Holidays are a wonderful time. But not for me.
The attack on my parents, albeit a failed one, was an extremely weighty reason to attend to the security of the house. At first, I wanted to create something based on local magic, the knowledge gained here, but I thought better of it in time, before wasting too much effort on it. It is one thing not to overuse my capabilities at school, in skirmishes, where understanding how magical energy works in conjunction with the capabilities of the brain and soul could turn the balance of power upside down and attract too much interest, and another thing entirely is a truly emergency situation. As a result, I spent two days of the Easter holidays creating a security system, using my capabilities to the maximum.
To do this, I had to once again arm myself with the anvil on wheels, a hammer with attachments, and my imagination, sequestering myself in my nook in the room, having previously hung a conjured "Do Not Disturb" sign—our guys are normal, they don't stick their noses where they shouldn't, and if it says "do not disturb," they won't disturb.
Actually, the idea came to mind spontaneously. Just at one moment, missing the inaccessible, lost knowledge from the lives of the shards, and especially the Academy library where the Elf taught for many years, I suddenly realized what I needed. The structure of the Academy itself, the arrangement of its towers in the outer circle, the inner circle, the central towers, walls, paths—all these and many other elements were component parts of a powerful spatial magical multifunctional circuit. I know that back then I knew it, but now I couldn't repeat even a couple of lines—they aren't in my head. But the idea itself...
As a result, I created and ruined six bundles of steel hexagonal stakes. Only on the seventh bundle of many stakes did it dawn on me where I had gone wrong—I needed to not "hammer" each stake individually, trying to also create a perfect alignment of such enchantment to work in a bundle, but to "forge" the entire bundle at once, with one blow. Only after this phenomenal logical deduction did I manage to create a sort of artifact-grid of stakes, which can be spread apart from each other while maintaining proportions of position in space, and obtain protection. What protection? Here I didn't think long—I created an extremely dense magical sphere, embedding a meaning into it, like "do not let a hostile wizard pass," "hit non-lethally but extremely traumatically against a hostile wizard," a bunch of other conditions, but the main thing—a ban on sorcery for those who do not have a special access ring.
I finished this work at lunchtime on one of the days of the holidays, of which four days remained. In general, I finished in the middle of the holidays. What did I do after? Naturally, I immediately escaped from Hogwarts and Apparated to the suburbs, to the alley by the same minimarket. This time I did not neglect concealing charms and other magic, although I could have skipped it—there were no local punks here.
Reaching the house, I saw the Range Rover still parked there, but inside it was reassembled—father, it seems, either broke it completely or fixed it. Focusing on magic, taking complete control as befits a self-respecting wizard, I directed it into the bundle of steel hexagonal stakes. A moment, and they flew into the air, separating and lining up in a complex order, maintaining proportions and creating a network covering the entire house, the backyard, a piece of the road, and part of the neighboring plots. Another magical impulse, a clearly formed message, and the stakes instantly rushed down, turning into gray streaks. They went underground, but damaged absolutely nothing—I took that into account too.
Knowing that the Ministry monitors manifestations of magic in areas where Muggle-borns live, I hurried to get out of here just in case—I only checked one last time if the circuit was working by launching a simple clot of a slow Stupefy under the invisible dome. Reaching the border of the protective barrier, the clot simply dissolved, scattered to the sides, dissipating like a cloud of gas in a vacuum. At least this part of the circuit works, which means I can Apparate back, return to the castle, which I did.
. . . . . .
The holidays were almost over, and I was still sitting either in the library, in the Restricted Section, or in our room. I wouldn't be surprised if they lost me in the castle altogether, but do I go to meals? I do. Means they shouldn't have. And I am busy with an extremely important matter—developing treacherous plans, one after another, without stopping, while trying to remember or come up with the most sophisticated ways to spoil the life of sentient beings in a particular area.
Only on the last day of the holidays, April ninth, did the situation change a little.
At breakfast Cedric sat down next to me, squeezing Justin.
"Hi."
"Morning is cheerful," I nodded, being in my thoughts.
"He is somewhat busy with his thoughts," Justin nodded in my direction, "so don't count on getting through."
"Not at all," I turned to Cedric, simultaneously putting myself some rather tasty and filling-looking salad. "I am all ears."
"Everything is ready," Cedric said briefly, and snatched a cinnamon bun from the common plate standing next to us. "When to give?"
"After breakfast?"
"Excellent," Cedric bit a piece off the bun and went to his own.
"And what was that?" Justin, following the prefect with his gaze, could not restrain his curiosity.
"Secret secrets, buddy," I smiled, anticipating learning exact information about the Notts, their affairs and so on.
"Well, as you know," he shrugged, and I was once again convinced that I simply adore this trait of the guys from our house—no intrusiveness.
After breakfast Cedric and I moved away from the general stream, hiding behind a mass of privacy charms that even distorted what was under them—we could not be seen. It seems our prefect is more and more imbued with the spirit of secrecy, since he is improving this section of charms, and this is commendable. I, for example, do not know so many charms, and I would like to correct this omission. And Cedric himself is by no means specializing in charms—he is a transfigurator.
"Here," the prefect pulled a rather thick folder with paper documents out of his school bag. "There are twelve Galleons left over..."
"Don't worry," I took the folder and immediately put it in the backpack. "Someone said that any labor should be rewarded. It's not much, but so far only this is rich."
"As you know," Cedric nodded, but it was clear that this answer he expected to hear. Well or something similar. "And yet I hope that you will not do stupid things with this information."
"Is there something there that can allow a fourth-year to do stupid things?" I smirked, but it seems Cedric has his own opinion about me.
"Knowing you, could be anything."
"Don't worry. As I said—no rash actions. Waiting for orders."
"Definitely."
Shaking hands, we dispersed about our business, and if I have no idea where the prefect went, then I—to my room. There, hiding from everyone behind the curtain in my nook, I cast Lumos for better light and began to study the received information. However, there was nothing phenomenal in this dossier. In short, it turns out the following.
At the moment, the Nott family has as many as three wizards—grandfather, father, son. The entire business—several disparate and little connected enterprises, among which are both growing plant ingredients for potions, and a small... manufactory, it turns out? They make premium class furniture. Sounds strange, because it can be conjured, but it is so. It should be understood that special magical wood, special materials when creating upholstery, be it fabric or leather, the use of various potions as some kind of impregnations or varnishes—in general, absolutely every stage of creating such products can make the final product unique, with certain magical properties similar to artifacts. But not artifacts—just combinations of different things. They also have a small territory, as I already noticed, for plant ingredients—special wood is grown there. And the rest—already purchases from other families.
An attentive wizard will ask—why grow ingredients on some almost farm scale, seeing as there are so many small traders in Diagon Alley? Only one must understand that traders there—are private traders who collected something here and there, or obtained animal ingredients through third hands, or even obtained themselves. But does St Mungo's Hospital buy from them? No. Pharmacy chains? No. Even the same Ollivander or Kiddell? Of course not.
In general, the Notts have production facilities rigidly tied to the locality, although, to say correctly—they are all like that there. The information from Ministry analysts attached by Cedric contained information about with whom and in what volumes the Notts trade to obtain the necessary materials or to sell finished products, the number of wizards and house-elves on staff, an approximate estimate of the cost of a particular business taking into account the cost of land, or without it—rent and so on. Including there are figures on income and net profit, and if the former are quite tempting, then the latter, after deducting all costs, depreciation and taxes, are not so impressive. However, when you don't really do anything, and about seven or eight hundred Galleons a month of net legal profit falls on your account—this is not bad. Here they bet their lives in the Tournament for a thousand. There is also information which business areas of this family could interest Greengrass. The latter, by the way, have much more profitability. Just for reference. On the other hand, the Nott business has not expanded or developed for about a hundred years. And the same Greengrasses, according to indirect data, seem to be working actively.
In general, having read all this, I understood what and how I would do, and for this I do not need to prepare something—I will do everything on the spot. Now time—lunch soon. Will I make it? Unlikely. Will grab a bite in some eatery, fortunately there are ordinary pounds too.
Wrapping myself in magic, wishing to hide from everything and everyone, from any gaze-supervision, disappearing in visible and other spectra, becoming inaudible, I left the walls of the school and quickly reached the locker room of our Quidditch team—this is where our equipment is stored, for example, brooms. Having conjured over the doors and locks, penetrated inside without problems and took my Sleipnir. Holding the shaft of this unusual broom, I realized that I missed the game and flights a little. But, my broom is too unique—what if I mess up with stealth, and unnecessary evidence of the presence of a certain wizard on Sleipnir appears? I don't need this. Here, Tamsin, I hope, will not be offended if I fly on her Nimbus 2000?
Armed with this broom, I left the Hogwarts territory and Apparated to the London suburbs, where, actually, my house was—the closest point to the Nott lands. Jumping on the broom, soared into the sky, not afraid of being noticed—magic.
Flight on the field or in training—is one thing. Flight high above houses and hills, roads and fields—quite another. Purely pleasant impressions. Pity, though, that this quickly became boring, and half an hour later I was focused only on the task—to get to Nott's lands. Cedric's folder included a map where this small piece of land was marked, so I should find this place without problems.
So it turned out in the end—in one of the large groves, of which there were many on the green plains, I saw several buildings, and the grove itself was clearly hidden by magic from ordinary people.
Landing at a decent distance, in a neighboring, ordinary grove, concentrated and hid the broom with magic, also sprinkled with branches. With a wave of the wand transfigured myself an already tested costume, the image of a plague doctor, maximally hid myself with magic and began to conjure.
Bringing palms together, began to concentrate neutral energy and life energy between them. Twisted loops of energies, wove curls, following my own negative mood, with which I generously flavored the design. Fixed the effect with images of various formulas from different disciplines, meager, so far, knowledge of maleficism, but compensated by understanding magic. I know exactly what I want—a curse over an area, but not an ordinary one, no. It will worsen the well-being of employees, but without consequences. It will impregnate the earth with emanations of fear—I literally put my feelings from Dementors. It will literally drink life from their plants, crops and lands, strengthening with greater force in the earth, walls, tree trunks, leaves and fruits of plants.
Finishing the creative process and emerging from the state of concentration, I saw an unopened black lotus bud on my palms. It was weightless—this is only visualization of energy, although it seems due to density and transfiguration formulas that this is a real material object. Thought, estimated how to bring it into the territory, and realized that I hid the broom in vain—it will be easier to drop from the sky.
Holding the bud over my left hand, dug up the broom from under the rags with my right, jumped on it and flew into the sky, heading exactly to the center over the Nott territory.
"Well... Need something pompous," my voice through the plague doctor mask sounded distorted. Why am I talking to myself? Perhaps this gives confidence in the correctness of my own actions. "Bloom, black lotus."
Releasing the bud, I watched it fly down, to the ground, accelerating with every second. Here it turned into a streak and fell. I even imagined a drop falling on the mirror surface of the water, causing circles. Turning around on the broom, flew away to land a couple of kilometers later, dispel the costume and Apparate near Hogwarts. Returning the broom to the locker room, I went to the Great Hall—seems I made it by the middle of lunch. Classmates immediately greeted, although we saw each other in the common room in the morning.
"Where have you been?" Hannah asked and pointed her hand at large circles of pies, or rather, at what was left of them. "Grab while there is. Very successful."
"Thanks," I hurried to follow the girl's advice. "Just studied magic. Got to terribly interesting books. Think I'll finish them soon."
"Ah," Justin drawled understandingly. "And we are guessing—what could make you forget about lunch."
"I didn't forget. You know, it happens, you sit like this, read, seems like it's time to go, but too interesting. And you think: 'Here, now, last paragraph—and I go'. And then look—read a couple of extra pages."
"I have this only with magazines," Ernie chuckled. "Don't know if it's good or bad."
"At least reading something," Hannah smirked venomously. "And that praise Merlin."
And I ate and thought how to set the Ministry department for all sorts of inspections and checks of private enterprises on the Notts now—there is something similar with a more tricky name. Maybe... Hmm, an idea.
Immediately after lunch I intercepted Hermione.
"Hi. How are you?"
"Hi," my sister smiled. "Yeah normal. Working on the project. True..."
"Come on, spill it, what's the matter?"
"The more I work on it, the more dubious the idea looks... But these are my torments. Did something happen?"
"There is that, let's step aside?" I nodded away from the doors of the Great Hall, and we went along the corridor to the Entrance Hall.
"What secrets?" Hermione smiled, walking nearby.
"Just so. I heard that Mr. Weasley likes to participate in raids to search for dark artifacts and other dark magic from those suspected as Death Eaters."
"Yes, happened a couple of times," Hermione nodded. "Mr. Weasley participated in such raids and is even personally acquainted with several heads of Ministry departments, one way or another connected with such actions. You're not asking just like that, are you?"
"Just have information... Let's go to the Owlery, write to him."
"Hmm... Somehow all this is sudden. But let's go."
We quickly reached the necessary tower and went upstairs. Taking a sheet and a quill out of the backpack, I began to write a respectful letter to Mr. Weasley, like: "So and so, there is information that dark-dark deeds are happening on the lands of the Notts, where their production facilities are located. People are in danger, and products may turn out to be cursed by terrible magic. Sort it out quickly, and ideally—involve the department for 'many letters' supervision and evaluation. With respect and best wishes, Hector Granger. From me—special plugs, American."
"Was about plugs necessary?" Hermione pointed her finger at the last sentence in my letter.
"Of course," I nodded. "Mr. Weasley will approve of humor. Come on, scribble a couple of lines—your opinion is also important."
"Humor? He takes his hobby very seriously," Hermione took the quill and the letter in her hands, put a notebook under it and wrote a couple of lines, returning.
"He intentionally mocks everyone, observing the reaction, if you haven't noticed," I smiled and reached out to the owls. Oddly enough, but Pigwidgeon flew in. How, how does this bird know when he is needed?
The little owl briskly jumped on my hand, chirped something, shaking his head, took the letter and was about to fly.
"Pig, do you even know where to fly?"
Pigwidgeon ruffled his feathers, looking at me like a fool, but decided to wait until I name the addressee.
"Take to Mr. Arthur Weasley."
Pigwidgeon flew away, but promised to return.
"Will you tell what you have with Nott?"
"He is painfully impudent. Let the Ministry drip on their brains."
"That is, you lied about dark magic in the letter?" Hermione clearly intended to read me a couple of lectures.
"Not a word of lies. You know, there are people who, at the sight of a sleeping dragon, strive to poke it with a stick and make sure that it sleeps. So—it doesn't sleep."
"Well-well," Hermione smirked. "You are such a dragon. Smallish."
"I'm growing."
Under conversations about nothing, we left the Owlery and headed to the library. Only I still have plans, and therefore, having walked Hermione, I went for a walk around the castle in search of the people I needed. Who understands magical business and production? One who has similar assets in the family. Whether you want it or not, but some understanding still comes if you are at least a little interested in what is happening at home. Which means I need Macmillan—they have a business for the production of magical alcoholic beverages.
Ernie was found in the common room—sat with Justin, actively discussing the nuances of the life of ordinary people. And a funny fact. The Macmillans are included in the list of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight", are truly pureblood for more than ten generations, and Ernie is really proud of this. But at the same time he studies everything related to ordinary people with great interest, and treats everyone without prejudice. And not poor. Very not poor. Members of his family are related to the same Blacks, and others... But the family is completely adequate, as far as I know. It's funny—he is, in fact, equivalent to Malfoy. No jokes. Maybe slightly less rich. But at the same time families are very different, as are views—I am not deceived by the benevolence of the Malfoys.
"Ernie, buddy, have a question," I immediately sat next to the guys.
"Just like that immediately? We are here about the important, eternal—airplanes."
"No thanks, enough, I'm tired of trying to explain the principle of operation of a turbojet engine."
"You don't fully understand yourself," Ernie resented jokingly. "And because of this I don't understand either."
"Guys, all this is great, but I need to know the answer to the question..."
"Ask, will help with what I can," Ernie nodded.
"So. Imagine that I have production."
"What kind?"
"Any."
"Okay," Ernie nodded.
"It costs some money. Who determines the cost?"
"The Ministry," Ernie answered immediately. "There is a department there. Everything is precise, clear, taking into account all nuances, market, inflation, production capital, profitability, profitability, and... And a lot more. This is needed for correct taxation, tax discounts and so on."
"I see. Here something went wrong at my production and it cannot be fixed. Can't really produce anything, can't work on the territory... Let's weave in some curse or something else. What about the price?"
"Many nuances, but in general—falls. And sharply."
"And is there some market where land, business, buildings there are sold..."
"I understood what you are getting at. This can be done privately, or through the Ministry. If there is no one to dispose of the property, then the Ministry deals with this. If there is someone who can claim ownership—conservation and waiting for a decision on the issue of ownership. In general, everything is quite complicated, and simple at the same time. Complicated—in details and nuances, but the essence is simple."
"I understood... Hmm..."
"Planning some business?"
"A little bit."
"Oh, then make a note that my family has a little empty land unsuitable for farming."
"Rocks, or what?" I smiled.
"Almost," Ernie smiled back. "If suddenly you conceive some small production not related to farming and not requiring large areas—will rent at a tasty price. Or maybe some idea will visit me, and will organize something myself."
"Will know. Thanks," I nodded to the guys, getting up.
"No problem," Ernie also nodded and turned to Justin, smiling. "So, what there, you say, with air injection..."
"Merlin, help me..."
I left the common room. Now, if the Nott business collapses, and it will collapse inevitably, need to buy it through third hands. Unlikely anyone will be able to rid them of the Lotus—came up with a good thing on bare fantasy, thanks to understanding the principles of magic. Need so that none of the locals buy, but here Ministry checks will contribute, and someone foreign bought, because this will be natural against the background of the Tournament, the goal of which is to establish international relations. And such a purchase can be attributed to the stranger's ignorance of the situation. Hmm... France? Need to discuss everything with Fleur—her father, albeit not a "big shot", but a "shot". But here is no rush—Lotus will not spoil immediately. Yes, not immediately.
. . . . . . .
For four days and four nights, the Nott family has been trying to solve the problem that has arisen in their production. A serious problem, one that is utterly destroying the business. It would be one thing if it were simply difficult for other wizards and house-elves to work—but there is nothing left to work with! Raw materials are spoiling, nothing new is growing, and on top of that, there are these Ministry commissions—someone has clearly decided to thoroughly undermine their business! A business whose value is plummeting with the speed and momentum of a boulder rolling down a mountain. But even that doesn't matter—they can't even sell the land! That damned Weasley blabbed to everyone that the land and everything on it is cursed to the hilt with an unremovable curse!
"If only we could sell it to someone..." Nott Senior, a wiry man with graying blond hair, marched from the fireplace to the sofa and back. "To Mordred with the buildings and the people—we can rebuild, the technology exists, yes... And the Master Malefic only threw up his hands! Master... A phony master!"
Things were not going well. Not well at all. Meanwhile, in distant France, Mr. Delacour looked thoughtfully at a large letter. His daughter wrote that there was an opportunity to make easy money, but everything needed to be discussed with the initiator, and under a non-disclosure agreement at that. Is this interesting? Undoubtedly!
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