To Ride the Carousel Again

Chapter 5

The lazy disclaimer.

It all belongs to JKR.

Early Fallout

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Approx. 5,700 words

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While walking back to the Leaky Cauldron, he found himself wanting Hedwig to find him so he could send another letter to Hermione. He really needed to see and talk to his best friend, NOT Ron.

Harry managed somehow to get back to his room without being identified and swarmed by any of the witches or wizards currently in the Alley.

He first threw himself down on the bed, but somehow he found he could not concentrate on the planning he was positive he had to make.

Dragging his muggle notebooks from his trunk, Harry had the thought that he was going to need a better trunk that would be more secure. He now had secrets, and his current, cheap student model was not going to work anymore. Especially in a dorm room where Ron Weasley casually assumed that what was Harry's, was his also.

It was not an urgent item, he hopefully had time, but it would earn a place on his list.

First, Harry pulled out the book he had found in the family vault and opened it once again. The letter from his parents he put aside for later. He then stared at the Will of James Charlus Potter.

It took several minutes for Harry to master himself and not breakdown into tears. A little leakage was not breaking down. It wasn't, he insisted to himself.

Opening the Will, he skimmed through the pages of legal language that he figured all Wills contained. On the last pages, he saw that his parents had set a 10,000-galleon (£350,000) bequest to his godfather Sirius Black to, "Take care of Harald for us. Raise him to be a fine man and show him how to prank for fun, and well, more fun."

Professor Lupin was given five thousand galleons also with the admonishment that he was to "Buy some decent robes you old wolf. And you cannot give the money back as we are obviously dead."

"To Peter Pettigrew, we would leave you five thousand galleons. Except that, if we are dead, it is because of you. Peter Pettigrew is the Secret Keeper of our cottage in Godric's Hollow which is hidden under a Fidelius Charm. If we are dead, he betrayed us."

Our choices for Magical Guardian(s) for our son are as follows:

First, Sirius Black, Godfather by the Godfather ritual enacted on August 5, 1980.

Next, Frank and Alice Longbottom.

If they are unavailable,

Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Remus J. Lupin, Family Friend. Take Harry and leave Great Britain. Return when it is safe.

Edward and Andromeda Tonks.

We provide a sum of fifteen galleons per week to be paid to his guardians to help defray the expenses of raising our son.

Under no circumstances is Harald's guardian to enter him into a contracted Marriage.

Also, he is to have no contact with the sister of Lily Evans Potter. Her name is Petunia Dursley nee Evans.

At the age of fifteen, he may initiate contact with them. We strongly urge caution as the sister and the husband are aware of magic, but hate magical people.

Harry sat motionless and stared at the formal parchment. Moving like an automaton, he looked at his mother's Will. Except for substituting the words 'her' for 'the' when describing Petunia, the wording was the same.

Moving very carefully and very deliberately, Harry put both Wills away in his trunk. He next sat on the bed and worked hard at not throwing a screaming fit over the absolute, complete cauldron-melting potions disaster that seemed to be his life.

The more he thought about his plight, the angrier he became until he literally had to grab his head to keep his skull from exploding. Or was he working on keeping from curling up in a catatonic ball until someone found him?

Harry did not know which.

After a time that seemed forever, his eyes drifted to the writing desk, and he cautiously stood up.

Seating himself at the room's small writing desk, Harry pulled out the folder given to him by Tongueripper. "Something to do," he thought. "Something to do."

Because he figured it was most important, he dug through the sheets and scrolls until he found the listing of the Potter properties.

Potter Manor – Gloucestershire, Cotswold Hills, Fidelius Charm protected.
Potter Cottage – Godric's Hollow, Herefordshire, Ministry of Magic monument, not habitable.
Potter Mediterranean Villa – Villefranche-sur-Mer, in stasis.
Potter's Cay – Bahamas Islands, unplottable, position unknown, status unknown.

"He owned a manor!? And nobody knew where it was? Harry remembered from a talk with Sirius while visiting him in his cave during the Tri-Wiz about Godric's Hollow and the Fidelius Charm and that it needed a Secret Keeper. Just don't pick a rat. "Secret Keeper. He had to find the Secret Keeper!"

Suddenly his mood crashed. "How was he to find the secret keeper? He kept staring at the parchment as though trying to will it to tell him how to find the Secret Keeper.

Suddenly, as though an invisible hand was writing across the page, writing appeared.

The Potter Manor can be accessed at the gate in the stone wall one thousand six hundred forty feet north of the intersection of Clay Pit Lane and Kiln Trail, Ironstone, Gloucestershire.

Harry had found his Secret Keeper. His mother had been the Secret Keeper for his family's Manor.

Harry was almost dancing around the room as his mood swung up to elation. If no one knew the address and only Harry could find it, not even Dumbledore would be able to find him.

After he had calmed down, he started reading a list of properties the Potter family owned and collected rent from. He was surprised to read that several of them were places he knew. Tomes and Scrolls, The Trunk Shoppe, and a dozen others in Diagon Alley. He even owned six rented-out buildings in Hogsmeade.

Just then, there was a familiar tapping at his room's window. Looking up, he saw Hedwig's golden eyes staring at him. That had been quick. Opening the window to let his favorite girl glide in, he then rummaged in his trunk for an owl treat.

"Hi, girl," he said stroking her chest while she perched on the foot of his bed. "I'm going to write a note to Hermione. Feel up to a quick return trip?"

The stare and sharp prek, PREK that followed gave Harry the understanding that his owl believed her chick was an idiot, and she was going to have to give him remedial training.

She turned her back on him and calmly started on her treat.

"Um, alright. I'll, uh . . just get that note ready."

Five minutes later, after a quick drink from her owl cage bowl, the snowy owl sailed out the window, headed for Hermione.

Harry watched out the window for a minute before returning to the desk and its piles of parchment.

Next was a list of companies the goblins said he owned.

Far Equatorial Imports seemed to be a tropical plant and potion ingredients supplier, The Jos. P. Menchen Company appeared to be a large supplier of magical cloth to clothes makers in Magical Britannia and the continent.

There were several small-ish sounding companies on the list. The most interesting was the All About Armour firm.

Harry could see he needed to find the sheets that would tell him what income all these rents and owned companies paid him.

Next was a parchment titled Business Income, listing companies that the Potters owned part of, and/or collected a percentage of the profits from. Last was the SleekEazy Company which was one Harry had heard of from Hermione in their fourth year. She had given him the impression the products worked very well but were expensive.

Appended was a shorter list of companies or individuals who were paying off a business loan or a private loan.

There was a shorter list of those who had quit making payments.

There was a scrawled note from Tongueripper on the last that he should be prepared to decide after who or where to send the Gringotts Debt Collection Group at their next meeting.

Harry's grin was feral. He remembered some of the names on the list from the graveyard as Voldemort had chastised his followers with Crucio's and scorn.

He had never heard of them before, but a group of goblins dedicated to tracking and collecting debts owed to goblins? Some invisible creature with cold feet must have walked down Harry's back from what he felt, and the shivers that followed, after reading that note.

Harry's attention and enthusiasm for plowing through the confusing financial statements that were his heritage were both waning rapidly.

With fortunate timing, Harry decided, Hedwig showed up again. She had a note from Hermione saying that he could come to visit tomorrow. Since it would be Sunday, her parents would be home, and she wanted them to meet her best friend from school.

As Harry had requested, she had written her address. With his non-knowledge of geography, he had no idea where Crawley was, except it must be close by to London because Hedwig had returned so quickly.

Harry was confused thinking about going to Hermione's. He missed being with her during the holiday. They were together all the time at school. She helped him with his classwork, was the smartest person Harry knew, and she was very brave.

To twelve-year-old Harry, it was only a month ago when they were trying to keep the Philosopher's Stone away from Voldemort, she had saved them all twice. Once when they were trapped in the Devil's Snare and then she solved the deadly riddle that let him get through the flame trap to try to keep the Stone out of the hands of I-Don't-Need-A-Nose.

And that didn't include saving him from the curse Quirrell had used on his broom during the quidditch match.

To fourteen-year-old Harry, she was the one person who never stopped supporting him no matter what happened. Through the whispered accusations of being the Heir of Slytherin, to his being exposed as a parseltongue, to standing in front of him and defying the mass murderer, Sirius Black.

Suddenly, he shuddered as he remembered Erzelkendis saying that his "True Friend" had died with him that night in the forest when the werewolf killed them.

"Wait a moment. If Hermione had died, how had she returned for fourth-year?"

That thought had Harry's brain stuttering to a halt. He knew she had been there fourth-year. She was the reason he had survived the Tri-Wizard Tournament. She had planned, plotted, nagged, and cajoled him into learning the many spells that had kept him alive in the tasks.

He was trying to understand what could have happened, although his brain was refusing to process his thoughts in a rational manner.

The memory of how beautiful she looked in her periwinkle blue dress at the Yule Ball, popped into his mind. That memory made him realize that he had to work at remembering what she looked like now, which was three years ago to him. Right now, she was just a cute, bushy-haired, knobby-kneed, somewhat gangly, twelve-year-old, and Ron was still his friend.

Ron. What was he going to do about what his first friend had turned into?

Right now, he was only a couple of days away from being rescued by Fred, George, and Ron in the Ford Anglia enchanted by their father, Arthur Weasley, because Ron was worried something was wrong with Harry.

Harry stared into the distance as he relived those wonderful days at the Weasley home, the Burrow. The house was perhaps the finest example of 'lack of logic in the wizarding world' that Hermione ranted about frequently. But Harry had loved, did love? that house. He actually had only stayed there for parts of two summers over three years, but every moment was a moment he was not with his relatives.

They flew on brooms, practiced quidditch, messed around, had lots of guy talk, and had eaten huge tasty meals made by Ron's mother, Molly Weasley. Those days had been great.

He was wool-gathering. Back to his problems with Ron. Erzelkendis did not like Ron. Erzelkendis seemed to regard his friend as someone not to be trusted.

Harry was puzzled. Yeah, sure Ron had been the reason Hermione had been in the girl's bathroom when the troll got into the school, but he had helped rescue her. And second year, he had stood with Harry through all the Heir of Slytherin garbage his schoolmates had dumped on him. And despite his fear of spiders, had followed Harry to the acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest

But in third year that seemed to change. All the flaws that Harry wanted to overlook in Ron's personality seemed to suddenly burst forth, and now Harry could look back and remember them all.

Hmm. That's interesting," he thought. "I'm remembering things much clearer than I used to."

Before they even reached the castle on their first Hogwarts Express ride, Ron had been unrelenting in his prejudice against Slytherins. He had mocked Neville for his having a toad, (That from someone who had a common rat as a pet?) and he had described Hermione as 'mental, that one', and then derided her for months. His being particularly brutal after the charms class where even with her help, he had failed to levitate his feather, driving the rejected girl into crying in the bathroom where the troll almost killed her.

This year would be the good year. Although he was often derisive of her abilities and harped constantly about what she wanted them to do, there were no outright assaults on her intelligence or her bookishness. Of course, she had been petrified for what seemed like half the sodding school year.

Harry stayed with her constantly, talking about classes and homework.

Ron quit visiting the infirmary after two visits.

It was their third year when the return of what Harry was beginning to think of as Possessed Ron, occurred in full force. Christmas day, and the argument with Hermione over her telling McGonagall that Harry had a new Firebolt sent to him by a person unknown, brought Ron the Right Foul Git out in force. Of course, to protect him from that death-eating, mass murderer Sirius Black, McGonagall had confiscated the broom to have it tested for curses.

Hermione's motives were good, but her method was terrible. And Ron had immediately declared war on her over a broom that was not even his.

After a while, Harry knew he was being a fool for continuing to follow Ron's ire over the incident. Ron seemed to want to make a permanent breach with the completely apologetic girl who admitted she had gone about the problem in the wrong way. Especially since the broom was returned before the quidditch match against Ravenclaw, no harm was really done.

And as weird as it seemed, there were days Harry had thought Ron still blamed the other two for the loss of his pet rat Scabbers, even though he knew the rat was the animagus Peter Pettigrew, the man who betrayed Harry's parents.

Fourth-year. Harry had been stunned, bewildered, and then angered by what he considered Ron's betrayal of their friendship after Harry's name was spat out of the Goblet of Fire. Nothing he could say would change the mo-rons mind that Harry had nothing to do with his being entered into the tournament.

He may have given a very Ron-ish, half-hearted apology after the first task, but then immediately went back to pushing to occupy all of Harry's time with 'hanging out with his best mate', quidditch talk, and chess. The struggle to get free of him so he could practice for the next task had Harry wondering why he had accepted the redheads half-arsed apology. He didn't do a bloody thing to help him survive any task.

That thought set off the remembrance of how Ron had known about the dragons being sent to Hogwarts and not said a word suddenly spiked Harry's ire.

And at the Yule Ball, once again Ron had been such an arse to Hermione, she again was left crying in the castle after he got done berating her.

She had been beautiful, vivacious, and having a great time. Ron could not stand her being anything except a beaver-toothed, bushy-haired, know-it-all.

Because he now knew he had died, and was being given a chance to re-set his life, Harry was at this point wondering what he had ever seen in the pillock? He was insensitive, callous, jealous, lazy, pushy, and took rejection of his biased views as a personal attack. Walking on eggshells was a quickly developed skill for dealing with the red head.

Hermione had been pushing him also. But she focused on getting Harry skilled enough to survive Hogwarts, which morphed the last few months into getting Harry skilled enough to survive the next Tri-Wizard task.

And he had. He had survived. Until another trusted adult turned traitor and finished Voldemort's work against the Potter family.

"Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Dad. I know I'm back again, but it feels like I failed. I'll try my hardest this time. I won't be a lazy Ron follower. I will be nicer to Hermione. I will be a better friend to Neville, after all, we could have been raised like brothers. But what do I do about Dumbledore? Everybody he seems to have touched died or was taken away from me."

Being emotionally wrung out, Harry just sat at the desk staring at nothing for some time. Becoming aware of the world again, Harry noticed the afternoon was passing. He needed clothes, robes for Diagon Alley, and some muggle clothes for seeing Hermione and meeting her parents.

Moving slowly as though recovering from an illness, Harry double-checked his trunk for the robe Dobby had created for him but could not find it. The transfiguration must have worn off. He found nothing acceptable to wear except his school uniform, and that he knew would draw attention to him.

"Time to take another chance," he his school robe, he concentrated very hard. "Intent is everything," he then transfigured the robe into something more generic looking, complete with a hood. He was not sure that it now looked stylish, but it no longer looked like a Hogwarts robe. And that was what he wanted.

He still felt under pressure of being discovered, so he quickly changed the sizes of his Dudley hand downs and then the colour of his shirt to dark green and his pants to light grey and left the room.

With his hood up in the heat of summer, Harry drew some stares, but he thought they were just idle curiosity as he walked up the alley to Madame Malkin's.

Once inside he dropped his hood. The fitting area was empty. That was not surprising as the Hogwarts rush was still weeks away. Harry slicked his hair down over his scar and hoped.

A shopgirl entered through the back curtain. "How can I help you," she insipidly inquired.

Harry worked on giving her a friendly smile as he said, "Hello, I need a wardrobe. By that I mean my Hogwarts uniforms, and whatever you think I need for being dressed as a fine young wizard. Shoes included."

Harry paused and then continued, "I also need a good set of muggle clothes as I will be out with muggles tomorrow evening."

Being a commissioned shopgirl, the young woman returned Harry her best friendly smile as she toted up in her head how the slow sales day had just become a winner.

It was an exhausting hour and a half later that Harry left the store no longer looking like a refugee kitted out from the Christian Charity bin. (Which he had been.) The shopgirl had even shrunk his packages for him to carry in his pocket.

He now had both regular and school robes of better cut and material than average. They had growth and re-sizing charms and automatic warming and cooling charms. In the summer's heat, he was now appreciating the latter as he headed over to The Trunk Shoppe in his new shoes.

They were so comfortable; he had binned his taped-together trainers before leaving the store.

Best of all, he had a flat, brimmed wizard's cap that covered both his distinctive hair and his scar.

Entering the store, he could see a large array of trunks in the store. Just then a cheerful-looking portly wizard bustled over.

Not seeing any parents yet taking in the stylish casual wear of the young boy in front of him he immediately decided on professional mode, rather than salesman mode.

"Greetings young Wizard. My name is Barnabus Wettlesgate, I'm the owner of the Trunk Shoppe. How may I help you?" he inquired.

"I need a better trunk than the basic student model my minder picked out for me last year," Harry replied. "Fit and finish will be important, but security of the contents will be paramount. I grow tired of having my dorm mates assume what's mine is also theirs," he emphasized with a raised forefinger.

The slightly raised eyebrows gave away the startlement that statement produced.

Harry made a sudden decision. Willing his Heir ring into visibility, he showed it to the older wizard.

"Heir Potter," said the visibly startled owner. "I make the finest trunks in all of Britannia. I can charm one of my trunks to disable anyone who tries to get into your trunk. It might be a bit drastic to kill one of your dorm mates for theft, but it can be done. I cannot abide thieves."

Harry had to grin at the man. "Mr. Wettlesgate, while that last idea does have merit, I shall have to forego that pleasure as it could possibly upset my remaining other dorm mates."

"However," Harry said with an exaggerated compassionate look, "If the first time does not perform the required discouragement, perhaps something that zaps them with a small lightning bolt?"

A positively evil smirk crossed the Shoppe owner's face. "Perhaps a smaller bolt the first time and a knock-them-out zap the second?"

Harry thought for a moment. "My chief suspect is rather thick. Maybe three gradations, the second leaving him barely conscious."

"Done, Heir Potter. Shall we pick out the trunk you want, and apparently need?"

Half an hour and fifteen galleons, thirteen sickles later, (£ 550.00) Harry was the owner of a fine looking, "European Black Alder heartwood, stained to resemble Brazilian Rosewood, with hard-wearing, gold-plated fittings, theft protected trunk with a lock keyed to your magical signature, with shrinking and resizing charms as commanded with a touch of your wand."

Mr. Wettlesgate smirked at Harry. "Since there is no spell needed to spark the resizing, it will not set off the underage magic detectors."

Harry thought the polished black and dark red wood trunk with gold-coloured fittings was one of the most striking things he had ever seen.

"This, Heir Potter is a fine three-compartment trunk. If you wand tap the lock for compartment one, it will look like a standard Hogwarts student trunk. Compartment two is a wardrobe and changing room. This is where you want to keep any of your finer family crest robes if you are trying to keep your becoming the Heir quiet," the older man said laying a finger alongside his nose.

Now the tradesman was positively beaming. "And finally, down the spiral stair, is compartment three. This I will set up to be your private study. Two desks, bookshelves, locking file drawers, a small loo, and a comfortable couch for a quick, quiet kip if needed."

"And finally, both the closet and study are warded against the Ministry tracking underage magic performed in the compartments. Also, as I said, the three taps to enlarge or shrink the trunk will not register as magic on the Ministry detectors."

The Shoppe owner smiled beatifically, Harry returned it with a large smirk.

Mr. Wettlesgate told Harry he would finish his charms work, and he could pick up his trunk first thing tomorrow morning and promised to keep both Harry's presence in the Alley, and the taking of his Heirship quiet.

Harry went back to the Leaky Cauldron, quietly had a word with Tom the Barman, and paid him the five galleons for his room for the next three nights and then added five more for dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning delivered up to his room.

"If anyone asks, I was never here," he whispered, tapping the side of his nose, and getting a gap-toothed grin in return.

The extra was for Tom's silence about seeing Harry alone in the Alley. He figured he had been pushing his luck hard today, and was afraid not having been recognized was not going to last.

Up in his room, he broke out his paperwork again.

He had read the Wills, and seen the part where Sirius was made his formal Godfather. He had no idea what the ritual meant, but it had to be important. Yet if it was important, why had Sirius not mentioned it to Harry during one of their admittedly few talks before Moody killed him?

But, who could he ask? He needed someone steeped in wizarding lore. All the stuff muggleborns and muggle-raised like himself had never learned about, or worse, never learned just how ignorant they were.

Neville. Harry had a feeling that he was going to become much better friends with the shy boy.

Time to make another list.

'Who to approach about learning about the world of wizards'.

Neville
The Diabolical Duo twins
Percy Weasley (Maybe the best bet)

Hufflepuffs before they think I cursed Justin Finch-Fletchley?

Cedric Diggory, maybe
Susan Bones? (Before Cedric gets picked in fourth year?)
(If I can keep my eyes off her developing chest?)

Ravenclaw.
No one.

Slytherin
No one.

He stared at the list, appalled at its short length. Four years, almost forty months, in a boarding school in one of the remotest places in Scotland, and this was the sum of people he could maybe be more than casually friendly with? Four years of learning nothing about the world he had been thrust into except wizards and witches were quidditch fanatics.

He knew about Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, wizard tents, and that was it. Oh, he knew the Minister of Magical Britannia was a corrupt, arse-covering politician. He had seen the idiot throw Hagrid into Azkaban because the Ministry "has to be seen doing something!"

Then he was willing to murder Sirius with his "kiss on sight" order to the dementors because the Ministry had illegally thrown his godfather into Azkaban and now he was an embarrassment to the Minister.

Also, he was friends with Lucius Malfoy. Enough said.

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Harry no sooner entered his room when he finally gave in to his aching want and opened his mother's journal. He found himself getting sidetracked and lost in his thoughts as he gained knowledge of his mother. Her writing was perhaps the neatest, easiest reading quill work he had ever seen.

The journal was one she apparently started after becoming married to his father. Her plans for her and James' life were laid out so logically that even Harry could track them with no problems. His mind drifted sideways wondering if Hermione's constant planning was anything like this.

It was as 1979 began that the war started to dominate her writings. The number of friends who died and people she knew who disappeared, grew sharply. She started writing about how frustrating it was to, in her words, put down a Death Eater only to have him revived and back attacking her and James within a few minutes.

Since muggleborn and their families seemed to be doing most of the dying, Lily's writing became harsher and more critical of some Order that Dumbledore led.

Harry ascertained that this Order was fighting Death Eaters whenever they could but was using only non-deadly and non-lethal spells. They were losing the fights, and they were losing people.

He read that his mum was about to resign from the Order so as to be able to start using more damaging spells against her opponents.

Harry stopped reading, lost in thought when he reached the part where his mother had found she was pregnant. Her happiness and sheer joy cut through the foggy despair of the previous entries. All the plans she was making, all the things she and James would teach Harry, tumbled over each other for several more pages.

And then the joy re-doubled when her best friend, Alice announced she was pregnant also. The next several pages were filled with his mom happily fantasizing how the two babies were going to grow up best of friends.

Sirius and Alice would be Harry's godparents with Lily and Thorvald (Apparently Alice's younger brother.) being the godparents for the Longbottom baby.

Harry was so surprised he stood quickly, knocking the chair over. Neville was his sort of godbrother? His mother was Harry's godmother? Where was she? For that matter, where was Neville's father?

As Harry thought, he realized he could never remember Neville talking about his parents.

After chasing his thoughts around in circles for a few minutes, he finally picked up the chair and sat down at the desk, and started reading again.

The pages quickly returned to despair. Dumbledore told them there had been a prophecy. One that might end up applying to her unborn son.

"A prophecy? Possibly about me? What in hell did it say? Did Sirius know? Did Remus know? And who in hell told Dumbledore about a prophecy?"

The next pages were full of discussions and arguments that went on about what to do.

Lily was all for leaving and losing themselves in the unknown of Australia or New Zealand. Even the MACUSA would be better than staying on a small island with a maniacal madman tearing it apart in his frenzied search for the prophesized one.

If they left early enough, Voldemort would never know when her son was born, and therefore if he was born 'as the seventh month dies,' only his parents would know.

"Oh, shitte. MY birthday is as 'the seventh month dies!"

Desperately, he worked hard at not thinking about this last. He knew if he started wallowing in guilt now, he wouldn't leave the room for a week. And he had things he HAD to do.

Back to the journal. James refused to leave. "Evil must be fought. If it is not, it will take over the world."

As a compromise, Lily had James start giving her a chunk of the money he was giving Dumbledore for his Bird Club. (Harry did not understand the reference. Dumbledore had a bird-watching club that took tens of thousands of galleons to support? What the …?) Much of that gold, she immediately turned in for United Kingdom pounds. Nearly thirty thousand galleons were converted. Gringotts gouged them a very hefty twenty percent for doing the exchange but . .

Harry found a scrap of paper and a biro and did the math. And then stared at his results and then redid the multiplication, and was stunned again.

His mother had hidden about eight hundred forty thousand pounds somewhere in the muggle world. (1981 rates almost 1.3 million dollars)

"Well, that would explain why Tongueripper seems to carry some dislike for my mother. Losing thirty thousand galleons from the vaults under his control probably pissed him right off. Especially since Father was shoveling gold from the vaults to Dumbledore at the same time."

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of dinner and Harry put his reading on hold in return for filling his stomach. Being away from the Dursleys was such a filling experience. Besides, he had forgotten about lunch and was now very hungry.

After dinner, he returned to his journal reading. Somehow Mother had created eight brokerage accounts of around one hundred thousand pounds each. ("What's a brokerage account?") The accounts had varying amounts of 'risk'? (Harry was not sure what that meant.) so Harry had no idea if any of the money was left.

The remaining money had been invested in a 'precious metals' brokerage account or had been used to buy actual gold and silver. This time she had written down that the bars of metal were in a 'safe deposit box' at a Manchester office of Barclay's Bank. "Was that like a Gringotts vault?" he wondered.

The next page had a list of banks, brokerage firms, addresses, deposit amounts, contacts, and account numbers. Harry, having been taught nothing about finances, was almost totally befuddled by the rows of lists and unknown accountings.

He paused his work with a sigh. Back to relying on Hermione again. The problem was, he was getting peeved at having to dump everything onto her. He was two years older than her, and he was still vastly more ignorant of the practicalities of life.

He had promised himself to work harder and goof off less, but that did not help him right now.

Harry ended up being a very frustrated wizard who had trouble sleeping that night. He was trying hard not to blame his being born as the reason his parents were killed.

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A/N:

Until I reread the early books before actually started writing this story, I had forgotten,
or not paid a lot of attention, to just how ignorant Harry was through book four.
(Didn't improve a lot even through book seven.)

Gringotts - - - - - check
Wills and heritage – - check
Shopping - - - - - sort of check
Angst & Introspection – semi-check
Rich Lord – Working on it.
Hermione – coming up