Chapter 10: CHAPTER - 10 : Why me?
Goblins were an extremely clever race and over the years had dealt with wizard-kind effectively. They were still subservient in the minds of most wizards, but they had established themselves as a vital part of wizarding society. The goblins ran Gringotts, the wizarding bank. Gringotts Wizarding Bank was the only wizarding bank in Great Britain and was owned and operated by goblins. Therefore, they controlled the wizarding economy to a large extent.
Goblins were extremely clever and more than able to stand up to wizards. The fact that the wizarding population treated them poorly was evidence of the severe injustice built into wizard culture. Ironically, the Fountain of Magical Brethren in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic showed a goblin, along with a house-elf and a centaur, gazing admiringly at a witch and wizard.
Apart from their cleverness with money and finances, goblins were also very capable metalsmiths. Their silverwork was well known and prized.
Goblins' ideas of payment and repayment were not the same as humans. Goblins disliked theft but used a different definition of the word. By goblin standards, the maker of an item, not the purchaser, was the rightful owner; the item was required to be returned to its maker after the death of the purchaser.
Goblins believed that the wizard paying for a goblin-made artefact was merely renting it, not owning it. Goblins considered the passing of an item from one wizard or witch to another without further payment to its maker "little more than theft".
Even with all the power in their hands, they are still hesitant to attack the wizards. The average power of the wizards during the 14th century was completely different than a wizard of the 20th century. The same can be said for Goblins too. The present Goblins too were not as powerful as their ancestors. But their population dwindled making them a powerful force but tiny compared to the other magicals like wizards, werewolves or vampires.
They had so much pent up anger and hatred for the wizardkind.
So when a situation like Harry Potter's landed in their hands the goblins naturally wanted to take full advantage of it.
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The talk with Ragnok was interesting. Harry originally planned to outright start a fight with them despite how minimal the compensation was asked. But the Goblin came up with a plan to boost Gringotts and his own prestige rather than of the whole of the goblin nation. The talks went on for an hour. At the end of the negotiation, they both were satisfied.
Both he and Ragnok will be making a statement about the Bank being helpful in bringing down Voldemort's regime with the help of a goblin artefact that was present in Gringotts. Since the bank was under the control of the ministry at that time, both Harry Potter and Gringotts came up with a plan for harry to break in and take control of the artefact.
As there were no lives lost except for one unfortunate teller, the general populace would believe this story readily.
And apart from that, he will owe Ragnok a favour in the near future. Of course, the favour should be reasonable for him to comply. As Harry wanted to form connections with more people rather than killing them, he gladly accepted the Goblin's proposition.
From Ragnok, Harry came to know that his power inside the goblin nation was just starting to take shape. And with Harry's aid, he may even become powerful enough with the highest authority in the goblin nation. As for any repayment plans regarding galleons or goblin made artefacts inside his family vault were made nil. Those plans and plots were made by elders of the nation and Ragnok claimed he originally didn't support any of them. It was only because of his rather new position he accepted it reluctantly.
Well, Harry knew that was a lie, a little bit of thought reading he knew that originally Ragnok too wanted to claim everything in his vault. But Harry didn't speak out as the present reimbursement plan provided by Ragnok was genuine.
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With the Gringotts problem dealt over Harry planned to purchase some clothes and dress robes. Clothes because he didn't have anything fit to wear, and dress robes for his first Wizengamot meeting…and he was looking forward to it.
Harry had received a letter from Kingsley asking him to attend the Wizengamot session that was to hold during the next week. And since Harry wanted to make some change in his family's political stance, he decided to attend the court.
Harry walked into the crowded Diagon Alley and moved towards Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Getting a good impression and showing off your power and prestige, is what is all about the upper-class people. For that dress robes are a must. He would have gone to well-reputed stores for his robes but going to Madam Malkin's appeared a little bit sentimental.
As Harry did not wear any glamour charms people identified him as soon as he walked into the bank lobby. As he reached the streets he was soon surrounded by the wizards, some congratulated him, some thanked him, some shook hands with him, all in all, every wizard he came across was excited by his presence.
Just like when he was introduced into the magical world by Hagrid. From what he had been able to gather from the crowds' thoughts, it seems his recent picture had been published in the Daily Prophet and that was why they were able to identify him so quickly.
'How did they get hold of my picture without me knowing. Need to look into that' He was very careful whenever he left the Grimmauld Place. It must mean that he got his photo taken somewhere near Andy's or during Fred's funeral.
Harry didn't shy away from the crowd like before, fame will be useful and properly cultivating fame will beneficial to him in the long run.
The disposition of being a leader came naturally for both Voldemort and Dumbledore. That is why, even after Dumbledore and Voldemort's death, their ideals still lived like a disease trying to spread and sometimes even trying to affect him too.
His leadership skills were small to nonexistent. He may have led Dumbledore's army during his fifth year for a little while. But that was all Hermione's work. He was just a figurehead in the DA. Even Neville did a good job of leading the DA during the trio's absence.
So Harry planned to develop his leadership skills and fame further on.
"Welcome to madam mal…. MADAM, MADAM…..Harry Potter is in our shop, Harry Potter is in our shop…" the female worker shouted and ran inside the store. Soon Madam Malkin walked out from the back and greeted him. He was the only customer in the shop. Madam Malkin's mainly supplied clothes and uniforms to the students and middle-class wizarding population.
"Good to see you here once again Mr Potter" Then she looked at him in the eyes and spoke emotionally.
"Thank you for what you did"
It started to feel like his first time in the wizarding world all over again. It's just that now he is not as naive as he was once before to not make use of his fame properly.
Harry soon ordered every dress that are needed for his daily necessities to party robes. As for the enchanting work, Harry planned to do it himself.
Enchanting these dresses were no big deal for him.
Because Voldemort took Ancient runes and Arithmancy during his school year. He also studied further about rune enchanting in extension so that it could help him during rituals.
Comparing Voldemort's exploits during his school year to his own school year was like comparing a medieval broomstick to a modern world firebolt. Voldemort did everything in his capacity to further his knowledge as much as possible in Hogwarts. His objective may have been about obtaining power but… well Knowledge is Power too.
He searched for knowledge to reach certain power, after that only power was his focus.
"The dresses will be ready in two days Mr Potter. You can come by later and collect it or you can have your elf collect it from our store later", Madam Malkin said to Harry.
"How much is the total cost?" Harry asked taking out his Moleskin pouch.
"Consider it as me thanking you for what you have done for the Wizarding world Mr Potter" said Madam Malkin
From her thoughts, Harry knew she would not be taking any money from him. So he accepted her gift and proceeded to the next task.
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Harry sat down in the dining area in the Leaky Cauldron and started doing his regular telepathy training. It had taken nearly one hour for the crowd to get accustomed to Harry's presence in the Leaky.
He sat down at a table near the window that was looking towards the muggle street.
As he sat down, two wizards stood at the corner of the street directly facing the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron.
There was four entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. One from the muggle world, another for employee entrance, and a third for customers entering from Diagon alley. The last is the famous brick wall entrance which also leads to the Diagon Alley. The brick wall was just for theatrics to introduce the muggle-born children to the wizarding world.
'Now I can focus on those two stalkers'. Harry had sensed these two people in the St. Mungos during teddy's visit.
Because of telepathy, he was able to do thought detection whenever he was constantly using telepathy. Thought detection worked in a way that he was able to feel the presence of people/minds around him for at least 200mts. The range grew as he practised daily.
His mind emits a psi wave into the surrounding, this wave pulse bounces off surrounding people and creatures that have a working mind and returns to him. This lets him know the presence of a mind in his mind's eye. This technique was still in the budding process.
(AN: X-Men Cerebro detection method. Picture it on small scale)
In the beginning, he was only able to feel the presence of people inside a room, only after concentrating for some time. Now he was able to emit the psi pulse in a straight line up to 200mts to get results.
Each person had a different kind of presence. This presence felt different from his mage's sight. But both worked on the same concept.
Some were bright, some were dull. Some were large and some were small. Some were circle shaped and some were square. Each presence had a different taste or colour or feel. It worked like radar but only recorded the minds/presence of any sentient creature inside his range. Even if they are under an invisibility spell/cloak or even an enchanted object like a Hogwart's hat or artefacts that contains thoughts. But Harry only came to know of that information later. He named the technique MINDAR (Mind Detection And Ranging).
With his achievement in occlumency (efficiency aspect) harry logged each of these mind to their corresponding face in his memories whenever he used MINDAR . If he didn't know their faces, he noted them down under unknown in the directory mirror (his memories are classified and stored in the form of mirrors. Hence he logged all the details in that specific mirror).
A mirror with the list of names, pictures, and last encountered location. It was exactly like a phone book but with personal data. Even the thoughts he detected or memories he saw in the particular person are stored in their respective mirror.
These two wizards followed him from St. Mungo's lobby to the diagnosis room. And again from the Gringotts bank to Diagon alley. They started following him as soon as he left the bank. He mind also registered them once before near Andy's neighbourhood. A muggle area. This was too much even for a coincidence.
And he sensed their presence in his MINDAR once again appearing just outside Madam Malkin's and Leaky following him. Since they had strong minds he was able to distinguish them quicker.
A mirror appeared in Harry's mindscape with the info he had on them, which was nothing except for their presence at last encountered locations.
He was unable to perform MINDAR all the time. So whenever he does, he logs all the presence into the entries into the directory mirror.
'Hmm….Viewing their memories will be harder, they appear to have strong occlumency shields. What to do?...' But Harry could hear what they are speaking because reading their thoughts were easy. Harry soon concentrated on their minds to read their thoughts.
The wizards that were following Harry, both were wearing hoods obscuring their faces. Even their cloaks were applied with a 'notice me not' charm, which made them almost hidden from everyone.
Both wizards just sat down in a corner and one of them applied what appeared to be a silencing ward around them.
"We should be going after that bastard Leon. There was a lead just yesterday. My team was almost on his tail. Instead, we are here stalking a fucking teenager. Come on Luke, we are the captains of the best squad in the service. Not some stakeout field agents, only a bloke with no talent or power gets the shitty works", the first guy said.
"Merlin, would you shut yourself up wolf. The higher-ups were spooked because of this fucking teenager. Our leader also wanted a veteran to do this job. And don't tell me even you are not disturbed by the fact that he was able to overpower a dark lord, a mage, who had decades of experience under his boot with just an 'Expelliarmus' spell", Luke replied with some annoyance.
Even if he said that he was not convinced that this assignment was worth his while. As there may have been several factors that would have led to the defeat of the Dark Lord. But since their leader had asked for the both of them specifically to do this job, he couldn't refuse.
"And don't fucking use our names in the field you idiot, only code names. And you wonder why you are still a deputy". The first guy looked flustered a little. Luke still wondered how Jackson got admitted into the department in the first place. Not because he was doubting Jackson's magical prowess, but because the guy can't shut his damn mouth when required, which was exactly needed in this job.
Both of them went silent and returned to observing their target.
Luke Hill is the captain of team RO, the best field team in service and Jackson Clarke, the other wizard was the deputy. They both were field agents of the Department of mysteries.
Unspeakables. A department that the ministry has no control over it. They are also the only division that did not answer to the Department of Magical law enforcement but works together with them on several occasions.
Harry James Potter was their present target. They both have been assigned this duty soon after the battle of Hogwarts. The order came directly from the Head of the Department. Usually, the order comes through their commander but since this was a.…special case, the Head issued the assignment directly to them. And they were to report only to the leader.
A basic profile of one Harry James Potter was given to them to make familiarize themselves with the target. If there are any alterations or changes in the behaviour of the potter observed, during the observation period they are to report to the head immediately. Luke knew who Harry Potter was and has some knowledge about his adventures in Hogwarts too. But the report showed the full extent of Potter's life before Hogwarts and during the Hogwarts period, which was ….enlightening.
Harry who was viewing their surface memories suddenly saw a file with his name on it. He made a quick decision to transfer/copy the file to his mind. It took ten minutes for Harry to download the file from Luke's mind. Of course, he could only copy what Luke saw.
While Luke was presented with the report he read the most part and skipped some.
And Harry was nowhere near trained enough to download complete copies of the memories. He had to use occlumency to remember what he saw in those memories. So he was happy with what was available.
If Luke had not thought about the report, Harry would have never found out about the report from Luke.
On the other end, Luke felt some kind of confusion/intrusion in his mind. He tried to identify the source and came up with nothing. Years of experience told him that his mission was botched and he was exposed. Or someone has marked him for unknown reasons.
Either it was the Potter brat or a third party he didn't know. If it was a third party then this was a disaster, because now they were in the dark and trying to identify the third party was impossible.
If it was potter then that is even more terrifying, because in no corner of the report it was written that potter was a Legilimens. A Legilimens who is strong enough to get away without getting caught from a master occlumens.
Whatever it may be, for now, he needs to leave this place and report of this new development to the Head.
"We are taking off now, mission's done" Luke took his deputy by hand and left the pub hastily. Jacob followed his captain's lead.
'It seems they have been stalking me from Fred's funeral. They were hit wizards of the Department of Mysteries. It seems I hit their radar because I defeated a dark lord or it may be some other cause. And I am a complete mystery to them. Of course, those people don't like mysteries. Tch…'.
Inside his mindscape, Harry slowly went through the report he copied from Luke's memories. The report was made by a DOM analyst with the help of a legilimencer.
Harry was able to gather a lot of information just by viewing their surface memories. If it wasn't for his sudden action of retrieving and digging deep into that particular memory from the wizard's mind, he could have gotten a lot more information.
He did regret his impulsiveness. But the information he copied was worthwhile, even if it was not complete. As they answered most of the questions he had in his mind.
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