Title: Miss Memory: Gringotts Words and Cache
Summary: Gringotts and titles are up for the taking, and the others glance at the bazaars.
Buffy turned away from the closed bricks and took hold of her kids' hands, knkowing they would get away if they had the chance. The problem with having a Slayer and a vampire, let alone two that were at the height of the foodchain, the kids were going to get into whatever they wanted without even thinking about it. Energy being as large in store as it was, she was lucky she herself could hold back from doing a happy dance and laughing at the top of her lungs. It was good to be back.
Lily-Anne took hold of Thomas's and Dawn's. Dawn may be old enough to be an adult technically now, but she was still all childish as she should be. And a slayer, don't forget the energy. They didn't want either of the students to start hopping around, so they tried to hurry on and stop the gawking for later. Still, Buffy just knew that the first place they would be instinctly noticed to would be diagonelly even though most people didn't bother looking at whoever they ran into in such a crowded and busy place.
Buffy went first, dodging some of the early shoppers as and pulling them out of the way of annoying trolleys, and lead them to the white stone tower of Gringotts, brittish branch, the main wizarding bank on the island.
All but Buffy stared a little more then they meant to, having never seen creatures such as these that were running the bank. But Buffy had told them that they are not evil, however hot-headed and strict. So they were not exactly prone to have to study them, they only did as far as they were used to. Dawn rubbed her belly to get her annoying spidey sense to hush, while Buffy felt hardly anything from the creatures herself.
Dawn giggled when she saw some of the jewels and gems and stuff. Buffy looked at her in question before getting what she was laughing at really. They both kept imagining Anya with them on their journey place, with all of the jewels and gems, and money-worthy things; she would have stopped them at every new bauble, speaking things the wizards had no idea about. It amused the both of them for some time.
When it was Buffy's turn in line, she stepped up to the goblin, and quietly whispered just loud enough for the short creature to hear, "I would like to go to vault 393, and discard some money."
The goblin, who had not worked there very long, didn't recognize the vault, as many of the others that had worked there a while would. So he simply asked for the key. She reached into her pocket where she kept Mr. Gordo, and said a small incantation, and the key appeared in her hand, forming out of the stuffed animal and feeling cool in her hand.
She showed it to the goblin and he looked it over. It was odd for a key, but it was one. It had been specialized.
The key was technically a pendant. She would give one to the others later. She knew that Harry would have one. She had created it when she was in school, and she had kept it secret with her brother. They made a promise to give it to the next generations of their family.
The pendants were simple small gold encrusted gems with the person's birthstone. It was encased in a clear layer of material with a lion on one side and a phoenix that looked a lot like Griffin on the other. Depending on what you said, you would get different reactions to it. Right now, she was using it as her key. Later she could use it as her own version of the marauders map or a way to contact her kids or Dawn if need be.
The Goblin took it from her and looked at it carefully. When he nodded, saying that it was the correct key, he handed it back, and started to take her to the vault.
On the way to the cave opening where the boat thing sat, Buffy heard some talking, but tuned it out and stated to get the latest gossip out of the troll that appeared to be new.
"So, I haven't been in the wizarding world for a couple of years, so what's been going on?" She asked, planning to wheedle as much as possible out of him. Goblins were usually big gossipers.
"Nothing really interesting has really happened since Voldemort was put into shape by Harry Potter." Buffy rolled her eyes discreetly. Oh bother, the whole wizarding community was bound to know his name.
"What happened since then?" She had asked, half annoyed at the world for putting a baby on a pedestal. Fame could be so fickle, she knew.
"Well, you really haven't been in the wizarding world for a while have you?" He asked, wondering how she couldn't know.
"No, I left when the threat level got high, and I ended up staying with friends in America the past few years." She answered. Well, it wasn't technically a lie. "My studies took up time and then I isolated myself. I haven't had news of the wizarding world in elven years." It could have been true.
"Well, Sirius Black was found guilty for their murders and-" But he was cut off.
"What?!" she said. He looked a little flustered at her loud askance.
"The ministry found him guilty for their murders, and he was sentenced to" He replied, but was again cut off.
"Azkaban…" She said, dreading that.
"Yes, and he's been there since. He was sentenced for killing 15 innocents, and Peter Pettigrew." The goblin said. He himself didn't actually believe everything the ministry had said but goblins did not concern themselves with the wizards past the money dealings.
"No, he wouldn't have. It's Peter behind the whole thing. I know it." She said determinedly.
"Well, of course," he replied not sure who she was and what she meant by this stuff. And I don't care, the goblin thought to himself. He's lucky the Slayer could not read his thoughts. If she had known legilimancy, though occlumancy was necessary for animagus transformations, the goblin would have been in very horrible pain from a furios dark creature.
"Anyways, they found Pettigrew's finger, and he was taken to Azkaban by Aurors. Fudge had" But he got cut off, again.
"Fudge wouldn't know the truth if it hit him from behind." Buffy said arguably, remembering the stupid little political manouvering the man had done. He was like a leech who thought himself a lion in the savannah.
The goblin agreed with her aloud and said, "Here, here." In salute.
They pulled up to the 300 vaults and stopped. "Out while you can." He stepped out followed by the others, and was a little bit unnerved that no one was complaining about the ride there. Someone usually did. It had even taken him some getting used to. And goblins were sturdy creatures.
He couldn't have known that supernatural instincts and abilitites along with numerous travels through portals had stabilized their momentum in a large way.
They started off to the vault, Buffy remembering the way there and the goblin nearly jogging beside her in stride.
"Pettigrew hasn't been found, only the finger, leaving the ministry to believe that he is dead, desecrated in what was left of the street that he and fifteen muggles were killed in. The dark lord has not been heard from, and people are still just calling him 'He-who-shall-not-be-named' or something." He said with a sigh. THe stupid wizards...
Buffy and Dawn flinched slightly. Glory had been called something close to that, and that fiasco was still a sore spot for them. No one else much noticed them do so though. Or if they had, they didn't say anything and it would seem they were flinching from 'His' name. But really, they were flinching from the 'Glory Period' of their lives.
"Nobody really calls him Vol-Volde-Voldem-" He tried.
"Voldemort." Buffy got out.
He didn't flinch, but the frown on his face showed his annoyance with their world at large. In honesty though, the blonde elder of their group couldn't help but agree. "Yes, thank you. No one calls him that anymore."
"Why?" Elizabeth asked.
The others had turned into the conversation awhile back, and were listening intently.
"Because, it's considered a curse I guess. Since he killed so many horribly, his name is a scary word." He shrugged, having no real clue.
"Why?" Liam asked.
"I guess it's like the bloody Mary thing." Lily-Anne put in helpfully. Liam looked at her. Was there something with the drink or was it the ghost thing?
"Why?" Elizabeth asked.
He was flustered, and he stuttered. "I d-don't kn-know. That's just the way it is."
"Why?" Liam asked.
Buffy grinned and covered it with her hand as she walked. She remembered doing that to some of the professors and other people she met as well. Dawn was holding back laughter. She had done that as well. Lily just shrugged and Thomas was making up funny answers in his head.
"I don't think I can answer that, so you can stop that now." The goblin said amused.
"Why?" Buffy asked. That cracked them all up and any awkwardness was erased.
As they made there way to vault 393, the goblin told them other things he knew of the past many years.
When they made it to the vault, Buffy took her Gryffindor pendant off of her neck again, and placed it in the odd key lock for the vault. She said the correct incantation under her breath, and no one could tell exactly what it was that she had said, but the doorway opened up, and revealed the most amount of money that any one of them had ever seen.
They, Buffy included stared, agog for a minute, while the goblin felt faint. Buffy stepped forward and took a good look at the very large pile in front of her. Though she could remember the Potter vault having a much larger amount, the fact that her own personal stock had gathered such an interest wasn't something she had considered. She took her backpack off of her back, and opened it. Reaching out to the coin pile, she took five large handfuls. It would be plenty, and last them for a good while.
There were other things in the vault of course, but nothing that would interest any of them for the moment.
She looked around at her own vault and saw the entrance to her secret room where she had all of her experiments that she didn't want to take with her. She slipped it into her pack as well. Back in third year, she had begun storing stuff in her Gringotts vault in order to keep James from snooping.
When she walked calmly out of the windowless vault room, the others were still standing there staring at the oodles of bronze, silver, and golden tokens that served the wizarding world as money. She smirked, and closed the entrance to the vault. Even though she was used to it, having grown up with it, growing up as a 'muggle' had also given her the more sensible ideas. Hording coins around was ludicrous.
That seemed to get everyone out of their stupor, and she told the goblin that she got what she came for. He nodded and watched his step as he turned and was followed out of the vault caves.
When they got out of the cave area, Buffy thanked him for directing them, and left with the others. The goblin was still a bit gob smacked at the very large pile of money in her account. He was only aloud through the student and small personal vaults due to how long he had occupation within the bank. He went to check in the books just out of curiosity. So shocked was he at the sixteen plus zeroes following her account number and some of the few marked down items that he missed the words in bright gold that stated her name.
Elizsabeth Anne Potter.
TBC. Well, that was mildly interesting.