Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Parts of JK Rowling's HP7, end scene between Harry and Voldemort; and HP4, graveyard scene.
Inspired by Mono Inc.'s "Potter's Field" ; excerpts from Skillet's song "Monster"
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GRINGOTTS
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The secret side of me, I never let you see
I keep it caged, but I can't control it
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Griphook was counting money when suddenly, an icy shudder ran down his back. His head snapped up and his nose twitched, scenting the air.
From one moment to the other, the air seemed to have cooled to a temperature more suited to the middle of winter outside in the depth of Siberia and not the warm halls of Gringotts. There was a scent in the air that spoke of the sweetness of rotting flesh and clung to Griphook's nostrils like the stench of the dying.
Faint fog clouded the air in front of his face when he breathed out and when his gaze swept through the hall, he saw more than one of their customers shudder in their thin robes while other goblins looked around just as alerted as Griphook was.
The goblin race was a race of fierce warriors. They believed in war and the importance of gold, and they didn't fear much. Though, Griphook had to admit, that something or someone powerful enough to influence the weather was certainly something or someone that should be assessed before it was dismissed like wizards and witches were dismissed as pathetic life-forms not worth the gold they possessed.
For a moment, when nothing else seemed to happen, and Griphook finally believed that the drop of the temperature was it, that there would be nothing more.
Then, suddenly, the doors to Gringotts bank banged open, hitting the walls right and left. Icy wind swept through the hall followed by a murder of crows.
Their caw-caw filled the sudden silence that had spread across the hall when the door banged open.
Hundreds of red glowing eyes seemed to scrutinize every being within the hall, the crows being anything but normal. Their feathers, black as they were, seemed to be made of shadows. Their eyes seemed to glow in the deepest of red, cruel in a way that made even a goblin's wrath look kind. Griphook shuddered when one of the crows met his gaze head on. There was something cold… dead… to the creature, as if every ounce of life had already left its body and the only thing that was left was the last moment in its life.
And with the murder, a different scent mix entered the bank. The sweet scent of lilies mixed with the softer scents of asphodel. And Griphook shuddered. He knew even without seeing any flowers that he was scenting the corpse flower – representing the death of loved ones – calling out to everyone in the bank just like the asphodel – which represented eternal life and remembrance. The scent, sweet as it was, just ensured that another shiver of foreboding ran down Griphook's back.
Then, just a second after Griphook identified the scent in the air, in the middle of the murder of crows, a dark, ghost-like raven-crow descended from the ceiling. It looked like a mass of twisting and turning shadows embedded into the vague shape of a raven before changing into the shape of a crow at the next moment and back again.
With a sharp caw the raven-crow plunged towards the ground below. More than one witch or wizard hastily took a step aside, just so there was no way of the creature hitting them with its shadowy wings. More than one wizard or witch shivered at the sight of a supernatural creature made of shadows and darkness – some primal fear gripping their hearts just by the sight of the being made of shadows.
Griphook who usually looked down on witches and wizards alike, shook silently with them, his breath fogging in front of his face and his heart gripped by a primal fear he couldn't even name.
When the raven-like being was just a foot or two above the ground and barely a few feet away from Griphook's desk, the shadows seemed to explode outwards before immediately coalescing into the solid form of an elegant man in slightly old-fashioned robes.
The man formed mid-step bringing with him another scent. The deadly scent of wolf's bane filled the air and Griphook's hands clutched at his desk to keep himself from flinching backwards.
The stranger seemed to see Griphook's flinch anyway because a sharp, cold smiled bloomed in his wizard-like face while he stepped smoothly up to Griphook's desk as if he hadn't changed from wings to legs mid-motion.
The stranger's eyes were as red as the crows which were still filling the air with their earie song. Then, the male – because the being looked male for all that Griphook doubted that he was as human as he looked – raised his right hand and suddenly the crows turned and dived towards him.
The moment they touched his clothes, they seemed to melt with the shadows, vanishing without a sound. Only the last crow landed on the man's shoulder instead of vanishing. It was only when the crow took a seat on the stranger's shoulder that Griphook noted with dreed that the man had reached Griphook's desk and was now scrutinizing him with blood-red eyes, glowing from their depth and filled with shadows like the eyes of a corpse.
Even when Voldemort had still walked the earth openly, Griphook had never been as afraid of a human-looking man as he was now.
"Griphook of Clan Gringotts," the stranger said and Griphook flinched at the coldness of the stranger's voice. There was an echo to it as if he was speaking with the voice of a thousand instead of with his own. "Warrior of your tribe." There was a flash in those red eyes that seemed to reveal everything that was Griphook to the stranger in front of him.
"I am Griphook," Griphook forced himself to say nevertheless, not sure if the stranger was stating his name because he recognized Griphook or if he wanted to talk to Griphook and had stated his name to call him out. Wizards and witches often couldn't tell goblins apart and while the man was certainly neither that didn't mean he was all that better when it came to identifying goblins.
Though, the knowledge in the other man's eyes told the goblin that the stranger had known who he was talking to already.
"I am here to speak with your grandsire on behalf of my Lord," the stranger said and another shiver ran down Griphook's back because no one who wasn't a goblin should have known about Griphook's standing within the bank as the heir's heir.
"Who is your Lord that you think you can demand my grandsire's time?" Griphook countered nevertheless, unwilling to show weakness even in the face of the eerie.
"I am here on behalf of Henricus Iacomus," the stranger replied. There was no title he used for his lord, no human way to express that the man he was sworn to was anything but another man… but Griphook was grown long enough to hear the implied title in the answer anyway.
Henricus – the ruler of the homestead. It was a name as understated as everything that had to do with the beyond… that had to do with Potter's Field.
And just the fact that the man used that understatement told Griphook that this whole situation was more serious than the worst thing he had feared.
"What does Henricus wish from us?" Griphook countered nevertheless. "He rules beyond – the living have never been his concern."
The stranger cocked his head, his cold eyes seeming to pierce Griphook. Ice seemed to spread from where the stranger's eyes lingered on Griphook's face.
"Henricus rules Potter's Field," the man corrected calmly. "All of Potter's Field. And while his predecessor might have been inclined to let you be, Henricus Iacomus has decided to take offence when it comes to defiling graves."
Griphook swallowed, his mind immediately going to Egypt and their excavation of the magical graves there. Something knowing gleamed in the stranger's eyes.
"Not to mention, there's that little trouble with your people allowing an artefact in your vaults that comes just as close to breaking the treaty between our people as your doings in Egypt," the man added.
"We keep nothing in our vaults that your Lord would wish to keep," Griphook countered, his teeth grinding when he tied to stop himself from visibly shaking in the face of the unnatural.
The man hummed.
"Nothing that he wishes to keep, certainly," he agreed, his sharp eyes on Griphooks face taking in every twitch of muscle, every sign of fear as if he was savouring it like fine wine. "But you keep what he wishes to be eradicated from this earth."
Which by the tone of voice was worse than the first option.
Griphook gulped.
"Our customers are our priority," he forced out, refusing to back down even in the face of the lord of the beyond. The goblins prided themselves in their neutrality, after all.
Though, the next moment, Griphook understood that being neutral to Potter's Field might be something that even the goblin race couldn't afford – or that neutrality to the beings of beyond might be something different than being neutral in a wizarding conflict.
"Ah, yes," the stranger agreed. "You take in all… even though your treaty with us states that you will leave to Potter's Field what is Potter's Field's to deal with." Sharp, blood red eyes met Griphook's black ones. "Tell me, Griphook, do you think yourselves to be above your treaty with my people? Your people abandoned their rituals to ask for the blessing of the dead when you enter their graves in Egypt, after all… we thought you might have lost the means to do so, not that you actively refuse to communicate with us."
Sharp teeth gleamed when the stranger sent Griphook a cold, heartless smile. "But if you refuse to do your part in the treaty, then for sure, you won't mind if we do the same. I'm sure the mermaid population or the centaurs won't mind having more births than usual – after all, if you wish to stop trading with us, I'm sure we can arrange that the future souls of your possible newborns find a new home somewhere else."
The broadening smile the man sent Griphook after those words made Griphook shiver. It was a challenge the goblin way, not a smile like a wizard would do. A ruthless way of saying 'I won't mind ripping you up from both sides if you wish'.
Griphook had been trained as a ruthless banker, willing to do a lot to ensure that a treaty was positive for his people – but with that smile and those words, it was clear that Potter's Field hadn't come to haggle. No, instead of bringing up possible interactions that would better the treaty in the future, they had come and brought a glove, ready to slap the goblin nation with it and declare a feud.
Like every goblin, Griphook had been brought up with the legends of Potter's Field and their way to interact with the goblin nation. There were stories of concessions and a good amount of back and forth until an agreement when it came to changes to the treaty with Potter's Field could be reached.
The man in front of him, though, clearly wasn't the same like the ones in the story. There was no will to make any kind of concession in his eyes, no show of willingness to yield in at least one of the points of dissonance he had brought up. It was his ruthless, hard stance that told Griphook that something about this visit was different to the ones that had come before – and it was that thought that led him to the only logical conclusion, no matter how scary that conclusion was.
"You're not an ambassador of Potter's Field," Griphook said, his mouth dry and feeling like there was an ax just levitating over his head, ready to come down at any moment.
Because no ambassador of Potter's Field would have been as unyielding as the man in front of him. The stranger's eyes gleamed at that.
"I am not," he agreed and his blood red eyes met Griphook's with a gaze that spoke of a feral creature, a predator instead of a civilized being like Griphook had hoped. "I am its marshal."
Marshal.
Goblin childhood stories talked about the hunter, the predator, talked about their ruthlessness, their power and their unrelenting nature in the face of Potter's Field's goals.
The marshal was the boogieman, sent out to those that were seen beyond saving, send to catch the dead and those that broke the treaty.
"Marshal," Griphook repeated and suddenly, his hands felt wet and cold sweat was running down his back.
If Potter's Field had wanted to send a friendly warning, they would have sent the ambassador of their court. If they had wanted to renegotiate the treaty, they would have sent their Chancellor. If they would have wanted a closer relation with the goblin nation, they would have sent their Majordomo.
But instead of all of those, they had gone and sent their Marshal. They had gone and sent the one being who was responsible for ruthlessly hunting down Henricus' targets. You didn't send a hunter for a negotiation – at least not if you weren't pissed off and willing to use every means necessary to ensure that the negotiations would end one way or the other.
The only one worse who could have come was the current Steward. If he had been sent, then Griphook was well aware that there wouldn't have just been the threat of consequences. The Steward didn't threaten, after all.
"Marshal… I… I will immediately inform my grandsire of your coming," Griphook finally managed to get out. He was sure that he was as pale as a ghost at that moment. "One moment, please, and I promise you, he will see you immediately."
Because while the marshal had just threatened with the breaking of the treaty, Griphook was well aware that Potter's Field would act if the goblin nation just dared to imply that they didn't take them seriously. Because Potter's Field was serious. The marshal's entrance and his casual threat showed as much.
Calling his grandsire down took ages in Griphook's mind. The old goblin's unhappiness just added to that feeling.
"You couldn't have renegotiated our treaty with Potter's Field yourself, grandson?" the old goblin asked unhappily. "Surely you have trained enough to be able to do so."
"I fear," Griphook replied, his throat still oddly dry. "That the time of negotiation is long since passed. Potter's Field requires actions, not long discussions about the treaty."
His grandsire just sighed, but still stepped into the office that Griphook had asked the marshal brought to.
The man was standing next to the pompous desk in the middle of the room, his hand raised while he was stroking the crow that was still sitting on his shoulder.
His red eyes were eying the room as if it was something unpleasant, he had found beneath his shoe instead one of the most pompous rooms that Gringotts had.
Griphook swallowed, wondering if it would have been better if he had brought the marshal into one of the simple rooms they used for their actual work or if doing that would have been worse.
His grandsire, meanwhile, didn't seem to have any second thoughts at all. Instead, he stepped passed Griphook and towards the desk like he'd do that every day.
"So, Potter's Field wants to renegotiate our treaty then," the old goblin said. "What kind of dissonance are we dealing with this time around, Ambassador?"
Griphook closed his eyes, his blood running cold in the face of his grandsire's disregard of the marshal.
"Marshal, Gringotts," the man corrected Griphook's grandsire immediately, using the goblin address for Griphook's grandsire as naturally as he had used his own lord's address. "I fear, the ambassador won't grace your halls for a while, yet."
Griphook's grandsire's fingers spasmed.
"Marshal," he repeated slowly, this time actually listening to the correction that Griphook had tried to imbed in him before they entered the room. "I can't say that I expected the marshal to be sent for a renegotiation of our treaty."
"That's because I wasn't sent to renegotiate anything," the marshal replied. "I am here to assure if you still have interest in our treaty or if we can spend our time on treaties that are actually worth to negotiate on."
Which more or less meant that the marshal and maybe Henricus might already think the goblin nation lost to the agreements they had drawn up thousands of years ago.
It was a cold thought and without any comfort.
"Surely we couldn't have erred that much that our treaty would be voided," Griphook's grandsire said and now his voice sounded as rough as Griphook's does when his mouth is dry.
The marshal crooked his head, and the crow on this shoulder mirrored him.
"Only insofar, that you haven't refused to better yourselves until now," the marshal replied. "But considering your doings in Egypt and you housing an object that Henricus morally objects to, we have reasons to think that you might not be interested in keeping our treaty anymore."
Griphook could only wonder if Potter's Field really thought that there would be any nation or race that would willingly break their treaty with Potter's Field. Even wizards wouldn't be insane enough to do so and they were plenty insane in Griphook's eyes.
"I assure you, our interest in the treaty hasn't weaned," Gringotts said, his eyes flickering to Griphook as if to assure himself that his grandson was still in attendance. "I am sure we can clear up that misunderstanding quickly."
The Marshal crooked his head, his inhuman, red eyes glowing in the shine of the candle lights lighting up the room.
"A misunderstanding would be calling on the wrong dead before entering a grave," the Marshal countered. "Not refusing to do a ritual we taught you to ensure that the dead are willing to part with their mortal treasures and burial objects."
"I assure you, we haven't refused–"
"The last ritual conducted that asked for agreement from the dead happened nearly two hundred years ago at the beginning of your reign," the Marshal interrupted Gringotts coldly. "After such a long time, I am sure that one can talk about refusal."
Then, the Marshal leaned closer and the air filled with the scent of wolf's bane like an added warning to the threatening way he was now leaning onto Gringotts' desk.
"The goblins are the ones who insist that the objects made by their departed keen belong to their people," he reminded them icily. "As such, for sure, you'd grace other people with the same curtesy that you demand for yours."
"Marshal, surely you–" The Marshal snarled, his eyes suddenly flashed crimson.
"We don't care how your treaties with the wizards work," the Marshal's voice was suddenly dark and full of death. "But you will be as courteous with us as you demand us to be with you. Our people don't keep the objects made by them in life while they were part of your people – and for that, you will follow our demand that everything else given to our people for their comforts in the afterlife will be seen as belonging to us until we agree to part with it!"
He leaned closer, his crimson eyes meeting Gringotts' head-on. "And the objects you took over the last two hundred years haven't been given up by us, thieves."
Griphook shuddered at the accusation in the Marshal's voice. He desperately wanted to deny being called a thief… but they hadn't asked and by their own traditions others taking or keeping what belonged to their people after death was seen as thievery – so clearly, with Potter's Field, the opposite had to be true as well.
Not to mention that Griphook had the very bad feeling that the part the Marshal was addressing was actually part of their treaty with Potter's Field…
Gringotts, meanwhile, leaned away from the Marshal's fury, clearly just as unwilling as Griphook when it came to dealing with an enraged Marshal of Potter's Field.
"I am sure we can clean that up… somehow… ensure penance…" Griphook finally forced himself to offer.
The Marshal turned towards him and eyed him coolly. "Penance?" he repeated. "I'm not sure you're actually interested in that considering the things you're keeping in your vaults at the behest of wizards."
Gringotts frowned. "What kind of things are we talking about?"
The Marshal hummed and then, without even bothering to ask, drew his wand – no, not his wand. The wand was pale and smelled just as much of death as the Marshal himself.
It only took a glance to recognize the elder wood the wand was made of.
So, not the Marshal's wand but the wand of Henricus himself.
Griphook took a step back, but the Marshal didn't seem bothered by his caution at all. He just raised an eyebrow at Griphook as if he was expressing amusement the goblin way and then made a swirling motion with the wand.
An image appeared above the wand. The image was of a golden cup but the impressions that came with the image ensured that Griphook felt his stomach tie itself into knots, forcing him to swallow more than once before he was sure that he would keep his breakfast down.
The image might just show a cup like any other, but the impressions that came with it felt like Griphook was suddenly being stuck in molasses, unable to move thanks to the darkness and evilness clouding his senses. The taste that came with it was cloyingly sweet, sticking to his tongue and nearly choking him by blocking his airways.
"What… what is that?" he forced out, his voice hoarse as if the scent was stuck to his vocal cords as well.
"We have a Horcrux in one of our vaults?" Gringotts asked at the same moment, his voice just as hoarse as Griphook's.
"You do," the Marshal replied and with a wave of his wand, the image and its impressions vanished without a trace. "And, considering you've been keeping it for more than ten years by now, you also don't seem to be interested in handing it over to my people."
This time, Gringotts bristled with anger. "I assure you, Marshal," he said and his hands shook with suppressed fury. "If we had known about the abomination in our vaults before now, we would have gladly sacrificed it to you."
Griphook could only nod. While he had never seen a Horcrux before, just the impressions of evil and darkness it left were enough that he knew he would have wanted nothing to do with something like that. Goblin were willing to overlook a lot, but a thing that smelled of death and evil as much as that thing definitely had no place in their bank.
The Marshal crooked his head, his eyes sharp and calculating. "Would you?" he asked. "I fear, I can't say for sure that I believe you – after all, you deliberately snubbed us for decades, so who says that keeping the cup hasn't been done in the same vein?"
Griphook and Gringotts flinched at the same time.
While Griphook could say for sure that the doubt in the Marshal's voice wasn't Griphook's fault in any way or form, the fact that the Marshal – that Henricus – doubted them enough that he wondered if they had deliberately kept that vile object was troubling. Yes, it was very troubling – but sadly also all to understandable as well, after the goblins had slighted Potter's Field for close to two hundred years…
"I assure you, we wouldn't have kept something as vile as that," Gringotts repeated. "And to show you our sincerity, we're willing to hand that thing over immediately – just tell us where it is and it will be yours, no questions asked."
The Marshal hummed thoughtfully. "And what will you tell your client if it is lost?" he inquired.
"We say it was stolen," Gringotts immediately answered and Griphook winced. Saying it was stolen would hit the integrity of the bank and the goblin nation themselves. But then, he guessed that was still better than continuing to keep that thing under their roof.
At least, Gringotts' words elicited some surprise – barely shown by a widening of the Marshal's eyes – from the messenger of Potter's Field.
Gringotts leaned forward. "Just tell us where it is and we will hand it to you immediately."
The answer, when it came, certainly didn't make Griphook nor Gringotts happy.
"Lestrange?" Griphook repeated. "Those wizards should have known better."
For a moment, he exchanged a look with Gringotts and when the older goblin nodded slightly, Griphook couldn't help but feel vindicated. The part of the Lestrange Family which had the Horcrux in their vault – one Bellatrix and Rudolphus Lestrange – would certainly have a harder time then before if they ever set a foot into Gringotts again.
Goblins, after all, never forget. And getting them in trouble with Potter's Field was certainly a fast way to get onto the person-non-grata list.
With a wave of Gringotts' hand, Griphook immediately left to get the offending object out of Lestrange's vault.
The thing, as it turned out, felt just as vile as the illusion the marshal had showed them had.
Griphook packed it into a silk-bag while ignoring the curses the wizards had paid for to keep their vault safe. Those curses might work with anyone who wasn't registered as vault owner, but Griphook was the heir of Gringotts and as such, he was keyed into every Gringotts' placed curse just like his grandsire was.
Leaving the vault again to return to his grandsire and the marshal, Griphook swore to himself that he would throw out the silk-bag the moment the Horcrux was gone. While normally, those special, spell-resistant silk-bags were used more than ones, Griphook wasn't sure if the vile feeling would ever leave the bag again.
So, just in case, throwing it out, it was.
Stepping back into the room where his grandsire and the marshal were waiting, he noticed first, that the marshal was near the fireplace, his fingers stroking the crow on his shoulder. Gringotts was still sitting at the desk. He had some paperwork on the desk before him and was scribbling away with one of his more expensive quills.
The whole room was silent.
It was only when Griphook closed the door behind him, that the scene changed. Gringotts put his quill down and the marshal turned, his eyes settling with an eerily piercing gaze onto Griphook and the silk-bag his was carrying.
Griphook took the silk-bag to the desk, pulled out one of the silver plates that they kept there while swearing that he would melt that one down as well the moment the Horcrux was gone and then emptied the bag onto the platter.
The moment the cup fell onto the platter, the whole room seemed to be filled with the impressions of evil and darkness.
Griphook shuddered and hastily stepped back to get some distance between himself and the innocent looking cup on the silver plate.
The marshal on the other hand just hummed thoughtfully before he stepped closer. Griphook guessed that if anything, this showed that the marshal definitely wasn't part of the living. Even Gringotts had pushed his chair a bit away from the desk to get some distance from the Horcrux.
The marshal, on the other hand, didn't seem to be too bothered by the feeling of evil and darkness. But then, he hadn't seemed to be all to bothered by the feeling before, when he had given them the impression through the illusion, as well.
For a moment, the marshal just looked at the Horcrux thoughtfully, then he looked at Gringotts. "Do you have sage or thyme – if not both?" he inquired. The two goblins exchanged a glance, both not too sure why the marshal would as for herbs instead of bagging the Horcrux and leaving.
"We do," Gringotts said. "We use both in our sacri…fices." For a second, the old goblin stared at the Marshal, before he exclaimed. "You want too sacrifice the Horcrux?" He sounded incredulous and Griphook couldn't fault him.
The thought was more than a bit unbelievable.
The marshal inclined his head. "Before the Ancient Greek twisted the ritual and added some vile magic to it, inventing the Horcrux, the ritual itself was meant for a plea for a clean death in battle," he said, making both goblins chatter their teeth in surprise.
"While the magic used to create a Horcrux is the vilest of the vile, the base is still a ritual that was meant to split off a small part of a soul to sacrifice it to death so that a warrior will find their way to the afterlife easier than they would have otherwise. It was a valid ritual in Celtic and Germanic magical culture and, in a quite similar manner, also in Egypt and Sparta," the marshal elaborated while Gringotts activated one of their spells and called for someone to bring them thyme and sage.
"Once, great kings or warriors did the ritual to have a guide to the afterlife and to be a guide for those who believed in them and followed their lead into battle and death," the marshal said. "And while that ritual has been lost, there is still a part in creating a Horcrux that is fundamentally based on it."
"And you plan to use that part?" Griphook asked.
The marshal clicked his tongue as if he wanted to say 'more or less' the goblin way. It was then, that there was a knock on the door and when Griphook opened it, a younger goblin handed him sage and thyme, before bowing and hurrying away without asking what they needed it for. Most likely, the young goblin already expected them to do a ritual since that was the only thing goblins usually used sage and thyme for.
Handing the herbs to the marshal – and shuddering when his fingers came into contact with the icy fingers of the marshal – Griphook couldn't help but watch interestedly, while the marshal arranged the herbs around the cup and then drew their – no, Henricus' – wand.
"Pestis incendium hostiam," the marshal whispered and the sage and thyme – and a moment later the Horcrux as well – caught fire.
Black flames enclosed the cup and for a moment, Griphook feared that the marshal of Potter's Field had doomed them all by releasing Fiendfyre into the bank.
Then, the black flames turned white and a howl could be heard. For a second, Griphook could see the shadow of a human face in the flames, then the fleeting impression of a smoke visage faded and the smell of burning thyme and sage filled the air. And with the rising smell of thyme and sage, the feeling of evil and darkness vanished like a fading nightmare.
Then something seemed to shatter – it was more like a feeling in the air than an actual happenstance – and the last bit of vileness stopped smothering the air around them.
Only then, the flames vanished again, leaving behind the cup – whole and seemingly untouched.
"As far as I remember, Fiendfyre destroys whatever it touches," Gringotts said and leaned closer, suddenly unbothered by the object on his desk.
Griphook felt also lighter, but still swore to himself that he would melt down the platter and burn the silk-bag anyway.
"It does," the marshal agreed. "But the spell I used wasn't strictly Fiendfyre. Technically, I used a seldomly used variation that MACUSA invented to get rid of cursed objects while not risking burning everything down all around them if someone loses control of the fire."
The marshal's lips twitched. "Sadly, not a lot of MACUSA's aurors were strong enough to even cast it, so the spell soon fell back out of use."
But of course, the marshal of Potter's Field had seen the benefits and decided to use it for himself. Griphook certainly wasn't surprised by that revelation. Though, he certainly was surprised by the next act of the marshal, because the man gestured towards the cup.
"You may bring it back now," he said and both goblins chattered their teeth in surprise.
"I thought you would take it with you, Marshal," Gringotts pointed out.
The marshal just reached up to brush through the feathers of the crow on his shoulder. "Whyever would I need to take it?" he inquired. "I already have what I was here for, after all."
The soul.
Because even without touching, Gringotts was certain that the cup in front of him wasn't a Horcrux anymore.
He looked at the marshal and shuddered when he saw the shark's grin on the being's face. "I doubt, you will object," he said. "After all, like that, you won't have to admit to the cup being stolen."
And like that, nobody would know that the Horcrux inside the cup was gone.
"You planned that from the start," Griphook couldn't help but accuse the marshal. "You never planned on taking the cup."
For a moment, the marshal just looked at him silently. "No," he said then. "I would have taken it if you hadn't been willing to make amends. This is me, showing leeway on behalf of Potter's Field."
Because with the cup still being there, the goblins would have a chance of staying neutral, would have a chance of keeping the peace. Because, no matter what, Griphook wasn't stupid. He knew that there was just one wizard who could have made this Horcrux within the last ten years – and the goblin nation would have certainly been dragged into the potential future war if Voldemort had found out they lost his Horcrux.
"We are grateful for your leeway," Gringotts said and inclined his head. "We will do our best to make amends for the way we skirted the treaty within the last two hundred years."
"You didn't skirt it," the marshal refused. "But I am inclined to believe your words nevertheless."
With those words, the marshal's form blurred. The craw of a crow or raven could be heard and suddenly, a murder of crows flew out of the shadows where he had been a second ago. The crows' eyes were gleaming ominously red and their bodies were more shadows than real.
The heavy feeling of death penetrated the air. The door banged open and while Griphook still grappled with the thought that Henricus and the marshal believed that the goblins had come more than just close to breaking the treaty, the the spectral crows shot over his head, out of the room and towards the entrance of Gringotts bank.
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So stay away from me, the beast is ugly
I feel the rage and I just can't hold it
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Well, this chapter wasn't the one I planned, but I guess Percival wanted to tell his part first? I'm sorry, I'm sooo late. Apparently, being the sibling of someone who wants to marry means you have to be involved in everything… and if you think getting the right date for a marriage is hard then you certainly haven't tried to get everything else done in time… even if 'in time' was still a year off at the beginning. '
Hope you liked it.
'Till next time.
Ebenbild