CHAPTER 21: DIAGON ALLEY - BANKING ADVENTURES
A/N: Didn't expect me so soon, did you?
Their first stop was, predictably, Gringotts, the wizarding bank. While the concept of banks was not entirely foreign to Sparhawk, that every citizen would have an account with one was rather amazing. In his times, most of the peasantry just buried their money under a tree or something, provided they managed to save much in the first place. It had been a brutal economy.
Passing a number of shops selling some rather interesting paraphernalia, they reached Gringotts, which was more a kind of fort than a bank. It was a massive building, with massive gates and teeny weeny guards. Who, Sparhawk was informed, were goblins. Imagine being called a goblin all the time. Must be rather insulting.
The four at the gates were armoured in a somewhat familiar fashion to Sparhawk, in plate mail, and in their hands, they held cruelly serrated pikes. A good, practical decision, Sparhawk thought. Given the lack of reach their stubby limbs afforded, polearms were the natural choice. They glared in a manner most unfriendly at the four of them and Sparhawk found himself working up to one of his own glares before he was informed that it was their customary stare and it was a cultural thing. How quaint.
On the great silver doors was inscribed a poetic little warning to thieves.
'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.'
And looking inside Sparhawk could believe them. At every few metres, there seemed to be a goblin guard armed with some manner of sharp steel eyeing everyone with unfriendly glares. Most cultural.
Beyond the entrance, they were herded towards a table with a pugnacious-looking goblin, well, even more so than usual. This fellow glared at them in a manner most nasty, eyes settling briefly on Adelaide, before he rasped out in a squeaky voice, "Wands!"
Dumbledore seemed surprised. "Why, this all seems rather new!"
"New security measures" the fellow grunted sourly and held out a bag.
Dumbledore sighed. "Well, it is to be expected given recent events, I suppose." He drew his wand, a black, rough, gnarled, knotted thing, and dropped it in the bag. Snape looked positively acidic but relinquished his nonetheless. It was a smooth, long, and woody affair. Adelaide offered a pen since she didn't have one and the goblin didn't seem to mind. Finally, the little fellow stopped before Sparhawk and eyed him. Sparhawk eyed him right back. It wasn't that hard given the lack of a significant height difference.
"What?" he asked.
The goblin nodded at the bag.
Dumbledore stepped in. "Young Harry..."
"Sparhawk"
"Young Sparhawk here doesn't have a wand"
The Goblin stood his ground. "No weapons allowed," he said with finality. The Goblin guards near them started inching closer. Dumbledore looked bemused. Snape looked like he was getting ready to reconcile with his imminent mortality. Adelaide looked at Sparhawk.
Well, he couldn't see any way out of this. With a sheepish smile, he reached into his shirt and drew out a thin knife, and dropped it in the bag.
"Where did you get that?" demanded Adelaide.
"Found it lying around"
Snape looked furious. "Why," he ground out through clenched teeth, "Would you go around concealing knives on your person, boy?"
Sparhawk shrugged like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Precautionary measure."
Snape looked like he might go ballistic, but Dumbledore stepped in to calm down the irate potions master. "There, there Severus. I'm pretty sure you would too if you'd just been attacked in your home by death eaters. And anyway, it's all been sorted now, although I should inform young Sparhawk that outside of the Potions classroom, students are banned from carrying knives."
Sparhawk gave a most pious nod.
"Well, let's head in."
As they headed in, they could hear a wizard who'd arrived just behind them sputter in outrage as the security goblin demanded his wand. Adelaide turned a concerned look on the chubby man who was fast approaching the hue of a beetroot.
"Why do they have these new security measures?" she asked.
Dumbledore glanced once at Sparhawk, so quickly he'd have almost missed it, and turned to reply. "There was a robbery here a few days back."
"A robbery!" she gasped.
"Yes. The thieves managed to break in, but nothing was stolen, according to the goblins."
"That's surprising."
"Yes indeed. Gringotts is supposed to unburglerable."
Sparhawk had been mighty impressed by the poetic warnings inscribed at the entrance, but it seemed they were all bark and no bite. Beware of finding more than treasure here. Well, it seems this thief found nothing at all.
Something of his disdain must have shown on his face because Dumbledore said, "Think not unkindly of the Goblins. In all its storied history, I believe this is the only time thieves have actually made it into Gringotts. And then again, nothing was lost. No harm, no foul."
"How is it that they took nothing? Not even a handful of gold?" Sparhawk asked, looking around. The place seemed loaded enough.
"Who knows, young Sparhawk? Maybe gold was not what they were looking for." Dumbledore replied mysteriously, his beard waggling. Before Sparhawk could ask anything more, the old man said, "And I believe we have an opening."
He moved to intercept a free goblin before another wizard with banking on his mind could occupy the lull. "Excuse me, we need to make a withdrawal from the Potter vault."
The goblin stared suspiciously at the Headmaster. "Who's asking?"
"Why, young Mr Potter, of course!" Dumbledore exclaimed pushing Sparhawk to the forefront. Sparhawk could have just gone with the flow, but that would have ruined the running joke.
"Beg to differ. My name's Sparhawk." Snape groaned.
The Goblin eyed the little group warily, hand inching closer to something hidden within his vest. "The little guy differs". As if they could sense the tension in the air, goblin guards seemed to inch ever so imperceptibly closer.
"Oh, this is a bit of a misunderstanding," said Dumbledore. "This is Harry Potter," he announced, and at that, a few heads turned, and then his voice dropped, "But he goes by Sparhawk now."
The Goblin still seemed mighty suspicious. "Well. Highly irregular. We'll have to do a little test of authenticity."
Dumbledore nodded sagely. The Goblin disappeared and returned a bit later with another Goblin, this one looking similar to all the other goblins that Sparhawk had seen so far. A rather racist joke would have been inserted here were it not for the uncertain political climate and the fact that those things are usually bad form. This one eyed the boy up and down. "This seems to be him. Let's see what his blood says."
Saying so, the new goblin offered a parchment to Sparhawk. It was blank. "Press your thumb here" the goblin said, pointing at a little dot at the end of the page. He did so and was rewarded with a sharp stinging pain. Face unchanging, he withdrew his thumb and found a bead of blood. At the site of contact with the parchment, a red spot had appeared that grew, spidery lines extending all along to the top of the sheet. On those lines appeared tiny little names, that mostly ended in Potter. At the very bottom was written 'Harry James Potter'
The goblins looked it over and seemed satisfied. "Welcome, Mr Potter. I'm Griphook. You might remember me from last time."
Sparhawk begged to disagree. "I'm Sparhawk."
The Goblin just stared at him.
"But you are Harry Potter, sir," it said.
Sparhawk was obstinate. "I'm Sparhawk."
Griphook looked askance at Dumbledore, but the old man was currently pretending to be senile, so he shrugged, which was an interesting motion. "Sparhawk, then. Would you like your change of name to be officially recorded in our books, so as to avoid future unpleasantries?"
"Mighty helpful of you neighbour"
"It'll cost a hundred galleons"
Behind them, Snape sputtered.
Once the intricacies of banking paperwork had been dealt with, Sparhawk having been assured that a hundred galleons were peanuts compared to what he had in the vault, the unlikely foursome were taken to a tiny chamber where they boarded, of all things, a rickety cart on tracks.
"Does this thing have safety belts?" asked Adelaide.
To which Griphook responded by throwing the switch sending them all careening into the darkness.
In the dim light, with Adelaide screaming bloody murder behind him, Sparhawk enjoyed the rush of the damp, dank air past his face as the cart went through a seemingly endless series of tunnels, twisting and turning this way and that. Once, a great plume of flame whooshed out a passageway and Sparhawk distantly wondered if it was a dragon. But it was gone in an instant. There was also a neat little underground lake whose surface bubbled all too much for Sparhawk's liking and he breathed a sigh of relief when the cart crossed over. Presently, they came to a stop in front of a little platform where they disembarked.
Adelaide's legs looked rather shaky as she got down, but she brushed away Dumbledore's helping hands none the less. Sparhawk for his part was looking as stoic as ever, something which bothered Snape greatly. Not that the potion's master was going to show it. He put on his own stoic face and soldiered on.
Griphook produced the Potter Vault's key from within his pants and slid it into the keyhole. A bit of complex jiggling and the door rolled open with nary a squeak. Gringotts, Sparhawk thought, must have a dedicated team to greasing the hinges.
Once the door slid all the way open, there was a collective intake of breath from Snape and Adelaide. The vault brimmed with coinage of various hues.
Sparhawk stepped in, followed by Adelaide. There were huge coins of gold, huge coins of silver, and huge coins of bronze. All in all, they looked rather uncomfortable to comfortably carry.
"You didn't think to bring a pouch, did you?" he asked Adelaide. The older woman shrugged. Dumbledore, sensing his moment to shine, sidled up to Sparhawk and pressed a pouch into his hands. "You can use that, my boy. As for the coinage," he added helpfully, "The gold ones are galleons, Sickles silver, and bronze knuts. Seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. Rather different from what they have in the muggle world, I'm told"
"That's a rather inconvenient conversion" Adelaide pointed out.
"Oh, you'll get used to it, Mrs Baker ."
"Alright, then. How much will Sparhawk be needing?"
Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he reached over and helped Sparhawk pile some money into his pouch. "That should about cover it."
Sparhawk filched some more from a convenient mound. "For emergencies," he explained.
Adelaide looked like she might disapprove, but sighed and let it be. "Alright, young man, but once we're done shopping, anything extra goes straight back to the bank."
Sparhawk looked like he might protest.
"Well, you can keep a couple of, what were those, galleons, but that's about it. And that's subject to change once I understand how much things cost around here."
Dumbledore beamed. "Oh, that's more than enough for a young boy to get by, I would say"
And that's the obligatory Gringotts visit done. Now that we're well stocked, I'd say it's time for shopping. And I hope you people noted a few important points in the chapter.
