Chapter 21
As he looked around the tent, Harry's heart felt full. He was standing at the kitchen counter-top, which his cousins' high-chairs were also pulled up to, and Dobby was sitting cross-legged on a pile of boxes. All four were eating scrambled eggs with mushrooms. Hedwig and Erroll were perched on one end of the counter-top, eating raw sausage. Nobody was hidden away like a dirty little secret; everyone had plenty to eat. This was Harry's life now, and it was actually pretty good, even if he did have massive amounts of paperwork awaiting him.
Harry had been expecting forms to do with his emancipation, and with child custody. What he got instead was paperwork relating to the Hogwarts Basilisk, both Ministry and Gringotts forms. In short order, he found himself claiming ownership of the basilisk carcass as its slayer, in line with both Goblin law and the Dangerous Beasts Act of 1525; authorising entry to the Chamber of Secrets for a harvesting team; and setting up a scheme whereby Gringotts would enter the Chamber, with cursebreakers. They would harvest the basilisk and sell or auction its parts, plus shed skin, reserving up to 20 % of the carcass and skins; they would do this in return for 25% of the returns from said sales and auctions, and basilisk parts and skin amounting to no more than 10% of the total harvested. Harry himself would be able to keep back from sale up to 10% of the harvest, which would be rendered storable and placed in his personal vault. Of the monetary returns, 45% would go to Harry personally; the remaining 30% would go to another vault, controlled by Harry, but in the name of the Basilisk Charitable Foundation, which would funnel some of the Basilisk money in the direction of Hogwarts, and other good causes that seemed suitable to Harry. Most of the rest of the paperwork had to do with setting up the Foundation. Ted had advised Harry that while his claim to the basilisk carcass was ironclad, especially given the Gaunt factor, the Hogwarts Board might consider suing if the school got nothing, and while they wouldn't win, the publicity would be very bad for Harry, and it would be a nuisance, best avoided. This way, if anyone investigated, Harry would be the one looking good, and it would be Harry in charge of deciding where, exactly, the money went, rather than the Board or Albus Dumbledore. Ted had initially suggested Harry donate 10% of his own cut, which is to say 7.5%; Harry had declared he didn't really need that much money at all, and he could take the 7.5% himself; Ted had told him to think of the twins and any future children he or they might have, and told him it would set a terrible precedent, legally, for Harry not to take the biggest of the three shares, and it was very much pushing it for him to take less than half.
"Why aren't we doing custody paperwork today?" Harry eventually asked. "Aunt Petunia doesn't want to see the twins ever again after tomorrow." Ted smiled.
"Because in the Wizarding world, child custody goes by family law. The ministry only gets involved if there isn't a magical family under whose aegis children fall. If you were a muggle-born adult wizard or witch trying to take custody of your underage muggle-born cousins, you'd have to petition the ministry, and various officials would have to view the papers and approve them, and they might not approve them if they disliked you for some reason. The Minister would also be able to veto them if he was consulted. Of course, you could go down that route, if you wanted; but I don't advise it."
"So what route would you recommend?" asked Harry.
"More rituals!" said Ted, cheerfully. "Now you're Head of House Potter, there's a very simple ritual to declare children wards of a House; in the past, it was all too common for non-magical parents to give up their magical children to magicals, for fear of witch-burning if not of witchcraft itself. Your aunt has told you multiple times that neither she nor your uncle wants the children; that's more than enough."
"You said rituals plural?"
"Oh yes. There's also the matter of House Gaunt. If you claim the headship for yourself, you can claim the twins as members, and if you claim it for one or the other of them, that would put you as regent until they're at least thirteen if not seventeen."
"But I don't have access to any House Gaunt land," said Harry worriedly. "I'd need the land to do the ritual, but I couldn't get access to the land until after I'd done the ritual."
"That's why we're doing the paperwork for the Chamber of Secrets today!" grinned Ted. "It's ancestral Slytherin land, and House Gaunt is an offshoot of House Slytherin. More than good enough for ritual purposes, especially since you're all three Parselmouths. And once you have magical custody twice over, there are documents to file with the Ministry to ensure you'd get custody in the Muggle world too, and we will need your aunt and uncle to sign a Parental Responsibility Agreement with you for that. But at that point, neither the Ministry nor the Muggle authorities are in a position to block anything; it's just a rubber stamp." He paused, and did his best to shoot Harry a stern look. He wasn't very good at being stern. "Of course, once we've got all this out of the way, and you have legal guardianship, I still expect to be drawing up additional Fosterage Agreements in the near future."
"Yes, Ted," said Harry meekly.
"And I can't Side-Along three people at once, even if two of them are toddlers; taking Dromeda and Linda knackered me for the rest of the day. Now secrecy's less of a concern, we'll be introducing you to the Knight Bus. Do you have a pushchair for the kids?"
"Yes, Ted." A rather large bat flew in the window.
"Ah, that'll be Gornuk!" said Ted cheerfully. He opened the letter and read it, while the bat skittled across the countertop, examined several pieces of crockery and decided to hang upside-down from the handle of a cupboard. "Head of Investments Ragnok has got involved and is going around looking disgustingly pleased with himself, and hurrying things forward. Bloodward Expert Stonejaw insists on being part of the delegation, even though he retired from active cursebreaking decades ago, and several other rather important individuals seem to be watching this with interest. Oh, and they're expecting us at the Hogwarts front gate at three this afternoon. Five hours to design two rituals and carry out the first one. And we'll need to have lunch as well."
After half an hour, Ted claimed to have made sufficient notes, and they were off, apparating back to Privet Drive. Dobby helped Harry pack the (amazing) self-cleaning wizarding potty, along with enough drinks, snacks, toys, books and emergency changes of clothes into a bag that fastened onto the twins' enormous pushchair, and accepted some rather sticky goodbye hugs. Harry donned his See You Jimmy hat and his hooded cloak, before discovering the joys of the Knight Bus, and the twins' very different reactions to it. Dahlia shrieked with joy every time they made a sudden turn. Daisy howled with annoyance. And then they were arguing. At some point, the litany of "Bad bus!" "No, good bus!" "No, bad bus!" slipped into Parseltongue, which Harry was actually getting better at detecting. The other passengers did not look impressed, but at least they weren't quaking in fear, so they probably just thought the girls were randomly hissing. It was a relief when they arrived at Godric's Hollow, and Harry could actually show the girls the Potter Manor grounds, and explain that it was a special place that would help keep them safe; it had belonged to Harry's dad's family, and Harry was going to do a special magic thing to show that he and his dad's family would look after Daisy and Dahlia from now on, instead of their Mummy and Daddy.
"Harry did that yesterday," said Daisy.
"I need to do a different one today," said Harry patiently, "and another one later today, and then your mummy and daddy need to sign some paperwork, to make extra specially sure no-one can ever take me away from you, or take you away from me."
"Never ever?" asked Dahlia.
"Never ever," said Harry.
"Never ever," said Ted. "And I'm an expert on these things."
The ritual didn't involve any blood this time, and went very smoothly, though it had apparently tickled. Daisy and Dahlia were officially wards of House Potter, which was now under an obligation to pay for their clothes, food and schooling, and to make all reasonable efforts to ensure they had everything a young witch might need. Which, apparently, included two slices of cake as well as sandwiches in Godric's Hollow. ("Harry said, House Potter shall pro-vide. Want cake.")
"Sandwiches first, then cake," Harry said, imitating some of the parents he'd overheard in the primary school playground. "We bought the cake; you can definitely have it; but sandwiches first, and if you don't have room for all the cake now, you can have the rest later." Daisy was sick in the Knight Bus on the way to Hogsmeade. Harry felt like a terrible guardian. They had time to kill in Hogsmeade, and Madam Rosmerta of the Three Broomsticks let Harry take a room for a couple of hours so the girls could have a nap, and Daisy could change clothes. He had thought of taking them to the sweetshop; but they needed sleep more.
"You're better off saving Honeydukes for your first Hogsmeade trip, anyway," said Ted. "It's an experience."