I want to say: I don't own any of the characters except the one that I made up.

Please let me know what you think of where the story is going through reviews.

Sorry for the delay, but I have been working so I did not have as much time as before.

Enjoy!

Chapter 12: Contracts and papers

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It was three days later that found Harry going through a huge pile of paper. The previous day an owl had delivered his heir bank statements. He and Severus were planning on going through them in detail in an hour, but Severus had asked him to already go through them if he had some time. This would allow them to test his knowledge and focus on the areas he didn't understand.

While sitting there, Harry's mind easily wondered to what had happened in the past few days. The day after they arrived home from the Ministry, an owl had come carrying a letter with the Ministry seal. Opening the letter, it informed them that the Dursleys were deemed unfit. As a result, he would now be placed under the temporary guardianship of Severus and Serena until a decision was made concerning a permanent guardian.

This let Harry to wonder about the adoption proposal he had received from Severus and Serena. He loved staying at the Snape's and he got along quite well with both Ryan and Ethan. The difficult relationship between Severus and Harry had also almost completely disappeared. Severus had been a huge help on several different aspects. Harry had been receiving extra lessons to help him with potions. Who knew that he was doing the cutting, slicing, dicing and so on wrong? Apparently, muggle raised students should have received an introductory book on wizarding basics, which should have explained this. It would have also mentioned some basic potions and the main interactions between herbs and potion ingredients. It was only after one hour of trying to teach Harry that Severus found out that Harry never received anything. This resulted in a mix of emotions, Severus was mad at Dumbledore for not providing this material to Harry, but also at himself for never realizing. Once Severus sat down with him to explain everything he should have known, his potion skills improved drastically. One thing was for sure; he would be able to get at least a decent score on his OWLs.

Severus had also been helping him with his nightmares. After the first time he had been having them almost every night. While taking dreamless sleep potions helped, they were sadly enough addicting. The solution was a combination of occlumency and dreamless sleep potions. Meditating and clearing his mind before going to bed, really helped in keeping the nightmares away. Severus had also spelled Harry's room to notify him if Harry had one of his nightmares. Being woken up almost immediately and having someone there allowed Harry to fall back asleep.

Serena and Severus had also been a huge help in helping him get through the social minefield that is politics and etiquette. In just a few days' time they had already pointed out so many things that he was doing wrong. He honestly did not realize that you could insult or offend people in so many different ways. It was truly a miracle that he had survived this far. But even with all the lessons and rules that were being drilled into his head, he was still quite worried about attending the balls. This was already his second chance, which meant he would not get another. Meeting the Malfoys for Christmas would be some kind of pre-test. While Harry still had to abide to most of the rules, it would be in an informal setting, which would provide him with a bit more leeway. He had been so relieved when Severus told him that no matter what he decided concerning the adoption, they would still continue to help him with any etiquette and rules he needed. At least that gave Harry one less thing to worry about.

Casting tempus, Harry reorganized his papers before standing up and going to Severus' office. After knocking, he entered and sat down, laying out his papers in front of him.

"Were you able to read through some of your bank statements?" asked Severus, while grabbing the original bank statements and laying them in front of him.

"Yes, I was able to get through the first few pages," replied Harry.

"Since we are limited in time, we will only be going through the Potter accounts today. Tomorrow you can test how much you understand, by going through the Black accounts by yourself. You should have enough knowledge after today to at least understand the majority of the information. I will be expecting a report tomorrow night of the Black accounts so I can review how much you understand and what areas we will need to go over again," said Severus.

Opening the folder named "Potter-Peverell", Severus started, "As you can see each bank statement will start with changes that have been made since the previous statement. The following documents will then be the unchanged parts. The unchanged parts are always divided in the same way, but for each account the order might be different. This means that the same information will be found in both the Potter accounts and the Black accounts, but not necessarily in the same order.

You will find a section on vault statements. This is everything that can be found in each vault, this goes from the actual gold to items. These items can be almost anything, heirlooms, furniture, portraits, clothes, and so on.

There will be another section on properties, in Britain and abroad. For each property it will also state what the current state of the property is. This includes how many house-elves, the state of the wards, magical creatures that can be found, the size and state of the property and so on.

Another section will be on contracts. This is includes personal and house contracts. This can go from alliances, both personal and the entire house, to marriage contracts. This is also the section were the wills will end up, in case one is written.

There is also a section on shares and investments. This will state the number of shares you have in a particular business and how much money you are either earning or losing based on that share. In case you sell or buy new shares, or if there is a big change in your earnings or losses this will be mentioned in the beginning of the bank statements under "changes"," explained Severus.

"I understand, so if I need to find the information I need to look in the correct section. Is there a specific order to the files in each section," Harry wondered.

"Yes, in most cases the sections are either ordered according to date, newest first. Otherwise, they are ordered value. This means the main vaults or properties first," replied Severus.

"As there were some issues with your vaults and the standing orders, we will go through those first and make our way through all the sections. Today is for you to learn how to be able to read the files and we can also see if there are any irregularities. After today you will be able to propose changes, such as investments, but you will need my approval before they will be applied. For the Black account, you are only the heir, so you cannot make any adjustments yet, you can only review the statements," continued Severus.

Opening the file they both skipped the new changes section, as this information will also be in the specific sections. It would not be productive to go over things twice in the short amount of time they have. Both opened the first section labeled "vault statements".

"As you can see, the top of this section mentions the standing orders that we canceled when we visited Gringotts," said Severus, starting to go over every withdraw and deposit of funds since the Potters were alive.

"As is customary, the main Potter vault has been closed since your parents died. The only vault that is accessible until you become lord is your trust vault," explained Severus further.

"It says here that the main Potter vault deposits a yearly fund of 25.000 galleons in my trust vault. Is that normal?" asked Harry surprised after seeing the enormous amount.

"For old pureblood families that is a normal amount of money to be deposited. It allows heirs to have monetary freedom and be able to learn how to handle money. Of course, as you can see this amount has increased over the years. In the first years of your life there is no need to provide you with this amount of money. And Harry, if you turn to the next page, you can see that this deposit barely makes a dent in the main Potter vault," explained Severus. Ethan and Ryan each also had a trust vault in their name with similar amounts being deposited into it. It was mainly used to buy presents or extras that they did not particularly need.

Opening the next section labeled "properties" Harry was shocked.

"This is all mine?" he asked perplexed.

Looking at the list there were at least 20 properties listed:

Peverell Castle

Peverell Manor

Potter Manor – destroyed

Godric's Hallow – destroyed

London Flat

Scotland cottage

Villa - France

Cottage – France

Apartment – New York

Manor – Ireland

Summerhouse – New Zealand

2 Manors – Germany

Castle – Germany

Townhouse - Germany

2 stores Diagon Alley – rented out

3 stores – Noir et Blanc Boulevard (France)

[…]

For each of the properties, a specific file is included that lists all the material and human assets on the properties. Some properties had 15 house-elves, while others had rare Abraxans. There were properties that were fully furnished and had a gigantic library, while others were in a state of decay.

"Yes, all these properties are yours," replied Severus, while looking over the files.

"While you are not able to permanently live in these places till you reach your majority, you can visit them or take a holiday there with parental permission," Severus continued.

"Does that mean I can take a holiday in one of these places this summer?" asked Harry excited. He had never been on holiday, let alone been outside the country.

"We shall see, it also depends on where you will be living by then," stated Severus, before going to taking out the next section.

"Harry this is currently one of the most important sections," says Severus drawing Harry's attention away from the properties, "this lists all your investments. It will be important that we look into this and where necessary sell the shares. Depending on the percentage of shares you have, you can also have a say in what the company does."

Opening the file Harry could see that the Potter's had been investing in a multitude of things over the years. Looking over the list he thought that the Quidditch related investments were probably done by his father in the short time he was the Potter Lord.

"Wait," exclaimed Harry, pointing towards one of the investments, "I own 35% of the Daily Prophet?"

Looking down at his own list, Severus stated, "It would seem so. Hmm, this would mean that you have some control over what is printed. If you can find someone who has at least 15% of the shares, you can control what they write."

Looking directly at Harry, Severus reminded him, "don't forget that as you are a minor you can sue them when they write damaging and untrue things about you."

Looking further at all the investments and shares Severus concluded, "everything seems to be in order an there are currently no shares that I would advice you to sell. If you want to look into it more, you can always do so of course."

Taking out the next file "This is quite an important file Harry as this concerns any and all contracts made by the Potter family. It is important for us to go through them one by one, so we know if you have any contractual obligations."

Opening the file Harry only saw a total of six different contracts. The first three were general house alliance contracts. Recalling his readings Harry recalled that this meant that the alliance was valid for every member of the Potter house. Looking at the three files Harry could see that a similar structure was used.

The first file was a contract between the House of Potter and the House of Longbottom. Looking at the contact itself there was little to worry about. It mainly talked about supporting each other in the Wizengamot, to protect each other's House members when necessary, and to never have an unfriendly attack towards the other. Furthermore, the contract promotes that the children of each House are raised together to further the alliance. Reading the details, it became clear to Harry that these alliances were both a protection measure and a friendship.

Looking at the other two files Harry found an alliance with the House of Bones and the House of Abbott. Both alliance contracts seemed similar to the one with the House of Longbottom, with some small changes.

Turning the page to the next file, Harry noticed it was a personal contract between James Potter and Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. Since his father was no longer alive the contract had turned a light blue, but weirdly it had not gone dark like the other no longer valid contracts.

"Severus, is there a reason why this contract has turned light blue and not gone dark?" asked Harry looking up from his pile of papers.

Looking at the file Harry mentioned, Severus replied, "Since this is a four-way contract the contract between Lupin and Black and maybe even Pettigrew is still valid. It has turned blue to show that it is no longer valid for a member of the Potter House. When you find this contract in the Black files it will show as normal, but James' name will have turned light blue."

Reminding himself to look at this contract in the Black accounts, Harry looked at the next document and was happy to see it. It was the godfather contract between Sirius Black and himself. Reading it over Harry quickly noticed that it was quite standard. It mentioned that Sirius had to protect Harry at all costs, that in case something happened to his parents Sirius would take guardianship over him, and that in case Sirius did not provide a Black heir, Harry would take over the title and House. The contract also mentioned some specifics regarding Harry's education and the time he should spend with Sirius.

Turning to the last contract in the file Harry exclaimed shocked, "Marriage contract!?"

Looking up Severus was surprised by Harry's exclamation. "Harry, it is not abnormal for pure-blood families to have a marriage contract for their children, especially the heir."

"But, why? Do they not want their children to choose their own partner?"

"Harry," explained Severus in a calm tone "Marriage contracts are just there to protect the child. Normally each party can easily leave the contract when they do not longer find it beneficial. There is of course also always a clause in it that allows a party to leave in case his or her creature's mate is found. Having a marriage contract protects children from being entered into other unbeneficial marriage contracts. As you know it is impossible to have two marriage contracts. This means that if a child, more specifically the heir to a House, already has a marriage contract he or she can in no way be tricked into another one. This method is used by most old Houses to prevent children from being accidentally being entered into marriage contracts that are there to gain access to their fortune."

"I still want to break this contract immediately if this is about me," stated Harry stubbornly, looking back down to read through the contract.

Marriage contract

Harry James Potter and Ginevra Molly Weasley

Authorized by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore and Molly Gedrella Weasley

It continued on to list the year they needed to get married, the number of children they needed to have, the fact that while Ginny was allowed to have lovers on the side Harry was not allowed that luxury, the allowance that needed to be provided for Ginny, even were the Potter fortune was to go after he died, and of course the fact that the contract could never be broken.

Feeling Harry's magic reacting to his anger Severus quickly intervened, still recovering from his own shock of the absurd marriage contract, "Do not worry Harry they have made some unmistakable mistakes that will allow us to break this marriage contract quite easily."

Calming down a bit, Harry replied, "are you sure? It looks ironclad to me."

"First of all, they made the contract without using your full name which already makes it so that it is not bound by magic. This means that if you break it there will be no personal consequences for you. Besides that, Albus Dumbledore has been proven an unfit guardian and as such was declared illegal. This means that any contracts signed by him in your name, that have not yet been fulfilled, can be declared non and void by your new guardians within the first two years after becoming your guardians."

"Oh, and you are certain about this?" asked Harry still not fully believing it would be this easy. "Can we break the marriage contract right now?"

"Yes, that would be no problem," confirmed Severus after reading the marriage contract again to make sure he did not miss anything. "If you want, we can send a request off to the goblins immediately to break the marriage contract. After they have approved our request, they will inform the Ministry department to finalize everything and to make sure any other possible marriage contracts between you and Ginny are broken."

"Can we do that? I just want to make sure that there is no way I will be forced to marry her."

"This is the best way to do that," replied Severus while taking out a parchment and quill to start writing a notification to the goblins. After finishing he folded it up and looked at Harry.

"I am not entirely sure, but there is a chance that the Weasleys will be notified that the marriage contract will be broken."

Harry hesitantly replied, "Ok, there will be a big chance they will soon find out that I am no longer living at the Dursleys. I still don't want to wait for them to make it an unbreakable contract or to trick me into one."

Having gotten the confirmation of Harry, Severus attached both his letter and a copy of the marriage contract to the leg of his owl and sends it off. Seeing the big and completely black owl flying to its destination Harry turned back to his bank statements.

"Well, I think that was everything important for today. I would advise you to read all the details in your bank statements to get a better idea of everything that is yours. If something is unclear feel free to come to ask me about it. You now also know enough information to go through the Black bank statements. As you are still just an heir there is very little you can change about them. Even so, I would advise you to at least look into the parts concerning active contracts and shares and investments."

"I will definitely do that," stated Harry, before standing up and gathering all the files that were spread across Severus' desk. "Thank you for helping me, I will see you at dinner?"

"Yes," replied Severus before taking out some work he still needed to complete. Seeing he was no longer needed, Harry left the room, closing the door behind him. Doing a quick tempus Harry saw that it had taken them 3 hours to go through all the bank statements. Since it would be dinner in an hour, Harry decided to go put everything away and go find Ethan and Ryan to pass the time before dinner.

Daily Prophet 23th of December

Dear readers,

I am sad to note that some terrible news has come to my attention. This reporter was looking through some case files and was surprised by one of the names she came across.

Harry Potter has recently had a guardianship case. Due to matters of privacy, the details of what exactly happened and was discovered in the meeting are not accessible to the public.

This reporter did discover that the guardians of Harry Potter were deemed unfit by the Ministry of Magic, Department of wizarding children. As all of you know guardians being deemed unfit is a rare occurrence and we can assume that some terrible discoveries were made for the Department to deem the guardians unfit.

Mister Potter is currently living with the Ministry assigned temporary guardians. Several reports say that Mister Potter was seen leaving the Hogwarts Express for the holidays with Mister Longbottom. Are the Longbottoms Mister Potter's temporary guardians?

As all of you remember on the night of the 31st of October the Potters were attacked in their home in Godric's Hallow. In the events that happened both Lord James Potter and Lady Lily Potter passed away, leaving their only son and heir, Harry Potter, behind. In the following days, it was discovered that someone had entered the crime scene without permission taking away Harry Potter. A week later it was Albus Dumbledore that told the Ministry he had taken Harry Potter and hidden him away, much to the outcry of the general public.

Many different wizarding families tried to have a court case started to gain custody of young Mister Potter, but none succeeded. Albus Dumbledore also never disclosed the location of Mister Potter and many attempts to find him were not successful. The wizarding world did not see Mister Potter until he showed up for his first year at Hogwarts.

This reporter calls in question what power Albus Dumbledore has, having no familiar relation with Mister Potter, to decide his guardians?

Looking into the matter further, this reporter was able to discover with the help of the goblins that Albus Dumbledore has been declared the illegal guardian of Mister Potter. Asking further questions, it was discovered that Albus Dumbledore sealed the will of the late Lord and Lady Potter and declared himself (illegally) the magical guardian of Mister Potter.

Based on these facts this reporter wonders if other wartime orphans have suffered the same fate?

Or is Mister Potter the only victim of Albus Dumbledore? If so, what makes him the exception?

This reporter hopes that the Ministry will take action and investigates all the war orphans and what happed to them.

Rita Seekers

More information on the last wizarding war, p10.

More information on mishaps in the guardianship of Mister Potter, p14.

More information on the wrongdoings of Albus Dumbledore, p21.

Both the Weasleys and Dumbledore were at Grimmauld Place when the Daily Prophet was delivered at breakfast. The Weasley family, Hermione, and several Order members were staying at Grimmauld Place for the holidays. Let's just say that Sirius was not happy when he found out that Harry would not be joining them. When asked why, Dumbledore told him that Harry was invited, but had preferred to stay the holidays with the Longbottoms. While Sirius knew Harry was friends with the Longbottom heir, he did wonder why Harry had not sent him an owl himself.

Sirius had begun to question many things concerning Dumbledore in the past few months. Remus had told him that Dumbledore had never tried to get him a trial when the Ministry denied him one. Dumbledore had known they changed secret keepers at the last moment, as he was the one who performed the spell. Sirius doubted that a man as renowned as Albus Dumbledore was not able to get the heir of an old House a trial to prove his innocence. If Albus had shown the memory to the Ministry they would never have doubted it.

Another problem was that Dumbledore had not allowed Harry to stay at Grimmauld Place. Sirius had been asking Dumbledore since the start of the summer holidays to get Harry to Grimmauld Place but was constantly told it was not possible. According to Dumbledore Harry had to stay the majority of the summer at the Dursleys for his own protection. When Harry was then finally allowed to leave the Dursleys it was decided that Grimmauld Place was too dangerous with people constantly coming and going. As a result, Harry stayed the Weasleys, but Sirius was not allowed to visit due to safety precautions.

Being locked up in his ancestral home and having unwanted guests around constantly was getting on his last nerves. Mrs. Weasley was acting like she owned the place, ordering everyone around. The screeching of his mother and the grumbling of Kreacher, his house-elf, did nothing to improve his mood.

This morning he was sitting at breakfast, eating Mrs. Weasley's food that was by no means up to the standard he was used to as a child. But Sirius decided not to complain as an angry Mrs. Weasley would ruin his day and it was an improvement of the Azkaban dining. Hearing a ticking on the window Sirius stood up to pay the owl that had been delivering him the Daily Prophet every day. The Daily Prophet was his only connection to the outside world even if it sometimes slandered his godson. Seeing the front page, Sirius started reading while drinking the last of his coffee.

After reading the paper he was in complete shock, but it quickly turned into anger when he saw Dumbledore entering the dining room.

"How dare you! Please explain this to me!" shouted Sirius while throwing the Daily Prophet at Dumbledore. "Have you read this?"

"Sirius, my boy, it is probably the Daily Prophet writing rubbish again," said Dumbledore calmly while picking up the paper. While reading the first few paragraphs Dumbledore's expressions turned to shock then anger, before he was able to cover it up. While most Order members in attendance did not see anything, Sirius was another matter. Having focused on Dumbledore he saw the emotion change and wondered how much of the information in the paper was correct.

Sirius knew from looking it up as a child, a lot needed to happen before guardians were deemed unfit. While he hated living at home, his parents never did anything that would have enabled the Ministry to call them unfit.

"Tell me Dumbledore, where did you leave Harry?" demanded Sirius, looking like he would kill on the spot.

"Well, my boy. Due to his mother's sacrifice, I gave him to the only family he had left."

"You left him with muggles! Did you ever even check up on him?"

"Harry was perfectly safe, Sirius. He was with his family and I never had any doubts about his wellbeing."

"Is it true that the wills were never read? Why did you seal them?" exclaimed Sirius.

"You have to understand it was a dangerous and confusing time. I am sure it was just a small oversight." Said Dumbledore, completely dismissing what happened.

Seeing he would not get any answers, Sirius decided to leave but not before threatening Dumbledore, "If I find out you had anything to do with this, you can find yourself a new Headquarters and don't forget that I am a Black. We always get our revenge."

"Enter," called Severus when someone knocked on the door of his office.

"Hi dad, I was wondering if you have some time right now?" said Ethan upon entering the room.

"Sure, take a seat. What do you want to talk about?"

"Ryan and I were just wondering if we will be seeing grandfather during the holidays?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, we thought because Harry is here and his occlumency is not good enough grandfather won't be able to join us for Christmas Eve this year."

Sighing Severus said, "You are correct, your grandfather will not be joining us this year."

Seeing the defeated look on Ethan's face, he continued, "But your mother and I will be sending you off for a visit on Christmas day. We will of course need to find an excuse to tell Harry, but that is how it needs to be for now. We can't risk Dumbledore finding out."

"I understand dad, when will we be telling Harry?"

"Definitely by summer, but hopefully sooner. Now go, make sure your room is neat, as the Malfoys will be coming tomorrow for Christmas Eve.

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