Magical Money

Before entering Gringotts, I change my appearance to my original look. I wanted to open the vault under my own name. I folded my clothes to be more fitting as they were at Mortiss' size.

After I deem myself presentable, I enter the door of Gringotts. They have these sinister words on the entrace door. It's there to warn any thieves.

Basically, they threaten with stuff so that we don't steal since stealing is impossible (to them). This is ironic. A few years later, there would be two attempted robberies.

Looking inside, I finally see the goblins. They sit on high chairs at each side of the wall. They seem busy overseeing clients, writing reports, or checking out gemstones on the long table in front of them.

Basically, they look exactly like in the movies. Goblins have small stature. I think their average height is about 1 meter. The tallest looks about 1.3 meters. Their mouth seem to have permanent sneer on. Their eyes look beady and watery. Their skin is wrinkled. The older, the wrinkler.

Personally, I think the high chairs are unnecessary. The goblins seem to do it on purpose. They especially want to look down on non-goblin, just to spite them. Like saying: hey, I am of higher status than you or something like that.

Yet sadly, it is understandable. Some wizards and witches or others treat them poorly, akin to lowly creatures. Same thing as the house-elves.

I also think that the high chairs could also be their way of soothing their insecurities about their stature. It's like some women use high heels to appear taller. Whatever it is, I can't lower my guards around them as they are clearly a spiteful nation.

Nearing one of the empty booths, I small cough to the goblin in charge. I will not wait for them to notice me as they don't appear to care about anything other than what's on their table. Ain't nobody got time for that.

When he looked down to see me, I said straight to the point:

"Good day Sir. My name is Svetlana Vautoure. I'd like to exchange some muggle money and open a personal vault. I wonder if there is any maximum limit of muggle money I could exchange? Also, can I change some bullion of gold and silver to some galleons and sickles?"

As I expected, he doesn't mind my child's appearance. Money is money, after all. Good.

The goblin said in his gruff voice:

"There is no limit in muggle money one could exchange. Golds and silver bullions have to be appraised by our goblins first to see their purity. We have a high standard (he sneers menacingly here). The exchange rates are: £5 equals 1 galleon; 1 kg of gold accounts for 2500 galleons; 1 kg of silver accounts for 10.000 sickles; 17 sickles account for 1 galleon coin"

I'm cackling madly inside. I guess they have ways to dispose of the muggle money after all. Good for me.

"I'd like to change 100.000 pounds of my money into galleons and open a vault with it, please".

And then, I start transferring the money from my backpack to the table in front of him. With this amount, I should get 20.000 galleons.

After he checks and counts my money, he takes them to some space below his table and gives some documents (contracts) for me to sign. He asked me about the kind of vault I'd like. There are several types divided by their security measures. So naturally I chose one of the highest security vaults, but no dragon. I have a lot of money, and I want to keep them safe for now.

He said, "this contract states that Gringotts lends the vault for you to save your money in. The vault is high in security with a special area of 100x100x80 meters. No dragon, but your blood and magical signature are required to open it. Here is your vault key to the vault number: 768. The yearly fee for your vault is 2500 galleons. You need to sign here, and wait on the side till your vault is ready. We will escort you there. The key and vault number are required to confirm your ownership. If you lose the key, the replacement fee is 50 galleon. Your blood should be compared to the one at your vault."

After he gives me the contract paper to sign, I read it from above to bottom. I also flip it to see if the back side of it contains anything. After I re-read it 3 times and make sure there's no loophole, I sign it with, unsurprisingly, a blood quill. It felt painful for a moment. But I held it in. I'm a big girl, so I should be fine.

The blood from the contract will directly be connected to my vault, so I don't need to bleed again to set it up later. Just some blood to open it.

After signing the paper, I wait on the sideline for about 30 minutes. After that, a goblin shouts my name to follow him inside.

We walk down many passages, each becoming narrower and narrower until we reach some kind of shuttle where many carts are available. Each cart is equipped with a hand lamp. We hop into one of them, and off we go to the underground tunnels.

The cart journey is allright, I guess. Even though I've never ridden a roller coaster before, yester did. She rode all kinds of rides. Some of which were quite extreme. So, I kinda know how it feels like, hypothetically speaking. So yeah, the journey is quite comfortable for me.

After arriving in front of a vault with 768 number on its door, the goblin motions me to get off the cart and get my hand on the door. The goblin himself stays in the cart. I wonder why?

The vault itself is located rather deep underground. I'm guessing about 150 or 200 meters deep. The temperature is quite chilly and damp. There's no other light source except for our hand lamp from the cart. The double door looks really old and huge. It has no handle and seems to be made of very huge stones. If not because of the door shape, we would only see a solid stone wall.

After a few seconds of hesitation, I put my right hand on the door. I felt a slight prick like when you get a paper cut, then something flows from my body to the door through my hand. Well, I guess that's my magic flowing.

A few seconds later, the double door automatically opens inward, and the sight inside leaves me speechless. A mountain of gold occupy one part of the vault. Though there are still many empty spaces that I intend to entirely fill.

Walking to the mountain of gold, I shove as many coins as I could contain into my backpack. After that, I go back to the cart. I still have tasks to do after this.

Sitting back and starting the cart to go back up, I asked the goblin why he stayed in the cart and he said:

"So I wouldn't die. The protection works so that anyone except the owner (not even the descendants) will be cut with a lethal cutting curse all over their body. And if anyone survives that somehow, when they put their hand on the door, all magic will be absorbed and renders them magicless instantly. But nobody will come to that I assure you (he sneers menacingly here). All area except the cart is owner-only bound."

I don't know what to say after that, so I just kept quiet till we reach the hall. After reaching the hall, I just got out of the building and go to the nearest empty Alley to morph into Mortiss again.

My first and last stop for the day is a trunk or bag shop. After walking a while, I notice a shop that sells all kinds of pouches, bags, trunks, and even tents. So I go there and purchase myself a black pouch with large space-extension charms, anti-theft, anti-tear, and all kinds of protection charms. The pouch is quite small with a dimension of 10x20x10 cm. This would be my money pouch. I will be the only one who could access this pouch. The prize for the pouch is 20 galleons.

After getting the pouch, I put all the money from my backpack into the pouch. I made sure that the shopkeeper did not see me as I asked him to search a trunk for me. I also put my Gringotts key inside the pouch.

Other than a pouch, I also purchased a black trunk with all kinds of charms: feather-light charm, foldable, anti-theft, anti-tear, fire, and water-resistant, etc. The trunk has 4 huge compartments and 1 secret compartment. The 4 compartments are to be used to store books, clothes, potion ingredients (later on), perishable goods such as food and drinks, and other miscellaneous stuff.

This trunk will be my Hogwarts trunk later. But now, I'm going to use it to transport my gold, silver, and money.

Like my pouch, the trunk could only be opened by me. And it has its own ventilation and stasis system when activated. The trunk costs me about 250 galleons. Money well spent, I'd say.

After a long day, I decided to go back to the orphanage as I still have other time to shop for other necessities. I got out of the Alley, through the Leaky pub, and outside in the Charring Cross. After making sure that nobody is aware of me, I disapparate straight back to my room. That way, when anyone asks me where I was the whole day, I could say that I was in my room all along.