Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Naruto, I only own Rei.
We were flying in a swirl of wind and colors, my hand was stuck to the shovel,no matter how hard I tried to let go. What seemed like seconds later, we landed in a dark, damp alley. The shovel clattered to the ground and it took all of my willpower not to relive my breakfast and stay standing. Looking around it seemed like everyone was having the same internal battle.
"Everyone alright?" I asked, still a little shaky. Everyone nodded after a little hesitation. "Good." I straightened up and looked around as a battle scarred man stepped out of the shadows, he had a noticeable limp and seemed to rely on the large walking stick he carried, one eye seemed to have a mind of its own as it whirred around. I turned to face him, standing at my full height, the man had at least half a foot on me, and I wasn't that short, standing at 5'6". He looked us over, a look of distrust plain on his face.
"The wind is strong and cold this morning." He said in a rough voice.
"A warm fire would be very much appreciated." I replied, the man who I assumed was Alastor Moody nodded but didn't drop his guard. He looked us over one more time, now with disbelief.
"Follow me." He turned and started limping off, we followed. "Dumbledore hired children as guards, what is he thinking?" I heard him mumble under his breath, I looked back and looked at the others. They had heard him as well. "You have been made aware of the place we are going, correct." He didn't look back at us as he made that statement.
"We have." I replied, the others stayed quiet, making it clear who the squad leader was, so to avoid confusion from the clientele.
"Good, do not mention it to anyone outside of it. Is that understood." Again a statement, not a question, I narrowed my eyes at his rudeness.
"It is understood." He led us without pause to a door, pulled out a stick, which I assumed was his wand tapped the door with it, I heard metallic clicks in the door like locks being undone. Once it was silent Moody opened the door and lead us inside. Once we were all in,he shut the door and relocked it.
"Now stay still while I give us some light." Soon the the hallway was dimly lit, it was dark and dingy. A set of stairs led up to another floor and higher, but from what I could see looked as dirty as down here. He led us down a long hallway and through a door, into a large kitchen/dining room area, in the back of the room in the dining room portion was a long table with chairs crammed around it. All but five chairs were filled and almost as one the occupants turned to face us newcomers. An elderly man wearing purple robes with a beard long enough to tuck into his pants if he wanted, stood with a smile.
"My name is Albus Dumbledore, you must be the shinobi I hired." I bowed, the others following suit.
"Yes sir, I am Rei Yuki, I am the squad leader and a Jonin." I straightened after my introduction.
"I am Neji Hyuga, I am also a Jonin."
"Shikamaru Nara, Chunin." barely audible he added. "This is such a drag."
"I'm Kiba Inuzuka and this is my partner Akamaru, I'm a Chunin as well." Akamaru barked once then fell silent again. The wizards around the table were silent for a minute before suddenly erupting with disbelief, many questioning our ages and abilities due to our age. A plump woman with fiery red hair stood, a look of motherly concern on her face as she turned from us to Dumbledore. I barely held back a sigh of annoyance.
"Albus, I thought you were hiring experienced guards, they look no older than Fred and George."
"Trust me Molly, these are experienced shinobi, don't let their age fool you. Miss Yuki and Mr. Hyuga are the highest rank and misters Nara and Inuzuka are a rank below them. Miss Yuki, might I ask how many missions you've been on?"
"I have been on 20 D-rank, 17 C-rank, 18 B-rank, 13 A-rank and 2 S-rank missions, twelve have been guard missions and eight were escort missions. All of them have been successful, my teammates are equally experienced." Alastor sized us up once more and the woman named Molly spoke again.
"How old are you all?"
"Neji is 17 and the rest of us are 16." Her eyes widened and she turned to Dumbledore.
"Albus, they're just children!"
"Molly, I am aware of their age, but I must say, these ninja have been adults since the age of twelve. Their society is very different from our own. I have full faith they are more than capable to handle this job." His eyes seemed to sparkle as he said his next words."They could easily kill every single one of us before we'd have time to register what was happening and pull out our wands. Now, everyone sit down, and let's continue our meeting. But first, let's introduce ourselves." The wizards introduced themselves. Moody sitting beside a sickly looking man named Remus. The four of us sat down, Akamaru settling down beside Kiba. Dumbledore sat and resumed from where he had left off.
"Now, one thing I forgot to mention to your Hokage, on top of guarding the whole school and all the students, I want you to keep an eye on one student in particular. His name is Harry Potter, a small team is going to get him tonight, and I would like two of you to accompany them. I'll leave the decision on who goes, with you Miss Yuki. I will also leave it up to you, to decide whether you let him know he is being watched. I do believe that he would make it more difficult for you if he knew." I nodded.
"Then we will not make it known. As for who goes, Neji and myself will go." Dumbledore nodded.
"Then I believe that wraps up our meeting. We did not think you would be a mixed gender team so only one room was prepared, my apologies."
"It's alright, I do not mind sharing with them, it isn't the first time." I smiled. Molly got up.
"No, a young lady shouldn't room with men, we can set up another bed in Ginny and Hermione's room." I shook my head and smiled softly at the woman.
"I'd feel more comfortable with my squad mates ma'am, it would just be better for me to be with them, and safer for those two girls as well." I didn't elaborate further as she stared at me.
"Then it's settled, Molly show them to their room please, Alastor will let you know when it is time to leave to go get Harry." With that almost all of the wizards disappeared with loud cracks. Molly lead us up to the second landing, sneaking past a pair of moth eaten curtains and passed a row of shrunken deformed heads. I tried not to look, a sick feeling creeping over me. She led us down another long dingy hallway to a door at the end and opened it. The room was fairly clean and had four beds, that left very little walking space between them.
"I'll let you dears get settled, I'll come get you in an hour for lunch." We each thanked her as she left and shut the door. Claiming our beds, I sat down and sighed.
"This is such a drag." Shikamaru complained, laying on his own bed. I couldn't help but agree.
"It seems they'll focus on our age, this might make it difficult to do our job if the "adults" interfere." Neji said, setting his bag down.
"It's annoying already, what did you mean by it'd be safer for the girls Rei?" Kiba asked. I leaned back and smiled.
"I have bad dreams." I didn't say more, I didn't have too, we all had them and what they were of was our own hell. "Anyway, it sounds like our job doesn't technically start until Potter gets here, but I want us to check the place out. The wizards seem to think this place is safe but, their safe is not our safe." We split into a groups of two and three. Neji and I decided to check around downstairs.
