Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The editor shredded another letter from some illiterate about her confusing, run-on style. Run on this, she thought, putting her pen to paper.

"You won't get into trouble while we're gone, will you?" asked Padma.

Exams were over, and Luna and Padma were ready to spend the week in London with Mrs. Malfoy.

"We plan a moon-viewing party," said Draco.

"What's that?" asked Luna.

"We watch the moon rise while sipping sake, munching wasabi peanuts, and grilling shrimp," said Theo.

"And watching geishas dance for you, I bet," said Padma.

"I want to stay and be a geisha," said Luna.

"Can you do haiku?" asked Draco.

Luna put her knees together, dipped as if wearing a kimono, and delicately fanned herself with her wand.

If I see you

With another girl,

I'll crack your nuts like a squirrel.

Driven to despondency by the unavailability of the flaunted goods at The Pole and the Feather, Biff took the bite of realism as an opportunity for artistic expression.

Pansy Parkinson was not happy with Adolf Galland. She had talked to Professor Roeder. Did he know Professor Galland? Indeed he did. Professor Roeder thought Professor Galland the most gifted student of Crystals he had ever had. Professor Galland could have been one of the foremost practitioners, commanding huge fees for his services. Pansy asked Adolf about this. Now she was pondering his reply: "It's a question of expertly performing an established routine or clumsily doing what's never been done before." She understood his reply. She couldn't understand why he had made the choice he had made. He could have become rich and famous. Pansy was confused. Adolf had condemned himself and any family he might have to a life of penury when they could have had a life of luxury. Pansy was angry. Adolf was selfish in the extreme. Pansy was hurt. She had been disloyal to her family by warning him of their intent to ensnare him, but he was not showing any regard for her well being.

Well, if that was his attitude, she could show that she didn't care about him. Her parents had been urging her to visit Lucius Malfoy in France. She told her parents they were right. She should stick with her own kind. They began gushing about all the suitable wizards that the Malfoy family knew, but Pansy had her own agenda. She had always considered Lucius handsome, and it was obvious his wife was neglecting him. Lucius Malfoy, unlike some twit she could name, understood the importance of wealth and power.

That was therapeutic, thought Biff. Now for something with just a small amount of bite in it.

"How did it go?" asked Theo.

Luna and Padma had returned from their week in London.

"Very well," said Padma. "Luna got several offers too."

"From Magical Beasts, I imagine," said Theo. "And you?"

"The best offer was from the Tax Assessment Office."

He thought, She's going to become one of those, but he said, "Tell me about it."

"The work is really hard," she said, "but it's important. If the taxes aren't fair, there's a lot of resentment and evasion."

He was thinking there would be a lot of resentment and evasion anyway, but he asked if she had told her family. She said she hadn't, and she was afraid they would regard her as a traitor since they were businessmen. He suggested telling them that, in a few years, she would know all the best ways to reduce their tax burden.

She was in his arms. He was thinking the most beautiful woman in the world was going to be a taxman, and she was saying, "Oh, Theo, I knew you would understand. I knew I could count on you."

The editor felt ready for another adventure scene filled with feminine sensitivity.

"You don't have to help us, you know," said Andy. "You've already earned your ten percent."

"I'm sitting around waiting for the results of my exams. I'm going spare," said Hermione. "I need a distraction."

"It will be more than a distraction if we're exposed while impersonating depositors, love. The goblins take a dim view of people removing funds from their bank. Adolf and Alain will be stationed by the entrance ready to do whatever is necessary to rescue us. They take a dim view of anyone interfering with their schemes. The building may not survive."

While Hermione was thinking it was Andy's turn to be melodramatic, Andy was explaining the problem. The goblins would become suspicious if the volume of withdraws were unusually high, but they had to act quickly before the goblins realized vaults were being emptied by people who should not be able to do so. A point in their favor for the latter was the poor communication between the goblins and the wizards. Thank goodness, Hermione hadn't yet improved the relations between the groups.

Several days later, a young girl accompanied by her mother appeared at the bank to withdraw her inheritance from her uncle in exile. As the girl was producing her key and identity papers, an old man was complaining to a clerk about a mistake in his balance. The old man was crotchety and, apparently, had failing eyesight, and he was drawing everyone's attention as he refused to accept the clerk's demonstration that the balance shown on his receipt was correct. The commotion was almost as loud as the girl's pounding heart. As she and her mother made their way to the vault, fear both blotted out her surroundings and made her start at every small thing. Once there, she tried to control her trembling fingers as, under the guise of counting the money, they stacked a small number of coins as a shield wall and removed all the rest. They had returned to the lobby before she realized she wasn't breathing. They had gone with the dumb, buxom blonde theory, but she knew that every leer in her direction was really a glare of suspicion. Halfway down the front steps, her knees buckled and unseen hands walked her slowly to a tea shop while she was mentally screaming that they should run, run, run.

It was a week later that an attempt went pear shaped and the newspaper was filled with accounts of damages and people admitted to the hospital. Hermione ran to see Professor Galland, but he was in the Music Room full of students, and she couldn't approach him. It was an anxiety-filled hour before she could get him alone. First, he reassured her that Cissy, Andy and the others were neither harmed nor exposed. She asked how they managed to escape from a goblin bank without a scratch and without being unmasked. He replied that they had unleashed containers carrying sprigs from the Black estate entity, angry sprigs.

Hermione was outraged and became even more outraged when Adolf said, "In addition, we tipped off Xenophilius Lovegood that the wounds suffered by people at the bank were similar to the wounds suffered by the law officers at the Black estate, and he is writing an expose about it being a bold daylight robbery by the Welsh Separatist Movement. The goblins and officials are willing to let a story of a failed raid spread as the explanation that puts them in the least unfavorable light."

"Luna and Xenophilius are our friends," said Hermione. "Ron and Harry are my friends. Do you use everybody?"

"I can see you're angry and for good reason," he said. "Using the plant tendrils was the best distraction that caused the least damage, but we did hurt innocent bystanders. Xenophilius is ecstatic, and his magazine is selling, but we are manipulating a person with whom we should be honest."

Adolf shook his head. "I have no excuses. I went into this with my eyes open and prepared to commit mayhem."

"You tried to keep me out of this, didn't you?" she said, half accusing him and half vindicating him. An inner voice was reminding her of previous, thoughtless, unprepared adventures when she was a young schoolgirl, but she was not going to let him off the hook on this one.

"You went once. Draco went once," he said. "After that, our nerves cracked, and we couldn't bring ourselves to use you or Draco anymore."

"You don't have to protect me," she said. "I'm just as capable as any of you, you arrogant prig."

"You're angry at what we did, and you're angry we didn't include you," he said.

"Yes," said Hermione. It made perfect sense to her.

Adolf was deciding to be amused at female logic.

She glared at him. "Are there going to be any more raids?"

"It's over," he said.

He decided it was not the time to tell her that the total haul was 120,360 Galleons. Nor was it the time to tell her that her share for providing information and participating in one of the raids was 12,236 Galleons. He could also wait to tell her that Andy could now repay the loans from her sister and begin to live comfortably. If he did so now, she would think he was trying to bribe her conscience. On the other hand, he might be able to reach her with rationality.

"We still need you. Andy believes she will get the maximum return if all the artifacts are correctly priced, but the arrangement for appraising will be different," he said, "you will be paid by the hour."

"I see," she said. "It will require extensive research, and part of the ethics of appraising is that one neither gains nor loses because of the valuation."

Author's Note: The monetary amounts are based on the observation that, in canon, wizard society mirrors Brit society. Approximate numbers for median and average wage for the year 2000 are 3000 Galleons and 4500 Galleons.