Better Than Bedfellows
Abby Ebon
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, the copyrights that is – the books I'd be lying to say I do not own those.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Tumble Dry
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
There is nothing that Harry dislikes more then the feeling of being useless. When a glint of light catches on Sirius's wand, and the wand core hums and echoes in the shadows and dark of his mind, Harry rejoices at the fluttering idea he has - a useful idea.
Sirius and Remus had had no qualms with crossing the boundary of the wand maker's counter to reach out and touch him, cradling him against them as if he were something precious and breakable. He lounges lazily against their touches, allowing it - finding comfort in them. He's long known his childhood made him touch and attention starved, and this would near be too much, would overwhelm him – if he hadn't felt so welcome and wretched.
"Say, Sirius?" Harry murmurs into his godfather's ear, coarse shoulder length black hair tangled against his cheek and nose.
"Yeah…?" At the question in the answer, Harry pulls gently away and back, finding Sirius in front and Remus at his back and Ollivander at his side, as always - as Harry is determined to keep him there. This time.
"I have an idea." Harry claims, the triumph blooming in his voice like a deadly flower. In his own time and place, people have learned to fear him for less dangerous words then those alone. Remus and Sirius exchange reckless grins, they are loyal to him – they love him, and Harry finds his voice before the thick lump building there can swallow it up.
"How would you feel about goblins having wands?" Harry muses with a smile he knows is full of mischief. Grey eyes widen, and a dog like grin pulls at whiskered lips and a barking laugh echoes in the corners of the dusty shop.
"Brilliant…." Ollivander observes in acknowledgement, his silver eyes full of fondness. Whatever else Ollivander may come to think of him, Harry is -right now- very proud of that soft worded compliment.
"That's your grand idea? Give the goblins wands at the beginning of a war that will already divide us s a people? Make the war a forked thing – from within and out?" Remus frowns at him, at the three of them – love and loyalty are grand and great things, but they are not simple trust. Harry hasn't earned that yet.
"Oh, I didn't say the wands would come free for the goblins, a deal must be made or they would suspect us of treachery." Harry runs his eyes over the shop and its counter top, and when his eyes seek Ollivander, he finds approval there in a nod of agreement. This place stands in the midst of Diagon Alley, a place that has always been protected by wizards and witches. So they took Ollivander's Wand Shop to one be their very own, a maker for their wands alone.
It wasn't though; it had never been made to be what it had become.
It was time for a change.
"Ollivander, old friend, I'm afraid I must say I've the mad urge to ruin your shop. Best collect the all the little rare bits, you two," Harry wiggles his fingers at Remus and Sirius as if in 'hello', "do help him?" Harry smiles so charmingly it isn't until Ollivander with a laugh moves to do as he is told, that his words, what he's actually said starts to sink in.
"Are you mad? Ruin Ollivander's Wand Shop? In the midst of Diagon Alley?" Remus demands, getting in Harry's way as he moves as if to leave the shop. His wand cores, like the sea, approaches him and retreats, unsure of friend or enemy.
"I did say it was a mad urge." Harry agrees, making a shooing motion to urge Remus to work in helping Ollivander. Sirius Black turns in the sea of his confusion to the only seemingly sane one, with a plea upon his lips.
"Aren't you going to stop him?" Ollivander looks to the wizard, who takes a step away and back, there is something more foreign in that mere look, then in any word or look or deed Harry could yet match. Harry envies Ollivander that power, and pities him for it.
"Why should I?" Is all Ollivander says as he moves though the shop, pulling a single trunk from beneath the counter. There are endless depths in that trunk, Harry knows. It's the single irreplaceable thing that Ollivander treasures, all the rest – all of it is just for show. Wizards and witches, after all, are greatly fond of a good show.
"I've got it here, Harry. Do as you will." Ollivander allows with a nod, pulling Sirius to his side and a shimmer of power envelops them. It isn't magic, its something much rarer, something magic has no defense or power against. There should be no danger in what Harry is about to do, but magic is wild and unpredictable at the heart of a wand core.
"Isn't this your home – you're life's work?" Sirius asks, baffled.
Ollivander gives him a look with something like pity.
Harry's fingertips tingle, as he causes every unclaimed wand in the shop to glow or float or spark. They respond to his presence, his mind and his magic –they rejoice, they obey.
"No, this is far from my home, and I've been here too long if wizards and witches think that wands belong to them alone, as Harry has pointed out." Ollivander acknowledges and with that he smoothly gives up any formal claim or responsibility he held for the wands and their cores.
They are Harry's now, to do with as he wills.
"Be free." Harry whispers to the wands and their cores, and they do, with sound and light they rejoice. Magic, after all, like anything wild - is meant to be free. Capturing that magic is why wand makers use for the cores of wands magical beasts or beings.
There was no wand here with magic as its core; all the unclaimed wands here were as magical as sticks. Harry wipes his hands together, as if to remove dust, and bows with an extended hand for Ollivander to take.
"Shall we, a poor wand maker and his apprentice, now go seek refuge among the goblins?" Harry teases, even as Ollivander does not hesitate to take his hand, his other hand full of the claim on the trunk in his safekeeping. Ollivander nods nobly, while the two wizards watch the going on numbly.
"I do not see any alternative." Ollivander agrees, stiffly, even as his lips curl in amusement.
"Are you coming along, then?" Harry asks over his shoulder as he guides Ollivander out the door. He doesn't look back, for he can hear their footsteps clearly on the cobbled streets.
At the next set of doors, golden bronze set in walls of marble white, they face are ones lined with a verse that in Harry's own time is still full of threat – a threat that the Dark Lord dares not cross with wizards and witches still warring among each other.
Harry smiles to see those eloquent lines, and his attention, the change in his expression, is caught and studied by the pair of goblin guards.
Harry wonders what other expressions these two have seen cross the faces of wizards and witches at that threat against wrong, that promise of safety.
Harry does not touch those doors; instead he turns to meet the looks on wrinkled goblin faces, hooked noses looking down at him, even as they stand at a shorter height.
"I hold no debt to you, and neither do you owe me or mine. I am a stranger to you, but no thief, say instead a friend in need. You will know me as James – Jim - Elder; this is a part of my name and nature but and not my name and not all and wholly my nature. I am a wand maker, and this, my master Ollivander – all our knowledge is within your reach, standing at your door step." Harry's voice rises and falls in his words, like a chant, like a poem.
With a look between each other, the goblin at Harry's right tilts his head and speaks his own greeting a rhyme.
"Born and bred a wizard you are, yet raised to the ways of fae folk. James Elder we name you, friend to fae, beware the god that walks beside you and the wizards you'll lead in the waking of war." Left and right bronze doors are opened for Harry by the guarding goblins, they open the silver doors, and the double doors stay open as Harry walks through with Ollivander on his arm and Sirius and Remus following him.
As soon as Harry takes a step into the entrance, he feels the eerie stares of the host of goblins upon him. A wizard or witch would not know it, but these goblin men and women perched atop high seats, behind intimating counters, as if mere clerks doing a day's busy work are the family heads of a dozen ancient goblin clan bloodlines.
Harry meets those eyes, one and all, and bows. The goblin guard from his left speaks to that daunting audience, his voice clear.
"James Elder, friend of fae folk." Harry had named himself a friend, not a stranger, and this would be acknowledged – by some with curiosity and by some with honor. When he rises from the bow, solemn nods return his elegant gesture, a pact has been acknowledged in the making, an ancient and binding friendship between Harry and the fae folk, of which the goblins are a mere branch of.
"Gornuk speaks, what do you seek here? If not a vault for your keeping - or treasure not your own making?" It is just as well that is the first question asked of him, Harry had expected it.
"Ollivander and I would make wands for the goblins." There was silence; no murmur stirred the air, no cry, no cheer.
"Ragnok speaks, be warned that such a making could not be returned." A whole lifetime of use, for one goblin, one wand, after all: the wand chooses its wielder, and once chosen would not choose again.
No wand but one chosen would ever work so well as one stolen. It was a concept goblins honored, why they did not take wands from wizards and witches, for the wand might work but it would not be theirs. The core of the wand would always be bonded to another.
To have a wand made for a goblin, chosen by that wand. It would put that goblin in the life debt of the wand maker. It was what Harry offered, that the whole of goblin kind would have wands, and the individuals in turn would owe a debt.
They had a title for those the goblin people owed a great debt to, one which could never be repaid: king. The guards still wore the colors of the last titled Goblin King, Godric Gryffindor: who had been passed the sword of Ragnuk the First, ironically, the last of the true Goblin Kings.
"In friendship there is no debt." Harry smiled as he said it, for the very last thing he wanted was a kingship.
"Griphook, son of Gringott, speaks to say that you and yours are welcomed here." Harry looks to the first goblin he had met, he had had his suspicions to who Griphook was to the goblins: though wizards and witches might think that those who guided them to their underground vaults were less important then the "mere" clerks, it was in fact the opposite – they were powerful goblins, and no one could know the tunnels better then they that had built it.
"Bogrod will guide you and yours, friend of fae." Their self proclaimed guide then looks to Griphook who nods toward a hall where Harry glimpses stairs going upward, Bogrod leads them that way, leaving Harry with little choice but to follow.
Harry notices that the goblins lower their eyes as he passes them; he realizes then that it isn't out of respect, but of terrible and ancient bidding of awe, they do not dare look directly at Ollivander. Harry tightens his grip on this mirror mimic of his own dear friend and mentor, the touch is meant to be reassuring, but there is no relief in Ollivander's icy eyes, only a regret Harry's touch does not sway away.
The source of that regret and the goblins shyness of Ollivander is one and the same, of that Harry has no doubt. Harry can't linger on the past – not Ollivander's – not his own, so he looks ahead to where he is being led. They climb stairs until it seems there is only height to achieve, and no way down, no ground, no rest.
Harry wonders if that is what it would be like, to be what Ollivander is, a god. Harry is aware with fear, that he'll know for sure soon enough, and there will be no way back. He hears the feet of Sirius and Remus and is reassured that they follow, tying him to humanity.
The stairs do end, and the landing that stretches on all around them seems to encompass the entire building top, columns climb to hold the ceiling up and sheer sweeping curtains tuck beds away, but there are no walls or rooms, there is nothing but white walls framing windows and the sight of the split streets of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.
It's a view well worth the climb.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O