Pack!

                Chapter Thirty-Three

               Day Three, 6 AM, Room of Requirement

               (1/17/24: tiny tweak to chapter 26)

               Harry stumbled out of his most recently assigned room and back into the main area of the Room of Requirement carrying his new favorite, but very heavy and inconveniently sized book with him. He vaguely remembered buying it sometime in his fourth year when he’d been in his cowboy phase of adventure stories. He liked acquiring non-fiction books for background reading if some interesting bit of trivia caught his attention. Second year he’d been all about sea stories and even though he had no personal desire to take up sailing, he still took a sidestep into the history of sailing via "The Nautical Vernacular: A Comprehensive Study of the Evolution and Significance of Seafarers' Linguistic Traditions throughout History”.

               Third year he’d had been engrossed in fantasy stories about Magical China and Japan, leaning sideways into Bushido and Samurai. What a let down it had been to find Bushido had been more of a romanticized notion than reality beyond a select few examples, but it was perfect for fantasy and adventure tales.

               Fourth year had been spent on America’s dime novels of the Wild West. Reading about the OK Corral and the Pony Express, the last being what had spurred the purchase of his current book, “Equus Maximus: An Erudite Discourse on the Storied and Magnificent History of Horses”, by Ihaahz Forfeetees. At the time, he’d been fascinated by the concept of the Pony Express and its outsize presence in history despite having functioned for less than two years. Having never so much as seen a horse in person, discounting magical varieties such as hippogryphs and the like, he had been awestruck that a non-magical animal would and could run flat out for more than a dozen miles, but additional reading had told him most of the stories using the non-stop ride at a gallop were tall tales; they couldn’t have, the horses would have died in droves. Probably alternated between a trot and a canter, was the general consensus, but still. Further reflection on the stories had him wondering why it was called the “Pony” Express, so he’d purchased what to him looked like the be all/end all of horse books only to have his curiosity sated within the first three pages when he’d learned the official definition of a pony was just a shorter than average horse.

               Now, though, he was part of a horse business, and it would behoove (hah!) him to educate himself. At some point during that extra long first night here, he’d remembered and dug this book out of his just for fun trunk. Said trunk spent most of its time tucked into a corner of his school trunk, and he’d been a bit chagrined to realize how far down in the book stacks the absolutely massive book he was after was buried; he’d never pulled it back out past that initial glance at the first few pages of terminology, not even to flip through what he now recognized were some really interesting photographs and illustrations. He’d spent a few hours with it since then, and was plodding his way through it when he had a few spare minutes of time, using a notepad as a bookmark. The notepad was used to write down questions for Ollie, or things he wanted to follow up on when practical experience permitted.

               He was blearily making his way towards one of the tables that the various planning heads had requested yesterday evening, careful not to trip over remaining luggage and to find one of the tables that was mostly clear of research or other organizational detritus. Thumping his book onto the table and slumping into a chair, tipping his head back, he waited for his brain to slip back into working order. Last night in the room had been an amazing learning experience, while at the same time it left him feeling like a firstie sitting at the professors table while they talked shop.

               The heads of the various areas had each drafted a few people as well as those with an interest in the topic, forming small teams engaged in drafting the initial guidelines that would mostly be made up of common sense as a formalized start to the process. They tried to head off past problems without burdening the new village with an overabundance of regulations, but some things had to be firmly stomped on before they started. Things such as knowing from experience that farm runoff water absolutely had to be channeled through a purification point before allowing it to merge back into any local water source. Such as any construction had to have blueprints submitted and verified, and once constructed they needed to be freestanding and stable before any magic was added. Exceptions could be made, especially right now as drafting blueprints would be nigh on impossible, but the Office of Infrastructure had to be notified and agree, and any building using an exception would be subject to random inspections for the first five years. If out of code or illegally constructed buildings could not be brought into specified standards at the owner’s expense, they would be torn down and that area regularly monitored for other non-compliant structures.

               One of the newest changes to village life going forward would be a point Harry had insisted on, then doubled down on by putting his money where his mouth was. Community service would be a requirement for all village individuals over the age of twelve, and have a four hour a month obligation. The idea was that you assist someone outside your immediate family in a task that benefitted someone, or many someones, other than yourself. The initial four hours of required service would be, initially at least, not subject to monitoring on an individual level. But Harry was resolute on the point, this would happen and if it wasn’t done voluntarily and with a willing heart, it would be overseen by someone who’d ensure the obligation was fulfilled. No buying your way out of it, no volunteering someone else’s time in place of your own. If an individual was interested, they could check in with the Social and Community Management Office to see if there were registered service opportunities available. Anything posted as needing assistance that ran through that office would be paid via an account made up of charitable donations once your initial four hour obligation was met. A person could make a minimally livable wage working for the town in that capacity if they chose to do so, but Harry didn’t realistically anyone going that route, there were too many other opportunities at the moment.

               Queen Elizabeth had agreed to take on Government with a fire in her eyes. After the group had voted to send the government setup proposal to committee, she’d summarily drafted Sirius, Ranjini Patel, and Viktor Krum, whom she’d gently pulled from his talks with Esmae Dawson of the Falmouth Falcons. He was going to get himself back onto a professional quidditch team come hell or high water, and Falmouth’s seeker wanted to move to a reserve position as she’d just married and wanted to start a family. Surprisingly, The Queen had also asked for twelve year old Monty Graham, the younger sister of Senan Graham, Kenmare’s reserve chaser, and sixteen year old home schooled Maggie Eccles who’d been snatched up without warning by the Prime Minister’s office. She, with her non-magical brother and father had been tossed into a van from their home in Wales and driven at high speed to London where they’d then been straightaway chucked through a floo. The resulting terror and confusion had taken a number of hours to subside and for explanations to be given and understood. Her mother had been a witch employed in a minor governmental role and insisted on home schooling with no other wizarding world contact. She’d then passed away two years ago, leaving Maggie barely trained and with no idea where to go for help. The Queen’s final recruits had been Elena Smythe, Major Smythe’s wife, Kjell Holmbert, one of Harry’s Gnomes, and Hat. The various perspectives involved in that committee were enough to boggle any mind used to homogeneous groups.

               Finance had involved Mrs. Anderson and the other Gnomes, at least temporarily minus Kjell, along with Harry, seated around a round table hammering out how to finance the settlement in a way that didn’t involve Harry dumping all his assets into the economy with no way to get them back. Harry didn’t actually care about his assets, he was a bit left leaning when it came to generational wealth. But this situation illustrated the power and much as it galled him to admit, the benefits of one individual holding a very large purse; there was no way they’d have the supplies they did without Harry’s galleons. Sure, everyone would have pitched in, but it wouldn’t have amounted to a quarter of what Harry had available as liquid cash. He still didn’t care about the money itself, he just understood that sometimes there were times having stupid amounts of money was practical. Harry held it as a given that the Gnomes would take over running the bank and he was still considering just giving that enterprise to them lock, stock, and barrel to escape the hassle. But banks need operating capital, that money had to come from somewhere, and he held the bulk of it. At this point, absolutely everything needed funded, people needed paid, and the economy needed a massive kickstart. There were only a few people present who had a recognized currency in hand in large enough quantities to do so. He suspected Sirius had quite the pile himself, he was just being quiet about it.

               Their meeting had started off by questioning the use of the current wizarding standard of galleons, sickles and knuts. Harry noted that while his fortune was available in galleons and he knew Sirius’s was as well, they had only a relatively minor amount of sickles and knuts on hand. Certainly not enough to inject into the economy in a meaningful way. They’d either need to make more, or use something else in it’s place. Harry’s vote was for a new currency system, something more math friendly and logical in value.

               He’d thought about it a lot when first exposed to the wizarding world, he couldn’t stop the comparisons of the new to the familiar. His conclusion was that wizards needed to get a grip, their understanding of real world value was nonexistent. He’d picked up on that the moment that he’d learned a galleon was pure gold yet valued at only seven pounds. He’d run a tidy little business for a year or two by breaking the charms on the coins and melting them down for resale to gold buyers, then walking a portion of those pounds back to Gringotts for conversion to galleons. He’d stopped because the energy required to needle open a tiny crack the charm matrix which let him slide in the thinnest edge of a dispelling charm he aimed at the gold itself rather than the charm on top of the gold had left him feeling like crap for days and he also felt somewhat guilty about it. But the cash reserve he’d developed had funded a lot of book purchases through the years. It had also bought him a fully stocked wizarding tent he’d given to Sirius for use while traveling, and a sizeable amount was spent on a high end plant of the month club he’d signed Neville’s name to after the boy had done a rather large favor for him in fifth year. He’d kept his little enterprise to himself; he’d been told that cracking Gringotts’ charms was impossible and he rather thought admitting he’d found a way to do it at fourteen would have had someone baying for his blood. He knew other muggleborns were aware of the value dichotomy, but he’d never heard about anyone else taking advantage. But getting back to the point…

               If they used the galleons as proof that the bank was funded to XX amount, then one idea would be that they could define an altogether different, or maybe only partially different currency system and print enough to equal the initial XX. They’d have to work those details out quickly, and Ms. Anderson put her most clever Gnome on it; Monty Cifuentes, the card sharp he’d first met in the Gringotts lobby. She tasked him to submit a write up of a functional currency setup that would work for their blended population, as well as including long term planning for potential for foreign transactions. They were not going to start by thinking small, they were going to hammer out an entire financial system capable of scaling up to a global status within the next 30 days, or she swore she’d start demoting Gnomes to coin counters.

               The result of their first two hour huddle (the first of what he was sure would be many) had begun with Harry insisting he would give a grant that would cover costs for the startup of a quidditch league and building of a regulation pitch that would belong to the town, with enough funding to pay management and maintenance for two years, to begin once a League Manager was identified. Two hundred and twenty three of their current three hundred and fifty two settlers had come solely from Ollie’s invitation and he was adamant that it made quidditch a priority and equally adamant it would be a grant and not a loan. He also asked that they follow through on their earlier offer of potential assistance to the current teams, as well as giving favorable financial terms to any new teams that started. Harry would personally invest in Puddlemere’s horse business as he was now part of it, and he’d work something out with Ollie regarding his earlier loan so that he’d be off the hook for repayment to the bank. All the no interest loans he’d offered before departure were turned over to the finance-slash-bank team for management, and he was clear they were to continue at no interest and the terms were to be a minimum of ten years, maximum to be determined on a case by case basis. He told them that in exigent circumstances the loans could be forgiven and that no loan of his was to pass on to someone’s family in the event the holder suffered an incident. For the next three to five years, any loans made that used his personal funds were to be at a minimal interest to be determined by the Gnomes. Anyone they identified as having come through with little in the way of possessions or funding was to be quietly verified and then offered a one time 20,000 GBP along with a financial advisor, either a Gnome or Gnome assigned person, that they must meet with monthly for a year. Those in particular would also be a grant, not a loan and his name was to be kept out of it, without exception. Those grants were for initial immigrants only, the government would have to take on any second generation issues.

               Once an actual government was up and running, Harry would inject enough funds into their coffers, and he’d talk to Sirius about pitching in on that, to keep them running until they could establish initial budgets and start bringing in revenue through taxes and the like, with a long term repayment plan. The Gnomes objected to this part of his scheme, he’d be outlaying nearly all of his liquid wealth and the entire community would wind up financially beholden to him; it wouldn’t have an outcome he’d like.

               Instead they proposed that he trade cash for land or other assets. For instance, if they structured the deal right, supposing the current land was unowned, unclaimed, and unoccupied, which was a very large supposition in Harry’s mind, but supposing. If the government chose to award land grants to the settlers, he, via the Gnomes, could then offer to buy some, and Harry was quite sure that by “some” they really meant “a lot and/or most” of the remaining land, thereby giving the government the funding they need, but leaving him with large amounts of fixed and long term assets. The government would have financial reserves they wouldn’t have to repay, for the cost of something that cost them nothing. Harry was dubious; he had absolutely no idea what to do with land. The Gnomes, however, had a look in their eyes that said they were starting to feel a financial high coming on. Another less preferred option was to fund buildings or infrastructure that could then be rented to various tenants. Harry didn’t think he wanted to be a landlord, but he supposed it was a way to ensure buildings stayed well maintained and safe. He liked the first option better because it left him with less responsibility and a lot more future choices.

               It was getting late, and things were starting to wind down. The gnomes ran over the salient points of their discussion, reviewing to ensure they were all clear, and asked Harry to turn his funds and any other financial matters over to them within the next two or three days so they could get a handle on what they had to work with. Harry promised to do so and then, with a mental why-the-hell-not, threw in the towel and rolled with his first knee-jerk idea. His last comment as they were all standing to leave, was that they should figure out name for the bank, because he was going to give it to the Gnomes.

               Harry walked away from the table with a small smile on his face when he thought about the Gnomes frozen in the process of standing.

               *-*-*-*-

               Harry jumped in his seat when Sirius fell into a chair next to him, followed by Remus on the other side. “Your brain still hurting, too, pup?” Sirius asked, referencing the heavy slogging through last night’s meetings, leaning forward to rest his arms on the table then his head atop that, looking at Harry sideways.

               “Eh.” Harry waved his hand about in a whatever kind of way. “I said what I wanted and so long as they said yes to that, I pretty much ignored everything else. Wasn’t like I had a hope of understanding the fine points of high level finance, and I’ve decided I really don’t want to learn, either. I’m planning to save myself the misery and give the bank to the Gnomes, but they’re going to need funds to run it. Same with pretty much everything else around here, so dig out your big trunk o’gold, Sirius. I know you have one and you’re going to need to turn it over to the Gnomes. Oh, and they said something last night about me maybe making a deal with the government, cash for land. They get the cash, I get the land, and if you have any better understanding of that than I do, feel free to investigate. They were practically drooling about the possibility, so I’m guessing it’s something I’ll wind up doing if the situation allows.”

               Remus spoke then, “In general, I understand land ownership to be the base element that nearly all fortunes are built on, so long as you have the ability to wait, or find the right elements of said land to put to use. Timber, mining, ski runs, the usual things, I suppose.” He poked at Harry’s book, turning the heavy tome to see the title, then nodded in understanding. Cub was reading up on his future line of work. Remus looked to Sirius, “How’d the government team get on?”

               “She’s a right dragon, she is,” Sirius moaned into his elbow. “S’like she stuck a hose in my ear and sucked out everything I ever knew, thought, or suspected about any sort of government I’d ever run into, and she did the same to every other person at the table in regards to their experiences, somehow within the space of three hours. I’ve no idea how she kept track of it all, don’t know how she made any sense of it either. And thank you for sticking me on that committee, by the way, Moony. She only got her hooks in me because you called me Lord Black, so yeah. We’re gonna have words when I remember what words to use.”