ROAD TO WIZARD

THE HOGWARTS GENJUTSU

A/N: Watching of the Road to Ninja movie is not required for the reading or understanding of this fic, though it certainly helps, especially for the first thousand words or so.

The prevailing sound was the squeak-squeak-squeak of Sakura's swing.

The chiming chorus of crickets accompanied this metallic, screeching consonance, though as they could not be seen from their hidden positions in the grass around the park, it was only Sakura that Naruto paid attention to, her determinedly angry eyes glimmering under both the moon up top and the flickering bright light hanging above. The 'date', if that was what it truly was, was not going well.

"Err, Sakura," Naruto finally spoke out, still watching his team member swing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in her stood up position, "Sounded like your mum wanted you to come back."

Sakura spoke quickly, "It's best to leave her alone. She's always like this, butting in on every little part of every little thing you do, and trying to tell you exactly how you should be doing it. And my dad is no better either." Naruto watched as the girl ranted, pink strands of hair rocking to and fro past her eyes as she spoke, "Would it be so hard to take my side once and a while? But nooo, he always does whatever she says." Naruto continued to watch and listen, though he didn't like what he was hearing, didn't like to hear Sakura rant on so about her parents, when some people… when he, didn't even… "According to them, I'm a no good ninja with no shot at becoming a Jonin. Throw me a bone some time!"

Naruto had stopped watching her now, eyes planted firmly to the ground. "You know what," he went to say, but Sakura cut through, not even hearing him.

"Why couldn't I have different parents?" she lamented, "One's I could respect like everyone else has." She huffed aloud, "I'd be better off without them."

At these words Naruto felt his grip on the metal swing handles tighten significantly. "Okay, I think that you're going a bit too far now."

It took half a second to process this, but once she had, Sakura leapt off the swings to land in front of Naruto, shrieking a questioning "What?" as she did so. She was just not picking up on Naruto's obvious discomfort at her talk of parents. Parents that Naruto would have given anything for.

Sakura stuck a finger forwards to Naruto, "Oh so you're gonna take their side, huh?"

Naruto stood up, anger bubbling below a feeling of the need to earnestly explain why her complaints weren't quite justified. "No, I just think that-"

Sakura cut through with a sigh, "Huuuh, why did it have to be you here with me right now?" A pause as she turned and spoke in a lighter voice, "If Sasuke was here he would definitely understand how I feel."

Naruto gaped at the girl, and before all of his emotions at the mention of the ex team member could come to the forefront, before he could say what he so needed to say, a deep, commanding voice spoke out through the night.

"It's been a while, Naruto Uzumaki."

There, perched to the side, with his Akatsuki robes and spiral masked, was the Masked Man, the man they believed to be Madara Uchiha.

All thought to the previous conversation was quickly lost.

"So it's you, Madara!" Naruto snarled, placing his fingers together and summoning a shadow clone, before purposefully striding forwards.

He extended out a hand as he did so, and with his clone he formed the spiralling concentration of chakra that was the Rasengan, before leaping forwards, jutsu aimed straight for the man's chest.

As ever, physical contact proved impossible, and Naruto felt himself go flying through, crashing uselessly into the metal gate behind.

Madara hadn't moved an inch. "You never change," he commented with almost a hint of amusement, but before more could be said, the loud battle cry of Sakura's "Chaaaaaaa!" sounded out, and the said pinkette came flying down, leg first, pulverising the ground below with quite incredible strength; a miniature dust cloud even erupting out of the rubble created.

The Kunoichi knew though that she had not hit him. "I won't let you attack our village," she said, knuckles cracking, eyes glaring into Madara, who stood above.

"This is unplanned," the man admitted, withdrawing a small, transparent sphere from his robes and throwing it into the air casually, "But it doesn't matter."

The two leaf shinobi watched as the object flew into the air, floating almost, and then stopping so only the moon bore out through it, reflecting the glass a deep red. Then, within it, an image of sorts. Sharingan tomoe appeared, almost like an eye, and then a blinding light, shining so powerfully that both Naruto and Sakura had to shield their eyes from harm.

"MADARA! WHAT ARE YOU?" Naruto blubbered out under the bright gaze, and then, with a twinkle in their ears, the light enveloped all, until there was nothing left, just brightness.

It was within a few seconds after the light had subsided that the two pulled their arms away from their eyes, and it was within many, many more seconds that the two managed to get to grips with what had just happened.

"Where…. Where are we?"

Naruto and Sakura were in a hall. They were no longer in the park, in Konohagakure, they were inside.

Also, judging by the symmetrically placed beams of sunlight pouring through the great, arched windows and onto the stone slabbed floor, it was now not night, but daytime.

"S-Sakura," Naruto spoke out again, shakily, "What's going on?"

Sakura sounded less shaky, but certainly just as confused. "I don't know," she replied, looking about, "We must be in some sort of… hospital, I guess?"

It was a sound and well-conceived guess, as intermittently beside each window was a small one person bed, each with a bedpan and other sorts of appliances laying at their feet. On the walls were posters making mention of diseases and illnesses Sakura had never heard of, and she noticed with at first a thrill of horror, a person laying in one of these beds in the far corner, clearly, from their snoring, asleep; their arm hooked in a sling.

"But… But how did we get here?" Naruto went on worriedly, "And where's Madara?"

"I don't know Naruto, we're in the same exact situation aren't we? I know nothing more than you."

Naruto barely seemed to register her rise in temper, instead he looked about with fear, fingernails in-between his teeth as his blue eyes darted about the place, drinking in all of the detail.

"I don't know," Sakura said, "Maybe we're in some sort of genjutsu?"

Naruto turned to her then nodded with an apparent sudden burst of confidence at the mention of something he knew of, "Right!" He quickly did a hand seal and then said, "Release!"

Nothing happened.

"Not a genjutsu then?" Naruto murmured in a worried fashion once again, turning to his female counterpart.

"No, I reckon it must be a genjutsu of some kind. Maybe one just too strong for a simple release to break."

"But then, what do we do Sakura?"

Sakura, who was still more interested in their whereabouts than anything else, shrugged. "I dunno. Guess we'll just have to search the place for now. It's certainly a detailed little world we've been put in."

"Okay!" Naruto roared once more, "I'll create some shadow clones and they can search the area! Let's go!"

There was a resounding silence once Naruto had crossed his fingers in the classic Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu way. His eyes closed, he opened them, as if to check why the conjured clone had made no sound at all, and was almost appalled to find no new Naruto there standing next to him.

"Huh? What's up with that? Where's my shadow clone?"

Sakura frowned, not at all liking where this was possibly heading. She began to concentrate, running her chakra through her body, trying to flow it through to her fingertips, but…

"Naruto!" she exclaimed. He glanced up at her from attempting once more to conjure another clone.

"What?"

"Naruto! I can't feel any chakra, I think… it's like it's not there!"

Naruto was strangely calm at this news, though this soon became clear it was because he was foolishly labouring under the false impression that Sakura was just being melodramatic.

"Oh Sakura, don't be silly, our chakra can't just be gone. Anyway, I wanted to talk about our clothes, what on earth is going on with-"

"Naruto, we can talk about our clothes later!" Though now she paid attention, Naruto's assortment of clothing was completely weird, "Try and concentrate your chakra. It's non-existent. I can't even feel it within myself."

Naruto closed his eyes for a few moments, before drawing them open quickly again, a panicked glimmer now evident within, "I can't feel my chakra!"

"I know!" Sakura returned.

"But that doesn't make sense! Wait, let me try! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! No. Shadow Clone Jutsu! Nope. Hm! Not working. There! Nothing. Dammit! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu! MULTI SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"

"Naruto it's not going to work! Keep it down would you?"

The blond let his arms sag down hopelessly. "Sakura… what are we going to do? Madara's trapped us here, wherever here is, and we have no jutsu. There's no way out of this."

Sakura sighed and looked about the room once more, before turning back to him, "Well listen Naruto, you're right, it is looking pretty hopeless right now, but there's still stuff we can do. First off, I think we've got to figure out where we are exactly and what's going on. For example, let's start with our clothes."

Naruto looked down to his attire at this mention. Both he and Sakura were wearing clothes of the sort they had never really seen. Under black robes they both wore white shirts with gold and red striped ties hanging from their necks. Naruto wore black trousers, Sakura a black skirt, and both had black plimsoll like shoes on. Naruto seemed to find this most distressing.

"It feels like my toes are being imprisoned, Sakura," he moaned, "Why would Madara make us wear this? The bastard!"

"I don't know," said Sakura, "but look, those bags on the floor, do you think they could be ours?"

Naruto glanced to two grey coloured rucksack like bags on the floor by the nearest bed. He approached them and upon opening the first found an assortment of books, parchments of papers, to Naruto what seemed to be feathers, and also: "What's this?"

Naruto withdrew a stick from the bag.

It was a dark brown colour, likely about a foot long, twelve inches or so, with a slight wiggle to it in the centre, like it had been deliberately designed in some way to take the form of an average stick, even despite its polished finish proving this not to be the case. Naruto peered down at it, before picking up the bag once more and pulling out a book, which, after dropping the bag to the floor, he held in his other hand. He pushed it open to the first page and found inscribed at the top in black ink the markings: Property of Sakura Haruno.

"Oh, so this is all yours," Naruto said, chucking both the stick and book over to Sakura, who only just managed to catch them both.

Sakura placed the stick into her robe's inner pocket before turning the book over to look at its front, as all the while Naruto began ruffling through the other bag, which was presumably 'his'.

"Hogwarts: A History," Sakura read aloud. Something, she felt, was very wrong here. What kind of detailed genjutsu world had they been put into, if that was what had truly happened back in the park?

"Oh, here's my stick," Naruto then said, pulling out a lighter coloured, slightly longer and slightly straighter stick from his bag.

The boy looked at it for a short moment, seemingly very interested in it, then gave it a wave, and it was then something unprecedented happened. The bed covers of the nearest bed flew completely off, as if a gust of wind had just bellowed out from Naruto and knocked it all down. Sakura gasped at this, but Naruto himself simply stood wide-eyed, almost as if he anticipated getting told off for creating the mess.

"What was that about?" Sakura wondered, eyes firmly planted on the object in Naruto's hand.

"I dunno," the boy whispered back, and before Sakura could say anything, he gave the stick a deft flick once more.

This time a shower of red sparks flew out, sizzling and disappearing as they fell to the floor. Sakura jumped back fearfully ever so, but Naruto looked quite pleased.

"Cool," he grinned, "This stick can do stuff, Sakura."

"Yeah, but… how?" She said back, "Did you deliberately do all that?"

"Well, no," Naruto admitted, "I just kind of waved it and the stuff just happened."

Sakura moved forwards, taking the stick out of Naruto's hands. "I wonder, the way that bedding just flew off. Maybe it's some kind of chakra receiving rod? Or something like that."

Naruto liked this idea. "Hey yeah, and since I'm a wind type user, it made a gust of wind!"

"Then I wonder why those red sparks came out the second time you did it," Sakura went on, deep in thought. "Hold on," she said, passing Naruto his stick back and then pulling out her own stick from within her pocket, "I'll have a quick go."

Raising the stick into the air, she then brought it down forcefully, and a loud bang sounded out, accompanied by a puff of smoke. Naruto leapt into the air with an exclamation of shock, and Sakura looked down to see that with her movement of the stick she had somehow managed to singe the stone floor beneath, a black scorch mark now etched into the stone.

"What in the hell is going on here?" She muttered to herself.

"I don't know, but don't do that again!" Naruto returned.

Sakura looked up at him and nodded, "Well you're right, clearly we'll have to be more careful with these rod things, whatever they are."

Naruto nodded, then looked around, "Right. Well, what now then?"

Sakura moved over and picked up her bag, pushing Hogwarts: A History inside it as she did so, before flinging it around her back. "I guess we go explore, keep an eye out for Madara, and just find out what the hell is going on."

"Right," Naruto nodded, picking up his bag also.

The two quickly made for the nearest exit, a large, wooden, double-doored one, which creaked loudly as they pushed it open and made their way through it.

With a brisk pace set by Sakura, the two began to make their way down many a stone corridor, in which many a young person moved. They were all dressed the same way as Naruto and Sakura, yet ranged in age from surely younger than a teenager, right up to nearing adulthood. Some, well many, had different coloured ties to the two ninja, and pushing through these odd crowds Naruto peered down at them all, trying, it seemed, to see if they were real or some kind of illusion. Sakura herself was more interested in the walling, as as they walked she had noticed that the paintings on the walls, the very realistic paintings on the walls (more realistic than any art style she had ever seen), were moving. This itself was not too odd, seeing as she did have Sai as a team member, but the way in which the drawings moved in and out of each other's portraits, talked as if alive themselves, it all was too odd. Indeed, when what appeared to be a ghost floated out of a nearby wall and out into the corridor, tipping its hanging head towards her as some sort of macabre greeting, she literally had to freeze still in shock.

Using this break in movement to tell Sakura what he had apparently learnt from his examinations thus far, Naruto put forwards, "I think all these people are real you know, Sakura. Like, they're not illusions or anything. This is one powerful genjutsu."

Sakura went to answer, but her voice was cut out by a hand on her shoulder and an unfamiliar voice saying her name.

"Sakura, Menma. Where are you guys going? We have Transfiguration right now."

A short haired, dark skinned boy, likely the same age, stood behind the two of them, hand outstretched and on Sakura's shoulder. Behind him stood another boy, likely their age, Caucasian and with a cropped but messy haircut, and next to him, to both Sakura and Naruto's joy and surprise, was Hinata Hyuga.

Naruto completely ignored the two boys and to the annoyance of two smaller, green and silver tied girls, he pushed forwards through to her. "Hinata! Hey Hinata thank goodness you're here!"

Hinata, eyes wide with complete shock, said nothing, as the two boys she was with shared bemused looks. The dark skinned boy went to share a similar expression with Sakura, but she did not return it, as she was far too interested in Hinata's appearance to care.

"Hinata, how did you get put in this genjutsu? What's up? Do you know what's going on?"

Hinata stayed completely still, but Sakura noted that her face was progressively becoming redder and redder.

"And why are you suddenly showing Hinata all the attention in the world, eh?" asked the boy next to her with a cheeky grin. His voice was accented with a lilt both Naruto and Sakura did not recognise.

The boy closer to Sakura also spoke, "Yeah, and what's a genjoosu?"

Naruto simply continued to gaze earnestly into Hinata's milky white eyes, waiting for an answer. Instead the girl started to stutter a bit, face as red as tomato by now, until she finally bellowed out, "MENMA WE HAVE TRANSFIGURATION NOW!"

Naruto reclined backwards at her shout, before turning questioningly to Sakura. The two boys shrugged and began to move off with Hinata, the deep accented one saying to the female, "Honestly, and you call yourself a Gryffindor? Getting all like that around the guy you like!"

Sakura grabbed Naruto by the arm, as the boy wondered aloud, "Hey, why was Hinata like that, you'd think she'd be a little confused by all this too? And what's all this Menma business?"

"Naruto, listen," Sakura said, "I'm not so sure that really is Hinata. And if it is, her mind has been caught in a deeper genjutsu than even us."

Naruto blinked, "What'dya mean?"

"I mean," Sakura said slowly, "That she is in on all of this. Look, she was wearing the same clothes, she also seemed to know those two strangers, she knew about this 'Transfiguration' that we need to go to. I'm just not so sure she's normal Hinata right now, and I'm certain we won't be getting any information outta her. I mean, if it really was her, don't you think she would have come out and told us the situation?"

Naruto's face looked pained. "But she's the one link to our world right now. We can't just let her walk away. This castle or whatever it is seems really big."

"No, I know Naruto. We'll go with them to Transfiguration. And just, play along, alright? Be a ninja and try and blend in whilst we're here. For now."

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, gotcha. Let's go then."

Nodding once more in their typical Team Seven way, the two ran off through the crowds after Hinata and her two male counterparts, following them up spiralling staircases, down candlelit corridors, until, when it seemed like they must have been many floors high up in the castle, the threesome led the two ninja into a room.

Here, behind rows of desks, other teenagers sat, many deep in conversation, others in the process of pulling parchments of paper and quills out from their bags. The room's ceiling was high, and natural light pooled through from the glassless windows. Up front a singular dark desk lay, behind it a chalk blackboard, the kind Iruka Sensei used to use back at the Academy. It was here, standing in the doorway and looking about, that Naruto and Sakura both now noticed Kiba of all people, dressed in robes like everybody else, sat down in the third row, Hinata and her two male friends sat on his right and two spare seats to his left. Sakura pointed out the boy to Naruto, who nodded, and made his way to sit next to him.

"Hey guys, didn't see you at breakfast this morning, what was that about?" Kiba asked conversationally of the two as they took seats. He was doodling with the quill in his hands a little picture of himself sitting upon, of all things, a broomstick.

Sakura went to answer but Naruto spoke out first, much to her annoyance, "Kiba! Kiba, what's going on? Where are we? Did Madara put you here too? Do you know a way back home?"

Kiba watched in complete confusion as Sakura grabbed Naruto by the ear and began whispering something quite aggressively into it.

"What did I say about blending in, huh? We're trying to learn about the situation through subtlety not just shouting out about it like an idiot!"

Grinning, Kiba looked away from this and continued his doodle in more detail, "You two are so predictable. Ha. Always fighting over Menma acting like a total knucklehead."

Sakura let go of Naruto and pointed discreetly at Kiba. "D'ya see? He's under the same kind of spell Hinata is. He's useless."

"Yeah okay, you didn't need to pinch my ear so hard to make that point you know, Sakura."

There was the sound of the door opening and all the talking in the room quickly ceased. Both Naruto and Sakura turned in their seat to see who had entered the room. A sour faced, thin elderly lady was now walking down the aisle and towards the front of the room, her robes billowing behind her and a pointed black hat perched upon her head. She spoke smartly as she walked, barking out instructions. "Mr. Weasley please stop talking, you too Mr. Potter. Mr. Inuzuka enough doodling if you please. Miss. Haruno and Mr. Namikaze why do you have nothing out in front of you?"

Sakura and Naruto both shared looks, realising they were being talked to. They looked about the room to see that everybody else had out parchments of paper, quills with accompanying ink pots, and also their own similar sticks that both Naruto and Sakura had. The two ninja reached into their bags and took out such items, and also placed their own sticks out onto the desk in front of them.

The lady at the front was still talking. "Miss Brown, if you could please take the snails from this box and hand one out to everybody. Good girl. And yes everybody this will be a practical lesson-" (a collective hiss of 'yes' from most in the room) "-But do keep your parchments out for some short note taking at the end. Yes, thank you Lavender. Alright, so. Today we shall, once again, be putting into action the Vanishing spell you all took notes down on last Tuesday. And yes, I will be expecting your essays I set in at the end of the lesson. Now, we shall be continuing our attempts to vanish the snails, only this time these snails are far larger. No garden variety snail, I can tell you that much. You all know the incantation and wandwork by now. So, off you all go."

Naruto and Sakura blinked in confusion, thoroughly not following most of what this lady had said. Everybody else though had picked up their 'wands', and were muttering the words "Evanesco," over and over again, along with flicking their wands down upon the snails.

Naruto side-eyed Sakura. "Erm, Sakura, what the hell is going on?"

"It seems like we're in an Academy or something," Sakura muttered back, "And we're vanishing… snails? For some reason."

"Why would we want to vanish snails?" Naruto asked back.

Sakura shook her head. "I have no idea."

The two watched as a bushy haired girl sitting in the same row as themselves, though across the gap, seemed to, already effortlessly, vanish her snail. The tall, ginger haired boy sat next to her almost gaped at her, before asking loudly, "How'd you always do it so bloody quickly, Hermione?"

"I suspect it has something to do with actually doing the work outside of the classroom, Ronald," this Hermione returned with a hidden smile, and a boy next to 'Ronald', with unkempt, jet black hair and rounded glasses, chuckled good-naturedly at her jibe.

"Copy her," Sakura whispered to Naruto, and after the girl had tapped mid-air in order to re-appear the snail and continue practising, they copied her movements and words exactly, though Naruto, due to his eyes remaining glued to her hand, completely missed his snail.

Sakura looked down at hers to see that the tip of the snail's large and swirled shell was now indeed missing. Somewhat impressed with herself, she turned to see how the other's on her row were doing, and saw that Kiba had somehow only managed to land a crack in his snail's shell, the dark skinned boy and his friend had also had no luck, and Hinata had managed to just about make the snail's shell look slightly less 'there'.

Through the course of the rest of the lesson they learnt through eavesdropping that the names of Hinata and Kiba's two friends were Dean and Seamus, and also that the old lady who seemed to be their teacher was called Professor McGonagall. After some note-taking on the process of vanishing vertebrate animals Professor McGonagall then called for everybody's essays, and after desperately tearing through their bags, both Naruto and Sakura found that 'they' had indeed written said essays, and handed in 'their' written work in due course.

"It's like we've been doing stuff in this world before we even came here, if that makes sense," Sakura had whispered hurriedly to Naruto.

With all this done a bell rang out from somewhere near, and to Professor McGonagall's reminders to continue practising, and an added warning about OWLS (which confused Naruto more than Sakura, as the boy had still not caught on that it was an acronym of some kind, and was still picturing the bird whenever she mentioned them) everybody in the class began to pool out.

"Alright then," Naruto muttered as he and Sakura led Kiba and the rest of the row out of the door and back into the corridor, "What now? We gonna continue to play Academy?"

"Nothing else we can do, is there?" Sakura returned, "We'll just carry on following Hinata or Kiba. That's our best bet I reckon."

At the mention of Kiba, the boy came out of the classroom door, yawning and speaking. "Ugh, man. A free period and I'm going to have to be filling it with Snape's shitty essay. God, I can't wait to drop Potions at NEWT level."

He waited for Naruto to say something, to agree, and after a secret nudge from Sakura, Naruto grinned. "Oh yeah. I hate Potions."

Kiba clearly found the response a bit weird, but he accepted it. "Anyway, you coming to finish it now as well? I was planning on going to that big study room on the ground floor, just in that corridor off the entrance hall. Normally pretty empty."

Naruto nodded slowly, "Erm… yeah, sounds good, Kiba."

"Great, I'll go too. I haven't touched that essay yet," Seamus said, and Dean nodded in agreement.

The group turned to leave, Naruto turning to Sakura wide-eyed and praying with his eyes that she would follow, but as she went to, Hinata spoke out.

"Sakura, where are you going? We have Muggle Studies now, remember?"

Sakura looked between Hinata and the still walking away Naruto, then nodded back to Hinata. "Yeah, of course. Sorry, I just have to return my quill to Naruto."

The girl ran forwards and brought Naruto to a stop, urgently whispering to him as she pretended to go through her bag in search of 'his' quill, "Naruto, listen. Hold fort for now. Just, like, observe what's going on. Ask questions, try to figure out what this world is. I'm sure I'll find you soon. If you don't see me by the time it gets dark, meet me where we first appeared, in that medical wing area."

"But I don't know where it is," Naruto meeped.

"Alright, just stay alert. Looks out for any more signs linking this world to our own. I can't believe that our friends are here as a coincidence. Maybe it's Madara playing games, I don't know. Anyway, I have to go study some Muggles or something now. I'll see you soon."

Naruto watched sadly as Sakura ran off to Hinata, but at Kiba's shout of the name 'Menma', which was apparently his name in this world, he turned back around, and went off with his fellow classmates, headed, apparently, for a study room, to do an essay for a man named 'Professor Snake', or something similar.

Down staircases that moved and through corridors with singing portraits the group traversed, Naruto barely following the conversation about 'Kwid-itch' that they were meant to be having, until they came to a sort of courtyard/quad on the ground floor. The sun floated almost directly above this exposed space of the castle, and on the benches and upon the patches of grass students sat, talking, reading, and messing about with their wands. It was here also, as Kiba strode across the pavement, that Naruto halted to a dead stop.

There, sitting on a bench, alone, in similar robes to Naruto's own but with a green and silver tie tied messily below his neck, was Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke.

Naruto's brain now whizzed and worked, though it was not fully functioning. It was as if it had reverted back to pure primal instinct. He forgot where he was, what was happening. All he wanted to do was to talk to Sasuke. He stumbled forwards, stopping by the boy, waiting, thinking of something to say, desperate for something to say, and then…

"Get lost."

This did not deter him, Naruto stammered around for something, and finally with his voice cracking as he spoke, he asked, "Sasuke, are you with us in this world?"

Sasuke's eyes, boring into Naruto under his framed fringe, narrowed slightly, and he said, "I told you to get lost. Don't make me say it again."

Naruto though could not contain both his excitement and his fear. "S-Sasuke, are we friends in this world? Are you back with me and Sakura?"

Sasuke stood up now. "I have no time for the likes of you."

Kiba, Dean, and Seamus moved to be behind Naruto now, and various other faces watched with interest from within the courtyard.

"S-Sasuke, please. You're here aren't you? In this castle place? You've not ran off in this world. You're here with me and Sakura, we're friends right? Tell me, tell me we're friends!"

"I'll tell you what I told you three years ago, Menma," said Sasuke, "being friends with you only slowed me down. I don't need you anymore. All I need… is power."

Naruto felt like he had just been punched in the stomach. He felt tears well up in his eyes which he rapidly blinked away. "So… So, Itachi's in this world too… is he?"

Sasuke's hand had reached into his robes just at the mention of his brother's name. His wand was out and pointed, and he had said some incantation before anyone even knew what was going on. Naruto though, even without his chakra, still had his natural reflexes about him, and he made an incredible dive out of the way, Sasuke's red aura flying out and disappearing into the air where Naruto had been.

People in the crowds gasped as Naruto scrambled back up, but Sasuke was apparently not done. This time he swiped down with his wand, and this time, despite his dive to the side, it seemed Naruto had been caught by Sasuke's spell, as a slight red cut appeared upon his hand. Behind this, the threesome of Kiba, Seamus, and Dean had drew their wands, but seeing this Naruto extended out a hand to them, indicating for them to stop. The Uzumaki reached into his robes and withdrew his own wand, and then pointed it forwards at the Uchiha.

"How dare you mention his name in front of me?" Sasuke yelled before sending another spell Naruto's way.

He easily dodged, then pointed his own wand forwards. Nothing happened.

"I'll kill you!" Sasuke roared onwards, lunging forwards and sending more spells Naruto's way.

The blond managed to dodge each of them, one smashing into a stone pillar far behind and making a small portion of it crumble off and onto the floor.

"Sasuke," Naruto called out, wand pointed forwards and ready, although he had no idea of how to use it, "Sasuke please, I'm sorry. It's just… It's just that you're here! You're here and…"

"SHUT UP!" Sasuke hissed, swirling his wand in the air then lashing it forwards, so that ropes came cascading out of it and towards Naruto.

The boy narrowly dodged this one, and from his floored position flurried his own wand.

The only thing that happened was that a small, spectating boy's robes flew upwards to reveal his name-tagged underwear.

"NOW TAKE THIS!"

"Protego!"

There was a light flash, and a new figure on the scene, and before Naruto could even understand what was going on he was being lifted by his robes to his feet, and a hook nosed, greasy haired man was glaring down into him, Sasuke being held in the man's other hand.

"What do you think the two of you were doing?" He demanded, each word spat out with a clear precision.

Sasuke snarled and struggled under the man's grip, eventually freeing himself. He did not leave however, staying to glare dangerously Naruto's way. Naruto was then dropped as the man pulled back, crossing his arms beneath his cloak.

"Well? What is this meaning of all this? Fighting in the Courtyard?"

Sasuke was clearly not going to answer, so Naruto went to instead.

"We err… we were just."

"Uchiha attacked Menma, sir!" Seamus called out, "Menma just went to say something, and…"

"Be quiet, Finnegan," the man drawled, before drawing his eyes back to Naruto, "What did you say? Hmm?"

"I just," Naruto stammered. His head was not yet steady, too many things were happening, had happened, and it was like his mind was just not processing anything. It had reached capacity.

The man turned to Sasuke, "Uchiha, what did he say to you? I presume it was you, who started the duel."

Sasuke still did not answer, but instead brought his just as black eyes up to match the man's with a look full of contempt.

The man turned now from the two of them and addressed everybody else in the courtyard, "Everybody leave. Go to your Common Rooms or your next lessons. Get out of here… now!"

Naruto watched as everybody left, and felt a particular pang of regret as he watched Kiba, Seamus, and Dean scornfully move off back into the castle.

The man, who Naruto had at least clocked onto being a Professor by now, said, "Well then. I could certainly guess what you two would be fighting about. Though I find it odd that after so long you've even started interacting again." He then spoke in a tone dripping with even more distaste than before, "You realise you could have seriously hurt somebody? That wouldn't have boded very well for you and your future plans, now would it?" He seemed to have directed this comment mostly at Sasuke, "Detention, Six o clock this evening. Both of you. And twenty points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin. An extra five from Gryffindor, actually, for I have no doubt that it was you, Namikaze, that antagonised Uchiha in the first place." Naruto had no idea what this meant, but nodded slowly anyway.

Scowling, the man turned quickly on his heel, and marched off into the castle. Sasuke did the same, though in the opposite direction, leaving Naruto alone in the centre of the courtyard, emotional, in a bit of pain from his cut hand, and mostly extremely confused.

xxx

Eventually Naruto had found the study room Kiba and co had gone to. Here, he deflected their questioning about why he had gone to speak to Sasuke (Apparently, it was common knowledge that they were 'once' best friends), and also learnt the name of his dentition giver: Professor Snape. He also watched with absolute puzzlement as the other three began to write their essays for said Professor: Moonseed: its properties and uses for potions besides Moonseed poison. All three of them had complained loudly that last week (which Naruto had learnt had been just the first week back to 'school') Snape had given them a similar essay regarding Moonstone, and they all expressed worry at the idea of getting given such long essays each and every week.

To occupy himself as these three all scribbled away, Naruto began to practise with his wand. He found a very certain wrist gesture to make a nearby stall topple over (which, after the fifth time, he was told to 'knock off' by Dean) and he also further practised the Vanishing spell he had been shown in McGonagall's Transfiguration, though he had no luck making his quill disappear.

After an hour or so was done, The three of them led Naruto up to what was the 'Gryffindor Common Room' on the seventh floor, a group, it transpired, that he was apparently apart of. It was quite a lovely place (Through a talking portrait of a fat lady, who required the password: 'Mimbulus mimbletonia' to get through) with a fire crackling to the side, and comfy looking red chairs set all around. They spent an hour here playing a game called 'Exploding snap' with a pack of cards, and after this, Kiba revealed to Naruto that they now had their last lesson of the day: Divination.

Naruto however declined to go with them (much to the shock of everybody else, and a joking accusation from Seamus that 'Menma' had chosen today to be a 'bad boy', in an attempt most likely to impress Sakura) as he knew from Sakura's tie that she was a Gryffindor too, and at some point she would be returning to this very common room. Wanting to be with Sakura most of all, he decided to wait about, playing with the cards by himself, hoping that Sakura would turn up before his detention with Professor Snape.

Sakura, however, did not return. By Four o'clock the other Gryffindor's in Naruto's year had all arrived, but just not the person he needed most. Sitting about awkwardly waiting, he learnt a few important details at least. They were in a castle called Hogwarts (which Naruto realised had been on the title of Sakura's book, in her bag) and also, due to a growing panic that had made him ask, learnt that Snape's detention would be in the dungeons, a place, he figured, that would be found best by simply continuously heading down staircases until he could no longer. He also noted with glee when it hit five that Konohamaru was in this strange world too, also in the Gryffindor club, as the boy clambered through the hole with his friends Moegi and Udon chatting animatedly about a prank he had pulled in Charms class.

When it hit half past five, Naruto decided to move and go in search of Snape's office, and it proved to be a smart move, as very quickly in his journey through Hogwarts he became hopelessly lost. At five to five he had just about arrived on the ground floor, but from here had even more trouble finding a passage down to the dungeons, and once in the dungeons at five past, he still had no idea which door he needed to go through. Due to this, he simply knocked on every single one as he passed, and finally, as he knocked on a door and made to move to the next, he heard the voice of Professor Snape call out, "Come in."

Naruto entered the room and shivered. It was cold, dark, and dank. Upon the shelves scaling the walls were large glass jars of who-knows-what floating within them. Sitting down behind the main desk was Snape, who did not even look up at Naruto's arrival, and sitting on a seat by a small one man table was Sasuke, cross armed and clearly annoyed to be there. Noting a table and chair of his own waiting next to Sasuke's, Naruto took a seat.

"Mr. Namikaze. You're late." Snape spoke out, a harsh undertone clear within his voice.

"I-I got lost," Naruto replied.

"A terrible excuse if there ever was one. Do you really want to play me for a fool, Namikaze?"

Snape now finally looked up, his gaze a harsh one, glaring into Naruto. Naruto gulped, then shook his head.

"I would hope not," Snape said softly.

He then waved his wand in the air and upon the tables in front of both Naruto and Sasuke two bowls, one large and one small, appeared. The larger bowl, Naruto noted with disgust, was full to the brim with dead caterpillars; green, fat, and hairy.

"Squeeze out the caterpillar juice into the bowl," Snape instructed almost lazily, "You are not permitted to use magic."

Sasuke immediately stuck his hand in and then squished the caterpillar over the smaller bowl. Its juice exploded outwards and leaked into the bowl, but also all over Sasuke's hand. He put the remains back into the big bowl, then picked up a new one. Naruto watched him do this a few times, before realising that he too had to do it, and so began to work himself.

The detention was really quite horrible. For two hours Naruto sat there in silence, taking out caterpillars, squeezing out their innards, and repeating. And when he had finished his bowl, Snape, with a cruel smile, had simply waved his wand and more caterpillars had appeared, fresh and ready for juicing. Three hours into the detention the sound of Snape's quill scribbling away had stopped, and Naruto watched as the Professor stood and made his way over to the door.

"Do keep up the good work," he said slowly before he left, "I shall be back quite shortly."

Naruto pretended to keep working a few seconds after the door had closed shut to his office, but once he was quite sure Snape had moved off to do whatever he planned to do, he ceased, and turned to Sasuke instead.

The boy simply continued squeezing the caterpillars, a look of anger still visible upon his face.

Naruto wanted to say something, had to say something, but what?

"Sas-"

"Would you stop trying to talk to me?"

Sasuke, still squeezing caterpillars, glared up at Naruto.

With a feeling of defiance, Naruto shook his head, "Nope. I'm never gonna stop."

"You did for a good three years there," Sasuke returned, "I don't know why you're trying all over again. Just leave me alone, okay? I don't ever want to speak to you."

"Sasuke, not in this world or in our own, will I ever give up on you."

Sasuke stopped what he was doing, then turned in his seat, to properly face Naruto.

"Listen," he said, "Please don't start all this again, okay? I have no time to run around playing wizard with you and Sakura anymore. No matter how much you try, we shall never be friends again."

Naruto grinned, "Well, Madara's definitely captured you right, Sasuke. You once said, after all, that you no longer wanted to play ninja with us, back when you left the village. Though it didn't seem like you were exactly trying to kill me back in the courtyard, so that's different I guess."

Sasuke only seemed to reply to the last part of Naruto's sentence. "I didn't try to kill you back there," he said, "Because I still have things to learn from this wretched old place. Once I've learnt all I need to learn though, killing you won't be a problem for me. What's one more murder in this world?"

Naruto smiled slightly to himself, then turned back to juicing his caterpillars. The two worked on in silence a moment longer, before Naruto said, "Sasuke, you know I gotta try. This world. This Hogwarts business. You realise it's not real, right?"

Sasuke turned with a roll of his eyes to Naruto, "What are you on about?"

"All of this. It's genjutsu. Well, at least we think it is. Tell me you know that, please. Tell me that you're the real Sasuke and that you… you're here too. We could, we could work together, to escape. We…" Naruto hadn't even realised that tears had brimmed in his eyes.

Sasuke looked at him cynically, but before he could speak, the office door swung open and Snape marched in.

"No lollygagging, gentlemen," he said as made his way back towards his desk.

Wiping at his eyes, Naruto got back to work, not daring to spare a glance this genjutsu Sasuke's way.

The detention lasted another hour, and it was at Eleven o'clock that Naruto found his way back to the Fat Lady Portrait and remembered the password. He, of course, had become hopelessly lost in his search for the Common room, and had twice had to run away from a singing poltergeist who each time upon seeing Naruto had decided to follow him and rain cutlery from the kitchens down below. He had also bumped into a rather grubby looking man and his cat, the man apparently being staff, and had only barely managed to explain what he was doing walking around the corridors so late without getting into trouble.

Inside the Common room, Naruto was supremely disappointed to find that Sakura wasn't there. Wondering where she could have possibly got to, he sensibly decided against going out looking for her, and instead took a seat by the fire next to a curled up, ugly looking cat, and in his waiting, promptly fell asleep.

He awoke some moments later to Sakura's face smiling down into his.

"S-Sakura," Naruto sleepily drawled, before properly coming to and leaping up in his chair, "Oh! Sakura! You're back!"

"I've been in the library," Sakura said, seemingly pre-emptively guessing Naruto's brewing question. She fell down next to Naruto in a spare seat, smiling still, "And Naruto, I've got loads to tell you, loads!"

"Yeah," Naruto said with an itch of his head, "And I've got stuff to tell you, too."

"Oh yeah, well you go first. I've got loads."

"Well Sakura… It's Sasuke, he's in this world too."

Sakura's eyes lit up at the name, but she remained silent, before finally saying, "Well yes, I guess that sort of makes sense. It seems everyone else is, after all."

"Wait, what? You expected this?"

"No, no I didn't expect Sasuke to be here. But what I mean is, all of the other rookies are here too. And some others. It appears that Madara has carefully chosen the people who are a part of this genjutsu world. Sasuke… Well, he must know that Sasuke is going to have an effect on us."

Somewhat put out by her levelled response, Naruto pushed Sakura for her learned information.

"Well," Sakura grinned, clearly bursting with news, "Where to start? This is an incredibly detailed world. I went to the library with Hinata after Muggle Studies, which I was actually pretty good at –they don't have Television here – and I just stayed there reading all the basic material. So, listen, we're students in our fifth year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm a witch and you're a wizard! I mean, in this world, at least. We're part of the house Gryffindor, brave and loyal. The other houses are Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. This wizarding world we're part of is separate from the Muggle world, a world that is kind of like our own back home I guess, at least for the average villager, except there's no ninjutsu or chakra or anything."

"Sounds lame," Naruto put in.

"Well, maybe. It seemed quite interesting from my Muggle Studies class anyway."

"So, what then? We're students here? What's the point? What's Madara playing at?"

"Well there's more you see. I was reading the Daily Prophet archive they have in the library too – the newspaper they have – you know, and our Head Master Dumbledore-"

"What? Haha. Dumbledore?"

"-Dumbledore, claims that a dark wizard called You-Know-Who-"

"That's not a name!"

"Is back from the dead, and also, a boy in our year called Harry Potter fought him! So I figured maybe that's gonna be a bit important. If there's a big bad guy like him around, then he's gotta be important somehow, otherwise why would Madara make him?"

"Why would Madara make any of this?" Naruto questioned loudly. Two seventh years across the way glared his way at his shout.

"Well yeah, that's true," Sakura nodded, "I feel like this is very much a waiting game Naruto, you know what I mean? Madara hasn't trapped us here for no reason. There's something going on, and it's surely got to involve us."

Naruto nodded slowly. "Yeah, you're right. So what's say we go find this You-Know-Why guy, if he's so important, and find out what exactly Madara is up to?"

"Waiting game, Naruto," reminded Sakura, "We have no chakra, no weapons, no nothing. We just have these wands, which we barely are able to use. There may be a reason Madara put us in this school to start off with. Perhaps we're meant to learn how to wield magic, you know?"

"Learn?" Naruto repeated drearily.

"Yes, Naruto, learn. Now, anyway, we both need to get to bed."

Naruto shot up out of his seat, "Bed? I'm not going to bed! We've got things to do, Sakura!"

"Waiting game! Wait-ing-gaaaame. And anyway Naruto, we have classes in the morning. We need to sleep."

With this Sakura made her way over to a staircase to the side, and made haste up it. Naruto watched her go, a feeling of trepidation overwhelming. Why did he feel like Sakura was enjoying this genjutsu trick a bit too much? Dejectedly he made to follow her, but found that upon taking the steps up they magically transformed into a slide, sending him on his backside flying back.

"Boys Dormitories mate. No sleeping in your girlfriend's bed tonight," one of the Seventh years said with a point to another door.

Dusting himself off angrily Naruto made his way to this stairway.

This Hogwarts was a strange place indeed.

A/N- Well, here goes this crossover fic. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please remember to review! Massively appreciated and very helpful too. Hope you return for the second chapter! Thanks for reading.

Edit- Well, first canonical error! And in the first chapter no less. And I thought I was doing so well. Yeah, so basically in Fifth year the students don't actually have free periods, that's in the Sixth and Seventh, but obviously in this story they do. Now, I have pretty much stuck to Rowling's original subject timetable, and Thursday and Friday are pretty much not mentioned by her, so these free periods that shouldn't be there take place on these two days, so I'm keeping to canon with that at least. You can try and rationalise it if you would like, as of course this isn't quite the same Hogwarts, but really, I just ask you let me off on this one! It only really goes against a sentence in the Half-Blood Prince where Ron and Harry celebrate the fact that they now have free periods for NEWT level, it's not that big a deal! Cheers to anybody who have read this!