Author: Corwin Verner (Hawklan)
Beta: DeeRose
Summary: The reading of Sirius Black's will and it's aftermath.
Disclaimer: The Potterverse belongs to Ms. Rowling, all other persons you might recognize to their creators. All you don´t possibly belong to me. This is written only to get the bunny out of my head and not to make any profit. So if you sue me the only thing I can give you is my negative bank account, but that you can have even without suing me. Just ask :)
Warning: This story contains some DD bashing, so if you don't like stories in which that happens, don't read on and it is also AU and will not follow canon too much.
Notes 1: My thanks to Odaroloc he pointed out a few ways to make the reading of chapter one much easier for you :)
Notes 2: Also many tx to DeeRose for “Beta” reading this chapter.


Chapter One

London, a small office in Diagon Alley

The reading of the last will and testament of Sirius Black, Head of the House of Black
Kitanaiel Verner looked around her office. It was quite packed with witches and wizard all of whom had received an invitation for this reading.

She was still a bit shocked about the idea that she had to read the will of Sirius Black, her former house mate (and sometimes lover if it suited her). While Sirius had been a prankster all his life she never believed that he had betrayed the Potters. Killed Pettigrew yes; she had never liked that rat so she easily believed that but betraying Lilly and James? Never in his life; dying for them yes but never betray them. James had been more of a family to him than all Blacks together (which honestly wasn’t that hard). Kitanaiel had been relived when after Sirius escaped Azkaban he hid in her home for a while telling her the whole story.

Kitanaiel was struck down with grief after he had been killed in the Ministry building, but now only a week later she had to fulfill his last wish of her. With an inner smile she gathered herself and stood up.

“Greetings gentle beings (as there were also a few non-humans in the room), I’m Miss Verner the solicitor for the estate of Mr. Sirius Black and it is my sad duty to read his last will. You are all here because you are mentioned in his will, but before I can begin. Where is Mr. Potter? He was invited as well.”

Dumbledore stood up: “I thought it best for him not to attend, instead spend his summer with his loving family and...”

“Stop right there, before you say anything more you old fart,” Verner demanded.

A shocked silence filled the room until an enraged Molly Weasley spoke.

“How dare you, to speak in such a way to …”

“Please stop Mrs. Weasley. I have my reasons and you will all see them soon enough.”
Verner turned to Dumbledore and addressed him. “Lucky for Mr. Potter you have no say in this. Mr. Black was his legal guardian after the death of Lilly and James Potter and because he was never convicted for the crimes the Ministry leveled on him, he still was his guardian until he died last week, now as his solicitor I’m Mr. Potter’s legal guardian until the reading has ended.”

She looked to Ms. Bones: “Ms. Bones would you be so nice to send a team of Aurors to get Mr. Potter?”
She gave a small folder to Ms. Bones “And I think after you have read this you will also want to arrest the Dursleys for child abuse.”

The head-Auror took the file and after looking through it for a few moments she stood up. “Ms. Verner, if I could use your fireplace please?”

“Of course” the solicitor answered.

The Auror threw a bit of floo powder into the fire and then put her head into the fire. “Mr. Montgomery? Send a squad to the home of Mr. Potter. Arrest his family for the crime of child abuse and bring him to me, if the Dursleys try to resist, use any force necessary. Oh and I also might need HIM, please contact him and tell him I may might need his help. Thank you.”
She turned again to the crowd. “Mr. Potter will be here as soon as possible.”

With a grin Ms. Verner spoke, “Good then we can start soon. Until then feel free to get yourself a cup of tea.”

*

30 minutes later

A small pop was heard and a bewildered Harry Potter appeared in the center of the room surrounded by several Aurors.
The solicitor spoke first, “Greetings Mr. Potter and sorry I have to welcome you to this reading. I’m Kitanaiel Verner a good friend and solicitor for Sirius.”

“Reading? What reading?” Harry asked in a quiet voice.

With an annoyed look at Dumbeldore she answered. “The last will and testament of your godfather Harry, it seems your headmaster didn’t just not want you here it looks like he didn’t even inform you about it. Am I right?”
“No, he didn’t and if I might say so, I’m not surprised he didn’t,” said Harry sullenly.

Molly gasped.

“He never informs me about anything and I lost my respect for him a while ago, so thank you for getting me out of my prison and thank you Ms. Bones that you finally arrested my jailers and torture masters.”
Molly gasped again “HARRY!!”

“Mrs. Weasley, not now please. I’m still mourning my godfather and annoyed about a lot of things I've found out since his death.” While saying that he threw a few angry looks at several people (who all swallowed a bit) and strangely a friendly smile to Severus Snape (who was bewildered about that and why he was here at all).

Harry then took a cup of tea and sat on a stool the solicitor had showed him.

After he sat down Ms. Verner spoke again: “Greetings again, now that all who are needed for this are here I hereby open the reading of the last will and testament of Sirius Black, Head of the House of Black.”

She sat down and pressed a small button on the muggle device Sirius gave her, a second later a large image of Sirius appeared and started to speak.

“Greetings Harry, my love to you and sorry that you have to sit here now and see this instead of us sitting somewhere and drinking a butterbeer.” After pausing for a small smile for Harry he spoke on. “Before I start I also have to say my thanks to Kitty here for all the help she gave me and still gives. So thank you my beautiful kitten and sorry I never asked you the question. Sadly now it is too late."

After the image swallowed a bit he went on. "So I think several of you wonder why you are here?” he asked with a diabolic smile. “Let me start and after I am done with each of you I have to ask you to leave the room because the rest is not for your ears. I will start with something good so please my friend Firenze, please come forward.” The image waited for a moment, while the centaur came from the background of the room.

“Hello my old friend, a shame we never can hunt together again, now please accept what I tell you because you more than earned it. Firenze the Centaur for the friendship and all the help you gave to James, Moony and myself I hereby adopt you into the House of Black.”

Several shocked gasped were heard.

“So Firenze Black, as I am the head of the family I grant your branch of our House the grounds, owned by the Blacks, known as the Forbidden Forest. From now on you and your offspring will be known as the Laird Black of the Forbidden Forest. The only request I add to that is that you deny access to it to the Headmaster of Hogwarts.” Again several gasps were heard.

“So old friend I hope you are not annoyed with me, but you know I love to rattle those bigots. Honor and a long life to you and please keep an eye on Harry for me. Oh and if you want you may stay because I think a few of the following things will amuse you.”

A bit shocked the Centaur bowed to the Image of his old friend “I will Padfoot, I will.” Then he trotted back to the rear of the room to continue watching the reading. With a smile he waited sure that the reading would only get more amusing if he ever knew old Padfoot at all.

*

After the chatter wound down again, Kitanaiel pressed the second button on the device she had been given and the image of Sirius continued. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” He smiled in the direction of Harry.

“And now I have an even better prank for you. My dear cousin Narcissa, would you please come forward?”

He waited for a moment and then continued. “You know I always loved you like a sister and was terribly sorry about the marriage to that idiot Malfoy. If you accept it I hereby declare as head of house the marriage contracts annulled, you will be known as Narcissa Black again. You also will get a nice monthly stipend deposited directly into a vault and a nice apartment in London for you to live as long as you don´t use it for anything but yourself. If you use it for your ex husband or your son no further deposit will be made and the apartment will be sold. If you accept this my solicitor will have a document for you to sign.”

After another shocked silence Narcissa went to Kitty and simply said, “I accept”. Without a word Kitty gave her a document and a pen. After she read the document Narcissa signed it with a small smile and then left the room.

*

Several hours and people later

“Dumbledore, once there was a time where you were a respectable man and a hero in my mind. But this time is long since past so I give you a thousand times more than I think you deserve, after this reading the Goblins will deposit one Knut into your account. Oh and you may stay for the rest.”

At this point Molly fainted.

Next Sirius called upon Remus Lupin

“Moony, old friend you know I always loved you like a brother and was thankful for your friendship. I know you will never accept money from me, so I won’t give you any, even if you more than deserve it. Instead I give you a piece of advice. Ask her, she will say yes if I have ever known her. If you ever marry her come back to Kitty she will have a small present for you two.”

The image bowed with a grin.

“Now we only have a few things left to talk about. Ms. Granger you are one of the brightest minds I have ever met. I wanted to thank you for the friendship you gave to Harry even after you knew how dangerous that could be. So because of that Kitty has a key to a vault for you, where I put few books and other assorted items for you. Please study them and thank you again for being a friend to Harry and if you want, feel free to stay and keep Harry some company.”

A bit astonished Hermione stood up took the key from Kitty and then sat down besides Harry.

“Harry? One moment please then I will come back to you, but first there are still the Weasleys. To all of you thank you for being a small family to Harry for all this time. While I can never repay this kindness Kitty has a key to a vault where you may find a few surprises you will like.” After they all took their keys they quickly left because they weren’t asked to stay by Sirius.

“Now to you Harry, sorry again that I can´t be with you any longer. I would have liked to see your grow into the man you will be. If Kitty has done her work you will never have to go back to those hate filled people you lived with. Sorry I didn’t do this earlier but we needed evidence to get you out of there and to get them punished for what they have done to you. Hmm now to the legacy I have for you. First I thought to make you the new Head of the House of Black, but after thinking about it I decided against it. Why? That’s quite easy. First of all you are already the Head of the House of Potter, Kitty can give you some help with what that means for you and second I wanted to give you some kind of normal life and not throw the responsibilities of heading a second House on too you. This faith I will have to put onto someone else who will be quite annoyed about it”

Here the image had an amused smile on the face.

“Harry, what I did for you is simple. I opened a Vault for you like the one I opened for Hermione with copies of the same books. My advice here will be to read and learn from them and if you are as clever as I think you are do it together with Hermione, as I said before she is quite intelligent and can surely help you a lot. I think if you ask her she will be more than willing to help. I think that is the best thing I could do for you. I also have some advice for you. If you try to kick Voledermort's ass don’t try it alone."

"Take all the help that is offered to you, but be careful and don’t trust Dumbledore too much. He may fight for the light but he often forgets that the “For the greater good” hurts more than it helps. So Harry the only thing left to say is. Kick that bastard's ass, trust Kitty and Hermione and also the new head of house Black and lastly find a nice girl and settle down, have a few kids and grow old. We don’t want to see you here for a long while. I love you like a son Harry, be careful and don’t forget to have some fun.”

The image smirked a bit and then turned to Ms. Bones.

“Greetings Ms. Bones, sorry I made so much work for your Aurors but I didn’t intend to go back to Azkaban for something I didn’t do. If Kitty gave you the folder you will have by now arrested the Dursleys, for that I have to thank you and it would be nice if you would call HIM after my last statement, to get it over with. Thank you Ms. Bones and be well.”

With those words he turned around as if he would look at all who were still there. “Because I was the last Black of my branch of the family the next Head of House would have been the Son of my cousin, but because I annulled her marriage to that bastard Lucius that, lucky for all, can’t be anymore. I had to take a few other steps to make sure a suitable heir will be called. Before I made this recording I reinstated the family tree brunch of my Uncle Panis Black. After he married a muggle and went to America my grandfather disowned him thereby throwing him out of the family. I brought his family back in and his last remaining descendant will take over the position as Head of the House of Black after I’m death. “

“Harry you will have something in common with my cousin. Like you he grew up without knowledge of our world because his parents were squibs and not the best parents he could have had. Until now he has no clue about his heritage. His grandfather bound his powers at an early age, because having magic where he grew up could have been too dangerous for him. Sadly my uncle died before my cousin’s eleventh birthday and so his power stayed bound. But that will change soon. Ms. Bones now it is your turn. Thanks again.”