I Think I Preferred the Squid
The bank of Gringotts was as splendid and imposing as ever. Columns of shining white marble offered a picture of austere authority as it loomed. This Roman style structure was taller than the majority of buildings in Diagon Alley. Although most never lingered on the steps of the great bank, there were normally many wix and goblins coming and going to conduct business. Lately, though, the steps were not nearly as busy. The new ‘safety’ regulations were restricting free movement about the street, and business was mostly behind closed storefronts. The sheer irritation it caused the average magical to risk bartering, buying, or selling on the street outside simply wasn’t worth it. They had in the beginning, but when the harassment from patrolling aurors started most had retreated.
In a way, that was what made the new laws so ingenious. They were mild enough to not seem particularly dangerous on their own, but annoying enough to make compliance worth avoiding trouble. Hence the three wix able to walk side-by-side as they made their way down the street. The sounds of hurried walking and the occasional murmured conversation was the most any would hear as they passed other pedestrians.
Although the atmosphere was not necessarily tense, the sheer lack of sound encouraged silence the same way entering a Library would. Clacking accompanied the groups of three’s strides as the shoes they wore made contact with the old cobbled street. Each wore a vastly different style of clothing. The wix on the right wore a brown suit jacket with marron trousers that clashed spectacularly with the red shade of his hair. The blond wix in the middle was wearing a dark blue hooded jacket over his black button-down shirt and grey trousers. The last man on the left wore a faded black leather jacket over a grey t-shirt and jeans, his longer black hair held in a loose bun.
As Harry walked closer to the bank, he could not help but feel an impending sense of doom. The last time he had been here, he had paid a hefty sum with Ron and Hermione, then left with everything left in the vaults he was aware of. Technically, the goblins shouldn’t feel slighted, since he had paid recompense without haggling in any way. Harry had seen many people get away with technicalities, and he had certainly taken advantage in the same way, that didn’t mean it always came up roses.
Climbing up the steps that would bring them inside, made him feel as though the expanding trunks and warded boxes that George insisted everyone bring may be redundant. When the flat mates had discussed going to the bank that morning, Carl had figured that while Harry might get something, he himself was highly skeptical. Then George had arrived and explained that he had left the rest of his family to perform their own tests so that he could go with the two of them. However, the oldest of them had demanded that they both have as much storage as possible. “After all,” George had said, “even if only one of us end up with an unknown vault; wixen have a tendency to store bulky furniture, antiques, and cursed objects even if they didn’t have great wealth.”
Walking across the threshold, Harry made sure to keep a straight posture and squared shoulders. While the majority of the tellers working at their stations kept their eyes on the work in front of them, their attention was on him the moment he and his friends entered. The feeling was odd, he was coming in here not to steal or make amends, and his usual transactions had stopped when the war began.
Coming to a stop in front of an unoccupied teller, the goblin in question made all three wix wait a while before even acknowledging their presence. All three could have cared less. As long as they made it out with as many body parts as they came in with, they didn’t mind the delay.
Looking up with a sneer, the teller asked, “What do you want?”
Harry spoke then, “Three inheritance and lineage tests, to be taken inside the bank.”
The goblin froze for a moment and his eyes narrowed suspiciously at all three of them. Sneering again, he named the price for each. They handed over the required amount, before being led to one of the doors lining the wall behind the tellers’ desks. The room wasn’t particularly large, but it had an oval table that magically adjusted to the height of the people using it.
A clatter sounded, and the goblin placed three oddly white sheets of parchment in front of them, “Put seven drops of blood on each.”
Slightly startled at his appearance, Harry managed to hold his flinch in and glanced at Carl. The blond smiled at him in reassurance. Instead of using the dagger offered by the goblin, his friend brought out his own silver knife, and made a small cut on the side of his palm as he stepped up to the table.
The other two did the same with their own blades, as all three of them were rather paranoid about leaving any blood behind. The goblin helping them didn’t seem particularly bothered one way or the other, he simply appeared impatient. They had to wait several minutes, but eventually the parchment began filling with writing. Both George and Harry were slightly surprised to see that there were a few vaults they hadn’t known about. Harry in particular was intrigued to see the generational names that showed up under his own name at the top.
With a little flash of light, the parchment divided into two sheets. The top was inheritance information of vaults they could claim, and the bottom had their genealogical information. None of them really wanted to take the time to peruse their documents in hostile territory, despite their curiosity. They quickly took the parchment at the narrow-eyed look the goblin gave them, before they requested a ride to their vaults.
Grumbling for a moment, the goblin called sharply at another goblin standing outside along the wall and barked some orders. The being appeared rather put out that they had anything to inherit, but dutifully allowed them to leave the room and go to the transport area. Each wix had to climb into a different cart, as each one of them had different places to go.
Surprisingly for the all three wix, Carl’s inheritance section had three vaults, and they had seen the genealogical section had rapidly filled out with far more than they had anticipated. George’s family had come immediately after Bill had told them about it, so he knew that the vaults on the list couldn’t be claimed by anyone else. Harry and Carl had both seen the name on it and felt their hearts clench at the realization that these were vaults left by George’s uncles. Apparently, no one had known about the Prewitt twins leaving anything to their nephews.
The sheer number of anti-enchantment and security measures Harry could feel rushing over him was intense. Thankfully nothing he had on him was ruined. Although, he had heard from Bill that these were installed after a certain lizard broke out of the bank. The goblins seemed to take delight in the number of things wixen that passed through had accidentally broken.
Harry hadn’t realized that the majority of unclaimed personal vaults belonging to deceased members of the Black family went to him as the last heir.
Wincing a bit, he glanced down at the sheet of parchment again. Harry couldn’t help a grimace at the knowledge that he would have to clear out Bellatrix Lestranges vault. That was one particular bank vault he could have done without seeing ever again.
Two weeks had passed since the Gringotts trip, and they had finally finished doing a cursory sort through everything they had retrieved from the bank. No one had really looked through the tests again: George because he was going to go over everything with Angelina anyway, Harry because he felt a little sad about what he already knew he would find, and Carl had simply put it down when they returned.
Like George had told them, the amount of furniture, antiques, and plain junk that had been stored in those vaults were a bit of a pain to get through. Cursed and enchanted items were also a thing they had to scan for. Though finding somewhere to store those particular items was fairly easy given the amount of space they had in the house. They were both dusty after a sorting session. There wasn’t anything preventing decay from occurring on stored items at the bank, so there was a surprising amount of dust even after being abandoned for so long.
Sorting through furniture, knickknacks, art, clothes, accessories, books, and other such things had been monotonous after a while. Harry especially had needed help with the sheer number of cursed items he had needed to separate. Bellatrix wasn’t the only one who kept nasty surprises in her vault, and apparently the rest of the family were pack rats. The majority of the two weeks outside of work were spent on sorting the Black family items alone.
Glancing at the calendar, Harry felt a little unease at the reminder of the date: October 31st. Throughout the years, he and his friends had noticed that even if the majority of his death-defying stunts were long gone, Halloween tended to be a day of chaos in one way or another. Usually something just plain chaotic would take place; but sometimes it would be a surprising event, a plan would turn itself upside down, something incredibly strange (the time with the flying squid had been burned into his brain) or upsetting would occur.
George was home with Angelina and the kids. So, it was just Harry and Carl sitting in the parlor they had been using as a sorting station. Both had just finished organizing all of the random books, writing paraphernalia, and old wands found in one of the Winters’ family vaults that Carl had inherited.
Sighing, Carl sank onto an armchair and tipped his head back to rest on the cushion.
Harry smiled and asked, “Have you decided whether to read your test yet?”
Carl winced a bit at the question as he answered, “Yeah, I was actually going to ask you to look over it with me. Not really feeling brave enough to look by myself.”
Harry rolled his eyes and said, “’Course I will. Bloody hell, I haven’t even looked at mine yet, and I know who my family were.”
Carl looked at him, his face set back to his normally neutral expression, but he appeared a bit sheepish at the comment.
Harry saw the amount of effort it took his friend to pull himself up a bit straighter and grab the parchment. He quickly stood up and stumbled a bit as he hastily made his way over to perch on the arm of the chair Carl was sitting in.
Carl huffed a bit of a laugh before taking a deep breath and flipping the test over:
Legal Name: Carl Aron Hopkins
Birth Name: Alexis Lovell Winters ~ August 2 1979
Mother: Yvonne Winters née Durand ~ May 31 1949 – August 4 1979
Father: Lovell Winters ~ March 6 1945 – August 5 1979
Maternal Grandparents: Georgine Durand née Leclerc ~ March 9 1919 – November 16 1962 + Alaire Durand ~ August 25 1919 – March 14 1960
Paternal Grandparents: Athenais Winters née Baudelaire ~ July 7 1903 – February 18 1963 + Marlon Winters ~ February 3 1901 – August 5 1979
There was utter silence between the two of them as they read the first of the test together. The paper slipped right out of Carls hand and to the floor. Harry looked over in concern and saw that his friend looked rather pale. Reaching over, Harry gently held Carls left bicep, hoping that the feeling of slight pressure might ground the other.
The blond swallowed before he said in a hoarse voice, “All of them died before or right after I was born.”
Harry felt a sudden pang in his chest as he realized what the man he was coming to see as his big brother was feeling. He knew the feeling all too well. Locked away at the Dursleys, sitting in his cupboard, believing himself to be the unwanted child. Then, entering the wizarding world and realizing that his parents had loved him enough to sacrifice themselves to protect him. While it was true that neither of them could know about extended family, it seemed highly likely that the only reason Carl… Alexis (?) had ended up in the muggle world, was due to chance and lack of living relatives.
His friend shook himself slightly, then turned and cleared his throat as he reached down and picked the test back up. Resting the parchment back onto the coffee table with far more care than was necessary, Carl looked at Harry and asked, “What about you?”
Harry started a bit, as he hadn’t really thought about his own test when he asked his friend the initial question. He thought about it and remembered that although he knew his maternal grandparent’s names, he had never actually had the opportunity to ask about his paternal side beyond his father. Eyes widening, the black-haired wix quickly leaned forward and grabbed his own test. Shuffling the two papers a bit he found himself greedily drinking in the information spelled out in black ink:
Birth Name: Harry James Potter ~ July 31 1980
Mother: Lily Potter née Evans ~ January 30 1960 – October 31 1981
Father: James Potter ~ March 27 1960 – October 31 1981
Maternal Grandparents: Rose Evans née Hutchinson ~ November 27 1940 – September 20 1981 + Ferris Evans ~ October 14 1937 – March 5 1975
Paternal Grandparents: Euphemia Potter née Hunter ~ April 28 1916 – June 19 1979 Fleamont Potter ~ December 5 1909 – June 17 1979
Tightness in his throat had Harry coughing into his fist as his eyes stung. Suddenly, he found himself enveloped in a pair of arms, and the he was hugging his friend tightly. The angle was quite awkward with him perched on the arm rest, but he didn’t let go. Especially when Carl squeezed him, just letting him know that he wasn’t alone.
After what felt like an eternity but was likely only a few minutes, they let go and coughed awkwardly. Through silent agreement they left to go make lunch and then find an activity from there. Neither of them acknowledging the emotional moment. This wasn’t wholly due to the fact that they weren’t great with emotions, but also because they were both feeling wrung out from the physical and magical activity. Thankfully they were both free for the day.
Lunch was quieter than normal, but thankfully he nor Carl seemed to be feeling weird after their earlier revelations. After they had cleaned up, Carl called, “Hey, Harry?”
“Yeah?” Harry asked.
“Do you think we could recreate something like that family tree your godfather’s mother torched?”
Harry had to blink for a moment at the question, mind blanking. Then his brain kicked back into gear, and he replied, “I’m not really sure. That would be a fairly big project. Would you want to put it in your room?”
Carl smiled a bit before he explained, “I said ‘something like’. I don’t want that exactly. I was just wondering if we could utilize some runes and arithmancy to create a sort of scroll to record our genealogy.”
Pondering this, Harry hummed and started to make his way up to the renovated library. The idea made him feel slightly warm and giddy. While the test had enabled him to discover some more of his history. Having something like a family tree that he could bring with him wherever he wanted was settling in a way. Like a jitteriness he wasn’t aware of had begun to slow. An ache that had become normal easing to background hum. As they climbed the stairs, Harry commented, “While something portable would by lovely, I’m not sure we could do more that make an image with the information we already have.”
Carl hummed behind him, obviously he was pondering as well.
They both ended up researching until dinner. While they had both found a few promising leads, it was likely they would need to look into a few references that they didn’t have yet. However, as they ate in the quiet kitchen, both wix understood that this was something they weren’t giving up on.
When Harry climbed into his own bed, he couldn’t help but wonder if the emotional turmoil both of them had accidentally dragged themselves into was his usual Halloween event. He couldn’t help but be relieved. Compared to some of the things that had happened over the years (looking at you, flying squid) this had been really quite mild.
Then Harry dreamt of a little boy and his parents. The dream was so vivid and detailed with things that were foreign to him that he immediately understood that this was no ordinary dream. They had pointed ears and lived in a forest ever graced in twilight. The little boy was so happy as he ran after his mother’s skirts and followed his father like a chick that it made his heart ache. The only reason Harry had not torn the dream apart with occlumency was that it was obvious this had nothing to do with possession or horcrux.
When he woke up with his alarm buzzing in his ear and sunlight hitting him square in the eyes, Harry smacked his own face hard enough that it stung. He couldn’t believe he had jinxed himself like that.