Hello, my dear. Are you all alone? Where are your parents?"
"Confundo."
"Where the hell did you come from?!"
"Obliviate."
"Sorry kid, that information is restricted."
"Legilimens."
, enjoying the shade cast by a huge umbrella, sipping from a glass of iced orange juice. The crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean lapped but a stone's throw from his new rented apartment, and both the sea, and the pool a few feet away, called to him.
Damn, life was so much easier with a wand!
Harry returned his focus to the pad of paper he'd been making notes on, and once more went over his plans, looking for any loopholes or unthought of problems.
It was now mid September and he'd been back in the past for six weeks. He'd spent the last month continuing his opportunistic little pilferer spiel and for the first few weeks it had been great. He now sat on the tidy sum of just over four thousand pounds, but the rates of return were now too low compared to the risk of getting caught breaking the international statute of secrecy and muggle baiting laws.
He needed something bigger.
The biggest problem was that he needed to use his magic to his advantage, but couldn't do anything that might draw attention to himself, or risk breaking the ISS.
His very brief foray into bank robbing ended in near disaster when he realised, just in time, that the bank—the bog standard normal high street muggle bank—had goblin wizard-detection, key-out, and anti-apparition wards. They even had an invisible-to-muggle, miniature thief's downfall. Gringotts, apparently, took their banking monopoly very seriously.
He'd considered stealing other high value items like artwork or jewellery, but decided wasn't worth it… They were too difficult to get rid of, especially when compared to certain other goods.
He took another sip of orange juice and leafed through the stack of academic journal articles he'd acquired from various British universities. They all had titles like 'the organisation of high-level drug markets' and 'Drug markets and law enforcement'.
Magic could be very flashy. McGonagall demonstrated it to new muggleborn parents by transfiguring various household items into other things… or possibly turning into a cat. Very impressive stuff. But economically valuable? Not so much. You could use it to commit fraud, and be a damn good con artist, but again, you ran the risk of breaking the ISS and getting the improper use of magic office on your tail.
But magic didn't need to be flashy to be damn valuable. The ability to move a small cargo, unseen and undetected, across a national border at low risk to the carrier… now that was damn valuable. And he was probably one of the few wizards that had both the power and skill to pass through the low powered wards governments erected around their borders.
If he were caught, wizarding border control would be looking for contraband magical artefacts. Muggle drugs weren't on the list, why would they be? Wizards routinely made potions that could do the same thing far better, with low risk of complications or addiction. Hell, they taught thirteen year-olds the cheering charm, which was an almost textbook example of an upper. It was amazing the entire wizarding world didn't run around with it cast on them all the time.
That didn't mean being caught had no cost. No, the consequence would be that he'd be back on the wizarding world's radar. Illegal apparition, underage magic, illegal possession of a wand… the list of charges would quickly pile up. True, he could get out of most of them by playing the emancipated lord card—except for illegal apparition—but, when he re-entered the magical world, he wanted it be on his terms.
He wasn't worried though. He'd already made the crossing three times now, and if this little project worked out, he'd only need to sneak over the border a few more times for quite a while.
Putting his drink down, Harry padded over to the pool's edge, and carefully slid his hot, sweaty body into the water's cool embrace.
This was nice. Very nice. Maybe making Cyprus his holiday base would be a really good idea…
But he also knew he had to get on with things. Time was marching on.
Harry stood, disillusioned on the Turkish mountainside overlooking the poppy fields. Most of the fields he'd passed in the last few weeks were bare, the winter harvest having already been brought in months ago, sold to the muggle government as part of a UN agreed effort to crack down on the drugs trade. Those harvests were being processed into medical grade morphine to help prop up the world's very real shortage.
But not these fields, oh no. These fields—in a remote mountain province, hidden away from prying eyes—were halfway through an additional, illegal, summer harvest.
Harry uncorked the vial of a carefully measured out ageing potion, which he'd bought in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and swigged it in one gulp. Ugh. he shook his head. Foul tasting as always. A second later he felt himself getting taller, and anyone who could see him would tell him he now looked to be in his mid-twenties. He'd stay looking that way for a good six hours, or until he drank an antidote.
Cancelling his disillusionment, Harry walked down the mountain path towards the lone building near the fields. He stepped inside. Concrete floors, concrete walls, and a sheet metal roof. Around the wall edges, Various machines lay in questionable states of repair, Metal barrels were stacked in a corner, and in the middle, crouched three men, hunkered down over a metal barrel on an open fire, sieving what looked like chalky sludge over the top.
"Hello," he called out, in the little Turkish he'd picked up over the last few weeks. Voldemort had learnt many languages in his quest for obscure magical knowledge, but Turkish wasn't one of them.
"Hello friend," answered one of the men, presumably the boss — he had that older, done-everything look. He sounded uncertain. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking to buy"
"Buy?"
"Yes"
"The goods?"
"Yes"
"Oh, I cannot. I must sell to my buyer."
"Would you be willing for a higher price?"
"No," he shook his head and held his hands out, palms open in front of him. "I'm sorry, my friend."
"Like, double your usual price."
.
.
.
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