Chapter 7: Time for Explanations
When Hermione woke it was with such force that her entire body twitched violently. She sat up, breathing hard, eyes wide and saw nothing. The dark was so black it felt solid, as though it was pressing against her eyeballs.
“Oh God. I hope I have not gone blind.” she whispered, heart still in her throat as she ran her fingers over her eyes, careful not no accidentally jab herself. She was confused. The last thing she remembered was a flash of light and a painful burning sensation as she and Ron had been thrown back. Where am I? For that matter where is Ron?
Taking deep calming breaths as she leaned forward, she stretched her hands out to judge the space around her. Almost immediately her hand bumped into a sandy wall. Running her hand up the wall she noted the way it curved inward and over her head. “I see.” she muttered, she was in an incredibly small, dome-shaped room. Which hopefully meant she was in the dark and not... blind.
A moan from beside her caused her to freeze, hand flying to her side, where her wand normally was. Wandless and sightless, she had no idea what to do.
“...mione...” Ron’s voice floated through the black and the muscles in her shoulders and back relaxed. Using her hands she felt around the dark sandy floor till she hit cloth. Ron was still obviously asleep and having a bad dream, but he calmed under her touch. His magic most likely recognizing hers.
Sighing she tried to figure out how they had gotten there and how in the bloody hell they were going to get out. “Thinking, after all,” she muttered with a touch of bitterness, “is something you’re supposed to be good at.”
OO
It had been after Harry and Ron had destroyed the stupid, cursed locket that had been one of Voldemort’s Horocruxes. She had been so relieved to see Ron again, alive and relatively unharmed. But she had been furious as well. Did he not have any clue at all how worried she had been? Her and Harry that is. She had felt like Ron had slapped her when he had left, so when he came back she might have overreacted a bit.
Okay she had definitely overreacted. But then the Death Eaters had come and all her anger seemed so trivial.
Apparently the Dark Lord’s name had been Tabooed. Anytime someone said it, the Death Eaters would be alerted to that persons location. The Death Eaters that had come already had several prisoners locked in a magical cage.
Neville had been sitting behind several confused looking goblins, wide eyed, tied up, but still clutching onto a useless broom. Useless because he was locked in a magical cage and he was not a good flyer in the first place.
Ginny had been bound and gagged and was still spitting foul-mouthed curses around the cloth stuffed into her mouth. She had paled a bit and gone still when she saw Harry.
Luna was not tied up and was staring off into space as if not realizing the danger she was in. Luna, in Hermione’s opinion, was becoming more and more odd as time went by.
Ron’s eyes had widened when the Death Eaters had surrounded them and began firing curses and hexes. Then he had done something that had made everyone’s jaw drop and Hermione’s heart swell with pride.
He tightened his grip on the sword of Gryffindor and ran forward. He shot a quick tripping spell at a Death Eater that had charged him and using the falling Death Eater as leverage and a stepping-stool he leapt over the other Death Eaters, while bringing the sword crashing down in an arc that shattered the cage to pieces. He then tumbled into a graceless heap that was all limbs, but it had still been amazing.
The goblins had of course run. Goblins were very much builders and creators and well, bankers. They did not involve themselves with wizards except to bank for them. Very much neutral creatures. They did however untie Ginny and Neville before leaving.
Luna had used the distraction to grab their wands and broomsticks from the Death Eater holding onto them and was lazily shielding herself and casting hexes. Ginny, after getting her own wand, furiously left no quarter. She shot Harry a nasty look after shielding his back from a stunner. Hermione had seen that coming a mile away but apparently Harry hadn’t, judging by his startled look. Really what had he been expecting? He had treated her like a child and not an equal this past year. Someone to be protected.
Ginny did not like being treated like that.
After breaking the cage Ron had begun to swing wildly, attempting to catch however many Death Eaters he could on the sharp blade. His lack of finesse and use of brute force felled at least two before a stunner was sent on him. He barely dodged it when the sword was knocked flying out of his hands, nearly skewering Neville on the downfall.
Neville grabbed it and with considerably more skill, to everyone’s surprise, began fighting a wildly laughing masked woman, who had conjured a sword of her own.
It must have been Bellatrix because Neville’s face was no longer unsure. Rather it had a hard set and his eyes blazed with hatred.
Hermione had her own hands full with two Death Eaters that were keeping her well occupied when she saw the woman. Ethereal, somewhat translucent, and glowing softly the woman could have been a ghost, especially since she was floating above the battle. Except ghosts were colourless. This woman had long ankle length red hair that wafted around her as though she was suspended in liquid. In her hands she held a clear turquoise ball.
She was watching the battle with something akin to a smirk on her face, as though she had seen better, but was impressed none-the-less. And as Hermione dodged another spell the woman had tossed the ball.
It arched over the battle and exploded into a billion glittering fragments. The world went blue and exploded in pain.
;P
“When I awoke I was alone.” Ginny said, rubbing her wand subconsciously. She tried not to meet the unbelieving stares she was receiving from the shinobi warriors. “It took me awhile to find the others.”
Indeed it had. Neville and the Death Eater, who had ended up being Bella, had landed not too far from her but due to the dense foliage it had taken her two days till she literally ran into him. Bellatrix had apparently gripped her arm in immense pain before apparating away and when they finally found Hermione and Luna they found that the same thing had happened to the Death Eaters that had landed with them.
Hermione had been going crazy with worry over the still missing Harry and Ron. She calmed down a bit when they found Ron, immediately running over to him and kissing him soundly. Ron had looked like he’d been hit with a bowtruckle and Ginny had burst out laughing at him. It surprised her that it took them so long to get around to this point. Harry would have been relieved. Which was the only problem. They had yet to run into Harry, they couldn’t find him. Even Hermione’s tracking spells had been going haywire and leading nowhere.
When they found Ron had also been when they ran into the Oni Gang and for two days they had been held captive while Hermione speculated on their location. That the men had not removed their wands led Hermione to believe that they were muggles. But it didn’t explain how they had moved with such speed and captured them with such ease in Ginny’s opinion.
So they had been underestimated when they had been locked up and had easily escaped at an opportune moment. Hermione had then showed them the translation spell quickly and they used it on the man that had been guarding them.
They should have just run.
Being overconfident that they were facing muggles, albeit fast ones, they had missed the chance to run and had they taken it they would have gotten away with ease. As it was Luna and Neville had been recaptured and their things, as well as their wands, had been taken.
“We ran then, Hermione, Ron, and I, we thought if we got away we could sneak back and rescue Luna and Neville. But we could never shake them for any long periods of time. And that’s where we met you.” Finished Ginny, looking exhausted. She had not told them everything. Such as the fact that they had not found Harry and that Hermione thought that they had somehow been transported back in time... or to another world.
Kankuro crouched down beside her and picked her wand out from where she was rolling it between her fingers. She looked at him strangely. “How does it work?” he asked.
“Well,” Ginny hesitated on telling him, but figured more harm would come from not being forthcoming with information to these people, “the wand chooses it’s user so this one might not work smoothly for you, but basically you just channel your magic into it, move it in the proper way, and say the incantation.”
He raised an eyebrow. “My magic?”
“Yeah, what you use to do all that stuff you were doing before.” she said, these people must be powerful to use magic with such ease and without wands. “Here, flick your wrist like this and say reducto. Aim for the tree.”
"Chakra," he said before he did as she instructed and the tree in question was left with a splintered hole in the trunk. The tree groaned and tipped to the side but didn’t fall. “I get the feeling it doesn’t like me.” murmured Kankuro to himself as he stared oddly at the wooden stick in his hand.
“Yeah, like I said, it’s my wand, it choose me, it synchronizes with my wand.” She took it back from him, half afraid that he would keep it. “I’d say you’d need to get your own but judging by the way you use magi... chakra, you don’t need it.” She paused, “Only really powerful wizards and witches can use wandless magic with intent.”
Gaara looked over at Temari who shrugged, “Unless she’s extraordinarily good at lying,” she said, answering the unasked question, “she’s been telling the truth.” Ginny was surprised to find that Temari could tell if someone was being truthful without vertasium. Then she berated herself for constantly being surprised by these people. It was obvious they could do things that wizards couldn’t.
“We need to get going.” Said Gaara looking pointedly at his allies, ‘I cannot be away from the village much longer.” He turned to Ginny and Neville, Luna ignored him as she continued to work on fixing her wounds. “You will come with us for now.”
“Ginny suppressed the urge to role her eyes, not sure how he’d react to that. It had been obvious that they would go with them. How else would they get Hermione and Ron?
;P
Harry Potter was once more sitting in front of the very intimidating Hokage, who was once more, looking rather brassed off.
“Naruto tells me you woke up screaming in pain this morning and threw up. And that later you had a little chat with a snake... in the snakes own language.”
Harry nodded slowly.
“Mind elaborating?”
Naturally Harry hesitated. Between adults that hated him, adults that tried to kill him, adults that manipulated him, adults that made themselves unapproachable, and adults that tended to act more his age and more like friends he was naturally wary about talking to adults about his problems.
Especially since Dumbledore had been killed by the man that he had sworn to everyone was on their side.
The Hokage sighed when Harry remained silent for too long, “Let me tell you a story kid.” She said when Harry met her eyes, “These are the details that all the villagers know so listen up. Years ago there was a man in our village with an affinity for snakes. He was a bastard, obsessed with discovering the secrets to immortality.” She noted the way his eyes widened exponentially, “He did a lot of horrible shit and he was really powerful, scarily so.” She tossed back a glass of sake, eyes no longer entirely focussed on Harry. Pouring herself another glass she continued, “But even with all his powers and snake related tricks, he couldn’t actually speak snake. Snakes of a certain caliber can speak human languages, but no human before you has ever been able to speak the snakes language.”
She couldn’t figure out the look on his face and Tsunade prided herself on her ability to read people. The last one to stump her so thoroughly was Naruto.
“So you’ll understand when I say don’t let people catch you talking to snakes here. That coupled with the fact that you’ll always be with Naruto will bring suspicion down on you.” Harry narrowed his eyes at that, wondering what Naruto had to do with it, “You’ll also understand why I’m demanding you lay my fears to rest and tell me what you and snakey were talking about and what this morning’s shit was about.”
Harry almost snorted at her mention of allaying her fears, since she didn’t look much fearful. Then sighing he met her eyes and said, “The two things are related and they have to do with something I left out in my story.”
Her eyes narrowed and she growled dangerously causing Harry to raise his hands in a placating gesture, “I’m sorry but I didn’t think any of this followed me here. I didn’t know he was also in this world.”
“Who?” she demanded, then, “wait, start at the beginning.”
And he did. He didn’t share everything, just the major details of why Voldemort was after him, how he had come back, and that he was connected to the man through his scar.
“Shit,” she muttered, “what the hell are your elders thinking sending you out to battle a demon without training you? What the hell do you learn at that school of yours? Come to think of it,” she demanded, really getting into her rant, “what the hell’s with waiting till you’re eleven? Best learning years are ages four and up.”
Harry could only stare at her. Age four? Have these shinobi been training since they turned four? No wonder most of them were lethal.
Now that he thought of it, wasn’t the reason Harry was so fast due to the fact that he’d been running from Dudley and his gang since he’d been able to walk? It got him thinking. If they had been training him since he was a kid, wouldn’t he be more prepared to face Voldemort? And surely a life of training to be a weapon would have been better then living with the Dursleys.
Harry snorted in derision.
Tsunade watched the boy struggle internally for sometime. Emotions flickered across his face from confusion, to something akin to outrage before he finally snorted and flopped back into his chair. She raised an eyebrow but decided to leave his thoughts to him.
“I have one more issue I need to discuss with you before I let you go.” Harry looked up, questioningly, “I assume you want your wand back, right?”
His eyes went wide again, “Yeah.”
“Okay, while you may be more like a civilian than anything else, with that wand you can obviously hold your own with just magic right?”
Harry paused, then nodded slowly.
“I thought so. Good to see you being truthful gaki. Since you could be a potential danger to us we can’t just let you stay here no strings attached. Therefore the council has asked, and I agree, that we would like you to blood-bind yourself to Konoha...”
Harry’s eyes widened and his skin paled drastically as the blood drained from his face, “NO!”
Tsunade was startled by the venom in his answer and the way the boy jumped from his seat, “And why, may I ask, do you say no?” She leaned forward menacingly.
“No one will ever use my blood again for anything, except me to live.” He bit out, looking really angry about something and was rubbing his right arm where Tsunade knew, from Sakura’s reports, that a long scar ran from inner elbow to wrist.
“Oh don’t be a baby,” Tsunade retorted getting angry herself as she realized there was more important stuff that the boy was hiding from her. “It’s just a few drops of blood. It binds you to the village ensuring your loyalty and giving you our protection.”
“But I can still betray you right?” he demanded with a feverous look in his eye, “And you can still betray me right?”
Tsunade looked surprised, “Well yes. But if you betrayed us you’d loose our protection and we wouldn’t betray those under our protection.”
“But you could.”
“We wouldn’t,” she said slamming his fist on the table causing the entire solid wooden table to shudder violently.
“Whatever,”Harry snorted, “what if I told you that by blood binding me you’d be blood binding Voldemort?”
“What?” Tsunade’s voice was lowering dangerously.
“The last person to use my blood was Voldemort. It’s how he created himself a new body, ‘Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy.’ He is tied to me by blood, mine runs through the veins of his new body.”
“Then what do you suggest,” growled Tsunade, “how about we just kill you or kick you out?”
“Well, you could do that, although I’m not entirely sure it’s possible for anyone but Voldemort to kill me yet, or we could make a Wizard’s Oath.”
“Explain.”
“A Wizard’s Oath, is a magical pact that binds those who make it to the words of the oath. If the oath is broken the one who broke it dies an excruciatingly painful death when the magic causes their blood to boil and stream out of every pore and opening in the body.”
Tsunade was the one to widen her eyes this time.
“That is why you have to be extraordinarily careful with the wording of the oath, so accidents don’t happen. And before you ask, your chakra seems really close to being like my magic so I think it’ll still work. I’d just have to explain it to you more thoroughly.”
Tsunade leaned back into her chair and steepled her fingers. “I’d have to discuss it with the council and the elders, but tell me, how would you word this oath?”
./
It had taken the elders some persuasion, including a demonstration with a prisoner that was to be executed.
Harry felt more then a little nauseated after that display.
Then he made the oath that he would never intentionally harm Konoha, it’s residents, and it’s allies without express permission or unless they attacked first with the intent of killing him or if (for whatever reason) it was absolutely unavoidable and would save the lives of others. In return they would lend him their protection so long as he stayed in that world. The oath would become void if he left that world.
Harry felt much better with his wand once more in it’s hostler but the whole experience had made him overtly aware of the fact that without that eleven inch piece of holly he was almost helpless.
So he accepted Naruto’s invitation to join him in training.
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Chapter notes: Wow, so, sorry this took so long to update. I'm so glad you guys are sticking with me. I did receive a comment that said my character growth wasn't there and I have to disagree. Harry's only been there about two weeks, there hasn't been time for character growth yet. Give it time people, but also thanks to that comment I know what I need to be looking out for so don't think it was an unwelcome comment. All comments but nasty, pointless ones are welcome.
Also I'm sorry about the Konohana/Konoha thing I've got some people telling me one way others telling me the other way, I thought I changed that already but I guess I have to look through it again. I know it's Konoha.
Anyway, enough of me babling. On with the story!
Chapter end notes: REVIEW