"Muffliato."

Sirius pulled the invisibility cloak off nearly immediately after James had cast the spell and Frank had half-closed the doors to the vault, blocking Tinderwood's view of them. "Bloody hell I thought I was going to be flung from that blasted cart!"

"Part of me wished I would have been," Frank said, still sickened by the trip along the mining cart rails that had brought them so far down below Gringott's floors. "Might have been easier than losing my blasted stomach somewhere along the way."

Sirius shook himself like a dog, and tossed the invisibility cloak over an ancient trunk by the door. He looked around at the contents of the vault. "Wow, decent," he murmured.

The interior of Vault 711 was rather reminiscent of a museum. There were tall shelves that lined the walls, filled with old books and funny brass instruments, as well as a myriad of dark magical objects. There were stacks of gold in great piles toward the back of the vault, coins and raw nuggets of the stuff, glimmering in the flickering light of the sconces around the room. There were loads of house elf heads hanging up on the walls, too. Frank stared at one. "Bloody hell," he whispered.

"Overspill from the hall at home," Sirius said. He squinted into the face of the nearest elf head to him, then looked at Frank. "They get bumped into the vault as each one dies. One day, another will be tossed in here when mother mounts Kreacher's head."

"Touching," James said. "Anyone see the vials?"

They began looking about. There were several moments of silence as they went poking about. James found a stack of books - among them was the Biography of the Honorable Gellert Grindelwald, and A Full and Complete History of the Pureblood Lines. He shook his head. Meanwhile, Sirius was chuckling at a long ivory-colored wedding gown, which hung on the wall from one of the sconces. The dress had a terrible collar that buttoned in the back, overlaid by black lace, and stiff, horrid sleeves that came to a point with a loop of cloth meant to hold them to the fingers. Sirius scowled and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the gown. "Oi, Prongs, what if Lillith returns home with a frock like that next week, eh?"

James looked 'round and spotted the dress and let out a horrified "bugger is that!?" Then looked closer, "Blimey, she better not."

Sirius cackled evilly. "Not even Evans could save that work of shite, huh? You've seen my mum, yeah? Picture her fat arse squashed into that ghastly --"

"FOUND'EM!"

Frank's voice echoed through the vault and James and Sirius hurried to where Frank was standing in the corner of the room, past baskets of rubies and emeralds. Frank was standing by a glass cabinet with large ornate doors. Inside stood what seemed like thousands and thousands of rows of the little vials, though the size of the cabinet seemed too small for such bounty. It clearly had a very clever extendable charm upon it, engorging it so that it could hold far more than it was crafted to do.

Frank started to reach for the handle of the door, but James quickly caught his elbow and stopped him, "Wait - don't, Frank. We can't, remember? Only Sirius can touch it."

"Oh right." Frank's arm dropped to his side, "Close one."

James looked at Sirius, "Alright, Pads, your moment's arrived."

Sirius reached into his pocket and withdrew a pouch, upon which Remus had cast an undetectable extension charm. Sirius shook the pouch open and rolled up his shirt's sleeves, taking a deep breath and stepping up to the cabinet. He reached out a shaking hand.

"Go on," James encouraged him, "You're alright. You're a member of the House of Black, so it's technically your treasure, isn't it? You can touch it. It's just me and Frank that can't."

"You don't reckon my being blasted off the tapestry in mum's library would make me... NOT a member of the house of Black, do you?" Sirius worried suddenly. He withdrew his hand. "Like it's based on blood, not... not opinion, yeah?"

"Sure," James said. "If your mum dies, half this treasure legally belongs to you and the other half to Regulus."

Sirius hesitated again.

"Our time's almost up," Frank murmured. "Tinderwood's going to be checking on us any minute, we'd best hurry it along." He nodded at the vials.

"Plus technically this isn't their treasure anyway, they've stolen it, haven't they? That means you're not really stealing anything. You're taking it back."

Sirius nodded, "Alright." He reached out again swiftly, took hold on the cabinet's handle and pulled it open.

They all paused, waiting a moment, half expecting the walls to start shaking or some alarm to go off, but it was silent and still, and Sirius let out a breath of relief. James felt the tension go out of him. This bloody plan was actually going to work, he couldn't believe it.

Sirius began sweeping the vials from the shelf into the bag, his hands working like crazy to collect them. As quickly as he cleared a row, the cabinet seemed to push more forward to him so that every time he took a vial a new one replaced it and it seemed like an unending job. It was getting quite frustrating, Sirius was cursing under his breath. "How many of these damned things did those fucking wolves make?"

"A lot," Frank said.

"Just about finished in there?" called Tinderwood's voice, echoing from the vestibule where he waited.

James glanced over his shoulder at the door to Vault 711 nervously. "Just about!" he shouted, and the muffliato was broken, meaning Sirius had to stay quiet. James looked at Frank and mouthed for him to go distract the goblin and Frank dashed away toward the door. "Hurry," James hissed.

"I am hurrying," Sirius whispered back. "Bloody hell, you think I'm some sort of a cephalopod? I've only got two arms, you know."

"Just -- quick, quick, quick --" James muttered, looking over at Frank by the door, inching ever further into the room as the goblin surely was advancing toward him, and a panic arose in James that took away his clarity in thinking... "Hurry up, hurry."

In his speed, Sirius started to get messy. He knocked several of the vials over and they rolled about on the shelf, spinning as he reached for bottle after bottle, shoving them into his pouch... and then it happened. One of the vials he'd knocked over was rolling forward... about to fall from the shelf, and if it fell the vial would break and if it broke then Tinderwood would know that they'd been touching something in the vault. Not to mention the fact that either one of them could be infected with lycanthropy from the flying debris of saliva. With hands practiced from years of Quidditch and of messing about with that blasted snitch back at Hogwarts, James stuck out his palm and he caught the vial, fingers closing about it just as it had always done the little gold ball.

Sirius stopped grabbing bottles, pausing to stare at James Potter's hand wrapped tightly around the bottle. There was a long, agonizingly long pause in which both of them let the sight sink in, and then --

The doors before Frank snapped shut very abruptly, making him jump back in surprise as they banged to a close. The sconces around the room flickered, dimmed, and then one by one went black, plunging the vault into utter darkness. "Bloody hell," James murmured.

"What's happening?" Frank asked, panic in his voice.

"I've messed up," James announced.

Sirius reached back into his hair, where his wand was stowed, and clicked it. "Lumos," he announced, then looked up at James, then back down at his hand.

"Sirius dropped one of the vials and I - I caught it."

"You caught it?" Frank came over, saw James's hand wrapped about the bottle. "Shizer," Frank swore.

"Yeah. Shizer's right. What the fuck did you do that for, Prongs?" Sirius demanded, "I was getting them and --"

"I - instinct, I suppose," James muttered. "It was falling and - I didn't realize how close, I just --"

Frank knocked fruitlessly on the door of the vault.

Sirius was looking rather panicked in the eyes, and he quickly dropped his pouch onto the same old steamer he'd left the invisibility cloak upon. He looked between Frank and James. "How the fuck are we going to get out of here?" his voice rose slightly higher than usual.

"I dunno," James admitted. "I - I mean if Tinderwood's still out there, perhaps he'll - he could --"

"He said he'd leave us here until 2045," Frank pointed out. "I don't think Tinderwood's our way out."

"But there IS no other way out!" Sirius exclaimed, "This is a high security vault! The only way in or out is through that fucking door!" He went over and started knocking at the wood, running his fingers frantically over the cranks and gears that made up the locks. Trying with his wand to blast them didn't do a thing to them - they were undisturbed entirely. "HEY! HELLO? TINDYWOOP HELLO???"

Frank looked helplessly at James, face pale with panic.

James pounced over and grabbed hold of Sirius's shoulders. "Stop that."

Sirius pulled out of James's hands. "What the fuck are we going to do?" his voice pitched shrilly.

"I don't know," James answered, "But panicking like that is not helpful at all."

Frank's voice shook and he echoed after James, "Not at all."

Sirius paced in a small loop, his anxiety growing with every step.

James looked to the door and drew his wand, uselessly tapping the center of the door. "Alohamora!" Nothing, of course.

"We're going to die in here," Sirius announced. "Canned up like a bunch of sardines."

"We're not," James replied. "People know where we are - Evans and Remus, Marlene and Emmaline - once it's been too long they'll --" James had no idea what they would do. He felt suddenly dizzy. They'd worry. They'd panic. They'd think the boys had been sent to Azkaban. Answers to their whereabouts could take days coming from the Ministry. But they didn't have days. Vault 711 had plenty of gold and gems, plenty of magical antiques and treasures, but it did not have food or water. James became suddenly aware of the dryness of his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, as though the realization that he had no access to water made him dehydrate instantly.

"They'll find our corpses is what they'll do!" Sirius wailed.

Frank was still, clearly disassociating with the situation, his eyes wide and face pale.

James turned back to the door and tried at moving the gears by hand, but even with all of his strength they didn't move even a smidge. In spite of himself, he felt his palms grow sweaty.

"This was such an idiotic plan!" Sirius suddenly shouted, "An absolutely fucking awful idiot plan! I told you it was! I told you there was no chance of it going right, I --"

"You never told me that!" James snapped, turning 'round to face Sirius. "We all sat about that dinner table at that meeting talking about ideas for this and you had fucking zero plans, not even one. This was the only plan anyone came up with, and as a group we agreed to take action on it. As a group. Which included YOU."

Sirius didn't seem to have been listening, his panic was too great, and James knew he hadn't even meant his accusations in the first place. The poor bloke was going mad. Sirius was anxiously tugging at his hair as he paced the circles, then suddenly stopped and looked at the door. "Thats it - we'll - we'll blast it open!" He pulled his wand from his belt where he'd shoved it, and James had only a second of reaction time - hurling himself at Frank and knocking them both to the ground, just as Sirius shouted, "REDUCTO!!!"

The curse flew over James and Frank's prone bodies so close that James could feel the heat of it on his back. It struck the door and ricocheted back into the vault with double the force. Sirius threw himself to the floor as the jet of light shot over him and slammed into the piles of gold in the back. The pile seemed to explode, coins and jewels flying into the air and spraying every direction in a rushing sound like a tsunami, raining over everything in the vault and striking them like hail stones.

"YOU BLEEDING IDIOT!" James bellowed. He struggled to get up from the floor, pulling Frank up, too, gold crashing to the floor around them as it fell. The entire vault now had a layer of gold coins covering it. "SERIOUSLY, SIRIUS!"

"I WAS JUST GIVING IT A GO ALRIGHT!"

"YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US ALL!"

"WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE ANYWAY AREN'T WE? I was just trying a thing to get us bloody fucking OUT!!!"

"Well don't do that again! Merlin's tit you're an idiot."

Sirius barely heard James though, for he was relapsing back into panic, kicking the coins and pacing.

"He didn't mean to," said Frank weakly.

"I know - it's just -" James sighed, "He never bloody means to. He never thinks. He --"

Sirius had come to a dead stop and was looking around with fiery eyes.

"What? What is it, Pads?" James asked, the anger forgotten.

Sirius whispered, "It's getting smaller."

"What is?"

"The vault."

James and Frank looked around, but they could see no change. "No it's not..." Frank said slowly, hesitantly. 

"But it is," Sirius hissed. "It is. It's... it's shrinking... it's --" He suddenly grasped at this throat.

"It's not shrinking," James said, trying to use a calming voice.

"Does anyone else feel as though the air is being sucked out of their lungs or perhaps out of the room entirely? Bloody hell, the walls are collapsing. The walls are actually coming closer to my body; I can feel them coming closer. We'll be crushed. Crushed like a shrivelfig in Slughorn's classroom! I'm too beautiful to die, I'm too young, too gay. PRONGS! Tell the walls that I'm too gay to die this way!"

James looked at the walls, then back to Frank. "Sirius, the walls aren't -"

"ARE they getting smaller?" Frank hissed. 

"Bloody hell," James murmured. "They're not. You two are just panicking. You're just panicking."

"YES THEY ARE!" Sirius cried, "They're tightening 'round us like a vice. We'll be crushed by all this rubbish." He started throwing bits of the treasure around, chucking it away, kicking the coins, trying to clear a space around himself. Frank suddenly started doing the same thing.

James stared at the walls and counted out a minute, watching the most minute details of the way things leaned against the stone, watching to see if anything moved even the slightest bit. The walls were not, in fact, moving at all. "Calm down, you two," James said, "We're not going to be crushed to death." 

But we might die of dehydration and starvation, James thought to himself with an air of panic rising up in his chest. James closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of Sirius and Frank pushing all of the treasure toward the walls, as though to brace the walls up with the stacks of gold and trunks full of whatever else. He thought of Lily and the way she felt in his arms and the way she smelled and the sound of her laugh. He thought of her sparkling eyes and her fingers in his hair... 

Whenever he was certain he was going to die, he thought of her, he realized, and she always, always brought him comfort to stay strong. It was as though the mere thought of Lily Evans had the power to protect him, to stall off his death. She had saved him so many times.

Suddenly, there was a heavy mechanical sound from somewhere outside. 

Frank and Sirius looked up and James turned about to face the door.

There was a pause, and then the gears started to shift places, twisting, cranking, rolling, the clockwork spinning, and then the doors parted opened and slid backward into the walls, heavy and loud, echoing about the vault. In walked Tinderwood, looking quite sour, followed by the Head Goblin from the lobby, and then, ducking below the doorway after the two goblins, came Mr. Underhill, whose face held a cross expression.

James felt his feet go cold. He stared up at the department head, at his boss, and his stomach churned uncomfortably. Mr. Underhill stared down his nose at James and he cleared his throat, eyes then shifting toward Frank and Sirius.

"Yes," Mr. Underhill said, voice low, "These are the aurors I sent to do the investigation." He nodded slowly, then his eyes met James's eyes. "Clearly - something went very wrong here."

"I can explain, sir," James started, but Underhill shook his head in one sharp twist.

"We will talk at my office. Since this case is extremely top secret."

"Yes sir."

Underhill turned to the Head Goblin. "Mr. Ironhelm, I am most grateful for your assistance in helping me to obtain my officials. I do appreciate the inquiry you made to authenticate the document and your bend in the rules to come down and collect these three. Now, I would appreciate it if you could further help us in getting out of Gringott's without too much more attention being drawn to our presence."

"Of course, Mr. Underhill," the Head Goblin replied. 

Tinderwood was seething.

"Come along then," Underhill said to the three boys. "We have a lot to talk about."