Petunia understood a lot more than the goblin thought she did and it wasn't long before she was raking the goblin over the coals of her very sharp tongue and browbeating him verbally into agreeing to rectify the situation at once.
Showing a greater understanding of the goblin nature than any muggle was supposed to have, Petunia had forbidden the goblin the use of his own name until every last stolen or fraudulently removed coin and item had been returned to her nephews accounts with appropriate interest and every single crook had been dealt with accordingly.
And the final person on that list had better be the no-name goblin toe nail scrapping she had the misfortune to be speaking to at that moment. Every person in the bank at the time, whether human or goblin, stared in shocked silence as this mere slip of a human woman took the goblin teller apart with ruthless efficiency.
She let him know, in no uncertain terms, she and her husband were Harry's lawful and legal guardians and had been since the night his parents had died leaving him an orphan when he was nothing more than a helpless fifteen month old infant. She bluntly informed the smug goblin neither of them had signed one single paper allowing anyone to withdraw so much as the lowest valued coin from his vaults.
Let alone valuable artifacts, jewels or books. Nor would they have done so even if they'd known he had vaults there. And for certain Harry hadn't signed such a paper since he'd only been a year old at the time. Can goblin babies read and write at a mere one year of age? The terrified goblin mutely shook his head. Why then did he think a human child could?
So the Goblin Nation was to make this travesty right with appropriate interest on the debt they owed him since they should have bloody well known any authorization they'd received was fraudulent. The thief wouldn't have gotten away with their crime if the goblins hadn't aided and abetted him or her in doing so. Or she would do her level best to personally ruin them all. And with what they'd allowed to happen to Harry's accounts, she was pretty damn sure she could carry out her threat very damn easily.
The goblin, who had paled when Harry's Aunt had begun loudly taking him to task right in the middle of the bank and in front of his supervisors, had whimpered when she demanded interest be paid on the Debt of Theft. A grim look from the supervisor had told him to agree and get the angry woman out of the bank as quickly as possible. So he had promised the cooperation of the entire Goblin Nation with Lady Tonguelash, not even noticing he had accorded her with high goblin honor by naming her as such. Within a week the locks on every Potter vault had been changed with new keys issued.
Each key was sent straight to Harry and only to Harry via Hedwig whom they had called for the delivery. It was well known in the magical world, even to the goblins, that Harry had a snowy owl he called Hedwig to carry his mail. It was also well known she was smarter and more capable than any other postal delivery bird and no ward had been found that she couldn't get through.
The Goblin Nation also knew she couldn't be tampered with now that she wore the Potter owl ring on her leg and the Potter crest medallion on a ribbon around her neck. Nor could those two items be removed from her by anyone but Harry. Nor could he be forced to do it as he wouldn't be able to do so if he wasn't in full possession of his mind and senses. So Hedwig was the obvious choice for getting the newly minted keys to the rightful holder of the accounts.
No one else had a copy of the new keys. Harry hadn't really understood why he was getting new keys until he'd read the letter that came with them.
That letter that informed him his Aunt had stopped by the bank before her family had gone wherever they'd gone. According to the letter, he now had a new manager for his accounts and this one would not be allowing anyone not named Potter into his vaults.
Nor would his new manager be allowing the withdrawal of coin, books or other items from said vaults just because a person produced a slip of parchment bearing his name or had a key they claimed belonged to one of his vaults. The goblins didn't apologize for allowing others to invade his accounts over the years but they did make it clear such actions would be rectified.
Nor would the goblins be giving out new keys without Harry's personal permission in person. No more would they accept a scribble on a piece of parchment or even muggle paper as his signature authorizing any individual to access his vaults or holdings. Now that they knew what Harry's signature really looked like, from the few times he'd been into the bank personally since he'd started at Hogwarts, it was easy to see how they had been duped for years by frauds. And really his former manager should've stopped the fraud after the first time he'd come to visit and demonstrated his true signature. That he hadn't, was why he was the former manager and not the current one.
Not to mention none of them wanted to deal with his Aunt again should they fail in their duty to him in the matter of protecting his inheritances. Next time she might get physical and though goblins loved to fight, none of them wanted to see how well skilled she might be in physical combat.
Her tongue was sharp enough. The last thing the letter had made clear was the Goblin Nation had declared a Debt of Theft was owed to him by themselves and they would be doing all they could to pay this debt in full.
Every goblin that had witnessed the encounter spread the word of the muggle who spoke and thought like a goblin and the name he had bestowed upon her, according her the highest honor his people had to give anyone.
None of the goblins involved seemed to have even the slightest problem with a mere human muggle woman being accorded a goblin name of honor in their caverns. She'd earned it. And that was all that mattered to them.
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