Hagrid grinned at the twins' amazement. Nicole hoped that that the experience in The Leaky Cauldron was just a one-off, because even though she felt uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to every day at school. They stepped through the archway. Nicole looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

"Wow," Nicole said, going back to being amazed after what happened in the pub.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. A sign said they were all sizes, with a variety of materials, and all self-stirring and collapsible.

"Yeah, you'll both be needing one," said Hagrid "but we gotta get yer money first."

The twins smiled at each other as they looked around the place. It was filled with amazing unique stores. And there were many people doing their shopping outside of them. There was a dark shop called the 'Eeylops Owl Emporium'. Several boys the twins' age had their noses pressed against a broomstick shop window. Particularly at one broom they called the 'Nimbus Two Thousand'. There were shops selling robes, telescopes and strange silver instruments that the twins had never seen before.

"Gringotts," Hagrid reminded them.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold was -

"Yeah, that's a goblin," Hagrid said quietly. The goblin was small, had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard, and the twins noticed, very long fingers and feet. They faced a second pair of doors, with words engraved upon them:

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.

"Like I said, you'd be mad ter try and rob it," Hagrid commented.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the doors and the next second, they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins where sitting behind stools

A pair of goblins bowed them through the doors and the next second, they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins where sitting on high stools doing lots of activities which you would expect to go on in a bank. There were too many doors to count leading off to the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and the twins made their way to the counter.

"Morning," Hagrid said to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Harry & Nicole Potter's safes."

"You have their keys, sir?"

"Got them here somewhere," said Hagrid, who started searching his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits all over the goblin's book of numbers.

"Got them," he eventually said, pulling out two golden keys.

The goblin looked at them closely. "That seems to be in order."

"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," Hagrid said, throwing it out of his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in Vault 713."

The goblin read the letter closely. "Very well, I will have someone take you down to all three vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin. Of course he was, they all ran this place. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, him and the twins followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in Vault 713?" Harry asked.

"Can't tell you that," said Hagrid. "More'n my job's worth ter tell yer that."

Griphook held the door open for them. They were in a narrow stone passageway, lit with flaming torches. It sloped downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks towards them. They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and they were off.

"This is a little weird," Nicole said. "I thought that they'd be more marble or something."

They soon got to one safe. Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and when it cleared, both the twins gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. So many silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"So is this mine or Harry's?" Nicole asked.

"This is Harry's, yours is further down, Nicole," Hagrid said.

Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it in his bag.

"The gold ones are galleons," Hagrid explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-five nuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough." The three finished packing. "Right, that should be enough fer a couple of terms. Keep the others safe for yer. To Nicole's safe next, please?"

"Will Nicole have the same amont of money I do?" Harry asked.

"I don't see why not," Hagrid said.

Griphook nodded, as they went along. This journey was nowhere near as long as the last one, only a little bit. Nicole's safe looked almost identical, the only difference was the number. Hagrid unlocked it, and there was still a good amount of coins in there. She couldn't tell if it was as much as Harry's, because they were set out quite differently.

"Still a lot of coins, Nicole," Hagrid said. "It'll be good for yer." As the three all loaded a similar amount into a separate bag. "Right, that's enough. Vault 713 now, please. Can we go a little slower?"

"One speed only," Griphook answered.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine. Nicole saw Harry look over to see what was at the bottom, but Hagrid pulled him back.

Vault 713 had no keyhole.

"Stand back," said Griphook. He stroke the door gently with one of his fingers and it simply melted away. "If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there."

"That's a good tip for life," Nicole said.

"How often do you check if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.

"About once every ten years," Griphook said.

This top security vault must be important in some way, but when it first opened, Nicole thought it was empty, until she noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Nicole wondered what it was, but didn't care enough to ask.

"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best I keep my mouth shut," Hagrid said.

On the way back, Harry & Nicole started talking to each other, trying best to ignore Hagrid for his own sake.

"We've probably got more money than Dudley now," Harry said.

"More money than all three Dursleys combined!" Nicole added.

"I wonder what this school would be like," Harry said.

"It'll certainly be interesting," Nicole said.

The twins continued talking to each other about what's going on, until they got back in the sunlight outside of Gringotts. Nicole had no idea where to go first.

"Where should we go first?" Harry asked.

"No idea," Nicole said.

"You may as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, pointing to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, would you two mind if I slipped off for a pick-me-up at the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did look a bit sick, so Nicole nodded, and they both entered Madame Malkin's together.

"Hogwarts, dear?" said a squat, smiling witch who Nicole assumed was Madame Malkin. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now in fact. Are you two together or seperate?"

"Together," Nicole answered. "We're twins."

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Harry & Nicole got placed on stools either side of him, both getting their robes fitted on.

"Hello," said the boy. "You two in Hogwarts too?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"My father's next door buying my books and my mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I think I'll bully Father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow. Have either of you got your own broom?"

"No," Harry said.

"They're hard to get," Nicole said.

"You play any Quidditch at all?" the boy continued to ask, confusing Nicole. And Harry too.

"No," Harry said.

"I do - Father says it's a crime if I don't get to play for my house," the boy said. "And I must say, I agree. Know what house you're going to be in yet?"

"We're not sure," Nicole said. This was confusing. Nicole had at least thought Hagrid told them at least the basics.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there," the boy said. "But I know I'll be in Slytherin - all our family have been, but imagine if I'm in Hufflepuff. I think I'd leave, would you?"

"Mmm," Harry said.

"I don't know," Nicole said, still not knowing what he's talking about. Did Hagrid tell them nothing?

"I say, look at that man!" the boy said, and just as Nicole was thinking about him, Hagrid was standing there, grinning at the twins, holding three ice creams to show why he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," Harry said, proudly. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," said the boy. "I've heard of him, he's some sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," Harry answered.

"Yes, exactly, I heard he's a sort of savage," the boy continued. "Lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk. tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"He can be a bit weird," Nicole said, truthfully.

"Brilliantly weird," Harry added. Nicole disagreed, but didn't want to say with this strange boy around.

"Do you really think that?" the boy asked. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"Our parents died," Nicole explained, about to go into the details, but didn't want what happened at the Leaky Cauldron to happen again.

"Oh, sorry," the boy said, not really sounding that sympathetic. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were," Nicole said. "They were a very good witch and wizard."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you?" the boy looked like he was about to go on a rant. "They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they got the letter! I think they should just keep it to people raised by at least one of us. Preferably both."

Before Nicole could answer, Madame Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear." She then looked to Nicole. "I'll get yours done soon."

Harry looked at Nicole.

"Go ahead," she said. "I'll meet you outside. Save me an ice cream." Harry left the shop, and the boy started talking again.

"So, what is your name?" asked the boy.

"I'm Nicole," she said.

"Well, I'm Draco," the boy finally introduced himself. "Draco Malfoy. What's your surname?"

"I'd rather not say right now," Nicole said.

"Your family got a bad reputation or something?" Draco asked. "Because not everyone likes my family. But I think they're just jealous of us. What about you?"

"Not jealous of you," Nicole said. "Just met you."

"Now you're done," Madame Malkin said.

"Thank you," Nicole said, stepping down from the footstool.

"See you at Hogwarts then, Nicole," Draco said.

"Looking forward to it, Mr. Malfoy," Nicole waved, as she left the store, not sure what to think of this boy. He seemed a bit spoilt, but he was just raised in a different environment, she guessed. She didn't know half of the stuff he was talking about.

"Bet you're glad to be out of there," Harry said.

"He wasn't that bad," Nicole answered, as Hagrid gave her an ice cream and it went a bit quiet.

"What's up?" Hagrid asked the twins.

"Nothing," they lied simultaneously, as they walked to buy parchments and quills, continued to talk about what they just experienced, without Hagrid. They both disagreed, as Harry started comparing the boy to Dudley, but Nicole said that the first meeting doesn't define a person. Eventually, they started asking Hagrid questions.

"What's Quidditch?" Harry asked.

"Blimey, Harry!" Hagrid said. "I keep forgettin' how little you two know, not knowin' about Quidditch!"

The two told Hagrid about the boy in the shop. Their stories were slightly different.

"-and he said people from entirely Muggle families shouldn't be allowed in-"

"Yer not from a muggle family," Hagrid said. "If he'd known who Harry was - what your surname was, he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are a witch and wizard. You saw what everyone was like in The Leaky Cauldron when they saw him. Anyway, does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line of muggles! Look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"

Hagrid had a point. Their mother was from a Muggle family.

"So what is Quidditch?" Harry asked.

"It's our sport, wizard sport," Hagrid said. "Like football in the Wizarding World. Everyone follows Quidditch, played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sorta hard to explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?" Nicole asked.

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but-"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," Harry said.

"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," Hagrid said. "You know, there's not a single witch or wizard that gone bad that wasn't from Slytherin." Nicole thought, was this really true? Every single one? I mean, there musn't have been that many then, right? "You-Know-Who was one."

Nicole got very scared, so she had to ask. "What if one of us is in Slytherin?"

"Ha! Don' make me laugh, Nicole," Hagrid said. "James an' Lily Potter's son or daughter in Slytherin. More of a chance of Gringotts carts becoming easier to travel in."

"But if it does happen..."

"Well, on the slight chance that it does happen," Hagrid said. "I'd say you'd be one of the lucky ones. The ones that they couldn't corrupt. There's no way either of yer will go bad in any way." Nicole agreed, and if what Hagrid was saying was true, hoped that she was not in Slytherin.