Disclaimer: I own nothing about the world of harry potter except for my enjoyment of it. J.K. Rowling owns all rights to Harry Potter, i am just playing in her world.

AN: i know a few people have expressed their doubts that Harry would have shared his story so soon with the Greengrass's, the answer to that was actually in the next few paragraphs, but i decided i had reach a good spot the end the last chapter and it was added to the beginning of this one. now enjoy!

Harry sat down at breakfast a five days later thinking back to his meeting with the Greengrass family. He really did not want to reveal so much of his story and plans with them so early, but decided that not counting the fact the girls were to be his wives some day, there was still the fact that he would need strong powerful allies in the future if he were to survive his attempts at changing the magical world. Luckily for him he had gained some level of natural legillimancy and occlumency abilities from his soul adoption. While still a long haul away from being a master at them, he could still detect a lie just as easy Riddle had growing up in his orphanage, and he knew they were not trying to deceit him. He was just glad that it all had seemed to work out in his favor, as he would have hated to have started his new relationships with Daphne and Astoria by obliviating their entire family of their meeting had things went south.

He knew that as purebloods they craved to some level, as all purebloods do, power and respect above most other things. Which was a huge part in why he felt so sure about revealing his plans to them as what he was offering was more important then anything Voldemort could ever offer them. Power and security of pureblood beliefs. Voldemort had slipped to far off of his path and would be the end of the wizarding world if he was allowed to continue. While Harry was not bigoted against those of lesser blood or magical creatures in the slightest, he would stop at nothing to protect the survival of the magical world. It just so happens that purebloods are still at the pinnacle of said world and therefore most of the laws and customs they hold so dearly would also be saved.

He spent the last few days doing immense training and also still sorting through Voldemort's knowledge. He had managed to sort through over thirty years of his knowledge so far and was happy about the fact he was just past the halfway point in sorting his knowledge before he would then start on shielding his mind with Occlumency. He had also taken the time to put his knowledge to use by learning to apparate and create portkeys. Those two skills were essential to tracking down the remaining Horcruxes.

Harry and Sirius had continued their daily exercises and potion regiment. Both were a far cry from how they looked only a little over a month ago. Sirius was starting to lose most of the look he had acquired in Azkaban, even if he still had a ways to go before he ever regained some of his former looks. Harry on the other hand was looking great in comparison. Between the exercise, potions, and three meals a day thanks to Dobby, he had lost his malnourished look and started to build an athletic body. He had also grown a couple inches so far over the summer.

He had told Clyde that he would be going to retrieve two of the Horcruxes this weekend, so they would spend today collecting the Peverell ring, and then on Sunday would retrieve Slytherin's locket from the cave a young Riddle frequented during his years at the orphanage. Harry and a glamored Sirius had went two days previous to obtain a set of dragon hide armor each. They did not get anything expensive as Harry planned on harvesting the basilisk down in the chamber of secrets once he returned to school, and he would have them each a set of basilisk hide armor made of the finest quality. He had decided to wait until he returned to school to start his pet project of making his small basilisk army. What hadn't been stated in his book, but he had learned through Voldemort's own research into the subject was that while not required, an incubation period of exactly seven weeks of the eggs before hatching them, would increase the magical properties slightly of their venom and magical resistance of their hide. It was maybe a ten percent increase but was well worth the additional time it would take.

Finishing breakfast, the pair headed to their respective rooms to shower and get dressed for their little trip to the Gaunt Shack. He had wanted to get this one out of the way as soon as he could, as he had several plans formulating revolving around that stone, and he would be damned if he let it slip away. It was just past 9:30 in the morning when Harry extended a piece of rope he held in his hand out to Sirius. As soon as he grabbed a hold of it, they both felt the now familiar pulling behind their navels and appeared outside of the old rundown shack that only one of them could recognize.

The Gaunt shack was just that. A shack. He half wondered if the only thing holding it up were the wards that Tom had placed around this place almost fifty years ago. There were no longer any windows and the weeds had started to overtake the house. The only thing that looked unchanged from his memories of it from fifty years ago was the snake skeleton still nailed to the front door, which had its dried out skin still barely clinging onto it.

Harry stepped up with Sirius behind him to the outer limits of the wards and began casting counter curses to the ones that were able to be taken down. He knew of one that had no known counter-spell, as Voldemort created the ward, and purposefully did not create the counter to it. The ward itself once activated would summon three wraith-like basilisk's. While they weren't the real things that had venom to their bites, they did still have the magical eyes that could kill you. However, as they were made of magic and not real serpents, all you had to do was use a magic dampening spell on your own eyes to negate the magic from its death gaze.

Even after all of this there was no escaping a fight with them. As Voldemort had designed the wards to be blood based, he could not use his Parseltongue to control them as he only shared Voldemort's soul and not his blood. The plan was after they applied the magic dampening spells to their eyes, Sirius would then try to kill one basilisk, while Harry was going to take down the other two. As the second to last ward that was surrounding the house fell, they applied the charms to their eyes and stepped past the last ward where immediately three 30ft basilisk-wraith's appeared, and wasting no time, immediately went on the attack.

Knowing that only a few spells outside of class five spells would even effect a basilisk, Harry decided to try a repeat performance of over a year ago and went for their mouth. "Lancea Fulgar!" a ten foot lance of pure electricity shot out of his wand and into one of the beasts mouth, blasting out a few of its venomless fangs and charring the inside of his mouth. He immediately had to dive to the side to avoid the jaws of the second beast however. He avoided being eaten, but was hit by the snakes massive tail on its way by its sharp scales slicing into the upper arm.

As soon as he popped up out of his dive he was back to firing again. "Lancea Fulgur. Lancea Fulgar. Lancea Fulgar." Three more lances of lighting shot forth towards the basilisk. The first one missed its open mouth, but hit its neck blasting a decent sized hole through its armor and silver spectral blood started to ooze out of its wound. The second lance missed the beast completely as it moved from the blast of the first lance. The first blast however, knocked the basilisk directly in front of the third lance piercing it through the roof of its mouth almost exactly like the Sword of Gryffindor over a year ago. With a blood curling scream the beast died and as the magic from it faded it disappeared into black vapor. Foolishly, Harry stood still a touch too long watching the first basilisk fade, and forgot about the second one he was fighting.

With his back turned to the second serpent, he never saw it lunging at his midsection, mouth agape as wide as it could go. Harry realized his mistake a second too late and the spectral beasts jaws dove in from the side and clamped around his midsection. Even though this basilisk was lacking venom, he would have been immune regardlessly thanks to him already having basilisk venom and phoenix tears coursing through his veins. Phoenix tears however, do not stop 8 inch fangs from ripping into your midsection. Harry was thanking his lucky stars he had decided to pick up the dragon hide armor as the beast was only barely strong enough to penetrate it, leaving a couple dozen fangs to pierce painfully only an inch into his body. While not instantly fatal, if not treated soon he would eventually bleed out.

Sirius had just downed his basilisk after his 10th lance of lighting, as his aim was still off from 12 years of not using it, when he heard the pain-filled scream coming from his left. Turning to the scream, his heart almost stopped when he saw that they beast had his godson clamped down between his jaws. "Lancea Mortuis!" he shouted aiming just behind the snakes head, not wanting to hit Harry. Another ten foot lance shot out from his wand, but unlike the others this one was pitch black and just radiated death and decay from it. The lance struck the basilisk in the side punching a hole through its tough hide, and immediately the area around the wound started to rot, causing the beast to screech in pain which caused Harry to drop from his mouth to the ground.

Harry rolled away from the beast and shakily climbed to his feet. "Sacer Ignis!" he shouted. The sacred fire burned pure white and the heat radiating from it was immense. While not as destructive as Fiendfyre, it was more effective at destroying dark magic. The flames roared as he sent it towards the basilisk, swallowing it whole before one last heart piercing screech and the beast was dead.

Harry collapsed to his knees tired from his body not being used to this much magical output, he was still only 14, and from the few dozen one inch puncture wounds in his torso that would need immediate attention, thankfully the ward itself was dark magic and not the actual beasts they had to fight. He quickly started to strip off his dragon hide armor and his shirt underneath it. "Episkey." he started chanting over and over again on his chest while Sirius copied the same on his back. The puncture wounds started to knit back together and stop bleeding, but he would have to apply some healing salves once he got home. The worst of the damage would be treatable but the wounds with still scar over. It seemed as his collection of scars would get a significant boost today.

"That's the last one back here pup, you going to be ok?" Sirius asked worriedly. "We can always come back and finish later?"

Had it been any other Horcrux then the ring, he might have been tempted to come back at another time but he wanted this one while he knew he still had the chance. "I should be fine for now, the hard part is over with for now." he replied making his way slowly over to the front door after putting back on his slightly mangled shirt and armor.

Harry unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping into the rundown shack. The place had the feel of dark magic around it. But to most people they would just think it was because the house itself was so dirty and grimy. The place had obviously not been taken care of even when it was inhabited. Walking over the the center of the floor, where he knew there was a lose floorboard under a notice-me-not charm, he levitated the floorboard and tossed it to the side.

Laying there in the small hole in the floor was ornate black wooden box with gold leafing trimming the edges of it. He knew better then to touch the ring, as there was a compulsion charm placed on it to make the one touching want to put it on, where they would be struck down by a nasty curse placed on the ring. He had Sirius conjure a small end table, while he levitated the box out of the hole and placed it onto the table. "Whatever you do Sirius, do not touch this ring until I give you the ok."

"You got it, just be careful with that thing." the last thing he wanted was to have to explain how his 14 year old godson managed to get killed by some off the wall curse.

Harry opened the ornate box and had to pause for a few moments. The ring itself he could give a shit less about, it was the marble-sized perfectly cut enchanted Onyx gemstone known only to a few as the Resurrection Stone, that sat in its full splendor in front of him that gave him pause. It truly was a beautiful and magnificent work of art, one he planned on taking and expanding further then any before him.

Harry quickly stripped the compulsion charm from the ring and began to chant the counter curse, making the ring safe once again. That is assuming you can count having a piece of Tom Riddle's soul in it safe. With one last chant, the ring glowed bright black for a moment before the blackness began to dissipate and leave the ring all together. Slowly and gently he lifted the ring out of the box, staring at its beauty only momentarily before slipping it on his left ring finger.

Harry thought briefly about burning the rest of this place to the ground, but decided against it as to not draw any unwanted attention as the traces of dark magic were still lingering in the air all around this place. Replacing the ornate box and loose floorboard, the two left rundown shack and apparated back to the sitting room of Potter Manor.

"Dobby!" Harry called as he started to take off his armor as Sirius headed for the liquor cabinet.

"Master Harry Potter, you is hurt sir!" the elf shouted frantically.

"Relax Dobby! I will be fine, I just need you to fetch me a healing salve to help reduce the scaring." the little elf popped away and returned a few moments later holding the opened healing salve.

Harry had just taken off his blood soaked shirt, when the floo flared up and Astoria stepped out a second later. "Astoria! It's a pleasant surprise to see you."

"I really hope I am not interrupting anything, but I really just wanted to..." she trailed off there just now noticing the bloody shirt he was still holding along with the rows of puncture marks still adorned into his chest. "Harry! Are you ok? What happened?" she shouted frantically running over to him.

"Please relax, there is no need to worry. Just ran into a bit of a basilisk problem today while getting my hands on the first Horcrux." her eyes went wide at the mention of a basilisk. "I just need to finish applying this salve and these scars should shrink a bit over time."

While her sister might not have been super thrilled of the fact she would be marrying him, Astoria was. So she saw this as her chance to get a little closer to the boy she had been crushing on for over a year now. "Here, let me take care of that for you." she said taking the healing salve from him.

"So you said you came over here because you wanted something?" Harry asked as she began to rub the cream onto his back.

"Just to talk to you. While it may take my sister a while longer to be happy about this arrangement, but I find myself rather excited!" she had just finishing with his back and moved around to his chest.

"Oh? Is that so?" he asked with a small grin gracing his face.

"Oh yes, very excited." she said moving in a little closer to him, giving him a quick peck on his lips before continuing. "However, I was half expecting you to not be here today, and really wanted to explore the huge indoor pool you were talking about at dinner the other night. Since you are here however, you can show me to it and join me for a swim."

"Ahh, so the truth comes out and your just after my pool?" he teased jokingly.

"Maybe for now, give it a few years," she winked at him, then laughed and grabbed his hand to pull him out of the chair. "So how about that swim?"

Chuckling at her enthusiasm he called for Dobby who appeared a few seconds later. "Dobby, can you show Astoria to the pool?"

"Of course Master Harry Potter sir! Right this way young mistress."

"I need to go change and put some things away, then I'll come down and join you in the pool."

That night Harry and Sirius sat in the sitting room, Sirius nursing a glass of Old Ogden's and Harry a butterbeer. Harry and Astoria had spent a few hours swimming and playing together in the pool. While she may be two years younger then her sister, she was still the more easy going of the two. Then again she doesn't have to survive the life of Hogwarts as a Slytherin. The two had become a little closer together, with him even stealing a kiss from her as payback.

Harry had just finished off his butterbeer and was about to head up to bed when a owl flew into the room. Taking the letter from the owl, he saw that it was from Clyde.

Harry,

I have great news in regards to a specific cup you are in search of. I do not want to discuss it over a letter, but if you can meet me at Gringotts lobby at 10:00, you should be able to have the cup by lunch.

Clyde

"Anything important pup?" Sirius asked as he too finished off his drink.

"Yes, it is from Clyde. He says that he has a way to get me Helga's Cup. I will have to go to Gringotts tomorrow morning at 10."

"Well, that will make things a hell of a lot easier."

"Can't be any harder then today." Harry said laughing as he left the sitting room on his way up to go to bed.

At 9:45 the next morning, Harry floo'd to The Leaky Cauldron and began making his way towards the goblin bank. Walking in he spotted Clyde in conversation with Flingorth. "Welcome Lord Potter, if you both will follow me." the old goblin toned when Harry walked up to them.

The two men followed Flingorth through the same set of ornate doors that Harry went through on his first meeting here. Five minutes later, they were stopping outside the doors to the Black Family account managers office and were ushered inside. "Now, Lord Potter I have come to understand that you are in search of a way to access the vault of one Bellatrix Lestrange?" Flingorth stated.

"You would be correct. However, I also know that the goblin nation works in galleons and not favors, so I am prepared to compensate you for your help substantially." he responded.

"Goblins never steal from our clients nor allow others to steal from our clients. However, it just so happens you are in luck, as there are certain actions that can be taken to give you legal access to the vault in which you seek." the goblin gave a feral smile.

"You have my interest Master Flingorth."

"Yes, well as it turns out the item you seek is located within Madam Lestranges personal vault and not the Lestrange Family vault. Luck indeed is in your favor. As Lord Black you have the ability to void the marriage contract between Madam Lestrange and her husband, once again making her a Black. Now seeing as she is currently a resident of Azkaban this would then give you full control over her vault." the goblins feral smile impossibly grew even more sinister looking.

"Perfect, I would then like to abolish the contract at once please." Flingorth slid an old piece of paper towards Harry, who noticed it was indeed the marriage contract. "I, Harry James Potter, Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, do hereby negate the marriage contract between Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black and Rodolphus Lestrange, so mote it be." A large flash of light surrounded the contract disintegrating it.

"Congratulations Lord Potter, you can now claim control over Bellatrix Black's personal vault until she is released from prison."

"Excellent, I would like the gold split equally between yourself and Lord Greengrass for your assistance and discretion. I would like all artifacts and books transferred to my personal vault, with exception to Hufflepuff's Chalice with which I would like brought to me." both man and goblin's eyes went wide at the thought of gaining a few million galleons.

Twenty minutes later Harry and Clyde were standing back in the lobby of the bank, one with a huge smile and the other a shrunken invaluable piece of history tucked into his robes. "Harry, I must thank you for your generosity earlier. There had to be at least five million galleons in that vault." While it wasn't anything to laugh at, Harry already had more gold then he could spend, and the help and discretion would both be worth it in the end and Harry told him so.

"I still have another stop to make today, but as it stands I am in ownership of two of the pieces we discussed the other night already. Are we still a go for Monday?" Harry asked.

"As I do not believe either of my daughters have expressed a change of heart, I do believe so." he replied. "However, I have heard from my youngest that not everything went as smooth as possible yesterday and she asked me to tell you, well more like demand, that you be careful on your task. She seems quite taken with you." he smirked knowing how unhappy his little Astoria would be if he managed to injure himself again.

Laughing Harry replied. "Please tell her that, just for her, I will do my best to escape in full health." Laughing the two men headed their separate ways, one to tell his wife they were going to be taking a long vacation this September, and the other to see an old dog about a cave exploration.

AN: so there will be two more chapters before heading back to Hogwarts, the next chapter should contain the search of the cave and the ritual for the daphne and astoria. the following chapter will be the world cup. thanks in advanced for the reviews, hopefully you are all enjoying the story so far.

p.s. still half looking for a beta if anyone is interested.