On the drop-off plaza of Diagon Alley, one by one, the participants of the emergency consultation meeting fell into silence. They stared down at the table before them as though hoping to find something written in the grain of the wood that might tell them what to do next.
'The Ministry of Magic investing to acquire equity in the workshops?'
Narcissa's lips moved subtly as if she were about to say something but in the end, she said nothing.
She was thinking.
Strictly speaking, workshops and companies raising capital through outside investment was perfectly normal.
The well-known enterprises that Wizarding Britain's people could rattle off by name had, by and large, been founded as the sole ventures of some pure-blood family or other.
But after decades, sometimes centuries, in the oldest cases of mergers and expansions, there was not a single one that remained under wholly sole ownership. They had become thoroughly entangled: yours in mine, mine in yours, external capital woven through both.
Take the Malfoy family as an example. Some of their holdings within Britain were not wholly owned either, several of their largest operations ran in partnership with multiple parties, including foreign capital that Lucius had cultivated across the continent during years of international relationships.
They remained, however, the largest controlling shareholder in each workshop's equity structure—that much had not changed.
Embedded in that capital were the personal investments of certain senior Ministry officials. Men like Cornelius Fudge and Dolores Umbridge—both recently delivered into custody by Bryan Watson had themselves, along with their families, long been interested parties, quietly and not so quietly running interference for the prominent workshops all this time.
Even the Bones family—the family of Amelia Bones, now seated in the Minister's chair had certain collateral branches that participated in these profit-sharing arrangements.
This was the existing landscape. This was the normal, established, centuries-old entanglement of political power and commercial interest that had always been wizarding Britain's upper layers.
But—
Narcissa's brow drew tight. Her lips pressed thin.
For the British Ministry of Magic to establish a Department of Trade and Commerce, to act as a direct investor and embed itself in the day-to-day management of the workshops? That seemed to be something no wizarding government had ever done before.
But however one looked at it, this was not good news.
Every person around the table shared that unspoken understanding.
More than a few cut sidelong glances at Bryan Watson, sitting there with his easy smile, grinding their teeth in silent fury.
Because Watson's proposal was not, in any honest reading of it, offered in the spirit of helping the workshops recover production. They had no need of that kind of help. Nor was this simply about opening a new revenue stream for the Ministry, though it would certainly accomplish that.
What Bryan Watson was proposing was to devour the commercial empires that pure-blood families had spent centuries building.
"One more thing, in passing—"
Bryan's tone was light, and casual.
"When the Department of Oversight is established next month, its very first order of business will be to require all Ministry employees at the Department Head level and above to divest any equity holdings they currently possess in private commercial enterprises. Going forward, senior Ministry officials will no longer be permitted to hold such investments."
The faces around the table went blank.
Senior Ministry officials divesting their equity holdings in the workshops.
Was this meant to sever the deeper financial ties between Ministry officials and themselves?
That alone won't accomplish anything.
The fragmented thoughts whirling through every mind in the room were all captured by Bryan.
Bryan knew, as he said it, that the divestment requirement was not the decisive move.
It was, in the landscape of what he was doing, a single step in a longer process that would necessarily proceed by degrees.
He had no choice except to proceed slowly step by step. The Ministry at present was plagued with troubles both within and without: the assassination attempt was barely hours old, the war was unresolved, the public mood was volatile, the international reputation of wizarding Britain's institutions was at its lowest point in living memory.
Only a gentle hand could advance the work in that environment. If he moved too quickly and ruthlessly, he would not merely lose all support—he would find himself every bit as notorious as Voldemort before the week was out.
It was precisely because Wizarding Britain had Voldemort—the supreme destroyer of its order that his own actions could seem, by comparison, something less than radical.
"Well then—how have you all considered?"
Bryan asked pleasantly.
Narcissa's hands, beneath the table where they could not be seen, had formed themselves into fists. She could feel the edge of her own teeth against her lower lip. She strained against the vast and encompassing pressure emanating from Bryan Watson that weighed on her from all sides.
Did it even need consideration?
If there had been any choice at all, not one person in this room would have agreed to Watson's terms.
But with every eye upon them, did they have a choice?
To refuse, they would need to present Bryan Watson, present the entire watching wizarding world with a satisfactory explanation. Otherwise, their workshops and companies would never be permitted to open again.
The marchers sitting on the cobblestones behind Bryan would never return to work. And the people responsible for that outcome, in the eyes of every witch and wizard reading the morning paper, would be the people who had sat at this table and said no to a reasonable offer of help.
They had said as much themselves, in front of everyone present, not twenty minutes ago: order shortfalls, insufficient liquidity, such were obstacles they could not overcome.
Now Watson, representing the Ministry, had put forward a solution to each stated problem. To refuse that solution without a compelling reason was indefensible. And they had no compelling reason they could state aloud without also stating everything they preferred to leave unstated.
And did anyone truly believe that Watson had raised the matter of the attempted assassination of Amelia Bones—the Minister for Magic at the outset of these negotiations out of mere courtesy?
The Ministry would not need to manufacture evidence. Should anyone dare refuse today, they would simply need to allow the investigation to proceed at the pace and in the direction that best served the Ministry's interests.
The daily Prophet would publish developments as they emerged. The evidence whatever it was, however it had been gathered would be presented to the public with the Ministry's full authority behind it.
The Ministry would no doubt waste little time announcing to the wizarding world the ironclad proof that they had colluded with Death Eaters in a conspiracy to murder the Minister.
Bryan Watson was not Albus Dumbledore. He was absolutely capable of doing exactly that.
More than a few of those present raged privately at the thought.
And besides—how could any of them, as operators of commercial empires this large and this complex be unaware of the corners they had cut? Of the legal lines that had been stepped across when opportunity came and oversight was conveniently absent?
In the past, those things had been manageable because the people at the top of the Ministry had personal reasons to look the other way. Things were different now. The people with personal reasons had been removed. The person who had removed them was sitting across this table, smiling pleasantly, waiting for an answer.
One or two minds at the table floated the idea of the all-in approach briefly, and discarded it almost immediately: dragging the Bones family connection into the open, making the conflict of interest visible, forcing the sitting Minister Amelia Bones to reconsider before striking against the very commercial interests her own family name was entangled with.
But Bryan Watson was Muggle-born. He had no stake in the old web of connections, no ancestral relationships that could be leveraged. Nothing they could hold over him, and no thread they could pull that connected to anything related.
They had no leverage over Watson… and no way to be rid of him.
They had been utterly undone by You-Know-Who's people.
The business owners—Narcissa among them raged silently at this thought. She genuinely despised sloppiness. She genuinely despised being positioned as a convenient sacrifice by people who had never consulted her about the risk they were creating.
She could already foresee it: Watson would not stop here. Nine-tenths of the family's holdings within Britain would likely not survive what was coming.
"If I may ask one final question, Mr. Watson—"
Narcissa's voice had turned hoarse.
"How much capital does the Ministry intend to inject into each workshop? And—" She drew several quick, shallow breaths.
"—how large a stake do you intend to take?"
"Oh, please don't put it that way, Lady Malfoy—"
Bryan replied, his manner was warm and affable.
"It sounds terribly as though the Ministry is scheming to seize your assets. Ha, ha—"
Bryan laughed with evident pleasure. No one else at the table could manage even a smile.
"As for your question—"
Seeing that his little joke had landed in silence, Bryan cleared his throat with a show of slight embarrassment.
"The Ministry's finances are, frankly, stretched rather thin as well—we cannot provide overly generous support. The target will simply be to ensure that each workshop can resume operations and maintain day-to-day running. The specific amounts will depend on assessments that the newly formed Trade and Commerce Department's financial specialists will conduct on a case-by-case basis. As for the equity pricing….."
Bryan paused, as though giving the matter genuine thought.
"That, too, will be determined through consultation between the Trade Department and Gringotts financial specialists, in discussion with each of you individually."
A collective, barely noticeable exhale moved through the room.
The noose was already around their necks that much was entirely clear. Watson had placed it there with considerable skill and they had all, step by step, assisted him in doing so.
But Bryan Watson's meaning seemed to be that, in the short term at least, he did not intend to swallow them whole, bones and all.
"May I ask—who will be heading the Ministry's Trade and Commerce Department?"
Narcissa's voice had steadied. She was thinking forward now, past the immediate pain of the agreement and into the reality of what came next. If the structure was going to exist, the people inside it mattered enormously.
"Pius Thicknesse from the Department of International Magical Cooperation will serve as acting Head of the Department. Remus Lupin will serve as his deputy. Gerson Barnah, President of Gringotts' International Headquarters, will act in an advisory capacity."
Bryan dropped this latest bombshell with no change of expression.
'Ptui. A lowly werewolf and a toothless decrepit goblin.'
Narcissa spat privately, then inclined her head elegantly.
"A truly inspired arrangement, Mr. Watson."
"Then I take it we've reached a consensus?"
Bryan rose from his chair and looked around at the participants rising one by one in his trail, a smile remained on his lips.
"Together," Bryan said, and his voice carried just enough to reach the crowd behind him, "we have overcome every obstacle, and moved with great force to restore British wizarding commerce and industry to its former prosperity."
For the sake of the cameras now pointing at each of their faces, the gathered attendees managed expressions somewhere between a grimace and a smile.
"Then we shall need an agreement to bear witness to the consensus we have reached today!"
Bryan said, with every appearance of delight. He drew his wand and gave it a wave. A quill, standing in its inkwell, and a large ledger with jet black cover, and its title stamped in gold appeared on the conference table.
Narcissa glanced at it and felt the breath leave her body all over again.
She saw that the terms—hammered out through today's negotiations were already inscribed within its pages.
As cheers began to rise from the plaza outside, under Bryan's gratified gaze, under the cameras, in front of the watching crowd, the participants stepped forward one by one and willingly signed their names to the agreement. At last, the document—this Plaza Accord was placed in front of Bryan himself.
Even he could not quite suppress the tremor in his chest at that moment.
He looked at the names, each rendered in its own elegant hand, and drew a slow breath. He picked up the quill and, in the space left at the end, signed his name.
'You will change the wizarding world.'
The signature down, Bryan gazed at the gold-embossed characters that read Plaza Accord, and smiled as that single thought drifted quietly through his mind.
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