A/N: I had to write this after reading Naruto and the Goblet of Fire, a very entertaining and quite well-written story. I recommend it. I noticed that only Reidluver, author of the aforementioned crossover, has written (and is working on) a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover set during the Deathly Hallows, so I decided to as well. This is a Kakashi/OC one. The OC is from Scarecrow's Spring Fields by me. WARNING! If you have read or are reading Scarecrow's Spring Fields or any of my other Naruto stories, this contains BIG spoilers! Read at your own risk, discretion, ect. Also, this is my first attempt at writing in the third person. I accept criticism and hypothetical cookies!

I now have a picture of Akumu up on my Deviant Art account! Look for "Akumu Kaguya, Kimimaro's Sister". It was painted on a program at my school using a reference pic of Hayley Williams. Please check it out!

"Japanese" (or a spell)

"English"

"Oi, wake up."

A scrawny black-haired boy opened his dark green eyes. He was lying on a camp bed in a slightly dingy attic room. It was still dark outside, and a tiny, golf-ball sized owl slept in its cage with its head under a wing. A lightning-shaped scar on his forehead was prickling. He saw his redheaded, freckled best friend, who was looking at him like he was insane.

"Harry-you were muttering in your sleep."

Harry blinked sleepily. "Was I?"

His friend, Ron, snorted. "Yeah. 'Gregorovitch.' You kept saying 'Gregorovitch.'"

"Who's Gregorovitch?"

"I dunno, do I? You were the one saying it."

Harry rubbed his forehead, trying to soothe the itching of his scar. "I think he's abroad."

"Who, Gregorovitch?"

"Voldemort." AKA the greatest Dark wizard in history, the man that killed Harry's parents. "I think he's somewhere abroad, looking for Gregorovitch. It didn't look like anywhere in Britain."

"You reckon you were seeing into his mind again?"

Ron sounded worried.

"Do me a favor and don't tell Hermione," said Harry. Hermione was the third member of their trio, an extraordinarily intelligent witch with bushy brown hair. "Although how she expects me to stop seeing stuff in my sleep..."

He trailed off for a moment. "I think it has something to do with Quidditch. There's some connection, but I can't-I can't think what it is."

Ron looked skeptical. "Quidditch? Are you sure you're not thinking of Gorgovitch?"

"Who?"

"Dragomir Gorgovitch, Chaser, transferred to the Chudley Cannons for a record fee two years ago." Ron was a fan of the Quidditch team the Chudley Cannons. "Record holder for most Quaffle drops in a season."

"No," said Harry. "I'm definitely not thinking of Gorgovitch."

Ron grinned. "I try not to either. Well, happy birthday anyway."

"Wow-that's right, I forgot! I'm seventeen!"

Harry grabbed his wand, shooting spells left and right. His glasses poked him in the eye when he tried to summon them from a cluttered desk. Ron snorted his laughter.

"Slick!"

Harry proceeded to try tying the laces of his trainers by magic, which resulted in a gigantic knot. He and Ron began to try to unravel it by hand when there was a flash of white light. Harry and Ron blinked furiously, trying to clear up their eyes. When Harry regained his vision, he yelped loudly. Two people were on the messy, old-magazine-covered floor of the bedroom. They saw Harry and Ron, and both of them were standing with their backs to the wall in no time at all. They began speaking in a foreign language neither Harry nor Ron understood. Ron squeaked,"Hermione!"

Harry took Ron's frightened cue, screaming at the top of his lungs, "HERMIONE! HELP, HERMIONE!"

A loud thudding noise escalated, and the door to their room slammed open. Hermione entered the room with her hairbrush stuck to her head and her sweater half on over her top. Her mouth widened at the sight of the strange people. The man, who had gravity-defying silver hair and a blue cloth mask, straightened and said something that was gibberish to the boys. Hermione, on the other hand, replied in the same language. Both of the strange people relaxed visibly. Hermione said something else, then turned to the boys. "Harry, Ron, everything's fine. Hold on a second while I cast a translation spell."

Hermione dug out her wand, pointing it at the two people. The woman visibly stiffened, but relaxed again when the man with the mask laid a hand on her shoulder. Hermione cleared her throat. "Translatio!"

A blue beam shot out of her wand. It crackled over the two people, making them appear to be standing in a bolt of light. When it died away, the pair the spell had hit relaxed further. The man spoke.

"Did it work?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, it did. I'm Hermione Granger, and the boys behind me are Harry Potter" she pointed at each boy in turn, "And Ron Weasley. Who are you? You don't look like you came from here."

The man tilted his head. "No, I suppose not. I'm Kakashi Hatake, and this is Akumu Kaguya."

Harry noticed that the girl, who was wearing the same clothing as Kakashi, minus the mask and metal-plated bandana, had hair that was stark snow white. She stepped forward, speaking in a voice that, Harry thought, was crisp and fairly high-pitched, but sounded steely and immovable. "Yo. Are you kids really wizards?"

Ron had a look on his face reminiscent of when Fleur was in the room. Harry took over for him, saying "Yeah. What are you guys? You don't seem like wizards."

"We are shinobi. In more common terminology, ninja" said Akumu. Ron and Harry blinked. Ninja weren't real...were they?

The boys looked at Hermione for clarification. She immediately began speaking, sounding, as usual, like she had swallowed the textbook.

"Shinobi, or ninja, are legendary figures in Japanese mythology who, upon closer inspection, appear to be witches and wizards with the ability to expel their magic, or chakra, from any part of their body without the use of a wand. They are trained from an extraordinarily young age, and have abilities beyond those of even the most powerful wizard."

Akumu blinked, shocked. The girl had nailed the description of a ninja. Akumu had always had a soft spot for smart young girls. This one brought Sakura to mind in her speech and manner. Akumu walked slowly towards her. "Ano, Hermione-chan, where did you learn that?"

Hermione gulped. "I, uh, read it in Hogwarts, A History. Apparently a young shinobi named Hashirama Senju showed up out of the blue at Hogwarts almost a hundred years ago. There's an entire chapter on him in there. Apparently he was twelve years old and could beat the teachers of the time in under five minutes."

The ninja looked thunderstruck. "Did you say Hashirama Senju?"

Hermione nodded. "In the book, it said he could control wood and bend it to his will."

Akumu nodded. "That's right, he could."

"You know about him?"

"Of course," Akumu smirked. "He was our first Hokage, the leader of our village. Well before either Kakashi or myself were born, of course, but we know about him nonetheless."

Hermione looked like she was on the verge of saying something else, but Ron beat her to it. "Bloody hell! What's my mom gonna say?"

Harry looked at Ron with the same horrorstruck expression, and Hermione finally pulled her hairbrush away from her head. Akumu gently removed it from Hermione's hand and began gently brushing the messy side of her head. Hermione stood still, a little confused. Kakashi closed his visible eye, and somehow Hermione got the feeling he was smiling.

"Don't worry, Miss Granger. Akumu never had a younger sibling. She does things like this with both my former student Sakura and her student, Amaya."

Hermione relaxed for a single second until Ron's comment registered. "Oh my God! Mrs. Weasley!"

Akumu, finished with Hermione's hair, frowned. "Who's Mrs. Weasley?"

"Only my mother," said Ron, nearly throwing himself at the white-haired shinobi in exasperation. "The Burrow is overstretched as it is, what's she gonna do about you two?"

Hermione, whose habit of answering any question she heard was too deeply ingrained to ignore, said, "Well, we could just tell her that they showed up out of nowhere. Maybe she actually read Hogwarts, A History. That's something neither of you," she rounded on the boys, " ever bothered to do."

Hermione straightened up.

"I'll go downstairs and explain things to Mrs. Weasley. I'll come back up when we've settled things."

She walked towards the door, but stopped. "Oh, by the way, guys. From what I've read of shinobi, they could easily help us with you-know-what. Clue them in, ask for help-that is, if Ron's pride can take it."

With that, Hermione left the room.

Ron cleared his throat. "Well, anyway, Harry, happy birthday!"

The ninja watched as Ron handed Harry a rectangular package. Harry looked at it.

"A book? Bit of a departure from tradition, isn't it?"

Ron grinned. "No, it's pure gold! Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Fred and George gave me a copy. I just wish I'd had it last year, I would have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and how to get going with-"

He stopped and cleared his throat again, turning to the ninja. "Well, anyway, it's not all wandwork, either. What Hermione was talking about earlier... We are sorta on the brink of an all-out magical war. This man, named," he gulped, "V-v-vold-e-mort, well, he, uh, is trying to take over. He's got all these followers and he almost pulled it off years and years ago, but he got stopped by Harry. Nobody, even Harry, is really sure why. Anyway, he might take down the Ministry of Magic, our government, any day."

To Ron and Harry's surprise both ninja laughed. Kakashi spoke, laughter evident in his eyes and voice, even though the rest of his face was covered. "One man? Creating a war on this kind of a scale? You must be joking. How many loyal followers are we talking about here?"

"Thirty or forty," said Harry, "But they're all really powerful Dark wizards, and-"

Akumu cut him off with a swipe of her hand and a derisive laugh. "Oh, please. Thirty or forty? By the time we were twelve, we had each killed twice that many powerful people."

Kakashi confirmed her statement. "We grew up during the Third Great Ninja War. I was four when I killed someone for the first time. By the time I was eight, at least three hundred Stone shinobi had died by my hand. I've lost count now."

Akumu nodded, tears of laughter streaming down her face. "I had to kill my closest family by the time I was six! If I hadn't, I wouldn't necessarily be alive today! Do you honestly think thirty or so people could stop me?"

Harry began to get angry. "Each one has killed loads of innocent, powerless people! Voldemort killed my parents!"

The ninja stopped laughing at that. Akumu's face fell, and Kakashi seemed to droop and wither. Akumu looked at Harry, and he saw a depth of sadness and emptiness there that he had only seen in one other face. Akumu's eyes looked like Dumbledore's the night he drank the potion in the cave, haunted, full of loneliness and hate, so dark for such light eyes. She spoke to him, her eyes never once leaving his extraordinarily similar ones. Her voice was nearly a whisper.

"So Voldemort killed your parents? How old were you, hm?"

Harry was taken aback. "I-I... I was only a year old. All I remember is a flash of green light, my father's voice, Voldemort's laugh, and my mother's screams."

Akumu shook her head. "That's what I would rather remember. When my parents died, I was four. I remember every drop of blood, each scream. Want to guess why?

Harry slowly shook his head, green eyes still locked on hers. What Akumu said next would be something Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived, would never forget.

"I remember it all because I was the one who killed them."

Harry and Ron stared, aghast, at the woman who had just admitted to killing the people who gave birth to her.

"Y-you...killed your parents?"

Akumu nodded mutely. Ron launched a tirade worthy of Mrs. Weasley.

"HOW IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S MOST BAGGY Y-FRONTS COULD YOU DO THAT? YOU SOUND LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN CARE!"

Akumu's face fell. "No, that's not true! Kakashi and I both feel remorse for every life we take. However, it is sometimes necessary, as shinobi, to kill someone. In the case of my parents, they were trying to lock me up and turn me into a love-starved machine willing to slaughter innocents for some attention. I killed them to get away from my clan!"

Harry, who had slammed Ron with a Silencing Jinx, asked, "Why would you do that?"

Akumu lost some of the anguish from her eyes, instead replacing it with cold deliberation.

"Simple. The Kaguya clan was basically a horde of savages that thrived on war and death. Even then, the days were gone when one clan could run about slaughtering all in their path. They understood nothing other than the sword. I was born with a genetic aberration that caused a coloring difference. Most Kaguya had brown hair and eyes, whereas mine are white and green, respectively. However, I was also born with more raw, pure power, as well as the talent to use and control it. I don't think you need to know everything. What is it Hermione wished you to explain to us?"

The wizards, being teenagers still, didn't notice that she had effectively changed the subject.

Ron blinked, thinking, like Harry, that the ninja weren't all bad, and maybe they'd had a good reason for everything they did. He removed Harry's jinx with a wave of his wand and said, "I think Harry should explain, he knows the most."

Harry took over reluctantly. "Oh, fine. Okay, Voldemort," Ron flinched, and Akumu quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing. "Well, he made these things called Horcruxes. They are basically pieces of his soul stored in an object. We need to find-"

Harry counted quickly in his head. "We need to find and destroy at least four more. Three of them are objects, and the fourth is a giant snake Voldemort has, called Nagini. They render Voldemort virtually immortal."

Kakashi looked at Akumu. "Is it just me, or does this guy sound a hell of a lot like Orochimaru?"

At this, Akumu's eyes widened. "Immortality, a giant snake, and a hunger for power...That's just creepy, Kakashi, it's almost like they're the same person!"

Kakashi nodded. "Well, at least used to be. Orochimaru is out of action for good, remember? He can't do much fighting with a bad leg, he's getting old, and not to mention Nanaho and Mikomi would just about explode if he tried."

"Good point. So, Harry, are you asking us to help you? I'm sure you are perfectly capable."

Harry frowned, not having a clue who the shinobi were talking about. "Well-We don't know where they are. We need to find them, not to mention figure out what we can use to destroy them. What did Hermione say would work again, Ron?"

"You're asking me? I dunno, mate. Wait-"

Ron furrowed his brow. "Something like 'Using something so destructive that the the Horcrux can't repair itself'. Something about putting it beyond magical repair."

Akumu, puzzled, said, "But, doesn't the piece of soul just go live in something else?"

"No," Harry said. "Actually, a soul is the exact opposite of a human. If you get killed, nothing happens to your soul."

"That's a comforting thought," said Kakashi.

Ron took over at that point. "Yeah, I guess it would be. See, if someone killed you right now, your soul would be fine, but a Horcrux's would, like, die when its container got destroyed. Harry, tell them about the diary!"

"Well, in our second year at Hogwarts-"

Kakashi snorted, and Akumu giggled. "Hog whats?"

"Hogwarts, it's the name of our school. Anyway, there was this diary that happened to house a piece of Voldemort's soul. I stabbed it with a fang from a creature called a basilisk. It was a snake even larger than Nagini. It could have taken out a house."

"And this snake was being controlled by the piece of Voldemort's soul?"

Kakashi looked at Akumu. "That sounds a lot like the old Orochimaru/Manda relationship. You know, Akumu, Orochimaru summons Manda, Manda destroys things, Manda gets killed?"

"Yeah. What happened to the diary when you stabbed it, Harry?"

"Well, it sort of...died. It poured ink like blood, and it was screaming."

"Just from a giant fang?"

"Basilisk venom has only one antidote, and it's really rare. A pheonix named Fawkes saved my life by crying."

"Crying?"

"Pheonix tears is the antidote."

The explanation continued for a bit, then Hermione re-entered the room. "Hey, everyone! Mrs. Weasley wants you all to come downstairs for breakfast! She really wants to meet Kakashi and Akumu!"

Kakashi turned to Akumu, holding out his arm. "Shall we, gaki*?"

Akumu slapped his arm away, grinning to take away the sting. "Get moving, baka*."

With that, they followed Ron and Harry down the stairs toward the kitchen, from which the smell of bacon was issuing to the sensitive shinobi noses. A plump woman with hair the same flaming red as Ron's was frying the bacon in a pan, and, as the ninja and wizards entered the room, she said, "Harry! Arthur told me to wish you a happy seventeenth! He had to leave early for work, but he'll be back for dinner. That's our present on the top."

She indicated a pile of parcels on the kitchen table at which another, clearly older redheaded boy, presumably also a Weasley and covered in scars that reminded Kakashi and Akumu of Ibiki, sat with a plump, short man with black hair, a little pointed beard, and high-heeled boots. Mrs. Weasley, who the ninja guessed the woman to be, turned, smiling, to them while Harry sat to open a smallish square parcel.

"And you must be Kakashi Hatake and Akumu Kaguya! Wonderful to meet you! I'm Molly Weasley, Ron's mother. Won't you sit down? Don't worry, we have space in plenty, nobody else except Bill and Monsieur Delacour are up yet!"

The shinobi looked amused at Mrs. Weasley's chipper demeanor, probably because neither of them was ever fully awake until they had at least two cups of coffee in their systems. She introduced them to Bill and Monsieur Delacour, whose accent was rather amusing to the ninja, though they thought he was a nice man anyway. Harry, meanwhile, had opened the package to find a gold watch with stars circling around the face instead of hands. It was slightly dented on the back, and appeared rather old. Mrs. Weasley watched Harry anxiously.

"It's traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age. I'm afraid that one isn't new like Ron's, it was actually my brother Fabian's and he wasn't always terribly careful with his possessions, but-"

Harry had gotten up and hugged her. It was clear to the ninja that the boy had tried to put a great many unsaid things into the hug, and perhaps Mrs. Weasley had understood them. She blushed, patted Harry on the back, then waved her wand in a slightly random way, causing the half pack of bacon to flop out of the frying pan and fall towards the floor. It would have gotten there, too, but Kakashi swooped down and caught the bacon, flipping it back into the pan and nonchalantly wiping his gloved hand on his dark blue pants in under two seconds. At the sight of the gaping mouths of the wizards, Kakashi crinkled his eye again, exuding an air of comfort.

"I've missed too many meals to let something like that go to waste."

Akumu smacked him. "Yeah, right, of course! That is such crap! You hate anything fried. You just saved it because you know I like bacon."

Kakashi rubbed his head, chuckling in a chastised way. Mrs. Weasley turned back to the bacon as Hermione, who had bolted upstairs, returned with a package.

"Happy birthday, Harry!" said Hermione, adding her present to the pile. "What did you get him?" she said to Ron, who appeared not to hear.

"Well, open them, Harry!"

Harry eagerly opened the packages as Akumu accepted a plate of bacon and fried eggs from Mrs. Weasley and Kakashi sprinkled salt over his three hard-boiled eggs.

Hermione had gotten Harry something that looked like a glass spinning top. Mrs. Weasley explained it as a sneakoscope, which Kakashi looked at with interest. Akumu didn't look interested until Harry unwrapped a large box of chocolates, at which point she licked her lips. Kakashi rolled his eyes, but said nothing. He instead asked Mrs. Weasley where the bathroom was, wandering off with his eggs and tunelessly whistling. Harry looked at Akumu with a question in his eyes. Akumu cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"Kakashi doesn't like to eat fast, but he also doesn't like to reveal his face. Don't worry about it."

Hermione stood, grabbing all the presents. "I'll pack these for you, Harry. I'm nearly done, just waiting for the rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron." With that, she disappeared up the stairs.

As Ron spluttered and Harry and Akumu laughed at him, Kakashi reentered the room with his empty plate, which he promptly took to the sink and cleaned. He looked up, his visible eye narrowed, yet in a confused way. "Uh... why is Akumu doubled over laughing?"

He stared at Ron, who by this time had turned the color of a beet and sunk so low into his chair that Kakashi could only see his flaming red forehead below his flaming red hair. Harry managed to swallow his laughter, and tell Kakashi what Hermione had said. Kakashi snorted loudly, them banged Akumu on the back with such force that an African elephant would have staggered. As it was, Akumu straightened up rubbing her abused back and glaring daggers at Kakashi in an almost creepily accurate Mrs. Weasley-esque way.

The arrival of three more people made the kitchen far more crowded, more so when another pair of redheaded Weasleys, these two identical twin boys, bounded down the stairs with a cloud of noxious smoke billowing behind them. Harry and Ron excused themselves and left to find Hermione, leaving the ninja to be introduced and talk with Mrs. Weasely.

The three were disrupted minutes later. That is, Ron and Hermione were. Harry had gone into Ginny's room at her insistence, leaving Ron and Hermione to tramp upstairs. They were a landing away from Ron's room when Akumu appeared in front of them out of nowhere with a strange dzzt sound. Both teens jumped nearly a foot off the ground. Ron spluttered and collapsed in shock. Hermione manage to keep her head and began slapping Ron.

"Akumu! Where did you come from?"

The peridot-eyed woman grinned, finding Ron's fainting spell funny. "Oh, downstairs. Listen, we-Kakashi and I-talked to Molly-san. She said she would allow you to go on your mission if we went with you, but-"

Ron sat straight up, his cheeks bearing Hermione's handprints. "What? Huh? Blimey, Hermione, your hands hurt!"

Akumu offered a hand, which Ron took. She pulled him to his feet easily as Hermione put her hands on her hips.

"Oh, honestly, Ronald. It wasn't that scary."

Akumu just laughed and kept talking. "Anyway...Ron's mother has told Kakashi and I that we would be welcome additions to your party of adventurers, under the condition that-"

Ron interrupted the ninja again. "That's awesome! Wait, what condition?"

Hermione smacked him again. "Shut up and listen, she wasn't done!"

Akumu smiled. "Well, Ron, your mother says that she would require a demonstration of our abilities. So, Kakashi and I will be having a match in a bit, what you would call a duel. Get Harry and meet us outside in five minutes."

Without another word, she held up her right hand and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a popping sound. Ron turned to Hermione.

"A ninja duel? Where are they going to do it, you reckon?"

"I don't know, Ron. Let's get Harry."

Akumu stood calmly outside the Burrow, Kakashi next to her. They had found that they could still speak Japanese even with Hermione's translation spell.

"Kakashi? Do you really think we should be doing this?"

"What are you, nuts? We don't know how we got here, or even where we are. We went from taking a break in the forest to on the floor of Ron and Harry's room. We can't get home, and if we are in another dimension or time our summons won't work. Anyway, these wizards aren't exactly trained shinobi. I mean, I know you've noticed that they have just as much 'magic' as we do, if not more in some cases. Like that black-haired boy, Harry. He reminds me of Naruto...like he has two types of magic. However, it's clear that none of them know even half their potential, and are more like civilians in their thinking. They showed the same shock at the things we take for granted as we did to their magic."

"Well...I guess so. Are you sure you can't try to summon Pakkun? People might be worried...we could send a message.."

"No. Pakkun could be lost forever in a space-time multidimensional vortex, so it'd be a bad idea to try. We'll just have to stick it out and do our best. I don't know if you've noticed, but they don't seem to have summoning animals, which means they either don't have that ability or summoning contracts don't exist.

"How exacty do you know they don't?"

"Scent. Here they come, Akumu."

The ninja quieted as everyone currently staying at the Burrow moved out the front doors. Both Harry and a girl, also a Weasely, whose name appeared to be Ginny, were blushing and somewhat fidgety. The ninja ignored them and completed what introductions hadn't already been made. They moved off to a small field, bare of wedding decorations, but still inside the protection charms that ninja could easily detect. Akumu turned to the small crowd.

"Ah, I would suggest that you all stand back as far as you can while keeping you vision."

Fred and George, both of whom reminded the ninja of redheaded Naru-clones, grinned and bolted back to the house. They reappeared a moment later with several pairs of what looked like common binoculars, albeit with a great many knobs and dials.

"Omnioculars," announced Fred proudly. "They can record your duel so we can slow it down, play it back, stuff like that."

Kakashi looked at the Omnioculars with interest, but Akumu tapped him. "C'mon, Kakashi. Focus."

The ninja removed themselves fairly far away from the wizards, many of whom were now holding Omnioculars.

"All right." said Kakashi. "The rules this time...Don't destroy anything really big. No huge explosions. And neither of us are allowed to read."

Akumu began to pout. "Not even if we get bored?"

"Nope."

"Fine. Have it your way."

The ninja shifted into stances, or, more correctly, Akumu did. Kakashi just stood with his hand in his pockets. Akumu's unzipped flak jacket flapped in the slight wind, and George and Fred stared appreciatively at what was revealed by the vest, though still hidden by her high-necked navy shirt. When they got caught by Mrs. Weasley, they turned their attention to Kakashi.

Kakashi spoke, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Begin."

At that word, the ninja took off, demonstrating their taijutsu, almost all of which was nearly impossible to see and the rest unrecognizable. The whirling blades of star-shaped shuriken and triangular kunai flew from either shinobi, neither side landing a hit. Finally, after an exhausting-seeming ten minutes, Kakashi jumped back, sticking to the side of a tree and moving his hands extremely fast.

"Ninja Art: Headhunter Technique!"

He disappeared. Akumu rolled her eyes. "Oh, please..."

Before she got any further, however, Kakashi appeared out of nowhere, and Akumu was suddenly up to her neck in the earth. She sputtered at Kakashi, who turned to the goggling wizards.

"Looks like I win. Again."

Akumu, down in the dirt, screamed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever! Score's 60-40 now, Kakashi! Are you happy that you've beaten me TWENTY times more than I've beaten you!"

"Actually, yes."

"Great! You've got your satisfaction! Get me the HECK out of this hole!"

Kakashi effortlessly dislodged Akumu, who brushed her self off. "Sometimes I think I genuinely loathe you, Hatake."

"I love you too, Akumu."

"Buzz off."

The banter continued as the wizards took turns watching slowed-down portions of the duel. Mouths opened and gasps were heard as the ninja's power became evident. They had been moving faster than any broomstick the wizards had ever seen, and their strength was incredible. When the wizards finally put the Omnioculars down, the ninja were verbally sparring in Japanese. Hermione, the only one who understood them, turned pink with embarrasment.

"Bastard!"

"Pain in the ass!"

"Idiot!"

"Brat!"

"Perverted old man!"

"Pig!"

The ninja paused to catch their breath, and Mrs. Weasley walked over.

"You two really are amazing, I'm so impressed, Harry, Ron and Hermione will be so safe! Oh, I hope neither of you is hurt, but how could you be? You're both so strong!"

Kakashi turned to Mrs. Weasley, ignoring the red-faced Akumu. "Well, it's, uh, good that you think so, Molly-san. That really wasn't anything special, so-"

"Oh, nonsense, Kakashi! That was awe-inspiring! We wizards rarely participate in hand-to-hand combat, so it was really quite a treat! How on earth did you stick to the side of that birch, anyway?"

As Kakashi attempted to explain the mechanics of chakra and chakra manipulation, Akumu busied herself with scanning the magical perimeter. She stopped dead when she sensed the presence of three, maybe four, people. She wasn't positive on the number because she detected an animalistic, almost wolf-like chakra along with three human ones.

"Kakashi! I'm detecting multiple signatures, possibly hostile!"

Kakashi was by her side in an instant. "Where?"

"Just outside the perimeter, three, at least."

Kakashi's eye narrowed. "Let them come. The reactions of our hosts will tell us if we should or should not to attack."

Five tense minutes later, a huge figure was seen tramping toward the Burrow with three far smaller figures in tow. Hermione had exclaimed that it was "Hagrid, Lupin, Tonks and Charlie", and reassured the ninja that they were not enemies. When asked how they could be sure, Hermione, as was her habit, told them that Hagrid was half-giant, making it impossible to transform into him by the use of Polyjuice Potion, which she also explained.

By the time introductions were made, it was time to set up dinner. Mrs. Weasley refused all help with cooking, instead marshaling everyone out to carry tables, which were set up in the front yard. As everyone ran about setting things up and fixing this tablecloth and that chair, the shinobi gazed at the stars momentarily.

Akumu spoke softly, her voice reminiscent of a moth's wings. "I hope everyone's all right back home."

Kakashi wound his arm over her shoulders, their comfortable closeness going unnoticed in the hurry of Harry's birthday dinner preparations.

"Me too. In any case, we'd best help these kids as much as we can. I think we were brought here for some reason, since there was no warning for either side of the dimension, if that is what's going on. Besides, it's not like we're the only elite ninja in Leaf. Naruto is formidable even when he's half asleep, and Sakura can easily take out a building whenever she wants...and Sai is in control of ANBU now. Nothing's getting past them with him in command."

A/N: Whew! Done with Chapter One! Next up: Chapter 2: Pheonix Flame

*Gaki=Brat

*Baka=Idiot