Summary:
Hermione Granger is a Scholar. Not a soldier or a sociophath (although there are those who would argue for both), but a scholar. And for her, that means that when her research in one avenue has hit a dead end, the best route is to take a break and get away from her work for a little bit - by researching something unrelated but equally fascinating.
Or, the Hermione Needs a Vacation fic that turned into a Hermione Studies the Ninja World (and Boy is She Confused) fic.
Chapter 1Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione Granger was, by nature, a scholar. This was, after her ruthlessness and cold efficiency in the war against Voldemort, widely regarded as something of a narrowly dodged bullet. Her strategies and genius spell-work, as well as her Mad-Eyed-Moody levels of preparedness and over-caution (really, who had a year's worth of camping gear packed in their purse?), were agreed to have been integral to the Light's victory in the end. In fact, historians listed her alongside Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and Severus Snape as key figures without whose work and courage, the war would have been lost.
And yet it is because of those same skills and strategies that Hermione Granger was regarded as more dangerous than Harry, Dumbledore, or the double-triple-who-knows-how-many-layers-he-had-in-the-end-agent Snape. Because while Snape and Dumbledore and Harry were soldiers and spies and warlords, Hermione Granger was none of those things. She didn't fight with her heart or rely on her strength of will to pull her through. Hermione Granger looked at a problem and saw a solution.
Many times, that solution was kindness and compassion, but no one could forget the way she handled Rita Skeeter, Dolores Umbridge, and even her own parents. There was no sheen of desperation in her eyes or heroism in her actions – Hermione Granger was cold-blooded and deliberate, weighing pros and cons and acting on her calculations. The kind of person who would thrive as either an assassin or a head-of-state.
But she was, to the relief of everyone who knew her, not a warrior or a soldier or a politician. Hermione Granger was a scholar.
So while the Wizarding World stepped carefully around her, afraid of setting off the most powerful witch to be born in generations (no one would ever forget the time she levitated an entire wall onto a group of death-eaters without even breaking a sweat), Hermione remained happily oblivious, wrapped up in all of the studying and research she had longed to do ever since she first discovered magic, but which had been irritatingly postponed by the necessity of ending that stupid war. If the opposing side had not been targeting her best friend and, by proxy, her school, perhaps Hermione would have focused on her studies in the hope that her research would be a boon to the Light while she remained on the sidelines of the conflict, but alas, Voldemort had made the mistake of targeting Hogwarts as a way to get to Harry.
Hermione estimated that this decision had lost him the war approximately seven years earlier than he would have if he had targeted the ministry first and then used a subtler approach to luring Harry out, but she kept those calculations to herself. No need to give any Dark-sympathetic politicians any good ideas. Besides, then she'd have to take a break from her learning to crush another puffed-up terrorist and expend all the effort of getting Harry to a state where he could learn to cope with his PTSD all over again. No, thank you. Months of unofficial therapy over afternoon tea and crumpets had left her emotionally exhausted and longing for the peace and solitude of her lab. The moment she had convinced Harry to talk to a professional about his experiences (and thus foisted him off as someone else's problem), she had locked herself away with her studies with the order to not interrupt me for anything short of a new Dark Lord I-mean-it-Ron-Weasley-
And so, life had continued. Hermione kept in touch with her friends over the years, but she decided that she was going to live for herself now that she had the chance. Ron was, after several 'conversations' that ended with him in the spell-reversal ward of St. Mungos, convinced that one kiss when she thought they were going to die did not mean she would be a housewife and the mother of his brood of children, and Harry was happily set up with Ginny and working on making a brood of his own. Without needing to worry about her two boys, Hermione was finally able to look into the hundreds upon hundreds of questions her time at Hogwarts had generated – and what she found had her more excited than ever.
There were certain laws that magic obeyed. Everyone knew that. One could not conjure food from nothing. Most types of transfiguration were not permanent – but in reality "permanent" transfiguration was not transfiguration at all, but actually a smaller branch of magic called transmogrification, and it was not the temporary change of, for example, non-living to living cells that could be accomplished by transfiguration, but rather a permanent re-arranging of the existing elements and cells in an object or creature. It required a much more thorough understanding of the materials being transmogrified, but there were many benefits, such as the ability to manipulate matter down to an atomic level (a dangerous undertaking indeed, but capable of miracles if one could only…) – but she digressed.
Magic obeyed certain rules. And, to an extent, each branch of magic obeyed some of the same rules as at least one other branch. The rules of transfiguration applied to Potions, the calculations of ingredients and timings in Potions obeyed the same rules as Arithmancy. Runes and Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts and all the rest – everything seemed to connect, the further you studied any particular subject. And it all came down to the quintessential nature of Magic itself.
This was exciting. Most wizards and witches bothered very little with theory or philosophy. It was far easier to remember "if I say these words and wave my wand like this I can make things fly" than to understand the nature of collective knowledge and community intent, and how it effects the ambient magic of the country and therefore the way their magical cores interact with the environment around them to permit specific magical actions to be performed with nothing more than a particular set of triggers – a bit like keyboard macros in computer programming.
But Hermione wasn't satisfied with memorizing shortcuts. She wanted to be able to control her magic with her own will, to follow her own design. And there was something at the center of all of her studying that would let her do it, she just needed to figure out what that key element was.
It wasn't Intent, as transfiguration would insist. Nor was it Precision, as potions would say. Control and Willpower, as DADA and Charms would argue, were close but insufficient. Hermione scoffed to consider Intuition, which was the realm of Divination, and she disliked on principle the idea that Love and Emotion were the foundation of true Magic, despite Dumbledore's theories. No, she was missing something that connected them all. From the big-picture thinking that made Runes work, to the almost obsessive minutiae of Arithmetic calculations…
Frustrated, Hermione shut her notes with more force than she would normally apply to any sort of book or notebook, pushing the offending problem away to be played with after some rest. She was no good once she let her thoughts spiral. Her strengths were in her breadth of knowledge and her intuitive connections between subjects, not in her stubbornness, which caused her more trouble than good.
Determined to get her mind off difficult magical theory, Hermione made her way to her personal library. Separate from her lab, this is where she kept books for light reading, unrelated to her research. She was halfway through a tome detailing various magical cultures around the world that she was finding particularly enjoyable.
She had finished reading about Western magical societies, and was enjoying reading about the differences in magical governments of Eastern countries when an offhand comment in the chapter caught her eye. The only place that the Statute of Secrecy does not apply is within the borders of the fabled Elemental Countries. Reid Siddleskroot, famed magical explorer and travel-writer, once said "the people of the elemental countries live in a pseudo-magical society, so a wizard would have no trouble passing for normal there. Besides, I wouldn't want to try lying to a shinobi, would you?"
Hermione finished the book and flipped back through in case she had missed something (ridiculous, she never missed anything), but there was nothing more said on the subject of these "Elemental Countries" or their "shinobi." Attention caught, and curiosity burning brighter than it had in the last several months of her research, Hermione stood and stretched, looking at the clock hung on the wall of her library by Harry ("so you can remember to sleep") – 2:43 am. Oops.
As Hermione brushed her teeth and got ready for bed, she thought about the new question of this pseudo-magical society where the Statue of Secrecy did not apply. Imagine – a culture where she could practice her magic wherever she liked, without restrictions or misdirection. The experiments she could perform on the nature of ambient magic…
Perhaps a vacation is exactly what my research needs, Hermione thought. I'm sure I can find a book on the Elemental Countries tomorrow…. Thoughts full of new cultures and giant foreign libraries of unknown knowledge carried the war heroine to sweet dreams.
Notes:
This is just a little thing that popped into my head and I thought I'd enjoy writing a casual fic with Hermione flouncing around the ninja world. I'll be adding to it as inspiration hits me. If you have an idea you want to see, feel free to share, and it might make it into a future chapter. Or not. Who knows?
Also, yes Hermione 100% judges Voldemort for his poor strategy skills. I mean, really. She'd thought of a dozen ways to overthrow the Ministry by her third year. How embarrassing for him.
Chapter 2Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Several months had passed since Hermione began researching the Elemental Countries, and she was quite pleased to say that she was certain she had found the way to enter them. They were not, as she had suspected, an island nation cloaked in a strong magical ward to avoid detection from the rest of the world - rather, the Elemental Nations were a parallel formation of Earth held in a semi-alternative pocket dimension only accessible through one of a few scattered gateways around the world. The nearest one of these was Stonehenge, but considering the crowds and the security, Hermione was settling for an obscure and as-of-yet-undiscovered ruin in the middle of the Amazon rainforest that she had read about in 1,001 Magical Ruins and Ritualistic Murder Sites. Dreadfully morbid book, but terribly informative, she'd admit.
With her entry point decided, Hermione set to preparing for a long journey. She still had her beaded bag, but she had decided to swap in out for a somewhat sturdier leather hip pouch that she had purchased at an outdoors store in London. She'd learned her lesson after a petty theif had grabbed the thin strap of her beaded purse as she was walking home from dinner one evening and broken it clean off. She'd had to wipe three muggle's memories by the time she subdued him and retrieved her bag. The hip pouch was sturdier, and harder to get off her body. Plus, she thought it was rather cute. Like the bum bags American tourists wore around and called their "fanny packs."
She recast her undetectable extension and featherlight charms and repacked everything from her beaded bag into her new hip pouch. It contained all the basics – tent, medical kit, emergency potions supply, ingredients and a small, lightweight cauldron for any potions-making she might need to do… of course all of her reference texts and notes, a month's worth of clothing for all climates, her spare wand, a modest supply of food kept fresh in plastic bins that she had carved stasis and freshness runes into…
As Hermione quietly went through her packing list, she added the Japanese-English dictionary she'd bought as a young girl first learning the language (she'd been a fan of manga and anime in her lonely childhood years), in case she forgot a word or came across a dialect she didn't know. She also added dictionaries for a couple of magical languages, including elvish, Daemon (the language of demons), Mermish, and the parseltongue dictionary she had strong-armed Harry into helping her create (and boy had it been a chore to translate the different types of hissing into text). Little was written about the Elemental Countries, other than it being dangerous for "civilians" as they called them, but Hermione had managed to glean oblique references to demons in human form and something called bloodline limits, which sounded like a form of Dark magic. If these things existed, what's to say she wouldn't come across other magical races? Hermione felt very strongly about treating sentient creatures with respect and fairness, and the importance of engaging people in their own language. If nothing else she figured "please don't kill me giant scary demon sir" would be a lot more convincing if she said it in Daemon.
Double and triple-checking her supplies, Hermione found herself hesitating over setting out despite knowing she was prepared for any sort of situation or climate. Where was she going to go? Oh, she was heading into the Elemental Countries, sure, but then what? Would she just wander, aimlessly, and get to know people? Hermione was not a people person. She loved to study them, sure, but most people didn't take kindly to being interrogated or observed without some sort of friendly overtures made first. Hermione hated friendly overtures.
If only I knew who would be worth the time to interview, she thought. Then I could just skip straight to the point and ask my questions to the people who can answer them. She paused. Considered.
"If only" was nothing more than a challenge to someone like Hermione Granger, and even as she lamented her shortcomings, her brain was already formulating runic formations and spell combos that would allow her to track a person based on the spiritual balance of the ambient magic in their body – or, in layman's terms, by their knowledge and intelligence. If she could adjust the search criteria to include intent to an extent, and used herself as a mould for the magic to learn from…
After several pages of notes and calculations, Hermione grinned down at the new runic formation in pride. If she carved this into an appropriately powerful talisman – likely something made with a precious metal or stone – she would be able to use it as a kind of compass to point her toward the nearest person fitting the description of a "like-minded scholar" once she arrived in the Elemental Countries. That would give her some direction during her journey, and allow her to meet her fellow intellectuals in another culture, and share their interests and discoveries…
Daydreaming about all of the fascinating and intelligent people she would find, Hermione hurried to find an appropriate necklace or other trinket to turn into her tracking device. She couldn't wait to be on her way.
Notes:
Hermione is about to learn that in the Elemental nations "scholar" is synonymous with "crazy power-hungry nutcase" most of the time. And "total weirdo" the rest.
These chapters are probably going to be fairly short. It's more fun to write little bits at a time, I think.
Chapter 3Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione ignored the zap zap zap of her bug-zapper charm killing potentially-disease-carrying insects that got within an inch of her skin. Or tried to, anyway. There were rather a lot of insects in the Amazon, it turned out.
"Okay… these are the coordinates-" zap "from 1001 Magical Ruins…" zapzap "but where in Merlin's name are the ruins?" zaaaap "Oh for the love of- INCENDIO!" With a controlled burst of magic, all of the bugs (and much of the foliage) within ten feet of Hermione was reduced to ashes. She shot a quick augumenti at a small patch of smoldering undergrowth and looked around furtively, as if one of her old professors was going to jump out of the forest and scold her for losing her temper.
I need to calm down. She thought, eyeing the burnt plants ruefully. Damaging a fragile ecosystem like the rainforest was not only shameful, it wasn't getting her any closer to her goal. "But where are those bloody ruins?"
A frantic zap zap ZAP was all the warning Hermione got before something struck her hard on the back of the head.
When she came to, her first thought was Well at least I found the 'ruins.' And her second was They took my wand! They had also taken her clothing, aside from the hip pouch, which was spelled to be impossible to remove by anyone except herself, but to a witch clothes meant far less than a wand when it came to not feeling naked. She wished she could cover herself a bit, or dig in her hip pouch for her spare wand at least, but her limbs all seemed to be tied to the four corners of an altar by some sort of vine or rope. It was hard for her to see around the boulder suspended bare centimeters above her body.
That book really should have specified that "ruins and ritual murder sites" included active ritual murders!
The boulder descended another fraction, and the rumbling sound of people chanting rose in a wave of excitement around her. Drums shook the stone altar underneath her, and colors and shapes blurred together in her peripheral vision.
This is just my luck, Hermione sulked, I should have just broken into Stonehenge. A few dozen confunduses would have done the trick, but no. I had to go out of my way to avoid tampering with people's minds. That'll teach me to be considerate. The boulder jerked slightly and moved down another centimeter. It was now lightly brushing against Hermione's exposed chest. She eyed it speculatively. I wonder what is holding it suspended. There are no ropes that I can see. Just odd carvings… Almost like runes, but I don't recognize any of the runic alphabets I've seen…
A bizarre yell from near her feet had Hermione jerking against the restraints in startled motion. The cry was taken up by all of the chanting voices, and the strange rumbling and drums fed into the cacophony like a terrible racket of tone-deaf hyenas. Hermione almost wished the boulder would hurry up just so she didn't have to keep listening to this. Even as she thought this, the unfamiliar runes on the boulder began to glow, and she got a better look at some of the symbols that she had been trying to see from her odd position on the altar. Definitely not any of the known runic alphabets, but they almost look like Kanji…
A loud snap was heard, if you could say something was heard that did not actually make a sound… so more like the feeling of a loud snap was felt, and the voices suddenly fell silent. The runes went dark, and the sense of expectation rose to a peak. Hermione didn't even have time to sigh long-sufferingly before whatever was holding the boulder aloft disappeared and all of its impressive weight came down on top of her.
It didn't hurt. It felt more bizarre than anything. As if someone had suddenly switched off all the light around her and stopped all the air from moving. She couldn't feel the slightest breeze, or even the sensation of temperature, hot or cold. She didn't get the impression that she was experiencing sensory deprivation, though. Just that there was no temperature in this place, whatever it was.
A small change in the air drew her attention towards a figure materializing out of the nothingness. It was vaguely humanoid, wearing a white robe-like article of clothing that might have been a Japanese yukata, or might have been an English bathrobe. It was hard to determine textures with the figure being semi-transparent. As it came into more definition, Hermione could feel its magical aura filling the emptiness of the space around her, and she stilled in recognition. Death.
Witches and wizards had a unique relationship with Death. They, unlike muggles, were able to choose to remain on Earth as ghosts, or continue on to the afterlife or reincarnation, depending on what Death had planned for their soul. It was not that they had any authority over the all-powerful entity, but rather that their relationship with Death tended to be a lot more… consensual, than the relationship the being might have with a muggle.
Still, Hermione couldn't help but feel a bit nervous at the sight of the death god. One might think being used as a human sacrifice in a magical murder ritual would have clued her in that this was about to happen, but with her odd luck it had been equally as likely that having a boulder dropped on her would have simply had her reappearing in the center of the 2002 Quidditch world cup!
Death fully materialized, and Hermione took a moment to study the figure before her. He had a mane of white hair that rivalled her own for bushiness, although his was perfectly straight, and a pair of horns poking out from between the alabaster strands. His skin was purple – a rather fetching lavender color, Hermione thought, but it was ruined by the permanent furrows in his brow and the piercing yellow irises set in black sclera of his eyes. Combined with the shark-like, dark grey teeth dripping saliva over the handle of some sort of short sword the god, for reasons Hermione could not imagine, seemed to be teething on, she could understand why he always appeared to the living as a figure in a dark, hooded cloak.
Uncertain of what to do, Hermione waited for Death to say something, or address her, or reap her soul, or something, but all the entity seemed to want to do was stand there and look at her with what could almost be a bemused expression if not for the permanently terrifying look his face seemed to be stuck in. Hermione resisted the urge to fidget and figured she might as well greet the only other being in this seemingly endless void she was currently in. She'd never met the queen during her life, and since her life was apparently over, she doubted she'd have the chance, so she figured she might as well take this opportunity to curtsy to someone.
She lowered herself into the curtsy and bowed her head, held the position for a few moments, until she started to think about the fact that she wasn't really standing on anything because there was nothing in this void oh Merlin how does this work??? At which point she rose from her curtsy before her knees could start to shake from the unsettling lack of physics around her.
Death blinked, and the furrow in his brow seemed to lessen a bit. Hermione was almost sure he looked bemused now, and she wondered if perhaps he was mute as a result of the sword in his jaws. Perhaps it was stuck there with some sort of sticking charm. She wondered if Fred Weasley had not gone gentle into that good night after all. Perhaps she was witnessing the results of his final, posthumous prank.
"Um." Hermione cleared her throat. "Hello. My name is Hermione Granger."
Death stared at her in silence. She got the impression he was saying I already knew that.
"I was looking for an entrance into the Elemental Countries, but I seem to have been captured and used as a human sacrifice." She continued, uncertain what else to say. The sword did not move in Death's mouth, but she could almost feel a question directed toward her. Why? She wondered if he meant why were you looking for an entrance or why were you used as a human sacrifice. She figured she'd avoid talking about her apparent death, just in case it gave him any ideas she'd find unpleasant. "I want to continue to study magic, and I've read that the Elemental Countries are the only place where the Statue of Secrecy doesn't apply, because their whole society is pseudo-magical. I was curious what that meant, and thought it would be a profitable avenue of research. If a whole society can be pseudo-magical, despite it being physically impossible for everyone in any society to have the genetic disposition to be witch or wizard, then there must be something more to Magic that we're missing, right? So, I thought, if I could just meet the scholars there, and compare notes, perhaps we could…" She caught herself rambling, and blushed, looking down at her feet. Oh bollocks, now I've gone and embarrassed myself in front of Death. The one thing I'll really never be able to live down!
There was a long moment, or perhaps it was several years, there was no sense of time in this strange void, that felt distinctly considering. She didn't want to know what kind of things Death had to consider, so she continued to stare at her feet and try to regain her composure. Finally, Death moved. Hermione looked up, and stared in fascination as Death reached up and removed the short sword from his mouth. So, I suppose it wasn't Fred's last and greatest prank after all. Pity. The entity raised the sword above his head slowly, like a salute, and then drew it to the side, holding it out level at shoulder height. Or, rather, several meters above Hermione's head, since the entity was so much taller than she was.
In a move too swift for her eyes to follow, the sword was brought down in a smooth slash, and a seam was opened up in the nothingness around them. Hermione gaped at the sight of color, and light, and leaves moving in the wind. She looked at Death questioningly, but the being just tilted his head toward the rip – no, the doorway? He must have meant it for her to go through, since he made sure it continued down to her level.
She approached the tear in the void and peaked through, feeling the breeze against her cheeks with a shock. It was nearly painful after the nothingness of the void. She put her hand through and recoiled at the level of ambient magic on her skin. It was much more than she was used to in her own world.
"Is this… the Elemental Countries?" She asked in wonder, looking up at Death where he towered over her small form. Standing so close to the greater being, she barely reached his knee. For a moment she felt an uncharacteristic sympathy for small children and dogs, and wondered if that strange look on Death's face was him thinking she was cute.
She didn't have time to find out, however, as the entity reached down and, with a surprising gentleness, shoved her through the gap.
Notes:
Aaaand Hermione is finally in the Elemental Countries! Thanks, Death. What a pal.
Who should I have her meet in the Naruto verse? Hmmm....
Chapter 4Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione landed face-first. This was the only reason she would ever call landing in a bush "fortunate" but the fact remained that the bush she landed in was probably the only reason her entrance to the Elemental Countries was not accompanied by a broken nose.
Damn non-verbal entities with their weird dimension-cutting swords that are probably just some sort of oral fetish. Hermione pushed herself up and went to brush off her robes, only to find she was still nude save for her hip pouch. The remains of a rope made with well-braided leaf fibers still clung to one of her wrists. She ran her hands over her body, but she was still in one piece and decidedly not flattened under a boulder. Well, at least there's that.
Digging in her hip pouch for her spare wand and a new set of clothes, Hermione quickly dressed herself and made a token effort to fix her hair. The necklace she had carved her tracking runes onto had been taken along with her wand and clothes, and although it was easy enough for her to make a new one, she would have to find a suitable necklace or trinket to carve it on before she could get a move on.
I wonder where I ended up. A quick point-me charm had her facing north, but the forest looked endless from the middle of it. With a shrug, she chose a random direction and started hiking. At least the weather was fairly mild and there was a pleasant breeze here.
Several hours later, the trees had become suffused with the soft amber light of sunset, and Hermione was ready to curse whoever designed "sensible" footwear for the English witch. She'd be better off with a sturdy pair of hiking boots, if there were always going to be so few roads in this world. And so few towns. What kind of massive forest had she landed in that there had been no signs of civilization all day? My kingdom for a map! She despaired.
Hermione was putting off setting up camp in the hope that she would stumble across a town or settlement just around the next copse of trees. She'd been wandering around the Amazon for a couple of days before she had been so rudely sacrificed, and she was longing for a hot shower. Sure, magic could do a lot of things, but even her fancy tent could only produce cold water from its enchanted pipes. I should move designing a runic array for heating water up my priority list if this is how travelling here is going to be.
Perhaps she shouldn't have been travelling after dark as a lone young woman, but Hermione was used to being the most dangerous person in the room for a long time now, and she'd almost forgotten that she looked like an easy target to most of the world. So when the bandit (she assumed that's what he was – he was wearing a rather comically high pair of pants, a dozen small pouches, and a large sling with a sword in it that looked like it would be incredibly un-aerodynamic) stepped out in front of her and grinned, her first thought was not he wants to rob me but instead he has terrible dental hygiene.
"Hello?" She tried Japanese, hoping her books hadn't betrayed her a second time. The bandit seemed confused. She tried again. "Good… evening? It is nice to meet you." She bowed, for good measure.
"Not the usual reaction, I gotta say, little lady." The bandit chuckled. Hermione worked on understanding his dialect and nodded slowly.
"What is the usual reaction?" She asked. He looked at her like she was stupid, and Hermione was tempted to point out that he was the one who had just stood there grinning like a moron until she spoke.
"A lot more screaming and begging, typically." He mused, and then unsheathed the sword from his sling. So it's not just a gaudy accessory? What a terrible weapon design. "Now, I'll be taking everything you have there, girly. And if you're good, I'll even point you in the direction of the nearest town so maybe you'll not be taken advantage of by any of my… less gentlemanly compatriots." His smile was greasy when he looked at her.
It was at this point that Hermione remembered that being a woman came with all sorts of inconveniences, like expensive underwear and monthly illnesses and people thinking they can treat you like dirt and get off scot free. Well, that might be true if I was relying on some sort of criminal justice system. Hermione thought ruefully, remembering how the Ministry tended to handle sexual misconduct allegations. But luckily, I've just helped win a war that had the handy little consequence of breaking my habit of deferring to authority.
With a practiced ease, Hermione drew her spare wand. It wasn't as powerful as her primary, and she regretted that for a moment before pushing it aside as a useless complaint. Eyeing the many pouches and pockets the bandit seemed to favor, and remembering the brief description she had gleaned of the type of warfare conducted in the Elemental Countries, Hermione decided she would need to watch out for thrown weapons, but not guns.
Anti-magnetic shield should do the trick. With a flick of her wrist, her shield was up, and she watched the bandit approach with interest. He was moving slowly, clearly trying to be menacing as he repeated his demands for her to hand over everything she had. She wondered if he had any weapons that were made of non-magnetic materials. His sword was clearly steel, but perhaps…
Her worries were never fully formed before the bandit seemed to lose patience and took a large overhead swing at her with his misshapen sword. It crossed the boundary of her anti-magnetic shield and seemed to meet some sort of elastic force, before rebounding off with an equally vicious swing. Unfortunately, the bandit's overhead swing was better than his dodging skills – or perhaps he'd never had to practice dodging his own blows before – because in very short order he had re-sheathed his sword within his own head, and partly into his shoulders.
Hermione made a choked sound of horror at the sight, covering her mouth with one hand. She had seen a lot of people die, in some very gruesome ways, but wizards were typically long-range fighters, and she didn't have much of a stomach for blood without time to brace herself.
After a few minutes, and some quiet retching in a nearby bush, Hermione managed to compartmentalize this new horror and calm her breathing. Not as bad as seeing a werewolf tear into someone, she tried to comfort herself. At least this was quick and there wasn't a struggle. She quickly decided to never attempt to comfort anyone again. She was rubbish at it.
Rubbing some warmth into her arms, Hermione stood and tried to decide what to do next. The bandit had mentioned something about the nearest town, but she couldn't ask him for directions for… obvious reasons. She could keep walking, but now that she had stopped she was beginning to feel the lateness of the hour, and suddenly every shadow seemed to hold some new monstrous vision for her to see.
She needed to go somewhere and set up camp. She could start her search again when she was well-rested and… not so unsettled. She took one step and paused, glancing back. Should she… do something with the body? It seemed wrong to just leave it there… But it would be difficult to bury it – she could dig a hole with magic, but it would take time, and she wasn't sure what his name was. She had no way to mark a grave, so no one would know he was here…
Perhaps I should leave him, for his… compatriots… to find? Hermione bit her lip. She didn't get the impression that they were the type to honor a fallen comrade. Still, the possibility of discovery would be better than a shallow, anonymous grave… right?
She nodded. She'd leave him, and if she encountered any more bandits, she would direct them back here so that they could give him a proper burial. Surely there has to be at least that much honor among thieves? I mean, what with the robbing and the pillaging, it's not like they wouldn't be able to afford it.
Hermione paused once again, looking back. Robbing and pillaging… A bandit would have certain requirements for what they would take. Lightweight but valuable, preferably…
No. Hermione told herself. I am not going around looting corpses.
But he was a bandit… She bit her lip and hesitated, always her own worst enemy. It's not exactly looting if I just grab one thing... and I really need to replace my tracking runes…
Decision made, Hermione drew her wand and pointed it at the body across the clearing. "Accio jewelry!" She said clearly. The veritable hailstorm of shiny objects that ripped free of the masked man's pockets and pouches made her dive for cover. They landed in a heap just behind where she had been. Well, it looks like I have plenty to choose from, she thought optimistically, ignoring the little voice that pointed out that she was so totally looting a corpse right now.
She finally settled on a simple gold bangle with a single opal set into it. It wasn't so expensive-looking as to draw attention, like most of the other items the bandit had acquired, but it had enough precious metal to hold her runes well, and gold was easy to engrave with a simple, low-powered cutting spell.
Leaving the rest untouched in a pile on the ground, Hermione hurried out of the clearing and didn't set up camp until she came across a small river that looked sufficiently different from the area she had just been in to avoid giving her nightmares.
Somewhere behind her, she imagined she heard Death laughing.
Notes:
And so she's finally in the world of Naruto! And... it's mostly trees, really. A lot of trees. Too many.
Poor, innocent Hermione. She might be (disturbingly) good at justifying terrible things to herself, but she's going to need to get over that aversion to blood ASAP if she wants this vacation to go well.
Chapter 5Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hermione decided her second day in the Elemental Countries was turning out to be a good one. She'd managed to sleep well with the help of a little Dreamless Sleep Potion (diluted into a cup of tea, of course. Tea solved all ills), and the first thing she'd done upon waking up was re-carve her tracking runes into her newly-acquired bangle. And they worked! She could feel the slight thrum of magic like a thread connecting her left wrist to several different potential matches for the criteria of "like-minded scholar." And for an added bonus, it felt like several of them were clustered rather closely together! It was an easy decision to follow that trail and meet several scholars at once. Perhaps she was heading toward some sort of research institute or university.
So yes, things were looking up for Hermione's trip, and after all the unpleasantness from the night before, she had taken to carrying the replica sword of Gryffindor (which had oddly enough been given to her as a sort of token of honor after the end of the war, as if a knock-off of a legendary sword somehow represented her actions in the war… she'd not think too deeply on it) on her hip to dissuade anyone from thinking her an easy mark.
And in addition to that, just after mid-day, she'd come across another pair of bandits harassing what looked like a travelling merchant family. She had intervened (sticking to the classic stun and secure method, rather than any more experimental shield charms), and earned the gratitude of the merchants, who were heading in the same general direction as she was, as well as being able to inform one of the bandits of the unfortunate fate of their comrade.
"I'm terribly sorry about how that turned out, but I'd like to know that he'll at least get a proper resting place." Hermione told him, while he looked paler and paler with every word she said. "You'll make sure that happens, won't you? I can tell you where he is…"
"No, that's alright." The bandit's voice cracked a bit, and Hermione worried that her stunner had been too strong until he cleared his throat and tried again. "Quite alright. We uh… We found him this morning. That… that was you, then?" He looked like a man who had unknowingly stepped on a poisonous snake and was waiting to see what it would do.
"Yes." Hermione said apologetically. "I'm afraid it was. I'm glad to hear you've found him, although you understand that I can't just let you go on and continue robbing people…" The bandit was beginning to sweat now. Hermione wondered if he was perhaps ill.
After transfiguring all of the two bandits' weapons into soft, foam toys (which, oddly enough, seemed to relieve the bandits… perhaps they were glad for the chance for reform?), Hermione and the merchant family set off.
They were a small family, no children yet, although when Hermione asked if they were planning on any, the wife sent her husband a shy smile and he had beamed back so brightly Hermione almost had to look away. The couple were travelling with the wife's brother and their uncle, and all of them were what they called "vassals" of some clan in Konoha called the Akimichi.
"We trade in spices!" The uncle, Jirou, or Jiro, or something like that, boomed. He was a large man, apparently a second cousin to the main family line, and proud of his clan relations. Hermione was having a hard time keeping track of all of the foreign names and family titles. She stuck to calling them all "Akimichi-san" and hoping for the best. The discussion remained light, focused on spices and market conditions, and the various cities they'd seen in their travels. When Hermione told them she had come from outside of the Elemental Countries to visit, there had been a bit of a clamor as they all tried to ask her questions at once. She'd finally, laughingly, told them that she was just a travelling scholar, and that she came from a country a long way away and that her subject of study was magic.
"Magic?" Jirou echoed. "You mean that strange jutsu you used earlier to disarm those bandits?"
"Jutsu?" Hermione didn't recognize that word. A smile split her face and before her new companions knew what hit them, they'd been so overwhelmed by questions that they had managed to give Hermione an overview of not only a civilian-level understanding of chakra theory and jutsu, but the political structure of the ninja villages and the education therein. Finally, Hermione fell silent, mulling over everything she'd learned and trying to build a picture of what kind of scholars a semi-magical military dictatorship would produce. Her companions were glad for the moment of peace.
Konoha reminded Hermione of Hogsmeade in that it seemed to be patchwork of different architectures and time-periods (in fact the Elemental Countries seemed to be unable to make up its mind as to what century it was in, much like the magical world back home). The biggest difference Hermione could see from her vantage point just outside the gates was that Konoha was quite a bit larger than Hogsmeade ever was, and it had an overabundance of trees – some of them seemed to be part of the buildings.
The gate was another difference. Hermione's first impression was that it was a very big, very useless deterrent for anyone magical enough to cast a Notice-Me-Not charm and buy a pair of anti-gravity boots, but then she sensed the strange wards within the stone and re-evaluated. This was a military city, even if they were only pseudo-magical. It wouldn't do for her to underestimate them.
Jirou did most of the talking, and introduced her to the guards at the gate as "a heroic ninja scholar" which made Hermione splutter, but before she knew it she was handing over her passport (which got her some odd looks – her magical passport was on parchment, so it didn't stick out as much as her muggle one would have, but it still seemed out-of-place when everyone here appeared to only use scrolls) and being guided to the administrative office for paperwork. She was used to bureaucracy, so didn't think much of this until she found herself alone in a room with a blonde man in a strange hat and billowing white robes decorated with what looked like flame decals. He reminded her of Dumbledore, with his twinkling blue eyes and eccentric outfit. Despite the lack of portraits pretending to sleep along the walls, Hermione still had the feeling that they were being watched very closely, despite the empty-looking room.
"Um… Hello. My name is Hermione Granger. I'm a scholar of magic, and I was hoping to share my notes with other scholars and compare theories…" She wasn't really sure who she was speaking to, other than him being obviously important. No one had given her a name or a title to address him by. "It's nice to meet you, Shinobi-sama?"
The twinkling intensified, and Hermione started to sweat.
"My name is Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage. You can address me as Hokage-sama or Minato-sama, whichever you prefer. It is a pleasure to meet such an enthusiastic scholar." His smile was disarming, his whole being suggesting friendliness and composure. Hermione couldn't find a single thing about him that said I'm thinking about killing you and yet somehow that was exactly the impression he managed to give off. "I have the paperwork for a visitor's visa here, and we can get that taken care of right now, if you like! Please, have a seat. I just have a few questions I'll need you to answer…"
Hermione walked slowly forward and took a seat in the chair in front of his desk. She felt inexplicably that any sudden movements would be a Tremendously Bad Idea. As the friendly, terrifying man shuffled through his papers and searched for a pen, Hermione got the feeling she was in a little bit over her head.
Notes:
Um.
I was planning on Hermione strolling into Konoha in like, the Chunin-Exam arc or something, but then my hands just went and typed this instead so... yeah. We're in a time when Minato's still alive. As are many people who we will now be seeing a lot of. Oops.