Summary: After the war has ended, Harry decides to take on the family business from his mother's side. Namely, as owner and president of the Council of Watchers.

Warning: This fanfiction will contain Slash, as in two men in a homosexual relationship. If this is not your cuppa tea, there is a nice convenient back button at the top of your page. Go find something else a little more to your tastes. I also assume in this story, that everyone has the basics of both Buffy and Harry Potter. If Im spoiling something for you, go finish those two before you start reading again.

Disclaimer: I do not now own, nor have I ever claimed to own, either Harry Potter or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. And really, if I did, Do you think I would have let Harry marry Ginny, or that I would have let Spike leave that damned amulet on? I think not.

From the Heart

"*sigh*",

It was finally over. He had done what most had claimed to be impossible. Harry Potter had finally done away with the Dark Lord Voldemort.

But at far too high a cost.

Looking out at the battlefield where he had finally cornered old Tommy Boy, Harry couldn't stop a second sigh from escaping him. Around him, scattered across the field behind Riddle Manor, were the bodies of a few thousand people. Dark, Light, Creature and everything in between, no group had been spared. Thankfully his own forces had come up from the carnage with minimal losses, but every loss hit him.

"My Lord," came a gruff voice from behind, and Harry turned to see one of the goblins, Axemaine, who had come with him to the battle. "My Lord, the chieftain wishes to speak to you when you are ready."

Looking down at the small but fierce warrior, Harry was suddenly carried back to when the goblins had turned his entire world on his head.

*flashback 5 years*

It was the summer before his sixth year at Hogwarts, and Harry was once again at the Dursleys' for the summer. Although his relatives had finally taken the Order's threat to heart, by finally allowing him food and free reign to come and go as he pleased, Harry still took on maintaining the garden. It was his favorite place to be, surrounded by earth and grass and flowers, with the sun shining down as he gave the plant life all the TLC it needed after being subjected to ten months of his Aunt's halfhearted attempts at gardening. It also gave his mind an escape from thinking on Sirius' death, and the opportunity to keep an eye on which Order member had been placed on guard duty that day. Why they thought he wouldn't notice a wizard sitting in his flowers at random, he had no idea.

Harry was neck deep in a bush of rhododendrons, trying to pull a few stubborn weeds from its base when he heard a crack from inside the house, quickly followed by a squeal from his Aunt Petunia. He had just managed to pull himself from the pink flowers and stand up when his Aunt found her way through the backdoor.

"Harry! Get in here and get this thing out of my house!" She tried to yell in a voice that wouldn't alert the neighbors, but he knew at least half the street had still heard her. He sent up a silent prayer in thanks as he ran into the house that it was that useless wizard that smelled of old socks and tobacco on guard duty, and was currently asleep behind the hydrangeas.

Whatever he was expecting to see as he hurried into the living room, it certainly wasn't a goblin propped on the ottoman, holding a file of papers and sipping a cup of tea that must have been conjured as his Aunt had her hissyfit.

"Ah, Mister Potter, at last. My name is Romtik, and I have been sent to you by the Gringotts chieftain on a matter of great urgency," said the goblin, as Harry walked in and sat on the end of the sofa. "We have been unable thus far in speaking to you about your inheritance due to the interference of your supposed magical guardian, and as your sixteenth birthday is in only a week's time, our chieftain decided to use a few legal loopholes in order to get this information to you in time."

At a loss for words, Harry stared at Romtik for a few moments before managing to croak out, "Uh, what inheritance, and who is supposed to be my Guardian? I wasn't aware of either."

Romtik frowned, and nodded. "We had thought as much. Your supposed magical guardian is Albus Dumbledore, but we are almost certain that isn't a claim he can make. And as for your inheritance, there is quite a bit more than even Dumbledore suspects, but we can't know all of it until you claim your titles on your birthday. But I will give you the basics now."

Just as Romtik began to open the file he carried, Petunia came scuttling back into the room. "Whatever you have to tell him, do it away from here! I put up with him in my home only because I'm forced to, I will not have any more of your kind in my home any longer than necessary!"

Instead of being angry, Romtik actually gave a rather frightening smile, and pulled a page from the top of his file. "Madam, if you wish him gone, all you had to do was say so. Sign this, and Mister Potter will be gone from here, never to return."

"What?" Harry and Petunia yelled at the same time. Romtik's smile only grew.

"We had a feeling that something like this was going on. The moment your Aunt signs this form, you Mister Potter will become a Ward of the Goblin Nation. Not even the Minister of Magic will be able to touch you once you are our Ward."

Swallowing hard, Harry looked up at his Aunt, who seemed to be debating with herself if this was a good idea or not. On one hand, she would never again have to worry about the boy contaminating her family, but on the other, Dumbledore would more than likely show up and try to do something to them for allowing the boy to leave. Looking up at the strange creature, she made her decision.

"If I allow the boy to leave, can you do something for me to make sure Dumbledore can't do anything to us?" she asked, and then cringed as the goblin gave an even more sinister smile.

"As a matter of fact, there is already a clause in the contract which states that as soon as Mister Potter leaves, no wizard or magical being will be allowed within one hundred yards of your property. This is done to ensure that no one can force our ward back here without his consent. It would also give you some protection against any magical being who wished you harm," Romtik explained, and after a few moments, his Aunt nodded. "Excellent. Sign here madam."

Petunia took the offered quill, and after signing her name, promptly dropped the quill and gasped as the contract automatically multiplied into three copies, which then rolled and sealed themselves. One copy disappeared, presumably to the Ministry, one copy was stashed in the file, and the final copy was handed back to Petunia. "Keep it safe, the wards only work while all three copies are intact."

At her nod, Romtik turned back to Harry, who was suddenly feeling rather lightheaded at being free. "If you would gather your things Mister Potter, we have a limited time before the contract kicks us off the property."

Harry raced up the stairs and came back with his trunk, which he'd barely unpacked anyway, and stood waiting for the goblin. Romtik quickly grabbed his arm, and turned to Petunia one last time. "Pleasure doing business with you, madam. We haven't had the opportunity to piss Dumbledore off like this in decades." Harry snorted, and for the first and last time in their lives, Harry and Petunia smiled at each other, before Romtik disapparated them away from Privet Drive, and straight into Gringotts.

"Welcome to Gringotts Mister Potter. Or should I say welcome to your new home as a Ward of the Goblins." Said Romtik as they landed in a beautifully carved stone corridor deep inside Gringotts Bank. Looking around, Harry quickly realized that the entire space, including tapestries and the chandeliers, were carved directly from the stone, and then given color with thin pieces of precious stones and metals.

"The Chieftain Angrok has asked to speak with you personally about your inheritance if we managed to get you away from your relatives," Romtik explained as he hurriedly led Harry down several winding corridors.

Harry frowned at this. "Why would your chieftain take an interest in my inheritance? As far as I've been told, the Potters were a respected pureblood family, but they weren't exactly high up and the food chain."

Romtik's creepy grin came back with force. "That may be true, but we aren't talking about that inheritance." Harry was led into a very ornate office, and pointed towards a chair before the large, but short marble desk. "We are more concerned about what may come down through your mother's line."

"But my mother was a muggleborn. There is nothing to come down through her."

"That is where you are wrong, Mister Potter," came a new voice from the other side of the office. Harry turned to see the oldest goblin he had ever seen walk through a side door. But despite his obvious age, Harry could tell that Chieftain Angrok was still strong enough to kill him within the blink of an eye. "I can see now that Dumbledore has managed to keep you even more in the dark than we suspected. It is thankful that a few arcane laws that the old man has forgotten about have finally allowed us to inform you of what is going on. We were unable to act before now, because the law requires us to wait until one week before you come of age if we feel that we must inform you of certain things ourselves."

Harry frowned again. "But I'm only going to be sixteen. I won't be of legal age until I'm seventeen."

"And again, you have been told wrong. As the last living member of your family, you are allowed to lay claim to anything that should rightfully be yours on your sixteenth birthday. This law was made in order to keep feuds over inheritances shorter, and it is thankfully working in your favor." Angrok took a seat behind his desk, and bent to pull a small bottle of swirling blue potion and a piece of parchment from a drawer in his desk. "Now then, we already know that you will be inheriting everything of your parents the Potters, and everything of your godfather Sirius Black's, as he named you his sole heir scant weeks before he died. This potion will help us determine what else you are entitled to. We at Gringotts found out that your mother was actually from a family of squibs just a month before you were attacked, likely because Dumbledore did a better job keeping us away from her than he did with you. But as we never managed to test her, we don't know what could come through to you. This potion will help us with that."

Romtik held out a small silver dagger, which he took in shaking hands. "Three drops of blood into the potion will suffice."

Nodding, Harry brought a still slightly shaky hand up and pricked his finger on the dagger, allowing the needed blood to fall into the bottle. Angrok swirled the potion around a bit, waiting for it to turn a deep purple color, before upending the whole thing onto the parchment. Slowly the potion began to swirl into words, and within about five minutes the potion finished, leaving Harry's inheritance written in purple ink. Angrok picked up the parchment, and began reading.

"Potter and Black we knew about. Peverell, an ancestor of the Potters, but useless as their formal line and their fortune dissolved centuries ago, though you may receive a power increase on your birthday. There is a trace of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw from your father, but only enough to inherit a few heirlooms. Now from your mother, the Evans line was quite powerful in the supernatural circles, and you are the first family member in fifty years who can claim their foundation the Council of Watchers, dedicated to finding and aiding the chosen Slayer."

"The what?" Harry asked. This frown was starting to become stuck.

"The Slayer, a muggle girl imbued with supernatural powers in order to fight demons. We will explain more about that later if you decide to take over the head of the foundation. Now the next name," Angrok flipped the parchment over, and promptly went white as a ghost, "Merciful Gods!"

"What's wrong?" Harry yelled, jumping up and rushing with Romtik around the sides of the desk, in order to aid the elderly goblin who was currently choking on air. Angrok slung the parchment towards Romtik, who grabbed it up, and after reading what sent his leader into a fit, looked as though he might have a fit as well.

"Will one of you please tell me what is wrong?" Harry asked as he grabbed a glass of water from a side table and held it up to Angrok. "It can't be that terrible."

"Your right, it's not terrible at all," said Angrok as he gasped through the glass of water. "But it is still quite a shock to the system to see that family after so long."

Looking to Romtik for an explanation, the younger goblin took a gasping breath, before choking out, "Due to the merging of Lily Potter nee Evans with James Wolfram Potter, the bloodlines finally merged enough in you, their son, to give you the sole right to the entire Emrys clan, and everything entailed therein."

"Emrys?" Harry asked, his sense of dread growing by the second.

"You, Harry James Potter, are the sole heir to Merlin himself."

And with that, Harry lost all consciousness, and fell to the floor.

After they managed to wake him up, the goblins began preparing Harry in earnest for everything he would be faced with as the heir to such a powerful name. In one week, they managed to squeeze more history, genealogy and pureblood etiquette into his head than the last five years at Hogwarts. He also found out later that when Romtik wasn't beating another piece of information into his skull, that Angrok was fending off daily attempts from Dumbledore to take him back out of the Goblin's care. Thankfully Angrok managed to spin the Ministry's queries into the matter in his favor, telling Fudge that Harry had no longer felt safe in Dumbledore's care. Seeing an opportunity to take Dumbledore down a notch, Fudge came out in public support of the Goblins taking Harry as their ward.

"After all, we entrust the Goblins with all of our greatest treasures, why would we not trust them to take care of our greatest asset of all?" the Minister later quoted to the Daily Prophet.

At eleven thirty the night of the 30th, Harry went with Romtik back to Angrok's office. When he entered, he saw that a large space had been cleared in the middle of the room, and Angrok was waiting for him at the desk with a row of small boxes in front of him. "Good evening, Harry. I trust Romtik has properly prepared you for what is to come tonight?"

Harry nodded, taking a seat at the desk. "Yes, though I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. Something about being given new powers?"

"Yes, at midnight, you will begin placing the Lord's mark of each family onto your person, and the moment the last one is placed on your body, all the power of your ancestors will be channeled into you. For a normal wizard, this would not mean much, perhaps a slight change in physical characteristics, a scant few memories, and occasionally a one to two percent power increase, which might as well be no increase at all. But because you are the Scion of so many different Houses, and most especially the clan of Emrys, we are not entirely sure how much you will gain from this. For this reason we have cleared the room and will be taking precautions during the transition to ensure that you are not injured."

"Alright, so I just have to put on the family mark and I will be accepted as the new head of that line. Is there any particular order I should go in?"

"I believe it would be best if you started with the smallest line and work your way up, which will mean Potter first, then Evans, Black and finally Emrys." Angrok stood, and after directing Harry to the middle of the circle, stood as far away as he could and still be in reach. "I will hand you each piece, and then when you are holding the final piece, please wait until I have moved away from the circle to put it on."

Harry nodded, and as the clock struck midnight, Angrok held out the box containing the Potter ring, which turned out to be a thick gold band with an arrangement of tiny diamonds in the shape of a rearing griffin. He placed it on his right ring finger, which began tingling as he held out his hand for the next piece. The Evans ring was a simple silver band with a large E carefully carved on top, and as it slid onto his right middle finger it began to tingle even harder than the potter ring. The Black family mark turned out to be a silver bracelet, about two inches thick, with a piece of onyx wrapped all the way around, and small diamonds scattered through the onyx in an imitation of the night sky. After snapping the bracelet around his right wrist, which then began to itch fiercely, he watched as Angrok gently held open the box containing the Emrys mark. It was a thick silver bracelet, on top was a formation of beautifully clear purple amethysts set in the form of a phoenix with its wings spread wide, and a line of shining emeralds went around the bracelet, connecting to the phoenix's wingtips.

After gently lifting the bracelet from its resting place, Angrok scurried away from the circle as fast as he could, before nodding to Harry to put it on. Taking a deep breath, Harry slid the latch open, and closed it gently around his left wrist. The moment the small silver latch closed again on the other side of his wrist, all the jewelry flashed red hot, before his entire world went up in a flash of light.