the Horcrux Thief, james potter

xvi. vault sixty-six & sleep

"Your family, Miss Santoro," corrected Odbert, his beady little eyes sparkling in greedy excitement. "Oldest foreign family in the bank."

"Well, I wish to visit my vault," said Amaya firmly.

The goblin fingers tapped on the key and he pursed his lips. "I'm afraid that won't be possible, Miss, not without proof of who you are."

"Proof?" James asked, and Amaya could hear the incredulity in his voice.

"Yes, yes," said Odbert, "Such an old vault comes with higher security, Mr. Potter."

"When you say proof," Amaya began, "Do you mean—"

"A blood test, Miss Santoro." He reached for something under his desk and then placed a golden plate atop the counter, placing the key on top of it. "Just a drop will do."

The plate, goblin made, was waning off a type of magic Amaya had never felt before. It was channeling the key's magic and the imprints of its users. She figured it was used to see whether the magic aligned.

Odbert passed her a knife but Amaya wasn't stupid enough to give him her blood just like that. Instead, she made a nick the size of a paper cut on her finger with magic and touched her finger to the plate.

When she raised it, the imperceptible dot of blood on the plate disappeared, and the gold shimmered for a moment before it went still. The goblin pursed his lips again. "Follow me to your vault, Miss Santoro."

James and Amaya shared a victorious look and Amaya snatched her key as the two of them followed the little goblin.

Odbert took them to a little cart that ran through the tracks intertwining beneath the surface, miles down to the various vaults in the bank. It was efficient, seeing that it was the only way to get to the vaults since there was an Anti-Apparition charm around the bank. It was rather close to the one in Madrid, in terms of vaults miles down within the Earth, only in the wizarding bank in Spain, they'd created their own type of Floo Network that could be used for better access—one could argue though, it wasn't the safest.

The moment they sat down on the cart, James put his arm over the back of his seat. "How come I never knew you had your mother's surname?" he asked her and Amaya looked up at him with a shrug.

"Never came up I guess. It's not the name I use." She glanced around to see Odbert sitting down and felt the carriage jerk on the tracks. "What do you think will be down there?"

"Gold?" he said as the cart started moving, and Amaya rolled her eyes. James smiled. "Whatever it is, it'll be fine."

"Thanks for coming with me—" Amaya's words broke into a shriek when the cart fell down a slope, faster than she would've expected, and she heard James laugh.

Amaya didn't even have time to glare at him because the next moment they were taking a sharp turn that had her praying for every Saint her mother used to teach her, and cursing like a sailor as she grabbed onto James' arm, her nails surely leaving marks on his skin with every turn and twist they took.

It was weird, how on a broomstick, Amaya could go as fast if not faster than the little cart, spin around in the air, and even fall with full confidence, but a ride on the rickety cart had her stomach twisting, her soul leaving her body a couple of times.

She was hanging on to James, who was highly amused, for her life. She would kill him if they left the cart alive, how could he have forgotten to tell her it would be a torture device to test her body's grip to life?

The ride was long and sickening, they got splattered with magic water along the way that Odbert assured them was just the "Thief's Downfall" that was set in place to prevent thieves (a piece of information Amaya did not know about). By the time they got to the sixties, the cart had slowed down on a steady incline, until it stopped in its tracks in front of the door to vault 66.