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Horatio Kato Gryffindor-Slytherin
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Chapter One: The Heir of Hogwarts
"BOY," a voice bellowed from below and Harry Potter sighed in resignation that he was stuck with these people for the rest of the summer, or at the very least a large chunk of it. The individuals he was forced to live with year after year couldn't really be referred to as people, as they did nothing with there lives that made a difference.
The so called man of the house only went to work at the local drill company heading up the branch all he did was give orders and set up and handle local meetings. Admittedly drills were useful but the man didn't really do much other than cover associates. The wife, Harry's aunt Petunia was a homemaker. She wasn't that bad with Harry but she still made it her life's goal to scold him for his existence. There son was nothing but a bully, he used what he learned wrestling at his own school on the unsuspecting preteens of Little Whinging.
Harry made his way slowly down the stairs, wincing as his bruised arm hit one of the stairway rails. "Yes Uncle Vernon," the boy replied softly and jumped back at the evident fury upon his uncle's purple face.
"What is the meaning of THIS?" The whale sized man seethed thrusting a folded piece of parchment under Harry's nose.
"I-I d-don't know Uncle Vernon," Harry stuttered while inwardly wanting to just grab the page and read it. It couldn't be from his friends; Harry knew that because they knew to always deliver his mail to his window so as not to aggravate his short tempered uncle.
"You don't KNOW! Well I'll tell you BOY! This thing doesn't say ANYTHING! One of those BLASTED OWLS swooped through MY perfectly clean kitchen and dropped this blasted blank piece of paper on the floor addressed to you. I opened it to see if it was important and I find it doesn't say one blasted thing." Vernon howled while shoving the piece of paper into Harry's trembling hands.
"I'm sorry Uncle Vernon; it must have a secrecy charm on it to make sure no one but the intended can read it." Harry said backing up into the wall as his uncle glared sharply at him.
"Get back to your room boy, and don't talk about your freakish world around us normal folk EVER AGAIN!" Vernon yelled propelling the boy back up the stairs with a hard smack to the back of his head.
"Yes sir," was Harry's only reply as he moved up the stairs at the fastest pace he could manage.
Harry slammed the door with the many locks shut and was unsurprised after only a minute her heard the sound of them sealing behind him. Harry was used to it, that didn't mean he liked it. The parchment his uncle handed him lay on his bed and Harry kept looking at it quizzically as if it would hold some big dark secret. It had to be an official letter so that meant there were only two places it could be from The Ministry of Magic or Gringotts: The Wizard Bank.
Finally gathering his Gryffindor courage, Harry took the letter in hand and was shocked as he absorbed the words written on the page.
Mr. Potter,
With your fourteenth birthday fast approaching it has come to the eyes of the Goblins of Gringotts that something has been amiss from your family vault. As you accessed your Trust Vault in your eleventh year of life the wards surrounding the vault set off a sort of timer to make aware that one day soon your future would change.
The control on the vault has just released leaving with it a great band of magic that shocked many of our kind. A letter appeared within the Potter family vault which holds the remainder of your inheritance from your parents James and Lily Potter and what we saw shocked us to our cores.
The letter is addressed to you, in a sense but precisely to the Gryffindor Heir, high level secrecy charms surround it so we cannot touch let alone read what the letter holds. We have sent with this letter a piece from the Potter Vault which can only be unsealed now by the blood of the Potter Heir, the item itself has been activated as a Port Key which will lead you to the Head of Family Affairs, located within the bank.
Sincerely,
Ragnock
Gringotts Wizard Bank Management Office
Harry finished and while he was still trying to decipher any hidden meaning behind the words he felt at the thing taped to the page. It was one of the Potter Rings; it held an onyx and garnet stone the sign of his pinky nail in addition to the Potter family crest carved into the white gold loop.
Deciding within himself that to send him a letter it must be urgent Harry pulled out some of his better looking clothes, which he hid among the old cast offs of Dudley's, his wand from under the loose floor bored under the bed, grabbed the letter and placed the ring on his ring finger and whispered "Portus," to activate the Port Key.
The familiar tug behind his navel made his stomach lurch as he felt like he was going through a thin tube. He landed, rather ungracefully, in an office decorated in various colors and themes and before sat a hook nosed goblin with white hair and visible sharp teeth. As Harry righted himself standing much taller than the three foot goblin, had the goblin not been sitting a high back chair.
"Ah Mr. Potter, I'm glad to see you made it. Now we need to discuss a few things before we take you back to the vault." Harry nodded in response and absentmindedly toyed with his fingers.
"First off, my name is Glitock and I am in charge of the Family Vaults here at Gringotts. Now I did not expect to see you in this section of the bank until you came of age where you would have gotten the rest of your inheritance but with the letter's appearance we found it necessary to bring you in early." Glitock explained carefully as Harry sat down in the chair in front of the old desk.
"Alright, um, Glitock, do you mind if I ask why this letter is such a shock. I mean the vaults are warded by both the Wizarding family who owns them and you guys. I also know you catalogue everything that is placed into the vaults to ensure its safety and value." Harry questioned and by the look on Glitock's face he had thought of the same things.
"Mr. Potter, the letter was not in the vault before last night. As you said we catalogue everything for insurance purposes and that letter was not there before your parent's death or after the remainder of the Potter fortune was placed into the vault." This statement struck Harry dumb. How in the hell did a letter end up in his family vault when the vault in question had been sealed for almost thirteen years?
Glitock placed a piece of ordinary parchment in front of Harry as well as a jeweled dagger sheathed in black leather.
Harry looked at the items with a look of confusion waiting for the older goblin to explain. "Mr. Potter we are only able to admit you to the vault after you have unsealed it with your blood. This page has is enchanted to unlock your family vault when your blood identifies you as the heir, thus all you have to do is prick your finger and let a small dollop of your blood land on the page. It will identify you and your heritage along with unlocking the vault with the letter inside." Glitock finished and Harry hating the idea of shedding his own blood pulled the silver dagger from its leather case and cut his index finger deep enough so that blood spilled onto the yellowish sheet.
A white glow emanated from the page and lit up the whole room, momentarily blinding Harry and Glitock. As it faded the sheet, now a pristine gold, appeared to have writing on it, starting with Harry's name and his parent's names. In addition to something surprising, another name, Horatio Kato, with the combined surnames of Gryffindor- Slytherin, Harry stared dumbfounded at the name in parenthesis under his own and stood on shaky legs in order to get a better look, hoping that his mind was simply playing tricks on him.
"Thank you Mr. Potter, I will now take you…" Glitock's words stuck in his throat as he took in the words on the once blank sheet. "Mr. Potter, we must go to the vault immediately." Glitock spoke in a rush, grabbing the boy's arm and tugging him in the direction of a door behind his desk, the door Harry had not seen until this moment.
"Uh um, Ok." Harry stuttered follow the not so delicate push wanting to figure out a few things about the situation himself. In his sights now stood a lone vault, with the number 221 etched into the magical iron doors, the door itself set off a green glow that drew Harry to it, even if the goblin wasn't dragging him toward it Harry would have been going near it on his own anyway.
Now right in front of the vault, Glitock produced a small brass key, opened a small slap on the iron door and listened for the tell tale click signaling that the door was unlocked. Once they heard it, Glitock gestured for Harry to push open the door, as his hand was the only one that could go passed the glowing green barrier.
It opened to reveal a room almost the collective size of the first floor of the Dursley's house; it was covered in ancient as well as newer artifacts from the time his parents had lived and thousands of piles of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. Right in the middle of this collection stood a table of aged wood with a folded piece of parchment in the middle of it. That was where Harry went, bypassing everything on the floor and going straight for the letter which he noticed was addressed to the heir of Gryffindor as the letter from the bank had stated. Glitock did not follow him in so Harry was on his own as he gathered the new letter in his hand.
On the initial fold in bright red letters it said…
To the Heir of Gryffindor
The Last of the Noble Line
Under the words the Gryffindor crest, which was carried proudly on Harry's school uniform and the Potter crest, which turned out to be a variation of the Gryffindor one, glowed lightly in his hold.
Harry opened it and read the words…
Heir of Gryffindor,
With generations past, the man I am is of a different time and a different world. At the time of war, I, Godric Gryffindor, eldest son of the line have sent off my last living child in an attempt at protection. My husband Salazar Slytherin and I have already lost four of our children with the war and will not risk our last.
Our boy, Horatio, is the Heir of the Slytherin and Gryffindor lines as we are both the eldest sons of our own families. We have sent the boy to the last descendant of my sister, Arian, as at this time she lives elsewhere and has many children of her own. We sent our son to you, in a way mixing your blood with ours to insure that you and he believe he is yours. At this time, the child is to be coming upon his fourteenth birthday, where in our time he is to be a man.
We ask, Heir of Gryffindor, that you invoke the inheritances for our son as they are until such time as we return, which will be a fortnight following the anniversary of his birth.
We Thank You,
Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin
Harry sat back, understanding only partially what the letter to him meant. Ok, so Harry was the Heir of Gryffindor as he was the last of his father's line. But the more the letter explained Harry thought that maybe the letter had been written to his father, as if the two founders, make that the two MARRIED founders had stated that there child, a boy was almost fourteen same as Harry was now. However that would mean that the child, Horatio as they called him, was Harry and that Harry was not the son of Lily and James Potter but the heir of Gryffindor and Slytherin.