Harry was adopted (or abducted) at four years old. Uncle Fugaku had assigned Uncle Habiki Uchiha and Aunt Minami Uchiha to be Harry's guardians. Since the couple had been unable to conceive a child, they doted on Harry as if he were their own. Harry thought they made much better guardians than Fugaku ever would have, even if it meant he was a branch family member. He'd been terrified of the strict Uchiha head who had torn Harry away from everything and everyone familiar in a single night with hardly an explanation.

As such, there was a lot Harry didn't know about his origins. It didn't bother him too much, though. He was an Uchiha, and he lived a lot better life than he ever would have with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

"Are you ready for school, Heri?" Aunt Minami asked, rapping on his bedroom door.

"Aunt Minami!" Harry opened the door and threw himself at her stomach. He felt her laugh and wrap her arms around him.

"You're not fooling me. I know you just want my bacon."

Harry brightened and pulled away. "Bacon?"

"Downstairs. Wish your Uncle Habiki good luck on the job now."

Harry ran down the stairs and greeted the black haired man. Uncle Habiki's brown eyes had stopped him from becoming an investigator on the Uchiha police force because he lacked the Sharingan, but he was still a great cop.

"Good luck catching the bad guys today, Uncle Habiki!" Harry said, pouring some orange juice into the man's empty glass and sitting down beside him. Harry never forgot how he'd been made to cook and clean and serve the Dursleys, so he liked to help his aunt cook and serve food when she'd let him. He really appreciated this life, and wanted to show it.

"Let's hope there aren't any bad guys, Heri. I much prefer the quiet life of the law. Good luck at the academy, my boy!" Uncle Habiki left soon after.

Harry loved the academy. He enjoyed learning in general. Sasuke and his other, older cousins always beat him in taijutsu fights but Harry could beat them by learning more than they could! Sasuke was a prodigy, but Harry always had the top test scores in the classroom.

Harry didn't know his birthday, but Fugaku had figured he was about the same age as Sasuke so he lumped them into the same class together. Sasuke was seven years old now, so Harry figured he was seven years old, too.

Harry took copious notes during class and headed over to the library by himself when it was over. His uncle was always praising him for being so smart and independent. Harry wasn't afraid to be in the village by himself. With his family's police force on the streets, there was nothing to be scared of.

Harry finished the thick, dusty tome on the theory of chakra and the anatomy of chakra points in the body. He grabbed a stool and used it to shove the book back into place. He waved goodbye to the librarian and hit the pavement, making sure not to step on any cracks on his way home. Aunt Mina wasn't his mother, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

He rounded the corner into the Uchiha complex and found the first dead body. He screamed when he looked at it. He could barely recognize old man Fujishi's face. It was frozen in shock, eyes open but blank. His body was ripped in two and was a crusty red color all around the separation of parts.

Harry fell down next to old man Fujishi's body and dry heaved. When he got his breath back, he screamed again. Why wasn't anybody coming to investigate? Why wasn't anybody checking up on Harry?

He got up on his feet, a little unsteady. Up ahead, he saw two figures lying flat on the ground. In the pit of his stomach, he knew they were dead. Harry ran past them and turned to the right, where Uchiha houses lined both sides.

More than fifty bodies lined the street. And those were just the ones Harry could see. Harry's house was the third down, and he ran to it. Just in front of the porch, Aunt Minami lay face down with a wound in her back. Harry turned her over. Flesh was peeled away from her chest and bloody where an attack had gone all the way through her body. Her lifeless eyes stared past Harry's own.

Harry wept quietly. What if the killer was nearby, too?

When his senses returned to him, he started running towards Uncle Fugaku's. If there was a strong ninja who could beat anybody, it was Uncle Fugaku.

But Harry froze for a third time on Uncle Fugaku's street. It was Itachi and Sasuke, but as Harry got closer, he could see Sasuke's horrified look. Itachi murmured something to Sasuke, and turned around to see Harry.

Harry flinched. He'd never seen a look so cold, not even from the dead.

Itachi paused, as if in thought, and then said, "You… are dirt. You are even less than dirt. You're nothing, cousin. Live the life of a flea or not. You cannot challenge me."

Itachi disappeared.

Harry ran to Sasuke as Sasuke fell to his knees. "Sasuke? Sasuke! Stay with me. Are you okay? Where's Uncle Fugaku?" Harry shook Sasuke. "Hey!"

"Dead," Sasuke murmured. "Dead."

Harry fell down next to Sasuke, still gripping Sasuke's shirt to remind himself that Sasuke was still alive.

That was how the ANBU found them twenty minutes later. Harry hardly remembered sitting in front of the Hokage, sitting next to Sasuke. The next few days were kind of a blur too. Harry sat in the guest room at the Hokage tower unmoving while Sasuke periodically broke out to stalk around the Uchiha grounds.

Who knew how long it was later when Sasuke finally sat down next to Harry. "I'm going to do it," Sasuke said simply.

"Do what?" Harry asked.

"Kill Itachi."

Harry sat straight up. "Really?"

"Really."

Harry thought about his family. "I'd like to see you do it."

Sasuke bristled. "You think I can't?"

"No, I mean I really want to watch you kill him. He deserves to die, and I think you should be the one to do it." Harry would never forget the look on his aunt's face.

"Okay," Sasuke said. "Front row seat. You can watch."

Harry nodded.

"Let's go." Sasuke got up and went to the door.

"Go where?"

"Go home." Sasuke's face darkened. "They cleaned up all the bodies and stuff. We can't stay in the Hokage's guest room forever. If we stay much longer, they're going to try and force someone to adopt us."

Harry didn't want that. The first people who adopted him were the Dursleys, and they were horrible. His second adoption was much better, but that was over now. He couldn't ask for that kind of miracle a second time.

He didn't want to go back to the Uchiha complex either, though. As he and Sasuke neared, he started hyperventilating. "Stop, Sasuke."

Sasuke grabbed Harry's hand. "Come on. You can stay at my house. You don't want to stay at Aunt Minami's, right?"

Harry mutely shook his head. He shook and trembled the whole way through, but he made it to Sasuke's house. Uncle Fugaku's house.

He stood in the entrance while Sasuke padded up and down the stairs. "Your bedroom is the former guestroom. You know where my room is, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Cool. And that's the living room, and that's the kitchen." Sasuke's stomach growled, and Harry snorted.

"I'll make something. Over here." Harry was always comfortable in a kitchen, and he opened the fridge, face wrinkling. "The milk's gone bad. We're gonna hafta go into town to get a few things." He made them some sandwiches and cleared out the fridge.

He needed Sasuke's help to physically walk through the compound again, but it was easier this time. The lady at the counter tried to give them their groceries for free, but Sasuke forced the money on her and they walked out. "Damn civilian, looking at us like we need help," Sasuke said. "How dare they pity us."

Harry scowled at Sasuke's language, but he noticed the looks they got were different, too. As they walked back to the house, Harry talked about the different kind of foods they could make.

"Should we go back to the Academy tomorrow?" Harry wondered.

"Hn," Sasuke said. "Probably. If I want to defeat him, I need to get stronger."

"And if I want to watch, I need to be strong enough that I can't be used by him as a hostage."

They nodded to each other. Tomorrow, the Academy.