šµš¶ Walking down the street...
And distant memories...
Are buried in the past, forever...
I follow the Moskva...
And down to Gorky Park...
Listening to the wind... of change... šµš¶
Summer holidays piled an extra layer of bustle onto the already lively lanes of London's magical heart. Even with the sun blazing overhead, it made little difference. Like restless currents in a crowded stream, countless witches and wizards could be seen pressing through the shopfronts, weaving past one another and jostling for space while merchants called out their wares trying to catch their attention.
With the noise, motion, and sheer number of people filling the area, trying to locate a single person in that swirling mess would feel no different from searching for a needle in a haystack.
For an ordinary person, anyways. As Maverick stood atop the roof of his own building, a flicker at the edge of his vision drew his attention, and he caught sight of two familiar figures slipping into his shop while laughing and chatting.
It seems his advice had gone completely ignored by the pair, he thought with a dry amusement. The two in question were Harry and Sirius, and Harry, despite having survived the removal of a deadly magical parasite just the previous day, looked nothing like someone who had brushed so close to death.
Both Maverick and Dumbledore had strictly advised Sirius to make sure the kid got plenty of rest before he was taken home. After all, potions and remedies could only do so much for one's recovery, and there was still the crucial need to let nature take its course as well.
Anyway, he had no intention of reminding them a second time, so he ignored the momentary distraction and returned his focus to the matter at hand.
Gringotts. More precisely, he was waiting for one particular goblin to emerge from the bank, and he had been waiting patiently for longer than he cared to admit.
The scorching sun was now directly overhead, and surely even magical creatures needed to step out for a lunch break, right? He had already spotted quite a few of the short creatures moving in and out, some alone, others cloaked under disillusionment and accompanied by guards, but none of them was the one he had in mind.
Time crawled. Nobody paid any attention to the lone figure standing at the edge of the rooftop, and even if someone happened to glance that way, they would only see an empty corner of the building.
Naturally, he was under invisibility; otherwise, people might assume a crazy person was standing like a statue on the corner, or something equally dramatic, causing unnecessary noise.
Luckily, he had come prepared. A pair of headphones rested over his hood, playing a classic from his previous life and keeping him occupied while he waited. Though there were many differences between this world and the Earth he had once known, there were also countless points of similarities. And the band Scorpions, fortunately, was one of the latter.
Finally, he murmured, taking off the earcaps and letting them hang around his neck. It was past two o'clock, and the "fish" had emerged. The goblin in question was Griphook, a senior staff member at Gringotts, in plain terms.
Of course, this wasn't a random choice simply because the character had more screen time than most goblins in the original story. Maverick had done his research beforehand, asked around, and knew that this was the goblināor at least a goblinātrusted with handling many important vaults and valuables.
Interestingly, though, it appeared to be alone, for a goblin of suchā¦ significance. Appeared, yes, for Maverick could make out two invisible figures flanking the small creature's left and right as it slipped through the crowd and headed straight toward a narrow alley, one whose name was familiar to anyone acquainted with Diagon Alley.
And one other thing Maverick had discovered from today'sā¦ call it surveillance, was that goblins seems to have plenty of dealings on the shadier side of Diagon Alley. Or was it simply that the goblin cafeteria was located in Nocturne Alley? he mused.
In any case, it mattered little to him where the goblin was heading, whether it was for lunch or some shady business, whether there were two or two hundred guarding it, and whether they were visible or not.
So with that thought, his boots lifted slowly off the rooftop, carrying him above the bustling street before settling over the creature, and without pause, he followed its pace as it slipped into the narrow alley, winding toward the far end.
Unlike Diagon Alley, this narrow passage was completely empty, unnaturally dark for reasons Maverick didn't care to question, and all of it worked perfectly in his favor.
The timing was perfect. His hand then moved in a deliberate gesture, while directly below, Griphook and his two human guards had no idea they were already in his grasp.
That said, Maverick's intention was never to engage them directly, nor to take them out for good. All he needed were a few memories from the goblin, and he could do that without raising any ruckus.
First, the mirror dimension enveloped the area, while his illusion spell masked everything; to the three below, nothing seemed amiss. He first targeted the two humans under disillusionment, rendering them unconscious, then his magic coiled around the goblin, forcing it to stop abruptly in its tracks.
In the same breath, he sent a measured shock of dominant spirit before it could even register that something was wrong, plunging it into a semi-conscious state, and then began his work.
To any outside observer, it would appear as if the goblin had simply walked into the narrow alley, moved a short distance, and then vanished into thin air.
Maverick worked fast. His Legilimency was at a level now at which even seasoned Aclumency would be helpless. Of course, that applied only to magi of Magus rank and lower, as well as ordinary people, while the minds of great magi or archmagi could still sense a forced intrusion. Sense it, yes, but defending against it was an entirely different matter.
Fortunately for him, his target was far from that league, and Maverick slid into the goblin's thoughts without so much as a stumble.
What he wanted was very specific: the exact location of the Lestrange vault and the general layout of Gringotts' underground system. He skimmed past the clutter of useless memories while muttering, "Lestrange vaultā¦ directionsā¦" and similar cues for the goblin to latch onto.
The reason he kept the goblin in a semi-conscious state was precisely for that. Like prompts fed into a program, the words slipped into its awareness, guiding its mind toward the information he needed with little resistance.
It didn't take long, and within a couple of minutes, he had everything he came for. His magic moved with careful subtlety, nothing like a forceful intrusion against a wall of Occlumency, which meant the goblin would not even feel a faint ache once he was done.
Even so, its consciousness would still register, however vaguely, that something unusual had happened. Mother Magic, fortunately, had a solution for that as well.
From the moment the goblin stepped into the alley to the moment it fell neatly into Maverick's arrangement, only a few minutes had passed. No one else had come through during that stretch, and even if someone had, they would have seen nothing but an empty passage because everything was unfolding inside the mirror dimension.
Next came the final touch. Carefully, Maverick cast the Obliviate spell and wiped away any trace that its mind had ever been accessed, even the sensation of being suddenly frozen in place was scrubbed clean.
What remained would be nothing more than a hazy lapse in awareness ā like a brief flicker of light, one moment it had been walking, and the next, an inexplicable blankness before coming to again.
Anyways, not even ten minutes had passed, and Maverick was certain neither the goblin nor its guards had been keeping track of time.
After that, he gathered the creature and its two unconscious guards, returned them to reality, and brought them back to awareness.
He did not leave immediately though, and chose instead to wait, observing everything from above. And sure enough, the moment they regained consciousness, they sprang into motion, turning left and right, back and forth, wearing expressions that screamed What just happened??
But no matter how many times they spun like a boomerang, the alley remained empty, and nothing seemed out of place. Their expressions grew increasingly puzzled with each passing second. They had no idea what they were even looking for. To them, it was as if something inexplicable had occurred, yet no matter how hard they wracked their brains, they couldn't uncover the cause.
Only the goblin betrayed any change after a moment. A sudden flash of terror crossed its face, as if it feared something terrible, and it instinctively glanced down at the ring on its hand. Then, after a tense pause, it let out a shaky sigh of relief, even, seemingly unconcerned with the earlier strange sensation of blankness.
It then muttered something to the guards beside it, and the three eventually resumed their walk, their bewildered expressions following them like shadows as they vanished toward Knockturn Alley.
From above, watching their retreating backs, Maverick's lips curled into a smile. The goblin's fear had likely come from the thought that someone had robbed the treasures stored in its spatial ring. True to its kind, whose devotion to material wealth outweighed almost everything else, its main concern had never been the strange sensations it felt, but whether its valuables were safe. And once it realized nothing had been taken, the rest barely mattered.
Maverick didn't linger any longer. He glanced up, squinting at the sun with a thoughtful expression, then decided to act then and there.
Why wait?
He already knew the bank's underground layout like the back of his hand, and he knew exactly where his target lay. If nothing went wrong, the Hufflepuff Cup would be in his hands just as swiftly.
āāāāāāāāā
Author's Note:
š„ Drop those Power Stones! š„
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