4 Wretched hive of...
4.1 Ways and means
4.1.1 Quiet conversations
While Harry had very much enjoyed it while it lasted, Christmas had now come and gone. Hermione and her parents had left earlier in the day, off for their annual whirlwind tour of the extended family, and their departure had left Harry and Suze to their own devices. Currently, those devices had the centaur maiden once more catching up on her spinning as her dragon lounged indolently next to a large pile of very serious-looking books in the middle of the Lair.
"You know, Suze," Harry mused, his voice breaking the stillness of the Lair. "It sure seems quiet since Hermione and her parents left."
"I suppose it does," she agreed absently, her busy hands never pausing in their work with the nettle fiber.
The stillness returned, broken only by the gentle whirr of the centaur's spinning..
"I'm bored," the young dragon declared after a few minutes.
"I see," Suze acknowledged with the calm air of someone rehashing an oft-repeated conversation. "And what do you intend to do about that?"
"I dunno," Harry answered. "Do you have any suggestions, Suze?"
"You seemed to be quite involved in your reading earlier," the centauress nodded to the large stack of books next to him. "Why not go back to that?"
Harry sighed, the resultant breeze ruffling Suze's hair. "I just wasn't getting anywhere with it! Every book I found touches on casting and injection molding; it'll describe the general process; it'll say people use it all the time; and then it just cuts off and goes to something else without giving any real detail!" He huffed, "It's like they don't want to actually say anything useful!"
His centaur damsel frowned, finally pausing in her spinning to give his words some thought. "Perhaps it is the sort of skill best learned by doing?"
Harry cocked his great head curiously, "What do you mean?"
"Well," Suze paused for a moment to compose her thoughts, "when Uncle Ronan was first teaching me to carve a bow, he simply gave me a piece of wood and a knife and told me to make an attempt before giving me much of any instruction at all. Then he pointed out the problems with it and had me carve another. When I asked him about it, uncle said everyone carved differently, and there was no point in trying to teach me how he did it when I would just have to work it out on my own anyway. Perhaps foundry work is the same?"
"I don't think that sounds quite right," the dragon said with a thoughtful frown. "I mean, I can kinda get carving wood into bows, 'cause you're carving by hand, and wood's really got a lot of variety to it. The whole point of casting is to be repeatable, though, so that doesn't really fit."
The pair fell silent for a for moments before Suze put forth another idea, "Mayhap the authors truly did not want to say anything useful?"
"Why would they write a book, then?"
"Well, if it does take some specialized knowledge to accomplish," the centaur maiden proposed, "perhaps they wish to keep it to themselves so that their customers do not take up the practice and cut them out of the loop. I believe Vice Director Slackhammer referred to the idea as a trade secret."
"Oh," Harry said in a small voice.
That sounded all too plausible.
Hopefully the goblins would be more forthcoming.
For now, though, the young dragon needed something to occupy his time, and to that end he ambled off into his library... maybe that one on electrodynamics? It'd been a while since he'd worked on that project.
4.1.2 Investigations
In a cluttered room, the man currently known as Frank Nadgett sat at a cheap folding table and stared at a notebook thick with writing inked in his own cramped hand. Hundreds of boxes, crates, shelves, and other assorted storage containers, filled the room, from the edge of the table to the walls with barely enough room to get in or out. Every single one was full of parchment, so much so that even the heavy scent of tobacco smoke from Frank's ever-present cigarette could not fully overpower the musty smell of old parchment permeating the entire building.
The room was one of many belonging to a rather eccentric old wizard of Frank's acquaintance, a contact whose existence had played a significant role in Frank's success in his career. That first chance meeting really had been a godsend for the budding private eye.
The elderly man obsessed over truth with an intensity few could hope to match, and the omnipresent lies of the wizarding world deeply offended his sensibilities. In response, he had devoted his life to collecting and preserving copies of every scrap of written material he could get his wrinkly hands on in the faint hope that someone, somewhere would eventually be able to analyze and cross-reference the morass of lies in such a way as to suss out the truth they hid and piece together an accurate accounting of history.
Frank had no idea what had sparked the man's obsession — whether a simple whim or some tragedy of his youth — nor did he hold out much hope that such a monumentally ambitious quest would end in success, but he wished him all the luck in the world, nonetheless. Whatever the motivations, the collection was a priceless research tool for Frank's investigations, and it was available for the low, low price of helping to put the disorganized mess in order as he searched through it. It might be a bit of a slog… okay, scratch that, it was a massive pain in the arse, but Frank counted himself lucky to have struck the deal.
In a world of libraries that were repeatedly and routinely sanitized by the highest bidder and rags like the Prophet that tweaked their own back issues to suit the propagandists' flavor of the week, this sort of unabridged private archive was really the only way to get any reliable research done. At least it let you work with the first set of unpolished lies, which made it much easier to pick out the inconsistencies. All in all, it was an invaluable tool for a private eye.
And, judging by the pattern Frank was beginning to piece together, it might have just paid off once more.
Gilderoy Lockhart's fame made him common fodder for what passed for journalists all across wizarding Europe, and there was a plethora of interviews available... both with the man himself and with other witnesses and bystanders. It was in those interviews that Frank struck paydirt. The pattern was subtle, extremely so, tiny inconsistencies and contradictions between different accounts that would be easy to dismiss as simply poor memory or innocent hyperbole, if not for one niggling detail.
They were internally consistent.
For each of Gilderoy's exploits, the associated interviews varied, as witness accounts often do. They conflicted with Lockhart's official line as published in his books in varying details, one might be off in the sequence of events, another might have had him wearing a different outfit, and so on — nothing too odd there — but none of those inconsistencies conflicted. If two witnesses reported him wearing a different outfit than the one in the official account, it was always the same outfit. If two witnesses gave alternate timelines that conflicted with the official account, they were always consistent with each other.
The errors in the accounts were not random.
Frank had to admit, it wasn't much to show for the his time, and there were plenty of potential innocent explanations, but it was enough to warrant a bit of travel. Best to talk with those witnesses in person and see what he could find out, and, more importantly, what spell traces he could pick up.
He might not think much of the job or the client, but he was an honest professional, damn it! He would bloody well put in his due diligence before reporting his conclusions. The hard-bitten man sighed and ground out his cigarette before standing up.
It seemed he had some travel preparations to make.
"You find what you were looking for?" came a crotchety old voice from the doorway.
The owner of the room had come by to check up on him.
"I just might have," Frank acknowledged, nodding to the old man. "I've got to go check, and that means some international travel on the continent, but it's the best lead I've got."
"Going traveling, huh?" He was met with a shrewd stare from eyes clouded with age. "You'll be off for another round of insurance, then?"
Frank nodded reluctantly, regretting all over again the one time he had gotten drunk enough to share some of his closely-guarded personal life with his elderly… well, the old man was probably the closest thing Frank had to a friend after his old life had torn itself apart.
"Yeah," he sighed gustily. "I can't afford to lose track of her... not again."
The old man's face screwed up in thought as he obviously restrained himself from saying something before letting out a gruff sigh instead. "Well, be off with you then, lad."
"Later, old man," Frank said his farewell. "I'll see you when I see you."
With that, the private eye made his way to the fireplace and vanished in a flash of green fire.
The old man remained staring at the fire for a few moments after it returned to normal before turning away.
"Good luck to you, lad," he muttered under his breath as he shuffled back to his precious boxes. "God knows you need it."
4.1.3 Distasteful means
Appearing in a flash of green fire before the public floo in the dive bar below his office, Frank regained his bearings with the ease of long practice and immediately made his way out into the near-perpetual gloom of Knockturn Alley. He had important business to attend to before he could continue with the Lockhart case.
Spending time away from his main base of operations had always been a risky endeavor for Frank. He didn't have a staff, never could afford one, and his work often required frequent, personal attention ranging from tracking down a timely lead or tending to surveillance wards.
As he walked down the hazy alley, he casually slipped a potion phial out of an inner pocket and knocked it back.
Despite the massive price tag on the Lockhart project, it wasn't his only ongoing case, far from it.
In the final analysis, it wasn't even his most important one.
That dubious honor belonged to a stalled case he'd been working on for what seemed like an eternity now, a tracking and rescue job... not his usual fare to be sure, particularly the latter half, but it'd been a special case. He'd managed the tracking bit, but the rescue had proven to be beyond his capabilities at the time.
His target… well, the poor bird had been forced into prostitution by the time he'd tracked her down, and there was too much magic involved for him to extract her successfully. Between contract bindings, layered compulsions, routine obliviations, outright mental programming… it was a bloody mess! The physical security was a tough nut to crack, too. True, it was hardly insurmountable, but that hardly mattered. Pulling her out physically without dealing with the magical component would have seen them both dead anyway through any one of a dozen different magical means.
Nonetheless, Frank had refused to give up, determined to see this particular job through to the end and free that much-abused girl from her own personal hell. His eyes hardened as a multi-story building, looking more like a run-down apartment building than a place of business, emerged out of the gloom ahead It's brightly-painted red door stood out from the rest of the dingy gray alley and served as advertisement enough for the wares sold within.
Without a means of extraction, Frank had been reduced to keeping tabs on his target until he could put together a plan to get her out. However, keeping track of her had proven to be a challenge in and of itself. The magics layered onto the luckless girl included several which strongly repelled any attempt to mark the merchandise, as it were. They were not specifically intended to prevent tracking charms — rather, they were placed as insurance against rowdy johns accidentally damaging the goods — but they worked admirably for that purpose, too.
Despite the difficulty, he'd managed for some time using the straightforward, if laborious, means of keeping a constant watch on the surrounding area, an area which he could bespell as he pleased. Keeping so many detection charms going simultaneously for so long had been a nerve-wracking, if surprisingly educational experience, but he'd managed well enough... until one day when he'd left the immediate area on another job.
During the time he had been away, her captors had moved his target without warning... sold her to a new establishment, as it had turned out. Despite the distance, his monitoring charms had alerted him, but his target had been long-gone by the time he'd been able to follow up on the alert. It had taken months of frantic effort and a series of lucky breaks that bordered on divine intervention for the private investigator to track her down again.
Afterwards, Frank had been unwilling to trust that he'd be so lucky a second time, and he had taken steps to ensure he wouldn't lose her again. He had needed a marker, something to track her no matter where she went, and it needed to be something that would stick to her despite the spells preventing such things. It had taken time, effort, and all the ingenuity he could muster, but eventually, he'd managed to develop a means...
...a very distasteful means.
Frank shook his head in a futile attempt to shake off the feeling of self-loathing as he approached the brightly enameled door of the brothel currently serving as his target's latest prison. In the final analysis, though, as distasteful as he found his solution to be, but it was nonetheless the least unpleasant of a slew of horrible alternatives.
The potion he'd downed earlier had been the first component. Originally a commercially available product which caused certain bodily fluids to develop the taste and consistency — though thankfully not the appearance — of chocolate syrup, Frank had called in a favor from a potioneer of his acquaintance to have it modified. The end result caused those same fluids to harden over time, setting into a tough, sticky mass — the sort of thing you'd have to really scrub at for a while to remove from whatever it stuck to. Combined with a tracking charm cast on himself just before delivery, it made for a durable, nearly undetectable tag that would last for weeks before the tag broke down and the magic faded.
As for the delivery mechanism… well, that was straightforward enough; his target had been forced into prostitution, after all.
God, he hated himself, sometimes.
Frank paused a few yards away from the door, once again fishing a fine golden chain out of his collar and this time opening the delicate golden locket hanging there to reveal a wizarding photograph depicting a happy couple, his younger self happily embracing a radiantly smiling blonde woman. The hard-bitten man seemed to draw strength from the picture, his face hardening with iron resolve, then he snapped the locket shut and tucked the chain back into his shirt.
Frank could only hope that after he managed to get her back, she would forgive him.
Pasting a more neutral expression on his face — a smile was beyond his means at the moment — his wand flickered, casting the long-term tracker with a well-practiced movement, before vanishing back into his hidden wrist holster as he stepped up the last few feet to the door. The establishment's alert-ward ensured it was opened before he had the chance to knock.
"Ah, welcome once again, customer," the brothel madame, a worn-looking older woman with a deeply cynical air about her, greeted him familiarly as he entered, her businesslike manner not quite managing to mask an undercurrent of contempt from his practiced ear. "I assume you will be wanting your usual?"
Frank nodded tightly, unwilling to speak.
"Are you certain you do not wish to sample any of our other merchandise?" the madame asked as she turned to lead him deeper into the establishment. "We have some fresh stock, very beautiful, well-trained, young, and quite eager to please."
He shook his head in a firm negative, scoffing internally at the idea of any woman here being eager to please. This was a fantasy brothel, after all; the women enslaved here were programmed to act out whatever scenario they were told to act out. The magic in place effectively turned them into puppets made out of living meat — they would act as eager or recalcitrant as they were instructed to act, but there was no eagerness or enthusiasm in them even if they could emulate it well.
Their minds were too thoroughly suppressed to feel such things.
"Ah, perhaps another time, then," the old woman said, sounding unsurprised. The usual fee exchanged hands, and she stepped over to the desk and tapped something Frank couldn't see.
"Lizzie will be along in a moment, customer," the madame told him.
Within half a minute, his target arrived.
The woman was well-groomed and made-up, looking healthy, standing straight, and to all appearances eager to show him a good time, an illusion which held firm until you met her eyes. She was beautiful, to be sure — magic ensured that — but it was the beauty of a still painting, not that of a living, breathing woman. Face painted with an artificial smile, she looked at Frank without emotion, her eyes glassy and dead. There was nary a hint of recognition nor even the slightest familiarity.
"Lizzie, show your customer to room fourteen, and make yourself available for his needs," the madame told Frank's target, who nodded mechanically in acknowledgement of the order. "He has paid for three hours."
Frank followed his target deeper into the building, keeping his eyes on her swaying blonde hair, until they reached the room and entered it, and his target turned to face him.
"I am at your disposal, sir," she said in a neutral voice. "What is your wish?"
As he gazed deep into the glassy eyes of the blonde woman before him, a poor, unfortunate victim who had been horribly ill-treated over the course of years, Frank tried to convince himself that he was just doing what he had to do. It was the only way forward, a necessary part of the business of rescuing the girl. Without that tag he might lose her completely, and then even if he did find the means to free her, she'd still be stuck in this living hell until it managed to snuff the guttering light of her soul completely.
He knew it wasn't real; she was programmed to carry out his requests. Anything that passed between him and his target, here and now, was fake, baseless… not to mention, utterly wrong and reprehensible.
"I'd like…" Frank's voice broke, and he swallowed before trying again in a gruff tone. "I'd like a newlywed scenario. We've just been married and are now on our honeymoon."
So, why couldn't he help himself?
With the command given, the ill-fated woman's mental programming took over. Simulated emotion filled the previously lifeless doll with life. Dead eyes turned animated, and that unnatural, wooden smile melted off his target's face…
…only to be replaced by the very same radiantly smiling face in the locket at his neck.
As she leapt to embrace him, he could only hope that, once he had finally managed to rescue her from this hellhole, Betty would forgive him.
Helpless to resist that radiant smile, an equally brilliant one of his own welled up in response alongside bitter tears of self-loathing, and Frank stepped forward into the welcoming arms of his beloved fiancée.
Heaven knew, he'd never be able to forgive himself.
4.1.4 Etiquette and protocol
"Hi, Mr. Slackhammer!" the Great Wyrm of Hogwarts greeted his friend and business associate as he arrived at the dapper goblin's office door.
"Ah, Mr. Potter! It is good to see you this fine morning," Slackhammer greeted his visitor. "Come in, do!"
As the young dragon in human form made his way past the increasingly well-stocked gun rack and ammunition locker over to his usual chair, the goblin continued with the usual ritual of hospitality. "Would you care for something to drink?" Which his guest answered as he was wont to do.
"Now on to the meat of today's business," Slackhammer began as his aide left to retrieve his guest's requested goblin tea. "Your letter requested advice on obtaining a syllabus for the Defense Against the Dark Arts NEWT so as to better prepare your friend Abigail for her attempt later this spring. Is that correct?"
"That's right," Harry nodded.
The dapper goblin continued, "Further, you proposed the means of meeting with the current head of the Wizarding Examination Authority to make the request personally, reasoning that they might be more willing to help if you met with them personally rather than using an intermediary."
The young dragon nodded again, "Yeah, that's what I was thinking; I just didn't know who I needed to talk to so I figured I should ask."
"Quite right," Slackhammer nodded, "and I agree that you have hit upon an excellent way forward. You're proposed method should work quite admirably, and I will be happy to assist in the planning."
The goblin paused for a moment before continuing, "For the sake of full disclosure, however, I do feel obligated to point out that this course of action, while admirable, is technically unnecessary. Such syllabi are available from the Examination Authority upon written request."
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, before continuing rather sheepishly. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry for wasting your time, then, Mr. Slackhammer. Um, who do I need to contact to request one?"
The goblin waved off his young partner's apology. "Think nothing of it, Mr. Potter; I would not have expected you to know. As with most genuinely useful things available from the wizards' Ministry, that fact is not widely publicized — it might, in fact, be more accurate to say it is quite well-hidden. Before you rush off to send that request, however, I ask that you hear me out. I was not simply humoring you when I judged your initial idea a good one, and I suggest that you consider going through with it regardless of its lack of necessity."
"Oh?" the young dragon locked his currently human-shaped head curiously. "Why?"
"It occurs to me, Mr. Potter," the goblin executive explained, "that our future plans will, most assuredly, involve some not-inconsiderable amount of political and social maneuvering. I am, of course, pleased to offer my expertise to the cause; however, there will come a time when my expertise will not suffice."
The goblin gentleman sighed, "If nothing else, there are sure to be some among those we treat with who will be unwilling to deal with me on account of my race. In those future situations, either you or Master Snape will be required to step into the breach, and given our mutual business partner's… antisocial tendencies, I believe it would be best for us all if you are well-prepared to step in. I foresee only benefit from taking the opportunity this affords us to allow you to learn how such things are done."
"That makes sense," Harry acknowledged thoughtfully. "Shouldn't I practice with someone first, though? In case I screw up, I mean."
"I do not believe that to be necessary in this particular case," Slackhammer averred.
Harry narrowed his eyes curiously.
"The current head of the Examination Authority, one Griselda Marchbanks, is an old hand at wizarding politics and high society. She has held the position for an exceedingly long time and is widely known to have a soft spot for the young and curious," the dapper goblin elaborated. "She would almost have to have one in order to spend the better part of two and a half centuries overseeing the education of wizarding children. As such, I believe she is more likely to meet any errors on your part with understanding and gentle instruction rather than offense — so long as you maintain your usual earnest disposition, of course. The combination of an innocuous request and a friendly audience seems to me to be an ideal opportunity for low-risk practice."
The young dragon, who had been nodding along with the dapper goblin's reasoning, frowned uncertainly for a moment before coming to a decision. "That makes sense. So, how do we go about setting this up?" Then his tone turned less decisive, "Um, and can you give me some advice on what to do?"
Slackhammer chuckled. "I have already taken the liberty of having Mr. Steelhammer write out an example script for you with the appropriate elements to remember clearly marked; though I do ask that you remember to use your own judgment in the real event. You are supposed to be taking your first steps along the road to becoming a statesman, after all, not an actor. You cannot rely on a script. As for instruction, well that is why I requested that you come here to meet with me personally, rather than explaining via the post."
"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Slackhammer," the young dragon said with a relieved sigh.
"You are most welcome, Mr. Potter," the dapper goblin acknowledged gracefully. "Was there anything else you wished to discuss before we begin your instruction?"
"Um…" the young Potter's face screwed up in concentration for a moment as he considered the question. "Oh, yeah! There's a couple things. One was that I wanted to thank you for doing such a good job on hiring for Hog's Haulage. I think they're all going to work out right nice! I hear from Mr. Wardale that they're expecting to be able to bang out a prototype for a new locomotive in the next couple of months. He was saying most of the magical stuff seems to be on the steam and mechanical side of things, while Mr. Porta's stuff was mostly about the firebox and efficient combustion, so they don't really interfere with each other very much. It sounds like it's gonna be pretty awesome!"
"You are once again most welcome, Mr. Potter," Slackhammer repeated. "And the other thing?"
"It's kinda related, actually," the young dragon began. "I was talking with a couple of my new engineers, and I had an idea, but the details were outside their field of expertise. I was wondering if I could meet with somebody from the engineering corps to talk it over with them and see if it was worth pursuing, preferably someone who works in the foundry."
"I believe that could be arranged without much difficulty, Mr. Potter," the Vice-Chairman allowed. "We are always eager to explore new opportunities. Mr. Steelhammer!" Slackhammer's aide stepped into the office promptly. "Please contact the foundry to see which of their engineers might be available for a consultation with Mr. Potter in a few hours." The smartly dressed goblin saluted and left immediately to carry out the task.
The dapper goblin turned back to his guest. "Very well, Mr. Potter, if there is nothing else, we should get on with the instruction. Now, in terms of preparation, I would wish to point out that appearances and formalities often account for a great deal more among wizards than they rightly should — certainly more than they do among more sensible persons like ourselves — and, as you will be dealing with someone long steeped in wizarding traditions, you will be well-served to dress appropriately for the occasion and pay attention to the proper forms. In fact, that is a good rule of thumb to follow in general; be sure to keep it in mind."
Pausing to take in his young business partner's attentive demeanor, the goblin continued, "For this meeting, I would suggest something similar to my current garb," he gestured to his neatly-pressed collared shirt, waistcoat, and, after standing to ensure they were visible, his woolen trousers. "For a wizard, I would suggest eschewing the tail-coat and stovepipe hat."
"Really?" Harry gasped, crestfallen. "But those are the best parts!"
Slackhammer smiled, "I tend to agree, Mr. Potter, but I am afraid the wizarding world is rather woefully behind the times. Instead I would suggest a single-breasted coat in either three-quarter length or full. If you acquire one without the usual wizarding frills and frippery it will serve equally well for most non-magical meetings. Be sure to match the material of your trousers, and the effect will be close enough to pass for a very conservative wizarding robe. The waistcoat can be somewhat more personalized. Oh, yes, and be sure to stick to dark, neutral colors if you wish to be able to reuse the same clothing in a non-magical setting."
"Okay," the young dragon nodded, his expression making it obvious he was carefully committing the advice to memory. "What else?"
"Aside from remembering to be polite, the major item to remember in this sort of situation is the regard gift," the dapper goblin said. "It is considered polite to bring something for your host when visiting to commemorate your meeting. The custom is an old one, dating back at least as far as the hospitality rules in ancient Greece."
"A gift, huh?" Harry said speculatively. "Hey, I've got more…"
"I do not believe another slab of basilisk meat would make for an appropriate regard gift, Mr. Potter," Slackhammer interrupted. "While I very much appreciate your recent gift, and I am certain Sergeant Major Hooktalon does as well, a food item, even an exotic one, is not the sort of gift you should be looking for, not at this stratum of society in any case. For an upper-class visit, the regard gift should be something unusual or unique rather than useful, and it should not be consumable."
"Well, what would you suggest, then?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"Hmm, perhaps a further explanation is in order," the goblin mused. "The custom among the ancients was for the traveler to provide a carving or sculpture which would then be broken upon leaving, one piece left with the host and one taken with the traveler. Thus, when the two met again, the pieces could be fitted back together to provide proof of the earlier visit. As travels could often take years in the ancient world, it served as a useful memory aid. The details have changed over the millennia, yet the intent remains. The gift should be sufficiently unique to bring the visit back to the forefront of the memory... a keepsake, as it were."
The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as the considered that. "I guess I could give her some of my gold coins. They're doubloons, so you don't see many of those nowadays."
"I would also advise avoiding anything of obvious monetary value Mr. Potter," Slackhammer interjected. "In this case particularly, when you are visiting to make a request, such might be interpreted as an attempt at bribery."
"Well, what should I give her, then?" Harry asked exasperatedly.
"I would suggest bending your not-inconsiderable intellect to the problem," the Vice Director suggested. "It will be a good exercise."
The young Potter nodded reluctantly. "What else do I need to know then?"
"Perhaps we should begin with the usual greetings," Slackhammer began, leaning forward with steepled fingers. "The relative social status between yourself and Madame Marchbanks indicates…"
The young dragon's prodigious memory would be put to the test over the next several hours.
Manners were hard.
4.1.5 Hindsight is…
As it turned out, the same foundry-goblin who had helped tend to Harry during his indisposition back in spring happened to be among those available by the time the young dragon finished his long meeting with Vice Director Slackhammer. So, after several hours discussing the finer points of upper-class wizarding etiquette, Harry found himself meeting with Foundry-Specialist Flame-Eye once again, this time under much better circumstances.
"Glad to see you up and about, Mr. Potter," the foundry-goblin greeted his visitor in a hastily arranged conference room deep in the bowels of Gringotts. "What brings you to see us today?"
"Hi there!" the currently human-shaped dragon greeted his goblin acquaintance brightly. "Um, well, I was talking to Mr. Wardale — he's one of my steam engineers — a few days ago about making parts for the new locomotive they're working on, right? Anyway, he got to telling me how early steam engines were really loose-fitting and wasted lots of steam at leaking seals and such, but he and Mr. Porta started precisely machining their parts so they fit together well, and that helped make everything more efficient."
At Flame-Eye's understanding nod, Harry continued, "So, that made lots of sense to me, and I asked why they didn't just do that from the start, and he said it was 'cause machining like that is expensive and hard-to-do, so they didn't think it was worth it, but then I thought about stuff like them plastic forks we were using at the picnic. Those are really precise, right, easily good enough for pistons and stuff, and they're dirt cheap, even though the plastic resin they're made of is more expensive to get than steel." Flame-Eye nodded intently as his visitor paused to take a breath. "So, I was wondering why we didn't just make the parts like the forks are made so everything got cheaper?"
"I see," the foundry-goblin said. "Well, you see, Mr. Potter, the molds used for those forks are made out of steel, and being made out of the same material, they cannot remain solid at the temperatures required to cast steel."
"Right, that's about what Mr. Wardale said," Harry nodded. "But I was thinking, what if we used something else other than steel for the molds?"
"We do cast steel routinely using that approach," the goblin offered. "However, the selection of materials that can withstand the required temperatures is severely limited. We normally use a few different mixtures of sand which can take the heat long enough to be useful, but no sand-casting method will give a surface finish good enough for a precision piston fit right out of the mold — not reliably, anyway."
"That's what Mr. Wardale was telling me," the dragon nodded, "but I was thinking, we've got that stuff from my guts Mr. Snape figured out how to make. Wouldn't that work for making proper molds?"
The foundry specialist's beady black eyes opened wide in startlement. "That might just work. It can certainly take the heat, and from what I've seen with our crucibles and tuyeres, molten steel just beads up and rolls off it," he said thoughtfully. "I… how did we not think of that? We cast steel all the time, and it's so obvious in hindsight." He fell silent for a moment as he considered the question. "I suppose we've just been automatically dismissing the idea as soon as it came up for so long that it never occurred to us the situation had changed."
"So, you think it's a good idea?" Harry confirmed.
"A very good one," Flame-Eye confirmed, "and potentially a very profitable one as well. Foundry work like that, particularly the precise stuff like injection molding, is finicky work, though. With thermal expansion, degassing, crystal growth, and all the other things to consider, it takes a lot of trial and error to work out the details."
The foundry-gob sighed and ran a taloned hand over his scalp as he considered the situation. "We'll need to shuffle some work around to free up the machining resources to start experimenting; injection molds are notoriously difficult to machine properly, and Logistics has been overbooked for a couple years now trying to keep up with our arms upgrades."
"Um, I've got something that might help," Harry offered. "Maybe we can use it, instead?"
"Oh?" the goblin asked, curious. "What do you have?"
And so, the young dragon told his collaborator about just what sort of machining capability he had acquired.
4.1.6 Reflections
As the portkey completed its transit and Harry smoothly landed on the lip of the Lair, he reached up with a still-human finger to dig at his ear even as he walked toward the Lair-proper. With any luck, the ringing might stop soon.
Flame-Eye had been quite impressed with the machining capability Harry had managed to acquire for himself; in fact, one might even say the foundry-gob was a mite jealous. He had immediately suggested a number of additional acquisitions for the dragon's budding machine shop as well, ranging in complexity from a high-quality surface plate and set of Jo blocks all the way up to a selection of manual machines, including both a mill and a lathe.
Harry had already made all the relevant purchases through Gringotts' own purchasing agent by the time he finished his talk with Flame-Eye. The new acquisitions totaled less than he'd spent on tooling alone for the behemoth already installed in the Lair, so the young dragon hadn't been terribly fussed about the cost.
According to the foundry-gob, manual machines were often — counterintuitive as it might seem — more convenient for certain tasks that their computerized counterparts. The reasoning had been easy enough to understand when Flame-Eye had explained; if you needed to mill something square or turn a simple cylinder, well, it was much easier to do it in a manual lathe or mill than it was to model it in software, set up the automated machine, and then proceed do all the work to position and prepare the work piece that you would have had to do for the manual machine anyway. It was best to use the right tool for the right job.
Speaking of which…
When the conversation had turned to Harry's reasons for purchasing his impressive CNC machine in the first place, his answer had offended Flame-Eye's tender sensibilities...
"Engraving! You don't use a beautiful machine like that to do a bloody, fucking engraving, boy! That's like using gold leaf to wipe your ass!"
...which had prompted a rather impressive dressing down from the irate goblin for relegating a "heartstoppingly beautiful piece of precision engineering" to the role of "the most horribly over-specced pen-plotter of all time".
After a Snape-worthy tirade on the critical importance of proper respect for equipment and proper allocation of resources which had left the dragon's ears ringing, the foundry-gob had concluded with a promise to send another goblin of his acquaintance to drum a "proper understanding of and appreciation for machining and fabrication" into Harry so that his "beautiful piece of poetry-in-motion of a machine" could be put to proper use. Harry had gathered he was supposed to expect a visiting tutor in about a week and that Flame-Eye would be bring a few of his compatriots to help with prototype design, but he hadn't really caught much detail before he left in a bit of a hurry.
Sergeant-Major Hooktalon now had some company on the young dragon's mental list of people not to annoy.
