There is a fulgent flash of light in a clear area by the bar of the dimly lit Leaky Cauldron as Harry, Petunia, and Minerva – who is looking rather pale – arrive courtesy of Sunbeam. Almost the entirety of the pub clutch their eyes in agony as they are temporarily blinded by the light. The exception is the Grangers, who were led into the pub by Hermione and were expecting to meet Minerva outside, and so were actually looking into the bright sunlight of muggle London.

Outside, the muggles just look around at the sky to see if it's likely to rain. When they don't see anything they just assume it was a flash of sunlight reflecting off a car window or something.

Minerva staggers over to the Floo and takes a pinch of powder from a pouch at her waist before throwing it in.

"St Mungo's Hospital." – Kneeling and putting her head in the flames she starts to speak to the receptionist – "I need a couple of medi-witches at the leaky cauldron to treat flash blindness for the entirety of the pub. Oh, and could one of them bring me a calming draft as I need one."

As she pulls her head out of the fire and turns around she sees that the Granger parents have commandeered the cook who came out from the back to get them water, and they're carefully applying it to napkins for people to hold against their eyes to relieve the burning sensation.

Pulling herself together she walks over to the Grangers confidently, "Thank you for your assistance, I've called for a couple of medi-witches to cure the blindness. They should be here momentarily. Would you mind if we move into the Alley proper once they arrive so that they have more room to work?"

"Not at all. What caused this?"

"I arrived with the other people we'll be shopping with, one of them has a Phoenix and she brought us here."

Hermione looks up from the person she's helping, "Really, can I see?"

"They're just over there by the bar, you want the boy that is talking into that thing he's holding."

Hermione looks pleadingly at her parents, "Go on then, we can handle this."

She runs over to the boy who's now reading a book he got from somewhere, "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger. What are you reading?"

Harry wordlessly hands her the tome describing how to brew the Potion of Plentiful Needs. Hermione looks at it, opens the book to the first page, then flicks a few pages in and frowns.

"I can't read this."

"I know, but you wanted to know what I was reading."

She pouts, "What the book about then?"

"It's a tome describing how to brew a Potion of Plentiful Needs."

"Is potion making really that complicated?"

"I don't know, this is technically a form of alchemy. This potion takes an apple as a catalyst and then the rest of it is filling the cauldron with magic in the right form, and mixing it in the right way. I'm hoping to finish learning from the tome by the time school starts. By the way, I'm Harry Potter, pleased to meet you."

"Wow, is that something I could learn to do?"

"I don't see why not."

Simeon speaks up from where he'd stopped when they arrived, "I can, she doesn't have enough magic, and she doesn't have a tie to the realm of magic."

"Oh, that's true, but I could ask Sunbeam to take us to the Realm of magic and introduce her to you and the other two sages."

"Sages?" Hermione's head whips around to stare at Simeon.

Who sighs, "Yes, I'm the sage of practical magic. There's also a sage of Mischief Magic, and a sage of Untamed magic. There used to be more sages, but we're the last 3 schools left with sages, between the three of us we've also managed to preserve the school of alchemy too."

"I'm going to become a new sage when I'm an adult."

"I bid you good luck with your quest, though you'll need to be infused with magic so that you have a connection to the realm of magic. You'll also have to start learning now, even though you won't have interface assistance to help you. The first thing you'll need to do is learn to read and speak our language."

"Is that what Harry's tome is written in?"

"It is. You'll also need a broom and a familiar."

"Do you mean one of those that were in our letter?"

"Not precisely, Sunbeam there is one of Harry's familiars. Veild is Petunia's familiar, though I can't see him at the moment."

Petunia speaks out, "It's off checking out some of its old haunts to see if anyone it knows is still around."

With a flash of green fire, a couple of witches in white robes come out of the nearby fireplace. A minute later Minerva and the Grangers both walk over.

"Mum, Dad, can I go to the Realm of magic to learn magic please?"

Mr Granger smiles, "Isn't that why you're going to Hogwarts dear?"

"Yes, but Harry's doing both."

"I don't know, it depends on how much extra work it would be."

"Mr Sage, how much work would it be to learn your magic?"

Simeon laughs, "Please, call me Simeon, Sage of Practical Magic is just my title. And apart from the first spell, which will take around a week to get the basics of it down, the rest of it is self-directed research and learning. I expect that the tome that Harry has will take him around a month to digest and understand. After that he'll need to get comfortable brewing the potion manually, and only once that's done will he be able to delve into the subtleties of it. The same is true of other spells, though we do have ranks of capability and understanding for our spells, so you probably won't have the first clue about acolyte level spells and potions until you've got a better understanding of magic itself and how it works and feels."

"See, it's something I could work around my schooling. Please say yes."

Her parents look at each other and laugh, "As long as you always go with someone that we know and trust, and never on your own. Even if you get your own phoenix."

Her mother adds, "Also, we're not paying more than £80 a month for books. Any more than that, and you'll need to earn them yourself."

Simeon nods, "That should work well for apprentice level spells, though once you start learning the more difficult spells you'll struggle with it. Oh, and you need to learn to read Simian too. By the way, I'm Simeon Silversweater."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Jean Granger, this is my husband Gene, and our daughter Hermione."

"I bet that gets confusing at parties."

Jean's eyes twinkle, "It can do, even if it sometimes needs a little help."

Petunia says, "I'm Petunia Dursley, and this is my nephew Harry Potter."

Minerva decides to get things moving, "Right, well as the medi-witches have got things well in hand now, I'll show you how to get into Diagon Alley."

She leads them out the back of the pub into a dank alleyway and starts to talk only to be interrupted by Petunia starting to cast spell after spell until Simeon puts a hand on her arm, "Petunia, you need to stop you're in danger of overloading. You need to grid and bear the mess here."

"Is she going to be alright?"

"Yes, she's just been channelling a lot of magic and built up a magical charge. Think of it like a static charge, except with magic. When it gets high enough it will discharge by itself, usually explosively. There's a skill that we can learn that allows us to safely dump that charge. If you don't get rid of it, it can interfere with your spells and cause them to go awry, or even curse you. It's not really her fault, as useful as the interface is, it can also cause problems. In this case all three of us can literally see the grime in the area as well as smell it."

"Right, moving on quickly then, if you count up 3 bricks from the dustbin and then 7 across, you need to tap that brick with your wand to open the doorway to the Alleyway proper."

Jean and Gene share a slightly worried glance at the news that magic can be that dangerous. As the wall opens up, Petunia darts through and away from the alleyway, Harry and Simeon aren't far behind her. Once everyone else is through the doorway closes.

"Our first stop will be to Gringotts where the Grangers will need to change their money, and I'll take Harry down to his trust vault to get some money for purchasing school supplies."

Petunia turns to her, "Wait, why do you have that key?"

"Albus gave it to me."

"Why did he have the key?"

"He's Harry's Magical Guardian."

"What do I need to do to stop that old coot from having access to my nephew's funds?"

"You would need to find a magical with a better legitimate claim than the Chief warlock of the Wizardmot."

"I'm magical, and I'm a blood relative, is that claim enough? After all, that's why the son of a biscuit dumped him on our doorstep in the first place."

Simeon and Harry share a worried glance as her portrait goes fire engine red. Though Harry is also flattered that she's angry on his behalf.

"It might be enough for the goblins, but I doubt it would be enough for the ministry of magic."

"Right, which way to Gringotts?"

"It's the large white building, at, the, end, and she's gone."

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The rest of the party hurry to keep up with petunia, who has taken on a determined march up to the bank. Once she enters the bank Veild manifests behind her, and witches and wizards start to get out of the way of the person with the creepy thing following them. She marches up to a teller that doesn't have a queue in front of them.

"Excuse me, who would I talk to about wresting control of my nephew's vaults away from Albus Dumbledore?"

The goblin in question pays no mind to her ranting, so she turns and smiles an evil sort of sweet smile, "Veild, it appears I'm being ignored. Would you be able to take this bank teller around the galaxy and bring him back please?"

Veild says something, and blood starts to run out of the ears of everyone that is within hearing range. Including the hapless goblin, who's only crime was to ignore an irate woman. Said goblin is only gone for a few seconds, but it's long enough for another goblin wearing a tabard and openly wearing a wicked looking ax to approach.

"What seems to be the problem here?"

"I saw this teller sitting here free. So, as I was only asking for directions, I approached him and asked him who I needed to talk to in order to wrest control of my nephews vaults from Albus Dumbledore. As I am currently rather narked, the fact he just ignored me without even the courtesy of acknowledging my presence, I asked my familiar to show him around the Galaxy. Which it appears to have done, and your teller is back safe and healthy. I'm not sure about sound as he looks a bit wired."

"I see, I am going to have to ask you to leave. There is a strict policy of no wands allowed in Gringotts."

"Wands? Wands! Do you see a wand here? I'm a sorceress not a witch. I have not used a wand once since I arrived in the Alley."

"I suppose you can prove your claim not to be a witch." The goblin looks at her sceptically.

Incandescent with fury, Petunia opens herself up to the realm of magic and channels magic down to the floor, stripping her magical charge off of her and causing everything in the area around her to start floating. She didn't even notice the notification that popped up.

You have gained the perk Discharge. Trait points have been updated.

"Proof, you want proof? Is this enough proof you piece of chewing gum on the sole of my shoe?"

Alarms go off throughout the bank and heavily armed goblins come streaming out of the back only to skid to a halt at the sight of someone bathed in a corona of magic. None of them are stupid enough to even try to get close to that, as the discharge could very well be lethal.

"Yes, that would be sufficient proof. Would you please stop the proof now please?"

Like a switch the flow of magic stops and everything falls to the floor with a thump, including the armed goblin.

"Thank you for the demonstration, but you have also shown that you couldn't be Harry Potter's aunt, as it is well known in Gringotts that he's living with muggle family."

"The boy over there with the phoenix on his shoulder is Harry Potter, my nephew. Standing next to him is a duplicate of Simeon Silversweater, Sage of Practical Magic, and the person that gave me my connection to the realm of magic. Are you going to continue to question my integrity toilet paper?"

As she says that she wags her finger in the face of the goblin that's talking to her, a face that is almost cross-eyed looking at the tip of the finger, which has a little spark of magic coming from it.

The goblin swallows, "It is bank policy that we verify all claims, with out a key the only fool proof way is through blood."

"Why didn't someone just say that rather than giving me the stupid run around or ignoring me? Oh, I get it, you're all racist bits of excrement."

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A rough looking goblin, wearing an iron circlet, shouts at the table, "What the hell was that?"

"My King, there was a massive magical surge on the bank floor and all of the ward stones are now dangerously full."

"We've disabled the thiefs downfall, spell absorption, and passive absorption wards to prevent overload. Unless we want to empty the bank we're relying on the passive protections and our guards until we can bleed some of the magic off the ward stones."

"The guards report that when they arrived on the bank floor there was a person with a full on corona of magic, everything surrounding her was floating. The corona went on for at least three minutes."

The doors to the board room slam open as a young goblin staggers in, "Urgent message for the board. The woman claims to be a sorceress, and that there are two other sorcerers there with her."

The goblin with the circlet draws a dagger and digs it into the table, "Glowrust, get out there and give them anything they want. We do not want a repeat of that display. Lore Keeper Grimtide, search the records for everything we have on sorcerers, if memory serves we've only ever seen one in our entire history, and they drove us underground. Slacknut, get accurate drawings of the three of them, and any unknown guests that are with them. Then pass them around all the tellers and floor managers. We do not want a repeat of this. Am I clear?"

"Yes Lord!"

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While Petunia is waving her finger in front of the goblins face, an elderly goblin stumps out of a door using his axe as a walking staff. The other goblins part before him like water before the bow of a ship.

"Floor manager, you're relieved, I'll take over from here. Mrs Dursley, if you and your companions, all of them not just your family, would follow me. I will see to your problems personally. I am Board member Glowrust at your service."

As they all trail along behind Glowrust, slightly confused by the sudden shift in demeanour that the goblins were showing them Glowrust continued, "My apologies for our staff not taking your claims at face value. Sorcerers are so rare in the bank that most don't even know of them. It is not helped by the fact that we can not sense any magic from you unless you are actually using it unless you are from wand waver descent like your nephew over there. This is my office, please enter and make yourselves comfortable. I just need to retrieve a couple of ledgers and I will be able to assist you promptly. The potter accounts wasn't it?"

Petunia nods tersely.

Glowrust stumps off, not just to get the ledgers, but also to give Petunia more time to calm down.

Once they're in the office on their own, Simeon takes out a potion bottle and hands it to Petunia. "I think you should have one of these, and you owe me a batch once you learn how to brew them yourself."

Petunia drinks the potion and immediately all the stress and anger fall away from her, and starts to look happy instead.

"What happened to me?"

"My guess, the magnifying effect of the interface on your three strongest traits. Specifically your Family Orientated trait, and already suffering from your neat trait being triggered in the alleyway. Then the manager triggered your love of magic trait, and the rest is, as they say, history."

"Also, why couldn't I swear properly? I mean, toilet paper? Really?"

"The interface has a built in profanity filter, can't turn it off."

"Oh for ducks sake. You have got to be pooping me."

Hermione giggles.

"You think it's funny young lady? Wait until you've spent so much time around Harry that you develop the interface."

Hermione continues giggling, "I'm looking forward to it."

"I guess there's one good thing about having this interface, perfect birth control. Oh, while I remember, you might want some people to do that memory thing with Vernon. As I'm divorcing him, and I've already barred him from our home. If they do decide to do it, you may want to let them know that he's pregnant. And Harry, I know you were 6, but it was still wrong of you to change Dudley's preferences like that. I've left all of them except the can become pregnant as they were, as he's used to it now, but it was childish, immature, and irresponsible. Just what I'd expect from a 6 year old really."

Harry giggles, "It was, but it made me feel better. It's when I did the same to you and Vernon."

"I guessed that, and that notification last night did cheer me up."

Gene pipes up, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, at some point in the distant past Simeons people were used for entertainment by aliens. The system they used to control things was done with nano-machines. Simeon correct me if I get anything wrong. Anyway, time passed and the aliens left, but the system remained. Eventually a few people gained access to the interface because they went over a critical threshold of those machines. As with all things, some were good, some were bad, and some just lived their lives. So the system evolved with his people, and the nano-machines spread. There's a tutorial somewhere in here, and if you look through it starts out saying 'welcome to the sims, to start this tutorial we're going to walk you through the interface' and so that's what they started calling it. Anyway, fast forward to when Harry was six, at the time I wasn't a very good parent to Harry. He'd been dumped on our doorstep with only a letter to explain why, Vernon hated him at first sight and took any excuse to give him a slap. So I started 'punishing' him with time in the cupboard under the stairs. At the time, Vernon was having trouble at work, which in hind sight was probably actually one of his floozies, we were rushing around trying to get everything they'd need for the first day of school. Harry had learnt to be such a quiet boy that I'm ashamed to say I forgot about him. Anyway around that point Harry magicked himself into the interface. Really, Harry should have been taken from us multiple times during that period. Then Dudley decided he wanted to wear skirts instead of trousers. We all had to attend counselling, and they helped me put my head on straight again. I was on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds for a few years too. Last week Minerva, L, and Simeon were all talking about magic and I just kept getting more and more frustrated. So Simeon offered to give me magic, not the magic my sister used, a different form of magic. So, I went for it. That night I was really only along for the ride in my own body, so I responded to Vernon's overtures when I normally wouldn't even dream of it. In the morning I woke up with the interface."

Harry chokes back tears, "I never knew."

"There's no reason you should, it's my job to protect my children from those details of life. One that I didn't do very well with."

"So taking me shopping wasn't just to get the freshest ingredients?"

"It wasn't, though it was a convenient excuse. It was to spend time with you alone."

The door to the office opens, bringing the conversation to a close. In comes Glowrust followed by a couple of goblins carrying boxes. Glowrust plunks a rune covered shallow stone bowl on the desk, then draws an athame and places it on the bowl before taking a seat.

"Right, I think I have all the relevant ledgers here. Now the easiest way to verify Harry's identity is with a potter key. I believe that you said you had the key to his trust vault?"

Minerva nods and hands over a key, "I did."

Glowrust takes the key and runs his hand over it, then frowns and stumps over to a box and pulls out a file and reads through it. Finally he tosses the key over his shoulder, "Right, hard way it is then, as this isn't a key registered to any of the Potter vaults."

He stumps back over to the desk and pulls a potion out of a pouch as well as a small wooden box, "Right, Harry I need you to cut your hand open over the bowl with that athame, deep as you can. We need you to fill it up so that if you were hiding any blood pouches they'd be emptied. When it's full it will glow as will the athame and the cut will be reversed. Depending on the glow it's either all the same blood, or there's a mix in there.

"Once we've got a clean sample I'll put a drop of one of your parents blood in this potion. I'll then take a drop of your blood from the bowl and add it to the same potion. If it turns black I kill you now for attempting to defraud the bank."

Harry gulped, but gripped the handle of the athame in a shaky hand. Closing his eyes he brought the blade down in a swift stroke and winced at the pain.

"That was a good strike, you shouldn't close your eyes though as you could have hit something important and bled out before the magic could heal the wound."

Gingerly Harry opens his eyes to look at his hand, he can see the bone through the flowing blood. Just as he registers it, the bowl and athame both glow a blue colour.

"Good, you're the only doner." Glowrust then takes a needle from the box and carefully dips it into a vial of blood and pulls out a single drop hanging off the end of the needle. Placing the vial back and moving the potion rather than the needle he then lowers the needle and taps it once against the glass and the drop falls into the potion. The potion changes from white to red instantly. Carefully cleaning off the needle, he then repeats the process with the bowl of blood and the potion turns blue.

"Good, you have a close familial relationship, either a sibling or a child. I'm now going to take a drop of blood from the other vial and drop it in. If it turns black then we know that you're not related to the other parent. Incidentally, I did your mothers blood first as we have more of it left than your fathers."

When he carefully repeats the process with the other vial, the potion stays blue.

"Well, it's confirmed, you're their child. Now we need to verify your age." – he casts a brief spell in the goblin tongue – "And you're the right age. As they only have one child on record, Gringotts accepts that you are indeed Harry Potter. I will now add your blood to a vial in this box, so that if we ever need to do a test in future we have a direct reference sample."

He pulls out an empty vial and taps it against the bowl, the blood seems to jump out and fill the vial, "Now Mrs Dursley, I need you to do the same thing and bleed into the bowl. Don't worry about the knife, it was enchanted to clean itself as it reversed the wound it made."

Petunia carefully inspects the knife before she holds her palm over the bowl and, with a swift strike, opens her palm to bleed into the bowl. Once her wound has healed, Glowrust once again carefully puts a drop of Lily's blood into a potion. The potion turns blue once he adds a drop of Petunia's blood. He then carefully adds a drop of Harry's blood, and the potion darkens but doesn't turn black.

"Good, you are familialy related to Harry through his mother. If I had more of Mr Potters blood I'd ensure that the potion turns black for completeness. However, as we have established that you are indeed a blood relation to their son we can talk."

"I want to become Harry's magical guardian."

"Hmm, we can't do that as guardianship is a ministry matter. As are matters of inheritance, even though a surprising number of witches and wizards entrust us with their wills to act as executor. The potters were not amongst that number. What we can do is craft new keys for the vaults and invalidate the old ones. If one of those vaults was held in trust for you, then you will be allowed to withdraw items from that vault. Now if you'll bare with me for a moment, I'll check through the accounts and see which vaults are set up."

When a cloud of dust puffs out of one of the boxes, Petunia immediately starts to cast Scruberoo. "Please don't Mrs Dursley, some of these files are very old and need to be cleaned by hand or not at all. I merely opened the wrong box. Ah, this is the right box, Vault rentals. Yes, it appears that there is indeed a vault in Harry's name, though it's called a tuition vault rather than a trust vault. According to the inventory, it has more than just money in there. There is also a family vault, and a house finances vault."

"As Harry's legal guardian, I want you to run an audit on the vaults to ensure that no transactions that go against bank rules have been made. I assume that you keep track of how much money is stored in each vault, and which key was used to take stuff out. I'll authorise the cost out of the accounts. If it's also illegal, please let me know."

"Very well, I will have that arranged. What would you like us to do if we find out that there have been irregularities?"

"I'd be willing to pay a 10% finders fee from any monies and items reclaimed from such irregularities. Obviously, in the case of items they would need to be independently valued by an unbiased third party."

"Very well, we can work with that. If the level of commission exceeds the audit costs, we will waive those fees too. Now is there anything I can do for the rest of you?"

Jean speaks up, "We wanted to convert some pounds to Galleons."

"While we do offer a conversion facility, you would be far better off opening your daughter a vault and then depositing the money there. She can then withdraw it in galleons. We offer better exchange rates that way, as we are then able to leverage the money that she hasn't spent yet."

Minerva speaks up, "How do you do that?"

"It's due to the way that muggles do banking compared to the way that witches and wizards do it. Our vaults are basically just a storage facility, and we charge you for the ability to store your things here. Muggles have moved on, and now use their money to invest in money making opportunities. So we offer a lower exchange rate when muggle money is deposited into a vault as we can then only put the Galleons that they are likely to need immediately in there. The rest we keep in reserve so that we can use the muggle money for investments."

"I didn't think you were allowed to do that."

"Ah, no our treaties say that we're not allowed to use wizarding money that isn't ours. It doesn't say anything about muggle money."

Harry quickly changes his aspiration to one that requires he becomes rich, "Excuse me, does that mean that I could convert my wizarding money into muggle money and then ask you to invest it?"

"You could, however the exchange rates are bad enough from wizarding to muggle that you wouldn't start earning any money on it for at least 5 years."

"Oh, that's a shame."

Petunia says, "The only other thing I know I want to happen, is for the stipend that was being given to Vernon to be transferred to me, as he is no longer part of the household."

"I can look into that, though it may take me a while to trace where that money is coming from as it's going to a muggle bank account. If you have the account details of the muggle account that would make that easier."

"I'm sure I've got that on file at home, so I'll bring it to you later in the week."

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While the Grangers go through the process of opening an account, Glowrust takes Harry and Petunia down to the tuition vault.

"I am going to need to open the door manually, as your new keys won't be ready for at least a week. Once I've done that, I'll need to be present in the vault while you are otherwise the security mechanisms will activate against you."

Once the door is open, they enter to find two well used school trunks sitting on the floor. On top of one of the trunks is a sealed letter with Harry's name on it.

Dear Harry,

I hope to God that we will be able to tear this letter up. In the event that we can't, this vault contains our school trunks with all of our books and notes. Those for classes, and those that were for extracurricular activities. In the top of my trunk there is also my old vault key. When the manor was destroyed, James and I moved the bulk of the potter finances into that vault. At this time everyone is suspicious of everyone else. That's why we've set up this vault so that only you are allowed entry, and only after a blood test. Not even we can get in without you. If we get through the war unscathed it will be a simple matter to have the goblins take a drop of blood with a needle and verify the key so that we can destroy the letter and retrieve my key.

If I don't make it, tell my sister that I'm sorry. I know that she loves Vernon, but after everything she's put us through since meeting him, we can't trust her with your wellbeing.

If we didn't make it, then don't spend the money all at once. Ha, you probably couldn't spend it all in a lifetime.

Yours

Lily Potter

P.S. I love you too, and I have given the heirs ring to Topsy, our house elf. He has been given instructions to only come when you specifically call his name, other than that he is to survive until you call him. Don't put on the ring until you understand your responsibilities, as it is linked to the ministry of magic. There should be books on your responsibilities in the family vault, if not, then in the basement of the manor.

I Love you

James Potter.

Tears streaming down his face, Harry wordlessly opens the trunk and looks in the lid, it doesn't take long to find a key fastened with Sellotape of all things. As soon as he touches the key his household finances skyrockets. Wordlessly he hands the letter to his Aunt before sitting on the other trunk to cry.