Chapter 302: Preparing a Heist

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.

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20 December 1994, Durmstrang

Life in Durmstrang was surprisingly nice for Harry. It was a nice way to decompress, after months of constant action and pressure. Despite the school's reputation, it remained as such, a school. There were combat classes and an entire class for the study of curses, but that was it.

There were no hidden duels to the death, no lessons on the Cruciatus curse, no muggle baiting class… Nothing like what the average British wizard thought happened in Durmstrang. To be fair, having a member of a terrorist group that ended up being exonerated for making a deal, and selling out his associates, was not a good look.

Unfortunately, the man was very well known in academic circles and was a very successful ward specialist before joining Voldemort's organization. It took some time, but the man did prove to be a competent headmaster, and no one really batted an eyelash. They did keep a very close eye on his activities, and there was an entire board above him, in case he had to present any reforms or the like…

Still, classes were normal, if a bit more advanced than the ones at Hogwarts. It mostly had to do that Arithmancy wasn't optional in Durmstrang and some of the theories went over the head of anyone who hadn't taken the electives. In the case of Harry's classmates, they were around a year behind their counterparts in Durmstrang, which was why they had a bit of trouble…

Nevertheless, Harry appreciated the monotony more and more, even if the weather was frankly horrible. Even with warming charms, he could still shiver out of nowhere. The view was beautiful though.

Sure, things had been a bit awkward after word spread around about the attack on the Hogwarts Express, and that Harry had personally defeated five dragons. He expected the number of deaths in the attack to make people wary of him, but for some reason, it was the complete opposite. At first, they were wary, until the ICW revealed a few days later that most of the causalities were mercenaries and criminals, and that was when everyone's attitude changed.

They hailed him as some kind of hero who protected his schoolmates against an entire army. They turned him into a romantic story, and he couldn't help but be a bit uncomfortable about the whole affair. The stares that followed him everywhere he went, were very bothersome, to say the least.

Deciding to take some time to himself, Harry was currently standing on one of the balconies just watching the mountains… There was something just relaxing about the view, something that made him feel peaceful…

His musings were interrupted by a small cough. He turned and saw a redhead wearing a Beauxbatons uniform. She looked hesitant but steeled herself and asked, "Hi. Would you go to the ball with me?"

Well, that was direct. Normally, people introduced themselves first, "I'm sorry. I'm already going with someone else. Good luck, though."

The girl looked disheartened, and he could hear her sniffling as she walked out. Great, now he felt bad. Harry had received dozens of those invitations ever since the ball was announced and he got tired of it after the first day.

It seemed like his actions during the last few tasks made him an attractive prospect as a date. He didn't think he had ever been more uncomfortable in his life, even during that weird dinner with Daphne's father. Harry didn't really see the prospect of asking a complete stranger for a date, but then again, he was horrible at that kind of stuff.

And there was also the other side effect of his newfound female attention and that was Daphne's reactions. The blonde entered the balcony with a snarl on her face, "Stupid harlot!"

"Hey, Daph, there's no need to be rude."

"She knows you have a date. Everyone does…"

Harry rolled his eyes, "Let's just change the subject… Do you have any news on the blood?"

He had given Daphne the blood that he found in the orphanage, trying to see if she had any curse… He could feel it in his bones that there had to be someone special in why she was chosen as a sacrifice. That kind of magical release was not normal... He thought that a blood curse could have been responsible and Daphne thankfully, had a way to detect those.

She couldn't really analyse the curse, or else she would have been able to do the same to her sister's condition, but she could detect the potency of the curse, like the amount of life force used to stabilize it… Magic always left traces and blood magic was no different.

The blonde shook her head, "The girl definitely didn't have a blood curse, that's for sure… There was something in her blood, something very old, probably the remains of some very old crest, but it's nothing really unusual. You see them a lot in the descendants of squibs or people who were disowned, where they can't activate the crest anymore. It's just an echo, nothing more…"

Harry frowned. That wasn't exactly bad news, and it wasn't really good news either; one of the few leads they had ended up practically useless. Maybe figuring out who her magical ancestor was could help things out, but that would prove to be very complicated…

Daphne must have seen the disappointment on his face since she spoke up, "Is this really the time to do this? Especially with what we have planned during the Yule Ball. We ought to focus on that, right?"

Harry sighed, "Yes. I was just so hopeful. It's close. I know it's so close… I can almost feel it…"

"Sometimes you need to let go a bit, Harry. We could pick this up again after the ball. I'm already angry at you for the whole thing and ruining our first date…"

"Fine… I already have the portals set up. It took a bit of effort and a lot of power, but it should allow me to open a gate to Britain and one back without anyone noticing."

It had been a challenge, to say the least… Harry opened his portal by morphing space and time, and the further he wanted to go, the more power he needed. He wasn't exactly able to create portals using an artefact. It was probably possible, but it was overkill for what they had planned. What he did was essentially create beacons in space-time, one in Durmstrang and another in Britain, which removed almost half of the energy needed for the spell. Adding in the fact that he made sure that both beacons would absorb magic for a few days, he essentially removed any suitable cost for the portal. He just had to cast the thing. Unfortunately, he only had enough energy for two trips to Britain and back at the most. He would need to compensate for any missing energy, but it was the best they could do.

Daphne gave him an approving look, "Good, I also got the Polyjuice. Apparently, there's a small black market for banned potions in Durmstrang. Don't worry, I put up an illusion before buying anything and I checked that the potions were the real deal."

Harry nodded, that was the last part of their alibis. Unfortunately, he became known for doing unreasonable things with his magic, and so, just being in Durmstrang wasn't exactly enough of an alibi to prove his innocence. He needed stand-ins for him and Daphne, who would impersonate them under Polyjuice. Tracy and Blaise volunteered without any problems. Apparently, going to the Yule Ball would be romantic and they were getting bored out of their minds, alone in Hogwarts without any of the excitement that they experienced in the previous few years…

Anyway, that was the alibis done, they needed to deal with the rest, "What about our preparations in Britain?"

The blonde smugly gave him a hair and a small golden key, "Dolores Umbridge's hair and Gringotts Vault key. Courtesy of Peter Pettigrew. You know, when you bound that man to serve me, I never expected that he would be so useful. To be honest, my father is the one who uses him the most. A rat Animagus is practically made for corporate espionage."

Harry stifled a snort. It was an apt punishment for Peter Pettigrew, to live out the rest of his life as a servant of some girl when he had betrayed his parents' location for the chance of being free of Voldemort and Dumbledore. There was something just poetic about it, and at least, now his existence is paying off.

And there was also something beautiful about making Dolores Umbridge take the fall for it all in case anything went wrong, "What about the wand?"

"He'll be ready to acquire it when I give him a signal and he'll also put the woman to sleep for the duration of the heist. So, that's my part done… What about you?"

"It took some effort, but I crafted the spell we needed. It should work but I won't really know for sure without trying it on an actual Goblin. They do have a different constitution, but I should be able to change it on the fly just in case. I'll teach it to you after dinner, this way no one will interrupt us."

Harry wasn't lying when he said it was hard. The plan was to create a spell that would essentially hypnotize Goblins, like a specialized compulsion charm. It wouldn't give them control over the man, just change a few details, in case they started to suspect anything.

He had adapted spells made to target Goblins during the endless wars between them and mages. There were many of them in the Durmstrang library, which didn't actually have a forbidden section. All knowledge was allowed, but knowing the magic and actually casting the spell were two very different things. He had isolated the sections of the spells made to affect Goblins more effectively and mixed it with a common compulsion charm… The spell stabilized enough, and it was theoretically correct. Unfortunately, there weren't any Goblins to test it on…

"I don't get why we need this spell, Harry…" Daphne retorted.

"Because the Lestrange Vault is one of the older ones, meaning that they have custom protections, including the fact that it's a goblin who can open the vault door, no one else. We need one of them to do it…"

Other vaults were somewhat simple. Stealing the key, was essentially stealing the vault. Sure, someone could technically go to the ministry to get some papers to revoke the key, which would be sent to Gringotts to freeze the vault until a new one was issued, but if someone managed to visit Gringotts before the paperwork was processed, then they could enter without any question. To Gringotts, this wasn't really theft, just stupidity on the vault owner's side.

Older vaults, which happen to be the most expensive, were more different in that regard. A Goblin had to personally verify the identity of the vault owner, and that provided more security. No one could steal the key because there was no key. But that also came to the cost that no one was allowed to know what was there, meaning that it was an artefact vault, not a coin one. A lot of features provided by Gringotts would be rendered useless by using this kind of vault, especially regarding the ease of payment. What most families did was to have two vaults, one that had enough gold to spend for a few lifetimes, whilst the vast majority were in the deeper vault.

That gave Gringotts even more gold since the families now rented two vaults instead of one…

Anyway, they had most of the preparations ready. There was literally nothing else to do until the day of the Yule Ball, which was why Harry was using this time to focus on the dead girl's blood. It was his only lead when it came to Dumbledore's plan, and it was quickly slipping… He was just so close, and yet he was still stuck.

Daphne walked forward and grabbed his arm, "Are you sure about this? This isn't going to be as easy as we thought. This was all planning and something is bound to go wrong. We're acting with a lot of unknown information here…"

Harry nodded, "Yes, but I've always been good at improvising… You can sit this one out if you don't want to…"

"Hey, you promised that we'd be together during the Yule Ball. Are you going back on your word? Besides, without me, you'd probably end up blowing up the bank or something…"

He chortled before giving her a sly grin, "Ready to be the first witch to ever break into Gringotts?"

"Do you even have to ask?" she returned with a smile of her own, "Let's go rob a bank."

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AN: So, that's the final chapter before the heist. I hope I set things up well enough for that. And I know I mentioned the blood a bit, but it will be pretty important later. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.