"Mmph," said Harry, still glad to be away from the hand wringing, song singing and flying unmentionables. Even if he was being carried inside a carpet with sleeves.
Undignified a mode of travel as it was, there were benefits. In Diagon Alley's later hours those with any sense of self preservation didn't pay much attention to large men carrying suspicious packages. And he didn't have to try walking in a straight line yet, that was good too. Harry's boots bounced rhythmically on the cobbles as they went.
"Mmph, mhm, mmm," he mumbled, spying something shiny from between layers of moleskin and dried mud. "Mmphle. Nnf?"
"Gringotts sure is somethin', innit?" Hagrid breathed, weaving toward the gaudiest toadstool of a building Harry had ever laid eyes upon. It looked like the result of an unholy union between a mosque and a maximum security prison. It even had a minaret with a search light attached to it sticking out one corner. And the sequins. Who put purplesequins on a building?
"Mmmph," Harry agreed reasonably.
They got through the massive, bronze plated doors of the bank without incident, but before they could proceed through the foyer they were both faced with a new and exciting problem: Harry was trapped in Hagrid's coat.
"No, I'm not stuck. I just can't . . . Get . . . Loose. That's all," Harry insisted.
Hagrid's first inclination was to shake him out.
"Ow. Ow! Hey!"
Harry's response was to clutch at it for dear life.
"Put me down!"
Gravity won as it usually does.
What the pair failed to notice was that along with the mess of dirt they'd just deposited on the marble floor, was that Harry's head wound had contributed as well.
"When someone screams for you to stop flinging them through the air, the appropriate response is not a belly laugh." Harry groused.
Hagrid's beard and mustache contorted in an unmistakable smirk. "An' miss seein' yeh hug the groun' like tha'?"
Harry thought Hagrid looked entirely too pleased with himself. "Arsehole," he muttered.
As they stumbled in the general direction of the night booths, Harry tried, and failed, not to gawk at the goblins and their unique sense of style. He'd never imagined that someone would waste so much gold leaf on furniture. Or walls. The domed ceiling looked like a fruit cake made out of plaster and shiny rocks, with some drowning cherubs thrown in for good measure.
Oh, yes, there were cherubs. Were there ever bloody cherubs. Not gargoyles, no. Nothing less than chubby cherubs would do for a goblin institution. They stared dulled eyed from the walls, under the tables and strapped to the chandeliers. Many of them were in various states of dismemberment or gilt, depending on whether they were depicted as bringing gold or trying to steal it. Which case this was, was not always made entirely clear. Some of them seemed to have been mutilated on general principle.
Walking past a bench with little wooden cherubs for legs, Harry couldn't help but think that they were pushing their point a bit far.
The goblins themselves, though, they were something else. The tellers were small, greenish or greyish and looked very much like Harry had expected something called a goblin might. The guards stood considerably taller and wore enough armor, including closed helmets fashioned in the likeness of snarling creatures of fable, that he was certain a grown man would have difficulty picking one up. The sharp, pointy things they carried would only add to the trouble.
All this delighted Harry to no end.
A security goblin who had been watching this drunken slapstick comedy on a video feed stared at the flashing runes on the wall beside him and tried to remember what they meant.
Just-Razzle Rockchewer, senior accountant, was enjoying a bowl of buttered popped corn, a human delicacy imported from Muggle London, when a cheerful beep sounded from the vicinity of his good kidney. This was not entirely unprecedented, but he made quite the mess when he jumped in his seat.
He glared around at the kernels spread around his desk and dug into the pocket of his sport coat for the offending pager.
Upon reading the neon green text, he calmly placed the pager upon his desk, took a deep breath, and after thumbing the appropriate button, whooped an ancient goblin war cry into a magical speaking tube with the volume turned all the way up.
The sound of someone falling out of their chair piped from it, and after some muffled cursing the goblin at the other end respectfully suggested that he needed a better hobby.
Razzle suggested that they were a whinging sissy and asked for a favor.
The request was met with incredulity.
Razzle repeated himself cheerfully.
After some more grumbling, he had his way, and a short announcement was piped over the speakers throughout Gringots.
Hagrid and Harry had just found a free teller when the public announcement system in the bank crackled to life, piping from the mouths of select cherubs.
Ding, dong, bing!
What followed could only be described as the sound of a Frenchman locked in mortal combat with a set of bagpipes, accompanied by the faint screams of a fellow speaking English who was apparently desperate for "Someone! Anyone!" to make the dragons stop trying to eat him.
A bing, dong, ding later and to everyone's relief it was over.
"What was that about dragons?" Harry asked Hagrid.
"Oh, they've got lots! They keep em like muggle guard dogs," Hagrid explained cheerfully.
The teller, who until then had been looking less than enthusiastic about his job, seemed to have perked up visibly after the announcement.
"Evening, sirs," he grated. "Can I help you?"
After some discussion with the teller over the bank's very latest dragon based security systems, Harry was convinced goblins were the most fantastic people he'd ever met. Although he could have done without the eye watering tile mosaics. And maybe the floor was a bit too wobbly for his liking.
But this? No. This mine cart thing he'd been led to simply would not do. There were better things in life than roller coasters, which existed, he felt, specifically to keep the Dudleys of the world far removed and possibly plummeting to their deaths somewhere away from the Harrys, and Harry felt that the tradition was worth observing.
Besides, he could see the artfully loosened bolts. All it needed was a cheerful looking stuffed bear wearing an ugly vest beside a yay high sign and a ticket booth. Harry let Hagrid get in and swung the little grated door shut after him before he could object.
A hurried nod to Whatshisname the goblin porter, and off the pair rattled without him.
While he waved goodbye it struck Harry that if ever there was a person who wouldn't fall over themselves at his new found celebrity, it would be one who wore a necklace strung with human teeth.
And so it was that he wished Hagrid good luck on his trip into what appeared to be the bowels of hell and stumbled off to accost the biggest, meanest looking Goblin he could find. Preferably the extra shiny one with the snazzy unicorn helmet and the axe thingy he'd spied on the way in beside the decapitated cherub fountain.
He hesitated in the hallway, unsure as to which way to go. If pressed, Harry would have admitted to being a little lost. But only a little.
"Eeny, meeny, miny . . . That-away!" he decided aloud, and set off in the direction that looked the fanciest. Left, in this case.
He got some funny looks when he stopped to giggle at a fern.
Stuff them. He'd had a long day.
