Side-along apparition brought her to the designated spot in the alleyway for those apparating in, and Charles quickly ushered her towards Gringotts Wizarding Bank, her letter clutched in his hand. Her fingers twitched at that, longing to hold that letter once more – it was one of the few things which was hers and hers alone. Not that her recently appointed guardian seemed to understand that.
The joys of not being an orphan with so few possession which were truly theirs, Harriet figured, something dark and vicious stirring in the back of her head at that thought.
Harriet could only blink throughout it all, silently taking in the sights of Diagon Alley in the 1940s. Not much had changed, she mused silently, staring at the storefronts which were different from what she vaguely remembered. They were subtle differences though, and Harriet sighed, the air around her feeling oddly stagnant and cloying all of a sudden.
She was in the past.
That fact in itself was mind-numbing in some ways, the proof of it all seemingly bandied about like a cutlass on the front of newspapers and other communications mentioning the date, and Harriet was doing her best to stumble along, dancing to the tune of whatever mysterious, magical forces had dragged her through a crack in time and deposited her there like some sort of lost stray. Though that was essentially what she was – lost. She didn't know how anyone couldn't be lost in the sort of situation she had found herself. It was bizarre. Unthinking. Impossible. And exactly the same kind of situation she had found herself in day after day. Potter's Luck, they called it. The same luck which had found her encountering a troll in her first year. The same kind of luck which had her facing a bloody basilisk in her second year. The same kind of luck which had gotten her tangled up in a magically-binding tournament with a long record of gruesome deaths.
A soft sigh escaped her, the bigger part of her brain focusing in on the here and now and what she needed to do to survive, while the smaller part screamed in the back of her head. That smaller part would catch up with her eventually, she knew. Harriet only hoped she would be alone by that point so she could do… whatever she needed to do. She wasn't sure if she wanted to scream, cry, or laugh. She was supposed to be dead. That was what the Killing Curse was for. It killed people. It wasn't meant to make the recipient travel through time. Otherwise it would have been called the Time Travel Curse.
"Come," Shacklebolt ordered. "We have much to do today, and I have little time to spare as your interim guardian."
His pace quickened, and Harriet could only scramble to keep up in billowing robes meant for a witch far older than what she now was. She was thirteen again, such a novel thought. Twice, she nearly tripped over her own feet, earning herself more prickling stares which burnt at the back of her neck like—well, like sunburn. She was making a complete fool of herself, and yet nobody was making a big deal of it like they would have if she had been the Girl-Who-Lived making an idiot of herself.
It was odd to her eyes – how little things had changed between then and her time – so much so that she forgot for a brief instant now and then that she was indeed a few decades in the past, likely without a sickle or knut to her name. The thought was oddly sobering to her, something cold trickling in her gut at the thought or being lost, alone, and helpless.
Gringotts loomed before them, the building slightly crooked, made from marble and other types of stone which goblins liked to mine beneath the earth. It was also the place she had broken into and escaped on the back of a dragon. Fun times. Goblins took grudges very seriously – and all of Binn's poetic waxing about the Goblin Wars only reminded her that they really ought to hate her guts. But she was in the past, meaning she hadn't broken into Gringotts yet in their minds and memories, and she doubted she ever would. Once was enough. Not least because the cup probably wasn't even in the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange as of yet because she was far in the bloody past.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as they passed the two goblins at the entrance, one in possession of an axe which Harriet swiftly looked away from. Gringotts was goblin territory according to the treaty which stood between them. Anyone on Gringotts territory was under goblin law for the time of their stay – hence why it was madness to rob Gringotts. Harriet supposed she had been mad – desperate and mad – and she only prayed she wouldn't have to be again.
Swallowing back the lump in her throat, she stuck close to Shacklebolt, feeling the eyes on her skin which stung and burnt and made Harriet dread that somehow they knew. Her breath caught in her throat, legs somehow moving without any conscious input as Shacklebolt led her forwards until they were standing in front of a goblin teller.
"We are here for a blood matching," Shacklebolt declared, and Harriet could only blink at that, thoroughly confused.
"A what?" she echoed, ignoring the derisive stare the goblin directed her way. Undoubtedly, she was making a complete idiot out of herself. Something she uncannily did at pretty much all times. Nothing new there.
Shacklebolt looked at her then, sighing softly. "Forgive me, but since I presume you have no vault key – this is the only other way to find out if your parents left you any money with which to pay for both your school fees and your school equipment."
"Oh," Harriet muttered, fear pooling in her gut. "Uh… what if they didn't?" she asked, mentally berating herself for sounding like a completely clueless idiot. In fact, she probably ought to start writing a list, a set of guidelines for what one was supposed to do when stuck in the past, or so she mused as she waited on Shacklebolt for an answer.
"We can worry about that if such a scenario occurs," Shacklebolt said matter-of-factly, sweeping his hand in a gesture indicating for her to follow the impatient goblin whose name Harriet hadn't quite caught. "I will be waiting in the foyer here."
Blinking at the turn of events, Harriet nodded, feeling an odd sense of whiplash as her feet moved of their own volition to follow the goblin who was muttering under his breath about clueless, imbecilic witches. Harriet couldn't find it within herself to counter those claims. She truly was clueless and imbecilic, and with an inexplicable rotten luck to top it all off. Not to mention she didn't really want to draw any more goblin attention onto her beyond that which she was already receiving. She would never be able to forget the robbery, nor the feud it had undoubtedly started.
It was why she needed to go back. Somehow. If it was even possible. Silently, she mused over what had happened to make her time travel, hopelessness filling her at the only thing which could have been the trigger.
Avada Kedavra.
The incantation made her shudder, as did the thought of being subjected to the Killing Curse once more. Already, she had experienced that green light, the odd sensation of weightlessness and confusion it brought, twice in her short life. Once more than Dumbledore. Twice she had somehow miraculously survived it. She didn't want to try for a third. Not when Dumbledore wasn't there to smile and bid her to walk to her death without hope for survival beyond that of her friends'. Her shoulders sunk, feelings torn up as she thought of the older man. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, so many doubts and suspicions she now had thanks to Snape's words and everything else which had seemingly been orchestrated for her.
Footsteps echoed in the hall she was brought to, nervousness creeping back around to bite her in the backside once more. Where's that Gryffindor courage now, Potter? she could almost hear Malfoy ask. Or was it Snape? Harriet didn't quite know. She didn't know anything anymore, or at least that was what it felt like. She was in the past. That fact hadn't quite sunk in properly just yet – likely why she wasn't screaming or doing something otherwise rash and irrational. But that was what Gryffindors were in a nutshell. Brash, hot-headed, irrational, and unthinking of the consequences of the actions. Like when she had delved into the Chamber of Secrets, knowing there was an age old basilisk which could kill her with just a look. She hadn't stopped to think she might have died.
Though it probably wouldn't have stopped her – she'd already had the courage to walk to certain death. Only now she had found out it hadn't been certain. Death, it seemed, was never a certain thing when it came to her.
Yeah. Nope. Harriet shook her head, following the goblin into the small room deeper within the bank than she had ever been before. She wasn't going to try and unpick that fiasco until she was in a silenced room where she could scream or sob to her heart's content. Maintain a good façade for the public so as to not be slandered. That was what she had to do right then and there, unless she wanted to be branded a lunatic. Or be dragged kicking and screaming into the Department of Mysteries, never to be seen again. For right then and there, she was fine. She had to be. Repress it and deal with it later. That was something she was excellent at – something she had to be excellent at, especially when Uncle Vernon came into the picture. Aunt Petunia too.
"Three drops," the goblin demanded, the harsh, scraping voice stirring her from her daze, holding forwards a knife and a little indent in a table carved from marble where she presumed she was supposed to bleed on.
Blinking, Harriet lifted the knife, wincing slightly as she pricked the tip of her finger and let the blood dribble out ever so slowly. The red droplets landed in the little groove, the third one falling, and Harriet could only blink as her skin healed shut and her blood vanished from the knife like it had never been there in the first place. A charm or enchantment of some form lain on the knife. A glow from the marble table made her blink, stirring her attention away from the goblin knife, the carved patterns upon the table lighting up, and Harriet blinked yet again, trying to rid herself of the bright spots burned into her retinas from the sudden flare of light.
"I see," the goblin murmured, and her attention fixed on him then as beady eyes set her with a look she couldn't quite decipher. The goblin inclined his head ever so slightly, somehow sounding far more polite than he had before. Harriet hadn't even known goblins could be polite. "It would appear I have been quite remiss in greeting you, Lady Slytherin."