Chapter 11 - The Foretellings of the Parchment
'Griphook!' Ragnok snapped, and Griphook immediately shuffled over.
'Please escort Mr. Potter and his elven friend to the vault.'
'The vault?' Griphook asked in confusion.
'The missing vault.'
Griphook's eyes widened in astonishment and he looked at Harry in what could be best described as awe.
'I have no doubt he is the heir, but take a blood test when you get there,' Ragnok ordered.
'What's all this about? What's so extraordinary about this?' Harry asked. So he was descended from the person who made the first Invisibility Cloak, a part of the Hallows. Big deal.
'You will find out, Harry. Just go to the vault. You'll understand.'
Harry shrugged his shoulders and made to leave but Ragnok stopped him.
'You may tell anyone who you wholeheartedly trust about your new relationship with the goblin nation, but I'd advise you to tell no one about this Invisibility Cloak and its significance.'
Harry shook hands with Ragnok, thanked him for his time, and followed the other goblin into the black depths of Gringotts, Dobby in tow.
Harry, Griphook and Dobby took an available cart and began their long, winding journey through the stoned passageways of Gringotts, Harry idly noting the absence of Thief's Downfall as they started passing the vaults.
'Umm, are you sure you know where we're heading?' Harry asked Griphook cautiously. The goblin was taking the cart up and down, past a good many of the lower vaults repeatedly and Harry was starting to feel dizzy.
'No,' the goblin replied frankly, turning to look at Harry.
'Then what are we doing, why are we-'
'The only conclusion I can make is that I'll need your blood beforehand, so that it can guide us,' Griphook replied.
Harry pondered this for a moment, before shrugging and offering Griphook his hand. Griphook delicately, or as delicately as a goblin could get, scraped Harry's skin with a silver cut goblin-made dagger he had produced and promptly scattered Harry's offerings on the rough floor they were standing on.
At first nothing happened, but then Griphook muttered a few words under his breath and the blood seemed to evaporate.
Immediately, the cart jerked about wildly and for a moment, Harry thought they were going to be thrown off, but it regained its balance and they managed to hold on in time for it to zoom off even deeper into the bank, taking narrow and sharp turns that even the goblin couldn't comprehend quick enough.
At last they stopped in front of what looked like a stout, ornated iron door supported on all sides by boulders.
'It means it will cave in if there's even the slightest hint of forced entry,' Griphook said.
'Oh, will we be able to make a visit or is it too delic-'
'It's a highly fortified vault, probably the most secure in Gringott's, judging by what we had to go through to get here,' Griphook interrupted.
'Just claim your ancestry, announce the arrival of the heir,' Griphook advised Harry as he stepped off the cart, onto a narrow, cobbled path that led to the door.
'Now who could it be?' Harry thought dryly, 'Ignotus Peverell... Godric Gryffindor... or... which other mysterious, insanely powerful legend who lived so many years ago could have had an impossible relation to me... Merlin might do the trick too...'
Harry looked back for a quick second to make sure Dobby was still around, and that was his mistake.
When he turned back to his vault, he saw that it was now open and there was no hint of the previous unstable entryway.
'Great, so I am related to one of them, if I had a Galleon to bet on which...'
'Just come out the same way when you're done, Mr. Potter,' Griphook's voice called out.
'You can come with me, if you want,' Harry replied, looking back at the goblin.
Griphook's eyebrows raised in question, before he thought better of it and followed Harry into the vault.
'What if I get lost in there or get sucked into a Gringotts cum mysterious ancestor trap, who better than a Gringotts goblin to save my life?;
Griphook gave him an approving look ; it wasn't often that the goblins were given acknowledgements of their superiority when it came to bank matters.
Harry stepped in cautiouly. The inside was in total contrast with the outside view. Harry was certainly expecting some dusty, unfurbished area with a few gold coins scattered here and there and a huge amount of long-lost family heirlooms.
However, the place was sparkling clean and its interior designing was very elegant.
As Harry went through the contents of the vault, he couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment at what had been awaiting him. It was more of an anti-climax, really. The way Ragnok, a generally unexcited and unresponsive being, behaved when encountered with information on the 'missing vault', the path they had to take to get here, Griphook's easy admission that this was probably the most fortified vault in the whole bank - had led him to esxpect something phenomenal.
But on further inspection, it seemed to Harry that this vault was no different from any others : it had a decent amount of gold, a stack of family books and a couple of heirlooms that looked positively ancient. It even had a collection of fine silk robes emblazoned with the Peverell crest.
Harry's disappointment must have showed on his face, for Griphook finally spoke.
'There must be something in here that makes this particular vault very special, Lord Potter, it just has to be found.'
Harry just shrugged non-committally. 'I don't know what made me one in the first place, but ignore the 'Lord' and just call me Harry, please?' he asked.
'Or it might be the fact that this was the first account in Gringott's, and it's actually been accessed only one time since its inception,' Griphook finished off, not even listening to Harry's words.
'Well, I think I'm done here, we don't have anything - ' Harry broke off, an insane tingling spreading through his chest, at the exact spot where Voldemort's last seemingly successful Killing Curse had hit him. It was as if it wanted to be hidden, as if it desired to be overlooked.
Harry moved closer to the only dark and mysterious area of his new vault...
***
A silver Mercedes sedan drove in and parked itself in the garage of a luxurious house in Oxford.
'We're home!' Jane exclaimed, getting out of the car.
'Mum, did you feed Tilly everyday while I was gone?' Hermione asked.
'Yes, dear,' Jane replied, exchanging a dry look with her husband. When Hermione came home last summer, it was the first thing she had asked as soon as they reached home.
'I say, isn't Harry highly allergic to goldfish?' Thomas asked hopefully.
'No, Daddy, he isn't,' Hermione replied, 'he's allergic to cabbage and pork, and he loves treacle tart and chicken, and he - '
'Honey,' Jane interrupted urgently, 'let's get your father into a chair first before you start spouting off what you know about Harry.' And with that, she ushered a rapidly whitening Thomas Granger into the house.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
'I think we should lay up some ground rules for you and this Harry while he stays here,' Thomas began without preamble.
Hermione and Jane rolled their eyes.
'What, is it too much of me that I care for the safety and well being of my only baby daughter?' Thomas protested.
'Dad, Harry's coming over here, it's not as if I'm going to be shacked up somewhere away from you guys.'
Thomas put his head in his hands.
'Poppet,' Jane began delicately, 'I think you need a little more tact than that dear.' She then proceeded to her traumatized husband.
'Tom, from what we've heard about Harry from Hermione, he seems to be a very kind and caring person. And besides, he'll be here, under our watchful eyes and nothing will happen to Hermione.'
Hermione's eyes narrowed ; she didn't know why, but the thought of being under her parents' watchful eyes while Harry was staying over troubled her.
'Okay now spit it out Thomas,' Jane ordered, 'as I said, Harry seems to be a very nice person and he's coming over to Hermione's house, not the other way round. So what is the problem?'
Thomas opened his mouth to shoot off a dozen reasons why that was a problem, but found that he couldn't even come up with one.
'Well?' Jane asked expectantly.
'Off the top of my mind... I can't think of a particular reason why -'
'There you go,' Jane remarked triumphantly.
'So it's settled then?' Hermione asked tentatively, 'Harry's coming over, dad won't treat him like a murder suspect and he can stay for the whole summer?'
'Yes sweetie, Harry's going to come over,' Jane smiled at her daughter's enthusiasm.
'Yay!' Hermione squealed loudly, before clamping her mouth shut and looking sheepishly at her father.
Thomas gave her a suspicious look. Shrugging, he got up and left the room.
'Mum?' Hermione turned to her mother worriedly, 'is Daddy angry at me?'
'No, honey, he's really worried about you when he has no reason to be, he's just covering it up with a stern face.'
'Oh,' Hermione replied timidly.
'He'll get over it when he sees the kind of person Harry is,' Jane said, not sure whether she was trying to convince Hermione or herself.
Hermione brightened up at that ; Harry was the kindest, sweetest and most caring person she had ever known, other than her parents.
Then Hermione brought up something that had been on her mind for a long time, particularly since she had invited Harry over for the summer.
'Mum? I was wondering... if we could go shopping some time?'
Jane's eyebrows raised ; she certainly wasn't expecting that from her teenage daughter. In the past, Hermione always preferred staying at home and sinking her teeth into a long book. When it came to shopping, the only kind Hermione did willingly was that for books. Any other kind of shopping, she would have to be coerced into.
'Sure, honey. Although if you don't mind me asking, why now?' Jane asked, observing her daughter carefully. She didn't know whether Hermione wanted to shop because she had taken a genuine interest or because Harry was coming over and she wanted to look her best for him.
'Um, no reason, just felt like it,' Hermione said casuallly.
'S-Sure honey,' Jane said uncertainly, 'we'll go later this week.'
***
Harry took in the familiar symbol : a circle with its vertical diameter extended and enclosed by a triangle.
He sighed, he didn't want any more to do with the Hallows after all the pain it had brought him. But how could he have assumed there would be nothing of the sort here, in the very vault of its creator?
A mould of sand was shaped into the pattern of the three Hallows and it chilled Harry to no end that the sand pattern he was seeing right now had been exactly like this, undisturbed, for four hundred years.
There was nothing else on the high table where the sand was, save for a couple of dress suits that bore the noble title of Peverell.
Closing his eyes, he fought with himself furiously. A part of him desperately wanted to scatter that sand, it was eating him alive. He needed to get rid of that deathly design, he had to disturb the peace.
He lurched forward with an unforeseen rage and swept the contents of the sandbox all over the table.
'AHHHH! NOOOOOOOOO!' he screamed in pain, as a reddish-gold mist enveloped his hands, its flames licking away at his skin.
As he was losing the battle to stay conscious, he was dimly aware of a ragged parchment appearing where the sand once was.
His arms nearly burnt to a crisp, he snatched the parchment out of thin air and his eyes desperately perused its contents.
One will come, one will go.
It was as if a rage-spitting thunderbolt had struck his senses - in the vestige of his mind he could see a man falling desperately to his knees on an unyielding floor, a man being stabbed in the chest with a shiny dagger, his murderer and the towering outline of the surrounding prison gates being the sole witnesses to his death. Harry tried reaching out to help the man, he had an inkling that the dying man was a friend of his, but then everything swirled around him and the darkness overtook him.
***
Deep down in the Ministry of Magic, in the darkness of Level Nine, three people found themselves in a major quandary.
Not more than a couple of days ago, the most mysterious object known to wizardkind flashed a violent gold, emitting heaps of sparks and making crackling noises that had led them to believe it was on the verge of exploding for some reason.
But it didn't explode. It had been causing them a lot of duress in the last two days and none of them had the slightest clue as to what to do about it. The fact that it was of the unapproachable type and that it reeked of mysterious voices and whispers didn't help their cause at all.
The team had cross-checked everything they could have done to set off such an unnatural reaction in the Veil. They referenced the Ministry archives to make sure there were no ongoing magical experiments that could have triggered something.
At the end, they came to the inevitable conclusion that it had managed to do something strange on its own, spontaneously.
For the first time in its nearly four centuries of existence.
But now, minutes ago, it seemed to have been pushed into a queer sort of equlibrium. A reddish-gold mist surrounded it and in another startling flash, a parchment was expelled from it, similar to the Goblet of Fire, another interesting object that had not seen use in the last two centuries.
The heir has been revealed.
That was all. After that, it went back to its previous state of existence. Peaceful, eerie and undisturbed.
One of the three Unspeakables, a seventh generation pureblood named Algernon Rookwood was in deeper contemplation than the others.
He knew very well that he had gotten his job because of his pure blood credentials. Quite a few people objected to his appointment in such a sensitive area of the Ministry, especially after his uncle's imprisonment a decade ago for leaking secrets of the same area he was now working in.
He had expressed a healthy dose of remorse at what his uncle had done and the higher authorities at the Ministry were thoroughly convinced when he expressed his desire to undo the wrongs committed by his uncle by working and excelling at the same job. Of course, he had been helped by another very influential, rich pureblood.
His father, a blood traitor, was murdered by his uncle prior to the War and his uncle raised him as his own. Following his uncle's incarceration, the rest of his Hogwarts education and his consequent career was thrown into jeopardy, but Lucius Malfoy had kindly seen to the payment of his tuition fees for his last two years and had gotten him this boring, but well-paying job.
And this latest development in the Death Chamber was nowhere near boring.
These were the kind of things that Lucius was interested in hearing about...
***
'Lord Potter?' Griphook ventured hesitantly, 'can you hear me?'
'What are you - gerroffme - what's going on?' Harry squinted his eyes as the light hit his face.
He was lying on the floor of the chamber, being revived by a worried goblin and a frantic Dobby.
'You spaced out. I thought you were ready to leave and I turned to go when I heard you scream. Your house elf and I rushed to you, but you had already fainted by that time and you were clutching this.'
With that, he handed Harry the parchment that had rendered him unconscious.
One will come, one will go.
It was as if someone had cast a dozen Mind Awakening Charms upon him.
'NOOOO! I HAVE TO SAVE HIM!! he screamed, as he struggled against Griphook's vice like grip.
'Lord Potter, calm yourself, there is no one,' Griphook said firmly.
'But there was a man, he was hit, he was DYING!! LET GO!!' Harry bellowed, and even as the words had left his mouth the fight seemed to leave him and he slumped to the floor, weaker than he had been the whole day.
'Did you heal my hands, Dobby?' he asked weakly.
'Y-Your hands, Master?' Dobby trembled, 'is something wrong with Master's hands, Dobby didn't -'
But Harry had looked back at his own hands in astonishment. There they were, unblemished, yet he was ready to bet on his Firebolt that he had suffered burns as well.
You don't have a Firebolt yet, it releases this summer.
Harry got up slowly ; if his subconscious was telling him the release dates of broomsticks, then he was definitely alright.
'I'm fine, I think,' he told the both of them, before they could say anything.
'Sorry about that little act,' Hary said, 'I guess something about this place set me off.'
'It is utterly unsurprising that something did so, Lord Potter,' Griphook said, 'as I said earlier, this is a very special vault.'
'As I said earlier, can you call me Harry please?' Harry asked.
Griphook looked at him sharply for a moment, but he just nodded.
'I'm coming out now, just give me a moment,' Harry said.
Griphook nodded curtly and he left, Dobby going along side him.
Harry went back to the table where the sand was ; there was no sign of it now.
There were a couple of scrolls of parchment inside the pocket of one of the Peverell robes that was draped over the table.
A few of them had a couple of Arithmancy equations and a few were blank. Two fragments, however, stood out.
One of them had : Thrice is three times one.
On the other, was written : The mystery lies at my ancestor's abode, only those who solemnly swear fealty will be able to unlock a mystery that has plagued generations of witches and wizards all over the world : Death.
Harry breathed in and out. He was in no mood to solve any more cryptic riddles, nor did he want to be knocked out cold again.
Shoving the papers into his pockets, he made his way out of the vault.
'Where now, Mas - Harry?' Dobby asked a couple of minutes later, as they exited Gringotts.
'Well, I had some shopping to do in Diagon Alley, not to mention a few visits to a few familiar places in Knockturn, but I guess we better be headed back before my Uncle goes ballistic.'
With a quick snap, Dobby apparated them both back into the smallest bedroom of Number Four, Privet Drive.
AN - Well, I'm back!! And now I can promise you guys very regular updates at least for the next two months (weekly updates, rather than monthly ones).
The response to this story has really warmed me and encouraged me to write more. I mean, 350 odd reviews for just 10 written chapters in which Harry and Hermione are not even together yet, and that too on Portkey?! Thanks a lot, all of you!! I can't possibly respond to all of them, but I assure you I read and appreciate each and every one of them...
So, I hope you liked this update and please, please leave a review on your way out!!
PS - Once again, there's a Star Wars line in this chapter which can only be spotted by hard core freaks like me. If anyone does spot it, I will be really impressed.