Aftermath | Sebastian Sallow

2: Chapter 18

"Lestrange. Felix, Lestrange." I stand to the side of Y/n, Felix on her left. "Vault 565." Felix uses his adopted name, I'm assuming they would have knowledge of who he is.

"Is it your first time here?" Y/n asks me as she notices that I'm looking about all around us.

"Yes.. and, also have never been to a place so completely run by Goblins." I lower my voice so only we can hear.

I know Y/n understands what I'm really saying. We spent time fighting Goblins in battle encampments. Never had I been in an establishment run by them. One quite as massive as this, as well.

I turn my head back to the Goblin in front of us. He's glaring over his desk at me, and clears his throat.

I straighten up in response.

"Key?" The Goblin raises his eyebrow as he looks at Felix in suspicion. Probably due to the fact that three three wizards as young as us are coming here to open a vault.

Y/n and I watch nervously as Felix extends his long arm towards the Goblin, holding a bronze key in front of him.

The key looks old, ancient even. Which is ironic to say considering.

"Hmm." The Goblin looks down at the key, then glances back up at us. He eyes us one by one, starting with Felix, then Y/n, then me. He stares at me the longest. "Very well then." He grumbles.

The Goblin steps off of the platform he's been working on at his desk. His height is to about my waist.

Y/n, Felix and I all exchange glances. Y/n is the first to take steps, following the Goblin to the railway cart.

The little Goblin climbs up to the driver's position, while we take a seat on the side of the cart.

"Sit tight." The Goblin barely gets out to us before we shoot forward on the railway.

The ride makes me want to puke as it twists left and right, plunges down and ascends up again.

The cart slows to an abrupt stop that pushes us all forward a bit.

"Vault 565." The Goblin calls out as he starts walking towards the locked door.

Felix is the first to get off of the cart, Y/n and I following closely behind.

The Goblin inserts the key inside the keyhole and twists it. We hear numerous locks turning and clicking inside, and the heavy door cracks open.

Dust crumbles off of the door as it opens slowly. "Bloody hell, how long has it been since someone has entered this thing?"

The Goblin gives me a dirty look, but answers. "Only about 17 years." He grunts at me.

Felix and Y/n turn their heads towards each other. 17 years since the last person was here, does that mean it could have been their parents.. before their passing?

The large door opens, and Felix is the first to walk towards the entrance. Followed by Y/n, with myself closely behind her. She has told me of what happened the last time she was here, with Fig. 

"Lumos." Felix says, hand raised up to his side and grasping his wand. 

"Merlin.." Y/n says next to me. The vault is much larger than we had expected.

"Incendio!" Y/n yells the charm, lighting a torch that reveals another. She goes on like this until most of the torches, at least visible to us, are illuminating the room. 

The walls of the vault are high with shelves lining the sides. Much like the ones in the Room of Requirement, they're full of old books and scrolls. How we will ever make it through them is beyond me. 

Along with the shelves there are various miscellaneous items, statues, artefacts, treasures.

"Well.." Felix extends his arm to lightly grab one of the scrolls of a shelf before us. "Must start somewhere." He grabs a few more, then sits down on the ground. 

"Y/n?" I turn around to see her starting to walk down the room, along the trail of lit torches. 

She turns around to look at me. "I'll be down here for a bit. Go on and start without me." She gives me a smile then turns to continue down the path lined with shelves and items.

"Incendio." I hear her voice echo, and more lit torches appear through the dark. 

I look back at Felix, who already has each scroll opened and splayed on the ground before him. He's scanning through each of them at once. 

It must be my cocky attitude kicking into gear when I suddenly feel the urge to grab multiple scrolls and obtain as much information as I can, before him. 

I grab a dusty book and three scrolls, then find a spot on the other side of lined wall away from him. I open each scroll before me, careful to mind the the stiff parchment. One false move and I fear I could crack it to pieces. 

We continue on like this for quite some time. Opening the scrolls and books, scanning the contents, closing them again and placing them back on the shelves. Quite a bit of them are in other languages, mostly Latin. 

Some are in languages I cannot even comprehend. Felix seems to have more knowledge on the unknown languages to my tongue, and recites them to me in ease. This annoys me. 

There is a large scroll sitting on a high stone shelf, about six above me. 

"Wingardium Leviosa." I carefully lift the scroll off the shelf and pull it in my direction, unsure of the state it could be in. 

As I turn around with it in my hands, Felix stands and walks over to me to help set it down. With both of us on each side, we gently unroll it together. 

"It's a.. family tree? This dates back centuries." I say while staring down at the diagram below me. "What are those markings next to some of them?" 

"Hmm." Felix casts Lumos and we both lean closer to examine them. "They sort of look like the same crest as Y/n's-" 

"Pendant." We lift our heads to look at each other. "They're next to so many names on here." 

We both look down at the scroll once more. "Yet they all align, passing down from blood to blood." Felix mutters. 

"You don't think that means.." I trail off. Felix looks up at me. 

"That they all possessed the same magic magic as well?" He finishes my question. 

I sit up suddenly, realising just how long we've been holed up here filing through all these tomes and scrolls. 

"Y/n.." I whisper. Felix turns his head in the direction she had walked off to. 

I let go of the scroll, the side that I had been holding slightly curls into itself. 

I push myself off the ground with Felix following my actions. 

"Y/n?" I yell down the room at her, to which there is no answer.