AN: Hi, author here. I hope the pacing isn't too fast, but I want to get through the first two years of Hogwarts quickly. I've kept things mostly to cannon so far, just substituting Jasmine/Harry for Sakura in some situations (such as the detention in Forbidden Forest). Things are going to get a lot more AU from year 3 on. Since Hogwarts starts at 12 in my AU I decided to combine 3rd and 4th year events, plus my new additions.
Also, I've found I like writing three chapters ahead and then posting two chapters so I can give y'all a bit more to read at once. I love all the favorites and reviews, thank you, it's always exciting to get a new notification. If I could ask for any comments, I'd ask for constructive criticism about my pacing and the amount/quality of physical descriptions I give, those are the two things I'm most unsure about.
To suckstobeacritic, I do think I struggle to bring out Sakura's voice at times, but she has no knowledge of cannon Harry Potter so I'm confused as to how she's supposed to know to majorly deviate from the plot as you want…yet. As for using 'wixen' (gender neutral term for wizards and witches), I thought it was common enough in the HP fandom, I'm surprised to hear it throwing you out of immersion. I've used it a bit less but I like it so I don't plan to get rid of it entirely.
Ch 9
Getting back to her routine was nice. Her morning exercise burned her muscles and lungs in a refreshing contrast to the crisp autumn air. It was not too cold to go without warning charms yet but Scotland was always chilly.
This year she planned on practicing more acrobatics and fast dodges instead of the general fitness she'd focused on before. After all, she would rarely need to shield if she could achieve half of her previous proficiency with dodging. Unfortunately, her previous skill incorporated chakra enhancement as well as the tree-sticking exercise. By either planting her feet or gliding on them at a moment's notice using chakra, Sakura had mastered dodging to a degree even Naruto struggled to match without using the Kyubi cloak or sage mode.
To try and recover some of her techniques she had spent an absurd amount of time this summer practicing the sticking charm. She couldn't cast it properly without setting off the underage magic detection but over and over again she had braided the spell, brought it to the soles of her feet, then released the braid and let her magic return to normal. By now she could flicker it on and off.
It was time to try tree-walking for the first time in this life. She put one foot on the tree. She stuck. She planted her other foot on the tree. She stuck. Her core and back muscles held her parallel to the ground.
Now, the tricky part. Sakura released the charm on her right foot and took a step upward. She stuck that foot back on the tree and released her left, took a step, and stuck it back on. Five more slow steps and Sakura back-flipped off the tree, landing easily on her feet.
Laughing wildly in sheer joy, Sakura sprinted up the tree. It was just like before! She could tree-walk again! Upon reaching the top she turned around and ran down the tree. In her joy, however, she forgot that her body's durability was no longer enhanced by chakra and jumped from too high up.
A hard landing and crunch in her ankle informed her of her folly.
Rolling to bleed off the rest of her momentum, Sakura came to a stop and cursed herself. She shouldn't have let the excitement cloud her judgment like that. At least she received this painful reminder of her new limitations in a safe scenario instead of in battle.
Activating the Mystical Palm Jutsu, Sakura began healing her cracked fibula. She'd have to take it easy for the rest of the day but thankfully she'd be sprinting up trees tomorrow. Next, she'll need to replicate chakra sliding somehow. Another research project to add to the list.
Then Sakura realized she had been stupidly overlooking something vital. When tree-walking she cast two spells at once! Without thought, Sakura cast the sticking charm using one foot and the levitation spell with her right hand. It was more difficult than casting two sticking charms at once but she was so familiar with both braids that she managed. Next, she attempted to cast alohomora in her right hand and diffindo with her left. She could cast each individually in about five seconds but together they took half a minute. So multicasting would need to be reserved for doubling the same spell.
Sakura then cast the wingardium leviosa on three rocks, each spell coming out of one of her middle three fingers. Doing so took five seconds, forever in a fight, whereas one levitation spell can be cast in a split second. She was pleased to see that she could have multiple braids exit the same arm.
Floating the rocks around with flicks of her fingers, Sakura was reminded of chakra strings. Kankuro had been the one to teach her, claiming it a tragedy a ninja with her chakra control didn't know how to make a basic chakra string.
Dropping the spells, Sakura then tried casting wingardium leviosa on two rocks from the same finger. Unfortunately, one spell seemed to 'block' the other until the first had been fired, and then the second followed a split second later. Good to know.
She wouldn't be able to cast multiple spells at once in a fight unless she wanted to reveal her wandless capabilities. But she could essentially 'stack' spells to rapid fire at a moment's notice. Once a fight began multicasting would slow down her overall rate of spellfire but sometimes a burst of spells would be more useful than a sustained attack.
Flopping down on the grassy ground, Sakura laid back and watched the early morning sky. This was already turning out to be a great and productive day.
Later, not even Jasmine and Ron being blasted by the Daily Prophet for their flying car stunt brought her down.
o0o
Seeing Jasmine and Ron's stupidity plastered across the Daily Prophet might not have brought down her mood but defense class eventually did.
It started with a pop quiz. Now, normally, Sakura loved any chance to prove her knowledge, but this was absurd. Who cares what Lockheart's favorite colour was? Or the perfect gift to give him? Absolute rubbish.
Somehow, class managed to get worse when the ponce decided to roleplay one of his adventures featured in his books. The students he called on were obviously uncomfortable acting but Lockheart bulldozed past any hesitancy.
When the part came up for Lockheart to fight a colony of Cornish Pixies, he dramatically unveiled a giant cage full of the blue-skinned buggers.
"Now we will test you against the real thing!" Lockheart announced before throwing open the cage door.
Chaos erupted instantly. As the closest to the cage, Lockheart was targeted first. Instantly he lost his wand to the swarm. Next, his perfect hair ended up looking like a bird's nest. Finally, the pixies began pulling at his robe, forcing the man to shrug out of it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the pixies that weren't focused on Lockheart were chasing students, ripping books, tossing anything not nailed down into the air, and generally making a mess. A few took to dive-bombing the students and a few were even trying to pick Nevile up.
When the dinosaur replica fell from the ceiling, Sakura had enough. Gathering four of the useless professor's books, Sakura fused them together with sticking charms. Then she cast wingardium leviosa on her newly made paddle. From there she proceeded to swish her wand, rapidly sending the books crashing into the flying pixies. Most were knocked out of the sky, a few unlucky ones squished between a wall and the paddle of books.
Seeing her strategy, Ron, Jasmine, and a few of the other Gryffindors copied her. Soon enough the floor was littered with dead or wounded pixies.
"At least Snape will be pleased with all the potion ingredients," muttered Sakura.
The class didn't last after that. It was their final period before dinner and with the professor hiding somewhere, no one stuck around.
Unlike her classmates, however, Sakura did not head back to her dorm. Instead, she said her goodbyes and trudged up to McGonagall's office.
Once there, Sakura entered to find the older witch grading papers at her desk. She looked up at Sakura's entrance. "Ah, Miss Granger, what can I help you with today?"
Sakura decided to be blunt. "Lockheart is a fraud and incompetent professor. He quizzed us on subjects from his books such as his favorite colour before having students act out his books. Not only the parts relevant to defense but line by line. Finally, he released a nest of Cornish Pixies as a demonstration and immediately lost his wand. I've come to ask for the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum written by a real professor."
"Miss Granger, understand that I cannot speak ill of a Hogwarts professor, nor allow you to do so. No matter your opinions on the person so I will be taking 3 points for disrespect," Professor McGonagall stated with pursed lips. "However, at Hogwarts, help will always be granted to those who ask. If you wish for…supplementary materials, I can give you the syllabus used to create O.W.L. questions from second year. It explains in depth what you are expected to know and study."
Sakura grinned, not bothered in the least by the loss of points. "Thank you, Professor, that will be a great help," she replied gratefully, with a smile. "However," she continued, "I find myself unwilling to waste my time in his class. Take however many points you wish, but I refuse to waste hours every week that could be used for real studying. I will not be returning to his class," Sakura firmly stated.
McGonagall lips could not get any more pursed and her eyebrows knitted together in thought. "And if I assign detention?"
"I won't go. Not because I was doing what's best for my education."
Sakura could tell the professor was deeply conflicted. "I cannot give you special permission over your peers," the older witch finally replied.
"If any other student is willing to submit weekly study reports and self-assigned essays like I plan to, then you should let them." Sakura easily countered.
A long pause ensued in which each witch stared at the other. Sakura broke the silence first. "I prefer to go about this quietly but if needed I will start drafting petitions to have him removed from Hogwarts, gathering evidence of his idiocy, and escalating this to both the press and the board of governors," Sakura softly spoke.
McGonagall closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose. "I will give you the curriculum as I mentioned before. If anyone asks why you no longer attend Defense you will reply that in exchange for doubling the number of essays you write, agreeing to a more rigorous end-of-year exam, and keeping all your grades at Outstanding, you were granted permission to self-study."
Sakura lept from her seat and gave the older witch a hug, shocking the Scottswoman. "Thank you, you won't regret it!"
o0o
Over the next few weeks, Sakura did end up finding a slipping jinx that she could use to replicate a chakra slide. She practiced it until she could flicker it on and off like the sticking charm.
Then her real dodge training began. Being able to transfigure training equipment was a huge boon. She was able to create traps but was limited in space and privacy. Anything she put up needed to come down before she left.
It was complaining about this fact to the elves that led her to where she stood now. The Come-and-Go room, or the Room of Requirement, as it was called.
Apparently, it could become anything the user could imagine, with a few limitations. She'd just have to see how far she could push those limits.
First, she created a replica of the Konoha Academy's final-year obstacle course. It was designed for academy students who couldn't use chakra-sticking techniques but it would serve as a good baseline to compare herself to the old Sakura.
Flipping a coin, the moment it hit the ground she burst forward in a sprint. She got halfway up the first obstacle, a rock wall, by running up it before she needed to grab a handhold. She wouldn't use sticking charms for this.
Repelling down the other side of the wall partially, Sakura leaped onto a net, forcing herself to carefully make her way down.
The next obstacle had multiple platforms to leap onto while dodging swinging weights. Weaving her way through took no time at all. Neither did the remaining five obstacles.
Running across the finish line, Sakura quickly cast tempus and found she was ten seconds behind her academy best. Chakra, even passive enhancement, was bullshit. She had known, but she was still repeatedly shocked by how much more limited this body was without it.
During the academy, Sakura wasn't very athletic compared to her classmates. Scratch that, she used to be pathetic. She made kunoichi of the year for her brain, not brawn. If her twelve-year-old, dieting, stick-thin self with chakra could do better than her current fourteen-year-old self who was in incredible shape, what did that say?
Sakura was hitting a wall. A girl her age could only be so fit. A human without chakra could only do so much.
This didn't sit right with her. She wanted her old strength and speed back.
What was she to do? Well, first, if she could somehow create physical energy she could create chakra. But she has no idea how to go about doing so. Not to mention how she would create a chakra pathway system from scratch.
No, she needed to use her magic somehow. Oh, how she wished she could replicate her accidental magic feat of destroying a tree in one punch. If she could just observe how the magic flowed once she knew she could figure the rest out.
There was, however, a third option that she forgot to consider. Potions. There was a Draught of Giant's Strength and Pixie's Speed Elixir that increased your strength and speed temporarily. She'd borrowed Jasmine's cloak of invisibility one night to find their recipes in the restricted section. Both were N.E.W.T. level potions and didn't give a magical amount of strength or speed.
Instead, Giant's Strength removes the limits the body places on muscles, temporarily allowing for great strength at the cost of damage to the body. Pixie's Speed does this specifically with fast-twitch muscles and slightly increases brain processing speed. The side effects of the processing speed boost were brain fog that could last for days afterward, with repeated use causing brain damage.
All these negatives made Sakura adverse to replying their methods. Even if she eventually can replicate their effects wandlessly, which she's not sure is possible for potions, she wanted something better. Perhaps she could learn to wandlessly apply a partial Giant's Strength effect that would be less damaging and easy for her to heal.
After running the academy obstacle course once more, Sakura changed the room to reflect one of the harder challenges Tsunade-shishou once gave her. There were dozens of blunted kunai hidden in spring-loaded traps, tripwire carefully disguised, and a field of practice dummies with rotating limbs that would strike out at her.
Sakura spent the whole Saturday exercising in the Room of Requirement.