Lester had never seen the bank so busy. Even in the stuffily stolid legal department humans and goblins were running about carrying who-knew-what around so quickly he had to flatten himself against the wall or be trampled. It made slow going, especially when collisions happened and papers went flying and everything around them had to stop while they sorted what was what.
'Perhaps the mystery of the missing rental agreement wasn't so difficult after all, ' he thought to himself.
When he hit the common conference and work area he found it strangely segregated. On the right were all the human litigators and legal clerks Gringotts used with the only goblins darting about being low-ranking Gofers while on the left were the goblins who served the same function, though they had drafted Secretaries to ferry things about. At a tiny table in a far corner stood one of the best goblin contract lawyers Gringotts had huddled with who he thought was the Dragonmaster and two of his senior underlings.
'Huh. They must be making sure they're in full compliance with the creature handling laws, ' Lichfield thought. With the I.C.W. involved and the Ministry likely wanting any excuse to poke around too, it was a sensible precaution to take. 'If Bloodwell had been drawn in it's a good thing I have other things to do or I likely would've been grabbed instead. After all, why would they need a contract dealing with dragons?'
Lester fingered the vial in his pocket as he made his way down the row between the human and goblin camps as he headed for his office at the back. The meeting with the loathsome Skeeter woman had been productive but irritating at the same time. She was a wand prone to backfire and would require close watching. The woman needed to learn that real scandals were sensational because they were true and not what was real, made sensational, resulted in scandals. Even a cursory glance at real evidence would have her best story unravel if it wasn't true and what he was offering her was different, better.
"Litigator Lichfield, I've got something for you," came a cracky, screechy voice behind him and he turned to see Barchoke's secretary coming towards him from the goblin section.
"Well tell them I'm busy and it'll have to wait," he replied with a wave.
"But it came from the Gra- from Overseer Barchoke directly," she said in a cracking voice which made his skin crawl.
How Barchoke or the other goblins could stand that way of speaking Lester would never know. It got him to stop though.
'Goblins never slip up over hierarchy, ' he thought. 'Is that little bugger getting promoted and he didn't tell me?' Lichfield grumbled; if he got bumped up to the big chair upstairs he was likely going to end up having to call Barchoke 'sir' even in private. 'Well, stuff that. '
"Well then, what is it?" he asked the pig-tailed goblin gruffly. "And what's all this running about? I thought we were prepared for the whole I.C.W. mess."
"We are," she said simply. "But now we're up to our necks in more N.D.A.s than we ever thought possible."
"And how are we supposed to fully disclose things to the I.C.W. and the Ministry if no one can speak coherently?" Lichfield asked, rubbing his temple.
"How am I supposed to know?" the secretary asked with a shrug, her voice cracking again.
This was going to be one of those days, he just knew it. At least he got a free meal first.
"So what is it he wants me to do?" he asked the little goblin female.
"It's something involving intellectual property rights," she replied, "but I can't say anything more without an N.D.A. from you being on file for this."
"So the whole world's falling apart," Lester said, gesturing to the scrum around him. "And now Barchoke decides he can't trust me?"
"They're not trusting anyone," she said by way of explanation. "He even made me sign one."
'Like that makes a lot of difference, ' Lester thought. 'There's a difference between a decent secretary and a best friend. It's not like they're- '
His eyes darted to the pig-tailed secretary who was holding out the standard N.D.A. for him to sign. He quickly tried to scrub away the image which popped into his mind.
'Good for him if it's happening but it's not something I want to think about, ' he mentally muttered while looking over and signing the agreement.
"Just a second," he said as the secretary - he should really learn her name now, he guessed. 'Dixie? Trickie? Trixie! That's it. ' - as Trixie opened her mouth to continue.
"Mipsy," he called. Lester couldn't help but notice the disgusted look on Trixie's face as the little house-elf popped up beside him.
"Yes, Mister Lichy?" the energetic elf asked, drawing glances from the goblins around them.
"Is the contract safe in my office?" he asked.
"Yes, Mister Lichy. Want me to take the briefcase now?"
"Please, and keep this safe too," Lester said, handing the vial of silvery memory over with the briefcase and watched her pop! away again.
"Can you not bring that thing here?" Bladvak, one of the goblin litigators, said getting up from a nearby table. It was much more assertive than anyone had spoken to him at any time since Barchoke had been made an Overseer. He seemed to have appointed himself office manager.
"Why wouldn't I?" Lichfield swatted back at him, noting how much more of the goblins' attention was now on him rather than what they'd been doing.
"Because we don't like them," the goblin answered with Trixie nodding. "They freak us out,"
"Why?" he asked, wondering why he was just hearing about this now.
"They just do!" Bladvak snapped before turning to the rest of the scrum. "What are you all looking at? Don't you have work to do?"
It looked like several new undercurrents had developed in Gringotts in the past day or so and Lichfield didn't know if he liked any of them. And worse, with all the mess with the I.C.W., Flamel, the Ministry, and his own case with the boy he didn't know when the next time he'd be able to sit down with Barchoke would be so he could get to the bottom of it; if the goblin would tell him that is. If the dislike of house-elves was so common, why hadn't he mentioned it before? He mentally waved it away for now as a concern for later.
"So now what can you tell me?" he asked Trixie as he motioned her to lead the way.
"That depends," she replied. "Do you speak Goblin?"
Lester sighed. Sometimes it didn't pay to work for a bank.
...
"I feel like a scarlet woman," his brother moaned into the pub's tabletop a few hours later.
"Nah, I doubt any scarlet woman's ever been paid that much," Bill teased, eyeing the two large sacks bulging with the strange paper money the Romanian wizards used. "Worrying about it won't make it any better, just relax."
"How can you say that?" Charlie asked, looking pained. "You don't know what I've done."
"I break into people's tombs and steal their most beloved treasures for a living," he said with a wave. "Sometimes I literally take them from their cold, dead hands. You don't do that without a bit of moral flexibility. All I have to ask is, was it illegal?"
If anything that made the man who stared down dragons for a living look even more sheepish.
"From the way they described it, technically, no," Charlie hedged. "But that doesn't mean it's right. I feel like a fraud."
.....
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