Hermione bought an enchanted money bag before stopping by Gringotts. Raw ingots of gold and silver would weigh a LOT, she knew – she'd been weighed down by the one ingot of gold before that she'd taken to the hedgewitches' blacksmith. She gave Bloodthorne a drawing to give to Silversmite, who had agreed to work on her family crest for her, and then Bloodthorne was only too happy to take her down to her vault, grinning a very pointy smile all the while.
"You have upset the status quo once more, Hermione Granger," he cackled, leading her to the carts. "You would overturn the world, I think, if no one would stop you."
"I have no idea what you mean," Hermione said primly, though her eyes sparkled, and Bloodthorne cackled as they set off down the track in the rickety cart.
"The House Elves would call us kin," he called back to her as they zoomed along. "Their strike has been a boon to us. They have helped restore the Hold and take delight in helping us garden. They would have us use magic as they do, but we cannot. They would not like to see us dependent on wands."
"Rods," Hermione corrected, and Bloodthorne smirked.
"Rods," he agreed. "Still. They would rather see us 'healed'. They would have us believe goblins did not need rods or wands before, and that we used magic as they did, many centuries ago."
Hermione was surprised.
"Can goblins do that?" she asked. "I know there's natural metalsmithing magic innate in goblins. I don't know how far you are from House Elves in terms of magic, though. Do your histories say one way or the other?"
Bloodthorne considered.
"Our legends deal with metal," he said. "They tell of goblins learning to harness their own magic to manipulate metals. There is nothing to indicate wandless magic of any other sort."
Hermione shrugged.
"The House Elves think magic with wands is silly, I think, because they can't conceptualize needing a wand," she said. "I don't think they use magic in quite the same way that others do."
"I would not disagree," Bloodthorne said dryly. "If I would take a galleon from you for each time a House Elf has not understood why we did not 'just fix' our homes ourselves in the past week, you would rapidly worry of growing poor."
Hermione laughed.
"Considering you're still making me gold?" she said, grinning. "I doubt it."
As they reached her vault, Bloodthorne opened the door. The heaps and heaps of gold everywhere were dazzling, and Hermione was rendered speechless once more, even though she had known what to expect this time.
"This is… this is more than last time," she said finally, looking to Bloodthorne.
"It is," Bloodthorne said, smirking. "I have used your stone again. This time, I did not turn it into coinage, as per your wishes."
That explained the massive pile of raw gold ingots stacked in a giant pyramid pile, Hermione thought faintly. With each one weighing twenty pounds, she realized she might be looking at a literal ton of gold.
"How many ingots would you take?" Bloodthorne asked, moving into the vault. He gestured for her bag, which she handed over. "You did not say what you would withdraw."
"Err—I'm not sure," Hermione admitted. "Just… a lot of them? And some silver ones as well, that haven't been used to make the alloy for coinage yet."
Bloodthorne gave her a look.
"You would pay for something without knowing the cost?" he asked her, his tone clearly indicating he thought this was a very stupid idea. "You would just throw gold away?"
"I'll bring what's left back," Hermione argued, her face flushing. "I just… I don't know what's a fair price for what I'm asking. I want to make sure I have enough."
"These ingots are pure gold," Bloodthorne told her, as if she was slow. "Do you know what they are worth?"
"A lot, obviously," Hermione said, aggravated. "I'm just going to—"
"Gold is expensive in the muggle world," Bloodthorne went on. "One ounce would give you £250."
"I know it's a lot," Hermione cut in. "But—"
"There are twelve troy ounces to the pound," Bloodthorne said. "One bar is 20.9 pounds. One ingot would give you £62,700."
Hermione faltered, her eyes going wide.
"Alright, I think I didn't quite do the multiplication on that one correctly," she said faintly. "Umm… let me think."
Bloodthorne's eyes glittered as Hermione sat down on a nearby rock. He went over to inspect the Philosopher's Stone while Hermione stared at the wall, her mind whirring.
How much money would a tree house actually cost? She wanted a nice tree house, so maybe the cost of actually constructing a real house would be comparable?
Her parents had bought their house in 1971, Hermione knew. They'd paid about £15,000 for it at the time, but she knew it was worth a lot more now – her father said it had quintupled in value in twenty years, she could recall. So did that mean a house now cost £75,000?
But that might not factor in the cost of labor, Hermione thought, mildly alarmed. What if that was just the cost of materials and the land? How was she to know? And what if labor prices and construction were much higher in the magical world, where things were dependent on highly specialized and very powerful wizards?
"Let's… let's take ten gold ingots, and ten silver ingots," Hermione said finally. "That should be enough, I think? I hope?"
"If it is not," Bloodthorne said dryly, "you would discover you are being cheated fairly soon."
He began tossing ingots into the bag, as easily as one would toss potatoes into a sack.
"I can't believe you can do that so easily," Hermione said enviously. "They're so heavy."
"Metal is light to goblin touch," Bloodthorne reminded her, smirking. "Otherwise, our mining and smithery would not go nearly so well."
Hermione wandered over to look at the Philosopher's Stone while she waited. It currently sat on top of a pyramid-shaped stack of lead bars. The top three were gold, with the next three down looking like they were in the active state of transmuting into gold from the top down, gold creeping down in drips through the lead.
"You just set it to go and leave it?" Hermione asked. "Is that it?"
"It requires one's magic and intention to start it, but essentially," Bloodthorne agreed. "Once it would tell what you intend of it, the stone exerts its power."
Hermione snorted.
"I'm almost surprised you have to tell it anything," she said. "That's all it does anyway, isn't it?"
Bloodthorne hesitated.
"I would not know the truth of the matter," he said slowly, "but legend would have it that the stone would have other powers too."
"Other powers?" Hermione asked. "What else does—"
She trailed off, her eyes wide as she remembered. Voldemort had tried to steal the stone, and not for its ability to make gold. He had wanted it to become immortal. Which meant—
"It can make the Elixir of Life," Hermione breathed, eyes wide. "But how?"
"I would not know," Bloodthorne admitted. "I am a goblin. I understand gold. I understand metal. But that?" He shook his head. "That would require you to study alchemy and experiment at your leisure, Hermione Granger. A Gringotts goblin would not know."
Hermione looked at the stone, her eyes wide.
"I'll have to think about that," she said faintly. "I rather imagine I have a lot of research to do first."
Hermione was almost disappointed to get an owl from Hogwarts, assuring her and her parents that the Hogwarts Express would leave from London to Hogsmeade on Monday, April 4th. She'd accomplished much of what she'd set out to do, though – the tree house had been planned, she'd given the payment to Xenophilius Lovegood, the hedgewitches had their ritual to protect them from werewolves, and she'd planned with the Malfoys just how the trial for Sirius Black should go.
Hermione was optimistic about freeing Sirius Black. Though she didn't get along with him the best, she felt confident she'd be able to leverage helping him gain his freedom into a political advantage. She was still brainstorming ideas about how to solve the werewolf problem, but she once she finally had a good one, and she'd need support in the Wizengamot to pass the legislation she was mentally beginning to draft. So long as Sirius Black was freed, Hermione figured she'd have an ally for life – especially in this matter, given he had been friends with Lupin.
The train back to Hogwarts was loud and packed, students more hectic and energetic than than they usually were on the train back to school. Part of that was no one knew just what to expect upon their return – the owls they'd received had not detailed the outcome of the House Elf issue, though everyone seemed to have enjoyed the sudden and unexpected break.
Hermione had arrived early, found Susan, and quickly claimed a train compartment, before Luna, Harry, and Blaise joined them as they arrived. The compartment was only designed to fit four, but Hermione hadn't wanted to risk claiming a six-person one and having an outsider butt their way in. Once the Hogwarts Express was finally on its way, pulling out of the station, Hermione locked the compartment and drew the blinds, turning to her friends.
"This is going to be a very odd conversation," she warned them. "I need to explore ideas with you without explaining them in detail. You'll understand later in the week, but right now I need you to bear with me."
Her coven all straightened up, looking interested, except for Luna, who was busy plaiting her hair back with tiny clover flowers woven in. Hermione looked to Harry, who looked curious.
"If you recall, we did a blood debt ritual back in January," she began. "In your mind, what was the goal of that ritual?"
"To catch Sirius Black," Harry said immediately.
"Was it?" Hermione equivocated. "Was it to catch Sirius Black?"
Her stress and tone of voice caught Harry off-guard, and he paused.
"Well, it was to catch the person who betrayed my parents to Voldemort," Harry said. "We didn't actually name Black in the ritual."
Blaise's eyes went wide, but Hermione hurried on.
"And to your knowledge, Harry, we did the ritual exactly as we should?" she prompted. "Even though we got a rat?"
"Yes, obviously," Harry said, scowling. "We still don't know why we got Scabbers, but if things calm down, we could redo the ritual this month with Neville's blood—"
"That won't be necessary," Hermione assured him. "Harry – this is important – is it more important to you to catch your parents' betrayer, or is it more important to catch Sirius Black?"
Susan sucked her breath in sharply, realizing, but it took Harry a moment.
"You—you're implying that Sirius Black isn't the one who betrayed my parents," he said slowly. He looked up at Hermione, green eyes confused. "But I heard – when I was eavesdropping in Hogsmeade. He was Secret-Keeper for them…"
"You overheard a few people talking, none of whom were actually there at the time the Potters died," Hermione said gently. "Harry – which is more important to you?"
"Catching the one who betrayed my parents," Harry said immediately. "But—Hermione, if that's not Sirius—"
"I'm not saying it isn't," Hermione stressed, "but I'm not saying it is."
"—then Scabbers actually did betray my parents?" Harry asked, astonished. "What happened if it wasn't Black? It doesn't make any sense."
"It doesn't need to make sense now," Hermione said. "But Harry, if you were asked about the ritual, would you be able to explain what we did, why we did it, and the result we got?"
"Yes?" Harry said, not following. "Why? Do I need to?"
"You—you have Wizengamot tomorrow," Susan accused Hermione. "You—you know something, and you want Harry to be able to testify at Sirius Black's trial, don't you?"
Hermione winced. "Not exactly."
"But you do want me to testify," Harry breathed. He looked at Hermione, eyes wide. "Are you—is he really—"
"I want you to be able to truthfully say 'I didn't know' on the stand," Hermione said carefully. "So I'm not going to say anything about anything now."
"But the coven," Blaise said, alarmed. "If Harry has to testify about the coven—"
"It's very possible our coven will come out in open court," Hermione admitted, wincing. "That's why I'm hoping if Harry testifies, that the coven might not come up. And if it does, Susan can be called to support Harry's statement."
"The coven's going to have to come to light eventually," Luna chided. "We should consider when. If it's in court, for us catching a notorious criminal, that might be the best optics we could possibly hope for."
"We thought it would come out when Rince announced her baby," Blaise said. "Are the optics of doing a blood ritual to catch a traitor better than helping out pureblood fertility?"
"It'd certainly be good with Harry Potter at the helm," Susan emphasized. "People are much less likely to be alarmed about our coven if they think it was formed to help Harry Potter heroically avenge his parents rather than explore forgotten magics."
Harry looked uncomfortable.
"But that's not why we made a coven," he said. "We didn't even know about Sirius Black when we bonded."
"We all know that," Hermione assured him. "We're helping you out with this matter because we care, not because it's our one purpose—"
Harry seemed to relax slightly at her words.
"—but that being said, it might help if other people thought that was our purpose," she finished. She bit her lip. "To avoid accusations of Dark magic being thrown around."
"The Ministry wouldn't know Dark magic if it bit it on the nose," Luna commented, wrinkling her nose. "They think the Fidelius Charm is a Light spell."
Harry blinked. "Wait. It isn't?"
"It requires a secret being magically hidden in a person's soul," Luna told him, raising her eyebrows. "That doesn't sound like a Light spell to me."
"Regardless of the Fidelius Charm, do we want the coven to come out this way?" Hermione asked hastily. "With Harry admitting to it in open court? The fuss of—erm—of what else he'd be testifying about might help the public gloss over it as a detail, instead of it being a main story."
"Are covens really seen that badly?" Harry demanded.
"Yes," said Blaise, at the same time Susan said, "No."
They glared at each other, before Blaise started to speak.
"Covens make a lot of people think of Dark witches chanting and doing evil spells at night," he said. "They've fallen distinctly out of favor, and a lot of the myths muggles have about witches have sort of melded with the wizarding public's idea of covens."
"In traditional, magical families," Susan emphasized, her voice hard, "covens are a legend to aspire to, not one to fear. Covens are told of in terms of how to enhance your personal magic, how to bond with people who will never betray you, how to explore all that magic would have you know."
Hermione sighed.
"Let's hope those legends live on in enough of the Wizengamot." She smiled wryly. "I'll still need their support in a few years to try and claim my own House."
Harry looked torn.
"I want my parents' killer to face justice," he said. "Given that's Voldemort, and he's not exactly accessible right now, I want the one who betrayed them to face his comeuppance instead. If that means I have to talk about the coven…"
I want to do it hung in the air, unsaid, as they glanced around at each other.
"I'm fine with it coming out in court this way," Susan said firmly. Her eyes were fierce. "I'm not ashamed."
"Says the Hufflepuff," Blaise snarked, and Susan shot him a look.
"I'm okay with it," Luna said, shrugging. "It's just magic. Maybe we can inspire other people to form covens of their own."
Hermione looked at Blaise, frustration warring visibly across his face.
"All right, fine!" he burst out, aggravated. "Potter can tell on us to the Wizengamot if he has to." He shot Hermione a glare. "Is this really necessary?"
Hermione bit her lip.
"I think it is," she sighed. "I wish there was another way, but I really don't think there is."
Blaise scowled, kicking his seat.
"Should get Malfoy to bribe the press beforehand," he muttered. "Make sure they get the optics of this right for us from the start."
That wasn't a bad idea, Hermione mused. Maybe an owl to the Daily Prophet wouldn't go amiss.
