Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Chapter 239: The Black Family Deeds

“Sirius, what in the world is this?” Harry asked in surprise.

“I don’t know, it’s not the same as when I came here 16 years ago!” Sirius looked around, and wondered, “From what I remember, mountains of gold coins and gold goods filled the whole room, till the point where we could not set foot inside…”

For the moment, the vault was empty. In addition to all sorts of bizarre treasures and black magic items that were very evil at a glance, even the shadow of gold could not be seen.

“Griphook?!”

“We can’t reveal the secrets of our customers, but this doesn’t seem like something that needs to be concealed.” Griphook sullenly said, “This vault was opened 13 years ago, and at the behest of its owner at the time, Mrs. Walburga Black, we sent our staff to transfer all the gold and goods here to the personal vaults of Ms. Bellatrix Lestrange and Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy. Because there was so much gold, the task took us two whole days.”

Hearing Griphook’s description, Evan could imagine the scene at the time.

The goblins lined up and walked in and out of the Black family’s vault, carrying gold in their arms and carrying them up to the personal vaults in carts.

“Not surprising, after Regulus’s death, my dear old mother redistributed the family’s wealth.” Sirius said sarcastically, “Each of my cousins has a share. One of them is married to a Death Eater, and the other is one of the craziest of them all. My mother must’ve been so proud! It’s no surprise. I should have guessed she’d do it. She certainly didn’t want to leave me anything.”

Sirius walked over to a skull and kicked it to the side with his foot.

The cracked old skull rolled on the ground, making an uncomfortable rough sound, rolling into the dark corner of the room.

Evan, Harry, and Hermione looked at each other and saw the fear in each other’s eyes.

As if noticing that the atmosphere was not quite right, Sirius immediately raised his head and said, “Well, you three don’t let this get you down. Nobody cares about the gold. We are here to find the deeds. Let me see, they should still be here. ”

He went to a cupboard and rummaged, and Evan hurried over to help.

Sirius was right, everything that looked dangerous, black magic items and things apparently bearing the Black family emblem were left here, unmoved.

The absence of gold wasn’t the only bizarre thing in the vault.

Many of them were simply weird ornamental accessories, belonging to the personal collection of former members of the Black family.

There were also many items that had magical power, and Evan even felt a powerful magical reaction from several items. Unfortunately, most of them were black magic items, and could not be used.

Before a big, dark red stone table, Evan saw a simple card.

The card showed that everything on the table belonged to Arcturus Black, and Evan remembered the Black family tree he had seen the day before. This guy was Sirius’s Grandfather, a person who had remained alive until 3 or 4 years ago.

On the stone table, the most striking thing was bloodstained motionless eyeball, in a glass box.

It looked as if being ripped out directly from someone’s head.

There were various bones placed on the inner side of the stone platform, most of which were the bones of magical creatures, but many of them were of the shape of the known that human bones.

There couldn’t be a title deed on the top, and Evan went to the side to open another closet.

Under the cover of thick dust, he saw dozens of large glass bottles filled with unknown yellow and green liquids.

He narrowed his eyes, moved closer, and looked curiously.

The nearest glass bottle contained an Ashwinder, very slender, the size of a thick thread. It was bent in a strange way, very similar to the Ashwinder pattern in the book.

The Ashwinder is a rare magical creature. It’s a serpent born with magic.

The Ashwinder is created when a magical fire is left burning for too long. A thin, pale-grey serpent with glowing red eyes, would rise from the embers of an unsupervised fire and slither away into the shadows of the dwelling in which it finds itself, leaving an ashy trail behind it.

The Ashwinder lives for only an hour and during that time seeks a dark and secluded spot in which to lay its eggs, after which it will collapse into dust.

Ashwinder eggs are bright red and give off intense heat.

They will ignite the dwelling within minutes if not found in time. These Ashwinder eggs have a strong magical power, and if they can be frozen with a Freezing Charm, they can be used in a Love Potion or eaten whole as a cure for ague.

Because of the high demand for fire, this kind of serpent is actually hard to come into being.

It is impossible to preserve an Ashwinder as a specimen, and Evan had never seen anything similar except this one in the bottle.

Just as he was about to get closer and look at what was interesting in the other bottles, Hermione’s voice came from the side.

“Come here, I found the deeds!” she shouted.

Hermione took a lot of yellow paper from a file cabinet, which was full of text and was very hard to read. It was in old English. At the very back, there was the seal of the Black family and the seal of the Ministry of magic, proving that the title deeds were legal and valid.

“This is 6 Spider Tail Alley!” Hermione picked up the top deed and looked at it carefully. “I’ve never heard of this place, where is the Spider Tail Alley?”

“In the north side of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, there is a large Muggle area in the middle.” Sirius came over and explained, “It’s an ancient wizard gathering area, about 500 years old. Because there were many black wizards who had gradually abandoned it in recent decades, this place doesn’t have any importance.”

Under this deed, was the 12 Grimmauld Place’s deed. It belonged to the Blacks for centuries. In addition to the house, it also included a large area of land. The deed had the emblem of the Presbyterian Church of the Ministry of Magic, and the emblem of the then Muggle King.

The fourth deed was for a shop in Knockturn Alley, and there was a long-term rental agreement in each of the two deeds.

One of them, No. 21 was rented to an old witch, for a period of 40 years to sell things like poison apples and poison candles. As for the 83rd, it was rented to McGonagall family for a period of one hundred years to sell the fur and skulls of various magical creatures.

After that, the fifth deed was finally a shop on Diagon Alley, No. 36 Diagon Alley.

“36 Diagon Alley!” Hermione recalled carefully. “It seems to be between the Eeylops Owl Emporium and Ollivander’s Wand Shop, there…”

In Evan’s memory, there was indeed a big place, there, that has been idle for a long time.

That place should be 36 Diagon Alley. This location was not the best, but there were many people around. Especially at the beginning of school every year, many young wizards would buy magic wands or an owl as a pet.

It was a good fit for the newspaper headquarters. If the place was large enough, the first floor location could be fully utilized to sell things like Weasley joke products.

Inside the file cabinet, the last deed was the Blacks’ Manor in the countryside. It was very large and seemed to have a deserted castle on it.