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lomonaaerenTitle: Light to Us Who Wander Here
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing these characters for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Massive AU (Harry Potter raised by goblins), light angst, present tense, minor character deaths, violence.
Pairing: Discussion of background one-sided and canon pairings, otherwise gen
Rated: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4200
Summary: The second part of goblin-raised Harry's fifth year and the first part of his sixth year, wherein Harry deals with Creature Culture classes, haunted Headmasters, meddling Malfoys, Horcrux hunts, and lots and lots of duels and souls.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my Litha to Lammas fics for this year, a series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It's the sequel to five previous fics in the "Realm of Song" series: “Music Beneath the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” and “The Dragon-Headed Door,” “More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering,”and "Harmonies Unconquerable," and you should read those first. This story will make zero sense without them. This should have five or six parts, to be posted over the next several days. The title and quote at the beginning come from J. R. R. Tolkien's "Elven Hymn to Elbereth," and the section titles come from that poem as well as "To the Sea, to the Sea!"
Light To Us Who Wander Here
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
-J. R. R. Tolkien.
O Lady Clear
"This is the place that you should spend your New Year's Night."
Harry watches as Toothsplitter sets up the small portable forge that she gave to him as a gift a few days ago and a silver candelabra. Harry himself chose the red candles that fill it, by asking a bunch of them which ones wanted to come with him. Harry smiles at their cheerful songs as Toothsplitter lights them.
"Is it another door?" Harry asks, looking up and allowing his eyes to search the wall of the cavern. It seems his life in the past few years has defined by doors, some of them with dragon heads on them and some of them with less intrusive decorations.
"It is." Toothsplitter nods at the far wall of the small cave, which is otherwise undistinguished except by old mining scars, and Harry can make out the faint impressions of hinges and a latch when he squints. "But it may not open. I want you to sit here and think of what the door looks like and whether it will open. Think, too, of what would protect you most."
"I thought I already had that." Harry's hands touch the blades hanging from his belt, the basilisk-fang dagger and the special knife that Ripclaw gifted him with when he took on the scar and name of a goblin warrior.
"Something even more." Toothsplitter taps one nail gently against his forehead, where the old faded scar lies. "Keep in mind that we wish you to honor the human part of your heritage, too."
Harry grimaces a little. "All right. But don't tell Dumbledore."
"Blackeye's forbidden us to communicate with that one, anyway. He's her patient."
Harry nods, and sits down on the floor beside the forge, before the candles, facing the faint line of the door. Toothsplitter leaves without another word.
She didn't give him any instructions, except to sit here with these objects and contemplate things. Harry does that for a while, humming the edges of the stones' songs to himself. Even in a place like this, without much goblin history, the stones have a deep and vital life, their concerns with corners being scraped off by a boulder falling, and excessive amounts of dust, and what enemies sometimes tunnel into them.
The candle flames suddenly stand straight up an hour or so into the new year, and Harry straightens with them. He doesn't touch his blades. He doesn't think it's that kind of shift.
The door opens--or appears to. What actually happens is that a transparent image of the door forms on top of it, and swings open, although the stone itself is undisturbed. A human woman, likewise filmy and transparent although she has faint colors to her, walks through the open door and looks at him.
Harry smiles. He knows who she is, even though he has no memory of her face, because Sirius has been generous about sharing photographs from his youth. "Mum. Hello."
Lily Potter stares at him with her eyes wide for a moment, and then hurries over and crouches down in front of him. "Harry," she whispers. "My baby. What did this to you?" Her insubstantial fingers lift and bush over his warrior scar.
Since she's dead, it's not a dishonor, and she's dead, anyway, so Harry doesn't think it counts the same as a physical touch. "I chose that myself, Mum. The goblins raised me and gave me the title and status of a warrior."
Lily looks so blank that Harry wonders if she didn't know anything about goblins and their customs before she died. But then she takes a deep breath and nods. "There was--I had some knowledge. I was granted the choice to come here, and to give you a gift." She looks more solid as she talks, although Harry still can't feel anything when she reaches out to touch his face. That's okay. It's lovely just to see her.
"You don't have to. You're here. That's enough."
His mum shakes her head, and looks more and more determined, which breathes life and color into her mostly silvery form. "I want to protect you. You're going to need it. I saw--just little glimpses...I'm sorry I can't share it with you. But you'll need a lot of protection this year."
"Is Voldemort coming back?"
Lily's eyes widened. "Yes, that's one thing. But not the only thing. Will you let me give you this gift?"
"It depends on what it is," Harry has to say. His mother already looked so stressed-out and worried. He doesn't want to hurt her or give her further pain by accepting this gift blindly.
"I want you to take a piece of my soul and forge it into a blade that you can carry with you always."
Harry stares at her. "I did that once," he says carefully. "But that man was an enemy of my people whose soul I had to learn to understand the good side of. I think I already know the good side of you."
Lily smiles, and it's a smile that resembles Ripclaw's when he's just finished putting an arrogant human in his place. "You know the good side, yes. This forging will teach you to know the dark side of me. And the human side." For a moment, indescribable sadness swims across her face. "I know that you've had a mostly good life, sweetheart, but I don't want you to forget where you came from, either."
Harry nods. He can see that. Lily isn't trying to force him to be human, the way so many people at Hogwarts tried. He can accept the piece of her soul and the gift of knowing the human part of him. "All right."
Lily breathes out and smiles at him. "All right. Let me separate a piece of soul from the rest of it. It may take a little while. Is that okay?"
"That's great!"
Harry sits back and basks in the presence of his mother as he watches her carefully twist back and forth, seeming to dance to music he can't hear. From the rhythm, it would be very different from any goblin tunes he knows, or the songs of stones and metal and water.
But that's fine. She's human, it should be different. Harry is just glad that he's met a human who has that kind of music to listen to.
*
"Here you are."
Harry opens his eyes. He drifted off to sleep, soothed by the presence and nearness of his mother. Lily's soul is hovering in front of him now, offering something on the palm of her hand that looks almost like a biscuit, small and square, except that it's glimmering with the force of early sunrise.
Carefully, Harry takes a bronze casket from beneath the portal forge that would usually be used to hold jewels that might go into hilts and the like. He opens it, holding it steady, and the runes carved on the sides flare as Lily carefully places the piece of her soul into the casket. Harry sighs as the lid slams shut.
"Thank you," he whispers. "It's such a gift."
Lily gives him a bittersweet smile. "The sun is rising, and I have to leave," she murmurs. "But I want you to be happy and free, baby. And strong. Can you do that for me?"
Harry smiles at her. "Toothsplitter and Ripclaw and Gorgeslitter and Blackeye and all the other goblins of my clan would hardly let me do anything less."
His mum bends down to offer something like a misty kiss in the center of his forehead, and Harry closes his eyes as it dissolves away with her.
We Still Remember
"But that was very stupid to send it," Luna says in bewilderment, staring at the owl in Harry's hands. The parchment is grumbling right along with her. "Why would he send it?"
Harry snorts. "He probably thought I'd forgotten about him. Or that everything was settled when I dueled his son. But a blood feud keeps going as long as the crimes aren't paid for, and honestly, losing his son who he lied about being dead isn't enough. Not when Barty barely saw the inside of Azkaban, and Sirius did for twelve years, and he was innocent."
"But it's still so stupid." Luna frowns and takes the parchment from Harry. "Are you sure that Mr. Crouch sent it?"
"That's a good point," Harry has to admit. He takes the letter back from Luna and looks it over again. There are spells he could use that would leach the magical impressions of the hands that have held it from the paper, and tell him if it was Crouch who wrote it. But they can only be used when the letter is a few hours old, and this seems as if it's flown for more than a day. Crouch is probably hiding somewhere he thinks Harry can't find him.
If it's him.
But Harry thinks about the way that Crouch refused the opportunity to pay a weregild, and kept dismissing Harry as a child and a human, and put Sirius in prison in the first place without a trial, and he snorts. Yes, Crouch is that stupid. He'll write back first and see if he can ask a question only Crouch would know the answer to.
That'll be difficult, though, since all their interactions were in public.
Harry tucks the parchment away, and turns to talk to Luna. As he does, he notices Michael Corner, down the table, glaring at him. That's odd. Michael and Harry have never been close, since he's sometimes been disrespectful of goblins, but that applies to just about everyone in the school except Luna and Ginny. And Michael took lessons in object-speaking from Harry during their first year.
Well, Harry will just have to talk to him and see what the problem is.
*
"Why were you glaring at me?"
Michael jumps and nearly spills his ink all over his notes. "Merlin, Potter!" he snaps, spinning around and glaring at Harry, who's just come out of an aisle between the shelves in the library. "Make a noise to warn a bloke."
Harry doesn't bother to explain that getting into the habit of warning his enemies and potential enemies is not on. He just sits down in the chair across from Michael. The chair tells him half a tale about Michael resting his feet on it, but when it seems prone to repeat itself, Harry strokes the back of it and turns his attention away from the story.
"I didn't come to fight or warn you," Harry explains. "I only want to know why you were glaring at me during lunch. Is this about Healer Blackeye and the Creature Culture classes?"
Blackeye will teach her first class today, and since she's not a professor in the same way the others are, she's asked to be addressed as Healer Blackeye. Harry has to admit he's looking forward to an ally in correcting other humans on the ways of goblins.
"No." Michael slams his book sulkily shut.
"Oh." Harry thinks. "Is it because I didn't stay to help you and Terry with your homework the other night?"
"No." Michael stares at him. "You said you were tired, and if you were lying, I don't care enough to find out."
Harry smiles. He appreciates honest people. "Well, I thought it might be because you were envious of my goblin training, but I have to tell you that you can't just march up to them and request it. You have to--"
"Merlin, no, Potter! God, you're so annoying." Michael rakes his hand through his hair. "It's because of Lovegood."
Harry frowns. "Luna is my friend."
"I know that! I just mean--"
"She wouldn't try to hurt you or take something from you without an excellent reason."
"I didn't say she did!" Michael brings his hand down in a pounding hit on the table. "I want to date her!"
"Hmm. I'm not sure a violent man is the best choice for her."
Michael's jaw falls open a little, and then he leans slowly forwards until he's almost vibrating on his toes across from Harry. Harry studies him severely. Michael is breathing as if he's about to start fighting or running. Luna shouldn't date a coward, either, in Harry's opinion.
"I was going to say," Michael says, growling each word out separately, "that I fancy her, and I want your permission to date her."
Harry blinks, utterly thrown. "Why are you asking me and not her?"
"Because I want to make sure that you're not going to try and date her yourself! Don't you know how anything works?"
"Not this," Harry says, so baffled that he loses the desire to understand what Michael is saying. "I can't give permission, even if I did want to date Luna. She's the one who has to give permission. She's the one who says who she dates."
"I know that, Potter." Michael looks as if he wants to tear out his hair. That's fine. Harry just doesn't want Michael tearing out his, or Luna's. The way he's talking, maybe he would. "It's just--look, you're her best friend. Her best male friend," he says hastily, which at least proves that he understands something, because Harry is opening his mouth to talk about Ginny. "It's usual...to ask."
"Then I'm glad I'm not human."
"You're not interested in dating her, so I don't need to talk to you about this again. I'll ask Lovegood if she wants to go on a date."
"But if she doesn't, and then you try to force her or ignore her saying no, then I'm going to kill you. With the basilisk-fang dagger. You'll suffer a lot."
"Fuck, Potter!" Michael blurts. Harry has never heard him swear before. "You don't say things like that to people."
"I find it telling that you didn't say you would never do anything like that."
"Well, I wouldn't! But you still shouldn't say anything like that to people."
"I'm asking you to consider it carefully," Harry says, and smiles at him, and stands up, and walks back to the Tower to get ready for Blackeye's class. He's relieved he and Michael understand each other so well. Goblin-human communication really is a fraught process so much of the time.
*
"I want you to write down everything you know about goblins," Blackeye says. She stands in front of the desk at what was the head of Umbridge's classroom, but it's been completely transformed. The walls are hung with the banners of their clan, and the teeth that Blackeye has been gifted by grateful patients. Harry smiles up at the back molar turning on a thin silver wire above his desk. That was Sirius's, which he let Blackeye extract because his teeth were rotting after Azkaban anyway.
A few people looked green when Blackeye told them where the teeth came from. Harry thinks they probably don't know that Blackeye regrows them, but he keeps quiet, because that's really Blackeye's to tell them.
Hermione Granger raises her hand. Blackeye nods to her. "What if what we know is probably based on lies?" Granger asks, bouncing in place at her desk.
"Write it down anyway. One of the things we'll be discussing is the way to separate the truth from the lies that the Ministry and others have spread."
Granger nods and bends over her parchment. Harry smiles at her. She shows true willingness to learn, which isn't something he always expects of Gryffindors, or humans in general.
Harry begins filling the parchment with neat script, which he knows Blackeye probably won't use as an example. He has an unfair advantage here, having been raised as a goblin. Besides, he could write a book filled with what he knows. But he still has to show willing, or it will look like favoritism on Blackeye's part.
It doesn't take most of the students long to stop writing, although Granger goes on for long enough that her parchment is grumbling in anticipation of being flipped over. But at last she stops, and Harry does at the same instant.
Blackeye nods to him and walks over to stand between two of the desks. "Why don't you tell me what you wrote? You and you." She points to Granger and Michael.
"Um." Granger clears her throat. "I wrote that I know goblins take care of wizards' money, and run Gringotts, and are allowed to carry weapons in school, and..."
She lists a few more things, while Harry and Blackeye listen carefully. Harry has to admit that more of them are factual than not, probably because Granger stuck to what she could see either when she visited the bank or when she watched Harry around school. But there are still a few lies in there.
Michael's list is much worse. Among other things, he says that the goblin rebellions were unjustified, that no one ever gets married in their culture, that goblins engage in pointless duels of honor, and that goblins never bathe. Harry winces at that last one, but Blackeye's face remains unchanged.
She expected this, Harry realizes, blinking a little as he watches Blackeye reach up to the necklace of blue stones around her neck. She expected some particularly dishonorable accusations.
"Well, not all of those are true," Blackeye says when Michael finishes reading. She reaches out and unclasps the chain of blue stones, which clack together slightly. She holds them out to Michael. "Do these look filthy?"
"No," Michael admits, after sneaking a glance at them.
"You've shared a room with a goblin for the last five years. Does he not bathe?"
"No! He showers. But he's human."
Blackeye catches Harry's gaze. Harry just shrugs at her. There are people he really needs to see him as a goblin, like the Headmaster and other professors here, but random students don't need to be punished for it. They just need to be educated. Once again, Harry is grateful that Hogwarts is a school.
"Harry Potter is a fully accepted goblin of the Arzhenakkhanian Clan," Blackeye says calmly. "One thing you will learn in this class is that how creatures choose to define themselves matters more than human definitions."
"But why, though?" Michael folds his arms. Harry is glad that theirs isn't a clan that would have to take that gesture as a declaration of war. "We're the humans, and if magical creatures are coming into our world--"
"Why do you think of it as your world?" Blackeye asks.
"This school was founded by humans!"
"But we are talking of the entire magical world, the enclaves hidden from Muggles, not only Hogwarts." Blackeye glances around the classroom, gathering up the gazes of the staring students. "What about the rest of you? Do you think wizards and witches own every scrap of space in those magical enclaves?"
Most people nod, but they get increasingly unsure as seconds pass and Blackeye stands there. She looks around, and then nods to Granger when Granger raises her hand again. "Yes?"
"I think the centaurs own some land in the Forbidden Forest," Granger says. "And the merfolk probably own the lake more than the rest of us, because we can't even swim in it without magical help. And the goblins own the bank. And the Veela own their enclaves in France."
"Very good." Blackeye touches her hands to each other and bows a little to Granger. Harry thinks he ought to seek Granger out later and explain what an immense honor that is. She seems like the kind of person who'll enjoy knowing. "One of the main tasks of this term will be unraveling the unthinking assumption of human superiority that many of you have been taught. You are not necessarily at fault for that, but you are if you persist in it after you have been offered contradictory information." She glances at Michael.
He scowls at her. "But we're human. Are you saying that we have to think like goblins instead?"
"No, that takes a long time of special training," Blackeye says. "But you can learn to think that these other perspectives are available to you and are waiting for you to pay attention to them. They've always been available. You simply haven't had to pay attention very often."
"I think that's scandalous," Granger says promptly. "Why would people ignore them?"
"Training," Blackeye says. "Laws. Convictions." She smiles. "I assure you that Creature Culture classes will enable you to keep from making elementary mistakes when you spend time with goblins, centaurs, and others. But none of that can happen without the idea that you should change your mind and expand your horizons."
Granger looks so determined that Harry suspects she'll be one of the students who does the best in the class. Michael looks stubborn, but, well, he's not a bad person (unless he tries to bully Luna into dating him); he just has to be persuaded that changing his mind is in his best interest.
Lavender Brown looks scornful. Harry wonders why she doesn't listen to her jewelry, which at the moment is trying to give her fashion advice not to wear it everywhere. But he's not responsible for the bad choices of other people.
"Others should read what they wrote," Blackeye says, and looks around the room. People shrink back from her hawk-like gaze.
Harry doesn't. He leans forwards with a smile, and prepares to read if he's called upon.
This World of Woven Trees
"I think it highly probable that Tom hid one of his Horcruxes at Hogwarts, Harry. The school is very important to him."
"All right. But in the Forbidden Forest, sir?"
"It would certainly be the most inaccessible place anyone could think of."
That's not the truth when one knows about the tunnels or the Chamber of Secrets, Harry thinks. In fact, he wants to go down and search the Chamber himself, now that he's given the basilisk peace and won't have to worry about it attacking him. But when the Headmaster offered to let Harry come with him, Harry decided it was important to make a gesture of reconciliation.
Dumbledore does have a map, but he won't let Harry see it. Harry keeps trying to steal a glimpse from the corner of his eye, but all he can see are black circles and lines that dash in what look like random directions.
"I need you to lead me," Dumbledore says now, and holds out his hand. Harry is flattered, especially when he sees that Dumbledore's eyes are closed. But then Dumbledore ruins things by adding, "I need you to guide me as I say. Take the number of steps that I name, turn me to face the direction I request, and so on. We can find the Horcrux, but only if we follow the map exactly."
Harry sighs, but he decides that guiding Dumbledore through the twists of a map is all right, certainly better than marching the man through the forest in random darkness and cold, which might earn him an appointment with Blackeye's axe. He listens as Dumbledore calls out numbers of steps and directions, and ducks under bushes and hanging branches as necessary.
The first problem happens when Dumbledore says, "Three steps, north," and Harry hesitates at the huge tree that blocks their path.
"What is it?" Dumbledore asks impatiently, and his eyes are fluttering in the light of the Lumos Charm on his wand when Harry glances at him. "We must follow the map exactly, remember. And three steps is not such a large number."
"No, I know that," Harry says. "But there's a--"
"Will you please follow the directions I give you, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice is strained. "I made the map in consultation with someone who should know what he's talking about. The process of following it must be as magical and important as the map itself."
Harry shakes his head a little, and leads Dumbledore forwards. His eyes do fly open when his nose smacks into the tree's trunk.
"Ouch!" Dumbledore massages his face and stares at Harry. "What are you..."
He trails off, probably realizing that Harry wouldn't hit him in the face with a tree if he really wanted to hurt him. Harry smiles. He does feel that he's communicating with humans better than he used to, lately.
"You said to follow your directions," Harry says, and shrugs.
Dumbledore stares ahead, and then around the forest. He looks as if he's suddenly awakening from a dream. "I didn't tell you to do this," he says. His voice is so soft that Harry isn't certain the man is talking to him anymore.
And then he abruptly turns, the map crumpled in his fist, and hurries back to the school, taking strides so long that it looks as if he's trying to break through the brush all on his own.
Harry follows him, frowning deeply. He doesn't know who Dumbledore consulted to get that map, although he thinks it wasn't Professor Moody. Professor Moody is too much like a goblin, and he would have told Harry that. Maybe Harry ought to tell Blackeye to keep a closer eye on her patient, so no one can influence Dumbledore's mental health anymore.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing these characters for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Massive AU (Harry Potter raised by goblins), light angst, present tense, minor character deaths, violence.
Pairing: Discussion of background one-sided and canon pairings, otherwise gen
Rated: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4200
Summary: The second part of goblin-raised Harry's fifth year and the first part of his sixth year, wherein Harry deals with Creature Culture classes, haunted Headmasters, meddling Malfoys, Horcrux hunts, and lots and lots of duels and souls.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my Litha to Lammas fics for this year, a series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It's the sequel to five previous fics in the "Realm of Song" series: “Music Beneath the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” and “The Dragon-Headed Door,” “More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering,”and "Harmonies Unconquerable," and you should read those first. This story will make zero sense without them. This should have five or six parts, to be posted over the next several days. The title and quote at the beginning come from J. R. R. Tolkien's "Elven Hymn to Elbereth," and the section titles come from that poem as well as "To the Sea, to the Sea!"
Light To Us Who Wander Here
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
-J. R. R. Tolkien.
O Lady Clear
"This is the place that you should spend your New Year's Night."
Harry watches as Toothsplitter sets up the small portable forge that she gave to him as a gift a few days ago and a silver candelabra. Harry himself chose the red candles that fill it, by asking a bunch of them which ones wanted to come with him. Harry smiles at their cheerful songs as Toothsplitter lights them.
"Is it another door?" Harry asks, looking up and allowing his eyes to search the wall of the cavern. It seems his life in the past few years has defined by doors, some of them with dragon heads on them and some of them with less intrusive decorations.
"It is." Toothsplitter nods at the far wall of the small cave, which is otherwise undistinguished except by old mining scars, and Harry can make out the faint impressions of hinges and a latch when he squints. "But it may not open. I want you to sit here and think of what the door looks like and whether it will open. Think, too, of what would protect you most."
"I thought I already had that." Harry's hands touch the blades hanging from his belt, the basilisk-fang dagger and the special knife that Ripclaw gifted him with when he took on the scar and name of a goblin warrior.
"Something even more." Toothsplitter taps one nail gently against his forehead, where the old faded scar lies. "Keep in mind that we wish you to honor the human part of your heritage, too."
Harry grimaces a little. "All right. But don't tell Dumbledore."
"Blackeye's forbidden us to communicate with that one, anyway. He's her patient."
Harry nods, and sits down on the floor beside the forge, before the candles, facing the faint line of the door. Toothsplitter leaves without another word.
She didn't give him any instructions, except to sit here with these objects and contemplate things. Harry does that for a while, humming the edges of the stones' songs to himself. Even in a place like this, without much goblin history, the stones have a deep and vital life, their concerns with corners being scraped off by a boulder falling, and excessive amounts of dust, and what enemies sometimes tunnel into them.
The candle flames suddenly stand straight up an hour or so into the new year, and Harry straightens with them. He doesn't touch his blades. He doesn't think it's that kind of shift.
The door opens--or appears to. What actually happens is that a transparent image of the door forms on top of it, and swings open, although the stone itself is undisturbed. A human woman, likewise filmy and transparent although she has faint colors to her, walks through the open door and looks at him.
Harry smiles. He knows who she is, even though he has no memory of her face, because Sirius has been generous about sharing photographs from his youth. "Mum. Hello."
Lily Potter stares at him with her eyes wide for a moment, and then hurries over and crouches down in front of him. "Harry," she whispers. "My baby. What did this to you?" Her insubstantial fingers lift and bush over his warrior scar.
Since she's dead, it's not a dishonor, and she's dead, anyway, so Harry doesn't think it counts the same as a physical touch. "I chose that myself, Mum. The goblins raised me and gave me the title and status of a warrior."
Lily looks so blank that Harry wonders if she didn't know anything about goblins and their customs before she died. But then she takes a deep breath and nods. "There was--I had some knowledge. I was granted the choice to come here, and to give you a gift." She looks more solid as she talks, although Harry still can't feel anything when she reaches out to touch his face. That's okay. It's lovely just to see her.
"You don't have to. You're here. That's enough."
His mum shakes her head, and looks more and more determined, which breathes life and color into her mostly silvery form. "I want to protect you. You're going to need it. I saw--just little glimpses...I'm sorry I can't share it with you. But you'll need a lot of protection this year."
"Is Voldemort coming back?"
Lily's eyes widened. "Yes, that's one thing. But not the only thing. Will you let me give you this gift?"
"It depends on what it is," Harry has to say. His mother already looked so stressed-out and worried. He doesn't want to hurt her or give her further pain by accepting this gift blindly.
"I want you to take a piece of my soul and forge it into a blade that you can carry with you always."
Harry stares at her. "I did that once," he says carefully. "But that man was an enemy of my people whose soul I had to learn to understand the good side of. I think I already know the good side of you."
Lily smiles, and it's a smile that resembles Ripclaw's when he's just finished putting an arrogant human in his place. "You know the good side, yes. This forging will teach you to know the dark side of me. And the human side." For a moment, indescribable sadness swims across her face. "I know that you've had a mostly good life, sweetheart, but I don't want you to forget where you came from, either."
Harry nods. He can see that. Lily isn't trying to force him to be human, the way so many people at Hogwarts tried. He can accept the piece of her soul and the gift of knowing the human part of him. "All right."
Lily breathes out and smiles at him. "All right. Let me separate a piece of soul from the rest of it. It may take a little while. Is that okay?"
"That's great!"
Harry sits back and basks in the presence of his mother as he watches her carefully twist back and forth, seeming to dance to music he can't hear. From the rhythm, it would be very different from any goblin tunes he knows, or the songs of stones and metal and water.
But that's fine. She's human, it should be different. Harry is just glad that he's met a human who has that kind of music to listen to.
*
"Here you are."
Harry opens his eyes. He drifted off to sleep, soothed by the presence and nearness of his mother. Lily's soul is hovering in front of him now, offering something on the palm of her hand that looks almost like a biscuit, small and square, except that it's glimmering with the force of early sunrise.
Carefully, Harry takes a bronze casket from beneath the portal forge that would usually be used to hold jewels that might go into hilts and the like. He opens it, holding it steady, and the runes carved on the sides flare as Lily carefully places the piece of her soul into the casket. Harry sighs as the lid slams shut.
"Thank you," he whispers. "It's such a gift."
Lily gives him a bittersweet smile. "The sun is rising, and I have to leave," she murmurs. "But I want you to be happy and free, baby. And strong. Can you do that for me?"
Harry smiles at her. "Toothsplitter and Ripclaw and Gorgeslitter and Blackeye and all the other goblins of my clan would hardly let me do anything less."
His mum bends down to offer something like a misty kiss in the center of his forehead, and Harry closes his eyes as it dissolves away with her.
We Still Remember
"But that was very stupid to send it," Luna says in bewilderment, staring at the owl in Harry's hands. The parchment is grumbling right along with her. "Why would he send it?"
Harry snorts. "He probably thought I'd forgotten about him. Or that everything was settled when I dueled his son. But a blood feud keeps going as long as the crimes aren't paid for, and honestly, losing his son who he lied about being dead isn't enough. Not when Barty barely saw the inside of Azkaban, and Sirius did for twelve years, and he was innocent."
"But it's still so stupid." Luna frowns and takes the parchment from Harry. "Are you sure that Mr. Crouch sent it?"
"That's a good point," Harry has to admit. He takes the letter back from Luna and looks it over again. There are spells he could use that would leach the magical impressions of the hands that have held it from the paper, and tell him if it was Crouch who wrote it. But they can only be used when the letter is a few hours old, and this seems as if it's flown for more than a day. Crouch is probably hiding somewhere he thinks Harry can't find him.
If it's him.
But Harry thinks about the way that Crouch refused the opportunity to pay a weregild, and kept dismissing Harry as a child and a human, and put Sirius in prison in the first place without a trial, and he snorts. Yes, Crouch is that stupid. He'll write back first and see if he can ask a question only Crouch would know the answer to.
That'll be difficult, though, since all their interactions were in public.
Harry tucks the parchment away, and turns to talk to Luna. As he does, he notices Michael Corner, down the table, glaring at him. That's odd. Michael and Harry have never been close, since he's sometimes been disrespectful of goblins, but that applies to just about everyone in the school except Luna and Ginny. And Michael took lessons in object-speaking from Harry during their first year.
Well, Harry will just have to talk to him and see what the problem is.
*
"Why were you glaring at me?"
Michael jumps and nearly spills his ink all over his notes. "Merlin, Potter!" he snaps, spinning around and glaring at Harry, who's just come out of an aisle between the shelves in the library. "Make a noise to warn a bloke."
Harry doesn't bother to explain that getting into the habit of warning his enemies and potential enemies is not on. He just sits down in the chair across from Michael. The chair tells him half a tale about Michael resting his feet on it, but when it seems prone to repeat itself, Harry strokes the back of it and turns his attention away from the story.
"I didn't come to fight or warn you," Harry explains. "I only want to know why you were glaring at me during lunch. Is this about Healer Blackeye and the Creature Culture classes?"
Blackeye will teach her first class today, and since she's not a professor in the same way the others are, she's asked to be addressed as Healer Blackeye. Harry has to admit he's looking forward to an ally in correcting other humans on the ways of goblins.
"No." Michael slams his book sulkily shut.
"Oh." Harry thinks. "Is it because I didn't stay to help you and Terry with your homework the other night?"
"No." Michael stares at him. "You said you were tired, and if you were lying, I don't care enough to find out."
Harry smiles. He appreciates honest people. "Well, I thought it might be because you were envious of my goblin training, but I have to tell you that you can't just march up to them and request it. You have to--"
"Merlin, no, Potter! God, you're so annoying." Michael rakes his hand through his hair. "It's because of Lovegood."
Harry frowns. "Luna is my friend."
"I know that! I just mean--"
"She wouldn't try to hurt you or take something from you without an excellent reason."
"I didn't say she did!" Michael brings his hand down in a pounding hit on the table. "I want to date her!"
"Hmm. I'm not sure a violent man is the best choice for her."
Michael's jaw falls open a little, and then he leans slowly forwards until he's almost vibrating on his toes across from Harry. Harry studies him severely. Michael is breathing as if he's about to start fighting or running. Luna shouldn't date a coward, either, in Harry's opinion.
"I was going to say," Michael says, growling each word out separately, "that I fancy her, and I want your permission to date her."
Harry blinks, utterly thrown. "Why are you asking me and not her?"
"Because I want to make sure that you're not going to try and date her yourself! Don't you know how anything works?"
"Not this," Harry says, so baffled that he loses the desire to understand what Michael is saying. "I can't give permission, even if I did want to date Luna. She's the one who has to give permission. She's the one who says who she dates."
"I know that, Potter." Michael looks as if he wants to tear out his hair. That's fine. Harry just doesn't want Michael tearing out his, or Luna's. The way he's talking, maybe he would. "It's just--look, you're her best friend. Her best male friend," he says hastily, which at least proves that he understands something, because Harry is opening his mouth to talk about Ginny. "It's usual...to ask."
"Then I'm glad I'm not human."
"You're not interested in dating her, so I don't need to talk to you about this again. I'll ask Lovegood if she wants to go on a date."
"But if she doesn't, and then you try to force her or ignore her saying no, then I'm going to kill you. With the basilisk-fang dagger. You'll suffer a lot."
"Fuck, Potter!" Michael blurts. Harry has never heard him swear before. "You don't say things like that to people."
"I find it telling that you didn't say you would never do anything like that."
"Well, I wouldn't! But you still shouldn't say anything like that to people."
"I'm asking you to consider it carefully," Harry says, and smiles at him, and stands up, and walks back to the Tower to get ready for Blackeye's class. He's relieved he and Michael understand each other so well. Goblin-human communication really is a fraught process so much of the time.
*
"I want you to write down everything you know about goblins," Blackeye says. She stands in front of the desk at what was the head of Umbridge's classroom, but it's been completely transformed. The walls are hung with the banners of their clan, and the teeth that Blackeye has been gifted by grateful patients. Harry smiles up at the back molar turning on a thin silver wire above his desk. That was Sirius's, which he let Blackeye extract because his teeth were rotting after Azkaban anyway.
A few people looked green when Blackeye told them where the teeth came from. Harry thinks they probably don't know that Blackeye regrows them, but he keeps quiet, because that's really Blackeye's to tell them.
Hermione Granger raises her hand. Blackeye nods to her. "What if what we know is probably based on lies?" Granger asks, bouncing in place at her desk.
"Write it down anyway. One of the things we'll be discussing is the way to separate the truth from the lies that the Ministry and others have spread."
Granger nods and bends over her parchment. Harry smiles at her. She shows true willingness to learn, which isn't something he always expects of Gryffindors, or humans in general.
Harry begins filling the parchment with neat script, which he knows Blackeye probably won't use as an example. He has an unfair advantage here, having been raised as a goblin. Besides, he could write a book filled with what he knows. But he still has to show willing, or it will look like favoritism on Blackeye's part.
It doesn't take most of the students long to stop writing, although Granger goes on for long enough that her parchment is grumbling in anticipation of being flipped over. But at last she stops, and Harry does at the same instant.
Blackeye nods to him and walks over to stand between two of the desks. "Why don't you tell me what you wrote? You and you." She points to Granger and Michael.
"Um." Granger clears her throat. "I wrote that I know goblins take care of wizards' money, and run Gringotts, and are allowed to carry weapons in school, and..."
She lists a few more things, while Harry and Blackeye listen carefully. Harry has to admit that more of them are factual than not, probably because Granger stuck to what she could see either when she visited the bank or when she watched Harry around school. But there are still a few lies in there.
Michael's list is much worse. Among other things, he says that the goblin rebellions were unjustified, that no one ever gets married in their culture, that goblins engage in pointless duels of honor, and that goblins never bathe. Harry winces at that last one, but Blackeye's face remains unchanged.
She expected this, Harry realizes, blinking a little as he watches Blackeye reach up to the necklace of blue stones around her neck. She expected some particularly dishonorable accusations.
"Well, not all of those are true," Blackeye says when Michael finishes reading. She reaches out and unclasps the chain of blue stones, which clack together slightly. She holds them out to Michael. "Do these look filthy?"
"No," Michael admits, after sneaking a glance at them.
"You've shared a room with a goblin for the last five years. Does he not bathe?"
"No! He showers. But he's human."
Blackeye catches Harry's gaze. Harry just shrugs at her. There are people he really needs to see him as a goblin, like the Headmaster and other professors here, but random students don't need to be punished for it. They just need to be educated. Once again, Harry is grateful that Hogwarts is a school.
"Harry Potter is a fully accepted goblin of the Arzhenakkhanian Clan," Blackeye says calmly. "One thing you will learn in this class is that how creatures choose to define themselves matters more than human definitions."
"But why, though?" Michael folds his arms. Harry is glad that theirs isn't a clan that would have to take that gesture as a declaration of war. "We're the humans, and if magical creatures are coming into our world--"
"Why do you think of it as your world?" Blackeye asks.
"This school was founded by humans!"
"But we are talking of the entire magical world, the enclaves hidden from Muggles, not only Hogwarts." Blackeye glances around the classroom, gathering up the gazes of the staring students. "What about the rest of you? Do you think wizards and witches own every scrap of space in those magical enclaves?"
Most people nod, but they get increasingly unsure as seconds pass and Blackeye stands there. She looks around, and then nods to Granger when Granger raises her hand again. "Yes?"
"I think the centaurs own some land in the Forbidden Forest," Granger says. "And the merfolk probably own the lake more than the rest of us, because we can't even swim in it without magical help. And the goblins own the bank. And the Veela own their enclaves in France."
"Very good." Blackeye touches her hands to each other and bows a little to Granger. Harry thinks he ought to seek Granger out later and explain what an immense honor that is. She seems like the kind of person who'll enjoy knowing. "One of the main tasks of this term will be unraveling the unthinking assumption of human superiority that many of you have been taught. You are not necessarily at fault for that, but you are if you persist in it after you have been offered contradictory information." She glances at Michael.
He scowls at her. "But we're human. Are you saying that we have to think like goblins instead?"
"No, that takes a long time of special training," Blackeye says. "But you can learn to think that these other perspectives are available to you and are waiting for you to pay attention to them. They've always been available. You simply haven't had to pay attention very often."
"I think that's scandalous," Granger says promptly. "Why would people ignore them?"
"Training," Blackeye says. "Laws. Convictions." She smiles. "I assure you that Creature Culture classes will enable you to keep from making elementary mistakes when you spend time with goblins, centaurs, and others. But none of that can happen without the idea that you should change your mind and expand your horizons."
Granger looks so determined that Harry suspects she'll be one of the students who does the best in the class. Michael looks stubborn, but, well, he's not a bad person (unless he tries to bully Luna into dating him); he just has to be persuaded that changing his mind is in his best interest.
Lavender Brown looks scornful. Harry wonders why she doesn't listen to her jewelry, which at the moment is trying to give her fashion advice not to wear it everywhere. But he's not responsible for the bad choices of other people.
"Others should read what they wrote," Blackeye says, and looks around the room. People shrink back from her hawk-like gaze.
Harry doesn't. He leans forwards with a smile, and prepares to read if he's called upon.
This World of Woven Trees
"I think it highly probable that Tom hid one of his Horcruxes at Hogwarts, Harry. The school is very important to him."
"All right. But in the Forbidden Forest, sir?"
"It would certainly be the most inaccessible place anyone could think of."
That's not the truth when one knows about the tunnels or the Chamber of Secrets, Harry thinks. In fact, he wants to go down and search the Chamber himself, now that he's given the basilisk peace and won't have to worry about it attacking him. But when the Headmaster offered to let Harry come with him, Harry decided it was important to make a gesture of reconciliation.
Dumbledore does have a map, but he won't let Harry see it. Harry keeps trying to steal a glimpse from the corner of his eye, but all he can see are black circles and lines that dash in what look like random directions.
"I need you to lead me," Dumbledore says now, and holds out his hand. Harry is flattered, especially when he sees that Dumbledore's eyes are closed. But then Dumbledore ruins things by adding, "I need you to guide me as I say. Take the number of steps that I name, turn me to face the direction I request, and so on. We can find the Horcrux, but only if we follow the map exactly."
Harry sighs, but he decides that guiding Dumbledore through the twists of a map is all right, certainly better than marching the man through the forest in random darkness and cold, which might earn him an appointment with Blackeye's axe. He listens as Dumbledore calls out numbers of steps and directions, and ducks under bushes and hanging branches as necessary.
The first problem happens when Dumbledore says, "Three steps, north," and Harry hesitates at the huge tree that blocks their path.
"What is it?" Dumbledore asks impatiently, and his eyes are fluttering in the light of the Lumos Charm on his wand when Harry glances at him. "We must follow the map exactly, remember. And three steps is not such a large number."
"No, I know that," Harry says. "But there's a--"
"Will you please follow the directions I give you, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice is strained. "I made the map in consultation with someone who should know what he's talking about. The process of following it must be as magical and important as the map itself."
Harry shakes his head a little, and leads Dumbledore forwards. His eyes do fly open when his nose smacks into the tree's trunk.
"Ouch!" Dumbledore massages his face and stares at Harry. "What are you..."
He trails off, probably realizing that Harry wouldn't hit him in the face with a tree if he really wanted to hurt him. Harry smiles. He does feel that he's communicating with humans better than he used to, lately.
"You said to follow your directions," Harry says, and shrugs.
Dumbledore stares ahead, and then around the forest. He looks as if he's suddenly awakening from a dream. "I didn't tell you to do this," he says. His voice is so soft that Harry isn't certain the man is talking to him anymore.
And then he abruptly turns, the map crumpled in his fist, and hurries back to the school, taking strides so long that it looks as if he's trying to break through the brush all on his own.
Harry follows him, frowning deeply. He doesn't know who Dumbledore consulted to get that map, although he thinks it wasn't Professor Moody. Professor Moody is too much like a goblin, and he would have told Harry that. Maybe Harry ought to tell Blackeye to keep a closer eye on her patient, so no one can influence Dumbledore's mental health anymore.
