Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

The dragon roared and spewed flames, its powerful body rampaging through the narrow tunnel.

With a deafening crash, the underground passages of Gringotts began to collapse. Massive chunks of rock rained down as the entire space trembled violently.

Evan bombarded the tunnels with magic, and the dragon unleashed repeated bursts of blazing flames. Their combined power shattered and melted the solid rock barrier before them.

By sheer force the dragon clawed and fought its way through, advancing deeper into the tunnels.

It ripped open a vault from the side — no one could tell which Wizarding family had just suffered such a catastrophe. Treasures that had been stored for centuries — gold, jewels, and enchanted objects — spilled everywhere. The dragon’s enormous body thundered through the vault, crushing the exquisite ornaments beneath it and scattering flattened gold and silver in all directions.

Each exquisite piece of jewelry was instantly reduced to a bland gold wafer under the dragon’s stomping feet.

Soon, their devastating progress reached the upper vault area.

Evan saw that outside the Lestrange family vault, the gold and jewels were still multiplying, rapidly filling every inch of space.

He swung his wand forward, steering the dragon toward them.

The dragon drew in a deep breath and exhaled a stream of fire. The treasures that had troubled them moments ago vanished in the blaze.

But under the force of that magic, the air grew scorching hot, the temperature climbing so fast it felt as though the air itself would melt.

Ahead lay the passage leading deeper into Gringotts. The heat and swirling dust made Evan squint.

He braced himself against falling rocks and the dragon’s roars, pressing close to its back so he wouldn’t be thrown off. At the same time, he whipped his wand through the air, blasting open the way ahead. Hermione, Harry, and Elaine were helping too, casting Defodio and Diffindo to clear the rocks. The group surged forward at full speed.

The dragon stomped ahead, forcing open a metal gate. Evan, Harry, Hermione, and Elaine clung tightly to its back.

Together, they burst through the narrow passage into a vast cavern, where a rusted, tangled network of mine cart tracks stretched in every direction. The rails extended densely from cracks in the rock walls, twisting downward into the depths, crisscrossing, splitting apart again, vanishing into the dark.

The dragon finally found space to spread its wings. After being confined in the tunnels, it beat them powerfully, whipping up a fierce gale.

Evan steered the dragon downward, toward the depths of the earth.

Nothing could stop them now. Compared to the solid rock walls, the rusted tracks were pitifully fragile.

Under the dragon’s impact, they were quickly shattered, falling to rubble.

With no tracks left, the goblins would be unable to reach them quickly enough to stop Evan and the others from entering the deeper vaults.

The very defenses that had made Gringotts impregnable were now working against its guards.

The goblins who had designed and built Gringotts could never have imagined that anyone would break into the underground vaults this way.

In thousands of years, Evan, Harry, Hermione, and Elaine were the only intruders ever to ride a dragon into this place.

No matter what happened, their names would go down in the history of magic — this was an event worthy of being recorded.

The most audacious, the most arrogant, the most insane thieves in Gringotts’ history had broken into the bank today, and in a way that defied imagination.

Before long, a vivid crimson glow appeared below them — the color of magma deep within the earth’s crust.

The temperature continued to rise as they descended deeper into this vast, bottomless chasm, the crimson magma becoming increasingly apparent.

The circular, crimson pool of magma below resembled a portal to the depths of hell.

ROAR!!!

Perhaps provoked by the magma’s heat, the dragon bellowed and unleashed another torrent of flame.

Its roar was answered by waves of blistering heat and eruptions of leaping magma, as though countless dragons were spitting fire from below.

Molten magma, a dragon, and flames — all merged to form a rare and fantastical spectacle, a truly breathtaking spectacle.

Amidst the thunderous noise, it felt as though some ancient monster was awakening. Feel the boundless wrath — let the flames purify all!

This was a world of fire. Even the hardest rocks were glowing a molten red, some beginning to crystallize under the unbearable heat.

Though the temperature was almost unendurable, Evan still guided the dragon steadily downward.

Soon, they spotted a cluster of small islands scattered across the magma pool. Upon each island stood ancient stone carvings of various shapes — the crests of long-vanished pure-blood Wizarding families. These were the last traces of those once-glorious lineages, and each carving marked the entrance to a family vault.

“What are these vaults?” Elaine shouted, staring in shock at the islands, the stone carvings, and the vaults nestled in the molten lava.

“They’re the earliest vaults built when Gringotts was founded — a hundred of them in total, belonging to the most powerful wizards or the most powerful pure-blood Wizarding families in the world at the time,” Evan explained. “But they’re so ancient that nearly all those families have died out. Their treasures remained here, becoming part of Gringotts itself. In fact, in a sense, this is the true Gringotts. Ah — Vault One is over there. Let’s land.”

Evan controlled the dragon to land on the small island in the center of all the islands. Before them stood numerous statues inlaid with emeralds, glowing with a soft green light. Together, they formed the familiar capital S, the emblem of the Slytherin family.

Above the S was the number “1,” marking this vault as the first ever built in Gringotts.

In a way, Gringotts had been created because of this vault. At that time, goblins were still enslaved by wizards, much like house-elves — a subservient race bound by magical command. Salazar Slytherin had ordered his goblin servants to dig deep beneath London and build this vault to safeguard his treasures.

This was the origin of Gringotts. However, due to resistance and rebellion, the goblins gained independence, becoming a separate magical race from wizards.

It was then that Gringotts gained its independence, and the goblins, driven by their innate greed, began expanding the bank from this very place. Over the course of a thousand years, Gringotts had grown into an indispensable part of the Wizarding world, the most trusted place for wizards to safeguard their wealth.

As for its original secrets, they had long since been buried in the river of history, forgotten by all.

If Evan’s reasoning was correct, Vault One of Gringotts would be the place where the key to Salazar Slytherin’s Secret Treasure was kept.