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nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.
Hagrid grinned at Harry.
"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell
was tremblin' ter meet yeh -- mind you, he's usually tremblin'."
"Is he always that nervous?"
"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was
studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand
experience.... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there
was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag -- never been the same since.
Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me
umbrella?"
Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was
counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.
"Three up... two across he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."
He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.
The brick he had touched quivered -- it wriggled -- in the middle, a
small hole appeared -- it grew wider and wider -- a second later they
were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a
cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.
"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."
He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry
looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly
back into solid wall.
The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop.
Cauldrons -- All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver -- Self-Stirring
-- Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.
"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money
first."
Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every
direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at
once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their
shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as
they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're
mad...."
A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl
Emporium -- Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of
about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with
broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus
Two Thousand -- fastest ever --" There were shops selling robes, shops
selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen
before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes,
tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion
bottles, globes of the moon....
"Gringotts," said Hagrid.
They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other
little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a
uniform of scarlet and gold, was -
"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white
stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry.
He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very
long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were
facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved
upon them:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.
A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a
vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high
stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing
coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses.
There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more
goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made
for the counter.
"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money
outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."
"You have his key, Sir?"
"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his
pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits
over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry
watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as
glowing coals.
"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.
The goblin looked at it closely.
"That seems to be in order."
"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid
importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the YouKnow-What in
vault seven hundred and thirteen."
The goblin read the letter carefully.
"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have Someone
take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"
Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog
biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward
one of the doors leading off the hall.
"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry
asked.
"Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts
business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh
that."
Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more
marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with
flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little
railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came
hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in -- Hagrid with some
difficulty -- and were off.