CHAPTER 76: THE TRUTH

Three things cannot be long hidden:

-the sun,

-the moon,

-and the truth.

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Time passes without a hitch, and it was now at the end of the term. Ed had finished the exams with perfect score, as well as Hermione, Richard, and Daphne. Professor McGonagall once again offered Ed to join in the O.W.L.s next year, but he once again refused, if his three friends didn't take them too, Ed wouldn't want to. Lupin had resigned much to everyone's dismay, he was one of the better DADA Professor, and the students paid respect to him when he left, even some of the Slytherins, thankfully when he left school no one knows that he is a werewolf, which ease his heart a bit.

It was now the first day of summer break, and Ed was now in the Diagon Alley. It was the opening ceremony of the shop of his company. Throughout the month since April, Lupin is two timing his job as a professor and as the manager of the company, he contacted plantations and reserves to order the things the alchemist need to produce the items they will create.

Daphne had work hard to create a marketing campaign for the company, Ed had requested that he pointed that the items are not from dark magic, and they will not sell it to an organisation, and she did, she used her family contacts that has no connection to the pureblood circle and started to work, pamphlets were spread across the alley and Hogsmeade, and the British wizarding circle were shook, Ed even allowed some demonstration in the streets, encouraging the passer-by to try the products, like the defensive necklace for example.

And the most shocking items that made the ministry even more desperate to take over the company were the werewolf ring, Lupin personally had demonstrated it in front of the people in the alley, at first some people attack him because he transform suddenly, but the bodyguards that the company hired quickly protected him.

Speaking of the ministry, as said before, they were desperate. Ed's policy of an organisation cannot order in bulk made them annoyed, and because of that, they sent a lot of people to buy the products, and possibly studied it for the ministry's own use.

But Ed doesn't care if the ministry studied it. They don't even know the basic principle of it. And the alchemists that Ed hired had signed a blood contract, so they won't blab.

Right now though, Ed was in the shop itself on the second floor. He was looking out the window and saw a rather crowded street.

"Bit packed innit?" Someone commented besides Ed, it was Richard, wearing a rather formal suit. He looked nervous as hell.

Ed hummed. "Well, you'd rather not disappoint them."

"Why me though?" Richard asked, a bit annoyed.

"You're a muggle-born, so muggle-borns will be attracted to you, and there's also Daphne, at least some of the pureblood will be attracted…"

"Why not you then? Why Daphne?" Richard grumbled.

"Well, I've got stage fright, and I gave you some bonding time with Daphne, you should be grateful."

"You've got stage fright?" Richard raised his eyebrow. "Are you serious mate? You fought wraiths from other world and won, and you now say you've got stage fright?"

Ed shrugged. "Well, everyone has their fears…"

"You're a terrible liar." Richard shook his head. "Right, what am I doing again?"

"Just made some speech about the shop and cut the ribbon with Daph." Ed commented.

"You just told me to make a speech like it's nothing." Richard grimaced.

"I'm training you for the future." Ed said rather seriously.

"Future my arse." Richard scoffed. "I'm going. And get some actual formal clothes will you? This a bloody ceremony for Merlin's sake, not some informal gathering." he said as he looked at Richard's dark blue shirt.

Richard then left the room, preparing for the speech and the opening ceremony, while Ed stayed in the office. A couple of minutes later, the suitcase that has been sitting in the corner of the room opened, and Ed saw Hermione got out of the suitcase with a rather formal dress.

"You too Hermione? why is everyone wearing formal clothes here?" Ed commented.

"You should know this Ed, you're Roger's son for Merlin's sake, I thought he taught you." Hermione answered hurriedly.

"I'm not going down there." Ed denied.

"You will." Hermione then put a suit on the desk, signalling Ed to wear it. "I picked one for you, it's one of your dad's."

"Where did you get it?" Ed asked curiously as he didn't know that there is a suit collection in the suitcase.

"Gilligan told me the location of the dressing room." Hermione answered. "it's besides the last bedroom in the corridor, how did you not know this?"

"I haven't got time to explore the place, and besides, the bedroom corridor is long as fuck."

"Stop cursing." Hermione sternly said, "Wear the suit, you're going downstairs whether you like it or not, it's your company, you should be there."

Ed sighed. "Fine. Get out, I'm wearing it here."

Hermione hummed and got out of the room. Ed then quickly wore the suit, and he made sure to comb his hair a bit as it's a bit messy. Then he got out of the room, and he saw that Hermione was waiting there.

"Now there you go, you look nice." Hermione smiled and kissed Ed's cheek.

"Thank you, you look great as well." Ed then offered his hand, which Hermione happily took. The two then went downstairs, but as they walked down, Ed asked the girl besides him.

"Ron and Harry coming?" he asked.

"Harry's not coming, because you know… he doesn't have guardian to accompany him…"

"What about Sirius?" Ed raised his eyebrow.

"Harry said he's not in the country right now." Hermione answered.

"What for?"

"I'm not supposed to say this…" Hermione sighed. "But Harry said that he's looking for a 'perfect engagement ring'…"

"What?"

"He's travelling across Europe and Asia to look for the best engagement ring he can find he said…"

"He's going to marry Amelia?"

"Well, that's why Narcissa saved him is it not? To continue the bloodline…"

"That's true…" Ed mumbled. "What about Ron?"

"Ron can't come, but the twins'll come though, their items are sold here after all…"

Ed hummed. The two then walked towards the actual store underground who was packed with people, Ed saw that Richard and Daphne is starting their speech, and the two pair walked towards Narcissa, who was sitting beside the counter.

"You're late." Narcissa commented to Ed.

"I wasn't even planning to come down." He answered flatly.

Narcissa looked at him strangely. "You're not going to come to your own company's opening ceremony?"

Ed shrugged. "Where's Draco? And does Aunt Andromeda come?"

"Draco didn't come, he's grounded in the house." Narcissa said calmly.

Ed chuckled. "Purebloods also got grounded?"

Narcissa ignored the question. "As for Dromeda... she said she can't come, her daughter has finally finished her training to become an auror and they're having a party at they're house."

"I'm going there after this." Ed stated. "I'll let Lupin handle all the talking, I don't want to deal with disgruntled ministry employees…"

"Ah yes, I've heard about you butting heads with the ministry…"

"They've done it first." Ed added. "If they just released the bloody investigation report early, they would still order the items in bulk, and I can still go to the tournament."

"I heard they still haven't released it." Narcissa commented.

"Don't care anymore, the decision is final anyway, Flitwick's pissed."

"Are you that hung up about the tournament?"

"I want some duelling experience you know, it's getting boring duelling kids in Hogwarts."

Narcissa shook her head. "How about you train my son Draco?"

"No thanks, I had enough dealing with Hermione whining about her training." Ed commented, which earned a smack from Hermione.

Then, Richard and Daphne cut the ribbon in the front door after finishing their speech, after that, the reporters came running to ask them questions, which overwhelmed Richard, but Daphne quickly pulled him awake. They answered the questions about the company for a few minutes, until one of the reporters asked.

"Where's Edgart Aldrich? Why isn't he here?"

Ed sighed as he heard that. "Well, that's my queue I guess." Ed stepped up, leaving Hermione and Narcissa alone, which is incredibly awkward. Hermione then nervously tried to make conversation with the woman.

"G-Good afternoon Mrs. Malfoy…" she greeted weakly.

Narcissa eyed Hermione for a while. "Hermione Granger is it?"

"Y-Yes…"

Narcissa nodded. "Nice dress."

"T-Thank you…" Hermione accepted the compliment shyly.

Meanwhile, Ed now was standing in front of a crowd of reporters, showing himself to the public. "Hello people." Ed smiled innocently, he then saw the reporter that touched Ed when he got out of the hospital. "Oh, it's you! How's your arm?"

"You haven't paid for the medical bills!" the reported shouted angrily.

"Well it's not my fault, you touched me first, I simply defended myself." Ed innocently said, making the reporter grumbled. Then, another reporter stepped in, asking a different question.

"Mr. Aldrich, you're quite young, as well as Mr. Neil and Miss Greengrass over here, how does it feel to be this successful this young?"

Ed smiled. "It's not really my place to say it to be honest, I just gave the idea and the knowledge, and these two..." Ed pointed at Daphne and Richard. "—Built all this, along with a couple of people that helped us."

Another reporter stepped in. "Mr. Aldrich, your discovery of the werewolf ring is possibly one of the most shocking things that have been discovered in the 20th Century, and there are rumours that you, along with Mr. Neil over here, will be given the award of Order of Merlin, first class. And you two will be the youngest holder of the award, how does it feel?"

"It's a huge honour really." Ed lied. "But ultimately, we're doing this for the money, so I don't really know if we deserve that…"

The crowd burst in laughter at the 'joke', and more questions flood in, there are questions about the suspicion of using dark magic, and Ed assured them that it is not dark magic. Then there is a question that Ed has been waiting for.

"Mr. Aldrich, we all know that you're one of the suspect that was involved in the explosion in the forbidden forest, and the ministry is simply silent about it, do you have something to say to the media about it?"

Ed smirked. "Do you want to know the truth?"

The reporters nodded.

"That day, when I was at the forbidden forest, I was experimenting on this." Ed pulled out the defensive necklace. "I was careless back then, and I made a huge mistake of using too much magic power, so I passed out, I used 'Bombarda Maxima', so the explosion can be heard at Hogwarts."

"But surely you used something else? Bombarda Maxima cannot produced an explosion that can shatter glasses miles away…"

"Maybe I'm just different." Ed smiled softly.

"If the answer is that simple, why does the ministry want to keep it a secret?"

"They want to monopolize me and my items of course." Ed stated. "You know, I was supposed to represent Hogwarts in the upcoming under-seventeen duelling tournament, but I was disqualified because the ministry simply refused to publicised the investigation out of greed. I could've bring the trophy home for the British wizarding community, but of course, the ministry interfered with it."

There were loud murmurs from the crowd, and the three continued to answer questions, minutes go by, and the it was almost the actual opening time. Suddenly, a woman with blonde hair walked to them.

"Hello dears." She said while smiling. "My name is Rita Skeeter, I'm a journalist. I want to interview you three, do you mind if I used the quill?" she asked, pointing at her self-writing quill.

Daphne frowned, while Ed kept his calm. "I'm sorry Miss Skeeter, but the opening of the shop is in a couple of minutes, so we can do this later."

The quill started to write furiously, and Skeeter just kept her wide smile. "Oh okay, we can do it later." She said, but Ed read the writing of the quill, 'Edgart Aldrich simply refused to be interviewed, what is he hiding? Are the rumours true?'

Ed chuckled at this. "Listen Miss Skeeter, I suggests that you don't underestimate us, even if we're still kids…." Ed then stood closer to Skeeter and whispered to her. "We don't want your insect secret be publicized do we?"

The quill stopped writing, and Skeeter looked at Ed with surprise.

"I'm sure you can still use your beetle form a little bit longer Miss Skeeter, if you behave that is." Ed winked at the woman, leaving the surprised Skeeter alone. The group then entered the shop, and they entered the office, which they found that Hermione was talking to Narcissa in there.

"What are you two talking about?" Ed asked as he and Richard sat on a couch in the office, while Daphne joined the two woman.

"Nothing nephew." Narcissa quickly answered. "Good job on smouldering the ministry's name by the way, I can already feel Cornelius's rage from here." She sarcastically said.

"I don't even care about the ministry anymore." Ed sighed. "If Fudge stepped down after this, it'll be even better, though I doubt that is the case."

"He'll probably use this to boost his own name and wrongly accused an innocent wizard." Narcissa scoffed. "You're not helping downstairs?"

"What for? I hired employees for that."

"True enough." She said. "I can already see that you'll be one of the richest pure-bloods in the community Ed."

"That's the plan." Ed commented, looking at Richard. "But this is temporary anyway, when all is said and done, I'll give all this to Richard."

"To me?" Richard was surprised. "But you said that I owned 30% of the share?"

"Temporarily." Ed said. "Once the dark lord ordeal is over, I'll give you the majority of my shares as well, I won't be needing it after Tom's dead anyway…"

"What are you talking about?" Daphne asked in confusion.

Ed smiled. "You'll know once we got there." Ed said as he looked at Hermione, who knows what will happen. "Anyway, after all this, what are your plans for summer break?"

Richard shrugged. "Training with Flitwick, the tournament's a month from now." He said, while Daphne nodded.

Ed grimaced at the mention of the tournament. "Fucking ministry and their greed." He cursed. He then looked at Hermione. "What are you going to do this summer Hermione?"

"I thought I'm staying with you for training?" she questioned, confused at the question.

"Well, other than training of course…"

"There'll be the Quidditch world cup… are you coming there?"

"Dunno… what about you Aunt Narcissa, are you invited there?"

Narcissa nodded. "Cornelius invited our family, and Draco wanted to go as well, so we will go."

Ed hummed. "I don't know what I'm going to do this summer really… well, only time will tell…"

"Oh right." Richard suddenly interrupted. "Speaking of the Quidditch World Cup, the broom prototype has finished." He pulled out a broom from a drawer nearby. "We still need testing though, I don't know who the test subject will be…"

"Harry? Ron?"

"Good idea." Richard clicked his tongue, "Let's see if the redhead wants to earn some pocket money."

He then left, bringing the broom with him, then Daphne followed him, saying that she wanted to help downstairs, then Narcissa left, she said that she needs some business to take care of. Ed was now left with Hermione, who was drinking tea that she had made beforehand.

"What about the Ciri girl?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know when she'll come really." Ed answered. "But I suppose I need to prepare for it… should we admit her to Hogwarts?"

"Probably a bad idea…" Hermione answered. "The ministry will questioned it, and Dumbledore will try to get some information."

Ed hummed. "Then I need to build a house for her… where'd you reckon will be a good spot?"

Hermione raised her eyebrow. "You can build a house?"

"No, but you can." Ed smirked. "Just think of it as training."

"Are you serious?! Are you making me a builder now?" she grumbled.

"All in the name of training Hermione." Ed said seriously.

"You're such an arse."

[VOLUME 3 DONE]

A/N: Overall a decent volume, the romance were a bit too much though, and the last chapters were a bit rushed. see you next volume.