Harry potter : Forgotten Lord

Time flew by over the following months as he focused on preparing for his exams and arranging his plans for the summer.

He also spent a lot of time talking to his new owl, who had taken to nesting in his dorm room rather than the Owlery. That said, she wasn't really his owl, she had made that abundantly clear after Padma had implied that he owned the owl and ended up getting bitten for the insult.

In truth, it was more like a partnership. He ended up naming her Serenity, just because it sounded like a suitable name. He had been tempted to call her Luna, since she was a 'moon' owl, but discarded it as not being very creative or original.

If he had to use one word to describe Serenity, 'snobbish' would be the word of choice. 'Diva' also came to mind, now that he thought about it. The owl was very much full of herself, but it did make him feel good knowing that Serenity had decided that he was worthy of her, not the other way around of course, and had chosen him as a companion. The owl was actually turning out to be very protective of him.

As far as companions went, besides often spending the night revising with Padma and periodically Penny joining them, all this took place under Serenity's watchful eyes.

One thing that they had all agreed on when they were studying in the library was that they needed to find a new place to study by themselves, and the school grounds were hardly suitable during the winter. So now another task had been added to their already extensive lists, that of finding their own quiet spot somewhere within the school where they could hang out and study. In short their very own common room, but far more exclusive.

Several weeks passed and the first signs of summer were in the air.

They still had close to 6 weeks left of the school year, but that did not matter much as most of the school was in exam panic mode already. It appeared that he and Padma were the only ravens not continuously hitting the books with looks of extreme anxiety on their faces. One older 4th year Raven even asked why he was playing chess instead of studying.

"Simple, I've studied ahead throughout the year; in fact I could have taken the first year exams by Christmas. I could probably even get an 'A' or an 'E' in my second year exams if I did them right now without much trouble, with history the only one I'd concerned about." He'd given this answer with a bit of smugness in his voice, as he was rather proud of his accomplishments. This caused many other students nearby who happened to be listening to pause in thought.

Padma couldn't help but roll her eyes at this in annoyance and exasperation; she had long ago given up trying to keep up with him lest she suffer a nervous breakdown. She had eventually settled on ensuring that she had mastered all the first year material, rather than trying any second year stuff just yet. However, she had picked up some second year material already, albeit unintentionally, simply from watching him.

Rather than compete futilely with Harry, Padma had decided to focus on an intense 3 way battle between Daphne, Granger, and herself for the position of top female student in the year rankings. Tracy had simply settled for getting good grades, rather than actively completing against them. That said, he knew if she managed to outrank any of them, in any subject, she would rub it in mercilessly. It warmed his heart.

The end of year exams results were broken up by overall rankings, i.e. the student who got the most grade points, and then by an individual subject ranking system.

This system was started by some centuries past Ravenclaw headmistress who thought it would encourage higher academic achievement through active competition, thereby driving students to work harder. In reality, it was only the ravens who actively took part in seeking the number 1 position in the rankings.

Most of the other houses just didn't care, as the Ravens almost invariably got the top 5 positions every year. In his personal, rather jaded opinion, the whole ranking system seemed to be just another means of the headmistress to discreetly promote her old house's students, over the others.

He personally thought that he'd almost certainly get the top spot in both charms and transfiguration. Daphne, if he had to bet, would get herbology and possibly astronomy too, if Pad didn't. Granger he just didn't know. He knew that she was studying like a Ravenclaw, though, based on how long she was in the library. He still wondered how she became a lioness...

In DADA, he personally thought Neville would be his closest rival for the top position. After all, the boy had been trained from a very young age in both duelling and combat by masters in the field, but not in the theory itself though. So he was sure he and Neville would have near equal results in the practical tests for DADA, but the theory portion would probably go to him as he doubted Neville would revise much for it.

This was especially true if the boy's friend Ron was distracting him; couple that with the boy's own overconfidence in his abilities and Neville would likely end up number two in the subject.

He was actually looking forward to the DADA exam and wondered if he could get extra marks for non-verbal casting. After all, he was only a first year, surely that would impress the examiner, since that skill was only taught at NEWT level.

During all of this, he also still had to go to his weekly appointments with Poppy, the school nurse. He had managed to persuade the nurse not to reveal anything her diagnostic scans showed without his permission.

After all, he had no desire for his medical data to become public, especially after she had passionately tried to get him to agree to a medical study of the ring's long-term effects on his core growth. Sure, in the abstract, he was all for helping to improve magical medical knowledge and understanding; but he had absolutely no desire for his rings and thus his dual lordships to become public knowledge.

The reality was that even if he wanted to be a proper test subject, he would have to reveal both lordships and that would raise questions, and frankly, he liked the advantage the two rings gave him and wanted to keep it secret for as long as possible. And He received no real benefits from taking part in the study. In fact would lose a valuable advantage over his fellow Lords. Since the study only offered negatives, he politely declined.

The argument with the nurse had gone on for a good twenty minutes before he finally put his foot down and pointed out that it was his choice and that if she persisted he would be forced to report her to the healer's board and put in conditions that she wouldn't be allowed to treat him in the future, period.

He didn't leave until he got an oath from her that anything her scans revealed would stay strictly between him and her, and no one else. He made it explicitly clear that this was especially true for his magical guardian, as he had no desire for the old man to put his overly long nose into his business again, when it ultimately didn't concern him.

After all, the last time the headmaster had interfered in his life, he'd ended up with his abusive relatives, nearly starved to death and living in a cupboard, and perhaps of even greater long-term consequences, his family's business empire had nearly been destroyed.

As his magical guardian he had been charged with the duty of running and rebuilding his family's businesses until he was old enough to take over. Instead he had merely sold off most of the damaged assets to other light-side families at huge discounts and left the rest to languish without active management.

What he had found out through Bloodmoon was that all of the families who had purchased these Potter assets were long-time Dumbledore supporters and allies. In the span of a mere ten years under Dumbledore's control, the Potter family had gone from being one of the top 7 business families in magical Britain, to being a third rate power.

The Potter Empire had been dismantled piecemeal and spread out like gifts between the man's favourites. It reminded him of how often, after a war, the loser's assets and possessions would be raided and shared as spoils among the victors. In this case, after the war, a weakened and vulnerable ally on the winning side had instead been carved up and spread around like graft by their trusted leader.

This was made even worse when you considered that his parents had won the war only by paying the ultimate price, leaving him an orphan. In the end, it was hard to tell who was worse, Dumbledore, wearing the shining robes of wisdom and goodness, or Voldemort, who at least never pretended to be your friend when he tried to destroy you.

He didn't know how he had kept himself from releasing the all encompassing rage he felt that day, after he had received Bloodmoon's report on the last 11 years.

All he knew was that Tonks had gotten a very good workout in their next couple of sessions. In time, once the rage subsided and he could think clearly again, he decided that he would rebuild it bigger, better, and stronger then before; he vowed that much to himself.

He would take back all that should have been his and more. After all, betrayal had a price that needed to be paid in time. Dumbledore and his light side sycophants would rue the day that they tried to destroy his family legacy. He would give them one chance to make things right, then the gloves would be off.

He was already planning how to make his vow a reality. Hopefully this summer he could even put some of his plans into effect. The Potter family's assets had been mainly in magical Britain and Ireland, with some mundane businesses acting as fronts for importing materials needed into the magical markets, i.e.

basic foods and textiles, and now metals, since Bloodmoon had begun using the Peverell accounts to buy up steel and iron and reselling to another source. It actually brought in very nice quarterly profits which he was pleased about. He did wonder though who was actually buying the steel, since steel was hardly used by wizards in general from what he knew.

He would eventually move into continental Europe and expand there. If he managed to get his own docks up and running again, he could bring in everything needed to fuel his long-term plans, while at the same time avoiding having to use another family's dockyard and the larger ministry fees.

Effectively he could undercut his rivals by not having to pay fees for using someone else's docks; simply put, he would undermine them, and only families who 'owned' their own docks could conceivably cut their prices to match his.

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