Disclaimer: Por desgracia, soy dueƱo de nada de lo que sigue.

The Unexpected Key

Vita woke up very early on Sunday. A dream had scared her out of her wits and yet, it was already fading from her mind. She opened her curtains and watched the sun rise out her window. Her kitten, Nala, climbed over to her desk and pounced on a pencil. Vita reached over to the orange, tabby kitten and swung her over to the windowsill. Nala immediately pawed at the window, trying to get at the bird's nest in a nearby tree. Vita grabbed a book and read until her brothers thundered downstairs for breakfast.

.o0o.

Vita was sitting on the sofa, reading, when there was a clap like thunder and a knock on the front door.

"Vita, could you get the door please?" her mum yelled down the stairwell.

"Sure, Mum," she called back, setting aside her battered copy of Through the Looking Glass. Professor Longbottom was standing in the doorway. "Well, come on in," she motioned for him to sit down. "Mum's not ready yet, but the rest of us are." Just then, her brothers thundered down the tightly spiraling staircase.

"Hello Mr. Longbottom," Damien said jovially while Jeffery nodded at the professor.

Professor looked curiously at Vita as they both left in search of food. "They're not twins, are they?"

"No, they are," Vita replied, "Just fraternal. Jeffery's more like Mum and Damien's more like Dad."

"Hmm... All the twins I've ever met have acted like they're the same person."

"They are, Jeffery's the ears and Damien's the mouth."

Professor Longbottom chuckled at that and Vita's parents walked in the room.

"You have a car, right?" Longbottom asked. The Hamlinsons looked incredulous.

"Of course."

"Well let's go then. We'll first be driving into London and I'll guide you from there." Everyone packed into the Hamlinsons' minivan and off they went.

"Now, turn right here. Ahh, here we are. Park in that spot." Longbottom pointed at a spot that was situated in front of a dingy little pub called the Leaky Cauldron. The funny thing was, it didn't have a parking meter.

"Strange," Mr. Hamlinson muttered. "I must've walked down this street a million to get to work and never once saw this pub."

"It's charmed so that Muggles won't notice it unless they're accompanied by a witch or wizard." Professor answered the unasked question.

"That would explain it," Mr. Hamlinson breathed.

As they walked into the pub, Vita's stomach began to feel queasy. She felt like she was being watched. She covertly looked around and spotted the reason why. Twelve old, gnarled women were staring at her. The feeling in her gut intensified as she realized that they were looking at her with a sad kind of sympathy. Vita felt that something was going to happen to her that all of them had experienced.

"Vita, what are you staring at?" Professor Longbottom broke her out of her trance.

"Those twelve old ladies, of course."

He looked over to the bench at which Vita had been staring. There was no one there. "What are you talking about?"

She looked back at the bench and gasped. "They were there, I swear," she reasoned.

"Mm'kay, but we'd better get going if we want to get all of your stuff today." Soon enough, Vita forgot, almost entirely, about those twelve witches with the new excitements of the day.

.o0o.

The family walked, gawking at every shop window in Diagon Alley. Vita was bombarded with sights and smells that she would have never even dreamed of before this day. On one side, cauldrons and telescopes were sold and, on the other cats and rats and toads and even owls. A woman in purple brocaded robes haggled with a street vendor over the price of dragon blood. Vita felt she didn't have enough eyes to catch sight of everything.

"First we'll need to go down to Gringotts, the wizard bank, and to exchange some muggle money for wizard money," explained the Professor. He pointed at a big, marble, rather crooked looking building situated at the corner of the alley. "It's run by goblins, so it's nae but impossible to rob."

They walked up to Gringotts and Professor Longbottom greeted the two goblin guards at the door. They had very long hands and feet, compared to their short stature. They walked throuhg the doors only to be greeted by a second set. Engraved upon it was:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

of what awaits the sin of greed,

for those who take, but do not earn,

must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

a treasure that was never yours,

thief, you have been warned, beware

of finding more than treasure there.

"It's all built underground, so, even if you did manage to get something, you would never find your way out of it's maze of tunnels and chasms." said the Professor.

As they walked into the Atrium, Vita's eyes were glued to all the goblins. They softly walked down the aisle to who seemed to be the head goblin. He was ancient. He raised his head and his gaze flicked around the group. Vita blinked when his gaze fell upon her, trying to get rid of his searching look.

"We're here to exchange out muggle money for some of our own." Longbottom said nervously. The goblin was still staring at Vita and it was really starting to creep her out.

"No, you aren't. She has a vault of her own," the goblin's halting voice was as old and raspy as he looked. Strangely, he accented the wrong syllables in his words.

"What are you talking about?"

"The girl has a vault. Her family has been without magic for a while, but, nevertheless, it is her vault."

"Okay," Professor Longbottom turned to her parents. "It seems that you won't have anything that needs paying for in the course of Vita's magical education." He turned back to the goblin, "Could someone bring us down?"

"Of course, HOLKWAD!" He yelled down the hall behind his desk. "You will take them down to the Wyllt vault." Rummaging underneath his desk, he pulled out an old bronze key and held it out to the middle aged goblin standing next to him.

"There's room for three in the cart with me," said Holkwad. Vita, Proffessor Longbottom and Mr. Hamlinson followed Holkwad to the beginning of the tracks, they had left the rest of the family in a comfortable waiting room. Holkwad whistled and a cart slid up the tracks.

"You're good with roller coasters, right Mr. Hamlinson?" Professor Longbottom asked. The goblin chuckled darkly.

"Yes," said Vita's dad wearily.

The cart took off at breakneck speed and Vita realized why no one ever robbed this place. She lost track of how many times they turned, even forgetting instantly which way they went. Eventually, the cart slowed to a stop. They were so far down that Vita could feel the pressure in her ears.

Holkwad delicately stuck the bronze key into a keyhole hidden in the shadows of a stone door built into the wall. Upon opening the door, Vita's jaw fell open in shock. The inside of her vault was roughly the size of her entire house. A mountain of gold sat in the center of two smaller hills of silver and bronze at it's sides. Vita looked over to Professor Longbottom to see if this was your standard vault, but he was gawking as well.

"You're going to get what you need, I suppose?" the goblin spoke. Vita nodded at him.

"Professor, how much do you think I'll need this year?"

"Probably about 50 galleons, to be safe. Not that you'll ever run out," he still looked a bit taken aback.

"Which ones are those?"

"The gold ones," he rummaged through his pockets, "Here's a bag for them."

Vita grabbed the bag and started filling it with coins. They were about an inch and a half in diameter, but strange because they had no faces. She also took one of the silver coins and one of the bronze. Vita walked out of her vault and nodded at the goblin. As he was closing the door, she noticed something she hadn't before. A wooden staff was floating above the mountain of galleons.

They all clambered into the cart and it shot up the rails like a rocket.

"There's seventeen Sickles in Galleon, those are the silver ones, and twenty nine Knuts to a Sickle. You'll remember it eventually," Professor explained as they shot up the tracks. The cart sputtered to a stop. Vita's dad spoke for the first time.

"Vita, don't tell the rest of them how much is in that vault, they'd go crazy."

"Uh... okay," she responded, a bit confused.

"Let's just say it's a normal vault." Professor Longbottom suggested, "Containing about 400 galleons or so." Mr. Hamlinson nodded at that.

"We're doing just fine on what your mother and I earn." Kaylee was a schoolteacher in Maidenhead. Vita looked at the two of them with a confused expression, shrugged and followed the goblin back to the waiting room.