The door thudded shut behind Harry and his friends and all of Team 7 stood silently.

That had not gone the way Naruto had hoped.

It had been an awkward couple of weeks. Harry had been fuming mad at Sasuke and he maybe sort of had the right to be. Naruto had certainly been angry at the other boy enough times to know Sasuke could inspire that sort of frustration. And things had gotten out of hand the other night. They could all agree on that. And it was great that Harry had such good protective friends – even if that meant they were really making life difficult for Team 7.

But tonight had been a chance to smooth over some of those hurt feelings. Training always brought people together. It gave them a common goal to focus on. And there was nothing like a little common suffering and struggle to bring a team together as a unit. Kakashi-sensei had certainly proved that over and over again when Team 7 had formed. Maybe not always the way he meant to, but it was what had bound them together.

So tonight had been a great chance for Harry and his friends would come over for training, and surely they'd all be friends again after that. And things had been going great! Hermione had been talking to Naruto. Sure, he maybe hadn't understood everything she said, but she had been trying to teach him stuff and that was a good sign.

And then it all went pear shaped. Suddenly she was yelling at Kakashi-sensei and Harry. Because apparently the way they trained was terrible. Which, sure, they hadn't made a lot of progress lately in learning magic or Harry learning chakra, but they were getting really, really good at combating each other's style. But Harry's friends hadn't seen it that way and even Harry had gotten upset about it and now – now he didn't know what they were going to do!

Then Sasuke opened his mouth like the idiot he was. "They're overreacting."

"They are re-acting," Kakashi-sensei corrected sharply. It made all three of them cringe a little. This whole mission had gone to hell so quickly and it was becoming more and more apparent that they had no one else to blame but themselves. Even Kakashi seemed to think he was at fault, because he sighed and added, "Which we really should have been prepared for. It appears we have all miscalculated."

"What just happened? Kakashi-sensei, what are we going to do?" Naruto wailed. He couldn't contain it any longer. "They're not even being reasonable now! I mean, I could understand Hermione's objections to Sasuke– sorry, Sasuke – but this?"

"It does seem a bit harsh," Sakura agreed. Her part of tonight's training had gone over just fine. No one seemed to mind the way she interacted with Harry, but that didn't mean she understood it any better than the rest of them. She was still staring at the closed door, as if trying to work out exactly where they had gone wrong. It was the exact same pose Kakashi had and Naruto was starting to feel nervous that the two brightest minds on their team hadn't figured out how to act normal enough to get Harry to like them again.

Sasuke was apparently too busy glaring at everything to feel anything like panic. "I thought you were going to fix this."

"I am attempting to undo what you have done, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi replied quietly, calmly, and with the absolute implication that if Sasuke had an issue with that then Kakashi would be more than happy to settle the matter violently.

Naruto let out a nervous hiccup of laughter. The last thing they needed was the two of them fighting about this. "Man, if only Harry would've just gone a round or two with Sasuke, then they would have seen everything was fine."

"That was my original intent," Kakashi demurred.

Sasuke was less pleased with it. "And by better you mean they would have enjoyed watching me get hexed?"

"It probably couldn't hurt," Sakura agreed thoughtfully and not at all bothered by the disgruntled look Sasuke gave her or the gloating one on Naruto's face.

"It might have," Kakashi cut them off before the taunting and usual team bonding could get any further. It was an odd sort of defense of Sasuke. When they all turned to look at him, he shrugged. "Harry's friends clearly have little affection or concern for any of us at this moment, but she still objected strongly to Harry practicing magic with me. Harry's refusal to work with Sasuke may have had more to do with those sensibilities. There's a reason we refrained from Chakra tonight. I didn't need them getting the wrong idea that we were too rough with your cousin, but apparently I failed to take that notion as far as I should have. It seems we have been encouraging your dear cousin to be too rough with us, at least by their standards. Civilians!" he grumbled to himself, as if it were a key factor he had forgotten. "Such a different point of view. Just because Harry is capable of fighting in a war does not make him a soldier."

"Damn straight," Sasuke hissed. "This was too harsh for him."

"I do believe it was your instance that the boy needed to be able to protect himself that led to this training, was it not, Uchiha? We did exactly what we needed to do – it simply wasn't good enough." And with that, Kakashi-sensei left off staring intently at the shut door and once more adopted the boneless lethargic stance he was so fond of. He even managed a petulant eye roll in Sasuke's direction before starting to wander off.

"Is that it? You're just going to give up?" Sasuke demanded. "She cannot keep him away from his training! She has no right to do so."

"I think you'll find she has every right as long as your cousin is more inclined to listen to her now than he is to you."

"But we're just trying to help," Naruto pointed out.

"And you're failing," Kakashi-sensei pointed out bluntly.

Which was true, Naruto had to agree glumly. They hadn't made any progress learning magic and instead of being able to help Harry, they seemed to be just sliding further and further away from him. Naruto cringed. "Surely once they've calmed down," he reasoned. "We can apologize again. Maybe do something different? Stretching was good. Or maybe kunai. Or we can just do whatever they're doing in class again. Like a study group!"

Kakashi stared at him for a moment before saying slowly "Naruto, they are not coming back."

"So we apologize a whole, whole lot! Like, the best apology!"

Kakashi-sensei just shook his head. "Not even you are talking your way out of this one." He sighed. "As much as this is very much your fault, Sasuke," and wow, talking about not pulling any punches, "we may have seriously miscalculated how we approached this and the damage has been done."

Sasuke didn't look very mollified by the admission that they had all made mistakes, but it was enough to get him to focus on the problem at hand. He scowled the way he did when he was trying to think really hard (as opposed to the scowl he made when he wanted to kill something or the scowl he wore everyday just because). "We cannot not train Harry. What could we have possibly done differently?" And that admission was about as close as Sasuke got to accepting he might have been wrong. Any other time, Naruto would have been proud of him - or at least enjoyed rubbing it in. Now if just made his heart sink.

Kakashi-sensei sighed like it pained him too. "Theoretical training only, I suppose."

They all grimace. Talking about next to useless. Harry needed to catch up on a lifetime of good reflexes at the very least. He wasn't going to get those through talking.

Sasuke scowled and faced his teacher as solemnly as he could. "What do we do now?" he asked.

Kakashi stared back. "That I don't know any better than you. But we better figure it out quickly."