Chapter Text
The white marble floor thudded beneath her standard-issue Auror boots as she entered the building. The boots were threadbare and the leather uppers were frayed in several areas, but she refused to replace what she deemed to be her lucky boots. She had performed countless Repairing Charms to the laces plus the soles were showing signs of the holes just beginning to form where her heels repeatedly struck the ground. They had seen months of action, especially after the mass breakouts from Azkaban in 1996 and 1997. They were with her as she tracked down numerous escapees, Death Eaters, and other various supporters of Voldemort. Sure she no longer had to wear them because she wasn’t working in the field anymore, but old habits die hard and these boots were well worn in and comfortable.
The lobby floor of Gringotts Wizarding Bank was a much more forgiving surface and a more serene setting than what she was accustomed to. Her griffin-like eyes, ever on alert, scanned the room astutely. None of the goblins paid her any attention nor bothered to glance up from their paperwork to make eye contact as Amynta Myriadd and her team of four Ministry employees assigned to her for the day made their way to where they were to meet their goblin escorts. Myriadd followed the goblins, which included the Head Goblin of the bank, to where they were to load onto two carts that would take them to the vault they needed. She wasn’t particularly fond of the rickety contraptions and would much rather travel by broom, but there was no way the finicky goblins would ever allow that.
The carts travelled along the tracks, delving deep down the dank, cavern-like passageways beneath bank to the vaults. The vaults were a complete opposite to the bright, light-filled lobby of Gringott’s. If not for the lanterns on the carts, the lower levels would be completely pitch black. Like every other time, relief could be seen on the Head Goblin’s face as the Thief’s Downfall had no effect on the passengers in the cart. The goblins had seemed extremely wary of any of the wizards and witches visiting the bank and on multiple occasions there were complaints from customers who were denied personal access to their vaults because of the tightened security measures.
It was a surprise they were allowed access to the bank at all. The goblins were at first reluctant to receive any aid from the Ministry to repair the bank, but after a lot of apologizing and attempts to make amends, explaining how necessary it was for the three teenagers to access the Lestrange vault in order to defeat Voldemort, the goblins accepted the Ministry’s offer.
She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little unsteady on her feet after disembarking the cart. Since the Ministry contracted a magical construction company to repair the damages that Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and a Ukrainian Ironbelly had caused when escaping from the bank after breaking into the Lestrange vault, the only noticeable difference when approaching the vault now was the absence of a dragon. Myriadd gazed at the large vault door, watching the Head Goblin, who was the only one now that could open the complex locking system of the vault.
The curses and enchantments normally employed by the goblins to protect the vault had been disabled, so Myriadd led her team into the last Death Eater vault the Ministry had left on their list to take inventory of and confiscate any Dark object within it. Normally this duty would belong to another division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but the department had been swamped with work and everyone had to help out where they could. Since she had been taken out of the field, Myriadd and other office bound Aurors were picking up random odd jobs from other divisions. Because of the expanse of the Lestrange vault and the sheer number of suspicious objects within it, it had taken them the longest out of all of the vaults to complete.
“Come on, let’s finish this one up today,” said Myriadd, eagerly ushering her team into the vault. “I want to be done with it. It’s hot down here and I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”
The mid-June heat made working in the tunnels underneath the bank an altogether unpleasant job. It was humid and the air was stagnant, almost as if it was as stale as the contents of the vaults. On top of that, the lack of natural sunlight also wasn’t appealing to an Auror who was used to being out in the field trailing Death Eaters. Inventory and paperwork felt like a life sentence in Azkaban for someone like Myriadd. The rivulets of sweat she could feel slowly meandering down her back didn’t add to the already unsavory atmosphere.
Nearing the end of a sweltering day cataloging artefacts to be removed from the vault, Myriadd levitated out four large stone tablets, carefully guiding them with her wand toward the wooden crates for transportation. These would go under the “potentially Dark object” category on her list because the wizard who was their Ancient Runes expert was not with them that day to tell her for sure if this was Dark magic related or not.
“Any idea what these could be about?” asked the other Auror on her team, nodding his head in the direction of the tablets as they floated on by him. He opened up a crate for the tablets to be stored in and wait for the next round of carts. Their Curse Breaker might know, but she had just gone with a cart loaded with crates back up to the surface.
The Ministry had so many objects requiring translation that they were beginning to get backlogged with work. The tablets would likely be one of the many things to be taken to the Ministry before being shipped to their next destination to get examined and translated by an expert outside of the Ministry.
“Not a clue,” answered Myriadd, “but I’d rather this get closely examined and guarantee it’s not another Dark object out there to fall into the wrong hands. Anything the Ministry doesn’t take is going to next of kin, which is the Malfoys. No need to give it right back to a Death Eater if it’s dangerous, whether they’re reformed as they claim or not. I’m not about to take any chances.”
“Yeah, I was working in the Malfoy vaults last week. They had their fair share of questionable things.”
“From what I heard in the office, word is Harry Potter was after something that belonged to Voldemort himself and Bellatrix Lestrange was keeping it in her vault,” said Myriadd.
“Hence the reason why I’ve been here for over a month scrutinizing over every single bloody thing in here.”
“I definitely don’t envy you,” he said, writing down the crate number and the description of the contents on the inventory list. “Most of the early vaults I worked on hardly had anything other than money inside them. It wasn’t until we started opening up vaults from Voldemort’s inner circle that we started finding more of the Dark objects. Only a few were nearly as extensive as this one though.”
“This one’s been a real pain. And the working conditions leave much to be desired,” she said as they packed up the third tablet.
The Auror nodded in agreement and prepped the crate for the fourth tablet to go inside. Myriadd examined it one more time before the crate was sealed up. She was certain the tablets were from the same place. The carved runes looked similar and each tablet was undoubtedly chipped away from a wall or column by the looks of the jagged edges and backsides. One even looked as if it had been broken in the process and mended poorly with a bad Repairing Charm.
The fourth tablet is what made them the most suspicious looking in Myriadd’s opinion. Instead of the simple rune inscriptions etched into the tablet, there was a picture chiseled into it, dominating the majority of the space on the tablet. It featured three women seated, each with something different resting in their laps. Whatever the women were holding didn’t look to be unusual to Myriadd; what disturbed her the most was the way their eyes seemed to pierce through her. Or maybe it was the unsettling feeling that someone was watching her as she examined the tablets.
“Do you notice anything strange about this picture?” she asked before they lowered it into the crate. The hairs on the back of her neck stood as she inspected the tablet. At eye-level the women were staring right back at her. “There’s something odd about it.”
“Not any more than some of this other stuff,” he replied, sliding the lid in place and sealing it up. “It all looks a little creepy to me.”
She decided to ignore whatever feelings she was getting from the tablet and levitated the crate onto the goblin cart that just arrived. She thought it was probably due to spending too much time down in those tunnels and her unease was probably all in her head anyway. Those tablets were likely nothing more than some old tale about three women and some runes expert would get a good laugh at an Auror thinking they were anything dangerous. Now that they were packed away and ready to be shipped, they were someone else’s problem.
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Myriadd made a beeline to elevators after stepping out of the Floo in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. She could have waited to turn in the paperwork for the Lestrange vault, but she still couldn’t shake the odd feelings she had after discovering those tablets. She hoped that by being completely done with the assignment would mean they’d be out of sight and out of mind.
When the elevator announced they had reached Level Two, she exited and crossed the entrance lobby, briefly greeting the wizard working the front desk. Most of the workstations on the floor were empty. With every available Auror in the field, except those who were recovering from injury or still in training, the Auror Office section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement looked like a ghost town; chairs were vacant, inkwells drying up, and neatly stacked files slowly collecting dust.
Her desk was one of the few that had seen any usage in the past few weeks. In fact, hers looked more like a crash site. Her files were scattered haphazardly and quills were strewn across the desktop. Remnants from far too many take-away dinners were left about and she was certain some were beginning to sprout some type of unsanitary growth. Gathering up her dust-free files, Myriadd headed over to the large office in the corner.
“Robards, the Lestrange vault is finally finished,” she announced without even knocking.
Gawain Robards became the Head of the Auror Office after Rufus Scrimgeour took over as the Minister for Magic. Since taking over the position, the stress seemed to have really aged him if the patches of grey in his beard, deep wrinkles in his forehead, and circles under his eyes were anything to go by. His shoulder-length, ash brown hair also had grey peppered in it where there was none before.
“That’s excellent,” came his tired response, reaching out a hand to take the file from her. “That’s the last of ‘em then?”
Despite his haggard demeanor, Myriadd thought of Robards as a tough old dog with more bite than bark. She had started Auror training a year after he had been promoted to Auror and they had worked together on joint field missions over the years and always got on well. She supposed that was the reason the superior and subordinate relationship was more relaxed than typical in the office.
“Yeah, all known Death Eaters and those found guilty for crimes associated with Voldermort have had their vaults searched.”
“Good work,” said Robards, skimming the contents of the Lestrange file. “I knew I could trust you to get it all done efficiently. You’ve been a great help with this.”
“Well, I’d rather be out there chasing them down, not sifting through their bloody trinkets,” grumbled Myriadd.
“You know I can’t let you back in the field and this way you’re helping the office out before you go on to your next journey in life.” He smiled, trying not to appear like he was placating her too much.
“You mean my forced retirement?” she scoffed. “Or the only position I could get that didn’t involve being chained to a desk or a rocking chair knitting tea cozies?”
“I know how you feel, but retirement is loads better than the alternative,” said Robards. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, the ranks of active Aurors in the Auror Office had gotten thinner. The Death Eaters had become more violent than ever either in retribution for their fallen leader or in attempts to flee the country to escape the unavoidable sentencing to Azkaban and the Aurors were on the receiving end of their erratic behavior.
“I’d rather go down fighting like Mad-Eye.”
“You’ll still be following Mad-Eye’s footsteps in some respects and with two good legs at least,” he said, glancing down momentarily at his bad leg. “Look, let me at least take you out for a drink and a real meal other than that Muggle take-away you’ve been living on for the last two months.”
Myriadd nodded in consent, though she wanted to comment that Mad-Eye Moody had actually spent most of that time inside of a magical trunk before rejoining the Order of the Phoenix. Just thinking about it, she could use a drink and probably a few more bottles of Firewhisky to prepare for the next “journey” she’d be facing.