Disclaimer: Any and all familiar-looking things that seem like you've seen them somewhere before are not owned or affiliated with me. These things may include, but are not limited to: the various works of J.K. Rowling; the Doctor Who, Supernatural, Assassin's Creed, Dragon Ball (Z, GT and Super), and Disney franchises. Others may be mentioned, and they are all owned and created by their own various owners, not me.
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A/N: Ok, to start, yes, I'm a horrible person to drop off on a cliffhanger like that, but I blame RL and my stupid head for not finding the right inspiration for the story. To be fair, I still feel like I'm not in the right headspace right now, but I'll do my best!
"Tom Marvalo Riddle, Jr."
Harry sighed to himself. Of course that would happen. In using his blood for the ritual, Voldemort would, technically, be able to be considered a sibling in blood if not birth. Which spelled out a lot of possibility for trouble, since anything involving family or blood-related magics would get confused between them and likely end up affecting both him and the Dark Lord. The silver lining would be anyone trying to use that kind of voodoo blood magic would also face the same problem, so that's one less of many things to worry about.
"That's… a bit of a story…," Harry trailed off, "But is that sufficient for determining my identity?"
"Yes, it will suffice. All other keys will be recalled and duplicates will be destroyed," the goblin replied. "Gringotts would also very much like an explanation as to how you could gain a sibling with both your parents dead and this… Tom… not being listed at the last check some months ago. Indeed, Mr. Riddle, to my knowledge, has never appeared in any of our records."
Harry was at an impasse. On the one hand, trusting the goblins with this information would likely smooth things over in the future and possibly even make them a bit less hostile. On the other, this kind of knowledge was dangerous to have. See, one series of books Harry had absolutely loved were the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure guides, because they had sooooo much magic-related things in them. One area of interest that really struck him was the subject of Lich Kings. Undead Dark Sorcerers with armies of skeletons and zombies, basically unkillable and had an extremely annoying habit of resurrecting themselves when you did kill them. Thanks to a companion manual, the Monster Guide, Harry found out why Liches could pull off a Voldemort-esque return from the grave: a phylactery, a.k.a. "Soul Jars." As it turns out, to become a Lich one had to be, of course, magically powerful as well as evil, and perform a ritual of human sacrifice that ended with the would-be Lich tearing out their own heart, binding their soul to it, and then having all their flesh burned off with unholy fire. Painful? Oh yes. Worth it for immortality? Not for Harry.
So he came to a conclusion: Voldemort must have a phylactery somewhere. That knowledge, while concerning in the extreme since Voldemort had to be some sort of Lich hybrid (and explained why the entire country was terrified of him), was ultimately useful. Since, for whatever reason, he had taken 10 effing years to make an attempt at a comeback, the simple solution was to just kill him over and over until it was easy to tell just where he kept getting resurrected from. Of course, the typical Lich Return ritual involved the use of the phylactery on yet another victim to bind the soul to a new skeleton, and in the graveyard absolutely nothing like that happened. Maybe it was a work around, since he needed a body to get to his soul jar?
Regardless, that still left him with the dilemma: should he tell them?
The goblin cleared his throat, "Mr. Potter?"
Harry jumped slightly in surprise, not realizing he had been thinking so deeply. The goblin was holding out his vault key. "Thank you, sir," he replied, looking apologetic and taking the offered token, "As to this mystery… What do you know of the events of the latest Triwizard Tournament? Specifically, the conclusion of the final Task?"
"We are aware of your arrival with your, now dead, fellow Hogwarts Champion, and claimed that the Dark Lord had somehow returned from the dead and killed the Diggory boy. We have also been monitoring your Ministry's… reaction."
Harry grimaced, "I haven't had the chance to really see the papers… How bad is it?"
"You are fortunate to have disguised yourself so effectively."
That, from a Goblin? Yikes.
"Aside from that, and Mr. Dumbledore's insistence on your truthfulness and arguments to prepare for confrontation, we know little. I assume something happened that night to bring this about?"
"Yes, there was a ritual involved that used the quote "blood of the enemy, forcibly taken" end quote. Given the results of your test, it may be safe to assume that my blood now run through Voldemort's veins in their entirety." Harry took a moment to admire how… adult, he sounded. Thank you Raymond E Feist, Robert Jordan, and Roger Zelazny for being such brill writers! He never would have been able to pull off a bit like this without all those speeches and snobby aristocrats from their books.
The goblin hmm-ed, or made an equivalent growling sound, since there seemed to be no anger on its features, "Yes, that would lead to this. So this Mr. Riddle is Voldemort?"
"Yes."
The Goblin fell silent at that, seeming to be thinking deeply. After a moment, it said, seemingly rhetorically, "But how could he have…?"
Discerning where its thoughts were heading, Harry interrupted the train of thought: "Sir?" The goblin looked up at him.
"Have you ever heard of a Lich before?"
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Harry, er, Terry walked down Diagon Alley with a spring in his step he hadn't had in ages. This little disguise of his was working wonders, and, better yet, he had gotten Voldemort banned from Gringotts after sharing a bit about Liches and soul jars. Saying that Bloodfist (the goblin that confirmed his identity) was disgusted would put it mildly, as he had spent a full minute cursing in his native tongue (and Harry swore he heard some Klingon somewhere in there) and then told him to wait while he went to his superiors. Harry had been surprised at the… vehemence of the reaction, but it was likely death held some sort of important position in their culture and that cheating it was one of the highest of crimes. Regardless, Harry was happy, regardless of how useful it would actually be in the future.
Elsewhere, a butterfly beat its wings.
Now armed with a decent amount of gold, Harry turned Terry set off to find the main goal of his little quest that day: the multi-compartment trunk. This was a vital part to any plans to be made in the future. Some may ask, Why would a trunk be so bloody important? One word: Space. It would be reasonable to believe that Moody, the real one, had been kept in that trunk for some time before the rescue, if not the entire year. That implied that these trunks either had some weird ventilation system or a charm to keep the air within from running out of oxygen. Meaning that, even if he could only afford to make a compartment with bed space, he could essentially live out of his trunk. Meaning no Dursleys, and no way to know where he was. But, judging by what he remembered seeing when he looked down on Moody's form when they found him, he had been lying on the floor of an entire room. Meaning Harry could potentially be able to carry around a portable apartment everywhere he went. With a trunk like that, who would bother with a house?
Of course, there was a chance it cost as much as a house… But he could deal with that later.
Terry, the-boy-who-had-nothing-to-do-with-the-Boy-Who-Lived, walked in the front door of Traver's Trunks and Accessories, setting off a chime above the door and somewhere behind the door located behind the empty counter. Terry didn't really notice this much, as he was staring at the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, dozens upon dozens of trunks lining the shop. The sight was, to be honest, a bit ridiculous. Really, did they need to stuff this many trunks into one room?
Luckily, the back-room door opened and a salesman walked up behind the counter, with a greeting of, "Welcome to Traver's Trunks, Makers of Space!" (You could practically hear the ™ on the phrase) "How can I help you?"
"A bit of portable space is exactly what I need!" Terry said, with an open gesture, palms held up and shrugging slightly, "A friend told me about this trunk his uncle had that had huge, like, room-sized compartments, and I wanted to see if you had anything like that. I even had a crazy idea of… well… making it my bachelor pad, a personal apartment I can carry around."
"Ahh, I believe I know what you're looking for… but they tend to be just a bit high on the price scale."
"I've got a budget of a thousand galleons," said Terry directly, with a smirk. Granted, that was a lot of money for most people. A thousand galleons, last he checked, was around £10,000! More than enough to buy an apartment for over a year outright.
"Oh, ah, I see… Well, right this way, my good man! The best trunks we have!"
So began a 2-hour-long trip all around the shop, talking prices, options, design choices, features (This one can hold a live dragon for days!), and everything Harry would ever need to know about any trunk he would ever buy. Terry managed to hold his own rather well, politely and sometimes cleverly avoiding some really unnecessary features like an ejection switch, water room, and even an entire room dedicated to shoes. Who in the world would need that?
In the end, Terry ended up getting a modestly furnished, one-bedroom flat, with an attached bathroom and walk-in closet as well as a second trunk space that was 4x larger than it should have been. All in all, Terry thought he had gotten a real steal out of it for only 873 galleons. Which was a very good thing, since the other 127 were marked for stocking what he was sure to be his new home.
And as he thought that, a quiet little puffing device on a table in a certain office of a faraway castle in the highlands stopped puffing. Its cease would go unnoticed for months.
Now fully stocked, clothed and ready to go out on his own, Harry Potter set out for Surrey once again. Even without staying at the Dursleys', there were still a few books he wanted to 'borrow'…
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