vii. find more than treasure here
Harriet was beginning to think she might just be losing her mind. She was, after all, chasing her own shadow through downtown London.
She had followed Set to a bus station in Little Whinging, and from there she had taken a bus all the way to the city, earning many speculative glances from the driver and those passengers who climbed aboard. They looked at the scruffy girl in her over-sized clothes with her unbrushed hair covering her bruised neck and wondered where she was going and if they should perhaps call the authorities. Fortunately for Harriet she reached her stop before anyone could think to detain her.
The sun had well risen and the weather grew warm, muggy, Harriet's mouth dry and her bladder full and her stomach empty. She trailed Set down one street and then another, moving along as fast as she dared, careful to avoid any more attention and the occasional police officer she spotted on the prowl. Harriet found herself eventually toddling down Charing Cross Road, which seemed quite the busy thoroughfare with numerous shops and venues dotted along the avenue. She collided with several pairs of legs as she chased Set.
Suddenly he veered to the left—right across the threshold of a pub Harriet hadn't seen at first. Blinking, she swiped her sweaty fringe out of her eyes as she peered up at the swinging sign that depicted a great pot with a crack in its basin. The letters read "The Leaky Cauldron."
"Oh, excellent," Harriet whispered, tired from a poor night of rest and really in desperate need of the loo. She stepped inside and almost swooned at the pleasant rush of cold air coming over her before immediately darting toward a little corridor off to the side, ignoring Set and any of the inner patrons. She found the water-closet and darted through the door.
Once her business was finished and her hands washed, Harriet stepped out of the loo and spared the pub a better look over. Shadows clung about the corners and in the rickety rafters, a mixture of voices and clinking cutlery reaching her ears from the main room, where she'd glimpsed a long bar and a cluttered motley of mismatched tables. On the wall right across from the loo hung a painting of a cauldron, and as Harriet watched, ingredients hopped off shelves and poured themselves into the bubbling stew, changing the liquid in a never-ending rainbow of color.
Her jaw about hit the floor as she lifted a finger to prod the canvas. The ladle took an idle swat at her hand, not that she could feel it. "Utterly mental," she whispered. "I've gone round the bend."
It was magic—bloody magic, plain as you please, right smack in Harriet's face, hanging in an empty hall and all she had to do was stroll in off the street to see it. Like it was nothing. Like this rather ugly painting hadn't just rocked Harriet's small, uncomfortable world.
It's real, isn't it? Really, really, real.
A sudden poke in her ribs turned Harriet's head, and she saw Set flit against the wall behind her, rippling in the weak light thrown by the gas lamps as he pointed toward the bar.
She did as Set directed, having no reason to distrust her shadow, not after he'd taken her this far already.
Behind the counter, the wizened barman with his bushy brows and lined face chatted with a wispy, gray-haired woman dressed in purple robes and a pinstriped skirt. Most everyone in the establishment wore similar robes, some subtle, some outlandish, one man with blond hair and big, pearly teeth dressed all in gold with a group of woman hovering about his table, causing quite a fuss. Some wore clothes that looked normal under their longer robes, if a bit old-fashioned—until closer inspection revealed differences in cut and style than Harriet was used to. One woman's blouse had blooming flowers on it that shed and regrew their peachy petals over and over again.
"Hullo there, lass. How can I help ya?"
Startled, Harriet tore her eyes away the many strange sights around her and instead looked up at the barman. "Oh, er." Harriet had no idea what to say or why Set had led her here, besides the fact that the establishment oozed magic and mystique. "Um, could I get something to drink…?" She took the crumpled bills from her pocket and wrinkled her nose at the damp texture. Sweat. Gross.
"No Muggle money here, lass," the barman said as he spied the notes in Harriet's hands. Muggle? "You'll need to go on to Gringotts first. You Muggle-born? Where's yer guardian?"
Harriet wondered why he skipped straight to guardian rather than parent. Did she have some sort of cosmic sign over her head that said 'orphan'? "Er—they sent me on my own."
The barman's brow furrowed and he seemed on the brink of saying something, perhaps something against her supposed guardians or perhaps in recrimination of Harriet herself, but he thought better of it. The gray-haired witch who'd been listening to their exchange finished her drink—some kind of juice if Harriet wasn't mistaken, the remnants of an English breakfast on the plate before her—and stood. "I can show the girl on up to Gringotts, Tom," she offered, giving Harriet a small smile. "My name is Mafalda Hopkirk, Miss…?"
"Harriet," she said, pausing. "Well, Potter. Harriet Potter."
"It's very nice to meet you, Miss Potter. Let's be off then, shall we?"
Harriet nodded, not knowing what else to say, though she was leery of going somewhere with a stranger. That leery feeling only grew when she followed the woman—the witch—into a grubby back alley adjoined to the rear of the pub, and Harriet almost darted back inside and away from Mafalda. She didn't consider herself a coward, but Harriet had very little luck with adults in the past and had even less trust for strangers. The witch took out a stick from the inner folds of her long, rippling cloak and gave the bricks on the wall a good sharp tap.
A crack resounded through the air. Harry watched, dumbfounded, as the bricks began to shift on their own accord, peeling like the skin of an orange, curling at the edges until a new pathway was plainly visible. The roof of the warehouse above the wall remained—and yet there was an alley in front of Harriet, not the rear of a warehouse; an alley full of people dressed in funny clothes carrying funny things and saying funny words.
There, a name was written on an arch: Diagon Alley.
"Come along, then, Miss Potter. I need to get to the Ministry yet this morning."
Harriet urged her wobbly legs forward despite the sudden tingling in her limbs and hands. Mafalda tucked her stick into her cloak with a curious look in Harriet's direction, then led the way up the street away from the grubby alley opening. Harriet, for her part, did her best not to gawk and shriek and generally make a nuisance of herself, staring at every little thing she could. There was a man selling bits of dragon liver, and that vendor there had little cooling charms you clipped to the front of your robes, guaranteed to keep you cool and fresh the rest of the day! Harriet brushed the side of a lumpy witch and her cloak left out a chorus of bird calls.
"Is this your first time to the Alley?"
Harriet started when Mafalda addressed her. The witch had already moved off several paces and Harriet blushed in her rush to catch up. Set had returned to her shadow for now, leaving Harriet to her own devices. "Er, yeah." She scratched her head and tried to think of a plausible reason for her being there by herself. While the temptation to ask questions—or to simply beg for help—was great, Harriet knew she'd most likely end up in a police station, or right back with the Dursleys if she wasn't careful. She refused to return there. "My folks had to work and, uh, sent me on my own."
Malfalda's brow furrowed. Harriet knew there must be some glaring inconsistencies in her story, so she shrugged off any of the witch's follow up questions and hurried her on to their destination. Gringotts, the barman Tom had said. Harriet guessed it was a bank of some kind, and that she'd have to exchange her stolen pounds there for whatever money the magical people used. Hopefully she had enough to buy all the odds and ends listed on her charred letter.
"That's Gringotts there, Miss Potter," Malfalda said when they reached the alley's end. A towering building of white stone sat at a fork in the path, Diagon Alley continuing to the left, a sign stating the right to be Empiric Alley. The name "Gringotts" scrolled across the bank's stone face, a set of sweeping steps leading up into a marble antechamber. It looked like the kind of place someone would want to store their money—or spend it, whatever their preference. It also looked like the kind of place that would throw a scruffy urchin like Harriet right out on her ear.
"Ah—thanks," Harriet said, staring up at the waiting doors and the thick columns like the arching teeth of a wolf.
"There's access to the Ministry for Magic down Empiric Alley, if you didn't know," Malfalda said with a telling nod in that direction. "The Department of Welfare and Muggle-born Placement could provide…help, if one were to ask. Discreetly, of course."
Harriet didn't know exactly what the witch spoke of, but she was bright enough to recognize the words Ministry and Department of Welfare. No, if Harriet went toddling about a government building, she'd end up with the Dursleys again, in her cupboard, before she could blink. What if they took her letter away? What if they told her it had all been a mistake, that Harriet was just weird, that she didn't belong anywhere at all?
"That's okay, Ms Hopkirk. Thank you for showing me the way."
Resigned, Malfalda nodded. "I'll be off, then. Good day."
"Bye."
Harriet started up the steps and the gray-haired witch went her own way, hurrying along the right fork in the road. Many people came and went from the bank, some dressed as flashy as that smiling wizard in the pub, some more demure in shades of black and brown and gray. One wizard in a purple turban came dashing down the steps in a terrible rush, his face stricken. A man with long silvery hair and a black cane brushed by Harriet and sneered as if he'd touched something disgusting.
Well I could do with a shower.
Harriet managed to climb halfway up the steps before she caught sight of who—or what—guarded the doors and froze.
What the bloody hell is that?
"That" being a creature with very long fingers and feet, though the rest of it—him—was comparatively small. A bald pate gleamed on the top of his domed head and pointed teeth showed through his thin, parted lips, a crest of some kind positioned on the center of his black vest. A passing witch counting gold coins in the palm of her hand muttered, "Bleedin' goblins and rubbish exchange rates—."
Goblins? Harriet marveled, watching the creature watch the customers come and go. Goblins were real now too?
A sudden jab in the ribs brought her attention down. Seth, distorted by the angle of the steps, jabbed a finger toward the waiting doors.
"Yes, alright," Harriet whispered, ascending the rest of the way into the foyer's cool shadow. Harriet edged around the goblin, half expecting him to bar her entree and shoo her away, but the goblin only leered, motioning for Harriet to stop blocking the entrance with her horrid spy theatrics. She quickly apologized to the wizard she'd bumped into and rushed inside.
Two high counters dominated the inner chamber, stretching from one end to the other, behind which clustered more of the pale, long-fingered goblins dressed in black suits with gold fobs and brooches and pins. One was laying rubies the size of Harriet's head on the side of a scale, another arguing with a well-dressed witch over a set of fine dishes, a third stacking gold bars on a hovering cart that left on its own once filled. Some humans in uniforms similar to the one the goblin outside wore marched the chamber and exchanged brief words with one another.
Harriet puffed out her cheeks, overwhelmed, then exhaled. Here goes nothing.
She approached a goblin who appeared to be both unoccupied and a teller. He made idle scribbles in the ledger before him with a feathered quill tucked into his strange hand. "E-excuse me? Err—Sir?"
The goblin continued to write until he reached a stopping point, when he lowered the quill and leaned forward to leer over the edge of the counter with an unfriendly sneer. "Name?"
"Uh," came Harriet's initial—and rather intelligent—response. "I mean, Harriet Potter. My name, that is. Harriet Potter," she rambled.
He scribbled something on the ledger again and flipped a page. He sniffed. "And does Miss Potter want to make a withdrawal from her vaults today?"
"My what now?"
Harriet swallowed as the goblin leaned forward again, a decidedly displeased gleam in his beady eyes. "Do you wish to access your vaults or not?"
"I don't have any vaults."
"Our records show different."
Then the goblin snapped his fingers, and Harriet jumped when the ledger he'd been writing in jerked itself about and dropped roughly two feet off the edge of the counter to come to her eye-level. Harriet gawked as letters unfurled themselves across the opened page, stark and black against the yellow sheen of bound parchment.
N. House Potter Estate, entailed, nontransferable.
Beneficiary: Harriet Dorea Potter, 31 Oct 1981.
The letters continued in a looping script of puzzling legal nonsense and Harriet struggled to recognize even half of the jargon. A few columns of numbers and names spilled themselves over the ledger when the page flipped itself, and though Harriet still couldn't make heads or tails of the figures, she did see that the names had "Potter" for a surname. She recognized the one listed above her own moniker, James Fleamont Potter, as her father—though she hadn't know his middle name was Fleamont. How unfortunate.
Her dad must have been a wizard, then. Was her mum a witch? Aunt Petunia had shouted "That's what magic does to people!" when she'd rowed with Harriet about her parents leaving her with the Dursleys. Was that how the Potters had actually died? Harriet didn't see any bloody cars out and about on Diagon Alley. Did wizards and witches even use cars? Had magic killed her parents?
I'm going to find out, Harriet told herself as the ledger snapped shut an inch from her nose and rose into the goblin's possession. Right after I find out about this vault business. How did he even know who I am? It's not like Potter's an uncommon name.
"Does Miss Potter wish to inspect her vaults?" the goblin asked again in a noticeably more tetchy tone.
Harriet fussed with the hem of her ugly secondhand shirt and nodded.
"Does Miss Potter have her key?"
"No," Harriet replied, heart sinking. "I was never given a key." He should know that, of course, considering she obviously didn't know about the blasted vaults in the first place. Maybe there had been a mistake. She didn't think the Dursleys had ever been given a key, either, since they would've cleared out any money her parents left Harriet—and maybe they already had. Maybe these vaults or boxes or whatever had already been sucked dry by Harriet's relatives.
The goblin let out a put upon sigh. "You will need to give a sample of blood before a key can be reissued and then you will be escorted to your vault by a goblin associate. Is this agreeable?"
"Yes?"
In short order, one of the human employees came over and dropped a stool down on the floor with a kindly smile toward Harriet as he helped her up. Harriet burned under the curious attention of the other bank goers turning to look at the raggedy little girl, and being closer to the goblin did not make her less nervous. He leered as if he'd love to do nothing more than shove Harriet backwards off that stool, but he went on with his task. Her finger was pricked, a droplet sampled, and suddenly Harriet was being hustled off down a side corridor with a gleaming golden key pressed into her grubby palm.
A door opened onto what looked like a dusty mineshaft. The goblin assisting Harriet now—Griphook—led Harriet toward a waiting cart that sat upon a pair of thick iron rails. The rails plunged off into the dark. Griphook held the only light, a battered old lantern with a wavering flame.
Harriet gulped as she took a seat and the goblin jumped into the front. Are these vaults underground?
"Potter trust vault. Six hundred eighty-seven."
"Six hundred eighty—?"
The remainder of Harriet's question was cut off with a yelp when Griphook thrust the lever holding the cart in place forward and they went rocketing into motion. She clutched the cart's metal sides with white-knuckled fists as they plummeted down one slope and then careened through another, the cold air whipping past, turning Harriet's already frightful hair into a right mess, her small backside lifting off the padded seat when the rails abruptly swerved again. Griphook grinned nastily.
Several minutes later, the cart came to a lurching stop and Harriet—dizzy but a bit enthralled by the journey—stumbled out after Griphook. "Six hundred eighty-seven," the goblin said, jabbing a long finger at the vault in question. Harriet had been expecting something more along the lines of a safety deposit box, not an actual, honest to goodness vault. "Six hundred eighty-eight—." He pointed instead at the larger metal door across the way. It was partially obscured by a glittering stalagmite—or was that a stalactite? "Will be accessible at your majority."
"Okay," Harriet said, not knowing what one should say to a goblin. Instead, she passed the key over to him and allowed Griphook to get on with opening the vault up.
Green smoke hissed out through the crack, torches burst into life, and Harriet almost had a heart attack.
Gold.
It glimmered in every corner, climbed the walls and spilled across the polished floor—gold. She had never seen so much of it before in her life, not in books or pictures or even on the telly when the Dursleys let her watch commercials after the dishes were washed and her chores completed. The vault itself seemed to emit a brilliant yellow light from how the torches reflected on the accrued wealth, on the tidy mountains of solid gold bars, on the buckets of coins, the roped coils of white pearls and silver chains and the gilt frames with moving people on the canvases. There were trunks stacked to the ceiling and long curtains of silk fabric and stacks upon stacks of great fat books. Trembling, she bent down to pick up a coin that had fallen near the vault door.
Poor orphan Harriet, who had a pocketful of sweaty, stolen notes, who had never eaten a full meal before, who had lived under the stairs and now lived nowhere at all, burst into tears.
Griphook despaired.
