A Measured Response

This tragedy in Magical Britain demanded to be written. Harry returns from India where he's been studying parsel magic to hear of a tragedy that strikes close to him. Worse, there are attempts to cover it up. This is very dark. Be warned. BASHING Goblins, Weasleys, Ministry.

Everything belongs to Rowling. I'm just playing in the sand on the beach, and the tide will wash away all sandcastles.

This is the conclusion of the story.

+++ BEGIN: 2 May 1999 (2:00 AM)

Chief Vault Manager Ragnock surveyed the chamber around him. Carved by hand from the bedrock deep underneath a small human settlement more than a thousand years earlier, today his clan's cavern where they slept and stored their greatest treasures was underneath metropolitan London. Above his head was Kensington, a posh and expensive part of the city.

'If the humans knew what lay underneath their feet, they might not sleep as well,' he mused. The ever-burn torches banished the dark from the chamber; every goblin sought to bring light to the caves and tunnels of their peoples, otherwise they were simply rocks along the floor of any chamber.

Glancing toward his mate, Ragnock saw she was already rolled up, with her legs drawn inside her trunk and her arms wrapped tightly about her middle. 'A deep rock sleep,' he decided. 'Yes, I might sleep for an entire cycle of the moon myself.'

Beyond the female goblin, now more of a rock than a goblin, Ragnock saw his sons and their mates and all their pebbles – their children. His clan was secure with the number of stones they could roll down any tunnel during an attack. All goblins fought in battle.

Just before he closed his eyes, Ragnock felt a sudden change in the chamber's atmosphere – why is it cold and damp? The ever-burn torches flickered for a second before tons of water – cold and dark – fell upon the goblin chief, slamming him against the other rocks and goblins relentlessly. Ragnock had no coherent thoughts, only terror as the thundering water pushed his head under, extinguished the torches and plunged the chamber to everlasting darkness.

SLIGHT CHANGE: Sowsbreath, Security Chief for Gringotts London, hurtled along a rail line toward his clan's cavern underneath Buckinghamshire, more than 80 kilometers from London. The cart raced impossibly fast with magic keeping it on the rails.

'How nice of the humans to resolve our transportation problems for us two hundred years ago,' Sowsbreath thought, considering the rail cart, modeled after the ones used in the coal mines of Wales. 'And we stole their word 'commute' as well. Work in London and return to my own cave underneath Bucks in only thirty minutes.'

From behind him, Sowsbreath felt the air pressing forward, being pushed by something. He turned around to gaze back toward Gringotts London and could taste the dampness of the air.

'Water? Did the river break into the bank somehow?' he speculated for a moment. Then the goblin's eyes grew wide as he saw the forefront of an angry wave of water roaring as it rushed toward him, extinguishing the torches that lined the tunnel. A rail cart behind him was overcome and the goblins riding it were thrown into the wild, dark water.

'Disaster! Catastrophe!' Sowsbreath swore. 'If I can make it to our cavern under Bucks, we can slam rocks into place and save…'

Now from ahead of him, he heard the roar of water. A wild wave of this dark water rushed toward him in the rail cart from ahead and behind. Ten kilometers from Bucks, the waters met, crushing, and drowning Sowsbreath.

In every chamber underneath England and Wales carved by goblins from Gringotts London, the inhabitants were beaten against the rocks and drowned in the darkness by gigantic streams of dark, cold water falling from the ceilings. Under pressure from the weight of the ocean above the portals, each one opened in a goblin chamber like a pressurized geyser that smashed through doors, along tunnels. and flung carts, furniture, stones, and goblins about with merciless force.

SLIGHT CHANGE: Exiled from London to the goblin cavern underneath Monmouth in Wales, Ironstream was reduced in rank to being a cart driver once again. But he fought challengers with abandon – his mate and their pebbles were safe in South America. When he had his first sleep cycle, Ironstream would move to Santiago to be with them.

In the early morning hours, there were snatches of panicky messages from London and other caverns. But each message broke off without revealing the problem or identity of an attacker. Loaded into a rail car with five other goblins, Ironstream took the stick and set off for the Wiltshire, the nearest goblin chamber. As the cart thundered along the rail, the goblins heard nothing else. The first clue of approaching disaster was a wet smell and the way the air in the tunnel seemed to push back against them.

Suddenly, Ironstream could see the gushing torrent of water headed toward him and the other goblins in the rail cart. He didn't let up on the accelerator despite cries of fear from the other goblins. The cart impacted the water and was lifted off the track and slammed into the side of the tunnel. Turned upside down, Ironstream had only a moment to think about Gringotts London before his head cracked open and he knew no more.

+++ CHANGE: 10 August 1999 The New Normal

The Daily Prophet printed several speculative columns now. One of the most popular was written by Molly Weasley. Her first foray into writing a column had occurred about a week after the reports of the visit by King Herkk and the opening of Mundane Magical Bank.

'Magic herself threw down the goblins! They killed my son, his wife, and unborn child! And I prayed that Magic would drown them all! The goblin king said it – water drowned the goblins in Gringotts London and now there are no goblins left to kill or steal from us!'

Mrs Weasley's opinions on the muggleborn and half-bloods running Mundane Magical Back were unknown until her daughter's application for a job was rejected. A rant about uppity mudbloods and half-bloods was never published by the Daily Prophet (the majority owner of the newspaper was the mysterious financier who opened the bank earlier in the summer). A few days later, a sanitized version of Molly's column was printed alongside a statement from the bank: 'To resolve the inequities between the factions that once ruled Magical Britain and the future rulers, purebloods were unable to hold positions of any authority for a generation.'

The bank's statement also suggested that Miss Griselda Weasley marry a muggleborn so her children would be magically powerful.

+++ CHANGE: 14 August 1999 Breakfast in Normandy

"Harry," Fleur asked as she lay down the paper at the breakfast table. The windows were open allowing a pleasant breeze into the Delacour home in Normandy.

Looking up from feeding Teddy some cereal, the wizard asked, "Yes?"

"Who…why does the Daily Prophet never get Ginny's name right?" the witch asked as Andromeda entered the dining room and moved to kiss Teddy and Harry on the cheek before taking her place at the table. Andromeda would read the Parisian newspapers before the Daily Prophet.

"Perhaps it is a measured response by magic. She never pronounced your name correctly…did she?" replied Harry before smiling at Andromeda, and then returning to the task of feeding his son.

Monsieur and Madam Delacour entered the room together. Fleur frowned and asked, "Where is Gabrielle?"

"Your sister sleeps late this morning," explained Madam Delacour.

"If she wants to go shopping in Paris with me this morning, she'll rise now," stated Fleur before she called for Sneakers to rouse her sister.

"And what will you do today, Harry?" Henri asked while his wife fixed their coffee.

Changing his features into the brown-haired, blue-eyed Monsieur Robespierre Curie, Harry replied, "I must work at the bank in London for most of the day. We've only got a few families left to convert from the underwater vaults to our new vaults and then I shall take a vacation until 1 September."

Teddy giggled and mimicked the slow metamorphic change Dada used to transform into the persona of the founder of the Mundane Magical Bank. Andromeda watched her grandson change his appearance and smiled to see him holding the change without trouble.

"Shall we all go on vacation?" asked Madam Delacour. "We have two weeks before Gabriella returns to Beauxbatons."

"We deserve a vacation," Henri agreed. "Where shall we go?"

Harry immediately suggested, "Why don't you join us in the Bahamas? The house is large enough for everyone and we can easily travel to Florida for day trips. I've never been to Disney World."

"Alligators! They have alligator farms in Florida and I've always wanted to see alligators," Andromeda admitted. "They are different than crocodiles from Africa."

"Madam Tonks, have you ever seen dragons?" asked Fleur. "They would make your alligators seem small and pitiful."

Glancing at Harry and Teddy, Andromeda replied, "Mademoiselle Delacour, I live with dragons."

Epilogue

Yes, Harry and Fleur marry.

It took Fleur time to trust men again and it took Harry an equal amount of time to believe a woman could love him for himself and not his fame. Bill Weasley never approached Fleur or Harry again in their lifetimes. Molly was vocal in her relief that her eldest son escaped the claws of the creature-vela Delacour. (In a tragic mishap, the Burrow burned the ground and the Weasleys were forced to move between the homes of their successful sons Percy and George, and their unpleasant daughter, Ginny, until a new home was built on the same site.

When Teddy was three years, he enjoyed the party (wedding) where Dada and Mama danced with him. He wasn't very happy that his parents were absent for a week but his three grandparents and Aunt Gabriella spoiled him shamelessly during that time. The extended family remained in Normandy and Harry purchased a magical chateau for his bride that they made their home for the rest of their lives.

Over the next fifteen years, Teddy welcomed three brothers and four sisters into his family. When he prepared to leave for his last year at Beauxbatons in 2015, he informed his parents that he had sufficient siblings. Aunt Gabriella had four children of her own with her husband, and the Delacour couple and Andromeda loved all of the grandchildren.

Only after Headmistress McGonagall retired in 2002 did Hogwarts begin to improve. Despite Harry's misgivings, in 2010, the eldest three Potter-Black children enrolled at Hogwarts for the fall term. Teddy (13) and twins Andromeda (11) and Sirius (11) were sorted into Ravenclaw where the new Head of House, Luna MacMillian made them feel very welcome.

But the general student population was divided evenly between Potter-Fans and Potter-Haters. The children returned to Beauxbatons in January after a group of Gryffindors and Slytherins posted a series of posters around the school denouncing 'anyone who can talk to snakes' just before the winter break began in December.

In 2012, the true identity of Monsieur Robespierre Curie was revealed and the Ministry for Magic had to deal with some unpleasantness as Potter-Fans turned their ire against Potter-Haters across Britain. The Mundane Bank Corporation continued to support the Reformed Wizengamot as the new members forced change upon the country. Disgruntled purebloods left the country but did not find any other magical society very welcoming.

In 2013, Harry introduced the first commercial portal for instantaneous transportation between Magical France and Magical USA. Once the stable portals were installed in all major cities with a magical population, there was an effort to get the Potter-Black children to return to Hogwarts that failed.

SLIGHT CHANGE: The goblins in Gringotts Paris and other cities around the world never mentioned, wrote, or memorialized Gringotts London. Harry Potter-Black's wealth and acclaim grew every year and the goblins never poked the dragon again.