"Unlike what my daughter would tell you, I actually can guard my tongue when I need to - but good luck nonetheless," the dentist said noncommittally. "Though now they think I'm crazy there's really no need," he nodded to where the formerly-hovering goblin buddies were now standing far across the lobby at the doors themselves.
Mr. Granger frowned as his Hat of Command slumped off his head and tumbled to the floor. He resigned himself to his fate and joined the fort razing. Once the chairs had been arranged in a completely different way than when he'd gotten there, he turned back to his interior design friend.
"So what's going on with the kids?" he asked.
"Apparently they've got a bad case of spattergroit," the ginger man said as he sat.
"Ah, well then," he smiled. "They're sure to have it licked in no time. The lawyer-man had a very potato look to him." Taking a seat by the ginger man, Mr. Granger poked his shoulder. "So, what do you do when you do that voodoo that you do so well?"
...
Lognot slammed the table so hard Barchoke wondered if he broke his hand.
"Impossible! Impossible!" the bulging-eyed Overseer cried, darting nervous glances from one person to another. "We have six hundred years of security protections in place-"
With a snagging, ripping sensation Barchoke drew his dagger and plunged it into the table in front of him.
"You had six hundred years of them in place before you became Overseer and decided to cut costs!" Barchoke cut him short. He felt his blood sing as he thrust an accusing finger at the goblin from Confidential like it were a spare dagger. "For six hundred years guards were housed between Above and Below, trained there, flowing in and out of your special department - until you changed that."
Gotts how he was enjoying this! Was this how his forefathers felt when they had faced their foes?
"Now you have a set division," Barchoke pressed. "You have them living at that tower, eating with them, talking with them, befriending them, washing their sheets and cleaning their floors - they're not their jailers anymore, they're their friends - their servants!"
Spittle flew from his lips as he pursued his panicked prey but he didn't care; nothing mattered but devastating the opposition. The fact he had always got along with Lognot, always respected his quiet demeanor, made his attacks all the more pleasant for being unexpected.
"This Breach could have happened at any time! How many Stones are there," Barchoke outlined the horrifying scenario just popping into his head. "One, two, a hundred? The one you say we have under lock and key: is it really there, a fake - or one of a thousand others?"
"Impossible!" the lone Overseer said as he stared at him in disbelief, as if the word held some power to make it all go away. "What game is this?" he cried. "How can you know so much about Confidential Affairs?"
"Because you read like an empty ledger," Barchoke shot back, insulting Lognot's father by spitting on his name. "Confidential Affairs is now the most misnamed department outside the Ministry's Centaur Liaison Office, and you must be held to account for it."
"You're taking the word of children, " the wide-eyed Lognot panted, desperately seeking any kind of escape. "Why would the Stone be at Hogwarts? How did it get there? Was that one real or a fake? We don't even know if it was even there!"
"I assure you," Barnabas Marsh was quick to insert as fear the issue might focus on him again spiked. "The Hogwarts Accounting Department knew nothing about the Stone being held at Hogwarts. The Board of Governors will be furious."
Barchoke had no doubt the human would go running to them as soon as the building reopened. If that was his game, Barchoke decided to let them really know fear.
"That child is none other than Harry Potter," Barchoke declared. "He described the Stone, the protections around it - he had held it in his hand!" He looked from Lognot to the human Marsh, to Little Minister Bankor. "If he's prepared to stand up and call the Chief Warlock to account for abandonment and fraud - and have the evidence to back it up - what makes you think he's lying now? Who do you think the public will believe - him, or some goblin they've never heard of who keeps shouting 'impossible' in order to make his problems disappear?"
With more of a tug than he'd thought it'd take, he withdrew his dagger from the table and held it in an underhand grip. As the others sat in silence he glanced over to Overseer Gutripper, noticing that he held his in the same way. It certainly made it easier to gouge the table if nothing else. The goblin's expression was unreadable; he took that to be preferable to his usual malevolence.
The first to recover was the last one he expected.
"FRAUD!" the Grand Overseer roared, trying to slam his corpulent fist on the table and missing my inches. "Pull the files, drag him in, seize every knut he has!" Largrot demanded.
The table resounded as two daggers impacted as one and Barchoke was astounded to find that his was one of them. He gouged the table on the Grand Overseer - he gouged the table on the Grand Overseer! He's never seen anyone do that, not ever.
To allay his growing panic he glanced at the other dagger embedded in the table and up to Gutripper who held it. His face still had that unreadable expression but he hadn't opened his mouth either to speak an objection or to shout him down - he just watched .
He might have gouged the table on the Grand Overseer but he hadn't been the only one. Barchoke had trodden on too many toes this meeting that if he turned back now, if he looked weak, they'd gladly tear him apart and blame the whole thing on him for his audacity. All he could do now was hope that Gutripper saw the threats as he did because only together could they fend off the objections of Marsh and Lognot if they chose to support hiding from the real danger and chasing after fraud instead of going after the Stone.
For one brief moment Barchoke wanted to laugh at the madness of the situation. The whole meeting now boiled down to needing Gutripper to support him, the one goblin who wouldn't spit on him if he were dying of thirst.
"A Breach of the Flamel Agreement far outweighs any accusation of fraud," Barchoke said, trying to work moisture back into his suddenly dry throat. "The Goblin Nation stood surety on his behalf. We are the ones who will face the world's ire unless we take this matter in hand. We must investigate the claim and bring our findings to the appropriate authorities to contain the situation."
Barchoke's eyes darted from one Overseer to another gauging their thoughts. None seemed to like the prospect. Finally he met Gutripper's eyes again before the other goblin turned to the Overseers.
"I concur," Gutripper said with a twitch in his bad eye. "Even we cannot fight the whole world at once, and none of your talk," he said to Bankor, "will keep the Ministry at bay or keep the galleon afloat for a single day if he's right."
He was relieved when Gutripper withdrew his dagger and let his point stand. Largrot looked around as if unsure why everyone was still there when he'd given them an order, though if the fat goblin had spared a moment to think he would've realized it was the first time he'd tried to give an actual order in years. The Grand Overseer's power had been in custom, in name, in fear, but not in truth, not for years. The Overseers had simply decided things amongst themselves but deferred to him if required for fear of being cut down by others. Now, left out on his own, Largrot seemed truly lost.
All they had to do now was move to the Pit, see the evidence, and deal with the technical details of how to respond.
"Um-," the odd foreign goblin said to break the following silence, "You will be telling us of this Agreement now, yes? My friend and I are lost. Aren't you lost?" Alkrat asked Overseer Marsh quickly. "I am lost," he answered himself.
Barchoke could have groaned; this was going to take forever.
...
"The Agreement is what's been keeping Flamel from being killed," Hermione said. "Why would he break it now?"
"He's immortal," Ron pointed out the obvious. "They can't kill him. It's a wonder why he kept the Stone at all if they won't let him use it."
"He didn't keep it, Ron," she said testily. "Gringotts did. Haven't you been listening?"
As the wait stretched on and on they eventually made their way back to the topic of Flamel, though Harry had only paid it half a mind.
"True immortality like that doesn't exist," Lichfield declared. "And there's a big difference between not getting old and not being able to die," he said humorlessly. "A lot of people tried to kill him before Flamel landed here, the French were particularly livid. How many governments do you know would enjoy having their currency become worthless overnight? That's what we're facing here on a global scale," he told Ron, who finally seemed to get how big of a deal the Stone really was.
"But as to your point," he continued with a finger pointed at Ron. "With the darkest magic you could gain a kind of immortality, sure - but you'd still age and your body could still be killed. You think you're pretty now? Imagine what you'd look like in six hundred years."
"Then what's the point of living forever if you're going to be all old and wrinkly?" Ron asked the wrinkly old man.
.....
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