Sweater Weather: Year One

Chapter Six: The Robbing Of Gringotts

The next day at breakfast, when the owls came soring it, the Daily Prophet landed in Hannah's lap. She looked at the front page news and gasped,
    "Gringotts has been robbed!" she said, shoving it in my face,
    "So? Muggle banks get robbed all the time, it sucks but what's the big deal?"
    "Gringotts has never been robbed, ever," Hannah said. I had been to Gringotts, briefly, and the goblins there had creeped me out, so had the message, warning anyone from stealing.
    "What did they steal?" I asked,
    "That's the thing, they don't know, as far as they can tell nothing, " Hannah said,
    "Hey, what're you guys talking about?" Harry asked, coming up with Ron and Hermionie,
    "Gringotts got robbed!" Hannah said shoving it in their faces as she had with me moments ago, Harry scanned the first page, forehead creased with thought,
    "Hey, that's the vault Hagrid emptied. " He said, taking the newspaper from Hannah,
    "What?" Ron asked, shoving a biscuit in his mouth.
    "When he took me to Gringotts, we stopped at this vault, there was this weird package in it and he took it out and that was it, said it was Hogwarts business."
    "That's weird, why would someone rob the same vault that you emptied a couple of months ago?" Hermione asked,
    "Must've been something valuable," Ron said, biscuit crumbs flying onto the table,
    "Wonder what it was," Hannah mused,
    "Well, you know who knows?" I said, everyone looked dumbly at me, but Hermionie,
    "Hagrid," They said together. 

That day, after class, they made their way down to Hagrid's small hut on the edge of the property. It was a charming circular wood house with smoke coming from the small chimney on the top. We weaved our way past the garden and knocked on the door. Immediately, a hearty barking came from inside,
    "Fang, calm down you big nut," Hagrid's voice said from inside the hut. He opened the door, holding Fang by the collar.
    "Oh, hey you lot, come on in," There was barely enough room for the four of them, plus Hagrid, but we squeezed in,
    "Do you want some tea? Biscuits?"
    "No, thank you, we actually have a question," Hermionie said, "You see, Gringotts was robbed yesterday, and its-"
    "It's the same vault you emptied the day I met you Hagrid," Harry interrupted. Hagrid's normal cheery disposition faded, he busied himself making tea, although no one asked for it.
    "Don't know what youre talking about." He said,
    "But Hagrid, you emptied the vault and you said it was Hogwarts business,"
    "Listen," He said, "Whatever was in that package was between Dumbledore and Nickolas Flamel!" He sighed and closed his eyes,
    "I should not have said that."
    "Nicholas Flamel?" Ron said, "I've heard that name before..."
    "That's great information, thanks Hagrid, " I said,
    "Wait, you have to stay away from that business!" Hagrid called after us, but we were already out of earshot.
    "I think this calls for a trip to the library," Hermionie said,
    "We have a library? Since when?" Ron asked.

"Nothing!" Hermionie said, slamming her most recent book closed. In the past few days, they had spent every free moment in the library, the mystery of the vault overcoming them. Hannah snapped her head up at the slamming, having fallen asleep half an hour ago.
    "You know who I hate?" Ron said coming from the shelves, his arms piled with books.
    "Snape. He's horrible! Giving us this essay, on a Friday!" He picked up a book labeled, "Basic Functions of Basic Potions."
    "Ron, maybe if you paid attention in class, you wouldn't have to scramble to finish your essay the day it's due." Hermione scolded, Ron, made a face at her,
    "Snape is horrible," I agreed "That reminds me. Harry!" I called, Harry emerged from the shelves, book in hand,
    "What?"
    "I forgot to tell you, Snape was cursing your broom in the last Quidditch game." Harry dropped the book, Hermionie made a noise in the back of her throat as the book hit the floor,
"WHAT?" He said, getting a shush from the librarian,
"Calm down," I said,
"How could you forget to tell me something so monumentally important?"
"I'm sorry! I forgot with all the book searching," I said motioning to the piles of books they were drowning in.
"Well this makes perfect sense," Harry said turning to Ron, "Snapes got something to do with this," Hermione rolled her eyes,
"You just hate Snape Harry, he doesn't have anything to do with this,"
"No really," Harry said, "On Halloween, we saw Snape in the dungeons right before Y/N found us, he was running up the to the third-floor corridor,"
"So?" Hannah said,
"So, Dumbledore said something dangerous was in the third-floor corridor, I bet whatever Hagrid took out of the vault is in there!"
"Actually, that makes sense," I said, "Not the Snape thing, I'm still not sure about that. But the third-floor corridor thing," Hermionie nodded,
"Well, why don't we just go check the third-floor corridor?" Hannah said,
"Umm maybe because we don't want to die?" Ron said,
"I mean there's that, " Hannah said, I stood up and walked back into the shelves, my energy restored. The mystery was bothering me, it was like a loose thread that I couldn't pull off. I browsed the books, looking for anything that might help. I heard rustling and looked up. A paper, folded to look like a bird flapped toward me, landing in my outstretched hand.  I unfolded it and found a message written in messy handwriting,

Hey,
Gryffindor's playing Hufflepuff tomorrow, still team Gryffindor? Or are you choosing the wrong side?
Fred

      I looked around at the library, finally finding Fred at the back corner, sitting with his brother and friends, he raised an eyebrow at her in a "well?" expression. I laughed and pulled a quill from my back pocket and wrote my response,

   Hmmm, think I'm going with Hufflepuff, aka the winning side. Does this mean you want your scarf back?

I folded it into a messy boat and sent it back across the library, although not as graceful as Fred had. I turned back to the books and a few moments later, felt something land in my hair. I reached up and found the note, this time in the shape of a rose, sitting in my hair.

Nah, you can keep it, looks better on you anyway.

I folded it, running out of origami knowledge, into a plane, and sent it back.

Good, wasn't planning on giving it back anyway.

I tucked my wand into the bun on top of my head and walked back to my table.
    "What're you smiling about?" Ron said, scratching away on a piece of parchment,
    "Nothing." I said sitting down, "Nothing at all,"