Harry Potter and the Golden Sovereign
As told to Ian Postre
Disclaimer: This story is fanfiction. No financial benefit will be gained from the sharing or reproduction of this story. All characters and worlds described are the property of J.K Rowling. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.
The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 6
For the first time, as he got up, Harry looked properly around him. The room was small, dimly lit through a tall, grimy window by a gas lamp in the street outside. The room was sparsely furnished but, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, now realising that most of the light had been emanating from the apparition that had been Simon Potter, he saw that the room really was in utter turmoil. Furniture – chairs and a table had been upended and broken. The room looked as if it had been searched, Harry realised - thoroughly. Ransacked. Things broken needlessly. A picture had been pulled off the wall. Harry went over to it, its canvas now torn, picked it up and looked at it. It was a painting of a train, an early steam train, with a chimney taller and thinner than the steam trains that Harry had seen pictures of in books in the Hogwarts Library. Uncle Vernon used to be a train spotter as a youth and there were stacks of train books in the living room in Privet Drive. This train was beautifully rendered in oil. Its livery was red and the artist had captured the steam which was, even as Harry gazed at the painting, pouring impatiently along a platform populated by children and adults, carrying owl cages, trunks and trolleys loaded with boxes. Along the side of this primitive looking steam engine was its name, emblazoned in brass. Hogwarts Express 1861.
Harry searched the rest of the room. A small bedroom led off it. This too had been turned upside down. Any papers had been removed or torn to shreds. A few books about the art of prophecy and divination had had their pages ripped out and scattered onto the floor. Papers were strewn everywhere. Harry picked a sheet of vellum that had neat handwriting on both sides, took out his wand and said "Lumos!". The light of the wand illuminated the words. Harry read:
"The terrible conflict between the giants has been brewing for many centuries. It was, as is so often the case with that folk, a battle for power and the control of territory. Usually, the power struggles result in a short brawl that lasts no more than a few days, weeks at the most, then everything dies down afterwards and there is a relative peace and a nursing of bruises for a few hundred years. But this conflict involved pretenders to the position of high giant king itself. When giants go to war there is bad and bloody conflict. There are no half measures in the efforts they will go to in order to emerge victorious. The natural temper of a giant becomes a thousand times more fierce and all thought and feeling is discarded in the quest for victory. The giants are in the process of destroying themselves, Joseph Potter was a man of peace. He was been a friend of giants since he was a boy and was determined to do all he can to save them from themselves. SP 4.7.65 "
SP was probably Simon Potter, Harry thought. Joseph, another ancestor. The numbers referred to the day, month and year. This was part of a diary. He picked up another sheet, this one torn in half: " "If I can get to Joseph in time, his life may be saved. We may be able to save something of the giant's race as well. The last time I heard from Joseph, he was close to persuading a small group of Bulgarian giants to abandon the fighting. But then I lost touch. Joseph is being held deep below a mountain that was once a fierce volcano. Joseph, being a man committed to peace, had always had the confidence of the inner circle of giants who controlled the flow of gold from America and Canada. Not Muggle gold, I mean wizard gold. There was an alliance with the goblins. Several different goblin factions, particularly one of Russia and the far east played one group of giants off against another in order to gain control over the stockpile. The Welsh goblins were having none of it and, for a while, they refused to trade. This has turned the giants in on each other, a lot of blame and fists are flying around. and this time, there is no end to the fighting. Word has spread that whoever holds the gold holds the right to be high king. Giants from all over are vying for position. The bludgeoning and clubbing is killing off entire tribes. Soon, if the pessimists are correct, there will be no giants left at all. Joseph went to America to offer his diplomatic services and to try to weave a fragile peace that would at least hold the giants back for a while from annihilating each other. A particularly nasty and ambitious band, headed by a very vicious character called Bonehead the Livid, took Joseph hostage and is holding him, in a secret cave that I have learned the whereabouts of...but the Order knows about it too..."
Did his task involve giants, Harry wondered. But surely Simon would have mentioned it?
Harry was fascinated. He was reading history and was utterly immersed in a way he had never been under the monotone, ghostly drone of Professor Binns. This was history – his history, the history of the wizarding folk. Simon was an adventurer as well as a seer. But it was still only history. What did any of this have to do with Harry. Harry put the papers down, more confused than ever.
There was nothing else to find here, not a single useful clue that might give him a hint of his task. Harry went over to the window. A street full of passersby in full Victorian outfits, long black frock coats, bowler or top hats, women in white or lilac dresses down to the feet, hansom cabs pulled by horses trundled past, a scruffy street seller peddling things that were too far away for Harry to see.
So, here I am, thought Harry. He took the golden sovereign out of his pocket and looked at it once again, searching its detail for any clue of what his task might be. Harry's face smiled back at him on one side. Not a clue there. On the other was a rather stern looking Queen Victoria. "1868", said Harry aloud. "That is my here and now, I suppose." And Queen Victoria winked at him before reassuming her serious, disapproving glare. Perhaps his task involved her? A golden sovereign coin, a queen... Gold? Giants? Joseph and Simon Potter? it made no sense to Harry.
Harry didn't share the confidence that Simon was investing him with. He swallowed hard. He felt alone and wished Ron were here. He wished Hermione were listening, taking all of this in, making suggestions. Although he believed this kindly man really was his great great grandfather Simon, Harry suddenly felt he was a very long way from home. The gold sovereign was still warm in his hand, but would it be able to get him back to Hogwarts? Would Harry be marooned in the 19th Century forever? How he wished that Professor Dumbledore were here to listen to his plight, to give him some advice and tell him what it all meant. Instead here was Simon Potter, an ancestor, who seemed to think that only he, young Harry Potter could fulfill as task neither of them could name. Harry spoke aloud into the gloom. "I'll try, Simon. I'll try. I have no idea what I am supposed to do, but I will try."
He put the golden sovereign back into his pocket, checked his wand was safely there too, which made him feel bolder and braver. He walked across to the door of this chaotic room, pulled it open and stepped out into the sound, the smells and the unpleasant smog of Victorian London.
Harry wandered through a London barely recognisable compared to the modern version he knew. True, some familiar landmarks were there - St Paul's, The Tower of London, the Thames. But apart from those, Harry might have been in a different country. Of course, he hardly knew the London of his own time, but the clothing worn by the people here was straight out of history books, and there were no cars or buses on the roads. A London of horses and carriages and the smell of drains. And another difference was the presence of wizarding folk on the streets. They were everywhere, outnumbered fifty to one by Muggles but they walked easily among them, not trying to hide their presence, yet, as he walked through the dusty streets Harry didn't see magic being practised openly either.
Harry wandered, he begun to realise increasingly without purpose, for nearly two hours, until he decided that perhaps a good place to find out what he might be here to do, was somewhere familiar - not in the Muggle world, but in the wizarding world. In London, that meant one obvious place - Diagon Alley.
Simply deciding on some kind of goal, albeit a familiar destination lent a spring to his step and he felt he now had some sort of purpose. He set off, trying to remember the way through largely unfamiliar streets.
Harry was very tired by the time he reached the wonderfully familiar entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. Now here was a place that had not changed one bit over the years. Here was the most famous wizarding pub, in its usual place. The sign outside was the same, the door that eluded the gaze of non-wizarding folk. Harry gladly went in.