Chapter Fifty-Eight | Gold, Gems, and Shining Things

The last thing anyone would expect Catherine Potter - wanted fugitive - to do would be to go to Diagon Alley. To walk down the centre of all British magical commerce with nary a care or worry as to her health or freedom.

That's exactly what she does.

She's an idiot, but she's not an idiot. Catherine had no intention of calling attention to herself and had learned how to be even the slightest bit inconspicuous throughout her life, always hiding from the glare of a camera or curious eyes and the whispers that came with them.

So she transfigured a cloak out of some detritus off the forest floor and throws it over her shoulders, letting it fall across her body like a set of traveling robes. Her hat is taken off, offered to the Messengers and a hood taking its place, some quick spellwork shadowing her face and leaving it impossible to discern.

The sun was slowly making itself known, a faint glow scattered over the boughs of the forest and allowing cracks of pale light to shine onto the floor below. Gringotts had never shown care for regular hours, catering to magicals of all flavours, and vampires have money just as witches do - more, often, being immortal.

And if their customers did not sleep, then neither shall the goblins.

Picturing the apparition point, Catherine spun on her heel, dragged through a pinprick before reappearing just beside the Leaky Cauldron entrance, that brick wall to her left feeling one part nostalgic and one a death sentence.

Diagon Alley was relatively clear, so early in the day. The few she saw in the streets were most likely owners of the shops she's walking past, yawning and twisting their backs as they try to work out the last kinks of sleep before opening their doors and welcoming early risers with burning pockets.

They payed her no heed, oft accustomed to strange, shadowy figures finalizing their work in Knockturn or simply one of the many eccentrics the magical world knew. Black robes and a hidden face weren't enough to spark any real sense of concern, not unless there'd already been something to light a fire under them. But Catherine was still an unknown to the people of Britain, a wanted murderer at most, and if Bellatrix Lestrange being out on the run wasn't enough to shut their doors then she certainly wasn't.

Unmolested and almost annoyed at the ease of her travels, Catherine walked into a slightly busy Gringotts (which it always was, one bank to an entire peoples does not a slow day make) and patiently waited her turn. One or two may have cast a second glance her way, only to be quickly shrugged off, their eyes bleary from either starting the day, or finishing it far too late.

Soon enough she'd been called forward, the goblin who beckoned her sighing as he did so, his brow crumpled in boredom and a world-weary, earth shatteringly slow blink working its way across his face as he looked her up and down.

"Welcome to Gringotts," he drawled, tapping his finger along the ridge of his desk. "What do you want?"

"I'd like to see an accounts manager, to set up a will."

His eyes rolled dramatically, dragging over a sheaf of parchment and tapping at it with a dry quill. "Name and key?"

"Catherine Potter." She reached up and plucked her key out of the air, at least, that's what it looked like - the arm of a Messenger poking out of the wooden desk and offering it to her. "Here you go."

Now his brow raised not out of an attempt to desperately keep his eyes open, but sheer incredulity. "And you can confirm your identity how?"

Her thumb twitched, and the shadow over her face blinked away. There one second, and then gone. She smiled plaintively at the small man, pulling her fringe back to show her scar. "I can offer blood, if you need it."

Another laborious blink, as if a string was slowly drawing his eyelids together, and the goblin nodded his head. "Enter through that door, there," he stated, pointing at the end of the hall. "Second door on your right. One of our representatives will meet with you."

"Nothing? No sirens?"

At that the goblin stares at her, exhausted, but with the wicked glint she imagines anyone as terribly sleep deprived as he looks would muster when asked such an obvious question. It reminds Catherine of the look a shop worker gave someone shouting at them, right before they announced their resignation with glorious fanfare and stomped out the door. The person who made them snap was Petunia.

For a while, that was Catherine's favourite memory. The awestruck look on her face as the young man pushed past her and out the store.

Perfect.

"We have dealt with far worse than a teenage murderer. As long as you bring no violence into our doors, none shall fall on you." His head raised, conversation pinned and forgotten as he looked past her towards the queue. "Next!"

Relieved, and more than a little offended, Catherine let the charm cloak her features once more before wandering past the small crowd towards the noted door, turning the knob and walking into the proceeding hallway, just as ostentatious as the main room of the bank. Her steps took her past one door, until she entered into the next, a simple yet glamorous room meeting her. There was a desk made of rich, reddish wood, polished to a shine, plush chairs on either side and paintings lining the walls depicting vast underground cities and subterranean lakes.

She'd never really given any thought to Goblins or their society, only having to head to the bank a handful of times - including this trip - in her entire stay in the magical world. Often it was Molly helping take care of things for her, letting Catherine spend her time with Ron and Hermione rather than be concerned with errands.

The woman was unfailingly kind, almost painfully so. Her and her family were certainly deserving of what she had planned for today.

The door opened behind her, and Catherine nodded in greeting at the goblin entering, flanked by two guards who stood on either side of the entryway, poleaxes with great, hooked blades standing tall above them.

"Please, sit," the man said as he walked past her, gesturing to the seat. "And remove your hood. I'd rather speak with a client face to face."

Acquiescing, Catherine took her seat and threw back her hood, the magic that hid her face sputtering out of existence as she crossed her legs, one ankle resting on her knee, arms hanging comfortably off the cushioned rests of her chair.

"So… Catherine Potter." The goblin adjusted a small pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, glancing up from a stack of parchment held in his too long fingers. "I am Murk. A pleasure to meet you."

"You as well."

He grunted, straightening out the papers, lips slightly open as he clicked his tongue a few times, scanning this way and that. "You've come here to… set up a will, I hear. Is that correct?"

"Yes, among other things."

"And what other things may those be, if I may inquire?"

"I just need to retrieve something. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Well, we can have one of the guards here accompany you to your vault once we've gotten everything in order. Now, I'm assuming this will has something to do with your current… circumstances, shall we put it?"

"Yes, and no."

"Ah?" Murk's brow raised, a finger spinning idly, as if to encourage her to continue. "I'm curious how someone of your age and stature falls into such a predicament."

"Must I answer?"

"No, of course not. I simply find that our more flavourful customers tell the most interesting stories, and I'm always eager to hear them. If you'd rather not, we can get to the business at hand," he stated drily, gesturing to the papers. "I'm not bothered either way."

"It's fine." Catherine smiled at him, faint, something more akin to an expression she would have worn long ago. Before this. "I killed my teacher, only after she turned into a monster in front of everyone. Fudge was unimpressed, and Albus and I escaped with the aid of his Phoenix."

"A monster, you say? Werewolf? It was a full moon recently."

"Something like that."

"Frightful woman. I can't say I'm too bothered to see her gone. She made all of our lives here very difficult. Oh, before I forget, your armour looks to be of very interesting craftsmanship. It's unlike any I've seen before." His eyes locked with hers, and after a few moments he popped his lips, shuffling his papers before setting them down again. "Anyways, let's begin. Do you understand the process of writing a will, or would you like me to give you an explanation before we get started?"

"I'm an easy customer. There's only two I have in mind to have my things split between."

"Is that so? Well, that certainly simplifies things. Is this a fifty fifty split, or did you have something else in mind?"

"I want one third of whatever money and valuables are contained within my vault to go to Hermione Jean Granger, as well as whatever books I may have."

Murk nodded, wetting a quill before jotting that down, his handwriting crisp and neat regardless of the speed with which he wrote. "Understood. And the remainder?"

"To the Weasley family, with half of it split into equal portions put in trust for Ron, Ginevra, Fred, and George. The rest should go to Molly and Arthur."

He continued writing, capping off the paragraph with a short flourish. "And that's all?"

"Yes."

"An easy customer indeed! Now, you should be aware that Gringotts takes a small commission off this. Roughly one hundred and fifty galleons for legal fees and other assorted matters."

"Please, it's fine. Not like I'm going to do anything with it anyways. Any properties… it's just the one in Godric's Hollow, right?"

"Yes, that would be correct."

"I'd like to turn that over to Albus Dumbledore, let him do with it what he will."

"Well then, I believe that should be all with the will." He pushed over the parchment to her and offered her his quill. "If you would sign that, please."

Scanning it quickly, Catherine nodded, before marking the page with her chicken scratch.

"Excellent, excellent. And you just wanted to retrieve something from your vault, yes?"

Catherine leaned into her chair, resting her cheek on a gauntleted fist. "Not mine, per se."

Behind her the guards shuffled, Murk's cordial expression wiped away to be replaced with something not cold, but frigid all the same. Calculative.

"Breaking into Gringotts is not a wise endeavor, Miss Potter."

"Breaking in?" Her lips curled into a smile, not a gentle one, but stricken with the fire she had been baptized in. "I'm not here to do anything of the sort. I'm here to destroy a horcrux, something very precious to Voldemort, with your permission of course."

"I'm afraid Gringotts has a reputation to uphold, and no upstart child will have us tarnish it," Murk spoke, his once polite tone now stained with indignation. "This meeting is over. You'll be lucky if I don't have Aurors swarming over you the instant you leave this place. Now go."

She didn't move a hair, watching lazily as Murk's lip began to curl, gaze wavering towards the guards behind her. Catherine could hear their grips shifting on their weapons, hearts beginning to pick up speed.

Slowly, she took the clawed end of her finger and dragged it across her own throat, her sight never straying from Murk as blood began to pour over her chest, dripping onto the stones below.

Unfamiliar curses streamed out of him as Catherine stood, lazily stretching her arms as she tilted her head back to look at the guards, finding the two men staring at her with confusion. She waved.

"Murk."

"What are you?" he whispered, a wicked dagger in hand, shining with magic. "You're no human girl."

"Not anymore, I'm not."

He couldn't tear his eyes away from her open throat, and she could see as his mind ticked away.

"It's not an illusion," she explained, spreading her arms wide. "Go ahead, give it a try." Her gaze flicked down to the dagger, then back up. "Or one of your friends here can have a go at cutting my head off. Promise I won't fight back."

They did, with glee.

A sharp pain in her neck, blood bubbling out of her lips, and Catherine's vision tilted. She reached up with one hand and took hold of her own hair, slowly detaching herself from the blade embedded in her spine. She stumbled slightly as she drew away, tutting through a river of red, and rolled her eyes.

Sinew snapped into place, vines of muscle reaching up to take hold of their brethren and drag them back down, her vision righting itself as her neck stitched back together. The noises it made were wet, the slurp and squelch of blood and liquid muscle tying itself back together easily heard over the goblin's heavy breathing. Catherine leaned over and spat out a mouthful of red, striking herself once in the chest to push the rest out of her lungs, burping up a viscous mess of shining crimson phlegm. Wiping off her mouth and vanishing the entirety of her mess with a wave of her hand, Catherine cracked her back and looked over at the goblin who had just tried to behead her, offering him a bloodstained smile.

"Gotta do better'n that next time. Really put your weight behind it." She looked him up and down, frowning. "Guess the height makes it difficult to reach my neck though. Can't get a clean swing."

She raised a finger as she fumbled at her waist, before bringing out a blood vial with a victorious, 'there you are!'

Ignoring (and taking great joy) in the horrified confusion she had sown, Catherine quaffed the vial down, before vanishing it with a twist of her wrist.

Far too jovial, she clapped her hands together, everyone in the room except for her jumping. "Alright! Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'd like you to take me to the Lestrange Vault so I can deal with that little issue I told you about." She turned her head to look at Murk, still smiling. "And please, don't start a fight. I'd rather not spill any blood except my own today."

"What are you?"

"You asked me that already, and to be honest, I don't really know. Now…" she leaned on the chair, elbow on top of the head rest and one foot crossed in front of the other. Casual, if not for the blood that was still trickling up her chin, back into her mouth and down her throat. "I've got a plan to kill Voldemort and it involves your cooperation. I can walk down into the vaults and go find the thing myself, but I'm sure you'd rather not deal with the mess I'd make." Catherine threw another glance over her shoulder to see one of the guards, the one who'd tried to behead her, staring at his weapon as if it had betrayed him. "I can't be killed, I can't be shackled. I've no interest in fighting you, but I will if I must. All I want is one object, I'll destroy it in front of you, and then you can put it back. That sound alright?"

His heart stuttered, a rocky palpitation that interrupted its gallop and left Murk's breath hitching. With pinprick pupils, his gaze flicked back and forth between her and the guards, before resting on the blood that stained her chest. Knuckles creaking, his arm began to lower, and he nodded curtly. "Let us be off then."

"Great!" Skipping her way past the guards, Catherine opened the door. "After you."

One sidled out after her, the other standing behind her and jerking his head towards the exit. Rolling her eyes, Catherine followed Murk and the other guard as they led her through the hallways to a second entrance to the vaults.

She climbed into the cart after them, humming quietly and rapping her fingers against the wooden panelling as a lever was jerked and began to carry them away at a breakneck pace. Catherine directed her gaze to Murk, who was staring at her with such fury that, if she were to not have witnessed Ebrietas' disinterested leer she would have flinched at the venom contained within his expression.

"Goblins are named after their craft, aren't they?" she asked, dredging up one of Dumbledore's memories on the subject. "How'd you get yours?"

A fang peeked out from over his lip, and Catherine bared hers, answering the unspoken challenge. He bit down, hard enough for blood to bead out from beneath the white of his teeth. "I am a wordsmith."

"Interesting. And you," she asked, pointing at the goblin who tried (and failed) to behead her.

He glowered at her, poleaxe shifting in his grip. "Kreshan. Weapon smith."

Eyebrows raised, she nodded along, turning her attention to the last goblin to find him studiously ignoring her. Catherine shrugged, enjoying the breeze as their cart thundered along, completely unbothered as it jerked around the turns, wheels skittering off the tracks for a bit longer than comfortable as it tilted dramatically.

A faint explosion caught her ears, and Catherine looked down to see flickers of firelight down below, accompanied by a screech as metal crashed against metal rapidly, the heavy pang of it echoing up throughout the bank's underbelly. They were deep, very deep into the earth, enough that the cool and damp began to become slightly warm as the cart rounded the next corner and dipped into a slope.

"What've you got down there?"

"A guard."

"Sounds like a dragon to me."

Murk's glower deepened. "A guard," he spat, before turning his head away and muttering under his breath. "Bloody undead child. I'll lose fingers for this."

"I can say I threatened you," she offered, his frown once more directed towards her. "Any way for you to not lose any digits?"

"You heard-? No, nothing from you. If I never have to see you again, it would still be too soon."

She raised her hands in surrender, before deciding to take off her gauntlet. Murk watched as she pried it off to reveal scarred hands, the fingers slightly bent and heavily calloused. Taking a hold of one finger, she twisted it in the socket before pulling it off her hand with a snap, the spurt of blood it made captured like a fly in a web and siphoned back into her hand. His face contorted in confusion as she did that with the next, one of the guards glancing over before deciding better of it and looking away.

Catherine took three fingers off her hand, wand twisting as she drained and embalmed them, conjuring a metallic chain and threading them along it, before handing it to Murk.

Reluctant, he reached out and took it, eyes glazed over with bizarre fascination as Catherine drank from another blood vial and squirmed as fingers began to melt back into place, still marked with the same scars and bend as her previous set.

"Take that to your boss," she explained, slipping her gauntlet back on and fiddling with the straps. "In lieu of your usual payment."

Silent, he strapped it to his waist like a set of macabre keys, grimacing when he accidentally brushed his hand over the plasticized flesh. She shot him another grin, spreading her arms out and resting them along the sides of the cart as they sped towards their stop.

The cart lurched as it pulled to the end of the track, and Catherine knew they were so deep into the earth that they were practically scraping bedrock. She stepped cleanly out of the cart, waiting patiently as the guards - although reluctant - led her towards the Lestrange vault.

Down here they were marked by single digits, the doors black with age and the almost volcanic sediment they were constructed from, deep rivets patterning their surface and looking sharp to touch. Murk cast her one last, lingering glare, before dragging his finger down the seam of one of the vault doors, a heady crack echoing across the cavern as they began to open.

It was less of a vault and more a living room packed to the brim with all manner of treasure. Catherine had seen it in Bellatrix's mind, and would have gotten lost if not for those stolen memories. She zeroed in at the back, where a quaint golden goblet perched atop a small platform. Her hand flicked out and grabbed Murk by the collar, dragging him into the vault with her as he spluttered and tried to scratch at her arms.

"You're insurance," she declared. "But don't think I can't break my way out of here if you trap me in. I don't want to spill any blood today, but I will if I don't have any other choice. Now, stay right there." She pointed at the corner of the room, mostly barren of valuables. "Don't touch anything. It will duplicate and burn you alive, and… trust me. From personal experience, that's not a good way to go."

He nodded furiously, and Catherine danced through the room with deft steps, skirting past the great, shining piles of gold as if she was a cat burglar in a previous life. The blood made it easy, only fifteen seconds to get from one end of the vault to the other whilst avoiding the precarious stacks of shimmering metal.

From here, she could pick up that same rotten stench that clung to the horcrux in the Gaunt shack, and her thoughts ran wild as it felt even more familiar than that. Catherine glared at it for a few moments, as if begging the goblet to answer her questions.

Oh.

She knew where she'd picked up that scent before.

Getting that horcrux was going to be a very tense situation. Same with… yes, the other. That she'd scented too.

Giggling to herself, she conjured one of those Poundland mechanical grabbers she'd once begged Vernon for before being smacked upside the head. She reached out with it and plucked the goblet from its perch, legs bending before she leapt backwards, head over heels, and jetted over the stack of coins at her rear.

Catherine landed with a metallic clack, heels striking the stone, and she turned to Murk and jerked her head towards the door.

"That's all."

He let out a sigh, following behind her as she walked out of the vault and nodded at the guards flanking the door. The grabber disappeared from her hand and the goblet clattered to the floor, Catherine reaching down to lace her fingers around the immaterial magic that cloaked it.

Smoke began to pour out of it, thick black, curdled with rot, and she paid no heed to the goblins as they began to run away, calling for more guards. Something had been nudging at her, the Truth making its wants known, and she let it run wild as she pulled at the hideous magic.

A wail erupted from the horcrux as it was torn at the seams, the goblet splintering along its length and more smoke bursting forth, drowning out her vision. With its threads in hand, she pried at them like a seamstress, dragging forth Voldemort's childhood memories and feasting on them like a starved wanderer.

He was young, very young when he made this. His third, soon to be fourth, fashioned of the deaths of Myrtle Warren, of Tom Riddle Sr., of Hepzibah Smith. Hardly twenty years old and already a seasoned killer.

Hideous snarls ripped from her as she began to shred the sliver of his soul packed into the cup, mingling with its dying screams and filling the cavern with a chorus of pained shrieks, punctuated by even louder howls as she picked it apart.

Catherine was sweating by the time she was done with it, a furious glare directed at the misshapen shards of the goblet that were left scattered across the floor.

She wanted memories. She wanted locations. Not the vile magic that she had already begun to bury deep in her mind, never to see the light of day. Cursed things, learned within books bound with human flesh, all practiced with a deranged detachment that even she knew she would never stoop to.

But he was too young. Too young to know anything precious, the horcruxes yet to be made.

So Catherine took the memories and smashed them beneath her incorporeal heel. She lit them ablaze and let the fires run wild, scorching the corners of her conscience but leaving no shred nor speck of Voldemort to remain.

By the time she was done she was panting, and Catherine lifted a finger and swiped it under her eye, vaporizing the bloody tears that ran down her face. A heavy sigh left her, Catherine trudging over to the nearby cart and taking her wand from her pocket, spinning it as she directed the cart back through the bowels of Gringotts towards the rising sun.

It whizzed away, and all around her she could hear that same clacking from earlier, shouting as guards were called to attention and ran to man their post. But she was already skidding along the tracks, not with the magic that normally bound the cart - the wheels locked beneath it - but with her own, sparks flying as it tore through the metal and scattered bright flashes of light off the walls near her.

Catherine had two places in mind to visit next. Three, if she counted Hogwarts among the memories that rank stench had stirred in her.

In Grimmauld she'd picked it up, thinking it the rot of the house and not that one of the artifacts she searched for was lying beneath her nose. In Hogwarts, the Room of Requirement always tinged with something just barely noticeable after she had woken with that cursed blood in her veins for the very first time.

Grimmauld was certain. Hogwarts was not. The cave, though, that was one place she wasn't reluctant to visit.

An arrow whizzed past her head and Catherine groaned in annoyance as the cart continued to fly along the tracks. She cast a shield over her cart, leaning back so that only the top of her head poked out over the top so as to avoid anything enchanted lacing through her throat.

Like a stampede of hellfire, the cart was flung uphill and over narrow canyons that led back down from whence she came, until finally the cart ground to a screeching halt at the entrance to the vaults.

Past the doors she could hear more scrambling, and Catherine pulled her mask out of the mist and fitted it across her head, the sides of the brim scraping the doorway as she walked back into the bank.

The entrance was filled with goblins, dozens of them, all brandishing gleaming weaponry and barking orders at her, all of which she ignored.

Her arm moved, and a furious gust of wind burrowed through the centre of their formation, bowling them over and sending the remainder stumbling over their compatriots. Catherine's wand kept moving, a barrage of stunning spells unleashed from it in a glorious display of sparking red, crackling as they collided with the goblins still standing and sending them flying.

Catherine waltzed through the groaning mass, spells still flying from her wand as she moved unimpeded, her steps light, the tips of her toes just barely grazing the marble floor. Never had she been more glad to have someone's memories than Dumbledore's, a century and more flowing out of her in a fireworks show of non-lethal fury.

The goblins had done no wrong, after all. She had no wish to kill them.

She smiled and waved at Murk, standing beside a pillar with his knife in hand as she passed, and though he could not see her face she knew he'd recognized the motion all the same. His lips twisted into a snarl, and he leapt at her with a shout, only to be knocked aside as if a particularly annoying bug.

"I'm sorry, but it's either this or he lives. I hope you understand," she said to him, genuinely apologetic.

He moaned, both angry and dismayed as she threw open the doors, only to be met by a battalion of Aurors with their wands pointed her way, a dozen of them swathed in deep red.

Shit.

"Hello Amelia!"