CHAPTER FIVE
shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, sixteen
Sickles an ounce, they’re mad.
A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying
Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and
Snowy. Several boys of about Harry’s age had their noses pressed
against a window with broomsticks in it. “Look,” Harry heard one
of them say, “the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —”
There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange
silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked
with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell
books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the
moon. . . .
“Gringotts,” said Hagrid.
They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the
other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors,
wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was —
“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the
white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter
than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and,
Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked
inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this
time, with words engraved upon them:
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,
72