Standard Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything of the Harry Potter empire. Nope, nada. No money is being made here, which is solely due to sleepless nights and a disgruntled muse who has a penchant for excessive caffein. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is entirely unlikely and is unintentional if it does happen.
Timeframe: Hogwarts immediately after the Battle, with some slight time alterations of events during the battle. AU afterwards.
Warning: The aftermath of a battle is never pretty.
Chapter 3: Meetings
Harry woke up to the sound of someone loudly demanding in a familiar voice, "Harry, what are you doing?"
Opening his eyes, he saw a group of people staring at him, with his arm around Poppy Pomfrey.
Poppy opened her eyes as well, looked at Harry and remarked, "Well, it has certainly been a long time since I woke up in the arms of a young man. Did you sneak a kiss or cop a feel while I slept? You should have had lots of opportunity." As Harry blushed at the innuendo, she giggled "Mr. Potter, you are just so easy to tease."
As he continued to blush, he heard Hermione ask again with a very annoyed tone "Harry what do you think you are doing?
Looking at Poppy and smiling, deciding to take her lead, he turned to Hermione, and commented "Hermione, you have to remember that I have spent many hours with this lovely woman and most of the time I was in bed." He did not mention that he had been an infirmary bed for most of it, leaving the insinuation to the imaginations of the rest of those in front of them.
Poppy gave a huge laugh. "Oh Harry, you can't imagine how much I needed a good laugh right now. However, as much fun as this is, I know that I probably need to be somewhere else, doing something else." With this, she kissed Harry on the cheek, got up and left.
Hermione stood there with her mouth agape, while the rest of the little group started to laugh.
Senior Auror Shacklebolt nodded to Harry, and although he and Harry had met previously, he introduced the group formally. "Harry Potter, I am Senior Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, and I am here representing the Ministry's legal department, and I am sure you know Percival Weasley, who is here to handle the political issues that may arise. You may have met Warmaster Steelblade and Senior Accounts Supervisor Goldhand of the Goblin Nation. I don't think you would have met Elf Chief Niffle, who is the chief of all house elves in Britain and also in western Europe."
Harry knew enough about the Goblin Nation to know that their positions were earned, through hard and sometimes dangerous effort. It was an insult to not use their titles when addressing them in a formal setting.
Behind the group were two armed goblins where armour similar to that of Goldhand. Apparently, this was his honour guard. Behind Steelblade were six heavily armed goblins wearing the same battle insignia as their boss.
Harry looked at Percy Weasley, who had been such a pain in the butt to him for several years, but had come and fought beside the defenders of Hogwarts. He started to worry about what Kingsley's comment about 'political issues' might mean. He knew that some of the recently deceased Death Eaters had been Mister Fudge's strongest financial supporters.
The one identified as Warmaster Steelblade look to Shacklebolt and stated firmly "For our business here, Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Ronald Weasley and Molly Weasley must also be in attendance. Summon them, so that we do not waste valuable time."
Harry knew that to the goblins, the maxim that 'time is money' was not just a saying, but held the status of religious dogma, never to be questioned.
Hermione interrupted. "Shouldn't Ginny and Luna be here as well? They helped lead the resistance."
Steelblade stared at the witch who had disturbed his train of thought, then nodded. "It is honourable that you wish to acknowledge the warriors who fought with you. You and they will be honoured as the brave ones they are, properly, but not at this time. They did not kill in the battle." He noticed that Hermione was going to object to this statement, so he added "or rather, those they killed were not in command of property. That is the matter with which we are here to address, as it must be settled quickly. Other battle honours can wait but they will happen, and soon."
It was obvious that Hermione was about to ask another question. The two goblins looked to each other and nodded. Here was a human who was actually intelligent and curious about matters that goblins knew were vitally important. Steelblade nodded to Goldhand to continue, as the explanation was more in the field of the Senior Accounts Supervisor than that of a Warmaster.
Goldhand nodded to Hermione, and began "Ms. Granger, I have heard of you need to learn all you can, and this is appreciated by those in the Goblin Nation. I assume that your question that you were about to ask has to do with the designation of those being in command of property. Am I correct?"
As the witch smiled and nodded, he continued. "To be in command of property, one would have to have absolute authority over its ownership, for either keeping it or disposing of it. For example, your parents have a house and a business. Can either or them sell either without consulting the other? If not, neither is in command of either property individually. Does your father own a car and the right to sell it or buy another, without agreement from your mother?" As she nodded, he said "Then in that case, he is in command of the property that is the car."
"In the case of real estate or other property, it gets much more complicated. Under your old English feudal laws, originally a noble such as a Duke or Earl might have land under their sole control. However, they may have relationships where one of their vassals would directly own the property and get the revenues from it, but under conditions of fealty to their overlord. They could then sell land, but only to another under fealty to the same overlord. From your history, you may recall that in the 1200's of your counting, King John owned no land himself, and was known colloquially as John Lack-land – all the land was owned by the barons and other nobles. In Scotland, before the fall of the Stuarts, land was owned collectively by the clans, not directly by the head of the clan. After the Hanovers came into power, the law was changed and the clan chief then was ruled to own the land himself, dispossessing the clan members – this was one of the rationales for the Jacobite rebellions and the Highland Clearances."
"Now this gets further complicated by contractual or inheritance issues, which is where the Nation is concerned. By treaty, the Nation is the sole adjudicator of inheritances within the British wizarding world. Similar to references in some of your Georgian novels, property could be entailed to other relatives, rather than to the direct, usually female, descendants. In common law, women were often considered little more than property of the landholder, and this still applies under your Ministry laws. However, in aristocratic families, it was common that women had their interests protected on marriage by designating the property they brought to a marriage as their dowery, and they retained what were called 'dower rights' which were not legally under the control of their husbands, although these rights were often abused."
"Now, in the cases we are here to deal with, many of the followers of you so-called Lord Voldemort, who was no true Lord, were of the wizarding aristocracy. As such, the head of the household, or of the aristocratic House, was originally in sole command of the property and wealth of the family. In some cases, in particular Narcissa Malfoy, the wife of the house retained dower rights to property she brought into the marriage."
"Unfortunately for most of the lessor members of the Houses who made up most of the followers of Voldemort, once he came back into power, he demanded that they pass over command of their fortunes and property to him. So, he became the one in command of the property. However, for many of his original followers, he had not imposed this requirement, and seems to have forgotten this important aspect of his financial situation. With bookkeeping this sloppy, he would have never been hired by Gringotts."
"For the Malfoys, we know that Lucius Malfoy had convinced him to neglect this requirement, so that Malfoy had control over the finances needed to maintain a lavish lifestyle and bribe Ministry officials and Wizengamot members, in order to keep control of the political agenda. Unfortunately for the Malfoys, the Dark Lord required him to sign over control in the last year before the battle once they had taken over direct control of the Ministry, in order to provide funds for recruitment of mercenaries and more followers. With his son taking the Dark Mark as well, any inheritances hidden from the Dark Lord were also compromised."
"During the battle which was just fought here, many of the Death Eaters who were killed were in command of their own property, although most were not. When Harry Potter killed the dark Lord, by Right of Conquest, all properties under his command became his property. Some others had stipulations on their property that upon their own deaths, their property went to Voldemort, and as they died by his draining of their magic before his own demise, their property also goes to Harry Potter. The others who were called to this meeting accounted for the others in command of property. By the somewhat archaic laws of the Wizengamot these include real estate, holdings, liquid assets, humans and house elves."
At this point, Percy Weasley took up the explanation. "Under the laws abolishing slavery as of 1834, it is illegal to own other human beings. As such, whoever could otherwise claim ownership under the Right of Conquest are required to free those they own or adopt them into their own families. Because the government of the day was stripping capital assets from the slaveholders, the owners were compensated for the lost value. In this instance, it has been decided that the compensation will be in the form of tax credits to be used over a number of years, as the Ministry does not currently have the resources to pay out that much money directly; this was based on the market value of a slave in 1833 before the law was passed and adjusted for inflation over time. Currently, the value of a healthy human being would be over a million galleons."
Goldhand smiled at the young bureaucrat, and by way of correction, said "Mr. Weasley, as you point out, slavery was abolished over a hundred years ago, although some of your noble families carried on with practices which resembled it strongly. Gringotts made very sure that so such relationships could be passed on from one generation to another, through our oversight of inheritances. There were one or two instances where, due to the extended lifespan of your kind, some more direct action had to be taken. Such actions were seldom pleasant for the guilty party. Any bondage which now occurs is legally by mutual consent, but again with your aristocracy and in particular the late unlamented Death Eaters, there was often some coercion involved. Any bonds covered by the right of conquest must be acceptable to both, in which case the services involved can be terminated by either party without required compensation. However, if the bonded person has served honourably but wishes to be released, some sort of severance reward would be appropriate."
Hermione interrupted "But bondage is slavery! The house elves were kept in slavery and this I was trying to free them. How can humans be in bondage as well?"
The goblins looked stunned that this supposedly brilliant human did not understand a basic concept in business, but the Elf Chief Niffle nodded to them. "Honoured sirs, I will deal with this once the others have arrived, if that is acceptable to you. They will also need to know what their rights and obligations entail." At this the goblins nodded in agreement and Hermione nodded after a pause, obviously disturbed by the implications. The young witch seemed very annoyed that her question was being put off, but mollified that it was to be addressed by someone who seemed to know of her primary concerns.
At this juncture, Harry interrupted as he raised a serious question. "Senior Accounts Supervisor Goldhand, I know that a lot of the money that the Death Eaters had was from thefts and murders they carried out. It would not be right to accept take this unlawful money. I will not accept it, in any case."
The goblin nodded. "Well said, Mr. Potter. As you may know, we at Gringotts have very little respect or tolerance for thievery. We have kept track of all funds flowing through Death Eater hands, but until your taking down of the Dark Lord and his minions, by Ministry law we could not clear this stain from our ledgers. What would you recommend?"
Harry thought for a couple minutes. "If possible, I would think the best thing would be to return the stolen money and properties to their rightful owners. I realize this may not be possible as some families were completely wiped out. Where return is not possible to surviving heirs or surviving distant relatives, I think that the best thing would be to set up some sort of system to aid survivors of this war, such as money to repair houses, scholarships for schooling, medical expenses, and other things of that sort, and in such a way that officialdom doesn't get their hands on it and drain the funds. I have seen too much corruption in the past, and I think that it is just another version of the thefts that the Death eaters carried out, just being a bit more subtle about it. If we can't compensate the direct victims, then we should help indirect victims. What do you think?"
Th goblins looked at each other, then to the rest of the group. They nodded and Goldhand responded, "Very good ideas Harry Potter." He looked directly at Percy Weasley, who also nodded, acknowledging that the Ministry had been one of the major instruments of the corruption that Harry was concerned about.
Just then, the others who were to attend, Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Ron and Molly Weasley arrived, and Warmaster Steelblade announced, "Good, we can proceed." Molly was being supported by her husband Arthur and her eldest son, as she appeared on the brink of collapse. She was clinging her daughter tightly, as if Ginny might disappear from her just after Molly had saved her from death. Ron was holding up his elder brother George, who looked like he too was about to collapse at any moment.