Chapter 20: 1-10: Interlude

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.

"I've been thinking," Neville commented as they warmed up one Saturday afternoon in early December, "the way we meet regularly for the same activities, this is almost like a club or a small organization, right?"

"I guess," Harry responded, "what about it?"

"Well, it's just that all these other clubs and groups have names or the like. Maybe we should have something to call ourselves? 'You, Hermione, and me' doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, and it could be referring to us as a group of friends rather than this." He waved an arm to indicate the training room. "We should come up with a name for our training group, something that describes it."

Iruka couldn't help but beam with pride. Back in October, Neville wouldn't have dared put forward an opinion or idea of his own without prompting. Already the seed had sprouted - all that remained was to protect and nurture it as it grew into the mighty tree he suspected it could become.

"The name should be truthful," Hermione stated. "I'd feel dirty every time I used it if it was a lie."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "but it shouldn't be anything suspicious or that would draw too much attention. Nothing that would tell too much about what we're doing."

Hermione pondered for a few moments. "How about 'Visitors and Outsiders to Magic, Investigating and Teaching'?"

Harry and Neville looked skeptical about the name, while Iruka thought it through more closely. "Er, Hermione," he said, "I'm afraid the initials for your idea spell something... less than nice?"

After a moment's thought, Hermione blushed bright red. "I withdraw my suggestion."

Several minutes of brainstorming followed, with occasional ideas thrown around for consideration. Finally, Neville hit upon an idea that everyone agreed was workable: 'Students of the Elemental Nations', or 'S.E.N.' - it was accurate, descriptive, unremarkable, and the acronym didn't sound rude in either English or Japanese.

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"Iruka-sensei?" Hermione began as the three first-years were enjoying one of their rest / cooldown periods. "Have you ever heard of someone named Nicholas Flamel?"

It was obvious that she was going for her usual tone of curiosity; unfortunately, Iruka was a trained ninja and Hermione was a terrible liar. Her attempt at subtlety also wasn't helped by the way Neville and Harry both stiffened slightly at her question.

"I can't say that I have," Iruka responded, "but then again there are a lot of prominent people in this world that I've never heard of. Why do you ask?"

Hermione hesitated, while Harry and Neville shared a look. Finally, Harry chimed in. "Hagrid mentioned him; he said whatever the three-headed giant dog is guarding in the third-floor corridor is the business of the Headmaster and Nicholas Flamel. Then he refused to explain any further."

Iruka sighed. "Do I even want to know how you ended up in the dangerous, forbidden corridor?"

"We got lost?"

After a Look (a specialized jutsu used by even civilian teachers), the chuunin was treated to a story of Draco Malfoy, a fake midnight duel, and Argus Filch. He couldn't help but note that this made Halloween the second time Ronald Weasley's mouth engaging without his brain had inadvertently placed a student in mortal danger. Iruka could only hope that the boy would learn some maturity and self-control as he grew.

"I'm afraid that until now you actually knew more than I did about what was in that corridor. While I don't know about the rest of the staff, I at least was given only the same vague warnings you were. The giant dog at least explains why the Headmaster said that certain staff members have to be able to access the corridor - the dog would obviously need to be fed, watered, and cleaned up after. If it's standing on a trap door, then you're probably right about it guarding something or someone, though why such a setup is in a school of all places makes no sense to me."

Harry's face took on a thoughtful expression. "When he took me to Diagon Alley, Hagrid said that there was no place more secure than Gringotts, except maybe for Hogwarts. While we were in Gringotts, he stopped at a vault that seemed more heavily protected than mine but only had one thing in it - just some lumpy thing about the size of my fist, wrapped in brown paper. From what I saw in an old Prophet in Hagrid's hut, it sounds like that same vault was broken into later that day. Whatever Hagrid took out for Professor Dumbledore, someone wants it really badly, enough to break into Gringotts for it. The Headmaster must have known someone was after whatever it is, and had it moved to the one place he thought he could protect it better. We just can't figure out what could be that small but worth that much, or who could manage to get in and out of Gringotts without being caught or even spotted." At his last sentence, Hermione's face grew pensive.

Seeing the girl pondering set her teacher's mind running as well. She was likely drawing a connection between the topic of discussion and the staff member she already knew to have nefarious intentions. Iruka hadn't yet told Harry or Neville about Quirrell, and it looked like Hermione had kept the secret. His career as a ninja meant that Iruka was well-acquainted with secrets and need-to-know information; the question here was: Did Harry and Neville need to know? Sharing a secret made it harder to keep, especially when the subject of that secret clearly had an unhealthy interest in one of the recipients of the knowledge. On the other hand, it would make it easier to keep the boys from getting caught alone with the homicidal Defense Professor. Besides, forcing one of his students to keep a secret from the other two was not going to be healthy for their budding friendship. Weighing everything, he figured that Harry would be the only one Quirrell would pay any significant attention to, and the scarred boy's 'upbringing' had left him already well-practiced at hiding his true feelings, so the added risk of discovery would be relatively small. Conversely, the odds of a secret sundering the bonds forming between his students were much higher, and like any Konoha-nin, Iruka understood just how important such bonds were.

"I have my suspicions as far as the 'who'," the chuunin announced, noting Hermione's relief, "and you should probably be told as well, for safety reasons if nothing else, Harry's especially. You remember the broom malfunction at the Quidditch game?" Receiving three nods, he continued. "While I don't have any proof, I am certain that Professor Quirrell was the one responsible. Remember how I've been working to teach you three to detect and resist sakki?" Three more nods. "He started giving off a lot of it just before Harry's broom began to act up, and the broom settled the moment Hermione knocked him over on her way to her intended target. The Headmaster also suspects that Quirrell let the troll in on Halloween as a distraction. It seems pretty likely to me that he's after whatever that package was."

Now it was Neville's turn to wear a thoughtful frown. "But could he have actually gotten in and out of Gringotts like that? He doesn't seem particularly powerful, barely even casts spells to demonstrate in class, and he's so scared all the time..."

Iruka gave Neville a small proud smile for his analysis. "I suspect that the fear is an act. How better to avoid suspicion than to seem too meek and helpless to be the culprit? As far as capability, after the Quidditch game I did a bit of checking. While Quirinus Quirrell wasn't noted as being particularly powerful as a student, he did very well on his theoretical work; he's certainly very knowledgeable. Affecting Harry's broom like he did, especially such a brand new top-of-the-line broom, would have taken powerful dark magic. So, while he may still not be that great with a wand, he's clearly got at least a few tricks up his sleeve. One should never underestimate an enemy - it tends to lead to some very nasty surprises." He proceeded to run through the same set of warnings he'd given Hermione after the Quidditch match.

"Anyway," he said once his students had been properly cautioned, "I'll see what I can find about this Flamel. Knowing who he is might tell us what the package is, and knowing that might give us a clearer idea of why Quirrell wants it and what lengths he's likely to be willing to go to for it. The more you know about your enemy, the easier it is to predict their actions, and thus the easier they are to beat."

Hermione's expression had once again returned to what Iruka was beginning to call her 'thinking face' - furrowed brows, narrowed eyes, and a slight frown while worrying her bottom lip. "Iruka-sensei," she asked hesitantly, "were you... are you... a soldier?"

As a trained shinobi, Iruka deliberately did not freeze at the girl's question. "And what led you to such a conclusion?" he hedged.

"Well..." she began, "it's just that you've been referring to Professor Quirrell as an 'enemy', and that got me thinking, and I thought about the way you talk about other things, and the kinds of training you've been giving us, and the things you can do and what they might be used for, plus those clothes you're wearing look like some sort of uniform, and your vest is really stiff and I think it might be armored, and you talk so much about wars and heroes from your world but not much about people that don't fight which means fighting must be important to you, and it all made me think you might be some kind of soldier, or maybe a special policeman." How in the Sage's name did Hermione's tiny twelve-year-old frame fit lungs big enough to get that all out in one breath?

After a slightly exaggerated sigh of defeat, Iruka favored the bushy-haired girl with a proud smile. "You're pretty close. I am a shinobi, a ninja. We mostly serve as peacekeepers or elite law enforcement these days, but before the Great Peace we were also called on as our countries' main military forces. I'd rather not go into too many details on what that involved. The three of you are civilians, and even if you were training as full shinobi, your education would have only touched lightly on the uglier aspects of the work by this age." Noting the confusion building towards shock on especially the faces of Harry and Hermione, he spoke quickly. "Ninja training has to start at a very early age to fully prepare the body, basically shaping the way it grows and develops. That's part of why I've said that you'll probably never reach my level of ability at some of these things, because I spent much of my childhood training my body and my chakra. You'll certainly be able to go farther than someone who tries to start training as an adult."

"Regardless," he continued, "now that you three know a bit about what kind of work I did and trained others for, I won't have to censor my stories quite as much. I'll still be holding some things back: Some of it is classified, some of it is not fit for young ears, and some of it is just plain private. Now," he smiled with a touch of mischief in his eyes, "since you all appear nice and rested, how about a nice long run? While we do our laps, I can tell you about one of the best crops of students I ever taught - students that would one day change the world."

"The question is: Where do I begin? Hmm... how about this?"

"Once upon a time, there lived a fox spirit with nine tails..."

A/N: I just had to end with that. For those that aren't certain, that last line is the very first line in the official American release of the Naruto manga.

Also, Hermione really shouldn't be allowed to name things. Like, ever.

Anyway, sorry for the short chapter; I ended it at the best break-point I could find, which left it fairly brief. My plan had been to post both this and the next chapter together, but then I noticed that posting every Sunday in December would line next chapter (which includes Christmas hols) up with the holiday pretty well. Thus, in addition to the bonus chapter last week, you'll be getting another one next week.

The last two chapters have been huge for reviews, which in hindsight I probably should have guessed given that they dealt with such a polarizing character as Snape. As far as he goes, I don't have any particular plans to have him become more involved with Iruka and company, whether as a friend or an enemy, so unless the plot surprises me in how it develops he'll be more of a background character.

Fic Recommendation: "Common Sense" by Stone Elbow - a humorous (occasionally leaning towards crack) story where Naruto is much trickier than canon. Some shades of the classic "A Drop of Poison" at times, but still very much its own tale.

Posted 17 December 2017