Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter Two
Harry placed his few belongings on the desk before putting the hat back on his head, adjusting it so that it covered his forehead. Or at least so he hoped as he had no mirror to see the result. He was pleased however with the new arrivals he had in his room, several tiny snakes had slithered from their hiding places as they heard Harry speaking snakespeak to the others. Harry smiled a rather disturbing smile as he thought of what the Dursleys would do when they saw his room here. Or rather its inhabitants for it now housed one boy and his thirty-two companions. Not pets. Companions, friends even if you could call them that.
"I will go down now, behave yoursselvess and do not draw attention" Harry hissed softly at the various coloured snakes slithering around him, fondly curling themselves around his legs.
"Ssshow them your power, ssspeakerboy, and make alliesss. Be asss cunning assss you can be to achieve greatnesss," one of the newer snakes said as he curled himself around Harry's hand.
Harry just nodded and smiled politely before gently placing the snakes back on the floor, watching them all slither back under it with hisses of goodbye.
He opened the door again, wincing as it screeched again when he did so, and walked down the hallway to the stairs. As he climbed down the staircase he couldn't help but try to think of just what he could do with magic. To him, the possibilities were as endless as the universe and he grinned again, eyes lighting up with a thirst to know.
As he entered the main floor some of the patrons looked up at him, their eyes flickering to his hat before back to their table. Harry grinned, the hat was in place and worked. He then made his way over to where Tom was still cleaning glasses, looking as ugly as ever.
"Harry, have ye settl'd in?" he rasped as he grinned his nearly toothless smile again, a rather disturbing image.
Harry just nodded as he eyed the stick lying innocently on the counter, capable of endless things yet just that, a stick.
Tom noticed him eyeing his wand and quickly put it back in the pocket of his trousers, slightly wary that the child would make a grab for it.
"Ye don't have a wand now, do ya?"
"No, how do I get one?" Harry asked as he frowned, not having missed Tom putting his wand back.
"I'll show ye the passage to the Alley, can't go with ya though, gotta do that on yer own," Tom answered with a lightly sad expression of his face as he shuffled away from behind the counter.
"I think I will be fine," Harry sighed as he followed the tiny hunchbacked man to a door, which led to .. a wall.
Harry was slightly annoyed by this, the entryway to the place where magic ruled was a deathly common wall? How sad, it would look better if it had arches, or at least something out of the ordinary. Ah well, you can't have everything.
Tom tapped the bricks necessary to open the gate, as bricks disappeared leaving a gateway to a seemingly busy street with people walking around.
"Ye gotta go ta Gringotts first, can't miss 't, it's the big marble building, ye can buy yer school supplies now as well if ye want."
With that Tom walked away after patting Harry on the shoulder and rasping a "Good luck lad."
Harry walked through the gateway and struggled to keep himself from openly gawking, knowing it to attract unwanted attention and give the impression that he was some sort of bumbling idiot. He did stare however, frowning at some things and grinning at others. He saw bookstores, shops with various sorts of plants and even one with owls staring back at him with nearly unmoving eyes. He followed the cobblestone path until he did see the marble building.
It was a high building, completely made out of the white stone Harry recognised as marble. A staircase made out of marble led to a high door made entirely out of bronze. This, Harry decided, was more like how a building should look. Next to the door stood two tiny men, dwarves or something, with an axe in their hands. As they saw Harry they merely glared at him.
Harry then pushed open the doors, marvelling on how easily that went as he expected them to be quite hard to open. Inside he was greeted by a small hall, the floor consisting entirely of black marble and high silver doors greeted him. On those doors was written:
"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."
Harry couldn't help but grin as he read the warning, it seemed that these dwarf-like guys knew what they were doing.
He pushed open the silver doors and was instantly greeted by a cold, marble hallway that seemed to go on for ages. Rows of desks and tiny-men-that-resembled-dwarves sat behind them, all of them writing furiously with feathers on paper.
Harry immediately went to the one closest to the door, not feeling like walking down the whole hall without directions or a purpose.
"Excuse me sir, may I ask you some questions?"
The dwarf-like man had white hair, a pointy nose and slanted brown eyes that glared at Harry from behind glasses.
"You may," he sneered as he laid down his feather and folded his arms, showing long fingers.
"My name is Harry Potter, I am not sure if I have an account here but if I do I would like to withdraw money and, if possible, get a list of its contents," Harry said confidently as he stared impassively back at the dwarf, not in the least scared by its glare. He had endured the Dursleys for ten years, he could endure this.
"A second," the dwarf barked as he snapped his fingers, causing a book to appear. Harry mentally noted that the Dwarf did not use a wand and promised himself to purchase some more books than his list told him to, wanting to learn that trick.
"Polder, Pommer, Ponders, ah Potter," the dwarf sneered as he glared at Harry once more "You have a main family vault and a trust vault, I take it you have the key for the last one?"
"Key?" Harry asked before shaking his head, "I don't have a key."
The dwarf's glare only intensified as it sighed before snapping his fingers again, causing a different, heavier book to appear. He swiftly went through the pages before stopping somewhere in the middle.
"For a compensation of five galleons and two sickles Gringotts will summon your key, if we are unable to do so you will still pay the compensation and another twelve galleons and seven knuts as compensation for your new key."
"The first thing," Harry said before hastily adding "Please."
"Gringotts and the goblin nation will not be held responsible for any .. flaws .. with your key," the dwarf, err- goblin said before closing his eyes and snapping his fingers again causing a tiny bronze key to appear.
"Your key, I will now send another goblin to bring you to your vault where you will pay us the money and we will present you with a list of your holdings. If you are not who you claim to be the wards in the vault will prevent you from exiting and burn you when you touch the money, for this Gringotts is not responsible either. Have a good day."
Harry was then whisked away by another goblin as the tiny man nearly dragged him across the smooth marble floor to a door which led to a cart. They entered and Harry found himself speeding across rails at a terrifying speed, not that he minded though. He was thinking of the possibilities of not needing a wand like Tom did, merely snapping his fingers sounded good.
"Vault 687," the goblin barked as he climbed out of the cart "Potter trust vault, insert the key please."
Harry did so, staring at the giant doors in wonder of what lay behind them, as they opened Harry was momentarily blinded by the mountains of gold that lay behind.
"Excuse me, sir," Harry said, having forgotten the goblin's name, "I have two questions, is this all mine?"
The goblin nodded curtly as he shoved Harry inside the vault.
"And the second," Harry said, turning around to face the goblin once more "You wouldn't mind to have some sort of bag to keep this in do you? It would be inconvenient to walk with your arms full of these err .. coins."
"Compensation for key first," the goblin barked as he pointed at the money "Five galleons, the gold coins and two sickles, the silver coins, and then another three galleons for the bag."
Harry obediently picked up the slightly heavy coins, his thin arms shaking a bit under their weight, and was glad not to be burned. The goblin looked disappointed, he obviously was looking forward to seeing Harry in pain.
Harry then handed the goblin the coins, which he vanished again with a snap of his long fingers, and the goblin handed him a tiny brown sack. It smelled weird and looked tiny, but Harry grabbed it anyway.
He could feel the goblin's glare against his back as he started placing the coins in the bag, surprised when the big didn't stretch or get any heavier. So he threw in more, and more. In the end, about fifteen minutes later, he had one still featherweight bag in the pocket of his trousers, one annoyed goblin guide and a list of what he had in his vault.
Which was a lot, according to the list he had over 5.385.234 galleons, 56.783 sickles and 102.321 knuts. He didn't even bother calculation how much pounds it would be, he was rich. Which was a good thing for his plans for revenge, so he added 'Humiliation by flaunting money' to his steadily growing mental list. The fact that his trust vault had an exact amount of 450.000 galleons and that he was not allowed the use of the main vault until reaching the age of 17 didn't really bother him.
He exited the bank later after learning he owned two mansions and one cottage, which saved him the effort of ever going back to the Dursleys. And with another of their money-pouches for everyday use in his other pocket, for the stuff he was planning to buy.
Harry's first stop wasn't the wand-shop, no, it was the bookstore. Because Harry knew the saying, 'Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil' and he intended to follow its advice, as knowledge and power were both very high on his to-achieve list.
The bookstore was relatively empty except for a fuzzy brown-haired girl and a stiff looking woman beside her talking animatedly about one thing or another in front of one of the shelves. Harry moved with efficiency, placing every book he liked in a cauldron they had stacked next to the entrance. He was also pleased to feel that they too had some spell causing them to weigh nearly nothing as books stacked up on one another. He even placed 'Untraceable ways to harm ones enemy' by Arcturus Black on top of a book about runes. In the end he had one very surprised clerk and about twenty-three books on different subjects, ranging from magical etiquette to duelling.
After this Harry decided to go after the power part, seeing how the part about knowledge was fulfilled. He had to search around for a while before he found the shop called Ollivander's again.
"Hello," he called after entering the slightly dusty shop, boxes stacked upon each other ranging from floor to the ceiling and wands lying on the counter.
"Ah, mister Potter, I expected you, come on in," came a voice from behind the counter as an old man with messy white hair came from beneath it, boxes in his hands.
"How did you know who I am?" Harry demanded as he glanced at his hat, still covering his scar.
"You have your mother's eyes, they gave you away," Ollivander answered vaguely, not intent on telling the boy the real reason he knew it was him.
"Oh, well. Hello to you too. I am here for a wand," Harry said after a moments pause.
"Ah, yes, yes I remember your parents' wands, your father had a-"
"I'm not here to hear about their wands, I would like one of my own please," Harry said sharply, staring at the man with annoyance.
"How eager the youth is these days," the older wizard mumbled as he fumbled around with boxes before coming up with a short, dark wooden wand which he held out to Harry, "Pick it up with your wand arm, the one you write with."
Harry picked up the wand with a look of curiosity on his face as the man started a rather boring speech about his wands, "This one is a twelve inch oak with-"
"Yes, very interesting indeed. Now what do I do?" Harry demanded impatiently as he stared Ollivander right in the eye.
"Just flick it once," the old wizard sighed.
Harry did just so and the windows in the shop broke and several of the stacks of boxes went flying, Harry just smiled broadly as his eyes lit up with excitement.
"I'll take it," he said as his hand went for the bag containing his money.
"No!" Ollivander screeched as his hand shot forwards to snatch the wand from Harry's grasp, "It isn't right for you!"
"Why not? It worked, I blew up the windows which, if I recall correctly, is magic. So it is just fine for me," Harry sneered as he glared at the wizard who dared to try to take away his stick of mass destruction.
"It didn't react the way it was supposed to!" Ollivander nearly yelled as he tried to grab the wand again, he had remembered Dumbledore's words about the boy and had to sell him the right wand, the one with which he would show the world he truly was the hero of the light.
"What do you want it to do? Sprout out a sign saying 'I'm the one, pick me!' If you want me to blow up something again I will gladly do so again," Harry said as he flicked the wand again with a happy grin, sending another row of boxes crashing against the wall.
"No! No! No!" Olivander screeched as he grabbed his own wand to repair the damage done to his shop before finally grabbing the wand from Harry's grasp.
In the end Harry ended up saying "Is this what it was supposed to do?" after every reaction, blowing up the windows five more time and damaging all the furniture in his shop multiple times as well. He eventually did walk out of the shop with his new wand, a 11-inch holly and phoenix feather combination. The old wandmaker was about to tell him about how peculiar it was for him to get this particular wand but the boy had already left, having placed 12 galleons on his counter. Ollivander found himself not caring, the boy paid five galleons too much in the end. He was a bit curious as to why the boy wasn't as Dumbledore predicted him to be, he said he would be shy and sweet, every bit the humble hero he wanted him to be. And this boy was anything but.
Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil, Harry repeated in his mind as he pocketed his wand and tried to find the way back to the Leaky Cauldron, intent on proving just how true that saying was going to be.
A/N.
First of all, thank you for the massive amount of favorites, author alerts, story alerts and the (one) review.
I was completely blown away by that, I certainly did not expect such a reaction to my little idea here, so as a thank-you I spend the whole day writing instead of .. well .. other things.
I also hope you will all react as well to this second chapter as you did to the first, seeing how my Harry is quite a bit different from the ones in the book. He has a lot to learn, such as keeping calm and acting nice as well as the simple things, such as magic.
Anyway, thank you for reading, adding me to your favourites and/or subscription list and basically taking the time for my story.
I'm not sure how reactions will be to this chapter, but if it gains me as much hits and alerts as the first one you can expect a chapter 3 around Sunday, because I do have a life somewhere.