AN: Better late than never I hope. I'm even posting two chapters!

Unfortunately, I know not everyone's going to be happy with them. Certain things just didn't fit in yet, and are going to have to wait till later chapters.

I've been working on just these two chapters for three months now, which is why updates have been so slow and spread out. I wrote and rewrote entire sections over and over again. Hopefully, I can pick up the pace again now….but no promises. ^^;

All of the great reviews from last chapter were really encouraging however! They also help me gage certain things, even if I unfortunately can't follow as many of the suggestions as I would like. So thank you very very much! ^^

It was hard to breath – and that wasn't just because of the choke hold his cousin had on him. Though that certainly didn't help matters any. Harry's feet barely touched the ground, and the soft soles of his tennis shoes kept slipping out from under him. Without them, all of his weight was hanging off that tight, cool grip around his throat. Sasuke wasn't much taller than Harry, but his hand sure felt big enough to wrap around his neck twice.

But that wasn't the only thing making it hard to breath. The sight of his wand tip digging into the pale skin of his cousin's neck was almost as bothersome. The knowledge that – if it came to the point where he would have to hex his cousin, he had better use something powerful, something debilitating, something final – only made it worse. It was a line, that once it was crossed, there would be no coming back. This wouldn't be the vague threats and accidents that sometimes happened at Privet Drive. This would be much more violent. What kind of monster would he have to be to attack his own family? But he would, if he had to. Heaven help him, but he would.

Harry pushed his wand up ever so slightly, increasing the pressure on Sasuke's neck. "Let go," he repeated hoarsely. He had quite a few other things he would have liked to add to that, but it was kind of hard to say much more when his throat felt like it was being crushed and his chest felt three sizes too small.

Sasuke had his head tilted back as far as it would go, the skin and muscles in his neck stretched out taunt and vulnerable beneath Harry's wand. But his eyes were red and narrowed. His breathing stayed slow and steady.

"Hey, hey, now everybody!" Naruto yelped from behind Sasuke. "Let's just calm down!"

They both ignored him. "Let. Go." Harry repeated.

Sasuke's fingers tightened ever so slightly. "No."

Harry tried to curse but choked and gasped as his air supply disappeared momentarily. Apparently, trying to yell back was a bad idea. "I'll make you," he finally gasped out, still hoping a warning would be enough, while at the same time promising to absolutely follow through if it wasn't.

"Damn it, Sasuke!" Naruto yelled. "You're hurting him!"

Sasuke gave no indication that he heard him. Or that he heard Harry. "You aren't shinobi," he said slowly.

Harry glared back at him. "No."

"Then what are you?" Sasuke demanded.

Harry flinched. This wasn't fair. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. Sasuke had seemed so concerned about Harry's safety before. What did it matter how Harry defended himself? Damn it all. For once, Harry just wanted to pretend he was normal. He did not want to have to explain to his new cousin and new friends how much of a freak he was. Would they be so relaxed and friendly with him when they found out he was far from helpless? Harry grimaced. If Sasuke's initial reaction was anything to go by, he'd be lucky if they didn't hate him as much as the Dursleys had. Or worse.

Harry tried pushing himself up to relieve some of the pressure on his neck. "I'm – just – Harry," he struggled to say.

"That's not an answer!"

"Sasuke! You're choking him! Stop it!"

"He can talk," Sasuke snapped back. He leaned forward then, pushing his neck down onto Harry's wand, seemingly heedless of the pain it must have caused or the bruising damage that was sure to result. "And he's going to," he growled. "I am not risking the completion of this mission because you can't understand the meaning of need-to-know. I am lead on this and I am ordering you to tell me! How did you defend yourself, who did you think the ANBU was, what the hell you think you're threatening me with now – and every other damn thing you've been hiding from us so far!"

Harry shook his head. He wasn't a mission, he was a person! And he wasn't trying to make things difficult for Sasuke. But what else could he do? "I can't!" he exclaimed. Even if he wanted to, he just couldn't.

Shinobi weren't wizards. That much was clear from their little demonstration earlier. While Harry would hardly consider himself an expert when it came to wizarding culture, he'd never even heard of shinobi before, and as far as he could tell, they hadn't ever heard of wizards before either. For all he knew, there was a reason the two were separate. Plenty of people hated wizards and witches enough to kill them on sight. What if it was like that here? And the wizarding world had never shown itself to be particularly welcoming to those who were different. They'd take one look at Sasuke's eyes and try to have him locked up. The differences between Harry's world and this one might seem superficial to him in a lot of ways, but he suspected the Ministry would have a few things to say about it. And after all the trouble he got into last summer… He doubted the ministry would be at all understanding this time around. He could already hear Umbridge's fake little titter as she gleefully condemned him for breaking the international wizarding law of secrecy…

What if they kicked him out of school for real this time? He couldn't risk that. He had too much to do, too much to learn. There was no way he could defeat Voldemort on his own. Hell, he probably wouldn't even survive without having the safety of Hogwarts to return to. Especially if his cousin hated him now. And there was no way he could go back to Privet Drive. Hogwarts was all he had left. It was all he ever had.

Harry closed his eyes and made the only choice he could.

He said nothing.