Me: Right. I know I shouldn't start a new story when I am nowhere near finishing my others but this one won't leave my brain alone till I write it. So hopefully I can crank out some new chapters soon.
Little Harry saw his auntie cradling him in her arms cooing and singing to him, softly. He didn't know why water was coming from her eyes though. She looked sad. He didn't want her to be sad. She was the only one he knew that was nice and soft with him. His uncle was loud, drunk funny smelling juice and swung his arms at him a lot. Though, his auntie always blocked it from him. But why was she sad? He reached out to touch her face. She simply leaned into his touch and gave him a watery smile.
Petunia Dursley knew that her sweet one year old nephew could no longer stay in that house as she enjoyed the comfort of the child and wiped her tears away. She didn't call it her home because it hadn't been her home since she moved in. The man residing in that house was no longer the man she met so long ago. The one who she was proud to introduce to her family. The one who indulged her when he could and treated her like a princess. The one who she wanted a family with. The one she married happily and then changed into a monster after a few months. She would blame the bottle but then when they were out, he always seemed just like he was before, even when he had been drinking. It was just in that house he was someone she had never met before. So no one knew. No one even suspected. Except Lily. Lovely Lily.
Her beloved sister, now gone from the world, leaving her darling son for her to raise. But Petunia knew she couldn't raise her nephew in a house like this. She needed to get away. But where could she go where her husband would not dare touch? The magical world? The only problem is that technically the magical world was off limits to her. She had no magic in her. She had been told so by the Headmaster of Lily's school. She had been devastated of course, she didn't want to be separated from her dear sister. But Lily had to go. Something about it being dangerous for her magical core. But there was a way for her to contact someone wasn't there? Lily had told her of her adventures in Hogwarts and had mentioned some friends. Maybe she could contact them. But how? Petunia racked her head for a way to find out when she remembered. Lily's trunks. They were up in the attic. Vernon had told her to put them up there as he didn't want 'that witch's blasphemous things' in his house. However to get to the attic, she would have to go through the living room and right now, Vernon was in the middle of a drunken stupor. What could she do? If it was just herself she would go, but she had little Harry in her arms. What if he swung at her? There was a possibility of Harry getting hurt. Shifting Harry to one arm, she reached up to her neck to fiddle with the necklace Lily had given her before she had gone into hiding.
"I need help." She thought. Just then, the necklace in her hand started to grow warm. Startled, she dropped it and the warm necklace rested against her collarbone. What was happening to her necklace? She thought about it then grew excited. Was it magic? She started as three pops sounded around her and then three males, albeit one was not of average height, and one female stood before her. Two of the males she recognized as friends of Lily but the female and other male was new to her.
"Severus? Remus? What are you doing here? And who are they?" She asked. Severus just nodded in greeting while Remus smiled and moved forward to embrace her.
"Hello Tuney," Then looked down at the now sleeping form of his honorary pup. "Harry." He placed a soft kiss on his head then moved back slightly. "But where are my manners? Petunia, this is Professor Minerva McGonagall." He gestured to the female. "And this is Professor Filius Flitwick." He swept his hand to the shorter man. Petunia smiled.
"Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick," She nodded at each of them. "Lily has told me about you both. Pleasure to meet you." Both nodded back and returned the greeting.
"Pleasure to meet you as well. Lily spoke fondly of you too. As for why we are here, well the answer is simple. Your necklace." He squeaked. A confused look crossed Petunia's face.
"What do you mean my necklace? All I know is that Lily gave it to me." Professor Flitwick nodded his head.
"That is correct. But what you did not know is that Lily placed several protection charms on it to protect you including a failsafe should you ever be in need of help." Petunia stood staring at Flitwick, processing what he had just told her. It would explain why she never really felt the physical blows when Vernon tried to hit her or why it was always stronger when she stood in front of Harry. It was Lily. Lily had been protecting her. Even from beyond the grave. Tears started to well in her eyes again at the thought.
"But why didn't the failsafe activate when Vernon tried to harm us?" Remus put a comforting arm over her shoulder as he answered.
"Well, for one, you are a stubborn woman and the charms acted accordingly and secondly, the failsafe only activated when you thought you needed help and held the necklace in your hands." He looked at her concerned. "Didn't Lily tell you?" Petunia shook her head.
"Lily gave this to me before she went into hiding so she didn't have enough time to tell me. She only told me not to take it off." Petunia paused. "But it's not all her fault, Vernon was coming home soon and I had to be home when he got there." She looked down at her feet when she said that. Severus recognized that move and clenched his fists. Remus could smell the lie and growled lowly. Lily had told him of her suspicions. McGonagall felt the tense atmosphere at the misdirection so changed the subject.
"Well what do you need help with?" She asked gently. Petunia lifted her head, shook it slightly and righted herself. The others saw the change in her posture and paid attention.
"I need to get away. Somewhere Vernon won't dare come after me. He has a friend who is a P.I. and he could find me in the mundane world. He bragged about him quite a lot. I was thinking the magical world. He wouldn't think to look there and even if he did, he couldn't." McGonagall nodded.
"It is a sound idea. However, the magical world is not safe for you or Harry to live." Petunia started and stared at her in bewilderment.
"It's not? Has something happened? I thought that Lily destroyed the madman."
"Yes she did. Unfortunately, if you attempted to live with Harry in the magical world, he could be taken from you as you are classified as 'muggle' and not fit to raise a magical child." Remus sighed.
"There is also the fact that Lily wanted Harry as far from Dumbledore as possible. She never trusted him with her baby." He let out a small laugh. "I remember when Harry was younger, Dumbledore came over and Lily wouldn't so much as let him be in the same room as Harry. She would level a glare that could melt diamond if he tried." Petunia frowned.
"So then what do we do?" McGonagall sighed.
"It would seem all options are closed to us. If we find you another place to live in the mundane world, even with all our enchantments, you would still have to go out so you could be found. In the magical world, you wouldn't be left in peace and Harry could potentially be taken from you." She sighed. Remus shook his head.
"Not potentially. Will. They call Harry The-Boy-Who-Lived. They consider him their savior. They would want him to grow up in a magical household and you can imagine the fight over who will raise him and who will win." The group sans Petunia nodded. McGonagall rubbed her forehead, frustrated.
"Probably families like the Malfoys or the Parkinsons, or one of the old pureblood families with a lot of money and pull. In any case, that wouldn't be good for Harry." Petunia looked down sadly at the sleeping toddler in her arms.
"So how do we protect Harry then if these are all our options?" Flitwick, who had been quiet for the longest time spoke up.
"Not quite. There is still one option open to us." The group glanced at him in surprise, well in Snape's case, mild surprise. Snape raise a single eyebrow in disbelief.
"And what would that be? We have already explored the possible options available to us. What could we have possibly missed?" He drawled. Flitwick fidgeted.
"Well I can't possibly say here in the open. We would have to go to Gringotts in order for me to explain." That statement got some raised eyebrows all around.
"Well how would we get Petunia there then?" Remus asked. Flitwick's eyes twinkled in a way very reminiscent to the Headmaster and made everyone shudder.
"That problem should sort itself out."
The journey to Gringotts was quiet. They were travelling by taxi to the Leaky Cauldron as it wasn't safe to apparate with a young child. On the way, each person contemplating what Flitwick could reveal while Flitwick himself was worrying the idea over in his head. Quickly going through the pub and to the archway to Diagon Alley, they entered the hustle and bustle of the street. Petunia looked around in awe. This was her sister's world. Luckily, she was in between Remus and Severus as they helped guide her through the streets with her precious cargo, while she looked around in awe. Flitwick, who had been leading the group, glanced back and laughed.
"Come, come! We must hurry. Too many eyes here. We're almost there." And his words rang true as soon enough the imposing white marble of Gringotts could be seen. The wizards simply continued on as they had seen Gringotts so many times before. Petunia, however, could not take her eyes from the building.
"You know, your sister had that same look on her face when she first saw Gringotts as well." She tore her gaze away to stare at Severus.
"Oh! Severus! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to doddle." At that moment, she processed what he had just said. "Wait, did you just say Lily too? Did she really?" He nodded.
"Yes, she was just like you when she first got here." Both took a long gaze at Gringotts before he ushered her inside the bank. Now inside the building, it was even more fantastic. Petunia's eyes roved over the marble, gold, crown molding, wood. But then she saw who was sitting behind the desks and her eyes widened further if possible. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. "Goblins." She looked at Severus and he nodded to the beings behind the desks. "They are goblins. Quite ingenuitive, good with money as well. Also not someone you wish to have as an opponent." Petunia nodded before spotting Remus waving them over to the side.
"I figured you got caught up in the view. So many do on their first time here." He smiled. "Come on, this way. Apparently Professor Flitwick needs to see the bank director, Feldspar, before he'll tell us his idea." They followed Remus through long corridors. Past stone arches and goblins working with scales and precious metals until he stopped before an ornate door at the end of a long well lit passageway. The gold accents shown in the dim lights and figures in reliefs moved across the doors. McGonagall was seated to the side of the doors but rose when they approached.
"Filius went in alone to talk to Feldspar. He says he will come back out for us when he receives an answer." Severus raised an eyebrow.
"And how long will that be?" Remus shrugged his shoulders.
"He had just gone in when I went to get you. So he's only been ten minutes so far. We'll just have to wait while he talks to the director to find out his ingenious idea."
Meanwhile, Petunia had taken a seat beside McGonagall and cradled her nephew to her. She stared down at his sleeping face and smiled. She gently stoked his face and he nuzzled closer to her. McGonagall watched the scene before her with kind eyes.
"I'm glad I was right." Petunia glanced up at McGonagall, questions in her eyes. "I was there when Dumbledore put Harry on your doorstep. I had been watching your house the entire day." McGonagall looked slightly embarrassed now. "I wanted to see who Dumbledore was putting Harry with. Who they were. If they were good people. If they would love him." Petunia stiffened. She remembered that day. Vernon had come home early and decided to kiss his real wife, the bottle. There was always a good side and bad side to that. The good was that he would pass out earlier. The bad was that he was not as easily distracted by the telly. She was shocked out her revere when McGonagall touched her hand. "I'm sorry. I only wanted to say that I can see that you do, in fact, love him." Petunia gave her a small smile.
"It's fine, I-" She would have continued but the door opened and Flitwick poked his head outside.
"Just Ms. Petunia and Harry should come in if you don't mind." He said. The others looked at him slightly confused, though Severus just raised an eyebrow but nodded nonetheless. So Petunia got up, entered the office and saw who she assumed to be Feldspar sitting behind a large wooden desk. Feldspar looked up from the document he was writing on and nodded in greeting to her.
"Filius will explain." He stated before going back to his work. Flitwick gestured for her to sit herself in the chair in front of the desk and she sat down, a little nervous as to why only she and Harry had to come in. He also took a seat but he was seated next to the director. She watched him compose himself slightly before speaking.
"Now, I know that you do not know of my heritage seeing as how you have just been introduced to this world." He paused and watched while Petunia shook her head. "I am a half goblin which is what the beings as well as Mr. Feldspar are." He gestured to Feldspar. "As such, I know much more about goblins than the average wizard is ever allowed to know." He got up and started to pace in front of the desk. "The reason I had to ask permission for Director Feldspar is because what I'm going to tell you is private information of the goblin nation. In actuality, it's not a secret but it is a secret at the same time." He stopped to glance back at Feldspar but Feldspar simply raised his eyebrow, his look saying 'you wanted to do this, you do it.' Flitwick took a deep breath before talking again.
"What many people think is that goblins have different tribes that follow their chiefs. What they don't know is that we do not have chiefs, nor tribes for that matter. We do though, have a King." Petunia stared at him blankly. He looked at her and noticed her confused expression. "I apologize. It's common knowledge in the wizarding world that the goblins are a barbaric race of beings that are greedy and painted as the scum of the earth. It is completely false of course but we let them think like that to avoid hassles. You see, the goblins let the wizards think they had won the so-called 'Goblin Rebellions'. What they did not know was that it was orchestrated by our King in order to gain a better foothold into this world. Before, goblins were treated as little more than someone would consider a common thug or a simple mercenary for hire or a moronic creature to be manipulated. We allowed it as it let us gather information from these wizards without causing suspicion but soon it became harder to gather that data. People were mistreating the goblins working for them so, as a result, the King developed a way to gather information while keeping his subjects safe."
"He thought up the idea to have the goblins 'rebel' as to get a better place in wizarding society and lobby them for equal treatment so that they would be open to the idea of letting us have a bank opened and allowing us to uphold our laws here. That way the wizarding world would still think of the goblins as servants to them but would not harm us and allow us to get better information here." Seeing the question in Petunia's eyes, he answered. "He did not need to change anything in the mundane world as the goblins there do not reveal themselves to the people and only observe. However, there is one instance where the goblins will interact with both worlds no matter what." He paused here, as if trying to find the best way to explain what he wished to say.
"There is a story that is circulated in both worlds. That if a person wished it, the Goblin King would come and take the child you wished away. Never to return. Turned into a goblin, some would say. And it has been passed down from generation to generation but only seen as just that. A story. Something to tell children who misbehave or a way that children would tell their bullies to stop or to torment a child with. What nobody knows is that the story is real. His Majesty takes the children wished away but instead of turning them into goblins, he gives them to others who truly would love the child and cherish the gift given to them. That is why some parents who know the truth willingly wish their children away. Actually, some who don't even know the truth still do because they think a life as a goblin is better than the one they could give them." Petunia sat in the chair wondering why he was telling her this. Yes it was true that Harry would not have the greatest life if he stayed here. Being always on the run or cooped up was no life for a child. So was he suggesting something? Wait, he couldn't possibly be-
"Are you suggesting that I wish Harry away?" She asked quietly, her hold on her sleeping nephew tightened. Harry squirmed a little before settling in her arms again. Flitwick sighed as he sat down beside her.
"It is only a suggestion. A last option at best. I only brought it up because this seems the best possible option for Harry. He would not be hounded by those who wish to harm him for the fall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or those who would want to manipulate him for their own ends and would be safe from your husband." Seeing the contemplative look on her face, he got up and touched her arm lightly. She started out of her thoughts and looked at him. "You do not need to give an answer right now. As I said, it's just another option available to you."
As Flitwick was talking to Petunia, Feldspar saw the crystal ornament of an owl in flight on his desk, glow in one second intervals. He sat up straight and looked around his office. He looked at Flitwick and Petunia talking and cleared his throat. When they looked at him, he spoke.
"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt however my next appointment has arrived." He caught Flitwick's eye and glanced at the crystal owl meaningfully. Flitwick nodded minutely.
"I understand Director, thank you for your help." Flitwick said and ushered. Petunia out. Once the door closed, there was a swirl of glitter and velvet as a regal figure appeared, draped in one of the cushy armchairs in front of Feldspar's desk. Feldspar left his seat to kneel down before the figure.
"Your Majesty." Feldspar said.
Me: So tell me what you think and maybe I'll write more. I got a whole two stories brewing in my head for this so let me unleash it! Maybe now I can write for my others stories too. Mou :(
Jareth: I happen to enjoy taking over your thoughts lovely.
Me: *shivers* Stop doing that! You know what it does to me!
Jareth: *moves to my ear* But it's so fun to watch your reactions.
Me: Oh god. Please review. I have to find Sarah so His Majesty can stop or else I will be a puddle of author goo and no use to anyone!
