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Chapter Three: Griphook Fishbaggin's Legacy

Harry:

Convince your father to lower the wards.

Harry sighed and shook his head. He had known Snape would act like this, though he had sent the letter anyway, thinking his guardian had the right to be informed of Rosier's ability to get at him. But really, James had examined the dead owl, and though he had gone quite pale, he had assured Harry that Rosier had only used an old piece of Dark magic, both to kill it and to get it through the wards. It was one that inspired the owl with a fervor to complete its delivery at any cost and made it draw on its own life-force in order to do so. So it had managed to break through the wards, but it could not possibly have lived long after that.

James had performed the counter-curse, and now all was well; no other owls charmed with the same spell would be able to get through the wards.

Harry could almost feel the Snape in his head fuming that it wasn't enough. If the wards had one weakness, they could have others. He should be reading the books on wards that Snape had sent. He should be studying ways to outperform any similarly nasty Dark spells the Death Eaters might use on him. He should stop receiving owls altogether. He should leave Lux Aeterna, which was obviously vulnerable to threats, and come live in Hogwarts with Snape, where no Death Eater would be able to enter.

Harry couldn't do the last two, and he would do the first two. He wrote as much in his letter to Snape, which he sent on its way with Hedwig before the sun was fully over the horizon. He stood in the window of his room, watching her fly, and gnawed her lip. Sometimes he thought it was good that he and Connor had moved into separate rooms—he couldn't have handled all the owls as easily if they were still sleeping in the same one—but right now, he would have liked to have his brother beside him, so that he could reach out and simply receive a hug.

Then Harry shook his head and turned for the door out of the room.

It was their birthday, or at least the morning of their birthday. And Harry had big things happening today. The meeting with the Malfoys and the Tonks was this morning, the meeting with the northern goblins this afternoon.

There would be time to worry about hugs later.

"Happy birthday, Harry, Connor!"

Harry blinked intelligently. He hadn't expected their father to have presents ready for them when he went to the dining hall table for breakfast. But he did, two gifts wrapped in red silk patterned with gold sunbursts. Harry thought he recognized more of the same kind of cloth that their Midsummer ships' sails had been made from.

James grinned at him. Harry read the hope in his eyes, and smiled back. He felt a distant pity. James was trying hard, really, to be a good father. He was just poor at it.

Well, giving him extra chances was a small price to pay.

Connor was at the table, grinning at him over a birthday breakfast of sausages and pancakes and Chocolate Frogs. "Dad made me wait until you were up to open my present," he half-complained at Harry.

Harry gave him a smile, too. In truth, he'd been up for some hours, writing the letter to Snape and reading the books on wards before that arrived, but Connor no longer knew that, as they no longer slept in the same bedroom.

It was odd how unsettled he was by that, really.

I'm just used to sharing a bedroom, Harry dismissed it, and came to sit down in his own spot. He looked out of the corner of his eye, and thought he caught a glimpse of a small, dark cloak as the brownie brought his breakfast. He didn't stare long, though. The research he'd done in the Potter library said that brownies hated to be scrutinized, or even thanked for their services. The bargain Matilda Potter had made with them was a true bargain, respected on both sides; the family and the brownies owed each other nothing more.

"Well, I'm here now, so you can open it," he said, with a nod to Connor.

Connor didn't need further permission, tearing into his gift. He gaped as the red cloth fell away. Harry craned his neck, not quite able to see what it was.

"Wow, Dad," Connor whispered, as he scooped out the object and held it up for Harry to see. "This is really special."

Harry raised his eyebrows. It was, indeed. James had got Connor a dueler's wand—one that was obviously made of holly wood, like his actual wand, and thus modeled after his. A dueler's wand could be used only in battle or practice for battle, either formal duels or all-out war, and grew acclimated to more and more spells as its wizard cast them. If Connor often used Protego with his dueler's wand, then the wand would become accustomed to the Shield Charm, and would begin casting it with only half the word out, or even nonverbally, long before Connor would have been able to master such feats of magic with his other wand. It was an honorable weapon and a method of winning, both in one.

"Open your gift, Harry," Connor urged, snapping out of his reverie.

Harry turned curiously to his gift. He had assumed without thinking about it that James would buy him and Connor the same gifts, or at least similar ones. But he really didn't need a dueler's wand, interesting complement though it might make to his own cypress one. He had enough trouble remembering to use his regular wand as it was.

He slid the cloth off, and blinked. He didn't recognize the object that lay beneath it for a moment, and then it clicked. He held it up and turned it slowly in his hands. It was beautiful, made of copper so old it had acquired a green tinge, and the needle within looked like silver. The N on it was a softly glowing letter that might be made of fairy dust.

"A compass?" he asked.

James did not answer. Harry looked at him, and found his face deadly serious, not the proud but anxious one it had been when he watched Connor hold up the dueler's wand.

"An alliance compass, Harry," he said. "It detects both magical power and the friendship that other people feel towards its bearer. I want you to carry it with you. When you're in danger, it will point towards the nearest person who can help you. Follow the pointer, and it will lead you there by the shortest route possible." He let out a long, shaking breath. "Merlin knows you need it."

Harry swallowed. "This came from the Potter treasures, didn't it?" he asked, turning the compass around in his fingers. He had heard of things like this, but they were always family heirlooms, not the kind of thing that one could buy casually in Diagon Alley.

James nodded. "During the Firestar Wars, a Lord arose. Everyone thought he was a Light Lord at first, but then he turned to Dark magic…or he might even have found a way to combine Light and Dark magic both at once, which no one wants to consider because that's rather frightening." His eyes looked past Harry, and Harry could almost picture his father as a young boy, shivering slightly in awe and wonder as he crouched by a storytelling parent's or grandparent's chair. "Our ancestor Helen Potter made and used this one. Once it led her on a three-day chase across Northumberland, when the Firestar Lord had cloaked the whole region in an anti-Apparition spell, one that also forbade the use of Portkeys. There was no ally nearer than three days of running away. And he was chasing her himself. He badly wanted her dead." James returned to himself, and his smile was both proud and sad. "He'd been her betrothed once, you see, the man she was in love with. No one else knew him the way she did. As long as she was alive, then someone might still be able to figure out one of his hidden weaknesses."

Harry made a mental note to look again at the history books Hermione had brought him. This sounded more fascinating than he had thought they would prove.

And James wasn't really a poor father, just an inexperienced one.

He closed his hand carefully around the alliance compass. "I'll carry it at all times, Father. I promise."

James met his eyes keenly, then smiled and nodded. "Good, Harry." He glanced at Connor. "Remus said that he'd be waiting for you outside, if you want to duel with him there. I see that you're mostly finished with breakfast, anyway."

"Yes!" Connor slipped out of his chair. "I'll go and see him." He grabbed Harry in an abrupt hug around the waist, startling him considerably. "You better carry the compass with you all the time," he whispered in his ear. "You're in danger."

Harry blinked and patted his twin's back. Connor had known that before, of course, but it was gratifying to see him realize it. "Thanks, Connor."

His brother slipped out of the room, and James took a deep breath. "Eat your breakfast first, Harry," he said, before Harry could open his mouth.

Harry nodded and dug into his food, watching his father carefully. James obviously wanted to say—something.

"I blocked the spell that Rosier used to send the owl through the wards," said James, his face long. "That doesn't mean that he won't try again. I read his letter, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. He was always one of the cleverest of the Death Eaters, and I'm not sure what he intends."

He looked Harry directly in the eye. "That letter brought home to me how much you could die at any time. You're not safe, Harry, not here at Lux Aeterna and not anywhere else."

Harry nodded. "I already accept that."

"But things can be done to keep you safe," James said. Harry slowed down on forking sausages into his mouth—lately he'd been incredibly hungry—and watched his father warily. He sounded almost manic about this, almost Snape-like. "Thus the alliance compass. Thus the wards. I want you to promise me that you won't go outside the wards, Harry."

Harry narrowed his eyes. He'd told his father about Narcissa Malfoy's formal visit this morning, and it was beyond bad manners not to meet with her if she couldn't come inside Lux Aeterna's wards; it could endanger his standing among any other pureblood wizards she'd managed to tempt into considering his offers. And the northern goblins had flatly refused to meet him anywhere near Lux Aeterna. The closest they would come was the shore where Harry, Connor, and James had gone for the Midsummer ritual. "I have to."

"No, you don't," said James. "Tell them that you'll talk to anyone who comes inside the wards, but not otherwise."

"Not everyone can," Harry pointed out, clinging to his patience as he felt it slip. He had to do this, didn't his father see that? Not in the sense of duty or obligation, at least not with the vates work, but with the sense of a moral principle. It pricked him every time he thought about anything else for long. So long as his primary goal was training Connor and helping him heal, Harry could think about something else, but Connor had duels with Remus now, and had reversed even their usual listening positions since his talk with Hermione, insisting on hearing Harry's side of the fight with Voldemort in the Shrieking Shack. So Harry thought about being a vates and a not-Lord instead. "And I still have to talk to them. It's an insult not to talk to them."

"They can get over it," James insisted.

"Not an insult in the sense of politeness," said Harry. "An insult to their free will, or an insult to their honor. I don't want to insult anybody, Dad. We have to have all the wizards I can swing on our side to win this war. And the goblins…they've been bound, I know they have, and I want to listen to what they have to tell me."

James closed his eyes. "I knew Lily trained you to be a soldier," he said. "I didn't know she trained you to be a politician, too."

Harry rose cleanly above the pain that was still there at the sound of his mother's name. She was nothing to him any more. "Whatever was needed," he said. "Politics is part of winning this war. I've known that since I was five and started learning the histories of the pureblood families and their dances. I've got to court them, Dad. You know that."

James sighed. "Compromise, then. I'll come with you to any meetings outside the wards."

Harry winced. "That'll work for my meeting with Mrs. Malfoy, but not for the goblins. They specifically said I wasn't to bring anyone else."

"Why did you agree to meet with them, then?"

"Because I have to," said Harry. "It's a great honor that they would trust me enough to meet with me at all, after the way wizards have bound them."

James tensed, and sat in silent stillness for a long while. Then he nodded. "Fine. But you'll take a Portkey to the goblin meeting with you."

"Fair enough." Harry had been planning to ask for one anyway. In emergencies before, he'd been able to Apparate, but it wasn't a pleasant experience, or one he looked forward to repeating.

"Let's go meet with the Malfoys, then," James said, rising to his feet. Then he gave a faint smile and sat down again. "When you finish your breakfast, of course."

Harry began hastily swallowing his pancakes.

Harry watched as four shapes came into being at the Apparition point, and felt Lux Aeterna's wards react at once, even though they were outside of them, reaching out to assess the Dark magic that came with the new arrivals. Harry felt their hiss and crackle, and suspected they were spitting at Narcissa Malfoy. It was just as well they'd chosen to meet out here, he thought, on this clean, wide sweep of lawn next to a flowing river the color of malachite, and not try the house's patience.

Narcissa released Draco, who looked slightly queasy from Side-Along Apparition, but hurried up to Harry and hugged him nonetheless. "Happy birthday, Harry!" he crowed.

Harry smiled and hugged him back, relieved that there was no sign of an ostentatious package. "What did you get me, Draco?" he teased, stepping back and making a show of looking around. He felt James shift at his side, uneasily, but ignored him. The alliance compass was safely tucked into his robe pocket, after all, and his father must know there was no way that Draco's gift would compete with it.

Draco grinned at him and bounced back to his mother. Narcissa released a Disillusionment Charm on something floating beside her, and a broom came into view. Draco seized it and tugged it triumphantly back towards Harry.

"Oh, no," Harry said.

"Oh, yes," said Draco maniacally. "It's the new Firebolt. Happy birthday, Harry." He looked quite content.

Harry reluctantly looked the broom over. He had to admit it was magnificent; the soft hum of magic around it had already told him that. But he felt rather embarrassed. It was a very expensive present. Draco didn't have to get him this. Harry did love flying, but it wasn't as though he were mad for Quidditch in the same way Connor was.

Draco had apparently anticipated the entire silent conversation Harry was having with himself. "I wanted to get it for you," he said. "It's yours. And it's charmed so that you're the only one who can ride it."

"Draco!" Harry said, startled out of his reverie. "That's not a good idea! What if we're in danger and someone else has to ride it, or it has to bear a wounded person?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Think about something other than the war for ten seconds, Harry," he said crossly, and folded his arms. Harry considered and discarded the idea of telling him he looked like Hermione when he did that. "I bought this for you to have fun, and to have something of your very own to keep. The charms don't fade or wear off, either," he added, dashing Harry's next hope.

It's a nice broom, said Regulus's voice abruptly in the back of his head. Take it, for Merlin's sake.

I thought you were elsewhere, Harry retorted, and reached out reluctantly to take the broom. The moment he touched it, the broom gave a little sound remarkably like a purr, and settled into his grasp. "Thank you, Draco," he said aloud. "I'm sorry if I sounded ungracious. I was just…startled."

Did you think I would miss a meeting with my cousins? Regulus hummed to him. And it's a very nice broom. They didn't make them like that in my day. Ride it, for Merlin's sake.

Harry studied Draco's beaming face, and sighed. I plan to. I just—I just didn't… He shook his head, unable to express why this made him so uncomfortable.

"Harry."

Harry was grateful to turn and meet Narcissa's eyes, inclining his head. At the moment, the prospect of getting his father and Narcissa to be calm around each other was better than the thought of dealing with the emotions that Draco's gift roused in him. "Mrs. Malfoy," he said aloud. "May I present my father, James Potter?"

"We have been formally introduced, once before, long ago," said Narcissa as she came nearer. She held out one elegant white hand. Her face was the epitome of a pureblooded witch, bland and calm. "I am not sure if your father remembers."

"I remember," said James. Harry swung his head to look at his father, startled. He'd never heard his voice sound like that before: tight, restrained, as if he were in the middle of a dance himself. He grasped Narcissa's hand. "You wore a lovely gown."

Narcissa's faint smile flickered around the corner of her mouth. "A Light wizard to the bone," she murmured. "Absolute truth. I suppose you would keep your mouth shut on my kindness, or lack thereof, that night?"

James raised his brows, but said nothing.

Narcissa stepped away with a faint bow of her head, and turned to Harry. "Harry, may I present my sister, Andromeda Black Tonks, and her daughter, Nymphadora Tonks, who has just completed her training in the Auror program?"

Harry turned to face the two witches who had waited at the Apparition point, his senses on edge now. Was the Ministry going to learn secrets about him from Nymphadora? Was the Order of the Phoenix?

His first sight of Nymphadora rather reassured him, though. She wore the robes, black edged with silver, that a pureblood witch would for a formal meeting, but her hair was purple, also edged with silver, and dazzlingly bright. She came eagerly forward to meet him, and tripped on the hem of her robes. She helped herself back up again, her smile not even faltering, and shook his hand.

"Call me Tonks, Harry," she said. "Everyone does. I hate Nymphadora. I can't imagine why some people chose it," she added, with a glare over her shoulder at her mother, who was approaching much more slowly.

Harry found himself grinning. Well, if she can be informal, so can I. "Let me guess," he said. "Metamorphmagus? Unless you're into Muggle dyes."

"Right the first time!" Tonks said cheerfully, and grew her nose longer in demonstration, for a moment making her face look alarmingly like Snape's. "I've been wanting to meet you for months. You realize you're the cause of the first non-bitchy letter that my mother's exchanged with her sister in ten years?"

"Now, Nymphadora," said Andromeda, who had halted at her left shoulder, entirely properly. "That word is inappropriate. We are sometimes cool and restrained with each other, but we are never…what you said." She nodded calmly to Harry. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed. Harry would have thought that she looked remarkably like her elder sister Bellatrix Lestrange, but not having a light of crazed madness shining in her eyes did wonders in diminishing the resemblance. "Congratulations, Mr. Potter. I have heard what you did for…certain elements who might otherwise not have found the fire."

Harry blinked. She was referring to Sirius's funeral. For some reason, he hadn't thought Narcissa would tell her sister about that. "Mrs. Tonks," he said, and held out the hand that Tonks wasn't holding. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Indeed," Andromeda murmured, ignoring his hand. "I am obviously not adverse to Muggleborns, since I married one, and I do not use much Dark magic. But, of late, my unease with Dumbledore has been growing. I am glad that you may represent a third side to this war, one that I can comfortably join, without worrying that I am gaining a Lord who will turn on me later." Her eyes were wide and cool and utterly direct. "My sister said that about you, and I do trust her on that score."

Harry smiled again. Andromeda was as cutting as Narcissa in her own way, but she didn't go for the subtle dances, and sometimes that was refreshing, like the slap of the breeze across his face. "I hope to represent one," he answered. "Until recently, the Boy-Who-Lived was synonymous with Dumbledore, but my brother's learning better."

"I was not thinking of the Boy-Who-Lived, but of you," said Andromeda, stressing the last word more than Harry thought was strictly necessary. "You are the one who impressed my sister and her son."

Harry sent a sideways glance at Narcissa and Draco. They were both keeping out of this formal introduction, as was proper, but Narcissa had a faint smile on her lips. Draco just looked challenging, as if he wanted Harry to remember the conversation back in June when Draco had first told him he would have to be a leader.

"That's true, at least," he said. "But I certainly don't intend to fight against my brother."

"No one said anything about that, either," said Andromeda. "Connor Potter is of no matter to me until and unless he does something more momentous than defeating the Dark Lord as a baby."

Draco opened his mouth, and Harry just knew he was about to say something unfortunate, such as the truth about the prophecy. He hastily intervened. "Mrs. Tonks, Tonks, this is my father, James Potter."

"We have met before," said Andromeda, with a glance that said she didn't relish the reminder, but she held out her hand. James kissed it with absolute precision.

Tonks didn't repeat the gesture. Her eyes were wide with wonder. "The James Potter?" she blurted. "The James Potter who brought in the Lestranges? The James Potter who once shielded fourteen Muggle families from the Black Plague spell in one night? You're him?" She looked all but ready to burst into song. "Somehow I never made the connection! It's a pleasure to meet you, sir!" She stuck out a hand in what was obviously meant to inspire a shake and not a kiss to her knuckles. "I've just finished my Auror training, and you're one of my heroes."

James looked horribly uncomfortable as he grasped her hand. Harry thought it was probably the reminder about the Lestranges. "Thank you," he said. "Sirius used to talk about you. He regretted that he didn't get to see you more often."

Tonks smiled at him. "He was the only one who didn't call me Nymphadora when I was a kid," she said. "Even in letters. Yeah, I liked him. I'm so sorry he's gone."

James blinked. "I should be the one saying that to you, Miss Tonks."

Tonks shook her head. "I liked him, but I didn't really know him," she said. "He was your best friend. I'm sorry you lost him."

James had to look away from her. Harry blinked. Tonks was doing better than he could have in a similar situation, even though she'd referenced Sirius. He hoped that was a good indication of things to come.

Then he looked at Narcissa, whose face was aloof, and Andromeda, who simply looked blank, and sighed. It wasn't going to be easy.

But he didn't intend to give up either his blood father or his best friend and his relatives, and the sooner that both sides understood that, the better.

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry looked back at Andromeda, glad of the question. Hopefully, whatever she asked of him would distract attention from the confrontation that felt as if it were going to happen, what with having both Malfoys and Potters in the same place.

"Can you show me your magic?" Andromeda asked. "Lower all your shields and show me the full strength? I have heard that your displays in the past were rather impressive, but I have not felt them myself."

Harry read the hidden message in her voice. She wanted to trust him, but she had no particular reason to do so, not until she saw some actual evidence of power from him. Narcissa had been the one who had observed or told her everything so far, and she wanted some granite proof.

Harry nodded, then closed his eyes and lowered his shields.

He felt his magic swell around him and then flood out, singing, across Lux Aeterna's lawn. It was under much better control than when he'd released it at the Quidditch game back in November, or from the Owlery at the vernal equinox. He could command it to rise up around him and hover, not overwhelming anyone, but not letting anyone who watched doubt its depth, either.

He opened his eyes. He saw the world through a shimmering haze of golden-white light, which didn't surprise him, as he was feeling calm at the moment. He was surprised by the expressions on the faces around him.

Draco grinned smugly. Come to that, Narcissa wasn't far from a smug grin herself. James had a combination of a proud and worried look on his face, tilting towards the worried.

Tonks held out a hand, as though she could feel the solid force of the magic in the air itself, and grinned at Harry. "Wicked," she said.

Andromeda slowly closed her eyes. Harry had no idea what she was thinking as she stood there, apparently soaking in the magic.

Then she opened her eyes and whispered, "It will serve. It will more than serve. If you can avoid becoming a Lord, you will be greater than any wizard this world has seen for more than thirty generations."

Harry blinked, wondering why she'd picked the number thirty generations, and then reminded himself that his magic had been out of bounds a bit too long. Tonks and Draco were both beginning to get dreamy expressions on their faces. He had enough of a problem with his magic sometimes flooding out of the boundaries of his own mind and changing people when he didn't know about it. What it could do when completely free resembled one of the better healing potions.

He gently caged his power again, and met Andromeda's eyes. "I'm interested in defeating Voldemort, in freeing the magical creatures, and in helping those who will agree to settle problems," he said. "Not in—well, in becoming a Lord, or doing what Dumbledore has done."

"The power is always a temptation," Andromeda whispered. She sounded like a worshipper in a church. "To turn to compulsion. That is what felled so many of the Lords in the past, Lords who could have been great."

"I hope to avoid that trap," said Harry. "I want to be a vates, if you're familiar with the word. I'm doing what I can to control my magic and my unconscious compulsive abilities both. I don't know if I'll succeed, but I want to."

Andromeda smiled. "Yes," she said. "I believe you will. And I believe that I am willing to become your formal ally." She added, without even looking away from Harry, "Stop grinning, Narcissa."

Harry grinned slightly, himself, and turned to glance at his father. James was giving him an unfathomable stare.

Hopefully, he'll think I'm safe when I go off to meet the goblins this afternoon, Harry thought. And he'll get along with the Malfoys and the Tonks after all. This is going rather well.

It is, Regulus agreed happily from the back of his head. Whoever thought my cousins could be sterling examples of good sense when they wanted to be? In both choice of allies and choice of brooms?

Harry felt the difference the moment the whirl of the Portkey let him go and he found himself facing that same beach from which they'd launched their tiny ships. The same beach, yes, but this was later in the summer, without the gentle magic of the solstice to cushion the place. This time, it felt utterly wild, and Harry could hear the magic panting in each roar of the ocean up its beach.

More to the point, there was sharp power in the air, not really wizarding. Harry sniffed once or twice, and glanced straight ahead of him.

White fire, the same color as the sparks that had fallen from the messenger gulls' feathers each time they had come to him, burned ahead of him. Harry took a deep breath and started walking. He had been able to find only contradictory information in A Practical History of Goblins in the North about what one should wear when meeting with the northern clans, and he suspected none of it would be appropriate for a vates wizard meting with goblins anyway, so he'd chosen to wear simple shirt and trousers and let it go at that.

As he came nearer, the white fire divided into four, the spikes leaping out from a central point to start the fires burning in the midst of rocky nests. Harry still didn't know what caused or fed the fire. Of course, house elves had unique magic, too, and centaurs.

From between the fires, or behind them, or somewhere around them, came the goblins. Each fire had four goblins at it. Four each for the clans of Seadampin, Waterrune, Ternretten and Stonecantor, Harry thought. He didn't know how to tell one clan from the others, so he simply halted at an equal distance between the fires and waited.

One goblin stepped forward from the nearest set of flames. "Harry James Potter?" His voice was a croaking, grating slide, uglier and harsher than the voices of goblins Harry had heard in Diagon Alley when he went to buy school supplies.

Harry inclined his head.

"I am Helcas Seadampin."

Harry nodded, having expected this. The other goblins were hanging back, and one thing that A Practical History of Goblins in the North had indeed been good for was detailing what happened when multiple allied clans met with a representative of some outside interest. They inevitably deferred to the most powerful goblin present to speak for them. Griphook Fishbaggin, who had written the book, speculated that their deference to him was rather like the deference of wizards to a Lord.

If what Harry suspected was true, that was exactly backwards, but he would probably learn the truth in a few minutes.

"You are rather silent, for a wizard and a vates," said Helcas, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I did not wish to give offense," said Harry. "I couldn't find much about your people in any book, and I don't know much of the etiquette."

Helcas had a wild laugh, he thought. From the sea, a gull screamed in response. "We have made sure that wizards cannot understand us from books," he said. "It forces them to come deal with us. We only trusted one wizard to write down the truth, and he got many things wrong."

"Griphook Fishbaggin," Harry whispered.

"Yes." Helcas cocked his head. "We adopted him, and he was a coward and a traitor in the end. Why were you willing to meet with us?"

Helcas had stepped away from the fire now, and Harry could see him without his eyes dazzling him with purple afterimages. Helcas was taller than the southern goblins he had met before, with skin as gray as the water. His hands bore twisted dark claws, and though Harry glimpsed them clearly only once, he thought Helcas had six fingers on either. Helcas's face was dominated by his mouth, rich with teeth. Harry was surprised that he could speak English as well as he could, with all those fangs pressing on his tongue.

Be careful, Regulus whispered abruptly in his head.

Harry had had much practice in the last few days concealing his jolt whenever that voice suddenly spoke, as well as his instinctive urge to respond with a nod or a shake of his head. I will be, he whispered back, and focused on the goblin. "Because I became aware of the webs on all magical creatures recently," he answered. "I think that everyone else should be as free as possible."

Helcas laughed softly. "Wizards have said things like that to us before."

Harry suppressed a shrug. "I'm not those wizards," he said.

Helcas eyed him in silence for a long moment. Then he said, "Griphook Fishbaggin was a coward and a traitor. We took him in, and showed him the truth, and he ran away from it. He said that we must be mistaken, and he wrote his book to show us as poor slaves looking for a leader for our rebellion. Do you know why that is wrong?"

Harry nodded. He'd had the idea after reading over A Practical History of Goblins in the North again. It was the book that Connor had originally got the idea that compulsion was good from, after reading that the goblins apparently wanted a wizard leader who could compel them. "Someone who opens doors is not the same as a ruler," he said. "And because a wizard is uncomfortable with what you show him doesn't mean you're lying."

"I like you better than him already," said Helcas. Abruptly, he took a few steps forward and closed one clawed hand on Harry's left wrist, squeezing.

Harry began to breathe as his mother had taught him, retreating before the pain, rolling under it when he couldn't retreat, letting it find but not conquer him. It grew in intensity until he thought his bones might grind into mush, but if they did, then, well, he had the resources to heal himself, either here or at Lux Aeterna. He was certainly not about to strike at the goblins.

"Why aren't you defending yourself?" Helcas whispered. "Can we ask someone for help who won't defend himself?"

"When I think you're going to kill me," Harry whispered back, fighting not to sag to his knees, "then I'll strike."

Helcas laughed like a gull again, wild and near and overwhelmingly loud, and released his wrist. Harry massaged it as the blood rushed back into his hand. He saw no need to pretend that it hadn't hurt. It had, and just like screaming under torture, the acknowledgment could make him hurt less. His pride mattered infinitely less than his life did.

"Patience," said Helcas. "Honesty. Those are good qualities. But they are not the only ones a vates must have." He turned and snapped his claws together in a complicated pattern, too quick for Harry's eyes to follow. One of the other goblins hastened forward, holding an earthenware bottle in his hands.

Helcas picked up the bottle and turned to meet Harry's eyes. "The others follow me because I know what must be done," he said. "We might ask you to look, but no human can see with goblin eyes, unless they are granted to him." He held out the bottle. Harry heard it slosh, and knew it was full of some liquid.

Harry raised his brows. If the other tests had been of patience and honesty, this one was a test of courage.

And stupidity, Regulus snarled. I don't like this. I don't trust goblins, and I don't trust this beach. Something is strange about it.

Of course there is, Harry thought back, even as he accepted the bottle. There is goblin magic in the air.

More than that.

But Regulus didn't say anything else, certainly not to tell him what was strange, so Harry sniffed at the potion. He recognized the scent of seaweed, and nothing else. The potion was thick, green, the color of the river that ran near Lux Aeterna, but it shifted and became gray and brown as he watched.

The colors of Northumberland, Harry thought, as he tipped the bottle off. The colors of the county my father was born in. They won't hurt me.

It was like drinking thick, sandy water. It spilled down his throat and nearly choked him. Harry grimaced and kept swallowing, not allowing any of the vestiges of the liquid to roll out of the corners of his mouth, even though it was tempting. He had to get it all down.

The liquid brewed and churned in his stomach, and then Harry coughed in surprise. The potion itself had been cold, but a burning line seemed to be rising up his throat.

He raised his eyes, and saw the same burning engulf the air in front of him. Dancing white fires were everywhere he looked, not only in the nests of rocks that the goblin clans had made. In fact, those flames became the dimmest as the whole world burned. Harry could see white fire consuming the air, and revealing another world behind the surface one, rather like the one he had traveled with Fawkes.

This one glittered as a vast, empty waste of air above, and, beneath Harry's feet, endless reaches of stone and soil and metal. Harry blinked. He turned his head to the sea, and realized he was seeing the currents that pulsed within it, the veins of salt and warm and cold that made it so different from the land.

"Now," whispered Helcas, taking his shoulder, "turn and look behind you."

Harry did, and recoiled. He could clearly see the goblins' net now, a vast and dirty thing, the web of an old and savage spider, spreading out to the south. As he watched, it reared into one sharply defined peak of foulness very close at hand, and then went on running, linking to other places, lone mountains of filth in the midst of cleanliness. Harry shivered in revulsion.

"What are they?" he whispered.

"The stakes of our net," Helcas whispered back, his mouth very close to Harry's ear. "The pins that hold us down, running into the sweet earth itself, making us unable to simply free ourselves. The linchpins."

Harry understood, then. The nearest mountain of foulness was Lux Aeterna.

"Why did they bind you?" he breathed.

"Why do wizards bind any magical creature?" Helcas sounded old and cross and tired. "Because they wanted things from us. Because they were afraid we might hurt them. Because they didn't want to hear the truth. In our case, they wanted us to mine.

"But that wasn't all of it. We told them, when they first tried to establish their linchpins, what it would do to the land they established them in. They sink so deep that they pierce the soil. The earth can't move and shift around them the way it would naturally." Helcas motioned with his head in the direction of the beach, though Harry saw that only from the corner of his eye. The black, smoking volcano of Lux Aeterna in this realm of sight still occupied most of his attention. "If all was as it should be, the sea would have eaten this beach long ago, and the land where Lux Aeterna stands would have sunk, and hills would have arisen in other places."

Harry wanted to close his eyes, hide his face, turn away. He did not. "And the only way to free you is to destroy the linchpins?" he asked.

"Yes," said Helcas. "All of them. If even one is left, then it will enslave us, and prevent the net from being pulled up."

"You do realize," said Harry, startled to hear his own voice so dry, "that it's less than ideal to ask a Potter, one of the heirs of the nearest linchpin, to destroy his own home?"

"Less than ideal," said Helcas. "Immediately? Impossible. But you are the vates. We have hope now, where we had none before. You can take your time, vates. But eventually, we expect that you will destroy the linchpins, yes. Your own ideals are stronger than the wizarding world's."

Harry tried to think of how many grand old homes he would be destroying, how many pureblood families he would anger, and shook his head. It was too much to contemplate for right now.

But he was not running. He was not turning away.

"I understand," he said, and then blinked. White flames were crawling back over the world, dimming his sight of the earth and the sea and the slag mountains. He waited until his eyes were normal again, then stepped away from Helcas and turned to look at him.

Helcas studied him intently. His eyes were a thick yellow-green, Harry saw, the color of dead seaweed. "Patience, honesty, courage," he said. "One more remains."

He turned and gestured at one of the fires arrayed behind him and off to the left. Harry didn't know which clan it was, but one of the members stepped forward and tossed Helcas a small object. Helcas felt at it for a moment, then turned and handed it to Harry.

Harry found a small, spiky stone, star-shaped, with one spike on either side and one on top and bottom. He looked at Helcas. "Well?"

"Tell us all the things that you could do with this," Helcas said.

Harry frowned and looked at the stone. "I could toss it behind me if someone was chasing me and try to stab them in the foot, I suppose," he said. "It'd be good for horses' hooves—well, not good, but it would slow them down. I could throw it at someone else's head and distract them that way, if not actually hit them. I could hold it in my hand and stab it into an enemy's eye."

He tossed the stone, and watched as it sparkled when it soared. Faint veins of silver were probably the cause, he saw, when the stone landed in his palm again. "I could use it is a signal, throwing back the sun, if a friend were close enough. I could use it in a game; it's weighted enough to make a good playing piece. I could use it as the base of several potions, but I'd have to know if the black stone was basalt or onyx or something else first." He grimaced. His studies in stones weren't going as well as he wanted them to, but then, it was hard splitting his attention between all the subjects he wanted to study. He didn't have Hermione's ability to do so effectively.

"And I could use it as a token of friendship—"

He started as Helcas grabbed the stone back out of his hand. Harry looked at him curiously. "What's the matter?"

"You named eight uses," said Helcas, folding the stone back into his palm. Harry winced, but either the goblin didn't feel the spikes cutting into his hand the way Harry would have, or he was unwilling to show pain. "Two for each clan. The final test was one of intelligence."

He stared hard at Harry. "We shall be here, vates, when you feel the need to set us upon the path of freedom at last. We shall send you messages through any storm of danger. We shall tell you the truth, always. And we shall come up with clever plans where others could not."

One correspondence to each virtue they'd tested him on, Harry guessed. He nodded. "Then I suppose our meeting is over?"

"As soon as you tell us why you have brought other wizards along," Helcas said.

"I didn't." Harry immediately thought of Connor's Invisibility Cloak, though, and felt a welling of unease. Did someone follow me out of sight?

"Then explain that," said Helcas, and nodded over his shoulder. Harry turned.

Four black figures were behind him.

Death Eaters! Regulus screamed abruptly in his head. I can feel their connections to Voldemort.

Harry heard wild, immediately recognizable laughter in the same instant, and then the Portkey in his pocket began to burn. He snatched it out and threw it, not letting himself think about it, and watched as it was destroyed, a small sparkle in the air, consuming itself in a burst of fire. Anti-Apparition spells were already up, slamming into place around him and holding him like a fly in amber.

And then the goblins whirled aside, and Bellatrix Lestrange's first hex came at him, and he had no time for anything other than battle.