Order Only: In business!

[alt_sirius]

Poppy - the requisitions from Dover are coming in! At least one of the warehouses decided to order enough for St Mungo's, too, so we should be moving a fair amount of inventory soon.

With that in mind, Arthur, I'm sending a packet through at the same time. If they open it, it will be nothing more than a collection of inventory lists and instructions to use the profit from these shipments to open an office somewhere in New London.

I thought someone might like to moonlight at something a little better than shredding papers - but no need to move on that right away. It's more of an excuse to send a letter through than anything.

Hidden in the lists are the charms and spells I promised Frank. Can you hand them off once you get them? If it's too much trouble let me know.

I'm hoping there will be enough profit - and additional business enough - to fund a little flat I've found. It's not much, but there's a modest shop round the corner, in the same building - enough to open a storefront for Laszlo, anyway. It's close enough to the charger d'affaires to make going there for inspections easy; far enough away that the other operations we plan won't be noticed. Wish I could sublet the place in Monaco, but Nigel has to keep up appearances out there, so, no way to save some overhead on that - at least not right now.

As for those plans, Frank, I'm staying in Calais long enough to make sure the shipments go through all right. But then I'm heading to Bordeaux for a bit to see if I can find some fishermen with more need for ready cash than discretion about plotting their course. And yeah, I think the sail might be a good thought as a backup, if nothing else.

Comments

[alt_frank]

thanks for the spells, mate.

I was thinking some more about the wards, like how far do they go down? I mean... do the wards go under water too? i'd bet a galleon they don't. it'd take a lot of extra energy to extend it to the sea floor, besides which it might mess up the fishing if the fish couldn't get back and forth.

dunno if that's the case, but that's what I've been thinking of.

And yeah, been working on the sail. might just chop off a sail from another boat and stick it to ours. won't be pretty, but it just might work.

[alt_sirius]

I dunno, either, Frank - but I'm not sure I'd test those currents to try to find out. Owls can pass through at certain points, we know that. Could be that they're configured so that fish can travel, only humans and man-made things can't.

It's far too advanced magic for me to understand, I know that.

[alt_poppy]

That's certainly good news. Those shipments can't arrive here quickly enough.

[alt_arthur]

Sorry for my late reply. Molly and I have been somewhat distracted by events at Hogwarts. I'll forward the packet on, and yes, it's an intriguing idea.

[alt_sirius]

Yeah, I can see why Hogwarts has been a priority lately. No worries, Arthur. When you can.

Watching you two gives me a new appreciation for how Mrs Potter must have felt when we'd get into scrapes. Of course, there were no murderous professors at the time, itching to flay us for any infraction, even one far less serious than violating their living quarters.

[alt_sirius]

Well, apart from Minerva.

And Filch. But he wasn't a professor.