Well, here it is. Sorry for the delay. The second Chapter. They're slowly gaining length, and hopefully I'm slowly getting better as well. I know it might not be the most descriptive story out there, and I absolutely suck at dialogue, but it's an attempt at least. Anyway, without further ado, I'll let you get on with reading it.

Chapter 2: Parties of Youth

The sound of metal clanking against metal rang out through the evening air of the training ground, two forms in the shadows throwing blunt kunai knives and shuriken blades at each other as they hopped from tree cover to tree cover. The two forms suddenly became three as one of them did a few hand motions, an image flickering into shape beside him that matched his looks almost perfectly.

The second shape, noticing the appearance of the third let out a small muttered curse, throwing a blade at each of the twin forms that were a fair while apart as he tried to get away into a deeper area of cover, knowing that he'd just given away his location trying to figure out which of his opponents was the fake. The kunai never met either target though, as they both jumped to the opposite side, heading towards where they'd seen the weapons emerge from. A flash of blond hair was all they saw as they got to where the knives were thrown, only to be caught by the ankles as they were hoisted into the air, upside down before the smirking boy who was confident he'd just won their little spar.

"So, Harry! Think I'm still not good enough to beat you yet?!" he asked, grinning at the two boys who were upside down. Both looked at each other and shrugged.

"Yeah. You could say that." Harry's voice sounded from behind Naruto, as the boy felt the cold steal of the knife pressed against the back of his neck as the two in front of him faded out of existence, no evidence that they had even been there at all left as the ropes hung slack as they had been since the trap was triggered.

"Damnit Harry!" Naruto said as he turned to face the older boy as a larger figure appeared near them in a small swirl of wind. "Why do you always have to use those damned clones of yours! It's not fair! You know I can never get that one down!"

"We're Ninja. We don't fight fair." Harry teased as he ruffled Naruto's hair as the blond-haired boy pouted, crossing his arms, causing both Harry and the third man to chuckle lightly at him.

"You're getting better Naruto." The older man said, his brown hair done up in a small pony tail that hung from the top of his head, a deep scar across his nose. "You managed to set a trap which would have snared Harry if the original was actually even around." He said as he too patted the young blond on his head. "Though you still need to work on your observation, you thought that there were only the two Harry's in front of you, but Harry managed to substitute himself when creating the clones to sneak around behind you. Still, it was a good match. You're both improving a lot."

"Thank you, Iruka-Sensei." The two boys said, bowing politely towards the man. They smiled, talking notes on what they had done right, what they had done wrong, how the other could have improved in various cases. One of the best ways Harry found of learning, was trying to imagine what it would be like to be the opponent facing him, looking back and seeing all the openings that he'd left, where to close them and how to exploit them if he saw another person doing the same things he'd done once.

This had been going on for the past four months now, Naruto and Harry meeting up after school with one of the school's teachers, on a long-term d-rank mission to help train up the two boys as they wanted to progress further in their studies. Sirius had organised the mission with both Iruka and the Hokage himself, the latter being a bit unexpected when Sirius had gone to the mission office to request the tutoring. Sirius had worked out the various details with the two men, which included physical exercise to build muscle, but not strain their young bodies too much, taijutsu training to help build on Naruto's lacklustre form that he had been taught by his previous teachers as well as help Harry get a better grasp of the basics.

Academy students weren't taught any jutsu beyond the clone, transformation, substitution and the rope escape. This was so that they could have a basic understanding of how to mould chakra, without over taxing their small coils. If a student wanted to attempt other jutsu, they could ask one of the teachers to help them with it, but the teachers weren't allowed to explicitly teach the students without them showing an active interest and prior ability that could indicate their ability to succeed on their chosen jutsu.

As it was, Harry and Naruto started learning the academy four once again, both having been taught them prior, though Naruto never quite getting the hang of the clone or rope escape techniques. The problem, Iruka discovered as they were trying to explain to Naruto, wasn't that he wasn't putting enough chakra into the clones as the teachers had suspected previously, but quite the opposite, Naruto was putting way too much chakra into the clones, causing them to overload and their forms to become unstable due to an excess of chakra filling the required space. This lead to Sirius, the Hokage and Iruka agreeing that both boys should learn more about chakra control as well, allowing Ikura to take them through basic chakra control exercises, starting with balancing a leaf on their foreheads, before slowly adding more. Harry could now balance a total of five leaves, one directly touching his forehead, while the other four floated at small, almost even intervals away from it. He couldn't maintain it for any length of time if he was forced to do something other than concentrate.

Naruto however, could only hold two, and both were touching his forehead. He could move around with them there, almost no problem, but when he tried to add a third, his concentration just started to slip. Harry and Sirius started to introduce Naruto to meditation to try and help him with that issue, Harry being trained in it since he was five due to a secret Sirius said Harry couldn't tell him yet. Naruto felt a bit left out, but understood that clans like the Blacks were entitled to their clan secrets, so he didn't feel too bad about it.

Now though, as Ikura set them a bit of homework to try and think of new traps to use for their next session on Monday evening, all Harry and Naruto could think about was the party that was happening later that night. A boy in Harry's year was throwing a Halloween party to celebrate his parents leaving him home alone for the night. They were both ninja, headed off for a small mission out of town to check up on signs of recent bandit activity. It was likely that they would be home in the morning so they didn't think it necessary to get the boy a baby sitter considering the late hour they were leaving and the early hours they'd be back.

Thus, it was roughly two hours later that both boys were hopping across the roof tops towards an apartment building on the other side of town from where Harry's house sat, Naruto basically living their as a second home since Sirius enjoyed the talk of pranks and what not, telling the boy, in infuriatingly less detail than was needed to understand, some of the pranks him and his friends had pulled in his school days.

Harry grinned as he knocked on the door of his classmate's house, the boy opening the door slowly to try and hide the sounds of other children in the house behind him. "Harry!" the boy exclaimed, grinning broadly. "You came?! Come on in, we're just about to start twister! And Simon said that he might teach us how to play this weird game from the other side of the barrier called dragons and something, or." He trailed off, his eye's falling on Naruto. "What is he doing here? My parents warned me about him, he's trouble."

"No, he's not." Harry said rolling his eyes, "He's just misunderstood, the adults don't give him a chance because he's an orphan or something, and they turn everyone away from him, but he's really nice once you get to know him!" Harry said excitedly.

"But. But. He's the village idiot! He, he makes all those annoying pranks and steals stuff!" the boy retorted, staring at Naruto, then looking at Harry, somewhat confused. "How, how couldn't he be trouble?!"

"I never stole anything!" Naruto said as he heard the boy accusing him. "What do you mean I steal stuff?! I've never stolen anything in my life!"

"See! Naruto's not that bad. I bet your parents just told you that stuff to scare you away from him. He's cool, honest!" Harry said as he put a hand on Naruto's shoulder to try and calm him down.

"Alright. But if anything goes missing I'm blaming you!" the boy said as he glared lightly at Harry before stepping aside with a small grin, letting the two boys in.

Naruto huffed, and blinked, before following Harry into the house. There wasn't a lot of people there, mostly just the young boys and girls from Harry's year in the academy, along with a few older people, what looked like last year's genin teams

The party went on for the next few hours, Harry introducing Naruto to his friends, and the number of games they were playing, pin the tail on the donkey, twister, truth or dare, and Dungeons and Dragons, the game Simon, a previous year's graduate, had brought back from the other side of the barrier.

At roughly ten past ten, Harry and Naruto left, the party dying down as the younger students headed back to their own homes earlier. Harry grinned at Naruto, the younger boy clearly still having the time of his life as they walked onwards, Harry having arranged with Sirius for the blond boy to spend the night at theirs after the party had finished.

The party had gone well in Harry's books, at first there were a few glares and muttered words, but as the night progressed and people managed to see Naruto for who he truly was, and not what their parents told them, they warmed up. It wasn't as if Naruto had made a tone of new friends at the party, but that would take time, now though, there were at least a few people who knew the real Naruto apart from Harry and Sirius.

As they rounded a corner headed along a short cut towards Harry's house, they were stopped by a figure in anbu uniform. "You two are out pretty late?" Came a male voice from behind a white mask, colourful markings in a pattern that sort of resembled an owl's beak. "You should hurry home, who knows what sort of trouble you could get into being out and about at this hour." The man said, reaching into his flack-jacket.

"Yeah. We were, uh, just, headed home Sir. We, were, taking a shortcut." Harry said, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder to stop him from walking forwards. "We're nearly at my house, we'll, just, continue on then?" He said, nervously.

"If you're not too far away, I probably should escort you home, make sure nothing happens to our future protectors." The anbu said, pulling out two small bottles of water. "You two look thirsty. Here." He said as he held them out.

Naruto and Harry took them, nodding and saying thanks as they headed towards the other end of the alleyway, slowly sipping the drink as their Anbu guard followed them. They soon relaxed a little, happily chatting about the party as they drank their water, actually pretty thirsty from the walking they'd done to get this far home.

As they rounded the corner and saw Harry's house at the end of the street their movements became sluggish, and their eyelids heavier. They smiled happily at the thought of sleeping in a comfy bed, their steps slowing down until finally they were asleep not five paces away from the exit of the alleyway.