A/N- New Chapter

I have put some older characters in the same year for convenience. Consider it an AU.

"So we just… run into the wall?" Naruto tilted his head in confusion. He was staring at the wall of a platform in King's Cross station.

Lily giggled. "Yes, the wall is magic. We can just walk through." It was always amusing to see new students struggle with the wall.

"I hope so, or else it'd be bad if I ran into it."

Lily leaned in. "Because you'd bonk your head?" She was grinning.

"No, because the wall would come down." Naruto blurted out without thinking.

Lily's eyes widened. "You're joking, right?" Surely he was, no one could bring the wall down just by running into it, could they?

Naruto contemplated his response, then shrugged and went with it. "No. I could easily bring down this wall." He stated with total seriousness. He didn't see the big deal, a wall was nothing to him.

Lily gasped, still not really believing him. With magic, it was easy to bring down a wall, but to do so that easily? She was sceptical, but the confidence with which Naruto had told her was swaying her opinion.

"You have a lot of secrets, don't you?" Lily hummed, stroking her chin like a detective. She scrunched up her nose cutely. "Hmm~ Hmm~!"

Naruto found this action extremely adorable, but kept his mouth shut. "I do. But you'll learn them eventually." Probably. Naruto didn't even know anymore. Screw it, let future Naruto deal with it.

Lily smiled. "I look forward to getting to know you better."

"Shall we?" Naruto looked to the wall, a bit wary but not scared. Worst comes to worst, he'd feel a faint bump.

Lily nodded eagerly. "Yahoo!" She grinned and ran towards the wall with her cart, and passed through it as if it were an illusion.

"Genjutsu?" Naruto inquired, and thought whether he should attempt breaking the illusion. But he decided not to do it. Firstly, because he didn't know if it would even work. And secondly, even if it did, he'd just wind up exposing the magical train to every person in the station. There was no benefit in breaking the illusion.

"It's not that interesting, just walk through it." Kurama groused, already bored of the wall.

Naruto nodded in agreement and walked through the wall, to find a large train and many wizards and witches on the other side. Lily was waiting for him, waving happily when she saw him. He involuntarily felt a small smile creep up on his face. Her enthusiasm really was contagious.

"Yay, you made it!" Lily grinned and hugged his arm, "Let's go find a seat!"

"Sure." Naruto chuckled and allowed himself to be dragged along. She had been extra clingy since their day in Diagon Alley, not that he minded. There were lots of worse places to be in the world.

Eventually, they found an empty train car, and Lily sat down while patting the seat next to her. Naruto quietly sat down, much to her delight. For some reason, she was very happy today.

Just as the train was about to depart, the cabin door slid open, and two girls walked in. Seeing them, Lily perked up.

"Molly, Alice!"

The two girls smiled back, and the three friends had a happy reunion as they hugged each other. Molly and Alice sat down across from Lily and Naruto, and Molly gained a wily smirk on her face.

"So Lil, who's the cutie?" She teased, eyeing Naruto up and down.

Lily pouted. "Molly, stop teasing him."

"I'm just joking~!"

"I'm Naruto, nice to meet you." Naruto nodded at the girls.

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Didn't know Lil liked them broody."

"Molly!" Lily squeaked in embarrassment, her cheeks heating up. Her friends could get really intense with their teasing.

Molly snickered and waved her off. "I'm Molly, nice to meet you."

"And I'm Alice." She greeted politely.

The hours passed as the trio of girls caught up, and Naruto mostly stayed silent and meditated. This was his favourite pastime nowadays, and he could also train his senjutsu this way. He was careful not to enter sage mode, though. He didn't want to answer any nonsensical questions right now.

"We're here!" Molly beamed, looking out the window. As the train exited the tunnel, the majestic castle of Hogwarts could be seen in the distance. It was always a mesmerising sight, and the students couldn't help but admire it.

The train came to a halt without much incident, and the students disembarked. Naruto saw that a number of chariots, pulled by some weird greyish horses, had come to receive the students. Being the blunt guy he was, Naruto asked exactly that question.

"What's with the weird grey horses?"

The three girls looked at him in shock. "You can see them?" Molly asked in disbelief.

Naruto blinked. "Huh? Are they supposed to be invisible or something?"

Alice ventured hesitantly, "They're called Thestrals, and the only way to see them is if you have seen a person die."

Lily held his hand in worry. "You've seen a person die, haven't you?" she knew he was an orphan, but could it be… No, she didn't even want to think about it.

The question, which would be heavy for a normal person, was almost laughable for Naruto. Had he seen a person die? Who hadn't he seen die? The inner turmoil he was holding in his heart surged forward in a momentary lapse of judgment.

Before he could control himself, Naruto let out a burst of mocking laughter. "One? Heh!" He quickly gathered his bearings, but it was too late. The girls were looking at him with wide eyes, their faces utterly mortified. Ouch, they'd caught his little slip, hadn't they?

Molly, usually very chipper, looked at him with sympathy. "More than one? You don't have to talk about it; don't feel any pressure."

Naruto shrugged nonchalantly. He wasn't about to talk about it anyway; what a weird thing to say. Why did these people think he was dying to spill his sob story to them?. "Eh, a few."

His indifference seemed to sadden the girls further, and Alice even got tears in her eyes. "Oh, you poor dear…"

Lily was biting her lip in thought, and she decided to do her best to comfort him the best way she knew how.

Naruto flinched when Lily hugged him, but he didn't push her away. Even though he had faced his demons (literally) and had accepted the reality, such a pure act of care left him speechless. His precious people had cared about him before, sure, but for the past year, he had sorely missed the feeling. It felt… nice.

Lily tightened her hug when she felt his hands hesitantly hug her back. The more she learned about Naruto, the more her heart broke for him. He was an orphan who had survived some great calamity, and now he'd even seen someone die in front of his eyes. This explained why he was so quiet; he was bearing so much pain on his own.

She was getting there but had no idea of the actual truth.

Molly and Alice watched in silence, their hearts going out to the blond boy. He seemed like a nice guy who had been dealt a bad hand in life. They hoped he would get better, and it looked like Lily was helping him a lot.

Just as they were lost in thought, a crashing sound broke them out of their musings.

"Look out!" Someone yelled, and Lily looked up from her hug to where the voice was. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that a Thestral had gotten loose and it was speeding in their direction. Something must have spooked the animal, and it was approaching them with a frenzied speed.

It was so fast that Lily didn't have time to take out her wand, and even if she did, she didn't want to hurt the poor horse. Her battle instincts were simply not fast enough to think up a non-lethal restraining spell and deploy it in that split second.

Luckily, she wasn't alone.

Naruto, who was being hugged, gave an annoyed look at the speeding Thestral. He had been enjoying Lily's hug (not that he'd ever admit it), and this stupid horse had interrupted it. He still wasn't going to hurt it, it didn't know better. Naruto would still make sure that Lily was unharmed. How would the strongest shinobi alive stop a small animal like a horse?

Naruto simply held out a hand and caught the Thestral by the snout. It tried to push him, but one horse wasn't really much of an effort for Naruto to restrain. It thrashed for a bit, but he didn't let go of its snout. "Quiet." He laced chakra into his voice, watching as the horse calmed down and regained its senses.

Lily, Molly, Alice and many other students had observed the spectacle and were gaping like fish at what they saw.

Molly blinked. "Did he just…"

Alice shakily pointed a finger at Naruto. "Stop a Thestral with his bare hand, without a wand?"

Lily gazed up at him in awe, still engulfed by his other arm. She realised that even though the Thestral was about to hit them, she never felt scared for a moment. It was as if she instinctively knew that Naruto would keep her safe.

And she was right. Lily found that she rather liked being engulfed in his protective embrace.

Little did she know that the feeling was mutual, but Naruto was being too much of an emo-tsundere to admit it.

"You okay?" Naruto looked down at Lily.

"Mmm…" Lily nodded, hugging him just a bit tighter. She felt all kinds of fuzzy and cosy right now, as if nothing could hurt her in his embrace. Which was actually true. She didn't want to let go at that moment.

Molly giggled. "My my, do you lovebirds need a room?"

Lily squeaked in surprise. "Molly!" She quickly withdrew from the hug, and the moment was ruined by her friend's teasing. She missed Naruto's twitching eye, though.

Molly guffawed and started walking towards the carts, Alice chuckling along with her. Lily sheepishly followed her friends, and Naruto shuffled along after them, already bored out of his mind. His thoughts were elsewhere, namely on the two weak spikes of jealousy he felt when Lily had hugged him.

Locating the sources of those emotions and correlating them with the descriptions provided by Lily wasn't difficult. James Potter and Severus Snape. Naruto wasn't a dense idiot anymore (when it came to his own love life, he absolutely was). He knew why they were jealous; they clearly liked Lily. However, Lily had made it clear that she did not like them one bit. Naruto doubted that these twats would listen, though.

"They will probably try to pick on you and act all macho to get her attention." Kurama snickered.

Naruto groaned in irritation. "I don't want some spoiled brats trying to show me how cool they are! If they irritate me too much, I'll send them to you."

Kurama grinned in unadulterated malice. "Please do. I miss the fear of a scared monkey these days. I remember when you used to piss your pants when you saw me. Hahahahaha!"

Naruto's brow twitched in anger. "Hey, furball, don't make me kick your ass!"

Lily looked back at him and tilted her head. "You said something?"

Naruto snapped out of his thoughts and shook his head. "No, nothing." He followed the girls to the great hall, resolving to pummel Kurama later.

As they walked into the great hall, Naruto was silently impressed by how grand it looked. Konoha's academy was a relatively simple building, nowhere near this one. Plates of food and drink were passed around, and the students looked happy.

"Psst, look, it's that guy…"

Naruto perked up when he saw a few students whispering while pointing at him. Even Lily was curious, but they kept walking to their table.

"Didn't he stop a Thestral with his bare hand?"

"No way! Seriously? Is he some roid head gym bro?"

Naruto almost tripped over himself at the stupid gossip he was hearing. Lily looked slyly at him and poked his arm playfully. "Gym bro, huh?"

Naruto groaned. "Not you too…"

Lily giggled as she kept walking, enjoying teasing her friend more than she thought she would, until she heard some more comments.

"Hey, isn't the new guy pretty cute?" One girl whispered to her friend.

"I wonder if he'll be sorted into our house. I'd like to show him around, for sure!"

"You see those muscles? I wonder how it'll feel to hold his arm."

Lily briefly stopped in her tracks, and her smile was replaced by a scowl. Not even one minute passed, and Naruto had these girls fawning over him. Granted, he was very good-looking (Lily admitted with a blush), but these girls didn't know him as she did!

And what was that about holding his arm!? Absolutely not!

In a fit of snobbish defiance, Lily grabbed Naruto's arm and hugged it, like she always did. She relished in seeing the jealous look on those girls' faces.

"Hmph!" Lily muttered, so faint that only she could hear it, "Only I can hold his arm…" Her cheeks had gone an adorable rosy red.

Naruto felt his arm being hugged suddenly, not that he minded, of course. "Lily?" He tilted his head in confusion, making no move to untangle himself.

"Hmm?" Lily beamed at him, the very picture of innocence. She had stars shining over her head, and a random rainbow had appeared out of nowhere. She was sparkling with utter cluelessness.

"Never mind." There was no need to ruin a good thing, so Naruto kept his mouth shut.

Naruto looked towards the green guys' table, where he saw one shrimp of a boy glaring angrily at him. Hmm, this must be Snape, who was in love with Lily, who was hugging Naruto's arm. For the first time since he crashed into this world, Naruto smirked in happiness. He utterly enjoyed the seething look on Snape's face. His smirk widened when Snape saw him and twitched in anger.

"Both of these brats are sadists, aren't they?" Kurama deadpanned. Both Naruto and Lily were looking a little too happy making others jealous of them. Well, more entertainment for him he supposed.

The Sorting Hat wanted a raise.

It did the same job for decades, even more, and yet no one paid it any money. It was unfair! Where are the British Labour Laws!?

Here it was again, in the Great Hall, Sorting the new first years into their houses. Well, the Hat did enjoy putting students into the house that would be their home for the next seven years. That alone was payment enough. So, it did its job, and diligently sorted students into the house which would best suit them.

After the first years were done, next came the transfer students or new students. These students were in the later years of schooling when they entered Hogwarts, and would need to be sorted. Such students were rare, but the Hat would give them a fitting home nevertheless.

"Naruto Uzumaki." A name was called, and a blonde young man stepped up, looking suspiciously at the hat. The hat inwardly chuckled, wondering what the man would show it and which house he would be placed in.

That all changed when the hat was placed on the young man's head.

"Out!"

All the hat could see was a gigantic fox monster hissing angrily at it before a wall of energy slammed into the hat and blasted it clean off Naruto's head.

Silence.

The Great Hall was completely silent after witnessing the spectacle that just happened. After the hat was placed on top of Naruto's head, it was instantly ejected before it got a chance to sort him.

Lily and her friends were staring wide-eyed at Naruto, as if he were some kind of walking lemon.

"Very intriguing, hmmm…" Dumbledore scratched his beard, not really shaken by the incident. He was aware that this student was different, but wasn't sure how exactly.

Naruto still didn't know what had happened.

"The hat tried to invade our mind, so I kicked it out." Kurama helpfully contributed.

Naruto nodded in understanding. "Ah, I see, thanks buddy." Kurama was his only defence against mental attacks, since Naruto was absolute shit at anything relating to illusions or mental techniques. Yet again, Naruto was thankful to his oldest partner.

Kurama nodded but remained silent, opting to observe the aftermath.

McGonagall coughed to gain his attention. "Shall we try again?"

Naruto shrugged, and closed his eyes as the hat was placed on him again.

The hat was about to go off on its traditional speech when it heard the student speak to it.

"Oi, hat."

The hat raised an eyebrow. It still could not access the mind of this student, and it had no idea what kind of man he was. So, it was surprising when Naruto started talking to it. "Yes, what is it?"

"Don't think too hard and put me into Gryffindor." Naruto didn't care which house he was in, but Lily was in Gryffindor. Not like that was the reason for his choice. It was a totally random decision. Yes, 25% chance. Lily did not factor into the equation whatsoever.

Naruto missed Kurama, trying to hold back his laughter.

The hat sweatdropped. Wasn't this interaction too unusual? "And pray tell, why would I listen to you?"

"Because I'll devour your consciousness if you act smart." Kurama growled from behind.

The hat's sweatdrop got bigger. Ah, yes, the fox monster. Being the smart apparel accessory it was, the hat weighed the pros and cons of this choice.

Pros- Life, peace of mind and job security (because it would need to be alive to do its job)

Cons- Death.

"Screw it, I'm not paid enough for this shit. Actually, these old farts don't pay me anything at all!"

For the students, after about 5 minutes of silence, the hat finally spoke.

"Gryffindor!"

"Hehe~!" Lily grinned, hugging Naruto's arm as usual. It was second nature at this point, and she rather enjoyed holding his arm. It was very strong and muscly. "You're in Gryffindor. I'm so happy!"

"So strong…" Lily blushed, recalling the incident with the Thestral this morning. She had had been enjoying her hug, when the horse snapped and rushed towards them. She'd been really scared of both of them being hurt.

But Naruto had taken care of it. He hadn't even flinched and effortlessly stopped the Thestral from hurting them, from hurting her. He'd protected her. The thought filled her chest with enormous warmth and happiness. She'd always been the one who stood up to bullies, who protected those who couldn't help themselves. Even at home, she couldn't stand up to her sister, who was so horrid to Lily.

But Naruto had protected her multiple times. Even with Petunia, and now with the horse. Lily already knew that she liked him, but if he kept being all nice and sweet like he was, she was going to fall for him.

"Not that I'd mind…" Lily mumbled, squeezing Naruto's arm tighter to her chest. They were sitting at the Gryffindor table, and Lily was practically glued to Naruto's side. A small benefit was the glares of jealousy she could feel from various girls. Heh, let them stare. She would make Naruto hers.

"What'd you say, Lily?" Naruto looked down at her, shifting a bit to make sure she was more comfortable. She was very close to him, but Naruto didn't mind it. "She's so cuddly and soft."

"How sweet can he be? It's already cramped on the table, and he's giving me more space!" Lily restrained a squeal of delight and quickly coughed to clear her throat. "Eh-hem, nothing at all!" Even though he bore so much pain, Naruto showed kindness to her, both in little and big things. It was very hard not to fall in love with him.

As usual, Molly tried to tease her. "My, Lil, you're very close, hmm~"

Naruto was getting tired of this girl. Every time Lily got close or hugged him, this idiot would make some quip, and Lily would get embarrassed and let go. Not that he wanted to keep hugging, it was just annoying to deal with Molly every time. Yes, that was the reason, nothing else. He absolutely did not enjoy being hugged by a cute redhead with eyes as green as the forest.

Without thinking, he wrapped his arm around Lily, making her squeak in surprise and blush an adorably pretty pink. "Yes, we are. And she can hug me whenever she wants."

Lily's blush went atomic when Naruto declared it so boldly. "Uuuuu…" Being dense is one thing, but wasn't he aware of how fast her heart was going? Who was she kidding? Of course, he wasn't. In her embarrassment, Lily could only hide her head in his shoulder. "Mmnn~"

Molly's eyes widened at the sight of her fiery friend being so shy. "Heh, I guess so. She does seem to enjoy hugging you."

"Molly!" Lily protested, but her voice was muffled into Naruto's shoulder. She made no move to untangle herself. This was what she wanted, after all, who would be foolish enough to let go of this warm and comforting hug?

Absently, while still holding Lily, Naruto's eyes wandered to James Potter, who was glaring at him with barely constrained irritation. In front of Kurama's hatred, these kids were like butterflies in a sunny meadow.

Though, he couldn't just beat Potter up without any reason. That would make him the bully, and Lily hated bullies. What a pain. If he were an actual threat, of course Naruto would have dealt with him. But he and Snape were just emo kids in their teenages. They couldn't just be eliminated because they looked at him wrong. Naruto wasn't a monster at heart, after all.

"Not even dating and already whipped, tch." Kurama snarked from within.

"Sh-shut up, you damn fox! I am not whipped!" Naruto went pink in embarrassment, which Lily mistook as him blushing from her hug.

With a giddy smile, she nuzzled her face more into his shoulder. "Hehe~!"

Naruto was clueless about what was happening. Well, it didn't matter as long as she was hugging him.

"Ugh, not this shit again…" Naruto groaned as he palmed his face in exasperation.

"You're like a magnet for losers like this, brat"

"Hey, are you listening!"

Naruto snapped out of his thoughts to look at the four boys who were blocking his way. They were definitely not here with good intentions, but they were so weak that Naruto didn't really make much of it. He recognised James Potter, but his three lackeys were irrelevant to him.

"Yes, yes, go on, Mr. Potty." Naruto picked at his ear, not even looking at them.

James burned red in embarrassment at the tease, which was only increased when he heard Sirius barely restraining a guffaw. Dammit, how dare this blonde embarrass him in front of his friends! All he wanted was to show the new student his place and tell him that Lily was James'.

"It's Potter, you asshole!" James pointed a finger at Naruto, "And stay away from-huh?"

Naruto just walked away, not even bothering to acknowledge these rats.

James got a huge bead of sweat on his forehead, and he looked flatly towards the retreating blonde. He slowly turned and glanced at the other Marauders, who were barely managing to restrain their laughter.

"Pff-!" Sirius' face was comically red and inflated as he exerted vast amounts of effort to avoid laughing at his friend. Remus and Peter weren't doing too well either.

James shakily pointed a finger at himself, having turned black-and-white with horizontal sulk lines on his head. "Did… did I just get ignored?"

A/N- Done!

There won't really be much bashing in the story. Ultimately, both James and Severus are good men at heart, they're just kids who are in their rebellious phase at this point.

IF they go too far, they'll get bonked for sure.

Review if you liked, it gives me motivation!