Part II — The Enterprise

Ch. 12 — Revelations

Harry Potter's summer started out surreal.

His uncle genuinely smiled.

At him.

And they were in public.

His relatives never acknowledged him in public if they had a choice.

"Harry, my boy," the walrus said warmly. "Glad to see you here, safe and sound after such a long trip. How was your school this year?"

Harry stood speechless. He seriously considered the possibility that Death Eaters had captured his relatives and used poly-juice to mimic their appearance. Until Hermione sidled over and whispered in his ear that she had slipped them a couple of gold bars to obtain their cooperation for the summer.

The kiss on his cheek left him blushing and even more confused.

As they wound their way through the crowded station, he marvelled that the thought of bribing the Dursleys had never before crossed his mind. He would gladly have given up a considerable portion of his vault to guarantee their cooperation. He could only shake his head in bemusement.

Once they were in the car, and headed back home, Uncle Vernon said, "I don't know where that girl got hold of that gold, and I don't want to know what your relationship with her is," he sharply said as they left London.

Harry kept quiet, but nodded as his Uncle looked at him through the rear-view mirror.

"As long as the bars continue to arrive, we will treat you as our nephew in public. At home, I expect you to be quiet and not bother us. We won't bother you. We'll call you for meals and I expect you to help with dishes. You can keep your trunk in your room for assignments, but none of that . . . freak . . . stuff anywhere else!"

Harry had to smile at that. "Yes, Uncle Vernon," he said because the man looked at him as if he expected an answer. "Everything I do will be strictly normal. I won't even touch my wand unless it's a dire emergency."

The walrus stared at him a moment, scowled, then nodded. "Good. We understand each other."

They stopped for dinner, to Harry's intense surprise, at a restaurant instead of going home, as he had expected.

"Mind your manners!" his uncle growled at Harry as they went in.

For his first experience in a muggle restaurant, it was rather nice.

It was also rather creepy to have his Uncle treat him like he said he did his subordinates at work. Not a peer, the smarmy stuff wasn't out. The three ignored Harry for the most part, and Dudley was unusually quiet. Harry just listened as the two adults discussed what they wanted to do with their new-found wealth. Each bar, according to what he heard, was worth about five- or six-weeks' worth of his Uncle's salary. Which meant that by the time he left at the end of summer hols, ten weeks, they would have almost doubled his Uncle's income for the year.

His uncle intended to take several three- and four-day "family vacations" in Europe to trade the gold bars into local currency. Then deposit the monies he received into his Barclays Bank account in London through their local branches in Europe. If anyone asked, he had performed consulting work.

There would be fees for doing that, naturally, but the last thing he wanted was Inland Revenue taking an interest and finding something wrong. Plus, even if Inland took a big bite, he was still left with a hefty increase in his earnings.

The rest of the drive home was equally quiet.

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Josephine Edgecombe had not been having a very good year, so far.

It wasn't like it had been before Minister Fudge was elected. Things had been looking up, actually. Hearing that the secluded Harry Potter had been seen in Diagon Alley that summer, followed by news that he had started his first year at Hogwarts had been a bright point for nearly everyone, except certain pure-bloods.

But that was before everyone had learned how erratic and unpredictable he was, how he dressed like a poor muggle instead of a wizard, how he rejected the traditions that were the backbone of the wizarding society, how he was always in one ill-planned adventure or another each year at the school, and frequently ended up in the Hospital Wing by the time exams rolled around. How he had only two friends and spurned everyone else as beneath his station.

Plus, as Harry Potter's reputation suffered, things at the Ministry began to subtly get worse and worse.

Oh, it wasn't any one thing she could point at, but the entire Ministry seemed to be going downhill, from her point of view. The pure-bloods, who had seemed to be content to sit quietly in the background, were slowly coming to the front, now. Raises had been slowly restricted to those with connections to the higher-ups in the Ministry — the pure-bloods.

She hadn't been given a raise in two years.

Promotions, always difficult for half-bloods, had become harder and harder to secure. She hadn't seen a promoted half-blood in year — only pure-bloods. Sadly, the ones promoted always seemed to be the more snobbish ones.

Then, two years ago had been that terrible hooligan incident at the World Quidditch Game that Ireland had won.

Since last September, her job had become increasingly stressful with rumours and speculation running rampant. Everyone was on edge, from higher-ups to the lowest janitors. Everyone, it seemed, had to tread carefully and keep eyes on the back of their heads — because you never knew who was saying what about you behind your back. Any little mistake, or even misunderstanding, was enough to put your job in peril. There had been a few fired or demoted as a result of the dementor fiasco last summer, that had really been when it became noticeable. Distressingly, the demoted half-bloods and fired muggle-borns had all been replaced by pure-bloods — snobbish pure-bloods who expected everyone not a pure-blood to ask "how high" when they said jump. Even if they weren't in your department and wanted something that was borderline improper. Or even out-right illegal!

In addition, her daughter, finally back from Hogwarts, was withdrawn and strange, and refused to confide in her what was wrong. It worried both her and her husband.

Then there were the rumours! People were saying that You-Know-Who was back — impossible of course, as they had all been reassured of that by the Minister, himself. Who insisted that Dumbledore was a liar, that the Ministry was not corrupt, that Harry Potter was even more erratic than normal, and telling lies upon lies to gain attention. That he was like a three-year-old yelling, "Mommy, mommy, mommy," when mommy was cooking, gardening, or even just trying to nap for a few moments — just to get her attention.

Every day a new rumour surfaced and circulated, each worse than the one before it, and no one knew what to believe anymore. Not to mention that Umbridge woman and what she'd done to that girl at Hogwarts! If even half the stories about that were true, she should be in Azkaban, not acting as Senior Undersecretary to Minister Fudge — who insisted it was all a misunderstanding.

It seemed as if, bit by bit, everything was going wrong. Pure-bloods or their toadies were being promoted at the Ministry, and others were being fired almost at random — oh, there was always an excuse, but, really? Who couldn't see that pattern?

Just the other day, for example, she'd heard about Edgar, a muggle-born wizard who'd worked in the cafeteria for the better part of fifty years, so long that he was practically part of Ministry woodwork now. And why? No one knew. There'd been some complaints, apparently. Complaints so minor no had ever heard them!

Josephine was pretty certain it was simply because he was a muggle-born.

Actually, quite a few muggle-borns had been fired in the last eleven months at the Ministry. If a muggle-born showed the slightest sympathy for Dumbledore and Hogwarts — or Harry Potter — well! They seemed to get fired rather quickly, once the pure-bloods noticed. There was always an excuse, but they were pretty flimsy ones.

Try as they might, no one could pretend it wasn't exactly what it looked like. At first, no one had noticed, but it wasn't as if there were all that many muggle-borns working in the Ministry in the first place. So, when one just got replaced by a pure-blood or half-blood, well. It was hard not to notice, after a while. Hard not to draw conclusions.

Not helping matters were rumours coming from Level Nine, the Department of Mysteries, of wizards mysteriously going mad, and snakes attacking wizards and witches!

It was a very nervous time for all of them at the Ministry.

Which was why she had demanded her daughter disassociate herself from the problem child that was Harry Potter, and any organization of which he was a part.

Marietta had grown so much — at least a whole inch. Plus, there was something different about her. She . . . carried herself differently, as if she had better balance or were a dancer. If she hadn't been a witch at Hogwarts, Josephine would've assumed she had started doing sports. Both she and her husband had marvelled at the changes a year had wrought.

Josephine cleared her throat. "So, how was your school year?" she asked her suddenly quiet and mono-syllabic daughter that Sunday evening in the sitting-room. They were listening to the wireless while reading. "Did you . . . did you stay in that after-school club?"

Marietta looked at her with an unreadable expression. "School was fine," she said after a moment and nothing else.

She and her husband exchanged exasperated looks. He went back to his book.

Josephine waited for her to continue but Marietta just returned her attention to her book. She cleared her throat again. "Is Cho in the club?" she asked.

Marietta didn't answer. The silence stretched awkwardly for a moment before she did speak. "How's work?" she said.

There was something . . . pointed about the way she asked it, that made Josephine frown a little. When Marietta glanced up again, the look in her eyes was knowing — and maybe even a bit judgemental.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Josephine asked, and leaned back a little.

"Nothing," Marietta answered. "I've just heard some . . . things about the Ministry."

"Like what?" Had she heard something from her school friends — or from the Undersecretary?

"Just stuff," she said, and shrugged. Marietta just watched her.

Her husband kept his attention on his book, the wireless playing a Howling Banshees song.

"You know the Weasleys, right?" she asked.

Josephine stilled at that. The Weasleys. She didn't have much to do with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office, but she'd heard about it. Arthur Weasley getting attacked — almost killed — in the Ministry. The very thought that such a thing could happen in the Ministry terrified her.

No one knew what had happened, but he'd still not come back to work. They'd given his job to someone else — a clueless pure-blood, she'd heard. A pure-blood she was pretty sure she'd seen once with Lucius Malfoy.

There was a wizard you didn't cross if you wanted to keep your job!

Josephine composed herself. "Are they in that club with you, the Weasleys?" She asked. "There's what, three of them in Hogwarts?"

"Two, now — the twins graduated this year," Marietta answered and tilted her head. "Heard about their dad?"

She forced a smile. "I'm sure he will be fine, dear," she said. "What happened was just an accident, and I don't work anywhere near the Muggle Affairs anyway . . .."

"They have to suspend him in stasis to keep him alive — he's still there," Marietta cut in brutally. "He's, like, in this bubble where time doesn't pass for him," she said rapidly, as if afraid her mother would interrupt. "Because, just a few more minutes and he dies. Because he's poisoned and they can't heal his wounds. So, he's been in a stasis-bubble since Christmas." She sat back and stared at her mother.

Her father had his full attention on her, now. The wireless prattled on in the background.

Josephine stared at her, surprised. "Wha — how on Earth do you —"

"So, you do know." Marietta nodded. "I heard all that direct from the Weasleys," she said and looked at the wireless. "I have some homework I should get on with. Can I go?"

"I, uh — yes —" Josephine stuttered and exchanged glances with her husband. They watched as Marietta all but bolted from the room. She stared at her husband. He shrugged and turned back to his book. She blindly looked at him and wondered what on earth was happening to her life.

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The next day at work, she very carefully asked if anyone knew about what had actually happened to Arthur Weasley, and why he hadn't returned to work. Everyone knew about the attack, of course, but didn't really know anything else. Besides, "I don't really know," the most common answer was some sort of strange accident with muggle technology. Something she hadn't quite believed when it was first mentioned months ago, not unless someone had brought a bomb in. She knew enough about muggles and their things to know if it didn't out-right kill you, the Healers could put you to right in only a day, if not a few minutes. In addition, there would have been a lot more to the story if it had been a bomb, in that case. But nothing about poison. That gave the incident a whole different, more sinister, implication. Poisoning takes time to plan and deliver, a spontaneous attack does not.

The Weasleys were the biggest known muggle sympathisers there were, and obviously close friends with Albus Dumbledore — and wasn't their youngest boy best friends with Harry Potter? She shivered.

Given the current climate at the Ministry, those kinds of connections were not good. They guaranteed the wrong sort of attention. The only thing in Arthur Weasley's favour was that he was from an old pure-blood family. A lot of the workers at the Ministry, both pure-blood and not, liked him.

Had Arthur become a problem someone had felt needed removing? Being a pure-blood, they couldn't just fire him. Not without a very good, and big, reason. Had it been easier to arrange an . . . accident?

No one knew much about Arthur Weasley since then, either. "I hear he's still recovering," Theresa from Transportation said with a shrug. "He was in St. Mungo's for a long time, wasn't he?" Vance, a clerk in Accidents and Catastrophes said, but even he didn't know anything else. "It was some muggle doohikey, wasn't it?" said Fiona in the Creatures Department when they talked at lunch.

No one really knew anything definite, and no one much cared. For someone so well-liked, it was truly incredible there was so little information. It was as if someone had gone around and deliberately told different stories to people to confuse them.

Josephine didn't know much about the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office. She'd carefully avoided seeking any contact with anyone in it because even before things had gone downhill it was a bloody good way to get demoted in the Ministry. Anyone who regularly dealt with muggles was regarded with suspicion in the Ministry. As a result, she didn't know anyone who worked there, or what they thought. She was tempted to try and find someone in there on a break or at lunch on another day, but . . ..

With things being the way they were, it was probably bad enough that she was asking at all.

"I hear they're going to fire Allison any day now," Fiona muttered to her just as she was about to leave after finishing her lunch. "Just . . . watch yourself, Josephine."

Allison Heath, who worked in the Administrative Registration Department — and had done so for about twenty years — was known as a good and efficient office manager. No one ever had, or had had, any complaints about her. Except that maybe she was a little too efficient? Never took breaks, and as far as Josephine knew, she never got sick, either.

She was also a muggle-born.

Josephine bowed her head and went back to her desk. She spent the rest of the day worried, and jumped at every unusual noise in her office. It was another tense and stressful day.

They were all starting to be like that.

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Eugene Serabyn looked up as Eric Weisstein walked in. Eric didn't mince words as he tossed down a batch of papers on the desk. "I have to toss last night's observations."

Gene leaned back, startled. "What? Why?"

"Interference," Eric said angrily, flinging himself into the visitor's chair, making it slam against the wall behind it.

"Interference?" Gene said, incredulous, his eyebrows shooting up..

"Yeah, some dickwad was flying repeatedly across my line of sight."

Gene grabbed the papers and leaned over them, studying them closely.

"The first dozen are right in line with what we expected on the H2 line, but then it skyrockets to five hundred Kelvin and just sits there. My time ran out before the temp changed to any degree," Eric said dispiritedly.

"That's crazy!" Gene said, still staring at the printouts. He set the papers down and stared at Eric. "That's impossible!"

"Yeah, I know," Eric said and grimaced. "And yet . . . there it is." He waved his hand at Gene's desk and the papers on it.

"No, I mean that's impossible!"

Eric looked at him questioningly.

"Think about it. No plane could possibly hold itself directly in front of the telescope for any length of time. A helicopter could, but that's restricted airspace, and the exhaust for both is not a measly five hundred Kelvin!"

Eric expression was changing to one of puzzlement.

"A high-altitude balloon could, if the winds were just right, stay in place strictly by accident, but they're nowhere near that warm, they're more likely to match the air's temperature, two hundred and seventy-three, not five hundred."

Eric's eyebrows went up, "You think something happened on Uranus?"

Gene frowned. "More likely an instrument malfunction."

Eric shook his head. "That was my first thought, too, so I checked it out. Nada. Perfect results."

"Intermittent flaw?"

"Perhaps," he said slowly, "but everything tests out perfectly. And no one else reported any problems last night with their observations. Or any other night before last night. I checked."

Gene sighed, and shoved the papers to one side. "You'll have another go at it tonight, and I'll see if I can book you another night next week to make up for it."

Eric nodded. "And this time, I'll calibrate it on Neptune before and after the Uranus observations."

Gene nodded. "It'll slow things down, but why don't you alternate between the two during your time on the scope?"

Eric shook his head, "I don't like the lost time, but yeah, maybe I should. And if I could get an additional night, or two, on the scope?" he finished, hopefully.

Gene frowned, but said, "I'll see what I can do."

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The next day, after a nice breakfast, which Harry didn't have to fix and he wasn't fed only table scraps, he retired to his room after washing the dishes. He pulled out his tricorder, and shared with Hermione that he had had a great start to his hols! Now, if only his scar would stop aching.

Harry decided he would spend his time studying runes, arithmancy, and struggling with his assignments. Without chores to eat up his time, he could make rather good progress on all three fronts. The only downsides were the constant ache in his scar, and probably the occasional nightmare of things that Voldemort was doing or planning. Not that he could do anything about either of those, was his fatalistic thought. Still, at least he didn't have to worry about keeping the Toad distracted from the others, anymore. His hand throbbed at the thought of her.

Lee did call him later that day and reluctantly informed him, "The space station is going to take longer than we thought, Captain."

"Is there a problem?"

"No problem, as such. It's just that the replicator isn't designed for industrial work, so it has to stop after eight hours to cool off. It'll put us about two, maybe three, weeks behind." He sighed. "Still well before term starts, but still . . . it's disappointing."

"It's better we learn these things now," Harry said reflectively, "than when we really needed it for doing something in a certain time frame and then finding out it couldn't do it."

"Too true, Captain, too true," Lee said, nodding his head in the video.

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"Marietta," Josephine started, a little awkward but determined, that evening in the sitting-room. "Next year, you will quit that after-school club, alright?"

Marietta looked up from the Daily Prophet, and disbelievingly stared at her for a moment. Then she leaned back. "How about you quit your job, instead," she said defiantly.

Her husband looked up from his book, and started paying attention.

"Don't even start. Your little after school club doesn't bring the food on the table. My job does! Your father," she nodded at him, "does what he can, but without the training and education in the muggle world he's limited in opportunities. We both need to work to make a living for the three of us. It's hard enough without you bringing me unwelcome attention at the ministry," Josephine snapped. She huffed and then quickly composed herself. "Things are a little tense right now, dear," she tried again, placatingly. "And what's happening at Hogwarts, it's just making me," she glanced at her husband again, who nodded, "us, soo worried. Hogwarts has always been political, and I'd hate you to get stuck in the middle of it. Any enemies you make in Hogwarts will remain enemies for the rest of your life."

Her daughter rolled her eyes at that and stood up. She stalked off. Josephine stared after her in astonishment and then stood to follow. "Marietta, don't you even dare — this is serious and —"

Marietta went into her room, and came out almost immediately. Before her mother had the chance to walk around the coffee table, Marietta set something on the table's wooden surface. It made a heavy, resounding thunk as it landed.

Josephine and her husband stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. Then their eyes widened.

"Turn that into food on the table," Marietta said, as she straightened and folded her arms.

"Marietta . . . what —" Josephine started and then quickly straightened up. "Is this a joke?" she asked. Her husband, George, came over, picked up the bar, and grunted with surprise at the weight he felt.

"No," Marietta said with a slight snort. "It's gold. Solid gold. Pure gold."

It looked like gold. A solid, unmarked, bar of gold, its lines and corners so clear and sharp that Josephine almost thought she could cut herself with them. It looked so real, too. It shone like she'd always assumed real gold did. George handed it to her and looked at his daughter, frowning slightly. The bar was hard and cool and very heavy in her hand. A solid, single-block of metal. It was heavy for its size, but not that heavy.

It had to be lead. That was the only metal she knew that could be this heavy while so small — not even as thick as single finger, nor as wide as three fingers, and almost as long as her hand. She handed it back to her husband.

"Did you make this?" Josephine asked, half-laughing. "Marietta, you can't just transfigure something to a golden colour and think it's gold — that's not how it works."

"It's not transfigured, mom. It's real gold," Marietta said tightly, but not offended. It was if she had expected not to be believed. "Don't believe me, take it to the Goblins. They'll verify it."

The elder witch frowned, testing the weight of the supposed-gold-ingot in her hand. It felt real. She knew what her daughter looked like when she lied. This wasn't Marietta pulling a joke or trying to hide the truth. This was a tense, annoyed Marietta who was telling the truth, expecting not to be believed, and being all the more annoyed for it.

Puberty and rebellion might've hit her daughter hard, but Josephine still knew her baby girl.

"Where did you get this?" she asked quietly, setting the gold bar down. Her husband picked it back up. He tried to press his fingernail into, and raised his eyebrows as he succeeded. He examined the depression for any signs of a change in colour. There were none. He hefted it from hand to hand, almost dropping it before carefully placing it on the table.

Marietta shrugged and didn't look her in the eyes.

"Did you . . .," Josephine stopped, trying to figure out how to ask the question without sounding accusatory in the wrong sort of way. "Did you . . . take this from someone?"

"I didn't steal it — and I'm pretty sure wizards don't even keep gold like this," Marietta said and looked at the bar on the table.

Josephine picked up the bar, again, and turned it over in her hands. She looked at the fingernail mark George had made.

"I actually wasn't sure why they made them like this before Granger explained it was how muggles keep gold. A keelobar she called it. And no, I didn't steal it from muggles, either. It was . . . a gift, I guess. We all got them."

"All who?"

"All the members of my after-school club," Marietta said.

Josephine's hand shook and she quickly put the block of metal back on the table. "And who did you get it from?" she asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Marietta didn't answer. She just huffed, folded her arms, and stared at her parents.

Josephine stared at her daughter. Her husband stared at the gold bar.

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Gene had to admit, he was more than a little curious the next morning as he drove to his Caltech office. He suspected Eric hadn't slept the previous night.

Eric was waiting for him, bouncing on his heels with a ridiculous grin on his face.

"Somethings happening at Uranus," he said in a singsong tone.

Gene's eyebrows went up and he gave Eric a long stare as he unlocked the door and they went inside.

Eric slapped a new batch of papers on his desk and started to pace.

"It happened, again," he said excitedly. "Just like before. Nothing at first, then it quickly climbed to nearly four hundred. After four hours of slowly increasing to five hundred it stabilized at five hundred for three-and-a-half hours, it began sharply rising to just under five-fifty, plateaued, then reversed direction and began a steady drop."

Gene just looked at him. He had not had that much time on the scope last night. Not nearly!

Eric took a deep breath and gave Gene a rueful grin. "I cheated," he admitted a bit bashfully, to Gene's disproving expression. "I . . . traded time with a couple of the others. I got a short window, a bit over an hour, almost immediately last night, far ahead of what I was scheduled for. In exchange I gave Tom some of my late-night time. Calibrated the instrument, shot Neptune, then moved to Uranus. That was the nothing, and I gave it back to Tom," he explained hurriedly. "I made the same deal with Richard, Harold, George, and Sims. I shot Neptune, and moved to Uranus at the beginning of each of their slots. I shot Neptune, normal, and went back to Uranus. The second reading was nearly two hundred degrees. The third was at five."

He paused a moment to grin at Gene.

"When my slot came in, I again shot Neptune to make sure of the settings, then Uranus. It was right at five hundred, then it suddenly shot up to almost five-fifty before it leveled off and began to drop, which was what it was still doing when daylight washed it out an hour later." He sighed. "The time between the start of the climb and the drop was about eight hours."

He leaned forward excitedly. "But the interesting part, the really interesting part, is that I used the spotter scope after centering on the source. It was OFF Uranus!" he concluded triumphantly.

He chuckled at his advisor's incredulous look. "Oh, but it gets better," he said to Gene's incredulous look. "It's in orbit around the planet, but it's not any of the known moons, and it's in a nearly polar orbit!" He nodded excitedly raising his eyebrows. "We've found a new moon! And it appears to be geysering steam, like Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park."

Gene stared at Eric before slowly nodding his head. "I'll notify Kitt Peak, Mauna Kea, Gornergrat, Siding Spring, and Ishigakijima, that should get us 24-hour coverage and confirmation relatively quickly. I won't say we found a moon, just that something very unusual has been happening just off Uranus, according to our instruments, for the last two days."

"I'll also pass the word to Hoanh An Lam, Steven Miller, Robert Joseph, Thomas Geballe, and Therese Encrenaz. See if they have any unusual readings on Uranus in their records. Or suggestions on what it might be."

This had the potential to put them both in the history books.

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The gold bar sat on their sitting-room coffee-table for two days, glinting in the light, before Josephine mustered up the strength of will to deal with it. When she picked it up that morning before work, it was with every intention of just getting rid of it. Then she would try, somehow, to talk sense into her daughter. Whoever had put such weird, fantastical notion into her daughter's head didn't even matter — that they, somehow, had gotten Marietta to believe this nonsense that this was a gold bar was irrelevant. It was Josephine's job as a mother to show her they were taking advantage of her gullibility. She was still in Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake. She needed her parents to watch for things like this.

Except, when the gold bar was in her hand, it was soo heavy . . . so real. It even felt like gold. Or what she thought gold ought to feel like.

She couldn't help but think, What if . . . what if it was real?

Josephine didn't actually know what real gold was worth in the Wizarding World. Galleons were supposed to be gold, but the exchange rate to muggle money was too low to make that believable. Her father had done the calculation when she first started Hogwarts — if galleons were really pure gold, you could get far more than just five pounds for a one-ounce coin just by selling them to muggle gold dealers. But no one ever did. Why? Because it wasn't as much gold as it seemed to be. The Goblins used magic, somehow, to dilute the gold to meet the exchange rate they set. And they had special spells to detect if anyone tried to melt the galleons and sell them to muggles.

No one wanted to cross the Goblins.

So, how much was actual gold worth in galleons?

She teetered on the edge of indecision, as she stared at the gold bar. Then, she dropped the gold bar into her handbag. She sighed. She knew entertaining this charade was ridiculous, no one would just give her daughter a gold bar with no strings attached. It had to be a scam, a scheme that would get her daughter, and her family, no doubt, in trouble.

Yet the suspicion sat there, in the back of her mind, maybe . . . maybe it was real. And if it was, what kind of danger did it represent? Because if it was real, if someone had given her daughter a solid block of gold then, oh, Merlin . . .

What did they want with her daughter? And what had she promised to them in exchange for the bloody thing?

She'd be a fool not to determine the truth, in any case. So, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders, and set off with determination for Diagon Alley, the bar heavy in her bag, and headed to Gringotts. She would get to the bottom of this . . . puzzle.

Once she was there, it got worse, not better.

The Goblin clerk sighed as she handed him the bar. He took it, looked at it, ran his fingers over it, sniffed it, and even tasted it. "Another one of these . . .," he said, with a look of suspicion at Josephine.

Josephine stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, wondering what sort of punishment there was for bringing fake gold to Gringotts.

The Goblin firmly set the bar down. "The conversion rate is One thousand, two hundred and eighty galleons. Would you like the funds transferred directly to your vault?"

Josephine stared, stunned at the statement. "What?"

The Goblin scowled at her and narrowed his eyes. "One thousand, two hundred and eighty galleons," he repeated slowly, and slightly louder, as if to someone who was mentally slow. "The conversion rate was higher on Sunday, I know," he said testily, "but that was before people brought us forty of these things. The price of gold has dropped, and it will continue to drop as more gold is brought in."

"I — there've been others? Forty?" Josephine asked bemusedly. "They're all real? A-all of them?"

The Goblin was extremely unamused by her. "Yes, yes, yes, and yes." He rolled his eyes and looked at like she was a distasteful insect. "And before you ask, yes, it is the purest we've had," he said nastily. "But that doesn't change the fact that exchange rates vary according to supply and demand. If you're not happy with the conversion rate, you're free to take your gold to the muggles." He grinned nastily at the idea.

Josephine had to clear her throat. "H-how much was it, again?"

"One thousand, two hundred and eighty galleons," the Goblin said through gritted teeth. "Ask me again and I will charge a fee for wasted time. Now do you want the money transferred to your vault?"

One thousand, two hundred and eighty galleons! That . . . that . . . that was almost half her yearly salary! And . . . and Marietta had been just given it . . ..

"No, I'm sorry," Josephine said. She blinked and realized she had started to draw attention and make a scene. "I just wanted it . . . verified," she said faintly.

"Very well," the Goblin groused, and handed the bar of pure gold back to her. "The fee will be five galleons. Gringotts can automatically deduct the sum from your vault or you can pay here and now. What will it be?"

"Take it from my vault. I, uh . . . thank you for your time."

She hurried out of the bank, and hoped no one would remember seeing her there.

The gold bar just sat on their sitting-room coffee-table, again. She sat on the couch and just stared at it. Then she realised that she had an actual gold bar just sitting there, out in the open, on their sitting-room coffee-table. She threw a table-cloth over it, as if that would hide it from anyone who came in.

She stared at the lump the gold bar made of the cloth on the table. She didn't know how long she sat there, probably hours, before she started to laugh hysterically.

██:::::██:::::██ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈

A.N. Eric Weisstein really was studying the H2 line of Uranus that summer. He submitted a paper on his results in the late fall. Hoanh An Lam, Steven Miller, Robert Joseph, Thomas Geballe, and Therese Encrenaz were the leading researchers on Uranus, at that time.