Protection: The Sword and the Shield

The Return of the House of Potter

...... Diagon Alley, London, UK

Harry and Justine walked toward Gringotts as people in the Alley stared at them. He had already read the issue of the Daily Prophet and was generally pleased with the reporting on what happened the day before. The paper recognized that the hero of the wizarding world had returned with a bang and it was not in their best interest to speak against him.

The fight the day before had not been much of an effort for him and he was pleased with himself that he was unbothered by the deaths he had caused. He had spent the years since his absorption of Voldemort's unquestionably masterful dueling skills, learning muggle fighting styles to augment that knowledge and create his own magical hand to hand combat style that mixed, in his opinion, the best of up close and medium range mundane and magical fighting.

He did notice, however, that there were forces in the shadows working against him. It was very subtle but some of the language and comparisons used were obviously an attempt to suggest he might be dark. Or at least set the ground work for a later accusation. He wasn't sure if it was an attempt by the "light" to make him indebted to them when they validated his "goodness" or an attempt by the "dark" to discredit him.

Either way he would have to exert his influence to control his own story. With all the attention he had gathered he had operated in relative anonymity. His inadvertent big splashes had covered up the small one. No one had yet noticed the House of Potter was operational again that weren't prepared to re-swear oaths of fealty and the fact that he had a muggle concubine and slave had remained secret.

By tomorrow morning, that would no longer be the case so he needed to secure his living situation and institute the protections for his girls. He had a pretty extensive knowledge of runes and warding from Voldemort's memories but apparently runes and wards were his family specialty and his magic had disregarded each protection rune he had thought to use on his girls as inadequate. He did not know what he should use instead but suspected that his Grimoire would have that information.

He smiled as he looked at the adoring faces and wondered why Tom had tried such a violent method to conquer these people. They were culturally predisposed to look for heroes and kings and with Tom's power he could have easily ruled them. He supposed for as strong and brilliant as Tom was, he wasn't of a titled magical family, much less a Prima Potentia Magicae family and would never have made it there. After all none of the founders made it past titled noble and they were The Founders, capital T and F.

Justine tapped him as they crossed the threshold into Gringotts bringing him out from his woolgathering and he gave her a soft kiss on her cheek in thanks. It would be creepy to most but she had somehow found a position as a sort-of mother, sort-of sister, sort-of lover, and sort-of slave in his life and he was sure if he thought of it too much he would need a psychiatrist.

"Nah", he thought, he was a freak and he was proud of it now. He had even had some sexy dreams of his birth mother as mothers typically had no reason to hide their bodies from babies and he had some very clear memories of her. She was very hot.

A goblin met them in the lobby and directed them to the back where they were led into a conference room holding 10 people. The goblin told him that he had the room for as long as he needed and when he was ready he should just press the rune next to the door and Ironclaw would join them. It went without saying that the room was sealed against eavesdropping.

When the goblin left and closed the door Harry turned to the group and clapped his hands. The shocked look everyone was giving him (probably due to his size) was the pause he needed to take control of the meeting.