Chapter 41: Temptation

Harry hadn't been able to find Albus for the rest of the day on Saturday, and when he visited Albus's office on Sunday morning, the first of December, no one was there. He resigned himself to the probability that Albus was out investigating some theory or consulting with some expert about the castle's glitching.

He retreated to his own office. He popped a lemon drop in his mouth, and smiled as it triggered a memory of his and Minerva's prank.

Harry knew it had been a successful prank because Albus hadn't mentioned it since, though he had turned red every time he saw Harry for about a week after. Harry, meanwhile, had had a hell of a time keeping the encounter out of his dreams, and his dreams out of Albus's dreams. -But that was three weeks earlier.

Harry wasn't entirely making things up when he said he needed to talk to Albus about the tournament bracketing system. The tournament would start on Monday, the sixteenth of December, and the championship would be held on Friday, the twentieth. The students would depart on the morning of the twenty first for their winter holidays. Harry had just over two weeks to finish preparing the students and setting up the tournament structure with Albus— if he could find Albus.

He sat down behind his desk and sighed. Then, he noticed a note on his desk, unsealed and written in black ink.

Harry,

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I will have to cancel our meeting this afternoon. I have discovered some important information and will be spending the day working on a project. I may return by the afternoon, but I believe that it would be fairer to let you open your schedule back up. It would, however, be especially efficient and effulgent of you if you would draw up your ideas for the tournament time table, and I can look at them upon my return.

Yours,

Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore

"Draw up my ideas for the time table?" repeated Harry out loud. "Just assumes I—"

"You are his employee, after all," said Minerva. Harry jumped in surprise.

"Minerva!" He hadn't noticed her come in.

"The door was unlocked. Anyway, Albus told me he was going to be gone today, so I figured he would have canceled your meeting...leaving you free...?" She paused and Harry looked at her blankly. "Do... you want to go to the vault?"

Harry frowned down at the letter.

"Yeah..." he said, tearing his gaze away from the letter to look back at Minerva. "Sure. I guess. You saw him, though? I've been looking for him. Do you know what he's working on?"

"Hypocrite."

"What! I was just asking."

They left the office and went up to Harry's room where Harry'd put a two-way vanishing cabinet to the vault. They both ducked under the invisibility cloak, climbed into the cabinet, and disappeared with a whoosh.

Albus woke up early on Sunday morning. He dressed with a few snaps of his fingers, smiling at his new powers, and hurried down to breakfast. Over his bacon, he contemplated, once again, the note he'd found in Harry's memory. "When was the last time you visited Gringotts?" it had asked. Albus hadn't actually set foot inside Gringotts for a very long time. There was something unfriendly about the whole edifice, so Albus didn't go out of his way to visit.

When it came down to it, though, Albus didn't bother much with money anyway. He had the home he'd always wanted, food, amenities, and a benefactor for his research. Somehow or other, his paycheck usually ended up paying for Ministry ordained updates on the castle's security (which he could have done himself were it legal), new supplies for the potions master or nurse, or exotic plants for the greenhouses. Failing to find necessities around the castle in need of replenishment, Albus would find an excuse to buy liquor from the Hogs Head (as Aberforth, his brother, did not take kindly to outright donations).

He was well respected in the Ministry, and was on the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards (and had even been nominated for the positions of Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Minister of Magic three times), and was given so many books and magical artifacts that he never had to buy any for himself. Unlike for many in the ministry, money had nothing to do with Albus Dumbledore's prowess and standing.

The Dumbledores had a family vault, but Albus had given that to Aberforth when he became a teacher. Aberforth had put all of his mother's, father's, and sister's old things in the vault, and used most of the money to buy the Hog's Head. Meanwhile, Albus had opened his own account, and proceeded to ignore its existence most of the time.

The result of living at Hogwarts almost full time, donating his paychecks, and having more titles than he had names was that Albus had not needed to visit Gringotts for at least ten years, if not more. He wondered if something could have changed in his vault, or if there was something there he'd forgotten...

The note had led him to believe that Gringotts had something to do with Harry's project, but Albus couldn't see how his own vault could have anything to do with Harry.

He did remember Harry mentioning a vault a few months earlier, while they were at Comede Noctem. Harry'd mentioned that he left animagus books in the vault, and then Albus had deduced that the one-way vanishing cabinet that led to his pajama wardrobe was in Harry's vault. What he, Albus, could find out at Gringotts...he didn't know, but he was going to look.

He finished up breakfast just as Minerva came in.

"Morning, Albus. Harry was looking for you last night. Said you'd looked like you'd figured something out?"

"Hello, Minerva," said Albus. "I had no such luck with the staircase incident."

"Harry said there was also a room that didn't work?"

"Yes, he told me about that too."

"Well, we thought that maybe it could all be related to when the kitchens stopped working the night we went out. What do you think?"

Albus looked pensive for a moment and then smiled. "Ah...yes, I believe that fits the pattern," he said, remembering the last line of the note in the memory: "P.S. Kitchens." "Yes, well, I'm going out today. I should be gone most of the day."

"Oh," said Minerva. "Where are you going?"

"Gringotts," said Albus. Minerva's surprised expression told Albus he was, indeed, on the right track.

"Oh—oh," she stuttered. "Er...For the whole day?"

"Quite possibly," he said.

"Weren't you meeting with Harry today?"

"Oh...I think I'll just put him to work designing the system himself. He is my employee, after all, and based on the number of projects he's working on, I think he might have too much time on his hands."

Minerva laughed. "Don't forget; he's mostly working on preparing the kids for the tournament."

"Yes, well...Perhaps I am just selfish and nosy, then. Enjoy your breakfast, Minerva." And with that, he strode off, out of the hall, out of the castle, and out of the grounds so that he could apparate to London.

As he strode through the great doors of Gringotts, Albus felt the unwelcoming enchantments around him and the sense of hostility. On previous visits, he'd felt it from the looks of the Goblins and the slogan on the front of the marble building, but on this visit he felt it in the magic.

Albus swept up to a counter and addressed the goblin there.

"I would like to visit my vault, please," said Albus, handing the goblin the key.

The goblin squinted down at Albus (from his perch on a stool or something similar). Albus thought to himself that it had been a while since anyone had had the audacity to look at him quite like that. It was most refreshing.

"Which vault, Mister Dumbledore?"

"I believe my vault is number seven hundred and thirteen," said Albus, deciding against correcting the goblin on his title. Albus made a point of only being excessively superior when faced with true rudeness. The goblin was just being snooty.

"That is, indeed, the number on the key. It is that vault which you would like to visit?"

Albus paused for a second. Since he had begun speaking to the goblin, at least two other customers had already come and gone from the counters on either side of him. Those goblins would take the key, and, without any extra conversation, escort the customers to a cart.

Albus's goblin, on the other hand, had asked him which vault, when it was clearly marked on the key, and then asked to confirm that he wanted to visit that vault. The goblin was not blind, as he had been reading and writing a moment before, he was not inordinately chatty, because chattiness was not a feature that existed in the goblin gene pool, and he was not messing with Albus, because nobody messed with Albus Dumbledore. Or...at least nobody but Harry and Minerva, anyway.

What Albus had to conclude then, was that either this was Harry pretending to be a goblin, or that he had the option of visiting more than one vault. The second, which was more likely, was the anomaly that he'd been waiting for.

"No," he said. "Not today, I think. I shall visit the other vault today."

"Very well." The goblin flashed his sharp, crooked teeth at Albus for a moment, and then disappeared behind the counter. Albus saw him go through a door behind the counter, and then he reappeared a moment later followed by a crowd of goblins. Albus raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"This way," said the goblin. They led Albus to the mouth of the caverns that Albus knew went down for miles. Parked there was a train of little carts. The goblin gestured that Albus take the front car, and all of the goblins started filling in the carts behind him. Albus stepped into the front cart and took his seat, his knees pressing uncomfortably against the front of the car due to his height.

Without much warning, the cart started to move. Albus did remember riding the carts when he was a child and teen. He studied physics before he was allowed to study magic, and he loved calculating the physics behind the motion of the carts. He could calculate the speed by estimating the length of each piece of track, and counting the number of clacks the cart made per minute. This train, he guessed, was going much faster than one little cart did.

He was thrown against left side of the cart, and then the right as his inertia battled the train's path. He memorized every turn of the cart until...

Then the cave wall to the right of the track fell away and the underground lake was exposed, stretching along their side. Albus looked across, but couldn't make out the opposite bank through a blanket of mist.

Suddenly the cart lurched to the right, off the track, straight towards the lake. Albus groaned as his knees slammed particularly hard against the cart. The goblins were silent. They'd expected this.

The cart was still moving smoothly, or as smoothly as it ever did despite the fact that there was no track. The cart was rolling along, several inches off the cavern floor.

Then, to Albus's awe, the train was rolling over the undisturbed mirror of water, straight towards the center of the underground lake. The train dove through the mist until Albus couldn't see the bank they'd come from, but then Albus could see...a dark shape in the water in front of them.

As they grew closer, Albus could see that it was a circle where there was no water, and no land. It was just a hole in the lake. They grew closer and closer until the hole was right along side them, and then the train stopped.

Albus peered over the side of the train to see a stone room. The room was in the shape of a cylinder, five meters in diameter, and probably about five meters deep.

Albus turned to the goblins. "Will you wait for me?" he asked.

The goblin in the cart directly behind him, the one from the counter, sneered. "We will wait if we escort you into the vault."

Albus thought for a moment. Albus was not prejudiced, but he knew that the priority of the goblins would be to reposes any goblin-made items. Also, though he hadn't worked out exactly what the vault was, he guessed that it was seldom accessed and, most likely, a source of intrigue to the goblins. He also surmised that they could not enter without his permission or assistance, which was not true for any other vaults in Gringotts, to Albus's knowledge. He knew that their inability to access the vault would frustrate the goblins, which might make them more dangerous.

It had occurred to Albus, in one of his millions of thoughts, that he was about to have access to the vault where Harry stored his vanishing cabinet to Albus's rooms, and thus he would be able to get out. It had also occurred to him that the note about Gringotts was completely unrelated to Harry's project, and that he could be stuck in the pits of Gringotts until he either swam across the lake and climbed back out, or starved to death.

His options were to risk starving to death or being backstabbed by goblins, possibly literally. Because they were willing to leave him, Albus knew they valued whatever was in the vault more than his life—or they were bluffing. The wizarding community would be very upset if he vanished, Albus reasoned. —And if his perfect breaststroke failed, or he hadn't memorized the tracks as well as he thought he had, maybe he'd be able to get in touch with Harry to get him out.

So with this logic in mind, and some nagging feeling that the goblins would be unwelcome in the vault, he declined their offer.

"I think I will find my own way, but thank you for the ride down."

They squinted at him mutinously, and Albus swung himself out of the cart before they tried to change his mind for him. Before he realized, he'd sunk ankle deep in the water, but his feet weren't wet at all. It was almost as if the water were an illusion.

He turned to the goblins with a smile. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your morning," and he stepped down into the chamber.

Harry and Minerva were having a ball, so to speak. They'd found a set of set of four white spheres that had been donated by the head of the Ministry of Magic's Department of Games and Sports in 1650. Harry'd picked one of the spheres up, only to have it immediately enclose his entire fist. He freaked out for a minute, until he tried to open his fist and it came off. He soon discovered that putting a sphere on each fist would allow him to fly, in a wobbly sort of way.

Minerva came in from the living room and laughed herself silly, until Harry finally asked what was so funny.

"Those go on your feet, Crockett."

Harry grinned sheepishly. "Oh."

"Can I have a go?" Minerva asked. "Those haven't been on sale for at least a century."

"Sure," said Harry. "There's another pair."

The spheres, worn on the feet, acted like a pair of ice skates, only for levitation rather than ice. Minerva and Harry spent quite a while chasing each other around mid-air in the ballroom-like library until they were both out of breath from keeping their speed and balance.

"Why did they stop making them?" asked Harry, gliding slowly alongside Minerva.

"The brooms got faster," said Minerva. Harry slipped in the air and wound up upside down dangling by his feet. "And brooms are safer," she added with a smirk and a graceful mid-air twirl.

Harry managed to get himself to the ground, but couldn't figure out how to get the skates off. They'd come off his hands when he opened his fists, but he couldn't do that with his feet.

"Minerva? Do you know how to get these off?"

"Click your heels three times," she said.

Harry smiled and clicked his heels. "There's no place like home..."

"Sorry?"

"Oh. Er, you know, the Wizard of Oz."

"Where's Oz?"

Harry laughed at the absurdity of the question, but was cut off when he felt an odd tug at his magic.

"Er...Did you do something just now?" he asked Minerva.

"Like what?"

"I don't know, hit me with a spell or something?"

"Nope. Where's Oz?"

"Er..." said Harry distractedly. "Doesn't exist— did you feel anything? Like...a tug on your magical aura?"

"A what on my what what?"

Harry frowned. "Like...like that feeling you get when you're casting a spell, or when someone casts a spell on you."

"Spells all feel different when you cast them," she said, "and certainly different when people cast them on you. So, do you mean feel like bat-boggy hex, or like cheering charm?"

"No...there's something else you feel that's all the same, usually. A sort of energy that you get or lose or...Actually, it's more like what I feel when I enter the vault."

"I don't feel anything when I—"

There was a deep grinding rumbling sound from the direction of the living room and Harry and Minerva looked around, alarmed.

"Cave in?" Minerva shrieked over the continued rumble.

"Don't know! Cabinet?"

They lunged out of the ballroom-library and back into the living room with the cabinets and desk.

"Your place or mine?" smirked Harry.

"No, wait! It's not coming from in here," said Minerva. Harry listened, and she was right. The grinding sound seemed to be coming from past the door to the antechamber. It also didn't sound nearly as loud outside of the echoing ballroom. "It's coming from out there," said Minerva. "I don't think that's a cave in, either."

"But it does sound like stone on stone...almost like..."

"What, like the goblins are trying to pry open the door?"

Harry frowned. He grabbed the invisibility cloak from where it was draped over a chair, and the two of them jogged down the hall to the door of the vault.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the grinding stopped.

"Quick! Get under here," Harry said. He swung the invisibility cloak over them and the door in front of them vanished. Both Harry and Minerva gasped in shock at what they saw in the antechamber.

As Albus descended the stairs, he heard, to his mild surprise, the sound of the train leaving. Apparently, the goblins had meant business. All thoughts of how he would get back out, though, vanished as symbols began to glow on the circular wall and floor of the chamber.

A line. The wand. A triangle. The cloak. A circle. The stone. And on the floor, all three glowed in a symbol that haunted his memories. Albus had found the vaults of the Peverell brothers.

He stood as if frozen on the stairs for a full minute, his noisy brain shocked into silence by the glowing symbols. The only sound was the occasional drip of a stalactite, the thundering in Albus's chest, and the breath rattling through his open mouth.

Then, his thoughts came flooding back with such a force that he had to learn, crooked, against the wall.

His wand was the key to the the vault.

Ariana.

He could open the vault.

Ariana.

He'd found the vaults of the Hallows.

Ariana.

What harm could it do? It was only the wand.

But maybe there was a trace of the stone...

Ariana.

What was in the stone valut?

Ariana.

He tried to reassemble his logic, his beautiful logic that let him make the right decision every time. The logic he used to calculate the speed of the Gringotts carts, the logic he'd used just moments earlier to decide to venture into the antechamber alone. Alone, with nobody to stop him.

He was swamped with the same conflicting emotions that had resulted from his original search for the Hallows. He felt the terror, hurt, and even hate from what Gellert had done to him—made him into, and his old love and admiration for Gellert was like acid on the wound. These emotions had led him to hide from Gellert Grindelwald for years, letting people around him die. The same emotions were still ruining his life years later— for example, they had led him to nearly alienate Harry.

He'd had years to ponder, though. He could bring her back with the stone, and there was the stone's vault right there.

Ariana.

Rare irrational thoughts plagued his mind: what if Gellert had accessed the wand's vault? Gellert could know what happened...Albus imagined walking into the vault and immediately being magically shown vivid and irrefutable visions of he, Albus, murdering his sister.

He tore his gaze away from the piece of wall with the wand, and looked to the one with the circle. He could bring her back with the Stone, and there was the stone's vault right there. Maybe the stone was nearer to his grasp, even though he couldn't open that vault.

He could earn the forgiveness of his brother, his parents, himself.

Of Ariana.

He stepped down the remaining stairs onto the floor as if in a trance. He turned to the vault of the Elder Wand, standing straight and stiff like the symbol on the wall. He allowed himself to be hypnotized by its glow.

He drew the Elder Wand and pointed it at the door. "Alohamora!"

The room was silent for a moment, except for the dripping. Then, the line on the wall began to glow brighter and brighter. It extended up, and down to the floor. When the light of the wall was blinding, the wall began to split with an almighty groan of stone grinding on stone. The sides of the wall thundered apart, the excess stone disappearing impossibly.

And then it stopped. The door was open. And Albus walked in.