"Guleous?" Murphy looked at the goblin, puzzled. "I don't understand. Who gave you the nerve to oppose me?"
"Murphy Darkholme." Guleous recognized Murphy as well. "You exchanged gold you swindled from Muggles for our coins, treating Gringotts as your money-laundering machine. That will never happen again."
"What? Muggle gold isn't gold?" Murphy found this utterly baffling. "Don't you mine gold?"
"Gold is merely a material, while coins are goblin property," Guleous said. "Goblins may allow wizards to use goblin property temporarily, but you intend to claim goblin property as your own."
Murphy froze for a moment before finally understanding.
This goblin was talking about their unique concept of property.
Under goblin law, anything made by goblin hands belonged to goblins.
That included, but was not limited to, coins and the Sword of Gryffindor. In their eyes, wizards were nothing but thieves who had stolen their property.
However, the goblins of Gringotts had dealt with wizards for far too long. Few goblins still brought up this "fundamentalist" view of property, because they knew wizards would never acknowledge it—and they could not defeat wizards either.
But what was with this fellow?
How had a goblin like this become president of Gringotts?
"By your logic, all the coins in my vault belong to you?" Murphy frowned.
"Not entirely to me. The Brin Family holds only half the shares in Gringotts-issued coins. The remainder belongs to eight other families."
"Shut up!" Padelo screamed in terror. "Shut up, Guleous! What nonsense are you talking about?!"
Murphy found it rather strange. Could this guy have been hit with Dumbledore's Imperius Curse?
But for what purpose? To trade insults with him?
"However," Guleous suddenly said, "we can allow you to continue using those coins, on one condition."
"Oh?" Murphy looked at him. "Let's hear it."
"Return goblin