The Heiress

"Blinking hell, that Hermione Granger?"

I didn't like the sound of that. Warren usually didn't get that excited about anything unless involved alcohol or a fit bird with big knockers and no flatmates.

"What do you mean that Hermione Granger? How many do you know?"

"No, it's just when you talked to me the other day, I thought the name sounded familiar, but I wasn't really sure." Warren rolled a long, dusty ledger over my desk. "Then it just hit me: Hermione Granger - Battle of Spinner's End. She was with you and Harry Potter when you all faced You-Know-Who for the last time, right?"

"Yeah." I waved away the dust in the air. It was gone two o'clock by a long stretch. Hermione was late. Warren didn't seem to mind, but I was half-worried and half hacked-off-to-hell.

Warren and I had spent a day and half skulking around "the catacombs," an area of the dungeons that was damp and dusty as arse. We'd nearly been killed by the mold and bilge floating around down there, but we'd stuck to it until we'd found what we were searching for. The least Hermione could've done was to show up on time.

"My mum has her book. Says it's better than Muggle television. She's read it a million times." Warren was mucking with the parchment. "Mum says every time she reads the part about that trial, she starts crying. She said she didn't think it was right at first but reading that book, she said she understood why Hermione Granger did what she did -"

I looked up and Warren shut his mouth so quick I could hear his teeth rattle.

"Er ... bad subject?"

"The worst. I was an Auror when that trial happened."

"Right, right. I'd forgotten." Warren hung his head a little. "I guess you knew all those blokes?"

"I worked with all of them. A few were good friends." I turned back to the scroll. It could've been the mold or it could've been the goblins' handwriting, but I could barely read anything on it. "Now, you're sure about all this?"

"Dead certain. Chances of something like this being wrong are thinner than doxy shite," said Warren. "Maybe she's related to this, er, Whetwistle bloke? There's nothing like that on the scrolls, but you never know. It's not just the Muggles that have a bit of oddness in their family trees. Ms. Granger is a Muggleborn, after all."

"Hm." I thought about telling him about my 'maiden aunt' theory, but running it over in my head, it didn't sound as good as when I'd thrown it at Hermione. "Could be. Stranger things have happened, I guess. The name sounds a little familiar, though ..." And it did, and not in a good way. "But everything else looks all right?"

"Right as rain. There was that inquiry a few years back, but nothing came of it. Hermione Granger's a rich bird, she is. I'd kill to be the bloke to help her run through all that gold. She's not too much older than me, I reckon?" Warren straightened his robes. "You think she'd fancy me? I can cook."

I went for the same expression that had made him shut his gob the first time. It worked again.

"Oh ... right. Now I remember the other thing mum said she read in Hermione Granger's book. You and she were, er ..."

"We were ..." I tried to find a way to put it that wouldn't make my fingers clench up, couldn't, and then realised what he'd just said.

"Wait, what? What does her book have to do with me?"

Warren goggled at me. "Haven't you read it? Mum says you're mentioned even more than Harry Potter is! Every other word is 'Ronald Weasley.' You've really not read it? Cor blimey, if a bird wrote a book about me, I'd be first on line to read it, and if it had pictures, all the better!"

I grimaced, but didn't say anything. I'd gotten the book Hermione had written about the war and the trial the year after Hermione had left Britain - on my birthday, appropriately enough. I'd thought Ginny and Harry had given it to me to squash the ruddy spiders that live in my closet because I was bloody well sure that they weren't expecting me to actually read that bilge. I tried to toss it out a few times, but Ginny or somebody had figured I might do that, so they put a bloody locator charm on it so that it'd always find its way back. It was where I supposed it would remain, on my bookshelf in a place that pretty much guaranteed that I could continue to ignore its existence.

When the knock finally came, Warren jumped up and looked about to make a run for it. I grabbed him by the sleeve before he could get by me.

"Not a word about anything except this vault business," I said firmly. "Keep it simple, yeah?"

"Right, right, of course. I wouldn't want to make her feel uncomfortable."

I grunted. It wasn't Hermione's comfort I was overly concerned about. Warren gave me a small smile, then crossed the room to open the door.

She came in, looking pink and a bit out of breath, like she'd been running for a bus and had just missed catching it. Warren introduced himself and Hermione murmured something low and sweet in return. He gestured to a chair, and on her way, she stopped right in front of me.

"Hello, Ron. Thank you again for setting this up."

"You're late," I said, looking pointedly at the clock. "And we're busy. So let's just get on with it."

Her smile deflated a little and she moved on. I saw Warren glance curiously at me, but he didn't say anything.

As she settled in, I sized her up out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a heavy woolen coat and a blue dress underneath. Her fluffy hair was tossed about, too, framing her flushed face. I found it interesting, but not too surprising, that she wasn't wearing wizarding wear. She'd been living among Muggles for a decade, after all, and the Americans' mode of fashion was anyone's guess anyway. But I didn't really mind her outfit, and neither did Warren, who was staggering around like a lovesick niffler, offering her gillywater, asking about her health, and all that sort of rot that he trotted out for very influentual or very good-looking customers.

"Ms. Granger, thank you for coming in. Seems you have a bit of a money problem?" He laughed loudly. "Well, not really a problem, is it? I wish I could have the sort of problem you're having, that is. Fancy a trade? I'll take your vault and you can have my bloody neighbours and their smegging stereo ..."

Hermione shot him that same you-must-be-joking look that she used to give me and Harry when we'd said that Exploding Snap was the best primer for our Charms O.W.L. Just then, Warren seemed to cotton on to the fact that he wasn't in a pub at last call, and Hermione wasn't some piece of fluff who'd downed just enough watered-down ales to find him charming. He straightened his robes and pulled a serious face. It didn't look right on him.

"Yes, right. We'll crack on with this then," he said. "So Ron explained to me your, er, concerns about this vault."

"They aren't concerns. It's quite obviously some sort of mix-up," she said, sounding impatient. "As I explained to Ron, I haven't had a Gringotts account in some time."

"Well, I have just a few questions. When did you first become aware of the vault in question?"

Hermione looked over at me. "Didn't you tell him all this?"

"I told him," I said. "He wants to hear it from you."

She tossed her head huffily, and I had to chomp on my lip to keep from grinning. She hadn't liked that answer, apparently. Good.

"About a year after I started teaching at the Brookshire Academy, I received an owl at my flat, which surprised me a great deal," she began in a firm voice. "I don't get very much correspondence from the wizarding world any longer. My friends in that world are, for the most part, familiar with the Muggle technology that I began using when I got to the United States, and I rather disliked the thought of owling, since it had the potential to attract unnecessary attention. I accepted this particular owl, however, because it seemed insistent on getting into my flat. The doorman had chased it with a broom a few times and I feared for its safety.

"When I opened the scroll, I saw that it was a ledger statement from Gringotts detailing transactions for the year prior. It had my name on it, but I knew I had closed my Gringotts account shortly before I left Britain. Even when it was open, I'd never had very much in it - certainly nothing approaching these sums."

Hermione's eyes were drifting shut and her head bobbed a bit. She was getting comfortable telling this story. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

"I wrote Gringotts and told them that there had to be an error. I didn't hear anything until the next year, around that same time. I received another statement, and this time, twice as much money was in the vault. I again owled that there was some sort of misunderstanding and that unless they were writing to acknowledge that they had made a mistake, I wanted no more owls from them.

"The next year, I received yet another owl. I considered then coming to Britain and speaking to someone personally about all of this, but there was an emergency at school. The Headmistress's mum died and I had to stay behind during holidays to chaperone the students. I wrote another owl asking that they please leave me alone about all this vault business. I heard nothing more from Gringotts after that."

Folding her hands in her lap, she glared at me for a good minute before looking at Warren again. "How did I do?" There was an edge to her voice.

"Just ace, um, thanks." Warren looked up at me with his eyebrows raised. I just shook my head. He was on his own with this.

"But Ron was telling me that you got, uh, a threatening note?"

"Oh." She looked startled. "Well ... I suppose it could be construed in that way -"

"You suppose?" I couldn't believe that she was still being stubborn about that damned note. "What's confusing about touch the money and die?"

"Ron -"

"And I suppose Muggleborn bint is just the usual thing people put on their Christmas cards -"

"Ron, don't patronise me!" Her eyes were blazing. "I understand the way it looks, but it seems to me that one possible explanation for that note is that the real owner of that vault was frustrated at Gringotts' mistake" - particular emphasis on that word, I noticed - "and decided to take it out on me. I'm not sure that if I weren't in the same situation that I wouldn't have been tempted to do something similar."

"Don't give me that: It's a threat, and they know who you are." I stood over her chair and glared down at her, arms crossed. "Even if Gringotts did make a mistake, whoever sent you that note knew who you were enough to insult you. I doubt they just pulled the Muggleborn thing out of their arse. It's not something to bloody take lightly! Whoever wrote it threatened to kill you!"

"It said nothing of the sort. Touch the money and die is ... is ... it's hyperbole, Ron!" she shot back. "If you say that you'll die if you don't get a slice of pudding, you don't really mean that, do you?"

"No, but if I say that I'll die if I do get a slice of Ginny's pudding, I can tell you that I'm speaking from experience."

"Ron, really! I didn't come here to be browbeaten and ridiculed -"

"You asked me to help you with this!" I could barely keep my voice down. "Well, I'm helping, and that's a lot more than those New York gits did for you!"

She went quiet then and her shoulders hunched protectively. "I know, Ron. I'm sorry ... this is all just very unsettling to me. I'd hoped to have all this settled, and having to come here at all is not exactly what I had in mind."

I remembered how she'd acted when she'd first showed me the letter, so I didn't know whether she was putting on some sort of act for Warren's benefit, if she was hoping to make me look like a clueless prat, or if in the days since we'd seen each other, she'd found some reason to believe that the note wasn't to be taken seriously. I held her look for longer than was comfortable for me, but for a change, her eyes weren't telling me anything.

"Er, well, we'll get back to that note in a second," said Warren, with a nervous smile, his eyes darting between Hermione and me. I half expected him to put up a Shield Charm to protect himself from the sharp words Hermione and I were flinging at each other.

"I pulled up the copies of the statements that we have here in Gringotts," he said. "They're, uh, a little dusty. Sorry about that. Anyway, there's good news and, um, more good news for you, Ms. Granger!"

It was a long time before she left off glowering at me to give Warren another glance. "What do you mean?"

"He means there hasn't been any mistake," I said. "It is your money. Someone left it to you in his will."

Hermione gasped, swaying in her chair. "Someone did what?"

"You were left a sum of money to be paid to this vault," said Warren, tapping his wand on the dusty, dingy parchment, "in monthly installments. Why he set it up that way, I don't really know, but there it is. Near as we can figure, the bloke died about 10 years ago. That's when your vault was created. That's how we do it with E-levels, you see. A person can put in his will whether he wants to turn over his actual vault or if he wants the bank to make a new one. This bloke decided on a new one for you. And there's that, clear enough. You're a very, very wealthy woman, Ms. Granger."

Hermione shook her head like someone coming out of a deep sleep. "I ... I don't believe this. I don't - I don't understand how that could be. Who would leave me something in their will?"

"A family member, maybe, Ms. Granger?"

"I ... I don't think I have any magical family," she said, still looking dazed. "At least, not that I know of, and I do think that I would have known something like that before now."

"Well, maybe your parents didn't know, either. My mum says I have loads of Muggle cousins out there, but they don't believe in magic, so they don't think we exist!" said Warren, chuckling. "Maybe it's sort of the other way around with you."

"Perhaps." She looked as if she were trying to smile, but her lips weren't really cooperating. "What is the person's name?"

Warren frowned down at the parchment, blew a spot of dust away, and then looked down at it again.

"Edward Bartholomew Whetwistle Sr."

The dust in the room was kicking up again, making my eyes water, but they snapped into focus immediately at Hermione's reaction. She gasped aloud and her whole face turned a sickly grey. Before I knew what I was about, I was out of my chair and next to hers. She looked as if she were about to slide to the floor. Her lips quivered and her eyes grew owl-like.

"No ..." she breathed. "That's - that's impossible. That can't be right!"

"Why not?" I asked. "Who is he?"

Hermione stood up. Her whole body was trembling and she wouldn't look at me. "I'm sorry. This - there is a mistake somewhere, I'm sure. It's all a mistake. I'm so sorry to have wasted your time. Goodbye, Ron."

She made to leave, but I reached out and grabbed her arm.

"Ron, please let me go -"

"What's going on?" I tightened my grip but not enough to hurt. "Me and Warren worked our arses off getting all this information. The parchment had been sitting under a pile of old dusty books for 10 years. It's not any bloody mistake. D'you know this bloke or not?"

"Ron, I don't ... yes ... no ..." She looked lost. "I only met him once - it was only five minutes, not even that, two minutes, perhaps ... I - oh, my goodness, why? He didn't know me!"

I traded glances with Warren. Hermione was known to natter on, but not so much and not with an expression like the one that was on her face at that moment.

"Hermione, just tell us who the hell he is - well, was," I said in a voice I hoped seemed a little kinder. "That might explain a little why he would've done something like this without even knowing you."

"Nothing could explain it." She shook her head violently and a bit of her hair slid across my cheek. "Nothing."

She looked me full in the face then. Her eyes were huge and moist and her chin was shaking.

"Edward Whetwistle ... was the father of one of the men murdered by that group of Aurors 10 years ago."

The second the words were out of her mouth, my grip slackened and Hermione bolted out the door in the space that it took me to draw a breath.