Remain Nameless

Chapter 6

September 2007

Draco's weekend had been spent answering dozens of owls and Floo calls with his solicitors and financial advisors. One of the advisors was in quite a mood over the state of some Malfoy funds allocated for charitable donation. Apparently, this was one such donation that had been missed during Draco's and his financial team's sweep of every single revenue stream that flowed from and to his family's vaults.

When Draco became the official head of the family immediately after the war following his father's imprisonment, the one prudent thing he did after the Ministry reinstated access to all his family's accounts was to comb through each and every document. At that time it was the perfect task for a wealthy recluse with a potion addiction and a nagging girlfriend he constantly sought to avoid. A Knut did not go missing without him knowing how it was being spent. Even years later, this was how Draco spent much of his free time: poring over financial statements and documents to either move funds, rescind monies, or invest into more reputable endeavors.

All political donations had ceased immediately. Draco never wanted to have the Malfoy name indebted to any political faction (Ministry-associated or otherwise) ever again. This had been a rather astute move on his part: apparently, one could save a lot of gold if they weren't constantly bribing Ministry officials and lining the pockets of shady political lobbyists for nefarious purposes. Not having to fund the schemes of a mad dark wizard and house dozens of Death Eaters helped too.

Draco terminated any and all contracts to do with the Black family gold and gave control of all of Bellatrix's remaining estate and assets to his mother. The Malfoy name was going to be pure as a fucking newborn unicorn, at least on paper.

He kept all respectable charitable donations, like the ones that funded most of St. Mungo's or the rebuilding of Hogwarts. The situation one of his advisors had discovered was one that had not occurred in years.

"I'm not sure how we missed it, Mr. Malfoy. But this is definitely going through a back channel to fund illegal dragon poaching excursions."

Draco sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right, well I guess it isn't too shocking. Many of those 'reserved creature land' charities have turned out to be game-hunting fronts for rich pricks. Terminate the donation and redirect the gold back to the main vault at Gringotts."

"Unfortunately sir, given where we are in the fiscal year, I think it would be more prudent to redistribute the funds in a different manner. This gold has already been ear-marked for donation in your annual budget, so my advice, and the advice of the rest of the group, would be to find an alternate channel for donation."

The rest of the Floo call had turned into a back and forth about which cause merited the money. It was a bit difficult to pinpoint how to spend such an amount. Give too much to one charity, then they'd expect that same amount every year, not to mention it could look a bit dodgy to dole out such a large sum all at once. The public might suspect ulterior motives on account of Draco's surname. No decisions were made just then and they'd disconnected from the Floo as Draco promised to conduct some research on a specific cause to redirect the funds.

Speaking of money, a question had been niggling at Draco's brain since his conversation last month with Granger about Muggleborn children.

"How do they afford it?"

"I'm not a Legilimens, Malfoy, how does who afford what?"

Draco huffed impatiently, which between huffing and eye-rolling, you'd think that he'd invented a new form of language for specifically conversing with Hermione Granger because these gestures took up a hefty percentage of his communication with her.