Changes
Harry Potter could pinpoint the exact minute that his old life ended and his new one began - 2.15pm on a mild Tuesday in mid-July, 1999. He had spent those last minutes of adolescence the same way as many of his peers - staring at the slow-moving hands of the large grandfather clock that stood in front of them waiting for the final bell to sound and mark the end of his school career. The second that it did, his exam paper dissolved into his wooden table and re-appeared in front of McGonagall’s with a small pop, which the entirety of Hogwarts returning eight years took as a sign to flip their desks and begin loudly laughing, shouting, and hugging with leftover exam jitters, frustration at the tricky question on page 8, or, most commonly, joy stemming from their new-found freedom.
“That went well then?” Harry said generally to his group, once they had all made it safely outside without being crushed in the mob.
“Are you joking?! What the fuck was that question on Chimera’s? We only covered it over three classes, how did they expect us to write 30 inches?”
Ron draped one arm over Hermione in an attempt to reassure her, which Hermione desperately clung to as she shook in place with left-over nerves.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, ‘Mione, I only managed about 7…”
She stared at him incredulously.
“No! It doesn’t! Oh, we’re both going to fail…”
Harry knew this to be untrue. While he knew there was always a slight chance of himself and Ron failing any subject they sat, he knew that Hermione would get Outstandings across the board in her sleep. He voiced the second part of this thought aloud, which made Hermione shake a little less and throw an appreciative smile in his direction.
“I, for one, wrote about the Chimera’s unique ability to purr at bone-melting frequencies!” Luna cut in, surprising them all by appearing out of nowhere. “Or wait, are those manticores?”
“I don’t think it’s either, Luna.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders drooped for half a second before her smile returned in full force. “No use worrying about things no longer in our control. Unless-”
“No, Luna”, interrupted Neville. “Drop the Nargle plan, it’ll never work.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say!”
“What were you going to suggest?”
Luna looked upwards at nothing in particular and frowned.
“Well, now you’ve ruined it.”
Luna and Neville made an oddly successful couple, Harry thought. They had a nice balance - Luna had helped in building Neville’s confidence tremendously, and Neville was always there to ground her when she took to a new whimsy and was in danger of getting carried away. He was brought closer to both after the war - their reduced class size and shared trauma being the catalyst - and was tremendously grateful for their ever-lingering presence which mostly prevented Ron and Hermione from taking up the common room couch every evening with their sickening PDA.
Harry suddenly felt something being pushed into his hand and looked up to see Luna giving out white envelopes.
“What are these?”
“Your birthday invitations.” She replied with a shrug. “I hope you and Neville don’t mind sharing this year, only the Guild Hall wouldn’t let me book two days in a row. Something about disruption of important business…”
Ron’s mouth flew open in surprise. “The Guild Hall?!”
Harry didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it sounded too important for a birthday. Too important even for two birthdays.
“Luna I appreciate the thought but please don’t-”
“The invitations have already gone out to everyone else”, said Neville dejectedly, looking as though he had the exact same attitude towards any size of social event that Harry had. “600 of them.”
Hermione grinned over at Luna. “I think it’s a great idea. It means you’ll be able to meet the entire Wizengamot before you have to take your seat!”
Harry groaned internally. The fucking Wizengamot.
“Great that’s uh, that’s a good point. Thanks, Luna.”
Ron ran a bit ahead of them so that he could walk backward and talk to his group at the same time, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
"Now that school shit's over, anyone fancy getting absolutely shit-faced?"
—--------------------------------
Daylight streamed in the window of Harry’s new flat, catching the disturbed dust from the start of the unpacking and tidying in several long sunbeams. He cracked one eye open and tried unsuccessfully to catch a glimpse at the time without having to move and put on his glasses. Something vaguely resembling a seven, though it could’ve easily been mistaken for a two if it wasn’t bright outside, and… was that a three or an eight? Yawning, he lazily flicked open the curtains with a vague wave of his hand in its general direction and set the kettle to boil on the stove in the other room with a click of his fingers. He was getting decent at this whole wandless magic thing.
The second he made to get up, he immediately sat back down again. A wave - no, a tsunami - of nausea threatened to paint the floor of the freshly mopped apartment with the contents of Harry’s stomach which at the minute felt like it was 90 percent fire-whiskey and regret.
“Ugh.” He spoke out loud to nobody but himself. “I’m never fucking drinking again”
The doorbell rang and Harry jumped. It felt like it was trapped in his skull, reverberating at 100 decibels and ringing in his ears. I’m gonna have to change that, he noted.
It rang again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”, he half-shouted, pulling on a crumpled jumper that lay on the floor and a pair of mostly clean socks. He briefly considered replacing his plaid pyjama pants with something more socially acceptable to greet visitors in, but the ringing of the bell was sounding more impatient by the second and so he decided against it. He just hoped he wasn’t about to be murdered in his pyjamas.
He pulled the door open and stared in confusion at the empty space staring back at him.
“Ahem-”, came a noise about 2 feet lower than Harry expected it to. He looked down.
“My name is Bognot. Do you know why I am here?” The goblin stared up at Harry with piercing eyes.
“Er, no?” Probably the wrong answer. He opened the door slightly more and stood to the side. “Would you like to come in?”
The goblin pursed his lips, but walked elegantly into the flat anyways, sitting down at the wooden table that he was far too short to see over. The kettle began to boil, and Harry hurried to make tea.
“I am here to remind you of your duty to the Wizengamot.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “The Wizengamot? I thought I wasn’t due to start until August?”
“Change of plans”, said Bognot. “There have been some recent discoveries concerning the upcoming trials that have made it imperative that the relevant criminals be sent to Azkaban immediately. Trials can only be recognised by a full Wizengamot.”
“Oh.” He didn’t expect that. “They couldn’t have sent an owl?”
Bognot sighed. “Apparently not. There are also a couple of things, business-related, that I should like to discuss with you, concerning your…. genealogy.”
“My genealogy?” Harry said, confused, setting two mugs down on the table and taking the seat opposite Bognot.
“Yes. You are aware that the Potters are no longer part of the sacred twenty-eight? Your great-grandfather, Henry Potter, served on the Wizengamot but resigned and abdicated his family's place?”
Harry frowned. As usual, no one had bothered to tell him anything important that he would have had no other way of knowing about. “But then why am I even on the Wizengamot?”
Bognot sneered. “The heirdom to the Black family-” Harry winced at the name. “-was passed from your godfather in his will to you. This heirdom would have had the potential to be challenged, but seeing as all of your living competition are currently on trial and will spend the rest of their days rotting in Azkaban-”
“The Malfoys?”
Bognot sneered. “Precisely.”
After a moment's thought, the goblin reached into his pocket and withdrew two small boxes, placing them carefully on the table between them. One was velvet black, with a yellow-gold lining on the corners and a tiny keyhole. On top of it was an elaborately designed B. The other was pine-green and scaly. Harry couldn’t tell if it was snake skin or dragon leather. Heavy silver decorated it in much the same way, although there was no visible keyhole, and in place of the decorated B, there was a silver snake twisting in an endless loop of itself in a Celtic like design. The box had no opening. Both were beautiful, though Harry couldn’t draw his eyes away from the second box. There was palpable magic coming off of it in waves- it made Harry feel agitated like he was too full of energy to sit still and be quiet. Bognot handed him the first.
“All families in the sacred twenty-eight keep signet rings that are to be worn at all times by the heirs. They have the ability to enhance magic, depending on the heir's suitability to their role and the power of the family they represent - physically and politically. Open it, it belongs to you.”
Harry obeyed, opening the ring-box with the tiny key that Bognot handed him, eyes falling on a simple golden signet ring. The top of it was flat, though that same elaborate B made another appearance, along with the Black family crest that Harry recognised from his time in Grimmauld place. On the inside of the ring, in tiny writing, was an inscription. Toujours Pur. Tentatively, he slipped the ring on his pinky finger after confirmation from the goblin. It fitted perfectly and instantly warmed to match the temperature of Harry’s skin as if it was now a part of his body. Harry’s heart swelled, though he didn’t know why.
“Would you mind if I conducted an experiment, Mr. Potter?”
Harry looked up from his new ring. “Experiment?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Well, there is a theory going around the ministry that you are the heir to another family. A much more important one.”
Harry looked at the other box on the table. It seemed to almost hum in anticipation, like Harry could feel it waiting for something. “Slytherin.”
Bognot looked surprised. “Yes, Slytherin. You have been made aware of these rumours?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard it before.” The memory of his second year at Hogwarts flooded his brain. “Although I mean it couldn’t be true because… he was, wasn’t he? The heir.” Harry didn’t feel the need to say his name out loud. “I would have thought that the part of his soul in me being destroyed when I died would’ve destroyed any ties to me though, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, one would have thought so. Our theory, however, does not involve….that man… in any way. Our theory is that you are a descendant. Through the Peverell's.”
Harry stared at Bognot. His head pounded, and he leapt up from his chair with a clatter, making it to the bathroom just in time to throw up into the porcelain toilet bowl. He rinsed his mouth and felt significantly less hungover than he had five minutes beforehand, although twice as disorientated.
“I’m guessing you’re not taking the news well, then?”
Harry fell back into his chair opposite Bognot and tried to steady his breathing. “Not a direct descendant though, surely?”
Bognot shook his head. “Not a direct one, no. The Gaunts were the last direct descendants - the Peverells were the closest thing next to them though. Now that the last direct descendant is dead, and has been for a year, this-” He gestured towards the green box- “-has been looking for a new owner.”
Harry closed his eyes in disbelief as if by not seeing what was happening in front of him he could pretend that it didn’t exist. “So, you’re saying, I’m related to Voldemort?”
Bognot didn’t answer, instead pushing the box closer to Harry. “We’ll see if the rumours are true.”
Harry picked up the box. It warmed instantly in his hands and shook. It reminded him of a Horcrux, with all the negative side effects turned on its side to become positive. Where the Horcrux slowly sucked power away from its owner, this box seemed to give it. Where the Horcrux altered the minds version of reality to make it seem hostile and violent, the box exuded an aura of calm and self-control. As Harry went to turn it over in his hands to inspect the other side, the box began to glow faintly from the inside, tiny cracks of light seeping out of the newly splitting sides. It opened slowly.
The ring was massive and ornate, a twisting design of white gold surrounding a jewel the circumference of a one-pound coin. It snapped onto his finger when he tried it on, and Harry felt all of his nerve endings fizz up at once. He felt bigger than he had ever felt, the ring providing him with a presence that filled the room, weighing him down and lifting him up at the same time. Harry felt that he could lift the entire building they were in from its foundations without his wand if he wanted to. He felt like he could travel back and forward in time on a whim, or live to be a thousand-and-one.
Bognot regarded him with fascination and delight. “Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Potter. I will be in touch soon with the details of your two new inheritances. I trust you will be pleased. Maybe then you will be able to afford a nicer house,” he added, looking around the room with a smug expression on his face.
Harry was still struck dumb in his chair, looking as though he hadn’t heard a word that the goblin had just said.
“You will have to fill two seats on the Wizengamot instead of one - I hope this will not be too much responsibility for you. Although I would suggest you get a lawyer. We wouldn’t want any more pictures of Harry Potter, heir to the most noble and ancient house of Black and descendant of Salazar Slytherin, drinking fire-whiskey straight from the bottle and dancing on tables in the Daily Prophet now, would we?”