Disclaimer: I don't own anything, or make any kind of money, I'm poor as hell.

Warning: Yaoi (if you haven't guessed that by now, I'm worried) swearing, violence and others...

Er...Hello, yes I came crawling back everyone, things have been hectic around here, with a new start in college I been having some difficulty adjusting to it after a wonderful summer 'coughit was shit is all honsestycough', and then I went through a mild case of writers block, where I couldn't write anything for my current fic's but was over tHrown by idea's for new fic's, too see a summary for all of theM check out my Profile page. I also started noticing that I don't keep to all my promises of what's going to be in the next chapter, mostly because of my horrible memory to be honest, but I plan on bettering that! For now I want to thank everyone who has been adding, alerting and reviewing this fic so generoulsy (makes me so proud); and major thank's to my beta reader 'ilovenaruto2007', for correcting my horrible grammar.

Chapter 18: Ingredient Hunt

'Well this is awkward...'

That's all that Naruto could think while sitting in front of Harry, and his half naked Godfather; they had luckily found a spare robe for the man to cover his nudity with. Everyone else had either decided to get some rest, or set out on patrol, leaving Naruto alone with them. Well not completely alone, baby Sasuke was sitting on his lap happily giggling as he tried to reach one of the moving figurines that sat on the glass coffee table.

Sirius watched the blonde boy sitting in front of him with a strained smile, he had heard about the new guards that Dumbledore had posted around the school from Remus but he didn't expect them to be...well children... and why the hell was there a baby amongst them?!

Harry was embarrassed to say the least; he kept his head bowed while a blush adorned his cheeks. The first time someone meets his Godfather, and they had to see him naked?! He didn't think he could live this one down. How was he meant to look at any of the guards anymore without being haunted by this embarrassing incident?

"So well..." Naruto started trying to dispel the awkwardness. "May I ask why you are here Mr Black?"

"Sirius is fine, being so formal with me makes me feel old!" he gave a barking laugh, more due to the anxiety than anything. "Just been a bit worried about Harry to be honest, when I heard that a Ministry Official was working here, and with the way things have recently been in the wizarding world..." Sirius didn't continue with what he was going to say, his gaze fell on Harry who still had his head bowed.

Sirius couldn't blame him, after what happen at the Triwizard Tournament the whole wizarding world was in turmoil. Adding to it the bad press, and the accusations mixed with the denial of the Ministry, didn't make it any easier on the teenager, who already had the whole world resting on his shoulders. He needed to make sure that Harry was all right; after all he was just a child, one that was made to grow up too quickly for his liking. It was his responsibility to look after him; after all, he was Harry's Godfather.

Harry could feel both there gazes boring into him, examining him, calculating everyone of his movements, it made him nervous, were they expecting him to ask for help? He wouldn't, he thought as he hid his bandaged hand; he would take care of his own problems. It was his responsibility.

"I'm fine." Harry finally said, he looked up at his father figure and smiled. "Really I'm fine, I won't let any of that get to me so don't worry okay?" Naruto noticed that small action and frowned, there was something wrong, he thought.

Sirius nodded, but his gaze didn't leave Harry though. The boy stood up quickly. "I should go now, it's late and everyone will be wondering where I am." He said giving a nervous smile.

"Alright, see you later then Harry." Naruto said with a smile, the raven nodded and with a quick wave did he leave.

Naruto turned to regard the man in front of him again; Sirius gave a goofy grin and cocked his head to the side.

"So, got a place for me to stay?"

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The next morning the sun rose slowly waking everything up from their chilling October slumber, the Whomping willow's scraggily branches shuddered violently when it started waking up, shaking the few birds that had decided to rest on it away. The giant squid moved one of its many tentacles out of the water to touch the surface; and the hundreds of house elves had started preparing breakfast for the residents of Hogwarts, and its guests.

Kiba, Neji and Gaara were silently walking back to their quarters; they had taken on the night shift and were now returning for some well-deserved rest. Kiba said the password to the portrait, which opened the door for them as they stepped through it.

Gaara's sharp gaze fell upon the man that was sleeping on the couch with a spare pillow and blanket. With everything that had happened yesterday, Gaara really needed a shower, some coffee, and some of that hot ass called Hyuuga...and not necessarily in that order. He started taking off his armour and was about to go inside his room when a when loud shout caught his attention.

"EVERYONE COME HERE! QUICKLY! QUICKLY!" it came from Naruto's room.

And just like that everyone who had been resting hurried out of their room weapons in hand, even the stranger sleeping on the sofa woke up with a loud 'thud' as he fell on to the hard ground. Gaara hurried towards Naruto's room, his mind racing on what could have happened. Had Naruto been attacked? Did those Death Eaters come back?

He smashed the door down to smithereens and ran towards the blonde who was standing in the middle of the room looking both shocked and excited.

"Naruto are you alright? Did you get attacked? What happened?" the question just flew out of his mouth, Naruto expression changed to confusion, but quickly went away and replaced by excitement again.

"Gaara-wait what?! I have no clue what you are talking about, but never mind all that. Just look over there!" if Gaara had eyebrows he would have arched them in confusion, instead he turned his head to look down at what Naruto was pointing at so excitedly.

There stood Sasuke, and he meant quite literally standing, at just over two foot tall using the bed to stabilize himself, while he took a few shaky steps with his chubby legs. He gurgled happily when he managed them making Naruto coo loudly into Gaara's ear.

"Isn't that amazing Gaara?! Sasuke is taking his first steps!" The baby let go of the bed and took some shaky steps towards Naruto who bent down to pick him up, and ruffle his dark locks affectionately.

"Uzumaki..." Naruto froze his actions, when ever the red head used his last name it only meant trouble for him, he turned and looked towards Gaara who was glaring at him murderously.

"Uzumaki..., if you do anything like that again, I'll rip your legs off and beat you with them black an' blue, you hear me." It wasn't a question; it was a threat, so Naruto just smiled nervously and nodded. That seemed to be enough for the red head, who with one last warning glare turned around and walked back out the door.

Everyone else stared in shock after the Kazekage, the red head was usually so eerily calm; to see him burst like that was just scary...more scary then the usual stoic Gaara.

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Harry tiredly made his way towards Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, he had woken up in the middle of the night, remembering that he had forgotten his detention with Umbridge, he cursed himself through the night till the sun rose; but he couldn't stop worrying, after all what kind of punishment would he get for missing a detention?

He shuddered at the thought.

The door leading into that dreaded 'toads' room came into view; he watched as Ron and Hermione opened the door and stepped through the door-way, not realising the horror that would await him. Harry took a deep shuddering gulp of air and released it, it most likely would be worse for him if he didn't attend the lesson.

As soon as he stepped through the door, a shadow fell over him; Harry hesitantly looked up at his teacher, who was glaring daggers at him.

"Well, well Mr Potter nice of you to show up; you missed you detention last night."

"..."

"Well don't you have something to say for that?"

"..."

"Alright then Potter, if you are going to be like that your detention will be extended, do you understand that?"

Harry nodded, and with a bowed head walked over to his seat to sit down, Hermione and Ron passed him worried stares; but didn't say anything. The rest of the lesson passed without anything else happening, yet the feeling of dread never left his mind.

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Naruto was gently washing Sasuke; the child giggled and clapped his little hands together, causing water to splash everywhere. He picked the baby up and wrapped him in a fluffy towel to dry him off. Only when he went back to his bedroom with a freshly cleaned Sasuke did he notice the odd thing that stood beside his bed.

It was about 4 feet tall with wrinkly greyish skin and long floppy ears, the creature wore something that reminded Naruto of a maid uniform; although it seemed highly unsuitable for it. The creature turned around and squeaked when it saw him, its large eyes widening as she bowed down respectfully.

"Master guard Sir, Master Snape requests your presence at his office, Sir!" The creature squeaked out in a high shrill voice. Naruto just nodded dumbly and watched as the peculiar creature disappeared with a 'poof' of smoke.

After a few minutes his mind started finally registering what had happened, so he hurried towards Snape's office, with Sasuke still in hand. Making his way down the dungeons (and getting lost in the process a few times), he shivered at the cold, this place reminded him more of the prisons in Konoha then something a school should have. He located the office and knocked twice before entering the room.

"You wanted to see me Snape?"

The man sitting behind his large mahogany desk motioned Naruto to step inside, books and paper laid scattered over his desk, and a cauldron was bubbling away on an enchanted flame. The room was dimly lit, and he scrunched up his nose when the strong smell of spices hit his nostrils. Snape finally looked up from his papers, a look of frustration etched into his face when his gaze fell on Sasuke.

"I have some bad news and some good news, about the potion that will help your colleague here."

"Oh, tell me how far along it is?"

"I have almost finished it; I'm still waiting for a few of the ingredients, but they should be here in a few days. But there is one more thing that I need, and can sadly not get."

"What is it?"

"Its called Moon-blossom; and it only appears for three days a month when the moon is full and today is the last day."

"Why can't you get it?" he asked, the nervousness creeping into his voice.

"Hagrid that oaf has managed to get ill with a bad case of the flu, and now he can't even stand up from his bed."

Snape went silent and regarded the blonde boy in front of him, his blue eyes showed his worry clearly, he looked down at the child cradled in his arms and frowned as if thinking over some things; Naruto then looked at Severus, but this time instead of his eyes being filled with anxiety they were filled with new determination.

"I'll get them for you, were can I find them?" Snape's eyebrow quirked up questionably, but Naruto was not about to back down. As much as Sasuke was cute as a baby he did prefer the older version of the raven.

"Pervert..." came Kyuubi's cackling voice in the back of his mind. He mentally shut the fox down and focused his attention back at the man in front of him.

"The plant is actually very easy to find, it's just where its located that makes it a dangerous task to do."

"I've already been through many dangerous situations, so I think I could handle something like retrieving a plant." Snape smirked, and shuffled the papers away to unearth a large tome. He opened the book up and showed Naruto a detailed drawing of the Moon-blossom.

It looked like a normal lilac, with softly hued violet petals, that were almost white at the tip, and curved downwards from the sides; in the middle of the blossom was something that reminded him of tear drops, the artist had rendered it so that it looked like a shining crystal in the middle of the flower.

"The Moon-blossom grows in the Forbidden forest, but it only opens its petals up when the moon shines on it. The flower itself is not what I need but the water inside it is what has the magical properties; but the water has to always remain in the flower during transport and the moon must always be shining on it, or it will close up and wither away. So do you see why it so difficult to transport it through the dense forest?"

"I'll do it." Naruto said simply. Snape stared gaped at him and started rubbing his temple in frustration.

"Do you even know what's inside that forest?! There are things in there that would make even powerful wizards cringe..."

"Not to worry." He said and went over to the large book, and ripped the necessary page out. "I have something even more gruesome on my side." And then he quickly disappeared in a sudden explosion of smoke.

Snape looked in shock at the spot were the blonde had once stood; he couldn't believe that someone could be so reckless with their own lives, and what did he mean by that last part anyway? He sighed and slumped back in his seat, his dark gaze fell towards the large book sitting on his desk. That's when he noticed that one of the pages was missing.

"BLOODY HELL, THIS WAS A LIMITED EDITION, COLLECTOR'S ITEM! THAT PUNK!"

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Harry staggered out of his detention; this was the worst one yet and he had a felling that it would only get worse. Not only had she extended his detention, but doubled the amount of lines he had to write, his body felt heavy and his head felt dizzy from the blood-loss. TherE was no Draco to wait for him with some fresh bandages and healing blam for his wound this time, since the blonde didn't know about his new extended detention. Harry sighed and slumped against the wall, he was so tired, he hated being so powerless. Harry went silent and then started chuckling darkly at himself.

Here he was Harry Potter, defeater of all things dark, brought down by some dominating evil pink loving, toad-like, glasses wearing Ministry working teacher, who by the way should be on his side. He was so consumed by his thoughts that he didn't notice the red head walking towards him.

"Your hand is bleeding." Harry jerked his head towards the voice in shock and almost gasped when he saw one of the guards standing there.

He was the same size as Naruto, maybe taller with blood red hair and pale teal eyes that were rimmed dark with...mascara? There was an odd symbol on his forehead; it reminded Harry of one of those Japanese tattoos that you could get. His clothes were slightly different from what all the guards were wearing, while the others wore dark tight fitted clothes, that didn't leave much to the imagination, he wore more loose clothes. A black shirt that was wrapped around his body, and secured at his hips with two belts, a breast plate armour that was only attached by his left shoulder, and baggy trousers with sandals. Yet the strangest thing he ever saw was the large 'thing' that was strapped onto his back. Harry just couldn't figure out what it was meant to be.

"Your hand is bleeding." The red head stated again, with the same monotone voice. Harry quickly looked down at his still bleeding arm and gasped as he pulled his sleeve down over it. Gaara frowned and quickly grabbed his arm and pushed the sleeve back to see the injury. He hissed when he saw the mutilated hand, the wound was deep tearing into the muscle, and shredding at the tendons.

"How did this happen?" he asked with a fierce glare.

"I-Its nothing!" Harry whimpered out as he tried to pry his hand out of Gaara's harsh grasps.

"You're telling me, that this is nothing?!" he said pointing at the wound. Harry gritted his teeth together, and shut his eyes. Gaara finally let go of his hand, and watched Harry fall against the wall and slide onto the ground.

"Who did that to you?" Gaara asked again.

"..."

"Is it another student?"

"..."

"At least, someone from this school?" yet Harry remained silent. Gaara sighed and sat down beside Harry.

"Harry, we are here to protect you and make sure that everyone is safe; but we can't do our job if no one is willing to communicate."

"You can't help me..." Harry finally said. Gaara turned to look at him with a curious gaze. "...This is my own problem... I-I have to solve it myself." He muttered.

"Is that so...?" Gaara kept watching Harry, the younger boy reminded him of himself when he was younger, before he had met Naruto it felt like the whole world was against him, they were his enemy and the only person he could rely on was himself, and the monster that slept inside of him. and how could anyone help him, no one knew about his life, no one ever went through the same things as him, yet it all hanged with a chance meeting.

This boy was going through the same things right now, and if someone didn't push him in the right direction, like Naruto had done for him, he would only end up hurting himself and the ones he cares about the most. Although he didn't think Naruto's method would work very well in this case.

"I was like you once." He started. "I hated the world, it seemed like the only person I could rely on was myself. It took some harsh beating for me to understand that there are other people like me around; that I wasn't alone; I was just too blind to see them. Yet slowly I let people help me, I let them be close, before I was afraid never knowing who I could really trust, but you see no one can handle the world on their own.

Even if people can't fully comprehend what you have gone through doesn't mean they didn't have similar experiences. It's funny actually to think that there are people out there with worse childhoods than me..." he drifted off into his own thought and Harry couldn't help but wonder what he had meant by that. His teal eyes seemed to darken slightly.

"But in the end" he continued. "All it took was a pushy blonde guy, with a grin that could put anything to shame, to make me see that I wasn't alone."

Gaara stood up and dusted himself off; he looked over at Harry again, and gave a small rare smile.

"Sometimes all you have to do is ask." And he walked off back into the shadows of the enchanted hallways. Leaving Harry to mule over his thoughts, he looked down at his injured hand, but found it already mysteriously cleaned and bandaged.

"When did he manage to do that?"

OoOoOoOoOoO

Naruto had left Sasuke with a very groggy Sakura and then made his way outside, the moon shone brightly in the sky, Naruto guessed that he had a few hours before dawn came; the forest was very dense from what Kiba had told him, filled with many strange creatures. He checked through his pack one more time making sure that he had his weapons, some water, and a few empty pots to take the plant in. With a quick look around the perimeter did he make his way into the Forbidden Forest.

He leapt from branch to branch; Naruto squinted through the darkness and clutched the drawing of the plant tightly in his hand. He stopped and looked around but still couldn't see anything that even looked remotely like the flower, he guessed that he was already pretty deep inside the forest the trees were so close together that he could almost not see through them, it was frustrating.

An hour had already passed by and he was getting no closer to his goal, Naruto growled inwardly and made to start jumping through the forest again.

'Kit, there is something close by.' Naruto hesitated in his movements and concentrated on his surroundings, to feel any kind of foreign chakra.

'Really? I can't sense anything..." he told the fox.

'You can't? But it's so close; it's been on your heel for a while now."

'Damn-it.' Naruto reached behind him to unsheathe his Kodaichi from its confinements. 'How far is it?'

'About 40 meter away from you.'

'Alright, tell me how close it's coming by every few meters, okay?'

'Then I should probably tell you now that it's only 32 meters behind you.'

'Shit its moving quick, can you tell what it is yet?'

'28 meters, no I already told you before, everything here is different, 21 meters.'

Naruto gritted his teeth together; he stuffed the paper in one of his pockets and reached inside one of his pouches to retrieve a few shuriken, and held them in one hand while the other hand held onto the sword.

'13 meters.'

That's when he heard it, a melodic laughter filling his ears.

'7 meters.'

Naruto readied himself to attack that thing first, maybe he could take it down by surprise.

'3 meters.' Kyuubi continued.

'1.'

Naruto quickly turned around, flinging the shuriken behind him with force, he heard a loud wail, and then something green blinded his vision.

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Yikes! A cliffy! (get's rocks thrown at her)

Look forward in the next chapter for:

Naruto just never seems to get a break...

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