Chapter Nine
Windsong
August 1
Barchoke read the letter a second time, convinced of the wisdom of the request and walked down the hall way to Ragnok' office. He stated that Wick reported in and requested that supplying wands to the students be de-prioritized to the week of October 15, with the reasoning that if the students received their wands at the beginning of their school year, there would be too much pressure to cancel the new classes.
Ragnok considered the request and decided, "I agree with his logic. Let us push it back one additional week starting with October 23. Please notify him and the wandmakers."
… - ...
"Owls delivered these letters for you," announced Blackeye. They were hand-written thank you cards from Filius, Pomona, Babbling and Vector.
"That was nice of them," remarked Hermione, who apparently noticed that there hadn't been one from McGonagall or Sinistra.
"She probably viewed it as an incomplete assignment and wanted to dock points."
… - …
Amelia read the grim report. Their best estimate was that just over thirty percent of the wizarding population was out of work. Almost all of of the wizarding businesses were shut down and were facing the hard-reality that there were still bills to be paid even though their doors were shut. The retail shops were still open but most were starting to run thin of things to sell. Ironically, it was the traditionalists who were hardest hit; the example given was the new upscale restaurant in Hogsmeade, the Flying Horse, which had opened in conjunction with the World Cup and the Twi-Wizard Tournament. Business was booming until June 24. The restaurant closed the next day. They employed twenty-five full-time employees; most of which had been good paying jobs.
The other reality was that the now-deceased death eaters had possessed more than half of the capital in the country. Their estates were wrapped in probates or simply frozen as they hadn't officially been declared to be dead. It would eventually be good news for the Ministry and Gringotts through estate taxes and processing fees but in the short term, the news was rather bad. August 16 couldn't come quickly enough.
… - …
Malfalda Hopkirk had lived on the same street of flats in the upscale Notting Hill neighborhood for the entire thirty years that she'd worked at the ministry. In her youth, she had been blessed with good looks and had learned the value of a smile at a young age.
She had caught Barty Crouch's (sr) eye years back as they occasionally had lunch together. In 1991, then Minister Fudge made a poor decision and promoted Dolores Umbridge to Senior Undersecretary, leaving the manager position of the misuse of magic available. Crouch recommended her and she was promoted into the position.
The misuse of magic office was home to the ministry's magical sensing devices, which had originally been devised to scan the country for unforgiveable curses with the purpose of notifying the aurors. Naturally those twenty or so ministry employees and sixteen Wizengamot members of a certain mindset, or later those possessing unsightly tatoos thought that a very bad idea, so the department was gradually repurposed to searching for instances of accidental magic and the use of underage magic by teenage witches and wizards living in unwarded homes. The fact that almost all of the warded homes were owned by purebloods was never talked about. Instead, the department marched under the protect the statute of secrecy banner and few people took the time to take a second look.
Hopkirk hadn't invented that job priority list and Umbridge never mentioned the departments earlier purpose, so while Malfalda wasn't a horrible person, she was unwittingly aiding others who were.
Mafalda had always lived at the very edge of her means; thus her vault seldom contained an amount larger than her next paycheck. That said, she enjoyed the latest fashion and vacationed at interesting places.
Shortly after she had been promoted, the flat that she had really wanted became available. It was a corner unit on the third floor with a lovely balcony and a great view. She took it. Admittedly, it had been a stretch but she had received a bonus for reporting magic reported at the Potter boy's home. She managed from month-to month.
June 24 came along and rocked their world. The furlough notice arrived on July 1. She had paid her July rent on June 30. Paying her August rent had wiped out her meager savings.
… - …
August 13
The mail owl dropped off the newspaper and flew back to get another copy of the newly reinstated Quibbler. Remus Lupin was about to toss the paper away as trash when it occurred to him that this was the first magical paper printed in Britain since June 23. The headline caught his eye and he picked it up.
Wands available in the near future!
By Cheryl Whitehart
First priority will go to essential workers such as aurors, healers and St. Mungo's staff. Minister Bones announced that the wandcrafters have committed to having three hundred wands available to sell per week. All wands will be priced at five galleons. There will be a one wand sold per person. All witches and wizards will need to bring in their Gringotts issued Wand Purchase Permit card along with five galleons and sign the pledge on the back of the card.
The first wands will be available at the Wand Shop in Diagon Alley located next to Gringotts starting tomorrow morning (August 14) at 9am.
Lupin was pretty sure that werewolves would be at the bottom of the list, if at all.
… - ...
All across Britain, households were getting the paper and reading the same news; each asking the question, How can I get mine first?
They read further down the article and ascertained that there were some thirty thousand witches and wizards who would eventually be eligible to purchase a wand. It also stated that cards would be delivered to households so people wouldn't have to make a second trip to London just to get their card.
Those witches and wizards possessing both a modicum of common sense and the ability to perform basic math quickly concluded that it would be a year or more before most households would have one wand available. Given that neither quality was especially abundant within the human wizarding world, Ragnok ordered every guard to stand either the first or second shift tomorrow morning starting at six.
… - …
Molly Weasley put down the paper and asked, "Arthur, did you see a card that came with the newspaper this morning?"
"No dear."
"It must fallen out. I'll have to go to Gringotts this morning to get a replacement."
"Yes dear."
… - ...
An old goblin knocked on the Ragnok's door and croaked out, "Mr. Wick is here."
"Send him in, send the guards away. You wait nearby, I'll send for you." The old goblin complied and stood a respectful ten paces away from the Director's door.
Ragnok stared at the wizard. "I have a delicate job for you that must be completed quickly."
"Aren't they all like that?" smirked Wick.
"I see you have not lost your sense of humor," said Ragnok as he intentionally glanced at some of the more deadly control runes on his desk, which made Wick shiver involuntarily.
"First off, don't be seen; no one can know what you are up too. Go to the ministry's hall of records. Start off in 1950. I want a list of everyone who worked in the education department from then until today. If they transferred, I want to know from where and to where."
Flitwick simply nodded. "I see. What if someone does see me?"
"You must be discreet. You have a week, no more. Your usual fee has been left in your vault. Good day, Mr. Wick."
Once the door closed, Ragnok ran his finger down the wall directly behind his desk, went through the doorway that appeared and down the steps. He had research to do in the account representative archives. He needed to know who was tied to who. Transactions would tell the tale.
… - ...
Monday August 14
The staff from St. Mungo's had been designated to be first to receive their wands. As their finished wand inventory currently stood at just over a thousand wands, Harry and Hermione decided to both do fittings at the same time.
Harry's first person was Amanda Crabtree, head healer, whereas Roberta Evans a healer trainee was sitting at the table in front of Hermione.
Crabtree handed Harry the signed card and her five galleons. Harry asked, "What size was your previous wand?"
She replied, "Ten and a quarter inches. Did you make these?"
Harry nodded and replied, "We did. Please give this one a wave."
She did and gray sparks flew from it. Harry asked, "Would you like to try a longer one?"
She replied, "I like this one. Thank you, Mr. Potter. I feel like you've given us our careers back today. Thank you again."
"You're welcome, Healer Crabtree. I hope you have a good day."
Realizing that he had a lot of people to see, she nodded and left, a very happy witch.
Harry waved the next person in as Hermione finished with her first person.
For the moment when they were both alone, they hugged and whispered, "We did it!"
… - ...
At the end of the day, they'd fitted a hundred and twenty people, meaning that their wand supply was down by that much. It also meant that they'd have a much lighter wand-fitting day tomorrow. They put a set of wands on the glue table, said goodnight to Dobby and Winky who had worked hard all day to keep the place clean, feed them lunch and move the inventory to the tables as needed. Harry hugged them both, proclaiming them both to be the best elves ever. They knew that he meant it.
… - …
Tuesday August 15
The four teachers hired by Gringotts took the portkey from Gringotts to Hogwarts the morning of August 15. Robert Keen had years of experience as a high school physics teacher. His mother had been at Hogwarts in the 50s. He didn't have the gift of magic but turned out to be a student favorite instructor.
Everett Anderson was a man of small stature, barely standing five feel tall but was a giant in terms of improving students ability to communicate effectively through writing. With respect to personality, he had a case of perma-grin. Even the most dour of students were enthralled by his class and invariably walked out with improved writing skills that would last a lifetime.
Lewis Leuty offered enough real-life examples where the need to be able to perform multiplication, division and the like was useful, that his students paid attention and consistently walked out of his class better able to perform those tasks. Equally important, he helped them recognize situations where unscrupulous retailers and businessmen would try to take advantage of the unwary.
Robert St. Ives was a Scot from Aberdeen who'd spent a decade teaching in the private schools. He had masters degrees in European and World History and had worked part-time as a potioneer's assistant for eight years while he'd been attending university. He knew his subjects and more importantly, he knew how to make them interesting to students who were only there because it was a required course.
All four men knew that their classes were being offered on a trial basis. The first three being squibs, they had come to know how utterly unprepared half of the population at Hogwarts (and Britains wizarding population in general) was to function outside the sheltered worlds of Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Ives attended Hogwarts in the early '50s.
They offered their CVs to McGonagall who admitted, compared to the constant stream of defense instructors, these people were eminently qualified. She gave them the quick tour, assigned classrooms and living facilities and let them settle in.
...- …
Harry and Hermione were back that morning and unclamped a set of glued wand blanks. They glued a set of acromantula wands made from maple and another made from beech to provide variety and alternatives from dipping further into the increasingly limited tail hair stock.
Harry suggested, "Let's both fit them until noon. With a bit of luck, we could be about done selling for the day before lunchtime. I liked your idea about using wood for variety rather than core."
"OK. It went pretty good yesterday. I enjoyed it."
He gave his girlfriend a grateful smile. "Thanks, Hermione. We have loads of maple and beech blanks. We could put out three sizes of three woods to have nine to choose from, all with the same core. People all seem to know the length of their old one. The guards have checked that everyone has a signed card and is on the list for the day. All we have to do is the fitting. It gives them a bit more to do. They don't seem to mind at all."
Harry's first appointment of the day was Madam Pomfrey, Hermione's was Professor Spleen from the Janus Thickley ward.
Pomfrey said, "Good morning, heavens, it's you Mr. Potter. How did you get...?" She handed him her card and the five galleons.
"An interesting story for another time, Madam Pomfrey. How long was your old wand?"
"Twelve inches. What happened to your scar?"
"It went away over the summer. Try this one."
She gave it a wave and replied, "Oh my. It's lovely. Thank you ever so much. Thank you."
Harry replied, "I'll be in the castle for a week in October. Perhaps we could have tea and catch up?"
"I'd love that. I had a wonderful holiday to tell you about. Thank you again. Call me Poppy. All my favorite wandcrafters do."
He gave the healer who had fixed him up so many times a fake roguish wink and smiled as she turned and left.
As they predicted, all of the fittings had been completed in time for a late lunch. They were just about to sit down for a bit then they heard a heated commotion outside.
Tiberius Ogden was standing outside arguing with Blackeye, one of the guards while Dryeye the other guard was doing the waggle with his halberd, like a golfer getting ready to whack a ball off of a tee.
"I want wands for myself and my crew of forty and I want them now. Get out of my way, dirt digger."
Blackeye didn't back down an inch, though without the platforms to stand on behind the counters like the tellers used in the lobby, Ogden towered over him by some two feet. "You will leave now, human, with your head on your shoulders, or with it lying on your lap as we dump your body into the dragon pits. The wand purchase permit cards are issued from Gringotts based on a priority agreed to by your government, not by some human who peddles a weak drink that tastes of cat piss. Begone."
Enraged, Ogden considered taking a swing at the little lump of flesh but thought better of it when he noticed the other goblin take a practice swing with the very sharp pole ax. "My account manager will hear about this."
Blackeye was waiting for this moment. "You are correct; he will and you may very likely be barred from Gringotts for a month. I also expect that you and your employees just moved to the bottom of a very long list. Have a good day, Mr. Ogden."
When the unpleasant man had left, Harry asked, "Do you get that often?"
"We've been expecting it and believe that the unpleasant incidents will grow substantially in number before they subside."
Harry nodded his head and replied, "We have restrooms and cold drinks inside when you want them. We've seen each other a time or two, but haven't been introduced. I'm Harry, Hermione's inside."
"My name is Blackeye. This is Dryeye, my brother."
Harry held out his hand, and though he had never done so before, Dryeye grasped it in greeting.
… - ...
"Ron, stop hovering around me while I'm trying to light this campfire. Go look for some more firewood," snapped Arthur. He was rapidly losing any sense of calmness or knowledge about muggles that the leading ministry expert was supposed to have. Why won't these matches burn? thought Arthur as he broke another one in half.
"I'm hungry Dad, when is mom going to start cooking?" whined Ron.
"You can't be that hungry; you ate two hours ago," muttered Arthur.
"Do you think you put enough of that carrot scene stuff on them?" asked Molly.
Arthur just sighed as he tried to tune out Molly's grating voice.
Ron wondered into Arthur's shed as he tuned his arguing parents out and started to look on his bench. Poor Dad and his batteries and plugs, thought Ron as he picked up a nine-volt battery and started tossing it up and down and hand to hand as he walked around the shed.
"What is all this junk," muttered Ron as he tripped over a pile of electric cords cut from appliances. He juggled the battery but it fell onto the work bench onto a pad of fine steel wool sitting on an oil soaked rag.
Ron was startled at the spark that flashed when the battery landed terminal side down onto the steel wool.
He turned and called out to Arthur, "Dad I think a got something here", and started to panic when he turned around and saw the spark had started the rag on fire, consuming the steel wool and sending further sparks onto the curtains on the window and the flames were now licking a the very dry roof boards.
"Dad! Help. The shed's on fire!" yelled Ron as he ran out.
As the wooden he-shed wasn't equipped with a fire extinguisher, Arthur, Molly and Ron stood there helplessly as the fire rapidly spread across the roof and consumed the small building.
"Oh my, I've lost all my plugs," moaned Arthur.
… - ...
Back at the Wand Shop, Harry took the glued wand blocks out of the clamps and Hermione indented a batch of maple before inserting the strands. They'd shape them tomorrow afternoon after their morning appointments.
As they were checking their numbers for the day, Hermione announced, "We fitted a hundred-fifty wands in the last two days. A hundred of them were acromantula, the others were hippogriff."
Harry observed, "Two thirds, I think we could raise that up a bit more with the other two types of wood. We need to take them off of the table and force people to try the strand wands. If they don't work for somebody, we can pull out one of the others as a plan-b."
Hermione pondered, "I wonder why Ollivander didn't use it?"
"Probably because they didn't have a squad of goblins standing guard while he collected it. He would have had a hard time getting it by himself."
"Lets go home. You can make dinner tonight."
Harry replied, "I'm happy to."
… - …
They took their portkeys home. Hermione was resting on one of the sofas while Harry was preparing a simple dinner when Dan and Emma arrived.
Emma noticed Hermione napping and asked, "Rough day?"
Harry replied, "Not really. We fitted the healers over the last two days. Everyone found one that would work. We were done fitting by lunchtime and sanded a decent amount of blocks. We put together some maple and a few beech ones. We're going to try to stick to the web core wands and save the tail hair as much as possible."
Dan asked, "Em, why the smile?"
She replied "From the day Professor McGonagall stepped into our lives, I feared that she would slip away into a world that we'd never be able to see. Instead you can explain how your day went and I have a perfect idea what you're talking about. This has been the best summer. Did you mark everything down in the ledger that I set up for you?"
Harry admitted, "Not yet."
"I'll nip over later and get it started for you. You had a hundred-twenty yesterday and thirty today. Right?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"The guards did the deposits?"
"Yes. They also brought over the list for tomorrow."
Harry had a faraway look on his face then started laughing. As the messy hair teen rarely laughed, Dan asked, "What's so funny?"
Harry replied, "I was thinking about last week. Remember when we went over to the motor vehicle place to get license plates? We got there and there was that ticket machine where you took a number and the clerks would call the next number in line."
Dan replied, "OK."
Harry said, "I was thinking today, some guy tried to cut in the line at the shop and the guards caught him. It would be like his new ticket number was 30,000 and the clerk was calling, "Now serving number 151." He snorted again in laughter.
Dan seemed to find it equally funny while Hermione and Emma just gave each other the eye roll.
It was almost ten by the time Emma portkeyed into the shop. The lights in the office turned themselves on. As Emma sat down at the still unused desk it occurred to her that Harry and Dan were more than a bit alike. They both loved their craft and were excellent decision makers. That said, they both disliked doing their paperwork. She thought she heard Dobby and Winky in the lunchroom and walked over to say hello.
It wasn't the elves.
Caractacus Burke of Borgin and Burkes had the grand idea that it would be quite the caper to break into the back, grab several hundred wands and quietly unload them for a hundred galleons a piece the next day.
Emma screamed. Burke and his helper Tom Felsenthal grabbed Emma, shook her and said, "Shut up. Where are the wands?"
"I don't know, I'm just the bookkeeper." She cursed herself for leaving her portkey watch on the desk.
Felsenthal threw her hard against the butcher block table an instant before his head rolled onto the floor from the polished silver ax. Burke lived a single breath longer before he too was eligible to join the Headless Hunt Club.
… - ...
When Emma awoke, she was in the Nation's infirmary, with Harry, Hermione and Dan standing next to her bed. The healer in charge said, "It is good that you have awoken, Dr. Granger. You were bound and your neck was broken. You will be able to leave in the morning."
Startled at her words, Emma instinctively wiggled her foot. The Master Healer, Windsong, clarified herself and said, "You will be able to walk out of here in the morning. Spend a day or two resting at home and you'll be completely healed."
Relieved beyond description, Emma replied, "Thank you, Healer. Thank you."
Looking at Harry and the other Grangers, she said, "It would be best if the three of you went home for the night and rested. Your mate will be ready to leave in the morning at eight." One of the assistants will be sitting with her in the lobby."
The three went back to the lobby and out the door to the marble steps. There was a flurry of goblin activity outside their shop.
Hermione said, "Let's go home." It was their first exposure to how desperate things were becoming. It wouldn't be their last.
... - …
A/Ns
As the saying goes, they're all in the same storm; they're not all in the same boat. Some are in the process of losing their businesses through no real fault of their own. Others are barely affected.
TF is a useful bad guy o-c. He usually never lasts longer than ch a chapter.
Thank you for reading.
S
