A/N:

My heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Nachtrae for taking the time to read, edit and comment on this Chapter. She does amazing work and I'm lucky to have her as my beta.

Chapter 22

Bank on the holidays

Like many other schools in the British Isles, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizard follows the same three terms per calendar year. The longest holiday period is the summer vacation that stretches from roughly the end of the third week in June to September 1 every year.

Harry Potter moved through the crowd of his schoolmates without a backward glance at the relatives that had come to collect him. They were still staring in shock and awe at what the ungrateful teenager brat had done. Vernon Dursely had been about to go after the boy when his wife tightened her grip on his arm, "Too many of his kind around!" she whispered.

Nymphandora Tonks of the Auror Corps was surprised by the sudden change in direction that Harry had taken and had nearly lost him amongst the crowd of students and then the second crowd of muggles. However, she managed to keep her cover intact and stay a safe distance behind her target. She had not exactly wanted the assignment but the recently resurrected Order of the Phoenix had risen from its ashes so quickly that its current strength was twelve witches and wizards including their leader: Albus Dumbledore.

She managed to slide into a muggle phone booth as Harry glanced over his shoulder, and then resumed her tracking as her target moved out in to the busy streets of muggle London. She lost him for the third time in almost as many minutes until she heard the clattering screech of air brakes from a narrow alley next to the station. She recognized the sound immediately: The Knight Bus.

Trapped on the side of the street and surrounded by muggles, there was no way she could pull her wand to flag down the bus and sure enough the bus screamed past her, squeezing its way in between vehicles and around pedestrians in a fashion that only the word "magical" can describe. It always struck her as somewhat strange that even wizarding folk did not see the Knight bus unless they were actively looking for it. She shrugged and used the same alley Harry had, apparating to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Her report was sure to raise more than a few eyebrows.

Stepping off the knight bus outside the Leaky Cauldron, Harry paused at the door for an instant before forging ahead. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt he quietly debated his options and ducked in to the bathroom as quickly as he could. Once inside, he cast a number of charms in rapid succession. He left his hair unchanged, but concealed his scar with a glamour charm, and then altered the color of his eyes from their usual emerald green to a sapphire blue. He tapped his glasses with his wand and changed the color of the frames. Temporary at best, but it would suit his purposes for the moment.

The Leaky Cauldron had long served as the gateway between the muggle world and Diagon Alley. Founded in 1500 by Daisy Dodderidge, it was akin to the hotel for those who had extended business in the Alley. It was a good a place as any for the moment. Reemerging from the bathroom, Harry approached the current barman and innkeeper, a wizard he recalled named Tom. "Good Afternoon sir, what can I do for you?"

"Afternoon. I would like a room please," replied Harry, "Not sure how long I'll be staying though… could you put me down for a week?"

Tom nodded, "Certainly, Mr…"

"Harry… Harry Granger Evens" he replied, wincing at his own choice of name, "I'd like a room that overlooks Charing Cross Road… perhaps Number 11 is available?"

The bartender nodded with a smile, "Famous room that one. Harry Potter spent his entire summer stay there two years ago." Tom got only an icy nod from his newest resident, "I presume you can access the Alley?" he asked, quickly changing the topic.

The bar had a number of patrons seated, passing the time of day and Harry eyed them critically for a moment, "Three up, two across and tap three times."

The Alley was exactly as he had remembered it, the stores lined both sides of the streets but his destination was the white marble building that towered over every other structure: Gringotts Bank.

He moved with the flow of human traffic, overhearing snatches of conversation that covered everything from the price of Dragon Dung at the Apothecary to the newest owl treats outside the Magical Menagerie. People around him got on with their lives, and so was he in a sense. However, why did he feel like he was going nowhere? On the other hand, perhaps he was going backwards.

The set of white stairs lead to the burnished bronze doors flanked by Goblins in a uniform of scarlet and gold. He recognized the emblem of a Galleon, Sickle and Knut, stacked one atop the other and pierced by a single sword: The Custodians were the only Goblins allowed to carry weapons through the public halls of the bank. He nodded to the Goblins Guards, "Blahgrast Diedom."

The guards blinked in surprise and then snapped to attention, "Blahgrast Diedom," one of the repeated. It was a common greeting but it was rare to hear a wizard not employed by the bank use it, "How may we be of assistance, wizard?" Harry drew his wand, very carefully to avoid an incident, and lifted the glamour charms before letting them take hold once more. Their eyes widened slightly in recognition, "Ursh-kai Potter, how may we be of service?"

Harry shook his head, "I am Ursh-kai no longer. The tournament has ended. I am simply Harry or Mr. Potter if formality requires it." He nodded towards the Bank doors, "I want… respectfully request a meeting with Senior Accounts Manager Griphook," he said.

"This way Mr. Potter." The goblin led the way inside through the small entrance hall. They stood before the second set of silver doors and Harry paused to read the words engraved. He had read them once before, four years ago; when he had learned he was a Wizard, with Hagrid:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there

Through those silver doors, flanked again by Custodians was the vast marble hall. The Goblin led him through one of the many hundreds of doors that lead of from the hall. The warren of offices was confusing, but the goblin knew the way, and like all members of the Custodians, could navigate the halls of the bank blindfolded. It was only a few minutes of twists and turns but Harry was lost by the time they arrived in Griphook's office.

The young man was only fourteen years old, but he had seen more cruelty and carnage in the past few weeks than many sees in a lifetime, "Mr. Potter, Griphook is in a meeting at present. He will see you as soon as possible." The guard nodded in the direction of long red silk rope hanging from the ceiling, "If you require anything, do not hesitate to ask."

Left alone, Harry took his time to study the walls of the office. The last time he had been here, he had not paid them any notice, but this time he noticed that the paintings and mosaics were actually telling a story: Griphook's life as a warrior, banker, financer, and even, as a father. Harry was not sure but he was convinced that the picture showed Griphook with two different goblin…women, and a different number of… children. He poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice and toyed idly with one of the cookies.

It was the first time in a long while that Harry had let himself be alone with his thoughts, and he found that they kept going back to the same thing. He could not distract himself from what he had witnessed that night in the graveyard: Cedric, Voldemort's rebirth, and then, then… what had come next. The duel, priori incantatem, the spirits, specters… whatever they were. So lost in the nightmare that only he could see and hear, Griphook had to call Harry twice to snap him out of his daze.

Harry rose to his feet, nearly spilling his glass of juice as he faced the banker and bowed, "Greetings Griphook, may your gold forever multiply." The goblin bowed in return. Formalities dispensed with Griphook embraced the young man before him, like a brother.

"How are you, my friend?" Griphook had the slight beginnings of a smile as they sat down. Harry stared off in to the near distance for a few long moments, wondering where to begin, or more exactly how to begin. "Sometimes, the beginning is not the best place to start. Sometimes, you start in the middle, and work your way towards the end that includes the beginning."

For some bizarre reason, the twisted logic made sense to Harry, "Nobody knows… what really happened that night, between Voldemort's resurrection and our duel." Griphook blinked, but nodded. He had suspected that the young man was holding something back but had not questioned him due to the headmaster's presence, "Griphook, he didn't just kill her…" his voice cracked ever so slightly and that was a cause for concern, "Cruciatus..." he could say nothing more. However, Harry did not have to.

Although the goblins had remained mostly neutral during the First Wizarding War, that decision was not without its consequences. Where wizards had lost family, friends and loved ones. The Goblin Nation had lost entire tribes, even whole clans to the rampage of Voldemort and his death eaters. Griphook himself knew of a number of Goblin widows and widowers, as it was rare amongst their kind to remarry after losing their loved one.

The Goblins had extracted payment in blood and whispered rumors had it that there are a number of Death Eaters who still slave away in the deepest, darkest recesses of the Goblin Empire. These men and women were captured when Voldemort still lived, were never surrendered to the Ministry of Magic and had never, seen daylight again, "Torture?" asked Griphook gently.

He nodded mutely, "I've, got no one, nothing." So few words, and they were laced with despair and a level of pain that made a mockery of what he had already achieved in his short life: Defeated Voldemort during his first year, slain a basilisk during his second, rescued his godfather during his third, and dueled Voldemort to draw less than six weeks ago. However, all of his achievements and accomplishments were for naught. All overshadowed by the single devastating loss he had borne witness.

Griphook could understand the pain and loss. He was, one of the lucky few to find another to love after both his sons were killed in battle, and his wife slain when their enclave was overrun in the early years of Voldemort's first rise to power. "Harry," Goblins being what they are, understand the concept of tact, but do not necessarily apply it in daily life, "I do not know, what I can say." It did not take a genius to figure that saying something about understanding his pain would not go over well, but then again, "I can understand your pain."

The sharp look he got was something along the lines of what he hoped to get, the eyes of the young man were eagle sharp, predatory, and above all else, spoiling for a fight. Standing, he crossed his office towards the murals on the wall and nodded to Harry who joined him, "I can understand because I was there, when Voldemort made his first bid for power. He tried to subvert Gringotts to take control of the wizarding economy. At his command, the Death Eaters slaughtered hundreds of my kin," Harry stared at the mural, "Both of my sons were slain in battle. My first wife," he said quietly, "suffered the same fate as your Hermione." Griphook laid a hand on Harry's shoulder, "So yes. I know your pain, for I have experienced it and survived it."

"Does it, get… better?" asked Harry as he met the Goblin's stare head on.

"I can honestly say that it does." Said Griphook, "Time does help heal the wound, but time will never truly erase it." Griphook clapped Harry's shoulders, and for an outsider, the scene would have been a touch comical. Harry had a good two feet in height over the goblin that was just a hair's breadth over three feet tall. "Only you can fill the void that Hermione has left in you. The how will come in its time, when you are ready."

Harry was not sure, when it had happened, but he was sitting on the same comfortable sofa that he and Hermione had shared when… It seemed like everything around him was a memory landmine just waiting for him to step on it. He bit down on his tongue and it worked, distracting himself and preventing the tears pooling behind his eyes from falling, "Griphook," though his thoughts ran in every direction imaginable, Harry was able to marshal his thoughts, "I need help…" He began with everything that had happened just before he got off the Hogwarts Express, how he had realized the futility of going back to Privet Drive. He started in the middle and by the time he had finished speaking Harry realized something: Griphook, had been there, since the beginning. He knew and understood in a way even his Godfather could not understand, "And Blake, will do everything he can, but right now, I'm not sure what he thinks is the right thing to do. I cannot even spend time with him because he has no claim to being my guardian."

"Harry," the goblin eyed him critically for a few long moments, "There is… something that I can do…" he emphasized the point, "I can do. Not Gringotts. Come." Together, the odd pair departed the office and Harry matched the Goblin's pace as they meandered through the warrens, "During the days of my childhood, one of our Farseers, made a prophecy," he said quietly, "We have a complete record of the prophecy, and I share this with you, because you deserve to know: It is about you."

"Me? Why was a prophecy made about me?"

Griphook shrugged, "I am not privy to the higher workings of fate and destiny. No mortal is. I know, I was relatively absent the past few weeks," something of an understatement as Harry had not seen the Goblin at all after providing the reports of the interrogations of Karkaroff and Barty Crouch Junior, "But I have met with the Goblin High Council and only just narrowly won the right to share this information with you."

The entered a large room. The cavern seemed to stretch for several miles in either direction. Shelves ran the length of the room, at least a dozen rows, each one he noticed held a mix of small glass spheres covered in dust, and neatly stacked rolls of parchment. Griphook lead him down the left side of the room, until they came across a Goblin seated behind a desk surrounded by a befuddling array of floating words. Scanning the desk, Harry noted that there were copies of almost every publication in the wizarding world from the Daily Prophet to the Quibbler and Witch Weekly to muggle publications that included The Guardian, The Times, and even the International Herald Tribune, Time and Newsweek. Griphook nodded to the Goblin behind the desk, who froze whatever it was he was doing. "Archive item EHL98723, Prophecy, Stormseeker Clan."

It took only a few moments before the glass sphere exchanged hands between the Goblins. With a nod, Griphook lead Harry through a door near the desk. The room was small, barely large enough for a dozen Goblins. The focus of the room was a screen and a muggle like movie projector. Griphook placed the sphere and dimmed the lights. It was clearly someone's memory.

It showed a goblin that was asleep except for the fact he floated about two feet of the ground, arms outstretched, with his head rolled back. His head snapped forward like a striking serpent, his eyes open but with only the whites visible as he began to speak in fits and starts as spasms wracked his body:

"Poisoned by the King of Serpents

Saved by the tears of the Light

A champion shall arise from amongst Champions

Saved by the tears of that which embodies the Light

He shall have the power to banish the seven times sundered soul of evil

Poisoned by King of Serpents

He shall have the power to remake the world to his will

Love shall be the key: To salvation or damnation"

The recording replayed itself twice more, by which time Harry had committed the words of the prophecy to memory. He stood there, puzzling it out for a moment, using every brain cell he could. He realized with a jolt that he fit the requirements of the prophecy. Griphook nodded, "It would appear, that my great, great, great grandmother Cassandra was speaking about you: Poisoned… King of Serpents,"

"Second year, basilisk," said Harry quietly. Another memory flashed through his mind: Of him sitting by a petrified Hermione in the hospital wing.

"Tears, embodies the light," said Griphook.

"Phoenix," he replied evenly

"Champion… from amongst Champions," continued Griphook.

Harry was lost for a moment, remembering what the spectre of Cedric had said to him in the graveyard, "They will call you Champion of the Light," he muttered, "Cedric… said that to me."

The Goblin nodded, "Given recent events, we know that you are the champion in question, for no Basilisk has been slain in over five hundred years, and that Basilisk slew the majority of its assailants. Those that survived, having long passed in to the next world." He sat down next to the teenager, who had already aged a decade in six weeks he had just aged another five years as he struggled to digest what he had just learned.

"That's… a lot to take in," he said weakly, "I'm going to need a few minutes."

Fully aware of Harry's living situation with the Dursleys, Griphook, was not going to allow that, "Perhaps, I can make a suggestion," at the nod he forged ahead, "I do not know why Albus Dumbledore wishes for you to return to the Dursley residence every summer. However, Gringotts is very likely the most secure location outside of Hogwarts itself. I cannot provide unshakable guarantees, but I believe it would be logical to assume that you would be safe, here."

Dumbledore. The name brought up a whole host of other memories, none of them pleasant. To think that he had actually once not only looked up to, but literally worshipped the headmaster who was, ultimately directly responsible for most, if not all of the pain and suffering he had endured in his life. His hands clenched the arms of the chair in anger.

Harry yelped in surprise as flames emerged from his hands and spread up his arms, before engulfing the armrests and the rest of the chair. Leaping up in surprise Griphook was quickest to cast the equivalent of a fire hose charm that doused the burning chair, and drenched Harry, but left him with both arms flaming from the elbows down, "Harry?"

The teen was no longer waving his arms around, and looked rather like a cat that had just scrambled out of a pond. The flame had burned the sleeves off his robes but so long as he kept his arms outstretched and pointed down, there was less risk of burning off the rest of his robes. "Griphook," Harry looked at down at his robes, "Maybe, you could fire proof what's left of my robes?"

Griphook complied as several other Goblins piled in with weapons drawn to investigate the magic cast, "Bank on my holidays to be as weird and bizarre as a typical term at Hogwarts," muttered Harry.

She appeared with barely a sound in the narrow alley between number 9 and 10, Grimmauld Place, and promptly tripped over a garbage can lying in plain sight. The crash was worrying, as was the pair of startled cats that shot out of the alley and across the street. She pressed herself against the wall, and cursed quietly. A moment, then a minute passed. Relieved that she had not given herself away, she walked out of the alley and along the street, until she came to number 12, Grimmauld Place.

Muggles had long accepted the mistake in numbering that landed number 11 and 13 next to each other. It was an open secret that Sirius Black's father had laid so many protective enchantments in to the building that the stone itself had absorbed the magic. Add to those layers of wards and protections was the Fidelius Charm with the Hogwarts headmaster as secret keeper meant that it was perhaps the most secure house, anywhere in the country.

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix was the ancestral home of Harry's fugitive godfather, Sirius Black. With Sirius still on the run, it was easy enough for Albus Dumbledore to lay claim to the property and move in. Many of the mansions massive rooms were sealed, as they had been some fourteen years ago when the Ministry had sealed the house and deposited Sirius Black in Azkaban.

The front door opened in to a long hallway lit by a large chandelier and a number of lamps hanging from the wall. Nobody had gotten around to doing something about the peeling wallpaper and the hole filled worn down carpet. As had become her custom, she tripped over the troll-leg umbrella stand which caused the portrait of Walburga Black to awaken from its slumber and scream its usual list of insults including the one "stains of dishonor, filthy half breeds, blood traitors, children of filth!"

A wave of her wand and a shower of sparks closed the curtains, effectively muffling but not silencing the portrait's incessant screaming. Tonks noted that the dining room was still sealed and that nobody had yet to taken down the row of shrunken house-elf heads mounted on plaques above the staircase.

Thus far, only the kitchen had received Molly Weasely's cleaning and the fireplace at one threw out a wave of comforting warmth. It was by far, the only livable room in the house, "Auror Tonks," greeted Headmaster Dumbledore, "I trust that Harry has returned safely to Privet Drive?" Behind him, Molly frowned at the mention of the muggles Harry was forced to spend his holidays with, and that frown deepened when Tonks shook her head.

"He didn't even leave the station with them," she said, "I lost him outside King's Cross. He summoned the knight bus and I have no idea where he went. Mad Eye's still keeping number 4 under surveillance but I don't think he's going there." She collapsed in to a chair across from the headmaster, "There was a report from Tom at the Leaky Cauldron about someone who could have been Harry. I managed to sneak a look at the boy. Wasn't Harry." She shrugged.

This did not bode well at all. The past year had not gone well for Albus Dumbledore. Nearly everything he had worked towards had been undone, and now he had not only lost sight of Sirius Black completely but also somehow, lost Harry Potter! The headmaster shook his head, and composed his thoughts, "Has he been in touch with any of his friends by Owl?"

"A bit early in the summer for that," muttered Alastor "Mad Eye" Moony as he stomped his way in to the kitchen, bringing with him a draught of cool summer air. The one legged Auror carried the smell of freshly cut grass and mud, "School's been out for barely a day. The Dursley's have gone to bed," he explained, "Boy's not going to show up there. And they don't care where Harry is." Then again the Dursley's had never cared.

"Where are you Harry?" wondered the headmaster. Knowing that he was going to have wait, and react to whatever scheme Harry had concocted. "Thank you. That will be all." The headmaster reached in to his pocket for a lemon drop and sucked on the sweet as he considered his next course of action.

"Inform every member of the Order that Harry is missing, he must be located at once!" ordered Dumbledore. Now to placate Molly Weasely…

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