Admins, if I have too much 'original text' in a chapter, please give me a warning review/PM with said chapter, and please give me 12 hours to alter it. This will let me remove the questionable material without having to email your support to find out what was wrong and wait a few hours for a response, just to edit the one paragraph that got this story removed.
The reason why this chapter doesn't have a few changes to original text is that trials have a form of speech that is Government Formality. This form of speech, as well as the letters a few chapters back, are going to be almost direct quotes since they're legality phrases, not character quotes. Isn't there muggle laws that say if a courtroom trial doesn't follow the proper procedures of the law, you can have your whole sentence repealed by complaining to a higher court? Can you leave me a review saying whether or not this amount of original text is OK?
The next morning was tense for Harry and Naruto. The trial's date and time were delivered the night before by owl to Harry Potter, and was received by Mr. Weasley. Harry was to be in Amelia Bones office at nine in the morning. However, this didn't sit well with Naruto. Did the owl instinctively know where the secret HQ was, or did the Ministry know Harry was here? Also, if it was to be a trial, why did it sound like it was going to be a simple meeting, like a teacher with a naughty student?
The plan was to leave at 7, wait in Arthur's office, then walk down the hall to the 'trial'. When Harry's friends begged to come along, Mr. Weasley outright refused. Wanting to be helpful, Naruto decided to leave them a Shadow Clone. That way, Naruto could make and dispel another Shadow Clone to relay the news of what happened quickly.
During a hearty breakfast, Naruto got to know a little more about Hermione and Ron. At first, they seemed okay with Naruto. But then Mundungus blabbed that he was "a powerful killer even without a wand." Knowing that, they seemed a little nervous when they talked to him. When it was almost 7, many words of encouragement that only managed to stress Harry out were said, Naruto made the shadow clone, and the trio went down the brick road, off to see the Wonderful Witch of Laws.
A few minutes later, the group and NaruClone were waiting anxiously for the news. Hermione and Ron were the most nervous.
"Don't worry," NaruClone said, "Harry's going to be cleared of all charges, without a doubt."
Skeptical, Hermione looked at... him? it? ... "And how is Naruto so sure?"
Beaming, NaruClone was about to tell them why when a letter came flying through the door. Hermione saw it was for Harry, picked it up, and started reading. Shocked at the contents, she reread it.
"What's wrong Hermione?" Hermione handed him the letter. "... THEY MOVED IT AWAY AND UP! THOSE TWO-FACED RATS ARE USING THE DIRTIEST OF TACTICS TO MAKE HARRY LOOK BAD! I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF THEY HAD A WATCHMAN WAITING FOR HARRY TO LEAVE BEFORE THEY SENT THIS LETTER!" Calming down, NaruClone turned to Harry's friends. "I'm sorry, but I have to let them know about this. I can't let you know how the trial goes."
"I understand," Hermione said. "Tell them. Also tell Naruto thanks for offering to report the trial's results to us early."
"No problem Hermione-neesan." With that, NaruClone dispelled.
"What was that Naruto said, at the end?" Ron asked.
"I read a little bit about Japanese honorifics," Hermione answered softly. "He called me sister. Maybe he isn't such a heartless murderer after all."
"Not bloody likely," Ron said. Only the twins realized the pun he accidentally made.
"Darn it! Mr. Weasley, we need to Apparate now! The Ministry moved the trial! It's now in Courtroom 10 at 8!"
"Eight, you said? Then there's no time to waste! We have to get into the Ministry now!"
The trio ran to the visitor's entrance, rushed through the entry regulations, and hurried towards the lifts. However, many people entered the lifts with them. The lifts were so slow, Naruto started to zone out. After reaching the bottom of the lift, the trio got off and descended the stairs the rest of the way.
"Mr. Weasley, why doesn't the lift go all the way down?"
"Because Naruto, down here is where many Death Eater trials took place." Great, Naruto thought, If we lose, we're going front page, and they'll compare our trial to the last famous trials done down here. "They didn't want the prisoners to escape, so they cut off easy escape points like the lift."
Soon they were outside the courtroom, with minutes to spare.
Alone, Harry entered the courtroom. He seemed to remember this room, from the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office. The room seemed almost untouched since then, and still had the chair with the arm and leg restraints. Carefully, Harry sat in such a way that the restraints couldn't grab him.
"You got our letter about the change of place and time?" Fudge's voice seemed startled, like he didn't expect Harry to be this early.
"No, but my friend managed to let us know about the change after we left the house."
"Very well," said Fudge. "Since the accused is present, let us begin. Are you ready?" he called down to a person with a parchment and quill.
"Yes, sir," said a voice Harry recognized. Ron's prodigal brother Percy was sitting a row below and a little to Fudge's left. Percy's eyes, rather than looking at a former Housemate, remained fixed on his parchment, ready to write down every word spoken.
"Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August..." said Fudge in an echoing voice. With the start of the trial, Percy began taking notes. "...into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.
"Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley..."
"Witness for the Defence, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," said a softer voice from behind Harry, who turned his head to see who it was. Dumbledore was striding slowly across the room, looking the same as a few months past when Harry last saw him. The members of the Wizengamot were muttering among themselves at Dumbledore's announcement. Most of the Wizengamot were obviously upset with Dumbledore, but two elderly witches in the back row waved in welcome. With the arrival of his grandfatherly figure, a powerful emotion had risen in Harry's chest. It was a strong feeling of hope, like the phoenix song he heard before.
"Ah," said Fudge, who looked thoroughly disconcerted at the surprise apearance. "Dumbledore. Yes. You, uh... got our message that the time and, eh place of the hearing had been changed, then?" Harry noticed that Percy had stopped writing, as if he didn't want Fudge to look bad on record.
"I must have missed it,' said Dumbledore. "However, thanks to a lucky mistake, I arrived at the Ministry three hours early."
"Yes. Well... I suppose we'll need another chair. Weasley, could you..." While Percy was getting up, Harry wondered why they'd need a seat for Dumbledore, if they had planned on him being there in the first place.
"Not to worry, I'll take care of myself," said Dumbledore pleasantly. He turned around, brandished his wand, and a comfortable chair appeared next to Harry.
"Yes," said Fudge again, shuffling his notes. "Well, then. So. The charges. Yes."
He extricated a piece of parchment from the pile before him, rolled it open, took a deep breath, and started to read. Harry noted that Percy resumed writing as well. "The charges against the accused are as follows: That he did knowingly, deliberately and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a previous written warning from the Ministry of Magic on a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in a Muggle-inhabited area, in the presence of a Muggle, on the second of August at twenty-three minutes past nine, which constitutes an offence under Paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.
"You are Harry James Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" Fudge said, glaring at Harry over the top of his parchment.
"Yes," Harry said.
"Did you receive an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago?"
"Yes, but..."
"And yet, even with this warning, you conjured a Patronus on the night of the second of August?" said Fudge.
"No."
That one word seemed to startle the whole room. Even Dumbledore looked shocked for a moment, before his eyes twinkled almost dangerously. Fudge nearly fell out of his seat.
"N... no? What do you mean by no?"
"It seems," Dumbledore replied, "that Harry is saying he was not the one to cast the Patronus."
"... Yes... but... how... How could this be?"
"I do not know for sure. But I believe," Dumbedore said, "that my witness, who is waiting just outside the courtroom, can help clear up the matter. Should I..."
"No... Weasley, let the witness in," Fudge commanded Percy, who finished writing a sentence, got up, and hurried past the accused without so much as a glance.
A moment later, Percy returned, followed by Naruto. He had his hands in his pockets, and was smirking. Some members of the Wizengamot were perplexed at his appearance. He had Japanese looks, but had blue eyes and blond hair. When Harry got off the chair, Naruto asked him a question. "So, did you tell them the news?" Harry nodded. "How good were their faces when they got the news?" Remembering the various reactions, Harry grinned. "That good huh? You'd better give me that memory, I wanna see!"
"Only if you promise not to be rude at all to the people in this room."
At that, Naruto paused. Did he want their faces to his thoughts on their behavior more, or their reactions to Harry? "Fine. Take half the fun out of this trip, why don't ya?" With that, he sat down like Harry, and wasn't chained. "Somebody better take a look at these, they don't seem to be grabbing me." Harry, who was sitting in a chair Dumbledore had pre-cast for him, couldn't help but smile at his cheek, and decided to let it slide.
"Full name?" Fudge said, wondering at this mysterious boy.
"Naruto Uzumaki."
"Do you have a middle name?"
"Nope. None at all."
"And who exactly are you?" said Fudge.
"I'm the student of Pa. You may know him as Fukasaku."
"We have no record of a Mr. Fukasaku," said Madam Bones.
"Does his name sound like English?" Naruto asked. "Besides, I don't think you have a record for talking toads. But don't worry, you'll hear a lot about him when his book comes out." At this, many of the surrounding wizards and witches started murmuring. "Do you want my testimony now?"
Fudge looked back down at him, his eyebrows narrowed. "Very well; what is your tailored story?"
"Harry and I had just finished a picnic with Ms. Figg, one of Harry's neighbors, when we saw Harry's cousin walking home. Since it was late, we started to follow him home. However, once the three of us reached a tunnel under the train tracks, it got very cold and the pools of water on the ground turned to ice. Harry muttered 'dementor', and I knew what was happening.
"The first one came from the opposite end of the tunnel. Harry got his wand out and said 'Dudley, duck!' Dudly turned around and saw the wand raised, supposedly at him, when the dementor got him and started sucking."
Hearing this, Fudge got excited. "So Harry DID use the Patronus Charm!"
"Nope. And before I continue my story, I have a quick question. What's the law about Muggles who are already knowledgeable about the wizard world, like relatives of muggle-borns and half-bloods? Are they allowed to see magic?" After a few scattered yeses and general murmuring, Naruto continued "Before Harry could help him, a second and third dementor grabbed us from behind. They pinned us up against the walls and started to suck. I jumped off the wall, pinned my dementor to the opposite wall, broke it's forearm, then kicked it out of the tunnel when it released me. When I turned around, Harry was crawling away from his dementor and towards his fallen wand. Before it could get close enough to Kiss him, I pulled my wand out and cast the Patronus Charm."
"YOU cast the Patronus Charm?" Fudge almost squeaked.
"Yep. I can even control it's size a little. Want me to show you?" After getting a few nods of approval from the Wizengamot, Naruto pulled out his wand and turned to face the side that didn't have any wizards. "Expecto Patronum!"
From Naruto's wand came smoke the colors of light blue, white, silver... and red? The wizards were struck that a Patronus could be red. The smoke came together and became a giant toad. It had a white belly and a blue body with large red swirling stripes. However, unlike the rest of the colors, the red didn't seem to be glowing. The bipedal toad was also wearing a leaf on his head, chewing a piece of straw, and had a vine belt with a bamboo blade.
Seeing this unusual Patronus got the crowd excited. However, Naruto looked at it with embarrassment. Why do his markings almost look like the ones from my Academy graduation photo? Darn you Kyuubi, I know you have something to do with that!
"I'm not admitting anything to you, brat, even if I was the one who caused it!"
When the hullabaloo calmed down and the Patronus disappeared, Dumbledore took the spotlight. "That is the problem with the Trace. Even though it can detect if an underage wizard is around magic, it can't tell who cast the spell he or she was around. As we can see, it wasn't Harry who cast the Patronus that afternoon."
"But it cannot be! Naruto must be lying. If he was there, his Trace would have reported the spell as well!"
"That would be true, if the Trace was ever placed on him." Dumbledore calmly replied. "However, Naruto is both an orphan from a muggle village, foreign, and never had any proper schooling. He never had the Trace placed on him, so he couldn't set of any alarm bells, for this Ministry or the one in Japan.
"If you still doubt his testimony, it should be easy to figure out the truth. If Naruto indeed cast his Toad Patronus, a Priori Incantatem should reveal it. Naruto, if I may?" Naruto pulled out his wand. "Priori Incatatem." Sure enough, the first two spells to appear were two Toad Patroni. "And here's our proof.
"However, something else worries me. Why were three dementors in Little Whinging, where many muggles live, and attack the only wizard has taken residence there, along with his cousin and wizard friend?"
Getting bored, Naruto started playing with his fingers. After a few minutes, Naruto had to get up for Harry to sit in the middle again. Dumbledore reminded them to the self-defense clause of the law, as well as what Naruto said about Harry not revealing magic to a muggle since said muggle already knew about magic. The entire courtroom voted unanimously for Harry to be cleared of all charges. Naruto was surprised, he fully expected Fudge to vote for Harry to be punished anyway.
Dumbledore left quickly and quietly, before either Harry or Naruto could so much as say a word to him. Soon, the Wizengamot was leaving as well. However, before they could leave, Naruto called out "Thank you for this meeting! I had some good laughs."
And with those parting words, Harry and Naruto left the room. Outside, Mr. Weasley was pacing. "Merlin's beard! You boys were taking so long, I thought they were going to punish you for sure! What happened in there?"
The boys turned to each other, and Naruto spoke. "Let's tell you after we get home. I think Hermione and Ron want to hear this just as badly as you, and I don't want to repeat myself."
Now, who saw THAT coming? That was the reason I switched to Ms. Figg's POV when describing the dementor attack, after all. It was either make a short, boring showdown between them that I would have to write down twice, or have this excellent plot twist.
Well, now that you know what Naruto's Patronus is, I want to request a Book Cover. This cover will have Naruto in Sage mode facing front. His robes will be half wizard (left side, no House tie or crest. If you want and tell me, you can wait til he's sorted, update the picture, then mirror it so that the right side with the crest is the Hogwarts side), and half Sage (right side unless you're mirroring to have the House crest, maybe the huge scroll across both sides). In his hand on the wizard side is the wand (clearly the wand and not a kunai. Use textures and round it's edges off), pointed upwards and slightly over his back, where a large Patronus version of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Ronintoadin sits/stands with it's stripes pronounced in Kyubi-red and it's plants blue/white/silver as well. In his other hand is a Rasengan with a similar appearance to Lucario's fully charged Aura Sphere, glowing mist and all (now you see where I got the term Aura from, as well as the mist thing from chapter 1?). The background can be either Konoha's Hokage Mountain or Hogwarts (I don't care if your choice is in a perfectly fine or in a semi-destroyed/under-attack state).
If you can make the above book cover, please PM me or Review me with your Deviantart account. I got one so I can follow people/comics and possibly collect Book Covers.
Admins, if I have too much 'original text' in a chapter, please give me a warning review/PM with said chapter, and please give me 12 hours to alter it. This will let me remove the questionable material without having to email your support to find out what was wrong and wait a few hours for a response, just to edit the one paragraph that got this story removed.
The reason why this chapter doesn't have a few changes to original text is that trials have a form of speech that is Government Formality. This form of speech, as well as the letters a few chapters back, are going to be almost direct quotes since they're legality phrases, not character quotes. Isn't there muggle laws that say if a courtroom trial doesn't follow the proper procedures of the law, you can have your whole sentence repealed by complaining to a higher court? Can you leave me a review saying whether or not this is OK?
Next chapter, the triumphant return to HQ.
Peace out! We're almost at Hogwarts!
AnonymousGX