The folder was still on my desk.
I had gone through it too quickly at the Ministry. I had been looking for specific things and found more than I expected: several properties, old rights, a seat on the Wizengamot I was still too young to occupy, and a family home so thoroughly hidden that even the Ministry did not know its address.
That last item had been on my mind for the rest of the day.
Now, though, I had time.
I sat down and opened the folder at the beginning.
Hedwig watched me from the windowsill.
"This might take a while."
She hooted softly and tucked her head beneath her wing.
Sensible.
I already knew the first few pages from the Ministry. The family's status had been restored, the succession confirmed. I was the recognised heir, and Elias was the last registered representative of the Peverell family.
There were no succession disputes or third-party claims.
That was something, at least.
I moved on.
The financial section was considerably more interesting than I remembered.
Primary deposits: Gringotts Wizarding Bank
Active vaults: 3
Archive vaults: 2
Family funds: active
Dedicated funds: 4
Family debt: none
Passive income: active
I stopped at the number of vaults.
Three active. Two archive.
For almost a year, I had thought of the enormous chamber beneath Gringotts as the Peverell vault.
Apparently, it was merely one of the Peverell vaults.
I looked at the number again, then reached for a clean sheet of parchment.
Other vaults — ask Thimgrin.
I was not going to guess what they contained. Over the past year, I had noticed that missing information had a nasty habit of becoming more complicated when I tried to fill in the gaps myself.
The funds were listed below.
Peverell Family Education Fund — active.
No surprise there. An old family had to pay for the education of successive generations somehow.
Family Property Maintenance Fund — active.
I spent longer on that entry.
A few pages further on, I found the section on the family home.
Ownership active.
Not managed by Gringotts.
No external administration.
Location unavailable.
I went back to the fund.
If the family home still existed, the money might tell me more about it than the Ministry's register.
The fund covered other properties too, so the entry alone proved nothing. But if anyone had paid for repairs, materials or protective enchantments on a particular property in recent years, there ought to be a record somewhere.
I added:
Property fund — check expenditure.
My first genuinely useful lead.
The other two funds were less clear.
The Legal and Representation Fund seemed straightforward. The Emergency Fund had restricted access and no explanation of what it covered.
The details were in the bank records or the full register.
Seven volumes.
I did not need to learn everything today.
I skimmed the property section.
Two buildings in magical London. Land in Yorkshire. A warehouse. Several plots.
Most were rented out or held under long-term leases.
That was almost reassuring.
The Peverells had not spent centuries doing nothing but studying ancient magic, curses and things connected to Death. At some point, someone had bought a building, rented it out and made sure the money kept coming into the family account.
An oddly ordinary arrangement.
The following pages covered historical family rights. Some had lapsed when the institutions associated with them ceased to exist. Others remained in force: using the signet to confirm succession, access to certain archives, and the right to represent the family in property matters.
I already knew about the Wizengamot from the day before.
The right still existed. The seat was vacant. I was too young to do anything about it.
It could wait.
The next section was more practical.
RESTRICTIONS ARISING FROM THE HEIR'S AGE
An underage heir retained ownership of the estate, access to records and current assets, and the authority to conduct certain family affairs.
Then came the restrictions.
I could not sell the family's principal properties.
I could not dissolve the funds.
I could not take on substantial financial obligations or assume full representative duties.
And at the bottom was exactly what Lucius had mentioned.
An underage heir may not independently establish a permanent residence without satisfying the guardianship requirements applicable to a minor.
Lucius had not been guessing.
Seeing the rule written on parchment did nothing to make me like it more.
I could own a house. Several, even. That did not mean the law would let me pack my trunk, walk out of the orphanage and announce that I was living alone from now on.
Below that was a note concerning underage wizards in the care of non-magical institutions.
My situation exactly.
Further down:
An heir whose succession has been confirmed may apply for a change in care arrangements.
That was more interesting.
I did not know what arrangements magical law allowed, or how much authority they would give a potential guardian over my affairs. Trading the orphanage for someone entitled to make decisions on my behalf would not necessarily be an improvement.
Information first.
Decisions later.
I added:
Guardianship — check the rules. No application.
I turned the page.
FAMILY OBLIGATIONS
I liked this section less.
Most of it was predictable: maintaining the protections on principal properties, keeping succession records up to date, and representing the family in any disputes.
Then I reached the last item.
Obligation to honour active agreements entered into by previous representatives of the family.
Beneath it:
Active long-term agreements: 6.
I put down my quill.
Money could sit in a vault for a hundred years without bothering anyone. An old title could lie unused just as easily.
An agreement meant another party.
Someone—or something—to whom the Peverells still owed an obligation.
I did not know who had entered into those agreements, when they had been signed, or what they required me to do.
One might concern a building in London.
Another might require me to deliver a goat to the Burkes every full moon.
After a year in the magical world, I was not going to dismiss the second possibility merely because it sounded ridiculous.
I added:
Six active agreements — obtain the full text.
This time, I underlined it.
The next section was marked restricted.
Family medical records: partially accessible
Family succession records: accessible
Documentation of family protections: restricted access
Private archives on deposit: confirmed
Access status: dependent on the type of deposit
I lingered over the medical records.
There was no reason to assume they concerned Death's Sight. The family had existed for centuries. They must have suffered ordinary illnesses, accidents, poisonings and curses like anyone else.
But if the Peverells' shortened lifespans were more than a family legend, medical records were one of the few places that might offer something concrete.
Dates of death. Symptoms. Recurring conditions.
Perhaps nothing.
I put the medical records on the list anyway.
The private archives interested me for a different reason.
Until now, I had come across information about Elias by chance.
His name. A note in a margin. A remark from someone who remembered him. Things he had handled or taken an interest in.
I had never really sat down and tried to piece together his entire life. For most of my first year, other things had occupied me. Magic at first, then increasingly whatever was happening to my eyes and around Hogwarts.
Now, for the first time, I knew there might be official documents Elias had signed as the family's representative.
Agreements. Instructions. Applications.
Perhaps a will.
They did not have to contain the Peverells' secret.
Even a bill for a roof said something about the man who had once owned it.
I wrote:
Elias Peverell's documents.
That was enough.
The last section of interest concerned family magic.
The Ministry confirmed that the signet, the line of succession and the hereditary protections were all active.
For anything beyond that, the entry simply read:
No administrative data available.
So they knew something was working, but not how.
I looked at the signet.
Something had happened the first day I put it on. My eyes had begun to itch, and my vision had briefly blurred.
I had never established whether the signet had reacted to my eyes or my eyes to the signet.
I ran my thumb over the black stone.
Nothing.
Hedwig raised her head.
"I'm not doing anything."
Her gaze shifted to my hand.
"I touched the signet."
She tilted her head.
I lowered my hand.
I was not going to win that conversation.
By the time I finished, there were seven items on the separate sheet of parchment.
Other vaults.
Property Maintenance Fund.
Six agreements.
Guardianship.
Private archives and medical records.
Elias's documents.
The family home.
The last item mattered most.
I did not know the house's address, but I was no longer entirely without a lead.
If the fund was still paying for its upkeep, Gringotts should have records of those expenses. The bank also held the Peverells' documents, maintained the family vaults and employed Thimgrin, who had been looking after the estate since before I was born.
It was the obvious place to start.
Tomorrow, I would return to Gringotts.
I put down the quill and closed the folder.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
A bed.
A desk.
One window.
A wardrobe whose right-hand door still would not close properly.
I looked at the slightly open door.
Somewhere in Britain stood a house that had belonged to me since the day I was born.
I did not know what it looked like or where it stood.
Nor did I know what remained inside of the people I had barely known.
The wardrobe door creaked softly.
I did not get up to close it.