Chapter 3: Negotiations
Mr. Greengrass approached the large round table where I sat with my mothers, accompanied by his wife and daughters.
"You are late..."
Bella let a hint of displeasure show. Only our petitioner seemed entirely unembarrassed. He simply pulled out a chair, helped his wife sit, then his two daughters as well, one of whom was roughly a year younger than me, as far as I knew. Only then did he sit down himself.
"Well then, shall we proceed to negotiations?"
"Didn't you hear me?"
Bella raised an eyebrow.
"Come now, Bella. As far as I am aware, the conclusion of a marriage agreement with our House matters a great deal more to you than it does to us."
Hmm... His wife and daughters were well-trained. Neither by gesture nor by expression did they indicate that what he had just said was complete nonsense.
"Is that so?"
Cissy smiled at our interlocutor, a very eloquent smile indeed. She made it quite clear that she knew exactly what he needed. The fact that she was bound by oath as a St. Mungo's Healer was another matter entirely, but even so, the mere fact of knowing, in negotiations of this kind, was worth a very great deal.
"Undoubtedly. As far as I am aware, for Draco..."
Greengrass nodded in my direction. Had it not been for the lessons from my mothers and grandmother, I might not have noticed the faint flicker of unease that crossed his face. His wife grew slightly tense as well, though the daughters understood none of it and simply sat there like porcelain dolls.
"...a suitable match from an ancient magical house would be one of my daughters, or else the Parkinson girl. The latter, however, from what I have been able to learn, is rather lacking in looks. As for the others, you would not associate with those too deeply entangled in the Dark Lord's history, from which you have only just managed to extricate yourselves, nor with those too closely aligned with Dumbledore, whose side you would certainly not take."
"You would be correct, Mr. Greengrass..."
I decided to enter the conversation at the moment we had agreed upon in advance. Cissy herself had given me the signal that I might speak.
...were it the case that Mum Cissy still belonged to the House of Malfoy, or that I did. That House did indeed have a rather troubled history with Continental families, but we are Blacks. That particular difficulty does not apply to us.
I shook my head.
"No... certain families would certainly decline to discuss a marriage contract with us, but for many it would be more than sufficient to know that the Malfoy line has ended. So my choice of a future companion is considerably broader than you suggest."
I smiled slightly, one corner of my mouth turning up.
"Moreover, I am seriously considering a marriage contract with the Delacour family."
"But they are... Veela..."
Old Greengrass stared at me in astonishment.
"...your line would end..."
"Why on earth would it?"
I raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise.
"The Blacks are familiar with methods of producing heirs even from a full-blooded Veela, let alone from a quarter-Veela..."
I shrugged.
"A quarter-Veela?"
Greengrass gave a faintly contemptuous smile. "And you actually believe that nonsense? I had thought the Heir of the Ma... of the Blacks would be better educated."
"Well, since you have raised the subject of my education yourself..."
I did not continue with the topic of Veela, whose magic was indeed passed on in full only from mother to daughter. However, I also knew perfectly well that blood was no less important than magic. Blood diluted to that degree enabled the use of certain rituals and potions to ensure the birth of an heir. Something similar could have been done for the current Lord Delacour's wife as well, though he evidently lacked the necessary knowledge.
"...perhaps I ought to mention that I have made considerable progress in applying my gift, of which you are already aware. We never particularly concealed the fact that I had developed the gift of breaking and dissolving curses. However, I am not only able to break and dissolve them. I can sense them."
I smiled, watching the color drain from Mr. Greengrass's face.
"And you are all cursed. I have not yet examined this curse closely, but I can already tell that it is extremely complex. Lifting it will require approximately a year of work on my part. Studying the curse, calculating the approach... and that is only for your younger daughter. For the elder, breaking it will take closer to two years, and as for you and your wife..."
I shook my head.
"At my current level, those cases would take ten to twenty years each."
"So you can lift the curse on my younger daughter? Excellent. We will give you the elder as a bride if you undertake to break the curse on the younger."
"A fine attempt..."
Bella entered the conversation.
"...free treatment for both daughters. Truly spectacular audacity. One rarely encounters it these days."
"I... that is not quite..."
"Oh, come now..."
Bella waved a hand at him, as if to say there was no point in denying it.
...you know, if it were not for your audacity, we might actually have agreed to the terms you intended to put forward. We would simply have asked for a somewhat larger dowry than is customary. However, you chose to push all the way to the end... very well then...
She reached into the inner pocket of the jacket she wore over her robes, pulled out a small scroll case, set it on the table, and rolled it toward Greengrass with two fingers.
"...this is our first and final offer."
After a brief inspection for unpleasant enchantments, Greengrass finally took the case, opened it carefully, withdrew the parchment inside, and read through its contents.
"This is..."
His hands trembled slightly, and anger flared in his eyes.
"Don't be hasty..."
Bella shook her head, the smile playing on her lips, one she made no effort to conceal.
"...think carefully about what you wish to say right now. As I said, this is our first and final offer. If you refuse, or if you say something unpleasant, the offer will be withdrawn."
The Greengrass patriarch's nostrils flared, and I could plainly see him fighting to contain his rage. Meanwhile, the parchment passed from his hands to his wife's; she read it quickly, trembled slightly, and tears ran down her cheeks.
"What does it say?"
The elder daughter could not hold back. I looked at her and shrugged.
"You see, your father believed he could deceive us. Or, more precisely, he wished to arrange things so that we would lift the curses from both of you free of charge, and quite possibly from your parents as well, as future in-laws. But it was all meant to look perfectly respectable: in exchange, he would give you to our House as my wife."
I shook my head.
"Or rather, judging by how the conversation began, your father was counting on concealing the matter of the curse from us entirely, and presenting our betrothal as something I needed far more than you did. But we are Blacks. We never act blindly in matters of this kind. We purchased information from people capable of learning anything about anyone. It cost a certain amount, naturally..."
The smile on my lips grew slightly.
"...and as a result of your father's attempted deception, we have drafted our own contract. It is one in which we offer him the option of transferring one of his daughters under terms so strict that they amount to something very close to indentured servitude. Two hundred years ago, a contract of this kind would not have been called servitude at all; it would have been called a concubine contract."
The girl flinched and lowered her head. The younger sister, clearly not yet fully grasping the situation, simply looked between me and her parents with curious eyes.
"Niko..."
"I agree."
I looked at the older daughter in surprise. So did her father and mother. No one had expected this from her.
"Daughter... you don't understand..."
Her mother tried to reach out to her, but the girl shook her head with quiet stubbornness.
"Perhaps I don't understand everything, but you were the ones who started these negotiations deceptively, so why are you acting now as if they..."
The girl nodded in our direction.
"...are the ones acting dishonorably?"
She looked at me.
"If we sign this contract, will you heal everyone? My little sister? Mother? Father? Me?"
"Yes..."
I gave a short nod, privately noting the telling order of her priorities. First her sister, then her mother, and only then her father and herself.
"...though as I said earlier, it cannot all be done at once. It will take approximately a year to study the curse on your sister, during which we'll need to meet at least once a week, after which I'll be able to lift it. Your case is somewhat more complex. As for your parents... I won't take on their cases for at least seven years, as my experience simply isn't yet sufficient."
"May I..."
The girl swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat.
"...read the contract?"
I shrugged and nodded toward her parents, since the contract was still with her mother. I found the girl quite likable, for what it was worth. If things worked out, I certainly had no intention of treating her unkindly. Quite the opposite. I would look after her as best I could.
"Daughter, I don't think..."
"Do you have any other options?"
"No..."
The girl's father shook his head.
"...they..."
He gave a slightly contemptuous nod in our direction.
"...at least have something to offer. The other masters won't take on a case like this for nothing, and we simply do not have the artifacts or the money they would demand."
"Then may I examine this scroll?"
The girl's mother passed her the contract with a trembling hand, and the girl, furrowing her brow in an endearingly serious way, began to read through it carefully.
A thought occurred to me as I watched her. A small girl in a situation like this simply should not be able to remain this composed, let alone follow what was happening so clearly. Either she had some gift that was helping her, or she was the same as me.
We sat in silence for a while, until the girl looked up and met my eyes.
"I... did not understand everything..."
She lowered her gaze, embarrassed.
"...might I discuss certain details with my parents?"
"Of course..."
I nodded.
"...Mum Cissy, Mum Bella, let us step out for a while and take a walk. I believe there is an ice cream parlor somewhere nearby that I have been wanting to try. Apparently everyone is talking about it."
"Very well..."
Both mothers rose, and we made our way to the door. At the threshold, I half-turned.
"The room is booked for two hours. We will return..."
I checked my watch.
"...in an hour. I think half an hour will be more than enough to either sign the contract or decline it."
"I agree with my son..."
Cissy nodded.
"And, dear girls, what flavor of ice cream do you like?"
"Strawberry!"
The little one still did not fully understand what was happening, so she simply beamed at me. The elder looked at me with a thoughtful expression, and gave her answer only after some thirty seconds had passed.
"Pistachio."
"Very good. I'll bring some back for you..."
We left the room and stepped out of the discreet building, each of whose rooms was designed for exactly this sort of negotiation, then walked unhurriedly along Diagon Alley until we reached the parlor I had wanted to visit, where we settled at one of the tables.
"Do you think they'll agree?"
I looked at Bella, then turned the same questioning look toward Cissy. A waiter approached and we placed our order.
"Who knows..."
Bella adjusted a stray strand of hair with aristocratic composure.
"With Greengrass, one can never be certain of anything. What I can say is that you handled your first negotiation more than creditably. And if the contract is signed, we can add 'successful' to that as well."
"Good..."
Our ice cream arrived and I tried the much-talked-about flavor, only to find there was nothing particularly special about it. It was perfectly ordinary ice cream, the sort one could buy at a Muggle shop, and not only would that be just as good, but considerably cheaper. I shared exactly that observation with my mothers.
"I have to agree... though it does pain me to admit it..."
Bella shook her head. After that we simply talked of this and that, the sort of pleasant, light conversation about nothing in particular that all well-bred people in England seem to default to. Only at the very end did I order ice cream for the girls.
"Well then?"
I asked this question as I entered the negotiating room and handed both girls their ice cream. In answer, old Greengrass simply rolled the scroll-case back across the table toward me. I examined it carefully and, sensing no curse upon it, glanced at Cissy, who checked it for potions and gave me a nod.
Only then did I take the case. I drew out the contract and found the signature, along with the name written into it: Daphne Greengrass.
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