Deal
Minister managed to send the magically augmented set of self-disinfecting syringes and vials right at the dawn of the next day, alongside a copy of the contract signed between MACUSA and the Blanco family. Despite it being a giant lengthy scroll of parchment, Luca looked over it intently, minuteness of clauses went as far as to specify precisely two of the three kinds of attempts his teacher wanted to make, raising the boy's brows if Mr. Grimsditch snitched or Isabel that led the negotiations predicted the possibility of being tricked. No matter what, the vampires had to receive the specified amount of Luca's pure blood with no longer than twenty-four hours delay, or they would kill the nearest wizard that came out of the gathering places. The price was set at hundred Galleons per gallon, the boy could expect to quickly get rich by receiving a salary of five hundred every month, rivaling a high-end job or ownership of a business in the wizarding world. Mrs. Lopez privately added on the margin that this is her income as Minister, asking for more seemed unrealistic.
The agreement even involved a theatre play script describing the entire process of rescuing the hostages by a team of Aurors where there would be twenty low-purity newly recruited by the family scapegoats to make it grand, only the captain of the team knowing about the deal. Curious of the factors that made secrecy so strict, Luca filled the first of three vials on the spot, drinking a sip of the potion afterwards. Feeling nothing, after thinking hard why he was spared the discomfort and general brief lack of energy following the extraction, the boy realized as he went to groom himself in the toilet his body grew larger during the year. Looking at the hair falling to the top of his shoulders and an additional inch-and-a-bit gained, he tugged the clothes to see if they have to be replaced.
"Eeeh…" Luca groaned, it wasn't that visible yet, but next year he will have to go through the hassle of changing the entire wardrobe, especially since the magical diet ought to accelerate growth. The hair looking good, he thought to let it be, at most wear a cool headband as Winnetou did if it went in the way.
During this and the next two days, he got the prepared meals on the reserved table ready to eat alongside Bryce, Ringo, and Grace, that took advantage of Mr. Grimsditch's generosity to have the cooks make more. Luca hesitated if he should tell Bryce about his predicament, ultimately deciding it had nothing to do with him, he explained the treatment to be caused by the old connections of his mentor. With the delivered by the hands of a receptionist Veela three hundred Galleons of the yearly subsidy, Luca bought toys for his pets, movie and quidditch unlimited summer tickets, and some miscellaneous trinkets whenever the group went out. Bryce, in turn, insisted on buying comics and snacks for them to split the vacation expenses. They played happily over the banks of a river running over the edge of the village, the boys threw special magically accelerated frisbees for the golden eagle to catch, and chased Ringo in order to throw the cat in the water, although the feline might not know this detail as they haven't managed to capture him so far.
The next day from when Luca sent the filled-up vials, news of the brave Aurors' investigation coming to an end and the release of a hundred wizards got published, the entire matter of how they got caught and saved presented to the public by the 'Daily Seer' in a special edition of the newspaper focusing solely on the story. The front page recorded a textbook raid on the hideout of vampires, a mini-movie of a pair of bloodsuckers turning to ash after getting hit by a beam of light coming from Aurors under Invisibility Cloaks sneaking up on them while they smoked leisurely sitting in the monitoring room, the See-Through Goggles to locate the guards while ignoring the obstacles, and transfiguration plus silencing spells to pass the walls unimpeded and unknown highlighted the professionalism of Ministry's employees. If not in the know beforehand that those throwaway trash were the absolute bottom feeders among dark creatures, Luca would be as impressed as Bryce, with stars in his bulging eyes looking at the ease at which the Aurors dealt with the situation.
Next moving picture showed the bottom floor, a hundred hospital beds lined up in rows, the bodies of comatose wizards on one side plugged in to deliver unknown liquid into their bodies, the other side dripping slowly drop after drop of blood into a bottle. This was both better and worse than what Luca imagined their fate would be, better because of being unconscious, worse because of the completely dehumanizing factor, wizards treated like an industrial commodity. The boy wondered if this was something only done recently to make the acting suit whatever agenda the Minister wanted to push, after all, the written on scraps of paper sentences and assurance of normal treatment were very much to be believed.
"Those bastards!" Bryce uncontrollably slammed the table with his hand after the picture stopped, sending an omelet made of Ashwinder eggs coated with honey coming from magical Ah-Muzen-Cab bees flying, the golden liquid spraying on the fur of Ringo made the cat go berserk scratching the boy's face and neck hard enough for traces of torn skin to swell. "Calm down, Luca, take him away! Sorry! I apologize, calm down so I can clean you!" Bryce attempted to defend himself flailing his arms around, Luca only shook his head in refusal, knowing that Ringo won't really hurt his friend. The boy reached to take the newspaper, enlightened that the second picture was intended to mobilize the readers' hate towards vampires.
The third moving picture presented the awoken and sitting in the same room wizards talking animatedly with the rescue team recording their words, that was it for the visual part of the news. Lengthy explanations and mugshots of the freed people followed, the statement from Mrs. Lopez announced to come in the free-of-charge evening paper that will include news intended to be delivered in the morning, postponed because of emergency. Luca sat there for some time, observing other diners' reactions. There was brief anger and then happiness, people hugged over half-eaten breakfast and praised the Aurors before denouncing the damned vampires, or in reverse. The propaganda was initially successful, Luca concluded. Then, an eagle dropped inside from the brightly lit roof and sat down on the balustrade on the boy's left, reaching out a satchel hung on one of its legs in his direction. Luca took it calmly and nodded in thanks to the bird that meantime eyed the remaining tray of fried Acromantula legs boys didn't want to touch, and Grace, entangled if he was more hungry or horny.
"Help yourself." Luca permitted the eagle to satisfy one of his desires by pushing the plates to make room for it to land on the table and shook out the contents of the satchel onto his hand. A small piece of parchment and a blueish metal ring with rows upon rows of miniature runes lining the surface fell out of it. Luca rose his brows and put the ring on the table while aligning the letter in the correct position conducive of reading, preferably not upside-down or with letters facing away.
'Luca, this is your reward from me. A prototype of a protego ring made using no-maj machines. I don't know the details, but it is supposed to have a pile of scrapped materials wasting tens of thousands of Galleons to produce only this one so far, The Grandest Alchemist doesn't want to continue the concept because of difficulty, he said it's more of an accident for it to come out than a rule. It's twice as powerful as the one my assistant wears, if you counted, it blocked five of your teacher's curses, yours can block ten before recharge is needed. Take care of yourself, Selina. Ps. Write to those Blanco lunatics, or they won't stop harassing me.'
Luca's eyes lit up, he immediately wore it on his left ring finger, sense of security exploding. Tying the satchel back onto the eagle's leg, he admired the small runes from up close until Bryce finished cleaning Ringo's fur with water ordered from the microphone in the middle and a corner of his t-shirt.
"Congratulations, who's the bride?" Luca got asked sarcastically, Bryce upset he didn't defend him from the aspiring ferocious black panther.
"Your… Ahem, Fontaine sent me a protection ring. Try hitting me with something." Luca almost blurted, remembering in the last moment that they both were technically orphans.
"With pleasure." Bryce swung his fist and punched at Luca's shoulder, a flash of white and a scream of pain later, he held one of his hands in the other, rocking back and forth on his chair.
"I meant with a wand, we are wizards, spells, remember?" speechless Luca looked at the sorry state of his scrawny companion gazing with resentment and hissing with pain while tears streamed down his cheeks. Another eagle chose this moment to land on the backrest of an empty chair, making the table crowded with six occupants. This time a bald variation, it didn't care to look at Grace that rested comfortably with her strong legs outstretched after a sumptuous meal, leaning on the chair as she imitated her owner's posture.
"What is going on today…" Luca muttered, the piece of parchment contained in the satchel was completely unreadable because of poor writing quality of the sender, the boy couldn't make sense of a word. "Must be a prank." he concluded and stuffed the crumpled parchment in his pocket to throw away later.
"I may have broken a bone." Bryce moaned as he changed the coping strategy to deep breaths.
"As if you have muscles required to punch hard enough." Luca directly doubted him. A commotion and cheers mixed with applause erupted at the entrance of the Inn, spreading up to the elevated restaurant area, gradually coming in the direction of the boys. The wizards all flocked to the gathered crowd, a person in the middle of it going firmly forward while smiling and waving her hand. She seemed familiar to the point of a sensation of déjà vu, Luca recalled the immediate past and pinpointed a suspect: the field Healer woman that apparated him into Iverstead, Zuri, whose portrait he just looked at in the paper. He had a small difficulty recognizing her in casual clothes and unstyled hair, the boy wondered what was she doing here after only a couple hours of freedom. Zuri sat at the first table she approached and hushed the crowd that followed her.
Getting the silence, she put her hand inside her money purse, threw a handful of Galleons inside the metal space in the middle, and spoke excitedly to the microphone after which a dozen trays of food appeared. The crowd laughed, some witches patted her back and sat near to watch her gorge with elegant manners on the pastries and different kinds of coffee she ordered.
"She's one of the kidnapped?" Bryce whispered after he stood up energetically with momentum to join the gossip circle formed there, and sat down quickly as he realized the look he sported was much worse than how a person imprisoned for a year seemed, trying to make himself less noticeable. Unfortunately, his move did directly catch Zuri's attention as they were straight in front of her and an overwhelmingly animal table to boot. Her forehead wrinkled in surprise as she processed the sight, Luca the least conspicuous of the menagerie was the last to be detected, but her reaction was the most violent upon realizing he was the boy they rescued before getting caught, the secrecy of the deal pointless to keep as all of the hundred knew very well why they were held by the Blanco family. Catherine acted almost as Luca imagined, complaining wildly over the taste of their blood to their faces every time they moved a hideout in escape from the MACUSA pursuit, she viciously ridiculed their powerless government and them as abandoned pawns to vent her dissatisfaction over the initial conditions of returning the boy to her not met.
Zuri choked on the cupcake in her mouth lightly, only to the point of a few coughs, then slowed down her feast and nodded knowingly to the boy and in the direction of the elevator. Luca nodded back, waiting patiently as she finished the sweets and spoke a couple of sentences to the surrounding wizards, and got up with an excuse of resting in her room.