Day ten sees him back in Flourish & Blotts. Harry tracks down an older man in an official-looking robe. “Excuse me?”
“Well hello, lad! Egbert Flourish at your service,” the man says, beaming. “What can I do for you today?”
“I was hoping to see books on something called occlumency?”
The smile falls off Mr. Flourish’s face faster than a snitch dodges. “Now, where did you hear that term, my boy?”
Harry’s pretty sure he messed up somewhere. “Uh—a book I was reading, sir. Is it—is it a bad thing?”
“It’s Dark magic,” Mr. Flourish warns him with a frown. “Nothing good will come of that. Which book did you see that in? Not one we sell here, surely.”
“Oh—sorry, I don’t remember…”
Harry makes his escape and chews his lip in the street outside.
He doesn’t want to use Dark magic. That’s evil. But Cynthia didn’t seem like a Dark witch. And what could be so bad about just protecting yourself?
Maybe, he thinks, it’s like jinxes and hexes—something that could be used to do something bad, but people can learn it for protection instead. Malfoy used the leg-locker curse on Neville but that’s a spell Quirrell taught them.
His feet take him back to For Diviners. Cynthia is there again. “Back so soon?” she says with a smile.
Harry doesn’t come much further in than the door. “I—er—that book you gave me, it had something called occlumency in it.”
“Indeed.” She seems like she’s trying not to smile.
“I asked someone at the bookstore about it,” Harry says. “He called it Dark magic.”
Cynthia lets out a peal of bell-like laughter. “Oh, lad, no, it’s not Dark at all. Many people fear masters of occlumency. Mental discipline lends itself to skill in anyone’s chosen pursuit, and it’s a universal fact of human nature that to be better than others at anything will breed jealousy and resentment.”
“Oh.” Harry can see that. Everyone in Privet Drive would snipe and gossip when anyone else got a newer car or a better refrigerator. The smart kids in class were admired, but also talked about behind their backs, and he heard plenty of unhappy muttering about how they must have cheated since that test was too hard for anyone to do well normally. “Okay… so… where could I learn more about it?”
He really, really didn’t like the thought of someone (Dumbledore) reading his mind.
“Here.” Cynthia grabs a bit of parchment out of thin air and a quill from her counter. She scribbles something down and hands it to Harry. “Go to 718 Knockturn Alley—”
“But that’s where Dark wizards go,” Harry blurts, and blushes furiously.
Cynthia looks like this is the funniest thing that’s happened to her in weeks. “Who told you that?”
The Weasleys. Hagrid. “Friends of the family.”
“Well, that’s nonsense. Every Muggle city has some areas that are nicer than others. Knockturn’s a bit seedy, that’s true, and I wouldn’t recommend going for a stroll there after dark at your age, but you’ll hardly get mugged just for going to a used bookstore at two in the afternoon. Take the main turn off Diagon and it’ll be on your right in about five minutes’ walk. Give the man there this note—he’ll help you out.”
“Thanks.”
Harry goes back to the Leaky and gets Bear. Cynthia’s explanation makes a lot more sense than the thought that there’s some haven of Darkness and evil lurking right there off the main shopping strip with a signpost and everything, but he’s still a kid on his own. He figures no one will try picking his pocket when he has a black dog that stands three feet at the shoulder pacing at his side.
Bear seems to give Harry a side-eye as they turn down Knockturn Alley, but he doesn’t falter. Harry’s relieved to see Cynthia was right. There’s plenty of shady characters, but the stores all look more or less normal, just a bit more run-down.
718 Knockturn turns out to be Silas Pumperknell’s Old & New Books. The windows are dusty but he can see a display of history books through them. Harry pushes his way inside. It’s bigger on the inside than it should be and the shelves go up so high the tops of them vanish into the gloom by the ceiling. If there even is a ceiling.
Harry’s a bit spooked, but he gathers up his Gryffindor courage and marches up to the man behind the little counter over on the left wall. “Er, hi? Cynthia sent me—said to give you this…”
The man takes the note without looking at Harry. He reads it, snorts, and incinerates it with a jab of his wand. “Been a while since she directed someone my way. Silas Pumperknell at your service. Occlumency, you say? Interesting subject matter.”
“I don’t like the thought of someone reading my mind,” Harry admits, following the old man and his head of silver hair back into the stacks.
“Very sensible of you.” The stacks twist and turn in no discernible pattern. Harry begins to have fun. This feels like an adventure, the good kind, with low chances of getting eaten by something, which is a definite improvement over his adventures of the past two years.
“Here you are,” Silas Pumperknell says, stopping at a shelf helpfully labeled Minde Magicks. “Occlumency for beginners. This one’s got the clearest meditation guides.”
“I didn’t know meditation was so important until recently.” Harry takes the offered book, and grabs several others for good measure. He won’t be able to come back here with any of the Weasleys, so he’d better stock up now on whatever he wants to buy.
Mr. Pumperknell shakes his head. “I don’t know what they’re teaching up at that bloody school these days. You Muggle-raised, lad?”
“Yes.” Harry waits for any negative reaction to this.
None is forthcoming. “Want to know what the Ministry doesn’t want you to read?”
Harry went to Muggle primary long enough to have learned about governments like the communists and the Nazis that burned books and censored reporters. He knows it’s bad when a government tells you what to read and what not to. And he doesn’t like the Ministry much. “Sure,” he says.
Mr. Pumperknell grins. “Excellent.”
Harry leaves loaded down with books about defensive magic, potions, magical theory, and history. He also bought a lone book with a snake on the cover detailing a world history of parselmouths. That one raises Mr. Pumperknell’s eyebrows. “I heard Vol– sorry, You-Know-Who was one,” Harry explains. “I was curious.”
“Curiosity will take you far. That book’s banned by the Ministry as of 1943,” Mr. Pumperknell says. “Don’t let anyone see you with it. I sell charmed dust jackets that will take on the appearance of the first book you put in them and make any other book resemble the first one if you put the jacket on.”
“I’ll take three, please.”
Back at the Leaky, Harry contemplates the stacks of books that have somehow sprung up around his desk. “Bear? I think I’m going to need a new trunk.”
A thunk and the click of coins makes him look around. Bear has pulled Harry’s coin bag down off the windowsill, and he’s pawing at it while glaring pointedly at Harry.
“Oh.” Harry feels nauseous suddenly. He’s low on the galleons he withdrew last year. How much money does he have left? Is it even enough to see him through school? It looked like loads of gold in first year, like an impossible fortune, but he’d been an overwhelmed and half-terrified kid, still desperately hoping it wasn’t all some kind of trick. And last year he’d been busy feeling embarrassed he had so much when the Weasleys had so little.
“I think I need to go to the bank,” he says slowly. “Uncle Vernon went to the bank a lot to deal with his—his accounts. And he had investments. I dunno how that works for wizards, but… maybe there’s something? I should go to the bank, anyway. I don’t even know how much money I have.”
Bear picks up the bag and drops it in Harry’s lap.
“I get the point,” Harry said. “Still. I’m—Bear, things are weird. Why didn’t anyone tell me to go ask at the bank about my vault? Don’t people get statements? I’ve never gotten one.”
Bear whuffs.
The next day is the halfway point of his blessed three weeks of peace. Harry wakes up early out of nerves and figures he may as well head off to Gringotts.
The goblins guarding the doors give him a narrow-eyed once-over, but they don’t say a word, so Harry just awkwardly nods at them and hurries inside.
Even at this hour, the line is pretty long. He waits impatiently until it’s his turn.
“Key?” the teller says in a bored voice.
“Er–I haven’t got it,” Harry says.
“Hm.” The goblin peers down at him. Its expression is thoroughly unimpressed. “Name?”
Harry glances around and lowers his voice. “Harry Potter.”
“With me.”
Is he supposed to follow? Harry hesitates and nearly loses the goblin as it climbs down and goes through a door behind the counters. He goes after, and no one yells at him.
The goblin takes him to a very nice office. It has plants in the corners and a very broad desk that’s at goblin height, which is coincidentally also Harry height. Harry pulls up a chair. It is very uncomfortable.
Within three minutes, a second goblin hurries in and shuts the door with a slam. “Mr. Potter, my name is Nordok and I am the account manager for the Potter estate.”
Estate? Account manager?
“I understand you do not have your key.”
“No.” Harry’s blushing.
Nordok fixes him with an irritated look as he sits behind his desk. “Who does have it?”
“Er–Mrs. Weasley, Molly Weasley, had it last, I think. Before that it was Hagrid.”
“That won’t do.” The goblin whips out a silver bowl with a very pointy needle-like thing sticking up out of the center. It’s carved all over with runes that make Harry’s newfound sense of curiosity perk up. “Prick your finger on the needle, Mr. Potter, and let your blood fall in the bowl.”
Well, he’s had worse pain. Harry presses his left middle finger firmly onto the needle and waits until Nordok nods at him to take it off. Blood rolled down the silver needle, coating it and leaving a thin film on the bottom of the bowl.
Nordok touches the outside of the bowl and frowns in what looks like concentration. “You are indeed Harry Potter. A good sign. One moment.” A blank bar of some dark-colored metal comes out of his desk and goes in the bowl. Nordok chants something under his breath in the harsh sounds of the goblin language that lasts thirty seconds or so and then flicks a puff of powder at the bowl.
There’s a soft popping sound. Harry cranes his neck. The blood is gone, and the bar of metal has turned into a key.
“Here you are. Do not lose this key and do not give it to anyone else. Now, can you tell me why you have never once replied to our missives?”
Harry freezes with his hand still reaching out to take the key. “What missives, sir?”
“The account statements.” Nordok sounds like he’s speaking to a particularly dim child. “And the requests for a meeting. You have been receiving the former since the age of seven, and the latter on a quarterly basis since your eleventh birthday.”
“No I haven’t.”
Nordok looks abruptly furious. Harry hurriedly adds, “I’m not saying it’s your fault! But I really haven’t gotten any mail from Gringotts. I promise.”
“You should not be so free with your promises,” Nordok says darkly, but he relaxes, so that’s good. “Mr. Potter, if something is wrong with your mail, you ought to inquire with your Muggle guardian’s magical representative.”
“A what?” Harry says.
Nordok presses one finger to the bridge of his nose. “Every magical child with a Muggle parent or guardian must by law have a magical representative to act in loco parentis whenever a circumstance arises in which their Muggles cannot do so. Muggles do not have rights in your society. If your magical representative is unknown to you, then they are being grossly negligent. Typically, the Head of one’s Hogwarts House fulfills that role, but as you were the child of wizarding parents and your custody was only transferred to your aunt, I haven’t a clue who was assigned to you.”
Okay, that sounds bad. “So… what can I do?”
The goblin pulls open a thick file and scans the first few pages. “Unfortunately, your parents never filed wills with Gringotts. If they did so with the Ministry, I must believe their wills were never probated, else we would have at least been notified of monetary bequests. In absence of a will, the entirety of the Potter estate passes to you per the family charter of the year 1353, but I can shed no light on your guardianship at this time. I could inquire with your Ministry. Do you authorize me to do so?”
“Yes,” Harry says. His head spins. Charter? 1353? How old is the Potter family?
“Very well.” Nordok makes a note. “We do have someone listed as executor of your parents’ estate. Paperwork was filed with the bank in August of 1981 establishing one Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore as the trustee of your personal vault in the event of the death of both of your parents.”
Dumbledore? Dumbledore’s been his trustee? He wasn’t just the Headmaster—he’d been important to Harry’s parents. Trusted.
What is going on?
“Wait, did you say personal vault? Are there others?”
“Of course.” By now Nordok probably thinks Harry is a royal idiot. “Your mother left a vault with eight thousand four hundred thirty-one galleons in it as well as a trunk. Your father had a trust vault, now left to you. It contains… two hundred five of the original one hundred thousand galleons granted to James Potter as a trust vault.”
One hundred thousand galleons? “Is that how much I have too?”
“Had,” Nordok corrects. “There have been timed payments made from your trust vault for some time.” He selects a long scroll from the pile of papers on his desk and unrolls it. “Since January 1982, monthly payments of two hundred galleons or approximately one thousand Muggle pounds at the current rate of exchange have been made to a Muggle bank account in the name of Petunia and Vernon Dursley. That total comes out to twenty-eight thousand eight hundred galleons or about one hundred forty-one thousand pounds. Since January of 1984, quarterly payments in the same amount have been made to a Gringotts vault owned by Arabella Figg nee Diggory, totaling eight thousand galleons or about thirty-nine thousand pounds. You made a withdrawal of one hundred seventy-two galleons in August of 1991 and another withdrawal of ninety-two galleons in August of 1992. The current balance of your trust vault stands at sixty-two thousand nine hundred and thirty-six galleons.”
Harry can’t breathe. That’s a stupid amount of money. He’s rich. Really bloody rich. And someone has been paying his money to Petunia Dursley and for some reason Arabella Figg. He had no idea she was a witch. Or, he thinks of Argus Filch, maybe a squib. That would explain why she’s living in the Muggle world, but not why he’s been paying her.
“Who set up those payments?” he says when he can speak again.
Nordok consults his sheet. “They were initiated and renewed annually by your trustee, Albus Dumbledore.”
“Annually? Would he—he came in here to do that?”
“One must conduct all official Gringotts business on Gringotts land.”
So, yes. Harry needs a minute. He closes his eyes and tries to remember how his lungs work.
“Can I—can I have a copy of that statement?”
“You should have been receiving copies of these statements since age seven,” Nordok says tersely. He whacks the scroll on the table and it turns into two scrolls, one of which he hands over to Harry. “Do you wish to halt these transfers?”
Desperately, but—Harry’s brain kicks in and he thinks it through. Blundering along without a plan has got him nearly killed two years in a row now. Sure, Gryffindors tend to be impulsive and reckless, but the hat wanted him in Slytherin. He still doesn’t want to be there but surely that means he has some ability to plan and think ahead.
So. The transfers. If he stops them, Aunt Petunia will either complain to Dumbledore or make his life even more of a living hell if he has to go back next year. Mrs. Figg definitely knows how to contact Dumbledore, since she’s got ties to the magical world.
“Not now,” Harry says, hating it.
Nordok gives him a knowing look. “Very well, Mr. Potter. Next, there is the matter of the Potter family trust.”
Harry stares at him. “There’s more?”
The goblin might almost crack a smile at that. “Yes. The Potter family trust vault was established in 1353 by Linifred of Stinchcombe along with the Potter charter. Until you attain a mastery or turn twenty-five, you cannot make any withdrawals from that vault, but you can authorize me to invest it on your behalf. That gold has lain stagnant since your grandfather, Charlus Potter, died in 1979.”
“How, uh, how much is there?” Harry almost doesn’t want to know.
“Two million three hundred thousand and…” Nordok looks at his parchments. “Five hundred eighty-six galleons and change. As well as a number of portraits, furnishings, wands, grimoires, books, and other material heirlooms.”
If someone poked him with a quill Harry would probably fall over. “Okay,” he says faintly. “Uh, yeah, you can—you can invest it.” Nordok looks the closest to happy that Harry’s seen him yet. “Er. What happened to my dad’s vault? I mean–I can’t imagine spending all this by graduation. On my own, anyway, the transfers will keep draining it, but—how did he spend that much?”
Nordok consults a different account statement. “Between his seventeenth birthday in March 1977 and the time of his death, James Potter made a series of transfers totaling just over fifty thousand galleons to a vault owned by O.P.”
“What’s O.P.?”
“It’s an organization vault, and not under my management, so I cannot view details.” Nordok doesn’t look happy about this. “Individuals and organizations can both open Gringotts vaults; the terms are slightly different for each. Organizations can name their vaults whatever they want.”
Fishy.
Harry tries to think what else he should ask. “Is there a limit to how much I can withdraw?”
“Your trustee set an annual withdrawal limit of five thousand galleons.”
Again, Harry makes himself work through the swirling, crashing thoughts. Dumbledore is only the trustee for the vault Harry was given from the Potters. He’s making all these transfers in Harry’s name and Harry can’t stop him since he doesn’t know what’s going on or what other power Dumbledore has over him. So Harry should be protecting as much money as he can.
“Do I need to go down to the vaults to make a transfer? And is my mother’s vault in my name only, now?”
Nordok nods once. “Excellent questions. As to the former, no. For a fee of three galleons plus ten sickles per extra unit of weight beyond five stone, we can have a Gringotts employee retrieve specified items from the vaults for you. As to the latter, yes, your mother’s vault is now in your name only.”
“Okay.” Deep breath, Harry. “Please transfer five thousand galleons to my mother’s old vault—I’ll call it my personal vault instead of my trust one. Um, and if someone could bring up her old trunk and… two hundred galleons, that would be great. Can you just take the money from my account?”
“We can.” Nordok hands Harry the silver bowl again. “The trunk and withdrawal will be the flat three galleons. Prick your finger and verbally authorize the transactions while the blood flows. Here are the vault numbers.”
Harry stabs his finger again. “Transfer five thousand galleons from vault number 17208 to vault number 15094. Pay Gringotts Bank three galleons from vault number 15094.”
“Very good.”
Harry takes his hand back with some relief while Nordok collects the bowl. He whacks it against the desk and mutters something. The blood inside vanishes with a puff of smoke.
“Lastly, there is the matter of your family title.”
“Sorry, did you say title?”
Nordok sighs. “The Potters hold the Barony of Hraefn Wealde. There is no courtesy title, but you can, per the family charter, attempt to claim the Barony in ritual once you turn fourteen in absence of any living family member or regent. The family magic may accept you at that age or it may not until you are older. You will inherit an estate in Shropshire. It includes a standing stone circle that predates the Norman Conquest and a small keep that is likely in disrepair as it has not been in use since the late eighteen hundreds, when your great-grandparents moved the family to a manor home on the south coast. The Potter line is both Ancient and Noble, meaning you are entitled to two votes in the Wizengamot.”
What?
Twenty minutes later, Harry leaves the bank in something of a daze. He’s carrying his mother’s trunk and a sack full of scrolls and parchments on his finances that Nordok insisted he read over. Several parting bits of “advice” from Nordok are still ringing in his ears: get a proper wizarding wardrobe, fix his eyesight, and read some books on Gringotts and the Wizengamot.
“Bear,” Harry says, standing wild-eyed in his room. “Bear, I’m some kind of noble. I’m going to be a baron. With a keep and a—I don’t even know what I’d do with a standing stone circle, throw a party? And two million bloody galleons! And that bastard has been stealing from me!”
He realizes he’s shouting just as Bear butts his head hard enough into Harry’s leg that he staggers. “Right.”
Harry sits down.
Bear also sits and stares attentively at him.
“Sometimes I really wish you could talk back,” Harry informs him. “So, listen, I went to the bank, and I have a trust vault with a lot of money. Almost half a million pounds, I think, which is just insane, but turns out Dumbledore was put in charge of the trust before my parents died and he’s been paying out a thousand pounds a month to my aunt and uncle since 1982.” Harry takes a deep breath. “Which is bloody nonsense because they barely fed me, kept me in a cupboard, worked me all day every day, and complained all the time about how much of a burden I was. And he’s also been giving about four thousand pounds a year to this lady who lives across the street, Arabella Figg born Arabella Diggory. She has a Gringotts vault for the payments but she never said anything about magic! And if Dumbledore knows her, how did he not know about how I was treated there? How did he never check in on me even though he was the trustee of my vault? Why weren’t my parents’ wills ever read? It makes no sense!”
Bear whuffs quietly and rests his head on Harry’s knees.
Harry folds over the dog’s head and gives him an awkward hug. “Thanks, Bear. You’re the best.”
Bear wiggles until he can lick Harry’s chin.
コメント