Potter – The Stone
Chapter 03
By Cory D. Rose
(c) 2005
oooooooooo
"You want the usual Hagrid?"
"No thanks, I'm on Hogwarts business." Hagrid said a little loudly, and without his heavy accent. He patted Harry on the shoulder and nearly drove the boy to his knees. Harry glared at Hagrid, but the giant didn't see to notice.
The old barman looked Harry over, wondering why Hagrid would bring a small boy with him. As his eyes looked Harry over, they stopped on his forehead, and widened in shock. "Oh my, is this…Harry Potter, this is an honor. It's a pleasure to meet you in person." Tom said, grinning madly.
The man grabbed Harry's hand and shook it while Harry stood there looking bewildered. Suddenly everyone in the bar was looking at him, Harry wasn't sure what to do and looked at Ranma, who shrugged. Harry had seen enough TV to know that he should at least be polite, so he tried to stay calm as he shook several peoples hands. He even recognized one from a few years back, just after Ranma had removed him from the Dursleys.
"We've met before, haven't we?" Harry asked one guy who looked like he was about to faint. "You bowed to me at the store…"
"Diggle, Dedalus Diggle, I'm honored you remember me from that one little meeting. He remembers me!" He cried excitedly.
Ranma had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Situations like this made life interesting and Harry would learn some things from this. The kid did seem to blunder into odd situations after all. Then a pale man wearing a turban and a cape walked up looking incredibly nervous, one eye was even twitching.
"Professor Quirrell!" Hagrid said. "Harry, his is Professor Quirrell, he'll be one of your teachers this year."
The man shook Hary's hand. "P-P-Potter, n-nice to m-meet you."
"What do you teach?"
"D-Defence against the D-Dark Ar-Arts."
Then the crowd rushed back in and shoved the timid professor to the side. Ranma looked away trying not to laugh at all these weird people. With one massive arm, Hagrid grabbed Harry and steered him towards a door in the back. "We have lots to buy today, so best be going."
One of the witches grabbed Harry's hand, he realized he'd shaken her hand about twelve times now, as they left. They made their way into a small court yard behind the pub and over to a brick wall. Hagrid pulled out his pink umbrella and started counting bricks.
"Three up and…two across, I tink." He said, tapping each brick with the tip of the umbrella.
Suddenly the brick started to twitch and wiggle. Then a hole appeared as the bricks suddenly started to pull back and vanish, forming themselves into an archway. Harry and Ranma could see a cobbled street beyond the arch the quickly twisted to the side, making it impossible for them to see anymore. Several witches and wizards were moving along the sidewalks.
"Dis be Diagon Alley!" Hagrid proclaimed happily.
"Cool!" Harry said as they started walking. He was trying to see everything all at once. Off to the side was a Cauldron shop and Hagrid nodded.
"Y'll be needen one of those for sure."
Just down the street was a pet shop called Eeylops Owl Emporium. Harry couldn't believe that such a place existed. He would need several hours to see everything this place had to offer.
Ranma just followed along. "Harry, now that we know where this place is we can get here any time we want to."
"True."
"Let's grab your stuff for now, then we can explore around and see what else is here."
About midway down the alley was a very large building, with stone steps leading up to a door and pillars supporting more of the massive structure. The whole thing gleamed a grayish white and looked like something out of a Roman city. Hagrid was heading right for it.
"Gringotts! This is our first stop Harry."
Harry could see a thing standing by the front door. It was a little shorter than Harry, had a beard, and longer than normal fingers. Ranma gave it a once over and tried to figure out why being near the thing was making him nervous. It bowed as they approached and opened the door. "Well come to Gringotts."
This led to a second set of inner glass doors with words etched on them from ceiling to floor.
"Enter, stranger, but take heed Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware Of finding more than treasure there."
Harry glanced at Hagrid.
"That be Gringotts motto/warning. Best not try to rob them or you Will regret it, permanently."
As they entered through the doors, they found themselves in a vast marble room. There was a long counter along the back wall with a lot of goblins sitting on stools. All of them were keeping quite busy, writing in ledgers, weighing gold with a scale, even exchanging money.
Ranma tried to count the doors leading off to other locations in the building and eventually lost count. His senses were being overwhelmed by this place, making it hard for him to concentrate. Harry appeared to be in awe with the whole experience, but Ranma wasn't about to let his guard down. Not after all this.
A few minutes later Hagrid led them over to one of the goblins at the counter. "Hello, Mr. Potter would like to get some money from his vault."
The goblin looked up from his ledger and glared at them. "Does Mr. Potter have his key?"
Off to the side Harry could see a Goblin playing with a large pile of gems, rubies, diamonds, even safires. Each of them had to be worth millions of dollars. At the same time Hagrid started to pull all kinds of things out of his pockets. Old biscuits, a half dozen door mice, some moldy cheese, until finally the giant pulled out a tiny golden key and handed it over.
The goblin examined it for several seconds, as if trying to find a reason to refuse them. "This appears to be in order. I'll have…"
Hagrid interrupted him. "I've also got a letter here about the you know what in vault you know which."
After spending several more seconds reading the letter, the goblin nodded and yelled for a nearby goblin to come over. "Griphook, one withdrawal from Mr. Potter's vault and this." He handed over the letter, after reading it, the goblin nodded and handed it back.
"Follow me."
The Goblin led the across the room, where he opened a door for them that led to a narrow stone passageway. Harry noticed a set of mettle tracks attached to the floor. There was a large cart waiting for them as they approached, big enough to hold even Hagrid, even then the large man had some difficulty getting situated properly.
Ranma and Harry took a front seat while Hagrid had one to himself. Griphook whistled and the cart suddenly lurched forward and hurtled down the tracks, like a roller coaster. Hagrid groaned loudly. Harry nearly stood up as the cold air of the tunnel rushed pasted them, but didn't want to get them in trouble. Heck, Griphook didn't even appear to be controlling the cart as it was.
Several minutes later, and who knows how many miles from the surface, the car slowed to a stop beside a small platform with a large door set into the wall. Hagrid was looking a little green as he got out of the car and trembled a bit. "I hates these things." He muttered under his breath.
Harry and Ranma jumped out after Griphook. The goblin walked up to the door and used Harry's key to open it. The sound of rushing air filled the air as smoke seemed to fill the air around them as it rushed from the vault. Griphook ignored it as he pulled the door open further to reveal several large mounds of gold filling the vault.
Gaping, Harry stepped inside and couldn't believe how much gold was just laying on the floor. Ranma whistled at the fortune as well. "Amazing, who would have thought you had all this just laying around."
"No kidding." Harry said.
Ranma turned to the goblin. "Would it be possible to get a list of everything Harry has here?"
"Just this vault?"
Harry blinked. "There's more?"
"Indeed. The Potters have five vaults here at Gringotts for various uses." Griphook said. "Because you are so young this is the only vault you can take money from, but we can visit the other vaults if you wish."
"I'd like that." Harry said.
"Those vaults have restricted access Mr. Potter, as such they are even further down."
Hagrid groaned, loudly.
"This is our first time here, sir, we might as well get an idea of what was left to Harry." Ranma said.
"No problem, The rest of the Potter vaults are all on the same level, but we need to stop at the other costomer's vault first. It's on the way."
"No problem." Ranma said. "Harry, grab a few hand fulls of each coin."
"Alright sir." Harry said, grabbing several hundred of the little Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts.
The next vault was just a few passages away, number seven hundred and thirteen to be exact. Hagrid climbed out, looking even worse than before, and waited for the goblin to open the vault. This one was a little different though. Instead of a key, Griphook just ran his finger down the front of the door and made it iris open.
"Woah!" Harry said. "That was cool."
Inside was a tiny little paper wrapped package that was given to Hagrid. It promptly vanished into the inner pockets of his jacket. "Best stay back Harry, don't' want to get caught inside this vault."
"Why?"
"Only the goblins can open it safely. Once your inside there's no way for you to get out."
"We only check for intruders once ever ten years or so." Griphook said in an evil voice and smirked a little.
"Aye, tis nasty business that." Hagrid said as they returned to the cart. He was starting to look a little queasy.
The next cart ride was the longest one yet and Harry could have sworn they passed a dragon, the same one, at least three times. Ranma just leaned back and enjoyed the ride. They tried to ignore the groaning giant in the back seat as well. Eventually the car came to a stop beside a large platform. A great big metal door gleamed in the torch light.
Harry jumped out and ran over to the door. As he got closer the wasn't sure, but he could swear it was made out of pure silver. A few seconds later Griphook came over and gestured towards the door.
"Just place your hand on the door Mr. Potter, it will open for anyone of Potter blood."
Nodding, Harry placed his hands against the door and felt a large rush of energy enter his body. After a several seconds something inside the door shifted with a loud thunk and the massive thing opened. Again the air rushed into the air tight vault and released a large amount of smoke.
The inside of this vault made the other one look like a cast off pile of used pennys. Whole section so of the vault were piled high with galleons, clear to the ceiling. Harry could see a couple smaller piles of silver and bronze, but nothing compared to the galleons. He could also see lots of furniture, books, trunks, and clothing piled throughout the room.
"This is just one vault?"
"Yes Mr. Potter. The others are used for long term storage of various items and more money."
"Harry, we can use some of the trunks and other items for school instead of buying new ones." Ranma said.
"You can take any items you want so long as it isn't money." Griphook said.
"But I thought we couldn't take anything?"
"Just the money, that can't be touched till you turn seventeen Mr. Potter. Everything else is available."
"Do you know where everything is in here?"
"No, but I can check the ledger and direct you whatever you need."
"I want my parents school stuff." Harry explained. "The books, trunks, and anything else they may have left in here." Harry said as the idea suddenly occurred to him.
"Good idea, that will allow us to get prepared."
Hagrid spoke up as he came up behind them. "We will still need a couple of tings from Diagon Alley. Not all da books for school are the same now as then, plus you will be needen a wand. We can't leave till yer get that at least."
Harry nodded. "Alright."
Several minutes later Harry dragged a large beat up trunk out from underneath a pile of rugs. It was filled with books, compartments, and other things that Harry didn't recognize. Griphook looked the trunk over and pointed to the manufacture.
"This trunk was made by a world famous trunk maker. That means there is more to this trunk than one would assume. There should be a set of instructions in there somewhere that will explain everything that it can do. I'd also suggest taking all the books in the vault with you to school, that way you can have access to anything you might need."
"But the trunk is full, how would I fit all these other books in there?"
Grinning a little, Griphook snapped his fingers and released a wave a magic. Books all through the vault suddenly glowed and started flying towards them in one long line. As they got close, they would suddenly shrink down to the size of a matchbook and place themselves in one of the drawers. Harry counted nearly five hundred books before they were done.
"How will I get them back to normal size and shrink them again?" Harry wondered.
"You'll have to learn that at school."
"He should be able to learn before school starts." Ranma said. "If he works hard."
"Ar…" Hagrid said. "He isn' allowed ter use magic outside of school, not till he turns seventeen. It's a law."
"We'll make do." Ranma said. "Let's check out those other vaults, grab any books, and then head back up."
There wasn't much else to get from the other vaults though, they were mostly filled with furniture, gold, and more gold. Though they did find a scroll collection that Ranma insisted they take.
"I've never come across a scroll that didn't have something useful written on it." Ranma explained.
In the end they ended up with about a thousand books, far more than Ranma ever expected. Every one of them was a manual about magic. Ranma had never seen so many books in his life and wasn't sure what to do with them all. Hagrid told them to leave him alone on the way back, saying it was best that he didn't have an excuse to open his mouth.
About half an hour later, and one wild cart ride that nearly did in Hagrid's stomach, they were standing in the sun just outside Gringotts. Harry was bouncing around in excitement and even though he had a shrunken trunk in his pocket, he wanted to run around and look at everything.
Hagrid wobbled a bit as he led them over to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Here yer go Harry, best get ya uniform first." It was a rather large store.
A short woman wearing weird colored robe met him as Hagrid pushed him through the door and told him he would be back in half an hour. Hagrid gave Ranma a look before wandering off into the crowd. Ranma had a feeling they wouldn't be seeing their large friend for a while. Several of the female customers were eyeing Ranma as he followed after Harry.
"Hello."
Ranma turned and found himself face to chest of a rather tall woman, well formed too. "Ah, hello?"
"I'm Anna Honson."
"Pleased to meet ya." Ranma said, taking a step back. "Ranma Saotome."
The woman stepped forward, keeping her chest right in his face. She smiled down at him. "I would really like to know more about you, Ranma."
"Ah…"
"A lot more about you." She breathed out, a familiar look in her eyes as they roved all over his body.
"Nothing much to know."
"Oh I'll bet you know a thing or two." She said, blushing a little.
Ranma plastered a grin to his face and tried to find the best way out of the situation. "Well…maybe a little."
The woman giggled, making certain assets jiggled around.
After his ex-fiance's got done with him, sex was one thing Ranma was no stranger to, but he also knew that it could cause problems. Ranma tried to stay away from women as much as he could because they always started to act funny around him, then it was back to the same old stuff as before.
Grinning a little, Ranma glanced over at Harry at the back of the store as he talked to a blonde haired boy getting fitted for a robe. He noticed the look of irritation on Harry's face as well caught the boy's eye and shook his head. Harry glared at him, but nodded and backed down just as the boy finished, stepped down, and headed out of the store.
Harry finished a few minutes later and Ranma met him outside the store, minus one Anna Honson. "What was making you mad?"
"That boy was insulting everyone I've ever known." Harry said and clenched his fists. "I was about to punch him one."
Ranma laughed. "I noticed, remember, if you don't want to get into trouble fight somewhere where no one will discover you. I had to learn that lesson the hard way."
"Yeah, but he was so asking for it, the jerk."
"He did seem to be a bit uppity didn't he? All you had to do was watch him strut around a little."
Laughing, Harry nodded. "He called himself Draco Malfoy."
"I bet you'll meet that one again."
"Yeah, he's going to Hogwarts too."
"Just remember what I said and you should be fine. And here comes our guide, still a little wobbly, but looking a lot better."
"Hagrid!"
"Heya Harry, what's going on, ready to continue?"
"Sure, I wanted to ask out a couple of questions."
"Ger for it."
"What is Qiddich?"
Hagrid grinned a little, his bushy beard nearly hiding it. "That's our sport. Kind of like your baseball or football thingies. It's played all over the world at school and professionally. The Rules are a bit odd though, you need a book on the sport to understand half of them."
"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"
"Where did you hear those names?"
"That blonde boy over there." Harry said, pointing out the jerk as he stood next to a blonde woman in a stylish robe.
"Well Slytherin and Hufflepuff are two of the four houses at Hogwarts, along with Gryffindor and Ravenclaw houses. Slytherin is the house that Vol-vo-That One was in." Hagrid said fearfully.
"He went to Hogwarts!"
"A long time ago kid, long ago." Hagrid muttered.
After a quick stop for more books, Harry grabbed another fifty of the suckers that he thought might be interesting, then they just had one stop left. Hagrid led them to an old shop that looked like it was in dire need of repair from the outside. It had foggy looking windows, an ancient door, and even a faded sign that said Ollivanders.
In the window display, on a half rotted cushion, was a wand. Harry looked it over as they entered the old shop. Ranma could feel something inside the shop that was different than the rest of the alley, something ancient and powerful. He glanced around the dust, but everything looked rather normal. The walls were covered in shelves holding box after box with a wand nestled inside.
He glanced up just as an old man silently walked out of the back room. "Good Afternoon."
"Ollivander, just bringin a Hogwart student by." Hagrid said, pointing at Harry.
"Another Potter, I had a feeling I would be seeing you soon." The old man said and glanced over at Ranma. "Hello, I haven't seen one of your kind in nearly five hundred years."
"Huh?" Ranma said, but Ollivander seemed to just ignore him after that.
Ollivander turned back to Harry and gave him a lopsided grin. "I'm afraid I sold the wand that gave you that scar. To this day I regret it. Now, let's see what we can do with you. What is your wand arm…"
Nearly two hours later Ollivander was about to give up when he walked over to his counter and pulled an old wand out from one of it's shelves. "This wand is one of the rarest ones in the shop, thee is only one other like it in the world." He held the box out to Harry. "Give it a wave."
Picking it up slowly, Harry could tell that this one was a little different than the other wands right away. He could feel his power flowing into the wand almost instantly. He gave it a flick.
Ranma dove out of the way as a wave of light erupted from the end of the wand filling the whole store. Then as quickly as it happened the light vanished and Harry stood there with the rest of them blinking their eyes. "Geeze…"
"Mr. Potter, I had hopped that one wouldn't work for you. Curious that it did, most curious."
"Why?"
"Because, the core of that wand was given by a phoenix, one of its feathers actually. The only other feather that this phoenix has ever given was used in it's brother wand and sold in this store more than fifty years ago. Sold to the man that gave you that scar." Ollivander said, touching his finger to Harry's scar.
The boy gulped and looked down at the wand.
"He Who Must Not Be Named did great things, terrible, but great, and I expect you will do so as well."
Shivering, Harry handed him the Galleons for the wand and Mr. Ollivander waved them out of the store and vanished into his back room. Ranma wanted to ask the old guy about what he meant before.
"Come on Ranma, Hagrid is leaving us behind." Harry said.
"Alright." Ranma wanted to ask the man about his comment, but shrugged it off. I couldn't have been that important.
Their next stop was the Owl Emporium, where Hagrid bought Harry an owl as a birthday present. Harry wasn't sure what to say since he'd never been given any kind of pet before. "Thank you Hagrid, you didn't have to."
"It's yer birthday, gotta celebrate that."
Harry squirmed a little, but accepted the gift.
"What are you going to name him?"
"I'm not sure yet, I need to think about it."
"I've been thinking bout those books and the trunk too. Gots me an idea." Hagrid said as he led them to a quieter part of Diagon Alley. They stopped at a store with a bunch of trunks in the window. "Ol' Mr. Humperdink may be of some help here. If not we can go down to another store and buys you a shrink/enlarge charm."
They entered the shop and Hagrid waved at an old man by the counter. "Hagrid! Need another 'special' trunk?"
"Not today John, my friend here needs yer to see if yous can help 'em with his trunk."
"Of course! What kind is it?"
Harry pulled it out and undid the charm the goblin placed on it. It expanded out and Mr. Humperdink walked around it, examining it closely. Then he knelt down and examined something at the back and grinned. "Why its an old Rienhold. I haven't seen one of these since the first rise."
"Can you tell him now it works, we haven't had time to find instructions."
"Of course, to even have one of these is quite rare. They are made to store the contents of entire houses." He turned to Harry. "Now, see this design that runs along the outside of the trunk lid?"
"Yes sir."
"Take your wand and touch it to each little circle, start here on the left and count around the outside. Thee are twenty three on this trunk, an impressive number."
Harry did as he was told and the little dot would start glowing as soon as his wand touched it and he said a number. "Now what."
"Alright, what you just did was set the trunk to work for you alone. No one else can open this trunk. Now each of these dots represents a different storage space inside the trunk. The first ten are regular trunk types, just open it and the trunk will display what is in that space. The others are where things get interesting." Mr. Humperdink said in glee.
"I don't know what they will hold, more than a few of the thirteen left are going to be entire rooms of varying sizes. Back during the first rise families would place the trunk someplace where it wouldn't be noticed and use it to hide for months on end, rarely ever leaving it for anything. There are usually three or four bedrooms, a kitchen, pantry, library, study, and whatever the user needed. I've seen them equipped with dueling platforms as well."
Now Harry was looking at the thing in awe. He had to open it up. Touching one of the first spots it opened up to reveal a pile of clothing, rather old, moth eaten clothing. Several moths flew away from the trunk and made a run for it.
"Ewe!"
"Well you found some dirty laundry." Ranma said and laughed. "Quite a find."
"Oh be quiet."
"This thing hasn't been used in a while." Mr. Humperdink said, snickering a little. "I'm most interested in seeing what else this thing might be holding."
Touching a dot along the side revealed a ladder leading down inside the trunk. Harry quickly climbed down and looked around at what looked like a simple living room. "It's a living room."
Harry climbed out and grinned at the man. "Is there anyway to shrink the thing down without me getting in trouble for underage magic?"
"Sure, just tap the center of the lid think about shrinking it."
Tapping the lid, the trunk suddenly shrank back down and Harry put it back in his pocket. "Thank you!"
"Thank you, I enjoyed seeing one of these old trunks. They were made to last."
A few minutes later they were out on the street again.
"Hagrid, did you understand what Ollivander was talking about when we were in his store?"
"I was thinking he doesn't see muggles like you very often, I think."
"Muggle? I've heard that word several times today."
"It means non magic folk."
"Ah, well that doesn't quite cover me, but it's close." Ranma said and swatted at Harry's head as the boy rolled his eyes and started snickering.
"Right, well Harry, my train leaves here in a little while, I'll have to hurry to catch it. Yous just take the Knight bus on back home. Hold up yer wand and it should appear right quick."
"That's easy enough."
"I'll see you at Hogwarts." Hagrid reached into yet another pocket, then another, and a third several seconds later. Frowning he starts checking about two dozen pockets in his jacket until he finds what he's looking for, in the first pocket, and hands Harry a train ticket.
"Jus follow der instructions on da ticket and you'll be fine." Hagrid said before ambling off.
"This is going to be interesting." Ranma said.
oooooooooo
Notes: I want Harry to be a bit more prepared for school when he arrives, but not to much. With Ranma around I don't see Harry as completely ignorant and I truly doubt that he'd let Harry just sit around for four weeks without checking out everything they just acquired. Now he isn't going to be genius as some fics show, but he will be more knowlegable.