"Gold is a metal. Debt is a shackle. Do not confuse the currency with the bond." — Arcturus Black, Letters on Governance
October 12, 1965, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, Diagon Alley
The air inside Gringotts did not smell of wealth. It smelled of sulfur, cold stone, and the metallic tang of blood spilled a thousand years ago.
Vega Black, aged eight, walked a half-step behind his grandfather. He wore a suit of charcoal Acromantula silk, his posture a perfect, miniature mirror of the Patriarch's terrifying gait.
The main hall was a cacophony of commerce. Witches and wizards bustled about, shouting over the sound of weighing scales and the aggressive scratching of quills. But as Arcturus Black entered the atrium, the chaos fractured.
A silence rippled outward from the bronze doors. The crowd parted. It wasn't respect; it was the instinctual behaviour of a herd sensing a predator in the tall grass.
Vega kept his face impassive, but his eyes—currently a sharp, piercing grey—catalogued everything. He saw the sweat on the brow of a Ministry clerk. He saw the naked envy in the gaze of a lesser noble. He felt the heavy, vibrating wards of the bank pressing against his skin like a physical weight.
"Keep your chin up," Arcturus murmured, his lips barely moving. "If you look at the floor, they will think you are looking for pennies. We are not here for pennies."
"We are here for the Ledger," Vega replied, his voice steady, though his heart hammered a slow, rhythmic beat against his ribs.
They approached the high desk at the center of the hall. The goblin perched there was ancient, his skin the texture of a dried prune, wearing spectacles that magnified his eyes to bulbous, watery proportions.
Arcturus stopped. He did not speak. He simply waited.
The goblin continued to scribble for a moment—a calculated delay, a petty power play that Vega found fascinating. Then, the creature looked up.
"Lord Black," the goblin grunted in English. "You have no appointment."
"I do not need an appointment to inspect my own foundations, Gornuk," Arcturus replied. The use of the name was a weapon; it signalled that Arcturus knew exactly who he was dealing with, and exactly where the bodies were buried.
"The Ledger is deep," Gornuk sneered, revealing sharp, yellow teeth. "The carts are busy."
Arcturus leaned forward on his cane. The air around him shimmered with suppressed magic—a heavy, suffocating pressure that made the goblin's quill tremble on the parchment.
"Then empty a cart," Arcturus said softly. "Or I will withdraw the Family reserve. All of it. Today."
The threat hung in the air like a guillotine blade. The Black Family gold was likely the ballast keeping half the bank's liquidity afloat. To remove it would capsize the economy before lunch.
Gornuk's eyes narrowed, but the math was undeniable. He snapped his fingers.
"Cart Seven," the goblin spat. "Now."
Deep Rock
The cart ride was usually a source of nausea for wizards. For Vega, it was a revelation.
As they plunged into the dark, twisting tunnels beneath London, Vega felt the Hum return. But here, deep in the earth, it wasn't the high-pitched vibration of human magic. It was a low, thrumming bass note.
The Earth, Vega realized, gripping the cold iron side of the cart. It's singing.
He looked at the walls rushing by. To a normal eye, it was just rock. But Vega, applying the focus Arcturus had taught him, shifted the lenses of his eyes. He let the Metamorphmagus fluid in his retinas thin out, expanding his spectrum.
The rock became transparent layers of strata. He saw veins of raw magic pulsing like arteries in the stone. He saw the protection wards of the vaults not as walls, but as complex, geometric webs of light that anchored the bank to the ley lines.
"You feel it," Arcturus shouted over the rushing wind.
"It is heavy," Vega shouted back. "Heavier than the House."
"This is the Deep Rock," Arcturus explained. "Goblins do not build banks. They build fortresses on top of power nodes. The gold is just the insulation."
The cart slammed to a halt miles beneath the surface. The air here was freezing, tasting of stale water and iron. A subterranean lake stretched out into the darkness, its surface smooth as black glass.
Gornuk climbed out, holding a lantern. "Vault 711. The Iron Ledger."
He approached a door that had no keyhole. It was a slab of smooth, seamless obsidian.
"Blood," Gornuk demanded.
Arcturus stepped forward, but he didn't offer his hand. He turned to Vega.
"You."
Vega froze. "Me?"
"You are the Heir," Arcturus said. "The Ledger must know your taste."
Vega stepped up to the stone. He didn't need a knife. He focused on the tip of his index finger, willing the skin to part. It was a small, sharp sting as a droplet of crimson welled up—bright and rich against the dark stone.
He pressed his finger to the cold obsidian.
The stone drank it.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the stone groaned. The sound vibrated through the soles of Vega's boots. The door didn't open; it dissolved, melting away into mist.
Inside, there were no piles of gold. There were no jewels.
The vault contained a single podium, upon which rested a book the size of a tombstone, bound in iron covers that were rusted with age.
"The wealth of the Blacks is not in galleons," Arcturus said, walking into the chamber, his voice echoing in the small space. "Galleons are for spending. This... this is for ruling."
He opened the book. The pages were vellum, smelling of old magic, filled with names, dates, and magical signatures.
"Debts," Vega realized, reading the first entry. Minister Nobby Leach - Election funding - 1962.
"Favors. Oaths. Blood pacts," Arcturus corrected. "This book contains the leverage we hold over the Ministry, the Guilds, and half the noble houses of Europe."
Arcturus pointed a gnarled finger at a name halfway down the page. Abraxas Malfoy.
"The Malfoys are rich," Arcturus noted. "But they borrowed from us to expand their vineyards in 1890. The debt was never paid in gold. It remains open."
"So we own them?" Vega asked, the implications staggering his eight-year-old mind.
"We hold their leash," Arcturus clarified. "We only pull it when necessary. That is the difference between a tyrant and a King, Vega. A tyrant demands payment. A King collects interest in loyalty."
Vega looked at the book. It was a map of political power, laid out in ink and blood.
"Why show me this?" Vega asked.
"Because the Goblins respect only two things: Gold and the Earth," Arcturus said, turning to look at the goblin waiting by the door. "But the Wizarding World respects only one thing: Leverage."
Arcturus closed the book with a heavy thud that sounded like a gavel falling.
"Sirius is wild," Arcturus said quietly, his back to the goblin. "He has no head for this. Regulus is to yound; the weight of this book would crush him. But you..."
Arcturus turned to his grandson, his eyes searching.
"You look at the world and see the mechanics. You see the strings."
Vega touched the cold iron cover of the book. He felt the weight of it—not physically, but conceptually. This was the safety of his brothers. This was the wall he had promised to build around them.
"I will learn the names," Vega vowed.
"Good," Arcturus grunted.
He turned to leave, but Vega paused. He looked at Gornuk, the goblin who was watching them with undisguised loathing.
Vega remembered his lessons. He remembered the map of the Hollow Earth. Goblins weren't servants; they were a sovereign nation forced underground.
Vega walked up to Gornuk. He stopped two feet away.
He didn't bow—he was a Black, after all—but he looked the goblin in the eye.
He concentrated on his throat. He visualized his vocal cords thickening, shortening, changing their density to match a different physiology. He felt the cartilage shift, a sharp, uncomfortable grinding sensation.
"Gringottas vo rakh nu," Vega rasped.
It was a rough, guttural sound, scraping against his human throat like gravel. It meant, The stones hold you strong. It was a formal, archaic greeting from the Deep Clans.
Gornuk's eyes widened behind his spectacles. The sneer vanished, replaced by a shock so profound he nearly dropped his lantern.
Wizards did not speak the Deep Tongue. They learned trade-Gobbledegook to argue over prices. They did not learn the caste-greetings.
"You... speak the Stone?" Gornuk croaked in English.
"I am learning," Vega replied, shifting his vocal cords back to human range with a small, painful cough. He rubbed his neck. "The echo is difficult."
Gornuk stared at the boy. Then, slowly, surprisingly, the goblin inclined his head. It wasn't a bow of servitude. It was a nod of recognition.
"Vo rakh, young Lord," Gornuk replied. Hold strong.
Arcturus watched the exchange from the cart, his face impassive. But as Vega climbed back in, the old man tapped his cane on the floor.
"You changed your throat," Arcturus noted as the cart lurched into motion.
"It hurt," Vega admitted, still rubbing his neck.
"Good," Arcturus said, a glimmer of dark satisfaction in his eyes. "Pain is the price of precision. And you just bought something gold cannot purchase."
"What?"
"Respect," Arcturus said as they plunged back into the dark. "Now, let us go home. Your brother has likely set fire to the curtains by now."
Vega smiled in the darkness.
Let him burn them, he thought, feeling the hum of the earth fading behind him. I have the iron to buy new ones.