The Intelligent Potter

An: If you want to read the latest chapters of The Intelligent Potter, they can be found a few days early on webnovel! I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, I'm having a lot of fun just marathon-writing these chapters. So I've found that I'm a person who really likes getting positive feedback and favourites and reviews and I think webnovel calls them powerstones? So when I write normally, I just keep posting chapters to FFNet, and get feedback and then get enamoured and satisfied by reading the reviews. Now that I'm just stockpiling chapters instead of writing continuously, I am actually beginning to write MORE. That is an interesting observation for me...maybe I should keep updating like this for all of my stories. Anyway, I'll figure all of that out when I get to it. By this point, the 1-a-week cycle should be pretty set, though I have yet to even start it at the point that I am at right now. If you have any feedback or anything regarding that, please let me know! Once again, I really hope that you enjoy this chapter!

*** Three Months Later

'Dear Mrs Bones,

We at Gringotts sincerely hope that you are doing well. Gringotts Bank has received your letter regarding the possibility of there being a horcrux located within the premises of our Bank. If such an allegation was to be true, then that would be a significant violation of the terms of service of Gringotts Bank. We are willing to conduct a search of each and every one of the vaults here at Gringotts, however this is not an inexpensive procedure. If your allegations prove to be false, Gringotts will require the amount of One Thousand Galleons as compensation for the expenses of the search. If your allegation proves to be true, then Gringotts will personally see to it that the horcrux is cleansed of its Darkness, and the contents of the criminal vault are yours for the taking, as a reward for informing the Bank of this. The bank will naturally take its searching fee from this account. We hope you are amenable to our terms. Please get back to our bank regarding whether you would like to take us up on our terms or not. These terms are non-negotiable,

Respectfully yours,

Gobbleknave

Gringotts Bank'

Amelia Bones read out the letter which the Goblins had sent to the Leaders of the Light. Gringotts Bank was their biggest lead, as Dumbledore had postulated that Voldemort would have wanted to put a horcrux in the two safest places in Britain, Hogwarts and the famous Goblin Bank. The Leaders of the Light had followed up on this and contacted the Goblins.

Despite being legal criminals against the puppet administration of the Dark Lord, the Goblins did not care who they did business with. They were lethally neutral in wars between humans, and could be counted on for reliable service as much in wartime as they could be in peacetime… which was not a lot to be honest, they were a species mostly involved only in their own prospering.

There was a moment of silence after Amelia had read out the letter from the goblins as all of the Leaders contemplated the offer. It was a high risk high reward situation. Funds were scarce for the Order of the Phoenix, and the organisation was mostly run out of the private vaults of its wealthier members, such as the Blacks and the Greengrasses, loathe as Iliad was to part with his precious hard-earned gold.

Each of the members of the Order looked at each other.

"I am not taking that liability, our vaults are not endless," Iliad opined immediately.

"Why can't we take this money from the Potter vaults?" Harry asked.

"You are still a minor, Harry, we could hardly ask that kind of expense from you. That kind of money is what a regular auror could HOPE to earn in an entire year, it is no small amount of money."

Amelia sighed, "I will risk it," she said simply, "There is enough left in the Bones vaults."

There was another silence, before Sirius asked, "Are you sure, Amelia? You have been out of a job for the better part of a year, and you have your niece, Susan, to take care of."

"I will handle it," Amelia said with a tone of finality, "Besides, we are hoping that the horcrux IS in Gringotts, in which case I will not be charged a single knut."

The rest of the members of the Leaders of the Light finally nodded in understanding, and Amelia spoke again, "So shall I begin to draft a letter of acceptance?"

Her proposition was met with nods all around the room, and the Bones matriarch began to write out the letter to the Goblins.

"Minister Bones," Harry called out, for he still referred to her as such despite the Bones matriarch having been ousted several months ago, "Are you aware of the goblins' letter-writing customs.

"Goblins have customs?"

*** Gringotts Bank

'Dear Teller Gobbleknave,

May your enemies' blood taste the ground,

We, the Leaders of the Light, have read through and discussed your proposition. We agree to all of your terms. Please conduct a search of all of your vaults. If you find nothing, you may have the amount of one thousand galleons only from the Bones vault,

May the gold of your enemies fill your vaults,

Amelia Bones

Gobbleknave was surprised, to say the least. Amelia Bones seemed to have learned some goblin customs, truly unusual for a pureblood witch. He found himself slightly impressed by her niceness.

Still a fool,' he thought, 'That is an easy thousand galleons for me to make, there is NO way that a Horcrux could possibly be within the vaults of Gringotts. Each and every object in our vaults is checked for all dark curses by a goblin.'

Despite the chances of there actually being a Horcrux, untrustworthy goblins may be, but they were ALWAYS truthful.

He sent the order down to the main office of Gringotts, which functioned behind the scenes to scan all of the vaults for a Horcrux. Goblins were very efficient, it would hardly cost them a few sickles to conduct the search, let alone a thousand galleons.

Gobbleknave was about to turn quite a healthy profit off of the foolishness of Amelia Bones.

A witch walked up to his desk. This was not an uncommon occurrence, he was a teller after all, but this was special.

It was Bellatrix Lestrange. One of the generals of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Goblins did not take sides in wars between humans, but that did not stop them from seriously looking down on despicable people, and if there was one thing that Bellatrix was, it was despicable.

Unfortunately, if there was a second thing which she was, it was dangerous. Bellatrix Lestrange was extremely powerful on her own, let alone the fact that her death would bring down the wrath of the Dark Lord, which was a big no-no for the Goblin Bank, being the only reason the insane bitch of a witch was still served at the bank.

"I wish to withdraw something from my vault, goblin, a golden cup" Lestrange spat his species out as if Gobbleknave was some kind of rodent.

"Of course, Madam Lestrange," Gobbleknave said with a rehearsed politeness, while imagining all the ways in which he could impale her inside of his head, "Right this way."

An animated flying paper airplane, the usual mode of communication inside of the bank, came and smacked Gobbleknave on the head when he didn't catch it immediately. This brought the bloodthirsty goblin out of his fantasies of murdering Bellatrix.

"What are you waiting for?" the aforementioned witch snapped at him.

'Horcrux found. Golden cup in the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange.'

*** End of Chapter

An: By the way, if anyone is wondering why I CAPITALISE instead of italicizing for emphasis these days, for some reason italics don't work on webnovel. I really don't get why...please fix it webnovel! I still have the letter in italics cuz I don't know how else to express it, I've just put 'single quotes' around it.