Disclaimer: Neither are mine. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, and Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-san.

Author's Note: Thank you all so much for taking the time to review my story. I love receiving your opinions, be they favorable or unfavorable, so please continue to provide me with your comments, questions, and concrit!

Thanks to Audrey (dragonmaiden08), my beta reader. It's all love.

Also, I'd like to give a belated thanks to Lady Shinigami, who helped me a lot with the original development of this story, working out just how this whole thing was gonna work and all. Without her and Audrey, I'm certain this story never would've even gotten off the ground.

Uzumaki Naruto and the Goblet of Fire

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Chapter Five: The Students of Konoha

"Wandless magic?" Harry Potter repeated, a look of surprise on his face, as he addressed his redheaded best friend, Ron Weasley.

Ron nodded, simultaneously biting into his sandwich and checking the time. The two boys were eating lunch in the Great Hall, and discussing the Triwizard Tournament, a topic that the students at Hogwarts had been gossiping about since Dumbledore had made his announcement a few days earlier. "That's what Hermione says, anyway," Ron said skeptically. "I don't get it. Without wands? How do they do it?"

"Still talking about Konoha Academy?" a voice said from behind the youngest Weasley son. "Honestly, Ron, wandless magic is hardly the mystery you think it is."

"Well, for you, obviously," Ron replied, rolling his eyes at Hermione as she took a seat beside him, dropping her books unceremoniously onto the table. "If you know so much, explain it."

Hermione sighed, her usual preparation for entering into a lecture. "From what I've read," she began, looking at her friends with a serious expression, "wandless magic is all based around the idea of chakra."

"Chakra?" said Harry, his dark eyebrows rising over the black frames of his glasses.

"Chakra is magical energy. With wandless magic, the witch or wizard performs hand seals, or gestures, which control the flow of the magical energy."

With a snort, Ron commented, "That's weird."

"Not really," Hermione retorted, looking cross. She seized an apple from a nearby tray. "All magic is fundamentally based on chakra, although we don't have a word for it. Our wands focus the chakra for us, and when a colored flash of light is emitted from our wands, that's the chakra. Do you see?" Hermione bit into the fruit.

"No," said Ron simply.

With another sigh, Hermione continued, setting her food on her plate, "The essential difference between our magic and theirs is how we focus our magical energy, our chakra. Every witch and wizard has a different level of chakra, which is equivalent to their potential level of power. For instance, I would have a lower level of chakra than, say, Professor Dumbledore.

"This chakra can physically manifest itself in the form of light or color. Because we focus our chakra with our wands, when the chakra manifests itself, it is through our wands. However, because wandless wizards and witches don't use an outside focus, their chakra is regulated throughout their body."

Harry asked hesitantly, "Wait, so what determines who can do wandless magic?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "Witches and wizards with the proper chakra flow system for wandless magic can either come from a family of wandless wizards or a family of wand-using wizards, or they can be muggleborns. It's really not known why they have the particular ability, but they do. The proper chakra control system does tend to run in families, but it isn't a strictly inherited trait."

Tilting his head to the side as he surveyed his female friend, Ron said slowly, "So even you couldn't do wandless magic?"

"Well, you and I could perform small tricks of wandless magic—every witch and wizard can. It's actually been shown that young children have an amazing aptitude for wandless magic." Hermione looked at Harry. "Didn't you ever perform magic when you were younger, before you knew you were a wizard?" At Harry's nod, Hermione continued, "And you certainly didn't have a wand then. However, as we grow older and our chakra flow systems become fully developed, if we don't have the proper system to support wandless magic, then performing magic without wands becomes increasingly difficult."

"I thought you said it wasn't complicated," Ron complained.

"It's not!" Hermione protested. "This is all very basic—I've only ever read a little about wandless magic, after all. Anything else?" she added in a clipped tone.

"Why haven't we heard of any famous wandless wizards?" wondered Harry, thinking of the collectable cards that came with Chocolate Frogs, which featured the smiling, blinking faces of well-known witches and wizards.

Hermione sighed once again. "Most people who are trained in wandless magic become a special class of Auror called an ANBU, and part of being an ANBU is that you must keep your identity a secret."

"Why?"

"For your own protection, of course. Now," she said curtly, before her friends had a chance to question her further, "if you don't mind, I only came here to grab a bite to eat. I've got to get back to the library."

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry. Harry nodded his agreement.

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Hermione Granger squinted again, but, unsurprisingly, the words before her eyes did not evolve, rearrange, or alter themselves in any way. She had read Hogwarts, A History several times in her years at school—thoroughly the first two times; and with only a little less precision ever since. However, at the moment, she couldn't help but hope that she had missed a paragraph somewhere, or accidentally skipped a page at some point. But no; not once, within all of Hogwarts, A History's many pages, was there a single mention of—not even a vague allusion to—house elves and their work at Hogwarts. These poor creatures were being exploited and enslaved by humans with superiority complexes, and there wasn't even one word on it. Unspeakably frustrated, Hermione let out a short, indignant cry under her breath.

"What's wrong?" said a soft, familiar voice at Hermione's side. Startled, she whipped her head sharply over to see a thin, pretty girl with red hair and a sprinkling of freckles. It was Ginny, Ron's sister.

"Oh, Ginny, hello," Hermione said politely, smiling warmly at the girl.

Ginny remarked pointedly, "It's awfully late, you know, Hermione. Ron and Harry went to bed ages ago."

"Did they? I didn't notice." Hermione looked around the nearly empty common room. "Please don't say anything to them, but they've been so hung up on discussing this Tournament—and Konoha, in particular—that I've taken to ignoring them half of the time."

Ginny chuckled, before admitting, "I can't say I blame you. They have been talking obsessively about the Tournament. Well, when they aren't talking about Professor Moody." Quietly, she added, "You must admit it's exciting, though, about the delegates from the other schools. They're arriving tomorrow. I can hardly believe it."

"Yes," said Hermione thoughtfully, her fingers rubbing the thick pages of the book she still held in her hand. "Yes, it is exciting." Suddenly, she snapped the book shut, the sound echoing dully in the silence of the common room. "However," she said, standing, "there are more important things to think about than this silly Tournament and the students from Durmstrang and Konoha."

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Despite what Hermione had said the night before, on the morning of October 30, she rose early, her mind buzzing with a strange anticipation. She did not admit this to anyone, but, during breakfast, Ron had surveyed the slight stains of tiredness beneath her eyes with a knowing smirk.

Class had seemed to pass at a snail's pace, the students' excitement so heavy that it seemed to coat everything in a dull fog, slowing time and constricting movement, until, finally, it was time for the last class of the day, Potions. This realization was met with some combination of happiness (for the delegates would soon be arriving) and worry (because Professor Snape might still try to poison at least one of them, despite the time constraint; brewing antidotes was, after all, a time-consuming enterprise).

In the end, however, no one was poisoned, and even the Potions Master himself failed to spoil the students' good moods.

Harry and Ron's books and bags were abandoned in the Gryffindor common room, but Hermione insisted on depositing her things properly, in her dormitory. The price the trio paid for those few extra moments was that they were trapped toward the back of the entrance hall, behind a swarm of chattering underclassmen. However, Professor McGonagall's authoritative voice quickly called out, ordering the Gryffindors into a line (the other Heads of House following suit), and, soon, all of the students of Hogwarts looked respectable, queued up as they trailed down the steps and gathered in front of the school.

Hermione brushed her robes instinctively as she stood shoulder to shoulder with her fellow Gryffindors, all of them eagerly awaiting the foreign students. Ignoring the idiotic comments Ron was making (honestly, how many times did she have to remind him that you cannot Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds?), Hermione shivered in the slight chill, and let her head fall back to view the dusty sky, the pale moon already visible.

It was then that she saw something.

She wasn't sure what it was, at first. It was very large and looked black against the sky, as it gently floated through the air, almost rocking from side to side as it drew closer to the ground. Hermione's breath caught in her throat. Surely that wasn't—?

"A leaf!" a First Year exclaimed, pointing excitedly to what was now clearly recognizable as a great, green leaf, wide and waxy in appearance. The Hogwarts students began murmuring to one another, their voices rising and falling simultaneously, like a school-drama melody.

"The delegates from Konoha have arrived," announced Dumbledore over the din. These words brought sudden silence, and those few still speaking immediately ceased when two figures leaped from the leaf, which was still suspended several feet above the ground, and easily landed on the ground. There were several calls from the leaf to the two boys who had jumped, but they disregarded the shouts, instead letting out their own triumphant whoops.

Hermione noticed that this boasting was punctuated by several short, sharp barks, coming from a small lump in one of the boy's arms. This lump jumped from the boy and began running in circles around him, yapping shrilly. Suddenly, it occurred to Hermione that the lump was actually a dog.

"Naruto! Kiba!" scolded a voice. Off of the leaf, which had finally grounded, stepped a buxom blonde woman—the speaker—wearing the same forest green robes as her students, the same sash wrapped around her waist, marked with a leaf symbol: This was undoubtedly Professor Tsunade, Headmistress of Konoha.

"Not fair," Ron said when he could finally form coherent sentences. "We get Dumbledore, and they get…that." Hermione glanced at him in time to see his eyes scanning the Headmistress's body. She harrumphed angrily, snapping her gaze away from the Weasley and focusing back on the scene the two Konohans were causing.

Professor Tsunade was speaking in a strict voice to the boys, probably rebuking them for their dramatics, but neither of them had the decency to look even a little sheepish. Still laughing in a giddy sort of way, they returned to the leaf, where their classmates greeted them with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore was stepping forward to greet the Headmistress. "It's very good to meet you. Ah, the vibrancy of youth," he said sardonically, gesturing to the Konohan students. Soberly, he added, "I was very sorry to hear about Sarutobi. He was a great wizard. I regret that I did not see him more in his final years."

"The Third was my mentor. He spoke of you," Professor Tsunade said quietly, without the slightest trace of an accent, as she shook Dumbledore's proffered hand. "I'm very glad to meet you." After a moment, she asked, "Are we the first to arrive?"

"Yes."

The Headmistress looked thoughtful for a moment, before saying, "These are my students, obviously." She waved to the cluster of students still standing on the leaf, shrugging their bags onto their shoulders. The two troublemakers from earlier seemed to have calmed down. One of the other students—a tall boy with short, shiny black hair, which lay flat to his head, and dark, thick eyebrows—held a bundle in his arms, though Hermione could not determine from where she stood just what it was.

Dumbledore smiled again, and brought his hands together in a soft clap. Slowly, the Hogwarts students caught on, and they began to clap as well. "It's wonderful to have you here. Welcome," Dumbledore said, when the applause died down.

"Thank you," replied Professor Tsunade. "May we go inside? My kids would surely like some time to recuperate from our journey, at least until the students from Durmstrang arrive."

"But of course. What should we do with, ah…?" Dumbledore gestured toward the leaf.

"Dispose of it however you like. It's a fairly simple technique—the Second's creation, actually—and I can just do it again when it's time for us to leave."

Dumbledore nodded again, and the Konohan students began filing slowly toward the main entrance. As they were passing through the path created by the parting of the Hogwarts students, Hermione overheard some of the foreign students talking: the blonde boy from earlier, his eyes wide, was yammering loudly in a language that was clearly not English (Hermione had already deduced that it was Japanese); a girl nearby seemed to be trying to shush the blonde, while a black-haired boy muttered something under his breath that sounded like "baka."

They were through the door before Hermione could hear any more.

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Ron hadn't thought that anything Durmstrang had could excite him more than Konoha's Headmistress had, but that was before he'd known that Viktor Krum was among Durmstrang's population.

To put it mildly, Krum was a god. He was the best Quidditch player Ron had ever seen; the way he flew was just phenomenal. Even Hermione had seemed impressed by Krum at the World Cup—although, of course, being Hermione, she still didn't have a full appreciation of the Bulgarian seeker.

And, while Ron certainly appreciated the Headmistress's assets, in terms of importance, his hero ranked a little higher for him. Which is why, when he had the chance, he attempted to call the Durmstrang students over to the Gryffindor table to sit. Instead, they sat with the Slytherins, and Ron spent the next few minutes cursing Malfoy under his breath.

But then a Konohan student, an older boy with his hair pulled back in a short ponytail and a bored expression on his face, asked, "Can we sit here?", and Ron had felt a little better. Even though the Headmistress sat at the staff table, all of the Konohan students were around Ron, giving him a good chance to scrutinize them.

The first person Ron noticed was the student who sat across from him, a plump boy with a bright smile, who was munching on a bag of crisps he had clutched in his hand. Ron glanced to the boy's left, where, directly in front of Hermione, sat a girl with strawberry blonde hair—in this light, it was almost pink—who was smiling happily, if a bit nervously.

Ron saw Hermione introduce herself to the other girl. "I'm Hermione Granger," she said in a kind voice.

The other girl seemed to hesitate a moment, before responding slowly, her voice only slightly accented, "Sakura Haruno. Nice to meet you."

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Hermione said, and the other girl, Sakura, nodded, a wan smile appearing on her face. Ron noticed that she was fairly pretty (nothing compared to the Headmistress, of course), despite her rather large forehead.

"This is Naruto Uzumaki," Sakura was saying, pointing to a boy with an ecstatic grin. Ron realized he was one of the students who had jumped from the leaf. Gesturing to the person just to the left of Naruto, Sakura said, "And that's Sasuke Uchiha."

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Hermione repeated, this time directing the statement toward the two boys. Neither of them seemed to notice her, however, and, as Dumbledore's voice called everyone to attention moments thereafter, she forgot about the incident altogether.

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The Konohans were camping out on the back lawn.

That is what Dean had told Harry and Ron early the next morning, and Harry had not quite been able to believe it. Even knowing the comforts that magical tents could afford, Harry didn't think that someone would actually be willing to stay in them for almost an entire school year—even during the harsh winter! However, upon quickly looking out a window on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, he indeed saw two small canvas tents set up not far from the gleaming lake, where the mighty Durmstrang ship was anchored.

"Think about it, Harry," Hermione said when Harry brought it up. She yawned softly into her hand. "The Durmstrang students are staying on their ship, but the Konohans could hardly stay on their leaf all year. Those tents must've been what that student was carrying," she added in a contemplative voice.

"What?" asked Ron.

"I noticed that one of the Konohan students was carrying a bundle when they arrived. It must've been the tents."

"Oh, you mean that one with the really bushy eyebrows?" Ron laughed a little loudly. "Yeah, I noticed that, too." Hermione seemed a bit surprised that Ron had been so observant, but he shrugged it off and said, "Now, let's go take a look at that Goblet, shall we?"

Harry broke out in a crooked grin. "You lead the way," he suggested, and the three students hurried to the Great Hall, minds already abuzz with questions about the mysterious Goblet of Fire.

Author's Note: So, here it is. The arrival of Konoha, and the thoughts of the Hogwarts regulars. And, yes, that's Ron ogling Tsunade in there (and, yes, I am evil; why do you ask?). Also, a little more information on the principles of wandless magic—hopefully it's becoming a little clearer to you now.

And, yes, I am aware that Akamaru gets HUGE in canon, after the time skip, but, for the sake of simplicity, I'm keeping him small. Also, I'm aware that Sakura's hair is pink (I'm pretty sure everyone's aware of that), but, since this is set in the HP world, where people have normal hair color, I decided on strawberry blonde. Hope that's cool with you all.

Next time: "Naruto," Tsunade began seriously, a small, unhappy smile on her face. She ran a hand through her golden hair, sighing softly under her breath. "Wait a moment." Another sigh. "I need to talk to you about something."