The Great Escape

Harry stares at Griphook keenly, dead serious. He’s already sorted through a handful of plans in his head, and he knows they’re all rubbish. He needs Griphook’s expertise, desperately. And Griphook knows it. But he’s taken aback by Harry’s sheer nerve, that he would propose the doomed endeavor at all, so he sits there silently. Intrigued but incredulous. Then he utters, “You have no chance. No chance at all.”

No infiltration of Gringott’s Bank has ever been successful. Protective charms and enchantments have been strategically placed throughout the stronghold. Exits are limited. A dragon guards the vaults containing the most valuable of treasures and secrets. And this, this, is where Harry intends to go. This is where he feels certain Voldemort has hidden one of his horcruxes–deep within the underground recesses, inside the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange.

What would it take to gain Griphook’s acquiescence? Harry worries it will be something he cannot give, something he cannot promise. But he must risk bargaining with the goblin–it is their only chance.

With a sinking feeling and knots in the pit of his stomach, Harry agrees to trade the Sword of Gryffindor for Griphook’s assistance. Ron and Hermione are skeptical. They try to catch his eye with furtive glances, which he judiciously ignores. There is no other way, and he knows they’ll agree in the end. They’re with him. They always have been. Plus, Hermione will work out the details.

And what a plan she devises!

Transfigured by Polyjuice Potion into Bellatrix Lestrange, she barely manages to conjure a passable haughty swagger. Ron skulks beneath his disguise, and Harry tucks into his Invisibility Cloak while Griphook clutches at his back. They move anxiously, treacherously, into the halls of the bank. At every turn they feel eyes pressing down upon them, as if eager to expose their true identities–and their nefarious intentions–and Harry must use the Confundus Charm to pass by the guards undetected.

The goblins, too, are suspicious, and rightly so. Only the subtle flick of Harry’s wand and a whispered “Imperio” prevents their capture, and they will the goblins leading them amiably into the dark to hurry, hurry.

They fly through the underground night, cool damp air whipping at their faces, and then cry out in shock as they are flung through a curtain of water, the Thief’s Downfall, cleansing them of all enchantments. At last, they are revealed, and Harry must place the goblin Bogrod under the Imperius Curse once more. They have come too far to turn back. There is no other way but forward.

They pass the great winged creature, blinded and chained, and Harry cringes as Griphook shakes the Clankers, terrorizing the dragon into submission, a skeleton of its former power and glory.

 

Finally, they reach the Lestrange vault, and Bogrod seals them inside. They must search quickly, but Harry knows, intuitively, it will not be easy hunting. His fears are confirmed when Hermione screams out, scalded by the first object she touches. Its magical protections sear the skin and instantaneously cause it to multiply.

The enchanted mound of treasure heaves as it grows, sweeping Harry, Ron and Hermione upward like a burning wave of fire. Then, when hope seems drowned, and defeat, or death, is all but imminent, Harry spies the holy grail–the cup of Helga Hufflepuff. That must be it! Yet he cannot reach it, try as he might, crawling, scrabbling, suffocating. Until he finds himself lifted above the terrible fray as Hermione levitates him nearer to the cup, and he can just hook it with the tip of the sword.

He feels a renewed swell of hope rise within him as he returns to solid ground. But, distracted, and jolted from it, he drops the sword and the cup. Harry cannot scramble after them both, and he knows he cannot abandon the cup. Destroying the horcrux is all that matters. He cannot kill Voldemort once and for all without putting every piece of him to death.

And so he commits. And Griphook, sly and waiting, snatches the Sword of Gryffindor, flicks the cup away, and unlatches the doors, spilling the vault’s contents in a sudden flood of molten metal. Harry leaps for the cup and holds it tightly, though the burning tears through his nerve-endings.

Griphook casts a contemptuous look upon them and wails for security–thieves, he yells, are upon them.

Harry, Ron and Hermione throw spell after stunning spell into the onslaught of angry goblins. They are backed into a dark corner, literally, with no way out. No way out except–upward.

Harry’s eyes fall upon the wretched beast cowering in confusion behind them, and he releases its heavy chains with a Revulsion Jinx. Before it can respond to its unexpected freedom, the desperate hero thieves throw themselves upon his back, grasping for footholds. Enraged, the dragon unleashes his fiery fury upon his goblin captors and bellows as it takes flight.

Hermione casts spells upon the passageway, and Harry and Ron follow her lead. They break apart the rock and metal and marble, and the dragon claws into the great hallway of the bank at last. As goblins and customers flee, the dragon breathes again the open air and hurls them through the doors and toward the boundless sky.

Against all odds, with no chance whatsoever, they have pulled off the greatest heist in wizarding history–and made their Great Escape. That Voldemort would underestimate their tenacity, and the deep love that fueled it, was the fatal flaw his plan. Harry and his friends threw themselves into the void of the impossible because they could not afford to fail, and even the death Voldemort killed to avoid was a cost worth paying.