A few weeks before Harry, Ron and Hermionie were due to start their sixth year of magical education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Mrs Weasley came into the kitchen, followed by Professor Dumbledore. Harry, Ron and Hermionie looked slightly shocked as they stared at their headmaster, before coming to their senses and greeting him. After all, the Weasley's were part of the Order of the Pheonix, and as head of the order it wasn't unusual for Professor Dumbledore to be giving them information. Harry looked at Hermionie, and was almost certain she was thinking the exact same as him 'It's not unusual for Dumbledore to be giving information, but what's important enough for him to come in person to The Burrow, rather than send an owl?'.
"It appears, that we will be having a guest staying with us until the school year starts" Mrs Weasley announced, jerking Harry and Hermionie out of their thoughts and having their faces match the one of confusion on Ron's.
"Who?" The three chorused as one.
" I think I am best suited to answering that." Said Professor Dumbledore "I have stumbled across a young man who may prove to his be pivotal to winning the war against Voldermort" Mrs Weasley flinched at the sound of the name, the other three were used to referring to the Dark lord by his name.
"Professor Dumbledore" Said Hermionie, rather nervously, the headmaster often had the effect of making you feel you were being constantly analysed "What do you mean? Surely if this person is so important in the war, why haven't we heard of him?"
"Excellent question Miss Granger. I recently received intelligence that there had been a disturbance near one of the most magical sites in England. When I arrived I found a young man, approximately the same age as you three, unconscious. This disturbance was the second in as many months that I had heard about. However the first time this happened, I was engaged in an extremely important task- delivering Harry to The Burrow." Dumbledore explained. "I took him back to Hogwarts and after 13 hours he woke up, and asked firstly where he was and secondly, if I had heard of a man called Itachi Uchiha. Although he was quite eager to leave, due to me having relieved him of the numerous weapons he had while he was unconscious, he grudgingly answered a few of my questions."
"You see, for the past couple of weeks, I have been hearing rumors of a series of particularly unusual murders, one of which was Igor Karkaroff, in which it appeared that it had not been the work of a normal witch or wizard, this was something completely different and all of them were either deserters of the death eaters or had spoken unfavorably of them. By the description I gave him, the man- whose name is Sasuke Uchiha, became extremely animated and claimed this was the work of his older brother, Itachi Uchiha. He further insisted that I must give him his weapons back and let him go so he can find him."
"What?" Exclaimed Ron, "You mean that this Itachi guy is murdering people for Voldermort? And his brother wants to find him?"
"Yes." Said Dumbledore simply, "But not for the reason you might expect, he wishes to hunt his brother down in order to kill him."
"Why does he want to do that?" Demanded Ron who, although he may feel like it around Percy, could not imagine actually hurting any of his family.
"I shall let him explain when he is ready. He will be joining Hogwarts and providing the Order of the Phoenix with some of his unique abilities in return for some help in his attempt to locate and kill his brother.
"Why are you telling us this now?" Inquired Harry, who had learnt that Dumbledore only revealed things to people when they had to know.
"Molly has kindly agreed to let him stay at The Burrow for the remaining two weeks of the summer holidays. I would rather that he not start the school year alone. No, much better that he has some friends."
Two days later, the man known as Sasuke Uchiha walked up to the front door of The Burrow and knocked three times. After being greeted by Mrs weasley, he was led up to Bill's old room, where he laid down his small pack and his travelling cloak, and was taken to the Weasley's orchard, where Harry and Hermionie were playing quiddich against Ron and Ginny. Hermionie was dreadful and Ginny good so they were reasonably well matched.
Sasuke watched with interest, instinctively analysing the four of them, observing their behaviors and how they reacted when an opponent went on the offensive and their natural instincts as to whether they would attack or defend. After a couple of minutes, where Mrs Weasley waited patiently next to Sasuke, Harry spotted the newcomer and flew over to meet him.
"Hi, I'm Harry." He extended his hand for Sasuke to shake, the spiky haired teen looked at the offered hand and then shook it carefully. He was then introduced to the other three and they soon got to explaining the world of magic.
After talking, where Sasuke gave very little away but managed to gain fascinating information from the teenagers, they decided to resume playing, Sasuke stated he was content to remain watching as he neither knew the rules or how to ride a broom and after a narrow victory by Ron and Ginny, they all headed back inside, for the British weather had decided to change quickly, and a light drizzle was coming down, likely to turn into a traditional English summer storm.
When Harry awoke the next day he met sasuke while going downstairs, the ninja was coming back from a morning run, 50 times around the Weasley's orchard. This was prehaps one of the easier ways for Harry to discover the remarkable level of exertion that a ninja can withstand, and still function normally. Mere moments after Harry arrived downstairs, the letters from Hogwarts arrived. Mrs Weasley was examining the letters closely a few seconds after the five students.
"Well I don't suppose we can put off a trip to Diagon Alley much longer now you have these." Sighed Mrs weasley, they all knew she was thinking about the cost of the books and equipment, although she would never say it out loud.
"Sasuke, can I have a word with you please?"Said Hermionie, and the two went outside, while Ron and Harry looked at each other, surprised.
"Although Mrs Weasley will never admit it, they are short on money at the moment." Explained Hermionie, speaking a little faster in her nervousness she continued "Do you have wizarding money? Because if you don't I can-"
"Dumbledore gave me enough to get the things I need." Replied Sasuke cooly, anticipating the rest of Hermionie's sentence, "He insisisted upon it, apparently the school has a fund for orphan wizards and such."
"Brilliant. If you don't mind me asking, where do you come from? Professor Dumbledore wasn't exactly forthcoming with the details."
Sasuke looked at her for a full 10 seconds, weighing up potential risks of this information being available, however his thought process led to the conclusion that by sharing this part of his past enabled him to potentially gain allies, and in this unfarmiliar world, he needed connections to be able to locate Itachi quicker.
"I come from the village of Konohagakure, and a member fo the Uchiha clan, we were one of the most powerful clans in the village, and can trace our ancestry back for many years, to the founding of the village. The two most recent tragedies to befall Konoha are the attack by the Kyuubi- this translates to the nine tailed demon fox. Although this has been the most devestating and disturbing attack on the village as a whole, the Uchiha massacre is the one most painful to me. Walk with me."
"Okay" Replied Hermionie, noticing that Sasuke had been getting more and more twitchy while he was explaining, barely noticable, but Hermionie had keen eyes. They walked towards the rear of the Weasley's orchard, and as they did, Sasuke explained about him coming home to see the corpses of countless Uchiha, and reaching his house to find his brother standing over the bodies of his mother and father. He then detailed how his brother had told him that he was not worth killing and said "If you wish to kill me, then hate me, despise me… and by all means flee, cling to your wretched life". He could see Hermionie's face getting more and more shocked, and noticed she was fighting tears, however he ignored them.
"What I did after that is much too long and boring to explain properly, basically my goal in life is to becoming strong enough to defeat Itachi. I came to the realisation that training in Konoha was not getting me the results I desired. I left the village and joined under Orochimaru, a powerful shinobi who had managed to kill the previous Hokage- that is the leader and one of the most powerful members of the village. Under his guidance I became much more powerful, until I discovered that I was to become his next vessel for him to occupy, because of the unique gifts of the Uchiha clan."
"Gifts?" Questioned Hermionie, immediately interested in any sort of information that she could obtain about this mysterious man.
"If you're lucky, you won't have to see them in action." Replied Sasuke before continuing "Obviously I did not desire to become his vessel, therefore I left and persued Itachi by myself. Before this however, I had come across a piece of information that Orochimaru had discovered a... Well portal, would be the most accurate way to describe it. He had also found that Itachi went into this portal in pursuit of a shinobi of particulat importance to him. Therefore I followed him and was found uncounsious by Professor Dumbledore. I woke up in Hogwarts and after Dumbledore had explained where I was, we came to our agreement"
"Oh my God I am so sorry." Said Hermionie, shocked by the horror that this man only her age had been through already, and apparently at a loss for words- a very rare occurance.
"Don't look at me like that, I don't want your pity." Stated Sasuke flatly. "I shall have my vengence soon"
A thought struck her. "Can I tell Ron and Harry?"
"If you think they can be trusted" Said Sasuke slowly after a long pause to think, the idea of telling his life another two times did not exactly thrill him.
"I trust Harry and Ron with my life" Said Hermionie confidently. Sasuke merely nodded in acceptance, wondering if it had really been such a good idea to share these details with this girl. He still decided that it had been worth it in order to gain a potential ally and due to his lack of knowledge of the wizarding world, he needed as many allies as he could get. They both turned around and headed back to the burrow, where they went in opposite directions, Sasuke to his tempory bedroom to check his supplies, and Hermionie went to find Harry and Ron to inform them of what Sasuke had told her.
It was at Mrs Weasley's insistence that they waited until the Saturday to go to Diagon Alley, as she wanted Mr Weasley to accompany them. So it was on the second Saturday in August that Sasuke Uchiha found himself about to use magical transport. Although he had never experienced it, he had not expected to be told to step into a fireplace that had roaring green flames inside.