Chapter Text
Andromeda turned the parchment towards her, her expression shifting from the sharp precision of the Black family business into something a touch more sombre and respectful. “Let’s...” She swallowed. “Let’s move on to addressing the matter of the Potter line.”
Harry looked at the new, daunting stack of folders that had seemingly appeared from nowhere between one blink and the next. More paperwork when it felt as though his brain had been put through a mangle. “Can’t I have a break? My head is actually starting to throb.”
Arcturus didn't move an inch, and his hands remained steady over the head of his ruby-inlaid walking stick. “Every minute you delay is billable to someone, boy. And if memory serves, Andromeda is more expensive than a high-level Ministry bribe.”
“I am indeed expensive,” Andromeda said, though she looked at Harry with a flicker of professional sympathy. “But I’m not charging for Black Family Drama.”
Harry wasn’t sure that was a joke, even if Andromeda seemed to smile. But then he glanced pointedly at Arcturus and Melania. “And shouldn’t he – they – leave? I mean, this is my family stuff now. Not the Blacks.”
Arcturus had no sympathy as he stared at Harry, while Melania sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with a small mutter Harry didn’t pick up over Arcturus words. “Do you truly wish to spend your inheritance on the silence of a room?”
“It is your prerogative, Harry. You are my client, and the others are here by your leave. But understand this: if they remain, you are choosing to share privilege in this room. You cannot later claim I withheld anything from them.”
“I... I don’t know if I want...” Harry said thoughtfully as he stared at Arcturus and Melania. The man was rude and bigoted and arrogant, yes, but maybe he’d be useful to have stay, and Melania, though seemingly disinclined to reign her husband in, didn’t seem that bad. He could always kick him out if he ended up uncomfortable with him knowing what the Potters had left him.
That he could do the same to his friends or godfather didn’t cross his mind.
“If you want Lord and Lady Black to excuse themselves, they will,” Andromeda confirmed. “This is your privacy. People will respect it.”
Harry looked at Sirius, expecting him to jump at the chance to kick his grandfather out. Instead, Sirius was staring at the floor, his expression uncharacteristically guarded. He looked tired, and not just Azkaban-tired, but the kind of tired that came from realising you were way out of your depth.
“He stays,” Sirius said roughly. And bitterly, if Harry had to put a single emotion to his godfather.
“Sirius?” Harry blinked, confused. He thought Sirius hated his family. “You want him here?”
“I don’t want him anywhere,” Sirius admitted, finally looking up. He gestured vaguely toward the desk that had yet more paperwork on it, and Harry was starting to think there was a silent house-elf around. Or the desk was magic. Or both. It was probably both. “But thirteen years in a cell doesn't leave much room to study the finer points of law or Lordship or any of what’s being discussed. And before that... well, I spent my teenage years making sure I forgot every lesson my father tried to beat into my head.”
“You did?” The trio asked as one, staring at the man like he’d imparted some secret knowledge that betrayed everything they thought they knew.
“I did.” Sirius admitted. “Only thing I regret is putting it all on Regulus, but he was the perfect, pure-blooded son they wanted, so better him than me.”
“But. You - the regal-ness?” Harry managed out.
“Hard to scrub what you grew up knowing from birth. A poor one or not, I am a Black.” Sirius grinned. “But yes, I ran away before I learned the half of being a Lord, and neither he nor mum were exactly keen to send me the textbooks afterward, not when they had Regulus to train up.” Sirius paused, then almost as an after thought: “And I skipped the lessons at Hogwarts after it.”
“Oh...” Harry nodded, unsure what to say to that.
“Listen, enough about me. This is your choice.” Sirius let out a short, self-deprecating breath that was more a sigh than a laugh, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “The old man is a nightmare, but he knows the law. He knows how the Ministry buries things in the fine print. I’m the heir of House Black by name, but I’m a rank amateur compared to him. If there’s a mess in the Potter files, I might miss it.” Sirius eyes flicked to Arcturus. “He won’t and grandma absolutely won’t miss it.”
“And while I know my law within my specialities, I’m not a Lord or Lady of the Peerage,” Andromeda conceded. “Sirius has a point.”
Arcturus’s grey eyes flickered with something that wasn't quite approval, but it lacked his previous bite, while Melania smiled. “Pragmatism at its finest. Orion could have learned it better than he did. Walburga too.”
“Don't start,” Sirius muttered.
“So... Lord Black can stay for now,” Harry said, still not happy about it, but he did trust Sirius, and Andromeda. And he could always throw Arcturus out later, maybe even under an oath of some sort, if he wanted. “And... No break, then?”
“No break,” Ron confirmed with a sympathetic grimace.
“It’s better to get it over with all at once.” Hermione said with a nod. “We could use some water, though- oh, thank you.” Hermione squeaked when tall glasses of water appeared on the edge of the desk silently. “House elf?”
“Mipsy, Dotty, and Margg came with the building -bound to it, actually- and take great pride in their unseen work like all Brùnaidh.” Andromeda said with a smile. “Shall we continue, Harry?”
“Yes, please.” The boy said, half wondering how much this would cost him and half wondering what the Gaelic-sounding word Andromeda had used meant, but he assumed it was house-elf. If so, why use that and not house-elf? He reluctantly put it on the Mountain of Questions for Later.
Andromeda nodded and withdrew a document from one of the folders, eyes flicking across the words on it with ease that spoke of years of practice. It was older than the others, the parchment slightly yellowed and the ink a faded, metallic bronze. “This concerns the Potter succession, or continuation of such.”
“I’m fourteen though?” Harry said in a small voice. “But... Emancipated? According to Gringotts and the law.”
“Correct in that you are just a minor despite your new legal status.”
“So I don’t get a say, again?” Harry said with a scowl.
“It is highly possible that you will have something of a say, if not one entirely. Now, at the request of James Potter and Edgar Bones, this was filed in late 1980 by Albus Dumbledore, who was acting as a Witness of Record at their request.”
Harry’s brow furrowed in sheer confusion. “Dumbledore? What does he have to do with my dad’s money?”
This was about money, right?
“Indeed. What does the Headmaster of Hogwarts have to do with the private matters of the Potter estate at all?” Arcturus echoed, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble, as if he scented something foul or not right with the whole set up. Then, at Harry’s confused look, he continued, much like a teacher would. “The Potters were an Ancient House. They had – have, still, perhaps – their own solicitors. They had no need for a schoolmaster to Witness their signatures unless they were trying to keep the filing out of the standard Ministry archives.”
“Right,” Harry said, doing his best to commit that to memory.
“Third party, nothing nefarious, and James took every precaution when he and Edgar met,” Sirius answered with a heavy sigh, leaning his head back against his chair. Harry thought he looked like he was remembering a very dark time. “Edgar requested Albus because it was 1980, Grandfather. The Ministry - everywhere - was full of holes; you couldn’t trust a clerk not to be under the Imperius, and you couldn’t trust the records office not to have a ‘fire’ if the wrong name appeared on a document.”
“We remember those times. One does wonder how the Yaxleys and Malfoys came out of that as well as they did,” Melania said, though her tone was dry, as if she knew exactly how the Yaxleys and the Malfoys and others had escaped justice.
“I remember,” Andromeda said with a tired sigh. “Even my own office wasn’t safe, though we did our best.”
“Who’s Edgar?” Harry asked, if only to get the adults off the topic of Voldemort’s first rise to power. “Someone related to Susan Bones?”
“Her father,” Sirius looked at Harry. “Edgar was a high-ranking official; a target to some, and your dad was... well, he was a Target and your mum was - what’s the date on that?”
“August 13th, 1980,” Andromeda said after Harry nodded.
“Of course -” Sirius hissed with a wince while Arcturus, Andromeda, and Melania all looked away, Arcturus and Melania’s eyes flickering with something like grief for a second. “Timeline fits with everything...”
“Huh?”
“I’ll explain later. But your dad and Edgar wanted a Witness of Record who had enough personal power to make sure the document was actually honoured if the Ministry collapsed or fell to - to Riddle.”
“Riddle?” Arcturus asked.
“Voldemort’s real name. Tom Riddle. I learned it in Second Year after... After an Adventure.” Harry said with a small hunch. “It isn’t that important how I know it. But it’s better than saying You-Know-Who, and it is his name.”
“Right,” Sirius said, but Harry got the feeling it’d come up later. He wasn’t looking forward to it, not when he’d done his best to bury everything about that encounter. That year, really. “Anyway, Dumbledore was the only one both families trusted to file the copy.”
“A wartime contingency, then,” Melania observed softly. “Practical, if unconventional.”
“Even so,” Arcturus said, gesturing toward the paper with a sharp flick of his fingers. “If Lord Potter allows, let us see what they thought was so important as to bypass the usual channels.”
Andromeda continued at Harry’s nod. “This appears to have been a political arrangement to join the houses no later than age twenty-one; an alliance marriage between two Houses supporting the same cause during the War. Co-signatories: Edgar Bones, James Potter, and as executor, Amelia Bones. Both principal signatories deceased. Status: active, awaiting confirmation of acceptance.”
“Confirmation?” Sirius asked warily while Harry blinked.
“By blood,” Andromeda said. “Which means the contract remains valid until dismissed or fulfilled by both the named heirs. Lord, in Harry’s case, heiress in Susan’s.”
Harry’s stomach sank, and he buried his face in his hands, mindful of his glasses this time. “You mean there’s another one?”
At least this one he might have more of a say in than the Black one. He had to believe that.
Andromeda’s expression softened by a fraction. “Yes. The Potter–Bones contract is on record.”
“Great!” Harry muttered with a snort. Just what he wanted, not.
“Harry, please understand that it was never about romance; it was - is - a public gesture of unity in very difficult times. It was even in the papers.”
“I think mum still has the paper?” Ron chimed up before Harry could ask after that. “I know Granny Ced would. She collects the Prophet.”
“Alright. Does it...” Harry looked up and away from the desk, from the paperwork that threatened to define his life forever.
“Yes. Regretfully. Symbol or not, it holds legal weight. And -” her tone turned dry, “- yes, it is possible for the heir or Lord of multiple Houses to hold more than one marital bond. Our law recognises dynastic precedence. Rare as it is, it does happen, and I would not be surprised if more of your age mates end up with at least two spouses.”
Harry dropped his face into his hands again with yet another groan. “Brilliant. Two fiancées before lunch.”
Ron patted him on the back. “And I thought my family was complicated with its internal mini-feuds. Yours is going to be a minefield.”
“I know,” Harry moaned into his hands.
Hermione looked appalled. “That’s - that’s barbaric! They’re arranging your life before you’ve even - before you’ve had time to decide if you even like anyone!”
Harry made a strangled sound that might have been laughter. “You think I don’t know? I’m not even sure I like-like girls outside of Cho - and Ginny doesn’t count, that’s – that’s weird.”
"Weird?!"
"She's your sister! Like - like family!" Ok so maybe Ginny was cute, and maybe he’d woken after a dream about her and had to take a cold shower, and maybe he got a weird feeling whenever he thought about her, and maybe he’d wondered what it’d be like to hold her hand, but she was Ron’s sister. He didn’t want to make it weird between them. Bad enough he was pretty sure Ron liked Hermione, and he was better off not thinking about that because then it was Weird.
He also most definitely did not want Ron and the rest of the Weasley boys beating him up or worse, hexing him, because he might have feelings for Ginny. That’d be bad, and it would strain his friendship with Ron, and Harry was selfish enough to admit that Ron was his first friend and for all Ron could be a right bastard of a berk sometimes, Harry would do anything to keep his first-ever friend his friend.
Even deny he might of maybe had feelings for Ginny.
Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose and spoke up before this could dissolve into teenage bickering. “Can it be dissolved?”
Andromeda hesitated. “Possibly, if the executor - Amelia Bones - petitions for release or agrees to release it if Harry is unwilling, but she's known to uphold the law and she is a pragmatist.”
Arcturus tapped his cane once, as if to get attention. “If I may, Lord Potter?”
“Sure?” Harry said carefully.
“Miss Bones is an acceptable match for you. The Bones line is old, and making good on the union between Potter and Bones restores what the last war scattered.”
Hermione bristled. “We're people, not things!”
Arcturus regarded her as though she were a slightly irritating insect that he was suffering only because the alternative was being kicked out and turning this into more of a circus than he already considered it to be. “Yet the alliance would be beneficial to both families.”
"Yet she's heiress -" Sirius started at the same time as Harry said: “How?”
“It would strengthen ties, for one,” Arcturus frowned. "As for heiress, she is not the sole heir to the family. Leander, her younger cousin, exists, though he is promised to a Carrier."
"Carrier?" Hermione demanded. "What-"
"I am not here to educate you, Ms Granger."
Ron frowned. “Don't get snippy with her when you’re still here because Harry said you could be. You talk about blood like it’s the only thing that matters, and, they weren’t brought up in our world, Lord Black.”
“Even so, it is the foundation of everything that lasts,” Arcturus replied without hesitation. “A regrettable truth that all Lords know.”
Melania’s voice came smooth as silk. “What my husband means, Mr Weasley, Lord Potter, is that lineage forms the spine of our society. Remove it and the body collapses. I would have expected you know that, at least, Mr Weasley.”
“I do, but bloody hell, excuse me for wanting a spine that bends,” Ron hissed, arms crossed as he glowered at Melania.
Arcturus’s eyes narrowed, the faintest ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Cedrella’s likeness. The irony is noted.”
Ron stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Yeah. What?” Harry said, glaring at the old man yet soaking up the information like a sponge soaked up water.
Arcturus’s cane gave a deliberate tap while the man sighed, as if he had a headache. “Your grandmother’s defiance is the reason the Weasleys and the Malfoys have been at odds for three generations. One expects a trace of it to linger.”
“What?” Ron blinked. “No - she was almost forced to marry a Malfoy!”
“She was given a - suitable match,” Arcturus corrected with a frown. “She chose to elope with Septimus rather than inform us she’d found another acceptable match that would have satisfied the family - views notwithstanding.”
Hermione’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Views?”
“Indeed,” Arcturus said. “Now be silent, and you might learn something useful - something to better yourself in our world.”
Harry’s head snapped up. “Don’t speak to her like that. Hermione’s worth - ”
Melania’s tone was calm, measured. “He only speaks truth from our view, Lord Potter. You are... woefully under informed for your station, and while she has her merits, she is young, and she must learn if she is to remain at your side. Understanding is not agreement with the views held.”
“If? She’s my best friend -”
“You - ” Hermione began hotly as she made to stand, but Ron’s hand caught her arm and tugged her back down.
“Not worth it,” he muttered, jaw tight.
Andromeda’s quill hovered over the parchment. “Enough. As interesting as the wider family’s history is, this is a law firm, not a circus.”
“Right. Why... what’s the other reason the Bones would strengthen the Potters? Outside a good match.” Harry asked, refusing to squirm in his seat or feel like he was just playing at being a Lord in a room filled with adults much older than him.
For a moment, no one answered.
Then Andromeda exhaled softly and set her quill down.
“Because the Bones do not merely hold a name,” she said, voice level, professional. “They hold offices. Records. Precedent. Edgar was not chosen because he was powerful - he was chosen because he was trusted.”
Harry frowned. “Trusted how?”
“During the War with Riddle” she continued, “the Bones family were seen as a stabilising pillar within and without the Ministry. Many trusted their legal oversight, continuity of records, and, more importantly, law enforcement when others disappeared or defected. Amelia Bones did not rise by favour; she rose because she could not be bent and, it’s rumoured, she could fight an Imperius Curse.”
Melania inclined her head slightly. “The Bones tend to endure where others fracture.”
“And if the Ministry had fallen,” Arcturus added, tone clipped as his walking stick tapped against the ground. “The Bones’ archival skills and authority would have mattered as much as any vault or blade. A Potter–Bones union was not romantic.” His cane tapped once. “It was insurance.”
Harry absorbed that in silence as he considered everything that had been said. It wasn’t about Susan and was, if he was understanding things correctly, about courts that still functioned when the world was on fire. About someone standing in the wreckage and saying the law still applies.
Andromeda met his gaze squarely. “Which brings us back to the point. Your parents were not arranging your happiness, Harry. They were arranging survival - for their House, at least. We will make an appointment for both the Greengrasses and the Bones.”
“Appointments?”
“You will discuss these betrothals; the Bones one at least is your responsibility. Do not walk blindly into them.” Arcturus said, and Harry thought that was the wisest thing anyone had said to him since this mess began. “You will be present and permitted to ask questions when the Black-Greengrass betrothal is discussed.”
“Right.” That was – he could deal with that. Maybe. “Can I -”
“Not yet; it would be prudent to wait until after the first meeting with the girls, Harry.” Andromeda said, acting as if she could read Harry’s mind. Maybe she could, Harry thought as he sunk into his chair. Right, so no writing to them before them. He could do that.
“Right. We... We make the appointments at the end?”
“Precisely,” she said as she made a note on some scratch parchment, and the word settled the room. “My office will handle the details that you will give me. And I do remind you: The old Houses trend towards political matches when contracts are involved. Love is a bonus.”
Harry groaned softly into his palms. “Fantastic. Two contracts, three lectures, and I’m still not allowed to pick breakfast.”
Sirius’s laugh was rough around the edges. “Welcome to pure-blood politics, kid.”
“Indeed. Now, you’ve inherited more than names.”
“Property?” Harry asked. He knew he had a manor at least.
“Yes. I can tell you the properties themselves and the law that binds them to you. What I cannot do is be discussing stewardship, that is the upkeep or staffing - only what the law recognises as yours.”
“With your permission, I can recommend several real estate managers on top of whomever Andromeda recommends.”
“Er - sure?” Harry said with a blink, suddenly feeling very small in a very adult world.
“You hold the house at Godric’s Hollow. It was designated a national memorial, I highly suggest you leave it as such.”
“Right.” Harry said with a small shrug. He had no emotional attachment to it, so it could stay like that. Maybe he could visit it or something, too. He didn’t know and he’d decide later.
“You have Potter Manor as your primary seat, with several attached tenant holdings entailed to it,” Andromeda said as she picked up a sheet of parchment. “There is a London townhouse held in trust; It is, from what I understand, tenanted.”
“Right.” Harry nodded again.
“You also have a secondary country house currently unoccupied, and two non-residential sites tied to family record and land protection. You are not responsible for their daily management - but legally, you are responsible for their continuity.”
“What’s that all mean?” Harry asked, feeling like his head was about to explode with everything he’d learned so far.
“Tenanted holdings, both for the manor and the land protections.” Andromeda said, and Harry felt the world drop out from under him. Yet, he nodded all the same because that was what everyone else in the room seemed to be doing, and because not nodding felt like it would open a door he didn’t know how to close.
Tenant holdings.
Families.
He had known, in a distant, abstract way, that land usually came with people. He wasn’t stupid. But knowing something and understanding it were different things entirely. This wasn’t a vault or a ring or a name written on parchment. It was children waking up in cottages he’d never seen. It was dinner cooking over hearths he didn’t know how to tend. It was roofs and fields and paths that had nothing to do with him - except that, suddenly, they did.
They lived there.
Not worked there. Not visited. Lived. On Potter land. On land that answered to his blood and his name, whether he wanted it to or not.
Harry swallowed as a tight, sick feeling curled low in his stomach.
The Dursleys had never let him forget whose house he lived in. Whose space he took up and whose food he ate. He’d learned early how fragile shelter could be - how quickly it could be turned into a weapon. And now Andromeda was telling him that people he’d never met lived under a protection that had his name on it.
Not because he’d earned it or bought a house and rented it out. But because he was a Potter. Because he’d survived.
What happened if he got it wrong?
What happened if he said the wrong thing, signed the wrong paper, failed to notice some line buried in the fine print like the way the Ministry liked to bury consequences, like it was trying to bury Voldemort’s return, and Harry had to remind himself he couldn’t scream here. He couldn’t scream at all -
He wanted to scream, though. To shout that the madman was back, that Barty was (probably, likely) still alive -
He inhaled. Held for two. Exhaled for four. Rinsed and repeated as he felt hands on his back as his best friends flanked him.
He could breathe again, just.
He’d inherited people. Tenants. What happened if he turned into the kind of person who decided things about other people’s lives without ever meaning to?
He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to be that kind of person. Yet he felt like it already. The tenants were tied to the land, and the land was tied to him, and suddenly Harry wasn’t sure where the line between ownership and responsibility was supposed to be.
Worse, Voldemort wanted him dead.
That was simple. Horrible and awful, but simple all the same.
This - this was messier.
This was the kind of thing he couldn’t fight with a wand.
He glanced up without meaning to, meeting Sirius’s eyes for just a second. Sirius looked back at him, not smiling, not joking - just there. Solid. Like he understood exactly what was going through Harry’s head, even if he didn’t have the answers either.
Harry took another breath.
“Right,” he said, voice steady only because it had to be and only because Ron and Hermione were still by his side. “So... people.”
It wasn’t a question.
And somehow, that frightened him more than anything else he’d heard all day.
“People,” Ron echoed as he gave Harry’s shoulder a squeeze. “In rental properties.”
Andromeda didn’t correct him.
“That’s one way to put it,” she said instead, and Harry could hear the careful restraint in her voice. “Tenant families. Some hold leases. Some hold rights older than the leases. All of them are protected under various laws, not Ministry discretion.”
Protected.
The word landed oddly. Heavy, but not sharp.
Harry frowned at the parchment as Andromeda slid a summary page toward him. Names he didn’t know. Holdings he couldn’t picture. Marginal notes in a hand far older than hers, ink darkened with age and intent. It looked less like a list of assets and more like a map - one he’d been standing on his whole life without knowing it was there.
“So they don’t answer to me,” he said slowly.
“No,” Andromeda agreed. “They answer to the land. You answer for it.”
That didn’t make it better as it still sounded an awful lot like they answered to him in the end.
But, all the same, it did make him let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Somewhere in his chest, the tight knot eased just enough to let him think again. This wasn’t about telling people what to do. It wasn’t about throwing anyone out, or making choices for them. It was about making sure the ground didn’t vanish under their feet because he hadn’t bothered to look down.
He glanced, without quite meaning to, at Sirius again.
Sirius met his eyes and gave a small nod - not encouragement, exactly. More like recognition. Yeah, it seemed to say. That bit never stops being terrifying.
“Right,” Harry said again, quieter this time. “So... people.”
No one laughed. No one rushed him.
They let him digest this news. He was fourteen, almost fifteen, and he had inherited people. Tenants. In Rental Properties.
“Okay. I’m.... I think I understand, now.” Maybe. He knew he’d need not to think about it for a while, though.
Andromeda set her quill aside and reached for the second ring box. “Then we move on. The Potter ring?”
Harry hesitated, then opened it.
The ring inside was more ornate than the Black heir band; gold chased with red enamel and the Potter crest engraved deep and clear: a stag rampant beneath a veiled cloak, yet, when Harry lifted it from the box, the stag’s antlers and the fall of the cloak seemed to suggest a coiled shape. Harry blinked and it was gone, but he had seen it, he knew he had. Or maybe it was just the ring; it looked smaller, somehow, even though he knew it was the same size as the Heirship ring.
He turned it once between his fingers, the metal catching the light like water, and thought - not for the first time - that nothing about this felt like winning. It felt like being trusted with something he didn’t know how to hold yet. Like it was being thrust on him without his say so.
“Which finger? The same as-”
“No. The one goes on your right pinky,” Arcturus said, showing the black Lordship ring that sat his right pinky.
“Right.” Harry nodded, and then, drawing a slow breath, he slid it onto the finger.
For a breath, nothing happened and the ring sat there, loose and heavy with history.
Then magic surged, but it wasn’t like the warmth of the Black ring. This felt cold, like ice, or like when he’d first pulled on the Invisibility Cloak all those years ago. The gold glowed against his skin, and for just a second, the suggested coiled shape between the antlers and cloak seemed much more real. Then the metal settled with quiet finality, as though it had always belonged there.
Harry swallowed. He hadn’t imagined it, then. But... he couldn’t ask about it. No. He didn’t want to worry them and he didn’t think he wanted to sit through whatever Arcturus and or Melania would have to say if they found out the newest Lord Potter had a Dark Gift. Parseltongue.
No. Better they not know, and Harry instead focused on what mattered more: the people he was responsible for now, and for the first time, the word didn’t feel like a threat - just a responsibility he’d have to grow into, whether he liked it or not.
Arcturus watched the light play over the two rings then sighed.
“Functional,” he said at last. “Both rings recognise your claim. That will make things easier.”
Harry frowned. “Easier how?”
“The old families anticipated divided inheritance,” Sirius explained. “If memory serves, when an heir holds more than one line, the rings' enchantments align for security, but not for authority. Each House remains distinct.”
He glanced at his grandfather, who nodded.
“Like two chequebooks!” Hermione said brightly. “So you’ll have to pick what one goes with what transaction.”
Harry blinked. “You mean I have to pick every time?”
Melania inclined her head. “Indeed. The rings will not decide that for you.”
“Exactly,” Andromeda said. “Black for Black affairs, Potter for Potter, and so forth. The magic will recognise your intent once you name it, but the responsibility remains yours.”
“Glad I’m not the one that has to deal with this,” Ron muttered, “Even magic’s got paperwork.”
Melania’s lips curved faintly. “And accountants.”
Sirius leaned back with a sigh. “Welcome to Lordship, Harry. Every choice comes with a ledger.”
Arcturus’s cane tapped once, the sound like a punctuation mark. “And every ledger remembers.”
Harry looked down at his hands again. The rings no longer pulsed or glowed - they simply were, sitting on his pinkies, quietly aware of one another.
“Can I... hide them?” He asked, voice feeling small.
“Hide?” Arcturus raised an eyebrow.
“We’re still in school -” Hermione started.
“Yeah.”
“And I don’t... want people to know about this just yet? It’s a lot to take in,” Harry finished.
“I see.” Arcturus leaned back in his chair. “A simple notice-me-not charm should suffice for now, but people will notice soon enough - the Bones, for one. The Greengrasses for another. And, I intend on announcing you as my heir when you are fifteen.”
“Right.” Harry sunk down in his own chair. More attention, just what he needed.
Andromeda flipped to the final page of the file. “According to your letter, the next issue is the -”
“The Gaunt thing,” Harry’s stomach sank. He still didn’t know how he’d gotten that.
“Gaunt?” Melania’s expression sharpened, interest glinting like a scalpel. “That line died out decades ago.”
“Apparently not,” Andromeda said, her tone too controlled to be casual. “The entry was verified by the Registry of Peerage and cross-confirmed through Gringotts’ magical authentication. There’s no signature - only a mark of transfer by blood. The record identifies the previous House Head as defeated in combat.”
“Defeated?” Harry echoed, confused. “I didn’t - ”
“It would be by the Rite of Conquest,” Arcturus’s cane tapped once against the carpet, his tone clipped. “An ancient form of inheritance law.”
“Explain, please,” Hermione said when Arcturus lapsed into silence. “You said we – we needed to learn. I needed to learn. We can’t do that if you will not explain.”
“When a Lord or Head of House falls to another peer, the victor may claim the defeated line as their own. It is exceedingly rare, as it requires both combat and status. You must have met your rival as equal.”
“It isn’t within my purview,” Andromeda said when Harry looked to her for more details.
Sirius frowned even as he straightened from his regal sprawl. “Equal in blood?”
“In station,” Arcturus corrected. “Two Lords. One victor.”
The words landed like stones on the ground.
Hermione’s hand went to her mouth. “But that would mean -”
“- that whoever he fought was also a peer,” Andromeda finished quietly. “A recognised Lord by blood, title, and magic.”
The silence thickened and Ron’s face drained of colour. “Bloody hell.”
Harry’s throat tightened as his mind flashed to the only thing that he knew of that could have caused this that he knew of. “I don’t... I didn’t know. I didn’t even try to take anything. I just wanted to finish the Tournament alive.”
“Magic such as the Rite of Conquest does not ask intent,” Arcturus said coldly. “Only result.”
Andromeda turned the parchment toward them. The Gaunt crest - a coiled serpent, faint and almost burned away - lingered beneath the gold ink. “The line was considered extinct. For it to transfer as it has, there must have been a living Head when it fell.”
Harry’s eyes lingered on the serpent as Hermione looked up sharply. “But... if the line was thought dead, then who could you have - ”
“That is the question we must answer.” Andromeda’s expression stayed neutral, though the faint tightening around her eyes betrayed unease. “The magic only says it was transferred, not how or from whom.”
Melania spoke next, her tone smooth but edged. “A House cannot transfer without a living claimant to yield it, willingly or not. Whoever bore the title of Gaunt at that moment lost it to you, Mr Potter. The magic acknowledged the defeat, not the name.”
Harry felt cold as he tore his eyes away from the snake. “But I didn’t defeat anyone. Not like that. I think.”
Sirius shifted forward, his voice low. “Maybe it’s a clerical error. Magic’s old - sometimes it misreads bloodlines.”
Andromeda shook her head. “The Gringotts Registry’s magic doesn’t misread. It might omit, but not invent. Something happened that triggered a transfer. Whether you knew it or not.”
Ron glanced uneasily between them. “So there’s a dead House out there, and now it’s his?”
“Precisely,” Arcturus said, eyes sharp with thought. “The Gaunts were ancient even by my standards - descendants of Slytherin, some whispered. Their line decayed into inbreeding after Ominis vanished, but its blood was potent. If it bent to Potter, there will be consequences.”
“Another girlfriend?” Harry groaned. He didn’t need three!
“Possibly,” Arcturus said, wincing as the trio and Sirius groaned. “But we do not know yet.”
Melania inclined her head slightly. “At the very least, there will be notice once this comes out. The Peerage does not ignore miracles.”
Harry swallowed hard. “Can we find out how it happened?”
Andromeda nodded once. “We can. The magic of a Rite leaves residue. A lineage verification will tell us the moment and method of transfer. It will also confirm whether any Gaunt blood remains elsewhere.”
“Meaning?” Sirius asked scrubbing his face.
“If a claimant survived,” Andromeda said kindly. “You will know. But such a test is not simple - and the fewer who learn of it, the better.”
Her eyes flicked to Arcturus, who nodded once before the woman spoke again. “It must be done privately.”
“Why?” Harry asked, desperate for any kind of say in his life, or at least an understanding of what the adults where talking about.
“The Ministry would make a spectacle of this otherwise,” Melania said with a sigh while Sirius groaned into his hands.
“When don’t they?” Ron muttered under his breath.
Andromeda ignored him, making a neat notation on the parchment. “Ordinarily, I would arrange such a lineage verification under oath and a double ward set. It would take three days to prepare and one day to do. It is tricky, but exact magic.”
Harry shifted in his chair, the weight of everything heavy against his skin. Against his throbbing mind that felt like someone had taken a hammer to it and pinned it to an anvil. “Do I have to?”
“Not immediately,” she said, her expression softening by a fraction as she looked up. “Given everything else you’ve inherited, I’d say it can wait. You have enough to manage without adding another revelation.”
Melania inclined her head slightly, tone calm but edged. “The dead have slept this long. They can wait a little longer.”
Arcturus gave a small, acknowledging grunt. “My wife is correct. You will breathe before you bury yourself in genealogy.”
“Thanks,” Harry said dryly with a sound that was almost a laugh but didn’t quite make it there.
"As for the ring...?” Andromeda glanced up at Harry.
"Yeah. The Goblins mentioned that there's a record of it, but not in the vault." Harry said with a strange sense of relief. At least he didn't have another ring to wear, but he had a feeling Andromeda knew what was sitting in the last ring box. "I have to find it, I think."
Andromeda closed the folder with deliberate care. “Then we’ll leave it for now. When you’re ready, we’ll revisit the matter.”
“Now, if that is all?” Arcturus asked, weight on his walking stick as if to stand.
“N-No. There’s one more.” Harry said, staring right at Arcturus now. “But... I want an oath that you won’t tell anyone until I say you can.”
Archie’s steely gaze turned to the parchment stack that still waited on Andromeda’s desk. Then back to harry. “I assume you wish my expertise still?”
“Er, yes.” Harry nodded. “But the oath first.”
“Very well,” Arcturus said with an inclination of his head towards Harry as he withdrew his wand from a discrete holster, a 13-inch blackthorn stick that looked like it’d once seen a dueling circuit. “As you wish, Lord Potter.”
“Just Harry. I’m just Harry.”