Books were not Naruto's area of specialty. Even back home, where Naruto didn't have to struggle to read everything through a translation jutsu, books still were not his thing. Why should they be? Nin weren't big on books anyway. Books could get stolen or tampered with or read by the wrong person. Handing down knowledge the good old fashioned way of oral tradition and demonstrations was a lot more effective and avoided the unnecessary risk of it falling into the wrong hands.

Naruto had tried explaining that on more than one occasion to Iruka-sensei, but the man had still insisted on books. And writing things. Legibly. Sufficient to say, Naruto had been more than glad to leave most of that behind with his pre-genin days.

That didn't mean that a bookshop wasn't an interesting place. Sure, there'd been a bit of debate on who's turn it was but that was mostly because Hermione was the one most likely to catch them lurking and the most likely to give them hell for it. Other than that, there really wasn't anything necessarily wrong with a bookshop. It was, after all, still a shop. And if there was one thing Naruto had learned over all of his travels, it was that you could tell a lot about a place by watching its market spaces. Were they busy or deserted? Boisterous or stifled? How clean were the streets? How casually did shoppers stop to handle something? Were there trinkets or just necessities?

And Hogsmeade's bookshop did not disappoint. Naruto knew there was a big holiday coming up and the excitement of the students had bled down to here as well. Several were exclaiming happily over the display closest to the door. The shop had some particularly colorful items prominently placed there and many of Naruto's new quasi-classmates were happily debating the merits of blue versus purple. A few others were further towards the back of the shop like Hermione was. They may have been more subdued, but they were clearly just as excited. Many had their arms full of books already but were managing to juggle them well enough to look at just one more off the shelf…

Naruto debated offering to carry Hermione's books for her. That seemed like the kind of thing a gentleman did, right? And it wasn't like they'd slow him down any. But she'd probably get mad at him so it was better to stalk along behind her. As long as he pretended to be there for the books, then she wouldn't even notice he was there!

So Naruto picked one at random off the shelf, stared at it intently, before putting it back and wandering to the other side of the aisle to grab one that had a really cool spine with a whole bunch of words on it. So many words. Some of which the translation jutsu couldn't even make heads or tails out of, but Naruto was pretty sure it had something to do with boxes and locks and splitting things up and hiding them in things, but unfortunately it didn't have any pictures. He abandoned that one a few shelves over and grabbed the next brightly colored one he saw.

It wasn't very thick, but it had a spiffy moving picture on the cover and the title The Rise and Fall of Heroes: Martyrs of the Wizardingly Wars from Merlin to the Potters.

Oh.

Well.

Naruto hesitated, the book still closed in his hand, a cheerfully violent depiction on the cover of a funny looking wizard fighting what looked like an army and angry little men. Coming back to Harry's world – his real world – had opened their eyes to just how much trouble Sasuke's cousin was already in without nin getting involved. They'd all gotten a much more thorough story of how Harry's parents had died. They'd even gotten a slightly better idea of how much things had sucked for Harry afterwards. He didn't talk about it much, but they weren't nin for nothin'. And Naruto knew what it was like to grow up without.

Had Harry seen books like this? How weird would that be? To go from having nothing about your parents to way too freakin' much. Had Sasuke seen this one?

Well, that at least could be easily fixed. Naruto shoved it in one of the large pockets on his pants and pulled out a handful of coins out of another. Books had to cost at least several of these, right? He'd drop 'em behind the counter on his way out.

Except there was this weird feeling. Not quite like a skin crawling kind of feeling (Naruto was well versed in those) but like someone had unexpectedly scratched behind his ear and instead of feeling good it just felt weird. And there were people yelling and things crashing and breaking and Naruto dropped his fist full of money and got the fuck to work.

Hermione was still in the back, a good defensive position. Naruto jumped up on top of the nearest bookshelf so he could get a better eye on her. She had turned towards the noise, dropping her own armload and reaching for her wand. Good girl.

There was enough clearance between the shelf and the ceiling for Naruto to scramble around to face the other direction. Whatever was happening was coming from outside. Things were falling from the sky (never a good sign) and people were frantically trying to run away. Some were already heading for the door and Naruto could already see it was both going to get messy and was going to keep Hermione from wading out into trouble herself.

He didn't really expect her to yell at him though. Surely, there was enough distraction she could ignore the itsy bitsy fact that he'd been following her like a stalker. But Hermione didn't look angry, she looked scared and Nartuo was upset to realize it's the first time he'd seen her scared. Harry's friends were usually such nice comfortable people, they didn't have to be scared of things. But Hermione was waving him down. "Where's Harry?"

Which was a damn good question. Hermione might not like them and she might not trust them further than she could throw them, but at least she seemed to understand they did have the same mission in mind.

Where the fuck was Harry?

"Stay here!" Naruto yelled back over the din. A secondary protection detail might not be a priority but it was still a protection detail. He hoped she'd listen and not do something stupid while he wasn't there to watch her back.

The shelves were spaced enough and weighed down enough to make it easy to pass over the heads of the surging crowd. Everyone was trying to get inside and away from what was happening and where Naruto needed to be. He didn't waste time on doors. The glass was thin enough to break through easily and he rolled through the destruction and out into the open. Something cracked on top of his head as soon as he got upright but it didn't hurt any worse than when Iruka used to throw chestnuts at his head to get him to focus during lessons. Naruto shrugged it off, already moving down the street. Students were running everywhere and he had to be careful more than once not to run over one of them. Wizards did not handle panic well and nobody seemed to know what the hell to do in an emergency. If he had had more time, he might have whipped them into shape, got them organized or at least taken command of the situation. But no one was actively dying and he had bigger things to worry about right now.

The loudest explosions were coming from a couple of streets over and they weren't the kind of whoosh boom he was used to hearing from his teammates. Instead, it was the crackle pop that he had gotten used to over the last few months from DA Club. Naruto wasn't sure where the hell Sasuke and Sakura were, but he knew where Harry was likely to be. A wizarding fight in the middle of a sleepy little village? Of course Sasuke's cousin was going to be in the thick of it. Naruto didn't dare take to the roofs - too much instability and too many unknown factors of what exactly magic was doing up there - so he dashed down the street, sliding as he took a corner and trying to dodge the increasingly panicked populace. The streets were already chaos. People were screaming. A few had managed to throw up spells, magic humming through the air so thickly it felt like Naruto had hit his funny bone, but all over his body. It made his teeth ache and his senses go nuts trying to figure out where the threat was coming from.

The shady looking dude in black with a featureless white mask was a pretty good clue. Harry had reacted strongly to seeing an ANBU and Naruto could kind of see why now. He felt confident enough in his assessment that this guy was not there to help based on that and the way he was terrorizing a couple of students that Naruto didn't hesitate to come racing up along his blind spot and slamming his fist into the side of the guy's head. Wizards might be dangerous as hell, but they were shitty at watching their own backs. The guy dropped like a rock, at the very least unconscious. Naruto only hesitated long enough to make sure no one else was fatally wounded before getting moving again. Someone else in a mask had seen him and gave a yell. A sucker punch usually only worked once, and damn but spells were fast. Naruto scrambled to the left to avoid something bright and orange that came shooting towards his head. Someone gave a cry behind him and Naruto flinched. Right, too many civilians on all sides. Not exactly a good place to start firing off attacks left and right.

"Oi! Shit-face!" Naruto yelled as he ducked his body down as low as he could and still run across the street. The building on that side was the back of something facing the other direction and had only a couple of windows high up to break the stone facade. Most people were trying to get off the street and not looking for a clear space. It gave him a good spot to hold his ground without having to worry about anyone getting caught in the crossfire behind him. Unfortunately it gave him absolutely no cover. "Your aim's shitty as hell, you pasty fucker. You got somethin' to say to me, you can say it over here, asshole!"

When in doubt, start calling people names. It worked wonders for distractin' the hell out of them. The guy closest to Naruto seemed to take it personally and started snarling back insults even as he spat out two more curses in quick succession. Naruto dodged the first just barely and had to deflect the second one as best as he could with a burst of raw chakra. It wasn't neat. It was a hell of a messy way to deal with a problem, but it managed. Naruto had to pump a bunch of energy into it, but it seemed to be enough to confuse the curse. The ground at Naruto's feet flash froze and he yelped back from nearly losing his toes, but the rest of the energy was shot up harmlessly into the sky.

"Right. Fuckin' magic," Naruto muttered. Harry had shown them so many spells over the last few months. Lately it might only have been watching from a distance as he showed his classmate various curses and counterattacks in DA club, but Naruto had seen enough now to know that magic could do all kinds of things but it liked to be focused. It liked to have a specific job and it would try it damndest to stick to some kind of mold. Apparently when you fucked with that it had a tendency to morph into all kinds of dangerous things.

Naruto shook it off as best as he could. Surging a wave of warm deadly red energy through all of his extremities seemed to do the trick nicely and it gave him the kind of crackling energy that made him ready to fling himself bodily into the fight again.

He didn't need to win this fight. He just needed to get by it. There was chaos just a street over. He could hear screams and shouted spells. And maybe he was imagining it, but he could have sworn Harry's voice was there in the mixed. That was all the motivation Naruto needed to make this dirty and quick. So he took a page out of Sasuke's book, breathed in deep and let loose with the largest katson he could manage. It wasn't nearly as impressive as some of his teammates (not his area) but it was damn effective at clearing a path when your opponents were more concerned with protecting their own skins than worrying about the mission. See? This was why civilians made shitty soldiers. Naruto took advantage of the opening, darting between one asshole and the next and clearing the last hurdle before flinging himself down the same alley Harry was on.

Afterall, there was no question where Harry would be. His magic felt like someone had taken all the energy of a tsunami and turned it into something that crackled along Naruto's skin. It didn't hurt. Never had. But it made his stomach drop to feel mild mannered Harry flinging as much of it around as he was capable of. Harry might love magic the way Naruto loved ramen, but he used it sparin'ly most of the time. Now he seemed determined to blanket as much of the street as he could in his energy. It was almost like feeling the killing energy come off of a focused nin, but the opposite. It felt like lightning and life and warmth and Harry, but pushed and expanded until it engulfed them all.

Maybe Harry had been doing better at those chakra classes than any of them had realized. Maybe he just needed to be pushed hard enough to really use it. Maybe Harry had always been this way and they had just never really seen it or appreciated how much power the other boy had.

No wonder so many people were interested in Harry. It was the kind of thing that Hokages drooled after when it showed up in their own villages. It was the kind of thing ANBU got sent to deal with when it developed in other Hokage's villages. It was fitting for Sasuke's outcast defunct lost cousin.

Naruto whooped loudly, announcing his presence on the battlefield and jumping into the fray just as Sasuke came crashing in from above like the specter of death himself. They fell into step together like they always did. No matter the years and tears in between, they knew this dance. Sasuke took out one while Naruto taunted and tripped up another and sent him crashing into a third until they made nothin' more than a worthless mess.

They had this. They did. There was nothing that could stop them when they were together. Sakura would be on her way, tearing through whatever stood between her and her boys with the same single minded focus she took to everything. And she'd be able to fix whatever unfortunate thing that had happened to Harry that had caused him to bleed so much and Sasuke and Naruto would make whoever had done that unfortunate thing so very sorry they had.

Naruto was sure of it.

Just like he was so sure that he was just that one step closer than Sasuke was and that that would be enough to make a difference when goddamn Itachi decided to join their little party. He just needed to get one hand on either of them. Anything. He had to. It was unthinkable that he wouldn't. That he would fail his best friend so thoroughly. To be so close and still not enough as one of the most dangerous nin of Konoha whisked Harry-kun away.

Sasuke screamed. It wasn't any actual words, just an unfettered wail of animal rage and pain. Naruto flinched back from it, feeling it vibrate through him. Or maybe echo. They were both gone, without a hint of trace left behind to even attempt to follow. Itachi was too good to leave behind something like that. He knew how to move in and out without being caught.

Suddenly bereft of his leaning post, Professor Northstein slumped over, falling with a bone jarring thud to the hard cobblestone below. It cracked against his knees and elbows and any other boney part of him that it could manage. The man barely made a noise.

Naruto cursed and slid to his knees by the man's side. The mess that had been the man's knee was sickening to look at. Harry had explained time and time again that magic could be used in all sorts of nasty ways and they were nin enough to be able to imagine most of them. But it was one thing to know and another thing to see. The man was covered in blood, but it wasn't gushing out nearly as fast as it should have been and Naruto cursed again. The man's pulse was far too fast as his body struggled to keep enough blood moving to keep him alive. There was a main vein nicked in the man's leg and Naruto clamped one hand over it as tightly as he could.

Sasuke hadn't moved. As soon as Itachi had whisked Harry away and out of reach, Sasuke had frozen right where he stood. There was little to no resistance left on the street. The two of them had made quick work of a street full of wizards. They had paid for it in scraps and burns and magic still sizzling malignantly across their skin. Harry would have been proud of them. He was always so worried that they wouldn't be able to hold their own in a battle of magic against chakra. But they'd learn so much in the last few months. And they'd done such a good job of putting it into action. Of predicting where and when to strike. Of using a wizard's own flow and ebb against them, even if they had the advantage of speed and range.

"Left!" Naruto barked and thankfully Sasuke reacted without thought. A kunai went flying and it was enough to put an end to whatever spell the man coming up on them had been preparing to use. It didn't manage to kill him, but Sakura took care of that problem by appearing like the angel she was and slitting the man's throat from ear to ear in one quick efficient move.

"Status," she ordered. Her eyes swept from one end of the alleyway to another, taking in everything. Naruto hunched over a dying old man. Sasuke still frozen and dead looking himself. The litter of bodies around them and the lack of Harry.

"Medic," Naruto replied, keeping his voice as calm as possible even if it was hard to look away from the devastated expression on Sasuke's face. Naruto was used to seeing a variety of strong emotions on his teammate's face but most of them had something to do with rage and determination. But this….this was something Naruto had never seen before and it twisted in his gut the same way the knowledge that they had failed did. Would this be the new normal for them from now on? Would he be seeing that face on Sasuke for the rest of their lives? Goddamn it, Naruto was no stranger to loss on the battlefield but if he wasn't willing to accept it when it happened with other people he sure as hell couldn't take it now on one of the faces he loved most in the world.

Sakura took control of the situation. She checked his grip on Northstein's artery before shifting the man bodily over so that he was positioned better. She was pumping sweet green chakra into the man's pathways as best as she could. Magic didn't really like chakra trying to do the same job it did and wizards were made for and of magic. It was going sluggishly but Sakura gave no indication. She just kept pushing through as best as she could.

"Sasuke," Naruto called. Someone had to mop up the rest of the attack. Students were still crying, some of them fighting back as best as they could, but too many were outmatched. Harry's friends would be two of those caught up in this mess.

"Weasley is safe," Sakura reported.

Naruto grimaced. "I left Granger."

"Go. Find her. Make sure. There's not much you can do here," she told him. He didn't know if that meant she was confident Northstein would live or figured the odds couldn't get much worse or maybe they had to prioritize. Harry's friends' lives over one old man who'd made theirs hell for the last several months. Naruto didn't ask. He trusted Sakura to make the choice she felt was best.

Naruto pushed himself to his feet, hands far bloodier than normal. Trying to save a life was much messier business than the quick deaths nins usually dealt out. A couple of large strides brought him in line with Sasuke. He was still staring at the empty spot that had once held his cousin.

"There's still enough of them alive," Naruto pointed out. When that got no reaction, he huffed and clarified. "They may not be Itachi, but if these idiots had anythin' to do with him they might have some idea on where or what he's doing. There's still enough of them alive. Go find a few, would ya?" Naruto told him.

Sasuke's attention finally snapped back into focus. Give the man a mission…. If a few more of them didn't make it long enough to talk, well, Naruto figured the chances of any of them actually knowing anything useful was pretty damn slim. But if it would get his teammate moving again, anything was worth it. First rule of battle, don't stay on the X. If shit goes sideways, keep moving. It doesn't matter if it's the right direction or not. Moving any way is better than staying frozen in one spot.

Sasuke jerked his head in what might have been a nod before seeming to yank his whole body forcibly back into action. He darted off towards the other end of the street where the fighting was still raging on and plowed his way into the fray with little concern over the spells being fired at him or the friendly fire he was jumping in front of.

Naruto had a moment of regretting suggesting it. Sasuke wasn't right in the head right now. Gods, but seeing his brother take his cousin was going to put the teme through the wringer. It was not the frame of mind you sent off a soldier in. But Sasuke needed this. And hopefully he'd manage to keep his wits about him enough not to get himself killed.

Fuck, Naruto hoped so.

He turned away too and started back the way he had come at a much more controlled pace. Most of what he'd left in his wake had stayed down or slunk off to wherever these masked assholes had come from. A few students were hurt but most of them were getting help from the others and pulled into the safety of shops and houses. Now that the worst of the threat had been dealt with, people were slowly beginning to be brave enough to lend their aid.

He was only a couple streets over when Hermione came rushing down the street towards him. Another blond girl and a dark haired boy were a few steps behind her. All of them had their wands out and were ignoring the turmoil around them with the kind of focus of someone on a mission.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione demanded immediately. Naruto should've seen that one coming. After all, it was the same question he would've asked. Harry inspired that kind of faithfulness and constant worry.

Naruto floundered. Where were all of his words when he needed them? When it was most important? How was he supposed to tell her that they'd lost him? That her dear friend might already be…

He didn't have to, apparently. She took one look at his face then shoved her way past him. This time she ran as fast as she could, the other students just barely keeping up with her. Naruto cursed and took after them. The least he could do is keep an eye on her. Harry would've wanted him too.

Hermione wasn't a runner, even by non-nin standards, but she made up for it in determination. It didn't matter that half of the road was impassible with debris and the scars of battle. She scrambled her way over and around it until she made her way to the epicenter.

Sakura was still crouched over Northstein and still pumping out just as much chakra. That wasn't a good sign. Hermione didn't hesitate to wade her way over to Sakura's side and get to work next to her.