Worth A Shot

by FangReon

As the Second Wizard War is about to unfold Albus Dumbledore thinks that involving some old allies might be a help. Set HP5 OotP After 4th Shinobi War AU . Pairings as Canon. Rated M for later content.

9. Chapter Eight

The next days were filled with mindless cleaning, shrieking portraits, yelling and a handful of stupid discussions. Shikamaru tried and failed to spend as much time as he could in his room, going over notes and instructions given to him by the Hokage and Captain Fox. He also found a few notes by Dove - mostly overviews of the layout of the house and the area the Headquarters were located in - as well as a report by Slug, who had given it to Fox while he was over in Hogsmeade, regarding the layout of the school and the seals used around the grounds. As much as it was, he'd finished looking through everything in a matter of hours, making notes on his own and rendering some information useless. The basic knowledge had already been pushed into his head days prior and he had essentially nothing to do anymore. He didn't want to join in on the cleaning as he knew what kind of questions would be asked, and all and everything would be nothing but troublesome in every possible regard. So instead he lay on his bed, hands behind his head, listening to the sounds of the house, the snoring of a painting on a wall, and the image of a very lovely Kunoichi on his mind. She wasn't that lovely, or at least not as other people would define lovely, but he thought she was just as fine as she was. They had danced around each other for quite some time, month, maybe even years, but in the end a very fine shove into her direction - literally, as Naruto had pushed him towards her with a very vulpine grin on his face - had been enough to see that he had been crushing on her. They had gone on a date, then another, and then another, until they had officially announced 'yes, we are indeed a couple, now shut up'. It had been a troublesome time, the villages were just about done rebuilding the last destroyed areas and peace was still a feeble thing, no matter how hard everyone had worked together to establish this peace in the first place. They hadn't been able to see each other for days at times, and on others they had to work together so closely, that they spend hours in one room, perched in between piles of paperwork and empty coffee mugs. It had been a stressful time and both of them were happy if all of it was over and they would have a bit of normalcy once in a while.

"Thinking about home?" Naruto asked, softly closing the door behind him.

Shikamaru nodded, stretching his arms above his head. "As nice as the world here is, nothing can compare with home."

"Nothing can compare with Temari, you mean," Naruto chuckled, putting his mask on the table and sitting on the lonely chair in the room.

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows and snorted after a short while. "Sure. So, what's with you. Off duty for today?"

Naruto shrugged with his shoulders, putting his feet on top of the table. "I wouldn't call it off duty. Just, I dunno, in need of freedom. I'm sick of the mask by now. Wearing it day in and out is a pain in the ass. I have no idea how Kakashi wore that half-mask of his all the time. It gets so warm under it after a while and it starts smelling," he complained, gesturing wildly with his hands. He looked ridiculous, hair greasy and matted against his head, his face paler than usual and persistent stubble on his jawline and chin.

"You look like you might start smelling any second now," Shikamaru commented, a laugh hidden behind his grin. He sat up, leaning against the wall behind him. "When was the last time you had a shower?"

"What?" Naruto balked. He flinched when he slid his hand through his hair, feeling the grease. "I didn't know it was that bad already. It's because of that hood, I swear. Dressing like a proper ANBU agent sucks."

Shikamaru smiled. That was the Naruto he'd missed the last days. Open hearted, open minded, emotional and much more easy going than during his duty. Being an ANBU Captain weighed heavily upon his shoulders, a burden much bigger than any of them had anticipated. Before the war, Naruto had cared about them as his precious people, about their lives, but he'd never held such a responsibility for them as he did now. His promotion to Captain had only been mere months before they had been assigned this mission, he was inexperienced and brasher than required for someone of his rank. The on-field promotion to Jonin had been too fast for most, and when rumours came up of him joining the ANBU and being promoted to Captain within months . . .lets just say it didn't go over well with some. They knew of his capability to fight and to lead, but they didn't want him to rise this fast. Others had gone this way before, and most of them had gotten a big head about it. Shikamaru was sure that Naruto wouldn't be like this, but tell that to people that didn't know him as well as his friends did.

"I'm pretty sure you'll get over it," he pointed out, laying an arm over his eyes.

Naruto laughed quietly. "Yeah sure, just go back to sleep."

"I'm not sleeping, I'm thinking over here."

Another chuckle. "Okay then. What ya thinking about?"

Shikamaru grunted. "Nothing much, really."

"Mhhhh."

They fell into an easy silence, Naruto's soft breathing easily reaching his ears. It was nice, not having to talk all the time, or listen to someone talking while being in the same room. Especially while living in the same house with lots of overactive and loud wizards and witches.

"I'm worried Shikamaru," Naruto said, breaking through the silence. He sat up straight in his chair, a finger scratching his earlobe. "Something is off here, but I can't tell you why."

"That the reason why you haven't told us, yet, despite having this feeling since days?"

The blond whipped his head around, a heavy frown on his face. He found it very irritating that Shikamaru always knew what was happening around him but didn't show it. It was a nasty trait when used against yourself. He stared at his strategist, trying to figure out how he knew about that.

"The way you move your head from time to time, seemingly random, as if stretching your neck. But you aren't stretching. It's too forward for that," Shikamaru said, gesturing with his hand. "It's like a birds movements, you know. Scanning the environment rapidly in short sequences. Hanabi might not yet notice it, but I do. I've seen Asuma do it many times over again, seen my father do it. It's instinct for Shinobi like us. Hanabi's too young for that . . . and maybe it has to do with her being a Hyuga, as I've noticed that Hinata isn't one to do that either." Shikamaru stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly. "Beside that one, your whole body language is . . ."

"Yadda, yadda," Naruto interrupted. "I've got it ten minutes ago, Shika, you know everything."

Shikamaru smirked, watching shadows flutter across the ceiling. "So, what's got you worried?"

"Like I said, I don't know. It's a nagging feeling at the back of my neck, like someone's standing right behind me, claws stroking my cheeks. I can't really explain it," he sighed. "Something's at work here, and that it will go down soon."

"Maybe because it reminds you of home," Shikamaru guessed.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"Before the war broke out, everyone knew that it would come soon. We're Shinobi so the chances of the next war are higher than the probability of a new legend rising. And you should know how many of Konoha's Shinobi became legends within the years since its founding. Small scuffles will end as wars. It's just like that. So when our parents and teachers started shifting their feets and became restless in the middle of the day, we acted accordingly. Weeks later all hell broke loose with the first Jinjuriiki dead and Suna's gates broken and bloody. Then Pain came and soon enough the first of our Shinobi were dead for good, even the best of them.

"Asuma being one of the first to fall to an undeclared war. The same will happen here and both you and I can see it. Even Hanabi can feel it in the air, watch the way she looks at the wizards. She doesn't trust them to act like they should, the same way we don't think they will."

Shikamaru sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

"This war is undeclared, yet. And I personally don't think it will be declared for a long time, as this Ministry is useless from what I've heard. People are vanishing already, Dumbledore's reports from weeks back, that he sent to Tsunade show that very clearly. But do they act? No they don't. This Ministry acts on the thought that as long as the fiend hasn't entered the great stage openly, they are no threat, they don't exist. They are stupid and naive. They don't see what is clearly in front of their eyes, because they're afraid of what might happen if they speak it out loud.

"Think about it, Naruto. Their children know what happens, their children tell them, but they won't listen. What kind of world is this? They are overly unprepared for a war to come, and I don't even think that they will be prepared once it breaks out. It is a massacre waiting to happen."

Naruto listened intently to his friend, couldn't believe what he was saying. He knew it, of course, had thought it many a time since his arrival here. But to speak it out loud? He hadn't thought about doing that once. He bit his lip, frowning.

"But why would that make me feel so off, Shika?"

"'Cause you have seen as much death and slaughter as I have. And you've seen the hurt and pain in the eyes of our youngest generation when they were told their parents have died, full of honour and love for their village. Because you find yourself in Harry Potter."

"Potter?!"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Don't you see it?"

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, imagining the boy before his inner eye. "He's scrawny and short and angry...If not for the short I'd say he's related to Sasuke-teme."

Shikamaru snorted. "Not what I meant, but thanks for the mental image."

"What did ya mean, then. I can't quite follow you here," Naruto said with tongue between his teeth.

"He's an orphan, just like you, right?" he pointed out.

"Yeah," the blonde agreed.

"And when you were little, people tended to mock you. They didn't listen to you and didn't take anything you said seriously, right?"

Naruto huffed, clearly unhappy with those memories. "Sure."

Shikamaru nodded, fingering his pocket for a cigarette. "There you have it. You and I have been following the wizarding newspapers, and they make a laughing stock of the boy. They see him as a liar, as crazy, following Dumbledore as if the boy is a puppet to be used. They don't listen to his warnings, even though half of them see the possible truth. The boy is called a hero since his birth, much like you should have been."

"'Should have' being the right way to describe it," Naruto said, thinking back to mental conversation he had held with his dead father. "Not that I can imagine what that would have been like. And seriously. I'd rather have my parents with me, than growing up like shit. Plus then the whole -"

"Uchiha shit wouldn't have happened, I know," Shikamaru said, blowing out breath in a huff. "But see, you can at least think yourself into the boy. He yearns for a family, watch the way he interacts with his friends. He is treated like family, like he belongs, but he yearns for a family himself,much like you yearned when you were a kid."

"I don't really see where you going with this, Shika."

"Wait for it, will you?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, dismissively waving a hand in front of him. "I didn't say anything, go on."

"Right now, you are the hero Konoha has waited for, for years. Just imagine it. You see a threat rising right in front of your eyes, an old threat maybe, one that all of us have seen killed . . ."

"Madara."

"For example. Now, that you've seen him being resurrected, in all his glory and with all of his power- maybe even more- , you come to seek the aid of the Daimyo of Fire Country first of all, because you need money to power up Konoha's forces. But, despite being the hero of the last war, the one everyone's lives depended on, he doesn't listen to you. Because he's afraid of what that would mean. Not to his people , no, but to his own reputation, should he believe such a boy as you. And then, later when he realises, once the first people died due to strange circumstances, that something kind of true might have been to your warning, he still doesn't say that the enemy has returned, because -"

"Now he's afraid that it would ruin his reputation and throw him off his position for sure," Naruto completed that thought. "Yeah. That would be a problem, wouldn't it. I think now I can follow you, Shika. I see were Potter and I are similar to each other, where you think I can reflect myself in his image."

"Or his in yours. . . Say, wouldn't you be angry about that too, wouldn't want to know what has happened once you're pulled away from the front again?"

Naruto shrugged, knotting his fingers together. "'Course I'd be angry. Much like last time." Training with Bee had been great in its own regards, he had learned much more about himself than he ever thought he would. Hell, he'd met his mother! So all in all he was much more than glad about his training, but it had angered him so much more when he'd learned that all of it had originally been done for the sake of keeping him safe, and nothing more. His friends had been out there, fighting not only for their own sake but for him as well. He had wanted so much to fight with them but Tsunade had been sure to keep im locked away for his own safety. And so he had been safe while the first of Konoha's proud Shinobi had fallen.

"But he isn't angry about being kept safe while others die. He doesn't see that yet. What he sees is that his friends are working, that they think he's too young. Potter doesn't even recognize that it's not only him that's been kept away from danger. It's his youngster friends as well. Because their families worry."

"Naruto . . ."

"What?", he said, the angry lines around his mouth tightening. "The boy himself is ignorant. I've heard him talk, you know. In that regard he isn't like me at all. I didn't really care for my own sake if I was locked away, kept hidden and safe from all danger. I was angry because of you. He's angry -"

"Because they stopped listening to him. I do see that like this as well, Naruto. But in essence it isn't his fault is it? It's this society that has forced him to behave like this. He was treated a hero, a saint, before he even knew why things were as they are. They always treated him like a saviour. Like there's nobody else out there that has done great things during their last war. They showed him fondness of deeds that weren't even really his own. So, without actively doing great things, they respected him for something done years ago. He never knew his parents because of it, and maybe somewhere in his mind, when Cedric Diggory died, it was just another consequence of his acting. Doing good, results in loss, doing nothing also results in loss. He doesn't want anything bad to happen to others because of him, but he can't really think that far. He just sees the moment. His conscious might not even link the death of Diggory to his own acts, but to the rise of Voldemort, the very same man that is to blame for his parents death. But unconsciously, he does, and so he might blame himself if someone else might die because of him. It's a spiral that he can't escape from, Naruto."

"So for him everything seems like a bad end, but it will ease his mind if he did something to even just try and save them. That's why he hates being ignored?"

Shikamaru scratched his head. "I guess so. But I might as well be totally wrong about it."

Naruto snorted. "Since when are you wrong about anything?"

"If I'd always been right about everything, Asuma wouldn't be dead," he sighed, flopping back onto the bed, an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He played with it with his tongue, staring at Naruto. "Just keep it in mind, when acting around him."

"Okay. . . But what do we do about the Ministry? We need to get them to at least tell people what's going on."

"Woah," Shikamaru stopped him. "This is not our war, Uzumaki, so calm down.

"Speaking of it," he said," have Tsunade's orders regarding your wishes arrived yet?"

"Nope, no toad in sight."

Shikamaru frowned. "How long's it been?"

Naruto bit his tongue, eyebrows drawn tight. "Too long, really. No idea what has happened, I worry a bit, though. It couldn't be lost, they never get lost. . . " he rambled, playing with a stray lock of hair. It was quite funny to watch him act so normally when just hours ago he'd donned an ANBU mask and acted like the toughest guy ever down at the kitchen table.

"Maybe the council aren't through with their voting, yet, as that's the only other thing that I can think about," he said looking to Shikamaru for help, but he just stared at the ceiling again, as if that would solve their problems.

"This time," he said, "I seriously have no idea, Naruto. But if you say that the toad will arrive soon enough, we can worry about it later on."

Naruto was about to sigh in relief, when there was a soft knock on the door. Shikamaru looked to his friend, who had already slipped back into his robes and masks. The Captain raised a hand, sliding over to the closed door and removing a glowing seal from it with a flick of his fingers.

"Yes?" he asked very politely, as if their conversation had not just been interrupted.

And angry sniff was heard, before the door was opened from the outside. Dove was wet and shaking as she stepped into the room. She closed the door behind her, slipping the hood of her head, showing off her dripping hair to her comrades. Fox applied yet another seal on the doorframe, before he slowly took off her mask. Angry blue eyes stared first at him and then at the other man in the room.

"How's outside? Bright and sunny?" Fox joked, a hand scratching his cheek under the mask.

"I hate you. So much," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It's a wonder that this house isn't underwater with how much rain is falling."

Fox put her mask on the table before taking off his, too. His face was easily as pale and tired as hers, so when her eyes traced the bags under his eyes, he winced.

"What's happened?" Ino asked, searching for an answer in the frowning lines around his mouth. When she didn't find any, she looked over to Shikamaru, who had lit a cigarette. He didn't say anything either, though, so she had to repeat her question. "What has happened, Naruto?"

"Nothing much. Just … The messenger toad's still missing and we haven't got an idea why. I mean I know Granny loves to ignore her paperwork most of the time, but...yeah."

Naruto shrugged off the black robe while explaining, and gestured for Ino to sit down on the lone chair. "Beside that, nothing has happened. We were waiting for you to come back and report, Ino."

She smiled, happy knowing that nobody had died while she was out of the house.

Ino looked from one to the other. Both of them had their eyes on her, watching her every move. She sighed, sinking deeper into the chair she had stolen from right under Naruto's arse.

"All we are missing at this moment is a toad and you look like someone just died in your arms."

"It's not just a toad!" Naruto protested. "It's a friend and currently the only way to communicate with Tsunade and the others back home. If it got lost that may as well mean that there is no way back for us either."

"What?" Shikamaru asked, shoulders tense with anticipation. "You didn't tell me that when I asked you five minutes ago."

"Well, I just remembered!" the blond waved a hand around, blue eyes bright.

"Brilliant!" Ino huffed. "So as long as the toad isn't here we don't know if we're stuck here without trying ourselves. That piece of information just made my day!"

"That's not my fault, guys, stop blaming me!"

Shikamaru pushed his cigarette into the corner of his mouth. "Nobody is blaming you, Naruto. You couldn't have known that, otherwise you wouldn't have put neither us nor your toadly friend onto the danger."

Naruto scratched the back of his head in relief, and maybe a bit sheepish, also. It wasn't every day that someone took a responsibility off of your shoulders. And not many had ever done so for him, in his whole life.

"Okay, so we unblamed Naruto and are worrying about losing ourselves in limbo," Ino summarized with a frown. "Anything else?"

"Slug and Raven have finished skimming the castle and the grounds," Shikamaru said. "Animals and other regional wildlife only. Nothing suspicious or too hard to handle."

He grabbed some of the papers from his files, showing them to the both of them. The pergament was blank, only dotted with ink at places.

"You playing connect-the-dots with us?" Ino asked, an eyebrow raised. Naruto looked only too happy with that question, since he, too, couldn't quite follow.

"It's supposed to be a map," Shikamaru answered, gesturing to the little inscription on the top left corner of the page. It read 'Floor One'.

"Obviously it cannot be drawn, as all the maps of the other floors ended up just like that, too."

"Every single one?" Naruto asked, as he took the stack of papers from Shikamaru. He leafed through them, a tightly drawn frown on his face, eyes skipping over the sheets. "Why? What is preventing it?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "They haven't added a note, so I guess they're still researching the causes."

"Couldn't be a genjutsu, or an illusion, could it?" Ino questioned, looking over Naruto's shoulder, following his progress. "I mean, we've got that in T&I, in the lower levels."

"No," the strategist said. "Then the map would be plain wrong, not suddenly vanishing from the paper it was drawn on. It was there and then it wasn't anymore, from what I could gather."

Ino looked at her old teammate, wondering what was going on in his head at this very moment. He had always a solution for every problem, but first he needed the pieces of the puzzle handed to him, before he could start solving it.

"We'll have to wait for them to analyse it further. The lack of a map shouldn't hinder us at all. I think all of us are good enough to navigate a territory that we've spend a day in. The castle is big, as much as I could see of it, but we've treated whole cities as if we'd grown up in them before. One building won't push us to our knees," Naruto said, putting the papers on the table beside him. He leaned back against it, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He ground his jaws. He then looked to Ino.

"Anything happening outside that I should know about?"

Ino shook her head. "No suspicious activity to report. Everything nice and quiet. I wrote a report so if something does turn up at a later point in time we may be able to reference it back to the date."

He nodded. "Okay, then. Get some rest, Ino, Shikamaru. You need it."

"What about you?" Shikamaru asked, taking a deep drag from his cigarette. "No sleep for you?"

"Not yet," Naruto said, stretching his arms above his head. "I'll go have a shower. And I'll pick some food up from the kitchen. I should also look after Hanabi once in a while. She's been stuck with cleaning the house with those kids for too long, now. I guess she'll have my head if I don't rescue her from it."

His little smirk was enough for Ino to smile, too, it was that infectious. It always was. When he grabbed another pile of papers from the table, she stopped him on his way out, though.

"What are you needing these for?"

He smiled. "Hinata told me to school Hanabi in diplomacy, so that's what I'm gonna do. I have a few questions that I want her to answer for me, but all of them need a little bit of trickery to find the true meaning behind, as well as the right solution for them. I expect her to find the right answer to them by the time we leave for Hogwarts."

Ino raised her eyebrows at that. "Let me guess. There's no right answer."

Naruto barked out a laugh. "There never is, Ino, you know that as well as I do."

She smiled at him, pushing a fist to his shoulder. "Now go, big scary leader."

Both of them heard the snort of Shikamaru in the background before there was a small cough and a curse.

Naruto pulled his mask on, leaving the cloak off for now. The thing smelled bad enough to scare an Inuzuka for life. They'd have to wash their sets of clothes soon, or they'd be left naked.

He pulled off the seal tag and threw a stack of new seals to his fellow blond.

"Half for you, half for Shika. Sealing tags, silencing tags and whatever else is coming in handy."

He opened the door without a sound, despite the its rusty hinges. The musty smell of the wooden floor and moldy carpet was instantly filling his nostrils, but he ignored that. he was the one drinking expired milk after all. His feet guided him down to the kitchen, where voices were already loudly arguing and discussing the most different of matters. All of the children were seated around the wooden table, Hanabi squeezed in between Hermione and Ginny at the corner. She looked ready to be ripping heads off, but spooned her soup instead.

"Oh, Captain," Sirius said from the other side of the room. "Joining us tonight, again."

"Yes," he said, fully aware of the watchful gazes everyone was throwing at him. He took a few paces before looking for a place to sit at. Molly smiled at him, gesturing towards Lupin and Bill at the far side of the room. "There's some space left, dear. Take a seat." She stood from her own seat, fetching some plates. "Where's Shikamaru and Dove? Will they come and eat with us, tonight, too?"

Fox shook his head, blond locks falling all around his mask, not hidden under his hood this time. "I'll take food up to them, later on."

His gaze locked on Hanabi, who staring at him with her mouth set in a tight line. He smiled beneath his mask, having seen that look of hers so often in the eyes of others. She recognized his hair. There weren't too many blond Shinobi in Konoha, after all. He had talked this situation over with Tsunade and Hinata many more times than he could count and both of them had told him that it didn't matter if Hanabi found out his true identity. It wasn't as if that would endanger him any more. The masks weren't there to hide their identity towards their own people, either. They existed to make enemies cower in fear, while keeping them from seeing that the ANBU were in fact human, by seeing their face, or - especially with newly initiated ANBU agents - flitters of emotions in their eyes. If Hanabi knew his name and could keep it to herself, then that would only speak for her own ability to be trusted with secrets, nothing more. It didn't really matter to him, as far as he was concerned.

Her stare wanted to shave the mask clear of his face, but he kept calm. He angled his head a little, showing her his amusement. She frowned only hardly, nearly glaring now. It made him want to snicker. Hard.

He sat down beside Bill, who had moved himself closer to his father, in order to create more space for the ANBU. He watched the blond settle down in between him and Lupin, a curious glint in his eyes.

"Are you very hungry, dear?" Molly asked, pushing an already full plate right under his nose. Fox was overwhelmed by her hospitality once more, despite having eaten down in the kitchen more often than not these few last days.

He shook his head. "That should be enough, Mrs. Weasley, thank you."

Tonks, who had been enjoying her day off from work by helping the Weasleys clear out another of the rooms, gazed at him, fascinated. "You're blond," she said with awe in her voice. "Like, sunny blond."

Fox didn't really know how to react to that. He settled with the easiest answer. "Guess so."

"Why are you wearing that hood of yours all the time, when you have so pretty hair to show off?" She asked, before flushing bright red. Her hair changed colours in seconds, from violet to pastel yellow to a stark white. She was adorably flustered.

He didn't answer straight away, judging what answer was the best to give. Before he could speak, though, Hanabi had found her voice again.

"ANBU are generally not allowed to show off, too much. They usually don't take their armour off at all." There was her own question formulated somewhere in between the lines, so he had to find some kind of answer, and fast.

He cracked his shoulders, making the kids flinch at their corner. "I felt like it, today."

Oh, brilliance of truth.

Arthur, who was used to dish out distractions, tried to pry the attention of the others off of his hair, and lack of clothes.

"It's rare seeing you down here all on your own, Captain," he said, spooning some soup.

Fox gave a slight shrug with his shoulders, now easily viewable. "Both Shikamaru and Dove are busy with their own tasks. There's a lot more to guarding a school than one would think."

"Oh," the redhead sighed, obviously wanting to know more about him personally than about the situation itself. The man had been overly curious over the past weeks, ever since Fox had first joined them at the table that night.

"Say, do all of you have animal names?" Tonks asked, a short while later, a finger twirling her hair.. "Like Fox and Dove…"

The ANBU Captain glanced her way, fingering his spoon and playing with it. The soup swirled on his plate, steam carrying the rich aromatic smell under his mask, making his mouth starting to water.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "That's how Hokage-sama differentiates us. If we didn't have names and our masks were bland, how would Lady Hokage know who to get onto which task?"

"So you're not all just some mindless followers? Like the Death Eaters?" Harry interrupted, serious gaze staring at the black and white mask sitting unmovable on Fox' face.

"No. Each of us is their own person. Not just some mindless tool," he huffed.

"That's easier to believe -"

"- now that we've seen your goldi-locks," the twins said, one completing the others sentence.

"But still the question stands," George started.

"What do you actually look like behind that mask of yours?" Fred asked, leaning on the table with his elbows. George pushed his plate away from him and sat back in his chair.

Fox sighed, knowing he should have left the room directly after getting his share..

"Telling you would eliminate the purpose of wearing it, wouldn't it?"

George whined. "You can't just do that!"

"Of course he can," Hanabi interjected, still frowning at him. "he's an agent of ANBU, a group of highly qualified warriors that only take part in the most dangerous and important missions. Their mask is their status, the colours on it their rank. If the Captain were to just show you his face, he'd give up every bit that defines him."

The wizards looked at her first, then at him. He'd crossed his arms on the table, watching the young kunoichi. Even with his messy and dirty hair he looked dangerous, the snarling animal on his mask more intimidating than ever.

"Does that mean you're nothing without that mask?" Hermione said, voice brimming with curiosity and estrangement at the same time. She didn't understand the concept of ANBU. She didn't need to, here where Shinobi didn't exist.

"Beneath all of this," he gestured to himself, "I am still a Shinobi of Konoha, still a warrior, a fighter; loyal only to my village and the Lady Hokage."

"But what's your name?" Fred begged for information. The adults smiled at it while Hanabi nearly growled.

Mrs Weasley batted at her sons with a dishtowel, interrupting them.

"Let Captain Fox be, boys. He's not here to entertain you, but to protect you."

She turned to Fox, smiling sweetly. "Can I bring you anything else?"

He nodded. "I promised to bring some food for Dove and Shikamaru."

"I'll have it ready in a second. Do you need help carrying it upstairs?"

"Not really, no," he said, angling his head towards Hanabi, pulling the stack of pages from the bench beside him. He slid them over the table, gesturing for Hanabi to take them. She did and read across the first page, wrinkling her nose.

There was a smile in his voice as he spoke. "Your task for the coming week as a matter of diplomacy lessons. Old reports to analyse."

"Really?"

Fox shrugged. "Your head of family asked for you to learn it. Lady Hinata wishes for you to get the basics and then the more complicated problems during your stay here."

Lady Hinata. How strange to call his old friend that. But he needed to these days, as per regulations. Especially in an environment such as this, and every other official meeting and report. Hinata had blushed a bright cherry red the first time he'd addressed her thus, hands gripping her jacket tightly, gaze directed downwards. He'd grinned at her, all sunny and bright the whole time, until Sakura had excused the both of them and dragged him away.

Hanabi ducked her head, wise enough not to go against her sisters wishes.

"Head of family?" Arthur asked, happy to learn something new about those strangers. His children mimicked him, gravitating closer to Fox than he liked.

"Lady Hinata, is her mother then, or grandmother?"

"It's not only the head of my family, but of my whole clan," Hanabi told the man, trying to draw his attention away from Fox. Clever girl. "And I wouldn't call her Granny to her face."

Fox nearly snorted into the tea that Molly had brought him. How ignorant could they be? Hinata was hardly older than him, so to call her a granny. Oh god, the images. If good old Neji had ever heard such a thing, he'd strangled those people where they stood.

"Lady Hinata is young, but wise for her age," he said, trying to calm Hanabi down a bit, before she jumped at their throats. He nodded his head at her. "Much like her sister."

Hermione promptly turned to Hanabi, ready to fire of questions when a dark shadow crashed on top of the sturdy kitchen table. Glasses and plates were rattling, jumping and nearly falling of the table. Cloaked in dark robes, face shadows, knife in hand, the person posed an immediate threat, and the adults reacted accordingly. Sirius was about to shoot a spell at him, when Lupin stopped him by holding his wrist in a firm grip. Black, Fox realized, wouldn't be able to recognize the man, but Lupin, being a werewolf, had a superior sense of smell. The intruder was familiar to him in such a way that Remus stopped Sirius from knocking him off the table. Tonks had her wand trained on him, but hesitated when she noticed that Captain Fox hadn't moved so much as an inch. He sat in his chair, a calm air about him and watching the progress in the middle of the room. Bill had followed her example, while shielding his parents at the same time. The time seemed to have frozen while everyone stared at Fox' reaction. The blond calmly stood from his place, hands planted firmly on the table, head raised high.

"Raven," he whispered, gesturing his fellow ANBU to hop from the table. He did as he was bidden, after bowing quickly. The wizards were confused, of course, not knowing who the new member to their little group was.

"Sir," Raven said, voice low but smooth, not as rumbly as the Captains. He kneeled before his superior, head low, and for the first time since seeing the Shinobi, every single wizard in the room understood what power Fox truly held. Up till now, they had assumed that Shikamaru was the lead, that he gave out orders, but with another man kneeling in front of him, Fox looked so much more respectable and serious. Usually he held himself in the background, but not this time. Not this time. "Urgent news."

"I'd guess so," Fox answered, pulling Raven into a standing position. He studied the other man's body language, noted the tenseness seep away slowly. "What is it?"

"The message from Lady Hokage has finally arrived," he said, drawing a small slip of paper from his back pouch. It was crinkled and looked like it had seen better days. "The … messenger only arrived a few minutes earlier. We decided that my coming here would be the best alternative to everything else, since the situation afforded to act like this."

Fox nodded, taking the note from his comrade, studying the short sentences on it. Of course this wasn't the original, he would be given it later on, as per procedure, but the most necessary information was on it, telling him exactly what to do. "Mhh."

He turned to Mrs Weasley, hands held in the air. "I'm sorry for the interruption, Mrs Weasley, I hadn't really planned for it, either. If you'll excuse us."

He took the plates for Dove and Shikamaru, pushing them into Raven's waiting hands, and left in quick strides through the door. He stormed up the stairs, practically throwing the door open. Shikamaru nearly jumped off the bed when he saw Raven enter the room behind Fox.

"What the fuck?"

Raven ripped the mask off his face, messy hair falling into his eyes. He haphazardly pushed it to the side, not caring if the world saw him in such a state of being. "I didn't mean to just come here, Naruto, but we were of the opinion that that would be the best way to get the news to you."

Naruto had long since discarded of his own mask, blue eyes roaming over the note yet again.

"Granny leaves us to our own devices? We can do whatever we want?"

"Did you really think she wouldn't?" Shikamaru asked, rolling to his side, so he could see them better. "Did you?"

"What? No of course I knew, but …" Naruto trailed off, a ridiculous expression on his face. "She lets us do what we think is right."

Sasuke scoffed. "What you think is right, Dobe. Not us, but you. You are or leader, and just as much as Tsunade, we trust in your abilities, too."

Naruto gulped, looking at the crinkled paper in his hands. His eyes snapped back to Sasuke. "Where's the original?"

The Uchiha fingered for it, throwing it to his Captain. "As stated by the emergency procedure plan, I, Uchiha Sasuke, used my rank as a Captain of the ANBU forces of Konoha, to open a mission scroll, issued by the Hokage, Lady Tsunade, assigned originally to ANBU Captain Fox."

"That still the standard thing to say?" Shikamaru laughed, eyes crinkling.

Sasuke shrugged. "Just to be sure nobody can say anything against me opening that scroll. It wasn't as if i could bring it here without first making sure that it wasn't a fake."

Naruto snorted. "A fake? Delivered by a toad."

"Whatever," Sasuke huffed, falling down onto the lonely chair, noticing the blond hair spilled over the pillow of the other occupied bed. "Slug made me do it."

"Haha," Naruto chortled, opening the scroll, reading through it quickly, too. He smiled the whole time. "We had how many Jounin backing us up?"

"Enough to overthrow the whole council in one go," Sasuke smirked, glad that they finally put so much trust on Naruto, after everything he'd done for Konoha and the Shinobi as a whole.

"First time for everything, right," Shikamaru yawned from the bed, hungrily eyeing the two plates left on the table behind the Uchiha. "That's for me and Dove, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, take your share," Naruto waved his hand, distracted by all the signatures under the document. "Never knew we had a vice head for diplomatic and strategic services...whoever that is."

The other two just shrugged, not knowing either, though Shikamaru could faintly remember having heard of that title and a name in connection with it.

"It's amazing that Tsunade got all of them to sign that thing, anyway. From what I've heard weeks back it is pretty much unusual that she gets that much back up," Naruto said, still completely in awe over the whole thing.

Sasuke huffed out a little laugh, rolling his eyes. "Because she simply doesn't need it most of the time. As the Hokage, her vote is worth far more than any others. Only a three quarter majority in a council vote could stop her from doing something." Rules and regulations of that kind had never be present before, the Hokage was top of the village, so usually what he or she said had to be done. But with Danzo's short but effective period as the Rokudaime everything had slowly started to change. Nobody had wanted to back him up, but they couldn't really do anything to stop him, either. That way, as soon as Danzo was - for the lack of better terms - disposed of, new laws were written and used. Nobody would be able to just come and do as he liked, not even someone like the warmonger. All those signatures on the scroll, all those names and the Shinobi they stood for...it looked like half of Konoha's military officers had signed the order, and all of the council to boot.

So much trust in a single squad of ANBU. So much respect.

"When did you arrive here?" Ino asked groggily, turning over. She rubbed a hand across her face, yawning. Sasuke looked her over with a raised eyebrow, seeing the lack of sleep stand out, even more than the dirty hair or the smell of stinky clothes. Apparently, the whole team staying in the Black household had neither slept nor bathed. Whatever else they were doing.

"Just a few minutes ago," he answered, tilting his head back, watching shadows dance across the ceiling.

"In the middle of dinner, scaring the living heck out of everyone down there," Naruto added, a foxy smile on his face. He rolled the scroll back up and threw it to Shikamaru, prompting him to read through it, too. "How did you do that, anyway?"

Sasuke snorted. "I've spent enough of my time with you to know how to use a seal, idiot."

The blond was surprised. "You used the interconnectivity between your marker seal and me, to come here? Like a reverse summoning?"

Sasuke shrugged, not too sure what he did, exactly. "Guess so. Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

"Why exactly did you come?" Ino sat up in her bed, looking worse than when she'd gone to sleep in the first place. Her air was matted to her head and there was a tiredness to her eyes that hadn't been there before. "Something happened at the school?"

"Orders from Lady Hokage arrived. Finally," Naruto told her, pointing to the scroll.

Her eyes lit up and she sat straighter. "Does that mean we can return home without being lost in eternal limbo somewhere?"

"What?" Sasuke asked, confused with the change in themes.

Naruto waved him off. "Nothing, Teme, nothing." He smiled at Ino. "Yup. Everything alright…" he paused, eyebrows scrunching up. "Even though I do wonder, why the hell did my carrier toad at your location? Normally they just summon themselves to their summoners location."

"It said something of an anchor point, because you summoned it in our hotel room first. Kind of like a hole in the fabric of space in time, like an orientation point for it. That's how we understood its babbling, anyway."

"Oh, yeah," Naruto scratched the back of his head. "The little one is always really hyped up when he's in action. Doesn't know how to close his mouth for a minute."

"Reminds me of someone," Ino smirked.

"Oh shut it," he huffed with a happy glint in his eyes.

"So there was no 'Oh, hey, the toad got into drinking with Tsunade and now it's hungover but on its way to you'...", Ino murmured, stretching her arms above her head.

"Nah,", Naruto told her, "probably something with the connection between our worlds. I'll look into it later."

"Naruto," Shikamaru said, stretching out his legs in front of him. "When Sasuke is here, we may as well talk to him about our plans."

"What plan?" both old teammates said at the same time. Ino snorted in the background, fully amused at their ridiculousness. Naruto scratched the back of his head, while Sasuke just looked from one to the others, more curious about what was going to happen in the upcoming days.

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows, tapping a hand on his leg. "The infiltration, Naruto."

"The infiltra-", Naruto stopped short. "oh yeah, that." He turned to Sasuke, a smirk on his lips. "We've found something for you to do, something we know you are good at."

"An infiltration?" Sasuke asked, not really guessing.

"The Ministry of Magic," Shikamaru said, shuffling through stacks of notes and folders at his bedside. "Since we know that neither Dumbledore nor any of the wizards downstairs are any fond of it, there have to be reasond for that. All we have in the Ministry though, is by now far outdates, well back before either of us were born."

"Basically we need new, valid information," Sasuke summarized. He raked his hand through his hair, pushing stray strands back. "And by the way you're telling me this, I guess you want me to be the infiltrator."

"'Cause we think you're the best for the job. Shikamaru and Ino would've been our other choices, but they have their own task to attend to," Naruto told him. The blond was shuffling his feet in anticipation. Sasuke was known to have his own opinion about things, easily offended when he felt himself superior to the task itself. He'd mellowed out over the last couple of month, more grateful about every bit of trust the village and the captains and other ANBU showed him. Still, he had the blood of proud Uchiha flowing through his veins, and anyone rousing his wrath was shown no mercy.

Instead of complaints though, he merely asked: "How big is the area in and around the Ministry?"

Shikamaru sighed, searching for a map or something similar. "Too big for one person, after normals standrads, at least. Most of it is underground, only the entry-ways lie overground, though, so the surroundings shall be of no importance to us, except the position of the entries. In the reports I got, they speak of two ways to entryways directly in London, though without a position. There are other external means to enter though. If you could check that out, too, please…"

Shikamaru hummed to himself, while scanning the notes.

"We do have a sketched map for...about eighty percent of the Ministry itself. The mapping is very inconsistent, though, so we will need a completely new map. Best would be with one-hundred percent of the Ministry this time." He gave the sketches to Sasuke, noting the resigned look on the Uchiha's face.

"Maps, profiles, a report…" Sasuke frowned, clearly unhappy with the work made out for him. "How much time have you planned for this?"

"Not enough, probably," Naruto said, hands behind his head. "You won't need to make everything perfect, either. Just a rough map of every floor, maybe taking notes on suspicious people...uh...tagging a seal here and there and maybe you even find out something about their politics. Whatever you find necessary."

Ino bit her lip behind him, eyebrows drawn together. The question mark was near visible above her head, so Shikamaru gestured her to start speaking.

She cleared her throat, eyes locking on Naruto and Sasuke. "What kind of seals are we talking about here?"

Sasuke nodded. "Same question here."

Naruto shrugged a little sheepishly. "Uh...it's not really one of those you explain with ease. Just something to keep track of a designated area. Nothing big, really."

All four of them knew instantly that he didn't tell them the whole truth, but none of them spoke up. If he didn't want to tell them. He didn't need to, especially concerning seals, since masters of the art rarely gave away secrets about their work.

Sasuke shook his head softly, breathing through his teeth, while his thoughts were preoccupied. "How long, Naruto?"

"A week at most."

The brunette groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"A week? You know I can't guarantee anything with only a week, or even less than that at hand."

"We know that," Naruto gave in. "That is why we decided that it would be for the best if you actively used your Sharingan during that time. I know its taxing, Sasuke, and you'll probably have a mother fucking headache by the time you're done, but we need this."

Ino had shifted her position to be able to look out the window, when the word 'Sharingan' made her turn around. Sasuke had been strictly forbidden to use the Sharingan, directly after joining ANBU, because what made an ANBU ANBU during a mission, was his obvious emotional detachment. Of course, some pictures burnt themsleves into your mind at a time of obvious emotional and physical stress, but with an activated Sharingan, he'd never forget anything. Additional to that, of course, camte the reason that every enemy would know who he was after the moment they saw red flashing behind the mask.

There were several unhealthy factors surrounding brain function involved, too, so the notion of Sasuke spending a whole week in a foreign environment was more than surprising. She looked at both Naruto and Shikamaru then, seeing the worry practically ooze from their faces and frames. naruto's shoulders were so rigid, one could brak plates upon them. Shikamaru fumbled around with his cigarette, eyes directed at the ground.

When she looked at Sasuke though, she was surprised yet again. He wasgenuinly relieved, as if a heavy burden had ben lifted from his shoulders. His mouth was set in a small smile, eyes glinting.

"I will do that," he said, bowing his head, showing his gratitude to Naruto. The blond reacted accordingly. His smile was just as bright as it was everyday, but it held a wistful edge also. he looked at his best friend, his rival, his brother and Sasuke saw nothing but trust in Naruto's eyes.

"Report as soon as you see something that catches your interest, as minor as it may be. If you don't see anything like that, you may as well send a status update at the usual hours. I want to be sure that the wizards haven't done anything to get you mad and commit mass murder," the blond told him, mischief clearly visible on his face.

"I'll make sure of that...keeping you updated I mean," Sasuke answered, a faint snort heard in his voice.

"There's one more thing," Shikamaru aded to the conversation. "Potter's got his Ministry Hearing this week, so there might be some talking about that in the Ministry ad between the people there."

"Will there be one of you to guard the boy?"
"Guard him from what?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I don't know. But his name appeared way too often in the press and inside our informational journals that Dumbledore gave us to be unimportant. Maybe someone there is hostile towards him. Or-"

"Voldemort may have sleepers there," Shikamaru interrupted. "We don't want to rouse them by drawing unnecessary attention towards us. Additionally, Dumbledore will be there and Arthur Weasley will accompany the boy. Other than that, nobody would dare to attack him in the open."

The Uchiha scowled, grudgingly accepting the truth in that. "Mh."

"As soon as you find, see or hear something, though, we'll send you backup, or at least a helping hand," Naruto added. He blew a strand of greasy hair from his face, frowning. It didn't want to move. "Aw, fuck it. I'm having a shower."

he crossed the room, passed Sasuke with a friendly shove to the shoulder and dug through the bag he'd unsealed only days prior. He brought a towel to light, as well as some clothes. "I'm off," he said, before walking out the door, which glowed a rich deep blue under his fingertips.

The door sealed itself with a huff behind him. Sasuke breathed a sigh. He had noticed since days how stressed out Naruto was. Even Sakura had spoken to him of her worries about the blond, which was nothing usual. Naruto was tired, more so than ever. The dark bags under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights, of shifts that never ended. Neither Ino nor Shikamaru looked any better and Sasuke didn't want to think about the time they spent formulating plans for the coming year.

"How much sleep did you have? Every single one of you?"

His voice didn't sound concerned, but both heard the edge in it, the same one they usually only heard from Naruto.

Ino shook her head. "Not much, there's been too much going on here."

"The Disciplinary Hearing?"

Shikamaru snorted. "You think we'd be worried about that, Sasuke? You know us better than that."

Sasuke's eyes snapped to him, narrow and cold. "Naruto didn't say anything."

"We're on it. Nothing to worry about."

"You look like shit and want me not to worry. How do you think does that work?"

"Sasuke," Ino raised her hands," A little trust in us would be appreciated."

He crossed his arms. "Then tell me."

Shikamaru opened his mouth to answer him, but stopped before the first word could leave him. He knit his brow and clenched his jaw. Shikamaru slowly raised his hand before he let it fall back down onto his leg.

"Fuck it, Uchiha," he said. "Okay, so listen, we had a bit of trouble with that dimensional gate, okay. It got us a bit in the back, nothing else."

"That's not all," Sasuke hissed, eyeing Ino's pale visage. "There's something else….something…," his eyes widened," to do with Naruto."

"it might just be the magic in the air, Sasuke," Ino told him. "He's not sleeping. He constantly worries about us...about everything. Naruto's...you know how he can be, putting our safety over his own well-being."

The brunette nodded mutely. "Yeah, I know."

"Naruto himself doesn't know that he's acting so strangely. When he's playing his part as ANBU, he's fine, but as soon as his mask is off…"

Shikamaru looked to the ground, his lips set in a tight line.

"He's just an idiot;" Sasuke said, a hand covering half his face.

"Naruto's responsible for all of us and that weighs down on his mind a lot, despite the time he spent as ANBU Captain. He's worried not only about us, but also about those children at the school. He sees the difference between here and home clearly and he knows what will happen to them should he fail." Ino's voice was highstrung, but earnest. "He's seen it happen before."

Sasuke huffed a soft breath, closing his eyes. "it will always be like that, won't it. He'll never understand just how much we back him up. All of us."

The floor behind him creaked as the door was pushed open. Naruto entered the room with a towel hanging over his wet blond locks. A big smile pulled the corner of his mouth upward in one swift motion. "Never felt so good before. Who knew that a shower could be so refreshing?"

he rubbed the towel over his hair a few more times before tossing it at Sasuke's face. "What's with you face, teme? You look all mopey and depressed."

Sasuke tore the towel off. "it's nothing, dobe, just a thought."

"Well, then get rid of it, if it makes you look all sad and stuff," Naruto waved his hand in front of Sasuke's face while talking. But his happy smile soon vanished, only a solemn look remaining on it. "And you should stop talking about me behind my back. It's not nice, no matter the reasoning."

He pushed his way past Sasuke, flinging himself into the chair. He crossed his arms and looked at the table, with the bowls of soup and bread upon it. The meal had gone cold by now. Ino and Shikamaru would need to warm it up again.

"Not even when we try to protect you?" Ino asked, concerned by the way things had gone. She had stood from the bed when he'd entered, only to sink back to the mattress.

"The last time someone tried to protect me," he said," lots of Shinobi ended up dead on the battlefield because I came too late to help. I won't let something like this happen again."

Naruto closed his and stretched his arms. "I don't want any of you to get hurt because of me."

"Fine, then," Sasuke told him. "If that's what you think will be the best, Captain, we won't try and protect you anymore."

Shikamaru stared at him, hard, but Sasuke refused to meet his eyes. He knew what went on in Naruto's head, and he wasn't any happier with it than the others. But he also knew that the blond could be more hard-headed than Lady Tsunade, and he wouldn't let them do anything he was unhappy with.

"How do you intend to go back to Hogsmeade?" Naruto asked the Uchiha, not meeting the brunettes eyes at all.

Sasuke shrugged his shoulders, looking as sheepish as an Uchiha could. "I might have speculated on you taking me back there. I'm not that apt with travelling between seals, after all."

"And you probably didn't even set up an anchor seal in our room in Hogsmeade," Naruto snorted. "Or did you?"

Sasuke didn't answer him, just as he had suspected. There was no answer to give since both of them knew about it already anyway. Naruto sighed and combed through his wet hair with his hands. It didn't stick to his head like it should have. Instead it stuck out in every possible direction making him look like he'd just been electrified by a Raiton. He turned to the desk, picking up a few more stacks of papers.

"I advise you not to vomit on me when we arrive." He sounded far too serious saying that.

Sasuke nodded, holding onto Naruto's shoulder with his free hand.

Ino and Shikamaru blinked as they were whisked away, nothing but a yellow flash accompanying them.

"I'll go back to sleep," Ino told him, falling back onto the bed, already curled into her sheets.

Shikamaru just stuck another cigarette in his mouth but not lighting it. Oh how he desperately wanted a smoke but could bother himself to leave the house for it.

.

.

Sasuke turned to Naruto as soon as his knees hit the floorboards hard. He suppressed the urge to cough up his very soul and fell back against the wall behind him instead.

"What the hell?"

Naruto smirked at him. "Covering a distance like this twice in one day isn't the most advisable thing to do, bastard. I thought you would have guessed that by now."

Sasuke stared hard at his friend. "You do that regularly back home."

The blonde stared at him like he was crazy. "I'm an Uzumaki. Healing factor included."

Oh. Of course. He'd forgotten about that.

They didn't say anything to each other for a while until Sasuke broke the silence.

"I'm sorry."

Naruto looked at him like he'd just grown a second head. "What for? The whole protection thing. There's nothing to apologize for there."

The brunette huffed until a sad smile crossed his face. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

"I'm sorry for not coming back to you guys earlier. For leaving at all. It shouldn't have been necessary. i had everything I needed in Konoha. I just didn't realize it earlier."

A creak of wood right next to him made him look up, just in time to seeing Naruto slide to the ground next to him, both their backs to the wall.

"I didn't see just how much that hurt you back then, because all I could think about was power. Years later I just turn up in the middle of the war, help you out and think everything will be back to status quo. I...just never thought how much it really hurt you inside that I left...and what I said."

Naruto frowned at the ground in front of them, grounding his jaw together and clenching his fists. "What I mean..Naruto, I'm sorry about everything I did and said back then. Really am."

"Did…did Sakura set you up to this? Because I certainly sounds like she did," Naruto told him, still staring at the ground hard.

Sasuke pulled his knees up to his chest to lock his arms around them. He too looked at the floorboards at his feet.

"What I tell you comes from me. From my heart. Because I mean it."

Naruto snorted at him. "You truly think I don't know that? I mean you may be a bastard and everything but you are here. You did come back to Konoha. To us. You were loathed for it by the civilians, by the other Shinobi..but not by me. We're brothers, Sasuke. I know your heart just as much as I know mine."

Sasuke snapped his head around, staring incredulously at the blond enigma. "What?!"

Naruto grinned at him, holding up his hand where a little round circle was burnt into his flesh. "Didn't forget about that, did ya?"

"No of course not," Sasuke answered, miffed by that question. "How could I…"

The grin that the blonde wore did in fact not vanish at that. I remained where it was, proudly displayed in the glum room. "Maybe the others think that you'd need to say something. But you don't."

Sasuke flicked Naruto's ear, frowning still. "Well..I wanted to. Sometimes words are more powerful when they have the chance to be spoken out aloud."

Silence settled over them after that again. Naruto had moved the last inches towards Sasuke, putting his head on the brunettes shoulders. Sasuke's breathing eases his mind a bit, making him forget what had happened only half an hour before. He didn't need to be protected, damn it! he was strong enough on his own, and they knew it too, every single one of them. Naruto couldn't understand why they wanted to put their lives on the line for someone that was good enough on his own.

"'cause we want to show you that you aren't all alone," Sasuke whispered when that train of thought hit him. "We're all together in this mess, backing each other up. We see how much you struggle through all of this, so let us help you."

"By protecting me? How is that help?" Naruto asked him, shifting closer yet.

Sasuke didn't answer straight away, unsure of his wording. "How is letting you go out there all alone helping? Letting you always be the first to take a hit. We want you see hurt just as much as you want to see us hurt. Not at all. And sometimes…," he inhaled softly, "sometimes even the strongest need to take a break and step down. Trusting his comrades to do the right thing."

Naruto snorted at this, still unhappy with the situation.

"I don't -"

"We won't die just because you don't do everything on your own. You know that," Sasuke interrupted him, pulling him into a playful headlock. "We can defend ourselves."

"Let go of me, bastard," naruto struggled to escape, no matter how easy Sasuke's grip was.

The two of them continued this banter a bit more, until they were easily pulled apart by gloved hands.

"What are you two getting into a fight for now?" Sakura scolded them with a smile on her face. Relief was practically pouring out of her voice. "Are you children, or what?"

They just grinned at her with matching smiles, before all three of them started laughing together.

"I'm glad," Naruto said," to have the two of you here with me."

"Yeah."

"Always."

.

.

By the Ninth of August, three days before Harry's Hearing in the Ministry, the situation between Naruto and the others had calmed down. He had excused his behaviour, explaining that he didn't know that he had hurt them with it that much. Shikamaru waved him off with a small smile tugging on the corner of his lips and Ino just gave him a soft punch to the shoulder. They didn't speak of it afterwards, finished with it.

It was around midday, all three of them sitting in their little room going over the reports from the last days, first achievement of Sasuke's mission in the Ministry - Shikamaru groaning all the while when new names popped up on his 'Death Eater-List'.

They hadn't been talking for a while now, pouring all concentration they had into their paperwork. naruto's head was hanging dangerously close to the table, his eyes already glazing over with the urge to sleep. Neither Ino nor Shikamaru looked any better, the former having spent most of her days outside of the house, watching for anything suspicious and having a look London's city center from time to time in the evenings. Shikamaru, though, had gone over plans and reports and more plans and had been in lots of conversations with the members of the Order of the Phoenix till late in the evenings. It wasn't all that stressful but it tired them out nonetheless.

Soon though, there was a soft knock on the door. Ino looked to the others, already lifting her mask to her face and locking it in place. Both Naruto and Shikamaru were solely focused on the paperwork in front of them on the table, not even turning when she got up. Naruto had his back turned towards the door, so it didn't matter that his mask was lying on his bedside table. She shook her head with a smile and opened the door without a flourish.

Hanabi looked bored as hell, some kind of cloth hanging around her neck and a bottle filled with clear liquid in her hand. Her eyes settled on Dove's mask, the lack of the cloak startling her. First Fox and now Dove. it seemed that formality was finally going down the drain.

"Mrs. Weasley asked if you wanted to help with cleaning the drawing room. There is some kind of poisonous animal living in the curtains. She also said something about the drawer. About seals that Tonks found this morning and a locket they couldn't open…"

Dove stared at the girl, not moving at all, while she talked. It made people nervous, if they couldn't get a reaction out of the others. It was deeply ingrained in an ANBU's bones, a practise very hard to to shake off.

Hanabi pointed down the hallway. "Shall I say you'll come...or…?"

Dove angled her head to the side, gesturing for the girl to wait a moment. She ducked back into the room, her blonde ponytail swinging behind her. She closed the door with a soft push.

Hanabi waited for only a short while, not even attempting to use her Byakugan to follow Dove's movements. She had learned ages ago that even her eyes couldn't penetrate every wall. Barriers were easily erected with seals and every ANBU agent learned this seal during their training nowadays. The most complicated of barrierseals were situated around the Hokage's office and vault as well as the conference rooms of the clans. Secrecy was one of the goods that were hard to attain in a Shinobi village but sealing had given them at least so much.

Dove returned shortly, Shikamaru trailing behind her, with an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He greeted her with a nod and a little wave of his hand.

"lead us on, then."

Hanabi turned to her left and followed the hallway to its end. A door stood propped open and a lot of redheads were milling about. Mrs. Weasley turned to them when she saw Ron gesturing at the three of them.

"Oh, how nice to see you've come, Mr. Nara."

She then noticed Dove standing behind him, her cloak off and the crimson red ANBU tattoo shimmering like blood in the dim light.

"Dove," the blonde introduced herself curtly, having not spoken with the women directly before. The mask was reflecting the light oddly and her head movements did nothing to ease the weird feeling that arose in the red-headed woman. Dove took a step into the room, making Mrs. Weasley flinch away from her.

"Hanabi said something about seals, so Dove took it upon her to check if they're dangerous or maybe even helpful," Shikamaru told her, following Dove to the cabinet. His eyes roamed over the children and their spray bottles as well as the moldy curtains that hanabi had talked about. While he couldn't see anything, he could hear something roam within them, clicking and snarling. He supposed that killing those things was the only real possibility to get rid of them.

"Here, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, pushing an old locket into his hands. It was made from gold with a quite big S on the front, inlaid with glittering, green stones. To tell the truth, Shikamaru thought it was quite ugly. He tried to prop its two golden doors open, but they wouldn't move. They were sealed shut and even with a harder tug he couldn't open it. So he tossed it to Dove, who caught it with long-trained ease. She held it in front of her eyes, studying the locket intently. There was optically nothing wrong with it - except the ugly design - as far as she could tell. Maybe Fox would know what to do with it.

"What about the seals, Mrs. Weasley?" Shikamaru asked her, eyes once again glues to the curtains. The plump woman pointed to a faroff table on the other side of the room.

"I've put them there, dear. You can take them. You probably know more about sealing then I or Arthur do."

He walked up to the little table with the wooden peg legs and took a look at the old pergament leafs. Those seals looked nothing like the ones they used, more like runes or other chicken scrawls. He smirked. Something to get Naruto away from worrying over all and everything.

"Thank you," he told Mrs. Weasley while passing her and handing the pergament to Dove. "it's good that you thought of us before throwing them out."

The redhead smiled all too motherly at him before pushing a cloth and a spray bottle into his hands. "Now Mr. Nara, I've heard you Shinobi are quite good at aiming. Give the boys a demonstration by killing the Doxys."

She led him to her children, who all looked just as suffering as he felt and gestured to the top of the curtains. "Doxys are poisonous, so be careful that they don't bite you. They are nasty little pests and you'd do me quite a huge favour by helping us get rid of them, all the while learning about our worlds creatures. Captain Fox assured me you would be fine with this."

Fox? Oh Naruto that bastard, pranking him even while being on duty.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, that's okay. I'm...delighted about such a task." He was quite sure he heard a snort from Dove and Hanabi at the same time. While Hanabi had been ordered by both Fox and him to integrate herself more into the daily routine of the household, Dove held no such bindings. And so she just leaned on the bookshelf, watching them get ready to work. He couldn't deny this task and leave. As per operation standards he, in his role as mediator, was the binding part between the ANBU and the contractor. If this mundane work helped him stabilize their ...relationship more, he would do it. it was his job to keep both parties happy with the other. On the other hand … not even his mother would get him to do such a chore.

Shikamaru sighed once more, cursing all the trouble. Then he concentrated on spraying the Doxys - indeed they were nasty insect-like beings - to hell and further.

When Sirius came along with a bag of dead rats an hour or two later, Shikamaru wished he could leave as well. he knew without looking that Dove - who had left the room from time to time - grinned at him while slowly making her way to the door once more. She'd go and report to Fox, watching him decipher the seals and help him inspect the locket further.

"Mr. Nara," a voice called out to him. He turned to Hermione, who stood half a meter away from him, spray bottle still raised, but the linen cloth pulled away from her face.

He raised an eyebrow at her, prompting her to speak immediately.

"Those seals...Tonks told us that she saw Fox create some of them a while ago and we heard that he was quite good at them. So why was it you and … Dove looking at them instead of him?"

There was such an excitement and curiosity in her voice that Shikamaru wanted to cringe.

"Both me and Dove were schooled in the most basic of sealing. it would be most unwise to trouble Fox with something that wasn't even up to his standard," he explained to her.

Of course she caught onto the background information.

"But I read that seals and sealing in general were a masters art. Only after years and years of studying them is one able to call himself even remotely professional. You are still so young, how do you know this much?"

Oh. That wasn't the route he'd thought she'd take. She didn't know how old either Fox or Dove were, so she couldn't say anything about them. But Shikamaru didn't wear a mask and he didn't look old and grisly.

"That's why I said the most basic, Ms Granger. I may not know how exactly a seal works by just looking at it, but I do recognize one when I've seen it before."

Her eyes lit up at that and she bobbed her head up and down furiously. "Yes, I can understand that," she said. "And now Dove is taking them to Fox so he can estimate what exactly it does. Oh, he must be such a wise man…."

Hermiones gushing nearly made him choke on his own spit. Naruto and wise. Haha.

He soon excused himself from the conversation, slipping out of the room, as the cleaning was now officially over for the day. He had put the spray bottle and cloth on the peg-legged table before exiting the room.

.

.

The day of Potters Hearing - the 12th of August - came and went with nothing spectacular happen at Grimmauld place. Except the happy party after he arrived and told everyone ( well almost) in the house that he was officially cleared of all charges and with that allowed to go back to Hogwarts. None of the ANBU had gone with him to the Ministry, as they had already reasoned with Sasuke, they did so again with Arthur Weasley and Sirius. It wouldn't have done them any good anyway.

So with that out of the way there was practically nothing on the schedule until the children would return to the castle. Which bored Naruto out of his wits.

"Maybe I should have a look around the castle, making sure the bastard and Sakura didn't accidently bomb-trapped the whole place with the wrong seals."

Ino laughed over her morning coffee beside him, amused by his worries.

"You were there three times this week already, and you've checked over the whole castle about what...twenty times for any mistakes they could've made. They didn't tho, did they?"

Naruto flicked a crumb from his breakfast plate. "I might have overlooked it…"

"You surely didn't."

They bantered forth and back like this a bit more, Shikamaru joining them at the table.

"Naruto's right though. There's nothing to do for him here, or for any of us. I have to stay, at least until the week before they go off to school. And one of you two should stay here in case I need something.." He looked at the whiskered blonde, pointing his finger at him. "Maybe you should have a training session with Sasuke or something to get rid of that boredom. It would do you good."

"Yeah," Naruto decided. "Sounds really good. Training, having the bastard around…"

Over the next half hour he packed the little stuff he had into seals and put on his mask and cloak.

"I'll tell them you suck and I didn't want to see you again," he joked, ready to activate the Hiraiishin.

"Do that, Captain. And don't get yourself beat up by the Uchiha."

He snorted. "You really suck, Ino!"

And with a yellow flash he was gone.