Tushar Srivastav
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Chapter 10 "Foundations and Farewells"
🕑 Added 2025-07-16 17:23:37 +0000 UTCHarry stepped out of the vault room, still blinking like a Confundus charm had hit him. The pouch on his belt—a simple thing, soft dragonhid
Harry stepped out of the vault room, still blinking like a Confundus charm had hit him. The pouch on his belt—a simple thing, soft dragonhide and stitched with subtle runes—felt no heavier than before. And yet it might as well have been dragging a mountain behind it.
Fifty. Million. Galleons.
He’d asked the question innocently enough.
“How much can I spend from this pouch?”
And Ragon—ever composed, ever ancient—had actually chuckled. Not cruelly, but with a glint of dry amusement that only centuries of goblin dealings could sharpen.
“Harry,” Ragon had said, the corners of his sharp mouth twitching upward, “you may spend as much as you like. This pouch is directly linked to your new vault, into which approximately Fifty Million galleons are being transferred. As we speak.”
The silence that followed was cavernous. It wasn’t shock, exactly. Not in the way most children might go still with glee. No, Harry’s stillness was the kind carved out by disbelief, by a long-learned resistance to the idea that the world might ever offer him more than its neglect.
When he found his voice again, it was quiet and a little strangled.
“But… I thought—didn’t I already spend most of it? The properties. The castle. That must’ve cost—what—everything?”
Ragon’s smile deepened, not unkind, but shaded with that ancient goblin blend of pragmatism and irony. “Harry, Ironfist did mention each Aether Crystal is valued at fifty million galleons. You provided three for the acquisitions. Your properties—including the castle—came to just under hundred million galleons. That leaves you with roughly fifty million galleons remaining. Give or take a few vault fees.”
Harry just stared at him.
It wasn’t the number that overwhelmed him. It was the absurdity of it. For years he’d worn hand-me-downs that didn’t fit, eaten cold toast off chipped plates, and slept in rooms that echoed with someone else’s name. Now, apparently, he could buy a fleet of flying carriages and still have enough left over to buy half of Diagon Alley.
“Right,” he murmured at last. “Of course. Just fifty million galleons. How careless of me.”
He wasn’t even trying to be funny, but Ragon let out a low chuckle anyway, like a mountain shifting slightly in amusement.
“You would be surprised,” the goblin said, eyes twinkling, “how many wizards would have asked whether that was per week or per month.”
Harry snorted before he could stop himself. The sound startled him. It wasn’t bitter. Not really. Just tired. Disbelieving. A sound that said: Of course this is my life now. Of course it is.
But beneath it, something quieter stirred. Not greed. Not even relief.
Loneliness.
Because wealth couldn’t hold your hand at night or remember your birthday. It couldn’t undo silence or make someone choose to stay. It couldn’t look at you and see you.
Money wasn’t what he wanted.
What he wanted was a place to belong, a reason to be called home. He wanted his name spoken with love, not headlines. He wanted not to be forgotten.
Still, fifty million galleons.
He sighed and touched the pouch at his side, shaking his head.
“I swear,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, “even my bank account can’t be normal.”
Ragon simply inclined his head, eyes gleaming.
“No, Mr. Watson,” he said. “But perhaps… that’s precisely as it should be.”
And for the first time, Harry didn’t flinch at the sound of that new name.
Because maybe, just maybe, he could grow into it.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Magical Menagerie was far darker inside than Harry expected.
The moment the bell above the door tinkled and he stepped across the threshold, the world dimmed—not into danger, but into something quieter, older. The air was thick with musk and fur and the dry, feathered scent of too many wings in too small a space. It smelled of sawdust, shedding skin, and magic that had curled itself around bones and claws.
Dust motes danced in shafts of late morning light cutting through the grime-streaked windows. Cages lined the narrow aisles like bookshelves in some feral library. Rats with twitching whiskers stared out with too-bright eyes. Toads blinked lazily from shallow bowls. Snakes coiled in glass cases, their scales shimmering like wet ink. Somewhere above, an owl hooted once, low and long, and was answered by a hiss from a shadowed perch.
Harry walked slowly, letting his senses adjust. The sound of his footsteps was swallowed by fur and straw. He could feel magic here—not clean or refined like the marble halls of Gringotts, but wild, coiled beneath the skin of every creature in the room. Magic with claws and teeth. Magic that hadn’t been tamed, only tolerated.
He didn’t know what he was looking for. Only that Merlin had said he’d know.
And then he saw her.
Tucked away in a far corner—beyond the pygmy puffs and puffskeins, beyond the cages labeled Do Not Pet—stood a small, battered enclosure all on its own. A single white owl crouched on the perch inside, silent and unmoving, feathers like snow tinged with old moonlight. Her eyes were closed, but the moment Harry drew close, they opened.
Gold met green.
The world narrowed.
Something ancient and immediate passed between them—not language, not emotion, but recognition. Like a string had snapped taut between two stars. The feeling wasn’t loud or showy. It was quiet and absolute.
Harry stepped closer.
The owl tilted her head, blinked once, and then—with no fuss at all—fluttered forward and landed on the edge of the open cage door. She looked at him like she’d been waiting. Like she’d always been his.
Harry lifted a hand instinctively, and the owl stepped onto his arm with eerie grace, her talons careful but confident. Her feathers were cool to the touch, soft as silk and strange with quiet strength.
Behind him, a voice cried out.
“Boy! Don’t open that cage!”
The shopkeeper came hurrying down the aisle, apron streaked with owl pellets and sawdust, his wand half-drawn in alarm. “That one bites! She’s mauled four customers already and nearly took a finger off—wait, what—?”
He froze mid-step.
Because the white owl wasn’t biting. Wasn’t puffing up or hissing. She was standing perfectly still on Harry’s arm, preening the fabric of his sleeve like she owned it.
“She won’t bite me,” Harry said softly, glancing down at her. “Will you, girl?”
The owl hooted low and shook her head with slow deliberation, like a queen deigning to be amused.
Harry grinned. “See?”
The shopkeeper blinked rapidly, his earlier bluster replaced with wary wonder. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
“I’ll take her,” Harry said, turning back toward the counter.
He made to coax the owl back into the cage, but she clicked her beak in displeasure and lifted off, circling once before settling squarely on his shoulder. Her wings brushed his cheek like a blessing.
“You don’t want to go back in the cage,” Harry sighed, shaking his head with a small smile. “Yeah… I get it.”
And he did.
She’d been confined too long. Stared at, judged, passed over. She hadn’t lashed out to be cruel—she’d done it because she refused to be less. She wasn’t broken. She was simply unwilling to belong to someone who hadn’t yet earned her.
Just like me, Harry thought. Not bitterly. Just… truthfully.
The shopkeeper cleared his throat, still watching the pair of them with wide eyes. “That’ll be fifteen galleons, then.”
Harry paid without hesitation, tucking the receipt into his coat as the owl shifted slightly on his shoulder, balancing with the ease of something made for the wind.
He turned to leave, and as the door opened, a fresh breeze stirred the stale shop air. The owl let out a quiet, musical trill.
It didn’t sound like a pet.
It sounded like a name.
He paused outside, beneath the grey sky of Diagon Alley, and looked at her more closely.
“You’re not ordinary, are you?” he murmured.
The owl blinked.
He thought for a moment, something stirring in his mind like water around a buried stone. A word… no, a name… forming gently, as if whispered by magic itself.
“Hedra,” he said aloud, testing it.
The owl fluffed her feathers with what could only be approval.
Hedra.
Not a name passed down. Not one chosen for him.
His name. For her.
Harry smiled faintly and adjusted the strap of his pouch, careful not to disturb his new companion.
He’d found her—or perhaps, she had found him. And in the meeting of their eyes, in the quiet rebellion against cages, something had been decided.
He wasn’t just building a house.
He was building a life. Piece by piece. Bond by bond.
Chosen.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bell above the door let out a faint ting as Harry stepped into Ollivander’s.
The shop was dim, lit only by thin shafts of light filtering through dusty windows. Shadows curled in corners and across shelves that seemed to stretch infinitely upward, packed tightly with narrow boxes in varying states of age. The air smelled of cedarwood, dragon ash, and old parchment—like forgotten secrets and magic not quite asleep.
Behind the counter stood a thin, silver-haired man with moon-pale eyes that gleamed like memory.
“Ah… good morning,” the man said softly, voice weathered by decades of wonder. “Mr…?”
Harry hesitated a moment, then straightened. “Watson. Harry Watson.”
Ollivander’s head tilted. A flicker of surprise—brief, but not missed—flashed through his expression. He didn’t question it. Just offered a small nod.
“Very well, Mr. Watson. Come, come. Let us see what your wand arm is.”
“I’m right-handed,” Harry answered, stepping forward.
The measuring tape unfurled itself without being asked and immediately began its inspection—whipping around his wrist, over his shoulder, up along his spine and around the base of his skull, as though reading not just his body, but his very alignment with magic.
Ollivander was already moving—his long fingers dancing over the edges of boxes like a maestro finding the notes of a forgotten song.
“Try this one,” he said, handing over the first wand. “Vinewood, unicorn hair. Ten and a quarter inches. Supple.”
Harry grasped it gently.
Nothing.
He gave it a tentative flick. A small spark fizzled out with a sad pop.
Ollivander took it back with a small, thoughtful frown and handed him another.
“Ebony and dragon heartstring. Eleven inches. Unyielding.”
Again—nothing.
Not a flicker, not a hum. It was like shaking hands with a stranger who didn’t want to know him.
Then came the third wand. The fifth. The twelfth.
Some hissed. One sparked violet and cracked in his hand. One refused to light altogether. Another made Hedra hoot softly and flap her wings in protest, the white owl shifting uneasily on his shoulder as the wand recoiled from him.
Harry stood patiently, each failure building not frustration, but a quiet tension. The sense that something was missing.
Ollivander, for his part, had gone from mildly intrigued to reverently silent.
He no longer muttered wood-core pairings aloud. He simply observed, eyes narrowing, head tilting slightly more with every wand returned.
At last, he lowered his arms and stepped back, murmuring, “Curious. Most curious.”
“What is?” Harry asked, adjusting his stance.
“You do not resonate with any of my pre-assembled wands,” Ollivander said, not with frustration, but awe. “Which means… your wand must be crafted. From the beginning. For you and no other.”
He gestured for Harry to follow. “Come. We must speak to the woods.”
Harry followed him into the backroom—a smaller, stranger space that felt both warmer and more ancient than the shop out front. The shelves here held boxes not in rows, but in spirals and clusters, stacked like bones around a hearth.
“Hold out your hand,” Ollivander instructed. “Let the wand choose itself.”
Harry did so, extending his hand palm up. The moment he did, a gentle breeze—indoors—stirred the room. Slowly, deliberately, a length of pale wood floated from the shelves toward him.
“Rowan,” Ollivander murmured, eyes gleaming. “Protective. Loyal. Often chooses those with something to prove—not to others, but to themselves.”
Harry’s fingers closed around it, and for a moment, he felt… something. A hum. A recognition. But not complete.
Another movement—the gentle rise of wind—and a long red feather floated toward him, gleaming like ruby flame.
“A phoenix,” Ollivander whispered. “An old one. That feather is the brother to the wand that gave your… brother his scar.”
Harry flinched faintly but nodded. He took the feather, but the wand still didn’t respond fully. Not yet.
Ollivander frowned. “Strange. That should be more than enough. Unless…”
And then it happened.
A soft, soundless flash—like moonlight piercing cloud—and from nowhere, a second feather appeared, glowing faintly white.
It drifted down into Harry’s waiting palm as if it had always meant to find him.
The moment he touched it, the rowan wood pulsed. A thread of silver light twined between the two feathers, and then wove itself into the wand like breath into lungs.
Ollivander stared, lips parted.
“A white phoenix,” he said, breathless. “I’ve not seen one in a hundred years. I thought them myths. Creatures of purity and balance. They are born when magic corrects itself. When something lost needs to be reborn.”
Harry looked down at the wand forming in his hands—white and red, rowan glowing faintly with golden warmth. The power within it thrummed like the slow beat of a drum.
“It’s… a dual core,” Ollivander continued. “Two phoenix feathers. One of fire. One of light. Opposite. Balanced. It means your magic… cannot be bound by one voice alone.”
Harry sighed—deep and low—not with fear or fatigue, but with exasperated acceptance.
“Even my wand can’t be normal.”
Behind him, Hedra trilled softly on his shoulder.
When Harry turned to look at her, he noticed it: a soft white glow, faint but undeniable, shimmering around her feathers. She met his gaze solemnly, and for a heartbeat, her eyes seemed too deep for anything born of mere animal instinct.
Ollivander noticed it, too. He said nothing. But his posture shifted—more reverent now, more careful. He understood something sacred was at play here.
“Wait in the front room while I finish binding the core,” he said after a moment, voice quiet, measured. “This wand must be sealed with precision. And intention.”
Harry nodded and turned away.
When he stepped back into the dusty showroom, the white owl still glowing faintly beside him, he didn’t feel like the same boy who’d entered.
And perhaps… he wasn’t.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bell over the door chimed softly as Harry stepped into Flourish and Blotts. The scent struck him first—ink, dust, aged parchment, and a whisper of candle smoke. It smelled like thought. Like potential.
The shop wasn’t busy yet. Only a few robed witches shuffled near the Divination section, and an older wizard was leafing through Magical Theories of Interplanar Harmonics by the window. But Harry didn’t pause to browse. He walked with purpose, shoulders squared, Hedra perched quietly on his shoulder—like a sentinel.
This wasn’t a moment for wonder. This was acquisition.
His eyes scanned the high shelves, the signs swaying slightly from old enchantments: Charms, Defense, Potions, Theory, History, Ritual Craft, Runes, Transfiguration, Politics, Dark Arts—he made mental notes as he moved, ticking off categories with clinical precision. His mind, honed by solitude and self-discipline, was already building his study plan before his hands touched a single spine.
He approached the counter, where a young witch barely older than sixteen looked up, startled.
“I’d like one copy of every book,” Harry said plainly. “Every school text, every supplemental reference volume, every independent magical discipline you stock—modern and obscure. If it’s legal to sell, I want it.”
She blinked, stunned. “E-Every—? That’s… several hundred volumes.”
He nodded. “That’s fine. Charge it to this.” He held up the pouch Ragon had given him.
There was a pause. Then a low whistle. “You a Ravenclaw?”
“No,” Harry replied evenly, eyes scanning the books behind her. “I’m not sorted yet. But I know what I’m building.”
And he meant it. Books were not trophies. They were tools. Each one a weapon. A shield. A voice that wouldn’t forget him or leave him behind. In a world that had overlooked him so easily, knowledge was his rebellion—and his safeguard.
As the assistant scrambled to summon stock with a flick of her wand and an overwhelmed Accio spell, Harry roamed toward the rarer shelves. The ones less organized, the ones with titles in faded script and binding spells half-woven. Here lay books most wouldn’t think to touch. Some hissed softly when passed over. Others seemed to whisper.
His fingers paused over an old volume—Magical Economics of Post-Reformation Europe—then slid past it to something far more curious.
It was unassuming. Thin. Bound in dark green leather that shimmered faintly. A single gold rune glowed on its spine. No title.
Harry picked it up and opened it.
Inside, instead of pages, there was only a flickering illusion of stacked tomes, suspended in space. Thousands. A silent library, spinning slowly in a midnight void.
“What is this?” he asked the shopkeeper, who had returned with a levitating stack of defensive theory.
The man’s eyebrows rose. “That?” he said, voice lowering with the reverence reserved for ancient things. “That’s a Library Guide. Very rare. Very old magic. You’ll find them in the private collections of old wizarding families—those with libraries too large to search by hand. It catalogs every book you own once linked. You want to sort by subject, author, date, language? You ask. You want to find a single sentence buried in five thousand books? It brings them to you.”
Harry looked down at the cover, the rune pulsing faintly beneath his thumb.
“It listens to preference?” he asked.
“Intimately,” the man replied. “But only after it accepts you. Like a wand, in a way. Treat it well, and it’s more than a tool. It’s a partner.”
Harry closed the book and tucked it under his arm.
“I’ll take it.”
He didn’t hesitate. Order, control, access—those were not just conveniences. They were survival. He’d lived too long in a house where being overlooked meant being forgotten. Here, he would never be without a voice, a record, a map to what he needed.
When the assistant returned with the full stack—nearly seven hundred books in total—Harry tapped the trunk Dobby had enchanted earlier. The books vanished neatly inside, sorted by category with a whisper of displaced air.
He paid without blinking—five hundred galleons gone in a single breath. But he didn’t feel poorer.
He felt armed.
As he turned to leave, he caught his reflection in the shop window. A small boy with ancient eyes, an owl glowing faintly on his shoulder, a trunk full of power floating at his heels.
Books lined his future now—not locked doors. And for the first time in a long while, the horizon didn’t feel like something to fear.
It felt like something he was ready to rewrite.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The brick wall of the Leaky Cauldron closed behind him with a soft scrape of magic meeting mortar, and just like that—London returned.
Real London.
Harry stood for a moment on Charing Cross Road, the air different here—cleaner in a way, sharper with traffic and concrete and distant voices. The hum of tires on wet pavement, the hiss of a bus braking down the street, the rhythmic clatter of shopkeepers opening steel shutters—it all felt oddly soothing.
The Muggle world had no wards, no whispering books, no glowing phoenix feathers. But it also had no expectations of who he was supposed to be.
Here, Harry was no lord, no child prodigy, no bearer of ancient crystals. Just a boy.
He pulled the sleeves of his coat tighter and crossed the street.
It was still early, the city only just rubbing sleep from its eyes. The shops were opening—some with the clang of keys, others with the cheerful ding of automatic bells. He passed a bookstore first, its window filled with the latest thrillers and a battered sign that read “Used Texts Welcome.” Then a bakery, the smell of warm bread spilling out into the air like an invitation.
And then—clothing.
It was practical shopping, really. His current outfit, though clean and well-fitted, had been chosen by Winky and looked more like something a young noble would wear to an afternoon duel. Harry stepped into the department store and quickly gathered what he needed: soft cotton shirts, durable jeans, wool socks, sneakers, a black coat with hidden pockets. Functional, neutral, his.
No house colors. No crests.
At the register, the cashier looked at him curiously but said nothing as Harry handed over a crisp stack of pounds from the enchanted pouch Ragon had given him. The transaction was simple. Ordinary. He savored it.
He bought pens and notebooks, too—Muggle ones. Things that wouldn’t cast spells, but still held knowledge. He made a point of walking into the largest bookstore nearby and, without browsing sentimentally, asked for one copy of every general academic subject at the secondary school level. Math. Science. Literature. World history. Logic. Psychology. Economics. The woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow, but helped him all the same.
Harry knew that magic was power. But it wasn’t everything.
The world was bigger than wands and wards. There were inventions and revolutions outside of magical Britain—nations that had never heard of Hogwarts or the Dark Lord and yet still built machines that flew and explored stars. Understanding both worlds wasn’t just about fitting in. It was strategy. Strength.
By the time he returned to the Leaky Cauldron, his bag heavier with paper and denim, he felt… balanced.
Rooted.
He paused at the threshold between worlds again, Hedra adjusting her wings slightly on his shoulder. Her white feathers caught the sunlight, and a few passersby looked twice—perhaps mistaking her for a very realistic toy.
Harry just kept walking.
Because even in a world of magic, he would not forget who he was without it.
