134[@more@]the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?
“Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the sword wasn’t safe where it was,” said Dirk. “Couple of days later, once he’d got the say- so from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts instead.”
The goblins started to laugh again.
“I’m still not seeing the joke,” said Ted.
“It’s a fake,” rasped Griphook.
“The sword of Gryffindor!”
“Oh yes. It is a copy—en excellent copy, it is true—but it was Wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armor possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank.”
“I see,” said Ted. “And I take it you didn’t bother telling the Death Eaters this/’ “I saw no reason to trouble them with the information,” said Griphook smugly, and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk’s laughter.
Inside the tent, Harry closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged: he was (Harry remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny’s too.
“What happened to Ginny and all the others? The ones who tried to steal it?” “Oh, they were punished, and cruelly,” said Griphook indifferently.
“They’re okay, though?” asked Ted quickly, “I mean, the Weasleys don’t need any more of their kids injured, do they?”
“They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware,” said Griphook.
“Lucky for them,” said Ted. “With Snape’s track record I suppose we should just be glad they’re still alive.”
“You believe that story, then, do you, Ted?” asked Dirk.” You believe Snape killed Dumbledore?
“Course I do,” said Ted. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me you think Potter had anything to do with it?”
“Hard to know what to believe these days,” muttered Dirk.
“I know Harry Potter,” said Dean. “And I reckon he’s the real thing—the Chosen One, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot would like to believe he’s that, son,” said Dirk, “me included. But where is he? Run for it, by the looks of things. You’d think if he knew anything we don’t, or had anything special going for him, he’d be out there now fighting, rallying resistance, instead of hiding. And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against him—”
“The Prophet?” scoffed Ted. “You deserve to be lied to if you’re still reading that much, Dirk. You want the facts, try the Quibbler.”
There was a sudden explosion of choking and retching, plus a good deal of
thumping, by the sound of it. Dirk had swallowed a fish bone. At last he sputtered, “The Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood’s?”
“It’s not so lunatic these days,” said Ted. “You want to give it a look, Xeno is printing all the stuff the Prophet’s ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they’ll let him get with it, mind, I don’t know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who’s against You-Know-Who ought to make helping Harry Potter their number-one priority.”
“Hard to help a boy who’s vanished off the face of the earth,” said Dirk. “Listen, the fact that they haven’t caught him yet’s one hell of an achievement,”