"How much for that Vanishing Cabinet over there?"
Hearing Loren drop the question about house-elves and ask about other wares instead, Mr. Borgin's smile thinned a little, but he still launched into his spiel. "Excellent eye, sir—one glance and you spotted a Vanishing Cabinet. The technique to make them is lost. This could very well be the last one in the wizarding world. The price is a bit high—1,000 Galleons."
"Come off it, Borgin—save that line for someone who doesn't know better. If it were a complete set, I'd go up to 5,000. If this one still worked, 1,000 Galleons would be fair. But this Cabinet's dead—no function at all. I'm only interested because the lost craft intrigues me. I'll take it home to study. My top offer is 100 Galleons."
After a bout of hard haggling, they settled on 200 Galleons.
Loren knew if he'd kept pressing, Borgin would have let it go for 100; the broken Cabinet had come in a job lot from some fallen pure-blood house. But it was already past three o'clock, and he still needed to visit Gringotts—wait too long and the bank would close.
Under Borgin's startled stare, Loren slipped the Cabinet into the voluminous sleeve of his robe and headed for the door.
Outside lay a filthy alley that made his neat-freak skin crawl. He picked his direction and walked for the exit from Knockturn Alley. He passed shop after shop peddling Dark artifacts, gave them a cursory glance, decided they were all cheap junk, and lengthened his stride.
Alleys like these always had rats—of the literal and the figurative variety. Perhaps it was Loren's sudden quickened pace that made some of the rats think he was an easy mark. Two groups crept after him, looking for a chance.
Loren had clocked them long ago. He thought a moment, sped up, and slipped into a darker side lane.
That did it. The rats took it as proof their lamb was ripe, and they pelted into the lane after him. A few more seasoned types smelled danger and stayed back to watch from the street.
Five minutes went by. No one else went in. Ten-odd figures had already rushed into that lane, but not a sound came out.
Five minutes more, and footsteps sounded from within. Under every nervous gaze, the hooded man who'd gone in strolled out again. Cold light flickered under the brim of his hood as his eyes swept the crowd.
Only after he had gone did anyone dare sidle up to the mouth of the lane. It was empty. The ten-plus who'd charged in had left not the faintest trace.
Loren was in fine spirits. He'd been minding his own business, and then—boom—rare experimental materials had dropped from the sky. A wizard is a precious resource, and these unexpected gains were nothing to sniff at. He was already thinking of "refining" a few of the standouts, reinforcing their conditioning, then leaving them in Knockturn Alley to collect hard-to-find supplies for him.
He put the thought aside as Gringotts loomed ahead across the way. He cleared himself with a Scouring Charm to banish the alley's stink, straightened his hood, and strode into the bank.
He didn't linger in the bustling hall. He went straight to an open counter.
The goblin behind it glanced up, then down again, unconcerned by hooded visitors; goblins cared only that the money was good.
"What service do you require?"
When Loren had planned to retrieve Hufflepuff's Cup, key details had surfaced in his mind. The plain wooden wand he produced had been crafted for this moment—layered with Confundus and suggestion charms to make onlookers perceive it as Bellatrix Lestrange's wand. The wand was the "key" to the vault.
Hearing the soft tap as he laid it on the counter, the goblin looked up again—then kept his tone neutral. "How may I assist you, Lady Lestrange?"
"I'm here to withdraw items from the vault," Loren said, his voice pitched to waver—yet to the old goblin's ears, unmistakably Bellatrix.
"Of course, madam." He turned and barked an order to a younger goblin nearby. "Fetch the clankers."
"Right this way, Lady Lestrange. I'll escort you to your vault," the old goblin said with sudden cheer, vanishing off his stool and reappearing at the end of the counter to meet Loren.
Loren followed him through a heavy door into a rough-hewn stone passage. Flaming torches threw flickering light; the air grew colder. Soon they reached the rails. At a whistle from the goblin, a cart rattled out of the dark.
They climbed in. The cart jerked, then hurtled forward, whipping through a maze of tunnels and tight turns between stalactites. The ride put every roller coaster from Loren's previous life to shame.
They plunged deep. The Thief's Downfall never appeared—good; the goblins hadn't flagged anything amiss. At last they rolled into the antechamber before Bellatrix's vault—one final obstacle.
An Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon lay chained there, guarding the last five vaults. Long confinement had left its scales pale and loose; its eyes were a cloudy pink. Heavy manacles weighed down its hind legs, their chains sunk into massive stone staples.
Well short of the creature, the goblin drew two small metal instruments from his bag. When shaken, they rang with a bright, piercing clatter—like hammers on an anvil. He handed one to Loren and explained, "The dragon was trained to associate this sound with pain. It retreats."
They shook the clankers and walked onto the open floor. The dragon hissed, shuddered, and backed away.
At the vault door, the goblin gestured pointedly and watched Loren's hands. Bellatrix was, after all, supposed to be in Azkaban; her appearance here was… curious.
Loren understood. He took from his robe a prepared wooden rod and tapped the door. The rod's field pulsed, and the door unlocked and swung wide.
Now convinced, the goblin stepped aside.
Piles of treasure gleamed within—Galleons by the heap, gilt cups, suits of armor, strange pelts, potion phials, even a skull crowned with a tarnished circlet. Loren could only sigh at the wealth of the pure-blood families; centuries of accumulation were no joke. And this was just the tip of the iceberg—the truly priceless knowledge would be hidden where only the family head knew.
The sight steeled his resolve to complete a reliable "thought-steel" control method—but that could wait until after his magical notes went public.
He stepped inside and opened his magical sight. Amid the tapestry of auras, one stood out—a weave of black and blue. Two strides took him to it: Hufflepuff's Cup.
He didn't touch it. He knew it bristled with Gemino and Flagrante—botch the handling and the vault would drown in burning copies. He drew a prepared containment casket from his storage, pulled on anti-field gauntlets, and popped the Cup straight into the casket. Then he stowed the casket away.
With the hard part done, the rest was easy. He set a storage box on the floor, opened the lid, and swept his right hand; a charm rippled across the chamber. Treasures lifted and flew, like swallows returning to a nest.
When the last Galleon slipped into the box, the lid closed itself and the box floated neatly back into his hand. He flipped his wrist, and the whole of the vault's contents vanished into his spatial storage. He hadn't counted, but from the weight in his mind's eye it was a fortune—enough that, if he'd had to earn it the old-fashioned way, he'd be carving gemstones night and day for years.
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