Merlin’s Secrets
As Harry blinked away the bright spots before his eyes, Lord Gringotts told him, “Mr. Potter, you are the heir to Merlin’s vault.”
Harry was speechless for several minutes, but once he’d recovered from the shock that Merlin had somehow foreseen his and Daniel’s joining, he started getting curious about just Merlin had left for them. “Would it be possible to go down and see the vault’s contents today?”
Daniel mentally seconded the request. He was really eager to see what an Ancient would have left behind on Earth.
“I will take you down whenever you wish it.” Lord Gringotts assured him.
“You!” Harry would have thought that the owner of the bank would’ve had more important things to do and added at Daniel’s prompting, “I am honoured that you would take the time out of what I am sure for you is a rather busy day.”
Lord Gringotts didn’t know if it was the Old One or Mr. Potter who’d made the observation about his time being valuable, but he was pleased they recognised the fact nevertheless. He then explained, “I have to be the one to take you down, at least the first time. The security that has been put in place over the years on Merlin’s vault will kill anyone who goes down unaccompanied by someone who is keyed into them. Once we are down there, you and Mr. Jackson will be keyed in to the security wards, so that any goblin may take you down from that point on.”
Both of them were eager to see the contents of Merlin’s vault, so Harry got to his feet, only to stagger for a moment and then collapse back into his chair.
“I think you need a little more time to recover from your separation from the Old One, brief though it was.” Glaive told him. “Why don’t we take care of the other matters you and your Advisor Mr. Jackson wanted to discuss with me.”
“Advisor?” Lord Gringotts inquired in gobbledegook. That was a term he hadn’t heard in some time, since at least the early part of the century in fact. “Why is Mr Jackson Mr. Potter’s Advisor? And what matters was he needing assistance on?”
Glaive explained also in gobbledegook. “Mr. Potter requested a listing of his assets and wanted to see a copy of his parent’s will but because he was here without either of his Guardians, I was unable to provide the information he wanted, since Mr. Potter is regarded as a minor under wizard and muggle law. When I explained that to him, Mr Potter invoked Article 17 of the Guardian laws of 1560 which have never been repealed. He used as his reasoning for requesting it the fact that his magical guardian has never contacted him regarding his assets or anything else he needed to know to enable him to become acclimated to the wizarding world.”
“Really?” Lord Gringotts was both pleased with the thoroughness of Mr. Potter/Jackson’s planning and instantly suspicious of the appointed magical guardian’s actions. Magical guardians by Wizarding law were required to maintain a monthly contact with their wards if the ward didn’t live with them. “Order a quiet audit of all Potter assets. And given that Mr. Potter is sharing his body with one of the Old Ones he is to be considered as an adult in the eyes of Gringotts. Glamridel instruct the main floor staff that whenever Mr. Potter comes into the bank he is to be escorted to Glaive’s office and that it is to be done discretely. Glaive, you will be responsible for helping Mr. Potter and Mr. Jackson with their needs. This will keep the number of people who know the truth about them down to a minimum.”
Glaive nodded, then turned his attention back to Mr. Potter who was still sitting there looking a little dazed. “If you will give me a few minutes, Mr. Potter, I will go get the copy we have of your parent’s will and I will also get some more pepper-up potion for you.”
“Thank you, Glaive,’ Harry bowed slightly in his direction. “You do your family and clan much honour by your actions.”
#####
Handing over two folders, Glaive told Harry, “The first folder contains a list of all the Potter assets that are handled by Gringotts. The second is a copy of the Wills of James and Lily Potter.”
Harry/Daniel opened the folder containing the Wills first. Daniel was very surprised to find they were not written in legalese as he was expecting but plain English. They skimmed the first few pages until they got to the sections pertaining to Harry and found:
In the event that both Lily and I should die before our son Harry James Potter comes of age, we list the following people in order of preference as those who should be his Guardian(s).
Sirius Orion Black
Jessica and Malcolm Roland
Frank and Alice Longbottom
Amos and Celia Diggory
Arthur and Molly Weasley
While we would also like to list Remus Lupin as a potential guardian, we know that given the prejudice of the Wizarding world that the Ministry would not allow him to be the guardian for any child, but we do here state that we feel that he would be an excellent guardian for our son. We also herein stipulate that under no circumstances is our son to be placed with the family of Lily’s sister Petunia Evans Dursley, even Voldemort would be a better choice than Lily’s sister. Given Petunia and Vernon Dursley’s hatred of anything having to do with magic, we know that our son’s life would be hell if he were placed in their care and indeed it would be highly unlikely that he would live to come of age.
/Who is Remus Lupin?/ Harry wondered. /And why would the Ministry not allow him to be a guardian for any child?/
/I have no idea. It’s just another question we’ll have to add to our growing list./ Daniel observed. /So your parents knew that Petunia’s family would be a danger to you. I wonder why their Executor failed to carry out their wishes./
/Executor?/ Harry had never heard the term before.
/An Executor is someone appointed by your parents at the time this Will was written and they would’ve been entrusted with the task of insuring your parent’s final wishes were carried out./ Daniel explained, then asked, /May I speak with Glaive for a moment?/
Harry switched places with him.
“Glaive, this is Daniel,” Daniel told the goblin. “I have a question for you. Would you have any way of knowing if the Potter’s Will was read and executed?”
The goblin seated behind the desk nodded. “Yes, it was. All bequests made by your parents were dispersed within a month of their deaths with the sole exceptions of Mr. Potter and Mr. Black’s. Mr. Black’s because he was in Azkaban by that time and unable to come into claim his. And Mr. Potter’s was being held because he is considered a minor under both Wizard and Muggle law.”
Daniel was quick to pick up on the change in verb tense. It should have been is not was unless the Goblins were viewing Harry as adult under their laws. “So the Goblins now consider Harry as a adult?”
“Within the walls of Gringotts he will be, because he is sharing his body with you. Any time you come into Gringotts, I will be taking caring of your needs personally.” Glaive told him bluntly. “May I ask why you wanted to know if the Potter’s will had been read?”
“Because, if it has then the whoever the executor is, they have violated at least part of the will.” Daniel told him. Then upon seeing the slightly angry expressions on the faces of the three goblins, he quickly assured them. “We know it was not Gringotts that did it because you told us that Gringotts was not the Executor and the part that wasn’t carried out had nothing to do with Gringotts, or at least it doesn’t appear to have any direct connection to Gringotts. It has to do with Harry’s guardianship.”
Daniel handed the parchment page over to Glaive so that he could see what Daniel was talking about. After he and the other two goblins had read the pertinent section, Daniel continued. “It clearly states that under no circumstances was Harry to be placed with the Dursleys and yet he was. That means that the Executor either didn’t see or chose to ignore a very clear set of instructions.”
The goblins could find no fault with his logic, but Lord Gringotts asked. “Are you hoping for our assistance in this matter? Because you should know that we have very little influence in wizarding matters where they do not impact on the bank or on financial and legal matters that are under Goblin control. The only way we would have any say over this issue would be if we had been the executors of this will and as you already know we were not.”
Daniel looked thoughtful, “I really don’t know what kind of assistance we’re going to need yet. I think what we will mostly need is information and advice. You know a lot more about how legal matters in the wizarding world than either Harry or I do right now. If you don’t mind once we have determined what we do need to know, could we correspond with Gringotts regarding these issues? We are going to need as much information as we can get, if I am going to have a chance of getting Harry away from the Dursleys before they succeed in killing him.”
“As long as what you ask doesn’t conflict with the confidentiality we must maintain for our other clients, we will be more than happy to help you gain the knowledge you need to secure your safety and that of Mr. Potter, Old One.” Lord Gringotts bowed slightly toward the joined pair.
Daniel stood and returned his bow of respect gravely. “We thank you Lord Gringotts for any assistance you and your people will give us and I promise it will not be forgotten.” Then feeling a little more stable on Harry’s feet, he told the senior goblin, “I think we are ready to go to Merlin’s vault, if you are ready to take us,” before relinquishing control to Harry.
######
Merlin’s vault was in the oldest, deepest part of the Gringotts vault system and it was definitely guarded by Dragons.
“Hagrid would’ve loved to be on this ride.” Harry observed as they walked under the watchful eyes of gold and silver dragons to the next cart they had to take to the vault.
Each time they encountered the dragons, Lord Gringotts would hold up a medallion and as soon as it started to glow, the Dragons would cease roaring and bow slightly to them.
“Lord Gringotts, these don’t look like the dragons I’ve seen in books where did they come from?” Harry wanted to know.
“These were provided by Merlin himself.” The goblin told him proudly. “They guard the six oldest and most secure trust vaults we have, which include vaults for the Founders of Hogwarts, and Morgan Le Fay.”
“Does that mean that mean that Tom Riddle, otherwise known as Voldemort has been down here?” Daniel wanted to know. “From what I understand, he considers himself Slytherin’s heir.”
“”Mr. Riddle has never set foot in this section of Gringotts.” The goblin told them. “I doubt that he is even aware that Slytherin set up this vault. In fact most wizards don’t even know this section exists. Slytherin set this vault up for his only child by his wife or that child’s heir if they ever appear in Gringotts. Amaris Slytherin died in childbirth and his legitimate heir mysteriously vanished on the day of its birth. Slytherin never remarried, though he did have a number of liaisons up until the day of his death only one of which resulted in a child. Slytherin’s vault like the few others down here have a very specific set of criteria that have to be met before anyone can lay claim to them, aside from being blood kin I mean. Like Merlin’s vault, each has a test that the potential heir must pass before they are allowed access.”
That made no sense and Daniel said so, “If no wizard knows that these vaults exist, then how could anyone claim them?”
“Through the inheritance ritual,” Lord Gringotts told them. “Any witch or wizard may come into Gringotts if they suspect that they may be entitled to an unclaimed vault and ask to take the inheritance ritual. The ritual checks their blood and magical core for markers that the claimant may have in common with other families. Each magical core is slightly different, but the family magic which forms the foundation of that person’s magical core remains and can be detected. It will reveal any and all vaults and properties they are entitled to claim. Even some of the muggle-born may be entitled, because we goblins have long suspected that those who the wizarding world calls muggle-born are actually the first magical children from a line of squibs so long they have forgotten their families ever knew how to do magic. However according to wizard law we cannot tell anyone of the unclaimed vaults. Someone must ask us first before we can say anything about the unclaimed vaults. The Ministry would like to get their hands on the contents of some of the vaults, but they can’t because we will not allow them to breach the trusts we hold.”
“A stalemate then,” Daniel concluded. “The Wizard government can’t get the money and goods within, but you can’t tell anyone who doesn’t ask the stuff is even there and that they might be able to claim it, unless they ask you to do the ritual.”
“Quite so,” Lord Gringotts agreed. “The Ministry’s interference annoys us no end, but we are not going to start another rebellion over it, as long as they make no attempt to try and force us to give them access to the vaults they have no right to.”
######
The final cart ride was the longest and ended at a set of curved double doors set in an archway. Torches flared magically into existence at their approach and Daniel saw that there were words written in Ancient carved on one of the doors. The doors also looked like they were made out of naquada and that meant they could take a lot of punishment but no one would get past them easily unless they had access to advanced technology like the Tollan pass through devices. Formidable protection indeed.
“There is one final thing you have to do to gain access to the vault, Mr. Potter, Mr. Jackson,” Lord Gringotts told them. “You must read the phrase carved on the door, in your native tongue.”
Harry/Daniel took that to mean that it must be spoken in Ancient. Harry changed places mentally with Daniel and the linguist read it over once silently, before saying, “In the name of Myrddin Emrys, guardian and father of magic, I command that the doors be opened to his chosen heir.”
The doors leading to the vault gave off a flare of almost blinding white light and then began to open slowly and soundlessly. The fact that the doors were opening so quietly came as something of a surprise to Harry/Daniel because they had both expected some creaking, given that the doors probably hadn’t been opened since the day the vault was closed almost a thousand years ago. The doors stopped moving when they were open wide enough to admit one person.
“I will wait for you both here,” Lord Gringotts told them.
Taking a deep breath, Harry/Daniel walked through the narrow opening. As soon as they’d cleared the thick doors, lights came on and a blinding light enveloped Harry/Daniel’s body for a moment before vanishing. Harry/Daniel had to blink several times to clear the spots from their eyes so they could both see again. Once Harry/Daniel’s eyes had readjusted they realized that the dim lighting allowed them to see only the immediate surroundings but no further. While there shouldn’t have been any danger, Daniel advised Harry to be cautious.
“Come in, young one, come in,” an elderly voice called out and even though the words were clearly not in English, Harry was able to understand them.
/I am translating for you,/ Daniel told him. /He is speaking in Ancient./
“Actually I am speaking Alterran, not Ancient, please call it by its proper name,” the unseen voice requested. “You are part Alterran after all.”
“Actually I am not Ancient or if you prefer Alterran” Daniel came forward and Harry let him handle the conversation for now with this unseen person. “Actually I am of the Tau’ri. And how did you know what I said to Harry given that I wasn’t speaking out loud?”
/Tau’ri?/ Harry wondered.
/It means I am from Earth,/ Daniel told him. /To other races in the universe we are known as the Tau’ri./
/Oh./ Harry felt even more confused.
/I’ll explain later,/ Daniel promised.
“If you are the ones I prophesied then you as the Ascended one are at least part Alterran.” The voice insisted, “As for how I heard you, that white light that surrounded you just a moment ago allows me to hear the mental voice of whoever is currently not in control of the body you both share. At least it will until I have a chance to give you something you will need.”
An elderly man surrounded by a nimbus of white light suddenly appeared a few feet away. “Greetings to you both. I am Myrddin, or if you prefer Merlin, and I have been waiting for you to arrive for a long time.”
Harry stood there for several minutes in stunned silence. He looked exactly like the picture that was on the wizard trading card he had gotten from his chocolate frog package. If there was one thing he hadn’t expected to find in this vault it was Merlin himself. Finally he took control back and asked, “Have you been in here all this time, sir?”
Merlin laughed and switched to English, “No, my child, I have not. I left a monitor charm here to let me know when the vault was opened. If I had been occupied, you would have been greeted by the hologram I left behind, but since I was free I wanted to see the pair of you and bestow my gifts in person.”
“I’m honoured sir.” Harry told him. “My name is Harry Potter and my unseen companion’s is Daniel Jackson.”
“It is I who am honoured to meet you, young Harry.” Merlin told him. “Would you do me a favour Harry, because I would like to be able to see and speak with both of you, could you please put the ring sitting on that pedestal behind you on the second finger of your right hand?”
“What will it do, sir?” Harry asked studying the intricate knotwork that ran around the ring with an admiring eye. It was a very elegant looking piece.
“I must admit to being quite proud of how that ring turned out, even if I do say it myself.” Merlin told them. “What I designed it to do is: when worn on the second finger of your right hand, Harry, it allows Daniel to appear when he wills as a separate from you, completely solid entity, without risking both of your lives. When you wear the ring on the second finger of your left hand, then when needed or desired, Daniel’s image will be superimposed over yours, completely hiding you and he will feel real and solid to anyone you encounter.”
Harry quickly slid the ring onto his right hand and felt it adjust to fit comfortably on his second finger. A few moments later the man he had only seen an image of in his head appeared beside him wearing blue jeans and a slightly large white sweater.
Smiling, Harry held out his hand toward Daniel. “It is a pleasure to meet you in the flesh so to speak, Dr. Jackson.”
“And I’m glad to finally be meeting you,” Daniel gripped his hand gently for a moment then turned his attention to Merlin.
“I need to give you one word of warning though with regard to the ring.” Merlin told them. “The effect is only good for six hours max at one time before it starts putting a strain on the pair of you and when you are appearing as two separate people, you can only be about one hundred feet apart before Daniel will disappear.”
“Greetings Myrddin,” Daniel bowed slightly to the older Ascended. Harry could still hear the translation of the Ancient or Alterran in his head. “ Given that you made this ring for us to use, I gather you do not intend to tell the Others where to find me.”
“If they look for you at all it will be in the time you came from, not in the past.” Merlin told him. “And because your lifeforce has become bound together with Harry’s even if they try to find you in the past they will not be entirely successful because your Ascended signature is no longer the same as it was.”
“Merlin, how did you know about Daniel and I?” Harry wanted to know. “What I mean is the goblins said you opened this vault for us a thousand years ago, so how did you know that Daniel and I would wind up bound together?”
Merlin looked solemn. “That is a rather complicated story. I am one of the few among the Alterran who have visions and have an even rarer ability of being able to remember them, instead of having to be told after the fact what I said. However like Cassandra, I am not always believed, especially about the truly catastrophic things, like the plague that affected us and the Ori. And like Oma Desala, your mentor, Daniel, I can’t resist helping those who need and deserve it. When I first returned here about five thousand years ago after the Goa’uld were driven off, I found a number of human’s who were manifesting Alterran abilities or as they called it magic. Those who could work magic were humans of Alterran descent. I taught them in various guises how to use magic over the years and how to protect themselves from those who might try and use magic against them, or from magical creatures that might attack them. I also taught others how to defend themselves from human magic users as well, since I don’t play favourites Anyway about a thousand years ago during the time when Hogwarts was first being founded, I had returned to Earth to check on my charges and while I was staying at Hogwarts I had a vision of powerful Wizard who was joined to an Ascended One who wasn’t entirely Alterran and I heard myself say that when a Wizard and Ascended One are joined as one, their struggles will shake the heavens and the earth.”
“Myrddin, that is the second time you have said I am partly Ancient or Alterran and I am not.” Daniel disagreed. “I’m one of the Tau’ri. Oma Desala helped me to Ascend and if I had been Descended as the Others intended for trying to defend Abydos from Anubis I would’ve gone back to being just a plain Tau’ri.”
Merlin moved closer to Daniel, extending his hand and the glow surrounding it increased. He ran his hand along the side of Daniel’s head as if stroking it. When he pulled his hand back he looked slightly troubled but said nothing. Of all the things he had expected when he met those involved in his last and most important prophecy meeting Seanan Amon Slytherin again hadn’t been one of them. His thoughts drifted back to the first time he had seen Seanan.
Flashback
Myrddin was surprised to be met at the main entrance to the keep that would one day be the completed Hogwarts by Godric Gryffindor. He hadn’t planned on coming here today, but something had drawn him here and he’d learned over the years to listen to those instincts. They’d never played him false.
Instead of al the usual pleasantries he was used to from Godric, which generally included the progress they had made on building their school, the burly man began to hustle him up the stairs to the chambers, Myrddin knew were occupied by Salazar and his wife. “I’m glad you’re here, Merlin. We’ve got a problem. Someone poisoned Sal’s wife about two weeks ago. We don’t know if the poison was meant for her or Sal. We weren’t able to figure out what the poison was either, so Sal had no way to make an antidote. She’s in labour but Helga says that she doesn’t have enough strength to give birth because all her energies both physical and magical have been going toward keeping her and her baby alive long enough so he can be born.”
“You’re sure it’s going to be a boy?” Myrddin commented with a smile.
“Amaris is and you know she has the ability to see the future almost as well as you do.” Godric pointed out. “She’s been asking for you since she went into labour. And Sal didn’t know what to tell her.”
Myrddin summoned his satchel full of supplies from the place where he kept it in other space. If the Others knew he used these supplies on part Alterrans they would have a fit. Since they’d Ascended, they’d forgotten their children, those of other races who were part Alterran. He felt an obligation to see that their children survived long enough to develop and reach for the stars themselves. “Take me to her.”
Salazar slytherin looked up ready to blast whoever was coming in, suspecting it was another twittering idiot, but sighed in relief when he saw it was Godric followed closely by Merlin. “Thank the powers you’ve come.”
“Godric filled me in,” Myrddin told the worried husband. “Let me see what I can do for them.”
##############
Even with Helga’s help and the discreet use of the advanced medical supplies he had brought with him it was still a long fight over several hours before Salazar’s son came into the world with a loud cry.
“You have a son, Amaris,” Helga told her friend.
“He sounds healthy. Does he look like his father?” Amaris asked weakly.
“He looks more like you in colouring and hair, at least right now.” Myrddin told her as he finished cleaning up the baby. The boy’s fine downy head of hair was a dark gold and his eyes were blue like hers, but blue eyes were normal for babies.
As Salazar and Godric entered the room, Merlin’s bare hand came down on top of the child’s downy head. He saw a vision of a grown man with golden brown hair in what was clearly a smoke filled ship’s corridor and he was fighting an unseen enemy. The young man’s clothing was also wrong for this time period so he was from sometime in the future, but he could feel about the man the essence of the child beneath his hand. He saw others standing with Sal’s child who were clearly not from this time. His visions generally involved events or people who were going to affect the world in a long term way for good or ill so what did this mean? Something was clearly going to take Sal’s child away from him? Why and where though? And what was this boy’s fate to be?
Delving deeper into the boy’s essence, Myrddin found almost no magic within the boy’s body, and what traces of magic there were seemed to be leaving the boy for somewhere else. Using his other senses, he traced that magic to find out where it was going and realised the boy was and probably had been all this time fighting along with his mother to keep them both alive. He reached down and closed off that connection before the baby could bleed away his lifeforce in a futile effort to keep his mother alive. She had been dead the moment the poison started its work. It was only her determination and his apparently that had kept them both alive this long. The problem was that the boy had drained his magic to the point where he might no longer be allowed in the magical world. While it was possible he might regain his magical abilities, it was equally possible that he might not, if he’d drained them past the point of recovery. One thing was certain though, those in the magical community would not give him the chance to try. In fact most magic users would probably call for his death out of fear. Fear that he would reveal them to the witch hunters in revenge because he was unable to use magic himself.
Myrddin now knew at least part of what the vision meant. He now knew who was going to be taking Sal’s son away. It was to be him. Like a handful of the others who were part Alterran, but who had little or no magic, he would have to move this one through time to a different life and family if he was to have a hope of surviving and from what he had seen the boy was going to have an eventful life in front of him. His problem was going to be explaining to Salazar why he was going to lose both wife and son.
End Flashback
“Was you prophecy wrong?” Harry asked, when the older wizard remained silent after taking his hand from Daniel’s face.
“No,” Myrddin seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before returning to the present. “You are the ones spoken of by my prophecy and he is an Ascended One. However, I can also see the ties of another prophecy binding you as well, young Harry. If they still keep them there, as they did the last time I checked on my children here, I would suggest going to the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic to hear the other prophecy that was made concerning you.”
“Do you have any idea what the contents are?” Daniel asked concerned.
“Unfortunately no,” Myrddin shook his head. “I can just see the ties binding him to a prophecy that has yet to be completed.”
Wanting to distract them because he needed time to think about what he had just found out regarding Daniel Jackson, Myrddin told them, “ Have a look around. While most of this is gold and gems, not mention a few other types of currency given I didn’t know when this vault would be opened, I did leave a number of things here for the pair of you and this may be your only chance to find out, from the one who made them, just what they do instead of reading a few lines of explanation in that book over there.”
“Book?” That got Daniel’s attention.
Myrddin gestured toward the niche in the wall where a thin white book was lying open. He’d left it open to the page on the ring just in case he hadn’t been able to meet with them. “Everything in that book I made for you. They are designed to work with the combined human magic and Ascended powers you now possess. You will have to practise with most of them because the first few times you use them they may leave you feeling weak if you use too much power with them. It will also be good practise at getting Harry’s magic and your Ascended powers working as one, instead of separately. Though they will still work separately when needed.”
As Daniel picked up the book, Myrddin wondered how he could have missed seeing the resemblance between Amaris and Daniel, given that Amaris’ colouring and elegant features were very evident in Daniel’s face.
“I missed being able to do this,” Daniel told him before turning his attention back to the pages of the book.
Myrddin noted that Daniel also had Salazar’s slender but compact build and apparently, judging by the way he was devouring the pages of the book, also had his sire’s fierce desire for knowledge. He also wondered how he could have forgotten that he had left Seanan with a family named Jackson in Egypt after their son was still born.
The Jacksons had definitely done a fine job raising Seanan Amon Slytherin into a fine and noble young man just like his birth parents. He made a mental note to find and thank them for it. They had raised a young man who was willing to stand up and fight for what was right and not take the easy way out. Daniel Jackson, from the gossip he had overheard from the Others, had never taken the easy way even before he Ascended and afterwards always skirted the edge of breaking the rules. Myrddin suspected part of the reason that Daniel kept from completely shattering the rules so long was because he had so much to see and learn. It had taken the potential destruction of Abydos to finally get him to shatter, not just try and break the rules. Myrddin just hoped some of the Others up there had learned from his example.
Anubis had to be dealt with even if he was following the rules laid down. He retained some of the Ancient knowledge and that gave him a big edge in finding and learning how to use it. They hadn’t been successful in blocking it when they tried to descend him, not realizing that you couldn’t Descend a parasite, you had to destroy it. In their fear of what the Ori might do, the Others had forgotten that for years they and the other three races had held the Goa’uld in check, and that a Goa’uld’s greedy, rapacious, nature and desire to be worshipped as a god didn’t change just because it no longer had a body, especially when said parasite now really seemed to have the powers of a god and didn’t have to worry about dying.
Myrddin turned his thoughts from the immediate past to his current problem, which was: Should he tell Daniel the truth about his family and who they were or should he wait until the situation was a little more stable? It was going to be a shock to find out that you were actually born almost a thousand years ago and to a man who is these days thanks to the efforts of his illegitimate son was considered by history to be a Dark Wizard, interested only in the purity of someone’s bloodlines.
He remembered well how Salazar had spent a year mourning for Amaris and the son he couldn’t keep and that everyone else except the other three founders had tried to get him interested in remarrying, but he showed no interest in doing so. Given he was a young man still in the magical community Salazar had gone through quite a few ladies, each of whom hoped to be the next Lady Slytherin, but in the end they were doomed to disappointment. He’d told Myrddin during one of his last visits to early Hogwarts that he could never make that kind of commitment again because he would never settle for less than another soulmate as Amaris had been. What was amazing is considering the number of women he had gone through though was that Slytherin had only one other child by Juliana Minton. She had named her child Salazar. The elder Slytherin had acknowledged the child as his and given him his name, but he never married Juliana.
It had been Juliana’s child that had given rise to the Slytherin reputation of wanting to prevent those who came from non-magical families from coming to Hogwarts when he became a teacher there after his father’s death. The best Godric and the remaining Founders had been able to do was remove him from the school, but then he had gone on to recruit likeminded followers in an attempt to force his views on the rest of the magical community. He had been defeated but not before the damage had been done. The magical community had been forced to go into hiding for centuries after the deaths of so many innocents, both magical and non-magical and even now they were still afraid to come out of the shadows. At times Myrddin wondered if reason for Salazar the younger’s hatred of those not of magical blood might not have been because he found out that his older brother was still alive, just not magical. He may have wanted to remove any other potential heirs, not knowing that Seanan was far out of his reach in the future, taken there by Merlin himself. He also occasionally wondered how this world would be now if the second Salazar Slytherin hadn’t forced such a steep division between the magical and non-magical peoples because of his hatred.
Abandoning the what–ifs for now, he decided that for now he would keep the information on Daniel’s true parentage to himself for a while longer. After all not knowing wouldn’t hurt Daniel right now and knowing might distract him at a critical point in whatever the pair needed to do from this point on. He would wait until Daniel had more emotional support than just Harry to help him work through whatever issues might crop up as a result of this information.
############
Lord Gringotts waited about an hour for the two who had entered Merlin’s vault to return. Ordinarily he would have been impatient to return to his work, but he was very curious to see what treasures if any would be brought out of the vault. After all these were things that hadn’t seen the light of day since Merlin had first put them in the vault. He was beginning to wonder how much longer they would be, when the vault door swung open and Mr. Potter stepped out with a bag over one shoulder.
“Lord Gringotts,” The joined pair greeted him. “Sorry we took so long, but the vault was full of interesting, useful, and unusual things.”
“Indeed.”
Daniel/Harry had already decided to trust those goblins already bound by the secrecy promise with the knowledge of what the ring could do. Holding up his hand, Harry told him, “This was the most useful thing we found.”
The goblin took the ring from the boy’s palm and studied it. It appeared to be of silver and was covered with celtic knotwork. He detected nothing unusual with goblin magic and it didn’t look unusual enough to get the reaction it was getting from the joined pair. Handing it back he waited to see if they would show him what it did.
Harry slid it on his right hand and got to watch the goblin’s eye briefly pop in surprise when Daniel appeared beside him.
“Myrddin made the ring to give me form when needed without putting a strain on us.” Daniel told the goblin.
Lord Gringotts bowed slightly to the Old One. “He was truly the greatest of all magical beings.”
“He is indeed very talented,” Daniel agreed. “I think we are ready to return to the main area of the bank, if you are.”
As Lord Gringotts lead the way back to the carts, Daniel asked, “Lord Gringotts, can you tell me if the goblins have or know of someone capable of creating an identity for me that would pass any magical or muggle checks?”
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word, words and more words = conversations in Ancient/words, words and more words/ = conversations between Harry and Daniel
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