The first three days of summer were boring.
Not peaceful.
Boring.
That was an important distinction.
Peace at Hogwarts meant that for several hours no one tried to die, nothing exploded, and I could sit in the library and mind my own business.
Boredom at the orphanage meant that I read the same book twice, went for a run, came back, ate breakfast, and discovered it was still only nine o'clock.
Hedwig was handling it better.
She had London.
I opened the window for her in the morning, and sometimes she disappeared for several hours, returning exactly when she considered it appropriate.
The first day, she came back before lunch.
The second, in the evening.
The third, she woke me by landing on my chest.
I opened my eyes.
A white head was maybe twenty centimeters from my face.
"No."
She hooted.
"It's six."
Another hoot.
"I don't care."
Only then did I notice the envelope in her beak.
I frowned.
"Where did you get that?"
Hedwig dropped the letter onto my face.
Thank you.
I sat up.
The envelope was ordinary.
Paper.
Stamp.
Muggle post.
My name and the orphanage address were written across the front in a distinctive, very neat hand.
Hermione.
Well.
Three days.
That was almost exactly how long it had taken her to start enforcing deadlines.
I opened it.
[ Oliver,
We got home without any problems.
Mum says I brought too many books home, which is absurd because most of them stayed at Hogwarts.
Dad still doesn't believe me that the staircases really move. I told him I have no reason to make something like that up, but he says "architecture has to have some limits."
If you don't have any plans, you can come over one day. My parents would like to meet you.
Yes, this is an invitation.
Hermione
P.S. It's been three days. You're still within the deadline. ]
I stared at the last line.
Hedwig stared at me.
"Don't start."
A hoot.
"I was going to write back."
Another.
"Three days is not ignoring someone."
Hedwig kept staring.
I folded the letter.
"Fine."
I got out of bed.
"We're going."
She tilted her head.
"I'm going. You're flying."
Apparently, that was acceptable.
I wrote back briefly.
Very briefly.
Hermione would probably consider it an insult to correspondence.
[ I can be there tomorrow around noon.
Oliver
P.S. The staircases really do move. ]
I sent Hedwig.
She returned an hour later with another note.
Good.
And I know.
HERMIONE
The second sentence was underlined.
I smiled.
A little.
The next day, I took the Muggle Underground.
No Apparition.
No fireplaces.
No magical buses.
Public transport had many flaws.
For example, people.
But at least space behaved according to the basic principles of geometry.
I appreciated that more than I should have.
The Grangers' address led to a quiet street lined with similar houses.
Not identical.
Just similar enough that there was no doubt someone had once designed all of them at the same desk.
The front garden was small and well kept.
A car stood by the pavement.
Through one of the windows, I could see a bookshelf.
Of course.
Hedwig landed on the fence.
I looked at her.
"You didn't have to follow me the entire way."
She hooted.
"That's not an answer."
I knocked.
The door opened almost immediately.
Hermione.
She was wearing ordinary jeans and a jumper.
No robes.
No wand in her hand.
No book.
The last part was the most worrying.
"You came."
"It appears so."
"I thought you'd find an excuse."
"I had several."
"And?"
I pointed behind me.
Hedwig sat on the fence.
"Hedwig objected."
Hermione looked.
Hedwig hooted.
"Of course."
A woman's voice came from deeper inside the house.
"Hermione, don't keep him standing in the doorway!"
Hermione closed her eyes.
"Mum."
"What?"
"Nothing."
She stepped aside.
"Come in."
I entered.
The house smelled of coffee.
And something baking.
It was not large.
It was not small either.
It was simply...
a home.
Shoes by the entrance.
A jacket draped over the banister.
A pile of post on a small table.
Photographs on the wall.
One showed Hermione at perhaps eight years old, standing between her parents by the sea.
She was missing a front tooth.
My gaze stopped.
Hermione noticed.
"No."
"What?"
"Don't look."
"At the photograph?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know you used to be small."
"Oliver."
"It doesn't suit your personality."
"It's been thirty seconds."
"That's a good result."
"Hermione?"
A woman appeared in the sitting-room doorway.
Mrs. Granger.
The resemblance was most obvious in the eyes.
The same quick assessment of the situation.
Just less aggressive.
Behind her stood a man around the same age.
Mr. Granger.
"Hermione," he said, "I believe this is the part where you introduce people."
"Yes."
She sighed.
"Oliver Peverell. Oliver, my parents."
"Good afternoon."
Mrs. Granger offered her hand first.
"It's lovely to finally meet you."
Finally.
I looked at Hermione.
Immediately:
"I haven't been talking about you all the time."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face."
Mr. Granger shook my hand.
"So you're Oliver."
"Apparently."
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Hermione said you were sarcastic."
"Hermione says a lot."
"Oliver."
Mr. Granger laughed.
Good.
At least one of them.
Hedwig was let in through the kitchen window.
Mrs. Granger asked first if that was alright.
That was nice.
Hedwig immediately claimed the back of a chair.
Mr. Granger watched her with interest.
"You really deliver post by owl."
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"No."
Hermione sat down.
"Dad."
"I'm asking."
"You've been asking all week."
"All week I've been finding out that my daughter spent ten months living in a castle where portraits talk, staircases move, and a ghost can walk through a table."
"All of that is normal."
Mr. Granger looked at me.
"Normal?"
"After a few months."
"I knew it."
Hermione groaned.
Mrs. Granger set down the tea.
"Don't encourage him."
"I don't have to."
Mr. Granger was already getting started.
"The staircases."
"Hm?"
"Why do they move?"
My cup stopped.
"I don't know."
Hermione looked at me.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You didn't wonder about it even once all year?"
"I wondered. I didn't ask."
Mr. Granger nodded with satisfaction.
"Hermione doesn't know either."
Hermione straightened.
"Because no one knows."
"Which is even worse."
I looked at him.
"I like you."
Hermione:
"No."
Her mother started laughing.
Lunch was normal.
That was strange.
It did not appear magically on the table.
No one shouted across half a hall for seconds.
There were no four houses.
No teachers.
Just four people around a table and an owl that, for some reason, had been given a small piece of chicken.
I looked at Mrs. Granger.
"You don't have to feed her."
Hedwig turned her head.
Mrs. Granger said:
"She seems to disagree."
"She's manipulating you."
"Successfully."
Traitor.
Mr. Granger returned to the subject of Hogwarts.
"Do you have a doctor on site?"
Hermione:
"Dad."
"What?"
"Don't start."
"It's a normal question."
"We have a nurse," I answered.
"One?"
"Yes."
Mr. Granger put down his fork.
"For the whole school?"
"Yes."
"Hermione."
"I know."
"And moving staircases."
"Yes."
"And brooms that children fly dozens of meters above the ground."
"Yes."
"Without safety measures."
Hermione sighed.
"There are safety measures."
"What kind?"
She hesitated.
Looked at me.
I looked at her.
"I don't know," she admitted.
Mr. Granger spread his hands.
"Exactly."
I snorted.
Hermione looked at me as though I had betrayed her.
"Don't help."
"I didn't do anything."
"You're laughing."
"Because he's right."
"Dad."
"Finally, someone sensible."
"That is the worst thing you can say to him."
The questions were not bad.
They were not interrogating me.
They were simply curious about the world their daughter spent most of the year in.
Mr. Granger asked how the post worked.
Mrs. Granger wanted to know whether students really could not phone home.
Hermione tried to explain that electronics did not work well around large amounts of magic.
Mr. Granger decided that was another reason wizards needed modernization.
Then Mrs. Granger noticed the ring.
Not immediately.
I reached for my glass.
Light from the window reflected off the black stone.
"That's a very beautiful ring."
I looked at my right hand.
The signet.
White gold.
Black diamond.
"Thank you."
"Family?"
"Yes."
Mr. Granger leaned forward slightly.
"What kind of stone is that?"
"Diamond."
Silence.
Hermione stopped cutting her food.
Mr. Granger looked again.
"A black diamond?"
"Yes."
"Real?"
I looked at him.
"I hope so."
Hermione:
"Oliver."
"What?"
"You know it's real."
"Yes."
Mr. Granger laughed.
"So I take it that wasn't bought at a school fair."
"No. Family signet."
"Signet?"
"Of the Peverells."
Mrs. Granger looked at Hermione.
Hermione looked at me.
"You never told me that."
"You never asked."
"Because I didn't assume you wore a black diamond passed down through your family."
"That would have been a strange assumption."
Hermione opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Mr. Granger examined the ring with pure curiosity.
"Does it mean anything? Beyond the symbolism?"
"It recognizes me."
"The ring?"
"The magic in it."
Mrs. Granger raised an eyebrow.
"How?"
"I don't know exactly."
Hermione immediately:
"And that doesn't worry you?"
"No."
"Oliver."
"It recognized me correctly."
"That's not an answer."
"It's a very good answer."
Mr. Granger looked at his daughter.
"Is this how you talk at school?"
"All the time."
"My sympathies."
"Thank you."
Hermione:
"You're both awful."
The subject somehow shifted to school shopping a little later.
I was not exactly sure how.
Mr. Granger asked about books.
Then uniforms.
Then prices.
Hermione tried converting Galleons into pounds.
It did not go very well.
Not because she could not do arithmetic.
The wizarding currency system was simply idiotic.
"So seventeen Sickles make a Galleon?" Mr. Granger asked.
"Yes."
"And twenty-nine Knuts make a Sickle."
"Yes."
He stared.
"Why?"
I shrugged.
"Tradition."
"That isn't an argument."
"Tell the Wizengamot."
Hermione:
"Don't encourage him to get involved in politics."
"I'm not."
Mr. Granger thought for another moment.
"And what if a child doesn't have money?"
I looked at him.
"For school."
"There's a fund."
Hermione turned her head.
"There is?"
I looked at her.
"Granger."
"What?"
"You didn't read the school's financial regulations?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"I didn't know they existed."
"I'm disappointed."
"Oliver."
Mrs. Granger smiled into her cup.
Mr. Granger continued:
"So the school can cover textbooks, uniform, and the rest?"
"Basic supplies. Yes."
"That's good."
He said it simply.
Nothing more.
Then he looked at me.
"Did you use it?"
"No."
"No?"
"I don't need to."
Mrs. Granger frowned slightly.
"The orphanage covered the costs?"
"No."
Hermione was already starting to look.
I knew that look.
"Oliver."
"What?"
"Where did you get the money?"
"Mine."
"You're eleven."
"That doesn't prevent me from having money."
"Normally, a little."
Mr. Granger snorted.
I looked at Hermione.
"Family money."
Her gaze moved to the ring.
Ah.
"How much family money are we talking about?"
"I don't understand the question."
"You understand perfectly."
Mr. Granger raised a hand.
"You don't have to answer if it's private."
"It isn't."
It genuinely wasn't.
What were they going to do?
Break into Gringotts?
Good luck.
"The family had a vault."
Mr. Granger nodded.
"I see."
Hermione did not.
"Had?"
"Has."
"And you're..."
"The heir."
Her eyes shifted back to the signet.
Well.
She was slowly putting it together.
Mrs. Granger asked carefully:
"A large vault?"
I thought.
I did not know what actually counted as a normal vault.
Harry's had been smaller.
Definitely.
"Yes."
Hermione:
"How large?"
"Large."
"That's not a unit."
"It's sufficient."
"Oliver."
I sighed.
"Approximately..."
I thought about the Great Hall.
No.
Half?
Maybe.
"...half the Great Hall."
Silence.
Mrs. Granger looked at her daughter.
"How large is the Great Hall?"
Hermione was still staring at me.
"Huge."
"Ah."
Mr. Granger lowered his fork.
"Full?"
"Not entirely."
Hermione looked as though she had just found hope.
"Mostly gold?"
"Gold, jewelry, some things."
"What things?"
"I don't know."
She stopped.
"How can you not know?"
"I took some money and left."
Mr. Granger coughed.
I was not sure whether he was laughing.
Hermione was.
Not amused.
"You..."
She pointed her fork at me.
"...walked into a family vault full of things belonging to a family you know almost nothing about..."
"Yes."
"...took money..."
"Yes."
"...and left."
"I needed books."
Mr. Granger turned his head away.
He was definitely laughing.
Hermione looked personally offended.
"And you never went back?"
"I had no reason."
"You had no—"
"Hermione."
Her mother placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Breathe."
"He has a vault full of family history and treated it like an ATM."
Mr. Granger looked at me.
"That does seem fairly accurate."
Well.
I had not thought of it like that before.
Unfortunately, Hermione had.
"That's horrible."
"I didn't realize it would offend you personally."
"Because books."
"I don't know whether there were books."
"Even worse."
Mr. Granger still looked amused.
"So you're rich."
I considered it.
"I suppose."
Hermione looked at me as if I had just insulted her.
"You suppose?"
"I don't know the number."
"How can you not know the number?"
"Do you know exactly how much money your parents have?"
She went silent.
Mr. Granger said:
"Thank you."
Hermione immediately:
"That's not the same thing."
"A little."
"No."
"A little."
Mrs. Granger smiled.
Mr. Granger pointed at the signet.
"The bank manages it?"
"Gringotts."
"The goblins."
"Yes."
I still liked the way he accepted each increasingly absurd sentence.
"Goblins run the bank," he said to his wife.
"So I've heard."
"Naturally."
He took a sip of tea.
"So who manages your assets?"
I answered automatically.
"I do."
His cup stopped.
"You."
"Yes."
Hermione:
"You're eleven."
"I noticed."
Mr. Granger no longer looked amused.
Not worried.
Simply interested.
"You have full access to everything?"
"To the vault."
"And the rest?"
I frowned.
"What rest?"
Now he frowned.
"Property."
Silence.
"Investments."
I stared.
"Land."
Well.
"Contracts. Accounts. Inheritance documents."
Hermione slowly put down her fork.
She was no longer looking at her father.
She was looking at me.
Mr. Granger continued:
"If it's an old family estate, the vault itself is unlikely to be everything."
I did not answer.
Because suddenly I had no answer.
For the first time since the conversation began.
Mrs. Granger noticed.
"Oliver?"
I looked at the signet.
White gold.
Black diamond.
Key to the vault.
Proof of blood.
Proof of inheritance.
But...
Inheritance of what?
The vault?
The family?
What did that actually mean in practice?
Where had Elias and Aria lived?
They had a home.
They had to.
They had not raised me inside a Gringotts vault.
What happened to it?
Who paid for its upkeep?
Did anyone?
Did it still exist?
Did the Peverells own land?
Other vaults?
Deposits?
Contracts?
A ridiculous number of old documents?
Who had been managing all of it for eleven years?
Thimgrin had said he guarded the family's wealth better than his own life.
I had never asked what exactly the word wealth included.
"Well," Hermione said.
I did not look at her.
"Well what?"
"You don't know."
"No."
"Oliver."
"Don't start."
"How do you inherit a fortune and not check what you inherited?"
I turned toward her.
"I was ten."
"You're eleven."
"Enormous difference."
Mr. Granger started laughing again.
Hermione pointed at him.
"Dad, don't help."
"Sorry."
He did not look sorry.
I looked at him.
"What documents should exist?"
That stopped Hermione.
Mr. Granger became a little more serious too.
"I don't know your laws."
"In general."
"Well..."
He put his cup down.
"If it works even slightly like our system: deeds. Property records. Accounts. Investments. Wills. Someone has to keep documentation."
"Gringotts."
"Probably."
Hermione cut in:
"The Ministry too."
I looked at her.
"How do you know?"
"I don't. But if families and inheritance exist, the state must have some kind of registry."
Well.
Probably.
That had not been in the books.
Of course it had not.
Harry Potter had not been a series of novels about the British magical land registry.
Shame.
It would have been useful.
Mr. Granger continued:
"And if the family owned a business or shares in something..."
"Hm."
"...or land..."
"Hm."
"...or several properties..."
Hermione:
"Stop saying hm."
I looked at her.
"I'm thinking."
"I can see that."
Mrs. Granger spoke more gently.
"You don't have to know everything immediately."
"No."
That was not the problem.
The problem was that I knew nothing.
I had a surname as old as half of wizarding legend.
A signet.
A vault the size of a small building.
And not one useful piece of information about what else belonged to the Peverells.
That was...
annoying.
Very.
Hermione saw the change in my expression.
She smiled.
I did not like that smile.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Granger."
"It's just the first time I've seen someone ask you a question you genuinely don't know the answer to."
"It happens."
"Rarely."
"Don't enjoy this."
"I am."
After lunch, Hermione showed me her room.
I did not know why.
Probably decided that since I had already seen the photograph by the entrance, she had nothing left to lose.
She had too many books.
I said so.
She threw me out.
Let me back in thirty seconds later.
There were more photographs on the shelf.
Hermione as a small child.
Hermione on a bicycle.
Hermione with her parents.
Hermione holding some school certificate.
One showed her at perhaps seven years old with a book almost the size of her torso.
I stopped.
"No."
"I'm not saying anything."
"I can see."
"That's my face."
"No."
She picked up the photograph and put it face down.
"You were missing both front teeth."
"Get out."
"That's a fact."
"Oliver."
I smiled.
A little.
But when she turned toward the desk, I looked at the rest of the shelf.
Photographs.
Years.
The same house.
The same people.
Things collected since childhood.
I had nothing like that.
There was no tragedy in it.
Just a fact.
I looked away before Hermione noticed.
We sat by the open window later.
Hedwig found the room without help.
Of course.
She sat on the windowsill.
Hermione gave her a small piece of something.
I looked over.
"You too?"
"What?"
"My owl gets fed in every house she enters."
Hedwig swallowed.
Hermione said:
"Maybe she's nicer than you."
"Impossible."
She hooted.
Traitor.
Hermione leaned against the desk.
"So you're going to Gringotts tomorrow."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
Fine.
"What exactly are you going to check?"
"Everything."
"That's broad."
"Exactly."
"Start with an inventory."
I looked at her.
"Inventory?"
"Of the estate."
Well.
Simple.
Obvious.
"Then ownership documents."
I nodded.
"The will."
Another.
"Information about your parents."
The quill in my head stopped.
I looked at her.
Hermione became slightly more serious.
"If they lived somewhere before you were born, there should be a document somewhere."
Yes.
There should.
"An address," I said.
"Or property ownership."
Well.
That was the first truly concrete question.
Where had my parents lived?
Not theoretically.
Not in the history of the family.
Physically.
Where had their home been?
I had never before had a reason to think about it that literally.
"That's a good idea."
Hermione looked absurdly pleased.
"Can you say that again?"
"No."
"I wanted to remember it."
"Don't you have that kind of memory?"
"Oliver."
I stayed for dinner.
I had not planned to.
It simply became six o'clock, and Mrs. Granger asked:
"You're staying?"
Not:
do you want to stay.
Not:
is someone waiting for you.
Just:
you're staying?
I hesitated a second too long.
"If it's not a problem."
"It isn't."
And that was it.
It was a little strange.
Not bad.
Just strange.
During dinner, Mr. Granger tried to find out whether magical dentists existed.
Hermione said they probably did.
I had no idea.
This worried him greatly.
"Wizards have teeth too."
"Yes."
"So who treats them?"
"I don't know."
"Hermione?"
"I don't know."
Mr. Granger looked more horrified than he had during the story about the troll.
I left before nine.
Hermione walked me to the gate.
Hedwig sat on the fence exactly where she had that morning.
"You don't have to rush off there tomorrow." Hermione said.
I looked at her.
"A moment ago you were saying the opposite."
"Because I knew you were going anyway."
Fair.
"Will you write back?"
"I was here."
"That doesn't mean you can go two months without writing now."
"Your conditions are becoming increasingly complicated."
"You'll manage."
"Perhaps."
I stopped.
"Thanks."
She frowned.
"For what?"
I gestured vaguely toward the house.
"For inviting me."
For a second, Hermione looked like she did not know what to say.
Rare.
"It's nothing."
I nodded.
Started walking.
After a few steps, she called:
"Oliver!"
I turned.
"Yes?"
"Don't forget to ask about property."
"I won't."
"And wills."
"Granger."
"And your parents' documents."
"I know."
"And?"
"Goodbye, Hermione."
She smiled.
"Goodbye."
Hedwig took off.
I headed toward the station.
I got back to the orphanage after ten.
The room looked the same.
Small.
Quiet.
At least now I knew why it seemed even smaller than before.
I sat at the desk.
Pulled out a sheet of parchment.
Hedwig landed on the windowsill.
"No."
She had not done anything yet.
She hooted.
"I'm writing."
At the top of the parchment, I wrote:
PEVERELL
Below it:
Vault.
That I knew.
Signet.
That too.
Then my quill stopped.
House?
Land?
Other properties?
Other vaults?
Ownership documents?
Elias's will?
Aria's will?
Family contracts?
Investments?
Who managed everything for the last eleven years?
I stared at the list.
There were far more question marks on it than a person who owned his own family vault should have.
I added one more.
Where did my parents live?
The quill stopped.
That question stayed.
I did not cross it out.
Hedwig hooted.
I looked at her.
"Yes."
I folded the parchment.
"Gringotts tomorrow."
Hedwig adjusted her feathers.
"Don't look at me like that."
A hoot.
"This time I actually know why I'm going."