Part way down Diagon Alley, near its intersection with Knockturn Alley, is a tall building constructed of white marble. This is Gringotts Wizarding Bank, an imposing place guarded by goblins, where witches and wizards keep their money and other valuables in vaults located miles and miles below ground. It is rumored that the goblins of Gringotts employ the likes of dragons to guard some of the high security vaults.
When you approach the burnished bronze front doors of Gringotts, up steps of white marble, you will see a goblin standing guard here, dressed in a uniform of scarlet and gold. You then pass through the front doors into an entrance chamber facing another set of doors. These are silver and are engraved with the following rhyme:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
Two more goblins guard these doors, which they will open to let you pass into the main hall. This large chamber has a long counter with a hundred goblins, sitting on high stools, hard at work counting and weighing coins, writing in ledger books, and examining precious stones [Yes, it is possible to exchange Muggle money for wizarding coins at Gringotts].
There are a large number of doors off this main chamber, guarded by still more goblins, which admit one to narrow stone caverns which lead to the vaults far below ground. These passages are lit by torches and slope steeply downward. A goblin serves as a guide into this labyrinth, piloting a small cart which rides on narrow tracks set in the stone floor.
The vaults, of which there are more than seven hundred, are opened by various means. The typical ones use small keys. The high security vaults have enchantments placed on their doors. The goblin strokes the door to make it melt away; if anyone but a Gringotts goblin tries it, however, they will be sucked through the door and trapped inside the vault.
Gringotts employs curse-breakers whose job it is to retrieve treasure from places like the pyramids of Egypt. Bill Weasley is a Gringotts employs curse-breaker for Gringotts.
When you approach the burnished bronze front doors of Gringotts, up steps of white marble, you will see a goblin standing guard here, dressed in a uniform of scarlet and gold. You then pass through the front doors into an entrance chamber facing another set of doors. These are silver and are engraved with the following rhyme:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
Two more goblins guard these doors, which they will open to let you pass into the main hall. This large chamber has a long counter with a hundred goblins, sitting on high stools, hard at work counting and weighing coins, writing in ledger books, and examining precious stones [Yes, it is possible to exchange Muggle money for wizarding coins at Gringotts].
There are a large number of doors off this main chamber, guarded by still more goblins, which admit one to narrow stone caverns which lead to the vaults far below ground. These passages are lit by torches and slope steeply downward. A goblin serves as a guide into this labyrinth, piloting a small cart which rides on narrow tracks set in the stone floor.
The vaults, of which there are more than seven hundred, are opened by various means. The typical ones use small keys. The high security vaults have enchantments placed on their doors. The goblin strokes the door to make it melt away; if anyone but a Gringotts goblin tries it, however, they will be sucked through the door and trapped inside the vault.
Gringotts employs curse-breakers whose job it is to retrieve treasure from places like the pyramids of Egypt. Bill Weasley is a Gringotts employs curse-breaker for Gringotts.
