… - …
Part Four – Giving Back
Chapter Nineteen
Bumps in the Road
Wednesday March 10, 1999
Harry and Hermione drove to school that morning. She wanted to take a few of the girls in her healing classes out for a late lunch. The drive to Salem wasn't a pleasant experience. The start of spring meant that the snow would thaw during the day and refreeze at night. This thawing/freezing cycle created a weakening of the pavement. Throw in cars constantly driving over the weakened areas, and the cracks in the road deepened then widened everywhere, forming holes and ruts. These potholes fed on each other and spread like wildfire, creating a horrid driving experience.
"Why don't they fix the roads?" lamented Hermione, as she did her best to avoid driving into yet another deep hole.
"Dunno," replied Harry. He asked, "What class do you have today?"
"Emergency Room. You?"
"Workshop. It will be a nice opportunity to ask Mandy about how the Low Mage people are doing this term. What time will you be home?"
"Half six or so, Not later than seven."
"OK. I'm done at three. Have a good day, Love you."
"I love you too, Goof."
… - ...
After Harry's class, he visited with Mandy a bit. He asked, "How are the Low Mage students doing?"
"Fantastic. I met with Jason and Tami, the No/Low advisors yesterday. The second term students are well into the third semester material. When you factor in that the instructors are generally working with slightly older, motivated students, along with the fact that they don't have to contend with core development, the classes tend to work at double pace."
Harry remarked, "That's great. When I see them this June for their Firestick exchange, I'm going to retest them with the level measuring sticks. My belief is that everyone will have a stronger core, simply from using their magic so much."
"That's a very interesting theory. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right."
Harry replied, "Thanks. I'm not sure that I mentioned; we have another construction project sold."
"So you're going to be gone for the summer, working on your tan?"
"Not so much. It's just three weeks in July. Besides, most of my work is at the bottom of the hole, or in conference rooms. How about you? Thoughts of your sail boat must be looking pretty good now, after such a horrid winter."
"Truly. Daryl and I are sailing to Key West in June. I was hoping that you could get the new Low Mage students squared away for me in June when they register?"
"Sure. What will I have to do?"
"Just take care of the Firesticks and answer any occasional questions that they might have. I'll let Jason and Tami know that you'll be available in the first half of June and during August."
Harry asked, "How long will you be gone?"
"About four weeks. I'll be certain that they have my cell phone number. They can call anytime."
Harry remarked, "I can stop by one of the weekends, if they get a late registration."
"Thanks Harry." She appreciated how very accommodating he was to those students.
… - ...
Thursday March 11
As Hermione's parents had reported the same issue with the road that they took to get to their practice in Chesterfield, Harry decided to do something about it. Enlisting the aid of Katie, Susan and Dean, along with 200 elves was the easy part. Deciding exactly what to do was a bit of a challenge, as Harry had never really looked into road construction, or repair. The witches, wizards, along with Dobby and Ed met to decide how they could help Dan and Emma.
Dean said, "Asphalt is made of a mix of sand and gravel along with a thick oil – almost a tar paste. It's heated, mixed and applied on the roadbed, usually four to eight inches thick. After it's put down, it's compressed by driving on it with a machine that has a giant sized roller. You can drive on it once it's cooled down.
"In our case, there's already a good layer on the road, except it's cracked, crumbled and lost most of the oil. Better still, the road base is still in good condition. Rather than try a Reparo spell, I think we'd be best remaking the asphalt."
Susan asked, "What would we need?"
"We'd need a big batch of the asphalt oil, a means of heating it and applying it to the existing roadbed. We'd have to completely dry the existing asphalt first, put on the hot oil, transfigure it, compress it, and apply a seal."
Katie said, "We'd have to get some way of keeping cars off the road while we were working. If we had a bunch of detour and road closed signs, we could do it. We could just work at night, like a water run."
While they were talking, Ed and Dobby were looking at each other in delight. Dobby asked, "When do you need oils and signs?" They knew just where to get the heavy, sticky tar oil. When Dean mentioned needing a bunch of sand and gravel to fill in the holes, the two scroungers looked to be in ecstasy.
"Harry replied, "Saturday. You can put them behind that garages. OK. What does our process need to be? We're about seven miles from Chesterfield."
Dean suggested, "The morning before we do this, we should put up the road closed and detour signs and slap on a few serious confundus charms on the signs, so nobody questions them. Starting about eight pm, we heat the road up to completely dry it out. We should be able to fly about two miles an hour, so if we all took a section, we'd have that part done in an hour. Then Dobby and crew put down the sand and heavy oil. Then we form a line. The first person reheats the roadbed. The second person does the transfiguration. The third person applies a compression charm. The last person applies an Impervious charm, so the new road lasts a long time. After that, Harry and I go back and apply seals while Susan and Katie re-stripe the road. You'd need the center markings and the side lines painted."
Harry asked, "How long do you expect this would take?"
Dean replied, "An hour for setup, an hour to dry the roadbed, an hour for Dobby and crew and two hours for the transfiguration. The compression could take place right after the transfiguration, so there's no extra time with that step. We'd need a break before starting the sealing and an hour and a half for that part. It would be at least an hour for the stripes and dashes to be painted and an hour for cleanup. I'd guess ten hours total."
"We don't have that long."
Katie suggested, "Once the signs are up, we can be flying disillusioned while the elves are doing setup. That's really only one hour elapsed. We can do the same on the back end. That's only eight hours. We'll have that much darkness. Besides, I wouldn't mind a bit of light while we were painting on the road markings."
"Susan said, "Good point."
… - …
Sunday March 14
The road crew finished in time for breakfast. As they hadn't mentioned their project to anyone, Hermione thought that they'd gone to Kuwait for a fill. Harry casually suggested, "Let's go into town for breakfast. They all piled into Emma's minivan. Harry and his cohorts never mentioned a thing on the way to the restaurant, just the normal banter.
Breakfast was delicious and the service excellent.
Emma had just turned the ignition key when it hit her, "You fixed the road! Oh my gosh, you fixed the road. How did you do it? That was a silly question. Thank you. Thank you ever so much. Tell me about it."
Harry deflected, "It really was all on Dobby and Ed. They did a bit of trading. They traded sixty cases of ice cream cones to a guy in Kuwait for barrels of asphalt tar and acquired a bunch of detour and road closed road signs."
Dan observed, "You didn't just fill in a bunch of potholes; this looks like a brand new road. Emma, stop for a minute." He got out and said, "This smells like a brand new road."
Katie was all smiles as she said, "It is." She'd always feel grateful to Emma.
Dean added, "I would be surprised if it didn't last twenty years. The asphalt has a great gravel blend and it shouldn't crack, or allow water to seep through and cause problems."
They stepped back into the minivan and explained the details. After ten minutes, Hermione asked, "Was it hard to do?"
The cohorts looked at each other for a few moments and Susan replied, "Surprisingly easy actually. I think it was a lot easier to do from broomsticks than it would be from the actual equipment. Even in the low light, from 25 feet, we could see what we were doing really well."
Emma said, "Thank you again. This is so much nicer."
… - …
When they reached the house, Emma went out to find Dobby and Ed to thank them. While she was doing that, Harry and Dan went to the shop to make some firesticks. As before, Harry made the wand itself while Dan drilled the holes in the handle end for the cobalt rods to be inserted.. After a few minutes, he asked, "Is this street rebuilding project something that the Low Mage folks could do when they finish school?"
Intrigued by the idea, Harry replied, "Keep going."
"OK, for the moment, let's limit the discussion to potholes. Usually in March and April, the road crews use cold patch, which isn't bad stuff in-of-itself. The problem is, as often as not, they're simply dumping it into a wet hole, so it has no chance for adhesion and the first time that it freezes and thaws, the material comes loose. It's not that the street crews don't know that; for the most part, they don't have the means of drying them out at that time of the year in the amount of time that they're allotted."
Harry replied, "OK." He could see that Dan wasn't finished.
"When the weather warms up and things dry out, they use hot mix asphalt and tamp it down properly. There's every chance that those repairs will last, at least until the next spring. What charms or transfigurations did you and the crew use?"
"First, we used a variation of a warming charm. Katie heated the roadbed to about 350F. Within a few minutes, the roadbed was bone dry."
Dan asked, "Could you do the same on a normal pothole?"
"Sure."
"Then what?"
"Dobby and crew filled the holes with sand and gravel and put hot asphalt tar onto it. Then Dean and I transfigured the old asphalt road into new asphalt."
"Was that tricky?"
"Not really. We practiced for an hour on Friday."
Dan said, "OK. Back to the potholes, you were using transfiguration and hot asphalt oil to recycle old asphalt into fresh asphalt. I could smell it when I got out of Emma's minivan. Could the students do the same?"
He replied, "I expect that they could; it's a same-same transfiguration. The trick would be doing it without being spotted."
"Katie mentioned that they'd set up some sort of charm to not get noticed. Was that hard?"
Harry replied, "No. The trick would be to only apply it to the area that's within the work cones, so no one accidentally gets run over."
Dan persisted, "But it's doable?"
"Absolutely."
"Let me ask you this, could you make a Firestick staff that happened to resemble a shovel, or a rake?"
He replied, "A garden rake would be easier than a shovel, but I think so."
"OK. So you could dry and heat the area hot enough to use hot patch asphalt, or give cold patch a fighting chance at adhering to the roadbed. How about that impervious charm that you mentioned?"
"I think Hermione used it in first year, so it probably wasn't more than a fourth year charm."
"How about the packing it down step?"
Harry replied, "It could be done physically, or they could use the Firestaff to compress it."
Before Harry could ask, Dan mentioned, "Most of the jobs that Dr. Betty Winsloe mentioned were minimum wage jobs and probably not pleasant ones at that. Fixing potholes is a task that's frequently contracted out; most regular street crews want nothing to do with it, even though it pays pretty good. They have other things to do. With a bit of help for start-up expenses, it would be easy enough to have 25 people form a company and get a few jobs. It could work like a franchise, except without the fees. Since the quality of their work would be excellent, they'd get called on again and again. Once they've made a favorable name for themselves, they could get a bit of equipment and expand their offerings a bit – street cleanup, graffiti removal sort of projects. They wouldn't pay like the Waterworks, but they'd be very decent jobs. They could expand into other areas as their skills grew." He walked over to the other side of the garage and brought back a garden rake.
Harry had used one like it far too many times at the Dursleys, but looked at it from a different perspective, The rake head itself could be epoxied onto the staff and the center portion cut away, so a spell could be properly cast. He could make a rake head out of aluminum, as the iron in the head might cause problems with the spells. The cobalt rod could be placed where the forward hand would be on the rake. It was doable.
… - ...
Saturday March 20
Harry wasn't surprised to get the message that John Steel from MACUSA wanted to meet. After ten minutes of catching up, he handed Harry a sheet of paper and said, "Relative to Potter Waterworks, MACUSA has five points in our Position Statements which are, or could become applicable if you ever decided to do business in the States. Given the success that you've had with supplying water in the Middle East, I wanted to discuss them with you on a proactive basis. Essentially the US Magical Congress has thought through situations where they believe that the Magicals in the US should and shouldn't get involved."
Harry said, "That sounds a lot smarter than waiting for something bad to happen and then ponder what to do about it." He read the document.
Mr. Potter,
MACUSA has some guidelines with respect to involvement that may pertain to your current or future business endeavors.
Building homes in an area below sea level is considered a bad idea - MACUSA avoids involvement.
Building homes right next to the ocean is considered a bad idea – MACUSA avoids involvement.
Building homes in the desert is considered a bad idea – MACUSA avoids involvement.
Issuing building permits for homes for 50 million people when a river can only provide water for half that number on a sustainable basis is considered a bad idea – MACUSA avoids involvement.
Asking the Federal Government to pay for people's poor decisions doesn't make sense - MACUSA avoids involvement.
Harry read them and remarked, "They all seem reasonable. When these state, MACUSA avoids involvement, does that refer to the organization, or actions of any magical in the US?"
Steel replied, "The Organization. Relative to your business, we have two official requests." He handed Harry another sheet of paper.
Mr. Potter,
MACUSA asks that you do not build additional non-recreational lakes more than 50 miles from a coastline in the United States.
MACUSA asks that you only do watercloud refills one week a month.
When Harry had read them, John said, "Position papers aside, we have a real concern regarding people seeing and documenting the water clouds. It seems that everyone has, or is getting cell phones these days. While the cameras within the device aren't perfect, they're getting better all the time. Additionally, carrying water clouds on the west coast without the ability to shut down air traffic is an accident waiting to happen, Making 100 trips a month to satiate the thirst of whichever cities who would sign up for your service is deemed an unacceptable risk.
"Beyond that, they don't want observable magical action taken that would encourage further development in the Mojave Desert. The dam by Las Vegas was constructed in the '30s. At the time, the population in the various downstream states could easily be supported by the available water supply. At the time, the combined population of California, Nevada and Arizona was under 7 million. Today (1999) it's about 40 million. Industrial, agricultural and municipal water consumption has skyrocketed, and it appears that the growth trend will continue for at least another decade."
He continued, "The problem has been masked by nearly a decade of larger than normal rain and snowfall. If you were to go visit Hoover Dam today, you'd see that it's completely full and excess water is being released through the spillways. A decade ago, we concluded that the area reached a tipping point where the water consumption rates simply aren't sustainable from average rain and snowfall."
He concluded, "In short, the math has to work. Our magical government has voted to not assist the nonmagical population when they consciously make foolish mistakes."
Harry replied. "I see your point. I also recognize that there are business opportunities and realities. People like having salads year round. As I understand it, a lot of the lettuce that we eat here is grown in California."
"Agreed, but they've created a situation where there are so many people living in the desert, along with so much farmland being irrigated that the water math no longer works. Municipal, plus industrial, plus agricultural use is far greater than the average snowfall. Beyond that, nearly half of the water counted as agricultural is used to water lawns. Obviously advanced desalination is the solution."
Harry asked, "Please help me understand – are you saying that MACUSA doesn't want people living in the desert, or it doesn't like lettuce, or it doesn't like private enterprise offering water for sale?"
"John admitted, "Some of each, except for the lettuce part. I enjoy a good salad as much as the next person. We're not anti-business. If you piped the seawater to an enclosed facility and used transfiguration to remove the excess salt, then sold the water to an individual for Ag use, we would have no objection. If you used transfiguration to manufacture the miles of material needed to make a meaningful passive desalination plant that could be shown to nonmagicals while in operation, we would have no objection. If you did that, or something similar and offered the water for sale to municipalities, we would have no objection. We don't want you using waterclouds.
"Here's the short of it; your current business model has a competitive advantage over the existing desalination technology in two ways – lower startup cost and a lower ongoing cost. In the same breath, your current methodology requires a controlled airspace that you couldn't possibly obtain or maintain in the States, along with the growing risk of discovery, due to the improved cell phone camera technology. If you want to pursue this, my advice would be to find a means of constructing a desalination device that would have less than half the cost of what's in use today. Essentially, you'd be looking at something that could remove the salt on a 24/7 basis at less than a cent a gallon."
"How do they work now?"
Harry asked, "Principally by evaporating water. The two major means for that are to use excess heat from some other process, such as making electricity; either via nuclear or the burning of fossil fuels, or via sunlight. A simple example of the latter would be to have a pool of seawater, cover it with a plastic sheet to collect and keep the evaporated water from escaping. The inherent downside with passive methods is that they require a large tract of land and they don't work at night. The best technologies today can collect about a gallon per daylight hour, per square yard of area.
"In the future, systems may employ membrane filtering. They're expected to use less energy to operate, but have a higher cost per gallon due to higher startup expenses."
Harry replied, "Got it. How about my Power Assist Device?"
"We think it's a brilliant idea and wish that you'd make 100,000 of them."
Harry asked, "Thanks. Can we go back to the water a minute?"
"Sure."
"Would you have any objection if I purchased a 10 mile by 10 mile section of land?"
"No. You'd probably have to work through the bureau of land management to get a section that large, but it's doable."
"You'd have no objection if I manufactured a large quantity of 48 inch pipe?"
"Correct, though we would neither aid nor hinder your efforts to obtain 150 miles of right-of-way clearance. Our belief is that a private company would be unable to obtain that. Beyond that, you would either need a series of 48 inch pipes, or a 10 foot diameter one to provide a truly meaningful quantity of water."
"How about a trade?"
"Go on."
"Some of the sites are closer to the ocean than others. It stands to reason that acquiring the rights for 50 miles of pipeline would be easier than others farther away. It would be easy enough to trade water for five years in exchange for right of way."
"Perhaps. In either case, the first 10 miles would be all but impossible for a private company to acquire. You brought up the key point the last time that we spoke. Most political people can't look ten years ahead and spend money for a decade on something that won't get them reelected six months from now. That said, if you want to acquire the land, construct the pipeline, develop the process, and sit on it until 2025 when it truly becomes a crisis, then ask for the right-away, go ahead. At that point, if you had a shovel-ready solution in hand, you'd probably get it without much effort."
Harry rubbed his forehead in frustration and replied, "There are simply too many other opportunities abroad right now. Beyond that, as my attorney constantly reminds me, I have no standing in the matter. John, as always, I appreciate your advice."
"Believe it, or not Harry, that's what we're here for."
Harry replied, "Regarding the Low Mages and my Power Assist Devices, I had another idea that I was hoping to run by you."
"Go ahead."
Fifteen minutes later...
"That's delicious. Go for it."
… - ...
Wednesday March 31
Harry, Dobby, Ed, Dan, Katie, Susan and Dean were scheming. Specifically they were planning ways that they could repair, rebuild, or patch the road between Chesterfield and Salem.
Dan pointed out that it would be all but impossible to close down the Interstate and they'd be far better off repairing the last ten miles than the concrete lanes of the busy freeway.
Susan said, "It's fun to take the backroad highway. That's a four lane asphalt road." Like Katie, she was interested in trying a big project.
Dobby added, "Detour signs are easiest part. If road is two lane, close road for one day. If road is asphalt, we fix like road to Chesterfield. If road is four lane, close two at a time. If road is cement, close two at a time. Elves put sand down, Flyers make into cement like in lakes. If just fixing holes, crew and elves can fix many miles in one day. If black tar highway road, best if we put lane closed signs up and work at night. Wizards would need to transfigure old newspapers into orange plastic barrels. Dobby thinks 5,000 times would be enough."
"Wouldn't someone notice?" asked Dan. He saw this effort as a could you/should you situation and wasn't sure that it was a good idea.
"Dobby thinks if much road becomes fixed, people not be looking at blaming anyone. Dobby thinks many people be taking credit for getting work done."
Fortunately, Harry's thinking was more in line with Dan's than the overly ambitious Ed/Dobby pair. He said, "We'll leave repairing the Interstates and highway 2 for another time. The last ten miles or so of city roads will give us more than enough to work on. Primarily I want to try actually filling in the potholes, big cracks and giant ruts that have developed."
As Harry expected, everyone was against the idea. Katie said, "From 50 feet in the air, some of those roads looked like they were the victim of a successful Lancaster bomb run. The best thing to do is rebuild the road, like we did for Emma."
"Katie, I don't disagree with you. I'm hoping to find a way to eventually provide decent paying jobs for the graduates of the Low Mage program. If I made them Firestaffs that resembled construction hand tools, I'm thinking that they could do the work during the day, like a regular job."
Dobby and Ed's ears drooped downward. They had been envisioning a four-way trade resulting in several thousand barrels of asphalt tar oil versus the hundred that they might actually need. The fedoras, Hawaiian shirts and white silk ties probably wouldn't see much use this time.
Katie and Dean volunteered to do a disillusioned fly-over that night to evaluate the conditions of the roads that they'd be working on.
… - ...
They came back stating, that on average, there was about 1 in every 10-15 square yards that needed repair.
She added, "There are about 9,000 square yards in a mile of a two lane road like the one that we worked on, There's about 25,000 yards in a four lane city street mile, due to the parking areas. If we rebuild the two miles of road closest to the school and repair the other 12 miles, that would give us a lot of pot holes to fix. We're going to need some help. I'm certain that 80% of the three water crews would come over for the day. They could get a bit of practice, have a big BBQ cookout, then go to work for the evening. Find a half mile of road somewhere near here that we could close off and practice on for an hour."
"Susan asked, "What about parked cars?"
"The elves will carefully move them to allow you to work and put them back when you're done. Be ready with a quick silencing charm in case some of the cars have one of those annoying alarm systems."
Ed said, "Dobby and I will get 100 barrels of tar oil and many road closed signs. When do you want them?"
Harry said, "The weekend of the full moon, this Saturday April 3."
Katie said, "I'll contact the crews and see who is willing to volunteer for a day."
"OK. We can have their tents set up if they want to stay an extra day. They should arrive at noon our time. We'll have a lunch, practice up a bit, visit, have a dinner, then start at 8 pm. We'll resurface the road by the healing building and the crew can work the potholes until 4 am. We'll go home, have an early breakfast, and have them on their way by 6 am."
"Susan asked, "Would it be OK if Hannah stayed on for a few extra days?"
"Of course. She's always welcome."
… - …
Saturday April 3
As it turned out, everyone had been able to come, except Professor Clearwater, who had scheduled meetings, Tonks, along with Carol, and Remus who would be tied up due to the full moon.
Dennis and Colin were the first to arrive, followed by most of the Medina crew. The Riyadh crew came next with Fred and George, while the Kuwait crew followed close behind. Lee Jordan arrived last and pointed out, "At least I brought taco chips and dip. Where's the beer?"
It was a fun afternoon. The sunshine felt good. Harry and Ed demonstrated the basic technique. The only tricky part was quickly drying the area quickly without accidentally setting the asphalt on fire. After the practice session had ended, Fred commented, "Once you've done five or ten, the similarities between the different sizes and shapes of holes far outweighs the differences."
At dinner, the discussion centered around the differences between the different sites, who was dating who, and the usual banter among friends. The only difference was that they all either were, or were well on their way to becoming millionaires. Some were looking for houses in various locations. Aside from Katie, Susan, Harry and Hermione, the others were all still living in Britain. There was a fair bit of discussion over who had which Gringotts account manager and how their money was being invested.
Harry redirected the discussion, pointing out, "I want us to be done by 5 am at the latest. Dobby and his friends will get rid of the signs. I'm not expecting us to finish; there will always be another pothole."
Fred asked, "Where will you be?"
"Katie, Dean, Susan and I are working on a section of road right by some of the class buildings."
… - ...
By 2 am Harry had finished sealing the roadway for a mile on either side of the main health class building. They went to find the others. They were bogged down in a seemingly endless line of ruts, loose pavement, potholes and a few cauldron sized holes that Harry swore would have been large enough for Riddle to have come out of. Like the others, he got to work.
At 4:30, they only had a half mile to go. Harry flew ahead an cast a wide area heating charm. Then he cast a wide area transfiguration charm. Finally, he cast a wide area compression charm. Looking around, he saw that the others had finished their tasks and had been watching him, with awe on their faces. As Dobby and crew appeared to be well on their way removing their signs, he said, "Let's go have breakfast."
… - …
At breakfast, Harry asked about what charms they'd used and what was easy or hard about the project.
Fred said, "At first, we were heating one hole at a time. How are you planning on bidding this sort of work, by the hour or by the mile?"
Harry replied, "There's always someone who can put together a crew that would work for less per hour. I'd encourage the Roadmaster managers to bid the jobs by the mile, but only bid on a reasonable percentage of the available jobs. The issue is, the competitors are invariably using cold patch. Usually their work lasts six days to six weeks. By using hot asphalt as the patch, ours could last a year or longer. There's a lot of snow laying around. It melts and the streets get wet. It freezes, and if there are cracks, potholes will form in any cracks from the expansion of the frozen ice. I'm certain that the impervious charm that you cast will last at least a month. After that, minimally the municipality would save having to refill the other contractors' holes in the late spring, as the competition's cold patches begin to break up. Hopefully the next year after they start, the Low Mage Roadmaster crews will get more jobs awarded to them.
"We can't make our asphalt patches thicker than the existing road, but we can guarantee excellent adhesion and a denser patch than what the competition would be able to do. I'm hoping that ours will last two years."
Hannah asked, "Why didn't you cast a seal enchantment on the road after we were done, like you do in the lakes?"
"Aside from helping Hermione, and her parents, I view these three roads as test beds; laboratory field experiments, if you will. We have a lightly traveled country road that was rebuilt and sealed. I hope it will last a decade. We have a city section that had first-rate patches applied and we have a city section that was rebuilt and sealed. I'd like the work done by the Low Mage crews to be better than what the municipalities are getting now, but not so different that it wouldn't be explainable by stating that they're using an effective drying process and hot mix."
He concluded, "I want to thank everyone for coming. I couldn't have done this alone, or with just the four of us. There's no money in this weekend, but I do thank you for the favor. Cheers."
They had all been happy to help and Moody had enjoyed flying overwatch and keeping an eye out for trouble.
… - ...
A few days later, early in the morning in a London neighborhood, no one noticed the dump truck following behind the milk delivery truck. Both made frequent stops along the milk truck's delivery route. Someone with an experienced eye would have noticed that the delivery man seemed to be walking a bit slower than usual, but as Stan Shunpike would say, People don't look properly, do they?
As the delivery man walked up to each house, four elves scampered down the ladder on the side of the truck while five shadows flew from the open top on the vehicle. If someone had been looking carefully, they may have noticed that the pavement in the immediate area suddenly improved. The holes and ruts that had been in the road five minutes earlier disappeared, leaving the street in perfect condition.
A minute later, the delivery man started up his truck and the dump truck followed along to the next stop, a few houses down. The road that he drove in each day was perfect.
… - …
Later in the day in Chesterfield, Hermione asked, "Why is everyone eating frozen ice cream cones?"
Susan replied, "Colin's dad gave us a case of them. Would you like one?"
"Please."
Outside, Dobby and Ed looked especially pleased with themselves. The sand pile was just a bit smaller and another half dozen of the tar oil barrels had been emptied and returned to the oil man in Kuwait. He and his family also enjoyed the ice cream cones.
… - …
A week later, three brand new Range Rovers drove up the new asphalt driveway that twisted and turned back and forth towards a strange looking house, then stopped at what appeared to be an old shed. A small army of young men and women got out of the vehicles. Several were carrying beverages and a small stack of take-away pizza boxes that said Red's Pizza on the cover.
An older man with thinning red hair walked out of the shed to see what the noise was. He recognized most of the people who had come to say hello. One of the tall red-haired men handed him the keys to the third Range Rover. The older man smiled and said a few words of thanks to one of his sons before walking over to greet the other visitors. His wife was at the pizza restaurant owned by his youngest son and his daughter was at quidditch practice with the Harpies.
The eight people enjoyed the delicious pizza and the older man's company for an hour, then left, leaving one of the Range Rovers with title paperwork inside, next to the old shed.
… - …
As a precautionary move, Harry purchased an extra 1,000 pounds of cobalt rods from time to time. It was a move that he intended to continue doing in the future. Once charged, they seemingly held the charge with very little leakage. He had no idea how long he'd have access to the vortex in the Chamber of Secrets.
… - ...
A/Ns
I originally referenced some of these ideas in my The Debate tale. At the time, with the exception of the fatbergs, I never gave any thought as to how the work might actually get done. Besides, Dobby and Ed need some new trading material.
The numbers presented in John Steel's conversations with Harry are as accurate as I was able to find. That said, I recognize that there is room for a thousand different viewpoints. If you have a different set of facts or figures, please use them in a story of your own. I need something good to read. John's a lot less stressful to write than Percy was in the ICW story.
Thanks for reading. Tom and I have had a blast writing this tale so far.. If you haven't yet, please give a look at his The Great Lie tale – referenced in my favorites.
Cheers,
… - …
