Chapter 59: 4-7: Bread and Circuses

Disclaimer: Being neither British nor Japanese, it should therefore come as no surprise that I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor anything from their respective franchises.

The next three weeks practically flew by. There'd been one more Tournament-related ceremony, the Weighing of the Wands, in which the wandmaker from Diagon Alley had inspected the three champions' foci to ensure all three were in working order. Though he hadn't had any reason to want to be there, it was still a bit insulting when Iruka was informed by Bartemius Crouch that he was specifically prohibited from attending. Apparently someone didn't want any more surprises.

His correspondence with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black continued. Work had officially begun on the old Black family townhouse in London, but even just rendering it safe was slow going. There had been half a dozen hazards in the entryway alone, from the horrific and lethal down to an umbrella stand jinxed to trip those passing by. The cursebreakers' concentration wasn't helped by the portrait of Walburga Black (Sirius's mother) that hung at the base of the stairs and screamed invective at anyone and everyone that caught her attention. Given that she'd been the last living resident of the house outside her house-elf, it went a long way towards explaining why the place was in its current state.

After an S.E.N. meeting in which his three fourth-year students had discussed Blast-Ended Skrewts, Iruka had sighed and made his way down to Hagrid's hut. The large gamekeeper was presently working on preparing his garden for the rapidly-approaching winter, pulling out the dying plants to throw into the compost heap, while making sure that the various root vegetables were properly bedded in to keep well in colder weather.

"So, Hagrid," Iruka greeted as he approached the Creatures Professor, "I hear you've got something very... novel that you're using with the fourth-year class?"

"Tha's right!" Hagrid beamed proudly, "Blast-Ended Skrewts, bred 'em m'self! Figured it'd be good fer the kids to get some experience learnin' about how to handle somethin' nobody's seen before. Plus it lets 'em work at raisin' somethin' up, rather than jus' workin' with grown ones."

It took the chuunin some effort not to palm his face. "Hagrid, wouldn't that kind of lesson, especially working with unknown creatures, be better-suited for your N.E.W.T.-level students? Even then, it'd be best to give them something that at least you know about, so that neither the students nor the creatures end up harmed because of a student's ignorance. From what you've said, you've got fourth-years working with a completely new species, an unknown creature that could present unknown dangers to the children."

The kindly titan waved off Iruka's concerns. "The Skrewts aren' dangerous or nothin', jus' a little rambunctious. Nothin' ter worry about."

Iruka sighed. "We've talked about this Hagrid, last summer when you were preparing your lessons. Your students aren't anywhere near as large or strong or durable as you are; something that might not even draw blood on you could cause a serious gash on one of them. Creatures you would call 'cute' and 'playful' are what everyone else calls 'apex predators'. Just think for a minute about what their teeth and claws and the like are used for in the wild, then remember that your students are children, the young of the species, and consider what many predators target when they can." He hated doing this to the man, but unfortunately Hagrid had the kind of naïveté in which, because he had so little malice within himself, it was hard for him to realize that other people or creatures might not be so pure nor as gentle.

Hagrid's bushy eyebrows came together as he thought hard for a few moments, before his beetle-black eyes widened in horror. Seeing the large knees start to wobble, Iruka quickly snapped off a Summoning Charm to bring over a Hagrid-proportioned wooden stool from near the side of the hut, allowing the large man to sit. "I... I never though' of it like that," he said quietly. "I guess I might've been puttin' the students a' risk without knowin' it. I'll talk ter Professor Dumbledore, get his advice on fixin' my lessons."

The chuunin nodded sympathetically. "That sounds like a good idea. You could also see if you can get your hands on Professor Kettleburn's old lesson plans, to see how he did it, and maybe look into what creatures are covered on O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. For now, at least, it'd probably be best if you handled the Skrewts yourself."

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Iruka found himself entering the Hospital Wing, after a bit of overheard gossip had informed him that Hermione had been hexed during an altercation between classes. He was immediately suspicious when he saw how happy Hermione was, not the state one would expect from someone that'd just been hexed into the infirmary. There was also, unless he was mistaken, a hint of pride in her grin - a grin in which her teeth were neat and even.

"I hear there was a bit of an incident earlier," he said as he approached her, "could you tell me what happened?"

Hermione nodded. "We were outside the Potions classroom, waiting for the door to open," she began, using the same tone of voice she would answering a question in class. "Malfoy started trying to insult Harry, Neville, and me, just his usual tripe. It wasn't pleasant, obviously, and I could tell Harry in particular was starting to get really angry, but we kept our cool. As usual, like you taught us, we ignored him. Not reacting the way he was hoping frustrated Malfoy, and seeing that does make it easier to laugh off whatever he's saying. It probably didn't help that Harry and Neville got in a few jabs back, and got a lot of the Gryffindors and even a couple Slytherins laughing at Malfoy. He got really angry, pulled out his wand, and cast a Tooth-Growing Hex at Harry. Harry dodged and, well..."

"And you, recognizing the hex and what it did, let it hit you?" The sheepish look on her face was all the answer Iruka needed. "I know you said before that other children would tease you about your teeth, but did you really have to get yourself hexed over it?"

Now the sheepish look was augmented by a blush, and tinged with a hint of shame. "Madam Pomfrey wouldn't do something cosmetic like that without my parents' permission, and they wanted to try non-magical methods before resorting to magic."

"So when you realized what Malfoy was casting, you saw it as an opportunity to work around those restrictions," he reasoned. "Quick thinking, I'll give you that, but I'm going to ask you to write to your parents and explain what happened, what you did, and why. Whether you do that or not, I'll be writing them myself at the end of the week. They deserve to know about this, and I'd like their side on why they were refusing permission to get your teeth fixed magically, to understand whether they had valid concerns or if they were being a bit unreasonable. As it stands, while I won't say that what you did was out-and-out wrong, it certainly wasn't right either."

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The adult Grangers' reply made things clearer. Part of their rationale, Wendell admitted, had probably been their own professional pride, something Iruka had expected. They also, however, were concerned about what exactly the long-term effects of magical tooth modification would be. Non-magical medical treatments, at least in some countries, were required to pass a rigorous and often extremely long and expensive process of proving that they were safe and effective, with any potential side-effects thoroughly documented. The goal, quite a logical one Iruka thought, was to let both patients and those treating them make fully-informed decisions about whether the risks of a treatment were outweighed by the benefits.

Knowing in excruciating detail the numerous ways things could go wrong in the human mouth, neither dentist was willing to approve any cosmetic work unless they could be assured that it wouldn't cause problems down the line. Monica specifically cited the concern that simply shrinking a tooth would also shrink the blood vessels that fed its living center, possibly to the point where they wouldn't function properly any longer. On top of that, many spells only lasted for a finite period of time, and what would happen if Hermione's front teeth suddenly grew back to their previous size? With so little information available to them about the potential risks and side-effects of magical healing, both parents greatly preferred a method that they knew would work and be safe.

Their letter also informed him that they'd sent a similar explanation in their reply to Hermione, something both adults acknowledged that they should have given several years prior. In the end, neither parents nor child had handled things perfectly, but a lesson had hopefully been learned about open communication.

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After lunch on November twenty-fourth, Iruka joined the rest of those at Hogwarts in trooping down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where an arena of sorts had been set up. Sets of recently-constructed stands flanked an enclosure in which the First Task would take place. Its floor was bare earth, with a few boulders of varying sizes scattered about, and a ring of smoother stones surrounding the shallow pit that would serve as the nests for the mother dragons the champions would be facing. Said dragons would be brought in and removed, along with their clutches, at one end of the arena, whereas the other end held a pair of tents. One of them was the medical tent, in which Madam Pomfrey had already set up everything she might need to treat a person injured by a dragon; the second tent was positioned so that it, along with the surrounding trees, would effectively block any sight of the arena for someone approaching from the castle. Of course, this concealment was helped along by a few charms as well.

Everyone, bar the champions and those responsible for handling the dragons and/or stepping in if things went too far wrong, was now seated in the stands. Iruka himself was part of the emergency-response group, and was standing Disillusioned just inside the edge of the arena but safely out of the range of any of the dragons' flaming breath.

Angry roars heralded the group of dragon-handlers bringing in the first dragon, her eggs, and the golden egg that the first contestant would be asked to retrieve. The Swedish Short-Snout had silvery-blue scales, and her occasional blasts of flame were a brilliant blue that showed their tremendous heat. Seeing dragonfire for the first time, Iruka understood why Albus had been clearly just humoring him about preparing hidden reserves of water under the stands to supply water jutsu - flames that fast and hot could fatally burn someone before he'd even finished his hand-seals.

Bagman announced Cedric Diggory as the first champion to make an attempt. The popular Hufflepuff was visibly terrified, and desperately trying to come up with some way to accomplish his task. He wisely stayed well out of the Short-Snout's reach and range as he was thinking, though the slowly-growing grumbles of the crowd showed that at least some of the spectators were less than pleased at this prudent caution.

After a couple minutes of contemplation, Diggory's face firmed. With a look of resolve and intense concentration, he raised his wand not towards the dragon, but to her side a ways. A complex little gesture later, and one of the rocks well away from him turned into a large dog that started running around the arena's edge, barking loudly. Between the human standing quietly and the dog moving and making noise, it was no surprise that the Short-Snout deemed the latter to be the more immediate issue and turned to face it.

It took a while for the transfigured dog, quietly directed by the Hufflepuff's wand, to begin to draw the mother dragon off her nest. Slowly, often glancing back at her eggs, she edged towards the canine pest. Once he deemed her far enough, Diggory began cautiously working his way closer to his target. About three-quarters of the way there, he broke into a mad dash; presumably he was aiming to spend as little time as possible in the danger zone, or maybe the tension had overridden his patience. Whatever the reason, it turned out to be the wrong play, as his rapid movement towards her nest almost instantly drew the Short-Snout's attention. Luckily, she had moved far enough that he had time to almost completely dodge the blast of flames she sent his way just as he was grabbing the golden egg. Even so, as he fled full-speed for the tents and the dragon-handlers moved in to subdue the raging dragon, Iruka could see some nasty burns. His injuries, plus the amount of time he'd taken, were counted against him by the judges, though he did get credit for a skilled bit of transfiguration. Karkaroff, notably, gave a him a score of only two out of ten, far lower than the rest of the panel.

Several minutes of what looked like some very taxing and dangerous work by the dragon-handlers later, it was a Welsh Green hunching protectively over her eggs in the arena. Fleur Delacour emerged from the tent to face it, her posture showing a mix of apprehension and determination. She lifted her wand towards the dragon, beginning to move it in large, lazy sweeps through some kind of intricate pattern while chanting an incantation that sounded almost musical. Slowly, painstakingly, the wary beast began to relax, her eyelids drooping as she fell into some sort of trance or outright sleep atop her nest.

Given what Iruka knew about dragons, Delacour had gotten incredibly lucky regarding her dragon breed - Welsh Greens were some of the least aggressive dragons, often preferring to avoid confrontations. That more relaxed nature certainly made the French champion's strategy more effective. Still, it was impressive that she'd managed to affect such a powerful and magic-resistant creature, and a smart idea to adopt a strategy that likely took advantage of her Veela heritage.

Unfortunately, even the best of plans can have their hiccups. As Delacour was quietly making her exit after extracting the golden egg, her dragon snored. It would have been purely hilarious to see such a majestic and fearsome beast snoring like a big, sleeping dog, had it not been for the long, narrow stream of fire that emerged as a result. Thankfully, it only caught the hem of the young witch's skirt, and she quickly put out the flames with a jet of water from her wand, but it still ended up costing her a few points. Even so, her level-headedness throughout the task combined with her remarkable charm work led to a much higher score than Diggory. Again, the Durmstrang Highmaster gave an unreasonably low score.

The third mother dragon was brought in, this one a Chinese Fireball. The reason for the breed's name was immediately apparent, as she shot mushroom-shaped bursts of flame around the arena in her agitation. Viktor Krum stepped out, and after sizing his opponent up for a few moments went straight on the attack, hurling spells at the dragon's face. His target seemed to be her eyes, one of the few vulnerable points on a dragon's body. After a few attempts, he managed to land a Conjunctivitis Curse, blinding the beast, which thrashed around in pain and rage, incidentally trampling several of her own eggs.

While the power and accuracy of the curse was nothing to scoff at, Iruka was distinctly unimpressed by Krum's strategy and downright angry at the needless destruction of the young of a protected species. This latter offense was partly due to the organizers' poor planning, but even so such a directly combative approach was not something the chuunin felt worthy of praise. It would seem, however, that the judges felt differently: Krum was given the highest score, due to a combination of speed, spectacle, and his Highmaster's favoritism (he of course gave his prized student a perfect ten).

All told, then, the scores were Krum 34, Delacour 31, Diggory 30. Each champion now had a golden egg that would give them a clue about the nature of the Second Task, which would take place in three months' time.

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A few days later, Iruka was reading up on tricks for making maximum use of limited magic when he felt a slight tingle of chakra, and glanced up from his book to find a summoning array spreading across his office floor. He pulled out the pad and pencil that had accompanied the first message from home, along with a scroll containing his log of the past month.

With a puff of smoke, Hogwarts' occupants again included a Toad. «Yo!» Gamato greeted as before, «Got another message for ya!»

«Nice to see you again, Gamato,» Iruka smiled pleasantly, «I've got an update to my report here, just let me see if there's anything in Naruto's message I should include a reply to.» He took the proffered scroll from his visitor's webbed grasp, and opened it up.

Hey Iruka-sensei!

Congratulations, I'm pretty sure you got a record number of "troublesome"s out of Shikamaru for a single mission report. Oh, right, I'm classing your little trip as an extended B-Rank mission, with bonuses for some of the more interesting stuff you've sent back. And speaking of sending things back, you have to send a broom or two in your next report if you can. Please? I know I can fly, but something like that is just way too awesome not to share with people, even if it didn't have some useful applications. The big flying machines also sound interesting, maybe a new way to let civilians travel long distances - I've already got R&D looking at those and some of the other tech stuff you sent along.

Oh yeah, and expect a hug from Sakura when you get back for sending those medical potions. A few of them would totally be in the standard first-aid kit for our ninja already if we had enough to do that with. Any more you can send, you can bet they'll see good use.

That place you're at sounds really weird, but in a fun and interesting way, y'know? Real magic, huge dragons, old castles - I'm seriously jealous, and not just because I've got a half-meter stack of paperwork waiting for me. I thought these computers were supposed to cut that crap down?

That Voldemort guy sounds like a lame Orochimaru knockoff. Heh, wonder what'd happen if we dropped 'em both in a room - bet it'd be something we could sell tickets for, wouldn't you say?

So, you've got a crop of students there, huh? By the way, I'm totally backing your decision to train those kids - they sound cool and I hope I get to meet them at some point. I'll especially want to thank that Harry kid; he's saved you more times than I have by now! You were right about how eerie it is, him being kinda like a cross between me and Sasuke. Sasuke read that part of the report too. He said, and I quote, "Hn."

A~nd now he's glaring at me.

Seriously, dude, stop reading over my shoulder. I don't care that you're doing it from across the room, it's still creepy.

Anyway, I've included copies of a lot of the basic scrolls from the Academy library - theory, chakra usage, the real fundamentals-type stuff that I totally failed at most of the time. We didn't really have time to translate it all, especially since all of about five people here can read a usable amount of English so far, but maybe they'll help you with your little pre-genin team. I also got some photos together like you asked for, plus a couple of the basic history and geography textbooks in case those'd help.

I'll send Gamato back in another month-ish, same deal as this time. Can't abandon your students, after all - what would Kakashi say?

Best wishes from everyone here,

Naruto

Seeing that there wasn't really anything that needed a specific reply, Iruka just passed his report scroll over to Gamato, already pondering what brooms to get and planning to insist that someone have a camera handy for the first tests...

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As November drew to a close, Iruka received another odd visitor in his office. Like Gamato, this one was green and had large eyes; unlike Gamato, he was entirely green and native to this reality. This visitor was easily the most oddly-dressed house-elf the chuunin had seen, not that he'd seen all that many: Aside from a single black sock that showed clear signs of heavy wear and repeated mending, he mostly wore an ill-fitting and somewhat shabby black Muggle-style suit with white dress shirt, sized for a human child that was slightly taller and significantly less scrawny.

"Can I help you?" Iruka asked.

A look of worship came across the elf's face. "Professor Umino Sir is being so kind," he muttered, "asking if he can help Dobby, just like Great Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby, eh? That would explain the sock - probably the same one Harry used to get him freed. Dobby seemed to collect himself after a moment, standing at an amusing attempt at attention. "Professor Headmaster Sir bes hiring Dobby to work at Hoggywarts, and Dobby bes asking if he can work for Great Harry Potter Sir, but Professor Headmaster Sir is saying that students can'ts be having their own elves at school, but Dobby remembers Professor Umino Sir and how he helps Dobby protect Great Harry Potter Sir from bad old master, so Dobby asks if he can be Professor Umino Sir's elf, and Professor Headmaster Sir says that he cans be if Flippy and Professor Umino Sir be agreeing to it. Dobby asks Flippy, and Flippy agrees if Professor Umino Sir does, so Dobby wonders if he can be taking over as elf assigned to Professor Umino Sir?"

Taking a moment to parse the long string of mangled grammar, the chuunin responded. "If the Headmaster and Flippy are both all right with it, then it's fine by me, though there will be a rule or two. First off, I'm sure the Headmaster has already said something along these lines, but no punishing yourself like the Malfoys used to make you."

Dobby nodded, his ears flapping comically. "Professor Headmaster Sir says the same thing."

Iruka smiled. "Good. The other big rule is that you don't do what you did two years ago, interfering with and attacking Harry to try and scare him away. If there's a threat that you know about, tell me or the Headmaster and we'll figure out what to do. Of course, if someone or something is attacking right at the moment, you can feel free to do to them what you did to Lucius Malfoy." Both man and elf wore similar smiles of fond remembrance for a moment, though the edge of vindictive pleasure in both's expression would have probably disturbed an outside observer.

"Oh, and one more thing," the chuunin said, realizing a potential issue in the future, "there are things about me and what I'm teaching Harry and his friends that most people don't know, outside of the six of us and Headmaster Dumbledore, so please don't go telling anyone else about them without our say-so, okay?"

The house-elf looked affronted. "Dobby is a good elf, even when bad masters was doing terrible things, Dobby didn't tells anyone what bad master's plan was or who bad master was."

"Of course, of course," Iruka placated, "I just wanted you to know that some of these things are secrets, so you know what not to talk about."

Dobby nodded enthusiastically enough that the tips of his ears started slapping against his cheeks. "Dobby understands. Dobby wills keep secrets of Great Harry Potter Sir and Professor Ninja Sir!" With the characteristic cracking sound, he vanished, presumably off to work around the castle until called upon.

Iruka sat back, slightly tired from the somewhat bizarre conversation, before straightening again. "Wait, how did he know I was a ninja?"

Omake:

Sasuke read that part of the report too. He said, and I quote, "Hn."

The next kanji was unreadable, as the first stroke suddenly veered off the edge of the scroll at a wild angle. More text followed, crammed in around the mark.

Sorry about that. Sakura was reading over my shoulder and dope-slapped me halfway out of the village. At least the window was open this time.

Defense Teacher Omake

From: Black' Victo Cachat

Teacher: Hagrid, teaching about creatures he considers dangerous

Reason for Leaving: Even Dumbledore has to put his foot down when he hears that Hagrid is shipping in Basilisks.

From: setokayba2n

Teacher: Pein

Reason for Leaving: The position was for one teacher, not six.

A/N: The explanation of the Grangers' motives in refusing to let Hermione get her teeth magically shrunk was yet another case of me looking at a canon thing and going "Okay, now how do I make this make sense given how I've characterized the people involved?"

I had the order of dragons and champions be the same as the book, just no Harry and no Horntail. And no, Cedric didn't know about the dragons - Fleur and Krum did, same as canon, but with Harry not tipped off about them he can't pass the warning along, can he? Thus, Cedric looks more frightened but gets a bit more credit from the reader for quick planning. The lack of advance warning did worsen his performance enough to cost him a couple points, dropping him to third place. We don't know what Fleur's score was in canon, only that it was lower than Cedric's which had to be 32 (based on their scores in the 2nd task and him tying Harry afterward). Since personally I think she had the best plan, I've given her a score just barely below Cedric's canon one.

Fic Recommendation: "Your Fault" by Sarah1281 - Several of the antagonists from Naruto argue in the afterlife about who was most to blame for things.

Posted 02 June 2019

Current WIP Chapter: 75