Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to them.
"Good news, Sirius," Harry grinned into the two way mirror that night. "I can get a fresh basilisk corpse that you can use to pay off the Changs, and we can get their whole lot of lethifold farms."
"Do I want to know the details?" Sirius sighed dramatically, which told Harry that yes, he did want to know. Badly.
"Well, I kinda went down to the Chamber of Secrets, where I met Slytherin's pet basilisk named Osanna. Of course, Osanna is now fifty feet long."
"You fought a fifty foot long basilisk!?" Sirius shouted.
"Of course not," Harry scoffed. "When I saw her, I started swearing in basilisk, which Osanna thought was funny, and we started chatting. I mentioned needing a basilisk corpse, and she mentioned one of her eggs was non-viable. It wouldn't survive a week after hatching, and she was planning on letting one of her stronger young eat it when she eventually hatches her young. She offered to trade her non-viable egg for exercise, conversation, and some good food. Basilisk eggs don't go bad as long as the mama snake is alive, but it'll take a week to hatch the offering if we need it. Essentially I'll have a three foot long fresh basilisk corpse to give to the Changs whenever we want."
"That changes things," Sirius muttered. "With this, we could ruin their family, make their businesses and bank accounts a shell of what they are now. Are you sure you want to proceed with this?"
"No, I'm not sure," Harry admitted. "I honestly didn't think I could find a basilisk for them, it was a long shot to begin with. And I have no idea what to do with farms, it's not like I know anything about raising and harvesting lethifolds."
"You might want to start thinking about it. Maybe start talking with Cho, maybe figure out if you want to bankrupt her family."
"What do you think the possible outcomes are for the negotiations?"
"Without a basilisk, it has not been to your advantage. Lord Chang holds all the cards, and is using them to squeeze your accounts as much as he can. His latest offer would cost you around a quarter of a million galleons."
"That much?"
"Yeah. With a basilisk, however, it changes everything. Even the threat of having a basilisk will put the negotiations in our favor. A three foot long basilisk baby is worth around four thousand galleons, compared to the six hundred thousand galleon business the lethifold farms sell, plus the foxes. At one extreme, we remove the Chang family from any sort of influence for decades and force them to live as paupers. The other extreme is taking over the farms in name only, and allow them to run them and profit from them as they have in the past. Either of those, plus anything in between, will probably happen. Which one do you want me to push for?"
"How long do I have to decide?" Harry asked.
"I can stall negotiations for a while, years even, if you want," Sirius shrugged. "Lord Chang has no reason to rush. In his mind, if Magic determine you are a man, your contract will trigger and you will have one month to find and slay a basilisk to pay the bride price. If we don't have an alternative deal worked out by then, we would have to unconditionally accept Lord Chang's demands no matter how outrageous. The alternative is you lose your magic. Considering there hasn't been a basilisk sighting in a century and the last domesticated one died fifty years ago, your luck at finding one is practically non-existent. Even my black market contacts say there aren't any left. However, if the Changs find out you do have easy access to a basilisk corpse and my negotiations are not to their liking, then they will sell all of their farms."
"So I don't get anything from the dowry," Harry finished glumly. "Better to have galleons than nothing. Just keep up negotiating as usual, and I'll talk with Cho over the next few weeks. I'll tell you after Halloween what I want you to do."
"We just talked two days ago," Sirius mused. "Another few weeks delay before another round of negotiations won't raise any suspicions. I was planning on making some public inquiries about the Chang partial ownership of the Daily Prophet and Twilfitt and Tatting's to signal to Lord Chang that I was interested in including their shares of those businesses in the next offer, and I can include a few more things as red herrings as well. That would take at least a week, if not three. I can add in a trip abroad to further delay without too much suspicion."
"I hope that works. I wish I could just cancel Cho's contract, but Lord Chang would never go for that."
"If it's a choice between becoming destitute, and keeping the contract, that man loves his gold as much as the goblins. It might be doable, but only if you avoided anything that would make you 'a man' until your seventeenth birthday. If you become a man, the contract will trigger, and in a month you will be married, but you won't be Lord Slytherin to cancel the contract even if Lord Chang wanted to."
"Bugger," Harry swore before a thought popped in his head. "Out of curiosity, are you negotiating alternatives for the foxes as well?"
"Quantity only," Sirius answered. "Our current offer is nine foxes, while their counteroffer is four. We use the foxes as a metric as how close we feel we are to a deal. If they offer six or we demand seven, then that would be the final offers, take it or leave it. A contact told me you can import a nine tailed fox from Asia for about two thousand galleons each, so total cost wise it's insignificant to the overall deal."
"Can the foxes survive in England?" Harry asked. "I read they aren't native to Europe."
"Well enough, I suppose, if you wanted to bring them here," Sirius shrugged. "My contact didn't say anything about special diets or habitats, so I'm guessing we can magic up a good territory for them that has plenty of game for them to hunt. Maybe we can even breed them, but we'd have to get a magical creature expert for that and plenty of permits. You can ask the Care of Magical Creatures Professor for more details."
"I'll do that," Harry promised. "One last thing before I start asking you about your wedding plans. Can you visit Lord Greengrass?"
"Looking for another contract?" Sirius grinned like only a canine animagus could.
"No, nothing like that, not now at least. I just want to make sure that alliance stays strong. I know he was wanting a marriage contract between Daphne and I before fourth year, and I want to reassure him that we haven't forgotten him with what happened with everything."
"I already had a meeting with him planned for next week," Sirius reassured. That Lord Greengrass asked for the meeting told him that Lord Greengrass was nervous about the Greengrass family's status with the Black and Potter alliance, but if Sirius mentioned Harry wanted him to meet, it would calm the old man down some. "Since it will come up, Daphne could become the future Lady Potter, Black, Peverell, LeStrange, or Travers. Any preference to which one?"
"Not Black, that's for your kids," Harry blushed.
"Sorry, kiddo," Sirius lamented. "Both Amelia and I are old, and if there are any kids, they will take the Bones name. No one else is available to take up the name since Susan will be Lady Gaunt. You're stuck with the Black legacy."
"Phooey," Harry spat. He had hoped he could get rid of at least one title. "Not LeStrange or Travers. I haven't ruled out just letting those names die with me. Given the Greengrass legacy, probably Black or Peverell."
"Not Potter?" Sirius questioned.
"It doesn't feel right," Harry shrugged. "Don't know why."
"Fair enough. I'll hint those two families are available."
"Thanks," Harry smiled before getting serious. "Now, when are you tying the knot?"
"Lord Black, I feel you are stalling in our negotiations," Lord Chang chastised while sipping his tea. The unofficial meeting between two peers happening wasn't Sirius' idea, and it had taken some significant negotiating with Amelia for her to give her approval for it to happen in this particular brothel, but it was in Harry's best interests that they meet here. "Are you stalling?"
"Honestly, yes," Sirius answered, deciding that the truth was the best lie he could tell. He was missing something important. Lord Chang shouldn't be this impatient to get a deal done. "I know your position and offers, you know Harry's position and offers. There isn't much more negotiating and meeting will accomplish at this point."
"Then why delay a final agreement?" Lord Chang asked while eying one of the available employees. Looking directly at the other Lord was inappropriate when unofficially negotiating, and the room held plenty of visual distractions.
"Because your contract isn't the only one under consideration," Sirius retorted. Try as he might, he couldn't help eyeing the same employee as well. Knowing Amelia would be waiting up for him helped him repress some of his urges, but beauty was beauty. "With luck and good negotiating, a contract for one of the other family titles will produce additional assets that the Chang family would find more favorable than what we have previously offered, allowing our future negotiations to be more balanced."
"Hoping to find a basilisk slithering about?" Lord Chang laughed. "Hoping to take my lethifolds?"
"Like I would let Harry fight a basilisk by himself, as the contract requires. No, unless Harry finds a nearly dead one wandering the halls of Hogwarts and he kills it in single combat with a first year spell, your lethifold farms are safe. I was thinking more along the lines of an Acromantula farm or two." Sirius intentionally looked away from Lord Chang when he dropped that little tidbit.
That statement pulled Lord Chang's eyes away from the employee as he glanced at Lord Black. He appreciated Lord Black's discretion at his own indiscretion in the societal niceties, and turned back to the watch another employee.
Acromantula farms were currently monopolized by the Clearwater family as the lethifold farms were monopolized by the Chang family. If Lord Black could acquire one or more of their farms by selling his godson's titles, and then offered them to Lord Chang, that would benefit the Chang family greatly. Far more than any other assets Potter had on the table. Not only would those farms diversify Chang's investments, they could use it to crush the Clearwater family and monopolize another vital commodity in the European market. Lord Black knew this, and would expect significantly more favorable terms, but the opportunity would be too great to pass up. His own negotiations plans for Lord Black and the Potter boy could be put on hold. He had enough funds to bribe the right people in Madagascar to keep his secret safe for a while longer, at least long enough to take advantage of this opportunity. Even the cost of a year's more delay would be an acceptable cost if it meant obtaining even one farm.
"The Clearwaters are very jealous of their spiders," Lord Chang observed.
"They are, but their family wishes to be a bit, Stranger."
Lord Chang nodded, then got up and moved away from the private booth he and Sirius had occupied for the duration of their unofficial negotiations. After seeing him pick a girl and move to another room, Sirius finished his tea and left ten galleons on the table. It would be enough to cover the booth table, the privacy, the drinks, and an hour of time. He wouldn't partake of the more familiar services they offered, but there was no reason to not make a good impression to the staff. A good reputation would ensure better, and more discrete, service in the future.
Especially since Harry technically owned the place through the Travers family line. Not that his godson needed to know that, at least not until he turned seventeen.
Perhaps he could convince Amelia to join him next time he visited. To help increase Harry's income, of course.
"I seriously don't know what to do about Cho," Harry complained to Daphne while lounging in Salazar Slytherin's personal chambers after Thursday classes ended. Daphne had an ancient and magically-preserved tome on her lap, one of the few on the bookshelf not written in parseltongue. As had become their custom, they found themselves in the Chamber of Secrets to talk and feed Osanna. Although usually they went during the weekends, Daphne decided that Harry should spend this Halloween away from the crowds. Harry didn't object.
"What did she do this time?" Daphne asked with bored curiosity. She had decided she wouldn't use Harry's rants as gossip, but it did give her lines of inquiry when networking for more information. He was an 'off-the-record' source.
"Besides her usual bullying Su and rudeness to Padma, she was bragging to her friends about how much her family was profiting from our contract. She seriously doesn't care about anything but her status and how much it is helping her family. I get helping family, but this is just too much."
"Perhaps that is your answer to your dilemma about the contract negotiations your godfather is leading," Daphne prompted.
"I know, I know, but I don't want to decimate a family because their daughter is rude," Harry sighed.
"If it helps, the Chang family isn't the paragon of light they want others to think they are," Daphne added. "They are beginning to deal in dark artifacts and dark magical creatures. They are more like the Malfoys than either family would like to admit. Rumor has it the reason they immigrated to Great Britain was to escape prosecution by the Chinese Magical government for attempted insurrection. A century ago they unsuccessfully tried to kill the emperor. They failed spectacularly, but if a Chang sets foot in Imperial China territory, they will be arrested. They haven't stirred up trouble in the last few decades, but that isn't a strong indicator of the family changing their ways."
"Wow, you're just giving me that information?"
"We are in the Chamber. No secrets here, remember?" Daphne shrugged.
"It does help, the information I mean," Harry spoke softly. "Don't know if it is enough to make a final decision, but it is helpful."
"You have time," Daphne consoled. "But I think you have had enough isolation. We really should get to the feast before it ends."
"I'm not isolated, I'm with you," Harry grinned, but he began getting ready to exit.
They had already brought a dozen giant Atlantic salmon for Osanna to hunt in the Chamber's pools, so he wouldn't be able to delay using the basilisk as an excuse. They chatted about their Defense homework as they climbed the stairs out, pausing every few hundred feet to catch their breaths. If nothing else, their weekly excursions had improved their overall health and fitness.
Harry hissed the password to the exit, and was met with absolute chaos.
A troll was in the bathroom, bellowing.
Half the bathroom was smashed to bits.
Hermione was cowering in one of the intact stalls.
Water was splashing all over the room, some of it rushing into the hidden entrance he and Daphne were standing in.
The troll faced the crying Hermione and raised its club.
"HEY!" Harry shouted as he ran towards the bathroom entrance. He shot red sparks at the troll's face with limited success. "OVER HERE!"
The troll shook its head, which caused the descending club to miss hitting Hermione, but Harry wasn't done. He hissed and the pipes broken by the troll's rampage animated and slithered toward the foul smelling creature. Within seconds, the legs and torso were encircled as the serpentine pipes began to constrict.
A quick glance towards Daphne showed she had not been idle. While Harry distracted the troll, Daphne had snuck over to Hermione and was hurrying her back down the staircase to the Chamber of Secrets, the only safe escape. The moment they were in, Harry closed the secret entrance with parseltongue, securing the two from the rampaging troll.
Harry paid for it with a broken leg as the thrashing troll hit him into the far wall. The pain caused his concentration to waver, and the pipes clattered to the ground, his parseltongue magic no longer animating them. He couldn't move fast enough to escape, now that he was the only target in sight.
Ignoring everything else going wrong with the situation, which was plenty, Harry focused on Merlin's tutoring about to-the-death combat. His assets, his opponent's liabilities, and a plan to win using the least amount of effort for the maximum amount of effect. An idea, crazy of course, began to form.
"Incendio," Harry cast, setting the troll's loincloth on fire. That served as a big enough distraction to allow for the second part of his plan. "Wingardium Leviosa."
One dropped club later, and Harry was able to breathe a sigh of relief, which he immediately regretted because burned troll flesh permeated the air. At least he was alive.
When he saw Professor McGonagall's face as she stormed in the bathroom a moment later, Harry kinda wished he wasn't.
"What in MERLIN'S NAME is going on?" Professor McGonagall demanded, quickly putting out the flames on the troll.
"I, umm, I, you're welcome?"
Her reply was interrupted by Headmaster Dumbledore, who rapidly surveyed the scene before him.
"Perhaps this conversation may occur after Madam Pomphrey has seen to his wounds, Minerva," Dumbledore suggested.
Once in the infirmary and his leg fixed, McGonagall began her interrogation with a single look.
"I'm not sure what happened," Harry confessed, choosing his words carefully. "I was wandering around the castle, because today isn't that great of a day for me, and I found myself facing that troll. I didn't have much of a chance to hide or run anywhere, so I did the best I could to not die. An incendio to distract it, and levitating club to knock it out. What should I have done differently?"
"I suppose, given the circumstances, I should award you fifteen points for taking down a troll, foolhardy though it may be. I urge you improve your skill of fleeing heroically the next time you see or smell a troll."
Harry nodded, and McGonagall left the hospital wing. Headmaster Dumbledore looked at Harry through his half-moon glasses. The two looked at each other, both silent.
"Thank you for protecting the school," Dumbledore said, suddenly cheerful. "If you should find the need to use the girl's bathroom on the second floor again tonight, I believe it will be clear of all teachers and staff in thirty minutes, for a fifteen minute period."
Without another word, Dumbledore glided out the door.
"Daphne, Hermione?"
"What the bloody hell is going on?"
Hermione's demand promised pain and suffering if Harry didn't start explaining himself that very second.
"I'm trying to get you back to our common room without getting detention, unless either of you need to go see Pomphrey," Harry explained. "I'll tell you some of it tonight, and the rest tomorrow, but we need to get out quickly. We are in the girl's loo after all."
After a snort from Daphne, the three quickly made their escape.
"Do you need an escort?" Harry asked Daphne as they reached the point in the castle where the Gryffindors had to go up and the Slytherin had to go down.
"I will manage," Daphne reassured. "But Hermione does have some Slytherin family business to discuss with you. As well, I do not mind you sharing our secret hide-a-way with Hermione, as long as she follows the same rules and has complete discretion. Only with Hermione, mind you."
"I will take it under advisement," Harry nodded, before escorting a still shaken Hermione towards the stairs. "I assume you are unhurt, physically?"
"No injuries," Hermione confirmed. "Just shaken."
"To be expected," Harry shrugged. "You had a close call with a troll. I'm still running on adrenaline, but tomorrow I'm probably going to be a mess."
"You have close calls often?" Hermione asked. Harry had never mentioned being in danger in any of his letters before Hogwarts or in their conversations since school started.
"Secondhand ones, kind of," Harry explained. "Part of my specialized training I got growing up included introduction to mind magics, which is mostly solving brain teasers and riddles to begin with. It takes years to get it right, but some of it is magically reviewing all of your memories, in detail. Even memories from when you are too young to remember. I had to remember the night my parents died as if I was there again. Every few months I have nightmares about it, and I wake up shaking. Meeting a mind healer when I was nine helped quite a bit. I still have the nightmares and the shaking, but at least I know why and that it is normal."
"I expected the troll to kill me," Hermione admitted. "I was ready to die."
"Good thing you didn't," Harry said. "I'd miss you too much."
"Thank you," Hermione softly spoke, before hugging Harry to the point he was having a hard time breathing. "I owe you my life."
"No, you don't," Harry firmly countered before smirking. "I did it for the house points. McGonagall gave me fifteen points. It was very generous of her, I was expecting ten."
Hermione swatted Harry's arm, but laughed at his obvious lie while doing so. Her grim mood had lifted.
"Thank you anyways. What was that tunnel we were in?"
"What did Daphne say?"
"She said it was your secret to tell."
"I can tell you tomorrow, or we can go to a classroom tonight and I can explain it to you. It's kinda a big story, and it will take a while to fully explain. The common room is too public for that secret."
"I suppose tomorrow will be fine," Hermione pouted. "Before breakfast."
"Ouch, cutting into my sleep time. How about during breakfast. We can have a picnic of it, and invite Daphne to join so she can help explain."
"Seems like a reasonable compromise," Hermione nodded. She really wanted to get answers to her questions, but she was too worked up over what happened. Daphne had only told her that it was his secret to tell, and a big secret at that. She doubted she'd sleep at all if she was told tonight.
"What did Daphne mean you had Slytherin business?" Harry asked as they were approaching the Gryffindor portrait. Hermione went still and silent. "Hermione?"
"I, I don't want to talk about it," Hermione whispered, shrinking in on herself.
"Did I do something?"
"No, you didn't."
"So it must be either Cho or Su, they are the only others who would make it Slytherin's business."
"Cho, Cho said some things to me," Hermione admitted, forcing herself not to start crying again. "Mean things."
"What did she say?" Harry asked carefully, his temper barely controlled.
"Told me to stay away from you, since she's going to be your wife, and that no one wanted me around, and I would end up an old maid," Hermione blubbered, unable to stop the tears or her words. "I would have ignored her, like I always do, but with what Ron said in Charms today and everything, I just couldn't be around anyone anymore and that was why I was in the bathroom instead of at the feast."
Harry just hugged her tightly, patting her back soothingly, while his mind whirled. After a minute, the tears and sobs lessened, and Hermione began to draw away. At some point they both ended up sitting on a nearby bench.
"Hermione, I will deal with Miss Chang, because I have to," Harry started.
"You don't have to do that," Hermione objected.
"Yes I do. It's an old fashioned nobility thing that if I don't deal with it, I will lose respect in the future, but it's more than that. What she said was untrue, wildly out of order, and reflected badly on me. She hurt my friend while invoking my name, and in doing so put you in danger. As her future husband, I have to. As your friend, I want to."
"Don't hurt her," Hermione begged.
"I won't do anything I can't legally do," Harry stated.
"Harry, don't hurt her," she repeated softer. "It's not like you to hurt others."
"I will tell you my plan tomorrow morning. Now, let's get back to the dorms. I have things to do."
"You do? What things?"
"Well, if I'm going to tell you my plan tomorrow, I better make up a plan."
