In which Tom Riddle likes it hot, the great chakra question comes up again, and Lee valiantly tries not to stick her foot into her mouth.

"So, is this a normal architectural thing here in the hidden village of England?" Lee asked as she surveyed the Weasley's lopsided home, "Or is this house naturally crooked and two seconds from collapse?"

Why had he agreed to this again?

Ah, yes, freedom. Freedom, the lure of finishing what he'd started, the fear that his horcrux had gotten loose and started acting for itself, and the tantalizing possibility of true immortality with Eru Lee unable to destroy him.

All in return for his agreement to go rat hunting, as she called it, and track down whichever unlucky soul entered Ellie Potter in the Triwizard Tournament.

Helping Eru Lee in Hogwarts hadn't seemed like such a bad idea. At worst, it was only a few months of his time, and it gave him time to see what had become of the Death Eaters, Dumbledore, and most importantly his horcrux in his absence.

It was that last part, more than anything, that had convinced him. Being immortal, he had nothing but time to waste in Konohagakure. It was irritating, humiliating, but sooner or later he would have an opportunity to return to Britain, and if he had to start over then so be it.

If his horcrux was making itself known, though, had so easily been spotted by someone as dense as Eru Lee, then it meant that Tom himself might not be here much longer.

Which meant he had to be in Hogwarts, and if he was in Hogwarts, he might as well find out who had brought Ellie Potter back in the first place.

He had not, however, signed up to spend Christmas with the bloody Weasleys.

Yet here he was, standing in a flimsy shinobi disguise next to Eru Lee in front of the Weasleys' doorstep, Apparating straight from the address Dumbledore handed them before he could so nobly escort them himself.

It was nice to know that Ellie Potter chafed just as much under Dumbledore as Tom did.

"You know," he said slowly, "We don't have to do this."

She turned her head slowly to glare at him. It was a sadly intimidating expression even on her young face. No fourteen-year-old girl had the right to look that terrifying without having to say a word.

"We don't have to do this," he repeated calmly, "And you will screw this up."

"I will not screw this up," Lee hissed.

"Won't you?" he asked, "Remember that I have seen you in action over the past two years. It's not pretty."

Granted, she hadn't exactly been trying to make friends with him—the exact opposite, in fact. More, she was already very comfortable around those he saw her with. Either she'd accepted that they would never be friends and made no effort to appeal to them or was very close friends. She'd never tried to win anyone over.

Still, given her naturally abrasive personality, he was willing to bet Slytherin was not the house for her.

"I have improved greatly," she retorted, before letting out a sigh and admitting, "They may think I'm something called a blood purist."

He couldn't help but laugh.

"That one was not my fault, not entirely. Minato actually put his foot into his mouth first," she insisted, just making him laugh harder. "I don't know if they just don't believe in sensors or what, but everyone is up in arms over the idea of chakra being genetic. Even though it is genetic, period, end of discussion."

Oh, oh no, he could just picture it.

That was one of the things he'd noticed about Konoha almost immediately. There was no rift between pureblood clans and civilian born shinobi as there was in England. True, there were disparities, and sometimes muttering over the internal support and wealth being a member of a clan got you compared to coming from nothing, but nothing like the wizarding world.

No one argued over some having more magic than others. Just by looking at each other, shinobi seemed to be able to tell exactly how much magic the other hand. There was no point in arguing over it.

And he was sure Lee and all her shinobi friends had taken that attitude straight to Hogwarts and been eaten alive for it. More, coming out of Ellie Potter's mouth, it'd be the end of the world for Dumbledore's supporters.

"Stop laughing," Lee snapped, "It's not funny."

"It's hilarious," he said, "I can't believe they're inviting you into their house."

"I think they think I'm misguided or something. That, or Dumbledore's desperately hoping I'm misguided and commanded them to take me in and change my way of thinking," With a frown, she added, "Also, Tequila—I mean Ginny—likes me."

"Ginny," he mused, "Right, that's—"

"You," she finished for him. "Ginny Weasley was possessed by you when she was eleven years old and never recovered. Now he wears her face so that he can attend Hogwarts a second time. Apparently, nobody's noticed the difference."

Yes, she'd mentioned that, about the other Tom Riddle attending Hogwarts, but—

If Tom were the diary, were somehow sentient, and had escaped from his prison, his first action would not have been to retain his disguise as the little girl and go through Hogwarts a second time.

Of course, Tom would have had to find all his followers or else start from scratch, but still. Hogwarts, again? Tom would just die.

At Tom's expression, Lee spared him a look and explained, "You're one weird guy."

He resented that, he really did. Before he could say as much or tell her to forget it, that she was on her own and he'd see her when classes started, she pulled a stack of paper out of thin air. "Oh, I almost forgot, while we're just standing here, I actually had him make me a report on anyone who might have done it."

"Done it?" he asked dumbly as she dropped the papers into his hand.

"You know, summoned me to this dimension," Lee explained. "Well, really it's a report on everyone important in and out of Hogwarts, but I figure my future assassins are in there somewhere."

He flicked through them, hundreds of pages written in his distinct handwriting, each page a dossier on some Hogwarts student, professor, or member of the government. A brief glance at a few showed that they were accurate from what Tom remembered. "Why would he make this for you?"

"I asked," Lee said with a shrug. At Tom's look, she amended, "And because I'm hot."

"You're hot?!" he spluttered.

"What can I say?" she asked with another shrug, "You apparently like them red-headed, in shape, and able to crush your skull like a melon."

"I do not like that!" he spluttered again, feeling his cheeks flush violently even through the henge.

"I'm pretty sure you do," Lee said, almost in pity. "I wasn't kidding about that Yule Ball threat. Even with you as my date, Tequila will probably try to get to second base."

She did not look like she was joking.

He just—he couldn't picture it. As a teenage boy, as a man, he'd never had any interest in romance. He'd never had a girlfriend while in school, or even a casual affair. Outside of it, it wasn't until Bella threw herself naked on his desk that he decided to give sexual intercourse a try.

He'd never had "a type", never had any common characteristics pined after in sexual fantasies; he'd never had any time for sexual fantasies, period.

On the other hand, he couldn't come up with a reason another version of himself would write something this comprehensive for her. Perhaps he wanted something from her, perhaps he knew just how powerful she really was, perhaps he thought seducing her away from that Namikaze boy was the best chance to cement her support for his future cause?

However, there was seduction, and then there was giving her a detailed report on everyone he'd ever met. If he wanted to woo the girl, he could have saved himself some time, bought her flowers and a box of chocolates, and read her romantic poetry. When that didn't work out for him, he could get her a special edition copy of Predator. He'd instantly be in Lee's good graces if not her pants.

This, this stack of papers in his arms, was a labor of love and a work of art.

"Yeah," Lee said, "It's a little weird that you're willing to go for someone as young as fourteen. Even in Konoha that's not really a thing—and we have very loose marriage laws for jonin—but I can't argue with the results."

He looked up from the papers in horror, and even though it was his own goddamn handwriting, he couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure this girl is possessed by me?"

"Sometimes, Ren," she said slowly, "We have to face uncomfortable truths about ourselves."

"I, for example," she continued, motioning to herself, "Am apparently the daughter of James and Lily Potter."

He didn't want to ask, he shouldn't ask, he couldn't help but ask: "How is that an uncomfortable truth?"

"Well, if I'm the daughter of two random chunin with no known blood limits, it makes my own crazy blood limits weirder than usual," Lee said after a pause. "Also, it means my mother probably had an affair with the shinigami."

"Your mother did not have an affair with the god of death," he said.

"Are you sure?" Lee asked, "Because I've met him, and we look eerily similar. Also, I blew you up when I was a toddler. That's not normal chakra behavior."

He decided to ignore that last sentence entirely. "I am very sure."

"And I am very sure that my mother either wittingly or unwittingly slept with the shinigami," Lee said, unmoved by his statement. "Unless the Potter clan has been keeping their Jesus powers on the down low."

Tom decided that he wasn't even going to answer that. He wasn't even going to acknowledge that. Instead he turned back to the house and noted, "We really don't have to go in there, Lee."

With the look of someone about to walk to her execution, Lee said, "I must make friends."

With that, she summoned her courage, walked up onto the front porch, and rang the doorbell.

Instead of your usual pleasant chimes, a cacophony of church bells and car horns erupted to let the Weasleys know someone was on their doorstep. It was at once the most and least insultingly muggle thing he'd heard in his life.

The Weasleys… he hadn't thought of them in a long time.

From what he remembered, Weasley referred to Arthur Weasley, a married man in 1981 who had somehow accrued six children by that time, and his wife, the Prewett woman, whose brothers had all died during the war.

The Prewetts and Weasley himself had been deeply ingrained in Dumbledore's Order, and likely remained some of his most trusted underlings to this day.

The Weasleys had been older than Ellie Potter's parents—then again, who wasn't—but had never particularly interested Tom. They'd been too unthinkingly loyal to Dumbledore's cause to be made into spies, and they'd never posed any true threat, dueling or otherwise. They hadn't had any money to support the cause either, bankrupting themselves by their refusal to partake in birth control and complete mismanagement of money.

Frankly, they'd just sort of been around and served to beef up the Order's numbers and provide moral support.

Apparently, now they were used to win over foreign assassin messiahs to the right side of the ideological war.

The door finally opened to reveal the middle-aged parents and a few of the children's heads poking out the door.

"Ellie Potter!" Molly Weasley cried out, launching herself out the door and pulling the girl into a tight embrace. "Oh, Albus told us that if you came back, he'd try to send you over. Though I had hoped he'd send an owl ahead."

Lee, ever the shinobi, quickly replaced herself with one of the abandoned muggle radios in the yard. Breathing heavily and taking five steps back, the girl tried and failed to smile. "Sorry, I'm afraid Ren and I here Apparated straight over."

"Ren?" Molly asked, eyes moving over to him.

And it was the most curious thing. Just like Dumbledore, she looked at him, tried to look at him, but then almost immediately lost interest. It was as if Tom's disguised face, Matsuda Haru's natural features, repelled interest.

Lee motioned to him. "This is Ren, Dead Last's cousin. Unfortunately, everyone else couldn't make it."

"What do you mean they couldn't make it?" This was the youngest boy, Ron Weasley, if Tom was remembering right. He looked at Lee with glowering suspicion, not quite enough to be hostile, as if he was trying to rein it in, but enough to convey that he didn't trust a word out of her mouth.

"I mean they're busy at home," Lee said. "Ren and myself were the only ones able to come back. Can we come in now?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Molly said, and ushered the pair of them inside.

Inside was somehow even worse than the outside.

There was no empty space, no hint of empty space; instead, pieces of furniture were stacked on other bits of furniture, and everywhere you looked there was some gizmo or gadget to catch your eye on. Half of it was muggle, and what was muggle looked broken beyond repair or else barely kept alive by magic.

This, he thought to himself, was what Hell looked like.

"Come on in, dears," Molly insisted, ushering them along to the kitchen, "I'll fetch some tea and oh, Ginny and I just finished baking biscuits!"

As they were pushed inside, more red-headed faces appeared. There were two, nearly identical to each other, whose names momentarily escaped him. Another older one, again with a name escaping Tom. The other two, the oldest (Bill and Charlie if he remembered correctly) must be out, and then—then, there she was.

Lee didn't even have to warn him ahead of time.

Tom Riddle recognized the other Tom Riddle instantly.

He was wearing a young girl's adolescent face. She was as red-headed as the others, her face dotted with freckles, and there was a hint to her face and the shape of her limbs that in a few years she'd be quite attractive.

Tom Riddle was in every inch of her.

He was lurking behind her dark eyes, sparking with excitement and anticipation at the sight of them (the sight of Eru Lee). He was in the forced stillness, the way she held herself on the stairs, the way she couldn't quite contain her grin. Even in the parts of her that screamed Ginny Weasley, he was there, as if a neon sign had been painted above her head saying what she really was.

And the moment their eyes met, he knew that the other Tom Riddle saw what and who he was too.

"Lee," the girl called out, sliding down the bannister and dropping down to the ground next to her, "Who's this bloke supposed to be?"

He hadn't spoken like that. That must have been Ginny Weasley, the remnants of her, or else Tom Riddle's thin disguise. Neither her father, mother, nor her brothers even glanced at her as if something was amiss.

Lee's smile became just a little tighter and thinner. "This is Ren, a good buddy of mine from Konoha. We go way back."

Lee clapped him roughly on the back of the shoulder, showing what close friends and comrades they really were. Tom forced himself to smile.

He could see what she, what Tom Riddle inside of her, was thinking. She was trying to figure out if Lee knew, if Ren hadn't done to her exactly what she'd done to her relatives.

"He'll be going to Hogwarts with me once the next term starts," Lee continued, ignoring the way the girl's eyes flashed in rage, "Since Minato and the rest won't be able to make it."

"Really," she said dully, for a moment all pretense of Ginny Weasley falling away.

Then she seemed to remember herself and stuck out a hand towards him. "Right, well, I'm Ginny, Lee's best English friend."

Slowly, he took her extended hand, and felt something like electricity pass through him. "Ren, and I'm just an ordinary friend."

Lee looked between them, her tight smile almost a grimace. "Great, you two have met. Let's get some tea."

Suddenly, Lee's words about competition came back to him. He noted that a part of him had never expected her to be right. The horcrux was safe, dormant, inside the diary. It didn't get out, it didn't possess Hogwarts students, and it certainly didn't masquerade as them afterwards.

It hadn't occurred to him to plan for what would happen in the case that, somehow, Eru Lee was right.

Lee was beginning to wish she'd turned down staying with the Weasleys.

First, because as soon as she and the English nin were through the door, Weasley Molly was eagerly placing them in rooms. Ren would share a room with Ron, though that was all well and good and no skin off Lee's nose. Ren might just die of annoyance or else maim Ron for spouting whatever about snakes, Slytherins, and blood, but it wasn't really Lee's problem.

It might even make her look good by comparison.

No, the problem was that Molly, brilliantly, had said Lee would be sharing a room with the only other girl in the house, Weasley Ginny.

That was not so good.

It wasn't that Lee thought she'd be assassinated here. The Weasleys might have shit wards and clearly no concept of healthy paranoia, but Lee could and would set up her own wards, and a week or so sleeping under someone else's roof would hardly kill her.

More, with two tasks left, her assassins had two other chances to ensure Lee was eaten by a dragon the next time. They wouldn't bother tracking her down to the Weasleys and finishing her off here.

It was just—

Well—

Lee couldn't even imagine the traumatizing situations that were surely going to happen in that room very soon. Lee knew she'd done worse for missions—she'd been hunted down by plant zombies for her first mission—but this had to be in the top ten.

For now though, after having unpacked a minimal set of clothes to make the Weasleys feel more hospitable, taken a tour of the house, and being introduced to the whole damn family, Lee and Ren were finally getting that promised tea.

Unfortunately, they were forced to endure the company of Ron, Tequila, and their two older brothers Forge and Gred (or whatever the hell their names were).

Lee desperately wished Minato was here; he was always so much better at talking to people and making friends than she was. Without him, it'd be on Lee alone to pretend to be interested and engaged in the conversation. To somehow, miraculously, make these people like her.

Although maybe Lee wouldn't have too much trouble.

Ron might be a lost cause, but by the looks on their faces, the older brothers were willing to hold out judgement. Certainly, Tequila Weasley had already decided that Lee was the greatest thing that had ever entered her house.

"Didn't you have something to say, Ronnikins?" one of the older brothers asked, jabbing Ron in the side with an elbow.

Ron glowered down at the table, moodily eating a biscuit.

"Come on, little brother," the other older brother said, "You've been saying you'd blurt it out the next time you saw her."

"I thought that'd be at school," Ron muttered, flushing violently red, "I didn't think you guys would be here for it!"

"So much the better for us," the first one said, "You've been hoarding her, Ronnikins."

"I haven't been—"

"Untrue, brother," the second one corrected, "Ginnykins has been hoarding her."

"Right." The first nodded sagely. "Our dear little sister moves fast, but then, she has been planning their wedding for six years. Mum will be thrilled that she's finally making a move."

The second looked over at Lee and proclaimed, "You get to wear the suit."

Ren, next to Lee, started choking on his tea. The twins pretended not to even notice as they leaned towards Lee.

"So, tell us Ellie Potter," they said in unison, "What do you like most about our dear Ginny?"

"I—what?" Lee asked, spluttering over her own tea as well.

Tequila, choosing to play the part of Weasley Ginny again, was flushing as bright red as Ron. Secretly, though, Lee was sure that she was positively delighted by this turn of events.

"Is it her eyes?" the first asked, motioning to Ginny's dark eyes.

"Is it her lovely hair?" the second asked. "Red is the best color in hair, after all."

"Is it her bat boogey hex?" they asked in unison. "Her skill on a broom? Her impressive collection of Ellie Potter novels—"

"Knock it off!" Ginny slammed her hand on the table, eyes burning and face now scarlet red, "Or I'll tell mum that you were the ones to clog the toilets in Hogwarts with rubber ducks."

"Well, we can't have that, Forge," one said to the other.

"Certainly not, Gred," the other replied.

"Except, doesn't mum already know that one?" the first, Gred, asked.

"It does have our name written all over it," Forge replied.

They both turned to Ginny in unison, "Empty threats, little sister."

Ginny looked like she was about to reply, but Ron beat her to it. He squeezed his eyes shut and, a little too loudly, blurted, "I'm sorry about the dragon!"

They all turned to look at him.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and forced himself to look at her. "I'm sorry I—Hermione, Neville, and I knew it was going to be dragons. Hagrid showed us in the Forbidden Forest when they arrived. We didn't tell you because—well, it's stupid."

He rubbed the back of his head as he sheepishly explained, "I don't like you or anything, I think you're a real prat with some messed up worldviews, but even Malfoy shouldn't get eaten by a dragon."

With a sigh he forced himself to look her directly in the eye. "Next time, if we find out whatever the task is, we'll let you know."

"Thanks," Lee said slowly.

Technically, Hagrid had let it slip that it was dragons, and the luck potion had certainly steered Lee in that direction. She wasn't sure Ron, Hermione, and Neville warning her on top of all of that would have helped. It may just have convinced her it was anything but dragons, as those three were Dumbledore's unwitting stooges and could be in cahoots with Hagrid for all she knew.

Still, she supposed it was nice of them to feel bad that Lee's clone got eaten by a dragon. More, if they dropped information in her lap next time, she certainly wouldn't say no to it.

Though what she was possibly supposed to figure out from the shrieking egg was beyond her. So far, she just intended to use it as a kind of grenade. She'd hurl it at enemy nin, let it go off, and then hack them to pieces while they were distracted by the ungodly noise.

Ron was still looking at her though, a speculative glint in his eyes. "Why do you believe in blood puritism anyway?"

"Hm?" Lee asked, sipping at her tea and trying to ignore the laser focus of every single person at the table.

She really didn't want to tell them that she only had a basic idea of what blood puritism even was, and what she had heard she wasn't sure she agreed with. Civilians had less chakra? Yes. Chakra was genetic? Yes. Civilian children should automatically be denied admission to the academy on the assumption they had less chakra than clans? No.

Apparently though, just answering yes to those first few questions was enough to imply her answer to the third.

"You don't seem stupid," Ron continued, "And you weren't raised with it like that git Malfoy, I think, and you've even said Hermione's the best in our class. I just don't get it."

He really was asking her to explain. This was Lee's chance, perhaps her only chance. God, why was it her here instead of Minato?

She glanced over at Ren, who looked amused more than anything else, clearly telling her that this was all on her shoulders.

She took a deep breath and started, "First off, when I say civilian or born from civilians, it doesn't necessarily mean muggle and muggleborn. We're—still a little fuzzy on your distinctions. Civilians, where we come from, are those who are not shinobi. Typically, it's because they don't have the chakra to support—I guess we'll call it magic. When two people with only a small amount of chakra have children, their children also tend to have small amounts of chakra and won't be able to perform even basic jutsus. We consider the population as a whole, not just a certain subset above some chakra threshold. Muggles tend to have muggle children."

She gave him a look, waiting for him to disagree, but he just glanced at his brothers and Ginny. That one, at least, he couldn't argue with. Despite Hogwarts having a laughably small population for a school serving three countries, there were very few muggleborn students in its ranks. Given the total muggle population, the likelihood of any one of them having the chakra required to become a student was practically nonexistent.

"Sometimes, rarely, people like your Hermione Granger or Minato Namikaze are born. People born to non-shinobi parents who have not only enough chakra to enter the academy, but chakra to match those born from clans. However, if you compare someone like Minato to Uzumaki Kushina, the product of five-hundred years of marriages among powerful shinobi, he comes nowhere close to matching her in raw power and never will. He has to instead match her in cleverness and skill."

She took a sip of tea, thinking over the situation here, over what she wanted to say next. "I think, in your country, your clans have become complacent. Perhaps they were at war once, perhaps they once thought very carefully about their techniques, alliances, and the amount of chakra running through their veins. However, it seems that most of the clans today are composed of relatively small families, while techniques have been lost, and blood limits have entirely disappeared. They just assume they're better without having to put any of the work in. So, I guess, from your perspective, someone like Malfoy has no particular advantage over the likes of Hermione Granger."

Lee held up a hand before Ron could interrupt, crow with victory that Lee had admitted she was wrong and that Malfoy could shove it.

"However, I know for a fact chakra is genetic. Cleverness, hard work, and skill in wielding chakra can often overcome this. Someone like Minato can rival the likes of Uzumaki, but it's still genetic. Your friend Hermione will never have the raw power of the great shinobi clans."

For a moment none of them said anything after that. Ron sipped at his tea, glaring at her as he considered her words, while the twins just looked awkwardly at each other.

Finally, Ron set down his tea and said, "You're wrong. Hermione has just as much magic as anybody else."

Oh, for the love of god—

"I think, wherever you came from, they fed you a load of crap," Ron said. "I think if you'd been raised here, if you hadn't been kidnapped to Merlin knows where, you'd know that too. But you don't, and I get that that's not your fault."

"Thank you?" Lee said with raised eyebrows.

"I wish you'd try a little harder," he added with an edge to his voice, "And I'll certainly try to convince you along with Hermione, but I'm just letting you know, I think you're really screwed up."

"Noted," Lee said shortly, but he wasn't done.

"I mean really screwed up. You sound like a less smarmy version of Malfoy, you almost make this shit sound reasonable, like you've really thought it through."

Lee opened her mouth to note that this wasn't exactly something people had sat down and told her, it was just generally known, but Ron still wasn't done.

"Also, being a child soldier or whatever it is you are at your age is stupid and evil and you really should just get out and stay here."

"Is that all?" Lee asked.

"I just wish you'd admit that ending up in Konoha was the worst thing that ever happened to you," Ron said. Then he nodded. "But yeah, I guess I'm done. Try not to be such an asshole and maybe admit that Hermione's as good as everyone else sometime."

"I never said she wasn't," Lee said slowly, but he didn't seem to care.

"Because even if you're a prat," Ron said, "You're still not Malfoy."

Well, Lee supposed that was a mild success for her. Though it felt like it wasn't so much that she'd done anything, but that Ron felt bad for letting her get eaten by a dragon and had decided that Konoha had brainwashed her into racism.

If it made her job easier, she wasn't going to complain.

"Well, he just put it all out there, didn't he?" one of the twins noted.

"You know," the other said to Lee, "We're really in the same boat as Ron. We get that you've been brainwashed in some soldier camp or something. But, you've got to admit—"

"If I lie," Lee said with a sigh, "Will it make you all feel better?"

Neither of them answered.

Right, that was what she thought.

She sighed, offered them all a smile. "If you need me, you can find me later at dinner."

By the look on Tequila's face, the girl would definitely be taking her up on that one.

With that, she pulled Ren away from the table and out into the yard. She ignored the blustery weather and his own irritated glare at being taken outside. However, he didn't move to go back in or ask why they were out here.

Instead, once they were settled beneath Lee's attention deflecting genjutsu, he noted, "You're not wrong."

He continued, crossing his arms against the cold, "I'm not the fanatic I pretend to be; that was mostly to recruit the right people, but I've often wondered if most muggleborns aren't the products of squibs."

"Squibs?" Lee asked.

"Sometimes, in pureblood families, a child is born who doesn't have enough magic to enter Hogwarts." He shrugged. "Many pureblood families erase their memories and send them to muggle orphanages out of shame. They quickly lose track of these forgotten children and any child that may have come from them. It seems convenient, that some muggles would have magical children while others would not, when we know the genetic material is drifting out there in the muggle ether."

He spared her a wry smile. "But I suppose it hardly matters. Since the invention of the wand, it's not the same here as it is in your world. All that matters is if you can cast the spell. It's rare that a spell requires any significant amount of magic from the caster, just the right pronunciation and wand movements. You could be right, Granger might not have much magic in her at all, but it'll never matter for her."

"Hm," Lee said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

He had a point. From what she'd seen, too much chakra was a problem for these people, as Uzumaki kept shorting out the English jutsus and almost burning out her wand. On the other hand, you had constantly chakra-drained Dead Last performing English jutsus left and right with no difficulty. This was the same kid who couldn't walk up a tree for an entire year.

"I suggest, if you want to make friends with these people, you change your line," he noted. "Let them win you over, become the redeemed foreigner who learns better once she becomes more familiar with the culture. They're practically begging you to change your mind."

"I have no interest in lying," Lee huffed.

"But you do have an interest in making friends," he pointed out, "And if you don't want to buddy up to the likes of Malfoy, then you're going to have to buddy up to these people. Besides, it's not so bad; I've been lying to my own followers about my beliefs for years. You get used to it surprisingly quickly."

"Oh, shut up," Lee said, "That's not what I dragged you out here to talk about."

"It's not?"

Lee motioned to the report he'd stuffed into his jacket. "The report, I'm going to need you to read that."

"Obviously," he said dully.

"I do have some people I already suspect," Lee said, "Though no one's obvious."

"If they were obvious, I imagine you'd have slit their throats already," he mused as he started flipping through pages of the report again.

"First, obviously, there's your other half, Tequila. She could have stuffed my name in there to get revenge for the whole blowing you up thing. I mean, she hasn't tried to kill me yet, so maybe not, but—"

"I'll deal with—Tequila," he said, shuddering as he said the name.

Right, that was probably his first priority here. He'd help her out if she asked, but he would be keeping an eye on Weasley Ginny and probably meeting her in the dead of night or something to figure out what the hell was going on.

She hoped they really distracted each other; Lee did not need Ginny hovering over her in their shared bedroom.

"Second, Dumbledore, in an effort to kidnap me here and get me back into Hogwarts," Lee said. Granted, it'd be a very roundabout way for him to go about it, but she still had to throw his name into the ring.

"It's possible," Ren mused, giving no hint as to how likely he found that theory.

"Third, the Ministry, the same idea, kidnap me and get me back into Hogwarts."

"That's too clever for them," Ren said simply, despite the fact that he hadn't been here in over ten years and shouldn't know if it was clever for them or not.

"And finally, one of your Death Eaters, I guess," Lee said. "Neville and the gang also claim to have met another you in his first year."

That finally got Ren's attention.

"Yes, about that, what exactly do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, according to Neville, you were hanging out on the back of some guy named Quirrell's head in 1991 in an attempt to steal the Philosopher's Stone. They're pretty sure you're still around, somewhere, though you haven't made an appearance yet."

"They're sure that wasn't the—Tequila?" he asked.

"No, that was a diary. They think Lucius Malfoy had it before it, well, infected Ginny," Lee said, cringing at the way she said that. They'd thought Ginny had miraculously survived it too, in part thanks to Ginny confessing nearly everything afterwards and supplying the damaged diary.

He didn't say anything to that; the wheels in his head seemed to be spinning. Finally, after a long pause he noted, "That's quite the suspect list."

He glared across at her. "I'm also not sure I like the idea of doing your dirty work. I came here to spy on Dumbledore and see your Tequila for myself. Unfortunately, it seems if I want to keep tabs on those two I'll be doing half the work you wanted, so I might as well help you out."

He sighed and noted, "You do know it could be anyone, right? Anyone above the age of seventeen who was even close to that goblet is a suspect."

"Yup," Lee said, and then after a pause, "You'll have fun."

Author's Note: For some reason, I take great joy in Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley's uncomfortable sexual awakening.

Thanks to GlassGirlCeci for betaing the chapter.

Thanks to readers and reviewers. Reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter