Save Yourself

Dumbledore's Lost Weapon

Early sunday morning the funeral of James and Lily Potter was held. The time and date of the service was kept secret so no outsiders would show up. On the off chance someone actually did find out the entire cemetery was warded against muggles and any magical signature that didn't belong to the people on the guest list. There were only a few close friends welcome besides Sirius, Remus, and the boys. It was a small and simple service that honored Harry's parents well. Unlike in his last time their headstones were separated. Each especially designed for them by Harry and his godparents.  A small garden of lilies, celandines, and James' favorite flower, roses surrounded their graves. At the foot of their grave sat a bench, big enough for two, with a stag surrounded by lilies carved into it's center. On the back was the Potter family crest. This was a gift given to Harry and Henry by the goblin nation so that they had a place to sit when they visited their parents. It was warded against everyone but the boys and their godparents. At the end of the service, each boy place a small bouquet, made up of a red rose, white lily, and two identical celandines in the vase between their headstones. Remus placed a wreath of lilies onto Lily's headstone and Sirius placed one of roses on top of James' headstone. Once that was done every visitor lit a candle and placed it around their headstones. It was very beautiful. After the ceremony they return home. Remus put Henry down for his afternoon nap and Harry had Dobby contact Walburga. When Walburga arrived they discussed their plans to travel. Walburga approved their idea, but before they left she wished for Harry to claim his Black lordship. She also wished for him to make arrangements that prevented anyone from attempting to use his and Henry's name in the papers or to make profit. Harry agreed. Later that day Harry and Walburga went to Gringotts to make all the arrangements and start planning for their travels. Harry made sure to claim any and all lordships available to him, while he could. This added the names Peverell, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Wyllt, Sallow, and Castle to his already very long name. Walburga and Irongrip had helped him to make investments, look through portfolios, and to make all the arrangements needed to protect them from anyone wishing to take Henry or many a profit off the Potter name. While they were there, Harry set up Gringotts mailbox for his small family. Any mail that was sent to Remus, Sirius, Walburga or addressed to a Potter went through Gringotts first. Tommorow Harry would stay home with Henry while the other three packed and organized their affairs, so they could move into 34 Potterow. 34 Potterow was an unplotable townhouse the boys had been living in since September. They had all decided to move in permanently and use it as sort of a base of operations. Aside from their main home, Harry's small army of house elves were currently working on restoring any similar sized houses he owned. So far he had three townhouses, 9 Sallow's Road in Cardiff, 12 Grimmauld Place in London, and 34 Potterow in Edinburgh. All of which were livable. By the end of the week he would have a home in Ireland, America, Australia, Canada and Brazil. If Harry had his way, his family would have a place to call home in every country that welcomed them. When he voiced his desire out loud to Irongrip the goblin vowed to do his best to make it happen. As soon as they left the bank Irongrip spoke to Dragonheart about contacting other branches of the Gringotts bank around the world to achieve this goal. Dragonheart was eager to help. They hoped to see Harry's dream realized before November of next year. While things were moving smoothly for Harry, Dumbledore was having all kinds of trouble. By the time he had woken up from his nap the wills had already been read and the baby had already been legally adopted by whoever was in line to take custody. To top it all off their was nothing he could to stop any of it. The wills had already been processed and finalized by the Ministry and so had the adoption. The one time Dumbledore needed the incompetent government to slack off, they actually were efficient enough to file paperwork an hour after it was submitted. Any other time something like that would have taken weeks or even months. As if that wasn't bad enough, when Albus attempted to petition a change of guardianship for the boy, he was shut down immediately. He, The Great Albus Dumbledore, was shut down. He then attempted to falsify the documents needed to adopt the boy, but for some reason the spell would not work properly. The paperwork just kept showing Harry James Potter as an invalid name and Sirius Black as an invalid guardian. This meant that the boy's full name wasn't Harry James Potter and that Sirius didn't have custody of anyone, none of which was correct. Burning the documents in frustration, Dumbledore went over his options. Their was only one course of action let to take. He had to track the boy and kidnap him. Before that happened he needed to find a different tracking spell. Dumbledore spent the rest of saturday and sunday hunting for the perfect spell. For this spell he didn't need the boy's full name, just his part of it. When he preformed the spell it led him straight to Gringotts. Albus searched the place high and low, but not a single person with a baby was at Gringotts. Albus tried the spell again sometime later but nothing happened. Giving up, Albus returned to Hogwarts. What the hell was Albus going to do? He had lost his weapon. From the information he gathered at the Ministry, no one else seemed to know anything about the location of the boy either. Maybe, Albus could use this ignorance to his advantage. He could pretend he knew where the boy was and make up stories about him. Then when the boy arrived at Hogwarts he would just steal him away then. Yes, that could work. Let's hope that fool Sirius did a good job of molding him into the perfect little Gryffindor.