Adventures in Banking (With Dragons)

Chapter One

I'm twenty three, I have a terrific job (for which I'm paid an almost obscene amount of money), women seem to feel I'm not wholly unattractive - and I'm moving back in with my parents; with my mother. Damn he-who-must-not-be-named.

But when your old head of house apparates all the way to Cairo to say, "Bill Weasley - the Order of the Phoenix needs heroes. Could you be available some time next week? Unpaid job, but we'll try to cover expenses." there's really not a lot you can say.

No. I should have said 'No'. Or at least 'What's the catch?'

Instead I said "Yes, Ma'am. Where do you want me?" Only then did she mention the bit about Grimmauld Place and moving back in with my family. Not that I don't love Mum and Dad - and Ron and Ginny. I'll even admit to the odd warm fraternal feeling for the twins - when they're not trying to talk me into field-testing their inventions on the job. It's just that ever since I've had visions of waking up to see my mother towering over me, the majority of my hair clasped in one hand like a trophy.

I'm sure she wouldn't do that. Probably.

In any case all this is by way of explanation for me being in Coalseam's office - think a cave but with ledgers and papers rather than rocks, plus a fire that was always just on the edge of causing the whole lot to go up - trying to explain to him what I was doing. The situation wasn't improved by the state of my head or the way my teeth ached right to the back - the Cairo-London apparate is a bitch.

"Look, I know it's short notice, but there must be a job in London I can do."

"It is not a matter of finding you a position commensurate with your abilities and experience, Mr Weasley. Any number of departments would like to have you. Rather I am concerned that you provide an explanation for why - having turned down a number of offers in the past - you wish to be transferred."

"I just..." Want to be an international agent of a secret order? Wear a tuxedo and carry my wand in a shoulder holster? Maybe Muggle films do rot the mind after all."Things are looking a bit shaky here. I want to be closer to home, to my family. Just in case."

Coalseam nodded wisely and shuffled some papers around the desk, harder than it sounds since there seemed to be more paper than desk. But it was pretty standard procedure if you tried to discuss current affairs with a goblin these days. If a consensus was emerging out of their private meetings they sure weren't letting on.

"A most understandable - and if I may say laudable - objective. I will-" Another round of paper shuffling, but with bit more purpose this time. "I believe we can accommodate you in the Vault Ward Section, starting Monday. If you could sign these, please. The standard contract of employment with waivers and ouster clauses."

About three inches of forms were extracted from one of the piles on his desk, without causing any noticeable reduction in its height.

I emerged about an hour later, reasonably sure I'd only signed away what I'd wanted to - my dream job and my independence. Oh well, these things will happen. I was sure to be back in Egypt in no time, how long could it take to defeat the Forces of Darkness anyhow?

I was making a mental note to ask the Order for its collective best estimate, and calculating the distance to the nearest pub, when I saw her.

Immediately things didn't seem so bad after all. Call me shallow, but drop dead gorgeous blondes do that for me. Persuading Fleur Delacour to let me buy her a drink sounded a hell of a lot better than drowning my sorrows with the lads.

I'm not going to bother to try and describe Fleur. Describing beautiful women is always a waste of time. Either you've met her - and you know - or you haven't. If you haven't then I'd be wasting my time. I could say she was on the short side, but with legs up to here. Or talk about the way her hair - consider the inevitable comparison to spun gold or liquid sunlight made - curled to skim against her neck; she'd had it cut. I might mention the way she lowered her lashes over cold blue eyes to return my gaze. Her flawless skin, the swell of her breasts hinted at through the robe or the way she quirked her eyebrow at me. None of it means much unless you've seen the whole package in the flesh.

Okay, I just did end up describing her. Mea culpa. For the purposes of the narrative just accept that I haven't done her justice. What immortal hand or eye and all that.

The important thing to know, given what happened latter, was that I immediately noticed that she seemed older, more assured - not that she wasn't pretty assured last time we met. Of course at the time I put it down to her hair cut.

"I'm having the most terrible week," I said, trading my most charming grin for her eyebrow work. "Can I ask you a big favour?"

"You may ask." If the smile she let crinkle round the sides of her mouth softened the patrician tone it wasn't by much. "But unless you can be more original than the last three don't expect me to say yes."

There must be something terribly wrong with me because I found it a turn on.

"Gringott's trainees, ehh?" I played for time. "Probably haven't seen a woman in months, stuck down there with their ledgers." I gave her a considering look. "Not that that would matter much. I wasn't planning on anything terribly original, but I'd like to buy you a drink."

"And what would you buy me?"

There's nothing better than being sized up by a woman like Fleur, at least when I'm confident that I've got the right answer.

"Pint of beer, 'course. Can't come to England without tasting the beer. Coming?"

"In France," she said in the tones of one about to deliver a withering put down. "We stop drinking Butterbeer when we're about twelve."

I'm considerably harder to put down than that.

"In England we know that there are better things than Butterbeer. Muggle bitter for example."

"What?" Her tone, when considered with her expression suggested I'd suggested a quick half of blood at a vampire bar.

"Muggle bitter; that's beer made by Muggles, not made of Muggles." I pretended she might have misunderstood. "Along with fast cars, movies and something I'm told is called 'central heating' it's one of the great losses to the magical community."

She didn't look entirely convinced, but we were walking out of Gringotts together which was a good sign.

"So where do we get this 'Muggle Bitter'?"

"Ah, now there's the rub. Despite my best efforts - and those of a discerning minority - Muggle bitter has so far eluded captivity. We will have to venture out-" I struck a mock heroic pose and offered her my arm. Which she took, I manfully pretended that I'd known she would. "Into the wilds of Muggle London. And I'm afraid that as alluring as you look in those robes ... they're going to have to go."

"Go?" It was pretty clear that I ought to be back-pedalling from what I assure you was a Freudian slip. However, I didn't get where I am today and all that guff.

I grinned instead.

"Do you trust me?"

"Will I have to? And before you answer remember you just suggested I disrobe in the middle of Diagon Alley. I may not be in a trusting mood."

"How's your Muggle London experience?"

"I tend to get stared at, I guess."

"That doesn't really answer my question. Never mind, step in here a moment."

The proper transfiguration of women's clothes is one of the many important skills that old McGonagall doesn't include in her syllabus. The first time I tried it they all fell off, which worked out okay at the time, but wouldn't be good in a London back alley. Even once you've got past the technical pit falls you've got to avoid making any catastrophic sartorial misjudgements, which is even harder. The best rule is to keep is simple.

Of course, it's hard to have much fun without breaking the rules sometimes.

In this case it was more like bending them. When I walked back out of the alley it was in pretty standard Muggle mufti - jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket. Fleur's outfit wasn't that different; a silk blouse rather than a T-shirt and her jacket almost skimmed the ground, which I suppose made it a coat. I'd started off with it short, purely so I could admire her legs, but then it seemed a bit soon to be too obvious about it so I brought it down a little. Then a little more, until I'd have had to be the sort of wizard who comes over all funny at the glimpse of a feminine ankle to lose too much cool.

The overall effect was pretty stunning and when Fleur swept the coat to one side in order to pose I got to see her legs again anyway. If this Hero of the Moment gig falls through I can always set up as a tailor, so long as my clients don't mind being home by midnight.

I might even make it selling knee high suede boots.

*****

The pub was an old fashioned boozer, the kind with lead squiggles in the dark windows that make it impossible to see out, or in. It was full of the sort of Muggles that Wizarding matriarchs threaten their children with. It did good beer though.

"So what brings you to London, Bill?" If I'd hoped to put her off balance -- and after that crack about originality you bet I had, just a little -- it had been a miserable failure. Not that I mind a challenge. "I thought you were Our Man in Cairo?"

"You know how it is." I hoped she did, I had no idea what I meant. "I go where they tell me. That's London for the foreseeable future." I swallowed the half-truth along with another mouthful of beer. "How about you? I didn't expect to see you in London."

"I'm here to improve my English."

"Les Français disent toujours ça; et ils le disent toujours en Anglais parfait."

Fleur tossed me a smile, which might have been a tad condescending if it hadn't done interesting things to my insides. If I'd been Ron's age I'd have started to gibber. I felt the shadow of a gibber anyway. So I wisely said nothing and tried to smile enigmatically. She took a cautious sip of her half. Then curled her lip in disgust, which spoiled her carefully arranged expression, but made her look even more appealing.

"Not bad."

"Then why are you looking at me like I'm trying to poison you?"

"Who's talking about this revolting muck?"

For a long moment we sat grinning each other, sharing the same thought. This was going to be fun.

Despite my best efforts I didn't manage to convert Fleur to good British bitter. I tried, I honestly did. I think she drunk about half a pint, which was good going since she never did more than taste what was put in front of her, before dismissing it as undrinkable.

We had a great time.

I kissed her goodnight - on the cheek not on the lips. She angled her face as I leant in, and when I tried anyway she angled it more - with a little giggle that meant No, not yet rather than No, my God, NO.

You've got to admire a woman who can giggle sexily. Not many can -- unless you're into the pink, fluffy crowd, which I'm not.

*****

I shouldn't give the impression that I spent the whole summer flirting with Fleur. I certainly might had it been an option, but instead I seemed to spend most of my time setting, testing and re-setting wards in Gringotts. And occasionally there were other things too do...

"Hell, hell, hell, hell."

A week after I met her I was hanging upside-down, suspended by a rope, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. This had all seemed much simpler when I'd suggested it to McGonagall. I think I might have used the phrase "Piece of cake". I'll never learn. With a dexterous flail of my limbs - the old Quiddich skills hadn't abandoned me yet -- I managed to get myself back the right way up.

Now you might think that a wizard had no business getting himself gussied up in Muggle climbing kit in order to hang from the ceiling of the British Museum. I certainly wouldn't argue with you.

"Hell." I added for good measure.

But when a mysterious collector brings an artefact of immense dark power into the country, and a prominent member of Wizarding Society (with just the odd blot on his copybook) arranges for the Ministry to place protection spells a meter deep around it, an unconventional approach is called for.

In retrospect I see where my logic went wrong: 1. An unconventional approach is required; 2. This is unconventional; therefore, 3. This is what is required. The adventurer's solipsism. It all seemed like a good idea at the time.

It might even have worked - I really was starting to get the hang of that climbing rig -- if the other thieves hadn't broken in at the same time. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, two figures in dark robes apparating into the next room. Villainous types, not swashbuckling adventurers in a good cause like me. You could tell by the masks.

Clearly it was time to stop mucking about. I'd strapped a knife to my leg; reaching it set me spinning again, but I managed to get it. The rope parted and I left my stomach behind as I dropped. It was a couple of meters to the grounds, which seemed to happen awful fast. I wasn't sure how much noise I'd made either. And it hurt, quite a bit actually. No time to worry about any of that, I picked myself up and headed behind a convenient pillar.

"Did you hear that?" Damn!

"Hear what?" Or it might be okay.

"That thudding noise." Or not.

"I don't hear anything."

"Well I don't hear anything now."

"You're probably just nervous, starting to imagine things."

"I'm not"

"It's perfectly understandable. Secret mission, dark empty building. It's a stressful situation. Mind's bound to play tricks on you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What's this rope doing here then?"

Shit.

It was definitely time to stop mucking about. I came round the side of the pillar, wasting a good few seconds looking for a convenient statue to hit them with. There wasn't one, I ended up clocking the first one with a folding chair. He went down, but the other guy went for his wand. If he'd got a spell off it'd have brought half a dozen Aurors around our ears - not that I'd have been in a position to care.

"Here, catch!" I shouted. The idiot actually did. He fumbled his wand as he tried to hold the chair as well. Then I hit him with my shoulder and we went down in a heap. I managed to stay on top and got in a couple of blows with my knee that in different circumstances would have been less than gentlemanly. They distracted him enough for a couple of quick shots to the jaw. His loss of consciousness was a relief for us both.

I checked the other guy was out cold too, before pausing to consider the situation.

"Not your best executed plan, Bill." I decided. "But the recovery was all right." My voice sounded very loud in the empty wing. "Time to get out of here."

So I did. My friends in the black robes had brought the key for the display case, which made things easier. Not a lot easier given the magical protection, but then if curse breaking was easy anyone could do it. I slipped the Artefact of Dark and Mysterious Power (if you want details I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the normal thirty years for the de-classified version, or you could just read the Daily Prophet back issues) into my pocket and climbed back up the rope.

*****

I dropped the ADMP off with McGonagall in the early hours of the morning in a café on Edgware Road. The meeting made a small but noticeable contribution to the weirdness of my life at the time. The café's patrons could have apparated straight in from Cairo and as I waited, sipping my coffee through a couple of sugar cubes I could feel myself getting all emotional. Then a convoy of black cabs streamed past the plate glass windows and I snapped out of it.

McGonagall turned up about an hour later. She was superbly disguised, at some point I promised myself I'd get up the nerve to ask where she learnt to mimic the Muggles better than most Muggle-borns - they think they can do it, but after a few years at Hogwarts they look subtly wrong. Just like Aurors always look like Aurors, even off duty, wizards look like wizards.

I also wanted to know where she'd learnt the Arabic she used to order coffee.

Needless to say I didn't have the nerve right then. Instead I gave her a précis of the evening's work, which combined the important elements of being an accurate summary and not making me look too stupid - although I left the dangling helplessly from the ceiling in to see if I could catch her mouth twitching. McGonagall never admits to finding anything funny, it doesn't mean she doesn't have a sense of humour. And one day I'm going to catch her at it.

When the sun came up we left together, but turned in different directions after the fourth corner. For a while after that I caught the odd glimpse of a cat-shape following me. It might have been her, or then again it might not. It disappeared before I could come up with a suitably discreet way of finding out.

I killed another couple of hours in another café before sloping into Gringotts an hour early. Which might have got me employee of the week back in Cairo - if my boss had ever been in to notice, which she wasn't - but was positively tardy by London standards.

I made up for it by distributing coffee liberally through the department. Some fellow Mugglephile had introduced frappuccinos into the Vault Wards section last week. The current fad (by which I mean a burning obsession the like of which is usually only seen in Potions addicts, that's the kind of people Vault Wards attracts) had its disadvantages. Over caffeinated, over excited wizards with shaky hands should not be involved in setting up delicate wards. Particularly if the effects skirt the edge of lethality as defined by the relevant legislation, and particularly not if I'm standing next to them.

Vault Wards section has two main responsibilities: to maintain the existing wards and design new ones. Maintenance is boring and design is boring but extremely dangerous. Basically it works like this. Someone (probably Sebastian) bounces into the office and cries out: "Wouldn't it be cool if..." The next phrase tends to be something like "we reconfigured the old Dementor wards so that instead of unspeakable fear the thief feels a violent repulsion towards gold!" Gwen will look up just long enough to roll her eyes at him, before replying: "Don't be foolish, Seb. You know perfectly well that the whole structure of the tertiary eigenvectors in Dementor wards is completely antithetical to the energy patterns associated with auricophobic mental states. We'd have to…"

It's then vitally important that some responsible person (worryingly I can pass for a responsible person in Vault Wards) intervenes before Seb interrupts with a "But…" or Gwen begins to think too hard about what would be necessary to re-write the laws of magic. They're both geniuses, no question, but without someone to point out that we tried Seb's idea two months ago and a goblin got caught up in the backwash they'd get us all killed, fired or both. The consequences of afflicting a race that flirts by reciting tables of compound interest to each other with a hatred of money had not been pretty. Poor Ironthread was still in the grip of the Great-Great-Grandmother of existential crises, although he had started talking again and we hoped for a full recovery.

About one idea in ten generated by the Vault Wards department would actually pass for something a sane person might consider, if they were on a bender. It normally seemed safer to try that rather than find out what the next idea would be.

Then we spend about a week on the thaumaturgy and the arithmancy. This involves Sebastian and Gwen screaming at each other from their blackboards at opposite side's of the room while those of us who got good grades on our N.E.W.T.s, rather than failing the lot because the examiners couldn't understand our answers, try to keep up enough that we can check they're still working on the same thing.

Next is the application stage, which is like decorating but with explosive paint.

And finally the testing phase, which is the fun bit, but also the part that tends to result in singed eyebrows or missing limbs. I had a more prominent role in this than my mum would have liked.

That day we were still at the theoretical stage of a ward that would miniaturise a thief and drop him into a scale model of Gringotts where he'd wander harmlessly until collected. But we'd hit a snag. Anything made smaller too fast tends to either explode or spontaneously combust. And if it's done slowly the person figures out what's happening. You could tell it was a serious snag because Sebastian and Gwen had stopped shouting and clustered around the same blackboard with their heads together. My suggestion that it didn't matter if someone notices that they've been reduced to the size of a pin, so long as they stay that way, was treated with the contempt it apparently deserved. My major contribution to things was the coffee and then cups of tea at about half hourly intervals.

By lunchtime it was a relief to slink away to meet Fleur. We'd arranged to meet for lunch before I knew that I'd be committing deeds of daring the night before. On the other hand returning from heroic escapades to get the girl is sort of traditional.

There were even dragons involved.

Albeit these dragons were Gringott Dragons, which are the closest you get to tame dragons. Of course 'tame' on 15 tons of muscle, complete with claws the size of swords, razor sharp teeth, near immunity to conventional magic and the obligatory fire breathing is a rather different thing to 'tame' on a tabby cat. Some people say that all the Gringotts vaults are guarded by dragons, which is simply not true. It's a premium service, which costs thousands of galleons a year. Do you have any idea how much the average dragon eats? Or how much you have to pay to get people to get close enough to try feeding it?

Speaking on the behalf of the Vault Wards section it's simply not worth the money. Gringotts hasn't had a successful break-in for decades, paying for a dragon to lie on top of your worldly goods is just for swank. It can also lead to trouble when you want to make a withdrawal. Dragons don't really have a grip on the concepts of meum and tuum. Or rather they do - and the grip's got claws on it.

Nonetheless if you're a traditional Wizarding family with dosh a dragon on your long-term savings is the done thing. The goblins think we're nuts, but that doesn't stop them providing the service. Which means that Gringotts is the third largest concentration of dragons in the world, with a team of dragon wranglers to look after them. A lot of Charlie's work is Gringotts-sponsored.

Fleur, as she'd told me over my second beer and her seventh, was working in the Ancestry department. As I said, the goblins think we're quite mad, but they're quite happy to pander to us. The Ancestry department has two objectives: produce scarier dragons, bigger with bigger teeth and more flame (for the same wizards who've always felt their wands should be larger) and produce cuter dragons, smaller with smaller teeth and less flame.

Frankly I'm not sure that the world is ready for cute dragons, but I know I'm not ready for larger ones.

The latest cute version was being wrangled when I got to the Breeding Pits. It was the size of the horse - about a week old - and had two of the burlier fellows hanging off the chains. The product of a century of breeding, it had eyes the size of dinner plates and a snub nose that turned up at the end. If Charlie had been there he'd probably have proposed on the spot - going by the jaw structure it was even the right sex. I was more concerned with its teeth and the way they were grating over the chains.

"Everything okay?" I asked, in a tone calculated to suggest that I had full confidence in them, but stood willing to intervene in some heroic fashion if anything went wrong.

"No problem, Bill." Phil sounded airy enough, despite keeping two hands on the chain and leaning well back he continued to drag on a roll-up. "Meet Lucy. She won't start with the fire breathing until the second month."

I could have told him that was a silly thing to say.

There was a hiccup from Lucy, then a gurgle and finally a prolonged roaring. Sparks showered from her mouth, which was still clamped around the chain. It broke with a bright ringing sound. After that a number of things happened very quickly. Phil went backwards at speed. His partner, faced with trying to hold onto Lucy on his own and having his arms pulled out of his sockets sensibly let go. Lucy stood on her hind legs, preparing for what was clearly going to be an impressive rampage. I took several quick steps forward before realising I hadn't a clue what to do.

And Fleur came in.

"Non." She had a great voice and bags of natural authority. Lucy felt it too, she paused and her head swivelled in slow motion to blink at her. For a long second, watching them stare at each other, I thought it might work. Puffs of steam curled out of Lucy's nostrils. Fleur hadn't bothered to put down her handbag or shrug off her trench-coat. She was still carrying an umbrella in one hand. "Bad dragon!" It hadn't worked. Lucy reared back and I broke into a run towards them, not caring that I still didn't know what to do. Before I could get half way Lucy snapped forward and Fleur broke the umbrella over her head.

It was superb shot; she got her whole shoulder into it and her arm rose above her head before coming down with plenty of follow-through. Bits of umbrella went everywhere and she was left holding a mangled mess of metal joints and tattered fabric. Lucy's eyes crossed, before starting to spin slowly.

"I said bad dragon." Lucy tried to rally, but Fleur brandished the shattered remains of the umbrella. "Non!" I'd slowed my run back down to a casual saunter and got a hold of one of the chains. Unfortunately it was the one Lucy had cut short. Phil had picked himself up and got on the other one. Between us, and with Fleur standing over, we got Lucy back into a pen.

"Well," I said, dusting off my hands and striving to give the impression that I did this all the time. "That was bracing. Ready for lunch, Fleur? We can buy you a new umbrella on the way."

"Oh." She actually brought her hand to her mouth in surprise. "Oh, lunch. Bill, I'm sorry, I completely forgot. Things have been so frantic here…" It's never pleasant being brushed off and I felt my heart sink. I'd been looking forward to this. On the other hand, at least she hadn't hit me over the head with an umbrella.

"No, that's all right. We're all busy. Another time?"

"Oh, yes. Another time." That horrible sound of relief was in her voice. She'd even taken my arm and was steering me towards the stairs up. I let myself be steered. At the foot of the stairs she patted me on the arm. "Look, I really am sorry. I'll make it up to you." Before I had the chance to reply she slipped an arm round my side and kissed me. Properly this time. It was too hurried to be a truly great kiss - and we were wearing far too much - but that was all was stopping it.

She was warm and soft and all that good stuff. I kissed back. And then she was gone.

By the time I got back to Vault Wards I'd reached a couple of conclusions.

Most importantly, Fleur Delacour was as good a kisser as she was an attractive woman. If I had anything to do with things we'd be doing that again.

Less important, but probably more urgent, something was going on and I was going to find out what.

Women who kiss like that aren't the same women who forget lunch dates - at least not with the same man. Anyway we'd only set it up two days ago. The last time I'd been forgotten so quickly the women in question had received a blow to the head - delivered by a temporarily ambulatory Mummy - and couldn't remember what century she was in, never mind her social calendar.

She'd been nervous and hustled me out before I could ask about it. Fleur, even before she'd tried to KO a dragon, hadn't struck me as the nervous type.

Something was going on and I was going to find out what.

I'm afraid doing something as simple as asking never crossed my mind.

Many thanks again due to Jan Dark in her role as opinionated editor, collaborator, HTML expert and fellow conspirator.