The Heiress

I was almost never in the office past five in the evening. It usually wasn't necessary anyway because nothing I did at Gringotts was what anyone would call "crucial." If I let something slide for a day or more, it didn't matter - there'd always be more bilge to take the place of the other shite that managed to slip through the cracks.

But it was well after nine and I was still at my desk, poring over that scroll. As soon as it had gotten dark, the rain had come again and I thought about how soggy it had been that winter, and not with snow either. There was probably something to that. I'd lit the lamp on my desk, because a simple Lumos wasn't going to cut it tonight. The lamplight made the office look warm and cozy. I almost wished I could do all my work after dark.

I hadn't eaten or gone for a walk or even left my office since Hermione had left. My stomach and my legs were reminding me that they existed in the most uncomfortable way possible, but I couldn't stop reading that effing parchment. All that was there were numbers and little scratches that only the goblins could decipher. But no matter how hard I stared at it, the bottom line was the same. All of that money was Hermione's inheritance.

The details weren't that hard to sort out once you got past all the illegible scratches and symbols. Edward Whetwistle had decreed that his main vault at Gringotts, also an E-level, be debited 7000 Galleons monthly until his entire fortune had flowed from the old vault into the one created for Hermione. That is exactly what had happened for the past 10 years, like clockwork. But there was still a sizable balance left in the original vault. Even if Hermione were to nip around to Gringotts tomorrow and withdraw every knut that was currently tucked away, there'd still be a fortune waiting to be transferred.

I traced my finger down the columns of numbers and came up with the same answers every time. It was a little annoying, actually. I rubbed my tired eyes, and Hermione's last words came floating back.

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

Murder.

After all these years, I couldn't believe she had the cheek to say that to my face. I didn't care what the Wizengamot had decided or what the wizarding press had said. Those arses hadn't been at Harry's side at the last battle. They hadn't seen Remus with half his face chewed off or Tonks with her belly cut open or Percy with his head lying yards away from where the rest of his body was and hairy rats tearing chunks out of his legs. Sure, they wrote about it all in their articles and in their official reports, but they hadn't been there.

But Hermione had been there from beginning to end, and she still could find the cheek to call what happened to those five cowards who'd managed to tap-dance their way out of an Azkaban sentence murder.

My stomach lurched, but since nothing was in it, nothing happened. I was about to rummage about in my desk to see if I had anything that could pass for food there when the knock I'd been ignoring for the past hour came again.

I'd ignored the knocking the first dozen times because I knew that Harry wouldn't bother, and at this point, Hermione wouldn't dare. I didn't want to see anyone at all, really, but I knew the knocking would keep on if I didn't do something.

I pointed my wand at the door. Warren was standing there, hand raised to bang again.

"Still here, then?"

"Could say the same about you." I waved him in. "Grubkinder have you chained to your chair by your bollocks?"

"That would've been a sight better than what I have been doing - drawing up plans for the vaults up in Edinburgh." Warren came in and threw himself into a chair. "They want 'em arranged all in a circle. I said that if it was done that way, nobody would be able to get in. They said that was why they wanted them arranged in a circle. Gits."

He looked around for awhile, chewing his lip and flinching like he was afraid the walls were about to fall in. I knew he was waiting for me to ask him what he was looking for. When he cleared his throat, I knew he'd given it up.

"Er ... she didn't come back, I take it? Or Firecall? Send an owl?"

"Why would she have? We did our job. The Galleons are hers. Case closed."

"Right, but you didn't, uh, go after her? See that she was all right and all? She looked pretty upset."

"She asked me to look into it. I did. I can't help it if she didn't like what she heard."

"Well, finding out that the father of a Death-Eating git had left you all his Galleons had to have been a real kick in the nadgers. Er, so to speak."

I shrugged.

"Uh ... right. Okay." Warren cleared his throat again. "Fancy getting a pint or something? I'm gasping for something strong."

"Not tonight. I'm knackered," I said, frowning at a dark blotch on the parchment. I couldn't remember if that had been around before. "Going to pop out in a bit."

"All right then. Guess I'll head out, too," Warren said, but he didn't move. "I, uh, could take that scroll down to the catacombs, if you like. I have some other grot to drop off there anyway."

Warren sounded sorry that I'd opened the door after all, but he also looked like he was determined not to leave until he heard what he wanted to hear. I had a pretty good guess what that might be, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe I should give him what he wanted. If he had the time and stomach for it, I suppose I did, too.

"You know what? I think a drink sounds like a good idea, after all." I waved my wand and locked the door. "But we'll have it here and now."

Warren made a surprised noise, but he nodded and sat down. Drinking on the premises of Gringotts had been prohibited a few years ago after a few goblins had gotten into a cask of fermented gillywater. Coin-minting had to be suspended for nearly a week. I tried not to think about how much trouble I might cause for both of us while I rummaged in my desk drawer and brought out a squat bottle.

"Here, is that cognac?"

"You've had it before?"

"My gran loved it. She used to mix it with pumpkin juice. Said that firewhisky couldn't touch it." Warren gently turned the bottle toward the lamplight and whistled low. "This is a good brand, too."

"My oldest brother gave it to me when I got this job." I brought out a couple of flimsy plastic cups. "It was a gift to him when he got his desk job here. He told me that I shouldn't open it until I finally got out of this place."

Warren gave me an odd look. "Uh ... are you trying to tell me something?"

"I wish." I drummed my wand on the top of the bottle and the cork came out with a muted pop. "No joy there, believe me. Every time I see Hermione, I'm reminded that I'm never going to get out of here."

"What d'you mean? What's she have to do with you being at Gringotts?"

"Everything." I remembered that Bill said that I should smell the stuff before drinking it, so I sniffed it some. I didn't know what I was supposed to smell - or not smell - so I poured some out and took a long pull. It wasn't Ogden's, but I decided not to hold that against it.

"But I thought she and you were, well, uh ... involved."

"We were going to get married."

"Right! Now I remember! That's what mum said she read in that book." His brow folded in on itself and he rubbed his chin. "You proposed after the smoke cleared at Spinner's End, didn't you?"

I nodded and took another swig. "Right before I lost consciousness. Had a wicked cut on my cheek and I lost more blood than I'd realised."

"You were in St. Mungo's for a week, in a protected ward," said Warren, sounding a little like a Muggle tour guide. "The Healers said you needed quiet and shouldn't hear any news that might send you into a shock, so she sent her answer by owl."

I looked at him over the rim of my cup. "All of that's in the book?"

"That and more. Mum went a little fluttery over some parts. She's that type, you know."

Warren tipped a bit more into his cup, giving me a sideways look as if he thought I'd mind. I didn't. I wasn't sure just what to make of what he'd said about personal things between me and Hermione being in her book. I'd thought Hermione's book had to do with the trial and what became of her life afterward, and there wasn't much in the 'after' that had to do with me.

"So what happened? I know you married someone, but it wasn't Hermione Granger. It was ... uh ... that bird who poured the Galleons over you the other day, right?"

"Daphne. Yeah. We were in the same year at Hogwarts. She was in Slytherin."

"Slytherin? Here, I didn't know that. Better thank Merlin that gold's the only thing she threw over you. Dated a Slytherin girl once. I still can't look at a cauldron and a pair of slippers without getting dry heaves."

I wasn't going anywhere near that one. Putting down my drink, I leaned forward a little. "I don't think I ever asked you how you felt about the Ministry's amnesty programme."

"Uh, no. I reckon you haven't." I could tell by the way Warren's eyelids fluttered that the change in topic had thrown him. He took a few seconds to have another swallow and get sorted.

"My gran talked a lot about Muggle wars and how amnesty was a pretty regular thing - part of the healing process or something," he said. "So I suppose I really didn't think it was that off. I understand why some people didn't like it, though. My mum wasn't keen on it at all. Uh ... what'd you think about it?"

"I thought it was a bloody farce," I said quietly. "I lost a brother in the war. I lost friends. And that prickless bastard Scrimgeour wanted everyone to 'forgive and forget.' It was like him pissing on each and every grave in Newfield."

"Well, but those blokes that got amnesty: Didn't Scrimgeour say there were, uh, extenuating circumstances? They were all pretty young blokes, I thought. And wasn't there something about You-Know-Who having threatened their families if they didn't join with him? I know that's what was said about one of them - um, Malfoy I think it was?"

I put my cup down and looked up, slowly. "Threatened? Harry had been threatened by that mad git since he was a baby, and he didn't back down from facing him."

"Well, yeah, but he's Harry Potter, you know. The Boy-Who-Lived, and all. He almost shouldn't count, in a way."

"It wasn't just Harry. Better men and women than those masked fucks had been threatened, and they died telling Voldemort to kiss their arses." I was breathing heavily. The scent of the cognac had gotten stuck in my nose and I felt like I was suffocating.

"And as for Malfoy, I knew him. It was a right laugh how when his body was found, everyone went on about what a loss it was and that, as if they suddenly forgot that he's the reason that the wards at Hogwarts are bollixed up forever. He's the reason Dumbledore died, and that fucking git and all those pieces of shite are the reason I've got a brother in the ground and another one who's a fucking wreck and can't have any children! Threatened? Bugger that!"

Warren faced me down without blinking, which I thought was rather brave of him, because things had sort of gone flying while I was having my yell. I'd never really mastered wandless magic - not the way Harry, Hermione and Neville had - but sometimes it just flared out of nowhere, shocking me to hell. I knew I had to calm down before I started breaking windows or something, so I had another long pull and put my head down on my arms for a minute. A second later, Warren's voice floated over my head.

"I don't really disagree with you that they deserved worse. I lost people, too, you know. All I mean is that I could understand why some people thought it might be a good idea," said Warren quietly. "But I don't really understand what any of this has to do with Hermione Granger."

I lifted my head inch by inch. "She was one of those people who thought amnesty was a good idea. Scrimgeour handpicked her to get the whole deal sorted."

"And you split up over that? You were against the amnesty and she was working for it?"

"There was a little more to it than that -"

I looked to the side when I caught a strange gurgling sound. The lamp was beginning to flicker and sputter like one of the twins' slow-fizz fireworks. Turning it off drained all the comfort from the room. I lit my wand and Warren did the same.

A sound like barrels being rolled down stone steps made me jump. I relaxed when I realised that it was thunder. "We split up because of the trial."

"The trial?" Warren looked mystified. "I remember the trial. You weren't part of that group of Aurors who -"

"No." I kept my eyes on the dead lamp. "But I knew what that lot was planning. Technically."

"Technically? I don't follow."

I made to answer, but a knot of pain in my stomach made me wince. Warren looked concerned but I told him I was fine. My stomach wasn't taking to well to the liquor. Maybe it was too used to cheap mead.

"When the amnesty order came down, everyone in the Auror Division wanted to kill Scrimgeour. It was like a slap in the face," I said, gripping my cup hard so that I didn't sink too far back into the memory. "When Scrimgeour put together the team of Aurors he wanted to go get those blokes from their hiding place, some of the ones he chose talked about how easy it would be to ... have a bit of an accident."

I looked at Warren then. One glance was enough. I went back to studying the lamp.

"They told you what they were planning?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way. But it didn't sound very much like a plan at all. It was like what Hermione was talking about earlier. What was it? Uh ... hyperbola. Yeah. That."

"But they really did -"

"I know."

"- And you didn't think they were serious?"

"Are you daft? These weren't lunatics - they were Aurors, and more than that, they were wizards. Good ones. Brave." I knocked back what was left in my cup. "When they talked about how simple it would be to Imperio those Death-eaters, make them all jump off a cliff and break their heads open, and then cast Crucio on each other to make it look like they were attacked and had no choice but to run them off that way, I thought it was rubbish." I took a breath. "Just saying it makes me feel like a nutter. Everyone was hacked off and saying a lot of stupid things - stupider things than that. I never thought ..."

I trailed off. My throat was getting a bit raw. "Kingsley Shacklebolt was in charge of that team. I knew him; He was one of the smartest, steadiest blokes I'd ever met. I didn't think he'd go along with anything so ... so ... Merlin ..."

My head was starting to feel too heavy for my neck. I scrubbed my hand over my face. It never occurred to me to stop drinking, so I didn't. Warren watched my face, his lips shut as tight as if they had a sealing charm on them.

"So I put it out of my mind - or tried to. I didn't think they were being serious, so I tried to forget about it." I bit my lip. "And because I didn't take it seriously, I told Hermione."

"Wait - you told her? Just like that?"

"Well, I didn't mean to. But we were rowing - and when we row, my mouth always gets a bit ahead of the rest of me."

An image of dark clouds and spitting rain flashed into my brain at that moment, and I shivered just as I always did when little reminders of that day popped into my head.

"It was a pretty bad day at the outset. We'd all gone to put flowers on my brother's grave. Hermione and I decided to walk home from Newfield and at first, everything was fine. But then she started in on the amnesty bilge, talking about how it was just what the wizarding world needed to be able to get on with things and how just about everyone agreed and that it would have been what Perce - my brother - would have wanted, and ..."

As I was speaking, my mind was going full-click, taking me back through that day. I was barely aware that Warren was even around; my whole mind had gone back 10 years, playing out scenes from the past like something in Muggle cinema. I wasn't in a dark office in Gringotts, getting pissed off my arse. In fact, I wasn't in an office at all: I was outside in the wind and rain looking down at the dirt on my boots. Now I was pulling my arm out of Hermione's. Now she was looking at me, not understanding why I'd stopped in the middle of the street and was just staring straight on like a train coming down a track. And then came the part where I started screaming at her, right there, right in front of god and Muggles and everyone, and she was backing away from me, looking afraid ...

"When she said that, I started wondering what would Perce have wanted," I said, trying to block out the memory of the fear in Hermione's eyes when I'd started railing at her. "And then it hit me: What he would've wanted was a nice, cushy office in the Ministry and a post that would have let him use big words once in awhile, and still have enough time left over in the day to owl Mum and practice signing his name Percival I. Weasley, Minister of Magic on spare bits of parchment. That's what he would have wanted. What he wouldn't have wanted was to be dead and cut into pieces and stuck in a fucking box in the fucking ground.

"So I told her that what Perce would have wanted was to be alive, and because of those arseholes whose hands she wanted hold, he wasn't. And I ... I told her that I almost wished that Kingsley's blokes were serious about what they wanted to do to them. That it would save the Ministry time and money if all those shite-eating prats just ... tumbled off a cliff somewhere."

All the talking stopped at that moment and we drank until the bottle was empty. Warren tossed back more of the stuff than I did, but it seemed to affect me more. My head whirled and my tongue felt thick and useless. I was sort of surprised that Warren was even still around. He'd come round, trying to be a good mate, and I was laying all this at his feet and screaming about it, in the bargain. I hoped that at least the cognac was making it all worth it.

Something between an hour and three weeks from that moment passed before Warren spoke up. "Is ... is that when you broke up?"

"No, not really. We stayed out of each other's way for a few days - right up until Kingsley and his lot went off to Cardiff - and came back with a bunch of bodies. He told the Ministry that his team had been attacked and the Death Eater blokes had fallen off that cliff trying to escape. Just an accident. And a few of the Aurors were really badly hurt. Not by Crucio, either. They really had been attacked, so everybody believed Kingsley, even the blokes' families."

And even I had believed it - or I tried my hardest to, anyway. Even though in the back of my head, I'd suspected, maybe even known, the truth, the part of me that wanted to believe that Aurors - people who'd taken oaths to uphold the law - would never, ever do anything like that, had me believing that it was all just an eerie coincidence.

"And that would have been the end of it, except ... Hermione wasn't satisfied."

Warren's eyes snapped open wide. "She turned them in, didn't she?"

I laughed under my breath a little. "Not them. Just me. She went to Scrimgeour and told him that she didn't believe it was an accident. Then she told him about our fight and what I'd said about Kingsley's blokes saying something. The 'tumbling off a cliff' thing is what sealed it."

"Bloody hell ..."

"I was arrested and interrogated. I don't remember much of it, because they gave me Veritaserum. The four-point dose that they use on people who've shown they can fight against it. At the end, felt like an Acromantula had ripped my throat out - but they got what they wanted out of me, I guess. Kingsley and his lot were arrested the next day. Then there was the trial. Hermione gave evidence against them. You know the rest, I reckon."

Warren swore again. "Blimey, no wonder you can barely look at her."

I wondered when he'd had time to notice that. His eyes had seemed to be down her shirt every time I'd looked.

"Scrimgeour made it clear that the only reason that I wasn't tossed in Azkaban with them was because it would be a bad show to throw Harry Potter's best mate in prison - especially since I hadn't even been there. He did the next best thing though: Said I wasn't fit to be an Auror, and I was turfed."

I rubbed my face again. "I'd wanted to be an Auror since I was five. And it was all over, just like that."

"That's ... Merlin, Ron, it's a right mess." Warren shook his head. "It's just ... wow! How could you've known? Like you said, it was, er, hyperbaric, what they were saying. Why didn't he understand that? Why didn't she?"

"I don't think I'll ever know the answer to either question, mate," I said. "And I've given up wondering. I suppose I should feel lucky that I'm able to make a living at all. I got this job only because my brother Bill has friends from when he and his wife worked here."

The room seemed to be going out of focus, and I shook my head hard to get my eyes to work properly. "He's the one who was ruined because of Malfoy. He was hurt in the siege on Hogwarts in '97. Attacked by a werewolf."

Even in the dark, I could see Warren go pale. "What I don't understand is why you'd bother to do any of this for her after all she's done." He waved his hand over the scroll. "You don't owe her anything."

"It's habit," I said, too soft for him to hear. I chucked the cup in the waste bin. Louder, I said: "If I didn't, I'd get my arse handed to me by the bank and by my family. If it had come out that she'd tried to get satisfaction at Gringotts and got turned away, I'd be turfed. Plus, she's my sister's best friend and my family still loves her. They think that we'll work it out someday. My mum held a small dinner when Daph and I got engaged. When we got divorced, she had a huge picnic out by the paddock."

Warren looked grim. "Well, I don't think they'll be too keen on the two of you getting off again if they find out about this money."

"What does the money have to do with anything?"

"All those amnesty blokes were rich, or at least their families were," said Warren. "Wasn't there some talk that Scrimgeour was paid off to implement the amnesty programme? If he was given gold to do it, maybe other people in the Ministry were, too ..."

He didn't say anything else. He didn't have to. My head started to pound as I thought about what Warren was getting at. When the amnesty business had first popped up, allegations of shady goings-on in the Ministry had appeared in The Quibbler, but no one had paid much attention.

It made a bit of sense, but then again, it didn't. Or maybe I just didn't want it to make sense. A long time ago, I'd convinced myself that Hermione's sense of duty - however arsed up it was - was what led her to turn her back on me. The idea that she might have done it in exchange for a vault full of gold had never occurred to me. And I wasn't buying it.

"Why would she leave it for so many years? And why would she go on about the vault not being hers in the first place?" I thought about the stunned look in Hermione's eyes when we'd broken the news. "I really don't think she knew anything about it."

"But it is something to think about. That could even be where that note fits in. The one threatening to kill her and all?" Warren spoke fast, the way he always did when he'd glommed onto a "theory" about something. "What if she was supposed to share that money with someone, decided to leave the money and wait it out across the pond? If I were that other person, I'd be right hacked-off, too. People do all sorts of naff things for money."

"Some people do," I said. "But Hermione's not some peo..." I cut off the thought before it could take root in my brain, which was now trying to twist out of my skull. I reckoned trying to Apparate wouldn't be such a good idea anytime soon.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter now. Wherever the money came from and why, isn't our pull anymore, yeah?"

"I suppose not. But whatever she decides to do, she should be careful, I think." Warren stood and stretched. I thought I saw him stagger a little, but with the low light in the room, I couldn't be sure.

"Are you going to be okay? Maybe we should get the tube ..."

"I'll be all right. I'm going to sit here until everything stops looking upside down and then Floo home."

He puttered around for a minute and then let himself out. I tried to stand up and was fairly unsurprised when I couldn't. I looked at the scroll again. It seemed to be glowing in the dark now - mocking me. I couldn't get the thought of a payoff out of my head. Could she have done it? Wrecked everything we'd built for sodding money? It seemed almost impossible, but then again, I hadn't thought she would go to Scrimgeour either without hearing my side of things.

My head was pounding, but I tried to think through the pain. It didn't go too well, but I was able to get a few things sorted. Warren was essentially right. All other things aside, Hermione might be in real danger, especially since the issue had been looked into and the money was verified to be hers, good and proper.

Warren was right about something else, too: I didn't owe Hermione anything, but I knew that didn't matter. If it had, I would have listened to my own advice and stayed away. But it was too late now. She'd made her opening move and I'd countered the minute I'd decided to go after her that first day. Now I was forced to play the game out.

"Habit," I mumbled, right before I passed out on my desk.