(August 1, 1993)
(General POV)
"Are you sure it wouldn't be better to do this tonight?" Rowena asked the others or more specifically, Godric as they all stared at Gringotts bank.
"Trust me. Goblins are much more alert at night. Throughout the day they will feel more secure and lax because every wizard or witch that goes to see a vault is escorted by a guide, not to mention they should have at least a few patrols on every level. At night the wards and curses will be more active and the patrols will have increased exponentially." Godric explained, not willing to deter from the plan.
For the whole month of July, minus a few birthday parties here and there, they had been planning this. They had a list of about twenty vaults belonging to Death Eaters who Voldemort might have trusted to safeguard one of his horcruxes, so they would have to move quickly to get to all of them in one day.
The four of them walked through the large doors leading into the bank, then headed towards the teller at the end of the hall. This was the head goblin on duty, and one of the few goblins who had the power to access most of the vaults.
"Excuse us, but we would like you to take us to our vaults." Salazar said once they were standing in front of the little creature. The goblin looked annoyed to say the least at being interrupted by some children, but the annoyance died fairly quick once he noticed the unique rings on each of their fingers. It had been almost two years to the day since he had first seen the weird material the rings were made from, and even now the goblin nation as a whole was trying to figure out the strange metal.
Deciding that it would be in his best interest to escort these children, the goblin stepped down from his chair and moved around to face the children. "And do you all have your keys?" He asked with a toothy grin. All of them presented their keys, then a few moments later they found themselves riding the cart to the lower levels.
Helga leaned over to Godric and whispered, "Are you certain you can drive this thing?" She was so quiet, Godric almost didn't hear her, but that was necessary so the goblin driving the cart couldn't hear what they were saying. "We'll find out soon enough, won't we?" Godric answered, not bothering to lower his voice like Helga.
The cart drove through the waterfall, the thief's downfall, with nothing out of the ordinary happening, and a minute later they arrived at their vaults. "Vaults 100, 99, 98, and 97. How long do you expect to be in your vaults?" The Goblin asked as he disembarked the cart and headed towards Salazar's vault first.
"That depends. Could I get your help looking at some stuff in my Vault for a moment?" Salazar asked while presenting his vault key. The goblin looked momentarily surprised, but he was quick to put on a neutral expression as he accepted the key.
"Of course." He answered as he inserted the key into one of the many openings, then pressed his hand to the door. The second the door opened, Godric hit the goblin with a powerful curse that made its legs buckle and caused it to fall to the ground in a similar manner that a puppet would when its strings were cut.
"Give me the potion." Godric said to Helga who was already digging around in her bag. "I still say we should have tested this a bit more than once. The effects might not last as long with it being a Goblin." Rowena chided for the umpteenth time.
"Savrin said there shouldn't be a problem with it. Do you really want to question him?" Godric asked while shooting an annoyed glance at Rowena before he grabbed the feet of the Goblin while Salazar grabbed the shoulders, then the two proceeded to carry the goblin inside Salazar's vault.
"I know Savrin said it would work, but even he admitted he had never tested it out on these goblins!" Rowena stated, wanting to be sure of everything before they did this.
"It's too late to turn back now, so just shut it!" Salazar growled, wanting to get this over and done with sooner than later. They were on a time schedule, and though they were well ahead of time, he didn't like the threat of Savrin hanging over his head.
"Okay, here it is." Helga said as she entered the vault and passed Godric a vial filled with a golden substance. Taking the vial, Godric approached the unconscious goblin and pulled a few sprigs of hair from atop its head.
"Bottoms up." Godric said as he placed the hairs into the vial, then downed it all in one go. The effect was instantaneous, and the others all watched as Godric's body shrunk and morphed into that of the unconscious goblin beside them. "Help me strip him." Godric said to Salazar as he began to pull the goblins' clothes from his body.
"Disgusting." Rowena mumbled as she quickly turned and stepped out of the vault. Salazar didn't like it, but he couldn't let Godric do everything on this so he began to pull the shoes from the goblin's feet.
"Give him the sleeping potion. We don't want him waking up anytime soon." Godric said to Helga once he was dressed in the goblin's clothes. With that, they locked the goblin inside Salazar's vault then once more boarded the cart.
"Time to see if this plan fails before it even begins." Godric said as he grabbed hold of the controls. Almost immediately the cart lurched forward along the track heading downwards. The cart moved for a short time before the first vault came into view, however instead of slowing down, the cart whipped past it.
"Where are you going?! You missed the first vault on the list!" Helga shouted at Godric. "I know. We're starting at the bottom." Godric said, surprising everyone because this had not been the plan.
"The security is more extreme the further we go! If it's in one of the higher vaults and we get caught before we get the Horcrux, we'll never get another chance at this!" Rowena argued, but Godric only scoffed.
"You just answered why we're starting from the bottom. Do you really think someone like Voldemort would entrust a piece of his soul with someone who didn't have the best protections gold could buy? No, it's going to be in the most secured section, and that's at the very bottom." Godric answered simply.
If Godric was right, and he probably was, that cut the list of twenty vaults they had to search down to less than five, and of those vaults, only three seemed like likely targets. "I hope you're right about this." Rowena mumbled under her breath.
Godric had an uncanny way of accomplishing things that the others didn't think were possible, and though some of his methods were questionable, his reasoning was sound at the moment so they would all follow along with what he said.
Once they arrived near the most guarded section of Gringotts, Godric parked the cart near what seemed to be a checkpoint as it were. Moving down a hallway, the three children and the goblin with them crept carefully along, not being noticed by a soul.
Just when they were about to round a corner, Godric pushed everyone into a dark crevice and waited. No one questioned him because they could hear the approaching footsteps. They all held their breaths as the three goblins moved past them, but thankfully there was no alarm.
Just as Helga moved to keep going down the hall, Godric grabbed hold of the back of her dress and pulled her back towards where they had been. Helga turned to glare at Godric, but a finger to his lips signaling to be silent stopped her, and a few seconds later she understood why.
About thirty seconds after the first group of goblins had moved past them, a second, much quieter group of two goblins crept through the halls, almost as if they were stalking the group before them.
Only after the second pair of goblins moved past them did Godric let go of Helga, then continued on through the halls. "What in Savrin's name was that? How did you know there were more goblins?" Rowena asked quietly.
"They're the fangs. They always follow after patrols. Back in the day they caused me a bit of problems, but I learned from them. Some knights learned from them as well, but they called it, 'Last man.' They guard the rear. Anyway, we need to move. Who knows how many patrols are wandering around here." Godric said, then continued on down towards the first Vault.
Once they got to a large opening, all of them held their breaths when the sound of something breathing could be heard. Peaking their heads around the barrier of rocks, all of them were somewhat surprised at the sight that greeted their eyes.
A gigantic dragon was tethered to the ground in front of them, barring access to four or five of the deepest vaults in the place. The beast's scales had turned pale and flaky during its long incarceration under the ground; its eyes were milky pink; both rear legs bore heavy cuffs from which chains led to enormous pegs driven deep into the rocky floor. It's great spiked wings, folded close to its body, would have filled the chamber if it spread them, but the close space prevented it from doing so.
They had all known there were dragons beneath Gringotts, more than one in fact, but none of them expected to see the Ukrainian Ironbelly. They were a rare and powerful breed of dragon, one not easy to deal with. At least for those who didn't know how to fight dragons.
"The bells." Salazar said quickly as he grabbed a strange object from a nearby box. "Bells? You want to signal to everyone that we're here?!" Godric asked in disbelief. "No, he's right! I read about this somewhere. Goblins train their dragons to fear the sound of bells." Rowena explained, but Godric wasn't hearing any of it.
Before anyone could ring their bells, Godric pulled his wand and began to wave it around the room, at once causing the rocks around the room to turn into chains that snaked out in every direction and began to entangle the dragon. Its mouth was wrapped shut as was the rest of its body that now looked as though it was in a cocoon of chains.
Walking past Salazar, Rowena, and Helga who all looked a little dumbstruck, Godric growled, "The bells defeat the purpose of stealth! Everything would have gone right out the window because you read something in a fucking book! Take this seriously or we're all fucked!"
It was rare that Godric was ever the one to be displeased with the others, but at this moment they all realized that there was a reason he had been so terrifying back in the day. Him looking like an angry little goblin only further accentuated his anger.
As they moved to pass the dragon and head towards the vaults, Salazar stopped only a foot away from the deadly creature. "I'm sorry." He whispered to the once great beast. He would have liked to set the dragon free, but if he did then it would have been impossible to complete their mission.
However, that didn't mean he had to like that decision. On the contrary he made a silent promise to himself to return one day and set this creature free, though he wasn't sure if that was actually going to be possible.
Shaking his head to clear the depression thoughts from his head, he moved quickly to catch up to the others. "With Avery dead, I don't think anyone will miss it if we clean out his vault." Godric said as he rubbed the greedy palms of the goblin he was impersonating together.
"You know, I think with all the time you've spent around goblins in the past, it affected your personality and that's why you're so greedy." Helga commented, causing everyone to pause in thought.
"You know, that makes a lot of sense." Salazar agreed. "To combat them he had to think like them. It seems only natural." Rowena stated, fully agreeing with the others.
"Fuck all of you. I was greedy before I ever got into conflict with the goblins, so there." Godric stated, then turned his full attention to the door of the vault. The potion he had taken earlier wasn't your average Polyjuice potion, but rather Savrin's upgraded version.
This meant Godric didn't just look like the little ugly goblin, he was the little ugly goblin. There was no time limit for how long it would last, but rather it would take drinking a second potion to remove the effects of the potion.
Pressing his hand to the door, Godric felt a burning sensation as the wards and curses read his palm to make sure he wasn't some intruder. However this was something that had been created by Savrin, so no one doubted that it would work.
Just like they expected, the door to the vault fell away, revealing a large room full of books and trinkets, jewels, and a decent pile of gold. One thing of note was the portrait hanging on the far wall of a man who looked rather ancient. Not wanting to leave any witnesses, Salazar ignited the portrait before the figure inside of it could get a good look at them, let alone begin to speak to them.
"Is the cup here, Helga?" Godric whispered in the voice of the goblin, which only seemed to make the others tense up in fright before they remembered it was just Godric in disguise. "I-I don't think so." She answered as she surveyed the room.
"Whatever. Lets clean this place up. With Avery and his son dead, no one will be claiming this vault, and I doubt the Goblins will report someone stealing everything in one of their most secure vaults to the public. If the ministry ever comes asking about it, I'm sure the Goblins will say Avery closed down his Vault before he died." Godric said, then began throwing things into a bottomless bag he was carrying. Everyone else began to follow his example and in a matter of minutes the room was completely empty.
The next Vault belonged to House Black. "Arcturus would let Savrin look around in this vault if he asked, so why do you want to look inside of it?" Helga asked Godric, who was ready to open the vault.
"I just want to see how much gold the old man really has. Apparently he used to be the richest man in the world before Savrin came along, and his wealth has only increased since then with calling in the debts owed to his house. Besides, a little peak won't hurt anything." Godric answered as he moved to put his hand on the vault door.
"Stop it, Godric! If we can't steal or destroy anything inside of it, then forget about it! Besides, none of us agreed to search this vault." Salazar said, stopping Godric before he could do anything to ruin everything they had worked for.
Reluctantly, Godric made his way towards the next Vault, which just so happened to belong to House Greengrass. "I thought House Greengrass was a neutral house? None of them sided with Voldemort during the war, so why would they have the Horcrux?" Rowena asked curiously.
"It was never proven that they were a neutral house. I just want to check a few things out." Godric said as he pressed his hand to the door. Entering the vault in question, Godric began to look around the room at all the weird objects.
"Huh… most of the books in here are about blood curses." He said to the others. "So are these items. They're meant for blood rituals." Rowena said while gesturing to a few items she recognized.
"So they practice blood curses. And here I thought they were neutral." Godric said mockingly to Rowena. "They don't practice it. They're suffering from it." Salazar said suddenly from the center of the room as he read from a book that had been placed on a pedestal.
The book itself was a record book of everyone in the Greengrass family who had suffered the curse all the way back to its founding. Sometimes the curse would skip a generation or two and give the family hope that they had finally seen the end of it, only for it to suddenly resurface when they least expected it.
The most recent entry into the book, Astoria Greengrass was born in 1982. She showed early signs of the curse, which was apparently why she was hardly ever seen in public.
"The girl is supposed to begin attending Hogwarts this year. If she's as weak and frail as this book leads us to believe, she's going to have a rough time of it." Godric stated grimly. "We can worry about that later. For now let's move on." Salazar said, no longer interested in this vault. If the only thing they could learn was blood curses, he wanted nothing to do with that.
"Do you think her sister having the blood curse is why Daphne is always so cold? She's always in the library looking through books, and doesn't like talking to anyone. Maybe she is just concerned for her sister and doesn't want people to know, so she pushes them all away by acting indifferent towards them." Helga said, voicing her thoughts on the matter.
"If you care that much about it, then why not just fix the girl? That would solve all of the problems." Salazar said offhandedly. He didn't realize that Helga would do exactly that in the near future.
The next Vault on the list was the Lestrange Vault. This one was iffy because the owners of the Vault were still alive, only they were all incarcerated in Azkaban prison so it wasn't likely they would find out about the break-in anytime soon, and it's not like the goblins could send them a letter saying how they were all robbed.
Opening the vault door, everyone was left dumbstruck at the absurd number of things littering the room. "They're fucking loaded." Godric said as he let out a low whistle. Just when he was about to enter the vault, Rowena cried out, "Wait!" She was a little loud, but not so loud that anyone else could have heard them.
"What?" Godric asked as he froze in place. "The room… it's full of curses. A lot of curses." She answered as she looked at everything around the room. "Do you think the cup is even in here?" Godric asked Helga who was staring at something high in the vault on the far wall. In response to his question, she pointed at what she was staring at.
Following where she was pointing, everyone saw a familiar golden cup with a badger engraved upon it. Rowena tried using Accio to summon the cup to them, but that didn't work. Salazar tried levitating it over to them, but that too failed to work. Helga tried to look for a way to get to it without touching any of the cursed objects in the room, but failed miserably. Finally Godric decided to try something.
"Hold still." He said as he pulled the tie from around his neck. With the fabric in hand, he waved his wand over it and transfigured it into a beautiful butterfly the size of a dinner plate. He whispered something under his breath as he raised his wand towards the butterfly, and they all watched as it fluttered its wings and rose up into the air where the cup was placed. Everyone watched as the butterfly grabbed hold of the cup and flew down towards them.
When the cup was right above him, Godric had the butterfly drop the cup into his hand, however, he was unaccustomed to being a goblin and had miscalculated the cup's trajectory and it fell inches away from his open palm and cluttered to the floor.
*Ding!*
*Ding!*
*Ding!*
It bounced three times before it hit the leg of a table, which in turn caused one of the cursed objects resting atop it to fall to the floor. Everyone held their breaths for a single moment before the candlestick that had fallen to the floor began to duplicate itself over and over, which in turn knocked more items to the floor.
"Grab the fucking cup!" Godric shouted at the others as he grabbed the butterfly tie out of the air and shoved it into his pocket before he began to move his stubby legs towards the door. Helga was quick to pounce on the cup, then hauled it and herself towards the door where the others were already exiting.
Closing the door, the sound of things duplicating could be heard all throughout the chamber, and they all knew they needed to get the hell out of there.
Running past the Vaults they had already inspected, they soon arrived at where the Dragon was still bound in chains. Without skipping a beat, Godric removed the bindings and allowed the beast the chance to move again, which resulted in streams of fire coming towards them, but they jumped past the barrier before the flames could reach them.
They had barely arrived at the cart when the sounds of footsteps running in their direction could be heard, but Godric didn't wait to see who it was before he pushed the lever forward, causing the cart to shoot off like a rocket down the tracks.
They arrived at their vaults in a few minutes, then they hurried to Salazar's vault where they opened the door and found the sleeping Goblin exactly where they had left him. Helga was quick to pass Godric a potion from her bag, and Godric downed it without a second thought. Even as his body grew and morphed back into his normal appearance he was removing the smaller goblin's clothes as fast as he could.
"Get the potion to wake him up! Salazar you start putting these clothes on him while I get dressed!" Godric said quickly as he began to throw his own clothes on. With Rowena's and Helga's help, Salazar had the goblin dressed in under a minute and Helga quickly began to pour a vial down the goblin's throat.
Godric, who had just finished putting his clothes on, ran over to where they were, and it was only then that he noticed something important. "The tie!" He whisper-shouted as he dove forward and pulled the tie from the goblin's pocket that he had stored it in. He was in the process of tightening it around the goblin's neck when it began to squirm and thrash beside him.
"What's going on here?! What are you doing?!" The goblin cried out angrily. "Oh thank goodness!" Helga cried out as she fell to the floor and hugged the goblin, who looked rather stunned at the contact with the little girl who was now audibly crying her eyes out.
"We were so worried when you suddenly fell to the ground! We thought you had died!" Helga cried out through her tears, further perplexing the goblin. "What?" He asked dumbly, not understanding what was going on.
"The second you opened my vault you suddenly passed out. We tried calling for help, but no one came. We weren't sure what to do until Godric started taking your tie off because he was worried you weren't getting enough oxygen, then you suddenly woke up." Salazar explained one of the many cover stories they had planned beforehand, though the tie thing was just improvisation due to the situation.
"Really? I just fell unconscious? For how long?" The goblin asked, sounding a little worried about himself. "Half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. I'm not sure, it was all so sudden, and we were so worried." Rowena answered as she clutched her shaking hands together in front of her.
"Oh, my. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience and worry I must have caused you. Please, let us forget this ever happened and let's get you your gold." The goblin said, sounding a bit embarrassed at the whole situation.
He had come down here to try and get some information out of these children, but instead he had gone and scared the life out of them. 'I hope they aren't too traumatized.' The goblin thought in worry as he awkwardly patted the back of the little blonde girl who was still sobbing on him.
Sniffling slightly, Helga pulled herself away from the goblin and looked at him with her red puffy eyes before saying, "We promise not to say anything, but you need to be more careful. Promise me you'll take some time to rest and relax yourself. And here, this potion is meant to revitalize the drinker's body. Please, I insist you have it. I don't want you to suddenly pass out again." The goblin was so shocked at the genuine concern the little witch was showing him that he didn't know what to say.
After a moment of just staring dumbly at the girl, the goblin relented and took the potion from her. "I'll take it as soon as we get back up to the lobby of the Bank. I feel as though some time off would do me some good." The goblin said, showing a toothy grin to Helga who nodded her head in agreement.
Godric and Salazar were impressed at Helga's performance, and it was only now that they realized their friend was a far better actress than any of them had ever thought.
Clearly wanting to forget the whole ordeal, the Goblin quickly moved and opened the other three vaults and allowed everyone a few moments of time to get some gold out for school, though they each only took one or two galleons.
They had all of the gold and silver that had been in Avery's vault to spend, and with the robbery just happening, they weren't about to put it in their vaults where the goblins could inspect them. They were quick to get the gold from their vaults, then Godric urged the goblin to hurry back to the surface because he really had to pee.
The four of them exited the bank building only seconds before it went on lockdown due to a security breach on the lower levels. "That was too close." Rowena said after letting out a deep breath. "You're not wrong." Salazar said, looking equally as exhausted as Rowena.
"Who knew our little Helga was such an amazing actress! You almost had me in tears!" Godric boasted, quite proud of his friend. "Yeah right. I don't see you crying over a goblin anytime soon." Salazar said, rebuking Godric's words. "Still, I have to agree that you put on quite the performance." He said, agreeing with Godric on that point.
Helga still had red puffy eyes from her performance and was in the middle of wiping her cheeks when a voice called out to them. "Hey! It's good to see yo-!" Neville called out, but he stopped mid-speech when he noticed that Helga had obviously been crying.
"Are you alright, Helga? What happened?" He asked worriedly. "Oh Neville! It's good to see you!" Helga cried as she flung herself forward and hugged her friend. "Godric has been playing some hurtful pranks on me, and I just don't want to hang out with him right now. Can you please take me to get some ice-cream?" Helga pleaded weakly to the stunned Neville.
"I can't believe you would go so far as to hurt someone, Godric. Especially our friend." Neville chided as he held Helga's hand and escorted her to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. "Poor boy doesn't stand a chance against that girl." Salazar said plainly as he watched Helga and Neville depart down the road.
"Why do you all get sick pleasure in making me look bad? I didn't even do anything this time." Godric said, ignoring Helga and Neville for now. "The key phrase there is 'This time'. Almost always do you do something stupid that warrants some form of revenge. Just take one for the team." Salazar said as he split off from the group to go do some shopping of his own.
"Hello, Godric!" Harry said after appearing out of nowhere with Hermione in tow. "It's about time you guys got here. Where are the others?" Hermione asked, only now realizing that Helga and Salazar were gone.
"Helga and Neville went to go get ice-cream and Salazar is off brooding on his own. Do you two want to go look at the new brooms?" Godric said, earning a happy nod of agreement from Harry, though Hermione didn't seem nearly as excited. "Why don't you two go look at brooms while Hermione and I go get this year's book list." Rowena suggested, earning a happy nod of agreement from Hermione.
"There you are Harry!" Came a familiar voice that drew all of their attention. Looking over, Godric saw Sirius Black walking towards them with a woman in tow, a very familiar woman. "Miss Winslow? What are you doing here?" Godric asked as he looked at his potions teacher, and it was only then that he noticed how much bigger the woman's belly had gotten.
It wasn't overly big, but there was definitely a bump. "I don't mean to be rude, Miss Winslow, but maybe you should cut down on the sweets." Godric said, and almost instantly a palm met the side of his face.
"Shut it, Godric!" Rowena growled as she quickly turned back to her teacher. "Congratulations, Miss Winslow!" She said happily to one of her favorite teachers. "Thank you, Rowena. For the compliment and for dealing with Godric. He can be a little uncouth and insensitive at times." The potions teacher said happily.
"When is the big day?" Rowena asked curiously. "The due date is December 26th. It'll be my own little Christmas present." The teacher answered. "Does that mean you're not going to be teaching Potions after the Winter Holidays?" Godric asked while rubbing his cheek. He was getting tired of all the abusive girls around him, but he wouldn't do anything for now. He would get them back later.
"Once the Winter holidays arrive, I'll be taking the rest of the school-year off to be with the baby. Don't worry though, the headmaster informed me that he has found a replacement teacher who is willing to teach for the remainder of the school-year, then I can come back for the following year." Elise answered happily.
"It's a good thing she actually likes teaching you all. If it were up to me, she'd stay at home and never work again." Sirius said, which earned a scoff from the woman on his arm. "You and your grandfather both can stuff it if you think I'm going to give up my life's dream. I am more than capable of being a mother and a teacher." Elise said, and Sirius knew better than to argue with her.
"So…" Godric started after a moment of silence. "I'm afraid to ask, but are you two going to get married?" He finished as he waited to see if he once more said something insensitive. In response to his question, his teacher held out her left hand and showed them all a beautiful diamond ring.
"It'll be a small wedding sometime before the start of the school-year. Nothing big or fancy." Elise told them, earning more congratulations from Rowena and even Hermione.
Godric on the other hand looked over at Sirius and shook his head in sorrow while mumbling, "You poor bastard."