Harry amidst the Vaults of Stone

Chapter 10

=_=_=_ Sirius Black Escapes From Azkaban! _=_=_=

[ By Lance Calciferous, criminal reporter ]

The infamous mass-murderer and alleged Death Eater, Sirius Black, has escaped from the island prison of Azkaban. This unprecedented breakout occurred early in yesterday evening. Aurors are refusing to comment on how the escape happened, but some Ministry officials have speculated that Black may have been aided by dark wizards unknown. The investigation is ongoing and a nationwide manhunt has been called.

Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour warned the public that Black is extremely dangerous and should not be approached. Anybody encountering Black should immediately leave the area and send for help. Minister for Magic Millicent Bagnold has stated that she has will request that the muggle Prime Minister make a similar announcement in the muggle world. For the probable response of the International Confederation of Wizards to this remarkable move, see page 2.

Black had been imprisoned for the murder of twelve muggles and the wizard Peter Pettigrew. He is also notorious for having betrayed Lily and James Potter to He Who Must Not Be Named immediately before the end of the last war. For more on Black's crimes, see page 3. Black, age 29, is described as tall and thin,with grey eyes. When last seen he had long black hair and a beard, but he may be capable of disguising himself. It is also believed that Black may attempt to acquire a wand, and should not...

Dumbledore skimmed rapidly through the rest of the article, which spanned most of the first three pages of the Prophet. It was roughly what he had expected after receiving advance warning from Amelia about the escape. Humorously, she had suspected him of engineering it.

He wondered exactly what part Bagnold had played in all of this. He took comfort from the fact that if it had actually been an assassination, it would have been made to look like a natural death, not an escape.

The Headmaster had reviewed his Pensieve memories twice, each time growing more certain that Black was innocent. The man's sanity was too damaged for his memories and feelings to have been crafted by masterful Occlumency, but it wasn't so far damaged that it could all have been crazed delusions. He really had felt guilt over the Potters' deaths, because he had switched as Secret Keeper. If only Dumbledore could be certain who he had switched with...

For Bagnold, of course, it wouldn't matter whether Black was innocent or guilty. Her career was on the line.

According to Madam Bones, she had ordered use of lethal force at the first sign of resistance from Black. Amelia could have countermanded that order, of course, but then Bagnold would simply replace her with an obedient lackey. Albus hoped the DMLE commander would have a private word with her most reliable Aurors, letting them know the political undercurrents of the situation.

Dumbledore left the newspaper lying open and paced back and forth. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive," he murmured to himself. According to the Prophet, the Minister had ordered every single hitwizard in the Ministry's employ out on the chase, and was offering a sizeable reward for information leading to Black's capture. What it didn't mention was the regiment of Dementors also out hunting; each was accompanied by an Auror or one of Bagnold's private clerks. The Dementors would be furious about Sirius Black's escape, and Dumbledore had no doubt that those fiendish gaolers would suck the man's soul out on the spot if they found him.

Not for the first time, Dumbledore bemoaned the way magical Britain was governed. The Minister had complete executive power as well as some legislative control – she could determine day-to-day policy, appoint Departmental Heads, introduce bills to the Wizengamot, and make minor changes to existing laws. Typically, most of her power would be delegated to her Heads and minor ministers, but she could run the country herself if she wanted to.

The Wizengamot, on the other hand, possessed the judicial power and the rest of the legislative power. Britain's Warlocks passed new laws and repealed old ones, debated and amended bills before the court, and could theoretically draft new legislation independently of the Ministry. The Wizengamot brought all major criminals to trial, and could legally summon anyone they wished to testify on any matter.

The Minister of Magic's power was checked by the other entities, of course. Wizarding Britain had learned the necessity of that under the leadership of Minister Leander the Ludicrous in the eighteenth century. Now there were measures in place so that the Minister could be censured or suspended by unanimous approval of the Department heads, stood down by agreement of the Head Unspeakable and Head of the DMLE, impeached by a nine-tenths majority vote of the extant Ancient and Most Noble Houses, or removed by a vote of no confidence in the Wizengamot. Needless to say, these were all extraordinarily uncommon events.

Albus half-heartedly wished he'd bowed to the public and taken up the mantle of Minister after the fall of Voldemort. He was sure he could have improved things...

Fawkes trilled, a strange, metallic sound, and the old wizard remembered his other responsibilities. He wheeled back to his desk and scanned the next page of the newspaper. By the end of the article, he had made his decision and his wand was in his hand.

"Expecto Patronum. Find Sirius Black," Dumbledore said to the ghostly silver phoenix. "And tell him this: leave the country immediately, you are in grave peril; do not trust Remus Lupin, but contact me if you can safely do so."

The Patronus leapt into the air and disappeared in a flash of silver flame. Albus sighed. For all that a man's life was at stake, his first priority was still Harry Potter. And frankly, that would have to continue to be the case unless he witnessed an important prophecy concerning Sirius Black.

The article on Harry had been relegated to halfway down page 3. Yesterday's press release, photo included, had been saved by the Daily Prophet for the much more widely-circulated morning edition. Then the news of Black's escape emerged too late for the evening edition. This meant that the information on the Boy Who Lived was almost lost in the clamour surrounding Black. It was fortunate, really; Dumbledore would prefer that Harry was not in the public eye. Bagnold would be spitting tacks, though.

The Headmaster examined the picture minutely. It was certainly the real thing. It showed Harry Potter sitting at ease, slightly slouched, in a marble-walled setting, presumably one of Gringotts' private rooms. The boy seemed calm, showing the occasional trace of boredom in a roll of his eyes or scratching the tip of his nose.

The image met Albus' eyes and smiled faintly, before clasping his hands and straightening his posture. Harry was of average build and strongly favoured his father's looks. Dumbledore's scrutiny took in neat, crisp robes of a modern style, well-fitting but certainly not ostentatious. Short, dark hair just reached the top of the jagged curse-scar at his temple. It was difficult to tell from the sepia-toned photo, but the child's skin seemed extremely pale. He occasionally blinked at someone out of shot to his left. In all, he seemed happy and healthy enough.

Dumbledore put down the newspaper and called for a house elf. "Drippy, please tell Filius Flitwick to see me in my office at his earliest convenience."

The Council exchanged speculative looks about the tidings their newest Brother had brought. The twelve goblins held their tongues until King Gurmsalt had thanked Filius the Useful and dismissed him from their presence.

"Dumbledore may be lying," Grippflag offered.

"Why? What would he have to gain?" asked Wurmspitz. "He would surely guess that Sirius Black is listed in the Potter will. If he wished to remove Harry Potter from our care to Black's, he would have the brain of a spoil heap to give us advance warning."

"Dumbledore is certainly not stupid."

"A double ruse, then, expecting us to come to the conclusion that he is deceiving us?"

"He did not even openly ask for our support," Bogripple said thoughtfully. "I believe this is his peculiar way of giving a sign of good faith, and that he expects us to do 'the right thing'. Presumably, by aiding and abetting a fugitive."

"Hah."

"Hah indeed. Gringotts policy has always been to avoid involvement in Ministry investigations." This was Spinkrod, Manager of the Stock and Share Department and the youngest goblin on the Council, who seldom spoke. "What if the wizard Black should attempt to withdraw funds? Or even visit the Black family vaults?"

Ziggiz turned his rheumy yellow eyes on his leather-suited fellow manager. "If he attempts to regain the Black lordship, I do not know what will happen. The circumstances are unique in their every aspect. Of course, the problem is that the family vault may not be his only avenue for making a claim to the name."

"Fire and phosphor, is the Black lordship even important?" Badluk the Careful asked with a deep frown. "There is still the Potter name, which will never be contested."

Wurmspitz shrugged. "It depends on what Black's politics are, and whether he might oppose us out of spite. Rumour has it that Black is to be executed on sight, in which circumstances control of the family would defer once again to Harry Potter, correct?"

"Possibly," Ziggiz croaked. "Or possibly not. I looked into this when I was considering the sway those Lordships would give us. If I recall, Black inherited his own position of Black heir from his estranged younger brother, as specifically determined by that brother's will. Yes?"

"Yes," Badluk confirmed, faintly recalling the nervous young man and the document in question.

"So when the brother died, the title passed on to Black, but he was already imprisoned and thus legally dead, so the lordship became available to his own heir, named as Harry Potter."

There was silence as the Council considered this.

Bogripple gazed at the goblins in front of him from beneath hooded eyelids. "If Black is widely discovered to be innocent, he could seek custody. Despite our position of legal right, such an attempt would lead only to our capitulation or outright war."

"Rocks fall on anyone who tells me either of those is an agreeable prospect," Badluk muttered.

"On the other hand," Bogripple continued, "if Dumbledore is rusting our doors with misinformation, Harry Potter's life is endangered. Not that one more Death Eater at large makes a significant difference."

King Gurmsalt coughed. "Black was an Auror, yes? It would be difficult to apprehend him at a branch office, and impossible if he negotiated withdrawals through another party or owl. Besides, our legal neutrality only extends to Gringotts grounds. The last thing we want is to break the 1803 Accord by initiating a skirmish in the domain of wizarddom."

"We could detain him indefinitely if he was foolhardy enough to come visit the Black family vault, or his personal vault," Pogsheen murmured, leaning forward and showing off her metal teeth in a grin.

Sibilig nodded. "We could at least arrest him so that we could try to ascertain his guilt or innocence. Perhaps our policy until then should be fluid."

Gurmsalt watched the hesitant nods from around the table. "Let the orders go out, then," he said. "We will post a double guard, drawn by lot, during festivities tomorrow. Yes?"

"Yes," the managers chorused.

Every August 7, the goblins of the Brotherhood celebrated Justice Day – the anniversary of the return of Gringotts to goblin hands in 1865, part of a lasting peace agreement which had kept conflict between goblins and wizards below rebellion level ever since.

Harry attended a hunt in the outer tunnels for the first time, as a goblin in his Brotherhood majority. Each neighbourhood traditionally sent a party of hunters out to bring back red meat, which seldom featured in great quantities in the goblin diet. Each group of dwellings would then celebrate, roasting the meat in open pits, bonfires and huge stone ovens. Gringotts ran a skeleton crew in the afternoon, when the celebrations were beginning, and closed during the night. It was the only regular bank holiday in the wizarding world.

Filius had been invited to the hunt as well, and he and Harry kept up a quiet conversation as they meandered through the vast cave systems hidden below London. Harry was amused to see that Flitwick, in his usual robes, had to occasionally levitate himself over rough ground so he could keep up.

Harry carried his long knife and short staff, but didn't really expect he would get the chance to chase something down. He was still shorter and less agile than the adult goblins, and most of them had spears or crossbows.

The goblins spared the few rock worms they came across. Harry's ability to make serpents intelligent by speaking to them was fairly well-known in his neighbourhood, and nobody really wanted to eat something that might be able to talk. Of course, their reservations would disappear once they got far enough from Harry's home dwelling that the rock worms they encountered were likely to be wild ones. At that point, it was every snake for itself.

After a few hours, the goblins at the back were carrying a brace of bats and two errant rockpool turtles, and Harry's excitement had died down. He was in the middle of discussing goblin-charms with Filius when there was a startled yell from the scouts at the front of the cavalcade. A moment later, somebody sounded a horn and the cry of "Glaberat!" went up from several mouths.

Harry and Filius rushed forward. When they rounded the corner, Filius squeaked a startled oath. Beside him, Harry staggered, slipping on loose rocks in his surprise.

That was something new.

Harry's first thought was that it was a young mole titan, straying far from its nest in the utmost bowels of the earth, and that they were going to die within seconds. Then his sense of perspective caught up, and he realised the animal was much too small. The ugly, wheezing creature in front of them would fit in a standard-sized room, whereas even a baby mole titan could crush a whole dwelling without paying attention.

The fangs on it were impressive, though.

Sibilig was standing beneath the huge, wrinkled rodent. As it reared up, snorting and whiffling, she jabbed her barbed spear at the base of its neck. Nearer to the entrance of the small cavern where Harry and Filius stood, one of the scouts was being dragged to safety by another goblin. He was bleeding badly.

Filvar and Oldlor, Harry's nearest neighbours on Spinneret Crescent, had already levelled their crossbows. Taking careful aim, they loosed bolts at the huge rodent's head. One struck true, piercing an eye, and it crashed downwards on all fours with a squeal of rage.

Harry cried out involuntarily and darted forward, but Sibilig rolled aside at the last moment. Her spear was driven deep into the creature's chest with a grisly crack by the strength of the impact. Another goblin moved quietly around a stalagmite, waving his fingers over his spear before throwing it. The spearhead began to glow with heat as it hit the mole creature in the side, eliciting another pained squeal.

Harry rushed to help Filvar drag the wounded scout to safety, at the same time as a wave of strange light blossomed across the creature's shoulder. Flitwick spoke more words in his lilting voice, and rocks flew from all corners of the cavern. The stones crashed against the monster's body with great force, making it stagger.

Another crossbow bolt flew, and two jets of light in slightly different shades of red, and then Filius had to break off his next spell as Sibilig came into sight, climbing up the mole-beast's wrinkled back. Harry looked about for a rock to throw, but a heartbeat later the animal was sagging to the ground, Sibilig's foot-long knife in its throat.

Harry sat down heavily on a toppled stalagmite, heart racing and knees a little wobbly.

Filius knelt next to the wounded scout, wand dancing in the air. The goblin – Harry recognised him as Jerosh the Glazier – had suffered a vicious bite to the shoulder. It looked like it could have been much worse if he hadn't been wearing a wormhide shirt, but the flesh was still bloodied and bruised. The other members of the hunting party milled around, cutting strips of cloth for bandages or examining the strange carcase.

"Will he be alright?" Harry asked, voice shaking a little.

Flitwick glanced up and nodded at him. "It didn't hit any arteries, and I've cleaned the wound. He'll heal up with barely a scar in a few weeks – assuming that monster isn't poisonous?"

"I don't know. What is that thing?"

Oldlor shook him companionably by the shoulder. "A glaberat. Sometimes called the 'dire naked mole rat'. My great-uncle hunted them in the caverns at Cornwall and Dorset, where they nest. I've never heard of them straying near to Underfoot before."

"Not poisonous?"

"Not poisonous," Sibilig confirmed, walking up to them and cleaning her blade. "Thank you, Filius."

Jerosh struggled to sit up and added his own thanks, hissing as he jarred his wounded shoulder.

"Not bad for your first hunt, Harry," Sibilig added, as he seized her in a tight hug. "I suppose the firebat would have been worse."

"I didn't have to watch you fight the firebat," he said, voice muffled by her clothes.

Sibilig gave a comforting hum. "When your foster father was twice your age, we went hunting and stumbled upon an unexpectedly large cave crocodile. He jumped on its back, stabbed it in the spine, then passed out when he realised what he'd done."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Wait for an opportune moment to mention it in his presence, though."

Flitwick made a small amused noise, and Sibilig smiled wryly at him, before turning back to Harry. "I realise it may seem to be a family tradition, but in general, shoot from a distance rather than actually climbing onto a large creature to kill it."

Harry kept close to his foster mother for the entire long trek back. Instead of butchering the glaberat on the spot and hauling back the better cuts, they allowed Flitwick to levitate its body. By the time they reached Underfoot the general consensus in the hunting party was that wizard magic wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Headmaster, I swore long ago that I would never have anything to do with that pathetic specimen."

Albus regarded his young Potions professor over half-moon glasses. "All I ask is that you keep your ear to the ground. Justice will be done in the end, but for now, he could pose a real threat."

Snape's thin lips tightened. "Really, Headmaster? A werewolf could be a threat? I'm astounded. You should never have let that miserable creature into the school in the first place. And now you think that he, not Black, betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord? Well, colour me surprised."

Dumbledore's expression grew stern, and the young man before him made a tiny flinching movement.

"Shall we talk of betrayal, Severus?" the Headmaster asked evenly.

Snape actually winced this time.

"And if not him, and not Black, then who?" Dumbledore's eyes were hard and blue like glacial ice. Snape had to steel himself not to look away from them.

"I- It could have been him, but it could have been anyone. You know I was not privy to all of the Dark Lord's secrets. I did not take part in raids or plan them. I was only ever useful for my expertise. By all accounts, the events of that night were quite ...impromptu. The Dark Lord acted the moment he had the information he needed, and only Bellatrix knew ahead of time where he was going."

"Bellatrix Lestrange has become quite, quite insane, I am afraid," Dumbledore said, looking old and grave. "She is almost certainly beyond questioning."

"Then the only man who might know the facts of the matter would be Lucius. I could ...attempt to ask him."

Albus pondered, then shook his head slowly. This would be the ideal time to bring Black up in conversation. But Severus had reported that Malfoy seldom spoke of the past, and never of his dark Master's downfall. "We cannot afford to give away too much – that man has already far too much political sway."

Severus shrugged his angular shoulders slightly. "Then you cannot expect to discover much of note about-" he curled his lip "-Remus Lupin."

"Nevertheless. I know that you still frequent some of the less savoury apothecaries, and certain similar haunts. Do keep your ears open, dear boy."

Harry addressed a plate of glaberat with vigour. The meat was dark and succulent, and a pleasant change from the usual staples of roots, fungi and burrowing insects. The long trestle table was laden with tasty novelties: fillets of some huge blind cave fish, tureens of bonemeal porridge, and an enormous alligator pie.

Around him, people sang and talked loudly. A few young couples danced at the edge of the bonfires. Others wandered off, hand in hand, towards the nearest secluded park, intending to make the most of the evening darkness as the great lights over Underfoot dimmed. Bards stood on tables to recite the history of the Brotherhood, and excerpts from the latest Scroll Of Grudges were handed out to small children.

The theme of the feast was justice, so Harry asked Flitwick about the recent escape of Sirius Black. The diminutive professor, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, set down his fork and thought.

"If Black is caught, and comes peacefully, he should be given the trial he was denied." Flitwick paused and glanced across at Sibilig, who raised an eyebrow and nodded. Behind her, a goblin was murmuring a charm as he juggled cutlery, and Sibilig was silhouetted against a corona of bright steel.

"The Ministry may prefer that he does not come peacefully," Filius continued, waving his hands excitedly as he spoke. "Especially since, as you may have heard, there is a ...distinct possibility that he did not commit the crimes he was imprisoned for."

"For the current administration, a summary execution would be better than people discovering that the Ministry had imprisoned someone without trial, whether guilty or not," Sibilig explained.

"Yes, so that's the tusk-beast within the chamber," Filius agreed, nodding.

Harry and Sibilig watched the Charms professor carefully in case he suddenly went mad and attacked them with his fork.

"That doesn't translate well into Gobbledegook, does it?"Flitwick asked sheepishly. "The elephant in the room," he repeated in English. "It means, the substantial problem which nobody wants to talk about. In this case, those in power in the Ministry wants to draw attention to the fact that an escaped prisoner may well have been falsely imprisoned."

"What will happen when people find out?"

"If he were found innocent? Reparations, apologies, embarrassment," Sibilig said, spearing a giant land snail on her fork and passing her plate to be re-filled. "And wider repercussions, too. Have you tried these buttered wetas? They were imported from New Zealand."

"What sort of repercussions?"

"The Ministry of Wizarding Britain is the only government to use Dementors to patrol its gaol. Knowledge that an untried prisoner has been exposed to them would sour already faltering relations between the Ministry and the other members of the International Council of Wizards. If it came to a trial and he were acquitted, there could be not just reparations, but sanctions on a massive scale."

"And the international scrutiny would make it a fair trial," Flitwick nodded. "There will already be an outcry from the countries who argue that the use of Dementors is barbaric, when news of the escape spreads. What is in this salad?"

"Blade moss and copper-worms," said a goblin further along the table, motioning for the bowl to be passed down to her.

"Well, it's delicious," Filius blinked.

Harry chewed slowly, then spoke. "Why are the Dementors so bad?"

"They are truly foul creatures," Flitwick said quietly.

"Creatures of torture and terror," said Sibilig. "Being in their presence is considered cruel and unusual punishment. And their use for execution is disgusting, especially since it is not known for sure exactly how they kill."

Filius glanced up in surprise at this, but then looked down at his plate.

Harry nodded. He would have to look back at those references to Dementors in the Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. There would surely be something specific in the Underfoot library, or failing that, the books of the Black vault.

"Be honest, but say as little as possible. Don't feel you have to answer any questions you don't want to. If you ever feel threatened, say you want to leave." Sibilig tweaked Harry's collar straight and flicked exasperatedly at his hair.

Badluk rolled his eyes at the boy. "Don't look so solemn. You just have to talk to them, and then we'll go do something fun. The Boulderclaw miners have found a new underground lake near the shaft they're sinking."

Harry brightened up. "Really?"

"Yes. I have a short day. We could go fishing."

Harry grinned. "Okay. In that case, can we go up to Gringotts now?"

Badluk rolled his eyes. "Come on, then. And leave Prettyroot here."

The boy's face fell again. "Must I?"

"Yes. And she won't be allowed back in the bank until you can go for a month straight without talking to her in front of Gringotts contractors," Sibilig said dryly.

"You must stay in the dwelling today, Sssthsnnss," Harry hissed. "I go so that the others of my kind – the curious humans – may look at me. My care-parents worry I will show my power by speaking The Language in front of them."

Prettyroot nuzzled his hand. "Take care, friend. If these 'curious humans' turn out to be enemies, bite them."

Harry tried not to squirm or fret as the green-clad healers prodded at him. Touching him with cold metal things was bad enough, but he wished they wouldn't keep talking to him as if he were an infant.

Although the senior healer, a grim-looking matron, wasn't so bad. She had shaken his hand and introduced herself as 'Selma, in charge of Welfare'. She cast numerous enchantments over his head and torso, while the others examined his fingers, scraped his teeth and asked him to spit into a potion. When he did so, the liquid changed from mustard yellow to a pleasant salmon colour, and the healer made an incomprehensible squiggle on his clipboard.

Badluk and Sibilig stood on the other side of the curtain with the Gringotts guards, muttering quietly amongst themselves. Harry felt comforted by their presence, and kept his fidgeting in check.

When the healers had finished with him they clustered together, conferring over their papers. Then Selma asked him to follow her into an antechamber where some more people would talk to him, and the door closed, separating him completely from the goblins.

Harry looked up with some trepidation at the two humans waiting within.

Lord Lucius Malfoy went through the motions of formally introducing first the Governor Griselda Marchbanks and then himself. He stared down at the boy throughout. The child was obviously nervous, but that was not unexpected. It was hard to believe that it was the vanquisher of the Dark Lord who stood so small and subdued in front of him. Lucius was disconcerted by how much he looked like his own son: the pale skin, the Black cheekbones, the carefully-schooled expression.

They seated themselves, and Marchbanks led the interview. Lucius ignored her as he continued to regard the Boy Who Lived. Marchbanks was an elder of the Wizengamot, a society lady of the highest circles, who had married into high blood and was frankly insufferable. Lucius thought of himself as her diametric opposite: an up-and-coming power, a wheeler-and-dealer and a mover-and-shaker in certain extra-legal circles, and overlord of an old, rich family. The only thing they shared was respect.

The healer, Malfoy noticed, was watching carefully, presumably to ensure the boy didn't become distressed. He forced his own attention back to Harry Potter, trying to appraise the child. Wherever he was brought up, he had at least been taught how to shake hands. And he addressed the elders as 'sir' and 'ma'am'. He said nothing unless spoken to, and his answers were short and direct. The boy didn't smile, and showed his teeth a lot more than was becoming, but those were acceptable foibles in one so young.

They questioned him about etiquette, and found he had no formal notions but waxed relatively poetic on the concept of respect. They questioned him about socialising, and he described several friends, politely refusing to give names for security reasons; some of what he did say was rather strange, though. They questioned him about diet, and he said he was happy with his healthy balanced diet of vegetables, fish and game.

It was strange. The boy seemed to have problems with certain colloquialisms and turns of phrase, and he often paused for several seconds to find a word he wanted. But he seemed rather intelligent apart from that. Lucius could feel quiet approval from the normally taciturn Marchbanks. Personally, he thought the boy had been coached. His own son wouldn't have managed to go so long without giving something damning away.

Malfoy didn't have to rely on simply what the child said, however. He glanced down, straightening a crease in his well-tailored jacket as he prepared himself, and looked back up into the bright green eyes of the Boy Who Lived.

Tiny tendrils of Legilimency inched across the distance between them. Malfoy didn't have the power to seek out what he wanted, not wordlessly and wandlessly, but the boy's surface thoughts were exposed to him.

Lucius sorted through the changing images as Marchbanks' prim voice droned on. The child was mainly focused on what the Governor was saying, but there were faint currents of memory and subconscious desires available. Malfoy was curious to see a near-complete map of Gringotts in Harry Potter's mind. The vaults themselves and parts of the deeper areas were covered by dark, smooth caps, completely impermeable to the slight probing. Curiosity turned into astonishment as Malfoy found a warmth towards many goblin faces, and a conversation with a snake this morning. There were fragments of a conversation about Sirius Black, which worried the boy, but the visual parts of the memory were completely obscured by the same dark shields.

Lucius moved cautiously through halls of thought, avoiding the blank black domes that covered most of the doorways. Himself and Marchbanks, sitting in view of the boy... a paragraph about Dementors in an old book... something about goblins, and then hundreds of black mental surfaces... an ornate ring... another goblin, embracing him... the discomfort of the cotton robes... more thoughts rushing away from him beneath dark, immaculate shields.

The strange, half-obscured images seeped into Lord Malfoy's mind, and he reeled backwards slightly, trying to disguise the movement as if he were simply straightening in his seat. The child, who had broken eye contact completely with a glance at the Healer seated opposite, looked back at Malfoy curiously.

Lucius plucked a handkerchief to dab at his brow, smiling thinly at the boy. When he replaced it, his hand hovered over his wand. He briefly debated using it to focus his power and lay the boy's mind bare to him. But the goblins, jealous wretches, would certainly be on guard against wand-based magic in their own bank.

Goblins... in the name of Slytherin, what an enigma. All those odd flashes of memory, and Lucius knew they couldn't be the strangest of the secrets in the boy's mind. He had never before encountered those glossy black shields; it was not normal Occlumency. What spell was protecting Harry Potter's thoughts, and how had goblins, of all creatures, come to play such a central role in his mind?

He might have to buy a little more favour with Bagnold to get the bottom of this.

"Did you tough it out?" Badluk asked.

"Were the humans tolerable?" Sibilig added.

"If they weren't, I would have bitten them like Prettyroot said." Harry looked at his foster mother's expression. "No, they were alright. Governor Marchbanks called me 'gentlemanly'. The Lord Malfoy kept staring, though."

"All the questions didn't wear you out?"

"No. They just gave me a bit of a headache."

"Maybe we should call the human healers back again," Sibilig said slyly.

Harry's expression slid into mild horror. "Let's go fishing," he said firmly.

Lucius marched through marble halls, considering what he had seen. For some reason, his mind seized at the smaller details before he could make sense of the important ones. The name Sirius Black... he didn't know anything about his cousin by marriage. He was meant to have been the white sheep of the Black family, Dumbledore's man through and through. Lucius had never seen him in his Master's presence, and assumed he hadn't actually been spying for the Dark Lord. He knew Bella had been torturing someone immediately before the Dark Lord visited the Potters; the reasonable assumption was that the victim was Black, and the information had been tortured out of him.

The Potters... what exactly had happened that night, and what had happened to the boy since then? Lucius thought of the goblins that had recurred in his mind. It must be that the boy was living with a permanent Gringotts guard. The goblins did hire out mercenaries and bodyguards, after all.

But Lucius had heard from his sources that Dumbledore was not at all happy with the boy's living arrangements – was it possible that Gringotts had been contracted to not just guard, but raise the boy? A snarl broke out on his face at the disgusting thought. Outrageous, even if the child was technically a halfblood.

Malfoy's cane echoed on the polished floor. He would pull strings to find the boy, and perhaps then remove him, to be raised in a sympathetic pureblood family. But Dumbledore had strings and puppets of his own, and there were no guarantees where that wily old bastard was concerned.

Perhaps Harry Potter would be corrupted by his malicious goblin gaolers. If proper wizards were not involved at all, perhaps he would even be raised feral and inhuman... and that, Lucius reflected, he could work with, when the time came to shape the world's perceptions of the Boy Who Lived.

The vendor rolled his cart, piled high with dried lizards, to a halt. He instinctively looked about for pickpockets, then greeted his old friend – a merchant carrying a tray of pies of dubious provenance. The dark, dank walls of Knockturn Alley closed in around the two of them.

After discussing the business of the day, one trader jerked his thumb at the poster of a manic-looking Sirius Black. "Nasty-lookin' bugger, ain't he?"

"What, you worried about stumbling across him?"

"Nah. He don't 'ave no wand, does 'e? What's 'e gonna do? Besides, if half o' what they say is true, 'e's not gonna have any grudges against anyone in Knockturn Alley. It's the hoipoloi who needa watch their backs."

"You know, there's a rumour going round he's innocent, and they're only after him 'cause he's Bagnold's jilted lover."

The vendors thoughtfully watched a pair of red-clad Aurors patrol by in the distance.

"Nah."

"I reckon he's long gone, anyway. He'd be mad to stick around with the whole Ministry turned out to find him."

"Werl... is runnin' orf the action of a sane man?"

"It is if they're just gonna cut him down in the streets when they find him. Bloody stupid, having all these Aurors around. He's hardly gonna turn up in Diagon Alley. Bad for business, too. At least the redcloaks ain't knocking on doors down here yet."

They looked about for Aurors again. The visible parts of the street were deserted except for a young man with an unfortunately hooked nose, who swept past them into the grey market potions shop.

"Well, they 'ave to be seen to be working 'ard on it."

"Yeah. Yeah, word is that old Ironbelly Bagnold won't be in the seat of power much longer."

"Aye. Especially if they don't catch 'im."

"Which they won't. Long gone, I tell you. Long gone."

"Sez you. Oi, get out o' here, you cur," the pedlar added, aiming a kick at the thin, mangy black dog lurking in the shadows of a nearby doorway.

"Oh, bleedin' 'eck, some bastard's nicked me wand!"

Harry kept up his regular apprenticeships and studies for the rest of the year. He had an extra workload from Flitwick's visits, although these became few and far-between when term began. He worked on a few more minor charms, learning to control his magical core and use his wand. In his free time, Harry joined his friends to spar with staves or play flick-pebble on street corners. Other times, they congregated in the Underfoot library, where he read about an eccentric variety of history, law and lore, depending on what managed to catch his attention.

Harry also traversed the vaults of stone beneath Gringotts, learning the untold secrets of their protection. One week he helped anchor a new set of great steel shackles for a guard-dragon. Later, he watched as one of the silent, lurching Unsdugu sat patiently, a pair of curse-breakers kneeling between its talons to sew up a split in its embalmed hide. Harry learned about the Thief's Downfall in the lowest level of Gringotts, a fine mist which became a raging torrent on command. He committed to memory the secret words which would twist and buckle the iron tracks, sending mine carts barrelling down past the Unfathomable Maze and into the chasms of the Below.

The Brotherhood received a delegation from the Swiss gnomes, and Harry mingled amongst them while the managers haggled. He observed their strange mannerisms, geometrically perfect goatees and bald heads. He marvelled at the strange cultural split, where the younger gnomes were bright-eyed and babblingly eager, and the older gnomes reticent but smilingly indulgent.

A certain amount of bullion was traded for the titles to several estates in subterranean Egypt, and goblin-blades were commissioned. Wurmspitz, head of Diplomacy, and Shindig, head of the International Department, did most of the talking over the course of the diplomatic visit. While the deals were brokered, Harry learned about international law from an enthusiastic gnome in his twenties. Later, he had an introduction to clockwork from an older gnome with a huge gut and an avuncular manner.

Malfoy, Marchbanks and Selma made trips to speak to Harry every few months. He learned from them a little about the upper echelons of wizarding society, and also how to get away with not really answering questions. The pale, dour Lord Malfoy unnerved him, and constantly seemed to be trying to catch him out. Harry would hate to have been left alone with the man. As it was, more than once Harry found the magical vows of Brotherhood intervening to hold his tongue before he could accidentally spill one of the goblins' secrets.

Dumbledore had tried to track Sirius Black, but the man seemed to have dropped off the map. He had sent several Patronuses, and even Fawkes, but had received no reply. There had been no confirmed sightings, no word on any official or unofficial front.

He couldn't really blame the man. Dumbledore had come to see him, attacked his mind, and hadn't then returned. He had been complicit in Black's imprisonment, and the escapee probably knew that as well. He would really have no reason at all to trust Dumbledore.

After a while the public fuss had died down to a minor unease, and the Dementors had returned to Azkaban. An increased Auror presence remained, and some might have noticed the greater numbers of Bagnold's hard-eyed private clerks, too.

A flake of rock dropped from the wall. Another hard strike, another shard, and this time Bellatrix could prise out an entire chunk of stone.

She weighed it in her hand. It was very slightly larger and sharper than her current hammer.

She settled on her knees and continued digging.

Author's notes:

→ Whew! Long chapters, perhaps I should split them into two.

→ My thanks to all the people who have reviewed so far! Keep it up!