Chapter 10

Once inside of Gringotts he saw that there was a huge line waiting on the tellers and looked around until he saw a guard standing against a wall. He walked over to the guard and said "excuse me, but I have an appointment with my account manager and he asked me to come here as soon as possible."

The guard lifted his eyebrow at the polite tone the wizard used and nodded. He asked "what is the name of your account manager?"

"Knifebiter."

"You're Harry Potter then I take it. Very well follow me." The guard then led the way through the tunnels until he opened the door leading to Knifebiter's office.

Harry entered the office and while sitting down said "good day Knifebiter. May I inquire as to the reason for this meeting?"

"You may. You might not be aware of this but the Potter's set up a trust fund a long time ago to see to the tuition requirements for Hogwarts students. For instance a Weasley named Bill had his tuition paid for by the trust fund. They set it up so as to help first wizarding families, then as many muggleborn students as possible for that year. Unfortunately that trust fund is running out of money this year as the term for its life is at an end; as they set it up to last 500 years. I called you here to see if you would wish to renew it or if you wanted to allow it to die."

Harry nodded and replied "thank you for bringing this to my attention. I would like to renew it if possible. Would you please see that 75 million galleons is moved into the trust fund and that 90% of that money is invested in long term stocks and bonds please. That way whatever the amount that those stocks and bonds earn can be used to pay the tuition for muggleborns or wizarding families in desperate straits."

Knifebiter's eye nearly bulged out when he heard his client say 75 million galleons, but quickly recovered. He asked "what do you want to happen to the rest of the money?"

"I plan on seeing that the rest is used this year as there are a ton of new students this year."

"Yes the bank has seen more muggles and their muggleborn children that it has seen in a long time recently and all the standard shops in Diagon Alley are very busy as well. You wouldn't happen to know of the reason why this is now taking place would you?"

"Well Hogwarts has apparently set some rules that seem to be the result of this sir. I believe it was the rule that all muggleborns must attend a magical school is the one responsible for your seeing so many muggleborns recently." Harry replied with a small smile.

"I see. Well that seems to be all for now. If anything else comes up I will contact you through owl. Good day."

"Good day sir." Harry then walked out and made his way through the throngs choking the alley and apparated home as soon as he could. He saw that he had arrived just in time for his workout. He followed his schedule until it was time for him to leave for the train that would take him to Hogwarts.

On the morning of September 1st Harry made sure that everything was packed and his trunk securely warded. Once everything was ready he shrunk the trunk and sent a mental call to Hedwig saying 'Hedwig do you know where Hogwarts castle is?'

'I do master. I shall enjoy the flight as well as I have no wish to be cramped into a cage on the train.'

Seeing that Hedwig would be fine he hugged Patricia and asked "did you and Samuel ever decide on when you as well as the teacher for etiquette will be coming to Hogwarts?"

Patricia nodded and said "I will be coming every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Tuesday and Friday I'll be arriving at 0600 so make sure you're there. On Sunday I'll be arriving at 1000. Now don't slack off your exercises just because I won't be there! I expect you to exercise every morning and evening alright? I know your need for sleep has dropped down to less than four hours so you don't even have the excuse of not having enough time to get your homework done."

Harry nodded and remembering something Hywel had told him at the beginning of his stay here he went over to his portrait and asked "Hywel you mentioned something about some linking books here and I just remembered you telling me about them. Could you further explain about them please?"

Hywel nodded and said "I was wondering why you packed your trunk so full of books yesterday. Well the linking books are in essence a way for you to read the books of the library without having to be here. In the recessed compartment you will find two hundred numbered linking books. Take all of the numbered linking books and the one marked master search as well. You will be able to write in the book titled master search for any subjects you want to study. It will list all of the titles available in your library and will have a number of the linking book that holds that title. Take a linking book and write the title down, once you do so the linking book will assume the shape and contents of the book you wrote down. When you are finished with the book write close on the back of the front cover and the linking book will once again assume its normal shape and function."

Harry nodded and took out his trunk and took out all of the books he had picked from his library and sent them back to the shelves via the ledger. He then took out and stored all of the linking books as well as the master search book. Closing and shrinking his trunk once more Harry said "thank you Hywel and I shall see you for the Yule break. Good luck and merry part my friend." Harry then apparated to platform 9 3/4 where he once again saw the throngs of people parting with their children that he remembered from his past life. Sighing he made his way to an empty compartment and opening his trunk took out the books assigned by Snape for first years and started rereading it. He was sitting there totally caught up in the book when a throat being cleared broke his concentration. Startled he looked up and saw his death angel calmly sitting across from him! He noticed a felling of deadness to the air and looked around and saw that everything except apparently for him and his death angel was frozen. He turned his gaze back to her and stammered out "I haven't died again have I?"

The woman chortled and replied with mirth in her voice "no you haven't died Harry. I am here as part of my keeping in touch with you and making sure that nothing avoidably bad happens to you. I will be popping up at various times to make sure that everything goes to plan. I froze time so we could talk and not have you be considered crazy by having a conversation with empty air. Now I have kept track of your progress so far and I am glad that you are taking your training and preparation seriously. Now I know that you and Patricia have been wondering why you can see the tattoo on each other's faces, well it serves as a mark to people who have dedicated themselves to magic to be able to recognize one another. So if you see someone with that mark than you know that person has dedicated themselves to magic. Now the God and Goddess will direct Hermione to this compartment when she arrives. Since you have limited Dumbledore in his available actions he will no longer be able to use her against you as he had done in your previous life. So make friends with her and it should turn out alright once you help her mature from her previous self righteous views at least."

Harry nodded and said "thank you for this and keeping me updated. How often will you drop by?"

"Oh four to six times a year I think. It could be less and it could be more, it all depends on what is happening." With having the final word she blinked out of existence and the world resumed its normal pace.

Harry once more delved into the book, but kept a part of his attention on his surroundings. He stopped reading when the door to his compartment opened revealing Hermione struggling to move her trunk. Harry got up and asked "do you want some help with that?"

Hermione looked up and smiled and said "please. Is it alright if I sit in here?"

Lifting the heavy trunk with a grunt, and mentally wondering what exactly was in this trunk, Harry replied "not at all. I am correct that you are a first year as well?"

She nodded and asked "how can you tell?"

"No color piping's on your robe telling what house you're in."

"I see. Well I'm Hermione Granger first year student. It is a pleasure to meet you" she said as she stuck out her hand to shake hands with him.

Mentally cringing at how a pureblood snob would treat this muggle greeting he shook her hand and replied "Harry Potter, nice to meet you. You are muggleborn correct?"

"How did you know I'm muggleborn?"

"If you were raised in wizarding society you would have never offered to shake my hand. Most wizards from what I can tell instead nod their heads in greeting. Don't know why as I am muggle raised myself, but that is the way they act."

"Wait did you say your name was Harry Potter? The Harry Potter?"

"Yes my name is Harry Potter and everything you might have either read or heard about me is complete fiction except that I survived when my parents were murdered by Voldemort. Everything else is fiction."

Looking slightly put out that her books were wrong, they were sold in the non-fiction section dang it; she sat down and asked "so what is the real story?"

Harry looked at her with slightly darkened eyes and said "I'll tell you about my life up until July 31st, in the future when I know I can trust you. When I discovered I was a wizard and that both my parents were magical I went to..." Harry launched into his tale and gave an edited account of his stay at his new home. He finished up with "and that is my story. What about yours?"

Hermione fidgeted and replied "nothing spectacular really. My parents are both dentists and workaholics I suppose. They work about 70 hours a week and don't spend a lot of time at home. I couldn't make a lot of friends at school because I always knew the answer the teachers asked. I suppose you could say I'm a bookworm. Most of my time I spend reading as the telly absolutely bores me. I'm hoping I could make new friends here."

Harry nodded and asked "how did your parents react to finding out you're a witch, and that magic was real?"

"Not well actually. They gave me a note to give to someone here and dropped me off at the station."

"Could I see the note please? I apparently have a bit of political power in this society as my family has been around for a long time and I might be able to help you." He took the note and read:

Harry was shocked to the core by what he had read in the letter and felt a bubbling of white hot rage at the idea of parents treating a child like this. He looked up at Hermione and was unsurprised to see that her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. He asked her "have you read this?"

"No, but I can make several educated guesses to its contents though."

Harry stood up and sat by her and hugged her and soothingly said "it will be alright Hermione I'll gladly be able to take you to my home and you can stay there alright?" Hermione just cried and clutched onto him for several minutes until she had cried herself to sleep. Harry wondered if this had happened the last time and he never noticed. As he thought back he realized that she almost never spent any time with her parents that he knew of. He silently wondered if all of those "vacations" she mentioned were actually religious retreats of some kind. He felt Hermione loosen her grip on him and he looked down and saw that she was asleep. He nestled her down until she looked comfortable with her head resting against his thigh which was doubling as a pillow at the time. He opened his book once more and started reading. He sat there for about ten minutes and the train shook and took off. He remembered reading about the train in his library and discovered that it was steam powered, but the water was heated by magic and not coal as almost every other steam train in existence was. He looked up from the book as Hermione opened her eyes and blinked looking up at him.

Hermione blushing asked "I cried myself to sleep didn't I?"

"It looked like you needed to. I feel honored that you would be able to relax around me. I hope this is the start of a good friendship. I have had only two friends before this. I also am hoping I could make some new ones at Hogwarts."

Moving to a sitting position and faintly blushing when she realized where her head had been lying she said "I faintly recall you saying something about letting me stay where you live after school lets out?"

"Yeah, the place where I live has a ton of bedrooms available. There is only me, Patricia and my house elves living there right now."

With eyes sparkling as she learned something new about her new world she asked "who is Patricia and what are house elves?"

"Patricia is the person I told you about that I hired to take care of the greenhouses and is also teaching me Krav Maga, remember? As for house elves they are magical creatures that will die if they are not bonded to a witch or wizard unless they bond to a building that has an unusually high magical energy. The only place that I know of that meets that description is Hogwarts. In return for living they perform the cooking and cleaning."

"Isn't that like slavery?"

"It can devolve to that state yes, but a servant for rich people can be considered slavery as well."

"Butlers and servants get paid though."

"House elves get paid as well. They get paid by living off their master's magic. Without it they go insane then die. If a butler or servant doesn't get paid they become homeless and starve and maybe die as well."

Hermione leaned back and thought about that for several minutes until she finally nodded and said "ok I guess that makes sense, but you mentioned something about it devolving."

Harry winced and replied "well it depends on the master really. If you have a good person then the elves discipline themselves and are generally cheerful all the time. However if you have a cruel or mean master well ... The only way for a house elf to break the bonding is to receive clothes given by their master."

Hermione was appalled and hissed "they torture them? Why isn't it against the law?"

Harry sighed and decided to get to the root of all the problems in magical society right now. "Hermione, what do you know of the governing of this world?"

"Well there is a minister of magic and there's the Wizengamot. It's a bit like a prime minister and parliament isn't it?"

"If you look at it in a certain point of view yes it is something similar to that. I would remind you though that Germany had a similar set up in its government during the rule of the Nazi regime."

Hermione winced and said "oops, not such a good example was it?"

"Well it could be. But the thing is the membership of the Wizengamot breaks down to 85% of the membership consisting of pureblooded families, 10% is made up of officials in the Ministry and the rest of the seats are taken up by people that have been awarded for outstanding service and there are a total of 250 seats."

Hermione interrupted his explanation and asked "what exactly is a pureblood? I mean there were several times it was mentioned in a book but the meanings seemed different from one time to the next."

Harry nodded and replied "that is because there are several ways to reach a status of pureblood. The most common way is to have magical ancestors for eight generations. The next common way is to belong to an Ancient House; this means you have magical parents continually stretching back to before the founding of Hogwarts. The least common way is to belong to an Ancient and Noble House. This means that not only can you trace your ancestry back to before the founding of Hogwarts but one of your ancestors was ennobled by the King of Britain sometime ago."

Hermione nodded and said "that makes sense. You mentioned that the majority of the seats on the Wizengamot are peopled by purebloods right?" Seeing his nod she asked "so that means it's more like the House of Lords doesn't it?"

"Maybe, but you have to realize that witches and wizards generally live to the age of 150 and it's only in the last decade of life that their age shows at all. Before that last decade they look and their body acts like it would in a healthy 60 year old muggle. So that means most of the membership is comprised of people who if they were ever adventurous last saw the muggle world back in the late 1890's to early 1900's. Even then most of them grew up on tales by their grandfathers of muggles killing and destroying wizarding kind because of the Church. So there is a faction that despises or actively hates muggles."

"I see. It's a bit prejudiced isn't it?"

"Well frankly yes, but they do have some good reasons for that prejudice so it's not blind prejudice. This brings to the forefront the issue of muggleborns like you. One of the vilest epithets you will hear from the worst of the purebloods is mudblood, saying that your ancestry is as common as dirt. Now I researched this somewhat and was able to find out where the term came from. You see back before the 1870's people didn't really keep up with personal cleanliness. So the incoming muggleborns were ostracized due to their general stink and slovenly behavior. Now this is not the case anymore, but the word and general dislike remains. In addition to this I believe it's a lingering distrust that a muggleborn could reveal to the world that magic exists and could possibly cause the destruction of this society."

Hermione sat back and ran over all that Harry had just told her and reluctantly nodded and replied "I can see where they might have a point. I didn't really think about all of that when I read some horrible sounding things in my books. Those are the reasons that Voldemort got so many followers isn't it?"

"I believe so, that and there is a prevailing view in some pureblood circles that purebloods are superior to all others."

"What were you reading so assiduously when I came in?"

"A supplemental guide for potions. I heard that the teacher is a Potions Master and they are generally abrupt with anything that smacks of being unprepared. Especially when it seems that brewing potions is as much art as it is a science. According to a letter from my dad I read, he was also a favorite target of my Dad and his friends when they were in school together, I think since I look like I am a clone of my dad that it might bring back unpleasant memories to him, so I want to come into the class prepared for anything."

Hermione nodded and pulled out her own potion book and started reading along with him. After about 10 minutes the door opened revealing a slightly pudgy first year. He asked "have you seen a toad recently? I seem to have lost it somewhere."

Harry asked "what's the toad's name?"

"Trevor."

Harry held his wand and said "Accio Trevor the toad." After about two minutes a toad came floating through the door and landed in Harry's hand. He handed the toad to the boy and asked "this is the one you were searching for right?"

"Yeah thanks! Oh by the way my name is Neville Longbottom."

"Harry Potter and this is Hermione Granger. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Neville gaped at hearing that Harry Potter was actually being nice to him. He bowed his head and replied "it's an honor to meet you."

"The honor is all mine. Would you care to join us? We're just reading ahead in our courses."

"Sure. I'll be right back." He went off and returned about three minutes later holding a book about Herbology.

The three sat there reading for about fifteen minutes until the door opened once more revealing a blond first year with two hulking boys behind him. The boy looked into the compartment and said "I heard that Harry Potter is on the train."

"You heard correctly, and who might you be?" Harry asked.

"My name is Draco Malfoy. Don't tell me you're him."

"Alright I won't."

Malfoy looked at him and said "as I said I'm Draco Malfoy and I would like to invite you to my compartment."

"No thanks. I prefer staying here."

"Potter you will soon learn that some families are better than others, I suggest you choose your friends wisely and not hang around a mudblood and a squib."

Harry looked him up and down and replied in a cold tone "I do believe that I have enough intelligence to make that sort of decision on my own, thank you very much."

Draco sneered and replied "you'll soon learn Potter."

Harry watched him leave and sighed at the petty behavior Draco had displayed and wondered if he even had a slight chance of becoming a decent person. Thinking about that he shook his head and decided that he was his father's son all the way through. He looked up at Neville and asked "his family is important I take it?"

Neville nodded and said "rich and arrogant. Some of the worst sort of wizards that family."

Hermione asked "Harry was that an example that you told me about concerning some of the prejudice wasn't it?"

Harry and Hermione filled Neville in on what Harry had told Hermione earlier. They came to the conclusion that it was a good as example of any of the pureblood supremacist beliefs. They sat there talking back and forth now that the ice had broken.

They had been talking when the door opened once more revealing two girls, a blonde and one with raven colored hair, standing there. The blonde asked "may we sit here? We got kicked out of the last compartment by some fifth years."

Harry looked at his companions and seeing their agreement in their eyes he said "sure no problem."