Forest Vault III

'Phew... That was close,' thought James, sighing and grabbing his brow.

If he launched an Incendio, it could cause the creatures in their desperation to be incinerated to launch themselves at them like kamikazes or inadvertently burn the vines and all the vegetation around the room causing a dangerous fire.

"Are you okay?" asked Gwen in a concerned tone, clutching James' cheeks with both her hands and staring at him.

James' eyes previously gave off a cold glow turned to a warm glow as he looked at Gwen's face, "Yeah just a little fatigued," replied James, touching Gwen's hands.

A smile appeared on Gwen's face as she heard James' response and saw his eyes look at her warmly.

"Ahem, ahem," coughed Lupin, and Gwen quickly turned away from James.

"You must cure Peter," added Lupin, looking at James. He felt helpless having to leave everything to his friend, but he was the only one who knew healing magic.

James heard Peter's shrieks of pain and quickly ran to his side. A part of his skin had been ripped off by the Erkling's teeth that had dug in ferociously.

Without wasting any time, he cast a spell with his wand to stop the holy and then proceeded to heal the wound that looked like a vampire's puncture.

James from his wallet took out a small bottle. He pulled out the stopper and poured three drops on Peter's wound. A greenish smoke rose upward and when it dissipated, Peter's skin was as good as new. There was no longer any trace of his previous wound.

"Drink this," said James, pulling out another vial containing red liquid. Peter took it without hesitation. He felt the blood he lost return to his body, and his energy recovered.

"Stop being such a crybaby. It was just a bite," Sirius said watching as Peter kept touching his wound, and his face was still pale with fear.

"Take this, James," said Snape, passing a vial with a blue liquid in it to James, who took it and drank it without hesitation.

"Thanks," James said, feeling his resistance returning. It was good to come prepared.

"In that door must be the last two scrolls," Regulus commented, walking over and looking towards the door which opened and out came all the Erklings.

"Come on. Be alert," James said, starting to walk over there. He didn't know if the Japanese wizard had set any more traps.

Luckily for everyone, no trap was triggered. They reached the door after passing through the corpses of the Erklings. The new room is smaller compared to the other one and is only lit with a torch. The walls are also stone with moss and vines.

There is only a simple wooden table at the back of it all. The legs of the table look very weak. No one knows how they endured so long and having dozens of Erklings locked in there.

"How did those horrible creatures survive so long?" asked Sirius. They must have been hundreds of years ago, and they had no food.

"Did they eat each other?" said Gwen with a raised eyebrow, and the faces of the others paled at this creepy idea.

'I shouldn't have asked...' thought Sirius.

"Look, the cursed core or so I think. It doesn't look very powerful," Regulus said.

On top of the table floating like magic was a small opaque green sphere that gave off a barely perceptible energy that slightly disturbed the air around it.

Underneath the core were two ancient-looking scrolls, "He asked me what curse it released," muttered Snape with curiosity in his dark eyes. That wasn't his only question. He also wanted to know how the Japanese wizard managed to get these curses to spread throughout Hogwarts.

"It's better not to know. Let's destroy that thing," Sirius said.

Before attacking the core, James used his telekinesis to bring the scrolls to him. It wouldn't do to destroy it in the crossfire. Then they all attacked the core with different spells, destroying it like the one in the ice vault.

With the core destroyed, James opened the first scroll at hand and was surprised to see a language that was not ancient runes.

"This looks like a letter..." said James with surprise in his voice.

"A letter from that bastard? What does it say?" asked Sirius, approaching James. They all did the same.

The letter was in English. Although Dai was Japanese, he was a Hogwarts professor for several years and lived much of his life in Britain.

[To the intrepid one or two who have made it this far:

Congratulations. You have shown exceptional courage and determination in overcoming the challenges and dangers I have left in your path. Your skills and ingenuity are commendable, and I am honored to see that my trials have not been in vain.

However, know that your journey is not over. You have only one more challenge left to obtain my most precious and powerful items.

I do not care who or what you are. If you manage to decipher the last scroll and pass, the last challenge of the final vault, you will obtain my legacy, whether you are ministry wizards, dark wizards, students, or muggles]

"Doesn't say much," said James, who was expecting more revealing information. At least he could be assured that what Eustace said was true. In the last vault was Dai Ryusaki's great treasure.

James put the letter away and took the other parchment carefully. As he unrolled it, he noticed that it was noticeably longer than the previous scrolls. The scroll continued to unroll until the end touched the ground.

Everyone watched in amazement and concern as the scroll unfurled. Ancient runes, etched in small, dense script, covered the entire surface of the scroll. Everyone present wore an expression of disgust and frustration as they saw the complexity of the text.

"This is going to be complicated," muttered Regulus, frowning. He noticed that the ancient runes on the scroll were more advanced than on the others. That's just glancing at it.

"It's endless!" exclaimed Peter, staring incredulously at the length of the scroll, though deep down, he was relieved that he wouldn't have to explore a deadly vault any time soon.

"This will take us a long time to translate," said Gwen, taking a better look at the entire scroll. If they combined the previous scrolls they wouldn't get to the length of this one.

James rolled the scroll back up as he said, "Best not to worry about this now. We have loot to take,"

Everyone, remembering the chest full of hundreds of galleons waiting for them regained their spirits and returned to the previous room.

First, they would count how many galleons there were in total to divide it equally. Before that, James with his telekinesis and the help of the others took the corpses of the Erklings to the room where they came from.

They wiped the floor with a water spell and began counting, "How many galleons do you think are in here?" asked Toby, his eyes sparkling at the sight of the treasure.

"I don't know. We've been here for quite a while now, and it's still almost full," replied Lupin, looking at the piles of gold coins in front of him on the floor.

Forty minutes later there wasn't a single gold coin left in the chest. They had stacked the coins in vertical rows on the floor.

"Twenty thousand galleons," commented Regulus, amazed at the vast fortune the chest contained. Everyone else was equally as surprised. No one thought there would be that much money.

They thought there would be a thousand or two thousand galleons a little more a little less. Maybe five thousand if they were lucky.

"I love you and hate you, Dai Ryusaki!" shouted Sirius with a look of madness in his eyes. It seemed to form the money sign on his irises. Although he was used to having money, he never saw so many galleons together.

Snape was muttering things to himself. Peter and Toby were doing the math on how much money they would get and what things they could buy with so much money. Lupin was gawking oblivious to Sirius's ravings and the reactions of the others.

'This money will be a great help,' thought James. He won 2,500 galleons that he could use shortly for the war.

Gwen played with her hair, looking at the small mountains of gold. She was more amazed by the sight than the money itself. She always had what she wanted thanks to her parents, so she didn't care much about it.

'Oh, I'll be able to use it to gift things to James,' Gwen thought with a new idea.

"Two thousand five hundred galleons each. The problem will be if anyone asks where they came from," Snape commented with a hand on his chin and scheming his brain.

He knew the others wouldn't have that problem, as they came from pureblood families and could create an excuse either with their parents or someone to help them, but that wasn't his case. He lived in a poor suburb. He couldn't pull more than fifteen thousand dollars out of nothing. People would ask questions, and he might lose his money.

Noticing the concern on Snape's face, James reached over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Snape," James said with a confident smile. "I'll take care of that. I'm Lord Potter, and I have a way to create a justification that looks legitimate,"

Snape raised an eyebrow, still skeptical. "And what justification do you plan to use?"

James replied almost instantly, "We can say that the funds came from a successful investment my family made. I made those investments myself. Where do you think I get so many ingredients for the potions we brew?"

Snape exhaled in relief, "All right. I'll trust your plan," he said, no longer concerned with such a topic.

James approached the empty chest. The chest had standard measurements. It was impossible that it could hold twenty thousand galleons, but somehow it had managed it.

As he expected, he noticed something peculiar inside. On the bottom of the copper were ancient runes engraved.

'An extension spell in ancient runes?' thought James with interest at this method of using runes.

Extension spells had only one disadvantage. Its shelf life. Not forever. After a not too long period, you had to cast it on the object again or it would lose its extension functions. After all, it was a spell.

The chest in front of him contained 20,000 galleons for hundreds of years. If he learned this method of ancient runes, he could create objects with an enhanced extension forever. Very useful.

Seeing the time, the group put the coins back in the chest. It was best to move them using the said chest which James kept in his wallet. Then they headed back to the castle. The exploration of the forest vault was over.