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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I create.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 299: The Fate of the Peverell House
Harry's spell illuminated the entrance, but nothing of note jumped into their field of vision immediately. The vault seemed to be at least as big as the Potter one, maybe even bigger. It was hard to tell without seeing the walls.
The floor was made of very simple grey stone, and there were no pieces of furniture, gold, shelves, or anything one would expect to find inside a vault.
"There's not much in here," Harry pointed out the obvious.
They then heard a loud 'crunch' noise coming from below.
"Wait! I think I stepped on something," Daphne said.
The three of them looked down at the same time. There was just enough light to discern exactly what it was.
"Ahh!" Daphne screamed and took a big jump back to get away from the 'thing' she had stepped on.
There were bones on the ground… but these were not just random scattered bones. They were bones belonging to a human hand that was still attached to the rest of the skeleton.
"A corpse!" Xenos exclaimed.
"Who dies inside a vault?" Harry created a few more spheres of light to get a better look at the skeleton.
It was lying face down on the floor, and from the looks of it, it belonged to a woman. She was still wearing a long elegant crimson dress, and her long dark hair remained mostly intact.
It was hard to tell if the face was completely decomposed, but no one seemed eager to turn her around.
"W-who is that?" Daphne approached again, very slowly, and remained behind Harry.
"Are you worried she is going to stand back up?" Harry asked her with a hint of mockery.
"Of course not!"
"That is definitely someone from the Peverell family." Xenos pointed at the sign from the Peverell House on the dress.
"Makes sense… this is their vault," Harry said.
"So we can discard a thief who sneaked in here and got trapped… not that it was very likely to begin with," added Daphne.
"And what about those over there?" Harry pointed ahead and several orbs of light illuminated the place better.
Daphne gasped when the light charms showed her the rest of the vault.
In front of them, several more skeletons were now visible.
"What happened here? How did so many people die inside this vault?" Daphne wondered.
As they got closer, they counted four more corpses at different distances from the entrance. Three were facing the vault door, like the first one they saw. It was like they all died while trying to leave the vault… it was very unsettling.
The one Harry found the most interesting was the last one. This one had died while clutching at some sort of stone altar near the middle of the vault.
"What do we have here?" This altar appeared to be the only thing inside this room. He moved the lights to observe it better. The altar itself had nothing of interest on it. No marks or drawings of any kind, it was like it was created in a rush.
But on top of the altar was a box… a pitch-black box.
"I believe we have found what we came here for." Xenos's eyes rested on the box.
Daphne was the only one looking at the last skeleton, the one resting at the base of the altar.
This one looked very different from the others. By the type of robes, it could be concluded this was a man.
"Those robes are incredibly fancy." She recognized some of the materials, like the very high-quality dragon hide that formed the outside of his robes, or the mixture of precious metals and stones that decorated it.
She had seen a few pompous Lords dressed up in similar fashion during her visits to the Ministry with her father, but it was a rare sight.
"Wait, look at this!" She spotted something glistening and knelt down to pick it up.
Right next to the skeleton's right hand was a ring. It was golden with a black emblem decorating its surface.
"Let me see…" Xenos got closer and took a better look.
"It's a family ring," Daphne said with absolute certainty. She had seen many of these types of rings already. The Lord or Lady of a house would be the only one who could wear them.
A quick glance at the emblem on the ring revealed who this person had been in life.
"I believe we are in the presence of the last Peverell Lord," Xenos said.
"And I believe we have discovered why the Peverell family vanished without a trace," Harry added.
These five people in the vault must have been the last members of the house at that time.
That would explain why no one had come here to reclaim the family ring and take care of the bodies.
"But how did they enter here?. The previous Lord had taken the key with him before leaving... that's how it ended in my family vault" Harry said.
"The goblins must have made another copy for them. After all, once the next Peverell Lord took charge, he could use his family ring as evidence of his claim. The goblins could not refuse him entrance to his own house vault." Daphne had read a lot about the inner workings of Gringots in her free time.
"I'm more worried about...what killed them?" She looked at the position of the bodies.
"It almost seems like they were trying to escape from something."
"Yes, you may be right." Xenos's eyes moved to the box. "And I believe the culprit is right here."
"The box… you mean…" Daphne glanced at it too.
The box was very strange. Even upon close inspection, they could not tell what material it was made of. But the most striking feature was its color. It was the darkest tone of black they had ever seen. It was so dark that it almost gave the feeling that the box was absorbing the light coming from Harry's light charms.
Whatever the box was made of, it was something very unnatural.
Harry stared at the Peverell Lord with a knowing look.
"You couldn't help it, huh? You tried to open the box."
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