18 Chapter 18: Inheritance
A young man was sitting by the tree of a large Mansion. Not as skinny as he used to be. Not as unkempt as he used to be. His hair was no longer as greasy, his face no longer showed signs of acne, his teeth were no longer crooked and yellow, and his nose no longer looked like a hook.
He was wearing good quality black clothing that made him look like a noble prince in black. Anyone who knew him before would be very impressed with the many changes in the young man.
For those who know him now, this is the norm. Severus wanted to leave his old life behind. Lily, who decided to pursue her life without being his friend, Dumbledore who always favored his beloved Gryffindors, his fellow Slytherin who only wanted him to be a death eater and only considered him a friend for convenience.
His parents' house in which he had lived and suffered many things all his life. He would not sell the house he lived in at Spinner's End, despite the bad memories he had in that house, it was still part of his life. But leaving was one of his best decisions.
Now it was time for a new beginning. Severus knew it wasn't too late, he had everything ahead of him.
It had been a week since he had received the SCoP letter from the Salem Witch Institute and the unexpected arrival of Hermione, who was now Hermione Prince to the magical world, Severus Prince's cousin.
That's right, Severus had obtained the Prince family inheritance thanks to the ancestral ring Hermione provided him with.
Once Hermione and he had sworn the oath, they waited for her to recover to look for the ring and go to Gringotts bank.
It wasn't hard to find the ring which was in an old abandoned castle in the Republic of Ireland, apparently, Hermione knew its exact location, so it wasn't hard to get to the castle and take it from the place where it was hidden.
After taking the ring they both headed to Gringotts Bank which was in the middle of Diagon Alley, this was always a very imposing building.
Hermione had decided to hand the ring to Severus and wait outside while he climbed the white stairs that led up to a pair of tall silver doors manned by two goblin guards.
Severus was very interested in learning the techniques used by the goblins for the security of Gringotts, as he wanted to protect his own laboratory so that he could experiment on all sorts of things with peace of mind.
When Severus arrived in the main hall after passing through the silver doors, he saw many rows in the hallway each with goblins sitting at high tables doing their work. He also saw many wizards and witches waiting patiently in line.
Severus had never been to Gringotts much as he had no business at the bank due to his meager income, but he did know the inner workings.
Severus walked over to one of the lines where he found a smaller queue and stood in line for his turn.
When it was finally Severus' turn, he saw that the goblin was writing something without paying attention to him.
"Excuse me," he said trying to get the busy goblin's attention.
The goblin looked up in clear annoyance at being interrupted, then analyzed him for a few seconds up and down.
"What do you need, wizard?" he asked.
"I'm here to take the inheritance test and register as sole direct heir," Severus said and pointed to his ring.
"Very well... what is the name of the house?" the goblin asked.
"Prince," Severus answered calmly.
The goblin looked at him for a few more seconds and then began to look through a thick book on his desk.
"Let's see ... Prince... ah yes, correct, the house has no heir."
"So you want to go through the verification and proof of inheritance?" he asked, looking at Severus.
"Yes. I meet all the requirements to restore my pureblood status and become the heir to the family." Severus replied confidently and calmly.
"Correct, Dorgob!" he said and another goblin approached the desk.
"Call Master Korgad for a blood verification and an inheritance test," the goblin said once he arrived.
The goblin nodded and ran quickly, shortly after he returned with another goblin.
"Follow me, wizard," the new goblin named Korgad said to Severus the instant he reached his side.
They both walked through the vast marble hall, many wizards and witches were standing in line to withdraw some gallons or exchange currency.
Finally, they came to a private cubicle that was apparently the elf's office.
"So, a blood check and an inheritance test, is it?" the goblin said in his usual rude manner.
"Yes, I want to take the Prince family heritage and lineage test, to be the heir."
"Very well, first will be the inheritance test. That would be 3 gallons for the blood lineage verification."
"Here you have " Severus calmly handed the 3 gallons to the goblin, but inside he was cursing the goblins for this scam, 3 gallons was a lot of silver for a wizard, especially in Severus' situation who only has just enough and indispensable.
The goblin took the gallons complacently and then handed him a parchment along with a small sharp object.
"Here, take this and make a cut on your finger," the goblin instructed.
Severus made a small cut on his finger.
Then the goblin placed the parchment in front of Severus and told him to drop a few drops on it.
Severus did as he was told and stared at the unusual changes in the form of codes on the parchment.
It looked like a machine processing the information it had just received.
The goblin took the parchment in front of Severus and stood analyzing the changes just as Severus did, but he seemed to understand what was going on, unlike Severus who only saw strange codes.
After a few moments, the parchment seemed to have started to finish the blood analysis.
"It looks like you can indeed pass the heredity test, Wizard," he said extending the paper in front of Severus again.
The paper had information on Severus.
Severus Tobias Snape
Age: 16 years old
Father: Tobias Snape
Mother: Eileen Snape (nee Prince)
Magical Lineage
- Prince family (blood 50%)
'50%? that means my mother had already gone through the heredity test before she was kicked out of the family' Severus thought rather surprised.
Severus thought that he must have only 25% of the Prince's blood, as he hadn't expected his mother to have taken the inheritance test.
The children of the more orthodox and older pureblood families usually go through an inheritance test before they become the next heirs, this test is actually a blood ritual in which the wizard strengthens the blood of his family's lineage, thus turning the 'blood impurity' he has from another family into only pure blood of the family's lineage, making him a pureblood wizard with a pure lineage.
To perform the blood ritual, a mage must have at least 15% blood of the family lineage, be under the age of 18, and have the ancestral ring of the family in question. The higher the percentage of blood in the mage, the greater the chance that the blood ritual will succeed.
Although blood rituals are forbidden and penalized by the Ministry of Magic, since this is an ancient tradition of the pureblood houses to maintain and strengthen their lineages, the Wizengamot approved and allowed this ritual to continue to be performed under the strict supervision of Gringotts who are responsible for taking all necessary measures to avoid problems during the ritual.
It can be said that it is a fairly safe ritual as it does not compromise anyone's life under the supervision and measures of Gringotts. It managed to avoid the death of the wizard who goes through the inheritance test in case it failed.
"Very well, would you like to perform the blood test now?" the goblin continued, ignoring Severus' surprise at seeing what was detailed on the parchment.
"Yes, of course," Severus said. An uneasy feeling took him as he saw the goblin's eyes begin to glow brightly and his mouth curls up. That was not a good sign.
"Follow me, the chamber for the inheritance test is a bit isolated from the main facility," the goblin said as he led him through different corridors of the Gringotts bank.
They passed through several rooms and offices until they reached the bottom of one of the long corridors where they found themselves facing two large black doors with no doorknob, but a strange slot in the middle.
"Place the ring in the slot," the goblin told him pointing to the slot in the middle of the doors.
Severus placed the ring and a few moments later the two large black iron doors opened inward revealing a large chamber.
Severus watched in amazement as the huge chamber was carefully arranged with many candles around it.
He didn't know much about rituals, but he knew enough to know that there was always a price and that was why it was illegal. In this case, Severus knew that the goblins had managed to minimize this price to be paid, to the point where the Ministry of Magic agreed to make an exception for blood rituals used in heredity testing, but in any other case the use of rituals was strictly forbidden.
"Sit in the center of the chamber" the goblin indicated showing the only place in the chamber where there were no candles in sight.
Severus obeyed and then watched as the goblin pulled out a silver dagger, wrote runes on it, and poured a potion over it.
After doing that, the goblin began to chant in an unknown language.
Severus' eyes widened when the goblin stopped chanting and then he walked over to him, grabbed his head, and carved on his forehead some kind of rune.
It hurt Severus to feel the dagger cut and burn as it carved the rune into his forehead, but it was not an excruciating pain for him, he had suffered worse.
The elf took three steps back.
"Now the test begins," said the goblin.
The instant the goblin said that Severus felt as if molten lava was flowing through his veins, second by second the feeling intensified. Slowly he began to feel as if he was being torn apart inside, his head began to spin and ache.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and it seemed to lunge at his memories, his thoughts, everything in his head, such as the power of this flash that he felt it was impossible to stop its advance, it was the same feeling he had with the Sorting Hat, a unique and impossible to stop magic, a magic that could see everything about you, but Severus knew that this type of magic could not give that information to others, it was very old magic, Severus had read about this type of magic when studying the Sorting Hat.
Apparently, it was powerful but could only be given the function of using the information to select, it could not hand out or display that knowledge unless the wizard in question allowed it, such strange and unique magic.
Severus could now surmise that this ritual of the test of inheritance tested several aspects of one, blood, body, soul, and mind.
But to Severus' surprise, the light was consumed by the darkness of his mind, this darkness completely and easily devoured the light that seemed so omnipotent as it entered his head.
Soon after the light disappeared into this unknown darkness, the feeling of pain in his body and blood began to subside little by little.
Finally, a few minutes later when any pain or discomfort caused by the ritual had almost completely passed, Severus heard the elf.
"You have finished the test," said the goblin.
"So....this..., how did it go?" Severus was quite confused at this point, he didn't know what had happened or if it was normal, but he did know that the light didn't touch his memories.
