Pt.1 Redeo Creditum Est Canis Femina
-000-
I really need to hire someone else to deal with this shit. I used to like Saturdays. The seventh floor north corridor was almost always empty. Right now, it was as full as it had ever been. A 'notice me not' charm on the top of the sixth floor stairs kept the 'curious' away while I conducted business.
"C'mon, Mate I'm desperate here." Ronald Weasley begged. More than a little whining had spewed from his lips in the last couple months.
My eyes rolled. "You pull the same money-grubbing shit every week Weasel." I gestured to the line of blushing and/or cocky 4th-7th year students of various houses standing in line behind him.
"You're holding up the line. Go to the back and have Potter's money ready next time." I said as I turned to the next boy in line. "Two Galleons for return customers, one galleon and unbreakable vow for first timers." I told the Jewish Goldstein kid, holding out my hand.
"This... Ugh... This is my first ugh..." The boy started before I cut him off. "Room three. Dolly will take the vow and provide the service. The girls wear masks, so don't ask for real names. Heres your club card."
I tapped on the door behind me three times. The 'Come and Go' room's door opened. Goldstein walked in and the door shut behind him.
"Well if it isn't my favorite customers." I muttered as the twins made their way up to me. "Three galleons for double-teaming" I said holding my hand out once more.
"Well you see, Forge" Lefty started
"And I are." Righty continued.
I held up my hand for silence before they could continue. My wand made a steady rap against the side of my leg as it does in boredom.
"Gold up-front or back of the line." I said quickly. I am in no mood to put up with the two attention grabbers. "Room six, Big Bessy like regular." I intoned in a bored tone as Lefty forked over more of Potter's Triwizard winnings.
"You're a mercenary." They said together, passing through the door. "And you like spanking twenty five stone bitches now hurry up. If you are not out of here in thirty minutes and I toss you both out the window." They hustled along quicker.
The older Creevy brother came running down the corridor. "Umbridge coming. Two minutes tops." He panted in exhaustion. I opened the room's door.
"Everyone in." I shouted. I waited until the last boy entered the room and entered myself. The boys were all panicking and some looked like they were about to cry.
"I will not go to Azkaban for this!" Smith yelled as he curled his fists into my robes, hysterical. My wand touched his temple and let out a Bang. His stunned body rested on the floor. With my wand trained on the prone form, I had to think fast.
"I'm glad you volunteered to take the heat for us, Smith." I told the unconscious teen. "obliviate"
"You've all been issued club identification cards," I took mine out of my pocket. "They double as portkeys, just tap your wand to the card."
I tapped mine and vanished.
You would be surprised how much the house-elves like working. They don't even mind cleaning up after every wizard they 'Gives services to'.
-000-
"The goblin rebellion of 906 was repulsed most strongly by the Saxon Druid rams..." I tuned out the droning and tapped my glasses again with my wand.
Newt level History of Magic was a joke. The Slytherin and Hufflepuff girls of the class on the other-hand... well worth the price of the see-all runes on the glasses. Mad-eye had the runes carved into his glass eye for nearly a year's pay, or so I heard.
I got the runes on my fake glasses for around a weekend's pay.
My transfiguration skills are getting pretty good these days. I can even get the faces of the girls correct now, instead of just the bodies. I glanced around the room at the girls in the class. The recording charm is worth more than gold...
I take that back.
Nothing is better than gold.
Except... perhaps for that recording of Malfoy with a house-elf I had owled to his mother.
-000-
"Listen kid, I've been training you to take over my operations here at Hogwarts for the last four years. I have to make sure you will enforce the rules." I stared into his cold eyes. I'd 'taken in' the butter-soft boy and carved a man of granite.
"When I'm gone, will you be able to enforce the rules?" Dennis 'The Beast' Creevy, nodded.
"What's the first rule?" I asked.
"Get the gold up front." He rasped. A cutting curse had caught him in the larynx last year in a rumble with the 7th year Slytherins.
"Whats the second rule?"
"Get the gold up front" He answered again.
"What happens if you get caught?" I began a Q&A.
"Kill the catcher."
"If you can't kill the catcher?"
"Always have a patsy."
"If a plan fails?"
"Have a backup."
"If the backup fails?"
"Run and deny."
"If someone tries to take over your operations, what do you do?"
"Bring the pain."
I smiled. "I think you are ready."
-000-
As the thestral carriage brought me to the Hogwarts Express for the last time, I knew, Hogwarts was just the beginning...