Dear Nicholas and Perenelle,
I've completed my financial projections for the business. The equipment you're sending covers the largest single expense, and I'm grateful for it. But even with careful budgeting, I'm short on floating capital. The margins are too thin to absorb any setbacks, and I'd rather build on solid ground than gamble on everything going perfectly.
I'd like to propose an investment arrangement. In exchange for starting capital, I'm offering you a share of the business. I can have the specific terms drawn up once we agree on a figure, but I wanted to ask directly rather than try to make the numbers work alone.
I recognise that asking doesn't come naturally to me. I'm working on that.
Rowan
He read it over once, decided it said what it needed to say, and went to the windowsill. Athena had returned from her evening flight and was preening on her perch. She held out her leg with the resigned patience of an owl who knew her rest was about to be interrupted.
"France," Rowan told her, tying the letter securely. "As fast as you can."
Athena hooted once, nipped his finger with what might have been affection or irritation, and launched herself into the dark.
He watched her disappear over the rooftops, then turned back to the ledger and a different problem.
The shop needed someone to run it during the school year. September through June, ten months when Rowan would be at Hogwarts and unable to manage daily operations. Lawrence would return to school as well. Iris would be at school. Every person he trusted was a student.
Weasley's former students had refused. Sirona was firmly committed to her own pub. He had no network among adult wizards, no connections in the Diagon Alley business community, no way to vet a stranger's trustworthiness or competence.
The luminaire's production process was proprietary. Whoever managed the shop would need access to the finished products, the customer relationships, the pricing structure, the financial records. Hiring the wrong person could mean theft, sabotage, or simple incompetence that destroyed the business while he sat in a classroom two hundred miles away.
He needed someone who was competent, trustworthy, and willing to work for a twelve-year-old Muggleborn employer in a business that didn't exist yet. The intersection of those three qualities, in a society that actively discriminated against people like him, seemed vanishingly small.
Rowan lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Outside, Hogsmeade was quiet. A dog barked somewhere. Wind moved through the eaves of the inn. He could hear Sirona closing up the bar below, the scrape of chairs being stacked, the clink of glasses being washed.
And a tap at the window.
Rowan sat up, his first thought that Athena had come back. If she'd been hurt, or if the letter had come loose during—
The owl on the sill wasn't Athena. It was smaller, tawny where Athena was grey, with patient amber eyes and a letter clutched in its talons. It held out its leg.
He opened the window and took the letter. The handwriting was unfamiliar. Neat, careful script on inexpensive parchment, the kind sold in bulk at Scribbulus. No family crest or wax seal. The address read simply Mr. R. Ashcroft, The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade.
He broke the plain wax closure and read.
Dear Mr. Ashcroft,
My name is Clara Goode. I am Lawrence's mother. I hope you will forgive the presumption of writing to you directly, as we have not been introduced, but Lawrence has spoken of you often and with great respect over these past two years.
Lawrence has told me that he will be spending part of the summer working with you on a venture of some kind. He has been characteristically vague about the details, which I have learned to interpret as excitement he's trying to contain rather than any cause for concern. He is very much his father's son in that regard.
I would very much like to discuss this arrangement with you, if you are willing. Lawrence is thirteen years old and I am his mother, and while I trust his judgement in most things, I would feel more comfortable understanding what he'll be doing and where he'll be doing it before I agree to let him spend his summer away from home.
I hope this is not an imposition. I am not writing to object. I am writing because I would like to know the person my son admires so much.
If you are amenable, I could meet you at the Three Broomsticks tomorrow evening.
Respectfully,
Clara Goode
Rowan read the letter twice. Then he set it on the bedside table and sat for a moment, thinking.
Lawrence had mentioned his mother in passing over the years. A Muggleborn witch who'd worked in Muggle shops after her husband died, moving to a small flat in Hogsmeade to be near her son. She'd never found work in the magical world. The same story Weasley had described, multiplied across dozens of former students and their families.
The letter was measured and intelligent. Direct without being aggressive, protective without being overbearing. She wanted to understand what her son was getting into before she signed off on it, which was exactly what a good parent should want.
He pulled out parchment and wrote his reply.
Mrs. Goode,
Thank you for your letter. It is not an imposition at all. I would welcome the chance to meet you and discuss the arrangement properly. Shall we say seven o'clock? I'll arrange a private table with Sirona.
Lawrence is one of the most talented people I know, and I'm grateful for his willingness to work with me this summer. You deserve a full account of what that work will involve.
Ashcroft
He tied the letter to Clara's owl, who had been waiting on the windowsill with the patient composure of a well-trained bird. It hooted once and flew out into the dark.
Rowan picked up the ledger and looked at the numbers again. Still tight. Still nearly impossible. The shopkeeper problem remained unsolved, a blank space in his plans that he couldn't fill with anyone he knew or trusted.
But that was tomorrow's problem. Tonight, the only thing he could do was prepare.
He closed the notebook, extinguished the lamp, and lay in the dark listening to the sounds of an unfamiliar building settling around him. Tomorrow Weasley would take him to the Ministry. Tomorrow evening he would meet Clara Goode. The day after that, he would begin searching for a shop.
The margins were thin and the odds were long and the wizarding world was not built for people like him.
He'd worked with worse.