SUNDAY JULY 10, 1994
Warsaw was a city of diametric contrast. Historical and artistic stone architecture stood next to the blocky concrete monstrosities of modern low-rent apartment styling, interspersed with the occasional field of glass.
Finding a cab where the driver knew some English, the three travelers asked to be taken to an inn in a part of town that had a lot of historical architecture. They guessed that in that type of area was where magical portions of the city would be found.
The driver took them to Castle Inn in old town. There, they requested a single room for two or three days. The proprietor attempted to argue with them, but Harry insisted that a single was all they needed and that it was more for storing their belongings for the duration of their trip than actual sleeping.
With the entire day ahead of them, they began exploring their immediate surroundings.
"Sir, we contacted the Greek authorities," a young aide reported.
Vincet Ducheru looked up from his mountain of paperwork. "Is this really important. There is much work to be done."
"I would have handled it myself, but the matter is a little delicate. The oracles of Greece warned the authorities of the return of a dark lord, the rise of ancient powers long lost, and of a mysterious traveler. They detected the presence of an illegal portkey entry into their country. They managed to track the visitor to a maker of custom wands.
"There, they learned that the man identified himself as a dark lord who was returning after some sort of hibernation. He provided several samples of dangerous magical substances including his own blood, and parts of a thousand year old basilisk, a cockatrice, and a hydra which were used to create custom wands for them. The dark lord watched him create the wand, questioning everything he did with his hand on his sword. He claimed that the wand he created for that man was the deadliest he had ever heard of, perhaps even surpassing the legendary death stick. Fearing for his life, he handed over the wands he created without asking payment.
"When they went to report their findings, they received another oracular message that the traveler would be leaving and that further information had been sent ahead to the travel agency where they would leave from. By the time they had gotten to the travel agent, it was too late. The traveler had threatened the travel agent into creating a portkey to Transylvania, then disappeared, taking the travel agent's desk, records, and even the oracular instructions with him."
"And this dark lord just spent a week negotiating with the vampires and came out on friendly terms after he petrified over a thousand trained killers without really trying, and walked through a feral vampire infested forest at night. They did all this and the only wounds they received were mild sun burns. I don't care how much extra paperwork this will cause. I am glad that he is no longer our problem. He left for Poland last night."
"Should we inform the Polish Ministry of the danger?"
"Send them everything we know. If someone dies because we didn't, this could cause a severe international incident."
The magical district was not difficult to find. The Old Town Market had a hidden archway right next to the literature museum. Of course, being in the magical district did not help when none of them spoke the language, so Harry, approached a man who looked rather haggard.
"Do you speak English? Romanian? Dutch? Greek?"
The man shook his head and shrugged.
Harry tried a different approach. He held up his wand, mimed casting a spell, then retrieved five galleons from his pouch.
The man smiled and nodded.
"Perspicio Lingua!" Harry cast the spell then asked, "Is this Polish."
"No, Russian," the man replied, "I have a friend whose first language is Polish who will want some extra gold. That is a language learning spell, yes?"
"It is," Harry confirmed, "It is useful for traveling."
"Come with me. I will bring you to him."
"This man speaks Russian," Harry explained, "But he says he has a friend who would be happy to help for a Galleon or two."
"You go ahead, but be careful," Luna said, "We'll wait here until you get back."
Harry looked at her quizzically. Obviously something was not right here, but there was something he was supposed to do. Harry followed the man towards a dark and forbidding alley. Once they were around a corner and away from prying eyes, Harry felt a wand to his back.
"Jeśli dasz mi swoje złoto, to się nie stanie," a gruff voice said.
"Is this your friend?" Harry asked nervously, suddenly realizing that going alone into a dark alley with a stranger probably wasn't the smartest idea.
"He is, and he is most definitely Polish."
"Can you tell him that I'll give him five galleons if he lets me use a spell to learn Polish?"
"No, I think I'll tell you to give me all your gold, that is if you don't want to get hurt."
"I don't actually have any gold. My money pouch is actually connected to my vault in Gringotts."
"In that case, drop your pouch." Harry did as he was told, wishing that he was not wearing his civilian clothes; Dark lords got so much more respect.
The ragged Russian grabbed the pouch from the ground and disappeared. The next thing Harry knew, he was losing consciousness.
When Harry woke up, he found himself tied to a chair in a dusty old warehouse wearing nothing but his underwear. A man lay on the ground nearby next to Harry's expanded chest. Harry wandlessly cut his bindings and retrieved his possessions. In a fit of juvenile revenge, he stripped the man, took the few coins he had, then vanished the mans clothes and snapped his wand and then cast the language learning charm just in case. Not wanting to take any chances, Harry changed into his dark lord armor, covering it with a thick cloak. He felt a lot more secure dressed as a dark lord.
Upon examining the warehouse, Harry found that there were two doors. He chose one, the wrong one. When he entered the room, there must have been twenty large men there. Some were smoking, others were gambling, and still others were drinking. Some were doing all three. Harry glanced around, looking them each in the eye before calmly saying, "If you want to live, you'll not make trouble."
A man grabbed a nearby pool cue and tried to strike Harry over the head with it. Reacting on instinct, Harry drew the Sword of Gryffindor, knocked away the pool cue, then stuck the tip of the sword into the man's throat. Harry watched in horrified fascination as the blood sprayed, tinting his vision red and coating his sword. He had never actually expected to be able to hit anyone with his sword after he had so often failed against Pietru. He couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it and to stop himself from breaking down in tears. The boy who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn had just cleanly executed someone.
The next few minutes were all a blur. Spells flew back and forth as Harry dodged and struck with blade and magic. And then it all stopped when Harry was the last one standing. He had a couple bruises, but nothing serious. He healed his bruises, then cast a quick cleaning charm on himself before rushing out the exit.
Harry wandered around lost until he found himself in a park next to a large building with a fenced-off stone patio behind it. There was a fountain in the middle of the patio that felt oddly magical to Harry, so he hopped the stone railing and approached. Focusing his eyes, he found that the mouth of the lion had some sort of enchantment, it looked almost like one of those that was on the serpent head of his trunk. Guessing about its function, Harry cut his finger on one of the teeth and let the blood drip onto the tongue. A few moments later, there was a deep rumbling and the fountain raised up out of the way to reveal a spiral staircase.
Harry cautiously descended the steps to find himself in a dusty old cellar. It was obvious that no one had been here in a long time. Against one wall, piled to the ceiling, were burlap sacks. Against the other was a very sturdy rack with an array of small kegs. At the far end of the cellar was a door. The door swung inwards into a hallway. Inset into the walls of the hallway were shelves filled with burlap sacks. At the end of the hallway was another spiral staircase. Next to the staircase was a partially full sack. Harry opened the top of the sack and peered in. Inside were fist-sized egg-shaped objects.
"Lumos!" Harry lit up the inside of the sack and gasped. The eggs were made of gold.
Harry closed the sack and descended the staircase into a cavern. The inside of the cavern was an underground lake with water dripping into it from stalactites. A path led from the staircase to a raised dais. Harry followed the path. He chanced to look down and noticed that the bottom of the lake was filled with rounded stones. Then, he realized that they were not stones but more eggs. Small transparent fish darted in and out from among the eggs, emitting a soft effervescent glow.
Harry reached the dais and found a naked woman sleeping on a bed of kelp. He coughed loudly to get her attention. The woman stirred and wakened.
"Who are you?" The woman asked, showing no modesty whatsoever. He had long golden blonde hair, full lips, and extremely full and tantalizing curves.
"My name is Lord Sibilus," Harry introduced, "Who might you be?"
"I am the cursed golden princess of Ostrogski Castle."
"Cursed?" Harry asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"There is a way, but if you fail, you'll never find me again," the princess whimpered, "It's been so long since I have had anyone visit me."
"Just tell me what I have to do," Harry promised.
The princess rummaged through her bed, eventually coming up with a large sack which she handed to him. It was full of gold coins. "You must spend all of this gold before the sun sets but you must only spend it on yourself."
Harry shrugged. It seemed easy enough. "You have a lot of gold eggs. How many can I buy with this much?" Harry asked, handing the sack back.
"All of them," the princess answered, "And me as well. Quack!" Instead of a princess, there was now a large goose with golden feathers.
Harry shrugged. "Dobby!" The house elf appeared.
"Yes, Master Harry Potter, sir? Dobby is here to help."
"I have three tasks for you. First, I need to go to Gringotts. I'll leave my trunk here with you. While I am there, I would like you to set up everything the golden goose requires from now on and then take care of her like you do Vindex. Finally, as you can see, the bottom of this lake is full of gold as are the hall and room upstairs. I will arrange with the goblins a fair price for them." Harry summoned one of the eggs. "I would like you to gather them and transport them to the goblins for me as well as any others she might lay."
"As you wish," Dobby replied happily. He grabbed Harry and popped him over to Gringotts.
Harry walked up to Griphook. "Hello again, Griphook," Harry greeted, "Can we talk in private?"
"Of course, Lord Sibilus. And, may I say, the Goblin Nation fully supports you in your goals."
"I am pretty sure every intelligent non-pureblood in England supports my goals," Harry deadpanned.
"But you'll find that most of them do not have the resources that Gringotts does."
Harry nodded and was led into a private room. "I have a few items of business. First, someone tried to mug me. Could he please be dealt with and my pouch returned or a new one purchased."
"Of course," Griphook replied, "He will of course face goblin justice."
"Goblin justice is harsh but fair," Harry conceded, "If you could, I am running out of muggle money. Could the pouch be modified to produce local currency as well?"
"No, but we can provide you a goblin credit card though which you can use at any bank or automatic teller machine for a small fee."
"Thank you," Harry said, "Naturally, procuring this card comes with a small fee of its own."
"Of course," Griphook said, "Will that be all for today?"
"There is one more little thing. I believe you'll find it rather profitable." Harry revealed the golden egg and dropped it on the desk in front of Griphook.
Griphook scrutinized the egg. First he looked it over. Then he weighed it in his hand. Then he knocked on it. Then he licked it. Finally he bit it. "Pure gold of the highest quality."
"I have about a million or so of those, and expect to acquire more on a semi-regular basis." Harry explained. "If you received them, you would mint them into coins right?"
The goblin nodded. "Our coins are more durable than plain gold due to our forging process. We give the gold a crystalline structure that makes it almost as hard as diamond while decreasing the density. Each of these eggs would net about five-hundred galleons."
"Will three percent provide the goblins with adequate profit?" Harry asked.
"Thirty percent would be preferable."
"I'm pretty sure the goblins would be happy if I paid you to take them off my hands," Harry joked.
"Five percent would be our minimum to make enough profit to make it worth doing at all. Seven would be the minimum we could offer you a continuing contract on."
"If you can get it down to six percent, you can keep that one," Harry offered.
"Deal," Griphook said, pocketing the egg as he began to draw up the contract."
"How many eggs would it have cost me for the three percent I initially asked for?"
"We may mislead, but we do not lie," Griphook said, "Anything less than five percent would not have been enough profit to be worth the labor. Even at six percent, I have to include an exclusivity clause. You cannot sell to anyone else unless it is done through Gringotts."
Harry signed the contract with a blood quill once Griphook was done. "I cannot sell the golden eggs to anyone else. But it does not say that I cannot give the eggs away to someone else, for instance Luna or Sirius, and if they then chose to sell them..."
"Giving an egg as a gift is one thing. Giving a large number of eggs to someone with the expectation that you will profit from it somehow, no matter how convoluted the method is, will be prevented magically by the contract, even if it must go so far as to remove your life. Do not take blood contracts lightly."
"I have no intention of selling them to anyone else. Gringotts has proven to be reliable for me, so I will continue to be loyal to Gringotts. If I donated some to charity, would that be allowed?"
"If you have no connection to the charity other than your donations, then yes. To be safe, I would use anonymous donations, or donations under a pseudonym like Harry Potter."
"But that's my real name!"
Griphook shook his head condescendingly.
"I have one more favor to ask," Harry said, "This one is not as important. But, I was wondering if I could cast a spell on a goblin that would allow me to learn Gobbledegook."
"Let's step outside. The defenses do not appreciate wands being drawn within the bank."
After being returned by Dobby, Harry left the patio area and walked around the building to find out that it was now the Chopin museum. He did a quick tour of the museum, and on the way out, he asked the receptionist for directions back to Old Town. He met Luna and Sirius back at the inn. They had acquired the ability to speak polish from one of the shopkeepers as well as learning about some locations to visit the next day.