Harry nervously followed the big man, Hagrid, up to the banking counter, trying not to stare at the long-fingered, warped creatures that were rushing back and fourth, cashing Wizarding checks and testing pearls to ensure that they were not transfigured from pebbles.

At last, they were in front of a goblin teller. Hagrid didn't mince words."I've cum to take 'Arry Potter 'ere to 'is vault, and then I need the you-know-what in vault 713. 'Ogwarts business."

A nod, then the goblin held out his? hand. Goblins were evidently neither cordial nor effusive beings. "His key?"

Hagrid fished around in his deep pockets, pulling out moldy dog biscuits, Wizarding change, scraps of paper, and so on, and pouring them out onto the counter. The goblin wrinkled his? nose, but Hagrid only rummaged around a little longer before finally coming up with a tiny golden key. The goblin took it with a grunt.

"Griphook!" he called. A smaller goblin ran over.

"Chabring sokk nirae," the teller told him. Harry had no idea what that meant, but whatever it was, Griphook seemed to understand, because he nodded and motioned them to follow.

After leaving the main lobby, they went down several progressively narrower and lower corridors, lit by torchlight, before piling into a little cart and rattling at a nauseating speed on a track that seemed to lead into the very heart of Gringotts, ducking stalactites along the way. Harry swore he saw dragons breathing fire through the iron grates that shielded some of the more strongly-protected vaults, but when he tried to lean out and look, Hagrid dragged him back in the cart by the scruff of his neck.

At last, the cart screeched to a stop that was, if anything, more sickening than the previous speed, and Harry and a sick-looking Hagrid staggered out of the cart while Griphook gave a toothy grin at their discomfort. After the two of them had somewhat caught their breath, Griphook opened the vault and Harry stared in pure shock at the piles and piles of Wizarding money. The Dursleys would have been green with envy...provided Harry would be stupid enough to let them know about his inheritance, which he was not. No doubt the Dursleys' hatred of all things magical would not extend to money. Speaking of, why was he at the Dursleys if he was rich and famous? Harry might have stood there all day, but Griphook gruffly told him to hurry up then, so Harry pushed the worrying thought to the back of his mind to ponder later.

Hesitantly Harry walked in and gathered some of the gold into his pockets while Hagrid was still catching his breath outside, still staring in awe with wide green eyes. After he'd gotten what he hoped was a large enough amount for his school supplies, he was about to leave his vault when he saw it.

It was a yellowing, blotchy envelope, which looked as if it was older than him, and when he curiously picked it up, he saw that it had his name on it written in beautiful green ink. Harry stared at it, turning it over and over in his hands. Could it be from his parents?

"'Arry! Y'all right there?"

Harry hastily stuffed the envelope in his pocket, somehow not wanting anyone else to see it. He wasn't even sure he was supposed to be taking it, but it was in his vault, and he couldn't just pass up the chance to read anything his parents might have written. Without another word, he obediently left the vault, taking both letter and gold with him. And then they were rocketing deeper still into the bowels of the underground levels, before stopping at another, obviously high security vault.

Here Griphook stroked the door with one long finger, letting the door melt away, ("Now't but a Gringotts goblin can do that," Hagrid commented) and, that said, he slipped into the vault. Harry peeked in after him, but unlike his own vault, this was entirely empty...well...except for a small package wrapped in brown paper, which Hagrid said was "'Ogwarts business" and refused to elaborate. Harry might have been more curious if he had not been obsessing over what his envelope might contain.

After the long, precarious journey back to the land of the living, Harry and his escort stumbled out, blinking, into the mid-afternoon sunlight, Harry staring around at all the beautiful shops and such. He might have stood there forever, looking at the wizards walking to and fro, when a still rather pale-looking Hagrid asked if he wouldn't mind going into Madame Malkin's Robes alone, as he needed a drink. Harry obliged.

Madame Malkin was a plump, no-nonsense witch, who thankfully did not make a fuss over him because of his scar, and he got done relatively quickly, except that one of the other boys being fitted, a white-blond with elegant everyday robes and an arrogant demeanor, nearly bowled him over with his casual comments about things Harry hadn't even heard of, much less formed opinions about.

Hagrid came back shortly with two ice cream cones (raspberry and covered with nuts, which Harry had never had before), and waited outside for Harry to finish. No one had ever done that for him before. Then they collected the rest of the supplies, dragonskin gloves and a telescope and all sorts of herbs and seeds and pickled things from the apothecary, as well as a cauldron (Harry wanted a golden one, but Hagrid wouldn't let him buy it- "It says pewter on yer list"-) And then they finally got his wand.

Harry had been looking forward to getting a magic wand from the moment he learned that he was a wizard, but his mood fell considerably when he and Hagrid actually went to buy his wand. Mr. Ollivander, the wand-maker, had protruberant silver eyes and a creepy, omniscient sense about him that made Harry shiver. He didn't particularly cheer up when Ollivander told him his wand was 'twinned' with the wand of the evil wizard who killed his parents, as well as many others. Even going to the pet shop afterward (where Hagrid bought him a beautiful white owl and Harry managed to buy a little black snake with eyes like black diamonds, because it made cute. snarky remarks in his general vicinity- not that he told him that, considering how the shopkeeper reacted when he mentioned that it talked) did not completely cheer him up.

The end of the trip was still too soon. Hagrid dropped him off at #4 Privet Drive, where Aunt Petunia dragged Harry inside ("Don't let the neighbors see!") and sent him straight to his room after letting him drink out of the tap. Harry sighed as the locks clicked, but he was not as depressed as he would ordinarily be, because he knew there was an end in sight. Soon he would be going to Hogwarts!

An hour passed. Harry tensed as he heard his uncle's heavy tread clomping up the stairs like a pigmy elephant, but after his uncle went by without halting by Harry's door to bang on it and yell for "the freak" to come make (and maybe, if he was lucky, eat) dinner, Harry relaxed. He dug in his bags to give the owl (newly christened Hedwig) and the snake (Jewel) their mice, and got out some leftovers from lunch with Hagrid.

But as he sank down on his thin bed to eat, he heard a papery-thin crunch. And remembered the letter.

Hardly daring to breathe, Harry drew out the now rumpled letter, bearing his name, and drew it out of it's envelope with trembling fingers. A loopy script, inked in dark, forest green ink covered every inch of the yellowed paper, and he could faintly smell the scent of water lily perfume. Harry stared down at the letter, hardly daring to touch it for fear of smudging it. Finally, when he couldn't bear it any longer, he adjusted his glasses and bent over the letter. And slowly, as if savoring a chocolate that was steadily melting in the sun, he began to read.

My dearest baby, (the letter read)

I hope this letter finds you well, wherever you are. If I could have my way, you would be sitting with me and your father as I tell you these things, but in case I do not survive, I want you to know the things that I've written here. I would like to think that this is foolish, and that this letter will just crumble to dust in your trust vault, or become a curiosity to your grandchildren, but something tells me that I will not survive, and these things should not be forgotten.

The first thing you need to know is that I am not a muggleborn, whatever my husband leads you to believe. I was not able to take an inheritance test before my marriage, and James didn't allow me to take an official, documented test afterwards- probably because I could have contested the marriage if I'd known- but I had my friend brew me an illegal Heritance Tincture, and discovered that I, and by extension you, are descended from Salazar Slytherin- you might even be a parselmouth, or speaker of snakes. ('Was that what it was called?' Harry thought) Do not tell James if this is the case; parselmouths are not well liked in the Wizarding world, and James in particular will not be pleased. I don't want you to be hurt.

The second thing you need to know is that James Potter is not your father.

Harry had to stop and re-read that line several times. It wasn't as if he knew his father, so he wasn't grief-stricken or in denial, but he was still somewhat surprised. If James Potter wasn't his father, then who was, and why had they never come to rescue him? Unless whoever it was was dead too? He went on.

This will probably come as a big surprise, especially if James raised you, and before you go any further I want you to know that I love you no matter what, and nothing I'm about to say will change this.

Harry frowned. From what it sounded like, his mum expected that he had been raised by his father- by James, actually. Harry was far from stupid, and something told him that he would not like everything that he was going to learn today. Why had his mum married James- she didn't actually seem to like him, and if he was not even his dad, then what was going on?

You might as well know that I never wanted to marry James. I did have a crush on his best friend Sirius, but James himself was always too big-headed and inclined to bullying. (Harry winced, thinking of Dudley) James, however, wanted to marry me, so he used an old pureblood marriage law to make me marry him. As for your real father...it's complicated. I was always friends with him, since when we were nine, but I never thought of him as more than a friend, and when we went to Hogwarts together we got sorted into different houses, straining our friendship still further. He was smart, funny, and very competent...but I didn't like the boys he was hanging out with, and he always had a vicious, dark streak that made me nervous. In my- our- fifth year, our friendship died a painful end after I defended him when James and his friends were bullying him, and he called me a mudblood.

I started fancying him in seventh year, but by that point he had friends in a terrorist group called the Death Eaters who targeted muggleborns, and when I learned that he had actually joined, I had to let him go. That and James did not like me to associate with him.

I thought, when he came back after the first revel that I could save him. He wanted out, and I couldn't blame him; he told me that he joined because his housemates had given him an ultimatum- either he join the Death Eaters or he would be made to "commit suicide" or meet with "an unfortunate accident". Not only that, but he had been offered patronage for his Potions and Defense masteries, and he couldn't afford not to take the opportunity. I was worried for him, even if there was a little part of me that worried that he was lying to me, and that he really did join the Death Eaters by choice. But we couldn't associate as long as long as he was a Death Eater, and there's no way out once you are branded. We met in secret a few more times after the meetings. Then James forced me to marry him, and I was no longer allowed to talk to your father.

It was one day in late September when I met Severus Snape for the last time. It was a farewell, of sorts. Alice Longbottom- a school friend of mine- and I were out shopping together since James was away overnight at a Quidditch game in Peru; the first time I had left the manor in months. I met him in The Leaky Cauldron, and, in a moment of rebellion, stopped to talk to him. Long story short, we had far to much firewhiskey to return by floo, so I ended up staying the night at the Leaky.

I was so happy when I learned I was pregnant. You were so beautiful when you were born, but I knew immediately who your father was, and only then was I afraid. In the end, I cast a full body glamour, making you look almost like a twin of James, except with my eyes, and I don't think James ever knew, or he probably would have hurt both of us. The glamour is an old Hungarian disguise spell called "Teljes alruhaban" and there is no British counter; the only counter I've heard of is in the same language, (vege a varazskatnak), which will break the spell. To replace the glamour, since you won't have any of James's blood to complete it, you will probably need to use more ordinary glamour spells.

Harry stopped dead. He had a sneaking suspicion of what a glamour was- did that mean that the pale face that always stared back at him out of every mirror was not actually his own? The thought was definitely frightening, and he had to stop for a few moments before he could recover himself enough to go on.

I hope, now, that you will forgive me for my deception. If by this point James has gotten rid of me in favor of a pureblood, I hope you at least find it in your heart to still think of me as mum. But if, as is also likely, you are an orphan- there is, after all, a war going on between the Death Eaters and Magical Britain as a whole- I want you to know that you are loved, and that you might possibly still have living family.

'Got rid of me in favor of a pureblood?' Harry definitely didn't like the sound of that.

You don't have to tell Sev who you really are, if he's even still alive, but I know that he would want to get to know you. He is a good man, if not an easy man to get along with, and he is loyal to a fault, if not always kind- he would never betray you, although it will likely be difficult to break through the shell he has built around himself. I implore you to find him, if he is still alive, but in the end that is at your discretion. Enclosed here also are my notes for a spell to remove his Death Eater brand, also- I was never able to test it.

Also, if Dumbledore is alive and at Hogwarts when you go there for your first year, I want you to be on your guard. He is very manipulative, and he uses compulsion and coercion spells on the students that he doesn't trust, to keep him loyal to him; try to make sure you get into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, so you're under the radar, and don't ever meet his eye until you've learned rudimentary occlumensy, or he'll read your mind. Also don't eat any candies or tea he offers you in his office; it's usually laced with something- Sev palmed some on various occasions and tested them, and they contain things as diverse as loyalty potions to truth serum.

Harry paused to digest that bit. Dumbledore as in Albus Dumbledore? Headmaster of Hogwarts? What on earth was he getting into?

Actually, if Dumbledore is alive at all, be careful. He's good with words, and he likes to act like a sweet old grandfather, but he'll let you rot in Azkaban (What's that?) if it's part of his plan for the "Greater Good". He'll also guilt trip you, and he dispenses unequal justice; Sirius Black tricked an enemy of his into going into the Forbidden Forest when there's a transformed werewolf out, and got lines for his "prank", whereas the boy who was almost killed lost a hundred points for being out after curfew, to offer one example.

He is actually the reason James and I are in hiding at the moment- one of his Death Eater spies heard that there was a prophecy (James never told me the full text) about a child born at the end of July, like yourself and Neville Longbottom, who would have the power to defeat Voldemort, the head of the terrorist organization, and that Voldie was going to hunt all of them down, so he told James to put the cottage at Godric's Hollow under the Fidelius Charm, which means only those who know the secret can find it, and the only one who can tell anyone else the secret is the Secret Keeper. Dumbledore told us that Sirius, the one we were going to use, was to obvious, and to pick a man named Peter Pettigrew, one of James's friends. James agreed. I am afraid. Peter is weak- they could make him tell them the location with only a little firewhiskey or a few threats, and besides, I think he's a Death Eater. James says I'm paranoid. But I know I'm right, and I'm suspicious that neither James nor Dumbledore is even listening to me.

After he had finished the letter, Harry simply sat there, mulling it over for a long time, heedless of the purple and gold twilight outside his window. Then he picked it up, rereading bits until it was too dark to see, even with his glasses. He was not even close to understanding it all, but what he did understand petrified him. The great, magical world he had been introduced to that morning suddenly seemed a whole lot darker, and a whole lot more dangerous. But as frightened as he now was, he was also excited. Soon he would be entering a world that was his birth-right, to learn magic, escape the Dursleys, and possibly, just possibly, find a father. Now if he could only figure out just what all those magical words meant!