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Chapter 17 — Excursion
"Get up, boy."
Draco Malfoy blinked blearily. Through the crusty shadows of sleep he saw Professor Slughorn standing over his bed in a night robe. Draco groaned. Professor Slughorn in his sleepwear was not a sight he ever wanted to see, especially right after a dream where the night robe had belonged to someone else.
"Malfoy, I said get up," Slughorn repeated. With another groan, Draco rolled over and sat up.
"What's the matter?" he drawled, stopping himself just before he would have reached up to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"Professor McGonagall wants to see you. Now."
Malfoy resisted the urge to make a pestilential reply and grabbed his robes off a rack, pulling them on over his pajama bottoms. There was no way he was going to change in front of Slughorn.
The two of them walked in silence towards the headmistress' office. The castle was eerily silent at night. You'd think that by seventh year, Draco would have been used to it, but the sound of his footsteps reverberating off the walls still gave him involuntary chills.
"Licorice Ink," Slughorn grumbled once they reached the guardian gargoyle. Draco stepped through the opening, which closed behind him with a low rumble. Apparently, Slughorn wasn't coming in.
Draco Malfoy stopped in front of a plain oak door. For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder why he was being called here in the middle of the night. He pushed aside the dream he had been dwelling on so pleasantly and forced himself to focus on the here and now. Had he done anything worth being called here for? Surely it couldn't be for the Punching Telescopes he had left on the Astronomy Tower's roof — that had been two weeks ago. And Ernie Macmillan couldn't have known who had slipped the U-No-Poo into his drink. A thought came to him but surely it wasn't, that is, she couldn't have found out—
With something close to alarm, Draco Malfoy lifted his hand to the door and knocked.
"Enter," McGonagall's voice called through the wood, and Draco did.
Whatever he had been expecting, whatever he had feared, it was not this. This was a thousand times worse.
It was his father.
Lucius Malfoy rose when Draco came in, brushing back the black folds of his robes with a sweeping motion that he must have learned from Professor Snape.
"This is absurd. I refuse to give permission for my son to leave the castle."
"Your permission is not necessary, Mr. Malfoy, as your son is of legal age," Professor McGonagall reminded him calmly.
"I am the lord of Malfoy Manor. My wife's effects belong to me!"
"These do not!" a wizened voice protested roughly. For the first time, Draco noticed a small man with leathery white skin and pointed ears standing next to his father. He had been hidden behind the blond man's cloak, but now became visible as Lord Malfoy whirled on him angrily.
"Silence, goblin!" Lucius snarled, but the goblin would not be quiet.
"You have obstructed this process from the beginning! Your threats and your attempts at bribery are insulting in the extreme. If you continue to obstruct the law, I shall take the matter before the Ministry of Magic!"
"Enough, both of you!" McGonagall all but shouted. "Sit down!"
To Draco's surprise, they sat.
"Mr. Malfoy, thank you for joining us," McGonagall said, gesturing for Draco to take a seat in an empty chair. Draco did so, his mind working overtime to try and figure out what was going on.
"Mr. Malfoy, do you know why I called you here this evening?" Draco thought the use of the term "evening" was being generous, but he shook his head.
"Well then. Are you aware that when your mother died, you became heir to a sizable inheritance?"
Draco forced himself to break away from the incongruous sight of his father in regal black robes, a fuming goblin, and McGonagall looking harried yet calm in a blazing purple nightgown, and to focus on what McGonagall was saying. "An inheritance from my mother? How can that be? All of her possessions, both current and future, became the property of my father when the two of them got married."
"Very good, son," Lucius Malfoy said, getting to his feet. McGonagall ignored him.
"That is not quite true. Though there was some contention," — Here the goblin snorted loudly — "over the validity of the line of inheritance, it has since been resolved. Perhaps Master Rubeknuke can best explain."
The goblin got to his feet, crowing triumphantly, "The inheritance of which we speak is a legacy passed down through the Black family bloodline. It is not transferable by marriage, only by blood. You are the only heir to Narcissa Black, and thus the bequest falls to you."
"I warn you, if you pursue this, you will be making a serious mistake," Lucius Malfoy hissed, glaring at the goblin. Draco thought he saw his father finger his wand within the folds of his robes. The goblin looked unfazed.
"Your threats do not disturb me. What disturbs me is your uncooperation. If you persist, you will find us most uncooperative in turn when you come to make your next withdrawal."
"Do not presume to threaten me, goblin," Lucius Malfoy spat. Without so much as a goodbye glance to his son, he strode out the door, striking his cane angrily against the floor as he went.
McGonagall let out an audible sigh.
"Master Rubeknuke," she said, rubbing the ridges under her eyebrows with her thumbs and sounding very tired, "was it truly necessary to have this confrontation at three o'clock in the morning?"
"We goblins prefer to work at night. It is wizards," he said scathingly, "who make us work during the day."
McGonagall's mouth tightened, and Draco could almost see her biting back a particularly acid retort.
"But surely you can wait until the morning to make the trip to Gringotts? I fail to see what could be so important as to force a trip tonight."
"This matter has been delayed long enough. We goblins have better things to do than mediate the inheritance of wizards. We will go now before that man comes up with another way to impede this process."
Professor McGonagall got to her feet. "Very well. Mr. Malfoy, you will accompany Master Rubeknuke to Gringotts and then come straight back. I expect you to be in attendance for your morning classes. Good night."
Almost before he knew it, Draco found himself standing back in the outside corridor with the little white goblin at his side.
"Ready, boy?" the goblin asked. Before Draco could answer, the goblin clenched him by the arm. Draco felt a horrible, nauseating wave rush through his body, and with a small pop the two appeared inside the marble halls of Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
The place was deserted, its shadows held at bay by a few pallid torches. The young man had never seen the bank empty like this before. Always there were witches and wizards rushing in and out and goblins behind their counters studying the purity of gems.
"I thought you couldn't apparate out of Hogwarts," Draco said, rubbing his arm where the goblin had grabbed him.
"Wizards can't. I am a goblin."
"So are goblins like house elves then? Your magic doesn't obey the same rules as wizards' magic does?" he asked, intrigued.
Without warning, Draco felt himself lifted into the air with tremendous fore. He cracked his head against a marble wall and came to dizzily to find Rubeknuke glaring down at him.
"Never compare us with those vile creatures again!" the goblin hissed, his face mere inches from Draco's own. "We are not slaves to eagerly do the bidding of wizards. We are goblins, and one day the wizarding world will be forced to remember this fact!"
Rage boiled inside Draco. Who was this goblin, to treat him in such a fashion! He reached inside his robes for his wand. It wasn't there. Between Slughorn and his dreams, he must have forgotten to grab it. What kind of wizard forgets his wand? He made a mental note never to put himself in such a vulnerable position again.
The goblin had moved off and was standing at the cavernous entrance to the Gringotts underground. With a warning rumble, a cart appeared out of the darkness.
The goblin climbed in. He did not beckon, but stared blankly at the boy until Draco picked himself off the ground and walked over.
While never appealing, the prospect of a Gringotts cart ride was made worse by Draco's injured pride. "So why don't you just apparate us to the vaults?" he asked caustically.
"Security," the goblin answered gruffly. "No one may know the precise location of any Gringotts vault."
"That would explain the bizarre cyclone you use for transport," Draco mumbled to himself as he climbed into the cart. "No one could possibly keep their bearings in this."
The cart ride was every bit as wild as Draco expected it to be. More so, in fact, because this particular goblin made no effort to cushion the sharp turns and sudden drops. Of all the goblins I could have had, Draco thought, clenching his teeth to keep them from clattering, why did I have to get one that was grouchy?
The ride seemed interminable, but at last it was over. Draco staggered out of the cart, bracing himself against its wooden sides. A sudden roar snatched his attention. "What's that?" he asked, alarmed, although he could see perfectly well what it was.
It was a dragon, its eyes milky white with just the faintest hint of emerald pupils. It had been lying in front of a door, but upon their arrival it had staggered to its feet and was now roaring in their direction, displaying two rows of dagger-like teeth.
A loud clanking erupted behind him, and the dragon reared back, its forelegs pawing at the air. To Draco's surprise, the dragon turned and retreated down the dimly lit tunnel. It was only then that Draco saw it was chained to the door that it guarded. The dragon was stretching its chain to its fullest in an effort to get away from the sound.
The noise stopped and Draco turned to see the goblin clipping a pair of shackle-like objects to his belt.
"What are those?" he asked, his gaze returning to the dragon eyeing them from the corner.
"Clankers."
Ignoring the dragon and the boy, the goblin reached into a pocket and pulled out a small silver key. As Draco watched him insert it in the door, he wondered how the goblins managed to keep track of where each key went — every door had at least a thousand different keyholes, and he knew that a mistaken entry meant imprisonment within the doorframe until someone discovered you were missing, which could be a very long time indeed.
The door opened silently, letting out a dank gust of wind as the air in the tunnel and the room switched places. The boy and the goblin stepped inside. With a snap of the goblin's fingers, light erupted on every side, illuminating the contents of the chamber.
"Whose vault is this?" Draco asked, repressing the urge to shudder. He had lived around Dark objects all his life, but some of the ones he espied in this room made his father's collection look amateur.
"This is the Black family vault. Bellatrix Lestrange currently holds a key to it. Narcissa Malfoy held the other, but as her heir, that key now belongs to you."
"I see. So why am I here again?"
The goblin pointed to a box sitting high on a shelf. Draco frowned. "And how am I supposed to get that?"
The goblin snapped his fingers again and the box drifted down off the shelf. About nine feet off the ground, the spell stopped — Draco caught the box before it could hit him on the head.
"This is what you dragged me here in the middle of the night to see?" he asked, fingering the box with loathing. It was black with silver edging. On its lid was the Black family crest.
The goblin didn't answer. Draco searched for an opening, but there wasn't one. A thought struck him, and he placed his hand over the crest. A tingling sensation bloomed in the palm of his hand, spreading out along his fingers and up his arm. The box snapped open.
"Thought so," Draco said, picking up the paper that was inside. He scanned its contents stoicly, and then replaced it in the box. As soon as Draco had closed it, the box flew away from his hands and resettled itself on the shelf. He couldn't believe the goblin had dragged him out of bed for that.
"Although you are now co-owner of this vault and all the objects herein, Mrs. Lestrange requests that you inform her should you desire the use of any item," the goblin said, "as many of these objects are ancient and valuable and she would like to ensure that all proper care is taken with their handling."
So Aunt Lestrange didn't want him in her vault. Well, that was fine by him — he didn't want anything to do with the objects the Black family had found fit to collect.
"Please inform my aunt that I have no interest in the contents of this vault and would as soon leave the charge of any such…objects…to her expert care," Draco said, his voice dripping with scorn.
He strode out the door, the goblin following behind him. Draco could have sworn he heard the goblin mutter, "I'm a goblin, not some bloody owl."
Draco had almost forgotten about the dragon, which glared at them sourly but did not budge until the goblin and the wizard were safely back in their cart and the clankers stowed away. Then it moved back in front of the door, its chain lisping heavily behind it.
The ride back was just as long as the ride there, and the rate at which Draco's head was bobbing up and down had as much to do with the lateness of the hour as it did with the turbulent ride. The goblin apparated him back into the Hogwarts corridor they had disappeared from before, shoved the silver key into Draco's hand, and then apparated away without even a goodnight. Clutching the key spasmodically, Draco stumbled down the hall, pausing only once to kick away a nosy Mrs. Norris. He practically fell through the Slytherin common room entrance, and weaved his way wearily through the dungeon cells until he reached his room. Never before had the silken sheets seemed so inviting — he did not even pause to undress before collapsing on his bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Chapter 17 Summary:
Draco attends a predawn meeting where he learns about an inheritance from his mother. Against his father's wishes, a goblin takes Draco to Gringotts Bank and shows him the Black family vault.