Chapter Text
Harry was awake before the rest of the house, like he normally was during the summer, but it wasn’t out of fear or obligation anymore. The cupboard was long gone, replaced by a small but comfortable bedroom upstairs, and the chores he did now were of his own choosing. He liked cooking. It kept his hands busy, kept his mind from drifting into darker places, and honestly… the Dursleys weren’t actually that bad anymore.
The pan hissed as he flipped a strip of bacon, the warm smell filling the kitchen in a way that felt strangely homey. He still wasn’t sure when exactly things had changed between them. Maybe after first year, when they’d picked him up from King’s Cross and he looked so small next to Ron’s family. Maybe when they finally realized magic was part of him, not a disease that could be scraped away.
Or maybe they’d simply grown up a little, all of them.
The stairs creaked. Harry didn’t even flinch anymore.
Vernon Dursley, tieless and yawning, trudged into the kitchen. His voice still had hard edges, but the sharpness that used to follow Harry around like a shadow was gone.
“Smells fantastic, lad,” Vernon said, settling heavily into his chair. “Never thought I’d say this, but nobody does a Sunday fry up like you.”
Harry blinked, cheeks warming with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “Thanks. I’m trying a different seasoning today. Aunt Petunia picked it up from the farmers market last weekend.”
“Mm. Can smell that too.” Vernon lifted his mug of tea and sniffed. “Pepper?”
“A bit,” Harry admitted.
Before Vernon could respond, thundering footsteps shook the hallway, followed by the unmistakable crash of someone barreling down the stairs with no regard for anyone who wasn’t a morning person.
Dudley burst into the kitchen, nearly sliding straight into the table. “Is that bacon? Oh my *God*, Harry, marry me.”
Harry snorted. “Pass. We’re far too young and I’m far too sane.”
Dudley grinned, wide and cheeky, ruffling Harry’s hair as he passed. Something Harry only tolerated because Dudley didn’t mean anything cruel by it anymore.
“Tone it down, Dudley.” Vernon said, but there was no heat. “Let the boy cook without you mauling him.”
Dudley plopped into the seat opposite his father, already reaching for a napkin to turn into a makeshift bib. “I’m just saying, Harry cooks better than Mum.”
“*Dudders!*” came an offended gasp from the stairs.
Petunia Dursley entered the kitchen, offended on principle but fighting a smile. Her eyes, sharp and birdlike as ever, softened when they landed on Harry.
“Do you need any help, dear?” she asked, already stepping toward him.
It still startled him sometimes, the way she spoke now. The soft *dear*. The concerned tilt of her voice. The way she hovered in case he burned himself.
“No, I’ve got it,” Harry said quickly. “Just plating up so everyone can help themselves.”
She paused. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I promise.”
Petunia nodded, though her gaze stayed glued to the pan as Harry scooped the last of the beans into a bowl. She returned to the table but kept her spine straight, ready to leap up if necessary.
Harry set down a plate of perfectly crisp bacon, then toast, then the steaming bowl of beans. He had just picked up the spatula again when-
**WHOOSH**
A blur of feathers and soot shot down the chimney like a cannonball.
Dudley shrieked. Vernon jolted so hard his tea sloshed over the rim.
The owl, large, brown, and almost fearless, swooped low across the table, talons releasing a heavy envelope before snatching a slice of bacon in its beak. Then, with perfect audacity, it flapped it’s wings once and shot back up the chimney, leaving only a scattering of ash in its wake.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“…right,” Vernon said weakly. “Normal breakfast activities. Perfectly ordinary.”
Petunia exhaled through her nose. “I assume that’s for you, Harry.”
She reached for the envelope, shaking off the ash. Harry turned back to the stove to scrape out the last bits for the pan to soak later.
“Could you open it for me please?” he asked. “My hands are a bit too greasy to hold paper.”
“Of course.”
Harry could hear the familiar rip of parchment as she sliced the envelope open with one sharp fingernail.
Her eyebrows lifted almost immediately. “It’s… from that bank. The goblin one.”
“Gringotts?” Harry guessed, carrying the last plate to the sink.
“Yes, that’s the one.” Petunia’s eyes skimmed the letter. Her mouth pinched the way it only did when something was very wrong or very confusing. “It says, and I’m reading directly here, *‘Dear Mr. Potter, it has come to our attention that upon your visit to us last year when you were eleven, you never had an inheritance test…’*”
Harry nearly dropped the spatula. “A what?”
Petunia kept reading. “*‘This is because last year you came in with Mr. Hagrid, Groundskeeper at Hogwarts, instead of your actual guardian, and we would need you to come in at your earliest convenience with a guardian to take the test.’*” She squinted at the bottom. “Signed… *‘Your account manager, Griphook.’*”
Harry stared.
He hadn’t known any of that. Hagrid had marched him through Gringotts last year, yes, but he’d simply done what he was told. He had never heard of inheritance tests. He’d barely known what a vault was until Hagrid had let him get money out of his inheritance vault.
A slow, cold feeling slithered through his stomach, not fear, exactly, but something sharp and uneasy.
“Why would they need me to take a test?” Harry murmured.
Dudley looked impressed. “You’ve got an account manager? Like Dad’s boss?”
Vernon huffed. “Account managers aren’t the same thing, boy. But yes.” His expression shifted, cautious, uneasy. “Why didn’t the giant fellow see to this last year? Shouldn’t the headmaster’ve handled all that?”
Petunia froze.
Harry could see it, something clicked behind her eyes. Something she had suspected but never voiced. Her lips pressed into a thin line, fingers tightening around the letter.
“No,” she said quietly. “Dumbledore should have made sure you had everything you were entitled to. If the school knew you were coming into a fortune-”
“They did,” Harry said, sudden heat rising in his chest. “Hagrid had a key to my vault from Dumbledore but took it back. I didn’t ask him any questions at the time...”
Dudley looked between them, suddenly uncomfortable. “Is this… bad?”
Petunia folded the letter carefully, too carefully. “Harry, I think it’s best we go. Today.”
Harry blinked. “Today?”
“You need a guardian present.” Her voice held something firm now, something unfamiliar but not unwelcome. Determination. Fear. Anger, maybe. Most of it not aimed at Harry for once. “And you *do* need answers.”
“I have work,” Vernon protested, though even his tone lacked conviction.
“You can’t miss work,” Petunia said, already planning. “But Dudley has plans with Piers today, doesn’t he?”
Dudley nodded slowly. “Yeah, he’s expecting me around noon.”
“Good. You go there. Vernon, you go to work.” Petunia rose from her chair, smoothing her blouse with shaky hands. “Harry and I will drive to London.”
Harry felt the shift in the room like the moment before a storm. For the first time, Petunia looked protective of him. Not grudgingly, not by accident. Purposefully.
“Are you sure?” Harry whispered.
Her gaze softened. “You’re my sister’s boy. And Lily would haunt me if I didn’t see this properly done.”
Vernon swallowed, glancing at Harry with something almost respectful. “If the goblins say it’s important, best not leave it hanging.”
Harry’s chest tightened. This wasn’t how the Dursleys used to talk. Not about him and definitely not about magic.
Petunia handed him the folded letter. “Finish your breakfast, dear. Then get dressed. We’re going to London.”
Harry nodded slowly, fingers closing around the parchment. He looked down at the familiar, looping handwriting, Griphook’s signature sharp like the scratch of claws.
An inheritance test.
A guardian.
A vault he’d never fully understood.
And a nagging, growing question in his mind:
**What else had Dumbledore never told him?**
Harry swallowed the sudden shiver crawling up his spine.
Today, everything might change.
And for the first time in his life, Harry didn’t mind if it did.
---
The sky over Little Whinging was pale and cloud-thin by the time Harry and Petunia stepped outside. The neighborhood was still quiet, the kind of stillness particular to summer mornings where everyone slept in and the sun hadn’t yet burned the day into life.
Petunia locked the door behind them, her purse tucked under one arm. Her movements were neat and controlled, but Harry didn’t miss the stiffness in her shoulders, the way the worry settled between her shoulder blades like a weight.
He followed her to the car and slid into the passenger seat. The seatbelt clicked, the engine sputtered to life, and with a shaky exhale, Petunia Dursley pulled onto the road.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
Harry usually didn’t mind silence, it had been silent most of his life, but something about this one felt… charged. Heavy with questions. Heavy with things he suspected Petunia wanted to ask and wasn’t sure how.
Finally, as they merged onto the motorway toward London, Petunia cleared her throat.
“Harry,” she began, her fingers tightening around the wheel, “do you remember much of that day? When that giant man took you to… all of this?”
Harry blinked. “Hagrid? A little bit.”
A bit was putting it mildly. Hagrid had burst into his life like a hurricane, literally breaking down a door, then whisking him into a world he didn’t understand, explaining everything halfway and loudly, and answering questions only after stumbling through several tangents.
Harry didn’t say that part.
Petunia nodded in a way that said she had guessed it already.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she continued. “About that day. About Lily’s trip with our parents. It was very different.”
Harry turned in his seat, curious. “You went with her?”
“Yes.” Petunia’s voice softened with nostalgia and a bitterness older than Harry’s entire life. “Mum and Dad took her to London for school supplies. I insisted on going too. I was… jealous, I suppose. Angry. Confused.” A humourless laugh left her. “I thought they were replacing me with her magic because she was better...”
Harry’s chest tightened. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to admit out loud.” She straightened a bit in her seat. “But I remember the Leaky Cauldron. I remember the wall. I remember everything Hagrid showed us, though he seemed more at ease with your mother than he ever did with you that day he took you.”
And that, Harry realized, was *because* of Dumbledore. Because everything about Harry’s life had been filtered, controlled, arranged.
“Did…” Harry hesitated. “Did you like it? The first time?”
Petunia’s lips thinned, but her eyes softened. “It terrified me. And it thrilled Lily. Our parents were enchanted by it all, pun intended. I felt like an outsider from the moment we stepped through the wall.”
Harry looked down at his hands. “I know that feeling.”
She shot him a quick glance, guilt layering her expression. “Harry, I never meant, well. No. That’s not true. I did mean to keep magic away from the house. But I didn’t understand what that meant for *you*.”
He appreciated that. The honesty. The acknowledgement.
“Thanks,” Harry murmured.
The motorway hummed around them. Cars rushed past in the opposite direction. And gradually, the tension in Petunia’s posture eased.
By the time they reached London and found parking a few blocks from Charing Cross Road, her breathing had steadied and Harry’s nerves had settled into something like anticipation.
Petunia stepped out of the car and straightened her blouse. Harry slid his hands into his pockets and followed her down the street.
It was strange, he thought, to be doing this with her. To be walking into the magical world not with Hagrid, not with someone bumbling and half-explaining things, but with Petunia, who had hated magic for oh so long.
And yet here she was.
They turned onto Charing Cross Road, weaving through the growing pedestrian traffic. Harry scanned the shop signs until-
“There,” he said, nodding toward the narrow, dingy door squeezed between a bookstore and a record shop. The familiar sign, aged, chipped, faintly shimmering if one stared too long, read: *The Leaky Cauldron.*
Harry pulled the door open and stepped inside.
The pub was exactly as he remembered: dark, dusty, smoky in a way that made him feel simultaneously out of place and strangely… welcome. Wizards in robes nursed morning drinks, their conversations low and lazy. A kettle whistled in the back room. Someone’s cat slept on the bar.
Tom the barman glanced up, eyes widening slightly as he took in Petunia’s attire, bright, clean, aggressively Muggle.
But he greeted them with a polite nod and went back to wiping the counter.
Harry exhaled. “Okay. The back wall is this way.”
He led Petunia toward the small courtyard behind the pub. The air smelled of damp brick and faint smoke. Moss clung stubbornly to the stones.
Harry approached the brick wall with confidence that lasted exactly two seconds.
“…I don’t remember which one to tap.”
Petunia raised a brow. “You don’t?”
“No…” Harry stared at the wall. “Hagrid did it last year, but I wasn’t really paying attention. He sort of shoved me behind him while people stared at us. He never said how it works.”
Petunia made a small, disapproving noise. “Of course he didn’t.”
“I can go inside and ask someone,” Harry said awkwardly. “Maybe someone in there can-”
“Step aside, Harry.”
He blinked. “What?”
But Petunia had already moved past him.
She marched up to the wall with the confidence of someone who had been quietly storing information for over a decade. Her eyes scanned the bricks, counting under her breath. After a moment, she reached forward and tapped one brick, two up, three across, with her fingertip.
Nothing happened.
Harry waited, uncertain.
Then Petunia snorted. “Oh, honestly. I remembered where it *is*, it’s not like I can do the wandwork.” She looked over her shoulder at him expectantly. “Tap it, dear.”
“With… my wand?” Harry asked, feeling a bizarre mix of amusement and awe.
“Obviously.”
He pulled his wand from his pocket. The familiar warmth ran up his arm, settling behind his ribs. Petunia pointed again.
“That brick. Two up, three across.”
Harry tapped it.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the brick shivered.
The wall began to ripple, bricks folding inward like cards collapsing into themselves. Petunia gasped softly as the archway widened, revealing the bustling chaos of Diagon Alley.
Shops glittered with gold lettering. Steam coming from windows. Owls hooted as they flew overhead. Robes fluttered. People bustled in every direction like a living tapestry of noise and colour.
Harry looked up at Petunia.
She looked… overwhelmed, but still somehow composed. Her breath hitched in her throat, and Harry wished he could know what she was thinking about…
But she didn’t step back.
Instead, she squared her shoulders.
“Come along,” she said. “Let’s get this inheritance business sorted.”
Harry’s chest warmed.
Not for the magic.
Not for the Alley.
But for her.
Together, they stepped through the archway.
The crowd parted around them, a clearly Muggle woman in a prim blouse and a twelve-year-old saviour with wide eyes and a wand gripped firmly in his hand.
As they walked toward the towering white marble building of Gringotts at the far end of the street, Harry glanced up at Petunia.
“You remembered,” he said quietly. “After all this time.”
Petunia swallowed. “I remember everything about Lily. Even the things that weren’t about her specifically.”
He didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t say anything. Instead, he walked a little closer, the way a child might walk nearer to someone they trusted when the world became too big.
Gringotts loomed ahead, gleaming in the morning sun.
Whatever awaited them inside, they would face it together.
And Harry realized something startling:
For the first time in his life except for last year, he didn’t feel like he was walking into something alone.
---
Gringotts towered above the other Diagon Alley buildings like a slab of white stone carved from a mountain no one else could touch. The slanted steps leading up to its massive bronze doors glowed under the morning sun, polished by thousands of wizarding feet but still intimidatingly grand.
Petunia paused at the base of the marble stairs.
Harry looked back at her, worried she’d suddenly decide this was too much, too strange, too far from anything she’d allowed herself to be for over a decade.
But she inhaled sharply, adjusted the strap of her purse, and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Harry led the way up the stairs, the cool metal of his wand against his palm a quiet reassurance. Petunia climbed carefully behind him, her eyes darting between the goblin guards flanking the doors.
She whispered, “Goodness… they’re even smaller than I remember.”
Harry snorted softly. “Don’t say that where they can hear you.”
The doors swung open with an echoing creak. Cool air swept out from inside the bank, carrying the unmistakable scent of ink, parchment, and ancient stone.
The moment they stepped through the doors, Petunia’s entire posture shifted. Her spine stiffened, her chin lifted, and her movements took on the careful politeness of a woman entering a foreign embassy rather than a bank.
And in a way, she was.
Because Gringotts wasn’t just a bank, it was goblin territory, not wizarding or muggle.
The marble hall stretched out before them, gleaming enough to show faint distorted reflections. Rows of high counters lined the sides of the hall, each staffed by a goblin scribbling rapidly across ledgers or counting piles of gold that caught the light like fire.
Harry saw Petunia’s eyes widen. For once, she seemed truly speechless.
A few wizards and witches queued at different desks, some whispering, some shifting anxiously. Harry noticed more than one glance in his direction, his scar was uncovered today, but no one approached.
Harry was extremely grateful for that.
They moved toward an unoccupied desk. The goblin at this station was older, his ears longer and sharper, his eyes a piercing copper that flicked immediately to Harry’s forehead and then to Petunia’s well-pressed blouse.
“Name?” the goblin asked, voice gravelly and crisp.
“Harry Potter,” Harry said.
A ripple of recognition, sharp and unmistakable, flashed through the goblin’s expression. Not fear. Not reverence. Something closer to mild irritation, like a bureaucrat realizing the paperwork they were holding had suddenly become much more complicated.
“Potter,” the goblin repeated. “Follow me.”
Harry shot Petunia a reassuring look and followed the goblin through a narrow archway that led deeper into the bank. The marble floors gave way to darker stone, the air cooler here.
They reached a small office furnished with steep chairs and a claw-footed desk. The goblin gestured for them to sit.
“My name is Griphook,” he said. “I handle several accounts, including yours.”
Harry nodded. “Thank you for seeing us.”
Petunia sat stiffly beside him, legs crossed at the ankle, purse gripped in her lap like a shield. Her eyes flicked around the room, noting the shelves stacked with old scrolls, the small iron chest in the corner, the runes etched into the ceiling, and the several ornate paintings on the walls.
Griphook seated himself with a creak of leather. “Now, Mr. Potter. My message indicated you needed to conduct an inheritance examination.”
“Yes,” Harry said. His palms felt suddenly cold. “Um. There’s a problem as well. I… can’t access my vault.”
Petunia’s head snapped toward him. “Harry, what do you mean? They don’t let children walk around with piles of money, surely, but-”
“No,” Harry said, “it’s not that. I don’t have my key.”
Griphook’s expression sharpened. “You lost it?”
Harry swallowed. “Dumbledore has it.”
Silence.
Sharp, slicing silence.
Petunia looked at Harry as though he’d casually announced that a stranger had taken his passport while they were on holiday. “Why,” she said slowly, dangerously, “does that man have your key?”
“I- He said he needed to hold it for me,” Harry admitted. “Said he’d keep it safe. And I didn’t know how anything worked, so-”
“So you trusted him,” Petunia finished, voice trembling.
Harry didn’t trust Dumbledore, not at the minute with the look on Petunia and Griphook’s faces, but last year? He’d been desperate for guidance. For someone to choose him.
Griphook’s eyes narrowed to slits. “And how long has this… Dumbledore been in possession of your key?”
“Since my birthday,” Harry said. “Last year. Actually I think he had it before that too…”
Griphook’s knuckles tightened against the desk. “Without your permission?”
“I- I guess?” Harry said. “He said it was normal. I didn’t know it wasn’t.”
Petunia let out a soft, furious noise Harry had never heard from her before. “That man,” she whispered, “walks around like he’s some benevolent guardian angel, when really- oh, I cannot believe- Harry, why didn’t he tell you *anything*?”
Because he mustn’t have wanted me to know anything…
The thought sat like a stone in Harry’s throat. He didn’t say it out loud, but Petunia’s eyes met his, and from the way her expression softened into pained understanding, she knew he was thinking them.
Griphook tapped a long, sharp nail against the wood. “Mr. Potter. The behavior you have described is highly irregular.”
“Is it illegal?” Petunia demanded.
Griphook turned toward her, and for the first time since they arrived, his face softened. Not kindly, not even close, goblins didn’t do kindness the way humans understood it, but respectfully. Appreciatively. As if Petunia had asked exactly the right question.
“It is,” he said, “a violation of goblin banking protocol.”
Harry blinked. “So Dumbledore… isn’t supposed to have the key?”
“He should not have taken it,” Griphook said. “He should not hold it. Most importantly, he should not access your vault without your presence and signature. Goblin records do not permit unauthorized holding of anothers account.” His lip curled slightly. “Not unless someone with influence tampered with the initial records.”
Harry felt his heartbeat thud painfully in his chest. “Is that… Possible?”
“It should not be,” Griphook said sharply. “And yet it happens only with certain… individuals.” His tone left no doubt that he meant Dumbledore.
Petunia’s face had gone pale, then blotchy with rising fury. “So he took your key, kept you ignorant to everything, and may have tampered with a bank’s records? Harry, that is not normal behavior. That is, what’s the magical equivalent of identity fraud?”
Griphook’s lips twitched in a humorless smile. “A crime.”
Harry looked down at his hands. “I just… thought he was helping.”
The room went soft again, no less tense, but quieter. Petunia reached out as if to touch Harry’s arm, hesitated, then rested her hand gently over his.
“You shouldn’t have had to think he was helping,” she said. “You’re twelve. Adults are supposed to protect you. Not take advantage of you.”
Griphook cleared his throat. “Regardless, Mr. Potter, this simplifies our next step. Since you do not possess your own key, the inheritance test will serve as proof of identity and status. Once we confirm your magical lineage, we will issue you a new key and deactivate the one Dumbledore holds.”
Harry nodded slowly. “Okay. Thank You…”
Petunia straightened, regaining her sharpness. “And this exam, you’re certain it’s safe?”
Griphook bowed his head slightly. “Completely safe. It requires seven drops of blood. Nothing more.”
Petunia’s face blanched. “Blood- oh dear...” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I never liked the sight of it. Lily always told me I was far too squemish.”
Harry squeezed her hand lightly. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
She nodded shakily, gathering herself. “Very well. Just… warn me when you start.”
Griphook pressed a small rune on the desk. A parchment unfurled smoothly, spreading itself across the table.
He then produced a ceremonial silver dagger, small, clean, not at all threatening, but symbolic in the way magical tools often were.
“Mr. Potter,” the goblin said, sliding the dagger toward him, “when you’re ready.”
Harry reached for it with steady fingers, even as his heart hammered. He’d faced trolls, possessed teachers, and Voldemort himself. A tiny cut wasn’t exactly terrifying.
But the weight of what it represented, answers, truth, his *identity,* felt enormous.
Petunia turned her face away, covering her eyes with one hand.
Harry inhaled, pressed the blade lightly to his fingertip, and-
A knock at the door interrupted him.
All three of them looked up.
Another goblin stuck his head into the room. “Griphook. Director Ragnok requests an immediate report on the potential breach in Vault Security Protocol- oh.” The goblin’s eyes landed on Harry. Then on Petunia. Then on the inheritance parchment.
“…Is this the Potter situation?”
“Yes,” Griphook said curtly. “Close the door.”
The goblin shut it instantly.
Harry exchanged a glance with Petunia, who now looked even more unsettled.
Griphook took a breath. “It appears your case has already drawn attention, Mr. Potter. That is unusual.”
“Is that bad?” Harry asked.
Griphook tapped his fingers against the desk. “It means,” he said carefully, “that something about your vault, or your supposed magical guardian’s interference, is concerning enough that the Director himself wishes updates.”
Petunia let out a cold, sharp exhale. “Dumbledore,” she hissed.
Harry felt a tremor run through him.
Griphook nodded to the knife again. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Harry steadied himself.
Petunia squeezed her eyes shut.
He pricked his finger.
Seven drops of blood fell onto the parchment, each one glowing faintly before spreading into runes.
The parchment shimmered.
Whatever came next, none of them could have anticipated.
---
The reaction was instant.
The parchment flared gold, then silver, then a startling dark grey. The colours swirled and pulsed as if alive. Letters began carving themselves across the surface in shimmering red ink.
Petunia gasped, stepping back as though the magic might leap out at her.
Griphook’s eyebrows rose high. “Well. That is… unexpected.”
Harry stared as the words began to form, curling like smoke:
**MAGICAL CORE: GREY - RAREST CLASSIFICATION**
**MAGICAL SIGNATURE: EXCEPTIONALLY STRONG**
**PRIMARY BLOODLINE HEIRSHIPS:**
— **House Potter (through James Potter’s blood)**
— **House Peverell (through James Potter’s blood)**
— **House Slytherin (through conquest)**
Harry blinked. “Slytherin? But- I’m not-”
Petunia, whose fear had been focused on the dagger moments ago, now went absolutely still.
Griphook ignored her and continued reading as more text etched itself onto the parchment.
**ADDITIONAL FINDINGS:**
— **Last Will and Testament of James Fleamont Potter and Lily Evans-Potter has never been executed.**
— **Unauthorized account access detected yearly by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.**
The last line pulsed blue and then back to red.
Harry froze.
Petunia’s face drained of all colour.
“What?” Harry’s voice cracked.
Griphook tapped the parchment with a claw. “This indicates,” he explained, “that the Headmaster of Hogwarts has been entering your vaults annually since the night of your parents’ deaths.”
“He’s been what?” Petunia’s voice cracked. She spun toward Harry. “Harry- He said- He told us you’d be dangerous if we let you near magic. That you needed to be kept ignorant.” Her voice trembled with fury. “He used *you* to keep us from discovering that he was stealing from you.”
Harry swallowed hard. His stomach twisted. “Why would he take my money?”
Griphook’s mouth curled into something between a grimace and a smirk. “Gringotts does not speculate, Mr. Potter. However…” His eyes narrowed. “It is highly irregular for anyone, Chief Warlock or not, to have possession of a child’s vault key or make unauthorized withdrawals.”
Harry looked down at his empty hands. “He told me Hagrid had my key last year,” he said quietly. “But Hagrid said he got it from Dumbledore.”
Petunia sucked in a breath. “That- that coniving old man-” She caught herself, pressing a shaking hand to her mouth.
Harry clenched his fists. “So all year… he kept my key. He didn’t give it back.”
“And then,” Griphook added, voice sharp, “he ensured you returned to Muggles who would not know to question his visits.”
Harry didn’t realize he had stood up until the chair scraped back. “So he controlled where I lived, controlled my money, and didn’t tell me anything. And he told her-” he threw a glance at Petunia “not to let me learn anything about magic. Why?”
Petunia’s voice was low. “He wanted you dependent on him. If you didn’t know anything, then everything you learned would be through him.”
Harry stared at the parchment again. The words shimmered darkly.
*Heir of Slytherin*
*Exceptionally strong magical signature*
*Wills ignored*
*Vaults accessed without permission*
It was too much. Too fast. Too awful.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he whispered.
Griphook folded his hands on the desk. “Because someone made sure you would not ask the right questions.”
Harry’s pulse hammered.
Petunia placed a hand on his shoulder. Soft. Hesitant. But comforting in a way he’d never known from her. “Harry,” she said gently, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of this.”
He swallowed. Hard.
He wasn’t angry at her. He wasn’t even angry about the Dursleys anymore, not the same way he was last year. Because he could see it clearly now.
Dumbledore had put him with them. Had told Petunia to keep him ignorant. Had kept his vault key. Had stolen from him. Had ignored his parents’ will.
And Petunia- Petunia hadn’t even known she was helping him do it.
Once again, Harry felt *betrayed* by someone he was supposed to trust.
“What happens now?” Harry asked, his voice steadier than he felt.
Griphook looked satisfied. “Now, Mr. Potter, we correct it. We will retrieve a new vault key for you. We will provide documentation of the unauthorized withdrawals. And, if you wish, we can arrange a full audit of all accounts connected to your estate.”
Harry nodded slowly. “I want that.”
Petunia straightened, anger burning in her eyes. “And what about the will?” she demanded. “James and Lily’s will, why wasn’t it followed? Who prevented that?”
Griphook blinked, then reached into the drawer and pulled out a sealed parchment tied with black ribbon. “It was delivered. It was received. It was logged.” His voice dropped into a growl. “And it was locked away by Chief Warlock Dumbledore, who claimed temporary emergency authority.”
Petunia made a sound that was half a gasp, half a furious hiss.
Harry felt cold.
“Can I… read it?” he asked quietly.
“You may,” Griphook confirmed, “once proper procedures are enacted.”
Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. I want to do whatever I have to.”
“There will be forms,” Griphook warned.
Petunia sniffed. “We’ll manage.”
Harry managed a faint smile.
The parchment continued glowing faintly, the last line pulsing as though waiting for someone to acknowledge it:
**Unauthorized vault access: 14 instances detected.**
Petunia stepped closer, staring at it with open disgust. “He kept telling me,” she said softly, shaking her head, “not to tell you anything. To keep you away from magic. To make sure you were ‘normal.’ All so we wouldn’t discover he was picking your vault clean.”
Harry could hear the bitterness in her voice. Not bitterness at him, but at herself.
And at Dumbledore.
He swallowed hard. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
Petunia’s throat bobbed. “I should have questioned it,” she whispered. “I should have-”
“You are now,” Harry said. He meant it. And her eyes shone in a way he had never seen before.
Griphook cleared his throat. “The next step is to prepare your heir rings, Mr. Potter. You may claim them now or wait until you are of age.”
“I want them,” Harry said immediately.
Petunia stiffened. “Rings? Will they do anything dangerous?”
“They will bind magically to Mr. Potter alone,” Griphook replied. “They acknowledge his bloodlines and grant him certain protections and privileges within magical society.”
Petunia let out a slow breath, still tense but no longer panicking. “If it’s something he’s supposed to have… then yes. Let him take them.”
Griphook reached into the wooden box again, producing a smaller marble case. “Three heirships,” he murmured, more than a little impressed. “Potter. Peverell. Slytherin.”
Harry stared at it. “I’m… heir to all of them?”
“Yes,” Griphook said. “You hold three seats in the Wizengamot once you come of age.”
Harry felt a little sick. “Seats?”
“Political power,” Petunia translated softly, looking almost dazed. “A lot of it.”
Harry wasn’t sure whether to laugh, run away, or ask how she knew that.
He didn’t want power. He didn’t even want attention. But it seemed he didn’t have a choice. The world had already built pieces of it around him.
And Dumbledore had made sure none of it reached him.
Harry clenched his jaw. “We’ll fix it,” he said quietly. “All of it.”
Petunia nodded. “Yes, we will.”
Griphook gave a sharp, approving grin. “Then let us begin.”
Chapter Text
A knock, then a whisper of conversation at the door; the goblin who had announced Director Ragnok before slipped inside and bowed his head. Griphook barked a string of instructions in clipped goblin, and the newcomer scampered off like a clerk with urgent errands.
Petunia watched him go, jaw tight. “What are they doing?” she asked.
Griphook folded his hands. “First: we will remotely deactivate the key that Chief Warlock Dumbledore holds in our custody. We will issue a bank spare to you, Mr. Potter, which will remain dormant until the inheritance paperwork is complete.” His voice carried the weight of someone promising a hammer when you most needed it. “Second: one goblin will locate and retrieve the Potters’ will. A second will investigate why it was logged but never executed. A third will run a full audit on the withdrawals recorded under your account.” He paused, looking at Harry with an unsettlingly bright intensity. “And I will accompany you to the Potter vault.”
Harry felt both swamped and buoyed, relief at action, a cold pit in his stomach at the idea of Dumbledore taking whatever he pleased. Petunia’s knuckles were white around her purse strap.
“Will they find out why Dumbledore did this?” she demanded.
Griphook’s mouth was a hard line. “Goblins do not speculate; goblins follow records. If the Headmaster altered or falsified a claim, we shall find the signatures and the inconsistencies.” He made a sound that could have been amusement or contempt. “Then we shall ask the Ministry to explain why he felt above the law.”
Harry thought of Dumbledore’s ring of soft smiles and solemn eyes and felt bile rise. He had trusted, or at least accepted, so much in the name of gratitude. Now gratitude tasted like ash.
The same goblin who’d gone to fetch the director returned with two others; one took up a tablet and began entering commands, while the other bowed and extended a long, slender hand toward the locked drawer of Griphook’s desk. With a clatter, a small brass device crawled across the desk and pulsed once. A soft chime sounded. Griphook nodded. “Deactivation confirmed. The key will no longer function for withdrawals. We shall retrieve it from Dumbledore for chain-of-custody.”
Harry let out a long breath. Petunia exhaled too, a sound like someone dropping a heavy box.
Griphook’s expression softened fractionally, then hardened again. “If you will follow me, we shall visit your vaults directly.” He rose, vault-papers under one arm, and led them through the labyrinthine halls of Gringotts. The corridors smelled of old paper and iron and the faint tang of dragon-hide, a scent Harry had always associated with seriousness and secrets.
They entered a wide carriage room; a brass cart waited, its rails polished and the harnesses arranged tidily. A goblin driver bowed. The ride down to the vaults was not the smooth swoop Harry had shared with Hagrid last year; this one rattled and sang as it plunged through tunnels, a journey that tasted of stone and time. Petunia gripped the edge of her seat as if it were a handrail of courage.
When the cart stopped and the doors opened, the vault corridor stretched before them, a cathedral of iron and bronze, each door engraved with names and sigils. Griphook walked like a goblin who had spent a lifetime tracing every hinge. He pointed to a polished bronze arch with the Potter family crest.
“There,” he said. “We will open it. The will shall be located, and we will inventory what remains.”
A faint tremor along his fingers told Harry that this mattered, that these were not mere trinkets, but the bones of a family.
---
The vault opened with a soft moan of gears, and a cold wind breathed out as if the room itself had been holding its breath. Rows of trunks and boxes gleamed in dim reflected light. Things slept on shelves like memories, old tea tins, a polished silver cup, a small chest with a lock the size of a fist.
Harry stepped across the threshold with the reverence of someone once excluded from a family picture, now permitted to stand in the frame. Petunia followed a pace behind him that was reverent and brutal at once: reverent because she was finally seeing what Lily had left; brutal because it was evidence of everything she had been told not to let Harry see.
Griphook gestured to a low table and set down a heavy sack. “Inventory,” he said. “Take what you wish, it is all yours after all.”
Harry moved like a man in a dream. He picked up two small pouches that clinked with coins, one was normal galleons, and the other wasn’t just wizarding galleons but a small mixed-stash of heirlooms: old wizarding coins with dates he couldn’t place, and a few banknotes from far-off places. That clink in his palm was the sound of possibilities.
He lifted a stack of old leather-bound books. The covers were cracked with use; titles in ornate script told of family histories and forgotten charms. He ran a thumb over the spines: *Peverell Lines and Wards*; *Household Rites of the Potter Lineage*. He smiled without meaning to; he had always loved books.
There were scrolls, yellowing and tied with ribbons, the edges moth-eaten but the seals unbroken. A tiny box sat under the scrolls, its lid engraved with swirls in a language his eyes couldn’t quite make sense of. He turned it over; the metal was warm from where it had been sat; the engraving shimmered faintly as if speaking just out of earshot.
Petunia’s gaze snagged on one small chain on a velvet cushion. She gasped and reached out for it, then stopped herself, eyes filling with tears she refused to shed. Lily’s favourite pendant, a small flower, silver with an inset that caught the light like a drop of dew. It was one half of a matching set, and she herself had the matching one with a lily flower in the attic at home.
Petunia’s fingers trembled as she reached for it again. For a heartbeat she held it above the cushion, thumb running along the petal groove like someone reading Braille. Then, as if remembering a propriety drilled into her for years, she set it back down with an air of composed restraint and turned around.
Harry’s eyes caught the movement. He saw the shadow cross her face, longing, grief, the memory of a sister lost and a child raised by virtual strangers. Quietly, when Petunia wasn’t looking, Harry picked up the necklace and tucked it into his pocket. He felt a flush of guilt at not letting Petunia know he has it but also a fierce, irrational necessity, a private reclaiming.
He lifted the tiny engraved box again and turned it slowly. Something in it hummed faintly, as if the metal remembered a touch. He slipped it into the dragon-hide bag Griphook had given him earlier, along with the books and scrolls. The coins went into a small pouch, and the scrolls into a leather tube that Griphook labeled and sealed then handed back.
“Careful,” he advised. “Those scrolls are family archives. Do you understand the gravity of what you are holding?”
Harry nodded, too full for words. He felt small and enormous at once. Small because this treasure had been hidden from him; enormous because he had a right to it now.
Petunia came back to his side then and placed a hand on the bag as if adding her own weight to the claim. “They planned this for him,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was confessing to herself. “They meant for him to know who he was. We were meant to-”
“We will fix that,” Harry said softly.
Griphook’s voice cut in like a bell. “Take what you need,” he said. “We will catalogue the rest.”
Harry looked at the tiny box one last time. Something about it felt like a key to a locked sentence. He slid it into the bag and pulled the drawstrings tight.
---
Back in Griphook’s office the air felt thin and bright: magic, like open windows on a hot day. Griphook produced a spare dragonhide bag for Harry, the leather soft but strong in his hands. “Keep it close,” he said. “We will transport anything of antiquarian value separately.”
Harry bowed his head in gratitude. “Thank you.”
There was a pause, then, like an answering bell, heavy footfalls echoed down the hall. Two goblins entered, one carrying a sealed scroll tied with black ribbon, the other carrying another ornate key, Gringotts’ spare, newly forged.
Griphook held the will as though it might burn him. He slit the ribbon with a small knife and unrolled the parchment. The script was formal, a steady hand that read like a voice from the past.
Harry’s name appeared in the clauses. The symbols of Potter and Peverell glittered in the margins, ancient sigils like family crests come alive. His pulse hammered.
The will declared specifics in the dry, legal voice of the ancient: at age eleven, Mr. Harry James Potter was to be granted the Potter Heir Ring and the Peverell Heir Ring; he was to receive the Potter Family Grimoire; and the Peverell Grimoire was to be entrusted to his safekeeping.”
Petunia’s breath hitched. “They intended protections,” she said, voice small. “They intended guidance. My sister wanted him to have… everything she could give.”
Harry felt the truth of it land in him like a stone dropped into a dark well. He had been intentionally blocked from protections his parents had seen fit to place. For reasons he could no longer call innocent.
“That will was received and catalogued,” Griphook said, his voice low and dangerous. “And then-” he held up the document he’d pulled from his drawer, “it was sealed under claim by Albus Dumbledore, who asserted emergency custodian status. We have records of this.”
Petunia made a noise like someone choking and set both hands to her chest. “He lied,” she said simply. “He lied to protect himself.”
Griphook’s fingers flexed. “We will requisition the items stated immediately.” He sent another goblin scurrying; a series of clacks and soft thumps followed. Within moments, the office was full of a quiet industry, goblins returning with three books, and a velvet-covered box.
Griphook opened the box like a priest unveiling an icon. Inside lay three rings, arrayed on a cushion: one plain silver with a crest Harry recognized as the Potters’, one hammered band carved with Peverell sigils, and a third, darker and colder, with a surface that caught light oddly, like water under moonlight.
Beside the rings came three battered grimoires, their leather worn but edges blazing with enchantment, the Potter Family Grimoire, the Peverell Grimoire and the Slytherin Family Grimoire. The Peverell book smelled of old iron and frost; the Potter grimoire hummed softly when Harry held it, like a book remembering its owner, and the Slytherin grimoire felt cold and hard.
Petunia reached out and touched the Potter Grimoire with a trembling finger, as if the leather might be warm. A tear escaped her eye before she could stop it. “They wanted him to be safe,” she whispered. “To know. To be protected.”
Harry swallowed. He looked at Griphook. “Thank you,” he said. He felt gratitude like an anchor, to have someone on his side in a world that suddenly felt very crowded with enemies.
Griphook inclined his head. “These items are theirs by law. They will match to Mr. Potter’s signature and core. But be warned: heir items are not mere trinkets. They bond. They will test you, provoke you, and demand truth.”
Harry nodded. “I understand.”
The goblin who had gone to investigate the will’s suppression had not yet returned. Griphook frowned and rubbed his chin. “That matter remains unresolved,” he said. “We shall press on it. For now, these items are inventoried and ready.”
---
Griphook sat them in a careful semicircle and opened the Potter grimoire first, but his voice was steady as he addressed Harry. “These rings will bind to you. Each band is tempered to react to the bearer’s magic differently. You will feel them.”
Harry’s hands hovered. His palms were damp. He had imagined old rings before, small, ceremonial things, but these seemed older and heavier than any ring should be.
He lifted the Potter ring and slid it onto the first finger of his right hand.
Warmth unfurled up his wrist like sunlight through a window. It wasn’t just warmth, it was a flood of belonging, a rush of memories that weren’t his but felt like echoes: a father’s laugh, a mother’s handwriting, a tea stain on a letter, a porch in late autumn. Heat pricked his skin and his eyes stung. For a moment, he felt loved in a way that had nothing to do with pity or obligation. He felt seen.
He swallowed around a new kind of ache. “I-” he started, and his voice cracked with something that might have been relief.
Petunia reached for his hand as though to steady him; her fingers closed around his wrist, grounding him in flesh and present. “Do you hear them?” she murmured, but not of voices, of memories. She looked at him with an expression that was both awe-struck and mournful.
Griphook cleared his throat. “The Peverell ring next.”
Harry slid it onto his middle finger. Immediately the world tilted. His lungs felt too small; breath became a work of will. The floor seemed to drop and his knees wanted to buckle. A dizzy, horizonless vertigo opened behind his eyes; he gripped the chair with both hands until his fingers left crescent marks on the wood.
When the room stopped spinning, a different sensation had settled in his chest: a deep, hollow awe, a sense of smallness that was not insignificant, but linked to something vast and old and terrible in a way that made the hair on his arms lift. Power felt like a cliff-edge; he felt both drawn and afraid.
Petunia’s mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, and Griphook’s brow furrowed. “Control,” the goblin said carefully. “The Peverell heirship touches on death-warding. It is ancient and… serious.”
Harry took a long time to breathe. The Peverell ring felt like standing at the rim of something enormous and listening to the bones of the earth.
Finally, only one ring remained.
He picked up the Slytherin band last, its surface cold like liquid night. As he eased it onto the next finger, a sliver of ice slid across his skin and a voice, not words, not in the way he thought language should function, whispered along the nerve endings at the back of his neck. It was not a human whisper; it was wet with the sound of hisses. He recognised it as Parseltongue, and the syllables pressed like a key into something in his mind.
Harry flinched and looked up. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
No one else had. Petunia blinked. Griphook’s long ears twitched, but his face betrayed no comprehension.
The whispering faded like smoke. A coldness spread from the ring like frost; it made his teeth ache with the memory of a winter he had never lived.
Harry’s throat worked. He could taste something metallic at the back of his tongue, the memory of iron, of the taste of an old battle, of blood. It felt wrong and right at once.
“Parseltongue,” he said slowly.
Griphook’s face remained unreadable. Petunia put a hand to her mouth.
Harry swallowed. He could not guess what any of this meant except that the rings had already reached into him, and that something older than Hogwarts stirred, recognition clicking into place.
Chapter Text
They sat in the small office like a family around a hearth, but the hearth threw light on skeletons rather than warmth. The goblin who had been sent to find out why the will suppression occurred had still not returned. Griphook paced a little, his fingers worrying a tassel of his robe.
“It is likely,” he said finally, “that the will was suppressed by influence or insistence. We shall press Ragnok to extract more information. I will owl you as soon as I have our official findings. You will be informed of any legal proceedings. The Ministry may be involved; the goblin director has already requested counsel.”
Harry felt hollow and grateful at once. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it. He had never felt so seen by an institution in his life.
Petunia’s jaw worked. “What do we do now? Do we go to Diagon Alley? Do we- do we tell-”
“We shop,” Harry said with a dry little laugh that was more like a sob smoothed with breath. “We buy things.”
Petunia looked at him like he’d suggested fireworks and a funeral at once. Then her face softened. “Whatever you need, dear. We’ll start small, clothes, perhaps; a trunk. Books. Some new food for Hedwig. And then… we shall plan.”
Griphook inclined his head. “Do take care with the grimoires. They are not ordinary tomes. Consult an expert on anything dangerous before you attempt to use it. I will write a recommendation for a reputable arcanist.”
Harry tucked the dragonhide bag under his arm. Petunia’s expression softened into something like fierce protectiveness. She rose. “Let us be going then,” she said. “Before the Alley swallows us whole.”
Griphook produced a small slip of parchment with a seal and pressed it into Harry’s palm. “For your records. If anyone asks, you have proof that Gringotts is acting on your behalf.” He fixed his hook-like eyes on Petunia. “Madam, if you ever wish to lodge a formal complaint regarding custodial interference, the bank will assist you in drafting it.”
Petunia blanched, then set her jaw. “We will,” she said. “We will do all of that. But not yet.”
Harry and Petunia left Gringotts with the dragonhide bag at Harry’s hip and the weight of what they’d taken at the core of his chest. The sun outside felt too bright after subterranean air, a world of daylight and pigeons and shop noise, and as they stepped back into Diagon Alley the noise of it felt different now, as though every laugh and shout belonged to a place that had withheld things from him.
---
They walked side by side, the alley unspooling ahead: banners, signs, windows glittering with cauldrons and robes. Harry’s mind moved too fast, small facts snapping into place like a grim jigsaw. Dumbledore’s insistence that Petunia keep Harry away from magic. The key. The sealed will. The unauthorized withdrawals. The rings.
“He wanted me to be naïve,” Harry said suddenly, voice low enough that only Petunia could hear. His fingers clenched on the strap of the bag. “He wanted me dependent on him. Like… like a pet.”
Petunia’s mouth flattened, and for a long moment she did not speak. Then her lips pressed together and she looked at him with an expression Harry would carry forever: a combination of lit grief and righteous fury. “He used me too, Harry. He used the only leverage he could find on me, my fear for my family. He told me to keep you from learning and to avoid making waves. He cast perfected pity like a net and tossed you into it.”
Harry let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Why would he do that?”
“To control you,” Petunia said simply. “Because a child who depends on you is easier to keep in place than a child who knows how to stand.” She seemed like she was figuring it all out as she spoke.
They fell into a silence that was heavy with anger and grief and, beneath it all, a welling relief. Petunia’s hand found his and squeezed. “We will make sure you know everything you need to know. We will make sure you have it all.”
Harry glanced at her. She looked older somehow, but steadier than she had any right to be this morning. He felt his heart lift at the thought of it: Petunia not as an obstacle but as an ally.
They paused outside a shop window displaying trunks and robes. His reflection looked small and fierce in the glass. He breathed and let the alley swallow them in its throng.
---
Petunia’s transformation into a practical guardian happened in a flurry. She made a list on a scrap piece of paper with a pen out of her purse and marched them down the street like a general in sensible shoes.
First stop: robes. Harry found himself measured by an elderly witch with gentle eyes who told him his posture was poor and his smile crooked. He bought a second set of school robes, a couple of tunics, and a pair of dragon-hide gloves that felt like armour when he slid them on.
Next: a trunk. The trunk-man demonstrated a trunk with an interior expanded by charmwork: a bottomless compartment that smelled faintly of cedar and candle-smoke, a fold-out desk, and a small lined library rack. Harry asked about wards and the man produced an intricate little emblem that, when placed inside the lid and traced with a wand, made a tiny shimmer of protection. “Blood ward,” he said in an aside, and Petunia’s hand hovered over the latch. She remembered Lily, rituals, and protections she hadn’t thought possible. She nodded once, decisively. “Make sure you insure it.”
Books came next: of course he got books for his second-year curriculum, but also something Petunia insisted on, a slim manual on etiquette for formal wizarding functions and a heavier, old volume on Wizengamot procedure that made Harry swallow. Petunia tucked a thin book into his hands with an odd, proud smile. “This is for Hermione, if your friend likes books as much as you say,” she said. “She’ll like it. I know Lily did.” Harry looked and saw that it was a collection of wizarding children’s stories.
Harry aslo bought a Chudley Cannons poster for Ron because he could imagine Ron’s face and because it felt like an ordinary kindness in a day crowded with enormous ones. Petunia frowned at the sport but let him, muttering about how it looked dangerous.
They drifted toward the Magical Menagerie more by chance than design. Harry had promised himself he would focus on textbooks and rules, but decided to treat Hedwig as well. She got a new padded perch, a larger cage with a folding flight-lid, a grooming brush, and treats that made the owl puff up in imagined delight. Petunia watched him choose with an expression that was half exasperation, half wonder, like seeing something precious learn to be precious.
Every purchase felt like reclaiming a part of himself. Each bag added to the trunk felt like a small stitch closing a wound. Petunia insisted on carrying a few of his things herself, and Harry let her.
---
They wandered around Magical Menagerie some more when Harry first noticed her. An animal that uncoiled itself like a ribbon behind glass.
It was the silvery yellow colour that attracted him first, not the common green or the plain grey of many snakes, and then the eyes. Green, sharp as a new coin. Solis, he thought without meaning to, though he did not name her aloud yet.
When Harry approached, the snake rose and pressed her head to the glass, tongue flicking. Harry’s breath hitched. He found he was whispering before he could stop himself, the sounds hissing like a memory on his tongue. Petunia went still beside him, face a mask of fascination and, beneath it, fear.
“Parseltongue,” Harry said under his breath, feeling the word like a stone dropped into a well.
Petunia’s hand found his and squeezed. “Can you… understand her?”
“Yes,” he said. “She- She’s listening to me too.”
Harry kept his voice low. He bent and spoke in the soft, sibilant cadence that always made him feel as if he were speaking to the center of something. The snake’s eyes brightened and she slithered to a spot by a small sunstone; the owner of the shop, a lean woman with bright hair, watched and then nodded with a professional detachment only to customers who were not foreign or foolish around the creatures.
“The silvery yellow colt python? Rare import,” she murmured to Petunia, not realising who Harry was. “Very calm. Already used to human hands. She’ll bond quickly to the quiet boy.”
Harry looked up at Petunia. “Aunt Petunia… can I buy her? Please?”
Petunia’s mouth was a thin line. She imagined Vernon’s face, the house, a snake in the kitchen. But she saw the way Harry’s shoulders relaxed when the snake pressed her head to the glass. She saw his hand tremble a fraction with affliction and joy. Her answer came in a small, reluctant exhale. “Yes. But we tell must call Vernon at work to let him know.”
“Deal,” Harry said, beaming.
The shopkeeper boxed the snake in a travel carrier with careful spells and charm-sealed the lid. Harry bought a terrarium, heat-runes, branches for climbing, bedding, enchanted toys that squeaked in lullabies, sterilizing salts, a travel carrier for emergencies, and more food than the shopkeeper thought prudent. Harry handed over the coins with a grin.
They went out with Solis slumbering around Harry’s shoulders, her scales catching the alley light like frost.
---
The trunk was heavier now, bulging with books and clothes, the grimoires wrapped in cloth and placed carefully on the top before the lid was closed. Everything except Solis, who slept on his shoulders like a small, sleeping sun.
They walked back toward the Leaky Cauldron, the pub’s sign swinging in a gentle breeze. Petunia’s steps slowed. She looked down at Harry with a new expression, and something in her loosened as if an old, painful knot had finally given way.
She stopped, and for a moment neither of them moved.
“Harry…” she said quietly, and the syllable trembled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I should have-” Her voice broke, succeeded by a breath like someone giving away a long-held secret.
Harry felt an unexpected swell in his chest. The apology wasn’t everything, but it was everything he needed at once: acknowledgement, ownership, a bridge.
“We’re fixing it now,” he said. It was half promise, half instruction to himself. He tucked the dragonhide strap higher over his shoulder and reached into his shirt to touch the warmth of Lily’s necklace against his chest, a private comfort.
Petunia’s hand found his and rested there, fingers light but steady. Together they stepped into the doorway of the Leaky Cauldron and then out into Muggle London, two people who had been kept apart by a dozen lies finally agreeing on a path forward.
They walked not as adversaries, not as distant relatives trading barbs, but as a peculiar, beginning kind of family. The day behind them had given them knowledge and a wound; the day ahead was theirs to stitch.
And Harry, feeling the rings at his fingers like small, patient guardians, let himself believe, perhaps for the first time, that he might have a future that was actually his.
---