Curse of Fate

Title: Curse of Fate
Author: Mistress Nika
Rating: PG-15 (Yes, 15. That's somewhere between PG-13 and R)
Summary: Thousands of years into the future, vampire Harry only wants to join his loved ones in death. However, his curse of immortality is absolute. Therefore he sends himself back into the body of his infant self, vowing to this time refuse eternity. When do things ever go according to plan? Unexpected changes to the timeline, people who aren't as they once were and more send his life spiraling out of his control.
Pairings: Harry/Lucius(main), possible Harry/Severus, possible Lucius/Severus, possible Harry/Lucius/Severus, Sirius/Remus, Theo/Hermione, possible Theo/Blaise, possible Hermione/Ginny, Draco/Luna, possible one-sided Harry/Luna on Luna's part, possible Hermione/Pansy, Cedric/Eleanor(OC), past Harry/Ginny
Warnings: AU, het, slash, angst, language, violence, time travel, VampireHarry, DarkLordHarry
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

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Chapter Eight:
After stunning Dudley and levitating him up to his room, Harry went about trying to calm his aunt. She was terrified and in shock, alternating between crying and laughing hysterically.

"Aunt Petunia," he said gently. "You've got to listen to me. Look at me."

Her eyes locked onto his face and she let out a whimper. "What are we going to do?" she whispered and her eyes flicked over to the bloody mess that was her husband.

"I have an idea," Harry replied. "I'm going to send an owl to the Ministry telling them what happened." Petunia looked panicked and he hastily continued. "We're going to say Vernon tried to kill you when he learned about your parents. That's the truth, after all." Her eyes widened and Harry explained, "Vampire's read minds. You're all but screaming your thoughts at me. Listen closely. We can't let them know what I am. The story is that you encouraged me in magic from the very start, secretly and without Vernon's knowledge. Vernon has always been abusive, but you stayed because of Dudley. You've been taking me into the magical world since I was very young. That'll explain my knowledge. When I came downstairs, I found Vernon trying to kill you and this happened. It was an accident. No one will blame you and no one will try to prosecute a nine year old for accidental magic, even if it resulted in death. As for Dudley, I'm going to erase his memory of this. No one should see his father die in such a gruesome way at such a young age. We'll say he was upstairs asleep during the entire ordeal. Do you think you can do this?"

Petunia shuddered and nodded as she choked back her tears.

"You have to be sure," he pressed. "If you want, I could control you until it's over or give you new memories, but I can't guarantee they won't realize something is wrong."

"No," she said quickly. "No, I can do it." She tried to rise to her feet, but cried out as her ankle gave way.

"Stay here," Harry told her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I would heal you, but that may cause questions. I'll be right back. I promise."

Harry stood and immediately disapparated, choosing to use the traditional wizard's way of travel for time's sake and so as not to frighten Petunia anymore than she already was.

In his study at Night Haven, he quickly grabbed parchment and quill and scribbled out a quick note in what he hopped was convincing scrawl for a child.

"I hurt Uncle Vernon," he wrote. "He was hurting Aunt Petunia and making her cry. Please help." After addressing it to "Ministry person" and signing it "Harry Potter", he sent it off with Hedwig with instructions to be quick.

He then returned to Privet Drive and, once there, set about altering his utterly muggle bedroom to be convincing. After all, he had an owl. How suspicious would it be if Aurors arrived and found no cage?

He transfigured a perch and cage and threw a box of owl treats and some parchment, quill and ink he'd brought from home down on the desk. Satisfied, he went into Dudley's bedroom and removed all memory of the morning as well as any memory pertaining to Harry's vampirism from his mind, then cast sleeping charms over him timed to disappear a few minutes after the Aurors appeared, which he knew would be soon. A cry for help from the Boy Who Lived would bring them out in force.

He returned downstairs just in time to hear multiple pops from the front lawn. Rushing over to Petunia, he huddled into her side and whispered, "Make it convincing." She nodded and wrapped her uninjured arm around his small body, as if shielding him from what had happened. For the first time, Harry would truly be dawning the mask of a small child and trying to deceive wizards trained to stop inconsistencies. He only hoped Petunia was up to the task.

The door flew open and at least a dozen Aurors flooded into the home followed by a couple Obliviators and what might have been a witch from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.

"Mr. Potter! Where are you?" the voice of one called out.

Harry worked up a few tears as Petunia called out to them and acted frightened, burying his head in Petunia's side, when they entered the room. He knew the minute they had as there were several shocked gasps, a mutter of "Sweet Merlin" and someone gagged.

After a long pause, there was a flurry of movement. A couple of the Aurors began recording the scene while others quickly made their way to Harry and Petunia.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" a man's voice asked gently.

"No," Petunia replied, sucking in a sharp breath and wincing as she tried to sit up straighter. "My husband tried to kill me. If it weren't for Harry, he would have succeeded and may have tried to kill the boys next. He didn't like magic and when he found out that I'm not a muggle but a squib, he flew into a rage. He started calling me a freak...that's what he called anyone magical...and began beating me. He was ranting about killing off the magic in me and said he'd do the same to Dudley, my son, before 'purifying' the house of the unnatural freak, which is what he called Harry."

Harry felt Petunia stroke his head in a motherly gesture and took this as his cue to make an entrance into the conversation. He looked up with wide, frightened and tear filled eyes.

"Are you a policeman?" he asked with a trembling lip.

The Auror, an older man with graying hair, smiled at him kindly and replied, "I'm Auror Michaels. I'm a magic policeman."

Hearing this, Harry made his eyes go wide and tried to get closer to Petunia. "Are you gonna take me away cause I hurt Uncle Vernon?" he whimpered, looking terrified at the idea.

"No. No," the man was quick to reassure him. "We're going to take you to St. Mungo's, the wizarding hospital. They'll check you over and make you all better. After that, we'll have a chat. Just you, me and your aunt. How's that?"

Harry pretended to ponder it a moment before nodding.

"What about my son?" Petunia asked. "He's still asleep upstairs. He didn't see anything and I don't think he should have to deal with this."

Auror Michaels responded by turning to another Auror standing just behind him and instructed him to get Dudley and take him to headquarters. Then he turned back to Petunia and said, "We'll keep him out of this for now. Do you have anyone we can send him to while you're in the hospital? Young Harry too?"

Petunia shook her head and then winced from the sudden motion. "No." she replied. "I don't have any family left nor any real friends I could trust. There's Vernon's sister, but she's of the same mindset as him. Perhaps Ms. Figg. She lives down the street, but I don't really know her well."

"Moony," Harry suddenly said.

"Who?" the confused Auror asked.

"I don't know," Harry replied, trying to look as if he were thinking hard. "I have dreams of him...and my parents. I think they were friends. And I remember the night...the night Mum and Dad died. He was holding me and arguing with someone."

"I don't know who this Moony is, but I'll try to find out. Okay, Harry?"

Harry nodded and the Aurors began the task of transporting both he and Petunia to St. Mungo's.

-SCENE BREAK-

Healer Alston was a petite woman with sandy blonde hair and gray-blue eyes just reaching her mid forties. She was normally soft spoken and kind, but, as all healers had a tendency to do, could become dominating and even downright hostile when dealing with stubborn patients or pushy families. Her small stature did nothing to detract from the overall presence she had.

She was berating a young mediwitch just out of school for mixing up a blood replenishing potion with a bone healing potion when she was grabbed by the arm and forcibly dragged away by another healer. He immediately informed her that her presence was needed in a sensitive situation. This usually meant a domestic dispute or an abused child as she tended to specialize in those who needed emotional healing as well as physical. The fact that the injured party was in a secure ward didn't necessarily mean they were a threat. Most likely it was a relative of a Ministry official or one of the pureblood elite. She swore if Narcissa Malfoy ended up there once more she was calling the Aurors after she paid the woman's husband a visit. It wasn't that the man was abusive, far from it actually, but his love of the Dark Arts often backfired onto his poor wife.

She was therefore surprised at what she found.

The woman on the bed looked much like many battered women she'd seen before, except she could detect very little magic within her. A squib, most definitely. It used to be legal for pureblood families to kill any squibs born into their family, but with laws now protecting them, the current trend with squibs was complete denial of their existence. This woman looked as if she had been subjected to the old way of dealing with them.

However, the woman was not alone. In a corner stood an Auror and in a chair beside the bed sat a little boy who watched the woman, most likely his mother, with worried eyes.

Her gift for sensing magic was going haywire and all she could do was stare. It was as if his core magic were both tightly compressed into a bright, white ball and wildly lashing about him in vivid colors at the same time. Definitely not normal for a little boy. Hell, it wasn't normal for anyone. Those who had little real control, but excelled in powerful charms and wandless spells tended to have their magic flowing free around and through them. Those who had undergone strict training, especially of the mind, would have more compressed magic that they could wield quickly and effectively. Never both and never this young. Children's magic tended to flow just over their skin with tendrils escaping almost playfully here and there as accidental magic. It was happy, free and undeveloped. This boy's seemed not only incredibly developed in both directions, but both wildly aggressive and tightly controlled at once.

He didn't look injured, but he certainly looked frightened. His small, delicate hands were wringing the hem of his shirt nervously and he glanced back at her with bright green eyes that were almost hidden behind unruly black hair. She didn't even need to look at his forehead to know who the boy was. She had been his mother's midwife. In the six hours Lily Potter had been in labor, she had grown very familiar with those almost unnaturally intense green eyes that he had inherited from her. Not to mention that hair. She'd had to throw James Potter out of the delivery room no less than nine times, four of them bodily.

That might explain his unusual magic, if he had truly done the thing he was credited with.

Ignoring, for the moment, the rather special little boy, she set about fixing the woman up as best as possible. She could heal the cuts and bruises easily within a few hours, but the broken bones would have to heal themselves. She could speed the process up though.

After finishing, she got their story from the Auror. The poor boy. To have seen and done such a terrible thing so young. He would most likely be blaming himself for his uncle's death for many years to come, even though it was in no way his fault. Not even ten and he had killed two men already; one a Dark Lord and one an abusive husband. How scarred was their savior going to be?

-SCENE BREAK-

After Petunia had been healed, an Auror brought Dudley and there was a tearful reunion between mother and son. While they cried over the loss of their husband and father respectively, Auror Michaels took Harry into Healer Alston's recently vacated office. The woman seemed nice enough, but the way she watched Harry when she first entered the room, as if she could see into his soul, unnerved him.

"Harry," Michaels said after sitting him down in a chair in front of Alston's desk, "do you remember anything else besides the name Moony? It's not much to go on. Are you sure it wasn't Moody?"

"Moody?" Harry asked, cocking his head to the side in confusion.

"Yes, he was an Auror friend of your parents. I think he was there...that night."

"No," Harry said with childish certainty. "It was Moony. But...I think Mum called him something else." Harry forced an innocent laugh and said, "I remember one time when Dad and Padfoot and Moony were joking around and rolling around on the floor and Moony did something and Mum, she was holding me, looked shocked and smacked Moony on the head and yelled "Remus!" and then she started laughing too."

Michaels looked stunned. "You've got a good memory kid."

"Thanks!" Harry said, putting on his biggest, brightest, most innocently heart warming smile.

Michaels melted.

"Remus Lupin was a friend of your parents, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to have any contact with him."

"Why?" Harry asked, not needing to fake curiosity. Maybe he'd finally get some answers as to Remus' whereabouts.

"Well, he's a werewolf," Michaels stated simply. "Dangerous, too. After your parents died, some say he went mad. He swore revenge on Dumbledore, who's a good man by the way, publicly supported Sirius Black, who's nothing but traitorous Death Eater scum, and threatened the Ministry. He's got this pack of werewolves that used to be Fenrir Greyback's. Everyone knows Greyback supported You Know Who and most people assume Lupin's a Death Eater too. So, the Potters had two traitors instead of one. Oh! I'm sorry kid! I forgot who I was talking to!"

Harry's eyes had narrowed thoughtfully and he was no longer looking at the Auror. Somehow it was public knowledge that Remus was a werewolf. That hadn't been revealed previously until Harry's third year. He had obviously proclaimed Sirius' innocence and was labeled a Dark collaborator for it, and his status as a Dark Creature wouldn't help his case any. In fact, it was surprising that Remus was still free. With the wave of persecution that followed Voldemort's downfall, in which many innocents were accused simply because of their race or who their friends were, a werewolf who was known as a friend of the one who betrayed the Potters would have been arrested immediately and probably not even given a trial.

Michaels, seeing Harry's pensive state, assumed he was upset about finding out his parent's friends were traitors. He put a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder and said, "Hey, it's okay. We'll get that werewolf one day and he'll pay, just like Black is now." He was therefore shocked when his hand was cruelly smacked away and he was pinned with a glittering green gaze.

"They weren't traitors," Harry said, barely managing to keep the anger out of his voice. "It was Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew." He would have to be careful how much information he revealed. There was only so much he could play off as memories. "I remember...when he used to baby sit me. He was scary, not like the others. He tried to play with me by turning into a rat, but he was just scary and I would throw things at him. The last time I saw him, he showed me a snake on his arm and said he was sorry. Then my parents died. It's his fault they're dead. I know it is."

There was a long silence in which the Auror stared dumbfounded at the child before him. He was certainly intelligent and if what he was saying were true, they had made a horrible mistake. This bore investigating. Crossing to the door, he pulled it open and called, "Madam Alston, could you come here please?" The woman entered quickly and he began whispering to her, no doubt to spare the innocent little boy. Luckily, Harry could hear everything he said. "He's given me some rather interesting information about the night You Know Who died. Could he stay with his aunt in the secure ward, away from prying eyes, until I sort this out?"

"Of course," the woman quickly assured him. "Ms. Dursley is healing well, but I may want to keep her overnight for observation. You'll tell me when the house has been...cleaned up...and they can go home?"

"Yes, yes," he returned absently before leaving the room.

Alston then turned her attention to Harry, a kind smile taking the place of the frown she'd had while talking to Michaels. "Hello, Harry. My name is Agatha."

"Hi, Miss Agatha," Harry returned shyly. The woman still unnerved him, but at least she wasn't staring like before.

"Would you like to go see your aunt now?" she asked, holding out a hand to him.

"Is Dudley still crying?" he asked, wrinkling his nose. "If he is, I don't think so."

Alston laughed and moved to sit behind her desk. "Well, how about we give them a few minutes alone and then we'll go see them?"

Harry nodded and the woman picked up a quill and began writing. "I just need to fill out these charts for you and your aunt. You don't mind, do you?" After receiving a negative, she set to work and so did Harry.

He wanted to know exactly what caused her to stare when it was impossible that she had seen his scar. Never before had a healer stared at him like that. They generally cared little about who a patient was and more about what they could do to help. He started to delve into her mind using basic Legilimency, but was stopped by strong barriers. The woman was quite the powerful Occlumens. With a barely audible sigh, he switched tactics. He cloaked his mind in shadows and slipped directly through the barriers as if they weren't there, or rather, as if he weren't there. It was a stealthier form of Legilimency which wouldn't be developed for several hundred years. In the future, it had been easily blockable by a trained witch or wizard, but as of now there wasn't even any means of detecting it.

He ghosted quickly through her mind until he found the memory of a couple hours ago when she had just arrived in the room. Watching the memory, he was surprised not only at her ability, but at what it revealed about him. One could never see their own magic; it had to be felt. He'd had no idea that he looked like that. It was as if he had two sources of magic. In a way, it was probably true. The wilder magic was obviously that of the young Harry he had become; one who's magic was untamed, but not uncontrolled, shaped into that form due to his lack of an external focus such as a wand and increased by various factors. The smaller ball of light that burned with such intensity, but was tightly restrained... That could either be the remnants of how his magic used to be...or perhaps the rest of his power, locked up and outside his current control. The powers he inherited from those who came before him that require a truly immortal body. Somehow, he knew if that ball of magic was released at the present time, his body would be reduced to ash at it's sheer intensity.

Pulling his mind back, he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear from them the after image of his own magic.

"Tired?" Alston's voice asked and he looked up.

"No," he responded with a smile. "But I am a little hungry."

'Hungry for your power', he thought with a mental chuckle. 'I wonder if I could get her to feed me. That ability could be useful.'

"I can get an elf to bring you something. What do you want?" she asked, rising from her seat.

'I wonder if healer-patient privilege would force her to keep my secret? I can always erase her memory if it doesn't.'

"No thanks," he replied. "Aunt Petunia has to add a special powder to my food and I don't know what it is."

"A powder?" she asked, looking slightly confused.

"Yes," Harry replied, looking as innocent as a newborn kitten. "She started adding it after I turned six and ate the dog."

"You...ate the..." The woman's eyes went wide in recognition and she motioned Harry over to her. "Come here for a moment, Harry," she said, lifting him up to sit on the edge of her desk, effectively putting them nearly eye-to-eye. "I'm going to check a few things, is that okay?" Harry nodded and she raised her wand, using it as a light to shine in his eyes and waving it over him several times in what he knew were general diagnostic spells. After a moment, she looked extremely puzzled and not a little vexed. Harry fought the urge to laugh, knowing all the readings came back normal.

'Oh, now I'm just playing with her,' he thought as he turned his knowing smile into an innocent one.

As she pointed her wand at him and said "Finite Incantatem" he allowed his glamour to disappear, revealing his true countenance.

She nearly gasped, but was clearly too professional to allow such a slip. Bright eyes, pale skin, red lips, claws, fangs... The boy was a vampire!

-SCENE CHANGE-

Harry happily sucked on a blood lolly as Alston talked with Petunia about setting up regular checkups for him to make sure he was getting what he needed. Petunia wisely played along, allowing the woman to think she had known and been tending to Harry's 'special needs' for the past three years.

Unfortunately, since he was a minor, privilege didn't allow the exclusion of his guardian. He didn't really care. Alston would be a needed ally if it was publicly discovered. The word of a healer carried weight, especially one of her reputation. If she said Harry was harmless, they would believe it.

Later that day, Auror Michaels returned to escort the three home. Petunia was released with orders to rest, not jar her right arm and possibly seek grief counciling. The moment they were home and alone, she broke down. He had been a bastard, but she had still loved her husband.

-SCENE CHANGE-

Harry stayed at the Dursleys for the next three months to help Petunia. As far as the neighborhood, school and Vernon's work were concerned, Vernon had a massive heart attack and died. The entire house was in mourning and no one questioned it when the boys failed to return to school after Christmas. Harry had no use for it and Dudley was simply too upset.

It quickly became obvious it was going to be impossible for Petunia to stay in the house. Every time she walked by the living room, she burst into tears and had to rush for the bathroom several times as the images of her husband's last minutes invaded her mind.

It was with this in mind that Harry paid his first visit to Diagon Alley as Harry Potter. Bypassing the Leaky Cauldron, Harry apparated to the designated point and quickly made his way toward the impressive white marble building that was Gringotts. His cloak hid him from view and if anyone happened to see his face, his hair would likely hide the scar.

Previously, he had either 'borrowed' money from Vernon or stolen it from others and exchanged it in his disguise of Aaron Mordant, the child vampire that appeared out of nowhere, frightened innocent librarians and liked to read old newspapers. This time he would need to use his own.

Ignoring everyone around him, including the goblins at the doors that eyed him suspiciously, he strode up to the nearest teller and cleared his throat. Due to his own small size and the goblin's short stature, there was a humorous moment when the goblin searched around for him and finally had to lean over the counter to see the top of his head.

Upon finding him, the goblin sneered. He had no time for a child who wanted to deposit their allowance.

Harry passed him a piece of paper and said calmly and with authority, "I need to see my financial manager and acquire a Gringotts money bag. I have a note from my guardian allowing me this."

The goblin studied him a moment before taking the note and reading it. "I see." he said after a moment, clearly suspicious. "Wait here, Mr. Potter."

Harry nodded as the goblin left the room. Goblins, he knew, were incredibly haughty beings. To put it simple, the more gold a person had, whether in a vault, property, stocks, or any other form, the more they respected them. Gold was to goblins what blood status was to wizards. They didn't like dealing with children because a child legally had no gold. It belonged to their guardians. However, Harry's guardian was a squib and wasn't entitled to his inheritance. If he had control, even if only with his aunt's permission, he would have at least a little respect. The Ministry would fight his control tooth and nail, but if he seemed competent to the goblin's, they would accept it without question.

Harry liked goblins. They weren't afraid to tell the Ministry to shove it when it concerned their clients.

When the goblin returned, he was led quickly to a large office in which an older goblin sat behind a desk. He stoked his beard and regarded Harry curiously. "Mr. Potter." he spoke slowly and deliberately. "I am Goldfarb, Gringotts' Senior Manager. I handled the Potter accounts before I rose to this position. As there has been no activity for the past nine years, I remain your account manager." He fingered the note written on lined muggle notebook paper, glancing down at it briefly before turning his attention back to Harry. "The note has been verified and you now have complete control over the Potter vaults." Leaning forward, he studied Harry. "I must admit, this has never occurred before and I find myself concerned. For an account as large and venerable as this to be at the hand of such a young child... Are you quite certain you are properly equipped to handle it?"

Harry smiled. Of course, they wouldn't want a child to squander what was likely one of their largest accounts. He decided to put the goblin's concerns to rest immediately. He bowed slightly in respect and spoke in Gobbledegook. "I am entirely certain, Master Goldfarb. I assure you, the Potter vaults and all those connected to them are in good hands." After giving the gaping goblin a moment to compose himself, Harry continued. "I have several things I'd like to discuss, if you have the time."

"Of course, Mr. Potter." Goldfarb replied, his tone instantly changing from suspicion to one of respect, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. "Please, have a seat and we may begin."

"First of all," Harry began, taking a seat as Goldfarb shifted some papers around on his desk, "I'd like a full inventory of all my vaults, not just those under the Potter name. I understand that with the death of many of the pureblood families in the last war, those with weaker blood ties have been named as heirs to the family. I may have control of several estates of which I have no knowledge. It has also come to my notice that my mother was halfblood and I'd like to know if her family had an account here."

"That will require we test your blood. Will you consent to this?" Goldfarb asked. He was well aware of how wizards viewed blood rituals and how reticent they were about giving anyone outside a hospital a blood sample.

"Of course." Harry responded immediately. "As long as you are the one to perform it and any unused blood is destroyed directly after. I should also tell you that I am a vampire, therefore certain precautions should be taken with it."

"Understandable." the goblin replied as he went to the door and spoke with another just outside. After a few moments, he closed the door and returned to his seat. "A basin and blood scroll will be brought up shortly. There is more you wish to discuss while we wait?"

"Yes. I am aware that a certain person has access to a few of my vaults through a loophole." Harry's eyes narrowed. He may respect the man, but a person's Gringotts vault was sacred. "Albus Dumbledore was named my magical guardian by the Ministry upon my parent's deaths. As such, he has access to the trust vault left for my schooling. As the Lord of the Potter estate, I would like this to be revoked." Sometime during his fifth year, Dumbledore had begun dipping into Harry's vault to fund the Order. He wouldn't have begrudged the man the money, if he had only asked. He did not like the fact that he went behind his back and had never seen fit to tell him. He didn't even discover it until he turned seventeen and a bank statement was sent to him.

"And the other vaults?" the goblin prompted, pulling Harry back to the present.

"Ah, yes. As you know, the headmaster of Hogwarts has access to all four of the founder's vaults provided there isn't a living blood heir who has claimed them. I have no claim to Hufflepuff, but I'd like Ravenclaw and Gryffindor to be sealed with only myself able to open them, in person. Nothing is to be removed from them without my permission, physically or magically. Likewise, no one else should be given a report as to their contents or any activity therein. I don't know about Slytherin's vault. If it hasn't already been claimed by Tom Riddle, I'd like to do the same with it."

'Actually,' Harry thought, 'it may be possible to claim it anyway, if the goblins consider him dead and not just disembodied.'

"One moment." Goldfarb said and Harry paused as he jumped down from his chair and went to a filing cabinet. As he searched though several scrolls, Harry decided a bottomless cabinet like that could be extremely useful.

"Ah, here we are." the goblin said, unfurling an ancient looking scroll bound by a faded green ribbon. "The Slytherin vault is currently unclaimed. One other has tried some thirty years ago, however there is a stipulation that the owner must be above halfblooded. Therefore, he was denied. With one pureblood parent and one halfblood parent, you are eligible to claim this vault, provided you are indeed a descendant of the Slytherin line. The blood test will provide evidence to this effect."

Harry paused as a young goblin delivered the required items Goldfarb had requested. A wide, shallow stone basin and what appeared to be an ordinary piece of parchment, though upon closer examination, minute intricate markings flowed elegantly down the sides and across the top and bottom.

"After the test," Harry said, gesturing to the items, "I'd also like to arrange for several large purchases, both magical and muggle, and to get a money purse and muggle wallet connected to one of my vaults."

"Certainly, Mr. Potter." Goldfarb said, placing the stone bowl on the desk before him and handing him a thin silver blade. "If you'll make a shallow cut along your palm and allow the blood to flow into the basin, we'll begin."

Harry waited for the goblin to set up several spells around the bowl, protecting it from what could have been a rather nasty explosion. Vampiric blood tended to react negatively with the spells innate to the blood basin and protective spells had to be placed first. Luckily, goblins excelled in protective and defensive magic.

After he was done, he drew the dagger along his hand and did as he was instructed. When the bottom was entirely covered in the red liquid, he pulled his hand back, healed it and absently licked his hand clean. He noticed Goldfarb throw him what might have been a slightly nervous sideways glance as he lay the parchment to float on the surface of the blood filled bowl.

Harry knew, from the memories of those who came before him, that throughout history the vampires and goblins usually had a tentative peace agreement. Both were powerful creatures and treated each other with mutual respect, but their differences made any real, lasting alliance very difficult. Both were secretive, but vampires were more forwardly aggressive. If they felt threatened, a vampire was more likely to strike out and destroy the possible threat. Goblins, on the other hand, would retreat to their subterranean cities behind heavily fortified magical defenses and would only fight if the threat refused to go away or if they were personally insulted. The peace agreement had actually come about because both races were unsure if vampires could penetrate goblin defenses. Ever since, vampires had been outwardly friendly and respectful while secretly holding a bit of disdain for the creatures they deemed weak because they refused to fight unless given no other choice. Goblins also maintained a distant respect, but they were always slightly nervous around vampires; wondering if the more predatory race may one day choose to attack them and unsure if they would survive such an assault.

"It's finished." Goldfarb spoke, breaking the rather tense silence. It seemed he'd rather focus on Harry solely as a wealthy client, not a vampire, and he'd been reminded of it most sharply by seeing him lick the blood from his hand.

He removed the parchment, now a deep crimson, from the empty bowl and lay it upon the desk. Placing his clawed index finger on the markings, written Gobbledegook which Harry unfortunately couldn't read, he ran it along the top, activating the bloodline spells. Names and vault numbers began appearing, black ink standing out against the red paper, starting at the top with "Potter, vault 687" and continuing down until it reached "Ravenclaw, vault 2". He was pleased to see the same vaults he had seen the first time he had the ritual performed in the other timeline, plus one more. "Slytherin, vault 3" was above Ravenclaw's and just below "Gryffindor, vault 4".

In what would have been the future, Voldemort had managed to claim the vault after his resurrection before Harry even learned of the little bit of Slytherin blood in his father and therefore him. With the stipulation that the owner must be more than halfblooded, he assumed the fact that his blood was used to resurrect the monster gave him what he needed to fool the blood test, making it think his blood status was the same as Harry's.

He'd been confused the first time he had seen Ravenclaw's name appear. The test didn't reveal which side the inheritance came from and he'd figured it came from his father along with the many others unknown to him. However, knowing what he now knew about his mother's side, he assumed he knew where it came from.

Hufflepuff's line disappeared only a few generations after Helga herself, presumably dying out. Slytherin's was known, at least to those select few, to have ended up as the Gaunts. Gryffindor's line remained in the public eye even as the name changed thoughout the centuries, eventually becoming the Potter family. Those of the Ravenclaw line seemed to like to travel, searching for long lost knowledge or something of the sort. They'd jumped countries almost every generation before simply vanishing. No one had managed to find hide nor hair of anyone with Ravenclaw blood and eventually they'd been declared a dead family by the Ministry, the vault going into the care of the Hogwarts headmaster as was ordered by the founders should their lines die out.

It seemed he had even more research to do on his mother's family.

Speaking of which, he was pleased to see the words, "Quinn, vault 439". It had been just another unknown family to him before, inherited through weak blood ties to the Potters because their family had been wiped out. Now he knew, it was his mother's inheritance.

A startled cough from Goldfarb brought him out of his reverie. The goblin looked gobsmacked, something he had seen on the face of the normally controlled creature only once before, the first time this test had been performed.

"Well," he started, clearly not yet back in complete control of himself. "It seems you have just become our most wealthy client, should you actually wish to claim...all of this..." He faded off, staring at the red parchment as if it held the secrets of the universe for a few more minutes, before noticeably shaking himself and clearing his throat.

"Yes, I would." Harry chuckled.

Upon conclusion of his business at Gringotts, Harry returned to his home at Night Haven and sent out several owls, searching for the perfect home for his aunt and cousin. Petunia had never worked a day in her life and had always been dependent on Vernon. He had promised that he would take care of them and he intended to.

He finally settled on a mid sized home in the mixed community of Aurum Village. It had a nice mix of magical and muggle that Petunia would enjoy and had several squib residents, but the real selling point was the large mansion named Leonis House overlooking the village, currently empty and owned by the Potter family.

They sold number four Privet Drive with haste and within a week Petunia was set up in her new house and making friends with the neighbors who seemed to make it their life goal to help her get over the death of her husband. Dudley was attending school again, but his attitude towards magic cultivated by his father made it difficult at first with several young magical students biding their time at muggle school before they turned eleven. He finally made friends with a young witch named Suchi who began to show him that magic was not evil or freakish. Harry almost laughed the first time he heard Dudley mention her.

He remembered vividly a sarcastic young Auror named Suchi Emerson with a prosthetic right arm, one murky brown eye with limited vision and scars along the right side of her face from chin to hairline. He and Ron had once jokingly called her Moody's illegitimate love child and spent two days in the infirmary as a result. The bouncy little girl with the two clear blue eyes and blonde pigtails he was introduced to was nothing like the woman he went through Auror Academy with, but then, she was now only ten.

Harry, for the most part, kept to himself. Due to the magical population who knew him as the Boy Who Lived, he choose to live in Leonis House and rarely ventured into the village. Everyone knew Harry Potter lived there, but at least he could avoid the fawning attention.

In April, he sent an owl to the Wizarding Tutors Association requesting a tutor for himself in order to set up an alibi for some of the knowledge he possessed. They started sending people out immediately, but none of them lasted very long. Half had panic attacks when they realized their student was a vampire, resulting in Harry obliviating them and sending them off. Others left because he "creeped them out" as one woman put it before fleeing the house in terror. A couple tried to lord their knowledge over him and he quickly put them in their place and subsequently fired them. One man actually tried to molest him and found himself on the wrong end of a rather nasty Bat-Bogey Hex. Soon, the position as tutor to Lord Potter became known as a cursed one as no one had lasted more than a week. One man even died, though Harry steadfastly maintained he had a heart attack in the night.

Eventually the owl came informing him of the fact that he had gone through each and every currently available tutor they had registered with them save a young man who promptly had an emotional breakdown after being informed that he was next on the list to be Harry's tutor and was currently a resident of St. Mungo's, a man approaching his hundred and fortieth birthday who was deaf and blind, a woman who had multiple personalities one of whom loved children on toast and one man who was a werewolf.

Harry let out great loud peals of cackling laughter at the last one and wrote back to send him the werewolf.

The next day, Remus Lupin arrived.