Redone

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When Max had written to Laura she hadn't been sure what to expect, ten minutes after receiving it she wondered how she didn't guess.

She got a howler.

How Laura got one was beyond her but she had a feeling Draco and Harry had something to do with it. Luckily Max had recognised it and shushined into the nearest soundproof room, her own bed room. Now one dared ask why she had soundproofed her room but Laura suspected it was where she practised the panpipes.

"MAXINE HAKIE! HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT AFTER BECOMING A MISSING NIN YOU CAN COME BACK AND ACT AS IF NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! WHAT POSSESED YOU TO GO AFTER SNAKE FACE ANYWAY. DO YOU HAVE A BRAIN? YOU REALLY SHOULD USE IT BEFORE IT DIES FROM LACK OF USE; YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN HE WOULD TRY SOMETHING. WHAT DO YOU MEAN SASUKE DEFECTED, AND THEN GOT PURSUADE TO COME BACK BY YOU AND SOME TREES? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?" It paused, Max hoped it had finished but it continued thankfully in a normal voice.

"Oh and thanks for the books name, Lockhart keeps breaking out in a sweat if anyone starts humming. Draco and Harry say hi back and that they will give you your Christmas presents next time your in England. Shame about the ban though. The diary has been sorted out. The three of us may have accidentally stumbled upon it and Harry found the book and it accidently got in the way of one of Naruto's Rasengans then we may have accidently set it on fire," announced the letter before tearing itself up.

Max couldn't help but laugh. She was a bit sad that she had missed it and that she couldn't see Laura for at least two months. Max was now at loss of what to do, she normally would do missions but with the ban in place it wasn't going to happen. She headed to the memorial stone, she sat on one of the posts near by. Then she got out her panpipes and started to play, it was better than nothing and she hadn't had a chance to play in a while.

As she gazed around her eyes were drawn to a particular name on the stone. She smiled sadly and jumped down, she traced her fingers over the name Hakie, Yuri. Her death never really left Max alone, Max always had a pang of guilt that she should have done more, the genjutsu at the snakes lair really had hit hard opening up the old memories that were best left forgotten.

It was later that day she had the best idea. She knew that Sasuke and Laura weren't a couple, but she did know they needed a shove in the right direction. Her new self ordered mission, operation Matchmaker.

By the end of the first week Max had come up with all the plans she could and was now bored again, none of the plans would work if one of them was missing.

For the rest of the two months Max trained back up to par. Normally it would have taken no more that three weeks but Max spent a load of time but the memorial stone, normally talking to it. She knew some of the people on there, not just her sensei, some of the people she had worked with and half of them that she had worked with she had seen die.

Apparently since Dumbledore had no proof that what ever had been petrifying students was gone he had no choice but to keep the shinobi.

Once the two months were up Max and Sasuke were on their way back to Hogwarts. Luck would have it a massive storm had been brewing and they were forced to land in Dublin. While they were waiting in the queue later for a plane out a fat man in a suit barged to the front and started talking to the already harassed woman at the desk.

Max and Sasuke had been behind the person being served and felt sorry for the woman. Max adopted an innocent look making her look about ten not thirteen.

"Excuse me sir would you mind going to the back as people here have been waiting longer than you," said Max politely, behind her Sasuke was trying not to laugh. It was hard to believe this girl, who had so much blackmail and killed people could look sweet and childlike.

"How dare you, I need to get on the next flight and it better be first class!" shouted the man, enraged, turning back to the desk lady.

"Well if you bothered to wait then they could see what they can do about it, barging around gets you no where," said Max indignantly.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded the man glaring at her.

"No but the help desk is back by the security station if you are desperate to find out," replied Max coolly her voice carrying around the room since people had quietened down to see what the man was yelling about.

"What would you know you insolent little girl," yelled the rapidly turning red man.

"Ok, being called insolent is typical, but little is taking the cake. I'm a teenager, an insolent one yes, but small, that's like saying your skinny, it's a down right lie," said Max drawing herself up to her full height, the evil glint in her eyes, she subtly used Henge to make her look a tad more mature and taller. The man started to turn purple and stormed of to regain his dignity. Most of the queue burst into applause.

"I think you annoyed him Max," pointed out Sasuke.

"What can I say, it's a gift," Max smirked, discreetly undoing the secondary Henge, keeping the one that hid her wolf ears. They hadn't noticed an observant boy watching them.

They got their flight and went to wait when Max noticed they were being watched, to make matters worse she knew who was watching them. Artemis Fowl and his body guard. Great the smartest kid on this planet was here, they would have to be careful or he would find something wrong and become suspicious and that's the last thing they needed.

At last they got a plane to England where they would floo from the Leaky Cauldron. Max flooed first and noticed Laura barrelling towards her, smirking, Max sidestepped so Laura collided with Sasuke who had just come through ending up in a hug. They separated really rapidly when they figured out what happened.

"How could you hug him before your bestest buddy, I'm really hurt, that cut me deep, real deep," said Max mockingly. She saw the gleam in Laura's eyes, her life flash before her eyes. She turned tail and ran fearing for her life. She was pursued by both participants in the hug. She ran in the great hall and dived under the Gryffindor table hoping neither of them would think to look there.

She quickly used a Henge to look like a first year with brown hair she would slip up to sit at the table and hopefully they would overlook her. Just as she disappeared Laura and Sasuke appeared at the door. Max only just got up in time to avoid suspicion. She somehow had managed to sit next to Harry and Draco who were both at the Gryffindor table for once. Unluckily Laura headed over to them first.

"Have you two seen Max?" asked Laura sweetly, Max was looking like a scared first year but when Laura looked at her she knew she was busted.

"Max, old buddy, old pal," she said with her teeth gritted, Sasuke was next to her glaring daggers.

"I only moved so Sasuke wouldn't run into me I swear," she said frantically. She was ready for shushin at a moments notice.

"Then why did you run?"

"If you saw your life flash before your eyes and your death was by you and Sasuke you would run too," said Max. It was only then Ron, who had been sitting three seats down, realised that meant Max was back but he couldn't see her there was no silver hair in sight.

"Where is Max anyway, I heard that she ran of with a bunch of guys, she's probably a slut," he said pompously. Max dropped the little kid Henge and put her cap on before releasing the other one

"Tell me Ronald, what it is like living in a haze of perpetual stupidity?" she asked, her voice that same one used when threatening high ranking ninjas. There was a distinct smell of pee in the air and everyone shuffled away from him. "I thought you had grown out of the peeing yourself stage," Max sneered.

"Yeah well at least I'm not evil"

"I'm not evil!" This only made the ninjas start choking, "Just because I have a habit of killing people does not mean I'm evil." Everyone froze. "Ok maybe that wasn't the best thing to admit in front of everyone," she said sheepishly. "I was kidding, honestly, I'm thirteen," reassured Max, the people turned back to their food and continued eating.

"Great now the school thinks I'm a murderer," Max moaned as she took some food from Draco's plate only to have it snatched back. She turned on him and gave him the puppy dog eyes version three.

"Gah, have it," he said passing it back. Max grinned and ate it like it was the first thing she had eaten in weeks.

Two weeks before the end of term the four of them staged a battle with the basilisk, they hadn't wanted to kill it, for some reason Max thought it was cute and wanted to take it home as a pet.

Something had gone wrong in their plan and it had died. So not to waste the materials Max and Laura had skinned it and removed its fangs and contained the poison glands. The skin would make good amour and the fangs would make good weapons

The year eventually came to an end and Max, Harry, Laura and Draco were in their compartment talking. Harry still had the portkey in case he needed it and a promise that the two girls would defiantly see him next year. Max and Laura figured if Sirius escaped Dumbledore would want protection again.

Back at the village Max was glad to be allowed on missions again she had been getting bored. Team 7.5 new mission was to escort a noble boy to the rock village. Due to some arrangement, the kid they were escorting was getting married to one of the noble girls in rock to decrease the tension between leaf and rock. It may just be a boring escort mission but Max was just glad to be out of the village for a bit.

By the second hour into the trip Max would take being stuck in the village any day. The boy was rude and arrogant and kept flirting with her. Max was glad she had been ANBU, part of the training was keeping yourself from killing your client.

She could have sworn that her team mates were laughing at her misfortune, especially Naruto. There was no way Anko wouldn't find out about this and Laura would never let her hear the end of this. She would have to do some threatening to keep this under wraps.

Max had dropped behind the group hoping to lose the annoying git. The only reason he wasn't dead was the fact if he died there would be a load of crap and his family were in charge of the ninja program. Kakashi had kept back too because it was a better vantage point for him.

"What do I have to do to keep him from bugging me?" pleaded Max.

"What gives you the idea I would know, I'm not a girl" replied Kakashi flippantly.

"Do you want to be one?" growled Max, Kakashi froze mid-step and winced. Then he kept walking.

"I personally wouldn't know but Yuri had a mission like this once and she got through it. I can't remember how," said Kakashi with a smirk, Max could tell he was smirking, he had just gave her information with out giving her something to work with, of course he was smirking. As they crossed the boundary marking the Land of Fire Max felt something strange, something wasn't right. It was like that feeling someone was glaring at the back of your head. Looking around everything looked ordinary, Max moved into a defensive position by the client, it never hurt to be wary.

There was a flash of light Max immediately resorted to FA in time to see a group of people attack them heading for their client. Max sprung into action and knocked out two right off the bat using their surprise attack against them.

They weren't excepting someone to not be affected. Kakashi was holding his own; he was using his other senses, part of ANBU training was not having to rely on eyesight, he didn't have Max's benefit of pseudo-sight.

"Sasuke, Naruto use your senses and defend yourselves, two out of thirteen are down, eleven enemies remaining," Max called out. The fight continued Max would help by calling out help for them, she made a mental not to teach them the instructions in another language.

The attacking group noticed Max was the most able of the team and focused their attacks on her to direct her attention from helping her team mates and their client.

Apparently the light was a complex genjutsu so it wasn't affecting the offensive team but it was more than a genin could dispel, even if they could dispel it, it would take a while for their eyes to adjust.

"Five remaining," said Max as she cut two more throats with her scythe. Kakashi had taken some out and Sasuke and Naruto between them had taken down a couple.

Max saw three of the remaining ninjas head to their client and saw one aim a punch to knock him out she moved and blocked the punch only to have another person jump from a tree. Since she was back up against a tree with her client next to her they stood very little chance.

"Plus one," Max managed to call out before things went black for her. Her client soon followed, Kakashi saw but was trying to keep the others of his back. He finished up just as two ninjas took Max and their client away. The genjutsu had been lifted when the attackers had fled.

"Why did they take Max if they were after our client?" asked Sasuke.

"I don't know for certain but it could have been they need a hostage or want to find out her secrets, that's the only two reasons they would do that," said Kakashi gravely.

"We need to go after them," said Naruto determinedly, Kakashi nodded and summoned some of his tracked dogs and set them on the case. The trio followed them avidly, they shuddered to think what would happen if they lost either of the two missing people.

Laura scared them.

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