Author's Note: In this story, Harry, Ron, and Hermione broke into the Snape vault, not the Lestrange vault. Everything at Malfoy Manor with Bellatrix was with Snape.

"There won't be many guards, nobody knows that we came except for us and Griphook," Hermione said.

Ron peeked around the corner, "It gives me absolute joy to say this. You're wrong."

"Ronald!" Hermione said, punching his arm as they advanced into the room.

Harry, Ron and Hermione ducked behind a mine cart as a group of goblins, who were talking to each other, walked past. Why had they done this in the first place? The Thief's Downfall had stripped Hermione and Ron of their disguises, and now they were hiding from guards that were on patrol.

Harry groaned. "Hopefully Snape's vault won't be as heavily protected," he muttered to himself.

The guards passed and the trio snuck closer to the next rock. Suddenly the guards came back. They were a lot more alert than they had been a few seconds before.

Harry could only pick up a few words out of their frantic conversation: intruder, Snape and vault.

All three of them groaned. The goblin that had escorted them as far as the Thief's Downfall must have alerted the guards. Griphook had followed with him to keep him quiet, but apparently he failed.

Harry and Hermione peeked out over the rock they were hiding behind. More and more guards, both wizards and goblins, appeared and drew their wands, ready to fight off any intruders.

Both of them lowered their heads, not wanting to be seen by the guards.

"How many are there?" asked Ron.

"About 20 and counting," replied Harry in a whisper.

"What do we do? They'll find us no matter what, we can't all fit under the Cloak anymore."

"I think we should attack now, before half of the guards arrive," said Hermione, peeking around the edge of the rock again.

Harry and Ron agreed, hoping that Hermione was right about this one. They turned around and sent Stunning and Body-Bind spells at the guards from the cover of the rock. The guards figured out where they came from and unfriendly curses were fired in their direction. The trio continued to cast spells over the rock. Their spells were accurate despite the lack of time they had to aim properly. However, for every guard that was hit by a stunning spell, another five seemed to appear.

Ron was hit by a Bat-Bogey Hex when he shot a spell at a guard. He was used to being hit by this hex, but he could no longer fire any spells, since his vision was completely obscured by the bats. Harry and Hermione kept shooting spells at the guards, but more and more kept coming.

The three of them were flung forward by an explosion behind them; one of the guards had hit the rock behind them with a Reductor curse, flinging them forward and causing them to lose their grip on their wands. The Golden Trio found themselves wandless and at the mercy of the hundreds of guards in the room.

The guards started to advance, but one of them raised his hand and they stopped; he stepped forward and sized up the intruders in front of him. Finally, he ordered his men to lower their wands, which they reluctantly did while keeping their wary eyes on Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"I must be the one to kill the intruders. Drop your wands." commanded the man.

The guards dropped their wands and watched as the man raised his own wand and pointed it at the trio. He raised his wand, but hesitated for a split second before casting the curse. This was all the time they needed to dodge the spells and summon their wands.

"Accio!" they yelled in unison, their wands flying into their hands

First, Harry raised his wand and disarmed the leader. The spell made the surprised man's wand fly out of his hand and knocked him backwards into his subordinates. The confusion amongst the ranks of the guards gave the trio a chance to escape that they immediately took advantage of. They sent spell after spell into the crowd of guards, using the guard's confusion to their advantage.

The guards recovered from their surprise and retrieved their wands. Harry, Ron, and Hermione played to their strengths. There was a large crowd of guards, which meant they were easier to hit. They didn't aim specifically, just in the area of the crowd, knowing they had a higher chance of hitting someone. The three of them also spread out, individual targets were much harder to hit than ones that were clumped together.

The guards' only advantage was that since they had larger numbers, they had more firepower. If they shot a spell at one of the intruders, they would have at least three other spells joining it. The trio was having a hard time dodging all of the curses that came their way. The guards were not as accurate as the trio, but they had more men and they had a high hit rate as well.

At last, Harry cut the last guard down with the Sectumsempra spell. All three of them were covered in blood, sweat, and grime. Hermione cast a quick Cleaning Charm, wiping most of the blood and grime off of them. The trio continued on to the vault, where they would hopefully find the Horcrux they were looking for.

The three of them reached the vault, and took out the key they had stolen from Snape at Malfoy Manor. They unlocked the vault and found a few mountains of gold, sliver, and bronze as well as a tiny gold cup on top of one of the mountains of coins. Harry was about to climb onto the pile when Hermione noticed some runes carved into a piece of wood. She looked at it as the boys climbed the pile of gold.

Climbing the pile of money was a lot harder than Harry and Ron had expected. They couldn't get a good grip on many coins. Eventually, Ron boosted Harry up so he could grab the cup. Harry grabbed the handle and Ron lowered him back to the ground.

The trio smiled at each other and Disapparated, knowing that they had found another Horcrux.

Author's Note:

The Houses Competition Forum

Ravenclaw

Care of Magical Creatures

Standard

Prompt(s): [Setting] Gringotts [Speech] "It brings me absolute joy to say this. You're wrong" [Spell] Accio

Word Count: 1,094

Word Count without author's note: 1,029