Authors Note: Sorry for the long delay in this chapter. I really wanted to be sure about where I was going and what all this chapter would entail. Besides just having a lapse in creative direction my personal life took priority over writing but I'm back.
Chapter 16
"Seamus?"
"Blimey Eva, I haven't seen you in ages!" Seamus exclaims closing the distance, pulling me into a hug.
"Same goes for you too. How are you?"
I responded registering the fact that he stood a foot taller then me but continued to as he showed off his dimples with a big grin. It felt rather odd seeing him, after so long. I don't think we've seen each other since the Battle of Hogwarts. Was is really that long ago?
"I'm doing well. I'm security guard on my days off from my other job." Seamus explained before realizing who was with me, "Malfoy."
"Finnegan."
The two men eyed each other and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at male egos. Not wanting some sort of confrontation I stepped forwards towards Seamus. We were here for a reason after all.
"We are hoping to access the MCH Department files for the Malfoy Company."
"Sure Eva, can I make a scan of your ID?" Seamus began waiting for me to hand it over.
He put the tip of his wand on the ID and I watched as the spell swirled around the ID badge in a silvery light before disappearing completely. Nodding in satisfaction Seamus handed the ID back to me.
"Malfoy I'll have to scan you to make sure that you aren't someone else in disguise."
Draco quirked an eyebrow but nodded in consent as Seamus stepped in front of him pointing his wand directly at him, muttering a spell. A spark shot out and swirled around Draco from the top of his head until his feet before it fluttered out of existence; signaling that Draco was the real deal.
"Excellent." Seamus remarked turning around and walking up to the gated entrance. Tapping his wand once on the gate, the gate started to open inwardly and he moved to allow us to pass, "Good to see you Eva. Malfoy."
"You too Seamus." I remark walking past him as Draco just nods in acknowledgement.
The door shut behind us and we were now in a hallway with doors labeled for different departments in Gringotts. The hallway was dimly lit with torches notched to the wall between each of the doors. We walked in silence, our shoes echoing off the tile floor as we scanned for the door we needed. Not even 10 minutes later we found the MCH Department door on the left, Draco opened the door and ushered me in.
"Morning Miss. ID badge?"
The security guard remarked in a bored manner for his spot behind a desk. Handing him the badge he performed the same scan with his wand. Notifying us that he had to scan both of us. We were than scanned to make sure we weren't under any type of curse, identity concealment as well as making sure we hadn't went to another department and tried to leave with shrunken documents. Draco and I both gave each other a knowing look that, this had to be the most over the top security we had ever seen.
"Now that your clear, you can only have access to the files of- the Malfoy Company." the guard remarked after a pause, "If you follow me I'll take you to a room and the files will be brought to you."
Draco quirked an eyebrow in amusement at how formal the guard was, when there was no way he got a lot of people down here. Going past another gated door he took us down a short hallway were multiple doors were opened to show rooms. They were all identical to each other, grey walls with old wooden tables that had seen too many years.
"What is your request for the Malfoy Company?" The security asked looking between Draco and I.
"We would like to start with the last two years worth of outgoing MCH transactions." I answered settling into a chair.
The man nodded his head and shut the door. Draco glanced about before discreetly going about the room securing and testing the room to be sound proof and not hacked for someone to know what we were doing.
"We're all clear." Draco remarked taking a seat next to me, lounging while we waited for the files.
"I wondering how long this might take?"
"It could be a while."
I hummed thoughtfully, examining my nails; shortly later an older lady with grey, bushing eye brows, who I could only assume was retired and did this part time opened the door and floating in front of her was binders filled with parchment. All which she neatly stacked on the table or on the floor, leaving and shutting the door behind her without uttering a word.
"Well she was friendly." Draco began glancing at the door, "How do you want to split this up?"
"I guess if you take one month and I take another we can work our way backwards, maybe picking random months just to see if they match the same account or if it's different."
"Sounds good."
Taking the last months binder I settled myself into looking for the similar dates for what we had found in the account. It was dry work and you could easily blur the numbers together. The parchment was written out in columns that were organized vertically and horizontally. I couldn't help but wonder if the right slanted numbers was a person's hand writing or a self-writing quill. Pushing the thought away I focused back on the numbers. Linking each spot to the appropriate place. Laying between us, was a list of account numbers that were Ok'd as nothing fraudulent.
We sat in silence for the most part, each concentrating on the figures, anticipation thick in the air on finding something. Anything. My mind would kept wandering, going over everything that's happened in the last few months and this new thing I have going on with Draco. Did I want a casual relationship? Did I want things to become more serious?
"Will you be at the game this Saturday?"
I glanced over at Draco, a piece of his hair was hanging close to his eyes and I debated just leaning over and pushing it back. Shoving the thought aside I answered, "Yes, Harry and the rest of them invited me to go with them."
"Good, I'll be there also."
"Is Scorpius going to be with you or your mother?" I remarked folding the next page over that didn't show anything.
"Yes both of them will be there."
I nodded thoughtfully as silence fell once again and we concentrated on the ledgers. An hour had passed and we had moved through one ledger of a two month section where we hadn't found anything. I continued skimming over the sums when something hit my eye. Double checking the account number with those that had no fraudulent activity, I leaned in to really pay attention to what the ledger was telling me. The amount was similar to others that I had found, set up so close that you might not even notice the money getting pulled.
"Draco. I think I might have found something." I whispered, almost too afraid to say it too loud. Even if we were the only ones in the room.
He immediately moved closer and leaned towards the parchment, excitement rolled off of him. From left to right it was dated, the Gringotts account number, amount, balance after, account information to where the money was sent to. The amount pulled was the same I had found earlier.
"Damn. You're right. This has to be where the money is going to. We should write that number down and compare it to anything else we find."
"Great idea."
Shuffling in my purse I pull out a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill, while Draco settled back in his spot. I continued to skim through the daily transactions before moving onto the next page.
"Here's another one." Draco remarked a half hour later, grabbing the parchment to compare the account number.
"Is it the same account?"
"Yes."
"Well, we are at least getting somewhere. What do you think? Should we keep going through or stop and just start investigating this account?" I ask leaning back to take a break.
He glanced about, assessing how much we've covered so far in 2 1/2 hours, "Let's keep going. If we can get another two hours in today I'd feel better if everything still matched that one account. Plus, we can always come back another day and look into this more."
I nodded in agreement and we delved back into the ledgers. It was extremely boring and at the end of the extra two hours it felt like we still had a lot to get through. We found that at least every month there was an amount taken out that matched the account number we first found. We got through most of this past year and we decided to pick 4 random months in the year before and skim through to see what we could find.
"All right, so we have at least one account number to find more information about and our next step is go back 5-6 years and see if this account number was there at the beginning. Or whether or not this started prior to me taking over." Draco states shutting the ledger.
"Okay. I would suggest that we should come back sometime this week because we don't know what's going to happen."
"Why don't we have them take what we've looked over, ask for the year I took over because I wasn't there at the beginning of the year so it would should show what was going on while my father still ran the company."
"Okay. Let me tuck all this away, who knows if they would get suspicious."
Shoving the parchment of the account numbers into my purse, he got up and ushered the security guard in while requesting the new documents. When everything was cleared and the door shut while they retrieved more I glanced back over at Draco.
"Should we give Blaise an update or wait until we're finished here?"
"We can wait, it shouldn't be much longer." Draco replies, pulling me in for a quick kiss, "Perhaps we can grab lunch when we get out of here?"
"I'd love to."
With a pleased grin on his face he settled back in his chair as the door opened, revealing the older lady from before. She floated in the ledgers and again, shut the door behind her without uttering a word.
"Shall we begin?"
I nodded and we both dived back into the files. I wonder if everything is going okay with Blaise at the office? I didn't want to think about if an incident occurred with Blaise and could those security guards really help protect him? Should we be telling the Auror's Department about this now that we had hard evidence that something has been going on? I'd have to talk to Draco about this. Maybe he would let me at least tell Harry.
"Ah ha!" Draco remarked pointing at the ledger, "Here. Right fucking here!"
"What?"
"Look, this person has been taking the money since before I've started!"
Leaning over him and rereading the ledger, showing the date, the amount and double checking the account number. I'll be damn. They have been taking the money since before Draco took over. Well that certainly ruled out a few of the newer people on the list of the company's employees.
"Do you think your father would have overlooked this?"
"Who knows. Those last few months before Voldemort's demise I don't think he was really worried about running the company. He was too worried about whether he was about to be killed."
"Hm. Okay, let's go back to the oldest ledger they provided and let's see if it still shows this account taking money out. That way we can at least have more definitive idea."
He nodded and we went through the ledgers separating them until we could find the ones marked for 1996. Once we did that I randomly flipped opened the book and started skimming through, looking for that account number to stand out. Did Lucius know about these withdrawals? What if he was behind this the whole the time; then what do we do? The man was locked up in Azkaban for the rest of his life.
"Oh look, here." I state, pointed at the ledger, "Watch, May shows nothing different in the transactions. Nothing even with that account number. Then this ledger goes into June of 1996 and look. There is that account number."
"Damn." Draco mutter as he skimmed over the account.
I lean back in my chair glancing over at Draco, "this even proves it's the first one because it's three transactions right after another and for random change. Showing it's the test files that the link would work."
"Can you pull out that piece of parchment, I want to mark these dates down. We need to find out what was going on in June of 1996 and what the hell this all means."
Humming in agreement I quickly write the transactions down and mark the ledger book number for later reference. I couldn't believe it! We actually have real evidence proving not only that money is getting withdrawn but when it actually started.
"Is there a way for us to make a copy of the ledger?" Draco asked locking eyes with me.
"I dunno. We should probably hold off for now, in case it sets some type of alarm off."
"Damn. I'm afraid of just leaving this here, in case someone pampers with it."
"Even if someone pampers with it, both of us have looked at the ledger. Auror's can always use Legilimens and they would see the memory of what we saw on the page." I remarked shutting the ledger with the frail binding closed.
He nodded thoughtfully and closed the ledger he was looking in as well, "We should then head back and figure out how we can find out about this account. I wouldn't mind also looking into my father's books from that time."
With our next steps finalized we gathered our belongings and told the security guard that we were finished with the files and left. Seamus made small talk with me, while ignoring Draco, with a promise to hang out soon. As we left Gringotts I couldn't help but make a mental check list. Besides examining what the Companies files showed we would need to come back and get access to the MCH Departments file that would give more detail to this account that was set up to receive money from us. We needed to get a name or location. I had a bad feeling we would need to do this as soon as possible.
