Chapter Text
6. Negotiations
Hermione felt her face flame with embarrassment when it finally clicked in her head to whom Loletta had been referring. She sat beside Harry in History of Magic doing her best to take notes rather than fall asleep as most of the class while Binn’s monotone voice droned about the Goblin Wars. She had two notebooks spread open before her. One contained the notes from this class while the other contained notes concerning what she’d learned from the library about the Right of Harvest.
With a quick glance around to make sure no one was paying attention, she focused on the strings of the Web around her and pulled them into a buffering dome. Then she nudged her classmate.
“Harry?” Even with the dome, she whispered.
He answered in kind. “What?”
Nudging her notes toward him, she asked, “Are you aware that you are the only person magically capable of touching the basilisk corpse in the chamber?”
He flinched, his nose wrinkling. “But I don’t—”
Hermione slapped her hand over his mouth. “Do not finish that statement. Magic will hear you. I understand your sentiment, but I have a proposal.”
She waited until he nodded before removing her hand.
He stared around them. “How did nobody notice that?”
She grinned. “I’ve blocked them from hearing us. We could probably talk at a normal volume, but I’m not one hundred percent certain that I crafted the dome correctly. Now listen.”
As she spoke, she flipped to a blank page and started scribbling a contract. “That basilisk corpse contains a lot of viable potions ingredients that are worth a ridiculous amount of money to the right people. Because of the ancient magic guarding it, no one besides you can touch it, and it will remain preserved until you either declare that it just go away—at which point it will literally rot immediately—or you transfer the Right of Harvest to someone else.”
“So if I were to state right now that—”
Once again, her hand flew to cover his mouth. “Please don’t. I don’t want to even risk that magic could hear you and take it as fact rather than just you talking a question out loud.”
He rolled his eyes and nodded once again before pulling her hand away. “But why? I have a ridiculous enough amount of gold in my vault. It’s actually insane how much money I have.”
She agreed. “Sure, but you weren’t the only one to go into that task, were you? You may have been the only one to get to the actual Chamber, and you ended up being the one who actually fought and defeated the beast, but you didn’t start out alone. Can you think of why anyone else could be interested in that corpse, or at least the profits from it?”
She could almost see his thoughts connecting the threads. Then his brow furrowed.
“But you’re mad at Ron. Why would you offer to do something that could benefit him?”
“I’m mad at him for copying my papers and being a lazy sod. He actually hurt my grades instead of just his own. But I am still capable of recognizing that he has been by your side since that first train ride.”
Harry seemed to turn that thought through his mind. Then his eyes narrowed again. “And just why are you willing to do this? Why not just explain the Right of Harvest stuff and try to convince me to either do it myself or hire someone to do it? On that thought, why hasn’t Dumbledore come to me about harvesting it for the good of the school?”
Hermione smiled. “There’s that brain I knew you had. I have it from a very trusted source that our esteemed Headmaster spent the summer attempting to get around the ancient magic rather than talking to you and gaining permission.”
“Does this ‘trusted source’ have anything to do with how your magical strength has apparently multiplied like crazy?”
She hesitantly agreed. “It might have something to do with that.”
Then the boy’s face flushed with anger. “You mean to tell me that he is fully aware of the magic protecting the corpse, and instead of talking to me about it, which, let’s be honest, I’d likely have granted him full permission without asking any questions—instead of going the easiest route, he’s been trying to circumvent ancient magic?”
She nodded. “That would have been recognized as coercion, even by magic. Both parties have to be fully aware of exactly what is transpiring in order for the Right of Harvest to transfer. And that, Harry, is why I’m talking to you. My source has informed me that the Headmaster spent much of the summer healing from the magical backlash of his tampering.”
Harry’s voice rose. “It’s been almost seven months! He could have asked me in the hospital wing while I was doped up on potions and recovering. He could have called it payment for Fawkes healing me with his tears! But instead, he’s trying to keep me from knowing that I have the magical right to what? A few thousand galleons?”
Hermione rested a hand on her friend’s arm to calm him. “Apparently, I did make the dome strong enough.” She chuckled as he realized he’d been practically yelling by the end of his tirade, and yet no one around them seemed to notice.
“Sorry about that.”
She shrugged. “I fully understand. It’s almost like the school curriculum is only teaching us current magic and pretending like anything from ancient magic is bunk just to keep us ignorant of our true power.” The sarcasm practically dripped from her words. She continued. “Ignoring that, let’s say it’s not just a few thousand galleons. The venom alone sells for nearly three hundred galleons per drop and is heavily monitored by every magical ruling body because of the danger involved in it. It is only available through a direct connection at Gringotts so that everything is traceable.”
Again, Harry furrowed his brow in thought. “How would you get around all of those safe guards in order to sell the harvested parts.”
Hermione watched her friend’s face turn slightly green at the thought. She stifled a chuckle. “You know how you and Ron have repeatedly said that I am, and I quote, ‘brilliant but scary’? I may have formed a direct connection with a goblin already in order to trade some other highly prized and strictly monitored potions ingredients that found their way into my possession.” Then she grinned wide. “And nobody asks the goblins how they came into possession of certain things.”
Then she slid her other notebook closer and pointed to some of her class notes. “The goblins have defeated a great many magical beasts and gained Right of Harvest, Harry. It’s all right here in our history books, even if it is shrouded in language that hides the significance of the events.”
They spent the rest of the class period negotiating the harvest contract. Hermione found herself a little stunned at how Harry requested the profit value be split. The base split came down to fifty-fifty between him, as the victor, and her, as the harvester. After that, he further split his half such that he actually only kept ten percent. He asked for twenty percent each to be placed into trusts for both Ronald and Ginevra Weasley for their own parts in the situation. Those trusts would be managed by the goblins of Gringotts until such time that both of the parties reached adulthood according to magic, at which point they would then be notified of the existence of the trust.
Hermione had inquired as to the reasoning behind not telling them until they’d come of age. Harry had rolled his eyes and said, “They’re broke, Hermione. And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Ron’s jealousy about the monetary background either of us have, even if I never knew of mine until I went to Diagon Alley for the first time. During last summer, Mr. Weasley won 700 galleons, yet they all still came to school this year with used textbooks and hand-me-downs because they spent the majority of those winnings on a vacation to Egypt. I don’t begrudge them their vacation. I don’t begrudge Molly or Arthur from continuing to buy second hand. But do you think for even one moment that if either Ron or Ginny suddenly found themselves with a substantial pouch in their hands that they would even consider putting it in a trust for the future? If I can present a good amount of gold in an already established vault as a Coming of Age gift for them as proof that letting the goblins handle your investments will see you funded far into the future, it stands a better chance of sinking in.”
“That’s pretty forward thinking of you, Harry.”
Harry shrugged. “I had a little time to talk to the goblins about my inheritance while I waited for everyone else to arrive at the Leaky this summer. It was eye opening, to say the least. The fiduciary contract surrounding my own vault was enacted seven generations back and is a work of magic all on its own. It made me rethink a whole bunch of things. Then they actually showed me the account books… Hermione, I have nearly twice as much gold in that vault than I did when I first saw it two years ago. And I have an entire separate account for my tuition so that had anything gone really bad, the cost of my schooling was still covered! If Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had found out about it, I don’t think that even they could have blown through it. Though I’m sure they would have tried, out of spite, if nothing else.”
His eyes dropped to the contract. “So, once we sign this, you take care of everything else, and I don’t have to worry about it anymore?”
She nodded. “You’ll have to show me how to get in. After that, you’ll just continue to grow your vault and worry about your homework.”
A grin tugged the boy’s lips upward. “What do you think you’ll do with your fifty percent?”
“I’ll keep some parts for my own potions inventory, of course. But half of my portion will go to pay the person I am hoping to convince to help me with the harvest.”
“Do I want to ask?”
Hermione hiked one eyebrow. “If you think on it, it’ll come to you. Meanwhile,” she tapped her wand to the class notes, duplicating them. “Since we spent this time negotiating, here is a copy of my notes from the lecture so that you have something to study when needed.”
“But we missed half the lecture.”
She snorted. “I can multi-task, Harry. I was still taking notes.”
“Why am I not surprised? I’m sure I’ll thank you come exam time.”
~*~