A Story of a Short Ending | T.R

Chapter 38 - The Darkness of the Unknown

Queen Of Peace - Florence + The Machine

Angeline and Emily took their time working through the banking records and the archives of the Ministry. It took them several trips and a couple of well crafted lies to get access to the records alone and then it was a long work of raking through the various documents, some of which didn't even look genuine.

In a way, they took pleasure in doing this work. It was purely analytical, it didn't require any violence and it didn't hurt anyone, if they didn't think about what this list is going to be used for. They made the library their new work space, as they met there after breakfast and finished for the day right before dinner.

Sometimes Alden came to visit them, offering his thoughts on the documents they had laid down on the table. His eyes were constantly looking through the lists of people, who either allegedly were members of the Order or were affiliated with Dumbledore financially. The list was a couple of parchments long, with entire families and even several generations on them. Some of the goodie wizards were long-living bastards.

"Does this look genuine to you?" Angeline asked, when Alden once more popped into the library, bringing the girls fresh pastries from the kitchen.

"Let me take a look," he took the parchment from her hand, as he set the plate onto the table, focusing on the names written in Angeline's neat handwriting. "I think this man died around 7 years ago, it was a big fuss in the newspapers. These people listed as his kids never existed, he didn't have any kids."

"Right, another fluke," Emily sighed and took a pastry from the plate. Their work seemed to always end up circling around back to where they started.

"I'm sure some of these are real, just need to comb out who," Alden took a chair and turned it around, sitting down by the corner of the table. He glanced through the list one more time and picked up a different list they've already scraped a couple of days ago.

"He put some people on here several times.." Alden thought out loud, as he grabbed a couple of more parchments and laid them all next to one another on the table, "I'm sure he doesn't really care about innocent people, but he wouldn't put them at risk for nothing. Those who appeared in all of these only once are those who have nothing to do with the Order. The more someone's name repeats on these, the more they contribute."

He leant back in his chair, his eyes running down the names of people, making sure to remember and store those away.

"That would make sense. Then he can argue that none of these lists are flukes, since all of them have some real contributing people, just their money donations were separated into several documents." Emily straightened and grabbed the lists from Alden, setting them down in front of her and Angeline.

"That would make sense," with Angeline giving a long look to Alden, who seemed to reply with the same one of his own, which Emily didn't notice as she was circling the names that she saw several times.

After that, their work went faster and after a week it was finally ready.

In the meanwhile, Alden had his own goal. He left the Manor after the darkness set in, knowing that no one is watching him no longer. If someone was, he would just twist a story about how he went into the city to clear his head after the near death experience left him with nightmares. No one would argue with that as it wasn't particularly a lie.

He left the Manor grounds and as soon as he knew he was out of sight, apparated away. He went into the village that was quite a distance from the Manor and closer to the big city. The shops were closing their doors for the night, the windows and glass displays locked as even in the magical communities the small theft and vandalism were an issue.