"By the way, Hagrid."
Harry turned back to him. "I heard Malfoy and the others say Gringotts was broken into—and it was on the same day we went to Diagon Alley to buy our supplies."
Hagrid grew even more evasive at that.
Seeing this, Dylan stood up.
"It's getting late. We should head back. Hagrid probably needs to go patrol the Forbidden Forest anyway."
Hagrid blinked, then nodded quickly. "Yes, I've got to take a turn through the Forest."
Harry hesitated, then finally got to his feet. "All right, we'll head back then."
Hagrid walked out with them, and after seeing them off, turned and headed toward the Forest.
Harry looked preoccupied all the way.
Dylan, on the other hand, did not quite remember the details of the Gringotts incident.
"The Philosopher's Stone?"
He vaguely recalled the Stone had been stored in Gringotts at first.
The bank was attacked, and on the very day Harry went to Diagon Alley. Most likely Hagrid had withdrawn the Stone, someone had their eye on it, and decided to act.
Once he had worked through the gist of it,
Dylan did not react much.
Stone or no Stone, Voldemort was going to be defeated in the end anyway.
He did not particularly care.
In fact, he had only just heard about the Gringotts break-in from Harry.
"Malfoy really is in love with Harry. Tells him everything."
He clicked his tongue inwardly and shook his head.
In his view, instead of worrying about how to insert himself into the "plot," it would be better to learn a few more spells and get them to max level.
"Voldemort's Dark Arts might not even be as high-level as mine."
He was still drifting in those thoughts when
Harry suddenly spoke. "Dylan, why do you think someone would attack Gringotts?"
Dylan blinked. "Because Gringotts is easy to bully?"
"Huh?" Harry stared.
Dylan smiled. "What else would it be? The most precious thing in Gringotts is the money and treasure inside."
"It's just like robbing a bank. Robbers are after what's in the vault, not the clerks, right?"
"If someone only wanted to kidnap people, they could just grab someone off the street. Why bother with a bank?"
"And more importantly, if you hit a bank, you might be there for hostages as well. But Gringotts… you really think anyone's targeting those ugly little goblins?"
Harry pursed his lips, looking a little dazed. "That… does kind of make sense, but…"
"Hagrid says Gringotts is the safest place in the world, and it still got hit. Aren't you scared?"
"Scared?" Dylan gave him a strange look.
Voldemort above—if that noseless freak actually showed up in person,
as long as Dylan caught him off guard, a combo of Cruciatus, Imperius, Fiendfyre, and Avada Kedavra might not be enough to kill him outright,
but it would not be impossible either.
Once he finished researching things like Reductor, Sectumsempra, and Confringo…
Who would really be afraid of whom was still an open question.
"Mm? Wait!"
Suddenly, Dylan realized something was off.
"Wasn't I planning to come to Hogwarts to learn how to put a turtle shell on myself?"
How had his path of study wandered so hard toward offensive magic…
"Dylan? You okay?" Harry's voice cut in.
Dylan snapped back and shook his head. "Nothing. I just thought of something about my studies."
Ron stared in disbelief.
How could someone zone out mid-conversation because they suddenly thought about studying?
So this was what his brothers meant by "born to be a study freak," huh?
Going back to the question, Dylan said, "Anyway, there's not much to be afraid of."
"Oh?" Harry looked at him.
Dylan answered easily, "I don't keep any money there. Even if someone empties it, I'm not losing anything."
"Uh…?" A question mark might as well have popped onto Harry's forehead.
What did this have to do with keeping money there?
He was asking if the wizarding world was too unsafe if even Gringotts could be attacked, and whether Hogwarts might be targeted by the same mysterious people.
This had nothing to do with bank accounts at all!
"Wait… actually, it kind of does!"
Harry suddenly remembered his parents had left him a large sum of money in Gringotts.
His eyes went wide.
They could not just let the place be cleaned out!
When they got back to the dorm,
Dylan did a quick bit of tidying, then started organizing his class notes.
He wrote down everything he wanted to ask Professor Snape over the weekend.
After that, he read for a while. When it got dark, he washed up and went to bed.
He could not rely on Scourgify every day.
Dylan found that using magic to clean all the time left him feeling like he was not really clean.
Actually scrubbing his teeth with a toothbrush felt much more solid and reassuring.
He woke up all at once after a good night's sleep.
Since he had gone to bed early, he also rose early.
On Saturday morning, the school grounds were quiet.
More than half the students were still lost in dreams.
Dylan strolled along the empty paths and headed straight for the Great Hall.
After breakfast, he went up to the owlery to check on Luna.
The little owl was full of energy, her snow-white feathers gleaming.
Lately, he had exchanged several letters with his parents,
mostly telling them that he was doing quite well here and that his days were very full.
And that he no longer had to live in the basement.
It was a five-person dorm,
but at least it was not a basement.
He had also sent his parents more money and told them to buy stocks.
At the moment it was 1991. Outside the wizarding world, the Muggle world was basically on the same track as history.
He had checked—this world also had Merican Express, OPhone, Walmart, and similar companies.
He told his dad to put everything they had into the stocks of those firms.
Fortunately, by completing achievement after achievement lately, he had built up a decent sum.
Adding that to the money his parents had given him before, and his own share, he converted it all into pounds and mailed it home.
The justification was simple:
"Dad, I've met lots of magic professors at school, and they're all amazing! See the money I sent you? If you invest it the way I say, we definitely won't lose."
It was actually two separate ideas,
but put together, it made it sound like one continuous thought.
His parents, just as he expected, assumed that whatever stocks he wanted them to buy were based on information from Hogwarts professors.
Dylan absolutely refused to answer any follow-up questions on the subject.
It did not really count as lying, did it?
"Well, how could that be lying?"
Checking the time,
he saw it was almost when the professors would be starting their day.
He did not know for sure whether Snape would be in his office, but after class yesterday he had already mentioned his plans, so the man should be expecting him.
(End of Chapter)
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