Out of Time

Chapter 58

It takes Draco two tries to grab the golden cup with his shadow. He spills a handful of others off the end of the shelf in the process, but no one cares about this. They're decoys for a reason.

Finally, he knows he has it. His shadow has no sense of heat or chill, but even through a peripheral spectre, Draco knows this thing is evil. The shadow almost nails the landing on the table nearest them but tips the cup just a little too far on the rim and it topples off.

Instinctively, Hermione and Weasley both go to catch it before it can hit the floor.

Weasley gets there first and gasps in shock. He holds, though, long enough to smack it back down atop the table. He flings his hand back and forth, not unlike the earlier image of him shaking off the flagrante curse from the imitation item near the front of the vault.

Through sheer curiosity, Draco can't help but ponder whether Potter had been onto something. Does Weasley need to destroy this one?

Draco had kept the diadem close for the better part of a year. It had made sense that he should dispatch it for good. But (if he bought into the whole lore of it in the first place) the item that had seeped the most poison into Weasley was already gone. Could this one possibly substitute? How the hell does it all work?

He doesn't know and doesn't really care, so long as it's destroyed - and soon. They all back away from it in a concentric circle, eyeing it with caution. It rests on the stone floor, utterly innocuous. It could be any trinket, found anywhere.

His girlfriend fumbles for the bag dangling at her left hip and reaches inside. The beads are almost gone. Its purpley-blue hue has muddied entirely to some new, indiscriminate shade.

Draco's startled to feel the goblin at his side, tugging at his sleeve. He looks down as Hermione stretches the sword carefully out to the open air and hands it to Potter.

"I believe your shadow magic is the key to obtaining anything else in this vault of great value," says the goblin.

This is probably very true, but Draco is having a hard time concentrating on anything but that cup.

"As my payment for access to this vault - and, just now, to your other vault -"

This does grab his focus. Draco looks down, doing his best to pay somewhat better attention. Hermione and Potter are exiting with Weasley, carrying the golden cup and the sword with purpose.

He'd be alarmed if he thought Hermione would be attacking this Horcrux. But everything he's heard so far gives him confidence that it'll be Weasley. A slivery, slippery side bit of him still wants to be around for the inevitable response from the cup, and so he makes a snap decision to hurry up and placate whatever this is. Whatever will let him leave this vault for good.

Griphook is eyeing him with suspicion. That's fair.

"Do you see that corner there?"

Draco looks and does see. Swords, shields, crowns. Armour. Jewellery. For fuck's sake, even a lamp sits in the cluster. Chainmail for war. Battle helmets. Circular items that could be wrist cuffs or bracelets, depending on the person administering them.

He nods.

"If your shadow retrieves them for me, the debt is considered paid."

Draco doesn't answer, too preoccupied with trying to figure out what his girlfriend is doing outside the vault.

"Your debt is paid. Me allowing access into this vault. Do you understand?"

He does. He doesn't give a single whit about his aunt's mound of ill-gotten goblin-made silver, and nods. One single question piques him, almost idly.