Harry and the Pirates

Chapter 51

Errands in Hogsmeade

When their promised day in Hogsmeade arrived, the Slytherin third-years were eager to go. All of them had their permission slips in order. Harry and Dudley were no exceptions; Petunia had signed their slips the second that she had learned their purpose, and they'd been owled to Hogwarts before Harry and Dudley had left Thailand.

Along with the other third-years, they gathered at the gates, ready for their escort. Finally Professor Flitwick, the head of Ravenclaw House, appeared, and led the happy, laughing students down to Hogsmeade. The older students frolicked alongside, all of them eager for a break. While Hogwarts Castle was an endless marvel, even it could pall, and a change of scenery would be very welcome. Around them, it was a glorious Scottish autumn day, with the sun shining down out of a brilliant blue sky. Harry felt glad to be alive.

Then the first Dementors came out to intercept them, and Harry's joie-de-vivre vanished. He wasn't the only one. The students who'd been frisking along happily suddenly clumped together, like chickens when the shadow of a hawk appeared over their run. It was like a cloud had slid over the sun; even the temperature seemed to fall.

Harry was no stranger to fear. He had been in tight situations many times. But the Dementors' effect was like nothing he had ever experienced. It was all he could do not to just squeeze his eyes shut and whimper. Quite a few of his companions were doing just that, and some of them were actually crying.

Professor Flitwick paled, but pulled out his wand, yelling "Expecto Patronum!" At his high-pitched cry, a great silvery eagle erupted from the tip of his wand, and the Dementors drew back. Harry watched them carefully, and he would have sworn, had they been human, that they looked disappointed. As they retreated, their baleful influence faded, and the students gradually recovered their equilibrium. The temperature seemed to rise, and soon they were back on their way to the village, none the worse for their close encounter.

Harry and Dudley exchanged significant glances. Harry knew that they were going to have to have a long talk about these Dementor things, soonest. In the meantime, though, Hogsmeade beckoned, and they were both curious to see it. Their experience of Britain was London and Hogwarts, and they had no idea of what to expect in a small Scottish town, even one inhabited by magical folk.

The main business area, or "High Street," looked rather like things they had seen in movies set in Britain. It was surrounded by rather quaint-looking buildings with shops on the ground floor, many of them apparently branches of businesses they'd seen earlier in Diagon Alley. They passed several interesting-looking places, including a candy store that was thronged with their classmates, before finding what they were looking for.

Gringott's Bank occupied a small, well-fortified building of its own. Harry couldn't place the style, but it reminded him of military blockhouses he'd seen. He approved; banks, to his mind, were prime targets for criminals, and needed to be as secure as possible. He had seen "modern" style banks, in Thailand and London, and privately thought that the idea of having banks with huge, vulnerable panes of glass instead of solid stone walls was utterly insane.

Pushing open the solid wooden doors, Harry and Dudley found themselves in a large room not unlike the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Along the walls were caged-in desks, with goblins behind them talking to customers. Harry recognized some of them as non-human; there was a hag there apparently making a deposit in her account, and two centaurs were looking over a statement under the eye of a rather impatient-looking goblin.

Giving each other "buck up!" nudges for courage, Harry and Dudley stepped up to a teller who had no customers. The goblin looked up with a scowl. "What do you two young wizards want?" he snapped.

"My name is Harry Potter and this is my cousin, Dudley Dursley. May you always buy cheap and sell dear," Harry responded. Before they had come, he had read up on goblin etiquette, after asking Snape which books were reliable on the subject.

The goblin's eyes went wide. Not many wizards took the time to learn proper goblin manners. "My name is Thorlakk. May your haemorrhoids shrink without surgery, Mr. Potter and Mr. Dursley. How may I be of assistance to you?"

"We have a business proposal, and would like to speak to a goblin of rank. Would that be possible to arrange now, or would we have to come back at another time?" Thorlakk's eyes went wider. Getting right down to business, instead of wasting time on chitchat, was the height of courtesy among goblins. And he had clearly recognized Harry Potter, or at least, his name. Harry made a mental note to find out just how much was in that vault under the London branch of the bank.

Thorlakk pushed a button, and a bell rang in the deeper parts of the bank. "I shall summon Director Eisenherz to speak to you, young wizards. Gringott's is always interested to hear business proposals." Thorlakk's eyes shone with greed, a sight that Harry knew very well. For a second, he knew real homesickness for Roanapur, where greed was God. He wondered what the goblins would think of his hometown, or if they already knew of it. Did Roanapur have a magical area, like Diagon and Knockturn Alleys? He decided it was worth looking into. He was sure that Bangkok and Singapore had such places.

An older goblin came out, dressed in what Harry recognized from his reading as garb appropriate to a very high-ranking goblin. "I am Eisenherz." Ritual greetings were exchanged, and Harry and Dudley soon found themselves in a luxuriously-appointed office. "Thorlakk says that you have a business proposal. What is it, young wizards?" He snorted. "If you're like most wizards, it's some mad scheme to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers, or something even less likely to produce profit!"

"Nothing like that, great Eisenherz." Harry leaned forward intently. "We have found out that the wizards do not know what Coca-Cola is, and we want to be the exclusive purveyors of the stuff to them!"

Eisenherz' eyes went very wide. "Ah! I see! You wish to have an exclusive position selling Coca-Cola, so that you may charge what you please! A very intelligent move! We can arrange this, for a percentage of your profits!"

Harry and Dudley settled in for a bargaining session. This was old, familiar territory to both boys. Buying and selling in Roanapur usually involved a deal of haggling, and unlike their British-raised schoolmates, both boys were completely comfortable and familiar with the process. When they sneered at the goblins' first offer and made a counter-offer far below what the goblins had proposed, the dance began.

An hour later, the haggling was over, and they had come to an agreement. As he produced copies of a contract for the boys to sign, Eisenherz said: "Young wizards, it is rare for us to find such financial acumen among your kind. You have so much common sense and money sense, you could almost be goblins yourselves!"

Harry blushed, and he saw that Dudley was doing the same. From a goblin, that was extraordinarily high praise. Most goblins considered wizards and witches to be foolish flibbertigibbets and saw dealing with them as a burden to be borne. "Thank you, sir. We anticipate much profit from this day." Harry signed the contract, and Dudley did likewise, followed by Eisenherz on behalf of the goblins. Once that was done, Eisenherz got up to leave. Harry cleared his throat. "A moment, please, good Eisenherz." Startled, Eisenherz paused. Harry went on: "I am told that I have an account with this bank, but have never been given a statement. May I have a written statement of my holdings, as well as an explanation of who, if anybody, other than me has access to this information?"

Eisenherz smiled broadly. "A very wise thing to ask for! You will go far indeed, young Harry Potter." At his gesture, Thorlakk, who had been sitting in the back keeping quiet during the important business discussion, ran off into the depths of the bank as though the hounds of hell were on his trail. That confirmed Harry's notion that Eisenherz was a very high-ranking goblin indeed. The books Snape had pointed him to said that the goblins were all about hierarchy; in their language, there was no such concept as "equality" between goblin and goblin, and grammar for speaking between equals did not exist. Instead, there was an infinite variation of modes, for speaking to those of greater or lesser status.

When Thorlakk came cringing back with the papers Harry had wanted, he and Dudley walked out. That was another part of goblin etiquette; they did not approve of wasting time on meaningless pleasantries. There was a theory that the phrase "time is money" had originated among the goblin nation.

Harry glanced over the statement of his account, and his eyes went wide. "Dudley! Look at this!" Dudley took the paper and looked it over, and whistled, long and low and softly. "I hadn't known how wealthy I really was!" His eyes narrowed as he took the paper back. "Let's see who has or had access to this account." As he read, Harry's blood went icy cold. "It says that Dumbledore has my vault key. There don't seem to have been any withdrawals, but I want more information."

"Once we're back at the castle, let's owl the London branch and find out if they have more in-depth records of this account." The Hogsmeade branch of Gringott's mainly existed for routine withdrawals and deposits, with the main records safely kept in London. Harry put the papers away. "In the meantime…Hogsmeade awaits!" He made a grand gesture, like Satan offering Christ the world in Paradise Lost.

The main pub in town, the Three Broomsticks, was not far away, and as Harry and Dudley walked in, they were greeted by a bunch of their Housemates, including Draco, Ron and Hermione. "Hey! Come on over! We've got seats for you!" Pretty soon, they were settled in, and Madame Rosmerta, the proprietor, came over to take their orders.

With refreshments on the way, Harry and Dudley sat back to find out what the others had been doing. They usually let others take the lead in conversation, having found that it was a good way to get information without seeming to pry. Hermione was burbling about the bookstore in town, and going over a list of things she wanted to order from them. Ron, on the other hand, was raving about the candy store.

Draco smiled a superior smile and began talking about the Shrieking Shack. "It's the most haunted place in Britain, they say," he said. "The Hogwarts ghosts say that it's got some real rough types, and won't go near it!"

Ron turned to Harry. "Hey, mate, where did you two disappear to, anyway? We were wondering where you'd gone."

"Oh, we had some stuff to do at Gringott's. Boring old business. Nothing that would interest you." To Harry's relief, that satisfied Ron, although he saw a gleam in Hermione's eye that told him that she, for one, wanted to know more. However, respect for privacy was strong in Slytherin, and she would not pry publicly. Harry winked at her, to let her know that he'd tell her more later, and she settled back to drink her butterbeer.

Once they had done with their drinks, Harry and Dudley stood up. "Look, we don't mean to abandon you, but there's parts of this town we haven't explored yet. Will you excuse us?"

"Go on, you two. Don't think it hasn't been a little slice of paradise, because it hasn't," Draco drawled, giving Hermione a dirty look that she returned. Harry could tell that tension was ramping up; Draco had been back to his old ways, more and more, and Hermione was not particularly inclined to just suffer through it in silence. He decided to head off a possible brawl.

"Ron? Hermione? Will you come with us? Maybe you can point things out that we might miss." Nothing loath, Ron and Hermione got up, leaving Draco with his two ever-present bodyguards and some of the other "pureblood" faction of their year of Slytherin. "Nice to see you all, but we've only got so much time here."

Once they were out on the streets, Harry said in a low voice: "What we were up to at Gringott's is of interest to you two, and we'll tell you, but only when we're safely back at the castle." With that to appease them, Ron and Hermione calmed down, and they went along their way, making note of the business establishments for later use.

Down a side street, they paused in front of a rather shabby establishment. The faded sign over the door proclaimed it to be the "Hog's Head," and featured a painting of a severed hog's head. "This sure reminds me of home, doesn't it you, Harry?" asked Dudley. Harry nodded. For all that the details were wildly different, it was reminiscent of Roanapur, and he felt homesick for a second.

"Let's see what's inside!" Hermione led them in, and they found themselves in a run-down pub, a great contrast to the well-kept-up, inviting Three Broomsticks. Several disreputable-looking wizards and witches were sitting around at tables or at the bar, behind which a scrawny, white-bearded wizard presided. As the Slytherins entered, the clientele all stopped talking to give the newcomers the hairy eyeball.

While Hermione and Ron were a bit abashed, stopping still in the doorway, Harry and Dudley were utterly unperturbed. They walked on in, laying claim to a table with the sort of aplomb that suggested that they were regulars. "Well, don't be shy, you two. Come on in. Let's have a drink!" Hermione and Ron came on in, edgily, and sat down as though they expected to be attacked.

"Kind of like the Yellowflag, isn't it, Hermione?" Reminded of her visit to Roanapur, Hermione perked up slightly. The white-beard behind the bar came over. "Four butterbeers, please," said Harry. The barkeep nodded and disappeared back behind the bar, coming back with four dusty bottles of butterbeer, which he set on the table when Harry showed him the money.

As they drank up, the atmosphere grew less tense. Muted conversations resumed, and people turned back to what they had been doing, although they still kept an eye on the four Hogwarts students. Since there was nobody wanting service, the barkeep came over and drew up a chair without being invited. "Mind if I join you?" he asked.

"Not at all, not at all," Dudley said. He waved a hand around the table. "Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and, last and least, me, Dudley Dursley." At the name "Harry Potter," the room went silent again for a second, before conversation started up. To Harry's ear, it sounded slightly forced. He bent a gimlet eye on the barkeep.

Under their four stares, the white-bearded wizard said: "Aberforth Dumbledore. This is my pub." Harry's eyebrows went up slightly, and he could see the others giving their new acquaintance a closer look. The resemblance to the Headmaster was there, but this Dumbledore was nothing like the genial, dotty-seeming man who ran their school. He was more feral, and did not seem at all dotty. Harry decided that he was someone who might prove useful.

Aberforth Dumbledore observed: "It ain't often that kids from my brother's school come to the Hog's Head. Why're you here? The Broomsticks kick you out?"

"Nope," said Dudley. "We're just out exploring the town. And this place is a bit of home for me and Harry."

"How so?" Aberforth looked very suspicious. "By your accent, you aren't from the slums. That's a middle-class tongue in your head, or I've never heard one." Harry nodded to himself. Aberforth didn't miss much. Again, he was reminded of their acquaintances in Roanapur.

"Harry and I," with a wave at Harry, "were brought up outside the UK. We were mostly raised in Roanapur, Thailand. Ever heard of Roanapur?"

At the mention of their hometown's name the room went silent again. Aberforth was looking at Harry and Dudley as though they had just pulled guns. "Roanapur? Isn't that the pirate town?" Dudley and Harry both grinned and nodded. "Blimey! No wonder this place doesn't scare you! Most of the students, they take one peep in here and they're out of here faster'n lightning!"

At that, the others in the room relaxed completely. Apparently Roanapur was enough to make them believe that the newcomers could be trusted. Harry looked around. He noticed stairs leading up to the first story. "What's up above us? Do you live there?"

Aberforth nodded. "Aye, I have a flat up there. There's other rooms available as well, by the hour," he winked, and Harry smiled, "or for longer. For a consideration."

This was interesting. Harry leaned over to Dudley, and said in Russian: "We might just find such a thing useful, eh, cousin?" Hermione nodded; she had understood as well. She made a Slytherin hand-signal to Ron, indicating that all would be made clear later. Ron nodded and sipped at his butterbeer.

Harry could see a lot of uses for a place off-campus where he could do things. He had a lot of ideas for ways to make more money while at school, and having a place that was relatively immune to searches from the school authorities would help a lot. He did not think Aberforth Dumbledore would betray him; from what he could tell on brief acquaintance, the pub owner and his famous brother were not on the best possible terms.

As they finished their drinks, the clock on one wall began to chime. "Sorry, Mr. Dumbledore, but we've got to go. We'll be back when we can." Leaving their glasses on the table along with a nice, but not extravagant tip, the four got up to go back to school. Before he left, Harry got Aberforth to give him a piece of parchment with the rates for rentals of rooms on it, so he could look it over at leisure.

When they got back to the castle, they found Slytherin in a state of ferment. Ginny Weasley came running up. "Oh! I'm so glad you're back! Something dreadful happened while you were gone!"

"What was it?" All four of them went on instant high alert.

"Luna was pranked by some of the Gryffindors! She's in the hospital wing right now!"

Harry stiffened. He looked at Dudley, whose eyes had gone cold and dead.

In an icy, calm voice, Dudley said: "Of course you know, this means war."

END Chapter 51