Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

Easy.

Naruto had been doing real magic since he was MUCH younger, thanks to Sirius letting him use the man's own wand to learn. While most 1st years had no experience using magic, Naruto had several years of private study and tutorship under a person who fought against Death Eaters and was recogized as one of the most talented students Hogwarts had ever produced.

Transfiguration? Easy.
Defense Against the Dark Arts? Child's play.
Charms? A joke.
History of Magic? Boring, though he was barely passing that class.
Astronomy? Not hard at all.
Herbology? He was Professor Sprout's favorite student.

The only class that Naruto struggled with was Potions class, and not because of the fact that he found it even slightly challenging. The only reason he struggled in that class was that he had a teacher that was purposely going out of his way to make Naruto's life a living hell in that class. The fact was that Naruto was top of his class, even in potions. The simple reason he was at the top of the class, was because the teacher was SO hard on him that if he made even ONE mistake at all, it would cost his house points.

Naruto was a student with the skills of a 6th Year Student, who was stuck as a 1st year purely because of his age.

His constant use of Non-Verbal magic in any other class earned Gryffindor bonus points, and earned him MUCH less homework than his other classmates. Not a single teacher had been able to offer him anything to learn yet, seeing as he had already learned all of the magic that he would learn between the years of 1 and 5. He was surprised that they just didn't have him study with the 6th years already and get it done with.

"Heh... 25 points to Gryffindor!" Naruto called out in a voice that showed he was imitating somebody else.

Sirius barked out laughter as Naruto recounted how he had earned Gryffindor so many points just by performing a perfect, non-verbal, Levitation charm, for Professor Flitwick. Naruto mentioned how the object he was suppose to make levitate, accidentally landed on top of the head of a Slytherin student after he had earned the points.

It was Christmas.

Of course, Naruto did not stay at the castle for Christmas, instead he opted to return him and be with his adopted family, and of course Remus had joined them for the holidays. It was Christmas morning, gifts had already been opened and breakfast had been had. It was a cheery time all around, with even Remus looking less tired and more genuinely happy.

"Hah, I bet Snivelus tried to dock you points for later." Sirius hooked arms with Naruto as the two danced in a circle around each other.

"Ah, Mister Uzumaki, it seems you skipped Step 6... you did not follow my instructions."

"Ah, but sir, even without following your instructions, I have achieved the same results... clearly the instructions you gave could have been shortened by 3 steps if you just crush the liver." Naruto imitated the professor in question. "... 15 points from Gryffindor, and detention... WORTH IT!" Naruto was glad to serve a detention if it meant absolutely owning Snape in class.

"Worth it! Worth it indeed!"

"Now Naruto, do remember, he is still your professor... you should treat Severus with more respect." Remus spoke up with a cheerful smile. He spoke good words, but the smile on his face did show that he wasn't nearly as disapproving as he spoke out. "So, Naruto, tell me... have you made any friends?"

"Meh, I guess I've made a couple... I mean, there aren't exactly a lot of people in the same year as me other than the Weasly Twins, Lee Jordan, and a couple of others." Naruto made some friends, but he was not particularly close to any of them. There was just that much of a gap between his abilities and their abilities, that it made it hard for him to connect with any of them.

Fred and George were super talented in their own right, they might even have more talent than him. His advantage was the years he spent studying with Sirius, and now that he had his own wand he was making so much greater progress with his abilities. He put years of constant hard work into himself before school even started, so a couple of talented first years just wouldn't be able to match him.

"Weasley... red hair, poor, and freckled... good folks the Weasley are, knew a couple of them in the last Order of the Phoenix." Sirius nodded in approval. "... since you've had a couple of months, how about you and I go out back and see what you can do now." Sirius smirked at Naruto.

Law breaking fun.

Naruto grinned back at him.

"Oh father, I would love to whoop your butt."

-Outside-

"The rules are simple, you can't use the same spell more than once, only Non-Verbal magic, no deadly spells and if you get knocked out of your circle you lose." Sirius explained the new rules of their practice duel. He and Naruto had already gone through the dueling rituation of bowing to each other, and now they were both standing in their own circles in the dirt.

A barrier was erected over the backyard so no muggles would be able to see or hear what they were going to be doing.

"You two are reckless fools." Remus was watching with a small smile.

"Go!"

Naruto raised his wand up and made the grass in front of him regain all of it's color, and grow wildly so that it became a shield for him. The moment that Sirius had shouted go, he pointed his wand at Naruto and sent a powerful jet of water at him. The grass shield blocked the water and scattered it around him. Naruto pulled his wand back as Sirius stopped his spell, and with a slashing motion Naruto cut down his own grass barrier.

He then swung his wand a second time and send all of the grass flying towards Sirius like a swarm of bees.

Sirius blasted it with a simple spell that caught the grass on fire. He and Naruto both swung their wands, Naruto with a swish and Sirius with a jab. Sirius made the ashes form a tight, condensed ball that he fired right at Naruto. Naruto on the other hand created a thin barrier in front of himself, and when the condensed ash ball hit the barrier it stopped in mid-air. Naruto ducked down and touched the tip of his wand to the ground.

Sirius did a spin as a ball of sparks formed around him, turning into a ring that floated above Sirius. The ball of ash on the other hand landed on the ground, and the second it did Naruto turned the ash into a swarm of ACTUAL bees that started to fly towards Sirius. Naruto was already working on his next spell as he stood up straight, and he raised his wand up above his head, with his free hand being raised with it.

Sirius killed all of the bees with his ring of sparks, and sent it flying at Naruto, who just aimed the tip of his wand towards his hand.

A spear of rock ripped out of the ground and formed a shield that blocked the sparks partially, with most of the sparks harmlessly going around Naruto. Naruto swished his wand and made the sparks vanish before Sirius could do anything with them. His rock spear exploded with a jab of Sirius wand, an invisible force shattering the stone. He followed up with a stunning spell, with the red sparks quickly approaching Naruto's chest.

"Hah!" Naruto saw it coming and waved his wand.

The shattered stone all gathered and transformed into a shield shaped stone, blocking the stunning spell for Naruto.

"Good work, you're doing fine!" Sirius complimented, and while Naruto maintained his shield, he started to do with a dance of magic with his own wand, never letting his feet leave the circle he stood in. He spoke the first words since the duel started, and he could tell that Naruto spent all of his time at school learning advanced magic.

No doubt he snuck into the restricted section of the library at night to learn it, or maybe due to how advanced he was he got permission from some teachers. Either way, the several months that Naruto had been away, he improved his magical abilities.

The rule of not using the same spell twice put pressure on both of them to think on the fly.

'... Sirius, nobody thinks on the fly faster than this boy... you might have put yourself at the disadvantage here.' Remus had watched Naruto grow for years, and he knew what Naruto's biggest strength was.

He was the best "On the Fly" thinker there was, and that combined with his great reflexes meant that he barely needed to think to come up with the best solution to a problem. Not to mention Naruto had studied under Sirius, and thus knew all of his favorite tricks.

"Hah HAH!" Naruto transformed into a fox to jump behind his own shield to dodge a curse that flew at his feet. He jumped off the back of the shield and transformed back into a human, and Sirius gave a huge laugh and grin.

He had not expected such a creative use of Animagus ability to dodge a spell before, and Naruto pointed his wand at Sirius sent a curse at the man. A simple shield charm blocked the curse, but it gave Naruto the chance to land on his feet. He spun around, and transfigured his shield into a bowling ball. He flung it at Sirius at a high speed, and when it shattered against the shield charm Naruto launched a spell with enough power to shatter the shield charm.

"You've improved, but not enough!"

Naruto and Sirius both sent magic beams at each other, with the beams colliding in the middle of the yard, forming a ball between them. They both put both hands on their wands to try and push the ball at each other. Sirius broke the beam struggle with a flick of his wand, the magic ball exploding.

"You're getting slow old man."

"Slow, me, I'm not an elder yet!" Sirius even enjoyed the taunting as he sent blue lighting towards Naruto with a few short spirals of his wand. Naruto raised up his own shield charm, but his shield charm started to absorb the lightning into it. Sirius had his spell ended when the entirety of his blue lightning was gathered in a ball in the middle of Naruto's barrier.

"HAH!" Naruto extended both of his arms outwards.

The barrier exploded in front of Naruto, with Sirius having his own spell sent back at him in the form of an electrified shockwave.

Naruto touched his wand to his temple.

He pulled out a silvery memory, and he tossed the memory into the air next to him. With a wave, the memory changed shape and turned into a silvery clone of himself that was standing outside of the circle.

Remus looked very interested in this new spell.

Naruto and his clone started to send a ton of minor spells and jinxes at Sirius, who was struggling to knock them all away from him. Naruto and his clone were working in tandem to double the threat they possessed.

"Amazing... he somehow extracted a memory of himself, and then transfigured it into a working clone... and he is using it as a conduit for spell-casting." Remus did his best to think on how it would work, but he had never seen a wizard make a working clone of themselves before like this. Somehow Naruto had managed to turn his own memories into functioning clones of himself.

Naruto extracted a second clone while the first one continued to battle Sirius.

Now Sirius was REALLY struggling as he faced off against 3 Naruto bodies at the same time, who were all sending a rainbow of different colored sparks and minor spells at him. The sheer amount of them would overwhelm any other wizard, but Sirius was managing to barely keep up.

'Amazing... just amazing...' Sirius blinked when Naruto did the same thing once more and created another clone of himself.

Wait a moment.

"Cheater! You used the same spell several times!" Sirius claimed his victory as the duel stopped. Naruto blinked a few times.

"... Bullocks!" Naruto cursed and stepped out of his circle.

Naruto waved his wand and all of the silvery clones of himself turned into vapor, before they rushed back into his temple, rejoining his head. Sirius sat back and panted a little, having worked up a sweat from defending against multiple clones like he did.

"Well, you lost."

"I had you on the ropes!"

"In your wildlest dreams... what was that spell?" Sirius taunted, before he asked seriously.

Naruto shrugged.

"I invented this spell so I could learn more spells faster, and practice magic... by taking out some of my memories of myself, I can make clones... and when the clones disappear, I get all of the memories they made... so I can work even harder to master spells at a much faster rate." Naruto had plenty of time, so he used it to improve himself much quicker.

He called it Shadow Cloning magic.

By using mere shadows of himself, he could make working clones that could transmit their own memories and experiences back to him. With it, he could create a literal army of himself to use against future Death Eaters once Voldemort came back.

"By god son... how... and how many can you make?" Sirius was shocked.

No wonder Naruto had improved so much in the few months he had been away from home.

"I stopped counting after I made a few hundred, but I've been having them practice magic in the Forbidden Forest while I attend class... but only for a couple of hours a day... too much and I pass out when I get the memories back." Naruto grinned as he showed how he had made so much progress in such a short time. "I've been using this magic for an entire month now." Naruto was very satisfied with himself.

"... Are there any drawbacks?"

"Not really, you just need the mental fortitude to withstand the magic, and I have to manually control the clones... so it can get super mentally taxing to do it, so the more I make, the less complicated actions I can make them do. Right now, in battle, they can only do simple spells." Naruto did have limits on what he could do with them. "... Eventually though, I'll manage to perfect this spell, and they can act without me controlling them!" Naruto still had a ton of work to do to perfect his own spell.

Remus pat him on the back.

"That is very good work... but do take it easy, the mental stress is not good for a boy your age... from now on, do limit yourself to 2 clones to practice with." Remus didn't want Naruto burning himself out after all.

"I agree with Remus... take the time and enjoy yourself, you're already far above your year... if we were judging by skill, at this point, you could graduate school... so do take the time to enjoy being a kid while you still can." Sirius grabbed both of Naruto's arms and knelt down, and gave him genuine advice.

As impressed as he was with the magic itself, Naruto was still young, and he felt that using that magic too much would go to his head. If Naruto improved too far above his peers, it may go to his head more than anything else, and cause him to get arrogant.

"... Okay." Naruto nodded his head. "... So... it was a bad idea for me to leave a clone at Hogwarts so that I could have it set up a big prank to mess with Snape?"

"... I love you son." Sirius wrapped Naruto up in a tight hug.

Sirius was damn sure this was what it felt like to be proud of a child as a father.

He wanted to shed a tear.

Chapter End!
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