InsaneJournal

Who: Bill and Charlie Weasley and Fabian Prewett
What: The Legal and Moral Ramifications of Watch-Dragons
When: June 24, 1998
Where: Bill and Charlie’s new flat
Warnings: Mild language



Bill poured a couple of cocktails from the well-stocked bar and carried them across the room to the seating area. One of the main advantages of the flat was that it was quiet, even amidst the bustle of the city. Whoever had originally set the wards had also done a fine job soundproofing the place.

“No idea who they repossessed it from or how long it’s been off the market, but it’s been a joy to have. Goblin ideas about ownership are odd, but they don’t really get excited except about things they’ve made. And obviously, they know they can count on me to pay the mortgage.”

Bill handed one glass to his uncle. Gin and tonic was a banker’s drink, but it was also a cursebreaker’s drink because of the quinine. He’d picked up the taste in Egypt. The sweet, tart citrus suited him, and the anti-malarial properties were an added bonus.

“Charlie should be home soon, and we can tell you how a banker and a dragon-botherer have a mutual problem.”

"I wouldn't have been sorry to have you in my building, but this is a sweet deal." Fabian had taken a look round the flat and what he could see of the bones of the building from outside. It looked good and solid, and when he'd had his loupe out to look at the wardings, they seemed good for a basic sort of work. "We'll want to strengthen the wards; I have some specials I'll want to put on this place. There are always people who can break them, but should someone come after you, they'll buy you some time." He didn't touch on the subject of what could unite a Gringotts banker and a dragonkeeper, but he'd been down to the Lestrange vault in his day. Fabian knew more about Gringotts security than he was willing to let on.

The conversation was interrupted with the click and creak of the front door opening as Charlie stepped into the flat. His bright red hair stuck almost straight up and he smelled strongly of smoke and of something that was almost but not quite sulfur. “Hello, Uncle F,” he said cheerfully. “All right Bill?” He was wearing a pair of heavy dragonhide arm guards, which he unbuckled as he spoke.

“Good, yeah,” Bill said back to his brother. As it always did, the missing years melted away and the brothers didn’t need more than a few words. Bill waited for Charlie to clean up, casting a Tergeo charm at his brother to get rid of the smoke and the smell. “Keep this up and they’ll make me take a House Elf or a shabti to keep the place clean for their customers. Luckily the bank doesn’t have any House Elves on the books right now.”

He turned back to his Uncle. Charlie flashed two fingers at his Bill’s back as he headed to his room to change. “What it does have…”

Bill sat down, across from Fabian and finished his sentence. “Is a great bloody dragon. Five tonner, or thereabouts. It’s mean, it’s stupid, it’s been badly abused for years, and it’s dangerous to staff, not just to bank robbers.

“And now I’m in charge of it, which is good and bad. I’ve already had Charlie take a look at her, as a ‘Dragon Expert’, and he wants to bring in a serious team to do an analysis, but the conclusion we want to reach is that it needs to be sent to a preserve.

Bill ran his finger around the rim of his glass, feeling the resistance in the dry parts. “Here’s where it gets tricky. I can get rid of this dragon, but I don’t want to be obligated to bring in a new one. And that’s what the contracts for some of the vaults seem to require.”

Charlie's rude gesture, not even particularly harshly meant, struck Fabian hard; he could remember similar exchanges with Gideon, vaguely, distantly, from before the war, before Azkaban. But that was a long time ago, and the man who had died this spring hadn't been that man, and Fabian had grieved him years ago. He shoved that feeling back down where it belonged and focused on the present, and the problem of the dragon.

"Gringotts is going to have a fit if they ever figure out you brought me in on this. And especially for the reasons you're doing it," he told Bill. "Not to mention that the Solicitor's Guild will want to have my bollocks on toast if they find out I'm doing this kind of consulting work. But yeah, I knew they have, or at least had, a dragon down there and I'm not surprised that it's not well-treated. I'll need to see the contracts to figure out how to unwind them, but if you can't supply a dragon, you're going to have to supply something equally big and dangerous as a counterweight when the contracts are renewed. And they'll have to be renewed if you remove the dragon, unless there's an escape clause."

He glanced toward the door that Charlie had gone through. "Where are they getting their dragons? Do you think we might be able to remove the existing dragon and block them from getting a new one, so they have to renegotiate?"

“They shouldn’t have any!” Charlie shouted through his bedroom door. He emerged shortly after, buttoning up a clean shirt. “Sorry, I missed some of that, Uncle F. But they shouldn’t have the dragon they do have and like hell should they be given another. Can’t something be done on account of cruelty?”

“Yeah, that’s the legal question. What’s the Ministry’s position on ownership or possession of hungry 900-stone death-beasts?” Bill pulled out a briefcase and started digging through it. “I want Sphinxes. They’re smart, they don’t need to eat hundreds of pounds of food a day, they hardly ever accidentally eat people, they can tell you what happened, and they show up as an employee on the corporate payroll rather than an asset to be depreciated. Wins all the way around if I can make the switch.” He pulled out a wad of papers. “This is the same as several of our active contracts. They all look like they’re based off this boilerplate.”

"I don't know what the Ministry's current position is. I'd have to research the Wizengamot precedents and I don't have access to the Wizengamot archives anymore. I lost it when they expelled me from the Guild. But I doubt there's any precedent for treating dragons as anything other than property." Fabian looked at Charlie apologetically and shrugged as he took the sheaf of parchment from Bill and started to skim through it. "I'm not going to have an answer for you tonight, but I'll definitely see what kinds of loopholes I can find in the draft language. If we're really lucky, I'll figure out who wrote it and see if I can use that to figure out how to find a hole in it.

"Be prepared for the argument that sphinxes are less reliable, Bill. It's happened a time or three that their riddles have been bypassed."

Bill shrugged. “Less reliable than a dragon that can’t see and who cowers from a particular noise? Sphinxes have been incredibly reliable in Egypt, and we already have several on staff. They’re more reliable than human or goblin guards, in any case. But I don’t really care if they’re less reliable. I don’t want to be party to what we’re currently doing.

“How do you propose we get rid of her and keep the bank from ever getting another?”

Fabian looked up from the sheet of parchment he'd been reading. "I'm not going to have an answer for that tonight, I can tell you that much already. But, for a start--can the dragon be declared unfit for its required duties, per the contract? Because that seems like a better option than cruelty in terms of actually affecting bank operations and contractual obligations." He looked at Charlie as the expert on dragons.

“Yes, depending on what we find if they allow me to bring in a team,” Charlie explained. “I don’t know if the argument that she’s dangerous will hold water. They know she’s dangerous and she’s as like to attack a handler as an intruder. She was made that way. If we can’t remove because she’s unsafe, it’ll have to because she’s sick. I think the she’s too big to be where she is and she’s not flaming properly. Could have chest and breathing problems from the enclosed, can’t expand her chest the way she needs to.” Charlie mimicked the proper expansion of a dragon’s chest with his hands. “Bad chest means weak flame, the acid from the fire gland builds up, damages the throat, makes it so she can’t eat, and she starves to death.”

Bill continues Charlie’s explanation. “And if she dies down there we’re not only unprotected, but we have 5 tonnes of rotting carcass next to our most valuable vaults. I think the blindness may be our key there, especially if you find that it’s irreversible and progressive. Anything, really, that says we’ve got to act soon.” Bill looked over at Charlie. “I have a line on getting your team down there: We’re required to audit the value of all bank assets at least every quarter century, and I don’t think anyone’s included Pearl in that in any past audit.” He smiled at his uncle. “I might even be able to get the accountants to back me by saying the dragon is fully depreciated and needs to be taken off the books.” He waved at the contracts. “I’m more worried that some Lestrange or Malfoy solicitor will force me to put another dragon into servitude.”

Fabian was nodding vigourously as Bill outlined his plan. "Fast as possible--after we find out from Dad what the laws and regulations are regarding dragon imports. Because I'd be willing to bet Charlie can arrange things so neither the Macfustys nor the Welsh preserve will provide an egg or a dragon. Not with the sort of treatment Pearl's received from Gringotts." He arched an eyebrow in Charlie's direction by way of confirming that.

“I can try,” Charlie didn’t sound convinced. He waved his wand, summoning a beer from the kitchen before he answered. “I’ll make the case and I’ll put the word out to the other keepers but dragonkeeping isn’t cheap and the reserves need the gold. Even if I can talk them out of selling an egg, there’s always the black market and the Americans will sell anything to anyone.”

Bill’s opinion of the American dragonmongers did not need speaking. “I can probably keep the Bank from doing anything illegal, if we can make it illegal to import Ironbellies. I have an idea or two, but I’m concerned it might backfire. Maybe we sign an exclusive contract with your Preserve to be exclusive Dragonkeepers to the Bank in Britain, in exchange for your medical treatment of our dragons.

“The other idea would be if we were sued over the dragon somehow, and suitable care and safety measures, overseen by the Preserve, were in a consent decree. Trouble is, ‘Money Talks’ at the Wizengamot, and we’ve got enough of it to spread around.”

Before the boys could say anything more, Fabian waved the sheaf of parchment again. "Let's wait until we've seen whether we can poke holes in the contracts before we get too far ahead of ourselves. Just because there's nothing obvious on a first read doesn't mean there's no loopholes to exploit. And if they don't have an 'or equivalent' clause in there somehow, somewhere, they had lousy legal advice. Rebounding contract vows at the level of a Malfoy or Lestrange vault can be quite painful." He said it as if he'd had some experience with rebounding contracts.

Bill sighed. “Sorry, Uncle F, it’s difficult to wait. We have managed to curtail the notorious Weasley impulsiveness enough that we haven’t tried to just free the Dragon and let nature take its course.

“Yet.”

Charlie huffed unhappily. “They can’t have another one. The bank can’t be allowed to do to another animal what they’ve done to Pearl.”

"If you just let her go without a plan to make it difficult to replace her with another kind of security, that's exactly what will happen," Fabian reminded them both. "And frankly, given what they did to Pearl, the bank can't be trusted if it promises to do better with another dragon short of a binding contract. Whoever makes that promise won't always be in place to live up to it. No offence, Bill." The tone made it clear that Fabian didn't really expect Bill to be offended by the notion that his employers might not live up to an unbound promise. Fabian was, after all, trained to think that way.

“None taken,” replied Bill. “Say Charlie, when you write up your report, the final one, think about adding a ‘can the Dragon, if it broke it’s chains, dig its way to freedom through the bank, or through buildings near the bank? I can get the risk appraisal goblins to tell me what it would cost us if we had to rebuild half of Diagon due to a failure to control our dragon, but I need a juicy description of the damage possible. Or maybe get the twins to do some creative writing for us.” He turned to his uncle. “And Uncle F, once you read that stack of papers, I could also use any tips you have for dealing with the customers of these vaults, who are unlikely to be amongst Britain’s least conservative wizards.”

“Sure,” Charlie said, brightening at the suggestion. “It’s possible. The force of a dragon that size if she ever got up to speed… They really are amazing animals, you know.”

"Yeah," Fabian agreed. "It's unfortunate the bank doesn't see it that way."

Bill nodded. “Granted, but if we can convince the bank that they’re more trouble than they’re worth, we’ll get what we want.” He lifted his glass in Fabian’s direction. “Oh, and Uncle F, thank you for your advice and counsel to what’s possibly the least-organized conspiracy in the history of wizarding Britain, Project Free Pearl.”

It was only with the last three words that Fabian realised Bill didn't mean the Order. He raised his own glass as well. "To successful conspiracies."

Charlie clinked his beer bottle against his brother’s and uncle’s glasses. “Cheers.”