Garret felt a pull on his core, and the world whirled as if someone had grabbed him by the sternum and flung him around in a brutal Krav maga throw which somehow failed to hit the ground, but kept him spinning for just a little too long before he suddenly found himself standing, with no apparent impact or deceleration in the back courtyard of a pub, facing a brick wall which must have belonged to a house of some kind.

"Wow!" Garret said taking a couple stumbling of steps and nearly collapsing, but managing to hang on to his professor.

"Not bad eh?" She said with a wry smile. "It certainly beats the bus!"

"Yea!" he said, regaining his feet and dusting himself off as he looked around. "That must be what Wolverine feels like when Magneto picks him up with his magnetic powers." And then, seeing the odd look and remembering that wizards apparently didn't know anything important about muggle life, like who the X men were, wend on explain it to her, "… it's a comic book, don't you wizards have those?"

"No, not quite like that, anyway." Admitted the teacher, "We do have graphic novels, but I fear you'll find them less… imaginative." She finished with a smile.

"Oh," said Garret, "How does it work? Teleportation that is."

"Magic" She said matter of fact-ly as she withdrew a wand and tapped a series of bricks in the wall before the whole thing warped open like an iris, bricks sliding apart free of their mortar.

"Wha- bu- that's not a-" But he cut himself off and gaped at the spectacle, and reached out to touch one of the bricks, seemingly suspended by nothing on an angle as mortar dust swirled around the whole.

It's cold! Like water, I can feel something running over it. Nope, can't move it much, it's held here good. It's like really strong magnets, sort of.

"That's really strange. Are these real bricks or are they some kind of- what's that!"

The boy interrupted himself as he realized that was through the portal which had opened in the wall; it looked like some sort of magical bazaar, and he stepped through thoughtlessly, feeling a sensation like passing under a warm waterfall, although his clothes didn't get wet, and he looked around to see Sinistra behind him, but was too in awe to say anything.

There were unimaginable spices, Deva's tears, monster jugs (containing an assortment of monsters), Gorgon salve, dozens of potions and oils, books, broomsticks, animals both quasi-mundane and quasi-magical, cauldrons, robes and wizard hats, dust of traceless-ness, dust of tactlessness, dust of sneezing, and dust of visibility inversion, and who knew what else.

They walked together through Diagon Ally for a few minutes in silence, Garret's head turning around, desperately trying to see everything, and his teacher enjoying his wonder second hand.

"Professor," Garret asked after a while, "there's so much stuff, where do they sell the magic swords?"

"Now why would you want a magic sword?" She laughed.

"Well, because they're cool! Also, I might have to fight an army of evil goblins or something!" he said, making sword slashing motions in the air ahead of them.

A shadow crossed the teacher's face briefly, although her face was mostly natural. "Goblins aren't, in general evil Mr. Cross. They're people just like you or I."

"Goblins are real? What about elves and dwarves and Chocobos? Wait, do dragons exist too? What about Unicorns, oh or Ents? Or Vampires or – or –

"Slow down Garret." Sinistra said with a relaxed chuckle. "Of that list I only have not heard of Ents and Chocoah, Chooko, Chocobos? Is that how it's said? Although the world is large, so that does not mean that they do not exist. Magical creatures usually keep themselves hidden form muggles and wizards alike, if they can. Oh, and although I have heard of the Dwarves in tales, as far as I know there has been no contact between them and human-kind in centuries.

Goblins in particular you will soon see, as they run Gringots, the central bank of magical Brittan."

"Goblins run the bank?" Asked Cross, "Why is that?"

"They are fond of gold, and are good at protecting and keeping track of it. They have magic's which they keep secret form wizards as we keep wand lore secret from them, and their magic allows them prevent anyone form counterfeiting their coins, and so they are used widely because everyone can be sure they are real."

"Oh," said the boy, "But normal money isn't managed by goblins, so does that mean a wizard could just conjure up, like a bajillion pounds?!"

"I suppose," Laughed Sinistra, "but they'd need whatever a 'bajillion' pounds weighs in raw materials, and a lot of time on their hands. Also, it would still be against the law."

Soon they were in front of the bank; a looming crooked structure of white and black marble, of polished oak, and glass and above all gold. At the entrance you had to step through a waterfall of mist which was cold, then be blasted by unworkably dry air with soot in it, then stand for a few minutes between a pair of sparkling mirrors until the dust floated onto them. The worst part though, was that the short armoured figures of goblin guards ignored him until Sinistra had to remind him that goblins hated questions.
That's on point against Goblins in my book. Garret thought, crossing his arms.

Sitting at rows of desks and rushing around conducting there clerical tasks were the short, gruff (and not quite as ugly as Garret had imagined) goblins. As they confirmed Garret's identity using his Hogwarts letter and a sample of his blood, he couldn't help feeling that they were judging him. Feeling their dark eyes on him, all pupil, or at least all dark, as they shuffled paper and gold on their over-high desks gave him the creeps. What's more, the impression of being surrounded by dozens of Scrooges, just waiting for a chance to force you to work through Christmas.

They followed a gobbling though a set of doors, down some stairs, and through a couple of passageways after which Garret became completely lost, which was only exasperated by a cart ride, which fun, up until he realized he was completely dependent on the goblin if he ever wanted to get out of here,

It was large, if rather empty dark stone room. In one corner were a couple of chests, and against the wall were a couple of sets of leather armour, one brown and obviously padded, the other dark, hardened and stitched with thin blue runes. There was also a broomstick with a seat and foot rests, and a large shield emblazoned with a dragon bearing its fangs sat on top of a pile of what looked like gold.

Garret immediately ran up to the shield and reached out to touch it.

"I wouldn't do that." Came the unhurried, nasal voice: their goblin escort. He was called Griphook, and this was the most he'd said the entire trip. "Everything left in here is cursed, and the so the rest of your family decided to leave it in our care, rather than pay for curse-breakers." He smiled evilly.

You would think he was hoping I'd get cursed. On the other hand he did warn me…

"Wait, what rest of my family? The rest aren't wizards." The boy asked.

"Did you think your father didn't have any relatives did you boy?" Said the goblin, still sneering at him. "Cousins and uncles and Aunts and so on. He had no will, and so it goes to his family. It seems he didn't tell them about you. Can't imagine why." His face wrinkled further in mock confusion. "Or perhaps they just found it convenient to forget you existed and take what they pleased. Used to be a fair pile of galleons in here if I recall… Hmm… Robbed by your own relatives, shows something of your blood eh?"

That stupid squat pointy looking… Garret clenched and unclenched his fists while anger rose inside him. Their limbs are pretty stumpy, and their gait looks really awkward. I could probably take one or two on in a fight, provided they don't have magic. Which probably means they definitely have magic.

"That's uncalled for Mr. Griphook." Said Sinistra Icily.

"Never respect property, humans." The goblin almost spat the last word, ignoring the professor. "I don't expect you'll turn out much different as a half blood. Come to think of it, could be you're relatives have never even heard of you." He said, smiling as if a wonderful thought had just occurred to him.

"Shut up!" Garret said, taking a step forward. IF goblin magic is slow, or needs concentration I should be able to stun him with a front kick, grab the arm…

Griphook just grinned all the more. "Yes. Probably never heard of you because you were your daddies dirty little-"

"Have the goblins of Brittan become so petty and bitter that they pick on children to satisfy their grievances against wizard kind?" Sinistra cut him off, her words so cold they ought to have frozen the nitrogen out of the air. Garret looked over at Sinistra who was rounding on the goblin menacingly. Her wand wasn't out, but she was obviously a much greater threat than an eleven year old, and the goblin knew it.

"Coddle the boy if you want. It's not my problem." He said, crossing his stubby arms, "He'll see it sooner or latter anyway." Finished the goblin, turning on his heel and leaving the vault to stand outside.

Garret was still angry, but less so after seeing him run away form his teacher. "I thought you said goblins weren't evil." He said, after he thought Griphook was out of earshot.

The woman sighed "They are not. Not as a rule. However there is a long standing feud between our two races, and between some wizarding and goblin families in particular. If ever one of your family made an enemy of a goblin family they may hold it against you, even after a hundred years. Or it could be no other reason than that you are a human, and you are here. I would recommend that you put it out of your mind."

"Right." Said Garret, not entirely convinced, "But we still need to get at the gold under that shield. Do you know what kind of curse it might be under?"

Sinistra withdrew her wand and after tracing some symbols in the air, and a few minutes of chanting she explained that there were actually a couple of different curses, she could remove the ones on the armour and their stands, and one of the chests, but the shield and the area around it was set to cause a feedback loop with any magic which touched it, making the obvious solution of levitating the shield impossible. The choice now, she mused, was if it would be better to go get a curse breaker, or buy Garret's school supplies with the small fund allotted to him as ward of Hogwarts.

"So you can't use magic on the shield because it will harm you, and you can't touch it either?" The boy asked, after considering the problem for a minute.

"Correct."

"Well, couldn't you just move the shield out of the way with a long stick?"

Sinistra chuckled slightly at his naïveté, curses don't care about technicalities like that was what she started to say, but then stopped herself. The shield was protected by curse, but the curse itself was held in place by a series of runes, and runes did check for exact conditions. And these conditions had a flaw, one so obvious most wizards would never even think of it.

Sinistra burst out into laughter now, at the absurdity of it. Someone went through a fair bit of trouble to protect this sum of money, only to be foiled by an eleven year old child with no magical training and a stick.

"I would award you house points if you were sorted Mr. Cross, although I suspect you may be bound for Ravenclaw. Although I should remind you that many cursed items are more difficult to deal with than this."

After the professor un-cursed everything she could, they took the stand holding the leather armour, which garret learned was protection for a game called Quidditch, and used it to remove the shield from over top the gold and push it safely into a corner. Garret guessed that the pile of gold, silver and bronze coins was enough to make him a millionaire in muggle Brittan (and he wasn't far off) he wrongly assumed that this would carry over to the magical world, and Sinistra had to reign in his expectations; although it was plenty to get him through his education, he it wasn't much by wizarding standards, and he should only expect to be able to live off it for a year after graduation.

Gold newly in hand, or rather in a bag of holding the professor carried, and refused to explain to Garret, they reluctantly climbed back into the mine cart with a sulky Griphook and returned to the surface.