Harry and the Pirates, Chapter 71
by Technomad
Getting to Know You
The next day, Harry and Dudley led their guests down to the Mapurao Market, to the leather-worker who had made them their wand sheaths. The two Thai-raised boys guided their friends through the negotiations, and once prices had been agreed on, they arranged to return the next day for the sheaths. Ron and Ginny both paid a little extra for a Slytherin serpent on their sheaths like the ones Dudley and Harry had, and when he heard that, Percy asked for a lion, for Gryffindor.
As they walked away, heading toward the offices of Bougainvillea Trading, Harry remarked: "You know, Percy, you're the first Gryffindor who ever visited us here. This might be a bit of a change from what usually happens."
"Really? What usually happens?" Percy was curious, and a little wary. While he trusted Harry and Dudley about as much as he could any Slytherins who weren't blood relatives like his sibs, there was still an edge of caution in his dealings with them. Years of inter-House hostility, and the backwash of Voldemort's rampages, had left a deeper mark than he was fully conscious of.
"Well," Dudley took up the tale, leading them effortlessly through the morning crowds, "our first visitor out here was Hermione Granger. You know her, of course."
"Of course." Hermione hadn't had much to say about her adventures at school, at least that had come to Percy's ears, and he was curious to hear what had happened. He had a hard time believing that the law-abiding, rule-obeying girl he knew had even come to Roanapur. Or that she hadn't run away screaming once she found out what the town was like.
"She ended up impressing a lot of people." Harry smiled reminiscently. "Over at the Rip-Off Church..that's a Catholic mission that doubles-in-brass as an arms dealer…she got into a bit of a tiff with the number-two there, and ended up paralysing her, neat as ninepence!"
Harry and Dudley both laughed at the memory. "That got her attention!" Dudley snickered. "Normally, Sister Eda takes no crap from anybody who isn't a lot higher than she is in the pecking order here, but after that, all Harry or I, or our guests, have to do is to show our wands and she backs right straight down!" He shook his head. "Of course, the fact that Hermione told her that once she was paralyzed, Hermione could cut her throat with no trouble at all might have had something to do with it!"
"Merlin's beard!" Percy had a hard time believing it, but he knew that Harry and Dudley almost never lied directly in so many words. "What else did she do?"
"We got caught up in a chase when the Lagoon Company were taking care of a boy that had been kidnapped, and his maid…who, by the way, is one of the most lethal human beings I've ever seen…showed up looking for him. It ended up with a showdown between the maid and Revy Two-Hands, and Hermione suggested that they take it out with bare-fist fighting. Our boss, Balalaika, was very impressed with her, and said that she'd make a fine Soviet officer, if this were Russia in the old days." Harry smiled. "That's very, very high praise, coming from her! She was a Soviet officer herself, and won medals in the war in Afghanistan."
"She sounds a very formidable person," Percy said. He was trying to imagine what such a woman would look like.
"You've seen her, I think," Dudley said. "At Kings Cross, our first Christmas in Britain." When his memory was prodded, Percy remembered her. He wondered if she'd changed from the tall, elegant, terribly scarred woman he had seen briefly at the train station.
When they got to Bougainvillea Trading, Petunia was at her desk, going through some routine paperwork. She looked up and saw the youngsters, and she smiled. "Oh, there you are! Balalaika's busy, but once she's done, I'm to send you right on in!" She waved her hand toward some chairs. "Please, sit and relax."
Percy sat down, grateful for the air-conditioning. He'd never been out of Europe before, and the steam-bath heat of a Thai summer was something he wasn't used to. He wiped sweat from his brow, and wondered if his fair skin would stand up under the assault of the sun. He noticed that Ron and Ginny were also apparently having trouble.
Petunia noticed, too. She opened a drawer in her desk. "Here," she said, passing them each a bottle of ice-cold spring water. "You need to rehydrate, especially you Weasleys. You aren't used to this climate yet. Hermione had the same problem, and so did Luna." She shook her head. "I'll need to lay in some more sunscreen, as well."
"Luna?" Percy was gobsmacked. "You mean Luna Lovegood was here?" That struck him as even more incongrous than Hermione Granger thriving in the pirate port, and he wanted to know how that had happened. He had known Luna all her life, and a less likely pirate he had never met.
"Oh, yes," Petunia smiled at the memory. "The little sweetheart! She showed up one day, calm as could be. She'd been out in Thailand with her father, who was in search of one of his strange creatures, and she decided she'd come to visit us. The first we knew about it was when the Lagoon Company, who had brought her to town aboard their boat, called us and told us they had a delivery for us."
"Merlin's beard…Luna Lovegood?" Percy could hardly believe what he was hearing, but Harry and Dudley and Ron and Ginny were all nodding confirmation. "What did she do here?"
"Oh, she did quite well!" Dudley swelled with pride at his girlfriend's accomplishments. "She really impressed Balalaika, and when those crazy twin assassin children were shooting up the town and captured her, she turned the tables on them and had them tied up! And then she faced Balalaika herself down, saying that she had captured them and they were her prisoners, not Balalaika's!"
This was news to Ron and Ginny. They stared, as wide-eyed as Percy, as Harry took the tale up. "She got the Thai Ministry of Magic to take them over, and they were sent to Britain, to St. Mungo's. Last we heard, they were still there, in the ward for people with severe mental damage." Harry shook his head. "While I can't approve for a second of what they did, I have to admit that they were badly screwed up. When they captured one of Balalaika's men, they dragged him off and tortured him to death."
"It was horrible," Dudley said. "I don't think the Death Eaters ever did anything that bad!" Harry nodded solemnly. Percy wondered just what the assassin twins had done, and decided that he really did not want to know.
Just then, the door to the inner office opened, and a woman in what Percy recognized as a Muggle nun's habit came out. "Hullo, Petunia. Hi, Harry, Dudley. Who're the gingers?"
"Hello, Sister Eda," Petunia replied. "Sister, I'd like you to meet the Weasleys. Percy's the oldest boy, then Ron, and Ginny's the girl. They're friends of Harry and Dudley's from the school they go to." At that statement, Sister Eda turned slightly pale.
"More of them?" Instinctively, she crossed herself. "They can do magic, too?"
"Yep," Harry confirmed, smiling rather nastily. "There's lots more back in Britain!"
"And there are magical people in all countries," Dudley said. "We don't know much about the Thai magical community; we haven't had much chance to deal with them."
"This…isn't…fair!" Sister Eda rolled her eyes to heaven, looking utterly put-upon. When she looked at the Weasleys again, she focussed on Percy, and the way she was looking at him made Percy think she could see through his clothes, and quite liked what she saw there. Her blue eyes lit up behind the tinted sunglasses she was wearing, and she smiled rather hungrily.
"Hel-lo, tall, ginger and handsome!" she purred. "When you get a chance, come around to the Rip-Off Church, and look me up! I'd like a chance to get to know you better!" Percy was slightly gobsmacked; he had never met a woman who was quite so forthright. He wondered uneasily what Petunia would think. Or Ginny. Ginny had never been much in favor of the idea of her brothers having girlfriends, although she seemed to be reconciled with the idea of sharing Ron with Hermione Granger. He knew his little sister, and she had the full share of the Weasley temper they had all inherited from their pepper-pot of a mother.
Petunia cleared her throat meaningly. "While I hate to interrupt you, Sister, the boys and Ginny are here to see our boss. She's waiting for them." Reminded of where she was, Sister Eda snapped to, becoming all-business once again. She spoiled the effect by winking at Percy, and slipping him a business card with the address of the Rip-Off Church on it. Percy pocketed it, sitting up a little straighter. This town was looking more and more interesting by the second!
As Sister Eda left, Harry, Dudley and the Weasleys got up, with Harry leading the way into what looked to be the inner sanctum where the mysterious Balalaika worked. To Percy's eye, it looked like a well-furnished study, with dark wood paneling on the walls and books and a strange Muggle electronic device on the desk behind which Balalaika sat.
Balalaika was just as Percy had remembered her. She stood up, towering over even Percy, and extended her hand. "Welcome to Roanapur, Miss Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley. I am Balalaika. I remember meeting you earlier, at Kings Cross Station in London." Percy noticed that Ginny was hanging back, rather uncharacteristically. Balalaika noticed it too, and smiled. "Do not be afraid of me, little Gozpasha Weasley. I wasn't offended by the way you reacted to me." Her smile turned into a rather wry grin. "If anything, I was touched by your concern."
Reassured, Ginny came forward to shake hands, along with the rest of her sibs. Percy noticed that Balalaika had callouses on her hands, and reflected to himself that while she might have become a boss who spent a lot of her time directing others, Balalaika was apparently still one who did not mind getting her own hands dirty if necessary. He decided that he approved wholeheartedly of that characteristic, and that Harry and Dudley had not been mistaken to think well of this woman.
"Would you like to work for me while you're here?" Balalaika asked. "I can put you all on the payroll for Bougainvillea Traders, as "general help." It'll take a bit of fiddling to get the Thai authorities to sign off on it, but I've enough of them in my pocket for that to be no problem."
"Yes, ma'am, we would!" Ron spoke up first, then visibly remembered that he wasn't alone. "Er, at least I would. All right with you, Perce, Ginny?"
Ginny nodded eagerly. Percy thought that she was agreeing mainly because she wanted to stay close to Harry, and saw this as a way to do that. As long as it stayed mostly-platonic, Percy didn't mind. While he was suspicious of Slytherins in general, he had warmed up to the Boy-Who-Lived after Harry had led the efforts to get back at his pestilential twin brothers for pranking and harassing Ron. The swift way they had dealt with the Gryffindor girls whose prank had landed Luna in the hospital wing had cemented his
Percy loved his whole family…including Fred and George…but that didn't mean he always liked them. Especially Fred and George. While he was out in Asia, Percy planned to look around for employment opportunities. Asia was a new, exotic place, and there had to be opportunities for a well-trained wizard. Sirius Black would likely know what was going, and be able to steer him in the right direction. And being thousands of miles away from the twin terrors would be a bonus, over and above whatever salary he was able to wangle.
Ron nodded, too, and Percy finally nodded as well. Balalaika reached for a large manila envelope. "Very well. I shall start you out easy, since I know you are new to this town. Here is an envelope for Boss Chang. His address is on the outside. Harry and Dudley can lead you there."
Percy remembered the smiling, sinister Chinese man that he and his sibs had met, and shivered slightly, despite the fact that the office was at a comfortable temperature. Harry noticed his slight nerves. "Don't worry. We've done this many times. Boss Chang is perfectly reasonable." With that, Harry led the others out of Balalaika's sanctum, and as they left, Percy could see her sit back down and immerse herself in a pile of paperwork with a sigh. Apparently, even for a much-feared leader of criminals, paperwork was a constant. Muggles and Wizards weren't that different.
Boss Chang turned out to live at the top of one of Roanapur's tallest buildings, in what even a sheltered pureblood boy could see was a very luxurious penthouse. They rode up in an elevator after passing the main desk in the lobby, and enduring some very hard stares from some stony-faced Chinese men with odd bulges in their suit coats, right under their armpits.
As they went up, Harry remarked: "Boss Chang does like to do himself well. Balalaika's place isn't bad, but this is top-of-the-line!" Then the elevator doors opened, and they were ushered into the presence of the Triads' boss in Roanapur.
Boss Chang wasn't in a suit this time. He was lolling in a deck chair beside a swimming pool, wearing swimming trunks and being fawned over by two very beautiful Chinese women. He smiled when he saw them, but what with his sunglasses, Percy couldn't be sure whether his smile was really genuine.
The real surprise was sitting in the other deck chair. Sirius Black lounged there, soaking up the sunshine and clearly content with life. Of course, the presence of the Chinese beauties who were rubbing his feet and feeding him from a nearby tray might have had something to do with it. He looked over, and his eyes lit up at the sight of Harry. For his part, Harry was obviously surprised to see Sirius, and just as pleased as his godfather was.
"Harry! Good to see you, Pronglet! And I see you brought your friends!" He gently shook the girls off him and stood up, holding out his hand to Percy. "Can't say I've had the pleasure, but if you aren't a Weasley, with that hair and that face, I'll eat my wand!"
"I'm Percy Weasley, and I think you already know my siblings, Ron and Ginny." Beside him, his two younger siblings were looking around; Ron couldn't take his eyes off the Chinese girls, and Ginny alternated between drinking in the view and glaring at her oblivious older brother.
"Yes, we all met up at Hogwarts, before I came out here. You can see I've landed on my feet. I've already got people all but lining up for my services!"
Harry smiled proudly. "I told you you'd like it here!"
"Much as I hate to interrupt this touching reunion," Boss Chang drawled, "I suppose you have some reason for coming up here to see me. May I ask what it is?"
"Oh! Terribly sorry, sir! We have this for you, from Balalaika!" Harry handed over the envelope. "It's just that I didn't expect to find my godfather here. I had thought he was out of town!"
"I was," Sirius explained. "I just got back in last night. I was up in northern Thailand, doing a little work for Boss Chang." Boss Chang's smug grin reminded Percy of a cat that had got itself a nice fat bird, and he decided that he was just as happy not knowing just what Sirius Black had been doing for Boss Chang. While he knew, on the top of his mind, that Black had been innocent of what he had been accused of after Harry's parents' deaths, he could not shake the feelings that had been put into him by a lifetime of hearing about the infamous heir of the House of Black.
Boss Chang leafed through the documents that had been in the envelope. "Ah. I see that Miss Balalaika has come through with the information she promised me." Again, he smiled. "She is so useful, particularly as relates to dealings with Russia." Percy shuddered slightly as the thought crossed his mind that on the day Balalaika was no longer "useful," Boss Chang would be willing to order her killed, with no more compunction than stepping on an insect. Then he remembered that not only could Balalaika look out for herself, but she had a lot of very loyal, very skilful followers. Boss Chang, if he ever gave the order for Balalaika's death, might just find that he'd signed his own death warrant in the process.
When he was done examining the documents, Boss Chang looked up. "Very good. You may leave." The words were polite, but they were clearly a dismissal. Before they left, Percy saw Sirius slip Harry a card, and he surmised that it contained information on how to get in touch. Harry, Dudley and the Weasleys all made respectful farewells, and headed for the elevator to report back in to Balalaika.
When they reported in to Balalaika, she was pleased. "You may well prove useful. As it happens, I've an errand coming up, one that will go better with people of your special skills along. I know that Harry and Dudley are familiar with the Black Lagoon Company, but have you Weasleys ever heard of them?"
Ron and Ginny nodded. Percy said "Yes, ma'am. We were introduced yesterday, down at the Yellowflag. We got in yesterday, and Harry and Dudley were showing us around town, and the Black Lagoon's crew came in, so we got introduced."
"Excellent." Balalaika pulled out some paperwork. "Tomorrow, you are to take this over to Dutch at the Lagoon Company's office. You and one of my trusted men will accompany them on a journey for me, and help keep them safe." With that, Balalaika turned away to pay attention to some paperwork, and the Hogwarts students left her office.
