A/N: My second HPxN story! My first one, Trouble, will be on hold until I get the inspiration for it again. But there should be a third one on the way anytime soon, that one with the pairing Sakura & Ron (don't ask XD it just seems like fun to write!).

Pairings for this story: SakuraxHarry, HinataxNaruto, and HermionexRon.

Unknown Hero

Sealing One's Fate

Naruto grinned widely as his fourth bowl of ramen was placed in front of him. The owner of the ramen shop could only smile at his favorite customer, who was demolishing the bowl. The boy's teammate sat next to him, swirling her chop stick around in her ramen, looking at it with disdain.

"ARIGATOU!" Naruto cheered, slapping the money needed for their collective five bowls of ramen on the table. Sakura looked up from her mostly full bowl, pushed it aside, and stood as well.

"Gomen, Teuchi-san. I'm just not very hungry..." She gave him a small bow of apology, which he waved off.

"It's fine, Sakura." He nodded with a smile, disappearing behind the counter with their two bowls. Sakura turned around as well, following Naruto to the Hokage Tower to brief her shishou on their mission.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto chimed, draping his arm around her shoulder. Long ago did he realize his crush on her was not only misguided, but it was going nowhere. Now their relationship is purely sibling-like; they've become best friends ever since Sasuke left them. They were a pair, those two. He made use of his demon, as well as his ninjutsu abilities, while Sakura had an affinity for medical ninjutsu and – thanks to her superhuman strength – was a feared taijutsu user as well.

"That mission was easy! I don't know why you're so down." He commented, looking down at her. Normally, she would share her feelings with him…but he didn't know why she was just so sad. They just had a successful A-ranked mission together! Shouldn't she be happy?

"I still let someone die, Naruto." She sighed, eyes downcast. It wasn't a lie – but it wasn't the whole truth either. She had seen Sasuke. Her Sasuke – he was there – stared straight at her, scowled, and vanished. She couldn't help but feel weak. She didn't even have the guts to run over and punch him in the face for all the pain he caused her. And that falter made her miss one of the few survivors in the wreckage being crushed by a building, only to be found dead half an hour later.

Naruto pressed his lips to the top of her head in a comforting, brotherly way. "Everyone dies, Sakura. Yes, even you will die once in your life." She elbowed him for that, to which he laughed. She smiled, earnestly glad that he could make her smile when she was upset. Naruto was one of a very select group of people that could do that, and the entire group consisted of blondes: Naruto, Ino, and Temari.

"Keep that up and you'll be dead a hell of a lot sooner," She half-heartedly threatened. Naruto laughed even louder, but removed his arm in fear of it being snapped in half.

The rest of their trek to the tower was in silence, and Tsunade's intoxicated talk with the duo went relatively…well. While she was more irritable in her drunken state, she was deaf to words that would usually cause the speaker of said word(s) to be in the hospital in two seconds flat. And, thankfully, one of those words was Naruto's use of "baa-chan", and his insatiable whining.

After briefing Tsunade on the highs and lows of the mission, with promises of full reports in the morning, Tsunade sent Sakura home. "Naruto, stay." Her stern look to Sakura was all she needed as reassurance to high tail it to her comfy bed.

Naruto, on the other hand, sat back down in the not-so-comfortable wooden chair in front of Tsunade's desk. Tsunade pressed a finger to her temple in hopes of clearing her mind to what she wanted to say next.

"Ah, yes, Naruto." She announced him as if he just entered the room. Naruto jumped at this. "You and Sakura have another mission, along with another ninja I have yet to select." Naruto cringed, not at the fact of another mission…but he knew who wouldn't appreciate it. Especially with it being right after their latest mission.

"I'll brief you in on the mission now, but you will give this scroll to Sakura, restating the mission in case you've forgotten and giving more details." She hastily threw him the scroll, and he looked up at her in horror.

"But…Baa-chan…why do I have to give Sakura-chan the scroll?" His voice was desperate, hoping that someone else could tell Sakura of the mission. Anyone, anyone but him!

Tsunade gave him a lazy, triumphant smirk. "Because I am the Hokage, and I say so." With that she pushed him out of her office, only after giving him the tiniest details of the mission.

In that instant, Naruto decided that he could take his time getting back to the apartment he shared with Sakura – again, strictly brother-sister relationship. Both of their parents were dead, so why live separately when they were already so close? – as to delay the dreaded moment in which he would unveil the scroll that would, inevitably, cause his murder by one Haruno Sakura.

Minerva McGonagall sighed irritably, standing in front of Dumbledore and Snape, who were both talking in hushed tones. The eldest wizard looked up, his blue eyes crinkling with a smile.

"Ah, Minerva. I'm so glad you could make it." Snape only nodded in greeting, in which McGonagall narrowed her eyes before turning back to Dumbledore.

"And what is it you needed to speak to me about?" Her stern face showed none of her internal suspicion. She never liked Snape in the first place, and with him being the head of Slytherin House wasn't much of a help to him either.

Dumbledore fully turned his body towards her in his chair, placing his folded hands on his lap. "It is quite likely that Draco Malfoy has followed in his father's footsteps and joined the ranks of the Death Eaters." McGonagall inwardly flinched. She was quite aware of Snape's former affiliation with the Death Eaters, and wondered if he still held any ties with them. He was friendly with Lucius Malfoy even before their Death Eater years together, and surely-

"I've commissioned for the student of an old colleague of mine to send three capable ninjas to Hogwarts for the up-coming year. They are to be sorted and treated as foreign exchange students, and the mission they're being assigned is to figure out if Draco really has affiliated himself with the Death Eaters." McGonagall pursed her lips, letting the information run through her mind.

"But how will they fit in with the students? If they can't use magic-"

"On the contrary," Snape cut in, in which McGonagall scowled at his rudeness, "These ninja already use a form of magic. To fit in with the students, all they need to do is learn how to use wands as an outlet…and how to recreate spells."

Dumbledore looked between the two, outwardly oblivious to the tension. He gave them both smiles before giving a dismissive wave to McGonagall. "That is all, Minerva. My apologies for interrupting you in…whatever you were doing." McGonagall eyed him sharply, wondering just what was going through his head.

But the look in Dumbledore's eye gave away that he knew to be cautious of Snape, but wished to give nothing away. And with that, the witch turned on her heel and left the wizards to their own discussion. She had better things to do than worry about one of the most powerful wizards in the world, anyway.

Long ago Naruto had figured out that Sakura had some form of Napoleon Complex. She made up for her short stature with sheer strength, intelligence, and total and utter fear.

She was sure to strike terror in all those that opposed her, including her friends. Especially Naruto.

She was his little sister, one of the few people he would readily die for…but she was just scary. And he wouldn't doubt she'd try to destroy the world if given a reason to.

With that in mind, he always took extra caution in telling her news she didn't want to hear.

Now was such a case. Tsunade-baa-chan had held him back to discuss a new mission, an even longer mission than the only they had just completed. This mission was, for now, a year long. It was common knowledge that Sakura hated missions one after another, especially long-term missions. With not even a day in between them, Naruto shuddered…for he was a dead man.

The scroll that he carried in his hands felt like a ton of bricks as he made his way to the apartment. He stood in front of the door for a good ten minutes, staring at the innocent numbers 518 in a manner that would surely have made Uchiha Sasuke laugh at his "friend's" distress.

Once he slowly and quietly opened the door, he let out a yelp at the sight before him. Through the dark living room stood Sakura, glowering at him, hands on her hips. Well, the only part he could really see was her hair, which looked like a faint glow in the black…and she looked scary as hell. Naruto almost fell on his rear as she neared him.

"What did shishou want?" Her voice was icy and while she really didn't care about her shishou's relations – she wasn't even phased when Tsunade told her things that went on between her and Orochimaru in their younger years, nor her current thing with Jiraiya – but she prided herself on being the current Hokage's favorite student.

So it was fair to say that she was jealous of Naruto. Because, really, since when did her shishou want to just talk to him, alone? And the matter was obviously unrelated to his Hokage training, as Tsunade always had this certain air of irritation when discussing that as it made her feel her actual age.

Naruto gulped at the Napoleon- no, Hitler-like kunoichi in front of him as he shakily closed the door behind him. Sakura snapped her fingers together after completing a short series of hand signs, and her finger tips glowed. A make-shift light bulb. She advanced slowly, due to her short legs, but it made it all the more menacing.

"Ah…Sakura-chan…it's late…" Naruto tried to distract her train of thought, yawning widely in hopes of getting her to yawn as well. She kept her jaw clenched to suppress the yawn, intensifying her stare.

"Naruto…" She hissed, reminding Naruto of Shikamaru's mother. (The woman was kind, really, but she was worked up over the littlest of things, one reason being her husband and son's laziness.)

"Alright, alright! Baa-chan gave us another mission." He waved the scroll innocently in the air. To his delight, her glare was directed to the scroll.

"Bullshit," Her tone made him jump in fear. He swore to kami he just heard the devil. And when he thought about it – while Sakura was busy plotting the death of her shishou – baa-chan was like the grim reaper and Sakura was the devil. Tsunade was pure evil and sentenced him to death by extraction of his soul, and Sakura was the one to inflict the most torture while she slowly completed the sentence given by the grim reaper.

He prayed to anyone and everything that he'd survive until the morning, even with the two beasts of hell against him.