Ch19. Gemino Charm and its uses, non-wizarding edition

The meeting between Andromeda, Ted, and Harry ended up incredibly well. Harry even accepted Ted into the family, recognizing him as the husband of Andromeda which then instantly recognized Nymphadora as their daughter and the family magic did its work. Harry snickered at the image of panicking and spluttering Dora as she glows Black and people asking her to show them the glowing metamorphmagus trick again.

Harry then hired Ted to look into the publishing of books about Harry Potter and make a lawsuit against them for using him in these books without his consent!

Andromeda, on the other hand, gave her oath to Harry. She was now the new Regent Black. All it would take to make it official was an announcement at the next Wizengamot session, a week before the start of the school year. Harry, of course, gave her his own oath to not misuse her vows.

Nevertheless, he had a slight leeway there since the word 'misuse' was not really clarified but by the end of the meeting their relationship was based more on trust than glaring at each other in suspicion but working together because of mutual benefits, like typical Blacks. Harry wouldn't screw Andromeda over anyway. He had much more important things on his to-do list!

Plus his family magic alongside the Oath wouldn't let him do anything too damning. The worst he could do to her was betroth her daughter to someone old, wrinkly, and useless 'for the Greater Good of the family'. But he would never do that to Nymphadora. He would rather keep her close and tease her relentlessly! Oh, he can almost feel her amusing reactions already!

…

After the political problems of the House Black were solved, or at least, thrown to someone else, poor Andy, Harry decided to get in motion one of his recent plans. He started to relentlessly study the book on the Doubling Charm, spending an entire day before he completely gave up.

In movies or books, it all looks so simple! Just swish and voila, things get doubled. But is it so in reality? Harry found out that apparently not.

Remember those essays every teacher assigns the students as homework in the movies? Evidently magic theory is a thing. And casting Doubling Charm, one of the harder variety of spells, as an eleven years old boy without even remotely knowing a thing about the theory obviously just won't work. What a bummer!

Harry was not about to give up yet! But he was not about to waste his time learning years worth of theory in order to cast the damn spell! There was only one way to accomplish his goal. He had to… cheat! Obviously.

He was still meeting Andromeda and Ted during these days. He either saw Andromeda for discussion about what political views she should take as regent Black or what agenda she should push in the Wizengamot, or he discussed with Ted about the lawsuit.

He had two competent wizards to show him the spell! And that's exactly what he did.

The next day, during a meeting with Ted, Harry asked him to cast a doubling charm. Ted was quite baffled as to why it was necessary but he relented. Needless to say, he quickly understood the reason when after the fifth time he cast it, Harry swished his own wand at the nearby chair and suddenly there were two of them. As with the wandless telekinesis, Harry could perceive the way magic moved when Ted cast the charm. It took a bit of tweaking but at long last, Harry could cast it!

After profusely thanking the bewildered Ted and throwing a pouch with thousand galleons at him, Harry quickly ran to the house he occupied and locked himself in a room for days to come.

A few days later of the relentless and numbing practice of single spell over and over again, the fifty grand Harry stole from Vernon, became a solid hundred, a banknote after banknote.

Then two hundred. Four hundred. Eight… And so it continued, the more he used the spell, the more skilled he became, the more banknotes he could double at once. Until, Harry was not even waving his hand anymore while his wand was safely deposited in his coat, in the hall.

It might have taken him a bunch of sleepless nights, a lot of boredom, and spooking Andromeda with his stylishly pale ghostly appearance but eventually, Harry found out the ultimate truth.

After doing one spell thousands of times, not through some nonsensical wand-waving or shrieking the name of the spell, hoping the magic understands what you want and does it for you, but instead, really knowing how the energy called magic does its work and replicating it, only then casting the spell wandlessly, chantlessly, heck, even unconsciously is not such a big deal anymore!

'Not like I would do a practice run quite like this in a long time to come.' Harry glumly thought as he exhausted beyond the grave dropped on his bed, sleeping for two days straight.

…

Michael Smith was just a normal black boy from the seedier parts of London. He was always very hard-working and dependable. His skills at what he did grew so much, he even became a leader of his own group of dealers!

Yes, he was a small-time criminal in London. Selling drugs was always his niche. Whether it was in his younger years as a dealer for his middle and later high school or overseeing his own dealers after he was promoted when his previous boss, fortunately, stepped at the wrong toes and bought himself a new sporty hole right in the middle of his forehead.

Michael shuddered. Since then he appreciated one of his blessings even more. He was never caught. Almost instinctively, he knew what to not do to screw everything up. Michael would believe it a divine ability if it didn't help him ruin so many lives. Or maybe he attained a divinity in drug dealing? Who knows!

On one particularly peaceful day, Michael, in one of his safehouses, was counting his earnings, surrounded by his boys having a bit of fun. He despondently watched as his best dealers enjoyed whores and alcohol. They deserved it, he thought. He knew well how hard it was to brave the streets nowadays. So many upstarts think they amount to something, causing problems left and right. At least after a hard day at work, his boys could relax and spend the evening with a woman.

Michael though was never one for whores. No, his interests laid otherwise. Oh, the number of times he got laid by beautiful and juicy high-school girls! Yes, his interests definitely laid elsewhere!

He preferred his girls younger, and… he looked at the woman with a crooked nose and soulless eyes straddling one of his boys, going up and down almost as if on autopilot… and more lively.

He frowned at the quality the whorehouse delivered. Michael sighed, next time he would have to choose personally. When it came to the topic of personal choice, he remembered Nikol. Ah, the nice playful red-headed minx that buys weed from him, he thought about her in delight, a pleasurable shiver running through his spine. He could still feel her lips and tongue dutifully clenching and caressing his…

As Michael reminisced about the sweeter parts of his life, a gunshot resounded from the hall. The entire room stood up in alert, whores crawled to the corner of the room, and nestled up into a ball in fear. Michael quickly flipped the table over and wondered why his instincts are not telling him anything. His boys loudly gulped as they prepared their machine guns. His party was the only one in these parts of town that could afford these toys! Michael calmed his nerves down and prepared his pistol as sweat fell from his forehead in spades.

The shooting didn't cease yet, signifying the enemy was quite tough. As Michael contemplated if running away would be the wise thing to do, the noise in the hall quieted down.

One of his boys stood up and yelled.

" 'bout time, you shits! What took you so long to kill!?"

The next moment, the door flew in his direction so quickly, it was hard to follow with eyes. It slammed into the dealer who stood up, knocking him out for the count.

The shooting began.

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta…

Michael squatted behind the table, without even delivering a single shot yet. His instincts screamed at him that something is wrong!

His eyes convinced him his instincts were true when the guns his boys held suddenly forcefully flew up, disarming his dealers instantly. His pistol followed shortly afterward as he let it go with an audible frightened gasp.

Michael noticed his boys dumbly looking at the spot previously occupied by the door, and then, he spotted him. No, it!

In the middle of the door stood a small… creature? It wore a black cloak, loosely clinging on its frame, head covered by an oversized hood, and hands in tight jet-black leather gloves. Not even an inkling of skin was visible. And in front of it! In front of it were hundreds of bullets floating in mid-air, stopped by some unexpected force! It was damn frightening!

His comrades snapped out of their reverie and were about to jump at the person in the black in a desperate attempt to get out of this situation in one piece when the man waved his hand in their direction and his boys… flew.

They swiftly flew backward, hit the wall, and rebounded forward, falling on their faces in unconsciousness. Even the whores were not spared!

Michael fell backward on his ass at the sight and gaped.

"Wha-what do you want!" He shrieked.

He instantly regretted it when the mysterious person reached his hand out in his direction, fingers outstretched as if he was preparing to grab him.

Michael looked funnily at it until he felt a pressure around his neck. The pressure increased as he was slowly being lifted. The lifting stopped when his feet were dangling a few inches above the floor, his body violently thrashing as he choked from the pressure.

Michael's eyes widened in recognition of the move. For the next few moments, he suffered as his body violently fought the mysterious force for every molecule of oxygen. And when he thought everything was hopeless and his vision was about to fade, he was released.

His body unceremoniously flopped on the ground as a harsh dry cough ran through his throat while his mouth tried to greedily gulp in as much air as possible.

When he finally calmed down, he looked up and saw the mysterious person sitting backward on a chair, the hand propped up at the back of the chair, supporting his head.

"You fine yet?" A childish voice rang from under the hood, scaring and startling Michael at the same time. "Don't worry about your underlings, they are just knocked out."

When Michael didn't respond, the person in black continued.

"You can call me Hadrian Black, Mr. Smith. I have a business deal I'd like you to accept." The guy, Hadrian Black, voiced his wishes as Michael could only dumbly nod. He had no choice.

No, he had a choice. Accept or die. He knew at least that much.

Hadrian threw a briefcase in front of Michael and gestured to him to open it. Michael obeyed and was dazed by the amount of money there.

Seeing his expression, his apparently new business partner, snorted derisively.

"Hundred million pounds. I want you to make an investment account and invest them into," Hadrian threw a scrunched up paper at him. "these."

Michael didn't dare to read the paper right away, he just nodded with frightened eyes. He didn't want to experience another near-death experience!

"Mr. Black, why me?" He asked in a subdued manner.

"Simple. I checked you out. You are a coward yet hardworking. But more importantly, you can smell opportunity and are smart enough to know that betraying me wouldn't be healthy for your lasting existence. No. You won't have the balls to run with my money. And even if you did run, finding you would be easy." His smug smirk was almost palpable even though Michael couldn't see his mouth.

Spooked out of his skin but surprisingly encouraged by having his question answered he went for the next one that was plaguing his head.

"Are you, perhaps, a Sith Lord?" He uttered without thinking, regretting it instantly when Hadrian's posture froze.

Hadrian almost fell from the chair he was sitting on!

"Y-ye-yes." Hadrian snickered ceaselessly, trying to muffle his laughter. "I a-am Sith Lo-Lord."

Hearing the positive reply, any thought of running away in Michael's head evaporated. He instead started to think about how to perform his task.

It took a few minutes for Hadrian to calm down, he looked weirdly at Michael, almost as if he looked at an idiot. Not that Michael recognized the look with the hood and whatnot.

"After investing the money in the companies on the paper, in a short few months to years, the profits should pool in your account. You will manage the account for me, raising even more money." Hadrian slowly explained. "I, of course, won't leave you without a reward. I will be generous and give you twenty percent of the profits."

Michael's eyes yet again widened when he heard the proposal. He knew exactly what was asked for him. He was to be a figurehead.

Twenty percent offered by a powerful Sith Lord for being the person in the light? Only an idiot would reject it! Who knows, the guy might be even able to predict the future!

Seeing his expression, Hadrian muffled another snicker but was satisfied. He stood up and started to walk away.

"Glad we have an accord, then." He said as he walked out, he then stopped for a moment and looked at Michael over his shoulder. "I can find you anywhere on this planet, Mr. Smith. Don't forget."

The plain threat sent Michael's head bobbing up and down at speed Michael could only wish Nikol reached.