Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Smallville aren't mine.
Author's Note: You wouldn't believe this, I get one more lesson a week after my mid term! Jesus, as if the schedule isn't already tight. Grumbling. It seems that I get more active writing new chapters for my fics these days. Actually I have much spare time in my mid exam. I only study when it was night, but I didn't write much because I got sidetracked reading Lois and Clark and Smallville fanfictions. Tee Hee Hee… Those fics inspired me to write this crossover. Anyway, enjoy! Right now Soragakure (chap 12) and Lack of Motivation (part 10) are still in progress. If you have spare time why don't you read them? They are Naruto fic if you're interested.
Chapter Four
Realizing that he wouldn't be able to resolve his problem inside the vault when a possibly grumbling goblin was waiting for him, Harry decided to call his whirling thoughts to an end at least for now. Taking the pensieve, the 2 boxes James and Lily mentioned in their letter, the 2 letters, all of the tomes inside the vault because he didn't know which ones were about the binding ritual considering the time, and a bottomless bag he found inside the vault, Harry almost exited the Potter vault when he remembered that he might need the holo ball (AN: holo from hologram. It sounds cute, so I decided to use it). With the ball secured inside the bag he left the vault.
Gartough was silent when he saw the troubled look on his client face. The journey was a quiet one as Harry's mind was drifting back to his problem, while no one knew what the goblin was thinking. Harry was startled when the small goblin nudged him. He looked up and realized that the journey was already over.
"Gartough, do you know where I can process my emancipation?" the retreating goblin stopped in his track before he turned around.
He was silent for a moment before nodding. "Follow me, sir," the magical creature led him through the labyrinth look-alike corridors. Harry could only memorize half of them before he was starting to get confused. Gartough smirked at his blank look. They arrived outside a room with a sign 'Ministry-Goblin Affair' hanging above the white painted wooden door. The goblin opened the door and told him to get inside. Harry entered the room to hear the door closed behind. The goblin was nowhere to be seen.
Sighing, Harry scanned the room. There were 4 goblins working diligently behind the desks. Not even once did they look up to see their client, indicating that either they were too engrossed with their works to notice him or they just plain ignored him.
"Excuse me," the wizard greeted the closest goblin. He looked up and sneered.
"What can I do for you," he said with distaste.
Harry's temper rose at the rude treatment, but he soon remembered what Hagrid had said about them when he was 11 years old. Even if Gartough was nice (because the goblin kept silent and only speak to answer his questions, but didn't comment rudely) didn't mean that the others would be the same.
"Yes, I want to be emancipated."
"Name and age?" he asked gruffly.
"Harry James Potter, 15 almost 16 years old this July," all of the goblins stopped working when they heard his name. The goblin in front of him observed him thoroughly.
"You will need your guardians' consent and the situation you are in that lead you to ask for emancipation in order to submit your emancipation request."
"Will it suffice?" Harry took the emancipation paper from the bag and showed him the letter his parents wrote.
The nastier looking goblin than Gartough looked at it for a moment and nodded. "Go through that door. The goblin inside, Jerkins, will process the whole ordeal," he pointed toward another smaller door.
Harry nodded. "Thank you," the goblin twitched, clearly not used being thanked by a wizard. He only nodded curtly and went back to his job, shifting through a mountain of papers.
Harry knocked the door, feeling that it was a polite thing to do. Years under the abuse treatment of the Dursleys actually gave him a manner that not many could find on people nowadays. That didn't mean he liked to live as a slave for them though.
"Enter," a voice came from inside the room.
Harry opened the door cautiously, not wanting to anger the goblin inside further incase he was like the goblin he had just encountered. A small older looking goblin was sitting on a chair 3 times bigger than its size signing a couple of papers before looking up to see who his visitor was.
His eyebrow raised when he saw a young man no older than 18 years old entered his office. "May I help you?" Jerkins asked curiously wondering what a young man like him was doing here.
Harry was relieved that the new goblin was politer than the other one or even Gartough. "Yes, I'd like to process my emancipation."
The goblin blinked and fixed his spectacle. "Name and age?"
"Harry James Potter, age 15 almost 16 this July," Harry repeated the same answer he gave to the other goblin.
"…I see. You do have some situations that will make it easier for you to get your emancipation," he told him. "Your status as the sole heir of Potter family will help you greatly, although if you have your guardians' consent, it will be much easier."
"My parents left a notice to let me open the family vault and I found this inside," Harry showed him the paper.
The goblin examined the paper before looking up to the young wizard. "Well this is good news for you, Mr. Potter. With this no one will be able to refuse your emancipation request according to Act 245 paragraph 44 about 'The Will of Deceased Parents' and Act 156 paragraph 23 about 'The Privileges of Ancient Family Heir'," Harry's face brightened.
"I will immediately process your emancipation, Mr. Potter. Please fill this form," the old goblin stood up and took out 3 papers from one of the drawers and gave them to him. "One is for Ministry's file, one for Gringotts, and another one for you. When you sign this, I'll be allowed to lift the underage magic detector on your wand."
Harry looked up in surprise. "Are you allowed to do that when I'm just submitting my request?"
"Usually, no. But it is clear that you'll have your emancipation regardless the protests from anyone, so it doesn't matter for me. I'm authorized to do that, don't worry, this is perfectly legal, a privilege that the ministry gave us in the deal between wizards and goblins after our rebellion centuries ago," Harry nodded with a smile.
Finally a good news! He was thinking that he would only get bad lucks after all of the hectic things happened, starting from this morning.
As Harry filled the forms, the goblin opened his mouth, "May I tell you that Mr. Black's Will will be announced 8 months after his death?" Harry stiffened, the pen he was holding stopped on its track.
"What Will?" he asked cautiously. Just how many things he hadn't known about until now?
"We haven't openly announced it yet because we are still processing it. It is supposed to be faster, but the ministry gave us a hard time and we had to present them the proof of his death and many other things you don't need to worry about, but we're sure that we will be able to announce the Will in 8 months time. Your name is listed under the beneficiary list of the Will according to one Sirius Orion Black in his last notice to us. We will send you an owl when the date for the hearing is decided."
"Thank you," Harry muttered silently. Another thing to remind him that he was truly alone now. But…didn't he still have Kal-El? He might not know his character or his location, but he knew that he was Rei-El's twin. And Rei-El was a part of him, right?
Something inside him told him to search for his twin. Not because Jor-El told him to, but because he himself wanted to do it. To meet the last of his family. He could say 'To Hell with the Dursleys!'. Their manners and actions weren't what someone would expect from their family and for that he didn't have a problem to forget that they were his relatives and cut their ties. Beside, he didn't doubt that the Dursleys would be grateful if that happened.
The problem was he didn't know where Kal was. Jor-El certainly couldn't give any help for that. Harry wondered about his twin's life. He had so many questions, but no answer.
He didn't know how his friends would take the news.
Okay, he was the Boy-Who-Lived. He was a parseltongue. His godfather was a convict. He had mind link with the Dark Lord. He was hunted by the death eaters. But an alien? He didn't think even they could accept it with wide spread arms, especially when his supposed alien father was trying to make him to conquer the Earth. No. Telling them about his actual heritage would be a really really BAD idea. If he couldn't even trust his own father, who was he supposed to trust?
He needed to solve his identity problem first before dealing with his friends. Problem was he didn't think he could do it in such a short time. He needed to get away from everyone until he was alone, and only after then he could think all the time he wanted to.
That meant…scratch Hogwarts off of his yearly schedule list and get the hell out of this country as soon as possible. Beside he doubted Hogwarts could teach him how to use his alien power when what the professors taught was barely adequate for the students in such wartime.
"Mr. Potter?" Jerkins snapped him out of his reverie.
"Uh what?" he blinked. "Sorry, I was a bit sidetracked."
The goblin chuckled. "Yes, I can see that. You're staring at the ceiling for 10 minutes," Harry's cheek reddened.
Harry turned serious a moment later. "Mr. Jerkins, can you keep quiet about my emancipation?" the young man asked hopefully.
"Depends on why you want to keep it quiet."
"Well, I want to get Fudge and the reporters out of my back as long as possible and…" Harry decided to tell the old goblin some of the truth. "I want to get out of England to solve a problem of mine. Until I have solved it, I don't think I can stay here. Please, at least until I have left this country," he pleaded.
"Hm…sounds like you have some serious problem there," he looked at Harry's serious face. "Alright, I'll keep quiet about it," Harry's face brightened. "But only about a week, after that it's your problem," the wizard nodded in satisfaction.
"That will be enough time, I think. About the goblins out there and Gartough…" he trailed off.
"I'll take care of them," he waved off.
"Thank you very much."
"No need. Your family has been a good client to us for centuries, Mr. Potter. And I myself have a…debt, you could say, to your grandfather."
"My grandfather?"
"Yes, your father's father, Heinrich Potter. He saved me when I was in the wrong place in the wrong time in the war against Grindlewald. Anything else I can help you with?"
"I need to acquire items for my journey, but I don't want to attract attention by buying loads of goods."
"You want me to cover your track?" a smile tugged on the goblin's lips.
"…Yes. Don't worry, I'll pay them double."
"No need. You'll only need to pay the real price, free of any kind of fee, but consider that I don't have a debt to your family anymore."
"Agreed," they shook their hands.
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Harry finished writing the letters for his friends, Dumbledore and Remus. Basically he told them that he had a problem to solve and until he could solve it he wouldn't be able to be with them. In the letter for Dumbledore he added that he quitted Hogwarts for undetermined amount of time and that he would train on his own to face Voldemort and to not bother searching for him. After an afterthought, Harry also wrote in P.S. that he was NOT feeling sorry for trashing his office because he deserved it.
Putting the letters aside on the table so he could ask Jerkins to send them later after he was out of England, Harry took out the pensieve and the 2 boxes from his bag. He carefully put the pensieve on the table and then drifted his full attention toward the 2 beautiful crafted boxes.
The boxes were nearly identical except for the jewel on the lids. One of them had red ruby while the other one had emerald. Harry opened the ruby box and found himself staring at many small red rocks and a big one of them in its center. They glowed somewhat unearthly and it gave Harry somewhat creepy feeling. Still, he held his gaze on the glowing meteor or more precisely planet Krypton's rocks, eyes completely transfixed on the stones. He took one of the smaller rocks and held it under the lamp. It looked like a jewel instead of a measly rock. This was part of the planet he was born to. He was suddenly felt more energized than he could believe as if nothing would be able to get on his way. The feeling was…addictive.
Something inside him screamed at him to get away from the red rock as far as possible. Harry frowned, wondering why he had this feeling that he was so powerful and could do everything. He knew to trust his guts. They have saved him more times than he could count. Reluctantly, Harry put the red rock back to the ruby box and closed its lid. His heart beat faster than normal.
He then cautiously opened the 2nd box. In it was 2 chunks of green rocks and more of the smaller ones. They too glowed eerily. For reason unknown, Harry was suddenly reminded of Christmas color theme, red and green. Harry was apprehensive to touch the rocks. The red rocks felt so addictive in his palm.
At first Harry didn't notice it, but after 5 minutes staring at the green kryptonite, he felt rather tired, as if something drained his stamina. With a jolt, Harry realized that this was the green rocks' doing. He slammed the lid and after a minute he felt that he didn't feel so tired as before.
Harry groaned when he comprehended what happened.
The red rock gave him power and made him think he was all-powerful, but it was highly addictive. Who knew what other effect it had in short and long term?
The green one on the other hand drained his power and made him feel so helpless. He had never felt like this ever since he was 5 years old, an age where he discovered that no matter what he did to get recognition from his relatives, good recognition that was because all they thought was that he was a freak, it was of no use.
Two rocks that were supposed to be parts of his home planet had bad effects for him. What a nice news he got here!
Harry decided to put them back into the vault later where no one would be able to take and used them against him.
The young wizard wondered if his twin had the same problem with the rocks like him. That would be another question he added to his long 'What-To-Ask-His-Twin-after-I-Find-Him' list.
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Harry checked all of the things Jerkins had bought for him from the list the goblin gave him and nodded in appreciation. Trust a goblin no to forget everything, even something looked insignificant yet actually important for his journey.
The old goblin had bought a muggle suitcase modified for wizard's needs from his contact in Paris. The shops in England mostly only sold wizard trunk. Jerkins obviously was thinking that Harry would be in muggle world more rather than in wizard one, which was quite true, although he would visit it from time to time.
"I bought you approximately 231 books related to subjects you asked me and had sorted them out by the subject and put them in charmed bookcase. It can hold another 69 books regardless their sizes. This are the address of resourceful bookshops all around the world," he gave him another list. "The ones that I underlined are where the goblins I asked bought the books from."
"This will be an important part for your journey," Jerkins handed the young wizard a small green crystal amulet shaped like a rocket. "This amulet will enable you to speak, read and understand other language, mind you that not all languages are there, only the most prominent ones, mostly European languages and some Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese."
"Thanks," Harry accepted the green amulet. The color resembled the green kryptonite so much that Harry was unnerved the first time he saw it.
"And this is your money pouch charmed to automatically exchange wizard money to muggle ones, just tell it how much you want. It connects directly into your vaults. Also I got you a Gringotts cards. It acts like muggle credit card. Unfortunately it can only be used in the more democratic magical countries and I can tell you that England isn't one of them," the goblin shook his head exasperatedly. "The England ministry of magic had always refused our continued requests to make the card can be used here. They said that it was too muggle," Jerkins snorted loudly as he gave Harry a black leather pouch with Gringotts symbol and a simple black wallet with Gringotts card and Harry's I.D cards. Harry checked the cards with a smile, knowing that it would make his journey easier. Jerkins put his passport and visa under his name on the table.
"There's no name of any country here," Harry frowned as he carefully inspected the passport and visa.
"The beautiful thing of magic, Mr. Potter. It will show the name of a country when you enter its territory," Padfoot's godson nodded.
"What about my order?"
Jerkins put a new shining firebolt on his table. "A brand new broom just like you asked. May I know why you asked me to buy this when you already have a firebolt?"
Harry looked up in surprise. "You know?"
"Rumors spread fast, Mr. Potter," the goblin chuckled. "Especially with Daily Prophet and other gossip magazines around."
"Oh. It got locked in Hogwarts by the last DADA teacher and I don't have time to retrieve it. Fortunately she was locked in St. Mungo and hopefully she will be sent to a mental institution soon," Harry grinned.
"Am I right in guessing that you're the one who put her in that condition?" the old goblin raised an amused eyebrow.
"No, you're not wrong. Actually I got helps from my friends for that."
The goblin eyes narrowed when Harry's hand fingered his hair. "Can you show me your pal, Mr. Potter?"
Harry blinked. "What? This?" he brought his hand out for the goblin to see. There was a faint line of written words there. It was blurred as the skin mended itself.
"How did you get that, Mr. Potter?"
"In the detention with Umbridge, the DADA professor I'm talking about. Why?"
"It looks like the result of using Blood Quill, a banned magical artifact. Did you use any healing potion to help you mend your skin?" Harry shook his head. "Strange, your skin shouldn't be able to mend itself without the use of particular healing potion," the goblin shook his head. "You said that the minister's secretary actually did this?"
"Yes. And I think she didn't use it on me only. One of Hogwarts students, Lee Jordan, was also her victim. I don't know about the others."
"Do you want to sue the ministry?"
"What?"
"The ministry is at fault for placing a faulty and dangerous woman into the position of a teacher, High Inquisitor and lastly to act as the Headmistress. There is an old law pertaining this when the pureblood wizards of old time agreed to give the power to govern wizards in their area under the banner of a ministry. It's one of the conditions in the deal."
"I'd like to, but I can't have more attention directed on me."
"I see…" the goblin tapped his chin. "I think I can do something for that. Rumor is afterall spreading fast here. And the reporters will try to dig this. After the fiasco in the ministry and the news that the dark lord was actually alive came out, the reporters were trying to find other ministry's faults. I'm sure that Hogwarts' students' parents would be greatly interested by the news," Jerkins smirked nastily. Harry raised his eyebrow. It seemed that Jerkins could be as nasty if not nastier than the other goblins.
"That's okay, I guess," the goblin nodded. He chimed the bell on the table. A moment later a goblin entered the office.
"Lior, I want you to get the healing potion for Blood Quill's victim," the younger goblin nodded and exited the office. Jerkins turned his attention back to his client. "I also have some other things to give you back," he stood from his seat. He dropped a stack of paper on the table followed by a small red velvet box. He touched the crest on the box and it enlarged. Jerkins opened it to reveal keys and cards.
"What are those for?" Harry asked curiously.
"These are the keys for your properties in muggle world and in some places in magical world. There are the names and address written on the keys and cards that only someone with Potter's blood running through his vein could see. Your parents and grandparents bought them in the reigns of Grindelwald and Voldemort for safe havens. If you're wondering why there are cards here, they replaced the common keys for higher security in some apartments. These papers here contain the information for your properties. I'm sure these will help you." Someone knocked the door. "Enter!" the goblin Jerkins sent, Lior, was back with a bottle of blue liquid. He gave it to his superior and exited the office leaving them alone once more.
"Give me your hand, Mr. Potter," Harry complied. "Usually this is used immediately after the Blood Quill was used to heal the wound perfectly as the longer the wound was left out, the harder this potion can help you. But seeing your hand almost healed on its own, I think it can help increase your healing. It will sting a bit," with that warning, Jerkins poured the potion into Harry's awaiting palm. Harry hissed when the liquid touched his wounded skin. It felt like pouring alcohol into wound. His palm let out smoke. Harry's eyes watched in fascination as the skin started to mend perfectly until there was no writing on his palm anymore.
"Wow. Thanks."
"It's not a problem. Since we're finished here, I think it's time for you to go," Harry nodded. "Put the amulet around your neck and don't loose it. It will be bad if you loose it when you're in a country that doesn't use English. "
Harry wore the silver chained green amulet and put all papers and other things inside the suitcase.
"Now this is Gringotts portkey and compass," Jerkins gave him 2 things with Gringotts symbol on them. "The compass is used to direct you to the nearest branch of Gringotts bank. The Gringotts portkey unlike other portkeys can only be used inside Gringotts branch to transport yourself to other Gringotts branch. In the other hand, you won't need to trouble yourself in other countries' ministry to get visa and everything. Tell the portkey what country you want to go to and then say 'Gringotts portkey activation'. If there is more than 1 branch on one country, the portkey will transport you to the biggest branch there. If you don't want anyone beside you to use the portkey, smear 5 drops of your blood on the goblin's eyes. Good luck on your journey, Mr. Potter."
"Thank you for your help, Mr. Jerkins. I hope that I can meet you again in the future," Harry offered his hand which was accepted by the old goblin. They shook their hands. Harry let go of his hand and took a step back. He slung his backpack and grabbed his portkey. Japan. Gringotts portkey activatio," Harry said before he disappeared from Jerkins' office.
"I hope you'll find what your search, Mr. Potter," the goblin stared at the spot where Harry was 2 seconds ago before went back to his job.
TBC…
I can't believe I make this chapter longer than chapter 7. Usually I only make 4-6 pages per chapter now. Anyway don't forget to give me review.
I want to thanks the readers who give me information that I need. I won't be able to update this story until I can incorporate the information I got to my idea, so you have to wait longer for the next chapter.
And I want to know which one is right:
Dr. Swann got a part of stone of knowledge from the meteorite he found or was it ended on his hand after someone stole it from Lionel who got it from Aztec Statue? (While the other parts are from China and Egypt) There are reviews that mentioned 2 different versions, so I kinda confused which one I should use.