CONFUNDUS; harry potter [UNDER EDITION]

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

HARRY

Footsteps echo at every step Harry takes. He turns right and then left, catching sight of Celia in the entrance of Gringotts. He needs a moment to normalise his breath before entering the battlefield. It's not wise to stay behind, Hermione told him. And was she wrong? No. Hermione is hardly wrong.

"You came," a tight-lipped smile appears on her face as Celia squeezes his shoulder. "How are you, Harry?"

Harry doesn't answer at first. She probably knows Harry isn't fine but he isn't feeling bad, exactly. To hell William's desire. Venice, Lucca and Milan agreed to this. So he shrugs, barely minding the pity look in her dark gaze, and briefly looks over his shoulder, scanning his surroundings. It's the first hour, not many people are outside, but that doesn't mean someone might be lurking around the corner. He should have taken the Invisibility Cloak.

"Good. Let's go."

Celia turns on her heels and enters the bank. Silence haunts their walk to the reception. Harry isn't certain why he is so nervous about this. He isn't doing anything wrong. Getting full custody of his parents' house shouldn't have felt like a tragedy, but the weight of his decision was heavy on his shoulders back then. Now, with clearer thoughts and a more focused view of his future, Harry knows he is doing the right thing. However, something is wrong about giving away his ancestral family home to Celia. The orphanage is a vision that came after a heated discussion with Fiona and her volunteer work at the only orphanage for magical creatures in Argentina. She often goes there to trim the children's hair, play with them and give away old clothes her clients don't want anymore.

It made Harry think about Tom Riddle, then about himself. His own very child self.

The Black fortune Sirius left under Harry's name only collects dust in the vaults. Better give it a proper use than leave it there forever. He only needed a property to build the place.

However... Harry hesitated about Godric's Hollow. And Lucca, as Lord Sallow and true owner of his family's fortune and territories, said he could take the manor if he wanted. Not the safe house or the beach house, the manor. William went berserk. If he disliked Harry before, now certainly he loathed him. He didn't like the idea. But Lucca, Venice and Milan thought otherwise, and Celia had the last word as the representative of Lord Sallow. She is the one who took care of the political matters when Lucca was absent, and possibly the one to control everything once Lucca departs to Italy by the end of the summer.

Celia, Titania, the lawyer, and Odbert, the goblin, are finishing with the whole paperwork. Harry signs when he is asked to and asks the necessary questions to not feel like he isn't paying attention. His mind elsewhere, in a certain brunette he left sleeping in bed at Grimmauld Place. Harry tries to not think about the months ahead he will endure without Lucca by his side. The orphanage is another excuse to keep himself busy while Ron continues bragging about the Auror Academy and how fun and exciting things will be once they start working.

"Shouldn't be a problem to send Curse-breakers," Titania flicks her wand once again and more scrolls of papers fly out of her blue velvet case. "To secure the place. A Ministry employee shall visit the facilities once it is done to pass the examinations before the transition of the children begins."

Celia hides her pleasant smile behind a cough. She's probably thinking about her own parents' reaction to her decision to rebuild her ancestral home as an orphanage.

"Pandora wouldn't be pleasant", said JiSoo when Lucca and Harry visited to inform her of their lives. "But I do agree it is the best way to save the family name," she added later, nose wrinkled in disgust at the memory of what her descendants are doing nowadays. "And those bastards, I suppose. Mind, my precious tapestries are in danger under those brats' hands."