Chapter One

Hermione, Justin and magical jewellery

"Congratulations Miss Granger," the strange, rather short banker (goblins, professor McGonagall had said they were called) called cheerfully in a rather high-pitched voice that sounded out of place coming from the rather gruff being. "A routine check has yielded profitable results, please follow my colleague, Ripbeak, to deal with your unexpected windfall."

Hermione and her rather befuddled parents were led through a maze-like hallway to a large, spacious office where an elderly goblin sat behind a desk. He was bald and wrinkly but had a most impressive, insanely long white beard that reached the floor. Ripbeak mentioned for them to enter before sketching a short bow and leaving.

The goblin behind the desk regarded them silently until they sat down in the trio of chairs placed in a half-circle in front of the wooden bureau.

"Miss Granger," he began, voice raspy and dry. "All new customers have their ancestry routinely checked for us at Gringotts to be able to see if they hold claim to vaults that belonged to magical families now extinct. When we delved through yours we found you are a relative of the last head of the Most Ancient house of Fawcett-Atterton."

A snap of his wrinkly fingers conjured a rather long, dusty scroll of parchment that hung in the air.

"The inheritance you stand to claim is impressive. Four inherited seats in the Winzengamot, an honorary position on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, a large manor house near Cambridge as well as several slightly smaller homes in Scotland, France, Italy and Austria. The family had no outstanding debts at the time they went extinct and the current amount of money in their vaults totals at close to seven-hundred and fifty thousand galleons. The possible value of the properties, jewellery, furniture and other assorted items currently in the vaults is not included but an estimate by our experts has that at perhaps equal to that of the galleons themselves, though buyers would need to be found for the more esoteric items."

"Which would be what, when converted to pounds? The amount of 'galleons'?" Mr. Granger asked, air quoting the unfamiliar word.

The goblin paused for a bit, an ugly frown marring his face. "Roughly over three and a half million pounds, give or take."

"Dear Lord-" Mrs. Granger breathed.

"Thank you for coming to see us on such short notice, Mister Finch-Fletchley. Tis a matter of great importance we mean to discuss with you. It seems that you stand to inherit the vast fortunes of the once great Most Ancient and Noble House of Goudsmid van Zevenwoude-Oosterberg."

What came out of Justin's mouth was meant to be an attempt to pronounce the entire, awfully long surname correctly but ended up sounding more like a drunk's attempt at Shakespeare.

"The family originated from the Netherlands," the goblin lamented with a shake of his head, "never bothered to change their surname, a true pity that is. Saddling us with pronouncing that horrible, dreadful thing."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley shifted in her seat, drumming her well-manicured fingernails on the wooden armrest impatiently. "But what is it my dear Justin stands to inherit exactly? Will it help him along in this-" she gestured at the room with the floating chandelier and moving portraits of important goblins of past ages, "-society."

The goblin grinned, yellowing teeth causing shudders from the assorted Finch-Flechtleys in the room. "Your son would gain two seats on the Wizengamot as well as the position of Alchemy professor at Hogwarts which was sworn to Johannus Wilhelmus Goudsmid van Zevenwoude-Oosterberg three centuries ago before his untimely death. As it was a magical vow that was sworn the magic goes to you and as such the position is yours now, no matter the current professor or whether the course is offered."

"The position of a professor at Hogwarts is a very influential and respected one," the goblin stressed, "and very well-paid."

"Apart from that there is a fortune of well over one-million galleons, one ancestral manor in London as well as several houses in the Netherlands and Luxembourg."

Mr. and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley were people who merely wanted the best for their darling boy, him becoming PM had been their goal before the whole 'magic' business threw that plan in the bin. But now, hearing that their son was essentially a member of the both the peerage and the actual parliament of this new world (and apparently it also came with the added bonus of tenure), they felt that they finally had something to work with. Their darling could still become great, albeit in a different world. And just perhaps, once they had an inkling of the political climate, he could become their equivalent of the PM.

"Justin, dear," Mrs. Finch-Fletchley simpered, sharing a look with her husband that spanned seconds but conveyed an entire conversation. "Mummy and daddy think you should accept what those nice people are offering you."

Hermione Granger exited the bank with a new surname, a large fortune and the most ugly necklace ever to exist. The thing was over a century old and fashioned out of thick gold bands and even bigger sapphires. It was apparently a magical heirloom piece that could not be taken off and could only be worn by a female head of the family and had protective enchantments on it. It would also, to Mr. Granger's delight, cause intense and immediate diarrhoea in any boy not her fiancée trying to 'steal her virtue'.

Mere moments later Justin Finch-Fletchley left Gringotts with an equally new, slightly longer and remarkably unpronounceable surname. He too had a new, magical piece of jewellery. His however was a crown. An honest to God, heavy, golden, bejewelled crown. It had curves and swirls and points and knuckle-sized rubies and (thank whoever came up with that) a built-in invisibility spell that could be turned on and off at the utterance of a word. The word was, apparently, 'plebeian'. His new royal regalia also came with the ability to repel rain, meaning he'd never need an umbrella again, and would eat the head of anyone not him who would try and put it on. It would eat their head, with magically appearing teeth.

It the best jewellery an eleven-year-old boy could wish for.

Inside Gringotts the goblins were wringing their hands together with maniacal grins on their small, greedy faces. Every once in a while one would cackle ominously at the thought of the havoc they would wreak on the poor, unsuspecting magical folks. It had taken some cunning , bribery and death-threats but their magnificent plan had been put into motion. In a decade there would be so much unrest that a quick, bloody rebellion would see them as the rightful sovereign of the magical world.

It was a good thing those confundus charms worked on important heirlooms and ancient magical artefacts. The whole plan would have failed if they hadn't.