The Third Time is a Charm

Posted: 29 October 2009



Chapter 40: Muggleborn or Squib Born



It was the third day after Christmas before Lily could get an appointment at Gringotts. James kept telling her that the book was wrong and she just couldn\'t get her Gryffindor courage in motion to call until yesterday. She didn\'t want to appear foolish and cause problems for the busy goblins if the book was a hoax, but she wanted to know if it was true. So, in her most business like robes she made her way to Gringotts Bank to see the Potter account head. Griphook greeted her as soon as he saw her come in. She acknowledged the goblin politely and followed him to the meeting room that was indicated.



Inside the spacious room there was an old massive oak antique desk at least five feet long, it was shorter than an ordinary desk but she realized it must be made to accommodate the size of the goblins at the bank. There were two cushioned high back chairs in front of the desk and Lily proceeded to sit down.



“Now Lady Potter, is your husband going to be joining us today?” Griphook asked politely.



“No, he has some other things to do and just escorted me to the door. I am to firecall him when I am ready to leave.”



“Very well then, we will get started.” The goblin said, taking out a small chalice with runes around the edge and a parchment. The chalice had some kind of opaque colored liquid in it already. “You will cut your index finger and place three drops of blood into this chalice. After that we will pour the liquid onto the parchment and your genealogy will appear. Are you ready to begin?”



Lily nodded her head and lifted the dagger to put a small cut into her index finger. She carefully held her finger and dropped three drops of blood into the container, then watched as the goblin spoke in a language she was not able to identify. When the liquid swirled in the bowl for a few minutes, the goblin very carefully poured it onto the parchment. The liquid began writing on the paper as if it were a quill of ink and started with her unborn child at the top and made its way down to the bottom where the names of the four founders could be seen. Next to the names, sporadically throughout the list, there were different symbols that looked to be runes. She wasn’t sure what all this meant and she wished James were here, but he didn’t think this was even necessary. He, along with Sirius, kept insisting the book was wrong and just a joke.



“What does all this mean?” Lily gasped in awe. She hadn’t expected anything like this. The goblin was giving her a few moments to collect herself and then started to explain.



“It means that you are not muggleborn. It means that you descended from many squib born. The symbols you see next to the name indicate squib born, muggle or magical. You are the fifty fourth so called \'muggleborn\' to come in here in the last two days. All of them proved, through the same inheritance test, to be squib born. Some had vaults that were being held here as abandoned believing the family had died out. Others didn’t have vaults but were still proved to be of prominent pureblood families. We have not seen one true muggleborn since that book came out. Years ago, when we tried to bring this knowledge forth we were blocked by the Wizengamot. We do not, as a rule, involve ourselves in the affairs of wizards so we did not pursue the subject."



"Does this mean I am a pureblood like my husband?" Lily was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was not muggle born.



The goblin tried to explain as best as he could. "You are not pureblood, but most purebloods are not either. You do have a few muggles throughout your blood line as some of your squib relatives married muggles. If the squibs had stayed in the magical world and married a witch or wizard, we would not be having this conversation. You would have been raised in the wizarding world."



"Meaning my parents, instead of being squibs, would have been a witch and wizard."



“Yes. You also have a vote on the Wizengamot that has not been used by your family in several generations.”



“Why was I never told this before?"



"You didn\'t come in to take the test and find out what your rightful heritage was."



“What am I to do now? I mean, how do I claim my inheritance?” Lily asked.



“You have already done that. The vault, of the Evans line that was believed to have died out long ago, is now yours.”



“How much money is there and how do I access it?” Lily still was in shock about actually having her own money in Gringotts.



“You may go see your vault now, if you wish, or you may get a money exchange card.” The goblin said in a very business like manner.



“I would like to go to my vault and see what is in it and then, if possible, I would also like to get a money card that I can use for shopping.”



Then, following Griphook to the cart area, she got in and took the wild ride to see the Evans vault. They didn’t find much, a few books, a few family heirlooms and the money of course. Her statement read over one million galleons and she was delighted that she now had her own money. Not that James ever said anything and would always provide for her, but it was nice to be able to spend some of her own money at times. It was not as much as James, but the books looked interesting and she found a book that the goblin said once belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw.



“In this book there is a spell that you can use to help protect your unborn son. You and your husband both must participate in the ritual spell.” As the young woman picked up the book, she didn’t question how the goblin knew that. They seemed to know many things that she didn’t understand. She started to shrink the book to take with her. Griphook stopped her before she could get the spell out.



“That is a very old and fragile book. It belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw herself. You don’t want to shrink it or do anything else to it, in fact I would not even take the floo with it, the knight bus would be best. Also we should camouflage it so no one else can tell what it is.”



With a wave of his hand the goblin had changed the cover of the book to read Household Tips for the Busy Witchwife.



“What happened to the other books that used to be here?” She could see that there were empty spaces on the shelves that used to hold other books.



“We are trying to track them down. It looks as if someone tried to claim your vault before now and took a few things. There are a few hundred thousand galleons missing also but we will find who it is and bring them to trial.” Actually, Griphook already knew who it was but Gorbink had told him not to say anything until the time was right. “We ask that you not say anything before the culprit is caught. We do not want word to spread about this. Please don’t even tell your husband.”



Lily made a promise not to say anything and Griphook nodded his head in approval of her oath and led her back to the cart for the return roller coaster ride to the foyer. They had not gone to the very bowels of the vaults but the Evans vault was about halfway. They left the Ravenclaw vaults alone as those would go to Harry and not to her. Harry had been adopted as an heir, he was not an actual direct descendent and even though the Evans did descend from a Ravenclaw squib, Harry was already predestined to use the information in the vaults so they were sealed until his coming of age.



On the ride back, Griphook reflected on the different attitudes of the two Potters. Lily always treated him with respect where James always treated him as most other wizards have done in the past. He wondered if it was a muggle thing. Harry Prince had also treated him with respect when he visited on their Christmas Eve, but then so did everyone in the house.



When Lily entered the foyer of the bank again, she turned around and bowed to the little goblin that had been so much help. “Do I need to share my vault contents with my sister?”



Griphook shook his head in the negative as he answered her question. “Gringotts vaults are for witches and wizards. You do not need to share any of your vault with your sister unless she is a witch or squib and even then, if she does not wish to live in the wizarding world, she is not entitled.” With that said Griphook gave Lady Potter her vault key and bid her good day.



Lily nodded her head in understanding, thanked the goblin again and made her way to Diagon Alley with her new money exchange card; it was like a credit card. As she was on her way to the Leaky Cauldron to signal for the knight bus, she spotted that vending machine that was featured in the Daily Prophet and went to see if there was anything she wanted. She saw a book called \'Lullabies Long Forgotten for the Young Witch or Wizard\'; so quickly used her new card to purchase the book, she then hastily made her way through the crowds to catch the bus, not remembering to floo James.



When she arrived about two hours later, after several stops across the county, she entered her home and there were James and Sirius sitting in the family room playing a game of chess.



“Who’s winning?” she called out from the doorway when she found them.



“Where have you been? Did you go shopping after you left the bank? I was waiting for the floo call and here you are.” James sounded a little irritated but Lily knew he was just worried about her.



“When I finished at the bank I did look around Diagon Alley for awhile then I took the knight bus home.” Lily informed him.



“Why did you take the Knight Bus? We never use that method of transportation. It’s a ghastly ride.” James exclaimed.



“I’ve never been on it and wanted to try it. You have always had a portkey or apperated me somewhere and now I apparate everywhere. I wanted to do something different.”



“Yeah, well that bus is different,” was the sarcastic comment out of Sirius\' mouth.



Sirius, always wanting to be the center of attention asked, “So what did Gringotts tell you? Are you from some famous line of magical folk that hid you away?” he joked. He was not really ready for Lily’s answer.



“Oh, yes it turns out that the Evans were in fact magical about two centuries ago. Also I am from a squib line of Ravenclaw’s although not a direct heir. There was a vault there that had a few books and a little over a million galleons, but other than that not much happened to me today. How about you? Anything interesting happen with you?” Lily smirked at the speechless and stunned expression of the two men then left the room so they could think about it for a minute. She headed for the kitchen to make tea and pull out some biscuits she had made earlier that day.



She laughed to herself as the two men soon followed her to hear what she had to say about that afternoon. They still thought muggleborns were just that, from muggles.



“So what did the goblins really have to say?” Sirius demanded. “You were just joking about the vault weren’t you?”



Lily pulled out her money card and showed it to James. When she tapped it with her wand, it gave a balance of what was in the account, two taps would give you the day’s transactions but she didn’t want him to know she used the vending machine in the Alley. He would only give here a lecture about being careful and dangers of possible Death Eaters about.



“Whoa, Lily, that is some serious card you have there! You weren’t joking were you?” James exclaimed as he realized that his wife was telling the truth.



“Griphook told me I was the fifty fourth so called ‘muggleborn’ to come in over the last two days and all of them, without fail, took the inheritance test to find out they were from a squib line.”



“We should tell Dumbledore right away.” Sirius was actually reaching for the floo pot when Lily said. “NO!”



Sirius turned around and looked at the young woman like she had two heads and asked, “Why not? He should know about this. You are a lost relative of Ravenclaw and could have access to other vaults that they didn’t tell you about.”



“Sirius, I am not the direct Ravenclaw heir and I am not going to claim to be!” Lily was getting angry and they could tell by her flushed face and flashing eyes that she meant what she said. Sometimes she just got so exasperated with Sirius wanting to fight the war and report everything to Dumbledore. “There is no reason to tell anyone only to have reporters and every curious person out there at our door. I don’t have access to Ravenclaw’s money nor any other items, so why create mass confusion for us? We like living without the rest of the public being around.



“Alright, I won’t tell him." He said with a shrug, clearly not understanding her reasoning on the subject. "It was only a suggestion, I thought you would be happy to be able to say you are not muggleborn and the book was right and we were wrong.” Sirius backed off away from the floo pot, both hands in the air like he was being held up and sat back down at the table.



"Who was right or wrong does not matter. I don’t feel the need to tell everything to Headmaster Dumbledore, especially over an UNSECURED floo connection. This is not that important and we don’t need to bother him with every little detail of our lives. If he asks at the next meeting I will tell him then.” Lily placated him. She kept remembering the inscription on the dedication page of the book that started all of this, and was wondering if it wasn’t a warning of some kind. When she had tried to discuss it with James he just dismissed it as inconsequential.



"What I don\'t understand, is why this information was hidden. Dumbledore knows everything and has so much information and deals with muggleborns everyday. Why didn\'t he know it?" Lily speculated. "And for that matter, why are the purebloods trying to hide the fact?"



The two men in front of her didn\'t know the answers either, but they didn\'t think it was that important. Lily gave up trying to make them understand. All they knew was they didn’t know and being purebloods, they assumed all the others didn’t know either.





Meanwhile, at another location...





At the Prince household, Severus had unceremoniously dropped Harry to his feet; Becca was donning her basilisk skin cloak. "We have to get to the receiving room on level one immediately. We don\'t know how many were attacked and who it is!" The alarms were still screeching and Becca had to shout to make herself heard.



"Can we shut these things off?" Severus tried to scream above the noise.



"Only from the first level. They will continue to sound until the breach has been investigated and contained."



Severus nodded his head, looked to Harry who nodded also and proceeded through the living quarters to get upstairs. Both the men had wands in hand.



As they turned into the sitting area they noticed Doc, Shashi and Gorbink were there. Severus assumed they must have some kind of device that told them of the alarm. The three Princes nodded at them and they all quickly continued on their way to the elevators.



At the second level First Born met them outside the elevator. After creating a sound bubble around them, Becca started hissing at him and asked, **"Do you know who is on the first level?"**



**"Master\'s Becca, the werewolf that is not, who has been here before is there with many people. Some are hurt badly. He has with him two that have an evil mark. The rest of The Seven are watching them and have them in a corner. They need help."** The snake hissed his answer.



Of course, Harry, Severus and Becca understood everything, but they forgot Doc, Gorbink and Shashi did not. So as Harry picked up the snake and the three continued to the next level, releasing the sound bubble, Doc shouted above the noise that continued to blare.



"Becca, what is going on?"



"We have to hurry, Doc. First Born said there are many hurt people on the first level and Remus is there with them. Can you call the others?"



Just as they opened the elevator to climb to the first level, Regulus came and was shouting trying to find out what happened. With a motion from Becca, he joined the party to the first level.



What they witnessed on the next level was utter chaos. About twenty men, women and children were in various stages of injuries. To the left of the room were six basilisk snakes raised up and hissing at two of the most unlikely people they thought to see today, Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy. The look of horror on their faces assured the others they were not going anywhere. They could not even fire of a spell in fear of the others.



On the other side of the room, were all the others trying to stay as far away from the snakes as possible. Some were unconscious and had been pulled away from the scene with the snakes. Others looked to be barely conscious and still others were white with the fright of seeing so many snakes or maybe from what ever attacked, Severus wasn’t sure.



First things first, as the healers went to see to the injured, Becca called to Harry and they went over to another panel by the elevator that Harry hadn\'t seen before. Becca hollered into Harry\'s ear. "Can you create a sound bubble like the one I did downstairs? Also I would rather not have anyone else see what we are about to do."



Harry hadn\'t seen the bubble before, but he created a shield like the one in the alley. It was not see through and would filter out some of the noise. As the sound was muted, Becca turned to the panel in front of them.



Placing her palm on the panel, she stated. "Rebecca Elizabeth Prince, Prince Stronghold Level One All is Secure." Immediately the alarms ceased and Harry\'s ears were ringing in the complete silence. Slowly the other noises in the background were filtering through the ringing. As he and Becca were taking care of the alarms, six other healers had portkeyed in to help. Doc was screaming orders as the silence hadn\'t registered with him yet. Severus was shouting orders to the elves.



"Kreacher! You and a few other elves go to the potions lab and bring back all of the healing potions you can find, including pain relievers, blood replenishes, salve and bone mending. Hurry!" As Kreacher took a few elves with him to collect the potions, still others were bringing in beds so that the healers could do their work and not have patients on the floor.



Becca grabbed Harry\'s arm to get his attention through all the chaos surrounding them and said, "You and Regulus need to go upstairs. These alarms would have been heard throughout the neighborhood and likely the police have been called. Take First Born and Second Born with you and tell the police your pet snakes set off the alarm and apologize for the aggravation. Then, come back down here and help. We don\'t need any suspicion from the muggles about what is going on here." Becca had been speaking softly into Harry\'s ear as she didn\'t want anyone else to hear her. No one else suspected they were in a muggle neighborhood or underground for that matter.



"Reg, come over here!" Harry called. "We have to go take care of something and will be back in a few minutes." Harry then picked up Second Born, hissed at him briefly and wrapped him around Reg\'s shoulders. Regulus glared at him with wide eyes and Harry said. "Say hello to your new pet." Harry laughed at Reg as he swallowed hard when the snake hissed at him and settled into a better position around his shoulders. The truth was, Reg hated those snakes and had not touched one since he had been here, and now Harry was making him hold the damn thing.



As they made their way to the number five muggle dwelling, Harry explained the plan to Reg. Just as they entered the foyer, there was pounding on the door and the words, "Open UP!!! Police!" being screamed by someone on the other side of the door.



Harry tersely said to Reg, "Put you wand out of sight." Then he reached for the doorknob and opened the door.



There in front of him were no less than five police officers; two with their guns drawn and, two holding a battering ram ready to break down the door. The fifth officer seemed to be the one that was banging on the door while the others appeared to be his backup. \'Merlin\' Harry thought, good thing we came up here.



"Hello, officers, I am sorry for all the confusion, my pet snake accidentally got out of its tank and set off the alarm. We will be more careful in the future."



But the officer was not hearing him. He looked at the two young men and demanded "Who are you and what are you doing here?"



"I live here and this is a friend of mine that lives on the next street." Harry felt like he should only answer the man\'s questions and not try to move. He wasn\'t sure if they would shoot and ask questions later.



"Do you have proof?"



"Yeah, sure, but I need to reach for my wallet." The police officer came closer as if to check the man\'s pants himself, but got a look at the snake around the younger man\'s neck and backed off.



The commanding police officer then noticed the outfits they were wearing. Harry still had his Prince Conglomerate Robes on from visiting the Weasleys and Reg also was in working robes from that day, not having changed before the alarms went off.



"What is your name?" demanded the officer of Harry.



"Harry Prince."



"I want you to slowly reach for your wallet and make no fast moves. You will open it slowly and show me your identification." Harry did as instructed but wondered why he was not asking Reg to do the same.



As the officer looked at the documents Harry handed him, he visibly relaxed and turned around to the men behind them. "You can stand down." The other officers gave him a strange look, but holstered their weapons and waited for further instructions.



"Is everything alright here, Mr. Prince? Your alarms have half the neighborhood in a panic."



"It was an accident and we are sorry for any distress we have created. The snakes got out of their tank and tripped the motion detector in the back room."



Just then a thin horsey woman came flying across the yard shouting, "Arrest them officer, I know them to be drug dealers and they obviously are troublemakers."









Next Chapter will be Sunday 1 November.