Three Hallows' Eve || Harmione & Jily

Chapter 12.4

'Oh.' Harry sat back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. 'I should have guessed. Can I see them?' he asked. Torgack waved his hand, and a drawer in his desk opened from which two items soared out and came to settle in the middle of the table between the four of them. Harry reached out, but stopped himself just before touching them. 'They're safe?' he asked the goblin, who nodded.

'That one was in the old Malfoy Manor, hidden away in a room full of magical shit that would make your blood curdle - some of it literally,' Torgack explained as Harry picked up one of them. It was a simple black diary with 'T. M. Riddle' inscribed in red on the spine. Flicking through it, Harry found it blank. While there was no doubt in his mind that the item was clear of Riddle's soul - every part of that monster was dead and gone - the diary still felt dirty to hold. A lingering sense of unnatural wrongness seemed to ooze from the thing.

He placed it back on the table and picked up the other item. It was a small golden cup with two finely wrought handles. On one side, a badger had been delicately engraved into the surface, while on the other were two Hs entwined in a fancy script. The second he picked it up, the room went dark once more. Looking down at the cup, he could see three threads attached to it and heading out of the room. One of the threads was a deep crimson and headed upwards and through the ceiling. While the other two were red too, they were a much lighter shade and seemed to be going in the same direction through one of the walls.

There was one more thread attached to the cup, but it didn't connect to anything else. It was a dully glowing white and seemed to be probing around as though searching for something to make a connection with - evidently, its fate was as yet undecided.

Harry looked at the table to where he knew the diary to be, though he couldn't see it. There were no threads attached to it at all. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, placing the cup gently on the table. When he opened his eyes, his vision was completely normal and he squinted against the sudden increase in light.

'There's something more going on with the cup,' he said to Torgack, who had been waiting patiently for him to speak, 'so I'd like to keep it. The diary can be destroyed though, preferably in the most destructive way possible.'

'That won't come cheap,' the goblin said pointedly.

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. 'And what price would you like me to quote to Death himself?'

Torgack huffed. 'I'm not a bloody charity.'

'You make plenty of money as is,' the young Master of Death retorted. 'Speaking of which, my parents came to the bank today for business of their own.'

-oOo-

After almost two further hours of discussion - though Harry wasn't involved with these ones - Torgack finally signed an agreement for Gringotts to provide Mum's genealogy tests in their branches, starting in Britain, and expanding into their European branches should they prove 'commercially viable' (read: profitable). From what he could gather, the goblins had taken a larger cut of the profits than the dwarfs or gnomes had, but at this point Mum was just happy to have them available to the British public, and so had agreed on the goblins taking forty percent.

Harry stretched as he rose to his feet once the negotiations had been finalised. He could honestly say he understood why Mum had said that she'd rather spend time with Neville than have more of these conversations. That said, he'd rather spend time with Neville than do a lot of things actually. He might not share his friend's interest in flowers and plants, but he still enjoyed spending time in the greenhouse - it was usually quite relaxing when it wasn't dangerous or backbreaking, even if he did have the polar opposite of green fingers.

'Do let me know if I can provide you with more of my charity, Master,' Torgack snarked as playfully as a goblin could, bringing him out of his musings.

Harry rolled his eyes, and went to wish him goodbye, but stopped suddenly and turned to face the old goblin fully. 'Actually, there might just be something,' he hedged, as his vision dimmed slightly yet again. 'Is that old body still capable of shenanigans?'

Torgack raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'll have you know that this old body is still capable of everything it was before Leland died.' He smirked, then added. 'Some new things too.'

Dad snorted aloud, evidently unable to hold himself back this time, and Mum huffed. He wasn't quite sure what Dad found so funny, but experience had told him not to probe into such things too much. Harry walked over to Torgack's desk, plucking a quill and a blank piece of parchment from it. He quickly scribbled down a note and folded the parchment in half before handing it over to the Chief.

'We could even call it a favour. Think you could manage that?' he asked with a falsely innocent smile.

The Chief unfolded the parchment, scanning it rapidly, and his eyebrows shot up to where his hairline had been more than two hundred years previously. 'And what kind of shenanigans would you class this as?'

'The best kind,' Harry chirped cheerfully. 'Will you do it?'

Torgack sighed and brushed his hand across the top of his nearly bald head. 'We never had this conversation.'

Harry smiled as he pushed the golden cup into Mum's bag. 'Of course not.'

-oOo-o-oOo-

Author's Notes: Thanks for reading chapter twelve of Three Hallows' Eve! If you're enjoying the story, be sure to follow so you don't miss any updates.

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