Gringgots and the shadows of people who are no longer with us
Chapter 5: Gringgots and the shadows of people who are no longer with us
Harry wakes up to the early morning sun shining through the grimy hut window, and Selena poking him in the cheek with her nose. Reluctantly he opened his eyes and looked up at her sleepily. “Why did you wake me up?” He asks through a yawn.
She is coiled up on his chest, now surveying him with steady eyes. “Your family is awake, they will leave soon.”
He lets out a quiet sigh, not entirely sure if he’s prepared to face the day and all it will entail. Deciding to voice his thoughts he murmurs softly to Selena, “Are you ready for today? I don’t think I am.”
She flicks he tongue out and looks down at him with unmistakable fondness. “You will be ok, Star. I will protect you and you will meet your own kind.”
“Yeah, I know but I’m still really nervous.” He would not admit that fact to any other being, but Selena hasn’t judged him yet or thought he was stupid or weak. She didn’t even mind when he started crying like a baby when Vernon hurt him especially bad earlier in the week...so he thinks it's okay to admit weakness to her. It's not like she can tell anyone anyway.
“That is ok star, you can be nervous and brave at the same time.” She tells him firmly.
“Thanks Selena.” He smiles softly at her, and then stands up off the sofa Selena wraps herself around his neck and turns herself invisible.
The Dursleys appear out of the bedroom and walk towards the hut's front door, they completely ignore him. This is better than anger so Harry takes it gladly. He follows them outside to where the same old man with a boat waits, they climb in and steadily row back to the shore. Once they get back on land they head back to the car and then climb in to the comfortable leather seats gratefully.
The car journey is long and silent but eventually they reach London and Vernon stops at the place where Harry spots the pub Hagrid described. Harry steps out of the car shuts the door and then Vernon almost immediately speeds off. He watches their car go, they actually left, Harry can’t believe it. He won’t see the Dursleys again until next summer, he is free. Like actually free. He takes a deep breath trying to calm himself before he enters the pub. “Selena. Ready?” He hisses anxiously, feeling grateful he doesn’t have to do all of this alone.
“Yes, Star. I am ready.” She replies in her usual steady tone.
He steps into the pub, it’s a dingy looking place with dark wooden floors, candles in holders along the walls instead of electric lights, and booths and tables around the pub. There’s about 15 people in total scattered around the pub's seats, he decides to go straight up to the barman and ask to be shown the entrance to Diagon alley.
“Hello.” Harry says quietly. “Could you show me the entrance to Diagon alley.” The barman looks down at him from behind the bar.
“Aren’t you a polite little lad.” He says with amusement. “Course I can. what's your name?”
“Harry potter.” Harry replies feeling a bit more confident. That is, he was, until...the old barman drops the glass he was cleaning and stares at Harry eyes wide with astonishment.
“Harry Potter? The boy who lived?” He questioned awe evident on his face.
Harry was starting to feel panic building in his chest. What was the barman on about? Hagrid had said the same thing that he was ‘the boy who lived’ but Harry didn’t know what that meant. The old man was looking at him like he was some sort of celebrity, then he noticed that the entire pub had gone quite he looked behind him and saw that everyone was staring at him. Harry needed to get out of this place. Now. Right, now.
“I don’t know who you're talking about.” Harry snaps at the old man. “Can you show me the entrance to Diagon alley or should I find someone else?” He can feel all the eyes on the back of his neck, he wants to run, hide, disappear. Why are they all looking at him?
“No-no!” The man splutters, “I will take you, follow me.” Harry walks carefully behind the man until he stops at a wall in the back of the pub, he taps the wall with what Harry thinks is a wand, in a specific pattern and the bricks disappear revealing a stone archway that leads into a street full of shops.
“Thank you.” Harry says curtly to the bartender.
“No problem, no problem at all young man! If you need anything, anything at all just let me know.” The old man says, still gaping at him in amazement.
Harry nods in confusion, and walks into the alley. Why does everyone seem to know who he is? Why do they all act like he’s a celebrity? He’s not, he has never been important in his life, and now people are looking at him as if he is something special? It’s very strange. It’s also very scary. Thankfully Selena breaks him out of his spiralling thoughts,
“Star, we must go to the Wixen bank.”
“Ok Selena.” Harry looks at his surroundings and notices a grand building that looks like it’s probably a fancy bank, at the end of the street. So, he heads towards it.
“It is run by goblins Star, be prepared.” She informs him, still invisible around his neck, hidden from sight.
“Ok.” Harry just wants to shut himself away from the world and try to figure out what the hell has happened to his life in the past week. “Maybe one of the goblins can tell me why those people were looking at me like I’m famous.”
“Yes, Star, we can ask.”
They arrive at the bank, Harry stares at the huge white building it has white stone pillars at the entrance where the doors are, and gold letters on the front of the building that read: GRINGGOTS BANK
He steps through the tall gilded double doors. Harry looks around, the inside of the bank is just as magnificent as the outside, there are jewels and precious metals imbedded everywhere in the floors and walls, down the middle of the room there are two rows of elegant desks. He sees what must be goblins sitting at each desk, he walks over to one of the desks and says, “Hello, I came to get some money for my school things.”
The goblin scrutinises him for a moment then says grumpily, “Name.”
Harry hoped that his name wouldn’t cause such a reaction as it did in the bar. “Harry Potter.” He says quietly.
The goblins eyes widen a little, but he doesn’t say anything about his name. “Do you have your vault key?”
“Err…no? I didn’t know you needed one, no one has given me a key.” Harry says a bit of panic leaking into his voice. If Harry couldn’t get access to his parents' money, then his entire plan was completely screwed. He would have to return to the Dursleys and never even have the chance to step foot in Hogwarts, let alone learn there.
The goblin looked at him in clear suspicion. “If you don’t have a key, blood will work.” The goblin held out a sliver needle and a piece of parchment and Harry warily held out his finger so the goblin could prick it. He watched as blood dripped from his finger tip onto the paper, then words began to form on the page:
Harrison Evans Charlus Potter.
Parents: James Fleamont Charlus Potter.
Lily Evans Potter.
Harry stares at the names in shock, his name is Harrison? He has two middle names? And his dad’s name is James Fleamont Charlus Potter. He does not know what to do with this information.
The goblin nods in satisfaction. “Do you want to go into the potter vault? Or would you prefer for me to go alone and retrieve the gold you require?”
Harry tears his eyes away from his parents' names, and focuses on the goblin. “I want to go into the vault, if that’s ok?”
The goblin looks at him in amusement then he gets down from behind the desk and starts to walk towards a door. “Follow me Mr Potter, my name is Griphook. I will take you to your vault.”
He follows Griphook obediently, as he leads Harry through the door and into a dark tunnel, there’s a cart in the middle of the tunnel entrance and rails that run along the earthy floor and into the darkness of the tunnel. Griphook climbs into the cart and looks at Harry expectedly, so Harry follows suit and clambers into the cart. They set of at an extremely fast pace, speeding down dark tunnels and jerking round harsh turns, he thinks it’s like a roller coaster.
After a few minutes they stop abruptly outside a large vault door, griphook climbs out and so does. Griphook traces a finger along the vault door and then asks Harry to press his finger tip to a specific place on the door. The door springs open and Harry stares in utter astonishment at the sight before him, mounds of gold are littered around the large vault room along with a bunch of what must be very expensive ancient artefacts. Then he notices in the corner there is as pile of furniture and some book shelves stacked with books.
“Mr Griphook?” He asks hoarsely. “Is-is all this…mine?”
“Yes, Mr potter. You are the last living member of the house of potter so it all belongs to you.”
“Oh, o-ok.” Harry didn’t know what he was supposed to say or do. He hadn’t even had £2 of pocket money in his life, and now he was faced with this? Literal tons of gold. “What… what is the name of Wixen money?”
“Galleons, sickles, and knuts. 29 knuts to a sickle and 17 sickles to a galleon.” Griphook says in a bored tone.
“Ok... so, I can take whatever I want from this vault?” He ventures, needing to be absolutely sure.
“Yes Mr Potter, like I said it’s all yours.”
Harry stares at the riches again, and then a thought strikes him. “Griphook, did my parents leave any of their possessions here? I mean apart from gold.”
“Yes, all their possessions are in this vault, over there in that corner.” He points to the corner with book shelves and furniture.
“Ok I’m going to start with that.” Harry walks over to corner of the room, as he gets closer, he realises it’s not just books and furniture, there are other things scattered along the floor and shelves. Clothes, suitcases, little knickknacks, picture albums, and other random objects that look like things you would have in a house.
He stops near a book shelf and picks up a framed photograph, he looks at it and feels tears prick at his eyes. It’s a picture of a man who looks so similar to Harry that they could be twins, the man has rounded silver glasses on his face he has the same light brown skin as Harry, the same nose and face shape, the same dark brown curls. He is looking at the camera with a huge grin and every now and then he winks, the picture moves like a video loop, Harry stares at it with tears dripping down his face.
That’s his dad, James Potter his dad, who apparently has the same terrible eye sight as him, the same hair, except that his dad's hair looks beautiful and cared for.
He looks like his dad. It’s the first time he has ever seen what his dad looks like, he holds the picture close to his chest and takes a deep breath wipes the tears from his face and keeps looking for other things that belonged to his parents. He stumbles upon a dark brown leather satchel and picks it up thinking it would be good for carrying anything he finds in here. He goes to open the bag so he can put the photo of his dad safely away, that’s when he notices the embroidery on the flap of the bag. It’s a lily flower and the words (property of Lily Evans) embroidered onto the fabric in silver thread.
Harry traces his finger over his mum's name reverently, this was probably her school bag, Harry thinks, grief stabbing at his heart. He slips the bag carefully onto his shoulder and puts the picture of his dad into the bag. He carries on looking for more special things, he finds more photographs of his parents, and he takes a book on astrology from the shelves, he finds a small silver knife, he takes it thinking it would be good to have some sort of weapon on him until he knows how to do magic properly.
Then he finds a red and gold glasses case, he opens it and inside are his dads silver glasses, the same ones from the picture. He takes off his own shabby Taped-together glasses, and puts on his dad’s glasses instead. Immediately he sees everything clearer than he ever has before, the glasses seem to shrink to fit his face properly, wow! They must be magic.
He decides that he has enough for now, and goes back over to gold and scoops up some money that he puts in a pouch that he found in the corner, he places the money along with all the other stuff in his mum’s satchel. Then he remembers something.
“Griphook how did my parents die? It’s just everyone in the pub looked at me like I was famous or something.”
“You do not know how your parents died?” Griphook looks at him in disbelief.
“I was raised by muggles they didn’t tell me anything about my parents.” Harry shrugs.
“Ah. Well Mr potter it’s not a very…happy story.” The goblin grimaces, but pushes on. “Years ago, there was a dark wizard his name was...Voldemort, but most are still too afraid to say his name.” Griphook shudders. “He tried to take over the Wixen world he had an army of followers called death eaters, and horrific methods of achieving his goals. Many people died, many people were tortured, many people went missing.” He pauses for a moment looking at Harry steadily.
“Your parents were killed by Voldemort himself, on the 31st of October 1981, he tried to kill you as well… but you survived and Voldemort disappeared and all his follows were either imprisoned or disappeared. No one knows how you survived the Avada-Kedavra and vanquished the dark lord, but you did and now you are known as The Boy Who Lived saviour of the Wixen world.”
Harry stares at Griphook in disbelief, his jaw has dropped practically to the floor. He doesn’t know how to process what Griphook has just said, so he simply doesn’t. “Okay Griphook thanks for…that. Shall we head back I need to find somewhere to stay for the night.”
Griphook looks at him in bemusement for a moment before nodding. “Yes Mr Potter, we can go back. The leaky cauldron has rooms you can rent just speak to the barman.”
Harry internally groans, the stupid barman is going to stare at him again, along with everyone else in the pub. “Ok, let’s go.”
They speed through the dark tunnels, and arrive back in the big room where Harry first walked in. He thanks Griphook for his help and walks out the bank doors and down the street back towards the pub to rent a room for the rest of the summer.
“Selena, what am I supposed to do with everything Griphook just said? I can’t be a saviour, I live in a cupboard in the Dursleys house, how can I possibly be a saviour?” He hisses desperately.
“I don’t know Star, but we will sort it out, do not worry.”