Chapter 362: Returned from the Fire

After a brief hesitation, Harry shouted loudly: "Everyone scatter and avoid the dragon! Ron, we'll go get them."

"Alright." Ron gave him a strange look, then the two of them flew their brooms above the dragon.

Leveraging his Seeker's superior distance sense and aerial skill, Harry effortlessly grabbed Elena's hand and pulled her up. Only then did he notice another girl on the dragon's back—Hermione—clutching a rope, her face tense as she struggled to control the dragon's direction.

"Give me your hand!" Ron shouted. "Forget it!"

Harry placed Elena on his broom, then noticed Zhang Qiu and Marietta flying over; he whispered, "Marietta, can you take her?"

"Why do I have to get on a Ravenclaw broom?" Elena grumbled.

"You can fool Donald, but don't fool yourself," Zhang Qiu stared at her.

"Fine." She shrugged and carefully climbed onto another broom in midair.

At that moment, Ron successfully pulled Hermione free; the Dragon's Peak no longer veered off course—it flew straight in one direction, seemingly toward Hogwarts.

"That's insane—what did you two do?" Classmates began gathering around, bombarding them with questions.

"I mean, we… uh…" Hermione stammered, her expression uneasy; she clutched her robe tightly, clearly hiding something inside.

Elena announced loudly: "We robbed Gringotts!"

Instantly, the entire flight formation erupted; children burst into chaotic chatter, their faces filled with shock and excitement as they crowded around one after another, demanding: "Is that true?"

Harry stood frozen for a long moment—he knew it was true, because Snape had told him: "Donald promised to handle Gringotts." But he never imagined that Donald, a billionaire and a wizarding parliamentarian, would refuse to send anyone else and instead force two girls to fulfill his promise.

Finally, after Neville nudged him, Harry realized he needed to restore order; he shouted: "Quiet! Everyone quiet! Once we get back to school, Elena can tell us her story slowly!"

But Elena, naturally excitable, had no interest in waiting until school; she launched right in: "It was a secret operation to cut off Voldemort's escape route…"

Harry hesitated whether to stop her, then realized there was nothing left to hide— even the vault's owner had fallen into their hands.

He deliberately fell back slightly, aligning himself beside Ron, then looked at Hermione, who sat sideways on her broom, and asked softly: "Is the cup with you?"

"Yes." Hermione glanced cautiously around, then admitted it quietly.

"Good. Then this is a complete victory." Harry gave her a reassuring smile, then turned his attention back to Elena's story.

"... o we got help from a goblin friend—he said his name was Griphook. He knew Gringotts' operations inside out and came up with a brilliant idea."

"Hermione and I walked right in, pretending we wanted to check our own vaults—which is perfectly normal, isn't it? Anyone can check their vault. But here's the clever part: all Gringotts vaults are connected!"

"The Lestrange vault is nearly at the very bottom. Gringotts assigns a dragon to guard it—these dragons are specially trained and can only be calmed by a specific sound: Dingdong chips. Unfortunately, Hermione and I couldn't afford the innermost vaults, and the goblin who took us to our own vault wouldn't have Dingdong chips."

"But they never expected—we knew the dragon guarding it!"

"Yes, Harry!" Elena turned back to say. "Remember the Triwizard Tournament? Dumbledore rescued the last dragon from Renata, right? And that dragon was already blinded by you."

"Uh… yeah, I guess." Harry nodded blankly.

"Headmaster Dumbledore helped us again, somehow. Gringotts bought that dragon cheaply because their original guard dragons were too old and not fierce enough—and this blind dragon had no other use, so it was dirt cheap."

"Guess who told me this? Fleur! She works at Gringotts. When she told me they'd bought our old friend, I just thought it was funny—never imagined it'd come in handy. To calm that dragon, there's something far more effective than Dingdong chips: Harry's spell."

"The blood of the king must end by the sword!" Elena mimicked Harry's voice, speaking with powerful force.

Everyone turned to look at Harry; Harry struggled painfully to control his expression in utter embarrassment.

"When I said that, it immediately dropped to the ground, wings shielding its head, as quiet as a chick. We slipped quietly into the Lestrange vault. My goodness, you can't imagine how rich these old-money families are—the entire vault, floor to ceiling, was packed with gold coins and golden goblets…"

Harry felt puzzled. He whispered to Hermione: "Was it really that easy? No key?"

Hermione replied in a whisper so faint Harry couldn't catch it. He leaned closer: "What?"

"Elena used the Imperius Curse on the staff there," Ron repeated at a moderate volume.

Hermione instantly looked terrified. Only after noticing everyone was entranced by Elena's description of the wealth did she relax, then punched Ron's shoulder.

"... midst the glittering jewels, I spotted one goblet that stood out. Of course, it wasn't that simple—I thought it was ours, but it wasn't. Later, I noticed it had no Hufflepuff emblem. Worse, the cunning Lestranges had placed both the Fire Curse and the Duplication Curse on every item in their vault: the moment I touched it, it burned me and fell to the ground, spitting out a dozen identical goblets at once."

"We didn't dare move a muscle, only stared. But when Hermione tried to illuminate with her wand, she accidentally knocked over a cascade of fake Galleons—we had to clamp our arms tightly against our sides and could only twist our wrists to move the wand."

"But here's the thing—if the Lestranges were clever enough to add security, they clearly weren't clever enough. We quickly realized something absurd: the little golden cup was sitting right on top of the gold pile. They never thought to hide it among other items or bury it under Galleons."

"But with this damn Fire Curse and Duplication Curse, we hit another problem: how do we retrieve it?"

Elena told the story with gripping intensity, but Harry quickly figured it out: just touch it with a stick or something—if the object duplicated upon contact, the coins would've long since exploded the vault from touching the floor.

"And Griphook told us something worse: the Fire Curse and Duplication Curse were linked to another alarm spell—if goblins detect anyone triggering the vault owner's security, they'll come investigate—in other words, we've been discovered."

"Yes, right then, our clever Hermione thought of a solution: she used the spell Donald taught us—turning her wizard's robe into a sword. She tried touching a nearby silver pitcher with the blade—it didn't duplicate."

"But there was still one problem: even with the sword, we couldn't reach it. The cup was too high. We had little time left—the distant sound of Dingdong chips was already drifting in, meaning the goblins were coming."

"We couldn't afford to hesitate. I prepared to use the Hanging Charm to suspend Hermione—but she worried she'd hit another suit of armor. And at that critical moment—Griphook, the goblin, suddenly spoke something astonishing."

"He said: 'Can't you make the sword fly?' And just like that, the solution opened up: use the Levitation Charm to make the sword float, then gently hook the cup's handle on the blade. We retrieved the cup that way, and Hermione stuffed it into a pouch."

"Then came our escape plan—you've probably guessed what we did? Hey, yes—we climbed onto the dragon's back and cut its chains. Since it helped us so much, we gave it back the freedom of flight."

"Of course, one final task remained—our goblin friend would handle it: the moment we burst out of the vault, he raised his hands and screamed, 'Thieves! Help!' We all know goblins hate wizards so much they're overly lenient with their own kind—and this backfired on them, because Griphook wouldn't utter a single true word."

"He'll say two Death Eaters forced him. The goblins will assume it was a Death Eater infighting. The Ministry will investigate in that direction—no one will guess it was us. No one will guess—this is another great victory of the Order of the Phoenix."

"She just blurted it all out—what if someone among the students betrays her?" Neville edged closer, worried.

"Don't worry—the Ministry has our people. They'll claim it was Death Eater infighting and paint Elena as a little girl exaggerating for attention." Harry wasn't concerned at all—strictly speaking, it really was Death Eater infighting.