Sirius grinned as Harry guessed the correct face of the coin for the twentieth time in a row including the time he'd swapped the coin out for a double sided coin without telling him and the time he'd swapped the coin for a different coin in case Harry had somehow charmed it. "We're going to a casino at some point."
Harry glanced over at the tent where one of his mothers was napping. "I'm game if you can get me some polyjuice and figure out a way to do it that doesn't have my mums breathing fire."
Sirius frowned as he pictured Lily's reaction to taking Harry to a casino. "Point, maybe later. Do you have a plan for getting into Bella's vault? Last time you said that was where everything went downhill."
"I've got a couple of ideas but they're not exactly what most people would call sane," Harry admitted.
Sirius laughed. "Sanity is overrated. Let's hear your ideas."
"I have three invisibility potions, I'm not opposed to using one of them to get past the goblins so I can simply fly down to Bellatrix's vault."
Sirius shook his head. "Let's ignore the fact that you have three potions that shouldn't exist for a minute, you'd still need a goblin to open her vault."
Harry smirked. "Can the wards tell the difference between a conscious goblin and an unconscious goblin?"
"I'm not sure, it's worth testing considering you can reset things. Where did you get the invisibility potions?"
"Would you believe me if I said I found them in Mum's potion lab during the tutorial?" Harry asked hopefully.
Sirius snorted. "Maybe if you weren't smirking, spill."
"I'll tell you the rest of the story once I get back from robbing Bellatrix's vault." Harry wanted Voldemort dead and gone before he told Sirius about the vault, his extra cousins and Diggle Hell.
"Lily is going to blow her top when she realizes I let you run off to rob Gringotts, no matter how we try to spin it."
Harry grinned. "Don't worry, I'll have a time loop running, if I have to reset it so we can escape her wrath, I will."
"In that case what do you need help with?" Sirius said relieved.
"I'm not terribly sure how goblins or wizards solve crimes other than not well in the case of wizards."
"The goblins aren't much better than wizards. As long as you don't leave hairs behind, walk in there with a registered wand or get seen, you should be okay."
"In other words, I should grab a cloak and a mask?" Harry asked curiously.
"That would certainly help," Sirius admitted.
Harry opened his inventory and looked through the clothes tab until he found an ugly green cloak that he could do without and a pair of faded 'red' pajama bottoms that also covered his feet. He pulled them out of his inventory and tossed them to Sirius. "Here."
Sirius smirked as he caught the clothes. "Pink?"
Harry glared at Sirius as he stated firmly, "They are red."
"If you say so," Sirius replied with good natured mocking.
"Can you charm them so that I'll be invisible while wearing them?" Harry asked hopefully.
Sirius shrugged. "Disillusion maybe. It won't last more than a couple of days and it won't be invisibility but if you stick to the shadows, you should be able to make it work."
"That's fine, I shouldn't need it more than a couple of hours," Harry said, figuring he could simply stick to the ceiling as no one ever looked up.
"Or we could just wait until we capture Bellatrix and use polyjuice."
Harry shook his head. "I also want to try and steal any goblin spell books that I can get my hands on."
Sirius winced. "That could start a war."
Harry smirked. "Only if they remember it. Griphook tried to kill Hermione, Ron and I by trapping us in a vault the last time around, after we made a deal to get access so that we could destroy Voldemort's horcrux. I don't have any loyalty to the nasty little bastards."
"This is going to end in blood and tears," Sirius muttered.
Harry shrugged. "Hopefully for the Death Eaters when they realize they can't buy their way out of prison."
Sirius pulled his wand out of his holster and charmed the pajama bottoms and the cloak to disillusion Harry while he was wearing them. He doubted they'd last more than a couple of days and that was mainly because of their small size, but that should be enough time for Harry to test the bank's defenses.
Harry equipped the charmed clothes then grabbed a pair of gloves and a cloth mask out of his inventory and handed them to Sirius. "Here."
Sirius charmed the mask and gloves then handed it to Harry. "I'll also hit you with a silencing charm before I drop you off, just to make sure you're covered."
"Thanks." Harry put the mask and gloves on then touched his nose. "Save game."
"Game saved."
"The time loop is set."
Sirius pulled his hood up. "Let's head to Diagon alley before I change my mind."
Harry held out his hand. "Whenever you're ready."
Sirius grabbed his hand and side along apparated to Diagon Alley with him. He glanced around to make sure no one was paying all that much attention then whispered when he didn't notice anyone paying them any attention, "Have fun, I'm going to check on a couple of things, you're resetting this try anyways, right?"
"Yep, why?"
"I wanted to pay Borgin a visit. He has a couple of books that I wouldn't mind taking a look at that I'd rather no one actually remember me buying."
"You do know that you'll forget everything, right?" Harry asked in a whisper.
Sirius smirked. "Of course but, you won't. If I find something useful you can memorize the page and we'll pick it up later while in disguise or copy the spell down with a pensieve."
"Worth a shot," Harry agreed in a whisper.
"Best of luck." Sirius turned and headed for Knockturn alley.
Harry flew down the street toward Gringotts. He hovered a couple of feet off the ground as he watched people enter and exit the bank for a minute or two then flew into the bank when a witch opened the door to leave. He quickly flew over to the counter and around the back to make sure that he wasn't seen. He was actually a bit surprised when he didn't hear any shouts or sirens. He waited twenty seconds then flew behind the various goblins and into the passage that led to the tunnels. 'That went better than I was expecting.'
Despite or maybe because of what happened the last time he'd snuck into Gringotts he was half expecting to have things jump out and try to eat him as he flew toward where he remembered Bellatrix's vault was located. Thankfully sneaking past the dragon only required flying fast enough that the dragon couldn't track him by scent quickly enough to roast him with its fire breath. He grinned as he spotted a goblin opening a vault while a grumpy looking wizard waited impatiently.
The wizard grumbled, "Out of the way."
The goblin resisted the urge to snarl or stab the stupid wizard as he stepped back so the wizard could get into his vault.
Harry blinked as he caught sight of the dark mark on the man's arm when he reached out to grab the side of the vault and his robe bunched up. 'You'd think the idiots would do a better job hiding those.' He hit the wizard with a silent and wandless stunner then did the same with the shocked goblin when he spun around to look at what had sent the spell at the wizard. 'Almost too easy.'
Harry walked into the vault and glanced around at the stacks of gold and silver coins then looked over at a shelf that held various items including several books. He opened his inventory then worked on looting the various treasures in the vault leaving the stacks of gold and silver alone. It wasn't that he didn't want the gold, it was just that he didn't see a point in taking the gold when he was going to load his save game anyways.
Harry grinned as he stole the man's wand and vault key then levitated him the rest of the way into the vault. He walked out of the vault and levitated the goblin up and over to the door. He sighed in relief as he was able to close the vault door by using the goblin's hand on the door. 'And this is supposed to be the most secure place on Earth to store your gold? Bullshit.' He scowled as he levitated the goblin in front of him as he flew toward Bellatrix's vault. 'Smoke and mirrors and more lies. What the hell stops a group of wizards from coming down here with brooms?' He smiled slightly as he remembered one of Hermione's rants about how wizards were idiots. Sure, that particular rant had actually been about Ron but the same applied to wizards in general at least in his experience.
Harry wasn't surprised when he managed to open Bellatrix's vault with the goblin though he was a bit disappointed in their security. 'Seriously, imperio is a thing, confusion charms are a thing… maybe we should just kidnap Hermione and head to America. They can't be this stupid all over the world.'
He floated the goblin inside the vault then flew in to take a look around. He smiled as he saw the cup on the pedestal where he'd found it the last time around. He carefully flew up next to the cup and picked it up then stuffed it in his inventory. 'Yep, creepy dark nasty feeling, one down, several to go.' He glanced around the rest of the vault. 'Hmm, no books, just a bunch of gold and goblin silver art objects.' He reached out and picked one of the chalices up and was rather surprised then it didn't start replicating like mad. 'Huh, she must have upgraded her security system after Voldemort took over the ministry.'
He picked up a couple more items at random and stuffed them in his inventory then stopped as he felt dark magic as he reached for a dagger. 'I should grab some dragonhide gloves for the real attempt.' He left the dagger where it was then cast a silence spell on the vault. He cast Incarcerous on the goblin then pulled one of the truth potions he'd looted from his mother's potion lab out of his inventory and dosed the goblin. He wasn't sure why his mother had truth potion, maybe because of his father's job as an auror or maybe it was because of the tutorial but either way he wasn't going to complain. He hit the goblin with a wandless enervate. "Wake up."
The goblin looked around warily when he found that he was tied up and in a different vault than the one he'd opened. "What do you want?" he demanded as his eyes looked around for his unseen assailant.
"I want to know what the bank does with vaults that don't have owners."
The goblin snorted then replied in a daze. "If we can't find any family we confiscate everything as per our agreement with the ministry."
Harry pulled a notebook and pen out of his inventory. "If you were going to loot the most valuable possession the goblins have or are guarding, what would you loot and where would I find it?"
"A head sized ruby, in the director's personal vault," replied the goblin woodenly as the truth potion forced the truth from him.
Harry wrote the information down as he asked his next question. "Where would I find goblin books on goblin magic?" He only felt slightly guilty as he pumped the goblin for information about magic, ancient goblin treasures, the location of the bank records for the owners of each vault, the contents of various death eater vaults and the art of creating goblin silver of which the goblin knew very little of other than a couple of names of previous long dead goblin smiths which would be helpful as soon as he got the resurrection stone back.
Harry spent over an hour wringing information out of the goblin before he heard an alarm coming from outside despite the muffling charms. "Looks like they finally got curious."
The goblin glared in Harry's general direction. "You'll never get away with this!"
"Oh? Why not?"
The goblin said, "Because they'll capture you!"
"How, I'm invisible and you've never seen my face."
"We record the wand signature of everyone that comes into the bank. We'll find you."
"And the fact that I didn't bring a wand?" Harry asked curiously, hoping the goblin gave something away in his rage at being captured.
"You had to have left something behind." The goblin shouted, "Once we find out who you are we'll kill you and your entire family for discovering what you have!"
"Have the goblins arranged any deaths so they can confiscate a vault?"
"That would be illegal and violate several magical contracts," the goblin snarled as the potion forced him to continue, "a word here or there about another family's vast wealth on the other hand is perfectly acceptable and often accomplishes the same thing."
"Anything else I should know?" Harry smiled as the goblin continued spilling secrets for another twenty minutes until a group of goblin security guards showed up to investigate the open vault.
One of the guards demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"
The truth potion laced goblin shouted, "She's invisible!" assuming it was a female because of Harry's current childlike voice.
Harry used a pedestal as cover as he blasted the goblin guards until they were little more than piles of ash. "That was messy..." He reached down and picked up the goblin he'd been interrogating and stuffed him in his inventory. 'Thank the gods for giant strength.' He smirked as he walked over and grabbed an intact goblin hand which was just about the only thing left of that particular goblin. He flew over to the next vault and used the goblin hand on the vault's door. He stared in shock when the vault door actually opened. 'Seriously? I trusted these morons with my gold...'
Harry shook his head then put the bloody severed hand in his inventory knowing that his inventory would keep it fresh. He pointed his hand at the vault and wandlessly conjured light. His slight frown turned into a smile when he saw the shelf filled with old books. 'I wish Hermione was here.' His smile slid off his face as he remembered that his best friends were gone. 'New life, new friends and I have my parents back… screw it, I'll just have to find her early.'
He had a feeling that Hermione would still end up a bookworm no matter what which was thankfully one of her more adorable traits, he was just hoping that he could grind off some of her rougher edges before she got to Hogwarts. He wasn't sure what to do about Ron as he wasn't even sure that Ron would want to be his friend this time around considering he wasn't the Boy Who Lived, same thing with Ginny really. 'Nothing I can do about it right now.'
Harry pulled his attention back to the vault then summoned the books and stuffed them into his inventory after writing the vault number of the spines of the books. He smiled absently as he pictured Hermione screaming at him for defacing old books, 'At least this way I can keep track of where I found them.'
He turned and flew to the next vault. He pulled the bloody hand out and used it on the vault door then looked inside. 'Gold and silver, nothing special.' He flew to the next door and touched the bloody goblin hand to the door. His first indication that something was wrong was the bloody hand sinking into the door, the next was the wailing siren of doom. He flew backwards as the hand was sucked into the vault. 'Maybe the goblins aren't quite as stupid as I thought. The life must have faded from the hand which set off the alarm. I guess that means I need to find the records department and get the hell out of here.'
He smiled as he headed deeper into the cave to where the dragon was chained up. It wasn't where he needed to be for the records but letting a dragon rampage through Gringotts would certainly give the goblins something else to focus on while he robbed the records room. He blasted the chains on the dragon, threw a ball of fire behind him, and then flew as fast as he could away from the dragon. He wanted to laugh as the dragon charged then roasted a group of goblins that thought they were out of range. 'Best of luck.'
Harry carefully snuck past a goblin guard while floating along the ceiling of a tunnel as he followed the directions he'd been given. He took a couple of lefts then a few rights as he made his way through the maze until he got to the door to the records room. He flew back down the hallway then slipped into the lounge where several goblins were scrambling thanks to the various alarms going off. He quickly blasted them with stunners from both hands then levitated one of the goblins and hauled it back toward the door to the records room. He grinned as he floated down to the ground, lined up his shot and banished the goblin into the door as hard as he could.
The door made a nice clanging sound as the goblin's skull slammed into it. 'That will leave a mark.' Harry summoned the goblin back about five feet then banished the goblin at the door again.
A burly looking goblin opened the door holding a sword and shouted something in gobbledygook.
Harry raised his hand and wandlessly summoned the goblin out of the doorway. He jumped the screaming goblin then twisted and banished him at a group of goblins that had poured into the hallway behind him. He dove for the door that was already closing and tumbled through it. 'That could have been worse.' He focused on the surprised goblin clerk standing in the middle of the room and hit him with a stunner then turned around and used a couple of sticking charms to make sure the goblins wouldn't be opening the door any time soon. He frowned as he looked around the room filled with dozens of old fashioned filing cabinets. 'I'll just have to take them with me.'
He walked over and pushed the goblin clerk into his inventory then hit one of the filing cabinets with a shrinking spell. 'Sweet, they didn't charm it against shrinking it, then again with the curse on the files, it's hardly needed.' He wasn't actually sure what the curse did as the other goblin wasn't aware of the curse's exact nature just that there was one. Still, he wasn't all that worried about it as he planned to interrogate the goblin clerk before he took the shrunken filing cabinets out of his inventory.
He ignored the banging on the door as he went to work shrinking and stealing the filing cabinets so that he could match vaults to his list of death eaters.
A goblin shouted from outside the room, "There is no way out of there!"
Harry finished stashing the last shrunken cabinet in his inventory then glanced up at the vent with a smirk. "You'll never take me alive!" He grinned as he blasted the grate on the vent. It was far to small for most people to navigate but he was a toddler and he could fly. "First goblin that comes in here, I start torching files!"
Harry flew up and into the ventilation system. 'Not my best idea but I should be able to get outside this way.' He was rather surprised with how easy it was to get close to the entrance using the ventilation system. He knew there were charms in place to keep critters out of the air vents near the surface from talking to the goblin but he didn't need to get out that way, just get close enough to the entrance that he could exit the vents into the main chamber. He had to resist the urge to giggle as he flew out of the vents and found that the dragon had already escaped, taking out the section of glass floor in the lobby of the bank and the roof of the bank. He flew up and out of the bank then scanned the crowd looking for Sirius.
0o0o0
Sirius's grin slipped off his face when he walked back into the tent with Harry on his shoulders and saw both Lilys standing there with their wands out and pointed at them. "Something the matter?"
Lily glared at Sirius. "You mean beyond you apparating somewhere with Harry, leaving us to wonder what the hell was going on for the last couple of hours?"
"I blame Harry," Sirius replied quickly.
Harry pouted. "Hey!"
The other Lily said, "You're not helping your case." She looked at Harry, who was barely visible and covered with dust and ash. "Maybe you should explain Harry."
"I set up a time loop then we went and robbed Gringotts so that we could figure out what vaults belong to the Death Eaters so that we can rob them blind later without anyone being the wiser, well that and they have books…" he tempted them.
Lily glanced back and forth between Harry and Sirius a couple of times as she tried to figure out if this was one of Sirius's idiotic pranks. "Let me get this straight, Sirius talked you into setting up a time loop and robbing Gringotts?"
Sirius pouted. "Hey, none of that. It was Harry's idea."
The other Lily rubbed her face in frustration. "You're supposed to be the adult Sirius."
Sirius reached up and lifted Harry up then set him on the couch. "I know that but despite the fact that he's physically fifteen months old, he's an adult mentally. Besides, he can fly, it's not like I could stop him anyways."
The pair of redheads exchanged glances, before one said, "Fine, just so this isn't a total waste, how can we help?"
Harry asked, "Does that mean you're not mad?"
Lily snorted. "I'm rather annoyed that you didn't bring us in on the plan to start with."
The other Lily said, "If by plan you mean insanity then sure, that works."
"That said, how can we help?"
Harry said, "I managed to grab the Horcrux that Bellatrix had hidden as well as a shelf of books and several filing cabinets of records that I'm hoping will tell us the vault numbers of various death eaters."
Lily said, "They're going to come looking for the filing cabinets, tracking charms, the whole works most likely."
Harry nodded. "Most likely, that's why I kidnapped the clerk I found in the records room. If we pump him full of truth potion we can probably figure out how to open the filing cabinets without them exploding. Sirius is an auror or at least was, he should have some experience questioning people under a truth potion."
Sirius nodded. "It wouldn't be the first time."
Lily asked, "You're going to reset the time loop aren't you?"
"We sort of have to," Sirius admitted.
The other Lily asked suspiciously, "Why?"
Sirius smirked. "I sort of killed Borgin with a cursed necklace he had."
Lily blinked in surprise. "How the hell did you do that?"
"I disillusioned it, then tossed it at him with a pair of gloves while he was busy with another customer. The customer was a suspected death eater and had a little… accident as well. After that I picked up several dozen books as well as various magical items that I wouldn't mind taking apart to see if we can learn anything."
"Sirius!" they chorused.
"What? Harry is going to reset the time loop and no one will remember it because it won't have happened," Sirius replied.
The other Lily said, "That means you could have just bought the books."
Sirius shook his head. "I would have felt dirty buying stuff from him."
"And killing him was better?" Lily asked incredulously.
"Yep, I figure I'll share the memory with Harry then he can share it with me when he gets back."
Harry said, "Sure, he helped Draco Malfoy sneak a bunch of Death Eaters into the school the last time around, so I'm not really a fan of his shop."
Lily looked down her nose at Harry. "Don't encourage him."
Harry reached into his inventory and pulled the goblin clerk out of it. "He's the clerk, he should know how to get into the filing cabinet without setting off the various curses. I'm going to grab a sandwich, I've been flying around for the last couple of hours."
Lily looked at her alternate. "Do you want to get Harry a sandwich while Sirius and I question the goblin or do you want me to?"
"I'll make our little thief a sandwich." The other Lily smiled at Harry to take the sting out of it. She knew she should be pissed, but honestly she could understand why they'd want to do a test run before telling them, she would have worried herself to death if she'd thought Harry was robbing Gringotts rather than just taking a walk in the alley with Sirius or wandering around somewhere 'safe'. Besides, playing it cool now meant that Harry would probably explain the time loops the next time around and she had a decent number of potions experiments that could really benefit from time loops.
Harry followed Lily hoping that he could figure out a way to spin things so that his mums wouldn't be too unhappy in the timeline that he was going to keep.
