Chapter Two: The Key and the Crown
The sky over London was still bruised with the last traces of night when Harry apparated into Diagon Alley, hood drawn low and footsteps silent. The Alley was asleep - only a few delivery owls stirred in the distance, and the lamps burned with a faint golden flicker.
He'd worry about the past, future?, he'd left behind later. It wasn't like he missed any part of it, really. If this was his second chance, he'd do it right. He'd lay the foundations for a wizarding world that could stand on its own two feet.
Gringotts loomed ahead, just as he remembered. White stone, black iron, goblin-guarded and unbending. Harry adjusted the wand holstered on his wrist, stepped forward, and let the massive doors open with a groan of old magic.
The goblins noticed him the second he entered. That was fine. He'd counted on it.
He approached the front desk with measured confidence.
"I'd like to request a private audience regarding the Potter accounts," he said quietly. "Lineage verification and potential heirship claim."
The goblin behind the desk didn't blink, but something in its posture changed. Interest, maybe. Suspicion, definitely.
"Name?"
"Harry James Potter."
A pause. Then a motion.
"Follow me."
He walked behind the counter, following the wizened goblin thought an iron door and down a narrow passageway. The goblin opened a door on his left and gestured for Harry to go through, then closed it with a slam.
Harry waited for five minutes before another door swung open on the other side of the room, and a different goblin entered.
"You claim to be Harry James Potter?" the goblin rasped.
"I do."
The goblin sneered, and beckoned Harry towards him. Harry could see a long thin dagger hanging at the goblin's waist; not a weapon he wanted to be on the wrong side of.
"Stand in the circle".
Harry glanced down and saw he had walked into a small circle of runes, unlit at present, and planted his feet firmly in the centre.
The ritual was painful, as he'd expected. Once out of the circle, he had to write his full name on a piece of parchment. The blood quill scratched his name in red, and the runes on the floor spun into place as a lineage tree formed underneath his name.
When it finished, the goblin, who finally introduced himself as an elder named Ragthar, peered at the parchment, then at Harry.
"You are the last of your line. As such, by blood, by magic, and by law, you are Lord Potter."
Ragthar did not deign to bow, but he seemed to stand a little straighter; his eyes became slightly less suspicious.
"I am the Potter account manager. I have held this position for almost two centuries. It is your prerogative as to whether you retain my services".
Ragthar seemed to almost be challenging Harry, to dare him to fire him.
"Well met, Ragthar. I hope our relationship will flourish and our vaults be overflowing".
Harry knew that account managers saw any vaults they oversaw as partially 'their' vaults. It was mainly this that led to such a high degree of service.
Ragthar nodded once, and bared his teeth.
A ring box appeared with a soft click. Inside sat a heavy ring of dark silver, set with a blood-red stone carved with the Potter crest.
Harry slipped it on.
The cold bite of magic sealed around his finger. He felt himself being tested, and not being found wanting.
"Do you understand what this entails?" Ragthar asked.
Harry nodded slowly. "I do. But I'll need guidance. Quiet guidance."
Ragthar bared his teeth in something that was almost a smile. "You'll have it. The Potter line has slept too long. Perhaps it is time to stir the old blood."
~OvO~
Harry stepped out of Gringotts into the cold morning light. He'd spent over an hour with Ragthar, first proving his identity, then discussing his strategy.
Ragthar had been helpful, and had almost divulged a story about Harry's father before the hour was up, but Harry knew he'd have to improve his standing with the goblins before anything like that would happen.
He walked out into Diagon Alley, casting his mind back to his Hogwarts letter and trying to remember what he had to buy.
Giving it up as a bad job, Harry walked into Flourish and Blotts and asked for the Hogwarts first year's books.
"Leaving it a bit late aren't you son?" asked the shop assistant.
"I was... away, until yesterday. Now is the first chance I've had to get to Diagon".
The assistant eyed him warily, but gathered up the necessary books nonetheless.
After buying a new set of robes and a rather impressive trunk, Harry wondered about his wand. He still had it, of course, from the 'future', but did that mean that Ollivander had mysteriously misplaced the unique holly and phoenix feather wand in this timeline? He didn't want to chance fate so didn't bother to enter the venerated wandmaker's shop, but he did make sure to stop and buy a very familiar snowy white owl.
"You'd not believe the trouble we've had with that one" the old witch said, "She's tried to nip the finger of anyone who came and looked at her!"
Harry stroked the owl's soft feathers and managed to hold back any tears, before handing over eight galleons and leaving the shop.
"Hedwig" he murmured.
He apparated back to the outskirts of King's Cross with fifteen minutes to spare.
His trunk, charmed and light, hovered silently at his side. Hedwig, sleepy but alert, shifted inside her cage. His robes were new. His face younger. But his mind… oh, his mind carried wars, betrayals, deaths.
He would make allies, but not friends. Not yet. He would watch. Listen. Adjust.
He would not be a pawn this time.
Let the game begin.