Bab 53: Remodeling the Ministry's Atrium
The old Goblin seemed to be pleased with Gaude's proposal, however, he eyed him suspiciously and spoke: "Only time can prove the value of your words, wizard. If they're proven true, we will discuss this matter further. Now, tell me about the security personnel you're offering."
"My people are quite special in a regard. They are what can be considered Animagi of Werewolf, all the power and none of the madness. You can have your guards form a defensive perimeter around you, if that makes you feel more comfortable, as I have asked Daniel here to accompany me for a demonstration."
After the guards had formed a line in front of the old Goblin, Gaude commanded: "Go wolf!"
Daniel took only a few seconds to become a complete Werewolf. The Goblins suddenly moved closer to each other, pointing their spears in front of them, ready to strike any moment.
"Relax. Daniel here is in perfect control of his faculties."
"Daniel, human head. Introduce yourself."
A moment later, the Werewolf, now with a human face spoke: "I am Daniel Olsen, a Skinwalker. Trained in master Vywin's academy for two months before I fully mastered my transformation."
Seeing the Werewolf talk, the Goblins relaxed a great deal.
"As you can see, he's perfectly harmless. Naturally, that only lasts as long as he's treated with the respect he deserves.
As the armor they're trained to wear would look a bit subpar in this establishment, I elected to not equip them with it. Besides, it might've lead to misunderstandings in the lobby.
That is what I'm offering as your new security guards, provided the terms are acceptable to both parties."
They soon came to an agreement. Gringotts would be paying fifty Galleons per Werewolf guard per week, and contracted a total of sixty guards. While not all of them had access to the full Werewolf form and the strength boost that came along with it all month long, they would still be quite formidable, considering that the Goblins would be more than happy to spare some equipment for loyal guards.
Gaude decided to take ten Galleons per Werewolf per month as a manager's fee, the rest was for them to spend how they liked. It was more of a symbolic fee. The true success was reintegrating Werewolves into the society.
Once the matters with the Goblins were settled, Gaude checked up on his account. After the contracts with the world's wizarding hospitals had come through, the profits from that business had spiked to 41065 Galleons per week. The profits from all the other businesses Gaude had renovated and repurposed on Diagon Alley had reached 28355 Galleons per week, during the 'Hogwarts rush'. #AN: go on, sum it up!#
After that, Gaude signed the necessary contracts with the Goblins. Fortunately, they hadn't tried to put special terms and conditions into the contracts this time. Gaude expected them to recover the costs from the other customers, however. It was even possible that 'security costs' were normally a standard term.
Finally, Gaude had finished everything he needed to get done in Gringotts, so he dismissed the rest of the Werewolves. Gaude Irma went to try the 'every flavor ice-cream', that was sold in one of his shops.
Gaude's luck had turned out to be rather bad that day – he got burning car tires while Irma was much more fortunate, as she got 'the taste of summer'. Gaude had no idea how they turned that into a flavor.
They checked out how the various establishments had turned out. Diagon Alley was bustling with people, much more than it had been just a year earlier. Some people were even simply gaping at the polished granite and glass designs that were now the theme of the street. Each of the houses were unique, designed to in some way give a clue about what's sold in there, if there were goods more prevalent than others.
For instance, Madam Malkin's now looked like a pointy wizard's hat, Slug&Jiggers looked like the head of a horned slug but in a cute way, and Fluorish&Blotts looked like it had a bookshelf for the front. In other words, the street was colorful and very obviously non-Muggle.
Finally, all the establishments closed their doors, the former owners not realizing that they had done it to their master's face.
Since Gaude had already been to the Ministry a few times with Laly, to set up the Floo connections and take care of a few other minor matters, he simply had the elf apparate them inside, under patented house-elf imperceptibility.
As the night guard was on his post, Gaude started by giving Laly a voiceless command to cover the two fountains with an illusion of their current state.
After that, he got to work. Gaude didn't use transfiguration once – it was still a foreign subject to him, he had failed to create even temporary transfigurations, permanent ones seemed even further away. Instead, Gaude used the gouging charm to remove material from the statues where needed and a high heat flame spell to heat the gold before shaping it with telekinesis.
He started by reducing the giant statue of the Wizard to the same size that the statue of the Witch was. Gaude gave the Wizard's statue the face of Gandalf. He then changed the statue so that instead of using his wand to arbitrarily point upwards with his wand, he pointed it to the side instead, aiming at a wall.
I added one of my 'patent pending' water creation spells to the tip of the wand, causing a powerful jet of water to shoot across the entire lobby and end at a giant worm-like creature's mouth. There was a vanishing charm inside, causing the water to never overflow. Naturally, all the charms for waterworks and special effects were done with the Runecarving knife, as Gaude wasn't sure how the blood ink would react to the proximity of water.
Then Gaude got to work on the statue of the Witch. First, he added a book in the statue's hand that she appeared to be reading while from her wand, a barrier of water erupted, as if she was shielding the rest of the statues. Gaude changed the face of the statue of the Witch into that of Hermione Granger from her 7th year, because suddenly that image had made its way to the surface of his memory.
Besides, she was a stunner by that point, and it was only natural to immortalize a beautiful woman in a statue. It had nothing to do with causing some future trouble for her, so she would remember to not get too stuck-up.
Irma had been watching Gaude work with rapt attention, but finally she couldn't take it anymore and asked: "Who are those two?"
"The first one is the most powerful wizard from a different world. I'm not sure if that world truly exists or not, but seeing as magic exists, that world should as well.
The other one?
Would you believe me if I told you that I know some of the future? Because she's a person from that future."
"Sorry I asked.", Irma said, not believing a word Gaude had spoken.
Then Gaude got to work on the Goblin statue, changing it from reverently looking at the Wizard into one that was hard at work hammering out an ornate dagger on the anvil. There were water jets shooting out of the anvil, as if they were sparks. He also added a bit of light into the water so that the spark illusion would become even more pronounced.
As for the Centaur, Gaude removed the bow and arrow and replaced it with the centaur looking up at the ceiling and pointing up at it with an open palm, as if reading and explaining the secrets of the heavens. He made a generous amount of water flow out of the Centaur's mouth, as if the wisdom pouring out.
Finally, it was the turn of the House Elf. Gaude changed the House elf just a bit – he added the outline of a proper butler's uniform, set the elf into the position of a polite bow and removed the charms that caused water to spout out of the House Elf's ears, and instead made it burst out of the Elf's fingertips and flow out of its palms, more closely representing the fact that the work they did was indeed their most admirable characteristic.
Then Gaude started the creation of additional statues. First was the Veela. He made the statue's left side in the transformed state and the right side in the human state. The model was a certain half-Veela, that had, just like Hermione, popped up in Gaude's memory. The statue was standing behind a counter, with a few Galleons on top of it, right hand pointed at a few potion bottles, as if she was selling them. For the Veela, Gaude made a thin veil of water flow over her face.
Next was the Werewolf. Gaude made the Werewolf stand with its back towards the Goblin, Veela and Centaur, as if protecting them from anyone that dared to approach with less than kind thoughts. He made powerful jets of water burst out of the fingertips of the Werewolf, shooting into the water quite forcefully. Gaude had the Werewolf statue wear the same body suit and utility belt that Irma was wearing, to distinguish it from the 'wild' Werewolves.
Once he was done modifying the statues, Gaude added a few charms to them that would make sure the changes he made would stick. Those charms were all made with the purified blood ink.
Irma's only role had been to watch how Gaude worked and be a model for the Werewolf statue. She was definitely suitable for both, but Gaude didn't want to let too many statues get into her head. Through a nifty use of the Ministry's high ambient magic and a rather complex runic matrix, he managed to partially replicate the Veela charm.
Finally, Gaude made the statue of a certain vampiric loli in her armor, beheading a transformed Vincent Sanguini, the Werewolves that had been holding the clan leader in place only represented by their hands. Just to make sure the vampiric loli wouldn't be confused for a human one, Gaude made sure to have her eyes glow red and her fangs stick out a bit.
Finally done with the hard work he had planned a long time ago, Gaude shoved the leftover gold into his pouch. It was definitely not Gaude's intention to have leftovers, it was all because the Wizard's statue had been so damn big.
###
The next morning, when the ministry's Atrium was filled with the hustle and bustle of people doing their business, suddenly the statues that every single one of them would've recognized in their sleep, started changing in form, ending up as something very different from before.
Even worse was the fact that there were certain 'half-breed' races added to the mix. This quickly caused an outrage, especially among the pure-blood people present. They had quickly made their way to anyone that could be responsible for that 'atrocity', demanding justice and the restoration of the statues.
Soon, maintenance wizards were on the site, trying to retransfigure the statues. However, even when they managed to transform a piece of a statue back to what it used to be, it soon reassumed it's new form.
Then came an attempt at moving the statues to replace them with new ones. That failed as well – the statues simply moved back to their favorite locations.
Next was an attempt to hide the statues behind an illusion that looked like the old form of the statues. Soon, the illusion reflected the new form, without being broken or replaced.
Finally, somebody came up with the idea of just building a wall. Even that ended up failing, as just an hour after the wall had been built, it had crumbled into dust.
Finally, a decision was made: the statues would remain as they were until the perpetrator was found and forced to restore the statues to their former state. It came down to either doing that or moving the Atrium, and the Ministry was unwilling to do the latter more than the former.
Daily Prophet, Evening Edition, the next day:
'A Scandalous act of Vandalism in the Ministry – is no place safe?
It has come to the attention of this reporter that last night an act of vandalism has been committed in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic by person or persons unknown. They have somehow permanently disfigured the Fountain of Magical Brethren and even added four Statues of their own. The added statues seem to be that of a Werewolf and a Veela.
The witches working in the Ministry claim that 'The Veela statue is especially distracting for any males that happen to pass through the Atrium. There is always a crowd of drooling wizards near it and the only way to return them to the task is to cover their eyes and guide them away by hand.'
Naturally, not everyone was experiencing a fit of negativity over what had transpired. Werewolf communities all across Britain had heard about the recruitment program run by a mysterious Charles Vywin put some more credibility to it and started moving towards the areas where the recruiters had been often seen.
A certain old Goblin was quite satisfied with the change, and a bit worried. In his head, he was calculating the concessions he could make for the wizard, and how to get away with giving the bare minimum.
The Veela that were living under a thick cover of secrecy, having trained hard to suppress their charm felt like their lives in Britain could become either just a little bit easier or a lot more difficult.
The Centaur community, nobody really knew what they thought about the events, except perhaps those that were accepted enough by them to hold a conversation. It was even doubtful that those with that privilege would consider discussing the 'act of vandalism' with the Centaurs.
Gaude was happy as well, as for once, he had a choice of breakfast, and he had to admit that Irma's cooking was much better. Of course, he still had to eat Amanda's cooking too, before he was allowed to get to the main course. He had discovered that Irma only ate half of what he did, but seeing as it was five pounds of red meat for every meal, he had to make sure the farms could keep up with their appetite. The only one with a 'normal' food consumption was Amanda, who had a pint of blood for every meal.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
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