Summary

31st of July 1987, Harry receives a letter that rocks his world.

And that changes the entire world too.

and a very hopeful child who deserves the world and gains a bunch of family members

Chapter 1: PROLOGUE

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Rotgard Longsword of the Silverfang Clan, Head of his glorious and ancient Clan, former European War General of the Goblin Nation, and current Master Goblin of the Office for Hereditary Affairs in the London branch of the Gringotts Bank, was a typical, yet for some atypical, goblin.

He was typical in the sense that he was bloodthirsty just as any other self-respecting goblin would be, although he claimed to be more than the rest. He also cherished gold and glory over everything else, craving both more than one could crave sustenance, and he had acquired the Goblin Nation much of either. He enjoyed sharpening his swords as he recounted the tales of how he had used them to his youngsters, inspiring the following generations with his recounts without the need to embellish them. He was precise and strict, and damn good at his job if he dared say so himself, and he had very little contempt for those that did not follow the rules of the great Goblin Nation, having personally escorted those who disrespected them to their deaths.

He knew he was a proper goblin and he had many accomplishments to his name and there was no room nor need in his body for doubt.

Yet his enemies, the members of opposing Clans who were envious of his family and jealous of his many accomplishments in battle, dared to disrespect him by claiming that he cared about wixen-kind. They claimed him to be atypical for this rumour they had themselves spread, with no truthfulness whatsoever.

He could not care less for those filthy wixen with their pathetic headgear and their weak hands and their unsharpened wands. Most of them had no honour and they were led, in his honest and unbiased opinion, by mindless idiots, who would have doomed their entire race to extinction if they did not wake up and change their way of life. They disrespected Lady Magic herself by believing themselves important in the grand scheme of Nature and by believing they could harness all Her powers without repercussions.

He despised wixen-kind as a whole.

But he had once, a mere weeks before his retirement from field duty, claimed that a few could be reasoned with. He had met quite a number of wixen in his life, had challenged them to battle and had dealt with them enough to know that, while wixen-kind as a whole was repulsive, a few might possess enough intellect to hold a conversation. He also believed that, as long as the wixen young could be taught properly, they could become productive members of society and respectful bearers of Magic.

He did think that the future generations, of all races and branches of Magic, could improve from the past ones.

His enemies had overheard his words and twisted them amongst themselves, making it seem as if he was a soft, weak, and tear-prone drunk who loved wixen-kind, instead of the ruthless and calculative general he was.

Once those hateful stories had reached his ears, he had been "forced" to enact his revenge on them and to spill enough of their blood to fill several small rivers, not that that had been a chore. He had been itching for years for a reason to detach his enemies' heads from their necks, after all.

And he was a proper goblin and goblins did not tolerate disrespect and did demand retribution.

Yet their poison had been spread and he had been identified as wixen-tolerant.

In the end, that monicker ended up serving him well.

It all happened a few months after his official retirement.

Despite the smear campaigning against him, he had received, at the end of his military career, the highest of honours for his long years of service to the Goblin King. He had ended his career with three of his original limbs and both of his eyes, even if age had taken its toll on him and he had to use glasses to read small and big print alike. He had brought glory to his name and made his Clan flourish under his guidance. And he was headset on enjoying the peace of unemployment, caring for his Clan, and doting on his grandchildren, until his last breath.

Needless to say, in a few months he had grown bored out of his mind.

He had been a bloodthirsty general, singlehanded organiser and sole victor of 313 battles for the glory of the Goblin Nation. He had not been made to try and feed tiny toddlers who refused to eat their meals and did not follow orders!

He would have gladly swapped battle cries with their wailing any day.

Yet he was the Head of his Clan, had been made so after his Aunt's passing, and as such it meant he was not allowed on the battlefield any longer. He was granted the honour of representing his Clan in front of the King and he could guide his young as best as he could, but he did miss the sound of screams as organs fell out of bodies. It had been a blessing that her death had come a week after his retirement, for he would have hated to shorten his career on the accounts of the old hag dying.

On a very unassuming day, he had been contemplating his monotony, still newfound despite the many moons that had passed already, stirring his tea and adding honey, while he reminisced how he had breached the impenetrable walls of a Troll city. He and his wife had a few hours of tranquillity to themselves before their horde of tiny goblins was let out of their schooling and began to destroy their home. He thought it would be appropriate to initiate their military training, to give them some discipline, but his wife and their children claimed them to be too young to learn how to march and follow a superior's orders, which tied his own hands quite bluntly. But gave him quite some time to prepare an accurate curriculum of bloodshed to teach once time was right.

If he did not die of boredom before the time was right.

A knock came on their door, startling him in a way that would have not been possible back in his prime.

Once he opened it, two smartly dressed goblins appeared before him, showing their fangs in sign of salute. He had to hide his disdain at their attire, but assumed that they clearly associated with wixen and therefore had to dress similarly to them to appear less threatening to the small-minded humans. But, despite their clothing, the two goblins bowed to him properly, showing him the honours his former position had granted him, before introducing themselves and asking to be allowed inside his home.

They came from the London branch of the Gringotts Bank, which he had already gathered by their faint British accent and their peculiar clothes.

They came with a proposition, having heard of his bloodthirst and ruthlessness and, they reluctantly admitted, on his opinions of wixen-kind.

"As bankers, we have to interact with them and we have found that their presence becomes much more bearable if one is tolerant of their race and does not believe them all to be insufferable bastards. Mind you, General, most of them are, and they are rude and intolerable and downright rotten. But they do bring forth gold and they are somewhat useful."

Yet, before they explained what their proposition was, they had to recount a bit of recent wixen history, to give him the right context, they claimed.

Apparently, while he was off pursuing the glory of the Goblin Nation and not caring about wixen affairs, slaying his enemies and amassing riches in the name of his King, and while muggles destroyed themselves for their ideas and for land, for the umpteenth time (muggles were just as vicious as goblins, after all, and even if they did not possess the magic they did have the bloodthirst) the wixen of Europe had pointed their wands at each other and fought in a bloody war.

Bloody not in the way a goblin could appreciate, with death and purposeful destruction and blood and gore.

Bloody in the sense that it had been futile, for the state of affairs before and after had remained the same, even if the scales had a bit shifted towards the Light side, with the outlawing of several Dark magical practices that the victors believed to be "barbaric" and "inhuman".

Bloody in the sense that it dragged on for years, with scheming and spying and deceit between the respective leaders of the feuding factions, two wizards named Dumbledore and Grindelwald. The former, despite his belonging to the Light Side of Magic, preferred to work in the shadows and manipulate his way through the world, bidding his time until it was just right for him to sweep into the scene and defeat his enemy. The latter, despite being a Grey Wizard, associated with the Dark Side fervently and, while he too manipulated his following, he was much more open about his goals of total domination of all the other races of the Earth, thus creating more enemies for himself that were strictly necessary.

Bloody in the sense that it was a stupid war that made no sense whatsoever and served only to diminish their already small numbers.

And the Goblin Nation did not care whether or not wixen killed themselves nor did they think the threat to their own people to be real and therefore they had not intervened, showing the wixen just how fearsome goblins truly were and why, exactly, they were impossible to be surpassed and dominated.

In the end, their silly little "war" had been resolved without Goblin Intervention and the wixen were repairing their nations.

But then, little over two decades later, another wizard had come to wreak havoc in British society. A self-proclaimed Dark Lord, who gave himself the title without passing through the proper channels, called Lord Voldemort, even if the name bore no family insignia nor motto, decided that to achieve his goals he needed to start another bloody war, in the sense that that one too was stupid and pointless. He too campaigned for domination over the other races, he too disdained Lady Magic for he did not respect the necessity of a Light counterpart to his own Dark, and he too was awfully unprepared to deal with the reality of the World and of War, of which he had no knowledge of.

The only thing he had proper knowledge of were the so-called "Unforgivable" Curses, which he and his followers used freely to decimate the British wixen population.

Everyone who had taken an interest in the ordeal was expecting the leader of the Light Side Dumbledore to step up and remove the so-called Dark Lord from the situation, but he took to the shadows once again, avoiding direct conflict to maintain some sort of innocence and superiority that had apparently managed to fool the wixen communities of the World to believe him to be a wise old man, instead of a grand manipulator and murderer.

In the end, though, the dark wizard had been defeated, very recently, which brought them to his door.

"By a toddler nonetheless, if General Silverfang Longsword could believe it!" the younger of the bankers told him, almost conspiratorially. And he could believe it, given he had learnt first-hand how vicious children could be by witnessing his own grandchildren fight over toys, food, attention or, weirdly enough, the right to be breathing the same air as their siblings.

"This has been a grand recounting, fellow goblins," he told them, for every tale of war was grand no matter what, despite the perhaps lacklustre performance in the art from the wixen part, "yet I fail to see the reason behind your visit."

It was peculiar, the way they were breaching the subject.

It was almost militaristic, which piqued his interest.

Banker Goblins believed the muggle saying "Time is Money" and they behaved that way, given that money and gold were their utmost priority. They pried themselves in their punctuality and in their ruthlessness when dealing with the wixen economy. They were precise and never erratic, but they did not waste time around explaining or dilly-dallying. They went into quick battles of wits and left satisfied.

Warrior Goblins, on the other hand, knew the importance of patience, of planning, of staking a target and controlling all the possible exits at all times. They knew how to wait before reaching their point and destroying their enemies.

And, indeed, the way the two goblins conducted themselves in front of him spoke loudly of preparation.

They continued speaking to him about the situation the British Ministry of Magic was facing, how the wars had decimated the population and left gaping holes in their juridical and legislative bodies. Gaps that were either left dormant or were being illegitimately filled by the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, their little Light Leader Dumbledore himself, who was abusing his power over their Nation to bring it to ruin. They told him how wixen were highly self-centred, egotistical, jealous of each other and were constantly and purposefully sabotaging one another. They told him, quite frankly, how, if left to their own devices, they would bring ruin to Magic Herself.

And, finally, they brought forth their proposal.

An office had been created at the same time as the Goblin Nation had started to build their banks, for even if wixen were useless in general, their dependence on the Goblin Nation to sustain their own economy was useful to goblin-kind as a whole. Wixen got their coins and Goblins got their gold.

The office's goal was to allow wixen-kind to continue, sort to say. It served the purpose of dealing with Inheritances, Lordships and Heirships, which in every magical culture were of the utmost importance. It was highly functional and had saved many Noble Wixen Houses from extinction, finding continuation to their lines amongst descendants that had been forgotten or removed from their tapestries.

Obviously for a price, of course.

But that office had lost its original prestige during the centuries, with the wixen wrongly believing they could deal with their inheritances and heirs all on their own, protecting their secrets to an extent that their young themselves did not know about them.

But goblins were persistent and had reversed the damage before it was too late.

In all the communities and in all of the branches of the Gringotts Bank untouched by these silly wars, the goblins that managed the Office of Hereditary Affairs had restored it to its original glory and purpose, and their countries were flourishing with refreshed familiar magic that was no longer lost or forgotten.

In Continental Europe, which had been struck down by Grindelwald only, they had had decades to restore the family lines and were advancing towards progress and were headset to unite with the rest of the Magical World.

But after those two bloody wars, bloody in the sense that they had decimated the British wixen population leaving no new blood or money to take their place in their juridical and executive and legislative bodies, their community was crumbling.

And wixen communities all over the World were not unlike dominoes: one falls, the rest follows.

The members of the London branch had tried, for years, to remedy all the tragedies and to restore the British wixen community to its original splendour, sort to say, but they had found dozens of obstacles in their course.

Firstly, there was simply the lack of heirs and spares. The wixen had completely lost sight of everything but their lineage, it seemed, choosing willingly to marry and procreate amongst their own to remain pure, instead of opening up and expanding their domain. And one thing led to another and infertility rates had skyrocketed in a few decades of inbreeding. They refused to allow new children, who had no other familiar ties or who had unfavourable situations, into their families, completely forgoing the concept of blood adoptions that had saved so many.

To add madmen into consideration meant that many ancient lines were completely forgotten or destitute or utterly lost.

Secondly was the smear campaign against wixen who came from muggle communities. Both wars had targeted them as thieves of Magic and as improper users, instead of acclaiming them as the miracle of Magic Awakening they truly were. And, while it was true that most wixen who were raised amongst muggles had chaotic and unclaimed magic, not tied to any familial tree, a good portion of them came from dormant lines that had reactivated after decades or centuries of silence. Still, the closedness of the wixen community came more as a hindrance than as an aid to avoid conflict and detection that the so-called "purebloods" claimed it to be, for they did not incorporate the muggleborns in their society, thus alienating them and creating more conflict inside their own communities.

Thirdly, and surprisingly most terrifyingly, was the brutal tries to eradicate all sorts of Magic that was considered Dark. Necromancy, Soul Magic, Blood Magic, Natural Magic, all were dying out because they were not associated with the Light side their community was clearly favouring. The Leader of the Light Side was doing a dreadfully clever job of removing his enemies through laws and edicts, all quite illegally passed. But there was no opposition to his ruling, with so many seats in the British Wizengamot either lost or controlled by himself and his proxies.

The Situation had become, quite frankly, dire.

All of these things brought the two bankers to General Silverfang Longsword with a plea, more than a proposition.

They had tried to follow the rules that were set by the Goblin Nation and the Ministry of Magic, but were met with closed doors and empty platitudes. They had tried to work the system in a way only a goblin knew how to, finding loopholes and secrets and schemes that they could use to bring the British wixen community to the 20th century, but then they had found their hands tied with ridiculous restrictions that had been erect sorely to allow a single wizard to control his nation while pretending to be doing nothing.

They had tried the bureaucrat route and failed.

They were done failing. They were done trying to appease a kind that had no regard for their own survival and would doom the rest of the Magic World to ruin. They were done allowing wixen who had no contempt for anyone but themselves destroy their community. They were going to wage a battle to restore the British Wizarding Society to its original state, through laws and edicts and rules, of course, but also through blood and fire.

They needed a General to pave their way and lead them through victory.

And then, smelling blood amongst the papers and tapestries and heirlooms, Rotgard smiled.

In the end, the wixen-tolerant monicker had served him well indeed