lomonaaeren

Part Four.

Title: Light to Us Who Wander Here (5/6)
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 4800
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!"

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part Five

"You deserve a wreath carved in your name."

Harry gapes at Toothsplitter. He was pleased with his Exceeds Expectations on most of his OWLS, with an Outstanding in both Defense and Creature Culture. But he never thought his master would do this with him. "You--why?"

"I'm proud of you." Toothsplitter's look says that she's questioning his sanity, or at least his hearing. She turns around and strides away from the forge, in the direction of a path that will take them into the Wreath Cavern.

"I know that." Harry trots next to her, absently ducking when the cavern ceiling gets low above them. It seems to get lower every year. Harry is just glad that he isn't as tall as Sirius or something, and never likely to be. "But I know you were proud of me when I forged Stargazer, too, and you didn't say anything about a wreath then."

"I expected you to forge a good blade, and you did. I trained you for that. But this is evidence that you've also learned well in your wizarding classes, with only two professors and one healer that you could trust."

Harry finds himself smiling endlessly as they come out in the Wreath Cavern, a mostly empty and mostly white place with veins of silver in the walls. And why not? He doesn't have to fear what any wizard or witch will say about this. None of them will know of it, unless Harry decides to tell Ginny and Luna.

The Wreath Cavern turns its attention to them the moment they come through the arched entrance. The carved wreaths on the wall are warbling, their stone leaves arranged in such a way as to bounce the names of those they are dedicated to around the cavern in never-ending echoes. It is a source of honor that Harry has dreamed about and aspired to, but not expected to earn until long after he was an adult.

Toothsplitter stands and looks around until she spots a space on the wall, not high above them, where Harry will be able to reach with a hand when he wants to. She nods and takes out her chisel. "What name do you want?"

That flatters Harry even more. He could choose his human name, or his warrior one, although that would be a daring choice and one that would skirt the rules of acceptability for whom he can tell.

Instead, he says, "Amaraczh," the first name his people gave him. The speaker, the human with a tongue like a goblin.

Toothsplitter smiles in a way that says she understands, accepts, and celebrates his choice, and climbs towards the spot where she will carve Harry's wreath.

Harry stands in the ringing cavern and breathes in and out, and imagines what other people will think when they hear his name echoing here, a human so accepted by the goblins that they wanted to keep a sound of him forever.

It humbles and exalts him, all at once.

*

"I don't know why Dumbledore didn't approach me to be the Defense professor," Sirius mutters, for the thousandth time, as he and Harry walk towards the train at the beginning of Harry's sixth year. "I would have done a better job than that prick. And what qualifications does he have that I don't?"

"Well," Harry says after considering it for a long moment, "he probably knows more curses than you do."

Sirius gives him a wounded look. Harry laughs and hugs him. "It's not like I would want to learn from someone where that's their most prominent qualification, either," he murmurs into Sirius's shoulder. "Dumbledore makes his stupid decisions, and you know that sensible people just have to dance around them."

"Do you think you'll kill Snape this year?" Sirius asks hopefully as he steps back and gazes searchingly into Harry's face.

"If he accepts my invitation to duel," Harry says, with a shrug. "And we all know how likely that is."

Sirius starts to say something else, but stops, staring over Harry's shoulder. Harry looks, and at first, doesn't see anything remarkable. Although Harry's grown enough to make ducking through some tunnels in the Realm of Song seriously inconvenient, he still isn't as tall as Sirius.

But then Harry does see it, and his heart beats hard in gladness. Crouch is standing on the platform next to the train, talking to someone who is out of sight inside it.

"Do you think he's really here to duel you?" Sirius asks, sounding breathless and longing. And Harry can understand why. This long-delayed duel will be about revenge for him and the years he spent in Azkaban, after all.

"What other reason does he have to come back?" Harry points out, slipping his daggers out of their sheaths. "He was hiding somewhere and sending me taunting letters. He wouldn't venture out of his lair on a day that he knew I would be in King's Cross unless he means to end the blood feud at last."

Sirius looks doubtful, but steps back with a nod, and Harry starts trotting towards Crouch.

Crouch whirls around when he's halfway there, and stares at him. Harry waves cheerfully. "I'll catch up with you in a minute!" he calls.

Crouch turns around and begins to run. Harry beams and follows him. He's seeking a private place for their duel. That's kind of him, and also means that fewer bystanders will be put at risk because of any spells Crouch might cast. Harry will never think of Bartemius Crouch as a good person, but he might be better than Harry thought.

Crouch hurries past the train and off the platform, back through the barrier. Harry doesn't mind that. Sirius sometimes has flashes of lesser common sense, like when he touched the locket, but he can be trusted to take Harry's trunk back to the bank. And then it can be sent through the tunnels of fire and earth to Hogwarts, as Harry can be when he's done with his duel.

Crouch comes out into the Muggle section of King's Cross and runs faster. Harry sighs. He appreciates Crouch's eagerness, but he could have just turned around and announced it to Harry, and that would have achieved the same effect. Harry could have gone to the designated place, and wouldn't have chanced upsetting the Muggles by running through the train station with drawn weapons.

Muggles are, in fact, starting to scream as Crouch run towards a shadowy corner, of the kind that might actually hold Blackeye, and turns around. Harry can see his stretched, pale face before he Apparates.

He Apparates. Like a coward.

Harry stands there, staring after him, and feeling as though someone has carved a hole into his chest and then weighted the hole with stones. Cold spreads out and seeps through him, and bewilderment crushes the sides of Harry's skull in its claws.

He was...he was...

He was treating Crouch like an honorable enemy. He thought Crouch was an honorable enemy.

And then he did something that was dishonorable even by human standards, because it could have broken the Statute of Secrecy and exposed magic to the Muggles. And he just doesn't care.

Harry stares forlornly at the spot where Crouch Apparated, and only barely notices the Muggles until one of them thrusts his face into Harry's and screams, "What are you doing with those knives?"

Harry sighs and steps backwards, asking the nearest wall if it will hide his blades. The wall eagerly agrees, and asks for gossip later on; it hasn't met any goblins in a long time. That's the only thing that makes Harry want to smile as he holds out his empty hands and asks, "What do you mean?"

*

The Muggles search Harry, and they search Sirius when he comes through the barrier and plays the part of a wealthy, harassed Muggle man who can't believe that these people are daring to question his son, but it's true that no one can find any trace of knives on Harry's person. Leaning against the wall for a moment and letting them go concealed them completely in the stone. Sirius is a little worried that it might be hard to retrieve them, but Harry just asks that wall to slide them through its stone and over to him, and he gets them back and slips them into their sheaths outside the station.

Sirius insists on Apparating him to Hogwarts after Harry fulfills his promise to have a bit of gossip with the wall, because he thinks that whoever Crouch was talking to on the train might be a problem for Harry. Then Sirius kneels down in front of Harry outside Hogsmeade and stares worriedly at him.

"Are you all right?" Sirius asks. "You look so devastated."

Harry takes a deep breath. He wanted to avoid this and think by himself, but if it wasn't Sirius, it would probably be Blackeye, and he knows that Sirius is gentler and less insistent and, above all, human. So he'll understand better. Blackeye will just say that Harry should already have known most humans weren't honorable.

"I--I really thought he wanted to duel me," Harry mumbles. "I really thought he was trying to find some place where we could duel in private, and face up to the blood feud like an honorable person. But instead, he didn't care if he exposed me to all those Muggles. Or magic to all those Muggles, even. I don't think anyone saw him Apparate, because they would have mentioned it, but they could have. Why are they so insistent about human children obeying laws when adult humans just disobey them like that?"

Sirius hugs him gently. "I'm so sorry, Harry. But it really would be best if you just assumed that most humans are dishonorable all the time, instead of giving us the benefit of the doubt."

"You're not like that," Harry whispers. "Madam Bones isn't like that. Ginny and Luna aren't like that. I don't think Dumbledore means to be like that, even though he is. I thought...I really thought...."

"I know." Sirius holds his shoulders, then hugs him again. "But that's the way the world is. And remember that this is the world where Bartemius Crouch was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and I went to prison for twelve years. It's a tough old world."

Harry leans against Sirius in silence, thinking. It's tough, he decides, in that Sirius is right about what cowards and dishonorable enemies most humans are.

But Harry doesn't have to think of all humans like that. Not if he doesn't want to. And he already made a step in the right direction by declaring the blood feud on Crouch, because that means he went to war with the unrighteous humans for the sake of a righteous one.

So. The course is clear. Harry won't ask his people to fight this particular war, because they're still in the middle of the one with the Ministry and Harry will be fighting on the behalf of humans he loves, but not ones who are goblins or particular allies of the clan. Blackeye might be willing to go to war on behalf of Sirius, since he's her patient, but not for people like Madam Bones, and not for the vague promise of a more honorable world where humans like Ginny and Luna can live without fear.

Harry nods to himself. Yes, he can do it alone, with the promise of support from Blackeye if he needs healing and Toothsplitter if he needs to learn more secrets of the Realm of Song and she thinks he's ready.

"Harry? You okay?"

Harry smiles at Sirius, and Sirius recoils a little; Harry thinks it's because of how bloodthirsty he probably looks. Harry is sorry for that, but also resolved. He will have to be a goblin warrior to defend the defenseless and the hurt, and if that means bringing down the Ministry and Voldemort and the whole corrupt structure of the wizarding world, then so be it.

"I'm more than okay," Harry says, and hugs Sirius fiercely back. He loves his godfather. He loves him for trying so hard to protect Harry, and for recovering so well after spending twelve years in prison. He loves him for adapting to life with the goblins and being so worried when some of the glass finally cracked over Harry's view of the human world.

Sirius will be beside him as he fights to destroy the dishonorable parts of the wizarding world. Harry's sure of it.

Clear Are Thy Eyes

"Mr. Potter, you cannot hold a Goblin Dueling class during the Defense timeslot."

"Why not?"

Dumbledore seems stumped about that. Harry looks at him with some pity. Given his new clarity about the world most humans live in, Harry thinks he can understand how exasperated Dumbledore is with him.

"Because you are not a professor," Dumbledore tries next. They're standing just outside the Great Hall, which is an interesting place for the Headmaster to approach him. Harry wonders if Dumbledore is trying to shame him into agreeing.

Harry understands that as he wouldn't have understood it a few days ago, before the Crouch revelation. But he doesn't understand why Dumbledore thinks it will work.

Harry shrugs. "Neither is Healer Blackeye. And neither is Madam Hooch, but she conducts the flying lessons. And the Apparition instructor who comes in every year to teach people isn't. And most of the people here don't have teaching qualifications, other than a lot of knowledge of their subjects. I know a lot about dueling. I can teach it."

"I will insist that you classify it as a club, and not a class."

"All right. Now it's the Goblin Dueling Club. I'll find someone to teach me the charm to change the signs I've already put up."

Harry turns around to leave, but Dumbledore lunges forwards and catches his arm. His beard is quivering with what looks like desperation.

That still doesn't give him leave to touch a goblin who hasn't given him permission. Harry twists free, and kindly doesn't break the fingers on Dumbledore's hand with the twist, the way he could have.

"You must...you must..."

Harry stares at Dumbledore and comes close to shaking his head. The man looks lost and shocked, and as if he's mumbling to himself instead of attempting to communicate. Harry knows he can't be under the influence of another Horcrux, because Blackeye is watching very carefully for that, but it sure seems like it.

"Why are you so upset when people don't do what you want them to?" Harry decides to ask. "Everyone has to get used to that. Even objects don't always do what I want them to do. They might be hostile or old or just concentrating on something else right now."

Dumbledore takes a deep breath. Harry hopes that he won't make a big speech, because Harry isn't going to stay and listen to it. He's hungry, and he has signs to change.

"There is the prophecy," Dumbledore whispers. "If you don't fight Voldemort, then we might lose the war, and he might destroy most of our world."

"But I am fighting Voldemort. So what are you angry about?"

"You don't do it the way I want you to!"

"And I told you why you had to get used to that," Harry says patiently. "So far, you don't have that good a track record of fighting Voldemort, what with keeping secrets and following imaginary maps and walking into trees. So I don't understand why you think you should be in charge of the war."

Dumbledore shuts his eyes, and breathes out, sounding old and tired. "There are still many things I know that I haven't told you, Harry."

"Well, that's stupid. If you weren't going to tell me, why didn't you at least tell Blackeye?"

Dumbledore turns and walks away. Harry watches him go and wonders if he's like a goblin warrior who's grown so used to fighting that he can't give up the fight and hand it over to someone else.

Harry shakes his head as he goes into the Great Hall for dinner. If that's the case, then Harry needs to write to Blackeye and tell her about it. She has some more Mind-Healing work to do with Dumbledore.

*

"What does goblin dueling actually consist of?"

That's Malfoy, drawling the word. His right hand rests "casually" on his left forearm. Harry wonders if he really thinks he's hiding the Dark Mark and fooling anyone. He'll have to ask him about it later.

"Using blades. Asking objects to help you. Casting wizarding spells that complement a goblin's fighting style." Harry grins. "Using every trick in the book."

"So, against the honor that you claim to be so devoted to." Malfoy draws his wand and flicks it around. Harry notices that Granger is flinching, and Weasley is turning bright red. Has Malfoy done something to hurt them? Harry will have to find out later.

"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "Everyone involved knows that it's a duel, and they know the price for undertaking it and avoiding it. The only real cowardice is running away or not accepting the duel in the first place. Or inviting someone else into it," Harry adds after a moment of thinking. He honestly doesn't think goblins would do that, but he can't discount the possibility with humans.

He tries not to discount any possibility now, with humans.

"I see," Malfoy says, in a voice that makes it clear he doesn't see at all. He stares around. "What is this place? It doesn't look like the Defense classroom."

"That's because it's not the Defense classroom."

Malfoy glares at him. Harry just shrugs back. It's true. He did ask the Room of Requirement, which one of the house-elves told him about, to look a little like the Defense classroom, but without the gory pictures of severed heads and the like that Snape's apparently hung on the walls of that room now that he's in it. Harry doesn't think that anyone but warriors in training need to learn how to live with that level of bloodshed.

This room, on the other hand, is modeled after the ones where Harry sometimes used to practice with Ginny. The floors are a soft kind of padding that resembles rubber more than anything else, to ensure that trainees aren't hurt during falls and that they can get up again quickly. The walls look like stone, but have heavy tapestries on them showing scenes of goblins harvesting metal, speaking to stones, and fighting the Deep Ones. The tapestries will cushion and cradle anyone who flies into them from a sudden push during the Dueling classes. And there are a few chairs and a heated pool for when people want to stop and rest, or swim to train their muscles.

"It would have been nice to have that option when I was training," Ginny mutters to Harry, nodding to the pool.

Harry smiles at her. "But would you be as strong now as you are, without the swimming in the lake?"

Ginny makes a face at him, which makes Harry laugh. He turns around again when Granger raises her hand. "You can talk," Harry says. "But you don't have to raise your hand, just for future reference."

Granger laughs a little as she lowers it. Malfoy opens his mouth to make a comment that's no doubt going to be nasty, but Harry casts a Silencing Charm at him with a flick of his wand. Granger bows her head, probably to hide a smirk, as she says, "I thought these classes were going to be held during the same time as Professor Snape's Defense course. But they're not?"

Harry shrugs, while noting that other students can call this club a class if they want, and Dumbledore can't do anything about it. "I do intend to do that, but I wanted to offer it during a completely free period on Saturday morning first, so you can see what I have to teach. If you want to drop Defense after this, then you can make an informed choice."

"But we have NEWTS in Defense," Granger insists. "Why should we just skip the class they're based on so that we can attend your class?"

Harry snorts. "I got an Outstanding on my Defense OWL. Did any of the rest of you?" He looks around the room.

Shaking heads are all he sees. Malfoy, who seems to have given up on getting his voice back for right now, folds his arms and glares at Harry furiously, but he also isn't nodding.

"The quality of our Defense teaching was mostly poor," Harry concludes. "We learned some useful things here and there, but not anything we couldn't have learned outside of class with a focus on dueling and practical training. There's a war coming, and that's more important than NEWTS."

Weasley is the one to snort this time. "Good luck convincing Hermione of that, mate."

"But...our exams are our futures!" Granger is on the verge of wailing, although luckily not all the way there. "They're the reason that we'll be able to get good jobs!"

Harry smiles. "Fred and George Weasley got the highest score on the Charms NEWT ever last year. And I bet most people remember how they did it." This time, he gets a whole bunch of enthusiastic nodding, although Malfoy looks more sullen than the rest. "They have jobs, but they're not working at the Ministry. They've established their own shop in Diagon Alley. It sells pranks and jokes of all kinds. My people have invested in it because they believe in its success. I highly recommend it."

"But that's an exception," Weasley mumbles. Harry notices his face is turning red again. Harry sighs. He believes he knows the source of that. Fred and George did make Ron a target of their pranks too often. Of course he wouldn't want to hear them praised and recommended by goblins.

"Sure. But I wanted to show you that high scores on exams don't matter much next to your lives, and they don't necessarily lead straight to jobs." Harry looks at Granger. "What do you want to do when you've completed Hogwarts, Granger?"

She blinks, as if no one has asked her that before. Then again, maybe she's used to professors doing it instead of fellow students. She straightens her back after a moment and nods decisively. "I want to work for magical creature rights."

"Of course you would," sneers Malfoy, who unfortunately has got someone to remove the spell on him. "Mudbloods are practically beasts in their own right. Like attracts like."

Before Granger can do more than gasp, Harry has asked the room to push Malfoy out through the door. A long stretch of the floor between Malfoy's feet and the door turns to marble, and the stones beneath him become shiny and slick, sending Malfoy skidding forwards while flapping his arms. Harry watches calmly as he bounces out and the door seals behind him.

"Why did you do that?" demands Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl Harry hasn't had many interactions with.

"He insulted another student. You don't get to do that."

"Who says?"

"Me."

Parkinson doesn't seem to know what to do with that. Harry leaves her to think about it, and turns to look at the rest of the students.

"I want you to survive," he tells them plainly. "I don't think any of you have done anything that means you have to die. It's pretty difficult when you're young humans, anyway. And young goblins get a lot of leeway. But Voldemort isn't going to care about the leeway, or how old you are."

"Do you have to say Voldemort's name?" Terry Boot asks, grimacing.

"Yes." Harry turns around and looks at the others, but none of them raise the same kind of objection. And none of them are walking out the door, even though they could do that just by stepping onto the marble and letting it propel them out of the room. They stare at the floor and walls and him, and they bite their lips and shift in place, but they stay.

"Let me and Ginny show you something you can learn," Harry says. He turns and smiles at Ginny, and she immediately steps out of the line of students to join him.

"You ready for this?" Harry asks as he draws Stargazer and his gift-knife from their sheaths. So far, he's mostly drilled Ginny on knife-fighting and strength techniques. They only started lessons in casting spells through her blades last year, and Harry doesn't know how much she got to practice this summer. Even though the blades don't have Traces the way their wands do, her parents would probably have still been upset if they saw her using magic.

Ginny smiles at him, so Harry decides to accept that answer as yes. He steps back and waits for Ginny to approach him, which she does, stepping delicately. Harry admires her balance. She isn't the same as a fully-trained goblin warrior, but she's the best in the school after him.

"What are you doing?" Michael asks. He sounds sore. He always does. He seems to have given up on dating Luna, but not on hating all three of them about it. "A wand is the superior weapon because you don't have to get into close range--"

He shuts up as Ginny casts a Stunner at Harry through the dagger he gave her in August. Harry is especially impressed, given that that knife is a lot newer to her hands than the other one.

And then they're off, although of course Harry never uses some of the deadlier spells he knows, and none of the goblin-specific ones that Ginny couldn't counter, and he doesn't ask the objects in the room to help him, since they would listen to him more than her. But that still means a lot of hexes and jinxes are on the table, and they both have to spring and dodge a lot, and Harry has to ask the Room to protect some of the other, gaping students against the force of the magic they're using.

(Some of those students could most definitely keep out of the way. To Harry, that's another sign that they need his Goblin Dueling class. War won't be like the formal duels that they're taught in Defense).

At last, after several nicks from Ginny's knives and Ginny sporting a long, bleeding cut down her arm from Stargazer, Ginny trips over a corner of a tapestry and goes down with a laugh. Harry springs back and nods to her, then turns and smiles at the others.

They're still gasping, and some are nodding, but Michael mutters, "We'll never be able to do that."

"Speak for yourself," Granger snaps, and draws her wand. "I'd like to learn how to do that. But do we have to use blades, Potter?"

"No," Harry says. "You can use most of these spells with your wand. But you'll need to either Transfigure your wand or come up with a way to use other weapons for some of it. Wands are ranged weapons, sure, but you can take a lot of wizards and witches off-guard by getting up close because of that."

Michael ends up walking out halfway through the little lecture Harry gives, but Harry ignores that. Michael made his choice last year when he was stupid about Luna dating him, as far as Harry is concerned. He'd make an unsteady ally and a terrible brother-in-law. And if he wants to suffer through Defense with Snape and Malfoy, he can. Maybe some of the older students, who took their first year of NEWT Defense last year, will join them, too.

But literally everyone else in Harry's year is here, with him. And Cho Chang comes in near the end of the lesson, leading some of the older Ravenclaws.

Harry nods to them. He knows they probably just want to do well on their exams, and think Snape won't be a good Defense professor based on his record in Potions, but everyone who comes to their side is one more human who might listen, who might fight, who might survive.

And who might go against the Ministry in the end. Harry has some good ideas to reveal how useless the Ministry is. He smiles when he thinks of how Snape and Dumbledore will probably react to that.

And how they're going to react on Monday morning, when Snape's NEWT Defense class is almost empty.