Ch. 16 — Into the Mouth of the Beast
The next day, the Sunday Daily Prophet was buried under letters from outraged parents at what "that witch" and the Ministry had done to their child's O.W.L. or N.E.W.T. scores! The official, Ministry-appointed, professor had done NOTHING to prepare their children for the tests. She had RUINED their chances at the careers they wanted! The Ministry deliberately had sabotaged their children's lives! Even the pure-bloods were incensed.
Wizards and witches were lackadaisical about many things, but NOT their children's careers. So, when the Daily Prophet printed the results of the exams, and that out of all the students who took those tests, only seventeen Fifth years and six — six — Seventh years passed D.A.D.A., the bottom fell out for the Ministry. A long companion article about her teaching methods, and her qualifications — and lack thereof —fed that anger.
There was a mob, Monday afternoon, in the Ministry's lobby demanding that the Ministry do something! It was, after all, the Ministry's fault, not their child's, that the child had failed the test! That many in the crowd were Ministry employees just amplified the situation.
It wasn't just the fifth- and seventh-year parents, either. All the other parents were there, too. Their children in the other years had been hurt, too. They were all, now, a year behind in their studies for that course!
They wanted, demanded, to know what the Ministry was going to do about it!
The Alley was remarkably empty, that Monday.
Minister Fudge knew he was hanging on by a thread and that only quick action would save his . . . job. By evening, he announced a plan that special summer Defence Against the Dark Arts classes would be held for the Fifth- and Seventh-year students to bring them up to the standard required before school started in the Autumn. The classes would be taught by the four best aurors in the department, to allow for more individual attention. And that the first classes would start on Monday, at nine in the morning.
When someone angrily pointed out that there were usually four classes of D.A.D.A. for each student year, anyway, he quickly changed that to the eight best aurors in the department would be teaching the summer courses.
Plus, they could re-take their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s the week before the Hogwarts Express left for the new term on September First. Their first test results would be tossed out as long as they retook the test.
As for those students returning to Hogwarts? He promised to work with the Headmaster to select a series of highly-qualified Aurors to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts for the foreseeable future, two per year. And that they would cover all the material the non-Fifth year children had missed in the previous year, in addition to the regular material for the current year.
The Fifth- and Seventh-year students were, for the most part, happy to hear that. A few, who had little interest in the subject, were not so happy.
All the other students groaned at the workload they would see next year.
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Wednesday, Josephine was looking over her old Ancient Runes text books and comparing them to the book the twins had given her. There were some rather interesting grammatical differences between the two, which she was careful to note, as well as many new ones. This set of runes appeared to be more extensive in scope.
"Captain wants you to cash these in," Lee Jordan said, coming out of the back hallway and setting a boot-sized, wooden shoe-box on the counter in front of Josephine. She looked up at him, and then down into the open box. She could only stare speechlessly for a few moments.
The box was full of gold bars.
"Uh? Um. Uh?" she finally managed to squeak out.
"They're funds for the store," Jordan said, folded his arms, and glared at the box the way she used to stare at Marietta after she had been into her jewellery box instead of like she would expect him to stare at, well, a box full of gold bars. "Hermione pointed out, and rightly," he rolled his eyes, "people might think it a bit weird if the store didn't have a vault for funds and deposits, and stuff." He sighed. "So . . . for appearances sake, we decided to set up a vault for the Enterprise shop."
Josephine stared at him, then at the box full of gold, and then up again. He wasn't joking, unlike what she would have expected if the twins had brought this box into the shop "For. . . appearance's sakes?" she asked faintly. "D-do you have any idea how much money this is?" At a glance, she could see at two rows of five so, at least ten gold bars. And there had to be at least two layers in the box. At one thousand and two hundred galleons per bar, if that price was still accurate at Gringotts, that was . . . that was . . . at least twenty-four thousand galleons. At least. Just looking at it made her feel faint.
"It's a lot, I guess," Jordan said hesitantly, and then shrugged. "Money kind of stops meaning much when there's nothing you want to buy though. Well, that and you can always afford what you do want to buy without worrying if you'll have any left over." He sighed and rubbed over his right eye. "Maybe you'll figure out something the shop might need. Just . . . take them to Gringotts for now and open a vault for Enterprise, okay?" He looked around the shop and frowned. "I'll be here for a bit so I can watch the store while you're gone."
Josephine waited for him to add something that might make sense to her. She nodded her head slowly, stood, and started for the door with the box.
It reminded her of a story her mother had told her while she was still in Hogwarts. A new muggle camera had come out and the maker only had a limited amount of film, as yet. So, Harrod's Department Store had limited film sales only to purchasers of the camera, and only two packs at that. A rich oil sheik had wanted the camera and lots of film. When told of the film limit, he had shrugged, bought every camera they had in the store, taken the film cartridges, and dumped the extra cameras in the trash bin when he left. He had his camera and the film, why would he want the other cameras? He had so much money, he simply didn't care.
She was almost at the door before she thought to cover the wooden box with her scarf to hide the bars. Merlin forbid! Someone might notice the glint of the gold! It felt ridiculous, surreal, actually down right mental, to just walk nonchalantly down the Alley to Gringotts with a box of gold.
How had this become her life?
It was nerve-wracking to pretend to calmly stand in a line waiting for a clerk, worried to death that everyone around could see she was carrying a fortune in gold in a common wooden shoe-box!
"Yes?" the Goblin teller asked her rudely as she got to the head of the line. He eyeballed the scarf-draped box suspiciously.
"I'm — I'm here to open a vault for the shop I work in, Enterprise?" Josephine asked, "It's just down a ways in the Alley? Perhaps you've seen it? We're getting ready to open, you see, but the shelves are mostly empty, and nothing is ready yet . . .." She let her voice trail off as she realized she was babbling. She felt like her head was full of wool. She gave the scowling Goblin a weak, pale-faced smile. "I have, uh, . . ." she hoisted the box up on the Goblin's high desk, making the creature lean back with disgust. Thank Merlin, there had been a featherlight charm on the box. She didn't think she could have carried the box all that way and lifted it up here if it weren't it a manageable weight.
The Goblin froze, however, when she pulled her scarf off the box and he saw the gold.
"I want these exchanged for galleons, and the galleons placed in the vault," Josephine said faintly as the Goblin stared at the gold. "Um, if that's not any trouble. Please. Or would it be better to exchange just one bar and put the rest in the vault?"
The Goblin leaned over the counter, closer to her, and gave her a long look. He pulled out a bar and inspected it closely. He ran his fingers on it, smelled it, and looked it over very carefully once more. Then he set it down again, and leaned over the box once more to look at her accusingly. "Enterprise, was it?" he half-growled. "Tell me, Madam," he said, his eyes narrowed to slits, "where did you get these?"
"F-from my employers?" Josephine answered, her voice quavering.
"And do you know where they got them?" the Goblin demanded.
"I'm not . . . uh . . . I don't, no," she said worriedly, licking her lips uncertainly. Just how much trouble was she in? She felt close to outright fainting. She had never done that before. She felt as if she had swallowed a whole box of those Weightless Wedges.
Her life seemed to be encountering a lot of firsts, lately.
"Humph," the Goblin answered with obvious displeasure. He eyed the box, and her, critically for a moment. "We will exchange these, all of them." He said grudgingly. "But warn your employers, and everyone else who has been bringing these in," he said testily, "that Gringotts will no longer accept raw gold." He leaned back. "Not before we have had the chance to negotiate a proper and reasonable exchange-rate with the source."
Josephine swallowed. "Um. May I ask why not?" she managed to squeak out past her dry throat.
"You're unbalancing the gold market," the Goblin said with a scowl, even as he leaned away to get a large book and an impressively long quill. "Now, what size of vault do you have in mind? And how often do you plan to access it outside of teller deposits and withdrawals?"
It was another hour before she escaped Gringotts.
She resolved to keep a bottle of fire-whiskey in one of the drawers under the register. She certainly needed a shot today.
"Well, it was inevitable, I suppose," Jordan dryly said to the stone on his chest, after she had explained what had happened in Gringotts and what the Goblin had said.
Josephine tried not to look like she was eavesdropping and kept her nose in a runes book after she retook her seat behind the register.
"We have been bringing in a lot gold, lately. But would that really have this much of an effect?" came another voice.
"Yes, unfortunately, it could. The magical world's economy is a closed system, after all." A witch's voice came from the stone — Hermione Granger, it sounded like, talking from who knew where. "It has a certain number of hard resources that aren't used up, merely traded back and forth from one place to another — sometimes it's nothing more than moving it from one vault to another, and back. We've challenged that status quo by bringing in additional gold from the outside. It was only matter of time before Gringotts put a stop to it."
"Can't we take the gold somewhere else?" a new voice asked, female Josephine hadn't met yet.
"We could take it to the muggles, and then bring the muggle money to Gringotts to exchange for galleons. But then they would wonder why all those British pounds were coming in so suddenly. Plus, we would have an additional problem in that private ownership of gold bullion is highly monitored in England, and the authorities would clamour to know where we were getting it."
"So, we'd be trading one problem for two or three others?"
"If we keep at with what we've been doing so far, say, by doing this in another country, we might start disturbing the world economy," Jordan said. "Gold is the standard for all wizarding currencies — if we lower the value of gold too much, well . . . it will have consequences."
"Has the magical world ever had a depression?" Granger wondered.
"Not like muggle world has, I don't think," Jordan said. "I'm more worried about hyperinflation, really."
"Translation?" Harry Potter's voice sounded calm.
"The costs of goods go up — rapid inflation — which then erodes the value of your income." Granger explained. "It's quite complicated, but a real threat. Anyway, we could cause it by decreasing the value of gold, which then would erode the value of our galleons. We keep this up, and this time next year it might take two galleons to buy something that costs a galleon now. Or more. While everyone's income remains the same."
The thought of that happening would have terrified Josephine a month ago. They had been close to the line, as it was. If prices had gone up significantly, but not her salary . . .." She tried not to shiver and reveal she was listening.
"Goblins are pretty good at keeping track of that sort of thing though," Jordan said. "which's why it's a good thing we've been taking our gold to Gringotts instead of jewellers or the muggles — they control the real value of the galleon. Because the gold has gone to them, and not to the market itself, it hasn't had any effect on prices of things. At least, not yet."
"But if we keep this up, it might," Potter resignedly concluded. "And if we start taking gold to the muggles, or to actual stores . . . it probably will."
"Yes, sir," Jordan agreed, "It probably will."
"Do we really need galleons, though?" someone asked. "The stuff we have, the stuff we can make . . . does money even matter to us anymore?"
Josephine just goggled at the book in front of her, dumbstruck.
"We're still part of the magical world," Granger said sternly. "We can't just ignore it and do what we want. We could completely, and accidentally, destroy the economy here — and that would affect so many more lives than just ours. We have to be responsible here."
There was a moment of silence. Josephine just stared at her book. She didn't even know what to think. She was gobsmacked at what she was hearing. This was insane. They were casually talking about whether or not they should be worried they could destroy the wizarding world's economy! Her mind felt muddled, as if she were a little kid listening to some technical talk-show on the telly at one of her muggle-friend's homes.
And they were just kids. Kids!
What kind of kids had the power to disrupt the whole economy?
No one said anything for a while.
"Captain?" Jordan finally said into the white stone. "It's your call."
There were a few more moments of silence as Potter didn't answer immediately. But then she heard his sigh through the stone. "The Goblins want to meet me, is that right?"
"They want to meet the source," Jordan said.
He glanced pointedly at Josephine; she could see from the corners of her eyes. She tried not to blush as she stared at her book.
"That could be anyone," he finished.
"It could — but lying now won't win us any friends in the future," Potter said grimly. "And I really think we don't want to make the Goblins our enemies." There was another pause. "Right. I'll see if I can get away from here long enough to meet up with them. Lee, Hermione, I trust you can accompany me?"
"Yes, of course," Granger answered.
"Whenever you want, Captain," Jordan agreed.
"Alright," Potter said. "With any luck, I'll see you soon, then."
The crew said their goodbyes and Jordan hid the stone under the lapels of his robe. He sighed, looked at Josephine, and gave her a crooked smile. "Well, looks like you'll be meeting Captain soon."
Josephine nodded feebly.
Just kids, she thought. Which did nothing to reassure her. Instead, it made her feel small.
Kids who could bring the wizarding economy to its knees in a matter of hours. Maybe even the whole world's economy.
And, right now, the Edgecombes' were in the middle of it.
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Harry Potter arrived the next day, accompanied by two suspicious-looking adult wizards — one of whom Josephine knew by sight.
"So, this is the place the twins got, eh?" Alastor Mad-Eye Moody said as he cast distrustful looks everywhere. His magic eye rolled around at a dizzying speed while he surveyed the inside of the shop, with wand in his hand. "Doesn't look like much," he said derisively. "What are they going to sell here?"
Ah, he was not part of the crew, then. Were there any adults involved, at all? Or was she the "token" adult? What an appalling idea.
"No idea, yet," Potter answered. He shrugged and pushed his hands into the pockets of his muggle coat. He looked around curiously, and drifted over to the picture of Uranus. "Beautiful," she heard him murmur.
Josephine recognized him from the pictures the Daily Prophet ran during the Tri-Wizard tournament. There'd been one of him standing awkwardly in ill-fitting, ugly muggle clothing. She had wondered why, at the time. The Potters were reputedly rich. She had written it off as teenage rebellion and angst. The stories published in the paper hadn't done much to change her mind. It was nice, though, to see that he actually had some proper clothes.
But how to reconcile that image of an angst ridden, rebellious teenager with the calm, collected, and nicely-dressed individual before her was difficult. Unless everything written in the paper had been wrong. But, then, why the ill-fitting clothes in the pictures?
The other wizard with them she had never seen or met before. She would have thought him an auror based on the extensive scarring she could see, except he didn't have their, "I'm watching you" attitude. He also gave her the weird impression of being untamed, something no auror would ever want to project. He, too, looked around the shop, but he quickly focused on her.
"Hello there," the unknown man said. He definitely wasn't part of the crew. His robes were worn and patched, and he looked . . . ragged, worn. "Do you work here?" He stuck his hand out over the counter to her.
"Ah, yes — Josephine Edgecombe, how do you do," she answered and shook his hand. "I just mind the shop here," she said dismissively. "Mind you, though, there really isn't much to mind right now." She smiled back at him.
"Remus Lupin," he introduced himself and smiled. He had a nice smile. "We're just showing Harry, here, to Gringotts. We're looking for someone, however — is Lee Jordan here?"
"He's in the back," Josephine said. She looked between Potter — who eyed her calmly — and the two adult wizards who, apparently, had no idea about what was going on. "I can get him for you —"
The front door swung open, then, and Hermione Granger entered the shop in a whirl of robes. "I'm so sorry I'm late, there was line to the Floo — oh, hello Professor Lupin, Professor Moody!"
She acted surprised to see them, but Josephine could see she really wasn't surprised at all. After yesterday, Josephine knew why, too.
"Hello there, Miss Granger," Lupin said, and arched his eyebrows. "I didn't know you were coming. You used the Floo?"
"Yeah — there's a place near my house where you can Floo from, but there was a family there, taking it and I got held up a bit," Granger said awkwardly and then grabbed Potter in a brief hug. "Hi. It's good to see you."
"Hello, Hermione. You, too — and you're not late. We came in just minute ago," Potter said, and patted her back. Then he looked at Josephine and tilted his head slightly and gave her a crooked smile. "Could you please get Lee for us, so that we can get going?"
Hermione let go and stepped back. She studied him intently.
"Right, yes, of course," Josephine said, and blushed at being caught out. She stood. "I'll be right back," she said quickly and headed for the backroom's door.
"Just what did Gringotts summon you for that you need both Jordan and Granger with you?" she heard Moody suspiciously ask.
"Something to do with the Enterprise shop," Potter answered and waved an arm at the shop around them as she left the room. "I funded them," he concluded with an almost audible shrug. The door closing behind Josephine cut-off any further conversation for her to hear.
Josephine hurried to find Jordan, wondering about it all. Granger had called the two men professors. And she thought she'd heard something about Moody just after the Tri-Wizard Tournament had ended. Unfortunately, that had been such a hectic time at the ministry, what with Berta going missing the previous summer, Mr. Crouch getting sick and then dying so mysteriously in the Spring, then the disaster at the final task with that boy dying, news that Barty Crouch, Junior — wasn't he dead? — being found, and rumours that You-Know-Who had returned — and then hadn't — that she wasn't sure of anything anymore.
Were they really Hogwarts Professors? Why were they escorting Harry Potter around, especially if they weren't part of its crew? If Harry could so easily come here, why had everyone seemed so uncertain if they would see him? And yet, Hermione had acted so worried at seeing him. It was all so confusing.
She finally found him working on . . . something that looked like a building plan? "Mr. Jordan?" Josephine said awkwardly. "The Captain is here, with Professors Moody and Lupin, and Miss Granger."
"They are?" he asked and looked up. Then he made a face and said, "Mr. Jordan, really?" and shuddered. "You can just call me Lee, Mrs. E. Mr. Jordan is . . ." his voice trailed away. "Actually, I guess it does have a ring to it. Mr. Jordan. Mr. Spock . . ." His eyes got a far-away look in them and he gazed at the wall blankly, and slowly started to grin.
Josephine shook her head at his antics. "They're waiting on you in the front," she said, breaking into his reflections. "I think they want to head to the bank, straight away."
"Right, right," Mr. Jordan said, and rolled up the plans he'd been working on. He shrank them with a spell and pushed the miniature blue-print roll into his pocket. He took a deep breath. "I guess it's time to face the music."
Josephine trailed after him nervously, and thought about all the ways this could go horribly wrong. A bunch of teenagers . . . negotiating the future of the wizarding economy . . . with the Goblins. She repressed a shudder. It was a terrifying idea. The more she'd thought about it, the worse it had seemed, and now it was actually happening.
Being involved, and yet not, at the same time was absolutely nerve-wracking. Well, at least she was staying here, out of the direct-line of spell-fire.
"Well then, if we're all ready now," Moody testily said as they entered the front of the shop. "Let's head to the bank and get this over with."
"Right," Potter said, and then paused. He looked at Josephine for a moment, then shrugged. "Mrs. Edgecombe, would you like to accompany us?" he asked politely, and tilted his head slightly.
"Er," she said, and looked wildly between Jordan — who she'd kind of started to see as her boss — and Potter — who she had known, but only now really realised, was her boss's boss. And he was so young! Younger than her daughter. "Why?" she managed to get out after a moment of speechless shock.
"You work here. It involves you, too," Potter said, and then glanced at Jordan. "Doesn't it?"
Jordan tilted his head to the side as he thought. "Yeah." He nodded firmly. "You should come with us. Since you'll be doing business between Enterprise and Gringotts more than we will, it's stuff you'll need to know, I guess. And we should probably make sure the Goblins know we trust you."
Josephine swallowed, and nodded reluctantly. "I'll just . . . get my cloak then," she said a bit unsteadily.
Why did she feel like she was swimming and had just discovered she had drifted rather far from shore?
Gringotts was somehow both more and less intimidating, when she entered it following both her bosses and the others. Potter and Jordan didn't seem to feel much about it at all. Potter remained calm and Jordan seemed distracted. Granger was barely paying any attention to anything at all except the book she had out and was leafing through rapidly. They could have been going to just another class in Hogwarts, for all they seemed to care.
Moody and Lupin, on the other hand were almost as nervous as she was, as ridiculous as that seemed. They didn't know what was at stake. Theirs was the normal reaction most wizards had to dealing with the Goblins.
Everything was the exact opposite of what it should be.
They marched straight to the back of the bank. "We're here to see some manager about a shop," Moody said gruffly to the Goblin at the desk at the rear of the bank's lobby.
"It's about the Enterprise shop and our . . . funding," Potter said. He rubbed his forehead over his right eye.
Right where his scar was, Josephine couldn't help but notice.
"Gringotts had some concerns," he continued, and dropped his hand to his side.
The Goblin studied the two carefully, and then stood. "Wait," he ordered, and hurried from his desk through the door beside it. Potter shrugged and stood with his hands in his pockets. Moody scowled after the Goblin. Lupin looked nervous. Jordan and Granger . . . looked as if they just wished this was finished so they could go do something that was far more important.
"I guess we're waiting," the Captain said and looked at Jordan and Granger. "So how have you guys been?" he asked — as if they didn't talk all the time through the stones.
"Working," Jordan shrugged, and sighed. "Still trying to figure out merchandise to sell."
"I thought it was going to be a joke shop," Moody said with a frown. Lupin looked around the lobby, but was listening.
"It's a fun idea," Jordan said and grinned. "But our target clientele are kind of . . . away most of the year," Jordan admitted sheepishly, rubbing his forehead over his right eye. "Turns out, prank shops don't do that well when their customers are away at a boarding school for ten months out of twelve." He shook his head. "Did you know," he said, and raised his eyebrows inquisitively, "that Zonko's is only open when Hogwarts has a Hogsmeade Weekend?"
Moody and Lupin blinked, surprised. "I hadn't even thought about that," Lupin admitted. Moody nodded his agreement.
"Yeah. Neither had we." Jordan shrugged. "So, we're working on other stuff," he said. "There's still going to be a shelf-full of prank stuff once we've got everything sorted, though," he reassured them.
"I've been reading," Granger said to Potter. She ignored Lupin's small smile and Jordan rolling his eyes. "I found this old Rune book that I really need to show some people, I think it'll help a lot with their studies. It has everything laid out so clearly, it's really handy."
"Really?" Potter asked in genuine interest. "Sounds good. I probably should get a copy."
"I'll make sure you do," she said happily.
"When did you switch classes to runes, Harry?" Lupin said, sounding surprised. "I thought you were taking Divination with Ron."
"I didn't switch, I just recently developed an interest," Potter said, as he shrugged. "Turns out, Divination isn't as interesting as we thought it would be." He sighed and looked down for a moment. "By the way, speaking of boring subjects," he said, and then glanced at the professors, "You two don't mind waiting here, do you? I mean, I really hate to say anything, but . . .."
"Yeah, it's kind of private," Jordan quickly interjected as Potter went silent. "Sorry, professors," he said apologetically.
"No, it's alright, perfectly understandable," Lupin agreed, though he looked worried. "But are you sure you won't need one of us to help? Dealing with Goblins is always a tricky business, and we've got some experience in that, if you want . . .."
"We've got Hermione," Potter said with a smile, and patted her on the shoulder. "I think we've got that sorted."
Josephine hung back, awkwardly, as they talked, feeling somehow too old for it all, even though Moody, at least, had to be at least twice as old as her.
"And your . . . relatives?" Granger asked with an odd expression that seemed to combine anticipation and dread.
Potter looked at her and smiled warmly. "Curiously happy and nice," he said. "It's surreal, actually. But a good kind of surreal." He hummed a bit. "Yes, much better than the other summers."
Josephine shook her head slightly. The kids were good actors — she knew that they talked all the time. They had probably scripted this conversation to keep the adults from getting curious as to why they weren't talking as if they hadn't seen each other in weeks.
She heard Moody mumble something about, "They'd better be, if they don't want any trouble."
When the Goblin finally returned, it was almost a relief — even if he did have a dark scowl on his face. Which, actually, seemed to be the default expression for Goblins.
"Follow me," the Goblin ordered, and immediately stalked off again.
"Of course," Potter said with a nod as the three crew members followed the Goblin deeper into the bank, towards the offices. Josephine trailed after them and felt particularly useless. She couldn't help but take a last glance backwards at Moody and Lupin. She wondered how badly they were out of the loop when she was inside, and still so very confused. Did they even realize that the kids were working closely together on everything they did?
It was as if there was a rift between the crewmembers — children, they were still children! —and their Professors. Or, maybe, it was between this new generation and all the previous ones. The older ones stood on a dock at the shore, and didn't even realize that the children were on a ship in the ocean, and getting further away every moment. The adults thought everyone was still on the dock.
Josephine was starting to realise how lucky she was to be on the ship. Even if it seemed as if they were heading into deeper and deeper waters, the shore getting farther and farther away.
And the people on the shore had no idea that the ship was there, what it stood for, or where it was going. Not that the ones doing the steering had any idea, either. If it weren't so dangerous, she would have thought it cute.
After a very brief set of introductions in a small office, the Goblin behind the desk, Sharptooth, said, "We want to know the source of the gold bars that have been coming in, lately. The gold bars are all very distinctive and clearly have the same source. They are not coming from any source we know of, and the influx is beginning to upset the balance of gold in the market." He glared at them. "If we cannot come to an agreement, then Gringotts will refuse all raw gold for the foreseeable future." He paused and grinned to show all his teeth. "Go ruin the muggle economy!"
They exchanged glances. Josephine was shivering slightly. She couldn't help it.
Lee sighed and started to explain, "Well, you see, all the gold bars you've seen, that you're complaining about, are ones our friends have, that we gave to them. The wizards and witches bringing them in are the families of our friends, if not our friends, themselves, like the Weasleys."
The Goblin stared at him.
Lee continued, "There are only two hundred and sixty-nine of these gold bars, in total." He paused to think.
The Goblin stared at him, goggle-eyed. "There are still ninety-eight out there?" he asked a moment later.
"If you say so," Granger said. "Not everyone has turned in what they have, for one reason or another."
"My daughter has still has five in her underwear drawer," Josephine said abruptly. "We used the other two to buy those Home Protection spells Gringotts offers." She clapped her hands over her mouth. Why had she said that? The tension must be really getting to her.
The Goblin stared at her.
She shrank back a bit and silently vowed not to say anything that wasn't in answer to a question.
"We understand your issue with additional gold coming into the wizarding world," Granger said after a moment. "And we do not want, nor have any intention, to destabilise the market."
"Exchanging gold to galleons at Gringotts was just the easiest way to get galleons," Jordan said with a shrug. "But we understand if it can't go on."
"The problem we have is that we still need buy things — like stock for Enterprise. We still need to exchange something to get galleons to spend," Granger added. "We don't need it immediately, of course — the Enterprise vault will supply us with any funds we need for now."
"But we might need more in future, you see. So, what we're hoping for is some sort of settlement of . . . a . . . uh . . . a trade agreement, if you will," Jordan continued. "What can we bring to you, that's valuable enough for a good amount of galleons, but which won't . . . damage the economy."
"Naturally, if you'd prefer, we can sell the remaining gold bars we have in the muggle world — there are some things, there, we wish to buy, too," Granger added.
The Goblin stared at them like they were all barking mad, lunatics, and Josephine couldn't really blame him. She had only a small idea of the kids' resources — thanks to her daughter — but to hear them talk about wealth like it was an unfortunate necessity, a nuisance, rather than something to aspire to have . . . well, that was disturbing on a fundamental level.
It must be especially so for a Gringotts Goblin.
After a moments silence, the Goblin incredulously exclaimed, "You mean to say you have access to all potential forms of wealth?" He stared at them suspiciously.
"More or less," Granger agreed, nodding her head side to side.
"How?" he demanded.
She smiled but didn't answer, and looked down, instead, to her book. "These are the types of goods we can provide. Gold, silver, copper, platinum, palladium, iron . . .."
It was quite an impressive list. It seemed to contain every element that wasn't a gas that Josephine had ever heard mentioned.
Even the Goblin started to look impressed as she continued on, his eyes growing wider and wider.
When it looked as if she wasn't going to stop any time soon, he leaned back on his seat, took off his gold-rimmed spectacles, polished them, and resumed staring at her through them.
"All as pure as the gold bars you've seen. Minerals, gem stones, and so forth aren't a problem either, and we can alloy metals, of course," Granger finally appeared to run out of things to list. She looked up at the Goblin from her book, her finger marking her place. "So, we can also provide things like steel, bronze, brass, and so on. Or any other alloy, if you provide a sample."
"Sample?" the Goblin said in astonishment. He latched onto that. He stood and pointed a finger at Granger, his face red. "You produce these things?" he angrily half-shouted. "You have the capability of producing elements!" He stared at them, furious at the thought.
That made the crew pause, Josephine could see. Granger stilled and Jordan sat up straighter. They looked at Potter, no, the Captain, who frowned and rubbed at his temple, again.
"It's not exactly produce," the Captain said, after a while. "But," he shrugged, "I suppose that's as good a word as any."
"Then they are fake?!" the Goblin accused him with narrowed eyes, and he shook with outrage.
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