Leo opened the car door and climbed out. He looked down at his oil stained overalls. "I’m not dressed for a meeting like this."
Harry laughed. "Don't worry. The meeting is around the downstairs kitchen table, my favourite meeting place. All my best meetings have mugs of builder’s tea and chocolate cake and don’t worry if you drop some."
As they approached the front door it was opened by a tall middle-aged man, wearing what looked like a hotel staff uniform. "Good morning Mister Potter, Mister Blake, the gentlemen you are expecting are in the main kitchen, just down the stairs."
Harry walked straight in. "Thanks John, we’ll stay for lunch as well." John replied with the straightest face Leo had ever seen. "Very good, Mister Potter."
Leo had watched period dramas on TV with his mum. She loved them, Leo shook his head and laughed at them. Now, here he was in an episode of Upstairs Downstairs. Along the wide hallway was an open door. It would have been concealed if it had been closed. Harry turned in and quickly went down the stairs. At the bottom, a doorway led to a kitchen that was the width of the house and longer than it was wide. In the middle was a classic kitchen table with plain timber chairs, there was a large pot of tea, four mugs and plates and a large chocolate cake. Two well-dressed men stood up when Harry entered.
The older one grabbed Harry’s hand and shook it. “Harry! Good to see you again, and Mister Blake as well. I’m Roger Kenworthy and this is Gordan McDonald. We are representing Kenworthy, Le Blanc and Gomes. We have the honour of overseeing the Pimlico family trust on behalf of the Black and Pimlico families.”
After shaking hands all-round, the solicitors asked Leo and Harry and to be seated.
Kenworthy began talking. "This isn't a will reading as such, as Sirius' will only mentioned Harry to the exclusion of all others. However, there are other issues that Sirius either ignored or didn’t know about. These are the hereditary titles and the Pimlico family trust. Firstly, Leo, if you wish to claim your hereditary titles you only need to sign a formal claim letter which we have in your documents here and you will become Baron Purbeck and Viscount Pimlico. These titles are real and when activated put the Pimlico family trust at your disposal. If you don’t want the titles, then things stay the way they are, no titles - no money. If you accept, you will get an income of more than 80 million pounds per annum and a list of properties for your personal use. These include this house and the neighbouring houses on both sides in Purbeck Square, Swanfleet Hall near Swanage in Dorset, rural retreats in Donegal County, for trout fishing, the highlands of Scotland, for hunting, the alps in France, for skiing, and a villa on the Mediterranean coast near Nice. There are also security services, chauffeured cars, helicopters, private jets, and pocket cruise liners if you a need a little break away from it all. The trust has many properties rented out, shares and investment funds which may occasionally give you an income a lot higher than what I mentioned before.
Kenworthy put a simple letter printed on parchment in front of Leo. "Before you sign this however, I think Harry wants to talk about some issues you will face."
Harry turned to Leo. "Leo, it is certain that your name will become generally known, just because you are a real lord. People will make life difficult, you will be followed and photographed everywhere. The titles don’t give you any privilege or protection. There will be attempts to kidnap you and your family for ransom. As well, there are other issues I can help you with after you have signed up. If you don’t want this sort of life, I will give you a lift back to Fulham and you can carry on working for Arthur."
Leo sat and thought for at least two seconds. "Where do I sign?"
Kenworthy gave Leo an old-fashioned fountain pen, "Please use my pen". Leo put his signature on the parchment. The ink was shiny blue and then turned black when he lifted his hand off. Leo stared at the page, "What was that?"
Kenworthy smiled and replied. "That's a special sort of ink that can't be changed. Well I think that’s more than enough for today. Oh! I’ll need your bank account details as well. Just fill in this form and the first monthly instalment of six million eight hundred thousand pounds will go into your personal account. Your bank will certainly want to talk to you about what you’re going to do with it."
Leo copied his account numbers onto another form which was collected into a legal document folder. McDonald handed Leo a massive ring binder. "Here are the latest reports on the portfolios in the family trust. Please have a look at these, we can make any changes you like, but please take our advice before changing anything. Harry has had some experience with this sort of thing, he would be a good advisor."
Kenworthy stood up. "Thank-you Leo, Harry, call any time and Gordan or myself will help you. Gooday Leo, Harry." The two legal types climbed the stairs and were gone.
Leo sat and stared at the ring binder; it was about 10cm thick. He turned over a few pages, each page was a different property or company or investment fund. He couldn’t help it; his mouth was just hanging open and nothing came out.
Harry took over. "Let’s have lunch, Mary! Some sandwiches and tea in the library please."
Mary stepped in from the doorway. "Yes, Mister Potter. Are you finished with the kitchen now?"
Harry laughed. "We’ll get out of your way." Harry picked up Leo’s folder and guided Leo out the door and up to the hallway. "I should give you a quick tour. You can move in straight away, John and Mary are your household staff, of course you can make your own arrangements as you wish. They aren’t married by the way. John is happy with general tasks around the house. His number one job is to stop the riffraff from getting in. Mary is cook-housekeeper and she is particularly useful. John is ex Royal Marines and Mary served for years in the Metropolitan Police. They are both fifty something. You’ve seen the kitchen, there are pantries, storerooms, and a wine cellar down there and an under-cover connection to a mews house at the back. There is undercover parking and a workshop under the mews house for your motorcycle. John and Mary have their own flats above that."
Leo started to get his thoughts back in order. "How many people does it take to keep this place clean and so on?" Harry started along the hallway. "Don’t know. All the cleaning, washing, and ironing is arranged with service companies that come in each day, John and Mary look after the details. One of the things you have to get used to is that you can pay for all that and not notice it."
Harry turned into a small room; "This is the first reception room, visitors who can prove they are allowed in are seated here until you’re ready to see them. John has a little room on the other side of this where he can keep an eye on anyone coming to the door, it’s also the household office. Next, we have the main reception room, out the door and past the hidden stairway and the main stair way."
This room was much larger and quite grand, the decor and furnishings were real Georgian. Leo was led through a series of rooms and floors which would take some getting used to. A formal dining room, a drawing room on the first floor, master bedroom suite, other bedrooms on upper floors and finally a library on the first floor with a lot of books which it turns out were bought from pre-loved book dealers and hadn’t been touched in ages. Sandwiches and tea were waiting for them.
Leo turned to Harry, "Have you got all day to spend with me? Haven’t you got a job to do?"
Harry gave Leo a quick smile, "As a matter of fact, I have got all day to spend with you. I am doing my job right now. You’ve only just started learning how important you are, to me and to a lot of others, because of who your father was and because of who you are right now."
After his second excellent sandwich Leo let some nagging thoughts catch up with him. "Harry, how did you find me? How are you so sure about me being lord so and so? What about my mum? She would be starting work at the cockroach palace restaurant right now." Harry put his cup down, "You need answers to all those questions."
"First, the cockroach palace restaurant was closed by the health inspectors at 11 o’clock, so your mum is unemployed right now. An associate of mine met her outside the place and offered her a new job starting tonight. She will be house sitting a terrace house in Purbeck Square, next door in fact. I advise you most strongly to allow me to move your mother and yourself out of your flat this afternoon. The houses here are heavily protected. I just hope it is enough to protect you both."
"Second, I know you are Sirius Black’s son because your mother put his name on your birth certificate. The lawyers from every generation knew about the titles and family trust fund but the Black family weren’t interested. They had their reasons which would sound silly to you right now but maybe you will see later."
"Third, why was your name suddenly so important? This is where we start on the weird stuff."
Leo frowned, surely Harry couldn’t know; "Weird stuff, what weird stuff?"
Harry looked at Leo; "Your weird stuff, fires starting, things breaking or disappearing just because you are upset." Leo suddenly felt all cold, how could anyone else know about that; "How do you know about that?"
Harry looked away; "Leo, you know that scientists are pretty certain now that the universe is a much more peculiar place than anyone ever thought it was. Well! I and the people I work with come from the other side of peculiar. In fact, we are just like you, not normal, weird, strange things happen every day. The difference is that we have learned how to get some control over it. The easy way to explain it is to accept that magic is real, and wizards and witches can control it; most of the time; sort of."
Harry paused, looked at Leo and continued; "Now, magical people didn’t always keep their magic a secret. However, most of the world started to get very frightened of magic, they started burning anyone they thought were witches and so on. So! In 1692 witches and wizards got organized and decided to become secret. They all agreed to a thing called The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Leo, if you are going to use magic instead of being a victim of it, you are going to have to agree to be bound by this secrecy. You can’t tell anyone outside the magical world what is going on with you. There are exceptions of course, close family, like your mother. They must be bound to this secret as well.
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