8 A Gift from the Grave

Eventually Angelystor spoke. "I do not like seeing the tree harmed… but… for such a purpose, I can hardly refuse. Please Harry, take what you need."

Harry nodded, face still hidden, "Thank you, Angelystor."

Together they walked and floated to the tree. And then together they floated to the very top of the tree where the freshest growth was. Angelystor stared in awe. "You can fly."

"Yes, beautiful lady, I can."

Harry produced a folding miniature hacksaw from the pocket of his baggy trousers and deftly removed a six-foot branch of fresh growth.

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me," he whisper-sang, a slight smile playing around his mouth, just before the nearby church bell sounded midnight with a single, low dong. He floated backwards. "Well, Fair Lady, this is where I must go."

Angelystor nodded, "Harry?"

"Yes, My Lady?"

"Before you go… can I see your face?"

Harry floated motionless for a good few seconds before putting the branch down in the nearby growth, reaching up, and removing the shirt around his head.

Angelystor gazed into a young face that promised future strength and nobility. Black messy hair spilled over his forehead, utterly failing to conceal a fierce lightning bolt shaped scar, tinged in an angry red.

She floated around him, inspecting him from every angle at less than a few inches distance, before finishing right in front of his face.

"Thank you, Harry," she whispered, before retreating a few feet, "and good luck."

Harry nodded his thanks, picked up the branch again, and with a single crack, was gone.

...

Two days later, Harry woke feeling great. Stage one was complete and he'd liberated enough muggle money from people without enough common sense to move onto stage two. It was time for the thestral hair and he had a long journey ahead of him.

There was only one thestral herd in the British isles, and it was Hagrid's on the grounds of Hogwarts — a place Harry dared not tread for fear of the wards being capable of alerting Dumbledore to his presence.

So, he'd have to search further afield, and in Voldemort's memories there was only one other place with a thestral herd. It was the big one — the wild thestral herd of the Mongolian shamans.

He spent the next few days apparating across Europe, through Russia, and down into the Mongolian heartland, arriving near Ulaanbaatar—Mongolia's capital city—sometime around midday on the third day of his travels. Magically exhausted from his trip and still wearing his shirt around his head, he scarfed down the last of the food he'd packed and stretched out on the luscious grass.

Grassland stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, broken up by the occasional mountain. There was zero cover and anyone within fifty miles would be able to see him. On the other hand, there were so few people here, and the country so vast, the chance of being happened upon by someone who cared, was tiny.

Several hours of kip later and Harry moved on.

After another few hours of apparating southwest, he finally arrived at his destination, the Ongiin Khiid Monastery complex, the centre of the Mongolian magical community. When the communists took over the country in the 1920s, they'd destroyed most of the Buddhist temples throughout the country, and now most of them were little more than ruins.

While the muggle population of Ongiin Khiid had been slaughtered or forced to serve in the communist army, the magical community had hunkered down behind their powerful wards. After the initial destruction, they'd gradually taken back the complex, rebuilding and warding it until the entire area was bristling with muggle repelling and illusion wards. To any muggle walking by, it now looked just like any other ruined temple complex.

Harry walked through the gates and beheld the grandeur of the Tibetan architecture — row after row of houses and temples, all with the same distinctive white stone wall and square, curved, sloping roofs. While Diagon alley looked like a stroll down a history timeline, Ongiin Khiid looked like a uniform shopping street designed by an architect with a fetish for old-green copper and spruce.

With the exception of one building of course.

Harry ambled down the street and turned to face a building that looked like a melting roman temple. Gringotts.

Knowing the goblins would react unfavourably to disguises, Harry unwound his make-shift shirt-mask from his head, slipped it back over his chest, and walked past the guards, up into the bank.