Astrid grinned as she slipped through a narrow alley and carefully took off her cloak. She stuffed her unruly hair into an elastic hair band and shoved a hat low in her head to hide her famous scar before she folded the cloak and put it into an overly large pocket for easy access and looked around for any people before holding her wand out to hale the Knight Bus.
The magical triple-decker bus arrived with a bang just seconds later and the boy who opened the doors didn't look at her twice after she payed her fare and answered Diagon Alley to the question of her destination. There was only one other passenger to drop off before her, so they arrived quickly to the Leaky Cauldron, allowing her to hop off.
The Girl Who Lived quickly slipped through the empty bar, pulling her trunk behind her as she entered the still rather barren alley. It was too early still for most shops to be open. They had about another hour or so before then. Gringotts was the only building open for business 24/7 which just happened to be her destination.
Nodding politely to the two guards out side the doors, Astrid entered the bank and walked up to the nearest open teller.
"I need to visit my vault please." She responded to the non verbal prompt the teller gave her and showed him (or her) the key that she fished out of her pocket.
The goblin examined the key critically before handing it back. "We've been waiting for you to come in for weeks Miss Potter. You have some paperwork to sign."
Astrid gave the little green man a confused look and said in her soft, still raspy tone, "I didn't know you needed me to come in. I haven't received any owls from Gringotts. Actually I've never received an owl from Gringotts."
The goblin, Goldfinger according to his nameplate, stared at the confused witch as if trying to decide if she was lying or not. Astrid just stared back, feeling slightly uncomfortable under his scrutiny.
Slowly the goblin turned to another of his kind and barked something in the guttural language of his people. The one he spoke to nodded and left out of a side door that lead to who knows where. The teller then turned back to the still confused witch and said, "I believe that you need to have a long over due conversation with your account manager, Miss Potter."
"Account manager? I thought only nobility or people with extremely large vaults had account managers." She replied wearily. Surely she'd know if she had an account manager, right? Not if it's being deliberately kept from you. She thought to herself. It was obvious by how the goblin was acting that something was seriously wrong. The black haired girl would bet money on some type of mail redirect ward.
The teller didn't answer, he just hopped down from his seat and gestured for her to follow him through the door the other goblin had went through just moments before. Apparently it lead to the offices of the managers in question. They passed many doors that stated the managers name and then the last name of the account holder.
They stopped at a door that had the name Sharpclaw on top and Potter under it. The teller knocked sharply on the wooden door and waited for an old, gravelly voice to grant them entry.
The manager on the other side of the door was one of the oldest goblins Astrid had ever seen. His hair was so thin it was almost nonexistent and white, he sat hunched, making his appear even shorter than he truly was, his skin was like old leather and colored in a mix of dark green and brown. His nose was long and pointed and his ears dropped slightly where they stuck out from his hair making the pointed tip point towards the ground. He had one eye that was black as night and glinted with vicious intelligence and one eye that was clearly sightless as it was a milky white and had a deep scar bisecting it. His hands were resting on an impressive looking oaken desk and sported wicked looking claws that had to extend at least two inches from the tip of his fingers. They were smooth and obviously well taken care of with such a sharp tip that Astrid was surprised that they didn't damage the wood that was under them.
The teller didn't enter the office with her but shut the door firmly behind her, leaving the girl alone with this rather intimidating being. Sharpclaw didn't say anything at first, just stared at the witch with his one eye. Astrid remained absolutely still, having had lots of practice with starting at certain death.
After what felt like an eternity the goblin moved one dangerous looking hand and gestured to the empty seat in front of his desk in clear invitation.
She nodded slightly in thanks and left her trunk just behind the chair as she sat, taking off her hat as she went and held it between her hands to keep from fidgeting.
"We have been waiting for a few weeks for you to come here after sending out the notifications for the last will and testament of the late Heir Sirius Black." He spoke slowly and Astrid couldn't tell if it was because of old age, or if he thought she was somewhat mentally deficient.
"As I informed Teller Goldfinger, I have never received corespondents from this establishment." Her answer was spoken just as slowly and her eyes had narrowed because she had a feeling that he really did think she was slow, he didn't look the type to allow old age to slow him down in any way.
The goblin's eyes narrowed as well, half in warning to her and half in thought. "We send out a a bi-yearly account statement and a yearly account summery to all of our vault holders. You, as Heiress of your family as well as the last surviving member should have started receiving them from the moment you turned eleven to further prepare you for your duties once you become of age. Before then your Magical Guardian would have been receiving them in your place to keep your accounts running."
Astrid started at him for a moment. Heiress? Magical Guardian? What on earth was he talking about?
"I have never gotten any statements and I have no clue what a Magical Guardian even is, let alone who." She decided to stick with the easier things first. She can deal with the Heiress business later.
Sharpclaw's expression never changed but he gave off a decidedly displeased air and started shifting through piles of paperwork that was neatly stacked on his desk. He made a humming sound and glanced back up at the young witch after finding what he was looking for.
"Your Magical Guardian, Albus Dumbledore, brought in a letter, attached to your magical signature, saying that you have received your first statement just a week after your eleventh birthday, as is our policy. You need to either come in in person, or send a verified letter acknowledging this." He handed her the letter and she looked it over in disbelief. It wasn't her handwriting. It wasn't even Dumbledore's loopy scrawl. It had the flow of being written with a quill, which further made her case. At the age of eleven she had no idea how to write with a quill and her relatives had locked all of her school related things away so she couldn't even practice for school. She got a lot of abysmal marks on her essays at the start of term because of this.
Yet, despite that, she could feel familiar magic emanating from the parchment. Her magic. How was that possible?
"I didn't write this." She said in confusion, "I didn't even know how to use a quill when this was written. The very first time I ever saw Professor Dumbledore was at the start of term feast my first year and I didn't even have a conversation with him until the very end of that year. And he never mentioned this, or anything about a Magical Guardian."
"That is your magical signature." The goblin stated as if that proved her to be a liar.
"And I have no idea how it got there." She said as firmly as her soft voice could allow. She did not like the insinuation that she was a lair. She got enough of that the past year. It was even scarred deeply into her hand.
Sharpclaw gave the girl a piercing look and said, "Magical signature theft is a very serious crime Miss Potter. Even the accusation can cause serious trouble."
Astrid could understand that. To steal someone's magical signature was like stealing their identity. From what the Girl-Who-Lived understood, it was very difficult to obtain someone's signature, and nearly impossible without them knowing since you had to get it directly from them. It was painful and would even wake someone from a deep sleep, even a magically induced one. The magic would lash out at whoever was trying to get a sample and could be very dangerous to the perpetrator. It was practically like raping someone's magic. It left you with a thoroughly violated feeling.
"And I'm not exactly accusing anyone of such a thing. To my knowledge, no one has sampled my magic. I'm just saying that I have no idea how my signature got on that letter." It was very frustrating, not being able to figure out how that happened. It's not like she could have just touched the letter and left her signature on there. It had to be very specificity done, you had to want to leave it and no form of coercion could work.
The goblin snatched the letter back with a grumble and snarled a quick "Hold still."
Quicker than Astrid could comprehend, he waved his hand in her direction and the feeling of foreign magic invaded her system. Her body shivered at the feeling and she had to fight not move and try to cover herself up in a vain attempt to get rid of the rather exposed feeling.
To her relief, the magic quickly ended and the goblin was running his clawed hand around the letter with a look of concentration. It took under a minute before he was finished and snarling obvious obscenities in Gobbledygook.
"It is a copy. Close, but not your exact signature. The fact a copy made it past our security is a travesty. You will be compensated." It looked like it actually pained him to say that.
Astrid sighed. She didn't need compensation. She just wanted to sort this out and leave before her watchers caught her escape attempt, but she also realized that it was a matter of pride and to refuse would probably be seen as an insult to the prickly beings.
"If you can fix the letter issue and make sure Albus Dumbledore never has access to any of my accounts again, I'll call us even." She bargained.
"Done." He answered quickly, making some notes on a spare bit of parchment.
It took hours before Astrid was done with the bank and she left extremely shell shocked. She was filthy rich with just the Potter accounts, which she just found out came with a Ladyship and a lot of responsibility. She tripled her wealth with the help of her godfather that left her nearly everything, including the lordship, now Ladyship, of the Black family which doubled the responsibility. Apparently Sirius had blood adopted her as a toddler for reasons that she would now never know which made her his daughter and eligible for only thing Sirius didn't leave her was a cottage that went to Remus and a couple thousand gallons that went to him as well.
She also found out that Dumbledore had taken things out of her vaults illegally, as he would have needed her permission that she never gave. He didn't take any money, and he gave her one thing he took back, her cloak, but the family pensieve and a large amount of books were still missing. The goblins had to compensate her for the unknown theft as well which she got a free portkey to France and muggle passport and other identification for traveling as well as a vow that no one would learn from them that she had left the country.
Which brought her to the last thing she learnt, that nearly had her jumping for joy. Now that she completed her OWLs, and was the last of her family, she was able to claim her Ladyships early and emancipate herself. She was now considered an adult in the wizarding world and could not only use magic, but legally go wherever she wished. She would still have to be careful of course, she highly doubted that Dumbledore would care about the technicalities and force her back to the Dursley's anyway.
She was free though. Now it was time to disappear. She smirked and activated the portkey that was clenched in her fist, disappearing from wizarding Britain.
It would be nearly a week before anyone noticed.
