AN: Sorry this one took a little longer to get up. Things have gotten REALLY busy for me. School's starting back up, which is going to seriously cut into my writing time. I'm also suffering from a little it of writer's block. Hopefully I should be able to keep the updates fairly regular.

More importantly: Thank you SO much for all the wonderful feedback! It's been very helpful. : )

They'd had to take another bus, then a taxi, to make it out to Privet Dr

They'd had to take another bus, then a taxi, to make it out to Privet Dr. How ever Kakashi-sensei had managed to provide funds for their trip, it was enough to cover all of their expenses. By morning of the next day, the four of them found themselves standing before a blue and white house with a precisely manicured front lawn.

"Is this really the place?" Naruto demanded. He had his arms behind his head and leaned back to take in the whole house. It wasn't that big, he supposed, but it looked like a comfortable amount of space to him. But anything compared to his tiny apartment seemed nice. It had two floors, for starters, and blue painted shudders and white trim along all the edges. The roof tiles looked a little funny, both rough but flat enough to provide little to no traction. There was one of those car things parked out front, shining brightly in the early morning light. Flowering bushes lined the side of the house. It looked a whole world better than that creepy house Sasuke-teme lived in.

But there was something off about it.

Naruto frowned and tilted his head to study it out of the corner of his eye. Then he looked both left and right at all of the other houses along the street. "Ne, how do you think they remember which one is theirs?" he asked.

Sakura turned her head to half glare, half stare at him in confusion, as if she wanted to ask him what he meant but was afraid to know the answer.

Naruto grinned back at her and gestured with one thumb. "Look, see. They all look alike. How do they remember which one is theirs?"

Sakura glared at him for a moment, then sighed and gave up. "I guess that's what the numbers are for."

Sasuke said nothing from where he was standing between the two of them. He hadn't said anything since they'd gotten into the taxi, and nothing on the bus ride before that. He hadn't said a word since they'd left London. All of his attention seemed fixed in one place and one place only.

He stared at the house. Stared at it as if he expected the answer to be painted boldly across the walls, from one window to the next in much the same fashion as Naruto had painted over the Hokage Mountain all those years ago. Sasuke stared and did that creepy Sasuke-teme thing and Naruto felt like punching him in the shoulder just to make him react to something. Except now wasn't the time to be fooling around. They had a mission. A very important Team 7 mission. One that was almost as important as bringing Sasuke-teme back from the snake-bastard and almost as important as saving Gaara from those Akatsuki-bastards. Cause this Potter kid was Sasuke's family, which made him Team 7 family, and there was no way in hell they were going to let any crazy traitor-bastards take that away.

Naruto grinned. Nope. No way in hell.

Then Sasuke stepped forward and very quickly made his way up to the front door. He paused after stepping up to it and continued to stare at it like some kind of freak. The rest of Team 7 had followed right behind him.

"Why don't you let Sakura do it?" Naruto suggested when everyone else did nothing else but stare at the door. "She's supposed to be good with this kind of stuff, right? Just like last time."

"This is different," Sasuke snapped back.

Sakura was watching him closely. "I'd like to try, if you don't mind," she asked.

Sasuke-teme flickered his eyes over to her for just a moment, before slowly stepping back from the door to allow her to. Sakura gave him a small smile, then with a fortifying deep breath, knocked sharply on the door.

Naruto just kept smiling. Everything looked good so far, and he was going to take that as a very good sign. He somehow suspected that if Itachi-bastard had been through here, then there'd be signs of it. Like body parts in the yard and blood smeared across the door, or something. But everything looked unbelievably normal, like nothing weird ever had or ever could happen here. It made Naruto kind of uncomfortable, but it still seemed like a good sign.

The woman who opened the door was thin, and she wasn't happy to be disturbed. She stared at them with that kind of pinched look that Naruto was all too familiar with. He flinched instinctively. This was not going to go well. She looked like she'd just opened the door to find some kind of filth standing on her porch.

Sakura either didn't understand or she was just forging on ahead, because she smiled the same way she always did when on a mission. "Excuse me, ma'am, but does Harry Potter live here?" she asked.

What little color the woman had drain completely out of her face. It would have been comical if he wasn't so on edge. Stupid old woman could use a good shock or too, Naruto suspected, but not when it was something that would potentially mess up his mission.

"W-who?" she stuttered. Her distress was as obvious as Kakashi-sensei's bad habits.

"Harry Potter," Sakura repeated, her voice a little more strained. "This is number four, Privet Drive, yes?"

They had not expected to encounter a problem like this. It was obvious the woman knew exactly who this Potter kid was, and she was more than a little freaked out about it. Was it possible that Itachi had managed to make it here before them? He didn't seem like the type to cover his tracks this well when there was no need to, but it was possible.

Naruto shifted nervously. He didn't even want to think about the possibility of that having happened. Because that would mean that they were already too late – that the only chance Sasuke had at having family again was gone just as fast as it had come. It also meant this could be one very dangerous trap.

Sasuke's stance shifted as well. He had either come to the same possible conclusion as Naruto, or this was simply taking too long for his tastes. He wasn't going to put up this much longer.

For better or worse, the woman seemed to come to her own conclusion at the same time. "You're some of those freaks, aren't you?" she suddenly hissed out.

Naruto flinched back again. "Freak" wasn't the term he usually heard, but the venom behind it was all too familiar. He was right. He'd known it from the moment he'd seen this woman. There was something about the way she was that was just as plain as day to him as the same hate he saw back in the village. But there wasn't any way she could know anything about him and there was no reason to call the rest of Team 7 freaks, unless she somehow knew they were ninja, maybe, but even then, how would she know that? Naruto felt like tugging at his hair.

"There's no one here by that name!" the woman continued. Her face was bright red now, and she was already shifting back away from them. "Now get out of here! I don't know who you people are, but we don't want your kind around here, so just go away!"

Sasuke started to move forward, but Kakashi-sensei's hand shot out and grabbed him by the back of the shirt to keep him from moving. The woman slammed the door and the four of them were left staring at it.

Yep. Definitely did not go well.

Sasuke spun around to glare at Kakashi-sensei. "She is lying," he grated out through clenched teeth. "We do not have time for this." Naruto half excepted to see the sharingan activated out of pure fury, but the other boy seemed to be holding it in check.

Kakashi-sensei just smiled back. "Now we don't want to go rushing off into things again, do we?" he asked and Naruto had to wonder which one of them the comment was referring to the most. Sasuke had done all kinds of stupid things before and Naruto was forever hearing people tell not to try rushing things. Neither of them much listened to any advice not to, but there was something about the way Kakashi-sensei said it that made it clear he expected them to heed it now. "We're not here to antagonize people," Kakashi-sensei added before flickering his eyes quite obviously to something behind them and off to the left of the house.

The rest of Team 7 jerked around to see what it was, and standing there was a young man about their age with messy black hair, wide bright green eyes and the biggest, dorkiest glasses Naruto had ever seen. The eyes were kind of startling, but the resemblance was still fairly clear. This was definitely a Uchiha. He even had funny looking hair like Sasuke.

Sasuke seemed to recognize the resemblance as well. His whole body spasmed in the most alarming way, but his eyes didn't waver for a moment away from the very living and whole missing cousin that was standing before him. He stepped forward slowly, taking one stuttering step off of the front porch.

The kid flinched back in very obvious and very distinct fear. It was obvious in everything from the tight way he was holding himself to the way his body seemed to almost instinctively lean towards the illusion of safety behind the house.

It was impossible to tell what Sasuke thought about that fear, but he stopped moving forward just as suddenly.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded. "What'd you want?"

Wow. He even sounded like a pissy Sasuke-teme. Naruto was kind of impressed. It must be some kind of genetic inborn thing and not just a shitty attitude like Naruto had always assumed.

The other boy jerked again for some reason and suddenly absolutely would not look Sasuke in the eyes. Naruto frowned at him. He could understand not wanting to look at Sasuke-teme's ugly face but it all seemed kind of weird. Naruto leaned forward just a little and got a better look at Sasuke's eyes. Nope. Still no sharingan. Nothing to freak out the other kid.

"You better leave," the boy continued. "Now." He had his chin lifted up defiantly, but the rest of his body language was still terror filled. He managed to keep most of it out of his voice, though. He was still being a jerked, however.

Sakura jumped in immediately without waiting for a cue from Kakashi-sensei. "Ano, Potter-san," she started softly. It was way too nice for what this kid needed and Naruto wasn't going to waste time listening to her try to talk him down.

"Oi, idiot," he announced. The boy's green eyes switched over to staring at him and narrowed slowly. Naruto just grinned back. Now that was better. Always better to be pissed than scared. It was just way too weird seeing someone who looked as much like Sasuke-teme looking that desperate. Calling someone an idiot was always a good way to get them going. Naruto, after all, ought to know that. "We're here to save your ass," he continued, crossing his arms over his chest and feeling quite pleased with himself for taking charge of the situation. "So you don't have to go all acting like a jerk. One teme is enough for this group."

That seemed to knock some sense back into him. "Save me?" he repeated slowly. His eyes were flickering over the group again, still pointedly avoiding Sasuke-teme's but he didn't look ready to run anymore, nor like he was going to try fighting them.

Sasuke-teme, of course, had to go and ruin all that. "You are Harry Potter?" he asked even though there was no way this kid could be anyone else. It was the kind of stupid question he'd make fun of Naruto for if he'd asked something as obvious. He didn't seem to be able to resist it, however, which was a little unsettling coming from the super-repressed Uchiha Sasuke. He even started to take another step forward, but the kid jerked back again and Sasuke had to stop. His fists were clenched at his sides and Naruto was starting to get a little concerned that he'd do something stupid if this dragged out long enough.

They all waited a moment as Sasuke seemed to pull himself back together again. "Your father was called James Potter, correct?" he finally asked. His voice was back to that mission mode tone – which was better than semi-freaked out but still not exactly friendly-like. It was Sasuke-teme, however, and friendly-like just didn't happen.

The affect was kind of interesting and confused the hell out of Naruto. The Potter kid went from false bravado and barely controlled fear to spitting angry. "What do you know about my father?" he hissed at them.

Naruto was just about to break it up again with some kind of flippant remark when all hell broke loose.

There was a sudden sense of danger by long trained instincts and then someone else replied.

"More than you do."

Naruto jerked his head around to stare at him so fast he nearly hurt something, but there he was. Uchiha Itachi. Standing as calmly as you please in the middle of the street.

Things after that moved really, really quickly.

Itachi surged forward towards Potter and Sasuke was moving not a moment behind. The two of them met in the middle with a deafening clang as kunai smashed into kuani. Not one to be left out of such things, Naruto rushed into motion just behind his teammate, coming at Itachi from the side. Between the two of them they forced the other nin back and away from his target.

Potter made some kind of half-strangled noise from behind them and Naruto grinned a little to himself. Guess their cover as not being dangerous ninja was pretty much just blown out of existence.

Sakura wasted no time in moving either. Instead of positioning herself to challenge Itachi, she darted over to Potter's side, getting a deceptively powerful grip on his arm. Her other hand was digging into her supply pouch and pulled out a scroll. The transportation scroll Tsunade-ba-chan had given to each of them. Any one scroll could be used for several people at once, and each of them had been equipped with it. She'd get Potter out of her, back to Fire Country and just outside of the village borders and its protection. It was unlikely that Itachi had anything similar prepared, and as long as Naruto and Sasuke-teme kept him busy, there was no way he could use one if he did.

And maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to put an end to all of this right now.

It was a bit of a long-shot, but at least Potter would be safe. That was the main mission right now. Keep Sasuke's cousin alive.

Itachi seemed to guess at their intent and moved suddenly. His speed was even greater than Sasuke-teme's and Naruto would have cursed if he hadn't been so busy desperately trying to do something to slow him down enough for Sakura to have that two seconds it took to activate the scroll. He forced Itachi away from approaching at one angle, and forced him into taking a path closer to Sasuke. That was enough to give Sasuke-teme the chance to throw several shuriken at him. None of them hit, of course, but dodging slowed him down a little more. It might not have been enough if Kakashi-sensei hadn't come exploding out of the ground directly in front of Sakura and Potter. Getting passed the Great Copy Nin would take a little more work even for someone like Itachi.

And with a swish of paper and a strong flare of chakra, Sakura and the primary objective of the mission disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke-teme and Naruto to give their best at bringing one of the worst missing nin to ever come form their village to justice for his crimes.