Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is an experimental piece of writing I originally put out to give those who have me on alert something to look at, whilst I scratched my head and rewrote (yet again) sections of other stories. It's set in an alternate universe where Salazar Slytherin went east after leaving Hogwarts, and ended up for a time in Russia, although he sent something back to Britain after a while.

Further Note: This story is initially rated 'T'.

Deep below the cobbles of Diagon Alley and magical London is a Gringotts vault. It is a vault in an old and almost forgotten corridor, far from the mine-cart tracks, guarded not by dragons or magical waterfalls, but secured by those far more effective and insidious guardians, obscurity and nonentity.

Other than the heavy, antiquated, door of this one particular vault, there is nothing of interest in this dusty and cobweb laden corridor of seemingly neglected vaults, where doors otherwise stand open or are altogether missing and vaults are vacant or contain maintenance supplies or repair tools for use on more frequently visited, upper, levels of the bank. But although the rather plain and uninteresting looking door of this vault is pitted and dulled with age it is, nonetheless, a very solid door, that a raging dragon would have difficulty getting past in a hurry, and the lock, although relatively simple, is massive to the point where no mere man or woman could operate it. The door itself does not appear to be magical; indeed it appears to be the very antithesis of magical, because the metal itself drinks in and disrupts any magic aimed at it. It is, suffice it to say, utterly impervious to spells.

To open this vault door from the outside requires a team of a minimum dozen goblins with ropes and pulleys, and at least one large security troll to turn the key in the lock.

And inside the vault… inside this vault lies a mechanical marvel, crafted by Arabian wizards of a fabled age, to the specifications and designs of Salazar Slytherin.

It is a gleaming construction of brass and bronze, the size of several elephants, built by those who inherited the knowledge and skills of the sages of ancient Greece and Alexandria.

Steam occasionally hisses from valves. Long metal pointers on dials scribed with Arabic and Gobbledegook numerals twitch back and forth. Complex arrangements of orbs that represent and are in tune with the long slow dance of the major celestial bodies and constellations of the very heavens almost imperceptibly oscillate about each other.

And fine pendulums and crystals hanging from cords swing and bob in reaction to the ebb and flow of events in the world of men – to the rise and fall of leaders and of dark lords. Twice so far, since the wizard Salazar Slytherin (with the aid of Tsar Berendey) sent it here from the Russian steppe, everything almost aligned to release the contents of this mechanism. Twice, so far, the wizarding world teetered nearly to the brink of apocalypse but swung back. Twice were witches and wizards unwittingly saved by mortal men and women who for their lack of magical-powers those selfsame witches and wizards would for the greater part despise.

But not this time. The late spring of 1976 is giving way to early summer and in the air above Britain a flock of things which are both more and less than the swans which they seem are winging their way northwards. James Potter was destined to play a part in defeating a dark lord of this century, but now one older and deadlier has suddenly arisen and put his hand on the board. A young woman scorned a Slytherin, telling him that he had chosen his path when in fact it was she who had conclusively chosen hers.

Except she hadn't. Or not the one she thought, with Von Rothbert's minions in the wind, storming towards Hogwarts on a summer gale.

But she has called the darkness down, and consigned the other to it, or so she ought to have done, if nothing else were in play.

Yet there is, and Nicolas Flamel lies in a pool of his own blood, his wife crying over him in the wake of the tornado of the things which are not swans which tore through their house in Normandy on their way to and from other errands; archives are aflame in the Vatican, in Geneva, and in Munich; Grindelwald was made an offer he refused and has been slain in his turn in Nurmengard; and a messenger is on its way to meet with Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The wizarding world is in crisis and it knows it not. Not yet.

In the Gringotts vault gears whirr and click, and in a remote office of a manager of the bank, for the first time in centuries an alarm bell slowly begins to toll.

This was a move made almost a thousand years ago for a fight that might never even happen. This is war, and Salazar Slytherin's last great gambit is about to commence to play. The one nobody in their right mind in this day and age should have been expecting. Not even Von Rothbert.

After all, there comes a point where it's unreasonable to expect a long dead wizard to possess the foresight and almost insane genius to plan something like this, right? Even when that wizard is Salazar Slytherin?

Gears deep inside the contraption that have not turned for centuries begin to slowly grind and clank now in the opposite direction to that in which they last turned, catches release, and – with a shrill blast on several whistles – several panels pop open around the flanks of the artefact, exposing a bewildering multi-part combination lock. And very soon, although he knows it not, an underage wizard will be on his way to open it…

Author Notes:

I'm not clear on when in canon the British goblins of the Harry Potter universe formally became bankers, but even before that date, I think if the price was right and a foreign potentate was making the offer, they'd be happy to store something long-term.

To some extent this piece is inspired by a documentary I recently saw about the 'Antikythera Mechanism', an archeological find dating back to ancient Greece.

'Von Rothbert' is a name I borrowed from Swan Lake, and in this universe belongs to a very old dark lord of the wizarding world who's been biding his time.

'Tsar Berendey' is a name I've borrowed from The Snow Maiden. I'm a bit vague on the storyline, but I'm very familiar with the Tchaikovsky music for it, and 'Tsar Berendey' (whom I take to be some figure from Russian folklore) gets an absolutely fabulous march.

I have only a few vague notions of where this story could go from here; one of the ones which I do have is that if this ever gets developed this piece is likely to be renamed something along the lines of 'Firebird: Overture' (or possibly would figure as a chapter called 'Overture' in a story called 'Firebird'.

Now back to rewriting (again) other things.