[From Litha to Lammas]: More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man's Pondering, goblin Harry, 3/5
Part Two.
Part One.
Title: More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering (3/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, gen
Content Notes: AU (goblin-raised Harry), violence, present tense, angst, humor
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4200
Summary: AU The second half of goblin-raised Harry’s third year and the first half of his fourth year at Hogwarts. Harry is a proud participant in the next goblin rebellion, getting justice for his godfather, freeing artifacts who shouldn’t have to be enslaved to humans, and creating alternatives to silly human traditions.
Author’s Notes: This will really make no sense unless you’ve read the three previous stories in this series: “Music Beneath the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” and “The Dragon-Headed Door.” Like those fics, this one takes its title from Tolkien, specifically the poem “The Bidding of the Minstrel”; the section titles come from that as well as other Tolkien poems. This should have five parts, and will be posted over the next five days as part of my “From Litha to Lammas” series.
Thank you for all the reviews!
Foamily Musical
“This is Peter Pettigrew, all right.” Amelia Bones’s voice is hushed as she looks up from casting the charm on the rat in front of her. Harry isn’t sure what the charm told her, since she didn’t cast one that actually transformed the rat back to human, but she seems shaken, and sure.
“That’s impossible! It’s as ridiculous as-”
Fudge stands up and marches out of the meeting room in the front of the bank as Harry’s curse activates again. Harry shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he announces to Amelia Bones and Sirius and the goblins who are gathered to watch. “I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known how disruptive it would be.”
“I find it disturbing that our sitting Minister wants to attack the goblins so often. Don’t apologize, Mr. Potter.” Madam Bones is staring at the Stunned rat. “So what do we do now?”
“I kill him,” Sirius suggests.
Madam Bones opens her mouth to protest, but Harry points a finger at Sirius. “If you do that, you can be the one to explain to Blackeye why you took up exertion like killing against her strict orders.”
Sirius sighs and slouches down on the other side of the table. “Why is she so bloody terrifying?” he complains.
“Because she’s competent,” Harry says, and turns back to Madam Bones. “We’d like him tried, but honestly, I don’t know if justice in a human court is going to happen. Especially not with so many people still denying that Sirius is innocent.”
“I can make sure it happens.” Madam Bones has her eyes narrowed and her wand tapping against her leg. “But is there a particular reason that you don’t want to try him in a goblin court?”
“He’s guilty already, so we would just kill him,” Stone says. She’s wearing rubies in her ears now, and not looking at Pettigrew. His cowardice and betrayal would taint her, Harry knows. He’s a little surprised that she showed up here at all, but some older goblins think that when you start something, you have to see it through to the end. “But that wouldn’t convince your justice system or allow Mr. Black to be free except in goblin territory.”
“Very well,” says Madam Bones. At least she doesn’t look horrified at the thought of execution the way Harry thinks Fudge and Dumbledore and Snape and probably most humans would. “Then I’ll take him into custody, but I’d like you to swear me with an Oath-Globe.”
Harry sucks in his breath, and Stone’s head turns sharply. No human that he’s ever heard of has consented to be bound by one of those.
“You realize that if we bind you with one of those, your magic would literally force you to keep your word,” Ripclaw says. His fangs shine as he bares them. “And that it would hurl you into dangerous situations and use you like a puppet to make sure that your oath was kept. Many humans would find the situation…disconcerting.”
“It is to my shame that I simply believed Sirius Black had a trial instead of looking into the matter myself,” Madam Bones says in a low voice. “Even though I knew Black when he was an Auror and I found it beyond strange that he would betray James Potter, whom he loved like a brother. Even though I knew that Crouch had gone mad with power and simply started throwing people into prison without a trial and allowing the Aurors to use Unforgivables.”
Harry makes a mental note to himself. It sounds like Crouch might be somebody he needs to declare a blood feud on.
“I need a chance to make up for that shame.” Madam Bones blinks away what look like honest tears and glances around the silent assembly of goblins. “Please. Let me.”
Gorgeslitter whistles through his clenched teeth. Harry knows why. It’s rare for humans to admit shame and guilt, and even rarer to do it in a way that goblins can understand. Madam Bones will get some special consideration in the future.
Harry smiles. He likes Madam Bones very much.
“Very well,” says Stone, and calls to one of her attendant apprentices to bring the Oath-Globe. Madam Bones sits straight and pale on the other side of the table and shows no sign of backing out, although she glares at Pettigrew the whole time. Maybe it’s to remind herself of what she would have to lose by backing out.
When the Oath-Globe appears, glittering like a crystal ball, Madam Bones brushes her hand over it and takes the oath immediately, strongly-worded, without even any suggestions. Harry watches the visionary steel chains writhe around her and breathes out.
Why can’t more humans be like her?
*
“It’s time that you learned about the Argent Ocean, Harry.”
Harry blinks at Toothsplitter, and steps out of the way as she uses her clawed hand to open a boulder-shaped door behind the forge. Harry has often wondered what’s behind it, but accepted that if he can’t overhear it or find a way to open the door on his own, he’s not meant to know yet. “I thought that was a legend.”
“No, it’s real,” Toothsplitter says. “But young goblins aren’t allowed access to it until they’re old enough to resist reaching for the glitter and have shown some control of their impulses.” She eyes him, and Harry does his best to stand straight and not look too smug about what he did to Fudge. “Come.”
She leads Harry through the door, and down a tunnel that twists and slopes as though a hesitant river made it. Harry listens, but he can’t hear water ahead. He always thought that’s what the Argent Ocean was made of, so he gasps when the tunnel abruptly ends at the entrance of another large cavern, and he finds himself standing on a shore made of hammered ivory.
The Argent Ocean curls and foams very slowly on the shore. It’s a cross between molten silver and water, Harry sees, one mixed with the other. The waves are heavy and move in a series of heaves with fewer troughs and crests than normal water, but also more movement than is common in the lakes of molten silver scattered throughout the Realm of Song. He glances at Toothsplitter. “What happens if you touch it?”
“Very good,” says Toothsplitter, smiling. “It would consume you.”
“Why?” Harry asks, startled. There are creatures in the Realm of Song, namely the Deep Ones, that want to eat goblins, but he’s never run into water or metal that wanted to, and he wouldn’t think mixing them would change their essential natures so much.
“Because this is what is left of our enemies that made them dangerous to us,” Toothsplitter says quietly. “Their battle prowess, their memories, their hatred of us. Their souls, in a word.”
Harry’s wonder curls through him like the slow waves as he stares. “Wow. I thought-the Deep Ones seem to hate us enough.”
“That is only mindless hunger, which does sometimes make them dangerous, but not any more than a dragon,” says Toothsplitter dismissively. “And the same for the enemies behind the door with the dragon head that you found last year. The dragon head is there to symbolize that mindless hunger, to tell us the tales of what is there. To remind us of the difference.”
“But why keep these souls here at all? Wouldn’t it be-kinder to let them go on to whatever kind of afterlife awaits them?” Harry knows what awaits him, the way all goblins do. Their souls will sink into the stone and dream, and add some kindness to the Realm of Song for goblins that come after them. There is a reason that water and metal so rarely want to hurt goblins, after all.
Toothsplitter shakes her head. “If we did that, they would hunt us down, Harry. Their souls would come into the Realm of Song and poison it. They declared as much when we found a way to take their battle prowess from them but they still had their ability to speak. Their hatred of us was truly undying.”
Harry nods soberly. Protecting the Realm of Song and other goblins always comes first, no matter what other peoples might say. The most goblins can do is be honest about it, so that other peoples will know the consequences of calling a goblin a liar, or attacking one. “Then what do we do with this?” He waves a hand at the Argent Ocean.
“Seek a way to communicate with them,” Toothsplitter says. “To find a way to soothe their hatred, so that someday the rest of their qualities can be returned to them and they may live again.”
Harry nods slowly. “Does that mean listening to them and transforming their hatred into something other than-argent?” He doesn’t know what else to call molten silver mixed with water. He’s never even heard of it before. Of course, that’s probably because hinting at its existence would mean hinting that the Argent Ocean wasn’t just a story.
Toothsplitter looks at him sharply. “That is the ultimate objective. However, we have only been successful at separating small drops of hatred since the wars. You will have to be very careful, Harry. Among other things, you will have to listen to the Ocean with your mind and not your ears.”
It sounds risky. It sounds dangerous. It sounds confusing.
It sounds thrilling.
Harry smiles at Toothsplitter. “I wondered why you advanced me to journeyman when you didn’t advance Gravensword, and he’s been working at this longer than I’ve been alive,” he says. “But it was this, right? Because being a Master Smith relies on being able to forge things like souls, and that’s more important than skill with metal.”
Toothsplitter wrinkles her lips. “You should remember, Harry, that I am the Master Smith around here, and I make the decisions I want to make. I have not chosen to advance Gravensword so far for my own reasons.”
“I just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t because I’m a wizard in body, so I’ll live a shorter life, and so you advanced me because otherwise I might never get to journeyman.”
Toothsplitter gives him a profoundly disappointed glance, and Harry looks at the cavern floor. “That you would think I would be influenced by such a thing distresses me. We will have to spend some more time studying the ethics as well as the tasks of becoming a Master Smith. And I will ask you to apologize for the aspersion on my honor.”
“I’m sorry, Toothsplitter. I’m still too influenced by human mindsets, sometimes.”
Toothsplitter’s hand settles on his shoulder and ruffles his shirt. “Well, in this case, no harm done. Now I’m going to teach you to listen with your mind.”
Out on the Deep
It’s like no other lessons that Harry has ever had before, and he’s glad that Toothsplitter waited until the summer to hold them, because otherwise, he would have been distracted from his Hogwarts exams and essays by this.
It’s also the most fascinating thing Harry’s ever learned.
He goes out in a special boat that’s made of the same hammered ivory as the shore of the “beach,” made from the powdered bones of those ancient enemies. The ribs are pure bone, and the sails are cloth of silver. Harry sits in the center of the boat with his eyes closed, as still and silent as he can be, and then he reaches out in a new direction. It’s as if there’s a whole new eleventh one (besides all the cardinal directions, the four in-between ones, and up and down) that he just never noticed before.
When he’s as still as can be, and as silent, and reaching as hard in the new direction as he can, then he hears it. The whisper of the voices, shifting and dancing in the waves of the Argent Ocean. They’re still there, the whispers and the shouts and the bellows of their ancient enemies.
The Deep Ones don’t call themselves the Deep Ones, Harry discovers, even though they lived deeply underground. They call themselves by a blast of scent that is like rotting violets mingled with heated copper, and they hate the goblins because they wanted to be the only beings living underground, and the goblins interfered with that.
The enemies behind the dragon-headed door do have a name that can translate to a sound, but it’s not much like sounds in either the human or the goblin language. When Harry, after days of reaching after it to hear it on his own the way Toothsplitter requested, asks her how she pronounces it, she shrugs and admits it isn’t perfect, but most goblins use the approximation Henenggrananttan.
The Henenggrananttan hate the goblins because they want absolute silence, and goblin magic and life depends on song. Probably the Henenggrananttan would have hunted wizards down, too, Harry thinks, but the goblin war with them was ancient, and so they were imprisoned and their hatred and everything else transformed a long time before humans could come in contact with them.
Since the goblins won’t give up either the Realm or the Song part of the Realm of Song, Harry can see why peace with their enemies as they were wasn’t possible. So he sits, and he listens, and he reaches out.
And he begins to hear the multiple songs of the ocean, as well.
The water and the silver of the Argent Ocean mingle well enough to be like two threads in one garment, but they’re not the same, any more than silk and linen are if woven together. Harry has to listen to the deep, purling tones of the silver and the high-pitched, piercing ones of the water, while at the same time listening to the separate voices of their enemies. And when he reaches that point, he has to be able to separate the hatred from the pride, and the battle knowledge, and the history. And someday, he’ll have to be able to forge the hatred into something else.
It’s exhausting. Harry can see now why all young goblins are kept away from the Argent Ocean, and also why some apprentices to smiths might never reach journeyman status.
But he knows that, at last, he’s found his life’s work, and he really is meant to follow the smith’s path and not the warrior’s.
Silver His Throat
“Remus would like to meet with us,” Sirius said, and Harry shrugged and smiled and agreed. Despite his puzzlement that Remus wants to be classified as a human instead of a werewolf, and his exasperation that he wanted to keep apologizing for the night Harry spent in his office, when Harry is the one who interrupted Remus from taking his potion, he likes Remus well enough.
They meet up in Diagon Alley at Florean Fortescue’s. Harry chooses a strawberry ice, simply because the vanilla reminds him too much of the foam in the Argent Ocean right now, and he’s a little exhausted by it.
Remus orders strawberry, too, and Sirius chocolate. (He’s still wearing an illusion because his trial is really slow in coming). Harry smiles at Remus and asks, “How have you been? I learned that you wouldn’t be coming back as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. I hope it wasn’t something I said.”
“No.” Remus swallows carefully and keeps his lips over his teeth as if he doesn’t want Harry to see them. Harry doesn’t know why, because he got a really good look at them already. “I-Harry, I want to know how involved you are in the goblin war that’s going on.”
“Well, not much involved right now,” Harry admits. “I have other learning to do with my master Toothsplitter, you know. She’s a smith.” He hasn’t even told Sirius about the Argent Ocean, so he certainly won’t tell Remus. “And the actions right now are taking place down in the vaults. I’m not a money-singer, so it isn’t my place.”
“Well,” Remus says, and eats some more of his ice before he says, “Professor Dumbledore thinks it would be best if you detached yourself from this war.”
“He can think that.” Harry finishes his strawberry ice, thinks about it, and then signals for a chocolate one. It looks pretty good, if the expression on Sirius’s face and the fact that he’s filled his mouth determinedly with it is any indication.
“Harry, he’s your Headmaster.”
“You say that like it should mean master,” Harry says, shaking his head as the bowl of chocolate ice floats over to him. “And why can’t he tell me this himself? Why does he have to have you deliver the message when you don’t even work at Hogwarts anymore?”
Sirius coughs into his spoon. Harry looks at him in concern. Sirius waves his hand and wipes his mouth with his napkin. That at least reassures Harry that there aren’t large chunks of chocolate or something that one of them is going to choke on.
“The last time he talked with you, he was warned away from you.”
“If he can’t speak with me without keeping secrets I should know and calling me a liar and saying I should act more human, then yes, that’s going to happen.”
Remus closes his eyes in what looks like actual pain for a second, then leans forwards. “Harry, you know that You-Know-Who isn’t dead.”
“Voldemort? Yeah, I know.”
Someone on the other side of the shop drops their spoon with a clatter. Harry has his basilisk-fang dagger in his hand before he remembers the way that people tend to react to Voldemort’s name. He sighs and puts his knife away. This is so disappointing, the way that humans do that.
“The Headmaster knows more than anyone about how to fight him,” Remus continues. “And he doesn’t want you involved in the goblin war because you already have one to fight. He wants you to have a normal childhood as much as possible.”
Harry blinks. “I had a wonderful childhood. I learned so much from the goblins. And I know that I’m a better fighter and smith than most of the people at Hogwarts, anyway.”
“But you shouldn’t need to be learning all that.” Remus learns towards him. “If you had stayed with your-guardians, I mean, the Dursleys, then you would have grown up as a normal child.”
“Say that’s true,” Sirius says abruptly. Harry thinks he must have finished his ice, but then he glances over and sees some still left in the dish. “How would that prepare him for this war that you and Dumbledore want him to fight, Remus? He should be a normal kid but he should also be preparing to fight You-Know-Who?”
“He should have grown up around humans!”
“The Dursleys mistreated me,” Harry interrupts, because he can’t remember if Remus knows that, although Sirius does. But Sirius might not want to bring it up unless Harry does it first. “And my people made sure that I knew the human language and wizard magic, Remus. I wouldn’t have known any of that if I’d stayed with the Dursleys. They didn’t tell me about magic. I don’t know if they knew about it or not.”
Remus stares at him with wide eyes. “They hurt you?”
Harry digs in with his spoon again, nodding. “Of course. They made me sleep in a cupboard and do lots of chores. And they didn’t always feed me.”
Remus shudders all over. For a second, his eyes shine gold, but he doesn’t like to do that in public, so Harry gently touches his hand so he can know he’s doing it. Remus looks away, but when he looks back, his eyes are back to normal again. “Albus never mentioned that.”
“I don’t think he knows,” Harry says. “Or maybe he knows but doesn’t want to admit it to himself. The thing is, he wants me to fight in this war, and I already told him that I’ll cut Voldemort’s head off if he comes after me. And I killed a piece of Voldemort’s soul that was floating around with my basilisk-fang dagger. What else does he want me to do? I don’t think there’s anything else I can do.”
Remus slumps back a little. “Piece of-his soul?”
“Yes, there was a diary that had his soul in it. And there was a piece of soul in my scar at one point, but Blackeye removed that when I was still a kid. I know there are probably other pieces of it out there, but unless Headmaster Dumbledore wants to tell me where they are and go send me to kill them, I have to wait for them to approach me.”
“I,” Remus says, and nothing more. He’s staring off into the distance with tragic eyes, the way he tends to do when someone reminds him that he’s a werewolf. Harry hates to see him do that, so he leans towards him and pats his hand.
“Have some more of your ice,” he says kindly.
*
“And we are here to pronounce Sirius Black innocent, and free.”
Harry catches Sirius’s arm when he sits down heavily in the chair he’s been using in front of the Wizengamot for the past five hours. Mostly, Harry doesn’t want Sirius to fall on the floor. It would hurt his image as well as his arse.
People all over the room start shouting and applauding. Harry is only concerned with Sirius, who is wiping the tears away from his face but sniffling and making more, so it doesn’t help much.
“Do you want me to get you out of here and back to the caverns?” Harry whispers. “I will, just say the word.”
Sirius blows his nose one more time, and casts a Cleaning Charm at his face, not even flinching at the way it must feel as it scours his skin. “No, I’m all right,” he says, and then stands up to start shaking the hands of the various people who are lining up to do it.
Harry looks around, because he had to keep quiet during the concluding phases of the trial, but he has a mission now. He sees the shame-faced man trying to slip out of the courtroom and goes up to him immediately.
“Mr. Crouch, sir!” he calls.
Crouch turns and stares at him. He’s Bartemius Crouch Senior, everyone has been telling Harry, but his son turned out to be a Death Eater and died some time ago. “Do I know you, young man?”
“Not personally,” Harry says, and bows to him. “But my name is Harry Potter, and I’m Sirius Black’s godson. And I was raised by the goblins. That means I’m declaring a blood feud with you. I need to know if you’re going to give me a weregild to make up for the time that Sirius spent in prison, or if you want to settle this with a duel.” He thinks about mentioning that the feud would also be with any other members of Crouch’s family, but as far as Harry knows, he doesn’t have any siblings, and his wife and child are both dead.
Crouch stares at him with his mouth a little open. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t need to listen to children,” he snaps.
“Then you want to continue the blood feud for years while we snap and snarl at each other?” Harry nods. “That works, sir. I’ll contact you soon with a description of how you’re probably going to feel the impact of it.”
He turns away, but Crouch grabs his arm roughly, the way that Snape tried to do. At least, he does that until Harry swings around and places the tip of his steel dagger against Crouch’s own arm. Crouch immediately freezes in place, staring at Harry.
“You can’t declare a blood feud on me,” Crouch says.
“But I already did. And you didn’t choose a respectful way to answer me, so it’s going to go on for a while.” Harry takes his dagger away when Crouch moves his hand. “You caused Sirius a lot of pain for twelve years by not admitting that he never had a trial and just threw him in prison, so-”
“He was laughing! And saying it was his fault!”
“And, of course, those words never mean anything but that someone is guilty of betraying their best friends,” Harry says, rolling his eyes. Even for a human, this is contemptible. “As I was saying, I’m going to do my best to ruin any endeavors that you’re involved in. The goblins have already withdrawn funding for the Quidditch World Cup, which I know you were working to bring into the country. And there’s rumors of a Tournament at Hogwarts this year? That’s also going to be ruined. I’m warning you in advance.”
“You brat.”
Harry shrugs. Unlike Snape, the blood feud is already in existence, so Harry doesn’t need to react to the insult. “A warning,” he repeats, and then walks over and flings his arms around Sirius.
“You’re free,” he whispers. “What do you want to do next?”
“Things that you’re too young to know about.”
Harry opens his mouth to ask in concern if Sirius is going to forge his enemies’ souls into argent, but then shakes his head. He can’t tell Sirius about the Argent Ocean. Besides, Sirius probably means sex.
“Make sure that you use all the anti-pregnancy spells you need,” he says. “What?” he adds, to the mortified look Sirius gives him.
Part Four.