To all my wonderful watchers who have stuck by me so unfailably and for so long despite lack of updates, I make no excuses just say thank you.
Took a bit of a different direction in this chapter, due to a major block on this story I decided I just needed to start fresh again. I'll keep what I've already worked on, and my basic plot, but my plans for the speed of the story has changed and some extra things have been added which I want to try and work into it, including which characters may or may not get the boot.
Anyway, onwards with this chapter, and hopefully another very soon. Enjoy, and please review!
The days seemed to blur together as Harry did his best to come to terms with what he was learning, while also trying to gain more control over his ever growing magic. It seemed that being emmancipated while also having a wand suited to him made a more drastic improvement than he could ever have imagined.
He was reaching out, slowly and surely, to school friends he hadn't thought much about before. As the Potter house elves lectured him daily on his family history and standing he was becoming more and more aware of his actual place in the Wizarding World, facts which, it seemed, had been deliberatly kept from him for a very long time.
Yes, it was true that his mother had been a muggleborn witch, but from what he had been told since then that should have made no real difference in the grand scheme of things, he was still classed socially above the likes of Malfoy, and miles above the Weasleys. While he was struggling to think of them as anything other than his friends, he was also starting to see more and more why Draco Malfoy had shown the attitude he had, back on that first day on the Hogwarts Express. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his mind, Harry wished he had listened to the other boy, seen his words for what they were rather than a play on his fame.
Because there was no questions, the more he learned, that Malfoys comments about choosing friends who were more suited to him had nothing to do with him being the Boy-Who-Lived. If anything, that should have been a reason for them to stay as far away from each other as possible given the Malfoy family connections, but something had drawn them together that day. Power, political standing, and where a family stood in the world. That was what mattered in British society, muggle and magical alike, and it seemed that despite his knowledge Harry was about as far at the top of that standing as you could get.
He was Harry Potter, Lord of the Nobel and Ancient house of Potter, heir to the Nobel and Ancient house of Black, Last Heir of the Peverell line and through domination also Lord of the Ancient house of Gaunt as well, although that family had also slipped into oblivion over the years. That alone made him possibly the most politically and financially powerful Wizard in Britain, and was only the very surface of what he could hold. The investigations into who he really was, what he possessed were still not complete but it was suspected already that many more names would come to light.
Why he hadn't been informed of any of this Harry could only begin to wonder, though he suspected it had a lot to do with a little sheaf of paper stuck deep into his Gringotts files, slipped in among other non sensical account details and monthly statements so as to be missed. If it wasn't for the full enquiry currently being undertaken into his accounts it may never have been spotted at all, but as it was GripNook had ensured him that heads would roll within the bank, and outside. Maybe nothing to a simple observer, but knowing that Dumbledore had somehow managed not only to name himself as Harrys legal guardian within the magical world, but also slip it past all Gringotts security was something that was both worrying and disgusting at the same time. A mistake like that could happen in the ministry maybe, it clearly had as there had never been any questions raised, but to get an act like that passed through Gringotts took someone on the inside, someone who had access to the Potter accounts reguarly enough to be trusted with monthly statements. The purportraitors would be found, he had been promised that much, and they would face goblin justice, but in the mean time they had to tread a very careful line so as not to bring suspicion upon themselves. GripNook may have been in high standings, but the subtlties of goblins wasn't to rush in face first and see what happened, rather to build a good defense, crumble away slowly at an enemy before destroying them utterly.
There wasn't really anyone he could trust outside Gringotts and Cassandra, that was one of the few things Harry was truly beginning to understand, although the more he talked to the witch the more he trusted her. Goblins were good for financial matters, his houselves were good for background, but for only the second time in his life Harry felt he had an adult he could trust and ask questions of, without being judged. He missed Sirius terribly, but Cassandra was a good distraction from that, and her connections had become invaluable to him already.
A prime example had been his invisibility cloak, which was currently residing somewhere in the depths of Knockturn Alley being stripped of all the jinxes and charms that had been placed upon it. Tracking charms and loyalty charms were nothing special, but it seemed the depths that had been taken to control him had gone further even than that; charms to restrict magic, to dull the senses and reflexes; curses to remove almost all occumancy barriers, and to make him submissive to the ideas of others. He wouldn't use it again, that much he knew without question, not for a very long time at least. As long as all those attatchments to Dumbledore were still there he would not allow the cloak anywhere near him. He would miss it, and its connection to his father, but thanks to finally gaining access to his family home he had a lot more items of his parents to make up for it, enough to make the cloak seem nothing more than just another family heirloom.
There was a lot of work to do, a lot of changes that would need to take place, but with school rushing ever closer Harry was realizing that he would have to prepare himself one way or another. No matter how comfortable he might be in the Potter family home, he had things to do and things to face up to. With his new found knowledge there were going to be a lot of changes coming to the people around him.