[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Harmonies Unconquerable, goblin Harry, gen, 4/5

[lomonaaeren]

Part Three.

Part One.

Title: Harmonies Unconquerable (4/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Violence, goblin Harry, present tense, angst, major AU, drama, gore
Pairings: None, gen
Wordcount: This part 6100
Summary: The second half of goblin-raised Harry’s fourth year and the first half of his fifth year at Hogwarts. Voldemort would probably like it if he had Harry’s attention all to himself, but let’s face it, Harry has a Tournament to ruin, insults to get revenge for, the Argent Ocean to research, more goblin and human magic to learn, interfering humans to handle, and a godfather to keep in line. Voldemort will have to wait his turn.
Author’s Notes: This is another in my series of fics that includes, so far, “Music Beneath the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” and “The Dragon-Headed Door,”and “More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering.” Don’t try to start with this one, or you’ll be seriously confused. The title is a slightly changed line from Tolkien’s poem “The Horns of Ylmir,” which is quoted below. The section titles also come from this poem.


Thank you again for all the reviews!

Catastrophic Fountains

“The Ministry wants to see me? Not the Minister?” Harry asks.

Amelia Bones is sitting upright and straight in front of him in the visitor’s chamber in the bank, but her eyes are bright with distress. (Harry prefers the astonishment she first showed when she saw his gift-scar, although she didn’t say a word).. She’s one of the few humans Harry trusts completely, since she swore oaths to be fair and honest with his people, and so what concerns her concerns him. He would kill to ease the source of her distress, but he doesn’t think it will be that simple, unfortunately.

Madam Bones nods. “Yes. The Minister still can’t speak anything that he doesn’t believe is the truth.” A smile darts across her mouth, and something deep in her eyes relaxes. “But he is getting minions to do it for him. They want to try you for the murder of Barty Crouch, Jr.”

“What charges are being filed against Crouch Senior for keeping his son alive all these years and lying to your government about it?” Toothsplitter sits frowning next to Harry, and Harry is glad she’s there, even though he’s an adult now and could be expected to handle this on his own. Toothsplitter has made herself informed about more aspects of human society than goblins usually study, because she feels responsible for him and his status as a citizen of two worlds. “That is also a crime.”

“Crouch convinced the Ministry to drop that,” Madam Bones says, her face going tight again. “He’s persuaded the Wizengamot that he only did what he did because he wanted to honor the wishes of his dying wife, and that he’s been traumatized by the death of his son.”

She’s good enough to avoid calling it murder, Harry notes. That’s something, at least. He shakes his head. “I was following blood feud practice among my own people, Madam Bones.”

“I do believe that, Mr. Potter. But unfortunately, the Ministry doesn’t, and they insist you come in and speak to the Wizengamot. It might or might not proceed to a trial at that point, depending on if they’re satisfied with your answers.”

Harry can smell the truth rising off her as easily as if he was a werewolf. They’ll proceed to the trial, because they’re already determined not to be satisfied with his answers.

Harry sighs. “Would it help if I provided a memory of the battle?”

“It would help. But I don’t know that it would change the outcome.”

Harry nods. “Then I’ll come and do it. Crouch deserves to know how his son died, even though it won’t really change anything. And I’ll give the answers, and if they want to go to war with us, well.” He shrugs a little. “They’re going to be running out of stored money soon.”

He exchanges vicious smiles with Toothsplitter. The Ministry once mined its own stocks of ore to create Galleons and the other coins that wizards use, so they would always have a source of money independent of the goblins. Harry’s people took that away when they started their war, and they do expect the Ministry to sue for peace soon.

It’s remarkable they haven’t so far, really, but Harry knows that you can get pretty far without underestimating human stupidity.

*

“You have to leave your weapons here.”

“No.”

The young and hapless man at the front of the Ministry stares at Madam Bones, and then down at Harry. “You have to,” he says. “There’s no precedent for letting you go armed into the Wizengamot courtroom.”

“Is there a precedent for a goblin coming here at all?” Harry asks, turning to Madam Bones for help.

Madam Bones appears to consider it, and one would have to know her better than Harry does to tell how close she’s hovering to the edge of laughter. “I don’t believe so,” she says at last. “Other than the few times that they were brought to testify in Wizengamot trials as expert witnesses.”

“Well, then. And did you take their weapons from them?”

“I don’t believe so,” Madam Bones repeats. “They were never searched.”

“He’s not a goblin, he’s a human,” the wizard says.

“I’m a goblin,” Harry repeats patiently, “but I can give you my human weapons.” He takes out his wand and slides it across the desk to the man.

The man clutches it, but scowls at Harry. “You have to leave the daggers, too.”

Harry shakes his head. “They’re goblin weapons, and the Ministry doesn’t have historic or legal precedent to take goblin weapons, so I won’t.”

The man stares back and forth between Harry and Madam Bones. “But it could cost me my job if I let him pass and then it turns out that he attacks someone,” he whines, and Harry can’t tell which of them he’s addressing.

“I will give my surety,” says Madam Bones. “I’ll tell the others that you tried to stop Mr. Potter and take his weapons if he attacks someone and that person asks me about why his daggers weren’t stripped from him.”

Her voice is firm, showing how unlikely she thinks it will be that this even comes up. The young man sighs and writes something down on a sheet of paper that he puts under the desk with Harry’s wand. “All right, Madam Bones. But I think it’s a bad idea, giving beasts the right to push us around like that.”

Harry opens his mouth to demand who he’s calling a beast, but Madam Bones take his arm and firmly escorts him further into the Ministry. Harry shakes his head when they’re away from the desk and aiming towards one of the lifts that stands in a fairly dark corner. “I’m glad that I know humans like you, Madam Bones, and I don’t need to form all my impressions from that one.”

“Quite.” Madam Bones’s lips are pale as she stabs her finger on the lift button. “My apologies, Mr. Potter. I—am not proud of the backwardness of many of my people.”

Harry nods, mollified a little. At least Madam Bones acknowledges why that man’s words were an insult, and she’s willing to do what she can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. He doesn’t think he’ll even have to duel the man to get his wand back.

The lift zips them down to a corridor that’s mostly black with a few white stones among them. Harry wrinkles his nose. He can hear the stones grumbling about the lack of upkeep charms cast on them, and the fact that people throw food wrappers and discarded memos and old quills away in the corners.

It’s probably only the house-elves that keep the stones from just sagging or breaking and refusing to do their jobs. Harry vows to find some Ministry house-elves and thank them, on the stones’ behalf.

The door of the courtroom is open, and there’s a cruel-looking wizard in plum-colored robes leaning out of it, tapping his foot on the floor. “Where have you been?” he snaps. “The trial was supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

Madam Bones draws herself up and holds out a piece of paper like a dagger of her own. “This says ten, not nine-fifty.”

The man snorts. “And it was updated. Honestly, don’t you ever pay attention to your owls?” He stares at Harry. “And what is this?”

“Someone who can kill you,” Harry says. “Would you like to try?”

The man staggers back from him, his face paling like old cheese, and Madam Bones leads Harry into the courtroom. “I appreciate the free entertainment,” she says out of the corner of her mouth, “but please don’t threaten to kill others on a regular basis.”

“You want me to lie?”

Madam Bones must know enough about goblins to realize what a deadly insult that is, because she shakes her head. “No. Only be more diplomatic in the way that you phrase things.”

“Diplomatic.” Harry ponders that. He thinks he can manage it. And he wonders why no one ever just asked him to do this before, instead of asking him to give up his weapons and his heritage and act human.

Then again, he already knows that Madam Bones is a rarity among humans in not feeling their kind of species superiority.

He follows her into the courtroom, and she nods at a stone chair that sits in front of everybody. Harry walks towards it, studying the chains on the arms. They shake back and forth with eagerness to clasp his wrists.

Harry says, “Please don’t.”

The chains ignore him, the first objects that have for a long time. They’ve probably been corrupted by a long service to cruel wizards, poor things. They crouch and shoot out to grab Harry when he sits down.

Harry blocks them with a swift chop of his daggers, and sings the note that he uses when he messes up in some of his smithing work and has to reforge the blade. The steel chains snap in two.

Harry sits down and meets the wizards’ stares. The cruel man who met them at the door has retreated into the audience, but there are plenty of other people in purple robes who want to make trouble for him.

“What do you mean, Mr. Potter, by breaking Ministry property?”

That voice is a little familiar, and Harry glances up and sees Dolores Umbridge sitting in the audience. Well. His people humiliated her enough during the opening stages of the war that she resigned the public position she had at the time, as the Minister’s Senior Undersecretary, and Harry thought she was completely retired. But here she is, with an odd bronze necklace around her throat that ends in a blazing pewter star.

“They tried to grab me,” Harry says. “I warned them, but they did it anyway.”

Umbridge sneers at him. “You are as violent and brutal as any of your people.”

Harry smiles. “I think you misunderstand the nature of my people, but thank you for accepting me as a goblin.”

“Of course I can.” Umbridge smirks back and forth along the lines of the Wizengamot, although only a few people smirk back at her. Harry gets the impression that most of them don’t like her. “As the Ministry’s Goblin Expert, I am in charge of handling this trial.”

“Oh, good!” Harry thinks that he may have misjudged Umbridge. “Then you can tell them that it was self-defense and not murder, and there doesn’t need to be a trial at all.”

“It is murder,” Umbridge purrs. “Because I know that goblin warriors don’t fight duels except for those with equals, and you did it anyway.”

“Or with those who initiate duels by harming us or starting a blood feud,” Harry corrects her. “Barty fit both those categories. Let me just put my memories in a Pensieve. Do you have one?” He looks around the chamber, which is bigger than he thought at first, but also shabbier. The stone here doesn’t look well-cared-for, either.

“Of course. And then we shall see the truth.”

The way Umbridge lays emphasis on the last word makes Harry think that he might not have misjudged her, after all. But he only nods and then looks towards the large, black Pensieve that Madam Bones is bringing up.

Harry tilts his head when he hears the whispery voice from the Pensieve. It’s telling itself to lie, and reciting the runes carved into the sides that distort any memory placed within it.

Well, that won’t do. As Madam Bones places the Pensieve in front of him on a plinth that has risen from the floor, Harry touches the Pensieve and says, “Don’t distort my memories, please.”

The whispery voice stops, and the Pensieve’s attention shifts to him. A shiver of excitement dances through the stone, making the sides ripple and contract, although besides him, Harry thinks only Madam Bones is close enough to notice. She gives him a sidelong glance as she instructs him in how to draw forth a memory.

Of course, Harry left his wand with the young man at the front desk, so some of her instructions don’t make sense. But he just adapts, and touches his steel dagger to his temple and calls forth a long, dripping silvery strand.

The Pensieve examines it with attention as Harry drops the memory into it. And then the runes dance up and down the sides, and the Pensieve makes the decision not to corrupt his memory. It’s interesting enough on its own.

When the Pensieve is settled, Madam Bones steps up to it and brushes her fingers over the runes. There’s another twisting hiss of magic, and the image jumps to life, rising out of the basin to shine with silvery light on the air.

Harry watches with attention. Usually, his people share important memories with song and written stone, so they don’t have anything exactly like this. But it ought to be possible to forge a blade that would share it, or a page in a huge book like the one that he saw Diamond the lore-singer chiseling.

The Wizengamot watches the first part of the memory in silence, as Harry arrives on the graveyard and “Moody” turns into Barty Crouch, Jr. Then he brings out the not-a-kelpie, and Umbridge raps on the desk in front of her.

Madam Bones touches the runes again, and stops the image. Umbridge rises slowly, majestically, to her feet.

“There is no evidence that the Dark wizard known as You-Know-Who has returned,” she states. “You will strike that from the report, secretary.”

Harry catches a glimpse of red hair, and sees someone who looks like a Weasley brother taking the notes. Huh. He’ll have to catch Fred and George when he can and ask why their brother has this kind of Ministry job.

“Who was that?” Umbridge asks, turning to Harry. “Since it is not You-Know-Who.”’

Harry is a little puzzled, but has to accept that he might have given the spirit too much credit by thinking it was Voldemort. “A spirit possessing a grown body,” he replies. “One that Barty claimed was his lord.”

“But who was it?”

“If It’s not Voldemort, I don’t know,” Harry says.

Umbridge gives what sounds like a snarl, and sits down. Madam Bones starts the memory playing again, and they watch the spirit flee and Barty accepts Harry’s invitation to duel, Umbridge pops up again.

“This is not the real memory!” she says.

“How do you know?” Harry asks. “You weren’t there.”

Umbridge gives him what looks like a real glare of hatred. Harry is a little honored. So far, he thinks only Voldemort has really hated him, and maybe Barty, and one of them has fled and one died in the duel. He wonders if Umbridge would like to duel him. She seems to know a lot about goblins, so maybe.

In fact, she’s short and squat enough that Harry thinks she might have a goblin grandparent. Maybe she’s from a clan that has a feud with his. That would make sense, as would her hiring by the Ministry if they know about her goblin knowledge but not her goblin blood.

“I know because the runes on the Pensieve would have glowed if this was a real memory,” Umbridge says, with a loud sniff. She marches over and runs her wand over the runes on the side of the Pensieve. “But as you can see, the runes—”

The runes light up under her wand, and Umbridge smiles in satisfaction. But then the runes go out again, and the Pensieve begins to emit a soft glow from under the edges of the basin.

Harry watches. He doesn’t know how it’s doing that. He doesn’t know how he would mimic the effect in a blade, either.

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

But Umbridge takes the question as directed at her, and points her wand at him. Harry narrows his eyes. He might have to draw his daggers.

“You are doing this!” she shrieks. “Corrupting your memory, twisting it to show something that’s not true! Show me your wand!”

Madam Bones clears her throat. “Actually, Christoper Denken at the front desk took his wand,” she says. “Mr. Potter can’t be doing anything to affect the memory or the runes on the Pensieve, unless you think that he is capable of wandless magic.”

“He’s a little half-breed child, how can he?”

Madam Bones gives Umbridge a cold look. “Then he can’t be affecting the Pensieve.”

Umbridge stares back and forth between Harry and the runes and the memory-image hovering in the air. “But—but that’s impossible. It’s impossible that the dead man should have agreed to a duel!”

“Why?” Harry asks. “You weren’t there.”

“Shut up, you little half-breed!”

Harry tilts his head. “Are you trying to insult me? Do you want a duel with me, too?”

“I am beginning to wonder if this is Mr. Potter at all,” says a heavyset woman with dark, hooded eyes. “It’s true that there haven’t been as many photographs in the paper of him as I would have expected of a celebrity, but the ones I saw did not have that scar. Could he be an impostor capable of doing wandless magic?”

“Finite Incantatem!” Umbridge shouts, waving her wand at Harry.

Harry shakes his head a little as the magic washes over him. Of course, it doesn’t do anything, because Harry doesn’t carry any active wizard magic on his person at the moment. Most of the time, the only objects he has that do are his trunk and wand.

“This can’t be true.” Umbridge’s face is ashen now.

Madam Bones sighs tiredly. “Dolores, so far you haven’t given us any reason that it can’t be, other than the fact that you want to believe Mr. Potter murdered Barty Crouch, Jr. As you can see from the memory, Crouch kidnapped Mr. Potter and intended to use him for something, surely some vile ritual that would help this spirit he called lord. Mr. Potter was justified in fighting back in self-defense.”

“No, he isn’t,” says the dark-eyed woman from before. “No goblin can strike a human and not expect to pay the penalty.”

“Does that include humans who were convicted of being Death Eaters years before and supposedly died in prison?” Harry asks. “Because I don’t think that I’ve ever heard someone interpret the law that way before.”

The dark-eyed woman shakes her head rapidly. “We are not here to try either of the Crouches. We are here to try you, Mr. Potter.”

“But then you have a problem,” Harry says evenly. “Because you can’t try underage wizards with a full court of the Wizengamot like this. I looked up that law the other day. So you must be trying me as an adult goblin instead. And adult goblins are judged by the laws of their people. By the laws of my people, I dueled Crouch, and did nothing wrong. I earned the status of adult warrior for it.” He touches his scar. “This marks me as having earned that status.”

“We are trying you as a half-breed!” Umbridge snarls.

“Which one of my parents was the goblin, then?”

“What?”

“The laws differ,” Harry explains patiently. It’s disappointing, but he’s beginning to think that she isn’t a goblin expert after all. “If my mother was the goblin, it’s different than if my father was.”

Umbridge’s eyes dart around. She looks trapped. Then she straightens her shoulders. “Your mother. She was the Mudblood, after all, wasn’t she?”

Harry smiles. “Half-goblins with goblin mothers are tried as goblins. Which means, by their people.” He stands up and nods to the members of the Wizengamot. “Thank you. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but it’s been interesting.”

“No!” Umbridge roars, stepping in front of him. “I meant to say your father!”

“I worked in the Aurors with James Potter,” says an older man with a long white beard who reminds Harry a little of Dumbledore. He sounds like he keeps his nose cleaner, though. “He was a thoroughgoing pureblood human, madam. I suggest you watch your tongue.”

“Exactly,” says the dark-eyed woman, and now she’s looking in distaste at Umbridge. “What is the world coming to, when purebloods can be accused of having creature blood?”

Harry raises his eyebrows. He didn’t know the prejudice was that bad. It’s no wonder that Karkaroff went out of his way to hide his Mermish heritage. If Harry ever talks to him again, he’ll apologize for telling so many people about it.

“Harry Potter is a half-breed!” Umbridge screams.

“You can’t even decide which of my parents was the goblin,” Harry says. “I don’t think you have enough evidence to shout about it.”

Umbridge still has her wand drawn. She turns and lunges at him.

Harry is mostly offended that she didn’t ask for a duel in the proper form. And he doesn’t draw his daggers. It would be a waste on her. Instead, he asks the necklace hanging around her neck to take care of her for him.

The necklace whips around and around Umbridge’s throat, binding and constricting her, and Umbridge bends over, coughing. The necklace lets go, and Umbridge stands up, pointing at him with a finger instead of her wand, which Harry considers the only smart thing she’s done since he entered the courtroom. “See? He is capable of wandless magic.”

“No, he isn’t,” the black-eyed woman snaps. “Now if he’s a half-breed.”

“He’s a half-breed!”

“Then he’s not capable of wandless magic.’

The two women stare at each other. Harry shakes his head a little. He thinks both of them are stupid, but if their stupidity works against them charging him with murder, then that’s fine with him.

Umbridge looks away, her hand locked on the pewter star at the end of the bronze chain. “Then I give up and will not be the Ministry’s Goblin Expert any longer,” she snaps, and throws the necklace on the floor and stalks out of the courtroom.

Harry bends down and picks up the poor necklace, stroking the bronze links. He’ll forge it into a different form for the bravery it showed. It snuggles into his hands with a little sigh.

“Well, without our expert, and without Mr. Crouch here to press the charges himself, and with the memory of Barty Crouch, Jr., clearly agreeing to the duel,” says Madam Bones dryly, “may I suggest that the Wizengamot doesn’t have enough evidence to try Mr. Potter one way or the other?”

The Wizengamot must agree, although they use more syllables to say it, because soon after that, Harry and Madam Bones are in the corridor again. Madam Bones sighs and straightens her robes around her. “I’m sorry you had to sit through that, Mr. Potter.”

Harry shrugs. “It was interesting. I meant that. To see how people with horizons this limited think about goblins.”

Madam Bones gives him a sad smile. “Maybe you never have to learn more about their prejudices than this, Mr. Potter.”


Coiling and Creeping Onward

Of course, Madam Bones is wrong, good wish or not. Harry has to learn about a lot of prejudices, as he finds when he meets up with Luna in Diagon Alley to do their shopping for the upcoming school year.

Luna smiles at him and hugs him, then leans in to study the scar. “This is very handsome. Did you have it done to please a unicorn?”

Harry laughs quietly. “No. It’s because I’m a full-fledged goblin warrior, now, an adult in the eyes of my people, and everyone who’s one of those gets a mark like this.”

Luna nods, accepting that, and they leave the Leaky Cauldron for Diagon Alley. People turn around and stare at Harry in seconds. Someone points. Someone screams, which makes Harry spin around with his hands on his daggers, expecting at least the spirit that might be Voldemort swooping down on the alley, before he realizes that the adults are staring at him and their children are cowering.

Harry shakes his head. Yes, as a goblin warrior, he’s dangerous, but not to people who haven’t offered him any kind of insult. He sheathes his daggers fully and walks on with Luna, ignoring the chattering and the questions.

Soon enough, someone decides they won’t be satisfied with that, and comes up to Harry as he and Luna are about to enter Flourish and Blotts. “Potter, what did you do to your face? Did you spill acid on it?”

Harry glances at the blond boy and dredges his mind for his name. Slytherin, right, the one who supposedly gets praise from Snape all the time, according to Ginny. Draco Malfoy. “No, magic.”

“Why did you—”

Malfoy reaches out to touch Harry’s scar, which means Harry grabs his wrist, shaking his head. Foes and people of his clan are the only ones who can actually touch a warrior’s scar. It’s a grave insult to have it happen otherwise, and Harry doesn’t want to kill someone who’s just a kid. “I did it because I’m an adult now.”

Malfoy drops his hand and pretends that Harry didn’t hurt his wrist, which feels like it’s never wielded a blade. “No, not until you’re seventeen.”

“An adult goblin,” Harry says patiently.

Malfoy sneers at him and takes another sidelong glance at his wrist, which he probably thinks was disfigured by the touch of Harry’s hand. “Well, you’re ugly enough to be one.”

Harry studies him for a second, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry to say that you’re only ugly enough to be a pureblood wizard, nothing else.”

Malfoy’s cheeks flood with color. “Freak,” he spits.

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Do you spend a lot of time around Muggles?”

“No! Freak.”

“I just asked because I heard my Muggle aunt and uncle use that word a lot. I thought maybe you knew them.”

Malfoy straightens his robes and matches away from them. Luna giggles lightly. “Even if he knew them, he would never admit it.”

“That’s true,” Harry agrees. He can’t think that most people would admit to knowing the Dursleys. “Come on, let’s get our books.”

*

“Very nice scar, Supreme Warrior of All the World!”

“I like the way it zigs and zags, Forge. Very dashing, wot?”

“Yes, it dashes down his face!”

Harry smiles as he watches the Weasley twins fall over themselves laughing. They tracked him down on the train, the way they did last year, and now he just has to wait for them to work past the jokes and get to the point.

“Came to say thank you for the way you neutralized Crouch,” George finally says, and straightens up to give Harry a little bow. “He’s retired from the Ministry now. Couldn’t take the heat when it was—”

“Revealed that his darling Death Eater baby boy was still alive,” Fred takes up smoothly. “And because of that, Ludo Bagman lost his most powerful protector in the Ministry, and had to—”

“Settle up his gambling debts if he didn’t want to go to prison.” George swings his robe pocket back and forth, making it clink. “So we have you to thank for the funds to start our own business!”

“Oh?” Harry tilts his head. “Then perhaps you’d like goblin investment in it? I have a few people in my clan who would be interested.”

The twins exchange startled glances, and then Fred says cautiously, “You know that we want to open a joke shop?”

“Yes, I know. What does that change?”

“Well, we thought goblins wouldn’t be interested in investing in something so—unserious.”

Harry laughs. “We enjoy businesses that make money and can produce defensive products, and I know you can do that. Ginny told me about a few of the ones you were showing around in Gryffindor last year. We might not buy them ourselves, because goblin and human senses of humor aren’t always the same, but we could get some income from you, and that’s a good thing.”

Fred and George talk to each other with their eyes, and Harry waits patiently. Sometimes he looks at them and wonders what it would be like to have a twin, but other times, he’s glad that he doesn’t. He likes finishing his own sentences.

Finally, Fred nods and sticks out his hand. “I know that you’ll have to consult with your clan to get backing,” he says. “But thank you for the initial proposal. And we’re prepared to strike a bargain for a ten percent interest.”

Harry snorts and doesn’t shake Fred’s hand. “I do indeed have to consult with my clan, and agreeing to a number so low without their input is just stupid.”

“Fifteen?” George can make huge eyes when he wants to.

“Probably more like thirty.”

Fred and George groan and clasp each other in dramatic disbelief, but Harry rolls his eyes. “Remember that although goblins and humans have different senses of humor, we share the same maths.”

Fred sighs and untangles himself from George to sweep Harry a bow of his own. “We won’t doubt that, Your Dangerous Daggership, sir.”

“We’ll remember that you have a basilisk-fang blade,” George adds, “just in case we ever are tempted to forget.”

Harry smiles. “Good. Let that keep your memories sharp.”

The twins act as if he’s made the best pun ever. Harry lets them think that. He’s sure they’ll come to a good business agreement with his clan. The twins aren’t the kind of people who think that someone is less dangerous because of the weapons he carries and the scar on his cheek.


Song of Unplumbed Wrath

“Mr. Potter. What is that thing on your cheek?”

“A scar.”

Harry meets Snape’s eyes and holds them. He’s given up hope that Snape will do the honorable thing and meet him in a duel, but he still hopes that eventually, he might provoke Snape into doing it out of spite.

Certainly Snape is sneering at his scar out of spite. “Your mother would weep if she could see you,” he hisses.

“Out of pride? Well, yes, I’d hope so.”

Snape’s hands begin to shake, and Harry perks up and watches Snape closely. He keeps his own hands away from his daggers, though. He can’t be caught in a situation where someone could say that he started the duel first. He knows that most of the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students he has these classes with will be too terrified to speak up against Snape in Harry’s favor, if it comes down to the words of witnesses.

“She did not raise you to be a goblin.”

“Well, no,” Harry says, puzzled at that tactic that Snape appears to be using. “She didn’t raise me at all. She’s dead.”

Snape makes a choked, pained sound, and reaches behind him for something that might be a cauldron or his wand. Harry tenses in anticipation, but Snape only brings up a bright vial of clear liquid and swallows most of it.

A Calming Draught, Harry realizes with disappointment as Snape turns away from them and barks to the rest of the class, “Well, what are you staring at? Get back to work!”

Harry sighs and starts working on his potion with the help of Terry Boot again, while thinking, Someday, he’ll snap and lose control, and then me and my daggers will be waiting.

*

“Potter! Stay after!”

Terry pauses and looks anxiously in his direction, along with Michael Corner. Both of them seem to be remembering that someone who looked like Moody kidnapped Harry just a few months ago. But Harry waves at them to go ahead.

Professor Moody—the real Moody, this time, as the Defense professor—really does act different from Barty. Harry assumes that Barty had luck and the fact that no one was that close to Moody except for Dumbledore to thank for not being caught before he was. Moody is snappish, but he also explains things more clearly, and he despises the Dark Arts, and he insists that everyone do the best they can, while Barty-as-Moody would make cruel remarks and dismiss students who couldn’t perform to his satisfaction to sit in the back of the classroom.

Now, Moody stares at Harry with his one physical eye narrowed and the magical eye pointing at Harry from an odd angle halfway to the ceiling, and says, “I understand I have you to thank for my freedom.”

“Oh, no,” Harry says. “I didn’t get you out of that trunk, after all. I just killed the man who was masquerading as you and brought your eye and leg back.”

“What do you call that, if not freedom?”

“Restoration?” Harry offers, after thinking about it for a moment. “Your freedom involved more trunk-opening.”

Moody vomits an abrupt laugh, and shoots out his hand to trace the scar on Harry’s cheek. Harry grabs his hand, but Moody just shakes his head. “Don’t want to touch it, lad. I know the look of a true goblin warrior scar.” He grins. “I can think of a number of people here who would shit themselves on a regular basis if they knew a fully-trained goblin warrior was walking among them.”

“Please don’t tell them. Cleaning up that much shit would be annoying for the house-elves.”

“True enough!” Moody pulls his hand back. “Has the Headmaster talked to you about the Order of the Phoenix yet?”

“The group he led against Voldemort in the first war? No. He’s talked to me about Voldemort’s Horcruxes, but he’s said that I can’t hunt for them because he wants to be the general in the war.”

“Horcruxes? He made Horcruxes?”

Moody sounds on the verge of choking with outrage. Harry eyes him in concern. “Yes. I don’t know how many, but more than one. I already got rid of the one that was in me with the help of my people, and the one that was a diary possessing someone here at Hogwarts with the aid of my basilisk-fang dagger. But I don’t know where to begin the hunt for the others.”

“I’ll speak with Albus,” Moody promises. “It’s ridiculous that you know all about this and yet he won’t let you help with the hunt.”

Harry beams at Moody. He thinks there’s another difference between the real man and Barty. He’s awfully nice and straightforward. “Thanks, Professor Moody. Now, please let me leave? I need to make it to Charms, and that’s on the other side of the castle.”

“Thanks for indulging an old man as long as you have, Potter. Thanks for the—restoration.” Moody eyes him. “And if you’ll indulge me on one more point, what’s your warrior name?”

Harry studies him. “You realize that I’d have to kill you if you told anyone else.”

“No one else is worthy of hearing it.”

Harry nods. He reckons that he can share his warrior name as a gift if he wants to, the way he would with a foe who lies dying from his blades. “Doomgiver.”

Moody’s face breaks out in a vicious grin that Harry thinks Ripclaw would admire, the way Ripclaw would admire some of Moody’s scars. “Good one. Fitting. I’ll hold it to me as private as gold in a vault.”

Harry nods, satisfied with the oath, as strong as any human could be reasonably expected to make. “Thank you, Professor Moody. Aratzif.”

“Groninnen,” Professor Moody responds.

Harry is smiling as he leaves the Defense classroom. It will be pleasant to have someone besides Professor Flitwick to speak Gobbledegook with.

*

“Who is that woman, Harry?”

Luna’s voice is so tense that Harry is turning around immediately with one hand resting on her shoulder before he even sees where she’s looking. Then he catches Umbridge’s eye as she flounces over to the Head Table.

Umbridge is smiling.

“Her name is Dolores Umbridge,” Harry murmurs to Luna without taking his eyes from Umbridge. “She tried to convince the Ministry she was a Goblin Expert and to try me for the murder of Barty. But she didn’t succeed.”

“But what is she doing here?”

Harry shakes his head, but Dumbledore clears his throat and rises to his feet. He has the kind of constrained, unhappy expression on his face that he wore when he first saw Harry’s warrior-mark.

“I am—pleased to welcome Professor Dolores Umbridge to Hogwarts,” he announces. “She will be teaching the new Creature Culture classes that are a requirement for every student in their fourth year and up.”

Bigotry and Lies Classes, Harry translates. He watches Umbridge. She smiles at him and keeps looking at him even as she stands up and makes some kind of unpleasant, simpering speech about how much she looks forward to teaching everyone “the truth” about goblins, giants, Veela, centaurs, merfolk, and the like.

Harry frowns when he hears that. If she’s going to be insulting everyone who isn’t human, then he can’t properly claim her as only a goblin kill.

But that only makes him smile when the obvious solution occurs to him.

I’ll just have to invite everyone to her classes, Harry decides cheerfully, and sits back to compose an owl to Fleur Delacour while Umbridge’s speech goes on.