Chapter 5: 0-5: Awakening
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.
Brief A/N: Apparently FFNet stripped my scene breaks out of Chapter 4 after I uploaded it. Sorry to anyone that felt it jumped around too much without signposting. This has now been fixed.
After dinner Xeno and Luna did a bit more layout work, with Iruka acting as something of an assistant or gopher while his host occasionally commented on the contents or subjects of the articles, photos, and illustrations. Much of it ranged from the bizarre to the outright nonsensical, though he suspected part of that might be a lack of context. Satisfied with their work for the evening, Luna went off to read by the living room fireplace, while Xeno invited Iruka to play a game called "chess" that was similar enough to shogi that he was able to pick it up reasonably quickly and provide an adequate opponent for a couple of matches. The introduction of the pieces names provided an explanation for the name of the Lovegoods' home, the structure and the playing piece showing obvious similarity. Xeno also mentioned that most wizards tended to prefer a version called "wizard's chess" in which the pieces moved themselves and acted out their defeat of opposing pieces, but that he didn't generally use the set he owned because the brutality, simulated though it was, tended to distress his daughter.
As they played, Xeno continued his guest's crash course regarding his new country of residence, ranging between culture, history, government, lifestyle, geography, wildlife, and other various topics. The meandering nature of the discussion was unconventional, but while Iruka would never use this style in his classroom, neither would he call it ineffective. One topic his host brought up but could not elaborate on was "Muggles" - the majority of this world's humanity who were not only incapable of magic, but ignorant of its very existence, a feat that impressed Iruka considerably. Apparently they had advanced far beyond magicals in their technology, though Xeno confessed ignorance of the details of both that and their culture. This, it would seem, was something Iruka would have to investigate further on his own when the opportunity arose; another entry on his to-do list.
The other major point of interest and concern was the relatively recent insurgency this country had suffered. A self-styled "Dark Lord" whose name Iruka would have to pry from Xeno when Luna wasn't present had, with the help of his followers, attempted a coup against the magical government using predominantly guerrilla and terrorist tactics. Xeno's description of the uniform of those followers, so-called "Death Eaters", explained why he had insisted that Iruka not select plain black robes. Given the obviously dark nature of the subject matter, the chuunin steered the conversation onto happier topics. He could wait until Pandora had recovered and Xeno's mood consequently improved to get more information.
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
Iruka's second full day at the Rook passed with a couple hours of training and the rest of his time spent largely helping around the house where he could while learning more about Magical Britain. Once he'd been instructed on the use of the more unconventional features of the kitchen equipment, he'd even made sure to take over cooking so that Xeno wouldn't have to keep going out for food. Thankfully, breakfast was already taken care of by the ample leftovers from the dinner brought over by Molly Weasley, which could have easily fed twice the current population of the Rook. Then again, considering she apparently had seven children, six of them boys, she was probably accustomed to cooking enormous portions. It would also explain the indications of a strained budget, but make her generosity to a neighbor all the more impressive.
By evening, though, both of his hosts were beginning to show subtle signs of stress and a little melancholy. While they were clearly trying to keep their spirits up, Iruka could see the hidden sadness in their smiles; he'd smiled like that a lot in his youth. Pandora's absence was clearly starting to weigh them down, and only her return would make their smiles fully real again.
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
During his third breakfast in Britain, Iruka was startled by the sudden appearance of a sleek brown owl flying in through an open kitchen window in broad daylight. He tensed automatically; for shinobi, unexpected events could signal imminent attack. It didn't help that both Lovegoods' attention immediately focused on the owl and the small roll of parchment tied to its left leg. Luna hopped up and filled a saucer with water, also grabbing a small tray full of what appeared to be small bits of jerky. These were placed on the table in front of the owl where it had landed on the back of a chair, while Xeno removed the parchment and unrolled it, tension clear in every line of his body.
The younger man's apprehension melted into clear relief and not a little eagerness as he spoke to Luna, whose reaction mirrored her father's. «They'll be lifting the spells this afternoon,» he addressed Iruka, «and if all goes as expected she should be home by dinner tonight.»
«That's wonderful news, Xeno-san!» Iruka beamed. «I look forward to meeting her under more pleasant circumstances.» He observed, meanwhile, the owl greedily drinking from the dish of water and occasionally swallowing a bit of meat. Apparently they used owls instead of hawks as messenger birds here, which struck him as somewhat odd. After all, owls were often nocturnal, while humans preferred the day, and he recalled a student's report on messenger hawks noting that owls, while far stealthier than hawks, were also significantly less intelligent and thus more difficult to train.
The theory of owls as messengers gained more evidence a few moments later, as a much larger owl entered the kitchen, this one carrying a package in its talons, which it gently deposited on a clear section of table before joining its cousin at the water and meat. The smaller bird made a clearly irritated sound and ruffled its feathers before taking to the air again and leaving via the window.
Untying the string and pulling away the heavy brown paper, Xeno commented, «Ah, your potions have arrived, Iruka-san.» He tilted the box towards his guest, revealing a dozen glass potion phials, each with its stopper covered in wax stamped with a logo depicting a cauldron sitting on an open book. «Each one should last for seventy-two hours, so this amount should be enough to get you at least capable of regular conversation in English, and likely more. I'd suggest taking your first as soon as possible, since you're already with people who will be speaking English in your presence. The taste, I'm afraid, is just as unpleasant as most other potions, and you'll feel a slight tingling around your temples for several minutes as the potion takes effect, and again when it wears off.»
With a nod to his host, Iruka withdrew one of the phials. It held probably about as much liquid as a small teacup, with a thick, flat bottom that likely made it easy to stand on a table or workbench for filling. The contents were quite fluid and seemed to avoid the walls of the phial like mercury, with a color he could only describe as a vibrant beige. Reasonably numbed to the bizarre elements of this world by now, he simply shrugged, broke the wax seal, popped the cork, and drained the phial in one smooth motion. The whiff he had gotten smelled strongly of fish, while the taste was reminiscent of that time Naruto tried to "improvise" a ramen recipe (an incident which was now classified, by order of the Seventh Hokage). As described by Xeno, his head began to tingle, centered roughly beneath his temples; it wasn't painful, though he was certainly glad that it wouldn't be continuous throughout the potion's effect.
«Excellent! Perhaps, after breakfast, we can begin your first proper lesson in the English language.»
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
There turned out to be one slight wrinkle in Xeno's plan: Shortly into their lesson, when he explained to Luna what they were doing, she eagerly asked if she could learn Japanese. Grinning with obvious pride at his daughter's thirst for knowledge, he agreed, and thus the lesson became a hybrid English/Japanese language class, with Xeno as the primary teacher and each of his students also acting as a teaching assistant.
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
That afternoon, both Lovegoods used the Floo to return to the hospital. Iruka begged off, stating that he didn't want to intrude on what should be time as a family, and anyway he hadn't done his training for the day yet. What he didn't mention was that he didn't want to be among the first things Pandora saw when she awoke, in case she remembered him from and associated him with her accident; better to give Xeno time to explain the situation to her fully and prevent any awkward misunderstandings.
Several hours later, Iruka had finished training, showered, and dressed in fresh robes. He was now carefully practicing using a quill pen to draw the letters he'd been shown earlier, when he heard the distinctive whoosh of Floo travel followed by voices. Carefully stoppering his ink and tidying his workspace on the coffee table, he rose just as the three Lovegoods ascended the stairs, a more difficult task than usual given the fact that Xeno was helping to steady Pandora, while Luna clung to her mother's side as if desperately seeking reassurance that she was truly back. Immediately, Iruka pulled the coffe table away from the sofa, creating a clear path, and was rewarded with a grateful smile from Pandora. The woman herself looked pale, fatigued, and a bit unsteady, but she was still doing far better than at their previous meeting. Clearly, given the extent of her injuries, wizards were about as good at healing as shinobi, though he suspected that merging the two styles of healing might provide even better results - something to look into if he ever regained contact with Konoha.
Once the family had seated themselves on the couch, with their newly-returned member in the middle, Iruka bowed to the woman and greeted her in English: "Welcome home, Mrs. Lovegood. I am Iruka Umino, and it is a pleasure to meet you." He had made sure to learn those sentences during that morning's lesson for precisely this reason.
«Pandora Lovegood, the pleasure is mine.» Her response was as thickly-accented as he suspected his greeting had been, but was still clearly intelligible. Judging by Luna's proud grin and Xeno's fond chuckles, it would appear that someone had a brief language lesson before their return home.
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
Over the next several days, life at the Lovegood home gradually returned to their version of normal. Pandora still tired easily, but was getting stronger by the day, and began to join Iruka in some of the chores he had been doing to help his hosts. There had been some tension between them at first, until a conversation translated by Xeno revealed that both had apparently feared that the other would blame them for the accident. Once everyone realized this, they all burst out laughing, and any lingering stress seemed to vanish. It was hours before the Rook's occupants stopped randomly chuckling.
Xeno still spent a great deal of time in the Rook, but made regular trips to the small office he rented for use as the Quibbler's headquarters, as his magazine still needed to be printed and sent out to its subscribers.
Pandora, meanwhile, had also joined in with the language lessons, ordering additional Libation for once she was clear of her current medical potions regime. With such parents, it was easy to see where Luna's inquisitive nature came from. Soon, many conversations in the quirky house involved the speakers trying to include their new vocabulary, leading to sentences that switched seemingly at random between English and Japanese, often to Xeno's great amusement.
˄
-――――===ͽ ˂ O ˃ ͼ===――――-
˅
A week after Iruka's arrival, a particularly bedraggled old owl arrived at breakfast, perching on a side table after dropping a note into Pandora's porridge. With an air of fond exasperation and amusement, the woman cleaned the mess with her wand before opening the missive. Their guest was able to make out some of what she explained to her family, something regarding the Weasleys and a party. Finally, Xeno took pity on him and filled in the gaps. «Molly Weasley wishes to throw a get-together next Saturday at the Burrow, partially to celebrate Pandora's recovery, partially to welcome you to the village more properly, and partially so that she can feed every witch and wizard in Ottery St. Catchpole until we all burst. The other nearby magical families will also be invited, so you'll get the chance to meet our neighbors and practice your English with someone that doesn't know any Japanese.»
«Well, in that case, I'd better redouble my studies! I don't want to be clinging to you the whole time making you translate for me. Of course, if you need help getting out of a conversation, make this gesture,» Iruka demonstrated a basic 'need assistance' signal from Konoha's sign code, «and assuming I see it I'll make sure to suddenly require your help translating something,» he winked at his host. «That said, what have you told people about who I am and how I came to be staying here? I don't want to contradict anything you've already said, though I can't help but feel that it might be best if fewer people knew that I come from another world.»
Xeno chuckled, «Both excellent ideas. I was thinking along the same lines regarding your origins, so I've kept things to a minimum. You are Umino Iruka, a teacher from an isolated magical community. During one of your classes, a mishap with a spell a student was attempting coincided and seemingly interacted with a mishap in Pandora's experiment, bringing you here by a rough portkey-like effect. We are helping you find a way back to your homeland which, due to its isolated nature, is not listed in any available record and is Unplottable, thus explaining your difficulty in returning. That isolation also explains why your use of magic is different, since your homeland has had no known previous contact with the rest of the Wizarding World. Does this sound acceptable?»
«Sounds good. It's mostly true, which makes the few bits of fiction easier to remember and easier to pass as truth.»
«My reasoning exactly. It would appear, then, that we have a plan!»
A/N: I totally did not plan this. Molly just wanted to throw a party, and you know how stubborn she can be...
In case my paltry ASCII-Art skills leave you confused, that scene break divider is supposed to be a shuriken between two wands. I'd happily replace it with something better if somebody found a way to create something comparable (i.e. some combination of shuriken/kunai and wand(s)) that worked on FFNet and looked better without being super-tall. Regardless, I've gone back and utilized it in chapter 4 as well.
Got a Follow notification on Monday for an author with two fics on my Favorites list, which is definitely a boost to my confidence!
Anyway, a comment on my writing (so ignore everything below if you don't care about my process and plans): There are certain events that I would call 'landmarks', like the battle with the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets or the Little Hangleton graveyard. I've got most of those already at least planned out, and in at least one case written up in advance (pending revision to account for what I write between now and then), and these landmarks are some of the easiest things to write for me. Second easiest are scenes that flow naturally as I write them, where each event, action, or bit of speech dictates the next. Action scenes tend to fall under this heading. Where I tend to bog down is in between such scenes, in the parts that stitch everything else together. I have at times been sorely tempted to do this fic as the kind of story that constantly timeskips and (other than maybe bits of narration/exposition summing things up) leaves the reader to fill in the gaps.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my inner Slytherin and Hufflepuff teamed up to force me down the harder path of actually writing things out. That's not to say that I won't timeskip; I'll be skipping weeks or even months at times, with only a minimal nod to events during such periods, but most of these skips will be of time where either nothing happens or nothing of note diverges from canon.
What I refuse to do is spend lots of your time and mine simply regurgitating canon events. While there may be points where Iruka's perspective on an unaltered canon event might be of interest, I'm not going to have a long scene for such. As an example, the entire Sorting goes by in less than five paragraphs, and a lot of that isn't directly Sorting-related. I know that many people that read this will have not only read the books and/or seen the films, but will likely have also read numerous other fics that cover the same ground, and I don't want to bore them by simply repeating material they're already exhaustively familiar with.
Fic recommendation: "Bondage Style!" by Chilord - a raunchy but surprisingly smart comedy about a Naruto trained in a rather... unorthodox style.
Posted 11 June 2017
Updated (A/N only) 30 July 2017: Added fic recommendation
Updated (A/N only) 15 September 2017: Noted different quotes for Japanese speech