Harry potter : Forgotten Lord

Effectively he could undercut his rivals by not having to pay fees for using someone else's docks; simply put, he would undermine them, and only families who 'owned' their own docks could conceivably cut their prices to match his.

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From the family files in his vaults he had already reviewed, his docks were privately owned and under the treaty of 1454 were outside ministry control as long as he didn't import illegal goods and obeyed the current laws. If he complied with those two restrictions, he would be free to operate as he saw fit and only had to pay a basic import and export tax of 5% on all goods.

It was good to be an old family. From a political perspective, all it would take to rebuild the docks would be securing enough allies to support him, and their own allies in turn to stop the ministry from trying to interfere on his future competitors' behalf. Of course the funds needed to physically rebuild the docks would be extreme, but he was certain he could manage it.

With Bloodmoon's recent actions buying up steel and iron and reselling it, his account manager was netting him close to an additional 110 thousand galleons in profit nearly every yearly quarter. That's assuming the profits remained consistent. In British Pounds Sterling this was close to 8 million pounds a year, depending on gold exchange prices before taxes, fees and everything added on top. All he knew was that he was in the green, as far as the saying goes, or in the wizarding world, in the Gold.

He already knew how he would go about winning allies to support his business venture; to entice them he would offer a significant discount for all their shipping needs, for a set number of years. They'd also be preferred customers and receive greater priority and preference over others both during and after those discounts ended.

The details would have to be worked out and he would let Bloodmoon handle the legal end, but he already had plans to ask Padma to set up a meeting with her father to discuss the idea of becoming one of those early customers and supporters. He would do the same with Daphne as well, to see if her family was interested in a joint enterprise, since they could both profit from it by bypassing the ministry docks and the other private ones.

So he had a plan, albeit a simple one, but it was still a plan. It was obviously better to have a simple plan rather than none at all. Sure it was bit ambitious, but this was a long term project. He knew it would take several years, maybe a decade to achieve, but like the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day.

It was a seed, but in time, with careful planning, patience and tender loving care, it would grow to become a mighty oak.

...

He dodged left, then right, before sending a disarming charm back at his opponent, followed by a series of strategically placed stinging hexes. His opponent just shielded herself from the barrage of hexes, before sending a series of stunners at him, followed by two disarming charms.

He dove forward to get under the barrage of spells, before quickly rolling to the right to avoid the following leg-locking hex, before sending another wave of hexes back at Tonks.

This was how their duels normally played out; Tonks would cast stunners, minor jinxes, hexes, and disarming charms. The whole purpose of these mock duels was to learn to sidestep and dodge effectively rather than rely on shields.

As far as he was concerned duels were primarily won by the more aggressive dueller. Hiding behind shields, just drained you faster in the end and forced you onto the defensive, and you can't often win playing defensive. There were many different duelling styles and techniques to use though, depending on your strengths and weaknesses.

He then cast an aguamenti charm at her; he knew it would miss, but it didn't matter, he was trying to cover as much of Tonks' side the duelling area with as much water as possible. And he was slowly succeeding in flooding the make shift arena, it was even around his own feet.

He had used this trick on Tonks before, but he knew she would never expect what he was about to do. He had steadily and discreetly been moving towards the chair and table, planning to use them as make shift islands for the next part of his plan.

Sending a minor bolt of blue lighting at the floor near her feet he jumped onto one of the nearby chairs, then onto the desk, thus avoiding the electricity going through the water. Landing on the table and spinning around, he saw Tonks trying to copy his acrobatics to avoid the discharge by aiming for her own table.

While he was watching this he couldn't help but be impressed that she had managed to react so fast to the perceived danger. That said, he still had one thing going for him-a good sense of balance. He watched as she jumped from the chair to the table. The chair, not quite the stable platform she thought it was, fell over in mid jump, causing her to misjudge the jump and send her off course. Judging the direction of her jump, he shouted "stupefy" while she was still mid air.

The stunner rushed across the room towards Tonks who just had enough time to notice the spell before it hit. Her features changed to one of shock, since this was the first time he had ever cast the spell in one of their duels. Unfortunately for his duelling partner, the angle of her jump prevented her from being able to cast a shield effectively and she could only watch as the stunner hit her unerringly in the chest and rendered her unconscious.

The stunned girl impacted the table she had been aiming for and landed on her stomach and bounced somewhat on impact.

Looking at Tonks and her comic impact with the table caused him to voice his thoughts aloud, although no one was around to hear him, "Damn, that's got to hurt." He took in the sight of his duelling partner lying haphazardly over the desk for a few moments, legs down one side, while her arms and head were over the other, her wand falling out of her limp fingers and landing on the wet floor below.

Jumping down from the desk he was currently standing on, he made his way across the wet classroom floor to check on his partner's well being. After all, landing like that could have broken a rib of two.

Putting two fingers on her neck to make sure she was indeed alive, if not still kicking, he found a good, strong pulse. Running a hand gently down each side of her body, he found no signs of any broken ribs.

He had had his fair share of broken ribs in his short life and he knew the signs well; Tonks would only have some bruising for the next couple of days if she didn't do anything to speed the healing along, like a bruise paste or a general healing spell. And she could hardly complain about it, the girl wanted to be an Auror; a couple bruises were nothing compared to the possibility of losing a leg or something in the line of duty.

Picking up her wand carefully, he got a strange feeling from her wand. It was warm, but not comfortable. It actually reminded him of the wands he had tried and failed to get a proper reaction from. Going to cast the counter spell, he realized to his embarrassment that he didn't know the counter, nor had a chance to learn it, since he'd only just learned the stunning charm a couple of nights ago.

He also realized that now that the adrenaline had stop pumping through him, just how much magic the 3rd year spell had taken to pull off. Combined with the magical costs of their duelling session, he was dead tired and feeling magically drained.

Looking down at Tonks' unconscious form he knew that a basic stunner could last anywhere from 10 minutes to 5 hours depending on the caster's strength and the stunned person's resistance to the spell. This left him with a problem; it was already getting late and would soon be 10. He could go find somebody to wake her and have to explain what happened, or he could wait and hope she woke up soon.

He could always leave the young metamorphmagus to wake up by herself, after casting a locking charm on the door for safety.

This idea would also give him a chance for a little well deserved payback on Tonks, as she herself had recently left him to wake up naked with just his wand, after one of their evening duelling sessions. Walking naked through the school with just his wand in hand was not a pleasant experience at all. He could thank Merlin that he wasn't caught.

That said, it had been after midnight when that had happened to him, by the time he had gotten back, the corridors were empty, but that was beside the point. The simple fact of that matter was that the young woman before him had thought that she could get away with it, with no repercussions. She still hadn't even returned his clothes! He didn't care much about most of the clothes she had, but his boots were expensive and nice.

Thinking over the possible scenarios, he was very tempted to do the same as her. Then he could ransom her clothes back to her, in exchange for his own which she was still holding hostage.

Deciding to go with that plan of action, he began stripping her.

First the jacket came off, then her black top, which had a band's name written on it. Some obviously magical group called the "weird sisters" or something. Then he started on her bra and carefully removed that, which just happened to match the top.

Then off came the tight jeans, which was actually quite difficult to remove; he had no idea how much shimmying must have been involved when she removed them herself.

Following her jeans, came a red thong, or g-string, he honestly didn't know which was which; all he knew was that it was red and was underwear, although there was very little actual fabric involved.

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