AN: I know better than to start a story without giving you all the pairings from the get go; Naru/Hina Herm/Draco Sasu/Saku Tenten/Ron Harry/Ginny Ino/Sai.

Maybe some puppy love Kono/Hana, if I can swing it.

My goal for this story is to be as faithful to canon up until the points of divergence, which would be the death of Sirius and the weeks leading up to Naruto:The Last, respectively.

I am neither Rowling nor Kishimoto; and I would like to take the opportunity of this disclaimer to thank them for building worlds that I could escape to as a child. I write this in the hopes that, in reading, others can be gifted again with the joy of tightening their Konoha Headband and stepping back onto the Hogwarts Express. This is a gift so many before me have left for us to find, and it is a gift I will endeavor to pass on to the ones who come after.

X-X-X

What right did the sunrise have to paint the sky such a beautiful shade of vermillion on a day that Albus had to bury a former student?

No, not bury, Sirius didn't leave a body behind to bury.

It had always been Albus's firm belief that the founders of Hogwarts had been entirely too stingy in implementing portals by which natural light could be let into the Headmaster's Office. He was glad for it, today.

His wizened knuckles tightened. The skies should weep for him.

It was to be war then.

Again, after 15 years of peace, a dark wizard had risen again to challenge a decent and moral order. He had responded, as he had too many times already in his long life, by calling his banners and rallying his loyal wizards to him. So many of those, so willing to die for him, had once been his students. That was the part that he couldn't tell Harry, couldn't tell anyone. As the boy had rampaged through this same office some hours ago, it was a thought that had consumed him as he was strong for Harry's sake. A stable rock to cling to in the all encompassing, emotional storm.

Sirius had graduated Hogwarts, a smiling bright eyed boy of 17, eager to take on the world and try as he might, Albus couldn't recall the wearied, adult face that he would have died wearing. When you had been an educator as long as Albus had, it didn't matter if the fallen soldier was as old as Sirius or as young as Cedric.

Albus can only think of their smiling faces around a long table, weighed down with the opulence of a Hogwarts Feast.

And suddenly he sees them all at once, faces separated by entire generations, sitting at the long tables in impossible company;Sirius, Cedric, Lily, James, Dorcas, Edgar, Benjy, Caradoc, Fabian, Gideon, Marlene...Stop

Stop. His knuckles ached.

No more, he couldn't bury any more. He had tried, had tried all of last year, to end this conflict with subterfuge. He had delayed the violence, beguiled his foe's machinations, and been slandered in the public as a madman for telling people to be afraid. To be as afraid as Albus was. Where did that leave him?

Another dead student.

No more. And in that decision? Clarity.

Albus unclenched his, now pulsating fists, and stood up. The old fingers of his hand traced the older still, stained oak desk and he snatched the beaded elder wood branch that was the conduit of his might from where it rested. There was work to be done.

As he began to pace a plot unraveled in his mind's eye. When he was a young man, (well, younger) he had fought against Grindelwald with the aid of a very peculiar group of eastern Wizards. These wizards were native to a continent without a name, that lay somewhere east of Japan in the Pacific. The land there was… unnatural… having been created in the wake of some fallen, pseudo-deity or another. Children born on its soil, raised on its fruits, had a unique relationship to their magic. Every child was blessed with the aptitude for spellcraft, and they evoked it by marrying their magical cores to their physical bodies-weaving physicality together with spiritual existence in an act of creation. They called it chakra and their wizards, shinobi.

Albus had often dreamed of studying them in his youth, but alas- it was not to be. The same magic that made the continent so special had also made it untraversable. The continent was enshrouded in a confounding ward so powerful that it would bend a muggle ship's crew around it for days, in open sea and just out of sight of land. Any attempt to fly within range of it would just result in being buffeted by such severe turbulence that any sensible pilot would fly higher, or out of their current vector. Muggles never noticed such things, and were better for it- the citizens of that continent were intensely nativist, and distrustful of outsiders at best.

So great had been the outpouring of violence during Grindelwald's last attempt at world domination, that shinobi had emerged from their hidden oasis. They came first to assess the belligerent party, then to offer support. Their efficiency had been astonishing, Japan's wizards had been kept completely out of that war by the hidden continent's shinobi forces. After effectively stifling opposition closer to home, they had even offered support in Europe. His face softened, of all the friends he had outlived over the years, Albus regretted missing Hiruzen's funeral the most. He wasn't even notified immediately after his passing, and had only received a hawk with the news when Hiruzen's student had ascended to his spot as village leader.

That was almost seven years ago now, and the memories of sitting around a campfire in the bombed out rubble of a small French town, conversing about their (admittedly divergent) romantic escapades over good liquor still warmed him. It was those memories of Hiruzen that he normally fixed on while reminiscing, but now, now Albus narrowed his thoughts on the ones he normally chose to forget about his friend.

The ones where he and his fellow shinobi mercilessly unleashed rolling waves of earth and fire at the soldiers of Grindelwald. Albus was one of the greatest duelists since Merlin, his knowledge of the arcane paired wondrously with a fierce talent for the mental chess game that was a wizard's duel. Those who survived the battle and were still alive to recall it would fastidiously inform whoever boasted anything to the contrary that, "no while this fight or that engagement was destructive, never has there ever been as great or terrible a wizard duel as between Dumbledore and Grindelwald."

In their private moments, his contemporaries often wondered how Dumbledore had managed to retain his humility after gaining a reputation second only to a wizard so great he occupied a place in their society's lexicon as the proper noun of an expletive. No one had actually ever asked him directly, and if they had, he probably wouldn't have given a straight answer. The truth was that, even in his prime, he wasn't a match for a shinobi less than half his age. He didn't need a pensieve to immerse himself in the memories that displayed the sheer magnitude of violence Hiruzen Sarutobi commanded on the battlefield- the acrid scent of burnt flesh and still burning trees rose, unbidden to his nostrils. Engagements in forested terrain had been common on the Western Front, as they provided physical barriers to muggle machines and killing curses alike. Hiruzen had divulged that he grew up fighting and killing, in a forest not so different from those battlefields, and he proved it too. Entire divisions of enemy wizards, trapped and burning in anti-apparition wards and "Katon Ninjutsu." That had been one of the last great pushes, and when it had become clear that the neighboring town was so deeply entrenched with the enemy and their servile, muggle warriors, Hiruzen had summoned a tornado that carried the fire miles into it- immolating them.

Albus had, by then, been to war in his life already. He was intimately familiar with the detached expression that adorned the face of a professional soldier who was surveying the aftereffects of their craft. It was a visible pinching of the eyebrows and a carefully flat mouth that gave it away. It was the face he knew he wore when he dispatched a foe on the battlefield who wouldn't ever rise again. It was familiar, normal. Some would posit that the reaction farthest from healthy or normal, was the whooping and hollering of the sadist who enjoyed the eradication of his foes, the ones who revel in their own cruelty.

Albus would argue Hiruzen's face had been even worse that day. As the smoke failed to fill Albus's lungs completely, getting stuck somewhere in his throat and causing him to fruitlessly wretch in order to clear his being of that awful, awful odor, he saw Hiruzen's face. It was neither detached, nor was it gleeful. He was… satisfied with himself. Like a master painter, admiring the finishing touch on a particularly impressive oil-on-canvas he had been practicing for, or a tennis champion tracking a perfect, unreturnable kick serve. With eyebrows raised, and a lopsided mouth curled somehow into a smile one one side and a frown on the other. Impressed that all the hard work he had put into the piece had paid off, but oh maybe… It could use a little tweaking right… there. The thought is punctuated by another thrown, remorseless piece of steel, cutting down a man who had thought he had the good fortune to have been on the road leading to the town as a firestorm destroyed the friendly headquarters for this entire region.

The conversation that night was destined to be both full of confrontation and bereft of sobriety. But it served to break down the cultural barriers between the two, and in the end Albus and Hiruzen had emerged as thick as all men who marched to war together. Albus had learned that Hiruzen had started training to be a shinobi as soon as he could walk, that training would normally start at the latest eight, that by the time he was twelve he was considered a fully fledged shinobi who had already killed another man. Albus had cried at that. Hiruzen had just taken another drink. By the end of the night Hiruzen understood that the state of the French countryside that day was, while a normal day for the Warring States, a near civilization ending event for Europe. Albus had balked at the thought of allowing that violence, any violence, to touch the life of a child.

A sudden thought arrested his pacing frame abruptly, and he looked up at the window. It was going to be a beautiful day. It wasn't hard at all to picture Ariana's face at the long tables. He wonders idly, what house she would have been in. It doesn't matter, I would have been proud of her, whatever the hat found in her heart. He just would have been the most proud if it sent her to the table all the way to the right…

Ariana had never made it to the long tables though. The thought made his stomach roll with the same nausea he had felt that day in France, half a century ago. Worse. After all, what right do you have to judge the shinobi on how they raise their children? Had Ariana been raised in their world, her talents would have been nurtured and rewarded. She would have walked the path of the shinobi, a loyal protector of her people. Their father's lashing out would have been perceived as an act of honorable retribution, justice- not revenge- for the wrongs inflicted on his family.

Age had taught Dumbledore the inner humility he so desperately lacked in his youth. How could he condem the shinobi when he couldn't even close his eyes without seeing those long tables?

He blinked away tears and in their saline mist he saw Sirius jump up from his table and drag James two tables over to Cedric. Saw him shove the two boys' hands together. Albus made out every other word tumbling from the lips under Sirius's mangy fringe, "This… Cedric… he's… good lad… got Harry… spot of trouble…" James' face crinkled from joking laughter to an appreciative smile, and instead of relinquishing his grasp on the not-that-younger-here boy, used it as leverage to pull him into a full embrace. The mist receded from his mind like it would be just now across the school's lake, pushed back by the full light of the morning sun. The azure light fell through the window and onto his forehead. Yes, It was going to be a beautiful day.

He turned on his heel then and returned to his desk. The plot was done. Albus all but threw himself into his seat and hunched around the length of parchment that was waiting. The wand was traded for an enchanted quill and he began to write, his uncertainty burnt away by the illumination of purpose. The letter was brief but imploring. It referenced his friendship with Hiruzen, listed some vague parameters he was willing to divulge now, and offered a meeting time in the near distant future to solidify the arrangement. He finished and leant back in his seat, the quill fell from his abused hands and he dragged one leg over the other in a gesture of relaxed control.

It was time to set up the chessboard for his very last game. His surroundings faded away again and there was another boy in front of him now. Young, handsome and he knew it. Aristocratic features worn with an easygoing, open face. The boy's demeanor was warmer than any other student with silver and green accents on his school robes and they adorned him like a princeling's vestments. He met Albus's challenge and they locked eyes. The gleeful smirk the boy wore didn't touch the dark eyes that sat like jewels, framed by even darker hair. The boy reached out and wrapped his hand around Albus's black King's Knight, before tossing it over his shoulder.

Albus responded with a measured reproach that was made possible only by his over-one-hundred-years as an educator, "Checkmate in 12 moves, Tom."

X-X-X

The Sixth Hokage was still unused to having sight in both of his eyes on a regular basis. The near omniscient insight of the Sharingan was a loss keenly felt, but he had forgotten the simple utility of mundane things-like depth perception. It gave a new meaning to the phrase "underneath the underneath."

For example, when Naruto reappeared after almost three years under Jiraiya's tutelage, the Sharingan had given him a complete insight into those years. With one spar, it analyzed every kata the boy moved through, every shadow clone sent to maneuver on him, and every trap deployed with stunning efficiency. All tidily categorized, then synthesized against the complete profile of Naruto as a 13 year old knucklehead. In seconds he had a complete diagnostic on the efficiency of Jiraiya's training since he had seen the two last. All other information was secondary.

In fact, it took Naruto's reconciliation with the Nine-tails and the subsequent golden chakra cloak (never was there a more Naruto bit of personal development) to realize how much he had grown in other ways. It had been so bright it had blinded Kakashi's Sharingan and, for a moment, Kakashi mistook his student for the boy's father. Truthfully, it wasn't the inconspicuous similarity of profile or the very conspicuous yellow flash that rendered that profile. It was the waves of comforting assurance that emanated from Naruto as he stepped between his comrade and a most certainly, fatal threat. It was the very first technique that Kakashi had ever copied, the reassuring demeanor of a Captain, swearing to protect his squad members by laying down his life if need be. He could see it in the set of Naruto's shoulders, so eerily similar to Minato's. The second emotional reaction followed quickly on the heels of the first, Naruto had never seen the Fourth in action, but he had seen Kakashi. He wasn't mimicking his father, he was mimicking the Copy Ninja himself. The warm pride of a sensei being surpassed by his student suffused Kakashi's core. He was a pragmatic bastard but had always known that the boy would go far, despite all he had stacked against him.

But that day? That was the day Kakashi actually believed Naruto would be Hokage. It was through two normal eyes and that lens that he looked across the table at the orange and black clad Shinobi who would succeed him. The mission request had arrived in the early hours of the morning, by a bird summons that had set itself on fire, as Kakashi had been reliably informed by a (still dumbstruck,) Kotetsu.

Naruto began to open his mouth, the reserved maturity he had acquired in the last war apparently finally strained to the point of breaking. Kakashi cut across him hurriedly with a question-

"Naruto, do you know how many continents there are on Earth?" Best to start this as an educator, with an opening inquiry. Kakashi knew it was the right choice, as Naruto smiled before starting up again.

"Eight, Kakashi-Sensei! HAHA-Comonn, I could have told you that even before Iruka-Sensei started tutoring me!" Kakashi suspected the closed eyes and easy smile beguiled the deep sense of satisfaction Naruto was nursing after finally being able to answer a superior's question without filibustering for Sakura to bail him out of still-too-deep intellectual waters. Kakashi suppressed a sigh before continuing-

That was a tragic case of book smarts v.s. street smarts if I've ever seen one, "Very good, now do you know how often we shinobi of Konoha undertake missions outside of our continent, called the Land of the Juubi?"

Naruto rolled a confused look across his brow, from right to left, before settling on an even more sour face and returning to Kakashi's gaze. "Iruka-Sensei said that travel past the oceans of Hokubu, Kaijuu, and Nanmen were all impossible because of tide pools!"

Kakashi pressed, "And what about east of the Land of Bears?" Naruto responded without missing a beat, escalating with the growing academic confidence of a student on a roll.

"Impassible because of untraversable mountains and poisonous ravines!" Kakashi made a mental note to give Iruka a raise, that was a lot of syllables for the knucklehead.

"Well, it seems Iruka has been doing a phenomenal job tutoring you, Naruto-" another hundred giga-watt smile, "But I suppose you're hitting the natural ends of what Iruka is capable of imparting." This elicited a surprised drop of the jaw from the blonde, for what knowledge could exist in this world that the Great Iruka-Sensei was not partial to? The Sixth Hokage centered himself by gazing out the bay windows of his office and gathered his thoughts before continuing with what was going to be a lengthier explanation than he had previously thought Naruto could handle.

"It goes like this, the other continents are, by and large, unaware of our existence because of the unique circumstances surrounding the creation of our continent. Because of this, The Five Great Hidden Villages have an ongoing, albeit tacit agreement, to strictly regulate the flow of information, technology and culture from our continent to the other seven- and vice versa, of course." He stopped and looked at Naruto, who was resting one cheek against a bandaged fist and nodding along enthusiastically.

Iruka deserves a VERY large raise.

"For our part, any mission that Konoha takes on into the outside world, no matter how intrinsically challenging it may be, is graded as an S Rank assignment and handed over to the Black-Ops." Naruto mouthed the word inaudibly, ANBU. It was time, Kakashi thought, to finally get some quantitative proof on Naruto's capacity as a leader. The academic development spoke for itself, and his ability to inspire confidence in his friends as well as implement on-the-fly complex battlefield stratagems had NEVER been called into question. However, the truth was that the most often leadership archetype a Hokage was forced to embrace was that of a garrison officer, managing and assembling personnel. Organizational leadership and unit composition were the bread and butter of a Hokage's day to day life. Traditionally, these qualities were developed by awarding a Jonin subordinate a Genin team to instruct- but that was a less tenable option than what he had in mind for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, Naruto was still technically a genin himself, secondly Naruto didn't have a lengthy enough career to fully amass the mission experience required. To be an elite Jonin didn't simply convey that one was a powerhouse of a Ninja with leadership ability- those were the attributes of a Chunin.

No, to be a Jonin meant that you were a consummate example of the shinobi's many disciplines. A leader of such developed acumen that you could instruct children who were just taking their first steps down the path of the shinobi on the fundamentals of any mission their squad was tasked with. All this, while being so presciently aware and monstrously powerful that any threat unaccounted for by Konoha intelligence was recognized and neutralized, ensuring the completion of the mission and the safeguarding of Konoha's next generation from the often random, yet fatal misfortunes so endemic to their chosen career paths. It was these qualities that made the Jonin elite, this overflowing pedigree of variety and expertise that gave them authority over the Chunin. It was also what Naruto lacked.

Kakashi needed to assess the young man's growing ability in a controlled environment, with mission parameters that he would be familiar with, to gain an accurate gauge of his progress thus far. An escort mission then, an assignment type that Naruto was infinitely familiar with. The scroll he had dictated to Izumo suddenly felt heavy in his lap. Naruto's restlessness was fermenting again, no doubt because Kakashi had trailed off in the middle of conversation, seemingly into ruminations he traditionally left for the KIA cenotaph. He hoped he didn't seem too misty eyed.

"Consider this your Warning Order, Naruto" There's the eyebrow jump. Only the designated squad leader got those, and Naruto had never been trusted to be one… until now. No -not trust- Naruto was formally still a Genin, not even -allowed- to lead missions. But formalities meant very little where Kakashi meant to send him.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will involve a two phase operation, first a six week training period, followed by a 10 month deployment to an undisclosed location in the continent of Europe. You will be assembling an ANBU candidate platoon of 8 ninja, two full squads, to enter and complete The Crucible. After successfully completing all three schools, you will be deploying as an attachment to local allied forces to; fortify their headquarters, provide a security detail for a person of interest, and support coalition forces' efforts to bring a swift end to their conflict with opposing forces."

Naruto was jumping out of his seat in excitement. Kakashi cocked an eyebrow in bemused reproach, a beautifully utile option available now that both were routinely visible. The desired effect was immediate, the mature shinobi returned, his face the mask of a professional, albeit excited, subordinate who was eager to rise to the challenge. Hang the raise, Iruka is getting a full promotion- Tokubetsu Jonin, at least.

"I accept, Hokage-Sama."

X-X-X

AN: It occurred to me as winter ended that I have been on this site for over a decade now and I've never published anything. I suppose the guilt got to me. I've always wanted to see an ANBU protecting Harry story done with the depth that it deserved. It's such a cool idea and the majority of the good ones go unfinished. I've gotten a rough chart for most of the story worked out, and the first three chapters pretty much ready to publish. I'll work out a steady schedule in time, but my goal is to get feedback to incorporate into each next installment. With complete transparency, just clicking the story alert button alone would be a huge dopamine hit for me, and I'd thank you for that most kindly.

What I'm most really after is (of course) reviews. All artists should be seeking to improve over time, regardless of their medium. I've always found that accusing authors of being review whores was an exercise in counterproductive behavior. This is also coming from a serial lurker who has been on the site for more of his life than not. I haven't reviewed every story on my favorite's list (shit there's over a thousand,) but I have tried to review the ones that put an earnest plea out into the void for feedback, especially the epics that span years of updates.

Shit, log into a guest account and flame me if you want, don't worry- I can take it. What got me writing was the desire to give back to the community, what will keep me writing is the opportunity to improve. I want to completely finish an entire plot within the scaffold of a fanfiction before I try my hand at writing another novel. Also, yes OMG, I'd love offers to beta.
Till next time,

Joshua Ruehadan