Chapter 289: Emancipating Darkness

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.

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23 November 1994, Rome, Italy

Arcturus Black sat at his office as his new assistant, Gemma Farley, gave him the reports of the acquisition of his new properties in Italy, mainly in Rome, that his ward had won from the Black Widow.

Honestly, he hadn't seen this coming… He hadn't even known the peculiarities of the situation and was just asked by the boy to put over half a million Galleons on the faint chance that Hogwarts would draw in first place while he wouldn't participate in the task. It might have been a veritable fortune to most, but to the Black family, it wasn't really anything substantial. Arcturus had just made the bet without even thinking twice about it, which was funny since they had to create the bet for him. No one had expected this outcome in any way…

Betting in the magical world was different from the muggle one. For one thing, gambling wasn't illegal in the magical world, and the bets were mostly handled officially by banks. Oh, sure, there were many banks in the magical world, but the biggest one was, by far, Gringotts, and by that same logic, they had the most efficient betting infrastructure in the continent.

It was all a big history lesson, but the main story was the goblins were never going to create bets without knowing how to make a suitable profit. Well, no one really knew what their process was, only that the odds they made were pretty indicative of the true chances of success, and that the bank always made a profit during any betting sessions.

Arithmancers did their things and tried to see a way they were cheating the systems, and found that the odds, were, in fact, better than anyone else's…. There were a few crackpot theorists who thought that they had kidnapped an army of Seers to predict the future, but that was just ridiculous… Anyway, the point remained that sometimes upsets happen, sometimes, their odds are taken completely by surprise, which was probably what Isabella Zabini wanted to use… Which was what Arcturus' own ward used to essentially guarantee that his bet would win.

Truth be told, Arcturus hadn't known the outcome when he had made the bet. He hadn't even known that the Black Widow was involved. However, he learned not to doubt Harry from the dozens of times he managed to do something ridiculous. And it wasn't that much gold, at least not for him…

Which brought him to this ridiculous position of owning a good share of most of the properties and business in Rome. If he had known just how much work his bet would have resulted, he would have at least protested while making it…

It was just so much work. Who knew that the Zabini Matriarch owned so many businesses?

He groaned audibly and he heard his assistant chuckle, "You're the first person I've ever met who is complaining about the fact that he won a veritable fortune."

She wasn't wrong. The odds on his bet were so low that he had won a veritable fortune, in both gold and properties. Everyone who had bet on any school winning had lost their gold… This little fact hadn't gotten him a lot of goodwill, but the gold did make up for it.

However, the endless paperwork that came with his winnings frustrated him to no end. There were Italian Ministry workers that needed to file certain paperwork on foreign owners, and the bank needed to run some investigation, to make sure that he hadn't cheated, which he didn't… And that's not to mention the ICW who seemed to take his victory as a personal challenge.

Arcturus released a growl, "Well if the idiot politicians in half the continent would leave me alone, I would give away half that fortune without question."

"Even the properties?"

Arcturus snorted, "Of course not. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to own things outside Britain? The ICW regulations alone to prevent 'foreign economic influence' just made this little dream a living nightmare. Fortunately, to avoid a Goblin Rebellion, they agreed to make Gringotts a neutral nation, and own businesses in their territory without too many issues. Gringotts wouldn't be much of a bank if it couldn't buy anything… Winning the properties in a bet meant that they would have to be given to Goblin Nation first for holding, and its ownership would be transferred to me afterwards. It's a nice little loophole that the ICW is determined to stop but can't do so without a direct insult to the Goblin nation… I have no idea if Harry planned this or this is just pure coincidence, but it's working out to be massively in my favour if a little overwhelmed with the amount of paperwork."

Farley snorted, "I never would have imagined him of all people causing this much chaos…"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I don't know if I ever told you, but I was the prefect on Potter's first day in school. Merlin, it must have been four years ago now… Time does pass very quickly… Anyway, he always seemed like a quiet boy there, bookish. I thought that the other Slytherins were going to eat him alive, at first. You know what I mean… He was a half-blood orphan at a time when half the house was bigoted. No one touched him because he was a first-year. But I thought he wasn't going to have a good time in Hogwarts. Merlin knows I haven't. Anyway, he managed to not offend anyone, with barely any fights with his classmates, and even then, only when he had no other choice… He always sat around with a book in his hands, without even bothering to socialize. I'm pretty sure that most of his friends had to make the effort to be so at the beginning… Then, you know, he got into a fight with Dumbledore during the tournament, and you know the rest…"

The Black Patriarch snorted, "I forgot that you knew him before all of this. And believe me, what you know isn't even close to the tip of the iceberg. The things you don't know would blow you away."

"Like what?" she asked.

He didn't get the chance to tell her as he heard a knock on his door. The young woman got up quickly and walked towards the exit, "I'll go see who this is."

A few dozen seconds later, she returned with a blank expression on her face, "Mr. Black, Ms. Zabini is here to speak with you."

"Sure, let her in..." he answered while masking his surprise. Sure, he had expected the Black Widow to come to see him, but not this quickly…

As she always did, the pearl of Rome walked confidently and sat in front of his office, "Quite a pretty young assistant you've acquired Arcturus… Are you sure you could keep up with someone her age?"

"My dear, not everything has to do with sex. It's perfectly possible for people to know each other without having a sexual component in their relationship. In this case, my assistant is just that, nothing more…"

"I guess it was sad of me to hope that you'd even be able to perform in your old age…"

Arcturus smirked, "While this is a very interesting topic, I would rather know the reason you came here… I never expected you to admit defeat so quickly. I expected you to try to fight the bet, try to get me to admit to cheating or that I fixed the event or something… And only when you would finally realize that I really did not cheat in any way, then you would try to come see me…"

The woman paled for some reason and that was when he saw it… The thing that he had found odd the moment she stepped into the room, "You're afraid. That's what it is. Even if you think you could somehow change the outcome of the bet, you're still afraid of doing so… why?"

The Zabini Matriarch answered with her eyes open, "Why? You're asking me why? I'll tell you why! Your little ward is a monster… I want to just get this over with and ignore everything that's ever happened in this cursed competition."

"So, I'm guessing he went to see you and did the whole 'never threaten any of my friends and family again' speech?" he asked.

"Yes, was he bluffing?" she replied with a hopeful tone.

"Not a chance in hell. Normally, he would have just given you a faint warning and just gotten rid of you when you eventually ended up trying to do something else. Unfortunately, he was investigating something during the task, and you ended up distracting him. Whatever happened shook him rather more than I expected. More than even, he expected, I think. He was in a foul mood when he went to see you, so do take that with a grain of salt…"

"So, all you're saying is that he meant everything he said but he could have been nicer when he was threatening me," she retorted while slumping in her seat.

He simply shrugged in return, "Harry is usually a polite young man… But that's not why you're here, are you? Because I have no intention of telling the kid to forgive you or anything like that… I don't think I can even force him to do anything really…"

"No, I just wanted to talk to you about your shares of my properties…"

And just like that Arcturus was in his element. They had talked for hours on end… Isabella Zabini's main goal was to give up a few businesses fully to stop them from being partners in any way. They ended up agreeing on her keeping the clothes shops, the beauty shops, and the few hotels and inns she owned, while he would get all of her potions and ingredients shops and the rest of her shops that sold varieties of charmed artefacts. It was a bit more than his share of her entire empire, but it seemed like the Zabini Matriarch was wary of him just selling his shares of everything to the Goblins and worrying about the constant attempts at taking over her businesses with some obscure laws…

Arcturus hadn't found the need to tell her that he had no intention of doing so. While it probably wasn't the main goal, Harry had given him an immense gift. Ever since he had regrouped with his old war friends, they had done their best to consolidate their influence for the eventual war that would spark up. None of them had any pull in Italy, and a small fleet of shops and businesses was everything he would have needed to make connections and get started on that front…

All in all, the meeting ended as a win for Arcturus, and he now officially owned dozens of shops all around Italy but centralized around Rome. The Zabini Matriarch left more relaxed and surer of herself than when she entered.

Of course, that was when his assistant entered his office and asked, "Ms. Delacour is here for your meeting, as you requested."

"Ah, yes. I almost forgot about that… Let her in."

The Veela entered the room looking slightly hesitant. He rolled his eyes in amusement, "I'm not going to bite, Fleur. I'm a friend of your father's. What are you scared of exactly?"

"I don't know," she replied hotly, "Maybe it's because your assistant snuck into my carriage like some kind of assassin just to give me your letter."

"Ah, she seriously did that. I just asked her to give you the letter discreetly and without an owl. There was no assassin and sneaking necessary, really. Sometimes that girl could take things a bit too far… Or she just found it amusing to freak you out or something."

The witch rolled her eyes, "Fine, whatever. Just send me a normal letter next time or something. What did you even want to talk about?"

"Well, I spoke with your mother. Don't worry, it's not a big deal, but she expressed the fact that you were interested in being slightly more independent after you graduate. Now, I know that you probably have a few plans lined up, probably with enchanting in mind, but as you probably know, I've gained quite a few properties with my last gamble. And since I'm too old to run businesses in another country, I thought I'd get someone I could trust to do it for me. So, what do you think? Do you want to run my businesses in Italy?"

For some reason, his answer seemed to freak her out. Huh, that hadn't been his intention at all, even if he found her facial expression to be amusing.

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AN: Again, not sure about the chapter (filler vibes and stuff). I'm still on my trip and I'm writing in a bit of a hurry (sorry again). I promise the next chapter will be the last one (I should be back home in two days). Anyway, when I get back home, I might revisit this chapter as well, depending on your feedback, and redo it, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.