Darkness

The Meeting

         All of us filed in, with Kurama, Hiei and I sitting somewhere near the middle of the round table, facing Dumbledore-sama, with McGoonagall and Flitwick flanking him. Profs. Binns, Hagrid, Sinistra, and Vector was also there. Even Madame Hooch and Pomfrey were there. So were the ones whose names I didn't get with Prof. Dumbledore and McGonagall. All of us were gathered to discuss the defenses of Hogwarts.
         As soon as he was given leave to speak, Kurama spoke, giving them the analysis we had done in the afternoon. "Against normal humans and perhaps wizards your defenses are good, but against youkais and other beings they're next to useless. If they were any good they would have kept us out when we first arrived," he stated bluntly.
         "Right now though, there are ways to rectify that. We already have people going over the grounds at night and there is enough security during the day. I would suggest..." he said, listing most of the measures that we had discussed earlier. To my surprise, most of it was accepted, although there were a few that I did not expect to go through, went through.
         We finished the meeting quite late. I was quite exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there was one tiny problem. Kurama. He had told Dumbledore-sama that he was going to position Sentinel Plants in the Forest (since that was the only place no one could patrol effectively). HIei was an absolute disaster with plants and since he had left before the meeting had ended (something to do with the fact that he and Snape had a staring contest and Kurama had hit him hard in the ribs for that), so guess who was elected to go with him? I'm sorry I can't give any prizes for guessing that.

         I walked with him, yawning as we went through the Forest. It was a mercifully quiet night and I was hoping that I could fly back to the school, but Kurama said that that would disturb the plants. I yawned and watched him plant the Sentinels. They were small little bushes that would not attack anyone who did not have malice in their hearts. Somehow they knew how to differentiate between those who were merely going about their natural business and those who weren't.
         "Naoko-san, I'm nearly done, so you can go back to the school first if you're that tired. I can look for Hiei," he said.
         "Nooo," I yawned, "We agreed that no one was to be left alone. Besides..." I grinned, though I was still yawning, "I don't have a class tomorrow morning, so I can sleep in. You and Hiei, I'm sure, can handle a bunch of giggling 13-year olds," I said. He groaned.
         Within a few minutes he was done. I was nearly asleep, so he woke me up and we began to walk back together. I could barely see where I was going, and depended on him to find the way.
         He got pretty fed-up of that after a while. (I noticed that he just gets annoyed, never angry) He simply picked me up, (by this time I was more than half-asleep) and carried me all the way back to my room. I was having a pretty good dream about my boyfriend and me at that time, and I sometimes mumble when I was asleep. I think that was exactly what I did that time.
         All I know was that I was in a nice warm bed after a while and someone was muttering profanities after a while. Of course, I only knew that late next morning.