A Chance to be Happy

Hey again, this update for me is incredibly quick and considering I have exams in the next two weeks this one of the next one will probably have to tide you over until June.



Warning: Will contain slash!!!!!!!!!



Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I own Harry Potter, I am making no money from this..





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Harry had, over the past few of days, become increasingly nervous. The man he had met whilst bathing had come back each day and had searched the area nearby. Harry watched him from safely behind the wards. Apart from a couple of hair raising moments when the stranger had almost disrupted the rune stones anchoring the wards – which would have caused them to distort making their presence apparent if not causing them to fail altogether. Harry doubted his ability to beat this man in a fight. Despite his training in wandless magic and the natural affinity he held for it, any spell that required more magic then the average first year spell would quickly exhaust Harry, rendering him unconscious. It was one thing to maintain a simple wingardium leviosa while he hammered nails into pieces of wood. Or using an uncomplicated variation for the matches to needles transfiguration to create the nails required. It was quite another to send high level hexes and jinxes at a trained fighter. To be sure of victory Harry would have to take him out with his first spell and after seeing the speeds at which the man could travel, he didn’t fancy those odds.



Admittedly it would have been different if he had his wand. With his natural levels of magic it was feasibly possible for him to hold a shield almost indefinitely if he had a focus. Harry had, over the years, become very proficient in all magical forms of defence through sheer necessity. Everyone told him that he had natural talents in defence against the dark arts and maybe he did, but that was not where his true talents lay.



On his sixteenth birthday he had found himself once again at his relative’s house. Locked in his tiny bedroom with one tiny meal being fed to him a day and the lingering nightmares of Sirius’ death besieging him, Harry had fallen into depression. The day of his birthday came around with no acknowledgment from him or anyone else. Even the headache that had begun to build as the day progressed was not particularly unusual. However just as the headache seemed to build to unbearable levels it stopped. It felt somewhat like popping his ears, one minute the headache was there, then with an odd release of pressure it was gone. Harry, just about to pass the incidence off as one of the odd things in the life of the Boy Who Lived, was unexpectedly bombarded with feelings not his own. Petty spitefulness, greed and smugness, none of which he had cause to feel, flooded through him. For a brief panicked moment he though Voldemort was trying to possess him. It didn’t take him long however to comprehend that his scar wasn’t hurting. With dawning abhorrence he realised that it was the Dursleys’ emotions swimming through him. As he had deepened the connection trying to find its source he recognised a distinct flavour to each of the emotions telling him which of his relatives was feeling which. Aunt Petunia was the petty spitefulness, as Harry concentrated on that feeling in particular it pushed the others to the background and he was able to detect that the feeling came from her current activity of spitting in his dinner. Feeling sick Harry tried to pull back from the emotion, attempting to fling it away from him. Instead he found himself cringing in pain as he inadvertently opened his senses to the emotions of the occupants of the surrounding houses. His head felt like it would burst, everything was spiralling out of control he couldn’t take it anymore. That was when he had blacked out.



When he had finally come round the dilapidating pain had reduced some what but not by much. In desperation he staggered over to his bed, grabbing a handful of parchment from under the loose floorboard, he had begun to pen a letter to Dumbledore requesting help. Something stopped him. A little voice whispered in the back of his mind that Dumbledore wouldn’t help; the man had sent him back to the Dursleys’ knowing how he was treated and had stopped his mail, telling him it was too dangerous. Harry paused, his head giving a particularly vicious stab as if to remind him that he still needed help. Instead of Dumbledore he could write to someone else, he supposed, but who had the ability to help him? Harry mentally ran through the list of people he trusted, it was depressingly short. He became more agitated when he realised that none of them could help, until his brain dragged up someone he had not previously considered, but who he trusted with his life – though he would never have admitted it out loud. Severus Snape. Harry hated the man, but he had saved Harry more times then the rest of the order put together. So with a quick prayer to the fates Harry scribbled a letter to the potions master, the letter contained more pleading then Harry would like to admit, and he hope his Professor would pick up on the hints he had dropped not to tell a certain conniving Headmaster about it.



It was possibly the best thing Harry could have done, as not six hours after Harry had sent the letter with Hedwig (after picking the lock on her cage) the dour man forced his way into Harry’s room, despite the protests of his relatives and had demanded to know what mess Harry had gotten himself into now. It had been the start of a rocky but lifesaving student/ mentor (bordering on father/ son) relationship, one which would help brighten the dark times to come for both men. Harry had learnt swiftly how to block out others emotions and from that basic platform had mastered oculumency and legimency. He had also found, to his delight, that the empathy he was gifted with was part of a larger gift, one that allowed him to detect, understand and heal wounds and diseases of all types.



Harry wrenched himself out of his reminiscing. Sitting and pondering about the past wouldn’t help him work out if the man (and the village he apparently came from) were a threat to his safety here. He would have to work out just how powerful the people in this village were and without his wand he didn’t want to get into a confrontation with any of them. However he did have a wandless power that he believed would be ultimately useful against the strange man. So, with a grin, he concentrated hard for a moment before initiating the change, and not two seconds later Harry was gone and in his place was a seemingly normal, young, black tomcat. Well, Harry thought to himself, if the stranger was going to make such a fuss about his proximity to this ‘village hidden in the leaves’, Harry figured he better explore it to figure out what all the fuss was about.



With all the hustle and bustle at Konaha’s main gates none of the chunnin guards noticed a small black shadow creeping past them. So with a flick of his midnight tail Harry was off and ready to investigate.



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Itachi sat fuming in his room. The Hokage had been less then surprised at Itachi’s information on the hidden rebellion, and slightly dubious of Itachi’s motives for revealing such information. He had however dispatched a group of his most faithful ANBU to guard the Uchiha compound.



He had evidently found Itachi’s stoic statement of, “When the time came I found I had more commitment to my village then I had previously thought” irritating.



Eventually however he seemed to decide that, whatever the cause, Itachi was telling the truth and summarily dismissed him, but not before requesting that he kept his eyes open for anymore trouble – as if an Uchiha would walk around blindly Itachi scoffed to himself.



The Hokage’s doubt was not the most annoying thing in his current predicament however, nor was the difficult to escape ANBU shadow that he had received for his trouble. No, instead the most infuriating thing was his complete inability to find his boy. He had been back to the clearing by the river everyday (as soon as he had managed to shake off his persistent guard). Though he had found frequent signs of someone living in the vicinity (areas or crushed grass, broken branches etc) he had never managed to catch the boy himself. Not to mention the eerie feeling he got of being watched every time he went there.



He eventually abandoned sulking in his room – as sulking is an incredibly immature activity which Uchiha’s are above – and decided to spend the remainder of the afternoon picking up some new weapons and running other small but essential errands.



Some time later he wandered through the centre of the village aimlessly, he had completed all of his required tasks and training somehow didn’t seem as important as it use to. Itachi frowned at that thought, of course training was still important, he was a ninja and improving his skills should always take first place in his life. The image of deep green eyes swirled in front of his vision and he couldn’t quite summon up the same determination about his profession as before. This worried him, his life and more importantly his honour depended on his skill, he couldn’t afford to lose focus.



He was about to kick the street curb in a rare show of bad temper when a small; black; high speed blur zoomed past him distracting him. A pack of young boys with sticks ran after it. The blur was headed for a discreet alley way which Itachi knew to be a dead end. From the enthusiastic whoops of the youths they knew this too. Itachi paused for a moment before turning to leave, but something stopped him. With determined steps he marched after the creature and herd of children with the intention of stopping the obvious cruelty about to occur. Part of him sneered, Itachi Uchiha; Konoha’s young prodigy; ANBU member and apparent saver of small fluffy creatures, oh how the mighty had fallen. Another part countered that he had decided to try and protect those inferior to him and though not a life or death situation saving some poor animal from torment must count for something. And anyway, he thought darkly, it would improve his temper somewhat to give those brats the scare of their lives.



He entered the alley swiftly and silently, quickly locating the boys huddled in a semicircle round the poor creature which on closer inspection appeared to be a cat. The cat, though diminutive in size was having an impressive attempt at warning the boys off, hissing and spitting with claws unsheathed and already utilized, if the couple of lads who had retreated clutching scratched hands was anything to go by. One of the children took that moment to rather viciously poke a sharp stick into the ribs of the terrified animal. Itachi took the high pitched cry, which tugged oddly on his heartstrings, as his cue to intervene. Spiking his chakra to announce his presence and get the attention of the boys they turned to find a pissed off Uchiha, Sharingan swirling. All of them paled drastically before legging it past Itachi and down the street.



With a disdainful snort Itachi deactivated his Sharingan and turned to face the cat. It had collapsed on its side, clearly hurt. Itachi sighed and gently scooped it up. He lifted it so he could get a better look. The cat, sensing that it was now in better hands, raised its head and Itachi was met with very familiar, very green, eyes.



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I know that this chapter is shorter then the last, but it is getting late and I want to post this before I go to bed. I promise the next chapter will be longer, and will hopefully be out by next Thursday. Reviews feed my muse so please drop me a line, constructive critism is always welcome, though just saying you like it so far is very nice too.