HP story really needs a title
Jun. 2nd, 2011 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight I’m not sure what to tell you first Cloudy, more about when I was younger, or what’s happening to me now. I’m sure you’re worried though, so I’ll start with what happened after I time traveled. The first thing I did was heaved my stomach out onto the ground. I knew that you experienced so disorientation with time travel, but usually it was not supposed to be that bad. I guess this was different since I chose to travel back several years rather than a few hours. I only mention it so that you can prepare yourself and perhaps have Charlotte and Walter alter the formula so that it does not have the same effect on you.
In any case, once I gathered my focus and was able to stop vomiting, I stood up and took my bearings. I was exactly, or near exactly where I had planned to be: outside of the Manor wards on the moors. When I looked to the east I could just barely see the manor with the light of morning edging around it. I took a deep breath and disapperated. (Yes, I suppose it must be shocking, at least a little, that I can do that, but I am going out of order in the story, so sorry, but I’ll explain later. For now, assume that anything unusual I can do is not strange.)
The apparition point in Diagon Alley was uncrowned as I suspected it would be. In fact that’s why I chose to appear so early in the morning. I strode quickly to the white marble building of Gringotts, but almost the second I entered the building, I realized something I had not remembered before now. Today, that being July 3, 1988, was a day when Gnarls, my former caretaker, had taken me to the bank to help me examine my holdings and make sure the goblins were not cheating me too much. However, I did not realize this until I saw my younger self attached to Gnarls hand at one of the front desks. When I overcame the shock of seeing my seven, nearly eight-year-old, self, I ducked into a corner and realized something else. There was a troupe of goblin soldiers stalking toward me.
“Present your wand,” grunted their captain. I knew better than to disobey a goblin, much less one of their soldiers, so I did as commanded, and was pushed along to go deeper into the bank, probably to be confronted by a member of the goblin nation. I caught Gnarls eyes as I was moved along, and they went wide with recognition. He turned the little me away, and I remembered that I had just asked him what was wrong and he had said that it was nothing, that he didn’t want me gawking at the soldiers.
I was put into a holding cell and forgotten about for a few hours. That was all right, I had suspected they would do as much when they seized me. But they had not thought to take my bag, so I pulled out one of my newer books and began to read. I had nearly finished it when another, smaller group of soldiers came to my cell door and ushered me out. This time I was taken to a shiny conference room, with beautiful marble interior and a high polished marble table. Gnarls sat in one of the chairs at the table, as did Silverfang, his cousin and my account manager, and someone who I had only seen briefly in passing: the director of the bank and goblin prince Ragnok. I almost did not recognize him; he looked like any other goblin on the outside, but had a very different aura to him.
“Sit,” Ragnok commanded. After a second when the soldiers did not move, I assumed he meant me, so I took a seat at the end of the table. He only had to look at the soldiers before they left the room without a word. “The goblin descendant Gnarls claims that he recognizes you to be his ward, a Ms. Harriet Rose of Sharon Potter, though many years older than the other version of you who is at present with a goblin nanny. Silverfang, an esteemed minder of funds, also seems to agree that this resemblance is uncanny. Speak and explain yourself, witch.”
“I am Harriet Rose of Sharon Potter,” I said. “I am nearly fifteen years old and claim the position of High Lady of the Most Noble and Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell.”
“Then you have, as our mages suspected, traveled through the stream of time,” Ragnok said.
“I do not deny it,” I replied.
“Time travel is a very grievous act,” Ragnok stated. I smiled at him, a challenging look in goblin culture. It was the reason that I almost never smiled for joy when I first came to Potter Manor.
“Not so much time travel, as the act of changing past events,” I said. “After all, how can an unachievable act be outlawed?”
“Wizards do not thinks so far in advance,” Ragnok admitted.
“And in this case, neither have goblins,” I said. Ragnok narrowed his eyes at me.
“And why have you done this, High Lady Potter?” he asked. I saw no reason to lie. So I explained, I explained everything: how Lily and Dumbledore wanted to sterilize me and how for years I had been realizing that almost no where I could run would outsmart Albus Dumbledore. That anywhere I went I would not be safe for him. That was, until I stumbled across Walter Potter’s unfinished experiment and realized that I could hide right under Dumbledore’s nose while he thought I was somewhere else, because technically I would be.
“Of course, I was hesitant,” I added. “I thought at first it might be risky to go back and attempt to live through time without changing it, but then I realized I had already created part of the past, if only through certain…authorizations I make here at Gringotts.” That got their attention.
“And what would these authorizations be?” Ragnok asked.
“You’ve been trying to figure out for years how to get a little girl to sign off on paper work to let you get a high cut of the interest you make off of the accounts you invest for me,” I said. “After all, the highest you can go without written, uncoerced consent is ten percent. In exchange for your silence and assistance on some matters, I will give you more.”
“How much more?” Ragnok asked.
“Oh, that’s negotiable,” I said. This time Ragnok smile at me. I had just used one of the goblin’s favorite words.
“And the assistance you require?” he asked.
“An identity,” I said. “One the wizards will find believable, with its own account, some of the Potter investments transferred to said account. Also, I need documentation that this identity is legally emancipated though only fifteen through rather…extenuating circumstances. I’ll need to be able to create a new life here in the past, one that will help me slip under the wizarding radar.” Gnarls glanced at Ragnok for a moment and their eyes connected
“And what exactly do you intend to do?” Ragnok inquired.
“I intend to register for the Regular International Magic Exams,” I said. “The ones forthcoming. Then I will wait a year and spend it studying and practicing magic and take the Advanced International Magic Exams. That will be followed my masteries of Defense, Dueling, Runes and Arithmacy. I might leave some of them out and instead get a grand mastery in others. I will teach for a few years and then in the summer of nineteen ninety-five, I will apply to be the Defense professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
“And why do you plan on doing this?” Ragnok asked. “You could have evaded Dumbledore in your own time, if you had tried hard enough. You seem willing to sacrifice some of your monetary gain to the goblin nation, so surely things could not have changed enough in seven years that we would be so unwilling to help you, given the price. You needed more time, why?” I tried not to bite my lip as I thought about what I should and should not confess to the goblins. Ah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
“In a few weeks, Lily and James Potter will return with their son, my brother, John Potter to the wizarding world. They faked their deaths and will return to claim me,” I said. “You might want to be prepared for that. In any case, up until now, it has been believed that I was the defeater of Voldemort, when as it turns out John was, or so Dumbledore says. Regardless of the things Albus Dumbledore or my mother,” I spat on the floor, a sign of distaste in goblin culture, “thought of me, John and my father have always been loyal to me. My father quietly supported my reign on the House as High Lady for years. But they will need help, and I intend to help them. As much as this was to get away and protect myself, I was also testing the experiment, to see if it would work, and to see if I wouldn’t die in the process.”
“There is more,” Ragnok said. My shoulders sank before I could stop them, but I said nothing. “You have begun to doubt the great Albus Dumbledore that much is evident. Perhaps you also doubt who is or is not the child who will defeat the one who calls himself Lord Voldemort?”
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “Either way, I wish to be prepared, and Tom Riddle has many years on my brother and I. I thought if I had more time, more time to study him and combat, perhaps I could be ready. No matter what role I needed to play.”
“There’s a way to check,” Gnarls said. Both Ragnok and Silverfang glared sharply at him and he muttered his apologies (it was very rude for those of lower status who were not being addressed to speak out of turn in a Goblin meeting).
“What way?” I asked.
“There is a prophecy,” Ragnok admitted. “That will be spoken no more of. I believe you are honest, Harriet Potter. More honest than a human should be which makes me want to doubt you. Therefore, we will acquiesce you request, for the right percentage of investment returns, of course. Twenty.”
“Fifteen,” I replied.
“Nineteen.”
“Sixteen.”
“Eighteen and a half.”
“Seventeen and a half.”
“Eighteen point two five.”
“Seventeen point seven five.”
“Deal,” Ragnok said, drawing a blade to prick his finger. Once he drew ceremonial blonde, I drew my own blade and did the same, extremely grateful I had known in advance what we had already been paying so that I knew where they would yield. Gnarls eyes widened as he recognized my knife and I hoped I had not made too much of a mistake. “Sending her to you, Gnarls Descendant of Hookclaw, may have been a mistake. She knows our ways a little too well. Silverfang, take her to acquire this new identity, and set up her new account. I must inform the prince of war and the prince of the people these dealings.”
We all waited until Ragnok left the room before any of us stood.
“I always knew you were a trouble making!” Silverfang declared. “Time traveling of all things!”
“It was necessary,” I retorted. “Is your office in the same place as I remember?”
“What’s that worth, the memory of a human? Keep up!” Though we kept Silverfang in sight, Gnarls and I hung back to speak with one another.
“Is it so, that I have less than a month to keep you?” Gnarls asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m sorry I had to tell you like that, but I always did wonder how you kept calm when Silverfang showed up at the door.”
“Do you…do you remember me well?” he asked.
“Very well,” I replied. “I compared the Potters against you for years.”
“But not anymore.” I stopped him in his tracks and embraced him, something which earned us more than a few goblin stares.
“You are a wonderful father to me,” I said. “I could not have wished for a better one.”
“KEEP UP!” Silverfang yelled down the corridor.
“I should go, anyway,” Gnarls said, breaking away from the embrace. “Your younger self is still with the goblin nanny and I should hate to think of the state of that poor nanny when you get through with her.” That made me smile and I waved goodbye to him before I ran to catch up with Silverfang.”
In any case, once I gathered my focus and was able to stop vomiting, I stood up and took my bearings. I was exactly, or near exactly where I had planned to be: outside of the Manor wards on the moors. When I looked to the east I could just barely see the manor with the light of morning edging around it. I took a deep breath and disapperated. (Yes, I suppose it must be shocking, at least a little, that I can do that, but I am going out of order in the story, so sorry, but I’ll explain later. For now, assume that anything unusual I can do is not strange.)
The apparition point in Diagon Alley was uncrowned as I suspected it would be. In fact that’s why I chose to appear so early in the morning. I strode quickly to the white marble building of Gringotts, but almost the second I entered the building, I realized something I had not remembered before now. Today, that being July 3, 1988, was a day when Gnarls, my former caretaker, had taken me to the bank to help me examine my holdings and make sure the goblins were not cheating me too much. However, I did not realize this until I saw my younger self attached to Gnarls hand at one of the front desks. When I overcame the shock of seeing my seven, nearly eight-year-old, self, I ducked into a corner and realized something else. There was a troupe of goblin soldiers stalking toward me.
“Present your wand,” grunted their captain. I knew better than to disobey a goblin, much less one of their soldiers, so I did as commanded, and was pushed along to go deeper into the bank, probably to be confronted by a member of the goblin nation. I caught Gnarls eyes as I was moved along, and they went wide with recognition. He turned the little me away, and I remembered that I had just asked him what was wrong and he had said that it was nothing, that he didn’t want me gawking at the soldiers.
I was put into a holding cell and forgotten about for a few hours. That was all right, I had suspected they would do as much when they seized me. But they had not thought to take my bag, so I pulled out one of my newer books and began to read. I had nearly finished it when another, smaller group of soldiers came to my cell door and ushered me out. This time I was taken to a shiny conference room, with beautiful marble interior and a high polished marble table. Gnarls sat in one of the chairs at the table, as did Silverfang, his cousin and my account manager, and someone who I had only seen briefly in passing: the director of the bank and goblin prince Ragnok. I almost did not recognize him; he looked like any other goblin on the outside, but had a very different aura to him.
“Sit,” Ragnok commanded. After a second when the soldiers did not move, I assumed he meant me, so I took a seat at the end of the table. He only had to look at the soldiers before they left the room without a word. “The goblin descendant Gnarls claims that he recognizes you to be his ward, a Ms. Harriet Rose of Sharon Potter, though many years older than the other version of you who is at present with a goblin nanny. Silverfang, an esteemed minder of funds, also seems to agree that this resemblance is uncanny. Speak and explain yourself, witch.”
“I am Harriet Rose of Sharon Potter,” I said. “I am nearly fifteen years old and claim the position of High Lady of the Most Noble and Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell.”
“Then you have, as our mages suspected, traveled through the stream of time,” Ragnok said.
“I do not deny it,” I replied.
“Time travel is a very grievous act,” Ragnok stated. I smiled at him, a challenging look in goblin culture. It was the reason that I almost never smiled for joy when I first came to Potter Manor.
“Not so much time travel, as the act of changing past events,” I said. “After all, how can an unachievable act be outlawed?”
“Wizards do not thinks so far in advance,” Ragnok admitted.
“And in this case, neither have goblins,” I said. Ragnok narrowed his eyes at me.
“And why have you done this, High Lady Potter?” he asked. I saw no reason to lie. So I explained, I explained everything: how Lily and Dumbledore wanted to sterilize me and how for years I had been realizing that almost no where I could run would outsmart Albus Dumbledore. That anywhere I went I would not be safe for him. That was, until I stumbled across Walter Potter’s unfinished experiment and realized that I could hide right under Dumbledore’s nose while he thought I was somewhere else, because technically I would be.
“Of course, I was hesitant,” I added. “I thought at first it might be risky to go back and attempt to live through time without changing it, but then I realized I had already created part of the past, if only through certain…authorizations I make here at Gringotts.” That got their attention.
“And what would these authorizations be?” Ragnok asked.
“You’ve been trying to figure out for years how to get a little girl to sign off on paper work to let you get a high cut of the interest you make off of the accounts you invest for me,” I said. “After all, the highest you can go without written, uncoerced consent is ten percent. In exchange for your silence and assistance on some matters, I will give you more.”
“How much more?” Ragnok asked.
“Oh, that’s negotiable,” I said. This time Ragnok smile at me. I had just used one of the goblin’s favorite words.
“And the assistance you require?” he asked.
“An identity,” I said. “One the wizards will find believable, with its own account, some of the Potter investments transferred to said account. Also, I need documentation that this identity is legally emancipated though only fifteen through rather…extenuating circumstances. I’ll need to be able to create a new life here in the past, one that will help me slip under the wizarding radar.” Gnarls glanced at Ragnok for a moment and their eyes connected
“And what exactly do you intend to do?” Ragnok inquired.
“I intend to register for the Regular International Magic Exams,” I said. “The ones forthcoming. Then I will wait a year and spend it studying and practicing magic and take the Advanced International Magic Exams. That will be followed my masteries of Defense, Dueling, Runes and Arithmacy. I might leave some of them out and instead get a grand mastery in others. I will teach for a few years and then in the summer of nineteen ninety-five, I will apply to be the Defense professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
“And why do you plan on doing this?” Ragnok asked. “You could have evaded Dumbledore in your own time, if you had tried hard enough. You seem willing to sacrifice some of your monetary gain to the goblin nation, so surely things could not have changed enough in seven years that we would be so unwilling to help you, given the price. You needed more time, why?” I tried not to bite my lip as I thought about what I should and should not confess to the goblins. Ah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
“In a few weeks, Lily and James Potter will return with their son, my brother, John Potter to the wizarding world. They faked their deaths and will return to claim me,” I said. “You might want to be prepared for that. In any case, up until now, it has been believed that I was the defeater of Voldemort, when as it turns out John was, or so Dumbledore says. Regardless of the things Albus Dumbledore or my mother,” I spat on the floor, a sign of distaste in goblin culture, “thought of me, John and my father have always been loyal to me. My father quietly supported my reign on the House as High Lady for years. But they will need help, and I intend to help them. As much as this was to get away and protect myself, I was also testing the experiment, to see if it would work, and to see if I wouldn’t die in the process.”
“There is more,” Ragnok said. My shoulders sank before I could stop them, but I said nothing. “You have begun to doubt the great Albus Dumbledore that much is evident. Perhaps you also doubt who is or is not the child who will defeat the one who calls himself Lord Voldemort?”
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “Either way, I wish to be prepared, and Tom Riddle has many years on my brother and I. I thought if I had more time, more time to study him and combat, perhaps I could be ready. No matter what role I needed to play.”
“There’s a way to check,” Gnarls said. Both Ragnok and Silverfang glared sharply at him and he muttered his apologies (it was very rude for those of lower status who were not being addressed to speak out of turn in a Goblin meeting).
“What way?” I asked.
“There is a prophecy,” Ragnok admitted. “That will be spoken no more of. I believe you are honest, Harriet Potter. More honest than a human should be which makes me want to doubt you. Therefore, we will acquiesce you request, for the right percentage of investment returns, of course. Twenty.”
“Fifteen,” I replied.
“Nineteen.”
“Sixteen.”
“Eighteen and a half.”
“Seventeen and a half.”
“Eighteen point two five.”
“Seventeen point seven five.”
“Deal,” Ragnok said, drawing a blade to prick his finger. Once he drew ceremonial blonde, I drew my own blade and did the same, extremely grateful I had known in advance what we had already been paying so that I knew where they would yield. Gnarls eyes widened as he recognized my knife and I hoped I had not made too much of a mistake. “Sending her to you, Gnarls Descendant of Hookclaw, may have been a mistake. She knows our ways a little too well. Silverfang, take her to acquire this new identity, and set up her new account. I must inform the prince of war and the prince of the people these dealings.”
We all waited until Ragnok left the room before any of us stood.
“I always knew you were a trouble making!” Silverfang declared. “Time traveling of all things!”
“It was necessary,” I retorted. “Is your office in the same place as I remember?”
“What’s that worth, the memory of a human? Keep up!” Though we kept Silverfang in sight, Gnarls and I hung back to speak with one another.
“Is it so, that I have less than a month to keep you?” Gnarls asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m sorry I had to tell you like that, but I always did wonder how you kept calm when Silverfang showed up at the door.”
“Do you…do you remember me well?” he asked.
“Very well,” I replied. “I compared the Potters against you for years.”
“But not anymore.” I stopped him in his tracks and embraced him, something which earned us more than a few goblin stares.
“You are a wonderful father to me,” I said. “I could not have wished for a better one.”
“KEEP UP!” Silverfang yelled down the corridor.
“I should go, anyway,” Gnarls said, breaking away from the embrace. “Your younger self is still with the goblin nanny and I should hate to think of the state of that poor nanny when you get through with her.” That made me smile and I waved goodbye to him before I ran to catch up with Silverfang.”
