Ch22. Harry's woes

Harry stood in front of Grimmauld Place 12, the ancestral home of House Black. His eyes carefully darting left and right around himself, the closer to the place he got, the more his expression soured. A visible frown marred his face, inconspicuously hidden under a hood of the most generic hoodie he could find. No wizard would mistake him for their own kind. He was but a muggle on a walk, after all! Completely uninteresting muggle. That's right.

Harry was kicking himself for his brilliant idea to call the debts of House Black due.

'Hindsight is such a beautiful thing' Harry sighed. 'I so envy the seers!'

Yes, he received a shitton of gold, magical ingredients, and valuable artifacts! He could definitely brag he shits gold now. But... He announced to everyone there is some Lord Black who did his damnedest to piss almost everyone magical on the isles off. Heck. He bankrupted a total of 32 noble houses of various ranks! He counted. Gleefully.

And that's not taking into the equation other Houses who actually survived! Alas, they had to pay. Or lose their magic. Or face goblins. Or lose their magic AND face goblins. Harry couldn't care less which.

Heck, he even got offers for marriage contracts in return for forgiving the debts, at least partially! He was offered girls as young as five to women as old as thirty! Oh, Lords certainly didn't offer women older than thirty, they at least had enough wits to know it would be political suicide and an enormous sign of disrespect!

Well, thirty years of age was certainly a lot for such a contract. But what these women lacked in youth, they certainly compensated in developed body and... experience.

At least that was the sales pitch of various Lords who offered the contracts. Harry was amused, highly so. At least until he started to be offered boys...

Apparently declining so many girls with a wide range of ages, put a thought of him appreciating more masculine company. Ugh.

That made him feel positively murderous. And angry. And dumb-struck. And all at once... But oddly enough, he was mostly satisfied, almost smug, with himself for legally 'robbing' them clean in the broad daylight. Serves them right! The most amusing at the entire situation was, these Lords didn't even know who Lord Black is. Harry would really like to see their expression the moment they realize their so-called hero basically made them close to beggars.

Harry saw these contracts for what they were. Desperation and determination to survive no matter the cost. The Lords trying whatever means available to stay afloat. Even selling their daughters and cousins. The more shrewd ones even trying to screw Harry over with various dishonest contracts, hidden clauses, or invisible ink.

Simply, the situation was the same as with the contracts owed to House Slytherin. Accepting would mean making alliances. Therefore, the enemies of his allies would also be his enemies. It would be the so-called, choosing the side. After all, help is in no way for free in this world. And in the wizarding world, one can not even trust the person who owes him. Especially when it comes to magically binding contracts.

Marriage contracts were never meant to be something engineered to pay debts. It was a tool for making alliances. And alliances meant responsibility towards your ally. Even more so, in medieval times. Who knew what blasted obligations would it mean for him! Oh, Harry knew he could probably subvert the entire thing to his advantage. Was it worth the effort though?

Worse yet, it would also mean being revealed as Lord Slytherin. Or in this case, Lord Black. And that was just so not going to happen anytime soon.

No, accepting a contract was not going to happen.

Especially the contracts he was receiving now. Contracts from people who had a whole lot of reasons to hate his guts for making them into paupers. Nay, he had no time to care about them and go through each word of the offered contract with a fine comb to ensure not being backstabbed by his potential wife, nor was he willing to pay goblins to do it for him. Plus, hell would freeze sooner than Harry deciding to marry someone he never met or even talked to. No matter how beautiful the girl is.

'If I will want a girl, I will get her myself!' He thought smugly before deflating. 'If the girl is not interested, well... I am no Dumbledore to screw with everyone around just to have my way.'

Harry just told his account manager to decline every single contract. No need to be polite.

That, of course, made the goblin grin savagely as he drafted the rudest and most offending refusals possible. Who knew goblins had such a colorful language? Harry learned many new 'curses' that day.

The point being, Harry knew he made a shitton of money, with loads of shittons of enemies! If his status as Lord Black somehow slipped out, even more so since he was but a defenseless eleven years old boy... the Boy-Who-Lived or not, the hero of Wizarding Britain or not, he was certain, he would somewhere, somehow be forced to take a trip to his next great adventure.

Nay, his Lordship over House Black had to remain secret, at least until he was capable to crush anyone through sheer force.

Yet, everyone wanted to know the identity of the hated yet grudgingly respected Lord Black and they wanted to know it now. And where better to look for a despised Lord, just ripe for some good ol' revenge, than in his ancestral home?

Harry walked around Grimmauld Place 12 ten times, his magical perception on the highest alert, in order to ascertain if there was some kind of watcher stationed nearby.

Why would Harry take such a risk and come here?

Simple, he had no choice. Damned if do, damned if don't.

For all of their intelligence or stupidity, wizarding families did not deposit books into their vaults. Well, figures. You don't go to your vault every time you want to have a good read, after all. No, you go to your library. The one located in your HOUSE. Simple as that.

Harry cursed that wizards who appeared to be completely commonly senseless had enough common sense to not place books into Vaults.

Harry suspected Slytherin Vaults would have the library of Salazar Slytherin in them, due to the age of said Vault. He only hoped the books would be under stasis or preservation charm. If not... no books for him then. But that was beside the point, he couldn't reopen Slytherin Vault without making goblins demand centuries of fees or threaten with confiscation of said Vault. Ha, as if he paid the greedy little shits! Harry understood completely why Tom didn't reopen the Vault. After all, the fees would ruin even Malfoys!

Harry, obviously, had a plan on how to screw with goblins when it came to Slytherin's Vault. No way he would give goblins his gold for nothing! Sometimes, he could be even greedier and more stingy than goblins. Being the richest wizard on the isles definitely didn't help the situation!

But the problem still stood. He couldn't access the books from there yet.

As for Potters. There must be the books from Godric Hollow house of Potters. The problem being, the second he even tries to access them, Twinkles would know. The privileges of being his magical guardian, Harry sneered.

That left only House Black and their highly curse-infested library as the most viable option. And since there was no book in their Vaults, Harry checked, he needed to get into Grimmauld Place 12.

'Oh, why, just why must my magic be so difficult on me!' Harry lamented wistfully but smiled in amusement. 'Sigh, complaining about being too powerful for my age even with my core being bound is a nice feeling in its own right, alright.'