Chapter 53

When it was Harry's turn to give his testimony, the truthfulness of his account was called into question by a short woman that reminded him of a toad. She started by stating that no mere child could possibly purchase, let alone tame, an occamy. Harry simply scowled at the woman who dared call him a liar as Hedwig revealed herself upon his prompting; her sudden appearance startling more than a few of the witches and wizards within the chamber as no one had been aware that the occamy had been with Harry the entire time, not even Dumbledore.

The toad woman then immediately attempted to get Hedwig confiscated but Dumbledore intervened on Harry's account as the man had given his permission for Harry to keep the occamy and had applied for a proper license on Harry's behalf as his legal guardian. Something that the bearded wizard had done out of a combination of guilt and hope; guilt because he blamed himself for Harry's terrible childhood and hope that the creature would help get Harry to accept reality. There was also the fact that Harry was not the one currently on trial which forced the woman to back down rather quickly, though she had not done so quickly enough to avoid the Ministry taking the heat for her attempt to 'steal' Harry Potter's familiar and protector from him (the press would be quick to turn the entire affair into a proper scandal).

The rest of the trial passed by in a blur as Pettigrew gave his testimony; or rather, he gave his rather shocking confession to the Wizengamot under the influence of Veritaserum (for the second time, though it would be the first time Harry had heard the man's story). It turns out that the man had framed another man to take the blame for a dozen murders that happened ten years earlier and for betraying Harry's parents to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Harry took that last with a grain of salt; he still didn't believe the story Dumbledore had given him about how his parents had died). Pettigrew had also confessed to faking his own death and hiding himself away as the pet rat of Percy Weasley for ten years so he could keep track of what was happening in the wizarding world.

The rat-man's confession also led to the uncovering of a mass conspiracy to prevent Sirius Black (the man that had been framed by Pettigrew) from receiving a proper trial in which the truth would have been unveiled ten years earlier.

The entire mess would see a slue of changes being made to the current laws and the procedures within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in order to prevent an innocent man from being framed in such a way again. Harry hadn't really paid attention to any of it once he'd given his testimony; aside from making certain that Pettigrew was punished for attacking Hedwig (though the public saw it as the man being punished for his attempted assassination of the Boy-Who-Lived and war crimes against the Potter Family). Upon being returned to the school, Harry disappeared in order to avoid being hounded with questions from the other students regarding the trial.

Two days after Pettigrew's trial, Sirius Black was pulled from Azkaban by order of the Wizengamot, granted a closed tribunal hearing, and promptly found innocent of all charges. Harry wouldn't learn about that until the twenty-second of April, when he was introduced to the man and informed that Mr. Black was his godfather (something else that Harry had trouble believing because it all seemed far too convenient).

In between Pettigrew's trial and the day he would meet his godfather, Harry witnessed his first ever dragon hatching when Hagrid called him down to his hut after supper one evening. It turned out that the man had won a dragon egg in a card game several weeks earlier and because of the interest Harry had shown in dragons and wyverns, Harry and Hedwig had both been invited to the secret hatching. Harry thought it a rather unique experience and wondered what it would be like to face an adult dragon in this world and how such a fight would differ from the seven dragon and wyvern battles he'd faced during his time in SAO.

When the boy and his familiar tried to leave an hour after the hatching, they ran into a slight snag. Norbert, the baby dragon, had imprinted on the first creature it had seen when it broke free of its egg (much like a baby bird) and in this case that had been Hedwig and the little dragon now thought that the occamy was its mother. Hedwig was not impressed. Hagrid was heartbroken; he'd hoped to be the one that the dragon imprinted on. Harry had a headache because he didn't want to raise dragons or any other creature really (Hedwig the only exception); he much preferred slaying dragons and monsters because of the challenge they offered.

On the plus side, because it had been the occamy that the dragon had imprinted upon, the dragon was far calmer than it would have been if it had been Hagrid it had believed was its mother. It was, in a round about way, also an indication that occamies were distantly related to dragons though further research would be needed to prove it. It was a good thing that Hedwig already liked Hagrid enough to willingly stay with the groundskeeper until the dragon accepted the man as a surrogate parent of sorts around two weeks after it hatched.

Harry disliked being separated from his familiar during that time (because she usually helped keep the other students off his back) but he didn't want the dragon to get confiscated because he wanted to study it as it grew; so he could learn more about the dragons of this world (if only to pass the time while he continued his search for a way out of the game).

By the time Harry met Sirius Black (an all around unhappy and unpleasant meeting for everyone involved), Norbert had grown large enough that Hagrid had moved the dragon into the Forbidden Forest (after it had been trained to only eat Bicorns, Bugbears, Gnomes, Acromantulas, and an assortment of non-magical game that lived in the forest). Harry would make it a point to visit the dragon with Hedwig each time he entered the forest to hunt monsters (making certain to feed the growing beast when he visited so that it would continue to recognize him as a friend).

The fact that Harry and Hedwig's presence kept the dragon from going feral and attacking anything and everything (despite its training), meant that the centaurs didn't raise any complaints about the dragon's presence in the forest like they normally would have. It also helped that between Harry, Hedwig, Norbert, and Hagrid's efforts to cut the populations of the more dangerous creatures, the forest was far safer than it had been in years; which meant the other species in the forest flourished after decades of steady decline.

Near midnight on the eighth of May, Harry traveled deeper into the forest than he had previously (the eleven year old hunting a Troll to test his current Skill Level against) and stumbled upon a dying Unicorn. Harry had seen the creatures several times while in the forest but never tried to approach them because he'd always had Hedwig with him and he didn't want to offend his familiar by showing interest in the majestic creatures.

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