Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

"Okay... here is my fatherly advice for you."

Sirius stood in front of Naruto, who had all of his school luggage with him. Sirius had the wild grin of his own show as he had a twinkle of revenge in his eye.

"Show off."

"Show off?"

"I have been teaching you magic since you were 5 years old, as far as school is concerned, you should be in your 6th year. You can no Non-Verbal Magic, and you've learned some Wandless Magic, can do Occlumency, you're excellent at Defensive magic and Charms... you're going to be VERY bored during your time at Hogwarts." Sirius bragged about his adopted son.

You didn't spend almost 7 years teaching a boy magic, and NOT take pride that he was good at it.

Voldemort would be back one day, and he had wanted to make sure that Naruto would get an early start on his magical education. There was no ifs ands, or buts about it. There would be another wizarding war one day when Voldemort returned, and there was no telling when it would happen. As a muggleborn, that made Naruto a prime target for being killed, and since Naruto had personally seen Peter escape the day his parents died, there would be attempts on his life for sure.

It was the responsible thing to do to teach him to defend himself.

"Show off." Naruto repeated, much more sure of himself.

"Now, in Filch's office, there is a map of Hogwarts that myself and the others left behind for some... mischief makers to find in the future. It will teach you everything you need to know... get it when you can." Sirius gave that advice to Naruto as well. The map would serve to make his pranks go much more smoothly in the future. He saw Naruto show off a hungry smirk at what could be done with that map. "Do your homework though... save yourself some detentions." Sirius would rather Naruto avoid detention for THAT reason.

Naruto's face changed to bored, but he nodded.

He grabbed his trunk and went towards the train, waving to Sirius as he did. Naruto breathed in the air of the train, before he went to find himself a compartment to park himself for the ride.

-Hours Later-

Boredom.

Naruto was amusing himself his chocolate frogs from chocolate, to real frogs, and then back to chocolate. He was sitting alone in the compartment, since apparently there were a lot less people that were starting school with him in his year. Nobody his age seemed to want to sit with him, because they already had friends of their own.

Using his own wand instead of Sirius' wand was SUCH an improvement, the feel in his hand was better, and he had so much more control of the magic he used. He had studied for almost 7 years using a wand that was not his and did not want to properly obey him, and now that he was using his own, he just... felt so much more right about using magic with it. So far none of his spells that he learned were failing him, and he could fine tune his magic better.

He turned the frogs into tadpoles, before he turned them into chocolate again, only now they were chocolate tadpoles. He swished his wand and multiplied them from 3 tadpoles to about 300 of them, and turned the frog box into a glass bowl to hold them all in. The chocolate tadpoles flopped around in the bowl, before he allowed them to levitate while inside of the bowl.

"Neat tricks... you did that without saying the spells."

"Neat, he looks our age... little more than neat."

""Weasleys." Naruto stated with a chuckle when he saw two boys enter his compartment, and sat thenmselves down. They were pale skinned, red haired, and their faces were covered in freckles. That was the textbook defintion of a Weasley, according to Sirius who had told him about that older wizarding family. They wore hand-me-down school robes, and he could see that these boys were twins. "... I can only do non-verbal magic, can't really pronounce stuff great." Naruto waved his wand and sent 2 tadpoles out of the bowl.

They aged into chocolate frogs and landed in the twin's mouths when they opened them up to speak.

"Wicked."

They spoke in unison as they ate the chocolate frogs and made themselves comfortable, and soon enough another boy joined them in the compartment. Naruto was introduced to Fred and George, and their new friend Lee Jordan.

"So, where you hoping to be sorted?"

-At the Sorting-

The Sorting was... just putting a hat on somebodies head.

Uzumaki Naruto... meaning he was among the people who would be going last in his year to be sorted. The only people behind him were Fred and Geroge, and some boy with a sinister air about him.

"Naruto... Uzumaki."

An elderly woman spoke with a brisk tone, and Naruto walked towards the stool that sat in front of the great hall. He sat down, and she moved behind him to put the hat on his head. The hat got comfortable on his head.

"Hmmmmmm... Hmmmm?"

"Hmmm?" Naruto hummed in response to the voice in his head. The hat took several minutes, and it didn't say a word to him.

"Muggleborn I see... not Slytherin... cunning, oh so cunning... and with an impressive talent for magic... Ravenclaw would be a great fit... but knowledge gained through practice and hard work... you could easily be in Hufflepuff... then again... quite brave, very much filled with courage." The Sorting Hat was now seemingly frustrated that he was having this much trouble placing Naruto into a house.

14 minutes passed.

20 minuted passed, and the teachers were now very curiously looking at Naruto, since the hat was stalling longer than any other student. Hat stalls were exceedingly rare, and usually only happened to complicated students. The Sorting Hat took more time in silence as it's folds tightened up.

"You value trust and friendship... would rather die than betray a friend, a very Gryffindor trait... but you are very accepting of others, to a fault even... Hufflepuff would be a nice place..." The Sorting Hat spoke, and Naruto's face was turning red as he had his traits just defined to himself like this. It was very embarassing having everything about himself just put out there like this. "... then again, your potential for creativity is a sign of a star Ravenclaw... but it's geared towards mischief, a very Gryffindor thing to be."

30 more minutes passed.

Now Albus Dumbledore himself leaned forward with great interest, since the Sorting Hat had never taken almost a full hour to sort a student before. The headmaster looked at Naruto with a bright twinkle in his eye, while other students were cauht up in the moment. Students years 2 to 7 were all waiting with baited breath for the moment the hat stopped stalling and shouted out what house he would be in.

"Where do you want to go?" The Sorting Hat asked Naruto for what he wanted.

"GRYFFINDOR!" The Hat shouted out for the school, when it read Naruto's mind for the answer. Naruto stood up with a sense of great relief that the hat had just decided to let him decide where he was going to go instead of stalling any longer. He sat down at the red and gold table, and he made brief eye contact with Dumbledore.

He felt the locket in his pocket stress up, and he could feel a pit form in his stomach at how whatever was inside of this object was afraid of Dumbledore.

It sensed him.

-After the Feast-

Naruto stood up with all of the other Gryffindors, but instead of following after the Prefect of their house, he went towards the teachers table. He walked straight towards the headmaster himself, who looked at Naruto curiously as he approached the table.

"Mister Uzumaki, please head towards your common room."

"I have something to deliver to Professor Dumbledore... from Regulus." Naruto lied, and he felt a look of hatred from one of the teachers... most likely Snape, when he said that name. For some reason, he thought that it looked like Dumbledore knew he was lying. Naruto took the pocket locket out, and just sat it down in front of the man.

Dumbledore grabbed it by the chain and lifted it up.

"I see... and why did Regulus want me to have this?" Dumbledore had only a brief moment of confusion.

He ran his fingers over the object, and seemed to be looking for some signs of magic, which he then found as he was surprised for only a brief moment.

"I... Regulus sensed something was wrong, off... dark about it. I feel like something is... alive... and dead... but alive inside of it." Naruto slipped slightly, and Dumbledore sent Naruto a very astute look as he judged him behind his half moon glasses, with kind eyes. The man gently sat the locket down and looked directly at Naruto.

He smiled.

"... Well, I would say that Regulus has very sharp instincts, and a great intuition for dark magic. And, might I ask, did Regulus say what he believed might be inside of this locket.. what may be alive inside?" Dumbledore very gently pressed Naruto for more information.

No, he wanted his opinion, like a test.

Naruto didn't quite understand how to put it into words.

"I don't know, it just feels... like it's evil, and something is wrong with it. It feels like it doesn't belong... it needs to be destroyed." Naruto stated his opinion on the object. It just felt so wrong to him on a very conceptual level. Like something about it should have never existed, and it offended him down to his very soul.

Dumbledore nodded his head.

"I agree, very sharp instincts... I will see to it that it is destroyed then." Dumbledore assured Naruto.

Naruto felt relief.

There was an immense wave of relief that just washed over him when he heard Dumbledore say that he was going to destroy the locket.

He would sleep well that night for sure.

Chapter End!
Please Leave Me Lots of Nice Long Reviews, But No Flames Please!

Dumbledore now knows about Voldemort's Horcuxes 3 years earlier than he would have learned about it in the books.

Naruto IS muggleborn, so he CAN'T be in Slytherin.
At his core, Naruto could easily fit in with the other three houses... so the hat couldn't decide where to put him.
Thus, he left it to Naruto to decide.