Chapter Text
Disclaimer: Characters and setting (and credit) belong to JK Rowling, and I make no money from this.
The Spiffing Brit is real. Here is his Youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSpiffingBrit/videos I highly reccommend it, it's very entertaining.
I also don't intend for this to negatively impact Spiff's internet presence, nor will I make any money from mentioning him, so make sure you're sat back and relaxed wiv a nice warm cup of Yorkshire tea in hand...
Harry knelt in his cupboard and looked through the gap between the top of the door and the jamb. It was a night like any other in late July, and he had no reason to be awake, but he was regardless. Sometimes when he woke in the dead of night he would watch the world beyond his tiny prison and think about what might be going on - next door, on the next street, in the next town, in some of the far-off places he only knew existed from geography class.
It was times like that, when the whole world was quiet, that Harry felt something stir inside him. He was sure there was something that connected him to that great wide world out there, beyond. He felt connected to the world as a whole, and yet it only made him feel more isolated, more alone. He thought about all the millions of people that existed out there and cried quietly to himself because out of three billion people, not a single one cared about him. He knew his teachers didn't. He knew the Dursleys didn't. He wondered if anyone else even knew he was alive.
It was then, with wiped-away tears that dried on his cheeks and a wellspring of sadness in his heart, that something quite unexpected happened.
Harry heard a voice.
It was a mellifluous tenor, filled with confidence and charm, and Harry had no idea where it came from.
"Hello there ladies and gentlemen! I'm the Spiffing Brit and today we're playing 'The Magicking World', a brand new Early-Access game from our wonderful friends at Harbor Opener Games. Because it's early access, you know what that means - yes, it's very broken, and we're going to have a lot of fun wiv vis perfectly balanced game.
"So wivout furver ado ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you how to win every Magicking World game in a completely unfair and unbalanced manner, all thanks to the wonderful magic that is exploits! That basically means we're going to be breaking down the mechanics of the game, stripping it of any balance, and turning our little hero into a maniacal machine of magical mayhem. So sit back, relax, make sure you've a nice warm cup of Yorkshire tea in hand, salute the picture of the Queen that hangs over your computer, and if you're especially fantastic, you could even like the video. Now, let's get on with the game."
"Hello?" Harry called softly. He was desperately curious to know if someone was really there, but at the same time he knew that if he woke any of the Dursleys, he would be made to regret it.
"As you can see, we are here at Character Creation, wiv our little orphan peeking out from his cupboard under the stairs, isn't he a darling little sausage, so forlorn and unloved and horribly abused by his close relatives! I mean, for Yorkshire's sake! Who puts that in a game?! Yes, of course we want our main character to be horribly beaten and abused by those who are supposed to love him! Oh, Harbor Opener, what have you done? I'm not sure the world is ready for your dark and edgy phase."
Harry looked around. They could see him? Who were they and how could they see him? Where were they? Whoever they were, they knew about how the Dursleys treated him, and that made him a little scared. Did they know and do nothing? Did they just find out? How did they find out? There was no-one there!
"Hello?" Harry called a little louder, "Can you see me? Where are you?"
It didn't seem that whoever it was could hear him, because the voice continued on without responding.
"Now, today I'll be showing how we can take our lovely little orphan sausage from being a slightly well-off child wiv no idea his net worf, to becoming a completely filthy, over-the-top billionaire, which is exactly what you need in this world. How are we going to do it? Well, we need to start at character creation. In order to pull off this exploit, all you need to do is simply make sure you take the Magic Overload background, which will make your character twenty-five percent more likely to do accidental and wandless magic.
"Yes, there are other backgrounds that look good, but trust me, ladies and gentlemen, Magic Overload is the one you want, as will soon become apparent once we've started the game. We don't get much choice at Character Creation apart from background and skill points, certainly not any physical customization. As you can see, the default view is a trifle sad, not a majestic specimen of dashing good looks and british rough-and-tumble, but have no fear! You can alter the way your character looks a little furver along in the game. You can even ditch the clunky little so-quaint-it's-painful round John Lennon glasses, because who would choose to wear glasses when you're bloody magic and can get your eyes fixed wiv a wave of a wand?"
'Magic Overload?' Harry thought, 'I've flipped it. I've gone barmy from being locked in a cupboard my entire life. I'm hearing voices blithering about Magic! Hah!' He studiously ignored the part of his mind that reminded him of the teacher's blue hair and the school roof. Suddenly, Harry felt a surge of... something... rush through him. It left him slightly lightheaded and just a little wild around the edges.
"So there, we set our background to Magic Overload , and now we're on to the Attribute Points. You can see we've got a few to work wiv. It's not much, but then our little orphan sausage is only eleven years old. You might be tempted to dump a few into Strenf, or even Magic, and make your little orphan as beefy as six bulls stacked atop each ovver, but ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you that both the Strenf and the Magic stats are absolutely worfless. That's right, at no time during this game does your Strenf or Magic stat do anyfing at all. The only free stats that matter in this game are your Intellect, your Speed, and your Charisma. Not only that, but some of the ovver exploits I have to show you later on in the game make putting your stats into Strenf and Magic completely and totally pointless."
Well, Harry was fairly fast, he supposed. He did outrun Dudley and his gang nearly every day - at least until he ran out of energy.
"Now, you need at least two points into your Charisma stat for future friendship and romance exploits, but I've found best results wiv at least free, so we'll put free points into Charisma like so, and for the remaining twelve points, you can dump them all into Intellect and Speed. I've found diminishing returns over about seven points in any stat, so I'm going to go with five into Speed, and seven into Intellect."
Harry suddenly felt his muscles get harder . He didn't feel any stronger or more powerful, but he felt light . Then, as he watched the sitting room window through his peeking gap, he felt as though a tea cozy made of lead had been removed from his brain. Everything appeared sharper and clearer. He understood immediately that there was something going on that he would need to research later to try to figure out. He needed to remember what this Spiffing Brit said, in order to better figure it out. Whoever - whatever - this Spiffing Brit was, it was affecting him directly, and that made Harry very nervous.
"Now that we have our majestic little orphan sausage all statted up and ready to roll, we'll go ahead and skip the tutorial, and proceed straight on to Diagon Alley."
Diagonally? That didn't make any sense! Was that something that happened? Why was his delusion so confusing?
Harry waited for the voice to continue, to give him some hint what was going on, but only silence filled his cupboard.
"Hello?" He asked again after a long moment. There was no answer, and nothing more from the Spiffing voice.
Harry sighed and lay down on his cot mattress. He felt a little different than he had before he'd heard the voice, so that was some indication he wasn't dreaming it. He would test his speed in the morning, he supposed. If he got away from Dudley and the rest more easily than he did before, then he had reason to believe the voice might have been real.
He sighed again, but it was a long time before he relaxed enough to sleep.
He was awoken by the thunderous stomping of the Dursleys as they traversed the stairs not three feet over his head. Normally he was awake long before the Dursleys, but he didn't normally stay up most of the night wondering whether he'd lost the plot.
Vernon opened his cupboard. "Fetch the mail and get my breakfast on the table, boy! Move!"
Harry knew better than to argue, so he quickly changed into his clothes - clothes that made him look like he'd cut up a tent that he'd happened upon one day whilst nakedly roaming the woods. They were Dudley's old clothes that Dudley was too fat for, but they made Harry look like he were drowning in an empty hippo skin.
Right away, Harry noticed the difference.
He had only meant to casually jog to the mail box, but apparently his casual jog equalled his flat-out run from yesterday. He wasn't sure whether to smile or be wary at the fact of it, though. On the one hand he was virtually guaranteed to be able to outrun Dudley and the rest, but by the same token, some voice he'd never heard before had altered his body. Yes more speed was a good thing, but without knowing where it came from or how or why, it made him quite uneasy. Distracted as he was, he very nearly missed another important development.
There was a letter addressed to him!
Mr. H. Potter
The cupboard under the stairs,
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
He'd never gotten mail before, and two things popped into his mind immediately regarding the strange occurrence: Firstly, there was someone else in the world who knew he existed, and that they knew he was made to sleep under the stairs. Secondly, if he let the Dursleys know that he had received a letter, they'd destroy it immediately, unopened. Freaks weren't allowed to have letters.
He lifted the back of his shirt and tucked the letter into the back of his trousers, then made sure the shirt was pulled down over it so it was invisible.
Luckily, it stayed where he'd put it while he made breakfast and put it on the table where Vernon and Dudley heaped their plates with bacon and eggs and beans and sausages. Aunt Petunia must have started another diet, she had half a grapefruit.
Vernon couldn't yell at Harry while he had his mouth stuffed full, so Harry quickly and quietly left the prison and ran - much more quickly than normal - to the park where he usually went to escape Dudley and his gang. Then he thought better of it - because he had something precious in his possession and knew that Dudley could look for him there, he ran on past the park to the small shopping centre at the far end of Whingeing Way. He'd never run that far before, and when he arrived he didn't even feel tired.
Relatively certain that he'd not be bothered by the Dursleys, Harry sat against one of the wheelie bins behind the grocery store and pulled out his letter.
His fingers trembled as he broke the wax seal on the envelope and pulled out the letter. Who was it from? How did they know him? Was it people who knew his parents?
He stared at the letterhead for whole minutes.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ?
Well, that lent credence to the voice he'd heard talking about magic. Seriously though, magic magic? For real magic? What was he supposed to think about that?
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
There was a list of things he would need enclosed, clothes, books, potions kit, telescope... Who sent it? It couldn't be real, someone was having him on. It was some kind of trick to get his hopes up and then dash them. It had to be... Didn't it?
The letter said they awaited his owl no later than July thirty-first... It was July thirty-first! Well, that was that then. Post wouldn't be picked up until tomorrow at the earliest, and there was no way he was going to even try sending an owl through the post. Who wanted a bloody owl sent to them?!
He decided he would bin the letter. If it wasn't a joke or a trick, then whoever had sent it in earnest was an absolute nutter and he wanted nothing to do with them. He was about to crumple the letter into a ball, but he was started nearly out of his skin by a loud "KEE!" from directly above him.
A large tawny-and-chestnut owl perched atop the wheelie bin he leaned against.
It looked directly at him with large yellow eyes and blinked.
His fingers still tingled with adrenaline while he stared up at it. "Umm... hello." He said.
"Prek tek chek." The owl replied, and twisted its head slightly as it looked at him, almost as if it were looking at the letter in his hands...
Harry frowned and shook his head, then looked back up at the owl. That's when he noticed the owl's leg. There was a kind of harness on it, with a little pouch attached. It looked like an envelope made of leather. Its other leg had a kind of sleeve with long leather strips attached, for maybe tying things onto...
"They don't want me to send an owl through the post, do they?" He asked it, "You are the post."
"Kee!" It screeched, and bobbed its head up and down.
"Ooookayy... Um, do you mind waiting a moment then while I borrow a biro?"
"Krr."
He took that as assent, and went to the service desk in the grocery store to borrow a pen. He had a floaty sort of feeling as he backed away from the owl, sort of like he was dreaming but couldn't wake up. Like everything looked and felt and smelled real, but somehow wasn't.
Thankfully he was able to borrow a biro at the service counter inside the grocery store. They gave him hard looks when he asked, as though he was some sort of thief just waiting for them to turn their backs so he could wander off with their precious clickable. As if Harry could ever do that to anyone else after having everything he'd ever liked stolen and destroyed because he liked it. Even when Dudley had broken it and thrown it away in the first place.
After a moment's reflection, Harry wrote on the back of his acceptance letter.
Please tell me this is real and not some cruel joke. I would very much like to learn magic, yes please. If this isn't a joke or a trick, please help me get away from the Dursleys. I'm probably in for a beating just for answering this letter as it is. Where is the school? How do I get there?
Help me please,
Harry Potter.
He made sure to place the biro down on the counter in plain view so he didn't get accused of stealing, and returned to the owl who still perched atop the wheelie bin behind the store. He folded up his letter again, and placed it inside the leather envelope attached to the owl's leg.
"Please return this to that Minerva McGonagall person?" He asked it as he did so.
The owl bobbed its head up and down again. "Krr."
Harry smiled at it. It wasn't nearly so scary when he was sure it wasn't going to attack him. "Thank you."
The owl simply flapped and flew away, leaving Harry to stand by the wheelie bins and watch it slowly grow smaller in the distance. He hoped it made a difference.
Sure enough, though Vernon was gone to work when Harry returned, Petunia slapped him up the back of his head and hissed at him to get to the chores in her most waspish tone. He got the belt when Vernon returned home that night, probably a new scar or two, and his little cot mattress got a new bloodstain.
It was about what he'd expected.
Petunia kept him locked in the cupboard after that whenever he wasn't actively doing chores, usually by a fistful of his hair. He stayed up the first few nights to listen through his tears, as he hoped beyond hope for the voice to return or for someone or something magical to free him from his prison.
After the third day, he decided it had all been a horrid lie and, exactly as he'd predicted, his hopes dashed lower than ever. If it hadn't been for his prudence in constantly sneaking scraps of food to store in a discarded Cadbury Fingers tin at the base of the stairs, he'd have starved.
He forgot all about the promise of freedom and thoughts of magic over the next weeks as his life shrank again to chores and time in the cupboard and being shouted at. His only bright spark was that school loomed closer every day, and they had to let him out for that. He could at least see the outdoors and learn things - even if he couldn't show anyone he had learned it. A report card that was better than Dudley's was just asking for a beating.
Then, on September first, the day before school was due to start, after he had finished the chores and Petunia had locked him in the cupboard again whilst she had her lunch, a thunderous boom sounded from the front door. It started him so badly he knocked his head on the underside of the stairs as he jumped to look through his peeking gap.
A second thunderous boom happened, and the front door, having given its all in a valiant fight to remain intact after the first one, fell inward with a crash.
"Awp, sorry 'bout the door. Who knew they med 'em so weak, righ'?" A deep voice came from the doorway, but Harry could only see a large coat that didn't quite cover a belt buckle.
Petunia, of course, simply screamed and ran into the kitchen, probably to get a big chef's knife. "Get out!" She screamed, "I'm calling the police!"
A pair of eyes and a nose, adrift in a sea of dark bushy hair, appeared in his peeking gap.
"She always like tha'?" He asked. Harry assumed it was a man due to the deep voice and the beard. The cupboard door pulled away , torn from its hinges, lock and all. "Well come on then, 'fore screamybritches works 'erself a lather."
The man was enormous . He had a huge bushy beard, and hair that was coarse and wiry, but lay flat and didn't stick up everywhere like Harry's did. However, because his hair was lain overtop of his coat and the man's shoulders were so huge, his hair was only slightly shy of horizontal out from his ears. He had kind eyes though, of a warm dark brown, even if his face did betray a flash of sorrow and anger as he stood back up.
He set the cupboard door down, leaned against the wall.
"Where are we going?" Harry asked.
"Well, we've a spot o' shoppin' teh do 'fore yeh get on the train tomorreh. Have teh pick up all yer schoolin' supplies." The big man turned toward the door. "Er, grab anythin' yeh want teh take ter school, Harry. Don't reckon yer likely teh be back here."
Train? School?
"What train? What school?" He asked as he hurried to follow. Truthfully he didn't care where they were off to, so long as he was away from the Dursleys forever.
"Why, Hogwarts, o'course! Finest school o' witchcraft an' wizardry on these fair isles!"
"It's real?! You're not having me on, are you?" Harry's chest squeezed tight with the unfamiliar hope.
"Oh it's real, alrigh'." The big man paused to flash him a grin. "Yer a wizard, Harry, same as yer mum an' dad 'fore yeh." He slung his leg over a motorcycle parked at the curb, and gestured toward the sidecar. "Hop in, an' we'll be off."
Harry hopped in immediately, and secured the goggles and helmet that were on the seat to his head before he sat down.
"Good lad!" The big man grinned at him. "Next stop, Diagon Alley!" He pressed a button on the handlebars, and the motorcycle roared to life. Unfortunately, it was so loud that there was no way for Harry to ask him about where they were headed.
The Spiffing voice had said Diagon Alley. Harry frowned as he thought about it, and was forced to admit that might have been real as well, if extremely perplexing and entirely strange.
The big man drove the motorcycle in a half-circle and headed east. Before it got to the end of Privet Drive, the front wheel and then the rest of it lifted into the air!
Harry gripped the sides of the car he was in and was thankful for seatbelts as he watched the ground and then the houses and then the trees fall away below them. It took him a few minutes to get over his initial shock at being on a flying motorcycle. He wondered if anyone below could see them? It was proof enough that magic was real, that was certain. Then he thought back to the Spiffing voice, and how it had said it was going to skip directly to Diagon Alley. If magic was real - and it clearly was, as they passed a flock of geese - then perhaps there was such a thing as time magic and whoever or whatever the voice was had simply gone on ahead and left him to live the intervening time? Something to think about.
They started to descend over a very populated area, a place with huge buildings and people everywhere and so many cars they choked the streets. Harry thought it had to be London, even though he'd never been there before. They touched down on a very busy street, and rolled to a stop outside a dingy little pub flanked by two bright, clean shops, a clothing store and a music store. The big man took his goggles off and left them hanging from the handlebar.
"Where are we?" Harry asked as he took his own goggles and helmet off and left them on the seat, as they'd been when he climbed in.
"This is the Leaky Cauldron, Harry. Perfect little place for a pint, not that you'll be having pints any time soon o' course." He chuckled quietly to himself. "Blimey!" He said suddenly, "I forgot teh in'r'duce meself! Rubeus Hagrid, Mister Potter. Keeper o' the keys and grounds at Hogwarts." He stuck out a dinner plate-sized hand to shake, so Harry shook as much of it as he could. It was like trying to fit a whole ham in his palm.
"Nice to meet you, Mister Hagrid." Harry said in return.
"Oh jus' call me Hagrid, everyone does." He grinned back at Harry. "Stick close when we get inside now, migh' be a few folk eager teh make yer acquaintance."
"What? Why?" That was ridiculous. Far more ridiculous than magic being real.
"On account o' yer fame, o'course."
"My what ?" Harry frowned hard. That made no sense whatsoever. Nobody got famous by being stuffed in a cupboard for ten years - however long he'd been there now.
Hagrid looked suddenly unsure of himself. "Err... We'd best go, don't want ter be late!"
"No." Harry said. "I'm not moving one step until you tell me what you mean. I've been stuffed in a cupboard under the stairs my whole life, and people in cupboards do NOT get famous!"
Hagrid's shoulders raised as he winced. "Shouldn' a' said tha'. Should not have said tha'." He muttered to himself. He heaved a great sigh, and got down on one knee to look at Harry on a less downward angle. "The whole Magicking world knows yer name, Harry, I din't wanna have teh be the one teh tell yeh, since one o' the professors could do a much better job of it. Yeh were jus' a tiny little thing, no bigger'n' my pinky finger when You-Know-Who killed yer mum and da'. He were there t'kill you too, Harry, but somehow you killed him instead. His killin' curse gave yeh yer scar."
"No I don't know who. Who is that? Are you saying my parents were murdered?" Harry shot back and forth between disbelief and anger.
Hagrid made a face like he'd stepped in cold custard with bare feet. "You-Know-Who is jus' what they call him. He were a Dark wizard, Harry. Dark as they come. He killed a lot o' folk back then, and some said he were a gnat's bum away from takin' over the Ministry. Yer mum and da' were good folk, Harry. They and some o' their friends stood against You-Know-Who, so he tried teh make an example of yeh. If you hadn' bounced his killin' curse back at him, we'd all be in a righ' load o' trouble. After tha' nigh', regular folk got teh callin' yeh a saviour, on account o' yeh stopped You-Know-Who."
"I was a baby, Hagrid! What could I have done?" That made no sense. More likely his parents had done something that killed the dark wizard, and people said he did it because he was the only one left alive.
"I don't rightly know, Harry. I'm sorry, I weren' there 'til after, when Albus - Dumbledore, mind, great wizard, Dumbledore - an' me an' perfesser McGonagall dropped yeh at yer family. Yeh were th'cutest wee thing."
Harry reached into the sidecar and put the goggles and helmet back on. "Well whatever the reasons and whatever happened, I'll look into that later. Thank you for telling me Hagrid, and not treating me like a child."
Hagrid smiled at that, evidently relieved he hadn't managed to muck it up. He looked at Harry and his brows crept closer together. "Wot yeh've got the helmet on fer, Harry? We jus' got here."
"I don't like people staring at me. This way they won't recognize me." He replied.
"Oh. Fair 'nough then."
The interior of the pub was even dingier than the outside. The surfaces looked clean and the floor swept, but the whole place looked straight out of an eighteen-hundreds village picturebook. Thankfully Hagrid simply nodded to those who waved at him, and proceeded at once to a solid brick wall in the back of the pub. Harry looked up at him as Hagrid pulled a pink umbrella from beneath his huge coat and tapped several bricks on the wall.
At once the bricks that made up the wall began to shiver and shift, to fold backward on each other to reveal a doorway. Through the doorway Harry could see other shops, also straight out of a village picturebook. Hagrid stepped through so Harry followed him, and he could hear the bricks shift back into place behind him.
Hagrid turned to look down at Harry and opened his mouth to say something, but instead he just stood there with his mouth open whilst Harry heard an entirely different voice.
"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen! Now that we have skipped the tutorial and landed at Diagon Alley, we can get started in making our lovely little sausage the richest wizard ever to walk the planet earth. That's right, we're starting out wiv infinite wealth! Yes, things are about to get very spicy indeed."
Harry felt a surge of happiness race through him. He was right! The Spiffing Voice hadn't abandoned him after all!
"Sure, you can take the Wealthy background and dump your advancement points into it, and near the end of the game you might have close to a million wizardquid, but why would you do that? Such a waste of points for such a paltry gain! No no no, we're going to become ungodly wealthy through the power of exploits , of course! Now that we have taken the Magic Overload background, as I explained during character creation, when you get through the wall into Diagon proper just hit Escape to back out of Hagrid's dialogue menu, and go directly to the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts. Once you're there, just go to the Charms section and learn the Duplicate spell. It may take a few tries to get right, as Magic Overload only increased your chances by twenty-five percent, but thirty-five percent is a much happier chance than the default ten percent. Once that's done, we can go and rejoin Hagrid and follow him to the bank."
Harry nodded. Go to the bookstore Flourish and Blotts, Charms section, learn Duplicate. Got it!
If the Spiffing Voice was going to make him wealthy, he'd never have to go back to the Dursleys ever! Hagrid had said he wouldn't have to, but that didn't mean he wouldn't during summer. You couldn't stay at school during summer, everyone knew that.
He eagerly scanned the shops on the street, and located Flourish and Blotts a few dozen meters away, so he ran there immediately.
The bookstore had people in it, but it wasn't packed. Harry ignored everyone and searched the signs overtop of different sections until he found Charms. There were hundreds of books on Charms, and that let some of the air out of his happy balloon. He squared his shoulders though, and pulled the first book from the top left and began to search through the table of contents... At least he would have, if there had been a table of contents. Harry sighed with annoyance and flipped through the entire book to look for the Duplicate spell.
It wasn't there.
Thankfully, it was in the sixth book he picked up.
The book gave a picture - a moving picture - of how to wave the wand correctly, along with the corresponding incantation Geminio - pronounced Jeh-MIN-eeo.
Since he didn't have a wand, Harry decided not to worry about that part.
"Geminio." He whispered. "JehMINeeo. JehMINeeo. JehMINeeo." He committed the incantation to memory, then decided to test it on the book. He focused on creating a duplicate of the book, then spoke the incantation. " Geminio !"
Nothing happened.
He tried waving his hand like he did have a wand in it. " Geminio !"
Nothing happened.
He sighed, and focused as hard as he could. He did the wand wave motion and concentrated on there being a duplicate of the book. " Geminio !"
The buildup of...tension? pressure? Whatever it was that was impossible to define inside him that he hadn't really noticed suddenly drained out of him. With a slight pop sound, a second book sat on top of the one he'd opened.
"Yes!" Harry hissed, trying to stay quiet. He placed both books on the shelf where he'd found the first, and headed back out of the bookstore... but he stopped before he left. If he could learn the Duplicate Charm... No. He shook his helmeted head. He had plenty of time to come back and pick up books after whatever the Spiffing Voice had him do next.
When he returned to Hagrid, the big man still stood as he had when Harry had left him, stock still with his mouth open as if to say something. As soon as Harry tugged on his coat to get his attention, Hagrid stood up straight and turned to walk down the Alley. Harry had to hurry a little to keep up with him.
"Where are we going now, Hagrid?" Harry asked.
"Yeh see tha' big white building there where the Alley splits?" Hagrid answered, "Tha's Gringott's, the Magicking bank. Whole thing's run by Goblins. Mind yer manners speaking to a Goblin, Harry. They're nice enough if yer polite, but they control all the money, Goblins do, and they've long memories."
Harry thought that was a bit odd. "Why would wizards put goblins in charge of all their money? Isn't that sort of like asking them to steal it?"
Hagrid stopped and turned instantly. "Oi, shush tha'! A good Goblin'll try t'swindle yeh, tha's righ' enough, but don' ever accuse one o' stealin'. Goblins are righ' sticky 'bout their honour, mind. Wars have started for less."
Harry frowned at that. "Isn't swindling the same as stealing?" It was the same on all Vernon's television shows.
"O' course nah!" Hagrid replied, and resumed walking. "Stealin' is stealin', but a swindle is somethin' yeh agreed teh. Like the difference between takin' money from yer pocket and sellin' yeh a cup wi' no bottom. One is theivin', the other is jus' playin yeh fer a fool."
"Oh." Harry said, and filed that information away for later. He thought he should probably look up how legal swindling was.
They passed two goblins dressed in armor on the way into the bank, which Harry thought was very cool. Hagrid stopped once they were inside the lobby of the bank to let him look around, and he did. Harry had never thought he would ever see anywhere so grand or so fine in real life. Marble floors, granite countertops, gold accents... Petunia would faint dead away from the grandeur.
"Here you go," Hagrid said, and held out a gold key to him. "Tha's yer vault key, Harry. There's only the one, so don't go an' lose it, alrigh'? Jus' go an' let the teller know yeh want to visit yer vault. Yeh'll need about a hundred galleons for yer school supplies, but it's yer gold, so you grab how much yeh think yeh migh' need fer the year. I've got a spot o'... other business teh do, jus' wait for me here by the door if yeh get done first, yeh?"
Harry nodded. "Alright, Hagrid."
"There's a good lad." Hagrid smiled at him warmly, and stood up.
Harry walked forward to join the queue to speak to a teller, but he got no more than four steps before he heard the Spiffing voice again.
"Once inside Gringott's, just go up to the lovely little green financial overlord and tell him you'd like to visit your vault. You then get to ride the goblincoaster into the bowels of the earth, hooray! StillbetterthanButlins. Once you finish wiv the pointless rollercoaster of certain death and manage to open the door to your paltry little puddle of money, close the door again. If you don't close the door before attempting this exploit, you'll destroy the entire universe in an implosion of blue screen singularity."
Harry didn't know what implosion was, or what 'blue screen singularity' referred to, but it didn't sound good. In fact, 'destroy the universe' sounded distinctly bad . He resolved to close the door and avoid it, whatever it was. Harry waited for the rest of the explanation, but it seemed The Spiffing Voice had moved on again.
"Next!" The goblin teller to his left spat, so Harry walked over and was just able to peek overtop of the counter to see the goblin. He was dressed in a well-cut suit, and seemed quite posh and important.
"Hello sir." Harry said, "I would like to visit my vault please?"
"Name?" The goblin looked at him expectantly.
"Harry Potter, sir."
"Hmph." The goblin grunted, and made some notes on something Harry couldn't see. He used a long feather to write with, just like on one of Petunia's ye-olde-tyme dramas. "Key?"
Harry handed the goblin his key. The goblin made more notes, then handed his key back. "You may wish to make an appointment to see your accounts manager, Mister Potter, I believe he has some things to discuss with you."
"Um..." Harry thought quickly, as he didn't think there would be time to set up a meeting that evening, and he was supposed to get on a train in the morning to go somewhere to school. "Could I write him or her a letter to make an appointment? I think I'm going off to school tomorrow."
The teller nodded and made another note. "Very well Mister Potter. His name is Ungrog. Any owl you send should reach him with no trouble."
Harry smiled up at the goblin, not that he could see it with his helmet and goggles on. "Thanks, mister Goblin sir!" He said happily.
"Just follow Carvebone, he'll take you to your vault." The goblin indicated another goblin that stood at the end of the counter.
Harry nodded again and waved goodbye to the teller, who looked from him to the queue and said "Next!"
"Right this way, Mister Potter." Carvebone said when he got next to him. He turned on his heel and strode down a hallway that looked rough-hewn from stone. It led downward to a wide space where there were several metal carts on rails. Carvebone stepped into one and turned to wait for him.
Harry cautiously followed the goblin into the cart, and sat on the bench seat as he took hold of both sides of the cart. Harry had heard of rollercoasters from the kids at school, and Dudley, who had raved about them to his parents when they'd gone to Alton Towers for Dudley's birthday. Harry had been locked in the cupboard, of course, but his understanding was that rollercoasters were fun things. The fact that the Spiffing Voice had called this one a 'rollercoaster of certain death' made him both curious and frightened.
Carvebone pulled a lever, and the cart instantly shot down the rails it sat on. The rails twisted and turned and plummeted down through an enormous cavern, and the cart followed the rails. Harry was thrown side to side and pushed back into his seat, and even floated off his seat at one point.
He absolutely loved it!
If that's what rollercoasters were like, no wonder everyone loved them! Harry had never gone so fast in his life, and it left him completely thrilled.
Sadly, the ride was over too soon, and the cart stopped outside a huge vault door marked six hundred eighty-eight. Carvebone hopped out and strode quickly to the vault door, where he ran his finger along some indent or crack that Harry couldn't see. Harry climbed out of the cart as well, just as Carvebone held a hand out to him and said "Key."
Harry handed the gold key to him, and Carvebone inserted it in a hidden keyhole. He twisted it left and right, all the way around, pulled it out and pushed it in further and made some more twists. A shuddering groan of metal sounded, then Carvebone pulled the key out completely and handed it back to him.
"The door will close automatically as soon as you step inside, Mister Potter. To leave, simply place your palm in the appropriate space on the inside of the door. The cart will take you back to where you first climbed aboard."
Harry nodded. "Palm on the door, cart back to the top. Got it. Thanks ever so much, Mister Carvebone. I never had so much fun before."
Carvebone made a sort of pulsing hissing wheeze that Harry thought sounded a bit like laughter. "Happy to accommodate, Mister Potter. Enjoy the rest of your stay."
"Um, Mister Carvebone?" Harry had a thought.
"Yes?"
"Does Gringott's sell magic bags or something to put money in? Hagrid said my school supplies would probably cost a hundred, but I don't think a hundred will fit in my pockets."
Carvebone reached into his pocket a pulled out a small maroon leather pouch with a gold Gringott's logo on the front. "Hundred gold each for these, Mister Potter. Press your finger to the logo and it will draw some blood, then it will be bound to you only. No-one else will even be able to touch it. It will link directly to your vault, and never be any heavier than it already is."
"Brilliant!" Harry grinned, a little stunned by it. "Can you just take the fee from my vault?"
"Very good, Mister Potter." Carvebone then trundled off down a hallway carved into the rock.
"Thanks again, Mister Carvebone!" Harry called after him.
Harry stepped into his vault and stood aghast at the pile of gold coins in the middle of the floor. The door clanged shut behind him, and then he heard the Spiffing Voice again.
"Default starting cash is a mere fousand wizardquid, much too little for our world domination plans. No fear vough, no fear, we shall now turn our paltry sum into unbelievable mountains of economy-shattering gold! Just make sure the door is shut, and cast Duplicate on the tiny pile of gold in your vault. It may only work one out of free tries, but at maximum that's sixty casts. Because you haven't got your wand yet, the game hasn't started keeping track of your magic stat, so you can just keep spamming Duplicate . Keep casting it on everyfing in the vault, so you're doubling everyfing you have. It only takes twenty successful duplications to max out the gold counter at nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine fousand, nine hundred ninety-nine. The best part is, the counter is as poorly coded as pre- Y-two-K calendars, so when the value exceeds the limit, your last doubling of five hundred twenty-four million takes you over the maximum allowed amount. The counter breaks, and no matter how much you spend, the counter always says you have nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine fousand, nine hundred ninety-nine available. True infinite wealth is acheived, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of the Magicking world shall bow before the financial might of little orphan sausage!"
Harry tried to isolate the main points of what Mister Spiff told him, but frankly he was absolutely stunned. One coin short of a billion ?! He knew the number in an abstract way - he'd had six years of maths classes, after all - but he could in no way process that number as it pertained to his finances. It beggared his imagination, and it would never decrease ! If this turned out to be real like everything else the Spiffing Voice said...
Harry took a deep breath and began to cast the Duplicate spell.
Sometimes nothing happened, just like at the book store. When he was able to cast it successfully and the pile of money doubled, he felt the... whatever it was he felt inside him drain out of him. He felt a little tired then, but almost immediately he perked right up again, as if he hadn't cast anything at all. The bigger the pile of gold coins in front of him grew, the bigger his smile grew.
He had to shift positions to stand near the door when the pile of gold got twice as tall as he was. After he'd cast successfully ten times, the back wall of the vault started to get farther way, as if it were expanding to accommodate the sheer physical volume of gold. After he'd cast Duplicate another five times, he couldn't see the back wall at all. After he cast it the final twentieth time, he climbed up the inside of the vault door to look out over a vast sea of gold coins, and laughed. Harry laughed harder than he had ever laughed in his entire life.
No more Dursleys .
That was what all that gold meant. It was freedom. He could never let on that he had it, of course. Vernon and Petunia would stop at nothing to wrest control of his gold away from him. However, he knew he never had to go back there at all. They would never come looking for him, they'd probably be ecstatic when he never showed back up. He would have to make sure when he talked to Accounts Manager Ungrog that he bought a house or something just for him. Someplace safe and nice and brilliant that nobody else knew about and nobody else would ever find out about.
"Thank you, Mister Spiff." Harry whispered as he felt tears sting his eyes. "You're my best friend, whoever you are."
Harry jumped from where he was and slid down the front slope of gold coins to the base of the door. After he stood up and fished the coins from out of his pants, he tossed them back on the pile and took out his little red pouch.
He carefully put his hand into the pouch, but... despite the fact that the pouch was about the size of his fist, his hand went into it past his wrist before he felt any coins. He grabbed a handful of them, and heard the jingle of moving coins both from inside the pouch, and from the mountain of coins nearest to him.
Curious, he climbed the vault door again before he put his hand into the pouch. Once he touched coins again, he could see his own hand grasp a fistful of coins from the top of the pile.
He let the coins go and laughed. "Magic is brilliant ."
He made sure the pouch was secure in his pocket, and climbed down the door again. He put his hand in the hand-shaped outline on the door to make it open, then rode the cart back to the banking floor again.
It was nowhere near as much fun going uphill.
He stopped at the queue for the tellers again, because he thought it might be a good idea if he had some regular money as well. He joined the queue, and asked the teller when it was his turn if he could exchange some galleons for pounds stirling.
As it turned out, he could. Harry thought two thousand pounds should be enough for emergencies, and thanked the teller when he handed him a stack of twenty pound notes. Harry grinned and quickly pocketed the cash.
Hagrid was already waiting for him by the door when he finally arrived back at the bank lobby. Harry thought Hagrid was tall, but seeing him sat in a chair amongst other people, he was just as tall as other men when he was sitting down! He really was enormous.
"Alrigh' then, Harry?" Hagrid said softly as he came to stand next to the big man.
Harry nodded. "Brilliant."
"Righ', let's go get yer school things then." He stood up, and they left the bank. As soon as they'd descended the steps outside, he heard the Spiffing Voice again.
"At least the devs put options into the school supplies, and some of them include actual interaction options later on in the game. Make sure you examine your options when choosing your supplies, the bog standard cheapest choices won't do you any favours down the track. Also, don't forget to pick something out for Hermione's birfday, it'll help fings along later."
Then the Voice was gone again.
"Alrigh' Harry, where d'yeh wanna star'?" Hagrid smiled down at him. Harry took the part of his letter he'd kept - the part with the list of supplies he'd need - out of his pocket and decided the smartest thing to do would be to get a trunk or backpack or something first to put everything else in.
The man at Trubshaw's Trunks took one look at Harry and asked: "Hogwarts?"
When Harry nodded, the man showed him the very cheapest trunk in the shop. It looked used, plain, and slightly beat up.
"Okay," Harry said as he acknowledged the trunk, "What's the best you've got?"
The man raised his eyebrows as he looked down at Harry, then looked up at Hagrid. "Alright, Mister..."
"Dursley." Harry replied. No sense getting noticed.
"Right, Mister Dursley. I'll warn you straight away they're quite expensive." He looked back to Hagrid as though Hagrid were in charge of his money.
Harry was glad of Hagrid's helmet, so the man couldn't see his face. "Okay." He said.
The man shrugged and pointed his wand at a trunk that was stuck high up on the wall. It was a beautiful burnished leather in dark burgundy, and was more of a thick briefcase than a trunk. It floated serenely down to land on the counter in front of him.
"This is our top of the line. It's charmed to be always featherlight, weatherproof, can be permanently locked to only you - unless you want someone else added to the lock, which can be done by you at any time. If it's locked to you then only you can move it. It has muggle-repelling charms which can be switched from repelling muggles to only showing them the non-magical insides of the trunk."
He opened it and turned it to show Harry, and inside the trunk was a neatly folded shirt, a blue and silver tie, and a pair of oxfords.
"What's a muggle?" Harry asked.
"Non-magical folk." The salesman replied. "The interior can be customized to your specifications, but it comes with a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The decor inside is changeable at any time by accessing the options panel under the stairs."
"Wait. You mean there's a whole house in there?" Harry couldn't stop his voice from rising a whole octave.
"Not a whole house, just a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. There's plenty of bookshelves and other storage space as well." The man smiled at his reaction.
Harry couldn't believe it! He wouldn't even have to buy his own place, he could just live in his trunk! It was weatherproof and he could take it with him wherever he went! Brilliant !
"Um... Is there a way to put straps on it so I could wear it like a backpack?" He asked.
The man closed the trunk showed Harry the combination locks on the front. He pulled both of the little knobs next to the locks away from each other, and the thick leather bracing straps on the side popped upward to become shoulder straps.
"Brilliant, I'll take it. Does it come with an instruction manual?"
"The options panel has everything clearly labelled, but if you run into difficulty, just come back in and I'll be happy to help, young man." The salesman smiled at him.
"How much?" Harry asked.
"That'll be two hundred sixty-seven Galleons, twelve sickles and four knuts."
Harry took out his moneypouch and counted two hundred seventy Galleons.
"That's too much." The man said.
"Keep the rest as a tip, thanks for being so nice, mister." Harry shrugged his new house onto his back and headed for the door.
"Thank you, Mister Dursley! Come again any time." The salesman called as Harry and Hagrid left.
"Sure tha's alrigh', Harry?" Hagrid asked when they were outside, "Seems like a lot o' money fer a trunk."
"Positive, Hagrid, thanks for caring. I've got plenty. Do you have anywhere you have to go? This school list won't take too long, but I want to look around and maybe buy some food and other things as well."
"Nah, we should be fine Harry. I'll get back in plenty o' time. What's next on yer list?"
Harry took out the list and looked again. "Uniform, I guess."
Hagrid took him to a shop called Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions, and the lady who did the fittings was nice. She cast a spell on him that shrunk his clothes to fit him, then measured him every which way, sometimes twice. Harry was just happy she didn't ask him to take anything off. He didn't want to show anyone his scars, that would be horrible and embarrassing. Thankfully Madam Malkin knew exactly what to do for Hogwarts students, and Harry was outfitted in no time flat.
After that, they went to get Harry's telescope. There weren't many different kinds in the shop however, they all seemed fairly old-fashioned brass affairs with several spells on them to see through cloud cover and be waterproof and things like that. Harry picked one that was nice, but middle of the road. Harry took it down into his new house and set the telescope carefully on his new bed.
They went into the Potions Emporium after that, where he bought a very precise set of scales, a couple of different-sized cauldrons, three racks of self-replenishing empty phials for potions, and had a conversation with the shop owner about how to use the equipment and care for it. The shop owner was quite nice, and mentioned several books on potions for beginners that Harry planned to pick up at the bookstore if they had them. He also thought the shop owner thought he was weird and thought the helmet was his actual head. He kept mentioning he'd had potions accidents as well.
Harry decided to go to the bookstore next, and leave his wand until last. If he made duplicates of all the books he bought, then he had extras to lend or in case one got wrecked.
He took a long time in the bookstore, long enough that he thought Hagrid might get a little miffed. He got his schoolbooks taken care of first, then he found all kinds of brilliant books to read - household charms for cooking and cleaning, grooming charms for your hair and teeth and skin, healing charms for minor injuries, several books on potions in addition to the ones the potions shop had suggested, books on duelling, books on wizard law, books on Magicking traditions, history - just about anything he saw he wanted to read. He bought a lot of books, and then made copies of most of them.
"Sorry it took so long, Hagrid." He apologized once they left the bookstore.
"Nonsense Harry, it's great teh see yeh so interested. Yer mum an' da' were brilliant at magic, yeh know. Head Boy an' Head Girl at Hogwarts, they were."
"Really?" Harry eagerly drank the information.
Hagrid nodded with a grin. "Aye, yer parents were both top shelf, Harry."
"Great, I'm glad I picked up loads of books! I can't wait to start reading them." Harry was excited just to start learning any magic other than the duplicate spell. Duplicate was brilliant and useful, and he had no doubt there were other things just as interesting.
Hagrid just chuckled to himself, and they entered Ollivander's wand shop. After ten minutes and several near-disasters later, Harry left the shop with a wand made from Holly and a Phoenix feather. He was dead anxious to try it out. He supposed that most of the new students on the train tomorrow would probably feel the same.
"Wait! Hagrid, what do girls like for their birthdays? I forgot to get a gift."
"Erm... I guess ye couldn' go wrong with somethin' shiny? Mebbe a bracelet or sommat?"
Harry supposed that the fact he didn't even know the girl sort of limited his options, but Hagrid's suggestion was more than he had, so he ducked into a jewelry shop and picked up a locket in the shape of a book. The only ones they had were books and hearts, and hearts were dangerously girly. It was for a girl, that was true, but he didn't want to send any kind of weird messages. What if she turned out to be horrid like Dudley?
"Are there any just regular clothes stores here?" He asked Hagrid when they exited. Harry was more than fed up with wearing anything that had ever touched Dudley.
"I don' righ'ly know, Harry. Sorry." Hagrid said with a long face. "I should probably get back soon, too. Come on, I'll drop yer back to home."
"That's not my home. That's just where Vernon and Petunia live." Harry corrected him.
"I can't jus' leave yeh wanderin' the Alley, can I?" Hagrid tried to smile.
Harry's heart sank back down into cold despair. "No, I guess not."
"I'll come get yer first thing in the mornin' so yeh can get to the train, alrigh'?"
Harry nodded, too upset to speak. Though, even if Hagrid did drop him off there, Harry knew he could just immediately run to the park and set his trunk to repel normal people while he spent the night inside.
He followed Hagrid back to the place that they entered the Alley - just a blank brick wall from this side - and Hagrid tapped the bricks again. Harry spotted it this time, it was three away in each cardinal direction from a darker-coloured brick. It didn't do Harry any good however, as there was no way he'd be able to reach the topmost one even with his wand.
He followed Hagrid back into the Leaky Cauldron and outside into the non-magical world again. Hagrid put his goggles on, and Harry heard the Spiffing Voice again!
"After you've finished wiv school supplies, you can escape out of Hagrid's dialogue again outside the horribly cliched twelf-century pub. Just skip all the 'travelling' scenes where the game is loading the next area and just go straight to King's Cross so you don't have to be buggered about going to Surrey and back in order to get to the station that's just up the road. Our next exploit happens on the train-" Then the Voice was gone again, presumably forward onto the train.
In any case, Harry took the helmet and goggles off and placed them in the sidecar where he'd found them. When he finished, Hagrid closed his mouth again and busied himself starting the motorcycle and drove off.
Harry smiled to himself as he watched Hagrid take to the sky again, and a strange sunshiney feeling happened in his chest, a feeling he didn't have a name for, but it made him smile. He put his arm out to call a cab like he'd seen in one of Petunia's afternoon soap shows, and took it to King's Cross station. He had to be there for ten in the morning anyway, so he figured he could just set his trunk down in a quiet spot. He thought he probably wouldn't ever take a cab again after that, the driver and the car itself smelled of some rancid kind of smoke that made his stomach queasy.
As it turned out, there were shops at King's Cross station. Harry had never been before, and spent a good few minutes gawping at everything. There were clothing shops, food shops, book shops, coffee shops, all kinds! Harry bought himself a couple pairs of trousers, a few shirts, pants, socks, and a brand new pair of trainers that fit him wonderfully. With a big smile on his face, Harry set his trunk down next to a cigarette vending machine on platform nine, and climbed inside to organize his things and start reading books on how to use magic .