Posted: 13 January 2015
Last Updated: 13 January 2015
Word Count: 5,427

Summary: [Naruto x Harry Potter] By the age of four, Harry Potter knew he he'd once answered to the name Naruto Uzumaki. Meanwhile, in another part of the country Uchiha Madara decided he wasn't about to waste his second chance at life. And besides, this world looked ripe for the taking.

Parallel: Harry Potter

Phoenix Rising

1.

Uzumaki Naruto died not with a bang, but with a whimper.

He had expected, all those years ago as a loud kid with a love of orange and penchant for attracting trouble, to die in a glorious battle, perhaps saving a city or taking out an evil shinobi. But Naruto did not die in battle. He died in bed, surrounded by family at the age of 183, old even for an Uzumaki and nearly immortal for a shinobi. The average life expectancy of a shinobi was 24, and Naruto was quite proud to say he'd passed that mark back during the days when the number of Great Shinobi Villages could be counted on one hand and clans still made up a large part of the shinobi forces.

Naruto died content and peaceful, happy with his lot in life.

He woke up to harsh lights and pain.

It took him several years before his underdeveloped brain could fully understand the memories it held and, therefore, what had happened to him: He'd been reincarnated.

And so, by the age of four, Harry Potter knew he hadn't always been Harry Potter.

Naruto now lived in Great Britain, a land where there were no ninja, and no wars as far as he could tell. He lived in an odd little house with his aunt, uncle, and cousin—all of whom were terrible people. The desire for family made Naruto stay with them for a few more months before he decided that it just wasn't worth it, especially when they wanted him to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs and only yelled shrilly when he tried to reason with them.

By that time Naruto had already spent a while retraining his chakra coils and had at least a basic mastery over his low-level jutsu, so he slipped out in the middle of the night, placed a henge on himself so that he looked like a young adult version of his previous self, and left without a backward glance.

2.

Naruto spent three months traveling around Europe, northern Africa, parts of Russia, and eventually China before giving up and admitting that this new world likely didn't have any ninja in it. As far as he could tell, everyone still had chakra coils, but they were underdeveloped and no one ever used any chakra. Even when Naruto flared his not-inconsiderable chakra reserves (though certainly smaller without Kurama's presence in this new body) no one came to investigate the disturbance.

There may have been chakra users once, if the old stories about "chi" users and ninja had any truth to them, but another week spent scouring Japan revealed nothing. Even the stories he found spoke only of light-footed assassins and mentioned nothing about controlling the elements.

This wasn't the future, Naruto decided as he stowed away on a plane to the United States of America (and wasn't that amazing; metal birds that flew without chakra!). Japan was closer to the Elemental Nations than anywhere else, but it wasn't the same. They spoke the same language, even though they called it something else, and had a lot of similar myths and customs, but… It was still so different. These people had a different history, and it made them into a wholly different culture.

Naruto was alone in this new world, and the lack of his family—his real one, the one he'd built—felt like a void in his chest. But this body was young and fresh, lacking the myriad of aches and pains he'd collected with age, and he had a huge new world laid out before him, ready to explore.

3.

Naruto was barely five before the first opportunity presented itself. He was back in Russia, having finished his brief world tour and instead just drifting and following whatever caught his interest. It was in a small, cold town that he met Igor, a young man who was drowning his sorrows in liquor and complaining about the boss who'd just fired him.

As Naruto spoke to him their conversation turned to pranks and what Igor would love to do to his boss's office. The years hadn't dulled Naruto's passion for the art of pranking and he promptly went out and spray-painted the office, and added a few harmless traps for kicks. The bucket of water over a doorway prank would always be a classic, no matter what world he was in.

When he returned to the bar the next night, Igor was ecstatic, having already heard about his ex-boss's reaction, and gave Naruto a bottle of quality liquor in thanks. Naruto had no intention of drinking it just yet (his body being still too young, even if his mind wasn't), but it sparked an idea in his mind. Naruto was a ninja, and ninja did missions. There was no reason he couldn't continue this here—and getting paid would certainly be preferable to stealing food and sleeping under the stars like he'd been doing so far.

4.

It had been a long time since Albus Dumbledore had truly felt fear. Dread—he had more than his fair share of that during the war against Voldemort. Dismay and anxiety too. But fear? The kind that made his heart clench and sent shivers down his back? It had been far too long. But Albus felt fear now, and felt it down to his bones.

Arabella Fig didn't know how long Harry had been gone for. The boy was young enough that he hardly ever went outside, so she had no way of knowing when he'd been taken. She had seen a Muggle police car visit Privet Drive when the Dursleys apparently reported the boy missing, but hadn't realized what was wrong at the time. It was only when the wards fell that she came running to Albus and by then it was far too late. It could have taken weeks for the wards to deteriorate to that point.

Worse yet, there was no sign of what had happened, or who had taken Harry. No body was discovered (thank Merlin), no one bragged about their achievement, and every tracking charm Albus tried failed. For all intents and purposes, the boy had vanished off the face of the earth.

Thus, with some reluctance, Albus reported the situation to the Ministry. They had their own wards over #4 Privet Drive and would no doubt uncover the boy's absence sooner or later. There was an immediate panic, of course, followed by Fudge attempting to cover up Harry's disappearance. It wasn't something that could be hidden for long though, and soon most of the wizarding world was in uproar.

The Department of Mysteries was immediately put in charge of the investigation. The first of their tracking rituals failed. The second did as well. As they continued to try more and more options, and continued turning up nothing, the more the fear gripped Albus. His only respite was that the boy likely wasn't dead—just hidden away behind extremely powerful wards (which in the long run could be worse if the kidnappers knew about the prophecy).

And so while the wizarding world mourned the loss of the Boy-Who-Lived, the Ministry scrambled to explain his disappearance, and Albus sat at his desk with his hands folded tightly together, Naruto walked along a beach in California and played in the sand.

5.

It started slow at first, with only a couple jobs here and there, mostly petty things like a scorned spouse wanting him to steal back a piece of jewelry or follow someone to find out if they were cheating. But the more he worked and the more his name spread, the more interesting people started to approach him. Then one day he found himself taking an assassination job on a member of the Russian mob on behalf of a woman whose daughter had been murdered. Generally Naruto didn't like killing civilians, but members of the criminal underground didn't quite count in his eyes, and everything he heard about his target told him that the man was a real piece of work.

It wasn't much fun to kill someone who couldn't fight back, but a man who kidnapped girls off the streets, then raped and killed them? Naruto didn't mind cutting his throat in his sleep.

But then it turned out that the target had been the head of the local mob and his successor was even worse—a slimy young man with known ties to several human trafficking rings. So of course Naruto had to kill him too, and dismantling the slave rings was only a natural progression. Unfortunately, by the time he was done Naruto had a fair portion of the Russia mob gunning for him. He didn't know which of the contacts he had let slip his name and location, but it wasn't a little too much heat for him to continue as he had been.

Instead of putting on a different henge and maybe moving to another part of the country, Naruto decided to head back to England, where he better understood the language and customs (his Russian was passable after so much time in the country, but not yet fluent). He couldn't help but feel that England was his home here. Japan may have been closer to the Elemental Nations, but the differences were stark enough to make him uncomfortable.

But England… Harry Potter knew England, and maybe it could be Naruto's home too.

6.

Hidden Leaf was an accident. Or at least it was to start with. By the time Naruto realized what he'd created, he was more than happy to keep traveling down that path.

It started out with a couple of shadow clones (as most things did). Naruto had set up enough of a network in London so that he had quite a few missions coming in, enough that he needed the extra hands to pull off all the jobs.

As a ninja Naruto had long ago developed a quirk of creating personas for his clones when they were on long-term missions and he did the same now, using familiar old names and appearances to give them depth (but never the names of old comrades; even he wasn't masochistic enough for that). And as business progressed and more people got to know these clones, well, Naruto wasn't sure who first said it, but eventually people starting believing that they were all a part of an organization.

The first time someone asked him about it, Naruto was much too amused to deny it. And when asked for a name, Naruto hadn't even hesitated before saying Hidden Leaf (alright, that was a lie; he considered Akatsuki for half second for irony's sake, but in the end he could never belong to anything other than Hidden Leaf). The full name—Konohagakure no Sato, with all its implications—didn't translate perfectly into English, but it still got the point across.

7.

By the time Naruto turned seven, the name Hidden Leaf was known throughout Great Britain—at least in the right circles. Naruto had more clients than he could count, including a fair number of millionaires, and even the occasional government official. Of course, those deals were always far, far under the table and only taken by desperate officials, but… Well, Naruto was known as a miracle worker and sometimes people got desperate. They were often the most interesting cases; tracking down blackmailers or even gathering some blackmail on occasion.

As a whole, Naruto was careful to keep most of his abilities secret. The sort of things he could do were considered fantastical here, something out of a storybook. Some smaller jutsu could be considered magic tricks, but creating fireballs? Not so much. He already had to be careful to skirt around the law without adding weapons charges to the mix.

It was fun, Naruto thought, getting to build his own little empire. Now that he had a solid base in England spreading out to the rest of Europe was a piece of cake.

This was also where seals came into play. By the age of thirty in his original life he had developed a seal that worked a bit like an electrical transformer, drawing natural chakra from its surroundings to and changing into chakra that could help power the clone it was placed on. As a result the clones could last indefinitely and were much, much more difficult to destroy. The nature chakra seals were perfect for letting clones work across the continent to spread Hidden Leaf to the rest of the world.

(And the telephone network in this world was fantastic for keeping in contact. The things they could have done with that back home…)

8.

Naruto celebrated his tenth birthday in Italy. He had dinner on yacht on the French Riviera, discussing a contract to remove a dictator's regime in Nigeria with an American senator. Apparently they had mining interests in the area and needed…friendlier…access to the region. It was a more interesting job, as far as most missions went, and a lot more involved than his usual work. A part of Naruto was surprised the United States was willing to contact him for it, but it was becoming a more frequent occurrence. As more governments noticed that he skirted on the "good" side of the law (and tended to actually stop crime in the areas he operated in, more often than not), the more willing they were to bend their own rules and hire his services as a universal "fixer".

Already Naruto had part of Hidden Leaf set up as a legitimate defense contractor. He'd also founded a number of other smaller sub-corporations, a number of which were even run by people in his employ rather than his clones.

The majority of his organization was still made up of his shadow clones, but ever since he'd gone global, Naruto had had to consolidate. He had a very strict schedule for how long his clones would last and when he would dispel them so that their memories wouldn't overwhelm his mind or give him a brain aneurism. It was a very real concern, especially in a world without medical ninjutsu.

One such clone was scheduled to dispel that night, after Naruto's dinner. Naruto was looking forward to that one in particular as it was one of the clones he'd sent to start learning more about the computers of this world. Already their technology was beginning to outstrip what the Elemental Nations accomplished in that field, and Naruto could see the potential ramifications of their development—especially some of the new security systems that were being theorized.

But for now Naruto just nodded and smiled as the official across from him laid a few more files on the table. His own side projects could wait a bit longer. This was just starting to get exciting and after years without a real challenge beyond building Hidden Leaf up further, exciting was the best birthday gift he could ask for.

9.

Lucius Malfoy had never considered himself a man who was easily disturbed. And yet, every time he looked at his son, he couldn't quite repress a shiver. At a glance, he seemed like a child—blond hair and blue eyes, a mirror reflection of himself—but the longer Lucius looked, the more uncomfortable he became. His son had the shape of a boy, but his expression, cold and hard, did not belong to a child. He walked too smoothly, gliding over the floor with an unnatural grace, and moved like he had perfect control over every muscle in his body.

Lucius couldn't remember when he'd first noticed that his son wasn't his son. It had started as young as three or four, with the dismissive looks the boy had given him and Narcissa, as though they were below his notice. At first it annoyed Lucius (Abraxas would have never allowed such disrespect under his roof), but he let it slide because of the budding genius that the boy showed, assuming the attitude would pass with time.

But soon Lucius' pride faded, to be replaced with unease. His son was too intelligent, even for a genius. There were too many things the boy knew without an explanation for the knowledge, without having been taught. And then were the other things… The magic that wasn't quite magic, which the not-boy preformed with ease and such horrendous capacity for destruction. Lucius had no pride left now, only apprehension and respectful fear.

By the age of seven, his son was already pulling on Lucius' strings, reaching out through his father to the other Death Eaters and political contacts, weaving a web that Lucius could barely begin to understand.

"The world is always at war," the not-boy said when Lucius cautiously approached him. "Even your society, hidden as it is, consistently tries to tear itself apart. Someone has to bring peace. You may not have the bijū, but your power is malleable and versatile. With the right application of force, it will be an acceptable alternative."

In the beginning a small part of Lucius, and his comrades, had wondered if this was their lord, miraculously returned. But such notions were quickly stamped out. Blasphemous though it felt to think it, Lucius' not-son was so much more than the Dark Lord had been, even at the height of his power. Some of the things they had seen in the years since the not-boy had begun building up a power base… It was like Merlin's return. Who else could raise mountains or call down fire from the sky?

The not-boy didn't look up as Lucius entered the study. Lucius paused for a moment before the large, claw-footed desk (which had once been his great-grandfather's, but no was no longer even his; the not-boy had commandeered the study, along with most of the Malfoy estate), hiding his unease behind an expressionless mask and steady hands, as always. Narcissa fled to their summer house in France years ago under the guise of an extended vacation, unable to tolerate the boy that was not their son, but Lucius had stayed. For better or worse, he would see the not-boy's plans out to the end. And maybe he would even be able to achieve what the Dark Lord never could.

Opening his mouth, Lucius began to say Draco, but then swallowed the word. The not-boy had rejected the name almost as soon as he could speak, and only deigned to be called it in public, when keeping up pretenses about being Lucius' son.

"Madara," Lucius said instead, "Unspeakable Croaker is here to speak with you."

The not-boy hummed and still didn't look up from the correspondence he was writing. "Thank you, Lucius," he replied. His voice was too deep and smooth for the mouth it came from. "Please lead him into my study."

Lucius inclined his head and backed out of the room. If he walked a little more quickly than was strictly necessary, well… He had thought once that he feared the Dark Lord. Now he knew that even if the man did return, he would never fear him again.

10.

Kingsley wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting, but the penthouse floor of a high-rise in downtown Muggle London wasn't it.

When the Hogwarts' Quill of Acceptance, created by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, had written out an address for Harry Potter, the Ministry had been ecstatic. It was the first break concerning his whereabouts that they'd had in six years, and the first spell to actually track his location. Immediately a squad was put together, comprised of Aurors, Unspeakables, and hit-wizards. They were ready to storm the given address and take back the Boy-Who-Lived.

So, no, a Muggle flat was not what Kingsley had expected. There were no wards around the building, though one of the Curse-Breakers with them did report a strange energy in the air. Beyond that, there were no signs of magic at all.

Taking a steadying breath, Kingsley gestured for the rest of his (disillusioned) squad to spread out along the hall. Then he knocked on the door.

There was a long minute of silence, long enough for Kingsley to tense, before the door was opened by a man in his mid-twenties. He has messy, bright blond hair, blue eyes, and whisker-like marks on his cheeks. He wore loose pants and a white t-shirt, and he yawned at Kingsley, rubbing his head while blinking blearily into the hall.

"Yes?" the very Muggle man asked.

Kingsley's mind raced. Had they been duped somehow? Had the Quill of Acceptance made a mistake, or been tricked?

"Ah," Kingsley said after a too-long moment of staring, during which the blond man's eyebrows steady climbed up his forehead. "My apologies. I am Kingsley Shaklebolt with the Ministry of Justice. I am looking for Harry Potter. Is he here?"

The blond man gave him a long, slow, confused blink, then abruptly his expression shuttered.

"He's not in at the moment. Would you like to step inside and tell me what this is about?"

Kingsley hesitated for just a second before plastering a pleasant smile across his face. Nodding, he stepped into the large entryway, lingering for just long enough to let several invisible members of his team inside after him. The blond man (and it didn't escape Kingsley's notice that he hadn't given a name yet) closed the door after him then gestured toward one of the chairs in the living room. Though Kingsley sat, the blond kept standing, leaning up against a bookshelf with his hands held loosely at his sides.

"So," the man began, "You're from the Ministry of Justice?"

"Yes, Mr…?"

The man grinned, flashing two sharp canine teeth. "Naruto Uzumaki."

An unusual name. Asian, perhaps? The man looked like he might have Asian ancestry, other than his bright coloring. "Mr. Uzumaki," Kingsley said with a smile and an inclination of his head. "Harry Potter was reported missing by his guardians six years ago, but he was reportedly seen coming from this penthouse recently. I was sent to find out what had happened to him and where he is now."

Naruto raised an eyebrow again. "Interesting," he murmured with a small smile that swiftly grew into a full-blown grin. "So you tracked him down here and you want to, what, send him back to his relatives?"

"Ah, no," Kingsley said with a wince. He was one of the very few people who were aware that Harry Potter had been neglected by his relatives, and had even seen the cupboard under the stairs in Privet Drive #4 himself. "We are aware of his…less than ideal home life. We simply want to ascertain his location before we take any further action."

If this man knew about the Dursleys, then he had definitely been in contact with the boy. Was he perhaps a concerned Muggle who had taken the boy away from his neglectful guardians, an informally adopted him? It seemed like a ridiculous notion, and yet… They'd come her expecting a wizard to be holding the boy captive, and apparently gotten the opposite. That didn't explain what forces had been hiding Harry Potter from their spells though. Kingsley would have to wait until he actually saw the boy before postulating anything else.

Again Naruto said, "Interesting. So not only was someone able to recognize Harry enough to 'report' him, but he was important enough for the government to send out an agent to investigate. You're not from the Department of Justice, that much is obvious, so then… This must be about Harry's abilities, isn't it?"

Kingsley stiffened before he could stop himself. "Ah," he said, and then relaxed. "Yes. My apologies for the deception, but there are certain…laws involved. I am an Auror with the Ministry of Magic. Harry Potter is…special and his location is very important to us. Where is he now?"

Naruto smiled broadly, blue eyes twinkling in a manner that was rather reminiscent of Albus Dumbledore. "Isn't that the question," he said with a chuckle. "Alright, let's clear the table, shall we?"

With an audible poof of smoke, Naruto disappeared. In his place stood a boy with black hair and green eyes. He lifted a hand and waved his fingers while grinning mischievously.

Clamping his jaw shut to prevent any more of his shock from showing, Kingsley stared at the boy, who could only be Harry Potter. But that level of controlled accidental magic was impossible. It could explain how he'd hidden for so long, but…

"It is nice to meet you, Mr. Potter," Kingsley said slowly.

Harry smiled and threw himself down into the nearest chair. He stretched out it, managing to look languid rather than haphazard even though the chair nearly swallowed his small form.

"Aren't you going to introduce your friends as well?" Harry asked.

Kingsley started at that, his gaze flickered over to the seemingly empty space where other members of the team stood. "How did you…?"

Harry laughed. "It's a very good trick," he said. "I wouldn't have noticed if they had been a little quieter. Also…" He pointed to the floor nearby, where there was a faint impression of footprints in the plush carpet. "If I had hardwood instead, I might have written off the noise."

Kingsley sat back with an amused hum. He raised a hand and, after a second of hesitation, the four wizards who had followed him inside dropped their disillusionment charms. They stood around awkwardly for a moment, then shuffled forward to stand behind Kingsley.

"This is Abel, Gawain, and Crawford. We wanted to be prepared; we had no knowledge of what kind of situation we were walking into," Kingsley said.

"Don't worry about it," Harry said, giving them an appraising look that was out of place on a child's face. "You must have thought he'd been kidnapped or something, right?" He kicked his legs up over the arm of his chair. "So, magic?"

11.

They called it magic, but it wasn't, not really.

It was pure spiritual energy, as far as Naruto could tell. These people—wizards, they called themselves—either didn't or couldn't use raw physical energy and as a result couldn't mix the two together so that chakra could manifest outside their bodies. Amazingly enough, they got around this by using a focus that was naturally in tune with their chakra signature to draw out and manually manipulate the spiritual energy. It was fascinating and unlike anything Naruto had seen before, even back home. It was no wonder he'd never come across any hints of them on mission; they hid themselves away so completely that nothing but legends of their existence remained.

Kingsley had told Naruto as much as he could about the wizarding world and who Harry Potter was to them. It was almost like being a reverse jinchūriki, Naruto mused. He'd saved their world and they loved him for it, instead of reviling him. It seemed he couldn't get away with being anonymous in either life.

Kingsley also told him all about how they had found him and what Hogwarts was. He hedged on whether or not Naruto was expected to attend. No doubt this Ministry of theirs had many, many questions for him first.

12.

The Ministry of Magic was located deep underground, hidden from the eyes of those they called "Muggles". Naruto was fascinated as he was led through it, deeper into the building. Their whole society was fantastical and so vastly different from shinobi culture. There had been a war recently, Kingsley had said, the one that killed his birth parents here, but even it seemed mild and tame compared to what Naruto was used to.

Naruto was taken into the bowels of the Ministry, down into something called the Department of Mysteries. There they ran him through a battery of tests that mostly involved a lot of people waving sticks around him and muttering to themselves before finally confirming that he was indeed Harry Potter. Then a nice middle-aged witch—who was clearly a social worker of some kind—sat him down and asked him a bunch of questions about where he had been for the past few years. Naruto cheerfully told her about how he had taken on missions to help people (he left out any mention of assassinations or working in other countries though; even as amusing at this whole situation was, he knew that wouldn't end well).

He slept in some kind of med bay that night. Or he thought that's what it was; there was a woman in white who did more wand waving at least. The next morning he was shuffled back down into the Department of Mysteries and into the office of a bald older man dressed in heavy robes. This wizard didn't insist on shaking his hand like most of the others, thankfully, but did lean forward over Naruto with a fervent gleam in his eyes, which was equally disturbing.

"How did you preform magic?" the man demanded.

Naruto smiled while glancing around the office, noting the numerous bookshelves filled with ancient tomes. The walls that weren't covered in bookshelves or filing cabinets had shelves cluttered with weird devices that gave off enough energy to make Naruto's skin tingle.

"I didn't use magic," Naruto replied distractedly. "I used chakra—a mix of spiritual and physical energy. Your magic is just spiritual energy."

The man's entire face lit up. "Can you show me?"

"Sure," Naruto said with a shrug. He formed a hand seal and layered a henge over his body that mirrored the man's appearance.

"Fascinating," the man breathed. He quickly started to circle Naruto while waving his wand and muttering to himself. "Wandless and near-instantaneous, with very little energy build up—"

Naruto tolerated the examination with patience built up from babysitting many, many grandchildren. He was curious about what these wizards would uncover, as well as what information he could obtain for himself. This had always been the type of infiltration Naruto was the best at: straight forward and upfront, walking in the front door with a smile. By letting them use magic on him Naruto could learn more about what their magic was capable of and how he could counter it.

"—possibly similar to runic energy—" the man continued to ramble. "I wonder if you can replicate it with a wand…"

Naruto perked up at that. "Yeah! That sounds cool!"

He couldn't, as it turned out. That evening the man—Merryweather, he finally remembered to introduce himself as—took him to a specialist, who took them to a room filled with hundreds of long, thin wand boxes. Naruto was instructed to try waving the wands, to see which one would react to him.

None of them did.

Naruto pouted, disappointed, as he waved stick after stick but got no results. He could feel that they weren't just normal wood, but their energy refused to connect to him. Naruto huffed as he dropped the last wand back into its box. The wand specialist hand a rather constipated expression on his face, but Merryweather looked ecstatic and almost immediately began to muttering to himself again.

13.

The next morning a rotund man with a pinstripe suit came to see Naruto.

"Harry, my boy!" he said with quite possibly the brightest smile Naruto had ever seen. "I hear you've been causing quite the commotion!" He chuckled to himself. "I'm Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. It's good to meet you, very good."

Naruto gave him a bemused smile while Fudge shook his hand energetically. Fudge continued to spout off a truly staggering number of platitudes, which mostly concerned asking after Harry's health and comfort.

"Terribly sorry for all of these silly adults poking at you," Fudge said, making no mention of why it took him two days to come see Naruto. "We'll get out of here soon enough, no worries about that, and—"

The other witches and wizards immediately began to protest, and Naruto frowned as well. "I don't mind," he said with his best wide-eyed, childish expression. "It's fun down here."

"Yes, well," Fudge faltered.

He was then was quickly pulled away by Merryweather, who blathered on about all the discoveries they'd made so far, and how important their studies were, and how, "He doesn't mind, see?"

Politics and research, Naruto thought. It wasn't very different from his world. Granted, Naruto was glad that Fudge didn't want a child experimented on without consent, but he very much doubted that morals were Fudge's motivation.

o-O-o

A/N: This is an idea I've been vaguely working on for a couple of months, but didn't actually sit down and start writing until recently. This is as far as I got before I started losing inspiration. It's written in a drabble format, which means lots of exposition with only a few scenes fleshed out with full dialogue.

SR