Title: Wizards and Puppies

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and Harry Potter, but I do own a desire not to be suedS

Summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission, to protect a school of children. The only thing Sakumo worried about was leaving his son Kakashi at home. What he didn't count on was the stubbornness of a three-year-old prodigy.

Author's Note: I am so so so so sorry for the not posting this sooner, and I know I haven't been active for a while (a whole semester! *cringe*). I can explain. The explanation is that my computer broke and then the flash drive I saved this story on broke, and I lost interest for a while, and school started and all that stuff. But I finally finished this chapter and decided to post it.

Future chapters may be a bit irregular too, though I'll try to keep it more periodic. For now though, here's chapter five.

Chapter Five: First Day is the Hardest

It is a notable and natural phenomenon that anything which stands apart from the ordinary routine of life is often accompanied by rumors of all sorts, some benign and others not so much. This observation proves true more times than not, especially in a school full of imaginative students.

On the first day of school, there was only one thing on everyone's mind: the new Counselor. Rumors about Professor Hatake were flying around, from reports that he was a martial artist from China, here to hone his skills (though why a martial artist would want to spend his days counseling children was a detail casually overlooked) to whisperings that he had been involved in a magical accident sometime in his life, which allegedly accounted for his strange hair color and unusual abilities.

Or maybe he was a whole new species of undiscovered magical creature here under the pretense of counseling so that the school could keep an eye on him.

As for the child that Peeves had unceremoniously dropped in the Great Hall, well, no one was quite sure what to think of him. Dumbledore had introduced him as Kakashi, Sakumo's son who had accompanied his father to Hogwarts because of familial problems, but few people believed the cover. The student body was actually debating on whether to think of him as the martial artist's illegitimate child, here to hide from a murderous, kung-fu wielding spouse, or as an elf-child, here to be observed as well.

The fervor did not fail to reach the trio sitting at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. And the fact that Professor Hatake was not present for breakfast that morning did nothing to quell the flood of gossip, and in fact added new stories of how he actually ate human souls, or was it frog legs, for breakfast. (Neville paled at the last suggestion, and then started to search for Trevor with a renewed urgency.)

"What do you think, Harry?" asked Ron eagerly, looking unusually bright-eyed and excited.

His friend shrugged, "I dunno. I didn't actually see much." It came out a bit more bitter than he had intended; he was still sore about missing the highlight of the previous evening. The only thing he had seen when he entered the Great Hall, fashionably late, as Hermione had euphemized it, was the new teacher standing on the staff table and looking incredibly embarrassed. His disappointment was only alleviated by the fact that he was the only one to have actually talked to the white-haired boy.

"Personally," Ron continued as if he hadn't heard, "I think that he's actually a spy from the-"

"Honestly, you two." Hermione huffed from next to him, interrupting his speculation, "Can't you leave the poor man alone? I think he has enough to deal with already."

"Come on, 'Mione. You're the smart one. You've got to have your own ideas of what he's actually doing here!"

"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that maybe he's just here to counsel the students?"

Ron frowned, "Why are you always such a wet blanket?"

Whatever reply Hermione might have had remained unvoiced, as the schedules arrived for the year. Hermione seized hers immediately, scanning it eagerly, "Oh, good, we're starting some new subjects today."

"Hermione," said Ron, looking over her shoulder, "they've messed up your schedule."

She waved him off, saying, "Don't worry, I'll manage."

Harry poked at his breakfast absentmindedly as the two got into a slight verbal scuffle about the inconsistencies in Hermione's schedule and turned at the sound another disturbance a few seats down where George had overturned a cup of orange juice onto his lap with a curse.

He thought back to the previous night, when he arrived late to the feast. Everyone had stared at him, true, but the counselor especially. Maybe it was just him, but Professor Hatake's eyes had gone wide when he saw Harry, and Harry thought he saw recognition in them. But he was sure he had never met the counselor before—he surely would have remembered. Still, he had a strange feeling about the newest addition to their school.

In the end, it was Hagrid's arrival to the Great Hall that pulled Harry out of his thoughts, and he dismissed them as paranoia and his celebrity in the wizarding world.

"All righ'?" the Gamekeeper and now Care of Magical Creatures teacher greeted them, sounding exceptionally happy. "Bin getting' everythin' ready fer the lesson." He said, grinning widely under his beard, before continuing to the staff table.

"Wonder what he's been getting ready." Wondered Ron, not sounding too excited. His friends didn't blame him; Hagrid was notorious for having a love of dangerous creatures under the belief that they were "cute".

"We'd better go to our first class now." Said Hermione. Indeed, the Great Hall was beginning to empty as students left for classes, so the three friends rose as well.

"First lesson is Divination." Announced Harry, glancing down at his schedule, "It's in the North Tower. That's at least ten minutes from here…"

"Then what are we waiting for?" Hermione grabbed both of the boys and started off towards the stairs, "Do you want to be late?"

The first day of school was nerve wrenching for a certain shinobi-slash-unwilling-counselor. Sakumo had been trained to withstand battle, torture, hunger, wounds, almost everything except, well, this. Students. Children. The two words were a nightmare, the kind that fell into the category of wake-up-and-sigh-in-relief-because-this-could-never-happen dreams. Except that his current predicament was very real.

The knock the door to his office startled him since he had not sensed anyone approaching. Sakumo berated himself mentally; he had been too nervous and engrossed in his own thoughts. Another mistake to add to the list, along with agreeing to this cursed mission in the first place.

"Come in." he said. To his credit, his voice was not as tense as he felt. The door opened, and two people walked in. Sakumo blinked, thinking that maybe the stress had gotten to his head already, since he appeared to be seeing double. Two identical teenage boys, both with hair red enough to be on fire, and both with the same mischievous smiles on their faces stood before him.

"Professor Hatake!" one of the boys cried, sounding as if they were old friends instead of complete strangers, "How have you been doing."

"Er, I'm fine, thank you, Mr…"

"Weasley." The boy second boy supplied, still smiling. "I'm Fred and he's George, though feel free to call us either. Sometimes even we can't tell us apart."

"Thank you Mr. Weasely." Sakumo finished. He was now seriously confused as to the purpose of the two boys. Normal teenagers, he was sure, did not like to associate with teachers (or at least he hadn't when he was at the academy, preferring the company of other boys his age who would understand his hormone-induced ramblings), especially new teachers with strange appearances. But whatever they had planned, he had a foreboding feeling about it. "May I ask why you two are here? If I'm not mistaken, you have your first period class in less than five minutes."

Not the best impression, sure, but Sakumo knew better than to distrust his instincts that had yet to disappoint him.

The not-so blatant dismissal was promptly waved away with a careless gesture of the left twin's hand. That one was Fred, who smelled of strawberry jam from breakfast. The other, who smelled of spilled orange juice, then, was George. Both of them reeked of magic and mischief.

"There's plenty of time between now and then, no?" Fred said with a shrug, "And even if we were late, what's a bit of tardiness compared to the quality bonding time between teacher and student?"

Sakumo coughed to suppress an amused snort at the last comment, "As your counselor," he pointed out, trying keep his voice as level and reasonable as possible, "I believe it is my duty to advise against tardiness."

This comment caught Fred unawares, as he clearly was not thinking of Sakumo as a teacher of sorts. The confident expression on his face faded a bit, and the white-haired councilor suppressed the small feeling of triumph. Sakumo one, twins zero.

"But Professor, is it not your even greater duty to get to know your students well so that you can find the best advice for them?" George quickly spoke up, saving his brother from an awkward silence.

Ah, of course. There were two of them.

"Quite, but I believe in fairness, and therefore I believe that you should give those who are not so…lax with the rules a fair chance to garner my attention." Sakumo replied slyly. "And besides, I believe that you would like to get that stain off your robes; it must be uncomfortable walking around with orange juice on your pants."

This time, George was stunned into silence, unconsciously feeling the wet patch on his robes which had indeed had an unfortunate encounter with the contents of his goblet. The counselor grinned, Sakumo: two, twins: zero.

"Now, I believe this would be an appropriate time to end this meaningless conversation." Sakumo finished, crossing his arms in a way that made it very clear that it was indeed over.

The twins both mumbled something akin to an excuse and quickly vacated the room, leaving only a grinning Sakumo in a content silence.

Harry never knew a day could be so long.

It all started, he mused, with the Divination class that morning. Frankly, he regretted having chosen that class, since prophecies of his death were not exactly the things he wanted to wake up to every day. This particular prophesy had overshadowed even the arrival of the new teacher, becoming the latest talk of the Gryffindor house.

But Harry did not have time to dwell on the thoughts of batty Divination teachers and Grims in teacups. Especially when he was faced with an even greater…challenge, one that went by the name of Care of Magical Creatures classes.

The events of the morning had distracted him and kept him from feeling anxious about the lesson in the afternoon, but now the anxiety had returned full force. One glance towards his left and right told him that his two friends felt the same way he did.

All three of them knew Hagrid very well after two years of visiting his cabin weekly. However, their familiarity with the game-keeper and now teacher was the reason that they felt so nauseous. Because they knew he was a great person and all, but that did not mean he would be a good teacher, especially for a class in a field in which he had such…unbridled interest.

Harry did not know why their old friend had led the class to this large enclosure, but judging from the fact that it was extremely close to the Forbidden Forest and the loud rustling noise coming from the direction in which Hargrid had just disappeared, he doubted that it would be anything for beginners. After all, "Somethin' interestin'," from Hagrid's point of view meant something big and scary and capable of disemboweling an unfortunate student with razor-sharp claws.

"Please don't let it be a dragon." He heard Ron whisper under his breath, and silently echoed the prayer in his own mind.

As the last syllable faded from his brain, Hargrid emerged from the foilage, panting slightly but grinning wide enough that it seemed his mouth would split his face in half.

He was leading a dozen creatures, presumably the subject of their first class. Creatures that fit Hagrid's definition of "interestin'" to the letter.

Harry felt himself go a bit pale. His only thought was, Well, at least they aren't dragons.

Kakashi was bored.

He had finished practicing his kata that morning as usual, and his father was busy with his mission (which was from now on, at the prompting of Sakumo, referred to as "the job"), and had dismissed Kakashi with a muttered suggestion to go sit in a class. But mundane things such as classes, even magical ones, were not enough to keep his attention for long, and his father's nin-dogs were too busy patrolling the school grounds to play with him, which left the young ninja near tears with boredom.

So it was not completely illogical that when he caught sight of a large group of people walking down on the grounds, led by the largest man he had ever seen, Kakashi's first impulse was to follow. If this had been several years from now, he might have thought a bit before rushing off towards something unknown, but the art of caution was lost on the three-year-old.

With a gleeful grin pasted on his face, he leapt out of the first-story window (pretending that he was a super-awesome ANBU member), and started to make his way across the lawn.

"These beauties here are Hippogriffs." Hagrid introduced, smiling broadly.

After the initial shock of seeing so many of them, Harry had to admit that they did have a certain beauty about them, albeit a fierce, perfect-killing-machine type of beauty. The Hippogriffs were bizarre-looking creatures, with the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, groomed sleek and shiny. Their front halves, on the other hand, were giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and uncanny orange eyes filled with intelligence beyond that of mere beasts. The talons on their front legs were razor sharp and over half a foot long.

Hagrid started to explain the steps to approach a Hippogriff, instructing them to bow respectfully before proceeding, and Harry had the sinking feeling in his stomach again. If Hagrid was telling them what to do to get close, then that could only mean…

"Alrigh', so who wants to go first?"

A profound silence filled the air. Not a single student spoke, though more than a few eyed the Hippogriffs warily, as if they might suddenly go berserk at any moment. The wide grin on Hagrid's face, wide at first, faded until it was no more than an uneasy smile.

"I will!"

The voice was too high, too childish to be any one of the third year students, but the person it belonged to was unmistakable. The whole school had heard the voice just the night before, and Harry remembered the stubborn, white-haired child he met in the hallways before the feast.

All heads turned towards the source of the voice, and all eyes, wide with surprise, landed on a white-haired boy in a muggle t-shirt, gawking at the Hippogriffs with unrestrained admiration in his young, dark eyes. "They're so cool!" he added happily, oblivious to the incredulous stares of the students who were actually in the class and the bug-eyed look of sheer surprise he received from the teacher of the class.

If anything, the shocked silence that followed his statement was even more profound than before.

TBC