Chapter 2
Surprisingly they arrived in a pub that wasn't the one he remembered. Well it was surprising to Harry but he supposed it would have been odd if the leaky cauldron was a thousand years old.
It actually made him feel good, not having to relive all of the memories that were attached to the old bar.
In his arms Tom recovered from the new method of travel quickly, and instantly began craning his neck to see everything while trying to seem dignified, and failing miserably.
His son frowned at the dingy bar. "Father, is this where we're going?"
He almost burst out laughing at the tone of disbelief in his son's voice.
"No Tom. We aren't there yet. This is a building that acts as a gateway from the wizarding world and the normal one. No muggles can enter here unless a wizard shows them the way."
Tom nodded soaking up the information like a sponge. "What's a muggle?"
Harry explained as they walked up to the bar and fielded more questions as he made his way to the back with instructions on how to get into the ally. Where once a brick wall had stood was now a simple wooden door that tugged at his magic before opening on its own.
Harry's heart swelled and he held Tom closer to his shoulder as he watched the wonder and awe in his eyes. Tom's head swirled in every direction trying to catch every color and movement around him.
"Tom, welcome to the wizarding world." Tom didn't answer for a long time still too absorbed with what was happening around him.
"I want to see everything." He whispered as if afraid to make Harry angry. Harry just held him tighter.
"Don't worry, my son. You will." The bank loomed before them completely unchanged and Harry smiled at the familiarity. He explained to Tom about the goblins under his breath well aware of the echo and the creature's heightened hearing abilities.
They stood in line for a number minutes in which his son tried to examine the people around him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man standing behind them wave at Tom and turned to look at him while his instincts screamed for him to draw his wand and defend his son.
"Pardon me. It's just that he seems so excited. Are you muggle born?" harry looked the man up and down and forced the cold stare to recede.
"No, we've just moved to this country. My son is not yet used to the crowds outside of our home." Tom caught on quickly and offered his support.
"Father, is it going to be this loud here all the time?" The man smiled.
"Actually, it's rather calm today. But where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lord Godrick Gryffindor. And you are?" He asked Tom. But it was Harry who answered.
"I am Lord Harry Reignia and this is my son Tom. You'll have to excuse us now however it appears that it is our turn." He nodded curtly before stepping up to the counter.
The goblin teller was visibly displeased at being force to get a separate room but it only took a few moments to set everything up.
The teller then went to retrieve a more senior bank attendant which left Harry and Tom blissfully alone. Harry felt a hint of glee bubbling to the surface and he chuckled slightly making a very confused Tom look up from at him.
"Father, what's so funny?" Harry smiled.
"Tom we are a very wealthy family and I can't wait to see the look on their faces when they find out." Tom blinked up at him but didn't get his ask his question as a goblin entered the room.
"Alright mister…?"
"Lord Harry Reignia and my son Tom." The goblin raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"I've never heard of that particular family." Harry smiled pleasantly at the glare that was being directed at him and set his hand on Tom's shoulder when he felt his son stiffen in anger.
"No, I doubt you would have. You see we've recently moved from a small country in the east and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to ensure the safety of our money." The goblin leaned forward slightly.
"So you are here to start an account?" Harry nodded.
"Very well. We will need to collect an blood sample for the inheritance potion. That will tell us if you have any blood ties to any otherfamily as well as verify any of your ancestors that seek to claim an inheritance."
"Alright you do that." Luckily Hermione had known about this and had found a potion that would allow him to fuse his and Tom's bloodlines. Now he and Tom had both changed so that they would be father and son by blood. It hadn't taken much to slip it into Tom's juice that morning considering that it tasted like cinnamon and had no side effects. This was actually perfect because now Tom would never know that he had lied.
And that thought had certainly crossed Tom's mind. The penetrating stare that was being leveled at his head was proof enough of that.
The goblin, whom they found out was named Traphook, pricked both of their fingers and placed both into separate bowls of potion. They turned an identical shade of neon green.
"Alright. You are definitely father and son." Tom sighed heavily and Harry tilted his head to the side faking confusion.
"I know that already." Traphook just shrugged and dipped a quill into Harry's bowl.
It started to write the second that it hit the scroll and frowned nervously. He and Luna had discussed this and they had agreed that at this point in the past no matches would come up and yet the pen was definitely writing down a name.
That was when his stomach lurched violently. Tom had Slytherin blood and now so did he. Gryfindor had been in the lobby and that meant that somewhere out there Salazar Slytherin was too.
Sure enough that was the name that was written. The goblin's eyebrows almost popped off of his head and Tom. Well Tom couldn't see over the table so he didn't react at all.
"It would appear that you are a descendant of another one of our customers, the Lord Slytherin. He will of course need to be informed of this." Harry thought fast.
"Is there any way to avoid that?" Traphook came out of his shock.
"Excuse me?"
"Is there any way that we may continue without informing him?" Tom looked up at his suspiciously and Harry wondered briefly if Tom and Traphook could be related and if so if a glare was hereditary.
"Of course we do not need to inform him to open your account however he will need to be informed that a person capable of claiming the title of his heir has come forward, but let us move forward. How much money would you like to deposit?"
It became very clear that he wasn't going to win against Traphook so he could only hope that Slytherin wouldn't be interested in meeting them.
"I would like to deposit 10,075,163 gallons please." Traphook fell off his high chair. The war had taken a toll on all of there accounts but as a group they had still had a decent fortune. Here of course he was ridiculously rich.
"Excuse me. I believe that you have made some mistake." The goblin's voice was squeaky and breathy all of a sudden.
"No. That is how much I wish to deposit. Is there a problem?"
After that point the goblins treated him and Tom like kings and it only took minutes to store the money in vault 159. He made sure that Tom was registered as his heir and then they left to start their day of shopping.
Tom yawned deeply behind his hand. He and his father had been to every store in the alley almost.
Don't get him wrong though. It had all been amazing. Everything had power and was weird and new. This was where he belonged and he had his father, his real father as proof of that.
He was a bit upset at his mother though. For years he had thought of her as wonderful woman. He'd hoped there had just been some accident and that she had died before she could contact his father, but now.
Now she was the reason that he had been raised in that orphanage instead of with his father where he belonged. It had been her and that muggle she'd run off with, and to add insult to injury she'd named him after that man. Where had he been when she had died alone?
"Tom is something bothering you?" Harry picked him up and kept walking.
"No. I'm just a little tired. When do you think the house will be done?" Their first stop of the day had been a place that built buildings. He'd paid close attention to everything the adults did just incase he needed to know about it in the future.
"It's actually called a manor Tom, not that we need a manor with just the two of us. It should be ready in about a week. I paid the contractor extra to get it done in half the time. Until then, we're going to be living in the pub."
Tom nodded and yawned again before he could stop himself.
"Hold on Tom. We only have one more store to go too and I think that you're going to like it." Harry winked at him for some reason.
Harry was always doing things that he didn't understand. He always smiled and laughed. He was never mean like the other adults that Tom knew. And the only time Harry had been close to mad was when he was talking to that man in the bank. It was weird because Tom had thought the man was nice, a lot like his dad. Then there was the bank incident. Tom didn't understand why Harry didn't want their relative to know about them.
He'd always thought that having a family was a great thing.
When he focused back on reality he realized that his father had taken him into a store filled with cages that were filled with animals, a pet store.
A strange pet store. He'd never seen most of these animals before.
"Tom, don't you want to pick out a pet?" Tom jumped to attention. He'd always wanted a pet. The orphanage had had a bunny but no one would let him play with it.
"What can I get?"
"Anything you want." His dad put him down and he took off through the isles with Harry following behind. He didn't want a dog or a cat. They weren't special enough and now that he could have a pet he wanted it to be the best.
At the back of the store a man stood to the side of a bunch of wooden boxes. Tom paid him no mind, secure it the fact that his father would watch over him and stepped on the stool to look at what as inside the nearest box.
Snakes. Inside two snakes were curled into big coils. Each one was as long as he was tall and Tom had never seen anything as beautiful as them.
"Hello. My name's Tom. What are your names?" The man stiffened and looked at him in shock, but Tom only had eyes for the snakes both of which had uncoiled and were looking up at him now.
"My, my. It's not everyday you sssee a young ssspeaker. I am Rassi and this is my sssister Sssarif. What brings the young master to such a place?" Tom felt his father come up behind him and look in the box.
"My father is allowing me to find a companion." Sarif rose until she and Tom's eyes were level.
"Then you should choose us Ssspeaker. There isss no better snakes in this place." Tom looked up at his father unsure if he would allow two snakes in his new home. He'd been lucky to get permission for one pet much less two.
Harry just smiled and leaned forward. "I expect you two to be well behaved." The snakes both bobbed their heads in acknowledgement and the man stiffened even more.
"Alright, you all stay here and I'll get the clerk to collect the necessary supplies." When Harry stepped away the man came over and Tom backed up nervously.
"Excused me child, but I couldn't help but overhear. You've very good taste in companions." Tom shifted. He could help but wonder how this man had overheard when they'd been talking snake.
"I just wanted to know what you and your father's names are." Tom wished that Harry would come back and tell him what to do. He shouldn't be talking to strangers alone.
The man's lips curved into a sort of smile that looked like it hurt his face. "Come now. What harm could it do to tell me your name? Your father would not approve of you being rude."
"That depends on to whom he's speaking." Tom sighed in relief as Harry forced the man to rise by standing between him and the man. In the background the clerk rushed to get the snakes ready to go.
"Is there any particular reason that you choose to speak to my son?" The man looked Harry in the eyes without flinching.
"Forgive me. I was merely asking for you and your son's name."
"Then you should have asked me instead of waiting until I was away." Tom took note of the identical stance the two men were taking and the way the man was looking at his father as if he were looking for something.
"Once again, I apologize. May I ask your name?" The clerk motioned that he was done and Harry slipped some money into his hands before he grabbed all of the shrunken containers and took Tom's hand.
"No. You may not. Come on son." His father rushed out of the store and up to their room and they spent the rest of the night getting to know their new friends over tea for the humans and mice for the snakes.
Salazar hissed in anger and threw the nearest thing he could reach across the room where it crashed loudly into a glass mirror.
The other occupants of the room looked up in shock. Their friend was the calm one. He never acted like this.
"Are you alright Salazar?" Rowena put her hand on his shoulder only to have him jerk away and give a frustrated groan as he threw himself into one of the wooden chairs.
"I was called to the bank today." He sighed deeply running a hand through his black hair.
"They informed me that a man had come in and created an account." The others just looked at him in confusion.
"Did this man do something?" Godrick asked.
"The blood test showed that he was my son, my heir." They all stiffened in surprise. They'd never known Salazar to take any interest in women much less have some kind of affair.
"How is that possible, Sal?" He looked away his cheeks burning.
"In my youth I had a bit of a fling with a beautifully young woman I met in the forest. She was gone in the morning and I never saw her again. It's the only possible way." He rubbed his hands together. "He has a son. I caught them talking to the snakes in the pet shop. He is truly my son and the child is truly my grandchild."
Godrick's eyes widened. "I met him."
They all turned to him. "What do you mean?" Salazar said skeptically.
"I met him as I was standing in the line at the bank today. I commented that his son was very excited, and he seemed to get upset. He acted like I was trying to take the boy away."
"He was like that with me as well. Did he say his name? He wouldn't say and the bank couldn't give out the information."
"Lord Harry Reignia. He said he and his son Tom had just moved from another country. The kid looked like he had never been out of their manor before." Salazar whispered the names under his breath and ran through everything that had happened between them.
"He was like that with me as well. I admit I shouldn't have spoken to his son before introducing myself but he was more aggressive then he needed to be."
"Maybe he was just overprotective of the boy, Tom was it?" Helga suggested.
"No. He was acting as if I had been trying to hurt the boy."
"Maybe he thought that you were. He did just move here. Maybe he was fleeing something. It wouldn't be that unusual especially with war brewing in the east." Salazar frowned and clenched his fists at the thought of his son being in danger. What had the boy been through already that would cause him to react that way? What had his grandson been through that would make him shy away from someone as he had when they'd talked in the store.
He would find out and those responsible would pay.
Pay for threatening what belonged to him, his son and his grandchild.
He smiled. That had a very nice ring to it.