Reading Time: 95 Minutes

Title: Hidden Resources for Young Men of Quality
Author: MeyariMcFarland
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Contemporary, Family, Fantasy, Humor, Paranormal/Supernatural, Urban Fantasy
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, canon child abuse and war, grief and mourning, mental breakdown, Dumbledore bashing
Word Count: 115,299
Summary: Six years into Hogwarts and Harry was well used to being shuffled off to Privet Drive for the summer. Oh, traumatic things happened, great events going on, be a good boy and go back in your fetid little box. Not a lot that Harry could do about it yet, but still looked like Harry had yet another miserable summer aimed right at him. Until a letter came by courier from beyond the grave.
Artist: ani

---

---

 

Part Three: Rising Tide Raising (Most) Ships

21. When Starting a New Path, Take Appropriate Care

Harry woke up.

Warm and comfortable, with thick blankets and a bed that was, maybe, the most comfortable thing he’d ever experienced supported his aching body. It was a bit of a shock. From his point of view, Harry had flopped down on the cold, wet stone floor and then woke up with warm soft blankets wrapped around him.

The bed he’d been plopped in was a fourposter, obviously. Seemed to be that all Magi wanted their fourposter beds.

This one had a delightfully firm mattress without a single poking spring, like Privet Drive, or bit of straw covered, like Hogwarts. He had no idea just what sort of mattress he lay on because it was covered over by about eight inches of down that cushioned his whole body like he was floating in a cloud.

Most comfortable place he’d ever woke up before.

Surprisingly enough, he wasn’t in agony. Or even really all that sore. His stomach felt like someone had cut his throat about a month ago, grumbling and hollow-feeling which meant he must’ve been out for at least a couple of days. Nutrient potions always left his stomach empty and his body just slightly off-kilter.

His butt still hurt a little bit from landing so hard after all the portkeys. Not terribly. Felt like a three or four day old bruise there. His inner thighs were nowhere near as chaffed feeling as he’d expected. That broom truly had zero cushioning charms. Achy head and neck from lying in bed too long. Some general tiredness that said he must’ve been in terrible shape before healers got at him.

No real pain.

Mostly he was hungry.

The rest of it wasn’t important compared to the hunger.

Harry breathed in to a count of four, held it for a count of six, and then actively pushed all the pain off and away from him for a count of eight. It never made the pain go away entirely, but it did a great job of letting Harry sit up, pull the curtains on his fourposter open, and then stare around the room in shock.

He was clearly still in the bank. The walls of the room were glittery stone with chisel marks. Overhead, the ceiling of the cavern had those quartz veins that let light into the room. This particular cavern was maybe the size of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s master bedroom. Bed, big dresser made of heavy dark-stained oak, a wardrobe lurking next to it with one door open to reveal both robes and a mirror that Harry could use to wrestle with his hair.

Two comfy slipper chairs with a little side table that had a cloche that Harry promptly zeroed in on.

He nearly tripped over the slippers left exactly where he put his feet when he got out of bed, but whatever. They had thick, soft fleece inside their red, blue and green plaid exteriors. And the cloche held a lovely bit of English breakfast, still hot and steaming.

Harry was three quarters done with it, all the sausage, eggs, pudding and toast gone because nutrient potions always made him into a true bottomless pit, when Lacey poked her head into the room.

“I thought you’d be starving,” Lacey said with a little smirk when Harry just shrugged and nodded. “Finish your tea. I’ll select some clothes for you. Chieftain Ragnok wants to talk to you as soon as you’re capable of it. I’ve a Healer coming to check on you first.”

“I’m fine,” Harry said around the last bite of jam-smothered toast. He gulped tea, grateful that the half a cup of milk and sugar he’d added had cooled the tea enough for it not to scorch his throat.

“You’re a mess.” Lacey huffed. “We’re having a very long discussion about who taught you those pain control spells you’re using.”

Harry stared at her. “Those are real spells? I sort of made them up on the fly. I didn’t think it was a real thing.”

Not the right answer.

While it revealed that Lacey had an amazing command of really creative invective, Harry ended up cringing through a lecture from the Goblin healer about pain being a warning that you shouldn’t move.

While dealing with Amal and Anthony showing up like upset, fretting puppies. Amal stood behind the healer and give him sad heartbroken looks even worse that the lecture, and Anthony fluttered around Harry like an overstressed moth afraid to get to close lest he be burned. Or, you know, smacked because wow, that was really annoying.

Still, there wasn’t much for the Healer to do besides tell Harry that yes, he was a mass of bruises, exhausted muscles and malnutrition-damaged bones that were far too brittle for his age. He officially and seriously needed rest if he was ever going to recuperate.

Like he didn’t already know that. Maybe this time he’d actually get to rest up proper.

The clothes that Lacey picked for Harry were as different from anything he’d ever worn as Harry’s normal clothes were compared to Malfoy’s. Or, maybe, Theo Nott. He was a snappy dresser, even if he was sour, dour and had mastery of one of the most vicious glares the world had ever seen.

Thing was, the new brown linen trousers, light gold linen shirt and comfortable burgundy silk waistcoat fit perfectly. When Harry looked at himself in the wardrobe’s mirror, he could almost see Heir Potter-Black instead of Harry Potter, ordinary boy. Or very confused and reluctant Boy-Who-Lived.

Lacey took over combing Harry’s hair out after he gave it three swipes with a brush and decided that was good enough.

“It’s just going to be a mess,” Harry complained as Lacey dragged the brush through his unruly curls.

“Well, of course it is,” Lacey said. “You’re a Potter. It’s a Potter thing. There’s a reason your ancestor came up with Sleakeasy’s, you know.”

She worked from the ends of his shaggy hair instead of from the scalp which had a surprising benefit of not pulling on his scalp half as badly. Instead of trying to smooth his hair down, Lacey just got the tangles out and then put two drops of Sleakeasy’s on her palms. A brisk rub and then she started running her fingers through Harry’s hair.

Which, wow. That was nice. Maybe that why Aunt Petunia went to get her hair arranged every week. He sighed as the tightness in his shoulders subsided and let his eyes drift shut. Far too soon, Lacey stopped and patted his shoulder.

“There we go,” Lacey said. “Take a look.”

Harry grumbled wordlessly only to squeak like a mouse when he saw the sculpted stormy crags of his hair. Somehow, Lacey had use the Sleakeasy and her fingers to create coherent curls that looked deliberate instead of violently random.

“Wow,” Harry said as she stared at himself. “That’s… I’ve gotta learn how to do that. I actually look like I have a head of hair instead of a rat’s nest.”

Lacey grinned, just for an instant, but it was bright and brilliant in the mirror. “You certainly can learn. And you will. I’ll make sure of it. Ridiculous that no one ever bothered to teach you how to handle curly hair.”

“Your hair is straight,” Harry said once he’d wondered over his hair, without touching, long enough to believe that it was real. And that it might stay even if he, you know, moved. Breathed. Did anything.

“I married Anthony,” Lacey said. “He was even worse.”

“Oh!” Anthony complained dramatically. “The heartbreak. The romance is over.”

Harry grinned at the two of them while Amal shook his head fondly. Nice to see an actually good relationship for once. He couldn’t say that about Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Or any of Dudley’s friends’ parents. Or, frankly, most of the parents of the kids at Hogwarts, from what he’d overheard while wistfully eavesdropping on them reading letters from home.

“So, do we have the vault situation dealt with?” Harry asked Amal.

“We do, mostly,” Amal confirmed. “You’ve been asleep and healing for three days now. The vault complex has been chosen and is being prepared for the ritual that will seal it to keep us all safe. My things were retrieved. My secretary absolutely refused to be let go. She’s of the opinion that I can’t manage myself. I mean, I can send her on, anyway, if you want.”

“No, not necessary,” Harry said. “If she’s willing to go into hiding, too, then yeah, she can stay. The most important thing on your side is that you can do what you need to as Seneschal. Not that I’ve a clue what that is.”

Amal sagged with enough relief that he really must’ve wanted her to stay with him. It wasn’t like it was a problem. Sirius had made sure that if a problem could be handled by throwing money and/or supplies at it, Harry was ready for it. Hiding one more person?

Easy.

Heck, if the vault was big enough, he could probably hide an entire family. Twenty or thirty people. Sirius really had gone overboard on the supplies thing.

As for everything else, Amal explained as Lacey led them to Chieftain Ragnok’s office by the short, direct route that bypassed all the mushrooms, Harry’s disappearance had been noted. People had started looking for him in a halfhearted, somewhat nervous way that morning.

From what Anthony said, wry and amused in that very Black way that threatened disemboweling spells if anyone blinked wrong, his disappearance into the storm up on Yell Island was what had switched the search over into serious mode. They’d fended off about a thousand owls looking for Harry. Hedwig had arrived, safe and sound, if ruffled by all the owls trying to get at her boy.

“Gringotts is utter chaos,” Anthony told Harry while they rode much, much longer in the elevator than they had before. “Chieftain Ragnok has all the banks “preparing” for our arrival. He’s got a whole plan. It should be amazing to watch it play out.”

“It’s distracted everyone in the Ministry and in Gringotts from you,” Lacey confirmed with a smirk. “The Magi employees of Gringotts are all losing their minds over this. The Ministry is in chaos. And both Anthony and I are, officially, moving to France for a different opportunity so no one will look for us.”

“That’s amazing,” Harry said, grinning at Lacey who smirked. “Can I see it? I mean, Fudge had to have been in a dither, right? Did you see him? Get to cut him down to size?”

“I’ve already duplicated that memory specifically so that I can watch it over and over again,” Lacey said smugly. “Along with how Dumbledore reacted when he found out that you’d emptied the Potter vaults, too. That was amazing.”

Harry grinned as he entered Chieftain Ragnok’s crystalline dome office. This time it glowed with softly pulsing shades of purple, green and blue, which was actually quite nice. Soothing, really.

“I hope you got to see the whole thing, Chieftain Ragnok,” Harry said with his biggest, most delighted grin.

Chieftain Ragnok cackled as he put his feet up on his desk. “I did, indeed, Heir Potter-Black. Most of the Horde has watched that little encounter. You’ll find a lot of smiling Goblins on this fine day.”

Harry snickered. “Excellent. I’m glad. Anything that I’m missing before we do whatever rituals are needed to keep us all safe?”

“The Black family ritual would be first,” Amal said as he pulled a little notepad out of his pocket. “I’ve no idea what’s entailed in that, but hopefully it will be short and easy. Once that’s done, we’ll need to bring my secretary in. Emily Sutton, not related to the Suttons up in Wales, is brilliant. Absolutely a brick about anything I throw at her. She’s Halfblood so she’s good in both worlds.”

“Oh, good,” Harry said. “So… another vassal, I guess?”

“Seems the easiest method,” Amal agreed. “Once everyone’s properly bound to you, then we can go ahead and do the ritual that Chieftain Ragnok found which will ensure that our hiding place is untraceable, unplottable and that our features can’t be properly seen unless you, personally, will it.”

“Wow,” Harry said. “That’s impressive. Um. I’ve no skill at all with rituals. No training. I hope I just have to sit there like a lump?”

Chieftain Ragnok grinned, exposing a mouth full of wickedly sharp teeth that stretched much farther around his head than Harry would have expected. The inherent threat of all those teeth didn’t make Harry nervous, though. He didn’t get the feeling that it was pointed at Harry or his brand-new family.

“That would be preferred,” Chieftain Ragnok confirmed with a casual wave of his hand. “I expect that Lacey is the only one who will have trouble with that.”

Lacey sighed, long and dark, so yeah. She wasn’t going to be a happy camper about it, but that was fine.

“Perfect,” Harry said. “Um. Would you consent to being witness for the Black Family thing? And for Ms. Sutton, too? I mean, I figure you’re the strongest and most dangerous of the Goblins. No one can compel you to do anything you don’t want to, so having you witness it would make it… like a state secret, I guess?”

Chieftain Ragnok pulled his feet off the desk and settled them on the floor as he stared at Harry for an uncomfortably long time. Eventually, though, he nodded.

“I would be honored, Heir Potter-Black,” Chieftain Ragnok said. “When would this happen?”

“Um, as soon as everyone is here and ready,” Harry suggested with a shrug. “Time is money, after all.”

“Indeed!” Chieftain Ragnok exclaimed. His smile this time was all teeth, no threat, just huge amounts of delight.

Sometime, after this was all over, Harry was going to ask Lacey to give him a lesson on Goblin manners, just so he could figure out what he’d done right. And how it could’ve all gone wrong so that he could make sure never to do that. Ever.

22. When Results Are Critical, Trust the Experts

One of the things that Uncle Vernon was prone to giving grand, obnoxious lectures on was how important it was to trust the experts when results were critical. Usually, those lectures came after Harry had been forced to repair something with broken tools, inadequate instructions, and threats to his survival.

Obviously, whenever that happened, Harry’s results were… substandard.

That let Uncle Vernon rant for a while about what a failure Harry was. And then he’d rant about having to spend money because Harry was a failure. Followed by sad complaints to whoever the expert was about Harry attempting to fix whatever it was without permission resulting in Harry making the problem just that much worse than it had to be, which always got Harry additional lectures about not biting off too much to chew.

And then at minimum another shouting lecture once the bill came through. Sometimes with fists.

Yeah, Harry had zero interest in trying to figure out the whole ritual thing even with Lacey, Amal, Anthony and Emily’s help.

The box had produced a little note in Sirius’ handwriting that explained how dead-simple it was to bring someone into the Black family. Also explained how dead-simple it was to throw someone out of the Black family, which meant that Harry first exiled Narcissa Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and both of her awful Lestrange husbands just to be safe.

His whole body felt better once he finished that little chant and symbolic burning of their names on a slip of paper scribbled on in whatever ink was available. Lacey, since she was Lacey, had every sort of ink that would be appropriate. Harry picked the ballpoint pen that Anthony offered, simply because if he told Draco about it, Draco was sure to go up in flames of sheer outrage. Totally worth Lacey’s annoyed huff.

The ones he’d exiled had felt like a thick wool blanket draped over with black, nasty leather that was pressing down on his face. And soul. His back actually popped when they were gone from Harry’s magic.

From the Black family magic.

Harry hadn’t realized that there was a weight on him until he’d thrown the bad seeds out. He’d wheezed, rubbed his chest, and then taken both Lacey and Anthony in formally. There were, apparently, other Blacks out there. Tonks and her parents. A few Black family members off in France and Italy.

None of them were urgent. Getting Anthony and Lacey in was another bit of holding hands and using magic to welcome them home. That’d nearly blacked him right out because both of them felt like blazing stars of delight.

Thankfully, Amal and Emily had been ready for it. They’d caught his elbows, sat him right down, and then Emily had knelt down on one plump knee and offered her hands to Harry.

“You do realize that your family is going to have issues with this, right?” Harry had said as he hesitantly cupped her hands between his.

“Pfft, they wouldn’t dare,” Emily said exactly like a grandmotherly woman wouldn’t back on Privet Drive. She was more like an older version of Molly Weasley, fierce and determined and so very kind as she smiled up at Harry. “I’ve been taking care of your seneschals for three generations now, Harry, dear. I’ll keep right on doing that, thank you very much. It will be nice to make it formal. So. Oath.”

He’d gone with the same simple oath as for Amal: “Do you, Emily Sutton, swear to protect my interests, defend my estate, aid me in all I have to do and help me achieve my goals?”

Emily had smiled sweetly. “No, dear. That’s not sufficient. Swear to keep your secrets, defend you and your seneschal, aid you in all that you have to do and help you achieve your goals. Start over.”

Harry had spluttered. And then winced when Emily leveled a stern look at him that reminded him that he’d never once in his entire life managed to stand up to motherly women who gave him that kind of look.

Emily got her version of the vassal vow. She had, apparently, already sworn her family to secrecy and sent them off to the guest quarters in Gringotts. Harry would meet them later, once Chieftain Ragnok’s ritual was done.

Then they’d gone down to the vault complex that Chieftain Ragnok had set aside for Harry’s new hideout.

It was deep. Very, very deep. The air hung hot and humid around them as they trooped along behind Chieftain Ragnok. The caverns down here seemed more like natural caverns than they did like something the Goblins had dug out of the living rock. He saw a few chisel marks as they went, usually only on the floor or overhead where a stalactite hung too low, threatening to brain a Goblin.

Amal and Anthony both had to duck regularly, given that they were tall. Harry, Emily and Lacey were fine.

“This will be yours,” Chieftain Ragnok said as he gestured towards a boulder that looked like it had been there for millions of years. “It’s one of the oldest vault complexes in Gringotts. There’s space for living quarters as well as for everything in the Potter and Black legacies. If you agree, we will spell it so that no one can find you, it, or recognize it if they manage to get to this level.”

The boulder easily slid out of the way when Harry hesitantly pushed against it.

It didn’t go inwards or turn outwards like a regular door. Instead, it rolled to the left, completely blocking the tunnel that led to this spot. Inside, the vault complex was…

…huge.

Harry stared around with his mouth dropped open. The quartz veins spider-webbed through the roof of the absolutely massive cavern, shimmering with magical light that made the cavern look as though it was lit by daylight, not magical light. There was a small lake or a very large pond off on the far side of the cavern. He could just make out what looked like entrances to further caverns beyond the lake.

They weren’t the only ones. There was a sort of balcony along the left side of the cavern that had a series of tunnel openings. Underneath it were wider openings, maybe six meters or so across. Not to mention that there were more openings along the right side of the cavern near to the entrance, all of them dark as night even though they were right there, within easy peeking.

This cavern had no carpet of mushrooms. No forest of them, either.

The Goblins had filled this one with a gently rolling meadow with heather and gorse, wildflowers and patches of iris, roses, and what looked like brambles of raspberry and blackberry. There was a thicket of aspen along the edge of the lake and one huge elm in the middle of the room. Its highest branches were dozens upon dozens of meters below the ceiling.

“This… This is so much more than I expected,” Harry whispered when Chieftain Ragnok peered at him. “This. We can live here. It’s not. Not just… just a hideout. This can be a home.”

“Ah,” Chieftain Ragnok murmured. There was something like sympathy in his dark, bright eyes. “I didn’t expect you to see it, Heir Potter-Black. Few humans do.”

Harry laughed and dashed away the stupid tears that had leaked out of his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’ve wanted a home for as long as I can remember. This. This is close. This is really, really close. I like it. A lot. I mean, weather would be nice, too, but we can figure that out later.”

Chieftain Ragnok cackled. “That can be arranged for an appropriate price, Magi.”

“I look forward to Amal and Lacey negotiating that, then,” Harry said with a grin. He shrugged at the way Chieftain Ragnok frowned at him. “Let the experts handle technical matters. I’m no fool. I don’t know enough to do anyone, especially myself, honor in that kind of thing.”

Chieftain Ragnok studied Harry for a long moment. “You’re an interesting human, Heir Potter-Black. Few humans your age would admit to such ignorance, even when it was glaringly obvious.”

Harry just shrugged. He’d never been normal in his life. No reason to try for it now.

As they’d talked, another group of Goblins, these in chain mail carrying heavy metal staffs studded with really impressive jewels, emerged from one of the closer side-caverns. From the way their boot heels rang on the stone path, their boots had to be armored, too.

“…Are they Goblin war mages or something?” Harry asked Amal.

“They are,” Amal agreed. “What we want can only be done by Goblin war mages. So. Now’s the time to bring out the payment, Harry.”

“Oh, right!” Harry said. “What am I getting?”

The payment was, logically, gold and jewels. A pretty massive pile of galleons that Harry’s heart lurched a touch at, but Lacey did some sort of counting spell and nodded confidently that it was correct. The jewels were all fist-sized chunks of crystal in red and lemon-yellow. Nothing polished or cut, but the Goblins eyed them as if they were all the more beautiful for that.

And then there was the leather.

Harry stared at the small mountain of leather that the box produced, a little flummoxed because Amal and Emily counted that and confirmed the various types of leather. Cow, deer, elk, hippogriff, dragon, eel. Really, really, really big eel since the roll of eel leather was taller than Harry despite being rolled up so tight it was practically a brick.

“Why did Sirius get me this much leather?” Harry asked Anthony. “Did he? Or was this just squirreled away in the vaults waiting for someone to use it?”

“Both,” Chieftain Ragnok said with a smirk at Harry’s start of surprise. “The common leather is new. The other leathers are old and very rare. The eel leather is quite literally priceless. The species is extinct. No more can be created.”

Harry peered over Emily’s shoulder at the inventory the box had produced when asked. “Um.”

“…What?” Chieftain Ragnok asked warily enough that Harry grinned right back at him.

“The inventory says that I have two hundred fertile giant eel eggs in stasis,” Harry said. “And something like ten rolls of the leather. And something called plither? Twenty bales of the plither, whatever that is.”

Every single Goblin stared at Harry in shock while Lacey started cursing in awe.

Negotiations for getting Harry’s new hideout set up started right back up again. Obviously.

Instead of staying with Amal, Emily and Lacey as they negotiated with Chieftain Ragnok for rights to raise the giant eels and harvest their skins, with proper payments of royalties to Harry that would keep him very, very rich for a very, very long time, Harry and Anthony set off exploring with one of the Goblin war mages.

“This place is so cool,” Harry said as Wrackspur waved a hand and brought light up in the massive communal bathing chamber they’d found. “I mean it. Coolest place ever. I love this. I may never go back above ground again.”

Anthony laughed. “You’ll want something eventually.”

“Ice cream. Young Magi seem to love the stuff,” Wrackspur said, waggling a gnarled finger at Harry. His claw was a bit twisted, serrated along the leading edge, but Harry assumed that it was deliberate. That kind of edge would make a great cutting surface.

“I don’t think so,” Harry said. “Sirius bought a stupid amount of stuff. I know that he got ice cream. I’m pretty sure he bought batches upon batches of ice cream and put them all in stasis. Besides, I like ice cream well enough, but I’m more of a treacle tart guy, personally. Oh, cool! There’re showers. And hot tubs! And a washing area. Hey, can we clean clothes and everything in there?”

“Of course,” Wrackspur confirmed, lips twitching as he tried not to snicker at Harry’s enthusiastic exploration of the magical washer and dryer instead of the hot tub.

Having been denied the right to clean clothes for weeks on end by Aunt Petunia several times over the years, Harry was taking no teasing at all about his joy in being able to clean things whenever and however he wanted. His own personal washer and dryer were epic.

Not to mention the rest of the complex.

A library cavern with the perfect humidity and preservation spells that was bigger than three of the local library back on Privet Drive. Four farm caverns specifically designed to cycle through the seasons out of step with each other so that you always had spring produce, summer, fall and winter produce, each big enough to feed an army with spells to ensure that the produce was tended automatically and harvested at peak ripeness. A training cavern that was designed to be for both magical combat and physical combat. Suites, plural, so that Anthony and Lacey could have a dozen kids if they wanted, alongside Harry in his suite, Amal in his, and Emily in hers which had room for all eight of her family members.

Plus more if Harry brought in more family members who needed to stay safe.

“I don’t know that Lacey wants that many kids,” Anthony said with a deeply yearning look in his eyes.

“Hey, I’ll support you guys either way,” Harry said. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a big family. If she doesn’t want to bear kids, we’ll do magic. Something. No idea what. My education sucks. Or adopt. Or both! I’m fine with that. I kind of want at least three or for kids of my own eventually, even if I have to figure out how to bear them myself.”

“It is possible,” Wrackspur commented with a calm nod. “Magi are better suited for that sort of magic than Goblins. You need training.”

“So much,” Harry groaned. “I mean, I’d love to learn how to fight properly. I’m apparently supposed to do some kind of grand battle against You-Know-Who but no one’s ever been willing to teach me how.”

Both Anthony and Wrackspur looked offended by that. Offended enough that Harry got dragged out of the kitchen complex that could’ve fed a small army with its multiple huge pantries that could’ve held easily eight to ten years’ worth of food in stasis.

Sirius’ supply of food in the box might, might exceed the storage space in the pantries but Harry wasn’t betting on that.

“I’ll be back!” Harry called over his shoulder to the amazing kitchen, mostly to make Anthony laugh at him. “I promise!”

Wrackspur laughed. Anthony shook his head, but he grinned. Good enough.

“The boy needs training,” Wrackspur announced once they arrived back at the negotiations which now had several tables, Silverclaw and a small army of clerks and a mountain of notes taken already.

“Got that,” Lacey said, waving Wrackspur off, much to his annoyance. “It’s part of the deal. There will be gladiatorial combat to determine who gets to teach Heir Potter-Black which aspects of magic, business, war and martial arts.”

That, from Wrackspur’s abruptly delighted and very toothy grin, was a Very Good thing.

Okay, then. Harry would be worried about that normally. Right now, he was much too happy and entirely too delighted with how things were going to fuss over it. Whatever that training involved, he’d do happily.

At least someone would be helping Harry survive instead of throwing him in the deep end and then sneering once he managed to drag himself out again by his fingernails.

23. Making a Home is a Deeply Important Choice

Wrackspur was not, judging by his placement in the circle surrounding Harry, Amal, Emily, Anthony and Lacey, a hugely important Goblin war mage. He was off on the left mostly behind Harry, who’d been outright told to keep his eyes front and his twitching to a minimum as they got the circle set up.

Having listened to more than a few of Hermione’s lectures on ritual magic and how it was all Black Magic That Should Be Avoided, unless of course Hermione was in charge, Harry expected that there’d be chalk and blood and maybe a few jewels involved because hey, Goblins. Made sense, right?

Nope.

Each of the war mages had taken turns incising runes that looked nothing much like Hermione’s Rune homework on the floor of the magical practice room. And the walls. And the ceiling which involved flying on their amazing magical staffs, but not like riding a boom.

No, the Goblin war mages stood on the staves and basically skateboarded up and around the ceiling as they worked.

Ogling that was why Harry’d been told to keep his eyes front and his body as still as possible. So unfair.

“I really want to learn how to do that,” Harry muttered to Lacey who laughed quietly.

“Easier for Magi to use swords for that instead of staves, but it’s something you could master with, oh, a couple decades of practice,” Lacey said.

“Sign me up,” Harry promptly said. “Right away. That’s just so bloody cool.”

Eventually, though, all the Goblin war mages settled back to the ground and took up positions surrounding Harry and his new family. They weren’t spaced evenly. It wasn’t a circle. Or a pentagram. Or anything other than a kind of ragged, staggered group of war mages facing outwards, backs to Harry and the others, with their staves at the ready.

“…Oh,” Harry breathed as he realized where he’d seen that kind of arrangement before. “This is a battle formation. They’re ready for attacks from… all directions.”

The innermost war mages, the ones closest to Harry, had their staff held like spears or like bows. The next layer beyond them had their staff held more like bazookas or maybe rifles. The third rank held their staff like swords or clubs, ready to bash anything that tried to get through. And the outermost rank had their staff set as shields to hold the line.

“Good eye, Heir Potter-Black,” Wrackspur called. “Now settle down and say absolutely nothing until we give the all-clear. Anything you say or do can be a hook that malicious magic can lock onto. We do not want to do this twice.”

“Understood,” Harry said.

He shoved his hands into his armpits, shut his mouth, and then did his best to just breathe. Exactly like when Uncle Vernon was raging. Exactly like when Aunt Petunia was at her snippiest and most vicious. The way Harry would hide in the shrubs at the park near Number Four, silent and watching with distant, calm mind as Dudley and his friends sauntered through the park looking for someone to beat up.

Quiet. Still. Watch and wait. Do not act until necessary. “Necessary” was only when Lacey declared the all-clear.

Because Harry trusted that Lacey would be a thousand times more obnoxious about making sure it was safe than anyone else. Emily would be second. And then probably Wrackspur and the other war mages.

Harry’s determination to be unmoved by any magic happening before him lasted, oh, about point zero one seconds after the war mages started chanting.

The whole world shifted around them. Instead of the cavern that Harry was already so fond of, the chant pulled them into a space of magic. Or made the magic visible, maybe? Heck if Harry knew. All he knew was that all the runes that the war mages had carved began to glow with a dim orange light. The stone around them turned indigo-blue while the floor underneath Harry and the others went deep, rich purple.

Weird part was that the runes became a shield wall just outside of the outer layer of gleaming staves held at the ready.

Harry started to say “what the bloody hell?” but managed to clamp his mouth shut before he did more than make a gasping wheezy sound of shock that Amal nodded his agreement with. Amal, more sensibly than Harry, had clapped his hands over his mouth so that he couldn’t shout something at the wrong moment.

Emily licked her upper teeth. It made a tiny little noise that somehow echoed overtop of the ongoing chants.

Flaming magic speared right at her from out of the greater universe beyond the war mages’ runes. It sparked and crawled like lightning over the dome of the runes, sending blasts of flame down towards them all.

The shield wall blocked. The arrow war mages fired back ice-blue bolts of magic that speared the flaming spell, if it was a spell, searching for them. Then the spears attacked, and the swords slashed down, cutting off the blasts just as a concerted set of arrows destroyed the base of the flaming magic on the dome.

None of the runes fell.

But Anthony shuddered as he gripped Lacey’s shoulders to keep her from doing anything and it set off another wave of magic attacking them. Harry winced and that brought more magic, yellow and white and a creepy green glowing fog that he just knew had to come from Voldemort.

They didn’t stop. The attacks. They didn’t stop coming even when all of them managed to stand perfectly still and make no noise at all. It was like the magic realized that there was something being hidden and it was desperate, the casters were desperate, to figure out what it was before the ritual could be completed.

Sweat dripped down Harry’s ribcage. It dripped off the tip of his nose. His heart hammered a million miles an hour under his breastbone and his fingers trembled inside of his sweaty armpits, but he kept his mouth shut and didn’t shuffle his feet or whine or curse or anything.

Hardest thing he’d ever bloody well done: doing nothing while other people defended him.

The thing was, though, he could see that Wrackspur and the other war mages were winning. The attacks didn’t slow down, not at all, but less and less got past the rune wall. Less of them seemed able to even find the rune wall. They just sort of arced around outside the rune wall like groping for dropped soap when you’d run a bubble bath.

Every attack that connected made the runes glow brighter.

The attacks themselves were what was going to power the wards that would protect Harry and his new family.

His new home.

Wrackspur’s chant took on a triumphant note that the other war mages echoed. There were grins on the faces that Harry could see, blazingly bright grins as they battled and fought and fooled every sort of magic searching for Harry, Amal, Emily, Anthony and Lacey.

This would work.

It did work.

It had worked. Perfectly.

They were safe. He was safe.

Harry Boy-Who-Lived Potter was finally safe for the first time in his entire bloody life!

Every single war mage slammed their staves into the ground. The runes abruptly shattered. In their place a gleaming perfect dome that shimmered like pearls formed over them. It coated Harry’s skin. Then Amal started, Emily gulped. Lacey ground her teeth down on what had to be a spectacular set of curses while Anthony wheezed a laugh through his nostrils.

When Harry looked, they all had that same pearlescent look that he did. That the magical space did.

He blinked.

The real cave was back, no magic showing anywhere. All the runes were gone. Harry couldn’t even see where they’d been carved.

“Wow,” Lacey wheezed.

“That was so cool!” Harry shouted, finally letting his hands free. “I wanna learn to do that! Merlin’s pants, that was amazing!”

The ritual had the same excited energy thrumming through Harry that he got from playing quidditch. From doing a Wronski Feint. From running ahead of Dudley’s gang and making exactly the right dodges and twists to escape them, leaving them panting and shouting in the dust.

He hadn’t done anything. Not one thing.

It was still the most thrilling and powerful magic that Harry had ever even heard of.

“I would be delighted to teach you, Heir Potter-Black,” Wrackspur said with a huge grin that was all teeth pointed all the other war mages who snarled at him for trying to lay claim.

“Gladiatorial combat,” Lacey drawled. “Put your names in once you’re back at your normal posts. The trials will be in four days’ time.”

All of the war mages whooped a war cry that rattled the rafters and made Harry laugh with delight. Oh man, he really, really, really needed to learn that sort of magic. So bad.

“Hey, if we’re hiding me,” Harry said to Amal and Lacey, very aware that he wasn’t exactly coherent at the moment but whatever, “shouldn’t we have a different name to call me? I mean Heir Potter-Black is kinda obvious. And I’d hate to slip in public. A different name would be good. When I have kids, eventually, they can reclaim “Potter” and “Black”. I just think it’d be a smart idea to change my name. You know, publicly.”

Lacey nodded as she and Emily firmly gripped Harry’s elbows and propelled him out of the practice room, down the hallway and towards the kitchen. Which, yeah, great idea. Harry felt like he could eat an entire hippogriff all by himself right now.

Still loved the kitchen. The kitchen was so many levels of awesome that Harry wanted to sleep in here. The dinner table that Harry’d pulled out of the box was a simple one, nothing fancy or overly decorated. Just a big trestle table with heavy legs and a thick oak top and two more chairs than they actually needed, but that was fine.

The food was a surprise. Sure, before the ritual, Emily had prompted Harry into pulling out some basics from the box. She’d hummed over the things he’d pulled out and nodded approvingly over their quality, but she’d had no time to cook. Neither had Harry.

If he had to guess, Emily had asked the Goblins to provide a dinner for them all during the preparation for the ritual and Harry just hadn’t noticed. Which was fine.

None of them were up to cooking right now, not as shaky as they all were. Even Amal and Lacey looked like they were barely staying vertical at the moment.

“Certainly,” Amal said as he flopped into the chair next to Harry. “The Potter family is quite old and had many different surnames in the past. We can pick one of those or choose one completely unrelated. Not today. I’m a bit too blurry at the moment for thinking about how to accomplish it.”

Wrackspur snort-laughed. “No one who isn’t already aware can even hear “Heir Potter-Black” anymore. You need not worry on that front. They’d hear “Heir Peverell” instead. If introduced as Harry James Potter, they will only hear Harrison Peverell.”

“Huh,” Harry said as he let Lacey and Emily plonk him at the table where a bunch of food was already waiting under cloches for them. “That works just fine. Harry is a great nickname to come from Harrison. Why “Peverell” though?”

“It means “piper”,” Wrackspur explained even though the other war mages had death glares aimed at him for trying to interact with Harry before the gladiatorial combat happened. “The ritual always defaults to Peverell because those who invest in this ritual draw others to them as the Pied Piper of legend did, unstoppable and enticing. Chieftain Ragnok will speak to you more about House Peverell. There are… things… that you will need to learn.”

He nodded respectfully to Harry and then marched off, razzing his fellow war mages and getting razzed in turn.

That was…

…kind of an awesome name, actually. Harry loved it in a very real way. Because yes. Yes, he had created a bright home for them all. Or they had. Whatever.

There was hot food to eat, family to eat it with, and Harry was safe.

Everything else could wait until tomorrow, thank you very much.

24. A Secure Base of Operations is Vital

Harry stood in the middle of the box, hands on his hips, with Lacey hyperventilating by his side. “So, yeah, I actually do need you to specify what you want to pull out of here for the vault. Because we’ve got it. Ninety-nine percent certain that we’ve got it. Even if you can’t think of it, we’ve got it. And no, I’ve no idea how Sirius gathered all of this up without anyone noticing.”

“What the bloody hell?” Lacey hissed as she stared at around her in a sort of horrified awe. “What was wrong with him?”

“So many things,” Harry said with a helpless shrug. “More than I’ll ever know, I’m sure. Still. We have whatever you want or need. I mean, we had giant eel eggs in stasis. Extinct giant eel eggs.”

Lacey sucked a long, hard breath through her clenched teeth before sighing like a leaky tire. “I really should’ve set my expectations based on that instead of, oh, I don’t know. Logic? Sanity? What in the world was he thinking?”

Harry was pretty sure that Sirius had been convinced that, once Harry took everything out of Gringotts, he would have to go on the run for the rest of his life. Quite literally. Looking around at the insanity that was Sirius’ efforts to take care of Harry from beyond the grave, Sirius had to have believed that Harry would be hunted to the ends of the earth.

Maybe beyond that. That his kids, should Harry ever manage to have kids, would be hunted down, too. That he and his heirs would be looking over their shoulders for literal generations, always waiting for doom to come and take them away.

It was about the only thing that made this make sense.

Or Sirius went on a bender during a manic phase and when all “Accio every single thing that Harry could ever conceivably need”.

That was possible, too.

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry said instead of his private conviction that Sirius was just nuts after being exposed to Dementors for so long. “You said something about furniture, books and seeds, right?”

“Yes,” Lacey said with the desperate gratitude of a person who’d just been tossed a verbal life preserver. “Yes, I did. The Goblins were happy to allow us into the Sanctum. They’re not going to furnish it without it costing rather more than I think is reasonable.”

Harry shrugged as he headed back to the ladder out of the box. “Eh. I mean, I could pay it. I’d just worry that the couches would be so low that Anthony’s knees would be around his ears.”

Lacey laughed. A bit shaky, but hey, a laugh.

Once they were out of the box again, Harry pulled out the inventory, focused on needing furniture, and flipped it open to about a hundred pages of tiny drawings of furniture. He sighed. Why couldn’t it be easy?

“So, it’s not terrifically well organized, in my opinion,” Harry said as he angled the inventory to Lacey. “All the couches are together, chairs, whatnot. Not arranged by style or cohesive decorating or even current condition of the piece. I need you to go through this and tell me what style of furniture you want. I’m already going to assume that we only want the stuff that’s actually solid and usable. The stuff to be fixed can wait until I’m bored or something.”

“Good point,” Lacey said as she flipped through pages. “Though I question why you’re having me choose.”

“I am supposed to be the very new Lord Peverell who grew up on the Continent,” Harry explained with an arch tone and a stare that raised Lacey’s chin and made her eyes snap. “A well-bred young man. With training. Breeding. Style. You’ve been to Privet Drive, Lacey. I wouldn’t know style if it bit me on the arse. If you let me choose, it’ll look like something Aunt Petunia dreamed up.”

It took a moment for Lacey to make it past the whole “I’m responsible for this very important thing” to realize just what Harry was saying about Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Yeah, she’d gone out to help Amal get his final few belongings with a proper team of Goblin guards under illusions. Sure, she’d made a point of swinging by Number Four to make sure Harry hadn’t left anything important behind.

Frankly, it was probably a very good thing that she’d been there when everyone else was out of the house. According to Wrackspur, the only reason that Number Four was still standing was that Harry was well out of it. They’d all sort of lost their minds over the cabinet under the stairs. And Harry’s bedroom, for that matter.

Apparently, Dudley had already reclaimed it as a place to throw his broken crap, not that he’d ever stopped. Which was fine. Harry didn’t care. He was never, ever going back there.

Let the Dursley family marinate in their own misery. It was punishment enough as far as Harry was concerned. After all, he’d lived there. He knew how miserable Aunt Petunia was. He knew how furious Uncle Vernon was over his perpetual lack of advancement.

And Dudley was destined for prison, no matter what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon thought.

Might as well just leave them to it. In their ugly, horrible little house that looked like a nightmare. That Lacey had seen. After going to school in France.

Like she didn’t know down to her bones just how incapable of style and breeding Harry was after growing up in that house.

Lacey had to hide her face in the inventory because she couldn’t stop laughing. The chortles were just the right side of being giggles, which probably explained how Anthony appeared out of the tunnels. Drawn to the sound of his wife’s laughter, presumably.

“Oh, are we looking at furniture?” Anthony asked with such delight that Lacey shoved the inventory into his hands. “Wonderful! I have so many ideas of what we need.”

“Excellent,” Harry said over Lacey’s snort-laughs as tears ran down her cheeks while she leaned against very amused Anthony’s side. “Make this place look like someone with breeding, a proper education and style set it up. I mean, you’ll end up with Mid-Century Modern thrown out into the skip if I do it.”

Both of their laugher chased Harry out of the suite that he’d decided was going to be Anthony and Lacey’s. He did, logically, order the box to allow Lacey and Anthony to choose things that would make the Sanctum a home suitable for them all. The box wasn’t exactly happy about it, but Harry just didn’t care about decorating.

Not when there was exploring to be done.

The kitchen had already been well explored. Harry loved it. He’d live there if Emily would let him. Of course, Emily would live there if Harry would let her, but if he couldn’t then she couldn’t either. The laundry facilities were awesome. Harry swung by just to sigh happily over the fact that he never, ever, ever had to wear dirty clothes if he didn’t actively choose to.

Exploring the farm caves was a thing on Harry’s agenda, but the adults had all gone a bit grim and determined so Harry would wait until they explained what had them worried. He kind of thought that it was “what do we plant?” instead of “the plants already in there might eat us”, but whatever.

Gardening in Aunt Petunia’s backyard was one thing. Having actual real farms to produce whatever food Harry wanted to eat was a completely different thing.

He scooted back and summoned several books on farming, both Muggle and Magi, from the box. And then scooted right back out because Lacey and Anthony had gotten Amal involved which meant there were considerations of “appropriate status” to go along with “comfy” and “not broken”.

Ugh.

“What are you up to?” Emily asked when Harry emerged from the suite that had been decreed as the Master suite.

“Exploring,” Harry said. He pointed towards the main cave and the tunnels that led off it. “Haven’t been in those yet.”

Emily hummed, nudging him with one plump elbow while smiling. “I would’ve thought you’d focus on the kitchen.”

“Been and gone,” Harry said breezily while nudging her back. “Want to come poke at the tunnels to see what’s there?”

“Absolutely,” Emily said. She clapped her hands. “I’m hoping to find crafting places. I’ll need something to keep my daughter and sons busy once they join us. Not to mention the grandkids. Crafting rooms are perfect.”

“Ooooooh, that would be amazing,” Harry breathed. “Well, even if they’re not designed for crafting, we’ll set some up. Betcha the box has supplies for every craft imaginable.”

“No bet,” Emily replied. “That man took over-prepared to all new heights.”

They shared a grin because when Harry had thrown up his hands and demanded Lacey go down into the box to see just how much stuff there was, Emily had poked her head in, huffed and decided that she wanted nothing to do with sorting that mess out.

Totally fair. It was a lot.

The main cavern was still lovely and pastoral. The boulder that prevented anyone from entering the Sanctum was firmly in place. And the tunnels off to the side of the boulder entrance were still dark, at least until Harry put his hand against the wall.

Then veins of quartz lit up on the ceiling and low along the floor where the baseboard would’ve been if this had been a proper house.

“Huh,” Harry mused, staring up the tunnel at the half dozen side-rooms that went off it in either direction. “This looks like a maze.”

“I know,” Emily said.

They still went in because why not? The first room on the left was… a room. Quartz veins for light, a bit of dust in the corners of the room. Nothing else. Second room on the left was the same. Harry noted that they were exactly opposite of the rooms on the right, so he shrugged and checked on the first right-side one.

“Oh, hey, benches,” Harry called to Emily. “With stuff.”

“Stuff?” Emily asked. She squeaked and the squealed so loudly that Harry flinched and rubbed his ear. “This is all weaving gear! Oh, my goodness, this is wonderful. I love weaving. Oh, and spinning wheel parts. Oh, oh, look! Look! There’s a rack for storing cones of yarn. Eeee, and it’s got a huge winding board, too.”

Harry grinned as Emily rushed about, poking everything while chattering about the quality of it all. The options. All the amazing things she was going to be able to create once life settled down.

“Nonsense,” Harry said, waving off Emily’s determination to wait before she started weaving again. “Come on. We’re stuck inside for who knows how long. Let’s go check the box and see if it’s got what you need to set up a loom or whatever today.”

“Oh, but…”

Emily lasted against the temptation of her very own weaving studio for about three consecutive seconds, which Harry thought was pretty impressive actually. They ran back to the ongoing debate / argument about decorating which had moved on past the private suites and into the “public” area where they could meet with outsiders rather than allowing them into the Sanctum.

“Looking for stuff,” Harry said as he snatched the inventory out of Amal’s hands.

“Weaving stuff,” Emily explained as they pored over the revised inventory. “Oh. Oh goodness. I need that one, that one, all of those, and um, how much of the yarn can I take.”

“How much can you levitate?” Harry asked as he summoned the floor loom, the folding X-shaped loom, plus about thirty bits and bobs that he couldn’t have said the usage of. “Colors?”

“Give me… wool, cream, gold, brown, sage green and a deep indigo blue,” Emily said slowly.

Harry summoned sets of the wool yarn, hanks coiled up around themselves instead of cones, piling them up until Emily beamed and nodded that he could stop.

The stack of yarn hanks was just past Harry’s ribcage once Emily was satisfied.

“All yours again,” Harry said before helping Emily levitate her horde back to her new weaving workroom.

The first hallway, once they settled Emily’s stuff, turned out to be full of fabric, yarn and rope crafting rooms. Right side was all workrooms. Left side promptly sucked Emily’s yarn into it, displaying it on a lovely peg rack system that appeared out of the wall.

“I,” Emily said, hands over her chest and tears in her eyes, “love this place. So much.”

“It’s really cool,” Harry agreed.

There was a workroom for dying fabric and yarn. Another for spinning with about twenty different ways to spin. There was a rope-making room and then one for making nets that Harry ran back for a book on because net carrying bags for harvesting seemed like a great idea.

The tunnel connected to a cross-tunnel at the end which led to the other tunnels which had the same layout as Emily’s fabric crafting tunnel. One tunnel was all woodworking. Amal ended up following them back and squeaking in delight because he enjoyed whittling as a hobby. Leather-working filled the next tunnel. Then there was one for painting which made Lacey just about swoon when she came to see what was going on.

Anthony’s favorite was the tunnel dedicated to sewing clothes because, according to Lacey, Anthony was a clotheshorse who’d learned tailoring purely so he could get exactly the fit he wanted in the fabrics he loved.

Which meant that the obnoxious bunny slippers were deliberate.

Harry laughed until he wheezed over that little revelation.

Then there was a tunnel for sculpting in half a dozen different mediums, a tunnel for metal working from making weapons on up to making delicate little gold and silver ornaments. There was a tunnel specifically for making books and calligraphy though that apparently included carving runes into stone because one room held a bunch of stone carving tools.

And gardening and mushroom raising and just… the warren of workrooms went on and on and on.

“Lacey,” Harry said once they’d all meandered, exhausted and blurry and buzzing with excitement, back to the kitchen to eat something, “this place is set up for a whole bunch of people.”

“Mhm,” Lacey agreed. “It’s a Clan complex. Goblin clans tend to be between thirty and three thousand individuals. This is one the biggest and oldest complexes I’ve ever seen.”

“And they gave it to us,” Harry said, staring around the huge kitchen that truly was sized for hundreds of people, not five. “To me.”

It was…

…a bit overwhelming, honestly.

“Potters have big families,” Amal said into the quiet. He smiled gently at Harry. “Before the last couple of generations, there were about eight branches of the Potter family and maybe fifteen hundred members of the family. The Blacks are just as bad. Worse really.”

“Dad talked about his family as being this sprawling monstrosity of bloodlines crisscrossing full of crazy-cakes people,” Anthony agreed. “I studied the Black family for ages. Up until You-Know-Who and Grindelwald, there were more Blacks than any other Magi family. Worldwide, not just in Britain.”

“Huh,” Harry mused as Emily served them all a hearty bowl of beef barley soup with cheese toasties and a salad bedecked with little blue flowers Harry didn’t recognize and tiny, perfect pansies.

His mind screamed that it wasn’t going to happen. That it couldn’t happen. But his magic all but danced inside of Harry at the idea of so many relatives. Friends, families, kids running around. Old people and young people, maybe employees like Emily, too.

That was something that Harry could have now.

Eventually. There were a few busybody old men to deal with first, but Harry kind of thought he wanted to build a big, beautiful House right here in Gringotts in his lovely Sanctum.

25. The Formation of Alliances Can Take Considerable Time and Effort

“How many unclaimed vaults?” Harry asked as Chieftain Ragnok walked along smugly at his side through the Winter Farm cave.

“Over six thousand,” Chieftain Ragnok said, waggling his eyebrows and ears. “House Peverell is a lovely excuse to reclaim them and sort them out without the Ministry losing their minds. I’ve got every unclaimed vault with no heirs transferred here and now Gringotts is working to “fix” House Peverell’s little problem.”

Harry boggled over that and then realized that no, it was kind of perfect. Profit for the Goblins where they’d had lost profit, lost space and no capacity to fix things. Protection for him and his new House. And, better still, sorting through all the stuff could lead to people being reunited with things that had gotten lost or stolen over the centuries.

Win all around.

“That’s awesome,” Harry declared. “Still doesn’t answer my question about this place, though.”

Chieftain Ragnok hummed as he strolled along at Harry’s side through the winter wheat growing in the Winter Farm cave. “I understand your curiosity. I do not understand the urgency. Your identity is secure. No one can address you as anything other than Lord Peverell until you give them permission to be familiar with you.”

“Yeah, no, you misunderstood the question,” Harry said. “This place. It’s a Clan complex. A really, really, really old Clan complex.”

“Yes,” Chieftain Ragnok agreed. “It is.”

Around them, the bank’s house elves gleefully worked on harvesting the winter wheat. And a bunch of winter herbs and veggies. Plus some other stuff that was apparently one variety or another of valuable, edible or just plain useful to someone.

“I’m going to fill this complex with family eventually,” Harry said. “Eventually. Anthony and Lacey are already talking about kids. Amal has zero interest. He wants cats, which, sure, whatever. Emily has her family on the way. They’ll be swearing to me and moving in sometime in the next few days, which will add eight more, which leaves us at thirteen in a place that’s designed for hundreds. Still, I’ll be adopting kids, and they’ll have kids and who knows, I might just bring people in because they’re good people to have around. So, it’s going to fill up.”

“Good,” Chieftain Ragnok said with such deep approval that Harry couldn’t help but feel a little bit better.

“I just don’t understand why such a lovely place was empty,” Harry said. “This is all…” He waved at the farm which went on for a couple of miles, not just a couple of acres, “so perfectly set up to support a Clan. Why wasn’t there a Clan here already?”

“Ah,” Chieftain Ragnok breathed. “Now I see the question. Come. I’ll show you.”

Showing Harry meant trekking back to the main cavern with its little lake and copse of trees. In the center of the trees was a stone altar that looked like it was maybe a few hundred years old. The top surface had been cleaned off recently, but the massive stone block that made the base was blanketed with thick emerald moss.

“This mark,” Chieftain Ragnok said with a wave for Harry to look at the top of the altar where a circle, triangle and a line had been superimposed upon each other, “is the symbol of House Peverell. They are and have always been the Magi version of a Goblin Clan. There have been eight House Peverells in our history, going back several thousand years. They rise from the ashes of another house or two houses as in your case. They bring in resources and family members. They create and grow and spread out into the world, usually taking new names as they go. Eventually, they leave the Peverell Clan complex behind.”

Harry could almost see it as Chieftain Ragnok explained. Faces flicked around them, laughing, crying, shouting, working, reading, living…

Generations upon generations of people who’d been here in this place, making it exactly what was needed. Making magic better. Themselves better.

Just like Harry.

He loved this place because it was his new home where he could build a family that would support him in everything. Where he could support them, too. And that was, apparently, exactly what House Peverell was.

What they’d always been.

Chieftain Ragnok’s smile went a bit wry. “Every time, House Peverell moves into the wider world. Sometimes after a few years. Sometimes after generations. Either way, we then preserve the complex for the next incarnation of your House.”

Oh.

Yeah, no. Harry was not going to let that happen again. But then, it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix that sad, wry look on Chieftain Ragnok’s face. Maybe? Well. Harry would figure it out.

“That’s… something,” Harry said. “Though I’d rather that we didn’t have to have multiple incarnations. I’d think it would be better if we went on.”

“Logically, and yet no,” Chieftain Ragnok replied, casually waving at Harry. “No House or Clan lasts forever. That House Peverell has been repeatedly revived is different. You see, what you have done, what you are at your core, is a servant of Magic herself. House Peverell revives Magic, strengthens magic, and makes all magical creatures better than they were before.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest that he just wanted to be himself, and then shut it slowly as he looked around the winter farm full of happily harvesting house elves and supervising Goblins who looked relaxed instead of tense.

Magical creatures. Not Magi. Not humans.

“Okay, I can see that,” Harry said slowly. “I mean, I wasn’t exactly looking at it that way. More focused on family than anything else, but I do have some vague ideas of how to use all the workrooms we’ve got there, so yeah. Makes sense.”

“I will listen to whatever you propose,” Chieftain Ragnok said cheerfully. “The strength of the Peverell House is the strength of the Goblin Nation. It is a lesson we learned a very long time ago.”

Right. Definitely needed to firm up his ideas about the workrooms and kitchens and stuff.

But…

…It kinda made sense?

“Makes me wonder if there are any prophecies about me,” Harry mused. “Different ones. I mean, there’s supposedly one saying I have to fight You-Know-Who, but I’ve never truly believed that one.”

“Fair,” Chieftain Ragnok said. He rolled his eyes. “We’re aware of that one. I’m not convinced that it’s real, either. Despite that, the healers believe we can remove the taint from your scar in a couple of days. With that, we should be able to track down You-Know-Who and destroy him. Golem bodies such as his are… uniquely fragile things.”

Harry grinned. “I so want to say that to him when he’s destroyed. I mean, I won’t. But the outrage would be hilarious.”

Both of them snickered over that.

It was kind of… nice… to think that Voldemort would be dealt with so easily. Dumbledore had always made it seem like a huge deal and here Ragnok thought it would be simple. Easy, even.

They meandered back towards the main cavern together, Harry listening as Chieftain Ragnok told him about previous incarnations of House Peverell and some of the antics of his own clan members. Apparently, he had like eight siblings, all female, and they’d put him in the Chieftain position because they couldn’t be bothered to deal with Magi males.

Fair. Completely fair.

When they got back to the main cavern, Emily was there with a fresh robe for Harry, a quick spell to clean him up so that he wasn’t covered in dust, dirt and bits of brown, dry grass.

“Not that I mind getting cleaned up,” Harry said as Emily threw hygiene spell after hygiene spell at him, “but is there a reason I’m being washed up like a toddler?”

Emily grinned at the way Chieftain Ragnok cackled. “Yes, actually. Lacey sent me to come and get you. The news about the Boy-Who-Lived’s broom washing up on the shores of Finland just came through. The entire Ministry has lost their minds. Fudge is having vapors, apparently. Dumbledore was here yesterday with both Fudge and Madame Bones asking questions. He’s back again, throwing a fit. We need to get you out there and seen as Lord Peverell to completely separate you from Harry Potter in everyone’s minds.”

“Well, obviously, I can’t be the Boy-Who-Lived,” Harry said as he pulled the lovely tan-and-green robe on over his clothes. “Just as a general question, what accent will people hear when I speak? Where are we saying I grew up?”

“French,” Chieftain Ragnok said. “The spell apparently considered both America and Australia, but given Lacey and Anthony’s education, France was a better fit. You should speak as you always do. Other people will hear a very well-educated young man with a faint French accent. Don’t try and sculpt your speech at all.”

“Oh, good,” Harry said, relieved. “That’s a relief. I was worried I had to fake an accent or something.”

From the horrified looks on both Emily and Chieftain Ragnok’s faces, nope, not a plan. They picked up Lacey and Amal on the way out of the Sanctum. As they rode in the carts back towards the surface, Harry explained his very vague ideas for the workrooms.

“So,” Harry said once they’d exited the carts and reached the main lobby, “I think that it would be good for both sides. We have so much space, so many workrooms left unused, with so many supplies just sitting there. If we, by which I mean you and Lacey, can negotiate an agreement, then it would be lovely to have some of the young Goblins learning their crafts and starting to establish themselves to come rent or lease space from us.”

Chieftain Ragnok nodded thoughtfully even though his eyes were on the clump of Dumbledore, Fudge and Madame Bones over by the main doors. “An interesting proposition. Would acceptance into House Peverell be open to them?”

“I don’t see why not,” Harry said, looking at Amal who shrugged and gestured back at Harry.

“We can discuss how that would work,” Lacey said when Harry glanced her way. “There are several issues that would need to be ironed out before—”

“WHERE IS HARRY POTTER! Dumbledore roared loudly enough to make the chandeliers shake and everyone in the lobby jump.

“Everyone” in this case was a bunch of Goblins sorting through stacks of stuff and a handful of harried-looking Magi including Bill Weasley who looked right at Harry without recognizing him. Bill did frown at Dumbledore. That was interesting.

Also interesting was that Dumbledore looked pale and rather shaky, instead of righteously upset the way he sounded.

Huh. The Boy-Who-Lived disappearing seemed to have changed things for his old Headmaster.

“What in the…?” Harry murmured to Lacey who’d pulled him back a little bit so that he was between her and Amal instead of ahead of them.

Dumbledore stormed straight at them, or more accurately, straight at Chieftain Ragnok who put on a truly impressive sneer. “Where is he? Tell me where he is, Goblin!”

“We do not answer to you, Magi,” Chieftain Ragnok sneered back at Dumbledore, razor-sharp teeth on display.

“Who?” Harry interrupted before anything could come to blows.

Not the smartest thing in the world but Harry really, earnestly needed to know if the spells were working correctly. If not, he was prepared to kneecap Dumbledore. He hadn’t had the chance to start learning to be a war mage yet, but he already knew how to kick someone’s knees out from under them, courtesy of Dudley.

“Harry Potter, of course,” Dumbledore snapped with no signs of knowing who Harry, Amal or Lacey were. “What is your business here?”

Harry peered up at him, opening his mouth slowly before shaking his head. “It’s. Gringotts? The bank? What business is it of yours why I’m here, anyway, Supreme Mugwump?”

He figured that Dumbledore was enough of an international figure, and always so obnoxiously dressed, that he would be instantly identifiable even to someone who’d never been introduced. No one blinked, so Harry must’ve been right about that.

“You don’t understand!” Dumbledore insisted. “I must locate Harry Potter. There are things he does not know that must be addressed as soon as possible or we will all face destruction at Voldemort’s hands.”

With shaking hands.

Wow.

“No, I don’t understand,” Harry said. He shook his head. “We can continue our discussion later, Chieftain Ragnok. Apparently, the world can’t continue until one boy is found.”

“Who are you?” Dumbledore demanded before Harry could even take a half-step back and away.

“Lord Harrison Peverell,” Harry said, bowing just a bit mockingly at Dumbledore and his really obnoxious attitude. “Of House Peverell. We’re moving to Britain. The whole vault issue, you see, so… bank.”

Harry waved at the stacks of stuff that Chieftain Ragnok was basically liberating by using Harry’s new name. To his amusement, Dumbledore stared at the tables and stacks and frowning Goblins with the blooming awareness that he was being a huge pain in the arse to everyone.

“Why…?” Dumbledore asked much more respectfully, though with a hint of fear in his voice. “Why would House Peverell be coming to Britain? Your interests have always been on the Continent.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, my father died recently. He’d apparently been ill for quite some time and rather than properly prepare for things, he decided that the easiest thing to do was close every single vault but one. He shoved everything, literally everything, into that one vault which has… a very old inventory spell on it.”

“Oh, no,” Dumbledore breathed, eyes going wide. “He didn’t.”

“Thirty-some vaults. Thirty-some vaults full of all kinds of things from so many idiot and genius relatives,” Harry complained. “All in that one vault with an inventory that gives no history, no provenance, not even a proper count. It doesn’t even give the value of an item. The Giant Eel discovery in the news yesterday? Yeah, a relative, no idea which one, apparently won them several hundred years ago and, as he knew nothing at all about Giant Eels, shoved them into his vault and left them there.”

Dumbledore looked appalled. Over on the other side of the room Bill and another Magi looked like they were about to pass out from the sheer idea of someone doing that with such a valuable potion ingredient. Harry smiled his terrible-cheerful smile and gestured towards Chieftain Ragnok.

“We’re going to make the Chieftain a lot of money,” Harry said brightly in his terrible-cheerful voice. “Because the only bank on the planet that has all the specialties that we need to sort the mess out is right here. Can’t be helped. It’s just… going to take a while.”

The entire lobby had gone silent as Harry complained, though not like normal. There was none of the Jekyll and Hyde obsessiveness that Harry was used to. In its place was the sort of gold-digger attention that Malfoy usually brought out in people coupled with so many appalled faces that all Harry could do was shrug.

“I’m afraid that none of my House members in Britain so far have talents for finding people, though I’ll put the word out,” Harry said. “We’ll look through the books, too. See if we can find some good spells for locating, communicating, that sort of thing. Good luck to you in your search. Though I do wonder what the issue is. The boy has a right to live his own life out of the public eye. Potters do that.”

Dumbledore went all dramatically thunderous again. “You do not understand what is at stake, Lord Peverell.”

“Clearly,” Harry agreed in his blandest tone. “Well, good luck to you, Supreme Mugwump. Chieftain.”

He bowed properly to Chieftain Ragnok and then, looking to Lacey and Amal, gestured towards the front doors. None of them had dared to go out since the spell. Not even Lacey.

“Errands?” Harry suggested. “I think Emily has a few thousand letters she wanted posted.”

Amal laughed. “So many letters. Sure. We should go check on the mail redirect anyway. And there are several orders we need to pick up.”

“True,” Lacey said. “Though I want to be back before dinner. My husband and I have a date planned.”

Harry beamed. “Wonderful! Tell me only the appropriate portions, please.”

Lacey smirked at him. “Maybe.”

The three of them walked out of Gringotts. While people got out of the way, it was more because of the Rich and Powerful thing, not because Harry was Harry Potter. It was the most freeing, most amazing, most incredible thing that had happened yet.

26. When Traveling, Leaving a Trail to Follow Can Be Vital

Harry made a point of being seen going in and out of Gringotts over the next several days. The newspapers were full of speculations about where Harry was, what’d happened to him, and so many questions about why he’d run away. Rita Skeeter’s stories actually showed her journalistic chops because she’d tracked down school mates who told her that he’d grown up in the Muggle world.

Then she’d done the research to find out that Petunia Dursley had at once point been the older sister of Lily Evans.

The interviews with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were just about exactly what Harry would’ve expected. Nothing that he hadn’t heard a thousand times a day, every day, his whole life. To listen to everyone in Diagon Alley as Harry went about his business, it was the End of the World and proof that Muggles were just horrible savages.

Harry made a point of objecting openly and vocally to that whenever he heard someone say it.

“Nonsense,” Harry snapped at Tom when he heard Tom saying in the Leaky. “They’re not representative of Muggles. They’re just criminals trying to pretend to be decent people. Compare them to low-life thugs and abusers because that’s clearly what they are. The average Muggle is no more likely to beat a child half to death than you are.”

That got quoted in its entirety in the Prophet because of course Lord Peverell’s “radical” opinions were something to be paid attention to.

In the political and financial pages.

“I’m gonna do something obnoxiously philanthropic to make the front page,” Harry complained to Emily as they cleared a Muggle stationary store out of blank journals with good linen- and cotton-rag paper.

“We do have that Giant Eel plither,” Emily suggested, as she grabbed a dozen or so decent, not spectacular, fountain pens for them to use. “I checked with the Goblins. It used to be used to make a great many very powerful healing potions.”

“Bingo,” Harry said as he waggled a journal in Emily’s direction. “That’s what we’ll do. Something like a hundred kilos to St. Mungo’s, same to Hogwarts, discount to the Ministry. It’ll at least thin the stuff out without gutting the market. Get me some blue, purple, deep green and blood-red ink, will you? I still want to try illuminated manuscripts as a hobby.”

“I’ll get some gold ink, too,” Emily said happily. “They’ve got some books on illuminated manuscripts over here.”

“Um, sure, get that, too,” Harry said, nodding because he’d noticed them on the way to the journals and been thinking about getting at least one already. “I mean, instructions are good. I can’t exactly go copying existing texts for practice. I don’t even know where to start yet.”

“I can still teach you knitting,” Emily sing-songed at Harry.

She laughed when he groaned. That’d been yesterday’s disaster. While Dumbledore flitted around Britain, tracking down every single sighting of Harry during his escape like that was going to help him find Harry, Chieftain Ragnok had brought in about twenty young Goblins of various genders who were just starting out.

They’d gotten to claim a workroom. Harry had watched and asked questions and tried a little bit of everything. And then Emily had teased him into trying to knit which ended up with her horrified, a ball of yard turned into a felted mass, and a hole in the all of the cave because Emily’s knitting needles were wands.

They responded when you got frustrated.

Yeah, no more knitting for Harry, thank you.

He had enjoyed messing about with ink and quills doing really terrible calligraphy, though, so he might as well see if he liked doing illuminated manuscript things. Just with Muggle ink and paper because they were way, way, way cheaper and much less likely to accidentally go boom.

They ended up filling four shopping bags with the journals and paper, nice netted ones that Emily had tucked away in her pocket. There was another one holding the ink in a specially padded box because hopefully the jars wouldn’t break if the box was accidentally dropped.

Which Harry almost did as two kids just about his age abruptly sidled right up to him like they belonged with him. In faintly ratty clothes that looked painfully clean. They had that trying so hard to be good enough look that Harry knew right down to his bones after all the nonsense on Privet Drive.

Taking a chance, were they?

“Why cousin,” a complete stranger who looked to be about sixteen or so drawled as he leaned on Harry’s shoulder. “Whatever are you up to?”

“New hobbies?” said his nearly identical twin? Slightly younger brother? He leaned on Harry’s other shoulder. “What fun! What did you get for us?”

“And why would I get you anything?” Harry said, playing along even though Emily looked like she was about to blast them both even though they were in Muggle London. “You’re late! All kinds of work to be done and the two of you only show up when there’s packages to open.”

The twins looked a little bit startled that Harry hadn’t promptly rebuffed them.

But the twin on his right had bruises all around his wrist and old finger marks around his throat. The one of the left had a blooming black eye and his breath came in shallow sips that Harry knew intimately from having had broken ribs like that before.

They were in danger. Being abused. And wildly ridiculous to even try this.

Good enough for him.

“Really?” Emily huffed.

“Names?” Harry murmured as the passersby glanced Emily’s way.

“James and Oliver,” the left twin whispered. “I’m James. That’s Oliver.”

“Good,” Harry said. “Follow me. Safe place, healing, and the option to actually join House Peverell if you want.”

“Done,” Oliver said quickly as Emily rolled her eyes at the three of them.

“And why are you only showing up now?” Emily demanded because she might not like that someone got the drop on Harry, but she seemed to see the same things that Harry did. “You boys were supposed to be here days ago.”

Her disappointed Grandma face was bad enough that James went all wobbly bottom lip right back at her which, not surprise, had Emily cooing over him and soothing his feelings. Then Oliver had to get his feelings soothed though Oliver was laughing about it instead of being actually upset.

Watching the three of them interact was… lovely, actually. James and Oliver reminded him of Fred and George, just with sandy blond hair and hazel eyes instead of red and blue. Bit younger, too, but they had that same synergy between them that Harry had seen so often at Hogwarts.

It was fun, especially with the way that James, Oliver and Emily made a point of including Harry in all their teasing and dramatics.

All of which got them through the Underground and back to Diagon Alley where all eyes were promptly on the four of them.

James quailed as he blanched.

“Ah, come on, cousin,” Harry said. He looped an arm through James’ elbow. “You’ll love our new Sanctum, promise. There’s so much. I mean, massive, huge, ridiculous amounts of work to be done, but we have thirty or so young Goblins working with us. Emily and I have commandeered the kitchen. We could feed a literal army between us.”

“No,” James said, going along with Harry’s pull despite the way his legs shook. “Seriously?”

“Yup,” Harry confirmed with a huge grin that faded as Rita Skeeter appeared right in front of the four of them with no regard for the way Emily glowered threateningly at her.

“Lord Peverell,” Rita said with a predatory smile that she probably thought was flirtatious, “will we have a new announcement?”

Harry blinked at her. “… Is it common in Britain to announce when your cousins arrive late? I mean, they were supposed to be here a couple of days ago. Took their time, obviously.”

Oliver groaned and rolled his eyes, going along with Harry which was good because James all but hid behind Harry as if Rita was an XXXX creature about to eat his face. Though, honestly, Harry didn’t really blame James for that. Rita was kind of horrifyingly predatory about getting her stories.

“You can’t blame us,” Oliver said, peering at the notes Rita’s Quick Quotes quill was dashing down. “Wow, that’s weird. We’re cousins, not lovers, my dear. And Emily is more like our grandmother than a fascinating older lady to tempt either of us away from Harrison.”

“Oh, ew,” James squeaked. “That’s awful. Really?”

“Well, she is famed for how utterly inaccurate and inflammatory her stories are,” Harry said to James, not to Rita who made a huffy little noise like she hadn’t expected anyone to just say it outright like that. “To be expected, I suppose. It is Britian, after all. Nothing at all about mental instability? I mean, what with my father and all.”

“Nope,” Oliver said, following the parchment as Rita tried to pull it away while still taking notes on the interaction.

The words on the page got increasingly illegible as she and Oliver all but dueled over the parchment. The crowd around them had gone from quietly awed to frightened and now there were snickers because James seemed completely determined to steal Rita’s parchment no matter what she did about it.

“Let it go, you maniac,” Harry laughed finally. “Let it go!”

“Fine,” Oliver groaned. “And when she publishes something horrific and lawsuit-worthy, you’ll blame me, I suppose.”

“Well,” Harry said like that was a totally reasonable thing for him to do.

And, you know, total strangers making like they were family. Completely valid on Harry’s part.

Oliver groaned. “Will you please let the erumpent thing go?”

“Did I mention the erumpent?” Harry said, grinning at the way Rita perked up. And the way James groaned and thumped his forehead against Harry’s shoulder.

“We do not mention the erumpent,” James complained. “That’s the rule. No erumpent.”

“Sorry,” Harry sing-songed at the same time as Oliver.

“Into the bank with the three of you boys,” Emily said, laughing and shaking her head at them. “Really. If you want to start wild rumors, there are so many better stories to start with.”

She left it right there, pushing Oliver away from Rita and patting James on the back. Harry followed along with them, grinning like he hadn’t for years and years. Maybe ever. Somehow, he could just see Sirius cackling his head off at this.

“Can I get an official comment on the erumpent issue, Lord Peverell?” Rita called at his back.

Harry just laughed. “No comment, Ms. Skeeter. No comment at all.”

As Gringotts’ doors closed behind Harry, he heard Rita laughing. Just a low chuckle but hey, maybe she would be nicer in her reporting on Lord Peverell and his ridiculous twin cousins than she ever had been for Harry, Hermione and Ron.

One could but hope.

And warn Amal about it, too.

Either way…

“Come on,” Harry said as he grabbed James’ wrist and Oliver’s shoulder. “You gotta come see everyone. And the vault. It’s amazing. You’re gonna have such a blast, I swear.”

Neither of them protested while they rode the cart all the way down to the Peverell level. Didn’t protest as Harry dragged them into the vault. They didn’t do more than go all wide-eyed with awe at the outer cavern with its lake and copse of trees.

“Uh, who are they?” Anthony asked, one hand on Lacey’s arm to keep her from pulling her wand the way she so obviously wanted to.

“This is James,” Harry waved to James, “and Oliver. My brand new cousins. We’ll do the adoption ceremony in just a minute. Lacey, they were abused. Can you get them an appointment with the healers? I want them both fixed up. Oliver’s got broken ribs at the very least and I’m worried about the strangulation marks around James’ throat.”

Lacey sucked a sharp breath between her clenched teeth. “Understood. No food yet. The Healers will want to treat them as is, nothing added to their systems.”

“Then an appointment within the hour, if possible,” Harry stipulated. “Because I’m pretty sure that whoever their caretakers were, they weren’t feeding the twins properly.”

“How?” James demanded. “How can you know that?”

“No one ever sees it,” Oliver agreed, one arm wrapped around his ribs like he expected to be punched right in them.

Harry focused and let them see through the glamour of Lord Harrison Peverell. “Because I went through the same thing with my family. I managed to get to safety with the help of my deceased godfather. Now I’m doing my best to make things better for as many people as I can. Now that includes you two. Because honestly?”

Harry let the glamour settle back into place, but he could see how both James and Oliver could still see through it. They squinted a little and nodded in unison. He waited until they paid attention again because this was important.

“Honestly?” Oliver asked warily.

“That whole thing where you just walked up and acted like you were family?” Harry said, face starting to hurt from the force of his grin. “That was perfect! That was exactly what I’m looking for. Exactly what I need. I mean, it probably won’t work for anyone else, but that’s fine. You’re in. We can figure out just what you’ll do and how to deal with your old family once you’re healed and safe. For now, welcome to the Peverell family. I’m so happy to have you here with us.”

It took a moment before James managed a garbled “thank you”. Oliver just stared at Harry for along moment before sagging a little as if he’d been so afraid that they would be tossed back out to fend for themselves. Or attacked. Or blamed somehow.

Harry pulled Oliver into a gentle hug and then held both Oliver and James as they broke down in sheer relief.

“I’ve got you,” Harry murmured as Lacey slipped out to get the healers. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’re safe now, I promise.”

27. Proper Alliances Make For More Profit on all Sides

“You know,” Harry drawled as he helped Chieftain Ragnok wrestle a broken armchair off of a massive iron-banded trunk that had been dumped in the middle of the “Peverell Vault”, “I didn’t expect this much junk.”

Chieftain Ragnok cackled. “You Magi are packrats. Always finding things and shoving them away into vaults before forgetting that they’re there. We make an immense amount of money keeping Magi junk from falling to bits in obscure corners.”

“Yeah, so I can see,” Harry agreed.

The whole “Peverell Vault” project was ridiculous. Utterly and completely ridiculous in ways that tickled Harry’s funny bone. When Chieftain Ragnok had told Harry about his grand plans to clear out the forgotten and locked up vaults, Harry had shrugged and accepted it as a great way to hide just where all the actual Peverell resources had come from.

He did not want anyone to connect House Peverell with House Potter or House Black. Bad things would happen. Specifically for Harry.

The “Peverell Vault” rested about two stories underneath the deepest Tube lines, so quite high up. It was a new vault, one that had been carved about a hundred years previously. The ceiling showed clear chisel marks, which were easily visible because the ceiling was only about twelve feet high. In contrast, the vault stretched about the size of three quidditch pitches out from the vault door.

There were columns, thick as Harry was tall, spread irregularly across the breath of the vault, all of them covered with mortared bricks. This was no natural cavern. Every single aspect of it was made by hand and magic, which oddly gave it a nice bit of gravitas that made the other people working in the “Peverell Vault” lower their voices in respect.

Well, not Harry or Chieftain Ragnok. Or James and Oliver, both of whom had taken to the sorting project like a couple of nifflers hunting for gold.

“Coz!” Oliver called from the top of a teetering mound of books that he’d literally climbed up like a kid playing King of the Hill. “There’re some amazing books in this!”

“Then do catalogus and be done with it,” Harry called back. “We’ve got too much stuff to sort to do this by hand.”

“Aww, come on, Coz,” Oliver complained. He plopped down on the top of the stack with a book in each hand. “This way is more fun.”

“And slower,” Harry replied. “We don’t have time for that.”

James grinned up at his twin, wand in hand. “I’m gonna cast it.”

“Don’t you dare!” Oliver squawked as he scrambled down the mound of books. “James!”

A moment later, just before Oliver made it to solid ground, James cast catalogus. Perfect form, as good as anything Madame Pince might have done back at Hogwarts. Wand thrust up into the air straight over James’s head, good solid stance, and the other hand held out towards the mound of books under Oliver.

With his fingers spread instead of held tight against each other.

“Heads!” Harry yelled to the Goblins and Magi working along the edges of the vault.

If there was one spell that Hermione loved over every other, it was catalogus. Cast with your fingers tight against each other and you summoned, sorted and indexed only the books or notes directly in front of you that you specifically focused on.

Cast with your fingers out wide?

Both Harry and Chieftain Ragnok ducked and covered next to the iron-banded trunk as every single book in the vault launched itself at James. Thousands of books of all sizes and bindings, from delicate little folios in the finest of pigskins to huge heavy books with iron-banded wood for covers flew across the room.

To his credit, James yelped but held the spell firmly.

In a matter of about two very hectic minutes, every single book in the vault had been summoned, sorted, indexed and added to the book trunk at James’ feet. Harry shook his head as he carefully sat up. The Gringotts workers, especially the Magi, glared at James like they wanted to beat him about the head and shoulders with the book trunk.

“Good job,” Harry said as he brushed himself off and stood up. “I mean, we’ll have to do a second check once we open all these trunks up but hey, we got maybe one percent of the stuff, right?”

James choked on a laugh which was better than his blooming anxiety. “I goofed that spell up, didn’t I?”

“Closed fingers,” Harry said, demonstrating with a grin that had most of the Magi rolling their eyes and the Goblins snickering along with Chieftain Ragnok. “Closed fingers gives you just the books you’re focused on. Open fingers gets you everything.”

“I think I’ll remember that now,” James said. He ducked his head on a laugh as Oliver bounced to his feet to drape himself over James’ shoulder. “That was a pretty good way to stick in my head.”

“Well, you know, if you’d lost focus and dropped the spell, you would’ve just been buried in books,” Harry agreed. “Face first, you know?”

He cackled at the way both James and Oliver went horrified. It did, finally, drop the last of the tension. Didn’t reduce the mess at all, sadly. To be expected given how much random stuff was crammed into the vault.

Harry, James and Oliver worked alongside Chieftain Ragnok for a solid two hours. The other workers were in and out, none of them staying for more than about thirty minutes at a time. It seemed a little odd to Harry, but Chieftain Ragnok had a smug look on his face when Harry questioned him.

Didn’t explain why he was smug, but he was very smug about it.

After that, Harry took a break for food while James and Oliver switched out with Lacey and Anthony. Harry didn’t rejoin them in the “Peverell Vault” because Emily had gotten all of her kids and grandkids down to the Sanctuary which meant it was welcoming people to the Peverell family time.

“This is so wicked,” Fiona, the oldest of Emily’s grandkids at a whopping just-turned-thirteen, breathed as she stared around the cavern with wide, delighted eyes.

“It really is,” Harry agreed. “Okay, so, the lake is deep enough to swim in. There are fish. They’re very tasty. I’d prefer you didn’t swim in the lake because it frightens the fish. If you go through those for openings,” Harry pointed towards the farm caves, “there are rivers and lakes and farms in there. You can rampage around all you want in there, including swimming, as long as you don’t destroy the crops. That’s our food and we make a lot of money selling some of it.”

“Cool,” Reggie, Fiona’s little brother who was trying his very best not to vibrate with eleven-year-old glee, said in an attempt at a calm, collected and controlled voice. “That’ll be fun.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Kenneth screamed from the kitchen tunnel with the pitch that only a seven-year-old could reach when so excited they were about to freak out. “You guys! The kitchen is enormous! There are cakes! Plural!”

Harry laughed as both Fiona and Reggie abandoned boring things like introductions and adults for cake. No one would ever, in a million years, call Kenneth calm, cool and collected. He was loud and obnoxious and had zero shame about it.

Very petite, Fiona. Took after her formidable and quite short Grammie Emily.

All of them had been educated in France. Emily hadn’t wanted her children or grandchildren to be limited by Hogwarts’ substandard educational performance. Her kids had decided as adults that yeah, that was totally valid.

Made it easy for Fiona, Reggie and Kenneth to act the part of Peverells. They had the accent already and they only needed a little ward that would make “Sutton” come out as “Peverell” for them to be perfectly ready to be little horrors in public.

Harry was looking forward to it. So much.

“I’m sure they’ll calm down eventually,” Emily said in a tone that suggested that she thought it might happen just about when Hell froze over.

“Pfft, I hope they don’t,” Harry said. “They’re amazing. I love them already. I can’t wait to take them out for ice cream so that they can rampage all over Diagon in a sugar buzz.”

Emily giggled at that. “On your own head be it, dear.”

Emily’s youngest daughter, Gail, meandered over with her daughter Diana in her arms. She looked exhausted. The new mom sort of exhausted except it was coupled with just moved house exhausted.

“Give,” Harry told Gail. “Go take a nap. You look wiped out.”

“You,” Gail said as she passed Diana over to Harry without hesitation. “I like you. I’m going to do that.”

Harry settled Diana into the crook of his arm and smiled at her sleeping face. She’d passed the smushed face stage and now looked like an adorable picture-perfect baby. While sleeping. When awake, apparently Diana’s favorite thing to do was scream her lungs out, but hey, that was just what babies did.

When he looked up, both Emily and Gail were gone. Gail’s wife was gone, too. The only person there was one of the Goblins that Chieftain Ragnok had brought in.

“Here,” Halfpike said as she offered Harry a strip of lovely blue-green fabric that was both soft and sturdy as all heck. “Sling for the baby. It should keep it from screaming so much.”

“Sounds good,” Harry said. “Can you help me put it on? I’ve never worn one before.”

Halfpike apparently was the third of thirteen children, so she had lots of awesome advice on how to keep babies contented and relatively quiet as you went about your business. She’d gone through most of her apprenticeships with little siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins in slings. It was, from what Halfpike said, just a normal thing for Goblins who believed that babies needed to be loved by all of their family members.

“I like that,” Harry admitted once Diana was comfy in the sling. “I like that a lot. Humans need to do a lot more of that.”

His life probably would’ve been much better if his parents had had that kind of community around them. Another thing to implement in House Peverell.

Either way, once Halfpike went back to her spinning and loom work, Harry meandered off to check on the “Peverell Vault”.

“Wow, this is going to take forever,” Harry said. “It looks like nothing has changed. Just piles shifting around.”

Lacey sighed as she levitated a set of formal dining chairs with burn marks and broken legs over to the repair pile. “You’re not wrong, unfortunately. Why do you have Diana?”

“Her Mums needed so much sleep,” Harry said as he gently rubbed Diana’s back. “Volunteered to take care of her. I’ll pass her over or give her back in a couple hours. Halfpike gave me a bunch of advice and helped me get some bottles into stasis for when she gets hungry.”

Lacey chuckled at the way the Goblins around them came over to peek at Diana’s little face. “It’s the diapers that’s the issue.”

“When that comes around, I’ve got six spells, spare diapers and I can always call for Emily,” Harry said with a grin because Lacey laughed and nodded that it was the proper response. “It’ll be fine. Eventually. I mean, can’t be as bad as this mess.”

Unfortunately, Harry didn’t get to hear Lacey’s lecture on the horrors of dirty baby diapers. Nor the Goblins’ war stories of the Worst Diapers Ever.

“There you are,” Amal said, joining in the fashion for peeking at Diana and smiling at how cute she was when she was asleep. “Chieftain Ragnok needs to see you in his surface-side office.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Chieftain Ragnok had made a point of always coming to Harry instead of making Harry come to him. Something about forming alliances and treating each other as true allies instead of the old vicious rivalry that had happened before.

“Dumbledore is here to… beg for Peverell help,” Amal said. “Apparently, he has some information on why he needs to find Harry Potter and he’s only willing to share it with you.”

“Huh.” Harry rubbed Diana’s back and nodded. “Interesting. I guess I’d better go see what he has to say for himself.”

Harry didn’t pass Diana over to Amal. He carried her along with him as he took the elevator back towards the surface. There was so much going on that he’d sort of forgotten about the whole Dumbledore / Voldemort issue.

Obviously, that wasn’t going to be something that he could let slide any longer.

28. Being Gracious in Victory is a Virtue to be Emulated

Chieftain Ragnok’s “official” office, otherwise known as the one he allowed Magi to believe was his real office, looked like a law office. Probably because Chieftain Ragnok had covered every single wall in the office with well-worn and extensively used law books covering every sort of Magi law and every issue that could possibly affect the Goblins.

He had a section specifically for all the hoops the Goblins had to jump through to deal with Muggle businesses. There was a section specifically on the ever-worsening situation for creatures’ rights in Britian and one whole wall was covered with law books from other languages since Chieftain Ragnok worked with people from all over the world.

“You needed me?” Harry said as he sauntered in with Diana in her sling and the sparkly purple notebook he’d been using for taking notes on all the stuff they needed to deal with.

There was that moment of heart-stopping terror when Dumbledore turned to frown at Harry. He kind of suspected that he wasn’t ever going to get over that fear. After everything that Dumbledore had put him through, Harry’s gut and his magic viewed Dumbledore as a threat.

A very sparkly, very depressed and worried-looking threat.

Huh.

Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it?

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Chieftain Ragnok said, hopping up and coming over to smile at Diana who’d started fussing. “Ah, hungry. Do you have a bottle?”

“Yep, Halfpike got me all set up,” Harry said. “The sling is amazing. I’ve never worn one before and it’s really quite nice. Keeps her nice and secure. Better still, seems like Diana likes it, too. She would’ve already started screaming usually.”

There was a moment of complete shock on Dumbledore’s face when he saw Diana’s little fist shake at the edge of the sling. He wiped it away immediately, though for once Dumbledore had no success in sculpting an expression that would make him look kind, indulgent, or even happy to see anyone.

Which both of Harry and Chieftain Ragnok ignored.

Best not to remind the man of his image. He’d get all twinkly at them and Harry just wasn’t going to deal with that. Honestly, he probably should’ve left Diana with Amal or taken her back to Emily. Some of her fussing had to come from Harry’s rising tension at being in the same room as Dumbledore.

Dumbledore who stared at Harry with a sort of desperation mingled with depression that was very odd compared to the twinkly grandfather routine he normally tried with Harry. You know, with Harry Potter.

Right.

Harrison Peverell didn’t know about the twinkly thing, so Harry was just going to ignore Dumbledore until Diana had firmly latched onto her bottle.

Didn’t take long. Took longer to have a little elbow-fight against Chieftain Ragnok because he very clearly wanted to steal Diana so that he could feed her instead. That did a lovely job of getting Harry to calm down enough that Diana stopped fussing so much, so good on Chieftain Ragnok, even if he was a dirty attempted baby thief.

“Your… daughter?” Dumbledore finally asked once Harry sat down on the other chair in front of Chieftain Ragnok’s desk.

Harry laughed. “Oh, goodness, no. This is Emily’s granddaughter. The youngest one. Her mums are both taking a nap. You’re very lucky right now, Mr. Dumbledore. Normally Diana screams her head off when she’s awake. I’m sure the quiet won’t last so we should probably make this quick. I do have a massive amount of work to do and more family members arriving all the time.”

“…I see,” Dumbledore said even though he very clearly did not see. At all. “I apologize for interrupting your… work. But I’ve been given a grave responsibility and I. I am afraid that I cannot succeed.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at that. “Are we talking your Dark Lord problem or something else?”

Dumbledore breathed a little laugh. “I am afraid that it is Voldemort.”

For the first time ever, Harry felt a little thrill of dread up his spine when Dumbledore said “Voldemort” just the way Ron had always claimed happened because of the taboo on Voldemort’s name. He frowned, shaking his head when Dumbledore started to continue talking. Instead, Harry turned to Chieftain Ragnok who raised one eyebrow.

“There’s a taboo on that name,” Harry announced. “I just felt the sting of it. Why hasn’t it been broken?”

“A good question,” Chieftain Ragnok said. “I believe that the Ministry thinks that they cannot break it. I know that it does not affect Mr. Dumbledore.”

“I… have never felt a taboo on his name,” Dumbledore admitted with a tiny frown.

“Take the fee from our contract and get that broken, will you?” Harry asked Chieftain Ragnok. “I can’t have a serious conversation with that going on. It’s ridiculous. I’m shocked no one has paid to have it done before.”

Chieftain Ragnok nodded and wrote a quick note that he set into his Out box. The note flashed away in a burst of light. A few moments later, another note arrived with the news that the taboo would be broken within the next half hour.

“Good,” Harry said happily. “Please refrain from using the actual name until we get confirmation, Mr. Dumbledore. Other than that, what exactly did you need from me?”

Dumbledore took a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring at Diana’s bottle which was almost empty now. She’d slowed down as she neared the bottom of the bottle, eyes drooping and sucking going slow and contented. Harry smiled, pulling the nipple from her mouth so that he could shift her around onto his shoulder.

Chieftain Ragnok had a burping towel in his desk drawer.

“You’re just waiting for your chance to cuddle Diana, aren’t you?” Harry asked as he gently burped her as Halfpike had told him to.

“You’re a stingy, stingy man, Lord Peverell,” Chieftain Ragnok said with a grin.

“Well, tell your husband that you want kids of your own to dote on,” Harry said with a grin of his own. “Then you can be the stingy one.”

“I may do just that,” Chieftain Ragnok said, laughing at the way Harry rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell him you suggested it.”

“Oh, that’s so mean,” Harry said. “The man’s my Healer of record. I’m getting the terrible potions from now on.”

The teasing seemed to befuddle Dumbledore like nothing else had. Horrifyingly, it looked like Dumbledore had never considered that Goblins might be people. You know, individuals with spouses and kids, senses of humor and things that they hated.

Made more sense of the terrible lessons in History of Magic. Dumbledore didn’t care enough about any other race to provide real lessons. He didn’t care enough about history itself to make sure that the students at Hogwarts learned anything real.

“Sorry,” Harry said to Dumbledore, still grinning. “We’re kind of turning into friends what with how much we’re working together. House Peverell has quarters at the bank so that we’re available for all the questions that inevitably come up during the vault sorting process.”

“That makes sense,” Dumbledore allowed in a tone that implied he would’ve rathered have his throat cut than live in the bank. “I… many years ago, I was given a prophecy that predicted that there would be a child born who would have the power to defeat… You-Know-Who. I believe that it would be either the child of James and Lily Potter or of Frank and Alice Longbottom. Both of sets of parents met the criteria of the prophecy and both were fierce enemies of You-Know-Who. Both children, sons, were born in the correct time frame.”

“And then Harry Potter survived the attack that killed his parents and got his famous scar,” Harry said, nodding. “You believe he’s the key?”

“I do,” Dumbledore confirmed with a leaky-tire sigh. “Unfortunately, young Harry has run away. I cannot find him. I cannot tell him that he is… he bears the key to defeating You-Know-Who in his scar.”

Both Harry and Chieftain Ragnok stiffened. They exchanged looks. The ceremony to purge the dark magic residue from his hidden scar had been put off a couple of times now. Chieftain Ragnok’s husband Bannet had confirmed that the residue wasn’t influencing or harming Harry, so there didn’t seem to be a need to rush the ceremony.

“What is it in his scar, then?” Harry asked.

“It is the darkest of Black Magic,” Dumbledore said, all grim and More Knowledgeable Than You. “I believe that You-Know-Who split his soul in ceremony and invested the pieces into objects. It should have anchored him to the physical plane, preventing his soul from going on after death. It seems to be the only thing that could have allowed him to return the way he did after the Triwizard Tournament.”

“Horcruxes?” Chieftain Ragnok barked, standing abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell us as soon as you discovered it? We have ways of tracking, containing, and disposing of those abominations!”

From the way Dumbledore’s jaw dropped open in shock, that wasn’t something that he’d known.

Unfortunately, Chieftain Ragnok spoke just a little too loud, startling Harry and waking Diana up. Her wail made all three of them flinch. Really, the girl had lungs of steel on her. Worse, none of the rocking or patting or humming Harry tried did a lick of good getting Diana to calm back down.

“Right,” Harry said over Diana’s wails of outrage. “I’m going to pass Diana off to someone else in the family. I’ll be back in just a moment.”

In reality, Harry took about five minutes to find someone, Emily, to pass Diana off to but that was because Emily had come looking for Diana since her mums were up from their nap and feeling much better. Harry popped back into Chieftain Ragnok’s office with a smile and without the sling that Emily had claimed to study, replicate and use.

“Emily was already looking for Diana,” Harry explained as he sat back down. “We got lucky.”

He flipped open his sparkly purple notebook, going to a fresh page so that he could take notes. While the notebook was quite obviously Muggle, which seemed to reassure Dumbledore, the fountain pen was one of the Never-Fill ones that cost an arm and a leg. That put a frown on Dumbledore’s face.

“All right,” Harry said in his most businesslike tone that he’d copied half from Lacey and half from Uncle Vernon when he had guests at the house, “tell me what you need. Or, more accurately, tell me what the problem is, and we’ll do what we can to find a solution to it.”

Dumbledore sighed, shoulders sagging half an inch in performative defeat. “I do not know that there is much that you could do, honestly. I had hoped to find and retrieve Mr. Potter so that the… horcrux in his scar could be studied. Perhaps removed. What I need to do is somehow find a way to remove… You-Know-Who’s immortality.”

“That’s a good start,” Harry said, nodding as scribbled notes on removing horcruxes, tracking the various pieces of them, and ensuring that Voldemort died. “Does he draw power from his followers? I mean, I would think that being a floating bit of soul for so long would have some effects.”

“Definitely would,” Chieftain Ragnok agreed.

“So that’s something to consider,” Harry said. He waggled his fountain pen Chieftain Ragnok’s direction before noting it down. “Now, have you set up tracking spells for Mr. Potter?”

“Ah, yes?” Dumbledore said, visibly confused.

“Good, good,” Harry said even though he kind of wanted to throw something at Dumbledore’s head. “I heard through the gossip network that You-Know-Who was resurrected using Potter’s blood. We might be able to use those spells to track You-Know-Who instead.”

Dumbledore blew a breath out, eyes going very wide as he leaned back in his chair. “They haven’t worked since Mr. Potter ran away. I hadn’t… considered adjusting them to track his blood instead.”

Seriously, Dumbledore was a spangly idiot. He’d had a method to track Voldemort and hadn’t even attempted to do a thing with it.

“Right, so you can attempt that while I work on finding something for the power draw and Chieftain Ragnok works on preparing for the horcruxes,” Harry said. “I’m sure that between the lot of us we can find something that will make a difference.”

And, if Harry had his way, Dumbledore wouldn’t be a part of dealing with Voldemort and his horcruxes at all. Of course, the really important thing was to get out of Chieftain Ragnok’s office and down to the war mages so that he could verify that nothing would ever allow Dumbledore to track Harry’s blood back to his new identity.

Keeping out of Dumbledore’s hands was a much more urgent issue than dealing with Voldemort. After all, Voldemort seemed content to attack once in a while, unlike Dumbledore who thought he needed to keep Harry under his thumb every single minute of every single day.

No more. Not ever.

29. Newly Discovered Information Can Drastically Reshape Plans

“A horcrux,” Wrackspur said slowly, with gravity and seriousness that completely lied given how deep his claws were in the granite wall. “You’ve a horcrux in your scar.”

“Apparently so,” Harry agreed. “I mean, the impression I got from my discussion with Dumbledore and Chieftain Ragnok was that it’s not properly made or correctly invested. If it was, I wouldn’t be me. I’d be You-Know-Who.”

The taboo had already been broken. That’d happened way early during the too-long discussion with Dumbledore. Harry still said “You-Know-Who” out of habit. He’d get over it. Probably in a very public sort of way so that he could set a fashion for saying “Voldemort” and get all the Magi in Britian to stop doing the stupid “You-Know-Who” nonsense.

Eventually.

You know, when it rose on the list of Things to Do from about number ten thousand up into the top five.

Frankly, most of the time he edited it in his head to say “You-Know-Who” because Harry Potter had been trained by Dumbledore to say the name. Harrison Peverell wouldn’t. Logically.

So yeah, it was a thing to worry about in the hazy someday after things settled down somewhat.

The Goblin war mages had their own warren of tunnels. Clan houses and workshops for making armor and weapons mingled with about half a million sparring rooms designed for every single sort of combat imaginable.

Harry didn’t know why they would train to fight in zero G’s, but the Goblins had a training room for zero G combat.

So much fun. Harry really wanted to learn but the tournament to teach him was still ongoing so he had to wait.

“The question I have is whether or not we can track the other bits of You-Know-Who’s soul with my bit,” Harry explained as more chunks came out of the wall. “Well, I also want to know if we’re a hundred percent certain that my blood can’t be used to track back to my new identity. Just, you know, for anxiety’s sake.”

Wrackspur snorted a grim little laugh as he tore a head-sized chunk of granite out of the wall so that he could crush it to gravel in his hands. Thankfully, none of the other war mages were around. They’d all cleared off when Harry explained the whole horcrux in his scar since he was a literal infant thing.

There was a lot of crashing, bashing and explosions going on in the various workrooms in this part of the war mages warren.

Lots of temper. No outlet.

Understandable.

Harry kind of hoped that Wrackspur won the tournament. His willingness to stay and talk even when enraged was nice. Merlin only knew how many other things in Harry’s life would set the Goblins off. They kind of seemed to find any hints of children being abused as cause for total annihilation.

Harry agreed. Strongly. He just didn’t have the freedom to follow through on it.

Yet.

“Soothe your anxieties,” Wrackspur told Harry as he brushed his hands off and banished the scattered rubble with an absentminded gesture. “The spell was specifically designed to prevent any blood tracking. The only person those spells will point to now is the Dark Lord.”

“Okay, good,” Harry said. “And the rest of it?”

“Let’s find out,” Wrackspur said with a horribly cheerful smile that exposed all of his teeth right back to his razor-sharp molars.

Finding out meant going to the curse breakers. Without Lacey. That was odd. Bill Weasley was there, though, taking a break with a cuppa that he cradled between his hands like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

“You need more sleep,” Harry told Bill.

“Lord Peverell!” Bill yelped as he stood up so quickly that he sloshed lukewarm tea over his hands.

Harry grinned as Bill cleaned the mess up by banishing his tea mess right along with the mug. Only for Bill to start when he realized that the mug was gone when he’d apparently not actually intended to get rid of it, too.

“More sleep,” Harry said, laughing at the way Bill sighed.

“I… suppose I do, Lord Peverell,” Bill said.

He was the only curse breaker in their break room when Harry and Wrackspur walked in. A few moments later, several others hurried in. Both Goblin and Magi, all of them looking utterly worn down.

“I didn’t think that we’d sent on that much that needed extreme curse breaking yet,” Harry said slowly as he studied all of them.

“The books were… an issue,” Bill said.

“Oh,” Harry said slowly. “Yeah. Okay, that’s fair. Kind of just forgot about them once we put them all in the trunk.”

“The trunk came to life,” Bill said as he rubbed his eyes. “Started trying to eat people. And garbage cans. Took us eighteen hours to figure out which book had been trapped to animate the trunk and how to reverse the process so that we could get it out and start working on the other books.”

“Oh, ouch.” Harry grimaced. “Sorry?”

Not a thing Harry had known could happen. But then all the junk in the “Peverell Vault” was a mish-mash of every unopened and unclaimable vault that Chieftain Ragnok could toss in there. He probably shouldn’t be surprised that things got… interesting. Who knew what was really in there? Not even Chieftain Ragnok had a clue.

“No, it’s fine,” Bill said with a huge yawn. “Did you need something right now?”

“Well,” Harry said and hummed as every single one of the curse breakers, Goblin and Magi both, groaned at his tone. “Sorry in advance? Mr. Dumbledore came and requested House Peverell’s help. There are some… well. Horcruxes. Apparently, and I have no confirmation of how many, You-Know-Who made multiple horcruxes. Mr. Dumbledore thinks, potentially, that Mr. Potter might have a… incomplete and improperly invested horcrux in his scar.”

Bill sat down in his chair, so white-faced that Harry was surprised that he hadn’t passed out. “Oh. No.”

“Yeah,” Harry said with a sigh. “Now, House Peverell can probably track him down. We can certainly remove the incomplete horcrux. We, specifically me, aren’t sure that an incomplete horcrux can be used to track and destroy the other horcruxes. If not, well, we can leave Mr. Potter on his very nice and very secure Italian island. If so, it’s worth investing some effort into contacting him. Wrackspur suggested coming to ask if there was any idea if the idea was even possible.”

The horror faded as Harry explained.

It transmuted into a thoughtful expression on Bill’s face. The other Magi curse breakers, of which there were two, looked curious and thoughtful, too. None of them took the idea of a horcrux left in a baby personally. Just a thought exercise.

The Goblins all had that bared-fang, claws-out fury going that Wrackspur did. Every single one of them.

“I can’t be sure,” Bill said after a whole lot of Goblin cursing that Bill and the two Magi curse breakers completely ignored. “But I think… that it might work? It would be better if you could get one of the actual horcruxes. Even a destroyed one would have a link. Contact Mr. Dumbledore. There was a diary in Harry’s second year that I’m quite certain was a horcrux.”

Harry let both of his eyebrows go up. “Really? From the way Mr. Dumbledore talked, he wasn’t even sure that You-Know-Who had made one. Or many.”

“I examined the diary and told him what it was right after the school year,” Bill said with enough exasperation that the Goblins looked at him approvingly.

Bit like looking at a little kid deciding to be fierce, but still approvingly.

“Sounds like Mr. Dumbledore all over,” Harry said with a chuckle as he shook his head. “He’s a bit of a reputation on the Continent, you know.”

“Yeah,” Bill agreed with a wry smile. “I do. My girlfriend is from France.”

“Good man!” Harry said, grinning at the way Bill laughed and ducked his head. “All right, if your department could, after you get a good night’s sleep, do a bit of arithmancy to see if the partial horcrux might work, I’d appreciate it. And properly compensate you, of course. I’ve several ideas to work on if it won’t. Just might as well investigate the obvious options before we do something all… Peverell.”

It was kind of hilarious the way everyone, even Wrackspur, flinched at the idea of “something Peverell”. Harry really needed to spend a few evenings reading up on what the previous holders of the name had gotten up to. Must be fascinating given the way people responded.

“We’ll get something back to you in the morning,” Bill promised only to roll his eyes when Harry put his hands on his hips. “Fine! Sometime tomorrow afternoon, Lord Peverell.”

“That’s better,” Harry said. “Don’t make me send Emily up here. She’ll give you all the Disappointed Look of Doom.”

“I don’t think we need that,” Bill said quickly enough that Harry started laughing.

Everyone else looked horrified by the idea, too.

Either way, Harry left them to get themselves home and sent Wrackspur off to tell the other war mages about the potential issue before heading down into the Sanctuary to tell the others all about Dumbledore’s visit.

Slight detour first, though.

The box was still stuffed to the gills with the things Sirius had gathered up for Harry. They’d moved the food into the pantry and pulled out all the books because the kitchen and library were so nice. Furniture and clothes plus supplies for everyone to do the things they wanted, but other than that, the box was still a huge warehouse full of everything under the sun.

With Sirius’ portrait sitting in its little office.

“Hey, Pup,” Sirius said with a huge grin when Harry plopped down at the desk. “You’ve been busy. Lacey’s been coming down and filling me in on all the things you’re up to. Sounds like a grand prank.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Harry said with a tired smile of his own. “I do have an issue I’d like some advice on, though. I mean, if you can help?”

“Depends on what it is,” Sirius said much more seriously than before. “Lay it on me.”

Telling Sirius about the horcruxes turned into a looping, spiraling story full of digressions because Sirius had a million questions about Dumbledore’s facial expressions, what his robes looked like and the intensity of the twinkling of his eyes. Plus, more questions about Bill and Rita Skeeter and just… so many other tiny details that Harry hadn’t even connected.

If they were connected. Who knew? Certainly not Harry.

“That is a question,” Sirius mused once he’d run out of questions and Harry had run out of words. “I don’t know that I agree with Bill, actually. I certainly don’t have all of the original Sirius’ creativity and magic, but… my gut says that you’re going to need more than just the one in your scar. Or even the broken diary.”

Harry sighed.

Not what he’d wanted to hear but his gut had been saying the same thing.

Before Harry could do more than lean back in the chair, Sirius hummed and waved one hand. An iron chest about the size of Harry’s torso with gleaming steel bands around it came sailing in. There were chains wrapped around it like a cocoon plus about twenty different spells sloppily written on parchment pasted to the surface. Harry couldn’t make out what was actually on the parchments, the specific runes, because the chains covered far too much.

“If you look in the center drawer of the desk,” Sirius said while glaring at the iron chest, “you’ll find the key for the padlock on that monstrosity. I found two things while cleaning out the vaults and Grimmauld Place. One was a locket that my mother’s old house elf Kreacher had been trying to destroy. The other was a cup in Bellatrix’s trust vault. Both of them are almost certainly horcruxes. I had no idea what to do with them and no time to do more than just contain them. Take the chest to the Goblins, Harry. They’ll be able to use them for sure.”

“Wow,” Harry breathed before he started laughing.

Once he started laughing, he had a really hard time stopping. You know, before the tears and the giggles stopped. Sirius looked a little bit worried until Harry waved a hand at him. Then he just settled in to wait out Harry’s storm of emotion.

“No one,” Harry said, hiccuping as he wiped his cheeks with his sleeve, “has ever taken so much care of me, Sirius. You’re not here for me to hug and it sucks.”

“Sorry, Pup,” Sirius said with that sad little smile that was so full of love.

“No, it’s fine,” Harry said. “I just… I’m still getting used to people loving me. And you… No one loved me as much as you, Sirius. It’s hard. I hate that you’re gone.”

“You’ll find people who will love you just as much or more,” Sirius promised with his sad, sad smile. “You will. It might not seem like it yet, but it’ll happen. Happened for me and it was the best thing in the world. You’re already on a good path for it. So. Go give that to the Goblins. Sooner they have it, the better. Even with all the work I did to seal that thing up, the horcruxes’ influence is leeching out.”

Which would destabilize the box and Sirius both.

“On it,” Harry promised. “Thanks, Sirius.”

“Any time, Pup,” Sirius said. “Any time.”

30. When Revising Plans, Do Not Lose Track of Your Goals

“You know,” Harry said as he watched Wrackspur and the other war mages setting up for this new ritual, “I didn’t think that we’d be able to do this so quickly.”

Emily raised an eyebrow at Harry from outside of the ritual circle where she’d knitted three pairs of socks with vicious fury, two mufflers and was now working on a very nicely cabled jumper out of some tightly spun cream wool.

The socks threw off little sparks at her feet. Those mufflers kept twisting and shifting like snakes curling up into a coil. And that jumper was probably going to be the next best thing to armor by the time Emily was done knitting it with her wand-knitting-needles.

“I’m not sure that I can comment on that,” Emily said. “I’d need to use too much profanity to curse certain people in your life out.”

Harry grinned. “I mean, overnight? Pretty sure we could wait until oh, lunchtime?”

“Pfft, then you’d have to fast until lunch,” Emily said. “Nothing doing. We’re getting that horcrux out of you and then the rest of them will be destroyed along with it.”

To say that Chieftain Ragnok had pitched a fit when he found out that Bellatrix Lestrange had put a horcrux in her trust vault was underplaying it dramatically. It was more accurate to say that Chieftain Ragnok had gone absolutely round the twist when he found that out.

There were eighteen new rules with execution punishments for any Magi who dared to have something like that in their vaults. Harry had stared in awe as Chieftain Ragnok had messages sent out to every single customer that they’d better damned well come clean up their vaults because once the Peverell vault mess was dealt with, there would be a full audit of everyone.

And if a Magi objected, well, they could go find a place to store their junk elsewhere.

Then Chieftain Ragnok had taken a deep breath that hissed between his clenched teeth before turning to Harry, Emily and Amal who’d been quietly having vapors in the background over the trunk and the horcruxes locked inside of it.

“That… thing… is coming out of you tonight,” Chieftain Ragnok had snapped at Harry. He stabbed one finger at the trunk like he wanted to tear it to shreds with his claws. “Those are going to be destroyed, too.”

Harry had nodded and accepted it because nope, not picking that fight even if he did think everyone was overreacting just a titch. Tiny little bit. Maybe.

Which was why the war mages had spent the entire night setting up a much more complicated ritual with Harry smack in the middle of the circle with the iron trunk next to him. Everyone else had been exiled about ten minutes into the setup process. Not by Wrackspur or the other war mages. Not even by Emily.

Harry had sent them away because frankly?

He was stressed enough about this whole horcrux in his scar that needed to be torn out of his body, magic and soul. The last thing Harry needed was to deal with Lacey pacing and cursing while Anthony stared at Harry like he was memorizing every last expression on Harry’s face for fear that Harry wasn’t going to make it through the ritual. James and Oliver had gone silent as they clung to each other while staring at Harry soulfully. The kids, thank goodness, hadn’t been told. Emily had put her foot down on that one, backing Harry up.

Amal had been the hard one to send away, the darned mother hen.

“You are stressing me out,” Harry had finally told Amal just as sternly as he possibly could. “I know. It’s your job and your duty to take care of me, Amal. But it’s Emily’s job to do the physical care, not yours. You. You go make sure that no one can “find” Harry Potter. Lay a trail. Get Potter Keep’s wards updated. Find six or seven abandoned fortresses in Britian and Europe that we can buy, ward to hell and gone and then move to at will. I know, set up a perfectly logical, solid, reputable identity for “Harry Potter” to have transitioned to because, obviously, no one is going to let the Boy-Who-Lived thing go.”

“I hate this,” Amal had complained, but he’d gone.

He’d gone and Harry’s stress level had dropped immediately. So much easier to do what needed to be done when he didn’t have people being all soulfully worried about his survival.

Fury was easy.

Harry could handle fury. The war mages were furious. Emily was furious. Harry found that it settled his jittery nerves right down to face that fury.

Probably said horrible things about his mental health but that was an issue to deal with on another day, thank you very much. Preferably after getting a good night’s sleep instead of standing there waiting for a ritual circle to seal him in.

With two other horcruxes that would inevitably be horrific once unleashed. The diary had been bad enough. These things would probably be even worse given that there was nowhere else for Voldemort’s soul fragments to go.

“All right,” Emily said as she stuffed her knitting into a bottomless bag on her hip that jerked and kicked from the power she’d knitted into the socks and stuff. “It’s time, dear.”

“I’m ready,” Harry lied. “What do I do?”

“Breathe,” Emily told him.

And that was all the warning that he got.

Magic surged through the circles surrounding Harry. The previous ritual had been amazing to be inside of because the war mages faced outwards and stopped anything from getting near Harry.

This time they faced inwards. Towards Harry.

More accurately, towards Harry’s scar and the iron trunk which rattled, bounced and then split open at the corners like a banana peeling itself. Chain links sprayed all over the place, a couple striking Harry in the hip and shin hard enough to bruise. The rest bounced off the inner ward and ricocheted back at Harry.

He flinched.

And then shouted as his scar abruptly split open, pouring blood down his face much the same way that the trunk had opened up. He collapsed to his knees as the blood in his eyes stung hard enough that he could barely see.

Well. The cloud of dark magic boiling up off his forehead and off the cup and locket did a pretty good job blocking his vision, too, but man, that blood stung.

All three clouds of wailing, whining Dark Lord screamed in tones that sent ice picks through Harry’s skull. He clapped his hands over his ears and gritted his teeth because he was not going to say a damned thing. Not one word. He wouldn’t interfere with the ritual, not in any single way.

Except…

A moment later three clouds became two. Then one cloud that shuddered into something that looked almost like a human being. Older than Tom had been down in the Chamber of Secrets, but still the same suave, overly self-assured jerk.

“Interesting,” this new version of Tom drawled as he stared at Harry like Harry was a chunk of meat. “This is not what I expected when I did these rituals.”

Harry glared.

Somewhere, way off in the miles-away distance that was the outside of the ritual circle, Harry could distantly hear Emily bellowing something at someone. Orders to fix it and to hurry up. Shouting about unexpected power.

Danger to…

…the host.

To Harry.

Right, then. Another battle to the death against old Tom, this time without his wand in hand, but with an army of very angry war mages and Emily. Didn’t do to forget Emily. She’d probably tear Voldemort to shreds in moments if she could get at him.

“Yeah, well,” Harry said as he brushed the blood off his face, grimacing that it just stained his sleeve and did nothing to stop the flow, “you really were an absolute idiot to do this at all. Made a golem of yourself and all for an imperfect, well-known method of immortality that doesn’t actually give immortality.”

“You know nothing, boy,” Tom snarled at Harry. He smirked. “They’ve made very sure of that haven’t they, little Harry Pev… Peverell. Peverell? What did you do, boy?”

Harry grinned at him with all his teeth. “I’m not Harry Potter. I’m Lord Harrison Peverell, you fucking idiot. I’m not the one you marked as your so-called equal. He’s off on an Italian island living his best life. I just volunteered to clean up the trash he left behind.”

Tom stumbled back a step, nearly physical even though he had no feet, only smoke. He shook his head, mouth working as he tried to say “Potter” over and over again.

Harry laughed. “What’s wrong, Tommy-boy? Realizing that you’re not as all-powerful as you thought you were? Don’t feel too bad. This is just what happens when you go up against a Peverell, you know. This is what we are.”

Tom snarled and surged straight at Harry, mouth gaping wider and wider to the point that he looked like a snake about to swallow a rat whole.

Something like love and something like rage burned in Harry’s heart. It reminded him of Quirrelmort. It sounded like his father bellowing at Lily to take Harry and run. It smelled like blood and ash and death.

Tasted as sour as fear and as bitter as the knowledge that Dumbledore always intended Harry to fight this battle with no help and no knowledge, nothing at all to make sure that he would survive.

“Oh, fuck you,” Harry snarled as Tom slammed into him. “I am not falling for it, you worthless chunk of junk.”

His parents’ magic burned around Harry, giving him just enough room for Harry to marshal his own magic.

Wild and angry and so excited to be free. Harry’s magic was deep, deep green so dark that it looked nearly black. Threaded through it strands of silver that felt like Sirius mingled with gold from his mum and a brighter teal that Harry knew without being told came from his dad.

“Oh, that would make a lovely plaid,” Harry said utterly nonsensically. “Emily, make note of the colors. I want a plaid in those colors.”

Then he shaped his magic into a pitchfork with four tines that Harry shoved straight into Tom’s chest.

There was a solid-seeming sort of thunk even though Tom, Voldemort, the Dark Lord of everyone’s nightmares, was about as solid as smoke drifting through the summer skies above a dying bonfire. Tom wheezed and gripped the handle of Harry’s pitchfork, mouthing “Potter” at him even though no sound would come out of his mouth.

“That’s not my name,” Harry snarled as he pushed more power into the pitchfork.

Around them, the circles glowed brighter and brighter, flaring until they were harder to look at than the noon sun on a clear day. The chanting outside of the circle rose to full-throated bellows that echoed in the cavern. Underneath the bellows was a clear alto singing a prayer that Harry didn’t understand. Wrong language. But it sounded like vengeance and fury mixed with a hope for survival.

“You… are…” Tom tried to say as his smokey shape began to ripple and fracture with shimmering plaid energy sending beams of light out of him.

“My name is Lord Harrison Peverell,” Harry said as he pushed everything that he had into destroying everything that Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort, had been, was currently, and could ever be. “Don’t you dare try to call me anything else, you piece of shite!”

Magic exploded through Tom, shredding what little body and coherence he’d created by combining the three horcruxes together. Harry stumbled, sagged, and then dropped to his knees as his pitchfork shimmered into nothingness.

An almighty bang drove Harry right down to the cavern floor where he groaned in the sudden complete silence.

“Harry!” Emily shouted as she rushed over to turn Harry over. “Oh, sweetie, you really, really, really need training.”

Harry laughed breathlessly. “Yeah. I know. Meant it about the plaid. That was very pretty…”

He smiled when Emily rolled her eyes at him. The war mages, Wrackspur in the lead, came thundering over to cast a thousand, a million spells at Harry and the remnants of Tom’s horcruxes. Harry let them.

It was done.

Voldemort was gone. Harry Potter was gone. Long live Harrison “Harry” Peverell.

After a good long sleep. Harry sighed and let unconsciousness claim him. Everyone else could be all Peverell-y for a while, thank you very much.

---