Chapter 3: Money in the Bank
Griphook frowned and cursed silently before begging the forgiveness of Graff, least the Greater God decide that his desires should be fulfilled. The fact that he even won the game of Sickles and Knuts had to lay in the hands of Ruthia, he had a losing bet that last round, of that Griphook was positive. The fact that the Goddess of the house of Ook, had handed the youngling the account, led the goblin to believe that there was some profit yet to be found in the floundering house he was the new manager of. Perhaps the Goddess had finally decided to hear the prayers of the servants she had once frowned upon, either way Griphook was determined to turn a profit so that the House Ook might once again be in the favor of Ruthia.
Still, he had a lot of work to do if he planned to present the young Mr. Potter with any form of a portfolio when he finally managed to get the elusive boy in a meeting. With a guttural sigh, Griphook took his place behind the counter, releasing his cousin, Meattook, to tend to his accounts, minor though they were. To his left, he could see the elder of House Og doing the same.
Griphook lost himself in the mindless work of tending the sheep of the wizarding world. In his life time, he had yet to meet a wizard worthy of Goblin Honor, and so he gave the patrons of the bank none. Instead, he mentally focused on creating a list of tasks that needed to be done in order to restore the Ancient and Noble House of Potter to its former glory and organizing those tasks by importance. 'Hopefully the soon to be lord isn't as squeamish or as scrupulous as the previous Lord Potter. Lord James all but ran his house into the ground, squandering all his funds into the account of the charlatan, Dumbledore. No this lord is still young, moldable.' The following smirk, served as encouragement for the next few patrons of the bank to find a different teller.
"Hi, I'm Dan Granger and this is my wife Emma. I am assuming that you are Harry's par…guardians." Dan said holding out one hand towards the pair his wife and he had followed earlier, amending the word parents to guardians as he took a good look at the couple, neither of which even faintly resembled the polite young man he had just met.
"Unfortunately, we are stuck with the little freak until he turns seventeen." The older man replied ignoring the hand that was held out to him. 'Freak lovers, they are just as unnatural as their daughter. I wonder if they even care that what their freak does goes against the teaching of GOD.' Vernon scowled at the man for a moment longer before giving in to his wife's unspoken demands to be nice for the public. "I am Vernon Dursley and this is my wife Petunia. Harry Potter is our nephew."
"I see," Dan Granger let the sentence trail off as his hand dropped and circled the waist of his wife, pulling her close. "It must be hard to raise your nephew, especially with him being so different from the rest of your family."
Petunia, the wife, nodded in agreement to that statement. "Sometimes I simply don't know what to do with the boy. It wasn't so bad when he was in the public schools, but ever since he got that letter, he has walked around the house all high and mighty, acting as if we were beneath him. "The acidic words sounded so sincere coming from the thin house wife that for a moment Emma was sympathetic towards her. Of course her memory of the boy she had just met eventually raised its head to offer up the contradictory evidence to the woman's words and the moment was gone soon after.
"Maybe my husband and I can be of some help then Mrs. Dursley. Our daughter has shown some fondness for the boy and we were hoping that we might have him come for a visit at some point during the summer." Emma said, trying her best to display thoughts that weren't hers. Thoughts the Dursleys' expected to see.
Emma was understandably surprised when instead of the immediate negative she expected to receive Mrs. Dursley pulled her to the side, a short ways away from where the two husbands were still trying to glare each other into submission. "Actually, that would be a great help. You see, I recently won a pair of tickets for a week long cruise. Now I know my husband has some vacation time coming so I intend to surprise him with the trip. A sort of second honeymoon, you see. The thing is, unless I can find someone to watch my nephew over the weekends, we can't go. The rest of the time is taken care of, of course. If you would be willing to watch him during those days, I would appreciate it, and it would give you and your husband a chance to get to know the boy. Although I personally hope you decide not to let your daughter near him."
Emma frowned. It wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear, but, at least at this point the woman was willing. "Here is my contact information. Why don't you call me when you get home and we can work out the details?" The kind brunette said, fishing out one of her business cards and handing it to Petunia before walking over to join her husband and daughter, who had joined her father as Petunia was leading her mother off to the side for their chat. "Hermione, sweetie, are you ready to go?" Hermione nodded her head and as a unit the three members of the Granger family turned and walked back towards their car, leaving the Dursleys behind.
"Mom, I think we might want to go rescue Potter earlier than planned this year." Percy Weasley said as he landed and the warm kitchen of the Burrow, stepping out of the way as his younger brothers followed after him.
"Why is that Percy?" Mother Weasley asked as she turned to busy herself at the counter. "I want the rest of you to go ahead and put your trunks away and wash up. Ron, take Percy's trunk up would you please. He is going to stay down and help me prepare a quick supper for the lot of you." She said, not looking up from where she was slicing bread to notice the heavy scowl her youngest son gave his brother. She worked quietly while her mob of children clamored out of the kitchen and up the stairs that led to the bedrooms. "Percy, really what's this about? The Headmaster said that Harry was to stay at his relatives until the first of August at the earliest. You should know as well as everyone else in the family that we do not go against the orders of The Headmaster."
"It isn't as much that I want him here Mum, but Ron was commenting on the way to the caldron that the brat was acting off on the train. It has been going on the last few weeks as well, now that I think about it. Something is off, and I really don't trust what he might do on his own. He was supposed to be in Slytherin, remember. We can't go thinking that he is as dumb as we wish he was, or as naive. " Percy said as he sliced the cheese he had pulled from the cool box as his siblings had left, and placed on top the slices of bread to make open faced cheese sandwiches. "We might want to keep a closer eye on Ginny as well. She was possessed by a spirit of some sort, and a dark one at that."
"I know, dear. I am hoping that between the surprise visit to your brother William in Egypt and being around Harry the later part of the summer some of the lingering darkness will fade away," 'or at least pushed far enough to the background that the love potions I intend on feeding the two will keep it hidden.' The Weasley matriarch said, pausing slightly in an attempt to keep the thought tacked onto the sentence hidden as The Dumbledore had ordered, before continuing. "Otherwise there is nothing else we can do. The Headmaster has already said that there is no money to pay for her to get treatment and we have little enough as it is." Molly Weasley finished her statement just as the daughter that was being discussed was heard tripping down the stairs.
Harry waited as long as he dared before leaving Platform 9 3/4. "What do you think you are doing boy, leaving us waiting here? You are lucky we haven't gotten reprimanded for loitering." Vernon rumbled, careful not to get so loud as to draw excessive attention as he grabbed Harry's shoulder roughly and pulled him forward. "Now come on and hurry to the car."
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry said meekly, as he had been trained for years prior to his starting Hogwarts. Quietly, the boy grabbed the handle of his the trolley holding his trunk and Hedwig followed after his three family members, making sure to stay the required step and half behind his betters. Ahead of him, his aunt was talking softly and quickly with his uncle. At first, Vernon's face began to turn shades indicating anger; however that ended when Petunia laid one hand on his arm and smiled sweetly at the obese man.
After the initial outburst of anger, the trip to the car was unusually peaceful. Petunia kept Vernon distracted and Dudley was too busy inhaling sweets he had bought at some point to bother with his freakish cousin. Harry couldn't help the anxious rumbling of his stomach as the anxiety built. It wasn't unusual for the small family to ignore him, but the air of almost pleasantness about them, as if they really could care less about the stray kid following them, created a sense of unease in the boy.
Harry scrambled about silently to load his school trunk into the boot of the car as quickly as he could after his Uncle had unlocked it, the current air about the family suggesting that they would as soon as leave him forgotten in the parking lot as have him in the car with them. He was equally quiet as he slid him into the less desired seat behind his uncle, silently telling himself that he could deal with being completely ignored as long as the pleasantness continued. The lies didn't stop the rolling of Harry's stomach when instead of heading towards home; Vernon turned the car toward London. Harry wanted to believe that this was a good thing that the family was finally getting rid of him and he would no longer be forced to endure life with them. The lie didn't hold for long, as the car eventually rolled to a stop in front of the Leaky Caldron. "Get out, boy." Vernon snarled seemingly annoyed at having to stop, although he was secretly glad to have the thing out of his car.
"Yes, sir," Harry said, scrambling out of the car, pulling Hedwig's cage with him. Harry watched bewildered as his uncle's car sped away from the corner, leaving him standing on the concrete sidewalk. Harry shuddered slightly and shrank in on himself somewhat as the familiar feeling of abandonment hit him, not that he expected anything else, not really. "Well girl, I guess we are going to Gringotts that is if we want to eat tonight." Harry said to Hedwig, lifting the cage up so that he could look his best friend in the eyes while he spoke to her, before crossing the road and passing through the Leaky Caldron, doing his best to go unnoticed.
Well here is another chapter. I am not completely happy with it. The last part honestly needs some tweaking and I am sure that there are more than a few misspellings, not to mention that I am at least 200 words short of my chapter goal; however I wanted to post, so I am going ahead with it. Sorry that it is not as good as my previous chapters.
I know, I know, I didn't feature the Immortals in this chapter. Don't worry they will be back. I am enjoying them way too much to keep them from the story. However, I felt that I was using them a bit too often, so I decided to leave them out of the chapter. I am a little sad that only one person tried to guess who had who. Congratulations to Man of Constant Sorrow for his correct guess that Fate is playing with Dumbledore. Since he was the only guess, I am leaving the guessing game open for one more chapter. Please guess, it entertains me. I will tell you that all the characters that are being played by Immortals have been introduced.
Do to her popularity I have decided that I will eventually, as I am not in a rush in the romance area at this point, be adding Fleur to the harem.
Also I am still in need of a Beta!
Other than that I would like to thank Man of Constant Sorrow and dark dhampir for their very detailed and helpful reviews. I would also like to thank riffin121294, Erlic, Anime Princess, and ankh0r. Thank you for the support. To all those who are following but not reviewing, keep reading and I look forward to hearing from all of you.
This chapter has been edited.