3 Crafty Mother and Iron Born Father

-Three days after Diagon Alley, Chehalis Reservation, Washington, USA-

I sat across from Mel and she looked at me strangely. I simply smiled at her as we held each other's gaze. Even as a child, her future beauty could be seen. But most of all, the girl used to be my wife. I knew her as a through and through intellectual. And she understood what was happening.

Next to us were our parents.

"So you're telling me that you want to sponsor our daughter?" her father asked.

"Yes! Just like my son said. Your daughter and many other children on the reservation will receive monthly stipends and a college fund. Of course, you must sign the Non-disclosure agreement. As you can see, it's a few sentences long with secrecy as its only condition." My father was irritable as Mel's father didn't seem to be able to adjust as fast as he did.

Mel's father shook his head then surprised us by saying, "Good. Perfect! The ancestors have answered my prayers. The reservation is becoming barren. Future light deeming. Maybe our little girl is the spark to light a new way. "

"Huh?" my parents and I ask.

The man chuckles and says, "I knew what you were talking about. Mel has already told me that one day a blessing will come..."

My father facepalmed himself.

I then say, "Then sign the NDA."

"Tazmin…" Mel spoke.

"Cotton…" I corrected her.

"Cotton…" she replied. "Thank you, for this…"

She wasn't talking about life without financial worry. She was talking about life, period. I didn't bother to speak to her on a deeper level, I didn't tell her how we got into this new world or that Mira was also supposed to be with us.

I could tell she understood what was happening. And that was the last time we saw each other.

Though I said I wouldn't, I had decided to find Mel after meditating on it a bit. I didn't have to bring her into my life. But I could make her life easier. That's when I decided on easing the financial burden. It will be paid out for life and trickle down to her children even after I die.

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When we returned home, the house was already packed by movers scheduled to work the day we were flying back to the country.

I now found myself at the kitchen table with my parents, maps of England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and a stack of Documents.

"Alright, I'll take the lead. We make four piles represented by the four maps. Everything leftover goes in the center. Let's get to work." My father spoke firmly and we three dug in deep. After an hour in a half, the Hakopa Family Documents were sorted.

Instead of five stacks, we managed to make six stacks.

My father came to the table and handed my mother a cup of coffee as he asked, "Is that everything, son?"

"All assets registered with Gringotts New Zealand and unregistered assets left in the vault. If there's anything else, it's lost to us or at one of these properties." I replied.

"Well, son. This is called due diligence. Before you take over ownership of anything, you look over the state of the property. That's what we're doing tonight. Liabilities and asset assessments and potential."

"Alright, love. Let's get started." said my mother.

"New Zealand is dangerous for Cotton. Let's start there. We want to make it as slim as possible, cancel it completely if possible." said my father.

"Royal..." my mother hissed.

"He's right," I spoke without emotion. "It isn't safe. Dad, think of a plan then we can take it to Agnok. When it's finished, we change the Hakopa Family to the Hollow Family and give us some breathing room."

"Then we need to come up with a backstory of how Hollow took over." my mother added.

"These properties can all be closed out. We can have their valuables stripped and land sold. But there's the issue of the Hakopa ancestral Home." said my father.

"Cotton, do you want to keep it?" My mother asked.

"Strip it and sell it," I replied.

"Use the muggle market to sell it. As long as we don't contest, the wizards shouldn't have a problem. Hakopa will fade and no trouble will find us. But his Barony is an issue." Mother strategized.

"No, it isn't. We surrender the Barony directly to the Queen. We keep the magical world out of this as you said. All of these Wizarding World Peerages are related to lands known by the world. It's all under the Queen's control. Look, all of these Wizard houses are listed as official Lords. The only thing secret about them is their magic." My father compared wizarding peerages to muggles'.

He was right. All of their Lordships were no secrets. Only the wizarding Duke Families were listed as extinct and unlisted during the forming of the United Kingdoms' House of Lords.

"Ireland. Is an easy sale. One Barony, assets claimed but never cared for. We'll tally up, strip the land, and sell. But we also need to collect back pay from the vassals." Mother closed the stack out.

"England is difficult. It appears your biological father was quite the man. It turns out that he killed the Last Lord of Selwyn, Viscount Thetford, Theodore Selwyn. We'll claim it all and live off of it. Such a foundation can protect us in this new world."

"But we can't live there. " My mother added. " We buy a property somewhere else and rule by Proxy."

"Mmm." My father hummed, "The Selwyns had their fingers in a number of pies. Silver, Iron, Sapphire, Herbal fields, and a Wood where they charge for hunting and harvesting of beasts. The wood also has tenants."

"Sapphire? They sold it to muggles?" I asked.

"No, it seems it's going to the wizarding world. The biggest points of sale are China, France, and Italy. We'll have to claim their vault for more information. The same goes for that House in Ireland and all the little houses in between. Even if we have to pay millions, it's okay as long as we make tens of millions."

"Scared money doesn't make money," I muttered.

My parents smiled.

"That's right my boy." my father spoke, voice riddled with pride.

The day continued as the family hashed out all the details they could, based on the information from the Hakopa Vault. When a plan was set, we made our way to Gringotts to speak to Agnok. That's when the problems came. Selling of the Hakopa properties came easy. The Goblin's even offered services to strip the properties of valuables.

"Young Lord, sign here and make your father Lord Regent. This just says that he is your protector and you are not being coerced," said Agnok.

"No, bring us a document written in English." my father interjected.

When the new document was brought out, he looked it over and we signed.

"Now, these are the documents for the Establishment of House of Hollow. The House of Hakopa will be listed as a subsidiary so that you can use their benefits as a House of Conquest." Agnok explained to us.

We filled out the forms and paid the fee to have them sent to the British Ministry of Magic.

"Now, to end assets in New Zealand, Young Lord Hollow must venture to the ancestral home and open it," said Agnok.

"Isn't that Dangerous?" my mother asked.

"No. It's been ten years. We go in quietly, the goblins will do the extraction and we leave." Agnok explained.

Without closing out New Zealand, my father didn't want to handle any other assets. So we gave the administrative time to process as we looked for a new home.

I now found myself in the Leaky Cauldron, standing on a table, as many people told me of places that had a mix of humans and wizards but a larger Wizard population. In the end, a man shouted, "Godric's Hollow!"

'Hollow Family of Godric's Hollow...Catchy.' I thought.

"Isn't that under the Earldom of Potter?" my father asked the room.

The place fell silent.

"Sir, the Potters have been inactive for a decade. Despite the stories circulating around the world. The truth is, no one knows where the Heir Harry Potter of House Potter is." the barkeep explained.

"Well, is there a Baron or Viscount of Godric's Hollow?" My mother was calculating again.

"Umm, Viscount Potter became Earl after taking over the Peverall Family. In reality, it's the Earldom of Peverell, Viscounty of Potter, and there is no Baron over Godric's Hollow. Very rarely do such titles be awarded these days."

"Thank you, you've been of great service." My father tossed the man a Galleon and we moved on.

The next week after purchasing a house, we moved to Godric's Hollow.

Godric's Hollow was a village in the West Country of England. It was a small community, which centered on a village square with only a church, a post office, a pub, and a few retail shops. The residential streets were lined with quaint cottages. There was an area called Church Lane that leads up to the church. There was also a graveyard that was a lot more expensive than what my parents saw with their non magical eyes.

Exploring the place, I physically walked my parents through wards and we discovered a large number of gravestones with the family names, Potter, Dumbledore, Perverell, and Abbott.

My mother, naturally observant, points out a symbol that appears on the tombs of three of the four families. A vertical line within a circle, all within a triangle.

"How odd... Maybe it's some type of wizard cult." said my mother.

"It had to have started with this man or this one," I tell her, pointing at the graves of Ignotus Perverall and his son Ozarka.

"They connect here, Cotton. The daughter of Ozarka marries Henry 'Harry' Potter and everyone in his family thereafter bears the symbol on their gravestone." My father added.

"The Dumbledore Family then takes the mark here. 1899, Ariana Dumbledore. But the mark still stays in the Potter Family." I speak out.

"Cotton, we should solve this mysterious mark," my mother spoke with an excited smirk.

"Or we can learn necromancy and ask the two Perverall men themselves," I added.

"That sounds dangerous, boy. Don't push your luck." my father growled.

"Ignore that old prune. This is what adventure is all about." My mother whispered to me.

Days passed before we closed the door on New Zealand. But we moved on relinquishing the Hakopa Barony. The family got all dressed up and went before the Queen. Taking a Barony into her house was more profitable for her. But she had no idea that my father was IronBorn. This man had conditions.

After explaining the situation, the Queen and her consort lended my father their ear as he explained the massive reorganization of the noble houses because a House of Conquest is being revived.

Three days of talks ended, with the Barony of Godric's Hollow in the Possession of the House of Hollow. It was an even exchange under the condition that the Queen's house would be our first client when it was time to sell off more assets.

This change was sent down the line and forced the movement of our paperwork in the Ministry of Magic. When the House of Conquest Hakopa was listed as a subsidiary under the House of Hollow, the ball was finally moving.

We then hit Ireland first and the British Wizarding World was alerted to our presence. The Wizengamot poked their nose in and my father was forced to learn even faster. But instead of selling to the highest bidder, we compromised and sold the land back to the families that lost them. The Barony belonged to the Notts; it was one of their subsidiary titles. Naturally, we stripped the properties and collected the Rents that hadn't been paid out in over a decade. We then knee-capped them by claiming the vault of House Spriggan, former owners of the Barony. Essentially, we sold the Notts nothing.

What followed those events was a woman named Rita Skeeter of a local paper called the Daily Prophet, that had a lot to say about vicious and unmerciful dealings. She called us the House of Hollow Men, vacant of heart and soul. Everything that followed was even nastier. My father slapped a lawsuit on the bitch and we continued with our work.

We were cashing in on small conquests and selling properties left and right. Companies both magical and muggle were dumped as well. My father reasoned that we should build our house around the things we fancied. Fashion, art, literature, law, and whatever I would come to like as I grew.

After a month and a half of hard work, we knocked everyone over the head when we claimed the Viscounty of Thetford. And it was easy work getting into Selwyn's ancestral home after we claimed their vault.

But like the rest of our acquired properties, everything that required too much work or of little potential, was sold off. The Selwyn Ancestral home was stripped and all of the claimed vaults were combined as one. This was the start of our new beginning.

Tumultuous and wavy. Imagine how the rest of the tale is going to be.