Early the next morning, Harry snuck down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast before anyone else in the house woke up.
Wand concealed in his back pocket, he left his relatives' house and walked to the train station near Little Whinging, where he rode the train into London, to the stop nearest the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley. Arriving, he found Hermione already waiting for him on the train platform, eager to start their day. They strolled down the streets of muggle London through the early morning walking traffic, until they finally reached the Leaky Cauldron and pushed open the door only they and other wizards could see, slipping inside.
Ten minutes later, they walked up the gleaming white marble steps of Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Walking inside, Harry spotted the goblin who had led him to his vault the very first time he'd ever been there, when Hagrid had introduced Harry to the wizarding world. Walking up, he started to tell Griphook his name, but before he could Griphook spoke.
"Harry Potter."
He paused and stared at Harry for several seconds, looking him over, before finally continuing, "Come to visit your vault again?"
"Not specifically, actually..." began Harry slowly, unsure of how exactly to ask his question.
Fortunately, Hermione took over for him. "Harry wants to know his total worth, since it's a little hard to actually count the coinage itself."
Harry looked at her, quite impressed. She had managed to give the goblin an opening to tell him about his entire worth, without ever actually saying or even insinuating that there was more than just what was in vault 687.
Griphook looked over at Hermione now, studying her carefully. Finally coming to some decision, he gave a curt "This way" as he hopped off his stool and opened the door behind him and began walking down the hall. Leading them a long way down a twisty hallway, he finally led them into a luxuriously appointed conference room.
As Harry looked around at the room, he heard Hermione gasp next to him. Looking over at where she was pointing, he gasped as well. There, on the far wall, was a set of small portraits, organized like a horizontal tree. And in the next to last frame, the last one that actually had a portrait in it, were his parents. Though Harry had only seen photos (and reflections in the Mirror of Erised) of his parents before, and never a portrait, they were unmistakable. To their right was an empty frame, and to their left was just one frame; clearly his dad's parents, as they looked nothing like his mum or Aunt Petunia. From there the portraits stretched back to the left, all of Harry's magical ancestors. Beneath his grandparent's portrait were the words "Sleekeazy Hair Potion" in flowing golden print. There were other words written below other various portraits, but before Harry could try to read any of them, Griphook cleared his throat. Looking back over at the goblin, Harry and Hermione took seats on one side of the table as Griphook took a seat on the other.
"This is the Potter Boardroom, where all official Gringotts business is conducted for the Potter Estate. When you were first brought to Gringotts four years ago, we had been given strict orders by the wizard Dumbledore to only show you the vault you had access to, and not disclose any information about the rest of the Potter Estate. However, as goblins do not recognize the authority of wizards, and your muggleborn friend here appears to already know to some extent about the existence of more than just vault 687, it is my discretion to inform you about your entire inheritance. While none of what I tell you today will be available to you until you come of age in a little over two years, it is of my opinion that you would do well to know about it now.
"Vault 687 was a school fund set up by your great-great grandparents to enable their children to get through their first six years of Hogwarts on their own. The vault started with a substantial, but reasonable amount of gold for four children. Through a combination of all the children being frugal, one dying in an unfortunate flying accident before their fourth year, and interest, the vault had nearly as much gold in it when the youngest child graduated Hogwarts as it did when it was set up. Continued interest, only one child in each of the two subsequent generations, and extended periods of time between the birth of each generation due to the natural longevity of wizards, and the vault has expanded to the amount that it is today. Which, if you're curious, is currently sixty-thousand, six hundred twenty-five galleons. Including sickles and knuts, that amount rises to just over sixty-two thousand galleons."
As he said this, he pressed on the wooden table with one of his long fingers, and as if by magic, the numbers 60,625 and 62,073 glowed on the surface of the table.
"However, as your friend is clearly aware of, that is knuts in comparison to the actual value of the Potter Estate. As you may have noticed on the portrait wall, beneath every family member who invented something, or created a company, or in some other way substantially increased the Potter family wealth, are their notable achievements. Your portrait will be filled in when you come of age at seventeen, and officially become the head of the Potter Estate. But in total, your family owns eight active companies, several quite old and still flourishing. Additionally, you own seven houses, all of which we have portkeys for. The two largest and oldest are Peverell Manor and Potter Manor. The majority of your house-elves are stationed at these two houses."
At the mention of house-elves, Harry glanced over at Hermione, but apparently she assumed the Potters had treated their house elves at least as well as Hogwarts, for she had no indication of disapproval in her expression.
"There are a few other things your family solicitors will tell you about when you come of age in two years, but that is a reasonable summary of what you own," continued Griphook. "There is, of course, a much larger family vault in the high security section that you will gain access to once you come of age, as well.
"The actual amount of galleons contained in that vault is not substantially larger than what the student vault is currently up to, as there is little use to have more than sixty-thousand actual galleons lying around merely earning interest. All of the interest earned from that vault is immediately invested by the estate solicitors, and most of the actual family wealth is also invested or in holdings like land, of which the estate also has a very sizable collection spread across the world. There is, however, a very large collection of jewels, crowns, armors, swords, and the like of physical objects of great value stored in there, that are worth far more combined than the galleons in the vault.
"But even we goblins are not allowed to open your family vault for you until you come of age, unless in some time of great emergency, so you will have to wait until you turn seventeen to actually see all of that. Now, unless you or your girlfriend have any further questions, I can take you to your vault to refill your moneybag, and then I must get back to work."
"How do you know Hermione's my girlfriend?" asked Harry in surprise. "I didn't think anything ever got out of Hogwarts — nothing important seems to, anyway."
"Rita," mumbled Hermione under her breath to him, but Griphook answered anyway, giving an answer that surprised even her.
"Even amongst goblins, Harry Potter is very famous. Dumbledore is not the only one keeping an eye on you. He keeps an eye on you because of your defeat of Tom Riddle Jr, and his belief that you are the key to defeating Tom Riddle Jr permanently — we like keeping an eye on the only heir to the largest wizarding fortune in Britain."
"Who could you have keeping an eye on me? Everyone at Hogwarts is a wizard," said Harry, confused.
"Is that so, Mr Potter?" replied Griphook. "I would have thought with your friendship with the muggleborn, you would know better than that by now."
It only took Harry a second to realize who the goblin must be talking about. "House elves!?"
"Your very own, to be specific. The Potter house elves have always had a couple stationed at Hogwarts to keep an eye on the children Potters. And then the former Malfoy house elf, I believe you are well-acquainted with the house elf Dobby, also volunteered to help keep an eye on you for us."
~HP~
Twenty minutes later, Harry and Hermione walked out of Gringotts, Harry with a full moneybag.
As it was already almost time for lunch, they walked back down the street to the brick entrance from the courtyard behind the Leaky Cauldron, and entered the pub. A pleasant lunch later, and they were back on the bright street of Diagon Alley making their way to Flourish and Blotts, for Hermione to look up the horse-like creatures Harry had seen pulling the Hogwarts carriages. But on their way, they passed by the Magical Menagerie, giving Hermione a sudden idea. Grabbing Harry's arm, she pulled him inside with her.
The store was fortunately empty, and the young, perky saleswitch who'd sold Hermione Crookshanks two years earlier quickly arrived to help them.
"What can I do for you today?" she asked, before adding, "And how is Crookshanks doing?"
"He's great," answered Hermione. "Loves it at Hogwarts, and doesn't seem too grumpy at home over the summer. But I came here because there's a creature I'm trying to figure out the name of, so I can get some books on it in Flourish and Blotts. And I was hoping maybe you might know what kind of creature it is."
"Well, I'll definitely give it my best shot," answered the saleswitch cheerfully. "What can you tell me about it?"
"Well, first off, Harry here can see it while I, and at least most of the other students at Hogwarts can't, but I could definitely feel it when I reached out and touched where Harry said it was — so it's not an apparition, or ghost, or hallucination, or anything like that," said Hermione. "And — correct me if I'm wrong here, Harry — but I believe you described it as mostly horse-like, but with a rather dragonish face, bat-like wings, just appropriately sized for a horse, and their weird-feeling coats were hanging tightly on their skeletons."
The saleswitch looked at Harry and asked, "Have you ever seen someone die? And since you mentioned Hogwarts, I assume you saw them pulling the carriages but never had before, so more specifically did you see someone die since the previous time you saw the carriages?"
"Uh, yeah," answered Harry, surprised by the strange question.
"They're thestrals," explained the saleswitch. "I'll let you look them up more thoroughly at Blotts, but in short they can only be seen by someone who has seen death. Because of this they're often considered unlucky, but they're actually very useful for flying long distances, as they're superb at getting to where you tell them to go. They're definitely a surprise the first time you see them, if you are unfortunate enough to see them — or at least they were when I saw them for the first time a few years back at the start of my sixth year at Hogwarts, but they're really quite peaceable creatures once you get to know them."
"See, Harry — you're not going insane. They really exist, and there's a perfectly good explanation for why only you could see them," said Hermione quietly to her boyfriend, before turning back to the saleswitch and adding cheerfully, "Thank you! I was wondering how exactly I was going to look them up in the bookshop, especially since none of the books I already had on magizoology had them in them."
"Of course, any time," replied the saleswitch. "I'm just glad to have something to do besides watch the animals — early summer is rather a downtime for us. Everyone has just got back from Hogwarts so we don't have the late summer traffic of students, and there's no holidays around now either for people to be buying pets as presents. Not that I don't sometimes prefer being alone with the animals, but if that's all I have all day, it can get a little lonely. So it's nice to have someone just to talk to every now and then."
They chatted a while longer, before Harry and Hermione eventually left, walking down the street to Flourish and Blotts. Once inside, she quickly asked the saleswizard where the books on thestrals were, before proceeding to grab a dozen of the books off the appropriate shelf to buy.
As Harry raised his eyebrows at her slightly, Hermione shrugged, "Can't have too many books to get a thorough, well-rounded learning about a subject."
"Well, at least let the guy who just found out he's basically a wizarding billionaire buy them for you," replied Harry. "Your parents might be less of the inclination that you need a dozen books to learn about thestrals."
"They're dentists with their own practice, remember? Not exactly lacking financially," replied Hermione, rolling her eyes. "And anyway, they're really strong supporters of me learning everything I can — the girl who's going to change the wizarding world can never know too much. But if it would make you feel better, I won't stop you."
So after Harry had payed for the dozen books on thestrals, and another dozen books Hermione had grabbed on the walk from the thestral section of the store to the checkout counter, they walked down the street to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, to get an ice cream and begin reading about these strange creatures only those who'd seen death could see.
~HP~
Several hours and even more ice cream sundaes later (Florean was still a big fan of Harry's, and still wanted to give the Boy-Who-Lived and his girlfriend free ice cream as he chatted with them about thestrals), Harry and Hermione headed back to the Leaky Cauldron for supper.
After eating, they took the train back to the Little Whinging station, Hermione coming with Harry since it wasn't too late yet. Getting off the train, Hermione walked with Harry to the park they'd met in the day before, before saying goodbye to him.
"It'll be at least Monday before I can make it back, so have a good weekend," Hermione said as she gave him a hug and a kiss.
"I'm just grateful you can come at all," replied Harry sincerely. "This summer isn't looking to be nearly as miserable as usual."
As Harry walked back to Number Four Privet Drive on his own, he thought back over everything he had learned that day, from his wealth to the strange thestral creatures he'd seen pulling the carriages at Hogwarts as they'd left a week before. He really didn't know what he'd do if it wasn't for his amazing girlfriend — from even before they'd ever started dating.