Chapter 14
"Grimbles," Hermione's voice was breathy and several octaves higher than usual as she pressed her hands to her rapidly beating heart. The goblin's eyes glittered coldly as his lips parted in an inhuman mimicry of a smile, undoubtedly meant to display his sharp teeth.
"Looks like you're a bit lost Ms. Granger," Grimble's voice remained distant with just enough bite to send a nervous chill down Hermione's spine. Her stunned silence only seemed to further agitate him. "Your desk is the one out front, remember? I know you're new but it'd be best for you to commit that to memory; we wouldn't want to make a habit of this – though I'm sure that should be easy for a brilliant witch like you."
"Indeed," Hermione's response was dry as she shot the goblin a bland look; his thinly veiled insults and threats finally bringing her back to her senses. "Thank you for the insight. Now, if you don't mind, I've work to do and you haven't an appointment." Hermione smoothly slide her shoes on and stood in a single fluid move. She strode toward the door, her posture and the sharp look on her face clearly saying she didn't welcome his visit.
"I have a standing invitation with your boss," was the quick replay. Both remained frozen, neither wanting to be chased out by the other. Unfortunately for Hermione goblins are naturally suspicious creatures and Grimbles was extremely loyal – an unusual trait for his species – so he easily caught the barest flash of telling anxiety in her eyes. Fortunately, he was far less prejudice than other goblins and logically able to realize that the fact that she was openly shocked at being caught in Bill's office, but tried to hide her concern about someone demanding to see Bill meant that there was more to this than meets the eye.
"What happened, where is he?" Grimbles demanded gentle so as to not spook her into hiding the truth any further. Never-the-less, she was still hesitant, eyeing him suspiciously. He forced himself to remain patient as she evaluated the situation; it was obvious when she same to a decision when he watched her lips move as she silently told herself that he was obviously loyal enough to trust.
"I don't know where he is. I don't know what to do. I don't know if he's okay or how to do this so people don't find out he's missing," Hermione's voice grew higher and she spoke increasingly rapid as she finally confided in him, rushing it all into one breath.
"Bill's stronger than you give him credit for. Just because he's not here doesn't mean he's in trouble," Grimbles purposefully avoided using the word missing, wanting to calm Hermione first. Having traveling with Bill in far more dangerous situations and places than he would have preferred he knew Bill well enough to feel confident that the man wasn't in any immediate, life threatening danger. "Let's go through whatever parchments he has first. We can check them and do whatever needs to be done and sign what needs immediate attention as proxies – it will count as an acceptable intermediate response to keep things flowing and Bill will still have the ability to go back and go over them later and any documents that need editing will just be sent back with the noted revisions so it'll be one less step for him to worry about," Grimbles began to make a cup of coffee as he spoke and grabbed parchment, ink and a quill. Quickly, he drafted a letter telling his wife that there was an emergency and he probably wouldn't be home until after work the next morning. While he did, Hermione gathered all of the paperwork in her arms, conjured a Grimbles-size table and chair next to her desk and started dividing it between the two.
Within minutes they'd sent out the documents Hermione had sorted out earlier, and Grimbles' letter, and were settled in to reading through the remaining parchments, carefully reading them, and making whatever notations or signatures were needed, checking and double checking each other's and their own work.
Despite being the most capable employees in their department and working at a fast pace, it was several hours before they managed to reschedule the week's meetings and rearrange Bill's schedule to make up for the day, properly review the documents back-logged from yesterday and that morning and provide all the proper signatures and notations – done just right to be within legal limitations, go unquestioned in their validity by their recipients and the higher-ups of the bank and provide a loop-hole for Bill as a minimal consequence out for any mistakes they may have made.
It was nearly ten when they paused to stand and stretch. Hermione sipped on her third cup of freshly brewed coffee on the couch. She watched bemusedly as Grimbles began to fix his sixth cup, pouring enough creamer to turn the liquid a dark late color then taking the old-fashion-diner-like sugar canister over and letting a steady stream of sugar flow into his cup. Every so often he would turn it right side up to unclog the little hole and repeat the process.
"Never would have though a Goblin would have such a big sweet tooth," Hermione thought. She blanched when she realized that enough sugar had been added to the mug to raise the level of coffee several centimeters… and he was still pouring more in. "I think I just became diabetic."
Finally perceiving to have added enough sugar, Grimbles grabbed a spoon and began to stir the concoction; the thick layer of partially melted sugar was audible as he pushed it in circles. Hermione forced herself to not look at the abandoned sugar canister, knowing she definitely did not want to see its severely depleted level. She felt a border-line comedic awkwardness fill the air as she watched with fascination punctuated with moments of giddiness and struggles of keep her giggles at bay, until finally she could no longer her the scrape of sugar as the spoon stirred the drink.
Her eyes widened with morbid fascination as she watched Grimbles' boney hands, with their thin skin and easily discernible dark veins and raised ligaments reach out; his fingers, long and bone thin – save for the thick knot of his knuckles- wrapped around the mug, enclosing is carefully so as to not pierce each other with the long, translucent, naturally pointed nails that sat in their disproportionally large nail beds, which were invisible to her eyes save for the dirt and grim that lightly dusted the cuticles and hunkered down heavily deep beneath his nails. He drafted deeply from the mug, sighed and smiled eerily, his teeth looking more discolored than normal from the abundance of coffee. It wasn't until he sat in a chair across the room and started muttering to himself in a rapid mix of English and Goblin that Hermione noticed his too bright eyes and the way he all but vibrated in his oversized seat.
"Great! Not only do I have a contact sugar-high from him, but he's running purely on adrenaline and a sugar-caffeine over-load," Hermione eyes Grimbles. "He's going to crash hard. We need help."
Grimbles returned to his table and resumed his work either not noticing or not caring that Hermione remained rooted in her seat on the couch. The room's silence thickened and draped over them like a warm Afghan blanket – comfortable save for the slight itch felt when it rubs against one's skin. Hermione turned and sat back in the corner of the couch, leaning against the arm and back with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her right arm rested stretched across the arm of the couch, her wrist on the edge of the table and hand wrapped flat – fingers under the handle – around the body of the mug, despite its heat burning and stinging the delicate skin. Her left elbow rested on her knee as she lightly stroked and scratched her neck. Her hand traveled up, and a fingernail hooked over her front teeth. She didn't bite it, she'd at least cut that habit, instead she ran it over her tooth, the tooth scraping against the base of the underside of her nail.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, where the foggy conscious boarders the cloudy edge of sub-consciousness, she recognized the less than familiar taste of ink mixed with sweaty, dead skin and the other mysterious particles that take refuge beneath nails. The wispy thought was soon lost to that vast border-land, like so many before it, before the rest of her overworked, distracted mind even had a chance to notice its presence.
The problem wasn't the problem itself. After all the problem had a single simple solution. The problem was that the simple definitive solution posed another problem that was both entirely different and the root of all their problems in the first place it had a solution too, several in fact. But each solution was problematic in its own special way.
The simplest solution was, obviously, for Bill to come relieve Grimbles and, because he was certainly capable of doing his own job unaided, allow Hermione to focus on her own job. But therein lay the true problem at the root of all their other problems- the solution to their problems, remedying Bill's absence, was the very problem that led to the development of their current problems. The two most obvious options would be for her of Grimbles to go find him. But she didn't want to leave Grimbles alone to do all the work or have to field questions if someone walked into the office looking for her or Bill. And there was no way she could even consider allowing Grimbles to go in his condition. Asking his family to help would be just like ratting him out. That only left her boys. She crinkled her nose and considered her options, soon coming to the conclusion that Harry would be most capable of controlling his over-protective nature long enough to at least make sure the man was okay, and Bill was probably the least likely to castrate him for sneaking up on him, if for no other reason than to avoid having the favor returned by his sister.
Finally coming to a satisfying solution, Hermione stood and summoned her patronus. Unlike most, Grimbles was accustomed to seeing Bill perform extremely complex, difficult magic silently and wandless, so he felt only a moment of mild surprise at the display. He was much more surprised by and interested in Hermione's patronus, he never would have guessed it was an otter. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she bent and whispered to the wispy, silver animal. The otter was standing on it back legs, it one front paw resting lightly on her leg. She lightly ran her hand over the otter's head as she spoke; the otter leaned into her touch, obviously enjoying it.
"Don't think I've ever seen such a close, loving relationship between a person and their patronus before," Grimbles wracked his brain for an incidence of a human and patronus even interacting beyond the typical patronus use as he watched the small otter swiftly disappear from the room
"Where's it going?" Grimbles asked, quickly overcome with curiosity.
"She's going to Harry. We've made a charm so we can convey messages and ensure that only the intended recipient can get it. This way we can discreetly ask him to sip out and find Bill.
"Impressive Ms. Granger, very impressive."
Hopefully this helps a bit to make up for the long absence and two shoty updates.
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