Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 75: The deeps
"Key, please." the goblin requested.
"Here it is." James handed him a golden key with intricate decorations carved into it, and the letter "P" placed at the top.
The goblin examined the key until he seemed satisfied it was authentic.
"Follow me, Lord Potter, and…family." the goblin started to walk away and they had to hurry their steps to keep up with him.
He eventually led them into a massive chamber with any mine carts stationed in it. It was a room that Harry remembered well from his first visit with Hagrid.
'It feels like it was an eternity ago…I was such a naive child back then. So much has happened since.' Harry thought.
The goblin climbed inside one of the carts and waited for the Potters to sit.
"Get yourself comfortable, Harry. Is going to be a long trip" His mother advised him.
"Really?" He had already figured that his family vault would be located deeper than the trust vault he was familiar with. From what he recalled from the structure of the Gringotts underground vault system, the oldest the vault, the deeper it is located.
"How far are we talking about?"
James had a mischievous grin on his face.
"You'll have to wait and see…"
Harry wanted to roll his eyes. His father can sometimes behave in childish ways.
After several minutes of minecart riding, they arrived at an area of Gringott vaults that he remembered well but not in a good way.
This area contained the vaults of very old wizard families and was under the protection of dragons.
He even spotted the pale dragon they had used to make their escape from here, after stealing from the Lestrange vault.
'Let's hope I never have to do something like that again.' he thought
Harry was expecting the cart to slow down and stop somewhere around here. But instead, this one continued to go deeper.
"There's more?" he asked with genuine surprise. He was sure that this was as deep as it went.
"We are getting close now." Said Lily.
"I used to hate this next part as a kid…always got sick," James recalled.
"Now…hold on to something." The goblin started to say after the cart stopped.
Harry noticed that they had reached the end of the end of the rail, but he could not see any vaults around here. Just empty rocky walls and darkness.
Ahead of them was a massive gap that seemed to go on forever as it was impossible to see what lay further in.
"Where is the vault?" Harry decided to ask.
"We are going down." the goblin in front of him huffed before pulling down a lever.
"Down?, hold it there are no more rails!"He shouted.
Harry considered for a moment if this creature was trying to get them killed but then he noticed his father grinning.
The cart tipped forward and then, they started to descend in a completely vertical angle.
Turns out, he was wrong. The rails were not over, they still continued on the walls of this massive hole.
This only lasted for a short but very intense seconds. And then he could finally see the bottom of the hole.
After taking a turn at an impossible angle, they now found themselves in a very simple circular rocky chamber, barely illuminated by a few torches here and there. All around them were metallic doors with symbols on top of them.
The cart continued to move until it reached the center of the chamber and then it stopped. This was now the true end of the rail, there was nowhere else to go from here.
"We have arrived." Said the goblin, despite the redundancy of the statement.
"That part is always so scary!" Lily had her eyes closed the entire time.
James chuckled and patted his back.
"What did you think of that, son? Was it fun?." he chuckled.
Harry placed his hand over his father's arm.
"Ouch!" James made a jump.
"What happened?!" Lily was startled by the sudden shout.
"I just gave him a mild electrical shock," Harry answered.
"That was not mild at all!" James cried.
"Wait!, you did that without a wand? that's impressive."
"You can do wandless magic, Harry?" Lily asked. She did not know much about what Harry could do when it came to magical skills. He had only talked about the most important events he went through during his past life.
"Just a few minor things." Harry shrugged. He couldn't do much with a complete lack of magical foci, but at least he wasn't completely defenseless.
Still, he always likes to make sure he has some spare weapons at hand.
"Wizard!, no magic here!" the goblin looked to be extremely upset despite how little the display of magic was.
"Oh, I forgot to warn you. The security here is very strict. If you do any magic near any of the doors, it could trigger the goblin's defense." Said James.
"Isn't this big hole enough defense? Who is going to come down here?" Harry wondered.
"If you can recognize the owners of these vaults…I bet a lot of people would want to get inside them" James answered while pointing to a specific door.
To this, Harry got closer to the doors so he could inspect the symbol on top.
It was a golden griffin over a crimson field.
"What?!... This is Griffindor vault? wait a minute." Harry moved to the vault next to that one.
A golden eagle over a blue field.
"Ravenclaw."
The next one was a grey badger over a black and yellow field.
"Hufflepuff."
And the next one, as he expected was the black snake over a field of green.
"Slytherin…why are the vaults of the four Hogwarts founders here?"
"Is not just them. This chamber contains the vaults of the eleven families that formed the Council of Wizards" Said James.
"And our family is also here, of course." Said Lily.
"Quite amazing, huh?" James chuckled.