Harry woke up early the next morning because he knew that the road to his broker's office would take some time. When he went downstairs, he was surprised to see the Grangers sitting at the table, waiting for breakfast.
"Good Morning, Harry," Hermione welcomed him, clearly in a good mood.
"Good morning. I had not expected you to be up so early," he replied.
"We are trying to fight our jet lag," explained Emma.
"That makes sense."
"Are you busy today, Harry?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I need to leave soon, as I have a meeting with my broker. What about you?"
"Peace, quiet, and a book," replied Hermione.
"Same for us," said her parents.
"Do you need something from the Muggle world?"
"I don't think so. We want to spend the next few days thinking about our next steps," said Daniel.
"Take your time, you can stay here as long as you need."
"Thank you, Harry. Honestly, Potter Manor is a good place to think about life-changing decisions. We don't have to worry about day-to-day matters, and no one is interrupting us, allowing us to carefully make decisions," the older man elaborated.
"Can I ask what you are considering?"
"We are thinking about changing careers. While having our practice is a profitable business, we are a bit bored with it. As Hermione is an adult, and we don't have to worry about her, we can focus on ourselves and what we want from life."
"What about you, Mione? Have you thought about your career?"
"For now, I am sure that I want to return to Hogwarts in September. After that, I will probably check if there are any possibilities for me to work on some masteries. But honestly, having my bookstore is a little dream I am thinking of."
"I am a bit surprised that you don't want to work in the Ministry," said Harry.
"I have seen how toxic that place is. Even though I know that you will do your best to make changes there, it will take years before it happens. And to be honest, I don't think I want to spend those years there suffering."
"Hard to disagree with you. Dan, Emma, what about your careers? Any plans yet?"
"Not really. I know that Emma would love to work with books, as she is as much a bookworm as Hermione. For me, I have no clue. I think I will simply go with the flow," Daniel replied.
Harry nodded his head in understanding. He had a little idea in his head, but he pushed it for later as he had to leave. He said goodbye to the Grangers and left by Floo. He called a taxi from Leaky to his broker's office, and after about 30 minutes, he was standing at the front door of his brokerage house.
"Good Morning, my name is Harry Potter. I have an appointment with Elliot Thomas this morning."
"Yes, Mr. Potter. I was informed that you would arrive soon, and I was tasked to escort you straight away to Mr Thomas' office," the secretary informed him.
"Alright then, lead the way," Harry replied and followed the woman. She had taken him to the farthest office in the building, where he went inside and announced himself to Mr. Thomas. She then opened the door for him, letting him inside.
"Mr. Potter, I am very glad to meet you," welcomed Elliot Thomas.
"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Thomas."
"Please, sit down," his broker motioned him to the seat in front of his desk.
"So, Mr. Potter, what would you like to start with?" asked Elliot.
Sure, I can help you with that. Here is the revised version:
"Let's start from the beginning. Can you please tell me what was the initial budget that your grandfather invested and what happened with that money?"
"Of course. Your grandfather had created two portfolios. The first one had an initial budget of around 10 million pounds, which was invested in three ways. 60% of the budget was invested in low-risk companies, 30% in medium-risk companies, and the remaining 10% in high-risk companies. Every penny earned from these investments was reinvested."
"Okay, and what was the average yearly profit from those investments?"
"It was around 20%," Mr. Thomas replied, looking at Harry.
"Did you say 20%? That's incredible!" said Harry, surprised.
"Yes, that's correct. However, to be more precise, the yearly return was higher than 20%, but we had to subtract a few percentages due to taxes and our company fee."
"How often did you invest the profits?" Harry asked.
"We reinvested every month, Mr. Potter. Our pattern was simple - on the first day of each month, we took every penny of profit, paid taxes and our salary, and then reinvested the rest of the money back into the portfolio. We did this every month."
"Wow, with that high return and monthly reinvestment, my portfolio must be worth a few hundred million pounds by now," Harry said, looking a bit pale.
"That's correct, Mr. Potter. Your first portfolio is currently worth just over 500 million pounds."
Harry took a moment to digest this information. He had no idea that he was worth that much money.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Thomas. I didn't expect that at all."
"That's understandable, Mr. Potter. Your case is unique in the investing world. I've never heard of a portfolio that was left untouched for 20 years without taking a single penny from it. Also, for some reason, almost every investment here made a profit. It was our little inside joke that fate had decided to repay you for taking away your parents by blessing your investments. It was truly incredible. We made a lot of risky decisions, and they ended up being the right ones."
"Well, I'm not complaining. But what about the second portfolio that you mentioned?"
"The second portfolio was created by your mother at the same time as your grandfather's. She had inherited some money from her parents and decided to invest it. As your main portfolio was well-balanced, she decided to take a risky approach with her money and put all of it into high-risk investments. This portfolio had a yearly profit of around 25%. Again, we were lucky with our investments here, though we did experience considerably more losses than in the original portfolio. Fortunately, the high profits from successful investments compensated for those losses."
"What was the initial budget, and how much is it worth now?"
"Your mom had put seven hundred thousand pounds there. After all those years, it has accumulated to around 90 million pounds," replied the broker.
"Dear Lord, how glad am I that my childhood guardians had never known about that," sighed Harry.
"That bad?" inquired the older man.
"Yes. They would have emptied that in no time."
"Well, they didn't, so now you need to decide on what to do next."
"For now, we will continue managing that the same way. I need some time to decide on what to do."
"As you wish, Mr. Potter. Do you have any questions for me?"
"Yes, I have a few. First, how many people are working on my investments?"
"Myself and four of my coworkers. You are, by far, our biggest client."
"Then please, as a token of my gratitude for your hard work, you will all get a bonus. Please take that money for profits from May."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Potter. I appreciate that."
"Second question, if I would like to liquidate part of my portfolio, how long would it take?"
"That depends on how many shares you would like to sell. But the answer is somewhere between a few weeks and a few months."
"Alright, and the last thing. If I would like a list of my investments, how long would it take you to make one?"
"I have that ready, Mr. Potter. We knew that you would soon visit us, so we started preparing for that a few weeks ago. So whenever you would like to get that, just ask."
"Then I would like to get one now, please. I think that we will end here today, as I have a lot to think about. Please continue your work here, I will contact you soon to tell you about my decisions."
"As you wish, Mr. Potter." The broker stood up, gave him a few big files full of documents, and after shaking his hand, he showed him to the door. Harry left for Diagon Alley, as he wanted to check on one of his premises there. He went inside and was happy to see that his information was correct. He would need to speak with Barchoke about his little plan, but it would need to wait a bit. When he was done there, he flooed back to the manor and went straight to his office. He was greeted by his family there.
"Good morning, honey. How was your meeting?" greeted his mother.
"Mom, I don't know if you are a seer, or it was luck, but had I been able to do this, I would have kissed your feet in admiration."
"That good?" she asked, amused.
"More than good," he replied.
"Can you elaborate more, Harry? I was very curious about investing in the Muggle world, pity that I had not been able to spend my time on that," his grandfather replied.
"Grandpa, as you know, you had invested 10 million pounds there. After your passing, they continued their work, according to your commands. They had reinvested every month all of the profits that were earned."
"Glad to hear that they kept doing their job."
"How much profit have they made?" Lily asked.
"20% yearly."
"Dear Merlin, it gives about 1.7% monthly!" Lily said, shocked.
"20% a year so they doubled the money every five years. So there are around 50 million pounds there, right?" Charles had asked.
"No, Grandpa. Like mom said, 20% a year gives around 1.7% monthly. Every passing month, the amount of invested money grew by almost two per cent. And in the long term, it makes a colossal difference."
"Oh, that makes a lot of sense. So how much money do you have there?"
"Over 500 million pounds."
"Sweet Merlin."
"Yeah. And I have also a second portfolio, created by Mom, one that was also very profitable. Overall, I have almost 600 million pounds in Muggle investments."
"What are you going to do with that money?" Lily asked.
"I don't know yet. The main problem is that this money will mean very little in the wizarding world."
"True. There is no way to convert that much into Galleons."
"I will think of something," Harry replied confidently.
"My only advice for you is to start looking into hiring someone to help you manage all of that."
"I know, mum. I will start looking into that soon," Harry replied. Before he was able to do anything, Mimsy had informed him that lunch was ready, so he stood up and went to the dining room, where the Grangers had already been waiting for him.
"Jeez, Harry, what made you so shocked?" asked Hermione.
"You know, you terrify me sometimes, Mione. It is incredible how fast you can read me."
"Get used to it, Potter," she replied smugly. "But seriously, can you tell us what happened?"
"Sure. I had met with my broker, and he told me about my portfolio."
"Alright, so what did he tell you that shocked you so much?"
"Somehow they managed to get 20% of pure yearly profit."
"20? Jeez, you have landed a very good broker," Daniel said, impressed.
"Yeah, I did. But what shocked me was the result. You see, as no one was there to change anything, they carried on the last of my grandpa's commands. He told them to reinvest all of the profits. And they had done this every month for twenty years."
"Dear God, twenty per cent yearly, for twenty years, reinvested monthly, it would multiply your money by around fifty."
"You are very close actually. Are you interested in the stock market?"
"Yeah, I'm always interested in financial matters. I was the one in our dentist practice who took care of financial matters and overall management," Dan replied.
"That would explain that. So yes, they have earned me a cosmic amount of money. My biggest headache now would be to find good use of that," Harry replied. Before he could say anything more, he was interrupted by an owl that had brought him a letter with an official Wizengamot seal.
Lord Potter,
I, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic, would like to inform you about an upcoming gathering of Wizengamot. During that meeting, we will carry out the procedure of calling out the family seats, so I strongly urge you to attend that assemblage. It will take place in seven days from today at noon in Courtroom number 10.
With regards,
Kingsley Shacklebolt
"They are working faster than I thought. I was sure it would take them at least two more weeks before they would call the meeting," Harry said, thinking out loud.
"What are you talking about, Harry?" asked his curious best friend.
"There will be a Wizengamot meeting next week. It is sooner than I expected," he explained.
"Is it bad for you that it will happen so soon?"
"No, it doesn't matter to me. I am simply surprised," Harry replied. His thoughts were broken by a Patronus message carried by a tiger.
"Harry, please come to our house. Ministry lackeys are here. They want to do some tests on Teddy," Andromeda's voice pleaded.
Harry ran towards the fireplace, and only 30 seconds later, he found himself in Tonks's house where he was met with a big argument.
"Mr. Tonks, step aside, or you will land yourself in arrest."
"Like hell, I will. I will never give you my grandson."
"You don't have a choice. It is a law that he needs to be checked out for lycanthropy, so we will take him, like it or not." The Ministry worker stunned Ted, who joined Dora, Winky and Andi on the floor unconscious. Then he took Teddy and used the port key to the Ministry before Harry could even react.
"MIMSY!" Harry called out loud.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Take them to St. Mungo's. They need to be checked," he ordered and ran towards the fireplace. He landed in the Ministry, and with the speed of light, he was standing in front of the Department of Magical Creatures. He opened the door and ran inside.
"Where is my godson?" he barked at the secretary.
"What? I don't..." the man started to reply, but Harry was not in the mood for that.
"You have one chance. Where is Edward Lupin? He was taken by people from your department to run the tests," Harry growled.
"Last door on the left side," he whimpered. "But they are wards there..." Harry did not wait for more explanations and ran towards the doors. He instantly felt the wards that were supposed to keep everyone outside of the room. But no power could keep him from Teddy.
Certainly! Here is the corrected text:
"SCUTUM PRAEVARICATOR!" The spell connected with the wards, and Harry used all his power to break them. It took only a few seconds until the ward exploded, taking the door off its hinges. Harry ran inside and saw Teddy lying on the table with two men surrounding him, their wands raised at the child.
"One more move and you're dead," Harry barked at them. "Drop your wands and move away from my godson."
"Who the hell do you think..." one of them started but was cut off instantly by Harry.
"BOMBARDA!" Harry cast the spell, which was aimed inches above the man's head. The spell hit the wall, creating a human-sized hole there.
"LISTEN, YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT. YOU HAVE ONE LAST CHANCE TO DROP YOUR WAND AND STEP ASIDE FROM MY GODSON, OR I WILL NOT MISS THIS TIME!"
Both men were terrified. They dropped their wands and moved away from the table. At the same moment, a large group of Aurors led by Kingsley and Gawain Robards rushed into the department.
"Potter, drop your wand now!" shouted Robarts.
"I will do that when I'm sure that my godson is fine." Harry then turned to the two men still standing in the corner. "What spells did you cast at him?" Harry barked.
"Nothing, Lord Potter. You came here before we could start..." he said with very little voice.
Harry then took Teddy in his arms and examined him carefully. He could not see anything wrong with him, so he put away his wand.
"What the hell are you doing?" asked Kingsley.
"I can ask you the same damn question. I want to know why those fuckwits came to Dora's house, stunned everyone, and took Teddy with them," Harry replied, angry beyond measure.
"Let's take it to my office, Harry," Kingsley replied, sighing heavily. He did not want to have that talk publicly. Harry, still holding Teddy, Kingsley, and Robards left for the Minister's office, leaving the younger Aurors to clean up the mess. Both of the older men tried to initiate small talk on the way there, but Harry was too busy calming Teddy. Soon, they arrived at the office, and when they were inside, Kingsley activated silencing charms. Meanwhile, Harry conjured a crib for Teddy and silenced it as well. He did not want to scare his godson.
"On whose authority were they working?" Harry asked, not wasting any time.
"On mine. I had authorized tests on all potential werewolves."
"So let me get this straight. You agreed to a situation where some unknown lackeys would come to people's homes, and take their children away to carry out tests without their parents' consent or even knowledge of what those tests are? Not to mention allowing them to use force on those families?" Harry asked.
"I had no choice, Harry. "
"OF COURSE YOU HAD A CHOICE, YOU DECREPIT CRETIN! YOU COULD HAVE WRITTEN THEM A LETTER TO COME TO THE MINISTRY OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL! INSTEAD OF ALLOWING THESE WEIRD 'TESTS,' YOU COULD HAVE SIMPLY HAD THEM CHECKED OUT BY A HEALER FROM ST. MUNGO'S! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING AT?"
"Harry, I know it seems bad, but the pressure..." Kingsley started, but Harry cut him off.
"Listen to me very carefully. I don't give a fuck about the pressure they're putting on you. If anyone comes closer than 10 feet to my godson and heir, I will take it as an attack on Houses Potter and Black. And I will use any means of defence I have."
Kingsley sat there silently, listening to Harry. He knew that caving would cause him problems, but he had not expected this kind of situation.
"I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with you, but I swear: one more action like this, and instead of an ally, you will have an enemy in me. And as a reminder, none of my enemies had a happy end." Harry replied with steel in his voice. He did not even try to hide his threats, even with Robards' presence there.
"Tomorrow morning, you will receive certified test results from St. Mungo's. And I swear, if this incident hinders Dora's efforts to return to health, I will demand heads for it." Harry ended and left the Minister's office.