Hufflepuff's Cup and the Gringotts Heist: The Fourth Horcrux

To steal this Horcrux, three teenagers broke into the safest bank in the wizarding world, nearly got crushed under burning gold and escaped riding a blind dragon. And it wasn't even the hardest part of their year.

A Cup and an Old Woman

Helga Hufflepuff founded the house everyone underestimates, and she left behind a small gold cup with two handles and an engraved badger. Centuries later it belonged to Hepzibah Smith, a rich, old and vain witch who claimed to be descended from Hufflepuff.

Dumbledore shows Harry how she lost it through a very particular memory: that of Hokey, Hepzibah's house-elf (Half-Blood Prince, ch. 20). In it we watch Hepzibah put on makeup to receive a young employee of Borgin and Burkes. Charming, polite, handsome. Tom Riddle.

A Murder Nobody Investigated

That day Hepzibah showed Tom her two secrets: Hufflepuff's cup and Slytherin's locket. Dumbledore notices in the memory how Tom's eyes change when he sees the locket. A red flash.

Two days later Hepzibah died, poisoned in her cocoa. Hokey confessed she'd mistaken a poison for sugar. She was old, so they believed her. Dumbledore later discovered that Tom had modified her memory, just like Morfin Gaunt's. The cup and the locket disappeared, and Tom quit his job and vanished for years.

Why Bellatrix Had It

Voldemort entrusted the cup to Bellatrix Lestrange, who kept it in her family's vault at Gringotts. The books never say he explained what it was, and everything suggests he didn't. For Bellatrix, guarding something of her master's was an honor. She didn't know she held a piece of his soul.

Harry deduces it in Deathly Hallows (chs. 23 and 24) from a reaction of Bellatrix's at Malfoy Manor: when she sees Gryffindor's sword in the trio's hands, which she believed was safe in her vault, she goes into a panic that isn't normal even for her. She is terrified that they got in. Harry understands there's something more in that vault.

The Heist

They needed a goblin. Griphook, whom they rescued from the Manor, agreed to help in exchange for the sword (ch. 25). The plan was straight out of a heist movie: Hermione went in on Polyjuice Potion as Bellatrix, Ron disguised as an invented foreign wizard, and Harry and Griphook hid under the Invisibility Cloak (ch. 26).

Almost everything went wrong. An enchanted waterfall that washes away disguises and spells left them exposed on the bank's tracks. And inside the vault, every object they touched multiplied and burned. By the time Harry finally reaches the cup, they're sinking into a mountain of burning copies. Griphook grabs the sword and abandons them.

Hermione finds the way out: an old, pale dragon, chained to guard the deep vaults, nearly blind from years underground. They free it, climb onto its back and the dragon smashes through Gringotts's ceiling to escape. It ends up flying over London to a lake, where the three of them jump into the water.

It's the most famous image in the book. It also says something about Gringotts: the "safest" bank had a tortured dragon in the basement.

How It Was Destroyed

The cup survived all that, and its end comes at Hogwarts. During the battle, Ron remembers that the basilisk's skeleton is still in the Chamber of Secrets. He imitates the Parseltongue he heard from Harry, opens the entrance and goes down with Hermione. She's the one who stabs the fang into the cup (Deathly Hallows, ch. 31).

Moments later, when Ron worries about getting the elves out of the school, Hermione kisses him. Seven books of waiting.

Book vs. Movie

Hokey and Hepzibah don't appear in the movie, so the cup arrives almost without a history.
The kiss in the movie happens inside the Chamber, soaking wet after destroying the cup. In the book it's later, in a corridor, over the elves.
The dragon is just as spectacular in both versions.

What Almost Nobody Notices

When Voldemort learns of the theft, Harry feels his reaction through the scar (Deathly Hallows, ch. 27). For the first time, Voldemort's fury comes with fear. And in his panic he makes the worst possible mistake: he mentally runs through his hiding places to see which are still safe. Harry sees it all. That's how he learns the next one is at Hogwarts.

The theft of the cup didn't just destroy a Horcrux. It handed Harry the map to the rest.

Where It Fits in the Series

Three remain: a diadem, a snake and one nobody imagines. The fifth is hidden in a room at Hogwarts that Voldemort thought only he knew. Continue with Ravenclaw's Diadem and the Room of Requirement: Horcrux 5. The previous part is Regulus Black and Slytherin's Locket: The Forgotten Hero.

Would you break into Gringotts for a good cause? The house quiz knows the answer.