Wow did I hate Naruto's ending, but somehow I ended up really liking the new generation characters. Especially Sarada, as anyone who's seen my tumblr knows. I've been on and off planning on writing a Hogwarts story with them for quite some time but I am constantly losing motivation or getting frustrated when things aren't perfect. And Beginnings! Arrgh! Well, whatever. If I end up hating this beginning I'll change it later. I just need to start something.

The weather that day was perfect for delivering letters - unsurprisingly cloudy, a Hogwarts post owl couldn't help but note. Swooping in to launch a letter through a mail slot on a door, it added ten points to its own coolness scale. Tricks like that weren't easily performed, after all, and during daylight hours, too.

There were a few more students this year than expected, the owl had to suppose, or else it would have tried to only deliver at dawn. Additionally, it seemed that five of its students were in a very different time zone, and after this next house the owl would need to warp over there, where it would still be fairly early.

Warping wasn't something any old owl could do, as it was a rare ability even among post owls. It was certainly handy, though. Without that ability, this particular owl would not have been capable of delivering those five letters at all; unbeknownst to it, when it warped, it passed through a tiny dimensional rift, entering a new world with entirely different peoples and powers. A rift that shouldn't have existed, that held an unimaginable power.

On the other side, the bird had to perch for a moment to adjust to the overwhelming presence of power. A huge ward hung over this city, and the owl was relieved that it had been able to bypass all of these security measures by warping. Some of them were scary.

Well, regardless of that fright, this owl was a proud owl, young and brave, and it would complete this assignment or it would die trying!

Its first stop was a house in a strange little forest filled with deer, and it shot the letter through a bedroom window. It landed on a sleeping child, not alarming them in the slightest. The owl wasn't particularly good with English, much less whatever this language was, but the characters on that envelope looked similar enough to the name it could read on the kid. It was the right house, at least, the owl was sure.

The next was a little more difficult; this house had wards galore, and although the owl was fairly confident it hadn't tripped any.. it still hurried out of there, leaving the letter by the front door.

POV change

Sarada awoke suddenly, but silently, to her mother's quietly furious face. She wasn't left to wonder what had angered her. "Two of the house barriers have been destroyed. It appears there was only one invader, who left immediately; ANBU are on their way to comb the place. We're going to the hospital."

... Sarada had certainly had better wakeup calls.

time break

It wasn't long before the letter was recognized as a foreign object and found harmless, but the whole thing had already been brought to the Hokage. Sakura had checked her daughter and found no evidence of harm, and nothing else seemed damaged, but she was furious. "How did this Maganagaru person get into my house?" She demanded, probably for the fifth time. Sarada herself was seated by the window, pretending not to exist. She was still in her pajamas, and horribly embarrassed. As an eleven year-old, and especially as one known to be very mature, sitting in the most important office in Konohagakure in her jammies was mortifying.

She hadn't seen the letter yet, although they'd told her it was addressed to her. Apparently it was dangerous, but Sarada couldn't see why she still needed to be here. She'd already said she didn't know what this was about, and expected it was a prank. Her mother was prone to overreaction; then again, if Sakura had thought some dumb kid had done this, she probably would have ran the kid down.

Without noticing, she found herself drifting off, startled every now and again by some little sound. People came in and went out, with Sakura stubbornly refusing to leave until she was confident the matter was settled.

"Nice pj's," A familiar voice snickered, and Sarada straightened up painfully quickly. "Right, sorry. Hokage-sama, is my father around?"'

"Sorry, Shikadai. I -"

Sakura interrupted, surprising Sarada. "What's that? In your hand."

"Huh? Oh." Shikadai held up a letter, the green ink more than visible.

And suddenly, the Hokage was far more invested. A squad was assembled to track down members of their age group, searching for similar letters and any clues as to their origin. Shikadai's story of waking up with the letter on their chest was alarming, to say the least; he was promptly sent for a medical check, and Sarada was submitted to that again. They weren't brought to the same room, or else she would have asked about the contents of the letter. Carrying it around like that, Shikadai had probably wanted to discuss it with their father.

Sakura finally brought her clothes, almost three hours after dragging her out of bed, and then brought her back to the Hokage tower. Not into the office, this time; instead, it seemed to be some kind of conference room. Nara and Shikadai were already seated, scowling at each other; Chouchou and her mother Karui was also present, confusingly. Sarada barely had a chance to sit before Inojin entered, crabbily snapping, "You could have at least let me read it!" at his mother. The Hokage and his two children followed before long.

Inojin quieted at the presence of the village leader, and everyone calmed enough to be caught up on the broken barriers on the Uchiha estate and the general confusion regarding the letters. Himewari's face caught Sarada's eye during that part; it seemed his father had not asked if his children had seen the deliverer at all. Himewari hadn't received a letter, however, Sarada was willing to bet she'd seen whoever brought Boruto's. As the little leaf girl wasn't saying anything, only looking a little frustrated, Sarada presumed that this had all been a bit of a prank.

It was a while before the adults stopped getting everyone up to speed, and Inojin took the chance and timidly asked if he could see his letter. Sarada was no longer curious about the content, aside from using it to guess what classmate had created such a scare.

"The letters all say the same thing, aside from the address." Shikamaru answered, holding up the stack. "A lot of the words seem to be foreign, and poorly translated." He passed them around, and Sarada finally had the chance to see hers.

'Hagawatsu Magical Magic School', The heading stated with a little curl,

Kouchou: Danburudoa Arubasu' and below that in parenthesis a bunch of nonsensical katakana separated now and again with commas, followed by 'Magician's International Federation'. The phrase was placed as though it belonged in the list, but Sarada just didn't know. She was already a little more interested, by the difficult, foreign-sounding name and by the apparent magical context.

The content of the letter was also a little puzzling, and although Sarada was fairly certain she understood the intent, she was still a little frustrated.

'Uchiha-san,

We inform that you've been accepted at Hagawatsu Magical Magic School. See enclosed a list of all required books and equipment.

The school year will begin on September 1. We, before July 31, are waiting for your owl.

With best regards,

Maganagaru Mineruba

Fuku-kouchou'

The letter seemed like a foreign piece. It was noticeably abrupt, and didn't have any set phrases. Sarada was left side-eyeing Himewari again; the girl was trying to read over Boruto's shoulder, though her eyes wandering vaguely across the page. They widened briefly - Sarada tried to figure out what part had caught her interest, but the letter was too tiny to know for sure.

"I can't read most of this," Boruto mumbled, and his voice seemed to signal an end to the contemplative silence.

Shikadai, folding their letter with care, paraphrased it. "We've been invited to learn magic at a school called Hagawatsu. I'm not sure what's with the owl," Ah, Himewari's guilty look reappeared! "but I imagine if this is a serious offer, then someone will come for our reply."

"It's got to be a prank, though." Chouchou pointed out.

Shikadai seemed almost startled by that response, as if they hadn't considered that possibility. Sarada wondered if their head was in the clouds again.

"So none of you have any idea who might have been behind this?" Sakura asked, and Sarada noticed her impatience.

"Why did you drag me here for this?" Karui asked Sakura directly, although she had not technically done the dragging. "This is obviously just a joke. Maybe your barriers weren't as good as you thought."

Sakura laughed, barely concealing her temper. Sarada could hardly fight the instinctive cringe to move out of her mother's way. "I've already reinstated them, if you want to come try them. I'm very sure that no mere prankster could have done that."

"I wouldn't say for sure that it's not some kind of prank, but - no child could have done this, and breaking and entering - especially onto clan properties - can't go without punishment." The Hokage added to the conversation, speaking the first part hurriedly.

Shikadai had begun gnawing on their lip, and Sarada stared until they looked her way. Jerking her head a little, she conveyed her hope that they would just say it already.

With a little grimace, they said, "Isn't it also possible that this invitation is legitimate?"

This question was met with a little round of snorts, from the children and from Karui. Himewari didn't join in, and looked just as angry about the laughter as Shikadai.

"Magic doesn't exist." Chouchou said, almost apologetically. "If they're talking about chakra, though, then this might be a lame attempt to draw us out of Konoha."

Shikadai shook their head, frustrated. "It's not chakra. Are you really going to tell me that magic isn't real?"

The Hokage looked a little alarmed and a little curious. "Hey... are you saying you have magic?" Sakura shot him a look, probably for encouraging nonsense.

With a surprisingly sincere look, Shikadai stood up. "I can use magic," they said firmly, and this time, when everyone laughed, he threw a hand forward, palm up, closing it into a tight fist. When he opened his hand, lights shot out, loudly forming shapes in many colors. "This isn't chakra, you can tell that right?"

Even as young as she was, Sarada could tell. The adults weren't debunking it; they seemed to have been rendered speechless by the display.

"If you're all getting letters like this, then you have this power too, right? Right?" Shikadai demanded, looking from Inojin, to Chouchou, to Boruto, to Sarada. Each shook their heads, or continued to stare. Their eyes finally fell on Himewari. "You have it, don't you?" They asked, and the Hokage took a step closer to his daughter, although he failed to say anything.

Himewari, shaking, ducked her head and hunched her shoulders when everyone looked to her.

"If you don't tell them, they're going to try and call it a kekkei genkai."

Well... maybe Shikadai wasn't as clueless as they appeared. That was definitely what Sarada had been deciding, at least. But if Himewari also had it... the two weren't closely related, unless Nara had a confession to make, and they couldn't have been experimented on. Probably.

"Himewari?" The little girl didn't acknowledge her father's timid word, still shuddering in her seat. With a sudden wave of fury, the blond pulled her out of her seat. "I can't believe you," he snapped at Shikadai, "talking to my daughter like -"

Himewari pulled away suddenly, climbing up onto the table. Sarada couldn't see her face, but the little girl's posture had become more determined. Her hands pulled reflexively at her dress for a moment before moving her arms away, bringing them back slowly. when her fingers clenched the fabric, something in the air shifted, like it had for the fireworks, and the sunflower pattern of her skirt slowly erupted, the flowers extruding until they had grown ten centimeters out, connected to the dress only by green stalks.

"I'm magic," Himewari said, turning to her father as the petals started to burn away in pink flames.

End notes: I've decided that if a title is supposed to be in Japanese i'm not translating it. -San is a moderately polite title, similar to Ms. , Mrs., and Mr. Kouchou means principal and fuku-kouchou means vice-principal. The Japanese translation of Harry Potter transliterated some names inaccurately, using their spelling rather than their pronounciation; Hoguwatsu, for instance; and I've adjusted that because I don't like pronouncing things wrong I also swapped the order of their names, since it was all written in katakana. I can't remember the weird phrase the Naruto translations used for kekkei genkai at the moment but maybe i will edit it when i do. The phrase seemed a little irrelevant to me anyway, honestly.