62. Ancient West Family Vault

"This is it, Lord Potter." Harry was brought out of his thoughts by Rognuk's voice.

They were standing in front of a very old looking vault. Harry used his skill on it, and found that it belonged to some West Family. The whole vault was protected by various nasty wards that made it nigh impossible to open it without destroying its content.

Harry asked Alfred to open a portal in front of them directly into the vault. First Bogrod and Rognuk entered as Harry was wary about curses that might be inside like in the Lestrange vault.

Rognuk informed Harry that they had secured the vault after 15 minutes, prompting Harry to go inside.

The whole vault was filled with mountains of Galleons, Old Tomes, Beast skins and other materials and many such things.

"Rognuk! You should empty it first before counting the loots. I can't stay here for long. You can place it in some other vault and inform Alfred about it later." Harry was not afraid that they would cheat him because of the contracts he had signed with them in the past.

Instead of directly returning to Hogwarts, Harry first spent some hours in vault 9, reading books on crafting and Rituals.

Crafting because he really wanted to build his own Broom. And Rituals because he had come to realise that one can do many things, seemingly impossible, with rituals.

'Rituals can let someone know about their inheritance, one can adopt someone by magic using rituals, one can recreate a body using rituals. I think animagus transformation is also a kind of ritual. I will also need to invent rituals for purposes like making mom's new body..' Harry thought as he read books and Tomes on rituals.

Harry returned only when it was time for dinner. He went to the great hall with Hermione and Daphne, who were waiting for him in the common room. There they met Penny who was given the responsibility of guiding first year Ravens to and from Astronomy class.

It was a new experience for Harry. He really enjoyed the class and found himself relaxing looking at the wonders of the universe using the Telescope. He felt calm and happy and free for the first time since he had arrived in this world.

'so I finally found the thing for which I can confidently say * I can do this all day* ... or maybe night.. ' Harry grimaced at the realisation that he could only do this at night.

Next two days passed by quickly. On the first day they had DADA, History and Transfiguration. and on the second day they had Astrology, Charms and Potion.

In Transfiguration Mcgonagall showed off her animagus transformation and taught how to change a matchstick into a needle. Harry, Hermione and Daphne did it in their first attempt after which they again started to self study silently.

Harry noticed that Susan was indeed keeping her promise and even when Hannah expressed her doubts about Susan performing excellently in classes in front of everyone and again in private, she did not tell her about the notes and instead started keeping them in even more hidden places. Harry decided to let Hermione and Daphne teach her and some other good friends they had made during the week.

Gryffindors were trying continuously to become close to him. The girls there, like Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell made it their mission to try to keep Harry away from the girls from his house. While boys were a bit subdued except for one Ronald Weasley who came and talked to him saying they should become friends and he could teach Harry wizard chess. Harry was only able to keep things civil after making liberal use of his aura to make them listen to his words and in the case of Ronald Wesley to keep a distance from him.

As for Slytherins, they had stopped being a nuisance after the events of their last flying class. Harry assumed Snape might have been behind this sudden change.

It was after the last class of the week that things became interesting. They had Potions, which Harry obviously didn't attend. He was sitting in the common room talking to Penelope when Hermione and others came back from Potion class with angry and frustrated looks on their faces. They had surrounded a crying Sue Li in the middle and were consoling her as they helped her walk to the common room.

"What happened to you guys?" Penelope asked worriedly.

"Must be because of that resident bat.. so what did he do this time?" Harry frowned and asked them.

After a long and detailed explanation from Hermione, Harry understood the crux of the matter.

After the whole fiasco, Snape understood that he could not do anything to other houses like taking points or giving detentions.

"He was being a menace. Shouting, scaring and demoralising students. He yelled at Sue so bad that she started crying." Padma added.

" There.. There... Don't cry Sue.. I will not let his do this again. You do not look good when you cry. In fact I was telling Penny about it just now. That Sue looks cute when she smiles. Right Penny?" Harry consoled Sue, while trying to be funny for a few minutes finally making her stop crying.

Harry sent them for dinner saying he would come in a few moments after completing an important task.. He also secretly told Hermione and Daphne to come to his room with Alfred in a few minutes before going back to his own room.

It did not take long before Hermione and Daphne came together with Penelope tagging behind them saying she too wanted to talk to him.

"Hermione, Daph, did that man raise his voice on you?" Harry's voice was calm but all three of them could see that his eyes held cold fury in them.

"He indeed tried to disturb us many times hoping we would botch the Potion but you have taught us so well that we were able to adjust the ratios to make the perfect Potion, which I think angered him even more as only after that he yelled at Sue." Daphne said.