Gringotts looked even more large and intimidating than Severus remembered it. The goblins certainly had a flair for melodrama hidden beneath their surly attitudes and grim expressions.
Severus smoothed down his threadbare muggle clothes and walked into the bank with as much purpose and gravitas as his small frame could muster. He had never dealt with the goblins as a child before, and had no idea how they would react to him. He hoped that they would take him seriously enough to help him, or at the very least to refrain from causing a scene as they refused him.
It was busy in the bank, as the recently dispersed Hogwarts letters had already kicked off a back-to-school shopping frenzy, but thankfully the line moved quickly. He was able to keep his head down and avoid undue attention from any of his future schoolmates, even though he recognized a few of them.
Severus stepped up the counter and up onto his toes. "Hello, Master Goblin," he said, in what he hoped was a business-like tone. "I'd like to open a vault with you and convert some muggle money into galleons, please."
"Of course, Young Man," the goblin said in a snide, bored tone. "Do you have a goblin-certified form of identification on you?"
"No, Sir," Severus replied, forcefully holding his fingers back from fidgeting.
"You'll need to submit to an inheritance test then," the goblin said. "The results of which will be permanently stored within our records. Do you consent to this?"
Severus sagged with relief. That he could live with. "I do."
"Very well. This way, then."
Severus followed the goblin into a hallway filled with offices and ritual rooms. He was led into a small, nondescript room with a single desk and a handful of chairs at one end, and a small, blank runic circle etched into the floor at the other.
"Have a seat, Young Master," the goblin said before lumbering out of the room. Severus did his best to sit still and not squirm as he waited. A large, ornate clock dominated a corner behind the desk, and added to Severus impatience and unease with its loud, decisive ticking.
An older goblin shuffled into the room. "Greetings, Little Wizard. My name is Hoistlift and I will be your account manager moving forward.
"First things first; I will need you to sign these consent forms before we run your inheritance test. Do you have a parent or guardian here with you today?"
"I don't," Severus admitted nervously. "This vault will be for funds that I earn myself. My parents won't have anything to do with it. Will that be a problem?"
"Not at all. It baffles me that more wizards do not encourage entrepreneurship and independence amongst their young. It simply requires a different form. Also, if you ever have more than one thousand galleons in the vault at one time, it will be automatically registered with your Ministry, and may become subject to tax."
"Death and taxes," Severus muttered, wondering idly if a snake bite had ever made anyone tax-exempt. He'd cheated Death, after all. It only seemed fair.
The goblin chuckled. "Quite, Young Wizard. Now, if you'd please state your full name for the record."
"Severus Tobias Snape."
"And the names of your legal guardians?"
"Eileen Snape nee Prince and Tobias Snape."
"And are your legal guardians your biological parents, as far as you are aware?"
Severus grimaced. "Yes."
"Are both of your parents magical?"
"No. My mother is a pureblood witch, but my father is a muggle."
"Both fully human?"
"I believe so, yes."
"And how old are you?"
Severus hesitated. "My physical body is eleven years old."
"Date of birth?"
Severus gave his details, and tried not to be paranoid that the magical test would detect his true age and label him as a fraud. If the goblins thought he was trying to cheat them, his entire life would be made drastically more difficult.
The goblin drew some of his blood with a silver knife and bade him to stand in the middle of the blank runic circle.
Runes flared to life around him, and Severus both felt and saw his magic surge and interweave itself with the goblin magic of the runic caster, and with the magic inherent within the runes themselves.
Severus shivered pleasantly as a feel8ng of warmth and life settled over him.
When the ritual was over, the goblin left the room for a moment, and returned with a large stack of papers floating behind him.
"As you can see," the goblin said, gesturing to the paperwork, "we have a lot to go over."
Severus nodded, curious despite himself. In his first life, he had had the proper Wizarding identification by the time he opened his own vault and knew that his mother had been disowned for having him, so he'd never bothered to pursue an inheritance test.
"First, there are no surprises regarding your parentage or blood status. Your mother's Prince line does contain a trace of Naga blood, but it is negligible. You more than qualify as fully human.
"I am happy to announce that you have qualified as the Probationary Heir to the Prince line, too."
Severus choked. "What?"
"It means that you will not fully qualify as an inheriting heir until you reach your age or majority with certain conditions in place."
Severus' head was spinning. He was disowned outright, wasn't he?
"What conditions?" he asked.
"There's a lot of fine print you'll want to read over, but the major points are that you must demonstrate access to at least one of the Prince family magics, which you already have, you must be in good standing with a fully accredited Wizarding Educational Institution and on track to graduate with an EE average or higher on a minimum of five NEWTS, you must not be bound into a magically binding contract of servitude, you must not have a criminal record, and you must present a letter of recommendation from the Lord or Heir of a member of the Sacred 28, as the Prince line has no standing Lord to make the final decision to accept you."
Severus was floored. He felt sick. Was his new ability to see magical auras the family magic that was allowing him to be conditionally accepted by his relatives or would he have qualified as heir in his last life, if he hadn't been so foolish as to sign his soul away as he was branded by a madman? Had he burned his last bridge to the family, name, and lineage that he had always craved in his ill attempt to build a new one for himself? Now that he knew the consequences, could he still bring himself to be Marked as a spy, if it meant forfeiting his familial claim?
Either way, he felt like he was cheating by being offered this chance at acceptance. It wasn't him they wanted. It was his eye, Nagini's dark magic that had changed him irrevocably. Or, it was a version of him who hadn't made the mistakes that he could not scrub from his memory or his soul, regardless of if the consequences of those actions were still magically binding.
"As a provisional heir, you do not have access to the Prince Family Vault, nor do you have full access to the heir's trust vault, but you are entitled to a monthly stipend, for as long as you continue to qualify as Probationary Heir. You are also entitled to magically certified copies of a few family texts, including the Prince Family Genealogy, the Prince Family Charter, and the Beginner's Guide to the Prince Family Magicks. These texts can only be read by a blood-related Prince deemed in good standing. They cannot be copied or altered. You will be provided with a charmed journal where you can take and keep notes on these texts, as Family secrets cannot be written down anywhere else."
Severus nodded. He was vaguely aware that he should be excited by the chance to read up on the family magicks, to understand himself better, and determine once or for all if his new abilities were innate within him, and had been merely unlocked, or if they were foreign to him, infesting his own magic. Instead, he felt mostly numb.
This was too much. This was all too much.
He was meant to be opening a simple bank account, for Merlin's sake.
He was not prepared for existential crises layered on top of themselves, burying him alive.
"Can I have the stipend deposited directly into my new vault?" Severus asked, instead. He needed to focus on a problem he could understand and solve.
"Of course, Master Prince-Snape. Would you like a moment to review the paperwork alone before we continue?"
Severus swallowed hard and nodded.
He had thought he had adjusted to the changes this life had thrown at him. Apparently, he was wrong, and fate had not finished messing with him.
He was a Prince.