Itachi, Is That A Baby? (by SpoonandJohn)

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Working On Bad Habits. Exams Begin!



All too soon (according to Hermione—everyone else seemed to think it was the opposite) exams were rolling around. Most of Hari's friends were set to do at least moderately well, in no small part to Hermione's growing ability to actually explain instead of rant. The girl in question, of course, was certain she was doomed. Despite what everyone other than Hari told her, she was utterly convinced that she had missed some key thing she needed to study. Hari merely said that she had eidetic memory and should focus on her magic instead of things she already had in her head.

That was her other problem. She was finding wandless magic slow going. It was her own desire to prove herself and the blinders she had on measuring against Hari that meant that she was utterly deaf to her peers' and teachers' continual exclamations of amazement as she was beginning to show mastery of the initial spells learned in their first year. Hari, on the other hand, was regularly walking out of class early since he'd finished the coursework for the day. Otherwise, he wrote his essays instead of paying attention much of the time.

She was still annoyed that he essentially treated the rules not merely as suggestions but as things that explicitly applied only to other people. The fact that the teachers had pretty much decided to go along with his interpretation somehow failed to assuage her. Instead of assuming they were right, it was making her a little crazy. Hari decided to help.

Every time he found her studying, he dragged her along to explore somewhere. Usually it was a place that was probably off limits to students—or, at the very least, first years. Often, when he left a class, he took her with him, despite the fact that she was trying to pay attention to the lesson. For some reason, the teachers were either unaware of this happening (despite her rather audible complaints) or had just decided to permit it. Hari was hoping he was slowly breaking her of her belief in the rules as unassailable.

Which brought them to the week leading up to exams.

X

X

"Where are we going?" growled Hermione. She had been having a peaceful (relatively) dinner in the Great Hall when Hari had suddenly stood up, taken hold of her wrist, and proceeded to the exit. She'd been forced to run to keep up and had lost her meal down Malfoy's back as her plate had been in her hand when she was yanked from her seat. She had no real objection to that part, at least—despite her desire to obey the rules, Draco Malfoy was a poisonous little ferret (for some reason, she never thought of him as a weasel) who never failed to remind her of her "inferior" origins. Even Pansy had pretty much given up that since Hermione had been regularly demonstrating wandless magic with a command unseen outside of Hari Potter.

"No idea."

"Then stop! Oof!" The last part came as he complied instantly and she rammed into his back. It was rather like slamming into an old oak tree. He didn't even move as almost a hundred pounds of accelerating twelve-year-old impacted him.

"Hey, I know!" He started running again. Her cry as he headed at a solid wall ended in a strangulated shriek as he went straight through the illusion and down the staircase behind it.

"How did you know about this?"

"You mean you don't?" It still regularly amazed Hari that so many people didn't know about these shortcuts. They played havoc with his eyes, mind; seeing a passage that went downward but ended three floors above its start gave him headaches on a regular basis and he was still trying to adjust his mental map to envision those twists of space-time. But the fact that everyone else was apparently ignorant of these useful paths boggled his mind.

He ignored her scream of primal terror as he walked off a landing without a railing onto thin air and trotted along a solid-stone corridor that was suddenly visible. People were so jumpy. It could frustrate an impatient individual. He'd found it best to simply ignore such problems.

"Here we are."

"Where is 'here'?" she asked warily. She expected that it would be one of those random sections of the castle that no one had been to for a century and was probably unsafe.

"The third floor."

"WHAT?"

"Is your hearing going?" he asked, voice concerned. "Should I take you to the medic for help with that?"

"No!"

"Oh good. Then I needn't repeat myself. Hello, Professor!" The last part was to Professor Stutterfaces, who had just walked out the door. His screech was remarkably similar to Hermione's.

"Professor . . ." began Hermione. "I can explain . . ."

"I kidnapped her," said Hari. "She needs to try a bit of rule-breaking."

Professor Stutterfaces just made sharp 'eep' sounds as he held his chest, glaring at the two of them.

"I decided I would show her the Not-Even-A-Bit-Worrisome-Corridor because that might show why she doesn't need to be so concerned with rules."

The glare intensified somehow and Stutterfaces had turned slightly purple with pale around the edges.

"I'm, glad to see you're doing a little better, Professor," said Hari. "I gather that visiting the medic was helpful?"

"What are you talking about, Potter?" Stutterfaces hissed.

"I know you visited her a week or so ago. No, longer. It was the day after I met up with you out here. What did you need something to help with heart failure for anyway?"

"What." Hermione was utterly confused by this conversation.

"Professor Stutterfaces needed some potions from the medic labeled for their ability to help with heart problems." He looked at the purple Professor. "Are you well, sir?" When he only got a strange, throat-sound, he nodded. "Glad to hear it." He pushed passed the stunned man and pulled Hermione through the door.

"Ow!" he covered his ears, one with his hand and one with hers. "Would you please stop screaming?"

Sound continued.

"What are you so upset about, anyway?"

More continual sound.

"Are you scared?"

Sound.

"What of? The puppy over there?" Hari shook his head.

The sound was getting quieter.

"Are you breathing, at least?"

Still quieter.

"Okay, the sound is getting annoying." His finger stabbed a cluster of nerves on her neck that cut the scream suddenly. "Much better." It struck him that he could probably have used magic to achieve the same goal, but he was pretty sure of his skill. There were fewer ways to stop his method of silence-creation, even if a misapplication of the technique could render a victim permanently mute. Or an intentional application, in some cases. "You know," he mused, "you still don't seem to be breathing."

The scream was now silent, but apparently ongoing.

"Yep." His finger jabbed several spots on her chest and abdomen. Chakra fired her nerve endings and her diaphragm dropped, forcing a tortuous breath into her lungs for the first time in nearly a minute. "You going to manage from here out?" He paused. "Guess not." A series of different nerves caused the muscle to contract and she exhaled. "Still no good? Oh well."

It took almost a minute of him manually operating her lungs before she took a shuddering breath of her own. Her mouth moved for quite a few seconds before he blinked. "I should probably fix that." His finger prodded the cluster he'd hit first and her voice suddenly cut in.

"—horrible person! You deserve to—oh. What did you do?"

"Made sure you didn't pass out and die?"

"Specifics, please."

"Operated your diaphragm for you. You seemed to be having trouble with it. Why was that, anyway?" She pointed behind him and her eyes went wider than they had been. "If you start screaming again, I'm going to have to make you quiet again. No? Good."

He walked over to the cowering Cerberus, her feet making scratching noises as Hari dragged her along the stone floor. "He's not dangerous. He's a puppy who wishes he were with his mum, aren't you . . ." he broke off, "boy?" The giant dog whimpered pitifully and tried to back through the wall it was pressed up against. "See? He's not mean." He tried to use her hand to pet the dog, but despite the confined space, it put up a remarkable display of dodging to avoid possibly coming into contact with him. "Oh well." He frowned. "I guess I could show you the stuff down below, but that was much less interesting." He shrugged and began to leave, finding that she was still not helping move and simply pulling her with him.

When the door shut behind them, she smacked him. Well, she tried to. Her hand swept through the space that his head had occupied shortly before. "You jerk!"

"What?" He avoided the followup strike with ease as well.

"That was a Cerberus! They're dangerous!"

"Nah." Hari waved his free hand dismissively. "That was a pup at best. It'd barely reach the knee of Uncle Pein's familiar. Hardly a threat."

"What?"

"Are you going to do that thing where you just keep asking for explanations?"

"Am I what?"

"Ah. I guess you are. You probably want to get to the last Transfiguration class of the year, right?"

"What?"

"I'm going to assume that's a 'no' then." Hari smiled and headed into another passageway that had been masquerading as a window onto the grounds. "Good. I'll show you this place in the Astronomy Tower that has a view through the giant telescope and no one seems to know about it." And he trotted off, ignoring the stream of "what"s emitted by his companion at irregular intervals.

X

X

The exams came in their due time, to the relief of Hermione, who had supplanted her fear of failure with a fear of being dragged off yet again. She had decided that no matter how unprepared she was, it could not be worse than another expedition into some untraveled part of the castle where she would be dangled over some horrible walkway while alligators (where had they gotten alligators for Scotland's climate?) tried to nibble at her toes, her shoes long ago dropped into some swampy pit. Really, she was convinced more than ever that adventure was best experienced on this side of a nice, normal page covered in ink.

Their first exam was for Transfiguration. Hermione fretted the entire time during the written portion, despite citing sources perfectly. The rest of the little clique had been studying with the increasingly harassed Hermione, and had therefore memorized a good bit of the material for the test.

McGonagall didn't even comment when Hari handed in an exam five minutes after the start, ink already dry. Teachers did a reasonable job of locking their doors and windows against magical intrusion, but ninja were supposed to enter places that were explicitly forbidden (if one didn't enter the Emperor's private chambers, how was one to kill him in his sleep, after all?) and so he had decided that he would find out what the exams were beforehand. It was only sporting, since they hadn't kept him out. Of course, he didn't want to spoil Hermione's fun lecturing the others, so he let her continue instead of sharing.

In addition to his completed essay (and perfect multiple choice and short answer sections as well), he proceeded to turn the tortoise into an excessively elaborate teakettle and then into a turtle with the explanation, "back and forth is too easy". Since the turtle had a shell with ornate detailing not found on the kettle, McGonagall had a sort of misty look on her face and completely missed that Hari had then trotted out of the room, giving Hermione a jaunty wave.

History of Magic was even less noteworthy. Hari had learned by judicious application of intelligence gathering (spying) that Binns always gave the same exams. Moreover, he found out that Binns always assigned the same grades to the same seats in the class. Apparently, he was in a bit of a rut. So Hari decided he wouldn't trouble the disturbed ghost and just didn't show up.

Over dinner, they were treated to a running commentary by Hermione, who bemoaned the fact that her teapot had been tortoiseshell-patterned despite several attempts by Blaise to point out that the pattern in question had been different than her original tortoise.

"Just stop trying, Blaise," grumbled Pansy. "She'll just find something else to worry about."

X

X

Astronomy was intensely frustrating for the entire rest of his year-group. For some reason, Hari seemed to have incredibly good eyesight, since he would peer through the same telescope they did and then pronounce the answer with a degree of precision that the Professor herself was unable to match through their equipment. He had decided not to bother people by telling them that his Byakugan could see the eyepiece of the NEWT telescope in a different area of the tower and so he was using the massively more powerful device for his work. It was probably for the best, he decided.

That didn't stop the Professor from gushing constantly about his prodigious skill in the utterly useless field of staring at balls of rapidly decaying hydrogen. Especially hydrogen that had long since already been transformed into other elements. He couldn't see the use. A few potions apparently cared about the observable light from a long-dead star, so he supposed there might be an application, but it struck him as silly. Instead he concerned himself with the moon and planets, which would at least be there when they were seen and would also conceivably, therefore, have an effect on something—even if no one seemed able to explain why a planet's position in its orbit relative to that of the Earth would make a difference.

X

X

Hari decided to save his Professor a good deal of headache two days later, when their exams resumed. Specifically, he failed categorically to even show up for Potions. From what he was informed by his classmates, Professor Snape was torn between being utterly livid and gleeful that he would be able to give Hari a T. Hari was still having some trouble with the grading system, since it seemed to be entirely based on arbitrary titles instead of any sort of actual order.

Hermione reported at dinner that Draco Malfoy had attempted to sabotage her potion. Actually, she reported that he had been planning on it. Since Pansy had heard about it through the grapevine, she had told Daphne and Blaise. Blaise, in turn, decided not to trouble Professor Snape about the matter. He did, however, inform Hari.

Hari had, therefore, spent the early morning hours going through Draco Malfoy's possessions and coating his clothing with some compounds that would react poorly to the fumes produced during the early stages of the brewing process in the potion the exam was to be on (something that he probably wasn't supposed to know, but what else was expected of him when Snape locked the exam notes in a drawer in a safe in his private quarters under an illusion?).

X

X

Hari was suitably shocked (read: grinning knowingly) when he learned that Draco Malfoy's potion had detonated catastrophically during the first few minutes of the exam. Apparently, someone had modified his cauldron to focus the spray only upwards, limiting the damage that Malfoy's failures usually caused. Instead, Malfoy alone was rushed to Hospital, the flesh on his front scorched and blackened. To the luck of the castle, his lungs had been too badly damaged by the heat to scream loudly and he was now under a silencing charm while the medic worked on healing him.

"Gosh," said Hari, one hand at his mouth. "How ever could he have introduced Pixie Blubber to the potion?" Not even bothering to wait to find out what potion they were supposed to have been making to exclaim in surprise.

Snape stalked over about that moment. "Potter . . ." he paused. "I will see you expelled for this." His tone wasn't particularly vehement. "And detention for the rest of the year."

"For what, Professor?"

"Trying to kill Malfoy. Again."

"But I wasn't even there, Professor."

"I'm not sure why I should take that into account. It's not like you're going to show up anyway."

"True, true."

"Did you have anything to do with it?" hisser Hermione after Snape left.

"No."

"Oh good." She paused. "Are you lying to me again?"

"No."

She frowned. "And if I asked if that were a lie?"

"I would lie."

"Um . . ." Hermione was trying to ignore how the rest of the group was snickering. Except Blaise. He was laughing so hard he'd fallen off the bench and rolled under the table.

"Glad you agree," replied Hari cheerfully. He got up and patted her cheek. "No need to thank me. I didn't do anything, after all."

"What?"

"Good night, Hermione." Hari left the Great Hall, whistling softly to himself.

(A/N John)

Not a lot to say here, honestly. We're coming to the end of Year One. And if you think I've messed with canon here . . .


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