Hey to all my readers out there in internet land! Hope you had a good weekend! Here is chapter 10!
Huge shout out to the awesome Nova5621 (FFNet) /karasunova (AO3) and The Muse of Apollo for all of their help!
Chapter 10
"Hermione time to wake up," Jean yelled from the hallway.
Jean opened the door and Hermione turned away from the door groaning. She stayed at the Longbottom's until eleven the night before.
Jean turned on the light. "Up, please."
"Go away." Hermione pulled the covers over her head trying to escape her mother.
Jean climbed onto the other side of the bed. "Oh, Baby girl you won't be able to escape me." She grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled them off Hermione with a flourish.
Hermione groaned and opened her eyes and glared at her mother.
"Good morning, sunshine. Draco floo called to remind you about the appointment at the bank."
Hermione sighed and sat up.
"Busy day my dear. Get a shower, get dressed and come downstairs. Sirius and I are making breakfast for you."
"Why do you have to be so bloody chipper in the morning, mum?" Hermione rolled out of bed with a sigh. She saw her bed head and sleepy face in the mirror and turned away to get her shower
.
Thirty minutes later a more awake Hermione graced them with her presence.
"Morning," Hermione poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe and joined her mother on the barstools by the island.
Sirius passed her a plate with an omelet. "Veggie and bacon." Sirius added hashbrowns from the platter to her plate, "Crispy just like you like them."
"Thanks." She grabbed a fork and dug into her breakfast.
Edward walked into the room and smiled at Hermione, "Good morning daughter of mine. Guess what we are doing today?"
He grabbed a cup of coffee.
"Looking at more buildings?"
"Nope," He added sugar and cream to his cup and leaned against the counter, "we are signing the preliminary contract to purchase the location for Sweet Shoppe at Devon."
"You found a location already?"
Jean grinned at Hermione. "Yep. Sirius had his realtor looking for the perfect location over the last two weeks. We looked at it yesterday and had to move fast because real estate in Devon is hopping. It's perfect - right in the main shopping district and near a beautiful lake."
"That is great, mum. I hope you will have just as amazing sunsets as you did from the beach."
"I think so, dear. The second floor will make a beautiful house for us and it's a blank slate. I want to have the living room face the lake so we can enjoy the view. Hoping to build a deck too." She finished her plate and took it to the sink and started washing the dishes.
Hermione grinned. "That's amazing mum. I can't wait to see it. I hope the rainbow motif you had will follow in this one because I can't imagine the Sweet Shoppe without it."
"Of course, it has to." Edward grinned.
"Good! I was wondering if you and dad had plans tomorrow afternoon. Neville wanted to invite you to come to an early dinner."
"Sounds like a plan Hermione, we cannot wait to meet them," Jean smiled.
Draco and Hermione flooed to Leaky Cauldron, ten minutes before the meeting. Draco looked very official in his pinstripe suit and tie.
He handed her a portfolio that was embossed with his law firm's symbol, a robin in flight. Her name was embroidered into the cover as well.
"With this you are officially a client of mine now. I could not attend the inheritance meeting until you 'hired' me as your solicitor for the Harwood inheritance. All of the Lestrange reparation payment stuff was finished last week."
She nodded. "That sounds good, Draco. I need your help there."
"The portfolio will always be kept updated by my team with notes, so keep it in a safe place."
They walked through the archway into Diagon alley and set off towards Gringotts.
As they entered the bank, her mind was taken back to her first time entering the largest bank in Wizarding England. She had been amazed at the building, fascinated and scared by the goblins all at the same time. As they approached the head teller her mind went to the last time she was there, riding a dragon out of the bank. She held the portfolio tight to her chest and shook her head trying to focus on the meeting ahead.
They stopped at the reception desk and the goblin looked from Hermione to Draco. "Do you have an appointment?"
Draco handed his appointment card to the goblin who turned away and sent a message. A minute later, Director Talonson and a female goblin walked out of the back offices.
"Good morning, Director Talonson, pleasure seeing you this morning." The goblin shook his hand. "My client would like to start the preliminary inheritance discussion with the Harwood account manager at this time."
A female goblin stepped forward and shook Hermione and Draco's hands. "Good morning Miss Granger, please follow me. I am Arrilyn, the Harwood Account Manager." She started off towards the elevator.
"Watch that one, Arrilyn," the director pointed at Hermione, "she does not leave your side while in this building. You must accompany her to the vaults." Talonson glared at Hermione.
Hermione had to bite back a laugh - she had defeated them in combat and broke out of their dungeons on dragon back, nothing the Goblins could do would scare her. But she kept that thought to herself.
"That's about as warm of a welcome as you will ever get," Draco whispered.
Arrilyn motioned for them to follow her to her office.
"Please have a seat Ms. Granger. I am your account executive at Gringotts. We are going to go through the inheritance process today. I will start by confirming your identity and then we will go through what all that entails. Do you have any questions before we start?"
"No." Hermione said, Draco outlined what would happen in this meeting the week before.
Arrilyn pulled an intimidating looking ceremonial knife that's hilt was adored with light blue jewels, "This knife is from the Harwood vault and is used for family rituals. Please take the knife and cut your palm and put blood in the box on this paper."
Hermione grabbed the page and looked it over. It had her name written across it and a box where she was supposed to put the blood on. She grabbed the knife and cut her palm. It stung a little as droplets of blood pooled on the paper in the box.
She set the knife down and she quickly healed her hand. She pushed the paper back across the desk.
"Thank you Ms. Granger," she snapped her fingers and the paper went up in flames, the paper turned light blue and her name turned gold.
Arrilyn smiled at Hermione with a much warmer demeanor, "Hermione Granger, I have confirmed that you are the heir to the Harwood family. Now we can start the inheritance process today."
Over the next three hours, Hermione was thrown literally books and books of information about the Harwood family. Hermione had an eidetic memory and it was even overwhelming for her.
Draco was taking notes and asking for key pieces of information from Arrilyn. Hermione was eternally grateful for his help because she had no clue what to ask. Draco stopped Arrilyn before she could confirm the acceptance of the inheritance.
Arrilyn looked at them with a curious look, "And why would you want to wait?"
Hermione sighed, "I was adopted into the Granger family, so technically I have two inheritances to choose from. I hoped that I would be given time to review both. This inheritance has some stipulations that may counter that.."
She did not want to tell the goblin the truth, which was that she was not ready for all that this inheritance entailed right now.
"Let me speak with my superiors and check the family stipulations and I will come back." She snapped her fingers and a tray of light snacks and tea appeared on the table.
"Nice bull shitting, Hermione."
Hermione grabbed her tea and sunk into her chair. "Neville gave me a heads up and that was the best I could come up with."
She took a long sip from her tea and continued, "Draco, I don't know if I want to accept it… there is a lot that comes with it that quite frankly intimidates the shit out of me. I don't think..."
Draco put his hand on her shoulder, "I get it, Hermione. You don't have to explain it to me. I am just glad you gave her a reason."
Hermione nodded and grabbed a cucumber tea sandwich from the tray. They sat in almost comfortable silence waiting for the Goblin to return.
Hermione's mind continued to go over everything that had been told to her that morning. One of the more important duties of the inheritance was the Wizengamot seat that she had. In order to accept the seat, she would have to take up permanent residence in England. Right now Neville was acting as regent for the seat. She had only been back a few days and already things were moving so quickly.
Arrilyn walked in with an annoyed look, she sat down at her desk and handed a letter to Hermione, "Normally we would say no. However, after reading the will of Allison Harwood you do have the option of waiting. Miss Granger, you will have six months to make a decision. If you do not make a choice, the will states that all will go to Neville Longbottom."
Hermione nodded, "I understand."
"You will be assessed an administrative fee of one-hundred gallons for us to hold this process for six months."
"I will have the money sent to Gringotts this afternoon. My client appreciates the time to make informed decisions. What will she have access to for the next six months?"
Arrilyn pulled out an additional paper with the details. "She would be given access to the records, lands, and documents today. Vault access will be restricted. As the Director advised, I will need to accompany Miss Granger to the vault. Nothing can be removed from the bank until you formally accept it." She handed a stack of papers to Draco.
"Thank you for your help, Arrilyn."
They left Arrilyn's office and Hermione felt like a zombie as she walked through Gringotts towards the Floo exit.
She was overwhelmed by the amount of information and grateful to be given time to digest everything. Draco took all of the official documents back to his office for safekeeping and he would add copies of everything into her portfolio. She also asked him to provide copies to Neville since he offered to help her look over the family documents.
Hermione flooed back to Grimmauld Place. She appeared in the entry room of Grimmauld Place to silence. She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge looking for a snack.
"This all feels like too much right now…" Hermione admitted out loud for the first time.
"If it wasn't overwhelming I would be surprised," Hermione spun around and saw Ginny standing in the living room.
Ginny pointed at the plate of desserts on the coffee table. "Didn't mean to scare you, Hermione. Mum wanted me to drop off some food for you guys to eat from the party. She has too much and it looks like Sirius has not been to the store."
"Thanks, Ginny."
"Come sit with me and take a load off," Ginny sat back down on the couch with a cookie in her hand.
Hermione walked into the living room and grabbed a red velvet cookie and sat down on the other side of the couch. "In the span of two weeks Gin… I am back in England, heiress to a crazy amount of shit. I fit right back into the world I left and it feels so right and yet so different and ah-"
"I need to not think about the enormity of everything." Hermione threw her hands up, "please distract me and tell me everything about your Mister Malfoy." She took a bite of her cookie.
"Oh you wanna talk boy talk I am your girl." She laughed.
Hermione sat up and reached for Ginny's left hand. "We have to start with this," she looked at the ring that Draco had the pair to. It was rose gold and had a robin in flight carved into it. There was a constellation carved into the ring with holes left for the stars.
"Draco showed me his ring when I got nosey about it. He told me yours was even better than his and he was right."
"Oh, I just love my ring and my fiance even more. To tell you the truth girl, when he walked into my Britain Muggle History class, I was expecting the worst from him. We were, of course, paired together on the first project of the semester and he shocked me. He was a perfect gentleman the entire time, he never sneered at me and seemed to genuinely want to learn. We continued to work on projects together and even took a lot of the same classes in the beginning."
"Remind me again, what did you get your degree in?"
"I got my degree in Education and Mastery in Charms. Luna and I, with the help of the Potter foundation, are going to start a primary school. I am so excited, we broke ground on the facility last month. Hope to get it all staffed up next year."
Hermione had learned some of this in Harry's 'Dear Hermione' letters. Seeing the passion in her friend's eyes was even better. "Finally someone is bringing the pre-Hogwarts magical education into this century."
"It has been a struggle but we are moving forward. Andromeda has been our bloody champion. She joined our adventure while we were still in school. Early on she started working on the plan to introduce the magical community to muggle-born students. She knew that that would take the longest to get approved by the Ministry."
"How long did it take?"
"Too damn long. It was the thing that was keeping us from opening. We told the Ministry that we would not open the school unless we were allowed to bring the muggle-born students in as well. We need proper education for all kids in the magical community."
"That is going to be amazing Ginny, are you going to get the parents involved too?"
She nodded, "Yes, we are going to offer classes for them. It's important that parents don't feel like they are leaving their children and are welcomed in the Magical world. We need to keep our people in England."
"Here, here. I am grateful for your parents taking mine in when we were at school. They felt so isolated from me and had it not been for them, it would have made things so much more difficult."
Ginny got up from the couch and started making tea for the two of them. "It is going to be a fun adventure. I am thankful that Draco is by my side through this because planning a wedding and opening the school, it's been a mess."
"So do tell, how did you two start dating? It sounds like you were friends," Hermione asked as Ginny sat back down with two cups of tea.
"Oh Harry, the noisy ninny that he is could not keep his nose out of our business." She shook her head, "I am grateful for it, don't get me wrong, but still. Neither one of us would make the first move, so he met us for our weekly study session and promptly left before dinner. He sent an owl with a note that said, 'this is your first date, enjoy dinner on me'."
Hermione was shocked by that, he had not said anything about that in his letters. "Well, that was ballsy of him."
"I am glad for it. It would have taken us so much longer to finally make a move, had he not done it. We talked and talked all night. And well, fast forward and now we are here." She wiggled her left hand.
Ginny dipped her cookie in her tea and continued. "Speaking of… I am really glad you are home because I wanted to ask if you would be a bridesmaid at my wedding? I have had a spot saved in the hopes that you would come back."
"Hermione, after the shit that I went through my first year, I was ostracized and you helped me so much that summer and next school year. And even though I have not seen you in way too long, you are my sister. I cannot imagine the day without you there."
Hermione silenced her friend's babbling and hugged her. "I would be honored, Ginny. So pull out that binder I know you have in your pocket and show me everything."
~~~~~ END OF CHAPTER ~~~~~~~~