Shortly after Dumbledore left, the table at Grimmauld place quickly erupted into arguments, much to Moody's annoyance. These people were supposed to be the wizards who were going to go against the greatest Dark Lord in wizarding history and they couldn't even have one conversation about what to do without fighting.
Moody was surprised when, after only thirty minutes of Dumbledore having left, a loud crack sounded and Dumbledore appeared in the dining room. At first, Moody had thought that he was alone, but then he noticed the masked white cloaked strangers standing in the shadows of the room. He knew that no one else had noticed them because no one else had stopped arguing and only Remus and Shacklebolt had noticed Dumbledore's arrival.
"I don't see why we should even trust Snivellus, we all know he is telling the Dark Lord all of our plans," Sirius shouted and Snape glared at him. Moody sighed, what a great first impression they had made on the Shinobi.
Dumbledore coughed, and all of the order members, besides the three somewhat observant ones, looked up in surprise. "Dumbledore! What happened?" Molly asked.
"I have hired five of the best shinobi." Dumbledore said, smiling, although Moody noticed that his smile was tight and he wondered what sorts of things had happened to make the old man look so nervous.
"When are they coming?" Arthur asked, oblivious to the five figures standing stock still at the back of the room. One of them was suddenly standing at Dumbledore's side while the others moved behind them.
The shinobi that stood next to Dumbledore held an air of confidence and authority that made every order member's breathing turn shallow. He had bright blond hair and even brighter blue eyes that shone from beneath his fox mask.
"This is the captain of their team, Fox," Dumbledore said and Fox bowed slightly to them without saying anything. Moody, even though he thought of himself as an observant person, couldn't figure out what emotions Fox had hidden behind his cold mask.
"It's nice to meet you. Please forgive us for not being able to give you a lot of information concerning us. We are not allowed to tell you our names or show you our faces. We are allowed to interact with you normally, so we will not always be so uptight." Fox said and half of the room felt their temper rising at the secrecy.
"How are we supposed to trust someone who doesn't show us their face or tell us their name?" Sirius asked and Molly nodded along with him. Fox turned his head towards one of the shinobi behind him and they switched places.
"Hello, I am Deer." The shinobi said. Moody could barely hear it, but there was definitely a slight drag on some of his words that made him talk slightly slower, as if he was bored. "I am the head strategist and will be the one communicating with you the most. If you feel unsafe because we are unable to reveal our identities to you, then I am sorry, but we hide our identities for everybody's safety."
"How does concealing yourself help keep us safe?" Remus asked, confused. Moody was confused as well, but he tried not to show it too much.
"We have a lot of enemies, so it would be unwise to let them know where we are. There are many times where ANBU have been unmasked and then hunted down by missing-nin. Fox-Taicho especially has numerous foes from when he fought in our latest world war."
"Your latest world war?" Molly asked, her face pale.
"Yes, ma'am. We have all experienced several minor wars as well as one huge war that went on between all of the Shinobi Captain fought on the front lines and was one of the reasons the war ended so quickly." Deer said, his voice calm as if he was explaining what they were having for dinner.
"So you all have real life battle experience?" Moody asked, finally speaking up.
"Yes, sir. Fox-Taicho is the one of the strongest shinobi in our entire village, and since our village is one of the strongest, it is reasonable to say that he is one of, if not the, strongest shinobi." The wizards in the room all went wide-eyed including Dumbledore, who was obviously not informed of this information.
"Moving on to the introductions, there are five of us here and we're all part of the elite ANBU team. Our second in command, Snake, is in charge of assassination and espionage if necessary, he will be going to Hogwarts for protection. Since I am more of a strategic shinobi, I will stay here and help plan the war efforts. Then we have Dove who is in charge of scouting, surveillance, torture, and information gathering. He'll stay here since he can contribute to any small advances we make in the war.
"Our last team member is Wolf. He is the team tracker and hunter, if you need someone to be found, just give him a description or something that belongs to them and he'll be able to find them easily. He'll go to Hogwarts for now. Fox-Taicho will only be here before school starts and whenever we go into major fights.
"I would also like to add that the manner in which you acted when we first arrived was unfit for members of a resistance. You are like immature children who don't have proper order and as much as I like the idea of democracy, it won't work during a war. You obviously have Dumbledore-san as your leader, but you don't have any positions. The first order of business will be to correct the way this 'order' is put together as well as increasing security and secrecy."
Silence reigned for several minutes as everyone digested what was just said. Moody smiled gleefully. He had a vague idea of how a war was won, but Deer was obviously a genius when it came to strategy. Dumbledore had a shine in his eyes that could only be described as hope.
"When you say that Dove is in charge of 'torture and information gathering' what does that entail?" Snape asked. Molly paled slightly as if that piece of information had slipped past her, which it probably had.
"We mean exactly what was said. Dove knows numerous torture techniques that have proved useful many times when it comes to gathering information from the enemy. We know that you wizards are relatively peaceful and don't like violence, but I have to warn you, you are in a war, and war is bloody. I know that most of your deaths are clean because of your 'killing curse', but you need to prepare yourselves for seeing more violent deaths and injuries now that we're here. You requested our help, but that does not mean that we will change our ways so that it makes you feel less queasy." Deer said, still in that same creepily calm voice.
It was fairly easy to identify them seeing as all of them were wearing the mask of the animal they were called. They were all fairly tall as well, all of them around 6 feet, the one with the snake mask and the one with the dove mask were both around 6 feet 3 inches. What Moody didn't expect to see, was the giant white dog standing next to Wolf.
"And why is there a giant dog in here?" Snape sneered.
"Don't insult Akamaru!" Wolf said, his voice full of anger, which was the only emotion that Moody had been able to hear from the shinobi so far. "He has the intelligence of a human, so you will treat him with respect."
Moody looked at the dog to see a strange look of exasperation in his eyes. It was almost hilarious that a dog could portray so many emotions in just his eyes but Moody didn't dare smile since he might insult the dog or his owner.
The dog barked and Wolf looked at him sharply before giving a nod and flickering back to his position beside the dog. "Can you understand him?" Dumbledore asked curiously.
"Of course I can. I come from a clan that uses dogs as partners and we have developed a way to communicate with our partners. My clan is famous for fighting with our partners so I have grown up with Akamaru my entire life. He's like my brother." Wolf said with pride in his voice.
Moody noticed that the captain seemed to finally show emotion in his eyes and Moody identified it as amusement. The other shinobi all still had the same emotionless eyes except for Snake, who seemed to have a never ending pool of anger in his eyes. Moody watched nervously as his hand twitched towards the opening of his large white coat, obviously reaching for some type of weapon.
"Do you choose which animal you get as a codename?" Tonks asked, staring suspiciously at the Snake mask.
"It really depends. Every shinobi gets a choice, but some of us just ask to be given one at random. All of us chose our animal for various reasons." Fox said.
"So, why the snake mask?" Sirius asked, obvious hostility in his voice. Snake looked at him coldly before closing his eyes and remaining silent. Fox looked at Sirius with curiosity.
"You're not seriously discriminating against Snake because of his choice in animals, are you? That is seriously lame." Wolf said and Moody snorted. "I mean seriously, if you go to a zoo, would you automatically be suspicious of everyone looking at the snakes? You can be overly suspicious but that attitude is just being idiotic."
Snape sneered at Sirius, but Dove quickly put an end to that. "You do realize that mocking your teammate is one of the worst ways to work together, right?" His voice was so deep that it seemed to cut right through Moody's bones.
"I knew you would be troublesome, but kami, this is ridiculous." Deer said. Fox gasped and all of the ANBU turned to him with questioning eyes. "What?"
"Deer said the 'T-word'!" Fox exclaimed. Moody's eyebrows raised in surprise as he saw all of the guards give the captain hidden looks of amusement. It seemed that the captain truly knew how to raise his team's spirits. Moody's eyebrows raised even higher when he noticed that Snake had a very strange look in his eyes when he looked at the blond captain.
It was a strange look of fondness, Moody realized as he continued to look at Snake. Before he could analyze the look more, he felt a shiver go down his spine as Snake looked at him with a cold glare.
"What time is it, Weasley-san?" Fox asked politely. Molly looked surprised as she realized that the guard knew her name already.
"It's around eight. Have you eaten yet, are you hungry? We were about to eat before you arrived so dinner's almost ready." Molly asked.
"We have not, no. If there is not enough-" Fox began before Molly cut him off.
"Of course there is enough. You may take off your coats if you want, it must be hot in here." Molly suggested. Fox nodded and shrugged off his coat to reveal a skin tight black sleeveless shirt with a turtleneck that showed off very impressive muscles. Fox had a thin waist and long legs that were hidden baggy, but silent, black pants. The thing that surprised the wizards the most, was the fact that he had pouches everywhere as well as several swords swung across his back in a way that they were concealed under the cloak.
There were at least ten pouches on each leg and several on his hip. There were bandages wrapped from his ankle to halfway up his shin. He wore black rubber shoes that made no noise and were opened at the end so that his toes stuck out. On his left shoulder was a swirl tattoo and he wore elbow length fingerless gloves with metal plating.
The other shinobi took off their cloaks as well. They wore the same outfit but with fewer pouches and none of the other shinobi, except for Snake, had any swords. Deer had almost no weapons besides a small pouch on his thigh.
"Do you always carry so many weapons?" Mr. Weasley asked, his question mainly directed towards Fox.
"Of course. You can never have too many weapons in your arsenal." He said proudly. Moody was surprised at how easily and silently he moved around with so many metal blades attached to him. He sat down at one head of the table while Dumbledore sat at the other and the other shinobi sat as close as they could to their captain.
"Except that one time when you brought at least fifty swords out to the middle of a battlefield." Deer muttered under his breath, but everyone could hear him.
"What are you talking about? Nothing went wrong." Fox said, narrowing his blue eyes at Deer, who slowly looked away from the intense gaze.
"Of course, your version of 'nothing' must mean having thirteen swords accidentally fly towards us because you accidentally pulled one out too quickly," Wolf said, picking up where Deer left off.
"That is my version of nothing, thank you very much! Nobody was killed so everything turned out fine." Fox said. The wizards were watching the exchange with both confusion and surprise. They didn't think that the cold emotionless shinobi could change so quickly into being a group of long time friends.
"You seem to have forgotten that one of the swords ended up getting lodged into my leg." Dove said, making Fox tilt his head as if he was trying to remember. The wizards were shocked to say the least, how could someone forget stabbing your teammate in the leg.
"Really? I don't recall that happening. If you want to prove it then you should get the hospital records." Fox said, and Moody could see mischief swimming around in his eyes.
"The hospital records were burned by that accidental fire a few weeks ago." Dove seemed to realize something because as soon as he finished talking his eyes went wide and everyone saw the pupil-less white eyes that he had.
"It was you… You burned my hospital records." Dove said, narrowing his eyes into a glare and staring pointedly at Fox.
"I would never!" Fox said, putting his hands over his heart. "You know that I'm not the type of person to go that far for a simple joke."
"No, you wouldn't," Dove muttered before his head snapped back up. "You did it because you didn't want there to be evidence that you accidentally stabbed your teammate." Fox's eyes widened before they both curved into crescent shapes making it look like he was grinning evilly.
"I always somehow forget that you're even more of a jerk than Snake sometimes," Dove said, sulking a little. Snake looked at him coldly and the wizards felt the room temperature drop and the staring contest that had started between Snake and Dove.
"Why do you two fight so much, anyway?" Deer asked suddenly, entering the conversation. They both turned towards him, but he just stared back.
"Isn't it obvious? They're jealous of each other." Kiba muttered under his breath and all of the ANBU looked at him for a moment.
"Nah, that's not it," Fox said. "It must be because they're competing over who has the most fangirls." Snake's glare turned even colder than before and Dove rolled his eyes and went quiet.
"Those aren't fangirls," Wolf said, shivering slightly. "They're scary monsters who somehow know his every move." Fox snorted before suddenly sitting up straighter.
"There are people right outside the door," Fox said, his voice cold and hard, reminding the members of the order that no matter how friendly they could seem, they were still battle hardened warriors.