I've been thinking of crossover ideas since reading the HARRY POTTER CRACK FICLETS. Read them; they're on my list of favorites for a reason.
FANfiction, okay?
In a dark room in the dungeon of a magical castle, a roomful of teenagers stared dubiously at the two men standing in front of the room.
"Guest…lecturers?" Hermoine Granger was used to odd things happening by now, one couldn't be a wizard, or be friends with Harry Potter for that matter, without odd things happening. But this, this was almost too strange.
For one thing, the two men, one pale with pitch-dark hair and ghostly pale skin and the other blond, tan, and grinning almost maniacally, were not wizards. Even if it hadn't been obvious by their clothes--the dark haired man wore all black, but the crazy one had on bright orange baggy pants with a matching jacket--the way the blond man called their wands 'chakra sticks' was a big clue.
"Yes. Your headmaster thought that you could use a…different perspective on the dark arts." Hermoine noticed some of the girls sighing over the man's deep, calm voice. True, it was very pleasant, but she could not make herself quite trust people who came out of nowhere and cheerfully asked students who'd ever been tortured.
"Oi, oi! Don't ignore me! I want to see some hands raised!" The girl directed her wide-eyed gaze back at the louder man. His voice certainly didn't make the girls sigh, even if he was rather cute, his previous question had put even the silliest girls on edge.
The dark-haired man sighed. "Introduce yourself before scaring them, baka." He casually slapped the back of his compatriot's head, hard enough for even Harry and Ron to hear it from the back of the room, where they'd hoped to nap away the teacher-less class.
"Teme! I didn't hear you introducing yourself!" Hermoine sighed as the blond man stuck out his tongue before turning back to the bemused class.
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Konoha ninja! I like ramen and toads, and I'm going to be Hokage someday! Now, I hope you brats are ready for some hard work, because Sasuke-teme and I are here for the next month! And don't think we're gonna go easy on you because you aren't ninja! And--Ow! Sasuke-teme!"
Sasuke lowered his hand again. His glare made it obvious that he did not want to be there. Hermoine wondered if teaching them was some sort of chore or punishment.
"They don't know what you're talking about, dobe. I'm Sasuke Uchiha, Konoha ninja. Our village leader sent us here on this stupid mission at the request of your Headmaster."
Naruto pouted for a moment before grinning again.
"Don't mind Sasuke-teme. He hates it when our missions don't include a lot of action."
Sasuke snorted. "No, dobe, that's you. I just don't see why we had to be sent half-way around the world to baby-sit some brats who couldn't even scratch Konohamaru."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Well, believe it or not, teme, not everyone knows a thousand ways to kill someone barehanded, like you do. There are such things as non-ninja."
If Hermoine hadn't known better, she would have sworn that their eyes--both men's eyes--had turned red for a moment when they turned back to the class. And were Naruto's teeth a little sharper than they had been before?
"That's why they sent us."
"So, again, I'll ask, and I'd like an answer this time. Who here has ever been tortured?" Naruto kept his cheerful smile on his face, knowing that it made the children even more nervous. Of course, he wasn't much older than them, but still, to him, they were children.
His eyebrow went up when he noticed two boys arguing quietly at the back of the room. He met Sasuke's eye, and without a word, the other man was standing with a hand on the shoulder of the suddenly pale boys.
"Problem boys?" Naruto nearly giggled at the terrified face of the red-haired boy. The other one was scared, too, but he held it in better. His eyes actually met Naruto's for a moment. Good for him.
"I've…I've had a curse spell put on me."
Now that definitely surprised Naruto. He knew that they were there to prepare the children for some crazy-evil dude who'd somehow come back from the dead. But he'd thought that their world was pretty peaceful before recently.
"What was it called? What did it do?"
"U-um." Ah, now the boy was looking truly terrified. His eyes danced around the room, landing briefly on the girl who'd spoken earlier. She nodded, and Sasuke met Naruto's eyes again. Interesting. The girl at the front of the class was good friends with the boys at the back, one of whom had been tortured.
Strangely, it was Sasuke who took pity on the boy.
"Physical pain?" The boy nodded gratefully to the man looming over his shoulder.
"How long were you under it? A few minutes?" Again, a nod.
"Was it meant to kill you?"
The rest of the class was silent. Naruto mentally noted who was horrified, who was skeptical, and who was smug. Not hard to figure out the politics in this classroom.
He laughed, drawing the attention away from the boy, hoping that he'd use the time to contain himself.
"Okay, so, I'm guessing that everyone here--except Sasuke-teme and me, of course--knows what this jutsu was, right?" He glanced at the girl, noticing for the first time just how much hair she had. She nodded looking serious, but un-frightened. Huh. He'd have to work on that.
"So, who wants to cast it on me?"
Harry felt his eyes widen as he stared, practically petrified, at the crazy man in the front of the classroom. He felt coolness on his shoulder, but didn't think about it until he realized that the man who'd been holding it just a moment ago was now on the other side of the classroom. Again.
"Come on, you won't get in trouble!"
"Dobe, you're such a masochist." The entire class held its breath as Naruto giggled. Harry swallowed, these two were mad. It was the only explanation.
Sasuke glanced over the room, breezing past Harry before landing on…Neville. Blue eyes followed black as Naruto joined the other man in staring at the nervous boy.
Without taking his eyes off of Neville, Naruto spoke to the entire class.
"Nothing we do here is ever going to be mentioned to anyone outside this room." Harry gulped again. Was this cheerful-looking man actually threatening a bunch of student?
"That means that no matter what you do, you are not going to be punished for it. After all, this is training, practice for real combat. Even if you do something illegal, if we tell you to do it, it's not your fault." Something about his tone felt…off. Harry wondered what it was; his words certainly sounded convincing.
"That's not true. I'm still the one doing it, aren't I?" Harry stared at Neville. Why could the other boy see so easily what Harry hadn't been able to understand? The class waited to see the blonde's rebuttal.
"That's true. Good. You're already taking responsibility, which is better than some brats I know. How about this one?"
Harry didn't have time to jump up before a strange looking knife was pointed at his friend's throat, courtesy of the dark-haired ninja.
"Neville!" Hermoine sounded almost panicked. Of course, she, Ron, and Harry were probably the only ones in the classroom who weren't going to have nightmares about this class already.
"Cast it on me, or he'll slit your throat." The smile on Naruto's face never wavered.
"Leave him alone!" As sick as Harry felt, at least his voice came out strong. Ron had his wand in his hand, and his eyes flickered from Hermoine, to Neville and the weird knife, and to Harry.
Sasuke didn't even look at the boy who's neck was decorated by his kunai. He knew what Naruto was planning, as he always had, but he wasn't sure that the three kids who were now standing up would allow it.
"Look, all he has to do is cast that spell or whatever on me. Then, Sasuke will let him go; it's not hard, is it?" Sasuke wondered how many of these kids really understood Neville's hesitance, even at the risk of his own life.
He could feel the tension in the boy, knew that the boy who's life he held in his hand had felt the effects of this curse, perhaps even more than the boy who'd had it cast upon him.
"Dobe." Sasuke wasn't sure what he was asking. Perhaps he felt a bit sorry for the boy, as he had a few moments before with the other one. It wasn't that he empathized with their horror for torture; as a ninja, he'd been trained to withstand and understand different types of torture. However, even he had trouble keeping up with Naruto when the other man was in a crazy mood. Most of the time it lead to binge-eating, pranks, and pouting. Sometimes, however, the kyuubi-container felt the need to face his own mortality, to do something dangerous. And, as his closest companion, Sasuke was often dragged into such endeavors.
Naruto sighed, letting go of the smile for a moment. "Look, it's really alright. We've been trained to withstand this sort of thing."
"In other words, he's just proving how tough he thinks he is." Sasuke clarified dryly.
"Do it and get it over with. He's as thick as a rock when he wants to get his own way."
Harry, Ron, and Hermoine watched suspiciously as Neville nodded. In a moment, it was done, and their eyes flashed to Naruto, almost as quickly as Sasuke had moved to the other man's side.
The blonde's face was pale, and the scars on it seemed to darken and thicken. His hair stood up, even as he dropped to the ground, leaning against the damp stone wall. His eyes were definitely red now, Hermoine noticed, and slit like a cats. Harry and Ron were too busy staring at the fangs and claws to even bother with something as menial as the color of his eyes.
Neville rushed from his desk, already releasing the curse, frantically babbling that he was sorry, but he'd said to. The room filled with scrapes and squeaks as the rest of the class stood up and rushed to the front of the room. They backed away quickly, however, when Naruto stood, no bounced up, as easily as if he'd been sitting down at a picnic.
"See? No worries!" Naruto patted the stunned Neville's back. The boy was so surprised, he forgot to be scared .
Sasuke rolled his eyes and stepped back from the friend he'd been concerned about for, oh, about thirty seconds. It figured that the dobe was just being dramatic.
"Well, that was interesting! Hey, Sasuke, do you want to try?"
"Dobe. You've scared them enough for one day. And that's just your face."
Naruto growled, which suited him uncomfortably well, Hermoine thought, before jumping onto his friend.
"Teme! Take that back! Nothing's as scary as your face!"
"Hn, keep telling yourself that, dobe. But I'm not the one who's been turned down by the same girl over a hundred times." Sasuke smirked, noting that the students were finally beginning to relax as they watched the verbal spar between their temporary teachers.
"Just you wait! Sakura-chan will go out with me!" Naruto scowled, which almost made Hermoine laugh. It just looked so unnatural on his friendly face.
"Baka. She's engaged to Lee. Or have you forgotten? Your memory is terrible." Now the students were sitting back down; even Neville looked interested in the back-and-forth between the men. Sasuke sighed inwardly. As much of an idiot as Naruto could be, he also had the strange ability to make people trust him. Actually, perhaps the two weren't as unrelated as it might seem…
"Of course I didn't forget! I meant that she'd go out with me if it weren't for the fact that she has Lee now!" Even Naruto didn't believe his own cover story. "Besides, you've never dated anyone either!"
"That was not for lack of trying, dobe."
"Ha!"
"On their part, moron. I had to beat them off with a stick. Literally."
"Teme…"
At this point, Ron could no longer control himself; he burst out laughing, leaning against Hermoine's desk as if he could barely stand. After what the ninja had put them through just a few minutes earlier, it might have seemed odd that the students were now so willing to laugh around them. However, Sasuke realized--and he thought that the girl did as well--that most of the students instinctively understood what had happened.
He and Naruto were there to teach them how to deal with the horrors that they would soon face, and the lessons had begun immediately. If they could understand, without thought, when it was time to fear, and when it was time to laugh, then they might be alright.
Sasuke smirked, waiting for his students to quiet down before speaking.
"We don't know magic, at least, not the type you use, so we're not going to teach you spells and counter-curses. However, we will be teaching you 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' for the next month. Our methods of teaching do not have to meet with the approval of your Headmaster, or your parents."
The students looked nervous, but it was no longer real fear. Good. They had finally realized that the two men in front of them were here to help. Naruto continued where Sasuke had left off.
"We'll be harsh, and we expect the same from you. We're not much older than you, but different life experiences have prepared us for different things. We are going to scare you, but we are not your enemies. Whatever happens during this class stays between us. It's our secret, got it?"
As one, the students nodded. Sasuke snorted at his friend's drama.
"Prepare yourself." Naruto grinned. "Next class, we're going outside."