Tea with Slughorn had become a regular part of Harry's schedule. He somehow managed to fit it in in between things like DA club, Chakra training, hanging out with Ron and Hermione - and oh, yeah, classes. The Headmaster was always very discrete in summoning him. They didn't need any of the nin asking questions so they made sure there was never a need to. It wasn't unheard of for Harry to spend some time with the Headmaster. And if that time happened to involve leaving the castle or studying what dark magic Tom might have used - well, no one else needed to know that.

And having tea with old Slughorn wasn't that bad, really. It was sometimes a bit creepy the way he'd talk about Harry's parents, but Harry had long ago resigned himself to everyone else knowing far more about them than he ever would. And there was something sort of sad about Mr. Slughorn. He seemed to rarely leave the house - more content to think back on all of the famous people he had met before and not on what was happening in the world right now. Harry wouldn't say he looked forward to their teas, but he found he really didn't mind them so much. Slughorn did have some interesting stories and was more than happy to give him pointers on his potions homework. And every now and then, he'd let something slip about the one star pupil of his he didn't like to talk about.

The Headmaster's plan seemed to be working. Slughorn almost seemed to want to tell them what they needed to know. Just a few more meetings and they'd finally have something.

Which of course meant that was when everything fell apart.

It was a late night in the middle of the week. Harry had dutifully gone to training with the nin after dinner. Harry was getting better at dodging jutsus and had even managed to divert the more elemental based ones. The nin were ecstatic, convinced that they were finally making headway. Harry was just glad to be able to leave training a little less bruised and singed than he had before. The others might be better at shrugging off getting banged up and hexed, but Harry sure felt like he was constantly one giant ache. It hadn't taken much to convince the others that he was going to do no more than fall into bed at the first opportunity. It was pointless for one of them to follow him back up to his common room if all he was going to do was go to sleep.

The hard part had been convincing himself not to do just that. Instead he had trudged up to the Headmaster's. If Slughorn thought it was odd that they only came around for tea practically in the middle of the night, he never commented on it. Harry got the impression the other man didn't sleep much anyway. He always looked like he'd had one too many cups of strong tea himself but he always insisted on a couple more. Harry, at least, needed it to stay awake. He'd been up late the night before with another DA meeting and he had a stack of homework almost as high as his head to get through before Friday.

Walking back up the drive, Harry had been more focused on keeping on his feet and trying to figure out which thing he needed to get done next. He had a Charms essay due soon, but the Headmaster at least had some helpful hints on what topics to look into. At least he wouldn't have to start from scratch if he already knew what books he'd need. The Headmaster was telling him something about a poorly charmed footstool when Harry jerked to a stop, suddenly aware in the way Sasuke had tried to drill into his head.

At first there was nothing. Just the wide open field and driveway leading up to the castle. They were only halfway up the drive and the sprawling darkness around them seemed only the deeper compared to the cheerful lanterns framing the school's main door. Harry couldn't see a thing in the dark, but he also knew the way he sometimes knew where the snitch was that they were no longer alone. Then Naruto came rushing out of the dark . A sudden blur of bright orange and blond that never should have been able to hide even in the pitch dark but somehow had. He came running up on them from the left, bounding up to the main drive before skidding to a stop directly in front of them.

For a moment Harr felt nothing but relief. It was just Naruto. His nerves must really be starting to fray if he was jumping at shadows like that. But then it sunk in. Naruto. Out looking for something in the dark of night and finding Harry not where he was supposed to be.

"Harry-kun!"

"Oh, dear," the Headmaster murmured. It was a far more reserved reaction than the one Harry was having but the Headmaster was much better at keeping his head in these situations. Clearly. Because while Harry gapped helplessly, a heavy ball of dread sinking so low in his stomach it was a miracle he could stand under the pressure of it, the Headmaster did his best to spin their way out of this. "Mr. Uzumaki! What a surprise to see you here. Shouldn't you be settling in for the night?"

Naruto's eyes widened and he looked back and forth between the two of them. "I? What! How!" The last part was nearly wailed.

Harry uselessly tried to hush him, as if that could somehow defuse what was bound to be a truly impressive stream of exclamations from the loudest ninja. As if Harry could somehow sweep this all back under the rug if he kept Naruto quiet enough. As if Naruto wasn't going to tell Sasuke the first chance he got. "No worries, no worries! We'll just walk up together, okay? Did you, um, get lost?"

"DID I GET LOST?!" Naruto yelled. "You! You were missing and Sasuke's freakin' and your friends haven't seen ya, and the girl's blaming us, and this place is freaking huge and we haven't even gotten to all of the rooms and we thought you were bleeding out in a ditch or closet or at the bottom of some well or something! DID I GET LOST?!"

"A simple misunderstanding!" the Headmaster jovially announced and Harry couldn't help but be impressed at that level of calm and collected in the face of what had to be the most vocal encounter possible.

"Argh!" Naruto yelled back at him as if that was a reasonable response. And maybe it was. Harry kind of got the impression that there were a lot of times that people want to respond that way to the Headmaster. "You!" Naruto demanded, pointing at Harry. "Hurt? Bleeding? Harmed in anyway?"

"No, no-"

"Currently being pursued?"

"No, nothing like that!"

"Caught a chill?"

"I-" Harry cut off confused. A chill? It took him a moment to realize that Naruto meant the cold night air. "Naruto, I'm fine."

"Good," Naruto declared before pulling out a knife and stabbing himself.

It didn't matter how many times Harry saw it, it never stopped him from instinctively jerking to reach out and try to stop him. Thank god for the poof of smoke that followed immediately. It hid the image for the most part but Harry knew that an echo of it was still going to make an appearance in one or more of his nightmares.

The Headmaster actually snapped out a disarming spell. Harry jerked reflexively away from the spell, turning to stare a bit wide-eyed at him. The Headmaster so rarely used magic in public other than for simple charms or parlor tricks. But he held his wand like a duelist even if he looked a bit chagrined at trying to stop a shadow clone from dispelling itself.

Harry hadn't even thought to draw his wand.

"It's okay, sir," Harry murmured, suddenly remembering that this was probably the first time that the Headmaster had seen a jutsu at all, much less this one. Team 7 was so used to it, they barely thought of how impressive it was. Or how disturbing it could be. "That wasn't really Naruto, just a shadow of himself. He doesn't even feel it. Naruto uses them all the time to run errands and check out stuff so he doesn't have to. I just hope Hermione doesn't ever figure out how to make them, we'd never get her to stop studying."

It wasn't his best joke, but it was enough to get a wan smile out of the Headmaster. "I must say," he commented quietly, after his wand had once more disappeared from his hand. "It is one of the more unsettling pieces of magic I've ever seen. I do not think I care to see that again, with any student."

"I know, sir. It's okay."

It was okay, if rather awkward now. What had the Headmaster thought was happening? How startling that must have been. And it didn't seem right to catch the man off guard like that. No quite fair. And unpleasant to see one's role models knocked down like that. Besides, he was an old man. What if they'd accidentally given him a heart attack? Could that happen to wizards? It wasn't like Harry could ask the Headmaster if he was alright. That would only make it worse.

"We…better head up?" he tried instead.

"Yes, of course."

It was like heading towards his own doom, but Harry didn't have a whole lot of choice, did he? he had warned the Headmaster that Sasuke would figure this out eventually. He had just privately hoped that eventually might be much further in the future. They were almost getting somewhere with Slughorn! Just a couple more visits and they maybe could have stopped all together. Not that Harry thought that would be the end of it. This was just one piece in the puzzle and the best it was going to do was lead them to the next one. But it would have been nice to avoid this fight just a little bit longer. The trudge up to the front door was silent and exhausting but unfortunately very short. They hadn't gotten very far before they could see another figure rapidly approaching, heading straight for them from the school.

"Order business," the Headmaster murmured quietly. Harry didn't need or appreciate the reminder. Not with Sasuke descending on him in all of his admittedly righteous fury. Harry braced himself for a great deal of yelling. He hadn't expected to be all but tackled.

Sasuke came rushing towards them and he didn't stop till he had his hands clasped tightly on Harry's shoulders. He didn't bowl Harry over only because he jerked to a sudden and precise halt mere inches from Harry, so close their knees almost collided. Which was probably a very good thing because Harry was fairly certain that at the speed Sasuke had been going that would have hurt. It never stopped being impressive how fast they could move. They insisted it wasn't a jutsu, that it was merely training and good body energy. Harry knew damn well it was fueled by magic and it was maybe the one thing he wanted to master the most.

It must feel just like flying.

But Sasuke didn't look ecstatic the way Harry always felt moving at those speeds. Instead, he looked like someone who had been flying high only to unexpectedly plummet to the ground. Like someone who had managed to pull up at the very last minute. Not happy so much as still cresting the high of some very serious panic.

"I'm okay!" Harry yelped, because he did have some common sense.

"No," Sasuke argued. Except he didn't sound like he was in denial so much as he very much did not agree. This close Harry could see the sharringan activated and it made it hard to look directly back at Sasuke. Instead he focused just to the right, staring at one ear and hoping the Headmaster hadn't noticed that little detail in the dim light. They had agreed no sharringan here, but apparently Sasuke had forgotten that little detail.

"Eyes," Harry muttered.

Sasuke checked Harry's eyes first before it seemed to click what Harry had meant. With a blink, Sasuke went back to normal and that made it infinitely easier to actually talk to the other boy.

"Sorry we were out so late," Harry tried again. "But really, I'm okay. Nothing happened."

"No," Sasuke gritted out again. "That is where you're wrong. Something did happen. You let someone take you out of our protection. I failed to prevent such a thing from happening. You are not okay."

"Yes, I am!"

Sasuke snarled. "If you were okay, something like this never would have been possible! So no, you are not okay and it is not okay!"

Which really wasn't fair! Just because Harry didn't do what Sasuke had wanted him to do didn't mean there was something wrong with him. But Harry wasn't sure how to even argue that point without drawing more attention to everything he wasn't supposed to tell his cousin. What could he say, that they went out for ice cream? "I'm fine," Harry grumbled, repeating the one thing he had and hating how he sounded like a broken record. It maybe wasn't fair for him to be annoyed at Sasuke, but that didn't make this any easier.

"Perhaps you should move this conversation inside, gentlemen," the Headmaster declared. "I believe it is past curfew by now."

Sasuke jerked around to glare at him like he had personally desecrated the family home. He still hadn't let go of Harry's shoulders, however, and his grip tightened like he thought he could physically force some sense into him. "You had no right!" he hissed at the Headmaster.

"Young man," Dumbledore replied, sounding far more serious. "I think you will find that I did. And that Harry did as well. The right to make his own choices, that is. We all appreciate your efforts to help ensure Harry's safety, but I will remind you that you are not the one officially charged with his safety, and while he is a student at this institution, I am."

Sasuke growled back and Harry quickly grabbed onto his arms to keep him in place. They did not need Sasuke fighting with the Headmaster. "It's my fault, Sasuke. Can we talk about this inside, please?" Harry would rather never talk about it, but sometimes you just had to let the other person yell at you some and swallow it all down. It was easier. Harry could manage it, he'd had plenty of practice before. It wasn't going to be fun, but he could do it.

The Headmaster nodded as if that decided everything and turned to make his way back. Sasuke glared after him and didn't move at first. He still had a tight grip on Harry's shoulders. Not quite enough to hurt, but it was getting close. Harry squeezed back before letting go, hoping he'd get the hint.

Sasuke didn't.

"It really is okay," Harry whispered, feeling like the worst friend ever. He wasn't used to having to hide things from the people he cared about. Ron and Hermione worried about him, sure, but they'd mostly be annoyed that he had gone without them. They'd have trusted that he'd be okay as long as he was with the Headmaster. But Sasuke sure as hell didn't feel that way. Harry had never seen someone this scared about him.

Sasuke stared at him. He wasn't scowling anymore, but there was nothing else about him that suggested he wasn't still fuming mad. His jaw was clenched hard enough Harry could see it and his shoulders were pulled tight. The sharringan was thankfully gone, but he still stared at Harry like this was a battle and he was trying to figure out how to win.

"Never again," Sasuke declared finally. And it almost sounded like that was his idea of offering forgiveness, of extending a compromise, and not an order.

Of course it had to be for the thing Harry couldn't promise.

Sure, he could say the words, but he knew it wasn't going to be the last time he did something like this. Not now. This was part of what life was like for him. He had responsibilities now that he was back in the Wizarding world. And Harry couldn't walk away from that, but at the same time he couldn't drag Sasuke into this. And not only because Dumbledore told him he couldn't. As long as Sasuke couldn't perform any magic, he'd always be at a disadvantage against a wizard. Sure, he had the speed and the strength, but that wasn't going to be enough against an Unforgivable.

So Harry said nothing.

Sasuke cursed before turning away suddenly and stalking back up to the castle, one hand still tangled in the shoulder of Harry's shirt as if he thought someone was going to try pulling him away.