13th January 2018. Hogwarts Ruins.
Inheritance is a pillar of the wizarding world. That's what Gornuk, a goblin banker, told me when I turned up at Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
It had been a year since the incident. I'd spent it in Russia after being posted there by the Minister for Magic. Then, dark wizard rings dominated the political scene; I was sure at the time that I was working for the notorious Crow's Eye organisation instead of whatever puppet they called the Russian Ministry for Magic.
My position was an enforcer of crime instead of the justice I held dearly at the time.
I deserted and snuck back to England. In fact, I was in Gringotts to withdraw all of my remaining money before going into hiding.
Perhaps you know, but what I learned that day altered history, well… obliterated it, actually.
Years before, I had been told that the Potters had no other vaults and that my entire inheritance from Sirius had been given to me by my dearest Headmaster.
Imagine the shock, betrayal and disbelief I felt when some goblin, some creature, informed me that there was, in fact, a family vault left behind by my parents. Furthermore, my dear Headmaster had been accessing it for the first seventeen years of my life and withdrawing enormous sums in the name of looking after me.
If he'd still been alive and I had been that same young and naïve follower of his, nothing would have happened. He would have justified spending all my money on funding the war and creating muggleborn bursaries that Hermione so ironically took for granted. All necessary for his manipulation of the corrupt structure we had the gall to parade around as a government.
I'd lost the right to the Potter title and seat in the Wizengamot after Dumbledore, as Chief Warlock, judged me too impure. Oh, how I laughed; Dumbledore, a half-blood, had snatched my birthright by claiming bloody purity was an issue.
The Black family vault had been slowly emptied over the years by Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black. I had never claimed the title left to me by Sirius and was unaware of its existence. So inevitably, there had been no one to stop Narcissa from increasing her monthly stipend. From the moment of Sirius's death, Narcissa, as the last family member, had taken partial control of the family finances. Draco found himself with a relatively healthy trust fund due to her efforts.
I considered bringing them to court, but considering my situation, I found it unlikely that any judge would rule in my favour.
If there was one silver lining, it was Sirius and his last action. He left me his bloodline, the gift of family. Through a ritual, I transformed my flesh into that of the Black family and inherited his mantle as Lord Black.
Then came revelations that changed my future. First, I was the heir of the cursed Peverell bloodline. That should have been obvious after my experience with the Deathly Hallows. Still, I had never known what connotations this connection had. Second, I was the Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Peverell.
The secrets of my bloodline were still blurred to me at the time, even now, I don't know precisely what flows in my veins, but ignorance wasn't something foreign to me.
Finally came the biggest joke in wizarding history. I, Harry James Potter, vanquisher of Voldemort, was made the new Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Slytherin.
Several factors came into play, mainly because every pureblood family in the wizarding world was related. With the combination of the Potter and Black bloodlines, I had pure enough Slytherin heritage to become an heir. By defeating Voldemort, I had become the sole heir and taken the title of Lord for myself.
That was how I gave up the Potter and Black titles and received a far grander and more illustrious heritage in the form of the Peverell and Slytherin bloodlines.
------------------------------------
27th May 1993
A new star was born that night; it streaked across the sky, headed straight toward the magical centre of Britain. Muffled implosions covered the sky as the projectile broke the sound barrier. A human-shaped asteroid collided with Stonehenge.
The ground shook as the circle's centre exploded in a mixture of soil and stone.
Ares Peverell-Slytherin had arrived.
------------------------------------
Hogwarts.
Sparkling blue eyes shot open as magical waves impacted an old man's supernatural senses. It was the first time he had felt a magical natural disaster so close to Hogwarts in one hundred and twelve years of life.
Albus Dumbledore was best described as cautious when specific topics were related, if not bordering on paranoia.
Anxious to find out what happened, he immediately contacted some of his followers to explore the site of the occurrence.
He knew it was probably pointless, but he couldn't afford any unknown variables while he raised *cough* cared for Harry.
After all, it was for the greater good of the wizarding world.
------------------------------------