Chapter Nineteen
Atonement?
Tuesday November 7
As the expected Wizengamot members had all arrived, Amelia stood and said, "Clearly there are too many changes since the June meeting to discuss old business before we get started. Regent Longbottom, will you serve as Chief Witch for the day?"
"I will."
"I've appointed sixteen new members. Apparently I have another handful to go."
Longbottom asked, "Are there questions, or items of new business?"
Someone shouted out, "When are we getting wands?"
"It's a fair question, even if you didn't wait to be recognized.
"As of the end of November, Britain will have three licensed wandcrafters and have fitted and sold 4,670 wands at a selling price of five galleons each. In comparison, France has one wandcrafter who has reported selling nearly 1,800 wands and is currently out of core material to make any more. Their wands sold for a range of 2,500 to 5,000 galleons each." She paused a moment to let the comparison (hopefully) sink in.
"The Wand Shop expects to fit 1,500 wands in December."
Amos Diggory stood (again) and shouted, "What actions are you taking to improve those numbers?"
As Rockcrusher stood and asked, "Mr. Diggory, are you good at math?" Amelia was thinking, This won't end well.
"Of course."
"What's one fifth of 30,000?"
A half minute later he replied, "6,000."
"6,000 times 5?"
"30,000."
"Mr. Diggory, assuming that you personally had the resources, would you invest a million galleons to set your son Cedric up in a business that could reasonably expect to generate 30,000 galleons?"
"Of course not. Do you think I'm a fool?"
There was an uncomfortable silence for ten seconds, until Rockcrusher stated, "The nation spent two million galleons training and equipping the first two wandcrafters. Assuming you could find a licensed master wandcrafter who had nothing better to do than train your son, would you equip him with a a nail file and a rubber band?"
"Err no."
"So you would invest a million galleons in the hope that he could somehow find the core material and other components so he could sell 6,000 wands at 5G each after being licensed?"
"Err..."
"In case you were unaware, wandcrafting is regulated by the ICW. Your ministry has no standing in the matter. There is no assistance that this group can give the wandcrafters that will lower the selling price, or increase the number of witches or wizards fitted in a week's time. Every one of the 30,000 witches and wizards in Britain believes that their need is greater than the person in front of them."
Deciding to quit while he still had a shred of dignity remaining, Diggory replied, "I withdraw my question."
Longbottom asked, "Is there other new business?"
Amelia said, "A trial needs to be held for Barnabas Cuffe, who was arrested in the act of committing bribery. A three judge panel will suffice. Are there any volunteers?"
Abbott, Slughorn and Crabtree raised their hand.
"Trial is set for November 10 at 9AM. As I am a witness, I shall recuse myself and appoint Kingsley Shacklebolt prosecutor. Michelle, please ensure that the appropriate notifications are sent out."
Longbottom asked, "Minister, when do you expect to hire a finance manager?"
"Actually I already have. I expect to have financial reports for the December meeting."
"Very good. Meeting adjourned."
… - …
After the meeting, Augusta came up to Amelia and asked to meet.
Amelia replied, "I'm available right now." They went to her office.
After the door was closed and they had sat down, Augusta asked, "When do you plan on restoring the other departments?"
Rather than the flat out response of I'm not, that she originally intended, Bones asked "Which one did you have in mind?"
"Let's start with Wizengamot Administrative services."
"How many people were there?"
"Six."
"What do they do?"
Augusta replied, "Send out notifications of meetings, meeting notes and respond to inquiries such as statistics on how many businesses paid sales tax last month."
"Michelle Wood sent out the meeting notice three days ago. I believe it took her two hours. There were six people doing part of one person's job and spending most of their time running personal errands for them. The Ministry's reason for existence is not to employ the sons or daughters of the Wizengamot members. Pick another department."
"Obliviators."
"There were eight. I had the Aurors assume their responsibility. There have been four total this year. Except for Amos, every member of the department for Regulation and Control of monsters had a snake tattoo on their left arm when they died on June 24."
Longbottom was speechless.
Amelia stated, "My inclination is to employ;
3 total in Administration, including myself, 3 in Finance
100 in the DMLE and have them pick up apparition testing, misuse of artifacts/charms and obliviations
16 in transportation – Floo and Knight Bus
2 in OWL/NEWT testing
"The taxpayers don't need to fund gobstone games or quidditch referees."
Longbottom observed, "That's only 124 out of 300."
"True. We're in the middle of the largest non-dark lord crisis of our times and it's solving itself in spite of our best efforts to hinder it. The only thing that the international trading department would do would be to pressure us into exporting even more wands. That's not the point. Unless it is truly an administrative job, my intent is to hire aurors and give them the occasional side-job. Let's see where we are at the end of December. We might have a huge surplus, or we might not have two sickles left in the vaults. I've found a qualified replacement for Debit – give her a few weeks and we'll know where we are."
Augusta observed, "Historically, that's been a hard position to fill. How were you able to find someone so quickly?"
Amelia admitted, "Given that we've not taught math classes until this year, I'm not surprised. A student in Neville and Susan's year has a mother who is a chartered accountant and was available. She started last Friday."
… - …
Newly minted wandmaker Felix Badeaux made a total of three wands in his training with Romanian master wandcrafter Carl Racz. They were all from a dragon heart that Racz had purchased and dried years back. Racz spoke perfect Romanian, and a smattering of English (meaning a vocabulary of perhaps 100 words) Yes, no, beer, girls, good time, dinner, hotel and the like.
His student, Felix Badeaux from Marseille France who attended training about the same time that Harry and the Grangers attended at Salem, spoke perfect French, passable German and barely passable English. In short, his wandcrafting class experience was nowhere near as robust and comprehensive as Harry's had been. After receiving his license, Felix began work in the shop that the previous wandmaster had occupied. It too had burned, but the goblins had recovered and repaired the tooling. The old master's notes and whatever supply of core material that he had didn't survive the fire.
When Felix finished his training, he immediately made his way to Beauxbattons and asked for the tail hair from the six flying Abraxans that the school kept. Permission was instantly granted. Felix was disappointed to learn the that prior to going to Hogwarts, some of the students had trimmed and braided the magnificent horses' tail hair. As such, it was only about 15 inches in length. He cut off what was available, leaving them extremely crabby and hoping to stomp the novice wandmaker to death the next time that they saw him. Each of the Abraxans had about 300 tail strands. Their mane hair was far too short to be of any real use.
At a rate of about 25 a day, Felix produced and sold an assortment of 15, 13 and 11 inch wands (using metric lengths) to service a customer base of 35,000 witches and wizards. The longer one was his personal favorite, so he made the most of them but soon, he had plenty of practice with the basics of wandmaking. As Abraxan tail hair was much thicker than a normal horse, he alternated between the drumstick and a thicker version of the baton style wands. By the time that he'd crafted 1,800 wands in late October, he'd exhausted his supply of Abraxan hair. He held a few dozen wands in reserve, hoping to get an even higher price.
As his supply began to dwindle, Felix searched high and low and expended significant resources purchasing a two-year-old dragon that had been illegally poached from the raided Iceland reserve. It was larger than he'd have guessed but nowhere near as large as the Horntail that Harry had danced with during the first task. It had begun to smell by the time it arrived in Marseille. Felix finally managed to extract the heart. It felt slightly mushy and stank and he didn't have the first clue about how to properly dry it in in an actual dry-box that would properly remove the moisture from the football-size heart. He placed it in a cooler and closed the lid.
Felix wanted to make 15 and 13 inch length wands. As such, he was searching for core material that was 12-14 inches in length. The dragon scales were only about the size of his hand. They were very difficult to cut and the longest piece was just seven inches when he used the largest of the scales. To make matters worse, his yield was very poor; he broke 9 of every 10 of the scales in his cutting attempts. He vanished the remains of the dragon out of sheer frustration. It never occurred to him to try the teeth, bone, or the wing material.
Next Felix tried braided kneezle hair. He received the same results that Emma had asked about relating to using broken pieces when she'd asked Daryl. He produced a 25 percent effective wand from his effort.
He foolishly attempted to stun and shave a werewolf. While he somehow managed to accomplish his task without getting bitten, the hair only averaged 3-4 inches in length. The results were no better than the kneezle; though other weres were able to get decent results from those wands.
Finally he plucked some post owl feathers. While the results were slightly better than with the kneezle at 30 percent effectiveness, no one was happy with the newer wands that he was attempting to sell and his shop was quickly developing a bad reputation. It never occurred to him to try freely donated feathers.
Last and possibly least, he tried slicing flobberworms length ways. On the positive side, he achieved the length that he wanted but they seemed to react badly with the glue, with the result that the wands came apart after a few weeks. Had he allowed the worms to completely dry, he might have produced a 35 percent wand.
His only consolation was that Racz's other student, Otto who was from Germany, had called him and reported having no better luck finding core material. He'd made his 2,100 wands using the remainder of the dragon heart cores salvaged from the ruins of the wandmaker shop where he lived. As Otto had only been selling 15 wands a day for top money, he still had some to sell.
Felix was running out of ideas when the local Gringotts representative approached him about the possible opportunity of purchasing some wands from the British wandmakers.
… - ...
Flitwick thought it was his best scheme yet. Unlike the barrel warehouse which had been carefully hidden in plain sight, Ogden was proud of the distillery and frequently gave tours. After leaving the warehouses, he'd hurried to the distillery, which had been shut down. After he got inside, he disillusioned himself and placed hundreds of timed portkeys that he'd had made by the artificers at the Citidal on every item in the building. He started with the copper stills themselves, then the cookers, the pipes, vats, scales, tables, desks, file cabinets, safe, bins of grain. There were several filled barrels that hadn't yet been moved. He wedged the small coin underneath one of the staves. Within an hour every item in the building had a portkey attached.
The beauty of his scheme is that the portkeys had been crafted to go to a range of locations within a hundred square mile area out on the north sea.
… - ...
Flitwick glanced at his watch as he sat in Minerva's office chatting. As the wizengamot meeting was ending, the portkeys all activated. When it was over, all that was left was a part of one wall that had been too stubborn to move and the cement floor.
He opened the bottle that had been frequently used of late, poured five glasses and said, "To the new Wizengamot. May they enjoy continued success. Cheers."
"Cheers."
… - …
Meanwhile, a series of uncomfortable conversations were taking place.
"Cormac, listen to me now."
"What mother?"
Lynn McLaggen nee Ogden growled, "How could you do this to me? Your disrespect in school cost me my wand. Our names dropped to the bottom of the list."
"Don't blame me; I didn't do anything wrong," huffed the boy to his mother.
"No. Let me read the letter from the Headmistress."
"Dear Mrs. McLaggen,
I am in receipt of your your letter asking for reconsideration for Cormac. I wish to make it clear to you Cormac has been suspended for good reason. On too many occasions he has disrupted non-magical classes by being disrespectful to instructors, by setting off Dung Bombs, bullying younger students and by openly ridiculing the Goblins. He refuses to do homework or participate in non-magical classes. His actions while in line to get his wand last week resulted in his threatening the Goblin Guards accompanying the Wand Crafter and was the final straw.
Without a change in his I'm a pure blood and the world needs to kneel at my feet attitude, Cormac will not be readmitted to Hogwarts, nor will either of you get a wand until most others get theirs a few years from now.
The choice is his to make. Straighten up and change his attitude, or suffer without magic.
Yours truly,
Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress
"Mother."
"No, no more from you. Your father disappeared to parts unknown last June. You uncle Tiberius has his own problems, so there' s no help from either of them. Their status in the Ministry no longer applies. Now that I know I can't get a wand for at least a year, I'll be forced to find work in the muggle world. I don't even know what I can do, or am even qualified to do. You, young man have a choice in cooperating. You will go to work for the Goblins in their kitchen, you will take their alternative classes and behave, and you will learn from them how to live in the muggle world. Maybe if you keep your head out of your arse, you'll be able to go to school in January, get a wand and finish. But if you don't, you're out of here. I'll not support you. You inherited the worst parts of your father. It's time to man up, Cormac."
… - …
In Ireland;
Mrs. Finnigan was livid. "You just sit there laddie and listen. You've got no excuses. You screwed up your chances at school. You forget hanging around with that waste of space, Ron Weatherby."
"Mom, that's Weasley."
"I don't care, Weasel, Weatherby, Wingjam, whatever. You should have made friends with Harry Potter; he's in your own dorm room! How'd I end up with an idiot for a son? That stops now. I forbid you to even write to Ron whatever. He's a bad influence on you. You have until November 15th to straighten out your act before you must go to work for the Goblins to earn back the right to Hogwarts. I'll make it plain to you. If you don't walk the straight and narrow and get back in their good graces, you'll be out of here and on your own. I'm tired at your skiving off and drinking. You're on the road to perdition. You start next Wednesday. You better have a good attitude and work hard. If you don't straighten out, this is what life will be like for you and you'll be on your own."
… - …
Wednesday November 8
That evening, Emma asked, "Did you see this?"
Eleven students suspended from school!
By Cheryl Whitehart
For the first time in 35 years Hogwarts suspended students yesterday. Headmistress McGonagall called all students to the Great Hall at 8:00 a.m. for the momentous announcement. In a prepared statement she read before breakfast, the Headmistress announced that eleven students were suspended last night after dinner. Here is her statement:
"After a long consultation with teachers, the goblins and Minister Bones, it is with regret that last night I had to suspend eleven of your fellow students. The eleven all had shown disdain for the new non magical classes, total disrespect to the instructors, fellow students, and our benefactors the Goblin Nation. Despite several warnings, the students in question were openly disruptive in class and disparaging to the goblins. They purposely disrupted others from learning the things that we need to learn to survive in this new world. They did nothing to help themselves and blame others for their failure and shortcomings. In addition, they committed a number of acts of bullying.
"The Goblin Nation has extended a hand in friendship and olive branch of peace to wizard kind. In a time of great need for wizards, they have underwritten the costs of the school and its new programs for the year. The Nation sacrificed much to provide free education for the human children this year. To help raise the gold required to fund this project. they all have voluntarily given up meals two days a month. Wizard kind should take note of this and strive to put in the effort to do the best we can to learn and grow from this situation.
"I warn you now that bullying will not be tolerated any longer. Our previous headmaster thought that everyone deserved a dozen chances to "redeem" themselves. With no real punishment, there was no opportunity to feel remorse and change behavior. I now announce the one strike policy. If you're caught bullying someone, you'll get one warning. The next time, you will be expelled. If you intentionally hurt someone, you will be immediately expelled. The time for change is a upon us. You must rise to the challenge."
The eleven names were withheld. Gossip among the students indicate that, if true, they were members of some very prominent families.
Harry replied, "Flitwick asked have some students' names taken off of the wand list when I was there. Ron and Seamus were taken off. They admitted intentionally causing trouble in the new classes. That moron McLaggen mouthed off right in front of Redeye. I heard that they're going to to have to do some sort of reparations work to help pay for their second semester costs, or find a different school, or go out and get a job."
Dan said, "I don't have a problem with that."
Hermione said, "If the Daily Prophet was still putting out a paper, I expect there would have been half a dozen letters from people demanding that they be allowed another six chances, receive a written apology from McGonagall and her immediate removal."
They flipped to the back page.
Harry said, "Look at this,"
Weasleys Wild Wizbangs Opens to a Massive crowd
Parade with hundreds of performers leads crowd to Grand Opening
One of the other shop workers quoted as saying, "This was the most fun I've ever seen in the Alley. The shop offered a huge assortment of very clever joke and novelty items at very reasonable prices."
Dan remarked, "Emma, that sounds like something you'd say."
She replied, "It was. Harry's one of the owners."
… - ...
Saturday November 11
In the New York City Diamond Markets;
Demi Greengrass verified the address that she was given and ten seconds after appointed time pushed the door open. She was greeted by a short statured man, who she was sure was a goblin in disguise. She asked, "Are you the Gringotts representative?"
He replied, "Gringotts?"
She remarked, "Snotnose gave me this address and gave some minimum prices for some introductory pieces that I intend to sell. If you aren't the person I was expecting, I'll be on my way and go to Antwerp this morning."
She had practiced this several times. Hopefully it would work.
He said, "My name is Endwick. I'll look at what you brought and make a reasonable offer."
She opened up the case that held the twelve largest stones of the collection. Endwick remarked, "They are from the Black collection." He was making a statement, not asking a question.
"That is correct. Lord Black has signed papers to take over the estate dispositions work that Conrad Parkinson was doing before his tattoo bothered him."
He asked, "Do you have additional cases to show me?"
"If your offer for the first case is acceptable." Not aggressive but no weakness either. Inwardly she smiled at how the dance was progressing.
He wrote a low but not insulting offer down, as she expected. It was two percent below the number Snotnose had stated.
She replied, "Add 16 percent."
"Two."
"Fourteen."
Endwick countered with, "Four."
"Twelve."
"Six."
"Ten."
"Seven."
"Nine and a half."
"Eight."
"Agreed." That was six percent above what Sirius had hoped for.
"Vault numbers?"
She remarked, "I do not cheat my employer. London vault 316. Shall we continue?"
"Yes."
She showed him another case with four to eight carat flawless stones. She said, "Can we get to your best offer or do we need to dance every time? These are much easier to sell and I have other things to do today."
He wrote her a very fair offer.
She said, "Add two percent." She pressed her luck.
"One."
"Agreed."
She brought out a third case with a tennis bracelet with two carat stones and a tiara.
He wrote her an offer.
"Agreed."
"It was enjoyable doing business with you Mrs. Greengrass. When do you expect to return?"
"On a regular basis, starting in January."
"I await our next meeting."
"As do I, Endwick." Six hours later, she was back in London. Sirius was expecting four million Galleons, She exceed that amount by 240,000 (six percent – about what an honest minister of magic would get paid in five years. Ten hours of rehearsal clearly had paid off. She liked this job.
… - …
Tuesday November 14
Fudge felt a chill, not from the ocean, as he head the headline.
Cuffe found guilty of Bribery
By Cheryl Whitehart
Daily Prophet editor Barnabas Cuffe was found guilty by a three-judge panel of bribing Minister of Magic Amelia Bones. In his trial, Cuffe freely admitting his action with the defense that it was the only way to get things done with the previous administration. Cuffe offered Bones 50,000G for wands for his twenty-six employees.
Cuffe further admonished Bones for not posting a change to the long-standing practice, although he later admitted that he knew that bribing a public official was illegal.
Bones sentenced Cuffe to one year at Azkaban. That action sends a clear message that bribery within the ministry won't be tolerated.
Fudge pulled the blanket closer and decided that it would be best to maintain a very low profile for a while.
… - ...
Wednesday November 15
At the Goblin mining camp kitchen;
Nine witches and wizards suspended from Hogwarts portkeyed into a dining hall, in the middle of a mountain that was being mined; somewhere in Goblin territory with the hope that they could salvage their chance for an education, a wand and a magical life.
"Welcome. My name is RipClaw and I run this kitchen." He strutted back and forth in front of the group, silently counting heads. "Seems a little light. Nevertheless you will refer to me simply as Chef at all times.
"Let us be clear. I do not need you; I did not ask for you; I did not want you here; but here you are. I have you for sixteen days until the end of November. We are located about 500 feet underground. We are on a geothermal spring that produce steam that powers some of this kitchen. It provides the heat, and steam to keep food hot, and makes hot water to clean. We feed 2,000 hungry miners every day at noon. Now when I say your name step forward for your assignment:
"Seamus Finnigan & Ron Weasley - Food Prep station and pot washer and kitchen cleaner.
"Little" Alfred Montague, Marcus Wareford and Stan Slughorn - Busboys and dishwasher and cleaners.
"Joyce Sedgwick, Calista Lockheart and Penny Berry - Serving and set up and food prep.
"Cormac McGlaggen - Firewood and stove detail, dishwasher.
"Flora and Hestia Frostwell, Flora and Hestia Frostwell? No shows. They dig their own graves.
"We start at 6:00 in the morning and after serving lunch, we scrub the kitchen and get everything ready for the next meal. If you pay attention and work hard, you will be released by 3:30 to your first of two daily classes. At the end of this time, if you survive, you will be able to hold your heads up and at least could get a job in the muggle world. By the way, keep your complaints to yourself. Also, anyone who touches my radio and sound system will lose a hand."
… - …
Twelve hours later;
Lynn McLaggen asked, "How was your first day at the Goblin Kitchen, Cormac?"
"I'm exhausted. This was torture, mom. This was worse than Quidditch training with Wood." (which never happened) "It was just awful and I don't want to go back. The port key took us to a Merlin forsaken mine. A mine! We were 500 feet underground. Surrounded by the dirt diging creatures! There was no sun light. I worked in something called a cafeteria. It was three times as big as the great hall at Hogwarts. I was one of nine of the eleven who arrived in this great hall filled with tables. It was extremely hot. The creature in charge told us his name was Ripclaw but in the kitchen he was to be addressed as Chef. He played some weird noise he called disco music to torture us. Told us if anyone touched the damn music system, we'd lose a hand. He was a tyrant; always yelling at me for not moving fast enough, not being clean enough."
"Who else was there?"
"Finnigan & Weasley from my house, Al Montague, Marcus Wareford and Stan Slughorn. Three bints - Joyce Sedgewick, Calista Lockheart and Penny Berry. The Frostwell twins were no shows. Chef said they dug their own graves."
"What did they have you do?"
"People had different jobs to do. Some washed dishes, some served, or did food preparation. Others had to scrub down tables and mop floors. I had to do two peoples' jobs. Effing dirt digger. First I had to bring in firewood from a storeroom and stack it near the ovens and cookers. Then while they were cooking, I had to keep the ovens fed with the wood. I must have run five miles feeding the ovens and cookers. It was very hot. Probably 60-70C. During the lunch hour I had to work something called an Incinerator. It was big cauldron of boiling oil. I had to keep that fire going too. I had to fry disgusting stuff. Mix horn flour? Not sure what the yellow stuff was. Then put some kinda hot fiend fire pepper in it. It had a funny name, Cherylanne, HighAnne or something like that. Then I dumped a box of live worms in a vat filled with ale, fished them out and rolled them in the flour and dropped them into the incinerator. When they were crispy and golden brown I drained them and put them in trays. I did this for two hours straight." Chef offered them to me, said "Try it, they taste just like Calamari!" Do you know what that is mom?"
Lynn replied, "No, probably another one of their weird creature foods."
He continued, "We had two thousand filthy dirt diggers come through the doors and eat in two hours. Then I had to help clean up. I had to drain the cooker, scrub it out, refill it and wash the walls and floor with bleach water. They had nothing to drink but water and Alligator pee."
"What?"
"Yes, it was yellow and came in bottles marked Gatorade. I couldn't believe it, but Seamus was drinking it. He liked it! Told me to try it! I rather die before drinking alligator pee."
Poking his chest with her index finger, his mother said, "Make sure you go back tomorrow. Don't screw this up. It's not forever. I - want - my - wand!"
… - …
At Murials;
"How did the day go, son?" asked Arthur.
"I'm really tired, Dad. It was hard work. Harder than anything I've ever had to do before, even helping mom out in the gardens at planting time. I had to help the Chef; a Goblin named RipClaw. Merlin he was a scary beast, had a scar from his ear right down the side of his face and across his chin. He scared all of us when he took attendance. I had to prep out these big trays of some African animal called a Wildebeest. It was big slabs, and we rubbed some kind of hot spice mix on it. Then put on a sauce. Then it goes in the oven for a few hours. When it comes out it's very rare and we use a machine to slice it into thin strips. The spices and sauce are very hot. Chef let us try some after we were through serving. It's not bad. He said I worked far beyond his expectations today so he gave me some to take home. I hope you and mom like it."
"Really, Goblin food?"
"It's food, like mom cooks, and except for the spices, really no different. Tomorrow we're going to do some Goblin lizard chicken thing."
… - ...
And in Ireland;
Seamus' portkey popped him back into his living room startling his mother. He fell backwards onto the couch and moaned.
"Seamus dear, how was your first day at the Goblin kitchens?" asked his mother.
"I'm soooo tired mom." He dragged himself to a sitting position.
"The Goblin in charge is called RipClaw. He was tough, and very scary at first, but he treated me fair. Told us what was expected. He noticed everything. It was hard work. Chef was completely organized and a real clean freak."
"So what did you have to do?"
"I helped prep some kind of meat for the ovens. Chef said it was wild beast? Some animal from Africa. Took big 50-60 pound slabs of it. Had to rub a spice mix that had lots of Cheyanne Pepper in it. My eyes watered for an hours after that. I washed pots, pans, tray's all day. Chef played music until we had to serve. It was something called Disco. Had a beat but I don't know any kind of dance you could do to the music. After we served I helped scrub the entire cooking area. Then I had to help wash the floor with this giant mop. Bleach everywhere, the smells in the kitchen from the food and spices were weird, and it was hot, at least 40C (Still hot but way cooler than Cormac's version of events) even though it had big vents sucking the hot air out. I was sweating like a dog. But the Goblins took care of us. We had all the water we wanted, nice and cold, and they even had that Lemon Gatorade stuff Da likes. They even let us have the weird food we helped cook after the shift before we cleaned up."
"So have you learned anything so far?"
"Ya Ma, I won't screw up this chance to get a wand. I don't want to be without magic and have to work this hard all my life."
"Good answer."
… - …
Thursday November 16
Greta Macmillan, the new Finance Director, finished her report to Amelia, who summarized, "Everyone that we paid on October 15 is actually alive and under contract. That's good. There's enough money in the account to repay the line of credit and we don't expect to have to dip back into it for at least a few months."
Greta nodded in agreement.
"Expenses for October were 100,000G. Sales tax revenue was only 25,000 and the cash balance was 267,000."
Greta nodded, "Correct. Expenses will be lower next month as furlough payments ended at the end of October. Had you kept everyone, the ministry would have been bankrupt. In hindsight, you made a tough call and it was the right one.
"Our sales tax is only collected by the registered businesses that primarily deal in galleons. When people started shopping in nonmagical grocery stores and the like, they pay the VAT tax, not the ministry sales tax. It doesn't look like it would be practical to change that near term. My suggestion is to try and revive the collection of estate tax."
Greta then asked, "Can we switch topics?"
"Go ahead."
"You'd also asked me to look into floo powder. The British company that makes floo powder is shut down. The key ingredient comes from Italy and they have no wands and no wandcrafter. Would it be possible to divert a few and send them a dozen or however many they need?"
Amelia replied, "There's always a possibility but Potter and crew have their contracts that they need to work within. Try and find a bare minimum number and I'll see if I can get them. The December Wizengamot will be the fifth. Can I get reports by close of business on Monday the 4th?
Greta replied, "I'll have them for you. How many copies would you like?"
"Twenty-five will do nicely. Thank you."
… - …
Saturday, November 25
Harry asked. "Where are Little D and W?"
Emma replied. "Elvie business."
Harry remarked, "Again? They've been gone every Saturday for a month now."
Dan quipped, "We'd better get him some protein shakes."
Hermione gave her dad a withering look.
He asked, "What are you making these days?"
"Harry replied, "We're making about 99 percent strand wands."
"How many of the others do you sell a week?"
"Two to three."
"How many of the others do you have in stock?"
"About a hundred."
"So you make one batch every other month and you're good to go."
Harry nodded and said, "Here are the statistics."
Wand inventory at the end of November was 7,615
Made 3960 in November, 12,285 total
Fitted 1650 in November, 4,670 total
Harry added, "I got a letter from Hagrid this morning. He mentioned that he'd found and and collected a pillow case of unicorn hair for us. I'm gonna go see him later this afternoon."
Hermione said, "He'd like that."
"Do you want to come?"
"No thanks. I'll let Fang slobber all over you. Be back in time to get cleaned up. You and I are going on a date tonight and I don't want you smelling like wet dog."
… - ...
Outside the Badeaux wand shop in Marseille France, Peter Frostwell coached his twin daughters, "Be polite if you are asked any questions. I'll talk with the shopkeeper and make the deal."
They nodded.
"Good day, Monsieur."
The shopkeeper, Monsieur Felix Badeaux asked, "How can I help you?"
"We need three wands."
"Of course. Your yellow Wand Purchase Permit cards please."
"We, er must have left them at home."
"I see. Then the price will be 5,000 galleons each. But of course, there are absolutely no refunds. Is that acceptable?"
"Yes." He handed over the three large bags of coins which the storekeeper handed to one of the guards who deposited it.
"Your names, please?"
"Hestia Frostwell, Flora Frostwell and Peter Frostwell."
With a slight frown on his face the shopkeeper explained, "There is a small problem, Monsieur Frostwell," pointing to the two teens. "As your daughters are on the ICW No Buy list, they will not be buying a wand at any ICW licensed wandbroker in the world for the next five years. For attempting to make the purchase on their behalf, your name has been added to the No Buy list as well. Enjoy Marseille, Monsieur Frostwell. As the Auors have been notified, perhaps it would be best if your visit was a very short one. Good day Monsieur."
"What about my money?"
"We agreed that there would be no refunds. They are nearly here, Monsieur."
With that, the three activated their portkey while the shopkeeper muttered, "Imbeciles."
… - …
Sunday November 26
"Oy Fred, did you see this?"
"No. What?"
"Puddlemere was playing some sort of charity organized practice game against Wimbourne. They have matching equipment this year designed by Mr. Whitehorn himself to level the playing field. Oliver played a perfect game and Windbourne won 150 to 120."
Fred asked, "When do the preseason games start? We should go to a few."
"The second Saturday in December – the 9th. Then the regular games start in April."
"They raised 11,000G for the orphan education fund."
George observed, "If Dumbledore had been running it, I bet Harry never saw a knut from that fund."
"Doubtless."
… - ...
Thursday November 30
Back in the goblin mines, Chef gathered them together and said, "As a group, you have surprised me and cost me a good amount of gold. Before you arrived, I didn't expect that any of you would last two days, let alone two weeks. I'd have been better off financially if each of you had quit. You did not quit on me. Do not lead yourself to the conclusion that you have succeeded. You simply managed to not fail the first part of your reparations."
He adjusted their portkey bands to take them to their next assignment in the morning and said, "The next two weeks will be spent in the dishwashing rooms in the Citidal in London. Your shifts will remain six to six."
He handed them each a set of appropriately sized light green coveralls and a cloth hairnet. "You will wear these to your shift each day. You will go to work with a spotless pair of coveralls. If we have to clean them, you fail. Should you forget the rudimentary basics of working in a kitchen that I've been forced to teach you these last two weeks, you fail. Go now, so I can get my kitchen back in order."
"Thank you, Chef," eight of them said in unison.
… - ...
Friday December 1
The bright fluorescent lights and red clay no-slip tile floors would be familiar to anyone who had ever worked in a banquet kitchen, as would the white tile walls and stainless steel fixtures, vent hoods, walk-in refrigerators. Everything was electrical and everything was spotless.
The London branch of the Nation was served two meals a day – eight and eight. In London there were five large dining halls and a dozen smaller ones. Each was served by its own kitchen. The long-standing rumor that each facility served different meals than the others had little basis in fact, but every group enjoys its gossip.
When the still-wandless students arrived on Friday morning at six, Chef Sharptooth was there to greet them. Gone was the taunting from the mining camp. Sharptooth regularly took in those youths who had committed petty infractions and simply made the most of it.
He said "My name is Chef Sharptooth. Like everyone in the industry, I will answer when called by the title Chef. Earned titles are important in goblin culture. I earned my title before the German planes bombed the surface of the city in 1941."
"Your task for the next fifteen days will be to operate the dish cleaning machine. The busboys will set the used glasses, plated and eating utensils at the busboy line usually referred to as the BBL. You will scrape, rinse and stack the plates, rack the classes and utensils in these racks and stack then right there." He pointed to an area near one end of the conveyor belt dish machine. "If your task is feeding the dish machine, you will take the plates and feed then through the conveyor like so." With remarkable speed and agility, he placed plates on different fingers of the conveyor belt at the rate of one every second or so.
"When you are not doing feeding plates, you will be running racks of bowls, mugs and glasses. The handles of the racks go on the sides, not front and back; the same applies to the racks of eating utensils. You will switch off every hour for variety.
"If your task is at the back end of the machine, you will catch the clean plates and fill these plate carts. The full plate carts go in the clean area, marked by the blue tape. If you are at the catching end and you see a plate that did not get clean, you will place it in the dirty stack and take them back to the BBL. The plates are hot when they come off of the line. I do not expect you to drop them. If you want, you can wear these rubber gloves." They had never been used, and it was clear that he wasn't expecting that to change, though he was certain the the wizards all had overly-soft hands.
"At one, you have the opportunity to eat if you wish. You should be cleaned up and have rewashed your hands by 1:30."
"At four, you will be escorted to one of the conference rooms where you will have your class."
"Now is the time to ask. Are there questions?"
No one said anything.
"Good. Since no one asked, the toilets are down that hall on the left. Rewash your hands before you leave them. There are a few dishes left over from late last night that you can get started with."
Apparently, in some contexts, five hundred could be counted as a few.
… - …
Saturday December 2
After adjusting to the portkey ride for a moment and nodding at the four guards who had accompanied them, Harry greeted his friend. "Hi Charlie. It's good to see you again. This is my girlfriend Hermione and her dad, Dan. How can I help you?"
Charlie replied, "We need some details changed on our contract."
Harry nodded in agreement to ease any tensions and replied, "I had to do the same, selling wands. What parts work and what needs to be looked at again?" As he had been coached, Harry was careful to avoid using confrontational words.
Charlie began, "First, we need to be able to trade juveniles back and forth with the other reserves. It doesn't work to trade eggs. Most die if they're away from their mother before they're born."
Harry nodded and asked, "How old is a juvenile?" Dan eyed his daughter to ensure that she didn't answer out of habit.
He replied, "Six months – really four to six depending in the species."
"Are they even trades?"
Charlie admitted, "Usually; unless we're trying to get a rare breed."
"Are you actually trading livestock, or selling them?"
"Trading. That gets around an entire bevy of export laws."
Harry asked, "So what's your recommendation?"
"Removing that section of the contract."
He nodded and replied, "Let's look over the other sections that you want to revisit." The trading of juveniles wouldn't affect Harry in the least but he waited to see what else was being requested.
"When we talked before, I mentioned 10,000G. That was the current cost. We don't have any control over our future cost of sheep..."
… - …
In this case, Harry was glad that he'd had the meeting before the meeting. Effectively no dragons had been processed at the Romania reserve in the last six months out of fear that they might end up being the last unraided reserve. As several of the other reserves fell, it seemed like a greater certainty. With so much dragon livestock exterminated, there would likely be a lot of futures trading – the nearly empty reserves would happily trade 4/2 – they'd pay back four in the future to receive two today.
Allowing that wouldn't cost Harry a thing and would help protect genetic diversity.
The other issue that Harry kept in mind was that using strand as a core component had permanently changed the wandcrafting market. Two thirds of witches and wizards could use a dragon heart-string wand. Very few of them got it to work noticeably (more than 3-4 percent) better than a strand wand. That said, he had been coached that perception and preference had value.
If he or Gringotts bought the processed dragon for 12,000 galleons and he was able to sell the blood, hide, etc. for 12,000 galleons without having to do too much work, he received 500 cores for free – two to three years from now.
The hide was used in jackets, mid-level body armor, footwear and wandholsters, the goblins would purchase the meat Historically the largest British customers for the blood were St. Mungo's and Ogden. The bone had been used in broommaking and as a male food supplement.
So Harry summed up what he knew;
* There were a lot of recently harvested, (via poachers) uncured hearts that might be ready 2-3 years from now. As few knew the existence of dryboxes, most will have been slaughtered for nothing.
* Other than occasionally, he didn't need the hearts but he knew that he could resell them for a profit.
* He wasn't excited to be in the dragon part-brokering business; at least in the short run. It sounded like a distraction and he didn't want to search for yet another twelve uses for dragon blood.
* He could give up a little, help the reserve and acquire a lot of flexibility.
… - …
"Charlie, let's do this – you trade livestock as you need to. You price the dragons as you need to as well. Instead of an exclusive contract, I'll take the right of first refusal on a month-by-month basis for the duration of the contract. If you mostly do future trading for the next two years, I can live with that. If you have three to sell next month, give me a call and I'll give you an immediate yes or no and if needed, you can get a good price from one of the other existing customers."
Harry reasoned that there currently were no more than a small handful of wandcrafters in Europe.. Since they had no cores for the next two years, he was effectively already selling to the rest of Europe. The wandcrafters recently paid ridiculous prices for the hearts. If they paid 10,000G each for the hearts themselves, they had a heartstring cost of 20G plus the wood and labor – two years from now. Harry's core cost using strand was about a sickle a wand. Factor in labor and the Gringotts commission and his selling cost was just over 4G. Unless the market improved for the other dragon components, Harry could always beat their costs and undersell them anytime he wanted to.
Harry added, "And to seal the deal, I'll give you another six brooms."
Charlie shook his hand and replied, "Thanks Harry. I appreciate it. We had a good piece of hide that you could use for vests for your guards, if you like."
That would be great. Thanks.
"Dobby?"
Barchoke had been listening in via Harry's cell phone and had revised the contract as they'd been speaking.
Little D popped in and replied, "Here is your new contracts."
Harry signed and Charlie did too as an authorized representative of the reserve. Harry said, "I was hoping you could show Hermione and Dan around a bit."
They saw an egg hatching. Even Dan thought that it had been an amazing morning.
… - ...
Sturgis Podmore appreciated the work that Mick, Conner and Fawcett had done for him. It was a cold sleet that was falling and his home was warm. Everything was working, as he read the newspaper by his fireplace.
In listening to the talk at Tom's and Rosmertas' pubs, Podmore had come to realize that not everyone was as lucky. He did what he could by passing out business cards for Mick. In doing so, he helped save a few lives.
… - …
Sunday December 3
That Sunday, they invited Amelia over for brunch. It was... polite. Afterwards, Dan and Emma excused themselves and went grocery shopping. Amelia stayed, "for a bit of business."
As he'd been coached, Harry tried to control the conversation. "How can we help you?"
She admitted, "The usual. I'm trying to find ways that more Brits can get their wands."
Harry pushed back a bit, "At what price?"
Silence.
He continued, "The going price for wands in France is currently between 2,500 and 5,000G. How about if I open on Saturday afternoons and all wands will be priced at 2,000G? Anyone who isn't specifically excluded can buy one if they want."
Silence.
"It's no secret that I have aspirations of providing wands to the rest of Europe. 2,000G sounds like a very good price point to me. I'd probably get a bunch from Paris every weekend."
She knew that she had no real leverage. Rockcrusher's complete flattening of Amos Diggory put paid to that.
Instead she asked, "Just continue to do your best. OK?"
Hermione said, "We will continue to do our best. While Harry would do well to remember that he already has commitments with his girlfriend on Saturday afternoons, he does have a point. If Mr. Diggory wants one badly enough, he simply can choose to portkey to Marseille and buy one Monday morning. Would either of you like another Orange Crush?"
They both nodded.
Harry said, "Minister, I know you're under a world of pressure. After the three that we gave you two weeks ago, we don't have any more wands that we're allowed to just give away. How about expanding the guys who go around fixing charms, or buying whatever is the next manor and letting people stay there for the winter for a reasonable amount?"
"Those are ideas. People need to go back to work or reopen their businesses."
"True but I bet there are a thousand businesses within five miles of the Leaky Cauldron that have position available or help wanted signs in their windows. If someone needed documentation to work in nonmagical London, that seems like something that the ministry or Gringotts could help with. They're huge problems. All I can say is we'll do our part to help." He put his empty Orange Crush bottle away.
She stood to leave, thanked them for breakfast and said, "Thank you both." They had provided options.
… - …
Monday December 4
Greta Macmillan summarized her report to Amelia. "Sale Tax revenue was 34,000G. As the furlough program had ended, expenses were down to 70,000 with a cash balance of 247,000." Sales tax was slowly rising but not very quickly.
She continued, "I checked again with the floo powder manufacturer. Now that he can get his key ingredient, he committed to delivering a two month supply to us by noon on Tuesday December 26."
"Excellent news. Great work, Greta."
… - …
Felix, the wandmaker from Marseille had run out of ideas when the local Gringotts representative approached him about purchasing some wands from the British wandmakers, He jumped at the chance and put in an order for 5,000 wands.
One thing that Harry (with a bit of coaching from Emma) had insisted on was that the content of the wands not be revealed and that the wands not be de-engineered. He was fairly certain that if word got out, the forest would be raided, thousands of spiders slaughtered and no amount of sheep could ever repair their relationship.
One advantage that Felix had over Harry's operation, was that the Frenchman had no suggested retail prices that he was forced to work with. As such, when the paperwork would finally get signed, Harry would sell them for 30G after giving the London branch 5, Felix would be happy to pay the Marseille branch 10 for brokering the deal. He would resell the wands for a starting price of 2,500 for the buyers holding Purchase Permit cards to 5,000 for the undocumented ones making far more than Harry's team. The only other rule that he would have to abide by was to never violate the Can Not Buy list. Even if his selling price dropped 100G each month as the supply grew, he'd be laughing all the way to the bank. He'd have happily paid twenty times Potter's asking price.
… - ...
After lunch was over, Harry went to Barchoke's office to discuss the dragon reserve negotiation. Barchoke gently asked if Harry thought that he'd given up too much.
Harry smiled and replied, "I don't feel that I gave up anything, except the obligation to buy dragon parts should they become a bother. They needed to be able to trade back and forth – now more than ever. The dragon wand doesn't outperform the strand one for most users. The European wandcrafters don't know that yet. They would have run out of core sometime in October; they're not crafting wands this week.
"If we start wholesaling them wands next month, they'll be making good gold acting as my sales representatives. They won't be able to come near matching my cost in terms of manufacturing. The only downside is that the French citizens end up paying way more for their wands than Brits do."
Barchoke replied, "Very good, Harry. You have come far in a short time. Very good indeed. Onto other business, Ragnok would like to speak with us."
… - ...
Ragnok was pleased that they'd come so soon. He said, "As we expected, the wandmaker in France has requested to purchase 5,000 wands."
Harry asked, "How much do you think we should ask, with respect to pricing?"
Ragnok replied, "I've estimated that twenty-five galleons is the best price point. They will most likely resell the wands for a hundred to one-fifty. I understand that they're selling the few that they have for considerably more but when they start selling on a regular basis, the price should take an immediate drop. In the long-term, that will be advantageous for you as you migrate to custom-fitted wands sometime in the next year. We would take two galleons per wand for negotiating the deal. Is that acceptable?"
Harry asked, "Will they be prepaid? What if you sold them for thirty and collected five?"
Barchoke thought, Very far, indeed.
Ragnok replied, "Better still. We can always lower the price to 25/2 in six months. Can your friend Dobby handle the deliveries?"
"Yes. As for pricing, I don't think we'll have to lower our price anytime soon. If they don't have any core today, they're not going to have any in six months. When are they requesting delivery?"
"Before we discuss that, the branch in Germany made the same request. I would like to treat them evenly."
Harry replied, "I'll send them each 2,000 today and 500 a month on the first of the month. Is that acceptable?"
"Yes. Here are the addresses and contact names at each of the branches and wand shops for Dobby."
Harry replied, "I'll give this to him then. Thank you."
Ragnok remarked, "When word of this gets out and I don't expect it will take long, you should expect to see many such orders."
"Very good. I'll get back to work then."
Ragnok nodded in respect to Barchoke as Harry was leaving.
… - …
As they were getting ready to leave for the day, Emma noticed that the store room stock had been seriously depleted. After she asked, Harry replied, "We sold an extra 2,000 each to France and Germany today with an order for 500 per month each for a total of 10,000 wands. We get 25 Galleons each."
Emma nodded. The math was quite staggering. Quite the lemonade stand indeed.
… - ...
Saturday December 9
Harry just could not sit still, pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
Dan just smirked at Emma and she laughed. "Harry please sit down and have some tea; she'll be down in a few minutes. You have plenty of time before your portkey will take you away."
"I don't want to be late. She's taking forever to get ready, it's only a Quidditch game for Merlin's sake, not the Yule Ball!"
"Harry, calm down;" said Emma as she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him in for a hug.
Harry melted into her arms and sighed. "It's the first game and I don't want to miss anything. It's the Harpies against Puddlemere. My old teammate, Wood is playing. We were invited by the owners to sit in the owner's box!
"Harry, she wants to look nice for you. As for the owner's box, it's just a business, which unlike the Wand Shop, probably doesn't even make any money. I promise you, the chairs won't be as comfortable as your breakroom. Don't make it more than it is."
Harry sighed again and just then his breath caught in his throat when Hermione walked into the room. "You look beautiful, Hermione."
Delighted at his words, she replied, "Thanks Harry; you ready to go?"
"He's been ready since he had breakfast this morning," quipped Dan.
As Harry put his arm around Hermione and activated the portkey to the game, he saw Dan smirking and heard Emma laughing.
… - …
Early the next morning, Emma cornered Hermione.
So how was your date? Come on dish. You got home late, and Harry had a smile on his face and looked exhausted!"
"Take that smirk off your face Mom. Nothing untoward happened. You act more like a girlfriend than my mother where Harry is concerned. Oh, you should have seen him. He was so animated watching the game. For a man who makes brooms, Devlin didn't seem like much of a fan of the game. He had Harry engaged in explaining the game and tactics. The owners loved him. Kathryn Wash gave him season tickets to the box!. Harry can take up to four people with him. He's so excited. He made a big impression last night."
"You got home later than I thought. Did the game last a long time?"
"No. After the game we had dinner in a restaurant with both of the owners and Devlin. It went a little longer than I thought it would. It was ten of us, both owners and their spouses, Devlin and three security guards. We went to an Italian place. Harry was so cute. You should have seen his face when he tasted Lasagna for the first time."
"Did you enjoy the game?"
"No really, but I had a good time because I was with Harry. I think Ms. Walsh wanted to be seen with Devlin and Harry. Honestly, I'll be surprised if he uses many of those tickets."
"I thought you liked Quidditch; you wrote about going to all of Harry's games. You didn't like the game?"
Hermione blushed and looked at her tea. "No, I don't really like Quidditch. I just went to the games to cheer for Harry. I don't see the attraction honestly."
"Will you go to another match?"
"If it's with Harry, yes Mother," laughed Hermione.
"So how was sitting with the little big shots in the Luxury box?"
"Well, let me tell you about it..."
… - ...
"Nice view from up here Devlin," noted Hermione.
"The owner's box is usually a good seat," replied Devlin. "And the food is free so all in all, not bad."
There was a great groan from the Harpies fans as Puddlemere's Keeper Wood made a fingertip save.
"Look there's the snitch;" pointed Harry to the left of a Puddlemere chaser who was flying across the far side of the pitch as the chasers were in a over and under three-man weave passing off the quaffel and the Harpies defenders tried to interfere."
"Where Harry, I don't see it?"
Harry grabbed my hand and pointed, There! There, hiding just underneath the middle chasers broom bristles, but I missed it.
"Harry, you've got great eyesight," remarked Devlin.
"It's not eyesight, I can feel the magic from the snitch. It comes from wandcrafting. I could never play; it wouldn't be anywhere near fair. I just don't understand how the either seeker couldn't see it, they were both trailing the chasers!"
"So, Harry was into it."
"Oh mom, he was climbing the walls, He kept picking up the snitch and pointing it out to us and got quite agitated when they didn't see it until the game was two and half hours old. The Harpies seeker caught the snitch and they won by just 10 points."
"When's the next game?"
"Next Saturday."
Emma said, "I'll offer a piece of advice. As your dad would say, don't let these turn into an eight hour round of golf, just so the owner can exchange a couple of fifteen pound tickets and a few appetizers for six hours of free publicity."
Hermione immediately saw her point and replied, "You're right. Love you mum."
… - …
Friday Dec 15
The troublemakers' final ten days were at a banquet dish room at one of the large hotels in London. The work was identical to their second stint except their hours were from four to eleven with no classwork. They plated food and then covered the plates and placed them into hotcarts.
Arnie the steward had to remind Ron a few times about portion size but he told him that was a common mistake with new help.
At the end of the ten days, the steward handed a few of them, including Ron, his business card and said, "If you ever want to come back here for a job, give me a call." He also handed each of them a sealed envelope and said, "I was handed these and was asked to give them to you to give to your Head at your school. Happy Christmas."
A/Ns
Tom wrote the suspended student scenes and their first duty assignment. He also wrote the quidditch date.
Will Ragnok be right regarding the wand pricing dropping so quickly?
Steps in Life – Potter 8668 is a tale worth looking at.
… - …
OMAKE – Harry talks with Devlin
Devlin stopped in to the wandshop. After he was offered and accepted a bottle of Orange Crush, he asked, What did you think of the Quidditch business last weekend?
Hermione and Emma were in with him and waited for his answer. Harry replied, "The game itself was fine and I enjoyed visiting with you. As for the other, I didn't enjoy being led around like a show dog for four hours afterwards. The reporter just happened to be there? What did you think?"
Devlin admitted, "About the same. I recognize that she's doing what she can to get a few extra hundred butts in seats each week. I have five years worth of brooms on back-order, so I'm not looking to have my picture printed in somebody's magazine for a bit of free advertising. I expect you're in about the same position. How about if we drop in on the Canon's when the season begins in April instead? They'll be playing a home game against Portree. They'll be plenty of seats available and no reporters."
Harry admitted, "I've never been there. Where is it?"
"I'll side-along you right now, so you'll know. Let's go."
"Sounds good. Hermione, I'll be back in ten minutes."
… - ...
Short OMAKE
"How was your lunch with that impulsive Sirius Black, Arthur?"
"Fine Molly. I was offered a job, given my first month salary and received a wand Purchase Permit card." He showed her his 14 inch walnut rod.
She replied, "That's wonderful news, Arthur. Where's my permit card?"
"He only gave me the one. It was signed by Ragnok himself."
Incredulous at the slight, Molly stated, "I'm going to send Sirius Black a Howler. He needs to know how wrong he was."
As calmly as can be, he replied, "Not now Molly, not ever. You can't always get what you want. Pouting and shouting wont change that. Silencio Maximus."
A.N - As Silver Dollar would have said, A.F.T. He had written a dozen or more quality tales on this site. He's listed as a favorite author along with his son, Snake. Please take a look.
