When they were done, Harry could do nothing but sit there completely mind blown. That was the most ludicrous story he had ever heard. He barely believed it, but he knew what the spell was supposed to do and it matched their explanations a little bit.
"Can you repeat that?" Harry said, lost on what to say to the story they had relayed. "You're telling me that you guys were immortal elves?"
"That is what we said," Lestrange, Caranthir? said, deadpan and scowling. Harry ignored him for the moment.
"And you all fought in many battles?"
There was a sigh and an eye roll, but Bill nodded in affirmation.
"You mainly went to war because you swore an oath to retrieve three gems?"
Lestrange looked like he wanted to bash Harry's head in, and Malfoy looked just about ready to be anywhere but the room. Harry took the resounding silence as a yes.
"You also might have killed your own kin, and kidnapped children?"
"Just the two children," Elvis 'please-call-me-Maglor' clarified, as if that made it any better.
"And by kin, we mean elves. It's like humans killing humans, pretty common." One of the twins clarified, not comforting Harry in the slightest.
"Alright, whatever. Not my problem right now." Harry claimed waving his hand in front of himself. There were slightly more pressing matters, such a) how nobody else could see them. And he couldn't believe that he just thought that there were more pressing matters than the fact that he was surrounded by murderers, but well, ignorance is bliss.
"And what is your problem right now?" Black asked, peering at him like he was some science experiment. From what he'd heard about Regulus Black and Curufin, he probably was a science experiment.
"How come no one else can see you?" Harry asked and continued with the rapid-fire questions. "Don't most of you have work? Or lives to be living currently? I know Bill is supposed to be working in Gringotts currently."
The gleam in Black and the twins' eyes meant trouble, Harry knew, and he winced at the thought.
"Bill is supposed to be working in Gringotts," George breathed out as if just coming to that realization. And the dawning horror Harry felt at the thought of their conversation a day or two ago was chilling.
"No. No. No," he shook his head wildly, standing up and flailing his arms, much to Maglor's amusement. "I don't care who the lot of you were, you are not breaking into Gringotts."
"We could only break into vaults of supposed Death Eaters," Lestrange suggested fire in his dark eyes.
"You are a death eater," Harry shot back, and then he sat down in shock. He was getting comfortable around them. A bit too comfortable, and if the story they told him was correct, he didn't even know them.
That was the worst thought to be had in his life. Harry was getting comfortable with having a murderous redhead, lunatic twins, a mind-reading stranger, and three death eaters following him around and essentially stalking him. Just what was going on in his life for this to be normal?
It didn't help that they hadn't revealed who they were to him. To him, they seemed like relatively normal, if eccentric, siblings. Could he really trust his judgement if they could deceive him this easily?
'We've had practice with it,' Maglor said, and Harry shook his head to dislodge the thought.
He needed time to process, and he needed to be away from the seven elves as he did. He wasn't even slightly ashamed to say that he ran away again, much to the seven brothers' confusion and disappointment.
Obviously, they wanted to recruit him to break into the most secure bank in the world. But Hogwarts was the most secure building, and Harry knew how utterly lax the security around here was. Dumbledore's measures were truly questionable. And if Hogwarts was the most secure building in the world, then surely Gringotts wouldn't be too difficult to break into!
When the reality of his thoughts hit him, Harry let out a half-groan, half-scream. This was getting to the point where it was horrifying. He wasn't a delinquent. He did not contemplate murder or torture or thievery or breaking and entering!
'What about arson?' Maglor's voice whispered in his head, threaded with the softer voices of the twins. He could hear the teasing tone in his voice, with a bitter undertone, but he couldn't deal with any of it for much longer. He didn't want to be held responsible for the mess they would create.
At that, Harry made up his mind.
"Just leave me alone for a bit, why don't you?" He said, changing course to the same abandoned classroom his life had changed in. He mentally revised the spell he was going to perform.
In the room, it took him all of ten minutes to set up everything as necessary, and in less than fifteen minutes, he started the spell. As before magic drained from his body, into the runes on the floor and dispersed in a shockwave.
Unlike last time, his magic connected to another source, leading to a shockwave.
When the shockwave reversed, there was a bright flash of light. Harry kept his eyes closed, hoping against everything that his spell worked this time. He opened his eyes to an empty room, the runes etched into the floor, but not glowing. He didn't know what he had expected, but this wasn't it.
Slumping in disappointment, Harry sat down.
Looked like he would be doing more research.
Hopefully they would stay away as he did said research.
