Chapter 74

That meant that the forest would be more dangerous than usual; especially to Harry and Sirius (Harry because he didn't know how to defend himself from the dementors and Sirius because his defenses had been stripped from him due to long exposure to the demons). The centaurs weren't pleased to learn they'd have to worry about the demons either.

And so Harry was forced back to the school; to the castle that was his prison.

It was safe to say that Harry was not in any way pleased with either Dumbledore (for keeping him locked up at the school) or the Ministry (for making his life inside the game more miserable than it already was). Harry, feeling more than a little rebellious, moved himself and Sirius down into the Chamber of Secrets and locked all of the castle's staff members out. He then took his frustrations out on the booming Red Cap infestation and a previously unknown ghoul population that had grown since Harry had killed off the Basilisk which had lived off of the monsters and an assortment of small rodents for several hundred years.

Shortly after the move, the almost thirteen year old learned that his virtual godfather was obsessed with rats. Well, more like obsessed with killing rats as Sirius hadn't forgiven Pettigrew for his betrayal; the man had relentlessly hunted out each and every nest of the creatures within the bowels of castle and killed them while in his animagus form.

For Harry's thirteenth birthday, Sirius managed to browbeat Dumbledore into letting him take Harry to Diagon Alley on a three day mini-vacation. The only two stipulations that Dumbledore had made before he agreed was that Sirius could not take Harry out into the muggle side of London and that no less than three guards were to accompany them for the duration of their stay so that Harry would be protected in the event that Rookwood found him. Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Sturgis Podmore were the three chosen guards (Moody and Shacklebolt both had auror training and both Moody and Podmore were old friends of Dumbledore's).

Moody (or Mad-Eye as Sirius called him) creeped Harry out, Podmore annoyed him, and Shacklebolt just filled him with pain because the black man reminded him of Agil due to his friendly personality, ready smile, and the way he carried himself like a warrior.

They arrived at the Leaky Cauldron via apparation (which was just as uncomfortable and disorienting as it was the first time Harry had experienced it) bright and early on July thirtieth and promptly checked into their room before meeting up with Harry's guard. After a brief discussion, it was decided that they would head to Gringotts first so that Harry could have a few things appraised.

Two of their three guards would remain outside to keep an eye on the Alley while the third (Shacklebolt) tagged along with Harry and Sirius. Shacklebolt was then left to cool his heels in the lobby when the goblins led Harry and Sirius off to have his Items appraised. The assessment would take all day and more than twenty goblins to appraise each and every Item that Harry had collected from the Chamber of Secrets.

They also willingly appraised some of the numerous Items that he'd picked up during his first two years from his various monster kills. Harry then sold off those Items he didn't feel he needed and made arrangements with the goblins to gift half a percent of the Chamber's wealth to the 'victims' of the basilisk as well as anonymously donating five percent back to Hogwarts. The amount he was gifting was less than he originally planned but because of just how much the hidden treasure turned out to be worth, half a percent of that wealth was still a small fortune.

His reasons for gifting that money to what he believed were NPCs and a fake school had nothing to do with any altruistic need to compensate the 'victims' for their suffering. All he was doing was covering his own arse to prevent the game from interpreting an attempt to keep the entire fortune as greediness and penalizing him for it at some point down the line. Had those NPCs been Human Players, Harry would have felt differently and shared far more of the wealth with them as was only proper (at least in his mind).

Donating to the school also meant that Dumbledore couldn't turn around and say he was hoarding all of that wealth as yet another excuse to keep him locked up longer. And while the donation had been made anonymously, he could and did keep an official record that stated exactly how much he'd donated to the school and how much had been gifted to the NPC victims.

All in all, it was a rather productive day for Harry and the goblins, though his trio of guards had complained incessantly about him being holed up in the bank from eight in the morning until ten at night.

Sirius on the other hand was proud of his godson; he'd gotten one up on Dumbledore (for absconding with the treasure right under the man's crooked nose) and the goblins (because he'd dangled all of that treasure in front of the greedy little buggers but only let them buy what he was willing to sell) when he'd taken possession of that treasure. The goblins were, on the other hand, uncertain of what to make of the stunted wizard, his strange magic, and the vast fortune he'd somehow been carrying around on his person.

.

.

.

👀The novel is available in PDF, visit my Patreon store👀

🚬Patreon.com/BlackGoku222🚬