One of the most interesting things about Hagrid was that Harry seemed to be the only one that noticed he was over nine feet tall.
Admittedly, they didn't spend long on the streets. The giant had crammed into the back seat of Aunt Pepper's car (somehow) and only had to walk the distance between the paid parking lot and the wall of a store in one of LA's new age shopping areas. But they'd passed dozens of locals and tourists on the short walk, all out for a good time in the midsummer heat. It was especially hard to understand how he went unnoticed given that, unlike the festival of skin on display from most locals, Hagrid's dark, furry coat was completely inappropriate for the weather.
Harry pretty much figured that people were just bad at differentiating between, "extremely tall for a human," and, "humans don't actually get that big." Maybe it was also because the guy wasn't at all skinny, so people just figured he was a regular-sized weirdo closer up than their depth perception was telling them, and they shouldn't pay too much attention lest he notice them.
The speculation had allowed Harry to mostly ignore his aunt's freakout about how he'd basically been abducted for scientific experimentation by her boss' business partner.
"S'fine, ma'am," Hagrid assured her at the end of a tirade, "He won' 'member none o' it. Wong'll see ta that."
"I just… I thought Obie was nice," she grumbled. "I don't even know how to warn Tony that he might get up to things like this. I'm just Tony's assistant, Obie's known him his whole life. I wonder what else he's been up to…"
Hagrid just shrugged. So did Harry. "I'll at least be more careful, Aunt Pepper," he promised her.
"Ah! Here we are," Hagrid interrupted Pepper's attempt to create a multi-tiered strategy to bring down Obadiah Stane in the middle of Santa Monica by walking up to a brick wall against one of the shops where they'd bought school supplies. "They tend ta build these types o' stores in soft places," the big man explained. "Easy enough ter open a door. Now what were that rune?" He glanced around to make sure nobody was paying much attention, pulled out a large pink sidewalk chalk that looked like normal chalk in his oversized hands, and scribed a glyph up three bricks and across two of them.
The pink chalk markings flared with silver light momentarily, erasing themselves, and there was a sense of space suddenly opening. Taking another glance around, Hagrid stepped forward and then disappeared to the right. "Just like in Labyrinth!" Harry grinned, following into the new brick hallway that defied depth perception from the front.
Pepper strode in behind them, complaining, "Well if I'd known it was this easy, I could have taken Harry last week."
"Requires a bit o' magic, I'm afraid, ma'am," Hagrid apologized as he led them down a brick-lined tunnel that grew gradually dimmer as they walked. As the LA sunlight faded, so did the red brick seem to slowly transition into ancient gray stones. Sense of time and distance failing, some time before it got completely dark Hagrid took another step to the left and out. He explained, behind him, "This is it. The Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place: center o' a thousand night roads an' doorway to the Goblin Market."
Harry and Aunt Pepper followed him in, revealing an old tavern room that wouldn't look out of place in any European country (or in most places in America that were trying to borrow the vibe). Harry figured its appearance was probably not a bad idea if you'd somehow accidentally stumbled into one of the night roads—the smallest roots of Yggdrasil that connected various realms, as his aunt had explained to him.
"Hasn't changed much since James went to school," Aunt Pepper observed with some disdain. She wasn't impressed by the ridiculously overdone bars catering to the upper class that she was always having to cart Tony out of, so a dingy old inn wasn't going to impress her just because it was a cosmic nexus.
"The usual, Hagrid?" asked the bald, toothless proprietor, clearly familiar with the big man. Harry wasn't sure if he was a very old human or human-like individual, or an inhuman entity in a very ill-fitting human suit. He kind of looked like a walnut.
"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," Hagrid demurred, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder that nearly engulfed his whole back.
That got the old barkeep's attention and drew the eyes of the dozen shabby-looking patrons scattered around the room. "Odin's beard," the old man exclaimed, "is this– can this be–?" The bar was dead silent as he finished, "Bless my soul… Harry Potter… what an honor."
Aunt Pepper was making a high-pitched annoyed noise in the back of her throat. They hadn't made it five feet off of Midgard and this was happening. Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses and he glanced her way. She managed to choke down her annoyance and nodded. This was what she'd been warning him about.
"Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back," Tom gushed, striding from behind the bar and rushing forward to shake Harry's hand. It looked like the other patrons wouldn't be far behind.
Harry had been dragged along on enough public events with Tony that he knew what his aunt's boss would do. He'd just never really figured he'd be in the same situation. He was the secretary's nephew. No one had ever cared, especially once the tabloids were convinced that he wasn't Tony's bastard son. But the kid was a quick study, and he had been prepared by his aunt that he was potentially famous, as much as he hated to believe it.
"Love this place! Can you all do magic? Sorry, terrible rush. Love the hat! Wish I had time to catch up with everyone, maybe later!" Harry was a whirlwind of quick handshakes, smiles, eye-contact, and movement across the room. He only hoped he was right that the significant-looking door was actually the way he wanted to go.
He was out into the alley, Hagrid confused and Aunt Pepper hiding a grin, before the pub knew what had hit it. From a side booth, a cloaked figure narrowed eyes concerned about what the boy's presence meant for the day's mission.
So glad to escape the mob of unexpected and shifty-looking fans, it took a second for Harry to adjust to what he'd stepped into outside of the pub. "Just like in Hellboy II!" he gasped, taking it all in, an open-air market crammed into an enormous cave.
The cavernous underground space sprawled ahead, lit with thousands of lights, none identical. Hundreds of stalls and an array of eclectic beings filled the space, the walls themselves individual storefronts in dozens of different styles. He suspected that the place never really slowed down, already noticing an immense number of shoppers just in the part of the market that he could see. The ceiling rose at least two stories, iron catwalks providing access to additional shops before the cleft in the rock narrowed back into darkness.
"First stop Gringotts?" Aunt Pepper asked Hagrid, smiling at her nephew's shocked silence so soon after his celebrity gregariousness and choosing to not be annoyed at how Harry's comparison to the new Del Toro movie was a reminder that Happy had taken her just-turned-11-year-old nephew to see a violent fantasy movie as an early birthday present a couple of days earlier. If she was feeling a bit of nostalgia for a magical place she hadn't seen in at least two decades, she kept it to herself.
"Right. You got his key?" Hagrid asked and the redhead nodded, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder as they started to lead him, gawking, through the stalls and toward the central convergence point of the whole cluster of diagonal rifts through the alien stone.
Elves bargained with "dwarves" that were even bigger than Hagrid. Humanlike figures might have been from Midgard, Vanaheim, or even Asgard. Shadowy silhouettes wrapped in cloaks defied classification. And many were aliens from beyond the Nine Realms who treated the place as just another interplanetary bazaar. "No one is even sure which planet we're on," Aunt Pepper explained to her nephew. "Or whether the goblins are a natural part of Yggdrasil or somehow dug their own pathways into its roots. But they created a trade nexus important enough to control shopping and banking for the Nine Realms for thousands of years."
The goblins' seat of power was obvious enough, all alleys converging on the high stone staircase leading up to an entire wall covered in unbroken white marble and wrapped around immense bronze doors. Diminutive green-skinned figures in armor of scarlet and gold wielded wicked blades and sci-fi rayguns, manning guard positions across the sprawling steps.
"Most secure bank in the entire cosmos!" Hagrid explained, striding up the steps past the guards, who sketched slight bows to the trio, sizing them up for threat and contraband.
Past the oversized doors, clearly over a foot thick from this vantage, the vaulted ceiling loomed fifty feet high over a vast floor tiled in more white marble. While the borders of the room were full of oversized wooden desks that belonged in a Dickens novel, Harry couldn't help but notice emplacements around the walls and ceilings with sharp lines and mirrored surfaces: cameras, or sniper posts.
Hagrid seemed blasé about the whole thing, striding over to a free desk where an unarmored goblin loomed, high seat placing him above his normal height (but not above Hagrid's towering perspective). "Morning," the big man began, explaining, "We've come ter take some money out of Mr. Harry Potter's safe."
"You have his key, sir?" the goblin intoned, sharp features focused on the giant's face. The teller's mouth movements didn't quite match the words he spoke, and Harry realized this was his first experience with universal translation technology. While Aunt Pepper had assured him that, for whatever reason of shared heritage, the Nine Realms basically all spoke English, the goblins were clearly in the same boat as the rest of the universe. Technology or magic to bridge language barriers was essential before going out into the cosmos.
"Here," Aunt Pepper offered, drawing the oversized golden key out of her purse and handing it over. While it was shaped like a medieval key, she'd explained that it was actually extremely high-tech. This was borne out when the goblin teller inserted it into a slot in his desk and a holographic stream of data suddenly floated above the surface.
"That seems to be in order," the goblin allowed after making sense of the alien script floating in the air.
"An' I've also got a key here from Professor Dumbledore," the big man added, importantly, having dredged up his own, similar-looking vault key. "For the you-know-what in vault seven hundred and thirteen." Aunt Pepper frowned, eyeing the big man shrewdly.
The teller inserted the key and then nodded, "Very well." He handed it back to Hagrid. "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"
"Why don't we go separately?" Aunt Pepper asked, just as Harry asked, "What's in vault seven hundred thirteen?"
"Very well. Gornuk!" the teller called up an additional goblin as Hagrid made noises about not being able to answer Harry.
Nonplussed, Hagrid was led away from Harry and Aunt Pepper as she called to him, "We'll meet you at the entrance?" As the dark-clothed goblin guide led them into a discreet elevator (or possibly subway car) lit from within from a ceiling-mounted yellow lighting panel, she explained to Harry, "My parents never completely trusted Dumbledore. Manipulative, if well-intentioned. Seems weird that Hagrid would coincidentally be on a separate mission for him that you get to tag along on…"
The goblin huffed in agreement, but didn't comment. There was a sensation of acceleration as he worked the unmarked controls on the wall, and several seconds later, deceleration. The doors opened and the small being announced, "Vault 687." Gornuk stayed with the conveyance as they walked over.
A few feet of landing was all that separated the door of the elevator from the door of the vault, solid stone cut perfectly square on walls, floor, and ceiling, the only light coming from the elevator. A seamless panel of similar bronze to the bank's edifice served as vault door, a small slot in the center. Aunt Pepper inserted the vault key, and then placed Harry's palm against a glowing square that appeared below the keyhole. After a moment of consideration, it flashed, she withdrew the key, and the door nearly-silently slid up and disappeared.
Harry gasped. An approximately-ten-foot cube can hold a shockingly immense amount of coins, and the room was basically full of gold, silver, and bronze. White lights recessed into the ceiling lit up and caused the treasure in the room to glimmer.
"Vanaheim is still on a precious metal economy, and a lot of the alley stalls like coins," Aunt Pepper sighed, her business classes disabusing her of any nostalgia for a gold or silver standard. "You only need to take a little of this for the year. Gringotts has digital accounts for you to spend at places that aren't basically cavemen."
Harry wasn't a mathematical genius, but he did go to a pretty good private school. He did the math and said, "This has to be worth millions of dollars?"
Aunt Pepper shrugged, trying to act like it didn't get to her. "There's a reason Tony's money never impressed me. Mom and Dad were loaded. I told you."
"Aunt Pepper, we live in a three-bedroom split-level in Encino! Do you need some of this?"
She hugged her nephew, explaining, "I got the house mostly on my own, before they passed and left me my inheritance. I didn't inherit this much, but I'm not broke. Do you want to live in a mansion like Tony's?"
"I guess not," Harry decided, after a moment's consideration. "He doesn't know you're rich, does he?"
"He'd be weird about it if he did," she admitted. "It's nice to know I could just quit, if he really drives me to it one day."
Finally realizing how devoted his aunt was to the eccentric weapons manufacturer as he appreciated the family wealth, Harry shrugged and followed her lead, gathering enough coins for school supplies and incidentals. "Does all this just… sit here? Not invested?"
"Despite thousands of years of unbroken civilization, most of the realms are very backwards," she sighed. "And the IRS would have some very pointed questions if we tried to walk all of this out of here to exchange for dollars and start a brokerage account." She added, after a few seconds, "That's the other reason we still live in Encino. I can only launder so many gold coins every year."
They met Hagrid back in the lobby, looking slightly furtive and guarding something in his pocket. Somehow Harry got the impression that it was a small, round lump of some kind, possibly just from how the big man's left hand curled protectively about it. "Umm, d'yeh think yeh kin navigate 'round here?" he asked Aunt Pepper. "I should be gettin' this where it's goin'. I'll meet yeh at Ollivanders?"
"I think I can remember the way around the place," his aunt nodded, and Hagrid nodded thankfully and headed off. "That was a little strange," she shrugged.
Harry didn't disagree, but his response was lost as he noticed a green-skinned hag in tattered robes regarding him with some interest, leaning against one of the ornamental balusters at the base of the bank stairs. It really was interesting to be somewhere that all the stories his aunt had told him of non-humans came to life.
Aunt Pepper caught the look as well and said, "Maybe the clothing store first. We're getting looks." They'd both dressed in simple, solid-colored shirts and black pants in an effort to not stand out in either the LA streets or the goblin market, but it must not have worked completely. "I think the place that James used to go is right over here, though they may not have anything off-the-rack…"
Entering one of the shops built into the actual storefronts carved into the walls near the bank, Harry noted that the shop signage was a gray cat wearing a fancy robe. "Welcome to Madam Malkin's," a short, older woman called from within the large clothing store.
Everything that wasn't carved out of the rock of the cavern was done in expensive gray woods, and every surface was hung with different swatches of cloth and a few examples of finished robes on headless mannequins. Clearly this was a place where clothes were custom-ordered and crafted, not where they were bought off the rack and tailored. Harry had sat reading or playing video games for many boring hours in such shops as Aunt Pepper helped Tony choose bespoke suits.
The apparent Madam Malkin had another boy Harry's age up on a stool in front of an array of mirrors, a younger woman with the look of a shop assistant pinning his robes. "Hogwarts, dear?" she asked, sizing Harry up. "Got the lot here, step on back. I'll grab another stool."
While Aunt Pepper amusedly looked at fabric samples, Harry was directed to stand next to the other boy, a shapeless robe unceremoniously tossed over him which the Madam began pinning up to get his measurements rather than just using a tape. The other boy, pale of skin and with nearly white hair, glanced Harry's way and asked, "First year, as well?"
"Yes," he answered, feeling a little weird about having a conversation while the two women swarmed around them with pins.
"My father's next door buying my books, and Mother's up the street…" the boy drawled, his long-winded description of his parents catering to his whims immediately running in one of Harry's ears and out the other. He had a lot of experience with this type of kid at his private school and getting dragged to events for Tony and people as rich as he was. Apparently, spoiled was the same no matter what planet you grew up on. Harry simply made interested-sounding noises at every significant pause the boy made, allowing him to keep talking to hear himself speak.
After an overly-long pause, Harry played back the last few seconds of conversation he'd been ignoring and realized the boy had asked him about flying brooms and Quidditch, the sport that was played in the air with a variety of personal flying apparatuses depending on the realm in question. He answered, "Oh, yeah, looking forward to it. We can't bring our own brooms or play first year, though, right?"
"Sadly, no," the boy admitted. "Though Father says it would be a crime if I don't get picked for my House once I can, and I agree. Know what House you'll be in yet?"
"Probably the same as my parents," Harry shrugged as much as he could without getting stuck with a pin. Aunt Pepper had certainly been bemoaning his Gryffindor tendencies every time he did something, "stupidly brave or bravely stupid, just like James!" The other three houses that he'd basically boiled down in his head to "I love to read," "let's all hug," and "no, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die," didn't particularly appeal.
"Me too!" the boy grinned. "I know I'll be in Slytherin, because all of our family has been—imagine being in Hufflepuff! I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"
Harry nodded to himself. He could certainly picture the kid stroking a cat whiter than he was and starting to drop someone into a pool of acid. But what he said was an agreeable, "I guess someone has to bake the cookies?"
That got an appreciative chuckle. The rich boy started going off on another pompous story about his father that allowed Harry to go back to making "I'm listening" noises every so often while he paid more attention to the interesting juxtaposition of a pretty standard high-end tailor in this alien cavern. Periodically Aunt Pepper held up swatches of different colors and materials and he gave her a nod or head shake to indicate whether he liked them.
"That's you done, my dear," Madam Malkin told Harry, just in time to interrupt whatever the other boy had been asking him so he didn't have to try to figure out what it was. "Let's go look at the fabrics your mother's pointed out and decide on choices."
Harry thought about correcting her, but it always seemed petty to immediately object with, "Aunt!" when he did so, and he didn't bother. As he stepped down, the blond boy who's name he still didn't know said, "I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose." Harry gave him a nod and thumbs-up as he walked away.
Hopefully the school was big enough that he could just avoid all the rich bros, but it had never paid to get on their bad side if he didn't have to.
"Making friends?" Aunt Pepper asked after they put in orders and strolled back into the alley.
"Remember Justin Hammer's cousin Hunter?"
"Yes. Poor Hunter Hammer. What a name," she chuckled. "So, rich and snobby?"
"I'm not going to have to hang out with that crowd just because I'm wealthy, right?" Harry asked.
"James never did," she admitted. "I've mentioned Sirius before, right? He was the only close friend James had that was at all high-class. The poor kid was over all the time because he was a pariah to his family. The rest of your dad's friends were from a lot of different financial backgrounds."
It took a couple of hours to buy the rest of Harry's school supplies, more for the novelty of browsing the seemingly-endless shopping district than from what they still needed to buy. Harry bought a few odds-and-ends that caught his eye but weren't on the list as they went. Finally, they made it to Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since Bor's Coronation. It anchored one of the main thoroughfares radiating out from Gringotts, a literal hole-in-the-wall shop that had likely been one of the first established in the market. Within, it was dimly lit by lambent silver flames clinging to golden orbs that hovered beneath the ceiling which extended high overhead. The rest of the shop was endless boxes crammed into dusty shelves with wide rows and reaching thirty feet into the air.
The stillness of the air made it even more off-putting when the immense old man loomed unexpectedly from behind a shelf. "Good afternoon," boomed his soft voice, causing Harry and Aunt Pepper to jump in surprise. His long hair and muttonchop beard were as silver as his eyes, glowing faintly in the light of the shop, and he was proportioned even wider and taller than Hagrid. It was only the wrinkles—like deep river valleys across his face—that gave away his immense age.
While he'd been vaguely prepared to meet the outcast of Nidavellir, and seen a few in passing in the market, none of his aunt's reminders that "dwarves" were closer to twenty-feet-tall would truly prepare him for the difference to his expectations of the term formed in fantasy media this close up. Clearly, she had forgotten it herself, as her eyes widened looking up at at Ollivander in his simple, black crafters' robes. "Hello," Harry managed awkwardly, and then managed to fit in, "Good tidings upon you and may your skill never falter."
"Ah, yes," the old dwarf allowed, looming above the two. "I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Harry Potter. And young Virginia Potter. It seems only seconds ago you were here with your little brother, and for a moment I thought he'd come back, the boy looks so much like him. But for the eyes, I think: his mother's."
"So I hear, sir," Harry answered politely.
The nigh-immortal being crouched down slowly, so Harry was merely craning up to look at his face at the height of Hagrid's, and he began to feel he'd get lost in those molten silver eyes, his face reflected in the iris. A surprisingly gentle finger, the tip almost bigger than the boy's entire head, traced above his scar. "The Norns ever challenge us," Ollivander sighed. "If I had done other than what was required of me, would the present be better or worse? One challenges fate at his own peril, Mr. Potter. I assume you know of the wands of Vanaheim?"
"A little, sir. They only work on Vanaheim, with Vanir magic?"
"A pinnacle of craft that took me centuries to perfect," the dwarf nodded. "A powerful bridge between the magic of the wielder and the resonance of Vanaheim itself. Perhaps I went too far: the wise of Vanaheim find it such a useful tool, most are loathe to ever leave their realm. I had intended it an aid for children: to connect you to your magic early and build confidence and skill. If you choose to return to Midgard after your schooling, you will need to master the foci of the native sorcerers as well."
"But it will help me be prepared to learn other magic?" Harry asked.
"As much as your skills allow," Ollivander acknowledged. "Now… which is your wand arm?"
What followed was an exhaustive search through boxes. Ollivander would retrieve a box from a shelf and have Harry touch the metals or materials within, a vast array of matter beyond anything on the periodic table known to Midgardian science. Finally, the old dwarf seemed satisfied, "A mix of the old and the new, and a peculiar echo of what is to come. Gold, pure and unadorned. Titanium, only recently discovered on Midgard. And the essence of the phoenix to empower it. Perhaps a nice holly sheathing to hide the inner workings?" He returned the boxes that had so resonated to the floor by Harry.
Feeling the hum of power in the materials, Harry was struck by the brilliant crimson of the box of phoenix feathers and could only say, "I hear the red ones go faster?"
"Perhaps too fast," Ollivander nodded. "Pay your coins to the shop assistant. I shall begin immediately and it will be ready for you to take possession your first day at school."
After turning the requisite gold coins over to the (fortunately-human-sized) assistant, Harry and his aunt stepped out into the relatively-brighter light of the market to find Hagrid waiting outside. The giant of a man no longer seemed quite so tall, compared to Ollivander. He was carrying a beautiful white owl in a brass cage not much larger than his hand.
"Happy Birthday, Harry! I got yer a present!"