Ending Maker : Fate Wizardry
Chapter Intro: We have Hermione and Shirou or Rin and Harry going into the deep-end, navigating goblin relations.
This fic's premise is inspired by the webtoon titled Ending Maker/엔딩메이커 by Chwiryong and their illustrator chyan. Please check them out.
Story Starts
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Ch. 2.4 - Flashing my grin, gots
lots of gold now!.. Or not.
(4 out of 4)
I winced as the visibly irate lady tightened the bandages around my body.
"Here, drink this. It tastes bad but it'll help you with bone growth. You have several fractures but I made sure to wrap you in such a way to support the proper regrowth of your fractured bones. In fact, considering what you experienced I'm surprised you suffered from only micro-fractures."
She narrowed her eyes at me as I averted my eyes. To my side Hermione is busily memorizing the patterns on the wall. She was the first who was treated as she currently has a myriad of dittany-soaked patches around her body courtesy of the several cuts and a busted lip inflicted by the machete-wielding branch director.
We currently are in the branch director's private estate within the bowels of Gringotts. In front of us, at the opposite side of the desk, a well-chastised Ragnok is being tended to by his wife, while a similarly chastised Edward Tonks is seated up straight with his hands on his lap.
Seated beside the wall just slightly behind and to my left are the grizzled auror with the weird spinning eye Alastor Moody, and his protege and the daughter of Edward and the lady tending to me, Just Auror-Trainee Tonks.
Directly opposite of them are the two goblins who "assisted" us, the stoic, silent, and goblin of very few words, Gorkk, and the equally stoic, silent and goblin of even lesser words; the goblin who went in for a flying-stab at Hermione and was summarily body thrown by her, Morkk; who are currently drinking some goblin-made-ale, playing with cards, visibly gambling with a stack of gold coins.
As the beautiful lady — with a slim and regal build, a long, rectangular-shaped face with a high forehead, high cheekbones, a slightly pointed nose, and full lips — started clearing all her medical equipment, she sighed and exhaled loudly.
"So let me get this straight, you—" Andromeda Tonks began as she directed her gaze at Branch Director Ragnok. Her countenance was poised and elegant, an indication of some noble upbringing, but her tone was obviously laced with irritation.
"...wanting to ascend to the status of Heir Apparent, and eventually become the Goblin Lord of European Gringotts, you need to retrieve a goblin-forged blade that was lost in a bet a few hundred years ago to gain this status?"
She sat her medical kit on the desk in front of me and began pacing around the room, all our eyes, minus Gorkk and Morkk, following the fuming lady.
"Your father, who is one of the few dozen sons of the current Goblin Lord, managed to win the Black Family Grimoire from my Great Grandfather Sirius Black II, and managed to trap him in an agreement where the Black Family shall help you trace, locate, and retrieve the elusive goblin-forged blade in exchange for the transfer of the Black Family Grimoire's ownership back to my previous family."
She said as she paused to survey the goblin and lawyer duo, for any corrections, seeing none she continued, "Said book which to this day is still in my previous family's library but is being leased at an exorbitant rate per year."
"My grandfather, who inherited the task, managed to trace the blade, as it switched hands several times in a few centuries, to a gambling night hosted by the Shafiq family and was won by the Grangers at a side bet they had with the heir of Italy's Zabbini Family main branch."
Now back to her pacing, she addressed Branch Director Ragnok, "A few decades ago, you and my Grandfather Arcturus, were able to infiltrate Hogwarts and apply an enchantment upon the Book of Admittance, through a curse-breaking job; where you are supposed to locate and break the curse on the DADA position."
Andromeda, placing her right hand on her waist, released another exasperated sigh. "Not only were you unable to break the curse, you probably breached several privacy laws by making a copy of every name on that book."
She then turned towards Auror Moody, "Something that will no longer be a problem since you found your Granger and you'll be breaking the enchantment and burning all the information you got from that book; and to put it in my husband's legal terms, any and all subsequent information gained from the poisonous tree. Right, Moody?"
The Auror's face soured as he said, "As long as I get a magical oath that no one else was harmed by the information, all information is destroyed, and you did your utmost due diligence in securing and destroying all leaks of said information then my lips are sealed. I don't want to waste the DMLE's nor my time and resource on something that's settled; at least I'm assuming it's settled. Do Ms. Granger or Mr. Potter have any problems with this?"
Both of us just dismissively waved it off at the same time.
Andromeda, shaking her head at our casual dismissal of something that devolved into an attempt on our lives, didn't know about our previous lives' experience during the Holy Grail War. Getting hit by the troll did not compare to body-blocking a strike from Berserker Heracles.
"Okay, anyway, so basically your original plan was to entrap an unsuspecting teenager–"
Edward Tonks tried to interject but Andromeda immediately cut him off.
"What do you call dangling potential riches, planning to make them do most of the work, slowly making them depend on your help, then in the end giving them an ultimatum they can't refuse so all of their efforts won't go to waste?"
"Not only that, you detained the pair for four hours after Harry here used magic to open your door." She said while she angrily gesticulated.
"Edward Tonks, were you there the whole time when they tied James' and Lily's son in chains?"
She fumed even more at Edward Tonks' guilty look.
"And you Ragnok, you were the Potter Family account manager up until Charlus and Dorea; I get that goblins hate wizarding kind in general, but the Potter Family had good relations with your nation for centuries now; Charlus and Dorea treated you with respect and would even reprimand Arcturus for their family's treatment of your kind, and this is how you treated their grandson."
She then gestured towards the twin goblins gambling.
"I understand if it's these guys, as they have been exposed to my previous family's shitty behaviour for the past century now."
"And then you threatened their lives with several platoons of goblins and TROLLS–" She angrily screamed the last word. "Just because they expressed their irritation at their treatment and their close to perfect assessment of your schemes. I don't care if your excuse is that Harry is strong, due to his ability to push open your giant heavy iron doors with the assistance of his wandless magic."
"You didn't even have the courtesy to offer them refreshments."
"He did offer us somes smokes." Rin, I mean, Hermione whispered at me suddenly, which was easily heard by everyone in the room, increasing Andromeda's ire at the goblin director and her husband.
Both of them, plus Morkk, glared at Hermione.
"Shhhh, he didn't. He asked us if we mind if he smoked." I said, trying to placate the angry crowd.
I raised my eyebrow at her, as if to ask if she intentionally said that to stir the pot even more, but she just morphed her face into a mask of innocence, quickly sticking her tongue at me, confirming my assessment.
Director Ragnok's wife suddenly angrily hit Ragnok at the side, barking something loud in their language, admonishing the two glaring goblins.
Andromeda, now focusing all her ire and anger at her husband, said, "You, two things, first why would you call your 5th-year, 24-year-old, auror-in-training daughter and not expect her to bring her mentor? What do you think she would have done to help your situation?"
The lawyer looked down at his lap in embarrassment and wisely kept quiet, while the auror and auror-trainee duo looked visibly amused at the lawyer's situation, somewhat hiding their smirks behind their tea cups, as they sipped their drink.
"Second, when would I have known about your deal with my misanthropic grandfather? I understand the good intention in agreeing to help in my grandfather's task, and in exchange I'd be reinstated in the family. I know that you know that it broke me when Uncle Orion blasted from the family tapestry at Walburga's urging and that Arcturus didn't even bat an eye at his eldest's decisions."
She then sat tiredly at the open chair to my side. "I know that given any other context he'll still stand by the decision to cast me out, but Orion was only acting head of house, Arcturus ran our family to the ground when he didn't intervene in Walburga's and my parents' machinations. This is just his roundabout way of trying to make amends, probably at the behest of his wife's dying wishes, and quite frankly I don't care for it. If he wants to make amends, he shall do it personally."
"I know that it was with his approval that my grandmother Melania was able to help us, and that even Morkk and Gorkk continued their services with us, but next time let him come to me first." Andromeda concluded, now exhausted from her heated rant.
An awkward silence enveloped the room.
"…."
"...."
"...."
Ahem, now that we're here, as I no longer want to set up any more meetings within this compound, let us discuss our terms for our partnership." Hermione said, interrupting the silence.
"Quite frankly, thanks to today's event, we can really accelerate our plans, and we probably need the help of everyone in here. I'm not sure, though, if it's smart to tell the bobbies about our plans."
Alastor perked up, now crossing his arms as he glared at Hermione. "And why, pray tell, would you want to avoid including us, laddie?"
Hermione just grinned challengingly. "Well, it's nothing too serious–" She then jokingly gave me a wink and ribbed me playfully. "Let's just say that you'd probably want to be part of the planning with a certain serious problem, but I would guess you'd also appreciate us giving you plausible deniability."
I gently applied pressure on Hermione's foot as she playfully emphasised certain words within her statement.
"But first, Harry and I need a private room to discuss certain things, and when I say private, I mean it. Plus, I'll be applying more privacy spells into the room as a precaution. So, I'd appreciate you not sending more of your cavalry at us in retaliation to our magic."
Hermione, standing up and stretching her arms and body, said, "Again, we didn't really plan on discussing certain things today, as we just originally planned to look at this guy's available funds. Since certain things are of a sensitive nature, we really need to plan it in such a way that it can be delivered properly and that we can properly back things up. Because, believe me, you'll become very skeptical of the claims and help we need."
"Oh and can we get some food, as we haven't eaten since this morning." Ragnok and Edward visibly flinched at their wives' glare. "In the meantime you guys can also eat and discuss things, let's reconvene in about an hour?"
She then turned to me and asked. "Would you please project both your white and blue daos, that red spear, and another one of your simpler swords but of the same quality as your daos and spear." As she gave me a pointed look and emphasised the phrase, "same quality".
Tracing all the requested weapons, I then thought of Prototype Gram, and guessing her intentions I then summarily placed all of the Noble Phantasms on the branch director's desk.
The goblin director now thoroughly entranced by the traced swords was soon joined by both Gorkk and Morkk, and the mentor and protege auror duo.
The exasperated wife of the director of Gringotts, sighed and stood up, asking us to follow her.
Just as we were about to exit, Andromeda added, "Harry and Hermione, don't think we won't discuss the dangers of experimenting with your magic at a young age. The fact that you were able to learn about it in your Muggle upbringing, given the well-established national magical gate dampeners, is concerning. And don't think I didn't notice how you healed your own body, Harry."
Her face then visibly softened as she concluded. "We were friends of your parents. I'd like for us to talk and get to know each other. We'll also be having words about your absentee magical guardian."
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END