Hello everybody.

I was bored so I reread this chapter and as it is a bit shorter than the previous ones, it is the final part of the visit at Gringotts, I have it ready to be posted.

For those who asked about pairings, I haven't planned them yet. I am not sure if Harry will get a girlfriend during his third year in my story as there will be other things that will occupy his mind. Of course he will look at girls, perhaps develop a little crush but I think he won't start dating before fourth year.

I have plans for the development of the friendships with Ron and Hermione. While I won't tell you what excactly I have planned I can say that Harry won't hold back for the sake of keeping them happy. He will show his new abilities. For more information you sadly will have to wait until I get there in the story. ;)

I don't know in which story I read about horcruxes that don't work as a means to immortality because otherwise there would be ancient egytian wizards around but it was a oneshot. So whoever wrote that story is given credit for that idea.

As always I don't own Harry Potter.

Have fun!

Getting rid of the horcrux

Sirius had settled to read a book he had asked one goblin to lend him to pass the time. He sat beside Harry's bed waiting for Snowcack to return. Harry had been sleeping peacefully. Funnily Harry's hair color had changed a lot during his sleep. His unblocked metamorphmagus ability seemed to run havoc after being blocked for so long. He would have to learn how to control this ability fast if he wanted to remain unnoticed by Dumbledore. He just hoped that everything would be solved at the end and Harry finally free of Voldemort's soul piece. Then he finally heard the knock at the door he had been waiting for.

"Come in." He called.

"Sirius, everything is prepared. Please wake Harry and follow me. We will use the strongest ritual warded room we have. It has been some time since we have transferred a horcrux but the sages are confident that we won't have any problems."

"Thank you, Snowcack. I really appreciate all the help the goblins give Harry."

Sirius put the book aside and began shaking Harry to wake him up. After some tries Harry began to wake up.

"Uh?" He murmured clearly not completely recovered from the first ritual.

"It's time, Harry." Sirius explained gently.

"Okay." Harry said, trying to get up on his own.

"Don't, Harry. Keep your strength. I will carry you." Sirius stopped Harry.

Harry seemed to want to protest but then decided not to. He was just so tired. He let Sirius lift him from the bed, he still only wore his boxers, and put his arms around Sirius neck to have better hold.

Sirius then followed Snowcack really deep into the halls of Gringotts. This time the goblins had provided one of their special levitating discs to transport them. They could only be used by the goblins, as they were charmed by goblin magic. The disc had a diameter of two meters, just enough to give them enough space to stand comfortably. The ride on the disc took fifteen minutes and Sirius could only guess the time they would have needed to go on foot. Finally they arrived at their destination and left the disc.

"You are here, good." Thornfinger greeted them.

"The three sages are ready. Please remember that they are very wary of humans and only agreed to this because you are a friend of the goblins Lord Black. As were the boy's parents. Normally they wouldn't be bothered to help a human. But they see the necessity to stop the Dark Lord from throwing the world into terror again. We goblins also lost a lot of our own the last time he had risen to power. We don't want to repeat the experience."

"Of course, Healer Thornfinger. Thank you very much for the great service your nation is doing for my godson. I will make sure that you will be rewarded accordingly. My family has a lot of goblin made things in their possession and I wouldn't mind to part with some of them to repay the debt of this to you."

"That would be acceptable, Lord Black. Now please follow me. The ritual will take a little over two hours and Harry has to be completely isolated from any outside influence during this time. This is to ensure the smooth transfer from Harry to the new horcrux. If there was any outside influence the soul piece could be tempted to latch itself onto another body we don't want it to. The ritual has five steps.

"Step one is isolating the piece of the foreign soul in Harry's body from his own; this means severing any attachment it could possibly have made in Harry's mind.

"Step two is creating a pocket dimension for the transfer to use. In this dimension the soul piece will be tripped for a short amount of time while we reinforce the barriers around Harry so the soul piece can't return to him.

"Step three is the extraction of the soul piece from Harry. He most likely will be in pain during this part but it isn't possible to avoid it. We are pretty sure Harry will fall unconscious after the soul piece is extracted.

"Step four is the transfer in the pocket dimension.

"Step five and the last step is putting the soul piece from the pocket dimension into the new horcrux. This concludes the transfer. As you can see, we chose a cheap tin box as the new horcrux. It will be destroyed with fiendfire immediately afterwards so that it can't do any harm ever again."

Sirius looked grim but nodded. He knew it wouldn't be easy to get rid of the horcrux. But if it meant to save Harry's life it was worth it.

"No need to prolong this. Bring Mr. Potter to the center of the rune circle and then come back outside Lord Black. The sages will then begin." Thornfinger instructed.

Sirius followed the instructions.

"Be strong, Harry. After all this is over we will enjoy the next couple of days. Any special wishes?" Sirius asked.

"I always wanted to make a family trip to some kind of attraction. I never was allowed to come with the Dursleys when they took Dudley for his birthdays." Harry admitted.

"I will see what I can arrange. I will see you after the ritual and don't be afraid. I will be here and I won't leave you alone. Never again." He promised.

"Thank you." Harry whispered into his ear.

Then he let go of Sirius and lay down on the ground, closing his eyes hoping it would soon be over. He inertly steeled himself and got ready for anything.

The sages activated the barrier and began chanting in Gobbledygook. They wore different cloaks each. One was dark blue like the ocean, one was dark red and reminded Sirius of blood and one was strikingly white. The air became dense and Sirius just hoped Harry was alright. With each passing minute another rune circle began glowing. Soon Harry was surrounded by ten glowing rune circles.

"The first part will soon be finished. The circles are already dividing the two souls." Thornfinger explained.

Sirius was unable to take his eyes from Harry. He realized that he viewed the boy like his own son, the son he had always wished to have but had given up hope to ever get after his girlfriend was killed by death eaters and he had tried to distract himself by going after as many witches as possible. It hadn't worked he had only loved that one woman and with her loss he had lost hope for a child of his own. When James had made him Harry's godfather it had been as if a veil had been partially lifted, he had sworn to protect James' son as if he was his own and it was painful to stand aside and see him suffering like he was. Unable to do anything for him but giving moral support.

"Your part will come, Sirius." Snowcack said reading his friends expression.

"Harry will need somebody to trust. He will have to relearn much of his magical abilities and you are currently the only adult he can turn to."

"I know. And I intend to do the best job as his guardian I can."

"Don't you mean more as his father? I can see you feel like that for the boy and I can also see that it is his greatest wish to have a father. Just make it official, Sirius. This is what James and Lily would want you to do."

"How could I? The ministry would never allow me to adopt Harry as long as I am believed to have killed all those muggles and have betrayed Lily and James." Sirius said gritting his teeth.

"Ever thought of blood adoption? He would then be your son as well as James' and Lily's son. It won't change his outer appearance much and it wouldn't influence his inheritance as well. But I think it would mean the world to him to know that he is wanted by someone. I could see it in his behavior. He craves a family. If I am honest, I am surprised that he still dares to hope to gain the love of a family after all he has been through in his life. Many bury those feelings deep inside themselves to not be hurt anymore." Snowcack commented.

"My colleague is absolutely right with his observations. The boy is already attached to you. You are his legal guardian and we can prove your innocence by just presenting a memory for a pensieve to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I know Amelia Bones the current head isn't as hard headed as some others and would at least look at the memories if we trick her a little." Thornfinger said.

"Is that possible?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Yes. You just need to draw the memory in question from your head and Gringotts would take care of the delivery. We can send it in anonymously saying the witness in question fears retribution if he delivered the memory himself to solve this case. At least the memory would be seen and then questions would be asked. Questions that should have been asked twelve years ago. I doubt that you will be cleared of all charges without presenting the true culprit but they can't send you back to Azkaban with this kind of evidence in their hands. Even Dumbledore would have his problems to manage this. Especially when the goblins are demanding answers in the light of the new proof of your innocence." Snowcack grinned deviously.

"That would be great. And I know where the culprit is hiding. It will just take a very good plan to get hold of him. The culprit, Peter Pettigrew has found a wizarding family and made use of his animagus form. He lives there as the pet of one of the family's sons. Harry's best friend at that." Sirius told them.

"I see. That would be an ideal position to strike in case the Dark Lord managed to return. Well he will have to cancel the rebirth party invitation, we will make sure he is rotting in Azkaban." Snowcack stated.

"That would be my dream, him in my place where he should have been for the whole time." Sirius replied.

They returned spending their whole attention to the ritual. The circles now glowed blue.

"The second step is complete, the pocket dimension is ready to imprison the soul piece. Now the hard part for Harry starts. Remember, you can't help him now. He will be okay in the end, but you can't enter the circle now" Thornfinger reminded Sirius.

He nodded but the goblins could see him clenching his fists. He wanted to spare Harry the pain that was sure to come. And just as he thought it, Harry began thrashing around and screaming. It cost Sirius every bit of self-control to stop himself from running to Harry.

Harry's body was encircled by red lines of light. The pulling from his scar was extremely painful. It felt like his soul was on fire. He knew it would hurt but this was inhuman. He wanted to pass out, but something stopped him. He was kept aware of everything, he could hear whispering to stop the ritual, that he needed the whispering thing. Harry just wanted this to end, he wanted his freedom, he wanted a family, he wanted to be a normal boy, and he wanted to be loved by a parent like all the other kids.

This seemed to be the final straw. The soul piece screeched and was forcefully ejected from Harry's body. Harry could only see a black cloud building from his scar, that from the feeling of it, had broken open and the thing was finally out. His job was done. He let the blissful unconsciousness take him over.

It was hard to just stand by and look. In the meantime Sirius fists were bleeding from digging his fingernails into the flesh of his hands. Thornfinger just shook his head. He silently moved his hands over Sirius fists, unclenched them and healed the small wounds.

The soul piece was sucked into the pocket dimension. Sirius could see a new barrier being built between Harry and the cloud that resembled the pocket dimension. It took a lot of time for the barrier to stabilize. Then the dark cloud reappeared and was thrusted into the prepared tin box. This part took a lot of time. But then it was finally done. All in all the time the goblins had predicted had been met but by two minutes. Sirius reassured with Thornfinger that it was alright to get Harry and went to him.

He looked pale. Really pale. From his forehead ran blood down but after cleaning it away with a tissue, Sirius could see that the scar was far less pronounced than it had been before. The ritual was obviously successful. He took Harry and carried him to Thornfinger to have him examine Harry to make sure everything was alright. While Thornfinger did his job, Sirius went towards the three sages.

"I want to thank you three very much for what you did today. I will forever be in the debt of the goblins for this. I you ever need anything I can do for you, just call me, I will do everything in my power to help you." Sirius bowed deeply before the sages.

"It is good to see that not all wizards have forgotten their good manners. We see that you are sincere about your claim, Lord Black. We will remember it. We want to wish your young charge the best in the world. He will need all the help he can get to face the obstacles that will be pushed in his way. He is special this boy. He has great magical powers. If trained properly he could be the one changing the world. We see our help as an investment in the future."

"I am sure Harry will do his best to prove your expectations in him right. I bid you my goodbye and wish that your gold will never cease and your business always go well."

"The same to you Lord Black, the same to you." They answered before leaving him.

Sirius got Harry's clothes and took to redress his godson. He arranged an appointment with Snowcack in five days' time and left the goblins a copy of his memories regarding the identity of the Potter's secret keeper and what really happened when he cornered Peter. Snowcack promised Sirius to send them to Amelia Bones anonymously.

Using another portkey to get back to Grimmauld place, Sirius bade the goblins goodbye and vanished.

And done. As I said it is shorter than the previous ones. I hope you liked it. Until next weekend.