Special thanks to SnailBytes, Miniature Criminal, Yahboobeh and expiration for the suggestions! They really helped me out of the motivation rut. :)

Naruto, Harry Potter and their characters do not belong to me.

Hello Wizard World

Chapter 2: The Intruder

Neji swore and grabbed Tenten around the waist, flinging them both behind the kitchen wall, and out of sight of the intruder.

Not a moment later, a green flash of light struck the wall above the sink, leaving a charred, sizzling mark on the ivory paint.

Tenten's eyes grew wide. That wasn't a shot from a gun; it looked exactly like the flash of green that she'd glimpsed on a video footage from earlier in the day, when similar cloaked figures lifted people up into the air, and turned them upside down, before killing them in cold blood.

"Muggles!" the intruder exclaimed eagerly, his voice low and throaty. "You want to play games, don't you-"

A series of thuds rang out, followed by a raw cry of pain. Tenten had a second to hope that her knives were sufficient to take the man down, when dull clangs sounded, like her knives were being dropped onto each other on the carpet.

"Lumos," came the ragged mutter. A soft, golden glow filled the room, visible from where they were behind the kitchen wall.

Tenten froze next to Neji, who backed them away. He moved her behind himself. She wanted to yell at him, because there was no way she was letting him defend her - what if he died?

"Reducto!" was the next curse, and the kitchen wall next to them blew apart, sending pieces of plasterboard flying everywhere, accompanied by a cloud of dust.

Tenten barely bit a scream down. She couldn't move; Neji forced them to the floor hard, so the stone counter provided shelter from the intruder. Dust entered her eyes and made them water.

Vaguely, she saw the light dusting of debris on Neji's ebony hair. His pale eyes darted around in a search for any weapon he can use to defend them with - Tenten didn't think there was any that could withstand someone who was hurling explosives, who survived her knife attack.

She leaned her forehead into Neji's heaving chest, and wondered if they would die here. His name was a whisper on her lips. He curled protectively over her, and she wanted to tell him not to give up his life for hers-

"You can run, but you can't hide, little muggles," the intruder growled, his words tainted with bloodthirsty mirth.

He paused suddenly, and more thuds sounded. This time, his cry was anguished and outraged. Tenten winced, and tried to push Neji off her, so she could peek at their attacker. Perhaps her volley of knives from various directions had got him. Neji forced her back down.

The voice grew closer. "Incen-"

There was a longer series of dull thuds and a choked gurgle, and seconds later, the loud thump of a body hitting the floor.

Tenten gulped. She exchanged a glance with Neji, hearing her heart pound deafeningly in her ears. Quickly, she flicked her eyes towards the living room, silently asking if they should investigate. Neji shook his head.

Not yet, he mouthed.

They waited in silence for long, painful moments, and Tenten was certain she still had a level head only because Neji was with her. He pulled her snug against his chest, and she listened to the loud thumpthumpthumps of his heart.

"Dolohov!" a new, gruff voice shouted from the front door.

Tenten flinched. Neji tensed against her.

The new intruder cut a surprised oath. "Dolohov! Quit fooling around! We have to be at Potter's place in ten!"

Heavy footsteps thudded into the living room, and Tenten glanced around the kitchen, wondered where else they could hide.

"Bloody hell, the git's dead," the second intruder swore. "By knife wounds, no less."

He scoffed, and there was a short moment of silence, as if he were looking around the living room and kitchen for any sign of Dolohov's attackers.

"Can't even do a proper job," the man muttered.

"Rowle!" a third voice yelled, from somewhere outside the house. "Change of plan! Get here right now!"

The second intruder cursed, and lumbered out, but not before muttering a casual "Incendio!"

A bright orange glow lit the living room; Tenten gasped at the sudden wave of heat. Neji's gaze sharpened - he'd felt it as well. He didn't stop her when she pushed herself to her feet, instead rising along with her.

Huge, orange flames had consumed her couch, and were licking up towards the ceiling. The heat was so great that the surrounding furniture was starting to char, and sweat broke out in little beads on her forehead. It felt as if her skin was being scorched off.

"We need to put it out," Neji told her urgently.

Tenten frowned and nodded, sprinting to her pantry. She yanked the door open, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and began spraying white foam over her couch, taking care to avoid any additional trip wires that had not been triggered yet.

In a few minutes, the fire was smothered, and a thick layer of white foam covered the furniture in her living room. Neji took this time to make his way carefully to the door. He peeked out to ensure that there weren't any witnesses to their presence, and shut the door quietly, turning back to Tenten.

"Your front yard's charred. And so is the inside of my car," Neji reported.

Tenten winced in sympathy. A Ferrari cost a lot of money. "And we have a dead man in the room."

"I need some light over here," he told her, gesturing towards the first intruder, Dolohov. All she could see of the man was his pointed hat, a black cloak, and various knives protruding from his back.

She pursed her lips - it would not do to have light escaping from behind the curtains at this time. Instead, Tenten fished a flashlight from a cabinet by the wall, tossing it to Neji.

Is he dead? she mouthed, turning such that her face caught the light from the kitchen.

Neji shrugged, and stepped on the backs of Dolohov's hands, so he would not be able to move them, should he still be alive. For good measure, Neji bashed the end of the flashlight against Dolohov's head.

"My flashlight!" Tenten yelped.

"I'll handle him. Check around the house to make sure that nothing else nearby is on fire," Neji instructed. "Don't go out."

"Are you sure? He could come alive like in those horror movies and possess you," Tenten answered nervously. She brought the fire extinguisher closer to Neji and the corpse, gripping it tightly.

"Check his pulse, then," Neji said. "I'll turn him around after we're sure that he's dead."

Tenten winced. She crouched down next to Dolohov's head, tugged his wooden stick from his grip, and tossed it across the room, just in case. Neji raised an eyebrow at her; she shrugged, and released one hand from her fire extinguisher, pressing two fingers to the man's still-warm neck for two minutes, just in case.

"No pulse," she told Neji, and pulled away from the body, squeamish. "But we need to check his other vitals just to be sure - heart, breathing, eyes."

He nodded, and stepped back onto the floor. Tenten winced when Neji gripped Dolohov's shoulder and side and turned him over, half-expecting the man to come alive, and fire more green beams at them.

He didn't.

She breathed a sigh when the dead intruder remained motionless. Half of Dolohov's scruffy, sallow face was bloody - a knife was embedded into his eye socket, and there were more daggers sticking out from his throat and chest. Dark liquid oozed from deep cuts all over his body. Tenten guessed that, when he was alive, Dolohov wasn't much of a looker either - he had deep-set eyes and the rest of his oval face was covered in short, dark facial hair.

Neji rested one foot on Dolohov's thigh, and another on the open palm of his hand, while Tenten pressed her knee into his chest, and pinned his other hand down.

Just in case. One never knew what one was facing where magic was concerned.

"Good job with the traps," Neji said quietly.

She smiled tightly, holding a finger to Dolohov's nostrils for a minute. No movement of air. Next, she pressed her ear to the man's chest - no heartbeat. Neji handed the flashlight to her, and Tenten grimaced when she pried Dolohov's intact eyelid up. His eye was glassy, brown pupil dilated even under the harsh glare of the flashlight.

"He's dead," she confirmed, and stepped away with a wince. "Even so, I don't feel comfortable having a dead guy in the house - he could be used as a vessel to attack us-"

"Save that imagination for your stories," Neji told her dryly, taking the flashlight back from her. "As it is, I'm not sure what to think of you knowing what to look out for in a dead person."

Tenten slanted a wry smile at him. "Side effect of doing research for stories. My Google history has the most incriminating searches."

"I'm not surprised." Neji smirked. He crouched down next to Dolohov, sweeping the glow of the torch over the man's body.

"This just takes the cake, though," she muttered, gesturing towards Dolohov. "I've never had to consider what I'd do with a dead wizard."

"We're going to have to get rid of him," Neji reminded her solemnly, surveying the foam-covered furniture. "Or inform the police, and have them get rid of it."

"I know," Tenten sighed, and grimaced. "Never thought I'd be committing murder, even if it was in self-defense, and not even by my own hands. Think the cops will believe me?"

Neji glanced at the destroyed TV for a while. "It's a possibility."

She bit her lower lip in consideration, then pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I'll call the cops."

The one thing neither of them expected, however, was that the emergency line was busy.

"I've been put on hold for fifteen straight minutes," Tenten griped after a while. "And we actually have a dead guy on our hands!"

Neji shrugged. "He's dead. We can probably wait until tomorrow to make a decision. Besides, it gives us more time to phrase our statement to the police."

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Figures that you'd say something like that."

"It'll work to our benefit," he informed her simply.

She pursed her lips and scanned the living room, wincing at the sheer amount of fire extinguisher foam on her furniture. "We're definitely not leaving him in the house. Somewhere out back. I have tarps around... and the living room needs to be cleared."

"So we'll cover him with extinguisher foam and rubbish," Neji deduced, and Tenten felt herself light up. "We don't want him being found by a wanderer."

"You're a genius," she remarked amusedly. "I was about to suggest the same."

He looked smugly at her.

"First, we strip him of anything useful," Tenten said. "Why don't you do that - I'll look around the house to make sure that everything else is fine. Don't get too much blood on the carpets."

Neji agreed, and they got to work.

There was no sign of any lingering fire from what she could see through her windows. Tenten stepped over the remaining trip wires and climbed up the stairs, to do a secondary check from better vantage points.

In the aftermath of the attack, Privet Drive looked almost serene - little flames were dying down to embers on the street, and it seemed as if only a handful of houses had been targeted. Everyone else stayed indoors and silent. The buildings that had been broken into billowed smoke, with tongues of fire licking at their wooden roofs. A few cars were still smoking, lit by streetlamps that also highlighted the lack of people wandering around. Even the wizards were gone.

Tenten hurried back down the stairs, surveying the damage in her living room. Neji had a pile of things to his side, and Dolohov had been stripped down to his underwear. Her knives lay in another pile not too far away.

"I'll clean up the living room," she told him. "No sign of any wizards at all."

"I wonder what they meant," Neji mused, as he bound Dolohov's hands behind his back with some cotton twine. Tenten didn't bat an eyelid - she didn't want the corpse coming alive somehow, either. Maybe wizards were like werewolves, and they had to drive a stake through his heart first.

"What they meant?" she asked, when Neji began binding Dolohov's ankles.

"They mentioned a change of plan," Neji recounted with a frown. "And something about a Potter's place."

"No one by the name of Potter in this neighborhood," Tenten informed him. "Unless that's a nickname, or some poor kid who's forced to live under his stairs in complete secrecy..."

"That's highly unlikely," Neji scoffed. He winced at the blood that was dribbling from Dolohov's various wounds. Tenten winced along with him. She was going to have to get rid of those stains sooner than later. "This isn't some child predator's neighborhood."

Tenten shrugged. She headed to the kitchen to grab rags and bags for the extinguisher foam, and caught sight of her forgotten relish, still slowly bubbling. "Oh, hell."

"What is it?" Neji asked from the living room.

"My relish," she told him, glancing at the clock. It's been two hours since she started count - probably still salvageable, considering that the pot remained unscathed by everything, except the dust that came from her wall exploding.

It was almost surreal thinking that last thought, especially when one was a fantasy writer. Homes did not explode all the time. At least, not in the world she and Neji lived in.

"You can always start a new batch," Neji told her, nonplussed.

"But I spent forever dicing them up!" Tenten whined. She pulled a face at the pot, then moved it off the stove and turned the burner off. Cleanup still came first, after all.

She grabbed a handful of supplies and returned to her couch. Neji accepted the handkerchief she shoved at him, tying it over his mouth and nose like she did, to prevent himself from inhaling bits of foam.

It took several minutes to get most of the foam off her furniture. Neji went out by the back door to retrieve a large tarp, and wrapped Dolohov into it. Tenten fit a bag of foam over the corpse's head, just in case.

"I guess that counts as experience for writing," she told Neji flatly, when he'd dragged Dolohov out, and covered the tarp with bags of rags and foam. "I'd never had to hide a dead body before."

"I hope this will be the last time," he answered flatly.

She wiped her knives off on clean rags, and went about stringing fresh traps around the front door. The various bolts and locks on the door had been destroyed when Dolohov first made his appearance, and it would no longer lock. To compensate for the lack of security, Tenten forbade Neji from using the front door until further notice, held it in place with a heavy chair, and rigged traps that would go off the moment the door was opened.

"What did you find on him?" she asked moments later, stopping by where Neji had gathered Dolohov's belongings in a plastic bag.

"Various things," he answered, his forehead wrinkling. "There are some things we need to take a closer look at, and I don't want to do it here."

He flicked his eyes towards the front door.

"Hey, I've secured that," Tenten reminded him. "I've trapped the back door too, so don't go out without having me accompany you for it."

Neji acknowledged her words with a nod. "Let's go upstairs. Besides, I think we're in need of a shower."

At his words, Tenten became aware of the sweat, blood and dust on her body. She grimaced in response. "Right. That first."

She retrieved the little stick that she'd snatched from Dolohov's corpse earlier, and dropped it into Neji's bag of loot. With a last look around the ground floor of her home, she heaved a sigh, then headed for the stairs. Neji collected his laptop and spare clothes from the kitchen counter (they were miraculously still intact), switched the light off, and trailed up behind her.

"We're only turning the bathroom light on," Tenten said when she reached the landing of the upper floor. "It's too risky to do any of the other lights."

She groped around for the bathroom light switch, and breathed a sigh of relief when her clean bathroom came into view, sans any grotesque creature waiting to pounce on them. Her imagination was going into overdrive; this was the worst time for it.

"Yeah," Neji agreed. He made his way to her bedroom and deposited his clothes and laptop, before returning to the trapezoidal glow of light the bathroom cast on her hallway carpet. "Are we inspecting Dolohov's belongings or showering first?"

Tenten pulled a face at the plastic bag Neji lifted up, full of the wizard's clothes. "We shower first. I have nitrile gloves in my bedside drawer. Don't touch his things with your bare hands, if you can."

Neji narrowed his eyes at her. "Thanks for telling me now, Tenten."

She gave him a sheepish smile. "Well, with everything that's been going on, there's kinda way too many things to keep tabs on."

"Is there anything else I should know?" Neji asked.

"We probably should leave those things in the spare room while we talk," Tenten suggested. "Tie the bag up, in case there're inanimate objects that have a life of their own, or things like the monkey's paw..."

"Monkey's paw?" he frowned, and Tenten glanced at her mussed hair and dirt-smudged cheeks in her bathroom mirror.

She suppressed a shudder at the thought of such a vile object. "It's a fictional object - something that grants a wish at a high cost to the person making it. You know, say someone wishes for a sum of money. Someone close to him or her will die the next day, and the compensation will be the money he or she wished for."

Neji frowned. "That's just twisted. I didn't think you were superstitious."

Tenten grimaced. "Well, we now know that magic is real. What's to prevent such a thing from existing?"

"That's true," he reluctantly agreed, and turned away to set the bag elsewhere.

With Neji gone momentarily, Tenten began shrugging out of her shirt and pants, and turned the shower on, to give the water time to heat up.

"You don't need me witnessing your shower, do you?" came Neji's dry question a few seconds later.

She straightened and looked back towards him, to see him looking pointedly away, a light tint of pink on his cheeks. Tenten grinned. Despite all that had happened, she was still very much attracted to him, and his was a welcome presence in light of the current events.

"I'd rather you stay in the same room as me, though," she admitted. "Wizards, and probably witches, exist. Next thing we know, the X-Men will poof into existence, ninja turtles will haunt the sewers of New York City, there'll be Iron Man zooming around, and Spiderman crawling up buildings-"

"Tenten."

"-And you know how much I adore Wolverine, Neji, maybe he'll be alive and we'd have hot, animalistic sex-"

"Tenten."

She paused for a while, thinking about a very naked Wolverine, and Neji narrowed his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest.

"Tenten!"

She jerked to attention then, to find him looking sourly at her. "Hmm?"

"Kindly refrain from telling me about your fantasies," Neji muttered, his eyebrows drawn low.

"Only because Wolverine is bigger and stronger than you, huh?" she teased with a grin. Neji's expression did not get any less threatening. "Come on, don't you wanna know? You're my best friend!"

"The world will continue to spin if I didn't know," he retorted. "Are you going to shower?"

Tenten rolled her eyes and pretended to sigh. "Yes, yes, I am."

Neji shook his head and closed the door, sealing them into the little bathroom. Tenten swallowed. Sure, she'd been around Neji in her undergarments before, but not when they were in this tiny a space, and not when she was about to get dressed in even less. Would he...?

"I would have brought my laptop in here, if I wasn't concerned about the effects of humidity on the electrical circuits," he grumbled, looking at the far corner of the bathroom.

"You don't have to work so bloody hard, you know," Tenten teased. She reached behind for her bra clasp, and Neji visibly tensed.

What would he do?

Without missing a beat, Tenten undid the bra, and set it on the counter, feeling wet air settle on her skin. Neji was staring very hard at the opposite wall of the room.

"I could wait on the other side of the door," he grit.

"We're best friends, we could probably even shower together," she told him lightly. But her heart was pounding, and none of her nerves showed on her face. In fact, heat was beginning to pool in her belly, and Tenten could feel her thoughts straying towards the gutter.

She should probably stop, before she said something she'd regret.

Faintly noting that her nipples were hard, Tenten turned towards the bath. She pulled the hair tie out of her hair, slipped her panties off, and stepped in, drawing the curtains behind her. Hot water sprayed over her face and chest, and she stood under the shower for a while, enjoying the heat sliding down her body.

Not for the first time, Tenten wondered if Neji was remotely interested. The thought that he might have been looking sent a shiver down her spine. She licked her lips, shutting the water off and reaching for her shampoo.

"You know, every time I shower, I almost expect the water to stop running, and pink goop to start leaking out of the shower head instead," she began conversationally. "You know, like how the Psycho-Reactive slime in Ghostbusters II collected in a tub and reared over this woman and her kid."

"Your imagination's going overboard," Neji told her, unamused.

She pried the shower curtain open by a little, and grinned at him. "What would you do, Neji, if I was suddenly consumed by sentient slime?"

"It won't happen," he responded.

Tenten scoffed. "Yeah, and right about now is when the creepy soundtrack starts playing, and the next thing you know, a tendril of evil is curling around my ankle and-"

"Tenten."

"Yeah?" She grinned, and turned the shower back on, rinsing thick foam from her hair.

"You shouldn't be making this any worse than it is." There was a touch of solemnity in his voice, and she frowned.

"Why? What's wrong - did you find something you shouldn't in the dead guy's stuff?" Tenten pulled the curtain open again, to inspect Neji for any visible signs of demon possession, or illness.

He gave a reluctant shrug. "Just some extraordinary things."

She raised her eyebrows. "Something so magical that it changed your world view?"

"We'll talk about it later. It's not that important." Neji studied the white paint on her ceiling, his lilac eyes pale and beautiful, like they always were.

Curiosity and excitement found their way into her stomach; Tenten hurried through the rest of her shower, and swept the shower curtain aside, lost in thought. What if the X-Men were alive but evil?

Neji jerked his head away, color surging back into his cheeks.

Tenten gave a start - she'd actually forgotten about Neji's presence while wondering how incredible the things he found must have been, for him to so readily agree to the existence of magic. "Oops," she yelped, and snatched the curtain back to cover herself. "I forgot you were there."

She could imagine him almost rolling his eyes. The next moment, Neji had shoved a towel past the edge of the curtain, and she accepted it with a word of thanks.

Had he liked what he'd seen?

When she was done drying herself, Tenten wrapped her towel around her torso, and stepped out of the tub. "Your turn."

The shower had been a good idea, she had to admit. She felt a lot better without grime and blood on her body, and almost ready to face another murderous wizard. Almost.

Neji jerked a glance over her, then pushed away from the door, looking straight ahead. "Okay."

"Are you going to be okay by yourself in here?" Tenten asked. "Not that I'd be in much position to save your butt either, but at least I'll be able to tell you if you have a giant blob of Psycho-Reactive slime rearing its head behind you."

He cracked a smile at her. "If that comforts you, sure."

She brightened, and settled herself on the toilet to wait for him. After checking it for snakes, of course.

Neji shed his shirt and jeans first (and Tenten watched him from the corner of her eyes, appreciating his lean form), before stepping into the bathtub and drawing the curtain behind himself. She grinned when he reached out and set his boxers on top of his pile of clothes, while remaining discreetly hidden by the shower curtain.

Water began spraying behind the curtain; Tenten got up and leaned over the sink, wringing her hair out. "I still don't think I'll be able to sleep," she sighed. "For all you know, they'll magic Little Whinging away into thin air, or something."

Neji scoffed. "Something like that is bound to happen, if it were fated to."

"You and your ideas about fate," Tenten groused. It was probably the other reason why she didn't think to make any move on him - he probably thought they weren't fated to be together, or something like that.

"It helps one worry less," he pointed out. "Besides, it's more productive to figure out possible solutions, than spend one's mental energies on what-ifs."

"I know that," she told him, frowning. A sigh escaped her throat. "Well, it won't hurt to try and sleep."

"That's more like it," Neji agreed.

It wasn't long before the water was shut off; Tenten heard him wring his hair dry. She pulled a clean towel from the wall cabinet and pushed it past the end of the shower curtain, like he'd done for her.

Minutes later, he drew the curtain open and stepped out of the bathtub, towel wrapped around his waist. Tenten stared briefly at his glistening chest and glanced away, swallowing. Neji raised an eyebrow at her.

"You haven't got dressed yet?" he asked.

"I forgot to bring my sleeping clothes in," she told him. "It's not like you remembered either, and besides, we've seen each other in less."

Oh, she'd thought of him in less, all right.

Neji looked over her towel-clad body and met her eyes; Tenten swallowed dryly, wishing he'd make any kind of move on her. Preferably before they were threatened by yet another wizard and made to scream in agony.

"Are we waiting for something?" he asked mildly.

She exhaled in disappointment, turned to the door. "Nah."

As it was, she was glad that he was whole and alive and next to her.

A/N: Was mildly surprised to find that there were a couple of readers who misinterpreted my A/N - I enjoy receiving reviews, but am not motivated by them. My motivation is based solely on presence of plot. That said, I would prefer it if lurkers dropped by to tell me what you liked about the fics and what you did not, instead of thanking me for the fics only when I've left fanfiction lol. (Same reasoning as showing your family love right now, instead of in an eulogy.)

In the same vein, also thinking of posting updates twice weekly instead of thrice weekly - transitioning towards published original fiction.

I have 4 chapters written for this fic so far, roughly 1-2 more to go... In the meantime, I've finished my Singapore oneshot and am working on one set in Japan's red-light district. ;) All are set in the real world, omg.

Regarding the HP characters in this fic - I've bent Dolohov to suit my own purposes here (he was still alive at this point in DH, when he followed Harry and co to the eatery after the wedding). Sorry if he was OOC :P Thoughts regarding the chapter? Thank you, as always, for the reviews!