Of Goblins and Dragons
Just after Lady Bones had left, Harry and Hermione took Susan to their library. All of them had noticed the file her aunt had left and now they could go ahead and make plans for the first task. But before that Susan had a few questions.
“Harry, what…”
He shook his head.
“Not here. Walls have ears - and so do portraits. We know a spot, and maybe we should get Neville too.”
“Sure. He told me he’d work on Herbology in the greenhouses. I’ll go get him and we meet in the library in ten minutes?”
“The table in the row of the human transfiguration books in the back then. Nicely remote.”
The girl nodded and hurried away. She luckily knew where Neville was right now, they had chatted about their plans for the day in the morning. On his weekends he tended to help Professor Sprout prepare the plants for the upcoming classes, which earned him house points and Professor Sprout’s gratitude, and on top of that served him as preparation.
Minutes later Susan opened the door to Greenhouse four, the greenhouse with a very warm and damp atmosphere to grow some tropical plants. She quickly closed the door behind her, which caused Neville to turn around. He was kneeling on the ground and - at least Susan assumed so - pulling out weeds. She waved at him and he smiled back before getting up.
“Hey Susan, what’s up?”
“You’re free right now? Harry and Hermione have some things to tell us - in secret. My aunt just dropped by and a few interesting things happened.”
“Is it important? Then sure, I’ll just go tell Professor Sprout.”
Harry and Hermione first checked in with Madam Pince whether it was alright to take Neville and Susan with them (after telling her what had transpired with Amelia Bones and the Headmaster she didn’t have any issue whatsoever with that, in fact, she seemed quite frustrated with Dumbledore’s behaviour), and then they sat down at the table they agreed upon with Susan. Depending on how long it would take to get Neville out of the greenhouses they would potentially have to wait a while, so both grabbed a book from this section - about animagi. This wouldn’t be a priority, but maybe they could try that once Harry was done with this bloody tournament.
About fifteen minutes later Susan and Neville showed up, seemingly rather cosy and whispering to each other at all times. Hermione just sighed.
“So, Neville is up to date with everything that happened? Were you trying to save time or just looking for a bogus reason to cosy up to Neville? I think he wouldn’t mind that if you just asked.”
While Neville blushed, Harry suppressed a roaring laughter - this was the library after all. Susan attempted her aunt’s infamous stare (the one that made criminals wet their pants), failed miserably and tried to sound sarcastic.
“Hermione Granger, Gryffindor’s matchmaker? Careful, you’ll end up rivalling Lavender Brown.”
After the quartet was done amusing themselves, Susan confirmed Hermione’s assumption. Neville knew as much as she did now. But now it was time to let them in on all the details and prepare for the first task.
“Now you two, it’s time to let you in on our secrets.”
Hermione got up, put the books away and then headed towards the entrance of the forbidden section. The lock of the door wasn’t hard to unlock (students regularly tried to sneak in there), but there were several monitoring charms active to detect unauthorised access. If you had legitimate access (like Harry and Hermione did, Madam Pince and Filius Flitwick trusted them to not dabble in the dark arts - they were too busy with Tournament preparation either way), you just had to touch the lock with your wand and you could enter without any trouble. When the door swung open for them, Susan just raised an eyebrow, Neville didn’t even show curiosity and surprise anymore. By now he knew that everything surrounding Harry was strange and unpredictable.
And while Neville and Susan were introduced to Henry Potter, the term Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s strange past behaviours, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were busy warding the basement rooms again. After airing out Sirius Black II’s private rooms they searched (and found) the ward schemes and began renewing all of them. It was a long and intense job, with many small and complicated wards, but they were making progress. Neither of them had done such a work in years, but after a few revisions they managed fairly well. The air refreshening wards, the temperature regulation and the wards powering the swimming pools and saunas were back on, by now it was all about the finer touches. On top of that they had sorted through cursed and dark objects with Kreacher’s help to make the house a livable place. Now Harry could safely enter basically every room without having to look out for doxies, boggarts, curses, objects that kill on touch or Merlin knows whatever thing the House of Black collected over the years. Every bedroom was habitable and Harry could pick and furnish one at will. The library was a safe place just like all the sitting rooms, offices, living rooms as well as the kitchen, the ritual chamber and the ballroom. The house was looking less like a grim, old place (yes, pun intended, Sirius was a very funny man), but instead felt welcoming. They fully intended to get Harry (and if she wanted, his friend Hermione) to visit over the Christmas holidays once the Yule Ball was over.
Sirius had just finished reapplying some of the light wards in the bar area when Kreacher popped into the room. He and the house elf were getting along much better by now, especially after the elf did him the favour and removed Walburga’s painting and swapped it with one of an elderly Arcturus. Sirius and his grandfather (yes, the painting was just an imprint of him, but regardless) were getting along more or less, and together with Remus they were contemplating potential political moves. One way or another they would exonerate Sirius, be it with the help of Crouch or Bones or the Minister. And if none of those would assist them, the Steward of House Black and the Heir Black would go in front of the Wizengamot and utilise old alliances and the laws that predate the Ministry. Ancient Houses had ruled over these lands for centuries before they delegated to some politicians and a new ministry, and just because the normal people had forgotten, they were still the true power in Britain. Afterwards they would remove Harry entirely out of Dumbledore’s clutches (not hard since the boy was an emancipated Lord), help him survive the Tournament and then get rid of Voldy and his bloody Death Eaters.
Kreacher handed Sirius a formal robe and a golden circlet which was enchanted to obscure the wearer’s identity. They had found it among Orion Black’s things and it was their way to get Sirius to the goblins. Apparate to the Gringotts Main Entrance and then meet Sharpsword and Gornuk. They had originally planned it for Thursday, but the goblins asked to reschedule. Getting a known fugitive into Gringotts when they didn’t get their hands on Polyjuice (not in the next two weeks at least, which they deemed too late) wasn’t easy. And since they had some construction work in the main hall to do, they rescheduled Sirius’ appointment to when they closed off most of the hall. A bit of human transfiguration on the face and colour changing charms for the hair, paired with a robe with hood and he could have sneaked in there rather easily. The circlet made that whole plan irrelevant now, but they only found it this morning.
“Master Black, you should head out within the next five minutes for your meeting with the goblins.”
“Yes, thank you. Purpur robe today? Interesting choice.”
About three minutes later Sirius stepped out of the front door - without wearing the ring he couldn’t adjust the anti-apparition wards in the house (aside from tearing them down, which would be stupid) - and apparated directly to Diagon Alley, right in front of Gringotts. Well, not right in front of it, one wouldn’t want to apparate onto the stairs leading up to the entrance. The goblins tended to react rather unfriendly to that. Anyway, Sirius walked up the stairs and nodded at the guards - who eyed him strangely.
“Do you have a reason to hide your identity?”
“May your sword always be sharp, honourable guard. I am no enemy of the goblin nation.”
The goblin was taken aback by the rather formal greeting. Few humans still used them, only old families in good standing with the nation continued being so formal.
“And may your vaults overflow with gold. May I inquire why you are hiding your identity?”
“I apologise for the enchantment, I know it is not something the Nation generally approves of. Please send word to the honourable Managers Sharpsword and Gornuk that their four o'clock appointment would be here and I have found an alternative way to obscure my identity.”
“Oh. You are the reason we have most of the main hall closed. You must be a high profile customer. I shall escort you then…?”
The goblin didn’t want to push for his opposite’s name, but he was curious.
“Lord Apparent Black. And no, that is not a joke, I’m completely serious if you catch my drift. Don’t worry, innocent and framed, trying to help my godson.”
The guard nearly dropped his sword, then regained his posture and asked Sirius to follow him. What a strange day.
Two minutes later - they got through the main hall without any issues - Narguk knocked on the door of Account Manager Sharpsword.
“Apologies, but I presume you are expecting a high profile customer who is obscuring his identity? For you and Gornuk?”
Sharpsword nodded and asked Narguk to bring him in. The account manager laughed on the spot.
“Obviously the House of Black has something like that. What is it, a bracelet?”
Sirius lifted the circlet off of his head, turned around and thanked the guard bringing him here before formally greeting Sharpsword. The first item on their agenda was him putting on the ring while they were still waiting for Gornuk, as this enabled them to deal with House Black’s finances to its fullest extent. Not that there was much to do, they had invested wisely and were constantly gaining revenue. Sirius didn’t really have the intention to change much there.
Then Gornuk arrived, carrying a heavy file. He greeted the Black Lord, who was, after all, a member of House Potter before filling them in on the state of the Horcrux research. Much else wasn’t to talk about either way. The finances were in good shape, there was an heir in place and the paperwork for Bellatrix’s disinheritance as well as the removal of House Malfoy from House Black were already waiting to be signed. Sirius hadn’t managed to talk to Andromeda (he wanted to wait until his exoneration) about reinstating them, but this was on his agenda too.
“So, we have tried our best locating as many Horcruxes as possible and had some success. Our seers used scrying and came up with several things. Three were hidden under various heavy wards, then there is the one in Lord Potter and an even smaller fragment in another living, yet not human being. The strategists theorise it’s his snake.”
“That’s… seven Horcruxes with the diary and the locket. Bloody hell. Which reminds me, may I deliver you the locket and other objects of unknown origin with various curses? Where possible, I’d like a cleansing and the items returned, as payment I included goblin made objects that should not be in the possession of House Black.”
After he was given leave to do so, he had Kreacher deliver said box, which was handed over to a curse breaker on the spot.
“Anyway, do you have any further details on the Horcruxes?”
“Yes. Multiple conclusions were drawn. But first off let me tell you that: we did not assume he utilised this crude bit of magic to gain immortality. We theorised much, but this was rather unlikely, a rarely used method with lots of negative consequences. Which means that Gringotts does not know much beyond the basics of Horcruxes. Creation, destruction, the strengths and weaknesses as well as basic ways of detecting them. To be honest, the subject of Horcruxes was brought up after Halloween 1981, briefly discussed and, after scaring us all, discounted for its unlikeliness. Splitting one's soul is a path leading to utter madness and he hadn’t been sane to begin with. Anyway, it might be a bit cynical, but we can consider ourselves lucky that Lord Potter has the one in his scar, in a morbid kind of way. Without a soul signature we could have just built a tracker, which would search for any Horcruxes within just under a square mile, and have no way of knowing whose it was. And some wards might even stop it from working. Now, the locket could have helped in that case, yes, but due to Lord Potter’s connection we were able to utilise blood magic to track the specific signature through him and combine it with the scrying. We assume that the one in Lord Potter was an accident. Seven is a strong number, six Horcruxes plus the main soul. He wanted to make one in 1981 and assumed it didn’t work. Ergo, he made the snake one. Now, one was pretty easy to find, because the wards under which it was hidden were our own. With a bit of guesswork and some local scans of the vaults we found it in Madam Lestrange’s vault. The Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, disappeared from Hepzibah Smith’s collection together with Slytherin’s Locket around the time of her death. Tom Riddle visited her, and shortly after her house elf accidentally poisoned the woman by mistaking sugar for some potion ingredient.”
“Memory modification?”
“Probably, yes. Now, one is under disgustingly dark wards, most of them rather new but traces of old family wards on the verge of collapse, and one is under the same ward scheme as Lord Potter - but at the same time somehow caught in a pocket dimension.”
“It’s at Hogwarts?”
“Yes and no. In a way it is, but it is also in a space that doesn’t always exist. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Strange. I’ll let Harry know about that. Any idea what kind of items we are looking for?”
“The scrying gave us a sealed jewellery box, and inside there is something strange. It feels like death, but not like Horcrux. Well, it does, but beyond that. An artefact with strange powers maybe. The Seal of Solomon, the Resurrection Stone, the Crown of Thorns, something like that maybe. The one at Hogwarts is clearly Goblin made, enchanted by both Goblin and Wizardkind and a millennium old - maybe more. Goblin silver and gemstones. We know what our objects feel like.”
Sharpsword, who hadn’t heard all of that until now, seemed thoughtful. Couldn’t be so hard to guess the object, could it? Few things of that age remained outside of Gringotts and the Nation’s vaults, and even fewer with enough historical worth to make Riddle interested. Lord Black seemed to have the same thoughts, the man stared into the air while spinning around the circlet in his…
Oh.
“The Diadem. It would fit with his pattern.”
There was no doubt which diadem he was talking about. The goblins made crowns and tiaras, yes, but diadems? Most didn’t even know the difference anymore these days. And there was a reason they used the term circlet for these kinds of headbands. The Diadem had been a masterpiece, from a Goblin King to a Goblin Friend. It truly was one of a kind.
“You’re right. It fits. If this is true, then Thomas Marvolo Riddle has made an enemy out of the Nation.”
“I think I’m missing something here?”
“Ravenclaw’s diadem.”
Then Sirius remembered. Rowena saving the King’s son, healing him after an attack, and this at a time where tensions were running high between the two races. They became friends and established an alliance. They gave her a loan to help start up the school. And when the Prince became King, he expressed his gratitude to his old friend with a magical diadem. One he made and enchanted. Rowena later improved it with his assistance, giving it the power to sharpen the mind. An object, made to symbolise peace and unification, and probably the single most impressive enchanted object there was.
“I’ll inform the others of this, it seems plausible and maybe they can try tracing the Diadem, check where Riddle might have found it. Do you have a way to communicate with Lord Potter without drawing too much attention? The Headmaster would probably notice if we were to send owls regularly - though Filius could act as proxy. Now that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t worry, my steward Remus taught Harry last year, they are corresponding. You can probably use Flitwick for the official correspondence. I will tell Harry the news. How long do you think it will take until you can remove the Horcrux in him?”
“If all goes well, hopefully a few days before Yule. Then he would have the time to adjust over the break.”
“That’s brilliant.”
And while Sirius chatted with the goblins for a while, Harry and his friends were talking to Henry’s portrait. Both Neville and Susan were utterly delighted to meet Harry’s great-grandfather and after a while of conversation the old man wanted to know what they learned from Amelia’s document.
“Oh, we haven’t looked at it yet. Let’s do it now.”
Susan nodded and pulled the file out of her satchel before handing it over to Hermione. The list wasn’t too short, it seemed like there were more dangerous creatures on the British Isles than expected.
“Hm, most of those seem to be in private ownership, and that already for years. A sphinx is bound to be imported to the Ministry soon - maybe for a future task - and there are several other ones in here too. Nothing too big though. Hagrid has a few beasts under his name here… oh god. Crouch’s department imported three dragons and they’ve ordered a fourth one the day after your name came out of the bloody goblet. Wait, let me check on the details… Chinese Fireball, a Common Welsh Green, Swedish Short Snout and now a Hungarian Horntail. Grown females, and nesting ones at that. Each of them is pretty big and healthy.”
The girl paled and dropped the file, not believing what she just read. Harry reacted immediately, not caring about his own worries. Hermione needed him right now.
“Hey, don’t worry. I’ll get through that too. If a troll, a basilisk and Voldy can’t stop us, then a bloody dragon won’t hold me back from coming back to you. I have you, and grandpa, and Filius and Professor Babbling and those two blushing idiots over there, Padfoot and Moody and all the others…”
Hermione snorted and wiped away the tears.
“You idiot. Okay, let’s do that logically. Henry?”
The elderly man nodded.
“Dragons, and four dangerous ones at that. Basic rule is to go for the eyes or aim inside the mouth. Keep moving and don’t get in the way of the Horntail’s tail. I’ll come up with some strategies once you give me the details on each dragon. It’s going to be hard, and you’ll need my old armour. If you have to slay it - not much fun. Getting past it might be simple. But I think it’s neither.”
That was when Susan chimed in.
“Nesting mothers protect their eggs at all costs. Sneaking past them is doable. No danger to the eggs, no problem. And while they are cruel, if it were about slaying it wouldn’t be nesting mothers. Retrieving something - be it a real or a fake egg - seems most plausible.”
And so the teens got to work, trying to find out as much as possible about the dragons. They weren’t sure whether to be depressed or optimistic, because the material they worked through was both helpful and frustrating. But they made progress. Harry and Henry worked on some runes and checked the magic on Henry’s old armour (quite badass that one) and the others developed various concepts. Teamwork was something nice. That’s what friends were there for.
Another person who was currently learning just that - but the hard way - was Ronald Weasley. It’s not like he was a stupid student. Yes, really. Especially compared to the likes of Slytherin’s very own Crabbe and Goyle, but that wasn’t really a comparison he liked - for obvious reasons. No, Ron was simply lazy. Lazy and angry at the world. Why was his family poor and all those arrogant bastards were acting as if they were so much better. And Potter was thinking he was better too. But he had all that money of his. And now he even had Hermione. Nothing to worry about, Ronald was much better than Harry and Hermione knew that. She just pitied the stupid idiot. Sure. That’s exactly what that was.
Ron was not just jealous of Harry’s money, but also the fact that the rest of his family was not having any issues at all. He struggled getting passing grades, but his father was a department head, and his curse breaker and dragon handler brothers made him more depressed. No matter how pompous Percy was, he got a nice Ministry job directly out of Hogwarts and the twins were just brilliant. Yes, money was still tight at the Burrow, but things were looking good for this generation of Weasleys. But not him. He was the only one - Ginny not taken into account in his line of thought, she was still too young - who didn’t have great prospects and success. And until Hermione would get her priorities (him!) back into order, this would just continue. He didn’t understand most of the material - not that he was going into the library to even try - and how the hell did one manage all the homework assignments on time. On top of that he’d overslept several times now and was becoming a bit of a loner. Yes, many didn’t believe Potter, but his public outbursts were not well liked either.
Should he just apologise?
No. Potter didn’t deserve him as a friend as long as he didn’t admit to entering. It was so obvious, no matter what any professor woman said. After you-know-who and the Basilisk it was so obvious that he was looking for fame. But anyway… a bit of chess now couldn’t hurt, could it? He’d snatch the essays from Hermione and copy them off, and besides, it was the weekend.
Draco Malfoy wasn’t sure what to do. His father had clearly told him to back down, and so had Professor Snape, but he couldn’t leave Potter in peace. No, he needed to make fun of him. Especially now that the newspaper had seemingly exonerated him. It might not even be accurate, who knows for what Potter uses his fame? And if it was true, then Potter would just fail and die. But before that Draco wanted to ridicule him as much as possible. Maybe a potions prank? Or even better, hand out some pins or badges that would make fun of him. POTTER STINKS! That might be an idea. Not very imaginative but simple and effective. Now, devise a concept and then find someone willing to do the enchantment and in the end they’d even make some money. Not that he’d need it. The House of Malfoy and the House of Black were among the wealthiest of them all. And he would get access to the Black fortune with his maturity, because mother told him that Sirius Black had been disinherited. He could theoretically still sire eligible children with a higher claim than Draco, but that was beyond unlikely. Still, this was the reason he couldn’t just go get the Heir Apparent title. Stupid magical inheritance stuff. But now wasn’t the time to complain, he had to work on his plan, no matter what his father said. Draco knew he was right.