Harry amidst the Vaults of Stone
Chapter 5
The heavy door swung open.
Candle light spilled through the crack, blinding after a day of near-darkness.
Scrimgeour appeared in the room with a sharp pop, causing his boss and Dumbledore to break off their tense discussion. The capable Auror quickly reported that a team of St Mungo's Healers and DMLE Obliviators had not only failed to undo whatever memory charm or amnesia potion had been used on the Dursleys, but they couldn't even find traces of it. Then he Disapparated again.
"You say you put your own trackers and sensors in place when you returned to Hogwarts," said Madam Bones flatly. "Ignoring the various dubious legalities of that, you left behind the one-year-old child who was suddenly Most Wanted by the Dark Lord's extant followers. On a doorstep. To a muggle house. Exposed to the elements," she added.
Dumbledore schooled his wince into a look of mild reproach. "Naturally I put various containing, calming and defensive spells on him, for his safety. And I did leave a letter with him, for his relatives."
Madam Bones sighed. "How long was it, exactly, between you leaving the child unattended and you implementing your extra trackers on top of these blood wards?"
"It couldn't have been more than five or six hours."
"Five or six ...five or six ...hours? Were you out of-" Madam Bones stopped, and pursed her lips.
"Harry was protected by blood wards, Amelia," Dumbledore protested wearily. "Voldemort had just been vanquished, the Death Eaters were everywhere, and my attention had to be everywhere at once. When I did have the change-trackers up, there was no possibility of him being removed from the house."
"Really," said Madam Bones icily.
"I suppose he could have been abducted from his muggle primary school or from an excursion outside the property, but since Lily's charm was tethered to him, the main part of the blood wards should have extended to there... unless he was gone from the house for more than a year, which would leave them dormant..." Dumbledore's fingers curled in his beard as he thought aloud.
"Bring up the ward signature again," Amelia Bones said, raising her eyebrows at a piece of paper another of her Aurors had just slipped to her.
Dumbledore focused, and suddenly held a bunch of metallic-coloured strings, which faintly glowed in the air. Knightley leaned forward, and prodded at them with his wand. "They've never been broken, or even tripped? Then why are there so few of them?"
"Well," Dumbledore said, peering at the man over his spectacles, "there is one key-thread, coloured silver if the wards are dormant or platinum if active, as well as four copper threads representing the wards' extent in each dimension, one gold thread for each year they have been in place, and one burnished bronze thread for each year he's been under their protection. Because Harry has only been there seven years, it follows that-"
"Albus." Madam Bones looked closer. "There are no bronze threads there."
There was a long, shocked silence.
You idiot, she had enough presence of mind to prevent herself saying aloud.
Knightley looked at her expression, and the expression of shock that Dumbledore wore, and quickly found somewhere else to be.
Two dozen pairs of eyes watched as the eight-year-old Harry Potter stumbled into the room. A masked goblin followed him into the cavern, quietly closing the huge steel door behind him. When it clicked shut, the stone of the cave wall surged across across its surface, flowing until the door had been completely concealed within rock.
A cheer went up.
Harry looked up, blinking against the points of light all around the room. A hesitant smile turned into an unfaltering grin, showing exactly the right number of teeth, as he made out the shapes and voices of his guardians. They were standing beside the High Manager and Bank Director, Gurmsalt himself, on a low stone dais.
All around the room, maze watchers were removing their metal masks and heavy robes. This revealed many faces Harry knew, including the old curse breaker Nibilix, his metalworking teachers Bidpruk and Dukbadden the Flinty-Eyed, the librarian Shellkot, and more than half of the Gringotts managers. There were far more than the single Council of Counters representative required to oversee the gadammeruk.
Harry smiled. It was sinking in slowly that his trial was finished and over; he had earned himself a place in the Brotherhood. He hoped he wouldn't do something stupid now.
"Harry Potter." Movement around the room stilled, and King Gurmsalt the Wary waved him forward.
"You have accomplished much this last day. Know that, to have reached this final stage, you must have learned well the price of experience and the truth of Brotherhood. Be secure in this knowledge. Now, step forward, Harry Potter."
The goblin's voice echoed around the silent room as he spoke the formulaic words. "Harry Potter, we welcome you now as the raw ore from which a Brother amongst Brothers may be smelted. Your honesty is absolute. You were swayed not in your trials by the hope brought by a door ajar, or by the offer of iron from a friend."
Across the cave, the young Grimrut waved cheerfully at Harry, who smiled bewilderedly back.
"You have shown your trustworthiness, Harry Potter. You have learned the distinction between cheating and reliance on the support of the Brothers. You have come here to us by fire, blood and metal. You have come through sacrifice and determination, honour and toil. Harry Potter, you have worth. The time has come for you to gzzaspich your fnaurei."
These last words, as ancient as anything, no longer had any elementary meaning beyond their sounds. What they meant was that a prospective Brother would swear the full goblin-oath, a more powerful version of the one which bound human employees of Gringotts to protect the bank's secrets.
The High Manager stepped down from the stone platform on which he had stood and grasped Harry's forearm tightly.
"Harry Potter. Do you swear on your wits and your craft never to act against the best interests of the Brothers?"
"I do swear."
When Harry spoke the words, the candles in the room flared like a forge in full heat for a moment, twisting the watchers' shadows into crazy shapes on the walls before settling down again.
"Harry Potter. Do you swear on the bones of the earth that you shall not speak of the rites of the gadammeruk, nor any other Secret of the Brotherhood, in the presence of anybody but a Brother?"
"I do swear."
A wind swirled through the room for a moment, carrying with it the sound of distant rivers, deep underground, and a smell of hot metal and compost.
"Harry Potter. Do you swear on caverns deep and mountains high to dedicate your self to finding, keeping and doing that which has worth?"
Harry looked up at the solemn white eyes of the Bank Director. "I do swear," he said firmly.
Each of the final three words spoken was accompanied by the appearance of a faint bluish-green ball of glow-worm light. The three orbs hung for a moment in the air, fighting the orange candle flames, before spiralling down and coalescing on Harry's skin. He braced himself for pain, but felt only a slight tingle. He could identify this as the oldest of old magic, which his books said was always accompanied by a 'symphony of sensation: sight, sound, heat, smell and touch'.
There was a moment where he felt like dark obsidian discs were descending over patches of his mind, shepherding everything he knew about the Brotherhood within their impermeable surfaces.
The king stepped back.
"The Council has heard that Harry Potter has held sespuchteriggin over a Brother. Is this true? Speak."
Harry knew that this meant something like, 'to have outwitted an adult'. It was the last of the three things that needed to be done to join the Brotherhood as a goblin in his legal majority.
"It is true," Badluk called, as Sibilig beamed by his side.
Harry couldn't even remember the first time he had beaten his foster parents in a battle of wits. His vaguest, and thus perhaps oldest, memory was from years ago. A memory of tricking his foster father with subtle truthful words so that he thought he was wanted at a neighbour's house, giving Harry free reign of the jar of candied walnuts in the dwelling kitchen.
Harry smiled brightly.
"Then, Harry Potter, I officially declare you a Brother amongst Brothers."
There should have been a thunderclap or something, Harry thought, to make it official. There was a rising sensation of pride and power in him, but it wasn't the same.
Two goblins stepped forward from either side. On the right, one bore a quill on a purple velvet cushion, one an old scroll pinned to a silver tray. The other two stood at attention at the king's left. Gurmsalt took the quill and carefully signed his name to the scroll. The first of the two notary goblins countersigned the document, and then the final goblin attending to the High Manager stamped the parchment with the Great Seal of Gringotts.
And then it was official.
"Harry Potter, you are hereby bound to keep all the Brotherhood's secrets and maintain its treasures. This debt of information is paid in full by access to those secrets and treasures, by the right to your voice being heard before the Council, and by respect of all Brothers for your work."
The king started to wave long fingers in the air. "By this token, we the Council award you your first true possession; no child's trifle this, but a work of great artifice, the grisherur of an elder craftsman, custom made for you, and it is yours and yours alone until the day you die."
The goblin tugged something from thin air, which sent a little ripple of distorted space around the room, and handed the object to the boy.
Harry took the pair of glasses, acutely aware that he had left his own behind somewhere in the last few rooms. The silver frames were banded in six places with minuscule runes, no larger than an ant, and Harry's fingers detected several complex charms upon them. Tears of gratitude sprung to his eyes, and he couldn't keep the grin off his face as he stared around the room.
The king made a grand gesture above Harry's head, and the crowd began to cheer.
The ceremony ended. The healers converged upon him.
Dumbledore had gone pale for a moment. "He has never been there? But I put him there myself, under cover of darkness."
Madam Bones sighed, feeling her age. It was hard to stay angry at the twinkle-eyed old man who had saved the world from Grindelwald those many years ago, and was still rather formidable. It was far more important to make sure Harry Potter was safe.
"I thought some immensely skilled and powerful wizard must have evaded the wards... since they were never tripped, never broken." Dumbledore composed himself, turning a lost look into one of mild worry. "Clearly I miscalculated."
"The boy has never been with his relatives, yet he's not dead. The ward-strings would have withered away if that happened. Am I right?"
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Indeed. They would also be blazing with heat if he was being mentally or physically tortured."
"We'll keep his disappearance secret while we investigate it," Madam Bones said briskly. "For as long as we can manage, anyway. If the kidnappers don't know we're onto them – and why would they think so, after seven years? – they might let their guard down."
She sighed heavily. "Do you have any bright ideas as to who would have taken him with good intentions?"
The manhunt began.
After the healers had fussed over Harry with salves and bandages and potions and prodding fingers, he returned to his home dwelling with Sibilig and Badluk. It was slow going; he had to navigate a crowd of well-wishers intent on slapping him on the back or grasping his arm in pride. He thanked each goblin quickly for their sentiments, allowing them to hurry off and see to their business of the day.
At last they reached the Stone Downs on the north edge of Underfoot, where Sibilig and Badluk's dwelling lay on a tidy plot of land planted with various fungi. Spinneret Crescent led towards the heart of the city, and the Dusk Track led up into a stalagmite forest where wild rock worms lived.
Harry's family retired to the kitchen. His foster mother was a little teary with pride.
His foster father's eyes were suspiciously wet too. "Spore allergies," Badluk lied hoarsely. "Always bad this time of year. Affect my throat, too." He grimaced and hugged Harry tightly.
Harry was surprised to realise that he had outstripped his mother's height and was now just a few inches away from Badluk's own.
Sibilig had boiled the kettle, and poured them each a cup of steaming bakh. The drink was extremely strong, flavoured with various resins, and had overtones of peppermint and cinnamon to its bitterness.
Harry drank deeply. The taste was familiar, and helped to ground him after recent events. He realised he was feeling a little insecure without his knives, or even his staff. Of course, now he could make his own, and they would be his.
He had wanted to apologise to his uncle, who had been at the gadammeruk ceremony, about the ruining of the good knife, but knew it would only have earned him a cuff about the head. He could imagine the growl now. "Did you learn nothing about worth this last day?"
Badluk had lit his pipe, and now that they were in the privacy of the dwelling, was speaking about the threefold challenge. "Pah. I can't believe they sent a firebat after you."
"You weren't involved?" Harry asked curiously, sitting down at the kitchen table.
"No," Badluk explained, "We could only watch. As your guardians, it would be a severe conflict of interest."
Harry nodded solemnly. He had been taught that such things had dire consequences.
Sibilig rubbed a finger against her lower lip and said, "I suspect they chose something as dangerous as a firebat to make sure that any unheard dissenters were placated. Having to kill such a creature would quell any suggestion that the Council singled you out for special treatment by devising an easy test."
"So... that was a harder than usual gadammeruk?" Harry felt both proud and annoyed, and even somewhat frightened. He hadn't been aware there might be people unhappy about his joining the Brotherhood, either.
"A little harder, perhaps," his foster mother said. "But each gadammeruk is dangerous. That is how I got this scar."
She rolled up the leg of her soft leather leggings and showed a jagged, dark stripe below her knee. Harry's eyebrows rose.
"You didn't think you were the only one in the family with a scar, did you?" his guardian laughed. "See the greyish edges there? My test of wit involved a bear trap laced with cockatrice venom. Not fatal, so I could keep going, but the damage caused by such a creature never heals."
Badluk hiked up his shirt to show a longer, straighter scar on his side. "I got mine... similarly."
Harry looked at it. The scar was old and faded. "That one looks clean. Why wasn't it healed with magic?"
"I asked the healers not to." His guardian grinned slyly. "You'll understand why when you're a little older."
"This is one of those questions you'll subtly discourage me from exploring, yes?"
"Yes."
"I see." Harry looked between his goblin foster parents. Sibilig was still beaming as she drank her own bakh.
Harry applied his inquisitive mind. "So you both came out scarred, yet you think the firebat was difficult?"
His foster mother shrugged. "Perhaps it is over-protectiveness. I had to beat out gold-and-silver armour, and wrestle a troll."
Harry's eyes went round and he turned expectantly to his foster father to hear his comparative story.
"It was just a juvenile one," Badluk whined. "She didn't even have to kill it!"
"It was more than twice my size," Sibilig said mildly.
"What did you fight, Badluk?" Harry pressed, eager to hear his foster father's tale.
Badluk squirmed. "I had to forge keys of silver and gold for a certain lock. Behind the locked door was a lever, which dropped me into a pit to ...combat my foe."
"I'll tell him if you don't," Sibilig said with amusement.
Badluk snarled at her. "The pit was filled with fairy-fury flowers and they dropped a nest of Cornish pixies in after me."
Harry looked at him with disbelief. "So the scar..."
"No." His foster father made a sharp motion with his hand, then sighed. "I was too slow to get out of the way of an opening door," Badluk admitted. "I don't usually tell that part of the story."
Harry's foster mother was smirking.
"The door was covered in blades. I had to try to get through as it rotated! It was difficult!"
Harry's foster mother was still smirking.
"Speaking of doors, ask Sibilig about pushing on doors that open inwards," Badluk said, getting up and taking a precautionary step back around the kitchen table.
Sibilig lost her smirk. "The first two opened outwards! Why would they change the third?"
"She wasted a long, long time on that door," Badluk snarled happily. "Another ten minutes and she would have had to take her whole gadammeruk again."
"It had a sign saying 'I measure the strength of your push'!"
"Obviously a metaphor," Badluk scoffed.
"Does everyone get doors?" Harry interjected, as his foster mother reached menacingly towards a loaf of hard flatbread.
She halted with the dense bread in hand, deliberating on whether or not to throw it. "Yes. There are always doors to finish. And the way to get through the doors always involves some sort of deeper meaning."
Harry set his cup down. "Did you both pass your first time?"
"Yes. But I was closer to nine than eight when I first tried, and Badluk made his attempt on his tenth birthday."
Harry felt even prouder now.
"And you both had to return something to the land, to show respect? Is that another constant?"
Both goblins nodded.
"I travelled far and deep, to pour molten steel into a volcanic vent," said his foster mother.
"I composted four buckets full of dead pixies," his foster father said grimly.
The man smiled, showing off straight, white teeth. "Always a pleasure, Albus! Do stop in any time!"
He waved and beamed as Dumbledore walked down the steps and Disapparated.
Gilderoy Lockhart patted his wavy blonde hair and blew a breath out through his teeth. "Wonder what that was really about. Still, always nice to get some recognition from the Powers That Be."
He stepped back inside.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore was feeling mildly repulsed to learn that Lockhart owned some of the same clothes as he did - a flamboyant orange set of robes with wide lapels on which pale blue unicorns danced. The Headmaster was hastening back to the DMLE to report that one of his first guesses had been wrong. The man might be utterly obsessed with fame and the famous, but he had never abducted the Boy Who Lived.
Dumbledore had seen nothing truly malicious in his surface scans of the man's mind, just fluff and narcissism. Nobody was so good an actor that they could have kidnapped Harry Potter and then sat through tea with Dumbledore and not even think of the boy. Unless they had been obliviated, but the Headmaster had his own reasons for suspecting that nobody would get one over Gilderoy Lockhart via a memory charm.
Albus appeared in the Ministry Atrium, still feeling slightly nauseated. He wondered if he had time to take a bath before visiting his next suspect.
"So what are we to do in celebration?" Sibilig asked.
Harry raised his head, blinking.
"Tired?" Badluk asked sympathetically. "I expect you'll be sleeping in a lot for a few days."
"'m not tired. 'm just... resting." Suddenly Harry's eyes opened a little more, and he sat up straight. "You said you'd tell me all sorts of things when I reached my majority of Brotherhood, and could be counted on to keep them secret. And I'd get-" he clamped his mouth shut.
"A wand?" A corner of Badluk's mouth twitched upwards.
"Very well," said Sibilig. "Secrets first, or wand?"
"Secrets," said Harry quickly.
"The Brotherhood secrets will take days, at least," Badluk cautioned. "Diagon Alley just one morning. Now that you can possess things of your own, there are several important objects you should have, not only a wand."
"Wand, then," said Harry promptly. "Can I do the glamour?"
His guardians exchanged looks. "No. Not until you've learned to properly change your skin colour and bone structure, and cover your curse scar. Your magic is quite limited, and you are still recognisable, as it stands."
"But that's powerful illusion. It'll be years before I can do that."
"It matters not, since one in the know can penetrate a glamour of any strength with little effort. You can change the hair and eyes, therefore, and I shall do the rest. Fair?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
Molly Weasley blushed at the compliment to her baking. Dumbledore met her eyes as his own twinkled madly. He took the opportunity to probe her thoughts a little more deeply.
When the conversation had turned to her youngest son, Dumbledore had mentioned that Harry Potter would be of school age at the same time as Ronald. This engendered only hopes that they would be in the same classes, and queries as to how the 'poor dear' was doing.
Molly had heard no recent rumours about the Boy Who Lived, and said Arthur had mentioned nothing either. Dumbledore knew she was puzzled as to why he had dropped in for tea, when they had barely spoken since the deaths of her brothers, and would be equally puzzled by his questions about Harry Potter. Rather than risk letting her inadvertently spread rumours detrimental to the Auror investigation, he murmured hints about a pureblood conspiracy to subvert the child's views, and said he trusted she could keep it all under her hat. He probably could; Molly Weasley might listen to gossip, but she wouldn't spread it.
Soon after, he left, full of tea, scones and blueberry fudge.
Madam Bones had let Dumbledore do the round of his own suspects, having very carefully decided she did not know, in the circumstances, that he was a Legilimens. To use legilimency without a warrant exposed a person to assault charges. Such a thing could not, obviously, be endorsed by the Head of the DMLE, so she took care to occupy herself with the official investigation.
Dumbledore decided not to report back yet, as there were two more people he had to drop in on. He would talk to Amelia after that, then make one quick check at Azkaban, before having nothing but the Aurors to rely on.
He Apparated directly to his next destination, a tiny house on a forested plot of land deep in the countryside. The Headmaster mused silently as he strolled up to the door. On reflection, the intersection of the sets "people who mean Harry Potter no harm" and "people likely to abduct Harry Potter without necessarily mentioning it to Albus Dumbledore" was very small.
This person really had to be his prime suspect.
Roderick Ollivander heard the soft tinkling of the chime and looked up. A tall, sandy-haired man had stepped into his shop, followed by a small boy who looked rather like him. Ollivander was surprised to see two goblins in finely tailored suits stepped in immediately after, and after them, two more goblins. These last were Gringotts guards, in midnight blue surcoats over shining silvery mail hauberks. One took up station at the door and the other disappeared into one of the shadowy corners of the shop.
Ollivander narrowed his silver eyes. What legitimate business could goblins have in a wand shop, even accompanying wizards? He brushed wood shavings off his robe and stepped forward around a shelf.
"Good morning. Can I help you gentlemen? And ladies," Ollivander added, noticing one of the suited goblins was female.
"Good morning," said the two humans at the same time, one in a quiet baritone, the other a child's high voice.
Ollivander's eyes, drawing on almost two centuries of experience with magic, told him immediately that the boy was under an illusion spell. Following the wandmaker's stare, the middle-aged wizard stooped to wave one hand in front of the child's face.
The glamour vanished, and the wizard straightened to give Ollivander an apologetic look. "It's been helpful to keep him out of trouble in the Alley, but I knew you'd never be fooled, sir."
Ollivander was staring at the child before him. Ash blonde hair had been replaced by black, and the bright blue eyes behind the lenses of the boy's beautiful silver glasses had changed to an equally bright green.
The face had become a little wider, a little younger, and pale almost to the point of being chalk-white. Ollivander recognised that face.
"Mr Potter. I... did not expect to see you so soon," the wandmaker said, a little put out at this new mystery. He turned his eyes at last to the wizard. "And, ah, Mr Scintillion. Yes... Nine inches, alder with a core of demiguise sinew, if I recall. You are Mr Potter's guardian?"
"We promised him a wand on his eighth birthday," the man said, carefully not answering the question. Behind him, the two well-dressed goblins watched Mr Ollivander with mild curiosity.
"He is nowhere near Hogwarts age, then. He cannot use any wand he owns until he is at the school, I trust you know that."
"And yet he is allowed to own one," Boris Scintillion said mildly, hand laid firmly on Harry's shoulder to prevent him speaking. "And I'm sure you will register it correctly, and that the Ministry will be doing their job monitoring the Trace, so all is as it should be. These are some business associates," he added, waving a hand lazily at the goblins.
Ollivander held his gaze for a few seconds, and then disappeared into the back of the shop.
He emerged again with a stack of slim boxes. "It's the wand that chooses the wizard, Mr Potter. A skilled wandmaker can often make a match by eye, but when it comes down to it, the wand has the final say. Try this one."
He waved Harry into a spindly chair and handed over the first wand. "Beech and dragon heartstring. Nine inches, quite flexible."
Harry took the piece of wood and looked at it appraisingly. "Do I..."
"Just give it a wave."
The boy did, but nothing happened. Ollivander took it back and passed over another. "Dagon pine and kelpie tailhair, thirteen inches, quite temperamental but excellent for water-charms. No? Well then, this one..."
Ten minutes later, Ollivander was smiling. "I do like a challenge, Mr Potter. I'm sure we'll find a perfect match. Now, that twelve-inch holly with the core of nundu eyelashes seemed quite close, I think. How about – I wonder – yes, why not? Here, an unusual combination, holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, fairly supple."
The boy's face lit up as soon as he touched the wand, and he raised it above his head. A stream of pale blue sparks swirled from the end to make strange, spidery shapes which danced in the air before slipping, squeaking piteously, into the shadows.
"Well done, Mr Potter, well done indeed. Quite a strong response. Curious, though."
Mr Ollivander held out his hand for the wand so that he could wrap it, but the boy was examining the object, smiling to himself.
Ollivander frowned. "Curious, very curious."
The boy twisted the wand gently from side to side in his hand, still peering down at the polished wood. The two formally dressed goblins grinned openly, and Boris Scintillion reached out to gently shake the boy's shoulder.
"Very curious indeed, Mr Potter," the wandmaker said.
Harry looked up guilty. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was admiring the Invisible Runes. It is superb work, sir, I can barely see them at all. I'm really sorry, what were you saying?"
"You can see my Invisible Runes?"
Lupin was worried. He had barely seen Albus Dumbledore for seven years, and now the inscrutable wizard had dropped by "in passing".
Given that Remus lived thirty miles from the nearest small town, this seemed something of a stretch.
"Tea?" he asked politely, taking the old iron kettle off the heat. It was two days since the full moon; his hands barely trembled. He still felt weak and out of sorts, though.
"Oh, don't go to the trouble on my account, dear boy," Dumbledore said hastily. "I shan't be long, I expect."
Remus frowned slightly. "I was going to make a pot anyway. You take lemon rather than milk, I'd imagine?"
Dumbledore nodded.
"What brings you here, then, Headmaster?"
Blue eyes watched him carefully. "A small matter has come up..."
"Wir I guhduh-" Harry took the toffee wafer out of his mouth and tried again. "Will I go to Hogwarts? I noticed Mr Ollivander assumed that I would, but we haven't really talked about it much."
Sibilig sneered good-naturedly at her foster son's gooey face and passed him a napkin. "Yes, you do notice things, don't you?"
The four of them were sitting outside Fortescue's, their guards standing unobtrusively against the red brick walls. Harry's identity was concealed by a glamour once more.
"Mr Ollivander for some reason found it hard to believe a child, even a goblin-raised child, could read Invisible Runes," said Badluk snarkily. "Did you stop to think that perhaps none of his other assumptions are credible, either?"
His mate kicked him under the table.
"Do you want to go to Hogwarts when you're eleven?" Sibilig asked carefully.
Harry looked at her from the corner of his eye, trying to judge her mood. "It sounds exciting, I suppose, but really, so does a mastery in goldsmithing or vault-warding. I don't know enough about it to decide."
"Perhaps we need to buy you some books, is that it?" Badluk said, then yelped as Sibilig kicked him again.
"Does Hogwarts have as many books as the Underfoot libraries?" Harry asked plaintively.
"Maybe Mr Scintillion can fill you in?" Sibilig said, and turned to the wizard.
Boris, leaning back in his chair and enjoying a mint ice cream on company time for the first time ever, started guiltily, and hurriedly wiped his mouth. "Uh, right. Hogwarts? Well..." He halted, torn between his natural effusiveness about the locus of wizarding Britain, and not wanting to offend his employers.
"Just the truth, Boris," said Badluk, eyes glittering.
"Er. Yes. My years at Hogwarts were the best time of my life, Harry, they really were. It's not just about learning magic – wizard magic, that is, I know your own studies are progressing well – but there are friends and important contacts to make, too. You'd learn more about the wizarding world by immersing yourself at Hogwarts then you ever could through your books."
Boris knew how to talk to goblins, and continued. "Of course, I don't know your ambitions, or what awaits you underground, so whether or not the pay-off is better compared to living with the Brotherhood depends on the weights of your personal values. You would gain a lot of social capital by attending Hogwarts. What I can say is that if you do decide to get a wizarding education, Hogwarts would certainly be the best choice if you intend to have business or political interests in Britain or the Continent."
"You could live a normal and rewarding life in Underfoot with the people you know, Harry," Sibilig said carefully, stirring the spoon in her clove-and-licorice milkshake. "But you could also do great things in the wizarding world. Indeed, or both."
Harry was aware of a certain amount of pussy-footing still going on. "What do you and Badluk want? What do you expect of me?" He grinned a feral grin. "Just the truth, Sibilig."
His foster mother looked at his foster father, who was stirring uneasily.
"We hope – the Council hopes, really – that you will go to Hogwarts and grow up with an understanding of our two societies and the rift between them. With a little work, you will have a considerable amount of political clout when you are older. We don't expect you to fix what is broken, and restore goblins to an equal footing in the magical world, but we hope that you will at least ...help, in our long struggle."
"You still have three years to make your decision about Hogwarts," Badluk added.
"Yes."
"Yes." Harry nodded, appreciating how frank his guardians had been with him. It was already clear. The Brotherhood had been everything to the boy, had brought him up, had fed him and clothed him, taught him and cherished him.
Now he had a goal to work towards.
"I want your word that you have not abducted Harry Potter."
Tea splashed across the floor and dripped off Lupin's chin.
Dumbledore cleaned it up with a gesture, but continued to watch Remus intently. Werewolves, being pseudo-human and with ancient curse-magic affecting their minds, could not be legilimised. Albus was looking for subtle 'tells' in the man's body language. So he needed to bring up the matter of the abduction directly.
He also had to admit that he was feeling guilty. Guilty about not speaking to the man sooner on the matter of his friend's son. Guilty about doing nothing for Remus after he lost his four best friends in one night. Guilty about leaving his only link to them with muggles for the foreseeable future... and then losing that link.
"What?" Lupin roared. "Abducted? I couldn't- Dumbledore- you're not telling me-"
He went pale, looking at the Headmaster's solemn face. "Merlin. Tell me he's alive, at least."
Dumbledore sat back in his seat, still watching the werewolf, and deciding at once to tell him everything. "He is alive, that much we know. But he is missing. As far as we can tell, he was never taken in by his muggle relatives, but was removed by somebody who meant him no harm, for unknown reasons."
Dumbledore concentrated, and showed the threads of the blood wards' signature for a second. "He is not in any pain or mental distress."
Lupin's hands had been trembling, and now crushed a teacup into shards of cheap china. Blood dripped from his palm, but he didn't seem to notice.
"I wasn't even allowed to see him, and now it turns out he's been missing for, what, seven years? I don't believe this."
He seemed to be struck by a thought, and scowled at Dumbledore. "You have gone to the Aurors with this, haven't you?"
"Of course." Dumbledore put his own teacup aside, and spread his hands. "Remus, we have very little to go on. Madam Bones believes he has left the country, since there haven't even been any credible 'Harry Potter sightings' in the Daily Prophet or the witches' magazines. We have essentially no trail to follow, Remus."
Lupin stood up and began to pace around nervously, his hands twitching into fists. He whirled on Dumbledore. "I'm between jobs, I'll sniff around. If there is a trail, I'll be able to find it. Where should I start?"
Dumbledore was a little relieved at the offer. "I would try the obvious places first: Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, Godric's Hollow – the memorial there in particular, if you don't mind – and perhaps some of the magical districts. Cornwall Coast, Wintergreen Village, Ottery St Catchpole, Dirk's Common, Court-Under-The-Hill."
Lupin nodded sharply, going to the fireplace and picking up an old jam jar full of Floo powder. "And what are you doing about all this?"
Dumbledore said, resignedly, "I'm going to see Black – and the former Black – to ensure this is not some old contingency plan of Voldemort's, that has come into play."
He sighed, and got up heavily. If he had known how much tea he would be drinking today, he wouldn't have breakfasted. "Please do nose around, Remus, but don't question anyone about Harry. There will be undercover Aurors doing that, subtly. The investigation is a secret one for now, so that word doesn't get out that we're looking. Trust me, it's better this way."
Remus paused in the fireplace for a moment, as green flames roared around him. "Should I ever have trusted you?"
Looking sad and sloshing slightly, Dumbledore left.
Author's notes:
→ Long chapter today. The large number of reviews I've been getting is heartening. Thanks!
→ Some people might be concerned that Harry is getting super-powered. If this is true, and the challenges are the same as in canon, this means less conflict and a more boring story. To that end, I'll note that Harry's powers are at least different. Canon-Harry spent most of his childhood ostracised and doing menial labour, so his skillset is very poor. Canon-Harry is already at a disadvantage to other wizards. Because my goblins make their children study and work from young ages, it means that Harry is ahead of his canon counterpart and other wizarding eight-year-olds, in terms of vocabulary, critical thinking, etc. It follows that I need to present him with stronger challenges than in canon in order to make this an interesting story.
→ If anyone is interested in reading what it might be like if Lockhart had taken Harry, I direct you to "When In Doubt, Obliviate" by Sarah1281. It's a great read so far.