Chapter 17

September 1st happened, as it is wont to do. Time and all that stuff.

Shlomi and Ziad took a bus to King's Cross station, where Ziad had to figure out how the bloody hell to get back onto Platform 9 ¾. See, he had gotten off the train at the end of last year, but he had not taken the train to Hogwarts, as he had been side-along apparated there in rather a hurry by a harried professor Sprout one evening the previous November.

So it was with great relief that he saw some poorly-dressed people walking through a wall.

"There it is!" he said.

"What?" said Shlomi.

"The entrance."

"Where?"

Ziad pointed.

"What, the wall?"

"Yeah. You walk through it."

Shlomi looked rather skeptical.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Another group of poorly dressed 'muggles' sauntered through the wall, pulling or pushing luggage trolleys along with them.

"You see, where those people are disappearing through the wall? I can't believe you can't see it. It's literally- look! Somebody just walked through a wall right in front of you!"

"Nope."

Ziad was perplexed.

"Must be some magical thing," muttered Shlomi.

"Probably. Which would, if a logical progression is followed, would present us with the problem of whether or not you can actually travel through the barrier."

"Hmm... Well I suppose you are physically and mentally capable of getting on a train without my help?"

"I should hope so."

"Good."

Ziad and Shlomi bid their farewells. They exchanged a very masculine bro-hug, and one single solitary tear fell down Ziad's cheek.

"See you, bro," sniffed Shlomi.

"If you have any more weapons you need to sell, just hit me up, okay?" Ziad sniffed back.

"Yeah, of course. You got the money on you?"

Ziad patted the suitcase, still stuffed with money.

"Yeah. I'll... I'll write you, okay?"

"Cool."

They put their hands in their pockets and scuffed their feet.

"Well..."

"Yeah..."

"Um..."

"I'll see you, then?"

"Yeah."

"Bye, Shlomi."

"Bye, Ziad."

Ziad turned and pushed the trolley loaded with his fashionable new wardrobe and several hundred thousand galleons through the barrier and onto Platform 9 ¾.

Ziad had arrived at the station somewhat earlier than most, so he was able to find a rare empty compartment on the train. His bag of money occupied most of the seat next to him.

It made a satisfying clink noise when he set his book on top of it.

"Are these seats taken?"

Ziad looked up and smiled.

"Hey, Parvati. Hey Padma."

The twins sat down across from him.

"I guess you're not dead, then?" began Parvati.

"What the hell happened?" Padma continued.

Ziad leaned back and sighed. "It's a long story. Before I tell it, though, I'd like you two to swear that you won't tell everybody, because some of it is pretty embarrassing. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

So Ziad told them the story of his summer after the bus-bombing. He left out a lot, because somehow he felt that his becoming an international arms dealer, among other things, just wouldn't ingratiate him with the two people he actually had sort of been friends with last year.

On the other hand, he did embellish certain aspects. Instead of a terrifying, quick, and confusing affair, Ziad described the gunfight in Lebanon as something out of a Sylvester Stallone movie. Lots more one-handed machine-gunning and ripped sleeveless shirts.

The twins were, thankfully, sufficiently wowed by his summer that they went to sleep when he was monologuing about the benefits of Galil assault rifles used by the Israelis versus the Kalashnikovs used by the Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

Unfortunately for Ziad, a certain blonde Slytherin decided it would be funny to enter the compartment while Parvati spoke of the Patil's summer.

"Oh, hello. It's the brown bunch, is it?" he sneered, his two fit flunkies flanking him.

"You know, Malfoy, you're the only wizard I've met who's racist. Why is that?" Parvati said.

"Because I actually know things about your people that would make your hair curl."

Ziad laughed. "I'm sure you know more about us than we do. Care to expound?" He rested his arm on his money-bag. A bad idea, as it turned out.

The bag went clink.

"Oh, shit."

"What's in the bag?"

Malfoy lunged for the aforementioned bag, and reached it before Ziad could. His minions entered the compartment and pinned Ziad to the window.

Malfoy unzipped the bag and gasped, all pretense and sneering suddenly gone in the face of an impressive amount of cash.

"Bloody hell..."

"I obtained that money through legal means!" Ziad shouted around Crabbe's stranglehold.

"Sure you did." Malfoy dumped the money out onto the floor. It formed quite a large pile, and even spilled out into the corridor.

"I believe that I, Draco Malfoy, will have to confiscate this money in order to present it to the Ministry. I think they would want to hear about the crimes you surely committed to obtain such a large sum."

Malfoy began greedily scooping the money into his pockets, and was, unfortunately for them, followed by his minions. The three Slytherins fumbled around on the floor until they realized their tactically unsound position.

This weakness was quickly exploited by two stunners (from the Patil twins) and a kick (from Ziad).

"Well, that solves that."

Parvati and Padma turned their attention from the sunken Slytherins to Ziad.

"Why the hell do you have all this money? I think you left that out of your little speech."

Ziad swept all the money back into his suitcase (which took quite some time) before replying.

"Well, let's just say I sold missiles to the IRA and leave it at that."

"What?"

"I'll leave it up to you to figure that one out."

Ziad shoved the Slytherins out into the hall. Malfoy, his nose now broken due to getting unfortunately close to Ziad's shoe really quickly, groaned and gripped his bleeding face before Parvati hit him with a stunner.

The rest of the journey passed largely without incident. Harry Potter did stop by, looking like he was trying to be stealthy (and therefore failing miserably), and asked why Malfoy was lying on the ground with blood all over his face. He left soon after Ziad told him of their violent encounter, stopping only to hover over Malfoy's sleeve for a minute. Harry rolled it back, gasped at something, rolled it back down, and quickly walked away.

"Do you know what that was about?" asked Padma.

"Nope." answered Parvati, before turning back to Ziad. "I'm going to want to know why you're walking around with a bloody fortune in a suitcase. You better tell me eventually, or we're no longer friends."

Ziad sighed. He was conflicted. On one hand, he wanted to maintain the only real friendship he had in Britain. On the other hand, he had become an international arms dealer over the summer, and (he thought somewhat guiltily), that's not really a quality that most parents look for when approving of their daughter's potential life partner.

Ziad imagined that conversation.

"So..." growled the imposing, faceless parents of whatever poor girl decided to like Ziad more than most people. "How do you plan on supporting yourself financially?"

Ziad would reply, "Well, I've begun selling high-value weapons to international terrorist groups, but I plan on going larger scale. There are a number of ongoing conflicts in Africa and Eastern Europe, not to mention the ever-present arms market in Palestine, that are drawing my interest. I expect to roll in about 20 million pounds a year, if the market is slow. 100 million is more realistic, considering my talents."

"Is that so?" respond the Parents.

"Indeed," Ziad would answer. "In addition, there is a very lucrative market for weapons in Colombia and Latin America, what with the ongoing drug conflict. Those cartels would pay a pretty penny for the kind of upgrades I could get them. Imagine cartel-controlled attack helicopters, bombers, rocket launchers, tanks. Hell, I could probably get them their own navy, if they paid me enough."

"Do you believe that is good enough for our daughter?"

"Ziad!"

"I think so. I'll be able to support her financially as well as use my inevitable political and social connections to keep her safe and happy. And, let's face it, being an international arms dealer is kind of badass."

"Ziad!"

"Oh, is that what you think? It sounds awfully dangerous to me. What if hired assassins kill or hurt our daughter?"

"Ziad!"

"Don't worry, ma'am. I'll be able to hire the best the private security market has to offer. She'll be safe."

"Ziad! We're there!"

"Plus I'll be making enough... Wait what?"

Parvati and Padma stared at him.

"Get your head out of the clouds, bomb-boy. We're there. At Hogwarts. You know, the school?"

"Oh. Okay."

"You're a weird person, you know that?"

Ziad smiled.

"Yup."

The three of them filed off the train, Ziad with his money slung over his shoulder like a soldier carrying a large weapon. Fortunately for Ziad, this weapon was purely metaphysical. He didn't, after all, want to be that guy who brings a gun to school and says something like, "I totally didn't know I had it on me! I'm toootally not going to shoot up the school!"

They boarded the carriages and returned to the castle.

Ziad, for the first time, got to see the opening feast ceremony. It wasn't that interesting. He was mainly just hungry, and annoyed at the odd looks and questions he got regarding his money bag.

He was most annoyed, but also slightly intrigued, by one of these encounters.

"Hey mate, what's in the bag?" were the first words Seamus Finnegan said when they bumped into each other before entering the hall.

"Four-hundred thousand galleons."

"Come on, man, pull the other one. It's got chimes on it."

"The phrase is, 'It's got bells on it.'"

"That's what I said."

"Seamus, let's face it. You said chimes."

"Chimes and bells, what's the difference?"

"They're two completely different musical instruments!"

"Ziad, I realize that English wasn't your first language, so I forgive you."

"Bloody hell, Seamus! Chimes and bells are almost entirely unrelated!"

"Look, I'll get a dictionary, and we'll settle this. I'mma bet five galleons that there is not a significant enough difference between the two words for you to have gotten this upset about it."

"I meet your five pounds and raise you to a hundred!"

Seamus backed up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't have that kind of cash. I'll raise it to ten, okay? No more."

"Done."

They stood there awkwardly, looking heatedly at each other.

"It's just a saying, you know." said Seamus.

"Yeah, but you have to get it right, or else it doesn't make sense. Have you even seen chimes before? How the hell are you going to attach those to your leg in such a way as to make a ringing noise when the aforementioned leg is pulled? It's bloody ridiculous!"

"Ziad, it's perfectly obvious." responded Seamus.

"Oh really? Tell me. I'm sooo curious."

"Look. You attach the chimes to your pants-leg securely, so they're not flapping around. With me so far? Good. So then you attach a free-swinging little chime-hammer thing, that swings in both directions, so that when the leg is indeed pulled or otherwise disturbed, the little chime-hammer thing will swing, impacting the chime and creating the necessary noise."

Ziad thought about it.

"But wouldn't it have to be so that the chime-hammer thing is located at the center of the device, swinging in a 180 degree arc left or right onto a chime that has been altered so that both ends resonate upon impact? I feel that this would prove most effective out of all the options."

Seamus pulled a sheet of paper and a pencil from his bag as the crowds streamed past them into the hall. Parvati rolled her eyes at Padma and the two of them left Ziad behind and followed the crowd.

Ziad peered over Seamus' shoulder, forehead creased in concentration as Seamus sketched out a rough design.

"See, I think you're right in that the chime, for the best resonance with regards to random leg-disturbance, would indeed have to be double-sided. However, the resonating ends would likely have to be lengthened to make up for the loss in resonating space created by the placement of the hammer in the center, which would in turn mean the length of the hammer would also have to be increased. So we would either have to scale down the overall size of the device, or attach large chimes to our legs, which is just absurd."

Ziad nodded. "How fast do you think you could produce these chime-trousers?"

"I don't know, but with current magical chime and trouser production capabilities, I'd give a rough estimate of four pairs a week, with my current-... Wait, what the hell are we talking about?"

Seamus shook himself. Ziad followed suit. A spell (not in the literal, magical sense but the more metaphorical sense) seemed to have been broken.

"Um..."

"We should probably go eat, or something."

"Yeah."

"I'll... I'll see you later?"

"Yeah."

"Bye."

"Mmm."

Seamus and Ziad made their seperate ways into the Great Hall, sat down, and ate.

"What were you and Seamus talking about?" asked one of the many unnamed Hufflepuffs at the table.

"Trouser Chimes."

"What?"

"We're going to make millions."

"Uh huh..." The Hufflepuff returned to his meal.

Ziad chewed on his salad. He thought about the conversation he and Seamus had just had. Then he had an idea.

"Eureka?"

"Why the questioning voice?" asked the unnamed Hufflepuff.

"Because I'm pretty sure the... I shouldn't tell you."

Because this idea is bloody brilliant! Ziad thought to himself. And it will make selling weapons to terrorists so much more effective! And fun! For the whole bloodthirsty radical family!

Author's Note:

And at last Ziad is back at the looney bin called Hogwarts. His schemes are just beginning.

Enjoy!