The Last Chance
Copyright© 2011 by Ben
Chapter 5
He walked into Gringott's and went to a teller and said to an open teller "I have an appointment with Knifebiter."
The goblin grunted and said "follow me." He then led Harry through various hallways until he reached a door and waved him to enter. Harry complied and saw a goblin sitting behind a desk with a nameplate on it saying Knifebiter. He sat down in a chair facing the desk and said "I am Harry Potter."
"Very good. Now you asked for a meeting?"
"Yes I did. I asked for it because I need to know of all of my properties. Once I see that list I may direct you to start some purchasing as well."
"Very well. Here is a current list of all Potter properties" Knifebiter said as he handed over a parchment.
Harry read the parchment and saw:
Properties owned in Diagon Alley currently inhabited: Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions, Gambol and Japes, Obscurus Books, Scribbulus Everchanging Inks, Slug and Gibbers Apothecary shop and Whizz Hard Books.
Business's partially owned: Daily Prophet 25%, The Quibbler 45%, Quality Quidditch Supplies 85%, Magical Menagerie 15%, Eeylops Owl Emporium 35% and Grunnings Drill Company 95%.
Various stocks and long term bonds.
Harry finished reading the list and looked over to Knifebiter and asked "what would it take to get a larger interest in the Daily Prophet?"
"How much were you considering increasing it by?"
"I would like to get at least 51% total."
"That may be possible as the ministry owns 49%, leaving 51% available. It would be expensive though. May I ask why you would want to do this?"
"As you may know I am extremely famous in the wizarding world. Now fame has its upsides, but since most people are sheep until they are affected I can see that I might be accused of being either insane, or even the next dark lord. Now I don't know this for certain but it would be nice to have a controlling interest in the paper so I can't be maligned through the paper."
"I see. Very well. All of your properties are paying the rent and you are receiving a fair return on your investments. Was there anything else?"
"I see that I own the majority of Grunnings Drill Company correct?" Seeing Knifebiter nod he continued on with "I want the company to run a full investigation into the actions of one Vernon Dursley who is currently in their employ. If they find anything wrong I want them to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and fire him. If he is innocent of anything wrong just fire him."
"May I ask why you wish to do such a thing?"
"9 years and 9 months of being treated like a Malfoy house elf."
Knifebiter got a gleam in his eye and nodded while saying "it's refreshing to see a wizard with a fine sense of revenge Mr. Potter. I applaud you in your decision."
"Thank you for the compliment. Is there anything you need me to do?"
Knifebiter looked through the papers in front of him and looked up and said "one thing I want to do is invest somewhat heavier in the muggle stock market. I believe that there are several promising companies just getting started."
"Just one moment." Harry pulled out his account ledger and saw that he just over 225 million galleons currently sitting in his vault. He looked up at Knifebiter and asked "how much money do I have invested in the stock market right now?"
"The equivalent of just under 5,000 galleons."
"Alright increase that to 100,000 galleons. That should be enough, right?"
Knifebiter's eyes had widened perceptibly and he nodded and said "more than enough. I think I'll split it up into two groups. 25% will be invested in long term companies, 50% in medium risk companies and the rest will go into short term high risk companies. Is that acceptable?"
Harry shrugged and said "that's fine by me. I don't really have an instinct for this kind of stuff. I will follow the stock market somewhat, but this is your responsibility as well as potentially your reward."
"That it is. Bloodpike was right when he said I would like working for you. If that's all I wish you a good day Mr. Potter."
"Good day Knifebiter." Harry got up and walked out to the lobby and waited in line until he got to an available teller and said "I need to go to my vaults."
"Key please."
Harry showed the goblin the golden key and the goblin nodded and called out "Toothcrusher". When a goblin came over he said "take Mr. Potter to his vaults."
Harry followed at the goblins wave and sat down on the cart and leaned back and asked "I know I've heard that there was only one speed for these carts, but I wanted to make sure you can't go faster."
Toothcrusher smirked and pushed a pedal and the cart doubled in speed. Harry whooped in excitement and looked around. He saw flames in the distance and wondered if they really kept dragons down here. That question was answered by the sight of an albino looking dragon, a member of the Ukrainian Ironbelly if he wasn't mistaken. The cart started to slow down and Harry started to notice numbers flash by. They finally coasted to a stop in front of vault 22.
Harry got out and asked "I call you back when I ring this bell right?" Seeing the goblin nod Harry turned to the vault door Harry looked for a keyhole, upon not finding one he turned to the goblin and asked "how do I open the door?"
"Place your hand in the middle of the door and say 'I your name, son of James Charlus Potter and Lily Potter bid you open'. The doors will then open if the wards accept you."
Harry nodded and placing his hand on the blank door said "I Harry James Potter, son of James Charlus Potter and Lily Potter bid you open." The door glowed blue and Harry could feel the magic examine him and then suddenly the door vanished. He turned to Toothcrusher and said "thank you for your help." He then tipped the goblin 2 galleons and walked into the vault. Looking around he saw right in front of him a marble plinth with a ring nestled in a depression. He took the ring and put it on his right index finger. The ring tightened down until it was a snug fit then flashed green for a second. Harry felt an alien presence sorting through his mind then retreat. The ring flashed red then lay silent and the alien presence disappeared. Harry decided that the ring had a sentience of sorts and had accepted him as Lord Potter. He looked at a book lying open next to where the ring had been and saw that it was blank. Thinking that there was no reason to have a blank book out in the open like this he wrote done in the empty page 'what are you?'
Words appeared; they read 'I am a Potter creation that lists everything in this vault. I can also retrieve those items as well.'
Harry mentally went 'cool. This will be quite useful'. He then wrote down trunks with magical expansion charms, permanent feather light charm and shrinking charm.
The book came back with, trunk with 6 expanded compartments, previously owned by James Charlus Potter. Trunk with 5 expanded compartments, previously owned by Lily Potter.
Harry then wrote retrieve the six compartment trunk. A trunk that looked to be about 3'long, 2' wide and stood 30" high came flying out and landed in front of him. Harry looked at the trunk and opened it; at least he tried to as the lid was stuck fast. He turned to the book and wrote how do I open the trunk?
The book wrote back to open the trunk, tap your wand on it and say "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." To operate the trunk pull out the medallion located on the front and twist it to the desired compartment then push it back in.
Harry took his wand out and said "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." The trunk glowed red and gold for a second. Harry looked at the medallion and saw that there were numbers surrounding it that went from 1 to 6. The medallion had a point on it and was currently pointing at 1. He opened the trunk and looked into the space revealed. It was occupied by crumpled pieces of parchment, broken ink wells, broken quills and other discarded trash. Harry took out the trash and placed it to the side.
He then closed the trunk and twisted the medallion until it pointed at number two. He opened the trunk and saw it morph into a chest of drawers standing about 5' high and 3' wide with a button sticking out on the top. He started opening the drawers and saw that old fashioned tie-dyed clothing and bell bottoms were stored inside. He moved all of the worn out clothing to the side and finally closed the bottom drawer. He pressed the button and the chest of drawers morphed back into a trunk.
He twisted the medallion to number three and opened the lid. This time it morphed into a bookshelf standing 5' high and 4' wide with a button on top. He noticed an arrow on each side. He pushed the arrow on the right and saw that it was actually a carousel of bookshelves as the shelf rotated and revealed another shelf. He saw that the books on the first two shelves were filled with school books. The third shelf was filled with books on pranks. The fourth one was completely filled with books on the Aurors as well as Hit Wizards and what they needed to know. The fifth one was filled with books on dueling, combat spells, something called spell chaining and combat transfiguration. The sixth one was filled with books on warding and runes. The seventh one was half filled with books on charms and the Animagus ability. He pressed the arrow several times and saw that there were a further eighteen bookshelves that were empty until he came back to the first one. He then pressed the button and watched as it morphed back into a seemingly standard trunk.
He then twisted the dial to be pointing to number four. The trunk once again morphed into a chest of drawers. This time it was 4' high and 5' wide. It had some writing on the top that said all these drawers have stasis charm placed upon them that activates when the drawer is closed. Warning: do not put anything alive in them as the charm will not work on things that are aware. The drawers were labeled with various things which Harry recognized as potion supplies. He opened the drawers and saw that a lot of the supplies were low or missing. He pressed the standard button and the chest of drawers morphed back into the standard trunk.
He twisted the dial to number five and opened the top. It morphed into a desk this time. Harry noticed that there were several drawers and opened them to find that they were filled with ink bottles, quills, and parchment. He pressed the button that this time was located under the desk. Once again the desk morphed back into the trunk.
Moving the medallion to the sixth position he opened the lid. Fully opening the lid he noticed that there was a spiral staircase that led down. He went down the stairs. When he reached the bottom he looked around and saw that he was standing in what looked like a replica of the Gryffindor common room. He saw that there were three doors set into the walls. Shrugging he decided to walk through the first door and saw that he was standing in fully equipped potion laboratory. He went back and went into the second door and saw a fully equipped bathroom that Harry recognized as a replica of the Prefects bathroom. Behind door number three he saw a perfect replica of the Gryffindor bedrooms. Except for the fact that the bed was three times the normal size and it was the only one there. Looking around he noticed a plaque above the bed that read Potter's Pleasure Palace. Snorting at the thought he went back into the replica of the common room he saw that there was a bookshelf there with a letter attached to it. Taking the letter he opened it and read:
Dear Prongslet,
I write this to you on October 12, 1980. We are currently hiding from the current dark lord known as Lord Voldemort because of a prophecy that concerns either you or Neville Longbottom. I have a bad feeling that we are going to be dead soon so I decided to write you this letter. Hopefully this feeling is just nerves and we are laughing together as I read this to you. If not I hope that Sirius is there with you and telling you of how great of time together was. If you are alone as I read this then my suspicions have come true and Sirius is either dead or in Azkaban. Know that your mother and I love each other deeply and always will. If you have already claimed the title of Lord Potter and have no idea of our world than I need to tell you of some things. Our family is ancient beyond belief with a history that stretches back to Atlantis itself if the legends are true. We have always publically sided on what is considered light, but don't let the propaganda fool you. Our family has always understood that if you are fighting you use every spell possible to win whether it is considered light or dark. As my father told me there is no light or dark in magic except for a few rare cases, there is only magic. The only ones he said could be considered dark were the Avada Kedavra, and the Cruciatis curse. Now he further said 'these curses can be used in controlled circumstances, but if you use them on another person in battle it warps and twists you.' So use any and all spells you have too to win in battle if you ever have to fight for our life.
As Sirius may have told you I was part of a group of four people in Hogwarts called the marauders. Our names were James Potter, Sirius Black III, Remus J. Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. We pulled pranks on teachers and our fellow students. Now he may told you that it was all in fun but for the first three years we were more bullies than anything else. That changed during the last of our third year as we found out one of numbers was a werewolf. We hadn't known before then, but once we did we accepted him as our friend wholeheartedly. Unfortunately Sirius decided to use this fact in a prank that almost killed Severus Snape and would have meant prison if not worse for Remus. Fortunately I found out about it and saved Severus. After that incident we toned down on the pranks viciousness and started targeting those we considered needed to be taken down a peg or two. Mainly they were Death Eater wannabes or people spouting the pureblood philosophy and advocating the killing of muggles or muggleborn. Our favorite target resided in Slytherin and our main two targets were named Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape. We targeted them because they were the worst in spouting that crap. We later found out that both of them became Death Eaters.
Your mother had been our friend since our fourth year and helped in planning most of our pranks. She helped us tone down the jokes and interjected a biting edge to them that showed a true deviousness. Up until that time she had been friends with Snape but she started distancing herself after he started hanging around the junior Death Eaters. The final break came in fifth year when he called her mudblood after she tried to protect him. After we started dating near the end of our sixth year, when I discovered her deepest secret, I never looked at another woman and I was the happiest person on the planet. The secret that I discovered and am now telling you must never be told to another person except your wife alright? She is a parselmouth. What that means is she is able to speak to snakes and other reptiles. According to her research she could even speak to dragons. If the trait breeds true in you then you also will be a parselmouth. Now don't worry this is only a magical ability and it does not I repeat DOES NOT mean that you are in any way dark or evil. Parseltongue is just an ability, no more and no less. It can be quite useful in fact as parselmouth wards and spells are more potent than those cast by conventional means.
Enough rambling. I wrote this letter so I could explain the functions of this trunk. Each position of the medallion will cause the trunk to assume a different shape except for the first and last position. Now whatever books are stored in the third compartment can be accessed down here. Just press the right side of the bookcase in the common room and the shelf will fill with the books stored in the first bookshelf in compartment 3. Just press the right side again to advance to the next shelf. When you are done with the bookshelf just press the left side and it will clear. When you go into the potions laboratory just press the button on the shelf there and the potions ingredients stored in the fourth compartment will appear. Press the button again when you have retrieved what you need as the stasis charms do not work there. All of the clothes stored in compartment two will appear in the chest of drawers in the bedroom. (The sign can only be seen by me or my descendants so don't worry about some bird seeing it.) To engage the permanent shrinking charm imbued into the trunk place your hands on either side of the trunk and push together, it will shrink down to the size of a pack of playing cards. Very cool right? I had this trunk custom made before my fourth year. I purchased a slightly different one for Lily in our sixth year once she broke down and fulfilled my dreams and started dating me. Oh don't worry about the lid of the trunk closing while you are down here as it will not close if there is anyone down here. The trunk is warded heavily, so anyone trying to mess with it will be unable to. Dumbledore himself can't get into it now that Lily has added some parcel wards. In addition to that a barrier springs up automatically that prevents anyone from either moving it or blocking the entrance while you are down here. The only people that can move the trunk while anyone is down here are those that have been keyed into the trunk.
Live a long time and have fun son, James.
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