To Ride the Carousel Again
Chapter 6
I do not make any money from writing this story.
All identifiable characters belong to JK Rowling and assorted other large corporations.
Visiting Hermione
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Approx. 5,800 words
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Sunday, August 2, 1992
As Harry staggered off the Knight Bus a few houses away from the address Hermione had sent him, he was grateful that he had reminded himself not to eat a large breakfast. Harry had remembered that the Knight Bus could transfigure a full stomach into an empty one partway through the trip.
He had already been busy this morning. He had picked up his new trunk and purchased two new dragonhide backpacks that had featherlight and space-expanding charms on them. One of them he had brought as a gift to his friend. After all, if she kept loading her bookbag with books that weighed a ton, she would probably cripple herself before graduation.
Besides, the backpacks were dragonhide. Spell-resistant Hebridean Black dragonhide. If anybody cursed them in the back, they should bestow some protection. And Harry knew of at least one blond ferret who would curse a person in the back.
Following the pavement along the road, he stopped to admire the house sitting on the left side of the cul-de-sac. It was of Victorian style with three floors and what looked like a basement. Painted a pleasing light blue, with several shades of grey trim and white highlights, it was an understated hallmark of a successful owner. It was miles ahead of Number 4 Privet Drive in looks and character. And much larger also.
The well-landscaped front of the house was tasteful, not gaudy with the proper amount of flowers for beauty, but not an overwhelming amount of maintenance. And the lawn was a brilliant shade of green.
Harry could see Vernon and Petunia immediately fawning all over the owners, people they knew would be their social betters.
Someone had been looking for him as he was only halfway up the entrance walk when his best friend launched herself out of the front door. He barely had a glimpse of her swinging bushy hair before a hugger missile impacted him hard enough to knock him on his back. Fortunately, he twisted sideways and between the backpack and his head landing in the grass, he wasn't hurt.
"Although if she keeps squeezing me I'm going to pass out from not being able to breathe!" "Hermione, air . . . need . . . brea . . ." he managed to gasp out.
He didn't think she had heard him over her rapid babbling about how glad she was to see him and what had happened, and how did he . . .
Suddenly she popped up off him, and as he gasped in a deep breath, he stared up at close range into the madly grinning face and sparkling chocolate brown eyes of his best friend. Oh, how he had missed her this summer. He wasn't sure which was worse, being at the Dursleys or not seeing Hermione for ten weeks.
Harry thought she must have realized she was sitting on him, actually straddling his hips, in full view of the neighborhood because she blushed and suddenly stood up. Then while still carrying on her one-way 'conversation', yanked him to his feet and started towing him up the walkway towards the still open door.
"Mum and Dad aren't back from church yet, but they'll be back soon. I didn't go because I was waiting for you. Would you like tea, and some biscuits? How did you get here? Did you have breakfast? I don't cook very well but we could have toast and some cereal. Mum said we would probably go out to a restaurant after they got back. Do you like Indian food? Or Chinese? Or Italian? I like Italian, but we could go wherever you like. And . . ."
The torrent of words faded away as she took a good look at Harry. He was dressed in nice clothes. For the first time, she was seeing him in a set of clothes, that was not his school uniform, that actually fit him.
Black slacks, matching shoes, and a dark green button-down short-sleeve shirt that matched his eyes. Those brilliant green eyes that could look right into her soul. At least that is what went fancifully through her mind, as she had sneaked a read of some of her Mums trashy romance novels this summer.
The blush that accompanied those thoughts was spectacular. She quickly turned away but kept hauling him down the hall to the kitchen.
Harry could see the kitchen was airy and well laid out with modern quality appliances of the brands that would have had Petunia green with envy. He was directed to sit at the clean-lined, light wood table with four matching fabric-padded chairs, but he could tell the table was expandable with a leaf to fit at least six.
He sat down and watched as Hermione bustled to make tea and put some biscuits onto a plate she placed on the table. The teapot was poured into mugs instead of cups because as Hermione said, "Little tea cups with saucers are for more formal occasions."
"Alright, Harry. What was the deal why you weren't getting any of the letters Ron and I sent earlier? Did your guardians not let you write or something? You said you got it sorted a couple of days ago. Does that mean we can get answers to our letters now?"
Harry thought about what he could say. "It wasn't their fault that my mail was not delivered. I've gotten rid of the blockage and Hedwig will bring any letters back to me from you."
She gave him the gimlet eye as he once again evaded any questions about how he was treated by his relatives.
The net effect though, was two youngsters sitting, sipping tea, nibbling biscuits, and having trouble restarting their conversation.
Harry finally hit upon what he figured was a safe topic. "Didn't you tell me your family is going abroad for a holiday again this year?"
Even though she knew he had deliberately diverted her, her face lit up, "Yes, we are driving to France and Italy starting early Friday. Mum and I both want to see several of the museums in northern Italy, and Dad wants to tour the southern wine regions of France. We're all hoping to get some beach days to go swimming. The warm water of the Mediterranean Sea is so-o-o much better than the cold water off the beaches of England."
"I wish you could come with us, Harry," she ended wistfully.
As much as he would have liked to go on holiday with his brainy, bushy-haired friend, he really was going to be busy trying to get out from under his meddlesome headmaster's thumb.
He gave her a lopsided grin and said, "That sounds like fun, Hermione. But my relatives would never let me go anywhere I might have fun, and, I don't have a passport."
Even though she knew it was impossible for her best friend to go with her family, her face still fell in disappointment.
"There is a bright side to my visit, though" Harry almost whispered to her. "I have some parchment that I am having trouble understanding and I need help."
Hermione's demeanor immediately perked up. Parchmentwork? Complicated? Something new? Some way to help Harry? She was practically quivering like a bird dog on point. She had finished her homework for the holiday weeks ago, was almost through her third-year textbooks and into her third reading of the second-year textbooks, and was down to reading her Mum's trashy romance novels to keep total boredom at bay.
He reached into his backpack and took out the folder that he had received in Gringotts showing all his magical world assets, properties, and monies. His vault valuations were not included, and his mother's accounts were not included. He wasn't paying attention to the avid look she gave his backpack as the large Gringotts folder and rolls of parchment came out of a space too small to hold them.
"I can only understand less than half of this stuff. Help me?" he invited while making puppy dog eyes at her.
"Of course, Harry," she responded while sitting down and starting to gather the sheets by some categories that made sense to her.
This was the kitchen table tableau that Hermione's parents walked in on ten minutes later. Hermione tackling piles of ten years' worth of banking parchment with her usual single-mindedness, with Harry perusing some parchmentwork of his own while sipping tea and biscuit nibbling.
Hermione didn't even notice the approach of her parents. Harry stood up and quietly introduced himself to Mr. and Mrs. Granger.
They both recognized him from the descriptions in Hermione's letters both from school and yesterday's nearly delirious happiness that he would be visiting tomorrow.
They in turn looked upon a glasses-wearing, green-eyed, short, scrawny, messy black-haired boy who was dressed well and was acting very politely towards them.
The two were undisturbed by their daughter's behavior. They had seen it before as she obsessively threw herself into some interesting project.
The three quietly walked into the parlour and Mrs. Granger broke the ice asking Harry "What did you bring her that she's working so hard on?"
Harry went with his rehearsed story as to how his parent's Wills had finally been opened, and he was having trouble understanding it all. He probably needed a solicitor for some of the 'stuff' as he thought of it, and things like what his income was now, what would he have to do when he came of age in five years, and things like that.
It took another fifteen minutes of his explaining Lordships, Goblins, and neglectful magical guardians to the Granger parents to get them to understand part of what he was saying.
When he was done, he watched as the two of them looked at each other and without words seemed to come to an agreement.
Mr. Granger politely asked if Harry would let him take a look at his 'stuff' along with Hermione. He reminded Harry that he and his wife ran their own business and were used to complicated financial statements.
Harry pondered Mr. Granger's offer of help. On one hand, he wanted as few people as possible to know what he was doing. On the other hand, he needed help from people who would not go running to Dumbledore. The downside that he could see from accepting Mr. Granger's help was if Dumbledore himself visited the Granger house looking for Harry, he could easily read both his and Hermione's mind.
The good news was they would be on holiday in Europe until a week before September first.
If he trusted them, it was going to mean letting another of his secrets out.
"Sir, I need a promise from you and Hermione about my 'stuff', alright?"
The two of them returned to the kitchen where Harry first gently touched Hermione's shoulder. She unconsciously swatted his hand away as though it was an annoying fly. He then had to actually shake Hermione's shoulder to get her attention on him.
He waved his hand over the parchment covered table. "Hermione, I need you and your father to promise me that you will not tell anyone else about all this. Especially if Professor Dumbledore ever comes here looking for me, do not, repeat, do not, look him in the eye. He is a mind reader, a skilled Legilimencer. That means if you meet his eyes, and are thinking about me, he can pluck," Harry made a grab between her eyes with his fingers and thumb, "your thoughts right out of your mind."
"Harry, why would Professor Dumbledore want to do that?" Hermione stated, puzzled.
"Because where you see a great leader of the Light, I see an interfering old man who takes far too large an interest in anything I do. Including forcing me to stay at my relative's house during school holidays." Harry replied.
Harry could see from her expression that maligning her revered authority figure was about to send her off on a not-needed-right-now rant.
At that point Harry held up his hand. "Hermione, please, no more. I don't want to have this discussion right now. Now, all I want is some simple explanations about what all this parchment is trying to tell me. No arguing now, please?" Puppy dog eyes.
"Puppy dog eyes only work on me once a day, Potter. And you've already used up your quota," she snapped, obviously upset with him.
She glared at him for another ten seconds before relenting, but said, "You know, you will tell me all about this later, right?"
Harry sighed and slowly nodded his head.
At that moment, Mrs. Granger entered the conversation. "Are we going to eat now, or shall we leave in about an hour after you two have done some work on Harry's finances?"
One "Later," and one "An hour," and a shrug from Harry, had Mrs. Granger making more tea. If Hermione hadn't been so intrigued by the parchment sheets, she would have recognized the danger signs.
Gathering the tea tray, she took Harry back to the parlour for a very polite, yet thorough interrogation about what Hermione had written home about in her letters.
It started gently enough. How had they met? Oh, so you two weren't really friends until some large creature almost attacked my daughter in a women's loo in the school?
Harry had been afraid exactly what Mrs. Granger was doing would happen. In fourth year, Hermione had casually dropped that she heavily edited her school stories at home because what parent in their right mind would send their sweet, darling daughter to a school where twelve-foot-tall or seventy-foot-long child-killing monsters roamed the hallways?
Not to mention vicious, three-headed guard dogs, killer vines, flocks of keys programmed to stab you to death, murderous chess sets, and poisoned potion puzzles. Since she had yet to meet a basilisk, acromantulas, dementors, a crazed prison escapee, or dragons, she didn't have to not tell her parents about them.
Harry had promised himself he would do his damnedest that she never would.
His problem at the moment was that he and Hermione had not coordinated their stories. He was rapidly becoming scared he would blab too much, or be so obviously lying about the happenings that occurred at Hogwarts, that the Grangers would start grilling their daughter to get the truth.
"Yes, Mrs. Granger. The monster had been let into the school by a teacher who had been possessed by an evil spirit. The school gossip was that a spirit used the troll as a distraction so he could steal a magical artifact from the school. Apparently, the spirit needed the artifact to regain a . . a . . real body."
"None of us students know what artifact he was after, but that's really not surprising. We are only know-nothing first-years, and Hogwarts is a school that has been teaching magic and has had wizards and witches doing magic in it, for more than a thousand years. Stuff has accumulated in the school over all those years. Stuff I'll bet no one even knows about."
"What's that ma'am? Oh, what happened to the professor? Well, the story that made the rounds is that when he was caught by the teachers, the spirit abandoned him, and when the spirit left, he died. Some magical thing. Hermione might know more about that sort of thing than I do."
"No, Ma'am. I don't think being in the magical world is more dangerous than our 'normal' world. But we've so far only seen Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. I'm sure that London has places you would not want Hermione and me (1) to be after sunset. I mean, Knockturn Alley is supposed to be like that, so we wouldn't go there."
"Could you excuse me, please? I kinda want to see what Mr. Granger and Hermione have come up with."
Harry thankfully was given a small shoo wave by Mrs. Granger, and grateful to escape, he sped into the kitchen where Hermione and her dad were talking about interest payments.
Harry sat patiently off to Hermione's left side. He saw Mr. Granger suddenly look up as his wife entered the room.
"Don't spend too long on those accounts. You can get back to them after we come back from the restaurant," she said.
"She's right, sweetie. We can come back to this later. Let's go take your boyfriend out to eat," Mr. Granger decided. "And while we're there, I can give him my 'you hurt my little girl, I'll hurt you worse' spiel. I've been practicing it for years."
"Dad-d-d-e-e-e!" Hermione wailed. "He's not my boyfriend and you'll do no such thing!"
She was trying to glare a hole in her father, despite blushing so red, Harry feared she would pass out from lack of blood to her brain.
Hermione and her father gathered up the parchment sheets and rolls in an order that made sense to them, and everyone watched with expressions of wonder, amazement, or in Hermione's case, excitement, as Harry placed them into his backpack that was obviously too small to fit the folders and rolls into.
"Harry Potter," she growled. "You will explain where you bought that backpack and how you just made it work like that."
"I bought in Diagon Alley, and magic is involved," Harry smirked at her cheekily and immediately moved behind her mother to keep her from retaliating to his teasing. Harry could see Mr. Granger move quickly towards the front door as he could not completely hide his laughter at his frustrated daughter.
When the two pre-teens were seated in the back of Mrs. Granger's car, a really nice silver-coloured, Series 5, BMW saloon on the way to the restaurant, Hermione said in a low voice to Harry. "Those are very nice clothes you have on today, Harry. Why don't you wear clothes like that at school? I know we wear our uniforms most of the time, but your, um, casual muggle clothes are usually somewhat more ill-fitting. Did your aunt take you shopping?"
Harry pondered for a moment. He should have realized that his friend would notice his improved apparel, and being more inquisitive than a cat, she would want to find out what had happened.
"No, Hermione. My aunt would never spend this much money on me. I bought these clothes at Madame Malkin's in Diagon Alley. I have very few pounds sterling, so after paying for the tube, I couldn't afford to go shopping in the muggle world.
I took the tube to King's Cross Station and walked to the Leaky. Stopped at Gringotts for some gold, Malkin's for some clothes, and The Wizards Outfitter Company for my backpack. When I gave the teller my vault key, he told me an account manager wanted to meet with me. I had no idea what was going on. I mean why would an account manager, whatever they are, want to talk to me?
Anyway, that's where I got all that parchment. He was quite put out with me for not having come to see him on my eleventh birthday. Apparently, that's a big deal at Gringotts, and in their eyes, my magical guardian has not been performing his duties properly."
"You have a magical guardian?," Hermione said in a puzzled tone.
"Yes," he replied. "My Account Manager told me all Muggle-borns have to have a guardian in the magical world. While we are at school, it is usually your head of house."
"But you're not a muggle-born," she said, leaping upon the difference quickly.
"No, but I am muggle raised. And Gringotts is upset that Dumbledore strongarmed himself into being appointed as my guardian, and then sealed my parents will so no one knows what provisions they had made, or guardians they had planned."
Hermione worried at her lower lip as she followed his story, and since the goblins at Gringotts had dared to criticize her idol, Albus Dumbledore, that was what she reacted to.
"Why did the goblins want to see you on your eleventh birthday? I mean, we've been told how important it is for being able to get a wand and learn about magic, so why do they want to see you about money on that day?" she demanded.
"Thank you, Hermione. That's exactly what I wanted you to say," Harry thought.
"It's like being a muggle-born and not learning about even the existence of magic until you're eleven. Don't you feel disadvantaged compared to Malfoy? He's been around magic all his life, and remember how he brags about having cast spells and brewed potions before coming to Hogwarts? Let's face it, he just . . . knows things about the magic world we are struggling to learn."
The expression on Hermione's face showed the subject had crossed her mind and her disgust at the unfairness of it.
Harry continued, "The same thing applies to the finances of a Most Ancient and Most Noble House. If my dad had been alive, I would have been getting simple instruction in finances as soon as I could add and subtract. At the moment, all I know is profit is good, losses are bad. And right now, I do not know how to figure which is happening."
He could see the two adults in the front seats were trying hard not to look like they were eavesdropping, but, they were.
Harry frowned as he continued. "And if Professor Dumbledore was, and is, too busy to teach me this stuff, then the goblins say he should have hired tutors for me. And that is one of the reasons why they are unhappy with him," Harry finished off.
Hermione was obviously deep in thought. After a few minutes, she said, "I think you should write Professor Dumbledore a letter asking him to make a start on your financial education before we get back to school."
Harry had an answer ready. "Hermione, if he has not done his duty as magical guardian for the past three or four years, why do you think he will start now? He already has three full-time jobs, which I might add he collects full-time pay for, how should I expect him to make time in his schedule for tutoring?"
This last made her bottom lip shredding even more violent. Harry was starting to fear blood was about to appear.
At that moment, Mr. Granger spoke up. "Harry, would it be alright if Hermione and I tutored you after we get back from holiday? I mean a bit over a week is not an education, but we should be able to show you the basics."
Hermione became happy again as she looked at Harry, and then begged him to say 'Yes'.
Harry thought about the offer for a few moments and not seeing a downside, said he would.
Hermione gave a medium-strength squeal and then tried to hug him as best as their being in seat belts would allow.
The rest of the trip, and Harry's introduction to wonderful Italian food, was spent talking about school, classes, instructors, and goings on. They were both careful to not talk about inept teachers, Quirrell, sadistic bullies, Snape, or the insults and slurs casually used by Purebloods against those they believed were of lesser status.
After they all returned to the Granger house, Mr. Granger and Hermione spent time showing Harry what they had been doing earlier, and while not nearly complete, their analysis of what some of the properties, companies, and investments had been doing over the past eleven years.
They explained their work was not nearly complete, but the totals were adding up in his favour and nothing seemed to be drastically wrong with his accounts.
It was about an hour into the explaining when Hermione saw her well-learned indications that Harry was starting to suffer from information overload and called a halt to the session. Her father agreed, and a few minutes later, with a pleased young girl leading the way, the two youngsters went for a walk in the darkening backyard before Harry had to leave. Harry was not even aware they were holding hands as they walked.
Hermione was hyper-aware that they were.
"I have to be at my relatives for dinner," he said, working at keeping up the appearance of living 'at home', even if he never called it that.
"Can you come back soon?" asked Hermione. Harry could hear in her voice the hope he would answer 'yes'.
"How about Tuesday? I'm meeting with the goblins tomorrow, and it will be early enough I won't be interfering with your getting ready to travel."
Hermione's face lit up with a large smile of satisfaction. She was going to have her best friend's attention all to herself for another whole day. Tuesday was going to be a very good day in Hermione World.
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The next morning, Harry was up and about early. He wanted to get his Gringotts visit over with so he could visit his manor.
He had carefully gone through every sheet of parchment to see if he had missed anything he thought important. He was still internally debating whether to just give the mass of bookkeeping to Tongueripper and let him deal with it.
The goblin Account Manager certainly seemed to be driven to make a profit anywhere he could. Harry wasn't sure if Tongueripper was the goblin norm, or if he was just the banker equivalent of Alastor Moody.
He had also thoroughly read the Potter Protocols of Accession, the permission letter from his father and fought his way through the legalistic boilerplate of his parent's wills. He even speed skimmed through his mother's journal to see if there was any help in there.
While eating breakfast in his room, he was smiling at the remembered execution of a well-done prank as he left the Granger's neighborhood yesterday.
Hermione had refused to let him leave her house alone as she was dying of curiosity as to how he had gotten to her house earlier. She had become more stubborn about walking with him the more he refused to tell her. And the more he tried to let her leave by himself, the closer she glued herself to him.
She refused to let go of his arm as the pair strolled past the entrance of the cul-de-sac and when Harry found a secluded section of road. It was only after the prank had occurred to him that he was able to relax and enjoy the last half of the stroll with his best friend tucked into his side.
Stopping in the lengthening evening shadows, he turned to her and said, "Here we are. It's time for me to go."
With that, he snatched his wand from his pocket and raised his hand over his head. A few seconds later, as Hermione was about to explode with condemnation at seeing him expose his wand in muggle public, the garish purple Knight Bus arrived with a bang, startling her so much she jumped, clutching at Harry for protection.
After telling the conductor to wait just a moment, Harry pried Hermione off, whipped off his backpack, plunged his hand into the main space, pulled out another, matching backpack, and thrust it into her shocked arms. Taking further advantage of the confused girl, he gave her a quick, hard hug and a kiss on her cheek, and bounced onto the bus.
Looking at her, she appeared completely Confunded. One hand was touching her cheek, her mouth was doing a fish gasping imitation, and her eyes were wide and staring.
He told the conductor, "Let's go!" while fishing out the needed three sickles for his fare.
And with another bang, the bus had left the still stunned girl standing on the kerb path.
Oh, yes, he was going to pay, and probably pay dearly for that stunt, but it felt so-o-o good to have put one over on his brainy friend. His Dad and Sirius would have been proud.
He hoped.
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Smiling, he left his room, with his new robes and his new cap covering his trademark hair and scar, Harry was still smiling when he walked into the bank. He waited only a few minutes for an escort as he was expected.
"Good morning, Account Manager Tongueripper," Harry said as he stopped in front of the office's black desk. "I spent yesterday doing my unprepared best to sort the information you gave me. From what I can tell, you are doing a good job and I see no reason to change your stewardship." Harry stopped talking and waited for the goblin to respond.
"Thank you, Heir Potter. Have you decided which defaulters on debt you wish to send the Gringotts Debt Collection Group after?"
"Not yet, Account Manager," responded Harry. "I want to check further to see if some of these debts might be a disguised gift with no repayment expected."
Tongueripper nodded, "Is there any other business you wish to conduct today?"
"Yes," Harry replied. Handing over the Protocols for Ascension, the letter from his father stating his fitness to ascend to the Potter Lordship, and the Wills of his parents. He did not hand over what he considered the most important sheet.
He then sat back in his chair and gathered all his hard-won fourteen year's old patience around him. He was determined not to fidget in front of the non-too-friendly goblin across the desk.
It took Tongueripper almost ten minutes to read all four documents and make copies, handing the originals back to Harry. Then it was his turn to settle back in his chair.
"You do realize, Heir Potter, you fulfill all but one of the requirements needed to ascend to your Lordship?"
"Yes," replied Harry. "I will return here at the ninth hour the day after tomorrow to continue the search for the missing item. Will there be anything else?"
"Since your parents Will's state that Sirius Black is your Sworn Godfather, do you know what that means?" the account manager flatly questioned.
Harry now had to lie. Or at least fake ignorance. "No. Except where is he? Why is he not my magical guardian? Did he get killed also? Is that why I'm stuck with Dumbledore?"
"You truly are the most ignorant heir to a lordship that I have ever encountered or heard about in my lifetime," asserted Tongueripper quietly.
The goblin visibly reined himself in. "A sworn Godfather cannot cause harm to come to his godchild through action, or allow harm to their godchild through inaction.(2) The penalty would be the instant loss of his life. The magic of the oath would kill him immediately."
"So, Voldemort killed him?" Harry made himself sound unsure.
"No. He is in the wizarding prison of Azkaban. He is the person blamed for leading the Usurper to your parent's house that night. Yet he still lives. If he had done as the Ministry claims he has done, he should have been dead before he hit the stone.
"The bait has been taken. Now, with a bit of encouragement . . .," thought Harry.
Putting on his best confused, but earnest, face, he continued his thought aloud. "Wouldn't the account manager for the . . the Black? family know if he's guilty or not. Or something?"
"Perhaps," the goblin stated. "However, we are a bank, not a legal service. We cannot go about challenging Ministry laws and traditions. For that, you need a solicitor."
Tongueripper eyed the scrawny, near muggle-born in front of him, and after a moment sighed,
"One moment." And spread the Bloodline Test parchment on his desk.
In only a few moments one name drew his attention. He showed the name to Harry and started explaining.
Andromeda Tonks nee Black, wife of Edward Tonks, a man at the epicenter of one of the great wizard scandals of a couple of decades ago.
Refusing to follow her older sister into an arranged Pure Blood marriage, Andromeda Black had run off and married a muggle-born wizard named Edward Tonks, who over the years had developed into one of the best Healers in wizarding Britannia. In spite of being disowned by the Black family, she had studied Law and had become a renowned solicitor with a reputation of being unbribable.
And she was a family relation. That should keep her unbribable in Harry's favour.
Tongueripper gave Harry a scrap of parchment with the Tonks Solicitor's address on it. "Young Heir, it would be very useful to you to find if Mrs. Tonks could recommend someone to become your house steward or find you a Facilitator. You badly need someone familiar with the way the world of wizards works."
"Can I hire Gringotts to be my facilitator? You seem to know everything that is going on around here," Harry asked hopefully.
Tongueripper answered in that gravelly, growly voice he had. "We at Gringotts do not do that work. We are a bank. We keep vaults, pay interest, offer investment advice, and settle inheritance questions. We are not a solicitor's office, a travel service, or a government document agency."
Harry nodded his head thoughtfully when a random thought skittered through his brain. "Isn't Ron's older brother Bill, a cursebreaker for Gringotts? Don't they rob tombs of gold and treasure like that cool guy in the movie?"
He internally shrugged and made as though to leave, then turned about as though he had changed his mind about something. "Account Manager, should I make contact with the Black account manager? To see if he knows anything about this godfather stuff?"
"No, young Heir. I will apprise him of the possible situation," Tongueripper replied. "Perhaps the two of us can find a solution.
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A/N:
Yes, grammatically incorrect. He's a teenager. Get over it.
Tried hard to get my Three Laws of Godfather-botics to work here. Couldn't pull it off.
Huh. I think that after an almost mandatory discovery and a bit of muggle shopping, I'll be done with the 'stuff that has to be done' part of the story.
Taking long enough. Grump.