The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 532 Gringotts

After dinner on the last day of February, Ryan and Hermione were just about to enter the library to study and do homework together. Suddenly, a flash of fire flashed on the table in front of them, and a tightly rolled parchment strip suddenly appeared on the table.

"Is it Headmaster Dumbledore looking for you?" Hermione turned her head and asked, because the firelight just now was so obvious that she could tell at a glance that it was a phoenix delivering something, and the only phoenix in the entire castle was Dumbledore's Fawkes.

"It should be." Ryan lowered his head and opened the rolled up parchment, and found a few lines of words written in thin, circle-in-circle fonts on it: Please bring the things you prepared earlier to the principal's office immediately. It's time for us to set off. The password is gold coins and chocolates.

It seemed that Dumbledore thought that now was the best time to enter Gringotts. Ryan said goodbye to Hermione and asked her to take his textbooks back to the common room. Then he quickly ran upstairs to the headmaster's office. When he opened the door with the password and walked up the spiral staircase, the oak door opened. Ryan found that in addition to Dumbledore wearing a purple robe and sitting in the chair he usually sat in, Sirius was also wearing a rather formal robe and sitting in another chair a little stiffly.

"Good evening, Headmaster Dumbledore. Good evening, Sirius." Ryan greeted the two people in the office first. "We are now-"

"We are going to go to Bella's vault in Gringotts to get Voldemort's Horcrux now." Professor Dumbledore nodded. "Because I got solid evidence today that Voldemort took Bella and two other Death Eaters to Greece to do business. They have left the UK now, and I can guarantee that we will not run into them when we are looking for something."

"But how are we going to get in? Should we storm or infiltrate?" Ryan asked.

"Neither." Dumbledore shook his head slightly. "You don't have to talk for a while. I have a great way to break through most of the guards ahead. Of course, this requires Sirius' help, which is why I called him here today."

"I'm glad to help you with such an important matter, Professor Dumbledore." Xiaotian nodded slightly.

After making sure everyone was ready, Professor Dumbledore stood up behind the table and asked Sirius to hold his hand, and Ryan held Sirius' hand. "We will use Fawkes to go to Diagon Alley now, so you two hold on tight."

After Ryan and Sirius nodded, the Phoenix Fawkes flew from the shelf to Dumbledore's empty hand. After a flash of fire, the three people disappeared from the headmaster's office.

When the firelight faded, Ryan found that they had appeared in an inconspicuous corner of Diagon Alley. After tidying up their clothes, they began to walk towards Gringotts.

The facade of Gringotts is different from all the shops on this street. It is built of snow-white marble. If it didn't look distorted, this building could even be called magnificent. Of course, even if the whole building is built crookedly, Gringotts still stands tall above the surrounding shops and stands out from the crowd on this street.

Even though it was already night, the bronze door of Gringotts was still polished to a gleam. A very short goblin stood there, dressed in a scarlet uniform that was as neat and tidy as if it had just been ironed, and when he saw Ryan and the others coming over, he bowed politely and opened the door.

Ryan used to come to Gringotts only once a year on average. In his memory, every time he came to Gringotts, he always had to walk through that short corridor, spend more than ten minutes queuing with a group of people, and then pass several tests before he could go to the counter to handle the business he needed. If it were outside, the bank would have closed down long ago with such service attitude. The reason why Gringotts was so prosperous was because there was only such a bank in the wizarding world.

Fortunately, today they were using the excuse of coming with Sirius to do some work, so they could avoid the queues and other problems faced by a lot of ordinary wizards. Sirius, as the patriarch of the Black family, could naturally enjoy the special VIP service provided by Gringotts to pure-blood families. Just as the three of them stepped into the hall, an old goblin wearing a monocle and a tuxedo came to greet them. "Ah, respected Headmaster Dumbledore, Mr. Black, and this young gentleman. Is there anything I can help you with?" The goblin walked up to her and bowed deeply, and his big nose almost touched the floor.

"It's like this." Sirius stepped forward and said, "I have some things from the family vault that I need to trade to my young partner. Since what I want to give him is very precious and this young man is still in school, his headmaster, Mr. Dumbledore, will be a witness to our transaction. Therefore, we want to enter my vault now."

"Of course." The old goblin nodded. "Then please show me your proof."

Sirius pulled out a golden key inlaid with emeralds from his arms. The old goblin examined it and nodded slightly, then bowed again and said, "The key is fine, we can set off right away."

After saying this, he clapped his hands lightly, and a younger fairy walked over.

"I need some jingling pieces," the older goblin said to him. The younger goblin quickly left and soon returned with a small leather bag that seemed to be filled with jingling metal. "Yes, yes! Please follow me, three respected gentlemen," the older goblin said, turning around and starting to lead the way. "I'll take you to the Black family vault."

Soon he led Ryan and the other three through a hall surrounded by a large number of counters. Ryan noticed that the situation was different from what he had seen during the day. There were only a few goblins sitting behind the counters, weighing gems and precious metals or yawning. There were far fewer staff than during the day.

Soon they passed through the door at the back of the hall and came to a rough stone corridor, which was illuminated by burning torches. However, Ryan found that these torches were not ordinary torches at all. Each of them was a magic prop.

"Have you also noticed the problem with the torches?" Sirius said beside Ryan as he stared at the torches. "When I first came here, I was also curious why there were such simple torches in a place like Gringotts, but at that time my cousin Andromeda, Tonks' mother, told me that these torches were precious magic props. As long as magic power was injected once, the flames would last for a whole year."

"Really..." Ryan didn't know what to say at this time. Even if it was far from the Gublai fairy fire, anything related to magic props would not be cheap. Ryan didn't expect these goblins to be so rich.

The goblin who was receiving Ryan and his companions whistled at the cave entrance in front of them, and a small cart rolled along the track from the darkness. The four goblins could just fill the cart.

"Our underground vault in Gringotts is the safest place to hide treasures. You can choose us to keep your wealth in the future." After the car started, the goblin sitting in the front began to chatter. He was mainly targeting Ryan, because there were not many students who could be a partner of a pure-blood family and have Dumbledore accompany them to do business, and in his impression, Ryan did not handle any financial business in Gringotts.

So the goblin took this opportunity to try to attract business for Gringotts. As for the fact that Ryan was not a pure-blood wizard, the goblins did not care. After all, to them, gold was the same regardless of the bloodline of those humans. If it were not for the international secrecy law, they would even be willing to do business with Muggles.

(End of this chapter)