Classes

Disclaimer: None of these cut scenes 'officially' happen in the Connections series, so they may contradict what the original story shows.

Sasuke was not having a good day. They had all known that blending in among wizards was going to be a challenge. Too many cultural inconsistencies. But they were nin, they were used to slipping through unseen where they should not be. Surely, they could handle a bunch of ignorant civilians? Look at how easy they had maneuvered through what Harry called the Muggle World. And everything they had seen of these wizards suggested they were powerful, potentially dangerous, but ultimately poorly prepared for ninja. Which might all be well and good if their goal was something as straight forward as assassination or theft, but a protection detail was by and far the most difficult task one could be assigned and to be hamstringed while doing it….

Things were not going well. Sasuke had assumed he would be able to be in Harry's House and still maintain a carefully balanced distance between the two of them. He need proximity without drawing attention to what he was trying to do. The tight quarters gave him all of the access he needed. The only trick was to maintain an aloof attitude so no one would be brave enough to ask uncomfortable questions. It should have been easy. Sasuke was good at keeping his distance. Except when that person was his cousin and they were in a place that seemed determined to kill the boy.

Whoever thought teaching these idiot children how to control chakra must have had a death wish. More than once Sasuke had full body flinched as felt a burst of energy go off just inches away, only to find out it was something supposedly harmless like a summoning charm or a bit of mild transformation.

Harry had had to actually physically grab the back of his shirt at one point to stop him from lashing back at one of these children. It was humiliating. To have no control over himself like that. But there was simple too much. Even without the Sharingan he felt overwhelmed by the amount of detail he had to try to keep track of. There were talking paintings and moving stone work, and ghosts and children running through the halls, and harmless pranks and simple misfires and dropped textbooks and noxious fumes and a million other things that probably weren't a threat but that had Sasuke itching to walk around openly armed.

And always their own failed magic.

Naruto's idea in Charms was a valid one, and he kept the charade up in his other classes. It wasn't difficult for Naruto to play the fool. Fail spectacularly enough at something and that was all people would talk about. It wasn't an eloquent distraction but it was effective. No one doubted that Naruto was capable of magic, they just doubted his ability to control it.

It was a temporary fix. Sakura and Sasuke had gotten by on a mixture of sleight of hand and charm, but even that would only last them so long.

They had to fix this.

Now if only Sasuke knew how to.

"We may have made a tactical error," Kakashi-sensei drawled one afternoon, not even looking up from his book.

The three younger members of Team 7 glared back at their team captain.