1

I feel kinda outta place..." Naruto informed his friends in their home language as he glanced around at the strangers around them. The majority of them were wearing flowery dresses and pointy hats. "Anyone else feeling a bit left out?"

"If by left out, you mean we want to join them in their dresses, I'd say no," Kiba said, rubbing his nose as they followed a man named Kōneriusu Fajji. Or, as the poor man kept on trying to get them to say, 'Cornelius Fudge'.

They followed the minister of magic up a seemingly endless flight of stairs when, finally, he led them to their seats—'them' being the Naruto's team, Shikamaru's team, Kiba's team, Neji's team, Gaara, and his siblings.

"Harry Potter," the minister said enthusiastically in English, shaking a finger in the direction of a green-eyed boy bearing a scar on his forehead and thick glasses, perfectly matching the description in the shinobi's mission files.

"Oh come on now, you know who he is..." Fudge said in a rather desperate voice. "Harry Potter, you know," he said to them. "The boy who lived, as in the Boy-Who-Lived! ...I suppose that's redundant and rather pointless since you don't seem to understand... Harry Potter?"

The shinobi all looked around, with confused looks on their faces.

"Oh, I give up..." Fudge said, rubbing his temples. He turned to the wizards in the Top Box. "These are foreigners, taking in our ways. This whole area was originally reserved for the Bulgarian minister and his close and extended family, but there were complications and since he had the spare seats, the ruler of a village in Japan managed to convince him to give up the tickets freely for the cure to some poison... Anyway, this group is a convoy from the ruler of a Japanese wizard village. I'm not sure which on they're quite from... it's a bit complicated and there are many. Ah, I see Barty's house-elf is saving him a seat. Good job too, with these foreign blighters cadging all the good seats."

The shinobi all exchanged annoying glances, possibly understanding the negative meaning of the word 'blighter'.

The shinobi stood still, knowing that they were being judged by the wizards. Their clothing were casual enough, keeping dark tones and not-too outrageous hues, like the other wizards who seemed to be attempting to imitate muggle-wear.

"In...t-ro...doshuns...?" a pale-eyed girl said. Fudge seemed absolutely delighted by this.

"Introductions! Yes!" Fudge said, excited by this new development, this being the first word of almost understandable English that he had heard them say ever. "I am Cornelius Fudge, minister of—"

"We no," a cross looking redhead said, as they all moved to take a seat. "Us, them."

"Ah, this is Harry Potter, Arthur Weasley, his son, and a friend."

"I'm not sure where my other children are, exactly..." Arthur said, only half-joking. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to know what Fred and George were up to this time... Hopefully, it wouldn't involve too much chaos...

"Yes, oh, and this is Percy," Fudge said. Percy seemed to have been annoyed that he was forgotten, and then even more so since he was added only as an afterthought. "Oh, and look, that's Lucius Malfoy and his family!"

Everyone looked up behind to see the family of blond purebloods.

"Cornelius," Lucius said to him. "I don't suppose you've met my wife, Narcissa, and my son, Draco?" ((A/N: I was tempted to type 'my son Malfoy', lol))

"How do you do? Please allow me to introduce the representatives of two wizard countries in the East, the...well, too many to name..."

"Good lord, Arthur..." Lucius Malfoy said, not really paying attention after spotting the balding redhead father of redheads. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much? And—my, my, did you go and have another son when no one was looking? I thought you only had seven children, not eight. And he looks quite a bit under the weather, with those bags under his eyes. Don't tell me you have so little food on the table that you have to stop feeding one of them? Not very well cared for, I see..."

'...I'll knock them off the stadium when no one's looking, dammit...' the baggy-eyed redhead in question said.

Even the Minister of Magic, as oblivious to the world as he always was, could sense the rising tension between the two pureblood families. "Ah, actually, this is one of the higher classed Japanese wizards from Japan," he said. "I suppose Ludo and I ought to go start the announcements..."

"I suppose that explains why he's dressed better than you," Lucius said smoothly. "Even if it is only Muggle clothing..."

Lucius nodded sneeringly to Mr. Weasley and continued down the line to his seats. Draco shot Harry, Ron, and Hermione a contemptuous look, then settled himself between his mother and father.

The now defined 'baggy-eyed, finely dressed' redhead glanced down at his own clothing and turned over to face the larger boy sitting next to him wearing the face paint.

"What is wrong with my clothes?" he hissed to the others in what Harry was sure was very proper and grammatically correct angry English. The face paint-wearing representative didn't get a chance to answer.

"Sonorus... TESTING, TESTING, CAN ALL OF YOU HEAR ME?"

Several of the representatives shouted and jumped, some wincing and others even falling out of their seats.

"Wow..." Hermione said. "Japanese wizards. I heard wizards from Asia are really rare. I mean, there are plenty of Oriental wizards, but there aren't any wizard schools anywhere in Asia, so they're sent to wizarding schools outside of the country. But they stayed in their village, so I wonder what magic they know, if they even know any? Do you think they speak English?"

"Of course not," Ron said.

"Uh, Ron?" Harry began, though his friend didn't seem to hear him and continued talking as if these foreigners weren't there.

"If they had, they would've introduced themselves when the minister told them too," he continued.

"But—" Harry said. He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that Ron was going to do something incredibly stupid...

"Look, look..." the Weasley said, turning towards the Japanese wizards.

This did not bode well.

"Hey losers! You're dressed like muggles and you look funny doing it and you really don't look Japanese and you look stupid and—!"

"Ron!" Hermione hit him angrily. "Stop that!"

"Geh?"

The red-haired Japanese wizard spun around with a gleam in his eye.

"What," he said in a low voice, grabbing Ron by the front of the shirt, "exactly is wrong with my clothing?"

Ron let out a small yelp and fell backwards and away from him.

"Uh...nothing!" Ron said, jumping back

"Oi, they speak English!" the Weasley hissed loudly to his friends, leaning away from the Japanese as if a few extra inches of space would make a difference if every single one of the Japanese wizards suddenly decided to jump him. Harry sighed. Luckily, the boy with the face paint and a girl with her hair worn in four hair ties had the redhead held back.

"I am very sorry about my stupid friend!" Hermione said loudly.

The pink-haired girl smiled and turned around too. "We are very sorry for you have a stupid friend too."

"You mean, we are very sorry about your stupid friend too," a boy sitting a few people away from her corrected. He paused, looking back at the fan-girl and the face paint-boy as they struggled to stop the redhead from strangling Ron. "...And we're also sorry for Gaara."

"So...wait...all of you speak English?" Hermione asked.

"I picked up a few phrases at the inn we're staying at," the boy said lazily. "But not all of us—"

The blond boy sitting next to the pink haired girl turned around and poked the lazy looking boy. "Kakashi-sensei wa doko desu ka?" (1) he said in Japanese.

They looked at the boy who wore his hair in a spiky ponytail. "That's Naruto. He's just wondering where our…teacher is. His teacher, actually."

Naruto looked at them as if he had suddenly seen them. "Ore wa Uzumaki Naruto da." (2)

"And, uh...Naruto just reintroduced himself. I am Shikamaru Nara," the one who looked tired said.

"And I am Haruno Sakura," the pink haired girl added after him.

"Sakura Haruno, you mean," Shikamaru said. "Here, their surnames go last."

She paused for a moment, as if to make sure she remembered that bit of information for the rest of her life. "I am Sakura Haruno," she amended with a proud nod.

"That is Sasuke Uchiha," Shikamaru said. "Tenten, Neji, and Lee are sitting over there. Gaara is one that Temari and Kankurou are holding back from Ron. Temari is his sister, and Kankurou is his brother, by the way. Ino is the insufferable blond sitting next to Sasuke. This is my friend Chouji, and Kiba is the one with the huge dog, Akamaru. Shino is the one you can't really see. Hinata is the girl sitting between them. My suggestion is that you stay away from her. She's nice, but if Neji sees you anywhere near her and assumes that you're hitting on her, you'll disappear come morning."

"Why?" Ron asked. "Are they going out?"

Shikamaru looked at Ron as if he was something worse than an idiot. Like a disgusting idiot.

"They're cousins," he said, showing a greater reaction to this than anything else combined. "And he just happens to have become somewhat overprotective to his... cousins. A complete turnaround, I guess."

"Eh?"

"There was a bit of a one-sided rivalry between him and his cousin's family."

"So," Hermione said, changing the subject, "you learned all this English just from picking up words from the inn you were staying at? You learn very quickly."

"Not as quick as you think. It took several weeks of looking through textbooks and magazines, and I still make mistakes," he said.

"Well I haven't heard any so far," she said.

"We've known you for five minutes. 'So far' is not a long time. Or distance." He paused. "...English sucks," he muttered, a little confused.

"You're still, um, very good," Hermione said to him, completely astounded. A girl shouted for their attention.

"Shika-kun!" the girl named Temari hollered over the crowd, waving for him to come over. "Here!" Shikamaru sighed and stood up, but wasn't sure whether he should risk sitting within five feet of her brothers, who seemed to be glaring daggers at him.

"Ano...iie kekko desu," (4) he muttered. No thanks.

Temari, with a slightly bewildered look on her face, followed Shikamaru's eyes and found her protective brothers, watching him watch her watch them. They realized that Temari spotted them silently threatening the life of her boyfriend and immediately looked to the quidditch field, pretending to be impressed by the...bigness of it.

She picked up her large fan from beneath the seats and whacked Kankurou out of his own seat.

"Stop that," she said to Gaara and Kankurou, who muttered darkly at his younger sister. She's a monster.

And so Temari picked up her fan and moved to Shikamaru's side, glaring at her brothers the whole time.

Half of the people nearby jumped when what seemed to be a smoke bomb went off in the seats. A silver-haired man with half of his face covered by a mask and a fourth of it covered by a metal band on a cloth appeared once the smoke cleared away.

"You're late!" Sakura shouted.

"Sorry," he said. "I got lost on the road of life." He took out an orange book and sat down at the first seat available.

"This is Hatake Kakashi," Shikamaru muttered as Temari seated herself next to him. "That's his opening line."

Harry grinned. This must be Kakashi. He looked over the man's shoulder at his book. It was a comic book. With Japanese characters and very detailed pictures of—WHOA!

"Oh yes," Kakashi said, looking up as if remembering something. "I come bearing gifts." From a large bag (where did it come from!), he pulled out several Omnioculars for his students.

"Awesome!" Naruto cried, zooming in on some random wizard across the stadium. "Gyahahaa! Hinata! Here!"

The dark haired girl turned to the blond. "Y-yes?"

"Y-yaaaeeez?" Naruto repeated, not clearly understanding her. He beckoned for her to look through his Omnioculars. She did and sighed, turning red at her friend's lack of maturity.

"Naruto-kun, that is—"

Sakura pulled on Naruto's Omnioculars (effectively strangling the boy) and looked at what he was watching.

"Nasty!" Sakura said, releasing the Omnioculars that had been wrapped around the neck so she could smack him upside the head.

"What?" Harry asked. She looked up at him with shocking white eyes.

"Um...there is a...a man who is... scratching himself... Down there..." she said, turning even redder. Hinata pointed at him through her own Omnioculars. Ron immediately looked and laughed out loud.

"It's the same guy who was picking his boogers!" he said, laughing uproariously. "Ugh, now he's scratching his face! Gross!"

"Unsanitary!" Sakura exclaimed with a disgusted look on her face.

"Your eyes," Hermione said suddenly to Hinata. "How can you see?"

Hinata didn't know how to respond to his question. "Um... I... open my eyes... and I look... and I see?"

"...Nevermind," Hermione said, before making another attempt at a stable conversation. "So what kind of magic do you use in Japan?"

"Um... by magic...you mean...?" she said, before the boy with a huge wolfish dog cut her off.

"This kind!" Kiba said, showing Ron a deck of playing cards. "Pick one!" he ordered.

"Er... okaaay..." Ron said uncertainly, not sure if this was some sort of practical joke. He pulled out a card.

"Don't show," he said with a fanged grin. "Gimme card."

Ron handed him the card, which happened to be an eight of diamonds.

"Is it..." Kiba began.

'Not that it mattered,' Harry mused when, without even shuffling the cards, Kiba placed the card on top of the deck, and then immediately picked it up off the deck of cards.

"...this one!" he said with an extremely proud look on his face.

Everyone was silent for a moment as the Golden Trio took this all in.

'That's silly! He didn't even mix that card into the deck!' Hermione thought indignantly at how Kiba had destroyed a perfectly good muggle magic trick.

'That's not really how the trick works,' Harry thought. '...Is it?'

'That... that's amazing!' Ron thought, amazed.

Of course, Kiba and Naruto burst out laughing, much to Ron's confusion.

"Seriously," Hermione said, looking a bit annoyed at the constantly changing subjects. "What kind of magic do you guys do?"

"The same as you?" Sakura said.

"You're not sure?"

"Wait a minute," Shikamaru said suddenly, pointing a finger in Harry's face, much to his annoyance. "You're, um... you're...that guy. That kid who defeated Voldemort."

The nearby wizards (including Ron and Mr. Weasley) winced and glared at Shikamaru at the same time. A pretty interesting sight. "I mean, You-Know-Who. Harry...Potter, right? That's what Chocolate called you too."

Ugh, more fans...?

"Cool, read something about you a few weeks ago," Shikamaru said, nodding before turning back to Temari, whom the Golden Trio had assumed was his girlfriend, considering the amount of... public display of affection they were sharing with the public.

'Cool'? Just cool? The boy who defeated the Dark Lord was hardly being regarded as some celebrity by these people and was being treated as if he were just any other kid.

Cool.

"Er, I don't think anyone did anything in a magazine article about me recently," Harry said.

"No, but I've been reading almost everything that's happened for the past several years and more," Shikamaru said, looking a bit cross at that. "About twelve years worth of newspapers."

"Oh, what newspaper did you read?"

"Your Daily Prophet. People here really idolize you, though they seem to leave out Ron and Hermione quite often. I've been skimming through all of the Daily Prophet's articles from the last twelve years these past weeks."

"That's a bit much isn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Some things were interesting. A bit ironic how some Sirius Black escaped from the so-called worst prison ever without even needing those wands you completely depend on. Bad security if you ask me."

Harry gulped nervously at the mentioning of his godfather.

"Yeah. I don't suppose you know any translation spell do you?"

"No, that's too advanced for us," Hermione admitted.

"Ah, dang. Because Naruto's an idiot. He doesn't want to spend his time learning English, unlike the rest of us...Oh, it's starting..."

"Hello, all!" Fred said. He and his brother were returning from their exploration of the stadium.

"Ah, more people!" George said heartily. "The match is about to start!"

"LADIES AND GENTLEMAN...WELCOME! WELCOME TO THE FINALS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!" Ludo said loudly, now comfortable situated in his seat next to Fudge.

The Japanese wizards winced and jumped slightly in their seats when Bagman shouted and when the spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved in every which direction, a myriad of green and red. Kind of like Christmas.

The huge blackboard opposite to them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans—A Risk With Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0; IRELAND: 0.

"AND NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE...THE BULGARIAN NATIONAL TEAM MASCOTS!"

The right hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.

"I wonder what they've got," Mr. Weasley said, leaning forward in his seat. "Ah!" He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly in his robes.

"Huh?"

"Veela!"

"What are veel—?" Harry tried to asked, but a hundred of them were now gliding out onto the field and Harry's question was answered. They were women, and the most beautiful women he had ever seen...excepted that they weren't—they couldn't be—human. This puzzled Harry for a moment while he tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could make their skin shine moonlight like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind them without wind...but then the music started, and Harry stopped worrying about them not being human. In fact, he stopped worrying about anything at all.

As the veela danced, half-formed thoughts began running through his mind. He wanted to—no, needed to do something impressive. Maybe he could jump from the box into the stadium? Or—?

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked. The music stopped. Harry blinked, confused, and found himself standing up with one of his legs resting on the wall of the box. Ron was frozen in a position as though he were about to dive from a springboard. Ino looked annoyed, crossing her arms and looking rather irritated at the lack of attention that she was not receiving, and Temari was furious.

Shikamaru knew what was coming at him. His eyes narrowed slightly. "How troublesome..."

She literally threw the poor boy into the crowd in front of them. Even Kakashi found himself blushing, having met the real version of Junko-chan from Icha Icha Paradise (with clothes though). Naruto drooling, and Hinata was turning red. (Was this what it took to grab Naruto's attention?)

Lee had fires in his eyes, unnerving several nearby wizards. They inched away from him. Sasuke had sort of this stunned look on his face, and Sakura felt offended. Kankurou and Gaara were still glaring at Shikamaru, who was currently scrambling back to his seat to apologize to his slave driver—ahem, girlfriend. Shino...was showing no signs of life in any way, shape, or form. He might have passed out.

After the veela retreated and stopped dancing, all of the guys attempted to regain their indifferent composure (and failed to do so).

"Idiot boys," Tenten muttered darkly, glaring metaphorical daggers at Neji.

"Uh, hey, why didn't Sasuke, Gaara, and Shino try to jump off or anything?" Ron asked.

"Well, Sasuke has been resisting girls since he was three," Shikamaru guessed. "Gaara is...Gaara, and I'm pretty sure he has something in him that screws everything out of proportion anyway, with his whole 'hate the world and love myself' thing going on. Though I heard he's been repaired when Naruto headbutted him. I'm pretty sure it must have been one hell of a concussion for both of them... And as for Shino...? Well, who knows what's going on in his head."

"Maybe it's the sunglasses?" Hermione suggested.

"Maybe he's sleeping," Ron said. "I mean, he hasn't moved for the last thirty minutes. And is he even breathing?"

"Shino's probably still alive..." Kiba said. "He's usually like that."

"AND NOW," Ludo Bagman roared, "KINDLY PUT YOUR WANDS IN THE AIR...FOR THE IRISH NATIONAL TEAM MASCOTS!"

A great green and gold comet zoomed into the stadium, making a lap around it, and then splitting in two, towards each of the goal posts. Suddenly, a large rainbow arced across the field. As it faded away, the balls of light reunited and merged, forming a great shimmering shamrock that soared above them. And from that shamrock, a golden rain began to fall.

"Gold!" Kiba cried, jumping out of his seat to catch the falling gold rain. "I'm liking these guys."

The great big shamrock disintegrated and became a huge swarm of leprechauns.

"I didn't know those things existed..." Shikamaru muttered, rubbing his head. Temari still looked annoyed with him and Gaara and Kankurou were still glaring, but at least he wasn't getting beat up.

"You don't have magical creatures in Japan?" Ron asked.

"Well..." he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We usually don't count little people as 'creatures from our native land'..."

"Plus," Naruto said, "our monsters are much huger!" ((A/N: I was surprised to find out that huger really was a word just now...))

Hearing this, Shikamaru shot Naruto a glare. They weren't supposed to draw attention to where they were from...

"Really?" Hermione said, suddenly interested. "What kinds do you have? And where in Japan are you from?"

"Gyaah!" Shikamaru shouted and jumped up in his seat when he dropped his drink—hot coffee—into his own lap.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked.

"Lap burning, do I look it?" he said, quickly, taking napkins to clean off his pants, since the others couldn't do much to help except hand him the napkins. It would be very awkward if they tried.

Bagman introduced the team players as they shot out into the field. Naruto laughed.

"Yes, Naruto, they fly on broomsticks," Sakura sighed exasperatedly. "Get over it. We have already had a good laugh about it."

Ron made a face. Dissing broomsticks! How dare they!

"What's really funny is how they're all wearing robes and riding brooms," Sasuke said, one of the first things he had said all night. "They should know we see their 'knickers'... (knickers, feh...) with our omogulars."

"Omnioculars," Shikamaru corrected.

"I wasn't talking to you, Nara."

"Then who was it you were talking to?"

"Myself, so shut up."

"Looklooklook!" Ron said excitedly like a little kid as KRUM flew onto the field. "It's Krum! It's Viktor Krum! That's him, that's him!" Harry zoomed in on Viktor Krum. He was thin, dark eyed, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows.

As sad as it was to say, the first thing Harry thought when he saw him was 'Good god, it's a giant overgrown bird of prey…' The man looked much older and more mature than he had thought. This guy was only eighteen?

And the game began. Four balls burst into the air—a red ball, two black ones, and a tiny gold one that was difficult to keep track of. Kakashi pointed out some of the things about the game.

"The red one is called a Quaffle," he said. "Throw it in a hoop, get ten points. The two black ones are Beaters—no, Bludgers. The Bludgers knock the players off the broomsticks. Beaters beat the bludgers. And...hm, the gold one with wings is a Snitch."

"Like a spy?" Temari asked the silver-haired man.

"...No, like a little gold ball with wings. You catch it, get one-hundred fifty points, and end the game. Usually if you catch if you win. The Keeper is the goalkeeper. The Beater hits the Bludger. The Chaser scores the Quaffle. The Seeker finds and catches the Snitch."

Within the first ten minutes, the game was thirty to zero, in Ireland's favor. The match got faster, and more brutal. The Bulgarian Beaters were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers.

Finally, the Bulgarians scored their first goal.

"Fingers in your ears!" Mr. Weasley said, as the veela danced in celebration. Harry screwed up his eyes and waited several moments. The veela stopped dancing, although Tenten had tied Neji to the chair. It seemed that he did not look away in time or something.

"Fool!" Mr. Weasley groaned as Viktor Krum feinted, tricking Aiden Lynch into crashing into the ground.

"He'll be okay," Charlie said reassuringly to Ginny who looked horrified. "He only got ploughed."

"Yeah, he only got his face smashed in. No harm at all," Temari joked, which didn't help ease the redhaired girl's terror at all.

There were so many penalties in this game. The leprechauns taunted the veela until…they lost control of their temper. Instead of dancing, they launched themselves across the field and began throwing what appeared to be fireballs at the leprechauns.

They weren't even remotely beautiful now. Their faces were elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long scaly wings burst from their shoulders. All men in the stadium fell over at the sight. These beautiful human goddesses had become so disgusting in the blink of an eye! Oh the horror!

"And that is why you never go for looks alone," Mr. Weasley yelled over the tumult of the crowd below.

Ministry wizards attempted to separate the leprechauns and the veela with little success. Meanwhile, Ireland scored once again. Then, Krum hit a Bludger with his face.

"...He's not supposed to be a beater..." Kiba said thoughtfully.

There was a deafening groan from the crowd. His nose looked broken, and there was blood everywhere. The Irish Seeker suddenly went into a dive, but Krum was on his tail. How could he see through all the blood?

But as Krum caught up, Lynch ran right into the ground a second time. Someone in the crowd had been thrown out of the stands with what appeared to be a thin tendril of sand. Naruto groaned and 'oohed' at the sight of the beat-up Irish seeker, though Gaara looked rather pleased with himself.

The Irish Seeker was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela. ((A/N: XD PWNED!))

Shikamaru shuddered. Scary 'women' things...

Krum, his red robes shining with the blood from his nose, held the gold Snitch in his hand. The scoreboard flashed.

Bulgaria: 160

Ireland: 170

"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted. "KRUM CAUGHT THE SNITCH, BUT IRELAND WINS! GOOD LORD, I DON'T THINK ANYONE WAS SUSPECTING THAT. HAHA, LET'S HAVE A REALLY LOUD HAND FOR THESE VERY GALLANT LOSERS!"

It was hard to see the players below with the leprechauns gleefully zooming around the field. The Ireland players were dancing happily in a shower of gold from their mascots. Flags waved all over the stadium and the Irish national anthem was being played. However, nearby, the Bulgarian quidditch team was much less festive, for obvious reasons. Krum was as surly as ever, and his teammates were shaking their heads dejectedly.

"Well," Sakura said logically, annoyed by the Bulgarian players' disappointment, "they can't really blame that Krum guy for catching the Snitch when they were behind. One hundred and sixty points behind! I mean, maybe if they had done a better job of scoring some points of their own and blocking the other team's seeker—"

"Chaser," Kakashi corrected gently.

"Chaser," she fixed, "then maybe they wouldn't have lost."

"I guess you a big Krum fan then, eh?" Ino said, elbowing her friend playfully. "You go play quidditch then, and leave Sasuke-kun for me!"

"I don't like Krum!" she said. "Quidditch!"

"You!" they heard Cornelius shout from behind them. "You can all speak English! And you've been letting me mime everything all day!"

"And it was hilarious," Ino said casually, giving Fudge her best 'love-me-I'm-innocent' smile. She clenched her hands into a fist behind her. "Now, won't you show us to our camp, Mr. Chocolate?"

"I'll show you your camp..." both Fudge and Ron said at the same time, looking slightly dazed. Ino turned red, as if trying to hold in her laughter, though Ron's two friends were completely confused by their friend's odd behavior.

"A funny thing..." Mr. Weasley said thoughtfully as the Japanese left and his son recovered from his mysterious brainwashing.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"I just never even heard the minister mentioning the Japanese. I didn't think that Japan had wizards. I always thought it was...oh, never mind. I don't think children so young could be one of them." Mr. Weasley laughed. "Haha, just a silly sudden thought. They certainly look like muggles, don't they?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "They do." Now that he thought about it, there was something rather odd about these people. Their reactions to magic, mainly...

"Don't tell your mother that you've been gambling," Mr. Weasley said to Fred and George later that night.

"Don't worry Dad," Fred said gleefully. "We've got big plans for this money, and we don't plan on getting it confiscated."

Mr. Weasley frowned at them. He opened his mouth, about to ask them what their plans where, but shook his head, changing his mind.

He'd rather not know.

People everywhere were singing and celebrating. Everyone kept on urging Harry, 'just one more drink!' Sure, a cup of hot cocoa never hurt, then again... it did when you were with Fred and George, since you always had to make sure they didn't mix anything a little extra in it. It was some time about three in the morning when Harry dozed off.

"Get up! Ron—Harry—come on now, get up, this is urgent!"

Harry jerked up, looking around. Something was wrong. The noises in the campsite were no longer joyful shouting and celebration. The singing had stopped, and he could hear shrieks and the sound of people running about frantically in the dark. It was an odd change from the joyful crowd to frenzied wizards. How long was he asleep? It felt like only a few minutes but Harry could tell it was much later.

He stood up and went into the tent to change clothes, but Mr. Weasley shook his head.

"Pajamas or jeans, it doesn't matter. There's no time, Harry—just grab a jacket and get outside fast!"

Harry did as he was told and hurried out of the ten, with Ron following right behind him. By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running away into the woods, fleeing something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them. And then there was a burst of green light, which light up the scene of chaos.

A large crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together, with their wands pointed skywards, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. They didn't seem to have faces. Then he realized that their heads were hooded and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small.

More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once of twice, Harry saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of his way with his wand. Several caught fire, and the screaming grew louder.

"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest muggle child begin the spin like a top and the wife get flipped upside down as she desperately tried to cover herself. "That's really just sick..."

Hermione and Ginny came hurrying toward them, pulling coats over their nightdresses, with Mr. Weasley right behind them. At the same time, Bill, Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.

"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot—get into the woods, and stick together. I'll come fetch you when we've sorted this out!"

Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away towards the oncoming marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing every direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was getting closer.

"C'mon," Fred said, grabbing Ginny's hand and starting to pull her toward the woods. George, Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed them. They all looked back as they reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; they could see the Ministry wizards trying to get through it to the hooded wizards in the center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.

The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished. With the sudden absence of light, everyone panicked (even more so than they already were). Dark figures were blundering though the trees; children were crying for their parents, anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air. Harry felt himself being pushed all around by people with faces he couldn't see. The ground, mostly sand from the Quidditch arena, perhaps, shook beneath their feet, and the wind blew suddenly and violently for a brief moment. They all braced themselves against the trees. What was that?

"Argh!"

"Are you okay, Ron?" Hermione asked him.

"Yeah, I just tripped on a tree root when the ground moved," Ron said, picking himself up off the ground.

"With feet that large, it must be hard not to," a voice said. A familiar platinum haired boy was standing alone nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.

"Malfoy!" Harry growled.

"Harry!" Malfoy shouted back mockingly.

"And Lee!" another voice said. Lee? Everyone turned around to see the boy in relatively tight green pants and a brighter green vest with orange leg warmers. Oh my god! They winced at the sight. And was that one of the Japanese wizards? "Konoha's Beautiful Blue Beast has arrived!"

((A/N: Obviously, this is where I stopped using the book for guidance... And I am completely aware of the fact that it's supposed to be 'green', but in the English manga, I think they made a mistake in translation (or did it on purpose) but they called Lee Blue. Anyway, it's just sorta to be funny with their lack of English skills))

"I see beast," Malfoy sneered dryly. "But I seem to have lost the beautiful and the blue." Secretly, everyone else agreed with that comment, not that they would ever admit it. They'd rather eat their own tongue than to ever admit to agreeing with Draco Malfoy.

Lee gave them a thumbs up sign. His teeth sparked. "Hello, Harry Potter and friends!" he said. "We were not properly introduced earlier. I am Rock Lee, chuunin of the Hidden Leaf Village! While speaking to Shikamaru, I learned that you defeated an all-powerful wizard as a toddler! I am impressed by your hard work and would like to train with you some occa—"

"Silencio!" Malfoy cried, pointing the wand at Rock Lee. He continued talking, not noticing his muteness. "Sorry, Potter, but your friend is irritating."

Ron shrugged, and Harry shook his head. They didn't really care, although Hermione looked irritated. Yet, she didn't even have time to reprimand him when Lee's reinforcements appeared.

"That was our teammate you just zapped," Neji said, appearing in a tree. Tenten landed next to him. ((Anyone reminded of a pre-chuunin brawl in the Forest of Death...?)) They had also changed clothes, but it was much more pleasant to the eye than Lee's garments. Neji and Tenten wore garments that were much looser than Lee's. Neji's outfit was all white with the exception of a dark cloth (like a towel) that was tied around his waist like a tourist would do with their jackets in a hot climate. Tenten wore baggy black pants and a loose light pink shirt.

"Stupid wizards," she said. "You shouldn't mess with our kind."

"Eh?" Within a blink of an eye, Neji appeared in front of him and, with veins on his temple, he...poked him?

"What the hell was that?" Malfoy sneered.

"Hyuga taijutsu technique, wizard," Neji said coldly. Tenten disappeared for a moment and was suddenly standing behind Malfoy.

"What the heck?" The wand that he had was gone.

"There!" she said cheerfully. "Now you can't use your wand, or any of your magic."

"Huh?" Malfoy searched himself for the missing wand. Psh, as if she would hide it on him! "That was my father's!"

"That is our teammate," Tenten said, as if he were an academy student. "And that is my Neji, hotter than Sasuke. And that is a tree. We just jumped from it. And—"

"He gets the point, Tenten," Neji said.

"Mudbloods." Malfoy left.

"Civilian!" Tenten yelled back. She went over to Lee, who was still talking silently, and to Ron, Harry, and Hermione's surprise, she began shaking him violently. "Yo, Lee, snap out it!"

He looked at her and mouthed silent words, not really realizing that he still couldn't speak.

"...Lee? I can't hear you." ...A miracle!

('What on earth are you speaking of, Tenten? I am speaking loud and clear!')

"Lee's been hit by Malfoy's Silencing charm," Hermione explained.

"Is that so...?" Neji said. They didn't say anything for a moment, although each had the same idea in their mind. "Then...our objective is clear."

"Yeah!" Tenten said.

('To reverse the jutsu, we must…')

"Kill the Malfoy!" they shouted together as if it were some sort of rallying cry. Tenten and Lee pumped their fists in the air and ran off, with Neji following after them, refusing to do anything so immature. Nevertheless, he ran after them as well.

Before Hermione, Harry, and Ron could say anything, the three ninjas disappeared. They had a sick feeling in the bottom of their stomachs.

"Uh oh..." Ron bit his lip, nervously trading glances with his two friends.

"This...can't be good," Hermione said.

Despite their rivalry, Harry just prayed that Malfoy would last the night. He'd hate to be the cause of a very painful death, even if it was a pureblood fanatics. "Let's...let's just pretend nothing happened," Harry said. They left, running.

(1) Where is the Kakashi-sensei? I think that's right…

(2) I'm Uzumaki Naruto.

(3) How troublesome or something like that...

(4) No thank you

(5) What?