Chapter 120: A Deal Gone Through.
Rowley flew to Loki, sitting in the great hall having breakfast and landed on his shoulder, bringing with him a letter attached to his feet. Loki fed him some bread crumbs and after scratching him under his feathers picked the letter of his leg.
'Greetings Mr. Loki.
I have read your letter and am interested in your proposal to advertise what you call discount coupons in exchange for attracting more business through your newspaper.
I would love to hear more about this proposal and would like to do so in person. Is it possible for us to meet somewhere like the Hogwarts Castle or Hogsmeade?
With gratitude,
Bliton Blimes
Zonko's Store Owner.'
A smile blossomed on Loki's face as he read through the letter.
'Good. Now I just need to ask Professor Snape to help me with organising the meeting.'
Loki had contacted stores in Hogsmeade to help them advertise in the newspaper using discount coupons that students could collect for a discount from the stores on their purchases during their visit to Hogsmeade.
Although he had yet to hear from the other stores, Loki was sure he'd be able to snag one or two entries and would be able to get others once they saw how effective the advertising would be.
But the meeting with Bilton Blimes was a little special. Loki had a little something planned for Bilton which Loki couldn't just print with the help of the printer Professor Snape had acquired.
'Mione should be happy as long as this meeting goes by fruitfully.'
'I hope she's not having difficulty collecting stories from the ghosts.'
Finishing his breakfast quickly, Loki moved to the teacher's table where he handed Snape the letter he'd just received.
Snape looked it over and without doubting its authenticity asked Loki, "When?"
"I think I'd prefer it if it were during the weekend before the other meetings so that I can use it to snag them all once Mr. Blimes agrees."
"Understood, you may proceed. I will escort you to meet him at Hogwarts when the time comes."
"Thank you, professor." Loki bowed politely and began to walk towards the next class he had with joy.
'Hehehehe~ I could already feel my potion digesting by about five per cent after I scammed Lockhart into paying for me to use him. And now I'm sure I'll slowly digest my potion as long as I get more and more people into this venture with me.'
'But I still need something big.'
'Eh.. I'll think about it later.'
After classes, Loki worked on his mental defences, trying to empty his mind which he was slowly getting better at since he'd learnt a simple trick from Walburga's notes.
As long as he focused on one thing and thought about it alone he'd be able to ignore the other extra thoughts that came up and clear his mindscape a little.
The only thing that was left was to get rid of the one thought he was focusing on, and he could see glimpses of this state occasionally when he practised so he kept at it, wondering when he'd get good enough to finally clear his mind.
After finishing his daily training, Loki spoke to Elane and entertained her with his ability to create illusions by recreating some of the famous TV series from his last life like Tom & Jerry.
This served as a form of light training since it helped his ability to imagine things and recreate them with the help of his illusions, strengthening his Beyonder Abilities in the process.
The weekend arrived a few days later and Snape escorted Loki to the Deputy Headmistress's office. He waited for the fireplace to turn green to signal the arrival of Bilton Bilmes via floo.
"I heard you're starting a newspaper Mr. Loki." McGonagall made idle conversation as she waited along with Snape and Loki for the owner of Zonko's to show up.
"I am Professor. Would you also like to be a part of it?" Loki asked almost rubbing his hands like an unscrupulous merchant.
"No Mr. Loki, I'm sure all the professors and everyone else you've already gathered and will gather soon are impressive. I'm not much of a businesswoman myself. I've already got Hogwarts to deal with, I don't think I can handle anything else, thank you." McGonagall rambled on.
"Then is something else the matter professor?"
"Yes, I hope you don't lag behind in your homework and other studies, is that understood and clear?"
"Yes, professor. I promise to do better than the Hogwarts Quidditch teams at least." Loki said with a sneaky smile that caused McGonagall to laugh a little.
"That would be for the best.", McGonagall replied just in time for the flames in her fireplace to turn green and an old man with barely any hair on his head and a large white Hungarian style handlebar moustache wearing a blue rob on colourful dress suits appeared in it.
He dusted himself a little to get rid of the sooth stuck on his dress and looked at everyone in the room until his eyes stopped on Loki, its littlest occupant.
"You must be Mr. Loki." Bilton Blimes said stepping forward with his hands extended for a handshake.
"Yes, sir, that would be me.", Loki said shaking his hand, saying everything slowly and clearly with confidence.
Then the man greeted the two other professors after which Loki said, "Would you like me to guide you to our meeting room Mr. Blimes?"
"Yes, lead the way! Time is money after all."
Once in the room that Snape had given him, Loki spoke to the man with a smile that was sharp and serious.
"Mr. Blimes, I have two propositions for you."
"One of them is about the coupons in your newspapers is it not?" Blimes asked.
"Yes.", Loki nodded.
"And the other?"
"The other is about getting help from the Zonko's joke store to add extra pages in our Newspaper filled with games and other things that would allow our buyers to pass the time by having fun."
"Games? Pass the time? What is this about?" Mr. Blimes asked and Loki complied by putting down a paper on the table on which he'd outlined all his ideas.
Blimes picked up the paper and looked at it for a bit before his eyes widened and then he looked at Loki with a serious expression and asked, "Have you shown this to anyone else?"
"Professor Snape yes, but no other stores, you can guess why I didn't mention it in the letter too."
"Yes, yes, I see, you wanted me to respond positively so that you could trust me enough to share the idea with me. I see, very clever, but are you sure you want to do this and not just sell your idea to the Daily Prophet? They would give you a lot of money for this do you think not?"
"They might, but then I wouldn't be able to truly call this my own.", Loki said with an expectant expression.
"Yes, yes, you're right. Given my experience at Zonko's I'm sure these will be popular with the children, you can expect my full help on this. I'm just surprised by the remarkable rune circuitry, they're excellent, very little left to improve."
"Then shall we talk about the price?"
"Haha~! Of course."
Loki and Blimes then spoke at length to discuss their cuts of the profit and finalised things in the form of a contract after which they shook hands and went their separate ways.
Blimes went back to Hogsmeade with a big smile on his face, preparing himself to work on what Loki had introduced to him and Loki went back to his dorms to check up on Hermione after bidding Snape a thankful farewell.
Loki didn't use any of his Beyonder abilities to swindle Bilton since he'd already used Divination to check if he would be in trouble for doing so and he found it was ill-advised. So he hadn't swindled him, but he planned on swindling the other store owners.
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A/N : Sorry for the delay, overslept. We're getting closer to three hundred powerstones by the way! Thank you so much for the support and love you've shown to this story.
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