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Chapter 29
Three of the goblins charged at Hermione, blade in their hands. Hermione, though, already had her wand in her hand and had been practising to defend herself in a war for quite some time now. The two of the goblins only had knives and quickly fell to stunners; the third, however, was carrying a sword and was able to dodge the three stunners that Hermione shot at him.
This, however, created enough time for everyone to react. Fleur pulled out her wand and moved to cover Hermione with a shield just like the one Harry had used, materialising where it could cover the two women. More goblins drew weapons to deal with what they saw as wizards attacking goblins. Harry, Sirius, and BoneSnapper came charging up the stairs, followed by a group of guards.
Harry saw the group of goblins advancing on Hermione and Fleur and charged forward, aiming a bone breaker curse at the goblin with the sword. The goblin crashed to the floor, his leg giving out underneath him as his femur snapped in two.
Things were about to turn into a riot when BoneSnapper shouted out. "ENOUGH!" He must have had some goblin equivalent to a sonorous charm because his shout was loud enough to rattle the stone of the room. The goblins immediately obeyed and as Hermione and Fleur were currently reacting and not acting they stood ready but not doing anything.
Harry was the only one who was still acting, and that wasn't because of the goblins, though he did firmly place himself between them and the goblins. The reason Harry wasn't standing down was because the shade of Voldemort was still there and hadn't left. It was still hanging around the unconscious body of ViperClaw. Most of the goblins had forgotten about it as they grew enraged over a witch attacking a goblin, but now they were starting to remember that there were bigger things going on.
Harry tried to work out why Voldemort hadn't flown off. He didn't even realise that this wasn't even the same Voldemort that he had just removed from McNair until Fleur said. "'Arry my boss was possessed by a second Voldemort." The stress of everything making her fall back on her French accent more.
Sirius let out a string of swearing at Fleur's words. But like most of the room, Sirius had no idea what to do. He already knew that none of the spells he knew would affect a spirit. Harry quickly started putting things together. What he knew of Horcruxes from the Unspeakables, the tiny near helpless part of the spirit in his scar, the part that had been in poor Ginny. One of the Horcrux fractions possessed the goblin. But why wasn't the goblin freed like Hermione and McNair had been?
One goblin tried to slash at the Voldemort spirit with a blade, but it did nothing. Harry didn't know if the goblin expected more because he had a goblin forged blade or if he had just tried it on the off-chance it did something. Voldemort's spirit retaliated by reaching into the goblin's chest. The goblin immediately fell and started to seize and convulse.
Harry turned his mother's wand on the spectre and tried to cast a cutting curse hoping that whatever strange power his mother's magic had when it came to fighting Voldemort would make the spell more effective. Only nothing came from the wand. Instead, all that happened was that the unconscious body of ViperClaw glowed green for a moment.
Harry didn't have time to panic instead, he just tried to figure out what was different. Then it hit him. The Horcrux, that had to be it. The shade was bound to the Horcrux. It couldn't leave the same way the one in Ginny couldn't act independently. It needed to control her to do anything. That meant that ViperClaw had to have something on him that was actually a Horcrux.
"I think he has a cursed object on him. We need to find it and get it away from him." Harry called to BoneSnapper, who then started ordering the guards in the goblin language.
The shade seemed to be stuck within arms reach of the unconscious ViperClaw but that didn't help much, if anyone tried to get close the apparition would try to reach them and the goblins having seen what happen to the previous one who had gotten to close would jump back whenever it looked like the shade was focusing on them.
Fleur was the one who came up with a plan, probably because she was the only one there who could do it. Sure, Harry and Hermione knew what switching spells were, where you switched two objects so that they switched locations like a teleport spell. Unfortunately, Harry and Hermione just hadn't covered it in class yet and while they practised ahead, they were more focused on spells that they knew would be useful in a combat situation.
Fleur waved her wand and conjured a stack of handkerchiefs from nothing, then started switching them with ViperClaw's clothes and anything else he was carrying. Shirt, trousers, money pouch, jewellery. Eventually, all that was left was his underwear and a mokeskin pouch he was wearing around his neck.
"The pouch wouldn't move with the switching spell and whatever is inside it is protected by it as well. I assume we can leave the man his underwear. Unless that is you believe Voldemort made the cursed cock-ring of power?" Fleur deadpanned her joke in poor taste, but nobody was going to call her on using bad jokes to deal with a stressful situation. A few goblins even laughed.
What interested Harry and Hermione even though neither noticed the other noticing was that the spirit of Voldemort also looked offended. However, unlike Voldemort normally was, this spirit hadn't said anything. Considering how much Voldemort loved to hear himself talk, both concluded that for some reason this spirit couldn't speak directly.
"What do we do now?" Asked Harry. The horcrux has to be in the pouch but we can't do anything about it with magic and any one who gets close enough to remove it by hand is close enough to get hurt."
Hermione gave Harry a smirk before turning to BoneSnapper. "Do you think any of your men could cut the cord keeping the pouch hanging around his neck without going over there? I don't want to risk a cutting charm that close to his neck."
"Sure." Answered BoneSnapper before he turned to one of the guards, said something none of the humans in the room had any hope of understanding and the guard pulled out a knife and threw it, somehow cutting the cord without injuring ViperClaw, though Harry was sure there was now a spot that the goblin wouldn't need to shave come morning.
Hermione was shocked by how quickly and easily the guard did that and it told her just how lucky she was earlier that she was set upon by just normal goblins and not those trained as guards. Still, she had a plan now that her plan wouldn't strangle her girlfriend's boss. She summoned one of the handkerchiefs that Fleur had conjured, cast a sticking Charm on it, and floated it over to the pouch, lowering it so it touched the pouch sticking to it. Hermione then floated it up.
The spirit tried to swipe at ViperClaw in a move of petty vindictiveness, but the green glow of Harry's protection shone through his skin again and Voldemort's arm bounced off of the goblin instead of passing through doing damage.
Hermione carefully moved the pouch away from ViperClaw and, keeping far away from the others, took it down the steps to the arena and left it right in the middle of the room well away from everyone.
-ϟϟϟ-
After Hermione had gotten the Horcrux away from everyone, ViperClaw had basically put everyone involved under arrest. Well, arrest may be a strong word, but ViperClaw made it clear to everyone involved that nobody was leaving until he and the bank's directors received adequate answers to all their questions.
The Malfoys were discovered not in the opposition viewing room like they should have been but back at the carts, attempting to bribe a goblin to take them back to the surface. So they were arrested until everything was straightened out.
"So Miss Granger, please tell me in your own words what happened." One of the six directors sat across the table from her asked. Harry and Fleur were in the room with her but were told that Hermione had to answer for herself.
"Well, I was watching my betrothed fight a duel to the death. So, as you can imagine, I was a little on edge. Especially as it looked like Harry was going to lose at one point. Anyway, Harry worked out that Voldemort was possessing McNair and used what can best be described as family magic to remove the spirit and win the duel. However, Harry's spell detected a second possession and acted to free the individual. Given that I have experience with having Voldemort exorcised from my body, I can tell you it fucking hurts and he tries get you to kill yourself."
There were two sharp intakes of breath from Harry and Fleur. Hermione hadn't told them about this because if she was honest she hadn't considered it that big a deal. The compulsion was so weak; it was worthless. The last attempt of a feeble and pathetic parasite. Though Hermione did have Harry's mother's magic bolstering her resolve and Voldemort hadn't exactly had time to get his hooks into her head.
"So to save him the pain and to prevent any compulsion induced suicide attempts, I stunned him. Then a number of goblins attacked me and I defended myself with stunning spells."
At this point, BoneSnapper cut in. "I can confirm that all goblins affected by Miss Granger were indeed only stunned. Of the three, the only one experiencing anything more than a bump from falling unconscious is ViperClaw and our healers are attributing that to his possession not to miss Granger's spell."
There was some talking in the goblin language for a few minutes between the directors, but eventually BoneSnapper spoke for the group in English. "The way we see it this was aid given, a misunderstanding and escalating degrees of defensive actions building on that misunderstanding. Considering nobody is hurt beyond a bruised ego, would you agree that the best option all around is to just drop the whole conflict between you and the goblins involved?"
A part of Hermione felt annoyed that the goblins, who hadn't stopped to think for a second, would escape without consequences after charging at her with knives. However, she also knew that, at least for now, they needed the goblins on their side. She wanted no part in potentially souring the relationship between them and the goblins over the actions of a few.
"Sure, I will agree to drop it. However, can someone please have a conversation with them about thinking for a second before charging into a fight. Because, and I mean this without any malice, they are lucky I used stunners." One of the goblins went to interrupt, but Hermione held up a hand and continued talking. "I mean, consider that I spend time every week preparing to fight Deatheaters I'm at war with. We all do. Our go to reaction spells are not stunners. If I hadn't just used a stunner seconds before, then it wouldn't have been already in my head."
About half of the goblins were nodding as Hermione spoke. She had the idea that they may have been the goblins who, in their younger days, had had some serious training and understood about potentially deadly reflexes.
With that topic covered, they moved on to the bigger one. "What can you tell us about the object that ViperClaw was carrying?" This was directed at all of them, not just Hermione.
Fleur was the one who answered. "Nothing. We are under unbreakable vows not to talk about it."
One of the goblins, a director Harry or Hermione had never met before, but whom Fleur had seen in passing, said. "Have you not signed a contract with the bank? You take our gold, you owe us your loyalty. If you won't speak, then perhaps we should invoke the contract?"
Harry gave the goblin a look before saying. "I have already fought one duel today. Perhaps certain people need to learn to be quiet before their words force me into fighting a second."
The goblin stood about to say something before BoneSnapper said out loud. "I will have to decline arbitration of that duel, Mr Potter, but I will gladly stand as your second if your godfather would rather watch from the stands this time."
Sirius was currently watching over the Malfoys in another room. Harry wanted to be with Hermione, as did Fleur, and they wanted someone with a wand to watch over the Malfoys in case something happened.
The goblin who had threatened Fleur sputtered at his college offering to be Harry's second and started to realise the position he had just placed himself in. "Oh, you don't believe that story about a vow? You know what ViperClaw was saying about her just last week? She and the entire Potter family were more two faced than any other humans he had ever met."
One of the other directors, the oldest looking one there who Harry recognised but knew nothing about because he never spoke, put his head in his hand and was massaging the bridge of his nose. "You mean the same ViperClaw that we just found out was being possessed for we don't know how long? The same ViperClaw whose work for last year we now need to audit because we don't know how much damage he has been doing? Do yourself a favour, GreenFang, recuse yourself from this meeting and go have a long think about the situation."
The goblin they now knew to be GreenFang grumbled but got up and left. Once the heavy door slammed shut, the goblin who had scolded him said. "Please excuse GreenFang. He is new to his position and I fear the stress is getting to him. Please, what can you tell us?"
Fleur answered, "Truly, not much. It was the British department of mysteries that had us take the vows under threat of obliviation. Our vows require us to only reveal this information in exchange for the person hearing it to take the same vows. The only leeway we have is we can tell you the name and an incredibly brief description and give you the choice between vow or removing it from your memory."
Understandably, none of the directors were willing to let someone else mess around in their heads, so instead, the conversation turned to what was going to happen next. More specifically, how the cup was going to be destroyed.
"Well, I know they can be destroyed. I have done that before. Though it's difficult, the only ways I know involve either Fiendfyre or basilisk venom. The only problem is the magic and everything in it moved into the person it was controlling." Harry explained
"The Weasley's girl?" Asked one other of the directors. If Harry remembered the introductions correctly, he was named GoldThumb, and he was in charge of a department called acquisitions.
"Yeah." Confirmed Hermione. "She was a friend."
"So you fear that if you destroy the cup, then the spirit inside it will be drawn to ViperClaw? What about that magic you infused him with that drove it out originally? Could that keep him safe or free him?" GoldThumb asked.
Harry didn't know, so Fleur answered. "It would probably work. However, you need to understand we are dealing with some very esoteric magic that we don't fully understand. We would hate to rely on something, only to discover we are wrong after the fact."
"What about distance?" Asked Hermione. If you sent ViperClaw to say Australia or someplace as far before the cup is destroyed, shouldn't that keep him safe? And if it doesn't, we can portkey him back here and try Harry's protection magic?"
It wasn't the best plan ever because it had way too many unknowns in it. It was, however, the best plan they were going to get. Of course, the fact that they had no basilisk venom and none of them could cast Fiendfyre and actually control it presented a problem. Luckily, Harry and his ladies knew where to get a basilisk fang. It was going to take a few days, and the goblins were going to keep the cup in the arena and set the entire cave it was in to a no go area until Harry could get back with the means to destroy it.
This left only one question to deal with. The Malfoys. Harry insisted that he had fought Draco's second and won, so by the strict reading of the rules he had won and the house of Malfoy was for all intents and purposes now his. The Malfoys had gambled and lost.
However, BoneSnapper said it wasn't so easy. If Voldemort had taken over McNair without the Malfoys or McNair asking him to then technically it was considered interference and the result of the duel was void.
"Oh, you surely don't believe that Malfoy, whose name literally means bad faith, didn't plan this with Voldemort? Not only do I believe Malfoy was in on it, I believe it was his plan from the start." Harry insisted.
"My personal feelings on the issue are irrelevant, Warlock Potter. What matters is what can be proven."
"Then let's go prove it." Hermione said.
"And how do you propose we do that? It's not like the bank can just pour a truth potion down his throat. The Wizengamot would go apoplectic." One of the directors said.
It was Hermione who answered. "Simple. I will go in there, hold my wand against his head and demand an unbreakable vow too truthfully answer my questions, or I will kill him, his wife, and his son. And because of the feud, the Wizengamot won't do shit." It was a mark of how done Hermione was with the Malfoy issue that she was resorting to profanity when in such a formal setting.
"Draco is back at school love, we can't touch him there." Harry reminded her. "Still, a vow is a good idea. Why not tell him unless he gives a vow to prove he wasn't involved willingly in the conspiracy to switch out the second you will need to find in my favour? Need I remind you that should you find in my favour the Malfoy vaults and properties immediately become mine and you get to plunder the entire lot for any and all goblin made artefacts?" Harry tempted them.
As that plan appealed to both the goblins' honour and greed, it was quickly accepted. The mess with the Malfoys was BoneSnapper's jurisdiction, so the meeting was called to an end and BoneSnapper led them down to a detention area where the Malfoys were being kept. The fact that they had tried to skip out at the end had made the goblins decide to use the small prison area they had under the bank where they held anyone caught stealing before the arrangements were made to move them elsewhere.
As they walked, Harry asked BoneSnapper about what the goblins would do now. "With ViperClaw possessed like he was will the goblin nation have a shift in its stance on the war? It could very easily be seen as Voldemort assaulting a goblin and using him and Gringotts itself as a weapon against his opposition."
BoneSnapper gave Harry a shrewd look before thinking about his answer. They had walked down two flights of stairs before he answered. "It will take time to determine. It will depend. For example, was ViperClaw targeted or was it an opportunity? More importantly, it will depend on the records check of ViperClaw's work. The nation won't throw itself into a war unless we know for sure we were targeted as a nation. Just like your nations don't go to war over the kidnapping of a single citizen."
Despite feeling disappointed, Harry understood. "Can't blame a guy for hoping." Harry said. Of course, he felt disappointed. He had hoped that after what happened, the goblins would jump in if not exactly on Harry's side, then against Voldemort.
"Warlock Potter, don't be too disheartened." Even if the nation doesn't call for blood, I foresee that certain individuals will find it a lot more onerous to avail themselves for Gringotts services for quite some time." BoneSnapper told Harry with a slightly predatory grin. "The bank does not need the approval of the nation for that, and one of our own was harmed," BoneSnapper told Harry with a slightly predatory grin.
-ϟϟϟ-
The scene in the holding area played out exactly like Harry expected. Harry, Hermione and Fleur were watching from an observation room with Sirius, Madam Longbottom, and Tonks. Tonks looked the most relaxed out of them, like she did this every day, and Harry supposed if being an Auror was anything like the police shows he had seen on TV over years she probably did.
Lucius was dragged out of the cell by a couple of guards into a room that was set aside for asking questions. BoneSnapper stood in front of him and laid out the situation. "Given the peculiar nature of this situation, we had to discuss where we go from here. As you can imagine, Warlock Potter is quite insistent that he fought your champion and won. By the terms of the duel he is the Victor."
"There was interference. Interference occurred, resulting in the invalidation of the duel.
"True. However, it cannot be denied that the interference aided your champion and hindered Warlock Potter. Given that Warlock Potter defeated not only your champion but your ally, it would be quite dishonourable to make him fight the duel a second time, would it not?" BoneSnapper said.
"And should the honour of a dishonourable brat who demands something as insulting as an unbreakable vow of truth trump my rights?" Lucius demanded. That caused Harry, Fleur and Hermione to laugh as they knew exactly what was coming next.
"Indeed, it does not warlock Malfoy. Luckily for you, there is a simple way forward for everyone." BoneSnapper was calm and businesslike. Harry wondered how the goblin could keep from grinning like a loon.
"There is no provision for a second duel." Malfoy took a guess at where BoneSnapper was going.
"Oh, no more duels. We just need you to confirm, backed by magic, that you had no voluntary hand in the spirit of Lord Voldemort being in your chosen second. Once you provide that, you will be free to go."
"Wait, you don't mean…" what little colour that was in Lucius's face drains away.
"An unbreakable vow to tell the full and complete truth? Why yes I do." Now BoneSnapper was grinning like Harry expected.
"I should have brought popcorn for this," Hermione whispered next to Harry.
"And if I refuse?" asked Lucius.
"Then I'm afraid we will have little choice but to find in favour of Warlock Potter. You, your wife and your son, when we can get him, will be relocated to Warlock Potter's private prison until such time as you sign a full and unconditional surrender. While waiting for you to sign, all your vaults and properties will be signed over to Mr Potter, and your valuables plundered and redistributed redistributed however Warlock Potter sees fit. That includes returning every single goblin made artefact you have to its rightful owners."
"Then when you and your family each sign your magically binding unconditional surrender you will be visited by a member of the Potter family who will take you to the Ministry and order you to give a full and truthful confession for every crime you have ever committed. Only you know what such a confession will mean for you. I think the smart money is on life in Azkaban without the possibility of parole. And just when you feel a little hope that your master will break you out, warlock Potter will whisper in your ear an order that if you ever find yourself off of Azkaban Island unlawfully you will have to kill yourself." BoneSnapper had made up that last bit, but it worked to twist the proverbial knife.
Malfoy knew he was done. There was no way the goblins would give him any leeway if the Potter brat had promised them the goblin made stuff. He had been stripped of every weapon, portkey or any other plausible way to resist but the strength of his arms. He had gambled one too many times, and he had lost everything. His only choice was death or eternal imprisonment.
Harry watched, shocked, as Malfoy agreed to take the unbreakable vow of truth. As Malfoy gave his vow to BoneSnapper, bonded by a wizard in Gringotts' employ, Harry and the others began to have doubts. Maybe Malfoy wasn't involved in Voldemort's possession of McNair, or maybe he had modified his memory so that he could say he wasn't involved and it be the truth as he knows it.
Then Malfoy spoke. "I, Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, Warlock of the House of Malfoy, say now I am proud of the actions I took to rid the world of such filth. I approached my master and proposed the plan to give him a shot at Potter. I convinced my son to pretend to be sick today. The purebloods shall reign supreme. Magic is might. The sky is green"
With his last sentence, Malfoy fell dead. Quickly and painlessly. The coward's way out. None of them had a smile on their faces after that.
A/N
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