, some of the fight draining out of him. She kind of hates that he's handsome, in a dweeby sort of way-it's the glasses, they're terrible-because she's used to handsome men being cool and Potter-kun is not cool at all.
"Well," he says, "I... thank you. I'm sorry too. For getting so mad."
"So then," Hinata says, "it would be like... this..."
Ino pulls her attention away from where Sakura and Potter-kun are doing... their weird whatever it is they're doing and focuses on the way Potter-san and Hinata are doing a puzzle.
"Yes," Fleamont Potter says, "I think that's the right piece. Here, this one looks like it'll go with that one there."
It's kind of fascinating, watching the puzzle be built, because the individual pieces all have movement within them, but Ino's mostly here because Hinata had asked her to be close in case the conversation went somewhere that her shaky English couldn't follow.
So, while Hinata is focused, Ino is lounging on a couch, with a book she's not really reading (though it's an interesting murder mystery; she hasn't figured out how the murder was done yet and suspects the story hinges on the way they use magic here and spells she doesn't know) and mentally checking in on everyone.
Sakura's thing with Potter-kun is the most interesting thing going on this afternoon. Black-kun is busy in his room, writing letters to someone he calls 'Moony' and there's an air of desperation to his thoughts that Ino finds very curious. It's mostly out of respect to Black-san that Ino hasn't pried into that. Much.
Tenten is with Effie Potter, down in the kitchens, learning how to bake biscuits, which is what they call cookies here.
Ino had been invited but... well, as much as she teases Sakura about her unease around Effie Potter, Ino isn't all that much more comfortable with it and Hinata had provided her with an easy excuse.
And it's not like I'm doing nothing, just wasting my days back-to-back or anything like that. I've got that dinner tonight, at the Ministry, and none of the others have to go to that.
In fact, Ino looks at the time, and realizes-
"I need to start getting ready for tonight," she says. "If anyone's looking for me, I'll be in my room."
"Yes, thank you for joining us," Hinata says, smiling at her.
"Anytime," Ino says, and with a bow to Fleamont Potter, who is, as always, vaguely bemused at the action, she slips out of the room.
It's only once she's out into the hallway that she sighs a little. It's weird, having to always be 'on' and never fully relaxing, especially when she's the only one who knows the full scope of the mission.
Not that I expect things to go sideways while we're here, at the Potter's place, but all the same... better to be safe than sorry and there's the matter of the guys...
She hadn't expected both Potter-kun and Black-kun to have such fascinating minds. Or to be hiding an attempted murder.
Ino has resisted the urge to go deep-diving through Black-kun's mind but Potter-kun's thoughts are disorganized and very, very loud. He has shouted most of that whole story, and his conflicted thoughts about it, right at her, all unknowingly.
Not that I have anything against murder but it's interesting that one of them cares so much and the other doesn't. I wonder what this 'Snivellus' is like.
She knows better than to base her impressions of anyone off of someone else's thoughts (their maps are not the actual territory of someone else) but all the same, it's curious how little they think about them.
And both of them are in agreement about that.
It's something to think about.
A few days later and Tenten closes her eyes and mentally pictures the paintings on the walls of the floors they've been given rooms on.
"I'm leaning towards the one down by my room," she says.
It's a pretty thing, scenic, an orchard in fall colours, and well…
"I mean," she says, "it's less creepy to take apart than one of the ones with people in them. The people scream when you poke at them."
Effie Potter has, in fact, asked them to not do that.
Tenten tries not to, since she's been asked, though she's still waiting for her to be asked to stop her new game–but it's hilarious watching them panic when she wiggles a kunai at them.
"It upsets the portraits," she says, which Tenten considers to be absolute madness.
"It's pretty though," Sakura says. "What if we ruin it accidentally? I think we should take apart the fish one."
There's no need to further describe that one. It is terrible and probably a present or an heirloom, given that it's up on a wall.
Even if that wall is a tiny space up on the third floor, in an area where people obviously don't go very often.
Hinata shrugs a little, her hands wrapped around her sleeves.
"That one is pro-probably expensive," she says. "It's awful and strange but if it's still up on the wall, then there's got to be a reason for it. Most… most of the pictures are of a very different style than that one."
They are in Ino's swanky audience room. Tenten would be jealous of it except, well, no. It'd be an awful lot of work to do, if she had this room, and meanwhile all Tenten's had to do is keep up with her training and act as a human shield between Effie Potter and the rest of them.
Which, honestly? Remains hilarious.
Tenten stretches, glancing over from where she's lounging on one of the couches, to see Ino writing something over at the desk.
"What do you think, Ino?" she asks.
"The fish needs to be eliminated," Ino says, not looking up from her work. "I know, I know, it's not the right choice, because it probably is expensive and important to some part of this family, but also: it's horrifying and I don't want to see it again. We should spare the rest of the world the sight of it."
Then she sets her pen down (they brought the pens with them from Konoha and Tenten is glad because quills are a pain in the ass to write with) and grins at them.
"Besides," Ino says, "it's right near a window. If we're careful, I bet we can stage a mission, get the painting out without being noticed by any of the other paintings, or house elves, or anything else alive and aware, and once it's spirited off for us to examine, well… we know nothing about it, right?"
Sakura laughs. "Out of sight, out of mind? You're going to rely on that?"
"It's in an out of the way corner," Ino says loftily. "It's already out of sight, out of mind. If we were to disappear it, it could be years before they realize it's gone."
Tenten considers that, even as Ino frowns a little.
"Probably not years," Tenten says. "The house elves do clean, after all, and the room was a bit dusty but it wasn't gross."
"It doesn't need to be years," Hinata says, though she still looks like she's not sure this is a smart idea.
It's probably not, at that, but that's one of the reasons why Tenten loves it.
"Just… just until we're on the train, September first." Hinata's so quiet that her cleverness is frequently overlooked. "And, then, once we're gone for school, we can't be blamed. They won't know when, exactly, it disappeared."
Tenten is feeling a little bit out-voted, since she still thinks the whole scenic route is better than the most terrifying fish painting she's ever seen, but she does appreciate the idea of the challenge behind getting the painting off the wall and–
"Where would we do this experiment anyway?" she asks.
"We definitely cannot do it here or in any of our rooms," Ino says, after a moment.
"Nooo," Sakura agrees. "That would be just asking for trouble and also running the mission on hard mode. I like a challenge but I'm not looking to actually be caught."
"What about the training ground?" Hinata asks.
Tenten hums a little, as they all fall silent and consider that. Their training ground is still on the Potter property, but out of sight of the main house, and it wouldn't be too hard to set it up so they'd get warning if anyone was approaching...
"We could burn it after," Sakura suggests. "If we can't put it back together the right way and need to hide the evidence."
Ino frowns, even as Hinata shakes her head.
"We… we would need to establish a precedent before we do that," Hinata says. "Or else, if someone sees the smoke, they're all going to come find us in a panic."
"It'd be terrible if we had to sort out a disaster like the way Potter-san had reacted to our training that first morning," Tenten says. "That was incredibly unfun to deal with and I refuse to be the one to smooth something like that over again."
None of the other residents of the house had been pleased with the girls for, how had Effie Potter put it, attempting to murder one another.
It had taken both her and Ino, and Ino sending a message off to Orion Black, who'd wound up closeted with the Potters for ages before they'd been permitted to keep training.
Carefully.
Given that Orion Black had rolled his eyes and sneered when he'd said 'carefully', they haven't taken that part too much to heart.
Instead, they just train where and when the Potters won't see them.
"That's an easy fix," Ino says. "Why don't we go down to the training field and make a few changes to it? Then, tonight, we can invite them out for a bonfire."
Sakura grins. "Then, what, we do that a few times, let them think it's some custom, and then–"
"And then we look into the matter of the fish," Hinata says, which means all four of them are on board.
"It's the long way around," Tenten sighs dramatically. "It almost makes up for being overruled."
Sakura throws a pillow at her. Tenten lobs it back and, for a few minutes, there's just a flurry of couch pillows and cushions being flung about before they settle back in, rather more dishevelled than they'd started, to toss around ways to make the whole bonfire thing sound legitimate for a while before—
"Look," Ino says, "why don't we just not bother with that sort of thing? It muddies the water. Just say that we want to have bonfires, they remind us of home, and would they like to join us?"
"That seems too simple," Sakura says, frowning. "Will they really believe that?"
"It does have the advantage of simplicity," Hinata offers. "We would not have to remember what lies we're telling and to who we've spoken them to, if we do it this way."
"It's not as fun as making things up," Tenten says.
"I think it'll be fine," Ino says reassuringly, knowing that Sakura's hesitance stems from her anxiety more than anything else.
Sakura wants to be convinced that going to simple way is the best way.
And, in any case, it's good to have someone on the team that overthinks a plan. I don't and neither does Tenten, though we have different reasons for why we don't bother with that. I'm not sure how great a strategist Hinata is either.
Ino makes a mental note to look into that, since knowing the strengths and weaknesses of her team is important.
And Sakura and Hinata are both inclined towards being nervous, though their anxieties take different forms and ways of expressing themselves.
There's also the fact that Tenten could probably stand to be a little more nervous, sometimes, but Ino doesn't really find her confidence to be concerning. It's a feature, not a bug, so far as she's decided.
And there's just something about everyone on Gai-sensei's team. They're all super hyped about themselves.
"What if it's not, though?" Sakura asks. "Then we'll have to scramble."
Ino knows good and well that-
"Then we'll scramble," Tenten says, before Ino decides how to rephrase her opinion. "And we'll look cute while doing it. If you call Effie Potter 'Mum' then she'll forget all about holes in any of our stories."
Ino grins.
Yeah, that had been about what she'd been thinking too.
"A-Ano," Hinata says, "I do not think there are many holes to be found in a story as straightforward as we've held bonfires at home and wish to do the same here."
"And they'll like that we're asking for permission," Ino adds. "They find it weird that we just go out and about and do our own thing. I got a lecture yesterday about having wandered off to the Ministry without bothering to inform either Effie or Fleamont Potter that I was leaving the residence."
This distracts Sakura from her concerns about the bonfire. "They did what?"
"It's no big deal," Ino says, shrugging. "I can handle a lecture. But yeah, I guess I'm supposed to tell them when I'm going to work or something? They seemed to think I was too young to go off and wander the Ministry by myself."
All of them are silent as they consider that.
"That seems ridiculous," Sakura decides. "Like, we're all legally adults back home and you're going to do the job we were sent to this country to do."
Ino scribbles down another note in her report—encrypted and in Japanese, besides, which means she's fairly they report would be safe even if it wasn't encrypted—and bobs her head amiably.
Sakura thinking something is ridiculous is generally a good sign that it really is.
"We're going to have to be careful about things like that," Tenten says. "I don't think Effie Potter even realizes that our pouches and things contain weapons."
"I vote that we never tell Effie Potter that," Ino says. "Because I really don't think she's mentally equipped to handle the idea of people using kunai and senbon and things other than wands. They're really very mono-focused on what sort of tools they're willing to use here."
"I second that motion," Sakura says. "I'll even call her 'Mum' if I have to, to get out of explaining what our actual jobs and lives are like to her. She's overbearing and sweet but she's also the most civilian civilian I've ever met, and I grew up surrounded by them. Even our civilians are tougher than she is, when it comes to down to it."
"It's strange," Hinata says, "but I agree. They're very nice people, our host family, but they're also very… soft. I think the only one that wouldn't be horrified, in this home, by the true facts of our existence is Sirius Black."
"It sucks that we have to keep our training on the down-low," Tenten says. "And it sucks even more that we have to keep our mouths shut on most of our lives, if that's the case, but there's a lot of fun things too. Let's not be too hard on our hosts. I'm sure they're trying hard to adjust to us, so it's only polite that we try hard to adjust to them too."
"Besides," Ino says, "it's kind of fun to sneak around to train. It's, like, another layer to our training. One that we can't ever forget to do, no matter how lazy we feel like being on any given day."
They all laugh.
"Even their being lazy is more lazy than we are," Sakura says. "I don't think Sirius Black gets up before noon unless he's forced to."
"He's definitely never at breakfast, unless James Potter goes and gets him," Tenten agrees. "Which is both hilarious and adorable."
"What's adorable about that?" Sakura wonders. "Potter-kun gives his parents a hard time about it every morning. They have a whole performance for it."
"Exactly," Tenten agrees. "They're playing a game. I think it's great."
Sakura makes an indistinct grumbling noise in the back of her throat.
"She just doesn't like Potter-kun," Ino says, grinning. "Wasn't he saying something about you shoving him in a lake?"
"He deserved it!" Sakura insists. "I told you about our conversation."
Ino makes a face, while Tenten laughs. Hinata just shrugs a little.
And that conversation had been really interesting, actually, and I kind of want to talk to someone about it myself. But not him. He's too reactive. I don't feel like dealing with him throwing a tizzy. It's different when I tolerate it with Sakura. Sakura's great.
James Potter's greatness is decidedly in question, though both Effie and Fleamont Potter seem to think he's phenomenal.
"Anyway," Ino says, "are we all agreed? For now, we'll keep the bonfire plan simple? If need be, we can revisit the whole matter."
"I'm in," Tenten says.
Hinata nods. "Yes, alright."
"Fine," Sakura says. "But if it blows up in our faces, I get to say I told you so."
Ino grins at her. "Not even you think it's going to blow up in our faces for real, don't give me that."
Sakura throws a pillow at her. "Don't just say that!"
They all laugh and, yeah, like they'd thought, less is more in the case of this particular plan.
"I think it looks normal enough," Tenten says, squinting at their practice field.
They've hidden the pells and the targets and tried to make the places where the grass was crushed down look a little less 'trampled' and more 'flopped on', and Ino, looking at their field, has to agree.
"I think it's as good as it's going to get," Ino says, planting her hands on her hips. "And I think Sakura and Hinata are just about done building the actual firepit."
Figuring out where to put that had been a conversation in and of itself, one where they'd cared about the placement and the Potters had cared about safety—particularly magically enforced safety, and less so about 'Muggle' ways of being careful around fire—but eventually they'd found a corner where it was out of the way enough for the girls but that the Potters thought was fine for a bonfire to be set up.
"You know whatever Hinata and Sakura have got going over there is going to be perfectly safe to use," Tenten says, as they turn from their handiwork to go see what the pit is looking like. "Like, safer than safe, even."
Ino grins at the unknowing echo to her own thoughts. "I know," she says, "but it'll make them feel better to point their sticks at the pit and mutter some words. You know, I don't think any of them know how to put a fire out without their wands."
"Probably not," Tenten says. "I think they're having to look up some spells just for this. I got the impression that the House Elves handle the fires inside."
"I wonder why they have House Elves, if they can do everything with their wands," Ino says, because it's the truth. "And how they trust their servants so easily."
"House Elves are magically bound to serve their families," Tenten explains. "They don't really have a choice about being loyal."
Ino shivers. "I'm not sure I like that," she admits. "I'd rather have to earn someone's loyalty than just enforce it that way. I guess they're not as worried about backstabbing as we are though."
"Or they were more worried about it, once upon a time," Tenten says. "I don't think it'd be a useful topic to bring up in conversation though."
Ino weighs this thoughtfully then sighs.
"Probably not," she concedes, though then she brightens. "But maybe I'll ask Black-san if he's got a book or something on the subject. Asking about a book can't hurt, right?"
"You're not going to ask the Potters?" Tenten asks.
"I don't think so," Ino says. "Somehow, I feel like wanting to know the history of their magically bound servants is going to be looked down upon by people who treat them like family half the time and like they're invisible the other half of the time."
"Ino," Tenten says, then stops.
"Oh, I know," she says. "I'm not really judging them, except for how I am, but I don't understand it and I don't think I want to put any trust in magical bonds I don't understand. And, generally, when people treat their servants like family, they're okay people. But I don't know how to feel about the magically enforced bit of the equation."
Servants are one thing, Ino doesn't have problems with that—but the whole… lack of free will or choice gives her the creeps. Being a servant means you're getting paid. Being a slave just means you're a prisoner of someone else's good will.
"Anyway," Ino says. "I think it's better to ask someone who I know has a streak of cruelty in him than it is to ask people who really and truly believe and act as if they're good people. In their heads, they are, and I don't disagree, exactly, but I don't know that they're open to having that questioned. Which… with this line of conversation, it kind of is."
"We should probably just forget about it," Tenten says.
"Yeah, I know," Ino agrees. "And, like, maybe not bring it up around Sakura or Potter-kun. They've already had one fight about terminology."
Tenten laughs. "What, you don't want her to push him into fire?"
"I mean, like, we'd take it okay," Ino says, "but I don't think the same would be said for here. I doubt they'd find it funny, no matter how fine he was after the fact."
Ino considers this for a moment.
"But it would be pretty fun," she admits. "He's not that terrible, but I get the vibe that he's pretty oblivious to just about everything, so I'm not saying he'd deserve it…"
"But he'd deserve it," Tenten says, and laughs again.
The bonfires go well, without any fire mishaps, though they do throw marshmallows at both Potter-kun and Black-kun just because they can, and the Potter parents seem to find that funny enough. Even better is that, after the third day in a row of them, the Potters get the idea that they don't have to show up every night.
Even still, they wait a few more days, mostly to get a feel for the rhythm of the household. The Potters aren't housebound, nor inclined to stay home, so keeping track of them takes a little bit of time and effort.
A week after the first bonfire, though, Ino decides they're as safe as they're going to be.
"Alright," she says, once night after supper with the Potters, once they're all back in her audience room. "Tonight's the night."