Opening Note: This is my first story on this site, so if it's really messed up, tell me, okay?

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Naruto.

oxxxo

"I'm freezing, let's forget it and go back."One boy pleaded, shivering.

"No! I know it's here somewhere."A second insisted.

The two invisible children bickered for several more minutes before the shorter of the two found what he were searching for.

It's here – just here – yes!"

Together, they pushed the heavy door open. The room they had entered held several desks and chairs, all stacked up against the wall. Neither of them paid enough attention to those desks to notice the faint blur atop one of them. Their eyes were on the huge ornate mirror with the words 'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi' across the top. The black-haired boy threw off his invisibility cloak in excitement, rushing to stand in front of the mirror. His redheaded best friend frowned at it from the doorway. He had expected to see Harry's family reflected in the mirror.

"See?" Harry whispered, smiling at the mirror a foot above and to the right and then left of his own reflection.

"I can't see anything."

"Look! Look at them all… there are loads of them…"

Ron frowned at Harry. Was his best friend delusional?"I can only see you."

"Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am." Harry told him, moving out of the way. Ron took his place in front of the mirror, and in that instant, something changed.

"Can you see all your family standing around you?" Harry asked.

"No – I'm alone – but I'm different – "Ron stared, amazed at his reflection. 'Tall like the twins, head boy badge like Bill's, Quidditch captain like Charlie! I'm better than the four of them by far!' Ron thought excitedly.

"Ah, but wouldn't you rather be better than your brothers in a more… original way?" an unfamiliar voice echoed in Ron's head as the world suddenly faded to black.

"Original… way?" Ron asked confusedly.

"Wouldn't you like to have a talent all your own that none of your brothers can learn?"

"Well, yeah… but I –"

"Let me help you."The voice insisted, and Ron's mind became foggier. He frowned, briefly wondering what kind of help the voice was offering, and whose it was, before absently mumbling, "Okay."

xxxx

When Ron woke up, he yawned and rolled over only to find that he was lying on dirt. He sat up, alarmed, and looked around. The scene that greeted him was bizarrely unfamiliar. The sky was insanely blue, and Ron couldn't see a single cloud – in the half of the sky he could see, anyway. The rest of it was hidden behind the leaves of enormous trees. He turned around, hoping to see something more normal, and was greeted with sight of a walled town, filled with colours so bright they hurt his eyes. This town was at the bottom of the cliff Ron was on, and there were stairs down to it – but Ron was fairly certain he did not want to go down there.

This was obviously some weird dream – a very realistic one, Ron had to admit, rubbing his aching eyes – but a dream, nonetheless. Ron had never really had problems with dreams, except the occasional – shudder – spider-bear nightmare, so he didn't really know how to wake himself up.

After staring at the sky for a while, then at the trees, Ron finally decided to head down into the brightly coloured town. The height of the cliff was a little dizzying, but Ron reassured himself that it was all just a dream. It wasn't until he was halfway down, when he tripped and grabbed the guard rail, that Ron realized that his dream self wasn't quite the same as his real self. His skin had way more freckles, and his arms were shaped differently than he remembered, and had loads of half-healed scratches and small bruises. 'Did I fight with Fred?' Ron wondered for a moment, but he couldn't remember doing something like that.

It took him an annoyingly long time to walk down all of the stairs into the town itself, but when he made it he was a little disappointed. Although the buildings were brightly coloured, the people were mostly alike. The majority had black hair and dark eyes, and wore strange clothes. Ron hadn't spent a lot of time in the Muggle world, but he was fairly certain that Muggle clothes didn't fold over in the front like that. The only person who looked anything like Ron's idea of a Muggle was a yellow-haired boy in bright orange pants with a black t-shirt and goggles on his forehead. Ron thought he saw strange sandal-like shoes on the boy, but he'd only had a couple of seconds to look as the boy jumped onto a rooftop and ran away, laughing his head off as a crowd of adults in weird vests chased after him screaming, "NARUTO!"

"What's that monster done now?" a woman nearby asked in a disgusted voice. Ron frowned at her, and then looked in the direction the blonde boy had fled.

"Why'd you call him a monster?" Ron asked her.

The woman scowled. "I wish I could warn you, but..." she sighed, and then looked around – and her jaw dropped as she looked at the cliff Ron had just descended. Ron turned, and suddenly noticed that the cliff had four faces on it – all of which were painted on. "That disrespectful, worthless DEMON!" the woman snarled, too upset to speak clearly. "Vandalizing the Hokage Monument..! I hope somebody actually PUNISHES him this time!"

"The blond kid did that?" Ron asked, frowning at the cliff. "But how would he get up there?" 'There's no way he can jump that high...'

The woman huffed. "He's a ninja now, although why they let filth like him train, I'll never understand!" she shook her head angrily, and then walked away.

Ron blinked. Twice. "Okay, why the hell are there ninjas in my dream?" He only had the faintest idea what a ninja was, but he was pretty sure they were supposed to wear all black, not orange, and covered their faces with black cloth, not green goggles. Also, weren't they Chinese or something?

Although, when Ron looked around, he noticed a lot of weird symbols with boxes and lines all jumbled up, and that's sort of what Asian writing looked like, right?

xxxx

Ron spent hours wandering around the strange buildings, looking at all of the people and wondering when he'd finally wake up. The sky had steadily darkened, and Ron's stomach was grumbling. He could smell something tasty, and though he really doubted he could eat in a dream, he followed the smell to a weird sort of place. It had a wooden roof, a bar and several stools, but no door or front wall at all. Instead, fabric with more weird symbols gave the people sitting there some privacy. Two people were sitting there – an older person who didn't really look feminine but had long brown hair in a ponytail, and the yellow-haired boy Ron had seen earlier. Ron's stomach was temporarily forgotten as he snuck closer to look at the brown-haired person's face – definitely a man. He had no eyelashes, small lips, and a scar across his nose. On his forehead was a weird metal plate, tied on by a band of dark blue cloth.

Naruto?" The older man said, and the boy made a noise of acknowledgment. "Why did you vandalize such a place? You know who the Hokages are, right?"

"Of course I do." Naruto replied, his mouth full. He took a moment to drink all of the broth in his bowl. "In other words, those who carried the name of Hokage were the number one ninjas in the village, right? And I hear the Fourth one is a hero who protected the village from a monster fox."

'So that's why that lady was pissed.' Ron mused.

"Then, why did you..?"

"I'm going to receive the name of Hokage one day and become greater than any of the Hokages!" Naruto declared, pointing the sticks he'd used to eat at the older man. "Then, I'm going to make everyone in the village recognize my powers." A moment passed, and the older man continued to stare at the boy like he'd spoken Parseltongue. "By the way, Sensei, I have a favour to ask."

"You want another bowl?" The man called Sensei asked.

"Mmm, no! Can I put on that Konoha forehead protector?" Naruto clapped his hands together.

"Oh, this?" Sensei asked, touching the metal plate on his forehead."No. This is proof that you graduated school and that you're a real ninja." He beamed at Naruto. "You'll get yours tomorrow."

"Meany!" Naruto scowled.

The brunet laughed. "Is that why you took your goggles off?" Ron hadn't noticed they were gone.

I want another bowl!" Naruto snapped in reply. Sensei squawked, and Ron frowned. Why'd he offer another bowl earlier if he didn't want Naruto to have one?

xxxx

After the strange 'ninjas' had left, Ron had sat down and asked for the same thing he'd heard the yellow-haired boy order. Ron made quite a mess trying to eat with the weird sticks, but eventually he just tipped the bowl in his mouth and swallowed what flowed in. It was quite tasty, although not nearly as good as Hogwarts food. He was quite full when they asked him for the bill, and then forced him to wash dishes and mop the kitchen's floor when he couldn't give them any money.

Ron hated cleaning with a burning passion, and even worse, he'd found a spider on the kitchen floor, and squealed before jumping onto the counter and throwing things at it. The young girl who worked there – Ayame, what a strange name –had laughed so hard she cried when she saw him, and Ron was sure his face was still as red as his hair when they finally let him leave, quite a while later.

Since the dream still hadn't ended, and Ron was getting quite tired, he climbed up a tree near a park. It was one of the enormous trees this place was full of, and Ron wasn't worried at all about falling off. Even the smaller branches were wider than his bed in the Burrow.

xxxx

Ron was fairly annoyed when he woke up screaming from another spider-bear dream to find himself on a branch. He remembered where he was and remembered that it was a dream, and wondered if it was ever going to end. And then the weird brown-haired man with the scarred nose dropped onto the branch, looking at him disapprovingly.

"...what?" Ron asked, when the man didn't say anything.

Sensei's eye twitched."The exam starts in TEN MINUTES, Uiizurii Ranaru! Do you WANT to redo this year?"

It took Ron a minute to realize that 'Uiizurii Ranaru' was supposed to be his name. "No, sir." He replied instinctively. Sensei looked pretty furious, but Ron couldn't understand what he was talking about at all, and he had the feeling it wasn't just because he was barely awake.

"Let's go, then." He grabbed Ron's arm and jumped out of the tree, then onto a roof. He dragged Ron along until they reach a building with a playground and targets off to the side.

Once inside, Sensei directed him into a classroom. Many children were already seated, and there was a white-haired man standing in front of the class. Ron sat at an empty table, after looking around and not finding Harry, Hermione, Dean, or Seamus. 'Shouldn't there be someone I know?' He wondered, completely ignoring what the men – apparently, his teachers – were saying.

The two adults started calling out names and taking the students one by one into another room. None of them came back, but the students still in the classroom weren't worried, so Ron wasn't, either. While he waited for his name to be called, he started poking at his clothes. He'd only just noticed that he was wearing the same sort of weird stuff other people in this dream wore, and it seemed to have a lot of pockets. Most of them had weird black knives, but one had a house key with a note attached. However, Ron couldn't read it at all, as it was covered in symbols. Scowling, he stuffed it back into a pocket.

Sensei had to say "Uiizurii Ranaru" three times before Ron remembered that it was his name. The room they brought him to was mostly empty, with one table and two chairs that the teachers seated themselves in. He stared at them blankly for a moment, before his arms suddenly moved and his hands formed a weird sign.

Fire coursed through Ron's veins, and his mouth opened to say, "Bunshin no jutsu!" before smoke appeared around him. When it cleared, he saw two of himself, standing around with their hands in the same position his had been.

Sensei frowned, and said, "Only two clones?"

"Iruka-sensei, they're very well made." The white-haired young man said.

"Mizuki-sensei, everyone else has made three..."

"But mine are perfect!" Ron argued. He thought they were, anyway.

Sensei – or Iruka-sensei, whatever – considered for a moment. "Okay." He decided. "You pass." Mizuki-sensei (was sensei a title or something? Like professor?) gave him a forehead protector and a smile and sent him outside to meet with his parents. Ron frowned. Were his parents in this dream? Would that mean his brothers and Ginny were, too? Because he didn't really want them here. Being a ninja sounded kind of cool, but not if his brothers were ninja, too. 'Although,' Ron snickered, 'it would be hilarious to watch Percy fight.'

However, there wasn't a single Weasley outside. Ron looked carefully, at every face, but he didn't see anyone he knew. 'What kind of dream is this?' Ron scowled, walking through the crowd, until he recognized the woman who had told Ron that the blonde kid in orange was a monster. She was looking over at the playground, specifically at the swing where Naruto was sulking.

"Hey, that kid is the kid. He was the only one who failed."

"Serves him right."

"If he becomes a ninja, it's only going to cause trouble."

"Because, he's really a..."

"What is he?" Ron interrupted them. The two women jumped, looking slightly guilty.

"Forget we said anything, okay?" The one he hadn't met before told him, smiling. The one he had met scowled once again at the swing. "Just stay away from him and it won't matter."

"Okay." He agreed, walking away. It was annoying, but he was too hungry to really push the issue. Maybe he could try and find that place he ate at yesterday. Surely he could find some way to pay without cleaning...

It took almost an hour to find the place again, even though he could smell it most of that time. When he got there, he stared. Suddenly, he could read the symbols on the stand. 'Ramen Ichiraku' the sort-of doorway said. Hurriedly, he took out the key and the note. He could read that now, too, somehow. It had directions to his house... on the other side of the village.

"Why does it have to be all the way across this stupid town?" Ron moaned. "There had better be food there." He glanced upwards, where he could see several ninja running on the rooftops. 'That would probably be a faster way to get there.'

oxxxo

End Note: I tried to make this chapter fairly long without adding stupid things. I know how I want this story to begin and end, but I might need help with the middle, so if anyone's got ideas, please share! Flames are also more than welcome so long as you tell me what to fix!