Happy 1st of December and welcome to the start of 2018's Advent Calendar.
Today's post is a prompt fill, but it's not an advent prompt fill. This anonymous prompt came in when I wasn't updating the blog, but the potential for
crack with this had to be explored.
"I was worried about lack of
drabbles/updates when I saw you updated on fanfic. And now with the
latest chapter read 6 times over, and now I wonder, what if that
excuse was to force Harry to pick another clan heir. And then I
thought, what if he just make hedwig the clan heir. I would love to
see everyone's reaction to such thing. Especially if Hedwig sits in
on meetings."
“You can't make an owl your clan
heir.” Koharu said, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening as she
squinted at Harry.
Thinking about a transfiguration
formula that he could never understand so that he could have a
genuinely confused expression on his face. “Why not?”
“Because she's an owl?” Seated
beside Koharu,
“And?” Harry said.
“How can an owl be a clan heir?”
Koharu asked, the hair pin in her bun glinted as she punctuated her
question with a shake of her head.
Harry shrugged. “Can heads test their
heirs constantly to see if they're a good choice.”
“And?”
“And I was being lax. Just because
there's no one else in the clan, doesn't mean that I shouldn't test
Naruto.” Harry said. “People need reassurance that the clan heir
can take on the clan head's position in the future, right?” When no
one could argued against his logic, Harry continued, “So I decided
to test Naruto. But the only way to make things fair was to have
someone to compete against him.”
“And you chose your owl as his
competition?” Homura asked.
“It's not like I could test someone
from outside the clan. Then I'd have had to adopt them into the clan
or something, and the paperwork for that was intimidating. So I chose
the simpler solution.”
Koharu frowned. “Your owl was the
simpler solution?”
“She was the simplest solution,”
Harry corrected himself.
The three elders were silent for a long
moment but Harry couldn't tell whether it was disbelief or outrage
that kept them so still and silent. Maybe it was humour, something
that they didn't know how to deal with.
“What tests did you use?” Danzo
finally asked.
“Tests to see if he's worthy of being
my heir,” Harry said. “First I had to see if he could survive
tea.”
“Tea?”
Harry nodded and launched into
retelling the events of the first test.
Earlier in the week, Harry had
accompanied Naruto off of Konoha's more travelled streets and under
the tall trees. On the quaint little bridge to the tea house, Naruto
had stopped to gape at the tiger statue hidden amongst the grass on
one bank. and then admire with a sheepish look. Harry had moved him along and said,
“The first test is surviving tea.”
“I can do that,” Naruto said,
confident in his success.
“Without saying a word to the person
you are having tea with,” Harry said with a solemn voice and pushed
Naruto into the tea house where a gaggle of old women sat huddled at
one table. They waved when they caught sight of
Harry. “If they manage to get the secret information from you, then
you fail.”
“What secret information?” Naruto
asked in confusion.
Harry smiled and pushed Naruto through
the door. “If you keep that attitude throughout the tea, then
you'll pass without any trouble.”
Twenty minutes later, Naruto stopped
beside Harry on the bridge, “They kept giving me sweets. I couldn't
stay silent after that.”
After relaying the last of Naruto's
words from that day, Harry waited for his audience to react.
Koharu didn't disappoint. She launched
the first question at Harry. “Your owl passed this same test?”
Harry nodded.
“Can your owl actually talk?”
Homura asked.
“You've never
met Kakashi-san's dogs?”
“What was the secret information that
he was supposed to hide from them?” Danzo asked.
“I told the ladies that if they could
find out what jutsu he was struggling with currently then I'd give
them a discount when they needed to get something fixed.”
When Danzo looked away, the other two
elders shared an unreadable look before Koharu pursed her lips. “What
was the other test you used to decide your clan heir?”
It took all of his self-control to stay
serious as he said, “A rock test.”
Homaru and Koharu shared another look,
and this time Homaru took a deep breath before he said, “A what?”
“I put a bunch of rocks in front of
him and asked him to pick the most valuable.”
“What kind of rocks?” Homura
prodded.
“Whatever I could
find, really,” Harry said. “Naruto picked out the smoothest and
the shiniest.”
“And your owl?” Danzo asked, roused
from his silence.
“She picked the venomous snake egg
that I had painted to look like a stone,” Harry said with a smile.
“Very well,” Danzo said. “Submit
the required papers and the changes will be made.”
“Danzo!” Homura and Koharu
protested.
“A clan needs a sharp heir.”
“Still...”
Two days later, standing at his kitchen
table, Harry opened an official letter that approved the change of
his heir. Naruto whooped in joy and rushed to his room to begin
packing for his upcoming search mission.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I could have gone on with the 'tests',
but I had to get this post up today, so this is shorter than it could
have been.
Polar
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