The thing about magical safes were, not only were the fiercely protected by goblins, half the time they were made just as much for keeping things in as keeping them out. One Miss Luna Lovegood found that out the hard way, as she was organizing her family assets after the war. Much had been salvaged from the ruins of her old home, yet even more had been lost, and she had taken it upon herself to sort through the wreckage and store the more valuable of it in the Lovegood family vault, so the trouble couldn’t recur. That day was likely the last she’d spent on the project, having gotten down to a number of old, worn trunks she assumed to be filled with books.
Mostly she was right, save the last trunk. It was filled to the brim with a number of things she couldn’t figure what to make of, an adjusted and no longer working time turner, a reveler the wrong color, and a mirror with a thick gold inscription around the edges; the object showed no reflection. It did, however, mist over the moment she picked it up, and tilt the world on its axis the next. Years of experience with apparition, portkeys, and floo allowed her to keep her balance, but she was no less turned about to find herself standing in a rich forest rather than Gringotts. There was an aura of magic thick from the trees themselves, and she could hear the sound of…something not that far off. Lack any other options, the witch tucked the mirror into the purple knit satchel at her side and made her way towards the noise. Nearing after several minutes, she had the caution to check her wand was easily drawn and called out, “Hullo?” in an airy voice.
The clearing was dappled with sun, and Finrod found himself almost falling asleep in the late summer warmth. Shaking his head to break from the doze, he concentrated on the task in hand. Making arrows was dull work at best, but he’d run into a platoon of orc about five leagues back and hadn’t fancied picking through their corpses for shafts that would mostly be broken. No, it was much easier to make more.
He was onto sharpening the thin shaft of ash for the seventh arrow when the sound of a twig snapping off to the right alerted him to the presence of another. Quick as a flash, Finrod grabbed his bow and quiver and darted into a thicket of trees that provided cover but allowed him to clearly see the stranger. It was only then that Finrod realised he’d left his haversack out in the open. He swore under his breath.
The figure was on the edge of the clearing now, and while he sensed no hostility from whoever it was Finrod was not willing to take any chances. At the call of greeting, he drew his bow and aimed it at the stranger. “Halt! Who goes there?”