Chapter 11: The Challenge
"Welcome to another meeting of the Order of the Phoenix", Dumbledore, who looked very well rested, declared. He looked at the members assembled in his office and asked them for their reports. "Severus, you look very smug today. Do you have anything to report?"
Severus changed his expression immediately to his trademark scowl. "I have not been summoned to the Dark Lord's side this week. I have however owled him a whole batch of strengthening solutions. Whatever the Potter brat has done to him, the Dark Lord has not recovered from it yet. There have also not been any attacks planned. About my smug expression earlier," the scowl on his face deepened, "I have received word from Gringotts that someone has bought many of the my charms that I had patented. So now I have a little more funding for my potions research."
"I didn't know you were into spell-crafting, Severus. What type of spells were they?", McGonagall commented.
"My youthful fancy, I am afraid. One of them is an anti-eavesdropping spell that I created. The other is Scourgify that Lily Evans and I had created. How these spells can be used for any profit, I have no idea. Moreover, Scourgify is so well known that I don't think you can regulate its use."
"Must be one of them damn philanthropists who think that spells should not be patented," commented Moody.
"Funny you should say that! I know who bought those spells." Everyone looked at Fleur Delacour for further explanation. "There were some transactions on the Black account and the Goblin told me that the monies were used to buy some patents. It probably has to do with some stipulations in Sirius' will. The Goblin told me that the date of the will reading will be announced very soon. They have a few more things to take care of."
"Never thought Sirius to be a philanthropist," mumbled Bill Weasley and quickly shut up on receiving the glare from his mom.
"Speaking of Gringotts, I have more to report." Fleur continued. "The whole Gringotts has been abuzz with activity for the last week. There is talk of new business coming in, but everyone has been pretty tight-lipped as to the source of it. I did overhear a Goblin talk about microfinance and its impact on wizarding economy. He even threw in a term 'social entrepreneurship' and I have no idea what that means. I can only assume that many small loans have been given out in the last week. There is also talk of Goblins changing their business model in response to deteriorating security conditions of the wizarding world. Does anybody know what that means?"
Everyone in the room had a pensive expression on their face. The headmaster replied, "I guess that the Goblins will have increased security in their lobby. They could be getting ready for war but we will have to wait for more information before we can understand what they mean. Bill did you have anything else to add to what Fleur reported?"
"I don't really deal much with finance, so I would not know anything. Not that it is unusual, but most of the curse breakers were asked not to schedule tomb-site excursions during the last week of August. So I will be in England during that week, in case you need any help with the escort. Also, again not so unusual, Charlie reported that Gringotts bought the whole body of a dragon that had recently died. Gringotts usually buys only the processed hide for its customers."
Albus was happy to have more help for the escort to Kings Cross station. "Thank you Bill. We will need more people for escort this year as we have to pick up Harry from Privet Drive this year. Speaking of Harry, do you have any reports?"
Tonks responded first. "Harry definitely looked much better this week. He seems to have come to terms with his godfather's passing. I am not sure how he will react to Sirius' will reading. I have seen him do a few chores in the garden. I have also see him eat and study. There haven't been any arguments with his relatives. All is truly quiet there."
"That's good to hear Nymphadora. Alastor, I believe you paid a visit to young Harry."
Moody cleared his throat and spoke in his gruff voice. "I paid him a visit alright! The first thing I noticed was that the wards around his home were much stronger. As I approached the door, I was surprised to see another blood ward, much stronger than the one you had cast Albus." Everyone was surprised by this revelation. "So I rang the bell and his aunt called him to check the door. Harry looked very happy when he greeted me and before he invited me in, he made sure that I was who I claimed to be. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! He sure has learnt his lesson well despite what the imposter taught him. He held my hand as we walked into the house, which means that only those who are invited will be able to enter his house."
"Looks like Harry has found a way to keep the Order out. He did say that the Order is not welcome in his home." Albus sighed. "But in a way, he is much safer now that he has acknowledged that place as his home."
"But who cast those blood wards?" Bill enquired.
Moody guffawed. "Harry told me that when Hermione had come to meet him for the meeting with his relatives, she had given him her notes on Blood wards that she had researched in the restricted section. And here is the kicker! Harry bound a house-Elf, Winky, as she was dying for lack of binding. Harry ordered her to read the notes and explain it to him. He then ordered his Elf to cast the ward with his blood, his aunt's blood and Elf's blood." Moody could not help laughing out loud.
Everyone was shocked at the revelation. Moody continued, "Whoever thought that an Elf could cast a blood ward. But then, Harry has always been resourceful."
"Wizards blood, muggle blood and Elf blood. Three bloods, that makes a very powerful ward. Blood ingenious I would say!" commented Bill joining in Moody's laughter.
"But otherwise, how is the poor dear?" enquired Molly.
"He is doing great. He is well fed, thanks to Winky. His room is much cleaner. When I asked him what his friends would say when they know about his house-Elf, Harry exclaimed and I quote, 'Please don't tell Hermione, she will kill me.'" This brought up more chuckles in the room.
"Harry has a magical painting in his room, a scenery showing a huge patch of grass. It seems that occasionally a stag, a grim and a werewolf pop out of their hiding place and chase each other. Harry claimed that he clears his mind by staring at the painting for a couple of hours every day. An artist friend of his, Mr. Thomas painted the it for him before he left Hogwarts."
"Occlumency! That boy does not know anything about clearing his mind. Let alone.." Severus was interrupted by Dumbledore. "Severus, give the boy a chance."
Moody continued as if he had not been interrupted. "We continued talking and it was obvious that he was still pissed at the Order, but he was friendly and respectful towards me. He asked me stories of how I got my scars. He told me that he spent most of his time reading the other books Hermione left him on Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Harry was fascinated by these subjects and wondered why in the world had he chosen divination." Minerva snorted at that. "Harry wants to take his OWLs in those subjects as a home schooled student at the end of this month. It felt as if he was informing me and not asking for our permission."
"Why that ungrateful brat!" Severus seethed. Albus put an end to his tantrum again. "Severus, if the boy wants to take more OWLs, we should encourage him. Alastor, will you be able to escort him for the examinations?"
Moody nodded and the rest of the discussion was on Giant movements, werewolves and vampires.
While the Order meeting was going on at Hogwarts, there was a different kind of meeting going on #4 Privet Drive, more specifically at the Den. Those attending the meeting include all the bonded, Dobby the Elf, Griphook and Ragnok. Winky served all of them refreshments.
"Harry, do you want to hear the updates of what we have been doing before 'The Challenge'?" Ragnok asked.
Griphook had explained that 'The Challenge' was a Goblin custom. The Goblins after assimilating the Goblin magic are given a challenge to come up with two new creative and financially viable solutions for real-world problems. The first solution was more of a theoretical one based on which, the Goblins were judged on analysis and critical thinking abilities. The second solution was to be a more applied one in which the Goblin was required to use the new skills they learnt.
Harry and the witches were very excited to take part in it. They realized that the collective knowledge of wizards/Elven/Goblin magic and wizarding/muggle/Elven/Goblin worlds that they had acquired, was very vast. They also realized that thanks to Goblin Occlumency, they had instant access to that knowledge and information. They had promised each other that they would share any new knowledge each had acquired, every night.
Harry looked at his witches and answered for all of them. "Ragnok, let us hear the updates now. I think we should leave the best for the last."
"We are doing good progress on setting up the Elf Life Foundation and the Welfare of Lycanthropes Foundation. We have acquired some property in Elf Alley and Knockturn Alley for their offices respectively. We haven't worked out the details of how to brew and distribute the Wolfsbane solution yet." Ragnok reported.
"That is excellent! Don't worry about the brewing. I have a solution for that one." Harry commented with a smug smile. The witches looked at him curiously.
"And I might have a solution with the distribution." Susan grinned. "But we will have to wait for the Challenge."
"Moving on, we have acquired a 85% stake in the Daily Prophet. The rest of the 15% is owned by the Longbottom family and Mrs. Longbottom stubbornly refuses to sell it."
"Oh! This is perfect." Harry exclaimed and all the witches joined him in laughter. "Neville Longbottom is a very good friend of mine and we should have no problem convincing her." Harry explained to Ragnok who was confused.
"Moving on, as you may recall, it was decided that your warding company will use seven different types of blood for its wards: muggle, squib, wizards or witches, Elf, Goblin, Basilisk and Dragon. We transported the 81-foot Basilisk and its shed skins from the Chamber of Secrets to a high-security vault in Gringotts. Dobby spelled all the residents of Hogwarts into a charmed sleep and jumped to the Chamber of Secrets based on your memories. After transporting the carcass, we extracted its blood. We also acquired a newly expired Hungarian Horntail from Romania and extracted its blood too. Where muggle or squib blood was not available, we used your uncle's and aunt's blood. Dobby had glamoured as you and paid them 1,000 pounds for a pint of their blood."
"Ha Ha! And they agreed to that?" Harry was more surprised than shocked.
"It was a 'piece of cake'! Anyway, the warding program has been going extremely well. We have 6 teams headed by Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Lee Jordan and the Weasley Twins. I authorized Viperblade's suggestion that we give the others the same deal as we did Ms. Bell. I hope you approve of that. That is about 5,000 galleons more."
"Of course! Do you have any numbers of how many properties have been warded?" Harry enquired.
Ragnok had a big smile on his face. "Each team has had to ward about 13 properties per day. So a total of 81 homes have been warded. They have another 200 candidates identified and we will get them warded soon."
"No wonder I have felt a little weak this week." Harry muttered.
"Actually the Elves have been drawing magic from you, your witches and Dobby. Remember that Dobby can supply magic from his core now. At one point of time, Dobby felt it necessary to draw some magic from Hogwarts herself. Dumbledore noticed the very minimal weaking of the wards, but Dobby was able to give the magic back to Hogwarts during the day. If the school were in session, Hogwarts would have had much more ambient magic and you would hardly have noticed any drain." Ragnok explained.
"By the way, there were 8 students who could not sign the secrecy oath. Do you know what that means?" Ragnok enquired.
Harry sighed. "Yes I do. It means that either the student or someone close in his family is a supporter of Riddle or that the student believes in the pureblood agenda crap. Don't tell the team leaders though. We don't want to raise flags."
"Fair enough. Those students' memories were altered to ensure our operational secrecy. By the way, the twins have worked out who 'their boss' is. Also, they are in awe of the creator of the secrecy oath. They call her the oath goddess." Susan blushed at the praise. Harry chuckled and said, "I expected them to work it out."
"They have postponed their store opening to finish up the warding. They realize that they have a July 31st deadline. I expect that you would want them taking over your other business, '21st Century'?" Rangok asked.
"Sometimes I wonder if there is something you don't know! I am not sure about them handling 21st Century yet." Harry chuckled.
Ragnok smiled. "Onto the next business: wizarding construction. We have received the architectural designs for beach houses on your Caribbean island by the muggle architectural company that is aware of our world. We have also acquired large amounts of lands in Godric's Hollow adjacent to your lands as requested by you. We have bought the muggle homes in the village there at above market price and have obliviated them. They believe that the land was bought for a top-secret government project. We need architectural plans for the homes you want to construct in Godric's Hollow."
"My answer to the challenge should help you with that." Daphne said with a big smile.
"Brilliant, Daphne! I can't wait to see it." Daphne blushed at Harry's compliment.
"Moving on, we were able to acquire most of the patents for the charms you wanted. I think the Minister wants to make a Public Relations Spectacle of the money he demanded for leasing the voting charm. He has demanded 150,000 galleons and wants to claim that he is going to use it to improve the DMLE."
The voting charm was a charm created by Rowena Ravenclaw when the first government was created. All magical population used the charm to vote on important matters. With the nepotism in the Wizengamot and the increase in ignorance of the population, this practice was lost. Though Harry could have claimed the charm's patent by right of lineage, he did not want to out that information. This charm was one of the keys to make the ministry more accountable.
"Why not we hold out on him and appear hesitant? That way we can soften him up before acquiring the rights." Harry mused.
"We have two more items on the agenda before we move onto interesting things. Hogwarts letters are being prepared as we speak. They are sending out more than 250 letters to first years. More than 200 of them to muggle-born students. They expect only 40-50 students to accept next year."
Harry sighed. "We are going to ensure that the numbers are close to atleast 200 this year. Hermione, could you add that to your wonderful planner and come up with a plan?"
"The last update is on Ministry and Hogwarts' Budgets. Griphook will be able to give you a self-updating folder for each along with vault transactions for all high level Ministry and Hogwarts board members."
"Excellent news Ragnok! I can't wait till we take over Daily Prophet and turn it into an honest newspaper." Harry and the witches were very pleased with the results. "Ragnok, how are you managing the increased workload because of the loans?"
Ragnok sighed. "We might have to hire new personnel to manage it. Almost all the Goblins are busy, so we may have to hire wizards."
Harry had a pensive expression on his face for a few seconds before he spoke out. "Ragnok, I may have a solution for your problem. Please hear me out because it goes against how you have been doing business all these years." Ragnok nodded.
"What is the most common business that wizards come to Gringotts for? Withdrawing money from their vaults of course. So if you make sure that wizards don't have to go to their vaults to withdraw money, you will save Goblin personnel who accompany each vault holder to their vault. You can do this by two ways. Either have a teller dispense galleons and deduct it from the respective vaults or distribute more of these money bags to customers so that they need not come to Gringotts to just withdraw money. You save on personnel costs and the customers save on time spent to withdraw money. The 50 galleons charge per money bag is exorbitant when it can be manufactured for less than half a galleon. As such you hardly manage to push one or two customers to buy the money bag every year. Imagine if you price the money bag at 1 galleon and more than 2000 customers buy it? Aren't you making more profit, saving personnel's time and customers' time?"
"It is very rare that I am shocked, Harry. This is one of the best ideas I have heard till date. I shall bring this up to the Goblin council and I am sure it will be implemented. You really are a very good Goblin-friend." Ragnok complimented Harry.
"Oh no! Most of these ideas are that of my witches. They like to sit back and relax as I present them. They are the ones you should compliment." The witches blushed at the praise. "But, as muggles say, 'Hold onto your horses, we aint done yet'." Harry grinned.
Harry continued, "Provided the above has been accepted, here is a scenario. What is the single most reason for death eaters to attack Gringotts? For the gold obviously right?" Ragnok nodded. "Would it increase Gringotts' security if all the galleons, sickles and knuts are removed from each of the vaults and placed in huge vaults on an unknown island? The magic of the money bags will allow withdrawals and deposits and these transactions are recorded and balanced. With enough checks and balance, we can ensure that no frauds occur. Now the advantages of that is that, 1) you need not mint coins in the short term freeing up personnel 2) The personnel need not count coins in each vault for auditing purposes, thus saving time 3) You have more ready cash available for investments and loans and thus more profits."
Ragnok who had been standing all this while, staggered and reached out for a chair to sit on. "What more ideas will you folks cook up? This is amazing! But how will we travel to this island?"
"By magic of course. Using Elven magic, we can create a portal from Gringotts and no one will know the difference unless they come to the surface on the island."
"Amazing! I need to sit down for sometime. Why not we take a few minutes break before we move onto the challenge. I can't wait to see what ideas you have whipped up there." Rangok was grinning. It was truly disconcerting watching a Goblin grin.
"Welcome to the Challenge. Today I have two solutions for common problems we faced, or should I say, I faced in the wizarding world. I would like to do the demonstration part of my challenge first and then discuss the theoretical application in another setting."
Harry wheeled in a table covered with a huge white cloth. "Got to love muggles, tables with wheels!" Ragnok chuckled.
"And here I present you an 'Enchanted potion maker'." And with a flourish Harry whipped our the cloth to reveal a table with a cauldron sitting on a burner on it. There were many cylindrical bottles with ingredients placed in a cubbyhole cabinet on one side of the table. Next to that were various knives, ladles and a large pipette. On the other side of the table was an area with 10 empty vials in a box. Harry walked up to the center of the table, placed his hand on a rune and said "Create 10 vials of Hangover Potion with one dose per vial" and walked back to his chair and sat down.
A few seconds later, there was a protective ward that came up around the table. Pre-determined amount of ingredients flew out of the ingredient jars and the rune-enchanted knives started cutting and dicing them in the exact dimensions given in the recipe. The ingredients that needed to be ground flew into the mortar and the enchanted pestle started to grind them. The others in the room were gobsmacked and watched the process in fascination. It was a like symphony and the instruments working as if being directed by a silent conductor. The burner suddenly lit up and the ingredients started flying into the cauldron in the order they all remembered should happen. The ladle silently lifted itself and stirred the potion the appropriate number of clockwise and anti-clockwise turns. The burner regulated the temperature based on the thermometer readings.
At the exact time when it was supposed to be done, all activity ceased. The burner turned off and the ladle shook itself and was out of the cauldron. The pipette raised itself and carefully transferred 30 ml of the solution in each of the ten vials. As soon as this was done, there was a sudden bright light and all the knives, cutting surfaces, cauldron, ladles, mortar, pestle and pipette were magically cleaned and the ward disappeared. The only evidence of any activity was the box of 10 vials of perfectly colored Hangover Potion.
Harry walked up to dias and asked, "So any questions?"
The witches, Elves and Goblins were still in a state of shock. Hermione was the first to break the silence, "Harry, do you realize that you have done the impossible?"
"I know I am not as good as you at potions Hermione, but sometimes I get lucky at creating the perfect potion." Harry joked.
"Not that you dufus! It is impossible to enchant anything to do so many tasks in a sequential order! Didn't you know that?" Hermione yelled frustrated.
"Is this your excuse to get out of NEWT potions Harry?" Daphne quipped and the whole room was rolling in laughter.
"So how did you do it?" Ragnok asked.
"There is nothing impossible with enchanting each instrument to do a single job right?" Harry explained. "It is pretty easy to charm a knife to cut what is on the table. It is easy to enchant the burner to turn on and turn off. What I used was something that my mother created. It is called a Magical Construct. Imagine it as a piece of parchment on which you write detailed instructions, i.e. a series of steps, with one enchantment per step. Then you set a power-rune to do all these steps in the magical construct. You can also have conditional steps, i.e. you can ask the construct to do exactly what you want to do at the exact time under the exact conditions. Pretty simple actually once you understand it. It has just never been done on potions equipment before."
"So it has been done on something else?" enquired Hermione.
"You never miss anything do you, Hermione?" Harry grinned. "Of course it has been done. The result is 'the Marauders Map'." Harry accioed the map from his room, tapped the parchment and the map of Hogwarts activated itself. "Silent incantations! I am impressed Harry!" remarked Hermione and Harry grinned further.
"Anyway, now that you have seen this work, do we really need potions masters to brew Wolfsbane for us? Heck, we could even open a potions factory and create and sell every potion. They will always be perfect." The Goblin's ears perked at the sound of a newer business. "We could wreck the lives of the death eater potion masters. The other good ones will be free to do research and create better and newer potions."
"Harry, if you could add an Arithmantic probe to the cauldron, we could probably be able to tweak all existing potions to taste and work better." Daphne remarked.
"Arithmancy of Potions? No idea what you mean! But if you can make any healing potion taste better, I will personally certify you as a genius!" Daphne blushed at the praise.
"Now onto my first part of the challenge, imagine using this magical construct on broomsticks or even portkeys. The portkeys are simple to explain. Based on the criteria, the construct will decide where and when the subject needs to be portkeyed. The broomstick is a little more complicated. The construct can automatically fix damaged or broken twigs, wax the broom, adjust to single or multiuser broom, apply and remove acceleration, braking, balance charms to name a few. You will never have to worry about the broom becoming old or charms fading. The broomsticks can automatically shrink and expand when required. My next project will be to collaborate with a broomstick designer to create the ultimate broom. Anybody we can tempt away from Nimbus, Firebolt or Cleansweep?"
Ragnok laughed and said, "I will see what I can do. But that was amazing! I have never seen a solution like this."
"Hold your horses Ragnok, wait till the ladies finish. My ideas will seem too pedestrian once they are done." Harry laughed. He was hugged and kissed by each of his witches for a job well done.
It was Luna's turn next. "I am going to present my theoretical solution first as the practical demonstration is more of an early birthday present to Harry." Luna said in her characteristic dreamy voice. "Now, which muggle disease does Lycanthropy closely resemble in physiology? Any guesses?"
Seeing the confused looks on the audience, Luna asked, "How about Canine Rabies? Does anyone know what happens in Rabies? Before Hermione starts on a lecture on Rabies, let me explain." Everyone chuckled while Hermione scowled. "Aww Hermione, you know I love you," Luna said dreamily.
"When a dog is bitten by a rabid dog, the germs that are there in the saliva of the rabid dog are injected into the tissue that has been bitten. From here the germs travel through the nerves to the brain of the dog that has been bitten. These germs then take over parts of the brain that cause aggression and biting behavior in the bitten dog. The germs also travel to the salivary glands and multiply. So when the bitten dog shows aggressive behavior and bites other dogs and animals, the germs in the saliva get transferred to other animals or humans."
"Now, comparing rabies and Lycanthropy, both are transmitted through saliva and bites. Both animals tend to become aggressive. The difference is that lycanthropes become aggressive only during full moon, and full moon is a trigger. I tried to find the history of werewolves and unfortunately I didn't have much luck. What if a wolf Animagus was bitten by a rabid dog or cursed by his enemy to create the first werewolf?"
Everyone was deep in thought considering the possibilities of such a theory. "Now, how do Muggles treat rabies? Muggle scientists injected small amounts of the germ into horses so that they produce something called antibodies in their blood that kill the germs. The scientists extracted the antibodies from these horses and purified them as a cure. This cure is injected into humans who have been bitten by rabid dogs, thus killing the germs from the bite. While the mortality of humans bitten by rabid dogs untreated is 100%, the mortality from treated bites is significantly low."
"So why not we collect some werewolf saliva and send it to a muggle lab and ask them to create the antibodies for us? We could then try to inject it into werewolves and see if it can kill the germs in their saliva, thus rendering them non-infective? Maybe the aggression will also come down and we will be able to break the lunar curse. In the meantime, maybe we can create a potion that makes the transformation painless. We could look at Animagus transformations potions to see if there is a solution." Luna asked looking at Daphne.
The audience stood up and gave Luna a standing ovation! "That was awesome Luna! What about your practical solution?" Harry asked. Luna pulled out a box from her pocket and gave it to Harry. "Its time to bring out the color in those beautiful eyes Harry! Harry Birthday" Luna hugged him and gave a kiss.
Harry opened the box to find a pair of contact lenses. "Magical contact lenses Harry. They have all the charms like Mad-eyes magic eye. After all, most of those charms were invented by my mother."
"Woo hoo! I have always wanted contact lenses!" Harry squealed. Luna handed similar boxes to the other witches too. "We can't let Harry have all the fun, can we?" She asked with a smile.
Hermione walked onto the stage next and wheeled in another table with wheels covered by a large white cloth. "My practical part is pretty simple. If you will indulge me a little." She pulled out her wand and put it to her temple and extracted a memory. She placed the memory on an Elven memory orb which absorbed it immediately. She placed the memory orb in the center of a circular plate which had a groove to support the orb. The plate had many runes etched on it. She walked over to the table on the stage and removed the white cloth to reveal a large rectangular black box. She walked back to her chair holding the circular plate and activated a rune. "Enjoy!" was all she said.
Suddenly the black box came alive and started showing the crowd the events that lead to the Golden trio saving the philosopher's stone. 20 minutes later, the audience stood up and gave her a standing ovation. "Now, we can make it much better thanks to Harry's magical construct. Imagine we use this to create an audio-visual distribution of news, Quidditch, lessons, warnings, anything! I present to you the prototype of magical television called 'Wizion'."
"Hermione's demonstration is going to tie in so well with what I have to demonstrate". Susan said as she walked up to the table on the Dias and placed a mat on it. She then walked up to each person in the room and placed a similar mat in front of them. She went back to the table on the dias and conjured a heart-shaped cushion and placed it on her mat. She tapped the mat with her wand and said 'Send To Harry'. The next moment the cushion disappeared from her mat and reappeared on the mat in front of Harry. The audience were suddenly excited. Harry whipped out his wand and tapped the mat and said 'Send To Ragnok' and it appeared on the mat in front of Ragnok.
"Now imagine Hermione's invention and make it a virtual shopping network that uses my invention to move merchandise around."
The room suddenly went silent. There was pin-drop silence in the room. Ragnok shook his head said, "I have had too many mental concepts broken today! You mean, you want to sell your merchandize without having a shop and not meeting customers. And your invention will let you do it!"
"Of course!" Susan grinned. "Imagine the number of things I can easily shop for! But to give credit Ragnok, this concept is a muggle invention called Internet shopping. The Internet stores mail the merchandize. Hey, We can use this method to move our post too. We wont have to worry about our owls being intercepted."
"You could also use these runes to distribute Wolfsbane potion without actually having to meet the Lycanthropes ." Hermione exclaimed and Susan nodded, her face adorned with a big grin.
"Now for my theoretical aspect. I actually have worked it out practically, at least a little." She transfigured the cushion into a small turtle. Then she tapped the mat with her wand and said 'Send To Hermione'. The turtle disappeared and reappeared in front of Hermione. "Here is an alternative to Flooing! Harry would love this. No more falling on your face." Susan sniggered. "I haven't worked out all the runes for transporting heavier animals yet. These runes are powered by dragon blood. So we will need a lot of it if we are going to start a new business."
The audience were stunned at the alternative to flooing. That means it was yet another thing that the ministry was going to lose control over. They all stood up and gave her a standing ovation.
Daphne walked up to the stage and said, "I will show you the practical solution first and save the best for last." She carried a plate and placed it the table on the Dias. "Come on over, we are going to take a tour of my home before it was destroyed." She touched a rune and activated it. Suddenly a holographic miniature model of a house sprung up. "Touch the plate anywhere and say 'Let me in'." When everyone did that, they felt a sucking sensation and they were transported into the architectural pensieve. They took their time looking around the house and appreciating the beauty of the house. "To get out, just say 'Let me out'", instructed Daphne.
"That was amazing Daphne! It will make our construction business much easier. Can you modify the house while you are in there?" Daphne nodded.
"If this was not the best, I wonder what your theoretical solution woul be! That was amazing." Hermione, Luna and Susan complimented Daphne.
"Okay, now for my theoretical solution!" Daphne grinned! Everyone looked at her excitedly!
"Harry, could you please conjure a snake and tell it not to attack anyone?" Daphne requested.
Wondering what it was all about, Harry did as she requested. She looked at the snake and said in English, "Hello snake, do you understand me?" Not receiving a response, she looked at her audience and said, "Obviously no response as I am not a Parseltongue. Now, wait a minute." She closed her eyes and went into a meditative trance. She opened her eyes and with a smile looked at the snake and spoke in Parseltongue, "Hello snake, do you understand me?" Now the snake responded with a hiss.
"BLOODY HELL!" exclaimed Harry jumping out of his chair. "How did it happen?"
"Hold on, Harry!" Daphne joked. "I am not done yet!" She again closed her eyes and went into a meditative trance and a few minutes later, she opened her eyes. She looked at the snake and spoke perfect English, "You don't understand me now, do you?"
Everyone was gob smacked at what Daphne had done. "How?" was the only word they could vocalize.
"Well, here is the explanation. Do you remember when we learnt Goblin Occlumency from Griphook, we saw multiple colors in our magic core and then created windows of them in our meeting rooms?" Everyone nodded. "It so happens that each of those colored magics are some trait that we inherit or acquire. One of the colored magics in Harry's core was the knowledge of Parseltongue. Since we all share our magic cores with Harry, I went to Harry's meeting room, and swam out into his magic through his window and willed my magic to replicate it in my core. And lo! I had the ability to speak Parseltongue."
"But it still does not explain how you could shut it off." Hermione asked.
"Good point Hermione! What I did was applied a binding on the Parseltongue magic that I duplicated in my core and I am able to open and close this binding at will. So what does that mean?" Daphne asked a rhetorical question. "What it means is that, werewolves and Veela could be able to control their werewolf transformation magic and Veela allure magic if we teach them Goblin Occlumency. We could teach this to the house Elves and see if they can will their bindings be broken."
"MERLIN! That is amazing!" Everyone spontaneously stood up and gave her a long standing ovation. Daphne blushed at the praise. "Ragnok, can we license both the Goblin knowledge potion recipe and Goblin Occlumency techniques for use to improve our world?"
Ragnok was still speechless. He shook his head as if to rearrange the cells in his brain. "I will ask the council. They should be willing if you offer them more business or more gold. I think I need to go back and sip some Goblin liquor. Today was a crazy day for me! You all are amazing. Harry, before I leave, the centaurs of the forbidden forest wanted to meet you. You may send a house-Elf to arrange the best time to meet them. Don't send Dobby as he cannot be a messenger."
"Thank you Ragnok! It was a pleasure having you over."