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Hearing the shouts from outside, Harry instinctively glanced at Veratia.
"What are you looking at me for?" Veratia tilted her head at a ninety-degree angle—an action that, paired with Bellatrix's face, somehow didn't seem out of place.
"I was just wondering why the Aurors got here so quickly," Harry said, though his wand was already drawn from his robes.
"Can we negotiate?" he asked.
Veratia pressed her wand against her cheek. "If you think they'd show mercy to two Azkaban escapees," she replied with a smirk.
Outside, the Aurors were still urging the two to come out and surrender, without even bothering to check with Azkaban to confirm whether they had actually escaped.
"Listen up in there! Stop your pointless resistance!" an Auror bellowed.
"I think we should just Disapparate," Harry said, turning to Veratia.
"Do you really think the goblins at Gringotts forgot to cast Anti-Disapparition Charms here?" Veratia replied leisurely, as if she had all the time in the world.
"What about Fiona?" Harry asked.
"Fiona's at home," Veratia answered, then pointed her wand at the door.
The door exploded as if hit by a bomb, crashing to the ground with a thunderous boom, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
At the same moment, a barrage of red light flashed from outside.
"Stupefy!"
Multiple spells shot toward the doorway.
Harry sidestepped, dodging the curses with ease.
"You wouldn't want the Ministry to find out you're masquerading as a Lestrange, would you?" Veratia said, grinning at Harry. "Get ready to fight—I'm warning you, if they catch you, it's straight to Azkaban."
"I'm not going to that wretched place," Harry shot back. "Come on, we'll fight our way out together. But remember… once we're outside Gringotts, we Disapparate to Professor Scamander's tent."
"There are so many of them out there, Harry," Veratia said, her eyes glinting with a wild, excited spark. "Why not listen to me? Let's take them all down first, then leave. What do you say?"
"That's not the right choice!" Harry countered firmly. "Let's go—they're Aurors, I mean…"
His strong moral compass made him reject Veratia's tempting suggestion.
Raising his wand, he conjured a gust of wind to clear the dust from the doorway.
With the dust gone, Harry and Veratia came face-to-face with the Aurors, who had formed three layers of encirclement outside.
"Well, well, well…" Veratia, in her Bellatrix guise, let out a manic cackle. She raised a hand and waved at the Aurors. "Hello there!"
Her greeting was met with over a dozen Stupefy spells.
Unfazed, Veratia cast a Protego, deflecting the curses with ease and even finding the leisure to counterattack.
"Stop them!" shouted the lead Auror, a man with a wild mop of curly hair.
As the Aurors scrambled to block Veratia's onslaught, Harry seized the moment. With a single Expelliarmus, he sent the wands of the Aurors at the door flying.
What kind of Disarming Charm was that?
The Aurors froze, stunned.
They had apprehended Rodolphus Lestrange before, but the Rodolphus of old was nowhere near as powerful as the one standing before them now. To disarm over a dozen Aurors with a single spell? That was… unbelievable.
Even Voldemort himself might not wield such mastery over the Disarming Charm.
Seeing the Aurors momentarily dazed, Harry knew their chance to escape had come.
Aurors weren't like dark wizards; they weren't inherently evil. If he could avoid clashing with them, Harry would.
"Now!" he shouted back to Veratia.
"You won't escape!" the curly-haired Auror roared, raising his wand and aiming at Harry, disguised as Rodolphus.
Instead of dodging or casting Protego, Harry targeted the nearest Auror.
"Accio!"
Before the man could react, Harry had pulled him into his grasp.
The curly-haired Auror's spell hit his own colleague, who slumped unconscious with a groan.
"Rufus!" the others cried. "You hit one of our own! Merlin's beard!"
Harry released the stunned Auror, raised his wand, and cast a Blasting Curse into the crowd. Taking advantage of the chaos, he dashed out of Gringotts in a few quick strides. Under the frustrated gazes of the Aurors, he twisted into a vortex and Disapparated.
Seeing Harry escape, Veratia lost interest in playing around and followed suit, vanishing from Gringotts.
The two "escapees" were gone. Thankfully, there were no casualties, and the Aurors let out a collective sigh of relief.
Back when Death Eaters roamed the British wizarding world, such a fight would never have been this easy.
They had practically escaped with their lives.
The Aurors rushed forward to check on their fallen colleague, especially the culprit, Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office.
"Dawlish! Dawlish!" they called, lifting him and patting his cheeks to rouse him.
After a moment, Dawlish stirred groggily.
"Why is it always me?" were his first words, laced with complaint.
"Be grateful you're still alive," one of his colleagues consoled.
The chaos at Gringotts never made it to the front page of The Daily Prophet, nor did any related rumors spread.
When the Ministry confirmed that Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange were still securely imprisoned in Azkaban, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Just some bored fool's idea of a prank," Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge told his officials.
For someone like Fudge, keeping his seat as Minister was paramount. Whether it was really the Lestranges causing havoc at Gringotts didn't matter much to him. As long as a pair of Lestranges were serving time in Azkaban, he could invite anyone to verify it for themselves.
It wasn't until the next day that Dumbledore and the others returned to Hogwarts.
An incident of this magnitude couldn't go unnoticed by Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and President of the International Confederation of Wizards. He had to visit the Ministry to make inquiries.
"I must say," Dumbledore said, clutching his chest as he spoke to Veratia, "I didn't expect you two to cause such a scene at Gringotts, drawing the Aurors' attacks. I hope next time you plan something like this, you'll inform us beforehand. An old man like me, over a century old, can't handle shocks like this."
He had indeed been startled. When the Aurors were blasted back by the explosion, Dumbledore thought some dark wizard had come to plunder Gringotts. Never would he have guessed that Veratia, Gellert Grindelwald's former classmate, had decided to indulge in a bit of theatrical mischief.
"It was Veratia getting too into character," Harry said, immediately ratting out his friend. "I told her to leave quickly, but she wanted to play the whole thing out."
"I'm surprised The Daily Prophet didn't run this as a sensational headline," Cassandra said, disappointed. "I thought the Ministry would be in chaos, maybe even shut down the paper."
"Nothing strange about that," Veratia said with a smile. "We wizards value democracy. Censorship is a relic of a century ago. Nowadays, we decide what to publish through proper channels."
"And the Minister for Magic?" Cassandra asked, frowning at Dumbledore. "Surely the current Minister wouldn't let something like an Azkaban escapee attacking Aurors slide?"
"Well," Dumbledore said, tapping the desk, "I know Cornelius well. He cares more about his position as Minister than principles. The moment things look bad, he's the first to run."
Cassandra's frown deepened at Dumbledore's assessment.
Could the British wizarding world thrive under such a Minister?
"He's raised the average age of the Ministry but lowered its average intelligence," Harry added dryly.
Veratia couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.
"Isn't that a bit harsh on our Minister?" Newt asked, looking up.
"But it's made us happy," Harry replied.
Newt thought for a moment and chuckled too.
Poking fun at Fudge behind his back was indeed rather amusing.
"Let's get to business," Dumbledore said, settling behind his desk in the Headmaster's office. "What did you find in the Lestrange vault? Did you see a portrait of Ominis Gaunt or Marvolo Gaunt's ring?"
"Nothing of the sort," Harry said honestly. "But we did find something else—a sword belonging to Godric Gryffindor and a goblet belonging to Helga Hufflepuff."
With that, Veratia pulled out a small pouch and emptied Gryffindor's sword and Hufflepuff's goblet onto the floor.
"That's not Godric's sword," the Sorting Hat declared loudly. "Ever since Godric's death, his sword has been safe inside me. How could it be lost? Come here, scar-headed boy."
The "scar-headed boy" was clearly Harry.
When Harry didn't move, the Sorting Hat lifted itself slightly, flipping up its brim. "Hurry up, scar-headed boy—take out the real Sword of Gryffindor. You're a true Gryffindor!"
Harry stepped forward and reached into the Hat.
"Oh, so you meant me," he said.
"Who else would be the 'scar-headed boy'?" the Sorting Hat grumbled. "Merlin's beard, you've got no self-awareness, do you?"
Harry drew the true Sword of Gryffindor from the Hat and returned to his seat, placing the sword on Dumbledore's desk.
He wasn't about to argue with a hat. If it wanted to tease him, so be it.
Besides, he was the scar-headed boy.
"See, I've kept Godric's sword safe and sound," the Sorting Hat boasted. "Only I can tell which one is truly Godric's."
Harry stepped over to the fake sword, blocking the Hat's view. He mixed the two swords together, picked them up, and asked, "Alright, let's test you—which one is the real Sword of Gryffindor?"
"The one in your right hand, scar-headed boy," the Sorting Hat said lazily.
Harry was genuinely surprised. The Hat could actually tell the difference.
"Worth noting," Harry said, placing the real sword on the desk and tapping the fake one against the Hufflepuff goblet, "this goblet has a powerful dark magic curse on it."
Dumbledore, having examined the goblet, sighed. "If I'm not mistaken, this is likely another of Voldemort's Horcruxes."
Harry grimaced, slightly repulsed. "Merlin, he's disgusting… like a dog marking its territory everywhere."
Meanwhile, far off at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Sirius Black, munching on a raw giant spider, suddenly sneezed twice.
Feels like someone's talking about me.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought, and went back to devouring his spider.
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