Two years, two months, and nineteen days later
"IT'S HEEEEEEEERRE!"
Harry cringed a little as the little menace Ivy ran into the room. There was really no need to ask what had her screaming at the top of her lungs on such an otherwise beautiful Monday morning, but it was only polite, he supposed.
"What's here exactly, Ives?"
Ivy huffed as she plopped down onto the sofa. "My Hogwarts letter, of course."
Harry nodded, trying to keep a look of solemn contemplation on his face. "I see. Well, I suppose you want to write them back right away, hmm? I'm sure they'll understand that you would much rather be homeschooled. So much to be learned from traveling and all."
Ivy rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. I'm going to Hogwarts."
"Are you sure? Because it's really not too late to choose somewhere else. I've heard lovely things about Castelobruxo, and I know you enjoyed our time in the Amazon."
Ivy gave him a look that showed just how convincing he was at the moment, and so he resigned himself to a long, drawn-out sigh.
"Fiiiiinne," he said. "I suppose we'll have to go back to Gringotts again," he added under his breath.
Ivy grinned. "Just because you hate going there… Besides, it's not like it's going to kill you."
Harry's eye twitched. No, a high chance of imminent death wasn't exactly the problem he had with Gringotts.
Flashback
Harry patted Ivy's back in what was hopefully a comforting manner. When it was apparent that her stomach was going to retain its contents, he led her by the hand to the main part of the Alley. It looked different from what he remembered, but then again, this was a different universe, and one that hadn't gone through a second war, so there were bound to be changes. There were a few shops he didn't remember seeing before, but for the most part the overall layout was the same. And there, exactly as pictured in his memories, stood Gringotts.
Harry could feel Ivy tensing more and more the further they walked down the Alley. He squeezed her hand reassuringly. He had done his best to describe Diagon Alley, and some of the things they would likely see, but he knew no words could possibly be enough.
As they entered Gringotts, Harry briefly wondered how exactly this encounter would go. He doubted he would be able to access any vaults in this world, and they didn't have Ivy's key. Perhaps there would be some other way for her to withdraw money from at least her trust vault, but if not he might have to go on a little jaunt around muggle London.
Fifty minutes later:
Harry wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, and he honestly never wanted to see that many goblins… smiling? grinning? at once. Frankly, they were way more terrifying when they looked so happy. Harry pinched himself just to make sure he was still there.
They had entered the bank and walked up to a teller, but before Harry could open his mouth to say something that would hopefully result in them leaving the bank alive and preferably with money, the Goblin spoke.
"Greetings, Lord Peverell. How may Gringotts assist you today?"
Harry hadn't quite known what to say to that. He had never seen a goblin acting so…dare he say it…nice.
It only got worse from there. Apparently, the goblins knew all about the whole "Master of Death" thing. They weren't particularly helpful in explaining what exactly they knew about it, but somehow something about it got Harry a huge vault filled with more galleons than he would possibly need over many lifetimes.
On top of that, he was evidently Lord Peverell in this world. Again, the goblins didn't seem particularly keen on providing the details of why that was the case, waving it off as something of little consequence. But that came with its own large vault, which held a number of artefacts and an extensive library collection. The goblins had also mentioned something about political influence, but Harry sort of just tuned it out at that point. He figured there was plenty of time for researching the extent of the vault and title later, but right now he really just wanted to get some dinner.
Thankfully he hadn't actually had to ride the carts down to the vaults. Instead, they had presented him with a nifty little pouch that would only open for him and would allow him to access the money from his vaults easily. He vaguely wondered why he couldn't have gotten something like that in his own world.
Once the matter of money withdrawals was all set, the goblins had ever so helpfully used a series of legal loopholes to turn guardianship of Ivy over to Harry. It all seemed a little hand-wavy to him, but he was left with the impression that either the goblins of this world were insane, or they really hated someone and were just using him to exact their revenge. He wasn't quite sure which was worse.
So, the two humans left the bank, one wondering if every magical creature was as nice as the goblins, and the other wondering if nice, helpful goblins were a sign of the end of the world.
End Flashback
The occasional repeat visit to Gringotts tended to yield similar results. The goblins were always exceptionally helpful, providing Harry and Ivy both with specialized services that Harry was certain no other wizard was given access to. And their smiles.
Despite the repeated trauma that was dealing with happy goblins, there were some benefits. Ivy's eyes had been fixed, as well as most of the residual effects of her time at the Dursleys. The horcrux in Ivy's scar had been moved into a container and promptly destroyed, and both their scars had been moved to less visible locations since they could not be removed entirely.
Ivy had made several goblin friends over the course of their unfortunately necessary visits and had even picked up a few words of their language. Harry was frankly too terrified of smiling Goblins to do anything other than walk out as quickly as could be deemed appropriate once he concluded his business there, but Ivy would spend hours chatting away with the goblins while Harry ran other errands. Horcrux hunting did take a bit of time after all.
Harry hadn't actually managed to get all the horcruxes yet. The diary and diadem were both inaccessible at the moment (considering he'd rather not break into Hogwarts or Malfoy Manor). The goblins had cheerfully taken care of the cup, and Harry had momentarily felt a pang of sympathy for Voldemort when he saw the amount of glee the goblins had while destroying it.
The ring had turned out to the easiest to get and destroy since a few words of parseltongue (and wasn't THAT a surprise when he found he could speak it again) were enough to take care of the majority of the protections surrounding it.
The locket was a little more difficult in that it involved breaking into Grimmauld place and stealing the locket, all while avoiding being caught in the wards or by Kreacher, but somehow he had managed it. To be honest he had pretty much bulldozed his way into the house, taken the locket, adjusted the memory of the portraits and Kreacher, and hightailed it out of there. There were more Black family members alive than he had known in his time and he didn't want to risk the possibility of any of them finding out about him or the locket. It wasn't the most elegant solution but it worked. Hopefully Kreacher would end up a little less crazy too.
And then of course there was the one in Ivy herself, which had been taken care of straight away. Nagini hadn't been a horcrux until later on in Harry's own world, but he figured he could probably kill the snake if he came across it anyway just for safe measure.
So, all in all, four down, two to go. Not too bad.
Wary of the happy goblins and slightly fearful of the supposed political influence they kept mentioning (it was almost as if they wanted him to get involved in politics or something), Harry had decided that leaving the country was a spectacular idea, and so, after a few horcruxes had been taken care of, they set off for an extended trip around the world. They moved around from place to place, taking their time and exploring parts of both the magical and mundane world. At first, Harry had worried about Ivy needing a "stable home environment" or something like that, not that he had much experience with knowing what that looked like, but with every new place they went her confidence grew and the smiles became more common, so he figured things were fine the way they were. She picked up on new things quickly, and Harry tried his best to teach her what he could in regards to typical muggle school subjects as well as magic and the wizarding world.
His greatest mistake was not immediately enrolling her at one of the other wizarding schools in the world. Not that he had anything against Hogwarts per se, it had been his first real home after all, but Ivy going to Hogwarts would mean he would be forced to stay in Britain. Harry knew for sure he would somehow be cajoled into getting involved in British wizarding affairs by the goblins, Ivy, or both. The goblins would use their creepy smiles to try and get him involved politically, and Ivy would try and sweet talk him into either saving or taking over wizarding Britain. It was a bit of a toss-up, really.
But, everyone makes mistakes, so now Harry had to deal with an incredibly excited almost-eleven-year-old who had been officially accepted into Hogwarts, which also meant that Lord Henry Peverell was going to have to be officially introduced into British wizarding society. Joy.
Flashback
"What do you mean Henry? My name is Harry."
"I apologize Lord Peverell, but legally your name is now Henry James Peverell."
"But why Henry?"
"Well 'Harry' and 'Peverell' don't exactly go together, now, do they?"
Harry, or Henry, as he was supposedly named now, blinked. THAT was the reason? He turned towards Ivy, who was nodding solemnly.
"They don't go together," she said, repeating the goblin's words.
Harry ended up with a particularly lovely bruise on his forehead from repeatedly banging his head on the steel table. At least the goblin wasn't grinning, he thought, as he suppressed a shudder.
End Flashback
"Sooo…" Ivy drawled. "The Alley?"
"Yes, yes, we'll go to the Alley."
"And Gringotts?"
"And Gringotts," Harry muttered.
"So when do we leave? Today?"
Harry grinned. "I have an international portkey scheduled for the 30th so you'll just have to wait for then."
Ivy pouted, but Harry wasn't swayed. He was going to enjoy his last few remaining days of freedom, er… holiday… as much as he could. He had planned this out six weeks ago when they first arrived in Istanbul, knowing Ivy was going to want to leave as soon as her letter came. If he hadn't already had a plan she would have found a way to talk him into leaving early. Nope. Wasn't going to happen. He was prepared! Harry: 1, Ivy: well, that's really not important.
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(P).(A).(T).(R).(E).(O).(N)
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