do. How dare anyone think that they knew what was best for him! He knew his own mind, he knew himself, and he knew what was best for himself better than anyone else. He would not allow others to push him around just because they believed that they had the right to.
He came into Diagon Alley as it was still quiet and sleepy, shops were only just opening up and there were yawning witches and wizards here or there, but the bustle of the last months of the summer was not here, not at this hour of the morning, not yet.
Harry went to a small, out of the way eatery. He wanted to call it a café, but it was just too small. It had just three, two-seater tables and one small stretch of counter and a tired old man yawning behind it on a firm, solid and very padded chair.
"Good morning." Harry greeted cautiously. "What's so damned good about it?" The old man grumbled, but he gave Harry a kind smile regardless.
"I suppose I deserved that." Harry allowed wryly.
"Ignore me. I'm a grumpy old man with too many pains and not enough potions to cover them all. What can I do you for?"
"I was looking for a place to have a drink and maybe something to eat while I wait for Gringotts to open for business." Harry answered.
"Come in then, what do you prefer to drink?"
"Can I have some toast? I think I need a coffee to stay awake this early too. I tried some earlier and it wasn't all that nice, so I am hoping that it'll taste better here." "First time? Coffee's an acquired taste, much like firewhiskey. The more you drink it, the more you fool your brain into liking it."
Harry laughed as he pulled a chair up to the counter and sat opposite the man, who merely waved his wand and clinking and tinkering sounded from the room through a door behind him.
"Don't think I don't know who you are." The old man said knowingly. "Everyone knows Harry Potter, even if you age and grow, that scar will always be there. You're very recognisable. What business can you have at Gringotts so early, unless you mean to claim your lordship while so young? Most little lords' do you know."
"What lordship?" Harry asked curiously as he took a cautionary sip of the deep mug that had landed in front of him, it was strong and sweet and much better than the coffee flavoured sugar water he'd bought earlier that morning. He was never going back to that coffee shop again.
"Your father was a lord too, as far as I know, but with all that business going on at the time, he never had a chance to do much with it, but his father, your grandfather, was Lord Fleamont Potter. Surely you have been told this?"
Harry shook his head as he nibbled on his lightly browned toast. It was buttered just the way he liked it.
"I don't understand why you haven't been told, it is your birthright after all. You should have at least been told and taught about what it entails, even if you are too young to claim it without a special request from the goblins."
"What is a lordship?" Harry asked curiously. "Are you a lord?"
The old man scoffed in derision. "Me? No. I'm from a lesser branch of the main family tree, so it went to a cousin several times removed. But, nearly all pureblood families have a lordship attached; a seat on the Wizengamot and a voice in the Ministry. Surely you know all of this?"
Harry shook his head with a frown. "I don't know any of this, there's nothing about any of this being taught at Hogwarts."
"They won't tell you in school. School is for general learning and only a single handful in that school will even have a little lord who will claim their father's lordship upon his death. Who is your guardian? They should have told you all about this."
"My guardians are muggles."
"Not those guardians!" The man snapped impatiently. "Your guardian in the wizarding world."
"I…I don't think I have one." Harry said with a frown. "Of course you do, all little lords have a guardian if their parents have passed. They need one to tell them about all the things they need to know; the running of their house, their responsibilities in the Ministry and the Wizengamot, how to manage their family and their finances, that sort of stuff."
"I've never met mine." Harry said thinking hard about who could have taken such a position in his life.
"You must have. It's usually a godparent, though I heard of the mess with yours. Anyone could have laid claim to you as theirs after that, though I believe the Ministry would have stopped just anyone from claiming you, as special as you are. Because of that, the Headmaster of your school would likely have taken over, especially as he was your father's proxy on the Wizengamot and that spineless Minister for Magic, Fudge, wouldn't have stood up to or stopped him from claiming you, so Dumbledore should have told you all of this."
Harry frowned hard, trying to remember if Dumbledore had said anything about him being a lord, or his father being a lord or even Dumbledore being his father's proxy, whatever that was. He was sure he would have remembered being told that he would one day be a lord. But then, surely Sirius would have told him about this as his godfather, or at least mentioned it to him…but then Sirius hadn't been in his right mind and half of the very short, limited time they had actually spent together they'd been getting to know one another after Sirius' wrongful imprisonment, which hadn't left much time for such, seemingly, trivial things.
"I would remember being told such things." Harry said softly. "No one has ever so much as mentioned it to me." "Then someone, somewhere, has done you a grave insult and a serious injustice too. That someone would have his arse parked in your seat on the Wizengamot."
"Are people allowed to hold two seats?"