This story is dedicated to Chimeralchy, the 50th reviewer to Protecting Harry Potter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto.
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Harry, Ron, and Hermione trudged down the steep hill into Hogsmeade village. The four shinobi were no doubt trailing them, but were out of sight, and to Harry, that meant out of mind. Just then, four strangers stepped out into the street in front of them. For a moment, Harry's fists tightened at the sight of short silvery blond hair. Upon a second look, the person with the blond hair was clearly not Malfoy. It was actually a girl, dressed in a Hogwarts uniform with a Ravenclaw badge on her robe.
"Good morning, Harry!" the girl said cheerily. Harry frowned slightly.
"How do you know my name?" he asked. Hermione was giving the Ravenclaw girl a small glare.
"Wow, Harry, I'm hurt. Though—" here the girl leaned in to whisper, "I think Gaara would feel it more." She finished, her jade green eyes flashing good naturedly.
"Are you Sakura?" Harry asked, disbelief plastered on his face.
"You got it right!" she said, smiling widely. From the way she acted, the trio could barely tell that this bubbly girl was the serene Sakura at all. Ron looked from Sakura to the other three people behind her, another girl and two boys.
The other girl, a brunette with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, stared at them out of dull black eyes. "You must be Temari." Ron said, also noting the Slytherin badge. "I can't imagine how you guys are doing this, but it's amazing! I can barely tell who you guys actually are!" Hermione snorted.
"You couldn't tell any of them for who they were, Ronald." she said, and Ron blushed.
"Now, you must be Naruto." Hermione said, pointing to the boy wearing the most hideously orange scarf she'd ever seen. He had changed his hair to black, and had mismatched blue and green eyes. His Hufflepuff badge was almost lost in the vibrant color of his scarf. Naruto wrinkled his nose in mock rage.
"How did you know?" he wailed. The last boy smirked.
"I told you that you were being really obvious." he drawled. Harry stared.
"Gaara?" he gasped.
"That's me." The boy replied, flashing a Gryffindor crest at Harry. Harry once again fell into disbelief. Gaara had changed into a tall boy with spike brown hair and slightly coffee colored skin. The dark rings and tattoo characteristic of his face were gone, and he had eyebrows. Temari laughed.
"For lack of creativity, he first transformed into Kankuro, our brother, and changed a few things from there." she said, earning herself a death glare from her younger sibling.
"We decided to change our appearances so we could guard you without being so obvious." Sakura said quietly. "Now let's go. What's here to see, Harry?"
"Well—" Harry began, but Ron cut him off.
"Loads! There's Zonko's Joke Shop, Honeyduke's Sweet Shop, the Shrieking Shack—it's supposedly haunted, but it's not, really, we would know— and, if you want to go get a nice drink, there's the Three Broomsticks!" Ron said breathlessly.
"Joke shop?" Naruto's eyes were twinkling mischievously.
"Oh boy." Sakura groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I don't have the patience to deal with y— huh? Oh no!" she cried, as Naruto was already half way down the street with two of the last people she wanted to see him with: Fred and George Weasley.
"Is Naruto a prankster?" Ron asked Sakura, slightly amused.
"You bet," Sakura sighed, starting after the three. "Wait up!" she called, sprinting after them. That left Harry, Ron, and Hermione with the two sand siblings. Temari grinned.
"Well, be careful for the next few weeks. I heard he had some pretty good pranks back in the day." she said, remembering the "horror" stories Sakura sometimes told about Naruto's antics.
"Right." Harry nodded. "Why don't we go to Honeydukes? I'm sure you'll see something you like." he suggested. A dreamy look entered Ron's eyes.
"Yeah…"
"There must be some interesting things at… Honeydukes." Gaara pronounced the word carefully.
"Of course! My personal favorite is— I can't decide! I like everything!" Ron shouted. "Like the sugar quills… obviously, you're not supposed to eat in class, but if you have a sugar quill, you can suck on it and pretend you are thinking…"
"Lets just go." Harry prompted, pushing his friend toward the brightly colored entrance.
Gaara's first impression was that he'd been blinded by extremely bright color. Temari stared at some of the candies on display. She wandered over to a bin filled with strange, round sugary lumps.
"What are these?" she asked, resisting the urge to prod one of the little whitish brown objects.
"Cockroach Clusters." Harry replied. "Careful, I think that they're real cockroaches." If Temari looked a little closer, she could make out the antennae of the gross insect, covered with sugar.
"Gross!" she exclaimed, before a wicked grin crossed her face. "Gaara, get over here," Temari said, and pointed to the cockroaches. "We have to come back here before we go home. I want to buy some for Kankuro."
Gaara examined the candy. "You want to buy cockroaches for Kankuro." he stated, disbelief dripping from his words.
"As a joke." she supplied, stopping herself from saying "duh". Her brother was very serious, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. The corners of Gaara's lips twitched.
"Very well." he sighed, but Temari could tell he wanted to see Kankuro eat cockroaches just as much as she did.
They moved on, led by Ron, who continued on and on about the various sorts of treats they were looking at. Harry let the boy go. Not having grown up in a wizarding family, he didn't actually know too much about all of the candy. Not like Ron did. They passed into the "Strange Tastes" section of the store. Ron was finishing his explanation about Acid Pops.
"My brother gave me one when I was little. Burnt a hole right through my tongue! I remember Mum walloping him with her broomstick." he said dreamily. Temari laughed.
"We'd get some of those for our brother, too, but we don't have ways to heal holes in people's tongues in our house." she said.
At that moment, Naruto came in, his arms loaded with bags and packages. "That joke shop is amazing!" Naruto cried, and in the crowded store filled with shrieking children, it almost seemed normal. "They'll never know what hit them!" he said happily.
Gaara nodded absently. The Blood Pops had just caught his eye, and regretfully, it had also caught Shukaku's. Harry looked at what Gaara saw.
"I'm not sure if those carry an appeal for anyone other than vampires." Harry said thoughtfully.
Or rabid, bloodthirsty raccoon demons. Gaara thought. In his mind, Shukaku had started the begging session. It reminded him of all the times the demon had started asking him to kill other people. Except now, the demon was asking for sweets like a spoiled child.
"Kid, I swear I will shut up for the next week unless you talk to me if you buy some Blood Pops." the demon whispered. Gaara internally perked up. That would be nice, having no one in his mind but himself. Oh… but that would also include eating the candy. Even though he couldn't say he didn't like the taste, voluntarily eating something that tasted like blood seemed to be stretching it.
"The next two weeks. Please?" Shukaku, if Gaara could see him, probably would have had puppy eyes unbecoming of a demon on his face. Gaara sighed for the second time that day, with resignation.
"You okay?" Harry asked, seeing Gaara's grave face.
"I can't believe I'm about to buy candy for a demon, and eat the candy for the demon. It better be worth what I'm getting back." Gaara explained, buying a few and paying for them, before stalking out.
"Where'd you get all the money?" Ron asked. Temari shrugged.
"It's a bonus for working under Dumbledore." she said teasingly. Ron looked at Naruto and his bags of merchandise enviously.
Hermione cleared her throat.
"You'd better not be doing anything in Hogwarts, Naruto." she said.
Naruto stuck his tongue out at her. "Like you could stop me!" he replied petulantly. "Anyways, this is for home. No one's ever seen stuff like this before." he said joyfully.
"Where's Sakura?" Hermione asked.
Fred and George appeared on either side of her. "We gave her the slip." George said amiably. Hermione jumped at their proximity.
"It was brilliant." Fred chimed in.
"So Naruto starts to go to the joke shop—"
"— and Sakura's following us, right, George?"
"Right. And he pulls us into an alley way and POOF!"
"There are two Narutos!"
"And so the one goes into Zonko's—"
"— Of course, Sakura sees him."
"The clone takes of running—"
"— And in we go!" they finished, as the group walked into the street. Hermione looked at them condescendingly.
"Do you really think she'd be fooled?" She asked. Naruto opened his mouth to argue.
"Did you really think I'd be fooled?" a voice asked, and a cold shiver went down Naruto's spine. He slowly turned to face his nightmare.
"Ah, S-sakura! I didn't see you there!" Naruto said shakily, before sprinting down the street towards Hogwarts, the kunoichi hot on his heels. The others stood for a while, watching the two ninja fade into the distance.
An agonized scream met their ears. "Oh dear, I feel rather sorry for the poor chap." Fred said matter-of-factly.
"I think you should feel sorry for yourselves!" Sakura said, materializing in a puff of smoke dragging Naruto by the color of his jacket. She had beaten him so badly that his transformation jutsu had become undone, and his bruises seemed to be steaming. Sakura stepped toward the twins, cracking her knuckles threateningly. George checked his watch.
"Look at the time! We have to be going to… to… well, bye!" with a crack, the two twins disapparated.
"You won't get far!" Sakura cried, vanishing in a burst of speed. Naruto lay prone where she'd dropped him, out cold. Gaara sighed.
"Look what you've done to yourself, idiot. Now I have to carry you back." he said, prodding Naruto with his foot.
Naruto cracked open a black eye. "You don't have to." he said in a weak voice. "I'm sure I'll be back by tomorrow if I crawl." Gaara ignored him and hoisted him over his shoulder with ease.
"And then who will take your place guarding the second task?" he asked.
"Gamakichi." was the muffled reply.
"Right."
The journey back to the castle passed uneventfully as the sun dropped toward the horizon. In the distance, faint screams of terror could barely be heard.
"Do you here something?" Harry asked Ron, cupping his ears.
Ron shook his head. "Nope, not a thing."
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Once again, thanks to Chimeralchy. I hope you enjoyed this fanfiction, 'cuz I wasn't sure if this is what you were looking for.