((OOC: this was going to be one of my solo threads but if anyone has Gringotts business, PM Helio or ping me on discord))

The piccolo trills in Gloria's Melody gum were out of tune minutes ago, a sign that she'd worn out the flavor. Yet she continued chewing with the last minutes of her late morning break. She sighed.

Life hadn't been too busy, although sometimes she felt like a bystander to other, noteworthy events. Full moon chaos, celebrity disappearances, undead roaming St. Mungo's. Or maybe that was just the case due to all the work she'd been doing for Étienne Descôteaux during the vetting process with the audits. Mock audits, she supposed, like mock duck, although what was mock duck actually made out of?

At the other end of this vetting there might be a promotion. Or, if not a feather in her cap, a new bank issued quill. Despite the opulent upper halls of Gringotts it wasn't that luxurious of a job with all the knut-pinching. But even a modestly lavish quill had its own acclaim. You came from an important desk, if a quill like that graced your inkwell.

Not to say her continued duties at New Investments weren't unimportant. But seemingly even Gloria had become bored with her attempts to push the envelope on her breaks, it had become too routine. As a junior clerk she could only keep one frivolous piece of literature at her desk, and she was taking every minute of her break minutes accumulated every few hours to page through an issue of Quidditch Illustrated. Which was covering a topic she'd normally be ecstatic about, covering ex-Holyhead Harpies player Ursula Prewett's rise in the Dept. of Magical Games & Sports.

Compared to colleague chum supervisor, Yeegor, who had a small pile of Bletherskate papers at the notary desk besides his other subscriptions. Somehow it was cushy enough for the long nosed goblin to be reading the newspapers any time he wasn't actively working on a contract. She didn't know enough written Gobbledegook to read the articles, and that catch in his throat was either a cough or a chiding remark.

Yeegor folded back the paper, smiling as he always did. "A small pair. Eight of Cups, upright, with a reversed Knight of Pentacles. Walking away, perhaps disillusionment, with a sign of obsessive laziness--"

"Okay, okay!" Gloria groaned. "Break over, I hear you Yeegor." Chiding remarks it was!

Rising from her desk, she looked disdainfully at the two cards he'd left on his desk before retreating behind the paper again. One of these days she was going to figure out how to hide the gum on his chair before he sat down.

It had become a disservice to Gerard to not handle these matters sooner, after emigrating to the UK. He was an infrequent sight around the preeminent bank with its gilded halls and well-polished marble. He had no trouble setting up an account of his own, upon finding work at Knareswick Phrontistery, although he'd given the process only the exact focus to complete the operation. He'd been more focused on beginning lessons with his apprentices.

Nor was he strapped for finances. He'd lived modestly from his faculty pension after his time at Beauxbatons.

But then, this wasn't about his finances.

The Belgian ran a finger across his mustache as he took in the height of the ceilings. The main hall always carried an echo into the branching corridors, he felt. The echo of footsteps across the marble, the scratching of quills. And a slight staleness to the air, in his opinion, but then accountancy wasn't his forte.

Hopefully someone would be able to direct him. "Excusez-moi, mademoiselle," he noticed one of the clerks, a young witch with copper-brown hair almost like a newly forged coin. "I have a question about accessing an account, if you're able to direct me."

Gloria had been at the bank long enough to recognize the short intersection of halls, before the grand desks of the senior goblin tellers, tended to attract attention. The majority of clients knew exactly which question to ask for requests outside the typical vault visit. But there were a few, either newer or just not clever enough to keep up with goblins, that appreciated seeing another wix like Gloria. Likely the case for how the freed elves handled their new income too, or however it went down with the increased variety of Beings on staff.

Case in point: “Oh, no trouble at all sir.” Should she be replying in French?

The tall, sandy-greying man with the mustache seemed oddly familiar but he didn’t sound local either. He had an uncle-y sort of aura. Not that Gloria could tell the sound of a blue mist, or the smell of trilling birdcalls, or however the wix who were versed at aura reading described it.

“I’d assume this is an account you should already have access to?” Gloria asked for clarification. “Or are you needed to submit a right to access?”

Gerard couldn't place the young clerk, although she appeared attentive and outgoing. "My name is Gerard Gries. It's about an older account."

He hesitated for a few moments. It had been decades, although even prepping of paperwork stirred up old memories. Like the erosion of the elements against the brick-built fortress of his mind, for the memories tied to his family's passing.

"A joint account, with my late wife," the Sorcerer intoned. "A little nest egg we had for--" He coughed.

"Excusez-moi. I do have a copy of her certificate, along with my papers when transferring a Swiss account to Gringotts last year. I've been unable to find the key to the vault, however."

Gries. It felt like she should know the name, although Gloria couldn’t remember from what. “My condolences,” even if it had been some time ago her death sounded like it still affected him.

Monsieur Gries had come prepared. “It sounds like you have everything for account retrieving. Your primary account will have to be verified, along with new key authentication. That’s this way,” back around to another ancillary ground floor desk. Much like where she sat next to Yeegor’s notary desk, although on the opposite side of the floor plan. She smoothed out a crease in her robes.

Although the reasons for the request were somber Gloria couldn’t help herself as they walked. “Gerard Gries? My name is Gloria, Gloria Gibbon. Nothing like meeting somebody with the same set of initials!”

"Merci," Gerard replied. He hoped the process wouldn't take too long, with the weight of memories he had within his mental fortress.

The clerk directed him down the halls, and when Mademoiselle Gibbon introduced herself Gerard couldn't help but be amused. He guessed her accent as either north or west country. "A rare pleasure indeed, mademoiselle."

"You would have schooled at Hogwarts, certainement." The encounter with Mlle Gibbon made him think of the chances of meeting someone with the same initials or birthdate. There was a surprisingly involved section of statistics for the latter, the Birthday Problem. Her age likely placed her as attending the school during the year of the TetraWizard Tournament, and he said as much. "I was visiting with the Beauxbatons delegation during the Tournament year. It was an exciting time."

They arrived at another section of tall desks, where the goblins worked as they sat just above eye level for most wix.

"Ohhh!" Gloria's face beamed with a hint of recognition. "I think I remember you. At least, when they enlarged the head table for all the visiting professors." Gloria mainly stuck to rooting for Hogwarts, naturally, school spirit and all that. Although she found the Salem's and Beauxbatons students the most interesting to meet. Shame on the latter's performance.

The distinction of Gerard being an Academic Advisor at the time was lost on her, although he had taught something. "You had those seminars on the mind barrier stuff. The really difficult subjects." Well beyond her grade level, although she heard some enterprising Fifth years talk about it. "It seems like many, even those too young to sit the topic, wanted a crack at Weasley's Logorrhea after one of those experiments."

Goblins always had an intimidating sort of air about them. Gloria had toughened up her skin enough to get over that initial hurdle of asking questions. She was optimistic, even if the gravelly voiced Beings regarded atypical protocol with disdain. Or interactions with most wix, probably.

"Hullo!" Gloria greeted an accounts manager. "This is Monsieur Gries. He's needing access to a secondary account, but he can't find the key."

A dissatisfactory grumble caught in the goblin's throat.

Gerard had a short chuckle for how he was recognized. "Oui, I started instruction with Occlumency for the benefits it provides to other magic, not just opposing Legilimency. It appears the Logorrhea became a favorite." To this day Gerard heard of some mixing it with alcohol, which begged to be asking for poor judgement across the board. Not a drink he would fancy.

"And does this Mister Gries," the goblin didn't bother with the French, "have the credentials in place of a missing key? Only then can the forging of a new key be approved, which will be upwards of two weeks."

"I have those papers," Gerard said. In a bureaucratic setting of the bank, the forms glossed over the deeper emotions from his tragedy. "It was my wife's account, although she left it in our...daughter's, name. Funds that would serve her for school. I have their death certificates, issued after the war."

Untouched funds, where the memory of their purpose was stronger than the need of the money within. Gerard's mouth formed a grim line under this mustache.

It would be undue to linger too long but Gloria had yet to be dismissed. Neither was this ‘New Investments’ of a kind, but as a junior clerk Gloria wanted to make sure she knew enough about the bank if she had any hopes of advancement.

The goblin immediately started scrutinizing the credentials as Monsieur Gries handed them over. Gloria blanched for a moment what she realized the implications of why the Belgian accented man was needing to seek access. His wife and daughter, both dead! She stared at the older man for longer than what felt appropriate, then for once in her life Gloria couldn’t figure out where to look or what to say next.

”Be at as it may,” the goblin drawled after reading for over a minute. An inscrutable pair of eyes looked back towards the wix, as the goblin’s pointed ears twitched. “The account of which you speak, from what details I know it has been marked potvrka dezlesssh.”

The harsh sounds of Gobbledegook caught Gloria off guard. The majority of the bank’s protocols were translated to a few different human tongues and some from other magical languages; she recalled the interviews held for translators for the local Mermish dialect after the newspaper posting at the end of January.[1] While the goblins used their native tongue for convenient security, rarely was there a banking term that did not get a translatation. It sounded obscure.

Although she felt that Yeegor and some of her other supervisors once discussed something similar. “Sorry, pardon the interruption,” Gloria said, her breathing a bit shaky. “That’s to do, err, with end of the war. Isn’t it?”

The goblin shot Gloria a glare but didn’t change expression or tone, needing to explain the term further. “Partially. It is due to what would be commonly considered probate, but also catastrophe. Not only did the day before the siege of Hogwarts mark a successful theft of Gringotts…” May 1, 1998, when The Trio broke into the LeStrange vault. Gloria still heard stories to this day in hushed conversations during company breaks. The goblin continued: “It also attracted the Dark Lord’s attention, a massacre to many goblins within these halls. Along with much destruction of collateral and records.”

Gerard’s papers were returned with a grim look from the goblin, one spindly fingered hand rapping against the desk. “It is an embarrassment to say that many records tied to casualties of the war, were lost. It was decided in the aftermath, when Gringotts yielded to no yokes, that 21 years would be provided to sort out account records lost to this period. Most marked potvrka dezlesssh have already been addressed in that time.”

Gloria willed her teeth to not chatter as if a snowstorm had entered the bank. She gulped on Gerard’s behalf, having no clue what he was thinking behind an incredibly neutral face. But her stomach sank when she realized an obvious calculation. This May would mark twenty years since the last major battles of the war. That was just over a year left from the concession, and given the severity it sounded much more complex than just getting a new key issued for the vault!

1.	Beyond the Front Page Jan 2018 - 31st snippet