A/N: This will be my second fanfiction. You could say it's an experiment with crossover fanfiction. I have a vague idea of how this is going to go, and all the Naruto characters I've planned to include have been decided... but who knows~

On a side note, my greatest apologies for those who read my first. I'm stuck on the third chapter and will be writing this for now. I'll probably pick up my previous fanfiction again sometime, but not any time soon. Again, I apologise. "

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor Harry Potter.

[ "Normal speech in English/Normal speech in another language ('un-translated')"

"Normal speech in another language ('translated')."

§Parseltongue ('translated' obviously)§

Thoughts/Mind speech/Otherworldly (including prophesies) speech ]

*Speech/Mind-speech in bold = demon speech/mind-speech

Chapter 1: The End and The Beginning (of The-Girl-Who-Lived-Again)

Because death is the next great adventure.

There was a war. A shinobi war, on a scale never seen before. It was a war where nations unite to defeat a common threat, where enemies formed alliances and worked as one. They were the Allied Nations, and every member a proud shinobi.

They fought against a dangerous foe, before one foe became two, and two foes became one. Heroes rose and their enemies fell. But some stories end in tragedy, and there was no happily ever after. The ultimate enemy revealed herself, one who could open worlds and cross dimensions, and the world was cast in darkness. The team that was broken, formed again only to be defeated.

Still, the end of their world was not the end of everything. When the last book closed on their story, another was opened, and a new story began.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Uzumaki Naruko. She had two best friends: Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. Their lives were filled with tears and laughter. They died at the young age of seventeen, after a long fight protecting the people and things that they loved.

Once upon a time, a girl named Harriet Lily Potter was born, and the tale of Naruko continued.

Harriet's first memory was that of a beautiful woman with flaming red hair. Her mother. Her mother's face would always be blurry in her mind. Sometimes she'd see a clear face, but it would quickly shift into another face, and sometimes these two faces would merge into one. Harriet couldn't understand it.

Her second memory was that of her father. He had messy black hair and wore glasses. His face was blurry too, just like her mother's, like one face superimposing on another. Still, she recalled that he would always be smiling. But for some reason, she always felt that his hair should have been blonde. Or at least she seemed to recall a time when he was blonde, but that could have been her imagination.

Her third memory was of three men, one sandy-haired, quiet and kind, another black-haired, loud and friendly, and the last was brown-haired, shy and mousy. Remus, Sirius and Peter were her honorary uncles. Remus had a black dog named Padfoot, and Sirius had a wolf named Moony. Or perhaps it was the other way around? She couldn't really remember. She didn't think she ever saw the wolf anyway. She didn't remember much of Peter either. But there was a rat named Wormtail, and she couldn't recall who it belonged to.

Her fourth memory was not a nice one. After all, four was an unlucky number. She thought it was associated with death. Harriet didn't know how she came to have such an idea though. But it was quite fitting. Her fourth memory was of her parents dying. It wasn't much—just a flash of brilliant green light, the sound of her mother screaming, a pair of gleaming red eyes, and someone's evil laughter (perhaps it belonged to the person with red eyes).

Harriet's fifth memory was of a gigantic man and a flying motorcycle. It was ridiculous, she knew, for motorcycles could not fly. It was as ridiculous as her dream of riding on a toy broomstick like a little witch. Or that dream about painting graffiti over the rock faces on Mount Rushmore. Except that the faces didn't look anything like the American presidents she saw on TV (in fact, she swore one of the carved faces resembled one of her father's face-the blonde one, not the black-haired one).

It had been five years since Harriet Potter was left on the doorstep of Number Four (very inauspicious, in Harriet's opinion) Privet Drive, and she was turning six. She had many memories, some clear, some jumbled up, as if she was living two lives at the same time.

Harriet was a quiet girl, a little cheeky, but mostly obedient (otherwise she'd get punished, because bad girls always do), and tended to think things through before acting. She had short messy black hair and startling green eyes—like that flash of light the night her parents died, she thought. But sometimes, Harriet wanted to be loud, and reckless, and play pranks on Dudley, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. She usually managed to restrain herself in time. She knew that if she gave in to her wild impulses, the house would have been razed to the ground before she turned five. She named this other side of her 'Naruko', and imagined this other side of her to have blonde hair and blue eyes with marks on her cheeks like whiskers.

Speaking of marks, Harriet had one on her forehead for as long as she could remember. It was shaped like a lightning bolt and looked kinda cool. She liked to think that it made her special, that it was the one that gave her mysterious powers like turning her teacher's wig blue and growing her hair back to their normal length after Aunt Petunia had shaved them all off. To her relatives however, it was a Mark of Freakiness.

The Dursleys hated anything remotely abnormal. So she, who had mysterious powers (that she found she could not control, much to her disappointment), was hated by her relatives. They almost never called her by name, preferring to use terms like 'girl' or 'freak', unless Uncle Vernon was in one of his worse moods—then he'd get particularly creative in his name-calling.

Harriet found that she didn't really mind the insults, though she soon found that names were supposed to hurt. She understood that her relatives feared her, and that people often misunderstood and hate what they fear. She couldn't explain how she came to have such wisdom at the tender age of five, but she did sometimes get a sense of deja vu when her uncle calls her a 'demon spawn'. And judging by the number of weird things that happened around her, she wouldn't be surprised if she was in fact the child of a demon. Sometimes, she'd even hear a quiet answering laughter at the back of her mind when she thought of something like that (and everyone knows that hearing voices was never a good sign).

Harriet's sixth birthday came and she was sent to spend the day at Mrs Figg's house as a present. Not that the Dursleys ever gave her a present on purpose. It just so happened that they had won free tickets to a theme park and were not about to bring her along. It was quite a good unintentional present all the same. It meant no chores for the day (she didn't mind chores, but they were boring and reminded her of some unpleasant moments that she could not remember) and the freedom to play in Mrs Figg's garden without the Dursleys bothering her. The only downside was the cats.

Harriet had many irrational fears. Now most fears are usually irrational, but Harriet knew that she had never been scratched by a cat (despite having been glared at by plenty at Mrs Figg's house) and she had always weeded the garden perfectly since she was four, and she had never drunk spoilt milk (the Dursleys, unpleasant as they were, have starved her before but have yet to feed her expired food). Yet, she found herself wary of little things like that, such as big furry stripped cats that reminded her of tiny tigers, wary of plucking out the wrong plant when weeding, wary of any milk given to her by the Dursleys.

Nonetheless, Harriet spent a very happy day at Mrs Figg's despite the many glaring cats (and she swears they seem too intelligent to be ordinary cats), and Mrs Figg, though somewhat mad, was quite kind and made her instant noodles (which she found was her favorite food thus far) for lunch. And thus, she came to enjoy having instant noodles every subsequent visit to Mrs Figg's house.

When Harriet turned seven, all her hazy memories became clear. It happened quite suddenly, and all at once, and she got an enormous head that may or may not have been due to the impact of her head hitting the sidewalk. Dudley and his friends were Harri-Hunting again, and though Harriet found that she was able to defend herself against Dudley alone (despite his height and weight advantage) or sometimes Dudley and Piers together, due to mysterious, unexplained instincts), when the gang came in a group ranging from three people to five, she often ended up lying in the grass or on the gravelly ground, half-conscious. It was most fortunate that her mysterious powers included healing at a miraculous rate.

So Harriet hit the ground in the game of Harri-Hunting, and thought she heard a loud crack. She vaguely wondered if her head was an egg and hoped brain juice wouldn't leak out like yolk if it was, before her muddled brain felt like it was suddenly stabbed by a blade made of cold fire and surprisingly, along with the pain came clarity. It was almost as if the impact had knocked the fog surrounding her memories out of her head.

That was the day Harriet Potter remembered her entire life as Uzumaki Naruko, from the time she was three and shunned by the villagers of Konoha to the time she died alongside her teammates in a sea of ice. It was somewhat like what was supposed to happen in stories of death in slow-motion. It was the whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes scenario. And Harriet thought she might have died from a cracked head when darkness took her, until she found herself in a dimly lit room that resembled a cave, with tiny streams and rivers running through it, and realised that she was merely in her mindscape and wasn't dead yet.

"Kurama!" she yelled, delighted at seeing the fox demon again. The nine-tailed beast seated before her, reddish-orange fur gleaming gold in the light of the torches overhead, observing her with fiery red eyes.

"About time, brat!" Kurama snapped, but without real malice or spite. Harriet grinned in response. She was glad that she could still understand her past life's language (which she now realise was Japanese) and she was almost certain that the tailed beast had missed her. But of course, being the tsundere he was, he was unlikely to admit it.

"I'm so glad to see you again! How are you here though?" Harriet, on the other hand, had no qualms expressing her delight at seeing the demon. They had become friends at last (even if Kurama was in denial about it) after a not-quite-ideal start (inevitable, considering the typical nature of a demon and its host), but had been forcefully separated during the war.

"I'm not sure myself. It seems like I have been sealed within you again, this time by whatever divine entity that reincarnated us."

Naruko had been a jinchuuriki—a demon host/vessel/container—since she was one, when he parents sealed the demon fox into her to save the Hidden Village. Both her parents, Uzumaki Kushina (a red-head just like her current late mother) and Namikaze Minato (a blonde who was given the title of Fourth Hokage for his deeds for the village), died that day, leaving her an orphan shunned by the village because of the demon sealed within her, while her parentage was kept from her until much later in her life when she found out that her parents were famous heroes.

Harriet was now aware of the similarities between her current life and her past life. In both lives she was an orphan with a redheaded mother. In both lives she was treated like dirt and shunned by those around her for her 'freakiness'. Though, she thought somewhat bitterly, at least Naruko had the Third Hokage looking out for her and then there was Iruka-sensei who was always kind to her. And she didn't need to work for food and shelter. The Sandaime had made sure of that. And when she finally had to do chores in the form of D-rank missions, she had Team Seven to do them with, and was paid enough for little luxuries.

Because here, in Little Whinging, Surrey, there was no one who was nice to her. Well, maybe with the exception of Mrs Figg. Maybe. Not that she minded. Though being used to it didn't mean it didn't hurt somewhere in the back of her mind, a dull throbbing sort of ache. But, on the bright side, she had Kurama here with her. Being friends with the grumpy demon did help. As well as ninja will and stamina to do bear with her slave-driving relatives and resist the urge to use them as knife-throwing practice... However... Perhaps it was time for her to live up to her Number One Unpredictable Ninja and Prankster Queen title again.

Kit, there's something else that you should know... the fox demon said, and Harriet immediately paid full attention to the beast. Kurama usually called her 'brat' (amongst other things, like 'runt'), unless it was a truly serious matter, then he'd either call her by name or 'kit'. He never explained why.

"What is it?" Harriet asked with a frown. Whatever this 'something else' was, Kurama sounded like he wasn't very pleased with it.

"Well... How much of your parent's death do you remember? Lily and James Potter. Not Kushina and Minato."

Oh. Those were her parents' names. Lily and James.

"Not much. Just screaming, red eyes, laughter and green light," Harriet replied. Kurama was silent for a moment, seeming to consider how to say what he wanted to say. Anyone else might have looked disturbed, or sympathetic, but Kurama was a nine-tailed demon fox, and hardly spared a thought about sentiments.

"Alright," he finally said. "You see, on that night, the night of a festival I don't really understand (here, Harriet wanted to add that she didn't really understand the whole wearing costumes and asking for candy business either, though it sounded like a lot of fun, much like the festivals she used to attend in Konoha, wearing masks and eating snacks), a dark wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort came to kill you. Your parents died trying to save you and it was your mother's love for you and her sacrifice that you survived what is known as the Killing Curse. Apparently you're the first in history to have survived being hit by it."

"Wait. What's all this wizard and curse thing?" Harriet interrupted.

"Let's just say wizards and witches exist—your parents were wizarding folk, and they use magic and spells and whatnot like in those fairytales in this life. Oh, and you're a witch too. It seems like magic is a special form of chakra, somewhat like demon or sage chakra," Kurama explained, then waited until Harriet seemed to have processed this lot of new information before continuing, "When the curse rebounded on the dark wizard because it could not touch you, the dark wizard was—there was—an explosion happened, and the dark wizard was destroyed. However... A piece of the dark wizard's soul seems to have entered you in the chaos through the scar on your forehead caused by the rebounded curse."

Harriet froze. Rebound. Curse. Scar. Destroy. Soul. Piece. What? Her mind couldn't seem to understand what she just heard. Did something short-circuit in her brain? She repeated Kurama's words to herself a few more times. Then—

§I think it's about time I introduce myself.§ The voice was soft and smooth, but it instantly made Harriet wary, because it sounded like it might belong to a predator, a velvety black panther perhaps. Yet, the words spoken were gravelly hisses that she found she could understand as well as Japanese and English. It was a language that sounded harsh yet captivating and familiar to her. Familiar... Why? Harriet didn't think her mind was back to functioning normally yet. So she looked around for some clue...

There was another person in the room.

The stranger was standing by an archway that looked like it should be fitted with a door. He had short white hair that seemed slightly wavy, and blood red eyes that was in stark contrast to his hair color and pale skin that seemed more translucent than white, as if all its color had been drained away. She could see faint thin blue and red lines, a cobweb of blood vessels, mapped out beneath his skin-cheeks, neck, arms, long-fingered hands. And he looked far too thin, not exactly starving-person-in-poverty thin but more like eating-little-for-days-may-be-ill thin. He was wearing a simple black shirt and long black pants, and boots of some shimmering leathery material, which meant that she could see how lean (which was an understatement) he was. And she vaguely noted that the black of his clothes only served to further emphasize his paleness.

She wasn't bothered by his strange coloring though. White hair and red eyes were nothing compared to the other strange looking shinobi she has encountered before (one such example would be a blue-skinned half-shark shinobi).

§Who are you?§ Harriet asked, and realised that she had replied in that strange language. She watched as the stranger raised an eyebrow, his hands tucked in the pockets of his pants, and was suddenly captured by the intensity of his eyes. Like a prey trapped in the gaze of—then the numbness in Harriet's mind disappeared and she recognized the familiarity of the language and the stranger's gaze. The language was the speech of snakes and the stranger's gaze reminded her of a viper before it strikes. The image of a large purple snake (Manda, she was sure Orochimaru had called it) flashed through her mind for a moment.

§My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. However, I am but a piece of the original, also known as Lord Voldemort.§ The stranger grinned then. It was a sharp cold grin.

Dark killer wizard or not, at least he seemed less creepy than Orochimaru to Harriet. The key word was seemed. But she had to be sure. So she asked, §I don't really understand the piece of... soul... original... thing, but... how old are you?§ He looked young and old at the same time. His appearance was that of a young man in his twenties, but there was air about him that suggested of years of experience. That, and something in his eyes made him seem like one of the Legendary Sannin, ancient and dangerous. Naruko had made the mistake of underestimating Tsunade at first, but soon learnt that surface appearances are often deceiving.

§As a soul fragment, I am a year younger than you.§ Riddle said, then added with a smirk of sorts, §But as a wizard, I am old enough to be your grandfather.§

Harriet gulped. §You're not a pedophile... Right?§

For a moment, Riddle seemed speechless. §What?§

"Hey, what's going on?! I don't understand any of that hissing," Kurama finally interrupted, sounding rather impatient.

"Oh. I just asked Riddle-san if he's a pedophile," Harriet said. The demon fox choked on his laughter, knowing that the girl was thinking about how the Snake Sannin, Orochimaru, had hunted down her best friend, Uchiha Sasuke, for his body.

"I am not a pedophile," snapped Riddle in Japanese, though one could tell from the way he spoke that he preferred English. Harriet looked relieved.

"Oh good. Now what's a soul fragment? Or a piece of soul?" she said.

"It's like how the bijuu are all parts of the Juubi. Voldemort would be the 'Juubi' in this case, and this soul fragment talking to you would be a 'bijuu' and you would be its container, a 'jinchuuriki', called a horcrux," Kurama explained. It was an analogy that Harriet understood.

"Okay, so...What do I call you? Are you fine with Riddle-san?" she asked Riddle, who stared at her with a slight frown and a contemplative expression.

"You may call me Marvolo, or Lord Voldemort," he said after a while. Harriet pondered these names. It seemed like he didn't like his first nor last name, and wanted to be respected, if his self-given title was of any indicator. But then, Naruko never really gave a damn about respectful titles before. And 'Voldemort-dono' or 'Lord Voldemort' was such a mouthful.

"How about Tom-kun? Or Hebi-sama? Or Tori-ue?" Harriet suggested cheekily. The mindscape began steadily filling with Killing Intent. But Naruko had faced S-ranked Missing-nin, unstable jinchuuriki, destructive Uchiha and mad powerful women before. Some Killing Intent wasn't going to faze her, so she continued grinning. Riddle glared at her, then realised that she wasn't going to give in to it, took a deep breath and tried to quell his anger at her show of disrespect.

"Hebi means 'snake' in Japanese, right? And tori means 'bird'?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice, and Harriet ignored the danger suggested in the tone, opting for fake obliviousness.

"Hai! And 'Tori' is also a combination of the first syllables of your first and last name," she said, still grinning. It wasn't like he could actually harm her, right? Besides, she had Kurama on her side. Riddle shut his eyes, then finally grounded out, "Anything's fine. Just... Not... 'Tom-kun'. Or Riddle-san."

"Yes!" Harriet cheered, and made a show of celebrating her victory over his name. Kurama sighed in exasperation and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "I do not know this idiot."

"Ne~ Hebi-sama~ you're a wizard right? Or at least part of a wizard? Can you teach me magic?" Harriet suddenly said, as she danced over to Riddle with puppy-dog eyes, which Riddle regarded with an indifferent look, for psychopathic dark wizards hardly fell for such tricks that appealed to human emotion.

"What would I get in return for teaching you magic?" he asked coldly. Harriet thought about it.

"Well, it seems like a suitable way for you to pay rent for living in my head... I mean, Kurama pays me in the form of chakra... " Harriet trailed off when he gave her a glare, and hurriedly continued on with, "I'll call you Sensei, sometimes, and... What do you want?"

Riddle stared at her, once again giving her a contemplative look. Then he slowly said, "I want... a body... for myself."

"Kit, do take into consideration that this is a dark evil wizard who killed your parents before you agree with anything," Kurama interjected, when he saw that Harriet seemed about to agree. She glanced at him.

"So it'll be like setting you free before we became friends."

"We're not friends," Kurama grumbled. "But yes, the notion is correct."

Harriet grinned. "Okay. So, Tori-ue, I'll help you get a body, in return for teaching me magic, if you promise to continue teaching me magic even after you get a body, and... Promise not to kill or seriously maim anyone unprovoked. Basically, if anyone has done you no wrong besides existing, don't kill or maim him or her, yeah? And you can't kill or maim any of my friends either, even if they offend you."

"I was once the Dark Lord Voldemort, and you're asking me not to kill whoever I want to?" Riddle sounded more incredulous than enraged, despite the Killing Intent that was still permeating the room. Harriet blithely nodded. "And you have to swear on it."

Riddle glared at her, but he did want to have a body. It wasn't pleasant being stuck in someone else's head, especially hers. And he noted that she said 'kill or seriously maim', which meant that he could still attack anyone he wanted, so long as the person didn't end up dead or missing a limb. And anyone who provoked him first was a free target. And even if he wasn't allowed to kill anyone he as he pleased, his followers could still do the job.

"Alright. In return for teaching you magic whenever I am not busy, for as long as you want, and not kill or seriously maim anyone who did not provoke me first, you will help me get a body. I will not kill or maim your friends only if you would join me."

Harriet blinked. "Join you?"

"There is a wizarding war that Voldemort started, and is temporarily on hold due to his unexpected demise due to his foolishness," Kurama said, before Riddle could reply. "To join him is to join the Dark side which your parents fought so hard against. And if the prophesy about you is correct, you're the only one who can stop him."

"Oh... So what's the uh... What's your mission in this war?" Harriet asked Riddle absently, her mind now on a certain movie series she'd heard her cousin talk about that featured outer space battles and people with swords made of light. The bad guys had been on the 'Dark side', she recalled.

"To dominate over Muggles and rid the magical world of Mudbloods," he automatically said.

"Non-wizarding folk and wizarding folk with non-wizarding parents," supplied Kurama, at Harriet's questioning look.

"Ah, I see. Sounds like world domination. But why would you want to get rid of those with parents who are civilians?"

"They're not exactly civilians, brat. Muggles don't hire the wizarding folk to do missions like in the shinobi world," Kurama said at the same time as Riddle who said, "These 'civilians' as you call them, are inferior to us wizarding folk, and should not know about magic. That's what the Statute of Secrecy is for. To keep the knowledge of the magical world away from Muggles. Mudbloods endanger that, because for every witch or wizard born, one more family of Muggles learn about magic. In addition, their blood is impure, and they are unworthy of magic. Purebloods who—"

"Hold it. In other words, you're a wizard version of Hitler, and are supporting uh... Bloodism?" Harriet said, while thinking to herself about how the whole Mudblood-pureblood business sounded ridiculously like wizards were some sort of animal where pedigree was of importance.

Riddle looked affronted by her interruption and her choice of words, but did not express his displeasure aloud. Instead, he merely agreed with her interpretation, and she began staring into space, thinking about it. Finally, she sighed loudly.

"Whatever. It sounds like a load of crap that I don't understand. Never did like complicated stuff like that," she said (and she did not care much for history and politics except for her former dream to become the Hokage, which seemed simpler than whatever was going on in the world she currently lived in.) "But I don't like the idea of you killing people and I know that whatever the 'Dark side' is, it can't be good. How about this. I won't fight against you, but neither will I join you. I won't take sides until I figure this whole war out."

When Riddle realised that was the best compromise he could get (and it did not escape his notice that his desire and need for a body was greater than her desire and need to learn magic), he agreed to the deal. Harriet then asked if there was some way to have a binding contract, which made him reevaluate her intelligence in spite of her seemingly naive and foolish behavior. He supposed, if what the demon fox told him was true, she was once a ninja, though he couldn't imagine how.

In the end, Riddle and Harriet swore on their magic, with Riddle doing so quite reluctantly, because Harriet demonstrated another show of intelligence, by clarifying that his followers were an extension of him, and hence he was not allowed to order them to help him maim or kill innocents, though it was alright if they do so on their own initiative. Still, he badly needed a body to make his ascent to power once more.

Later on, Harriet woke up back in her cupboard with something wrapped around her head. It was a horribly crude bandage that was supposed to help with whatever head injury she had sustained earlier. She vaguely wondered if she'd already be dead if not for Kurama, but paid little attention otherwise to her near-death experiences. After all, it wasn't like she hadn't nearly died a couple of times before (and actually dying in her previous life), and she had better things to care about, such as the existence of magic.

Thanks for reading my first chapter~ Please review~! Also, feel free to ask questions~ I might not answer them all (if they're spoilers), but I'll try my best. Next chapter will be up next week (though I probably won't be able to update this regularly all the time ^^")

Ja, until next time,

~ Shichi