(A/N): Hey everyone. It's been awhile. I've been a bit busy. I'm unsure about the reactions I might get but here it is. Some people can be a bit intense. The stories are all for fun though and sometimes surprises come to those who wait. Here's chapter 6. Like always, I don't own either Naruto or Harry Potter.

Glossary: unless otherwise stated

Bold : spells/jutsu/bjuu talk

Underline : letters

Italics : inner thoughts

Chapter 6: Old Faces, New Places

(Two weeks before Halloween)

A black dog streaked across a forest floor. It's coat was mangy, full of burs and dirt. The dog has been running non stop for a couple of hours. Nothing in the area could tell a person what was driving this dog on its' mad dash but the dog himself. To the muggles, it was a dog running for no reason in the forest. But to a few knowledgeable wizards, it was a man on the run. For that dog was none other than known criminal Sirius Black, alleged follower of You Know Who and Peter Pettigrew's killer.

It was a few weeks after stepping on British soils again that Sirius noticed a change in the air. There seemed to be a weight pressing down on him from nowhere. He could feel eyes on him, even when there was no one around. He played the jovial muggle throughout the town he was in, trying to throw off any attention to himself. A full on battle was only a last resort. When a wizard is sent to Azkaban, a trace is placed on them. On the off chance that a miracle happened and they escaped, the instant they use a spell should notify the ministry to their location so that they can be captured again. So a battle would bring the Ministry right on top of him. Not many wizards knew he was an animagus and the amount of Magic it took to transform was just under the amount that would alert the Ministry to where he was. So once he was outside of town, he shifted into a dog and started to run.

The feeling of being followed never left him. Whoever he sensed was somehow keeping up with him. A panting dog sound to his right informed him that his pursuers were gaining on him. A sharp left turn saved him from a tackle. A large white blur blasted through the tree he just passed. Running through the splinters, his fur was torn even more, bits of blood trailing off. A buzzing sound to his left was disconcerting because the sounds were out of place in this forest. Bugs would have silenced themselves long before he even neared them.

Sirius wasn't sure why he did it, but he was glad for it. He took a sharp right turn, breaking through the brush as he did so. To his left was a vast cliff side. If he continued going straight, he would have fell to his death since his Magic was running low. As he continued to run, bugs started appear along the cliff side. Sirius did not recognize these bugs and did not want to find out what would happen if he let them catch him. Pulling deep into his reserves, Sirius picked up his pace. He started to pull away from the bugs.

Lights could be seen up ahead. The kind that marked a muggle town. The ministry wouldn't dare attempt to battle out among muggles. Since the trace only knows where a spell was casted and not what spell, he could apparate somewhere there. The ministry would only know he apparated there and not where he was apparating to until they used a locator charm on the spell residue. That should buy him some time to escape if he could pull it off. With a plan forming in his head, Sirius grinned. He could make it. He would make it, for Harry.

As soon as he entered the town streets, he transformed back into his normal form. He could only use spells in his normal form and needed to conserve his magic for an apparation. He didn't care if muggles saw him at this point, it would slow the ministry down from requiring them to erase muggle memories. He continued to run, looking about for a place to escape. Seeing a path to the right, Sirius jumped for it. Unfortunately he ran straight into a woman. Cursing his luck, he hurriedly attempted to disentangle himself from the woman.

"Sorry," he said as he turned to continue his run.

"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms"

Pain erupted from Sirius's back. Even with his body starting to shut down, Sirius tried to apparate, but something was wrong. He couldn't feel his magic. Sirius stumbled forward before falling to his knees. Tilting his head to the left, his eye caught pale eyes on a soft face. The woman he ran into was a part of his pursuers. Suddenly a swarm of bugs condensed on her right and a blur of white and brown fur on her left. The swarm turned into a cloaked man with dark glasses. The blur of fur separated into a large dog and man with wild markings. The thing that caught Sirius's eyes the most though, was the fact that they each wore a metal plate with a stylized leaf.

He heard the talk going on in the magical underground. He heard the tales of the blood thirsty wizards that would do anything for money. He knew once they had you death was all that awaited you. Unable to escape, Sirius sighed in depression. He would never see his godson again. Being reunited with him after all these years made his time in Azkaban worth it. Now though, he would be ripped away from him again. This time for good. He would never be able to see him grow up. He'll never get to tell him tales of his father. He won't be able to meet him after he graduates from Hogwarts. He won't be there when he gets married. He won't be there for the birth of his firstborn. So much time taken away. He had so much to look forward to.

"I'm sorry, Harry…" Sirius whispered as he collapsed onto the ground. All he saw was black.

...Line...Break...

The week that Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were to arrive was quickly approaching. All throughout the school, chaos ensued. Teachers were running back and forth cleaning up classrooms and dorm rooms. New decorations were being put up throughout the halls daily. The pranks that students pulled were beginning to stifle. The fun from pranks was beginning to dull due to the teacher's harsher than normal punishments. There were a few who stayed strong to the cause though, even if they had to endure long hours of cleaning up and polishing armor. The preparations for the school grew so great and stressful that one night Dumbledore gave a school-wide ban on pranks until after the other schools arrived. This statement drew forth a strong desire to prank in the Weasley twins. When they sought advice from their pranking master he had only one thing to say: "I won't stop you, as long as you don't get caught". Wicked grins spread on their faces as they left to cause chaos.

Even with the distractions and disruptions that happened each day, the preparations eventually came to fruition. Hogwarts looked almost brand new. Classrooms were neat and highly organized. All of the suits of armor were bright and shiny. The dorm rooms were surprisingly clean and open spaced. A few students even recovered some of their lost shoes (not all of the students lost items due to theft). Unfortunately the "newness" of Hogwarts would not last, which made it all the more lucky for the teachers' and Dumbledore's stress levels that the day for the other schools to enter their halls finally arrived.

The students were going to meet the new arrivals outside, but Dumbledore was informed about their arrival methods. It was thought better than to instead of rushing the students to either end of the school to meet the delegates from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons that they would meet the guests in the Great Hall. When the arrivals began, the students were rushed to their house tables within the Great Hall. Only a few caught the delegates arrivals, but that didn't prevent the impacts their arrivals made from being felt by all the students.

Beauxbatons arrived first by flying carriage. The fancy looking blue box was pulled by six great winged horses. Hagrid waved the carriage down, almost losing his head to twenty-four hooves in the process. The horses tossed their manes and pawed the ground when they landed. The carriage came to a stop in front of the main gates. Durmstrang arrived from a ship that rose from the black lake. A ghostly flag blew in the wind as the ship coasted towards Hogwarts. Not a soul was seen on the ship until it reached the shore. It was only when both set of delegates arrived that the students were introduced. The visiting schools entered the Great Hall in style.

When Beauxbatons' arrival was announced, a black girl with spiky red hair walked in. Her amber eyes crinkled in frustration as she walked to the podium. The thing that drew the most attention from the students was the long sword she drew. Flaring the sword a bit she swung it down too fast for the students to see until the blade came to a stop. The sharp edge tapped the center of the podium eagles head gently, yet generated a large "ting" sound. The woman stayed in the same position, even as the doors to the Great Hall opened. Suddenly rows of blue garbed girls walked in. They walked with grace and poise. Each step they took was followed by an unanimous soft sigh. As they neared the front, they picked up speed, drawing some too happy grins from some of the male students. The redhead's grip on her sword tightened a bit. Suddenly hundreds of tiny chirping blue birds flew out of the Beauxbatons girls small blue coats. As the girls came up to the podium, they turned right and began to stand in even lines facing the Hogwarts students. A large and tall woman walked slowly into the room with an almost equally tall woman. The larger of the two walked with the same grace and poise as her students. Her face briefly sliding behind her large fur coat seemed to draw Hagrid's eyes. She seemed to gaze his way too before greeting Dumbledore and stepping to the side with her students. The slightly shorter woman beside the headmistress walked with the grace of a predator. Her straight blonde hair did nothing to hide her stoic expression as she walked. She walked by the redhead and whispered something that sounded like "stay cool" before walking away. With those words though, the redhead retracted her blade and stood next to the Beauxbatons students. The two woman who Naruto easily identified as Kumo Shinobi, Samui and Kamui, flanked the Beauxbatons students with one on both sides.

After the students settled down slightly from the display. Dumbledore announce the Durmstrang school. Just like Beauxbatons, a shinobi entered the Great Hall alone. Unlike the other shinobi though, a large wooden dragon followed him. His painted face showed nothing as the dragon coiled around him and lept ahead only to return to his side a moment later. As he walked, the Durmstrang students walked in with long staffs. With a continuous rhythm, they struck their staffs against the ground, sending sparks everywhere. They twirled their staffs around, still finding time to strike the ground. As they were reaching the podium, shocked whispers spread as Viktor Krum walked in beside his headmaster. Fairly ignored was the rather short brown haired Matsuri, who walked behind the two men with an excited grin. Viktor stepped in line with his classmates as two youths blew fire that formed a Phoenix. The Durmstrang headmaster embraced Dumbledore before joining his students. Naruto grinned when Kankuro smirked towards him. The Suna shinobi flanked the Durmstrang students in the same way as the Kumo shinobi did for the Beauxbatons.

"Welcome friends." Dumbledore smiled to his students and guests. "Tonight, for the first time in a long time, our three schools Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and Hogwarts have come together again. We have come together for a great tournament. But first, let us join together in feast and merriment!"

With those words, the Beauxbatons students were ushered towards the Ravenclaw table and the Durmstrang towards Slytherin. The students meshed fairly well (some of the Ravenclaw males were a little too eager to offer seats for the Beauxbatons girls). The headmasters walked up and took seats at the center of the main table. Matsuri and Karui each took seats next to their respective school charges. Kankuro and Samui followed the headmasters and took seats beside the heads of their respective schools. When the food appeared, the feast truly began.

As the students, guards, and teachers ate, conversations filled the room. Many of the students were having conversations about what life is like at other schools. Teachers conversed on changes to class schedules to accommodate the school delegates. The Shinobi stayed silent, keeping an eye on their surroundings while eating. Dumbledore was having a conversation with the mistress of Beauxbaton, Madame Maxime, when there was a deep gasp at the teacher's table. A few of the teachers stopped their conversations and turned to see what the problem was. The Shinobi at the table didn't react in anyway except that Kankuro shook his head. Down near the end of the table, Naruto had a fork plunged all the way through his hand. Apparently Hagrid wasn't paying attention and stabbed him. Before the stabbing, Naruto felt his instincts wanting to move his hand in an upward knife jab laced with wind chakra. Since there was no killing intent in the air, Naruto ignored his instincts until it was too late. He stared down at the fork with a miffed expression. "Oh look… I've been impaled."

Naruto grabbed the fork and wretched it out of his hand. Naruto ignored the looks he got as he grabbed a napkin and wiped the blood away. His hand was already healed and he has received worse wounds than that from friends. Hagrid continued to apologize even after Naruto said it was fine. Eventually the teachers' table went back to normal. The students, ignorant of the actions at the teachers' table, continued to have conversations about girls, boys, and life in general.

Dumbledore eventually stood up and walked to the podium. It was finally time to get the triwizard tournament underway. "Now with our bellies full and spirits high, we can go over the triwizard tournament."

Those words silenced the Great Hall instantly. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, Dumbledore motioned towards Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch, who arrived shortly after the other schools. "Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch will serve as judges alongside the three headmasters to evaluate the Champions' performances."

Dumbledore then reveals a large stone/clay like oversized goblet. It was fairly unappealing and students didn't think much of it. "Students must drop their names into the Goblet of Fire if they wish to enter the tournament. The Goblet chooses the most worthy entrants to compete in the dangerous tasks." The Goblet gathered the students attention with excitement. "The champions will be selected tomorrow night on Hallowe'en. In addition, may the Shinobi with Beauxbatons and Durmstrang stand up."

Kankuro, Matsuri, Samui, and Karui stood up straight. They each held a professional look in their eyes as they stayed silent. There were hushed whispers among the students now that those four were identified as Shinobi. They all heard the stories going about.

Dumbledore gestured to each Shinobi before continuing. "With the changes to the Tournament like adding an age limit, it was decided that it would be in the schools' interests to have guards for the tournament. To keep the guards impartial in regards to the tournament, the hosting school would not choose the guards while the guest schools would each bring a set of guards to work together. They are here for your protection and to make sure there isn't any tampering in the tournament. Remember the tournament is extremely dangerous. We don't need any tomfoolery increasing the dangers. Be that as it may, if any of you has a concern in regards to yours or your fellow students' safety, please feel free to bring it up to one of these four. Be in mind that they are guests here as well and deserve to be treated just like everyone else."

Dumbledore smiled. "With that out of the way, would students please file out so that we can prepare the Goblet."

The students began to get up and slowly make their way out of the Great Hall. The students from the other schools followed the Hogwarts houses they were placed with to find their temporary sleeping quarters for the year. Eventually only the headmasters, Naruto, Kankuro, Samui, Crouch, Bagman, and moody were left in the Great Hall. Karui and Matsuri went with the students.

The podium was moved and the goblet took its place. Dumbledore approaches the goblet and began to write a long chain around the Goblet. With the Age Line complete, Dumbledore stood up and nodded towards Naruto. Naruto returned the nod and pulled out a small scroll. Naruto set one end of the scroll down, touching the Goblet of Fire, and rolled the scroll open. The scroll rolled and rolled. It continued to roll, until the end barely missed touching the Great Hall entrance. The entire scroll was black. If one looked closely though, they would see that the black was just very fine lines scrunched up together as tight as possible, giving the illusion of one solid color. Naruto stood up and backed away, gesturing for the others to back away as well. Once enough room was made, Naruto made the ram symbol and stated "fuin".

The effect wasn't instantaneous. For a minute, nothing happened. Before the headmasters or Shinobi could complain however, the scroll lit up. To the wizards' amazement the lines seemed to move on their own, slowly sliding off the scroll and around the Goblet of Fire. Once all of the ink came off of the scroll and made a circle around the goblet inside Dumbledore's Age Line, the seal did something that surprised even the Shinobi. The glowing ink began to rise up into the air, moving into interlocking patterns around the goblet until a webbed dome covered it. The glow faded away, leaving a black mass in the air. Then the ink too disappeared. The only sign of anything being added left was the five symbols resting against Dumbledore's Age Line.

"What was that!" Karkaroff exclaimed.

"That ladies and gentlemen was a seal I asked our current Wizard Cultures professor to create. It's just another safety measure to ensure no underaged wizard enters the tournament." Dumbledore explained in a jovial manner, his eyes sparkling.

Kankuro whistled lowly. "Man Naruto, I didn't know you had the brains for Fuinjutsu."

"Hah," Naruto barked a laugh. "You're just jealous that you couldn't come up with something this great."

"Big talk from someone who didn't even condense their fuinjutsu formula."

"Actually that was the condensed version. The full formula almost didn't fit in my classroom."

"Yea right, how big is your classroom, thirty square feet? More than enough space to fit a couple of chained sequences together. The seal floating on air was new though. Never seen a seal do that before."

"My classroom is roughly four square miles."

Kankuro choked slightly at the number. "What on earth did you put into the seal that would require that much space to prevent underaged wizards from entering?"

"It took over ten thousand clones to get the seal ready in time." Naruto ignored Kankuro and mimed patting the air. "My baby is very thorough."

"Who cares how it's made or how long it took to make it. How does it work? What does it do? What can it do?" Mad-eye Moody interrupted. "How can we trust something you just admitted into barely making to work? Maybe we should just have you take it down. Surely Dumbledore's Age Line is enough."

"It's alright, Alistar. I have complete faith in my teachers," Dumbledore waved off Moody's concern. "Now that that is taken care of, is there anything else anyone would like to add?" None of the wizards present were willing to add any security measure towards the goblet. Who were they to question the might and intelligence of Albus Dumbledore. The Shinobi didn't add anything since they literally had nothing they could add. Samui wasn't knowledgeable in Fuinjutsu. Kankuro wasn't a rookie in Fuinjutsu, but anything he could add would pale in comparison to the master quality monster that Naruto added. Then there was the fact that you shouldn't add a seal onto another one if you didn't know the entirety of the first seal. Seeing no contentions, Dumbledore dismissed everyone. They were mainly only all there to supervise/officiate the security measures for the tournament.

As everyone started to go off on their own, Kankuro stayed to talk with Naruto. They talked about what they've been up to since the end of the war and how the villages have improved. Kankuro mentioned how he's been working on some interesting new puppets. Eventually, through some machinations or other, they found themselves in Naruto's Classroom. They were planning to have a short spar so that Kankuro could test his new puppets out.

"Remember Naruto, no power ups like the Kyuubi or sage mode. I'll keep everything to nonlethal." Kankuro stated as he laid a scroll on the ground. "And don't break my puppets."

"Sure." Naruto stretched his arms and legs. "First to surrender or knockout?"

"Surrender," Kankuro stated as a puff of smoke revealed a puppet that looked like a vague mesh man with knight armor on.

"Ready when you are." Naruto grinned, relaxing himself into a loose fighting stance. Even with him not using any of his power ups, Naruto was a kage level Shinobi. Kankuro at most was a high A class to low S class Shinobi. In a straight up fight, Naruto would win. But they were Shinobi, they didn't fight fair unless they had to. While Naruto was a close range specialist with a variety of mid and a few long range techniques, Kankuro was a long range fighter who used his puppets in place of himself. As long as Kankuro stayed out of Naruto's sight and range, he had a chance to win.

"Ready." Kankuro stated with a smirk.

"Set." Naruto returned cheekily.

"Go." A loud bang filled the clearing.

Naruto stood still in slight shock. A thin line appeared on his left cheek and leaked a small amount of blood before sealing itself shut. Kankuro's puppet had one of its arms raised with a small metal tube sticking out smoking.

"What was that?!" Naruto exclaimed in alarm.

"That was my newest puppet." Kankuro replied with a wicked grin. "I've added a lot of weaponry from the muggle world. I call it the Armada."

Naruto began to grin. This spar might be interesting after all.

...Line...Break...

Dear Kankuro,

I just wanted to see how you were doing. This letter is obviously not in an official capacity and so you have no reason to show it to anyone else. In fact, I implore you to not mention it to anyone else. As you know, Matsuri wanted to be on a mission out there to see how our worlds differ. I care about Matsuri very much and gave her a simple guarding mission. I'd like to take this time to remind you that I would be extremely upset with you if anything were to happen to her. I have word that Naruto will be at this Hogwarts at the same time as you, please give him my regards. I hope you are doing well and that Matsuri is enjoying herself as well. This should be a fairly easy mission, so take this time to relax for a bit. You've been a bit tense lately and barely socialize with anyone besides family or for a mission. Take a breather. Maybe find yourself a girlfriend so that Temari will stop pestering me for double dates. Anyway, I'll probably send a formal letter with this one so I'll stop writing on this one for now.

Have fun,

Gaara.