Part Two, Chapter Five

The anti-apparition charm on Gringotts meant Barty had to apparate to just outside the front entrance in order to go inside. As he entered through the set of double doors he gave a nod to the auror stationed there, who returned the gesture in acknowledgement. Barty vaguely recognised him from work, but wasn't sure what his name was. Clayton, possibly…or it might have been Clifton. Either way, Barty didn't really care. He'd been slightly worried at first that the aurors stationed at Gringotts might recognise him every time he came in and wonder what he was up to, but he'd done this several times now and it had never been the same auror twice. Not to mention they probably had more important things to worry about than wonder why he was sneaking off work. If anything, they probably all thought he was here on Ministry business, and that suited Barty just fine.

Once he was inside, he began to head towards the lift that would take him to the third floor, as he always did, but then remembered his assignment from Rookwood and thought it might be a better idea to take the stairs. Even if the prospect of climbing the three flights of steps to Gwen's office wasn't very appealing, that way he'd be able to get a better idea of the layout of the building. He'd just altered direction to take a sharper right towards the stairs when something – or rather someone – caught his eye. A tall, long haired man was heading away from the lifts towards the exit, and Barty recognised him as the man who had been in Gwen's office the other day. What had she called him? Sandy? No, he wasn't English, it had been something more Germanic sounding. Sander, that was it. He was the git who'd offered to take her out for ice cream and has then tried to hang around to listen in to their conversation. And now it looked like he'd been to see her again.

A hostile glower came across Barty's face as his gaze settled on Sander, who hadn't noticed him at all, but instead carried on towards the entrance oblivious to the dirty look he was being given. As Barty reached the half way point to the stairs Sander was just a couple of yards away from the exit, and Barty suddenly had an idea. It wasn't a very good one – rather petty, actually – but he was so stressed out with everything that was going on at the moment he thought that just that one little thing might cheer him up a little. There was a dark detector hanging just above the double doors at the entrance that was designed to flash red and emit a buzzing sound if it detected any dark magic passing it. Barty had been responsible for signing it off in the equipment check before it was even installed, and back then he'd made a point of deactivating it so it specifically wouldn't go off when he was around. However, it could still work with other people. Although Barty was several metres away, he hadn't gotten the best result in the year on his charms NEWT for nothing. Just as Sander was about to pass under the detector Barty discreetly slipped his wand out of his pocket and quietly muttered the incantation for an activation charm. As he had hoped, the dark detector suddenly began to flash red and emit a loud, grating buzzing noise. Most of the people in the foyer turned to see what all the commotion was and there were a few panicked murmurs, but then the auror Clayton – or whatever his name was – appeared at the door and announced to the room, "No need to panic. It's just routine security." As people realised they quite clearly weren't being attacked and that there seemed to be an auror in control, the impending outburst of panic subsided. As Clayton turned to Sander and began the process of detaining him and carrying out ID checks and dark magic scans, most of the activity in the foyer returned to normal, but Barty continued to watch the two of them intently.

He'd hoped that Sander would at least seem annoyed, preferably angry at having been held up for no reason, but to Barty's disappointment he seemed completely relaxed about it. He just stood there casually, smiling at Clayton when he talked to him, and Barty even thought he heard him say something like, "No problem, mate. Better safe than sorry." The man's seemingly perfectly happy mood only served to make Barty even more sullen, and as Clayton finished carrying out the checks and let Sander go on his way Barty turned back towards the stairs gritting his teeth and with a foul expression on his face. What right did the man have to act so infuriatingly relaxed? Especially when there were people running round like crazy trying to sort out the mess left in the wake of the Dark Lord's downfall.

Barty was still glowering when he reached the first floor landing, but decided he ought to make an effort to try and cheer up if he was going to see Gwen. It wasn't her fault he was in this mess. If anything, she done a lot to try and help get him out of it, even though she didn't know the truth about what he was involved in. And now he was going to have to use her again to try and break into Gringotts. He paused on the stairs for a moment as he let the wave of guilt come and subside, and then reminded himself that he was doing this for the Dark Lord and if it meant lying some more then that was what was necessary.

Another thing he still felt bad about was that he was going to have to cancel their date on Saturday. He'd been dragged into work to continue with the investigation, and as much as it would please him immensely to piss off his father by not showing up for work, he knew in the current circumstances he really couldn't do that. Things were pretty hectic in the department at the moment and he wasn't certain how much he'd manage to get away without anybody noticing. His position among the Death Eaters was even more uncertain: still not all of them trusted him, and with the Dark Lord gone he now had even more to prove.

As he reached the landing on the third floor, Barty tried not to think about Rookwood and the others and instead concentrated just for the moment on the main reason why he'd come here. Although he knew he ought to be concentrating on the assignment he'd been given, he wasn't going to pretend that Gwen wasn't the only reason he'd chosen to come at this time instead of waiting until the end of the day or just seeing one of the goblins downstairs. Her office door was closed when he reached it, as always, and he gave it quite a loud knock, hoping that she hadn't gone out for whatever reason. He was answered very quickly by a call of, "Come in," and he pushed the door open, feeling slightly bad about what he was about to have to tell her.

She just looked up from her desk as he entered the room and Barty noticed that she seemed quite surprised (although thankfully pleased as well) to see him. "Barty." She was smiling at him, but at the same time seemed rather disapproving.

"Hi Gwen."

"I really wasn't expecting to see you. Are you skiving work again?"

He looked at her sheepishly, "Well, I did have to see to the aurors on security downstairs, so I thought I'd pop in and say hi while I was here." He knew that was a load of bullshit, and she seemed to know it too, but she shook her head in a way that suggested she didn't really mind too much.

"Alright, what is it you wanted to see me about?"

She leaned back in her chair in a way that seemed to be inviting him to sit down, and he did so as he tried to work out which news to give her first. Personal or professional? He decided on personal. "Well, firstly, I'm really, really sorry but I'm going to have to cancel Saturday."

Gwen sighed and looked disappointed, but Barty thought her reaction suggested she'd been expecting him to say that. "Yeah, I thought that might be the case. Mum's been telling me how things are completely crazy in the Ministry at the moment: more crazy than you'd think if you just judged it on the newspaper reports."

Barty nodded, "Yeah, it is that bad. But we can still do something some other time, right?"

"Um…yeah, sure. Once everything's calmed down I'm sure we could go see a play or something."

Barty couldn't help but feel slightly dejected as he noticed she didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about it, but then supposed she was just stressed like everyone else. "That's great."

"Yeah, we can probably find something to do," she said casually, and then leant forward in her seat so she was looking at him more intently, "So, you said firstly, so what's the secondly?"

He paused a moment before answering, thinking this was probably going to annoy her. "Well, I need you to cancel the loan."

She didn't respond for a few moments, but instead just looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between curiosity and an angry glare. Yep, she was annoyed. "Why?"

Her tone had been demanding, and he didn't think she was going to take his next sentence very well. "I can't tell you."

She glared. "Well, I'm sorry Barty, but if you don't give me a damn good reason to cancel that loan you can pay it all back with ten percent interest. I'm bloody sick of this…"

"Gwen…" he tried to interrupt her, but she seemed to be in rant mode.

"First, you ask me to invest in all these shares for you, which I do. No questions asked. Then you want me to get you a ridiculously expensive loan, which was bloody difficult for me but I do it anyway, yet you won't even tell me what it's for. And then after all that work, suddenly out of the blue you don't want the loan anymore, so you just expect me to cancel it without wanting to know why. Well, if you think that's going to work you can get stuffed. I think I've put enough hard work and effort into this by now to have a right to know what's going on."

He'd never really seen her angry before, and her outburst stunned him into silence for a few moments. It was strange seeing someone who was usually so quiet and reserved lose her temper like that, but he knew she had every right to be mad at him. He also knew, however, that there was no way he could tell her what he was really up to. But judging by her reaction, she wasn't going to settle for no answers this time. He had to think of something to tell her. "Gwen, I said I can't tell you for a reason."

"But you can make me run round in circles after you though, so can't you at least give me a good reason for not letting me know precisely what the money's for?"

He had to think. Fast. And the first thing that popped into his head was Rookwood. "Well…you know the Department of Mysteries?"

He saw her raise an eyebrow. Clearly this hadn't been the kind of explanation she was expecting. "Yeah?"

"Well, I've been wanting to transfer there. I think you know how much I hate working in the Department for magical Law Enforcement. There's a guy working in the Department of Mysteries who said he wants me to join his staff, but it'd be difficult for him to get my father to agree to it. I've been working secretly for him for a few months, until they can find a way to get me the transfer, but it's been on a top secret project that nobody's supposed to know about, not even my father or other senior people outside the Department. We've been developing this new kind of magic that we were going to use to try and defeat th… You-Know-Who, but it was really expensive so they needed extra funds for it. Officially, the project didn't even exist so it couldn't ask for an increase in the Department budget. Instead they decided to try for private funding, but the head of the Department couldn't ask for the money because the Prophet would no doubt get hold of it somehow, so they asked me to try and get the loan for them. Although, obviously You-Know-Who's gone now, so the project's pretty redundant. That's why we don't need the loan anymore."

Following his explanation there was silence for a few moments, and Barty watched Gwen's reaction nervously, wondering if she'd bought it. Given that he'd just made it up on the spot, he wasn't sure if he could fill in any details convincingly she might want to know, but after a few moments it looked like she wasn't going to ask anything. Her only response was a quiet, "Oh," and, if anything, Barty thought she seemed rather embarrassed to have asked.

"Do you see now why I couldn't tell you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Sorry."

He thought she probably felt really bad now for having made him told her what she thought was supposed to be an official secret, and he really wished she wouldn't. He was the one who should be feeling bad: he was the one who'd messed her around and lied to her, but unfortunately there was no way he could tell her that. "Don't worry about it, Gwen. It was a little unfair for me to expect you to not ask questions."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments, and then said something he hadn't been expecting. "What kind of magic?"

"What do you mean?" He'd thought he'd escaped the questions, but apparently not.

"The project, did it use dark magic?"

He thought carefully before answering. Why was she asking? Just because it was to do with the Department of Mysteries didn't mean there was automatically dark magic involved. He thought he should answer with caution, although it might be best for him to stick as close to the truth as possible. "Yeah."

She gave a thoughtful nod, as if she'd just managed to work something out. "Makes sense," she muttered, although she seemed to be saying it more to herself than to him.

"It does?" He couldn't work out what she was thinking.

"Yeah, otherwise why would it need to be a secret?"

"Oh, yeah, of course."

There was an awkward silence between them for a few moments before Barty finally broke it. "So, now you know."

"Yeah," Gwen responded. Barty thought she really did look like she wished she hadn't asked. "I'm sorry, you probably weren't supposed to tell me any of that."

He tried to give what he hoped was a nonchalant shrug. "It's no big deal. I won't tell if you won't."

"No, I won't. Especially not if it's an important state secret or something."

He smiled at her to try and make her feel better. "Don't worry, I trust you. But it's got to feel pretty good though, knowing you're in on a really big Ministry secret."

"It's quite intimidating, actually."

"Well, it'll probably all be swept under the rug soon now anyway once everybody's managed to get things under control at work. Speaking of which, I must get back." He got up out of his seat. "I don't know when it'll be, but I'll try and call on you again as soon as things have calmed down."

"Oh, Barty, one moment…" He watched as she took a scrap piece of parchment from her desk and scribbled something down on it before handing it to him. "My address. Call on me at home next time. You'll get into trouble if you skive any more time at work."

She was smiling at him, and he smiled back. "Great, thanks Gwen. I'll see you later." Almost as an afterthought, he leant across the desk to give her a quick peck on the cheek before turning to leave the room, and he was glad to see she seemed somewhat pleased by this, smiling to herself as she muttered "Bye, Barty."

That was enough to put him in a good mood until he reached the bottom of the stairs again, even though he hadn't been doing much to take note of the layout of the building on the way down like Rookwood had instructed. Gwen seemed to completely have bought into his story, and although he didn't like lying to her it did at least mean she wasn't mad at him anymore, so that was one thing to feel good about. The smile quickly vanished from his face, however, as he stepped out into the foyer and recognised one of the men who was standing having what seemed like an important discussion with one of the senior goblins by the desks. Barty hesitated at the foot of the stairs and swore quietly to himself, before making the decision to try and make it to the exit as inconspicuously as possible. He hadn't gotten far though before her heard a reproachful voice call out from behind him, "Barty."

He stopped, inwardly uttering every swear word he knew, before turning slowly to face the man, his expression hostile and defiant. "Father."