Chapter Thirteen: A Toad
I got to go home later that evening, after a Healer had grudgingly pronounced me well enough to leave. Of course, I still looked fairly awful, with a terrifically black eye and some freshly healing cuts, as well as a bit of receding swell on my jaw. I'd look fine in about three hours, as the various potions and spells took effect. Those things do take time, but I didn't mind looking awful for a few hours, as long as I got home sooner. Normally they prefer it if you stick around until all the bruises and such are gone, but I was really rather worried about the shop. I also worried that the twins had gotten in touch with my relatives.
They had.
"Jamesina! Are you quite alright?" It was Uncle Gard, running down the steps by the open door as Charlie and I appeared. I was walking perfectly well, incidentally, but he still looked fairly white.
"I'm fine, Uncle! How's the shop?"
"You're worried about the shop? We were terrified!" He took me by each of my hands, inspecting them and then my face, which still had a lot of purple in it, and frowned. "Jims, this is bad…the Healers let you out?"
"I asked to be released as soon as possible. The bruises are fading now."
"Fading! My only niece looks like an eggplant and the bruises are fading, she says!" Charlie looked a little startled by Uncle Gard, but then, most people do. "We just arrived a minute or two ago. Your father and Pop are here, looking into things," he remarked, lowering his voice. "Keep stiff the lip, Jims, and it'll be alright." Charlie looked from my uncle to me and back, confused. "How bad is it, really?" Uncle Gard whispered.
"I'm fine," I nearly hissed, then smiled cautiously. Uncle Gard noticed the redheaded man with me and grinned.
"You must be Charlie, then. Go in with Jims, it'll look better."
We headed in, then, but not before Charlie whispered in my ear:
"Look better?"
"They might be scared to leave me here. Make your presence known." I left the door open behind us for my uncle, walking in as coolly as I could. "Hallo, all! I'm back."
"Jamesina," my father greeted, looking grim and, as usual, staring at my hands. "We have been worried. Are you quite alright?"
Uh-oh. Formality never boded well.
There were two kinds of meetings in my family. One was the calm, colloquial, friendly family dinner, in which business was mentioned only in cheerful anecdotes. We were relatives at such gatherings. The other was the Business Meeting, at which we were business partners and associates. We were colleagues then. Things were usually as polite as possible, but on occasion sharp words were used, which were then forgiven under the doctrine of 'it's business, not personal.' It was how Jas. W. Tickes and Sons had functioned from 1789 onward, and I had grown up with it. We were a business as much as a family.
My only fear was that the Weasleys, whose family seemed to operate solely on affection, would mistake the calculated order of Business Meetings for familial unfeeling. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. The entrance of Molly Weasley from my small kitchen interrupted said Meeting quite efficiently.
"Jessie, dear! Your face! Are you alright? For heavens' sake, someone get the poor girl a chair! Disgraceful, that's what I call it! And where were the Aurors when this happened? No security at all!"
"I've got your sons, Mrs. Weasley," I pointed out, knowing that she was hurting my argument terribly. If Grandfather and Dad decided it was too dangerous for me to keep up the shop alone…well… "Bill and Charlie were over here before I could so much as call for 'em."
"And a good job they were there, but still! If Cornelius Fudge had devoted half the time he spent researching ways to suppress sources speaking on You-Know-Who to improving civic protection, the boys might not have had to come help you!" She then gave me one of the nicest, and most Ginnyesque smiles I have ever seen from someone besides Ginny. "Not that you really needed them, as I heard the tale. A Bludger-bat…"
"What's this of a bat, Mrs. Weasley?" Grandfather inquired, a smile turning up the ends of his long moustache. I caught a glimpse over her shoulder at Uncle Gard, whose moustache-ends were even higher.
"My twins told me that little Jessie defended her shop tooth and nail, and when teeth and nails gave out, she bashed in the masks of those Death Eaters with Fred's old Bludger-bat."
"It's true, sir," Charlie spoke up. "She might have killed them if they hadn't been hiding behind masks like cowards, sir."
Grandfather looked at me.
"Jamesina, is this true?"
"I…I did hit them…and it was with the bat…"
"How are your hexes, Jims?" Uncle Gard inquired.
"Fairly good. The boys have taught me some new since school."
"You think you can protect yourself and the shop, Jamesina?" my father asked, still looking determinedly at his hands.
"With my friends around? Of course I can."
"And us!" The piping voice of Tonks chirped in from the kitchen. She had a brownie in her hand and a smudge of chocolate above her lip. Her hair had gone a kind of depressingly mousy shade, but she was still the Auror we knew and liked. "Since this incident, it's been decided that at least four Aurors will be present in Diagon Alley at any given time. We'd like more, but that …requires a dispensation from the Chamber of Commerce to finance it." Grandfather chuckled.
"Well, what's preventing that? Jamesina, you're involved with the Chamber."
"On the lower floor."
"What was that?"
George repeated himself:
"On the lower floor, sir. It's bicameral now…those who rent premises are the lower floor, and only those who own their shops can run for elected seats."
"Is that how it is, then?" Grandfather frowned and tugged his lack of a beard. Men in my family tended to go clean-shaven until age twenty-five, as was the old-time custom in the Alleys, then add a kind of curl-ended moustache in addition to the long sideburns still in fashion among gents of the trade professions. Ian, as a Quidditch player, was clean-shaven and kept his sideburns to a more modern length, whereas my father had only trimmed the beard grown during his mourning into a sensible style for courting my stepmother and thereafter. When I was a little girl, he had resembled a bear or a convict more than a clocksmith, what little I'd seen of him. Grandfather had simply forgone the beard, as he insisted it caught crumbs, yet he would still occasionally pull at his chin as if he did have one. "Jamesina, how old are you again? Twenty? Or is that –yes, next week is your birthday. I think that's quite old enough, don't you, Gardner?" Uncle Gard nodded enthusiastically.
"She's had wonderful figures so far, she protects the premises beautifully, and frankly, I don't think my waistcoat could stand it if we called Jims home. Between your daughter and your wife, James, it's really a miracle you aren't as fat as Father Christmas." My father looked tense and grim. Uncle Gard grinned, a smudge of brownie on his moustache as he took a second bite. "Eif' feller da fop fa' batch a'dese bowwies," he observed incoherently.
"Erm…all good points, Gardner. Well, now, Jamesina, let's have a look at the accounts. Master ledger, if you please."
Obediently, I brought the master ledger, a fat old tome dating back to some seven months prior to the opening of the Diagon Alley premises, and opened it to the most recent page. The figure at the bottom in black was a nicely impressive one, I thought, but I hadn't really taken the time to compare it to previous notations. Grandfather looked at it, permitting a raise of the eyebrows that told me nothing, and then read slowly backwards through some several pages to the spidery note: 'Under New Management –Jamesina Worthing Tickes, IV,' that marked my takeover as manager of the Diagon Alley premises. I hoped the figures were suitable…if sales were down, I would be back in Hogsmeade talking to old ladies and making sure students didn't try to nick things on weekends. It would mean having to endure the dubious company of my father, the cute but sometimes-maddening baby twins, and my well-meaning stepmother, whose company I try somewhat to limit. I did not want to go home.
I think this is usually the point where people say that my family and I have issues. Permit me to elucidate this as clearly as possible so the topic can be avoided in the future: Yes. We do. Get over it. It has nothing to do with the business of the shops or the state of our craft and is therefore of pitifully little importance, especially to those persons whose business it most decidedly isn't.
Anyway.
"Jamesina, your figures are very good. I might even go so far as to say remarkable." My cheeks warmed from Grandfather's praise. "As to the aspect of craft…Mr. Weasley, what would you say is your favorite item my granddaughter has designed?"
Charlie smiled. I liked him so much for staying calm. It was a weird situation.
"That's simple, sir. My brothers gave me a Tickes watch last Christmas that Jessie designed. I've worn it ever since." He obligingly undid and removed his fireproof dragon watch, handing it over to Grandfather, who eyed it speculatively through a glass.
"Any special features?"
"Fireproof, sir, also it doesn't conduct heat, which is a great convenience working with the dragon colonies in Romania…and also when barbecuing, which is a little more common, I expect. The hands and marks can be made to glow in the dark by pressing the knob there, and it winds very smoothly. It also happens to be quite exactly my size –I don't know if that's remarkable for a Tickes watch, but it is for every other watch I've ever seen."
"You are fond of it?"
"Immensely, sir. It's never been wrong, even though I've once or twice forgotten to wind it, I'm certain, and the design is such that it looks good with work clothes or formalwear."
"Did you like it from the outset?"
"Yes, of course, sir…who wouldn't?"
"Quite incidentally, when did you return from Romania?"
'Why on earth would Grandfather want to know that?' I wondered.
"Just some weeks past, sir."
"And you are living across the Alley with your brothers?"
"Yes, for the next few months, perhaps a year or two. I'm writing a novel, and working for the twins in the meantime."
"Why not the dragons?"
"Funding cuts, for some part, sir. I'm of more help to the dragons here, drumming up interest with another book. That, and I have some…family commitments in London for the moment."
"You're a Potterist, aren't you?"
"Granddad!" I snapped suddenly. It was a surprising question, and a little unfair.
"Yes, sir, I do side with Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter in the matter of You-Know-Who. It's no secret."
Mrs. Weasley looked about to say something, but Grandfather's tone had grown serious.
"I understand that you and your brothers are on friendly terms with my granddaughter. Are you acquainted with the Tickes tradition of neutrality?"
"I have heard rumors, sir."
"Well, Mr. Weasley, the truth of the matter is that Tickes do not take sides in international conflicts. Long ago, our ancestors lost a relative in a war, and ever since we have stayed out of them. Cowardly, perhaps, but quite prudent, considering." I could tell Charlie was about to protest; likely that I could do whatever I wanted, being of age and all, but Granddad continued: "With this in mind, and considering that You-Know-Who has primarily concentrated his efforts within Britain and without the involvement of international governments…are you prepared, as a friend, to live across the street from Jas. W. Tickes and Sons under Jamesina's management?"
"Quite, sir. But doesn't she already manage…?"
"Yes, but she is currently an associate partner in the firm. There is a great difference." The old man turned to me then. "Jamesina, have you budgeted any funds for a greater share?"
"I have." Bargaining time.
"The value of the land parcel, the building, and the storefront is some twenty-one thousand Galleons. The Firm owns the land, leaving the cost of the shop itself at approximately ten thousand. Given your productivity of the past year, your current share in Jas. W. Tickes and Sons is worth about thirty-nine percent of the annual bottom line. If you can afford a stock purchase of …oh, nineteen thousand Galleons…then you would own the shop."
"Fifteen. The market is terrible with You-Know-Who on the loose. Anyone who can afford a good timepiece is too busy fortifying their home against Death Eaters."
"Eighteen-fifty. Your designs are outselling the classics in some markets and your diversification is bringing in more than the James Tickes Standard in either metal, not to mention the potential for postwar boom. It's a buyer's market."
"Sixteen. The postwar boom could take years and in the meantime there could be a severe civil conflict."
"Seventeen. You're an upstart apprentice with two black eyes."
"Sixteen-fifty. You're an outdated old coot with a fluffy moustache."
"Sixteen-seventy-five, chit."
"Sixteen-sixty, codger."
"Done, then." Granddad pulled a piece of parchment out of a drawer and wrote out my managerial certification for Gringotts as I wrote the check for the stock purchase, then pulled out the shop's deed from his coat pocket and handed it to me as I gave him the check. "The shop is yours, Jamesina. You're a full partner. And about blessed time."
"Precocious creature. I was twenty-one when I got partner," Uncle Gard observed.
"I was seventeen, but I was fully twenty-five before I managed a fireproof like this beauty. Your watch, Mr. Weasley," he smiled, handing Charlie's watch back to him. "Now, Jims, I really must inquire…are there any more brownies?" I got the plateful and Granddad took one eagerly before Mrs. Weasley interjected:
"Just a moment, Mr. Tickes. You two were insulting each other just a moment ago…"
"It's business," Granddad explained.
"Not personal," I finished.
"The Firm has to function as a business. The family has to function as a family. Just because the exact same people are involved does not mean there are not two separate and entirely different entities." Granddad took a bite of brownie and sighed with pure, chocolate-induced delight. "Odd's fish, these are good. It does tend to startle people, the way we conduct business meetings…yes. Poor Siobhan thought we were simply mad the first meeting she sat in on –of course, Gardner did call James a green-eyed nitwit, but then, he had ordered the wrong grain solder for the fourth time in a month, and my late mother Jamesina called me an incompetent nitwit and suggested buying a house-elf to do my job. As I remember it, Gardner had quite the chortle over that, and then James had to explain things to his poor girlfriend…good times!" Granddad can be a little…unusual. Did I mention that? "The point is, Mrs. Weasley, that we never do mean what we say in a business meeting as anything personal. It's all forgotten after the meeting ends –or as soon as we get brownies. Honestly, Jims, what on earth do you put in them?"
"I didn't use baking chocolate this time, that might be it."
"They're smoother. I like them."
"Bloody brilliant, Jess," one of the twins observed. "We were kind of wondering why the oven timer went off after Bill and Charlie took you to St. Mungo's."
"So it was you got them out? Good job, there. I was getting a bit worried about the lot burning. Burnt chocolate smells something dreadful." I got out a little bucket of ice cream and began spooning it into dishes. "Anyone want some vanilla-fudge-whatsit to go with?"
"That sounds nice."
"I'll have some."
"Count me in for a bit, Jims," Granddad agreed, moving the chairs toward the table with the twins. "Sorry, but I don't believe I've ever gotten it straight –which of you is Fred, and which is George? It must be splendid to look alike –each can blame the other and noone ever gets punished."
"I'm Fred, sir."
"And I'm George."
"Yes, you are. For once they've not switched on you." I handed each twin a dish of ice cream and Charlie grinned at me.
"She can tell them apart. I'm their brother and I can't sometimes."
"I'm their mother and they've pulled the switch on me. How do you do it?"
"It's really very simple, Mrs. Weasley." I leaned near her and whispered the secret in her ear. Would you believe she laughed? "Has everyone seen the redecoration in Knockturn Alley? Ruddy clever, those Easter Eggs."
"About that! Jamesina, you know the Redfern sisters, don't you? They were in your year at Hogwarts, mother's American…" Uncle Gard gestured, running out of details.
"Yes. I was over their shop less'n a week ago. See them all the time."
"You didn't look at the merchandise, I take it?" I shook my head.
"No. We were a bit busy at the time." Mrs. Weasley and Tonks had begun discussing the owl perch with Grandfather, and Bill was admiring the twins' newest clockwork toy, which I had been helping with. "What's wrong?"
"We think that there have been a few Tickes watches sold to them. If you wouldn't mind getting them back…" Charlie looked away, but I sensed he could still hear what my uncle was saying. "Stolen goods. And easily four generations old, counting you. They belong to the heir, of course, but considering the inheritance, you may need to …clean them up before you post them home."
"Of course! Mel mentioned that they'd been getting watches in; I was going to appraise for them on commission for spare money. So…some stolen inheritance?"
"I had the most interesting owl the other day," Uncle Gard observed, laying a finger beside his nose and speaking in a change-of-subject tone. "Headmaster Dumbledore wanted me to let him know if anyone was caught nicking, for discipline. He does like order." Then he winked at me. "You know what to watch for, Jims. Oh, and Severus Snape sent us an owl, too. He'll do the alchemic that Pop wanted."
I nodded and grinned. Uncle Gard and I have always understood each other perfectly. Dung Fletcher must have really loused up…I wondered whose watch he'd got. And the praise from Professor Snape probably impressed Grandfather a lot. They know each other fairly well –I wouldn't say Snape's a family friend, as my father hates him for some reason and my brother once flunked his class, but he does get on well with Grandfather. That, and praise doesn't exactly flow from the Head of Slytherin, if you know what I mean. I think I can remember two comments addressed toward me that weren't negative in all my years at school. One of them was 'I see you've mended it,' referring to an alarm clock he assigned as my detention, and the other was 'That was faster than I expected,' when I fixed a Snitch for Slytherin's Quidditch practice. He may very well be a perfectly nice person. I just haven't seen any proof of it.
"Would anyone care for some hot chocolate? It's a little bit cold outside."
"I'll get it, Jess," Charlie smiled, taking the kettle from me and filling it. "Rest your arm a bit."
"What I don't understand, though," Grandfather was talking with Mrs. Weasley, "is where all the arrests are coming from. Sure, the fellow from Knockturn might've been a bit dodgy, but Stan Shunpike? That boy couldn't wind his own watch! Scrimgeour's mad if he thinks this will improve morale, this martial-law attitude."
"I think it's a shame. Of course, almost anyone is an improvement on Cornelius Fudge."
"Oh, yes. I swear, our Jims has designed more intelligent buckles than that idiot. By the by, those little Pygmy Puffs your boys have –my little grandsons adore them. And their clockwork mice! Delightful!"
"Your granddaughter helped with those! I have one, but it offended Hermione's cat last summer, so it's currently unwound…"
"Well, they are meant to offend the cats, I think, though our Quintus is so blessed lazy, it's about time something chased him a little bit. Getting fat, you know, dreadfully bad for cats. It's my grandsons –they've been feeding him anything they don't like. We can never catch them at it, and they're twins, so if we aren't sure which one's guilty, we have to let both go. I've thought of punishing both…will the one rat the other out?"
"Nope! Every time I tried to punish my pair, they just kept mum and stood in the corner together, chattering in twin-speak."
"Yours did that, too? Robby and Davy have maybe a sentence in English each, but they jabber on in that little code of theirs…"
"That's said to be common in toddler twins. I'm still none too certain Fred and George aren't still using theirs-"
"Jims used to have an imaginary friend she talked to in her own language…"
"So did Charlie, only his was a pretend friendly dragon called Box."
"Jims' was a unicorn that turned invisible if we looked. She told us that was why we couldn't see him."
"Ginny had a toy unicorn!"
During all this, Fred, George, Charlie and I ate brownies, avoiding each other's eyes. Bill, Tonks and Uncle Gard tried not to snort, while my father quietly slipped out and left with some Floo powder.
"Really? Gardner's favorite was an enormous stuffed toad with a jingle-bell in its belly called Mr. Tinks."
"Bill had a toad like that. I finally cast Silencio on the bell, but he cried, so I had to take it off-"
Now everyone but Tonks looked uncomfortable as the two nattered on. For her part, she accepted a fifth brownie and tried her best to be ladylike, though Mr. Tinks resulted in her burying her face in a napkin out of mirth. The grownups seemed perfectly oblivious to how awful they were being…but then, it's nowhere close to the first time this sort of nonsense has occurred. I think everyone must endure at least one session of parent-y nattering before the age of twenty or else they don't blush enough and their heads explode. It's all for our own good…or something.
But the evening was better after that. My father'd left.