And so, Harry Potter followed the nameless goblin to the place where his meeting with the President of Gringotts Bank would take place. This meeting that would change Harry's entire outlook on both himself the world around him, and set his destiny on a course that he never would have imagined possible...
Chapter Two: Bloodlines – Finding His WingsDisclaimer: If you've seen it before, it belongs to J.K. Rowling. Otherwise, it's mine. Naturally, I'm making no money off this.
Harry followed the goblin through a set of doors into the restricted employee area of the bank, and then up an extravagant spiraling staircase. The walk took nearly ten minutes, and Harry's legs were a bit sore by the time he and the goblin reached the top floor of the building. Harry couldn't help but wonder why Gringotts hadn't bothered to install an elevator of some kind. The thought left his mind as quickly as it had come, though, as his escort stopped directly before a set of enormous golden double doors, patterned with inlaid precious stones of various sorts. Harry's felt was that the entire scene was the very definition of pointless extravagance, but a part of him couldn't help but be impressed. Harry watched his goblin escort run a finger along the front of the right door, causing it to open with a slight creak. The goblin motioned for Harry to remain behind as he scurried into the next room, presumably to announce Harry's arrival to the President. Less than a minute elapsed before the escort returned.
"The President will see you now, Mr. Potter. Right through these doors."
Harry nodded to the goblin, which left without another word, and walked into the President's office. The office's interior was just as extravagant as the doors leading into it, with objects of gold and silver, items inlaid with jewels, and other such indicators of wealth abounds. The walls were adorned with various symbols of war: swords, axes, spears, and maces, among others, most designed small and light enough to be wielded by a goblin. Glancing over to his left, Harry saw a particularly nasty-looking spiked ball and chain suspended from the wall by a pair of stakes. Battle flags and pennants hung from the high ceilings. The overall picture, Harry thought, created a strange, but somehow fitting dichotomy of wealth and war. For some reason that he couldn't place, Harry seemed to enjoy the sight of the weaponry. The audible sound of a throat clearing drew Harry's attention to the center of the room, where the President of Gringotts had risen from his desk and started to walk over to greet him.
The President was certainly not what Harry would have expected from what was likely by far the wealthiest being in wizarding Europe. He was an older-looking goblin, with a mane of long graying hair, but he expelled a certain aura of might that indicated even to a person as typically rash and fearless as Harry Potter that he was not to be crossed. He was dressed in a gold-plated battle hauberk, with matching gauntlets and leg armor and a short, gem-encrusted broadsword girded on his waist. Much like the surroundings, the President himself represented a mixture of affluence and war. The President presently reached Harry's location and extended a gnarled hand in welcome. Harry took it with only the slightest bit of hesitation.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Potter. I am Grilthauk the Greedy, chieftain of the unified clans and President of Gringotts Wizard Bank. I do hope that my office decor hasn't offended you. As stated in my letter, I am rather unused to playing the host for human clientele."
Harry knew to be careful with his reply. Offending this particular individual could certainly be hazardous to his health, Prophecy or no.
"No, the surroundings are fine, only a bit different from what I'm used to, sir...?"
"You may call me Grilthauk, Mr. Potter. Out of respect for your family, I'll not insist that you refer to me by my official title."
"All right, Grilthauk. And please, call me Harry, if you don't mind."
"Very well, Harry..."
Harry briefly wondered what the goblin chieftain meant by that last statement about his family. He had certainly received no similar respect from any of the other goblins he had encountered during his five-year tenure in the wizarding world. Well, no use obsessing over the matter, he decided. Not that he would have had the time anyway, as the President chose that moment to get down to business.
"You are no doubt wondering why I have requested your presence here today. Allow me to explain. A week or so ago, our institution learned of the passing of one Sirius Orion Black."
So this was about Sirius, Harry mused. But how could Gringotts have known of his death so quickly? Harry was sure that the Ministry would not have released the details before fully conduction their own investigation. There was no way that investigation could be completed already.
"You see, when a wizard or witch whose last will and testament is held in trust by our institution passes away, as was case with the newly departed Lord Black, we are immediately notified through the termination of a magical bond forged when the contract is formed. Upon personally reviewing Lord Black's will, as is standard Gringotts procedure in cases concerning the execution of the estates of any of the old pureblooded families, I have learned that he established you, Harry, as his sole heir half a year before his untimely demise."
Harry was only slightly shocked at the revelation that Sirius had made him his heir. Harry's late godfather had always looked upon him as the son he never had and besides, there was nobody else for him to leave the estate to. Remus, maybe, but both the Ministry of Magic and the entirety of Sirius's more unsavory blood relations would have never allowed a werewolf to inherit. Harry suddenly realized that he felt neither pain nor grief from this latest reminder of Sirius's death, despite the fact that he consciously wanted to. The fact disturbed him more than a little, but pondering the matter only resulted in that itching in his back. Further, Harry was rather confused that the President had requested a personal meeting over a simple will reading and that he had painted the whole matter with such a secretive brush.
"Now, Harry, your facial expression leads me to believe that you have come to the conclusion that I have summoned you here merely to discuss the matter of the Black inheritance. That is not the case. Part of our institution's trust with the pureblooded wizarding community obligates us to reference the magical bloodlines of any beneficiary to the estate of one of the old families before he or she can claim the inheritance, in order to ensure that the entirety of the family's resources remains within the confines of the magical world. Our research into your mother's bloodline has yielded some degree of uncertainty."
Harry didn't know what to make of this statement.
"My mother? She was a muggleborn. Anyone who knew her could tell you that."
"Indeed, official Ministry records confirm that Lily Evans was a muggleborn witch. However, I have doubts of my own as to whether or not that is indeed the truth. I have a certain theory, Harry, and I have summoned you here today in order to either confirm or refute it. But first, I believe that we've both been standing long enough. Please, come have a seat in one of the chairs by my desk."
Harry followed the President over to his expensive wooden desk and took a seat in one of the chairs. The seat was rather uncomfortable, but Harry thought that perhaps his discomfort stemmed from his own nervousness and considerable level of indignation at his mother's bloodline being called into question by a man, well, goblin who most likely had never once met her (not that Harry had either, mind). That infernal itching in his back wasn't helping matters, either. Harry kept his eyes on Grilthauk as the goblin chieftain walked over to a small safe directly behind his desk, unlocked it and removed a small, ornate wooden box. Grilthauk took the box over to his desk and sat down before opening the box and taking out a ring and placing it on the desk before Harry. The ring was one of the most beautiful, intricately designed adornments Harry had ever seen; not that he was any expert on jewelry. The ring was of magical jade carved into the form of a coiling dragon, in whose open mouth rested a small, transparent black gem the likes of which Harry could not even begin to identify.
"Harry, please fit this ring onto your left index finger."
Harry could never have known that this small act would irreparably shatter the life he had once known, and set him onto a path of bloodshed and darkness, one that would incite the magical war to end all wars.
Skeptical, Harry complied. No sooner than the ring was in place, did the eyes of the dragon begin to glow with an emerald green light that perfectly matched Harry's eyes. The black gem likewise began to glow, a core of pure black light radiating in the center of the transparent stone. The itching in Harry's back ceased, now replaced with a painful burning sensation that made Harry's entire being feel more alive. The dragon's coils tightened, cutting into Harry's finger, at which point his entire body began to glow with that same emerald aura as the dragon's, as Harry's eyes. The pain in Harry's back increased to the relative intensity of a localized Cruciatus, and he could literally feel the magical energy within his body changing and multiplying, straining the very fabric of his body and soul toward the absolute breaking point. He glared up at Grilthauk, pure hatred burning in his eyes.
"Damn you, goblin! What have you done to me?"
Grilthauk looked up to meet Harry's eyes, the goblin's own torn between elation and absolute terror. Grilthauk the Greedy had fought against and survived countless insurrections within his own clan and had slain many a powerful contender in order to rise to his position as chieftain. He had seen the rise and fall of three Dark Lords in his long lifetime, the first of which had attempted to storm Gringotts and use it as a base of operations. He had fought and won that battle as well. He had weathered the frequent attempts by the Ministry of Magic to interfere in the running of his bank, and usurp control over the wealth of wizarding Britain. But never in his life had he been as terrified as he found himself at that exact moment, looking headlong at the enraged Harry Potter, at the demon waiting to be unleashed within the boy. Steeling himself, he recalled the last request given him by the only human being to whom the goblin clans had ever sworn fealty, and reached into the ring's box once more, withdrawing a small vial of a sickly green potion. He could only pray to the ancestors that once it was over, that the boy would not kill him outright before allowing him to explain.
"Harry, calm yourself! The pain is only the result of the heritage ring recognizing you as its rightful and owner attempting to bond its magic to yours. Here, this potion will numb the pain. Drink it and stay seated as it takes effect. We have much to discuss."
Harry, desperate to relieve the pain, took the offered potion without a second thought. At that exact moment, the last hope of the light was extinguished. Harry braced himself to allow the potion to take effect, taking heart in the notion that the pain, worse even that Voldemort's Cruciatus curse, would soon be over. How wrong he was. Instead of numbing the pain, the potion caused it to multiply tenfold. To Harry, the walls and floor of Grilthauk's office no longer existed. He could only see pure white. Each second felt like a millennium. And then, in a moment, the threshold broke. Harry could feel the flesh exploding from his body as his consciousness waned.
Grilthauk stared in abject horror as the scene played out before his eyes. By the ancestors, what had he done to this boy? Harry stumbled around in a stupor, screaming in a voice that sounded like a mixture of his own and a deeper, somehow much more menacing voice, one that promised pain beyond pain, death beyond death for the unlucky fool that managed to rouse theenmity of its bearer.
Harry's aura continued to extend outward from his body. The weapons of Grilthauk's collection, forged of enchanted steel by some of the finest goblin smiths to ever walk the earth bent and shattered underneath the force of the boy's pure magic. The very walls of Gringotts shook, cracks formed in the floors and ceilings. Grilthauk prayed to the ancestors with all of his being that it would be over soon, or else the structure of the building would collapse and kill him and Harry both, likely along with the entirety of the unified clans, and the destruction would not stop there. Those goblins that might manage to escape the building would be crushed by the aftershock. His clans would be wiped off the face of the planet, and it would be entirely his fault. How could he ever face the ancestors after that?
In a brief moment of humor, Grilthauk mused that the fools at the Ministry with their magical detectors were no doubt pissing themselves at the moment. He only hoped that Dolores Umbridge would have a coronary. Grilthauk would feel much better about dying given the knowledge that the walking blob of bigotry was going to the afterlife with him. He would at least have that trifling merit to offer before the ancestors. Pray that they would show him enough mercy not to place him and Umbridge in the same Hell.
As the quaking reached a crescendo, and Harry's aura bathed the entire room with an emerald green glow, two laser-like beams of pure green light shot from the area between Harry's shoulders. A moment later, the boy's back exploded open, twin streams of blood and gore sprayed out behind Harry and bore a hole through Grilthauk's office door. Grilthauk watched as Harry's body snapped up to attention, and from the holes where the flesh of his back had been a moment before sprouted a pair of forest green wings that stretched to a full span of nearly eight feet before the goblin's eyes. At that moment, Harry Potter, no, whatever this boy now was, winged, glowing, and bathed in a shower blood and gore a color as black as Lord Voldemort's heart, looked the very definition of a fallen angel, before slumping into unconsciousness.
Grilthauk's war-hardened heart wept for this poor child upon whom the goblin chieftain's own negligence had forced this wretched condition. For a brief moment, he cursed his lord for having taken and sired a child by that dakaathi princess, a child whose grandson would have to suffer this fate. This only lasted a second, though, as the old goblin remembered his oath, and swore again that he would see his lord's plan to fruition. He would speak with this boy, this demon when he awoke. He would convince the boy of the correctness of his lord's cause, and he would serve the boy as he had served the boy's great-grandfather. Oh, Voldemort, the half-blood slave who had dared to usurp Grilthauk's lord's most sacred title, would suffer first, of that there could be no doubt. The boy would not forgive the crimes that Salazar Slytherin's bastard descendant had inflicted upon his mother and father. But then, oh yes, but then it would be Albus Dumbledore's turn to suffer. Indeed, the great Lord Grindelwald would be avenged. Avenged by his ill-fated blood heir. Soon after, without its champion, that corrupt hive of intolerance and bigotry that was British Ministry of Magic would crumble as well. Grilthauk could hardly wait for the battle to begin. It had been too long since the last great goblin war. Grilthauk fingered the sword sheathed at his waist, gnarled hands aching with bloodlust. The clans would fight as one once more, and he, Grilthauk the Greedy, would lead them in that glorious conflict.
Harry awoke some time later on a soft bed. Looking around, he found himself situated in what was easily the most luxurious room he had ever stayed in. Even the sheets on the bed he had apparently slept in had strands of pure gold woven into the silk. The floors were tiled with priceless magical jade. Jade...Harry looked down at his left hand. The ring still adorned his finger. So it wasn't just a dream, then? Looking a bit more to his left, Harry saw a steaming plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes, and a golden jeweled goblet filled to the brim with ice cold pumpkin juice. His stomach suddenly decided to remind him that he hadn't eaten since early that morning at the Dursleys'. Harry wasted no time in greedily wolfing down the meal in front of him. A sudden thought struck him, that maybe next time he might try the meat raw. He knew that he should have found the idea repulsive, only that it just wasn't. He felt nothing, aside from a small wave of both amusement and disgust at the insecurities that he had seemingly grown accustomed to having over the years of his short lifetime.
Dismissing the thought, he decided to wash up. Getting out of bed, Harry noticed a small collection of forest green feathers strewn about on the sheet where he had just been. A beautiful color, he though, wondering where exactly where they came from as he began to walk over into the restroom to get a good look at himself in the mirror. Upon arriving, he took an involuntary step back at the reflection before. The most striking change was that he had sprouted wings. Fucking WINGS. How in Merlin's name had that come about? Well, it did answer his question about the origin of the feathers, at least. Harry had no problem with the new appendages, he thought as he flexed them. They were quite malleable and easy to control. He tried wrapping his newfound wings around his body like a sort of coat, hoping that he'd be able to conceal them in that manner under his cloak. It just wouldn't do for him to be out in public with wings sticking out of his robes. Harry smirked slightly as the wings wrapped around him with ease, coating the better part of his upper body with feathers.
The wings weren't the only change he noticed in the mirror. His hair was another remarkable difference from earlier in the day. What used to be a messy, untamed mop now flowed straight down to slightly below his shoulders, the tip of his hair just touching the base of his wings. There were enough wisps falling down the front that they concealed his scar quite nicely. His eye color had changed slightly, from a vibrant emerald to the dull forest of his newfound feathery appendages, and he seemed to be able to see perfectly well without his glasses, which had apparently fallen off his face and gotten lost when he fell unconscious. He was a bit taller, not a gangly ape like Ron, but he could certainly lay claim to a sudden growth spurt. Harry's muscles seemed a bit toned also. He wasn't ripped, but he had a certain athletic look to him. He had no idea how these changes had come about, but he certainly couldn't complain. He summed it all up in one voiced thought.
"Merlin's beard, I look good."
A door opened in the room where Harry had just been asleep. Looking into the mirror, he saw Grilthauk coming into view in the reflection, with some sort of book in his gnarled hand. He was too busy ogling himself at the moment to be really angry at the old goblin, but decided anyway to show the armored cretin the consequences of raising his ire. Quick as a flash of light, he rushed the goblin chieftain, lifting him, armor and all into the air with all the natural ease of catching a Snitch, by the throat and slamming him hard into the wall. Grilthauk's small escort of armed goblins started forward to the defense of their chieftain, but a swift glare from Harry cowed them with ease. Attempting to adopt the soft, dangerous tone that he had heard so many times from his greasy Potions professor, Harry spoke to the writhing goblin.
"Now, President, tell me why I shouldn't rip out your windpipe and use it to floss my teeth?"
Nice one, Harry mused. Why couldn't he think of lines like that during all of those encounters with that suckling Malfoy? He might have to use it again when he returned to school. Only slightly aware that Grilthauk was suffocating, Harry waited for a reply, which came from the old goblin in a wheeze.
"Please, Harry. I can explain everything."
"Really, now? Then why haven't you done so yet."
"Release me, and I will tell you. Ancestors, have mercy, Harry."
"Oh, very well. Now start talking. You can begin by telling me what actually happened in your office. You see, I wasn't really aware of things owing to the pain."
"Yes, Harry, the pain you felt was your body adapting. Attempting to transform into its rightful form, the fruits of which you were just admiring in that mirror."
Harry smiled coldly at the old goblin.
"Really? I seem to recall you tricking me into putting on this cursed ring, causing the pain to begin with, and then proceeding to worsen said pain with that poison concoction of yours. A potions master you are not, President."
"No, Harry. You are only partially correct. Your body was attempting to transform, to evolve before you even came to London today, I would imagine. You see, the demonic blood that flows in your veins feeds off of your pain and your negative emotions. As the demonic influence is relatively demure within your bloodstream, or at least it was before your transformation, it was unable to muster enough strength from your thoughts and senses alone to initiate the transformation. You may have felt your body attempting to take that energy transform whenever you felt any particularly strong emotion, but it likely only manifested as a minor irritation. Hence the need for that ring. The stone in your ring is actually a crystallized sample of your maternal great-grandmother's blood. She was a full-blooded dakaath of royal stock, whereas you, Harry, are a hybrid formed of the coupling of a dakaath and a human. Her blood coming into contact with your flesh provided the activation energy needed to begin your transformation. Normally, the process would involve nearly a month of pain such as that you experienced. That potion increased the transformation speed exponentially, and so the requisite pain was also drastically increased for the brief amount of time needed for the entire process to take place. You should be thanking me for letting you simply get it over with."
Harry looked positively indignant, but only for a moment.
"Demons? I ask you for an explanation, President, and you give me a fairy tale. There are no such things as demons, and I have no idea whatever in the Hell a "dakaath" is supposed to be."
"Had someone come to you ten years ago, Harry, and told you that magic was real, or that ghosts and giants really existed, would you have believed them then?"
Harry didn't need any clarification to understand the chieftain's point.
"All right, Grilthauk, I'll take you at your word for now. Assuming these demons exist, how exactly did I come to possess their blood? And what is a dakaath?"
Grilthauk sighed inwardly, at least this was going better than expected. Keeping the Ministry Aurors out of the bank after the magical explosion resulting from Harry's transformation was a nightmare, and getting rid of that meddling codger Dumbledore was even more difficult. That old fool seemed to be of the opinion that it was his given right to stick his crooked nose into each and every odd occurrence that took place in wizarding Britain. Gringotts Wizard Bank fell outside of the dominion of the Ministry of Magic, and Dumbledore was nothing more than the headmaster of a damned school in terms of actual authority ever since his recent falling out with Cornelius Fudge, but both parties seemed more than happy to try to investigate and interfere with bank business at will. Thankfully, they left of their own volition, and Grilthauk didn't need to resort to attempting to expel them by force. There would be time enough for bloodshed later. Catching himself, Grilthauk decided that he had better answer Harry's questions before the newly transformed dakaath lost his patience.
"A dakaath could perhaps be best described in terms of their being a sort of demonic counterpart to the race of creatures known in this world as veela. Like the veela, the dakaath exert certain nearly irresistible auras that attract the attentions of those of the opposite sex. These symptoms may have only manifested within you very recently, as the demonic blood within you seemingly required an incubation period of nearly sixteen years before its effects started to show. An odd, but lucky coincidence that Lord Black's will found me right as your blood gifts began to manifest. Forewarned is forearmed, as the muggles say."
Harry thought the situation was decidedly unlucky. Why couldn't this charm have come out while he was dating Cho ever so briefly last year? It would have saved him a lot of guff. He then recalled the episode with the saleswitch in Madame Malkin's earlier in the day. Perhaps he had been a bit harsh with her, not that he really cared. But if he was a dakaath, a demon, why did he attract a human girl? Not that he had even transformed at that point, which brought up another sticking point: if his so-called "dakaathi charm" was powerful enough to get that pretty twenty-something to practically drool over him while in his human state, what could he expect now that he was the real thing? Returning to Hogwarts with its small army of hormonal teenage witches was starting to seem like a less than practical idea, though Harry still found it irresistible for some reason or another.
"However, the dakaath bear some striking differences from the veela as well. Veela transform into an avian state only when angered, and thus shift between a completely human appearance and a completely avian appearance. On the other hand, the dakaath have an appearance somewhere between that of a human and a bird, one that they always assume. Your appearance is furthermore somewhere between that of a dakaath and a human. You bear wings, but lack the talons that a full-blooded dakaath would possess. Further, the veela are known for their fiery, violent dispositions. Dakaath are the exact opposite. Their feelings and emotions are rather lacking compared to those of humans, much less veela. This is due to the fact that the dakaath maintain and replenish their magical reserves by feeding from their emotional capacities rather than their physical capacities, so that they actually have much less that they can actively express. Also, the lessened emotional capacity within a dakaath's brain allows for an increased mental capacity, or in more common terms, enhanced intelligence, at least relative to a human. There is one glaring exception to this emotional repression: desire, in some instances better known as lust, the hormonal drive for which is drastically higher within the dakaath. To compensate, and to supplement this self-serving, desirous nature, dakaath are nearly completely bereft of any capacity for such feelings as compassion, shame and guilt."
Harry was almost offended by that last remark, but brushed it off rather easily. He did venture a question, curiosity getting the better of him. Odd, seeing as he apparently wasn't supposed to be feeling such emotions very strongly, if he understood the old goblin correctly.
"Since my body is apparently drawing less from my physical reserves now that I've transformed, does that mean I should expect to have more strength and stamina? And I still feel certain emotions, even though I apparently shouldn't be. Explain?"
Grilthauk paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, and then attempted to answer.
"As for your first question, I would imagine so, at least on some level. However, the increased physical capacities of the dakaath tend to manifest themselves through two primary avenues. First, the dakaath possess an extremely high instinctual capacity for bloodlust and physical violence.Of course, you can probably guess the second outlet, and that would be sexual promiscuity. Dakaath are very sexually active. They are driven creatures, Harry. Their thirst for blood and sex, for the constant appeasement of their most basic physical desires, also leads them to have a certain taste for battle. They sate their instinctual bloodlust on the battlefield, and take the women of their rivals as spoils of war. They are also quite vain and proud, though you wouldn't see it by looking. The dakaath enjoy proving their superiority over other races, other tribes of the demon realms, and they are quite universally hated for it. Truly, despite their typically bored and repressed emotional dispositions and high levels of intelligence, the dakaath are oftentimes quite barbaric."
Harry decided that was quite enough of that line of questioning. He really didn't need a wrinkled goblin talking to him about sex any more than absolutely necessary.
"And my second question? Why do I still feel that which I apparently should not, and why am I not particularly feeling any extreme bloodlust and sexual desire at the moment?"
"Well, even a full dakaath will still experience the full range of emotions on varying levels, and not even a full dakaath is gripped by reckless desire all of the time. I never said otherwise. A dakaath's emotional responses are simply milder, easier to repress than those of most other creatures. As for you, you still possess some human blood. You are an unknown entity, Harry. I cannot tell for certain whether or not your dakaathi blood will affect you as completely as it would a full-fledged demon, or if your mannerisms will fall somewhere between those of a dakaath and a human."
Harry smiled dryly.
"So, I'll more or less have to learn as I go, right? It doesn't matter, really. I'll just act in whatever manner comes naturally to me. Is there anything else that I should know about this race that I supposedly now belong to?"
Grilthauk smirked back at Harry.
"Yes, the dakaath are a demonic species. Further, they, like you, have magical cores as well as the intellectual capacity for abstract thought. As such, they have their own sort of magic, one very different from ours."
"And that is?"
"The ability to manipulate the forces of chaos, the very negative energy that exists as a counterpart, a balancing mechanism, to the forces of nature and order that human wizards draw upon. The very essence of death and destruction, as it were. Avada Kedavra is a curse that draws upon the minute amount of chaotic energy that exists within the humans' collective magical reservoir. As you have seen, even that little amount of negative energy is enough to fell a human being with ease. You see, Harry, humans have little to no resistance to chaotic energy, whereas demons are equally susceptible to ordered energy. If the two realms were ever to go to war, the natural result would be the near obliteration of both."
Harry thought about this, and quickly understood how these concepts might be applied to him. Dakaathi intelligence, indeed.
"So, I am part human and part dakaath, and so my energy is part ordered and part chaotic. This means that I ought to have a certain level of ability to manipulate both, and a certain level of resistance to both, as one form of energy seems to cancel out the other. Do you think that my dakaathi blood and my inherent chaotic energy are the real reason why I survived Avada Kedavra as a baby? Dumbledore told me that it was my mother's sacrifice that protected me."
Grilthauk's smile broadened.
"I cannot say for sure, Harry, but if I were to venture an educated guess, I would agree with you on all of your points, particularly on the last. The dakaathi blood and chaotic core were within you from your birth, even if they were not yet active when Lord Voldemort attacked your home that tragic night. The chaotic potential within you could possibly have shielded you from harm, even though you could not knowingly tap it, a concept similar to the normal child wizard phenomenon of accidental magic. As for Albus Dumbledore, perhaps he was simply ignorant of your heritage and reasoned the most viable explanation for the phenomenon available to him, or maybe he simply lied. The old bastard is far too slippery for the likes of us mere mortals to discern his motives for certain."
Harry decided that Grilthauk obviously had some level of hostility towards Dumbledore. Filing that thought away for later, he had to wonder himself whether or not the Headmaster had knowingly kept the truth of Harry's heritage from him. He still had questions that needed answering for now, but he was most curious as to how Grilthauk knew all of this. He hardly imagined that researching demonic veela was a normal activity for a bank president. He could try his hand at playing Slytherin and attempt to get the goblin to spill through veiled questions, but Grilthauk was obviously half terrified of Harry, so the latter saw no reason for pretense.
"Grilthauk, I have one more question. How are you so knowledgeable about the dakaath?"
Grilthauk, expecting this question sooner or later, handed Harry the book he had brought into the room with him. Harry glanced at the title – A Treatise on Demonology: Arcane Races, Chaotic Force, and Summoning Rites. On the bottom of the cover was the name of the author. Alphonse Evans. Evans...his mother's maiden name. Surely this wasn't just a coincidence, Grilthauk had handed him the book without a single word. This Alphonse Evans must have been an ancestor of Harry's, and he had a feeling that Grilthauk knew the whole story. Harry continued to look at the book's cover as the goblin spoke once more.
"Come, Harry. Take a walk with me. There is still much for you to see, and much for us to discuss."
With that, Grilthauk left the room. Harry followed, a brief sojourn during which Harry the truth of his mother's heritage, the truth that Lily Evans-Potter herself never knew, and armed with that truth, Harry's former path would close to him, and a new one would open in its place.
(End Chapter Two)
Author's Note: Well, that's the second chapter finished. I know that I left some questions unanswered, for example why Lily never exhibited any dakaathi traits, despite obviously carrying the demonic blood, as she passed it down to Harry. I will attempt to answer this question and others in the next chapter, but if there's anything that particularly confuses any of you, please let me know in a review, so that I can attempt to clarify for you. I know that Grilthauk seems to know far much more than he should, but I will get to why exactly that is. Thanks to my reviewers, and constructive criticism is always welcome and encouraged.