After the whirling and spinning of the floo network, Sasuke arrived at diagon alley safely, if a little grimy from the soot. The rest of them were waiting, and Mrs Weasley was planning how to fit everything they had to get into one day, while Mr Weasley glared at a seedy looking wizard selling amulets.
"Molly, it doesn't make sense for all of us to go to Madam Malkin's," Mr weasley said, finaly taking his eyes off the dodgy looking wizard "why don't those three take Sasuke to get robes and we can go to Flourish and Blotts and get everyone's school books?"
"I don't know..." Said Mrs Weasley anxiously, torn between her desire to get the shopping done and keeping everybody safe.
"Don't worry, Mrs Weasley," Sasuke talked quietly, but everybody listened. "currently, I am the most dangerous person in this street." He then told Mr Weasley that they would meet them all in Flourish and Blotts shortly, beckoned to Harry, Hermionie and Ron to go with him, and walked off into the crowd.
Harry drew level with Sasuke quickly, then heard the Uchiha ask "Where IS Madam Malkin's?" Harry chuckled and told him.
Sasuke noticed that all the witches and wizards going past them had hurried and anxious looks on their faces, and appeared to clump together in groups, barely talking to each other. When he asked Ron about it, he came to understand that it was due to Voldermort being back, and wondered what could be so terrible that an entire nation was in fear.
As they stepped inside, it seemed to be empty, however at the sound of a drawling voice, the three teenagers stiffened slightly, however the comment that the boy with the pale, pointed face and white- blond hair said next seemed to send Harry and Ron over the edge.
"If you're wondering what the smell is, Mother, a Moodblood just walked in"
Wands appeared in Rons and Harrys hands, both pointed at the blond teenager. Sasuke reached calmly into the his kunai pouch and withdrew one, holding it casually by his side, thinking that although Mr and Mrs Weasley had insisted that he leave his katana- his Kusanagi- at The Burrow, he was not defenceless by any means. Sasuke did not say anything during the argument that followed, after all, he did not understand or particularly care about the teenagers issues with each other. The mother and son left, and the wands went away, only when the two previous customers had left his sight, did Sasuke place his kunai away and asked for Hogwarts robes.
Prehaps it was her normal manner, but Madam Malkin was very unsettled when dealing with them, attempted to sell Hermionie wizards dress robes instead of witches, and when she bowed them out of the shop, it was with an air that said she was glad to see the back of them.
On the way to Flourish and Blotts, Harry explained about who Draco Malfoy was, and the term 'Mudblood', Sasuke then understood Ron and Harry's reaction. When they met with Mrs Weasley, they were taken to see the shop that Fred and George Weasley owned. Sasuke found it tiresome, he could imagine Naruto feeling right at home here among the joke items, but he personally found it a way to waste time when they could be training. However when he got to the section devoted to the defence against the forces of darkness, he changed his mind about this place, deciding that the peruvian instant darkness powder could be extremely useful, and he could imagine the shield cloaks being practical ways of defending yourself against enemy jinxes, although when you were as fast as a ninja, they became obselete.
Nevertheless, he bought a small amount of the darkness powder, when he noticed that Harry, Ron and Hermionie were missing, knowing that they would never leave Mr and Mrs Weasley unless it was important, he activated the sharingan and saw something very strange. There was something obscuring his vision, different from anything he had experienced before he couldn't make out details, but knew that it was two males and a female- crouching while they moved out of the shop and into the street. Knowing that the heights were approximately the same as Harry, Ron and Hermionie, he left the shop too and followed them at a safe distance. It appeared that they were following someone too, Draco Malfoy, who had managed to escape his mother, and was now heading down a side street.
Sasuke observed them listening to Malfoy in the shop Borgin and Burkes, and laughed to himself at the pitiful attempt by Hermionie to find out what Draco had been after. As they returned to the shop, Sasuke quickly replaced the clone he had created to interact with the Weasleys at the shop, and placed himself back beside them as Mrs Weasley had just finished buying a small, fluffy creature in a cage for her daughter, Ginny.
After the three teenagers explained away their dissappearance to Mr Weasley, Harry asked Sasuke if he needed to buy a wand, after they had understood that although magic and chakra are similar, but too different to interact fully. Sasuke would therefore be incapeable of using a wand for anything other than sharpening it to stab somebody with. They departed Diagon alley and, again using floo powder, came back to The Burrow.
One morning, Herminonie had problems sleeping, and she was awake and sat at the breakfast table reading 'Advanced Transfiguration', when she noticed Sasuke going out of the back door into the Weasley's orchard, curious as to what he was doing- after all it was 5:30am, she waited for a couple of minutes, dithering on whether she should follow or not. Eventually her curiosity got the better of her, and she slipped out of the back door.
She saw that Sasuke was currently running the full legnth up a tree trunk, he then threw five kunai down, and jumped down to see what he had hit, she noticed that ther were five different species of insects pierced by the kunai. A movement in a bush caught Sasuke's eyes, at a speed so fast she sould not follow it, he threw another kunai into a bush. He returned, holding up a garden gnome.
"What is this?"
"It's a gnome Sasuke, completly harmless. What are you doing up this early?
"I could say the same to you." He paused, then added slowly "I was... going to do some training, however I find it hard to do when there are people watching." This was a lie, but Sasuke did not want to explain the real reason as to why he did not want her to see him training- it would give her too much information. He had concluded that she was about as intelligent as Shikamaru, and if Hermionie knew even 20% of what he could do, she would be able to come up with a way of finding a weakness, and she would know how to exploit it. Although he did not think that she would, one could never be too careful.
He placed the gnome next to the bush it had come from, retrieved his kunai and walked into The Burrow, Hermionie followed him and they talked as they walked.
"So if people don't become ninja, what do they do?"
"Well, firstly, not everyone can- or wants to- become a ninja. Ninjas are almost like the army of our world, we get sent to do missions, either for our country or people put up rewards for animals they want found, or more dangerous things like bodyguarding. The better skilled the ninja, the higher rank mission they can undertake. if they aren't ninjas, they do almost all of the differnet jobs that you have in this world- cooks, teachers, things like that."
He wondered if her questions would ever stop, he was not used to giving long answers, and didn't like it much as it made him feel exposed. However he was not giving information on himself and it meant that he could gather more information about magic, without losing whatever trust she had with him. If there was one thing that was very different here compared with Konoha, it was that people seemed to trust each other much more and readily.
"Wow, I'm sorry if it seems that I am being really nosy, it's just I'm curious about where you come from. It's so different."
"What sort of job do wizards do when they leave school?"
"There are so many different things, for example, many work at the Mistry of Magic, such as Mr Weasley, and Gringotts- that's the wizard bank by the way, takes up a lot of jobs too, Bill works for them as a curse breaker. There are some really dangerous jobs too though, Charlie works with dragons in Romania."
"Dragons? They exist then?"
"Yes, Harry had to go against a Hungarian Horntail two years ago, they are viscious."
"What is it with people and Hary? They treat him as if he is a celebrity, I was told that he had something important to do with Voldermort, but I was not told any specefics."
Hermionie explained all about Harry's past encounters with the dark lord, and by the time she had finished, Mr Weasley came downstairs, followed shortly by Mrs Weasly, who started making breakfast for the other sleepy teenagers that she had just woken up. Sasuke volunteered to help her, although this was something that he would not usually do under any circumstances, he felt like he should repay her in one way or another for housing him. He paused for a minute, thinking that he must be going soft, then shook the errant thought out of his head and started helping.
The next week went quickly for Sasuke, he learned more about the origins of magic, and spent most of his time either outside, keeping himself from getting rusty- he must get a sparring partner, training at midnight was good for keeping a low profile, but meant he could only practice basic skills- or reading the numerous amount of books that either Hermionie had let him borrow, or the school books he had bought in Diagon Alley last Saturday. September the first arrived.
They were Whisked quickly in one of the ministry cars- due to Harry's status, however he had said it was unnecessary, but nobody listened. Sasuke was feeling very unfomfortable in the muggle clothing that Mr Weasley had given him, a long sleeved shirt and jeans did not feel good compared to his normal clothes.
At Kings Cross they were met by a group of stony faced Aurors, Hermionie had explained to him what they were and what they did. Sasuke was intriegued, and wanted to test himself against the best the ministry had to offer, but knew it was not the time. Mr Weasley suggested that they go in pairs, and the first Auror grabbed Harry's elbow and atttempted to march him the remaining 10 yards to the barrier between platforms 9 and 10.
"I can walk, thanks." Said Harry irritably, and shook him off, the Auror merely placed his hand on Harry's shoulder instead and they walked through the barrier. Sasuke was getting used to magic by now, but still found it fascinating, he had not come accross anything like this before, although he supposed that is why it is called magic.
An Auror grabbed his arm also, immediately the unfortunate man found himself flying through the barrier, due to Sasuke using an extremely effective taijutsu throw to stop the annoying physical contact. He calmly walked through the barrier and when he looked down at the Auror on the floor as he was still trying to work out what had happend. He and Harry loaded their things into the same compartment, Ginny said she had to meet Dean. Ron and Hermionie were in the prefects carriages, although they said they would be back shortly. They both changed into their school robes, Sasuke was pleased to find that the robes concealed all the storage pouches for shiruken, kunai and all the other equipment that he needed, except his Katana, which wsas too large and would just arouse unwanted questions.
A round faced boy and a girl with dirty blond hair joined them, and they were introduced as Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. Sasuke was slightly surprised when the girl pulled out what he was told were Spectrespecs, and began reading her magazine, looking like a multicoloured, demented owl. Neville was discussing O.W.L results with Harry, although Sasuke noticed that Harry seemed as if his mind was elsewhere. A while later the door was opened and a girl whop intorduced herself as Romilda Vane.
"Why don't you join us in our compartment? You don't have to sit with them," She said the last part in a stage whisper.
"They're friends of mine" Said Harry coldly.
"Oh, oh, ok" said the girl, and withdrew.
Harry then spent a while trying to convince Luna and Neville that they were cool, Sasuke just ignored the girl, his thoughts were centred around how best to get Dumbledore to speed up in lowering Voldermorts defences enough for Sasuke to be able to avenge his clan. Just thinking about Itachi made Sasuke's blood boil with hatred, however on the outside he remained just as impassive as ever, with the exception of a couple of tendons in his neck standing out.
Ron and Hermionie joined them later on and the rest of the train journey was uneventful, apart from Harry, Neville and Sasuke all recieving invitations to a lunch in compartment C. Harry and Neville went, Sasuke stayed where he was, he did not feel like having lunch with Slughorn, Professor Dumbledore had described his habit of collecting people and Sasuke wanted nothing to do with him.
They arrived at Hogwarts and were taken onto a carriage, that was being pulled along by a creature that looked like an unourished hourse with leathery wings. They went into the main hall, and Sasuke went to the Gryffindoor table, he was told that he would be an exchange student from Japan, as his features resembled that country more than any others in this world.
After the sorting, they ate delecious food that had appeared seemingly from nowhere, Ron was halfway through his steak and kidney pie, when there was some muttering and Harry walked over to them, his nose had bood all over it.
"Where've you- blimey, what've you done to your face?" said Ron
"Why, what's wrong with it?" Replied Harry, picking up a spoon and looking at his reflection in it.
After Hermionie had got the blood off it, and they had assurred Harry it was looking normal, Sasuke asked quietly
"Who did it?"
"I'll tell you later." Was the quick reply, unerstandable due to the large amount of people staring at them, including the translucent ghost that was floating over Ron's shoulder. There followed a small discussion which ended in Ron insulting the ghost and nick floating away indignantly towards the far end of the table.
At that moment Dumbledore stood up, arms out wide and a smile upon his face, as if he wished to embrace the entire hall.
"To our new students, welcome; to our old students, welcome back."
Mutters swept the hall, as they saw the sight of Dumbledores withered and blackened hand. Hermionie, Harry and Ron wondered aloud why Madam Pomfrey hadn't fixed it.
"...and Mr Filch has asked me to inform you of a blanket ban on any items bought from the shop Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. We are pleased to welcome a new member of staff this year. Professor Slughorn, an old colleague of mine who has agreed to take up his old post of Potions Master."
"Potions... but you said he was doing Defence Against the Dark Arts Harry."
"I thought he was"
Dumbledore continued as if there had been no interupion only after silence had fallen.
"Professor Snape, meanwhile will be taking over the positon of Defence Against the Dark Arts"
There was a cry of outrage from Harry and muttering from everybody else. Harry then apparently looked on his version of the bright side and said that Snape would be gone by the end of the year. At Sasuke's perplexed look, they explained that the job was jinxed. Prefessor Dumbledore then delivered a speech about Voldermort being back at large, everybody was paying attention, except for Malfoy, who was making his fork levitate with his wand, looking bored.
"... I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and each others safety." Dumbledore concluded, surveying the hall over his half moon spectacles. "But now, your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possible wish, and I know that your top priority is to be well- rested for your lesssons tomorrow,. Let us say goodnight. Pip pip."
