Gringotts
Two hours later Harry followed Aunt Cassia through Diagon Alley towards Gringotts Bank. She walked half a step behind him and the glare she sent everyone around them actually kept people away from them. Even if he saw several people noticing him and starting to walk towards him. It was a relief not having to shake any hands or talk to anyone.
They reached the bank and Aunt Cassia approached one of the guards who stood with their sharp spears and watched them with even sharper eyes. Harry was allowed to stand beside her, but the moment he tried to stay behind her, she looked at him and shook her head. She had informed him that they would be very careful with their safety when visiting the magical world, and she wanted him in front of her or beside her, and not at any point behind her. If he was behind her, she wouldn’t see him and couldn’t protect him. He had tried to point out that it was she and not him that had been cursed, but then Dudley brought up the fact that the curse had been used to hurt him for years and thus it had been just as bad for him as it had for them. Harry had stopped protesting after that. The idea that anyone at all really wanted to protect him, to keep him safe, was a novel one.
“Excuse me,” Aunt Cassia began to the goblin guard, “I’m uncertain of the protocol regarding Muggle weapons in the bank. I know that you do not demand magicals to hand over their wands when visiting the bank. Is it the same with Muggle guns or should I leave mine with you, or with someone else?”
The goblin watched her for several moments. “How many weapons do you have, female?”
“One gun, three daggers, six throwing knives and an enchanted katana that looks like a tanto, a dagger, until I want to use it,” she answered promptly. “I have a carry licence for the gun, but the knives are, strictly speaking, illegal among the Muggles.”
Harry stared; he hadn’t known of any of that. He couldn’t even guess where she was hiding the weapons.
The goblin was staring too. “Are you a Muggle Auror?” they asked.
“No, I’m just an anxious aunt who has decided to take her nephew’s safety very, very seriously.”
That was the first time the goblin looked at Harry. They gave him a once over before nodding at Aunt Cassia.
“Do not draw your weapons on a goblin and I will let you pass,” they stated.
“I won’t draw on anyone at all, who doesn’t draw on me first,” she said, which earned her a bloodthirsty grin from the goblin.
“How come you have a carry licence for the gun?” Harry whispered while they entered the first set of doors. “How come you have a gun?”
“I got the gun and the licence at the first opportunity after Lily told me about the war,” she answered in a low voice. “I spent hours upon hours becoming proficient with it at the shooting range. I got the knives around the same time and have trained a lot with them, too. Your grandfather, James’ father, helped me to get the license. He was very kind and helpful, even before Lily agreed to date James. They were hardly more than friends at that point, but Lily had worried aloud about my safety to James and James told his parents and Charlus showed up on my door and offered to help me get any kind of Muggle protection I wished and make sure it was legal in the Muggle world. He of course also offered to ward my house and give me a portkey to a safe place. I was grateful for all of his offers. Our parents agreed to the wards and portkey.” Aunt Cassia looked around in the great lobby with marble, gilding and red velvet, found the shortest queue and steered them in that direction.
“The licence should have been outdated now, but the license is still valid, at least my papers claim so. I guess Charlus did something to make it stay valid permanently. My skills … is no longer what they were, but I did practice a lot, once upon a time, and I feel better with the weapons than without, knowing we have an active enemy, and probably more than one, in the magical world.”
Harry nodded. That made sense to him. “My grandparents on my father’s side were Charlus and Dorea?” he had never heard those names before today.
“Yes, they died before you were born, but I think I have some pictures. I have most likely put them with the rest of Lily’s things. I will do my best to remember where I put it all, and let you have them when I find them. I did actually bring a photo album with us, with pictures from Lily’s childhood, her vacations while she went to Hogwarts and her time with James, and later you, and the first months when you were with us. I … I found it in a shoebox in my wardrobe, but I don’t remember when or why I put it there. I do remember making it so I could give it to you when you got older. There are no wizarding pictures, just Muggle, but it’s a lot of them.”
Harry’s eyes stung and he blinked several times. Aunt Cassia had meant to give him pictures of his Mum, of his family, but the curse had stopped her. There was a lump in his throat, and he swallowed hard while his eyes kept stinging.
They reached the front of the queue and Aunt Cassia gave a sharp nod to the goblin in front of them.
“Heir Potter and Regent Potter to see the Potter Account Manager,” she stated without hesitation, as if she talked to goblins every day.
The goblin looked at her and then at Harry in his brand new and stiff suit, then at Aunt Cassia again.
“You are late,” they said. “Two years late.”
Harry winced at the disdain in the gravelly voice.
“That is something we will talk with the Account Manager about,” Aunt Cassia said, completely unruffled.
The goblin sneered, but got them a runner that brought them into a big office with more marble, gold and velvet. And an empty desk.
“The waiting game it is,” Aunt Cassia gave a sigh. “Don’t worry, darling, when they realize why we are two years late to this meeting, they will regret this slight. According to James they were supposed to check up on you at your home, unless I brought you here myself once a year after you turned seven. James wanted it like that both to make certain someone had our backs in case something went truly, horrendously wrong, as it did, and also to make sure I would be able to teach you everything you needed to know. Both about the magical world in general, and about being an Heir to an Ancient and Noble house especially.”
Harry had no idea what Heirs and Houses meant, and he could almost see the capital letters in the words when Aunt Cassia spoke. But instead of asking he wrote it down in the little notebook Aunt Cassia had given him for just this purpose. This way he could remember what he wanted to ask about without interrupting the coming meeting.
“They have broken a contract,” Aunt Cassia said with vicious glee while she looked at the still empty chair behind the big desk and patted her handbag. Harry had never seen such a look on her face, not even when she was truly angry with him, and he hoped he would never see such a look directed at him. He had a feeling that it didn’t bode well for the goblins, one goblin in particular, even if they were a formidable warrior race. He had truly begun to see that his Mum and Aunt hadn’t been mellow and biddable women at all.
“Lily and James made a lot of contingency plans and security nets,” Aunt Cassia said slowly. “That they all failed so spectacularly is … deeply concerning. I still wish …” she gave him a small smile, “I still wish that they had left Britain and weathered out the war in India, as Charlus suggested when Lily became pregnant. I might have never known you, but you would have been a whole and happy family, together.”
Harry hung on to her every word. She was speaking about his parents, his family, who had done a lot to see him safe. Who had died to keep him safe. He had never even imagined knowing this much about them. Never imagined Aunt Cassia telling him so much.
“Why didn’t they leave?” he whispered the words before he could stop himself.
“That was because of me. Because I didn’t want to leave. I was a Muggle nobody and I was very, very happy with my studies and relationship, with my whole life. I saw no reason that I should leave, I would be safe as long as no one knew how close I was to Lily and James. And we made very, very certain no one knew. Not even James’ closest friends knew. Lily actually swore him to secrecy with a magical Oath. That was how much my safety meant to her. I would be safe. Lily and James were not safe, as they were fighting in the war, even after they had gone into hiding with you, they were fighting.
“And I tried to make them leave, I swear I tried. Even when I went along with Lily on her schemes to make sure you were safe if something happened to them; I tried to make them leave. I had started to imagine leaving, to understand that Lily and her family were more important than my own situation, especially as that included you and your safety. If they had lived for another month or two, I would probably have given in and moved to India with them. Hopefully with Vernon, but at least with Dudley.” She whispered the last few words and Harry heard the regret in her voice and saw it in the way she hastily dried her eyes.
“Why did they even have me, if it was so dangerous?” Harry’s eyes widened in shock over the fact that he had actually said that. He really should be more careful, but Aunt Cassia only looked at him, gave him a watery smile and huffed while drying her eyes again.
“Of course you would ask that after all I already have told you. I should have known.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lily and I planned to have and raise a family together, but I am three years older than her and when I became pregnant and they were in the middle of a war, I begged her to wait. She agreed. But, as she put it later; raising our children together had always been part of our plan. It was what Lily had wanted, had wished for, for years already by that point, and her magic responded to that. You were conceived despite Lily taking the contraceptive potion. Both Lily and James had agreed to wait to begin a family, despite the fact that they wanted to start at once. Both of them wanted at least three children, but preferably four or even five. They wanted a big family. So, when Lily became pregnant with you, before it was planned and in the middle of the war … There was no question about keeping you, Harry, none at all. You were wanted. You were loved, from the very first moment of your existence. You were so loved, Harry, never doubt that.”
He nodded silently, and before he could ask any more awkward questions and get answers he probably didn’t really want, the door behind them opened and a goblin came in. They didn’t say anything before sitting down behind the big, black desk. Then they made a gesture at the chairs in front of the desk and Aunt Cassia nodded at Harry to sit down before she did so herself.
“You are late,” the goblin said, and Harry shrunk back at the glare the goblin gave him.
“No, actually, you are late,” Aunt Cassia said, coolly. “I have here a contract stating that unless I personally brought Harry to Gringotts, to this very office, once a year after his seventh birthday, you would check up on him. As in, going to fucking war if you didn’t get to see and talk to him, alone.” Aunt Cassia put a parchment scroll on the goblin’s desk. “He is the Heir of a Most Noble and Ancient House, the only Heir, and the late Lord Potter paid Gringotts a fortune to make certain that his Heir grew up safe, happy and knowing everything he should know, in case anything happened to him and his Lady wife.”
It was weird hearing Aunt Cassia talking about his parents in that way, but it was even weirder to see the goblins greenish skin become grey. The long, taloned fingers shook while he ripped the parchment scroll towards him, even as he sneered and tried to seem unaffected. He read the parchment once, twice and then a third time.
“That’s my signature in Magic,” the goblin said hoarsely.
“Yes, it is. As you can see, I was one of the witnesses and also named the Potter Regent if something happened to Lord and Lady Potter. I was there, I remember you. Even if you clearly no longer remember the situation, or me. I was heavily compromised until just this afternoon. It seems like our enemy managed to reach even into Gringotts itself. Which is a pity, as you were supposed to be our back-up plan.
“Now, before you go ahead and inform your superiors and do what you can to make this horrendous slight and breach of contract right towards the Goblin Horde, you should to everything in your power to make it right to Heir Potter, as he has suffered considerably because you were weak and failed him. You were compromised, and according to that contract you shouldn’t have been able to stay compromised for long with all the safety features built in. I do not care how you could possibly have let this happen, but you will do your outmost to make it right. Do you understand me?”
The goblin swallowed hard and Harry wondered what would happen to them when they told their superiors about the breach of contract. “I understand completely, Regent Potter. What can Gringotts do for you and Heir Potter today?”
Aunt Cassia smiled, but there were far too many teeth in the smile to be anything but feral, Harry decided.
“I have a list,” she withdrew a sheet from her purse and placed it on the desk. “The most important thing is health and safety, for both Harry and the rest of the family. That was the main reason the late Lord Potter contracted you, that is where you failed the most. After that is information. Among that information there will be a full accounting off all Potter holdings and every single movement that has happened in the Potter vaults in the years since the late Lord and Lady Potter’s deaths. I also suspect that there has been some tampering with their wills, because something has without a doubt gone very, very wrong and I suspect that it starts with the wills. We will also need Harry and myself to get caught up on everything that is pertinent to know for an Heir and a Regent of a Most Ancient and Noble House. I know quite a bit, but far from everything and I have not taught Harry anything at all, as I was compromised. According to Lily and James, they do not teach anything about such things at Hogwarts.
“As such, I want a health check of Harry and myself now and I want Gringotts to send people to our house to find out if there is a curse in the house, if there is curse on anything in the house or if it was on us, the inhabitants of the house. If you find said curse it will be removed and Gringotts will set up defences to make certain that nothing similar can ever be placed on the house or the inhabitants again. If there are charms that Muggles can use to defend ourselves against such curses, I want those for my whole family.
“My husband and son will get a health check tomorrow, when all of us also will get whatever help we can get from magical healing. If Harry is the only one who can be healed magically, so be it, but just a diagnostic will help the rest of us too.”
Aunt Cassia held up a finger when it looked like the goblin wanted to protest. “Let me remind you, master goblin, that you failed. Gringotts failed, in what was, according to yourself at the time, a flawless contract to protect the interest of the Potter Family and its underage Heir. We covered all the bloody bases to stop something like this from happening, all of them! The negotiations took three fucking months and Lord Potter paid Gringotts what amounts to the yearly income of a small country to make absolutely certain that this exact thing would never, ever happen to his son and Heir!” She bared her teeth in a feral smile again. “Make it right, or die trying!”