Chapter Two: The Pureblood, The Witch, and The Very Confused Boy Who Lived
At lunchtime the following day, while Dudley was at school, Uncle Vernon at work, and Aunt Petunia out with one of her many friends, Harry took the opportunity to stuff his few belongings into a bag and sneak out of the house. The neighbours were under the impression that Harry was too ill to go to school, so they barely noticed him walking down the street. He paused as he got to the end of the road, taking in the view of Privet Drive, hopefully, for the last time. Turning away, he slung the strap of his small rucksack onto his shoulder and made his way across town to the tiny patch of woodland behind the primary school.
He set his bag on the ground and climbed a meter or so up the nearest tree, puzzled. Hermione was supposed to meet him here, so, where was she? He looked into the schoolyard and saw the normal scene of children running about and eating their lunch, but no Hermione. Just as he was about to give up and leave, he noticed all of the teachers moving over to one particular part of the playground, and more importantly, a familiar mess of curls slip out of the gate and run over to him.
"Where have you been?" asked Harry. "I thought you were going to skip school today?"
"I was, but they," she almost spat the last word out, "decided that I was to be driven to school, today of all days." She shook her head, scowling at the dirt. "I swear they're bloody telepathic."
Harry jumped down from the tree he was in and picked up his bag as they began to walk away from the school.
"I guess you didn't manage to bring anything then?" Harry asked glumly.
"Unless a school tie counts, then no." She replied. "What did you manage to bring?"
Harry tried to remember the contents of his bag. "A change of clothes, a packet of biscuits, two apples, my book, and a ten pound note I found the other day. So pretty much nothing."
Hermione grinned in an attempt to cheer him up. "Could be worse, it could be literally nothing."
They slowed down as they reached the opposite end of the small wood.
"How exactly are we supposed to get to London?" asked Harry, dejectedly.
"Train?"
"A tenner isn't going to buy us two train tickets full stop, Hermione. Never mind to London."
She took a sharp left toward the edge of town. "Well we better think of something fast, they'll be looking for me by now."
Harry suddenly got a horrible feeling that their plan wasn't going to work. It has to. He thought determinedly. No way am I turning back now.
"I suppose, for now, we walk. At least until we figure out some sort of plan."
Neither of them looked particularly thrilled at the idea, but as Hermione couldn't think of anything better, and so she decided to keep her mouth shut.
So they started walking. Out of town, and eventually out of the county. And for the first time that they could remember, they were truly happy.
It was past ten O'clock, when Hermione announced that they had arrived. They were stood outside a small pub, which looked far too rundown to be in the centre of London, but she insisted that they had to go inside.
As they stepped through the doors, Harry could feel everybody looking at him. He scowled at the people staring and muttering, then walked towards the bar.
"Hello sir," he greeted who he assumed was the innkeeper. "I'd like a room for me and my friend."
"Harry Potter, what an honour! I'll charge it to your Gringotts account, yes?" the man responded.
Struggling to mask his shock, Harry dropped his polite persona.
"How do you know my name?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
Hermione, who hadn't said anything since they'd entered the building, piped up; "And what the bloody hell is Gringotts?"
Tom, the barman, motioned for them to follow him before disappearing up the stairs. They did so, albeit hesitantly, and walked through a dusty hallway into a small but comfortable bedroom. Tom ushered them into the room and closed the door behind the three of them.
"It's not really my place to tell you this in all honesty, but you deserve to know and I'm not entirely sure why you don't already," he began. Noticing them hovering just inside the door, their expressions a mixture of nervousness and impatience, he said "Sit down kids, this is going to be a really long story."
Harry was absolutely fuming when he woke up the next morning. It was one thing to find out that you had been born into a completely different world than you thought you had, but quite another to find out that you were one of the wealthiest and most famous people in said world. He thought back to what Tom had said the previous night, about Gringotts and goblins. Goblins. Yesterday he would have laughed at you if you'd tried to tell him goblins were real. But within the next hour he was going to be sat in an office with one discussing his estate.
His estate. His estate. Nobody else's. Except maybe Hermione, he'd share everything with her. He had his own estate!
"Probably more than one," Tom said, walking into the room and setting a breakfast tray down on the small desk.
Harry gently shook Hermione awake. "What do you mean?"
"At the end of the war, your parents placed almost all of their accounts into lockdown. They couldn't even get into each other's accounts, and when they died, you became the only person with the ability to even see what was in them. Good job too, Dumbledore emptied the rest of them."
"My mother had accounts? But I thought she was muggle born?" Harry asked, confused.
"She-" Tom began, but quickly cut himself off. "There are some things, Harry Potter," He said in a low and solemn voice. "That you would be far better off finding out yourself." He stared at the two of them for a minute before gesturing to the breakfast tray and leaving the room.
Harry and Hermione walked into Madam Malkins, finished most of their school shopping. The shop was empty, except for another boy who was getting measured.
"Hogwarts?" Asked a woman from behind the counter. They both nodded, and she dragged Harry to the back of the room and stood him on a stool next to the other boy.
"Hello," He said, with a posh sounding accent. "My name's Draco Malfoy, what's yours?"
Harry was surprised the boy – Draco – didn't know who he was. He had had people coming up to him all day asking for autographs and the like. Hermione had eventually resorted to just kicking them.
"I'm Harry, Harry Potter. And this is my friend Hermione Granger."
He nodded at Hermione with a smile. "I don't normally shop here, but mother and father said that I should get my school things from the same place as everyone else, especially for first year," He made a face at the thought. "We're meeting my friend Blaise in Italy tomorrow though, to get my wand. Mother says that British wandmakers are rubbish." Draco blinked, realising that he was going on a bit. "Have you two got your wands yet?"
"We were going to go after this, but we didn't realise there was anywhere but Ollivander's to buy wands." Harry replied, surprised someone other than Hermione was treating him as an equal.
"Why don't you ask your pa-" Draco looked at Harry. "Your guardians if you can come with me when I get my wand?"
Harry flinched a bit as the woman accidently stabbed him with a pin. "We'd hate to impose on your family, and we ran away from muggles so we don't exactly have guardians." His voice was barely above a whisper as he added on the second part.
"Oh! My friend Blaise is like that, too. He got sick of his mother and her constant stream of new husbands, so he took all the money and lands his father left him and lives with his servants. Usually he lives in his townhouse, here in London, but he spent the summer in Italy with my other friend, Theo."
"You can do that? At our age?" Hermione asked as a woman instructed her to stand on a foot stool.
Draco turned towards her, earning him a scowl from the woman who was fitting him. "It's a traditional and dying practice, but yes. Most pureblood children are capable of running the family and continuing their own education by the time they're about nine. Blaise turns twelve a few weeks after school starts, so he's more than capable."
The three of them were silent for a moment, while Harry and Hermione thought over the new information they had been given.
"Will you come for dinner?" Draco asked after a few minutes. "I'd love to be friends with both of you, and I think I could teach you a lot about how our world, the wizarding world, works."
"Well," began Harry, looking a little bit uncomfortable. "These are kind of the only clothes we have, and I'm not entirely sure that they're suitable for going to dinner."
"You can borrow some of my things," Draco shrugged. "I'll help you get some nice clothes tomorrow. So, friends?"
"Friends." Harry and Hermione agreed, both smiling.
A/N: I kind of forgot this story existed until I was going through thefiles on my computer... oops. I'd love to know what you think, and if you have any questions or suggestions etc, so it would be great if you could leave a review. Thanks for reading :)