Part Two, Chapter Seven

Dinner in the Coulthard household that evening was also an interesting affair. It began with John Coulthard asking his wife a question as they started their course of roast chicken. "So Christine, there was a security alert at the bank today which I didn't get told much about. I don't suppose you'd know anything more about it from work?"

Across the table, Gwen watched her mother's reaction. She thought her mother had seemed quite subdued when she got home from work earlier, but supposed it was just the stress of work getting to her like it was everyone else. Gwen had heard about the security alert downstairs, but wasn't senior enough to be given the details. Her father, on the other hand, would have been filled in on exactly what had gone on.

Christine nodded. "Yes, I heard about that. It got sorted pretty quickly though. They didn't need to send any aurors down, but Crouch went round anyway to speak to someone in charge about the security procedures. I'm surprised he didn't see you, actually."

John shook his head as he swallowed a mouthful of chicken. "I was in a meeting with a group of curse breakers this afternoon. He spoke to Elrex and Redknapp instead. I heard it was some foreign chap that set it off?"

That worried Gwen slightly. There weren't that many foreigners that came into Gringotts on a daily basis. Could it have been Sander?

"Yes," her mother continued, "It was a Dutch businessman. It got sorted out very quickly on the scene though. Apparently he manufactures dark detectors for a living, so we think the kind of magic he uses in his products must have been misinterpreted by our dark detector. We don't think there's anything suspicious about him. His brother's one of the ones the Dutch Ministry sent over as a highly recommended auror and they've both got a very good reputation."

Inwardly, Gwen groaned. So it had been Sander. Why was it that everyone associated with her seemed to set dark detectors off? She'd been worrying earlier about how she was going to frame the question to Barty as to why he'd set off both the auroscope and the foe glass, but as it happened he'd provided the explanation himself. She thought it was better that he'd told her what he was up to at the Ministry without her having to mention the dark detectors – she didn't want him to think she hadn't trusted him. Maybe things had worked out for the better this way, although she didn't like the thought she was now keeping an incredibly important secret that she wasn't supposed to know about. But like Barty had said, hopefully things would calm down now and there would be no reason for anybody to ever ask about the project again.

Her parents continued their conversation. "Are the foreign aurors likely to be here long, Christine? How long do you think it is before we can round up all the Death Eaters?" her father asked.

"I don't know, John," Christine said in a tone that suggested she was annoyed by the question, "We're not even sure how many of them there are, for starters. It could be months."

Gwen thought she may as well mention she knew Sander. "I'm in a meeting with one of them next week," she said, "That Dutch businessman is one of my clients. Him and his brother are coming to see me about their company's finances."

"Really? What's he like?" her mother asked.

Gwen thought about that for a moment, "Well, he's really nice, has a really bad sense of time and likes ice cream."

"Most definitely doesn't sound like a Death Eater to me," John said with a smile.

Gwen smiled too, but her mother seemed too tired to be amused by the comment.

"I take it he was seeing you today, then?" Christine asked.

Gwen nodded, "Yeah, I sell stocks for him."

"And did you see anyone else today?"

At her mother's question, Gwen paused with the fork half way to her mouth, wondering why she'd been asked. She frequently saw many clients in the space of a day, but usually her mother wasn't interested in hearing about them. "Actually, yeah. I saw Barty again this morning." Gwen ate another forkful of chicken and hoped that would be enough to satisfy her mother's curiosity.

It wasn't. "Crouch told me about that," her mother continued, and Gwen immediately felt rather awkward and worried.

"He did?"

"Yes, he said his son's been leaving work to go and see you."

"Oh," Gwen wished this topic of conversation hadn't come up. She knew she couldn't tell any of them the real reason Barty had been coming to see her, so now she was only going to end up having to lie and tell half-truths.

Her mother sighed. "I don't think it's very good that he's missing work, Gwen."

"He gets bored. He doesn't really like his job so he comes to see me. I know he shouldn't and I've told him not to." She didn't know what else she could say.

"It's obvious to anybody who works with him that he doesn't like his job, but that's no excuse. He's getting paid for all that time he spends skiving and his father's not very happy about it."

Gwen was rather worried now. "Does he think it's my fault?"

Christine was about to answer, but her father interrupted. "If he does, I can tell you now him and I will be having words. I've gotten to know Crouch quite well over the past few months, and from the way he talks about his son I get the impression that the pair of them don't get on well. I'm sure Barty is a perfectly nice young lad, Gwen, but you shouldn't be dragged into any arguments he has with his father. If you've told him to stop seeing you at work then you've done exactly the right thing, and I'll make sure Crouch knows it."

Gwen felt a rush of affection and gratitude towards her father for sticking up for her, but she felt a little bad that she couldn't tell him the whole story. "Thanks, dad. I've, erm, asked him to call on me at home from now on, if that's alright?" She was looking more to her mother than her father for approval, but Christine seemed too tired to really care right now.

"Yes, I suppose that's fine."

Seeing that topic of conversation seemed to be closed (a fact Gwen was rather grateful for) John tried to steer the conversation back to its previous topic. "So Gwen," he began, "Tell us more about this Dutch businessman. What's his name, for starters?"

"Sander Westerbeck," Gwen said, proudly showing off her Dutch pronunciation, "He's a part owner of Desdinova Dark Detectors." After that, the conversation went back into much more comfortable territory and Gwen quite enjoyed telling her parents all about Sander and his company. She left out the part about Sander's encounter with Barty, but overall she thought they seemed rather interested to hear about Dutch argentite and the mines at Valkenburg aan de Geul.

Later that night, Gwen went upstairs to bed feeling quite relieved that she'd managed to finally find out what Barty was up to, even if his revelation had come as quite a surprise to her. However, there was one more surprise waiting for her as she entered her bedroom to find there was someone tapping at the window.