Time flew by quickly for both Harry and Naruto as classes became increasingly difficult, though admittedly more interesting. A week after the start of term they had started trying non verbal spells. Naruto had mastered these in the first lesson having already spent months on end trying to do basic ninjutsu without the hand seals required, let alone the words that accompanied them. So far he had only managed the henge and body swap techniques without seals, though for the most part he no longer had to say the name of the ninjutsu with the seals once he knew them. The feat took more energy though and Naruto liked the wand better in this sense. He didn't have to exert any noticeable amounts of chakra and so far he had never tired from casting spells.

Harry's training was going alright considering the teen had never done anything like martial arts save fighting off enemies. Naruto's English lessons, though hampered by the fact that he knew nearly nothing of English without the spell, was progressing verbally very well; even starting to lose his accent with some effort. Though Naruto stumbled over the characters of the alphabet occasionally and was dismal with his spelling of even the simplest words like cat which he had spelt 'kato' he had gone further than expected in the month and a bit they had been working at it, clearly showing a want to learn.

"Numbers." Ordered Harry as Naruto threw high kicks into the air.

"One," He said, in sync with his attack, "two, three, four, five, six, seven…seven…"

"Eight." Harry prompted.

Naruto nodded and continued his onslaught of air while counting "Eight, nine, ten," Reaching a good 500 before being unable to continue Naruto wiped the sweat off his forehead. It was Saturday and they had finished most of what homework they had been set the night before, leaving plenty of time for extra training. Harry had seemed particularly enthusiastic to get away to the room of requirement today but Naruto didn't care to pry as to why. He began to instruct Harry in his own sets of exercised to build up stamina and strength. They were going to start on chakra soon but Naruto thought the other needed to have a good grasp on the basics before they started that. He would have to learn a different form of magic and that could be very difficult if one had only used one and never knew of the other. Using Chakra was harder than using wands.

Naruto stretched out his slightly saw muscles after the longest workout he'd had since term had started and thanked on the boarder of worshiping whomever had made this room as a glass of water each appeared on the table that had been bare last time he had looked at it. He skulled it all in less than ten seconds as Harry did the same and they both let out a short laugh in unison.

"God bless this room." Cheered Harry as he lifted his empty glass into the air to emphasise his point.

"Bless?" Asked Naruto, that wasn't something he had heard before.

"Ahh…" Harry scratched his head, trying to think of a way to explain it without making a fool of himself. "praise…? Yes. God praise, may it be in God's good favour."

Naruto nodded happily, "Amen."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Hermione getting to you again?"

Naruto nodded and wrinkled his nose up at the memory. "I ask her to teach me harder words and she got a big book with lots of words in it…called it a dika…dikasho…"

"Dictionary?" Prompted Harry, slightly proud that he was having to do that less and less these days.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, Dictionary. We got through most of Aa and then we ran out of time…I don't remember much but 'Amen' stuck because Hermione gave me lots of examples saying I might need it."

Harry laughed. "Next time just get her to read out of one of the text books and ask her anything you don't understand. That's probably a smarter thing to do."

Naruto nodded and plastered his trademark grin onto his face, eyes arched, nose wrinkled.

Harry glanced at his watch and said "Well, we should head back to the common room now. I promised Hermione I'd meet her after we finished."

"Hey!" Naruto jumped to his feet then fell into the stance he used before a fight. "Let's make this into a stealth mission! We have to get back up to the common room without being seen by anyone." He pumped his fist into that air. "Yeah! I haven't done stealth since last time I had to escape McGonagall-Obaa-chan and that was the start of…of…term!" He hadn't had to be corrected this time and he was extremely happy about that. It meant he was getting better.

Harry nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. I mean, I need to see if I can pull it off as well, don't I? I haven't really had a chance to practice my new skills outside of this room."

And then they were off, zipping from corridor to corridor avoiding the odd student going to the library or to see friends, or teacher patrolling the hall. Naruto guessed that the only time they were spotted was when Peeves the Poltergeist came up through the floor but they were gone too fast for him to react to them in any way. In any case the mischief maker had some sort of weird respect for Naruto, similar to that of which he had for the Weasley twins, since the Shinobi had indeed pulled off his 'something slimy down Snape's back' plan, getting two Slytherins a week of detention each (the second was pure luck as he just happened to be standing near by and saw the whole thing but did nothing to prevent it).

They arrived at the portrait of the fat lady in record time and Harry grabbed onto Naruto's arm to stop him. The Fat Lady herself frowned at them for running in the halls but didn't comment. Harry waited a little bit, bent over in an attempt to get his breathing back under control and when he finally stood back up the portrait spoke "Password?"

"Flibber wobkins!" Chimed Naruto but the fat lady shook her head. Naruto furrowed his brow. "Hu? That was the password yesterday and no one said anything about a change…"

Harry hid a smile as he cut his body guard off. "Naruto is seventeen." He stated quite calmly and the panting swung forward. Naruto, thoroughly confused but heart pounding followed Harry through the portal and stood up at the other side to a suddenly bright room.

"SURPISE!"

Collective yells of the word echoed around the common room and Naruto blinked a few times in…well, surprise. A large chunk of Gryffindors, all year levels, had jumped out from behind furniture as the light had been unblocked. The shinobi looked around him, from face to face of beaming teenagers and slowly a huge grin spread over his own; no hint of any falsehood hiding in it. It was his birthday, wasn't it? And he was seventeen which he had learnt was the coming of age year in the wizarding world. He was now legally able to cast spells outside of school, not that that would help him much since he already did that and couldn't be picked up because of his different type of magic signature.

He was overwhelmed as most the people flocked forwards to surround him and drag him forward into the party and he was lead over to a large pile of presents, more then he'd ever seen in his life and all addressed to him. Harry, Hermione and Ron where near the front of the crowd encouraging him to start opening the presents. Tears came to the Ninja's eyes. He'd never had a party thrown for him before. Sure a couple of the girls in town had given him presents before for their equivalent of Christmas but he hadn't ever told them when his birthday was, fearing they'd make the connection. So to have this, with more people then he'd ever befriended in one room to fuss over him alone was too much for him to handle. Rubbing the tears away hastily he beamed back at everyone and proceeded carefully unwrap the bundles one by one, saving the wrapping paper as if it were made of gold.

Harry smiled as he watched Naruto. Was this how he had looked the first time he'd gotten something substantial for his birthday? Only Hedwig would be able to say if she could, as she was the only one there, but being an owl it would be quite hard for her to confirm. The look on Naruto's face as he held up another gift made all of the planning behind the other's back (which had been very hard since Harry was pretty much forbidden to leave his side) worth the effort.

Harry had actually only been the one to think of the idea. He had gleaned the date from Naruto saying his birthday was on a national day of mourning and what the book said about the nine tailed demon fox and then forded the information on to Hermione who, with the help of Ron, had organised everything; coming to Harry for confirmation of details only, since they didn't want the surprise leaked.

Then they had let out the word and it spread like wildfire. Everyone in Gryffindor had taken a shining to the teenaged 'exchange student' and his happy-go-lucky personality. Therefore naturally they had gained a big turnout.

Once everything had been opened and Naruto had almost exploded from the sheer amount of them he was ushered over to the food and then everyone was left to mingle with their own social groups, every now and then coming over to talk to Naruto.

Naruto practically split his face when he was finally allowed to get to the trio of friends and very nearly knocked them all to the ground when he leapt onto all three at the same time in a group tackle hug shouting "SANKYU!", accent present in his excitement. Hermione blushed, Harry laughed it off and along with Ron, who had been shocked at the sudden show of affection, pushed the blond off of them and back onto his own feet.

Rubbing the back of his head (a habit which Harry had picked up from Naruto) Harry grinned back. "Well you said you'd never really celebrated your birthday so I figured you'd like something like this."

Hermione chuckled, nodding in agreement. "When Harry told us we got to it straight away, between homework of course."

Ron snorted. "She's not kiddin' I think I did more homework then I was set while 'Mione and I were working on this. Glad ya like it mate."

Naruto for once didn't know what to say. Instead he starting to cry and hug tackled them once more; it was alright to cry when you're happy, after all. Only Harry possibly had an inkling as to how much this meant to him (they hadn't told anyone else about Naruto's little problem, not even Ron and Hermione) and even he probably couldn't come close, or could he? He'd been an orphan too, living with unloving relatives.

Composing himself Naruto drew himself back since they hadn't pushed him off this time and wiped away his tears, bringing himself up to his full hight of 5'8" then bowed in traditional Japanese style, arms flat against his sides and body bent in a right angle. Bringing himself back up his real age and maturity showed on his face as he smiled a true smile. "You guys rock." he said, a British accent in place that Harry hadn't heard him use before and totally undermining his expression. All three cracked up laughing, the touching moment gone. Ron got Naruto in a headlock, ruffling his hair and Hermione crossed her arms disapprovingly. Harry rolled his eyes and Ron let go, then the four moved over to the food table to mingle and eat.

XXOO

They were in bed late, exhausted from the afternoons partying. It had easily run for about 6 hours until people started going to bed. House elves had delivered dinner to the dorm instead of them having to go down for it and another four hours saw everyone else eventually retiring, until the only ones left were Ron, Harry, Nevil and Naruto. Dobby had assured Harry that he would clean up most the mess left over (Hermione still left out little hats from time to time) so now the four boys were up to bed without anything to worry about for the time being. It had taken them a few trips to carry all Naruto's gifts up to their room as well and now all of them were about ready to collapse. All of them except Naruto. He was still relatively wide wake and full of energy so when the rest of his friends went to sleep he sat up and using something that the giver had said would only shine light for himself, looked through his mass of presents.

He put all the wrapping paper in a very net pile and then in a bag that someone had spelled to give it extra space then sorted the other things into categories like 'food' and 'novelty'. Then his heart sank. The mass of gifts reminded him of Sasuke. Lots of things did these days and he got more and more depressed every time he remembered that he wasn't looking for his friend, like he had promised he would. It had been ages since he had come here and still no word from Dumbledore of any progress in finding a way back home.

Naruto bit his lip as he mentally cursed Sasuke's weakness. He had long ago decided that Sasuke was weak in his heart, even if he was stronger physically. Otherwise he would never have let Orochimaru take him away. He'd taken an easy way out, trying to kill his brother with the strength of another rather than his own ability. And then, Naruto sighed, he'd be just like Itachi…barely human, a murderer in the worst possible sense. Naruto never wanted to kill, he just had to sometimes. Sasuke wanted to kill, he didn't mind it anymore. He'd run into Sasuke once more after their fight, years later and it was only for a brief moment but Naruto had seen his lost eyes, almost dead and it had only stiffened his resolve and he started calling what he was doing 'saving Sasuke' rather than bringing him back.

He picked up one of the figurines Hermione had given him, it was part of a set of four. This one was his exact likeness and did various ninja moves he had shown off to the three of them at one point. The other three were of them, Harry had a broomstick and Gryffindor Quiddich robes and flew around when you wanted it to. Ron's was similar but would defend invisible rings with some of his most spectacular moves that he was assured the keeper had pulled off before. Hermione's he was sure she had taken the longest with. Her's was reading a book and corrected his pronunciation and prompted him when he forgot a word in a way that was almost identical to the original, except the voice was a tad bit off since he figured it was quite hard to make something like this last and she had obviously wanted to make it last. He smiled; at least he'd have a way to remember them when he had to go back.

He picked up Ron's next. It was a set of things from his brothers' joke shop. A skiving snackbox, various defence objects he was surprised came out of a joke shop, the orb that was giving him light and something he didn't know what it was but was too shocked to ask at the time. He was sure he'd use the defence items sooner or later in his profession so he took extra care of those, setting them aside carefully.

Harry's present topped them all though. The owlet-nightjar sat quietly on his nightstand, watching him with an almost motherly glint in her eyes. He hadn't decided on a name yet but the bird had instantly grown on him. For the rest of the party she had considerately stayed away, gone up to get some sleep for the rest of the day but had come back as sleep had claimed the others in the room, as if she knew he wanted company. She flew up onto his shoulder as she saw him looking at her and nibbled his ear affectionately while he moved up his hand to stroke her soft feathers. He'd never had a pet. It would die and then he would cause himself unnecessary pain. He had been too young then, barely able to take care of himself anyway and then as he got older his job had taken over his life, leaving him no time for pets even if he'd ever thought about it again. But the owl would be able to come with him. She seemed smarter than normal, even if she couldn't talk like the frogs he summoned.

She pecked him a little harder then she had been nibbling as if prompting him to do something and Naruto chuckled. "Name you…?" the bird nodded and he laughed again softly so as not to wake anyone up. "Alright then…" He shifted her to his arm, not needing anything to protect it because of his tough skin built up over the years intentionally to make it harder to wound him. He made a show of scrutinising her then noticed her feathers reminded him of a lake, of water, he smirked, then that's what he's call her. "Mizu, Mizu-chan. It means water where I come from…" He yawned and rubbed his eyes, Mizu going back to her perch on his nightstand. "Better go to sleep now or I'll be tired tomorrow.." he uttered before carefully placing the rest of his presents into the internally enlarged bag and putting it aside so nothing broke and he could sleep. Laying down he smiled, his last thought before drifting off was that this had been the best day of his life.