ACT5CH12 - RUSH HOUR

They landed hard.

The moment solid ground formed beneath his boots, Harry let go of Daphne. Her fingers slipped from his arm as he took a single step forward — then another — before his knees buckled.

His stomach clenched like it had been hexed.

He dropped, one hand bracing against the warped floorboards, and vomited.

The sound was wet and ugly in the stillness. Acid burned up his throat, but it wasn’t the sickness that made it rise. But the devastation inside the Ministry courtroom refused to leave his sight, as if somebody had cast a permanent sticking charm and pasted it in the forefront of his thoughts.

He had just wanted to get away. Needed a moment without their stares. Their accusing looks, telling him that he was the monster they believed him to be. Because the truth was…

He was afraid too.

Not of them, but himself.

“You okay?” Daphne asked.

He was not. 

He spat again, wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

Behind him, Daphne hadn’t moved. Not a word. Just quiet breathing and the soft scuff of her boot shifting slightly on cracked wood.

Harry exhaled slowly, knuckles tight against the floor.

Daphne looked at the studio apartment around her. The entire place reeked of burnt wood and a sour tang of what could only be obscurial energy. Hairline cracks spidered across the ceiling, and the eastern wall had partially collapsed, exposing fractured brick and jagged plaster. Sunlight speared in through the hole, sharp and indifferent.

Beneath their feet, the floor groaned. The floorboards were warped, blackened at the edges. A fine layer of soot clung to everything. Near the hearth, what remained of a chair slouched sideways, half its frame splintered and the cushion gutted like prey.

A shattered bookshelf had vomited its contents across the room. Pages curled like autumn leaves, most of them scorched or reduced to ash. The wall by the kitchenette was stained with the raw magical residue of something explosive and furious, long since cooled but not forgotten.

Daphne stepped over the cracked edge of what used to be a rug. His boots crunched glass — potion vials, judging by the sharp scent of something alchemical still clinging to the floor. She looked through the now shattered window and saw a familiar, bright white edifice looming opposite her.

“We’re… in Diagon Alley?”

“Dad and Sirius jointly owned this flat. A flat that Dad owned. Sirius handed it over to me after he adopted me into the family….” he trailed off. “Just another example to prove that I end up destroying whatever I touch.”

Daphne scowled. “What happened — oh, don’t tell me —”

“I set up an office here for Percy Weasley to work from,” said Harry, slowly getting up. “Neville exploded right above this. Yes, just my luck.”

“What is going to happen to Longbottom?”

“Last I heard, Professor Scamander took him away with him to the continent. My guess is someplace where the British Ministry cannot extradite him easily. Yet another family that got ruined because of me. Daphne, I — I’ll just apparate you to —”

“Cinnamon Grove, and then return to Azkaban to hide for the rest of your life, blaming yourself for whatever happened. Tell yourself you’re just a gatekeeper. That if you stay out of the way, if you stay contained, the world will somehow balance itself.”

Harry looked at her in surprise. From the very beginning, Daphne Greengrass had a way of cutting short to the heart of the matter that would turn any Gryffindor green with envy.

“Seems like the only good thing I can do right now,” he murmured, turning around. Voldemort was discorporated, and Ekrizdis was a non-threat. With Azkaban sealed under the Fidelius, and with Amelia Bones at the helm and Dumbledore to help her, they really didn’t need him. Really, it would have been better if  —

“And now you’re thinking it was a bad idea to let me and Dad in on the Fidelius secret in the first place,” Daphne pointed out.

Harry decided not to acknowledge that statement. He had his back on her. She couldn’t see his expression. It had worked before with the others and —

“Fair warning! You tend to square your shoulders slightly when you’re actively trying to pretend to ignore me.”

…Bugger.

He turned around. “I thought Death stopped all forms of psychic intrusion. And speaking of that, I didn’t know you knew Legilimency.”

“I don’t,” she deadpanned. “I don’t need it to know what’s cooking in that head of yours.”

“I… have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” she said. “I know you, Harry Potter. You think you just proved it to them that you’re a monster. You didn’t. You showed them that you have become the one thing they don’t know how to control. Someone that had the power to resist and overpower a literal god. The Harry Potter I know doesn’t break so easily.”

“Not broken,” he admitted. “I nearly was, before, back when I was trapped in St. Mungo’s. But even if you break, it’s not impossible to put yourself back together. It’s really what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt since then.”

"What did you see?" she pushed him.

"The end," he said simply. "I saw the end of my path."

"What was it?"

Harry exhaled. “Back when I faced Quirrell as a firstie, Voldemort told me that there is no good or evil. Only power, and those too weak to seek it.”

The words tasted like ash. He hadn’t thought about that phrase in years. Not since first year. Not since the mirror.

Back then, it had felt like a warning. Like Voldemort whispering through the edges of temptation.

Now though?

“Turns out, he had it right. He just… didn’t think it through.”

He let the silence settle before he spoke again.

“There’s something worse than those too weak to seek power. People who have power — true power — and are too afraid to use it. The ones who hold titles, positions, influence, legitimacy—and still choose to do nothing. Chose silence over action. Procedure over protection. And then panic when someone finally stands up and does what needs doing.”

And so they clung to law. To process. To parchment. People who kept power under glass and pretended it wasn’t their problem. 

They built systems to hold back monsters, then forgot that monsters don’t ask for permission. That sometimes, you have to be the one to knock first.

“You knew something like this would happen,” said Daphne. “We all warned you. They would want to make a Dumbledore out of you.”

He laughed again. It was just as empty as his gaze. “I doubt they ever had a chance. No, that’s not what I’m afraid of, Daphne.”

It wasn’t that he had to fight back that worried him. Or that he had earned the ire of the entire Wizengamot. Or the power he had used.

No, what truly scared him was the way the power had come to him so easily.

“You know,” he said, “when I became the Eternum… I had access to everything.”

He said it like a confession. Like a priest remembering a sin he’d never committed but still carried.

“All the power of the Universe at my fingertips. And in that moment, I saw them. All of them.”

He met her gaze.

“Future versions of me. Hundreds. Thousands. Twisted by time, by loss, by glory, by madness. Some were saviors. Heroes. Monsters. One of them ruled over a world of bone and ash. One of them turned Death itself into a weapon. One lived forever by making sure no one else did.”

Daphne didn’t interrupt.

“One became the Master of Permanence. Untouched, even by Death. An immortality that would terrify even Voldemort. Another was Chaos incarnate. A warlord. A god-king. A shepherd, guiding souls to their final rest.”

His voice was low. Measured. Final.

“I walked past every future that asked me to be a god. Or a tyrant. Or a hero with too many statues and not enough soul. I rejected them all.”

“I thought I had chosen differently,” he said softly. “I did not want to use this power, but I didn’t just want to throw it away either. I just wanted to keep it away from those that were not worthy to lay their hands on it. I… I thought that by building the Gate, I’d be a guardian. A custodian.”

“Responsibility,” murmured Daphne. “Not power.” 

“It was… unbearably naive of me to think that I could limit myself to that one act. That I would just watch. Guard it. Keep out what didn’t belong. I thought I was rejecting power.”

He turned to her, and his voice sharpened.

“I was wrong. So very wrong.”

Her breath caught.

“I didn’t reject power,” he said. “I became it.”

He paused for a moment. 

“I became the version that doesn’t want the throne, doesn’t need to dominate. I became the throne itself. Much like the blade of Godric Gryffindor, waiting. Watching. Only moving when the world leaves him no choice.”

“And what End has the Throne seen for itself?”

“The only way it can,” he said, shaking his head. “The Wizengamot is so worried that I became the Gatekeeper, they think I turned into a twisted monster that probably sold its soul to the Anima to gain these powers. Maybe they are true, and maybe I have indeed changed.”

Another bark of laughter.

“What they don’t realize is that they are only half-right. The change… it isn’t an event. It is a spectrum.”

Daphne held her silence.

"You see the people who need you, and you try to help them,” said Harry. “It doesn’t matter if you’re seeing a grown-up man slowly turn to ash and die a horrific death because he touched you. You see the entire school look at you from the corner of their eyes because they are too afraid you would release Slytherin’s monster on them. You know dementors are an abomination and they hurt you in ways you cannot imagine, but you secretly like it because in those moments of agony, you hear your parents, reaffirming that they loved you. You know you house the End of the World but you bear it, understand it, even attempt to sympathise with it because there are people that care about you who would not want you to lose yourself to it. And every time you make that impossible choice, you give a part of yourself away, piece by piece. Sometimes to the people you know, sometimes to people who you've never met, and who will never know what you've lost for them."

"Until there is nothing left of you?" Daphne asked quietly. He shook his head.

"There's always more left to lose," he told her. "It's when everyone else looks at you, and none of them can understand you anymore, when none of them can see the path that led you there, when they can't even see you as a human anymore despite what you've done for them. No matter how much you've given to them, they can only see a monster anymore."

"And you keep on, despite that,” said Daphne.

“Yes, or, it’s what I’d have done. But it’s like I told you back at your place. I have duties. Responsibilities. Mantles to uphold. I have to find a way to get Sirius back, get rid of Voldemort for good, and most importantly, live my life with those I care about. And anybody that thinks it’s a bright idea to come between me and that goal will have to face consequences.”

Daphne shivered at his words. “What… is going inside that anarchic head of yours?”

A deep and resounding Cheshire grin slowly appeared on his face. “Just took a leaf out of Sirius’s book.”

Daphne narrowed her eyes dangerously.

....

....

For the daughter of a cut-throat businessman like Joshua Greengrass, Daphne had no trouble admitting that goblins intimidated her more than a little bit. Something about those snarky, calculative, greedy eyes invoked a feeling of distrust in her. 

It didn’t help that the goblin bank was basically an underground fortress that was rumoured to run for miles underground. As a Greengrass and lover of open spaces, just the idea of being inside Gringotts made her feel claustrophobic.

Really, that she had survived four years and more living in the dungeon dormitories of Slytherin House sometimes surprised her.

Maybe the Hat had been onto something when it had suggested Ravenclaw. She wasn’t deeply studious by any means, at least not until she saw a practical application. But the open spaces of Ravenclaw tower would have been a nice bonus.

That and being left alone.

As she traipsed up the stairs and stepped past the magnificent bronze doors into the antechamber that tapered into a long hallway leading to the general banking services, she took careful note of the slight shift in the atmosphere.

Not fear, not quite. But a ripple. A tension just taut enough to hum beneath the surface, like a violin string stretched too tight. The goblin guards flanking the long hallway were stoic as ever — motionless statues of iron and old blood — yet she saw it.

A subtle nod. A shift of posture. Eyes narrowing with recognition.

Had word travelled that quickly, or were they merely afraid of suffering the mythical wrath of the Gatekeeper?

Harry strode through the hallway with a confidence that could almost be termed as brazen. Perhaps he had finally learnt how to exercise his power and fame, or had he merely realized how little time he had at his hands before the Ministry caught up?

“May I help —” the goblin teller began.

“I’m here to see Griphook,” Harry said. “About matters most important and profitable. My name is Potter.”

The goblin shifted in his scarlet uniform. Several guards stepped behind Daphne, and for a moment, she feared she was about to be attacked. Instead, the guards stayed right there.

“No protocols this time?” Harry challenged, a strange cheerful expression on his lips.

The wee little thing gave them a fanged grin. “I’m a goblin, Wizard Potter. Profit is everything to us.”

The two of them were escorted down the many levels of the building, and through the use of a private staircase at that, bypassing rails, carts and protocol — all the way to a large, spartan hall with a room that looked like a battlefield where paperwork had risen up and overthrown civilization.. Two goblins sat on the other side of a long table, dressed in managerial suits, while about a dozen more goblins kept poring over an endless number of documents at frightening pace.

“Just what’s going on?” Daphne whispered.

Harry gave her a look that was equivalent of I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Or it would have, except for that damnable smile on his lips. 

Like any mature adult, Daphne replied as good as she got.

By elbowing him in the ribs.

“Ah, Wizard Potter, come in,” said one of the two managerial goblins, standing up as they approached. Another oddity. As far as Daphne knew, goblins didn’t give a hippogriff’s shit about pureblood protocols and almost obsessively treated wizards like they were beneath the scum of their boots, and  got the same response in return. A coalition effort between two hostile groups that only worked for reasons she could chalk up to ancient pacts formed between the Goblin Nation and the….

Daphne’s jaw fell open.

Harry didn’t… Did he?

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to that question. Either way, she made her assumptions on the best and worst case scenarios and followed after her fiance.

The goblin who had addressed them — sleek, with ink-stained claws and a ledger tattooed on the inside of one palm — gestured toward the chairs opposite him. 

“Sit. Let’s not waste this window of opportunity.”

Daphne blinked. Harry, of course, didn’t.

“Goblin Griphook. Goblin Ripclaw,” He acknowledged, turning to her. “They have been managing the fortune of House Potter and Black respectively.”

“So the Operarius is truly severed?” asked the goblin who Daphne assumed was Ripclaw, eyes locked on Harry’s ring. “No residue of Binding lingers?”

“None that answer to the Wizengamot anymore.”

The goblin’s grin stretched, too many teeth glinting in the torchlight. “Then let me be the first to say —  well played.”

Daphne stiffened slightly. “You mean to say—?”

“We mean to say,” said the other goblin, this one broader, older, his left ear marked with a jagged ceremonial scar, “that Gringotts is free. For the first time since the Treaty of 1712, we are no longer magically compelled to abide by the clauses and redactions enforced by the Miraculum Operarius. We are, once more, goblins. As we were meant to be.”

“And that doesn’t scare you?” she asked, crossing her legs slowly. “That the Ministry might retaliate?”

“They will,” said the older goblin. “But not yet. First, they must regroup, rebuild their scaffolding. It will take weeks. Months. Maybe more. Time we can use to prepare.”

“One can only prepare as much as he has foresight.”

Ripclaw gave him an approving grin, before noting the scowl forming on Daphne’s face. “Is there a problem?”

“I am Daphne Greengrass,” she said, a little frostily. “And I’m not certain what’s there to like about losing my fortune.”

The goblin cackled in disappointment. “If only. The Gatekeeper severed the tribulations set forth by the Wizengamot, Witch. It does nothing to the oaths sworn between this Nation and your forefathers.”

That… surprisingly made her feel better. “So, my fortune is safe?”

“Safer than most,” said the goblin. “The Gatekeeper belongs to your family, does he not?”

“He will be the Lord of it, soon, yes.”

“Rest Assured,” said Griphook. “The Gatekeeper’s vaults and associations have been given the highest ranking in priority.”

“Speaking of associations,” said Ripclaw, forwarding him a document to sign. “As requested.”

 Daphne quickly read the contents of the parchment. “You’re removing your fortune?”

“About seventy percent of it, yes,” said Harry. “Every House registered to the Wizengamot comprises three parts — the Wizengamot seat, the human factor, and the registered Gringotts Vault. I just lost my seats by walking away, the Gate is sealed and protected; and while they will think twice before attacking me, they might want to weaken me by confiscating my vaults.”

Daphne reeled. She knew that the goblins had more gold hoarded and more gold in circulation than the next ten biggest nations, magical or not, combined. And that wasn’t counting the sheer amount of stockpiled gold guarded in the fifty or so Gringotts branches scattered all across the globe. And regardless of whatever horrors inflicted the rest of the world, Gringotts’ policy of keeping their self-interest always triumphed over everything else.

For goblins, death was preferable before handing over gold. For good.

“Since when does Gringotts allow wizards to take their gold away without charging them horribly for it?” She accused.

“He has paid for it, Witch,” said Ripclaw. “Not all costs need to be borne in gold.”

“You…” Daphne trailed off. She was far more eloquent than this, but given the staggering prank, she was currently out of her wits. “You — I —”

“I gave them a little heads up ahead of time,” said Harry. “All information comes at a price.”

“And the price was this?” She asked, standing up, seething. “Harry, this will destroy the economy. This will —”

“Cause another goblin revolt?” Harry asked quietly, and Daphne fought her panic hard, not wanting to give the goblins any ideas. “Don’t worry. Part of my price is ensuring that the wizarding economy doesn’t collapse. The Operarius is fractured, but not destroyed. The rest of the Sacred Twenty-Eight remains. And even if the Ministry fails to curb the situation, the ICW will likely intervene. Any rebellion is likely to fail.”

“Am I to interpret that as an insult to our strength, Wizard?” demanded Ripclaw coldly.

“I’m just being pragmatic, goblin,” said Harry. “A rebellion means a prospect of gaining more, but also losing a lot more. All the advantages you gain from this… will be lost if your rebellion fails. Are you going to risk it all in this mad rush, or will you just take advantage and ease the shackles set by the British Ministry?”

Neither goblin spoke this time. Nor did Daphne.

“Granted,” said Harry, another merry smile floating on his lips. “I am not going to declare my standing agreements with the Ministry any time soon, either, so, feel free to threaten them with the economic collapse all you like.”

He looked like a chessmaster walking into the final five moves. She didn’t know whether that was reassuring… or terrifying.

Daphne shook her head. “One little powerplay and you’ve gone habitual, Harry.”

That her fiance somehow considered the entire thing a ‘prank’ was not lost on her.

Harry laughed, and signed the document, before handing it over to Ripclaw. “I expect Gringotts to honor its side of the deal.”

“We will. The Gatekeeper shall forever be welcome in our halls,” said Ripclaw. 

“Where will you be taking the entire contents to?” asked Daphne.

“Where else?” said Harry with something like wistfulness. “Home.”

“You cannot expect me to believe that you’ll hoard it all inside some room, Harry. Money cannot be magically shrunk.”

“Of course not,” he said, waving her accusation away like it was irrelevant. “Like you said, the standard enchantment on galleons, sickles and knuts enchanted by goblin magic is sort of immune to manipulation. Heat it all you want, but all you’ll get is a hot galleon and an angry letter from Gringotts barring you from using their services and a Ministry prison sentence for attempted financial fraud. Transfiguration is incompatible either. Either the transfiguration fails to alter the galleon, or the galleon is transformed, but losing the goblin enchantment, which again, will fine you for financial fraud. Same for charms. And magical trunks that can store huge amounts of substance within it won’t work either because manipulation of mass won’t work on the galleons, so the trunk can’t take it either.”

Daphne blinked. “Uh-huh. And that is relevant to my question because….?”

“Because Wilbur Gamp in the eighteenth century found a way around that limitation, after experimenting on the blood of… well, half-goblins, and found a way to bypass the goblin enchantment. He devised a way to enchant goblin gold by reducing its mass exponentially. Too bad the goblins apprehended him, and decapitated him, which incidentally, struck off the goblin rebellion that ended with the Treaty of 1712.”

“Okay, but I am still not hearing any explanation about how you’d transfer the gold.”

Harry laughed. “Turns out part of the treaty mandated that all of Wilbur Gamp’s possessions and creations be effectively handed over to Gringotts in exchange for them leaving the Gamp fortune untouched. And since the Gamp family’s main business is making wizarding trunks…   Wilbur’s altered trunks were confiscated by Gringotts, and have been gathering dust somewhere in some vaults.”

Daphne blinked. 

As did the goblins.

“I thought it was the Overlord that suggested the trunks,” said Ripclaw. “You certainly know a great many things, Wizard Potter.”

Harry nodded. “I know a great many things — it impresses my friends, confuses my enemies, and delights small house-elves. I asked the Overlord to loan me the trunk exclusively, in exchange for certain oaths.”

Daphne blinked again. “I didn’t even know Gringotts even had an Overlord.”

“Just the one,” he said. “And he’s currently holding an office at the London Branch. Met him only once, he’s… not the type you want to mess with.”

“If you’re the one saying that, guess I’ll take you at your word.”

“You should.” Harry remembered how the Overlord had reminded him strongly of a thundercloud, one that was choosing to be benign, but could hurl thunderbolts at will. He was also the one that had called Harry an ‘instrument of Fate’ back then.

He turned to Ripclaw. “Well then, shall we get started with things? Time flies after all.”