Harry Potter and the Golden Sovereign

As told to Ian Postre

Disclaimer: This story is fanfiction. No financial benefit will be gained from the sharing or reproduction of this story. All characters and worlds described are the property of J.K Rowling. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1

Through the swirling and dancing darkness and lightness of dreams, the boy sits astride a broomstick, which is plummeting at dangerous speed towards the swaying trees of a forest. There is nothing he can do to stop the descent towards certain death. All around him are witches on blackened wood broomsticks of their own, diving and darting around the boy as he dives unwillingly downwards. The ground is looming closer now with tree branches sharp as swords waiting to greet him, like bony hands reaching upwards, reaching towards him. There is nothing the young boy can do, although he is a wizard. Every spell he tries seems to hasten the decline, sending him faster towards certain destruction, down, down, down...

Harry awoke with a start. More like a bump really. Something had definitely hit him on the head. Relieved though he was to be awoken from a nightmare, his hand had instinctively moved to rub where he was sure something had landed - right on his forehead, directly on his famous scar, as he had slept flat on his back in his giant bed.

He looked over to Ron who was snoring away merrily, a broad smile on his face, his mouth half open in a drool.

The dormitory was otherwise quiet, the fire had long since retreated to embers which gently flickered in the hardly perceptible breeze that seemed to come from nowhere, yet always blows a hint of life into a dying fireplace. Gentle snores, the occasional sigh from Neville. Otherwise all seemed at peace at Hogwarts.

Ron seemed to giggle silently in his sleep, muttering quietly to himself.

"I wonder what HE'S dreaming about," said Harry to himself, continuing to rub the place on his forehead, which was starting to smart. Whatever it was that had hit him had a sharp edge. He had awoken the very moment he would have crashed into the forest in his nightmare. Another second and...Harry searched around the bedclothes, the sheets and the impossibly heavy scarlet bedspread. The search took several minutes as there was rather a lot of bed to investigate. The fact that there was little or no light to see by didn't help a great deal. Harry was about to give up and go back to sleep when he came upon the offending object.

There it was, something under the pillow, glinting insistently. Cautiously, he picked it up and held it to the bare light of the moon. It was a coin, a polished gold coin, shining as if brand new.

Harry strained his eyes in the darkness to see the detail on the coin but it was no good. There simply wasn't enough light in the room. Reluctantly Harry climbed out of the warmth of his bed and tip toed over to one of the tall windows, gently pulling the curtain back, just enough to let in sufficient moonlight to see the coin more clearly.

It was a sovereign - a gold sovereign. "Queen Victoria" Harry mused to himself. "Victoria Regina... 1868. How strange. Now, I wonder where THAT came from?" Harry looked towards the area of ceiling above his bed but there was nothing except a large cobweb bereft of a spider that had departed its home long ago. No sign of any place that a coin could have fallen from.

"It must have been one of the ghosts." Harry whispered. "Always making mischief."

"Or it might be an apport." Harry jumped nearly dropping the coin. Ron was sitting up, yawning and stretching.

"How long have you been awake?" asked Harry with mock indignation.

"Not long" replied Ron. "But your 'tip toe-ing' is loud enough to wake the dead. So, you've found some treasure, eh Harry? Just 'fell into your lap' did it? Very suspicious if you ask me, wandering around on tip toes at midnight with piles of gold coins under a full moon."

"It's only one coin." replied Harry, holding it up for Ron to see.

"All the same," teased Ron, "Very suspicious, if you ask me."

"As a matter of fact," began Harry, "it DID fall into my lap. That is what woke me up. And as a matter of another fact, it happens to be a half moon. Besides, what is an apport?"

Ron smiled proudly. Being from a large wizarding family he was sometimes able to show himself to be knowledgeable than Harry, particularly where magic or the wizarding world was concerned. Of course, thought Ron, Hermione would know even more, but, fortunately for Ron, Hermione wasn't there! As far as Ron was concerned, Hermione would have given an immediate answer, which would have been far too long and too clever by half. So, at that moment, Ron was the best expert they both had.

"Well," said Ron, with a tone of superiority, "An apport is an object that appears out of nowhere. Well, not exactly out of nowhere, it appears out of 'somewhere', but seems to appear out of nowhere by just 'appearing'." Ron was already confusing himself. "It can be a stone, or a key, or a shell, or a ring. A good magician can use a Summoning spell to fetch or send an object er... to or... from somewhere else and make it appear wherever they want it to appear. My dad is often called in to investigate apports, especially if they've been stolen from Muggles. All kinds of criminals from the wizarding world use them to scare the wits out of them. Not to mention it's a useful way of getting a pen or a pencil if you ever need one."

"Just like when Dumbledore made rose petals fall from the ceiling on Snape's birthday." suggested Harry.

"Not exactly, ...well, I suppose so" said Ron, who didn't want to lose his newly acquired expert status so quickly. "Anyway, what you have there is most definitely an apport. Someone ... or something... has sent you that coin. They meant you to have it, Harry."

"Well why didn't they just send it by owl?" asked Harry.

"Don't ask me!" retorted Ron, becoming flustered. As far as Ron was concerned , definitions were one thing. Explanations were not something a Weasley could cook up just like that in the middle of the night.

Harry continued to look at the coin, this time inspecting the details more closely. He turned it over in his hand and drew in his breath sharply as he noticed the picture on the reverse side of the coin. "Wow... what can THIS mean ?"

"What is it?" whispered Ron, anxious not to wake any of the others.

"It can't be!" mumbled Harry.

"WHAT can't it be?" Ron was getting impatient.

Ron climbed out of bed and joined Harry at the window leaning over his shoulder, straining his eyes to see the reverse side of the coin. "Blimey!" he cried out. Harry looked at Ron, mouth open in surprise. Ron looked at Harry. Ron was first to speak. "It's you, Harry. It's a golden sovereign with 'Harry Potter' engraved on it, dated 1868 !"

"What's all the noise ?" It was Neville who was now sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes.

"Nothing" said Ron. "Go back to sleep, Neville."

By now, Dean Thomas was stirring as well.

And there under the moonlight was a golden Sovereign, dated 1868, with Queen Victoria on one side, looking royal and miserable and, on the other, smiling, waving with his left hand, was an image of Harry Potter himself. His name was engraves in a semi circle around the top edge as well.

"Is it morning? Why is it still dark if it's morning?" asked Neville sleepily.

"Shut up, Neville!" yawned Ron.