Age Five : Noodle
Harry and Glitterbright ran, the elder goblin sister and her humanly-challenged baby brother were using the time bought by Fangborn to escape the gang of goblin youths determined to eliminate the stain of a wizardborn polluting the caverns of The Nation.
Fangborn son of Griphook was a powerful goblin youth, and advanced in his warrior training, but against six youths of the same age all he could do was buy them moments to run. Glitterbright was a strong and bright goblin girl of eight, dragging a night-blind baby brother of five from those who wished to murder him. She had a very small knife, for the process of laying down goblin silver to make a marriage knife began as a young goblin maiden first learned to touch her magic, and marked her first chance to begin to craft the rune work that made the goblin control of magic. The knife was no longer than an adult goblin's finger and scant use against the short swords of the goblin youths, if not the weapons of power that would threaten an adult wizard, they were enough to end the life of the children being chased.
"We have to get to the wards Harry. No goblin woman is unarmed within the wards of her home. If we get to our wards we are safe!" Glitterbright whispered to Harry. Harry was trying to be a good goblin and be brave. He remembered the stories of the Wars of Shame, when Rome had driven the goblins from the face of the world, the wand-magic pioneered by the Romans had been more than the goblin silver weapons could match upon the surface. When they were driven into the caverns by a Roman Empire determine to end the scourge, they met not simply goblin warriors, but the goblin men and women behind the wards woven by the women, and while proud legions marched into the tunnels, terrified survivors escaped from them.
No goblin woman beneath her wards feared any creature living. They simply needed two more turns of the passage to be safe.
They found Snarltooth and Grimnir tapping their short swords blocking the next turn.
"Let the wizard-born go. There is no need to die with him. For all that you deserve punishment for bringing such filth into the caverns of The Nation, it isn't worth clan war. His blood is enough."
Harry went to pull his hand from Glitterbright. He loved his sister, and a goblin warriors job was to die before one hair on a goblin maiden's head was harmed. Glitterbright's claws dug deep into his hands, drawing blood as she refused to release him. The job of a goblin woman was to shed the last drop of her blood and magic before a child of clan came to harm.
"Let me go. They won't hurt you if you leave." Harry cried.
"We take no thing unearned, but what we have taken we defend to the last drop of our blood!" Swore Glitterbright as she dashed away from the two goblin youths, using her power to slash through the warning wards blocking the tunnels. The wards were to block children and alert adults that these tunnels held dangers that could kill. The tunnels the goblins had been driven to were not safe, even for them, and only the skill and savagry of The Nation had kept them alive since being driven underground.
Still, danger ahead, death behind; there was no safe choice. The cruel laughter of goblin children sounded behind them, as more than simply two pairs of feet followed them, the original attackers having joined the blocking pair in their pursuit. Harry heard hissing sounds coming from the darkness and the cracks surrounding the tunnels.
"Prey comes, many prey. My children will not starve. My mate will be avenged. Kill the goblins!" The voice hissed.
Glitterbright drew up sharply, her goblin vision showing her the great black serpent rising from the darkness, a dozen lesser shapes writhing from the shadows to all sides.
"Rock Vipers!" Whimpered Glitterbright, the magical snakes being second in danger only to the basilisk in the under dark of Europe. The magical snakes were protected by scales that could turn anything beneath the full strength rune blades of a grown goblin warrior, and resist any but the most potent wizard spells. Their venom was not impossible to counter, but you had less than a minute to get the potion into the victim before death was painfully inevitable.
"You will not harm my sister!" Harry hissed as the parsletongue fell instinctively from his lips as he faced the mother serpent.
"Speaker? We will not harm a speaker, nor those you name your speakers kin, but my children and I starve, locked in the tunnels by the goblin warriors. They must have food, or soon they will starve, and I would rather damn myself by striking a speaker than watch my children starve." The Rock Viper mother hissed.
Glitterbright drew Harry behind herself, the tiny knife not a third of the length of the great snakes fang, and utterly incapable of piercing its skin. At that point six goblins, all who had been able to run when they had beaten Fangborn down, burst from the darkness, blades in hand, and cruel laughter at the coming slaughter in their throats.
"Kill them! Kill all the others. I will cut their flesh so that your smallest child may grow strong and fat on their meat if you kill them all!" Harry hissed.
Griphook and ten of his clan pounded down the halls, clad in armour, long rune worked goblin silver blades capable of carving through the strongest wizard shield or deflecting anythng less than the killing curse charged around the corner of the tunnel, expecting to find two of his children's corpses with nothing but vengeance to be taken.
Instead he found the largest Rock Viper he had ever seen, stretched obscenely as if it had eaten something three times its own size, curled up lazily in the middle of the cavern while his daughter Glitterbright carved flesh from painfully contorted goblin child corpses and his youngest son Harry hissed at a collection of black scaled rock vipers that swayed before him, being fed bits of goblin meat.
Griphook sheathed his blades and bade his clansment wait back as he advanced slowly to his children.
"Daughter, I had thought to avenge you, and find you instead clad in victory and blood. Explain." Griphook snarled softly.
Glitterbright didn't look up, but continued carving goblin flesh from her attackers and passing it to Harry who continued to feed the serpents, one of whom was wrapped around his neck and staring at Griphook from where he waved beside Harry's face.
"Harry told the Rock Vipers not to hurt me, and promised that if they killed all our enemies we would cut them up into pieces the little ones could eat." Glitterbright announced, as if butchering goblins for one of the greatest predators of the deeps was simply the logical thing to do.
Harry looked up and petted the snake around his neck. "This is Noodle, father. He wants to come home with me. He promises to bite anyone who bothers us as long as he can borrow my body heat. He doesn't like the cold."
Griphook looked at the mother serpent whose mate had taken a dozen goblin warriors to kill, and who had just defended his two children from a killing he would have been too late to prevent.
"Bargained well and done. Let us see to this contracts payment promptly. Blood and gold should always be repaid promptly." Griphook said, smiling at his children. Pride swelling his chest and tears misting his eyes he drew his own knife to speed the butchery.
"May your vaults flow with gold, and your fangs with blood, protector of my children. I offer the caverns of my clan to you and your children if you will continue to protect those of my blood." Griphook spoke as he addressed the mother serpent. Harry turned and hissed a translation without thought and the great Rock Viper bowed her head, then crawled close to taste his skin with her tongue, then nodded again, having taken the scent of his clan's blood.
Turning to Harry he ruffled his unruly hair. "You have won a strong ally for the clan. The silver of their weapons is yours and your sisters."
Harry beamed up at his father, then when Noodle head butted him, Harry head butted his snake back and the two began hissing at each other. Noodle, Griphook mused. How in the name of Gringotts the Bloody was he supposed to work Noodle into a warrior epic poem for his son? Maybe it sounded better in English? Griphook snorted. No. Goblin or English, Noodle sounded like something that belonged in soup not saga. Harry was never going to be a normal goblin, Griphook mused, nor would he be a weak one.
Age 10: Caldron conundrum
Harry was not going to cry. Goblin warriors did not cry. Goblin warriors made swords of goblin silver as long as they were, and hammered runes into them with the layered intent that made goblin silver impossible to transfigure, to corrode or destroy with normal wizard magic. All goblin males began layering their goblin silver over their knife as soon as they could touch their magic, and by age ten they had at least a functional shortsword that could cut through the finest muggle steel like butter. Goblin women only layered enough goblin silver to make the marriage knife that would be their tool for rune working on wards and the flesh weaving of the family magic.
The worst insult of a goblin warrior was to be called a "short knife" as a goblin without the power to become a warrior would not grow his blade beyond the knife of a woman, and never be able to wield the magical power a goblin should channel through it. The young goblins were beginning to whisper Harry was a short knife, because his blade was just a very strong dagger, a fighting knife but no sword.
Potion Master Feverthorn poured a glass of firewhiskey for both Griphook and Frithweaver as he regarded the parents of his most promising pupil across his desk and smiled with teeth carefully covered as this was an emotionally charged discussion.
"Young Harry is not a short-knife, nor am I keeping him behind because of any lack of skill in brewing. In all honesty, I have never met a goblin, myself included, who has the power to imbue potions equal to that of young Harry. When he began, he was a problem student, not because he had trouble with any of the meticulous disciplines of potion preparation and brewing, but because when I teach goblin children to push as hard as they could to begin to learn to bind their power to potions to make them more than simply muggle chemistry, about half of them were able to push and control their magic outside their body without a runic construct with enough intent to bind and transform the potion in a meaningful way, and half failed to do even that. Harry on the other hand pushed in so much power that the brews failed to contain it and he melted down enough cauldrons that he earned the nickname of Potbane, a play on his wizard name."
Harry hung his head in shame, causing Noodle to slide from his sleeves and ram gently into the side of his head to demand petting. Frithweaver and Griphook looked relieved. They were proud of their odd human son, but worried when he could not grow the blade of manhood that way other goblins could.
Potion Master Feverthorn sipped his own fire whiskey and breathed a short puff of flame and mused softly. "It is well that it was Harry and not Glitterbright with this problem, or we might not have noticed the obvious answer."
Frithweaver, reacting to the suggestion of racism in the contrasting of her human and goblin children felt her hand going to her own marriage knife and her magic snarled and snapped about her leaving visible sparks.
"What are you implying, Potion Master, and choose your next words carefully!" Frithweaver snarled, dangerous as any goblin mother when her children were questioned.
"Glitterbright is a goblin maiden, she would never expect to grow her magical focus beyond that of the marriage knife because goblin maidens and matrons magic is proven in the weaving and control of the wards in flesh and bone, metal and stone; theirs is the subtle manipulation and crafting. No one would have noticed that Glitterbright could not grow her blade any more, that would be expected. No, if Harry had been a girl, we would have simply wondered why she could not see the flow of the wards the way any goblin maiden would, and had to rely on arithromancy to determine the required balance and shape of a ward pattern like a goblin warrior or human wizard. Harry is neither a goblin warrior whose focus is the sword of goblin sivler that grows with his power and knowledge, nor a goblin maiden whose focus is the very wards of her hearth and home. He is a wizard born. His focus will be a wand." Potion Master Feverthorn concluded smugly.
"A wand?" Blinked Frithweaver. "But he has our runes woven into his flesh, amplifying his magic like any goblin of the clan, maid or warrior. Wizards don't do that!"
Griphook smiled, his teeth baring in a predator's threat. "Lord Potter was a famed Auror, a wizard warrior strong enough that Voldemort had to kill him himself. Lady Potter was far more powerful and dangerous in her own way, ruthless enough to be a goblin in her own right. If our Harry has the power woven into his flesh by his mother's sacrifice, Voldemort's soul fragment and our own goblin rune magic, and still focused through the wizard's magical amplifier of their damned wands, how strong do you think he will be?"
Potion Master Feverthorn smiled his own fanged grin. "I think I am happy I will not be paying to replace the cauldrons and castle that our young Harry will blow up as he learns, again, to try to fit the power of a dragon into the spell structure or potion formula designed for a baby duck."
Three goblins laughed the laugh of goblins finding an exploitable loophole in a contract or enemy caught unarmed, one wizard-goblin child blushed, and one Noodle head butted his idiot Speaker who stopped petting before Noodle was done being ignored.
Age 11: You know what, for you know who.
Hagrid chatted merrily to young Harry Potter who looked on in horror, and whose snake Noodle hissed in outright hilarity as the Keeper of Keys and Grounds in Hogwarts proceeded to blab every secret he had ever been within earshot of to a goblin/wizard he had just met without any promting or sign of slowing down.
Turning in horror to Fangborn his brother who drove the cart, he whispered in Goblin.
"Tell me all wizards are not this stupid. He has just told me that the small object in his pocket is the most dangerous and valuable thing given to Dumbledore because no one else could defend it from Voldemort, and that any pickpocket with half a brain, or assassin still with his training knife could take it any time while he is taking me shopping for my SCHOOL SUPPLIES!"
Fangborn laughed softly, ignoring Hagrids muttered "Shouldn't have said that!" that somehow failed to stop his non-stop blurting of secrets and replied in quiet goblin.
"This one is far larger and stupider than your average wizard. Dumbledore is supposedly the wisest and most powerful wizard of the light faction. However, this wise and powerful wizard gave his greatest secret and the protection of his prophesied savior boy-who-lived to this giant security risk, so assume you are going to have to take steps to secure your own safety." Fangborn said grimly.
Striding from Gringotts to take Harry shopping in the wizards Diagon Alley, Hagrid was an excellent tour guide, if the greatest single argument against wizard security consciousness the young goblin had ever seen.
"You will be needing a trunk of course to hold all the cauldrons and books and whatnot, then your robes and books, and last your wand. Can't be a wizard without yer wand." Hagrid said, although he winced at the end and finally stopped his usual roaring boom and subsided into pained muttering as if recalling something especiall shameful or traumatic. At least he was done booming his secrets for everyone in a hundred meters.
"I do not need a trunk, cauldron, or robes. My clan has seen me outfitted as befits a son of Griphook. By wizarding law we are forbidden to walk above ground unless called by a Lord of House or at direction of a Ministerial Undersecretary or better. I will require books and a wand." Harry spoke firmly, knowing Hagrid was about as distractable as one of the goblin younglings he had charge of during his duty hours in the clan creche.
Hagrid looked upon the tight aisles of Flourish and Blots and determined that Harry could be left alone for his book shopping.
Piling his first year course books onto the trolly hidden in his shrinkable trunk, Harry began looking for the books on Arithromancy, Rune Lore, advanced potions, and enchantments that were what human wizards learned to replicate what goblins did with their own magic.
"Those books are meant for third years, not for first years. I had to ask myself, because they looked very interesting and more similar to what I know than any of the spell books we have for first year." A young girls voice sounded behind him like a tiny librarian crossed with a squirrel.
Turning around, Harry found himself confronted with another human, a witch whose physical appearance did nothing to dispel the impression her voice gave of a tiny librarian crossed with a squirrel. She had prominent front teeth like a squirril or beaver and a great untamable mass of hair like some small forest creature, yet her eyes and face had the focus and determination of a goblin maiden whose bearing told the rowdiest goblin boy that he spoke with a future Mistress of Clan, not a tavern wench, and should pay her due respect and attention lest not all of his body be found.
"I'm Hermione Grainger, muggle born. I had no idea I was even a witch until I got my Hogwarts letter, although it explains a lot of things that had been strange that happened around me. I dug ever so deep in science to explain them, but not everything fit. I suppose you know all about that, being a wizard born yourself." The young witch babbled with a direct and uncomplicated stream of conciousness so different from Hagrid's broken meanderings that Harry had to grin.
"Harry Potter, son of Griphook of the Hematite Clan, of Gringotts and the Goblin Nation, at your service. I am sorry to report that any of the spells in first year are going to be at least as much a mystery to me as to you. Goblins don't really do spells, because we can't use wands. We can use runes, and potions, there is lots of magic you can do without a wand or knowing any spells at all. That is what these books are for." Harry said, gesturing at his runes and arithromancy books.
"I was told we aren't allowed to do magic outside of school until we are of age? Something about the statute of secrecy?" Hermione frowned.
Harry, his goblin rage ignited by memory of the laws designed to keep the Most Ancient and Noble Houses of the wizards on top, and everyone else crushed into powerless poverty began his rant.
"Those laws exist to keep the pure blooded elite in power, as their children can do as much magic behind their wards as they want, making their children by far the best perfomring in school, and able to secure the best positions after graduation because they have been learning and practicing non stop their entire lives and you are only allowed those few hours of class, only in school, for seven years." Harry snarled, his snake Noodle rousing at his rage and sliding from his sleeve, seeing only a little squirrel girl staring back at his speaker, evidently no threat.
Hermione's eyes went wide. She was raised by liberal dentists who took pains to point out to her the privilege she was raised in, and the social inequalities of the muggle world. To find out that the wizarding world was not only as bad, but as much worse as pre-revolution France under the bloated and corrupt aristocracy roused her to matching fury.
"That is horrible! That isn't fair! How are we supposed to compete against that?" Hermione raged.
Harry opened his book and showed the young muggle born witch.
"This is rune lore, something developed by goblins and stolen by wizards, it requires magical power to infuse, but the ability to craft and empower an array is based on hard won knowledge that comes from hundreds of hours of study and discipline, of meditation and fine focus on control. This is what goblin maidens train on since learning to read, and the basis of the wards of Gringotts that are strong enough every wizard trusts them with their gold. You don't need a wand to learn it, you need intelligence, and effort."
Hermione looked at the runes and the dense text describing their theory and practice, finding the sort of structured knowledge she had sought intellectual refuge in the sciences and law. She was starting to calm down from her tear stained rage into something more of a growing plan (Hermione liked plans), when Harry dropoped another book on her.
"This is Arithromancy, it uses mathmatics to describe the relationships of magic to reality and the interactions of power in reshaping the universe. While goblin maidens and matrons have the innate sense of these relationships, goblin men and wizards have to use math to map out those relations to show how power can be contained, can be focused, and how it must be shaped to make a desired effect, whether it is a ward, a charm, a transformation, or a simple shaped elemental effect work."
Hermione blinked, "But that isn't taught until at least third year, and its optional at that. Magical theory isn't even optional until the forth year after you have a full year of arthromancy successfully completed at least Exceptional!" Hermione said, already suspecting the flaw in the planned curriculum.
Harry sneered. "Right, so no one gets taught how magic theoretically works until the year before they do their OWLs and determine their ability to even enter the NEWTS required for higher careers. Meanwhile the pureblood children are raised from infancy being taught how magic works, why it works, and by the time muggle born, half-bloods, and goblin raised get a chance to learn how everything works, the doors to the esteemed professions are already closed against them."
Hermione opened the arithromancy text and began to read. "This is just math, and honestly not even that advanced. I mean, I studied calculus and statistics, dabbled a little bit in thermodynamics in both chemistry and physics but this seems like a fairly dumbed down version." Hermione mused.
Harry grinned. "I studied under a senior account manager at Gringotts, I was doing math tougher than this before my mother stopped bathing me. How hard do you think those pureblood kids have been working since they already know the system is rigged so they always win?"
Hermione matched the grin. "Not nearly as hard as I do."
She frowned. "Still, Hogwarts seems geared to let the purebloods win. Even working our hardest, if the system is that rigged, how far can we get.
Harry slid out the last book, one not on any recommended list from Hogwarts, one written by the Goblin Nation itself and translated into English for the children of Gringotts curse-breakers and other valued human allies.
"Hogwarts Houses: A study in paths to power" Hermione read the title, then looked up to Harry.
"There are four houses. Griffindor is for those who seek conflict and challenge as their path to power, this house is where warriors are drawn, but honestly for the purebloods it is a path to power, for the muggle born and half bloods, it is a chance to be cannon fodder to win glories for their more advantaged brethren.
Ravenclaw, the house of knowledge, for those who seek knowledge as their path to power. This would sound like a good place, but this is wizard knowledge, so as much as the house supports the acquisition of knowledge, they also know it as their competitive advantage and those purebloods with access to family knowledge and libraries will never share that and dilute thier own advantage.
Slytherin, the house of the cunning and ambitious. That would sound like a good fit, except it is the house of the pureblood fanatics, those who use privilege as a weapon and advantage as armour. They are the most invested in keeping outsiders down. Neither you nor I would find any support there.
Hufflepuff, the house of the hardworking. Hufflepuffs are know as the house for everyone else, they have the worst reputation because they will take those who value something other than climbing over others at all costs to succeed. Hufflepuffs value loyalty and hard work. Hufflepuffs don't require you be the best to get in their halls, they require you give your best while you are in them. Hufflepuffs don't pride themselves on the advantages they bring, but on what they earn with their own sweat, blood, and tears."
Hermione gripped the book and read the description of Hufflepuff and the examples of successful and famous Hufflepuffs. For a house deemed as the "also rans" a house of the unexceptional, they nurtured just as many famous talents as the other houses, but talents that rose to the top on their own merits and the power of the friendships they built along the way, not family connections.
"This, this is our house. This is the house we can succeed in." Hermione said fiercely, jotting down the titles of Harry's books on a scrap of parchment.
Harry grinned at her. "Learn all of this before you get to Hogwarts and you will be ready to show those purebloods to be afraid of a muggle born witch."
Hermione grinned back. "Or a goblin."
Hagrid could only smile when Harry waved at the young witch as they exited the bookstore and headed for Olivander's for a wand.
"The explosions were bad enough that Harry was wearing his dragonhide gloves. Two wands had shattered in his hands. Several others had exploded nearby shelves and plants, one had conjured a niffler that raided the cashbox for twenty galleons before it escaped.
Olivander's hair was smoking slightly as he eyed the young goblin critically.
"Mister Potter, might I be correct in assuming that you have undergone at least your beginning family rituals and you bear more than the single rune of power on your forehead?" Olivander asked.
Harry's heart sunk and he opened his robes to show the glowing Othala and Algiz runes on his chest to match the Soweillo of his curse scar.
"Three runes of power. Normally a wizard would not see that level of amplification unless he had undergone at least half a dozen dark rituals to magnify his body, mind and spirit. Those rituals have been banned since Grindewald and the only one ever to dabble in them since was..."
Olivander broke off and turned to Harry speculatively. "I wonder..."
He ran to the back and came out with a wand box covered in dust.
"Try this Mister Potter. This wand has a phoenix feather core, from a phoenix that has only ever given one other feather. That feather was the core of the wand of the most powerful wizard I ever sold a wand to. A wizard that went as far down paths forbidden to wizard kind as your goblin runes have left you." Olivander smiled, a bare tooth smile the young goblin recognized as the warning it was.
Taking up the wand, he felt his runes flood with power, he felt his body grow warm and his skin to burn with a golden light he associated with a closing rune array or settling enchantment. With a quiet whisper, he spoke "Lumos"
The dark of the store was ravaged by a light so powerful it hurt even through closed lids and an upraised arm. The wand sang with Harry's power, and his core sang back in joy.
A blunt black head slammed into his temple and a Noodle hissed.
"Sssstop that. It hurts, and you are just showing off anyway."
Harry grinned. Sure, he was again having control issues, but he had a wand, a wand that could handle all of his power and more. Bring on Hogwarts!