Cedric walked the length of Diagon Alley with his eyes open.
The gap in strength among wizards was wider than he had expected.
Street vendors hovered around Hunting Level twenty-three or twenty-four.
The Aurors in their uniform robes sat a full step higher—somewhere near forty.
He only learned the exact number later, after asking Professor McGonagall.
Special creatures were even more uneven.
A soft, fluffy thing called a Puffskein rode in the arms of women and children like a living toy.
Level one.
On the other side of the street, the house-elves hauling crates and keeping their heads down took casual kicks from passing wizards without complaint.
Their levels sat at fifty-three.
High enough to stop a heart.
Neither made the menu.
Puffskeins were too small to bother with.
House-elves were humanoid.
Cedric had standards.
The owls, though.
Letter owls cut across the sky at regular intervals.
Every one of them read above level three.
Ordinary wild owls had been level one.
These were better stock.
He tracked one with his eyes for a long stretch.
The bird shivered mid-flight for no clear reason and veered harder left.
Professor McGonagall noticed the stare.
“Once the loan is settled you may choose an owl of your own,” she said.
“A companion, and a way to send letters to friends.”
Cedric said nothing.
She waited a beat, then added carefully, “You do intend to use it for letters… correct?”
He turned his face away.
A faint heat touched his ears.
He was genuinely sorry.
He just wanted the bird roasted with honey.
Professor McGonagall’s silence stretched.
“We can discuss pets later.” She cut the subject clean.
“Gringotts is ahead.”
The bank rose out of the row of dusty shops like a golden fist.
Impossible to miss.
Inside, a goblin of Hunting Level thirty-one processed the loan and handed over the year’s relief funds under McGonagall’s supervision.
“A temporary vault,” the goblin said, looking down his long nose, “costs five hundred Galleons a year.
That sum will be added to the loan.
Twelve percent annual interest, compounded.
Unpaid interest rolls into the principal the following year.”
Five hundred Galleons.
From what Cedric had seen on the street, that was nearly a full year of living money.
Compounded.
Year after year.
He had no interest in throwing good coin after bad.
“Can the loan be released in installments?”
“The Ministry of Magic never authorized such an arrangement.” The goblin’s voice was thin and sharp.
“So no.”
Greedy little bastard.
Straight-up trying to milk a vault fee out of an orphan and make him carry the interest for free.
Cedric’s opinion of the entire species dropped to the floor.
He almost wanted to give the creature the finger on principle.
He refused to take on the extra debt.
He could pay the principal later without trouble, but he would not feed compound interest to a bank that already had its claws in him.
He turned to Professor McGonagall.
She hesitated.
She knew exactly how the goblins operated.
Squeezing every last drop was simply their nature.
But if she offered her own vault first, the story would write itself by morning: Deputy Headmistress meddling in an orphan’s funds.
The papers would have a field day, and no amount of truth would scrub the stain clean.
The request had to come from the boy.
She looked down.
Pale green eyes met hers, steady and full of quiet trust.
Cedric had already weighed it.
Everything he knew of her from the original accounts said the same thing: rigid, fair, and not the type to steal from a child.
“Professor McGonagall,” he said, “this may be presumptuous, but may I borrow the use of your vault?
At least until I can afford one of my own.”
A faint smile touched her mouth.
“Of course you may, Mr.
Grey.”
They signed a contract bound by both magic and law while the goblin watched with the expression of something that had just swallowed a live fly.
Four thousand one hundred Galleons went into Professor McGonagall’s vault.
Cedric kept the year’s relief money—two hundred and fifty Galleons—on his person.
Enough for textbooks, basic equipment, and the one item that mattered most: a wand.