Chapter 10: Business is such a drag…

Draco turned away from his thoughts of Ginny to look at his secretary and suddenly his mood turned dark. She looked worried; Cassandra never looked worried unless one of two things had happened: one of her nails had broken or she had bad news for Draco. As she was walking towards him with a letter he had a feeling her nails were just fine.

She dropped it on his desk and moved backwards quickly as if afraid it would explode or more likely he would explode. He took a deep breath and picked up the letter. It was from the House-Elf Liaison Office and they were notorious for never giving good news. He opened it carefully wondering what violation he had made now; did Stompy not have lunch last week? Damm you, Granger!

He opened the letter and began reading it impassively.

"On our recent inspection we have discovered several violations of the House-Elf Rights code of 2002." Why did they need to clarify? It was the only House-Elf rights code in existence. "While all facilities meet standards," Meet? They exceed standards and they know it. He frowned and skipped further down, "one of your House-Elves has anonymously confessed your severe punishments." What! When I find out who it was I'll kill the little bugger! He skipped further. "He has also informed us that you have not paid him one Galleon since the House-Elf laws were put in place…You are being fined 68,212 Galleons and 14 Sickles."

"Cassandra!" Draco yelled and she appeared at his door looking terrified, "Get me Dering."

"And you are sure you've paid them!" Luke asked raking his hand through his grey hair.

"Yes, I approve all the expenses personally." Draco said frankly. "I had Wheezy up here while I waited for you to arrive. He says he's personally paid the House-Elves. He's gone to get the paperwork. Unfortunately Battle is out sick and Alden has Mondays off.

"I'm sorry Draco there isn't much more I can do. Hermione Weasley didn't leave any loopholes. I've dealt with the House-Elf Liaison Office before. Those people take the word of a House-Elf as gospel." Luke stood no longer content with only tapping his leg.

"The company is just recovering and this fee will set us back. We'll have to cutback on product development which is currently costing me a pretty penny, this will ruin me!" Draco said desperately trying to impart his frustration.

Luke nodded remembering when he'd first met Draco. It was about four years ago, Luke had just finished the war trials and was starting to regret his entrance into the wizarding world. He had begun to understand why his parents hadn't allowed him to enter Hogwarts when they'd discovered he had magic.

The wizarding world was strange, half the laws didn't make sense and it was driving him crazy to try and help sort through everything and see where the new muggle lawyers could fit into the justice system. It was then that Draco had shown up completely lost, if arrogantly in denial, looking for a way to get back at Jasper Rowley. Rowley had been the company's vice-president who'd taken advantage of Lucius Malfoy's changing priorities in 1992 and begun to slowly bleed the company dry, when he'd returned to the Wizarding world it had been to find out that he was in debt and in a completely new world. Luke had helped him file a suit and they had formed a strong friendship through which they had been helping each other cope in this brave new world. Draco had even taken Luke to buy his wand, where did I put it?

"So what can you do about it?" Draco asked desperately.

"There isn't anything I can do legally except delay the process as long as possible while you mount an investigation like we spoke of."

"All right, I've heard of this bloke, his name's Carwin. Some of my Slytherin mates say he's good; I'll try to get in touch with him." A soft knock was heard and Draco told Wheezy to come in.

The little elf sporting the white shirt with the letters ME monogrammed on it bowed so low his nose squished slightly against the floor, "sirs, it's a pleasure for Wheezy to be in your company."

"Wonderful," Draco sighed, "you can stop bowing." Draco was glad he'd made the House-Elf wear a white shirt, if it hadn't been for that he wouldn't have been able to tell him apart from the other 300 or so House-Elves running around in grey shirts and black trousers. "Wheezy, where are the papers?"

"Master!" The elf wailed kneeling so violently that Luke stepped back looking worried and scared, he still couldn't get used to the different creatures that populated the Wizarding world and to think he'd lived almost forty years without realizing he was sharing the planet with these creatures. "Me's sorry. Wheezy looked and looked and looked and looked-"

"I understand Wheezy you looked what happened afterwards?"

"They's not there! They's nowhere!" The elf moaned while Draco cradled his head in his hands. "Sorry, master, sorry!"

A/N: Monday, May 3, 2004. By the way I know that it doesn't seem like a lot of money but that's about $500,000! For something he didn't do! Either way Thank you to the HP-Lexicon for their Money converter I couldn't have done it without them!