Chapter Fifteen.
“It’s the sensible thing to do, Harry,” Hermione said reasonably. She was sitting at Lupin’s desk, with an enormous pile of books propped up in front of her. Both she and Harry had turned up for their extra lesson in Defence, a lesson that was rapidly becoming sidetracked by Lupin’s plans for the D.A.
“I don’t know about that,” said Harry doubtfully. He turned to Lupin. “Look, I know I said I’d be alright with whatever you suggested, and I don’t want to sound like a whiny little kid, but… this? Are you sure?”
“I knew you wouldn’t like it,” Lupin said calmly. “But it’s the price of my involvement, Harry. If you want me to run the D.A. this year, then you’ll open it up to anyone who wants to join “ and that includes the Slytherins. If you can’t accept that, then feel free to run it yourself. I’m sure you’ll do splendidly.”
Harry snorted. “You’re sure of no such thing,” he said grudgingly, but feeling pleased nonetheless.
“You did a good job last year,” said Hermione absently, leafing through one of the books. “Ooh! Professor, can we learn this one?”
“Well, there’s a ringing endorsement,” said Harry dryly.
“Sorry,” said Hermione unabashedly. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. You did do a good job last year, you know you did. But you probably won’t have time to keep doing it this year, and anyway, the Slytherins have as much right to learn to defend themselves as anyone else.”
“They take Defence against the Dark Arts like anyone else,” argued Harry mildly.
“It’s not the same thing,” Hermione pointed out, flipping through another book.
“No,” said Harry. “These are extra skills that will probably end up being used against us.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Lupin stated firmly. “And even if you think you do, can you really justify deciding how much other people should be able to defend themselves?”
“They have to be responsible for their own actions, Harry,” Hermione said, so quietly he could barely hear her. She refused to look at him, and Harry couldn’t help but remember, couldn’t help but realise what she was thinking.
It’s not up to you to be responsible for everyone, Harry. You do have a saving-people thing, Harry.
It was a little too late for him to argue against the point. Harry sighed inwardly. It was all very well to wander around feeling hard-done-by because the fate of the wizarding world had just been dumped on his shoulders, and it was quite another to increase the burden by refusing to lighten it. Truth be told, he knew that Hermione and Lupin were right, but he just couldn’t bring himself to agree without some form of token argument. They were Slytherins, after all. And in all fairness (and these were words that Harry was beginning to feel were starting to rule his life) he couldn’t honestly say with certainty that all the Slytherins would automatically side with Voldemort. That is, he believed they would, but he couldn’t prove it; any more than he could prove that one of the Gryffindors attending last year’s D.A. meetings wouldn’t turn out to be a modern version of Wormtail. He sighed again. It was all too complicated. The one thing he did know, however, in fact the one thing that he knew with a high degree of certainty, was that if he didn’t agree to this crazy scheme then Lupin would leave him to do the work on his own. This meant that either he would have to run the D.A. himself, or that it wouldn’t get run this year at all. Either way, Hogwarts ended up with more students who were slightly more helpless than they could have been. And as much as he hated the Slytherins, he couldn’t do that.
It seemed he had a choice between the lesser of two evils; and he was sorry to find that the choice was not at all difficult. It was merely unpleasant.
“You know it’s the sensible thing to do,” Hermione repeated, a little anxiously. “Don’t you, Harry?”
“Yes, Hermione,” grumbled Harry. “I know.”
“And it will be good for them to start to integrate with the rest of the school.”
“Yes, Hermione.”
“You might actually find it interesting to get to know them.”
“Yes-” said Harry automatically, before clapping his mouth shut and shooting her a mock glare. “Don’t push it, Hermione.” He caught sigh of Lupin shaking his head and chuckling under his breath. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Lupin, smirking at him. “Nothing at all.”
Breakfast in the Great Hall was fast taking on an unpleasant routine. Harry had tried to suggest continuing with the Dobby arrangement, but Hermione had stood firm. Ron, surprisingly, had supported her.
“They’re going to find her anyway, mate,” he had said, making a grab for the nearest owl. “At least this way, we get to run interference.” Feathers dropped from his fingers as the owl wrenched away from him, hooting in displeasure and snapping at him. “Look on the bright side. This has got to be improving my Keeper skills.” He sucked at a finger, mournfully.
“Got one,” said Dean, from across the table. “Noisy little bugger. D’you want him, Harry?”
“Give him here,” interrupted Hermione, reaching for the owl. “It’s addressed to me, anyway.” Her tone was resigned.
“No kidding,” said Ron, snatching the bird away from her and indicating the stack of letters on the table. “They’re all bloody addressed to you. Honestly, I could kill that ruddy Rita Skeeter.”
“You can’t really expect her to keep something like this quiet,” said Hermione tiredly. “Especially as…”
“Especially as it’s you,” Ron said sagely. “I warned you not to go pissing her off, I did.” He managed to untie the letter from the owl’s leg and opened it, leaning away from Hermione when she tried to snatch it off him. Scanning it, he scowled suddenly and tore it up into pieces.
“Ron!”
“Geroff, Hermione, you don’t need to see it.”
“This one’s alright,” piped up Neville. “From an old lady at Little Snoring. Says you need feeding up, and she’ll send you some scones.”
“I’m glad to see some people are still reasonable,” grumbled Harry, rifling through another letter. “What I want to know is who it was that told her in the first place.”
The arrival of The Daily Prophet several days previously had stirred up nothing but trouble. Ron had been right about Rita Skeeter “ her grudge against Hermione had obviously led her to keep an especially close watch on the goings on at Hogwarts (always a favourite of the Prophet, it seemed). This, combined with the fact that she had apparently no trouble in worming details out of students “ whether nastily inclined, such as Malfoy, or people who simply didn’t know any better, like the Creevey brothers “ had seen the gory details (some of which were even true) of Hermione’s run-in with the Dementor in the Forbidden Forest splashed all over the front pages of the wizard press.
Much to Harry’s dismay, many in the wizarding world had taken it as gospel, and come to the same conclusion as Snape. Of course it didn’t help that Rita had previously painted Hermione as a heartless, conniving man-eater “ something that many people (including Mrs. Weasley, at one point) had also been happy to believe. This had resulted in a flood of letters “ and even some Howlers “ directed to Hermione. Owls seemed to be arriving at breakfast in shifts, and it had been going on for days. The only bright spot seemed to be that most of the other students at Hogwarts were doing their level best to pretend that nothing was happening. Harry, remembering how they had laughed when Ron had received a Howler in their second year, had a feeling that it wasn’t only friendliness that was keeping them quiet. He was sure he had seen several first years scurrying out of Hermione’s way with petrified expressions when they were in the corridor between classes. It reminded him, again, of his second year, when people thought that he had been the Heir of Slytherin. This time, though, he was fairly sure that he had a part in it himself. Harry hadn’t missed the flickering of eyes from Hermione to him and back again when a touchy subject was raised. He supposed that having people finally believe that he had survived an encounter with Voldemort wasn’t entirely bad. Even the Slytherins were being quieter than normal.
On the bright side, though, there was a fairly solid minority of people who were writing to Hermione for no other reason than to show their support, like the elderly lady from Little Snoring. It seemed that since the night in the Department of Mysteries, the credibility of Harry and his friends had gone up somewhat in the wizarding world. Mrs. Weasley had even sent Hermione a sweater and a fruitcake the day after the article appeared, accompanied by a letter that threatened to whack Rita Skeeter over the head with the kitchen sink if she ever came within a mile of the Burrow.
Hermione had smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours when she had read that, and Ron had looked unaccountably pleased. Since then he had taken it upon himself to try to vet most of the letters, roping in several other Gryffindors to help him. It exasperated Hermione no end, but Harry had to admit that he thought that Ron was in the right of it. There was no sense in her being any more upset than she needed to be.
“That’s not being reasonable,” said Hermione in disgust. “I’m not five. Does she think that Hogwarts is starving us?”
“I like that,” said Ron, taking a huge swig of pumpkin juice, after looking at it suspiciously for a moment and then shrugging. “Poor old thing’s only trying to be nice. You could do with a bit more like her.”
“Help is what we need, Ron,” said Hermione briskly. “Not a nice plate of scones.”
Ron shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if you still don’t want them when they get here, I’ll eat ‘em.”
Hermione rolled her eyes at him and gave a worried sideways glance at Harry. He had told them about his encounter with Firenze a few days previously, and it had seemed to come as no surprise to her. Ron, on the other hand, had been outraged.
“We should just bloody well leave them to it, then,” he had chuntered. “Wait till You-Know-Who starts going through their forests. Bet they’ll wish they’d helped us when they had the chance then!”
“I don’t know that they will,” said Harry. “Firenze seemed pretty certain.”
“And he’s the normal one!” snorted Ron.
“Actually, he’s not,” said Hermione under her breath. “That’s the problem. Or do you mean he’s only normal because he’s doing what we want?”
Ron had scowled at her horribly, and Harry had hastily changed the subject. Only after Ron had left them had he brought it up again. “D’you think he really means it?”
“Who?” Hermione had said despairingly. “Firenze or Ron?”
Harry had ignored the question, not entirely certain that he wanted to answer it. “You heard Hagrid last year. Voldemort’s trying to get the giants onside and they seem to want to go with him. The centaurs won’t get involved, and no one even knows about the goblins…”
“Harry,” Hermione had interrupted.
“It’s true,” he had said, over-riding her. “There’s just not that many people who are willing to go up against Voldemort with us. You know that.”
“Harry,” Hermione had interrupted again, and gone on before he could get a full head of steam. “We can’t make these decisions for them. As much as you and I and Dumbledore want them to work with us, it’s not up to us. There’s nothing we can do to make them.”
“So what do we do?” asked Harry wearily, not really expecting an answer, but trying to calm down anyway. They were in the Gryffindor Common Room, and people were lazing about in front of the fire, doing their homework. He didn’t want to draw their attention, or worry them.
“I don’t know,” Hermione had admitted. “We just have to keep on trying, I suppose.” Sighing, she hauled her book bag onto the table.
“Homework?” Harry had said incredulously. “That’s your solution?”
“Do you have a better idea? Besides, you’re the one who’s suddenly interested in what all the magic races will do. It’s not like I haven’t been trying to get you to pay attention to them for a while now. Years, actually.”
“I know, I know,” Harry had said hurriedly.
Hermione had waved an enormous book at him. Harry was sure he recognised it as being one of the studies on goblins he had seen her with before. “Is it getting any better?” he had asked, and Hermione had sighed.
“It’s fairly close to useless, actually,” she had said, letting it thump down on the table. “Of course, there’s not a lot to measure it against. Some of the stuff in here is so ludicrous that I’m not entirely sure I believe it. Wizards wrote it, of course, so they could very well be biased. I just can’t seem to find anything written by the goblins. I’m no closer to understanding them than I was when I started.”
“It might get better,” Harry had repeated, without much hope. Hermione had smiled at him tiredly, but he could see the disbelief in her eyes, and the dark rings around them. It stayed with him for the rest of the evening, bothering him so much that he had lost, in record time, three games of wizard chess to Ron. He had come down into the Common Room with his set, and the two of them had tacitly decided not to mention their previous disagreement.
It was when he had cried off another game and was watching Ron play Seamus Finnegan that an idea had come to him. It was so simple that he nearly kicked himself for not thinking of it before. Hermione had told him more than once that the available books about goblins were not only pretty hopeless, but seemingly all that was available. But surely the goblins had their own history of Gringott’s bank. Couldn’t he just ask them? The worst they could do was say no.
Actually, Harry had amended to himself, the worst they could do was tell him to sod off, that their loyalties were already decided, thank-you very much, and that they didn’t lie with him. He was beginning to panic a bit “ knowing that a prophecy existed that made him the only one capable of defeating Voldemort was one thing. Believing, in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep, that he’d have to do it alone was one thing. Realising, in bright daylight, that he really might have to do it alone after all, because all those who might be his allies weren’t really actually all that inclined, was quite another.
Besides, it was only a letter.
Excusing himself from the whitewash on the chess board, he had skived a piece of parchment and a quill off Hermione and retreated to a dim corner of the common room. Two hours later, nearly everyone had gone to bed and he was really no further ahead. Harry had sighed to himself grumpily. He couldn’t help but feel that it would have been a nice birthday present for Hermione “ Ginny’s sarcasm aside, he knew she liked books. It didn’t seem the year to go for something different on the off-chance that she might like it.
He slumped back in his chair and tried to find some inspiration. He didn’t want to sound as if he was ordering them to indulge him, but he didn’t want to sound like a grovelling kid either. Trying to decide what tone to take, he let his mind wander back to the last time he had been at Gringott’s, at the reading of Sirius’s will.
It was not a pleasant memory. Not only had he been forced to let go of the idea of revenge on Kreacher, but he had also managed to put his foot right in it with Hermione. He suspected that Gringott’s was rather used to having grieving, argumentative relatives drop on their doorstep, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel a little embarrassed about it. What he really wanted, Harry realised, was an excuse. Something that he could write to Gringott’s about and casually add on a query about any goblin histories that might exist. At least that way he wouldn’t seem like some clumsy, desperate oaf who only took notice of them when he wanted something. Even if that was the case.
Of course, he’d only be wanting something from them with his excuse, anyway “ whatever it was. Harry had shaken his head, his eyes blurring. He hadn’t been sleeping well the past few nights, and if he didn’t get something down soon and go to bed then he was going to fall asleep in the Common Room. He couldn’t help thinking that he was making things more difficult than they needed to be. He snorted lightly to himself, amused “ it was usually Hermione who everyone accused of over thinking things.
And then it came to him “ the perfect solution. At least, as perfect as solutions get at midnight when one is grasping at straws. It was simple, it gave him an opening, an olive branch to Gringott’s, and it might actually get Hermione a decent birthday present. Harry had smirked, and pulled the parchment towards him. Ginny would be proud of him.
Despite posting the letter, however, he had heard nothing from Gringott’s “ no reply of any kind “ for days. He had almost given up when McGonagall, waving aside owls with an expression of extreme distaste, approached the table.
“Miss Granger,” she said, her expression softening, “I trust you’re not paying too much attention to the opinions of these foolish people.”
“Don’t worry, Professor,” said Ron, round a mouthful of egg. “We’re only letting her read the good ones.” He patted Hermione on the shoulder protectively, and she gave him an odd look.
“I don’t need protecting from a few letters, Ron,” she said uncomfortably.
McGonagall eyed her for a moment, and then turned to Harry. “You have a visitor, Potter. He’s in my classroom. I would suggest that you don’t keep him waiting.” She was looking at him curiously, an expression that quickly turned sour when another owl landed on the table, a bright red envelope in its beak. She snatched it off him with a force that caused the owl to spin in the air.
“I’ll take these, if you don’t mind,” she said ominously, scooping up the Howler and a pile of discarded letters. “If I never see another owl again I’ll be happy,” she muttered as she headed back up to the top table. “When will people learn to mind their own business?”
“Looks like Hermione doesn’t need you defending her any more, Ron,” said Dean, sniggering. Ron turned red, and Hermione shot Dean a glare that could have cut through glass. She swelled ominously, and Harry thought it was probably a good idea to escape before she got going.
“Er. I’ll just be off then, okay?” he said, to no-one in particular.
Five minutes later, Harry let himself into the classroom, and gaped at its inhabitant. He hoped he had wiped all the breakfast crumbs off his robes. Griphook was sitting, ramrod straight, behind the desk, with Gringott’s embossed cases stacked around him. The goblin did not look pleased to be there, Harry decided. He did not look pleased at all.
“It is an honour to provide our services for you again, Mr. Potter,” snapped Griphook, in a tone that implied it was anything but.
“I can see that,” said Harry dryly. “What are you doing here, Griphook?”
The goblin flashed bright teeth at him. “Your… request… was unexpected. Gringott’s felt it would be best if someone were to speak with you directly. Since I have been largely responsible for your account since its activation, it was felt that I would be the best representative.”
“I hope you haven’t been inconvenienced,” said Harry carefully. He was sure that the goblin suppressed a hiss. “I only sent a letter. I didn’t think that it would cause any trouble.”
“No one ever does,” said Griphook flatly. “But no matter. We are, as always, at your convenience.” The sarcasm sliced through the classroom like a knife, and Harry felt his temper begin to slip.
“I’m sorry,” he said bluntly, “But I’ve really got no idea of what’s going on here. I thought I’d just get sent a letter back “ a few descriptions, maybe. I had no idea that Gringott’s was in the habits of making house calls.”
Griphook looked insulted. “We are not. But your request was… unexpected.”
Harry took a deep breath. “How so?” he said, as calmly as he could manage.
“Goblin records are for goblins only,” said Griphook bluntly, and Harry winced slightly. He had never really thought about the ratio of tact handed out to goblins in comparison with the other species, but somehow he was not surprised to find out that tact was something that they could well do without. Griphook bared his teeth at him, and Harry quickly decided that any race with teeth that sharp had probably decided long ago that civility was only an optional extra.
“You’d let me see my files, though, wouldn’t you?” he asked, without thinking, and promptly wished he hadn’t. He could have sworn the goblin was about to hiss at him.
“Gringott’s records are only shown to the customer in question,” Griphook pointed out, as if to a small and stupid child. “Gringott’s records are, however, not the sum total of goblin histories. There is more to our lives than the counting of wizard’s money, you know.”
“Right,” said Harry hastily. He realised, with a twinge of shame, that he’d never really considered that possibility, even with five years of (largely ignoring) History of Magic. Stupid, he thought angrily to himself. What did you think they did at the end of the day? Stacked themselves in a cupboard till morning? He fervently wished that Hermione was there to take over while he pulled his foot out of his mouth, before remembering that this was supposed to be about a birthday present for her, and he couldn’t very well ask her to come and sort out her own present. Could he?
Harry stood there for a few seconds, feeling foolish. Griphook made no move to put him at his ease, and Harry came to the conclusion that it was up to him to get things moving from there. The only problem was, he couldn’t think of anything to say “ or at least anything that could be put as inoffensively and politely as possible. Irritation washed over him, and in it he suddenly saw a solution. It seemed that goblins placed a high premium on bluntness. Growing up with Uncle Vernon, who was unparalleled in calling a spade a spade, Harry felt that he could be equally blunt. Griphook didn’t have to like him, after all, but who said that Harry couldn’t step up to his level?
“Is there any way I could get a copy of those histories?” he asked flatly.
Griphook paused for a moment, head tilted slightly to the side. A flash came and went in his eyes, and Harry thought for a moment there was something like an expression of guarded approval in them. “Why do you want them?” the goblin asked, equally flatly.
The fact that he had answered at all was a relief to Harry. The tone of the conversation had changed, he could sense that much. It was turning from a near-fight into a negotiation, albeit one on goblin terms. Profit and loss, Harry reminded himself. For a moment he was glad that he was the Boy Who Lived “ that one small fact was probably the only thing that had got the conversation this far at all. He couldn’t help but remember when Hagrid had first brought him to the Leaky Cauldron, in the summer before his first year at Hogwarts, and how all the people there had looked at him as if he had changed something for them merely by being alive. The goblins must feel it too, he reasoned, otherwise they never would have sent a representative to see him. He would just have received an abrupt letter telling him his request was not open for discussion. So somewhere in the calculations of the goblins at Gringott’s bank there was room for him to manoeuvre. They may not like him, they may not trust him, but they were entirely too canny to see that his very existence might still affect them “ for good or ill.
Harry had never felt comfortable trading off his name, but he was beginning to come to the conclusion that any advantage was better than none. He studied Griphook, wondering what tack would be best to take. It wasn’t long before he realised that the truth was the best avenue. The goblins were reaching out to him “ on a very slim bridge, it was true “ and if he lied to them now then he jeopardised any chance of ever winning their trust again. Harry did not think that they were the type to forgive easily, if ever.
So. The truth it was. “I don’t,” he said. “At least, not for me. For a friend of mine.”
Griphook’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Impossible,” he said flatly. “Even offering them to you has been a much-debated step. Frankly, Gringott’s is not yet fully decided on the issue.” Harry felt a small spark of triumph “ he had been right then, he thought. Profit and loss “ the goblins were hedging their bets. Or at least some of them were “ Griphook had let slip a small piece of extra information: that not all agreed with this bridge. Apparently the goblin world was as divided as the wizarding one. Harry supposed it made some kind of sense “ they were waiting to see which side would come up better before they threw in their support. On the down side, that meant that the goblins had no ties to the wizarding world, that they would support Voldemort if he gave them the better deal. Harry was disappointed, but he wasn’t surprised. On the other hand, he was also beginning to doubt that Griphook’s slip was entirely accidental. A warning, perhaps? Or merely the opening in another, more complicated set of negotiations?
“Why not?” said Harry, just as flatly, then saw that he had erred. He clarified. “Why is it impossible for someone else?” Better, he thought. Makes it sound like it’s not impossible for him to give them to me.
“Knowledge is power,” snapped Griphook. “Goblins live in the wizarding world. We are accepted because of what we can provide, but our advantages are not so great that we can let even the smallest of them go blindly.”
“Don’t you even want to know who I’d be giving them to?” Harry asked, curious. He was not entirely sure why he was asking, but decided to follow his instinct. He was beginning to feel that in many ways this was almost like a game of Quidditch, with its own set of tactics and feints. He was good at Quidditch, largely by instinct, he knew, so he would pay attention to his instincts in this.
“I can’t see how that would make a difference,” said Griphook dismissively, but Harry thought he saw a slight twinge of interest in the tilt of the goblin’s head. He supposed that from the goblin point of view, any scrap of information that they might be able to glean out of him could be useful in further negotiations. Harry thought he may as well go ahead and tell him “ there was no harm in being generous, especially if he had been right and Griphook had deliberately passed information onto him. He very much wanted the goblin to feel as if they were on a level playing field.
“A friend of mine has a birthday in a few days,” he said casually. “You’ve met her “ Hermione Granger. She was at Gringott’s with me not so long ago, remember? You activated her account for her.”
Griphook stared at him silently, a strange look upon his face. Harry began to feel a little uncomfortable.
“You do remember her, right? About so tall, curly brown hair…”
“I know Miss Granger,” said Griphook softly. “We all do.” At Harry’s sudden, sharp glance, the goblin elaborated, albeit reluctantly. “She sent us a script of the election of the Minister of Magic. It was most… unusual. No human has ever done that before.”
“So will you let her have the histories?” Harry asked, hopefully.
Griphook shot him a hard glare. “That is not up to me. However, I can… pass on your request. It may be considered.” Harry nodded “ it would have to do. For a moment he repressed a smirk “ it looked like Hermione might have arranged her own birthday present after all. Then he felt a bit bad “ perhaps Ginny had been right when she had said he and Ron had fallen a bit short in the effort stakes this year. Hopefully the cases that Griphook had brought from the bank would change that.
The goblin noticed him eyeing up the boxes. “If you would prefer to do this in private, I can leave you alone for as long as you require,” he offered, and Harry could see that he had reverted to the typical banker archetype. Apparently the conversation about the histories had just ended, and he was unsure if it would ever continue. Belatedly, he realised that Griphook was waiting for a response, so he nodded a bit and the goblin left the room.
Harry had to admit he was curious. His Aunt Petunia had sometimes worn jewellery, when she had accompanied Uncle Vernon to a company dinner, and he wondered if wizarding jewellery would be anything like what she wore (which had always seemed rather small and flashy). He poked about a little through the boxes, and was a little disappointed to find that there were no labels on anything. He would have liked to have known who the pieces had belonged to “ and which had belonged to his mother. Some of them were obviously from the Black family vaults, as their backs were stamped with the family shield. Well “ he wasn’t going to give Hermione one of those.
After a few minutes rummaging, however, he had managed to spread all of the jewellery over several desks, and had come to one inescapable conclusion.
This stuff left Aunt Petunia’s for dead. It was, Harry concluded, the most awful, tacky, over-the-top, hideous collection he had ever seen. Of course, he reasoned to himself, he had never really had the chance to look at jewellery before. Perhaps this was normal?
But why would anyone wear anything so horrible?
He picked up the smallest, plainest thing he could find. It was a golden ring, heavy, and even as ignorant as he was, Harry could tell that it was extremely expensive. It had at least five different stones that he could count (all in different colours) with intricate designs engraved into the gold. He stared at it in fascinated distaste. It was just so… fussy.
Harry ran his eyes over the entire gaudy pile. What on earth was he supposed to do with all this? Part of him decided that it was a good thing it was all buried in a bank vault, far underneath London. At least that way there was no temptation for anyone to wear it. He let the ring drop. There was no way that he could give any of this to Hermione “ he had a horrible feeling that if he did it would end up in the bottom of her trunk next to Ron’s perfume. He wondered why Sirius had palmed it off on him. What did he expect Harry to do with it?
Sighing, Harry began to stuff the jewellery back in their cases. He had a bit of trouble with a heavy silver necklace, embossed with the Black family motto. It had sprouted fangs and tried to bite him when he had tried to close the lid of its case on it. Sucking his finger, he seriously considered chucking it in the lake. He was trying to pack everything back into the large Gringott’s carry cases when he saw in the bottom of one an old, scruffy box, so dim it blended into the bottom of the case. He had missed it on his original search, and pulled it out. Given the quality of the rest of the jewellery, Harry didn’t hold out much hope, but he opened the box anyway.
He was pleased to find that he was wrong.