A.N.: Hey everyone! Sorry about the wait, blame my manager... And praise my beta Yoshi for getting it back so fast! At any rate, here's the second chapter, ready for your viewing pleasure!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters, so don't waste your time.

And just a little warning for you all, this chapter might piss off many of you. It in turn, might just make me your favorite author. I don't want to give anything away, but please, no flames...

Chapter 2

The ten minutes passed in a flurry of activity, with everyone arriving at the gates with a minute to spare. When Kakashi showed up thirty seconds before departure time, both Sakura and Naruto threw a fit. ("You'll get here early for him, a stranger, but not for your team?" "He's paying me." "You suck, Kakashi-sensei!") Harry broke up the screaming by unshrinking his Firebolt, specially delivered earlier that summer by Professor McGonagall.

"Ready?" he asked, mounting his broom. Everyone nodded, eyeing him worriedly. It's not everyday you see someone straddling a broom. "Good. I hope you can keep up. This thing's pretty fast." Kicking off hard, Harry rose seven feet in the air, and streaked for the path ahead, leaving several shocked ninja behind. Gai was the first to shake himself back to reality, and when he took off, the others shut their mouths and ran after him. Out of all the ninja following, only the adults and Lee were able to keep up without pumping chakra into their legs.

The forest blazed past them in a blur of green, brown, and grey. Twice, they crossed rivers, (nearly loosing Ino in the last one), and made record time over a large hill thick with brambles (which put Tenten in a mood when her shirt was torn). After an hour of hard running through the treetops of an especially thick part of the forest, they came to a clearing heavy with battle scars and body parts. Worried, Harry halted his broom, causing the ninja following to slow and stop as well. Immediately, the adults took stock of the situation, reading the ground and trees for clues as to what happened while the genin and chunin caught their breath.

"Grim?" called Harry rising a little higher in the air. He twisted and turned, peering through the thick foliage, obviously looking for someone. "Grim, answer me!" there was silence, then Gai called out. "Here! Someone's alive!" the taijutsu master was busy heaving large chunks of wood and debris off of a young girl, no more than seventeen, with rich auburn hair and a slender body.

She had various small cuts and bruises, and a nasty bump on her head, explaining why she was currently visiting Morpheus in his realm.

Sakura was at her side instantly, ready to put the skills she learned from Tsunade to the test. Their employer, Harry, remained in the air, praying to anyone who would listen for a speedy recovery. It had never occurred to him that she could get hurt, especially not after what he had seen her do earlier that summer.

Flashback

Jerking awake, though with a heavy head and an unresponsive body, Harry wondered vaguely at the sounds of chaos he heard from the normally quiet downstairs of number 4 Privet Drive. Something glass shattered from the room directly under him, then complete silence fell like a thick blanket over the house. The fact that the television seemed to be off worried the boy, so he forced his aching limbs to pull his exhausted body from where it lay on the floor into a sitting position, facing the door. The loose step at the top of the stairs creaked as someone stepped on it, and that was all the warning he got before the door was demolished by a well-placed reductor curse.

A hissed "Gin! What if he was right on the other side?" reached his ears just as the intruder came into view. Harry sagged in relief as Ginny Weasley rushed to his side, followed closely by the speaker, Hermione Granger. Both girls were dressed in dark colors, with scarves around their hair and faces. Dimly, the boy noticed the smell of blood in the air, but pushed it to the back of his mind as Hermione pulled a large cloak out of a previously unnoticed bag on her back. The article of clothing was much too big for him, but he hardly cared as he was swiftly bundled up and swept into the arms of his best female friend.

"Hu-wha?" was all he could get out of his parched throat before Ginny placed a finger on his lips, effectively halting his attempts to speak. "Just relax, Harry. Everything's going to be okay." Through his mental haze, he realized having his friends in his room meant that the Dursleys had to be out of the house. Or they were cowering in the basement, waiting for their worst nightmare to leave. Harry shifted his weight, getting himself comfortable as he was carried out of the tiny room.

At the foot of the stairs, Ginny stepped in front of her friends and tugged the large hood of the cloak up over Harry's head, enveloping his ears in warmth and obscuring his vision. He didn't mind though. Despite his difficulty in seeing, he noted that they were leaving through the back door, not the front, and wondered how they were going to get over the garden wall without being seen by the nosy neighbors.

Outside, the hood slipped a bit, allowing him a view of Susan Bones glad in draping black robes. She stood near the far wall, staring at the bricks with a small frown on her face. When Ginny sighed, she turned to look at the other girls, and nodded, before launching the scythe in her hands at the small space between Hermione and Ginny. An answering jet of gold light shot out at the same time, but Susan dove to the side, letting the hex shatter against the brick wall. The wet shunk from behind told Harry that the scythe had hit its mark. Whoever was behind them was now dead, and the scythe reappeared in Susan's hands. "Time to go." She smiled gently at Harry, who was still in Hermione's arms. His eyes were drawn to her hands. The blood from the scythe had them coated a deep, sticky red.

Susan groaned, drawing him out of his memories. With Sakura's help, her head injury was healed at a rapid pace, and in no time at all, she was awake, if a little groggy.

"Master?" she asked, struggling to sit up. She grew a little worried when all the faces she could see were not ones she was familiar with, but when Harry drifted into her range of sight, she relaxed.

"You're all right." The relieved expression was echoed by her voice, before she frowned. "They know you're here."

"How many?" Harry's face became closed, emotionless.

"I counted and killed thirteen here. Cousin reported in earlier, said he dealt with fifteen. Shadow wiped out maybe ten of them just before I was attacked. We haven't heard anything from Batty since yesterday morning."

"And we can't get any messages from the other side," Harry murmured, eyeing the tree line. He sighed, then looked to the ninja, who had gathered around him and Susan. "I don't know how this happened, but it looks like I was followed. We have to hurry."

"Followed by who?" asked Anko, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"They call themselves 'Death Eaters'. They're Voldemorts' supporters and followers, and needless to say, they want me dead. We should leave."

The ninja agreed, and with a little help, Susan was seated behind Harry on his broom, ("Really now, Master, I can fly on my own." "You had a nasty bump to the head, you're not flying anywhere on your own."), and they were off.

For the next three hours, nothing was spoken; the ninja wanted to conserve their strength for their journey and conceal their presence from the enemy. Finally, Harry called for a halt, and the lot of them rested their lungs and legs high in the forest canopy. Their employer had assured them that the Death Eaters could not climb trees as they could, and they would hear any and all approaches upon their position.

That is, until a girl with pale skin, dirty blonde hair, and two katana's in her hands appeared in their midst with nary a sound. Tenten was the closest to her arrival, and was startled enough to launch several kunai at the strange girl before Harry could warn her against it. The blades were deflected without so much as a grunt from the pale girl, and immediately the wizard was there, calming the shinobi down, then turning to the girl.

"Report."

"There were eleven of them. Nothing special, mostly fodder, though I thought I sensed a Ministry official among them."

Harry looked confused. "How can you tell if they work for the Ministry?"

"There is a zirka in their aura; it's usually found only in someone who has subjugated a goblin." Her expression was blank, and her voice even. Harry blinked at her, then raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, right above his glasses, closing his eyes in the process.

"Oh. I didn't know that."

"That's okay. You don't know how to read aura's like I do, so you couldn't have known."

"Ah, right."

After resting for another five minutes, the party set off again, resuming its break-neck pace. Which wasn't an exaggeration, considering how fast they were moving; should any of them happened to trip, and not catch themselves in time, the momentum would have sent them head over heals, and broken their necks in the tumble. Shadow, as they learned her name was, was quite capable of keeping up with the ninja, and didn't look the least bit winded when they stopped for the night. As opposed to a few of the rookie nine, who were gasping for air and standing on shaking legs.

The camp was quickly organized, with Harry, Grim, and Shadow pitching in to help the ninja ("You don't have to help us, you know." Said Temari as she and her brother quickly and efficiently pulled their tent into its upright and proper position. Harry, who was setting up the tent he would share with both Grim and Shadow, looked puzzled. "Why's that?"

"Because you're the client, and if I read Tsunade right, you're royalty."

The boy just smiled at her. "My godfather once told me that 'there's no job too dirty for a true noble'. Besides, I'm not royalty; just rich beyond you're wildest dreams.")

Once the tents were set up and sleeping arrangements were agreed upon, the fifteen teenagers and four adults gathered around the fire Sasuke had started with the help of one of his fire jutsu's, and focused on the dinner that Harry had pulled out of seemingly thin air. Small talk broke out every now and again, though things didn't get interesting until after the food was gone, and watch schedules were being discussed.

"Is there anyone who would prefer a certain shift?" asked Harry, looking around at the ninja. When no answer came he shrugged. "I'll take first watch then."

"No need," said Gaara, who was staring into the fire. "I can handle the whole night."

The wizard protested. "Everyone needs to sleep at some point, Gaara. I can't ask you to stay up all night, then run with us tomorrow."
"It doesn't matter; I don't sleep."

"Gaara," began Harry, but stopped when the other boy raised his eyes from the fire to glare into his own.

"I don't need sleep."

"Why?"

"Why isn't important," snapped Sasuke before the Sand shinobi could answer. "What is important is that you stay out of our personal business and let us do the job you hired us for."

Instantly, a pair of green eyes just as piercing as Gaara's shifted their focus from the redhead to him. "What is your problem?"

"Did you ever think that maybe there's a reason he doesn't sleep?"

"And did you ever think for a moment that I was talking to him, and not you?"

Sasuke jerked back as though he'd been struck. No one, aside from the Snake-Bastard, had ever spoken to him like… like… He couldn't put it into words, and that fanned his temper to life. The wizard continued to stare at him for a long moment, then his face twisted into a sneer.

"Ah, I understand now. You're an orphan, aren't you."

"What?!"

"You think that just because your parents died that you should be pitied, and babied, and humored, because you're all alone, right?" the sneer didn't leave his face as he spoke. The Uchiha scowled.

"And what would you know about death? I'll bet you were raised with a silver spoon in your mouth."

"In all honesty, Sasuke, my entire family was murdered simply because a power-hungry lunatic overheard the mutterings of a stoned glory-seeker, which resulted in my being shipped off to be raised by the most horrible and reality-challenged people I have ever had the displeasure of sharing a continent with." No longer sneering, Harry's gaze became sad, yet firm. "Don't think that just because you lost some one you love that it means you're the only one. There are thousands of people in this world who are worse off than you, and most of them refuse to believe that they need special treatment just because of that. My family is dead, Sasuke. I never got to meet anyone other than my parents; hell, I don't even know the names of my relatives, or if I had any aunts, uncles, or cousins at all. The only memory I have of my mum and dad is when they died. I've had to watch several people I cared about die, and I have to live with the fact that there is nothing I could have done to save them." His eyes grew hard again. "So don't talk you ever talk to

me about death like you're the only person who's suffered. Because the fact is, you're not." And with that, Harry got to his feet and left the sphere of light created by the campfire.

For a few seconds, Sasuke just sat there, gaping at the space the wizard had previously been sitting in. Then Naruto sighed. "He's right, you know."

"Wha-?" the Uchiha turned his head to look at his long time friend and rival. The blond shrugged. "He's right. You're not the only person who's suffered." At the blank yet shocked expression directed at him, he tried to explain. "I never had any parents growing up, or friends for that matter. After your family was killed, everyone in the village pitied you, and spoiled you. It gave you a swelled head, though you did tone it down after you came back."

Sasuke realized what Naruto was talking about. Before the chunnin exams, he had thought that he was better than everyone else was, that he didn't need anyone but himself. But after the first week in Orochimaru's Hidden Village, he realized that he wasn't the biggest badass on the block. He learned the hard way that he was still a rookie, still a child. Just a child trying to saddle the burdens best left to adults. The realization had humbled him, and he convinced himself to learn all he could and pass it along to Tsunade, in the hopes of lessening his punishment to a swift death. To his surprise, he was given a second chance in the village, though many of the shinobi who knew what happened were suspicious of his motives, and would have liked nothing more than to kill him and be done with it.

Swiftly, the Uchiha suppressed the memories and opened his mouth to reply, but Naruto was already on his feet and following the path Harry had taken.

"Is that true?" asked Hinata, looking to Susan for an answer. The girl nodded.

"Yes. Harry's had a rough life, and that was before the war. Believe me, he's tired of watching people die, more so of the people he cares for."

Only a few yards into the darkness did Naruto find Harry. The boy was sitting quietly, his back against a tree trunk; his eyes focused on nothing. Naruto sat next to him, and waited for the wizard to speak.

"I shouldn't have snapped at him," sighed Harry, closing his brilliant green eyes. The shinobi snorted.

"It's okay, he had it coming for a while. Now we just gotta see if he listens to you."

"Oh. So, who did he lose?"

"Everyone. He just came home one day and watched his older brother drop their father's dead body on the kitchen floor then run away. For years he had his brain stuck on revenge, but he's getting better at… what's the word? Inter-intera- ah fuck it, working with people not on his team. He's only this prickly with people he doesn't know, but since we're on a mission, he'll probably try to keep himself distant."

"He sounds pleasant."

Naruto snickered at the dry tone Harry used. "Yeah, well, you just better let me wake him up in the morning, okay?"

They lapsed into easy silence; the one kind of silence Naruto would tolerate. Then Harry spoke.

"Naruto, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Why does your aura and Gaara's aura feel different from everyone else's?" stiffening, the blonde scrambled for an answer, but before he could stammer out his reply, Harry continued. "I mean, your aura's feel almost like my cousin's aura, as well as some friends of mine." He stopped to look into panicked blue eyes. "Why is there demon energy mixed in with yours?"

Seeing that he was trapped, Naruto sucked in a deep breath and took a leap of faith. "That's because I am."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Well, around sixteen years ago, there was this fox demon tearing apart the village where most of us were born. He was so powerful, no one could kill him. So the Hokage, the fourth Hokage, found a way to seal the demon's soul into a human body and prevent the fox from wreaking havoc anymore. But there were two catches; the first was that he had to seal the demon inside a newborn human baby, and he choose me, since I had literally just been born. The second catch was that it required a human sacrifice to complete, and the fourth Hokage died as he locked the fox inside me. I didn't know I was the demon's jailer until I was twelve, and I've only been able to talk to him for three years now." Shutting his eyes, Naruto waited for the screaming and revulsion to begin.

Only, it never came. A weight settling on his lap got him to open his eyes, and he found himself face to face with the wizard. Harry didn't look frightened, or disgusted, or mad. Just surprised, and maybe a little sad. One lightly callused hand reached up and gently traced the whisker marks on the blonde's face.

"I understand," said Harry, and he leaned forward and kissed Naruto on the cheek, then whispered. "I'm a fox demon too."

A.N.: Now remember, if you kill me, you won't get to see what happens next. Just leave a review, expressing your displeasure (or joy, how ever you feel), and I'll do my best to get the next chapter out and clear the air, okay?