"Trust me, when the war between wizards and goblins starts again, those gold-grubbing creatures won't care about what a Muggle is, nor will they give a damn about the Statute of Secrecy."
"I get your point, Sirius," Harry nodded. "At first, goblins were only banned from using wands. But after that war over a hundred years ago, they lost their right to bear arms and armor too. They can't even forge anything freely anymore. If they want to light a furnace, they have to submit an application to the Ministry of Magic first."
Sirius opened his mouth to respond, but hearing Harry's words, he found himself momentarily at a loss for what to say.
"Well, alright then," Sirius finally said. "Looks like you know a fair bit about goblins, Harry."
"They're an intelligent race, after all," Harry said, shaking his head slightly. "In short, to prevent goblins from rebelling against wizard rule, wizards banned them from using weapons or armor. To placate them, they were given control over money—something goblins love most. And for the past century or so, things have been relatively peaceful."
"If you want to keep it peaceful, you can't agree to their demands," Lupin interjected. "From what I know, shamanic spells don't exactly require wands, and elemental magic is incredibly powerful. Not to mention… those soul-based spells. I can't even imagine what goblins would do if they got their hands on that kind of magic."
"That's a good point, Remus," Harry said seriously. "But I'm sorry to say, it's inevitable that shamans will emerge among the goblins. Or rather, among any intelligent race—even the less intelligent ones—shamans will eventually appear in the future, even if their elemental magic is basic or limited."
"What do you mean?" Lupin's eyes widened.
"As my assistant, even if only for a short time, you must have read my textbooks, right?" Harry said. "Elemental magic—elements. If a goblin happens to be exceptionally gifted or favored by the elements, they'll naturally become a shaman of their own."
"It's like the centaur tribe in the Forbidden Forest," Harry continued. "In fact, I recently discovered that the merpeople at the bottom of the Black Lake… sorry, the merman tribe, have also developed shamans. Though for now, they only wield water elemental powers."
"That… sounds like quite a problem," Sirius said dryly, smacking his lips. "Can't you just tell the elements not to choose goblins? You know, pretend you didn't hear anything."
"That's impossible, of course," Harry couldn't help but laugh. "You have to understand, elements are a broad category. To them, whether it's humans or goblins, we're all more or less the same. Sure, some elements might favor humans, but others lean toward other intelligent races. Balancing the conflicts between these elements is one of a shaman's duties."
Usually, that balancing act ends with some elements being taken out—simple and straightforward.
Take gnolls, kobolds, or harpies—races that threaten the survival of Alliance and Horde alike. They still have their shamans, but the ones that need to be dealt with get dealt with… and so do their elements.
That's just how Azeroth works. Persuasion, purification—those are for your own people, or enemies you can't beat or shouldn't fight.
"So, after the goblins sent someone to approach me, I thought about it for a long time," Harry said earnestly. "In the end, I decided to accept their request. It's the same reason I took on the centaurs as apprentices. Since it's unavoidable, rather than letting them grow wild and explore on their own, it's better to guide them properly and keep them from straying down the wrong path."
"Can you really guide them?" Lupin couldn't help but retort. "Centaurs and merpeople are one thing—they haven't clashed with humans in ages. But goblins? They've never been tame."
"Yeah," Sirius added, shrugging. "Even now, those goblins are still yammering about how Gryffindor's sword is actually theirs, claiming Godric Gryffindor stole their king's treasure. They really believe that nonsense."
"The way goblins think is different from us," Lupin said, shaking his head. "In their eyes, even if wizards provide the materials and pay for the crafting, anything they make belongs to them forever. Wizards are just borrowing it."
"Who cares about them!" Sirius snorted dismissively. "Any goblin who dares come up to me claiming my stuff is theirs will find my wand doesn't care who it's pointing at."
To be fair, if a wizard accidentally killed a goblin, it wasn't a big deal. You wouldn't even get sent to Azkaban—just barred from Gringotts, at most. The only thing to worry about would be a goblin bounty, but that'd be kept under the table. The Ministry wouldn't allow goblins to openly put a price on a wizard's head.
"No goblin with half a brain would go to the Black family demanding anything," Lupin said, trying to keep a straight face but breaking into laughter. "Who in the wizarding world doesn't know the Black family's style?"
The Black family's style—put simply, any goblin who showed up at their doorstep would have their head chopped off and hung on the wall, and the Ministry would turn a blind eye.
That's the reputation of a storied, dark-magic pureblood family.
"Hey, Moony," Sirius said, exasperated. "You're getting less and less charming, you know that?"
"Thanks," Lupin replied, shrugging. "A werewolf's never going to be charming." Turning to Harry, he added, "Anyway, goblins aren't like your apprentices, Harry. You warn your students about rules and restrictions, but goblins? They're not likely to care. You know that, right? They're only coming to you to learn divination so they can hunt for gold mines or whatever. They don't give a damn about your talk of responsibility or balance. They just want money."
"Yeah, I know," Harry sighed heavily.
Anything—anything—that involves goblins means you'd better watch your wallet.
It's one of the lessons Harry had learned the hard way over the years.
Sometimes, it's not just your wallet you need to watch. Those gold-obsessed goblins might sell you or your secrets to the highest bidder.
And while this world doesn't have goblins in the Azeroth sense, the goblin race here, setting aside their appearance and talents, isn't all that different from their Azerothian counterparts. More importantly, they share a deep, historical enmity with humans—bordering on racial hatred. They just happened to lose the war… which makes things complicated.
More complicated than dealing with Azeroth's goblins.
A race that's been barred from using magic, suddenly gaining access to a form of magic that doesn't require wands and perfectly sidesteps the oaths they swore after their defeat—Harry could guess what would happen next, even without thinking too hard.
The last goblin rebellion was just over a hundred years ago—recent enough that many of the wizards from that time are still alive. Not even a single generation has passed.
Racial conflicts like these are only settled through war.
So, considering the way things might unfold, to prevent the situation from escalating to the point of goblins storming Hogwarts, Harry had to prepare early. The question was how to guide them—a real challenge.
Because goblins… or rather, goblin-like races, think differently from others.
"I have a friend," Harry said after a moment's thought. "He works at Gringotts right now, though he's not high up among the goblins. I was thinking of starting with him. Interested, Remus?"
"Of course," Lupin said, taking a deep breath and sitting up straight, his tone serious. "I'll do my best. No, I won't let you down, Harry."
Lupin could never forget the shock he felt when he saw the basilisk's corpse—the scorch marks from flames, the flesh torn apart by molten lava. He had a clear understanding of the destruction elemental magic could cause. That's why the idea of goblins inevitably producing shamans made him so uneasy.
"For the peace of the wizarding world," Sirius added from the side. "I'll help you, Remus."
"Thanks," Lupin said, clapping his old friend on the shoulder, a spark of excitement in his voice.
It had been years, but this was the first time he felt like he was truly working toward something meaningful.
A sense of purpose.
Harry hadn't been in touch with Copperring for a while—the goblin he'd met when Hagrid took him to Diagon Alley to buy supplies before his first year at Hogwarts.
So much had happened in the past year, far beyond what Harry could have predicted. Many of the plans he'd made back then were now useless or needed serious changes.
"Long time no see," Harry said, sitting with Sirius and Lupin at a secluded table in the corner of the pub. He looked at the goblin across from him. "You don't seem to have changed much since last year, Copperring."
"Yeah, no change," Copperring replied, slumping back in his chair, mimicking the voices that hounded him daily. "'Copperring, take this over there! Copperring, escort this client to their vault!' Always the same."
"But you, Harry Potter," he continued, "you're even more famous than you were for the last decade and a half. Plenty of goblins think you'll be Minister for Magic someday. They're even debating whether to cozy up to you now while the going's good."
"And? What's the verdict?" Lupin asked, intrigued.
"Too risky," Copperring said without hesitation. "They figure you're only worth a thousand Galleons of investment right now. Who knows what the future holds? For all they know, you might not become Minister—you might turn into the next Dark Lord."
This goblin sure didn't mince words.
"Harry's not going to be some Dark Lord," Sirius said, frowning. "If anything, he'd be a Light Lord. What's the point of being chased and cursed at?"
"Whatever you say, Sirius," Copperring said listlessly. "By the way, does the Black family have any gold to invest? Gringotts has been doing well in Egypt lately. They dug up a few new tombs."
"Thanks, but I think I've got enough to spend," Sirius replied, unusually polite.
"Oh, come on, you can't just sit on your gold and let it gather dust," Copperring muttered. "Gold doesn't jump into your pockets on its own."
"Why, indeed?" Sirius laughed, mimicking Copperring's earlier tone. "'Copperring, go become a shaman!'"
"Yeah, become a shaman," Copperring sighed deeply. After a year, he seemed even more laid-back, practically slouching in his seat. "So tiring."
"That's a new one. You, tired of a job that could make money?" Harry said with a grin, knowing the nature of goblin-like races all too well. "Time is money, my friend."
"Ahem, time is money, Harry," Copperring said, perking up slightly, though only just. "But the big money's not for me to make. Even if I divined the trends of the Muggle economy or found undiscovered gold mines or magical ore deposits, what's that got to do with a lowly errand-running goblin like me?"
"You want to make big money," Harry said confidently.
"Of course I do. Small money's no fun," Copperring said wistfully. "I'm busy every month, handling piles of gold, but it's not my gold. What's the point? So my boss can buy a new carriage at the end of the year?"
"Listen, mate," Sirius cut in, exasperated. "You don't sound like you're here to negotiate with us. You sound like Gringotts' competitors sent you. Weren't you lot supposed to ask Harry to teach you?"
"Of course we want to learn, but will you teach? Will the Ministry allow it?" Copperring said, smirking, unfazed by the wizards' reactions. "No one sees a new opportunity better than a goblin. The first time your story hit the papers, Harry, Gringotts held a meeting to analyze it."
"Those old fogies up top must be out of their minds," Copperring continued bluntly. "Wizards won't even let us touch wands. Why would they let us learn magic powerful enough to kill a basilisk? And shamanism—your rules aren't exactly a secret, Harry. All that talk about respecting the elements, balancing them, protecting the world. Which goblin's going to care about that?"
"If there's a mountain with a vein of ore under it, or maybe a family of earth elementals living there, goblins will blow the mountain to bits and mine it. They won't give a damn about elemental balance. Can you still be a shaman like that?"
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