Author/Me: Okay, okay this IS my comeback, I suppose. I haven't honestly thought about posting anything for a while, but I looked over some of my stuff on here (yikes!) and decided I ought to at least put up some more VSoS. So anyway, I decided to make myself feel better by writing this silly little thing :D

And I know everyone has done this - or alluded to it - but I charge each of you: would Bakura seeing the little rhyme outside Gringotts and not take it as a personal challenge? Honestly?

(So this is set a couple years after the final battle of Hogwarts)

Dirkrog was a goblin of the most efficient kind. He had worked in Gringotts capably for forty-eight years and had detested humans for about the same length of time. Contrary to popular opinion, goblins were not born with the need to sneer at humans. Humans, especially wizards, were just that easy to loathe.

What galled him most was their puny attempts to rob a goblin-run establishment.

They had never succeeded. Even when Harry Potter had taken a golden cup from Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, the goblins had very obviously let them get away with it.

But he supposed the ignorant children must have been unaware of what every Auror knew: no goblin ever fell under the Imperius curse. It didn't affect them like it would a wizard or Muggle.

The token protest they had put against the teenagers had obviously been to fool Voldemort. And regarding that pompous wizard…

There was the silly idea among wizards that he was the biggest, cruellest, most powerful fool of their time. Really? How was he different than that embezzler in Malta? How was he more powerful than Flamel - who stole a more complex form of immortality and abused it for hundreds of years - and then denied any other his powers? No goblin ever forgot that Nicholas had turned against them and denied them not only wands but tried to take away their basic earth magicks all those years ago.

The wars that had lasted for years between the wizards and Dirkrog's kind had shown goblins one thing with certainty: all wizards were selfish and one was as bad as another.

The only reason they were not all treated as equal threats was because Dirkrog and his kind knew that the majority of wizards were idiots and they seemed to dislike goblin sensibility as much as goblins disliked their human frivolity. As long as they kept their foolishness to themselves, goblins need not become embroiled with their messes.

But again, the feeble-minded magic-users had to make their messes on goblin establishments. Did they not see the sign outside? The little rhyme that told them what an infant goblin could easily comprehend? Maybe they ought to make it clearer and write over it:

DO NOT FUCK WITH US

Three young idiots had been thrown into jail after their measly attempt at robbing Gringotts. (They hadn't even gotten to the carts). They were obviously getting ideas from Potter's biography. The girl had even gone under Polyjuice potion like that Granger girl had, those few years ago. Their invisibility cloak was cheap and obvious, however, and the idiots forgot that there are other senses than eyes. Also, being invisible in a thick crowd does still make you visible. No large space of blank air in a crowd is natural.

Dirkrog knew that the world would never change when stupid wizards all but encouraged their kind to essentially go and piss on goblin land. Even the Aurors taking the three hoodlums away had been fighting smiles, the unprofessional slackers.

(They would be fighting more than smiles when they found the Shock-Rune Dirkrog had slipped in the ringleader's pocket. After they hurried him over to St Mungo's. It wasn't an act of malice so much as a warning to any others that would try after them. Why didn't those wizarding ponces understand that?)

It had been a normal, terrible day. Dirkrog had maintained a civil tongue despite it all. Professionalism remained intact but that was often all. He would never be pleased in the presence of snotty wand-wavers who acted like their shite was galleons.

This was why when a timid-looking young wizard under a ratty hood shuffled forward at the tellers, Dirkrog's snarled smile was especially terrifying. Three families behind the boy (who must have been no older than 13 or 14) scuttled backwards and ran towards much longer queues across the room.

"I'd like to see my account, please," said the boy bouncing on the balls of his feet, "Under the name Frost."

His estimation of the pitiful human rose a fraction. This meant that instead of being the pathetic, disgraceful-waste-of-flesh-and-dirge-of-civilisation Dirkrog had assumed him to be, the boy was actually just a disgraceful-waste-of-flesh-and-dirge-of-civilisation. This was very generous of him, as he knew little about the boy's fortitude under more extreme circumstances than passive aggressive smiles that had won the goblin's passive aggressive smile award three years running, but Dirkrog liked to think he was very generous by nature.

The boy had not cowed and there was little fear in his voice, although Dirkrog could have sworn that he had been muttering 'such a bad idea' under his breath a few minutes before. If anything, the boy sounded wearily resigned.

"Have you a key?" Dirkrog asked blandly, posture casually unfriendly.

The boy's hood fell back over his forehead as he went on tip-toes and pushed a little key toward Dirkrog, who looked it over carefully.

"It all seems to be in order," he said slowly, after letting the boy wait several minutes, just to let the anxiety build.

Idly, he thought they ought to change the segment in Studies of Homo sapiens where they said white hair was only for elderly humans. Maybe it was a rarity? He had never seen it before on a child.

The boy blinked huge eyes at him. They were dark and sticky-sweet like that wretched caramel stuff one wizard had apparently smooshed his key into. "Really? I mean, ari-thanks! I've never…uh…done this before."

And they should also change the part where it said that humans possessed some small manner of wits.

Dirkrog felt the dull urge to start a charity for donating brain-cells to mentally undernourished wizards. This was not a new urge, but sense told him that because every wizard was a mentally undernourished wizard, it would take more than a few goblin braincells to alter all their absurd minds.

But this track of thought was cut off abruptly because the boy did something so ridiculous that it made him want to reassess living on this planet.

The boy smiled brightly at him.

SMILED.

AT.

HIM.

Dirkrog caught himself from gaping or taking out the stupid child's eye with a coin. Something was severely wrong with the human's instincts. You did not beam at someone who was exuding an air of murderous dislike.

"I will take you down to your vault," he managed, voice coolly collected. This was quite unlike his rational mind which was feeling the abuse of catering to such irrational beings. Wizards! They could all Avada Kedevra themselves, the whole lot of them!

One of his fellow goblins made a mouth-twitch when he got up from behind the counter. Then another one did. One of them even curled long fingers back in the hand-symbol of 'should-we-cover-for-the-body?'

It was as good as if they had doubled over laughing at his expense.

Tightening his jaw and thrusting his nose skyward, he briskly turned away from them and began to head toward the nearest cart. The boy caught up easily with his longer legs.

"Great!" said the unwanted human that Dirkrog was not going to damage or maim in any way, quiet fellow goblins. Yes, Dirkrog may have wished to maim every human he passed by, but he was far too professional for that.

The smile had not withered up on the boy's face – it hadn't even floundered a little. His huge eyes were crinkled with that smile, and their largeness and softness and general goodwill reminded Dirkrog vaguely of some sort of woodland creature.

"Oh," said the mouth beneath the huge eyes, "I never introduced myself – how impolite of me! I'm Sir Steve King – the Frosts were on my mother's side."

The boy had a lisp when he said his name so it sounded like 'thta thteif'.

Probably a psychological response from a childhood lisp that only reappeared with certain words, thought Dirkrog, sensibly.

As long as he didn't hurl on the carts, Dirkrog would be able to ignore him during the ride. But unfortunately, the King boy, Steve (pronounced 'Thteif') thought that goblins were fascinated by personal information. He wouldn't stop talking as he climbed into the cart.

"I'm just visiting for the summer and I need some serious sight-seeing funds! Where do you go for sight-seeing? Do you like the beach? I don't really. They have oysters and oysters are creepy. Not like thestrals - now those are beautiful!" At this point, cartoon hearts all but formed in his eyes.

Dirkrog had the feeling that unicorns would flock around this kid. All the more reason to despise him. Unicorns were notoriously bad at character assessment.

He started the cart without warning and hoped Steve (or 'Thteif' as he was calling the twerp in his head, damn the boy), would catch a bug in his open mouth.

If Dirkrog had half-turned his head when they whooshed forward, he would have seen the makeshift cloak and hood fly back from his client's shoulders. He would have seen the glitter of gold against his muggle t-shirt. He would have seen the boy's eyes purple and narrow under the torchlight.

But Dirkrog did not half-turn. He was a sensible goblin that didn't like whiplash.

(Sneak Peek :P This will probably be like 5 chapters long.

I thought I'd write something where Bakura and Ryou have some sort of interaction immediately. Bakura hasn't appeared in my other stories yet so I thought I'd bring him and Ryou along for this little ride :) pun fully intended.)