Sirius Black followed Griphook down into the Gringotts vaults with Harry, Hermione, Neville, Milicent and Noodle in tow.
"I don't see why we have to do this right now. I mean, all three LeStrange are dead, and the Gringotts goblins have read the wills and determined that pretty much everything from the brothers went to Bella and through Bella to me. I have more money than Merlin already, so who really cares if we go through them now or in a decade when all this legal stuff is out of the way." Grumped Sirius who was trying not to show he was out of breath hobbling after the stubby legged goblin and four unfairly fit Quidditch beaters down the hallways to the LeStrange vaults.
Griphook snarled at Harry, annoyed at such wizarding foolishness. "What is the law?"
Harry happily sang the children's song he learned in Goblin Preschool, his voice surprisingly cheerful, and the voices of other goblin guards throughout the caverns took up his song until the tunnels rang with goblin children's favorite teaching song.
"Cut the throat and pick the pocket
Slaughter the lord at the manor door
Loot the chests and turn out the cupboard
Pry up the floor and cut open the mattress
Loot and loot and loot and pillage
Slaughter your way to great renown
No worse shame for any goblin
Is the galleon left in the corpses hand."
Hermione rolled her eyes and looked at Neville as Milicent was joining in with Harry's song when it started up a second time. The Slytherin girl had the uncomplicated joy of a maiden in church choir, and it seemed the Slytherin was in danger of converting to Goblin on the basis of sheer and unashamed utility of their moral code.
"Merlin's beard!" Swore Sirius. "You teach this to your children, you taught this to Harry?"
Griphook waved off Sirius objection. "Don't be silly. No Goblin mother would entrust the moral training of their children to a male. As well to trust their instruction to a dragon. No, his mother and sister taught him, as was proper."
Sirius drew himself up haughtily. "Well born wizards do not kill for money!" He swore.
Griphook stopped and looked at Lord Sirius Orion Black as if he had just said Ostriches carry elephants upon their back for training.
"Lord Black, I reviewed your financials after your rescue. You were a 'Hit Wizard' for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Can you remind me again, the difference between an Auror and a Hit Wizard?" Griphook said with a soft smile.
Sirius who was justly proud of his very dangerous profession threw out his chest and gave the explanation he always gave Lords he wanted to impress, or women he wanted to sleep with.
"Aurors are paid 5 galleons a day to hunt minor criminals and detect dark wizards. Hit Wizards are paid twenty galleons a day to kill those dark wizards and dangerous magical beasts the Aurors either are afraid to go after, or have already lost Aurors fighting." Sirius said.
Milicent, the seeing eye Slytherin guided Sirius to the goblin's point, saving hours of thinking for the average Gryffindor.
"So you killed for money, just not very much of it." Milicent said, for clarification.
Griphook stopped before the vault of Bellatrix LeStrange, cut Sirius Black's hand and slapped it on the sentry stone of the vault. Registering the blood of the new owner, the vault then accepted Griphook as the newly designated Black Family Vault Keeper to open the gate.
Inside was a room the size of a large sized clothing store, only instead of clothing racks, there were tables groaning under the weight of stacked galleons, racks of looted artworks, book cases of forbidden magical texts and some of the dodgiest porn that Sirius had ever seen, which he quickly put under an age lock.
Milicent looked at the gobsmacked Sirius taking in the total of Bellatrix LeStrange's loot from all her Blood War killings, which was now Sirius thanks to the inheritance laws and marriage contracts as Griphook had interpreted them. She grinned.
"You Gryffindors kill people for honour, glory, and a tiny bit of money a day. Sensible Slytherins, practical Hufflepuffs and well raised Goblins kill people because they need to die, and for lots and lots, make that truly obscene bits of money." Milicent cheered happily.
Griphook smiled at Harry, and patted his arm. "My son, you may have gathered the sum total of sensible witches and wizards in all of Britain. In a land of fools, you have found wise and dangerous women. I am pleased.
Harry on the other hand had frozen in place. His skin went pale, his eyes wide. He felt his scar burn like the goblin silver was acid and he hissed.
"$ He is here! $! Harry hissed.
Noodle dropped to the floor and his fangs were bare as he hissed in reply, venom dripping from them.
"$ Smell him, I do. $" Noodle replied.
Neville and Milicent had their wands out and eyes scanning, but Hermione had her eyes shut and her hands open as she began to step through the vault as if letting her feel for the wrongness guide her.
Noodle slithered past her, following the same spiritual scent his Mouse Giver had tasted, but with his closer bond to his Speaker, he could sense it more clearly.
Harry shut his eyes and opened himself to his runes. Soweilo, the rune of power that bound his mother's protection to him, the rune that his mother and Voldemort had both poured their soul fragments into pulsed with the nearness of the taint of Voldemort, even as his Ansuz rune whispered fragments of intuition and instinct to him.
They closed on it together. A golden cup with two handles in the ancient mediteranian style, but worked around the bowl of the cup were cavorting badgers and the runework on it was a mix of Norse Futhark, Celtic Ogham, and Etruscan runes.
This was the cup of Helga Hufflepuff, but inside it was a foulness that fed on the magic of Helga Huffelpuff's ancient cup of renewal, a magical healing cup as powerful as Nicholas Flamel's famous philosopher stone, only corrupted to connect the soul of Voldemort to it not simply as a Horcrux, but as a magical parasite. It didn't just anchor him to life, it allowed Voldemort to draw upon the power of Hufflepuff's relic to sustain and empower himself.
Griphook hissed as he beheld the cup.
"This will take a dozen curse breakers and at least a month to hope to challenge. Even then we may loose people. The foulness in no way makes the cup less powerful, if anything it makes the cup's defenses stronger!"
Sirius wand hand trembled. Normally Fiendfire could destroy anything, but he didn't trust his own Fiendfire against Helga Hufflepuff's defenses, and if Sirius were busy fighting the magic of one of the Hogwarts founders when Voldemort's soul fragment tried to take control of Sirius Fiendfire, he was afraid of the consequences. His own will was healing, thanks to the ritual, but he had been a ten years in Azkaban; he was not yet the wizard he was. Voldemort had only ever been matched by Dumbledore.
Harry's voice went cold and hard. He took command as naturally as he breathed, and neither his adopted father nor his godfather thought to object. Something stirred in Harry and magic began swirling around him in the vault. Milicent, Neville, Harry, Hermione formed a square about the cup, Noodle formed an inner circle tight around it.
Harry cocked his head and listened as the magic flowed around and between the five of them, but shadows seemed to gather around the shining gold of the cup as if in response.
"$ He sees you. He rallies the cup against you, and its power can draw upon the Hogwart's wards even here. $" Noodle hissed.
"$ I can still that, but no more. $ Said Milicent, feeling the power of her rune and her element rising within her, being able to still the river of power connecting it to the wards, but helpless against the Founder's own magic in the cup.
"$ I can purify the cup, but not while he is bound to it. If I try to purify it while he is bound to it, the magical backlash will kill us all, and collapse this tunnel if not half the vaults." Hermione said, feeling the Phoenix Fire burning inside her, needing to come forth.$"
$ I am the thread cutter, the reaper. I can cut the thread that binds his soul, but I cannot contain him. $ Argued Neville as his wand began to lengthen in his hand, a blade of pure magic forming a sickle sword any bronze Egyptian would have recognized.
$ I can hold him for a moment, but no more. $ Noodle said, his reptilian nature not knowing or caring how to boast like a mammal. He simply measured the strength of his mind against the will staring back at him from Helga Hufflepuff's cup and determined how long the coils of his mental defenses could contain the more powerful foe.
"$ I will eat his soul. $ Said Harry simply.
Milicent drew her wand and traced a circle of runes around the cup, ice forming at her wand tip and making the golden cup begin to emit fog as the air around it became colder than the arctic ice in midwinter. When the runic circle was charged and operating, Milicent drew all of her power to herself and traced the downward slash in the air to form the stasis rune, the ice rune. She screamed its name and hurled all of her magic in a single stroke as she did.
"ISA!" Rang Milicent's voice, and the cup rang like a struck bell. Harry shifted into his basilisk form, and Hermione looked him straight in the eye from across the cup.
Neville struck with all the power in his young shoulders, hardened from endless hours of Quidditch beater practice and goblin warrior axe and sword training. His sickle sword scythed down, and the blade of magic passed through the cup.
"JERA!" Screamed Neville and from the cup the answering scream belonged both to Voldemort and more properly belonged to a soul in hell.
Gringots magical alarms were screaming, goblin boots hammered the tunnels as wards and alarms brought the ready reaction teams from all over the floor to the terrible and dangerous powers detected.
Harry opened his eyes wide and Hermione felt the gaze of the basilisk hit her mortal flesh and she felt herself die. The power of the phoenix exploded within her and the primal powers of creation, a cleansing more powerful and pure than the strongest unicorn poured into Helga Hufflepuff's healing cup, and the dark Horcrux, the soul fragment of the murdering sadist Voldemort fled before her coming like the night before the breaking dawn.
Voldemort rose screaming from the cup, and Harry closed both the clear lids over his eyes, shutting off the killing and petrification gazes as Noodle pulled his head up from where it hid in his coils and his eyes met the blood red fires burning in the shadowy form of Voldemort's soul fragment as it broke free and tried to flee to the wraith form so far away.
"$ You shall not pass! $" Hissed Noodle who had quite enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies, but thought the line wasted on someone as unthreatening as a mere wizard. Properly, such a line should come from a terrible serpent, like himself.
His Legimens attack struck at the mind of the wraith, and while he was not the master of Voldemort in this art, this was not the Dark Lord, but simply a fragment of it. That fragment screamed threats and commands in Parselmouth, but with Noodle's mental coils binding it, the soul fragment could neither flee, nor work the parselmagic that might have forced Noodles obedience. He could not hold Voldemort's soul fragment long, but he didn't need to.
Harry's basilisk form was indeed the King of Snakes, and like the king of snakes he struck the wraith snake quick. The fangs of a basilisk hold a venom that is not simply physical, or magical. It is spiritual as well. There is nothing save the tears of a phoenix that can cure basilisk venom because it is the purified essence of death. Death of mind, death of body, death of spirit.
Voldemort's wraith screamed in torment, and a second wraith formed into existence. A red haired woman in her mid twenties, with soft red lips and bright blue eyes that looked as if they were meant for laughter and joy, but the joy in her smile was terrible to behold, and the light blazing forth from her eyes was beyond terrible.
Lilly Potter's ghost reached out to touch Voldemort's wraith as Harry worked to gulp it down.
"Hello Voldemort. I could not stop you killing James, nor even myself. But I beat you in the end. I gave my soul to make my son your final death. Scream for me Voldemort. Scream as James screamed, scream as I screamed. Scream as all your victims screamed. Know that of all the innocents you killed and all the fools you led, only your soul and mine will end forever. Harry will not simply kill you, he will end you.
Oblivion Voldemort. No rebirth, no afterlife, nothingness. He will unmake you, and the last thing you see before the end will be me!"
Harry hissed as he worked to digest the foul bit of Voldemort he had just consumed, too caught up in that to shift back to human.
"$ Mother! $ Harry cried out, and if serpents could weep, he would have.
Lilly smiled and began to fade.
"My strong boy. My Harry. I will be with you right up until his end. Know that to keep you safe, I would make the same choice a hundred times. I love you." Lilly said, then faded, as the last of Voldemort's soul fragment was brought into Harry.
A basilisk coiled about a phoenix, who cried out and burned with a healing purity that wrapped the basilisk, as the phoenix cried the tears the basilisk could not. Milicent rose and broke the circle of ice runes that bound the cup, and handed the cup of Helga Hufflepuff to Neville Longbottom, himself the totem of Helga's house.
Sirius staggered backwards, babbling almost incoherently.
"Morgana's tender titties. Harry is a basilisk? Lilly's a ghost? Harry just ate Voldemort's soul like it was a cauldron cake! That was a blood Horcrux. I wouldn't touch the damned thing without Mad Eye Moody, a dozen Aurors and as many Unspeakables as I could beg, bribe, or threaten into helping out.
Dumbledore wouldn't try that alone, let alone four Merlin be damned third years!" Sirius sputtered in disbelief and anger.
Griphook collapsed to the floor in relief. He let the dozens of guards and ready curse breakers pour into the room, because stopping them took effort he needed to hold of the heart attack from watching his youngest son face Voldemort's spirit without even a weapon.
"You have to understand Sirius, Harry is a Hufflepuff. Our beloved Headmaster has decided that Voldemort is Harry's problem. A Ravenclaw would find a better solution, a Slytherin would find a way to make this someone else's problem, and a Gryffindor would already have gotten himself killed trying to be heroic.
Your idiot godson is a Hufflepuff. They just sort of put their heads together and stumble forward with a song in their hearts, not a thought in their heads, and get on getting the job done, too stupid to know they can't win, so they end up doing it." Milicent said with a tremble in her voice that made it clear she was holding off unconsciousness from magical exhaustion only by force of pure Slytherin will.
"$ What are you worried about? Speaker had my expert supervision. If it had been dangerous, I would have at least told Mouse Speaker to run away. $" Noodle said from where he coiled, too mentally fatigued to even bother slithering to a warmer part of the floor.
Neville smiled as he carried the heavy Hufflepuff cup to where he could slump beside Milicent on the floor.
"Relax sir," Said the ever polite Hufflepuff Longbottom heir. "We do way more dangerous things all the time." He shot a thumbs up at Lord Sirius Black who found himself breaking into startled laughter and slumping to the ground beside the rest.
A phoenix and basilisk slept fitfully in a tangled mess of flames as they rested and recovered from a test they were in no way ready for, but passed anyway.
Griphook looked over at his son's somewhat shakey godfather.
"On balance Lord Black, you may have been right about putting this off until later. It occurs to me my son and his friends do not even start their third year until next week. I should think killing Dark Lords should wait at least until they were studying for their OWLS, if not passed them." Griphook said softly
Sirius Black laughed again, then looked over at Griphook and said very firmly.
"Griphook my good goblin, there was a case of Ogden's Winter Reserve laid down on the day of my birth that sits in my vault as we speak. it was supposed to be consumed when I got married, murdered Malfoy, or hit some other notable family event. I suggest we take that with us to your home for dinner.
I feel the need for something very strong and very smooth to wash down the shocks of today." Sirius said, well, seriously.
Griphook began laughing softly. "Young wizard, I find myself entirely in agreement."
While Griphook loved having his son home for the summer, his blood pressure would go down about twenty points when he safely got off to school again. Once he was on the Hogwarts Express, Griphook could finally relax.
(Sorry for the short chapter, but the next one begins on the trip back to Hogwarts. This was the natural end of this arc)