[Fic]Dreaming of magic: Chapter 3- Naruto
Dec. 16th, 2018 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gingersparkFandom: Dreaming of sunshine, Naruto, Harry potter
Summary: DOS team 7 reborn into the Harry Potter universe
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Shikako
It didn’t take long for Shikako to come to the conclusion that whatever had brought Sasuke with her had likely brought Naruto too. She was pretty sure they’d been together when they died. In between developing seals to counter dementor influence, developing a combat skillset for the magical world, and checking on Harry, they made trips to both muggle and magical population centres, searching for Naruto’s distinctive chakra signature.
Even making regular night trips, and going with Sylvanus’s parents whenever they went to large cities or magical social events, it took most of a year before they found him.
Katherine and Sylvanus were having lunch with Theo, who was talking about her friend Mary, a muggle born witch who had returned to the UK from Japan a week previous. The pair were unenthusiastic about being introduced to another child their age, being occupied with trying to improve Neville’s confidence.
Shikako was only half paying attention when a familiar name caught her attention.
“-Naruto, lived in Japan for years, but his mother wants him educated here of course.” Theo trailed off, looking quizzically at the two of them, who were apparently doing a poor job of covering their shock.
Shikako was thankful for her seer cover story as her shock faded into delight. “I knew we’d meet someone called Naruto – when can we see him?”
Theo raised an eyebrow at her. “This Friday dear, like I said a moment ago.” Shikako blushed. “His name is Nathaniel Uzuhara, he’s your age, and Mary says he started calling himself Naruto when he was a toddler, probably because the other children couldn’t pronounce his name.”
They were both looking at Theo expectantly, so she continued. “Mary says he’s very bright, very outgoing. He’ll be going to Hogwarts with you in a few years. More than that, you’ll have to wait until Friday I’m afraid.”
*
Naruto
Naruto was enjoying exploring the new country his wonderful parents had brought him to. His mother wanted him to go to her old school and missed her family, who still lived in England, so his parents had moved their small magical plants business to London. It was strange to speak English to someone other than his mother, but he was enjoying meeting so many new people.
It hadn’t been until his mother taught him to write that he’d recognised the script Shikako used in her seals. He didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to the books around the house, although he knew that some of them were in his mother’s (and apparently Shikako’s) native language. He and Kurama had put the pieces together quickly after some initial bewilderment, and he was incredibly grateful his bijuu friend was still sealed in his mindscape.
He knew Shikako, she’d been his first friend, and he knew why she had never said a word about being reincarnated. She’d been scared. She’d been scared a lot of the time, especially when they were younger and he’d never quite figured out why. He knew how Konoha had been in those years, and Shikako had helped him see so much of the hows and whys of the systems that ran Konoha. Loyalty was important, and hers would have been questioned, along with her sanity, if she’d claimed to remember another life. It’d have been a stupid thing to do, Shikako loved her family and friends and always did her best to help, Konoha wouldn’t have just trusted that. Worse, some people might have questioned whether she really loved them if she hadn’t told them her secret, and of course Shikako didn’t want that. Her precious people were important to her. So he understood. By the time his family had left for England he’d long forgiven her for being too scared to tell them.
He was adjusting quickly to the different way English wizards thought about magical parentage, and he had always known that his muggle born mother had left England due to the lack of job opportunities for muggleborn magicals.
He had plans to change that, but they were long term, and in the meantime he was enjoying integrating into a new society.
Stepping out of the fireplace of Urien Manor, he was looking forward to meeting new friends. Instead, as he glanced across the floo receiving room, he saw Shikako and Sasuke. Their faces might be different, but he’d know his teammates anywhere. That was Sasuke’s posture, Shikako’s body language.
He felt a grin spread across his face as he dashed towards them. One of the best things about being five again, he thought, was that he could get away with behaviour he really couldn’t as an adult.
Sasuke ducked under his flying hug, but Naruto could see the smile he was trying to hide. Shikako just hugged him back.
When he pulled back, still grinning widely, Shikako introduced herself as Katherine Darby, ward of house Urien, thankfully before he’d done anything stupid like call her Shikako.
“Naruto Uzuhara!” He responed, using her outstretched hand to pull her into another hug, and snagging Sasuke’s robes to pull him in too. Sasuke made a gumbling sound, but neither resisted as he hugged them.
“Sylvanus Urien” Sasuke’s new name was ridiculously pureblood, and Naruto sniggered into his teammate’s shoulder.
Sasuke’s new parents seemed mostly amused by all the hugging, and the trio retreated to the playroom (Sasuke’s house was so huge) ostensibly to show Naruto the rocking horse.
They sat cushions in front of Sasuke’s frankly ridiculous full sized magical rocking horse (it even had a small rope ladder to help someone their size get onto it) with jasmine tea provided by Mopsy, Sasuke’s house elf.
Shikako and Sasuke explained how they’d found each other, and how they’d been looking for him. When he mentioned that he’d only moved to England the week before Shikako buried her face in her hands and Sasuke groaned.
“All those nights getting cold and wet…” Shikako shook her head.
“You guys…” Naruto could feel himself tearing up slightly. They looked for him, even though they had no guarantee he was there, no idea where he was if he was, even though it was cold and wet.
Sasuke elbowed him “Of course we looked for you, idiot.”
Naruto dragged him back into a hug. “I missed you guys so much!”
After they’d caught each other up on their new lives, eventually the topic turned to Shikako’s chakra sensitivity.
“Hey, Shikako, Kurama says he can sense magic because he’s not from this world, is that how you could sense chakra?”
“Yeah. I can sense magic the same way.”
Sasuke narrowed his eyes slightly. “I thought the way I can see magic was just the … spiritual imprint of the sharingan, but it’s not the same. I can see magic all the time, I have done since I was born.”
Shikako frowned thoughtfully. “Was it uncomfortable at first? It’s probably a combination of the imprint of the sharingan and magic, if it’s manifesting differently for you.”
Sasuke shrugged. “I used to get headaches a lot, especially when I looked at people or things with magic for a while, but it’s not so bad now.”
Shikako pulled out her sealing notebook and began jotting down ideas while interrogating Sasuke about the details of his eye problems.
While she was doing that, Naruto directed a few questions towards Kurama, and concluded that Kurama was taking the brunt of the effects of being alien to this world, which was why he wasn’t a magic sensor like Shikako.
An hour later, they had decamped to the library so Shikako could read the magical medical texts that one of Sasuke’s ancestors had owned. It wasn’t long before Shikako had most of a seal that would allow Sasuke to turn his magic-vision (yes, that’s what it was going to be called, shut up Sasuke) on and off at will.
Naruto knew Sasuke wouldn’t trust anyone else with sealing his eyes, but Shikako’s seal in their last life had prevented Danzo from getting his eyes. Team 7 trusted each other.
*
Jo
Jo had adjusted to the presence of Sylvanus on Saturdays. Watching him poke curiously at the telly and other “muggle” technology was adorable. The books Theo had given her had explained how isolated the wizarding world was, and she was happy to help her daughter’s best friend become more familiar with the real world, especially after everything his family had done for Katherine.
One Saturday there was a new boy, Naruto, who’d slotted into Katherine and Sylvanus’s relationship like he’d always been there, rather than a boy they’d met only the day before.
He was a cheerful, talkative boy, in contrast to the seriousness of the other two.
“Mrs Darby?” She jumped, heart in her mouth, and turned to see Naruto looking sheepish.
“Sorry Mrs Darby, didn’t mean to startle you.” Apparently he’d already picked up on the silent walking habit the Katherine and Sylvanus had.
“They got distracted working on runes, and I don’t get rune-stuff, so I thought I’d come and talk to you.”
“Runes?” Her books on magic hadn’t said anything about those.
“Kako says they’re like, a way to enforce your will on the world. They’re like, ink or engravings with magic in them, and they do cool stuff like barriers or pocket dimensions. She’s really good with them.”
Kako was apparently his nickname for Katherine, and the runework thing did make a little more sense of the abstract doodles she was always making.
“Do most magical children use runes then? Because you don’t get wands till you’re older?”
Naruto giggled. “Pfft, no. Runes are used more in Japan, like everyone knows how to use them at least a bit for like, protecting your house, but Mum says they’re pretty obscure over here. They’re really complicated, and you need to be really clever like Kako to use them especially to do new things like Kako does.” So, Katherine was unusual, even for a magical child?
“Kako’s like, scary clever. But not great with people, or asking for help.” And didn’t that sum her daughter up well coming from a child who’d only known her a day. “She really likes seals, if you ask her she’ll probably explain for like, hours.” The perceptive child looked rueful. Had he managed to get her daughter to actually talk?
She smiled. “I’ll ask her, thank you Naruto.”
He grinned mischievously. “You could ask her what the runes on your doorframe do.” He said, before dashing off to distract Katherine and Sylvanus again.
Jo sat in her kitchen with her tea, thinking over that conversation. Naruto was incredibly helpful, and had given her a route to establishing a closer relationship with her daughter. In retrospect, that was a little uncanny. He seemed incredibly perceptive for such a young child, and he’d given her exactly what she wanted. She understood her daughter better, and had something to talk to her about, that her daughter apparently enjoyed.
Walking into her front hall, Jo peered at her doorframe. Sure enough, at the bottom of the frame, there were small markings, patterns and writing she couldn’t read.
She hummed thoughtfully, wondering what her daughter would say when she brought it up.
*
Katherine said they were protection runes, a permission based warding system that meant that anyone with a magical signature had to have Katherine’s permission to enter.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Katherine looked puzzled.
“Why do we need protecting, Katherine?”
Katherine frowned. “When we walked past the Leaky Cauldron, you and Dad couldn’t see it, and you didn’t notice the people in robes either.”
“We’re muggles, we can’t see wizard stuff because of the, um, the muggle repelling charms. It doesn’t mean we’re in danger.” Jo really wasn’t sure what her daughter was scared of.
Katherine sighed. “If wizards don’t want you to see them, you won’t. They could erase your memories and you’d never know. If they’ve succeeded in keeping their society secret, it means they’re more powerful than muggles in some ways. You’d be defenceless.”
“Why would a wizard want to hurt us?” There was something her daughter was dodging around, she could tell. Plenty of people were more powerful than Jo, and she knew that. That was no reason to put defences on their house.
Katherine hesitated for a moment before looking her in the eyes. “There was a civil war a few years ago.” What.
“A war?” She tried to keep the horror out of her voice, but knew she’d failed when Katherine winced.
“Kind of. It was, there was a group of extremists and people fighting them, and the government trying to keep it all under control.” That sounded awful, but…
“Katherine, what aren’t you telling me?”
She waited patiently while Katherine stared at the tabletop.
“It was about blood purity. Whether people with non-magical ancestry should get magical training, or were ‘stealing magic’ or something.” That sounded awful, and kind of racist, and dangerous. She knew trying to pull her daughter away from the magical world would destroy their relationship, but…
“Mum, it’s over. The ringleader died, and the attacks pretty much stopped. It’s perfectly safe. I’m a ward of house Urien, so that protects me, and Hogwarts has always been safe.”
“So why do we need protection runes on our door?”
“They’re pretty much like the standard ones most wizarding houses have, just adjusted to work off my magic rather than ambient magic because this is a muggle area. It’s just in case.”
That wasn’t as reassuring as Katherine seemed to think it was, but Jo decided not to push.
“Naruto said you’re very good with runes. What were you working on with Sylvanus earlier?”
Katherine perked up and launched into a bewildering lecture on Sylvanus’s eyes, medical runework, the interaction between ambient magic and barrier runes, and on/off switches.
Jo smiled as she tried to follow her daughter’s explanations.
*
Naruto
It had only taken a brief explanation of Kako’s seer cover story to start Naruto thinking about Shikako and how she’d acted in their past life. Sasuke said it was a cover story for why they seemed to know each other, but Naruto wasn’t sure.
She made guesses and choices, especially about people, that were right most of the time. That was interesting. She’d also been wary and driven, in ways that didn’t quite make sense. It couldn’t just be Nara intelligence, because Shikamaru hadn’t been the same way at all.
“Kako, you were a seer before too, right?”
She froze, looking at him with wide eyes.
“Aha, I thought so! You didn’t tell us because of the ROOT stuff right?”
She nodded, still looking lost.
“You’re actually a seer?” Sasuke butted in.
Naruto glared at him and hugged Shikako. “It’s OK Shikako, we’ll protect you, right Sasuke.”
“Hn” That was an agreeing ‘hn’, so Naruto grinned at him as he tried to comfort Shikako, who still looked a bit shocky.
“I don’t know everything, I can barely remember, and if I change stuff it isn’t the same, and Danzo-“
“Breath, Shikako.” Sasuke had decided to be helpful, finally, even if he looked a bit distracted.
“It’s ok Kako, you don’t have to tell us anything.” She really didn’t, sometimes this stuff went wrong if you told people, right?
“It’s, none of it’s about you two this time, I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.” Oh. Oh. Naruto felt slightly sick. That… Shikako had always thought she wasn’t supposed to be there?
“Kako, you shouldn’t care about supposed to! You’re ours, you’re team seven. We’re what team seven is, whatever some stupid visions say, you’re important, and you’re not allowed to sacrifice yourself for us! No dying, remember?”
He met Sasuke’s horrified eyes across Shikako’s huddled form, and grimaced. That revelation had put some of her self-sacrificing behaviour in a really unpleasant context. She hadn’t though she was important?
Naruto hugged Kako tighter.
“You don’t have to do things alone Kako.” Sasuke patted her arm awkwardly. He looked at Naruto, panicked, as Kako started sobbing.
Naruto summoned a couple of cushions and pulled Kako down so she could cry it out.
*
Sasuke
It had taken a whole day for Kako to calm down enough to talk them through what she could tell them about this world, rather than hysterically apologising to Sasuke for stuff he didn’t hold against her anyway. It had taken several hours before she’d believed him about that though.
They were sat in Sasuke’s bedroom, with privacy seals on every wall.
Kako had one of her sealing notebooks open in front of her.
“Most of the stuff I know is about Harry Potter”
“The boy who lived?” Sasuke asked.
“Yep, that one. He’s our age, and we’ll be going to Hogwarts with him.”
“Isn’t he, like, being raised to be a super-cool wizard or something?” Nauto put in.
Kako winced. “Nope. He didn’t even know magic was real until I told him.”
Sasuke could already see potential problems, the savior of wizarding Britain being raised with no awareness of wizarding culture or combat.
“What! You’ve met him?” Naruto was as loud as ever. “Wasn’t he hidden or something?”
“I remembered the name of the village and tracked him down. He’s being raised by his awful muggle aunt, and her family. He lived in a cupboard under the stairs.”
Sasuke had encountered worse things in his time as a ninja, but that was pretty bad.
“So, are we gonna rescue him?” Naruto echoed Sasuke’s thoughts.
Shikako winced again.
“There are blood wards on him – I’m working on adjusting them so they don’t need him to live with blood relatives, but for now he’s safer there.”
“You told him about magic, what else?” He doubted Shikako had left the boy in a situation that bad.
“I gave him some food, and I’ve started teaching him levitation.” Sasuke nodded, that seemed sensible.
“Voldermort is still alive-ish.” Sasuke felt a jolt of horror, as that was very, very bad news.
“Alive-ish?” Naruto asked.
“He’s currently a kind of wraith I think? Anyway, he’s got seven Horcuxes, and those need to be destroyed before he’s actually dead.”
“So, we break the horcrux thingys, then kill voldermort?” Trust Naruto to simplify things.
“The horcruxes are protected, aren’t they?” Sasuke was pretty sure voldermort wouldn’t leave the things keeping him alive just lying around.
“Yes. One of them is in Gringotts-“ Sasuke grimaced, that would be tricky. “One was in the middle of a lake filled with inferi, but it’s now in Sirius Black’s house, one’s at Hogwarts, Lucius Malfoy has one, one's a ring, one’s a snake, and one’s in Harry’s forehead.”
That was an interesting variety of hiding places.
“I might be able to remove the one in Harry’s scar without killing him, but I should probably check my array on one of the others first.”
“What should we focus on achieving before we get to Hogwarts?” Kako was thinking about the big picture too much, they needed smaller goals.
“Harry should know more about the wizarding world, and probably be able to fight- he’s going to get dragged into things anyway, and our defence against the dark arts teachers will be awful. We need to adjust to fighting with magic ourselves…”
“He’d be asked to fight even if he was totally untrained, wouldn’t he?” Sasuke asked. It made sense, if most of the wizarding world thought he was a powerful wizard being trained to fight the dark arts.
“Yeah.” Shikako sounded pained.
“We’ll train him to be super-awesome Kako, don’t worry!” She smiled at Naruto.
“I want to help Sirius too.” That was odd.
“Isn’t he a death eater?” Sasuke was pretty sure that was the context he’d heard that name in.
Kako actually looked surprised. “Oh, no, he’s actually innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong, um Peter I think? Was the one who was a death eater and killed people.”
While Sasuke processed that, she went on. “I think I’ll need to work out something other than a patronus that works against dementors before we break into Azkaban though.” He really shouldn’t be surprised, but Kako was planning to break into Azkaban? Really?
“Huh? What’s Azkaban?” He kept forgetting Naruto hadn’t been here long.
“Wizarding prison, guarded by dementors.”
Naruto turned to him in horror. “They force people to be around dementors? That’s horrible!”
Now he thought about it, Naruto was right. Huh.
Either way, they had a lot to work on. Figuring out how best to fight with magic, teaching Harry, breaking into Azkaban, as well as figuring out the seal for his eyes – at least he wasn’t going to be bored.
Gaunt Shack
Date: 2018-12-17 11:05 pm (UTC)Re: Gaunt Shack
Date: 2018-12-17 11:09 pm (UTC)Oh NO! I'm LATE
Date: 2018-12-18 06:37 pm (UTC)"The books Theo had given her had explained how isolated the wizarding world was, and she was happy to help her daughter’s best friend become more familiar with the real world, especially after everything his family had done for Katherine."
Oh, I really like Jo thinking of the muggle world as the "real" world. It's a subtle detail, but it says a lot about how she's handling all this. I can't blame her tho. I might have used the same term myself.
Naruto! I don't have a great handle on how to write him myself, but you did so wonderfully here. He's so cheerful! I love him! You really nailed that combo of like. Naivety, but also incredible emotional intelligence. He knows just how Jo is feeling, and what to say to her, doesn't he? And Shikako and Sasuke too.
Ah, they know she's a "seer" now! Oh this will be fun. GOSH it must be such a weight off her, that they both (functionally0 know her two biggest secrets, and they forgive her/love her/don't blame her for anything. She needs that SO much.
Ugh, Sasuke having to spend hours convincing Kako he's really not angry at her. My heart. My dear babies.
Re: Oh NO! I'm LATE
Date: 2018-12-19 01:25 pm (UTC)I'm really glad you think I got Naruto down, he's the one I struggle with the most TBH.
Yeah, I really wanted to write happy indulgent fic so Shikako gets what she actually needs for emotional health, i.e. not having huge secrets and knowing her team loves her.
Re: Oh NO! I'm LATE
Date: 2018-12-19 01:34 pm (UTC)Ah, sunshine-kun!
Date: 2020-12-15 09:12 pm (UTC)Calling himself Naruto is such a Naruto thing to do!
Kurama! Naruto must have such a ridiculous amount of magic from the yang-to-magic conversion and adding Kurama only makes it crazier. I wonder what effects the translation to magic had on Kurama?
I am all here for Kako's precious people not blaming her for things!
Because of course he does, he's Naruto. He's got a fixing-things streak as wide as Kako's and we love him for it.
Perfectly in character. And cute!
Naruto dragged him back into a hug. “I missed you guys so much!”
I don't know the word for the emotion this made me feel. A kind of happy hurt?
It always makes me sad that Naruto doesn't use seals. They were so important to his parents and he's missing out on the fun and the family tradition. He's smart, he's an Uzumaki, he could totally learn seals! My headcanon will be that Naruto learns Runes from books - he has parents, they'll teach him to read, he'd love spending time with his parents and being read to, reading would totally be a big family thing for him that he never had in Konoha - and then learns Uzumaki-style sealing from Kako.
So little respect for his own intelligence. You can do it, tiny Naruto! Believe it!
See above re: Naruto, fixing things and why we love him.
She made guesses and choices, especially about people, that were right most of the time. That was interesting. She’d also been wary and driven, in ways that didn’t quite make sense. It couldn’t just be Nara intelligence, because Shikamaru hadn’t been the same way at all.
“Kako, you were a seer before too, right?”
See above re: Naruto being very clever. Also, I can't wait until he sees a Naruto manga. He'd be so pleased to have a whole world named after him! The ultimate validation.
This whole scene made me sad and happy at the same time.
I am ALL HERE for Kako's precious people not blaming her for things!
Now he thought about it, Naruto was right. Huh.
Now I am become Naruto, conscience of worlds.