344. The Cost

"What's with this one-liner? Just tell me what you want," Magnus asked them straightforwardly.

James came forward, "Umm... not here. Come with us."

With a raised eyebrow, Magnus tried to see what they even wanted, it could be a prank, after all, he did prank the heck out of them at the end of the last semester. "Hmm... let's go then. Rag, Sev, follow us."

"They can't... Ughh fine." Sirius relented.

They soon arrived at the empty corridors of the 5th floor. Remus was the one to break out of the tensions, "Magnus, they found out about me. They want to ask you for help in becoming an Animagus. So they can roam around with me in their animal forms."

Magnus smirked, "Hehe... what is this? Do you need help from this, Magnus the great? Fine, but it's going to cost you."

"Money is not the problem." James blurted, of course, he was the rich young master of the group.

Magnus scoffed, "Like I need your money. No, what I want is not money. For one whole month, you will become my underlings, do whatever I order you to."

The four looked at each other's faces in uncertainty, this was not really what they wanted. They had no idea what Magnus would make them do either. They weighed their options.

"How long will it take to become an Animagi?" Sirius asked.

Magnus looked at them as if they were fools, they had come to him without even doing some research. "It takes at least a month to turn into animagi, the process is long and arduous. First, you will have to keep holding the leaf of a Mandrake in your mouth for an entire month, then using the leaf, we will make a potion, then one must recite an incantation of Amato Animo Animato Animagus on a daily basis, then you drink the Animagus potion during a lightning storm.

"Remember, if you make any mistakes during this process, you are done. Either dead or disfigured. Do you still want to do it?"

As always, Peter started crying that they should not do it, but he was shut up by the angry glares of others. "We are Gryffindors. We will never back down." James proudly voiced.

~Haha, fools.~ Magnus laughed inside.

"What will we have to do? We need to set some limits. For example, no making us run around naked, no making us your servants." Remus tried to argue the terms.

Magnus shrugged, "Sure, we can do that."

The agreement was soon signed.

...

Magnus made the Gryffindor 4 do his, Ragnar, Severus and Emma's homework. It was a hassle anyway for them. Meanwhile, they had fun.

Amidst all this, Magnus was notified that King Faisal wanted to talk to him. So he went to his secure office and spoke on the phone.

Magnus picked up the phone. "How are you? What made you call me today, Faisal?"

King Faisal chuckled, but his voice sounded tired, "It's good to hear from you again. Well, I just wanted to talk to you. I am afraid my end is near, Magnus."

Magnus stood up in his seat, "WHAT? What do you mean? You're just 69,"

"A good number to die at I'd say, haha..." King Faisal joked and continued, "Well, I don't know what will kill me. It's certainly not a disease. Most likely an assassination. I have been made aware by someone. And nobody can fight the fate that Allah has already decided for his subjects. I will distance myself from the people now and let fate run in its due course."

Magnus snorted, "Huh, then you can prepare to enter hell. Do you not see it? The greatest duty, the greatest act of kindness you can do is by continuing to be the king, help me make not only your country prosper but also the world. What is a greater service than this? And now if you die, it might be considered a suicide, since you knew about it and didn't prevent it. And from what I know, suicide is one of the biggest sins in most of the religions."

(￣▽￣)"

King Faisal was left speechless for a minute, the realisation slowly seeped into his head, then he exclaimed, "CRAP! I shouldn't have talked to you. No no no... I can't die now. It'll be suicide in heaven's eyes."

Magnus chuckled, "Haha, see, I told you. Now stay put, I am sending you my MEDA Saudi Arabia Chief. He will find out who wants to kill you and why."

"Fine... talk to you later... if I survive." King Faisal sighed and hung up.

Magnus laughed alone, like hell he was going to let that man die. He didn't know how the next king would be, would he have a moderate mindset like Faisal, or would he become too religious and head towards extremism. There was always uncertainty.

He found the number of Saudi Arabia's head of MEDA and called. The man was a Saudi Arabian wizard, from a distant family related to the Saudi Royals. He had come to the UK and studied law in Oxford, only to get recruited by Adrian and then trained subsequently.

The man was called Abdirashid Abdullahi Tarabi, a hard-working man. If everything went well, he'd get promoted to Middle East Head.

"Mr Tarabi, King Pendragon speaking to this side," Magnus started.

Formal greetings came from the other side, "It is an honour to speak with you, Your Majesty."

"I have a high priority task for you. Mr Tarabi. The Saudi King, a great friend of mine, King Faisal, has received the intel that he will die soon. It is going to be an assassination most likely. So I am going to need you to head to him with your best men, protect him and also catch the assassin, dead or alive." He briefed Abdullahi.

If something happens to Faisal, everything will be messed up. His land deals in Africa and peace in the Middle Eastern region, all will get pushed back.

"It will be done, Your Majesty. I will head to the Royal Palace immediately. Ah, one more thing, sir. I would like to report to you some dangerous activities. We have caught a few smugglers who brought in British, French and other European nationals, kidnapped. Women were to be sold as sex slaves, men were to be sold for organ harvesting. There were some kids as well. We have reported everything to the Saudi Government and they have given us complete freedom to deal with this matter." Abdullahi grimly informed him.

Magnus felt alerted, he didn't receive this news. "Thank you, Mr Tarabi, I will look into it. Keep me updated on this case as well."

Magnus quickly called Adrian at that, "I got the news from Abdullahi that human traffickers were caught there with European men and women. What is going on?"

Adrian frowned, "I... we did not get any such news. If this is indeed the case, then it must be strictly done by the muggles."

"Investigate it properly and report to me what's going on. We don't want another Oscar now. Go and interrogate the traffickers caught in Saudi as well." Magnus ordered an investigation and hung up.

...

October 1975

It was the month that marked another great achievement. Finally, after an entire year of production, MagicMade Studios, under Warner Brother, owned by Magnus, released Superman Origins.

The new DC movie, full of all kinds of special effects, explosions, badass fight scenes, beautiful flying shots, over the mountains, oceans. The trailers were being shown around the world in theatres before the start of other movies.

There was already a lot of hype around it. The main actor, the Superman, was a British actor, his sister was a wizard. Hence, he knew about the wizarding world.

The company's priority was to at least have the main leads know about the wizarding world. Still, it was not a major issue, they had already come up with elaborate plans to make their illusions even fool the muggles at the set.

The best part about the company was that they can do as many destruction based shots as they want since magic could fix anything. They could also shoot amazing aerial shots with the help of brooms, as they gave much better manoeuvrability than helicopters.

In total, the cost of the movie was 10 Million USD(50 million today). It was a pretty conservative price honestly, as the cost was minimised by magical means.

The date of release was December 20th. Perfect for the winter holiday season.

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I WON'T MIND ONE OR TWO!

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