A/N: You know when you've come up with a character and you're trying to decide what to call them, and then suddenly a name pops into your head and you've no idea where's it's come from? Well, I've worked out how I got Gwen's family name. I got a newsletter from the University of York today, and the admissions secretary is called Jo Coulthard. I must have seen her name ages ago and somehow it's worked its way into the story without me even realising. Weird.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When Sander arrived in Gwen's office on Monday he still had a smile on his face, despite the situation. Even though it definitely brightened Gwen's mood, she still couldn't help but disapprove slightly. It didn't seem appropriate right now.
He grinned at her as he entered the room. "Morning, Gwentje."
"Morning," she smiled back, but felt slightly uneasy about his chipper mood. "Um, don't you think it's a little early to be smiling yet, after everything that's happened?"
He gave a casual shrug, "You-Know-Who's gone, business is booming and I get to see my lovely investment advisor today. What's there not to smile about?"
She blushed at 'my lovely investment advisor', but felt like he probably needed bringing back to reality. "Two people are dead, Sander."
His expression darkened and he seemed to become more serious, but he didn't look apologetic. "I know, but you always have to look on the bright side of any situation, don't you? Otherwise you'd just be miserable all the time."
"True," Gwen said, but he'd just managed to make her feel worse about what she was going to have to tell him about his financial situation. "Sander, we need to talk about business…and money."
He nodded. "Yep, that's what this meeting's for."
"Okay. Well, why don't you have a seat?"
He sat down in the chair opposite her, and she took a deep breath before continuing. "Well, Sander, I just don't think the business plan you had two weeks ago is really viable now."
His expression remained neutral. "Why not?"
She was surprised he'd asked her to explain as she thought the reason was obvious. He also didn't seem to have reacted much at all to what she thought was bad news, and she wasn't sure what to say. "Well, the war is in effect over, isn't it? You-Know-Who's gone, like you said. People aren't going to really need to buy dark detectors much in future, so I just don't think things are going to work out as well for you as you'd hoped."
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Ah, Gwen, I wish I had your optimism."
She frowned. She thought he'd seemed very optimistic about his business plans, and she was the one who was doubting them. "What do you mean?"
"It isn't over, Gwen. Sure, he himself may be gone, but his followers aren't going to let it go that easily. We can't even be sure if he really is dead yet, so there's still going to be a lot more fighting to come. Our dark detectors are still required just as much today as they were on Monday, if not more so."
"Whatever happened to looking on the bright side?"
He smiled again. "First you have to be realistic, then you have to find something you can be realistically positive about."
Gwen sighed. Her uncertain and dark mood had returned. "Do you really think it's going to turn out like that?"
"Well, your Ministry agrees with me. They've already started drafting in foreign aurors to round up the Death Eaters before they manage to re-organise themselves. Martijn came over from Amsterdam yesterday. Apparently, your MLE Department has got so many aurors tied up with the investigation as to what happened they need assistance."
That was news to Gwen, and she raised an eyebrow. "Mum never said it was that bad."
Sander gave her a reassuring smile. "They're just trying to make sure things don't get drastically worse before they get better. Hopefully, it means the end's in sight now and this won't be going on for much longer, but at this moment in time I still think Desdinova Dark Detectors are going to be in demand."
Gwen nodded. She understood his point, even though it was incredibly depressing to think that even with You-Know-Who gone the war still wasn't over. "Alright, I see your point. You can probably make this work to your advantage." She had her business head back on now, and had picked up a file from the side of her desk which she opened to look at the updated DDD shares and stocks. As Sander had predicted, the prices had shot up. "At the moment you're doing really well, but by the time you've raised the funds you originally aimed for do you think you'll need them anymore? The longer you leave it to start selling in the UK chances are the lower the demand will get."
Sander looked thoughtful. "At this instant, it's difficult to predict exactly what's going to happen. It depends a lot on how things progress over the next few days and what we can find out about the situation with the Death Eaters. If they look completely broken or if they're ready to fight back will definitely influence our business plan for the next few months. I'm going to have to discuss this in a lot more detail with Martijn, but I just wanted to know where we are with the business right now."
A thought suddenly occurred to Gwen. "You say Martijn's in the UK now, right? Is there any chance you could maybe bring him round for a meeting next week? I know he's going to be insanely busy right now, but from a business point of view for you it would be really beneficial."
He smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. He's been dying to meet you anyway."
Gwen blushed. Had Sander been talking to his brother about her? "What have you been telling him."
"Oh, just that you're really nice and helpful and great at selling our stocks."
She blushed even further and muttered something like, "If the company's good they sort of sell themselves."
Sander laughed. "And modest. I told him that too."
She was feeling both incredibly flattered and incredibly awkward right now, but Sander seemed to find her embarrassment endearing. "I meant it as a compliment, Gwen."
"I know, but it's…I'm not used to it."
He frowned. "Doesn't anyone else compliment you? Like your boyfriend."
She'd never really thought about it before, but it occurred to her that the answer was no. "Not really."
Sander looked disapproving. "Well, he should do."
Gwen didn't want to ignite the whole rivalry thing again so said nothing. Instead, Sander got up out of his seat and prepared to leave. "I'm sorry Gwen but I have to go. With Martijn off on auror business I'm left running the company on my own, as it were. I think I need to get back to HQ, but I'll try and bring Martijn next week and we can have a proper discussion about this. I've got no idea when he'll be available so is it alright if I just drop in without an appointment?"
She nodded. "Yeah, sure. But if it clashes with another meeting you may have to wait."
"That's no problem. Thanks for being so helpful." He offered her his hand as a parting gesture, and she wondered why, as such a generally informal and friendly person, he always insisted on handshakes as a means of farewell.
"Okay, I'll see you soon then, Sander."
"I'll see you soon, Gwen," he said, before turning and exiting her office.
She sat back down at her desk and took out the file again that contained the list of shares and stocks. In comparison to other companies, Desdinova Dark Detectors really was doing well, and she was surprised to see that in the past two days it's share prices had increased by more than five times that of it's closest competitor, Dee's Alchemical Devices. It seemed that You-Know-Who's downfall really had been more of a catalyst for caution among the wizarding community that a means for celebration. People seemed more scared now that they didn't know how the enemy would behave as individual, disorganised units that when they'd been under the control of You-Know-Who. At least before there'd been a general sense that people knew what it was they were fighting. Now nobody seemed sure of anything.
Gwen flicked back through the file to the pages for her other client companies and noticed that there'd been no real improvement since Tuesday. You-Know-Who's downfall had prompted investors to try and sell rather than buy, as they had no doubt predicted, like Sander, a period in which things would get worse before they started improving. As no one was looking to buy though, the markets were pretty much at a standstill except for the companies selling products that were considered most beneficial to personal security. Gwen noticed with a smile that shares on Apollo Broomsticks had gone up by 3.5%. What do people plan to do, fly away if a Death Eater comes after them?
She went back to trying to sell stocks for her other clients for a few minutes, but given the inactivity of the markets the little gold alert dial she kept on her desk didn't show up any interested investors. Desdinova Dark Detectors was the only company she was likely to have any luck with if she started trying to advertise it to the investors on Fisk Alley via the remote crystal link, but she wasn't supposed to spend a disproportionate amount of time on one company at the expense of other clients. After about ten minutes she decided that she was going to go back to DDD after all, and if Semog had a problem with it then she could give him a solid excuse that it was financially the best option. However, just as she was about to switch the settings on the quaffle-sized blue orb that connected her to Fisk Alley, there was a knock on the door. Thinking it might be Sander who'd forgotten something, she called out, "Come in," but as she looked up she saw a different man looking at her with a rather apologetic expression on his face. "Barty?"
