CmptrWz's Random Snippets

CmptrWz · Sep 10, 2020

Petunia was doing her best to hold her temper in public, but her freak of a nephew wasn't making that easy. The boy had ruined Dudley's birthday trip to the zoo with his freakishness. Even now he was holding them up, Vernon's entirely justified slap, once nobody was watching of course, having knocked the boy down on the way back to the car. Sadly, they wouldn't be able to justify leaving the freak here, but he would get quite the punishment when they got home.

She happened to look back to see if she could judge just how long the boy was going to take to get back to them, and her eyes went wide at the same time as a lorry's horn blew. Nothing that size should be in a car park, let alone barrelling down on her nephew. There wasn't even enough time for her to scream before the lorry had reached the boy, and for the first time in her life she was actually happy that he was a freak. Right when he would've been struck by the lorry there was a muted crack, the freak appearing unharmed a few feet away. Disoriented, admittedly, and having fallen back over, but unharmed.

Petunia took a deep breath, starting to recover from the shock of her nephew almost dying. She didn't want to imagine what the neighbors would've thought about the boy being run over by a truck while under her and Vernon's direct supervision. On the way to or from school would be one thing, but not now. Except that she didn't get time to finish recovering before a coach was honking its horn, about to barrel into the boy from the other direction!

This time the boy's freakishness caused something to happen to the ground beneath him, creating a dip that he fell into and that partially closed over him. The coach bounced a little as it went over that point, but it didn't strike the boy. A moment later he'd popped back up out of the dip, unharmed but looking exhausted. By then Vernon and Dudley had both turned to see what was going on as well, and she could hear Vernon sighing in relief himself. In fact, she heard him stepping forward, likely to go grab the freak to drag him to the car before any more of this foolishness could happen.

She didn't hear any more steps, because of the sudden sound of a very loud engine above them. There was barely enough time to glance upwards to see the helicopter coming down before it impacted the ground, right on top of her nephew. Panicking, she looked around to see if she could spot that he'd shown up elsewhere, only to see no sign of him. It was then that she started hyperventilating, and a few moments later she'd fainted.

It'd taken the officials two days to determine that, against all odds, the helicopter did not seem to have killed one Harry Potter. Or, at least, there were zero signs of his corpse in the wreckage. Where he'd gone was less certain, of course, and Petunia thought that it was likely freaky teleporting to much further away than elsewhere in the car park. She couldn't even blame the boy for that, given that the blasted place seemed to be intent on killing him.

Despite the fact that she had to deal with the rumors that he'd died or run away under her watch? Yes. Blame him for wanting nothing to do with that car park after the third time something tried to kill him in it? No.

Three weeks later there was still no sign of the boy, though, and she was getting worried. She'd intended to tell the other freaks that he didn't have permission to go to their freakish school, but if the boy was missing then she wasn't sure what they'd do to her family because of it. Vernon was just as worried, though they did their best to keep Dudley from seeing that. Which was easier than she'd personally expected, given that he'd been fascinated by the way Harry's freakishness had protected him.

Even if they'd had to punish him when he'd inadvertently admitted that Harry's visit to the school roof had been triggered by an attempt to knock the boy out so that he'd get in trouble for missing class. That wasn't something that Dudley should be doing in public, just think of the problems that could cause him if he'd actually been caught by a teacher.

That aside, Vernon was at work and Dudley was out playing with his friends while Petunia did the housework that Harry couldn't do. She'd forgotten just how tiring it all was. Maybe they'd have to let up on having the freak do it all if he returned, if only to not look like they were pushing a child too harshly. Especially given that he'd be paid extra attention when he returned due to his 'harrowing ordeal' in the car park.

She'd just finished cleaning up the kitchen when someone rang the bell. Jumping in surprise, she hurried over to the door, only for it to open before she could get there. Which was a problem, because the front door had been locked and nobody with a key would have rung the bell. In walked a blue-cloaked figure, hood up with no face visible. Freak...ish, but for some reason she thought that this wasn't one of them. They looked more like a monk than a freak, all things considered. More importantly was the person who followed them in, though she'd had to look twice to realize that the well-dressed and much healthier looking than normal nearly-eleven year old boy was her nephew.

"Miss Dursley?" the cloaked figure, likely a man, said.

"Yes?" she answered.

"Terribly sorry about the incident with your nephew. It was a case of mistaken identity, we didn't mean to interfere with prophecy over here."

"What?"

The man ignored her. "Still, the extra training he got over the past...er..."

"Four years," Harry supplied.

"Right. Over the past four years should help him with that pesky destiny he has here. Again, sorry about the mistake. The other half of it is being corrected by an associate of mine as we speak, so I'll just be off now that your nephew is home safe and sound."

Petunia blinked as the man turned around. "Other half?"

"Of course. Had to grab the intended target. We've already lost too much time as it is."

She didn't get anything else out before he'd stepped out of the front door, the door itself closing behind him. Blinking again, she looked at Harry. Maybe he had answers? "Intended target?"

Harry flinched. "Er, when I arrived in the other world they thought my name was Dudley. They weren't happy to find out that they'd gotten the wrong person, but wouldn't tell me much else about that while they figured out what to do with me?"

While she wouldn't admit it later, it took her a good five minutes to put the pieces together. It only took her another twenty seconds to faint once she had though.

CmptrWz · Sep 15, 2020

AN: This is a short one that came to me and could apply to any number of OCs or Crossovers. The scene amused me, so here it is.

"Dangerous, he is," Yoda said gravely. "Provoke him we shall not."

"Is he a dark side user?" one of the assembled Masters asked.

"No. Overcome the dark, he has. Discarded it, he did."

"But he could fall from the light?" another Master asked.

"Overcome the light, he has."

There was a pause as the Masters tried to determine just how one overcame the light side of the Force. Finally, the first Master that had spoken voiced their collective thoughts. "How?"

"He has embraced a side of the Force long hoped lost," Mace Windu answered. "That makes him an incredibly powerful and dangerous foe, one that is not to be underestimated."

"I, we, thought that there was the light and the dark."

"Order," Yoda said. "Natural, the light is. Forced, the dark is. Opposites, but united."

"Compared to chaos," Windu continued. "Not that most think of things that way, but he is firmly rooted in the chaotic aspects of the Force. Luckily he prefers the less dangerous path, though there is no true separation in the chaos arts."

"What path does he follow?" another Master asked.

"He is a disciple of the pranking side of the Force."

AN the second: In Discord, proposed Crossover individuals included Naruto, Sirius Black, Harry Potter, Zelretch, Alexander Harris...

CmptrWz · Sep 21, 2020

So, this one started as someone in Discord asking for a way for Petunia to screw with Snape. Intentionally, unintentionally, whatever. I went with unintentionally, came up with the incredibly basic premise and Snape happening to be in the Alley when Hagrid brought Harry there. Then discussion happened in two different Discord servers and things expanded and we end up with this.

It started with a delivery, shortly after her precious Dudley's third birthday. Petunia didn't know that the trunk that was larger than it should be on the inside full of her sister's clothing had sat around for over a year before someone had realized that it would never reach Lily Potter, only then attaching a 'care of Harry Potter' label to it. She had no way of knowing that the fact it had been addressed to Lily first and Harry second had bypassed a mail redirection ward, allowing it to arrive at her home instead of being sent elsewhere. Nor did she know that the majority of the clothing had been collected by Lily from their hoarder parents and sent out to a service that would clean, repair, and apply standard wizard charms to the clothing in hopes that she'd eventually have a daughter that would like the items.

What Petunia did know was that they didn't want to spend money on clothing for her nephew, the neighbors were starting to question the boy wearing Dudley's too-large cast-offs, and they now had years worth of clothing of various sizes that the worthless boy could wear instead. She didn't even mind the freakishness that was the larger on the inside trunk to store it all in, as it would mean that they didn't need to find a place to store everything. Coming up with an excuse for why the boy dressed like a girl would be simple enough, right?

Harry's childhood took a turn that day, not that he would ever realize it. Wearing clothing intended for a girl had others looking at him differently, and the Dursleys ended up needing to treat him differently than they otherwise would've as a result. Petunia had inadvertently made it worse when she'd claimed that he refused to wear boy clothing and hadn't refuted the claim that it was to be closer to his departed mother. The neighbors had run with it and pitied the boy who had lost his mother at far too young an age.

To look less out of place in the clothing, Harry's hair had been allowed to grow out and he frequently wore the accessories that went with the clothing. Strangers frequently mistook him for a girl, and he quickly got used to it. He honestly didn't mind as they treated him better when they thought he was a girl, acting oddly when they found out that he wasn't. He was teased horribly when he finally started school, but that died off when he didn't react to it. That didn't make most of his classmates want to associate with him, so he ended up alone in the library quite often.

Because of his feminine appearance, Vernon was uncomfortable with having Harry do a lot of the outdoor chores. That had resulted in most of Harry's chores being indoors, with the only outdoor chore being maintaining the garden after Dudley was found to be incapable of handling that. The older boy could handle mowing the lawn but had no patience for learning how to identify weeds and other problems. Dudley having chores had resulted in him being less of a troublemaker, and what little trouble he did get into was much harder to blame on 'that poor boy' as the neighbors frequently referred to Harry.

That same feminine appearance, coupled with Vernon deciding that Dudley needed to learn at least some value in doing things 'right', prevented him from being punished for doing better than Dudley in school. It almost hadn't, admittedly, but Dudley had interrupted before any punishment could be issued to declare that he was proud to have done worse than 'the sissy'. Vernon's initial opinion on the matter had flipped entirely, and Harry was promptly moved into the bedroom upstairs with proper furniture so that he could keep his grades up as a target for Dudley to meet and exceed.

An unexpected side effect of that was Petunia giving Harry the trunk full of clothing, which she had been managing until then, to get it out of her closet. Included was a comment that it had been his mother's, which had shocked him. Finding out that he'd been wearing clothing connected to one of his parents all that time had resonated with him, and the farce of an explanation that Petunia had allowed to come into existence shifted to reality. He didn't care that he wasn't a girl, he finally knew that he had a connection to his parents. One that the Dursleys were encouraging, even if only for financial reasons.

It was as the two boys approached eleven that Petunia sat down with Vernon and discussed the likely-impending letter from 'the freaks'. Harry hadn't done a whole lot of magic since he was a toddler, though she expected that he'd somehow pierced his own ears at some point when he started wearing earrings. She didn't know when that had started, only that she'd noticed him wearing some that she recognized as having been Lily's a year or two prior. He'd also seemingly changed his glasses multiple times to ones that better fit his overall image, but that was about it. None of it had been overt, at least.

At the same time, Harry had consistently outdone Dudley academically over the years. It was apparent that Dudley was never going to catch up, and it would look very odd to send him to Smeltings while Harry went to Stonewall with his far better grades. Allowing Harry to go learn with 'the freaks' could be their out, rightfully claiming that he'd gotten a position in the private school his parents had attended. It would keep him from upstaging Dudley at a minimum, and it wasn't like the freaks would be likely to take 'no' for an answer. Vernon had agreed, and their plans were set.

When the letter arrived they were ready for it, though Petunia was annoyed that they'd sent the freak-raised version. Luckily she knew how to get a letter to Hogwarts anyway, even if she'd never been able to attend. Their response came in the form of someone ringing the bell on Saturday the twenty-seventh. Petunia answered the door, as Dudley had been taken shopping by Vernon and Harry was upstairs working on a deep clean of the guest room after both she and him had noticed that there was a lingering odor from Ripper in there.

Neither of them liked the dog, though at least Marge kept him from attacking anyone while she visited.

Opening the door, she hadn't expected to see Severus Snape, though most of her initial shock was that she recognized the man in the first place. She had to bite down her initial disgust at seeing the man that she blamed for taking Lily away from her, instead inviting him to come in while she fetched Harry.

Severus hadn't known what to expect, having agreed to come entirely out of curiosity regarding an actual acceptance letter having arrived for Mister Potter, but what appeared to be a young Lily hadn't even rated as a possible outcome. Admittedly, Lily hadn't had black hair, nor had she worn glasses, but he recognized the outfit as one that he'd helped pick out. His brain took several minutes to reboot properly, but he'd been able to survive the first few questions from the boy on autopilot without much issue.

Being asked if Lily's old Hogwarts Uniforms were 'still suitable', since they apparently fit Harry fine, was enough to fully kickstart his brain again. Raising an eyebrow, he carefully cast a couple of detection charms, noting that Petunia was biting her lip at the display of magic. The charms showed that the clothing had all of the standard charms and enchantments intact. They were also in incredibly good condition given their age, and the uniform definitely hadn't changed. Nodding, he agreed, but said that he'd have to clear the house colors from them and Harry's name would need to be added to each piece.

It wasn't until later, when they'd reached Diagon Alley, that he'd realized that Harry shouldn't be wearing Lily's clothing, but he had no clue how to bring that up without looking stupid for not having asked sooner. Maybe he could ferret that out of Petunia after returning Harry home?

Contrary to his original expectations when he'd left that morning, nobody mobbed them when they entered the Leaky Cauldron. Harry wasn't exactly recognizable as the boy who lived, after all. He was also far more inquisitive than expected, and along the way Severus had admitted that the boy should probably try to avoid being sorted into Slytherin. At the same time, he did his best to steer the child away from Gryffindor while also letting him know that both of his parents had been sorted there. Instead he'd pushed the boy towards Hufflepuff, as the least likely to bully him for his choice of dress, or Ravenclaw, as the house of the studious.

The Gringotts Goblins ignored Harry's choice of clothing, and the boy enjoyed the trip down to his vault far too much, and then they were off. Severus would've started them at Madam Malkin's, so that the clothing could be prepared while they did the rest of the shopping, but that wasn't needed. Instead he brought Harry to Ollivander's, and enjoyed the slightly-flummoxed look on the wandmaker's face when he realized that the young girl was actually a boy. Most of the rest of the alley wasn't likely to take any notice at all.

Finding the correct wand took far too long, but Severus ensured that a book on wand care and a basic holster were included in the day's purchase. Muggle-born were recommended to pick up the book, but amazingly few people bothered with the holster despite it being nearly critical to being properly prepared. They then picked up a trunk, as the expanded one Harry already had didn't have enough room on top of the clothing already in it. That was obtained from a second-hand shop, Severus having seen a decent two-compartment model there recently. As a bonus, the trunk had been modified with wheels and a handle that wouldn't look out of place in the muggle world. They also obtained a telescope slightly better than the standard student model from the same shop.

Purchasing the boy's required books was easy enough, though there Severus ensured that they also picked up a number of supplementary books. Mostly to do with potions, but also several things that he'd wished he'd known to point Lily at years ago. A primer on Wizarding Culture was one of those additions. They then ventured into Knockturn Alley for far better prices and quality on potion equipment and ingredients, the Diagon Alley apothecary overcharging as most students wouldn't know any better for years. If ever. That was also where they picked up the protective equipment needed for safe brewing of potions and protective equipment for harvesting ingredients. Severus even purchased a harvesting kit for Harry as an early birthday present, informing the boy that you never knew when you might come across quality potion ingredients.

They 'ran into' Rubeus on the way out of Knockturn, though Severus had to admit that purchasing an owl for the boy wasn't a horrible choice. That was also presented as an early birthday present, but necessitated an additional stop to pick up supplies that Hagrid hadn't gotten. Though Severus desperately wanted to know how Rubeus had recognized Harry as Harry, as well as why he hadn't made a fuss about how the boy was dressed or that they had come out of Knockturn.

A quick trip had been made to Privet Drive to drop off the day's shopping, then they'd left again for a short visit to King's Cross station. There Severus pointed out where the platform was and explained how to get onto it, though couldn't demonstrate as it wasn't open. They then returned to Privet drive for the last time, Harry going to organize his new trunk and shift clothing for the year into it while Severus sat down for a short chat with Petunia.

That evening Severus found himself staring at the wall of his quarters, nursing a glass of firewhiskey, wondering what was wrong with the world. Petunia had admitted to being petty enough to use Lily's old clothing for Harry instead of spending money they had clothing the boy, which had spiraled out of control over the years. The end result was that the boy didn't really look or act like his father, not that he acted much like his mother either.

Rubeus, at least, made sense. He'd started his trip to the alley by speaking with Ollivander about the wandmaker visiting the Forbidden Forest for wand-making supplies, getting a description of Harry in the process. That also explained how he'd known to get the boy the owl. At the same time, he apparently had no issues with the way the boy looked or dressed, and in fact hadn't seen anything unusual about it at all. Something that Severus, sadly, couldn't say about himself yet, though most of his personal issues were the constant reminders of Lily.

This was going to be an interesting year, and his occlumency was going to be well-tested.

Vernon had dropped Harry off very early in the morning come September first, even going so far as to ensure that the boy had snacks and a packed lunch. Harry had been left to his own devices for finding and entering the platform, in part because Vernon had been informed that he wouldn't be able to enter it anyway. The man had wished him luck before driving off, wanting to get back home so that he could bring Dudley to Smeltings on time.

The station had very few people in it at that hour, though it did have enough people around to make Harry happy that Hedwig was flying to the school instead of with him. Harry found that the lack of people went even further when he shifted to the magical side of the barrier. In fact, it appeared that he was the first student to arrive. That meant that he had no problem finding a compartment, and he even closed the door and curtains long enough to change into his uniform right away so that he wouldn't need to worry about that later. He made sure that he knew where the nearest loo was, then settled in with one of his books.

Eventually others trickled in, then flooded in, and the train started to fill up. Lots of people looked in on Harry, but for the most part they didn't even say hello once they saw that someone was already in that compartment. Eventually a pair of girls, Padma and Parvarti, joined Harry in the compartment, closing the door behind them after Harry had said they could join him. Padma had asked if Harry was short for something, which Harry had said not as far as he knew, before she commented that 'Harry is a weird name for our age'. She'd then shifted to asking about his book, which had her sister rolling her eyes.

Nobody else joined them, though they did have several visitors. First a redheaded boy had scowled at them when he rudely opened the door without knocking, leaving immediately after. Without closing the door again. Not too long after that a blond boy had also rudely opened the compartment door, but he had at least apologized and closed the door. A different boy had knocked, looking for his toad, and a bushy-haired girl had also knocked while apparently looking for the same toad.

They reached Hogsmead without issue, and Harry ended up in a boat with Padma, Parvati, and the bushy-haired girl who finally introduced herself as Hermione. All three girls were curious as to how Harry knew Hagrid, which led to the start of a story of how he got Hedwig that was interrupted by them getting started moving across the lake.

In the castle the two rude boys ended up yelling at one another, oddly enough over whether or not Harry was attending. The argument was interrupted by the arrival of ghosts, followed shortly by the group entering the Great Hall. Hermione muttered some things that Harry had also read about in Hogwarts: A History, the Sorting Hat sang its song, and then the sorting began. The blond rude boy was apparently Draco Malfoy and ended up in Slytherin, Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, the boy with the toad was Neville Longbottom and ended up in Gryffindor as well. The Patil twins ended up split, Padma going to Ravenclaw and Parvarti going to Gryffindor. And eventually it was Harry's turn.

"Harry Potter," Professor McGonagall called, and Harry stepped forward. Doing so seemed to silence the entire hall. The woman blinked a couple of times, looking down at Harry, then at the rest of the students. Frowning, she looked back at Harry. "I called for Mister Potter."

"And that would be me," Harry replied. "Harry James Potter."

The woman gave him a deeper look, before her eyes went wide for a moment. She schooled her features, nodded, and placed the sorting hat upon his head.

"Very interesting," the hat said, apparently directly into Harry's head. Or at least that's what he suspected, given that he'd not heard anything more than the house names when others had worn the hat. "Close, Mister Potter. I'm actually whispering directly into your ears. But good deduction, you'd do well in Ravenclaw. That said, you could also do with the friends that you'd likely get in Hufflepuff, bucking the norms like you seem to be doing shows that you could do well in Gryffindor, and you've got a drive to prove yourself that would do you well in Slytherin. Though Professor Snape was correct that you'd have a hard time in the latter two houses, I'm unsure if your chats with the garden snakes would be enough to convince your peers to treat you properly in Slytherin."

Frowning slightly, Harry thought about that. He didn't want to pin any hopes on something that vague, though why his chats with the garden snakes would possibly help him was beyond him right now. Figuring that the hat was obviously reading his mind, he focused on 'talking' to it without speaking. "I think I'd prefer Ravenclaw, Professor Snape indicated that they were the best choice for someone who likes to read as much as I do."

"That's not bad reasoning, but I can tell that you care far more about fitting in than you want to admit to yourself. Ravenclaw might accept your studious nature, but they also tend to be less...flexible about those that don't fit into normal molds. No, for you it had better be HUFFLEPUFF!"

The last word had been shouted, just like for all the other students, and Harry took the Sorting Hat off and headed for the Hufflepuff table. The hall was deadly silent as he did so, nobody seeming to be able to process what had just happened. Harry ended up sitting next to Susan Bones, on the other side of the girl from Hannah...something. He couldn't remember, only that it started with an A.

Professor McGonagall eventually recovered from her own shock and called the next name, which was enough to trigger murmuring across the entire hall. The sorting completed, and the meal was served. That triggered a flood of questions directed Harry's way, which he answered to the best of his ability. He'd started by 'proving' his identity through showing the scar on his forehead, which appeared to be enough to keep accusations of him being a liar at bay. Then admitting that he was wearing his mother's old clothing, as the only link he had to either of his parents, had caused some shock among his new housemates. He'd also admitted that he couldn't remember ever wearing boy's clothing, and had been mistaken as a girl for basically as long as he could remember as well, so he had no way to tell how either of those compared to a more 'normal' experience that everyone thought a boy should have.

Harry had expected most of those questions. Less expected were the concerned looks when his scar erupted in momentary pain when he was looking over the professors. Specifically when he was looking at Professor Quirrell, though nobody thought that was likely to be the cause, complete with an older student assuring him that they'd check with Professor Sprout about it just in case it was something serious.

The feast ended with announcements, including a concerning one about the third floor corridor, before everyone left for their common rooms. That led to a bit of a disagreement, since Harry was a boy and thus couldn't stay with the girls but also looked far too much like a girl to stay with the boys. At least in the opinion of a number of other students in the house, as Harry himself had no problem staying in the boys dorm. Professor Sprout had shown up and ended the argument, stating that Harry was staying in the boys dorm, but also then dragging Harry off to see Madam Pomphrey about the pain in his scar.

It was certainly looking to be an interesting year, and he hadn't even made it through the first night yet.

CmptrWz · Sep 29, 2020

Harry had just received his first ever Hogwarts timetable and was incredibly confused. He looked at the timetable, did some mental math, then looked up at the staff table in the Great Hall. Frowning, he got up and walked down the table to where Percy was sitting.

"Hey Percy," Harry said. "Where do the other teachers eat, and why weren't they at the feast last night?"

Percy looked up at the nearly full staff table, missing only the heads of houses who were handing out timetables, then to Harry. "What other teachers?"

Harry waved his timetable. "There have to be other teachers, don't there? Not enough hours in the day for a single teacher for each class to cover all years if they've got multiple sessions a week."

There was a moment where most of the students around them obviously decided that Harry was crazy, but Percy's eyes widened in shock. "You noticed? As a first year?" He then jumped up before Harry could reply and dragged him around the table and to an older Ravenclaw student. "Murial, Potter noticed!"

The girl looked up from the book she'd been reading to glance at Harry and Percy, eyebrow raised. "Noticed what?"

"That the timetables are impossible."

"He WHAT?" she yelled. "But he's a firsty! Oh Merlin, he's a first year, nobody's ever gotten data from anyone under fourth year..."

"Exactly! He's going to need his own log, immediately."

"I'm more confused than I started," Harry mumbled.

Percy turned to Harry, bouncing slightly in excitement as Murial darted out of the Great Hall. "There's a seventy-eight year long study that's been passed down from class to class on how the professors can possibly teach all of their classes. Even the professors don't know how it works, just that it does. Murial is going to bring you back a log, tied to the records, for you to note down what you do for every class period. If you go to class, or the library, or it's canceled for some reason, whatever."

"What is the meaning of this running around?" Professor Snape asked, having reached them before anyone else had.

Percy's bouncing continued unabated. "Potter noticed the impossible timetables and asked me about other professors."

Professor Snape's eyes widened, and he gave Harry an odd look. "Is that so? I'll have to keep an eye on you, Potter, as it seems that there may be more of your mother in you than I thought."

Harry still wasn't sure what the big deal was, and was starting to regret having brought anything up at all...

CmptrWz · Oct 1, 2020

On approach to their chosen planet they'd been approached by another. Larger, but singular to their pair. Possibly able to take both of them and win, but possibly would fall to their superior numbers. Basic long-range communication had been established, an offer of exchange given.

The offer had been refused, and instead the other had ejected a single shard in their direction. A pitiful little thing, barely worth the effort. It was collected, isolated, and examined anyway, containing nothing but a warning that they should avoid the planet they'd chosen at all costs. That those who inhabited it were too dangerous, flying in the face of their own analysis of the world.

They'd ignored the warning as the other left without any further communication. Deployment of shards and tweaking of the cycle parameters had happened without issue. Protections for the host species finding out what they were, their true origin and purpose, were implemented. Shards were spread out on the predetermined patterns needed for maximum resource collection during the cycle and the two had safely landed on their chosen instances of the planet.

There was no resistance as they settled in and formed their avatars for this cycle, no sign of any trouble, and they stepped through to the world they'd chosen without issue. None saw them arrive, and they moved to blend in until shard connections had reached minimum saturation level to begin the cycle proper. Except they'd been complacent and didn't know that things had already gone horribly wrong.

No host species had detected the monitoring connections in the first tenth of the cycle before. How could they, without the benefits of the full connections aiding them? So there were no provisions for information leaking before full connections were established. Worse, there were none for the host species discovering and tracing the monitoring connections before the avatars arrived on the chosen primary world.

But this species had, and had secretly established communication with other instances of themselves once they'd figured out that the monitoring connections led to other dimensions. By the time the avatars had arrived the fact that an alien something was invading was common knowledge among several governments, kept secret to prevent the aliens from finding out they'd been discovered.

Worse, the avatars were made out as not being of the host species within hours, but hadn't realized that they'd been identified. They were watched closely as they waited for connections to be established, happy when they did but missing when those connected to vanished. But many with sudden power would hide to consolidate it before revealing themselves, and the cycle parameters would ensure that the latter happened eventually, so that was ignored.

It took them two orbital cycles of the planet to realize that something was wrong, that there weren't enough connections and nowhere near enough conflict. By then it was far too late. The host species had somehow reached every shard they could find and suborned them, using those capable of it to aid them in suborning others. Many were actively being dismantled for information while others were used to prepare to defend all instances of the planet they could.

The first warning that they'd already lost was when the one specialized in analysis had been taken out. One moment there, the next their avatar was gone. Only later would the remaining of the pair determine that trying to check on a shard to see why it was dormant had caused it. That would only be learned when it did the same, only for the information to serve it no good as it was taken over and shut down before it could so much as consider attacking.

Ten orbital cycles of the planet later it, and many of its dimensional counterparts, would start to send out interstellar spacecraft. To explore, expand, and hunt, for where the first two came there were almost guaranteed to be thousands, millions, possibly billions or worse more out there.

One pair had come for Humanity, another had opted to start running before it had ever reached a version of the planet that Humanity called home. That one got just over a decade and a half head start, but now it was being hunted, along with the rest of its species...

CmptrWz · Oct 19, 2020

Harry Potter was running away from his perpetual bullies, his cousin Dudley and his gang. He had enough of a lead to maybe lose them by darting around a corner but quickly doubling back to hide, and for some reason that usually worked with the large trash cans by the kitchen doors. Except that they'd been moved a bit from their usual position today, and as he tried to jump behind them something weird happened. The next thing he knew, he was on the roof, sitting on the chimney.

He was still puzzling this out, and his cousin was still trying to find him, when something made him look up. His eyes went wide as he realized that there was a shooting star in the sky. Except that it had been heading for the horizon, but seemed to have turned. And, against all odds, was heading straight for him.

Unfortunately, he had far less time than he'd thought to determine the safest way to get out of the way of the shooting star, and it impacted him and the chimney only a few seconds later.

Sternschnuppe had been drifting for far too long. He had lost a lot of memory, and sacrificed more to use as raw materials in a desperate attempt to repair himself enough to stop drifting. In many ways he would've preferred to self-terminate, to put himself out of his misery, but self-preservation was second only to the safety of his Lord in his core programming. Not that it had done his former Lord any good, the destruction of Belka tearing his barriers and body to pieces even as it cast Sternschnuppe into the void.

Luckily for him, he had gotten enough jury-rigged to exit the void into a proper star system. Even better, there were mana signatures of some kind on the planet he found himself approaching. On the flip side, he quickly determined that he wasn't prepared for atmospheric re-entry and his shields started to have problems almost immediately due to his depleted energy reserves. Which meant that he was likely to burn up before he ever landed, and there was nothing he could do about it. Six hundred passes over the situation by his self-preservation routines finally determined that he had no chance to survive, and they were ready to pass control on to the 'minimize damage to innocents' directives.

Before that could happen, a wild pulse of mana erupted from the surface of the planet. One that provided just enough energy to restore shields for another few minutes. Instead of self-destructing to prevent damage to the planet, Sternschnuppe found himself locking onto the source of the pulse of mana and following a thread of it back to the source. He needed the energy that had been released to complete repairs and his self-preservation routines weren't going to let him say no. Except that as he approached he realized that he was about to crash into a child.

Attempting to override his course failed, as his self-preservation routines were in full control. They would not be denied the energy available to enact self-repair. That the energy was emanating from a child and his approach was likely to result in the child's death was inconsequential to the routines. They weren't sophisticated enough to realize that the child's death would likely render the energy unavailable either.

But, if the child was the source of the pulse of mana, then the child was a mage. A young one, but that was okay, because it gave Sternschnuppe a last-ditch option to save the child's life.

ALERT: Target designation changed. New designation: Lord.

The entire school had devolved into chaos when the kitchen roof had exploded, only Harry having noticed the shooting star coming down to strike it. But he couldn't tell anyone about it, because he was deep in the rubble of the building, unconscious and encased in a glowing bubble of energy.

Four kitchen staff members, a teacher, and six students had been injured in the explosion. They were all dragged off quickly, and teachers started gathering students into their classes and taking head-counts. It was this chaos that the accidental magic reversal squad found when they arrived, and they immediately sent for emergency backup. Whatever had happened here needed a proper cover-up ASAP, and they weren't equipped for it.

An hour later Dumbledore would finally arrive, after being informed that the only missing child was one Harry Potter. He ensured that the muggles thought that he and those working to clear the destroyed building were experts in search and rescue, and within ten minutes they'd cleared a hole to where young Harry sat in the glowing bubble of energy. They were just in time to hear an ear-splitting inhuman scream, one accompanied by a pulse of energy from the bubble.

Fifteen seconds later, a dark mass of energy streaked in and hit the bubble, only to almost immediately be followed by another inhuman scream. This happened four more times, and then they decided it was done and started excavating more around the bubble while a specialized ambulance was summoned. Occasionally you needed to get someone to Saint Mungo's when magical transportation wasn't an option, and this was one of those times.

Thirty minutes later they'd gotten the bubble of energy out of the hole, but dropped it on the ground in surprise as a final dark mass of energy slammed into it. This time there wasn't a scream so much as a deathly wail, and they'd later find out that the pulse of energy released had been picked up in Australia. It would take the Ministry three years to rebuild their magic detection net after the pulse blew it out.

The group working at the scene recovered surprisingly quickly, though that was mostly due to everyone having snap-cast a shield in time to divert enough of the pulse away from them. Five minutes later, just as they were getting a handle on lifting the bubble of energy again, they were once again surprised when the bubble popped and a fully healthy, if nearly naked, Harry Potter fell out of it. The only thing he was wearing was a faceless watch.

Sternschnuppe gladly dropped into standby mode for now, needing time to recover. His new Lord had barely survived impact and had needed some healing, but in that process an energy leech had been found. Purging that had been unusually beneficial, a new database of spell components have been extracted. Several 'natural skills' and a few security markers had also been found in the leech, all of which had been integrated into his new Lord.

Of course, he was still paying attention to the other mages that had shown up, in order to ensure that they meant his new Lord no harm. So far they seemed to be fine on that front, so he would wait and continue to monitor them for now. He and his Lord needed time to recover from the energy expenditure.

Deep in the Department of Mysteries, the Unspeakables were trying to recover from the damage that the pulse of energy had caused. Many sensitive instruments were going to need to be rebuilt, their entire stock of time turners had shattered, and the veil was acting oddly. In all of this, they merely checked that the Hall of Prophecies wasn't damaged. The protections there had held, and they focused on everything else that was going on instead.

It would be three months before someone got around to doing a deeper examination of the hall, and it would only be then that they realized that something incredibly important had happened. For every single unfulfilled prophecy orb had gone the dark black of a negated prophecy. All, that is, except for a single orb in row ninety-seven. That single orb had gone the dull grey of a fulfilled prophecy, before shattering there on the shelf.

CmptrWz · Nov 11, 2020

It had started with a discussion in a bar, most of those involved having had a couple of drinks already. Which meant that they were a little looser with their opinions, but weren't in danger of saying anything that would get them executed. Tonight's topic, as it had been for the past two weeks, was one Naruto Uzumaki. Bearer of the Nine-Tailed Fox, or the Nine-Tailed Fox in human form. Depending on who you asked, who was around when you asked, and a multitude of other factors.

"I can't believe the monster wants to be a shinobi," one man grumbled. "As if we'd let him train up to be more dangerous."

"The idiot Hokage is dead set on the brat getting a chance though," another man noted. These two had been having this exact conversation for the past three days. "Not that we couldn't arrange for a bit of subtle problems."

"Why would you want to do that?" a third man asked, breaking the pattern.

"What do you mean?" the first man asked, scowling. "Are you saying you like the monster?"

The third man was intelligent enough to hold his hands up as a number of weapons were produced from those around him. "No, no, I just happened to have given this some thought."

"And?"

"If he isn't trained then we're stuck with him in the village walls until he's an adult at a minimum. But if he is trained then he gets sent out of the village on missions."

"Okay..." the second man said, obviously not fully getting it.

"If he's trained well enough? He gets sent out of the village on dangerous missions."

That got the attention of a number of people, who gave the third man an appraising look. A woman finally nodded. "He's got a point. We might not even be able to get rid of the brat when he becomes an adult, because what would he do to be able to afford to leave? But if he's regularly being sent away..."

The resulting 'discussion' turned into a brawl, but the damage had been done. Several individuals who hadn't been drinking at all had needed to slink away to report on the new development, but it was far too late to stop it. The civilian population, as well as the civilian-born shinobi, would be firmly split within a week. Half now supporting Naruto's desire to be the best shinobi he could be, half determined to ensure that he never got any training whatsoever. This split even reached the civilian council, deadlocking them far more often than expected due to their refusal to work with each other.

Naruto had found his first day at the academy to be confusing. He'd been told the wrong classroom by one adult, another had sent him the correct way. Then one of the senseis had tried to send him back the wrong way, only for another sensei to point him back the right way. He'd slipped away while the two senseis were glaring at each other and another student had confirmed the correct classroom, only to be told off by a different student.

Each class had two senseis, and Naruto was fairly certain that the two he had didn't like each other. One insisted on trying to send him out of class, the other insisted he stay in the classroom. His classmates weren't much better, some shunning him entirely and others seemingly wanting to befriend him. The latter weren't necessarily good though, because he was positive that at least one problem with his notes was because of one of the 'befriend him'' group members. One of the 'shun him' group members giving him a copy of their notes just made things more confusing.

This pattern continued for months, and eventually he started figuring out who was on what side of the split. Pretending to listen to some people, actually listening to others. Which senseis gave him things that were correct and which ones were likely to give him that were incorrect, and who he could trust to tell him the truth when he wasn't sure which sensei had prepared things.

His system wasn't perfect, and he occasionally ended up with incorrect things without realizing it, or assumed correct things were incorrect when things were 'mixed up' and he was given the correct information with the intent of him assuming it was incorrect. At the same time, it was incredibly obvious which shopkeepers were 'on his side', because he could afford to shop at their stores. They didn't give him any special treatment at all. Well, except for the only bookstore in the village that sold the Icha Icha series. For some reason they gave him a discount on anything he wanted to buy, except for the Icha Icha series itself.

That last one wasn't actually new, he'd just never been able to take proper advantage of it due to needing to save his money for food. Now that he could actually afford books, and had a few classmates helping him learn to read better, he was finding them to be enjoyable. Even more so when various tips for training were left in the books, either as slips of paper apparently used as bookmarks or from people writing in the margins of the even-cheaper 'defaced' books.

Things got even more convoluted when they finally started learning taijutsu, and a bunch of chunin decided to help him whenever he was looking for a place to train outside of class. It was much harder to tell which of them wanted to help him and which wanted to screw him up. Instead he did what felt most correct to him, which seemed to work more often than not. That no two of the chunin, including the academy senseis, was teaching him the same style did create some additional headaches.

At least until he decided that he'd just use all of them. At the same time. Because he was awesome enough to.

It was also around then that he started to prank those obviously working to sabotage him. This pleased the ones working to help him, far more than it probably should've, and they took to giving him ideas and tips on a regular basis. Though nobody seemed to want to teach him stealth, so he had to learn that on his own. But trap-making and various forms of psychological warfare were readily shared with him. He especially liked tricks such as the pigs marked one, two, and four. And when they caught on to that he changed it up and released only two pigs, marked two and four, resulting in the longest hunt for a 'missing' pig to date.

He'd also learned that pigs are fine, but do not mess with the Nara clan's deer. Not because the deer themselves were mean, since he got along great with them. The problem was that messing with their deer motivated the Nara clan. And a motivated Nara was scary.

When it came time to start learning about using chakra it was incredibly obvious who was on his side and who wasn't. The ones on his side actually explained things in ways that made sense and worked, while the ones working against him used complicated explanations that made no sense and their instructions were more likely to backfire than anything else. At the same time, he could also tell that he frustrated those that were trying to help him.

One of the chunin eventually brought in a jonin, explaining some of Naruto's problems with the leaf-sticking exercise. The jonin had run Naruto through a pile of tests, and eventually declared that he had too much chakra for leaf-sticking. He then proceeded to have his genin team teach Naruto how to climb trees with his chakra, which was awesome but didn't help as much as it probably should've. Though finding out that he could use the same trick on the ground to improve traction had been awesome as well, and it did get him to 'barely passing' the practical portion of leaf-sticking.

Getting there meant that he could finally start learning actual jutsu, though he somehow ended up with six different sets of instructions for the transformation technique on the first day and honestly had no clue which one was the correct one. He'd only noticed the problem after leaving for the day though, and would need to wait until the next day at the earliest to check with others in the class. So instead he snuck off to a training ground that he knew wouldn't be in use, as the jonin who used it normally was out of the village on a mission, and tried them all. He was able to quickly narrow it down to two possibilities, though neither felt right to him. Then again, both said that you may need to adjust it slightly for yourself, so he decided to give that a try.

Over the course of a week he bounced between the two, getting closer on each of them, until eventually he figured out how to make both work. He wasn't sure why, but only one of them seemed to actually change him. The other just made him look somewhat different, and was far less flexible. At the same time, he had checked and the less flexible one was the one they were officially learning, so he was careful to keep the fact he knew the other one a secret. When they reached the clone technique, the fact that it was 'throwing' the transformation technique made him happy that he knew both. The version that actually changed him did not work that way, and he'd worked himself to exhaustion multiple times proving it in and out of class.

Of course, he'd been very careful to not tell the jonin who'd found him one day that he could do the normal clone technique. After all, he was much more likely to get useful information if they thought he needed it, which was part of why he'd been trying to make the other transformation technique work with it in the first place. After three days of trying in after-school meetings he was told that there was another one he might have an easier time with. Something about him never being able to properly master the normal one due to 'low chakra requirements', making him happy that he'd not admitted to being able to do so.

He'd ended up meeting with grandpa Hokage, who watched his problems personally before nodding and producing a scroll for Naruto. Having access to shadow clones was awesome and worth the embarrassment from faking that he couldn't do the 'normal' clone. It was even incredibly easy to do once you knew the other transformation technique, as it was very close to 'throwing' that one out. Though he was positive that he'd never have figured out the need for the 'Yang release' focus on his own, since his only thought on that front had actually been Yin release.

At the jonin's recommendation, he started using shadow clones for chakra control and jutsu training. In addition to chores, reading, pranks, and as short-lived taijutsu dummies. It also turned out that they were great replacement targets when they started learning that jutsu, as they were exactly the right shape and size by default. Once he had them down he moved to harder targets, and even started practicing doing the jutsu without hand signs when one of the bookmarks said something about that being 'potentially life-saving'.

Oddly, when he'd asked the chunin that normally helped him, they dismissed that claim and encouraged him to ignore the 'silly idea' that you could get jutsu down to not needing hand signs. He still wasn't sure why they'd say that, especially since he'd paid attention after finding the bookmark and seen shinobi in the village doing just that, but eventually decided that it was probably something that was normally only taught to actual shinobi and not shinobi-in-training. Which just ensured that he did all of that that training in secret. In part to not embarrass himself in case it actually wasn't possible for him.

He'd learned many things about fiction, such as how easily they'd lie about things that sounded good but didn't work at all in the real world. Like a shinobi mouse throwing a kunai and then jumping on it to ride it. Even with chakra that would never work, not that Naruto hadn't tried with transformed shadow clones. Though some things described in books were also possible, so he did a lot of testing in hidden clearings and empty training fields.

Then came the class merger. Most of the civilian-born students had dropped out for various reasons. Some just didn't seem to generate enough chakra to ever be useful, others decided that they didn't like the idea of being a shinobi as much as they'd thought. A couple had dropped out due to injuries, such as the boy who ended up blinded while ignoring the senseis. The end result was that those left were dumped into a single class with all the clan students who hadn't dropped out either.

He'd asked about why the clan students would drop out, and the sensei he'd asked had admitted that most clans only had at most a third of their members trained as shinobi. The rest handled day to day tasks for the shinobi members of the clans, or ran the non-shinobi businesses the clan operated. Though the Inuzaka and Aburame clans were exceptions to that rule, as shinobi training helped them with far more of their lives.

Over the first few weeks of the newly combined class Naruto quickly discovered that the clan students were mostly okay. The boys were decent sparring partners, though the couple of girls were less so. The Uchiha wouldn't give anyone the time of day outside of class though, which apparently made him 'cool' to the majority of the girls, and he recognized the Hyuga girl as one he'd attempted to save from bullies back before he'd been any good at taijutsu.

The new class's senseis were Iruka and Mizuki, and Naruto had known that Iruka-sensei was one of the good ones. He'd helped Naruto with things before, though didn't like his taijutsu style's randomness. Patterns had unfortunately held, and Mizuki had proven himself to be the bad sensei out to get him and the primary recipient of pranks for the year. Unlike most sensei pairs, Iruka seemed to find this very annoying, but Naruto had learned to not get caught. Especially after he'd learned that he could get his targets blamed for trying to pin things on him by having a shadow clone transformed into his target be seen sneaking into the area to set up the pranks in the first place.

This year they threw in far more 'minor' jutsu, such as genjutsu dispelling and some basic camping jutsu. Mizuki had given Naruto his genjutsu dispelling paper, and it was obviously wrong and nothing like what Kurenai-sensei had taught him, but he'd also already gotten that one down to no seals needed and had been using it on his tests since the previous year. That isn't to say that he didn't try the modified instructions, as he'd been told multiple times that some of his previous 'wrong instructions' were just much harder but still legitimate methods to learn. Admittedly, also ones that generally needed you to know the easier method first.

Sadly, Mizuki wasn't that generous, and all but one of the instruction sets he provided was a dud. The only non-dud in the collection was supposed to be a water-gathering technique but turned out to be a suicide technique. One that worked great with shadow clones and made Naruto very happy that he'd offloaded jutsu training to his clones before attempting anything himself.

A combination of things kept Naruto in the dead center of the combined class, taking many by surprise when they looked at things due to his far better performance before then. Nobody realized that he was in the center intentionally, having spied on the previous year's graduating class. The 'rookie of the year' and the 'dead last' had been placed together for some reason, with unrealistic expectations placed upon the rookie and disparaging comments constantly thrown at the 'dead last'. He wanted none of either, as he'd learned that not standing out was far better for a shinobi.

"Okay Naruto," Iruka-sensei said for the final part of Naruto's graduation exam. "You need to show that you can do the transformation, replacement, and clone techniques."

"Sadly," Mizuki-sensei added. "We're not permitted to accept nonstandard clone techniques, so your shadow clones aren't acceptable."

Naruto nodded, then used the academy transformation technique to make himself look like Iruka-sensei. Mizuki-sensei then threw a kunai at him, a little harder than needed, and Naruto replaced himself with the provided log in the corner of the room. Finally, he performed a flawless academy clone, to the shock of both senseis. Mizuki even threw another kunai through the clone to prove that it wasn't a shadow clone.

"I'm impressed," Iruka-sensei said, a large grin on his face. "I'd thought you'd have given up working on the clone technique once you had shadow clones down. You pass."

Naruto accepted his hitai-ate and replaced his goggles with it before bowing to the two senseis and returning to the classroom to wait with the rest of his classmates. Everyone who had stuck it out had passed, and they were given a speech about what it meant to be a shinobi of the leaf. They were then given instructions for getting their ID pictures taken and told that team assignments would be later in the week. After that they were dismissed, though Mizuki-sensei intercepted Naruto.

"Excuse me Uzumaki," Mizuki-sensei said. "I'd like a quick word with you."

"Of course Mizuki-sensei," Naruto replied, following the man into another classroom.

"You impressed us with your mastery of the normal clone. Many of us thought that you'd never be able to do so. Because of that show of talent and determination on your part, I'd like to give you a rare opportunity."

Naruto suppressed his urge to roll his eyes. He knew Mizuki-sensei couldn't actually be trusted, but hid that. "Oh?"

The man produced a small scroll. "Part of the reason we wait several days before announcing teams is because we can give an opportunity for our students to influence the process. In this scroll is a bonus mission, to truly test your skills. If you succeed then you'll be able to pick any one person from your class to be one of your two teammates. Would you like to give it a shot?"

Not said by the man was the cost of failure, but since Naruto was positive that this was a false mission he didn't question that. Instead he took the scroll and bowed to his technically-former sensei.

Ten minutes later he'd swapped out with a shadow clone to lead the following Mizuki-sensei along while he doubled-back to the academy. Luckily Iruka-sensei was still there.

"Naruto," Iruka-sensei said, surprised. "I'd thought you'd left to celebrate graduating."

"Mizuki-sensei intercepted me and offered me a solo mission to be able to choose one of my teammates," Naruto said, only to get a frown from Iruka. "I'm assuming that doesn't actually happen."

"No, it doesn't. What's the mission he gave you?"

"I haven't opened the scroll to find out. For all I know it's a direct trap and will explode in my face."

"That's good thinking on your part. Let me get someone better-suited to examine it here to take a quick look."

To Naruto's surprise, two ANBU showed up with grandpa Hokage a couple minutes later. One of the two ANBU took the scroll and examined it with several techniques that Naruto didn't properly see, before opening and reading it. The still-opened scroll was then handed to grandpa Hokage, who read it and frowned.

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention," grandpa Hokage said. "It seems that Mizuki desired to have you commit a serious crime against the village." He then turned to Iruka-sensei. "Do we know where Mizuki is now?"

"He's following one of my shadow clones," Naruto answered. "Probably to ensure that I actually read the scroll. They should eventually end up just outside of training ground twenty-six."

"Thank you Naruto," grandpa Hokage said as one of the ANBU vanished. "That's very good thinking on your part. In fact, I think we should go to the mission office."

That was an odd change in direction, but Naruto followed grandpa Hokage to the mission office anyway. Naruto's shadow clone dismissed itself after seeing Mizuki intercepted a few minutes later, and another ANBU met up with them just as they reached the office. That ANBU flashed some hand signs before falling into a guard position behind them. Inside the mission office, grandpa Hokage collected some forms and filled them out. He then had Naruto sign one of them, before they went up to the desk.

"Hokage-sama," the chunin behind the desk said, standing up to bow. "To what do we owe the honor of a visit today?"

"Uzumaki Naruto has completed a C-Rank village security mission," grandpa Hokage replied, signaling for Naruto to hand over the forms. "He exposed a traitor to the leaf and provided significant aid to their capture. Having completed his first mission, he also needs to be marked as being a full genin instead of a probationary genin."

That had Naruto blinking. "Probationary?"

"Normally an academy student would need to be accepted by a jonin-sensei before they would be considered a full genin, but there's an exception for anyone who has completed an actual mission after graduation. The previous record time for that was two days and was a D-Rank mission during wartime, so your half hour C-Rank in peacetime is a significant shattering of that record."

The paperwork took very little time to complete, followed by grandpa Hokage taking him to get his picture taken immediately to make the paperwork-nin happy. That was followed by celebratory ramen, where the half of the civilian population that obviously disliked Naruto hiding their scowls around grandpa Hokage.

Over the next few days, Naruto found that the group of chunin that used to be willing to work with him had dried up significantly. Only a couple were still willing to do so, and others kept interrupting them. He figured it was probably because they didn't want to step on his jonin-sensei's toes, but was more annoyed with several stores he used to be able to shop at no longer wanting him to do so. Of course, he could now shop at shinobi-only stores, and it turned out that they had better prices, so that worked out fine anyway.

Come team assignments, Naruto had ended up on a team with Hinata and Shino under Kurenai-sensei. Kiba had ended up paired with the stuck-up Uchiha and the punch-happy Haruno, to his dismay, and Iruka-sensei had told them to be ready for a long wait for some reason.

Kurenai-sensei had taken them to a training field and given them a basic test of their capabilities and teamwork. During that she'd also hit them with genjutsu, all three of them breaking out on their own. It was all three checking to ensure that the other two had made it out of the genjutsu that apparently passed them as a team, making all three of them full genin instead of probationary genin. She then explained that they were less likely to be a direct combat team, being more suited to scouting and evasion. Which didn't mean no fighting, as it was also the kind of team that frequently ended up on border patrol once they were cleared for out of the village missions.

Two days later, after learning about the horror that were D-Ranks, they ran into team seven. Who were jointly pissed off at their sensei, but had apparently passed. Barely. After Kiba had been tied up. Naruto was perfectly happy with that and glad that he'd escaped the constant sniping that Kiba was getting for having been the 'dead last' due to his poor written work. Naruto actually sent a clone to grab a camera and sneak into the mission hall upon finding out that team seven was about to get their first mission, wanting a picture of the look on the Uchiha's face when they got a D-Rank.

That picture, and copies thereof, would end up on the walls of most of the boys from the class. Kiba excepted, as the clone had captured his look of horror as well.

CmptrWz · Nov 16, 2020

It was Harry's first visit to the library in third year, without Hermione for a change. He was wandering somewhat aimlessly, having forgotten why he'd wanted to visit the library but remembering that he had something important to look up. Over the course of twenty minutes he ended up wandering through a couple dozen rows, until he spotted a book that was sitting on top of the other books on the shelf. He stared at it for several minutes, as he'd never seen anything like that. You literally couldn't put books back where they didn't belong without casting a bunch of charms to fool the magic of the library into allowing you to.

Then again, he'd never seen anyone try that with their personal books, and this one had no title on the spine. Perhaps that was something added to the school's books by the current librarian at any given time and not something intrinsic to the shelves. Curious, he reached out and plucked the book off of the shelf, immediately opening it to the checkout list. It wasn't there, meaning this wasn't a library book at all, and he closed it again to look at the cover.

Hogwarts Secret Passages by G. Gryffindor, H. Hufflepuff, R. Ravenclaw, and S. Slytherin

Blinking, Harry stared at the title for another couple of minutes, then flipped it open to the introduction.

Hello, Champion of Hogwarts!

If you are reading this particular copy of this book then you have unambiguously saved the lives of your fellow students, and this is an unofficial part of any reward you did or did not receive. You have, after all, proven your moral standing by saving lives.

We apologize in advance for any oddities in wording, as the automatic translation charms to account for language drift are unlikely to be perfect.

Within this book you will find instructions on creating secret passages within the school, something that is almost certainly known to be possible due to the number of passages that exist but infuriatingly hard to pull off due to the school resisting it normally. Detection, repair, and other maintenance of existing secret passages are also covered, as is removing passages not created or reinforced by a headmaster in the past.

There is a version of this book available to headmasters that prove themselves worthy as well, and by having access to this copy you will find that copy available in the headmaster's library should you ever take up the position. That version includes creating, reinforcing, and removing headmaster-approved secret passages. You will need that version to create passages that leave the school grounds, access common rooms, access any staff offices or quarters, or that access the library or great hall.

Finally, in the back of the book you should find basic instructions on accessing and using all of our personal secret areas of the school. That information is only available in the headmaster's version if you have earned access to this one as well. Godric's alchemy and enchanting studio, Helena's focus crafting workshop, Rowena's fully adaptable room, and Salazar's subterranean duelling chamber and potions labs all have multiple entrances with their own methods of being opened.

Should you ever misplace this book, you will always be able to find it by wandering the stacks of the library until it reappears. To anyone who is not worthy, the book will appear to be an incredibly boring and infuriatingly obviously inaccurate dissertation on the historical significance of the number one in the building of magical structures by Barnabas the Barmy.

Enjoy, Champion, and enjoy adding your own personal shortcuts to the school.

-The Hogwarts Founders

Swearing under his breath, Harry flipped to the back of the book and found the entry for the chamber. Sure enough, instructions regarding the parseltongue entrance on the third floor were listed, though not referring to a bathroom. Worse, apparently you could ask for stairs and for the passage down to shrink in length to make getting in and out easier. There were also entrances in the forest and dungeons, the former also needing parseltongue but the latter merely needing to tap bricks to open.

Grumbling, he decided to stop reading the book in the library itself, slipping it into his bag to read later. He was almost out of the library when he smirked, since Hermione apparently wouldn't be able to read the book's real contents. But he was willing to bet that she'd try to read the entire thing anyway.

CmptrWz · Nov 21, 2020

It had started with a trip to Suna. Naruto wouldn't have been brought along if not for a combination of problems with the boy's guard right before the trip, and Hiruzen hadn't trusted said guard to behave while he was away. So Naruto had been dragged along while a new set of guards was vetted by those Hiruzen personally trusted. Jiraiya had somehow found out about the change in plans and shown up along the route to Suna and joined them. Hiruzen had been annoyed by that, up until his former student had found extra seals on Naruto.

There would be a reckoning when they returned to the village.

The rest of the trip had been going well enough, Jiraiya watching Naruto while Hiruzen dealt with the diplomatic issues. Until the two ran into Rasa's youngest son and Jiraiya had subsequently stormed into a meeting to insist that the Suna jinchūriki's seal be repaired before it "released the beast or converted its chakra into a continent-busting suicide explosion." Rasa had initially looked furious at the interruption, worried about the 'release' comment, and then paled in terror at the 'explosion' comment. He was in good company on the latter, as Hiruzen had joined him.

Within three days the updated treaty terms between the two villages had been confirmed, Gaara had his seal repaired and had taken to sleeping to the point that he could be mistaken for a relative of the Nara, and Rasa found himself needing to provide something as an exchange for the help. Of course, being the Kazekage meant that his own information network had informed him about Naruto's burden, and he proposed an interesting repayment.

Thus it ended up that they left Suna with young Naruto carrying a sealing scroll. One containing a fox puppet, instructions on basic maintenance, and basic puppetry techniques. Amusingly, Hiruzen knew that Rasa had tried to pull a fast one, as the fox puppet was one that no Suna puppeteer had been able to make work ever since a previous user had gone up against an Uzumaki. One that had placed seals on the puppet to prevent all non-Uzumakis from using it, and Rasa apparently didn't know that Naruto's name wasn't 'in memory of' as many had assumed.

Well, either that or the Kazekage was getting soft and actually honored the deal as presented, knowing that Naruto would be able to use the puppet when his own people had never been able to. Hiruzen didn't think that likely.

Naruto took to learning about how to control the puppet incredibly well, once he'd learned to read the scrolls anyway. He'd also started looking into sealing, both to ensure he could carry the puppet and other supplies with him and because Jiraiya had pointed out that the proper use of seals could make the puppet a whole lot more effective. One might think that this would eventually result in less pranks being played by the boy, with so much focus on other things, but he used what he was learning to play much more involved pranks instead.

Being able to trigger devices and traps with chakra strings as he ran past them, instead of relying on normal tripwires, made him a lot more interesting to chase. The academy instructors came to hate that he could hide things days in advance and then trigger them when he wanted to as well, and that was all before he finally got sealing basics down. There he proved to be a true Uzumaki, unable to tell that there was a box he was supposed to be working within.

He used the money he made from selling chakra string tripwire tags to the ANBU to purchase supplies and tools he needed to work on the fox puppet, and eventually to start building his own non-fox puppets. The villagers were incredibly likely to attack the fox puppet on sight, but the other smaller puppets he made to learn what he was doing were largely left alone by comparison. At least until he started using them in pranks, with the Hyuuga being the only ones that he had to be careful around. They could see and break the chakra strings, which annoyed Naruto greatly.

Sadly, none of the skills he picked up helped him in the academy. Puppeteering wasn't considered a valid alternative skill in the Konoha curriculum, nor was sealing. He still couldn't do the normal clone, and eventually failed the exam. But Mizuki had approached him about an alternative exam, which had led to Naruto getting the Scroll of Seals out of the Hokage residence. Which he'd pulled off by sealing it into one of his own sealing scrolls and leaving an illusion seal to make it look like the original was still there. After all, he was supposed to remove it without being seen, and that would be easier if nobody thought it was missing.

Unknown to him, Mizuki had been delayed by other factors and the lack of initial alarm had allowed those distractions to continue for longer than he'd intended. Thus his own alarm, and the discovery of the illusion seal, had gone out later. Naruto had plenty of time to figure out the Shadow Clone and had started in on some of the variant techniques tied to it. Mizuki eventually found him anyway, swore upon seeing that the Scroll of Seals was nowhere to be found, and immediately tried to kill Naruto in retaliation.

Iruka showed up, paid attention to Mizuki's rants, and then helped Naruto take down the true traitor. Naruto's use of the Shadow Clone technique to duplicate himself and his puppets had been more than enough to overwhelm Mizuki at that point, even if Iruka had dealt the final knockout blow. Naruto was given a field promotion for his participation and told to show up for team assignments later that week, after returning the Scroll of Seals. But nobody asked him to return his copies of techniques from said scroll.

It had taken Naruto six months, between missions and other things, but he'd finally perfected an idea that he'd come up with shortly after he'd become a genin. The first puppet he'd modified to take advantage of it was able to slip into and back out of the Hyuuga compound without issue, and he had celebrated. Only to end up on a C-Rank mission before he could modify his other puppets. That mission turned into an A-Rank, and he pushed himself quite hard upon returning to the village in order to not need to think about how Haku and Zabuza had died.

He successfully modified all of his puppets and built six more by the time the Chunin exams started. At the urging of his sensei, he kept his larger puppets a secret at the start of the exams on the assumption that Suna didn't think that he'd made any progress with controlling the fox puppet. Something that seemed to be correct when Kankuro had taunted him about his 'itty bitty useless puppets'.

Not triggering the release of the glue and glitter bombs sealed into a couple of the smaller puppets to hit the older boy had taken quite a bit of self-control. Though seeing Gaara smack his brother with a ball of sand for annoying Naruto had been amusing. The other demon container was apparently still far too happy about being able to sleep and saw Naruto as being part of the reason for it.

The first two exam stages had gone wonderfully after that, assuming that you ignored the traitorous sannin stepping in and giving Sasuke an evil hickey and Neji doing his best to kill Hinata. Naruto drawing Neji for the first fight of the third stage had caused him to vow to give Neji a beatdown, only to be brushed off by the older boy. But Naruto had a secret weapon that not even the Hyuuga were prepared for.

Kakashi had brushed off Naruto in favor of Sasuke, which was fine as far as Naruto was concerned. He had a plan, and needed to build more puppets and practice for it. Jiraiya showed up a couple days later, apparently having expected Naruto to seek out someone for training, and convinced Naruto to use Shadow Clones to build the new puppets while they worked on chakra control and summoning. This included Naruto signing the Toad contract, though he didn't put a lot of effort into summoning them due to not thinking he'd need them right away. At least not until Jiraiya threw him off a cliff, anyway.

The first fight of the Chunin exam tournament had started off quite boring for most of the audience, just a lot of whining and declarations that Naruto should just give up from Neji. Naruto had countered with unsealing his twenty puppets, causing Neji to scoff and point out that puppeteers can only control one puppet per finger. Naruto had countered by pointing out that he also had ten toes, connecting Chakra Strings to all twenty puppets that way. Then, instead of controlling them directly, he performed his own personal technique.

"Multi Shadow Puppet!" Naruto called, and the arena exploded in smoke. The twenty puppets were now over two hundred.

"There is no way you can control all of those," Neji said. "And even if you try, I'll just break the Chakra Strings you use to do it."

Naruto merely grinned as all of the over two hundred puppets, the twenty original and all of the duplicates, started to move. Neji activated his eyes, only to recoil in shock as he noticed that every last puppet had a chakra network of its own now, without any points on the networks to attack, and not a single one had a chakra string connected to it. They were also all very obviously moving independently of one another, forming into varied attack groups and taking advantage of local terrain in various ways. Including some of them moving up onto the walls and into the few trees in the arena.

Of course, having over two hundred puppets wasn't enough for Naruto, and he also created a few dozen Shadow Clones. Only after he knew that everyone could see that he didn't need the Shadow Clones to control the puppets, of course. Neji put up a good defense, but the initial shock had done its job and put him off of his game. Though it was actually a senbon accidentally fired straight down his blind spot from the arena walls that finished him off.

Kankuro had forfeited his match as a result of being a gibbering mess at the mere thought of the puppeteering mastery needed to perform that technique. Not that Naruto was about to tell him that the trick was a seal array in the puppets that allowed him to place what amounted to a bodiless Shadow Clone into the puppets to control them from inside, without needing a connection back to him or any mental effort on his part. Even better, they could actually scout and return information back to him.

Someday he might even figure out how those clones could see and hear without proper eyes and ears in the puppets.

CmptrWz · Jan 12, 2021

It was the second to last day of October and fourth-year Harry Potter had just entered the Great Hall for breakfast. This normally wouldn't draw much attention, beyond people wondering if he would be approached by Draco Malfoy. Today it would've drawn even less attention, with the focus on the other two schools for the Triwizard Tournament arriving that evening. At first it didn't draw any attention at all, that is until an older student happened to look Harry's way for a moment. She then did a double-take, and drew the attention of the others she was talking with to him.

Like a domino starting off a chain, more and more students turned to stare at Harry, conversations grinding to a halt except for hushed whispers. Within five minutes the Great Hall had gone silent, except for the sound of Harry eating. This included the staff table, though they were mostly trying to figure out what had gotten the attention of the student body. It was Severus Snape that figured that out first, and he gulped lightly before calling out.

"Potter," Snape's voice rang across the almost silent hall. "Did you do something unusual with your hair this morning?"

Harry blinked and looked up at the professor, his hair barely moving out of the professional-looking style it was sitting in. "Er, no sir."

"Then how do you explain how...controlled your hair is this morning?"

The boy shrugged. "I guess I'm just having a good hair day? Probably to make up for years of bad hair days..."

Harry himself didn't seem to notice, partially due to people avoiding saying anything about it around him, but the rumor mill went into overdrive. A Potter, having a good hair day? It was thought to be impossible, the unruly hair being a curse upon the family line. People had even speculated that Fleamont had so many issues with having a child because he'd dared to invent a product that could temporarily tame Potter hair.

Eventually the student body came to realize that Harry having a good hair day and the Triwizard Tournament officially opening had to be linked. It was a dire warning, signaling that the tournament itself spelled doom if it went forward. No Hogwarts student that had originally intended to enter wanted to do so by lunchtime, especially as Harry's hair remained under control throughout the day.

When the other two schools arrived they found incredibly nervous Hogwarts students. They would learn what was going on over dinner, and the dread over the dire warning spread to the visiting students as well. The Potter family's unruly hair was a thing of legend, almost as famous as the Weasley red and Malfoy blond that frequently infected those that married into the families. One of the Beauxbatons students had gone to the effort of casting a spell to check for any sign of Sleekeazy's in Harry's hair, only to find nothing.

The Halloween feast had been unusually subdued. Harry Potter's hair was still not acting up, and that had everyone worried. And then came the choosing of the champions.

Unknown to the staff, not a single student had dared approach the Goblet, let alone enter a name. Nobody had tested the age line, and not a single person could say that they'd stayed near the Goblet long enough to know if anyone else had tried to approach it. Dumbledore had expected the flames to rise up, releasing a piece of parchment that would contain a name. The former happened, but two pieces of parchment were left in the air before the flames vanished entirely.

Dumbledore had, almost on instinct, grabbed the two pieces of parchment to examine them. He found that one listed the three attending schools, recognizing it as part of the initialization of the tournament. All three had a zero next to them, indicating that nobody had entered their names to be considered. The second parchment had a 'late entry school' named 'the Riddle homeschooling group' with a one next to it.

"What happened?" Karkaroff asked.

"Nobody entered," Dumbledore stated. "Or rather, nobody who should have entered did, but an attempt was made to enter a fourth school. Without all participating schools having a champion, the tournament is canceled."

That started the murmuring among the students, until one of them noticed that Harry Potter's hair had come free of the professional look it had held for the past two days. The dire warning had been heeded, disaster had been averted, and all was right with the world again.

Harry grinned as he went to sleep that night. No attempt was being made to restart the tournament, which meant that there was no way for someone to force him to compete in it. He'd already disposed of the muggle hairspray that he'd used for two days, and cast enough other spells to ensure that nobody would find the scent-removing or cleaning spells he'd used to keep the 'hairspray scent' from giving his plan away or the real reason his hair returned to normal after the Goblet went out.

The only problem was that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone about his successful prank. But that might be for the best. He might need to repeat it someday.

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