Naruto awoke the next day to a stiff back and Mizu nowhere in sight. He glanced around for her before deciding she'd probably gone out to hunt for the rest of the night and then gone up to the Owlery to sleep through the day. He heard some noise downstairs so he got up, vaguely noting that everyone else had already done so.

"It's Sunday, what's everyone doing up?" he asked the collection of sixth years once he'd reached the common room, rubbing an eye of sleep. Girls and boys in his year were awake and chatting too animatedly for an hour, in his opinion, too early.

Ron smiled at him lopsidedly when he was noticed. "Mornin' Naruto." he chirped, scratching his nose. "We were just cleaning up the rest of the mess from yesterday since we kinda promised that we would if they got us food and turned the other cheek."

The common room was actually quite clean by now so Naruto just smiled back at them; still kinda glowing from happiness at having so many people like him and actually care enough to throw him a party for his usually very unhappy birthdays. "You guys are the best!" Exclaimed the blonde, grinning at them all. Hermione and Harry came up next to Ron to say good morning and then he remembered his presents, specifically the ones from Hermione and that he should actually be carrying one of them around with him. Running back upstairs and rummaged through his things to find his figurines his brow furrowed when he only came up with three of them, not being able to find the one of him no matter how hard he tried. With a sad sigh he picked up the one of Hermione and pocketed it for later use.

"Mizu would have gone up to the Owlery to sleep by now, right?" questioned the boy as soon as he returned to the trio of friends.

"That what you named the owl?" Harry asked, a little more eager because it was his present.

"Yeah. She stayed down with me last night until I went to sleep...must have then gone out hunting and then to sleep herself." He reasoned with a nod. "I'll go look for her later on but first-" his stomach gave a very loud growl instead of him having to say it. Hermione laughed, and they all parted ways to get dressed so they could go down to the great hall for breakfast leaving the cleaned common room behind them.

XXOO

"We're glad you liked your party so much." Hermione said, buttering a piece of toast. Naruto grinned from ear to ear at the reminder, stuffing some bacon into his mouth. He'd started eating new things now (after much torment from Hermione) and he'd taken a liking to bacon with eggs on toast. It wasn't entirely healthy but neither was packet ramen and he'd lived on that since he could boil water. Lunch was usually varied, though he still got his daily fix of his favourite food at dinner and had even turned a couple of the other students onto it, making it a dish always served on the table for more than just one person.

"But man did it take a while to clean up, even with magic." Ron added, mixing the mound of sugar he'd just applied into his cereal. "I think we ended up getting butterbeer on the roof...at least I hope that's what it was..."

Hermione shook her head at that. "Honestly, your aim was all off and trying to hit Naruto with something sticky is impossible. For us anyway."

"Bet Harry could do it though." Ron said, pointing his spoon at said teen who snorted and replied, "Only if he was very drunk and wanted to get hit. You haven't seen him at full speed."

Naruto left them to their conversation, letting his gaze wander around the room until it settled on the Slytherin table. Squinting a little trying to find out why, he saw most of them were huddling together. Occasionally they'd glance in their direction and he figured that was why he had been drawn to look at them back. The loudmouth ninja glared at the next, unfortunate little girl to look at him and she started, turning back to sit stiffly in her chair. If he wasn't mistaken she had also yelped.

Before he could experiment on another person Hermione was herding them out of the hall so they could go catch up on the study time they'd missed yesterday leaving him confused and with a sense of foreboding.

XXOO

By lunch time Naruto knew something was terribly wrong. Walking down the corridor no one seemed to be around. He and Harry had just left the library to go to the toilet. He thought he saw someone glance around the corner then run off again but he was desperately hoping that it had just been his paranoid imagination and it wasn't what he thought it was.

Harry seemed to have noticed it too and was looking around a little perplexed.

"Is it just me, or are the corridors particularly deserted today?" Naruto asked to break the silence and hide his growing panic. "Though it could just be that everyone's hungry and went down early for lunch." He added, lamely trying to lighten the mood with a joke. Harry forced a laughed for the sake of it.

It was Harry who got to the bathroom first and froze, eyes a little wider than normal, door open just the slightest. Naruto caught up but any questions he might have had died on his lips.

"How could they let someone like that into Hogwarts! And at a time like this!"

"It's as good as signing all our death warrants - he's probably in league with You-Know-Who. All them power hungry killers are. You studied it yet?"

"Course I have, was the first thing we did. At least one of the teachers was smart enough to warn us about a demon."

At this point Harry burst loudly through the door, saying "-Hermione's sure a slave driver, that book she wants us all to read on healing potions has to be a foot thick." as though they were in the middle of the conversation rather than coming from just standing silently at the door.

Two boys, both of whom looked to be in their 4th year, one from Hufflepuff and the other Ravenclaw, started at the noisy intrusion and upon seeing just who it was who had entered, quickly finished up and left in a rush without, Naruto noticed, washing their hands. He didn't much care for that little fact however since his suspicions had been confirmed in that small instance of eavesdropping.

In a sort of numb haze the ninja moved over to the window, leaning on the brick sill and staring out at the forest beyond. So this is what would happen if he'd told people back home. Surely it would have spread like wildfire and then everyone who didn't know would hate him...except maybe Sakura, though he knew Konohamaru wouldn't be so understanding and that would sting worse than all the unnamed death glares in Hidden Leaf.

Harry was worried. Surely Dumbledore had told anyone who did know not to tell; then how did the rumour start? Normally in a situation like this Naruto would either laugh it off and pretend it wasn't an issue or yell at someone. Now however he was being quieter then Harry had ever seen him - he didn't boast to be the number one loudest ninja for nothing. Even asleep he made more noise than this.

He walked up to stand behind the older boy but before he could say anything Naruto got to it first

"You would think Voldemort would have done something by now, ne? He's been exposed for months…"

Obviously he didn't want to talk about it so Harry didn't pursue it for now. He'd get enough of it later. "Hmm…I presume he's rallying troops…or the Daily Profit isn't reporting any murders going on."

They were quiet for a long time, just standing there looking at the now cloudy landscape. From the purple tinge, the boy-who-lived could tell it was going to rain tonight. How ironically appropriate, he though with a dry smile and a sigh. "We should get back before Hermione starts to worry about us."

When Nartuo turned around again he was grinning broadly; so much so his eyes were almost closed he was squinting so badly. "I don't want her lecturing me about being a good influence on you again. That last one was really boring and I didn't even do half the things she said I did. It was you." He laughed, but the sound wasn't as rich as usual. Spending so much time with Naruto over the last few months had keyed Harry in to the slight shifts in Naruto's emotions, letting him see when something wasn't quite real.

Naruto was a brilliant liar. Of course he had to be to be a ninja. Harry was still impressed at how easily he'd spouted flawless lies to avoid getting into trouble. More than once he himself had been caught off guard by a practical joke from the shinobi involving one or two well placed lies but when one spent so much time with someone some things were just too hard to hide.

By now most the school would know Naruto's secret, all by dinner; and most of them would understand just what the demon was if Professor Hino had been as thorough with the rest of her students as she had been with them.

Naruto grabbed his wrist on the way out, pulling him along seemingly eagerly. Harry presumed the other just wanted to get back into familiar company. Hermione wouldn't be as shallow minded as to snub Naruto just because he contained something dangerous. Ron, Harry though with a mental sigh, might be a bit awkward with it for a while but Hermione would get him on the right track with a few well placed elbows and words.

There would be a few Gryffindors, as disappointing as it was, that would react as badly as the rest of the school probably would. Most of their house however would just snort and say if they'd survived this long and nothing bad had happened, why should they be scared of a friend?

"Naruto!" Harry was startled out of his thoughts by Hermione's distressed exclamation in time to see her rush past him and practically tackle his companion with the force of her hug. Naruto himself went stiff, eyes wide. Did Harry look anything like this when he'd first really experienced human touch? From what he'd heard Naruto didn't get too much of it and Hermione hadn't really indicated before this that she'd do such a thing as almost hug him to the ground.

"Oh Naruto we just heard -I mean I presumed something like this because I researched possible ways to defeat a demon in one of the old texts but I didn't know just what and now everyone does and oh, it's as bad as everyone thinking Harry was crazy last year!" She was sobbing a little in her hysteria and worry and Harry smiled. It was just as he predicted, which was further confirmed when he glanced at Ron to see him just a little bit startled and confused.

Naruto let out a sigh and relaxed, resting his head on Hermione's shoulder as if he was too tired to do much else. She didn't let go either, maybe sensing, in whatever maternal genes she had, the ninja's need for comfort. Away from his real home this had to be a bit more stressful then it normally would have. Then again if he was back home this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

It was a little while before they all settled back at their table. The library had cleared out, not only because lunch was very near but because Naruto was back and in the short span of time it had taken Harry and Naruto to go to the bathroom (which Harry never did use and still needed to) everyone there who didn't know had been informed.

To Harry's surprise, now that he thought about it, Madam Pince never did tell Hermione off for her little scene. Maybe she was scared of Naruto now, which was probably going to be likely for most of Hogwarts, but he doubted it.

"We could make a game of this…" Said Naruto watching another person walk in, take one look at who was there and turning right back round again, and after missing most of the small talk that Hermione had been pursuing in hopes to lighten the mood. "We could call it, 'Friend, Foe or Afraid' and try to spot just who shits themselves at the site of me or who glares like I killed their entire family in one fell swoop."

Harry was sure this would have managed a laugh out of him if the situation wasn't so much like the one he'd been through last year. He'd felt rotten then and he still felt rotten whenever he thought about it.

"I think we should go down to the kitchens for lunch…" Ron muttered, and Harry had to agree with him. Everyone staring just now was not going to help the situation.

"I feel like ordering a different kind of Ramen today anyway." Naruto chirped, already to his feet with his usual, loud demeanour back in place for the walk down there. The other three stood up much more subdued, though they really were trying, Harry could tell with the other two as well, to keep things normal.

Leaving the Library only to be greeted by equal silence in the hallway was all the indication they needed to know the walk wouldn't be a particularly pleasant one.