Songbird Rooms – 2pm
Sitting in one of the corner armchairs, Harry thought over the events of the morning, including the increased interest in him that everyone had been showing ever since the Daily Prophet article came out. It pointed out his blood connection with Sirius through his grandmother, who had been a Black before her marriage into the Potter family.
The article also came with a rather good picture of his left hand, which clearly displayed the Black family ring upon his finger. The picture itself would enlarge whenever the reader looked at it, leaving no doubt about the extra ring on his finger.
The article went on to point out that the ring itself was different from the standard Black family ring worn by the Tonks family. This supported the notion that he was Sirius's intended heir if Sirius failed to produce a son or daughter. The article's author had also theorised that this was the reason for Draco and Narcissa being cast out of the Black family, since there had been no comment made by either family on the reasoning behind the banishment.
The author suggested the primary reason was to secure the line of succession, which was partly true; Draco had been a threat to Harry. But with Draco banished from the Black family, it was ensured that neither he nor anyone of his bloodline for eight generations could ever inherit the title of Head of the Black family. This left Harry secure in his position as heir unless Sirius had a son or daughter, which was unlikely due to the effects Azkaban had on long-term inmates, making it nearly impossible for him to have a child.
The key word there was nearly, since magic had proven to be unpredictable as well as having a primal will of its own. However, the article failed to mention the fact that Sirius hated Lucius Malfoy with a passion, and wasn't going to give the former Death Eater any chance of getting more power and influence through his wife and son. He wasn't going to take the chance of any Malfoy successfully managing to commit line theft by arranging their deaths or through other means, like Lucius had almost done with Sirius's imprisonment.
As Harry thought over the article and his own role in the decline of Malfoy House, he once again came to the conclusion that he may be a target for retaliation in the future, as soon as Lord Malfoy settled his own power base. First, however, Lucius had to pay back over a decade's worth of withdrawals from the Black account under the pretence of being the acting guardian of the next Black heir, including interest over that time period.
There were also the additional penalties for not abiding by the clauses in the marriage contract for Lucius and Narcissa, which required him to assist the Black family in whatever way possible in their time of need. Either way, Malfoy had only a couple of weeks to gather the necessary funds due to the nature of the case. So no matter what the Malfoy family did, they would lose a sizeable amount of their assets soon.
After all, it would be extremely difficult to procure close to twenty-five million galleons in a single month, especially after several of their holdings had already been claimed under the penalty clauses. Frankly, he doubted the goblins would give the Malfoys a loan and he found the idea of Malfoy Manor being repossessed very funny. Harry could just imagine how amusing it would be to host dinner events at the place just so they could invite the Malfoy family to rub it in, something his dear godfather had been very tempted to do.
However, he had managed to persuade Sirius to take business assets instead, since they were worth more in the long term and their loss would do more damage to Malfoy. This had been suggested by his account manager and seconded by Dawnberg. Andy had also made a case for it, saying, "Anyone can replace a manor if they have the gold in their pocket, but it is much harder to replace successful businesses with or without money." Ultimately, there was a good chance it would take a couple of generations for the Malfoy family's financial power base to recover from all of the penalties and repayments, which really was a good thing in the end.
He was grateful for Andy taking over mentoring and advising Sirius on such actions. After all, he wasn't nearly knowledgeable enough yet and even if he was, he was busy with his studies at Hogwarts, leaving him with little spare time. Harry was much more confident in Sirius's ability to deal with his political responsibilities with Andy there constantly watching over him. Mainly because Ted and Andy knew a fair amount about the Ministry politics and law, after all, they were lawyers and had to often deal with politics on a day-to-day basis.
Seeing the door open and Padma walk in, he said, "You're early, we still have another five minutes before everyone is supposed to be here."
Another ten minutes passed before everyone was present.
"Everyone comfortable?" Harry questioned, which got a round of affirmatives.
Smiling at his friends, he said, "It's good to see you all again. Once again, Daphne, I'm sorry for cancelling on you this summer, but I think you can understand that I was busy getting everything sorted out for the trial. After that, Sirius didn't really let me out of his sight; he's kind of clingy at the moment." Daphne nodded, accepting the explanation. He also didn't want to mention that Sirius didn't trust the Greengrasses much, since they hadn't declared for the light side in the last war.
"And I guess that was why you couldn't tell me what you were doing," she said rather coldly, making it clear it was more a statement of fact rather than a question.
"Yes, I decided to tell no one. Tonks and her family only found out a couple of days beforehand, because I didn't want to ambush them with such a heavy emotional bombshell by not telling them before the trial."
"Well, since you ditched me and made me kind of look like a fool in front of my family since I wanted to introduce you, you can give me something to reset the balance. A peace offering of sorts," she said with a hint of amusement.
Mentally sighing at having such a manipulative Slytherin for a friend, he wondered how much it was going to cost him to keep her happy.
"I wasn't aware we were at war," he said with a hint of amusement. "What is it you want, Daphne?"
"Information."
"Information," he said slowly, wondering what type of information she desired. "Well, that's a bit broad. You're going to have to be a bit more specific," he said, getting a muffled chuckle from Tracy and a minor blush from Daphne, which quickly disappeared.
"Well, Lord Malfoy has several investments of which we are shareholders and he has recently approached us trying to offload them in a hurry. My father was wondering if this happens to be due to the Blacks calling in their debts," Daphne said.
Immediately seeing where this chat was going, Harry answered, "Yes, the debts are being called in; I can't say how much." He didn't particularly like the idea of telling her such sensitive information about his family's dealings. "But the debt is rather large, particularly because it needs to be gathered within a month."
"A rough figure?" the Slytherin asked.
"Will it bring peace between us?"
"Yes, and help gain a favour or two from my father."
"Besides Lord Greengrass, this doesn't leave this room," he said to everyone, getting a series of nods. "Penalty clauses have already been exercised, which was over five million galleons after everything was concluded. But the Malfoy family still has to round up roughly twenty-five million galleons more, plus the interest to repay the withdrawals made by Lucius, which are being treated as a loan under the terms of the marriage contract." He watched as his friends' eyes bulged out at the figure.
"Are we even?" Harry asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Good. Whilst we are on the subject of Malfoys, I heard some rumours that Lord Malfoy was going to make a power play this year for control of Hogwarts. I don't know if he will still try now that he's been weakened, but I think you should all be forewarned."
"That's not much to go on, do you know anything else?" Tracy asked.
"Yes, it's meant to involve the Chamber of Secrets."
"The Chamber of Secrets, that's just a legend," the blonde protested.
"Well, most legends have some roots in fact," Padma added, literally taking his line from him.
"Anything else?" the Greengrass heiress probed.
"No," he lied, since it wouldn't do to have all the answers and such information so early on in the school year. She didn't look convinced but left it be. After all, she was one of the few who could tell he was lying due to her own early start in life at learning the mind arts.
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