Sirius' Gringotts vault

[Monika Huebner]

No: HPFGUIDX 6085

Hello everyone,

I have already briefly mentioned this in my message concerning the
ancestor/descendant question that seemed to have vanished, at least I
did not get any reaction to it, so I'll try again. Sorry if this has
already been discussed, but I couldn't find anything about it in the
archives.

I always wondered how Sirius managed to get his gold out of his vault
to pay for the firebolt. Until now we have only seen people coming
directly to Gringotts to take money from their vaults and they have to
bring the key to open them. I.e. Dumbledore gave Hagrid the key to
James' and Lily's vault when he and Harry came to London to buy
Harry's school books the first year. 

I doubt that Sirius would still have the key to his vault after twelve
years in Azkaban, and I find it highly unlikely that he gave it to the
goblins before going after Pettigrew. His house might have been sealed
by the ministry after he was arrested, at least I don't think that he
would have been able to retrieve anything from it after twelve years.
But we also know that there are vaults that cannot be opened with a
key but only by a goblin. In his letter at the end of PoA Sirius tells
Harry that he took the gold from his own vault number 711. This vault
happens to be close to the one that contained the philosopher's stone
which had the number 713 and is located in Gringotts' high security
area. Maybe Sirius did not need a key to open his vault, but this led
to the question what he needed a high security vault for. I doubt that
it contains only gold. Any thoughts?

I also wonder why this was taken out of the American edition, it is
still in the British edition including in the audio version of PoA
that has just been published in october. I also saw it in the German
translation. Maybe it's a minor detail without any significance, but
ever since I stumbled upon it I wonder if it will become important
later.

Monika


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