Diff for "HPPT/GettingToGringotts"

Early Saturday Morning, Potter/Patil Private Classroom

All his years of living with the Dursleys had caused Harry to be an early riser so he was the first to arrive in their private classroom, followed by Padma sometime later. When Parvati arrived she found her sister sitting in Harry’s lap helping him advance his study of runes. Harry had noticed that the twins liked sitting in his lap and that he in turn liked them sitting there

“OK I’m going to have to leave for Hogsmeade soon, so, Harry, take off your robes so I can measure you properly.” Said Parvati.

After Padma had closed the book they were going over together and scooted out of his lap onto the bench next to him, Harry got up, turned so that he was facing both the twins and then took off his robes, causing both the girls to gasp in amazement for he was wearing very smart, Muggle semi-formal clothes.

“Harry,” Said Parvati, “Where did you get that?”

“Strangely enough, my aunt.” Said Harry. “She said that we all had to have one set of nice clothes in case of a special occasion or something and she didn’t want to be embarrassed by me if they couldn’t find someone to look after me so I got clothes that fit me properly just in case. She’s also the one that insisted that I had my own underwear because me wearing Dudley’s was ‘Filthy, disgusting, and not something that will be happening in my house.’”

“That’s good to hear, Harry, but I think that it’s too good for your date with Hermione tomorrow, so I’ll still need your measurements. But it is appropriate for your trip to Gringotts today.” Said Parvati, pulling a tape measure out of a pocket and taking off her own robes, which made sense as Harry had noticed that robes, which tended to billow, were not a good choice when you needed to do something delicate.

“Padma, Parvati,” Said Harry while Parvati was measuring him. “You two are free tonight, right?”

“Yes, of course we are, Harry, why would you think otherwise?” They coursed.

“Nothing, just making sure. See I figured that I should take my girlfriends on a date before I take my oldest female friend on one, even if it’s only to cheer her up, so after I’d made arrangements with the House-Elves for a private dinner between Hermione and I tomorrow I made arrangements for the three of us tonight.” Answered Harry.

Apparently this was the correct thing to say for it caused the twins to squeal and hug him. “Of course we’ll have dinner with you, Harry.” They said together. Harry guessed that this didn’t count as them finishing each other’s sentences. Maybe they didn’t realize what they were doing or they hadn’t actually tried to finish each other’s sentences.

Or maybe Harry was reading too much into the situation, Padma’s and Parvati’s reactions were pretty normal, apart from them speaking in plural before, so maybe they just said the same thing at the same time.

Having calmed down, Parvati started talking again. “Harry, I need to finish measuring you then I’ll head off to Hogsmeade and Padma can reward you for being a brilliant boyfriend to the two of us.” Before returning to measuring him.

“That’s nice to hear, Parvati, but my dinner with you and Padma isn’t going to be as nice as my one with Hermione. Thanks to you I’m going to have a present to give her, flowers and a nice dress for her and I’m not going to be able to arrange for those things tonight. I couldn’t use the Weasley Twins to get anything for the two of you, they might get suspicious and I can’t exactly ask you to get something for your own date with me.” Said a slightly upset Harry.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry, that you thought of it alone is enough. I will however be looking out for something or somethings for Pad and me to wear tonight.” Responded Parvati in an attempt to cheer Harry up.

“That’s another thing, Parvati, how am I going to pay you back for all of this?” Asked Harry.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry. Think of it as my contribution to making Hermione relax. Your actually taking her on a date while I’m buying the flowers, the nice dress she’s going to wear and the book, plus it’s not like I’ve got anything else to spend my allowance on, which is something that we should probably talk to you about before the summer.” Answered Parvati as she finished up.

“Why would we need to talk about your allowances?” Inquired Harry.

“Par, off you go to Hogsmeade. Harry that something I’ll explain later on, there’s something more important to talk about.” Interjected Padma, guiding Harry back to the seat he had been sitting in before.

Sitting down across her boyfriends lap so that she was side on to him, whereas before she had her back to him she started talking. “Now there is something far more important I think I should talk to you about, and this isn’t going to be fun for either of us, there are some interesting traditions associated the signing of a concubine contract.”

Having finished this ominous sounding start, Padma paused for breath before continuing. “Just like any other contract for buying something it is considered a wise idea to inspect the goods before signing. In the case of Concubine Contracts or anyother contract that involves binding one human to another, such as marriage contracts, this is especially important to make sure that what is described in the contract is what is actually being sold, you don’t want to bind the wrong persona after all. For this reason the purchaser and the girl, or in our case girls, will go of into a side room before the contract is signed and we will strip off so that you can compare us to the physical description in the Contract which will accompany our names and parentage.” This last bit had caused her to blush and stop.

This stopping allowed her to see that Harry had become upset again. “Harry,” She said. “You’re unsure of this again, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am, from the things you just said the two of you will become my slaves.” Replied Harry.

“No we won’t, Harry. The type of Concubine Contract we are looking at will only restrict us so that our husband, you, is the only man we will ever be interested in, which if the girl is sold top the right man isn’t a problem and very much like marriage. It can even be useful to the girl, you know how embarrassed Hermione was over her crush on Lockhart? Well she wasn’t the only one and being able to avoid crushes on men like him is something I very much look forward to.” She responded and snuggled closer to Harry.

“Now there’s one other thing. After the you check that we match description matches the Contract we won’t get dressed, but rather stay in there while everything else is finished, then the you will come back into the room and puts chokers on us and than we will leave via a Floo in the room. The reason for not getting dressed is symbolic, we entered this world naked and know we will enter your world naked. From what I’ve read it’s both embarrassing and romantic at the same time, it will be the first time you will see us naked and it’s all confusing.” She continued.

By now Padma’s blush had gotten deeper but she still hadn’t finished. Harry was right, she was like Hermione in liking to know things and pass them on.

“All this nudity is why Concubines and Arranged Marriages have fallen out of favour in England, the Purebloods think that that sort of thing shouldn’t happen while the lights are on and not under the covers. I’m actually surprised that Draco is an only child as his parents where the last know couple to use a Marriage Contract, and that generally means an acceptance of nudity and human sexuality.” She finished

-/-/-/-/-

1 p.m., Potter/Patil Private Classroom

“You ready to go, Harry?” Asked Padma.

“Yeah, not sure what I’m going to say though.” Answered Harry.

“Probably not much, chances are that meeting face to face like this isn’t critical, it just allows things to be moved forward quicker and signing it in person is traditional, at least for someone’s first contract or a big contract and this is both. Plus it’s possible that you will be signing more than one contract today. There’s one for the actual delivery of the remains and their rendering it down into separate products, one or more contracts dealing with selling it and at least one contract for leasing a vault from Gringotts.” Responded Padma

“Thanks, Padma, you’re really making me feel better.” Replied Harry.

“Well chances are we will spend more time talking to the family lawyer than the goblins. While it’s not directly related to our business with them, your family lawyer needs to talk to you about what is going on with the Potter Trust, and that could affect the goblins. Plus we need to talk to him about us.” She said, that last part rather sheepishly.

“Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Padma, but somehow I don’t think it’s working. Now what’s this about ‘us’?” He inquired.

“I sort of did a Hermione.” She answered. “When I saw my father last I told him that I would write the contract for you to buy Parvati and me and it turns out that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, I’ve already written to my father and got in contact with his lawyer, so today I can tell your family's lawyer what’s going on and to expect to receive letters from both my father’s lawyer and me. Plus we need to know how much money you can give father for the contract for Par and me, from what father’s said he’s planning on writing you into his Will and giving you more money than what you paid for us, but you still need to ‘buy’ us in the first place.”

“Padma, I thought you would be smarter than that. What caused you to do something so silly?” Asked Harry.

“Harry, this contract will define our future, I didn’t want anything to come up and surprise us, and by us I mean Par, you and me, later on. I think father let me go ahead with that so that I would learn my limits. You ready to go?” She said.

“Yes, here’s the Portkey.” He said, pulling said object out of his bag. Once they both had a firm hold on it he said “Coming” to activate it and they disappeared in the swirling colours of a Portkey.

Thanks to Tommy King for his beta'ing, firelordeg, and Alex for typos busting and all the folks at the Caer Azkaban and Seel'vor fan fiction Yahoo groups for all the help I can't keep track of