Slytherins Secret

AN: I guess there's not loads of progress here it's mostly about me establishing my version of the main characters.

Chapter ten: replies

Thanks to his midnight excursions and his double probably being back in time, Harry was still unusually tired and again slept through much of the morning, when he awoke it was to the sight of Hedwig waiting impatiently on his headboard. She had made the arduous journey, from northern Scotland to London and back, in a decent time since, judging by the large letter clutched in her talons, she had needed to wait a reasonable length of time before a reply could be issued.

~Good day fledgling, one would think you had become an owl, sleeping through the day like a sensible being~ she hooted managing to convey amusement despite her mostly inflexible face.

Harry reached up to scratch her head and quickly checked he infirmary before he could reply ~Hello Hedwig, good flight?~

~Clean air and good winds, a little blustery, but I manage, the Goblins were like a flock of starlings upon seeing a hawk when I delivered your letter.~

~Entertained were you?~

Hedwig hooted snootily ~when one is as far above others of their own species as I, then one must find amusement wherever possible~

~ Are you really smarter than other owls?~ Harry asked curiously.

~Yes, you are a powerful magic user and for two summers I have been the only companion available, you needed me to be intelligent and didn't know that I couldn't be, therefore your magic ensured that I am. In addition all creatures who converse with a speaker pick up a little human intelligence to add to their normal thoughts, it is a part of the gift, to allow conversation in words however simplistic their content.~

"Oh" Harry said blinking, when he thought about it nobody else had an owl that acted as intelligently as Hedwig, and Boa constrictors are not normally considered intelligent enough to speak in sentences, especially with a Spanish accent. "Can I have the letter please girl?" he requested, focusing on keeping to English.

When Hedwig extended her foot to him Harry felt a tingle of magic on the envelope and looked a query at the owl who hooted reassuringly so he took it. When he broke the seal, after reading the message insisting that Harry James Potter and only Harry James Potter was legally allowed to open mail from the bank addressed to him, he felt magic wash over his body tingling. It took him a few seconds to process the sensation and the first line of the topmost letter in the wallet explained it.

To our esteemed customer Mr Harry James Potter (Heir to the Ancient and Nobel House of Potter)

There have indeed been several communications from the bank to which you failed to respond, since they were received that means somebody unauthorised was opening your mail. Normally we do not offer our confidentiality protections without a direct request, but feel that our failure to detect the diversion of a client's property (your vault key) can be appropriately compensated for by the free provision of this service for a period of 12 years (equal to that during which your mail was unsecured). Return the enclosed form to acknowledge both our debt and your your acceptance of the solution.

May your gold always flow.

Junior account manager Griphook

Harry smiled to himself, he knew to be careful when dealing with Goblins, they were honest and generally helpful, especially to wealthy, polite, clients, but they considered anyone stupid enough not to pay attention during business to be deserving of the consequences. He quickly drafted a response and put it aside for Madam Pomfrey to examine later.

Junior Account Manager Griphook,

I accept the terms of the settlement and the scope of the debt provided that this service is extended to any vaults I control or have membership of and all of my actions within the bank, I am unaware if I currently poses other vaults but assume that there is a family vault, I also intend to start a separate vault for the Basilisk parts and any profit deriving from the sale of said parts.

Provided further errors do not become apparent, Confidentiality Protection for all of my vaults for a period no less than 12 years is adequate compensation for the debt incurred by loss of my vault key and communications prior to my awareness of the wizarding wold, after this period I cannot consider Gringotts wholly accountable.

I would like to discuss fabricated reports which may be sent to whoever has been interfering with my post and understand that this will require appropriate compensation.

May your gold flow and enemies flee

Harry James Potter

The next item in the packet was a standard guardianship contract, and a description of the process of binding, the Goblins also explained that his parents will had been sealed so that only an acknowledged Potter with Vault full access could retrieve it. Harry frowned upon reading this, before realising that Dobby was a Potter magically, and ought to be able to pop to the family vault even if Harry was too young, he would however, need to personally authorise him as a banking elf with Gringotts.

Following that was a large selection of paperwork, mostly statements and receipts, which had been copied from the Goblin's archives now that they knew he had missed them. They were accompanied by a note saying that he had until September 1st to respond to any questions or problems, rather than the dates stated on his paperwork, if action had been taken on the notices he would have the details and could cancel or approve the result. These were put aside until he could get hold of some decent filing stationary and had plenty of time to spread them out i.e. under the time ward 'next week'.

He also had a response stating that Gringotts would be happy to handle sale of Basilisk parts and any legal work, along with set up of a vault for the parts, as per his request, for a fee of 10% of the profits. However they did not keep appropriate potions masters on staff, they added that they could provide a list of qualified masters and contact them for him, for a fee of course. Harry thought over Salazar's recommendations and decided that he would approach Snape on his own, after researching appropriate fees, and added an extra line to his reply offering the Goblins 5% of profits or 1000 galleons whichever was larger provided that legal work included a contract for a potions master and contracts for the restricted items (namely the venom). He thought the goblins would likely agree, as 1000 galleons would equate to 10% of an average Basilisk kill, the average Basilisk being just over a 3rd the size of the one in the chamber and at least half as ancient.

The last item was a current statement/account summary with an introduction from his account management team. Which he was instructed to activate by placing a drop of blood on the Gringotts seal making the results visible to his eyes only and casting mild compulsion on the unfriendly. Unless he temporarily keyed them in nobody could see anything other than a statement for his trust vault.

(AN: thoughts on conversion rates an general costs are welcome, I think i want Galleons etc to correspond to money when England was still using shillings and ha-pence, you know a galleon = a pond but a pound feeds a large family for a week)

The current holdings of Mr Harry James Potter on May 22nd 1992

Active Account: Trust Vault, established July 31st 1980 by Lord Charles James Potter(deceased)

Partial Access: Potter vaults

Partial Access: Slytherin Vaults(account is subject to restrictions)

Partial Access: Gryffindor Vaults(account is subject to restrictions)

Named Heir: Black family Vaults

Named Heir: Personal Vault Lord Sirius Orion Black

Pending investigation: Further 3 personal vaults

All partial access vaults will become active when you meet the heir requirements, you MUST be a minimum of 17 to remove moneys, but many vaults have other requirements for entry, details can be provided by your senior account manager although the information is fragmentary for the ancient vaults.

This sheet is self-updating, for a fee, a similar feature may be added to your monthly statements. Further junior managers may be added to work with your recently acquired vaults should you activate them.

May our hoards increase and enemies despair

Senior Account manager Sharpaxe

When Harry put everything back into the envelope he automatically closed the flap and the seal resealed the packet, smiling happily, he decided to slide the envelope face down under his books, just in case.

He added another correction to his letter now that he knew some details of his vault and confirmed that he would be visiting his account manager when practicable, before putting his reply aside for the healer.

When he was done he looked up to see Madam Pomfrey hovering over him and quickly filled her in on the less personal aspects of his response from the goblin, they decided to wait and go over the guardianship contract in the afternoon. Having already been up for some time, whilst dealing with his letters, Harry ended up having breakfast in bed before getting up and having a bath. This luxury allowed him to do some Occlumency practice in private, after a 20 minute soak and mediation session he returned to the main room and Madam Pomfrey showed him the basic manipulation exercises for his arm and left him to it.

After about half an hour of this Harry's arm was aching fiercely so he stopped and Madam Pomfrey again did her test, standing just next to him before he allowed that he could feel the magic. In truth he had become much more sensitive to her magic over the past week, and could now feel the magic as a pleasant buzz even on the other side of the room. He hadn't made much progress with identifying spells, especially since Madam Pomfrey was sticking exclusively to charms, whether sensory or housekeeping and those spells were too similar at his current stage of development, to differentiate between. When she was done with her testing, during which she had him stand and tried coming from behind and the sides to test the true limits of his sensitivity, Madam Pomfrey cautiously ventured the opinion that he would be allowed out on Saturday in time to wave off most of the school.

Harry decided to put of his History revision and dived eagerly back into his Runes book, promising himself that he'd do boring work after his friends visited. The more runes he studied, the more he was interested, he idly wondered if he'd be good at languages, or if it was the magic in the runes that resonated for him. He had only been reading for half an hour when Ron and Hermione appeared at the door of the Hospital wing, Hermione looking like she had found some new crusade but not meeting his eyes and Ron looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"Hi guys" he greeted them cheerfully, when their expressions barely altered his tone became more serious and he asked "what's up?"

"Ummm nothing Harry, we're fine how are you?" Hermione responded still looking awkward.

Ron sighed heavily and plopped himself down in a seat next to Harry's bed "She asked me why I thought I owed you anything when you were just being a friend mate, and I..I explained well, everything."

"Oh" Harry responded eloquently, he had hoped to avoid having this conversation, ever, but he supposed that was just wishful thinking "Hermione…"

"Yes Harry" She growled through gritted teeth "thank you so much for telling him Ronald"

"Uhhhh" Ron replied leaning away from her in his chair.

"Hermione what precisely is the problem?" Harry knew of lots of possibilities, but he'd rather know which specific part of this tangled mess had her knickers in a twist.

"I don't know, it could be the fact that you went behind my back with this, or it could be that this 'debt' even exits, I mean can anyone prove it, I don't think so, or it could be that…" she responded launching into a patented, high-speed, Hermione tirade.

Harry cut her off by putting his hand over her mouth and she glared angrily at him "right, thank you, now let's address problem one shall we? Since I came to the wizarding world I've been trying to find out more about my parents and family, as you know. As you also know I've not had much luck, but in the process of researching I've often been curious about normal wizarding custom, life and beliefs and I've talked to Ron, Neville and some of the Quiddich team about things I've seen mentioned, mostly stuff that nobody writes about in detail because everybody knows, alright?"

"Yes I know that Harry, although honestly why you are interested I such a stagnated backwater culture…"

"Thank you Hermione, that is largely why you've been excluded in allot of these conversations, honestly what did you think me and Ron did, just play chess for hours day after day? No, we do talk occasionally; he could probably pass the first year of Muggle Studies just from our conversations. So after the troll incident Neville mentioned life debts in passing, talking about one of his Gran's friends, and I talked to Ron about it, neither of us was sure how to calculate the specifics so we researched it." He took a deep breath and looked seriously at the volatile girl willing her to understand. "We found that you do owe me one, but that the debt is easier to repay if the action is unconscious, so long as the debtor acknowledges in some way the debt. By that point you had thanked me for saving you from the troll, so we decided to wait and see, if the school was half as dangerous as it seemed, given that within two months we had run into a troll and a cerebrus, we figured chances were you'd save me using some advanced spell sooner rather than later. If you hadn't begun to repay the debt by the end of the year we'd have told you and let you choose an appropriate option, but since you had until your 17th to make a repayment or a decision we figured there was time."

"And then you saved Harry from falling of his broom, it didn't cancel the debt because you were friends and you weren't in any danger but it was a good start. 'Meant your magic was happy 'cause you were doing what it wanted, and fast, so…" Ron shrugged figuring she could understand the rest for herself.

"Alright I understand what you were thinking, if you believe in this debt nonsense, but surely it's just silliness, I mean magic isn't alive." Hermione protested.

"Hermione," Harry replied gently "there are documented cases of people with unacknowledged and unpaid debts going mad, people harming the other half of an acknowledged bond have lost their magic, wars have been won, lost, stopped and started over debts, it won't go away because it's not rational and measurable. Besides the way you act around me is very unlike you sometimes, petrifying Neville, making a restricted potion in a bathroom? That's the unresolved debt making you more receptive to my way of thinking; I think you would be our friend or maybe just my friend without the debt, but probably not as close."

"So I still owe you a debt?"

"Not much left, but a little, the devil's snare helped, but you were also in danger, figuring out the Basilisk helped, but same principle, I'd say it's over half gone now though." Harry replied glancing to Ron who nodded in confirmation.

"Ok and Ginny?" Hermione asked, wondering why she wasn't in the same boat

"Her debt is actually bigger, but as she has older magical family so they carry the debt and need to negotiate on her behalf, we'll figure something out." Harry shrugged as if he had no idea what he would ask.

"So I should just ignore this?" Hermione huffed.

"Pretty much, we certainly aren't going to treat you differently and from a wizarding perspective there is no stigma as you are obviously working to offset the debt, though it's possible nobody will date you 'till it's resolved." Harry explained feeling uncomfortable.

"Really? Why?"

"Uhhh it has to do with one of the options for repaying the debt Hermione" Ron replied rescuing Harry as he turned bright red.

"What do you mean…oh." She replied flatly.

"Yeah, can you see why we didn't want to discuss this with somebody we had known for a week, who had known about magic for a few months?" Harry replied regaining his composure.

"Right, I think I'll just read up on this on my own" Hermione replied jumping up "umm bye Harry see you tomorrow?"

"Bye Hermione" Ron and Harry chorused, the pair sat and chatted comfortably, mostly about the Twins latest pranks and Ron's choices for electives (he had taken Harry's advice and talked to his parents and skim read some of the books) until Ron had to leave for lunch and Madam Pomfrey come busting over to ensure that Harry ate, despite his late breakfast.

When he was done Madam Pomfrey again fired of a round of intricate detection spells looking for magical spies but came up clean. They went through the guardianship contract and what was required to make it legal and found that it really was well phrased, nothing could make the Dursleys love him, but the contract would force them to treat Harry fairly and as a decent human being. The problem was going to be getting them to sign it; Harry had some vague plans but figured no plan survives contact with the enemy and that he'd probably end up winging it.

By the time they were finished it was nearly four in the afternoon and Harry returned to his delayed History assignment. His newly unlocked brainpower, scepticism and memory were useful assets whilst re-reading the history text, but so far he had only achieved a review of the first term's work, partly because he was actually doing the assigned supplemental reading (rather than reading Hermione's summary) and taking notes. He figured he'd need to know this stuff, and much more, if he was Heir to an Ancient and Nobel house (after all failing any OWL, especially History, might be a pretext to deny him some of his hereditary rights), but wished the history were a little more involved from a reasoning and politics perspective, perhaps then it might be vaguely relevant to the modern day. Besides, I need to get decent OWLs if I want my pick of careers, coasting by on old fame is hardly my style.

During the afternoon some of the bolder Gryffindors popped in to see him, apparently having taken his invitation via Ron as the poorly disguised plea for company that it had been. He was amused to note that the twins were starting to twitch, thanks to their continued inability to prank him, when the Quiddich team came to see him. The twins decided that they needed to prevent a repeat of last summer and insisted on staying in constant communication with him, threatening kidnap (in an unconscious imitation of Madam Pomfrey) if they thought he was in any danger making Harry grin and thank them. Of course they casually brushed it of and claimed to only want to prevent damage to their favourite prank test subject, but Harry appreciated having some friends who weren't totally blind.

Harry had sighed in frustration and given up on his History around eight in the evening, but he had made it to Easter of the first year in his review work before losing the fight. His meditation was coming naturally before sleep, thought he hadn't yet made any progress on clearing his mind that was hardly surprising. As was rapidly becoming routine, he woke again at midnight and Fawkes flamed him into the chamber, Dobby still had another day before Harry had asked for his first report on the Potters and nothing had really come up during the day, so Harry used the time mostly to get more comfortable with his famous ancestor. Slytherin had him add a few exercises to the ones Madam Pomfrey had given him to help build up his arms for sword fighting and before he left they went over his meditation, but mostly Slytherin told of his journeys before settling in England supplemented with silly stories from the founding of Hogwarts.

Slytherin had evidently been something of a prankster and his description of the usually reserved almost serene Rowena screaming in fury and chasing Godric and Salazar around the castle after they had charmed all of her serious books to display bad love poetry had been hilarious, especially since Harry could imagine how Hermione would purse her lips at the very idea. He had gone to bed with an amused smile still lingering on his lips and an image of the bushy haired terror chasing after the twins running around his head.