Curtis Lawless was frustrated. Why couldn't those Gobshites get anything right? He'd been expecting a big shipment to arrive last week, but they'd been intercepted by the plods and his stocks were starting to run dry. He had a good chunk of the city to supply and there were plenty of other wholesalers who'd take advantage and move in on his turf, if he ran out.
Normally, he mused, if some unknown ponce had walked in off the street promising to supply, he'd have told him to fuck off, but right now? He was getting desperate.
He glared at the open door to his office in the nightclub he'd made his base of operations. Well, he'd give the wooler five minutes and if the man was fake he'd throw him out and let the lads deal with him.
Said man now entered, being led by his chief enforcer. The would-be supplier looked… different. His hair was platinum blond, messy, and came down in a sweeping fringe, covering half his forehead. His beard was short and trimmed and blond like his hair. But his eyes… Curtis stared. The eyes were gray and, when they met his, seemed to pierce straight into him to examine his soul.
"A-alright," he started, "What's your business then, Mister? I'm a busy man."
The man nodded. "Mister Lawless. I have a way to move goods across the border safely and quickly. I supply when no one else can. I can supply all your needs without inconvenient interruptions… like shipments being seized at petrol stations."
Curtis looked the man over again. Most drug smugglers looked ordinary so as to attract the least attention possible. This man did not look in any way ordinary, and he doubted the posh looking tosser had ever not been stopped at customs.
"Look Mister… ah, what's your name?"
"Malfoy."
"Look Mister Malfoy, I don't need to hear stories about what you think you can do. Do you have something for me right now?"
"I have five kilos stored in a safe place from my test run. Now I've sorted it, I'm doing a much larger run in the next few months. The price is ten thousand a kilo."
Curtis exhaled. Five kilos would keep him going for another two months, which would give him breathing room, at the very least, and ten grand a kilo was surprisingly fair. He doubted the man was a plod, he was too flamboyant for that. He was either the real deal or a conman.
"Fine," he said, reaching down into a desk draw, drawing out a chunky mobile phone and tossing it to the blond. "I'll call you sometime in the next few days to give you the where and when. I hope for your sake that you can deliver."
The man nodded respectfully and left the office, leaving Curtis and his chief enforcer alone.
...
Harry, deep in his makeshift, accidentally dragon-guarded vault, collapsed into a conjured armchair, and contemplated his progress. Mr. Lawless's men had been shocked when he'd just stepped out from behind one of the trees—he guessed they'd been expecting him to drive to the specified, middle-of-nowhere field—but it had all gone well, for once. He now had a small bag filled with fifty-thousand pounds in fifty-pound notes.
He looked at the phone, now resting on a table. He'd had to camp out in a muggle hotel for two days to wait for the call—the phone wouldn't receive reception under the fidelius, or other high magic areas—and it had taken a lot to convince the men they wouldn't be able to contact him in future. He'd placated them by explaining he was working on a communication method that was safer and more secure than the public phone network, but it hadn't been easy.
It was now mid October and he needed to get a move on to keep things on track. He was working to a schedule and the first deadline was getting closer… the winter solstice. On December 21, his family magics would kick in and create a seat for him on the Wizengamot. If he didn't have a proxy ready to accept it for him, then, if a full assembly were called, he'd be legally required to turn up in person, which he still wasn't ready for. Annoyingly, the winter solstice was one of those full assemblies.
He sat up straighter, grabbed his wand, and started transfiguring his appearance again. It was time to make his first foray into the British magical community. He needed a trunk—a nice, expensive, roomy, multi compartment, shrinkable trunk—and he sure as hell wasn't going to look like either a Potter or a Malfoy as he did it.
And after that… well, if he hurried, he could dash to Afghanistan—Turkey couldn't really supply in bulk with the new regulations—load up his new trunk with farm-gate priced junk, pop it in his pocket, and be back in Britain for early to mid November.
That should net between 400 thousand to 600 thousand pounds, or around eight thousand to twelve thousand galleons, which should be sufficient for what he was planning next. Lord Slytherin was an unknown quantity after all, and if he wanted any hope of securing the allies he'd need, he needed to make quite an impression.
.....
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