Lord and Ladies

Rings and Documents

The bank looked no different than when Harry had visited there before. He approached one of the tellers. "I'd like to speak with my account manager."

"Your name?" the teller asked without even looking at him.

"Harry James Potter."

The teller lifted his eyes at Harry, his eyes scanning Harry's scar for a brief moment, and promptly responded. "I'll go fetch your account manager immediately, Lord Potter. Please wait just a bit."

He soon returned with another goblin who seemed to be older and was wearing more elegant clothes. The older goblin bowed slightly, noticing the ladies as well. "Please come with me, Lord and Ladies. We may better handle our business in the privacy of my office."

Once seated in the elegant office, that sported the Potter crest on the door, the goblin presented himself. "I'm glad to finally meet you, Lord Potter, along with your wives. My name is Sharpclaw and I'm your chief account manager. However, before we can proceed, I need to have a drop of blood from each of you to verify your identity, as requested by the bank's regulation."

He handed each a small dagger and a large parchment, with an arrow pointing at the area to put a drop of blood on. Once done, he collected the parchments and placed them on the table, viewable by them all. It only took another minute or two before the parchments filled with tiny writing, most of it using a different alphabet which none of the teens could read.

Sherpclaw pointed at the parchments. "As expected, you are all the real persons you claim to be. How can I be of service to you?"

"We've come here to claim our Lordships and Ladyships and take our Lord and Lady rings," Harry responded. "We'd also like to know what assets we own and what obligations we may have. I think it would be easier to start with the latter."

"Of course, Lord Potter, although I thought you already knew. We regularly send you quarterly reports through your guardian, as well as the yearly reports. Hasn't he shown them to you?"

"Whom do you mean?" Harry asked, fearing it was his uncle.

"Why, Mr. Dumbledore is your magical guardian. I thought you knew."

Harry shook his head, wondering what else he was supposed to know but didn't. "The headmaster has never shown me any report, nor mentioned any."

Sharpclaw gave it some consideration. "Well, we suspected that much. I wonder if he even opened them. I deliberately inserted a very evident error in the front page on the last report. I got no reaction for that." He thought some more. "From now on, all reports will go directly to you. I also suggest you ask your guardian about the previous reports."

Harry nodded understandingly, although he didn't believe that asking Dumbledore would help much.

About two hours later, the teens left that office. Harry had a headache from the multitude of large numbers, all turning into a blurry mash in his head. His wives seemed only slightly less overwhelmed. Susan – Lady Hufflepuff – and Hermione – Lady Ravenclaw – found out that they owned a large vault each, as well as very nice sums of money. Harry had control of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor and Slytherin accounts, with the Potter account being much larger than all the rest put together. The numbers involved were too big to make any sense to Harry, and converted to Pounds, they would be much larger. Only Daphne had no real surprise, although she was still overwhelmed by the numbers. She knew the Potters were rich, but she hadn't known they were that rich.

They took a ride to the vaults, mainly for the rings, but also to take a glimpse at them. Susan and Hermione took their respective rings and gave Harry their counterpart. Hermione was delighted to see that most of the Ravenclaw vault consisted of a large collection of ancient books, probably a priceless treasure of knowledge. Harry was sure she would visit there as often as she could. The Hufflepuff vault also contained many books, most about herbs and potions, yet not even close in size to the Ravenclaw collection.

"Which Ladyship would you like? I don't think you need to keep the one in the letter if you prefer another," Harry askd Daphne.

"Well, Hermione is clearly Lady Potter, although she's also Lady Ravenclaw. I can still choose Gryffindor, Slytherin or Peverell." She gave it a bit of thought and then smiled. "Can you imagine the reactions if I choose to be Lady Gryffindor?"

Harry had to smile at the mental image. Ron came to mind immediately, with his negative attitude towards anything Slytherin. Thinking about how her house-mates would react to such news made it even funnier. Just thinking about Draco addressing her as Lady Gryffindor widened his smile.

Daphne turned serious. "I think I'm most connected to Slytherin, though, and it also appeals to me as you came to this title through your mother. I choose to stay Lady Slytherin."

The Slytherin vault, like the two other vaults of the founders, had a large part of its volume dedicated to a library. Only a few books seemed readable to the girls, although Harry had no problem reading any book. 'This is probably parsel script,' he heard Hermione in his mind. 'Only a parselmouth can read them.'

Daphne didn't mind. The ones she could read were more than enough.

Harry wasn't sure what to do about the Lady Gryffindor ring. "Give it to Hermione," Daphne urged him. "As your principal wife, she can bear more of your titles, and you don't need to keep the lines separate."

"What do you mean by keeping lines separate?" Harry asked.

"Well, when one gains a title by conquest, he needs a different wife for each such title, so he can have separate heirs for each line. As Potter, Gryffindor and Slytherin are already merged, there's no reason to do that, and both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff lines can also go from mother to daughter, so you don't need to bother about them either."

Harry nodded his understanding.

Nothing could have prepared him for the Potter vault. Although its door was not any bigger than the others, each door differing slightly in size and shape, once opened – it revealed a vault much larger than all the others. Harry thought it was about the size of the Great Hall of Hogwarts. It was meticulously organized, though. More than a half of it was a library – much larger than the one at Hogwarts. He almost had to physically restrain Hermione from losing herself in there. The rest contained shelves and boxes full of gold coins, works of art and precious jewelry. He only had time enough to see a small bit of it all. Harry thought he would need more than a month to only check the vault and see what it contained.

Harry felt quite apprehensive at them going out of the bank with such precious rings evident on their fingers. "Such expensive rings may attract unwanted attention, possibly even robbers. What can we do?"

Daphne had to reassure him. "All such rings are protected. You've probably noticed that they resized to fit our fingers snugly. They are also charmed to stay put, unless we want to take them off, and they can be made invisible by thought commands. Besides, they are supposed to give us some protection against most attacks, like strong shields."

Harry was glad that the Lord and Lady rings could be commanded to stay hidden. The protection was also welcome, although he knew he couldn't count on it, when their enemies didn't hesitate to use the unforgiveables.

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked Daphne.

Daphne smiled. "That's the kind of knowledge I've grown up with since early childhood, yet I'm sure we can eventually find some books containing that information."

Hermione huffed. She hated not being able to find relevant information in books.

When they finally left Gringotts, it was quite late already and they felt tired and hungry. Thimble was eager to serve them a late lunch and then suggested, "It's usually nice to nap a bit after a meal. It helps digestion and recharges you with some energy for the rest of the day."

Remembering how the girls behaved each time they got to bed, Harry wasn't sure it would be just rest. 'Don't worry. You'll get your rest first. Then...' he sensed Hermione's teasing. He didn't really mind, yet he was sure that some rest would make the other activities more enjoyable.

They all stripped and went to bed. Hermione and Susan cuddled to Harry, with Daphne cuddling to Hermione and trying to hug Harry as well. They all fell asleep almost as soon as they closed their eyes.

More than two hours later, three sated teens sat in the living room, sipping some afternoon tea that Thimble served them.

"I think we should go over the documents we've taken at the bank and see what we own," Hermione suggested, yet she seemed more interested in cuddling with Harry than in any document, as important as it might be.

"I agree," Susan said, still cuddling at Harry's other side.

Daphne, who sat alone on another couch, just sighed and opened the heavy dossier that Sharpclaw had given them, starting to glance through the pages, not quite interested.

Harry was too content, enjoying the two girls cuddling with him, to pay much attention, until he heard Daphne gasp. "What have you found?" he asked leisurely.

"Something that may make our life much pleasanter. According to this document, you own twenty percent of The Daily Prophet. Combine that with the ten percent my parents hold and another ten percent held by the Bones, five from Longbottom and a few smaller shareholders, and you can force the paper to act any way you want. And… Oh, the Black also hold fifteen percent. I'm sure Sirius will let you vote for him, making you the most powerful share holder. They wouldn't dare make you cross at them, I'm sure."

This finally made Hermione react. "They're still missing their star reporter, the one causing most of the troubles," she giggled.

"You mean Rita Skeeter? What happened to her?"

"Let's say… she's been detained while trying to work some more mischief." Harry also sensed, 'She's now a bug in that jar. I must make sure to feed her some leaves tonight.' It didn't make much sense to him.

He returned to the main topic. "So, how do we proceed? Do we go to the offices of the Prophet and speak with the editor?"

"Of course not!" Daphne proclaimed. "We want to keep our position secret for as long as possible, and that would be very unhelpful. You have a solicitor to handle such things, I'm sure."

"I have a solicitor?" He barely knew what the word meant.

Susan responded. "Almost every family, excluding the very poor, has a solicitor to advise on legal matters and act whenever something needs to be done concerning the family's interest, that doesn't specifically involve a certain member of the family. I'm sure your parents had one. Grigotts can probably tell you who."

"Fine. So I go to Gringotts and then contact the solicitor. What should I tell him?"

Hermione smiled. "We shall all visit the solicitor. We first need to see if he's still trustworthy and then give him the proper instructions."

"Don't we need to do something else now?" Daphne asked innocently, yet she moved her body in a very suggestive way.

Harry smiled. "I wonder what you have in mind," he answered as innocently.

"Come to bed and we shall show you," Daphne replied.

"Only show?" he asked.

"Oh, you! Just come now!"

And he did.