Note: Sorry in advance for any mistake or corny references… fluff is a must though.

Garden of Joy.

…

He felt it, the agony that being awake brought him. So when his mind blanked within sleep, he cherished those moments of non-existence.

Perhaps he shouldn't be so negative, after all, waking hours meant Sasuke, meant his mother's fond pats and the smile his Aunt gave him when he passed by her booth every morning he came from the academy. At six and almost graduating, he really shouldn't be so negative.

The fact is, that between being a ninja and living the rest of his life locked in eternal struggles for peace and quiet – or giving up his ninja career, having Sasuke chosen as clan-heir to shoulder said resposabilities and consequently destroying the bubbling little toddler.

He chose to fight for peace, instead of demanding it.

Sleep always came easier when he didn't have internal debates about his future before going to bed. His dark eyes closed – his father has been pushing him to awake the prized blood-line of his clan – he sincerely didn't want to have that burden added to the pile growing on his back, but being clan heir and hailed as a genius cracked the peaceful life he wanted.

Sleep…

Also meant dreams.

He dreamt of his classes, sometimes he saw the face of a classmate or two. He dreamt of Sasuke, of them both fully grown and with families of their own, he once had a strange dream about prancing dogs that might have something to do with Inuzuka Hana and her dogs-related rants.

So when sleep snared him after a few minutes of struggle on his part, the dreams he had were unexpected and foreign and would mark the start of something entirely life changing.

…

Vivid dreams were no news for him, his mind working on a superior plane than most, his dreams tended to reflect his learning capabilities. Because what are dreams but the collection of our days experiences?

He couldn't, for the life of him, remember when he'd seen or heard of something like this though.

It was a garden fully bloomed. There were a few flowers he recognized such as those lilies or the dandelion or the sakura tree growing strongly over a koi pond. Half the garden's decoration was similar to some he's known in the Uchiha compound, his aunts being fond of gardening and feng-shui or similarities, while others he's never seen before.

There were benches cut out of unfamiliar stones, in such intricacies that his eyes had trouble tracing the unknown curves. The plants teased him with their scents and it was all so very beautiful that he felt overwhelmed. Lights hung around the garden, floating along a slight breeze and circulating like fireflies but livelier. It was magical in its beauty and complexity and the mysterious touches here and there.

Itachi stopped in the middle of a stone cut path, surrounded by bushes of flowers that formed a perfect circle around him. It was peaceful – the sky looking down on him was starless and dark blue.

"Do you know why the sky is blue?" A tiny girly voice startled him. Swirling on the balls of his feet and assuming a defensive position, the six years old relaxed when the figure of a small girl looking slightly younger than him made itself known. "I've asked my Aunt but she doesn't like when I ask questions, and none of the teachers have patience with me"

She was thin and clearly not trained in anyway, nor undergoing training. Her hands seemed soft and her knees bony. Hair was as dark as his and cut unevenly around her head, curls framing her delicate face. Though what caught his attention were her eyes. A bright emerald green that spoke more than she ever could…

It was like staring at a mirror.

Someone who just wanted peace but had no means to achieve it.

Granted, she was just a child – he didn't see himself in the same intellectual plane as her anyway – and her hardships might never compare to his, but he knew pain and loneliness when he saw it in her eyes.

"I do not know" He answered her previous question, he didn't know. Trivia like that was usually useless to a ninja career, though now he'd seek to rectify this question if his subconscious deemed necessary to conjure weird gardens and weirder girls to ask.

She looked at him then, staring straight into his eyes with those searching green of hers. Her hair shifted a little and he caught sight of a strangely shaped scar – a lightning bolt – curving over her left brow… it looked raw and new.

"Who are you? I've never seen you before" Asked the figment of his imagination. He balked and actually thought it over… was this a tricky question? Sensing his hesitation, the girl held up a hand. "I'm Lily Potter, I always come here when I dream, and it's the first time I see someone other than me" she offered helpfully, making his confusion grow.

She wasn't really speaking in his language, yet he understood her all the same. Well… It was a strange dream, yet a dream all the same – though his guard rose relatively. "Itachi" He decided to answer anyway. The girl, Riri Pottah… who'd name their child that? Blinked.

"Eeh..Tay…Chee..." completely butchering his name in her foreign accent shouldn't amuse him as much as it did. She still had her hand up.

He took it slowly, shaking her hand as if it might bite him.

It never did.

…

That was the first of many times he met with Yuri… It meant Lily and would have been a beautiful name for a girl had it actually meant that in her language. She asked the second time they met in the dream garden, what his name meant, and he'd answer her if only she gave back the favor.

Yuri… A flower.

Names out of the way, and he still believing that he was dealing with a piece of his mind given form and voice, Itachi decided that if Yuri wasn't there to take over his mind, he'd begin to confide in her… she lived in his head, to whom would she go to spill his secrets? It took over five meetings for him to being the process of trusting her.

"Today my aunt told me to cook… I burnt the bacon accidently and she whacked me with the frying pan…" The green eyed girl grimaced, touching her hair. "It didn't really burn, but grease spilled on my hair and it was horrible to clean it later" Itachi hmmed thoughtfully, still trying to process what part of him created this Yuri persona that she had such mundane and unrelated routine.

Cook, clean, go to school, deal with bullies, homework, read a book have a snack and go to sleep.

Fiddling with his pajamas – they met in their pajamas sometimes – Itachi opened his mouth. "Today I had to babysit Sasuke" She should know who Sasuke was, shouldn't she?

"Sasuke?" Apparently not. Flicking his eyes at her in an appraising manner, Itachi sighed.

"My little brother" Her green eyes widened. He dug his own hole in that one.

"Can you tell me more about him? My cousin is a prat but I want to know how brothers are"

…

They kept on meeting, once every few weeks or sometimes going months without those clandestine meetings. He graduated the academy at seven, while she related that she accidently turned her teacher's wig blue.

Itachi questioned more and more if she was indeed a part of him, or if something else was going on. Though no harm came from confiding in the girl in his head, the things she talked about had him reeling.

Turn her teacher's wig blue sounded like a prank, but the way she said it, made it out as if the incident was completely accidental. Then there were the things she described that were so outlandish to him that he had trouble imagining them until she decided to draw them on the sky using the garden's lights.

They eagerly obeyed her as they danced around his head creating glowing floating forms more alien that Yuri herself.

Cars, huge metal, noisy things that could run very fast and weren't pulled by any horses. Telephones, a system of cables that allowed people to call and talk to each other from all over the world… Bicycles, Airplanes, Videogames…

Then when he was sure that the knowledge he had didn't transmit to her, he started to talk about his own life, his training and newly appointed genin team in which was his elder Cousin Shisui.

"Today I had my first real mission, sensei thought it would do us good" Itachi confided feeling slightly conflicted. He thought he was ready to tackle harder missions, but the way his sensei was going was seriously suspicious. It didn't help that the chunnin exam was approaching and his father have been pressuring him harder on their training sessions.

Yuri spared a glance in his direction before turning back to the koi pond. After feeling initially interested in his ninja life, Yuri deflated about it a few moments later. She said she can't be a ninja since she wanted to be the princess. Since then, she's been a little cross with him every time he went on about his missions.

He thought she was jealous and It was a little endearing. "What was it like?" She asked after a while, feigning disinterest… he heard it fluctuating in her voice and in the glint in her eyes.

"It was a retrieval and escort mission." He sat down next to her. The koi fish were changing colors like a miniature rainbow was about to burst out of the pond. She looked at him then, face brightening at the prospect that he'd share a story.

…

Yuri was the only person – or imaginary friend – that knew about his dislike of killing. The first time he killed he was devasted, and it'd been required according to the mission parameters… only he'd thought his sensei would take care of it, but his father had brought his sensei aside and made a few unsavory demands.

"I took a life…a future…" He looked down at his hands. Even in his dream garden they were still stained, though he was thankful for the reprieve from nightmares. Yuri was a relatively normal nine years old and wasn't a chunnin, much less a clan heir. The only debatable good thing out of this was the fact that he now had his sharingan.

Training was getting more brutal every day.

Yuri took his hands in her soft ones. Nine years old and already burdened by a life taken. Itachi couldn't really read the emotion in her eyes, but she blinked those large pools of green at him with all the innocence he lost so long ago that was still reflected in Sasuke.

He felt disgusted with himself, though he knew the mission was essential to his village. He was a loyal shinobi, if not to honor the Yondaime Hokage' sacrifice that he witnessed all those years ago.

It that man could give his very life to protect the village even if it meant his new born son would grow without a parent, than Itachi cold swallow following the same path. Barely. All he wanted was peace.

"Why did you have to?" His friend asked, face serious.

He thought about it. The man was a traitor who's been selling crucial information to an outside source that he suspected had something to do with the defected Snake Sannin. "He was selling information that had potential to compromise my village' security" his voice was stiff, as if he's been rehearsing that line.

One life for the life of many. Was it worth it? Yuri poked his shoulder with the tip of a finger, having let go of his hand. "If you had to choose between you and your village, who would you chose?"

Then he knew that they were so very similar… two self-sacrificing children that would gladly give their lives if it meant the happiness of others. Yuri didn't seem to realize she had it in her, but he saw the potential and the danger that came with it.

She'd be used, just like him.

Heart heavy, Itachi breathed out his answer.

"The Village" And he understood why she asked him that question in the first place.

…

He was eleven when the call to join ANBU arrived. He'd been completing missions that no normal chunnin would have been able to, and with his Cousin at his side too. The pressure put on him was daunting, he almost had no personal time anymore and Sasuke was starting to feel it, having become attached to his elder brother as much as Itachi loved him.

It was also around that time that Yuri dropped one of the biggest bombs she could ever hope to.

"I found why all those weird things happened to me all the time, I'm a witch!" She gushed, waving her hand above her hand and pulling on the strings of reality that held this garden together. It also made him wonder if it was she who invaded his dreams, or the other way around. "You see? Wands! And brooms! Hagrid gave me an owl, she's beautiful!"

With another wave, the images that she's seen that day pivoted around their heads. Itachi watched fascinated as light constructs became so complex they seemed like more than images, but real objects.

Tempted to ask her what a witch was, or who Hagurido was for that matter, Itachi let the little girl fill his ear with her babble and enthusiasm, momentarily washing away his burdens with her glow.

He was glad that unlike him, she is still innocent about the fate that awaited them both.

…

Years later and the only one who shared his pain was the mysterious girl in the dream garden. She told him of her life, of how she was handed the burden of an entire community and signed as an escape goat, to be their martyr and hero and fight their battle. She told him of the heart breaks and the paradigms she had to break through, of her conviction and love and the burning faith that never disappeared from her heart. Of how she had to grow up young and how she had to forsake her years early.

The Will of Fire. He reflected. Might be entirely that.

And so he shared with her the pressure he received from his Clan, the scalding scrutiny he got from the village, Danzo, how he found out he had an incurable disease and his years were terribly shortened, how his Clan was planning a coup that would result in the complete destruction of his beloved home.

How he only ever wanted peace. A single candle burning bright and hot and brief.

And how he dipped his hand in the red of their blood, how he prompted his little brother to go on the path of revenge only to save him from himself. Of how he planned to die a martyr.

"I also have to die a martyr, maybe we will meet in heaven someday"

"Heaven?"

"A place beyond the sky where there is only peace, where our loved ones wait for us with open arms and smiles on their faces, that Heaven"

And so they died martyrs together.

…

It wasn't a garden. It was something he never seen before. He looked around him, noticing the ease with which he could breath and the clearness of his sight. There was a thick white fog covering the horizon, but he could make out an old stone bench.

"So you did come after all" A painfully familiar voice called from behind him. Tilting his head, Itachi turned to regard his old friend.

"Where is this place?" He asked, voice even. Last thing he remembered was giving his eyes to Sasuke and dying drowning on his own blood. "Is this the heaven you spoke off?" Weary, he blinked coal black eyes at her.

She was roughly a head shorter than him, with long curly hair and those bright green eyes. Seventeen now, he mused, while he was still two years older. "No, this is the between, I heard… this is the second time I come here, though I confess this time is much more peaceful" She paused to gauge his reaction – he had known she died very recently and was torn between dreading and anticipating his own turn.

Now he knew he was truly dead. Burden gone, he was free.

His shoulder dropped as if an invisible weight was removed and he finally could breathe again.

"What are you doing here?" He wanted to know. She was always there in their garden waiting for him, maybe it wasn't really surprising that she'd be the one to receive him in the afterlife.

Yuri's lips twitched in a smile, she beckoned him with a hand. He nodded, inching in her direction.

Her hand was warm against the skin of his arm and he wondered if death should really feel like coming home. "As I said, this is the between... Through our connection, I was able to pull you here instead of sending your soul directly to the afterlife… Itachi, what if I told you that there is a way for you to live again? In my world? I confess my intentions are selfish, Itachi… I want you there with me… I want to give you a life truly worth living for the two of us, I want to see the world, study and make friends, I want to build a sand-castle and fly on an air-plane, I want to learn how to drive, I want to watch a movie in a cinema and be a part of a play, I want to skate on a frozen lake, I just want to live… and if you come with me, I want to share this life with you"

She didn't even had to answer, though he was a little peeved that she'd assume he'd say no.

…

It was mid spring, just like the day they got married (eloped). Itachi reflected, taking his wife's of almost a century hand and pushing her with his body, so that the both of them could fit on the love seat. They were a pair, the two of them.

Hair as white as snow and so many laugh lines there were smiles permanently etched on their faces. Lily, or Yuri, or whatever name he chose to call her smiled at him, and a wave of warm affection spurred the old shinobi into leaning in and kissing her forehead.

Conveniently, the loveseat was located in a gazebo in the middle of their garden, built over the years with every matter of flowers and herbs they found during their early years travels.

He smiled softly, remembering the shock of having to have a body rebuilt for him out of what his wife called alchemy with a touch of magic. Since his soul was still around and not bound by Death thanks to the little relic known as the Resurrection Stone, Lily, with the help of many of her friends, managed to rebuild his body and even heal his disease and eye-sight. That first year was rough and tested a lot of his patience, though after his little witch proposed they simply elope to escape the academics wanting to know the secret of his revival, their years became full of traveling and adventure.

They crossed the world, simply relaxing and enjoying life – his wife's obscenely large inheritance made it possible, though once their very long vacation was over, he decided to take some classes and was able to obtain a teaching license. He liked to teach children and it lightened his heart a lot to be around such innocent little beings with so much future ahead of them.

After settling down in a remote village, again to escape his wife's fame – it wasn't so hard to keep contact with her friends and family, so they weren't completely isolated – not that he minded too much. It was around then that their first child was born… then the second and the third, the fourth and fifth were twins, and the sixth was purely accidental but none the less loved to bits.

Years came and went, their children grew as did their family, soon, they had grandchildren, and in the blink of an eye, great-grandchildren.

And never, in all those years, he regretted choosing to know life with Lily than Death without her. Itachi sighed, life was good, he decided, content to cuddle with his wife in the midst of their garden.

...

The end!

Or is it?

Little tease I thought up but hadn't the time to really push it further…

…

Sasuke was fifteen and was a carbon copy of his grandfather, minus the bright green eyes he got from his dad. Well, his dad's name was Shisui, in honor of his grandfather's cousin – His grandfather had many stories to tell about his time as a ninja in a foreign world, everyone loved those family reunions when all the little ones and even the elder ones would gather around grandfather (great grandfather to some!) and listen to his and grandma's tales of their youth.

Sasuke more than all of them.

He felt fascinated actually. His uncle James was always pulling on his leg about his silly infatuation with ninja and stuff, but grandfather never belittled him and was very encouraging when Sasuke would come up with one of his crazy ideas, such as martial arts class or kenjutsu class, or when he finally got his chance at Hogwarts, Dueling club and the opened tracking and swimming club.

So it was no surprise that in a day like any other day, Sasuke finally got what he wished for. In a bout of accidental magic to escape a prank by one of his many cousins, uncles, nephews and/or little sister, he apparated.

But not to somewhere he knew.

Suffice to say Sasuke had the time of his life, his parents worried themselves sick while his grandparents laughed at a privet joke and grandmother prepared the right ritual to open a portal and 'rescue' him.

…

Sasuke, the one and only Uchiha Sasuke sighed. Sure, he almost brought forth the end of the world, had a huge price on his head and was known in the whole continent Bingo Books. He should feel pride that at least in that regard he managed to surpass his brother…

If it wasn't for Naruto's timely intervention and the fact that everyone just wanted PEACE after half the continent was decimated by a rampaging Jubi, Sasuke would have simply gone away, fading in time and allowing his pain to swallow him whole.

Right now, he was almost thirty and currently babysitting Naruto and Sakura's little brat. He still felt regret for a past he would never be able to change and that past dragged him down to the ground painfully. His old goals of 'killing a certain man' and 'rebuilding his clan' were moot now, and he felt no inclination to start on the later.

The less Uchihas in the world, the better – less chance of one of them ending up a maniacal overpowered, immortal megalomaniac bent on world domination.

He was currently trying to remember happy times to occupy the blonde haired mini-Ruto menace when suddenly the room lit up. Activating his Sharingan and pushing the little devil behind him, Sasuke stood in a defensive stance, ready to give his life to protect Naruto's legacy.

When the light show was done with, standing there in the middle of the room was someone he never expected to see ever again.

"Nii-san?!"

…

Fem!Harry/Itachi… there is not enough of them! This was sitting in my HD for ages! Ahha! I think since Itachi's arc… mehh… Lily/Yuri mean the same thing, only in different languages (though since they are names, they don't really mean the same thing andyouknowhwhatImean)