Eventually, the goblin recovered from its shock, and asked "So, what would you like to do now, your grace?"

Harry answered. "First of all, I invoke the word of Polaris. You shall not breathe a word of this to anyone without my express consent."

Harry knew that this was an absolute must when dealing with goblins. They were greedy little buggers, who would gladly sell their mothers, sisters, customers, even their souls (if they had any) to the highest bidder. For information as important as this they would be looking for buyers even before he left the bank.

But this little law was the only thing that could prevent that. Designed as a specific countermeasure to protect Noble families from the goblins, it dated back to the twelfth century, when Polaris Black had slaughtered over fifty thousand goblins in a single day, after an information leak caused by them had caused the death of his favorite son.

After that, the combined forces of the ministry and the families had, under the leadership of Polaris's close friends William Potter and Leonidas Malfoy forced the Goblin nation to acknowledge a new law.

They called it the word of Polaris, under which for every time a goblin revealed the details about the dealings of any Noble families, the entire Goblin nation would suffer repercussions amounting to losing a tenth of both its population and treasury.

The goblins had fought furiously against it, turning it into the third goblin rebellion. It was also what had finally resulted in the Black plague, as the Peverells unleashed their age old servants, the Dementors.

Fear was the only emotion that could overwhelm a goblin's greed. And it was not just normal fear of the repercussions an action might have, but true mind chilling terror, the kind that left the hardest of beings as little more than cowering wrecks. When they knew that unless they did exactly what they were asked, their entire nation would burn for it.

That was the driving force behind the Word of Polaris, and it had worked perfectly for eight centuries.

It was evident. The goblin showed no expression, but it there was a tremor in its tone as it said "Of course, discretion is the soul of Gringotts."

"After that, we shall need to be taken to my vaults, and I shall need a chequebook linked to my account, all securities attached. Apart from that, I shall require a full accounts summary, detailing all transactions from my accounts for the last twenty years.

"The transactions should be in the family ledgers, which are in the vaults. The summary itself, I have here." Was all that the Goblin said, before it handed over the file on its desk.

Reading it, Harry gave a whistle. The numbers on the page meant that he would not have to work a day in his life, should he choose to do so. The sum total of his liquid wealth alone went into the tens of billions, without counting any of the investments or properties.

Still, he would need it before too long, if his plans progressed as he intended them to.

"So let's go see the vaults then." He said.

They did so. Harry found himself ushered to a private cart by a different goblin, which took him straight to what at first seemed the bottom of the earth. After about ten minutes of superfast hurtling through the tracks, and shaking what the goblin called 'clankers', he was standing in front of a series of vaults that the goblin told him belonged to the Ancient and Noble families.

The first, quiet obviously, was the Potter vault. Entering, Harry saw the mountains of gold and silver that he expected, along with several things that he didn't, but his interest was currently in something else. Off the main chamber, in a small alcove were a number of leather bound books. These were what he was looking for.

Going over, he saw that there was two of almost everything, marked 'official' and 'unofficial'.

These were of course the formal titles, as a more accurate separation would be 'legal' and 'illegal'.

Taking ledgers for example, one contained the proper records, of potions ingredient supply contracts, the ward crafting orders that his family had received and fulfilled, not to mention the usual mentions of what percentage he owned of what. The contents of the other were far more interesting. Records of bribes supplied to officials, of black market trading and the portkeys and portals made for smuggling purposes.

It was similar for everything, the official deed books mentioned the properties he owned, the mines and farms and forests that contributed to what had once been a vast business empire.

On the other hand, the unofficial ones detailed the locations that supplied Grade XXX banned materials, forests where the ban on experimental breeding was summarily ignored, and played out mines where no one had ever heard of dragon breeding being a controlled activity.

Although the real kicker was that none of it was, strictly speaking, illegal. Through the ages that they remained on the top of the wizarding world, every old family generally acquired a set of indefinite licenses and special exemptions that allowed them to do pretty much whatever they liked.

Of course, those tended to be as easy to take away as they were granted, so things were kept secret just in case.

Harry took them all, shrinking and pocketing them along with the family Grimoire and the Lords' journal.

Both were extremely important, as a Grimoire was the total sum of all knowledge possessed by a family. It contained everything. Every single piece of magic that had ever been developed by a member was there, along with every single book that was in any of the family libraries.

The magic involved was rather complex. What happened was that whenever a member of the family bought a book, they were asked to simply enter it into the family database, which was a magical nexus that consisting of ancient divination magics.(true divination, which was simply the art of acquiring information by magic. Not the rubbish that Trelawney spouted). It was remarkably similar to the computers used by the muggles, in that it allowed instantaneous and unlimited sharing of information. Entering a book meant that it could be accessed by a number of 'allbooks' maintained by the families.

The Grimoire was simply the ultimate allbook.

It had been knowledge about such magics that had allowed Slytherin to work a spell into the Hogwarts wards so that every single book that entered the area was automatically and eternally accessible in both the chamber allbook and the Slytherin family Grimoire.

The Lords' journal was the information and advice left behind by each Head of the family to the next. It detailed things like favors owed and pieces of blackmail that were carefully mentioned and explained.

Moving deeper in, he came to the portraits, where he saw what he was looking for, the blank frame called simply the master frame. Designed as a counter to the problems that came when one wanted to talk to deceased family members, the master frame allowed the Lord of the family to summon any portrait belonging to the family into it.

Done with it, Harry repeated the whole procedure with the Black vault, and soon he was going even deeper into the Earth. Soon, he was at the Eldritch vaults, and was heading in the first one, it being Gryffindor.

Here too, there were mountains of gold and silver. Again, it wasn't what held his interest.

Looking for the books and the frame, he found them behind a door that required his ring to open. Soon, he had them. But he had something else in mind too, here. He recalled that in the Potter vault there had been an entire separated section full of some very particular objects. He hadn't been all that interested in them then, but these ones were different. For one, there were a number of what looked like toy buildings, inside small snow globes.

What happened was that through the years, every pureblood family occupied several separate houses. The number was especially high for families like the Eldritch houses that had emerged from the gods' loins before Atlantis itself was built. So there eventually was the problem of space. They owned only so much land, and becoming bored of houses was easy.

Well, it is said that need is the mother of inventions, so the solution was found in the form of 'bottled' estates. Entire manors, castles and palaces, shrunk and put in glass spheres the size of a modern day snow globe and stored away in bank vaults. When a future Lord felt like it, they could simply 'land' the properties wherever they wished.

This was soon followed by other things, farms, orchards and greenhouses all put away thus. Of course, having discovered such a handy little thing, they were hardly going to stop using it. Manors and businesses were soon followed by conquests when kings, after subjugating a city, decided they liked it, and 'bottled' the whole thing, intending to 'land' it in their own kingdom.

The pattern continued in the same way, till we come to Harry staring at thousands of shelves stuffed full of things like Midas's city of pure gold and a million year old manor that one of his ancestors had been particularly fond of.

Of course, this was not even the strangest thing Harry saw. He entered the next section and saw eggs.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of eggs, of all shapes and colors and sizes

He knew what these were. Magical families tended to be very particular in protecting animals, especially animals with monetary or military values.

Through selective breeding over many generations, the families tried to procure male and female representatives of nearly every species, and indeed, subspecies, within the magical world. They were trapped in their smallest infant forms, placed into magically induced comas, and placed within eggs like this. He had seen similar collections in the Potter and Black vaults, but they all paled in comparison to the Gryffindor.

Still, these things weren't something that concerned him too much right now, as he'd just stopped to take a look. He was out of the vault moments later, and had soon visited and taken what he wanted from the Peverell, Slytherin and Sharr vaults.

Soon, he was in the alley, where he commenced on a shopping trip to get some much needed things. The first thing was a completely new wardrobe in the finest fabrics available, followed by every single book that had been published since 1985. (That had been when Walburga Black had last updated the Black library).

This was followed by several years' worth of potions supplies, spare wands, and numerous other things he would need in his training. (The chamber had all these things, but Harry didn't see any point in depleting the reserves when he could buy them just as easily.)

At last, he was done. So, it was a simple matter of taking the portkey he had made for himself, and he was back in the chamber. He intended to put the acceleration at full power and get at least three to four years out of as many weeks. That would give him the time needed to finally master all the skills he had taken from Voldemort, not to mention the other skills he intended to learn.

After all, Voldemort was very knowledgeable, but all knowledge that he had managed to access was what was to be had, in some form or the other, in the public domain. In his youth, he had never had access to the real treasure troves of magical knowledge, which were the libraries of the ancient families.

This was another place where his horcruxes had played a role in destroying him, as Harry knew for a fact that his once considerable thirst for knowledge was currently lying sealed within Ravenclaw's diadem in the Room of hidden things.

Meaning that when he did acquire heads of ancient and noble families as servants, he had no inclination to make use of their libraries.

But enough about all that, it was time to begin.

Next day, Hogwarts headmaster's office

Albus Dumbledore was worried. It seemed as that was more or less a perpetual state for him nowadays, but right now he was worried more than usual.

Harry had gone missing.

The boy had been on the Hogwarts express, and had gotten off on the platform nine and three quarters. That much the spells on the train had told him. It was what had happened afterwards that had the ancient wizard puzzled.

He had simply disappeared! One moment he disembarking the train, and the next he was gone. Not just that, it had to happen just when Dumbledore had no tracking spells on him.

He should have known. The freak magical accident that had destroyed those dementors had also destroyed Albus' measures to keep aware of Harry's whereabouts. Dumbledore had been thinking to go and recast them, along with doing a legilimentic scan to see just what had happened that night, but something had told him that to do so to a boy whose core and mind were so unstable would be a recipe for disaster.

And now the result was staring him in the face.

More than anyone in the world, Dumbledore knew just how important Harry was. He still remembered that it was just Harry that was currently standing in the way of the monster that was Tom Riddle.

Albus still remembered the nightmare that had begun that summer of sixty nine, when the last vestiges of the boy he had developed a grudging respect for died, leaving behind a monster that would change the definition of terror in the minds of the British wizarding populace.

He remembered the horrors as over the course of eleven years, the monster-that-was-once - a-man had corrupted so many of their best and brightest, making them do atrocities that left grown men shaking. The litany of sacrifices Albus had been forced to make to give the chance to return to the light was so horrible, it was almost worst than the direct crimes they'd committed.

Time after time men and women had died in droves, people who had trusted Albus, had placed themselves under his command, trusting him to lead them to a victory.

Dead, just so he could give the poor misguided souls another chance to seek redemption.

And then the prophecy had come like a ray of light through the dark clouds. Trelawney's words, said in this very office were the only thing that Albus believed could end the war. He had analyzed it a hundred times, and had gotten the same result every time. It had to be done. The prophecy would have to be fulfilled, there was no alternative.

But for that to happen, Voldemort would have to know about it.

So Albus had held another interview. This time in a place where he knew was frequented by death eaters and sympathizers. It had worked beautifully, Snape getting exactly as much as Albus wanted him to hear, and had set Tom on the trail of his own downfall.

Then little Harry had one the impossible, and Albus's plans had borne immediate fruit. Only, unable to suppress the scholar within himself, he had snagged the child out of his burning home and brought it to Hogwarts to run a few tests.

What he had seen was horrifying. This child was no savior, it was the avatar of evil!

Albus had detected Necromancy and Parseltongue in the child. Such evil and dark abilities at such a young age! Who knew what he would become?

If it had been just that, Albus could even have tolerated it.

But the child had the largest magical core Albus had ever seen. In fact, it was a little more than that of an extremely powerful adult wizard.

A sixty year old, extremely powerful adult dark wizard

Hm... It seemed that the prophecy had been more literal than he'd thought.

'Marked as his equal', indeed.

Albus had been left with no choice but to bind the boy's powers. He had to, the boy was going to be living with muggles after all, and even if Albus ignored the nature of his talents (which he never would), the size of the core alone meant that he would flatten half of Surrey in a tantrum the first time he did accidental magic.

And then it had been the mental spells. After all, the boy couldn't be allowed to be too intelligent or ambitious, as then he would be prone to discover the spells, and all of Albus's work would have been in vain.

Not to mention the fact that such things had a tendency of making the person in question rather fond of life. Albus couldn't have that; he needed Harry to think that he was completely unworthy to live. After all, that was a key point of Voldemort's defeat.

Harry Potter would have to give himself up for a death, knowing that Voldemort was the kind of person that could and would make it long and painful.

Very, very long and painful, but that was a necessity.

After all, it wasn't as if he could ask the necromancers' guild to spare the twenty minutes that it would take them to do an exorcism, could he?

The very idea was ridiculous. He, Albus Dumbledore, going to those evil soulless fiends for help!

How did those young people say it? Not Bloody Likely.

There was also the fact that Harry himself did not deserve to live. Even if Albus could have done something (and to be honest, he could have done a lot), there was the fact that Harry had already manifested two of the most evil gifts known to wizardkind. Who knew how many more were on the way?

It wouldn't do at all if Harry killed Voldemort only to replace him, even more so as Harry's powers meant that he would be a much worse nightmare. Dumbledore had lived through two dark Lords. He had no intention to allow the rise of a third one who could be much worse than the last two combined.

No, best let both remove each other.

Although…, he'd been somewhat bothered about the muggles, given the way Minerva had spoken of them. He'd thought about checking up on Harry, but then he'd remembered that cute letter Petunia had written all those years ago. Nah, there was no need. Petunia loved magic. Minerva was just getting paranoid.

Besides, he had several much more important things to do.

Four weeks later (real time) Morning, Hills outside Hogsmeade

A figure dressed in navy blue robes left the cave that was one of the numerous secret exits of the chamber of secrets.

Harry left the chamber a very different person. What had gone in was a young, recently emancipated boy, knowledgeable but only somewhat. The young man who left was another matter altogether. During the four years he had spent training, he had worked tirelessly, learning and mastering each and every piece of magic he had been able to get his hands on.

He had started with first thoroughly completing the Hogwarts syllabus. Every single spell, potion, calculation was read, analyzed and mastered. After that, it was the vocational knowledge. Through the master frame, he had, over a long period of time, absorbed and assimilated the knowledge of as many of his ancestors as he could manage.

There had been ward crafters, obliviators, aurors, enchanters, potions masters, spellsmiths, dark Lords, necromancers, blood mages, the list went on.

Harry had known that every single skill of every single ancestor was too big a goal for now, but he had made a point out of making it as large a variety as possible. He had actually held off somewhat on the more arcane magics specialists like the aforementioned necromancers and blood mages. This was because those portions of his core were still suppressed.

Speaking of suppressions, he had started on a series of potions and enchantments that would, over time do away with the bindings. It was slow work, but necessary.

Nor had been training the only thing he'd done. There had been copious amounts of planning, and several surprises.

Flashback:

It had been roughly six weeks since he started training. He'd completed everything there was or had ever been on the Hogwarts curriculum, and had carefully inventoried everything from the Potter, Black and Peverell estates.

It was a task made easier by the fact that instead of wasting time reading all the ledgers and books, he'd assimilated the memories of the last Lord of each family from their portraits. It didn't mean that he didn't read the books as that would be plain stupid, but it made the whole thing quite a bit simpler. But that was done, and now it was time to start on the Sharrs.

Tapping his ring on the Sharr master frame, he said "Lord Darius Sharr". Within moments, a portrait appeared in the frame. Harry looked at the man, and stared.

The man stared right back.

Now one thing to be remembered was that before now, he'd simply summoned the people, talked a bit, laughed a bit with them,( the fact that he didn't feel emotions did not mean that he wouldn't fake he did), and then asked their permission for the assimilation.

If they gave it, well and good, otherwise he ignored them and did it anyway.

But the relevant fact was that things had been as he'd expected. No real surprises.

This time, not so.

It wasn't so, because staring at him from the frame was a face he knew very well. The aristocratic chin, a hawk like nose, golden hair and cerulean eyes with that tinge of cruelty that had made this man's name the synonym of terror from Berlin to Paris.

It was the face of Gellert Grindelwaldt.

"Well, are you going to stare at me all day, boy? The portrait spoke, bringing him out of his haze. Immediately, his occlumency asserted itself, reigning in every bit of the shock he felt.

When he answered, it was with a clear mind. "Well, no, it's just that you're not quite what I expected when I called for Darius Sharr. You see, I've just become Lord of several families, including Sharr, and I'm getting some information about the assets I now own."

"By ripping it out of peoples' minds?" he said.

Harry stared, wondering just how he knew.

Sensing the unasked question, the man answered " Don't look at me like that boy, I'm no ordinary painting. Sensing my surroundings is only one of the extra abilities I was painted with, and the taint of mind magic lies heavily upon the air."

"Well, yes. That is what I've been doing." Harry said with a shrug.

"Good. That's what I did. It saves a lot of time. And before you ask, yes you can assimilate my memories. Best keep away from the magical knowledge, though, for now. You don't look like you can quite handle it. At least, keep away from the major part. You're welcome to the five years of Durmstrang that I attended." Grindelwaldt responded.

Harry gave another shrug. He had no intention to absorb the magical knowledge of the only man ever considered Dumbledore's equal just yet.

Seeing the man nod, he looked the portrait in the eye, and in another moment, he was in. After that, it took just moments to take the needed memories. Another few moments to strip them of all emotions, personal bias, etc., and he was set.

Of course, seeing as he wasn't completely stupid, he ran the mind magic version of what the muggles called an 'antivirus' through them, looking for thought bombs, personality overlays, and all the usual (and quite a few very unusual) traps. Surprisingly, there were none. It seemed that Grindelwaldt had, actually managed to resist the temptation of resurrecting himself in a thirteen year old body.

A wise thing to so, as Harry had very carefully engraved runes on the wall behind every painting (including Salazar's, and by Merlin had that been difficult) designed to release fiendfyre in ten minutes unless Harry willed otherwise.

Merging the memories into his own, he suddenly knew all the details of the Sharr family, and started analyzing them in depth, seeing just where they tied in with his other resources.

Flashback end

But now, it was done. Not that he was finished learning (That was something that he had no intention of ever letting happen), but he now had enough in terms of skills, knowledge and prepared plans, that he felt properly prepared for what he was going to do.

There were four cornerstones of power. The first was wealth, the second was influence in the government, the third was prestige, and the fourth was force.

To be any successful, Harry needed to acquire all four as fast as possible and in as large amounts as possible. To that end, it was now time to put his plans in motion.

But first, he needed to secure his complete independence.

To that end, the first visit Harry made was to the Ministry of Magic, the Department of Magical Education.

There, he put in a request to immediately sit for both his OWLs and NEWTs in Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies, Care of Magical Creatures, Astronomy, DADA and Herbology. He left out Divination and History of Magic, as he did need an excuse to remain at Hogwarts if he chose to.

Normally, a request like that took nearly a week to be processed, and at least three to four days before the applicant received an owl with the schedule.

It sat with the clerk, where it was submitted, for a full day before it went to the examinations authority. There, it passed back and fro for roughly four days, getting signed and countersigned, till it landed on the desk of Overseer, Special Arrangements. Being as things were, it sat there for another day, before it was stamped 'approved', and sent down to the clerk in charge of scheduling. He picked a day out of several free days and sent out the owl to the applicant. This took another day.

Then, he sent a memorandum to the archives where numerous sets of question papers were kept in reserve for this very purpose.

When the clerk received the affirmative response from the applicant, he took out his scheduler, a chart with names and room numbers on it, and marked one as 'reserved' for the appropriate dates and timings, along with the applicant's name.

However, it being a government department, the officials were nothing if not corrupt. Harry's name, along with a two hundred galleon cheque quietly placed in the clerk's pocket, followed by ones of increasingly higher amounts in those of successively higher officials, meant that he was being shown to a room about half an hour after he came to the ministry.

Once there, it took him about three hours to complete all of the papers, which were normally spread over a two week schedule.

Done, he followed it with another cheque to the clerk responsible for the results, extracting a promise to get Professor Tofty on the papers right away.

He could have avoided all of this by simply going to Marchbanks or Fudge, his name would have gotten the job done easily enough.

But there were several problems with that. Marchbanks was a true, died in the wool Dumbledorean, while "The pocket of Lucius Malfoy" may as well have been Fudge's official address.

And Harry had no inclination to let either party become aware of what he was doing quite so soon.

Alternatively, he could have just used his fame, avoiding the matter of the money. That too, while a viable option, had consequences. After all, there would be other transactions.

He needed both their silence and goodwill, and the oldest and truest way of getting that from someone was to buy it. Well, apart from blackmailing them, but Neither Charlus nor Orion had bothered with lowly Department of Magical Education officials in their day.

Of course, an added benefit was that the prolonged contact with a large number of people allowed him some much needed practice with legilimency (which did get him valuable pieces of blackmail for the future)

His visit to the Department of Magical Education was followed by ones to the Department of Magical Transport, The DMLE, The Department of Magical Games and Sports, The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and quite a few lesser known offices, applying for and securing Apparition and Portkey creation licenses, along with ones for Obliviation, Legilimency and just about everything that was available.

Of course, the sheer amount of information he managed to glean about the dirty secrets of the people working there was priceless. The fact that the Triwizard tournament would be held at Hogwarts that year paled in comparison, as did the quidditch world cup.

Of course, the real jewel of the trip was what he discovered in the mind of Ludo Bagman, the Director for Magical Games and Sports. It seemed that Mr. Bagman was quite deep in debt with the goblins, owing them to the tune of about fifteen thousand galleons.

To compound things, he'd gone on to bet it all on the Quidditch world cup finals, meaning that if he won it would solve all his problems, and get him a very nice retirement package. If he lost, though, it would mean being buried so deep in debt his grandchildren would be ruined paying the interest.

That was, unless Harry interjected. Which he had every intention of doing, just not yet. For now, he had left behind a compulsion to double the debt, making a mental note to buy it as soon as possible.

His personal tasks done and freedom now secure, it was time for more serious arrangements.

His next stop was at the archives, although not before he put away his wand, replacing it with one of the spares from the chamber of secrets. This was followed by spells to scramble his magical signature, one to completely hide his scent, a notice-me-not charm on his face, along with voice modulation spells on his throat.

Just in case, though, he entered a loo and left a completely different person, his body morphed into one he had created after combining features from several of his ancestors, while the robes adjusted to their new measurements.

It had eventually turned out that he was a metamorphmagus. It had been one of several abilities suppressed by Dumbledore, but Harry, Darius and Salazar had all agreed it was too useful to allow remain suppressed.

His preparations complete, it took him about half an hour at the registry of ancient and noble houses to forge several new people into existence.

He had eventually decided against making common knowledge the truth about his heritage. Being the head of six families, while it gave him enormous power, was bound to make people very nervous when dealing with him.

And so Aries Pollux Black, born 1968, the long lost younger brother of Sirius and Regulus Black came into being. It was actually rather easy when it came down to it. After all, for the Noble families it was always the Paterfamilias who drew up birth certificates. And Harry had learned to forge Arcturus's signature from the man himself.

The birth certificate was followed by a note mentioning that the boy would be home schooled, as his health was frail and his parents didn't want him at Hogwarts. Next were the OWL and NEWT marks(12 Outstandings apiece) , followed by a passport with a stamp for magical china, which was the single most insulated magical nation in the world.

All in all, a pureblooded brilliant young man, who had spent several years out of the country, and had just returned to his roots to take control of his heritage. The black ring on his finger would ensure that no one would so much as think of questioning his identity.

Similar efforts brought into life two more men, called Erebus Timonzel Sharr, (the loving brother of Liliana Aideen Sharr), and Damien Ezekiel Peverell, respectively.

The Potter, Slytherin and Gryffindor families, Harry would claim under his own name.

These measures would allow him to wield the combined influence of six families, without being fingered as having too much power too soon.

When, about a couple years later, all three of the men had accidents, leaving him their estates…

Well, it was hardly his fault, was it?

His final task at the ministry done, he made his way to the atrium. There, he apparated to Goldia Alley, a subsidiary alley to Diagon, housing all of the HQs and offices of the Magical world.

There, he looked around and soon spotted 19, Goldia Alley. The buttercup yellow building that was the office of Talbot, Smith and Boot, solicitors of the Potter family.

He had ventured out of the chamber a few days go to send Hedwig requesting an appointment. It was in half an hour, but he had a feeling the man in question would be all too glad to see him early.

Going in, he asked to be taken to Lord Talbot. Within minutes, he was ushered to a door with a gold leaf plaque that read 'Ralph Talbot, Senior Partner'. The usher knocked, to receive a curt "Come in" from the occupant.

Harry and the man entered to see a middle aged man sitting behind his desk, going through a file. Looking up, he saw Harry, face breaking into a smile "Hello, Mister Potter, or should I say, Lord Wilmington?" He asked, seeing the ring on Harry's finger.

"Either will do just fine, Lord Talbot." Harry answered.

"Well, Lord Wilmington, coming straight to the point, what can I do for you?" he said, pulling out a notepad.

Harry rattled off a string of orders "First of all, I need you to draw up the paperwork for the formation of a new company. I want it incorporated, and trading through subsidiaries.

After that, you know about the boy who lived adventure books? Find out everyone involved in their publishing, and issue writs for misuse of my image to the publishers. As for the authors, tell them they'll have to deal with you if they don't want to continue writing the books from Azkaban.

Once that's done, I want you to see these addresses. All of them have their rental contracts coming up for renewal in a few days or so. You'll need to refuse all of them, as I need them free for my own use."

Reading the list, Talbot frowned. "Are you sure, Lord Wilmington? The residences and Diagon alley plots are no problem. There isn't anyone of consequence there. But this one, it's right down the street from here. And the firm in question is a powerful one." He, said, indicating 15, Goldia alley.

"Yeah, I'm sure. After all, I need a headquarters for the company I just asked you to draw up the papers for."

"Ah, yes. Fine then. Name of the company?"

"Make it….. Althric. Althric Inc.

Oh, and open up a subsidiary, a publishing house called Althric's Chroniclers. Then award it all primary rights to my image. Tell those authors about it, and issue a cease and desist order to all publishers printing anything about me"

"O.K., about the writs, you know they'll try to settle, don't you.?"

" Yeah, I do. Offer them that we won't prosecute for….. say, forty percent of the total profits they've made till date, followed by ten percent of anything they make in the future. Throw in secondary rights to my image."

"Very well. Will there be anything else, Lord Wilmington?" asked the lawyer.

"This shall suffice for now, thank you." Harry answered.

"Understood. I will have the papers and the writs prepared for you to sign in a few hours. May I ask if you will be here, or should I owl them?"

"Owl them. I've got several more things to do today, and it would be difficult to make it back." Harry said.

"All right then, your grace. Look out for it tomorrow morning." The solicitor said, before rising.

They shook hands, and Harry was off.

It was time to deal with Voldemort.

He apparated. Immediately, he was standing in front of a derelict old house, with bits of snakeskin sill hanging off its front door. As he moved forward, the wards on the place activated. Tree branches became serpents, the telltale power of an anti-disapparation jinx blanketed itself over the area.

There were more things to come, but he was in no mood to deal with them. He knew what he had to do. The wards would not stop doing what they were programmed to do, not unless he stopped them. "Stop. Lord Voldemort commands it." He said in parseltongue.

They did. The trees returned to normal. The walls of the house, which had been bubbling to release new horrors, smoothed over once again. The jinx faded.

After that, it took him five minutes to retrieve the golden box that contained the ring of Marvolo Gaunt. He didn't touch it, keeping it afloat magically. He knew for a fact that there was an extremely powerful Withering Curse on the ring.

Thinking of the ring, he couldn't help but chuckle.

Hadn't that been a surprise.

Flashback:

Harry was discussing how to remove soul fragments from vessels without damaging the vessels it wasn't going all that well.

Salazar and Darius had both confessed to never have had much interest in Horcruxes. The other heads of the houses had given some leads, but progress was slow.

The most promising results had come from the Peverells, and Harry had been going backwards through the Lords trying to find something before he gave up and hit the books. He thought it was too bad that magical portraits were a comparatively recent invention, being roughly ten or so million years old. Had he possessed one dating back to the middle-earthen era, all his problems would have been solved.

After all, Sauron Peverell had invented horcruxes. He was bound to know all there was to know about them.

But enough of what ifs. He'd been thinking about something Grindelwaldt had said, upon hearing the description of the ring horcrux.
"A black stone engraved with a triangle containing a circle and a straight line?" are you sure, Harry? I mean, are you absolutely certain?"

"Yes, I am. Why? What's so special about it? I mean, except that it's your mark, of course." Harry'd said.

He had thought about why Grindelwaldt's mark had been on that stone, but he'd figured that Morfin or Marvolo must have been a fan. That was what Tom thought too.

"Because that mark means that you've unknowingly done what thousands have tried to do and failed. You have found Cadmus's masterpiece, the resurrection stone itself.

End Flashback

The bloody resurrection stone. The wet dream of every necromancer on earth, and one of the three artifacts that together held the power to grant a person true divinity.

The witch or wizard who united the Deathly Hallows would be the master of death. The sheer level of power that meant…

Because being the master of death was much, much more than being a necromancer or being immortal. Second to magic, death was the greatest force in existence. Its mastery meant absolute control over something that could and had destroyed entire pantheons of gods in the past, and complete freedom from all laws, whether of magic or man.

After all, no laws applied to the dead.

There was so much more, but right now he had work to do.

He could think of the mastery of death later, especially about what it meant for him, when he considered the ring along with the cloak that he knew for a fact was older than the earliest civilizations known to muggles.

With a flick of Harry's wand, the box disappeared, banished to a specially prepared dungeon in the Chamber of Secrets.

His work there done, Harry vanished with a slight pop, appearing in one of the numerous back streets of Great Hangleton. "Point me homeless man" he said, wand on his palm. Following the spell, he stunned a hobo, before turning him into a toy.

Putting the man in his pocket, he turned and disapparated soundlessly, appearing near a certain cave.

A quick bloodletting from the man(now back to human), and he was in. Making his way to where he knew the chain to bring up the boat was(the hobo trailing behind courtesy of a quick mobilicorpus), he flicked his wand. Immediately, the chain became visible, at the same time as it started pooling on the floor, while a shadow grew in the lake.

Within moments, he was in the boat, and another few seconds had him at the island pedestal. There, he opened the man's mouth wide, and petrified him so he remained that way.

Then it was a simple matter of conjuring a goblet and pouring the potion that he knew to be the Drought of Dementia (another Slytherin family recipe), down his throat. The man started shuddering, but the spells held.

When the basin became empty, Harry picked up the locket. It was followed by a quick piece of magic to turn the man into a replica of the locket, which he left in the basin, which was filling up with the potion again out of the nearly five gallons that Harry knew Tom had left there.

Within minutes Harry was out of the cavern, ready to apparate, only to frown as he realized something. Among the skills he had developed was the power to sense magic. It was a precursor to opening the third eye (which he couldn't do yet, thanks to Dumbledore again). And as he focused on the locket, he could tell one thing.

Whatever it was, this locket was not a horcrux.

Opening it, Harry saw a piece of paper. After reading it, he barely suppressed the urge to groan. Great, juuust great. Abso-bloody-lutely brilliant. It was gone. Some moron had come by, and stolen the damn thing.

Crushing his anger, Harry forced himself to think clearly. The note called Voldemort as 'the Dark Lord'. In the last war, that meant there was a ninety-nine percent probability that the writer was a former death eater, or at least a sympathizer . Harry went over just who knew about the cave.

There had been those two kids, Bishop and that girl all those years ago. Some death eater could have researched and found them in Voldemort's past, then forced them to bring them here. Possible, but too unlikely.

Then there was.. no one. Voldemort had dug out the cavern using inferi, he himself had cast the spells. No one else was involved. Well, there was that elf, but it was dead by now. It had to be, no one could survive the inferi at the top of the potion.

No, he was better off focusing on the name.

R.A.B. hm…

Given that the man was most likely a death eater or a sympathizer, the B had to be a pureblood name.

Bullstrode? Possible.

Bagnold? Unlikely, but possible

Bagman? Unlikely.

Bell? Very unlikely.

Bones? Nah.

Black? Definitely possible. Actually, the only Black family death eater was….Regulus…Arcturus… Black.

That had to be it! Come to think of it, the Blacks were old necromancers, second only to the Peverells. If anyone would have detailed knowledge on soul magics, it would be them.

If Regulus was the thief, then a very good choice for the hiding place was his house. From what Harry remembered, he'd lived at the London townhouse of the Black family.

12, Grimmauld place, if memory served.

A second later he was standing in the middle of Grimmauld Place. looking at the buildings, there was no number twelve.

It was protected, obviously. Channeling his power through the Black signet, Harry willed the house to appear.

Within moments, Harry saw the buildings pushed backwards, revealing a building that must have once been a great house, but was now nothing more than a disgrace.

Entering, Harry made a mental note to buy an elf for this place as soon as possible.

Passing through the foyer, he walked deeper into the house and came to the parlor. A massive staircase descended from the back wall and broke into separate stairs rising to what were likely the upper floors, of which he knew for a fact there were four total. Dusty couches and chairs lay haphazardly about a large fireplace that was currently unlit.

"This place is a disgrace," he muttered, reiterating his earlier thoughts as he walked towards the large staircase in the back of the room. Less than half the way up, the curtains of a portrait at the middle landing flew open. She looks even more horse-like than Aunt Petunia…

"Invaders!" the woman screeched, "come to violate my noble house, no doubt! Kreacher! Kreacher!"

He really, really wasn't in the mood for this. Narrowing his eyes in swelling anger, Harry brandished the family ring and snarled, "Silence! You will address me with respect!"

The woman's eyes widened almost comically in her frame as she beheld his form dressed in his finery and brandishing the Black crest on his finger.

Harry turned as a slight pop sounded a few feet left of him.

Seeing what was there, he thought "So the elf survived after all"

His eyes widened slightly at the apparent age of the thing.

"Mistress called…"the thing trailed off and fixed Harry with a glare "Filthy mudbloods bothering mis—"

Okay, that was it. The gloves were off.

Harry cut the elf off with a banishing hex and sent him flying into a nearby banister; he struck it at speed and crumpled to the floor. "You will address me as master," he bit out, leveling his wand at the creature. The grayed head slowly lifted and stared at the ring flashing at his side. "This house is a disgrace. You shame the House of Black!"

"M-your grace I-" the elf started to whine, before Harry cut him off again.

"Spare me your excuses. Tell me, the Dark Lord took you a cave when he was alive. He fed you a potion that should have killed you. How did you return alive?" Harry asked.

"Kre-Kreacher's master Regulus said to come back, so Kreacher came back." It muttered.

Harry nodded. There was nothing higher for a house elf than its master's bidding. "Very well. I know that Regulus asked you to take him to the cave, and that one of you somehow brought back a locket. You must have tried to destroy it. Did you succeed?"

"No master" the elf said, eyes wide in shock.

"Fine. Bring it to me." Harry said.

The elf vanished with a small pop, reappearing a few moments later carrying what Harry knew to be the original locket. Harry ordered it to put the locket on the ground. Rummaging in his pockets, Harry pulled out a shrunken box. Levitating the locket inside, he flicked his wand, banishing the locket to another prepared room in the chamber.

His work done, Harry said to the elf in a tone much kinder than before. "Listen Kreacher. I became the Lord of Black some days ago. I know that you have been terribly alone for the last ten years, but this condition of the house is not acceptable. You will either bring it to where it should have been, or you will receive clothes and be replaced. Is that clear?"

"Yes, master. Thank you master. Kreacher will not fail you. Kreacher will clean all house. Kill nasty pests, Kreacher will." The elf said, bobbing its head.

"Very well. Now, I'm going out for some business. I may or may not be back today." He said tersely, before dissaparating.

The cup was almost too easy to get. Harry went to Gringotts, demanding and receiving a meeting with Grithlauk the greedy, manager of the Sharr account, which was Harry's biggest account at the bank. Seeing his ring, the goblins almost ran to get the goblin in question.

Meeting it, Harry asked the Goblin to summon the director of the inheritance section, along with the account managers for Potter, Black, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Peverell. When they were there, he excused the goblin from the word of Polaris, allowing it to tell the other goblins. This was followed by Harry ordering the goblins to alter their records to show Aries, Erebus and Damien as the new Lords for Black, Sharr and Peverell respectively.(Well, not their records, but the records they would show any enquirer.)

That done, he ordered the Lestrange vaults merged into the Black one, something that was very much his right, given the fact that Lestrange was a house Vassal to the Black.

One quick trip down to the vaults later the cup had joined the other Horcruxes in the chamber.

Having decided to deal with the diadem later, Harry went back into the alley, funneling power into the Potter signet, willing it to guide him as he disapparated.

Deep in Wales, age old wards over a splendid manor house detected an incoming apparition. Identifying the person, they spread wide open, welcoming their master.

Lord Wilmington was home.