Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 23: Key?
"Ahhh!"
Harry saw a large lady falling on her butt right in front of him as soon as he appeared in Diagon Alley.
The gate that he had used vanished behind him, but his arrival seemed to have called for a lot of attention.
Harry felt their eyes on him, and this caused him to become really uncomfortable.
"You should not have made the gate right in the middle of the alley," V decided to state the obvious. This was no longer the frozen world, and Harry had to be mindful of other people now.
He had grown accustomed to moving around the world using this method. Other forms of teleportation made his stomach turn, so he ended up creating a new one. This is how the 'Gate' spell came to be.
"Where did you come from?!" The woman on the floor shouted at him while someone approached to help her stand up.
"Harry, apologize and move on," the hat realized that Harry had no idea how to handle the situation, as bumping into other people was not something he had to worry about for thousands of years, meaning that his social skills were almost non-existent.
"Sorry about that," Harry simply said before walking away at a brisk pace.
The woman and a few other people called for him to come back, but he ignored them and kept going.
"Remember that you need to use money now. You can't just barge into a shop and take whatever you want," V said.
"Oh…" Harry froze for a moment and changed directions, this time aiming for the bank.
"What would you do without me?" V said with a smug tone.
"Don't forget that I am the one who took you from that dark place and brought you into the light," Harry responded.
When he had first discovered that fragment of Voldemort inside his soul, Harry had been truly shocked.
He had to make use of some truly complex methods to gain access to his own soul and pluck that foreign soul fragment without dying in the process.
Creating this hat had been one of Harry's most difficult projects and required a tremendous amount of accumulated knowledge to even make the attempt.
"I never forget anything," V stated, this time sounding more bitter. A perfect memory could be a gift and a curse after all.
"Then you may want to give me a hand with the goblins. I do recall they were easy to offend," Harry said as Gringotts came into view.
"I never learned of your financial situation in the real world, but considering that your father was the Lord of an ancient wizard family, you should have plenty of gold in there. They will merely ask for your key to access the vault."
"A key?" Harry frowned. He vaguely recalled the day he visited the bank with Hagrid, but any details about the location of his key had been long forgotten.
Keeping records of events over such a long period of time was a grueling task, even after mastering the mind arts. So Harry had to make many concessions to maintain his most important memories.
He memorized all of his friends, but had to discard small details, such as his bank key, to make room in his mind. Space was limited after all.
"Don't worry too much about it. Just tell them that you lost the key and ask for a new one," V could easily guess what Harry was thinking, even if Harry didn't share it.
"I really doubt it would be that easy..." Harry commented.
V's response was to say nothing.
Harry found a free goblin and went to speak with him.
"Name?" The goblin spoke in a tired tone.
"Harry Potter. I need access to my vault to make a withdrawal."
"Mmm…" The goblin leaned over the counter to glare at him.
Someone else would have asked why a young student was alone at the bank with no adult supervision during school hours. But the goblin didn't seem to care enough to point that out.
"Does Mister Potter have his key?" the goblin asked.
"I have lost it," Harry said without missing a beat.
The goblin raised an eyebrow in a dramatic manner. "Lost it, you say? Mmmm…"
"Yes, I would need a new one," Harry added.
The goblin remained silent for a long moment.
"Follow me," he eventually said while pointing to one side.
Harry was then led into a private office and was asked to wait here.
"You think they will actually give me another key?" Harry asked.
"I'm sure they have some rule for cases like this," the hat responded. "If there is something I have learned about those creatures, it is that they have rules for everything and always follow them."
Harry was now considering what to do if the goblins' request was too troublesome.
He was extremely familiar with the tunnels beneath the bank, as he had spent much time in them, as well as the city hidden at the end.
His first visit had the purpose of collecting some goblin steel, but Harry had returned many more times after that.
He tried to uncover the secrets that these creatures had been hiding from humans, and they definitely had a lot of them.
"Mister Potter." A goblin walked inside the room and spoke his name.
Harry noted that this was a different one and not the goblin who had guided him here.
'So they went to call someone else for this.'
"Yes, that is me."
The goblin glared directly at him, but his expression revealed nothing about his current mood.
"Well, that is what I'm here to assert," he moved closer to the large circular table at the center of the room and placed an object on top.
It was a small metallic device with a needle poking downwards.
"I will just require a drop of your blood."
Harry frowned.
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