Harry amidst the Vaults of Stone
Chapter 13
Lessons with Badluk in practical economics eventually turned into lessons with Sibilig in practical finance, before venturing into the deeper and more mysterious waters of wizarding law.
Together Harry and his foster mother examined the wealth of the Black and Potter families. As he had seen, neither House Black nor House Potter were particularly wealthy. In particular, the ancestral Black Vault housed a lot more in the way of questionably valuable – and just plain questionable – objects than it had liquid assets.
Still, if he were minded to – and if it didn't go against every principle of the Brotherhood – Harry could squander his twin inheritances to live a comfortable life, never having to work a day.
Harry, seated on a sack of silver, fell into thought as he idly polished a gemstone. It had been cut into the shape of an eyeball and enchanted to blink intermittently.
The Black and Potter families must once have had estates worth a certain amount, for the Wizengamot to have granted the title of 'Noble House' upon them. Harry knew a little about it from his strange sessions every few months with the peers Malfoy and Marchbanks. Wealth, 'purity' of blood, and age of the family name were the three factors taken into consideration when creating a Noble House. However, no family title was ever retracted, so many families had lost their fortunes, or were no longer considered 'pureblood', or in some cases had died out completely, and were still Noble Houses.
"And that which they call an 'Ancient And Most Noble House'?" Sibilig prompted. "Pathetically, I might add."
Harry set down the stone and perused his genealogy book, reading aloud from one page. "Any Noble House which has held its title for three hundred years shall be granted the title of Ancient And Most Noble. It follows that nearly all such families were ennobled in the time of the British Wizards' Council, which was only replaced by the bipartite system of Wizengamot and Ministry in 1616. Bipartite?"
"Split into two distinct parts. So, where does the 'most' come from?"
"You mean in 'Ancient And Most Noble House'? I think it happens automatically." Harry had wondered about that. How did the addition of ancientness increase something's nobility, and how far beyond 'noble', exactly, was most noble? He wasn't sure whether the problem was his shaky grip on the English language, or his rather hazy notion of 'nobility'.
Harry flipped through the book. "Marchbanks isn't a Noble name... but Malfoy is. According to this, the Malfoys became Ancient-"
"-and therefore most noble-"
"Yes."
"Yes." Sibilig looked pleased with herself.
"Anyway, they became Ancient only recently – within the last decade. The Blacks and Potters were some of the first to become Ancient. The note says that they're two of the three oldest Noble Houses with members still living."
"Hmmm. Now relate that to the violence-backed wizard government." Sibilig was perched on an antique dresser, a scowl on her face as she looked through a box of ancient yellow newspaper clippings past Potters had decided to save.
Harry, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Potter family vault, put the book aside for a moment and looked through his sheaf of parchment until he found the notes he wanted.
"Government of Wizarding Britain," he read aloud, translating pieces into Gobbledegook as he went. "Executive body – managers – comprised of the Minister and departmental heads. Legislative function – law-making – spread over the Ministry departments and the Wizengamot, but requires the seal of the Wizengamot. Minister has some limited power to push through laws without Wizengamot approval. The Wizengamot is the judicial – dispute-resolving – branch, but the DMLE can levy fines – penalties – and decide non-serious cases. What is the Dee Em Ell Ee?"
"Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Guards, thieftakers, sentinels."
Harry made an instinctive nod of respect and moved on to the Wizengamot entry.
"There are currently around fifty filled seats in the Wizengamot. A total of 97 voting seats, because that's a 'magical prime'."
He frowned. "Rocks fall, I see what Bollotz and Ferenis mean about maths turning up everywhere. Um, let's see. Traditionally presided over by the Chief Warlock and Speaker, with the Minister able to assume rank equal to either of them but with no vote. The actual body is comprised of: seven elected seats, for Honorary Warlocks; seventeen elder seats, for Elders – that's drawn from the oldest Ministry officials; and seventy-one inherited seats, for Warlocks – based on Noble Houses, but with some seats added or struck. Up to three outside Interrogators may be nominated, with no vote. I, uh, have no idea what they are. And there's also a Court Scribe with no vote. So that's a maximum of ...101 possible sitting members. And currently, almost half the inherited seats are empty, due to 'extinction of the lineage'."
Harry frowned as he read the next line. "The typical turnout for a trial, hearing or legislative session is half to two thirds of the extant members. Only seven are required for quorum. Really?"
Sibilig scowled down at a faded picture of the opening of the Hogwarts Express. "You will find that wizards often do not take their responsibilities seriously. If it is not in their own interest to recognise their obligations, they will simply ignore them. Laziness. Greed. Arrogance." The goblin growled deep in her throat. "Now, I believe my actual question was: what of Houses Black and Potter, in the wizard government?"
Harry took up the genealogy book and flipped towards the beginning again. "Of the Claims of Right and Duties of Peerage to which House Black traditionally attends, a fixed seat on the Wizengamot is the most prominent..."
He re-opened the book at a bookmark he kept under 'P'. "Titles and customary rights of the Head of House Potter include Warlock of the Wizengamot... Ah. I see."
Sibilig hopped down and took the book from him. "Badluk discovered such things existed when we first took you in. Manager Ziggiz will unravel some of the titles later, when you are old enough for it to matter," she added, flipping back and forth between the two entries with a half-sneer. "I am not yet convinced that your Lordships will even prove to be a net positive. The problem is that laying claim to many of these traditional roles and 'birthrights' means that you must take up certain others. Many with ridiculous, onerous, or even dangerous duties associated with them. Caution is recommended."
One spindly finger ran slowly down the page. "If Lord Black at any point in the future wishes to exercise his rights to pastorage and acornage over the Threnworth Wold, it is stipulated only that he first become a signatory to the Diet Tacticum. Should Lord Black takes up arms in defence of his fiefdom, he may claim all Crown-granted patents lying dormant in his name, including but not limited to an exclusive patent over the charming of pigs, an exclusive patent over the making of wax figures, and an exclusive patent over the import of sealants for broomsticks. All matters relating to primogeniture in House Black is to be handled by the Paisley Accord, except where any Lord Black or heir apparent has taken the Writ of Leaves or has sold his holdings upon the Crescent of Mornington."
Sibilig gave an elaborate shrug, and turned the page. "The right of Lord Black to gather tax from red-headed women for the purposes of outfitting a fleet with which to combat the Spanish has never been revoked. However, should Lord Black set out to gather such tariffs, the King will no longer by agreement allow Lord Black to renege on his duties in the domain of Regal Accoutrement, nor forgive any lack of attendance upon the Heir to the British Throne."
Harry rocked back on his heels, having just barely grasped the gist of the archaic English. "What is... all of that?"
"Nonsense. Dangerous nonsense." Sibilig sighed, and flipped back to the Potters. "Two in one-fifth of anything Lord Potter holds by right of conquest must be offered up to the King for his unchallenged usage, should Lord Potter claim his proscribed right to expand the Empire's holdings by sword or flame. Ancient lore forbids the passage of Lord Potter through the holdings of Lord Graves, except when demanded by the King or in circumstances held dire by the Seventh Conclave. It goes on, you see."
Sibilig seemed entranced with one paragraph in particular, then looked up again. "Regardless, it would appear you will be working full-time if we ever again have a magical king. After all, Lord Potter will be maintaining his equipment, announcing his presence, inspecting his shipwrights, and leading his court in prayer. And Lord Black, in accordance with ancient custom, will have to duel the Lords Elkins, Smythe, Roper and Potter for position of Court Wizard."
"So I'd have to duel myself?"
"I would worry more about the others," Sibilig said dryly. "Assuming they still exist. My point was this: no piece of metal shapes itself. Or, as I have heard one of my human trainees rather endearingly say, 'there ain't no such thing as a free lunch'."
Sirius Black crouched in the mud and trodden leaves under the sparse, dripping shelter of a tree, and examined the box he had absconded with. He was holding it gingerly in his now crudely-bandaged hand.
This small silver box had probably been the leading cause of Black family member deaths, unless you counted all the myriad varieties of poison available as a single cause. The jewellery box was inscribed with the Black insignia. Inside, there was a small, simple cushion of dusty black velvet. It was completely illegal, of course, but the old families were a law unto themselves.
Besides, what were they going to do? Throw him in jail?
Black sniggered aloud to himself.
Magic lay on the air, so intense he could practically taste it.
He blew dust from the cushion, and tapped his stolen wand against each of the black jasper buttons sewn to it. "Shit, what was the – oh. Yeah, of course. Toujours Pur. Durrrr," he muttered. A ridiculously obvious incantation, but it wasn't like a single one of his ancestors had brains worth speaking of.
A silver signet ring appeared silently on the cushion.
Black scooped it up and slipped it onto his finger.
Or at least, tried to. The ring was much too small. After a couple of tries, though, the platinum and silver bands slithered coldly around each other, magically expanding the band until it slipped over his knuckle. The familiar black opal with that ghastly family crest appeared in a thicket of silver and platinum claws, grey points of light dancing deep within the gem.
Black, sitting in the dripping rain, frowned deeply. After racking his ravaged brain, he recalled he had made the young baby Harry his heir. That shouldn't have mattered a jot, since Sirius wasn't dead and had never been rich. But for some reason his young Death Eater brother Regulus had passed the Black title on to him, Sirius, when he died. He really had no idea what had brought that about. But...
The ring had been child-sized. It could only have been Harry wearing it, surely.
Beckflub the Ancient broke off his wheezy comparison of aboveground and belowground soil nutrition, as his student Harry suddenly squawked and clutched his fingers in confusion.
Sirius Black ran his hands over his gaunt face, trying to think. Cousins Andy and Cissy had children, he remembered. A Malfoy brat? Or, what was her name, Dora? But they were too distantly related to have acquired the ring, surely. Unless someone had found some old magic to cut him out of the running... but then it should have passed to Harry.
Black fell into a dark and decidedly damp dudgeon, which was broken an hour later when the ring vanished from his finger again.
He took out the cushion once more and re-summoned it, almost fumbling his stolen wand and setting his pantsleg on fire in the process. The piece of sandalwood was far longer and whippier than he was used to.
He examined the silver ring carefully. Child-sized once more. It had definitely been harder to summon this time, wand mishaps notwithstanding. It could be that the old family magics that dealt with inheritance were getting suspicious. He didn't even pretend to understand such things.
Or perhaps the person – Harry, it had to be Harry – had put more effort into snatching it back.
After fifteen minutes, it disappeared once more.
Sirius Black lay back against the sodden tree trunk and grinned out into the rain.
King Gurmsalt scowled around the marble table. Most of the Council of Counters were in attendance. "I'm not sure exactly what policy change you want. We are already prepared to apprehend Black if he makes an appearance within our realm."
Manager Redsteel of the Property Department ran one spindly finger over a vein of gold in the surface in front of her, then seemed to glance around at her fellow managers with milky blind eyes. "We are sure it is him?"
"We have been trying for centuries to unravel the magic of wizard bloodlines," Manager Bogripple of the Department of Information and Veracity said quietly. "It would be an unbelievably lucrative service, as well as quite a weapon, if we had the capability to alter it. If we cannot meddle with the Lordships, no mere wizard can. It must have been Sirius Black."
"Will he make an appearance?"
"He may. The ring would get him into the ancestral vault, even without his key. Of course, he might not know that, in which case he would probably attempt to fill out a request for a replacement key."
"And then we take him, and enact the execution the wizards refuse to give him," Manager Sibilig said firmly.
"Perhaps the trial the wizards refuse to give him, first?" the lawyer Ziggiz said reasonably, and got a scowl in return.
Redsteel went back to tracing the line of gold ore in the table with her finger. "And the danger in sending this ring back and forward?"
Manager Shindig of the International Department leaned forward. "Nibilix is certain he will not be able to place any magic upon it," he rasped. "As is our head human curse-breaker. Tracking, curses, nothing should be able to linger on an artefact like that. We'll check each time regardless, naturally. There is no way to stop it being claimed again?"
Bogripple shrugged one black-clad shoulder. "Not that we have found. Are you familiar with the muggle game of 'ping pong'?"
"No." The chorus was accompanied by stares and frowns.
"No... well, I suspect this back-and-forth will continue until somebody misses. By which I mean, the magic decides one of them is dominant. It is an unusual situation, though, and hence unpredictable. Black was written out of the main line, and is indeterminately legally dead now that he is out of Azkaban. Whereas Harry Potter is only tangentially related to the Blacks by blood. He is also a minor in wizarding law, but has his first majority in his own mind."
"Harry reported the magic seemed to resist him when he summoned it back each time," Badluk said.
"There may well be a psychological element in the enchantment."
"Hmmm."
"We do not have enough information to judge," Bogripple qualified carefully, "but it could be that all Sirius Black would need to do to keep the Black lordship for good would be to change his written will."
"For which he would need to make an appearance at the human Ministry... or here."
"Yes."
"Yes."
Well, there was no way he was going to Gringotts, Black decided. Not even a regional branch. Normally, the goblins wouldn't have batted an eyelid even if he walked into the bank arm in arm with Lestrange and Avery, singing A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End. Gringotts was infamously neutral. But he had read in the papers he had pilfered that there was a full complement of Gringotts contractors – including actual goblin guards – guarding Harry at all times. And there was a conflict of interest if he ever saw one.
So, no Black vault. His own personal vault would have been seized by now, but he hadn't exactly been wealthy anyway before getting thrown into Azkaban. So the hell with it.
Harry... The paper had reported the Ministry was keeping his foster family secret. Whoever they were, they obviously knew how to get him the lordship ring, which was both a good and bad sign. On the good side of things, it meant he wasn't with Lily's muggle relatives, which was frankly a sickening prospect. He remembered how James had hated them. Black had run out into the wind and rain to track them down when he first thought of it, before turning back to actually think this time. Thinking seemed to be standing him in good stead these days, and he hoped to make a habit of it.
As for it being a bad sign... it probably meant Harry was living with purebloods. But surely it couldn't be a dark family, could it? Dumbledore would never stand for that.
Black got up and paced a muddy rut around his tree for a while. Dumbledore, Dumbledore... He didn't know what to think about the batty old fool any more. He'd sent Sirius to prison without a word, had visited him right before they tried to starve him to death, had sent him suspicious messages telling him to come to Hogwarts and not talk to Moony...
But James had always been Dumbledore's favourite. The Champion of Light would have kept an eye on Prongs' son, especially when You Know Who met his end right there. What was it that they were calling him?
"The Boy Who Lived, yeah?" Black said aloud. Then he flicked water out of his eyes, sneezed, and muttered a warming charm. Time to hunt again soon. And then... what?
Concentrate, concentrate. His mind was slow to re-assemble itself after so long spent in dog form and at the mercy of the Dementors.
Well, Gringotts was out. But the Black ring could get him places. And things. There were various dens of the low and the dark he knew of where that family ring could buy him a lot of goodwill. Places where they'd care a lot more about him being an ex-Auror than an Azkaban escapee. Which meant he'd still have to be careful, but...
Black rubbed his finger absently. He decided he'd leave the ring for now, and just summon it when he needed to show it off. They'd got Harry to Gringotts damn fast to summon it back from him. Damn fast.
He rubbed his finger again. There was something... Some hint of a thought had just tiptoed across his Dementor-rusted mind, but it was gone before he could catch it. He stood in the rain for a few minutes, drumming his hand on his leg with frustration, and then slumped back down under the tree.
He should go after Harry. But what could he do if he found him? What could he actually do if, against all the odds, he got through the protection? Dumbledore would surely have a hand in the defences, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Black was also painfully aware of how it would be taken if he showed up anywhere near Harry Potter.
Black had ignored Dumbledore's advice and sought out Remus to try to convince him, but it seemed he'd skipped the country. That was suspicious, especially with Dumbledore's messages on top of it all.
The escapee picked fretfully at his bandages. He didn't think he could handle it if Moony of all people had turned to the bad too.
No, he decided. He didn't want to think about that.
The kid would be in good hands. He'd promised James, of course, but... with everyone out looking for him... persona non grata and all that... dead man walking... he could... should he...
The threads that formed the tapestry of the future stretched and strained for a moment, then snapped into place.
He would be in good hands, Black repeated to himself with a tinge of guilt. No matter what he'd done to Sirius, Dumbledore would still take care of James and Lily's lad. It was more important to go after the rat.
But how, exactly?
An owl hooted mournfully overhead, causing him to jump a little. Then he transfigured a fallen branch into a stool and sat on it, head in hands. Slowly, Sirius Black began to sketch the outline of a plan.
The sand in the hourglass ran out. Harry look down at his notepad, the movement making everything soar and swim giddily, and wrote 72. He turned the hourglass over and looked back up at the hole in the cavern roof where water dribbled down into the mushroom garden.
"I would have thought that distance viewing would be the first thing you looked for on your glasses," said Ratspan. The thin goblin boy was sitting cross-legged beside Harry, companionably whittling a stick.
Harry sighed, counting the number of specks of light that moved in the direction of the air inflow, and trying to keep track of the patterns they made. "It was. I mean, I did. And when I didn't find it, I crossed it off the list."
"Ahh. Shoddy work? Hastiness?" The slightly older goblin shot a smirk at the human, who scowled.
"Yeah. The charm must not have worked properly the first time, because when I tried it again a week ago, it flared like a salamander in coal. So there's just one active set of glyphs left to identify now. And then maybe I'll learn some high-level enchanting, and place the two remaining ones myself."
"That's dark vision, magnification, and distance viewing, yes?" Ratspan plunged the sharpened end of the stick into the sandy ground and picked up another. "Maybe the last is heat-seeing. That would be useful in the forge or in the dark reaches. Or maybe the lenses can store things you see. Or valuation would be nice."
"You would say that. Still want to be an assayer?"
"Maybe. I'm enjoying hunting more and more these days, now I've had my growth spurt."
"Hmmm. Well, it's not heat, anyway. Hold on... 65." Harry bent his head again. "It's not heat vision, I checked for that. I think it's something quite complex, though."
"I bet it's making you completely bat-guano mad," Ratspan said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't be able to sleep until I knew what it all did, if I were you."
"Rocks fall on you," Harry muttered.
The goblin just laughed.
"You know things I can't work out drive me crazy, you slag-ridden... jerk."
"Temper that temper." Ratspan's knife moved swiftly up and down the thin piece of wood. "What if they put something pointless or non-functional in, just to mess with you?"
"Maybe. I don't know what the lesson would be, though."
"Hmmm. I still think you were lucky to get enchanted spectacles at the end of your Threefold Trial. Have you seen the grisherur they gave me for mine?"
Harry frowned at his friend. "Your wyvern-leather Vest of Many Pockets? I don't know if I've ever seen you not wearing it. Weightless, durable, spelled to heighten your metal-sense and save you from drowning? A remarkable piece of craft."
"I'd still rather have glasses."
"You can see perfectly well! And even if the vest wasn't bizarrely suited to your future as a prospector, you should be grateful for it anyway."
"Yes," Ratspan sighed.
"Yes."
They sat in silence for a while.
"What are you actually doing, by the way?"
Harry scribbled some more in his notebook. "Trying to work out the flight patterns of fireflies. Whether there's any underlying rules they follow, see."
"Any luck?"
"No."
"You've been trying for how long?"
"A few days. Since I found my glasses had the distance viewing charm."
Ratspan sighed. "Why do you do the things you do?"
"Because they're interesting," Harry said with a slight frown. "Am I keeping you from some great task? Some work of art requires your attention, yes? I seem to recall you followed me here."
"Well-"
"Argh, rust and sandstone, my family ring's gone again. How does it always happen when I wasn't planning on going back up to the vaults?"
Ratspan plucked his sticks from the cavern soil and helped Harry gather his things. "You're weird, Harry Potter," he said flatly. "The things that happen to you are weird, and the things you do only seem to encourage them."
Harry glanced up at the wheeling fireflies once more before curling his hands into the shape that dismissed the far-seeing charm. "Did you know the hobgoblins have a phrase, 'May you have an interesting death'? And it's actually a sort of compliment?"
"I think it suits you."
"Well, thanks."
In time, Harry tried to confirm many of the things he read in his books, having caught several errors in a wizard tome about the magical properties of metals. He accrued old muggle books on 'natural philosophy' and more recent ones on 'science', all of them finding their place amongst his most prized possessions.
Over the autumn, he grew plants in different light levels. During the winter, he began a project overseen by the potion brewers, and managed to plate a fork with pure gold using only chemicals and lightning charms. Throughout the spring, he tried to confuse a bat by playing with magnets.
Some of his wanderings and mutterings were observed by Brother Filius, who became enthusiastic about a great many of the questions. The wizard accompanied him on a subterranean expedition to the Great Chalk Wall to examine the thousands of strange, crumpled strata and to look for flints and fossils.
Over the summer, Harry got caught up in the basics of healing, and was fascinated by the legislative struggles in the wizarding world over whether some of the relevant enchantments should be classed 'dark magic' or 'light magic'. Trying to fix everything in black-and-white terms was rather quaint, in Harry's opinion. Or at least, the nearest goblin translation of 'quaint', a complex metaphorical phrase which involved decorative cuckoo clocks made by children.
He learned to splint an arm on his tenth birthday, and managed to pick up the most basic goblin-charm for staunching blood flow within a fortnight.
After a few months, his interest was turning back to geology on a whim, but it was then that the thing happened.
Sirius Black grinned widely. The battle of wills was harder to win every time he summoned the ring back again. Prongs' kid obviously had a lot of clout with the ancestry magics.
He left the dingy hut with his new passport, forged by an old-blood contact who had only been too happy to help the scion of Black. Two quick Apparitions later and he was sauntering into the International Portkey Building of the Spanish ministry.
Time to move on. Australia next, perhaps. Hang around for a year or so, drink a lot of booze, decide whether or not to contact Dumbledore, maybe try to work out if Moony really had gone bad.
Black had found no trace of the rat at all. He was slowly widening his net of contacts, though.
It was a small, magical world. The traitor would have to turn up some time.
Bellatrix Lestrange turned away from the wall and regarded her ankle - although who knew if she was really seeing it?
It was an ankle which, once upon a time, might have helped to catch a young man's eye.
Now it was attached to a foot that was little more than skin over a brittle cage of bones.
It was also attached to the wall, by means of a heavy iron shackle and chain. The shackle was loose on her, after so many years within the constant entropic aura of the Dementors.
But it was not loose enough for her to slip through. It never would be, no matter how thin she became. Not so long as the bones of her ankle were intact.
Bellatrix Lestrange reached down to grip her leg tightly, and picked up the rock.
And then there was the thing that happened. It happened on the 31st of October, right at the peak of Minister Bagnold's re-election campaign. She had been a relatively weak contender, almost a decade after the fall of Voldemort.
Within four hours, the annual festivities had been overshadowed by the news that broke. Within eight hours, the ministry had cancelled all staff leave to deal with the influx of complaints and howlers from British witches and wizards. Within twelve hours, Bagnold had withdrawn from the Ministerial running entirely. And within sixteen hours, Gringotts' main branch had closed and locked its doors for an emergency bank holiday.
Respected member of the wizarding upper class, Lord Malfoy, had revealed that Harry Potter was being raised by goblins.
Author's notes:
→ Yes, an update in less than a week. You can thank an extensive backburning of procrastination against the wildfire of work that I should be doing. But mainly it's down to the 500 reviews that people have left! That's some seriously motivational feedback right there. Keep it up!