We were in a small nook off the kitchen, where we could see an anorexic woman and two children gaping at us. The smaller of the children was obviously Harry Potter, and he was carrying a glass of water and a plate with some bread on it. The larger child was nearly as obese as his father, and I identified him as Dudley.
"Hello Dursley family. Hello Harry Potter. We have business with you."
Vernon lunged for me and received a swat into the wall for his trouble. I was strong enough to handle any baseline human without effort, even one so large as the Dursley patriarch. Petunia started screaming and Dudley fell out of his chair while Harry just stared at us open-mouthed. The dishes he'd been carrying were floating a few inches beneath his hands, held in my telekinetic grip. I silenced Petunia and levitated Vernon and Dudley back into their chairs, then needed to silence Dudley too. I sighed and looked at Harry, gesturing into the dining area and conjuring three chairs.
"Please join us, Harry. This discussion will involve you. And have something more to eat, you look like hell."
Harry nodded absently, looking poleaxed, and reached down to grab the dishes floating in front of him. I let them go when he had a grip and guided both him and Ember to take a seat in the new chairs before sitting down myself. Absently moving roast chicken and some sort of casserole onto Harry's plate on top of the bread I began speaking.
"So. Dursley family: if you don't know why we're here you aren't very bright. Did you really think you could abuse and neglect a child for ten years and no one would notice?"
Dudley looked confused, the adults looked indignant, and Harry looked like a cornered animal. He didn't run away, but he wasn't eating either.
"My little sister and I are here to change how things work in this house, and we have plenty of power to do it. We will be staying here for as long as Harry does, we will heal him, and we will teach him some of what he needs to know until we find him a loving family to stay with. You cannot stop us, but we will do our best not to make nuisances of ourselves. Harry was placed here against the wishes of both you and his parents, and we will make every attempt to relocate him, at which point your family can be as...normal...as you want. I can even remove the memories of us and Harry from your minds if you wish it, but I will only do so if you ask." The Dursleys paled.
"I would ask if this is all agreeable, but you will put up with it regardless. I ask instead: do you understand?" Petunia nodded frantically. I repeated the question to Vernon, who had finally finished his silent rant about freaks and now appeared to be both angry and terrified. He was glaring daggers at us and I had to repeat the questions several times. His nod was minimally reassuring.
"Very well. Harry, please gather your things. We will be going upstairs and allow these three to finish their supper. Bring your food or don't. We can and will provide for you until we've got this sorted out."
The boy stood and walked woodenly into another room, presumably toward the stairs. I waved my hand at the Dursleys to bathe them in [Holy] light for the sake of the calming effect and healing anything that may be easily fixable. Petunia and Vernon visibly straightened in their seats, while Dudley got a dreamy look on his face and slumped a little in his chair.
"We are not monsters, and your judgement for your behavior will not come from us. I offer you this gift of healing in the hope that we can resolve this with minimal dispute. You may find a new door upstairs: this is where we will be staying. It will not open for you, but if you knock and we are inside we will hear it."
Ember and I stood, I let the Dursleys go and dispelled the silencing magic, then let the chairs fade away as we followed Harry out of the room. He was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs and looked spooked, but also a little hopeful. He'd clearly been listening while I addressed the Dursleys. Ember gave him a big smile and startled him with a hug, which he didn't seem to know how to handle. I tutted and gestured up the stairs. In the hallway opposite the bathroom I conjured the image of a door, then opened a portal to my home in the Cosmic Warehouse behind it. When I touched the door it faded away to show the interior of my own home, leaving only the illusion of the frame behind.
I ushered Harry and Ember in and conjured an actual door into the portal. A few additional touches of magic had it hanging in the air and enchanted for indestructibility much like the Ogre Panties I'd found in The Gamer universe. It could only be opened by someone with magic, and any attempt to open it by anyone but myself, Ember, and Harry would trigger the force wall to activate. I really did need to ward the warehouse itself, but I needed to plan that out a bit more than the hastily-erected things I'd left on the Dursley home.
"Right. First thing's first. Harry, I need you sit over here for a moment. You've been injured here before and you have some nasty residue in that scar of yours, so I'm going to heal you."
He nodded reluctantly and sat on the couch I'd gestured to. As soon as he was seated I hit him with a strong exorcism technique. He cried out as his scar split open and violently expelled a wraith, which I smote with [Holy] just to be sure. The healing light I bathed him in afterward completely eliminated both the pain and the scar, and he fell onto his side unconscious. I could feel old broken bones adjusting to sit properly and other scars fading as the light did its work, then I concentrated on his eyes. If they could be fixed I would fix them.
[Quest Updated! Permanently defeat Voldemort!]
-
Harry woke to a gentle female voice, "Welcome back, Harry. Do you feel any pain?" He started a little when he realized he didn't. He felt better than he had in...well, as long as he remembered! He shook his head, an expression of awe on his face. If this was the afterlife he liked it! He didn't want to open his eyes for fear none of what he remembered was real. He was so comfortable, too. He wondered if this was what I real bed felt like, with the covers tucked up under his chin and the soft mattress underneath him.
"Harry? Are you alright?" Another voice sounded. This one was male, and matched the voice from his dream. The one from the child that had lectured the Dursleys and said he would care for Harry until they found him a new home. It wasn't exactly the way he'd dreamed it would happen for years, but it was close enough to his fantasy of escaping his horrible relatives that it brought tears to his eyes. He just wanted the fantasy to last a little longer. A delicate touch on his forehead finally provided the motivation to face reality, and what he saw was amazing. The children from earlier, probably only a little older than him, were standing next to the bed he was laying in. Everything was crystal clear, and his glasses were nowhere to be found.
"Who...who are you?" He whispered, still afraid that this would turn out to be a dream. The girl spoke again.
"I am Ember, and this is Wren. We came here to give you a better life. It will take time and care, but you will be free of those people. Wren is a minor god," the boy shot an annoyed look at the girl when she said this, and Harry just shook his head in wonder, "and I am his companion and servant." That got a snort from the boy, who spoke next.
"Ember is more a sister to me than anything else, and in these bodies we are physically both siblings to each other and distant cousins to you. Now, you didn't answer before: do you feel any pain? Any dizziness or disorientation? How is your vision?"
"I feel...great, really. And I can see so well now, it's like… you healed me?" Harry's voice was small and vulnerable. "You'll really take care of me? Find me a good home?"
"Of course we will! That's why we're here, after all," Ember said with a smile that mirrored the one on Wren's face. It was gentle and full of emotions he didn't think he'd ever seen directed his way before. They looked kind. Since he'd never been encouraged to develop any sort of fear or wariness toward strangers but also only rarely showed any form of kindness he sort of awkwardly sat up and waited. He had no idea what was going to happen next. Wren spoke first.
"Do you want something to eat, Harry? We have much to tell you and even more to teach you if we're to accomplish all our goals here."
Lacking anything better to do and being quite hungry really all of the time, Harry nodded. The childlike beings guided him to a dining room and presented him with water and hearty soup, then told him a fantastical tale of how he'd been born to a witch and a wizard during a civil war. The war had happened in a hidden world his aunt and uncle were trying to keep from him, and how he too was a wizard. Learning how and why his parents had died was shocking and horrifying by turns, but learning that the beings before him had come here in just such a way as to also qualify to fulfil the prophecy was a great relief.
The presence of the thing in his head up to now made him shudder, and he thanked Wren profusely for getting rid of it. When he was presented with a hand-mirror and saw that his scar was gone he cried tears of joy. He'd been bullied for everything under the sun, but the scar had been a frequent topic. When Ember told him they could replace it with an illusion if he wished he immediately told them it wasn't necessary, and got a little red in the face when he realized how assertive he'd been with his saviors.
After the meal he was guided back to the couch from earlier, and Wren started asking him questions about his life so far and how he was feeling. Ember actually turned into some sort of fox thing with lots of tails and snuggled into his side, which felt wonderful. She was warm and soft and didn't seem to mind if he pet her like one of Mrs. Figg's cats. When he asked what she was, Wren answered that she was a kitsune. An explanation of the mythical creatures and their varying temperaments followed, and Wren demonstrated his own kitsune form.
More serious discussion followed. Harry had been placed with the Dursleys in the mundane world by an old wizard who thought he knew better than anyone else. They couldn't say if he was evil or just neglectful, but the man had put Harry in danger and kept him there for most of his life. They cautioned that he would have to interact with the man, Albus Dumbledore, eventually and that he would hold some authority.
Harry decided he did not like this Dumbledore character at all. When Wren and Ember said that at least one of them would be with him until he went off to magic school like his parents and they'd follow him there for a little while too he was ecstatic. The cautioned that he shouldn't tell anyone about them except that they were friends, which required some additional explaining but sounded very nice to Harry. Whenever it was just Harry and Ember, Wren would be off ensuring that what could be done to set him free of his destiny before school started was taken care of. At the end of the conclusion Harry was presented with something he'd never had very man of: a choice. When asked if these arrangements were acceptable, Harry accepted with all of his heart and tears in his eyes.
-
Harry seemed to be taking things well, so I left him in Ember's hands to start learning [Holy] in case he ever met the dark wanker without us around. It was unlikely, but also a great way to start the boy on magic that didn't rely on a focus. I saw Vernon getting ready for work when I opened the door separating the Warehouse from the Dursley home, and nodded slightly to him as I closed it. There were several Hogwarts letters in the garbage, so I grabbed one. He shot me an angry look, and I wrapped myself in invisibility before teleporting to the alley that separated Diagon and the Leaky Cauldron. I had work to do.
Since nobody was around I fully dispelled the mark on my arm, ridding myself of the damn thing forever. I'd studied how the magic worked to be sure. Knowledge was power, especially with regard to the supernatural. I didn't want the damn thing on me anymore, though. It felt foul.
[Quest Updated! Remove the Dark Mark!]
Walking into the Cauldron in the form of a random white guy I remembered from the Gamer universe, I went over the the floo and tossed in some of the powder from the jar on top of the mantel. I paid the paltry fee indicated on the sign then stated my destination firmly and walked through the fire to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, where I purchased a case of butterbeer and walked out the door. Hogwarts stood tall in the distance, and I glanced around for a spot to transform. There weren't many people about but I didn't want to be seen approaching the school by chance.
A suitable location presented itself after a few minutes of wandering around the village, and I transformed into my arctic fox form and cloaked myself in silence and invisibility. Ever-Cleansed would hopefully keep me from alerting anything by smell, and the [Stealth] skill would do the rest. I headed for the school and the edge of the wards, then crossed them while watching for anything suspicious. There didn't seem to be any reaction, which from my limited knowledge meant the wards hadn't even detected me. My being in the form of an animal and having a false aura to match had worked. I didn't know at the time that the ward for detecting animagi was actually shut down entirely and had been since Professor McGonagall had achieved her own form.
[Shapeshift has gained a level!]
I darted into the forest, making sure to keep inside the wards, then tested my teleportation. There was no resistance, and I appeared exactly where I'd meant to: three feet ahead of where I'd started. If I could have I would have grinned. Instead I shut down my aura entirely and made my way invisibly toward the castle itself, looking for open windows and other points of entry. A test of my [Scry] skill indicated it, too worked inside the wards which honestly didn't surprise me. Divination wasn't an acknowledged field of magic here except for the crap Trelawney taught, and that was regarded as a joke. Scrying might never have been developed in this world, or mine might be so far from the norm as to be undetectable. Either way I got in through a first floor window and headed for the stairs.
An hour of wandering found me in the northern corridor on the seventh floor, and pacing back and forth three times revealed the Room of Requirement. I examined the door carefully and determined it led to an extra-dimensional space much like my warehouse. The enchantment looked like it had several different possible destinations, but the method of transport was simple enough that I should be able to reproduce it. It was a rudimentary portal, and I'd studied the theory quite extensively after I learned teleportation and developed my own variants of it.
Satisfied that I should be able to teleport out if I encountered any problems, I entered the Room of Lost Things and started searching for the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. I wouldn't be taking it quite yet, but knowing where it was and being familiar enough with it to scry on it easily could prove invaluable in the near future. Staying invisible, I teleported myself back into the corridor outside. It was a little odd jumping from one overlapping dimension to another, but not unpleasant. I nodded to myself and started scrying for my next objective.
There was a gargoyle guarding the door to the headmaster's office and quarters in both the books and the movie adaptations, but no other mention of gargoyles that I could remember. Not inside the building, at any rate. That made it unique, and the more information I had to start the spell the easier scrying would be. It took only a few moments to locate, and ten minutes to get there. I stared at the gargoyle (was it really a gargoyle if it wasn't a place for water to drain from?), trying to gauge where the space behind it started. It didn't matter a whole lot, since the Shift variation of teleport wouldn't move me into a space I couldn't occupy and I could keep trying until I got it right. I attempted to shift behind it several times before the spell took, and I found myself on a spiral staircase.
Running up the stairs brought me to a door, which I also shifted through. The office beyond was...well, it was ugly. There were shiny baubles everywhere, some of them moving, some making noises, and some of them blowing little puffs of smoke. The portraits appeared to be asleep and the headmaster was nowhere to be found. The bird perch near the window was likewise unoccupied, so I started sensing around for unusual energy. The room was full of magic, both wards and enchanted items, but I was looking for something that stood out: divine energy. If I found that or an unknown form of energy, I'd have probably located the Potter Invisibility Cloak or the Elder Wand.
I found two signatures, both of them divine and both carrying magic overtop. The easiest to access was a desk drawer, which I silenced. It had a ward over it that I very carefully smothered with my own power to suppress, hoping that it would keep it from reacting. Opening the drawer with telekinesis revealed the folded cloak I sought, and I felt a pulse in the ward that I stamped down before it could do anything more. I waited ten minutes to see if anyone would show up, but nothing happened so I continued.
Pulling the cloak out of the drawer was easy enough, but the extra spells on it looked worrisome. Time for yet another thing I'd never tried before, but knew in principle how to do from studying enchanting. I conjured a permanent copy of the cloak itself, then very carefully transferred the spells from the original to the copy. After that I laid down an invisibility enchantment on the cloak powered by my own divine power, but left it deliberately unfinished so it would fade over time. That would explain why it was nowhere near as powerful as the real cloak when Dumbledore next inspected it, and hopefully cover for any features it had that I wasn't aware of.
[Quest Updated! Obtain the Deathly Hallows!]
When I folded the new cloak, put it back in the drawer, and closed it, the damn ward finally stopped trying to activate. It looked like something that only triggered while the drawer was open, but the magic of this world wasn't identical to what I'd studied. In addition, if I'd dispelled then left or replaced the ward it was almost certain Dumbledore would have noticed the difference sooner or later. With the cloak securely in my inventory I snuck toward the source of the second divine energy source. Snoring caught my attention, and there through an open door was Dumbledore sleeping in a silly cap on a huge bed with the Elder Wand on the nightstand beside him. I knew my luck was good with a 400 stat, but this was ridiculous as hell. Normal humans had a ten, but still.
I repeated the process of conjuring a copy, moving the magical stuff, and enchanting the wand as a focus such that it would become less effective over time then switched them. Dumbledore snorted in his sleep and I froze, but a few minutes later he was snoring peacefully again and the Elder Wand was in my inventory along with the cloak. Was there anything else I needed to do here? Ah. Right. I'd almost forgotten.
[Stealth has gained a level!]
[Quest Updated! Obtain the Deathly Hallows!]
Teleporting out onto the grounds and locating the castle's livestock took very little time. There was way more space allocated to maintaining a steady supply of food than was indicated in either the books or the movies. Putting a male chicken to sleep and turning it invisible was also easy. Finding the second floor girl's bathroom after teleporting back into the castle was not. I actually ended up finding the History of Magic classroom first, which I only knew because Binns was still lecturing to an empty hall. He was so out of it he didn't even know it was summer break!
Alright. Scrying it was then. Washu be praised but divination was useful. I knew I was looking for a sink that didn't work on the second floor of the castle, and that said sink was in a girls' bathroom and had a snake on it somewhere. It took me twelve seconds to locate it, and about a minute to trace a path from there back to my body so I knew which way to go.
'This probably wasn't a good idea,' I thought to myself as I descended the stairs into the Chamber of Secrets. 'Quirrelmort might check on the basilisk when he gets here. Maybe I should just familiarize myself with the area and leave?' I continued regardless. There hadn't been any warding on the entrance topside, which was probably why nobody had ever found it. Things like that tend to stick out when people are looking for secret entrances. The enchantment on the tap and the stones that reformed to form the entrance had been incredibly subtle and masked in a way I hadn't seen before, but was definitely going to integrate into future wards in addition to my own method. The second door into the Chamber was warded, and it would take me a while to figure out what all of it did.
It took a few tries, but I shifted through the wall next to the door at an angle instead of trying to open it. The chamber beyond was very dark, so dark in fact that even my vastly expanded sense were having trouble discerning physical details. I had landmarks in the form of the various enchanted torches and secret tunnels about the place, but I very much wanted to be able to actually see. I took a chance and pushed a little energy into forming a ball of light in the center of the room, which lit everything up in eerie detail. God that statue was hideous. Seeing no one about (not that I'd expected anyone) and no basilisk in the immediate vicinity I turned back to human form and started inspecting the bits of magic left around. I noted and made sure to keep track of the soft hissing in the background. It didn't sound like words, and was rhythmic like the breathing of some great beast in sleep. I was pretty sure that's exactly what it was.
I'd known approximately what Voldemort's magic felt like from exorcising Harry's scar, and there were faint traces of it here even years after he'd last visited. Unless of course Quirrel was already possessed and he'd been down here more recently. They were very faint, but Voldemort was also supposed to be very weak at this point. Either he hadn't been down here in awhile or he was weak enough that he might not be able to protect his host from the basilisk. I could have been wrong, but I was growing more confident in my mission.
I ended up finding a bunch of old books under wards made from the same magic I'd felt on the torches, secret doors, and even the statue. Since I'd expanded my inventory power quite a bit, I stuck the entire bookshelf in it and decided to sort it out later. Some daggers that hadn't rusted or rotted away after however many years they'd been down here went in the inventory too, as did several magical trinkets I didn't bother to study and the enchanted torches. When I left only the mouldering furniture and other rotted debris remained in the room. The other secret passageways looked like they led back up into the school, so I left them alone and prepared to fight...er...face the basilisk. This wouldn't be a fight at all if I could manage it.
"Speak to my Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!" I hissed at the statue, then hurriedly moved to the side. The rhythmic hissing had paused for a moment, then sped up.
"Master?" I heard from the statue's mouth as it opened. "Where are you? It has been so long," the voice continued. Something was coming from the tunnel, and on an impulse I grabbed a side of beef from my inventory and chucked it into the tunnel with telekinesis. I didn't know snakes could make delighted squeals, and suspected it might have been part of the whole parseltongue deal. "You brought food!" The voice continued before an odd sort of elongated slurping crunch noise started up. I'd never heard a giant snake eat before, and it was kind of making me uncomfortable.
I could actually feel the damn thing with [Mystical Energy (Sense)] now that I was concentrating on it. I hadn't made a habit of keeping active focus on it for a while since the passive senses and line-of-sight effect were usually enough. The more powerful the energy the farther away I could sense it, with solid objects diminishing the range a touch and dimensional borders like those of my Instant Dungeons diminishing it by a whole lot. The snake I could sense now was way longer than sixty feet. Closer to two hundred, probably. I checked around for another one but didn't find anything. Time to roll the dice again.
"I am not your master, but I have come to check on you. Salazar died long ago and his heir was defeated nearly a decade ago." The snake hissed in alarm.
"A new Speaker comes with news? I knew master Salazar was dead, but to hear that Master Tom is gone as well? Does that mean I am to sleep once more?" It asked, not bothering to come out of the statue. I was grateful for that. Supposedly parselmouths were immune to the death gaze of a basilisk, but I didn't want to put that to the test.
"Master Tom is not completely gone, but he might as well be. His soul and with it his mind is broken," I replied to the snake.
"He is not gone? You said he was defeated. Explain the situation to me, caretaker," it hissed back, sounding annoyed. I hadn't known emotions carried over in this form of communication either until this conversation.
"Tom split his soul when he had you kill the girl above. That started him down the path to his own destruction, and now the fool has split it so many times it's falling apart on its own. No application of soul magic known will save him now, so while he is not gone he is effectively dead." I really hoped this came out without me having to fight a giant snake with death-laser eyes. Well not really lasers, I guessed. Still scary. The snake took some time to reply.
"Master Salazar spoke to me of this magic once. He considered using it for himself at one time, before he discovered the consequences of making even one anchor. In the end he decided one life was enough, and anyone fool enough to do such a thing was not worth the blood in their veins. Tom was very different the last time we spoke. I have not seen him in many years, and only had vermin to eat. You have fed me, and I have felt the truth in your words. I cannot sense you with my magic, but I can feel you through the stone and taste your heat. Would you meet with me, speaker?"
Ok. That was really good or really bad.
"Will you promise not to kill or eat me? I'm here to make sure the school is safe and that includes taking care of you. I was under the impression Salazar left you as a guardian."
"I so swear, speaker. My gaze would not affect you regardless, but Master Salazar taught me to control it such that I would not harm the students if I were needed."
There was a faint rumble as a giant crested head poked its way out of the mouth of the statue. I stuffed the chicken into my inventory, not even thinking about the fact I'd never put anything alive in there before. The great beast turned to look at me, yellow eyes glowing in the dim light cast by my spell, and descended to coil itself with its head resting on its body to watch me. Gamer's Mind was the only thing keeping me from soiling myself.
"Greetings, great one. I know not your name, only your legend. Will you tell me?" I asked, my voice shaking a bit. The reply actually had overtones of amusement to it.
"Master Salazar named me Jörmungandr when I hatched, but often shortened it to Gandr when we spoke. You may call me that if you wish."
I nodded slowly, still not daring to take my eyes off the massive snake that was named after the World Serpent of Norse mythology. Knowing it would probably smell the bird from earlier I offered an explanation and hoped it didn't kill me.
"Would the crow have even worked if I needed to retreat? I thought it might cause you pain enough to allow my escape if we could not speak peaceably." I was answered by the snake equivalent of laughter, which hit my ears as hissing but hit my brain as hysterical laughter.
"That rumor persists even now? Salazar had me writhe about as a joke when I was startled by the noise ages ago. No, Speaker: if you had tried to use it against me I simply would have eaten it. And maybe you, depending on my mood. You've fed me though, and you seem honest enough. You really are here to protect the students, but there was some falsehood there too. Why else are you here?" Well, I was either really fucked or about to make a new friend.
"Several reasons. Tom left one of his soul shards here, but I expect him to be back at the school this coming year so I checked on it and left it be. I also needed some things from the Headmaster, who is not doing a very good job at protecting one student in particular. And there were a few threats to address." I'd never seen a snake nod until that moment.
"Whatever you took from the headmaster is not my concern unless it threatens the safety of the school and her students. Assuming I was one of these threats, what are the others? Telling me will allow me to perform my duties more easily, after all." That last bit sounded a bit threatening, actually.
"The forest is full of acromantula after a student foolishly brough one here fifty years ago and brought it a mate some time after that. They are a threat to the students, and could be rallied to attack the castle itself if desperate enough for food. They bleed the forest dry, causing trouble of centaur and unicorn alike. When Tom returns to the castle in September he will take the form of a possessing wraith, and likely attack the denizens of the forests, the students, and the unicorns at the very least. He seeks something the headmaster plans to store here, as bait or to keep it from him I do not know." Oh, that was definitely an angry hiss.
"Acromantula and a wraith? On school grounds!? I will cleanse the spiders and sate my hunger for many months if they are not smart enough to flee. What of the wraith? Can you keep it from the school or destroy it?"
"I can do one or the other, but keeping it from the school is far more difficult than destroying it when it arrives. I cannot be sure I'll succeed, and if I do not it will come back again and again until someone is able to destroy it."
"I do not like this, Speaker. If you fail to keep it from here I will tolerate it for only a very short time, and only so long as it does not hurt the students. You will destroy the abomination before that happens, or we will have words. Very, very short ones. Since Tom has destroyed himself in a mad quest for immortality I have no master but my duty to the school now. I will no longer obey him or any other Speaker now that the line of Salazar is effectively dead. You may visit me here and be safe, so long as you do not fail in your task. And bring food!" The snake hissed the last as it turned to head back into the statue. A muffled hiss of "close" caused the corridor to close behind it.
[Quest Updated! Eliminate dangerous elements around the school!]
I idly wondered how the terrifying snake thing was going to get out to the forest, then decided I didn't care. I was alive! Bless Washu and my amazing luck score, I was alive! I nearly bent knee and kissed the floor, but realized the floor was disgusting. Now what was I going to do? If I didn't want to piss off the huge murder-noodle I needed to put forth my best effort at eliminating Voldy before he even made it to the school. I also needed to have a look at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to see if I could find the source of the curse, but that might resolve itself when the caster died. After I left I needed to send a letter to Remus Lupin to try and get him back in the country and capture Pettigrew to present as evidence that Black was innocent. Well, my best bet for eliminating Voldy right now was to grab the diadem and contact the goblins. If they were at all reasonable they could at least be paid to help. I teleported back to the Room of Lost Things, located the diadem, conjured a lead box, stuffed the damn thing in the box and then my inventory, and looked around speculatively.
When I left the Room of Lost Things was empty. Once again in the form of random white guy #38, I teleported to the entrance to Diagon and let myself in. Gringotts was the most visible building in the entire Alley, so it was easy to find. I approached one of the guards and and asked if I could speak with someone before entering. He gave me a sneer and motioned for someone inside, who left at a quick walk. A few minutes later he returned with an extra guard, this one dressed a bit more fancifully than the door guards.
"What the hell do you want, wizard? And why the fuck didn't you bring it to a teller?"
People were looking at us now, which wasn't great. I answered quietly, not whispering but keeping my voice very low.
"I would ask before bringing a dark artifact into foreign territory, and also inquire if you could help me locate another like it I believe is already within your walls."
The guard looked at me in shock, probably not expecting courtesy of any kind from any wizard let alone one he'd just yelled at in public. He studied me for a moment, then gestured for me to follow. He led me across the lobby and down a hallway with a plethora of minecart rails leading off into the darkness, then knocked on a door near the end opposite the carts. A barked word in a language I was unfamiliar with soon followed, and the guard lead me into the room.
"Guard-Captain, why have you brought a human to my office?" Asked the goblin behind the desk patiently, speaking in English for my benefit.
"This human brings a dark artifact, and claims another like it may reside within our walls. He refused to bring the thing into the lobby and instead had a guard summon me to speak with him. If he speaks the truth, we may be able to seize the offending vault. If he lies…" They both grinned at me wickedly. I'd really been hoping these were the nice goblins from fanfiction, not the horrible mixed stereotype implied in the original books. It was starting to look like they might fit the stereotype more closely, but I was going to stay polite if at all possible.
"Do I have permission to retrieve the artifact then? It is stored in a lead box."
The goblin at the desk nodded impatiently and made a "get on with it" motion. I reached into my conjured robe and retrieved the box from my inventory, then placed it on the desk.
"It is enchanted to compel those who view it, but a strong mind can resist. It should be obvious, but please do not put it on." The goblin snorted and gave me a look that indicated he thought me mentally deficient. Then he opened the box. He flinched back, then reached forward and gingerly closed the box again.
"You believe there is one of these here? In our bank, on or under our land?" He asked slowly.
"Yes. I can cleanse such items, but to come here without proof of their existence and a sample of what to look for would have been more foolish than risking your wrath by bringing such a thing here in the first place."
His gaze turned to me and his eyes gleamed. "You can cleanse these? Without destroying the item? What of the magic?"
"I can exorcise the spirit and wash away the dark magic that holds it there. The other enchantments may be damaged, but the item shouldn't be," I replied.
"Then I think we can do business, sir. And we have quite a lot of business to discuss if what you say is true."
-
I'd arrived at the bank just as businesses were starting to open up in Diagon. I just before lunch with a pair of cleansed artifacts and vault full of gold in my name. It would have been terribly rude and might have gotten me hacked into pieces if I'd just taken the gold they paid me for exorcising the horde of egyptian horcruxes they had stored since they were made from things too valuable to simply destroy. Instead it was safe in a Gringotts vault, and they'd determined we were even now. They also said I should check back in a year or so to see if they had anything else they needed my services for. Either way I made sure the vault was set up to go to Harry Potter if I died or didn't contact them for ten years.
[Holy has gained a level!]
[Quest Updated! Permanently defeat Voldemort!]