Harry Potter and the Serpent Items: Part 4

Once through Harry almost forgot his problems. Having been escorted by Hagrid, who had had strict orders to get him everything on his list and then get him home and the Wealsey’s who had been herding their own mob and as such had had to run a tight schedule, he’d never really explored Diagon Alley properly before and he was astounded.

Of course the thing that stuck out most in his mind was the broom in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, the new one that was supposed to be better than anything before it. The Firebolt.

Oh how Harry wanted one, but he had a perfectly good Nimbus 2000 and there was no point buying a ridiculously expensive broomstick, especially when he would need that money much more when he was on the run.

There were Aurors visible all along Diagon Alley, but, to Harry’s surprise none of them seem particularly interested in him. There were several who stopped anyone wearing a hood that covered their face to show themselves and it took Harry a while but he finally realised that they weren’t looking for him. It wasn’t until he overheard a conversation between a particularly peeved shopper and a member of the police force patrolling the area however that he realised that they were, in fact, here for Sirius Black.

That was about the time that he realised that as he and Luna examined things in windows, Mr Lovegood was interviewing people on the street. Neither Auror nor civilian escaped as the man took page after page of notes.

“Luna?” Harry asked, startling the girl, who had had a farway look on her face, “Why’s your dad interviewing people?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Luna asked, surprised, “My father runs the Quibbler. It’s a rival to the Daily Prophet.”

“Oh.” Harry blinked. He supposed that made sense. After all Muggles had seven or eight different newspapers, so he guessed there had to be more than one wizarding one, he’d just never heard of it before.

“I’ll let you see a few of our spare copies.” Luna promised with a smile as Mr Lovegood finished his latest interview and the three of them continued on their way, finally reaching Gringotts about half an hour after they’d left the pub.

The bank was packed. Busy goblins served stressed out wizards as everyone tried to get what they wanted immediately and though it wasn’t as hectic as it was during the last couple of weeks before term started when everyone tried to buy their school supplies, it was busy enough to hold Harry up a little longer than he would have liked.

Between the queues, the harsh attitudes of the goblins when they discovered that he didn’t have his key and they had to use a different method of telling if he really was Harry James Potter or not and his embarrassment at having forgotten that Mrs Weasley still had his vault key, though why she had it now instead of Hagrid was beyond him, Harry was just happy to get into the cart and take the short rollercoaster like ride down to his vault.

Once there Harry bagged up as much as he could carry, only making a small dent in the pile of gold there was staring him in the face. He wanted to take more but, in a worst case scenario it was there, safe in the vault, for if he needed it later on.

Luna, who had come down with him while her father had settled affairs at their vault, had been silent for a moment when the goblin had opened the vault but had then started babbling away happily, talking about something called dingbats, which Harry had thought was just a Muggle insult, but apparently, according to Luna, were creatures that infested vaults and fed on the gold.

The goblin with them seemed less than amused when Luna asked him if they had any living in their cave system, causing Harry to wonder if it was because of the implication that Harry’s gold wasn’t safe in the care of the goblins or if it was because they actually had some of them living there and had caught them feasting off the gold in the vaults. He also couldn’t help but wonder if the dragons that apparently guarded some of the vaults ate them as snacks.