Chapter 7: Healing, Wands, and an Elemental. Part 4

Five days after the Longbottom debacle, Harry visited Gringotts for a meeting with his account manager and Ted to go over the basilisk carcass. The two humans were seated in front of Eversharpe's desk.

Ted leaned forward, looked at Eversharpe and asked, "Well let's get started, according to your estimations, how much would a basilisk sell in the market for?"

Eversharpe drummed his fingers against the table and grunted. He shrugged, "It depends on the basilisk. It could go as low as 2 million galleons or as high as 10 million. It also depends on how much of the basilisk venom you want to sell. Or if you even want to."

Harry frowned, "Is the venom available at all in any market? I want to keep that stuff hidden away as much as possible."

Eversharpe shook his head and answered, "No, basilisk venom is nonexistent in the worst of the black markets. Finding a basilisk is harder than killing one and then extracting the venom safely is another bottleneck, the risk to reward is too great. However, due to the nature of the poison, it is highly in demand."

Ted sighed, "Then it is best that we do not sell it. I do not want the poison getting out and causing some serious consequences. The underlying tensions in local and global politics are too brittle to handle unsupervised basilisk venom flowing through the markets."

Harry then remembered the horcrux hidden here in Gringotts. Time to leverage a deal with a goblin, and hopefully it works better this time. Harry slowly spoke, "I can give you some of the basilisk venom, Eversharpe. But I need a favor from you."

Eversharpe perked up and narrowed his eyes. Ted looked alarmed what Harry just said. Before he could even speak, Eversharpe jumped in. "That means you are asking for a hefty favor, Mr. Potter. What is it that is so valuable that you willing to barter some venom for my cooperation?"

Harry leaned forward and smoothly retorted, "Yes or no Eversharpe. If I give you this vial, you need to sign a contract with me that you will do one task as I request, even if it goes against Gringotts policies and something that is within your capabilities."

Eversharpe narrowed his eyes in anger. "Are you telling me to betray my kind, Potter?"

Harry shook his head in denial. "Not in the slightest, in fact this will help your kind by a significant margin if you help me out."

"And pray do tell me what this cause is? So much so that you are willing to nearly make an enemy out of Gringotts."

A grim smile morphed on Harry's face. "The information is quite sensitive."

"And you want me to believe that you will cause Gringotts absolutely no harm without even giving me an idea of what you are up to?"

Harry remained silent; he understood the healthy skepticism by the goblin. In fact, he realized that something like this must be done based on precise information. Harry pressed, "If I reveal some information enforced by a confidentiality agreement, would you consider it?"

The goblin hesitated a bit. He leaned back on his chair and clasped his fingers together. The goblin gave a reluctant nod, and a contract flew out of Ted's bag. Eversharpe narrowed his eyes at Ted, who held up his hands.

"I was told to bring a confidentiality agreement and nothing else. I thought it was going to be about the basilisk."

The goblin did not grace Ted with a response, he swiftly signed his contract. The parchment gave a dull red glow and vanished back into Ted's bag.

Harry did not wait to give a preamble. "The object I seek has to do with finally destroying Voldemort for good."

Both Eversharpe and Ted looked at Harry with widened eyes. Once Ted found his wits again, he hurriedly asked, "Explain!"

Well, time to mix in a few white lies here.

Harry shook his head, "When I faced Voldemort at the Chamber of Secrets, he got a little, shall we say, mouthy. Well, this was a 16-year-old version of a megalomaniac dark lord, so he got extra mouthy. He told he intended to create objects that would ensure his immortality and that he would reign the magic world, or something like that. Honestly, his speech got a little repetitive and then he set the basilisk on me. I got a feeling he has one of those objects is here in Gringotts."

Eversharpe frowned, "And why is that?"

Harry replied, "Because the diary that nearly brought him back this time was with Lucius Malfoy before he decided he needed to unleash Slytherin's monster to create some chaos to gain some political currency. Surely one of his followers would have gotten another item and placed it here."

Eversharpe stroked his chin, "It is reasonable to assume as such. The item you describe sounds of a particular dark rendition of soul magic; it would not surprise me that he went to such extreme lengths."

The account manager leaned forward and added, "However, I will not be acting on mere suspicion. You need to provide me a name of an account holder and I will consider a way to find the object."

Ted could not help but ask, "Is there a way for Gringotts to process the said object?"

Eversharpe shook his head, "We do not care about the contents of your vault, Mr. Tonks. We only care that you make us gold."

Harry decided it was time to change the topic. "Getting back to gold, my house-elf Dobby can help you get into the Chamber of Secrets without suspicion from any of the school's authorities."

Ted inquired, "I suppose this is a moot point but can any of the staff enter the chamber?"

Harry shook his head, "No since it requires the use of parseltongue. Dobby is the only elf who can pop in there as I was the only one to have gone inside. Well except of course for Voldemort."

Ted laughed, "At least the carcass is ours for the taking."

Harry nodded, "I also want 20,000 galleons to go to every victim that suffered directly as a result of the monster."

Ted had a thoughtful look in his face and Eversharpe gave him a look of appraisal. Ted began, "If we are doing this, we need to do so in secret. Again, we do not want bad faith actors coming after us for the venom. I will draw up confidentiality agreements to make sure that the families will not talk about the matter with anyone. Eversharpe, I am sure you know ways to make the transaction traceless."

The account manager nodded but did not reply.

It was about 6 pm when they finally got done. Harry and Ted left Gringotts and Ted side-along apparated the two of them back to his house. Harry shook his head to clear off some of the gut-wrenching nausea that the body experiences when it first goes through apparition.

Ted smiled a little at Harry's discomfort. "You will get used to it with time."

Harry muttered under his breath incoherently and Ted laughed as they went inside the house. As soon as Harry walked in, he was hit with aromatic smells of cooking that wafted from the kitchen.

Andromeda walked from the kitchen, and Ted gave her a chaste kiss and put an arm around her waist. His wife leaned into her husband. She smiled at Harry, "So Ted was able to get you to join us for dinner. Since you were not able to eat with us last time, I thought I should make some food. You do not mind Italian food, do you?"

Harry shook his head, "No ma'am."

She rolled her eyes and huffed, "None of the ma'am nonsense. Honestly, I look much younger than many women ten years younger."

Ted chuckled, "The most beautiful of them all of course."

She poked her husband's nose playfully and kissed his cheek. "That's why I keep you around."

Ted asked, "Is there anything you need help with?"

She smiled, "If you can help me, that would be helpful."

Harry couldn't help but ask, "Can I help you too?"

Andromeda rolled her eyes and lightly poked Harry on his nose. "You, Mr. Potter, are just going to sit at the counter and watch us."

Harry unconsciously rubbed his nose as he bobbed is head in agreement. The couple got to work and to Harry, their chemistry and teamwork was just magical. The two of them moved in unison and never got in the way of each other. At the same time, they would talk to each other about their days work. It felt so natural that a part of his heart wondered that had his parents been alive, would they have been as close as Andromeda and Tonks.

Andromeda asked, "Would you like to know how we met, Harry?"

Harry bobbed his head, curious to know how a daughter of the Black family fell in love with a muggle born. She started, "I was in Slytherin, but he was in Hufflepuff. Even though we were in the same year, our social circles never clashed; we were in separate worlds. There were tensions that arose between the muggle-born and the purebloods as the first muggle-born Minister for Magic had just been assassinated."

Ted picked up from where she stopped. "That was when the embers of war really started to kindle. Certain pureblood families were upping their rhetoric against 'those of who were not worthy of magic'. Certain students, emboldened by their family agendas, viciously attacked all most all of the muggle born and some half-blood students."

Andromeda continued, "One day in our fifth year, Ted came in with two seriously injured students. I was an assistant under Madame Pomfrey, who was my reference for the healer's program once I left Hogwarts later. That was my first week in the Hospital Wing. Ted was hesitant to let me be anywhere near the two students."

Ted chuckled, "The only thing I knew about you at the time was that you were a Slytherin and a Black, neither of whom were known to be sympathetic to any muggle born."

Andromeda huffed, "Yet you did not say a word as I helped heal them. Every other day, he would bring students regardless of their house and age into the Hospital Wing. And seeing such gentle, yet strong man, I couldn't help but notice him in a different light."

Harry smiled as he saw Ted turn slightly red. He quickly recovered and Ted gave his wife an amused glance. "Although, your idea of approaching me was to ask help at arithmancy."

Now it was Andromeda's turn to blush. She sputtered, "I was not as good as arithmancy as you were and I needed help, that was all there was to it."

Ted rolled his eyes and shot her another amused glance. "Of course, dear. I won't tell Harry you were dreadful at the subject."

Andromeda swatted her husband's shoulder as she bustled past her husband and Ted just laughed. He continued, "Then we started spending time together. Initially it was just one a week to help each academically, but we soon became closer and closer. I took a chance and asked her to be my girlfriend."

Andromeda had a small smile as she walked up to him and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. "Neither the war, society, nor my family were going to keep me away from the most wonderful man I have ever met. However, we dated in secret and did not even tell our best friends about our relationship."

Andromeda went silent and Ted wore a sad smile. "Yet our little secret didn't last long. You see, her sister Bellatrix, was getting suspicious about what Andy was up to. We avoided her a couple of times, but she eventually caught up to us. Infuriated that her sister was in love with a 'mud blood', she tried to kill both of us."

Andromeda somberly added, "But Ted held her back, while I was in shock. Eventually the word got to my family and I was removed from the family. The only one who silently supported me was my mother. She would send a little bit of gold she saved over the years to me, and eventually the Blacks found out about her activities. Bellatrix killed my mother in cold blood."

Ted put a hand around her waist and pulled her closer. She snuggled deeper into her husband's embrace. "After we graduated, Ted and I moved in together and with the money my mother sent me, we were able to start out lives. Your grandmother, Dorea, helped us a lot. Your grandparents helped us get established. Ted became an apprentice at Ogden's law firm, and I became an assistant healer a year later and married in secret that same year. Nymphadora came into our lives two years later. We have had our troubles over the years, but never have we once looked back in regret."