25Chapter 1 – Windfall through justice
In the fourth year, not long after Halloween, Daphne saw her chance at a long-planned plot. Harry was at odds with his best friend after a very public blow-up, isolated as a result of rumours that had been strengthened by the headmaster, and was now sitting alone in the library after some kind of fight with Hermione. Daphne sat down next to him, and bashfully said "I believe you, that you didn't put your name in the Goblet."
"I…" Harry choked up, whilst almost tearing up.
Inwardly Daphne danced, whilst outwardly she remained sincere, leaning heavily on her acting lessons. Like a good little Slitherin. Too easy. It wouldn't do for Harry to have a public outburst in public though, that wouldn't be nearly as valuable as having him be emotional in private, so Daphne suggested a walk. At that, Harry's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Right, he doesn't trust me yet. So Daphne put up her best privacy barrier (which wasn't very good), Harry rubbed the tears out of his eyes, and they had a quiet little conversation there in the corner of the library. And Harry felt relief.
Dear father,
Plan Boltmore is in phase 0.5. Minor difficulties, nothing our plansdidn't allow for.
Be well,
Your loving daughter
Over the next days, Harry and Daphne had a couple more conversations, and even a walk around the black lake. Daphne thought the boy delightfully cute in his naivity with regards to the birds and the bees. She herself had been taught all the stages of sex as a proper heiress should be. And though she held no inherent interest in sex of any kind, it was fun seeing how it could reduce a boy to a stammering mess. It also helped that she got such a wealth of information from him.
Harry for his part was amazed that the girl with golden hair and blue eyes wanted to hold his hand, and with how soft her hand was.
Malfoy unfortunately couldn't help but notice, and confronted Daphne in the Slytherin Common Room. "How dare you cavort with Potter?" he sneered. "When my father hears of this…"
Daphne burst out laughing.
When she'd finished wiping the tears from her eyes, she asked "can you imagine his face when I dump him in the middle of the great hall?" Malfoy's expression froze on his face. "And you call yourself prince of Slytherin," Daphne continued laughing. "But unless you do me a veeery big favour you're going to have to keep imagining it, because I'll make sure to dump him when you're not around." Still laughing, she walked away to her room.
When Malfoy unfroze he ran after her, begging and pleading that she tell him what he had to do, but she refused to even turn her face, and just said she'd tell him later.
All round, Daphne reflected, that confrontation had gone even better than planned.
Hermione was happy Harry had found another friend, and though she worried and fretted about the whole thing, she was content in knowing that she was still Harry's main study partner.
Ron was now twice angry, but since he wasn't talking with Harry anyway that didn't really change anything.
There was one way to gauge how accurate (and how exaggerated) Harry's stories were, and that was to look at Slytherin's Monster. So after a bit of begging, one Saturday morning Harry took Daphne through the girl's bathroom and down the slide. It was pretty cool to hear him speak parsletongue again. It was even filthier than his story had suggested Daphne reflected, and at that point (at least with hindsight) she really ought to have adjusted her suppositions. Encountering the shed skin marked a second instance where she should have reconsidered her assumptions. They spent several hours clearing the path, during which a putrid stench slowly pervaded the air, almost taking Daphne's breath away. Harry appeared unperturbed, just relieved when they cleared the last boulders. Not long after they came to the actual basilisk corpse, and as Daphne walked closer and saw that it was an actual basilisk, and it shear size, she felt faint. For she grasped then that Harry might have the habit of understating things. And what that meant about their first year defence professor, and their second year defence professor, and their third year defence professor, and his actual godfather and the rat, and…
It would have been really embarrassing if Harry hadn't been there to support her weight.
Dear Father,
Things are more severe than even our worst estimates. There's something I want to have evaluated in the castle, but ideally Greatbeard shouldn't know. Also Could you and some of Skinner's company meet with us somehow on the Hogsmeade visit of November the 21st?
Time is money,
Your loving daughter
Within the week there was an 'emergency' wizengamot meeting about merfolk-veela tensions, on a day when Cyrus*(1) Greengrass just so happened to be visiting his daughter.
Harry was promptly pulled from breakfast and no-one saw him or Daphne again for the rest of the day.
At the big slide Cyrus insisted Harry ask for stairs, any other (dignified) entrance, finally for just some bloody cleaning, all to no effect. Thoroughly exasperated they took the jump. And though he'd never admit it, it was rather fun.
Some cleaning and bubble-head charms later, they were all looking at the big dead snake, and Cyrus too was impressed.
"Freshly killed, this would have been worth about 200.000 galleons, or 10.000.000 British pounds*(2)," he said. "Unfortunately it's rotten, and probably only worth a tenth as much now. I propose we split the proceeds 50/50, so you'll get 10.000 galleons." Daphne squeezed Harry's hand.
They talked some more, and agreed to reserve 2.000 galleons for the victims (at Harry's insistence) and 2.000 galleons for the school, leaving them with 8.000 galleons each. Other topics were discussed as well.
When Harry left them Daphne looked at her father sternly, lifting an eyebrow.
"What?" he smiled, "you know our policy about lying to customers."
"Don't lie about reasonably verifiable facts when you hope for repeat business." Daphne recited. "So you didn't lie about the original value, but that snake has lost at most half its value, and our fee shouldn't reasonably exceed 10%. We're robbing him of 80.000."
"And what's your price for silence?" Cyrus smiled approvingly.
"I want half of that added to my dowry."
Cyrus looked at her speculatively, until she blushed. "Thinking of keeping him?"
"He's got strong blood and an influential political position," Daphne defended herself. "… and I'm having a lot more fun with him than I ever could with a proper pureblood Slytherin."
Cyrus chuckled. "Just so long as you promise to never let the boy negotiate on your behalf."
Dumbledore was a little troublesome, and they really did need him. Both because only he could provide a portkey that could bypass the Hogwarts wards, and because technically they didn't have the legal right to salvage. But facing the choice between an easy 2.000 galleons or letting the Board know about the presence and size of the basilisk (as well as the incredible waste of letting the animal rot), he chose the easy path.
Sometimes having a lazy liar as a headmaster is good.
Elsewhere another profitable deal was soon being made.
"So for 30.000 galleons you can ensure that I get a trial and am pronounced innocent? You don't need Wormtail for that?"
"Why would we need the rat? Did Dumbledore confound you or something?*(3) Your own testimony and memories will be enough," Cyrus answered glibly.
"So why would I pay you? If I could just walk in?" the dirty man grumbled.
"Remember Lord Malfoy went free, whilst innocent Mr Gozzar was thrown through the veil. I'll need money for bribes."
"Fine, I'll sign a magical contract to pay you 30.000 galleons or half the Black fortune, whichever is less, conditional on me declared being innocent within 6 months, and this being in large part to your effort. But the contract will also state that if you muck up and fail, you will pay 30.000 to the Granger girl." Lord Black scowled. "As a bit of motivation not to cut corners."
Lord Greengrass struggled not to smile too wide. Whilst it was true he'd need bribe the appropriate people, his retainers fee should end up around 15.000 shinies.
A/N
(1): Though fannon has Cyrus Greengrass as Daphne's father, the wiki lists Cyrus as Daphne's deceased brother and Florian as Daphne's father. I chose to follow fannon, but Daphne having a deceased brother is a plot point I might keep.
(2): I'm using the exchange rate 1 Galleon = 50 GBP, 1 Knut = 10 pence. Which seems much more sensible than the official conversion rate which leaves knuts not worth the time it costs to count them out. It also leaves wands costing 350 GBP, which is actually a respectable sum that a poor family might not be able to afford, and which affords Ollivander a decent wage even if only about 60 wands are sold per year in all Britain.
(3): This is one of my gripes with manyfanfics. Too many accept blindly thatWormtail is needed to exonerateSirius. It's actually perfectly plausible that it was the correct decision not to give Sirius a trial in 1982, with Malfoy getting off scot free and all that, but for him not to get a trial in 1994 you need either a wizengamot that's willing to send innocent people through the veil or a Dumbledore who benefits from Sirius being on the run. Both options are plausible, and both are solvable, but most solutions do not require Wormtail.