Before the fireworks:
When Bloodaxe had received the letter, he understood that when Harry Potter had offered his assistance, what he meant was to find an unusual but creative solution. This proposed sale would plainly steal gold from the other Conclaves, while being congratulated for their genius at the same time. Bloodaxe marched into King Ragnok's quarters, and just handed him the letter. King Ragnok, who was surprised by the sudden intrusion read the letter and began to roar in laughter, as tears dripped from his eye. He then spoke to Bloodaxe in Gobblydook"
"He is crazy. An absolute lunatic. Dumbledore is in fucking shit street in latrine central when Lord Peverell is ready for the Wizarding world. I know the remaining bunch of the morons in Gringotts China, India and Africa will fight to acquire all of the equipment. That will allow me to auction these items at probably double the asking price. I want a fifteen per cent on this deal. Gringotts at 40 per cent will still make massive mounds of coin. And this does not include us using the best of his equipment internally."
"That my King is a dammed steal. I suppose you bet wisely on him, did you not? I think I understand why he is going down this route. I think he genuinely wants to buy out the twelve darker families in the Wizengamot with hostile takeovers. I am surprised by the number of clients these other enclaves have. No wonder we have been struggling! That was the big secret all along and Harry casually figured it out. I had no idea these places were so large! I suppose that is commonly available knowledge in his world, and we were none the wiser!"
"It makes sense Bloodaxe. With these numbers, we will never outcompete them. We however can capture a great deal of wealth if we sell the other branches our innovations. His proposed plan is the equivalent of almost doubling our gold reserves. We are definitely in.
As for long term plans….
When the Darker families move against him, I want to see what they will do, when they find out how much trouble is knocking on their doorstep. His primitive weapon demonstration in the cave can kill most of the morons at range. I want to see what Dumbledore will do when we are pointing rifles at his damned bearded ass.
Bloodaxe, tell him for the foreign sales we need six of the mining devices, fifty torches with no anti-contaminant gas, thirty personal shields and fifteen floodlights. Mining devices and the torches are to be downgraded to twenty five per cent of the energy capacity of what he showed us in the cave. For our personal needs, same quantities and tell him the best materials. When he is finished, let him bring the total bill and we will work out how much to charge for us and him, to swim in profits."
"Will do. I am considering allowing his correspondence to be carried totally by portkey when applicable. I believe he had an ongoing project with Clementine Delacour that will expand his capability. I can see that he has some samples of his ink here and I suspect Delacour will be surprised out of her wits when she uses the materials. These little bottles might even help us get the portrait of Ragnuk 1st restored."
"Do that. What are a couple of thousand galleons in priority fees when I have this beauty over here? I think I am going to put it up in the main lobby after it is well polished. The next biggest Sapphire in the other Gringotts branches is hand-sized.
He will literally push back the economic doomsday clock by two hundred years.
"Just remember, The Black wealth is just around the corner, my King."
"I understand Bloodaxe. We do want him to get access to that. However, if he continues at this rate, he might surpass everyone. I supposed the bet paid off. Even from beyond the grave, Invictus still has my back."
"I will respond appropriately my Lord. Thank for entertaining me. It does help that we are making a good profit on this, for our coffers. Thank you for allowing me the unceremonious meeting, I just thought we had to jump on this."
King Ragnok nodded as Bloodaxe left the room.
The next day, Harry received a letter and he knew exactly how much of each item to manufacture. Harry who already had designed the items from previous components and drawings he had laying around, merely emailed contacted Klaus at the machine shop and queued up his job list.
Hermione's birthday had been a quiet affair. There was a certain familiarity to it now - it always began with the gift giving and was followed by the jokes, the laughter, the tales of Harry and Hermione, before the main dinner. Harry was quite happy when Hermione received her crate. At dinner she spent the evening explaining some of the illusionary magic she had uncovered– it required Occlumency to summon an image from the mind, and then it was projected via the necklace or a wand. Harry understood that this was even better than glamour because the illusions compensated for body size, height and even the voice tone. It was possible for a fully grown person to appear as a child, if necessary.
Morgana had truly developed some devious magic. No wonder she had been feared, as such an illusion was considered impossible by current standards. Perhaps a lot of magical lore had been lost?
It was at the dinner when the discussion of birthdays came up, that Harry mentioned that he was looking forward to the first official birthday celebration of his grandmother and his mother. After all, the death of Amba's sister had cancelled all the celebrations last year. Harry and Hermione listened to the finer details as the night went on. Usually, Priya and Amba would both celebrate their birthday on Divali to eliminate planning for two separate events as their birthdays occurred in late October or early November. Harry and Hermione understood that Divali day was the next big adventure, but that the celebration would be much more reserved, in comparison to their current fanfare.
During October, Harry worked away at building his items for Gringotts and Hermione began developing a 'reflex sharpening potion'. She reasoned that this would be useful as a 'combat potion' for truly dire circumstances.
Harry had then reversed the design of this magical generator – he had created a magical motor that could take magic from a wand and convert it to mechanical motion. A shielded electric motor then provided the electric power generation. Now he could take magical power cells and charge or use electrical devices anywhere. Stick your wand in, put some magic out and then charge your magically shielded smartphone. Or better yet, plug into the inverter box and run small power tools. This was going to be delivered at Christmas time for the Goblins as a stand-in until a more permanent power system could be installed.
Harry had also managed to shape the Protego into a sword. This had been challenging as the first intent modification had not managed to summon edges that were sharp enough. With enough practice, Harry got the blade down to approaching one hundred atoms thick – this was fairly sharp, but was anything far from the si-fi monomolecular blade that was supposed to cut anything. Harry had also committed a much blunter edge as another spell, in case he wished to use the blade as an improvised baton. There also was a vibrating function that only twitched the emitter core with a small electromagnet, and the result was that Harry's blade could cut flesh easily. The tests against the ballistic gel yielded excellent results. The whole affair now resided in a hilt sized steel handle that he carried as a magnetic accessory on his pistol leg brace.
Clementine had replied and requested some more graphene powder. Harry had sent fifty kilograms of his material via portkey. She was impressed with the powder and considered that her problem had been solved. She, however, wanted to meet the boy and decided that she would prefer a face to face conversation. She expressed her satisfaction, with a second follow up letter, and told Harry that they would discuss all the finer details when he arrived on the 21st of December.
Remus had put off the apparition lessons as apparently, his core was undergoing some type of change and this behaviour had never been documented. His spells became weak and unstable. His apparition became random and uncontrolled. After analysis with the Medi-Bracelet, Priya was shocked to find that his core seemed to be undergoing a "magical maturity" even at his considerable age. Priya had explained that possibly, his body was now reacting to the exercise and the Lycanthropy was now being tamed. Remus found that his look became far less shaggy and his face seemed far less haggard and dishevelled. His transformations into a wolf became painless and suddenly his human awareness was present, even under the effect of the wolfsbane.
One night Harry found Remus wagging his tail in the dungeon and after questing with his magic, he did not find a single sliver of aggression. He found himself reading to Remus who had joined the storytime session with the elves. He sat on the couch with half-lidded eyes, as he relaxed. The elves were somewhat surprised initially, but the night had been uneventful. The next day Remus could remember which story Harry had read. Remus' metamorphosis had resulted in a white wolf – this was unusual because he has always been a black wolf during his previous wolfsbane transformations.
Remus wondered what had caused such a change. After some introspection, realised that his internal emotional state had changed. He had accepted he was a protector, he felt sure of himself, he was loved by his little family and he never felt unbalanced as he had a place to stay. His body understood that he was well fed. He wanted fulfilment in life. He now had time for hobbies as he dabbled in woodworking. He had even jumped aboard with CNC woodworking as Harry taught him Fusion 360. He enrolled in MMA classes and he began practising against dummies in the duelling room. As he continued to hit the gym, his arms and legs became corded and broad. Priya and Remus after having a conversation about his mental changes concluded that his unstable magical core was a result of the "werewolf" being replaced with a "wolf". Remus began to feel his magical core as it settled down. While his spells were still unstable and his apparition was inaccurate, Remus decided that he would resume classes with Harry when he felt better.
Divali had arrived and Priya chose to attend a local Hindu temple in London. For Harry, this was the first birthday that he would spend with his mother. He decided to accompany her, if only to see the sights and sounds. Amba decided to stay at home and take care of the obligations around the house. Hermione of course had no plan to be left behind. Most students at British Primary schools were aware of the observance as it had become more accepted in recent times. However, experiencing the festival as an outsider was very different to having a practitioner of the faith explain the common misconceptions. When Priya had returned home, the rest of the night was spent lighting deyas in the yard and sending up small fireworks. The meals were all vegetarian and while the common mouths to feed had gathered at the table, Harry did not miss the meat in particular. Hermione who was very open to new experiences had gone all the way with wearing traditional Indian wear and many pictures were snapped that night.
Harry had chosen to give religious items as gifts. While the other gifts had been any number of kitchen appliances and other miscellaneous objects, Harry had bought a Saraswati Murti for his mother, after some research. The finely made desk-sized sculpture represented the form of the divine mother who was the patron goddess of the Arts, Intellectualism and the Mind. Hermione had commissioned Luna to paint a picture of the Ganges from several pictures she had gotten from the internet. Luna took an Impressionist direction with the ideas and now the picture was full of subtle wispy colours and the piece looked ethereal. This had made the living room very attractive – Ved had loved it so much, that he took his hand tools out, and mounted the picture immediately. Harry had enjoyed the religious saturnalias very much. He tenderly held both his religious pendants that night, as he prayed for the safety of his entire family.
In the middle of November Harry sent his completed pieces to Gringotts with the following attached pricelist:
Hello Bloodaxe,
See attached the items for Gringotts' internal use, along with external products for sale. Everything has been packaged in hardshell cases and is clearly labelled, with accompanying instructions. I am currently working on a new broom to launch next year as the majority shareholder on the Nimbus board, but the manufacture of it is being done with a lot of Muggle Machines. As you can imagine, we have broken many tools and we are trying to give the broom a unique design. Normally, I would have handled this in person but I am up to my neck. Nevertheless, everything is a case of point and shoot.
See the attached Item breakdown:
Internal Equipment Invoice – Gringotts England. Note: All prices listed in Galleons
Device: [QTY][Manufacturing Cost][SubTotal]
Mining Laser: [6][600][3,600]
Multi-Torch: [50][350][17,500]
Personal Shield Devices: [30][250][7,500]
High Discharge Lamps: [15][400][6,000]
Total: [34,600]
External (Auction) Equipment Invoice – Gringotts England. Note: All prices listed in Galleons
Device: [QTY][Manufacturing Cost][SubTotal]
Mining Laser: [6][300][1,800]
Multi-Torch: [50][150][7,500]
Personal Shield Devices: [30][250][7,500]
High Discharge Lamps: [15][400][6,000]
Total: [22,800]
Let me know how the sale goes.
Regards,
Harry Potter.
As Lorna had previously suggested, she began to reach out to her network as she carefully planted rumours that would lure Lucius Malfoy out on the morning of Harry's visit to Gringotts on the 21st of December. Harry and Remus continued target practice as Hermione began to dig deeper into the more complex runic arrays. Now her work began to combine arithmancy as she realised that many arithmantic equations could be solved with mathematical equations, and the solutions to these problems in the Wizarding world had not come about because of their poor ability to perform high-level abstraction. Harry once again had a water bottle session insult session, but this time with Draco and Lucius Malfoy. Hermione's mask was now complete and Harry spent the 20th of December practising iconic movie insults:
"You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humour and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick."
"The day I need a friend like you, I'll just have myself a little squat and shit one out."
"I wouldn't live with you if the world were flooded with piss and you lived in a tree."
"Let's face it - and I mean no disrespect - you're a cunt. You're a cunt now, you've always been a cunt and the only thing that's gonna change is you're gonna become an even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids."
"You cock-juggling thundercunt!"
James and Lilly had a good laugh at his antics while King Ragnok simultaneously began squeezing the other Goblin Enclaves for galleons as he negotiated aggressively. Harry in the meanwhile packed up his tools, keyboard interface and any other extras that he would need. Hermione also checked that their vambraces were charged and ready to do.
Tomorrow morning, they would make a spectacle. Magical England was going to meet something brand new.