Sirius' Gringotts vault

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 6107

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Monika Huebner <monika at d...> wrote:

> 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. 

And in GoF, Molly did the shopping for everyone while they were at 
the Quidditch Match, and JKR didn't show us Harry giving Molly his 
key.

I think Gringotts goblins can open any vault without a key and just 
use the key as identification for the vault owner. I think people can 
write a note to Gringotts saying take this much money out of my 
vault number so-and-so and give it to this person (Quality Quidditch 
Supplies, in the Firebolt example) and there is an authenticatable 
signature on the note, as a form of identification other than the 
physical key.

> 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. 

We don't KNOW that Gringotts vault are numbered in any logical way. 
Vault 711 might be nowhwere vault 713, and not a high security vault.