In a Manner of Speaking, a Harry Potter fanfiction by LullabyKnell. Post-DH, Pre-Cursed Child, Two Shot, Crack Fic.
Excerpt:
In April of 1999, the widow Euphemia Rowle had a sudden heart attack and died at the age of 77 years old. Trusting solely in the supposed superiority of one’s natural “pureblood” magic and the spiritual properties of cursed rocks to see oneself healthy, it turned out, was a terrible replacement for actual medicine and regular check-ups.
The few people who had experienced Euphemia Rowle – for Euphemia Rowle had been an experience, something to endure rather than enjoy, unless of a precisely matching temperament – didn’t do a very good job of pretending her death was some sort of great loss or unexpected event.
Her only close living relative was her son, Thorfinn Rowle, whom she had hated with every spiteful bone in her embittered body with the same determination she had put towards being unpleasant, judgemental, and condescending to everyone she had ever met. It could be presumed that upon receiving news of his mother’s death, Death Eater Thorfinn Rowle had spat upon the floor of his prison cell and declared good riddance.
Good riddance to a puritanical woman who had decided long ago to be terribly unhappy and to blame the rest of the world for making her unhappy by not conforming to her ideas of what was proper.
The rest of the Rowle family was a gallery of distant cousins, who all were not pleasant people either but concerned enough about appearances to make a relatively decent showing at being as “demurringly and not openly purist, just able to see all sides of the issue” and “of course we hated the Dark Lord but we were afraid of defying him” as possible. Great-Aunt Euphemia Rowle had chased the most of them off decades ago. She had been the sort of obvious zealot that made a respectable family of purebloods look bad, especially considering the result of the war.
The Rowle Family put a notice in the Daily Prophet of Euphemia’s death and organized a brief memorial service to make appearances at before her will was read, as was expected of them. Besides that, the Rowles neither felt nor were prepared to accept that there might be any other interruption to their own lives. Not beyond, of course, any desirable bequeathing dictated in the will.
Therefore, none of them were quite sure what to do when the lawyer in charge of Euphemia Rowle’s affairs, serving as required the memorial and reading of the will, turned up with three unexpected items.
The first: an extraordinarily bewildered expression pointed towards…
The second: a nervous house elf acting as nanny to…
The third: a toddler who couldn’t be more than two years old.
Room 1-A was all but empty, desks unattended, cubbies cleared out, silent except for the bump and shuffle of the two students left behind on clean-up duty. Deku dumped the last bit of
paper scrap swept from the floor into the trash. He knotted the top of the bag
and hoisted it. He offered one glance over his shoulder, momentarily catching
eyes with Bakugou who leaned against the open window, dusty erasers in hand.
“I’m taking the trash out. Don’t lock the door behind me,”
Deku said, and he freed one hand from the trashbag to reach the doorknob.
“Wait.”
Deku paused. He heard footsteps approach from behind him,
and he turned just in time to see Bakugou, inches from his face, snap his hand
up and ignite his palm. It burst, fiery hot, and the heat breezed over Deku.
Deku shut his eyes on reflex, but only in response to the heat. He didn’t
flinch, and he certainly didn’t cower.
“What, Kacchan?”
Bakugou lowered his hand in increments, annoyed, perplexed.
His lip twitched, and a scowl overtook his face. “That. Why didn’t you flinch?”
“Hmm?” Deku glanced to Bakugou’s hand, lowered and still
smoldering. “Well I would have blocked you if you actually tried to attack me.”
“No! I mean why aren’t you afraid of me?” Bakugou leaned back. He glanced around the
classroom, eyes sharp and bothered. “It’s pissing me off.”
“You did this all the time when we had clean-up duty in
middle school. Maybe I’m used to it.”
“Bullshit.” Bakugou stalked around Deku, hands in his
pocket, blocking Deku’s path. “You used to flinch every time. Now you’ve stopped doing it. It’s been pissing me off for months. What’s different,
huh? Do you think I’m weaker than I was in middle school? Because I’m not. I’m
stronger. I could crush you into a sniveling pile of ashes.” Bakugou removed his hand
from his pocket. He flexed his fingers, inches from Deku’s face. “I might even
feel like proving it, just to wipe that bored look off your face.”
Deku set the trashbag down. He turned away from Bakugou,
moving toward the window and retrieving the erasers Bakugou had left on the sill.
Deku held them out the window and slammed them together twice, their dust trailing down to the stories
below.
“Are you ignoring me?” Bakugou asked through clenched teeth.
“Sort of. If we fight again then Aizawa-sensei is going to come up with a real punishment this time. I don’t want to miss anymore class because of
you, so let’s just drop this, okay? I’ll do the erasers if you take the trash down.”
“No. No, no, no,” Bakugou answered. He lifted the trashbag,
held it from beneath in his palm, and he slammed his other hand down on top. The bag
burst into flame, hot a violent and reduced to ashes in a single moment. The air spiked hot, acrid and dense and choking with the smell of burnt plastic and smoke. The
charred black remains trailed through Bakugou’s fingers as he moved toward
Deku. “You don’t order me around. Stop acting like you’re not afraid! You are!
I know you are!”
Deku set the erasers down. He rubbed his eyes, just a bit
black beneath with exhaustion. He’d been up most of the night studying. “You’re
acting a lot like your middle school self right now, Kacchan. Does being on
clean-up duty with me again bring you that far back?”
“Far…? No! There’s no ‘selves’, Deku! I’m me, and you’re
you! And you’re supposed to be afraid of
me!” Bakugou clenched his fists, and his nerve faltered. “Why aren’t you
afraid of me?!”
“You really want to know?” Deku leaned against the window
sill, one hand set to his chin. He looked to the side, thinking. “Well, it’s
not really you who’s changed, if that makes you feel better. It’s me. I think I
just finally realized you’re not someone I need to be afraid of.”
“You’re wrong,” Bakugou answered, tense. “I’m still better
than you. I’m still stronger. I can still destroy you. I haven’t gotten weaker.
Even with your quirk you’re no match for me, I’ve proven that!”
“Sure, I guess, you’re still stronger than me.” Deku grabbed
the erasers and pushed off the window sill. He moved to the chalk board, laying
them back in the tray. “But you’re not better than me, Kacchan. That’s what’s
changed. I’ve finally realized you’re not better.”
“I beat you! In our fight I beat you!”
“Yeah, but I’m not just talking about strength. Let me see
if I can explain.” Deku opened the closet, pulled the broom and dustpan back
out. He set to work on the pile of ashes by Bakugou’s feet, and Bakugou stepped
to the side. “Growing up, you spent so much time doing everything you could to
feel like you were better than us. Better than me especially. I really believed
that for the longest time. And I still believe you’re incredible…but not
better. And not the best.”
Bakugou remained silent this time, face a mask of stone. Deku
pulled another trashbag from the closet to empty the ashes into.
“Kacchan, you tried so hard to drill it into my head that I
didn’t deserve all the things I wanted to accomplish. It got to me. I started believing I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything. I
got into UA because I was lucky, because All Might helped me. I kept
telling myself that, that it was just because of luck and because of other
people’s help that I could do anything. Not like you, who could do everything
on your own. But you know what, Kacchan? I realized something. I think we both owe a lot to luck. Maybe you were just lucky to be born
with that quirk.”
Bakugou’s lip twitched again, revealing teeth this time, but
he still did not speak.
“You were born with that quirk. I wasn’t born with one. You
were lucky, and I wasn’t. There’s no reason you should have had that quirk over
me, even though you spent so long convincing me of that. Quirks are luck. Hard
work isn’t.” Deku swept up the last of the ash, clearing the floor of
everything but the black coating the rim of Bakugou’s shoes. “I’m not saying
you don’t work hard. You do. But you don’t work the hardest.” Deku cinched the
tie on the new trashbag. “I do.”
“So what?” Bakugou answered, tense. “You work harder and I’m
still stronger than you. You’re worse. You’re weak. You’re just insulting yourself.”
“Not at all. It’s an advantage, I think. I’m willing to work
harder than you, Bakugou. I am
working harder. I’m better at learning from my mistakes. I’m better at
improving. I’m better at handling failure, because I spent most of my life
thinking all I could do was fail, thanks to you.” Deku set the trashbag down.
He left it alone, and moved to face Bakugou. He held eye-contact, full
attention set to Bakugou. “So eventually I’m going to be stronger than you. And
I think you know that. I think that’s why you’re so panicked right now. You can’t
handle anyone being better than you, and I’m the worst person in your mind to
be better.”
“It’s never going to happen,” Bakugou answered, but some
kind of apprehension lingered in his eyes, holding him back. He didn’t move to
attack, like Deku thought he might.
“You need it to never happen, Kacchan, because I don’t think
you’d be able to handle it if I really did pass you. I actually worry how
you’ll handle it, or any kind of failure once we’re professionals, you know,
Kacchan? Because you can only handle being the best, no worse than that—you can
only handle being the best in every way. You don’t know how to deal with it
when you slip up, even a little. You won the Sports Festival, but you couldn’t
handle that you didn’t win it exactly the way you needed to in order to prove
you’re the best. And you couldn’t handle losing to me in the villain-vs-hero
fight. And I’m actually afraid for you, how badly you’re handling what happened
when the League of Villains captured you.”
“Shut up…” Bakugou whispered. He jerked forward, hoping Deku
might flinch. Deku did not. “That’s not your damn business.”
“No, I guess not, but I still worry for you. You needed to
be top of our middle school, and top of UA. How are you going to handle being a
debut hero with a low ranking? How are you going to handle the years and years
it’ll take for any of us to climb the ranks. Worse, Kacchan, how are you going
to handle the failures you face being a hero? It happens to every professional.
Sometimes it happens a lot. Villains get away. People get hurt, or even die
sometimes, when you can’t save them. You might even get hurt. You could get
hurt so badly that you’d have to give up being a hero all-together. Could you handle that?”
Bakugou reached out, he grabbed Deku’s arm, his grip
deathly-tight. Deku could feel the heat radiating off the palm the held him.
“I’ll shut you up, if you don’t want to shut up yourself. I’m
not going to fail as a hero. I should kill you right now for suggesting I
would.”
Deku set his free hand to Bakugou’s arm, and gently, he
pried it off. “Exactly. You don’t know how to handle failure, so you just keep
on saying you won’t fail, you won’t fail, and that’s an impossible way to live.
I’m better than you at that—I’m better at failing, Kacchan. If I’m a low-ranked
hero, if some of my missions fail, if I’m injured so badly I have to retire, I
know I could endure it. My dreams are as strong as yours, Kacchan, but I also
know how to keep going if those get crushed. I’m strong like that, Kacchan.
Stronger than you. I’m afraid that you’d just break.”
Deku opened the door, and the air in the hall was cooler,
unaffected by Bakugou’s explosions. A breeze washed over Deku, clean, untouched
by the smell of burnt plastic and ash.
He stepped into the hall, and he gave one last look to
Bakugou, who stood frozen, stricken, pale.
“I’m not afraid of you, Kacchan. I’m only afraid for you.”
Kako says that the things he learns at the Academy are more like general suggestions than hard and fast rules. “The point of the Academy is to standardize everything so that shinobi who haven’t worked with each other before can function as a team if needed. Teamwork is Konoha’s forte, after all,” she says, “But even concepts that sound good have their faults.”
Kako says a lot of things like that, things that force Kamaru to reconsider what other people say. Look underneath the underneath. Mostly, it’s just to prompt him into critical thinking, but there are some Academy lessons that she outrightly dismisses, practically spitting on them.
“A shinobi must never show emotion?” Kako sneers, reading over Kamaru’s shoulder at his homework on the kitchen table, “How stupid.”
Kamaru blinks, looks up at his sister, surprised. More for her venomous tone than the opinion itself.
Kako sighs, softens, explains. She tries to find teaching moments in everything. Sometimes, Kamaru wonders what she’s preparing him for. “Of course, professionalism is important while on duty, and stoicism in the face of danger can be a shield of sorts, but to say never is overly restrictive and impossible to do. Also, emotions can be weapons of their own. Well. I don’t need to tell you that, you’ve met Gai-senpai.”
Kamaru shudders. Yes, he has met his sister’s zealously enthusiastic senpai.
“Not to mention things like killing intent or positive intent… And for all that we’re shinobi, we’re still human. Emotions and all.”
Kamaru nods, marks a bold line through rule #25 on his homework, and keeps going. But he doesn’t really consider the entirety of this conversation until later in the evening, after he’s gone to bed then woken back up, thirsty and blearily walking to the kitchen practically still asleep.
Kako is already there–mostly because their apartment is so small that the kitchen is also their dining and living room–standing in front of the framed picture of their parents, the small stone tablet with their names on the shelf beside it.
It’s the closest thing their parents have to a gravestone. After they died, the Nara had offered to bury their father in the clan graveyard with his family. But they hadn’t extended the offer to their mother.
Unsurprisingly, Kako had refused. “They would want to be together,” she had said. Kako hadn’t cried then.
She’s crying now.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” she says to the two dimensional faces of their parents.
Kamaru freezes in place, unable to move forward.
“But I’m going to keep doing it. Even if you wouldn’t approve. I have to protect him. I don’t know if you would have let me. Sometimes I think… it’s awful… but I know that a few weeks more and you would have followed procedure.”
Kamaru’s thoughts whirl. What procedure? He’s pretty sure that Kako is talking about him, but what is she referring to? Her next words send him retreating to his room.
“I can’t help but wonder if maybe it was for the better that you’re gone.”
Cheloneuniverse 