Title: Diverging Reality
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Harry, Lucius, Fred, George
Chapter: 5
Word Count: 1962
Warnings: language

Edited by: eiliagh
AN: Spoke too soon! Life went kind of ass up as it usually does when it comes to the end of a NaNo/Game of Tomes event because of crash. But I'm here! With a new chapter.

Also check out my new collection 31 Days of 31 Stories!

Enjoy.

Stepping into the Weasley twins' shop, newly opened over the summer months and already doing very brisk business, Harry smiled at the shop setup. He took a moment to take in the various items that were offered in the shop as he pulled off his cloak. He did frown at one of the stalls that was built to look like a bunch of hearts turned into flowers. Walking closer, he breathed out a sigh of relief at finding that they were compatibility potions and not love potions of any kind.

"Find out if your partner is magically compatible with you," he read outloud, shaking his head with a smile. He had a feeling that if he handed one of the potions to Ginevra they would find that they weren't made for each other in any form or fashion.

"Part of the law is that as long as the shop doesn't sell love potions beyond a certain strength, they won't get into trouble," Lucius drawled as he stepped up beside the smaller male. He pulled off his own cloak as Harry tucked his hands into his pockets. His shirt shifted slightly up his arms. Unlike Lucius, who was wearing full formal robes due to the fact that he was there in an official capacity, Harry had gone for his more modern Heir robes, one that had slits cleverly hidden up the side to allow him more movement.

"Harry! My friend," George greeted as he smiled at Harry, coming from the back. The wards that they had on the door had told them when Harry had stepped through the door with Lucius, and they would have usually greeted the other male right away but they had been in the middle of pouring potions. "It's wonderful to see you."

"It's good to see you, too, George," Harry greeted, smiling as he shook the man's hand. "I'm sure that you know Lord Lucius Malfoy? He's been signed on as the Potter and Black family solicitor and he's going to be working with us with our new contract," he said.

George eyed the blond male with a critical, thoughtful look before he nodded. "Very well, yeah, alright. If you two will follow me, Fred is in the back finishing up some of the newest pranks and their packaging," he said as he smiled. He led the way into the back rooms, checking on where Lee was cleaning the counter down as he double-checked the books versus what the wards stated was in stock. Once in the back, he smiled and waved to the office. "Fred! Our dear friend and investor is here with his family solicitor to talk business!" he called.

Harry smirked at Lucius as they walked into the office that the Twins had set up for business talk. The privacy wards that had been laid down by the Goblins were top notch and fully paid off. A parchment and Dicto-Quill lifted from its spot the moment they walked in and would give both sides copies of their conversations. Sitting down, Lucius raised an eyebrow when Fred followed after them with a tea service floating behind him, George closing the door.

"One thing that our mum did teach us right was how to serve tea to guests," Fred said, shrugging as the service sat onto the table and the pot floated, pouring tea for them. "It's good to see you, Harry."

Lucius gazed at them as he took a seat. "I was told that the two of you were known for twin speak," he said as he took the floating cup and saucer from the air.

George and Fred shared a look between them before Fred shrugged. "It' confuses the Dicto-Quill," Harry explained. "They learned that particular fact when they were setting up the original one-year contract when they gained their shop front," he continued. "Now that there are new circumstances going on between our families, they have agreed to discuss some changes and signing a longer three-year contract along with a rent-to-buy for the space from the Black Family.""

"I see," Lucius said, sipping the tea with an appreciative look.

It was a rather good mix, not too high brow that it would put people off but not the cheap loose leaf that would make others sneer.

He set the cup to the side and opened his case that he had brought with him, pulling out the original contract that the Twins had set up with the help of Bill Weasley when Harry had invested the original thousand galleons and the one-year contract that they had signed. The first just said that Harry had forty-nine percent of the business stocks while the twins held fifty percent between them and Gringotts held the one percent left as a way to break any ties.

That information had been transferred over into the new contract with added stipulations that the twins kept within the scope of international law regarding pranks, potions and supplies. This did include anything connected to Life, Death, and Love.

Lucius hummed in approval at the new contract, glad that the Black family Goblin had been the one to do the contracts for Harry. "You invested into the shop as Heir Black, yes?" he asked, Harry putting his tea to the side.

"Yes. I didn't want anyone to learn that Heir Potter had invested in a shop, something that hasn't happened since before my father took over as Lord Potter. Not many people would dare to look into the Black investments after all. When Sirius was still alive, he went through the investments that the Blacks still held and changed a few things around but left it alone for the most part. He sold out a few shares in Knockturn outright, strengthened a few other shares, and bought more of the Daily Prophet. Enough to make it so that I'm just waiting for them to make a new misstep to be able to smack them around legally," Harry said. "He was interested in the fact that I had invested in the Twins, even though I had just handed them a bag of money and told his manager to contact them for contracts. He told us that it would protect all of us legally."

"Which it did and does," George said.

"Protect us that is," Fred elaborated. "We were being eyed for a sudden influx of money our last year, and we pulled the contract that we had just gotten, so they couldn't do anything since it was a legitimate investment and one that was strictly for business use."

"Which is what we are here to discuss. The new contract," Lucius replied as he placed the two contracts down. "Due to the nature of Heir Black-Potter's betrothal to your sister, we found that he has to follow the Code of Conduct through the Black Charter about in-law investments," he explained as he pulled out the copies of the needed Charter. "Any profit that you make from this business, as long as Heir Harridian Black is your investor and silent business partner, can not be handed to your family members without a Gringotts approved loan agreement."

"And the charters really do mean profit. After the bills have been paid and things bought, new money is invested into the business to expand or refine things, the profit that comes after all that. They were quite clear on that," Harry said as Lucius handed over the copies. "Say you pull in about four hundred galleons daily, and your bills for each day is around fifty galleons, you'll end up with three hundred and fifty. Then you take two hundred of those galleons to invest in new ingredients, pranks, supplies, ect, and you end up with a hundred and fifty galleons profit for yourself at the end of the day."

"Now, say that your family comes to you, needing money. You can use that hundred and fifty galleons as a loan for them. Seeing as you were invested in by Heir Black, and your sister is marrying into the Black Family and not just the Potter family, it can not be anything but a loan," Lucius said. "This holds for the entirety of the marriage and most likely will hold should the marriage fail."

"And if we should just buy them the items that they need or wish to have?" George asked as Fred read over the charter information.

"Those items would be considered gifts and thus exempt as long as they are unable to return them," Lucius stated. He pulled out the new contract. "I had your goblin managers get with the Black goblin managers to go over the charter to reflect the charter and the betrothal," he explained.

"Mum isn't really going to like this," George mused, not sounding the least bit sad as he read over the contract.

"Not in the least. But as smart businessmen, we need to stay smart about this. I've seen the penalties that we'd have to face should we change the investment that Harry gave us into a loan," Fred said.

"True. They are not pretty," George told the two men. "We'd have to pay back the thousand galleon loan with a yearly interest of a minimum of fifteen percent and a six month interest rate of ten percent. Over a period of eighteen months."

"That would have been a pay off of around three thousand Galleons for the at this moment," Lucius mused.

"Right. We're not quite making that yet in profit. We do have enough to pay our bills to the shop first, and buy our ingredients for the experiments and stock up. We don't have to worry about paying rent for an apartment since we have the apartment above the shop, luckily enough," Fred said.

"As of right now, we're only making around four thousand galleons from the sales, weekly, but only about two or three hundred in profit each month after we've done everything," George continued. "We'd end up living in debt until we're old and dying if we turned the investment into a loan."

Fred frowned as he turned back to the contract, reading through it and seeing how it now had limitations, for the family, on what they could do with their profits from the shop. "I think we can live with this. And if anything, if little GinGin wants some cash outside of her allowance, she can pull some shifts here on the weekend," he said finally. "I do not approve of what mum did, forcing you into this betrothal," he told Harry finally.

Harry smiled softly at them. "I'm sure that she'll be quite surprised when she finally sees the marriage contract and finds out a few other surprises that I have in store for her," he said. The twins shared a knowing look before they smirked and signed the contract with a flourish. Harry followed with his own signature and finally Lucius signed as the witness and lawyer. "Thank you for doing business with me and I'm glad that you two are understanding."

"I can tell you that we like making money. We have many plans for our future after all, and we do need to have a good reputation as businessmen," the twins said together before Fred tapped the meeting parchment with his wand, creating two new copies. The original was rolled up and placed into a box that would send it to the twins' Gringotts manager to place into their vault as the copies were handed over to Lucius and Harry.

Harry simply smiled at them and left with Lucius, heading back to school so that he could do his homework in his new personal rooms, not being able to be in the same area as his soon to be wife.