Harry amidst the Vaults of Stone

Chapter 9


"Ratspan. Bismuth. Buvolok. Foster Cousin Shutz. Earlok. How does work go?"

The young goblins chorused short greetings, but only two bothered to look up at Harry.

"Long and lustrous," Earlok said.

"Lucrative in learning," Bismuth added with a grin.

Harry plopped down in a seat at the longest table in the Underfoot Central Library. The dark walls, hewn from bedrock and lined with books and scrolls, loomed above him. "What are you reading?"

His five peers each lifted their books in turn.

"Proper Chisel Maintenance, the Logbook of Whiphat the Adventurous, Signs of Imminent Economic Collapse, Borgnub's Collected Poems, and a two-part scroll of the Principia Metallurgis. Interesting. Is Mudflange keeping you busy, Ratspan?"

The thin goblin boy reading the chisel maintenance book groaned. "He keeps on saying 'Get the cornerstone right and everything falls into place', over and over. I'm not sure if he even knows any other advice! I swear I've learned more about cornerstones in the last week than any reasonable person should have to know in a lifetime!"

"Well, at least he's not complaining about your mortar any more," Harry said, finding his place in Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.

Ratspan made a face. "He's getting one of the other apprentices to mix mine until I can 'learn to do it right' – on my own time. Perfectionist."

Shutz looked up. "Really? So who's the poor offcut mixing your batches for you?"

"Fiddilrim. I'm keeping her tools in order, in return."

"Hence the book?"

"Hence the book."

Harry's gaze drifted away from his own page, over the book of poetry in Shutz's dye-stained hands, and then continued to Bismuth. "Who was Whiphat the Adventurous, anyway?"

The goblin rested a spindly finger on her place on the page and returned her attention to him again. "Part-time troll tamer, ex-military, slightly mad. Designed a boat, sailed it down the Amazon, stole diamonds from the locals, capsized, eaten by crocodiles. The way he tells it is pretty funny."

Bismuth looked across the table at the spine of Harry's three-inch-thick book and curled her lip in disgust. "Wizard stuff?"

He sighed and looked back down at the printed words. "Yes. It's meant to be a complete history of evil wizardry. But it seems to only go back a thousand years, and just talks about Britain and the Continent."

"Buh. Sounds like completely typical wizard prejudice."

"They're not that bad," Harry defended vaguely, his eye stuck on a reference to a sorcerer who made doilies from human skin. He decided to change the topic. "Is Buvolok sulking again?"

The goblin in question pulled his scroll a little closer to his face.

Earlok smiled nastily. "Drobwit really put him under the hammer after he mixed up the Resupply and Repurchasing columns on his work. For the third time in the space of a single morning," he added, shaking his head.

Harry thought of his own firsthand experience at how unpleasant the Master of Numbers could be when people persisted with stupid errors. "That's unfortunate."

"Yes."

"Yes," the young goblins chorused.


Badluk sat in his managerial office, drinking lime gall coffee and cleaning his pipe reflectively. He was quite pleased. The new Brother, Filius, had readily agreed to teach Harry a few things about magic whenever he visited Underfoot.

Such trips would be infrequent during the Hogwarts school year, of course, but Manager Bogripple had informed the council that a few years of intermittent instruction should still provide Harry with a reasonable grounding in – pause for sneer – wizardry. And when Professor Filius Flitwick was unavailable, some of Gringotts' human retainers might be paid to fill in as tutors. Not in Underfoot, naturally, but there were plenty of rooms in the Bank that were shielded from scrying.

Badluk moved his chair a little closer to the fireplace, and put his coffee mug on the hearth to stay warm.

The Brotherhood bonds prevented Filius speaking about Harry to outsiders, which was all to the well. The half-goblin had offered to assure Dumbledore that the boy was in good hands, and the Hogwarts Headmaster's report should then result in ruffled feathers being soothed at the human Ministry.

On the other hand, a half-goblin making announcements about Harry Potter's welfare would cause anyone with a brain to jump to some fairly obvious and rather accurate conclusions.

Still. The Council had decided they would use Flitwick as an anonymous intermediary through the Headmaster, claiming an unbreakable vow of secrecy. Dumbledore was, on the whole, a good man. Better that he guess the secret, and take action as he thought appropriate, than send a missive to the Aurors in the Ministry and suffer their attempts at intervention.


For his part, Dumbledore didn't even try to use Legilimency on Flitwick. His normal ethical reservations might not have held up against like an emergency like this, but he refrained, knowing there would be no point. All professional duellers had some basic Occlumency under their belts. Filius had been a league champion; he would at the very least be able to detect Albus' probing, and he would not appreciate it one bit.

The Headmaster had realised where the boy was already, anyway. Ollivander's testimony combined with Flitwick's involvement was enough to imply the goblins' direct interference. They had the will, after all.

In more ways than one, presumably. The Potter will and the strength of will... Dumbledore finger-combed his beard idly and considered how much the Brotherhood could gain with a wizard like Harry Potter under their thumb. His future political pull would be immense on his reputation alone, whatever Severus said. When you put that together with two enchanted family rings going missing...

Severus Snape was sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk, waiting for the man to say something. He glared at his superior's habitual beard-stroking, but kept his silence. It was typical of a Potter to be inspiring so much trouble.

Albus sighed, and palmed a toffee into his mouth. What could he do? He didn't have to exactly rack his brains about the goblin nation to know that they were nothing short of impregnable.

But if Sirius Black really was innocent, and if Dumbledore could get him freed, that opened up some useful avenues. Goblins were creatures of law; they would be obliged to revisit the Potter will. The Ministry would put an orphan with an exonerated mass-murderer without hesitation if the alternative even involved the word 'goblins'.

Perhaps, in his gratitude to Dumbledore, Black would allow him to put Harry safely back under the blood protections at the Dursleys.

"Severus," he began, "Do you remember Sirius Black?"


"Barba," Filius enunciated carefully, and his wand whistled a cheerful high note. "Now, again."

"Barba. Barrrrrba. Barba."

"Try focusing your attention on the tip of your wand, rather than the spell itself."

Harry squeezed his eyes to slits and glared at the wand. "Barba," he said firmly. "Barrrba."

The last attempt was accompanied by a high-pitched purr from his wand, and Harry grinned at the feeling of accomplishment. He always loved to succeed at something for the first time. He had been a little worried that the reflexes learned from goblin-charms would just be too strong for him to overcome.

"Barba," he repeated, as Filius clapped in approval.

The note that the whistling spell created was faint, but that wasn't surprising when his magic core was undeveloped. Flitwick had compared it to building up muscles; you started with small amounts of exercise and eventually you could put more and more strain on them. It wasn't a perfect analogy – and wasn't supported by any of the theory he had read – but you certainly didn't see young children moving boulders or heating forges as adult sorcerers could.

"Fantastic, Harry." Filius looked genuinely delighted, which was quite striking. But Harry had already noticed that wizards displayed emotion more openly than his goblin instructors.

"I suggest you practise it until you can produce a steady note, and only then try varying it for different pitches. You can get an instinctive feel for what differences in casting can do by practising making sparks with your wand."

Flitwick sobered a little, and continued. "It will be a long, slow task to properly master your first wand-based spell at such a young age, but once you have, you will be able to cast it much faster, and without the exaggerated wand movements. It is important to extensively practise every spell you learn. By the time you know them fully, you should even be able to get away with being a little sloppy with the words or movements. Although that's certainly not a good habit to get into," he hastened to add.

Harry nodded, and smiled. "Barba." Whistle. "Barba." Whistle. "Barrrba." Whiiistle.

"In the interests of keeping your, er, foster parents sane, you should probably practise it outside. Now, you'll be pleased to know I did find you some books..."


Even the most stubborn wheels of bureaucracy can spin rapidly when people are supplying anger in sufficient quantities. Fury can work as a form of social lubrication.

Dumbledore had shared Flitwick's assurances about Harry Potter with Madam Bones. He had been careful to make his Charms professor out as an anonymous, but trusted, source, in a position to know that the Boy Who Lived was being cared for. Filius had been adamant he could reveal nothing more, and Dumbledore passed that on, with his regrets, to the DMLE Head.

As Severus had predicted, Amelia hadn't accepted simply Albus' assurances, choosing instead to berate him for 'interference with an investigation'. She even went so far as to threaten his arrest this time, although both knew it was an empty threat.

Dumbledore had caved in the end, and confided that Harry was under protection provided by the Brotherhood of Goblins, at which point Amelia had stood up and hurled her tea mug across the room, breaking a lamp.

In the ensuing battle of wills, Albus had stood strong on protecting his source. But he had mentioned the wand, and Boris Scintillion. When the Aurors had brought the Gringotts contractor in, he had taken quiet pride in being unable to reveal anything at all, even under truth serum, the goblin-vows sealing his jaw closed and holding his tongue still.

So Bones had dragged Dumbledore and Scrimgeour, along with Minister Bagnold herself and Cuthbert Mockridge of the Goblin Liaison Office, off for a formal visit to Director Gurmsalt.

The wily old goblin had been politely unhelpful at first, giving elusive answers in rattling bursts of Gobbledegook until Cuthbert began to clutch at his temples with the effort of translation. Albus watched and listened, feeling a note of amusement, and then made it clear that the jig was up.

Gurmsalt sent for the other Managers.


"Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Universum, a Modern Translation", Harry read aloud. "By Hendrick the Half-Damned. Amazing. And then, once I'm finished with Magical Theory, there's So You're Wondering About Alchemy, Volume 1. Well, I can make a start now."

What with apprenticeships, the vaults, examining his glasses, conversations with Filius, and all his personal reading, there just didn't seem to be enough hours in a day.

He took a handful of crispy dried moss wafers and went to his room, where several books already lay open. Then he began to read, with Prettyroot curled companionably on his lap.


King Gurmsalt the Wary led the way to an ornate, high-ceilinged meeting room, deep in the heart of Gringotts. He was followed by a train of goblins and wizards, who waited for him to be seated before they sat down at the wide stone table.

Gurmsalt set a long dagger on the table in front of him with a click, gazing down at it and making minute adjustments until it pointed exactly at the middle of the table. Then he reached across and stroked a huge lump of amethyst, which lit with a faint magical light.

"This is an ancient artefact you may not recognise," he said in perfect English. "A truth gem. It will flare if any falsehood is uttered in this room. In addition, my grandfather is a two-storey house in Bristol."

These last words were accompanied by a bright purple flash, which reflected off the jewel-studded dome of the ceiling.

The wizards exchanged glances. The goblins remained impassive.

"Now. Let me see." The aged Bank Director took out a sheaf of papers, sighed, and flicked through them.

Minister Bagnold shifted impatiently in her seat, obviously wanting to take charge, and Mockridge looked nervous.

Finally, Gurmsalt looked up again. "The location of Harry Potter is known to Gringotts. We placed him with a foster family seven years ago, in accordance with the Potter will. The Potters' wishes were quite clear. Gringotts representatives are willing to vouch for, but not reveal, the security measures in place around the child."

Dumbledore watched the amethyst crystal and smiled to himself. The faint light inside the truth gem swirled, but remained steady.

"We must know where he is," Scrimgeour said, and was pinned down by the eyes of the eight goblins who had been available for the meeting. The large man perched uncomfortably on the too-small chair provided for him, and glowered back.

"The terms of the will were carried out to the letter," Gurmsalt said calmly. "Every minor stipulation was obeyed. Since none of the persons listed in the document were eligible and willing to take in Harry Potter, we housed him with an appropriate magical family within Britain. The main concern of his deceased parents was safety, and we placed him in as safe environment as we could find. We obeyed wizarding law to the extent required us by the will. We are obliged to say no more, for reasons of client-manager privacy, and his case cannot be reassessed, because the decisions were made on Gringotts grounds and therefore no laws passed prior to the 1865 Accord are relevant to it."

The lights within the gem once again shifted and settled slightly.

"Nevertheless, we wish to view the will," Minister Bagnold said quietly.

"The disposition of a last will and testament is not and never has been the Ministry's business. View it you may, should you receive a full warrant from the Wizengamot to that effect."

Dumbledore smiled faintly, trying to remember who had witnessed the Potters' will. Probably Black, unfortunately. Of course, the Minister would unquestionably succeed in getting a Wizengamot warrant to view the will. But this would make it public knowledge that Harry was missing, and would do nothing for goblin-human goodwill.

"Perhaps I may suggest a compromise to settle this confrontation," Albus said cheerfully. All eyes turned to him.

"Allow us to meet the boy in a secure place under a pact of secrecy, so we can be assured of his good health and proper upbringing. Then, perhaps, somebody could be assigned to check on his welfare on an ongoing basis, at least until he is of school age."

Gurmsalt glanced at the Minister, then turned to meet the eyes of each of his Managers in turn. Dumbledore, watching carefully, noticed the Director's eyes lingered longer on two goblins in particular.

"The child is already seeing an accredited wizard tutor," Gurmsalt said eventually. "There is no need for ongoing Ministry interference. We cannot in good conscience object to an investigation of his welfare, but we must insist that it be carried out by trained St Mungo's staff, rather than Ministry busybodies. And it must take place on the neutral ground of Gringotts."

Madam Bones, who had been silent throughout, leaned over to murmur something in Millicent Bagnold's ear.

Albus hummed a little ditty to himself. While far from ideal, this was likely to be the best deal they would get. The lack of blood wards was worrying, but Dumbledore didn't doubt the goblins' protection was at least as good. His greatest concern was whether the powerful charm Lily Potter had placed on her son would last if he were separated from his blood ties.

"We agree that St Mungo's healers should examine him," Bagnold said. The middle-aged woman spoke with the quiet dignity that had got her elected, but the iron strength which had seen her through Voldemort's reign of terror underlay her words. "However, we must insist that a respectable representative of wizarding society meets with him on a monthly basis until he attends Hogwarts. Mr Potter is a symbol of our magical nation, and we must be certain that he is being properly educated in all areas."

Gurmsalt's eyes flashed. "A quarterly basis. And we will know in advance who your representative is."

"I believe that I could help in-" Dumbledore began.

"No," Bagnold said, staring hard at him. She was aware that the public still clamoured for the old wizard to become the next Minister of Magic, and it rankled. "You have quite enough duties to occupy yourself already, I feel."

"Perhaps a trained Liaison from my office would be appropriate?" Mockridge asked querulously, interrupting the staring match between Minister and Supreme Mugwump.

"Actually, the up-and-coming Lord Malfoy has expressed an interest in child welfare of late," Bagnold said, "going so far as to make a considerable donation to the St Mungo's Children's Ward."

She folded her hands. "I am minded to appoint him to the role."

Dumbledore gave Bones a look. It meant: I hope you realise that would be a disastrous outcome.

Amelia inclined her head slightly away from him. "Perhaps the responsibility should be split. Given that it is a child's welfare in question, there should be a witch as well as a wizard. I feel that Governor Griselda Marchbanks would be appropriate."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "Indeed."

"I agree," said Scrimgeour, following the lead of his departmental head.

Bagnold pursed her lips. "Very well. Two representatives, then."

King Gurmsalt, who had been looking measuringly at Dumbledore, turned back to her. "This is acceptable to Gringotts," he said blandly. "May I ask what the official Ministry position will be on the so-called Boy Who Lived?"

"The rumours are already flying thick and fast. We will issue a press release to the effect that he is living anonymously with a magical family in a secure location."

"Indeed, and that has the benefit of being true, as well," Gurmsalt said, the faint swirling lights of the truth gem reflecting in his eyes.

"Perhaps you could arrange to provide us with a current photograph of him? To, er, reassure people?" Mockridge asked.

"That should be possible."

"A good idea," the Minister nodded. "Also, we would appreciate it if Gringotts has no official comment on the matter."

"Understood."

"We will arrange a time this week for St Mungo's staff to meet Mr Potter at Gringotts. If you can provide a photograph tomorrow, our initial press release will go out the day after."

"Very well. If that is all?" King Gurmsalt picked up his dagger and stood up abruptly, followed by his Managers.

"It was a pleasure to speak with you, as always," the Minister said, and then coloured slightly. The truth gem had flared with sudden purple light.

Gurmsalt gave her a faint smile, showing no teeth at all, and the meeting broke up.


"Well, it could have been a much worse outcome, Amelia," Dumbledore said with a slight sigh as they emerged into the bright sunlight of Diagon Alley.

She gave him a strange look. "I know that. It was a very good result. The boy is secure from anyone who wishes him harm, he'll be checked by healers, the goblins are probably not much worse than some other family environments, the law has been followed, and I only regret I wasted so much of my resources on the investigation. Frankly, Albus, we have bigger fish to fry, with this Sirius Black business."

There was a cough from behind them. The Headmaster and Madam Bones turned, to see Minister Bagnold regarding them from one of the marble steps.

"What 'Sirius Black business' would this be?"


Harry sat in a soft chair in his foster parents' dwelling and chewed a piece of dried cave eel, mulling over the news. He didn't object to being looked over by wizard healers, although he wasn't completely clear on why they wanted to. The goblins had healers, after all.

But he could tell that Badluk and Sibilig were annoyed by the idea.

"Productive day?" Sibilig asked him from across the room. She was reading the Daily Prophet with a marked scowl.

"Quite productive. I managed to cast the Whistling Charm and did a lot of reading in the library. Ratspan is still having trouble with mortar," he added with a smile.

"Everybody has their weak point," Sibilig said sternly. "Badluk gave up his glassblowing apprenticeship."

"Sibilig cuts herself every time she picks up a paring knife," Badluk retorted. "Ratspan should stick to assaying. He's meant to be good at that, yes?"

Harry smiled. "Yes. In that vein, I guess I shouldn't go into any field that needs maths."

"The whole point of a weakness," Sibilig said as she turned a page, "is to overcome it."

"Is it any good?" Badluk asked.

Harry blinked in confusion, then realised his foster father was gesturing at Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, which lay open in his lap. Instead of reading the annoyingly vague book from cover to cover, Harry had taken to scanning the index for references that sounded interesting.

"It's... not entirely bad. Just flowery. There was this funny thing about aggressive use of Portkeys, I'll see if I can -"

The next entry in the index caught his eye. "Um. Hey, I'm in this book. 'Potter, Harry'. That's strange."

Sibilig folded her newspaper. "No doubt regarding your part in destroying the last Dark Lord. What does it say?"

"Oh, yes. Page eight-four-three, page eight-four-three... here," he began to read aloud in English, "um... blah blah, '-on that fateful night. Accounts suggest that the child's soul was so good and pure it formed a natural shield which turned the Dark Lord's spell back upon him. Evil was brought low by evil, so turns the world; fittingly-' blah blah."

Harry looked up, blinking owlishly. "Uh, does that actually mean anything?"

"It means it is unadulterated nonsense and the author is a dribbling lunatic," said Badluk, lighting his pipe.

"The soul... that's another word for your magical centre, right?"

Badluk and Sibilig glanced at each other. It was fairly predictable that this discussion would crop up, with Harry's precocious nature and the fact that he read wizard books.

"Not exactly," Sibilig said. "Most wizards believe, to some extent, that every individual has an invisible part of them that survives death, is judged, and ...survives somewhere."

"So, a... a big place full of invisible organs? Like a heap of disillusioned gizzards, or... a pit full of ward-hidden intestines?"

Badluk had a coughing fit, and Sibilig looked sharply at her mate. "It's more ...mystical than that. The soul is not thought to be part of the body. We talked about mysticism, yes? When you were asking about the founding of the Brotherhood?"

"Oh, this is about religion again?"

"Yes," the two goblins said.

"So, is it real?"

"Accounts vary," Sibilig hedged. "There are books in the library on so-called 'soul magic' in the library, as practised by wizards. Perhaps you could talk to Professor Filius Flitwick about the above-grounders' take on such things. For now, though, you should go wash up. Soon will be the time for bed."


The next day was mildly entertaining.

Harry walked carefully around Sibilig in the morning, still sensing annoyance from her. His foster mother made him dress in his wizard clothes and comb his unruly hair. Then she took him up to Gringotts to see one of their employees, Ms Tollens, who had a strange device Harry learned was a camera.

For almost an hour the witch moved around, getting him to sit in different positions and against different backgrounds, setting up magical lights, and fiddling with the camera box. Sibilig grew more and more testy towards the amateur photographer, and was snarling under her breath by the time the last picture was taken.

Then his foster mother gave Prettyroot back to Harry – the rock worm hadn't been allowed in any of the photographs – and took the film to be developed.

Ms Tollens took him down to the Black vault, and they had a productive afternoon sorting through the unusual (and sometimes malevolent) magical dross of generations.

Then in the evening, Harry practised the Whistle Charm for a while, then went to bed.


Sirius Black stirred on the narrow pallet against the wall of his cell. He sensed it was morning again, and opened his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping.

He had let himself go far too much over the last few years, sometimes spending days at a time in the form of a dog. His mind was unravelling because of it. Right now, though, there were more pressing issues.

There were no guards' footsteps, no jangling of keys; no noise but the rasping of the Dementor in the corridor next to his cell.

Perhaps it had been some sort of clerical error.

Perhaps today would be the day they began feeding him again.


Dumbledore sat and worried. His thoughts were still on Sirius Black and Harry Potter. Harry had secretly been missing for years, the Black and Potter rings had disappeared more recently, Harry was living with the goblins... there was some link there, but he couldn't figure it out.

Albus and Amelia had tried to spin the matter of Black's spurious imprisonment to the Minister as an opportunity to redress justice. Hopefully she wouldn't speak to Barty Crouch; the man was just as driven now as he was when he was an Auror, with the additional downside that he had become extremely bitter.

For all that her career was on the line, Albus did think he had convinced Bagnold. At the very least, she would probably bring Black to the holding cells. Of course, he might suffer an indefinite stay there, depending on how the politicking played out, and how long Bagnold was able to delay the process. But for Black, even being imprisoned in the DMLE cells until the end of Bagnold's regime would be better than being imprisoned in Azkaban for the rest of his life.

One question in particular worried Dumbledore. If Black was innocent, who betrayed the Potters? The nature of the Fidelius Charm meant the Secret Keeper would have had to tell Voldemort directly, but how had it happened? Was the man tortured? Did the Dark Lord appear to him in disguise?

And then there was the tragedy of Pettigrew... if Peter thought Black was to blame, and his Gryffindor nature drove him to attack the man, whatever happened would have been self-defence. Had Sirius deflected a bombarding spell, rather than casting it? Dumbledore had found that Black's wand had been lost in storage somewhere, and was never tested for incantations.

Another thought struck him. Could the Potters have switched Secret Keepers without telling him? Dumbledore suddenly remembered talking to Lupin, who hadn't seemed to trust him – Lupin, with his resistance to Legilimency – and his blood ran cold. Had he been taken in by good acting on the werewolf's part? Had Voldemort made Remus Lupin an offer he couldn't refuse?


Two figures moved in Azkaban, neither aware of the other's existence.

Sirius Black was trapped in a cell without food, being slowly driven mad by the Dementor that had stood only a single wall away for several days. He was currently in the form of a large, mangy dog. He only turned human and wore the heavy magic-binding chain when the Aurors came by.

The door had been unlocked when the Dementor was delivered, and nobody had locked it again. This seemed peculiar. It eventually occurred to his unhinged, doggy mind that they wanted him to make a break for it, and have his soul sucked out. They didn't know, of course, that in his animagus form those loathsome undead guards were barely even aware of him.

If he did make a break for it, what would he do? Find a gap he could squeeze through and dive into the freezing ocean?

If he stayed, he would starve to death.

Concentrate.

Sirius dimly realised that he never thought things through as much as he should. But it did seem that each passing minute in the Dementor's presence, without food, would make him weaker when he inevitably did try to escape.

So he held his breath, and turned human for long enough to open the door, shivering from the icy torrent of animal terror that flowed into his hindbrain. Then, as the Dementor turned towards him, he changed back into Padfoot and slipped through.


Far below, in a different block, Bellatrix Lestrange paced her cell in small, slow steps. The thick chain jangled in time with her movements. Memories of the Boy Who Lived still stirred in her head from Dumbledore's visit a who knew how long ago.

She thought of the grim Headmaster, and shivered. But the boy, she remembered, had killed her master. Not that she believed that, exactly. But he had certainly wounded the Dark Lord grievously. A mere baby had destroyed her Lord's earthly shell, and sent his forces into disarray. Sent poor Bella into prison.

It was not a happy memory, and it resurfaced again and again through the Dementor-driven insanity.

She stopped her pacing and watched in silence as a tiny plume of gravel dropped from the ceiling. The stones had been weakened by constant exposure to Dementors. The last sharp fragment, slightly larger than the other coarse pebbles, fell neatly on top of the small pile in front of her.

Bellatrix slowly narrowed her eyes, as her thoughts danced and screamed their way towards a plan.

Seven years ago, with her mastery of wandless magic, she would have summoned the jagged rock before her, straight to her hand. Well... no. In fact, she would never have deigned to hold a rock in her hand. It would have been blasting hexes or nothing.

Now, though, she reached carefully down to gather the rock in her withered palm.

And then she moved painfully over to the wall, dragging her chain after her, and began to chip away at the foundations of Azkaban.


Author's notes:

→ Exposition-heavy, yeah? There's likely to be more, until Harry gets to Hogwarts.

→ In response to some reviews: I'm trying to give the goblins personalities, but it's difficult as there are rather a lot of them. I'm hoping their distinctive names help distinguish them. The goblins might have used their extensive resources to break Sirius out of prison if it provided them with any net benefit, but it wouldn't have. A wizard not receiving a trial would never be enough to stir a goblin's compassion.

→ Thanks for the response to the fic so far! If you have any comments, please leave a review!