Be Careful
45: What You Abscond With
By Anne B. Walsh
"Wow," Draco breathed, staring into the Lestrange vault. It required absolutely no skill at acting, though he was hamming it up a bit for the benefit of his dear aunt.
Who is living proof that gold can't buy the things that matter most. Like sanity.
Still, sane or not, Aunt Bella and whatever charms were on the treasures stockpiled in her vault were the only things between him and a certain golden cup.
And said cup is… Draco let his eyes rove up one set of shelves. Right where it should be. I know I can't Summon it down or Banish it off the shelf, but as long as I can do magic on myself, I ought to be able to get up there…
But first things first. Making sure it won't kill me on contact.
He reached hesitantly for a suit of armor.
"Touch nothing!" Aunt Bella snapped, swirling her wand above her head to produce a glowing ball and snapping her fingers at the goblin standing behind her, who promptly let the door of the vault recoalesce between him and them. "I am not in the mood to explain to your mother, or to Severus, why you have burns all over your hands. And your arms and legs, as well, if the Gemino Curse works as it should."
Draco thrust his hands behind his back. "Gemino Curse?" he asked. "What does that do?"
"Why don't I show you?" Aunt Bella waved her wand in a lazy curlicue around the vault. "There. The Flagrante Curse is lifted—these will not burn you now. Pick up a Galleon, Draco, but hold it loosely."
Draco bent and scooped up a gold coin from one of the piles on the floor, then dropped it in surprise as a shower of other Galleons erupted from every place his hand had touched metal.
Aunt Bella laughed at the expression on his face. "Now, can you pick out the original from the copies?" she asked.
"No." Draco went to his knees, looking more closely at the Galleons. "Are these others real gold, or stuff like the leprechauns make?"
"Clever boy. Yes, the copies are similar to leprechaun gold, though obviously superior, as they were produced by wizard's magic—or should I say witch's?" She smirked, twirling her wand. "They take a few days to vanish, rather than a few hours, but they are just as worthless as anything made by some barbaric Irish animal."
"But nothing you made could ever be worthless!" Draco protested, eyes artfully wide, and got another laugh for his troubles. "May I have this Galleon, Aunt Bella? The real one? Not to spend, just as a pocket piece. To remind me of today."
"Of course you may." She flicked her wand sharply at the imitation Galleons, which vanished, leaving one gold piece sitting on the floor of the vault.
Draco reached for it, then stopped, holding his hand carefully six inches above it. Aunt Bella grinned at him. "You have more brains than your father, it seems." She pointed her wand at the Galleon and twisted it in a smaller version of the curling movement she'd used earlier. "Finitum geminitum." The Galleon twitched once, then was still. "I must admit that amused me rather—Lucius Malfoy's famous wards, escaped by a wandless Mudblood…"
"She probably had some artifact in a hidden pocket that helped her," Draco said, scooping up the Galleon and silently repeating the incantation his aunt had used. He would need it in a moment. "Dumbledore or McGonagall might have given her something like that. They always favored her. Likely because they thought she proved their theories about magic. I have my own theory about her."
"Oh?" Aunt Bella turned away from him to survey the heap of treasures. "What might that be?"
"Well, I've never tried it myself, Mother would never let me." Draco got to his feet and silently drew his wand. "But I know sometimes wizards my age will go out and catch some Muggle girls in an alley or a wood somewhere…"
He swung the wand into line with his aunt's back. "Quiesca tabulla," he mouthed, letting only a thread of breath escape his lips.
Aunt Bella froze in the act of reaching out for a Galleon of her own. Draco was already reaching into his robes. He had exactly one minute before the Stasis Spell wore off, and he couldn't afford to waste a second.
From his inner pocket, he withdrew a tiny replica of what he was after. Two taps from his wand activated the charms on it. In forty-five seconds, it would grow to the exact size of the one on the shelf.
Which means I had better be up there by then!
"Finitum geminitum," he repeated softly, his wand aimed at the cup high above. It twitched, then went still, just as the Galleon had. He hoped that was a good sign.
Now to go get it, without touching anything else…
He thrust his hand into his robes again, pressed his fingers around the second of the gems on his Animagus amulet, and spoke the trigger words. An instant later, he was small and furry. Clamping the tiny cup in his jaws, up the sidepost of the shelf he scurried, then bounded along its edge, balancing precariously at a couple points but making it safely to his goal. A quick tap with a paw confirmed that he'd successfully removed the curse.
So far, so good.
He set down the fake cup, latched his teeth around a handle of the real thing, and pulled. The cup of Helga Hufflepuff toppled over the edge of its high shelf to land with a clatter on the pile of gold below. Quickly, Draco nosed the fake into position, scooting it around the emerald-encrusted helmet to the exact center of the spot where the real cup had sat, so that it wouldn't touch anything when it grew to full size.
Almost there. Just have to get back down, turn human again, and hide it before she wakes up…
Below him, one of Aunt Bella's hands twitched.
Uh-oh. I must not have done it right—or I took too long up here—if she spots me like this, there are going to be a lot of questions asked, and I don't think I have answers she'll like—
Stifling a squeal, Draco leapt from the shelf and followed the cup down into the pile of Galleons. He landed lightly, but the touch of his body produced a fountain of gold, and in an instant he was buried. One frantically reaching paw closed around the handle of the cup, but it was in danger of slipping at any moment, if he wasn't crushed by the weight of the multiplying coins—
Have to—change back—
He focused on the reverse word for the amulet spell, and his head and one arm exploded out of the heap of gold. The arm was covered again a second later as the copies valiantly tried to keep up with his change, but he managed to shove enough coins away from his face that he could breathe.
"Draco?" Aunt Bella whirled. "What in Merlin's name—"
"I slipped," Draco wheezed, floundering towards the edge of the heap. "Fell in." The hand that was still covered in gold was clutching the cup—but how am I going to get it out? She'll go spare if she sees it, and I don't think asking for a souvenir will work twice, especially not for this—
Aunt Bella shook her head. "Your father's son all over," she said, twirling her wand at the pile, which stopped expanding and began to shrink. "Swimming in other people's gold. I should take you home before you try to convince me it should all be yours by right anyway—and what were you saying about the Granger Mudblood?"
"Huh? Oh, just that she might not be…" Draco heard an ominous ripping sound as he pulled one leg free, and a draft began to investigate areas it had no business in. He froze. "Aunt Bella," he said delicately, "would you mind turning around a second?"
His aunt folded her arms. "I saw your nappies changed as a baby, Draco. I doubt you have anything now that you didn't have then."
"Yes, but…" Draco could feel his face going hotter than the gold would have if the Flagrante Curse hadn't been removed.
She grinned at him. "The correct answer," she said, "is ‘I don't want to make Uncle Rodolphus jealous.’"
"Aunt Bella!" Draco yelped.
The witch turned her back, her laugh echoing around the vault like the sound of five or six crows all cawing at once.
"I really, really…" Draco clambered out of the gold, stuffed the cup quickly inside his abbreviated robes, and repaired them with a flick of his wand. "…really didn't need to know that. If Mum asks why I get all Ts on my N.E.W.T.s, I'm telling her it's your fault, you broke my brain back in November…"
"Perhaps you are not Lucius and Narcissa's son after all," his aunt said, snickering as she flicked her wand around at the piles of treasure, restoring the curses that kept them safe. Her eyes roamed idly to the silver sword of Gryffindor, which lay on its high shelf among the jumbled chains, and to the golden cup, higher still, sitting innocently between helmet and potion. "Neither of them is renowned for possessing a sense of humor, though Lucius has been known to make the occasional witty remark."
"Yes, I know," Draco said, fastening his robes again. "But only on half the occasions he could have."
Aunt Bella crowed with delight and rapped the butt of her wand against the wooden door of the vault. "Even if your father fails the Dark Lord again, you will have no need to fear," she said as the door melted away to reveal the goblins waiting on the other side. "Such a fine boy as yourself, so dutiful in chastising blood-traitors at school, so quick to catch a runaway Mudblood… I am proud to call you my nephew, Draco, very proud indeed."
"Thanks, Aunt Bella." Draco followed her from the vault. "You don't exactly give the family a bad name yourself."
Evil, maybe. Twisted and sadistic. Murderous, bloodthirsty, and devoted to a certain Dark wizard in a way that makes me want to gag if I think about it for too long. But not bad.
Bad simply doesn't cover enough territory to describe you.
"Ah, now I remember." Aunt Bella stopped with one hand on the cart. "There is one thing I wanted to ask you, Draco…"
"Yes?" Draco said, folding his arms casually to cover the telltale lump of cup along his left side. Don't panic, she didn't notice, she can't have seen anything, this isn't all about to end badly…
"What is this story I was hearing from Severus and Amycus about you and little Longbottom?"
"Oh, that!" Draco laughed aloud in relief. "That was yesterday, in Dark Arts! Longbottom was being his usual poncy self, going on about how good and kind Muggles are, and how purebloods shouldn't ‘put on airs’ just because they have wizarding ancestors…" He rolled his eyes. "His usual cant. Anyway, I got sick of it. Caught him in the hall after class with a Leg-Locker, and made him tell me I could have an ancestral treasure of his family before I'd let him up." A wicked grin. "And I made sure my wand was pointing just where he didn't want it to be."
The chained dragon, at the end of the hall, flinched back a bit more from Bellatrix's shriek of laughter.
Probably wasn't necessary, but I like to cover all my hoops. Just in case there was any lingering magic about this thing that would have marked me as a thief, I got permission from its rightful owner to take it, so now it doesn't count as stealing. And it gave me another bit of credit as the perfect little Death Eater, that's always good…
Turning the final corner, Draco began to pace back and forth in front of the familiar tapestry of trolls in tutus. "I want the place where everything is hidden," he murmured to himself, picturing the room.
Looks a bit like Aunt Bella's vault, actually. If broken and stained and contraband everything under the sun were as valuable as gold and jewels and armor.
And one very, very special little cup.
The door materialized in the opposite wall. Draco crossed to it, pulled it open, and shut it quickly behind himself.
Which was in the one until today, but shall now reside in the other, alongside something much like itself…
He located the preposterous setup of bust, wig, and diadem he'd seen in the TVP without much trouble, and opened the acid-stained cabinet on which the bust was perched. "Time to put a cup in a cupboard, I think," he said, winking at the observers he knew were there.
As the door swung wide, the dim light of the Room of Hidden Things fell on something within.
"Hello, what might you be?" Draco drew it out. It was a copy of Advanced Potion-Making, its corners a bit battered, likely from being knocked around in a schoolbag for a year. "Wonder who left you behind?" He glanced up at the pockmarked warlock with his ridiculous headgear, suddenly seeing the tower of objects in a new light. "And marked you so nicely, to be sure they could find you again. Might be a name inside the cover…"
He flipped it open to look.
Professor Trelawney sighed as she passed through a familiar stretch of corridor. "First whooping, now laughing," she said, shaking her head. "I simply must find another way downstairs—this hallway has no respect at all for the proper silence which should be observed in the presence of one who can part the mystic veils…"