Chapter 193: Q.W.A.S.P.P. Again, Vacation Time
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It was that time of the year once again.
The time where granddaughter and grandfather would take a day out of their busy schedules and make sure that they wouldn't have any commitments on one day of summer.
Today was the day for Quinn West's Annual Summer Product Pitch Meeting, or as Quinn had so graciously abbreviated as QWASPP.
Every year, this pitching would start the West business in the process of releasing the most significant product release of every year — infusing new blood into the business, and ever since Quinn had started doing it, the business has been thriving in diversity.
"Do you have any idea what he'll be showing today," asked Lia, glancing at her grandfather, "anything you noticed in the weeks he has been here?"
Lia traveled a lot, which she had cut down by a level since last year, but even then, she was rarely at the West estate anymore — the young woman had moved out from the home nest, finally, having brought home of her own. Of course, Lia's first home wasn't a rental, nor was it a small apartment; rather, it was a gorgeous villa — suiting for someone with Lia's salary.
"I asked both Elliot, Rosey, and even Polly; none of them noticed Quinn doing out of the ordinary," said George. Of course, Quinn's ordinary was anything but mundane — but they had gotten used to it.
Suddenly the pair heard a flutter of wings and saw a big black raven fly into the room through the window they hadn't noticed was open.
Lia lazily took her wand out to shoo the bird away but froze when the bird expanded into an entire human being — her brother human being.
"That was a nice flight," smiled Quinn, gazing at Lia and George with his both good stone-grey eyes, "I've deduced that one flight a day does wonder for perception. It's like taking a walk, but if the walk had taken a potion and there is no path to follow."
"Y-You're an Animagus!" exclaimed Lia, pointing at him.
Quinn gestured down with his hand, which magically and gently lowered her hand that held her wand. "That I am. It's a new thing — still getting to the entire turning into a bird ability," he said while fixing his clothes.
"When did you attain this ability?" asked George calmly.
"During Hogwarts," said Quinn.
George and Lia knew what Animagus stood for, but neither actually knew how one became an Animagus — the specifics weren't taught in school even if Animagus was introduced as a branch of transfiguration.
"You do know that Animagus needs to be registered," said Lia.
"I do know that," Quinn sat down on the barstool prepared for him, "but that takes most of the use out of being Animagus — they observe you and take down all identifiable features for the public records. With there being only a handful of Animagi, it becomes very easy to memorize the details for every one of them — believe me, I have all of them filed in my head."
"So you don't plan to register yourself?" asked George.
"No, I don't."
"I see; then we won't bring it up. Keep going on your flights; just make sure you're not seen — I don't want to deal with all the things that would happen if you get found out."
"Not going to happen, that. Being a secret Animagus is too much of an important asset for me to let someone find it out."
"Let's have it then; what do you have for us today?" asked George.
Quinn rubbed his hands, "I've something different for you today," he reached into his deep pockets and retrieved a thick leader-bound hardback tome and placing it on the table between them with a heavy thump.
"You see, the quidditch tournament wasn't a spur of the moment thing that I thought up in in a day — not it was an initiative that I started working on before I went back to Hogwarts," said Quinn, "as such; I knew from the very start that I was going to be busy this year, which meant that it would be difficult for me to hold a QWASPP this year because I work on my inventions during the school year and the chances of me coming up with something new weren't looking great. . . . It turns out that I was right, and I wasn't able to come up with anything to show at this meeting at all."
"Quinn, you do realize that you initiate these meetings," stated Lia, "we only free a day up when you say that you have something to show."
"I, of course, know that and am aware that I called you here, so of course, I have something to present today," he tapped his finger on the book. "You see, this past school year, I did start quite a few new projects, but I wasn't able to complete none of them. . . . the tournament, as expected, took a lot of my time.
"But, then an opportunity presented itself from the adversity," he tapped the tome once again, "with all the news of the return of the Dark Lord's return that Dumbledore and the Light faction had been spreading, even with the ministry denying it at every step, has been getting to the masses. So, there I was, sitting on my bed with my one good eye to give it a rest when it struck me — what do the people desire?"
"What is it?" asked Lia when Quinn took a pause.
"Safety," answered Quinn, "with all the Dark Lord's return talk going on, people desire safety or a sense of safety. The need for it is at an all-time high since the war. . . . Now that I had identified the need, it was time to see if I could provide, if I could satisfy with that need."
Quinn lightly thumped his open palm on the tome and slid it towards Lia and George.
"I found that I could satisfy those needs. That tome is my pitch for this year."
George pulled the tome towards him to read it. He flipped a couple of pages, then skipped tens of pages at a time before pushing the book to Lia.
"I can't make sense of any of that," he said.
"Uh-huh, me neither," declared Lia as well.
"No worries, you don't need to," he pointed at the tome, "that book is a manual for protective wards for homes and buildings — a guide so comprehensive, intensive, exhaustive that even I was surprised that I could come up with it in mere two weeks."
"Quinn, you should know—" spoke George.
"I'm aware that we tried to get into the warding business, but the goblins beat us so bad that we had to shut down to cut our already extensive losses. Gringotts already had a monopoly on the warding business, so much so that any aspiring ward-enchanter or at least a protective ward enchanter," which was the opposite of curse/ward-breaker, "wanted to land a job at Gringotts for the hold they had and the scope they provided."
"When we tried to change that monopoly into a duopoly, it turned into a massive-massive failure — one of our greatest failures, if I may so say," finished Quinn with a smile.
"Yes, Quinn, we know that; please move one," urged George; it was a sore point for him.
"With the problem in front of me and the solution in mind, I began thinking why our first attempt failed. What did the goblins have that we didn't have? Were they doing something right, or were we doing something wrong. . . . the conclusion that I came up with was that goblin's warding service was so much better than ours that our products didn't have any upside and thus didn't inspire any confidence."
"And this," Lia pointed at the book, "can do that?"
"Absolutely," he said, "the thing about runes is that anyone can carve runes — even a non-magical can do that given they won't be able to activate. Anyone with good enough carving, drawing, painting, etching skills can draw warding or any rune-based magic, but what makes runes difficult is to make sense of said runes — it takes practice, study, hard work to learn the language of runes to actually make rune cluster designs.
"Goblins had the brains and expertise to design such effective ward designs that it takes massive effort to break them. The only ones capable of breaking them are either highly knowledgable individuals or those who have worked for Gringotts in the past," he pointed up towards the roof. "The proof of their capabilities is that even we use goblin-crafted wards at the West estate. We failed because even we ourselves didn't trust our product — that's a no-go for me. The things that I make must be better than anything on the market, and even if they aren't, at least should be customized to my needs — in short, they should have some additional value point."
Quinn leaned forward with a toothy grin.
"I decided to challenge them at their own game. . . . I created brand new ward schemes. So few people are able to crack goblin-wards because they add their own rune language into their wards — which even their human employees aren't knowledgable about. So, I did the same thing; I made something difficult to crack."
Before Lia and George could say anything, Quinn placed a palm on his chest and continued.
"I am in a position of being knowledgable about magics from multiple cultures, and with that knowledge came knowledge about numerous rune languages. And because I studied and practiced, I know how to combine them. . . . do you know how difficult it is to break a rune cluster with not three, not four, but five different nomenclatures of rune combined together."
They shook their head at the question.
"The possibility of one person to know that specific combination of rune languages is already small, and even if they bring multiple people together, it still takes time to communicate and coordinate their findings together to actually breaking together," said Quinn.
Lia looked between Quinn and the book, "Which means that this is capable of matching goblin-wards?"
"Yes, they are at least as strong as them, if not stronger."
"What about breaking them? Where do they stand in comparison?"
"To be honest, they're comparatively easier to crack if the conditions as mentioned earlier are fulfilled — which are difficult to fulfill. Goblin wards are much cleaner because they have been developing for centuries, while I gave them much less time. All-in-all, in real-life conditions, mine and goblin-wards will be equally hard to crack."
"Who can enchant them?"
"That's a plus point; it doesn't take a genius to enchant my wards; mine don't use complicated, advanced runes, which require months upon months of training."
George had heard everything and now had a single question, "Why would people want to use ours instead of goblin because from what I hear, both are equally capable; ours don't have any major significance."
Quinn smiled as he answered, "Ours will be much cheaper," he pointed at the book, "as I said, mine doesn't complex runes, that means they are easier to carve, which lowers the cost of hiring enchanters who take big bucks and the materials required are also much cheaper. . . . also, goblins are working in a monopoly, they can decide the price, but if we get in, we can introduce competitive prices, and attract people towards us."
"Hmm, you have a written proposal," asked George.
"Yes," said Quinn, pushing a file towards George, who slid it to Lia, but she didn't pick it up to read.
The grandson-grandfather looked at Lia to see her eyes closed.
Lia opened her eyes and immediately started what she found, "Goblins have their high price which has made not many people buy their services, only. They only work for business and wealthy families who can afford and want to ward on their houses," she pointed at the title of the book, "this says home in the title, I'm assuming you already knew about the state of the warding market."
"Yup, not many people have warded their houses because of the prices. two-fifths of that book is just home wards."
"Good," she said, picking up the tome and the file, and got up from her chair, "I will put these to the test and see how they fare — if they pass the quality standards, I'll start working on the launch."
Then under the eyes of Quinn and George, Lia left the room without saying another word, her eyes already reading the file.
". . . . It seems that she'll be taking the lead on that," said George at being left behind. Though he knew the real reason behind Lia's abrupt exit.
"I'll also take my leave," said Quinn, standing up, "I'm working on special wards just for our home — I'm hoping that these will be stronger than the goblin ones or the ones Lia took with her."
"Sit down," said George, "I have something to talk you about."
Quinn observed his grandfather and noticed the sober expression on his face. "What is it?" he asked.
George retrieved an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to him. Quinn observed the letter; it was addressed to George, but seeing that he had given it to him, Quinn took out the letter and began reading it.
"Abate," spoke Quinn, noting the name in the letter. "Abate is my mother's maiden name."
Quinn and Lia's mother, Aria West (nee. Abate), was of Italian descent. His parents had died when Quinn was a year old in an accident; as such, Quinn didn't remember them from the memories, and he himself had never asked about his parents from anyone in his family. [1]
From what Lia had told him, Aria was a sweet, kind, soft-spoken lady. She had met Adam West, Quinn and Lia's father, during his stay in Italy, and from what Lia had mentioned to him, it was a sort of love-at-first-sight deal. They had a very short dating period before they tied the knot, and with Lia's description of their parent's relation, they had a happy marriage.
But that was the extent what Quinn knew of his biological parents.
"The Abate family is calling me to. . . . Rome," Quinn frowned, "we have been to Rome when we went on the world tour; why didn't I meet them that time?"
"Your mother's family is heavily patriarchal. They don't give their women much power. When your parents came to me and your grandmother with the news of them being engaged, I did some digging; the Abate family have a heavy history of using their daughters in political marriages — they weren't happy when your mother ran away from home to marry your Adam, more so when Aria refused to provide them access to our resources — it turns, that Aria didn't like her family very much."
"They also sort-off offended Lia, when she visited them with your parents and then again after she went there alone after their death," sighed George. "She didn't want you to meet them. When we were in Rome, I complied with her wish and kept you away from the Abate."
"And now?" asked Quinn.
"Given that you're no longer a kid, it's right for you to decide if you want to meet them — Lia, of course, still doesn't like the idea. . . . that's why she left so abruptly."
"What about you?"
"I don't really have an opinion," shrugged George, "I'm not delusional to believe that this is an attempt to mend family tied. They're probably thinking that now that you're getting older, they will try to build a relationship with you and develop with years so that when you're old enough, you'll provide them with our resources."
"Ah, I see. . . . so what do you think? Should I accept?"
"There's no harm in going to visit them. You can have them butter you up for a couple of weeks before returning."
Quinn hummed and began giving it a thought. Should he go or not.
"I can use a break," he said, "it will be nice to spend some time in Italy. Alright, let's go meet my mother's family and spend a vacation on their dime."
"If that's what you," smile George, "then I'll make preparation."
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A/N:
Edit: Aria West is Italian and not French as mentioned before.
I got myself confused.
So, Quinn is half-Italian, quarter-French, quarter-British.
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Quinn West - MC - Italy, here I come.
Lia West - Elder child - Doesn't like her mother's side of the family.
George West - Grandfather - Another reason he doesn't like goblins.
Aria West - Late mother - Ran away to marry.
Adam West - Later father - I'm a West, not a Wayne.
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