A rustle in the darkness. The gravestones were quiet, the marble only reflecting the lights of their wands. Someone used a bigger illuminating spell to see what was going on. And it was horrific.

Bodies lay strewn about like discarded dolls at kindergarten. The Dark medic whispered spells as she used her arts to mend broken bones, close jugulars and pump blood back into people. Nott was one of the lucky few who didn't get hit by one of the... shinobi, the Master had called the two boys.

Nott wiped the sweat from his brow and discreetly checked if someone had seen his breach of etiquette. Nobody was supposed to take off their mask if they were at a gathering, but at the moment they didn't care about etiquette. Not when the Dark Lord was missing.

"Injured?" asked a low voice at his left shoulder, and Nott turned sharply, wand poised at the ready. He relaxed when he recognized the face.

"No-" said Nott, and the other Death Eater interrupted him.

"Good. Start looking."

He didn't have to say who to look for. Although there was a subtle hierarchy, Nott and the other man were about equal. Nott muttered angrily, but still he turned around and lit up the point of his wand. He held it high and walked around, checking behind gravestones, looking for the Dark Lord. All around him the others did the same, or actually: those who weren't dead, injured, or gone. Nott had seen Death Eaters run off when the demon shinobi had broken free. He knew the Dark Lord would take care of them. If he was still alive.

Nott berated himself for that thought and kept on searching, straining his ears for any shouts of 'Found him!' from the others. But the graveyard remained eerily quiet.

A gasp to his left had him running, but he stopped dead when he saw why the other Death Eater had gasped.

"Master!" he cried. But Lord Voldemort didn't answer. His body hung broken upon a marble headstone. In the light of the wands they saw his blood darken the front of his robe, or what was left of the cloth. Something had tore through Voldemort's body with such force bits of flesh hung upon the headstone. Nott saw Voldemort's unbeating heart in between shards of shattered ribs.

They circled around the broken body, looking at each other in disbelief.

"He's... he's... that blonde guy..."

One Death Eater kept stumbling over the words, not believing what was in front of him. Lord Voldemort was more powerful than anyone, ever, in the history of wizardkind. How could that blonde guy have killed Lord Voldemort so thoroughly? The Dark Lord knew more Dark magic than any other wizard. And the blonde guy had been a kid, not even old enough to drink.

Something hissing slithered next to Nott's foot and instinctively he leapt away from it, thinking it might be Nagini, trained to avenge her master. But the hissing came from a tiny garden snake, which curled around Nott's feet.

"Resiiiise meeesss," hissed the snake, and Nott blinked at it in confusion. Was this another trick of the mind? Was that red-eyed guy still around to mess with their heads?

"Resise meee, Nottsss," hissed the snake again. Something growing out of the back of the head's snake caught his attention, and for the third time in less than five minutes he gasped as he dropped to his knees.

"Master!"

For in the back of the snake's head was the unmistakable face of the Dark Lord. He had survived, somehow, like all those years ago. His Dark magic wouldn't allow him to be killed. Nott gently picked the snake up and showed his fellow Death Eaters.

"Our master lives! Prepare the cauldron, find a sacrifice, because the Dark Lord will rise again! ... Err, again again."

All around him the Death Eaters scurried off to prepare for Voldemort's revival. They re-lit the fire underneath the cauldron, and Nott walked towards it, slowly, careful not to aggravate the snake.

"Youss wills be rewardeds, Notts," hissed Voldemort, and he beamed with pride. He managed to serve his master well, and soon the new Lord would walk among them.

"Put me in thess cauldron, Notts," said Voldemort. With reverance Nott walked up to the giant cauldron and lowered the snake into it.

The Dark Lord rose once more.

"You didn't kill him," said Snape.

"What?" cried Naruto enraged. "If you get hit by my Rasengan, you're dead, simple as that. I saw him bleed to death. I had to shower twice to get all of it out of my hair."

At those words the people in Dumbledore's office went silent. Naruto kicked himself mentally. These people weren't shinobi, they weren't used to talking about the life-giving liquid in such callous terms. These people killed with green light, not with knifes and bare hands.

"And what is this 'Rasengan' you keep talking about?" asked McGonagall.

Naruto gaped at her in shock and sputtered: "It's my special jutsu." Sasuke scoffed.

"Hardly 'special', you use it at every opportunity. Kill a man? Rasengan. Need a blender? Rasengan."

"Oi!" cried Naruto, "like you're so special with your 'look at me, I can electrocute-"

"Just show them, would you?" interrupted Sasuke. Naruto scowled at Sasuke before he made a seal and a clone popped from thin air next to Naruto. Naruto held out his hand and together with the clone he formed a blue ball of tamed wind. When Naruto felt it was finished he let the clone poof out of existence. He turned to Dumbledore and pointed at the chair with a wild flower pattern.

"Okay if I destroy this?"

Dumbledore nodded, and with a cry of "Rasengan!" Naruto thrust his hand forward. When it connected with the chair splinters of wood and bits of padding showered the onlookers. Naruto drilled all the way through the chair and when he released the jutsu the chair collapsed on the spot. The wood had gained an interesting swirly texture, and the destruction site was a mess.

"That is the Rasengan. And think that chair was a human."

Naruto saw the winces on the wizard's and witch faces. He turned back to Snape, whose face was stoic. Or maybe he was incapable of showing any emotion.

"So how did they resurrect Voldemort?" asked Naruto.

"The Death Eaters revived him, using the same potion as before," said Snape. "You did kill him with that... attack, but once you were gone, the Death Eaters revived the Dark Lord's body. He used one of his own Death Eaters to reabsorb the zero-tailed demon, so now he's as strong as ever."

Naruto blew out a sigh. "Well... crap."

On the last day on the job the shinobi and the Boy Who Lived finally met face to face. It was pure coincidence, although Hermione had tried to catch their attention, to get them to talk. Men and communication, that was something even magic couldn't fix.

Fox and Crow, no, Naruto and Sasuke, had stopped wearing the masks. They were asleep when Hermione had left the Hospital Ward, and the next two days there weren't any unexplained extra students roaming the hallways, nor did any dots show up on the map. When they finally showed their faces, Sasuke resembled a ghost more than a human being, with barely any color in his face. Even Naruto lacked that shiny glow she'd always associated with him. He looked as brow-beaten as Harry, although he hid it behind extra wide grins instead of moping about, as Harry was wont to do.

She didn't know which method was better.

The two guards completed their tasks like usual, but there were no more spontaneous spars which broke out in the middle of the hallway, and even their bickering went from ear-piercing loud and fierce to a half-hearted 'idiot'.

Hermione knew something needed to be done. So she flagged down Naruto, or at least, she tried to. He either didn't see her or chose to ignore her, something which only made Hermione more determined.

But even without her meddling the world kept on turning, and on the morning of the day of the Leaving Feast she saw that Harry ran into Sasuke and Naruto in the Entrance Courtyard.

Harry stopped short when he saw the two guards walk up the stairs as he descended them.

He had dreaded this conversation, because how exactly do you approach and thank someone who's rescued your life and almost died? Or had a demon burst out of them? Though the last part wasn't Harry's fault per se, but he was the one who fell for Voldemort's trap and had too few skills to break free of his twisted ropes.

"Err," he began, which wasn't the best start of a 'thank you for saving my life, sorry about the whole mess'-speech. Harry tried again, though this time he was the epicenter of attention, quaking in every direction.

"Thanks for saving me. And I'm sorry all that happened to you."

Naruto smiled at Harry while Sasuke's face remained impassive. Harry gripped the banister so hard he swore dents appear in the metal. He wanted to flee before Naruto brought up something painful, something which would break through his grief and shock and shake him to the core of his being. He didn't know if he would survive that, the Boy-Who-Lived brought down by words. Although spells were words too, and-

Naruto's voice drove through his tangent of thoughts.

"No problem," said Naruto, grinned a huge grin at him and continued on walking. Sasuke looked at Harry, said "hn" and followed Naruto up the stairs.

Harry watched them leave, dumbstruck. He jerked from his stare when Hermione appeared by his elbow.

"You alright?" she asked, a carefully guarded expression on her face.

"That's it? 'No problem'?"

"What did you want to hear?"

Harry choked as his thought process was rammed off the track by Hermione's logic train. He realized that actually, that was all he wanted to hear. He thought they'd want to talk about the whole event in detail, telling him where he went wrong, what he could have done to detect the trap and how to kill Voldemort. But they were the guards, they were hired to do this, to protect the students.

"Do you think this is normal for them?" asked Harry as he watched the guards high up the marble staircase, ascending all the way to the seventh floor. Hermione nodded, and for the first time this year Harry caught a glimpse of what sort of life those guys must live in order to treat this like any other ordeal they'd gone through.

And he knew why they hid their youth behind white masks. They were adults in a teenager's body, shouldering the same burden that was cast upon Harry. Dumbledore had put it well, that Harry had carried the weight of an adult, but those two carried the weight of the world in comparison.

Frankly, it scared him.

"I'll bet they sent Ero-sennin. The old hag already knows about the whole seal-runes thing, so first thing she does is make sure I didn't turn into the fox."

Sasuke kept on ignoring his blathering teammate as he eyed the door.

Even on the last day on the job they had to patrol, although Dumbledore had pretty much ordered them to join the Leaving Feast. Tsunade had written that a representative from Konoha would also join, to debrief the shinobi and strengthen the relationship with the employer. With war on the horizon in the wizarding world, those bonds could prove to be beneficial on both sides.

Naruto had been speculating who she'd send for two days now and it was grating on Sasuke's nerves. Any second now the elusive representative would come through those doors.

A large group of students had also gotten wind that a friend of the guards would show up today, so the entrance hall was busier than usual. The students craned their necks to see the mysterious shinobi. Sasuke and Naruto stood by the door when they heard a commotion on the marble staircase. All attention was drawn to a Hufflepuff student screaming his head off as he sprinted down the stairs.

"They're after me!" he yelled, and Sasuke brought the Sharingan up, ready to defend the castle if any of Voldemort's lackeys decided to show itself at Hogwarts. But what he saw didn't alert him.

Instead he turned around and sure enough, there stood a man in the doorway.

"Hello my cute students," came a familiar voice from the entrance. Sasuke felt his eyelid twitch. The words had been in English, and he knew only one man who'd go through the trouble to look those words up in order to embarrass them. Or some form of training which made sense in the man's twisted mind.

"Sensei!" called Naruto out. The students still lingering about gaped at the man standing in the doorway as if he owned the place. That is, bonelessly and with his hands in his pockets. He leaned on one crutch, limping a little as he took a step forward. Sasuke was glad his sensei wasn't holding his trademark orange Icha Icha book [1], or he'd have McGonagall on his ass sooner rather than later.

Sasuke nodded at the man after he'd digested the man's arrival.

"You're the representative from Kon- home?" Naruto said in disbelief and Kakashi's eye-smile grew even more, if that was possible.

"Sure am."

"You're not late," Naruto said in astonishment.

"I was supposed to be here yesterday."

Sasuke hung his head and turned around to the students. "Since you're all still here: this is-" He glanced back at Kakashi, who gave a tiny nod. Apparently he didn't want or need a codename. "This is Hatake Kakashi, or in your language: Kakashi Hatake."

"Yo," said Kakashi and gave a two-fingered salute while he laughed his eye-laugh.

"Hello," murmured the student body, although most of them preferred staring over talking.

"So he's like, your teacher?" asked a Slytherin girl.

"Yes," said Sasuke, before Naruto could say 'unfortunately'. "We'll take you to meet the employer," he said to Kakashi. He understood why Tsunade would send Kakashi. By the looks of his crutch and the way he favored his right side he'd been injured. And what better way to recuperate than fly across half the world and pick up two thirds of his team?

The Leaving Feast was one Ron would remember all his life. Gone were the usual bright colors of the Great Hall. Instead he had a mopy Harry, a grieving Hermione and the two guards sitting next to him. Well, the guards and their weird teacher sat four seats over, but it was near enough to study them for the last time. He studied Kakashi especially hard. The mask alone was suspicious, leaving one eye free. The man wore the standard Konoha shinobi uniform, like the book had taught him. But his floppy grey hair and crutches called to mind an old man. The single eye didn't show any wrinkles, so... What and who was this man?

And how did he eat with his mask? He didn't even remove it, but every time Ron blinked, more food disappeared. Sasuke and Naruto didn't bother with masks anymore, now that the whole school knew their name and surname, down to the fact that Naruto contained a demon and Sasuke could do magic with his eyes.

The already quiet students were silenced completely when Dumbledore got up. He told them the truth about what had happened in the graveyard. Dumbledore turned towards the guards.

"And let us not forget to thank Naruto and Sasuke, who went beyond and above the call of duty to protect Hogwarts and rescue Harry Potter. I hope we can remain good friends and re-forge the bonds between Hogwarts and their hidden village. We are going to need those."

Unanimously the crowd drank to the murmur of "Naruto and Sasuke". Naruto grinned at the praise while Sasuke's face remained impassive, as always. It looked like little fazed Sasuke, thought Ron.

"...Remember Cedric Diggory," Dumbledore concluded. Ron felt something hard in his throat and he swallowed as he raised his glass again and drank. He drank and drank until it was empty before he dared to sit down.

"I... just... thank you for all you've taught us," said Dean. He pumped Naruto's hand up and down and grinned widely at them. Behind Naruto Dean already saw the carriages appear. It looked like the guards and the Kakashi-fellow would also travel by Hogwarts express, but this might be the last time he got to talk to them. And he still had so much to say. And he was not alone. The driven students of the Duelling class stood behind him, all ready to shake Naruto and Sasuke's hands and thank them. Usually the students didn't do that, but they knew they might not see them again next year.

"I'll be sure to keep practicing this summer, and who knows, if you come around again next year you can teach me some more."

Naruto gently slid his hand out of Dean's grip and Dean saw Naruto's grin slip away.

"I'm afraid we won't be returning, at least not next year. We've gotten a message from home that our enemies have been found. And they're after me this time. I'll need to train hard to beat them."

"Your enemies?" asked Dean, to which Naruto nodded.

"A group called the 'Akatsuki'. They're after jinchuuriki. Demon hosts."

"That's... that's terrible," gasped Eliza. The students whispered amongst themselves at that revelation. Naruto shrugged.

"I'll deal with them when they come. So I can't come here next year."

"And you, Sasuke? Will you come back?" asked Dean, but Sasuke also shook his head.

"I'll have to watch this idiot's back," he said curtly. But there was no venom in his voice. Naruto didn't even seem bothered BY the epithet anymore.

"We also want to thank you," said Naruto. "For teaching us how to teach. We've never done that before, and I think it will become useful for us. When we make it to jounin, a rank higher, we're supposed to teach young students. And we thank you for showing up on the first lesson, and taking it seriously."

"You gonna get in?" asked an impatient voice behind the group. "Otherwise we'll take this carriage."

Dean hadn't even paid attention to the stream of students whirling around them as they made their way to the carriages. There were barely enough to fit the Duelling class students in left.

"Almost done," said Dean. He turned back to the shinobi. "I guess I can only say: have a good life, and I hope to meet you again someday."

"Same here, Dean. Maybe you can come visit us."

"I don't even know what village you're from," replied Dean. Naruto looked around and bent forward as he whispered: "Konoha. We're from Konoha. Our real names are Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. Got that?"

Dean absorbed the strange syllables and nodded slowly as he burned them in his memory. He needed a quill and some parchment, right now.

"Yeah, I think so. Otherwise I can ask for the guy with the demon, right?" He winked at Naruto and the shinobi smiled back.

"Alright then, we'll be off. See ya!"

"Goodbye!" said Dean, and the other students joined him with cries of 'goodbye'. Dean was going to miss them, he knew it already.

Kakashi looked at his two students as they rode back in the carriage pulled by demon horses.

"Thestrals," Sasuke had explained, but the word itself wasn't enough to enlighten Kakashi. He shrugged it off as one of the weird effects of the magical world. He'd had completed some missions for wizards, and he still remembered their foreign way of getting things done. There was a lot more stick-waving and weird phrases than in the shinobi world, but the folk were decent enough. And they paid handsomely.

"So," began Kakashi. He looked from Naruto to Sasuke and back. They had grown, both physically and mentally. Tsunade was right to send them out on a year-long mission. The Akatsuki had been thrown off Naruto's scent, and only now did they have hints where he might be. But at Hogwarts Naruto didn't have the backup necessary to fight off a pair of Akatsuki members. By now he may be strong enough to fight them off on his own, but Kakashi wouldn't bet on it. Not yet, anyway.

"So what?" asked Naruto when Kakashi didn't say anything. Ah, still as impatient as ever.

"So... anything special happened?"

Sasuke snorted in surprise and Naruto pulled a face.

"They didn't tell you?" asked Naruto disbelievingly. Kakashi waved a hand at his student.

"Ah, yes, something about the Kyuubi. But the seal is still intact, and there's not much I can do about it now. Although Jiraiya wants a word with you when you get back."

"Good, 'cause I also want a word with him." Naruto cracked his knuckles and Kakashi made a mental note to get out of the way when those two started their screaming match.

"Anything else?" prodded Kakashi, focusing his single eye on Sasuke. Sasuke looked Kakashi in the eye and shrugged.

"Learnt some spells," he said. "We need to visit the wizard's shopping street again."

Kakashi knew that wasn't all, but for now he let the two have their peace. He'd wring it out of them back at home, when they were safely in Tsunade's office. He made a mental note to block the door until the two had told everything that happened, because the wizarding world was still an unfamiliar factor in the politics of planet Earth.

He also made a mental note to check for magical boobytraps more often, knowing Naruto.

[1] Kiss Kiss Paradise

A/N: The penultimate chapter, in which I've attempted to wrap up all the loose ends. If I've left something dangling: please tell me.

A random note:

-Kakashi is one of those words which loses its meaning if you type it often enough. Now I can't stop giggling whenever I have to type that inane combination of ' ka' and ' shi'.