The Blind Banker
Chapter One
It's a rather disconcerting thing, to finish school. It's like being a chick and suddenly being kicked out of the nest. Either you spread your wings and fly, or you splat into a life of living with your parents until you're forty. This was the one thing I was determined would not happen to me and this was how I ended up lying early one Monday morning halfway through September, in someone else's bed. It was Albus Potter's bed I think and no, this isn't as bad as it sounds. After the summer had ended I had been given an apprenticeship with the Gringotts curse breakers. Lilly had dove headfirst into the Ministry and landed herself an interesting job in the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
Upon hearing of my success at the bank she had invited me to stay with her at her parents' house until I could get my own place. With my new job earning me little more than knuts, that didn't look like it would be happening anytime soon. Albus' room had stood empty for three years now so it had been allocated to me (James' room still smelt faintly of gunpowder).
My alarm clock went and I punched it wearily. The daily grind was already getting to me and I dragged myself out of bed with an ill-grace. Downstairs I found Lilly and her mother eating breakfast. Or at least, Mrs Potter was, Lilly was rushing around, stuffing a piece of toast in her mouth with one hand and brushing her hair with the other.
"Ernie just called!" she said, pointing at the fire where emerald flames were just dying. "Some daft bugger has just crash-landed his broom in the English Channel and some French news team saw him! I have to get to the office quick before the département de la coopération magique lot turn up!"
And with that she turned on the spot and disapperated with a loud crack. I stared at the spot where she'd vanished in disbelief.
"Oh come on! She knows I didn't pass my test!" I said furiously to no one in particular. Mrs Potter smiled and shook her head.
"Don't worry dear, I'll take you to work." she said soothingly and at once I felt guilty.
"Oh you don't have to do that Mrs Potter." I said, blushing deep crimson but she waved her hand airily.
"Please it's a relief! I need to go down to Diagon Alley anyway, and Harry has been too busy to go lately. And how many times to I have to tell you its fine for you to call me Ginny?"
I grinned sheepishly and sat down at the table. Living with the Potters was very pleasant, but I always had a feeling that I was scrounging off their kindness, and the kinder they were, the worse I felt. I missed the certainty of life at school.
I should probably fill you in on what our last few months were like at Hogwarts. After our action-packed first term, things had got boring again very quickly. Lilly and John's romance had fizzled out around Christmas but the parting had been mutual and they remained friends. Sherlock had I had struck up, if not a friendship then at least an association. All four of us had practically lived in the library due to the fact that we all came from different houses. We had parted ways on the last day of school with understanding nods and slightly melancholy expressions.
But my mind wasn't on Sherlock or John as Ginny took me by side-along apparition to work that morning. It was on the massive workload I had waiting on my desk when I got in. Gringotts was a magnificent place to work, with its impressive marble front and glittering central hall. It was quiet that morning and none of the Goblins working at the long counters looked up as I passed. I shared my office with two other interns and it was accessed through a door behind the inquiries desk. Neither of my colleagues was in yet and as I slung my bag over the back of my chair I groaned. The pile of paper was bigger today.
"Afraid so." sighed Bill Weasley as he came in. Bill was a tall man in his late forties by now, with long greying hair and several scars across his otherwise handsome face. I had met him at Christmas in my third year when I had been visiting Lilly's place and he had dropped in for a chat. Lilly had explained to me how he came by his scars and I had had great respect for the man ever since.
"More translations?" I asked miserably, riffling through the new documents. "How can there be so many new ones?"
"The boys out in the field need to know what they're breaking into." Bill shrugged. "We can't have some hapless muggle archaeologist coming along and setting off a curse can we?"
I smiled despite myself. If I hadn't been born a witch I would most likely have grown up to be one of Bill's 'hapless muggle archaeologists', muggle-born as I was. I sat down and pulled the first sheet of hieroglyphs towards me, taking up a quill in my other hand.
"Don't worry." chuckled Bill. "You'll get your chance to work in the field eventually, you just need to do the donkey work here first, we all had to."
I snorted as Bill left the room. I knew for a fact that he, Head boy and owner of eleven O NEWTs had practically skipped straight from Hogwarts to Egypt without so much as a brief pause at the bank. But I couldn't complain, I was lucky to get this job in the first place. The morning slipped by uneventfully until lunch time. I was just leaving my office and wondering where I should go for food, when I spotted someone quite unexpected coming out of my boss' office across the hall.
"Sherlock?" I called in surprise. Sherlock Holmes looked up but his face registered none of my shock. He was wearing a casual blue suit under his navy blue robes that could have passed for an over coat in muggle London. John Watson in comparison looked rather shabby in his brown coat.
"Gwen! I didn't know you'd got a job here." John said as I came over to them.
"Just a few weeks ago, what are you doing here?" I asked. Several Goblins raised their heads to glare at us and I recognised the warning signs.
"Uh, I was just about to go out for lunch, want to join me?" I said hastily. John and Sherlock nodded and together we stepped out into the bright sunlight. Diagon Alley wasn't exactly buzzing on this work day so we took seats in an almost empty Leaky Cauldron.
"So how have you been, how's Lilly?" asked John once we'd ordered food.
"She's fine, landed herself a job in Magical Cooperation so expect her to be running for Minister any day now." I said and John laughed. Sherlock was giving me his side-long, deduction look. It only took him ten seconds.
"So you're staying with the Potters." he said and I raised an eyebrow at him.
"You know that never gets old." I chuckled. "Go on then, how did you guess?"
"I didn't guess I observed. Your clothes are three days old suggesting you don't have many outfits to change into, so you're living out a suitcase. You could be staying in a hotel I suppose but you didn't pass your apparition test and need someone to take you to work, and anyway a low level job like yours can hardly earn you enough to stay somewhere close to the office like here for example, so you're staying with a friend. Lilly being your best friend it would be a probable assumption to make that you were staying with her."
And all this he said in one breath. I shook my head in wonder and decided not to compliment him. I had seen him do it so often at school and expressed how impressed I was so many times that I had long ago run out of things to say. Instead I turned back to John.
"So how are things going with you? Got a job yet?"
"Yes I'm a trainee healer at St Mungo's." said John with a touch of pride. "Specialising in conflict wounds so a lot of Aurors come in."
"Congratulations." I said, smiling. "And speaking of Aurors, have you joined their ranks yet? I know Harry would kill to have you on his team."
I directed this last at Sherlock and he closed his eyes momentarily.
"Dull." he sighed. "I have no interest in Ministry work, I'm self-employed at the moment."
"Is that Sherlock-code for unemployed?" I asked wryly. Sherlock scowled and John laughed.
"He's a 'consultant Auror'." John said, sketching quotation marks around the word. "Working out of our flat."
"You got a flat together, where?"
"Just down the street, Mrs Hudson is renting out."
"Bloody hell how much do you earn?!" I exclaimed. "Premises in Diagon Alley? You've got to be kidding me."
"Mrs Hudson owes me a favour." Sherlock said dryly. "I helped out three years ago when her husband was due to be sent to Azkaban on a murder charge."
"Oh you got him off?" I asked and Sherlock smiled one of his rare smiles.
"No I ensured he went."
I stared at him for a moment before shaking myself and asking,
"So what were you doing at the bank this morning?"
"Griphook had a job for me and I thought I'd investigate." said Sherlock. His eyes were beginning to wonder around the room, a tell-tale sign that he was getting bored.
"What kind of job?" I asked suspiciously. I had learnt to expect illicit activities wherever my boss was concerned and this sounded odd alright. John started to say, "We can't really talk about it-" but Sherlock cut across him.
"There was a breach in security last night and he's asked me to look into it."
John shot him an annoyed look and my eyes widened.
"What, Gringotts security?!" I asked in shock. "Why isn't he asking the Aurors to deal with this? Or at least the Law Enforcement Squad."
"They're trying to keep it quiet." said John irritably. "And they didn't actually take anything."
I stared at him eagerly and he rolled his eyes.
"They somehow got into one of the old high security volts and wrote some graffiti on the wall, like a code." he said grudgingly. My curiosity was peeked even further and I asked,
"What kind of graffiti?"
"We were going to check it out later." said Sherlock unexpectedly. "You can come if you like."
"Sure! Beats the damn paper work any day." I said fervently. John was giving Sherlock a questioning look but Sherlock just ignored him as the food arrived.