Make Me.

Book 1 - Chapter 4

Hand in hand, Remus and Ellie made their way down the twisting cobbled street. Every few steps were interrupted by an awestruck Ellie pausing to look at the curious shops and sometimes even more curious wizards that now surrounded her. She had heard all about Diagon Alley from her father, but could have never imagined it would be this wonderful. From bookshops to owl emporiums and holes in the wall filled with curious collectibles, this was the first time Ellie felt truly connected to the wizarding world, a feeling she could never forget even if she tried.

After a few minutes of walking, the pair had reached a snowy white building which towered over the tops of all the other shops. While Remus began to walk the two towards the burnished bronze doors that headed the building, Ellie's concentration lied on the small goblin standing next to the doors, sporting a scarlet and gold uniform.

"Goblins?" Ellie whispered to her father as they walked past the creature who bowed as they passed.

Despite reading all about the goblin-guarded bank, she couldn't contain her surprise at seeing them there. Upon reaching the bronze doors, Remus quickly ushered the girl inside, ignoring her protest about wanting to pause and read the words engraved upon the door. Upon entrance, Ellie's protest died quickly as she saw how many goblins occupied the building: goblins bowing them in, goblins sitting and working behind a long table, goblins leading other witches and wizards in and out of doors that lead to probably more goblins.

"Yes, Goblins," Remus muttered towards his daughter as they made their way to a free goblin at the large table. "You know all about Goblins and the door, no need to dilly dally," Remus finished as they reached the table. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small gold key.

"Good morning." Remus greeted the Goblin who was looking at the pair in front of him with distaste, like a cat when woken up from a nap in the sun. Remus extended the key toward the goblin. "The Dracula vault, please and thank you."

Looking from the key, to the man, to the girl, the goblin wrinkled his nose, took the key and responded a simple, "Very well." Getting down from his tall seat, the goblin walked around the table, looked to the pair and grunted, "Follow Me." The three began to walk towards a door on the side of the hall. The goblin opened the door and ushered the pair to enter first.

A small, torch-lit passageway and an illuminated rail-track was all that was behind the door. An air of disappointment issued from Ellie due to the lack of even more goblins that she had assumed lived behind the doors. The goblin whistled and a rail car came speeding towards the three of them, stopping just as quickly as it came.

"All right Ellie, I'm going to warn you now. If you thought the floo network was bad, this is might be even worse," Remus stated as he held his hand out, steadying the girl as she stepped into the cart. Immediately, Ellie's hands began to sweat.

The cart took off. Turning left, right, right, right, left, and taking many more turns that Ellie had eventually lost track of. The cart hurtled deeper and deeper into the ground, passing waterfalls, large rock formations, and bursts of fire that Ellie believed to belong to a dragon. The ride seemed to last forever, but was also over as quick as it had started. The cart came to a halt at a small door.

"Are you alright, darling?" Remus asked, again helping steady the girl, this time as she exited the cart.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm alright," Ellie replied, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself of the fact. Looking to her father she shrugged. "You can't throw up breakfast twice when you've only eaten it once. It's impossible." Her father looked back to the girl, a mixture of confusion and amusement in his eyes.

The goblin had already unlocked the door to the vault and when the pair turned to look, smoke billowed past coming from inside the vault. They gasped. They had both known the Dracula family had money, and lots of it, but this, this was more than a lot. There were enough gold coins stacked to the ceiling and back down to serve every Dracula generation for longer than Ellie could even fathom. Additionally, the vault seemed go on for meters, as deep as the ocean if it were made of gold. And not only gold galleons, silver sickles and bronze knuts littered the vault in equal fashion.