His Guardian Angel

Chapter 18

"I don't get it Tom, what the bloody hell happened? You're not hiding this from me anymore, I demand to know what has gotten our finances into such dire straits that I was forced to restructure our entire budget to hardly anything. What's going on?" Tom was at least shameful enough to hang his head before taking in a shaking breath to explain.

"I hired a bad financial advisor." Tom looked up at him, slumped over his desk that was strewn with papers and quills. "He took everything. He did wonderfully the first two years he was working for me and in one fell swoop he managed to take everything we had in our accounts and not even the International Magical Auror Organization can find him. He transferred all the money and withdrew it all in a matter of an hour before disappearing. I can only imagine the resources he has right now between all that money and a potions mastery-he could be brewing unlimited amounts of polyjuice potion and be right under my nose for all we know!" He hung his head again. "I've failed us; I've failed you. Hell, I failed Iris." His muffled voice cracked and Harry began to see red. Not at Tom, he had only done what every other entrepreneur does. No one could have predicted someone doing this after working with them for so long.

"Who is managing the finances right now?"

"I am." Tom's eyes were bloodshot and his hair was an absolute mess.

"Tom, you're not managing anything. You're drowning. Go to bed, I'll get started on this. And no, I don't want to hear it. Iris is napping and you haven't slept more than two hours at a time for more than a week. Go to bed, I'll have Iris wake you up before dinner." Tom must have been more tired than Harry thought because he nodded and actually went to bed. He hunkered down and prepared himself for the arithmancy that he'd be doing over the next several hours.

The finances were in ruins; money was sitting in certain accounts, unused, and other accounts were being depleted at alarming rates for supplies and salaries while still others were barely managing themselves. During dinner that night, Harry found out that the reasoning behind that was because Tom was afraid someone else would come in and try to deplete another account and take everything. He was overcompensating in ways that were just digging the holes deeper, a sure sign of Tom's mental state showing just how badly he had been panicking over the entire ordeal.

"Have you contacted a legal advisor?" Tom looked dumbfounded before pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'll do that in the morning." Harry spent that night restructuring the finances of the company and making copies of every single sheaf of parchment with company info on it for Tom to take when he found someone adequate enough to get on board. He then left first thing in the morning with only a note to Tom telling him he was on babysitting duties that day and to enjoy his time with Iris. He left a general itinerary of the basics like meal, snack and nap times so she wouldn't get off schedule.

Harry had been to the potions lab where Tom's creations were made and stored a few times but had neglected going overall because he didn't want Iris in a potions lab just yet. The fumes would still be too much for her young body to handle.

They had hired ten potion masters to brew potions and all of them were full time. When Harry arrived they were all brewing but even Harry knew that not all the potions being brewed were their creations. The two potion masters who were brewing things that weren't in their production were let go on the spot and told to leave. That got the attention of everyone else.

"Everyone put your potions under stasis. Right now, please." They all did as he said without question. "Now I don't know how much you're aware of our current situation, but we've had some issues lately with employees not working for the betterment of the company on company time. I'm not here to play games or point fingers; I'm here to lay down the line. We're in the shit right now. The financial advisor we've been dealing with the last few years stole nearly everything, so we're rebuilding essentially from the ground up." He looked around and saw everyone's shock at the situation. Apparently Tom had been hiding the situation from everyone.