Chapter 14
Jade was scribbling hard and held up a hand as Von Frettchen came in so that she might finish noting her train of thought. He waited for her to sit back.
"I am at your disposal, Herzog" said Jade, coolly.
"Your maid is loyal; she was right, I should not have entered your bedroom" said Von Frettchen "I wondered if you might be crying on your bed."
"Did you take me for a weakling then?" said Jade. "If I were sufficiently overcome by anything – and it takes more than a fat pig – I should not let my tears show to any. I would deal with any weakness and put it behind me in private; and not frighten a servant by seeming weak in her presence. I take it you have found that you cannot restore your prince and want me to put his shape back so you may manipulate him like a puppet so he does not so much as squeak unless your hand is up his arse to move him."
"Coarse; but essentially, yes" said Von Frettchen "He is a necessary figurehead – unless we get another. A powerful, beautiful princess might serve."
"You want me to run ODESSA ? If I did, I should not be a cipher, Von Frettchen, but a leader" said Jade crisply.
He blinked.
The move to decisive, incisive leadership – and the surge of charisma – as well as addressing him as an underling was sudden and well assumed; she was then capable.
"I do, my princess" he said.
Jade regarded him thoughtfully.
"I will think about it" she said "And give you my decision in a week. I would not, in any case, be prepared to take on any such role until I have completed my ZHs; why should I throw up my education?"
"Patriotic duty….."
"Patriotic duty and the greater good are so many catch phrases to manipulate fools; I do NOT get manipulated" said Jade "A youthful nobleman is not expected to throw up school to take up the reins of his estates; he utilises a steward while he finishes his schooling. So be a steward. There are too many meaningless words such as a magpie might learn to say and not enough noblesse oblige in ODESSA . Go away; I'll see you after Christmas" and she waved a hand of dismissal.
Von Frettchen found himself meekly withdrawing and actually checked himself for signs of the imperious curse, though she had not looked into his eyes. He found none.
Jade had the self confidence to just use that air of command; and he had obeyed. And Von Frettchen too came to the conclusion that Nefrita Von Strang had more charisma and leadership ability than had Prince Gerhardt even at his most youthfully engaging.
Jade reported the whole to Madam Bacsó.
"Well you cannot be expected to put up with the advances of any man on first acquaintance, even were he personable; such behaviour renders him immediately loathsome and is indicative of his nature" said Agata, disgusted.
"It was rather revealing, wasn't it?" said Jade "I had a mind to tell Von Frettchen outright that ODESSA is such a broken thing that I would, if called upon to lead it, rescue the werewolves and disband the rest; give him honesty about who I am and tell him to like it or lump it. My family were right when they hooted in derision about me playing an undercover part and bringing down ODESSA whilst pretending to agree with its ideals; I CAN'T stand up and tell a bare faced lie and I can't act a part either. I meant to be cold and aloof; but my instincts told me to protect the little ones from the likes of Nachtigall; and then there was Wencelada's heart; and…. Oh well, you get what you see."
"I tried not to like Jade Snape at the Triwizard" said Agata Bacsó "I did not entirely succeed. I have always believed that pure blood means the best. It has been hard to see the likes of Miss Granger doing so well; I do not understand it."
"It is because more than one gene – determinant of heritance – controls our magical ability" said Jade. "A black skinned person and a white skinned person will have a brown child. Two brown people can have a child ranging from black as deep as any black ancestors to white with blue eyes and blonde hair. Neither extreme is as likely as something in the middle; but both are possible. Most muggles carry some ability for magic; not perhaps enough to use it spontaneously, or only at a minimal rate, that their training causes them to suppress and subliminate. The age at which magic becomes apparent is an age at which muggle children tend to be reaching an end to their belief in magic things. Some suppress spontaneously because it can't be true and they are afraid of being teased. However, two muggles with some latent ability can produce a child whose ability is as great as that of a pure blood witch or wizard; with all the genes active. And with pure bloods, if there is enough inbreeding, some of the genes can become inactive; like some peas in a pod don't develop and are all squished and fallen in on themselves. If enough are inactive we call this being a squib. A squib can have normal wizarding children; and there are degrees of being a squib at that. There are degrees of ability with magic. This is dependant on factors nobody fully understands; but it has been observed that sometimes the genes are more active in some individuals than others. This can be seen on the Malfoy lines of a person's heritable background. Technically both my REAL parents were muggles – I'm adopted, my mum is actually a cousin – though one was half Malfoy. He never used magic properly however but he seemed to have used some skills unconsciously. But if you observe my Malfoy lines I show as a pureblood; because of the fortuitous circumstance of the way my heritance happened. Understanding of heritance laws makes something of a mockery of the pure blood – mud blood argument."
"That does put a different complexion on it" said Agata "But there will always be those who prefer a school where blood is almost pure; explaining something more complex than how to make tea is beyond a lot of my parents."
"Another argument AGAINST inbreeding" said Jade dryly "That it eats away at the intellect. Things will change; because if they do not, the school will not stay open. Pure bloods, even on the continent, will diminish perforce because of sheer numbers. The call Gellert Grindelwald made for pure bred witches to have more children killed more pure bred witches than ever muggles have; obedient girls bred themselves to death producing sickly babies and diminished bloodlines – those where any survived to adulthood – where bringing a child to term has, in some lines, become an issue like it was in the middle ages. Women aren't supposed to have a baby every year; but to use the natural contraception of breast feeding for three years, forgotten in the convenience of cauldron milk to replace breast milk; almost as good for the baby but infinitely more convenient for women who hate to be messy. I hated having to put Ralph onto it. But it ISN'T practical in a modern society to breast feed for three years; and most of us use other potions instead. Grindelwald's call to duty however had women getting pregnant almost as soon as they had birthed; and midwifery potions and spells notwithstanding, it's an assault on the body that's too much."
"He was only a man" said Agata "I suppose he could not be expected to understand that."
"If men had to have babies I expect we'd die out" said Jade. "Shall I tell Von Frettchen the truth?"
"Why not? He'll have alienated himself from the prince already so he has little choice but to listen. If he doesn't like it, I presume you mean to kill him?"
"Or drop a compulsion on him. I hadn't decided" said Jade. "Good; we'll see him together. Outnumber and outflank him."
Jade felt a blooding ceremony taking place in England and pulsed her love and congratulations to whoever was new…. Victor Crabbe she felt plainly and was pleased; no surprise there, he had settled in well as family; little Harmony Bloom – well, little no longer, Hamony was her age; and with Percy Weasley; oh THAT was nice! And… good grief, thought Jade, Darryl Zabini, the loudest racist of Hogwarts? History there…. With MIMI? That was a turn up for the book….. the boy was big enough then to acknowledge the partiality and set aside racism; she pulsed approval at him.
It would be nice to be with all her family; but she must be content to spend Christmas Day with her Wulf and Irmi and Ralph; and this she apparated to do, and was well hugged by Irmi. They were sharing Christmas with Anett Breuer and her adoptive goblin family; Jade had asked Wulf to arrange suitable presents for all but him and Irmi, having bought for Irmi a book of the tales of Til Eulenspeigel and his interactions with the wizarding community and for Ralph a brightly illustrated book of German folk and fairy tales of the type of the tales of Beadle the Bard. She had checked it over carefully for curses too; one could not be too careful!
She had asked Wulf to get nice story books for Yrdl and her family as that would have been one of the things they never had; and for an intelligent child, you could not have too many books! Wulf, with perspicacity, got a full set of the Cassie books for Yrdl, including the new one, 'Cassie – Seeker!' and had them all autographed by Krait.
The children were all overwhelmed and there was a lot of hugging all round.
Ralph's idea of a good Christmas present was one with nice crackly paper round it that he might try to eat; but he laughed with joy at the happiness of the older ones. Irmi had bought him a big cuddly wolf in a muggle shop and he held it firmly by the neck, waving it for emphasis.
Jade enjoyed her day; and the time alone with Wulf before she must return.
"Come with me and meet Agata" said Jade "She will be pleased to have the trust put in her; and when Von Frettchen comes it would be nice to have you available to join us too."
Wulf nodded.
"I will come" he said "Agata Bacsó needs to recognise her allies."
Agata Bacsó greeted the tall, grim-faced man with some surprise; somehow she had expected Jade to have married some dashing and insouciant young bravo. Still, there was that about this man that reminded her of Severus Snape; and they said that a girl who has a good solid relationship with her father will choose a man with much of her father about him.
"I was thrown out of Durmstrang for becoming a werewolf" said Wulf "So I know my way about; it has not changed much. Now there is a cure I take it that will no longer happen?"
"There is no need" said Agata "If there is a cure. Wolfbane Potion is sufficient to control the disease but of course it does not control the foolish fears of the unfortunate afflicted's dormitory fellows."
"Alas, too often true" said Jade "I hear Professor Dumbledore put a youthful werewolf firmly in the protection of a protective group of lads until dad had perfected the cure; picking from among them a half elf and some goblins who cannot catch the disease. But then the atmosphere at Hogwarts is generally one of co-operation rather than here, where it is one of competition; and not healthy competition."
"What do you mean?" asked Agata.
"Why, that from the first, here it is about getting the right man to fag for; and if necessary making foolish any other fags that one might have more favour. Such I found in the Romanian child who I did NOT therefore take as my fag; for she tripped Sofie while she carried hot coffee to make her seem inefficient. It is but an example of the concept promulgated by ODESSA that one pushes down others to make oneself seem better; rather than striving to BE better. When one is the best because others are worse rather than from personal drive, it is hardly surprising the Triwizard champions look so poor compared to those of supposedly similar levels of education. One cannot count Hellibore's and Beauxbatons; their standards of academic achievement are lower; they have no competition at all, healthy or otherwise, save perhaps in the art of doing nothing elegantly. Sorry, that was bitchy."
Agata smiled.
"Oh I like to hear that you have your moments of intolerance, my dear" she said.
"I have lots of moments of intolerance" said Jade "I loathe fools, despise arse-lickers, though not as much as I despise bullies and I have no time at all for those who will not use the brains God gave them. And I laugh at people who are self satisfied about how good they are because they've been told so by sycophants and have never really had any real competition. Of the friendly rivalry kind that is. At Prince Peak, and before that at Hogwarts, my friends and I all spurred each other on because we wanted each of us to be the best at one subject or another; and as many as possible subjects. But we also helped each other out with points we had missed, or that one of us was better with than others. That's HEALTHY competition."
"I see" said Agata "I have never experienced any kind but the type that making others look bad makes you look good. I too attended Durmstrang of course."
"Hmm" said Jade "Then the inference is obvious; arrange a term at a time or even a whole year of exchange teaching. Your teachers would have to be warned that the easy familiarity that English children show their professors stems not from any discourtesy but from a sufficiently profound respect that requires no false speech mode; that we expect most of our teachers to be literally in loco parentis, especially House Heads at Hogwarts. There is of course a distance; but also the expectation that a teacher would be approachable on any subject and that a teacher would accept the word and the recommendation of a senior or prefect unless that senior is known as untrustworthy; such would NOT be a prefect. Kids who are officious for the sake of it do NOT make good prefects. If you're introducing the concept next year, I'll make suggestions of who to pick; I've seen them from ground level, as you might say."
"Thank you; and I have learned that such is not colossal cheek from you but a genuine desire to be helpful. It could be open to misinterpretation" said Agata.
"I suppose so" said Jade. "But I guess it illustrates the case in point. Albus Dumbledore is usually on first name terms with his head boy or girl and many of the prefects – but only within his office. Treating your prefects as young adults tends to get an adult response."
"Who WOULD you pick as prefects?" asked Agata "For next year?"
Jade made a face.
"None of the lower sixth nor the fifth this year are hugely prepossessing; we had the same trouble at Cackle's too" she said. "Serafina Payutina, Velma Zukic and Konstanty Masicwicz are the most hopeful in the lower sixth; Hilde Mundnimbus, Jochen Wiesel and maybe Stiv Molotov in the current fifth; of the current fourth if you wanted fifth form prefects I'd recommend either or both of the Asimov twins, Gisela Schutzmann. Responsibility might be good too for Nikolai Nagy; he's one to watch for and tell him to pull up his game if he hopes to be a prefect."
"Amazing! I should have said that of the lower sixth the leaders were Claudette Reynault and Jaromir Frolik!" said Agata.
"Well they're a lovely pair of bullies if you want to continue to emulate ODESSA ; and the system means that the ones I name can do no more than endure, keep their own fags safe, and keep their rebellion quiet" said Jade. "Again, I'd not argue against Baard Trollkettil; he is a survivor but he might raise his game if it was made clear to him that he had a responsibility to the younger ones. And with the authority that goes with being a prefect, those quiet rebels would feel more able to speak out, I think. And would feel they had your support to act against and oppose bullies."
"So it is not always those who take the lead who should be prefects?"
"In a healthy system, it is those who are WILLINGLY followed by the others" said Jade "And there is a difference."
Agata nodded.
"And this we do not, as a series of nations, understand; for we have all had the Durmstrang experience and so we assume that the one who can enforce compliance is the best leader" she said.
"Well and cogently analysed; that is harder for one who is on the inside and has grown up with it" said Jade "Sorry; that sounded patronising and it wasn't meant to be; merely an expression of my admiration for your ability of objectivity."
"Which means" said Agata "That I have the opportunity to make a more profound rebellion than merely taking over the ministry – to train up youths to change the whole way of thinking in all the ministries!"
"Quite so" said Jade. Agata was quick; and fortunately subtle enough to realise that such was more important than any outward expression of power!
Eastern Europe would change.
Von Frettchen was not entirely comfortable to find himself in Agata Bacsó's office to see Jade.
"Agata has been a great help and comfort to me" said Jade, hitching herself on the corner of the desk as Agata and Von Frettchen sat themselves down in chairs. This, incidentally, gave her a higher vantage point than either, especially the duke; which she had discussed with Agata who had promptly found a large, comfortable looking but essentially low armchair in which to install him as though for his comfort.
They had giggled much over this arrangement which had surprised Jade who had not known that Agata could unbend enough to giggle conspiratorially.
Jade smiled down at Von Frettchen in a faintly superior way.
"And now, Herzog" she said "I have one final question to ask you."
"Anything…..my princess" said Von Frettchen.
"What I want to know is, why an intelligent, noble gentleman like yourself, so imbued in noblesse oblige and upright morality, should have anything to do at all with ODESSA that is the laughing stock of Europe, wherein the troops are spent like water on a whim and where there is scarcely any support left for it having been mostly killed by the ineptitude of the higher command, eroding such support as it may have had from others?" said Jade.
Von Frettchen blinked.
"You need not fear a lack of troops, my princess; there are plenty still in Russia who do not know of the reverses caused by the foolishness of Gerhardt."
"I ask a question and you do not answer it; merely tell me that there are a load of foreigners to overrun and subject the Germanic peoples" said Jade coldly. "Russia is not really my concern; at least not for the moment. I am concerned with Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, the Czechs and Slovaks and the Poles, Romanians and Ukrainians. The vastness that is Russia cannot be dealt with in the same way as the Germans nor those of what one might describe loosely as Bohemia. Muggle history again intervenes and makes the condition of the wizards of the region once known as the Holy Roman Empire similar in historic experience. I left out Belgium and Holland; and possibly one might too count Denmark. I want to know in what way you reconcile everything a Junker of impeccable manner and training stands for with the shitpile that is ODESSA ."
"Is this your way of refusing to accept command?"
"It is not. It is my way of trying to clarify what YOU stand for; if you continue to evade the issue and return spurious answers, Von Frettchen, I must conclude that you are a pusillanimous fool who does not know what he stands for."
Her tone was cold; and Von Frettchen stared.
"You know that I dislike the way some things have been done; the prince chose the wrong advisers and went about things in the wrong way" he said "We could re-ignite the fervour, bring the glory back!"
"I disagree" said Jade "The only way to entirely re-ignite any reforming zeal is to disband ODESSA and bury it; and bury it deep. If I lead it I shall take steps to make sure the werewolves all have the cure that is available; and I shall disband the whole thing, after making sure of carrying out judicious assassinations of those I consider particularly dangerous. You see, I don't think that ODESSA and the ideals of nobility actually march on the same path; and you have been brainwashed into believing that old tripe about the Greater Good. You won't be the first; even Albus Dumbledore was briefly seduced by the concept until he realised how spurious was the rhetoric of Gellert Grindelwald. The crap about keeping muggles subdued is so much hogwash; it can't be done. Muggles don't COPY magic with technology; they don't know about magic to copy. They do different things. One thing they are particularly good at is killing people. Each other. They could turn that against the wizarding world easily if the wizarding world turned on them; especially as they would have help from such as ODESSA despise, like the muggleborn. Which by the way I need to explain to you" and Jade repeated the explanation she had made to Agata. She thrust sheets of Malfoy lines at him as he looked disbelieving.
"Pick the pure bred from those" she said.
He hesitated and pointed to two.
"That one is Hermione Granger; who is muggle born" said Jade "The other is Harry Potter whose mother was muggle born. This one here with the indeterminate line is a pure bred lad who has certain aspects of squibbery. The others are people of more or less mix; this one, with a low ability indicated is from a girl with pure blood for eleven generations who is just unfortunate enough to have a lower level of wizarding heritance than is average; this one is a child of a muggle born and a half blood. With more than enough ability; he may not have a full complement of markers but the lines are longer than average showing that what he does have is working more efficiently than most. Proving that the criteria for supposed excellence are flawed at best and spurious at worst. I am NOT pure bred; because there ain't no such animal as Nefrita Von Strang; I am Jade Snape and I am come to bring down the foolishness that is ODESSA because it is a danger to the whole wizarding world; and I do not want to see the whole wizarding population of Germany and her satellites wiped out by muggles as could easily happen; or destroy themselves in the faction wars and rebellions that are going to happen if it continues its futile fumblings. I am about to take you to show you some of the things muggles are capable of, Von Frettchen; and to tell you that one of them would be to drop a weapon on Durmstrang so powerful that there would be a hole in the ground a mile across around it. And THAT could be done from America; and you have no control in America."
He stared, the horror of that overshadowing the terrible revelation of who she really was.
"Impossible, surely! Besides, how would they find it? Durmstrang is unplottable!"
"But NOT invisible" said Jade. "Let me fit you with muggle clothing; Agata, will you come?"
"I will" said Agata "Dear me, how very inelegant muggle garments are!"
"Sorry" shrugged Jade, holding out her hand to Agata and taking Von Frettchen firmly by the hand to apparate them to Berlin. They arrived quietly in a park not far from a public library; and Jade hastened them inside and over to the computer suite, dropping a muffliatus spell on the three of them.
"From a device such as this, that most muggles have in their own homes, I can talk to muggles in any part of the world" said Jade "And one thing I can do is get Google to find me satellite pictures…..let me zoom in…..here we are a photograph of Durmstrang; and if I pull up a good enhancement engine – and by the by, I'm better at this than the average muggle which is just as well – ah yes, you can just make out that there is a quiddich match going on. I'm not sure muggles would figure it out because they see what they expect to see; but a really curious one with the right tools could actually bring this up to see photos of brooms. And this picture can be found by anyone in America, England, Japan, Austalia – ANYWHERE! And then a weapon could be sent to Durmstrang and goodnight Vienna! Muggles are dangerous – because they are humans like us; mostly they want to be left alone, but if anyone threatens that, they fight; and fight viciously. As anyone would. And there are a very great deal of them."
"Why, how many are there in Germany? Surely not so many we could not subdue them?" said Von Frettchen "They have no magic."
"No; but the muggle weapons we used on werewolves and stormwizards seemed remarkably efficient at killing them for all their magic" said Jade dryly.
He gasped.
"They were MUGGLE weapons?"
"Yes; and I tell you that to prove the point. Muggles are NOT helpless; and they are no different in their range of intellect to any wizard; so try not to display the ignorance and stupidity trained into you at Durmstramg by Karkaroff. It ill becomes your breeding. The muggles living on wizarding estates are often no more than peasants; depressed in learning and intellect by their birth as peasants NOT their birth as muggles. Here; let me show you the population of Germany."
Wikipedia brought up a list of the major countries and their populations. Von Frettchen gasped.
"Surely this is a lie to impress people!" he cried "There cannot be so many!"
"Of course there are" said Jade "Don't you ever GO into muggle cities? The population of the UK here, that is correct, just over sixty million; Germany for all its size has only eighty million or so, sparsely populated; most of its population probably live in the major conurbations like the Rhine-Ruhr complex. Let's see…." She typed in a search query for the population of Berlin "A little under four and a half million in Berlin; a reasonable size for a major city; and if you, a clever man, find this shocking, then the ignorant peasants of ODESSA who think they can rule with their inadequate and ill-trained magic and their lack of true power must be truly unaware of what they would hope to take on; our community is tiny and ODESSA has been taking steps only to reduce the population of the wizarding world even more. To a muggle, a school the size of Durmstrang is a small provincial school; typical secondary schools have as many as a thousand pupils in a city school. And each city will have many such schools; where they learn such skills as how to manipulate electricity and how to understand heritance; as well as such things as their history – and they do not have the advantage of studying ours alongside it – and literature and mathematics; their version of Arithmancy, that enables the design of such things as this computer and the building of bridges and machines and engines; even as it does our own arithmancers save that we do not build as many machines and engines as muggles because we use magic instead. Muggles make great machines to fly; those you must have seen in the sky, so high up that you cannot tell on the ground that they make dragons look small; a small one came to the Triwizard to hide the flying in of the Hogwarts contingent in obviousness. More people fly on these things every year to visit foreign destinations than ever were part of the Hun invasions back in history. The numbers of muggles are too great to even comprehend. Live with it; you cannot conquer muggles. And all those muggles probably carry some wizarding blood; the only way to encourage the wizarding population to grow in comparison to the muggle population is to be aware of and welcome muggleborn; rather than despising them and denigrating them and encouraging them, should it come to conflict between muggles and wizards, to throw in their lot with the muggles hence giving them magic AND technology; and then, goodbye wizarding world. And because you would have them untrained, all the knowledge would be lost. The ideals of ODESSA to keep wizarding blood pure and to subject muggles is as risible as a small child who says 'well if a troll comes into the garden I'll just blast it dead with daddie's wand and carry it away' in the lack of realisation small children have of the realities of life. Wake up and smell the coffee, Von Frettchen; welcome to the real world. Try to get a grip on it because if you don't I'll do it the other way and just dump the remainder of Gerhart's jolly boys into the same sort of hole in the ground we did to some of your bases and to that loathsome Russian fellow who kidnapped Sandalla."
He paled.
"Was – was that using muggle weapons?"
"Good God, no! We'd rather not use THOSE muggle weapons; too dangerous! Besides the use of them is detectable to other muggles. No, that was just simple ritual magic; required a dozen or so to be involved but with so small a place as that Teutenbergerwald lodge I could probably do it on my own" she considered "I'd rather not; it would leave me exhausted."
Von Fettchen was ashen and almost fainting.
Somehow her matter of fact consideration of probable exhaustion for doing such a monstrous thing was more convincing and frightening than the threat that she could do it; that might have been exaggerated.
Ritual! It had been done by ritual! The English were terrible and implacable!
"What do you want of me?" his voice was tired.
"I want you to encourage Gerhardt to one last, rash act; to try to physically take over the ministry. You and Agata and the school rescue the ministry, we all look good, you come up a hero smelling of roses. I also want the werewolves; so I can free them from their disease."
"Including the ones under the draught of living death?" he asked.
It was Jade's turn to pale.
"What?" she said "There are those so kept also?"
"Ah, something you did not know; I suppose that is almost a victory" said Von Frettchen with a wintry smile.
"Then you had better tell me or I shall stop feeling in any respect friendly towards you" said Jade coolly.
"There is a ruined castle; in its dungeons are some fifty werewolves under the draught of living death, kept against emergency; the prince has been dithering over having enough antidote made to use them, but the cost would be extortionate – there is not enough held in store."
"Wiggenweld's potion uses powdered unicorn horn" said Jade "As well as Phoenix feathers. Well! This I must pass on immediately; you will tell me the location of the castle."
"I could lie" said Von Frettchen.
" I would advise you not to; you're not a very good occlumens" said Jade coldly "For I think you are too proud a man to let me see so much of your discomfort just to fool my legilimensy."
"You are a legilimens? But – how did I not find out about you? I used legilimensy on you!"
"I am a better occlumens than you are a legilimens" said Jade "I trained from an early age; expecting to be questioned by Voldemort you see. It does, as dad says, concentrate the mind wonderfully. I was an adequate occlumens by the time I was eight years old. We in Britain, you see, had an efficient threat to fight against; it has given us more incentive to be good. There is little incentive against a buffoon like Gerhardt after all."
Von Frettchen winced.
"I – I will do as you say; but only to protect those wizards who look to me as their overlord. I believe you that ODESSA as it stands will bring trouble on the wizarding world now I have seen what muggles can do. And how many of them there are. Why, even if compulsions were planted in them, it would take every wizard alive a lifetime just to plant compulsions in all of them!"
"Quite so" said Jade, not bothering to point out that she was fairly sure she could drop low level compulsions in most of any country's population by using television. Just because one COULD do something did not mean one SHOULD.
Severus was horrified when Jade reported about the sleeping werewolves.
"All you can do, dad, is get the exam board to set the Wiggenweld potion for NEWTs; that'll increase the amount. And start collecting unicorn horns like they're going out of fashion too; there's bound to be someone who supplies them ethically" she said "And send out a team to search forests where they hang out to find unicorn horns. Hagrid can glean the Forbidden Forest; he has an instinct for such things. And he could use the dead place too, to search other forests!" she added excitedly "Only get Ross to disable his ruddy claymore mines first, Hagrid will never remember to look out for them!"
Severus gave a rueful grin.
"Alas, only too true" he said. "Yes; an excellent idea. And I'll go and see Von Frettchen too while he's still off balance."
"Good thinking, Batman" said Jade.
"Put your knickers back under your tights Robin" retorted Severus.