"Alright, deep breath!"
Harry clamped his mouth closed and tried not to vomit as Healer Buchanan brought the shrunken head up and over his chest. The eye sockets flared a dull indigo and the filthy awful thing started warbling again, even as Harry's skin tried to detach itself and crawl away. It had been like this all morning, nothing but ever-worsening 'diagnostics' without even a numbing charm for his aching arm.
Harry deeply regretted letting Percy take him to the infirmary. Fawks would have fixed him up again if he'd stayed and he hadn't even spoken to Hermione before Pomphrey had gone absolutely spare, calling Dumbledore a name so vile that he still wasn't sure that he'd actually heard her say that. She had bundled him straight through the flue to Saint Mungo, where being 'treated' meant ceaseless prodding.
The head howled in a higher pitch as it passed over the arm, returning to its initial disgusting warble once it had cleared the lurid red mark.
Buchanan looked at it thoughtfully. "We'll dose you with a general anti-venom again, as no one else has ever lived for more than a second or two after being bitten before and there is no specific anti-venom, but it appears that the phoenix tears have done a fine job, Mister Potter. I must say that as a general restorative that particular combination is not to be recommended to any but the most suicidal but I would hazard a guess that the venom destroyed anything that didn't belong before moving on to what did, while the tears restored everything that does."
Harry rubbed at his head. "My scar bled enough to soak my pillow last night. Maybe it will finally heal."
"Hmm. As a rule, scars do not bleed." Buchanan frowned and brought the head up by the scar, causing a massive flinch from Harry and multiple agonized screams from the head, as if it were being sawn off of whatever unfortunate body it had been born on yet again. After a time, the howling stopped.
Harry opened his eyes, tensely ready to bolt. "Can I get up now?"
Buchanan nodded. "This is not a good sign. Who is your pediatrician?"
"Madame Pomphrey." Harry rolled off the table, moving quickly away from the head that the healer still clutched by the hair, liking neither its vicious expression nor its nasty little gurgles. Could it bite?
Buchanan raised his eyebrows. "Madame Pomphrey is a mediwitch, unqualified for this level of trauma. I'm referring to your actual licensed healer, the one that you have been seeing outside of school. Who prescribed your year five immunizations?"
"I never saw anyone other than Madame Pomphrey." Harry frowned. "I saw the real doctor once when the school nurse thought I had a broken rib, but he said it was okay and sent me back."
"The real doctor?" Buchanan stood staring at him for a minute, at a loss. "Mister Potter, just who is your magical guardian?"
Harry shrugged. "I guess the Headmaster, because Hagrid had my vault key. He put me with my muggle relatives after all. They weren't pleased." He figured it must have been Petunia that found him. Vernon would have dropped him somewhere else without breaking stride.
Buchanan frowned heavily. The rumors of Dumbledore's growing eccentricity had been circulating for years, but if true, this was beyond alarming. "I see. When you were contacted to get your supplies for Hogwarts, did a teacher bring you in for your vaccinations like they do the muggleborn?"
"No. Hagrid took me to Gringotts and then shopping. This is the first time that I've ever been here."
"You were born here, Mister Potter, and we should have your records." Buchanan walked to a box on the examination room counter and manipulated a rune plaque, grunted and opened the box, extracting a thin paper file folder. He flipped through the record, his frown growing. "Hagrid. Isn't that the giant? What could Dumbledore be thinking? He can act in loco parentis for children while serving as headmaster, but an unrelated man cannot legally hold your guardianship without swearing certain binding oaths and a proper decree. There is no such decree noted in your file, so Saint Mungo's was never asked to sign off on any such disposition as is required by law."
Harry shrugged, not sure what the man expected him to do about it. "The muggles that I stay with don't care about wizard laws."
Buchanan got out a clipboard and started writing. "Then I'm afraid, Mister Potter, that we'll have to ask the Ministry to clarify the matter of your proper guardianship in order to authorize non-emergency treatment. You'll have to be vaccinated before we can allow your return to Hogwarts anyway and we'll need proper authorization for that as well."
Harry was feeling much better and didn't much care what this man or his disgusting head thought. What had the healer actually done but poke and prod? Dumbledore had been right, all he'd needed was to sleep it off. "Do you have Mandrake root? Hermione is still petrified from the Basilisk and I want her back. Colin too, I suppose." After all, the camera had been destroyed. As for the other victim, Finch-Fetchly could just stay petrified.
LF
"Madame Bones, Madame Crowley from Protective Services has come in person to request an appointment. She says that it is a most urgent matter."
Amelia Bones frowned at the vox, looked at her schedule and then pushed an ivory square close to another on the rune plaque inset into her desk. Anita Crowley was a dedicated civil servant and in no way given to exaggeration. "Send her in please and reschedule my next two."
There was a tone, the office door turned transparent and Bones waited until the security charms agreed with the sight of the small middle-aged witch standing outside of it before buzzing the door open with another rune combination on the plaque. Standing, she greeted her guest, leading her to a pair of chairs by the fireplace, ideal for a talk. "Anita, please come in and sit. I'll order us some tea. What may the DMLE assist Protective Services with today?" By Crowley's expression this was a very serious matter.
LF
Harry was bored. Bored, bored, so very bored. No one knew what to do with him because of some extra guardian that he was supposed to have and they had stuck him in a top-floor conference room to wait. He had already looked out of the windows at London and carefully read through the awful stack of pamphlets on wizard diseases and puberty that the healers had piled upon him. He didn't even have his books with him to write his assignments.
Sighing, Harry got up and walked around the room again. It had been almost three hours according to the barely-visible liquid crystal display on the watch that he wore. It had been Dudley's watch until he had gotten too fat to buckle it around his wrist. Harry had retrieved it from the bin, the venue where he did almost all of his shopping.
Looking at it again because there was nothing else to look at, he wondered why it still worked. Everyone said that normal stuff failed around wizards, so how had this cheap plastic watch survived? The numbers flickered in and out of readability and he frowned. He knew that it needed a new battery, but where could he get one?
Growing up, Harry had kept torches hidden in his cupboard in order to read when the muggles spitefully turned off his light from the panel. When he needed new cells for his torch, Harry simply swapped them with one of the torches that Vernon kept for emergencies, usually the one in the kitchen drawer.
Petunia's vast irritation whenever she needed to see into the back of a pantry was merely a pleasant bonus. Harry would never let the cells completely die before switching them, so Petunia would always have to contend with a weak beam. She would instantly bin the whole thing in a fit of pique and Harry would have a spare torch plus extended use when he swapped it for the torch in the boot of Vernon's car.
Watch batteries were harder to come by. Dudley's latest watch was one of Vernon's old ones, as yet un-smashed. Harry would find it difficult to get apart even if he got hold of it. It probably used a different battery, so where else could he get one? He had some cash from working around the neighborhood and turning in bottles, but he'd never bought much beyond food socks and underpants. He had never noticed watch batteries for sale in any establishment within easy walking range of Little Whinging either.
Harry put his feet on the edge of the table and tipped the chair back, teetering and balancing himself by his feet. Contemplating the toes of his trainers, he wondered if wizard shops sold watch batteries. Why wouldn't they, if the watches actually worked? Maybe there was a spell, something like 'recharge-o' with a flick that he could learn.
Vaguely, Harry wondered if there was an encyclopedia of spells in the bookstore. He rarely saw much utility in the ones that Hogwarts taught him. They were more like outlines on how to cast a spell than spells that a wizard could really get by on. Now that he thought on it, he could see this being part of some homework requirement, except no one had ever actually told him that he needed to do this.
Reaching under his shirt, Harry hooked his hand around the fine chain that he wore around his neck, holding his vault key. McGonagall had arranged it for him when he'd asked her if there was a school safe that he could keep the key in. Only he could take the chain off, which he'd had to do for the examination. His stomach growled again, reminding him of his missed dinner and breakfast. Harry looked at his key, let the chair thump down and got up.
He was used to missing meals but this wasn't the Dursleys. Ron wouldn't stay in here for even a minute, nor would Hermione. The people that had told him to stay were strangers to him, not teachers or anything that he cared about. What right did some healer have to put him in a room and why had he stayed?
Harry opened the door and reached back into the neck of his robe to pull up the hood of Dudley's old hoodie, a garment that he often used to conceal his scar. Seeing no one watching him, he walked to the desk, a place that looked as if a matron should be stationed. All of the room doors were wide open and there were people in the rooms, laying silently in their beds, but nothing moved, not even the clock on the wall.
Avoiding the people, Harry wandered around the otherwise deserted floor until he found a bathroom. Leaving it much relieved, he scrambled back from a lift when it opened to the sight of something like wriggling bug legs growing out of the back wall.
Fortunately the hospital was originally a normal building and he took the stairs down to the lobby without difficulty. There were people eating in the caf, but after reading those pamphlets about magical diseases and seeing that lift, Harry had zero interest in being around sick wizards. Besides, he'd left his money and couldn't pay.
Harry had been told to stand still in the flue no matter what it felt like and to clearly announce 'Saint Mungo's Main Entrance' before Madame Pomphrey had sent him on his way. She had also said that the hospital would arrange to send him back, as the Hogwarts flues were 'secured,' and required prior arrangement to use, which was a problem.
He didn't want to risk ending up someplace weird by accident, so he would have to get some money from Gringotts in order to send McGonagall an owl from the Post Office. He knew the flue address of the Leaky Cauldron from overhearing people going there, so maybe he could even get some time in Diagon Alley to eat and maybe even buy a watch battery! And books! And trousers, and better shoes! Harry needed a lot of things now that he thought about it. He quite liked Hagrid, but the big guy had rushed him through his shopping, allowing him only the most basic items, desperate to get that stone to Dumbledore.
Harry hung back and watched as wizards and witches came and went using the flue. The last wizard in line dropped a knut in the jar and grabbed a pinch of the powder from a nearby bowl, tossed it in then announced "Pye Street Digs."
When the wizard had gone, Harry walked quickly to the still green fire, carefully enunciating, "The Leaky Cauldron!"
Harry set his feet as Madame Pomphrey had instructed, not trying to adjust his stance to the rolling spinning motion of the flue. He found himself stepping out of the fire at his destination without a problem. The Cauldron wasn't busy, but the barman, Tom, was shouting at someone, so Harry walked quickly through the dingy pub with his hood up, tapping the stones in the well-remembered pattern to enter the alley.
The alley was just as he remembered, only there weren't many people about on a weekday. Setting off briskly for Gringotts he ignored the familiar pinch of hunger, estimating that it would be a good hour before he could buy something to eat.
LF
Harry settled into an inconspicuous nook across the street from the bank and watched for a little while, as was his practice before doing anything unusual. One never knew when 'Harry Hunting' or the like might be in the offing and it had only gotten worse since he'd left the Dursleys.
Wizards and witches came and went, but no one seemed to be waiting. It was much less busy than the last time that he'd been there and he became interested in the different people. Harry blinked in surprise, mouth slightly open as a wizard greeted a beautiful blond lady, bowing grandly. She curtsied, seeming thrilled at the courtesy and offered him her hand, which he sort of mimed kissing without actually touching her glove with his lips. Offering his arm, he finally led her off, neither having noticed an impressed Harry. It had all been almost like a little dance.
After years of trying to live down the shame of his poverty and observing the boorish behavior of the Dursley brutes, Harry quite liked the idea of having proper form, like a real gentleman.
LF
After a moment spent contemplating the sort of man that he could be as an adult, all courtly and grand, Harry set out for the bank. With manners in mind, he felt awkward at ignoring the door-guards salute so he decided that the proper thing to do was to return them with the stiff short bow that he'd seen the goblins use on each other during his first visit. He would have hung back and spied out the territory within the bank again, but there was no line. The goblin teller was looking at him with vast impatience, so he walked straight over.
The goblin wordlessly put his hand out and Harry uncertainly handed over his key.
Putting it in a slot the goblin twisted it and then grunted. "You are almost four full minutes late, Potter." The teller angrily manipulated some controls.
Harry frowned. "Late? I don't understand. I only came in to get some lunch money."
The teller looked at him sharply. "Gringotts Compliance sent you a summons yesterday. Why would a Hogwarts student be here during the school term without a summons? Where is your guardian?"
Harry's frown deepened. He was getting tired of this guardian stuff. "I was… busy yesterday and at hospital today. I never got any owls."
"You seem alright to me." The goblin sneered. "Why were you at hospital?"
Harry thought about ignoring the question and then decided that he couldn't be bothered to lie, not actually caring what the goblin thought. "I got hurt fighting Voldemort."
"Voldemort!" The goblin reared back in surprise as the probity enchantment on the teller's window confirmed Harry's veracity. "You mean to tell me that he's still alive?"
Harry shrugged. "I couldn't properly say. If he is, then he's not quite as alive as he was yesterday, but he was never all the way dead. He's… sort of like a ghost, but in… pieces, a floating bit that can move about and possess people and another bit that was in an old diary of his that wrote back. I fought the floaty bit last year, but it got away. The piece in his diary tried to get me yesterday, but I killed it properly this time."
Looking ill, the goblin grated out something that sounded impressively vile and then manipulated his controls, typing with his claws and grunting. "Ah. Director Ragnok is taking over the meeting and will see you now."
"Okay." Harry's empty stomach chose that moment to loudly snarl a protest. "How long do you think it will take?"
The goblin laughed. "Refreshments will of course be provided."
LF
Harry sighed as he followed a goblin guard down a smoothly worked tunnel, and through some mist, hoping that no one had noticed the charms wearing off of his attire. The hoodie he wore under the robe suddenly expanded and he had to hop along to tighten his belt and shoelaces. They had gone from steel gray back to that pinkish color, 'maroon,' the Smelting's school color that Petunia kept dressing Dudley in. Harry got the washed out pink leavings when the maroon moron inevitably ballooned past its previous stops.
He could shrink, mend and color charm the Dursley rags at school, but Harry had to wonder why these kinds of things always had to happen to him right when he was going to meet important goblins. They all wore fine suits and it dismayed him to be dressed in rags. He hated the stupid Hogwarts man-dress, but at least it hid the now-giant and offensively pink hoodie.
They passed through a side corridor and then a waiting room before he was shown through ornate double doors into a large conference chamber.
Harry stopped cold, awestruck by the fantastically colorful crystal lattice embedded in the wall, staring at it until someone spoke from within the room.
"Astounding, isn't it? A breathtaking work of nature's art, entirely composed of semiprecious gemstones and common minerals. I would not trade it for thrice its weight in platinum. I am Ragnok, Director of Gringotts Bank. My colleagues are Security Chief Badaxe and Curse Breaker Stonefist."
Harry tore his attention from the wall and took note of the rest of the room. There was a conference table like the one that he'd seen at Saint Mungo's but shorter, though much bigger and made entirely of some gold alloy. It must have weighed as much as an articulated lorry by the forest of thick legs under it.
Three goblins stood by the head of the table. The goblin that had spoken was older than the other two, but still quite dangerous looking, with a distinctly Regency flair to his suit jacket.
"The room is incredible. I'm most pleased to meet you all." Harry gave the goblin double bow that he'd picked up and blushed as his stomach growled again. He was a little surprised when the goblins returned his bow.
Ragnok was pleasantly surprised that the 'Boy Who Lived' seemed to possess at least the bare smattering of manners. Most wizards were so arrogant in the power of their wanded combat magic that they treated the brethren as if they were servants, little more than larger house elves.
"Come along and sit with us, Mister Potter, and I will call in the cart. I have taken the liberty of rescheduling Inquisitor Razor, as you should really be accompanied by a guardian for such a difficult meeting. We are all quite interested in Voldemort's latest activities."
Suppressing a laugh at 'Badaxe,' Harry walked to the head of the table, sitting where Ragnok indicated, to his right. Stonefist and Badaxe moved to his left. "Tom."
"Excuse me?" Ragnok settled, followed by the other two goblins.
Harry scooted the small but surprisingly comfortable chair closer to the table. It was all goblin-sized and fit him just fine. "Voldemort. His real name is 'Tom Marvolo Riddle.' It's a jumble for 'I Am Lord Voldemort.' There is a spell to show it off, but I don't really know how to work it for you."
Badaxe leaned forward, showing absolutely none of the joviality that Ragnok affected. "That is a name known to only a few and rarely spoken. How did you learn of this?"
Harry felt faint. "He told me himself. He was stealing Ginny… Ginevra Weasley's magic to try and come back to life and I think he was trying to distract me by talking. I killed him, but there are other bits of him floating about that keep getting away."
The doors opened and a white uniformed goblin rolled in a large cart covered with dishes. Harry drank down a full glass of water just as soon as it was set before him and was immediately provided with another. He was then given a tray of sandwiches and a mug of tea, with plenty of milk, sugar and lemon and set to devouring immediately, in sore need after missing both dinner and breakfast.
Ragnok waved his agitated subordinates to silence as Harry ate, watching him curiously. When the human boy began to take some slight notice of his surroundings again, he asked, "Were you injured in your fight against Tom Riddle?"
Harry nodded, his mouth still full, and swallowed. Swallowing again, he managed speech. "There was a snake."
Ragnok drummed his claws. Getting anything like a coherent report from a twelve year old boy was no simple task. "This table has a built-in projecting pensive. Perhaps it would be easier for all concerned if you could just show us the memory."
Harry stared. "You can do that?"
"That is the proper function of a pensive and its built into this table." Stonefist waved his hand over a section of the table in front of him and an etching became visible. The goblin began sliding the characters around and a metal basin of the same polished red-gold as the table-top emerged as if a liquid from the table next to Harry.
Stonefist grunted in satisfaction when the basin solidified. "Simply think of the starting and ending points of the memory that you wish to show us and move your wand to your head. Imagine the wand touching the memory and the memory sticking to the wand. When you pull your wand away, you'll see the memory print adhering. Just put your wand in the pensive and let go of the magic to transfer the copy."
"That's brilliant!" Harry pulled out his wand. "I won't forget the memory, will I?"
Stonefist waved a dismissive hand. "Of course not. In spite of the Ministry's lying assurance that they do no harm, one cannot remove memory from an intelligent being without physically damaging the brain from which it is purged. Non-magical researchers have long since proven that biological memory is a holographic pattern electrochemically imprinted upon the biology of the brain. What you will be doing is copying that pattern in magic for the enchantments on the pensive to decode for us."
"Oh." Thinking about the shape of memory, Harry decided on a good starting point and was more than a little surprised when he pulled a silvery strand free. "If I did it right then it should start when I opened the entrance to the Chamber. We thought that we needed an adult so we went and caught Lockhart. I should have known better when we had to bring him at wand point." He dropped the memory into the cup, looking uncomfortable. "Is there a bathroom?"
Ragnok began fiddling with the board. "The server goblin outside will show you."
"Thanks." Harry saw the wall flicker and then the interior of Myrtle's bathroom sprang to life, sharp and clear, just as he'd seen it. He glanced at his dimly functioning watch and left the room, having no wish to hear from Tom again.