The Ressureacted Warrior
Building Foundations of Power
Chapter 3: Becoming Rich
Harry Potter and all associated characters are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
"Hello, dear. Are you all alone? Where are you parents? Do you need any help?
"Confundo."
TRW:BFoP —
"Where the hell did you come from?!"
"Obliviate."
TRW:BFoP —
"Sorry kid, that information is restricted."
"Legilimens."
TRW:BFoP —
Harry luxuriated on his pool lounger, enjoying the shade cast by a huge umbrella, sipping from a glass of iced orange juice. The crystal-blue waters of the Mediterranean lapped but a stone's throw from his new rented apartment, and both the sea, and the pool a few feet away, called to him.
Damn, life was so much easier with a wand!
Harry returned his focus to the pad of paper he'd been making notes on, and once more went over his plans, looking for any loopholes or unthought-of problems.
It was now mid-September, and he'd been back in the past for six weeks. He'd spent the last month continuing his opportunistic little pilferer spiel and for the first few weeks it had been great.
He was sure that the goblins won't mind him. Through Voldemort's memories, he knew that the goblins won't mind even a time-traveler as long as he don't affect their gold. He smirked. The goblins would be happy serving him, probably their richest to-be-costumer in whole Magical Britain.
But that didn't mean he couldn't be caught. There were many securities in and out of Gringotts. Wizard securities and not to mention that most of the Magical Britain's population shopped in the Diagon Alley. But, there must be a way to get in there without drawing attention.
As he thought of drawing attention, a sudden thought made him feel dumb. Why would a normal eight year old boy draw attention? Of course he would glamour himself so nobody can misunderstand him for John Potter.
So, the plan was very simple than the thought it would be. Wear a glamour charm and walk into the Gringotts. Upon reaching to the counter, secretly flashing his Lord ring would get the goblin's attention enough to meet the director. But what if he get caught? What would be the consequences?
Can he face the consequences? No, the consequence would be that he'd be back on the Wizarding World's radar. Illegal apparition, underage magic, illegal possession of a wand… the list of charges would quickly pile up. True, he could get out of most of them by playing the emancipated lord card—except for illegal apparition—but, when he re-entered the magical world, he wanted it to be on his terms.
He wasn't worried though. Putting his drink down, Harry padded over to the pool's edge, and carefully slid his hot, sweaty body into the water's cool embrace.
This was nice. Very nice. Maybe making Cyprus his holiday base would be a really good idea…
But he also knew he had to get on with things. Time was marching on.
TRW:BFoP —
As always, the Diagon Alley was very busy. People were shopping, roaming or – he smirked – pickpocketing. There never was a scarcity of pickpockets in the place. True, the alley was not as busy as last month when families were buying Hogwarts stuff for their children.
Harry James Potter Lord Slytherin stood there watching the public with an amused smile fix on his glamoured face. He stared walking down the alley, his wizard robs flowing behind him which he had bought with stolen money.
Stolen money, he thought as that was no crime. And truly it wasn't, to him. But now, he was going towards the Slytherin family fortune waiting for him. Though he wanted to find out who was the last Lord Slytherin, there was no place to do so.
It is said that the Slytherin family went extinct in around mid 1600s. But there was obviously no book in public libraries that could tell him the truth.
Thinking all his way, Harry soon found him in front of the gleaming white building made of marble. He looked at the building in awe. Of course he had seen it in Tom's memories but looking at it in real life is totally different. The building was a three-story building which parted the ways of Knockturn Alley and continued Diagon Alley.
Harry passed through the set of bronze doors and then looked at the silver one. There was the famous inscription of Gringotts-
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
He looked at the set of bronze doors and then silver ones before entering the lobby; the floor was paved with marble and has long counters stretching along its length with doors leading off to the vault passageways. He knew that the vaults extend for miles under the city and are accessible through rough stone, complex and interconnected passageways by means of speedy carts that are operated by goblins.
Harry then walked towards the counter in a way that only a pureblood heir could muster and his Occlumency reminded him of the Goblin customs.
That made him smile under his glamoured fake face. Voldemort's style of Occlumency is too good. Riddle had created it in his fourth year using the Gaunt library to catch up to his pureblood classmates who had been learning it since many years.
Harry reached the counter with a red shining name plate on it and a goblin behind it. The name plate read: RIBCRACKER BONESLICER. The name sent a chill down his spine.
These goblins and their names. He mentally scoffed because if a goblin saw him do it, that would be a great deal of loss.
Harry walked up to the counter and the goblin which sat behind it grunted . Harry took it as a permission to seek and mentally revised his plan to make an impression on the Boneslicer Clan.
He smirked. After all, if he could make good relationship with them they would are going to help him too much.
"May your gold flow and your enemies die being crushed under your feet. Good Afternoon, Mr. Ribcracker Boneslicer."
The goblin looked so surprised that it took him two seconds to get back in his composure, Harry mentally noted. These counter goblins don't experience normal wizards (in his case, from their point-of-view) greeting them how they like to be.
"Good afternoon, wizard. May I know your name and the reason you are hear?"
"I am here for business with your leader. My name is Harry James Potter Lord Slytherin." As the muggle phrase says Honesty is the best policy, at least with goblins.
The goblin raised an eyebrow at him.
He flashed his House Ring.
The goblin said "Kindly wait there, at the waiting area. I'll be back in five minutes" before he made a bee-line for the closest door to the counter.
Kindly, Harry thought as he sat a bench in the waiting area of the lobby, I certainly have made some impression. The goblin, true to his word, returned almost five minutes later which made Harry confirm his suspicion that the goblins are always on time. Knowledge is never complete.
"Please follow me."
And that was pure Harry. He was sure if any other eleven-year-old had tried that they'd have been laughed out of the bank without even a raised eyebrow. It was something about his stance and speech — it whispered 'I know what I'm doing, and I have every right to do it'.
He was led through a long series of passageways and corridors and into a well-appointed meeting room. A pair of large double doors on the far side of the room opened, and they were ushered in. A large goblin wearing a pinstripe suit stood up from the far side of a desk and waved them in with an equally large, toothy grin.
"Lord Slytherin," he said, sounding happier than any goblin she'd ever encountered before. "I have been waiting for this meeting for almost two years now. Please, please sit down. We have much to discuss."
His eyes were drawn to a small ceremonial battle-axe on the belt of the goblin's suit. Of course, these goblins don't have names like 'Boneslicer' for fascination.
"My name is Ragnok Boneslicer of the Boneslicer Clan, and I won the right to be your vault manager two years ago."
They both took their seats.
Harry matched the goblin's grin. "Ragnok Boneslicer. May your gold flow, and your enemies fall under your blade."
Ragnok looked mildly surprised. "And may your enemies die in a pit of fire, and your vaults always be full…"—he grinned his toothy smile again—"something I'm hopeful will soon be true."
There was one thing that he couldn't understand so he voiced his thought. "Excuse me, Mister Ragnok. You said you won this account?"
Ragnok smiled at her. "In combat, young Lord. With the blood of my enemies on the blade of my sword. But that was two years ago. There are only a few houses with a Book A Names now. When your name showed up in the Slytherin family's, we, the goblins, thought that you would be at our doors in a few weeks. The clans started fighting like young'uns over a breeder. Where have you been?"
"I've been trying to hide these one and a half month. But of course that is difficult with almost to no money. Plus I have a project to discuss with you."
"I understand, Lord Slytherin. The Slytherin vaults are waiting to be opened since the last time they were. 1643s, that time was. The Boneslicer Clan was a young one that time."
"Interesting, Mr. Ragnok. I didn't know that."
"There is too much history to learn. For now, let's get this cart on the tracks. A drop of your blood if you would, Lord Slytherin."
Harry proffered his hand and Ragnok gave him a small nick with an ornate looking dagger. The blood ran down the blade, and into a small chalice on the desk. A quill started writing.
"You mentioned another project," Ragnok prompted while the quill filled out the parchment.
"Yes. A medium sized land purchase, building, and warding project."
"Excellent, we can discuss that in a moment. Now, let's see." Ragnok took the finished parchment, and gave it a once over. His face went white. He stared at Harry with the air of a cat who'd been regarding a pair of mice… a pair of mice who had just turned into a pair of wolves. He wasn't smiling. "Lord Slytherin. You took your Lordship on the thirty-first of July, 1988?"
Harry looked calm as always, inside he noticed something wrong. The goblin's sudden change in demeanor was a little freaky. Had Ragnok learned something he wasn't supposed to?
"I did."
"And you were born eleven years ago, on the thirty-first of July, 1980?"
"I was."
Ragnok glanced at Harry and then to the parchment again, continuing. "And you have lived for almost twenty-five years?"
Harry was silent. But inside, his heart rate wasn't slow.
Ragnok put the parchment down, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his temples.
"Lord Slytherin. Let me tell you a story." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Two years ago there was a minor crisis in the Goblin Nation. The Great Accounting we call it. For centuries, Gringotts has used a standard method in all our records for determining people's ages. Blood magic. The same method used by the family magics. It's very convenient since it can't be fooled by anyone. It allows us to know the rights and ownership of many inheritances and legacies without directly intervening with the parties involved. But most importantly, it can't be changed. Not by us, not by the Wizengamot. The higher powers themselves determine the laws of magic. All our records used a person's date-of-birth, since that's what blood magic—and therefore the family magics—uses to determine age."
Harry noticed the goblin looked agitated as he spoke.
Ragnok closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "Then, two years ago, something happened that had never happened before. Two adult witches, sisters, one born a half-hour after the other, were to inherit a modest amount, and the will stipulated that the older sister would inherit the majority, including an old gauntlet. The gauntlet was tied to the family magics. When the older sister attempted to take possession, the gauntlet rejected her, causing her great pain. We were puzzled, and re-took blood from the two sisters. Just like we thought, the older sister had been born first. It took some of our cleverest researchers days to figure out what had happened. When we adjusted our ritual to write down not just date-of-birth, but years lived as well, we saw that the younger sister was now older.
It turned out that the younger sister had once journeyed with a time-turner, and was now a half-hour older than the older sister." Ragnok opened his eyes. "This might sound like a one off, but it isn't. We've been dealing with the shifts in time of our clients for hundreds of years. It's not something we're unfamiliar with. We had to go through all our records and re-adjust them all to include a 'current-age' line. Hundreds-of-thousands of documents. We had to re-take blood from many of our major clients, and introduce new rules requiring taking blood before any age-related decision is made. Somehow, something had happened to change the very laws of magic. And eventually, we determined the change had happened in the summer of 1988, in late July or early August.
The same time that you, a time-traveller who has travelled further than anyone outside of myth and legend, took a lordship, which your date-of-birth should have precluded you from taking." Ragnok's knuckles were white where he gripped his desk. "You, Lord Slytherin, somehow changed the laws of magic."
Harry opened his mouth. "I didn't."
"…"
"…"
"Then what?"
"It is as you said. Only the higher powers can change the laws of magic."
Ragnok's voice softened. "One of the higher powers intervened in the world, and changed the laws of magic, to give you a lordship?"
"Two higher powers actually."
"Karzak Turlk!" Ragnok swore.
"Can I assume your discretion in this matter?"
Ragnok looked at him as though he had grown five extra heads. "Lord Slytherin. I will have to make a report to my king, but other than that I will do my best to endeavor your secrets stay secret. I always do for all my clients, and I have no interest in annoying any of the higher powers."
Harry wore the smile of a man who has been told today's weather will be sunny. "Excellent. Then maybe we can move onto other business? I think you'll find it quite interesting."
Ragnok remained silent for several moments. He leaned back, and barked one loud laugh. "Certainly, Lord Slytherin." The goblin flashed that toothy smile once more. "Like I said, I like the interesting ones."
End Of Chapter —