Chapter 12 Learning more and liking less
Harry's POV
The ride down to his trust vault was fun, with the speed and all the twist and turns. Harry had a blast riding down and was a bit disappointed it didn't last longer. The goblin took his key and opened the door. The smoke that came out was a bit disconcerting, but our hero bravely ventured in. He took a quick look around the stone room, noted there was only money, so he grabbed some of the gold and silver. He'd figure out what the dominations were later. Getting back in the wonderful cart, they then went to the Potter's main vault, which was vast and had tons of coins, furniture, trunks, books, portraits, and other household items. Harry figured they expanded the inside to hold all of this. He thought up a quick counting spell in his head and it came back as millions of Galleons. He was ecstatic that he would never have to live on the streets again. Plans were forming in his mind.
He looked at all the stuff and noticed that there were loads of trunks full of books, which Harry quickly minimized and put in his TARDIS pocket. He then filled a few more with the loose books laying about. There didn't seem to be anything from his parents, so he was hopeful that the Evans vault held something. The ride there was just as thrilling, but the teen wondered if it was at the top of the tunnels, why didn't they go there first?
After Snarlfist opened the door to his mum's vault, Harry went inside. It appeared as if she had been trying to build a library, maybe to take advantage of the bank's security? Being the pragmatic person he now was, he could see why she would want to keep a library here at Gringotts. The walls were lined with half-full bookshelves and such, and the center of the vault had more trunks full of tomes, a tool chest, some sawhorses, and planks of wood.
He glanced around and spied a cozy red chair in the back with a tiny end table next to it. On the table sat a brown leather book that had the simple word 'Diary' in gold-leaf on the front. That almost brought a tear to the orphan's eye as he reached over and picked it up. He opened the first page and noticed that it was written in the style of a little girl, so he flipped to the back and was relieved to see grownup handwriting. He reverently tucked the book in his pocket and looked around some more.
Making a quick decision, he unloaded his pocket of all the trunks.
"Sort," he said to the air as he waved his hand, and the books soared off the shelves and out of trunks, and into piles that were organized by topic and author. He waved at the empty trunks and said "Potter vault," making them vanish, hopefully to the vault.
"TARDIS," he said, waving his hand to encompass the whole room, and with sound of stone groaning, the vault expanded.
Harry then glared at the wood and said, "Multiple." And then there was suddenly a lot more wood, nails and tools. "Build." And much noise was heard as the wood was magically sawed into proper size, and hammers and nails worked as they assembled the bookshelves.
"Shelve," was the next order and the pile of books disappeared and reappeared on to the appropriate shelves. It took about ten minutes and when all was said and done there was a nice library in the vault.
"Magical Theory books, here," he stated, and all the books of that subject flew into a stack, which Harry shrunk, tied together with conjured twine, and put in his pocket. "Diaries," he commanded, and all those landed at his feet. He created a bag for these and gently placed them in his pocket. He figured there might be some of his ancestors ramblings as well. He'd read his parents' first and then go backwards from there.
Snarlfist, who had been watching, was warily looking at the teen he had been rude to. Never had he seen such casual use of magic, and it didn't set off the alarms. Since the boy hadn't used a wand, he couldn't get him for breaking the rules since the wording made no mention of wandless magic. "That was rather amazing," he said to the young man.
"Oops," the embarrassed teen said sheepishly as he turned to his audience. "Sorry, I forgot you were there. I think we need to have a bit of a talk. Now I don't know how goblins work, but my magic is my secret weapon. I hear there is a Dork Lord, or some other pretentious title, after me. So I offer you one of two deals. One you make a vow to keep my secret, or two, I go MIB on you," the teen said seriously.
"What is MIB?" the goblins asked with a tilt of his head.
"I take and replace the memory," was the succinct answer.
The goblin thought hard on this. He really didn't want to piss this child off, and if it got out that Potter could perform such great feats of wandless magic then the boy would automatically think it was him. Snarlfist didn't know what the powerful wizard could do to him, so he said, "Do the latter. Do try to make it believable. We are not nice, so don't try and make it a happy memory."
"Okay," the surprised Harry said and waved his hand and said, "Forget." He made sure to replace the blank spot with the memory that the vault had always been this way, and that the goblin had been impatiently waiting for him to finish reading. He quickly called up a book, which happened to be his mum journal, and opened it.
"Will you hurry up," Snarlfist snapped at the boy in front of him, who was reading a book for goodness sake. What did the brat think this was… a library?
"Right, sorry, got caught up I my mum's diary," Harry said with faux embarrassment. He snapped the diary closed and put it in his pocket.
"I don't have all night, you lazy human. Some of us have work to do," the testy being stated as he pointedly moved to the door. "Come along."
Harry took one last look around and decided to keep the vault open for now, but he might move it all when he found a home. He could feel the wards around the bank and would have no problem updating and copying them. For now, he had to get back to the school, since he had no place else to go right now.
After the ride to the top, the very tired Harry exchanged some gold to pounds, went outside and then used his new form of transportation to the Honeydukes' tunnel. He quickly checked his map, made himself invisible and dashed to Gryffindor tower. There he looked around, viewed his map, saw the youngest male Weasley's name, and decided to crash on the couch. He blinked his trunk to him, and got dressed in some sleepwear. He shrunk the trunk, put it on a necklace, and then fell asleep as soon his head hit the pillow he conjured. It had been a long day.
Hermione was the first one down the next morning. "Harry," she said as she gently shook his shoulder.
"Wassa?" was the nonsense answer as the sleeping teen rolled over.
"Come on, Harry, wakey, wakey," she said with a nudge and a giggle.
"'ermoine, 'hy are 'ou shakin' me?" came the muffled question.
"As much as I'd like to let you sleep, the prefects will be down soon, and they will be much more forceful in getting you awake," the bushy-haired girl stated, giving his shoulder another shake. "Think ice water," she said when he just mumbled again.
"Fine, fine, I'm up," our savior grumbled as he rolled over and sat up.
"Why are you sleeping on the couch?"
"That thief is in the dorm room," Harry answered, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, wondering where his glasses were, since he didn't take them off last night. He squinted around and spotted them on the floor near Hermione's foot. He held out his hand and thought at them. They winked in to his palm, and he held them up looking for damage. They were only smudged, so he thought them clean.
"Harry, you don't know…" she hedged, biting her lip and looking away, missing his use of wandless magic. She really didn't want to believe that Ron would steal anything. It had kept her up all night. Was he really so mad at Harry that he would act so completely out of character?
"Right," he interrupted her and he put his glasses on, "and until I do, I'm not sharing a room with him."
"I guess that makes sense," she said, letting it go for now.
"It does. Look, I'm hungry, let's go eat. I'm thinking breakfast in the kitchen today. I want to ask you and Luna, maybe the twins, more about this… world, I guess is the word I'm looking for," he said and pulled off the trunk necklace, expanded it and rummaged through it for clothes. He picked out his attire, which he was going to have to fix since they looked too big and holey. He looked at Hermione and said, "I meant after I get changed. I might be awhile in the shower, so you don't have to wait for me," he said with a small smile, negligently shrinking and putting the trunk back around his neck. He was looking forward to a long, hot shower. It was only two days ago he was cold and dirty. No, right now scrubbing clean sound luxurious.
"I'll be here for about an hour, so try not to take that long, and you will show me how you just did that," she said as she pulled out a book from her bag.
"Right," was all he said as he turned and ran up the stairs.
Exactly fifty-five minutes later, a clean and well-dressed Harry Potter came down to the common room. Now there were many other students gathered there, and they all looked at him as if they were fascinated at the change. They had been so caught up in his little speech and argument yesterday that they hadn't noted his clothing. Now though, they could see this was not the teen they knew before. Gone were the baggy hand-me-downs and in their place were some nice black jeans and a royal blue button-up shirt. Not to mention the awesome shiny combat boots.
"Quit fucking gawking at me like I'm some bloody zoo animal," our hero snarled as he pushed his way to Hermione and the Weasley twins.
"Let's just go eat," Hermione said as she laid a hand on his arm.
He smiled, threw his arm over her shoulders and said, "Yeah, I'm starved."
Luna had been waiting for them at the half-way point and the now five students were eating breakfast in the kitchen. Harry made sure to make her feel welcome with cheek kiss and an arm around her shoulders. They were having a full English breakfast and Harry delighted in the spread. He made sure to load his plate with a bit of everything and all but inhaled the food.
"You know, you'll taste more of it if you chew," Luna reprimanded kindly, knowing that he still worried about starving. She wondered if part of that was subconscious conditioning, from his childhood. Not that she knew anything about it, but just from observing him these past two years, she concluded his homelife was not ideal. Now, with his memory gone she may never know.
Hermione was also thinking along those lines, and she put a hand on his arm and said, "No one is going to take it from you."
"Right, sorry," he said as he slowed down.
"How did it go last night?" George asked Harry, changing the subject and taking those pitying looks away from the amnesiac.
"Yeah, did anything exciting happen?" Fred added, concurring with his brother.
"I went to the bank, did a blood test, got some gold, built a library and came back here," the dark-haired teen answered evasively, not wanting them to know the full extent of his magic. Not that he didn't trust them, but it was better to keep some secrets to yourself.
"How many vaults do you own?" Fred asked casually as he lifted his glass to take drink of pumpkin juice.
"Three."
"You built a library?" Hermione asked excitedly.
"Well, my mum started it, I just finished it. It's in Gringotts for now, but I'm thinking on moving it when I have my own place."
"Oh," she said disappointedly.
"I have ta tell you, those goblins didn't impress me at all," he stated firmly. "They come off as racketeers to me. I don't trust them one bit."
"It's all the wars we've had with them," explained Luna gently. "Not that you'd remember, but the goblins rebel every hundred years or so. They really don't want to be bankers, they just want our gold."
"Then why is there a Gringotts?" the confused boy asked.
"It was part of a treaty," George said, making Harry look his way.
"What, they were winning a war, or something?"
"No, losing actually. I don't remember the wording, or the reason for the rebellion, but they got far less than they demanded," Fred stated as he paused eating his eggs. "But, one of those demands was the right to run a bank." He shrugged and took up his fork again.
"That just doesn't make sense," Harry snarled in frustration. Putting his plate to the side, to irritated to eat.
"The magic world rarely does," Hermione said with an exasperated sigh. She too got upset with how things were sometimes.
"I'm not sure I like that. I mean, I get this is a different culture, but is it adapt or leave scenario?" he asked, looking at the purebloods at the table.
"Well, magicals are slow to change, but we do try and keep up with what's going on in the muggle world. We know that technology is close to magic sometimes, well the more openminded wizards do. And we know that muggles can do things we can't. However, the governing body of the Ministry would never let those they think lesser then themselves make laws or changes," Luna once more took up the explanation.
"Fucking politics," Harry growled to himself, though everyone heard him. He pulled back his plate and started eating again.
"Language," Hermione reprimanded.
Harry just glared at her and continued eating.
"So ickle Harrykins, what are you doing today?" George asked as he scooped up some more beans.
"I thought I'd take a bit of a walk around Hogsmeade," was the answer. He was trying to cool down after that short discussion. He figured a walk in a wizarding village might help him understand more. Maybe. He hadn't met a magical person yet that hadn't confused him. Even the twins and Hermione often said of did something that threw him off. He figured Luna did it on purpose.
"What about classes?" his bushy-haired friend asked, worried that he was never going to catch up. She still needed to get with him, and teach him magic with a wand. She only hoped that whatever crazy idea the blonde Ravenclaw imparted yesterday didn't hinder his learning.
"Oh, I'll go back another day… maybe… perhaps. To tell the truth I don't think I need them," Harry said absentmindedly, wondering what the village held. Would it answer some of his questions? Or leave him with more?
"Don't be silly, Harry, of course you need classes," she said firmly. She couldn't believe he was blowing off school so casually. If it were her that couldn't remember she'd do everything she could to reeducate herself. "How are you going to learn if you don't go?"
"I don't really know if I'm staying here or not," he said finally paying attention.
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because that mind-violator thinks he is in control of my life," Harry snarled at the thought of the man. "Besides, there really nothing keeping me here as is. You guys are great and all, but we hardly know one another. From what you've told me, I'm hardly the same bloke you knew a week ago."
"Oh," was the soft answer. She was still coming to terms with the Headmaster being anything but kind. His word hurt her a little bit. They have been friends for years. They did everything together. For him to be so casual about that… well, it hurt.
Not realizing the pain he unintentionally caused, Harry drew his wand and said, "Time," and a digital-like clock appeared in the middle of the table. It showed those that were going to class that it was time to go.
"Shite," came from the twins as they made quick egg sandwiches and ran out the door. They still had to get their books.
"Oops," rejoined Luna as she smiled at Harry, and got up from the table. She bussed his cheek and left as well.
"Behave, at the very least," Hermione said as she gathered up her bag.
Harry gave her a wicked grin and said, "I'll try." He watched her leave and then brought up his Marauders' map, since it spanned further. He saw that the staff was still in the Great Hall, so he put it away, made himself invisible, went to the statue of the humped back witch, and snuck into Honeydukes.
He kept himself unseen as he strolled around the picturesque town. He could see why some people would want to keep this place like it was. It was calm and uncomplicated, unlike big cities, like London. He looked in all the shops and admired their wares. As he was doing his walkabout, he kept the ten-inch map on his lens. There was someone following him, but when he looked all he saw as a large black dog that had the name of Padfoot. It took a second before it clicked that the Marauders' Map had the same name. So he went to the Shrieking Shack and the 'dog' followed.
He waved his wand and the board on the back doorway moved aside. After he and the 'dog' entered, he whirled on it, held up his wand, became visible and said, "Lift and Revert."
The 'dog' yelped when it suddenly was elevated into the air and started to change back into a man. The man was skinny, but not skeletal, and had long curly dark hair and goatee, and an aristocratically featured face. He was wearing dirty slacks and a just as filthy t-shirt with a rock band's name, which Harry couldn't quite make out due to the state of the shirt. It looked like Queen.
Now Harry's map read Sirius Black. "Hello, who are you?" he asked, knowing who he was, but wanting to see the man's reaction. Hermione only told him that this was his falsely accused godfather. He knew very little else.
"What do you mean, who am I? Harry, don't you recognize me? It's me, your godfather, Sirius Black," the man gasped as he peered at the teen's face. Seeing that he truly didn't know him, the godfather sighed. What Albus had written him last night was true then; the boy had lost his memories. He had been worried when he had been brought back for the hunt, but now he was even more so. If what the Headmaster said about him not participating in the tournament, then Harry could lose his magic. Dumbledore had all but begged Sirius to make the boy reconsider. "Oh, yeah, can you put me down please?" the man asked as he was still hanging in the air.
"Tell me how you knew I was in the village first," he said, looking at his godfather's face, trying to remember anything about him.
"I didn't know you were there. I was actually going to sneak in the castle to try and find you. But then I caught your scent. I thought you were under your dad's Cloak," the man said as if it answered everything, which it sort of did.
"Right, my brain is a bit scrambled, so I only remember the last week or so," the teens said as he lowered the man down and gestured to one of the couches that looked like an animal rendered it dead. He waved his wand, said "Repair," and the couch looked good as new.
"How did you do that?" Sirius asked as he examined the sofa. He couldn't find anything wrong with it, so he sat.
"It is a secret for now. I hear I have enemies, they might find out, so mum's the word or I make you forget," our hero threatened with a pointed wand and narrowed emerald eyes.
Black held up his hands and said, "Your secrets are yours to share. I can shield my mind from invasion," he offered.
"That is good to know," Harry said as he repaired a chair and sat. "Now my one question to you is how loyal are you to Dumbledore?"
"Why?"
"Let me tell you about my long day yesterday, and then you can decided who you will stand by," Harry suggested, he could always give him the same choices that he had given the goblin. A vow or the MIB treatment.
"Okay, Harry," the older man said as he settled in the sofa, ready for a long talk. He would see what his godson had to say before he made any commitment.