Change the Future

DH 21

"What if Dumbledore wanted us to work out the symbol in time to get the wand?" Ron said "What if working out what the symbol meant made you 'worthy' to get the Hallows?" "Harry, if that really is the Elder Wand, how the hell are we supposed to finish off You-Know-Who?" Harry had no answers. The odd thing was that Hermione's support made him feel just as confused as Ron's doubts. Now forced to accept that the Elder Wand was real, she maintained that it was an evil object, and that the way Voldemort had taken possession of it was repellent, not to be considered.

"You could never have done that, Harry," she said again and again. "You couldn't have broken into Dumbledore's grave." 

"But is he dead?" Ron said, three days after they had arrived at the cottage. Harry had been staring out over the wall that separated the cottage garden from the cliff when Ron and Hermione had found him.

"Yes, he is. Ron, please don't start that again!"

"Look at the facts, Hermione," Ron said, speaking across Harry, who continued to gaze at the horizon. "The silver doe. The sword. The eye Harry saw in the mirror" 

"Harry admits he could have imagined the eye! Don't you, Harry?"

"I could have," Harry said without looking at her.

"But you don't think you did, do you?" asked Ron.

"No, I don't," Harry said. 

"There you go!" Ron said quickly, before Hermione could carry on. "If it wasn't Dumbledore, explain how Dobby knew we were in the cellar, Hermione?" 

"I can't but can you explain how Dumbledore sent him to us if he's lying in a tomb at Hogwarts?" 

"I dunno, it could've been his ghost!"

"Can't believe you're arguing again" Fabian said looking at Ron and Hermione.

"Honestly at this point I think it would be weird if they weren't" Rory tells him.

"Dumbledore wouldn't come back as a ghost," Harry said. "He would have gone on."

"What d'you mean, 'gone on'?" asked Ron, but before Harry could say any more, a voice behind them said, 

"'Arry?" Fleur had come out of the cottage, her long silver hair flying in the breeze. "'Arry, Grip'ook would like to speak to you. 'E eez in ze smallest bedroom, 'e says 'e does not want to be over'eard." Her dislike of the goblin sending her to deliver messages was clear, she looked irritable as she walked back around the house. Griphook was waiting for them, as Fleur had said, in the tiniest of the cottage's three bedrooms, in which Hermione and Luna slept by night. He had drawn the red cotton curtains against the bright, cloudy sky, which gave the room a fiery glow at odds with the rest of the airy, light cottage.

"I have reached my decision, Harry Potter," said the goblin, who was sitting cross-legged in a low chair, drumming its arms with his spindly fingers. "Though the goblins of Gringotts will consider it base treachery, I have decided to help you"

"That's great!" Harry said, relief surging through him. "Griphook, thank you, we're really"

"in return," said the goblin firmly, "for payment." Slightly taken aback, Harry hesitated.

"How much do you want? I've got gold."

"Not gold," Griphook said. "I have gold." His black eyes glittered, there were no whites to his eyes. "I want the sword. The sword of Godric Gryffindor." Harry's spirits plummeted.