Anime/Manga » Naruto » One's a Wizard, Two's a Ninja B s : A A A Author: k2thein 1. The Mission:Harry What?2. Team 7's Arrival: Kakashi's Early?3. Going Undercover:The Quidditch World Cup4. Chakra and Magic: Exempted5. Bad Dreams: Shopping with SasukeFiction Rated: T - English - Romance/Adventure - Reviews: 122 - Published: 10-19-08 - Updated: 12-11-08id:4604334

Author's Note: Yo. Basically I didn't do much changes for this chapter. It was hard 'cause I practically took everything from the book about the Quidditch thing. So I was kind of disappointed in this one. I thought it was kinda long and draggy and boring, and yet I still can't do anything without screwing everything up.

And thank you all for your awesome reviews which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)

Hope you enjoy.


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Chapter 3

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Going Undercover: The Quidditch World Cup

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"Gggrreeaaaattt!!" Naruto whined as he almost crashed into Sakura head-on. Their cloaks flapped wildly behind them.
"Are we seriously going to let go again?" Sakura asked, sounding like she wanted to do anything but.

As though answering her question, some kind of magnetic force repelled them from the headband and soon, they were falling head first onto the ground.

Again.

Having had experience on what was about to happen, their ninja instincts kicked in. The trio flipped over in the rushing air and landed on their feet. But the impact was too powerful that Naruto staggered and fell face first onto ground. Sasuke managed to pump a small amount of chakra to the soles of his feet, just enough to land him in a crouch coolly on the ground, making it look deliberate instead of a desperate attempt to gain his balance. And Sakura, with her perfect chakra control and all, barely spare a thought about it as her chakra automatically kept her standing.

Sakura glanced at her fallen comrade and sweat dropped.

"Oh jeez, Naruto. You're a ninja for god's sake!" Sakura chided as she helped Naruto up.

"Guys…" Sasuke said, sounding slightly dazed.

"Hmm?"

"This is one heck of a stadium…"

Sakura's and Naruto's head whipped around to see a scene which they never could have imagined.

They were standing at the highest place there, and could see everything going on in the pitch. A hundred and thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats which rose in levels around the long oval pitch. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light that seemed to come from the stadium itself. The pitch looked smooth as velvet from their lefty positions. At either end of the pitch stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite them, almost at their eye level, was a gigantic black board. Gold writing kept dashing across it as though and invisible giant's hand was scrawling upon it and then wiping it off again.

Sakura gasped at the magnificent view.

"How the hell are we supposed to look after a whole flippin' stadium packed with wand waving freaks and flying broomsticks?" Sasuke asked with a straight face.

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. Spread out, maybe?" he suggested.

"Okay then. Who wants to stay in this box. This place looks like a box. Seriously," Sasuke said, looking around the small room they were in.

"Then what do you want it to look like? Cake?" Sakura said, leaning forward to look out at the scene before them. Sasuke glared at her. He pulled up his hood. The shadow caused by the hood covered the upper half of his handsome face.

"Sakura'll stay and Naruto and I'll walk around. Naruto, you take the left side, I'll take the right side," and without waiting for a reply, he leapt off towards the crowd. Naruto grumbled and muttered curses towards his raven-haired team mate as he leapt off in the opposite direction his team mate just went, pulling up his hood at the same time. Sakura chuckled softly at her friends' antics. She leaned against the wall next to the ledge, pulling the hood to cover her pink hair and emerald eyes. Her lips were set in a grim line she managed to learn from one of her stoic and white-eyed friends back in Konoha. Though she had to admit, it was partially influenced by the Uchiha.

Okay fine. It was mostly influenced by him. That's what having a brooding, impassive, pain-in-the-butt Uchiha in your team does to you.

She suddenly heard some shuffling of feet behind her; people were coming up the stairs. Thanks to her highly trained senses, she could hear them taking a seat in the front row. She heard one of the boys saying, "Who's that? That's not another Dementor is it?". Fear was evident when he said the last few words. Sakura had no idea who or what the Dementor was, but she turned her head slightly so that the group of people could see the shape of her nose, jaw and chin. That was enough to tell them she was human but their chattering where considerably softer and more strained. She didn't bother looking at them because all she needed to do now was keep an eye out for anything suspicious or dangerous. One of the boys stood up and started talking to something –

"WTF IS THAT THING!?" Inner Sakura screamed, clutching her hair.

Sakura had to bite the inside of her cheek in order not to loose her stoic façade. The boy continued talking to the …thing… as if it was human, and it was replying back. They continued talking for a long while before the boy went back to his seat.

"So that's a house-elf?" another boy asked. "Weird things, aren't they?"

So that's an elf? Go figure. Sakura blocked out the rest of the conversation and concentrated on the task at hand.

"Wild!" a boy said. "I can make that old bloke down there pick his nose again… and again… and again…"

And again, Sakura had to bite the inside of her cheek as inner Sakura rolled around on a non-existent floor, laughing her butt off.

Soon, more people filed in, most of them staring at her as she stood impassively next to the ledge, looking down at the pitch with a stoic face.

"Harry Potter, you know," Sakura heard one of the wizards say loudly, probably a lot older than the boy she heard just now. "Harry Potter… oh, come on now, you know who he is… the boy who survived You-Know-Who… you do know who he is – " he continued, but another man started talking in gibberish Sakura couldn't make a crap out of.

"I'm no great shakes at languages, I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf's saving him a seat… good job too, those Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge the best places… ah, and there's Lucius!"

Sakura sensed rushed activities suddenly happening and the light atmosphere suddenly turned to a tensed one when three people entered the box; a man, a boy and a woman. They started talking and stuff. Sakura wasn't listening. She could see her blonde-haired team mate walking through the crowd, looking un-Naruto-like. He was completely cautious and stealthy. Naruto was a whole different person during missions. Suddenly Naruto tripped over something and got back up quickly, looking around to see if anyone saw him. Sakura inwardly sighed. Or maybe not. Then she saw her raven-haired team mate, strolling, looking around heedlessly once in a while. He, too, was vigilant and furtive.

One of the men from the box stood up and pointed his wand at his throat, saying 'Sonorus!' and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; his voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands.

"Ladies and gentlemen… Welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!"

The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket.

"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce… the Bulgarian Team Mascots!"

Half of the spectators roared their approval.

"Veela!" a man exclaimed.

A hundred Veela were now gliding out onto the pitch. Veela were women… the most beautiful women Sakura had ever seen… except that they can't possibly be human. Their skin shone like the moon, their white-gold hair fanned out behind them. The music started and Sakura could she that Sasuke and Naruto visibly froze in their tracks. In fact, every male who didn't have their ears covered did.

The Veela started to dance and as the Veela started dancing faster and faster, she could see her team mates nearing the ledge with a dazed look. Movement next to her snapped herself out of her thoughts. Two boys were about to jump down from the box! One of the girls managed to grab onto the red-head one just as he was about to leap off. The other boy, however, almost fell off the ledge. In a burst of activity, Sakura tackled him back to the ground.

"Have you lost it?!" Sakura snarled, making herself sound menacing so that people won't recognize her the next time they hear her. That seemed to snap him out of his trance because he looked at her in surprise. She was on top of him, her arms on either side of his waist. Even in this position, the boy couldn't see Sakura's face, only the lower half of it.

"Harry!" a girl with bushy brown hair cried out and ran over to her fallen friend. Sakura got off Harry, debating on whether this was the Harry Potter she and her team mates were supposed to protect. After she noticed the scar and black hair, she realized it was indeed him. The girl glanced at Sakura as she helped Harry up.

"Thank you so much for saving Harry! Harry, she saved your life! You were about to jump off the ledge! What were you thinking!!" she said, obviously freaking out.

"Watch yourself," Sakura advised the boy in a firm tone.

"Thank – thank you," Harry stuttered his reply, slightly disoriented. The Haruno nodded before turning back to detect where her team mates were.

Sakura saw that Naruto was whacking his head slightly as he resumed walking around. Sasuke was shaking his head, dark bangs swaying.

Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn't want the Veela to go.

"And now," the man's voice boomed. "Kindly put your wands in the air… for the Irish National Team Mascots!"

The next moment, what seemed to be a great green and gold comet had come zooming into the stadium, and then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling towards the goalposts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the pitch, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd 'oooohed' and 'aaaahed', as though at a firework display. Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be failing from it –

"Gold coins?" Sakura thought as one of the gold objects landed gently on the palm of her hand. Sakura looked up and noticed that the shamrock was actually composed of thousands of tiny little bearded men with red waistcoats, each carrying a minute lamp of gold or green.

The great shamrock dissolved, the little men drifted down onto the pitch on the opposite side from the Veela, and settled themselves cross-legged to watch the match.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome the Bulgarian National Quidditch team! I give you – Dimitrov!"

A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick – a flying one – moving so fast it was blurred, shot out onto the pitch from an entrance far below, to wild applause from the Bulgarian supporters.

"Ivanova!"

A second scarlet-clad figure zoomed out.

"Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaand – Krum!"

The red-headed boy who almost fell off the ledge with his other friend whom Sakura had saved in the nick of time a few moments ago yelled excitedly, "That's him, that's him!"

"That's Viktor Krum?" the bushy haired-girl asked incredulously, her dark chocolate orbs glued on the scarlet-robed figure on a very fast-moving broomstick. Sakura squinted to get a better view of the Quidditch player who seemed to be very popular. Fan-girls were screaming their heads off at the Bulgarian side of the stadium. Sakura almost laughed at the expression on Sasuke's face.

Viktor Krum was thin, dark and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. The corners of Sakura's lips twitched. It reminded her of the 'Handsome Green Beast of Konoha'. She could see Naruto pause to stare at Krum, a grin making its way to his face.

"And now, please greet – the Irish National Quidditch Team!" the older wizard yelled. "Presenting – Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaand – Lynch!"

Seven green blurs swept onto the pitch.

"And here, all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwizard of the International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!"

A small and skinny wizard, completely bald but with a moustache, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the pitch. A silver whistle was protruding from under the moustache, and he was carrying a large wooden crate under one arm, a broomstick under the other. He mounted his broomstick and kicked the crate open – four balls burst into the air: a scarlet one which Sakura guessed was the Quaffle, two black ones which she thought were the Bludgers, and Sakura managed to catch a glimpse of something small, winged and gold before it sped out of sight. That, Sakura thought, must have been the Snitch. With a sharp blast on his whistle, Mostafa shot into the air after the balls.

"Theeeeey're off!" screamed the commentator, who would be the man standing a few feet from Sakura.

She had to stop herself from gaping. The speed of these players were incredible – the Chasers throwing the Quaffle were moving so fast that the commentator barely had time to say their names.

However, as the game got on, and more time passed, the ninja trio got more and more bored. They needed more action, damnit!

Sakura watched with mild interest as three Irish Chaser zoom closely together with the guy called Troy in the centre, slightly ahead of the other two guys, bearing down upon the Bulgarians.

The game went on for almost an hour more without anything going wrong, besides the injuries that a few of the players got from being hit by the ball or crashing head-on onto the ground. Sakura heard one of the boys saying that one of the techniques where the seeker did a dangerous diversion was called Wronski Feint. Sakura raised a delicate eyebrow at this. It was easy to create a diversion like that in the ninja world. All it took was just a sudden surge of chakra and a wall.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were getting bored when suddenly; a shout of "MORSMORDRE!!" rang throughout the whole stadium, booming over the sounds of the spectator's excited yells and screams. The next moment, something vast, green and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness a little beyond the stadium: it flew up over the stadium and into the sky. It was a colossal skull, composed of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue.

For a split second, everything became stock still and silent. And the next second, the stadium erupted with screams. The Veela and little bearded men scurried out of the pitch in fear. The Quidditch players zoomed out of the pitch faster than Sakura thought was ever possible. Everyone was scrambling out of their seats to exit the stadium.

"Oh my… Everyone, get out of here, NOW!!" one of the elder wizards commanded urgently, already taking out his wand from under his robes.

"Why? What's wrong?!" the red-headed boy asked as he was ushered roughly out of the room.

"That's the Dark Mark, Ron! Voldemort's mark!" the bushy haired girl said, seizing Ron's jacket and pulling him forcefully out of the room. Harry stood rooted to the ground as he stared at the blazing green mark in the dark sky.

Sakura immediately lost her stoic façade as she caught Naruto's and Sasuke's eyes. All three of them nodded and Sasuke and Naruto jumped off the seats and towards the middle of the pitch. Sakura made to jump from the ledge of the box, but Harry grabbed her cloak before she could take off.

"What're you doing?!" he asked when Sakura whipped her head around to look at him in disbelief.

"My job," she replied, her eyes likes chips of emerald. She quickly yanked her cloak away from his hand and pushed her foot against the ledge, pumping chakra to her feet to cover a longer distance. A sudden rush of adrenaline coursed through her, the wind whipped her short and choppy pink locks, and her cloak flapped wildly behind her. A quick glance behind told her Harry had been ushered out of the room by the bushy haired girl, despite him protesting about something.

Sakura landed gracefully, knees bent and arms limp by her sides. That way, her cloak never revealed any part of her clothing except her shoes. She quickly ran over to her team mates.

"It's Voldemort's mark," Sakura said immediately. Sasuke stared at her.

"No wonder everyone's freaking out…"

"We don't know how strong these people are, Sasuke," Sakura replied, frowning.

"So what do you reckon we do?" Naruto asked, looking at all the people hurrying out of the stadium.

"I'll throw the explosion tag," Sakura said, already whipping one out from her kunai holster. Sasuke and Naruto examined their surroundings as Sakura gathered her strength, which was a lot, and threw the kunai high over the top of the stadium, which was freakishly high. It exploded in the air, red and blue smoke erupting from it. It was supposed to be used as a distraction in missions, but heck.

"I saw the light coming from the forest next to this stadium - " Sakura began, but Sasuke's eye widened and suddenly grabbed her by the waist and Naruto by the back of his collar and pulled them flat onto the ground.

"Wha - ?" Naruto exclaimed, before twenty wizards and witches appeared out of thin air in the whirl of their black cloaks.

"STUPEFY!!" they roared in unison. There was a blinding series of flashes and the Konoha trio felt the hair on their heads ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the pitch. Raising his head a fraction of an inch, Sasuke saw jets of fiery red light flying over them from the wizards' wands, exploding in a small firework display above the trio. He could feel Sakura shaking and Naruto trembling. They barely had enough time to move when the wizards repeated the same spell.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura flipped out of the way so fast they looked like mere flashes.

"STUPEFY!!" The grass which they had been laying on a split second ago was now fried.

"Shadow Replication technique!" Naruto yelled from his position in the air, and many other Narutos poofed next to him, all of them landing on a bunch of unsuspecting wizards, successfully taking them down. Sasuke was knocking the wizards out two at a time, and Sakura was holding her own against a particularly tough witch, who wouldn't stop trying to hex her. But that was, of course, before she got pissed and whacked the woman hard enough on the back of her head to render her unconscious.

Apparently, those wizards and witches considered them a threat, and called in reinforcements.

"God! Will you people just listen?! We're trying to - eep!" Sakura yelped when an unexpected jinx hit her legs, causing her to instantaneously collapse to the ground due to immobile legs.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed, deflecting a hex with two kunai. Sasuke growled, a little further from Naruto and Sakura.

The wizard who cast that spell smiled maliciously over her helpless form, raising his wand, knowing that she was screwed -

"Leave her alone, asswipe!" until Sasuke delivered an almost-comical, very uncharacteristic, flying kick to the man's face, sending him reeling a few yards away.

Which, of course, pissed the wizards off.

This then led to the remaining twenty-something wizards and witches plus reinforcements circling Naruto and Sasuke, aiming their wands at the ninjas. Naruto and Sasuke crouched protectively in front of their fallen comrade, teeth gritted and fists clenched, trying to look intimidating, which sort of worked for Sasuke.

"STUPEFY!" bellowed all of them in unison, and Naruto and Sasuke instinctively curled their bodies slightly around Sakura, as though protecting her from the incoming threat.

Sure, Naruto and Sasuke could have just leapt out of the way, but that meant leaving Sakura alone, and there was no way in hell they were leaving the precious female of Team 7 there when she's so helpless. They could've carried her, but they were surrounded. The chances were slim that they could escape, ninja-speed or not.

The three members of the ever dynamic Team 7 closed their eyes and waited for whatever was to come.

And it came.

Just... not what they expected.

"KAITEN!!"

A huge gust of what felt like very strong wind swirled around them at a very high speed. Sakura's, Naruto's and Sasuke's eyes snapped open to see the spinning form of the Hyuuga prodigy right above them. They couldn't see his form well as he was hidden under a black cloak, just like the trio. They heard loud crackling sounds as each jet of red light bounded off the chakra shield Neji had created.

"When I stop, make a run for it!!" he yelled in Japanese, already slowing down.

"NOW!!" he shouted just as he stopped spinning and all four of them disappeared in a flurry of leaves.

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"Neji! What are you doing here?!" Naruto asked as the four of them tore through the forest. Actually it was three. Sakura's legs were still useless, and she was resorted to being carried by none other than the silent Uchiha, who surprisingly didn't complain about having to carry her.

Neji glanced at the blonde; his clear pale eyes looked like they were glowing in the shadows.

"The Hokage found out that magical spells could be deflected by my Kaiten and sent me to find you guys to inform you about this. She said that the spells could be deflected with chakra, something about magic being another form of chakra. Kakashi saw the explosion in the sky and told me to find you three immediately," he explained quickly, Byakugan activated.

"Turn left after eight steps," Neji ordered. They turned left and were met with a clearing big enough to hold a few tents. The Hyuuga held out a hand, signaling them to stop. They obliged.

"Kakashi told me to take you guys here. Something about a portkey."

Sakura and Naruto instinctively groaned. Sasuke sighed, balancing both his and Sakura's weight mostly on one foot. He hoisted Sakura slightly higher on his back.

"Not that thing again! I always feel throwing up whenever I land!" Naruto complained.

Poof!

Kakashi appeared. Something was different though, he wasn't smiling like the way he usually does, and the smutty little orange book was nowhere in sight. He took out a Konoha headband and held it out.

"Hold on to this. We'll talk about this when we get back to the Inn."

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"What happened there?" Kakashi asked, folding his arms and sitting on the railing of the balcony. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were sitting on their respective beds, while Neji sat on the couch.

"The game was going fine with all the flying broomsticks and it was so cool and did you see that dive-bomb thing they did with their brooms and that dude crashed onto the ground and then the pretty women dancing and the gold coins falling from the sky and - " Naruto blabbered excitedly, before Sakura clamped a hand over his mouth, sighing.

"The game was going on fairly well. Then a jet of green light shot out from the forest we were just running through and the mark appeared in the sky. And everyone started screaming and running for their lives. I don't get it though. It wasn't hurting anyone or anything," Sasuke explained.

"One of the witches in the box with me said it was Voldemort's mark. But I still don't see why it's such a big deal…" Sakura said.

"Look, can someone just explain what the skull thing was?" Sasuke asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"The mark hasn't been seen in thirteen years. Seeing it is like seeing Voldemort himself," Kakashi said boredly, as though he memorized it from a book. The four of them stared at the jounin.

"Tsunade forced me to read the stupid history books or else she would burn my entire Icha Icha collection, including the posters," he said, shuddering slightly. Sasuke and Neji ran a hand down their faces.

"Maybe I would too, if you won't stop reading it in front of me!" Sakura threatened, a fist shaking in front of her. Kakashi held up his hands in defense.

"You can't get up, girl," Kakashi pointed out, gesturing to her currently-useless legs.

"DIE, SENSEI!!"

Kakashi laughed, albeit nervously.

"But what's the whole point of sending an explosion into the air? It's not like you can't already see the Mark," Sasuke inquired, folding his arms across his chest and narrowing his dark eyes.

"The explosion is just to confirm that something really is wrong there. I couldn't possibly make out the Dark Mark from where I was," Kakashi replied. "It would have just looked like a green streak. And that signals me to follow Harry to make sure nothing happens to him."

"But he had his friends with him and the elder wizards…" Sakura said.

"That may be true, but it's better to be safe than sorry, eh? Besides, when I found him, he was without his wand. Of course, I couldn't possibly go up to him and help him. I had to be hidden. But he found his wand with an elf at the place where the Dark Mark was conjured from."

"Elf?!" Naruto squeaked.

"Yeah, I saw one in the box. It was so - " Sakura shuddered. " – gross."

Kakashi sighed tiredly. "Okay, team, Neji will be sent temporarily on this mission just to teach you guys about the whole chakra and magic thing."

"Hai…"

"Wait… Where will he be sleeping, Kaka-sensei?" Sakura asked, looking around.

"I'll just sleep on the couch. I'll be leaving before you guys go to school anyway," Neji said, snickering slightly. He dumped his bag next to the couch and plopped down with a soft sigh on the couch.

"Alright then. Rest well, team. I've got to go back to Konoha to clear some things up. We'll be leaving for Hogwarts the day after tomorrow. Ja!"

"Ah, wait - !" Sakura began, but it was too late.

With the trademark poof, he was gone.

"Shoot. I wanted to ask him how long my legs will remain like this."

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"With all due respect, Tsunade-sama, why do you have so much faith and confidence in them? They're merely young ninjas who've recently passed their Chuunin exams."

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"Because they're Team 7. Isn't that reason enough?"


Author's note: ... I still don't know what to say.

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