Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Naruto or Harry Potter

Summary: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione find themselves reincarnated into the world of Naruto as the night of Naruto's graduation, they must learn to adapt in a world far more sinister than their own, a world in which death and destruction make the world turn, and in which the strength to kill is the only deterrent to war.

Author's Notes: This chapter is primarily Sasuke-centric, with a bit of Neji thrown in. Sorry, no Shikamaru. Sasuke just had too many issues. :) Next chapter will have a bit more of him.

Chapter 3: Laying the Foundations

Grief was an emotion that Sasuke was intimately familiar with. So much so that he had learned how to make himself cold and unfeeling towards it, so that it would not affect his training. He had always followed a routine, waking up at 5am each morning to begin his training for the day. It was, therefore, with no little amount of surprised when a loud banging on his window pane woke him up in the morning, past his normal wake-up time.

He'd slept in, Sasuke realized groggily, as he tried to stumble his way towards his bedroom window.

"Hurry up, teme!" Naruto's voice sounded muffled from outside, but loud enough that he could hear the words clearly.

Sasuke groaned.

He jerked his head towards the door in agitation, making his way to the front of the house. Naruto bounded in as soon as his front door was a crack open, Sakura following with wide eyes. Kakashi-sensei, as he was prone to doing in the village, had his nose stuck in his orange book (training them no longer left enough time for his favourite hobby, and he'd taken up to doing it at all hours when in the village).

"Why are you still asleep, teme?!" Naruto whined, "We've been waiting for you for an hour!"

"An hour?"

"Yeah, dattebayo! We were supposed to meet at the bridge around 7 for our D-rank, remember?"

"Hn."

"That's not even a wor-" Naruto cut off suddenly.

"What?" Sasuke snapped as he realized that both of his team mates looked slightly concerned.

"Are you ok, Sasuke-kun?" It was Sakura who questioned, fidgeting with a lock of her shocking hair, "You don't look like you got much sleep."

That brought up all sorts of memories of the night before that he wasn't sure he wanted to process just yet. Last night had been about mourning, about giving into the fear and desperation that had haunted his every action for so long. It had been about the realization that while he could pull himself away from his own emotions, they would eventually come back to him, explosively.

Harry had always been prone to holding in his emotions, to bottling up his frustrations until he finally snapped with the full weight of it all. Sasuke didn't bottle them up. He detached himself from them entirely, but in the end, they were his after all. He would have to face them eventually.

He stiffened at the reminder, at the thought of how disheveled and sleep-deprived he must look at the moment, and turned away, tense, not seeing Kakashi's eyes narrow in thought.

"Five minutes."

He was out of his room in four, dressed in his usual outfit, nothing out of place.

"Let's go get our mission," Kakashi said, leading them to the Hokage tower.

Naruto bounded forward as soon as they stepped into the Hokage's office, "Hey old man! We're here for a d-rank!" Somewhere in the background, Sakura choked on air.

"Naruto," the Hokage said warmly, putting aside some paperwork he had been working on. "I believe I do have a selection of missions."

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi interjected, "May we request the Tora mission, if it's available?"

The Hokage looked delighted, "Oho. Of course. That one is always available."

The three genin shuddered slightly, feeling a tingle of apprehension slither down their spines.

Neji landed another strike. Hinata collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily and eyes watering from pain.

It was the first time he had met her for training, and Neji had had them spar to test her skills. So far, they were lacking, but there was potential there. If only a glimmer of it for now. It was in the way Hinata moved, the way her limbs moved fluidly from one stance to the next, though her body was hardly fast enough for it to be of any use. This was the fourth time he had knocked her to the ground, and Neji hadn't even broken a sweat.

She was also too unwilling to put any real force behind her punches. She held back too much, not intentionally, but subconsciously, and that was a far bigger problem he would have to address. Subconscious habits were harder to break. Though, behind the moves of a girl who couldn't bring herself to cause harm, was an odd sort of aggressiveness brought on by desperation. And desperation was a dangerous thing, perhaps even something Neji could use to make her stronger.

Hinata forced herself to her feet, panting and sweating, hair sticking to her face.

"Again," she rasped.

"No," Neji turned away from her, pocketing a kunai.

Hinata's eyes blazed, "A-Again! I n-need to—"

"You are not going to improve overnight," Neji shook his head, "We will spar every other evening until you do. The days in between we will work on technique."

"E-every evening—"

"No." Neji turned his white eyes towards her, "Your muscles need to heal, otherwise you will only be further damaging your body and then there is no point to this." Although he was firm and almost scolding, Neji was inwardly pleased. It seemed she had fire enough after all, if she could argue with him.

Hinata nodded in resignation, sitting back on the ground and stretching her legs, working the cramps out of her muscles.

"Hinata-sama," Neji said, "Hiashi-sama cannot know."

Hinata turned to look up at him, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, "I know. I won't tell him." It was the reason they had stuck to a training ground on the outskirts of Konoha, hidden amidst the trees and far from the main hustle bustle of the village. It was usually ANBU who came to train here, if anyone at all, and ANBU were good at keeping secrets, if those secrets didn't threaten the safety of the village.

He left early, citing that he had another place to be. Hinata stood shakily and left for the Hyuuga compound. Neji made his way towards Lee's usual training spot, on the other end of the village. He may want Hinata to become stronger, but it would mean nothing if Neji was not strong himself. For any to support them, they both needed to be powerhouses in their own right. Lee, despite his lack of chakra-moulding ability, was a taijutsu master in training, and would only continue to be more fearsome as he grew.

"Lee," he called out softly as the dark-haired boy came into view, currently performing push-ups using one finger and one toe. Lee looked up, confused at first, but then his face morphed into an expression of surprised delight. He immediately got to his feet.

"Neji! I was not expecting you! Have you come to spar, my eternal rival?"

The Hyuuga grimaced slightly. Why had he thought this was a good idea? Anyway…damage done. "Taijutsu only."

Lee grinned, white teeth glowing in the evening light. Neji moved forward and got into position. If he had had his Byakugan on, he would have seen Lee's eyes flash in thought.

Their spar was a quick one. Unsurprisingly, Lee lost. Surprisingly, Neji almost lost. He had won by a hair, Neji realized, as his knees gave out and he sat on the ground in an inelegant slump. In a taijutsu match, without using the abilities of his Byakugan or any of his ninjutsu, Lee's ruthless taijutsu was a force to be reckoned with. Even when using his entire arsenal, Lee was a difficult opponent, though certainly not undefeatable. Neji hadn't lost against Lee yet, but even he could admit to how close he had come to losing without using any of his abilities.

But that was the point. The Byakugan did not make him invincible, but even then, his taijutsu couldn't cope up. It was a weakness. If he was ever in a position where accessing his chakra or using his Byakugan was impossible, then he was dead. The Hyuuga prided themselves on their taijutsu, but they relied on their Byakugan too much to guide their hits. The entire style was based on the tenketsu points in the body, and while that was an effective style, Neji wasn't so naïve to believe that it would work against every opponent.

Hermione's intelligence had certainly helped her against most obstacles, but often, it was Ron's foresight and Harry's instinct which had saved them. Sometimes, her intelligence had been useless when faced with inescapable odds, when faced with her own body's limitations. Neji had no intention of falling into that same trap, of limiting himself so much.

"Lee," he spoke after catching his breath, drawing the dark haired boy's attention, "I will see you tomorrow evening." He didn't bother specifying the time. Outside of their own team exercises with Gai-sensei, Lee spent most of his time training here.

His teammate flashed him a ridiculously giddy smile, nodding as his eyes sparkled, "Of course, Neji! I look forward to another youthful spar!"

Neji turned and left the training ground, rolling his eyes only when he was out of view. Skilled or not, Lee was a pain to deal with most days.

Sasuke glared. Sakura fumed. Naruto screeched, since he was the one stuck holding the cat. Currently, he was trying to maneuver it in a position in which the cat couldn't claw off his face, gripping its tail and hanging it upside-down. Tora's yowling was drawing a lot of curious attention, mostly from civilians who felt like this was some form of animal abuse. The shinobi felt bad as well…but not for the cat.

Kakashi followed them to the Hokage tower cheerfully, looking as sparklingly clean as they were dirty. He had to be breaking some sort of law, Sasuke thought, irritated. Especially since the jounin had picked out this mission specifically.

The Hokage grinned subtly behind his pipe as they walked in, tracking dirt and filth onto the floor.

"Mission successful, Hokage-sama," Kakashi almost preened, then turned a bit more serious, "We're heading out again."

"Now, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura turned her wide eyes towards him, "I'd told my parents I'd be coming back home this evening."

"We can send someone off to let your parents know," Kakashi replied.

Sakura sighed, resigned, while Sasuke pretended he could overcome the situation through sheer will and indifference. Naruto was too busy trying to hand Tora over to a random ANBU without having his clothes ripped apart in the process.

The Hokage had to fight not to chuckle as Kakashi led his genin team out through the doors, waving casually as he left.

They went back to the same training area, which was the only bright side of the entire situation. It meant that they'd have to spend less time scouting the area to find the best locations for food and firewood.

It was the first time Sakura would cook, which left Naruto and Sasuke feeling a little edgy, especially when she had stared at the fire and the pot blankly. Sasuke had set up their bedding, and Naruto had come back to the camp with an armful of fish. Sasuke sighed mournfully as he stared at his pack – they hadn't had any time to go to the market back in Konoha, so it looked like it was going to be a week without any tomatoes.

The fish ended up…well…not really looking like fish. It was some kind of black, charred thing which resembled a misshapen blob, and tasting of an odd concoction of random ingredients. Kakashi had claimed earlier that he was having a stomach ache, and so could refuse eating the meal altogether on that basis and Sakura wouldn't mind. It was almost like his Sharingan had given him powers to predict things like this as well, Sasuke mused petulantly.

On the other hand, he and Naruto had had to painfully swallow down the meal. The fish was black, bitter, rock hard, and utterly bland, and Naruto whimpered pathetically as he chewed it down.

"Now," Kakashi stood up when they were done, shoving his hands into his pockets, "Time for some training."

By now, they knew not to argue with his methods. The more they complained, the more their sensei enjoyed it, and the more work he gave them.

He brushed off his vest lightly. "Who here looked at the scrolls I handed out?"

Sasuke's eyes widened minutely. He'd completely forgotten about that, and by the look on Naruto's sheepish expression and Sakura's guilty face, they had too.

"Tut, tut," Kakashi admonished, "Well, we'll just have to up the training then, so you remember next time. One would think you didn't want to learn any new techniques."

At that, Naruto had a look of horror on his face, but Kakashi interrupted him before he could speak.

"Naruto, you're going to throw kunai at Sasuke. For every one you miss, You will spend an evening in the library with 5 clones, each reading a book of your choice. Sasuke, you will dodge. For every kunai that hits you, you will spend an evening training with a person of my choice. To even it out, Sakura, you will use genjutsu on Sasuke."

"But sensei!" Sakura turned to Kakashi in panic, "I don't know any genjutsu!" Somewhere behind them, Naruto was screaming in terror, but was cheerfully ignored by his team.

"It's in the scroll," Kakashi's lips upturned in glee, "You should take a look at it quickly, because for every attempt that Sasuke breaks in 5 seconds, or that doesn't affect him at all, I will make you practice until you are suffering from chakra exhaustion."

His entire cute team of genin winced simultaneously, and Kakashi felt nothing but pride. They were even becoming in sync now!

Then, Sasuke sighed, moved to the far end of the training field, and glanced at his two team mates expectantly. Sakura squeaked, sat down immediately, and pulled a scroll out of her back pack. Her eyes skimmed the entire scroll quickly, working to memorize it.

In the meantime, Naruto grinned, took out a kunai, and threw it at Sasuke lazily who merely stood there, eyebrow raised as the kunai whistled past him almost a metre away.

"That's one evening, Naruto," Kakashi said, now laying on a tree branch several metres from the ground.

Immediately, the blond gave a look of panic. He hadn't realized up until this point just how quickly his evenings could add up. A sneaky look appeared on his face but Kakashi cut him off immediately, "For every five minutes in which you haven't thrown a kunai, add five evenings to that count."

Naruto groaned, but Sakura looked up from her quick reading thoughtfully, before glancing back down to her scroll with renewed fervor.

The next ten minutes were spent with Naruto trying to pin Sasuke down before using a kunai, after Kakashi confirmed that every tactic was fair game. Unfortunately, with Sasuke's speed, he wasn't too successful. The Uchiha effortlessly dodged him, moving between the logs and boulders with innate grace, while Naruto stumbled after him. That was, until ran through a pile of leaves, and stopped abruptly, a look of absolute horror coming over his face.

"Demonic Hell Viewing Illusion," Sakura gritted her teeth in no little amount of triumph, sweat beading across her forehead.

"Now, Naruto!" Sakura forced out, "It's only the first time so I don't know how long I can hold it!"

Naruto grinned at her and threw a kunai at Sasuke, just managing to scratch his arm just as Sasuke shook his head and whispered "Kai!"

Sasuke checked his torn sleeve and groaned, turning to Sakura with a scowl, "That was terrible, Sakura, but it won't work again."

"We'll see," she smirked. "Hey Naruto," Sakura whispered over to her blond teammate the moment Sasuke left to hide amid the trees. He'd understood that with Sakura's genjutsu, the game had changed.

"What is it?"

"Didn't you wonder why Kakashi-sensei gave you five minutes for each kunai throw?"

"Hmm?" Naruto scratched his head, "No, not really. Why?"

"It's so we could plan this out. Use strategy."

"Strategy?"

"It's what ninja do, right? Now come on, we have three minutes left."

The next hour and a half was spent with Naruto and Sakura setting up traps all around the training ground, while Sasuke tried to avoid as many as he could. For the most part, he succeeded, but the goal of the traps wasn't only to capture him, but also to delay him for as long as possible, which they did do. Sakura succeeded in her attempts at genjutsu three more times, while Sasuke broke out of six. Naruto succeeded in scratching him with kunai another four times, but missed eleven other attempts.

At the end of the day, they lay on the grass, panting and utterly exhausted. Sasuke groaned inaudibly, trying to get as much of the dirt out of his clothes as possible, while Sakura was brushing the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. Naruto dozed.

"Good job, team," Kakashi stood over them, his eye curved into his typical smile as he took in his genins' states, "You can head to bed now, and we'll continue with training in the morning. We'll handle your punishment training when we get back to Konoha each week. Sasuke, Naruto, make sure you look over your scrolls before tomorrow."

At some point, his foot had accidentally landed in Naruto's ribs, causing the blond to jerk awake with a strangled yelp.

Naruto grumbled as he got to his feet, seemingly completely recuperated. Sakura glared at him enviously.

After another minute or so, Sasuke stood and wordlessly moved to his bedroll, pulling out the scroll he had received from Kakashi and moving to the edge of the training ground, further away from their camp. As soon as he opened the scroll, he looked to Kakashi in shock.

"This is a taijutsu scroll," Sasuke muttered, stopping near where Kakashi was perched up on a tree.

"Hmm. Looks like it is."

The Uchiha gritted his teeth slightly, "I want a ninjutsu." He refrained from mentioning childishly that the dobe had received a ninjutsu scroll, if his exclamation of delight a few minutes earlier was anything to go by.

"Maybe after you've mastered this, Sasuke."

"Why?"

Kakashi sighed, putting away the orange book in his hand to jump from the tree, landing on the ground with barely a sound, "Let's talk to the other two, as well. This is between the entire team."

"Team," Kakashi spoke after catching their attention, "I believe it's time to have a little chat."

"What about, sensei?" Sakura questioned, putting her own scroll away.

"This team, and your individual roles within in."

He had their full attention now. "I've told each of you already that my orders are to turn this team into a Front-line Assault Team."

"Flat," Sakura muttered incredulously under her breath, and Naruto snickered slightly. Even Sasuke's lips twitched in humor.

"That means that we will be the first to engage in combat, the first team to head into war, the first in any known, hostile situation. Our specialties will never be tracking, intelligence, or assassination, but combat plain and simple."

"Yes!" Naruto shouted, "That means we get to kick butt!"

"No," Kakashi's voice was harder than a rock, and with far more jagged edges, "That means you get to kill people. Preferably without getting killed yourself."

The silence that followed was stifling. Stiff and tense, Sasuke noted the guilty look on Naruto's face with a kind of bitter envy. What he would have given to be that blissfully ignorant…but the blond was reaching that point where he now had to face the reality of being a shinobi.

"But," Kakashi's tone became softer, "It also means you get to protect your village. Protect your team and those you care about. Now, let's talk about each of your strengths, so we each know what the other is good at."

"Naruto has incredible chakra reserves. This makes him ideal for ninjutsu," Kakashi spoke to all three of them as he explained, willing his genin to understand that they needed to know each other's strengths and weaknesses to properly function as an effective team. "You've no doubt noticed that he also has large amounts of stamina, which make him perfect for impactful, destructive techniques involving large masses of chakra. On the flip side, he will never be proficient at chakra control, unlike you, Sakura," Kakashi glanced at the only girl in their team for a moment.

"Sakura has natural, near perfect chakra control. Sakura, while you could be great as a medic-nin, the nature of this team would make a genjutsu user a better fit. Neither Naruto nor Sasuke will specialize in the same level of subtlety. At the same time, with your build and expertise, you will never be as physically strong as either Naruto or Sasuke, but with genjutsu, you can multiply the team's own power tenfold." Sakura's eyes widened in something akin to awe.

"Sasuke," Kakashi turned to him last, his one eye boring into Sasuke's, "You will specialize in taijutsu. Your build and sharingan will make it an ideal match. You're built for movement and physical combat in a way that Naruto can never do with his brawler style, but at the same time, with your above-average chakra control and chakra reserves, you round out the team."

"That," Kakashi fixed his eye upon them seriously, " is not to say that you three will stay within the realms of your natural inclinations alone. Sakura, you'll learn ninjutsu suitable for you, as will you Sasuke. Naruto, we'll try to get you to at least recognize a genjutsu when you see it, and all three of you will learn your own forms of taijutsu."

It was later that night when Sasuke trudged back towards Kakashi, long after the other two had fallen asleep. "My clan has always relied on ninjutsu. The Sharingan makes us naturally lean towards that area."

Kakashi glanced towards him, noting the curious tone as opposed to the accusatory one from earlier that night. "The Sharingan allows the user to copy ninjutsu and taijutsu techniques, as long as the body is able to cope up. More importantly, however, is its ability to see movement, to predict and anticipate before the action is even done. Can you see how useful this could be, Sasuke?"

Sasuke scrunched his brows in thought.

"Most of your clan used the Sharingan to copy techniques, but the problem with that is unless the body itself can cope up, those techniques will never be as useful as they are to the original. The Sharingan will always be a powerful tool, if it is used as a tool. If it is used as the basis for an entire combat style, it causes chinks in the armour that a superior shinobi can see easily."

"Using the sharingan for taijutsu means that your body needs to be trained before you even train your Sharingan to adapt. Where you were once forcing your body to cope up, it is the Sharingan that now needs to see quickly enough to adapt to your body, and instincts will always be more useful than an ability."

"Naruto is naturally suited to ninjutsu with his incredible amount of chakra. Sakura, with her perfect chakra control, is an ideal genjutsu user. Sasuke, you were born for taijutsu. Your build, speed, endurance, it all points to a taijutsu master. That doesn't mean that all three of you will be so specialized as to be completely useless in the other two areas. You will be a taijutsu master, but the goal is for you to be skilled at both ninjutsu and genjutsu as well."

"It's like you were born for this, Harry. Dueling, combat, this war, whatever you want to call it," Ron's words were subdued, though his eyes were alit with a kind of soldier's ferocity, "Maybe the prophecy is about you because you were made to fit the prophecy."

Sasuke shuddered slightly, shaking away the memory, "It's why you have been making me fix Naruto's taijutsu."

Kakashi nodded, ignoring his genin's scowl, "Naruto's useless if he knows just ninjutsu, just like you'll be far more capable knowing more than just taijutsu, but fixing Naruto's taijutsu taught you a bit too, didn't it?"

It had. He'd had to be constantly aware of every twitch of muscle, every foot placed an inch behind where it needed to be. Every weakness in the dobe's stance and how that would hinder his movement.

"It's like you know how to move instinctively. You told us once you'd spent years running from your cousin," Hermione told him one night, huddled under the one blanket they'd managed to scrounge. She'd been between Ron and him, so close he could feel the heat in her breath. "Sometimes, it's like you dodge a spell before it's even been fired."

When he went back to study the scroll, the more he looked at it, the more he realized just how tailored it was for him. The style required a kind of flawless speed and efficiency without any unnecessary movement. No energy was wasted. It wasn't a fluid style, but it was an adaptable one, one that relied on instincts but gave him moments of time in between to think, to process and come up with strategy even in the middle of combat. It fit him completely. Sasuke released a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding, and got to work.