Heir of Magic

Harry wasn’t sure she was being serious at first, but when his awkward laughing was met with only bemused silence, he looked at the goblins more closely. Griphook had a look of utter shock directed at his superior, Gorluc seemed to be silently amused, and Herbclaw…well, the old goblin looked about two seconds away from hacking up a lung from holding in laughter.

“…You’re serious?”

She nodded, and herbclaw finally broke into laughter, turning to the youngest goblin and barking out something in goblin-tongue. Though…Harry could almost understand it now. Something about his face?

“I was – and am – being quite serious, Mr. Potter-Black. All of the properties you own are on sovereign British soil, at least the ones that we know of, and as I mentioned it would be a good idea for you to…escape for a while. The goblin nation has some land we’ve been meaning to find something to do with – it would be a venture of sorts for both parties, but you can easily afford any expenses with your multitude of funds. Speaking of-”

She waved at the goblin guard at the door, who simply opened it up to show Bill Weasley on the other side, holding a black box in his hands. Harry was slightly confused, and worried, until he remembered that Gorluc had brought Bill in to teach him things about being a lord and such. So, he already knew about everything then.

The man set the box on the table next to harry, and pulled the boy into a hug, which was gladly accepted. Though he’d only seen Bill a couple of days ago, it felt like much longer to the younger wizard.

The elder Weasley whispered softly into his hair, where his face was tucked, “Master Gorluc has kept me up to date, Harry. I’m glad that you’re all healed up now, and you know you can always come to me if you need help.”

The black-haired wizard nodded into the older man’s shoulder, before they both sat back down, and Bill pushed the box over to his younger almost-brother-figure.

Gorluc spoke up from the other side of the table, “I asked Master Weasley to retrieve all of your family lordship rings, as you need to put them on in order to claim your lordships.” She pulled out the inheritance test from the other day, the thing that started it all, “As I mentioned, you need not be an active lord, as many of these houses were still ‘alive’ but were not active in politics. However, each lord or head of house must take up the lordship rings, in order to be readily in charge of finances and family matters.”

Harry nodded, and turned to Bill when he took over explaining, “Your previous magical guardian would have made certain choices and decisions regarding your vaults, finances, and votes – you can only reverse these decisions by taking up active Lordship. Or, with the way the Wizengamot is set up, another option is to choose a ‘Proxy’.” He tapped the side of his nose, winking at the younger wizard, “Charlie decided he didn’t want to become head of the Weasley house, so dad made me Heir years ago. I’ve been learning the ropes ever since.”

Harry nodded, thinking about his options and what he would realistically have to do. He reached over and unclasped the black box, opening it up to reveal 5 large rings, 1 smaller ring, and…2 amulets? He looked up to Bill questioningly, who simply sighed and shrugged.

“When I did the runic recall ritual for the Emrys and LaFay rings, these amulets appeared instead. Those bloodlines are so old, and went extinct so long ago, that I don’t think they ever really got converted from the old ways. Before the advent of the British monarchy, amulets were much more favorable for witches and wizards.”

Harry had already reached out and picked one of them up while Bill was speaking. It was a simple amulet, a bright green gem – probably an emerald – wrapped with some sort of metal, but it looked like tree branches winding together to hold it in place. The young wizard looked closer at it, realizing that the green was the same colour as his eyes. As his mother’s eyes. When he held it fully in his hand, the gem glowed, and he felt a sense of warmth flood his body. It felt right. It felt happy. It felt…like he did at Hogwarts, like at the burrow. It felt like home.

The second amulet he picked up depicted some sort of bird, like a crow or raven, clutching a dark purple faceted gem in its’ claws. This amulet reacted the same way, a feeling of warmth and happiness spreading through the young boy.

Except, once the feeling faded, it seemed to gravitate towards the other, and when he laid them both in his palm, there was a small but bright flash, and they fused together. Now, the bird was clutching onto the branch with one clawed foot, holding the purple gem in the other, and the end of the branch held the green gem.

Gorluc clapped once, happily, catching everyone’s attention.

“Ooh, it’s been a while since that’s happened.” Seeing everyone but Herbclaw giving her confused looks, she began to explain. “When two families merge, if they are too intertwined or so small that it would be near impossible to separate again, their rings will often merge together signifying the unity of the families.” She gestured towards the box, “The last one I know of happening was the Potter and Peverell rings. You will notice the motifs of each family shared on that one ring.”

Harry picked up the ring she had to be talking about, as the top was practically split in the middle. It followed suit with the amulets and seemed to ‘accept’ him. One half had some sort of odd triangle symbol – the other a couple of arrows and a line angled downwards. There was also two small gryffins on the side, like the Gryffindor crest, which also sat staring up at him from the box.

Setting the combined amulet and the ring to the side, he went to grab the Gryffindor ring, but stopped at the last second. Something felt off…not bad, but he felt like he needed to go ahead and grab all four of the big rings left.

The four Hogwarts houses, he thought to himself, and shrugged as he went ahead and placed his hand over all four. Thankfully they had all been placed in the box near each other, and were easily within reach, as there was another small bright flash of light. Suddenly, they were gone, replaced with one simple golden band supporting a diamond at the ‘crest’ of the ring. Each of the founder’s animals were inscribed on the band, but moving, and seemed quite happy to all be together.

He looked up at Bill, who seemed just as shocked as he was. Gorluc cleared her throat lightly, catching their attention, though she seemed quite giddy. “Well, that certainly is something quite unique Mr. Potter-Black. Why don’t you go ahead and claim your Black heir-ring, and we can talk more about the possible venture and your other options from here onwards.”

Harry looked over at the box, where only 1 ring remained: A simple silver band, adorned at the top with a smooth, shiny black stone – likely obsidian. On either side of the band was a star, signifying the ring as one of the House of Black. He reached for it, but when he grabbed the ring, it did not bring quite the same feeling as the others had. Instead, it felt like something in the ring was searching him.

Suddenly, memories came unbidden to his mind, moving so quickly he could barely recognize them. The memory of Sirius just last year, flying away from Hogwarts. The memory of the lake, of the dementors almost killing him. The memory of him telling him that he could come and live with him, when the time was right. And then came memories he had no prior recollection of: Sirius playing with what must have been baby Harry, cooing at him as he rushed around on a broom. Sirius, Lily, and James speaking softly with him as Sirius pricked his and Harry’s fingers, before giving baby Harry a blood-red potion in a milk bottle. Sirius grabbing him out of his crib, both of them crying as they stepped over Lily’s prone body.

Apparently satisfied with its’ search, the ring grew warm in his hand, though it did not feel as comforting to Harry anymore. Ice gripped his insides as he realized just what he and Sirius had gone through. He quickly set the ring down on the table next to the others, giving his full attention to Gorluc and pointedly ignoring the way his eyes prickled with tears. Luckily, either nobody noticed, or they decided not to mention it, and everyone quickly got down to business.

“Years ago, well before our people signed treaties with wizardkind, us Goblins were prolific in our wars for resources and land. Over the years since the goblin treaties, we have either used or sold nearly every acquisition our people made in the prior centuries. Except for those such as this one.”

She slid a slim file over to Harry, one that seemingly came from nowhere, simply titled ‘Wizard Venture?’. Inside was a single sheet of paper, with a few attributes of the island(?) listed upon it. As Harry read, the fairy settled down once again on his shoulder…perhaps to read the document as well.

Volcanic, extinct – dormant

Minimal metal veins

Jewel pockets sized medium, close to magma chambers

Unfit for long-term goblin use

Fertile Land

Near-tropical southern region

Temperate, Maritime southern/central region

Mountainous northern region

Suitable for Long-Term Human use

Approximate Size: ~100,000 Kilometers Sq.

Suggestion: Joint Venture with wizard. fae-touched?

Suggested Price: 10,000,000 Galleons7,000,000 Galleons 5,000,000 Galleons (includes salaries of workers to set up infrastructure)

As Harry looked up from the paper, he handed it over to Bill - who was trying not to look as interested as he was – and gave all of his attention to Master Gorluc. She smiled, one of the would-be-scary-for-most-wizards goblin smiles, and bowed her head lightly.

“As you can see, there is not too much information about the island. Once it was deemed unfit for Goblin use, our king decided to cancel all further ventures unless a deal with a wizard was struck. We have kept an eye on it, and except for the semi-dormant volcanoes on the western edge of the island, there has been little activity on the island.”

Harry hadn’t been able to pay too much attention in his grade school geography class…or his geology class… So he wasn’t sure exactly how big 100,000 KM Sq. was, but he was pretty sure that ‘semi-dormant’ was not a good way to describe a volcano he might end up living near.

“Semi-Dormant?”

Master Gorluc sighed, though she didn’t actually sound that exasperated, “The Volcanoes have had a few eruptions while the island has been in our hold – though the area where we would recommend setting up your first settlement is on the south-eastern flank of the island. Far away from any of the active volcanoes. We suspect the island was formed by a volcanic hotspot. As the Atlantic plate moved –“

She took one look at Harry’s expression and sighed again, though he could tell that this one did hold some exasperation. “For now, the how doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the volcanoes will not be near your settlement, should you follow our suggestions. And if you want this venture to succeed, you will follow our suggestions.”

Harry shook his head, all of the information once again slightly confusing him. “You keep saying that word, ‘settlement’. What exactly is the venture? Will others be coming with me? I thought this was an option for me to get away from people, especially british people. If this is just a settlement to expand wizarding Britain, that would be kind of counterproductive wouldn’t it?”

Gorluc held up a hand to stop his questions, though she looked slightly amused to him now. And as he looked around the table, he saw similar expressions on everyone’s face, even Bill who had finished reading the sparse file.

“Harry,” he said, and the young wizard could hear the amusement in his voice, “This is not land that the British conquered, it’s land that the Goblin’s conquered. Why on earth would they sell you their sovereign land just to end up turning it over to the Ministry of Magic?”

As understanding began to spread across the young wizard’s face, he looked quickly at the other occupants of the room. He felt slightly dumb that he hadn’t realized it, and felt a little embarrassment when he saw how amused Herbclaw was at the whole situation.

“So…you’re saying that this land will be all mine? No reporting to the Ministry? I’ll be, what…King?”

As a whole, every occupant of the room nodded, even the fairy alight on his shoulder seemed to be laughing in its’ own way. Though Griphook looked slightly pale…almost nauseous.

“…I don’t know the first thing about running a government! Or building a settlement, or anything really!”

Gorluc nodded, a serious expression back on her face. “Of course you don’t. You may be fae-touched, young child, but that does not magically grant you knowledge of all things you may need to know. Nor do any of the other magical abilities and family titles you have inherited.”

She pulled another file seemingly out of nowhere, this one slightly thicker than the last but still looking extraordinarily scarce. “As you may have noticed on that file, the price of the venture includes the salaries for workers to set up the infrastructure – for the first year at least. 1 million of the 5 million galleons will be automatically withdrawn from your vaults over the course of the first year to pay for worker’s salaries. This file includes the type of work that will be included, and every worker that would be going will be vetted by Gringotts. We have suggestions of workers, of course, who all work for Gringotts in one capacity or another, one of them being Master Weasley.”

Harry nodded his head, taking the file to flip through it. As he was reading though, he realized…he was actually feeling excited at the prospect of this venture. A new country, one he could create to be whatever he wanted? Here and there throughout the file, his fairy companion was trilling at one spot or another – and the more that happened the more it sounded like something he could understand. When he had skimmed halfway through the 1o page document listing the type of work that needed to be done, he made his decision and handed the file to Bill, holding eye-contact with his almost-brother-figure.

“Would you join? If I…if they assigned you to this venture, would you come with us?”

Bill smiled, though it seemed almost a little sad, and Harry almost withdrew his question. But Bill was quicker than the younger wizard, “Of course I would, Harry. I’d come with you even if they hadn’t asked and you had, but as it is Gorluc mentioned it to me when she first thought of proposing the venture to you.” He smiled, “I promise, Harry, I’ll be there for you if you want me. I just wish I had been there more for you earlier.”

Harry blushed lightly and turned back to his account manager, pretty much done with emotional conversation for the day. He felt a slight warmth spread over him as the fairy upon his shoulder trilled once again, and sent a mental thank you to his companion. “I think I’ll take Gringotts up on this offer, Master Gorluc. I only have one question.”

She nodded, giving him her full attention, even Herbclaw was ushering Griphook and Bill out of the room – likely to start preparations. “Yes, young master wizard?”

He smiled, and though he couldn’t see it to him it felt more like a goblin grin than a human one. “When do I leave?”