A/N:
Hello :) yes, I'm back^^ and thanks for reviews, alerts and favs :D Not much else to say I guess
Disclamir: I do not own Harry Potter or Naruto

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Chapter 9
Mission Hogsmeade

Gone again.

Sasuke wandered the halls of the castle. It was Friday, one day before the first Hogesmade trip and the genin was looking for Granger.

She had been in front of him just a few minutes ago, on her way to class, but then she had turned around a corner and poof, she was gone.

It wasn't the first time that had happened.

Sometimes when this had occurred, she had come running from behind him. And he knew he hadn't passed her. When Harry had asked Hermione about it she had come up with some excuses about forgetting a book or something that didn't make sense. No sense at all.

And then the golden trio had started discussing divination-class.

The class that was at the same time as arithmancy.

A class Granger was attending.

Curious.

"Hey…"

Sasuke turned to the painting that had just spoken.

"You do know that there's a cat following you?"

Sasuke turned his head. Sure enough, Hina was walking about ten meters behind him. He walked casually into an empty classroom and waited for Hina to come in as well.

"Nyah, I've been looking for you!" the female cat stated.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked, annoyed for being disrupted in his thoughts.

"Oh, just something I heard the other cats talking about. It might be something worth your precious time," she said, sarcasm evident in her voice.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow while listening to the ninja cat.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Oohh, I can't wait!" exclaimed an exited Naruto.

Said blonde was currently standing at the entrance of Hogwarts, waiting for his friends. And involved in a conversation with Fred and George, about things Harry didn't even bothered to want to know. Sasuke and Sakura stood close by, talking about something in their own language.

"Don't worry mate, we'll buy tons of candy," Ron said beside him, trying to cheer the-boy-who-lived up; unknowingly making Harry feel worse.

"And there's the feast later tonight," Hermione said.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Harry reassured them, trying to mask his disappointment.

The flock of students that had gathered for the trip was slowly reduced as Mr. Flitch looked over their signatures. Harry watched Ron and Hermione leaving before he suddenly realised, that Sakura had stayed behind as well.

Said girl waved at her friends as they left while at the same time having an expression of both jealousy and irritation on her face.

"You're not going?"

"No," she said. "I helped that baka Naruto with his homework all evening and therefore wasn't able to finish my own. And I totally forgot I had to talk to Dumbledore-san about some stupid papers we have to send home!"

The pink-haired girl continued rambling, but Harry started getting suspicious. That could surely wait until later, and he knew she had finished her homework before helping Naruto the day before yesterday. Only one reason came to his mind.

She was keeping an eye on him.

Ever since Hermione had pointed out the three foreigner's behaviour earlier that month, he had noticed strange things. For instance, he could almost always find one of them with him, even if they weren't really talking to him. He had been planning to go to the library to try and find some information about them, but he had to find a way to get away from Sakura first.

"Aren't you going to ask why I'm staying at Hogwarts?" Harry finally asked when Sakura had stopped talking.

"No, not really. It isn't any of my business, is it?" she answered, giving him a strange look.

'Oh, how ironic' Harry thought before making his way back to the common room, Sakura on tow.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The Three Broomsticks was noisy. More than noisy. In Hogsmeade, students often visited this bar (apparently avoiding the other bar in the village like a plague)

Sasuke had met up with his brother and Kakashi and was currently seated at a table in one of the corners. He was sipping at a butterbeer while conversing with Itachi.

Since it was not directly related to the mission, Naruto had gone with the Weasley twins towards the joke shop. Sasuke would have to be careful around Naruto when he got back...

"So are you having fun at school?" Itachi asked his younger brother. It was the first time in months that they had spoken directly to each other and Itachi had been curious to what Sasuke had been up to.

Sasuke shrugged, "It's been… interesting. I have learned many spells, though a lot of them are useless. I don't see why it's useful to turn a bird into a cup"

Kakashi chuckled. "It probably isn't, but it might be easier to learn other transfiguration spells later if you are learning the easier ones before."

"I know, I know," Sasuke said dismissively. "Like how to ward of those dementors. That could be useful."

"You're talking about the train ride," Kakashi stated.

"Yeah… And to believe a prison is guarded by those things..." Sasuke suppressed a shudder. "Lupin said they feed of emotions and are able to suck out your soul."

Kakashi nodded. "I don't trust them. I have encountered them twice now. Both times when I have come to the meetings with Dumbledore"

All three took a sip of their butterbeer.

"Have you two found out something useful?"

"About his whereabouts, no," Itachi said. "But the case has become rather complicated."

Sasuke perked up. They hadn't really been discussing the mission in the letters they had sent, in case they would be intercepted, so he had almost no information about how it had gone for his sensei and brother.

Itachi and Kakashi proceeded to tell him about how Black had denied the murders and how he hadn't even gotten a fair trial. What made this even stranger was that Black still had escaped from Azkaban and was seemingly in pursuit of Harry Potter.

"We're going to spend the night here instead of going back to London. We have a meeting with Dumbledore-san after the Halloween feast," Kakashi stated.

Sasuke nodded, taking another sip of his butterbeer. "Oh, Hina had a message for you two. She said one of the other cats wanted to help some dog getting revenge on a rat."

Both men blinked at Sasuke.

"Don't ask me why, but she seemed rather adamant about you knowing about it," he added.

Kakashi nodded.

"So where's Sakura-san?" Itachi asked.

"She's back in the castle. Apparently, Potter didn't have his form signed so he couldn't go," he shrugged. "A little strange that they need a signature from their guardian or parents to go to a village half a kilometre away from the school, though."

Itachi nodded, agreeing, before drinking the rest of his own butterbeer.

"So, shall we go inspecting the rest of this village?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Sakura looked up from her book, her glance wandering over the empty common room. She could have sworn she heard something.

After going back to the common room, Sakura had started on an assignment in history of magic (about another goblin rebellion) and soon after, Harry had gone up to the boy's dormitory. He said he had a bad headache and decided to lie down for a while.

"Meow!"

Sakura looked down at her cat, Kamoku. The half kneazle purred lightly as he walked between her legs before walking towards the portrait hole and out.

Sakura went back to her assignment.

It was about half an hour later that she remembered that half-kneazles were more like normal cats than summons and therefore couldn't actually open the portrait hole by themselves.

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Harry breathed out with relief. For a second he had thought that his plan would never work out as Kamoku had gone towards Sakura instead of going out with him. He himself had hidden under the invisibility cloak and tried to go as silently as possible (the girl had way better hearing than she should!) when he walked passed her.

Taking of his cloak and tucking it inside his schoolbag he had brought with him, he walked silently towards the library.

As he reached the library, he evaded Madam Pince and pondered for a moment on where he should start his research. After all, he had no leads at all besides their stalking of him.

With a sigh he wandered towards the section of international history of magic. It was better than just stand there and look like an idiot after all.

The boy who lived skimmed through some of the titles on the first row of books. He deemed all of them useless and continued on. He stopped once in a while to take a closer look at a title, but they as well had no interesting information. 'Wait' he thought as he looked at a book he had just passed.

He took out the red book titled 'Magical schools and their history' and looked up the index page in it. 'What was Naruto's school called again? Kage… Kage Academy?'

Harry's finger ran over the list of magical schools in the world, silently reading the names.

No Kage Academy.

Dumbfolded, he closed the book and put it back in the shelf. If they weren't from Kage Academy…

Who the hell were they?

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"Come on, Ron!" Hermione hissed as she dragged Ron towards the Honeydukes. "We have to find a birthday present for Naruto!"

She could hear a groan coming from Ron but knew he would follow.

"Why aren't we going to Zonko's then?" Ron asked. "Naruto loves jokes just as much as Fred and George."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Yes, and that's why he's there right now. We can't go and buy him a present if he sees us buying it, right? And I for one don't want to encourage him to play more of those horrid jokes."

"You're just saying that because he hit you with that pie filled balloon."

"Hmpf!"

"Hey, is that Sasuke?"

Hermione looked towards where Ron was pointing and sure enough, Sasuke was walking down the street towards Honeydukes, with two older men.

'Wonder who they are' Hermione thought.

"Hey, Sasuke," Ron said, or more like yelled loudly, as he made his way towards the foreign boy. Said boy and his two companions looked up as they closed in.

One of them, the oldest Hermione presumed, had most of his face covered and grey hair that was defying gravity. He didn't look old enough to have grey hair, though. The other one, a young man with ponytail and dark eyes, was wearing muggle clothes. He couldn't be much older than 18, and she got an instant feeling that she had seen him somewhere before.

"Is this the friends you told me about Sasuke?" the black haired man asked Sasuke who hn'd in return.

He turned towards them and smiled slightly. "Hello, I'm Itachi, Sasuke's brother. This is Kakashi," he said, nodding towards the white haired man who smiled with his one visible eye.

"Oh… Hi!" Hermione replied while shaking hands with Itachi. "I'm Hermione, this is Ron," she said while gesturing towards the redhead.

"Hello, mate," Rom said.

"Brother? Isn't Japan really far away?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Kakashi answered. "But I and Itachi here are Aurors and we're helping you ministry. Sasuke said he was going to Hogesmade this weekend and we decided to meet him there."

"I see," Hermione replied, smiling. Inside though, her thoughts raced. Aurors? She had never heard about ministries having joint-operations like that, at least not with a country so far away.

"We were just going to check out this store here," Itachi said, pointing towards Honeydukes.

"Yes, this is the best candy store in whole Britain," Ron exclaimed, smiling. Thought you didn't like sweets, Sasuke?"

"I don't," was the answer. Sasuke pointed towards his brother with his thumb. "He does."

"To be honest, I haven't tried any English candy before," the brother said. "It's completely different from ours."

Hermione turned to Sasuke before Ron had a chance to answer. "Do you know what kind of candy Naruto likes?" Sasuke blinked at her. "For a late birthday gift I mean," she added.

"Tsk," he said as he walked towards the store "I doubt he has tried any of it before, but I guess I'll help you find something."

"Thank you," Hermione said as she followed the boy in.

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Harry sighed as he closed yet another book. He hadn't found anything helpful except for the non-existence of Kage Academy. He was seriously considering giving up for the day and go back to the common room. Besides, he had more homework to be done with and he really didn't want to use the night for that, considering it was Halloween and all.

So far he had looked through books about the Asian magical community, aboard studied in the magical world, Asian wizard schools and Japanese magical history. He looked at the clock on the wall and could see he had been there for almost two hours. The students were probably going to come back soon and he guessed he should get back to the common room as well.

He stood up, put the last book back in place and headed for the common room.

When he opened the portrait hole, he totally forgot that Sakura didn't know he had gone out.

'Oh crap…'

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Itachi sat down on his bed. They had gone back to the inn after Sasuke had left for Hogwarts and Kakashi was currently occupying the bathroom.

The Uchiha heir sighed as he lied back on the bed and stared at the roof. The mission had already lasted almost two months and they were no closer to find Sirius Black. He of course knew that these types of missions usually took long time, but being this far away from Konoha, made him miss his village a little.

And, after finding out more about the case and Black himself, Itachi had started wondering if it really was as simple as they had been told.

His instinct told him it wasn't.

If he got the chance, he would find out what had really happened. He did not want to send an innocent to prison or his death. Of course, had the mission been to assassinate or kill Black, he would have. But the mission was to capture him for his crimes.

And Kakashi knew that too. He had talked to Dumbledore who was the one who gave them the mission, and he had said that he himself was unsure of Black's motives.

Their job was to find out what said motives were and act accordingly.

"Tired?" Kakashi asked as he came out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel.

"Mhm," Itachi answered as he got up and headed for the bathroom.

"Just thinking."

"Ah."

"Kakashi-san?" Itachi turned to look at his partner and friend.

"You said earlier that you didn't trust the dementors even if they're under the ministry's control. Why?"

Kakashi sighed. "It's just something about them. Something I can't really explain. The dementors seemed to be more interested in me than Dumbledore and the other teacher I met, Snape. It could be because of our memories as a ninja, but the second time it came…"

The black haired teen turned to him, waiting for him to continue.

"It felt so much worse. It was like it was trying to suck my soul out right from the start. Dumbledore-san had to use this spell to get it back to it's post."

"I take it that's not normal?"

"No, and apparently it's not normal to affect someone even more if you haven't experienced anything traumatic between the encounters."

"We'll just have to watch out for now. Even after two months here, there's still so much we don't know about this place. Maybe, we'll find out why someday," Itachi concluded. After all, they had other priorities than to find out why a soul-sucking creature preferred Kakashi, and possibly other ninjas, more than wizards.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"… Um, hey!"

Okay, not the best thing to say to an angry pink haired girl.

"Hey? Hey? Where have you been? You didn't even tell me where you went!" she exclaimed and Harry tried to find a good way to get out of this situation. Unfortunately, he found none.

"How didn't I even notice you?" she asked, throwing angry looks at him while crossing her arms over her chest.

Harry felt anger growing in him. Did she think that she had a right to know what he did every second of his life?

"Dunno why you didn't. You seemed engrossed with one of the books and I wouldn't bother you. And I had to talk to Lupin, so I forgot to tell you." Not a completely lie - he had wanted to talk to Lupin, but the man hadn't been in his office so he had headed straight back for the common room after visiting the library.

Luckily, the door to the common room decided to open just before Sakura could interrogate him further. Students started to come through and Harry spotted the twins and Naruto discuss rather loudly a prank they should do on Professor Snape. Something about water balloons that could change a person's hair colour.

Harry relaxed. He was safe, for now.

"I can't wait until dinner," Naruto said with a grin before stopping. "Um… what was so special about today again?"

"You … don't celebrate Halloween?" Ron asked, coming out from the mass of students.

Naruto stared blankly at Ron, slowly shaking his head. The twins immediately grabbed Naruto from each side, grinning mischievously.

"Well then…," Fred said as he started leading Naruto towards the portrait hole.

"We'll show you all the wonders about this holiday," said George as he followed suit.

"… I'm not really sure on Naruto's safety right now," Sakura murmured, staring after the disappearing trio.

Ron and Harry couldn't do anything but nod.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The feast was amazing. Naruto found the pumpkins with the different faces interesting and the food was delicious (not as delicious as ramen, but close enough). And not only that, but both Kakashi and Itachi were present as well. Old man Dumbledore had told the school that they were visiting because of Sirius Black, which wasn't untrue, and that they would be staying overnight.

Kakashi had taken a seat at the teacher table and Itachi had found Sasuke as soon as they came in and sat currently at the Gryffindor table with them. They were discussing something in whispering Japanese.

Hermione suddenly perked up and poked Harry in the side.

"What?" he asked.

"I bought it," she said, and continued when she saw Harry's expression. "You know," she nodded towards an oblivious Naruto, "The late present!"

"Right," Ron said. "Hey, Naruto!"

Naruto perked up at the mention of his name. "Yeah?"

"Um," Hermione said before taking a small package out of her robes. "Happy birthday… even if it is a little late."

"Happy birthday!" said Ron and Harry.

Harry could swear the blonde's eye swelled up as he looked at the present. Sasuke and his brother looked up and watched Naruto as he took the present from Hermione.

"It's not much…" Hermione trailed of as Naruto took of the wrappings to reveal a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a box of chocolate frogs, and a lollipop at the size of Naruto's fist.

"This is… for me?" Naruto asked slowly.

"Yes," Hermione smiled. "Though we should probably have gotten you something else… I mean it is Halloween…"

"No, I like it!" Naruto still looked like he couldn't believe it. "Thank you."

When Harry looked at the foreign wizard, all his suspicions faded to the back of his head. All he saw now when looking at Naruto was a boy who had just received a present from some friends. It was almost as if he hadn't really gotten any real presents before and it strangely, or maybe not so strangely, reminded him of himself.

And with that, Harry found himself smiling.

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Omake

The worst type of stalkers

Kakashi wandered down the main street of Hogesmade.

It wasn't a very big village, at least not compared to several villages in the land of fire, but it was the only full-magical village in Britain.

Beside him, Itachi walked while looking inside several stores they passed. They had said their goodbyes to Sasuke and some of their new friends just a moment ago and were on their way back to the inn they were staying at.

All the students were supposed to go back to the school in time for dinner.

All of them.

So why were there several (squealing) girls behind one of the corners they had just passed?

Kakashi sighed before he looked as his co-worker. Itachi's eyes were rather restless and he picked up speed a tiny bit before meeting Kakashi's own eye for a brief moment.

That confirmed it.

The ones that were following them were some of the worst enemy one could have.

Fangirls.

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A/N:
Hope it was an okay chapter for you :) remember reviews are like digital cookies.

Oh! for anyone who'r interested! I have way to many stories and ideas in my head to write them all down, so I've started challanges on my profile, so if anyone of you are interested, feel free to check them out. I update them with new ideas relatively often^^ and I would also love to find out how you would've written them.