Someone Must Be Trying to Do Me In

"Oh! Merlin's beard! Can someone tell me what on earth happened here?" An old man with a long white beard, dressed in a brown robe and wearing a pointed wizard's hat, hurriedly pushed open the heavy doors of Gringotts and cautiously stepped inside.

The Gringotts lobby no longer bore any trace of its former grandeur and prosperity. Instead, it was littered with signs of a fight, along with wrecked tables and chairs and shattered marble pillars lying at odd angles.

A huge hole had been smashed through the wall on the left, near the ceiling, and the floor-to-ceiling window beside it. Broken bricks and shards of glass were piled up on the floor. On top of that, the air was filled with a delicious aroma that felt strangely familiar to Dumbledore, though for the moment he couldn't remember where he had smelled it before.

A large group of Goblin employees who should have been at work were moaning softly. Each had one leg bound by a fiery-red Magic Rope, and they were hanging upside down in midair above the Gringotts lobby. None of them dared struggle, much less try to undo the rope around their legs.

Meanwhile, several Gringotts guards and dozens of Ministry Aurors were bound by the same red spell ropes to the few marble pillars still intact. Some had already passed out cold; others hung their heads in humiliation, not daring to move a muscle.

Dumbledore also spotted some strangely posed human statues on the floor off to one side. He didn't remember seeing any statues like these in the Gringotts lobby. Had the tasteless Goblins just put them in?

The only person in the lobby who wasn't tied up was Minister of Magic Fudge. He stood off to one side, his head bowed as he trembled like a frightened chicken. He looked utterly lost and hadn't dared utter a word. His wide-brimmed wizard's hat concealed his face so thoroughly that Dumbledore hadn't even recognized him at first glance.

The entrance to the bank's vaults at the far end of the lobby was also a complete mess!

The floor there was covered in bricks and other unidentified debris, as though something enormous had forced its way out from inside and broken through. In a corner at the back of the lobby lay a... What? That burning thing was a dragon skeleton? But what on earth was that Flame Giant Bear sitting on the dragon's skull?

The sight of the still-burning dragon skeleton finally jogged Dumbledore's memory. He realized what the strong aroma he'd noticed upon entering was: roasted dragon meat! That was it! That familiar, smoky smell!

Headmaster Dumbledore had always been rather fond of the scent. Back in the day, he had slaughtered several dragons under the pretext of researching the many uses of dragon blood. He'd skinned them, taken their tendons, and butchered them for parts. Not only had he made a handsome profit, he'd also eaten quite a lot of dragon meat.

Thinking back, he really did miss those days... No wonder that smell had seemed so familiar the moment he walked in. So that was what it was! Ahem. Still, it was better not to bring up the past. He'd simply been young and reckless. Slaughtering dragons was something Dumbledore had long since given up. He was a man of standing now. Why would he do something like that?

That was the scene Albus Dumbledore saw when he entered Gringotts: Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, widely regarded as the greatest wizard of the age, recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class, founder and Secret Keeper of the Order of the Phoenix, president of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Albus Dumbledore hadn't planned to visit Gringotts today. According to his original schedule, he wouldn't need to stop by the bank for several more days, when he planned to withdraw some money and deposit a few important little things. Today, however, had definitely not been part of the plan!

But just as he was preparing to have afternoon tea, someone sent him an urgent message. There had been a major incident at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, and they needed the help of the greatest white wizard alive! So, he'd reluctantly rearranged his schedule and hurried to Diagon Alley by Apparition to see what was going on.

But who could have expected him to find this when he opened the door?

The first glance at the scene had startled him so badly that he'd nearly jumped out of his skin! For a moment, he'd thought that Voldemort, little Tom Riddle, had somehow come back to life. But he knew that was unlikely. At the end of last term, little Tom, that ungrateful brat, had still been a pitiful Wraith. How could he have come back to life so soon? Even a hundred Philosopher's Stones wouldn't make it happen that fast! Rebirth wasn't like making a person for fun; the process and the Potions required were incredibly complicated.

"So it's you, Fudge! You're here too? Then tell me, what on earth happened?" Dumbledore had finally spotted Minister of Magic Fudge trembling with his head bowed beside the entrance. He was the Minister of Magic, for heaven's sake. Why was he acting like a frightened, wronged little wife? Dumbledore had nearly failed to recognize him.

Minister of Magic Fudge had noticed Dumbledore too, but he didn't dare answer the question directly. Instead, he raised his head timidly and glanced at the little girl in the middle of the lobby. Fudge had been terrified by her. Her strength was truly horrifying! He couldn't even imagine that anyone like her could exist in the world.

Earlier, when he'd first received the distress call from Gringotts, Fudge had naively assumed that a few dark wizards with too much time on their hands had gone mad and decided to attack the bank. Those lunatics who attacked banks, he'd thought, were probably only after a handful of coins. He hadn't taken the matter seriously at all! As far as he was concerned, Gringotts was hardly an easy target.

But the Ministry had to do its job. Since a serious incident had taken place at Gringotts Wizarding Bank and the Goblins had sent the Ministry a call for help, he, Fudge, had to take it seriously as Minister of Magic. So he'd immediately led dozens of Aurors who happened to be on standby at the Ministry to the scene by Apparition.

But who could have imagined... Sigh! Just thinking about it brought tears to Fudge's eyes. A moment ago, they'd arrived, assessed the situation, and launched a joint attack on the little girl with dozens of Aurors. At the same time, Gringotts had unleashed its ultimate weapon: the Ancient White Dragon guarding the vaults. And then? Then there was nothing more. That was it!

The Ancient White Dragon had barely had time to roar before the Magical Creature the little girl had thrown out knocked it to the ground. In just a few moves, it had carved the dragon into pieces! Then the creature's flames, even more terrifying than Fiendfyre, had slowly burned it into the skeleton now lying before them. The creature was still sitting on the dragon's skull, watching the show! That vicious Flame Giant Bear over there was the one responsible. Otherwise, where did they think the lingering smell of roast meat in the lobby had come from? It was the bear's handiwork! It was far too brutal... Before they'd even had time to hear a proper crash, an Ancient White Dragon was simply gone!

The Ministry Aurors had done even worse. They'd drawn their wands from their holsters and had only just gotten into position to attack when, somehow, they'd all been disarmed. Then, like toothless old tigers, they'd been effortlessly bound to the pillars by those red spell ropes that had appeared out of thin air. They hadn't even managed to cast a single spell before they were all defeated!

Merlin's beard! There had been dozens of powerful Aurors, plus a mighty Ancient White Dragon! And that formidable group hadn't lasted even three seconds? Even at his peak, at the height of his ruthlessness, the Dark Lord probably hadn't been half as vicious as that little girl!

Forget about the dragon. Just consider the Aurors!

If the Dark Lord had ever been arrogant enough to challenge dozens of Aurors at once, Fudge would have gladly shown him how to behave. Nobody could defeat dozens of Aurors single-handedly. Not Dumbledore, not the Dark Lord. Neither of them had that kind of power! But now? This little girl, who looked so harmless, had done exactly that—and with ease! So how could Fudge not be terrified?

Following Fudge's frightened gaze, Dumbledore finally noticed the two little girls standing in the middle of the lobby. The smaller one was holding a strange slice of meat over a crackling fire. He recognized what it was at once; he knew it all too well. And the things she was tossing into the fire one by one... Hiss! They looked familiar. Could that pile of wood really be a bunch of wands? What a wasteful girl! How many Galleons had those cost?

Then, after concentrating and sensing the little girl's magic, Dumbledore froze completely!

He had felt a tremendous surge of magic from the blond girl, unlike anything he'd ever sensed before. For a moment, the widely traveled Dumbledore had even thought he was looking at the God of Magic!

Dumbledore had never imagined that any wizard could possess magic of this magnitude. No one in the wizarding world could! Even Merlin himself, were he to return, couldn't reach this level! And Dumbledore himself—or that ungrateful brat Voldemort—were even further from it.

Once he fully grasped how terrifying the little girl before him was, Dumbledore's first thought was: Someone must be trying to do me in! How could he possibly handle this little girl?

Who could it be? Who wanted to use someone else to kill him? Could it be Fudge, that ungrateful wretch who never knew when he was well off? Surely he wouldn't have the nerve. Or perhaps it was the Death Eater remnants under that ungrateful brat, Tom Riddle? That was possible. Right—who had sent him that message and lured him here? Dumbledore decided he would have to investigate thoroughly once this was all over.

Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles, quietly wiped away a bead of cold sweat, and loosened his grip on the Elder Wand hidden in his sleeve. He no longer wanted to fight, and he didn't dare entertain the idea! Perhaps he shouldn't have come here today. This was not something he could afford to get involved in lightly. One wrong move, and he could lose his life! If he pretended he'd come to the wrong place, would it still be in time?

After wiping away another bead of sweat, Dumbledore finally turned his attention to the slightly taller girl. Oh! Thank goodness. This taller girl seemed relatively normal; her magical aura was no different from that of an ordinary girl her age. Hmm? Why did she look so familiar? He quickly adjusted the spectacles on his nose and took a closer look.

"Miss Hermione Granger! It's you? What are you doing here?"

After recognizing his student beside the little girl, Dumbledore finally breathed a sigh of relief.

An acquaintance! An acquaintance was good! If he knew someone, then surely they could talk things out.

Dumbledore wasn't afraid of a bad situation. What he feared was having no one familiar there! If he didn't know anyone on the other side, there might not even be a chance to negotiate. That would truly cost him his life!

But now things were clearly much easier. The crafty old Dumbledore had noticed that his student seemed quite familiar with the little girl. They were standing together, after all; they couldn't possibly be strangers. Good. He'd already thought of a way to resolve this mess.

"P-Professor Dumbledore?" At the sound of someone calling her, Hermione finally snapped out of her dazed, numb state.

Everything that had happened today had been so full of twists and turns that she'd been left staring in shock until just now. But Hermione knew she'd gotten herself into serious trouble!

Thinking of that, and seeing Headmaster Dumbledore, someone she knew, Hermione's voice turned tearful. She was just about ready to burst into tears! After all, she was only a twelve-year-old girl. Today she'd burned Goblins, captured Aurors, and wrecked Gringotts Wizarding Bank. How were they supposed to deal with this?

"All right, all right, Miss Granger! Don't cry just yet. Could you explain in detail what happened here? And who is this girl beside you?" Dumbledore reached out and gently patted Hermione's shoulder to comfort her.

When he noticed Annie frowning and eyeing him suspiciously, Dumbledore was so startled that he nearly pulled his hand back. He almost turned and ran! What he wanted to shout was: "This has nothing to do with me! I just happened to be passing by, and thought I'd stop in to break up the fight. If you won't listen and still want to fight, I have no objections—I'll turn around and leave at once! After all, I don't know them very well!"

"Sniff... O-okay, Professor!" Hermione sniffled for a while and roughly wiped the tears from her cheeks before giving a general account of what had happened...

"So that's what happened... I understand!" Only after Hermione had carefully recounted the whole story from beginning to end did Dumbledore finally feel a little more at ease.

Dumbledore figured that as long as he established what had happened, it would be easy to settle. He quickly pieced together the sequence of events in his mind: Annie had come to Gringotts Wizarding Bank to exchange ancient coins. The Goblin employees had coveted her money and cheated the little girl out of her hard-earned savings! Then the conflict had erupted. The key point was that this bunch of Goblins had been no match for the little girl. In the end, she had burned one Goblin guard to death, burned the Goblin employee who'd started it all to ashes, reduced an Ancient White Dragon to a skeleton, damaged some property and buildings, and snapped... burned several wands. Yes, that was roughly what had happened.

Good! He'd quickly sorted out the whole situation. In his view, from beginning to end, the little girl had acted entirely in lawful self-defense. She bore absolutely no responsibility! The Gringotts employees had coveted her money and were chiefly at fault! The Ministry of Magic had acted without investigating the truth and was only partly to blame!

Yes, that was exactly how it should be handled. That was Dumbledore's solution. Perfect! He silently nodded to himself. If anyone had a problem with it, they could go argue with the little girl. Don't come to him! Did they think he had nothing better to do? He had a mountain of work to get through!

"Then this will be easy to settle!" Dumbledore said, satisfied, as he drew his Elder Wand and pointed it at one of the Goblins hanging in the air. He brought down Bogrod, the leader of the Gringotts Goblins. As for the other Goblins still dangling there? What did he care? Let them hang! They wouldn't die from it! If they got a brain hemorrhage after hanging there too long, they could take some medicine, couldn't they?

"Bogrod, you heard what Miss Granger said just now, didn't you?" Dumbledore narrowed his eyes slightly and gave the Goblin leader a meaningful look, urging him to take responsibility and admit his mistake. Otherwise, Dumbledore would simply wash his hands of the matter.

"I-I heard. We were in the wrong! On behalf of Gringotts, I offer Miss Annie my sincere apologies. And... Gringotts Wizarding Bank is willing to compensate you ten times over... No! We'll compensate you a hundred times over!" With no one to match her strength and his hired help proving useless, Bogrod had no choice but to admit defeat. Exhausted, he finally backed down.

As for the dignity of Gringotts and the Goblins, he'd already tossed that somewhere out of sight. What mattered more, dignity or his life? Bogrod had no trouble telling the difference. Someone had finally come to mediate, so he'd better save his own skin first.

This whole mess had been caused by that damned Griphook from beginning to end! It was a good thing he'd died early. Otherwise, after all this was over, Bogrod would have dug up his bones and ground them to dust all over again! The wretch's hands might have been dirty, but now Bogrod had to take the blame for him too?

"Then you're Annie, right? You can call me Albus Dumbledore. It's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, I nearly forgot to ask—how many ancient coins did they cheat you out of?" Seeing that the matter had a perfect solution, Dumbledore felt greatly relieved! It seemed his old face still carried plenty of weight. Wherever he went, people listened to him.

"Oh! About this many." Annie saw that the white-bearded old man seemed to know Hermione, and she didn't want this fight to drag on forever. It was no fun! So she went along with it, though she still expected compensation, and held up her small, tender hand.

"Oh? Only fifty coins? Not much, not much! This will be simple." Cheating someone out of a mere fifty coins? Those Gringotts Goblins had really gone downhill. They must have thought they could get away with it because the two girls looked easy to bully. But look how that had turned out! Dumbledore suddenly thought the Goblins deserved to be beaten. His own fee for making an appearance would probably have cost more than those fifty coins!

After hearing that it was only fifty coins, Bogrod, slumped on the floor, finally felt his heart stop pounding. A mere fifty ancient coins, even at an exchange rate of one to three Galleons, would mean no more than fifteen thousand Galleons in compensation at a hundred times the amount. For the wealthy Gringotts, that was nothing—pocket change!

Bogrod figured that the repair costs for Gringotts would probably be far higher than that. It was all that damned Griphook's fault! For the sake of a mere fifty coins, he'd caused Gringotts such enormous losses. And if they counted the dragon, the loss would be astronomical!

"No! That's not right, Professor! It wasn't fifty coins—at least five thousand! Maybe more! The pouch was that big!" Hermione hurriedly shouted to correct Headmaster Dumbledore, gesturing with both hands to show the size of the pouch. "The pet shop owner can confirm it too. She was the one who suggested we come to Gringotts to exchange them."

Hermione couldn't afford to let this go. If they really settled things based on fifty coins, little Annie might end up fighting the Goblins again! Hermione had had more than enough of today. She didn't want to stay here in fear any longer! She just wanted to get out, find her irresponsible father, and go home as quickly as possible! Oh, and before going home, she still had to pick up that big-faced cat. Even now, Hermione didn't want to break her promise to it.

"H-How much? Five thousand?!" Even Dumbledore was taken aback by that number.

If that was the case, it made sense.

No wonder that reckless Goblin had dared to try it. Dumbledore thought that even he might have been tempted by that much money. How much was his annual salary again? A few hundred Galleons? Less than a thousand, probably? Good grief! Even a little girl had more money than he did... But what did that have to do with him? He wasn't the one paying compensation!

"Bogrod, you heard that, didn't you? Any objections? Speak up now if you have any." Dumbledore looked gleefully at the Goblin leader slumped on the floor. He began calculating in his head: if it was more than five thousand coins, how much would Gringotts have to pay?

"N-No objections!" The Goblin leader lowered his head deeply.

Merlin, no! If that was the case, Gringotts would have to pay a full one and a half million Galleons! Bogrod felt as if his heart had been shattered. One and a half million Galleons... Damn that murderous Griphook! Even though he'd already been burned to ashes, Bogrod still wanted to find his soul and torture it for ten thousand years.

"Oh, and you too, Fudge!" Dumbledore suddenly turned to the Minister of Magic, who was still standing there as if sleepwalking. "This matter ends here. Everything that happened today is over. The Ministry of Magic shouldn't have any objections, should it?"

"Objections? None, absolutely none! I agree! I'm in favor!" At Dumbledore's words, Fudge jolted back to his senses and immediately raised his hand to show he had no objections. He'd wanted to leave this dreadful place for ages. He didn't want to stay another moment!

At first, he'd thought he was coming to arrest a few thugs. He might even earn some credit, get his face in the papers, and so on. But what had happened? He'd gained nothing and lost a lot, and he'd made a complete fool of himself!

Besides, the Aurors had lost dozens of high-performance wands! That was a substantial sum too!

The Ministry of Magic couldn't be made to foot that bill. Fudge figured that once this was settled, he'd send someone to have a serious talk with that damned Goblin leader. He'd make sure the Goblins paid up—not only for the Ministry's losses, but also for a little compensation for his own mental anguish! Oh, and the Aurors deserved compensation too. As their Minister, he couldn't keep it all for himself.