Gringotts

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

/Telepathy/

[[Parseltongue]]

**Private thoughts**

(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)

July 2, 1992 Potter Castle and Gringotts

Harry figured he could be forgiven for waking at the crack of dawn. Especially given the day's plan. Doubly especially the plan for breakast. He was looking forward to that probably more than was healthy. Evidently the whole pranking thing actually was genetic ... or catching, and he got infected by Sirius, one of the two.

And obviously, he wasn't the only one looking forward to this, because when he stumbled out of his room, Sirius was already in the family room, looking a bit bleary-eyed but also anticipatory ... and so were the twins. Which Harry found hilarious because they didn't even know what they were anticipating.

"No Hedwig?" Sirius asked, noticing the lack of owl on Harry's shoulder.

"She's still asleep." Harry admitted. "I didn't want to wake her."

"Fair enough, especially since it's only about five in the morning." Sirius said. "We may as well get some of the mail dealt with while we wait for a somewhat more normal hour. I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of waking Snape up ... " Sirius trailed off.

The twins shuddered. "Not a comforting thought." Fred said.

"He's grumpy enough when he's woken on his own and gotten some tea in him." George agreed.

"What he'd be like rousted out of bed early, we'd rather not find out. Yet."

So the boxes were gotten out and the four of them sorted mail until they heard Remus moving about in his room about an hour and a half later. By then, both Hedwig and Hissesh had waken and come out to join the twins, Harry, and Sirius.

Remus laughed when he came out of his room and spotted them. "How long have you four been up?" He asked.

"Since about five for me." Harry admitted. "But these three were already out here by then."

Remus laughed again and shook his head, then headed for the bathroom.

Severus swept out of his room a few minutes later, and into the bathroom by his room, without so much as looking their way. Harry was amused to see that even his nightclothes were black. Severus seemed a bit less grumpy when he came back out of the bathroom, and also more awake. He gave the gathering in the far corner a jaundiced glare.

"And what." He demanded. "Have you two miscreants been up to, so early in the morning."

"Nothing, Professor." The twins chorused.

"Just helping Harry with his backlog of mail." Fred said.

Severus gave the two of them a long, suspicious look, then evidently decided that they were either sincere, or to let it drop for the moment. Just then Remus came out of the second bathroom.

"Good morning, Severus. Now we're all up, I think we'd best get breakfast. There are some things we need to talk over once we're all fully awake."

Severus turned on his heel and stalked for the stairs, clearly still not awake enough to pretend to be human. Harry stalled long enough for everyone else to get moving, then glanced over at his parents' portrait. James was the only one there at the moment ... Harry sort of figured that Lily had still been hanging out in Severus' room. From the sounds of things, they'd had a lot to talk about.

"Would you go find them, and ask them to head for the family dining room?" Harry asked his father.

"Sure thing, kiddo. And I'm going to be heading down there myself. Ought to be entertaining."

"James Potter, you leave Severus be." Lily demanded as she slid into their portrait. She also gave James a swat on the arm.

James pouted at her. "I have been! I didn't even try to talk to him yet! You can't blame me for wanting to see their reaction!"

Harry snickered. "You really can't, mum. It's going to be funny. I'm not even sure which of the three's going to be more entertaining."

Lily huffed, then glowered a bit before relenting. "I guess I can't." She agreed. "It isn't exactly the normal sort of news, is it? You'd better get going, Harry ... they're going to be waiting for you as it is."

Harry nodded and scurried off, an amused Hedwig flying in his wake.

Harry decided to wait until after everyone had eaten to break the news ... the last thing he needed was one of the three choking on a bite of food or something like that. Once they'd all eaten their fill, Severus sat back.

"Now, Mr. Potter, would you kindly tell us what you have on your mind? You've been twitching and staring all through breakfast."

Harry blinked, startled, then laughed. "All right."

He instantly had the twins' full attention. Sirius sat back in his own chair, cup in hand and near his mouth, probably to hide the grin Harry was fairly sure he was sporting.

"You guys remember when I told you about Hogwarts being alive and talking to me?" Harry asked. "Well ... I kind of didn't tell you the whole truth. There was a reason she picked me to start talking to. It turns out, I really am a Gryffindor. Literally. His heir, actually."

There was a long moment of silence from the twins and Severus, finally broken when the twins let out ear-splitting whoops and high-fived each other before collapsing in laughter. Severus seemed to content himself with a pained expression and pinching the bridge of his considerable nose.

"I should have suspected, as interested as the castle has been in your welfare." Severus groused. Then glared. "And explains much about your father."

"Actually, he didn't know." Harry said. "See, according to my ... sources ... Godric and Salazar were actually good friends. It was Salazar's son and namesake that was the nutter." Harry said. "Godric, Salazar, and Helena fought the idiot. Rowena'd died by then. The nutter was killing as many of the Founders' relatives as he could get his hands on, because he knew the castle was alive, and could be controlled ... at least back then, she's developed enough now that it's not true anymore ... by them and their heirs. Godric's eldest grandson, and the future heir to the Gryffindor name, faked his death, and with the help of Godric, Helena, and Salazar, he and his children were ... hidden. All evidence that Gryffindor had existed prior to Godric was wiped out, both in the magical world and the Muggle one, turning Godric into a guy who came out of nowhere and had no known heirs. It was Potter what'd been around since the dawn of time, and all that."

"Which deprived Salazar's son and his descendants of a target, and kept one of the other Founder lines alive to protect Hogwarts, if it became necessary." Severus said, as if he'd put the pieces together. "But if your father did not know, then somewhere along the line, the knowledge was lost to the Potters. The question becomes, how did you discover it, and why did Hogwarts not speak to your father."

"Well, she didn't talk to him because she'd fallen asleep." Harry said. "After a while, people forgot that she was sentient, and started treating her like just a normal building. With no one to interact with, she just ... dozed off. She knew there were heirs in the school, but she'd given up on trying to contact them. It was only when I walked in, wearing the Head of House ring that she tried again, as the ring is evidently linked to Hogwarts somehow."

Harry glanced at the nearest portrait, which was, at least for the moment, devoid of any people, then back over to Severus and the twins. "It also means we have access to ... well, a lot of information. From what I've been able to figure out, the library here, and what's in the Potter Vault, goes back ... well, a really, really long time. Maybe as long as there's been the written word, even, as I saw more than a few scrolls in the vault that did not look like they were made of parchment."

Severus was not, by any means, slow on the uptake. "Which means the chances of finding a solution for getting rid of the Mark is that much greater. Especially when combined with the persons in the various portraits here. Lily ... " There was the slightest hesitation and catch in his voice when Severus said her name. "Said something about having some spectacular minds here."

"You could say that, lad." And amused-sounding Godric said from the portrait Harry had glanced at a few moments before. "You could definitely say that."

Severus blinked at the portrait for half a second, then nodded respectfully. "Godric Gryffindor, I presume?"

"Indeed lad. And I think you might know my companions as well." And then the other three Founders walked into the portrait.

Severus nodded respectfully again. By then, the twins had managed to pick themselves up off the floor and quit laughing, though they hadn't been able to stop grinning like fiends yet. They both echoed Severus' nod, eyes glittering.

"Can we come to Gringotts with you?" Fred asked.

"Dunno if we can actually go in the Hogwarts vault, but even seeing it from outside would be brilliant." George said.

"Actually, as students of the school, you'll be able to enter." Godric said. "Especially in the presence of an heir ... or the Headmaster, but since there technically isn't one at the moment, according to Sirius and Remus ... "

That made the twins start laughing again. "We had such fun pranking him." Fred said.

"We even left some stuff with the bravest of the house-elves, to continue our work for us until we get back." George told them.

"No rest for the wicked, as they say. And he's definitely wicked." Fred said.

Godric shook his head in amusement and glanced over at Salazar. "I do believe I agree with Sirius ... the Hat clearly went senile sometime in the last thousand years. The pranksters used to all go to your House."

"I told you the Hat was a bad idea." Salazar grumped, though from the twitching at the corners of his mouth he wasn't anywhere near as grumpy as he sounded. "But no, you had to decide an idea you came up with in a drunken stupor was a good one and carry through with it. I'm not entirely sure you were actually sober when you started the enchantments. It would explain so much."

"Like you had any better of an idea?" Godric asked. The grin on his face was a bit more blatant than Salazar's.

"Boys, don't make us break you up." Helga said, with the weary air of someone who's said something along those lines very frequently.

"Taking away all our fun, Helga?" Godric asked.

"Saving what remains of our sanity." Helga said. "Someone has to keep you two in line, or you'd end up pranking the whole of the world, left to your own devices. Boys." The last word was accompanied by a half-annoyed hand-wave.

The twins and Harry were laughing by that point, thoroughly amused at seeing the Founders act like they were 'real people', rather than the venerable, wise stick-in-the-muds they were frequently portrayed as in history books.

Eventually, they got themselves straightened out and cleaned up and ready to head for Diagon Alley and Gringotts. Sirius grabbed the library ledger, so they could snap up any books not already in the castle's library.

Their arrival at Gringotts turned quite a few heads. Not that Harry really blamed anyone. He and Sirius were in semi-formal robes bearing their family crests, and Remus was wearing his 'servant's robes' with the Black crest on them, since they were going to be out and about among potentially unfriendly people. Especially where Remus was concerned. Harry frowned. He rather strongly suspected that Sirius planned to abolish the anti-werewolf laws at the first opportunity ... and Harry hoped to be able to help with that, because it was horrifically unfair to people like Remus, whose only sin was to have been victimized by an out-of-control monster.

Severus was wearing his normal black ... with one small difference. On the breast, where a family crest would otherwise go, there was a crest that proclaimed Severus' status as a Potion Master, a gold cauldron (with stirring implement visible) with curls of smoke rising from it, above a crossed wand and knife. The twins were wearing new robes that Severus had purchased for them shortly after they officially became his apprentices, bearing the crest that marked them as such, a bronze cauldron.

As with Remus, being Severus' apprentices gave the Weasley twins a certain amount of protection, as a Master had primary responsibility for his apprentices. If the twins did something wrong, their punishment was decided by Severus, not the victim or any judiciary body the victim might bring their complaint to.

**Not that that ought to comfort the twins** Harry thought. **Because Severus is a right devious bastard, and any punishment he'd cook up would doubtlessly make them long for Azkaban as a more lenient punishment**

At any rate, their group of six moving together like that, drew a lot of eyes as they walked through the Alley and into Gringotts itself.

The first hint of something odd going on that they got was when a goblin approached them, rather than them having to head for one of the lines.

"Zartank will see you now. Follow me please."

They all exchanged looks before Sirius shrugged and followed the goblin to Zartank's office.

Harry wasn't entirely sure, but he got the feeling that Zartank was pleased to see the lot of them. Certainly, he was prepared for all of them, as there were six chairs in his office.

"I apologize for redirecting you, as I am sure you had other business to attend to here, but there was something I had need to speak with you of." Zartank told them. "Something that could not be spoken of before now, as the danger was too great."

That had all of them looking at each other in alarm. Severus eyed Zartank suspiciously. "Of what do you speak?" He demanded.

"Prophecy, gentlemen." Zartank said, ignoring the flinch the word got from Severus and Harry both. "Not all prophecies are incomprehensible muck. There were, in fact, two prophecies made about Harry. One by Sybill Trelawney ... and one by her ancestress, the far more reliable Cassandra Trelawney. And where Sybill spoke in riddles, Cassandra was far more clear. Sybill left only 'this kid can defeat Voldemort' behind, more or less. Cassandra's prophecy told how to do it."

Well, that definitely got him their full attention. Zartank quoted the longer prophecy in full, then gave Harry an amused look. "It pleases me to see that you seem to have begun to assemble the Pack already." He said, then nodded towards Remus and Sirius. "The werewolf and dog." He pointed to the twins. "Mischief's Heirs." Then Severus. "The snake. Or so I have come to believe. The cat, I am sure, is McGonagall, and there is only one contender for Goblin's son ... Filius Flitwick, the only wizarding family to have goblin blood in their veins."

"Which leaves the fox, bear, tigress, and house elf." Severus said. Privately, he agreed with Zartank's interpretation of the prophecy. "And no clue whom they might be."

"My thought was they might be contemporaries of Mr. Potter." Zartank said. "Friends of his, or people who will become friends."

"Hermione and Neville!" Harry said. "I bet I even know which ones they are. Hermione's smart, like a fox."

"And Neville is solid like a bear." Remus said with a nod. "Which leaves only the tigress and the house elf a mystery. It even gives us a timeframe for when Voldemort will be defeated."

"But twenty-four years from now is a long time, Remus." Harry did not look at all happy about that idea.

"I believe the prophecy is counting from Voldemort's first rise to power." Zartank said. "Which would put his final defeat sometime during your fourteenth year."

"That makes sense ... that's when he'd be able to step up as Head of the Potter family." Sirius agreed. "When he'd have access to ... well, certain things that have been linked to the Black and Potter families for a very, very long time."

"You speak of the takeover ritual." Zartank said.

"Yeah. Among other things, but as bad as the wizarding world has gotten, I have a bad feeling it'll come down to the ritual." Sirius said. "We're not just dealing with Voldemort after all. We're dealing with Dumbledore too ... and the damage he's done."

"Very true." Zartank agreed.

"I think I even know what the 'power he knows not' is, now." Harry said. "It's Hogwarts. Somehow." He glanced at Sirius. "She likes me."

"You are Godric's Heir, you mean." Zartank said. "I am sorry we did not tell you before, but we were forbidden to speak of it unless the Potter we were talking to was aware of their ancestry."

That got him a few looks before the adults shrugged. A goblin would never even think of breaking an oath once it was given, and they knew that ... it was part of why goblins were used as the wizarding world's bankers, aside from their uncanny ability to turn a profit.

"You have access to things Voldemort doesn't. And he can't know you're an heir, not with the magic that was done to hide Godric's line." Remus said at length. "It's just a question of how, exactly, Hogwarts plays into things."

"Well, this makes checking out the Hogwarts vault that much more imperative." Sirius said. "For all we know, the answer is tucked away in there."

"What if Dumbledore figured it out?" Fred asked.

That made everyone look at him. "What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"It'd explain why he's being so ... well, him." Fred said. "If he suspected. As alluring as having one of the Founding Families under his sway must be ... having a Founding Family that also controls Hogwarts under his power ... "

Harry nodded. "Especially when he sort of seems to think of Hogwarts as his little kingdom. Mum and dad thought of that, once they'd hidden under the Fidelius and had time to think things out."

"And it explains his interest in and blatant favoritism of your father, as well." Severus said, looking more sour than usual. "Trying to curry favor with someone with that much potential power."

"Except James never fell for it, really." Sirius said. "Oh, he looked to Dumbledore as a leader, but never to the extent a lot of folks do. And then the whole mess with the second prophecy happened, and Harry more or less fell into his lap ... completely defenseless and entirely unknowing of who and what he was. And Dumbledore ran with it. Could have gotten away with it, too, if things had happened a little differently."

"He didn't seem to be showing any signs of worry that Harry knew about Hogwarts, though." George pointed out. "Even after Hogwarts herself started giving him hell."

"Probably because he thinks I'm still in the dark ... that I figured out about being a First Family, but not about Hogwarts. That and he probably doesn't have a clue that Hogwarts is sentient and acting on her own. That she's stripped him of his position, more or less, and that McGonagall is running things behind his back, now." Harry gave a bit of a grin at that. "After all, I'm just a little boy, and Hogwarts is just a building."

"Point." Sirius said.

"I will delay you no longer." Zartank said at that point. "Griphook will take you to whichever vaults you need to visit."

"Five of them." Sirius said. "The Black money vault, the Black and Potter valuables vaults, the Snape and Hogwarts vaults."

"Very well." Zartank waved his hand in an odd pattern, and a few moments later, Griphook arrived.

The six of them packed into two carts that had been linked together, and took off. Their first stop was at Severus' vault, which proved to be about the size of Harry's trust vault, and about as well-populated with galleons. Harry was impressed. He'd learned that Severus hadn't had much when he'd stepped foot into the wizarding world, so the money in the vault was what Severus had earned since he'd graduated. That it equaled what had been provided in Harry's trust vault (or nearly so) was a quiet testament to Severus' skill both at potions and at money husbandry.

Severus withdrew enough to cover the summers' probable expenses, and they headed for the Black money vault, which was of a size with the Potter money vault, and as well stocked with galleons. Sirius pulled out quite a sum, and then they headed for the other vaults. The first stop was the Black vault.

For the first time, Sirius spoke directly to Severus. "Snape, you and Remus come with me. This thing's up to the rafters in dark arts stuff, and I don't want to accidentally grab something malicious." And both men were better at identifying Dark Arts than Sirius was, as he'd eschewed anything to do with the Dark Arts other than kicking its metaphorical ass. "You kids stay out here, and do not come in the vault. Even think about it and I'll give you to him to deal with." Sirius jerked his head at Severus.

The three men disappeared into the vault, and came back out about fifteen minutes later, with only a few books in hand. Most of what had been in the vault had been too dangerous to take out.

"Remind me to talk to Zartank about either breaking the curses on that stuff or getting rid of it." Sirius told Griphook. "It's more or less useless otherwise."

Griphook nodded, and headed them to the Potter valuables vault. Here, everyone disembarked and headed in. The twins couldn't quite stop themselves from staring around them in disbelieving awe at first.

"Right, I've got the ledger here, so we can grab whatever stuff in here looks useful that we don't already have at the castle." Sirius said, pulling the ledger out of his pocket.

Everyone spread out, as the books and scrolls were scattered pretty much everywhere, and started calling out titles, where there were titles visible. Within ten minutes, they'd racked up over a dozen books and scrolls about a myriad of subjects that might be of use to them both in defeating Voldemort and dealing with Severus' Mark. There were others that might have something of use ... but they weren't being brought, because there were no titles, and it would take months, maybe years, to read through (and in some cases, translate) what was written to see if there was anything useful.

Then it was time to head for the Hogwarts vault. All of them were more than a little eager to see what it was like, what might be in there.

At first glance, it looked like one huge library, with dozens and dozens of bookcases, crammed full of books that had been bought for the school, then later 'removed' for whatever reason. There was also a huge rack of neatly stacked paintings that had been commissioned and then later removed.

It wasn't until they got to the very back of the large vault that they found the real treasure. Four podiums, done in House colors, each bearing a single book under so many protection and preservation spells it boggled the mind.

"What are they?" Harry wondered. "I mean, from the colors, probably something specific to the Founders ... but what, exactly?"

"Diaries, possibly." Severus guessed. "They may well have kept a record of their doings, their efforts to build Hogwarts and populate her with students."

"Hermione is going to go nuts." Harry said, sounding very amused. "But I think we can find out for sure what they are ... Godric mentioned that there was a portrait of them at the school at one time, but then it went missing. It had to have come here, unless an Heir removed it, and I think Hogwarts would have noticed that, and remembered it."

It took them a good ten minutes to find the missing portrait, near the bottom of one of the racks of portraits, evidence it had been 'removed' long ago, perhaps shortly after the last publicly known heir from one of the Houses had died childless, or some such. It was then attached, if briefly, to the wall of the vault so that the Founders in the portrait could waken and talk to them. This time, they all shielded themselves from the flash of light that accompanied a portrait waking up.

It took about a minute for this set of Founders to synch with the other portrait, which had been active the entire time the second portrait had been hidden and asleep, and then the Founders were grinning at them.

"Well, I see you've found the place." Godric said. "And yes, those four books are our diaries. Mine starts from about my mid-twenties ... a year or so after I met Salazar. He, being the anal retentive person that he is, kept a diary practically from the moment he could write. So did Rowena." The two Founders so named rolled their eyes at Godric. "Helga, like me, didn't start hers until after we met. Not everything is in the diaries ... there are some things we wanted to keep from prying eyes, like the exact details of what we did to bring Hogwarts to life. It was a complicated process, and one that required a lot of power. Not something for someone to try on the spur of the moment, which many would be tempted to do, if they had a detailed outline of what to do. That and how, exactly, Salazar tamed and trained Shassahshah, aside from the fact that he's a parselmouth helping matters, anyway. Again, not something we wanted to be public knowledge, if one of our heirs found these and decided to publish them."

"You may have noticed that the Potter valuables vault is ... somewhat thin of things, if the Potters are as old as we've said. The reason for that is that everything marked with the Gryffindor crest came here. Only things the Potters collected after the name change, or things that weren't marked with the crest, went into the Potter vault, since the Potter crest, while similar to the Gryffindor one, isn't identical, and the difference would have been noticed. And remarked upon." Rowena said.

"And made people suspicious." Harry said with a nod. "Fair enough. And I imagine all of your stuff came here, since you didn't have an heir when you died?"

"Quite correct." Rowena said. "And many of Helga's things, as well, as property rights for women were ... somewhat different, when we were alive, and this was the only way to ensure they would pass from heir to heir in her case. Every time the heir died, the things were returned here, and had to be retrieved by the next heir, if they wanted them. They could not be kept nor sold by the heir's husband."

"Clever." Sirius said, sounding admiring. "Right, so ... if there's something of use, it'll be here. All right gang ... go nuts."

Which is exactly what they did. They ended up spending the best part of three hours scouring the shelves and finding ... well, an incredible amount of useful information, all of it neatly labeled. Which they found odd until they asked the Founders about it and discovered that upon their appearance in the vault, all books and scrolls had a tag magically applied that detailed their contents, making it that much easier to find what you were looking for, considering there were tens of thousands of books and scrolls in the vault.

Better yet, they were divided into rough categories ... Transfiguration/Charms, Potions/Herbology/Care of Magical Creatures, Dark Arts/DADA, Arts/Crafts, which covered things like making statues, portraits, constructing buildings and such things, Spell Creation/Arithmancy, Warding/Cursebreaking, and a few other general topics. It made finding what they were looking for a lot easier, as they could head for the sections most likely to have what they needed, rather than having to wander the entire vault.

By the time they were done, they had enough books and scrolls to fill three trunks, which Remus and Severus had, thanks be, thought to bring with them. For now, the Founders' diaries stayed where they were ... while the information they contained was doubtlessly fascinating, it wasn't germane to their needs. There'd be another time to bring them out for reading.

Books obtained, they headed into Diagon Alley to make some purchases. In Harry's case, yet another wardrobe of clothing, as he'd finally stopped growing like the proverbial weed, and had caught up to where he was supposed to be. He'd be growing at a normal rate from here on out, so he didn't have to resort to having robes with seven or eight extra inches in the seams, or so it had seemed, when he'd been wearing the ones cut to keep up with his sped-up growing.

The twins also got some new clothes, high-quality robes made for brewing in, woven with heavy-duty protection spells designed to fend off most potion-related disasters. Severus almost started to stock up on an array of ingredients, before he reminded himself it was unnecessary. The Castle had more ingredients than he could possibly use in his lifetime, nevermind a single summer. Sirius and Remus got a few things for themselves, and then it was finally time to head home, just in time for dinner.

Fortunately, the elves had prepared a huge feast, as they'd all been so busy in the vaults they'd missed lunch, and everyone was starving as a consequence. Dinner was accomplished with next to no conversation as they filled their stomachs.

After that, they split up to kick back and relax, and Harry headed for his room so he could regale Hedwig and Hissesh with the day's adventures.

/Sounds like it was quite the day./ Hedwig said when Harry wound down. She was perched in his lap, enjoying a petting. /I could tell you were excited, but you weren't projecting anything my way, you brat./

"So I wanted it to be a surprise when we came back. Nothing wrong with that, is there?/

Hedwig harrumphed. /I suppose not./ She allowed.

"I wonder if we can all become Animagi?" Harry wondered aloud. "I mean, I know Remus can't, because of the werewolf thing, but the rest of us? McGonagall already is, so is Sirius. Maybe we can learn. I know the twins are dying to, so they can emulate their heros." He grinned. "I wonder what sort of snake Severus would become?"

[[A poisonous one.]] Hissesh opined. [[There is no way he's a nonvenomous breed, not with his personality]]

Harry laughed. "And it would fit with his thing for potions, too, since some potions are poisons. Ten galleons says it's something black, too."

[[Not taking that bet]] Hissesh said.

/Me either./ Hedwig said, sounding amused. /Though with our luck, he'd proceed to surprise us and become a garter snake, or some such innocuous creature/

Harry fell onto his back, laughing. "Oh man! I can just see his face, if he did!"