Paris, France
Gringotts World Banking Headquarters
The sky was a layered interplay of light and shadow, as complex and beautiful as a master's painting. A hazy half-moon hung suspended over a lush valley spread far below, its pale silver glow brushing the treetops that made them seem almost magical.
A clear stream wound its way through the valley floor and into the town nestled within its embrace, threading through carved stone channels that ran along both sides of the ancient cobblestone roads, carrying fresh mountain water past door after door in a system that had functioned perfectly for over a millennium.
The town was built entirely in the architectural style of a much older age, preserved with obsessive attention to detail. Every household along the narrow lanes kept an iron forge beside its entrance, the anvils still gleaming; polished silver armor hung from hooks beside each doorway.
Bryan came to a stop before the fountain at the central crossroads and let his gaze travel slowly over the ancient settlement spread before him like a museum exhibit.
His nostrils flared slightly as he breathed in the still air. Even in the gentle wind that drifted through the town's empty, silent streets—he could smell it, could taste it on the air: a deep, antique sorrow that had soaked into the very stones over centuries.
"Remarkable craftsmanship," he said softly, and pressed his palms together in quiet admiration and respect for what had been built.
"This is where your ancestors lived?"
"Precisely so, Mr. Watson,"
Barnah inclined its head in a slow nod of acknowledgment. Its voice was composed and dignified as it offered the introduction, though its eyes held a thread of grief it could not quite conceal.
"By the human calendar that you use, our ancestors constructed this settlement sometime in the third century of the Common Era. The historical records preserved carefully in our deepest archives give it a name that has been passed down through generations: Twin Moon Town, named for the rare celestial alignment visible only from this particular valley twice each year."
Bryan's penetrating gaze drifted to the mountain ranges flanking the valley protectively on all sides—not especially tall by Alpine standards, and yet they radiated a grandeur and sweep that pressed in on the chest, making one feel small and insignificant.
To eyes like his, there was no mistaking the truth: this was no mere projection or cleverly conjured mirage. These were real mountains, solid stone transported here piece by massive piece.
He gave a slow shake of his head, genuinely awed by the sheer madness and ambition required for such an undertaking.
"You've replicated an entire town inside this building—mountains, streams, architecture, even the vegetation, everything down to the smallest detail." He paused, considering the staggering architecture. "Was it meant to serve as a last refuge?"
"Unlike humans who often forget their origins, we goblins have a deeper, more profound reverence for our history and those who came before us," Barnah said slowly.
"We recreated Twin Moon Town above all as a memorial to the struggle of our ancestors—those remarkable souls who carved something meaningful from nothing, who built civilization and culture in harsh places where survival itself was uncertain.
Your guess about its purpose, however, is not entirely wrong. It also functions as a formidable fortress, perhaps the most secure location in all of Europe should we need it."
Bryan said nothing immediately in response to this. His hands, clasped behind his back in contemplation, curled loosely into fists, his thumbs tracing slow circles at the base of his palms.
Even the green of the mountains had crept in over the centuries, colonizing the old town.
Vines of vivid green draped every rooftop along the row of stone cottages like living tapestries; bright blossoms in colors that seemed too vibrant to be natural softened the harsh coal-and-steel character of what had once been purely a blacksmith's settlement, lending the place an almost fairytale quality—enchanted and slightly unreal, as though time had stopped flowing here long ago and never resumed.
"It truly merits the name of an impregnable fortress,"
Bryan said, the faint violet light that perpetually rimmed his irises shifting and brightening as he analyzed with his perception the complex magical defenses woven into every stone, every pathway, every structure.
"Even I could not force an entrance here through sheer violence and overwhelming magical power. The ward systems are extraordinary—layered, redundant, brilliant in their design."
It was high praise indeed from Bryan Watson—one of only two or three Grand Maguses still living in the entire world, a wizard whose power was spoken of in reverence and fear.
The goblins had spent untold sums of gold galleons accumulated over generations, decades of painstaking effort, and the accumulated craft and knowledge of their finest minds on this place. Perhaps it had earned exactly that recognition from such a source.
And yet old Barnah showed no pleasure or pride at the compliment from such a legendary figure.
It stood watching the wind come in from beyond the valley, watching ribbons of mist curl through the town and soften its sharp stone outlines, and its deeply wrinkled expression was simply weary.
"A wizard of your exceptional stature and experience will surely understand," it said softly, almost to itself.
"There is no fortress that cannot, in the end, be broken. History teaches us this lesson again and again. The perfect sanctuary is one that is never called into use. The moment we seal these doors and activate the full defenses of this place, it will mean the goblins are already in mortal peril with no other options remaining—and so my sincere hope is that it remains, forever, merely a monument to our history."
Old Barnah turned slowly to look at Bryan, who stood beside the fountain at the crossroads—the fountain carved in loving detail in the likeness of an ancient goblin hero whose name had been lost to time but whose deeds were still remembered.
The milky film of age that clouded Barnah's eyes held a long hesitation, a visible struggle with whether to speak the truth. But in the end, it chose to speak plainly and honestly rather than hide behind tactful words.
"Working with you has been, without question, a great pleasure over these years, Mr. Watson. The Learning Machine Workshop that employs so many of our craftsmen and brings them dignity, the Triwizard Tournament broadcasts—both initiatives have benefited our kind enormously, brought us respect and wealth we had not known for centuries. But—"
The tip of Barnah's staff knocked against the stone pavement. The dull, hollow sound echoed through the empty town like a funeral bell tolling, pulling something lonesome and decayed out of even these ancient, carefully tended streets that had known no living footsteps for generations.
"—if we agree to act as you have just asked, Mr. Watson—"
The aged goblin turned and faced him with the full weight of what it was about to say, its entire body was conveying the gravity and terror of this moment.
"—then I fear deeply that the countdown to the day our people are forced to shelter here will have already begun."
"Barnah," Bryan said, his voice was low and grave.
"We do not live merely to survive. Survival alone is not enough for any sentient race."
He held the old goblin's clouded gaze for a long moment before continuing.
"In the one or two centuries since the goblins led the great rebellion of magical creatures against the wizards and lost that terrible war—your people largely abandoned your traditional trades that had defined you for millennia: the forging of alchemical instruments, the crafting of luxury goods that had made goblin work famous throughout the world.
Instead, you entered the emerging financial industry with remarkable speed and adaptability. That was an extraordinarily shrewd decision, perhaps the most important in all of goblin history. The goblin who made it possessed a rare and exceptional intelligence that saved your entire race from extinction.
In a short span of time, that single decision amassed wealth beyond imagining for your people and secured for the goblins a foothold in the wizarding world once more when you had absolutely nothing left."
Bryan and Barnah had begun walking again, moving slowly along the cobblestone lanes where the stream murmured peacefully beside them, its sound the only living thing in this monument to the dead.
"The goblin future seemed radiant after that bold move. Everything appeared to be going beautifully for your people. But if that trajectory continues unchecked—what do you believe will happen? What is the inevitable conclusion?"
Now it was Barnah's turn to be silent, to have no answer it wanted to voice.
"What awaits you," Bryan said with terrible certainty, "is a slaughter far more savage than any your people have suffered before in all your long and bloody history."
A gust of wind came suddenly from beyond the valley—sharp and urgent and cold despite this being an enclosed space. The suits of silver armor and the fine cold-forged weapons hanging in the streets clattered and rang in the wind like warning bells tolling for the dead.
A dark, ominous weight settled over Twin Moon Town, as though the ghosts of those long-dead ancestors had awakened to hear prophecy spoken.
"You have accumulated wealth that far surpasses what any individual wizard holds, wealth that rivals the treasuries of entire nations," Bryan continued, his calm voice carrying an undertone of blood and violence beneath its tone.
"But you possess no military force to protect it, no army, no defense beyond these walls that you pray never to use. In the end, the wizards' blades will fall on goblin necks without mercy, and every scrap of wealth your people have seized across two centuries will be heaped upon a mountain of goblin corpses.
It is only a matter of time before someone realizes this opportunity. If not Voldemort who sees it clearly, then someone after him—but someone will do it. The temptation is too great for human nature to resist forever."
"But you gave me your word years ago when we first met," the old goblin cried, its composure was finally cracking completely.
"You promised you would help the goblins when the time was right, that you would protect us from this fate!"
Barnah's old body trembled visibly whether from age or from the terror of the future Bryan had just painted in such vivid, bloody detail, it was impossible to say with certainty.
"Now is the right time, Barnah. This is the moment I spoke of years ago,"
Bryan spoke with gravity and absolute certainty.
"But forgive me for saying so plainly, Mr. Watson—if we truly permit your plan to proceed as you've outlined, we will not survive long enough for a wizard to raise a blade against us in that future you describe!" Barnah protested desperately, fear was overwhelming caution.
"The Dark Lord will destroy us first, and we will lose every shred of trust the wizards still extend to us!"
Old Barnah's breath came in ragged pulls. There was fury underneath the hoarseness, rage at being trapped between impossible choices.
"For a greater good, Barnah,"
Bryan was, as ever, perfectly calm.
"Brief sacrifice is the price of a greater reward—this is how change has always worked. The Dark Lord's return will bring enormous upheaval to the entire European magical world—chaos unprecedented in modern times, instability that will reshape everything.
If the goblins do not seize this moment to submerge themselves in that wave of change, to ride it skillfully rather than be drowned by it—to carve out a new position in the new order that will inevitably emerge—what is the alternative? To cling desperately to the ruins of the old world and wait passively for the wizards to sharpen their knives?"
Rain had begun to fall on Twin Moon Town—fine and soft.
The mist thickened until Bryan and Barnah seemed to stand inside some lost and secret place removed from the world, with churning grey obscuring everything around them.
"I have long held an idea, Barnah." Bryan said.
He glanced at the old goblin, who stood with its head bowed, adrift in confusion and dread, then turned his gaze back to Twin Moon Town wavering in the rain like a ghost of the past.
"A thousand years ago, four visionary wizards—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin—recognized that magical education had to break free from its closed, family-by-family transmission and reach a far wider population.
Otherwise, magic itself would wither and die, become the province of a few inbred families hoarding knowledge. For a thousand years, their successors have faithfully upheld that vision—but they have made no genuinely bold, expansive advances upon it. It is my private belief that Hogwarts should become a far more comprehensive school of magic."
CRACK—
Barnah's head snapped up sharply at the implication. It stared at Bryan Watson with naked astonishment, hardly daring to believe what it was hearing spoken aloud.
"You mean… if I haven't misunderstood … you're saying…"
It seemed unable to finish the thought. Then it shook its head slowly, and when it spoke again there was something bitter and defeated in every word.
"That is impossible, Mr. Watson."
"Heh,"
For the first time since arriving at Twin Moon Town, Bryan laughed—a clear, bright sound of hope, cutting through the fog and rain like a blade of light, breaking open the shadow that had lain over this place for centuries, ringing out through the valley with promise rather than sorrow.
"Nothing is impossible, my dear Barnah. Everything depends on the people willing to make it happen. Does it not?"
His pale violet eyes blazed with revolutionary conviction in the grey rain, and for a moment Barnah saw not a wizard but a force of history itself who would reshape the entire world regardless of cost.
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