Lord Chang waited in an office, his feet tapping impatiently on the stone. Outside, Harry and the girls watched him.
"Are you sure this'll work?" Apolline said dubiously. "Zis beauty cannot be hidden easily."
Hermione wordlessly pointed at the glass pane of the office. The four looked at their reflections — four goblins stared back at them.
Hook-nosed, short and ugly, pointy-eared male goblins, dressed in pin-striped three-piece suits.
Apolline shuddered. "It's like defacing ze Mona Lisa."
Harry ran a hand through his very real black hair — the reflection ran a hand through wispy gray strands.
"We're using tailored dream-husks," Hermione explained. "Think of it like being a nut in a pistachio shell."
"Except the pistachio is gross and ugly. Great job. Couldn't you have made us more important than fucking account managers?" Daphne grumped.
"You should be used to ugly nut, isn't that how you Slytherins climb the hierarchy?" Hermione said sweetly.
"Oh, so you're looking to fight—"
"Girls." Harry interrupted sternly. "Game faces, don't make me ask you again." He stepped into the office before they could argue back. "Lord Chang, your cart is ready."
"Finally." The man huffed.
"This is Gornuk, I am Farnok—"
"I don't care." Lord Chang said dismissively. "Just take me down."
Harry bowed his head. "As you wish." He led the group down the lobby, following Hermione's slight cues. The marble lobby had paintings of Goblin revolutions, but there were also several portrayals of Lady Chang — the man clearly loved his wife. Large ornate double doors sat at the lobby's end, with the familiar Gringotts warning engraved across their frame.
He glanced at the words as they pushed it open.
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed.
Harry shook himself. This wasn't the real Gringotts. It was Hermione's creation, which was only real enough to make Lord Chang believe it was real. Besides, they weren't stealing anything — they were just trying to find out what secrets the man was hiding.
Beyond the double doors, a familiar cart sat on a mine-track. In the corner, two golden statues were also familiar — looking closely, Harry realized they were statues of him yet again, phasing through from Hermione's mind.
Thankfully, Lord Chang barely gave them a glance. Daphne hooked her lantern onto the front of the cart and they each took a seat on the double benches.
The bank shook around them. Plaster dust dropped onto the track. Up above, a black ooze dripped from the cave rocks.
"What's happening?" Lord Chang growled.
Harry glanced over his shoulder and smiled pleasantly. "It's just the dragons. Feeding day." He lied.
He leaned over to Hermione and muttered under his breath. "Mione, why is the bank shaking?"
"No clue, but…the cart. It's set up." She gave him a reassuring glance. "We'll go straight to the vault." She said quietly.
Not quietly enough. "Well, where else would we go?" Lord Chang barked.
"Of course, my Lord." Harry pulled the lever.
With a jerk, they set off. He winced at the pull in his stomach, but Hermione seemed to be struggling more, her fingers clawing into his arm, her lip bitten so hard it was bleeding.
She met his eyes and he realized it was the plug in her bottom — she was having her very own rollercoaster ride.
The track became a maze of twisting tunnels, the cart rattling down deeper and deeper.
Behind them, Lord Chang seemed oddly fascinated, his head snapping left and right with every glimpse of a tunnel or a golden vault door, or the echoing roar of a dragon.
"What happens if we find a dragon?" The Chinese man yelled into his ear.
Harry and Hermione shared a glance. Everyone knew that. Harry pulled a leather bag from underneath his seat and held them up. "We use the Clankers, my Lord."
"Clankers?"
Harry grimaced as the cart hurtled down a steep cave, but he pulled the metal magical items free of their leather bag. "Clankers. You shake them, the dragons are trained to associate the sound with extreme pain. They'll flee any vault they're guarding when they hear the noise. Uh, haven't you seen them—"
"Of course I have." Lord Chang snapped.
The darkness of the cave was suddenly lit a misty blue. Not one, but a hundred different blues gleaming from the crystalline stalactites. The sound of rushing water was heavy, the torrent of the waterfall dripping down on the craggy rocks below. And ahead, there it was, the—
"The Thief's Downfall." Lord Chang exclaimed, sitting up.
Water dripped into fog, the charmed waterfall that washed away all enchantment and magical concealment.
"It won't do anything." Hermione whispered confidently as they sloped underneath it.
But when they emerged from the wet spray, Chang flinched. Harry looked into the reflective crystal stalactites and saw his goblin reflection had fallen away.
"Who are you people?" The man shook himself, staring at them in confusion and then at himself. "Where am I?"
"You're safe." Apolline tried.
"Uh, Harry." Daphne said in a panic, sitting right next to Lord Chang.
"Stun him."
"Stupefy." She obliged and then grimaced as the man's head fell into her lap. Harry threw an accusing glance at Hermione.
"I made sure it was just a normal waterfall!" She insisted.
"But Chang knew what it was supposed to do. His mind's fighting back against your architecture." Harry sighed. "The deeper we go, the less your designs will work."
"Great." She crossed her arms sourly. "Our plan's a mess, already."
"Every plan only makes it so far." He assured her. "Don't—oof!" The cart threw him forward as it stopped abruptly at the side of a large oval door, golden and gleaming. The symbol of House Chang was inscribed on the door, but the door was corroded and blackened from a strange black ooze dripping from the craggy rock ceiling.
"If my mindscape is getting overridden, that vault's not going to swing open for us." Hermione warned.
"Should have let me be in charge." Daphne muttered, using one finger to pry away Chang's head from her lap.
"Gringotts vaults need a willing participant not under duress." Hermione said, ignoring the blonde.
"I would have done it right. Should have used me." Daphne murmured under her breath, climbing out of the cart.
"Actually, Daphne, you're right. I need you." Harry snapped his fingers.
"I am?"
"She is?" Hermione scowled.
"This is why I brought you." He said. "This is the ego, the realistic part of the personality, where desires are expressed in an acceptable way. So I need you to talk him into letting us into his vault."
Hermione snorted. "Good luck with that."
Daphne looked eager, pulling her wand out of her coiled hair. "Can I threaten him?"
"If you think it'll help." Harry said, tugging Lord Chang out of the cart and onto the stone outcrop between the vault door and the mine track.
"Not under duress. I just said it." Hermione repeated. Apolline giggled.
Daphne looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Rennervate." She cast the Reviving Spell.
Lord Chang looked up blearily. "Wha?"
"Good morning." Daphne said sweetly.
"Who are you people? Aren't you a Greengrass? Harry? Harry Potter?"
"Obviously, we're under charms and Polyjuices." Daphne rolled her eyes. "We're just a few enterprising individuals in need of your gold, so be a good guy and open up, won't you?"
Lord Chang looked at her in bewilderment. His disbelief slowly turned to amusement. "You must be the first thief in history to ask for the gold to be delivered to you." He snorted. "Certainly, the real Lord Greengrass' daughter would never be so foolish."
Daphne didn't lose her cool. "We both know this vault door won't open without you being willing—"
"Which I am certainly not. It won't open even if you threaten me, you know?" Lord Chang placed his hands on his knees casually. Even sitting on the ground, he looked supremely comfortable.
"Which is why I'm not threatening you." Daphne agreed pleasantly. She reached into the mine cart and retrieved the Clankers. "But we gave these a shake before we came, and well, I don't know how long the noise keeps the dragon away? Harry, do you know?"
Harry shrugged. "Not long, I imagine."
Daphne held a hand to her chest in distress. "I'm not threatening you, of course. But the dragon?"
Lord Chang wasn't laughing now. "You can't leave me here. I'm a Lord!"
Daphne put her hand to her mouth. "Of course, we don't want you hurt. There'd be far too many people looking for us. And look, we didn't even bring bags, so we can't steal much of your gold. You let us in right now, we'll take as much as we can carry and then we'll all cart back up to surface."
Lord Chang looked at her sourly. He said nothing.
Daphne shrugged, twisting a lock of hair around her finger, her heel cocked behind her. "Or we cart back ourselves and we place some bets on whether the goblins find you before the dragon does."
Lord Chang's lips pressed together in a fine line. "…you are an impertinent little whore."
The blonde girl smirked. "Is that a yes?"
The man growled. "I, Lord Chang, willingly command this vault to open."
The vault doors glowed, and with a heavy rumble, swung open.
Daphne stunned Chang again — he didn't need to see what they found inside.
Within the vault, Harry wasn't sure what he'd expected. Gold, with a clue to Chang's hidden secret somewhere, perhaps.
Instead, it was a pure darkness.
A face emerged from the black.
"Dark in here, isn't it, Harry?" Tom smirked. It was a young Tom Riddle again, boyishly handsome in his Hogwarts uniform.
"Tom." Harry said, a dread pitting in his stomach. Not now, when they were so close.
"It's amazing what you've done with my memories, my experiences." Tom said appreciatively. "But just like me," He examined his own hands, his own skin. "You're still only a…" He sighed in disappointment. "A facsimile."
"Harry, what's going on?" Hermione said warily, her wand out.
"Two echoes." Tom continued. "Shades of a greater man. HELLO!" Tom yelled, his echo resounding around the black void of a vault.
The echo rang. HELLO-ELLO-LO-LOW. The echo died. "How can an echo defeat the original call? It is weaker every time it is copied." Tom said.
"I'm stronger than ever." Harry replied calmly.
"Yet you are just a copy of all that made me." Tom snapped. His anger dissipated as suddenly as it came. "I don't blame you, you know. All that flesh on offer. How could a teenager resist?"
"Stop talking in riddles, Tom." Harry said, following the man's movement with his wand. Beside him, his girls spread out.
"You don't tell your girls, do you?" Tom teased. "Remember, I'm in your head. I see you chasing after schoolgirls, manipulating them, coercing them in every morally dubious way. And while they distract you with tongues and throats, you don't tell them that our Lord Voldemort is still training, every second of the day."
"I'm every bit a match for him." Harry said simply. "And more than a match for you. You're just a shadow in my mind."
"We're both shadows, Harry." The man said sadly. "And how can a shadow defeat the torch? You're not strong enough."
Apolline interrupted, her voice fierce. "It is our love zat gives us strength. You wouldn't know!"
Tom gave her a withering look. "It is true." He conceded. "Love can be powerful. Love is sacrifice, isn't it, Harry? Your mother taught us both that."
In the black void, his wand glowed blue. A jet of light shot at Daphne, but Harry was faster, conjuring a golden shield.
Tom smiled, unnaturally red lips wide. "Your girls will sacrifice themselves, won't they? But their power dies with them." The man pouted. "I told you already, the flaw of the bond you chose. When they die, unlike my loyal Death Eaters, their power doesn't flood into you. It dies with them."
Harry's hand tightened around his wand, feeling the anger and the magic rise up. "They won't need to sacrifice themselves."
"Won't they?" Tom said, in mock-surprise. He threw another curse — an acid-purple scything cut that spat towards Hermione.
Harry stopped it in mid-air — the purple glow shone over Hermione's wide eyes.
"So you'll sacrifice yourself, instead?" Tom wondered. "What will you sacrifice, Harry Potter? Your fame, perhaps?"
The black void fell like a stage curtain, pooling on the floor. And behind it, the Daily Prophet was stamped to every wall and ceiling. Each paper had the same headline.
Potter speaks: "I TOOK WOMEN AGAINST THEIR WILL."
"Tut-tut, Harry." Tom smirked. Harry watched him pace to and fro, his mind working quickly. How could he banish this shadow? How could he separate Tom from his mind?
"Or maybe you'll sacrifice your family name?"
The headlines changed. POTTER ALLIES RENOUNCE HIS DARK ACTS, PROMISE RETRIBUTION. LORD LONGBOTTOM: "He has tainted the name Potter forever."
"Aww," Tom extended his trembling lower lip. "Little Neville has grown up."
"Stop playing games, Tom." Harry growled. "You're in my head, I've been in yours. There's nothing new in this sandbox."
Tom shrugged. "Just make sure, when you face the real Lord Voldemort, our creator, that you know the answers to these questions, young Harry. He will ask them of you. You cannot lie about who you are."
The newspapers fell away to reveal a new backdrop. His bedroom in Privet Drive. But this wasn't a vision of a future, but a memory Harry recognized.
It was him as a young scrawny boy, prison bars on his window. Young Harry wiped furiously at the tears on his cheeks as he etched a kitchen knife onto his wooden headboard, carving stick figures of friends.
Harry had forgotten. That dark summer before his second year, where he'd had all his magical supplies locked away. His friends hadn't written him. He'd felt so alone, so betrayed.
So friendless.
Later, he'd found out it was Dobby's doing. But before he'd known, it had been a painful torment.
"Never forget." Tom said slowly. "The boy who nobody loved, and the terrible things he did to feel so."
Harry felt the shame turn into burning rage that tore from his throat. "Crucio!"
Tom sidestepped out of the bedroom doorway. The red curse splintered against the corridor wall.
A wand peeked round the door. Harry batted away the curse that cannonballed from it, sending it through the prison bars that the Weasley boys had yet to cut.
"Are we doing this?" He taunted, smashing his bedroom wall with Bombardas that exploded out into the corridor where Tom hid. Harry didn't need to be careful — none of this was the real Dursley house, where he'd been only days prior, getting his dick sucked by Fleur.
"Harry, he wants you angry." Hermione warned.
"I am angry." Harry bit back. "I'll keep him busy — find what Chang's hiding."
She nodded anxiously, but he didn't have time to reassure her. Tom was waiting.
The duel was on.
Harry stepped out of his room. Something slithered across the carpet from the bathroom — snake-like Transfigurations of the undersink pipes. Chrome serpents hissing green water — he simply waved his wand and tied them in a knot.
"You've got to do better than that, Tom."
The house was silent in reply.
Tom was hiding.
Into the bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled taut. Harry yanked it from its hooks and sent it searching across the carpeted house, like a Lethifold patterned with rubber ducks.
He followed it carefully, checking each corner. Vernon and Petunia's room looked like an untouched showroom, as always. Tom wasn't hiding here.
The spare room was quiet.
Dudley's room was a minefield of toys, as always, like a child had emptied a catalogue all over the carpet, and every page had come to life.
Harry paused. It was where he would have chosen to fight. The ceiling fan whirred above — absently, he recalled the Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries he'd puree'd with the Engorgio'd fan.
Quickly, he inscribed a Cushioning Charm on the fan blades.
Not going to fall for my own trick.
The charmed shower curtain reached up to the bed, searching for something to strangle. The pillows under the blankets twitched unnaturally.
Found you.
Harry trained his wand, preparing a Killing Curse.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tom burst from twirling bedroom curtains, his wand firing wildly.
Harry flinched, retreating, his wandwork not fast enough to raise a shield.
Instead, he summoned Dudley's toys. A fluffy rabbit got decapitated into a ball of fluff, and Harry banished those white feathers into a projectile.
A toy car got electrocuted just before the shocking spell seared Harry's own nerves. Harry sent it to the ground and split it into five other cars, each of which carried a hastily-scribed rune for the Conjunctivitis Curse, a convoy to attack Tom.
Too simple — Tom flicked his wand and a floorboard opened up, like a crocodile's jaw, to swallow to the cars.
"Up for some dueling practice, Harry?" The other man taunted.
"Let's go." They exchanged furious spells, barely six feet apart. The walls lit up with colors of the rainbow.
Harry changed the pillows into screeching bats, with daggers instead of mouths, but Tom simply scorched the bats into a rainfall of flaming fur.
"Bats! Boring!" He drawled. "Try being more inventive, like so…"
Tom broke the huge TV into black shards, and each shard morphed into a black rat, biting with black teeth. Harry stopped the plague by Transfiguring the shaggy carpet high, synthetic fiber turned into Amazon jungle, beige vines hoisting rats into the air, caught by snare traps.
"I still prefer the batting." Harry answered, using his wand like a baseball bat to smack the hanging rats at Tom — the rats exploded into acid drops, sizzling into the wall and Tom's hasty shield.
The room was too small for a duel, so it became a show-off piece, but neither could get the advantage, because they were the same — they knew the same magic, the same tricks, the same techniques.
Harry faked a stumble into a scissor-double-curse, where two Cutting Charms flew wide and then snapped shut. But Tom was already ducking — a few strands of his hair floated to the ground.
Tom turned his body into a side profile, holding his wand behind his hip, to shoot from his front or his back interchangeably. A witch's saunter, the technique was called, meant for hiding the swishes and flicks of wandwork, hiding what spell would come.
But Harry knew every spell that came, for it was everything he would do.
Harry smirked at his counterpart. "Enjoying yourself?"
Tom licked his lips. "With every day that passes from the moment you stole my memories, he diverges from you. He learns, he grows, he researches. Aren't you afraid?"
Harry pirouetted to avoid a Entrail-Expeller that seemed to follow him, like a homing pigeon. "With every new love I find, I take on their memories. It must be a thrill for you — nothing is boring, sitting in the depths of my brain."
Tom smiled thinly. "So you think that's your power he knows not? That you can see how your busty Hufflepuff dimwit pronounces Wingardium Leviosa? They aren't sources of power, Harry."
Discretely, Harry conjured a sharp nail onto the disc tray of Dudley's PlayStation, the first step of a plan.
"But when I have a hundred? A thousand?" He challenged. "When they devour a library, I'll be gifted all of their knowledge. When they practice a spell in unison, I'll learn it in seconds."
Tom scoffed. "A library will not hold the answers to besting me. You will boast an army of simpering whores, mindless monkeys to flip the pages of useless tomes. My Death Eaters grant me power, Harry — when I am connected, filled with their loyalty, an Exploding Charm could level a city."
The man gave him a look of pity. "Do not underestimate the power of Lord Voldemort." Tom enlarged the ceiling fans above them, but Harry activated his Cushioning Charm rune.
The white fan-blades rubbed at his face like an affectionate kitten, robbed of their cut. The shower curtain got tangled up in the enlarged fan, so they were left with a shimmering translucent curtain of ducks that twirled between them, hiding each other in silhouettes.
Tom huffed.
Harry grinned.
The two men played, testing each other. The ceiling fan became their chessboard.
They scratched their moves onto each whirring blade, inscribing runes that affected the shower curtain hanging from each blade.
Tom added a Reversal rune and the Arresto Momentum spell to the underside of one blade — and every spell he fired through the patterned rubber ducks became rapid in velocity, barely fast enough for Harry to see.
"Cute." Harry countered with an Engorgement rune added to an Epoximise on a different fan blade — every object sent through the curtain became huge and violently bonded together, like the army of green toy soldiers Harry banished through it, melded into a vast misshapen green spear.
The spear took out half of the back-wall, leaving them looking out onto Privet Drive.
Tom sneered at the street behind him. "Living in your mind has only shown me how similar we are, Harry Potter. We both chafe at our Muggle upbringings. Why do we fight so?"
Harry swallowed the bitter residue in his throat. "We're nothing alike, Tom. You always hated the other kids, hated their carefree happiness. I just wanted to be a part of it."
Tom's mouth twisted, his expression ugly. "You wanted to be a part of this?"
"I used to wake up everyday wishing I had whatever it was that I thought would make me fit in." Harry admitted. "Yo-yos, Game Boys, Troll Dolls. I just wanted to have friends."
"Our power means we can never be like them." Tom replied.
"There was one advert I kept watching, because all the kids wanted this toy. I thought if I had one, they'd be my friends. Of course, Dudley got it, in the end. I still remember the slogan." Harry said wistfully. The ceiling fan turned, presenting the right blades, the right curtains.
"Do not underestimate the power of PlayStation." Harry repeated. With a flick of his wand, the PlayStation's disc tray flipped up, sending his conjured nail flying through the air.
Through the Engorgement curtain.
Through the speed-up curtain.
Tom couldn't react fast enough — the nail stabbed him through his chest, bigger than a sword, faster than a spear. He looked down at himself, his eyes bulging in shock.
"That type of nail is called a finishing nail." Harry said conversationally. "Apolline used one to make her daughter's crib — see, the girls do teach me useful things."
Tom coughed out blood, catching the drops in his hand. "This isn't finished, boy." He snarled. "As long as you're in your mind, so am I."
Harry smiled genially, adrenaline flooding his veins. "As long as we both agree — this is my mind. Now, get the fuck out of my way." His wand glowed green.
Tom dissipated into sparks. The house flickered away, like a dying candle. Harry was left in a vault of gold Galleons and treasure. The girls sighed with relief when they saw him, glomping him tightly.
"H-Harry! You're okay." Hermione smacked his shoulder.
"I wasn't worried." Daphne said unconvincingly.
"Did you banish your demons, 'Arry?" Apolline asked.
"For now, but we'd better move fast." He told them. "Did you figure out Chang's secret?"
Daphne winced. "We figured out it's not here."
He frowned. "Of course it's here. In Gringotts, where else would he hide his secrets but his vault?"
"Right." Daphne said slowly. "If you had a secret, you'd hide it in your vault. Except…what if it wasn't your secret?" She gestured them out of the vault, to the mine cart. "We need to go deeper. Deeper into Gringotts."
Harry jutted his chin. "Are you sure, Daph?"
She met his gaze evenly. "Trust me."
He sighed. "Into the cart, everyone."
They dragged a limp Lord Chang into the cart and pulled the lever again. They hurtled off at breakneck pace, descending down steeply.
"It feels like we're gonna find the Earth's core." Harry muttered.
"Except it's getting colder, not 'otter." Apolline shivered.
The air grew musty as they dropped. Their cart whipped through cobwebs that stretched across the mine tracks, like ghostly apparitions.
"Gah!" Hermione spat out cobwebs, picking it from her hair.
"You look like I do when 'Arry is done with me." Apolline interjected, glowing.
"Oh, puh-lease, like it's an achievement." Daphne sniffed. "Do you get proud when you turn a water hose on?"
"Hey!" Harry said, affronted. "I'm not that bad—"
The cart rattled, almost leaving the track as they whipped around a corner. Ahead, a metallic gray dragon whipped its head around. It narrowed deep red eyes, its heavy belly reached low.
"What the fuck?!" Daphne squealed.
The cart whipped underneath it, so close that Harry could see the gleam of his own face in the reflections of the dragon's scales.
They careered around the corner, and the dragon was left behind them.
"The Ukrainian Ironbelly." Hermione muttered distantly. "The largest dragon breed in the world."
"Thank you, Hermione." Harry bit sarcastically. He looked under his seat. "Where are the Clankers?"
Everyone looked back at Daphne, who slid down her seat. "I…I may have left them in Chang's vault."
"Fuck me." Apolline murmured.
"Perfect." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"It's not going to follow us!" Daphne argued.
But as they descended deeper, the cart slowed as the tracks became even older. The dust and the cobwebs began to create friction, the tracks not oiled for centuries.
At every intersection, they'd see the dragon's shadow, cast by the lantern on the front of their cart. A vast shadow that grew on the cavernous walls, but never showed itself.
They could feel it all the same — the heavy lumber of its steps, the shake of the tunnels, the whipping of cold wind as the dragon took flight.
"It's hunting us." Harry said flatly.
"We haven't stolen anything." Hermione complained.
"We don't belong here." He said slowly. "Where have you taken us, Daphne?"
"As deep as we can go, to the first vaults." She said anxiously, snapping her head around to look for the overgrown lizard.
Harry held his wand high. The tunnels were getting larger, little underground passageways exchanged for vast caverns of rock and crystal and the ever-present strange black dripping ooze. One cavern even held a lake of water beneath them, the still water broken by the waves the dragon created with its flapping wings.
"It's getting closer." Apolline warned.
Harry stilled himself. When the cart jostled them around the next corner, he was ready. His shield up, cast in brilliant gold — the Ironbelly's roaring heat seared their skin, but the flames didn't touch them. The cart skinned the bottom of its belly, but their spells splashed uselessly off its metallic scales.
The dragon vanished behind them, but its wings whipped ferociously, and though they couldn't see it, they could hear it getting ahead of them.
"We're on the spoon-track straight into its throat." Daphne snarled.
"Let's see if I can give it some medicine." Harry muttered, closing his eyes. He needed a spell rune — if they couldn't split the dragon scales, they could at least write on them. But what spell would defuse the dragon?
They swept through a tunnel of black and emerged once more, before the waiting dragon. It roared a breath of pure flame.
"Gah!" Harry held his wand aloft like a torch, forcefully redirecting the river of fire over their heads.
Daphne's blonde hair turned red in the firelight — for a moment, he thought of Ginny. The redhead and her famous curse, the one she used on her brothers and Slytherins alike. The Bat Bogey Hex.
As their cart slid between the dragon's claws, underneath the iron belly, Harry inscribed the rune from afar, onto the dragon's throat.
The dragon took flight again, through tunnels it had made for itself. At the next junction, it reared back and reached for its eternal flame.
It spouted only bats, through nostrils and jaw. Dark red eyes widened in comical confusion, a hundred bats flapping inside its mouth.
The Ironbelly choked as its prey disappeared once more. Confusion turned to rage. It was done setting traps.
"It's after us!" Daphne squealed. Desperate claws toppled the track behind them into the rocks below, its large wings flapping against the walls. Rotting planks fell to the abyss, claws tearing wood from girders.
"Guess we're not going back this way." Harry muttered.
The girls kept up a steady stream of curses, trying to swell its eyes, but the dragon kept coming, breathing bats.
"We're almost at the end of the track." Hermione said, stiff-shouldered, looking straight ahead.
Harry wiped his forehead. "The only way is through." He muttered to himself. Going back didn't matter — they just had to get to the next layer of Chang's mind.
It was like Privet Drive — nothing needed to be preserved. This wasn't real.
He brought his power to bear. His wand vibrated. He commanded magic.
And magic listened.
With a wrench of his arm, he brought the roof down. Rocks fell. Boulders rained. The tunnel caved in, dust falling along with debris, the whole underground shaking.
The Ironbelly shrieked as it was separated from them, inch by inch, glimpse by glimpse, until the last sight of it, a single red eye, was hidden by a boulder.
They could hear it shake and roar. But though the rocks lit a burning orange, they didn't shake.
The wall stood.
The cart stopped beside a vault. The vault was bronze, not gold. It was engraved with a number, not a symbol.
The number one.
"The first vault." Hermione breathed reverently.
Gringotts' first vault was a thing of legend. They said it was where the goblins' kept their war spoils, their ancient treasures. Unimaginable wealth.
Harry glanced back at Daphne, breathing heavily. "Why would he hide his secret in a vault he can't open?"
"Because it's not his secret." She bit her lip, bounding from the cart. "It's not a secret he was meant to find, not ever." She brushed the dust from the vault door. "I figured it out. It's why House Chang has grown so quickly, over the years."
Daphne looked back at Lord Chang, who was dribbling from his lips, unconscious in the cart. "It's why he has pictures of his wife everywhere, why he wears a shock cockring." The blonde beauty paused in realization. "It's why the Thief's Downfall made him so dazed."
She pulled open the vault door slowly — because a vault hidden this far down needed no more security, because nobody would ever climb back up from it.
Inside, it was simply a chest of drawers. And on top of it, spattered with black ooze, a yellowed piece of parchment.
"What is it?" Hermione said, her hands clasped together in anticipation.
"It's a truth that Lord Chang once knew, but it's been hidden here, away from him." Daphne said without reading it. She brought it to Harry, who read it aloud.
Lady Chang,
The party is pleased with your insertion. As agreed, you are approved to use any and all methods to ensure your husband 's compliance. The funds will be deposited regularly and your family will be taken care of.
Bring him to Gringotts each month — we have made a deal with the goblins to re-inscribe the runes - the blend of Confundus, Imperius, Cheering Charms and Calming Charms has proved to be most amenable to the possession methods you use. They have been instructed not to allow him to descend to his vault without you, because of the Thief 's Downfall.
Harry lowered the letter slowly. "Fuuuck." He declared. "He's a patsy."
"What?" Apolline frowned. "What's zis word?"
"He's a sucker, a fool. The front to take all the blame, if things goes go wrong." Harry explained. "The Chinese government is running it all through Lady Chang. She's an agent of theirs, a spy."
Daphne whistled, crossing her arms. "Nobody could see it coming. How many years has she kept it up?"
Harry shook his head. "They've got their own agent running him, deep inside British nobility. And they get pureblood secrets from this sex trafficking op, so they can blackmail and use other Houses."
He stared down at Lord Chang. "Poor bastard. He's not had an original thought in what? Fifteen years?"
Hermione was open-mouthed. "All this cruelty, for blackmail? T-then why give it up? Why does China want to back out of the Patel work?"
Harry hesitated, but not for long. "Because of me." He realized. "We thought the statues of me were because of Hermione."
"Aren't they?" Hermione said, her cheeks red.
"No. Because you've never seen me as the golden statue hero, sweetheart." He said confidently. "But the Chinese? They see me as their golden ticket. If they can marry Cho to me, they've got the ultimate honeypot."
Daphne slumped against the cart, her eyes clearing up. "The ability to influence the next Minister, a hundred years of British politics, the wealth…"
"To give a road into Britain to a 'andful more Chinese families." Apolline added thoughtfully.
Hermione snapped her hand into the air, like she was in class. "A-and the pictures of Lady Chang everywhere — they're because she's possessing his mind."
Harry nodded grimly. "Not just the pictures, either." He pointed to the black ooze on the chest of drawers in the vault. "The ooze everywhere. It's the effect of a decades long possession. Her taint."
"Merlin, Harry." Daphne palmed her forehead, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Lady Chang's the mastermind. We've dug this far and we're in the wrong bloody mind."
His lip curled. "Maybe, maybe not."
"What?"
Harry stroked his chin. "If Tom's taught me anything, it's that when you attack someone's mind, when you possess them, you leave your mind open. The tunnel opened goes both ways." He swept up the black ooze with his finger. "To possess him so deeply, she'll have a place for him deep in her mind, so she can pull his strings without concentrating. We can follow the trail back to her."
Daphne looked about the cave. "So there's a tunnel into Lady Chang's mind, here? A backdoor—" She flushed red.
Harry sniggered.
"Can you not laugh?" Hermione blushed.
"Eet is funny." Apolline giggled.
"You won't be laughing when Harry starts fiddling around with your backside." Daphne warned. She took a deep breath. "So we're going into a Chinese spy's head, deep inside."
Hermione raised a hand. "Uh, do we have to? What would we even do in there?"
Harry heaved himself into the mine cart and kicked his legs back on the railing. "We leave a message." He said slowly. "We'll be so deep in her brain that she'll be extremely vulnerable. Impressionable. We'll be able to make her do things she never would."
"A message?" Hermione frowned. "Saying what?"
Harry held up three fingers. "Three words. Let. Him. Go."
"Chang?"
Harry nodded. "We can't reason with her, not a loyal agent of China. And we don't want to war with China herself. But if we had a new friend, a very grateful friend, a man freed of his psycho wife…"
"That might just work." Daphne said hesitantly.
"He might be willing to sell his daughter off, without a ring." Harry speculated. "He might keep up business with Lord Patel."
Daphne settled down on his lap. She leaned to whisper into his ear. "I'm so wet for you right now. Power and politics is a good look on you."
"We can all hear you." Hermione snapped. "We're in an echoing cave."
Daphne shrugged, unembarrassed. "I am with you, is all I'm saying."
"So am I." Hermione said quickly. "Obviously."
Apolline shrugged. "A Veela stands behind her man, when she is not kneeling before 'im."
"How do we do this?" Hermione asked.
Harry paused for a moment. "This is the deepest part of his ego, where Lady Chang's possession is already showing." He shifted the chest of drawers, revealing more of the inky black ooze, pulsating like a heart.
The vault opened up the more they walked in. The ooze drip became a stream that became a waterfall. The waterfall became a pillar, of cascading black wrongness, a thick column that became as high as the eye saw.
"This is her." He said slowly. He'd seen this before, something like it, when Tom entered the minds of his oldest Death Eaters. They were all dominated by this pillar of control.
It made him wonder what his girls' minds would look like, after a year or ten.
"Wands up." He ordered. Together, they walked into the pillar.
The bank disintegrated. They were floating in a void, but it felt like they were flying, an unearthly wind brushing at their hair.
Harry blinked and found himself atop a mountain. A mountain in a forest of mountains. He took a sharp breath, but the breath never came.
A valley of towering pillar peaks, sandstone rocks topped with lush green trees. But each pillar was so thin and sharp, like a sword pointing at the clouds, a dozen of them, a hundred, even.
As one, they leaned over the precipice — the ground was invisible, covered by a shifting layer of dense fog. Or were they clouds?
Even the air itself felt like a sword, sharp and thin — every breath felt denied.
"Where are we?" Daphne muttered.
Harry had no answer.
But someone else did. A woman rose up in front of them, rising out of the clouds. Flying without a broom, her legs crossed, sat on a cloud of air.
Lady Chang smiled. "This is Zhangjiajie." She unfurled a hand in welcome. "I have been expecting you, Harry Potter."