Minor change, I've decided to classify Earldoms as Most Noble Houses and Baronies as Noble Houses. The way I see it, the Pure-Bloods are very status conscious so they'd want to take every chance to rub people's noses in the fact that they had a higher title.
NB: Astoria Greengrass doesn't exist in this fic, so Daphne is an only child like most of the other Pure-Bloods.
No rights to any characters etc.
While they weren't about to put Harry and the other kids at risk by coming out in the open, Lily and the other adults kept a close eye on Magical Britain to get an idea of what could be coming at them. Their reactions to the 'news' in the Daily Prophet tended to be split between laughing at James and the other Sheeple's stupidity and swearing about what they were doing and saying.
Lily found that the stories and pictures of James with his child bride didn't bother her much. She understood and accepted Uncle Arcturus' reasoning for not blocking their marriage and James was dead to her after the way he had been so ready to toss Harry aside on Dumbledore's orders without a second thought… He'd actually refused to listen to the Healers when they tried to tell him that while Harry's magic was almost completely drained, there were plenty of signs that it was coming back, in fact it looked as though it would be stronger than before.
She certainly didn't miss him at all, the fact was she'd found out at Hogwarts that she was more what they called a Witches Witch and she'd always felt a lot closer to Pan and Celeste than she did to James or any of those other buffoons, though she conceded that some Wizards weren't that bad, Pan and Celeste had found two good ones. Mother Potter had been open and honest with her about a Witch's prospects in Magical Britain, especially when they were perceived as being Muggle-Born like she was, and Pan and Celeste had confirmed everything she said.
That was why, after a lot of careful consideration and discussion with her parents, Pan and Celeste and Lord and Lady Potter, she gave in and agreed to go out with and subsequently marry James Potter in their Seventh Year, on the understanding that she'd hex his bits off if he ever tried anything that she wasn't willing to go along with. She grew up in Britain so she had read Jane Austen's works and Magical Britain was disturbingly similar to the world in Austen's stories so they gave a good synopsis of how to succeed in that world, which unfortunately boiled down to making much the same choice Elizabeth Bennet's friend Charlotte had. Given James Potter's relentless pursuit of her and her family's relationship with his, marriage to him was the obvious choice so she went with that, but held off as long as she could.
Lord and Lady Potter were good people and they did what they could to make it easier for her, and Dumbledore had actually helped with his rather obvious ploy of making her and that buffoon Head Boy and Head Girl. The dangerous times they were living in gave her an excuse to limit the amount of sexual contact she had with him and luckily she didn't have as much trouble getting pregnant as most Pure-Blood girls seemed to. Once she was pregnant, his wilful ignorance of 'woman's business' made it easy to keep sex to a minimum and that excuse was still holding up when they were attacked that Halloween so no, she didn't miss James Potter or care about the fact that he'd remarried, but a lot of the so-called news she read aggravated the hell out of her.
It hadn't taken her long to work out why they were insisting on calling Hadrian, Harry, once she remembered that someone at St Mungo's had sold the story that Harry Potter was the new Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter to the Daily Prophet when Harry was born. The story had been in the Prophet the next morning but there was no mention of Hadrian, either they hadn't been told about Harry's twin being born or they couldn't be bothered changing the story after it was typeset but most of Magical Britain believed that Harry Potter was the sole Heir to the House of Potter. So once they decided to get rid of Harry and put Hadrian forward as the Boy-Who-Lived, calling him Harry instead of Haddy to identify him as the Potter Heir was a logical ploy.
She wasn't going to stop calling Henry, Harry, just because Albus Dumbledore and James Potter were telling everyone that Hadrian was Harry though…. So when Harry returned to Magical Britain, well Hadrian would just have to get used to using his own name again…. It would be interesting to see how Albus and James tried to explain how they'd gotten Harry out of Hadrian, especially when Harry was the accepted familiar form of Henry.
Watching Hadrian growing into a spoilt and arrogant brat like his father upset Lily, but they couldn't come out of hiding because that would put Harry at risk. She had no doubt that Dumbledore would have Harry killed in a heartbeat to prevent his lies being exposed and she'd already seen that James would do whatever he said without question. Any hope that she'd had of Remus Lupin tempering their excesses as Hadrian's Godfather had died early in the piece because he was behaving just like James.
Ironically, it was Uncle Arcturus' forcing the Wizengamot to appoint Newt Scamander as the new Director of the Department of Magical Creatures that had given Remus the standing he needed to support Dumbledore's agendas, because Newt had gotten laws passed to stop Werewolves being treated like subhuman creatures. She was glad that Werewolves weren't being reviled and hunted the way they had been any more (some still tried to do that but most respected the law), but Dumbledore having another player with Remus' potential on his team was bound to become a problem for them.
About a year after the incident at Gringotts, the 'Harry Potter' books started coming out. These were the worst sort of pulp fiction, making Penny Dreadfuls look like literary masterpieces, but the Sheeple of Magical Britain and the Wizarding World lapped them up, and James was lapping up the notoriety and money they were bringing in. A bit of judicious legilimency confirmed that the books had been Dumbledore's idea, as they would kill two birds with one stone. With money coming in from the books he wouldn't need to loan as much gold to James…. not to mention that he'd be getting a share of the proceeds as well…. And they would continue building up the Boy-Who-Lived legend. Of course, having a series of books with his image on the cover coming out about his supposed fantastic adventures didn't do anything to deflate Hadrian's ego, it just made him worse.
Harry and the other children were charging through the British Mundane education levels faster than anyone else could, except for the girl who became part of their group soon after they met her in June Nineteen Eighty Six, because as well as being brilliant, Hermione Jane Granger was a Witch! While Harry and the others were officially being home schooled, Hermione Jane had to attend the local school because her parents were both Dentists and regarded their professional careers as being too important for one of them to take the time to stay home and tutor her. She didn't fit in with the other children at the school at all and the teachers were frustrated with her always challenging them about the pace they were teaching her, so the school tried to convince her parents to send her to a selective school somewhere else.
Her parents thought that that would make too much work for them and were pushing back but they reached a compromise, that Hermione Jane would sit the exams for home schooled students at the Department of Education to determine what level she was at... And if she was more than two years ahead of the other students her age, she would go to a selective school because their school didn't gave the facilities to cater for that.
Harry and the others made up most of the home schooled students Hermione Jane sat her exams with and she was in seventh heaven with them because for the first time in her life she fit in! Needless to say, she was more than two years ahead of most students her age, but the Examiners noted that so were Harry and the others in their group. Lily and Patty were the ones who'd taken the kids to do their exams because they were less likely than the ones raised in Magical Britain to raise suspicions in the Mundane World, and they'd picked up on the fact that Hermione was Magical. When Hermione's parents came to pick her up and started bitching about the fact that they'd have to waste time finding a selective school to take her, Lily said that Hermione would be welcome to come join their other kids as she obviously got on with them and was around the same level. Lily and Patty were more upset than Hermione was about how quickly her parents jumped to take Lily up on her offer, not even quibbling about the fact that she'd have to come and live with them to be taught with the other kids because they were up in Cumbria.
Hermione was too excited about the idea of fitting in and having new learning opportunities to process the fact that her parents didn't think twice about sending her off to the other end of England with strangers just because that made their lives simpler, but Lily and Patty weren't. Lily had to force down the urge to hex the Grangers into the next Century because their behaviour reminded her so much of of James, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that Hermione Jane would be happy and loved with them…. She smiled to herself then as the thought came to her to ask Amelia and Mad-Eye to go and explain to the Grangers about their wonderful daughter being a Witch. Because Amelia in mother bear mode was scary enough but you'd have to be brain dead not to be terrified of Mad-Eye Moody, especially if he was irked with you, which he would be after she told him how they treated this beautiful little girl.
Being a chronic over-achiever even at that young age, Hermione Jane leapt into their training boots and all, determined to make up for lost time. This created other problems though because her parents were shocked by how much she'd changed when she came home for Christmas that year and hid her away in the house so that no-one else would see her. When she returned in tears after the Christmas break Lily and Amelia wheedled what happened out of her and then went to have words with her parents. The Grangers had to replace the couch they'd been sitting on after the two furious Witches finished raging at them, because those sorts of stains just won't come out. After they'd signed legal custody of Hermione over to her, Amelia had her Obliviators remove any memory of their ever having a daughter from them, the neighbours and anyone else who might recall Hermione Granger. If they were going to treat Hermione like a shameful secret that they had to hide from the world and try to make her ashamed of being the wonderful little girl she was, they didn't deserve to have her in their lives, the gods knew that she'd be far happier without them.
They hadn't told the Grangers about the one thing that they probably would have decided made their daughter's 'strangeness' worth putting up with, that Hermione had been accepted as the Heiress to a distinguished Noble House that was thought to be extinct, the Noble and Ancient House of Dagworth-Granger. Unlike many of the 'Noble' Houses of Magical Britain, the Dagworth Barony was actually recognised in the Mundane World, because Sir Thomas Dagworth had been ennobled by the Crown in the Fourteenth Century.
The Grangers weren't told that their daughter preferred to be known as 'Janie' now either, but that was because they probably would have given her a hard time about rejecting the name they gave her and made her cry. The kids had been trying to find a less formal pet name for Hermione as she was settling into the group, but there was no way of shortening Hermione that she liked. Then Amelia's niece and ward Susan said "What about Jane?"and after thinking about that for a bit, Hermione decided that she would like to be called Janie.
In early Nineteen Eighty Seven, the Daily Prophet started writing a series of articles about the Noble House of Potter allying itself with the Noble House of Weasley (Clan Weasley was officially made 'Noble' with a Prescriptive Barony in the Sixteenth Century along with most other Druid Clans, but it was a poor House compared to most). They were careful to avoid making any reference to the fact that this was not the esteemed Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter that they were referring to, but rather James Potter's Minor House of Fleamont, which had been newly ennobled by dint of Lady Letitia Potter nee Lestrange's Baroness title. It was fairly obvious what Dumbledore's agenda was here, Molly Weasley nee Prewett was one of his most rabid supporters, to the extent that her husband Arthur had been henpecked into becoming Dumbledore's lapdog as well... (It was only Arthur's innate decency which stopped him doing anything illegal or obviously wrong that had saved him from losing his job in the DMLE when Amelia was cleaning up her Department...) And most of her children were conditioned almost from birth to believe and do whatever the Great Albus Dumbledore said, so he was aligning the 'Boy-Who-Lived' with a family who he could rely on to do whatever he wanted them to.
That was why it wasn't too much of a surprise when the Potter Account Manager advised Lily (as the Potter Regent) in late 1987 that James Potter's Account Manager had attempted to create a betrothal contract between Hadrian John Potter, Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, and Ginevra Molly Weasley, Daughter of the Noble and Ancient House of Weasley. (Clan Gringott had actually been happy to sign the accounts of James Potter and the House of Fleamont over to the Lestrange Account Manager soon after James married to Letitia Lestrange, as that reduced the probability of altercations between members of their own Clan over illegal actions committed against the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell.) A disturbing development in this matter was that as soon as their attempt to create a betrothal contract for Hadrian as Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter failed, they had immediately locked another in for Hadrian as Heir to the Noble House of Fleamont in its place. That confirmed that someone (Dumbledore) was determined to have Hadrian married to Ginevra Weasley, which made Lily worry about what he was planning for her son…. She may not like the way Hadrian was turning out but he was still her baby boy.
While the Potter Family Magic would not allow James to sign any magically binding contracts for the House of Potter, there was still a possibility that Hadrian could be accepted as Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter if Harry's claim wasn't locked in first, and if James or Dumbledore worked that out they were bound to try and use that to get a foothold in the House of Potter. This led to further discussions between Lily and others from the Old Families and their Account Managers. The general consensus was that the only way to safeguard against that happening would be to lock in a betrothal contract in Harry's name as Heir to the House of Potter, but the issue became more complicated when they realised that the titles of Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Peverell and Black were also at risk. Hadrian had a similar claim to the title of Heir to the House of Peverell and Narcissa Malfoy nee Black's son Draco was a potential claimant for the Black title. Even though Harry had been declared Heir Presumptive of the House of Black and his mother had been cast out by Arcturus, Draco was still a son of the House of Black by blood and could be accepted as the Heir.
They agreed that the best approach would be for Harry to be entered into bilateral betrothal contracts for all three titles but the question was, which of Harry's Harem should be betrothed to which title? Lily, Pandora and Celeste's children Harry, Luna and Daphne had grown up as close as their mothers because like them, they were so much smarter than everyone else that they left them behind…. But Hermione Jane matched their brilliance and was a kindred spirit to them, so she bonded with them as soon as she joined the group. The four of them played and trained with the other kids all the time but they were far closer to each other than they were to anyone else so most in the Old Families had taken to calling the girls Harry's Harem.
Lily, Pandora, Celeste and Amelia (as Hermione Jane's legal guardian and Regent) took the lead in explaining the situation they were in, how the betrothal contracts would protect them and their Houses and the escape clauses that would be in the contracts to allow them to be cancelled if any of them wanted out down the track to Harry and the girls. While they were still around Seven or Eight chronologically, thanks to the Runic Time Chambers Harry and the girls all had Nine or Ten years of life experience and were better versed in the ways of the world than most pre-teens, not to mention being brilliant, so they had no trouble understanding and agreeing with the need to do this.
As soon as they had Harry and the girls' agreement, they moved on to debating which titles the girls would be betrothed to, but that was easy too. Luna's father had been studying the legends of the Deathly Hallows of the Peverell brothers (which were all in Harry's possession now) for over a decade, so her choice was the Lady Peverell Title. Daphne's family was traditionally aligned with the aims of House of Black, so that was an easy choice for her, which left the Lady Potter Title for Hermione Jane, which she was quite happy with. They laughed about how easy that had been to sort out and within a week the children had all been magically accepted as Heir or Heiress of their Houses. Then Lily, as Regent for the Houses of Potter and Peverell, Arcturus as Head of the House of Black, Pandora as Head of the House of Lovegood, Cyrus as Head of the House of Greengrass and Amelia as Regent for the House of Dagworth-Granger signed the magically binding betrothal contracts to protect the heritage of the three leading Noble Houses of Magical Britain, as well as the girls' Houses.
Dumbledore must have been slipping or distracted, because it took them over a year and a half to make another try at getting Hadrian accepted as Heir to the House of Potter. Lily, Gringotts and the Old Families were relieved when the Potter Family Magic rejected the attempt without giving out any information about the title already being claimed…. Because that could have made James and Dumbledore start thinking about who could have claimed it and possibly remember that Harry was still alive, and they didn't want to show their cards until they had to…. On Harry's official Eleventh birthday when he claimed the titles of Lord Potter-Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses.
There wasn't much change over the next couple of years, Dumbledore and James kept hyping up the Boy-Who-Lived and Hadrian's ego and arrogance kept growing as he played on his fame as the 'saviour of the Wizarding World'. Hadrian's betrothed, along with her mother and most of her brothers, made sure that that they were seen with him wherever he went so that they could bask in his reflected glory, driving the House of Weasley ever deeper into debt as they tried to ensure that they looked the part as 'the next Lady Potter' and her family. Arthur and his eldest son and Heir Bill had no part in this circus, but they were the ones who were working their arses off to pay for it, as Bill was sending most of his wages to his father to try and help prevent their family being ruined.
Molly airily dismissing his concerns and saying "Oh don't worry about the cost Arthur, you know that Albus will keep on looking after us until Harry accepts his title and can access the Potter fortune." when he was trying to tell her that she had to stop spending money so recklessly or the House of Weasley would be ruined brought out something that no-one had seen except for a couple of occasions in the worst days of the War, Arthur Weasley in a towering rage.
"What are you talking about you stupid woman? We haven't gotten a single Knut from Albus, everything you've been spending to keep up this stupid act has come from Bill and I and we've both been working our arses off to try and stop our House being bankrupted!"
He glared at her with a flushed face and heaving chest for about a minute and then, just before she started screeching at him for speaking to her like that, spat out.
"That's it! From this moment on and until this madness is done with, no one but Bill and I will have any access to the Weasley accounts, vaults and funds! I will have to pay our Account Manager to notify Madam Malkin's and the rest of the shops that you're no longer authorised to sign any promissory notes against the Weasley vaults but that will cost me far less than your wanton spending!"
With that he turned and stormed out of the house, heading for Gringotts to do just what he told her he would. Molly couldn't work out what she was more furious about, the fact that he'd dared to speak to her that way or that he'd left before she had a chance to give him a piece of her mind. She was even more furious when Arthur didn't come home for dinner that night and she discovered that his clothes and all of his things had disappeared, which was a clear indication that he had no intention of returning for a while.
After he went to Gringotts and made the necessary arrangements to stop Molly spending every Knut he and Bill earned, Arthur had gone to the Leaky Cauldron to have a few stiff drinks and try and calm down. Emmeline Vance was passing through the Cauldron and noted the state he was in, so she asked him what was wrong. It was cathartic for Arthur to be able to pour it all out to someone who understood what he was talking about (Emma had been in the Order of the Phoenix with Molly's brothers in the War and knew everyone involved), and when he was done, she offered to let him stay with her for as long as it took to get his head together. They both knew that Molly wouldn't give him a moment's peace until he gave in to her if he went home and he couldn't afford to stay at the Leaky Cauldron, so Arthur gratefully took her up on her offer. When he started fretting about what he was going to do for clothes etc though Emma smirked, telling him to finish his drink, and then had him floo to the Ministry with her.
Arthur baulked at first when Emma told him her plan to get his things, but she pointed out that he needed to tell the boss (she was part of the Auror Investigations Office) what was going on anyway so that she wouldn't get caught out if, or more likely when, Molly or Dumbledore tried to cause a scene in the office. He was pleasantly surprised by Amelia's response to the situation he'd found himself in, and that she was happy to send one of the Bones House Elfs to collect his things from the Burrow for him. Other than her being his boss since late 1981, he hadn't had much to do with Amelia since they were at Hogwarts together, because she and most of the Old Families had issues with Albus Dumbledore, while thanks to Molly his family had been stuck firmly in the Dumbledore camp, so he'd really had no idea how she would react.
While they were waiting for Amelia's Elf to move his things to Emma's cottage, Emma explained what had made her change her allegiances after the War, how Dumbledore had basically cast aside most members of the Order when he no longer had any use for them and how the longer she spent away from him, the clearer her thinking had become. She told about recalling that they'd been sent up against Death Eaters with no warning of what they'd be facing and made to swear not use anything stronger than stunners against them, so they were getting slaughtered, just so that he could boast that his people took the moral high road…. Worse than that, she'd found evidence that she'd been potioned and compelled to do as Dumbledore said, and so had Mad-Eye Moody, so it was a good bet that anyone else in the Order who wasn't a hunderd percent devoted to the Great Albus Dumbledore was too.
What she was saying was shocking, because it was painting the man that just about everyone regarded as the 'Leader of the Light' in a very bad light, but Emma had a good head on her shoulders and he'd always known her to be an honest and upright person…. And with his anger about the way their family's reputation and fortune were being put at risk because Molly was willing to go along with anything Dumbledore suggested burning away a good deal of his normal complacency, it was making more sense than he liked….
He snorted to himself as he stopped to wonder which Molly would be angrier about, the fact that he'd had the nerve to go against the Great Albus Dumbledore's wishes, or that he was going to be staying with his ex-girlfriend for a while, and was looking forward to resurrecting their friendship at least…. Then blushed because the looks he was getting from the two Witches at that point implied that they had a good idea of what was going through his mind.
What Arthur was originally planning to be just a few days away to give Molly time to calm down stretched into weeks, and then months and basically became a permanent arrangement because he was finding, just as Emma had, that the longer he stayed away, the clearer his thinking became. Molly and Albus had indeed come to the office to take him to task over what he said and did, but they'd been headed off at the pass as the Muggles say, and warned that if they didn't turn around and leave immediately they'd be arrested for interfering with the operations of the DMLE. They'd scoffed at that, but changed their tune quick smart when Kingsley Shacklebolt slapped magic suppressing manacles on Molly and started to read out what she was being charged with.
Amelia had also blocked Albus' expected move of using James Potter to get around the measures she put in place by informing James that if he made any attempt at all to approach Arthur about this, he would be summarily dismissed from the DMLE and put up on the same charges the others had been warned about. James had had enough close calls with Amelia since she became Director of the DMLE to take that warning seriously, so when Albus contacted him to get him to do exactly that, he turned him down, saying that he couldn't afford to risk losing his job until after Harry got access to the Potter fortune.
Albus was not at all happy about being refused by those he expected to obey him without question, especially as he was being forced to listen to Molly screeching about how outrageous it was…. But he needed Hadrian at his disposal for his plans to come to fruition so he told just Molly that he would help cover the cost of keeping up appearances to shut her up, but stressed that his coin bag was not bottomless so she would have to be more frugal with her spending.… He laughed to himself that she accepted that from him without a quibble when Arthur telling her the same thing had started this whole mess.
After Emma convinced him that she was serious about being happy to have him living with her (she was the last surviving member of the Minor House of Vance and had been living alone since the War), Arthur found that for the first time in quite a while, he was enjoying life…. All the more so because he was finally getting to see what his life might have been like if he hadn't stupidly gotten the Harlot of Hogwarts pregnant in that drunken orgy they had to celebrate winning the Quidditch Cup in his final year at Hogwarts... No question about it, life with Emma would have been so much better than living with a Human Howler.
He was still paying his children's core expenses and transferring enough gold to put food on the table at the Burrow into Molly's vault, as well as paying his share of the living expenses at Emma's… But without Molly squandering every Knut they had on clothes and trappings to present a prosperous image he was managing to repay his debts, and had begun repaying what Bill had loaned him when they were struggling to prevent their house going bankrupt too. Bill told him not to worry about paying him back but he wasn't going to have his son giving up all his hard earned gold just because his father couldn't cover the family's debts.
Bilius Arthurus was the only one of his children that he could understand any more. He realised that while the first four years or so until Charlie was born hadn't been too bad, he'd been spending more and more time working as they got more mouths to feed, and he just couldn't see himself in most of them… You could be forgiven for thinking that the twins were their Uncles Fabian and Gideon half the time, Ginny was like a Mini-Molly, Charlie reminded him of Amos Diggory, Percy was more like Barty Crouch than him and Ronald could be Ludo Bagman's son…. It almost felt as if they weren't his children at all…. He supposed he should be happy that his Heir was a chip off the old block.
Speaking of Bill, he had to try and set up a meeting for him with Gawain Robards, who'd taken over as Head of the Auror Investigations Office when Alastor Moody retired, about what the Prewett Account Manager told them. Surely they could get Molly charged for having Bill obliviated after he was accepted as Head of the Minor House of Prewett and she got him to make her Regent to give her access to the Prewett votes and vaults?….
They needed to get moving on that before she discovered that she'd lost access though, there wasn't much gold left in the Prewett vaults but if she couldn't get it from him she may try to go back and clean out the last of it from their vaults…. But how could a mother do that to her own child? Hide the fact that he was the next Head of the House of Prewett until he came of age, get him to accept the title and make her Regent then have him obliviated of the knowledge to hide what she did? She was a monster!
He just wished that he could afford the level of testing that it'd take to get an official record of all the potions and charms he'd been under over the years because he was sure that she'd be sent to Azkaban if it all came out. He hadn't felt this alive since he left Hogwarts, which made him wonder how much of the last twenty years he'd been potioned….
Being able to tell all those interfering busy bodies who were lambasting him for deserting his family and shacking up with a scarlet woman where to shove their unwanted opinions felt good though... And getting that round of applause when Amelia gave him a verbal warning for conduct unbecoming, then fined Sturgis Podmore a Hundred Galleons for attacking a member of the DMLE after he broke Podmore's nose because he wouldn't stop pushing him and shouting in his face him that he was a disgrace for shaming his wife with that harlot had been a surprise, but the support gave him a warm feeling.
Emma kissing him on the cheek and whispering "There's that brave Gryffindor who stole my heart at Hogwarts!" was also a nice surprise, even if it had left him blushing furiously.
While the Weasleys' dramas were a big deal for them and an issue for Dumbledore, there was another event in early 1991 that had a much bigger impact on Harry and the Old Families, the death of Lord Arcturus Black, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Arcturus had had a good run, he actually told them that he felt he'd achieved far more in the last third of his life than he had in the first two, because working with Charlus and later Lily, he had made considerable advances in establishing conduits for controlled interactions between the Magical and Mundane Worlds. For the last ten years he'd also gotten to experience shaping his successor as Lord Black...
Of all the sons of the House of Black who followed him, he believed that his Grandson Sirius Orion had reflected the true ideals of the House of Black best... But that being said, Sirius had let himself be corrupted by Albus Bloody Dumbledore, not as much as James Potter perhaps, but he'd listened to the old goat botherer far too much and that had tainted him. His Grandson had given him a gift though, his Heir had officially named his dear cousin Dorea's Grandson Henry James as his Heir, which gave the House of Black a clear line of succession. And what an Heir Henry James was, Arcturus could see the best of Dorea and Charlus in him, but even more than that his brilliant mother Lily. As a toddler, young Harry had been a delight to have around, but even then you could see that he was taking in a lot of what was going on around him. That had made it easier to begin teaching him about the way the Wizarding World worked from when he was Five years old, because he already understood a lot of the background information which formed the foundations of what he was being taught.
It was easy to forget that Harry was a child much of the time, because he got the point of what was being discussed better than many so-called adults did and over the last couple of years he had been answering challenges on questions of protocol and making decisions like a proper Lord. He wasn't ready to run the House by himself of course, but he wouldn't be expected to shoulder that burden for at least another decade. Andromeda had sworn to shoulder most of the load for him for twenty years and she was more than capable of doing the House of Black proud as its Steward. No, what he was looking for from Dorea's Grandson was the willingness to learn and do what was necessary when when he took over, and he could see that young Harry would do the House of Black proud. That was why Arcturus was content when his time came, he could go on and be reunited with those who had gone before him knowing that he was leaving the House of his forebears in good hands.
Arcturus' will reading was restricted to close family and key allies of the House of Black, most of whom were there to officially witness the 'changing of the guard' and reaffirm their Alliance with the new Lord Black. One of the first items scheduled was for his Heir to be accepted as Head of House by the Black Family Magic, but those present knew the plan so everyone was quite comfortable with the not yet officially Eleven year old Lord Black directing most of the procedings in the will reading.
While the Ministry records would show that Arcturus Black the Third had died and the House of Black had a new Lord and Head of House, that was all they would show…. And that was as much information as anyone who wasn't a member of the Albion Alliance would get until Harry was ready to release the fact that he was the new Lord Black. One key fact that very few people knew was that over half of the Department of Mysteries' Unspeakables were members of Houses belonging to the Albion Alliance, and the reason that was important was that Unspeakables were very good at protecting secrets, so secrets that members of the Albion Alliance wanted kept secret were.
As many of the so-called Traditional Pure-Blood Houses were wilfully ignorant of the rules of succession and family magic, they weren't surprised when Lucius Malfoy took his son Draco to Gringotts to try and claim the titles of Lord Black and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black when Draco's Eleventh birthday came around a couple of months after Arcturus died. Given that Draco was as arrogant and self-absorbed as Hadrian, the fact that he threw a massive tantrum and demanded that they fix it when he wasn't accepted as the new Lord Black by the Family Magic was no great surprise either. Harry's core family group were watching the proceedings from Jareth's office (Account Holders have the right to observe any dealings which effect their accounts, and Gringotts' Director has the right to observe whatever Bank dealings he deems relevant) and Jareth gave a toothy grin when Draco started screaming at the Black Account Manager, tapping some runes on his desk to send a message to the Account Manager.
When he read the message, the Account Manager smirked, turned to Draco's father Lucius and said.
"Mister Malfoy, the Minor House of Malfoy has been fined Ten Thousand Galleons as a penalty for your Heir's unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour… This is, of course, in addition to the Five Hundred Galleon fee charged for conducting the test to determine whether your Heir would be accepted to any official role in the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."
Watching Lucious struggling to bite his tongue to avoid saying anything which would result in further fines was hilarious, and as soon as he was sure that he could be civil enough to avoid that he curtly accepted the charges, bit out a goodbye and dragged Draco out of the Account Manager's Office, hissing at him that he would pay for this as they went out the door.
Jareth chuckled when the show was over. "Oh dear, it appears that Mister Malfoy neglected to look into what the fee scales are for requesting services from Goblins other than your own Account Manager…. And the differences between Junior and Senior Account Managers' fee scales. I do hope that there is enough in Heir Malfoy's vault to cover the charges, as the Black Account Manager will be charging them additional fees if he has to go to the effort of searching for other Malfoy Vaults that he can levy the gold from…."
He gave another evil grin and tapped out a message to remind the Black Account Manager to go to the Malfoy Heir's vault first for the gold because there was little chance that it would hold enough to cover the charges.
While Lily didn't want Harry anywhere near Dumbledore, to the Sheeple who made up most of Magical Britain, the perception of tradition was everything, and it was traditional for important figures in Magical Britain to go to Hogwarts so he'd have to go. That didn't mean that they had to play by the old goat botheror's rules though, because they'd known that they'd have to be seen as the peers of the Mundane ruling class of the day to have any standing with them when the original Magical Laws of Magical Britain were penned... So the laws they penned were quite draconian, giving the Earls (the ruling class of Magical Britain) the right to do anything they wanted….
Six of the original seven Earldoms that formed the ruling class of Magical Britain, what were now the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses, still stood together in the Albion Alliance, the Houses of Potter, Peverell, Black, Le Fay, Longbottom and Bones…. The House of Macmillan was the only one that turned its back on its roots and ideals and joined the so-called 'Traditional' Pure-Bloods in their quest to seize control of Magical Britain when they forced the creation of the Wizengamot to replace the Wizards Council. That betrayal had resulted in the self-destruction of the Macmillan Family Magic because it rejected what its House had become. Their House had never regained its lost Family Magic and Knowledge and aside from their title and voting power in the Wizengamot, they were no more than an ordinary Noble House now.
The Hogwarts Charter was penned in the same period as the original Magical Laws and followed the same rules (the original court of Magical Britain had been at Hogwarts), and like the original Laws, the Hogwarts Charter was immutable, irrevocable and could not be superseded. What this meant was that Heads and Heirs of the original Most Noble Houses had more rights than anyone else in Hogwarts, including the Headmaster or Headmistress and the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses had first claim to seats on the Hogwarts Board if they chose... The idea being that if all them claimed their seats they would hold a majority on the Board (seven out of thirteen seats) and could steer Hogwarts in what they deemed was the best direction, but that plan was jinxed when one of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses defected to the other side... As a last ditch measure, three or more Founders Heirs had the authority to dismiss the Board and start over, but that would require replacing all the senior staff as well, so it was only considered a viable option if the current version of Hogwarts was irretrieveable.
One of the rights of the Heads and Heirs of the Most Noble Houses that they intended to claim at Hogwarts was the Lords Tower, it was deemed that the future leaders of Magical Britain were more at risk than 'ordinary' students and so had to be protected against harm. Therefore, the irrevocable right of any Heads or Heirs of the Most Noble Houses to be housed privately in the Lords Tower with their betrothed, retinues, guards, tutors and such was written into the Hogwarts Charter. While Susan Bones and Neville Longbottom were both protected under the Heads and Heirs rule and the definition of 'retinue' was loose enough for them to get anyone they wanted into the Lords Tower, after listening to the debate and reasoning for Harry getting betrothed to the girls, they and their families had agreed that it made sense for them to be protected in the same manner, so Susan and Neville were betrothed to each other with similar bilateral contracts to Harry and the girls not long after.
Other inalienable rights written into the Charter that they would be claiming were the right to advance through the years if you could prove that you'd met the requirement to pass the previous year, the right to begin your magical education once your magic is mature enough to do so, and the right to use private tutors rather than attend regular classes if your family deems Hogwarts' offering inadequate or inappropriate. Albus Dumbledore had managed to convince most of Magical Britain that these rights were no longer valid in the forty odd years since he staged a coup to depose Armando Dippet and take over as Headmaster but they were, in fact, inalienable and couldn't be denied, especially to the Heads and Heirs of Most Noble Houses.
The Old Families were betting that Dumbledore was planning to resurrect the right for a child to begin Magical education before their Eleventh birthday for the Boy-Who-Lived's betrothed so that they'd be at school together, and use the fact that he expected Hadrian to become Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter on his Eleventh birthday to open the Lords Tower for him. They had no issue with Ginny Weasley starting early if she was ready, as they were doing the same with Luna and others in their group, but Dumbledore had another think coming if he believed that Hadrian and his retinue would be living in the Lords Tower because the House of Fleamont was just barely Noble. The current Lord Macmillan's Grandson was also supposedly starting this year, but while the House of Macmillan was Most Noble, Ernest was the Heir's Heir, so he didn't qualify either.
To cover the requirements to move ahead, Harry and the other kids completed the ICW and British Ministry of Magic end of year exams for the first four years of Magical education, between the Runic Time Chambers and growth enhancement potions they'd used, they could all pass for Fourteen or Fifteen easily and they would go mad with boredom if they had to sit through classes where they'd mastered the subject matter when they were five or six, so they'd do their OWLs this year, their NEWTs the next, and that would satisfy the requirement to be educated at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore had a number of totally inappropriate teachers at Hogwarts though, like Lily's other stalker, Severus Snape in Potions…. A boring ghost who kept repeating the same lessons about a few of the so-called Goblin Rebellions over and over for History of Magic... A Wizard of questionable competence teaching Care of Magical Creatures, given that he'd lost most of his limbs to the subject matter, and a string of extremely questionable choices teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, so they'd be using their own tutors for those classes and any others they didn't think were up to snuff.
For appearances sake, they waited until Harry's official Eleventh birthday for him to claim the titles of Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell and the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor, Emrys and Slytherin. (Godric Gryffindor was a descendent of Myrrdin Emrys and Clan Gryffindor was the only extant line of Clan Emrys when it merged with the Peverell line in the Eleventh Century, and then the Potter line in the Thirteenth Century. the last surviving member of Clan Slytherin was married to a son of Clan Peverell in the Twelfth Century so that line was also merged with the Potters' in the Thirteenth Century, but it was rarer for the Slytherin Family Magic to accept Potters as its Clan Chief.)
While they knew that James and Dumbledore would be rushing Hadrian to Gringotts to try and claim the Potter title at least (They weren't sure whether James remembered that the Peverell, Gryffindor, Emrys and Slytherin titles were associated with the Potters, but Dumbledore probably knew about the Peverell and Gryffindor ones.) on his Eleventh birthday, Harry's birthday was the day before Hadrian's.
Harry had no trouble being accepted by the Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor and Emrys Family Magics and officially becoming Lord Potter-Peverell-Black, and they returned with popcorn on the First of August to watch the show when James brought Hadrian in. (British Magical tradition dictated that only titles of equal rank were linked in the name so for Harry only the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses qualified. Hermione's House was Dagworth-Granger because the Prescriptive Barony granted to Clan Granger to make it a 'Noble' House in the early Sixteenth Century was officially recognised as being of equal rank to the Dagworth Barony.)
The Potter and Peverell Account Managers had been cued up about how they had fined the Malfoys for Draco's tantrum, so Jareth didn't need to send a message to them when Hadrian did the same. After a quiet aside between them, the Potter Account Manager turned to James.
"Mister Potter, your Heir's outburst and your failure to control him were both quite unacceptable. I know for a fact that your father taught you how to behave properly…. Actually now that I recall, your own behaviour when the Potter line's Family Magics found you wanting was little better than your son's…. Be that as it may, my point is that Gringotts does not accept its Account Managers being abused like that without cause, so the Noble House of Fleamont is hereby fined Ten Thousand Galleons... And you should think yourself lucky that the Peverell Account Manager and I have agreed to only fine you once, rather than fining you seperately…. This fine of course does not include the two separate Five Hundred Galleon fees being charged to the Fleamont vaults for conducting the test to determine whether your Heir would be accepted to any official role in the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell."
James remembered being fined a Thousand Galleons per House for his outburst when the Family Magics of every House but his Grandmother's Minor House of Fleamont rejected him and that the damned Goblins would most likely fine him even more if he said the wrong thing because they were given plenty of leeway if they wanted to be bloody minded. He also remembered that there was a mention of Family Magic Tests in the charges when they tried to lodge betrothal contracts for Hadrian as Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, so he clamped his hand down hard on Hadrian's shoulder to signal him to keep his mouth shut and tried to remember what his parents had taught him about dealing with the Goblins then said...
"I apologise for my son's behaviour Account Manager, however he is young and inexperienced and was obviously surprised and upset to find that the Family Magics did not accept him to carry on in the tradition of his ancestors. We will of course accept any penalties and fees that Gringotts deems appropriate."
The Potter Account Manager nodded, accepting the apology, but couldn't resist a dig. "We will let it go at that Mister Potter. It is good to see that you remember some of your lessons at least but perhaps you should not have given your Heir unrealistic expectations… Especially when you, yourself, have experienced first hand that believing yourself to be the only Heir is no guarantee that the Family Magics will accept you. You would serve your Heir better by giving careful consideration to the reason that the Family Magics did not accept you and trying to guide him on a path that would help him avoid the same fate."
James nodded thoughtfully. His first impression was to tell the Goblin where to shove his advice, but he had to concede that it was actually good advice. Something had caused him to be the first Potter in the gods knows how many generations to be rejected by the Family Magics. If Hadrian followed in his footsteps, the Houses of the Potter Family could go extinct…. He jerked as it felt as though he'd been patted on the shoulder, had that been his father letting him know that he approved? No, that was crazy talk! He'd ask Albus about this, he wouldn't steer him wrong.
He nodded again to the Goblins and steered Hadrian out of the office, keeping his hand clamped on the boy's shoulder hard enough to make him keep his mouth shut (and leave a large bruise, as they found out later).
Albus was not at all pleased to hear that the Family Magics had not accepted Hadrian as the new Lord Potter-Peverell. He tried to keep his anger off his face but failing to get access to the Potter and Peverell fortunes and votes would cause considerable problems for his plans…. Not to mention that when Molly Weasley found out that her daughter wasn't going to become Lady Potter like he promised anytime soon, he probably wouldn't need any magical assistance to hear her in Hogwarts. Luckily James accepted his response that the Goblins were just trying to play mind games on him without question, so he wouldn't need to worry about him digging into that question.
Harry and the other kids spent the month of August getting ready to go to Hogwarts. No-one appeared to have picked up on the fact that the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell had a new Lord so they decided to hold off on officially announcing it until he formally claimed the Potter, Peverell and Black seats in the Autumnal Equinox Session of the Wizengamot. This meant that they had no need to be seen in public before they headed to Hogwarts so the families organised everything for them.
The text books for the regular classes they would be attending with the other students were the only things that came from Diagon Alley. The rest of their equipment and supplies were superior to what was sold for Hogwarts.
The clothes and 'robes' they would be wearing most of the time were actually enchanted armour which could morph to appear as whatever they required and their War Wands, which could morph into 'regular' wands or a plethora of Magical and Mundane weapons, as well as flying brooms, were created out of the enchanted armour.
Their trunks were all Vargr Ship Trunks, Clan Vargr had been creating enchanted ships since before the Viking Expansion and they had come up with many advances and enhancements in well over a millennia. The ships had the capability to morph into different forms of ships or wagons that had been mapped into the ships' memory crystals, or trunks when not in use as magical transports. The enchantments to form ship interiors lent themselves well to creating living spaces inside the Ship Trunks when they weren't being used as transports, and some of these had become quite expansive, with embellishments like enchanted 'outdoor' areas. A more recent development was the portals which had come out of a study of something discovered in a dig in Egypt in the Nineteen Twenties
Clan Vargr created grander and more elaborate versions of the Ship Trunks for the Lords of the original Most Noble Houses, with extra embellishments such as animatronic golems which could morph into different forms to be presented as crew or draft beasts being created out of the body of the Ship Trunk to preserve appearances when they were operated in the Mundane World. (The House of Macmillan's Ship Trunks and enchanted armour had all been magically returned to their creators when its Family Magic destroyed itself and the House of Black acquired most of them in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century)…. And the Lords of the oldest and richest of the Most Noble Houses, the Houses of Potter, Peverell and Black, commissioned versions that were even more elaborate and extraordinary than the other Most Noble Houses', the Potters' Bennu, the Peverells' Djinn and the Blacks' Bran. The Blacks also commissioned extensive enhancements to be made to Lord Macmillan's Ship Trunk after they acquired it and renamed it to the Raven.
Basically, while they had compartments that would appear to be much like 'normal' trunks, the Ship Trunks gave them safe transport options and secure and comfortable living quarters among other things, so they ensured that everyone from their group who was going to Hogwarts had one. There were over a hundred Ship Trunks that had been enhanced and updated enough to serve in the contemporary world so they had enough to cover requirements.