Like the Terminator, I'm Back, Baby!
Sorry about the wait, school, life, yada yada, new chapter, here you go:
It was only a few days later, Wednesday at breakfast, when Harry noticed a large black owl swoop into the great hall and deposit a large envelope before him. Seeing a Gringotts seal upon the back, he quickly tore it open. Inside he notice two pieces of parchment, as well as a small metal disk. Leaving the disk for later, he pulled the parchments out. A quick glance at both showed one to be more of a notice than anything, so he set that aside for the moment. Pulling the other letter closer, he slowly read it to himself.
Dear Mr. Potter,
This letter is a formality, notifying you that per your godfather's instruction and the ministry's approval you have been hereby emancipated, and have all the rights and privileges of an adult wizard. This includes, but is not limited to, learning apparition, preforming magic outside of school, and taking an official position in your house (see other letter).
You are also now officially notified that as an emancipated wizard, you are responsible for managing your own finances, or appointing someone to do so for you. If you wish, your previous magical guardian may continue to manage the Potter accounts until you have finished schooling, or such a time as you decide differently.
Finally, you are granted full unlimited access to all the potter accounts, funds, and properties. If you wish, Gringotts can assemble a full portfolio for you to view, however, that must occur within Gringotts.
Congratulations,
Knifehand
Potter account Manager
Harry silently cheered. Sirius had done it! Doing his best to contain his enthusiasm, Harry set the letter down, and picked up the second piece of parchment. It simply said:
Mr. Potter,
Due to your Emancipation, your presence is requested at Gringotts this Saturday, for a meeting with Knifehand, your family account manager. The disk included with this letter is a portkey directly to his office. It will depart at 11:00am. Should we not hear from you before that time, we will assume that you have agreed to this meeting time.
Cordially,
Steelmind
Gringotts
Taking the disk out of the envelope, Harry flipped it over in his hand a few times, trying to see if there were any markings on it, but the metal was smooth. Shrugging, he pocketed the disk, assuming, much like Vernon had been called to on occasion, that this was a normal meeting with a banker. Of course, his uncle has griped and moaned non-stop about the uselessness of these meetings, but Harry usually took his uncle's rantings with a fairly large grain of salt.
Hearing a small cough, he looked up to see his best friend sitting across from him, looking mildly amused. "Are you still alive Harry?" She asked. He smiled, and nodded. "I'm fine, Hermione," He folded the parchment up, and placed it back in the envelope, placing that in his pocket. "Just got some good news."
"Do you feel like sharing what has you in such a good mood?" She pressed.
He smirked, but shook his head. "Not yet. But I'll make sure you hear it from me and not anyone else." With that, he stood from the table and walked out of the hall, heading in the direction of the charms classroom. He didn't know what he would do with himself all day, he had charms in the morning, but a free period in the afternoon, while both Hermione and Daphne would be in Runes.
After a wonderful class period spent reviewing summoning charms in which Harry earned 15 house points for his showing against the dragon and proficiency in the charm, he found himself alone in the library, researching magical codes and hidden messages. He was hoping to find some information on what the screeching sound his egg made was, but was mostly find spells for revealing hidden ink, or detecting magical messages hidden in objects. It was interesting, but not helpful. Finding nothing helpful in his current reading, he closed the book, and returned it to his place on the shelves. Checking his watch, and see that he had over an hour before his more research inclined friends showed up, he decided to look into something that had been bothering him for a few days.
Quickly finding the section in the library containing magical creatures, he located a book on communication, and flipped through hoping to find some indication of how Dragons communicated. He could swear during his mad flight with the dragon he could hear cursing in the dragon's roars. He stopped, however, when the word Hogwarts jumped out at him. Scanning the page, he discovered the text was referencing the black lake, home to a tribe of merpeople. He was about to continue his search, when he noticed the word screeching. Intrigued he read the paragraph.
Merpeople communicate much like humans, verbally. Similarly, they create vibrations using their throats to speak underwater. However, this unique skill, while sounding quite enchanting underwater, is rather horrible to listen to on dry land, sounding much like a banshee screeching. The musical quality of their voices is said to descend from the mythical sirens of ancient times…
The reading offered no more relevant information, but Harry was still excited. It wasn't definitive, but it seemed unlikely it was a coincidence that the screeching was anything else. He resolved to wait until Hermione and Daphne showed and present his findings to them, to see what they thought.
When they arrived, waking Harry from the doze he had fallen into, he showed them the passage, explaining how he had discovered it. They agreed that it was unlikely to be a coincidence, and Harry decided that he should open the egg underwater at his earliest convenience.
-0-
By Friday afternoon, Harry still hadn't tried opening his egg underwater, and he was unlikely to get to it before the ball, he rationalized. He figured it could wait, the second task wasn't until February. He was more focused on his meeting with the goblins, as well as the upcoming ball. He was determined to make sure the Daphne had a great time, and he had pulled all the stops. Stooping so low as to suffer through McGonagall's dancing lessons, and even ask Hermione for help, he figured that he was putting an appropriate amount of effort into the ball. It didn't take much casually dropped hints from Daphne that simple dress robes would not be adequate for her, and so he decided that he would be finding some robes in Diagon Alley after his meeting on Saturday.
For the rest of the day, he settled on working through Snape's newest assignment, 18 inches on the effect of adding normal spices like cinnamon and salt to potions. He found it invigorating to be able to simply write his thoughts straight from his head onto the parchment. Instead of just copying information out of books, Snape required his students to also add their own thoughts to the assignments.
He finished the assignment just before dinner. Quickly drying the ink with a wave of his wand, he rolled up the parchment, and placed it in his bag, to give to the potions professor on Tuesday. He then made his way down to the great hall. Quickly spotting Daphne sitting with Hermione, he made his way over to them, and sat down, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hey there you two, what terrible misery are you planning for me now?" he ask with a cheeky grin.
Lightly jabbing him in the ribs, Daphne said "We're not planning anything yet, you big lug." She smiled at him, and added "But I was thinking about maybe making tentative plans for tomorrow?" Harry was serving himself a helping of shepherd's pie, and frowned. "Actually, I have something going on tomorrow. I'll probably be busy till the afternoon. But maybe on Sunday." Daphne looked a little upset, and also curious, but just nodded.
Looking across the table at his best friend, who was looking at him expectantly, Harry shook his head. "Not yet," he said, "But maybe after I'm done, I'll tell you about it." Sighing dramatically, Hermione shrugged and went back to her meal. Harry took this time to pile food on his plate, and begin eating. As he devoured piles of steak and potatoes, he began to worry about what his meeting was actually about. While he was aware that it was not unusual for people to meet with their bankers, he had never heard anyone in the wizarding world talk about a meeting with the goblins. He found the creatures frightening enough, in his few and far between interactions with them.
Seeing the worry on her boyfriend's face, Daphne nudged him with her hip, saying "Knut for your thoughts?" Harry looked up, shaken from his thoughts, but just shook his head. Putting his fork down, and swallowing, he said "Just thinking about something I have to do. I'm not sure how it's going to go." Daphne looped her arm around his waist, and pulled him closer to her, hugging him tightly. "I'm sure it will be okay Harry," She said. "Whatever it is, you'll do fine."
Harry smiled at the support from Daphne, happy that she believed in him. Reassured, he returned to his dinner. Meanwhile, Albus Dumbledore was fuming in his seat. Now that Ms. Weasley had been discovered with love potions, he could no longer try to set Harry up with her. He was glad that Molly had had the idea before he did, otherwise he'd be the focus of Minerva's ire instead. Thankfully, he had been able to convince her that they shouldn't expel young Ginny. But now he was back to square one, he had no idea how to remove harry from the arms of Ms. Greengrass. It appeared that Hermione was no longer an option; she seemed to be forming a fast friendship with the young women. So he revisited his list of possible matches for Harry. The remaining female Gryffindors in his year were not options, as he had little control over the Patil family, and Ms. Brown was for sure not Harry's type. Katie Bell was an option, but he was relatively sure she thought of Harry more as a younger sibling.
Frustrated, he took a sip of his pumpkin juice, which took his gaze over to the Ravenclaw table. His eyes widened a little, he hadn't thought about the other houses. There weren't many choices in the house of the clever, he didn't want Harry becoming any more studious than he was. But there were a few choices from Hufflepuff that he could work with, namely Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot, both of whom belonged to decidedly light families. He let a small smile grace his lips. Once he was back in his office, he could get to forming a more solid plan of action.
-0-
Harry woke up around 8 am the next morning with his stomach in knots. He quickly showered and made his way down into the common room. As was the norm, Hermione was sitting in an armchair, book in hand, waiting for him. Seeing the opportunity for a light pranking, he quickly shot a sticking charm at her hand, ensuring she would be unable to let go of the book. Just then, she looked up, and seeing her friend, got up to put her book away. But when she was unable to place the book in her bag without it coming back out with her hand, she turned to glare at Harry.
"Harry," She said in a voice the promised pain, "If you don't unstick this book from my hand, I'll bludgeon you to death with it." Seeing that he still had a grin on his face, she smirked and added "Oh, and I'll tell Daphne, and let her bludgeon you as well." His grin disappeared faster than food did before Ron at meals. Wincing, he nodded, and dispelled the sticking charm. She put the book in her bag, glad to see it stayed there, and turned back to her friend, saying "It's nice to know I have such power over Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived and Tri-Wizard Champion. Come on, let's go down to breakfast." Harry just nodded in agreement, and followed his friend out the common room.
Down in The Great Hall Harry ate with muted enthusiasm. He was mostly trying to waste time until 11, so he could get his meeting over with. After pushing his food around and ignoring Hermione's glances for 15 minutes, he decided that he couldn't stand waiting like this any longer and, giving Hermione the excuse of doing his completed potions essay, slipped away. He first stopped back in his dorm to pick up the Gringotts portkey, then headed to one of the unused classrooms on the 6th floor.
-0-
While he waited, Severus Snape sat in his office deep in thought. A stack of papers, waiting to be graded, sat untouched on his desk. There was something distinctly wrong with Alastor Moody. When he had visited the scarred man's office, he expected the special degree of grumpiness and paranoia the man reserved for death eaters, but instead was meet with cordiality. Already suspicious of the crazy ex-auror, he called him an old friend, something he figured you tempt Moody to curse him. However, Moody just greeted him, but said they didn't have time to talk.
Severus was extremely disturbed by 'Mad-Eye' Moody's sudden 180. While he never personally knew him, the few times that Snape met the man served to showcase his character. He briefly considered going to Dumbledore, but wrote the idea off, knowing he would just receive platitudes and evasion. Instead he wrote a letter to one of the few people he thought he would never have to think about again: Sirius Black. Quickly summarizing his suspicions and warnings, he folded up the letter, and placed it in a drawer, making a note to give it to Harry as soon as possible.